The Hogwarts Delegation

Leaves crunched under Sigrid's shoes as she walked along the train tracks outside of Hogsmeade. The smell of petrichor made her breathe through her mouth. Clouds sagged too close, the humidity trapping summer’s last breath. 

The orders had been clear. Follow the tracks a mile and then head a hundred yards into the Forbidden Forest. Arrive at 16:00 and bring a delegation application.  

Normally orders were suggestions, but these weren't.

A hundred meters was measured and walked by 15:30. She didn’t dare lean against a tree for fear of sap staining her uniform. She counted the seconds it took to breathe—In and out. She passed a hand over her head, checking for any out of place curls. 

A "pop" snapped in the air next to her and two figures appeared, unruffled and too-appropriately dressed. Their eyes snagged on her and they took two steps back. The gulf between her and them wasn’t wide enough. She was perfect posture and lowered eyes.

They wore hiking boots and camouflage clothes. They looked no-maj—the opposite to their public personas. She clenched her jaw. Would they be working right after their meeting with her? Sigrid twitched her wand and swept dirt over a centaur track she had spotted in the soft earth. Hopefully, they hadn’t noticed it. 

"Daughter," was the greeting and the beginning of their meeting. There should have been a table between them. The forest was too informal for this type of conversation.  

"We’ve spoken with Grummen, and he assures us that this is the best course of action. Your reentry into society and the restoration of the family name depends on this." Her father flicked a wordless spell into the air, a blue trail led from his wand deeper into the forest. He stared her down like he expected Sigrid to buck his orders. She couldn’t blame him. Afterall it was rebellion that had led to her expulsion from the last school.  

"Are we sure that’s wise? The tournament’s at Ilvermorny. I’m sure the school will protest my presence." Sigrid tucked her hands behind her back and refused to stare at her mother. Her tone was steady and unemotional though sweat was trickling down her neck. 

"We have made inquiries and decided that you will submit your application on the last day. No one may know of your participation until the last moment. That way when you turn it in, the committee deciding on Hogwarts’ delegation won’t have time to touch base with Ilvermorny. And once you arrive in America, they won’t be able to deny your entrance in the competition." Her mother presented the strategy as if this was a game and not her life.  

Sigrid twisted her fists behind her back. The woman’s blue eyes felt like brands on her skin. She’d changed her hair again, this time to auburn, hiding the natural blonde.  

Fuck. She hadn’t missed this. There was no way she could form a cohesive defense on the spot so long as her mother was here. Already her body was urging her to flee, her original defense wilting from her memory. 

"How can you be sure they'll choose me? Boot won’t heed your demands." A hint of rebellion entered her tone. Her mother's presence immolated the script she'd had in her mind—overwhelming her rational thought. They were the same height now. Her father stood three inches shorter. A year-and-a-half ago she had been smaller than both of them. 

Azer Sant-Mourning let out a huff. "We have sources that suggest the method of choosing champions can be influenced. The temptation of the black sheep returning to compete will be too great to pass up. All entertainment needs a villain, and who would be a more fitting heel than the girl that razed their fields?" 

"Are you saying producers will choose contestants," Sigrid asked, taking a half step back into a tree—never mind the sap. Sweat dripped down her back and her palms were sweaty. She wouldn’t let the comment about "razing fields" get to her. 

"Every newspaper in the world will cover this. This is all a production—entertainment to appease the masses. Ilvermorny wouldn’t dare let this opportunity slip out of their hands." Her mother’s pronouncement sent a chill down her spine. It sounded like she knew something more.

"I don’t see how being their villain will rehabilitate the family's reputation. Unless you can assure that I receive a redemption arc." 

Her mother clucked her tongue. "Redemption will be up to you. What’s important is that you represent the Mourning name as one of power and prestige. We’ve always been controversial. Hatred doesn’t matter so long as they respect us." Her mother had married into the family but acted like she was blood. Sigrid scratched at a bump on her wand. What did her mother or even her father know about being a Mourning? 

"I thought the point of banishing me was so that people would stop looking into your...business. Doesn’t this endanger your operation?" 

Her father’s narrowed eyes at her insolent tone made her shift uncomfortably, but her mother’s expulsion of power hurt worse. Her body naturally tensed, crumbling into itself as they punished her for her audacity. "What happened on that field has already proved your untrustworthiness. Know that we won’t make the same mistake again. You will compete and represent the family name and seek to triumph above all else. Should you embarrass us, you will be permanently ostracized." 

It was fucking stupid, but Sigrid couldn’t help but laugh. "At least I can expect not to suffer long." The bitter certainty in her tone shut her parents up. The crush of her mother’s aura ebbed back.  

Her father was first to speak in the silence. He sounded uncomfortable, still unable to face the reality of what he had damned her to. "How often do you have to take..." he trailed off. "It’s every two days, now."  

They both knew she was progressing faster than she should. She sneered down at the damp forest floor. If she had been born a male as her father had been born a female, she would have been spared this.  

"That reminds me, there is another matter to discuss. Seron passed this summer. You wouldn’t know about this, would you?" 

Sigrid blinked and then blinked again—her brain blank as a wiped chalkboard. "What?"  

Her mother stared with pursed lips at the impotent question, unperturbed by Sigrid’s earlier statement. Sabel Sant-Mourning didn’t repeat herself.  

Thoughts scribbled across the chalkboard that was her mind, almost illegible. Uncle Seron had said that he’d been living without pain since becoming an Animagus. He couldn’t be dead. Disbelief shifted into something darker. Her hands tightened around her wand, eyes widening as she accused her parents without speaking. How could they not tell her? 

 "There have been eyes on the family. At least since Seron’s death. It was not the—" Her mother paused, looking around for any listeners in the empty forest and then said in a whisper, "—the curse this time. They found him in his ramshackle hut—murdered."  

Sigrid winced at the disapproval in those last three words. None of her uncles had ever tolerated her mother’s presence, and she theirs. Her father’s fault for marrying a "veela bitch." 

She breathed shallowly; her eyes unblinking as she stared at the forest behind them. This couldn’t be happening.  

"You haven’t heard of any enemies that your uncle had? They found letters from you in his home."  

Her father’s shrewd tone made her refocus. "He didn’t say." 

They’d read her fucking letters. Her blunt fingernails dug into her palms. She wouldn’t tell them a goddamn thing.  

All her uncles were dead now, with Rickon also dying this summer. She let out a controlled exhale. That meant she was the last one standing. 

A part of her was relieved to hear that her uncle had been murdered, awful as that was. That meant there was still hope in becoming an Animagus to escape the pain her blood tortured her with. At least, for a time.  

The rest of the meeting was much less emotional. Her parents signed her application with a flick and nary a glance and then left like ghosts. Silencing charms on their boots made them as quiet as jaguars. They stalked further into the forest. Fuck. She just hoped the centaur tracks were old.  

Turning around, she left the verdant woods and walked along the train tracks back toward Hogsmeade, kicking the metal rails and making them thrum.

S S-M

"Oh, there it is." Victor Hulmen stooped down and tugged a book from Sigrid’s stack on a library table. She blinked away indulgent thoughts of Cass—her allotted time of ten minutes a day had finished anyway—and raised her eyebrows at him. 

He caught her glance and flashed his winning smile; the one that made people call him Victor "Hymen." He flipped to a page with a moon diagram and flashed the image at her. "It’s a little late to be researching the Animagus process. The Full Moon’s passed already." 

He lifted his tongue and revealed a mandrake leaf stuck to the bottom. The Animagus potion required the caster to keep a leaf in their mouth for a month—from full moon to full moon. So he was going for Professor Granger’s signature, then. She traced the edge of her piece of parchment, rolling it up subtly so that he wouldn’t see what she’d written. 

"It’s for a paper," she replied to his inquest. It wasn’t. Hopefully, her dismissive tone wouldn’t make him question her. 

"What paper," he scoffed. "We have all the same classes." 

"A personal one," she said just as he dropped the book on the desk with a thump and added "Except Charms."  

She clenched her jaw. Of course he had noted her one regular level class. Despite his flirtiness, he still wanted to beat her in competition.  

She flipped to a random page in the book in front of her and ignored him. "Why were you looking for the book? You’ve already begun the process."  

"Needed a refresher on the potion. Next full moon’s coming up. Don’t want to get caught with my pants down." She could hear his smile at the idiom, no doubt reveling in innuendo. 

"The Full moon’s not for a while. Are you so anxious you can’t wait a week?" 

He didn’t seem to notice her dig. "I like to be prepared. You’ve got to stay on top of things to get ahead." 

She exhaled a little harder than normal. He tried to make everything sound crass. Didn’t he get she wasn’t interested? From the masculine clothing and hair to her blatant ignoring, she’d hoped he would pick up on the hints that she wasn’t straight-ly inclined. She looked up at the rumored half-giant and pursed her lips. He met her with a grin and leaned forward, pressing his huge hands onto the desk.  

"What do you want?" She didn’t lean back, despite his proximity. 

"Why were you on the train tracks a day ago? Saw you from around the back of Honeydukes. Made any new friends?" 

She froze her expression in a cryogenic chamber. She didn't blink. He’d caught her surfacing from the Black Lake after a trade with the Merpeople last year and had put two and two together when she came back with a sword. He seemed to revel in her secret. 

Sigrid didn’t respond.  

He shook his thick auburn hair. "Meet any giants? Did you know my dad’s half? It’s why I'm so tall." 

If she punched him in the throat, could she get away with it?

"I don’t care, Hulmen. Stop talking to me." 

He furrowed his brow at her outright rejection, but soon smiled. "So feisty. I was just saying ‘cause I thought you’d relate. What with your mum being veela and all." 

She blinked. What the fuck? The cryogenic chamber she'd stored her corpse in was heating up, expression melting into existence.

"I don’t know anyone else with creature blood. I thought we could hangout or something." He broke eye contact and flicked a book cover open.  

She tried to hide her internal whirlwind. How the fuck did he know her mom was veela? As far as the public was aware, Sabel Sant-Mourning was human and nothing more.  

How could she respond? She didn’t want to confirm his statement, just in case he was testing her for information. Studying his face, she tried to determine if he was a better liar than she had him pegged. 

"We are not the same," she said finally, the boredom in her tone making him look up, again in confusion. It was true. She hadn’t inherited veela traits from her mother. Sometimes it felt like she had gotten none of her dad’s genes either. Because the curse doomed the males of her father's generation, it doomed the female Mournings her generation. Any distant female cousins she’d had were dead now. Most died young. She would too if she didn’t escape the pain.  

She stared at the stack of books on the table, all detailing the Animagus transformation and failed experiments to vary the process.  

"Fine. I was just trying to talk." He sounded hurt. Good. Maybe he’d stop bugging her in their shared classes now.  

When he left, she uncurled her hidden piece of parchment and flipped open a dusty tome Madam Pince had retrieved from the Forbidden section. A wizard named Herrant M. had written the book on variations of the Animagus process. It was part of a dissertation on whether there were alternatives to the ritual. He’d changed things from the time the mandrake leaf soaked, to the weather occurring when the potion was drunk, to the incantation that was recited every day to prepare for the transformation.  

However, in all his attempts, he hadn’t tried messing with the phases of the moon that he began the process. He’d written something about the Full Moon’s power being supreme and transformational, citing werewolves and other shifters.  

Sigrid scraped her thumb on the side of the table. If she wanted to turn before the delegation applications were due and receive Granger’s signature, she’d have to get creative. The New Moon was coming up in two days and the research she’d been doing for the past few days made her anxiously excited.  

She’d found no variations in the Animagus process having to do with the moon phases, though the New Moon was just as strong as the Full moon.

Scribbling on her parchment paper, she hefted another tome in front of her and carefully assessed an entry about the transformation process.  

By the end of her research time, the sun had set and almost everyone in the library had retreated to dinner. She dropped off her work in her room and snatched a sweet roll from the kitchen before heading into the night. 

Breaking into the greenhouse was easy enough. There she clipped some mandrake leaves before stealing into the Forbidden Forest to check on her little garden.  

When she returned to the castle, it was past midnight. She avoided the monitors walking the halls, slipping into her dorm room with little issue. Her eyes stung in the dark, dry and tired, before she collapsed in her bed, barely kicking off her shoes before she fell into sleep. 

A silhouette appeared in a doorway, taller than the one that usually greeted her. They walked closer to where she was lying in bed, the glow at the end of the wand getting brighter. When they stood beside where she lay, she saw Umbron’s face. His eyes were black, like hers, and his normally slicked black hair rumpled like he’d ran his hands through it.  

"Get up," he said. This time around, there was no false kindness. The hard look in his eyes matched the roughness of his voice. She followed him, her body numb and acting without her thinking.  

He led her through hallways, his light bright enough that the portraits on the wall peeked open their eyes and watched them go. They were silent, as always.  

Bile built in the back of Sigrid’s throat, but she couldn’t open her mouth to release it. Her body was too fluid as it walked, unencumbered by the fear and hesitation she was feeling. She knew what was about to happen, but she wasn’t fighting it. Why wasn’t she fighting it? 

A secret passage led down, down. They reached the bottom in a blink; she hardly remembered the spiraling stone staircase. 

Another blink and she was standing in the middle of the ritual circle. Candles breathed with Umbron, dimming and flaring with exhales and inhales. With the cycle of light, she could see that the marks on the ground were red and wet. The room smelled bad, like wet earth. Her bare feet seeped into the dirt in the center of the circle. She stared into the eyes of her uncle. They were the same height and yet she never felt so vulnerable.  

His mouth was moving, chanting, but the words echoed off the walls—the incantation too distorted for her to make out.

His face changed. His eyes were black, but they shifted closer together. His nose grew longer, though it remained hooked, and his cheekbones jutted out like he was starved.

The words kept coming, and his grip on her hand felt wet. It took too much effort for her to force her eyes to look down. With the flare of light, she saw red seeping from between their grasps. He squeezed and pain shot through her.

He was breathing faster, the candles flashing, and the ritual culminated. It felt like he'd sent her rolling down a hill with a cliff at the bottom. She had to stop.

She looked up at him and blanched. It wasn't Umbron anymore. That transformation she had witnessed the beginning of had continued until the person before her was unrecognizable.

He looked malevolent, his eyes narrowed and so like Umbron's, but so different. The pain in her hand increased. Something was slithering into the cut in her hand and burrowing deeper.

She screamed without opening her mouth. She couldn't speak. Let me go!

"Let me go!" The words came out and with it, the connection was severed. The handshake ripped apart. It felt like a strand that had been connecting their hands snapped.

"NO!" Her Uncle lunged forward, but as he reached for her hand again, his face twisted again into that unfamiliar visage. Their eyes were wide and their mouth gaped and then—a scream.

Her eyes shot open, and she wrenched the arm shaking her shoulder toward her, pulling the person beneath her as she snatched her wand from beneath her pillow.

The end of it pressed into a soft neck. She blinked and blinked again when the face of one of her roommates came into focus. Rita Bluehorn was staring wide-eyed at her and her mouth was moving.

A second later, the words reached Sigrid's ears. "Get off me! I was just waking you up because you were thrashing!"

Sigrid stopped straddling her and moved to the side. Gemma, another one of her roommates, illuminated the room with a grumbled lumos.

"What the bloody hell's going on," Maggie Crumpet moaned, her bed curtains whooshing out of the way as she crawled to the end of her mattress. Sigrid blinked several times and clenched her muscles. Her teeth ground into each other and her eyes were wide.

A throttling pain ripped through her, like a snake was wriggling through her veins, its body too big and ripping arteries as it forced its way deeper. Rita had pulled her curtains back. She was on display to her in all of her pained shame.

Her eyes flickered toward the edge of her bed. Underneath was a box where she kept her pain potions. She didn't move.

Fuck! She'd forgotten her routine the night before. It hadn't been the first time she'd woken up in the middle of a fit, but usually a pre-cast silencing spell would stop her roommates from hearing her.

At least you weren't screaming, she thought as she forced her trembling body forward. She closed the curtains around her bed. Maybe they'd forget this happened if she went straight to sleep.

"Hey," Rita said, ripping the curtains open. "You woke me with your writhing. You've got some explaining to do."

"It's none of your business," Sigrid gritted out, a lash of pain making her jerk her hand to her chest. She stared down, wide-eyed. She expected to find it bleeding, a wide cut spurting crimson. A white scar stretching her life line was all that met her.

"The fuck is wrong with you?" Rita screeched, drawing the other girls out of their beds. Rita reached forward and smacked Sigrid's shoulder. "Stop shaking, you fucking spaz."

Sigrid kicked without thinking. Her foot connected with Rita's stomach hard enough that she went tumbling backwards onto the ground. "You bitch," Rita wheezed.

The next thing she knew, the other girls were scrambling for their wands to avenge their friend. Sigrid dove off the side of her bed when the first hex came, gripping her wand but shaking too hard to protect herself.

Her hands shook as she scrambled to get her hands on her box of potions. A palm smacked onto the spike on the clasp hard, her blood opening the box. She retrieved a skinny vial of dark liquid and bit off the cork. Rita rounded the bed with a raised wand and wide eyes.

Sigrid chugged the potion. Secrets be damned. The pain made her vision blurry, her body still shaking as the elixir she swallowed fought to combat the pain. The wave of numb took its time spreading ice through her. Rita's mouth was moving but she couldn't hear what she was saying.

The sound hit her—delayed.

"The fuck is wrong with you, bitch! What did you just drink?" Rita lunged forward and snatched at the lid of the box, trying to tug it toward her. Sigrid pulled it back. The struggle sent the vials tumbling out of the box. Her breath caught as all six glass vials hit the floor. Three bounced, the others shattered. The dark liquid splattered on the ground with the last of Sigrid's sense.

"No," she gasped, lunging forward with her wand to fix the vials and pick up the spilled potions.

Like a sprinting toddler, a spell yanked her upside-down and into the air.

Flopping for stability, she tried to focus her mind and aim her wand to summon the potions toward her, but Rita got to them first. "What the fuck are these?" 

Gemma came into view, her wand focused on keeping Sigrid upside down and off the ground. Sigrid shot a flipping hex and Gemma went flying backwards, ass over teakettle.

Sigrid's head cracked on the hard floor, her arms not catching her soon enough as Gemma dropped the spell. The pain focused her on her objective.

Rita stumbled backwards, the vials still in hand, and Sigrid jumped at her, pulling her by her torso into Maggie's bed.

Rita squirmed and shouted. "Fuck off you freak!"

Maggie stuttered out a hex that struck her bed instead of the wrestling targets. Sigrid head-butted Rita and felt something snap.

Rita screamed. She dropped the vials and cupped her face, blood seeping through her fingers. Sigrid scooped up the vials and rushed for the exit. Gemma stood—she looked dazed, but that didn't stop her from sending a hex after Sigrid.

The crackle hit her in the back of her head and the smell of fire had Sigrid snatching at a bed curtain and burying her head in it to stop the fire. Gemma screamed as the fire spread from Sigrid's hair to the bed curtain.

Gasping, Sigrid jumped out of the door and summoned water to put out the fire on her head. A carafe flew toward her, smacking her hard enough to disorient her, and then doused her in water.

A creak down the hallway distracted Sigrid as she tried to catch the carafe. It slipped out of her hands and clattered on the floor. She looked up and froze. Sheila Toole, Slytherin's Head Girl, stared back at her, her wand held aloft.

Sigrid ran.

Shouts followed her, but she fled from the dorms and through the dungeon. Her body was numb. She couldn't tell if the wash of rain that drenched her was cold or not. Mud squished against her saturated socks. She slid and fell twice as she careened downhill.

Her ragged breaths and the splattered mud under sprinting strides chased her.

Clouds sat low—she couldn't see the moon. When she broke through the tree line of the Forbidden Forest, she couldn't see anything. Her sprint was a wild dash, a ghost ride until she inevitably hit a barrier.

The root that caught her foot sent her sprawling. Dirt and underbrush scraped against her arms and face. She crashed on the damp ground. She was bleeding, probably, but she couldn't feel it. Her limbs were heavy, encased in cement, and she was sinking in a river.

What am I doing? She clenched dirt in her fists. Rain dripped through the canopy and pattered against her back. She pressed her nose in the dirt.

Coward. Sigrid burrowed deeper into the ground.

She'd fled when all her training had taught her to fight. To be a Mourning was to be a survivor, an antagonist. Her age was a testament to her strength, and yet...

It's not enough.

Sigrid pounded her forehead into the dirt. She rubbed her face in it and tiny leaves and twigs scratched her sallow cheeks. She'd left a mess behind.

A groan escaped her mouth as she pulled her clutched potions out from under her. Fuck me. She'd left traces at the crime scene. An investigation would occur and she wouldn't be there to make sure it went her way.

Why do I fail when it matters most?

The question was too coherent, too naked for her to regard. She turned away from it, nuzzling the dirt, and didn't open her eyes.

A puddle of water formed along her spine until she shifted and it waterfall-ed down her neck. She ground the dirt in her teeth and burrowed her fingers into the muddy ground.

S S-M

For as long as she lay, they didn't find her. When the downpour finally ended, she sat up from her moping and stared in the castle's direction.

Had she cried, or was the moisture on her face all rain? She regarded herself. Mud covered the front of her—when she swiped her cheeks, leaves and dirt stuck under her short fingernails.

It wasn't until she stood that her mind turned online. Her eyes widened. Fuck!

She froze, her potions clutched to her chest, and stared at the sky. Light was breaking through the clouds—it was too strong to be the moon. Had she been laying in the dirt all night?

"Fuck." She clenched her eyes shut, and a raindrop struck her brow.

"Fuuuuuck."

The curse spilled from her lips in a variety of lengths and tones as she marched back to the castle. She'd given them several hours' head start. They had probably finished interviewing the "victims." Her roommates had painted her as the perpetrator, surely. Rita, Maggie, and Gemma had been rooming together for five-and-a-half years before she had joined them. She hadn't attempted to build a friendship with them.

And then there was the matter of her potions. Rita had witnessed her guzzling one, and three of her vials had broken on the floor.

"Fuck." They'd be painting her as a druggie now, wouldn't they?

The castle was darker than the sky—the rising sun still hidden by deep clouds. Never to take the obvious path, Sigrid rocketed upward with an ascendio, aiming at a spired roof. She crashed through the astronomy tower, her knees cracking against the cold stone. The impact would bruise, but she was numb to the pain. She descended the stone steps fast as a mountain goat, but with a quarter of the grace—she slipped and swore she heard her tailbone crack.

Her breathing was unsteady. She kept messing up. It was like she'd broken into someone's house while they were still there—she didn't know how long it'd take for them to catch her.

It was early enough that breakfast was being served. Early enough that someone could catch her looking like this. She was quiet steps and careful corners all the way to an empty bathroom.

The shower should have been a reprieve. Instead she watched mud circle the drain. She broke from scorching waters and dried herself. The mirrors were fogged—she didn't need them to know she looked a mess.

A scouring charm cleaned her clothes, and she mended the rips that her dive-bomb into the forest had warranted. There wasn't much she could do about the goose-egg that she'd sustained from being dropped on her head or the bags under her eyes. She swiped at the condensation on the mirror and her own black eyes bored into her. They were red with tiredness. A millisecond of her dream had her snapping her head away. Fuck, why did they have to share eyes?

She escorted herself to McGonagall's office, and the door was open, yet again. She grit her teeth at the woman's power. Had McGonagall known she was coming? There wasn't a point in defying the ancient witch, was there? With one foot on the first step, running into the forest and never returning like her uncle Seron seemed like a good idea.

She entered the room, leaving the stairs. No backing out now. McGonagall's back was to the door. She was watering those plants on her windowsill that never seemed to grow bigger. "Have you found her yet?"

Sigrid swallowed. "It is of vital importance that we retrieve her Fleur, or—" McGonagall turned and visibly startled when she met Sigrid's eyes. "Oh. You're here."

Sigrid took a step into the room and McGonagall's hand clenched around her wand for a moment. Fuck, Rita must have already given her statement. She's acting like I'm a criminal. Sigrid left her face in the freezer again. It was cold as rain-smacked stone.

"Where have you been? We've been searching for hours!" That righteous bluster eased Sigrid into a familiar role.

"Well, all that's important is that you're here. And goodness, what happened to you?" A wrinkled hand reached out to tap the bump on her forehead. The action was too maternal. Sigrid flinched backwards and ducked into a chair.

McGonagall towered over her, more doting than intimidating. Sigrid stared at Dumbledore above the mantle. His face matched hers. Fuck. She should have ran.

McGonagall rounded the desk.

A wave of the woman's wand had a mended vial hovering in the air between them, filled with black liquid. "Would you tell me what this is before I magically test it?" Sigrid's heart squeezed. She shrugged and winced when McGonagall's eyes narrowed. "Rita Bluehorn stated that she saw you drink one of these, and then dash out of the room with the rest. Do I have to contact your parents about this?"

Was this a test or a threat? Either way, Sigrid pled the fifth and wished Grummen were there. She needed a lawyer.

McGonagall's eye twitched. "The silent treatment won't work on me, young lady. You'll tell me what this is or I will expel you. Your roommates have contacted their parents and their lawyers about pressing charges. If you are taken to court again, I cannot promise you a career in the wizarding world. So if you would please, answer my questions."

"It's an experiment." She folded her fingers together on her lap. How old was this witch? She had at least fifty years on Sigrid. At least.

McGonagall scoffed. "Do you readily drink your experiments after a nightmare?"

Nightmare? This was bullshit. Why the fuck had she run instead of staying and dealing with this? What was she supposed to say?

Sigrid shrugged and shrunk into her chair when McGonagall's eyes widened and her mouth tightened. "Answer me or Merlin's beard, I will have Professor Willow bring the veritaserum!"

The last word froze Sigrid in her place and it was enough for any thoughts of cooperation to pull down their shutters and flip their "open" sign off. How dare she!

Sigrid shot up. Her chair toppled backward. Her eyes were wide.

She'd known she wouldn't win a duel with her headmistress. After all, the woman was ancient. But she had surprised herself by actually landing a hit.

McGonagall only squinted at the rather harmless crackling hex to dismiss it, and then the next moment Sigrid toppled backwards on the ground, paralyzed.

She remained frozen as several professors arrived before they tied her to a chair. These people fought in a wizarding war. Maybe they don't see that what they're doing is wrong—was what Cass would have said if Sigrid had been able to talk to her.

If Cass hadn't bailed on her plans to visit Sigrid that summer and answered the letters Sigrid sent, she would have seen things from someone else's perspective. It was her best and worst trait. Playing the devil's advocate was fine when the devil was Sigrid—but not when it was her enemy.

The largest part of Sigrid that kept her from sending a pleading letter to Cass centered on this dilemma. Because she knew deep down why Cass hadn't come. Cass had finally judged her and found her rotten.

The veritaserum was administered and questions were asked, but Sigrid wasn't there to answer them. She smelled singed flesh. She heard screams, and Headmaster Boot's face replaced McGonagall's.

"What is this?" McGonagall-Boot asked, holding up a vial of her pain elixir. Boot knew what it was, but McGonagall didn't.

Sigrid blinked and saw Cass's wide brown eyes as she fought through the teachers that were dragging Sigrid off of the field. Warm hands clasped the skinny vial into her own. It was the last time Cass had touched and seen Sigrid that wasn't in pictures on the front pages of the newspapers.

"The dragon," was what she muttered to herself. There were other probing questions, but those bold words hovering above her picture were all she saw and heard.

They'd said it was ironic that her nickname had been "the dragon." How fitting.

She squeezed her eyes shut and at some point, opened them.

The ceiling stared back at her, white and unremarkable—the first sight of so many that fainted and awoke in the infirmary. She had one free inhale and exhale, and then the assault renewed.

Her father spoke, but she knew that her mother was there as well. She felt the anger thrumming out in her thrall. Sigrid stupidly thought to caution her. There was another veela in the castle, after all.

Her mind summarized what they said, still too out of it. She wasn't being expelled; they dealt with all that. (The way he'd said it, she knew the settlements had been expensive.) But there'd be no way she'd be allowed to apply for the delegation now.

In other words, she wasn't their daughter anymore.

She'd thought that it would hurt more when they said it, but a week had passed, and she still hadn't cried. People didn't address her as "Mourning," but that was mostly because they weren't talking to her anymore.

Word had spread. Rita had made sure everyone knew all the gritty details. From the nightmare to her "conniption, " to the "drugs," to the fight and the fleeing.

She'd also been moved to a new room—a single converted from a closet near McGonagall's office.

It had seemed like everything was pointing to it being a mild year now that there was really no chance of her competing.

That was until she received another letter and her world turned upside down yet again.