spiritbubbles | maeve ⚯ ͛♡

The tentative structure of Never Be the Cure: A Harry Potter Fanfiction:

Part 1: Chapters 1-32: 5th Year (Teen and Up) Part 2: Chapters 33-62?: 6th Year (Mature Content) Part 3: Chapters 63?-92?: 7th Year/War (Dead Dove: Do Not Eat.)

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Never Be The Cure: PART 1 - 5th Year

link to work on Ao3 Ao3 Tags: heavy angst, angst, grief/mourning, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, unhealthy coping mechanisms, bonding over ttrauma, childhood trauma, memory loss, memory alteration, slow burn, right person wrong time, protective slytherins, wandlore, ancient magic (hogwarts legacy) betrayal, cedric diggory haunts the narrative, flashbacks, good severus snape, mommy issues, parent death, eventual smut, harry potter has a saving people thing, sassy harry potter, pureblood politics, mentioned marauders, absent parents, mentor severus snape, spoilers for hogwarts legacy, suicidal thoughts, abused harry potter, abusive relationships, death eater draco malfoy, morally grey harry potter, friends with benefits, nightmares, hurt/comfort, codependency, touch-starved, ollivander original character, angst with a happy ending, obscurials, obscurial original character, evil theodore nott, horror CHAPTERS (on tumblr):

Chapter 1: Prologue, "The Tragedy of Liesel Ollivander" - (Discussion Post!)

Chapter 2: "Grimmauld Place" - (Discussion Post Coming!)

Chapter 3: "The Prefect Letters" - (Discussion Post Coming!)

Chapter 4: "The Hogwarts Express" - (Discussion Post Coming!) Chapter 5: "Nargles" - (Discussion Post Coming!) Chapter 6: "Crossed Wands" - (Discussion Post Coming!) Chapter 7: "The Rusted Ribbon" - Warning: Graphic Violence - (Discussion Post Coming!) Chapter 8: "Detention" - Warning: Graphic Violence - (Discussion Post Coming!) Chapter 9: "The Hog's Head" - (Discussion Post Coming!) Chapter 10: "The Room of Requirement" - (Discussion Post Coming!) Chapter 11: "Will-O'-The-Wisp" - (Discussion Post Coming!) Chapter 12: "Dear Cedric" - (Discussion Post Coming!) Chapter 13: "Songbird Versus Rattlesnake" - Warning: (Semi)Graphic Violence - (Discussion Post Coming!)

Chapter 14: “Ain't No Devil” - Warning: Graphic Violence - (Discussion Post Coming!) Chapter 15: "Alameda" - Warning: Graphic Violence Chapter 16: "White Rabbit" - Warning: Graphic Violence Chapter 17: "Northern Sky" Chapter 18: "Little House" - Warning: Graphic Violence Chapter 19: "Velvet Ring" Chapter 20: "I Know the End" Chapter 21: "Die Your Daughter" Chapter 22: "Little Bird" Chapter 23: "Step On Me" Chapter 24: "Uninvited" - Warning: Graphic Violence Chapter 25: "Harvest Moon" Chapter 26: "I Know It's Over" Chapter 27: "Brutus" Chapter 28: "Her Kiss, The Riot" Chapter 29: "Run, Rabbit, Run" - Warning: Graphic Violence Chapter 30: "In Memoriam" Chapter 31: "Come" Chapter 32: "Train Song" WORK-IN-PROGRESS

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Never Be The Cure: PART 2 - 6th Year

WORK-IN-PROGRESS

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Never Be The Cure: PART 3 - 7th Year (War)

WORK-IN-PROGRESS

Liesel watched them approach with furrowed brows, shoving her ruined essay forward and sitting up onto her legs. Pansy's dark bob was slightly ruffled, her cheeks flushed, and Daphne was practically vibrating with a breathless energy as she sprinted forward.

"Is it true?!" Daphne gasped out, arriving first.

Before Liesel could even part her lips to ask what 'it' was, Pansy shoved Daphne slightly to the side, planting her hands firmly on her hips. Pansy's eyes shot daggers into Liesel, profoundly offended, though the corners of her lips were twitching with what seemed to be a poor excuse for suppressed excitement.

"Why," Pansy demanded, her voice ringing out across the suddenly quiet common room, "did I have to hear from a second-year Ravenclaw that you are going to the Yule Ball with Cedric Diggory?!"

One of the older students that had paused their game of Gobstones to listen made an unpleasant coughing noise, having swallowed one of the stones like a piece of popcorn watching the scene in the center of the room.

Liesel's cheekbones bloomed with heat and flushed the color of crushed roses, feeling scrutinized under the gaze of her cousin. However, she couldn't help but smile. Beneath the embarrassment, there was an undeniable flutter of pride in her chest. Liesel's shame faded into nonexistence as she raised her chin to her friends, "I never got to mentioning it, I suppose."

"No, no, no." Pansy stared at her, utterly aghast, "'Never got to mentioning it?' Rubbish! … Merlin, Liesel… Cedric Diggory." She swooned, the fight completely leaving her body as she dragged out the syllables of his name. She twirled around, the pleats of her skirt flowing dangerously high, and flopped dramatically onto the velvet sofa beside her, hand thrown upon her forehead. A second later, she rolled over, propping herself up on her elbows to beg for more.

"Darling, you're absolutely wicked!" Pansy exclaimed.

Daphne immediately dropped onto the very edge of the sofa cushions, leaning back against Pansy's waist. She was giggling so hard she had to cover her mouth with both hands, her shoulders shaking.

"When did he ask you?" Daphne asked, squealing. She did not wait for an answer to bombard her with more questions, "How did it happen? Did you feel like a princess or did he fumble like an idiot? Tell us exactly what he said. Do not leave out a single syllable."

Liesel leaned back in her armchair, her fingers idly trading the fluff of feathers where the calamus met the pen. The memory alone was enough to make her stomach fill with a whole swarm of butterflies wishing to break out from behind her ribs, "If you must know, he asked me after the dueling championship."

Pansy's elbows pushed up, nearly launching Daphne off of her backside. She gasped, her jaw dropping open so wide it was almost comical, "The duel- Liesel, that was a month and half ago!"

"I know," Liesel giggled.

Daphne quickly recovered from Pansy's burst of excitement and leaned her elbows forward on her knees, "How dare you sit on the biggest social coup of the century for six weeks?! You let me sit there at breakfast complaining about how all the good boys are already taken!"

"We should hex you," Pansy agreed, then looked at Daphne, "Just go with Blaise, dear."

"Ugh," The blonde rolled her eyes dramatically, "He's going with Luna Lovegood. Can you believe it?! I never thought he'd do as much as touch her"

Liesel began rolling up her ruined parchment, tucking it messily into her satchel, "I can believe it… Blood traitors are oh so sentimental. She's the least likely to slip poison into his tea."

Pansy chuckled, picking at her nails and raising her eyebrow conspiratorially, "Perhaps you're right. If he and Daphne got married, he'd be dead faster than Ms. Zabini could poison her last few husbands."

The three girls burst into a fit of laughter, clutching their stomachs and baring their perfectly white teeth in the center of the room. They had heard countless tales about Blaise's mother, the alleged crimes she committed merely a punchline between the girls. Liesel brushed her hair over her shoulder, exposing her neck. And this made Pansy's eyes brighten.

She pushed herself up from the sofa, her eyes narrowing as she kneeled before Liesel and assessed every small detail of her skin, her eyes, her neck, "Now, If you are walking into the Great Hall on the arm of the Hogwarts Champion, you are going to be photographed. You must look untouchable."

"Pansy, it's just a dance--" Liesel began, but she was immediately silenced by her cousin raising a single, authoritative finger.

"Do not insult me, Liesel. The Yule Ball stopped being 'just a dance' when you said yes to Diggory," Pansy snapped, though there was a viciously fond gleam in her eye, "You are representing us. They need to absolutely weep when you walk into that room. Let's talk hair."

"Up," Daphne joined the other two on the floor, standing and politely floating down onto her knees beside Pansy. She chimed in, leaning forward and taking Liesel by the chin, "You have such gorgeous bone structure. It must be up."

"Agreed," Pansy said, twirling a lock of Liesel's hair, "If you hide that neck behind your hair, you'll look like you're drowning in your robes. Perhaps not a tight bun, though. We don't want you looking like Professor McGonagall."

Liesel giggled as the others doted on her, poking her skin and puffing up her hair at random angles. She had expected this, the complete monitoring of her appearance at the Yule Ball, but she didn't mind it.

Pansy continued muttering on about her hair, "You already have this lovely volume, but I think we use some Smoothing Serum the night before. These curls simply won't do. I can owl my mother for some tonight."

"And your skin… We must do a rosewater brew every morning and night starting today. And perhaps a plumping charm on your lips… Just a small one, with a berry tinted gloss. Nothing sticky, or Diggory will end up wearing half of it by the end of the night."

"Pansy!" Liesel choked out, biting her fingernail in excitement rather than mortification.

"Oh, please, he's a boy. You think he just wants to hold your hand?"

"It's sweet, how much faith you have in me."

Pansy rolled her eyes as she swept herself back onto her feet, taking Liesel with her by her hands, "Faith has nothing to do with it. Now for the dress… Say it with me, Daph."

"Black." The two girls said in unison, their gazes scanning Liesel's figure simultaneously. Daphne continued, "It's the only logical choice, really. It compliments your complexion perfectly, it's elegant, and it will coordinate impeccably with Cedric, I'm sure."

As the girls chattered on about the black dress and how they hope Cedric wouldn't show up in a ghastly yellow, Liesel bit her lower lip, suppressing a smile as she smoothed her hands over the grey pleated skirt of her uniform.

"Actually," Liesel murmured, her voice carrying a soft lyrical tone, "Cedric said that he would love it if I wore maroon."

Pansy froze. Her hand, which had been gesturing toward Liesel's waist, dropped to her side as if all the bones in her arm had suddenly vanished. She stared at Liesel, her mouth opening and closing like some trout that had been fished out of the Black Lake. The Parkinson Green eyes shone at Liesel, wide with horror. The girl beside her, Daphne, was not quite as horrified, but seemed to almost cower behind the former as if the mention of wearing maroon would reappear in her nightmares, and simply stared.

"… Maroon…" Pansy breathed, the word scraping out of her throat as if it were coated in shattered glass, "You cannot be serious. Maroon? Like… like a Weasley?"

"Goodness, no!" Liesel exclaimed, offended at the comparison, "More like a very deep maroon… Like a dark wine."

All hell broke loose.

"Liesel, I don't care if it is the color of Merlin's blood!" Pansy threw her hands up in the air, and gripped at her hair dramatically, "Have you lost your mind? Gryffindor colors to the most highly publicized social event of the decade?!"

"It's just a color-"

"I will simply not allow it!" Pansy declared. She looked genuinely distressed, placing a hand on her heart and doubling over, "Oh, Liesel, you will be the death of me… You are my cousin. We share blood. Please tell me you didn't already have the dress made!"

"Oh, for Salazar's sake, Pansy, sit down before you shatter every mirror in the room." Daphne groaned, reaching out to tug her friend to the velvet sofa once again. She rolled her blue eyes, though she was still grinning widely, "I do hope you rethink the color. A nice emerald would look lovely, too, I think. But enough about that. I want to hear more about Cedric."

Liesel allowed a massive, radiant smile break across her face. The memory of Cedric asking her to the Yule Ball and the night following was so clear, replaying in her mind like a perfectly preserved photograph, "Well-"

"LIESEL ANNE OLLIVANDER!"

For the second time in twenty minutes, Liesel's name was roared from the top of the spiral staircase, bouncing violently off the dungeon walls. But this time, the voice was clearly male, incredibly familiar, and almost instantly made Liesel's eyes roll out of instinct.

Marching down the stone steps was Draco Malfoy. His pale, pointed face was twisted into a scowl, his silver-blonde hair slightly disheveled, and his green and silver tie was loosened at his collar. He looked as though he had hastily stomped all the way from the ground floor just to yell at her. Trailing heavily behind him, their massive shoulders bumbling around and crashing into each other in an attempt to keep up with Draco, were Crabbe and Goyle. The two large boys looked remarkably out of breath and entirely confused, but they lumbered after Draco like faithful, hulking shadows.

Liesel glanced at the girls before her, "Everyone's quite loud today, aren't they?"

Draco crossed the expanse of the common room in brisk strides, bypassing Pansy and Daphne altogether and stopping directly in front of Liesel. He didn't even acknowledge the other students in the room, who had stopped paying attention to the girls' fashion talk, but became thoroughly interested once again when more drama ensued.

"Care to explain?" Draco demanded.

Liesel scoffed at him and sat down on the velvet sofa beside Pansy, entirely unphased. After all, she had been raised with him and knew perfectly that a serene smile did more to him than anything else, "Good afternoon, Draco. You've finished your Charms essay, then?"

"Do not play coy with me, Ollivander," he hissed, planting his hands firmly on his hips, his school robes flaring out around him. He looked utterly ridiculous, "How long have you been hiding the fact that you are attending the Yule Ball with Diggory?"

"A month and a half," Pansy chimed in helpfully from the side, sounding immensely smug.

Draco whipped his head around to glare at Pansy, looking completely scandalized. "A month and a half? Are you daft?" He turned his incredulous gaze back to Liesel, pointing an accusing finger at her, "How on earth did you get Cedric Diggory to ask you?"

"Excuse me?"

"And why didn't I know?!"

"You didn't ask," Liesel replied reasonably, her tone surprisingly even and devoid of malice despite the previous comment.

"Simmer down, Draco," Pansy smirked, attentively cleaning her perfectly manicured fingernails, "I'm sure some strong lad from Durmstrang will ask you soon. No need to be jealous."

Draco's eyebrows shot up and his arms stretched outward as if his feet were planted on a soapbox, about to preach about the end times, "If anyone still cares… I'm not gay!"

"I don't." Pansy said, perfectly musical, using her aristocratic accent as a weapon in the playful tone.

"I don't." Liesel joined in, mischievously smiling.

Goyle was the next to speak, "Neither do I."

Everyone stopped and turned their heads toward the broad boy still playing hot hands with Crabbe, though the former had taken a beat as well and peeked up between his eyebrows incredulously. Draco clearly took this personally, his mouth twisting up toward his nose in a furious glare and grey eyes shooting daggers at his goon. After a few moments of silence, Goyle's ears perked up, realizing his mistake, and continued.

"I wouldn't care if you were, I mean. Plenty of wizards are into buggery, I've learned."

Draco's ears were progressively turning more and more rosy, then to a wild cherry red all over.

But Goyle continued, "My Uncle Albert told me Dumbledore's queer. He also said he's a fairy, though, so I don't know how true--."

"Shut up, Goyle," Draco snapped, as his friend clearly had no end in mind in order to cover his tracks, "It's a miracle you're still alive with that empty skull of yours."

Pansy let out a shrieking laugh, clutching onto Daphne's arm and leaning in, "How I'd love to hear about the Headmaster's love stories. I bet him and Professor Snape have some history. A scandalous age gap, perhaps."

"Ewww!" Daphne squealed, giggling and kicking her legs up onto the sofa.

"Anyway, Liesel… I shouldn't have to ask!" Draco exploded, beginning to pace a strip of the Persian rug that they were kneeling on moments ago, "Do you have any idea how humiliating this is for me? Do you know how I found out?" He stopped, his face twisting into disgust. "I had to hear it from Neville. Longbottom."

Pansy and Liesel both let out a sudden, loud snort of laughter, quickly slapping their hands over their mouths in unison, their shared blood clearly in sync. Daphne bit her lip so hard it turned white. The image of the usually terrified Neville Longbottom inadvertently breaking the news of the century to Draco Malfoy was too delightfully absurd to ignore.

"Longbottom?" Liesel asked, "However did he know?"

"Because everyone knows, Liesel! Apparently Cedric told McGonagall during class this morning and we're the last to find out." Draco mimicked a trembling, terrified voice, "I-I-I'm sorry I spilled my pot of bouncing bulbs on your shoes, but you shouldn't be so mean! Surely Liesel wouldn't like it, with Cedric taking her to the Yule Ball and all!"

Draco dropped the impression, looking as though he had just swallowed a lemon, "At this rate, my own father will probably hear about it from Arthur Weasley at the Ministry before I get a chance to write to him! It's not funny!"

Liesel let out a soft, chiming laugh. She reached out, her delicate fingers wrapping gently around Draco's wrist. She looked up at him, her mossy eyes warm. Draco could never help but melt ever since he was a child, his anger deflating, no matter how hard he tried to cling to it.

Draco let out a long sigh, looking up at the stone ceiling as if asking the late Salazar Slytherin himself for the patience to deal with her. But he relented. He dropped onto the sofa on Liesel's other side, allowing himself to sink in. Crabbe and Goyle, having no idea what to do with themselves now that the shouting war was over, started playing a game where they slapped each other's hands until one of them flinched in pain.

Pansy interrupted the newfound quiet moment, "Though… speaking of the Weasleys… Tell him what color you're wearing."

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The Yule Ball had come faster than anyone had expected. Between the thrill of becoming somewhat of a Queen Bee by Cedric's side in the corridors and the late nights of studying between the golden egg and catching up with her mid-year exams, Liesel found herself shocked by the sudden thrust of the Yuletide season before them.

The door of the Slytherin Common Room entrance scraped shut with a foreboding finality, sealing off the damp chill of the outer dungeon corridors and opening them up to the humidity of fountains of Liesel's Hogwarts living quarters. Hermione Granger stood completely frozen at the threshold, her shoulders drawn up to her ears, looking as though she was a few fleeting nerves away from giving up on their rule-breaking and scampering off back to her dormitory.

"Breathe, Granger," Liesel whispered, her voice a soft, echoing murmur in the emerald-lit space. She reached out, catching Hermione gently by the shoulder to guide her down the spiral staircase. "I promise there's no one here to see you. Everyone's getting ready elsewhere."

The sprawling Slytherin Common Room was a ghost town, abandoned to the crackling fires and the sloshing of the Black Lake against the enchanted windows. Anyone who hadn't gone home for the Christmas holidays was already dedicating their time to getting ready for the Yule Ball in prefect bathrooms. Some, including Liesel's friends, booked appointments in Hogsmeade and planned to bring carriages up later on. Liesel led Hermione swiftly past the empty leather sofas and down a narrow, winding corridor that branched off from the main living area.

"We'll get ready in the first-year girls' room. Just in case," Liesel smiled at Hermione, hoping to calm her nerves, "Come, come."

When they entered, the room was perfectly still, smelling faintly of pine needles. The four four-poster beds, draped heavily with the silver velvet that Liesel remembered from her first year were impeccably made, their occupants safely tucked away in various manors across Britain for the winter holiday.

"Sit, darling," Liesel instructed, gesturing toward a plush, velvet-cushioned stool situated in front of a sprawling, ornate vanity mirror framed by silver serpents.

Hermione obeyed, setting her suitcase carefully on the floor as to not throw around the dress inside. She clearly felt out of place in the luxurious dungeons, with her busy hair wild and frizzy from the humidity, her hands twisting nervously in the lap of her casual woolen jumper. But as Liesel moved behind her, only wearing her forest green Slytherin nightgown, she tried her best to calm the Gryffindor girl with a loving touch on the shoulder.

For years, Liesel and Hermione had been locked in a hardcore academic rivalry that bordered on blood sport. They had practically waged war fighting for the top marks in their year, and Liesel couldn't help but admit she had always been horribly jealous of how naturally magic came to Hermione. Liesel had been raised in intellectual circles surrounding wandmaking and the lore of magic for as long as she lived, even casting spells before receiving her very own wand. But when Hermione entered Hogwarts, a muggleborn with no experience with magic besides the books she could get her hands on in the few weeks after meeting Dumbledore for the first time… Liesel saw red.

But Liesel had been walking with Cedric a week earlier and said with a warm, oblivious sort of amusement, that Viktor Krum had asked her to the Yule Ball. While Cedric had only found the pairing surprising, how the jock had chosen the nerd in the corner, he tucked his rosy nose into his scarf, and the revelation that Hermione had no idea what she was in for nearly knocked the wind out of her. Liesel knew the brutal workings of the Wizarding Elite better than anyone. And Hermione was walking right into it with no experience, walking into the Great Hall on the arm of one of the most famous Quidditch players in the world.

Pansy and Daphne would tear her to pieces with their rumors. Who knew who else. The whole room, surely, if she showed up with her rats nest of hair and a muggle prom gown.

Liesel couldn't stand idly by and watch a massive guillotine fall onto Harry's friend's neck.

Now, standing behind the Gryffindor in the dungeon, Liesel uncorked a small crystal vial. "Right then," Liesel said softly, pouring a shimmering, pearl-colored droplet of the potion into the palm of her hand and rubbing her palms together to activate the enchantment, "Let's tame this, shall we?"

"Will we be putting this in your hair, too?" Hermione asked, her eyes shining in the mirror, wide with intrigue.

"Merlin, no." Liesel giggled, pressing her hands into Hermione's thick hair, "I don't let anyone touch my curls, Miss Granger. They're sacred."

Hermione let out a small gasp as the warm magic seeped into her scalp, the frizzy mass on her head instantly relaxing under Liesel's touch. Working methodically, Liesel began to comb the potion through. With every pass of the comb, the girl's hair transformed into sleek heavy waves that caught the firelight like the polished mahogany surrounding them.

"You know," Liesel murmured, breaking the silence as she glanced into the mirror, pulling Hermione's hair back just below her ears, "You have incredible bone structure. When your hair is pulled back from your face like this, it makes you absolutely shine. Shall I put it up?"

She couldn't help but repeat the compliment Daphne had given her. A realization settled on Liesel of just how similar the two of them looked to one another.

Hermione nodded with a suppressed grin, "Yes. And… Thank you for doing this. Ronald and Harry wouldn't have the faintest idea of how to help me."

Liesel smiled, her eyes focused deeply on the sweeping hair of the girl before her: tucking, pinning, twirling… The mention of the Gryffindor boys caused pause in Liesel's mind, however, and she found herself with wandering thoughts as her hands moved.

"Hermione," Liesel said, her voice dropping into a conspiratorial whisper, "Can I tell you a secret?"

Hermione's posture straightened instantly, her breath hitching. In both of their minds, the academic rivalry was forgotten, and their bond was simply two teenage girls gossiping. Hermione had often wondered what it was like to have a girl friend, and Liesel provided her the sneak peek she always wanted. "Yes," she breathed, entirely captivated, "Of course you can."

Liesel leaned in slightly, an irrepressible giggle escaping her lips before she could stop it. "Harry asked me to the Yule Ball, too."

Hermione's jaw practically unhinged at the prospect. She spun around on the velvet stool, nearly causing Liesel to tug on a section of pinned hair and ruining the look. Her eyes shot open, wide as saucers. She stared at Liesel for three solid seconds before a burst of laughter tore from her throat.

"Harry?!" Hermione gasped, "Oh, Ronald would have a coronary! When? What did you say to him?!"

"I told him the truth, that Cedric had already asked me," Liesel said laughing along with her, gently pushing Hermione's shoulder to force her to turn back toward the mirror so she could finish styling, "He asked me in the library a few weeks ago. I feel awful."

"Oh, don't feel awful," Hermione scoffed, waving a dismissive hand, though she was still grinning widely, "He was absolutely desperate. He asked Cho Chang last week, but she was already going with a boy from Beauxbatons."

Liesel giggled, the sound light and airy as she pinned a section of Hermione's hair back to frame her face perfectly, "I'll tell you another secret… I wish he would've asked me before Cedric did. He's so sweet and those lovely green puppy dog eyes-“

Hermione rolled her own eyes dramatically, though her smile reached all the way to her cheeks. She was clearly thrilled by the idea of Harry asking out one of Malfoy's best friends. It was a scandal waiting to drop, "Oh, he's rotten! Do you want to know what your sweet Harry was doing last week in the corridor?"

"What?"

"I caught him staring at your backside while you were walking up the Grand Staircase!"

Liesel shrieked, both of her hands landing on Hermione's shoulders and looking at their reflection in the mirror, her jaw agape, "What?! Harry?!"

"And when I was about to say something, I saw Neville staring, too!" Hermione grabbed Liesel's hand on her shoulder, "I had to smack them with my book to stop them from falling into a trick step! He's not the innocent little puppy you think he is!"

The Ollivander heiress felt a flush of heat rise to her cheeks, a sudden thrill of embarrassment washing over her, but she covered it the best she could with one of Pansy’s trademarked theatrical sighs. She smoothed down the last bit of Hermione’s pinned hair, “Well, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. You know what Draco’s mother always says?”

Hermione cocked her head, deeply curious.

"All men are dogs!" Liesel bent down beside Hermione’s head, whispering in her ear with a large grin, her nose scrunching in faux disgust and mimicking Narcissa Malfoy's aristocratic drawl “My own son would lap from a puddle if I let him.”

For a moment, the room was entirely silent as the girls' jaws dropped. And then, simultaneously, both girls broke, falling into uncontrollable, breathless giggles, the sound echoing brightly off the shadowed walls of the dungeon dormitory. Hermione sat and found that her bushy hair no longer fell into her eyes as she doubled over in the stool below her, and that the girl she had always rivaled had a knack for twisting hair and an eye for good bones and the humor of the girls she had befriended long ago at her muggle school. The tension released from her body, shuttering out through the laughing. Laughing, and laughing, until Liesel had to clutch her ribs, the absurdity of the teenage boys closest to them uniting the two.

"Right," Liesel breathed finally, wiping a tear of mirth from the corner of her eyes. She took a stop back, pointing her newly manicured fingers at the green and silver embroidered changing screen in the corner of the room, "Time for the dress. Go behind the screen. If you need help, shout."

Hermione, her smile shining with more light than any of the stars in the Great Hall ever could, gathered her suitcase and ducked behind the wall of fabric in the corner of the room. Liesel sat herself down at the vanity to assess the work she will have to do on her own hair for the coming evening of dance and Prophet photos. A frustrated sigh broke through the silence.

"This zipper!" Hermione huffed.

Liesel spoke without looking away from her reflection, "Come out, dear. I'll help."

"I’ve got it." Hermione's voice drifted over the screen, suddenly sounding like a mouse squeaking in a wall. "… I don’t know. It feels… It feels like too much, Liesel. What if they laugh at me?"

"No one is going to laugh at you," Liesel said firmly, "Come out. Let me see."

Slowly, a figure stepped out from behind the velvet curtain, and Liesel turned to look.

Hermione Granger stood before Liesel in stunning periwinkle dress robes, each layer of fabric catching in the dim light and seemed to shimmer with a light from within. It was elegantly tailored, wrapping beautifully around Hermione's bodice before flowing into a cascading skirt that brushed the stone floor, but not before leaving just a taste of her glittering midnight blue slippers. Combined with the sleek hair pinned up by the nape of her neck and her posture, seemingly straightened by the cut of the fabric along her collarbone, Liesel found Hermione unrecognizable from the frizzy-haired girl buried in Gryffindor wear just hours prior. Yet, the look in her eyes, the intelligent glance that observed everything in its path, remained. The heart of Hermione would truly be on Viktor Krum's arm.

Liesel grinned and commanded softly, "Spin."

Hermione obliged, executing a hesitant, nervous little twirl. The periwinkle tulle flared out, catching the air and flowing like the waves of the ocean, the lining bubbling like foam.

"Hermione, darling, you look absolutely perfect! Viktor will be drooling over you," Liesel squealed, stepping forward and reaching out to adjust the sleeve of her dress to be symmetrical. She took a step back, offering an exaggerated curtsy, dipping her head low. "You are no longer Hermione Granger. Tonight, you are Lady Hermia of Family Granger."

A radiant grin broke across Hermione's face, confidence finally settling into her chest. She caught the foam of the ocean surrounding her, returning the gesture with a flawless, sweeping curtsy of her own. "It is a pleasure to be of acquaintance, Lady Liesel of the Noble House of Ollivander."

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"There he is," Hermione whispered, nudging Liesel's elbow.

Standing near the base of the marble staircase, navigating the swell of the growing crowd, was Cedric Diggory.

Liesel reeled at the spectacular looking boy before her, how his charcoal dress robes hugged his athletic shoulders, emphasizing the strength he had built up while competing in Quidditch. She studied his immaculate shoes, the tail of his coat, and, most unnervingly, his hazel eyes that scanned each and every person around the room that eventually landed on her very own form.

As Cedric's eyes brightened and his feet began guiding him toward her, she couldn't help but become self-conscious of her custom dress. The deep, bruised maroon he had chosen himself when Liesel brought him a catalogue for fabric matched her skin tone well, although she was worried the adornment was taken too far. Pearls lined her collarbones, stretching toward her back, and forward brought the eye to the decorative straight bodice, complex with slightly lighter red laced designs. Pinned to the lace were droplets of iridescent pearl. Liesel knew her face would be plastered in pureblood haute couture gossip sections, but was it too much for a boy as humble as Cedric Diggory?

And her hair, swept up into a caul, leaving the illusion of a bob with chosen pieces plastered onto her cheekbones and jaw to line her face. This certainly complimented her makeup, the Pansy-approved smokey eye and berry lip, but how much was too much? Cedric had mentioned how he so loved her natural beauty, how her freckles were the only paint she needed on her face.

Liesel gripped Hermione's hand one last time with her scarlet gloves and stepped forward to meet Cedric.

"My, my, Ced. You look dashing," Liesel said, her voice rising and falling in the age-old pureblood accent. It almost felt wrong speaking any other way dressed as such.

Cedric finally reached her, taking her hand in his, "Liesel, my dear, even the most beautiful of Veelas could never hold a candle to your beauty… May I?"

He brought up his left hand as if he were brushing something off of her cheekbone, then fell into a gentle caress. Liesel, falling deeper and deeper under his spell, nervously chuckled, "How many times did you practice that in the mirror?"

"Too many times," the boy leaned forward and whispered, laughing in return, "When the mirror got annoyed and stopped showing my reflection, I used Newton. He didn't appreciate being my test dummy. Was it that bad?"

"No, darling," Liesel kissed his cheek, "It was very sweet."

Cedric turned to his side, offering up his arm as music began to play, "Shall we?"

A creeping of rose reached up Liesel's cheeks as she nodded, taking his arm.

The Great Hall had been immaculately transformed into a winter forest: silver and white, wooden benches replaced with cocktail tables of ice, trees encircling the attendees. Above them the sky reflected the treacherous weather outside, swirling snow and howling wind just barely audible above the music.

The only thing more treacherous than the weather outside was the opening dance of the Champions within.

The waltz began with a sweeping, orchestral swell in which Cedric and Liesel led the four couples into the center, one by one. Along the way, the two of them happily greeted their friends and peers, and Liesel forced a smile on her face until she reached Pansy and Draco, arm in arm. Someone, undoubtedly Pansy's father, had forced the poor girl into a frilly pink dress, though she managed to make it look perfectly herself with a red lip and broken hearts lining her eyes. As they passed, Pansy lightly hopped in excitement, causing Liesel's nose to scrunch in giggles. Her head turned behind the couple, and only then did Pansy's face drop in horror at the sight on Viktor Krum's arm.

Cedric did not step on Liesel's foot once. In fact, he managed to guide Liesel through the complex footwork as if he had been dancing all his life, his hand firm on her waist. However, their immediate neighbors on the floor were faring poorly. Harry Potter and Parvati Patil were dancing directly to their left. Harry frantically moved around, stiff as a petrified gargoyle, his eyes glued to his feet, expecting the floorboards to turn to quicksand. All the while, Parvati gamely tried to forcefully lead him through the steps. The two of them lost their footing, sending him and Parvati careening wildly into Cedric and Liesel's orbit.

"Sorry!" Harry choked out, his face burning a violent shade of red, a red so pigmented that it could fit right in with the fabric of Liesel's maroon train, of which he narrowly avoided stepping directly onto.

Cedric effortlessly swept Liesel out of the collision course, shooting Harry a good-natured smile over his shoulder. "Keep your weight on your toes, Harry! You're doing fine!"

Liesel bit the inside of her cheek to suppress a giggle as Cedric pulled her back to his chest, unbothered by the near-miss, "He's going to kill someone," she whispered against Cedric's shoulder.

"If Parvati is anything like my dance partner," Cedric chuckled, his breath warm against her temple, "he'll sure get a beating after this dance."

Midway through the evening, the Weird Sisters took the stage, turning everything and everyone around them electric. They ate from silver platters laden with enchanted food, drank sparkling cider enchanted with singing bubbles, and danced until Liesel's feet ached, and they found themselves resting near a towering ice sculpture of a hippogriff, chatting amiably with Hermione and Viktor Krum. Hermione looked flushed and remarkably happy and, though Viktor remained a pillar of fur and muscle by her side, was glowing with an equally heightened sense of glee.

Cedric, ever the polite conversationalist, turned to the Quidditch star with an easy smile, "I imagine winter here is rather mild compared to what you grew up with in Bulgaria, Viktor?"

Krum took a slow sip from his goblet, his dark, heavy-lidded eyes settling on Cedric, "It is sunnier in Bulgaria, but the cold is harsh, yes," Krum rumbled, his accent incredibly thick, "But I truly grew up in Hungary. Those vinters… You could not imagine the bite."

Liesel's head snapped up. She stared at the towering Seeker in shock, "You are from Hungary?"

Krum blinked, surprised by her sudden intensity, "Yes. I lived there until I was ten."

Without missing a beat, Liesel's face lit up with a radiance that filled the whole room, gasping and gripping Cedric's coat arm. She immediately shifted languages, the complexities rolling off her tongue fluently, "A nagymamám fehérvári volt! Slughorn a vezetékneve – talán hallott már róla?" (My grandmother was from Fehérvár! Her surname was Slughorn—perhaps you’ve heard of her?)

Krum's permanently scowling expression instantly vanished, replaced by a massive grin that transformed his entire face. For the first time all evening, the sullen Quidditch star looked like the eager, enthusiastic teenager that he truly was inside, "Imádom! És ő tanított meg a nyelvre?" (I love it! And did she teach you the language?)

"Nem, apám tanított meg rá." Liesel's face lowered into one of deep respect, but then gestured over to where she had seen her friend stand just moments ago, "De látod azt a szőke hajú fiút ott? Az ő családja is beszél magyarul." (No, my father taught me. But do you see that blond-haired boy over there? His family speaks Hungarian too.)

Krum followed her gesture and nodded, "Ó, Draco Malfoy. Ja, találkoztam vele. Nagyon merész." (Oh, Draco Malfoy. Yeah, I met him. He's very bold.)

As Liesel and Viktor eagerly launched into a rapid-fire animated conversation in Hungarian, Cedric and Hermione were left standing on the periphery, completely shut out of the discussion.

Cedric glanced down at Hermione, raising a perfectly sculpted eyebrow, "Do you know what they're saying?"

The girl shook her head, "No bloody idea."

The two of them broke into affectionate chuckles at the sheer excitement radiating from their dates.

It was at this moment that Harry Potter pushed his way through the crowd, looking deeply relieved to have finally escaped Parvati, who stomped off to dance with a boy from Ravenclaw. Harry approached the group, his green eyes darting in confusion between Liesel and Krum as they loudly debated something in a language that sounded to Harry like a collection of meticulously written spells.

"What are they talking about?" Harry asked, standing beside Cedric and staring at Liesel in bewilderment.

Cedric laughed, and gestured casually toward Liesel with the glass in his hand, "I haven't the faintest idea what she's saying, but she seems quite passionate about it… She looks lovely while doing it, so she could go on like that forever if she wanted."

And Liesel, who had taken a pause during a recount of Krum's childhood story, smiled at Harry. Harry looked up at Cedric. He looked at Cedric's tall, athletic frame, his relaxed, effortless confidence, his incredibly handsome, smiling face. Harry's bruised ego simmered below the surface, jealousy taking him. He wanted to take Liesel, wanted to be the one standing and holding her hand. But as Harry looked at Cedric, he couldn't help but collapse into resigned awe.

Cedric was just too nice. He was too genuine, too kind, too undeniably perfect to hate. And he was a better dancer. Harry'd only make Liesel look like a fool.

Harry offered a weak, defeated smile, running a hand through his messy hair. "She looks brilliant. You look great together tonight." This statement received a warm smile from Hermione, who knew more than she let on.

"Don't we?" Cedric agreed softly, his eyes returning to Liesel with a look of such profound adoration that it made Harry awkwardly clear his throat and shuffle away toward the punch bowl.

Eventually, Krum lowered his chest to the ground in a deep bow to Liesel, offering a final farewell in Hungarian before leading Hermione away to get a breath of fresh air.

The moment they were alone, the Weird Sisters transitioned into a slow, haunting ballad. The lights in the Great Hall dimmed slightly, and enchanted snow began falling softly from the ceiling and landed elegantly in Cedric and Liesel's hair.

Cedric didn't ask her, but simply reached out, his hand settling warmly against the bodice surrounding her waist, and pulled her flush against his chest. Liesel stepped into his embrace without hesitation, her arm wrapping around his neck, and her eyes staring into his.

As they swayed together in the center of the room, surrounded by hundreds of other couples, Liesel felt alone in the room wrapped up in Cedric's arm. She closed her eyes, inhaling the scent of him: cedarwood, the citrusy tang of his shampoo, and the earth of the Hufflepuff common room.

It was infuriating, almost. She looked up at him through her lashes, mapping the flawless lines in the dim silvery light, and she tried to find a single flaw. Everyone had a flaw. Draco was cruel and arrogant, despite being her best friend. Harry was emotionally stunted and reckless, despite being the Chosen One. Theodore was an outlier, simply because he didn't have a single redeeming quality about him. Could the opposite be true? Could someone not have any flaws?

Perhaps Cedric was walking evidence of such being a ruse. He was too handsome, kind to everyone he met. He was relentlessly fair… intelligent without being arrogant, athletic without being a brute. His hazel eyes chased away any cold in Liesel's body, in her heart, and the way he held her… firmly, securely, as if she were the most precious thing in the castle… It made her heart hammer painfully against her ribs. Fear shocked into her. It was terrifying to be this close to someone who was so utterly, undeniably perfect.

Liesel was entirely at Cedric's mercy, melting, falling away into an emotion she hadn't felt before. Love. True love, perhaps. Liesel didn't believe in it before, but now…?

"I was thinking," Cedric whispered, his voice humming against her ear, sending a shiver down her spine, "As wonderful as this is… it's rather crowded. And loud. And I haven't really had you to myself all night."

Liesel tilted her head back, meeting his gaze, though her cheeks flushed, "And you.. You want me… to yourself? Cedric, I shouldn't-"

Cedric threw his head back and laughed, then locked eyes with her once again, "That's not what I mean," his hand slid just a fraction lower on the small of her back, pressing her closer, "I was thinking that, perhaps, we should go on a proper date. Just the two of us."

Liesel exhaled her anxiety, letting out an anxious giggle as he ensured her that he wasn't implying anything further, "I don't know, Cedric. With how popular you are these days, do you even have the time to plan a date?"

Cedric lifted his free hand, gently brushing a mousy stray curl that had lifted itself from its place on her jawline, his fingertips lingering against her skin.

"I would make time for you any day, Liesel," he whispered softly, "You name the hour, and I'll be there."

They stayed together for the rest of the night, their arms unwilling to separate from one another. When the Weird Sisters finally played their final chord at midnight and the exhausted student body began to filter out of the Great Hall, Cedric draped his charcoal cloak over Liesel's shoulder to protect her from the chill of the dungeons.

When they reached the door of the Slytherin Common Room, the effortless charm of the Hogwarts Champion seemed to falter. Cedric shoved his hands into his pockets, rocking back on his heels. He looked down at the stone floor, a faint, boyish flush creeping up the back of his neck.

"I, erm… I didn't practice this part in the mirror, nor on Newton, for that matter," Cedric started, his voice suddenly lacking its usual smooth confidence. He stumbled over his words, offering a self deprecating little laugh, "I suppose I should say thank you… for coming with me, and giving me such a wonderful night. You were…" He looked at her, his eyes searching hers, "You were everything."

Liesel's heart ached with how intensely endearing the stumbling was. He surely thought he was making a fool of himself, rambling awkwardly in the dark, but to Liesel, it was the most charming thing she had ever witnessed. A man as perfect as Cedric being imperfect in front of her. Domestic bliss before the first date.

It was the only crack in his perfect armor… the fact that she made him nervous.

She didn't let him ramble any further.

Liesel stepped forward, her hands coming up to rest flat against the lapels of his dress robes. She rose slightly to the tips of her toes, her gaze locked on his, "Did you practice this part with Newton?" she smiled playfully.

Cedric gulped, lightly shaking his head before she closed the distance and pressed her lips to his.

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The air outside of the walls of Hogwarts Castle was viciously cold, biting at the exposed skin of Liesel's cheeks, scraping down her windpipe with every inhale. And yet, she did not feel the chill.

Walking beside Cedric Diggory was akin to standing beside an open furnace. Her hand was tucked securely into the crook of his elbow, her fingers resting against the dense knit of his sweater. She stared straight ahead, trying not to spend every second of her time gazing at his handsome appearance.

There was a desperate, clawing need in her chest to be his. To be his beautiful, untroubled thing. To be walking arm-in-arm with perfection, you must be perfect, right?

Without a word of warning, Cedric's hands abandoned his pockets. His palms clamped firmly on either side of her waist, the grip shockingly strong, his long fingers pressing into her ribs through layers of wool and silk. Before she could draw a breath, he hoisted her completely off the ground.

Liesel let out a sharp, breathless squeal, the sound echoing across the empty, frozen courtyard.

Cedric spun her in a fluid, dizzying arch and the world blurred into streaks of white snow and a bruised-indigo sky. When he finally set her down, he didn't release her waist, but stood entirely too close, looking down at her. A boyish grin broke across his jaw and he pointed at the fractured flagstone path behind them.

"You step on a crack, you break Merlin's back," Cedric murmured.

Liesel burst into a fit of giggles, completely and utterly drunk off of the adrenaline from Cedric's touch. She pressed a gloved hand to his chest, feeling the thrumming of his own heart beneath the coat, "Are you normally superstitious?" she breathed, tilting her chin up, playing her part of the untroubled beautiful coy girl to perfection.

"Come on," he changed the subject as he took her hand, lacing their fingers together, and dragged her toward the greenhouse, "You must be freezing."

The girl was relieved to transition from the biting winter air to the interior of the earthy enclosure. Cedric dragged the heavy wooden door shut behind them, closing them in the lung-clogging soup of humidity and fierce smell of the orchid petals and dragon dung fertilizer brewing beneath the slatted floorboards.

Liesel unfastened the silver clasp of her cloak, letting the wool slide from her shoulders, where Cedric was right behind her to catch it.

"Sprout left the far corner open for us," Cedric said, taking her cloak and draping it carefully over a dormant Venomous Tentacula tub, " She usually keeps it locked on the weekends, but I promised I'd prune the Fanged Geraniums on Tuesday."

He led her through a dense thicket of twisting, rope like creepers and broad weeping leaves. Nestled in a small clearing at the back of the pavilion was a thick Hufflepuff-themed blanket spread over the damp floorboards. A wicker basket sat in the center.

Liesel grinned as she sank onto the blanket, folding her legs beneath her and smoothing the dark fabric of her skirt. Cedric sat opposite her, crossing his long legs, breathing in the air of the suffocating greenhouse musk and smiling lightly. He reached into the wicker basket, his movements slow and deliberate, and as his knuckles brushed the woven edge, he pressed his index finger flat against his lips. His eyes darted toward the frosted glass of the entrance door before withdrawing a dark green glass bottle with no label.

"Shh," he whispered, producing a small silver corkscrew from his pocket with a conspiratorial smirk, "Muggle wine. A bordeaux, I think. I bribed Newton to smuggle it up from Hogsmeade."

"A smuggler, Mr Diggory?" Liesel asked softly, leaning forward. She watched the tendons in his forearms flex as he drove the metal spiral into the cork, "The prefect badges mean remarkably little these days, don't they?"

"Desperate times, Miss Ollivander."

With a wet, hollow pop, the cork gave way. Cedric poured the liquid into two mismatched glass chalices, undoubtedly grabbed from the kitchens prior to the date. The wine, thick and viscous as it settled into the cups, was the color of coagulated blood, and he handed one to her. Their fingers brushed, sending a spark of heat up her arm.

Liesel took a sip. It was tart, leaving an astringent dry film on the back of her tongue, smelling faintly of berries and copper. She swallowed, letting the burn slide down her throat, settling the restless, buzzing static in her skull from being in the Golden Boy's vicinity.

"Now," Cedric said, setting his chalice down on the floorboards. He reached into his trousers and withdrew a small, rectangular object wrapped in paper. He peeled it back to reveal a deck of standard playing cards, the edges soft, the glossy finish rubbed away by the oils of human skin.

"Watch," he instructed, intimately whispering to the girl opposite of him.

He split the neck with one hand. The cards made a dry, sharp clack-flick-clack sound as he cascaded them between his palms. The manual dexterity of his large hands were startling, manipulating the thin cards with grace.

Cedric fanned the deck out in a perfect, overlapping crescent and extended it toward her, "Pick one. Don't let me see it."

Liesel reached out. The air in the greenhouse was so thick she could feel the moisture beading on her eyelashes, and she hoped no wet would show through her silk shirt. Her index finger glided over the word paper until she selected a card near the center. She pulled it free and pressed it flat against her thigh, shyly peeking at the face.

A crowned figure stared up at her in faded black ink. The queen of spades.

"Put it back," he said, cutting the deck.

She slid the card into the stack. With a quick, deceptive twist of his wrist, Cedric closed the deck. His palm hovered over the top card for a fraction of a second, a shadow passing over the word backing.

He leaned across the small space separating them. The movement was slow, nearly predatory with the dilating of his pupils locking onto her lips. He reached out, his thumb catching the edge of her jawline.

Liesel froze as he approached, joining him in staring delightfully at his lips, her breath catching in her throat. The heat of his skin pressed against the cool porcelain of her cheek, causing her heart to flutter in her chest, beating, beating, beating, threatening to find a life of its own. His thumb trailed slowly down the line of her neck, tracing the delicate architecture of her collarbone, before his fingers dipped into her mousy hair.

With a small, triumphant flourish, he drew the queen of spades from behind her ear.

"Is this your card?"

Liesel laughed through her painted lips, "Fantastic! What conjuration spell did you use for that? I didn't even hear you say it?"

"Ah, ah. No magic. Well, not our magic," Cedric wiggled his fingers, placing the card back into the deck, "Muggle magic…"

"Muggle magic?"

"Muggles can be fascinating, can't they?" Cedric whispered. His face was far too close. She could see the tiny, golden flecks swimming in his hazel eyes, and a shocking imperfection: the slight uneven ridge of his nose. The cards remained pinched between his fingers, but his gaze had dropped, fixing on her mouth once again.

But he pulled back slowly, the loss of his heat leaving a void against Liesel's jaw. He began to turn the remaining cards over, one by one. The snap of the paper was the only sound cutting through the continuous pat-pat-pat of condensation dripping from the glass ceiling.

"If you keep shuffling like that, the kings will lose their heads," Liesel noted, picking up her silver chalice, letting the tart wine wash the dry feeling from her mouth.

Cedric let out a low, rumbling chuckle that vibrated the room and dropped the deck into a messy pile on the wool.

"My mother would like you," he said.

Liesel set down her drink, "And when will I get to meet her?"

The words hung in the air, unanswered for several moments. He leaned back, resting his broad shoulders against the wooden leg of a potting bench. The flirtation bled out of his posture, replaced by a clear unwelcome nostalgia that softened nearly every angle of his face.

The Slytherin girl stilled. The Diggory family had been heavily publicized since the Goblet of Fire had blown Cedric's name from its rim. But in the gossip columns, she realized a maternal presence had never been mentioned.

"… What was her name?" Liesel asked gently.

Cedric's gaze dropped to the scattered cards. His index finger reached out, lightly tracing the faded black ink of the spade.

"Alameda." Cedric muttered, the name bittersweet on his tongue, "It's Spanish. Her grandfather was a wine merchant in Jerez. It means a grove of poplar trees. A place where people go to walk in the shade." His thumb rubbed the soft paper of the card until the ink began to chip beneath the pressure, "She died a few years ago. In childbirth. I was twelve."

Liesel's chest constricted. In Cedric's eyes she could see the pits of pain he had done so well to mask. He then reached into his pocket, pulled out a worn photo, and handed it to her.

"It was a freak accident. Her magic just… exploded."

Sitting within the palm of Cedric's love was his first true love. A young woman: wild, untamed dark curls… loose cotton flowing from her skin, and a young boy on her hip.

"The healers at St. Mungo's said I was supposed to have a little sister."

For a moment, Liesel wondered if it was a cruel joke, the photo. The woman looked exactly like Cedric, right down to the crooked nose bridge that Liesel had only just discovered. She moved, waving at Liesel through the film, bouncing the toddler on her waist. For every ounce of Cedric's goodness, his grace, the gentle way he held the world around him, the woman before her had tenfold. It hadn't been born from nothing.

"But the bleeding wouldn't stop and…"

The woman's eyes radiated such a strong energy that Liesel had never seen from her own parents. Not even from Molly Weasley. Here, in this photo, was such a deep kindness, a deep love. A woman who loved life and lived her life with love. To look into Alameda Diggory's eyes was to look at a sun that would never burn you, only nurture and shine unto its children for warmth.

"We never even decided on a name for the baby."

Cedric paused, gazing at Liesel as she analyzed the moving photo, watching it replay over and over again, "My dad had this massive book of old wizarding names. Hideous, suffocating things like Euphemia or Andromeda. But my mother wanted something simple. Clara, I think. To match mine. I helped them paint her nursery ceiling to look like the night sky."

They sat in silence for a long time, the weight of the unnamed baby girl and Cedric's gentle late mother hovering between them. Liesel didn't offer any empty platitudes or forced condolences… she knew better than to try to fill the silence with meaningless apologies. She didn't know if she could, completely entranced with the woman before her in the image.

After awhile, she spoke, her voice weak, breaking under the pressure, "You look just like her."

Cedric's eyes broke from Liesel's face and fell to the photo in her hands, "And I hope to be even a fraction of the person she was."

Liesel's head snapped up to look at Cedric, the words falling out of his mouth so profound, so shockingly sweet. She couldn't imagine saying the same about her own mother. To wish to be a fraction of a mother's grace… he worshiped the ground she walked on, and Liesel would worship his. With a slow movement, Liesel crawled forward, her fingers gently placing the photo of Alameda on Cedric's lap. However, instead of retreating, she tilted his chin up and placed her lips on his, delivering one final close touch.

Cedric's hand moved from the deck of cards, sliding up her arm to cup the side of her face. His thumb brushed over her cheekbone, his touch impossibly tender.

Then, the temperature in the greenhouse plummeted. The heat of Cedric's hand on her cheek vanished, replaced by an unnatural freezing cold. Liesel forced her eyes open, pulling back slightly, just enough to see a hand had crawled onto Cedric's shoulder.

It was not a human hand, Liesel was sure of it. The skin was a sickly, translucent grey, pulled taut over the jutting bones of the knuckles. Its fingernails were cracked, blackened, and caked with the wet dirt of the pots surrounding them. Between its thumb and forefinger read the words 'I must not do harm'.

It gripped the thick, cream colored wool of Cedric's sweater with a rigid strength, immediately turning the threads rotten and black beneath the touch.

Liesel's entire body went rigid. A scream clawed its way up her throat, but she was completely paralyzed. Her vocal chords were frozen, her lungs seized in a suffocating grip. And Cedric didn't notice. He was still before her, his eyes closed, a loving smile on his lips as he continued to lean in for the kiss. He couldn't feel the cold, nor the rot. Or the smoke that had risen from his lap, where Liesel glanced down and saw the photo of Alameda bursting into flames, the woman and child crying out in brutal pain, their mouths open without screams.

Another hand appeared.

It slithered up from the shadows beneath the blanket, wrapping its decaying fingers tightly around Cedric's forearm. Then another clamped onto his waist. Onto his ankle. Onto his neck.

MOVE, Liesel's brain screamed at her. PUSH HIM! SAVE HIM! But she couldn't do as much as blink, nor breathe.

Cedric's eyes finally fluttered open, confusion breaking through his romantic haze as he noticed her paralyzing terror. "Liesel? What's wrong?" he whispered, his brow furrowing, "Don't you love me?"

He finally looked down, seeing the dead, rotting hands gripping his body.

KILL THE SPARE!

A voice hissed from everywhere around them at once, a high and cold and merciless hiss that vibrated the inside of Liesel's skull, louder than thunder.

The hands tore into him savagely, the fingers shredding the wool of his sweater and sinking deep into his chest, gouging blood from below his skin. Blood, so much blood. Cedric's mouth opened in a silent, agonizing scream as Alameda did in the burning photograph, his beautiful hazel eyes rolling back in his head as the hands ripped into him. The blood poured from him, never seeing end, across the picnic basket, across the deck of cards, and across Liesel's face.

It wasn't until Cedric's eyes turned completely black that Liesel finally found her voice, a raw, blood curdling shriek tearing out of her throat. He leaned forward, his voice a million songs over one another whispering, "Have me, Liesel. Just a kiss."

She threw her hands forward, shoving hard against his shoulders as a green light enveloped them.

But she pushed nothing but empty air as she snapped awake with nothing escaping her. Not even a scream, nor a jolt. She snapped her hand to the stained emerald ribbon on her wrist, the dirty laundry, as Theodore had called it. The leftover Hufflepuff clinging onto the girl’s skin, haunting her every step of the way.

Have me, Liesel.

Cedric wouldn’t speak to her like that. Never.

But this thought didn’t linger, as it drifted to the photograph she had in her hand, of the bright young thing holding tiny Cedric. Of Alameda, the bright sun of Godric’s Hollow, shining in every life she encountered, and in every life her son encountered. A light that has now been snuffed out by evil, a useless death, never to be seen nor passed down ever again.

Dead with Liesel’s darling love, Cedric Diggory, six feet underground, as the bugs gnaw at his skin.

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Ao3 Notes:

My fears held me back from posting for a long time, and I decided to stop letting that fear hold me. I know that's easier said than done, right? Trust me, I've still felt insecure posting chapters and not seeing numbers go up. But the research I put into this work and the pride I take in this story trumps all of these insecurities. That is what inspired me to begin this series. First of all, I want everyone to know that they should never stop themselves from writing just because they're afraid of what someone else will think. Secondly, I hope to be able to share how I've grown with my writing skills and style throughout these chapters. Therefore, I will be sharing my process of writing each and every chapter: how I brainstorm, what changes while writing, what resources I use to improve the lore, etc. Hopefully you're able to gain something from this series :) ✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ 1. Planning out Never Be The Cure

I had Never Be the Cure planned out weeks before I had decided to write it. I originally wanted to keep it to myself like other fanfictions, but something within me wanted to share this one, and I'm so glad I did.

Planning took much longer than I had anticipated, but I continued to be creative throughout the whole process to keep myself from burning out! It’s important that you don’t make your hobbies feel like a job to you. Thankfully, I have lots of dead time during my real job (bartender at a dying dive bar), so I usually organize outlines and jot down ideas for scenes with my handy pen and paper then. When I’m down for the night, my most creative time, I enjoyed writing quick rough drafts for scenes that I used to loosely structure everything!

I began with a loose structure of Liesel’s whole story. What’s the main plot or obstacle in her way? How do I want Liesel to overcome it? Etc. Once I had the overarching plot, I figured out how I wanted to separate it into parts: by each year of schooling. Something VERY important about my writing process is that what I started with is VASTLY different than where I am at now. I did not add the ancient magic plotline (arguably the most important aspect of this whole fanfiction) until the students had already returned to Hogwarts. I did not add the obscurus plotline until I was writing the chapter 8 or 9. When you're writing, the characters come to life and whisper in your ear. The story will guide itself. So if you're creating your outline and things feel flat or lifeless, just know that you must breathe life into them and give them the blessing of free will. Only then your story will have the magic you appreciate in the fanfictions or books you read. Do not let fears about your story hold you back. CREATE! CREATE! CREATE! And soon the story will speak to you. This story will be told through 3 separate parts, all of which with around 30 chapters in them. So I had to decide: Do I want the prologue to be the climax of Part 1, or of the whole story? It didn't take too much time to decide. The climax of the whole story felt natural, and, to be honest, I didn't have the end of Part 1 fleshed out at this time. I also had to decide: How much do I want to reveal? It was important to me to share three things: the memory erasure (main climax of the story mentioned in the summary), the Hogwarts Legacy connection (Morganachian magic), and Liesel's relationship with Draco and Pansy. I wanted to give just enough information about Liesel for the reader to wonder how someone with such a wide support system could end up in this situation. ✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ 2. Writing the Chapter The Prologue of Never Be the Cure proved to be a lot more difficult for me than I had anticipated. I've had the entire storyline planned since before I started writing, so the scenes I wanted to include in the prologue felt natural, but when I sat down to write it, I realized I had no idea what I was doing. Truthfully, creative writing has been quite traumatic for me in the past few years (for reasons I will not get into but trust it was rough), and I realized this year with my collegiate studies that my writing skills had completely regressed, resulting in me failing several classes for being unable to write my papers. I ended up staring at my screen for hours, just completely unsure of how to even start. I had every little bit planned out, but putting words together seemed impossible.

Instead of letting that stop me, I found out how to manipulate the anxiety I was feeling onto the page. Anxiety, to me, feels like a creeping... A crawling in my chest forever moving forward on all fours and trying to sink its nails onto the future without even knowing what's there. A dread that nothing is real, but everything will fall apart unless my awareness is full. I channeled that straight into my writing. Once I got the first few paragraphs done over the course of hours, I fell into a flow. I can't exactly remember how long it took me, as I'm beginning this series while writing chapter 15, but I'd say that 2,000 word chapter took me about three days to push through. NEVER doubt yourself when things get hard with writing. Hard times will come. You will feel a block. But there is nothing in this world that cannot be channeled through words, that you cannot write into your story like its your own little diary. ✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ 3. What resources did I use to help me write this chapter? While planning our the rough outline of Part 1 of Never Be The Cure, I made sure to consult the 5th Year Timeline (Here's the calendar version I also use for quick consultation when needed) from the Harry Potter Lexicon! This is an excellent resource if you're picky about sticking to the canon timeline (which truly doesn't matter as long as you have an interesting story! im just annoying and need to have it as accurate as possible). I don't want to reveal too much about part 2, since this chapter is a flash-forward directly pulled from one of the part 2 chapters, so I will stop here for this one! I will make sure to go into more detail for the coming chapters :) I hope you enjoyed! Please feel free to comment below or message me to engage in discussion about this chapter of Never Be the Cure :) I'm so thrilled that you are all interested in hearing about my process. Please let me know if there's anything else you'd like to know about the initial development!

Professors and Ministry officials were scrambling across the grass like a swarm of vultures. They moved with a scattered efficiency that one could not comprehend in such a moment. Their long cloaks billowed around them as they formed a solid wall of flesh to keep the students from descending onto the pitch. Their lips moved in silent, frantic commands, their arms waving as they pushed the crowd back to shield any students from the sight of what lay in the center of the grass.

When Liesel turned her head, she saw Harry. The officials descended viciously. Hands. Too many hands, gloved in stiff dragonhide, latched onto him. They dragged him away despite the furious thrashing of the boy before them, is red and gold uniform tearing at the shoulder.

"HE'S BACK! VOLDEMORT'S BACK!"

Harry's boots dragged deep ruts into the mud as he attempted to break free, to run back toward the tragedy.

Through the sleet between them, Harry's eyes found hers.

The cornered, bleeding animal in the official's arms stared out through his shattered lenses at Liesel Ollivander's stance. She knew one thing for sure: Both of them were unrecognizable. Harry's jaw was hanging slightly open, his chest heaving under his torn uniform, his teeth bearing as rivers fell from the corners of his eyes.

Liesel could see herself from outside her body. Her small curls that framed her face clung to the sickly skin, and the shock in her eyes reminded her of photos Cedric would show her in her Muggle Studies textbooks. The young men, helmets on, deep in trenches. The whites of their eyes didn't look human as the shock of the war settled into them.

Cedric.

Liesel's vision began to warp, the horizon of the pitch tilting and the high wooden towers of the stands buckling. The image before her turned a bruised purple at the edges. Even the grass seemed to braid themselves together, twisting and turning.

Her knees gave out.

The deep pain sliced through her back upon impact and drove the slick below her straight through her tights, biting sharply into her joints.

She reached out, her fingers clumsy and cold, and pulled Cedric's head onto her lap. The static consumed the scene before her entirely. The screams muffled into the sound of the rushing of water in her skull, distant and warped. Time snagged.

The weight of his head was wrong. It did not feel like a living skull, not his living skull that Liesel held in her lap for months. It wasn't cushioned by muscle and warm skin. Rather, it felt like a heavy block of stone, inert and cold against her thighs. His hair was damp, the soft brown curls matted with mud and smelling of cold iron.

This was not a boy.

It was a thing.

The angles of the face were arranged in a familiar pattern, but the assembly was flawed. Its skin stretched over the cheekbones similar to how a boy's would, but the veins that would be within were absent, no longer filled with the blood that would keep one alive. Its eyes were open, staring blindly at the grey sky, but there was no soul within the irises. The essence that animated the vessel had been scraped out.

It was a marionette with its strings cut. A crude, hollowed-out approximation of Liesel's love discarded in the mud, dressed in a Hufflepuff uniform.

It was an object.

Liesel's fingers travelled up "Cedric's" temples, to its cheekbones, to the bridge of its nose. She felt the softness of its lips; the lips she had kissed many times. She couldn't quite tell if the thing under her fingertips was made of skin or leather. Her caress ended on the end of its chin, where she pressed her thumb against the bone, forcing the jaw wider. The hinge of its mouth resisted her pressure for several long, suffocating seconds before giving way with a sharp, dry pop, like a rusted steel hinge of the castle doors would.

Liesel could only assume that the teeth in its mouth were to be small, square pegs of dry wood, painted a chalky white. They were stained with a dark red sludge that continued deep into the cavity of the mouth.

It was a counterfeit. A crude, wooden prop that had been fitted with his clothes, his hair, and a skin of dried vellum that had been painted to mimic Cedric. It had to be.

Liesel applied a small pressure to its cheek with her fingernails, cracked and stained with the dark mud of the pitch. She scraped against the surface of the skin, her fingers curling, her nails dragging across the wax.

With a dry, tearing sound like old paper being ripped from its binding, the skin split beneath her nails. It peeled away in stiff, dry curls, leaving a gap on its cheek. Beneath the torn skin, there was no blood, no fat, no tissue… Only dried straw and splintered pine, held together by small iron pins.

A hand snapped onto the collar of her drenched button up.

The movement was so sudden, so enigmatic without any muscular tension. The Thing's arm had jerked upward, the shoulder joint grinding up with a splintering crack that sounded like dry twigs snapping underfoot. The fingers were soberingly freezing as they brushed her neck. Before she could draw breath, the jaw clenched, and the puppet spat a hot, dark slurry of blood directly into her eyes and mouth.

Liesel screamed, but the sound was choked back by the bitter, metallic taste filling her throat, sticking to her teeth like grease.

She threw herself backward, her hands gouging the cold mud out of the ground as the Thing released its grip on her.

Before her, the Thing rose to its feet. Cedric's feet.

It did not stand up with the smooth, balanced motion Liesel would see from Cedric on the dueling catwalk, but rather rose in a series of mechanical jerks. Its knees clicked into place as its spine snapped straight. The yellow and black fabric of Cedric's Hufflepuff tracksuit was stiff with dried mud, and hung from its seemingly porcelain limbs in awkward, boxy folds that did not conform to any human shape Liesel had felt from her darling love.

Its face… the loose, painted leather mask with its jagged, open cheek. It remained perfectly still. Even as it moved, its lips did not twitch, nor did the eyebrows knit.

The puppet took a step forward, its boots squishing into the moist earth.

Liesel continued to crawl backward desperately, horrified of the shape before her. In her panic, her boots continuously slipped and left grooves from her tracks. Her chest heaved without control as she let out whistling gasps, "No, please." she whimpered, her voice raw, "Cedric, stop. Cedric!"

The Thing did not hesitate. It closed the distance between them in two wide, disjointed strides. Liesel thrashed as the puppet caught her by the collar of her shirt and hauled her upward. Her fists struck his chest, but her blows made a dull, hollow sound against the tracksuit.

It brought a raised fist down across her jaw.

Liesel felt her tooth slice into her tongue, her own blood mixing with the liquid that already coated her mouth. A sharp white flash assaulted her vision and her head snapped sideways, the muscles of her neck straining until they clicked.

"Cedric!" she begged, choking as she tried to swallow the fluid in her throat, "Cedric, stop!"

The soulless eyes of the puppet in which she was being embraced stared straight through her. It threw her to the ground and its hands found her throat, the fingers pressing into her windpipe until her vision threatened to go dark. It lifted its right fist, and brought it down once again, the blow striking the bridge of her nose. The bone gave away, crunching and echoing within her head and mind. One physically, and one mentally.

Liesel's head fell numbly back onto the grass, completely dazed. She looked toward the stands, expecting to see the professors rushing over, expecting Snape or McGonagall to draw their wands and end the nightmare.

But the stands were silent. Hundreds of students sat in the wooden tiers, their faces ashen and devoid of any human expression. Their eyes were fixed on her, but no one moved. No one breathed. They stood with their hands at their sides, watching her get torn apart in the mud by a doll wearing her dead lover's clothes. Even Amos Diggory stood mere feet away from them, his cries now absent.

The Thing reached down, grasping the curls at the back of her head, and hauled her upward. The strain on her scalp made her eyes water, her knees dragging through the slush as she tried to find her footing. When she looked into his face, she felt her stomach turn with a dread she had never felt before.

The eyes had gone completely black. The orbs that were once a million colors, so full of life, had melted into pools of solid black. Beneath the leather skin of its neck and jaw, thick black veins were spreading like mold on a cellar wall, pulsing with a slow life of their own that had nothing to do with blood.

A whimper forced itself out of her throat.

Cedric leaned in, "Take me, Liesel."

Liesel was stupid enough to forget everything before. For just a moment, it was Cedric. And she faltered.

Its mouth pressed against hers, but there was no warmth, no memory of their quiet night in the room of the requirement, no kisses between card tricks. These lips were dry and cold, as if they had never seen the sun.

As it kissed her, a thick, freezing black smoke began to leak from its lips. It slid down her throat viciously, coating her lungs like charcoal. Her ribs felt as if they were collapsing inward, the dark smoke writing inside her chest. It was eating her from the inside out, and she couldn't breathe. She couldn't scream.

Liesel shoved hard against the Thing's chest.

She snapped upward, her spine rigid, her lungs pulling in a frantic gasp of hair that rattled through her teeth.

Her hands thrashed against the heavy green velvet of her bed hangings, tearing them back until the watery light of the dormitory flooded her vision. Her nightgown was soaked with sweat, the silk sticking to the small of her back like wet leaves would a boot.

Liesel sat on the edge of the mattress, her knuckles white as she gripped the wooden frame of her bed to ground herself. Her throat was raw, the metallic taste still lingering on the back of her tongue, so real she spit into a tissue to ensure there was no blood in her mouth.

The room was silent.

The four-poster beds of Pansy, Daphne, Millicent, and Tracy were empty, the blankets pulled straight, the air smelling of Pansy's honey perfume. They had already gone down to the Great Hall for breakfast.

Liesel sat in the quiet for ten minutes, her fingers tracing the green ribbon on her wrist, her body shaking so hard her teeth clicked together in the chill of the dungeons. She let the tears come, silent and hot, soaking into the silk of her nightgown until the panic in her chest began to recede, leaving behind only the familiar cold void.

She had grown used to the nightmares. They were her baseline. But this one in particular left Liesel silently reeling.

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Liesel emerged into Central Hall. The castle was awake. The crisp draft of the November morning slipped through the massive oak doors as she made her way through the labyrinth of a castle.

When she entered the Great Hall, the warmth embraced her after the chill of her nightmares. The enchanted ceiling above mirrored a slate grey sky, bruised with the promise of impending snow, but the hall itself was a basin of golden light. The smell of breakfast was thick: melting butter, charred toast, baked apples, and the floral nature of Earl Grey tea. Her chin tilted at the precise aristocratic angle she had practiced since she was a small child, a gesture that had become helpful since the start of her nightmares. She found it imperative to not let the nightmares show. The constant murmur of laughter, however obnoxiously loud it got from the Gryffindor table, and the clatter of silverware was a comforting sound that anchored her to the present.

Pansy Parkinson sat in their usual spot, leaning up towards the table, engaging Blaise in some serious conversation. A conversation Liesel could only assume was about some girl's new shoes. Draco sat beside Pansy, a slight gap between the two, gazing into the reflective surface of his goblet and fussing about with his platinum hair. And Daphne, in classic Greengrass fashion, lay horizontal on the bench, resting her head on Blaise's lap with her eyes closed.

As Liesel walked toward the table of familiar faces, a figure rose from the benches and started in her direction. Theodore Nott. Upon seeing her, he did a double take, seemingly analyzing the girl's face.

"Owwibandewr" Theodore spat as she passed, his face twisting into a sneer. A slurred version of her surname passed his lips.

Liesel nodded at him, brows furrowed in confusion at his tone, but she quickly decided that she didn't care what he was on about, "...Nott."

She reached the middle benches and slid into the empty space between Pansy and Draco, right where she belonged, "Good morning."

"You missed the first batch, darling," Pansy said, her tone light and teasing, though he reached out with her thumb and pinky, having gotten jam on her pointer finger, and adjusted the collar of her cousin's cloak.

"Why didn't you wake me?" Liesel's voice was low and raspy, as if she had spent the night swallowing sand. She reached for the silver tongs, lifting a small cube of white sugar and dropping it into the cup of tea Blaise had poured for her.

"You were sleeping like a wee babe," Pansy hummed with a hint of her mother's accent, tucking her hair behind her ear and not even bothering to make eye contact as she finished putting jam onto her toast, "Truly. Usually you're bright eyed by six, but when I woke up and saw you were dead to the world, I figured you were a lost cause."

Across beside Liesel, Draco let out a low, disgruntled groan as he shifted his weight on the wooden bench, slamming the goblet down. His jaw was still stiff, the bruise along his cheekbone having turned a sickly yellow at the edges. However, the swelling had gone down considerably, and Liesel had thought he would be glad. He hunched over his plate, his fingers idly tracing the silver handle of his fork, his shoulder drawn up as if to shield his face from the rest of the hall.

"Did Madame Pomfrey give you anything for the inflammation?" Liesel asked politely keeping her voice low.

Draco glared at his plate. "A foul paste that smells of cabbage. I wiped it off the moment I left the hospital wing."

"Why?"

"Because I refuse to walk around smelling like a compost bin, Ollivander. Do keep up."

Liesel caught herself chuckling lightly under her breath at Draco's response, which he clearly did not appreciate.

"Potter and those Weasleys should have been expelled," he hissed, his grey eyes flashing with a bitter anger, "They attacked me on the pitch in front of the whole school. And what does McGonagall do? Nothing! It's a joke. If the administration had a shred of spine, they would be sitting in a cell in London, rotting."

Pansy cut in, "They banned Potter and George Weasley from Quidditch, Draco. I think that's punishment enough."

"They wouldn't be expelled anyhow," Blaise Zabini murmured from across the table, his dark fingers idly spinning a bruised green apple on the wood of the table. His eyes were fixed on the fruit, his expression guarded as usual.

Liesel didn't join in on the conversation. Rather, she poured herself a glass of still water, desperate for an excuse to not speak until her tea cooled. The grumpiness of Draco was typical. So normal, so human. Just as the nightmares had blended into normalcy, so did Draco's spite toward Potter. But right now, perhaps joining in on talking about Harry was not the best idea for Liesel. She lifted the small crystal glass to her lips and took a slow, deep drink.

Dolores Umbridge had just entered through grand doors of the hall, her shoulders pressed back and proud. Liesel's eyes landed on her instantly, her hand freezing while the cup was still resting on her lips. Umbridge began her walk down the center aisle between the tables. Her short, squat frame was wrapped in the fuzzy pink wool cardigan that made Liesel want to chew her up and spit her out like a piece of bubblegum. Her small eyes scanned the students with a satisfaction of her control.

Liesel watched her. She continued watching her as she made her way toward the front of the room. In fact, Liesel found herself unable to look away.

The detentions had ended a week ago, but the ache in Liesel's hand had not ceased, and neither did the anger she felt looking at the wolf in sheep's clothing. There was something profoundly wrong with the woman. Only someone deeply evil could punish children in the way she did. In the way she punished her and Harry. And Fred and George. And countless others.

Umbridge pulled out the heavy wooden chair beside Professor McGonagall. Liesel watched her sit, arranging her pink skirt with fussy pats. Her hands folded neatly on the tabletop, a picture of perfect decorum.

"Liesel?!"

Pansy's voice was suddenly sharp, stripped of its previous humor.

Liesel's head snapped back to the girl beside her, away from the toad at the front table.

"Are you bleeding?!" Her voice raised an octave as she whispered sharply. Her small pointed face had gone ashen, her nostrils flaring. Her gaze was not connected with Liesel's eyes, though. They were looking further down… at the crimson liquid in Liesel's glass.

From the very top of the glass, a thick, dark red thread was twisting and swirling through the water in oily spirals that resembled a smoky snake. It did not dilute; the red remained dense and cohesive, spreading outward in blooms until the entire liquid was drained of its transparency.

Liesel stared at the glass, her brow furrowing. Her throat felt dry, the iron of the water still coating her tongue, "Wh-"

"Merlin, your teeth!" Pansy gasped, her hand coming up to cover her own mouth, "They're covered in blood!"

Liesel raised her left hand, her fingers brushing her front teeth. When she drew her hand back, the tips of her fingers were covered in a layer of blood. It clung to the fine lines of her skin, and her heart began thudding against her ribs. The nightmare came rushing back into the forefront of her mind. The crushing emptiness of the boy before her, the blood he had spat at her… She wanted a logical explanation, but the only true theory she had was utterly unfathomable.

The scene had garnered the attention of the brooding Draco Malfoy on the other side of Liesel's seat. He grabbed her shoulder and whipped her around to fully face his body.

He drew his wand from his pocket fluidly. He didn't look at the other tables, nor did he look toward the High Table. The boy stood up, his monogrammed handkerchief in his off-hand, which he used to take her by the chin.

"Look at me," Draco commanded, his voice dropping into a low, authoritative whisper.

Liesel hesitated for a moment, the sudden attention on her overwhelming every bit of her senses. She knew surrounding eyes were landing on her, as the Slytherins known for their nonchalance panicked over something as little as coloured water.

"Open," he murmured.

Liesel parted her lips, her throat tightening as all she wanted was to get it over with.

"Lumos," Draco commanded.

The blue-white light erupted from the tip of his wand, casting a cold glare across her mouth. The light was so bright it made Liesel's eyes water, the grey clouds of the enchanted ceiling dissolving into a watery blur of grey and silver. Draco leaned closer, his brow furrowing, his eyes scanning her gums, her tongue, and the back of her throat. He remained perfectly still through his focus, his breathing slow and shallow against her cheek.

"Hm," Draco huffed, almost disappointed that he didn't have anything to fuss over, "Nothing. Nox."

The light of his wand extinguished and placed it on the surface of the table. Liesel shoved the hand gripped onto her jaw away, ripping the handkerchief out of his hands. Draco withdrew his hand, his thumb rubbing his chin where his own jaw was still sore from the fight.

"I must've done something when I had a nightmare. Bit my tongue and the blood… pooled." Liesel pressed the white napkin to her lips, spitting a dark, heavy glob of the fluid into the cloth. The linen drank it greedily, a bright circle of red spreading across the fabric like ink in milk.

"Pooled?"

"I am fine, Draco! …És ne nyúlj hozzám többé így.." Draco threw his hands up in a sarcastic surrender, "Akkor halj meg."

At this point, the frenzy and snapping in a foreign tongue had even awoken Daphne, who sat up and watched the action with raised eyebrows. Liesel stood up and twisted her legs across over the height of the bench. Without another word, she marched off.

The others remained seated and watched her retreat… her fleeing. The ambient chatter of the Great Hall began to falter, following her path like a trailing shadow.

Little did Liesel know, her friends watched as she marched out of the Great Hall to clean herself up, and each and every glass or pitcher full of clear water began to undergo an instantaneous mutation, curdling at her presence. Instead of leaking in from the top, the billows of red conjured itself from the bottom of the class, seemingly out of nowhere.

A second-year girl shrieked, knocking her own glass backward. The liquid spilled, soaking into the table runner, stain of crimson spreading. Another student raised a glass to his lips, only to freeze, his face twisting in repulsion as the water within transformed the moment Liesel passed his bench. Murmurs began to ripple across the table.

But they remained silent.

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The descent into the dungeons of the castle harbored a stagnant air filled with crushed limestone and mildew that could unnerve even the most experienced of Slytherins. Yet, as Liesel navigated the concave, worn steps, a slight comfort settled over her. She had walked these halls endlessly, often seeking comfort in her friends or the close paternal relationship she had with Professor Snape. The entity that was the dungeons kept her far away from the embarrassment and rage she had felt this year, far away from the blood-stained water in the Great Hall.

Liesel stepped into the Potions classroom, joining the flurry of other students entering and getting seated with their friends.

Professor Snape stood at the front of the room, a singular dark monolith towering in front of the chalkboard. He did not turn as the students shuffled into the room, their footsteps muted by the already-boiling cauldrons at the workspaces. The scrape of his chalk against the blackboard was a deliberate, teeth-clenching screech that commanded silence.

The Draught of Frenzy.

When Snape finally faced them, his dark eyes swept over the room, analyzing each individual student as if he was viewing the jars of specimens towered at the walls. His gaze lingered for a fraction of a second on Liesel, taking in the rigid set of her posture, and the pale bloodless quality of her cheeks.

"You will find," Snape began, his voice characteristically nasally and bored, "that the human nervous system is an exceptionally fragile apparatus. When subjected to extreme emotional volatility, magic does not remain docile. Quite the contrary. It projects." He stepped away from the slate of chalk, his boots making a sharp click against the stone. "In untrained minds, this volatility manifests as spontaneous telekinesis, incendiary explosions, or seizure-like tremors known to Muggles as epilepsy. The Draught of Frenzy is designed to suppress this malfunction."

He gestured with a long, sallow finger toward the preparation tables flanking the walls, where the ingredients had been laid out in orderly rows alongside the cauldrons.

"You will utilize dried liquorice root, weeping willow bark, and crushed sage to dull the nervous impulses. These will be tempered with ground fennel seeds. raw ginger, cloves, cinnamon, and dried petals of white roses." Snape droned on, pacing between the front desks, "To bind the concoction, you will require the properties of dragon's blood, grated mandrake root, and three types of peppercorns: black, white, and red cayenne."

As Snape moved, his long robes swept the stone floor with a soft, rustling sound like dry leaves. Neville Longbottom's eyes shot straight to the floor the moment the Professor stopped directly before him.

"Mr. Longbottom, can you tell me what must be done to anchor the sedative to the bloodstream?"

Neville whimpered, "Cormorant blood?"

"Correct." Professor Snape huffed, mildly satisfied that Neville successfully answered the question, but didn't stop there with his academic interrogation, "Why…?

Neville did not have an answer. All he could find within himself was an anxious shuffle of his feet and a series of: Er… Uh… Well…

"Mr. Malfoy?"

Draco answered the question with ease, "Cormorants use physiological vasoconstriction to preserve oxygen in their blood, providing higher oxygen levels to bind the sedative."

"Correct." Snape said, still staring daggers at Neville Longbottom, his lip slightly curling in disdain.

"This is a highly temperamental, unstable mixture. Therefore, I have randomized pairs to ensure there are no… distractions during a preparation of this gravity," He drawled, his voice cadenced and unhurried as usual as he drew a long roll of parchment from his sleeve. He began to read the pairings, his voice dry in the chill of the room, "Malfoy, with Granger. Cauldron four."

Draco's face fell into what Liesel could only describe as a masterpiece of revulsion. His upper lip twitched, but he gathered his satchel without a word, walking to the workstation without another word. Across the room, Granger's spine snapped rigidly straight, her jaw locked tight.

"Parkinson. Longbottom. Cauldron eight."

Neville Longbottom looked thoroughly horrified, as if his legs were about to turn into liquid. Pansy merely sighed delicately, filled with her poor suffering, and pushed herself off of the table she was leaning on.

"Ollivander. Potter. Cauldron seven."

Liesel did not look around immediately, but she could heart the soft, hesitant thud of Harry's boots on the stone floor as he crossed the room. As she moved toward the fourth workbench and into the boy's proximity, she could feel the heat from Harry's body, like a stoked furnace. The wool of his Gryffindor robes brushed against her wrist as he reached to prepare the brass scale before them.

The stood side-by-side before cauldron seven, their elbows nearly touching as they began to organize their tools. Professor Snape's further assignments drained out of Liesel's awareness. Across the aisle, Pansy was reluctantly dragging her stool to sit beside Neville. As Liesel glanced at her, Pansy dropped one dark eyelid in a slow, exaggerated, theatrical wink, her mouth twitching with conspiratorial amusement.

A shape inhale sounded from behind Liesel, and when she turned, she saw Harry staring down at the ingredients with a visibly tightened jaw.

"Did you tell her?" Harry muttered under his breath. His voice was low. Rough as it hardly rose above the bubbling of the cauldrons around them. He reached for the bundle of dried sage, his fingers brushing against the bristly twine holding it together.

Liesel nodded, grabbing the ginger root and a silver paring knife from her satchel. She pressed the blade into the fibrous skin of the root, the steel making a sharp clack against the wooden cutting board.

"I might've mentioned a detail or two," she murmured back, her lips hardly moving.

Harry paused. He turned his head, his green eyes catching the dim light. The corner of his mouth twitched upward, fighting a smile. "Brilliant. How long until it's announced for all to hear?"

"Pansy won't tell anyone," Liesel replied softly, her voice carrying a certainty Harry hadn't expected. Upon finishing the preparation of the ginger root, she moved on to gathering herbs to crush. She tucked the flyaways of her braids behind her ear.

Harry let out a quiet scoff, "Right. She's famously tight-lipped, that one." He leaned closer, the proximity between them deliberate and surprisingly smooth for the boy who never quite knew how to talk to women outside of Hermione. He lowered his head, his dark hair falling slightly into his eyes, "And what about my secrets? Did you tell her those, too?"

Liesel stopped gathering the herbs as her cheeks filled with a massive replacement of blood that she had lost earlier. The space between them had shrank to a handful of inches and her heart skipped a few beats. She turned to look at him, seeing his uneven pulse beating at the base of this throat, her own throat catching, "Er... Did you tell Granger and Weasley?"

"Didn't have to," Harry said, reaching in front of Liesel to place the unravelled sage aside and throwing the ginger root she had prepared into the brew, "They already knew. Hermione said I've been entirely too agreeable lately. My 'lack of brooding' was dropping hints, I suppose."

"Oh, wonderful," Liesel replied, her tone flat, though the corner of her mouth ticked upward, "We are the worst secret-keepers in the castle."

"We're terrible at it," Harry agreed.

As the two students fell into a rhythm of chopping, crushing, stirring, the elbows brushing and small looks stolen, Liesel couldn't help but find the process oddly domestic. Around them, the classroom filled with onlookers, judges, and a dark figure patrolling the tables, the only thing in the forefront of Liesel's mind was the rising steam of their cauldron and the boy beside her. The horror of the morning, the puppet with Cedric's face, the corrupted water, all slowed in his presence.

They worked in tandem. Slice. Crush. Measure. Stir.

"Your technique is appalling, Potter," Liesel spoke just loud enough for the surrounding tables to hear, though a warm smile spread across her lips, "Don't pour it all at once."

Beside her, Harry was handling the vial of cormorant blood above the cauldron. Liesel leaned closer until her shoulder pressed against his, "If you drop the temperature of the water too quickly, the mandrake with calcify. Use the glass pipette. Drop by drop."

Harry returned her smile, but tried to hide it by biting his lips. The exhaustion that usually bruised the skin beneath his glasses seemed to lift, "Yes, Professor." He took the pipette, bracing his wrist against the edge of the table as he drew up liquid from the vial.

The space between them had shrunk into something that should almost bring shame. A negligible distance, however, that those around them would hopefully ignore in their own pursuit of brewing the draught. The steam from the cauldron rose around their faces, creating a veil of cinnamon and rushed roses. Liesel felt as if this scent intoxicated her, checking the corner of her eyes often, watching the spectacles on Harry's face slip and him scrunch his nose to push them back up while his hands were busy. She felt her breath hitch, her fingers loosening their grip on the silver stirring rod and she leaned an inch closer.

The steady cadence of his breathing drew her in. When Harry noticed her glances, he turned to her, his lips stretching into the silly grin she had been given on the quidditch pitch after he caught the snitch.

Liesel wanted to kiss him again. To feel his lips on hers, to have the rush of air flow through her lungs in pleasure. She wanted the magic inside of her to bond with him one again. But she knew she couldn't, not in this classroom… but she knew where they could be together in private.

"Harry," she whispered, "Are you free aft-"

A sharp blow slammed into Liesel's left shoulder, while a similar, invisible force struck Harry's chest.

They were violently shoved apart, Liesel tripping into the stool behind her, scraping loudly against the stone flooring as they were forced to opposite ends of the wooden desk, leaving a cold, empty gap of four feet between them. The emerald steam from their cauldron twisted in response to the magical pulse, swirling into a frantic spiral before settling back into its slow simmer. Harry's glasses were knocked to the bottom of his nose in the push, but still remained on his feet unlike Liesel, who sat on the floor with one knee over the leg of her stool.

"Liesel-" Harry began, pushing his glasses up back onto his nose.

He held out his hand to help Liesel up, but was interrupted.

Hem, hem.

Harry and Liesel looked toward the door of the classroom to see Professor Umbridge pointing her nubby wand toward the two of them. She held her clipboard tightly against her chest and took three daintily measured steps into the classroom, her kitten heels clacking loudly against the floor. Her pink tweed robes were exceptionally bright, though Liesel couldn't find it in herself to judge these new threads. At least it was wizarding clothing, and not the Muggle business casual she offended everyone's eyes with daily.

"Keep your distance, children," She instructed in her obnoxiously screeching tone.

Nonetheless, Harry reached down to help his partner to her feet. However, Liesel shook her head, "It's alright." She pushed herself up, bringing the stool along with her.

"To what do owe the… honor… of this unscheduled interruption, High Inquisitor?" Snape drawled from his place between the rows side-eyeing Liesel to make sure she stood up alright before turning his attention back to the woman, his black robes swishing behind him.

"Just observing, Professor Snape," Umbridge chirped, "The Ministry has been receiving conflicting reports about the curriculum. We are merely here to ensure that the instruction remains focused on practical, Ministry-approved standards."

"The Draught if Frenzy is a standard fifth-year potion, I assure you," Snape replied, his face perfectly expressionless, but anyone with a heart (which Umbridge appeared not to have) could tell that he was about ready to hex the woman before him, "It has been part of wizarding syllabi for centuries."

"Indeed. However, its origins lie in a Muggle recipe, correct?"

"It is a derivative of St. Paul's potion."

"And… what is the difference between the two?"

Snape's eyebrow cocked up, "… This one works."

Umbridge let out a thoughtful squeak and nodded, taking a note of nothing noteworthy on her clipboard before strolling down the aisle between workstations, analyzing the cauldrons, the students, the brew, anything that she could take and snitch to the Ministry with. She stopped beside Harry and Liesel's desk. Her tiny eyes, devoid of any human warmth, took in Liesel's face, the twitching lip, the bloody ribbon on her wrist, the scar in the shape of I must not do harm on her wrist. She then moved onto Harry, whose eyes were filled with the brooding that he had mentioned earlier. He stared at the professor with such distain, some that Liesel wasn't sure she'd seen before. Almost as if Voldemort was there, wearing Umbridge's face like the puppet in her nightmare.

"An interesting arrangement, Severus," Umbridge mused, her voice dripping with poison as she looked back over her shoulder at the Potions Master. She did not address Liesel directly, but spoke of her as if she were a hazard, an object, "One would think the partnership of two students that have seen my office for detention are to be placed with students of ideal values. No?"

Liesel's jaw clenched so hard she feared her teeth may crack. Across the gap, Harry's knuckles had turned bone-white where he he gripped his own palm.

Snape did not move from his spot. His hands remained folded inside the long sleeves of his robes, his expression unyielding, "Miss Ollivander is one of my most capable brewers, Dolores," Snape said, his words clearly measured, "And Mr. Potter requires strict supervision, of which she will provide. I assure you, the classroom is entirely secure under my direction."

Umbridge turned her head back toward Harry, her small smile widening until he teeth showed: small, square, and yellowed against her pink lip. It looked like a mockery of a human smile, which almost made Liesel believe her puppet theory, "Let us hope so, Professor," she sang softly, her dry eyes locking onto the faint scar on Harry's forehead.

She let the silence hang for three long, agonizing seconds, allowing the silent threat to settle over the room. Then, with a sharp dismissive flick of her wrist, she placed her free hand onto the back of her clipboard. She turned on her heel and marched back toward the doorway, vanishing into the dark corridor, leaving the heavy oak door open behind her.

Harry's eyes fell on Liesel, who bashfully continued to hold the place in which Umbridge pushed her to. She didn't bother to move closer, or to glance at Harry one more time.

"Liesel, are you alright?"

Liesel nodded, the bittersweetness of the moment overwhelming her. The vision of counterfeit Cedric filling her mind's eye, haunting her through the discomfort of Umbridge's cruel smile. Not only was her heart shattering within her chest, but the thought of everyone's eyes on them, of their very public example of breaking the rule of proximity… Liesel Ollivander and Harry Potter, so close that the High Inquisitor needed to push them apart… It utterly flustered her, "I'm fine. I- erm… Let's finish this draught, shall we?"

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

Harry stood at the edge of the Defensive Magic stacks of books, deep in the library. His shoulder continued to throb with a dull residual ache from the battle with the Hungarian Horntail a week prior. His hands were shoved deep into the pockets of his corduroy trousers, the worn fabric heating up, almost boiling the sweat of his palms. He dragged in a breath, full of dust from the centuries-old books.

He peered around the edge of a towering bookshelf, his eyes canning the secluded corner tables until they landed on her.

Liesel Ollivander sat bathed in a pool of golden light from the afternoon sun pouring through the tall windows.

She looked nothing like the hollow, waxen girl who would later stand over a simmering cauldron in the dungeons. This Liesel seemed as if flowers would bloom where she walked, that a simple hum would lull Harry to sleep. Her skin held a soft blush from the hearth fire nearby, and a few curls fell before her face that had escaped the braid along her back, held together with a single emerald ribbon. She was leaning over a sprawling roll of cream-colored parchment, her slender fingers guiding a quill across the page.

The two had agreed to meet in the library after classes to study their defensive spellwork closer. Harry had agreed to it, absolutely sure that the next task would somehow need to top a dragon. It was imperative that he find a way to not die, and Liesel, the dueling champion, was like an angel in disguise to him. A Slytherin, a friend of Malfoy's, somehow found it in her heart to help him survive, for however long that would last.

Harry's chest tightened as a strange, fluttering pressure expanded against his ribs. He had paced the corridor outside for twenty minutes, rehearsing this exact moment. He had constructed the entire script in his mind… a casual, witty, and effortlessly confident greeting. That's what girls liked, right? He would lean against the bookshelf. He would smile. He would ask the question before his nerve failed him.

He stepped out from the stacks, his worn trainers scuffing softly against the woven carpet. The sound was microscopic in the vast cavern of the library, yet it echoed in his own ears. How utterly embarrassing. Harry James Potter, the Boy Who Lived, could not go one step without stumbling. He soldiered on.

He stopped at the edge of her table, and the researced words instantly evaporated from his brain. His fingers began to tap a frantic cadence against his thigh, a drum beat he couldn't quite shake.

Harry cleared his throat, catching on the dry lining of his windpipe.

"Uh… busy?" he asked. Lame.

He instantly wanted to retract the question, feeling his cheeks flood with a treacherous, prickling heat.

Liesel paused, the brass nib of her quill hovering a fraction of an inch above the parchment. She lifted her head, pulling the silk ribbon of her braid over her shoulder. Her eyes met his and her mouth immediately curved upward. Harry found it brilliant, how something as small as a smile could completely transform her aristocratic features devastatingly warm… inviting. Those she kept in her company were not so lucky as to have that power. Daresay, no woman was as lucky as her to be so striking, though Harry was a bit biased.

"Never too busy for Harry Potter," Liesel murmured, equally as scared of being told to shush as Hermione.

She set her quill into his crystal inkstand with a deliberate clink. She leaned her chin into the palm of her hand, resting her elbow on the open page of the dueling compendium, and gave him her complete undivided attention.

Harry swallowed. The softened wideness of her eyes made the fluttering pressure in his chest climb upward, lodging itself firmly in his throat. Her eyes were not quite as green as his-- more mossy than the jade of Lily Potter. But the way he could get lost in them, make shapes out of the dark specks surrounding the pupil, watch the edges of her eyes crinkle when she laughed at his lack of defensive skills…

He shifted his weight, the soles of his trainers scraping against the carpet once again.

Liesel's smile faded into a look of concern, Her gaze flickered over the rigid set of his shoulders, the jumping of his pulse in his neck, the ink-stained fingers drumming against his leg.

"You seem quite troubled, Harry." she observed gently, "How are things going with the golden egg? Have you figured it out yet?"

Harry rubbed the back of his neck, his fingers tangling in the messy dark hair above his collar. The egg. The shrieking Easter decoration. The metallic nightmare currently sitting in his trunk. To be entirely honest, Harry knew this token weighted heavily on his shoulders, yet in this exact second, standing in the attentive gaze of Liesel Ollivander with a question he cannot quite blurt out, the Triwizard Tournament felt irrelevant.

"No," Harry admitted, letting out a half-hearted chuckle that sounded thin and breathy. He dropped his hand, letting it fall back to his side. "But that's a problem for another day."

He braced his shoulders, dragging in another lungful of the ancient air of the library. It was now or never. Bite the bullet. The worst she could say is no, right?

"My current problem is the Yule Ball," Harry blurted out, "See, I, er--" He stumbled, his tongue tripping over the syllables. He forced himself to maintain eye contact, locking onto the centers of her irises, and the shapes within, "I was sort of hoping… you'd go with me?"

He stopped breathing as Liesel's hand fell to the table and she leaned back in her chair, her eyebrows shooting up. His lungs seized, locking the air inside his chest as he waited. The silence that stretched between them felt elastic, going on forever and ever, pulling tighter and tighter until it threatened to snap.

"-- Unless you're already going with Blaise!" Harry added quickly, his voice pitching upward in a desperate rush, "Or Malfoy. Which is fine! Totally fine…"

His voice cracked slightly on the last word, the adolescent squeak echoing mortifyingly in the quiet of the library. He shoved both hands back into his pockets, as if he wanted to shrink away from the embarrassment.

Liesel did not laugh. She did not sneer. She did not recoil. She didn't do any of the things that Harry expected from a girl, which slightly gave him hope.

However, the brilliant, warm smile on her lips faded. Her dark eyebrows knitted together, a small crease forming between them as she looked up at him. Her hand travelled to the shaft of her quill, her slender fingers tracing the smooth metal, the movement quaint, nervous, and out of character for the all-confident Liesel Ollivander.

"Harry," Liesel began softly, "That is a very sweet offer. Truly."

She paused. Her gaze dropped to the diagrams on a book thrown to her side, her long eyelashes casting delicate shadows across the freckles on her cheekbones.

"But… Cedric Diggory asked me last week, after the duel. And I promised him I would go."

The name hit Harry's stomach like a bludger.

Cedric Diggory.

The fluttering anticipation in his chest died instantly, replaced by a sickening plunge.

Of course, the real Hogwarts Champion. The boy who was older, taller, universally liked. Of course Cedric had asked her. Anyone in the right mind would see what was right in front of them. She was funny, confident, intelligent… And of course she said yes. Who wouldn't say yes to Cedric Diggory? Practically every girl in the school was searching alchemy catalogues for love potions to get him to fall hopelessly in love with them, Harry was sure of it.

Harry stared at her, his jaw locking tight. The feeling was not quite the shock of rejection that he had expected, as the genuine distress pinching at the corners of Liesel's eyes-- nearly the same as the crinkle of her smile, but not exactly-- simply fizzled his anger into a dull ache of his own inadequacy.

He swallowed hard, forcing the dry lump down his throat.

"Ah, Diggory," Harry managed. His voice sounded thin, stripped of its previous breathless hope, however foolish it was. He gave a short, jerky nod, forcing his gaze to remain steady on hers and forced a sickly smile, "Yeah. He's… he's a great bloke. I get it."

Liesel watched the fake smile settle onto his features. Her hands tilled on the desk, "If he hadn't, you know…" Liesel trailed off.

"Right…" Harry breathed. What he had really meant was 'Yeah Right', but he didn't want to loose the little bit of Liesel he did have left. Maybe she would change her mind. There's still time.

Harry looked at her. He looked at the soft curve of her jaw, the slope of her shoulders. Back to her eyes, still wide and soft, whatever guilt remained in them. The sting of the rejection remained, but the humiliation slowly bled away the more he thought about it. Cedric was a good guy. Liesel seemed happy. At least she hadn't decided to go with Malfoy, the git. He pushed the jealousy down, trying his best to just be happy for her. Through all of the difficult emotions Harry was trying to process, rejection was one he was used to… but the warmth of Liesel, the pure human adoration he felt between the two of them… He didn't quite know how to name it.

Love? Harry didn't know what love was, so how could he call this love?

He knew it wasn't the camaraderie he felt with Hermione and Ron. It was something he had yet to discover.

Would the discovery happen in his lifetime? Who knows.

Harry could not think of a single thing to say. Instead, he sat down in front of Liesel and pulled a book in front of him.

Liesel smiled at him. And Harry smiled back.

He'd take whatever version of Liesel he could get. Even of it was the one taken by Cedric Diggory. (a/n: sorry for the long wait for this upload! i've been doing a lot of experimentation with my writing, hoping to elevate the horror element of this fic and perfecting upcoming chapters :) i'm incredibly super proud of how my writing has improved with this chapter even tho it lowkey kicked my ass. i hope you enjoyed!

She pushed off the wall and continued her descent. She smoothed the front of her uniform, adjusting her collar, running a hand over the elaborate braids Luna had woven into her hair earlier that evening. They felt loose, a few strands having escaped their strict pattern during the quiet, breathless moments in the secret room. She didn't bother fixing them. She liked the tactile reminder of the messiness of the evening.

Liesel reached the blank stretch of stone wall that concealed the entrance to the Slytherin common room. She murmured the password, her voice a low, raspy whisper that barely disturbed the silence of the corridor. The stone ground inward, revealing the wooden door to the spiraling staircase down.

The common room was submerged in the characteristic, wavering green light that filtered through the high glass windows looking out into the Black Lake. The great fireplace had burned down to a pile of grey ash and a few stubborn, green embers that offered no real illumination. Liesel stepped through the threshold, expecting the room to be empty.

She stopped dead at the bottom of the stairs.

Pansy Parkinson was pacing the length of the room, her small, pointed shoes making a sharp, frantic click against the exposed stone bordering the carpet. Her arms were wrapped tightly around her chest, her silk dressing gown that matched Liesel’s and every other Slytherin girls’ pulled close, her dark hair slightly disheveled. Sitting in one of the high-backed leather armchairs near the dead fire was Draco Malfoy. He was leaning forward, his elbows resting on his knees, his long fingers steepled together, his grey eyes staring blankly at the ashes.

"We should just go to Snape, Draco," Pansy was saying, her voice a frantic, hissing whisper that carried easily through the quiet room. "It’s past three. She hasn't been in the dormitory since dinner. If she made a dumb decision-"

"It's nothing, Pansy," Draco interrupted, his tone flat, exhausted, lacking its usual arrogant edge. "She’s probably just hiding out in the library or one of the empty classrooms. You know how she gets. Going to Snape is just going to make a scene."

"A scene? She’s losing her mind, Draco, and you're just sitting there–"

Pansy turned on her heel to continue her circuit and froze. Her dark eyes collided with Liesel standing quietly by the entrance. Her mouth opened, but the words evaporated.

Draco looked up instantly, his hands dropping from his face. The exhaustion vanished, replaced by a sudden, rigid attention. For a long, stretched moment, nobody moved. The green light rippled across the floor, illuminating the stark shock on Pansy’s face.

"Where have you been?" Pansy finally burst out, her whisper rising into a sharp accusation as she closed the distance between them in four rapid strides.

Liesel stayed exactly where she was, her hands slipping back into her pockets, the gentle warmth of the Room of Requirement beginning to cool rapidly. "Out," she said softly, keeping her voice level, hoping to project a calm she suddenly did not feel. "I couldn't sleep."

Pansy stopped a few feet away, her chest heaving under her silk gown. Her eyes ran over Liesel with a frantic, scanning intensity, searching for tears, for bruises, for any sign of the breakdown they had clearly been anticipating. But as she looked closer, the tight lines of worry on Pansy’s face began to shift. The anxiety melted, replaced by a clear curiosity that almost made Liesel feel heavily examined. This is not the position anyone wanted to be in, under a Parkinson’s cruel, calculating gaze.

The green light from the lake caught the side of Liesel’s face. Pansy’s eyes locked onto the loose hair, the two braids that were weaved into her scalp rather than the single one she’d sported all day. Even with the new hairdo, curls were falling out at every angle. She noticed the slight flush on Liesel’s cheeks, a color that obviously had nothing to do with the damp cold of the dungeons. She noticed the way Liesel’s collar was slightly crooked.

Pansy’s jaw dropped. A slow, knowing smile spread across her face, completely transforming her demeanor. She stepped closer, her eyes glittering.

"Oh," Pansy breathed, her voice dropping into a conspiratorial register. "Oh, look at you."

Draco stood up from his chair, his interest piqued by the sudden change in Pansy’s tone. He walked over, his steps silent on the rug, his eyes narrowing as he studied Liesel’s face. "What is it?"

"She wasn't crying in a broom closet, Draco," Pansy said, her smile widening into something almost wicked. She reached out, her fingers hovering near Liesel’s almost unraveled braid. "Look at her hair. Look at her lips. Who is the lucky guy, Ollivander?"

Liesel slapped Pansy’s hand away with a quick, defensive flick of her wrist. The warmth in her chest vanished entirely, replaced by a cold, defensive stone. "It’s nothing," she said, her voice hardening. "Leave me alone, Pansy."

"Don't lie to me," Pansy insisted, stepping into her path, refusing to let her pass toward the girls' dormitories. "You’ve been gone for hours. You look like you’ve just been thoroughly kissed. Who is he, dear? Oh, Daphne will riot when she hears."

Draco stopped next to Pansy, his gaze tracking the flush on Liesel’s neck. A strange, unreadable expression passed over his face: a mix of surprise and something Liesel could almost detect as being protective, but bordered on jealousy. "Come on, Ollivander. If you’re sneaking around the castle at three in the morning with someone, we have a right to know. Especially with everything going on."

"I told you, it’s nothing," Liesel repeated, her voice dropping a fraction, trying to freeze them out. "I went for a walk. The wind messed up my hair. Move out of the way, Pansy. I want to go to bed."

"The wind?" Pansy’s tone began to lose its playful, gossipy edge, the underlying anxiety returning with an ugly force. She grabbed Liesel’s sleeve, her fingers digging into the fabric of the cloak. "Do you think I’m stupid? We’ve been sitting here for three hours, Liesel. Three! hours!"

Liesel tried to pull her arm away, but Pansy held fast. "Pansy, let go of me. I don't need a prefect right now."

"I am your prefect!" Pansy shouted, her voice finally breaking through the quiet of the common room, echoing off the stone walls and the glass windows.

Liesel flinched. The sudden volume made Liesel shrink back, as if she were a dog getting scolded.

"We stay up every single night, Liesel!" Pansy continued, her face twisting with a desperate, defensive anger. "Every single night we sit in that dormitory and watch the clock because we know exactly what is going to happen! We know you’re going to wake up screaming your lungs out because of Diggory!"

Liesel flinched at the name, completely taken aback by his name being mentioned where it shouldn’t have.

It was as if a second spine grew inside her, cold and jagged, scraping against her muscle and twitching the nerves. It was a creeping, crawling sensation, threatening to break out… Liesel half wanted to reach out. It wanted to wrap its invisible, formless hands around Pansy’s throat and squeeze until the awful noise stopped. The purring inside of her that drew Harry closer an hour ago wanted to be rid of Pansy. Liesel’s vision warped, the edges of the room blurring into a static hum. Her fingers twitched, aching with the desire to lash out, to make sure that name was never spoken again in such a manner.

Draco noticed the rigidity in Liesel and placed a hand on Pansy’s arm, "That’s enough, Pansy."

"YOU’RE RIGHT! THAT IS ENOUGH!" Pansy shot back, her small frame shaking, oblivious to the shift in the room's atmosphere. She didn't notice the way the shadows behind Liesel seemed to elongate, stretching toward the ceiling like reaching fingers. "When midnight came and went and we didn't hear you screaming, do you know what I thought? I thought you’d finally done it! I thought you finally walked out of this castle and drowned yourself in the Black Lake just to get it over with!"

The words were just enough to send the magic inside of her whimpering away, placing Liesel back into her guilt-ridden state.

"Is that what you think?" Liesel asked, her voice so quiet it barely registered over the ambient sound of the lake pressing against the glass. "That I would just off myself in the middle of the night?!"

"I don't know what to think anymore!" Pansy screamed, her eyes bright with tears she refused to let fall. She pointed a shaking finger at Liesel’s chest. "Look at yourself! You’ve been completely unrecognizable since June! You beat Theodore Nott nearly to death, and you hardly even look at us without snapping your jaws! You are keeping secrets. So what if you are hiding some boy? Whatever! But something is deeply wrong with you, and you are hiding it from us. You sneak around going Merlin knows where, and I look at you…" Pansy’s voice cracked, the anger finally giving way to a profound, breaking sorrow. "I look at you, and I don't know who is standing in front of me. But it is not the girl I grew up with.”

Pansy did not wait for an answer. She turned on her heel, her silk gown trailing behind her, and stormed across the common room. The heavy oak door leading to the girls' corridor slammed shut behind her, the sound a dull, flat punctuation mark that left the room smaller and infinitely colder than it had been before.

The silence returned, infected with the residue of Pansy’s fear.

Liesel let out a long, shaky breath, her shoulders dropping. Liesel had seen Pansy’s temper tantrums plenty of times, but part of Liesel’s concern was riddled with whether or not Pansy was right.

Draco had not moved. His profile was illuminated by the wavering green light. He let out a slow breath of his own, the tension leaving his frame.

"Sit down, Liesel," Draco said quietly. His voice had lost its interrogative edge. It was casual, familiar, the tone of a boy who had spent countless summer afternoons sitting beside her in the drawing rooms of Malfoy Manor.

Liesel did not answer immediately. She walked over to the velvet sofa opposite his armchair and sank into it, her movements slow, mechanical. It was as if her conscious mind retreated into a hibernation, but her legs led her on her chosen path.

Draco walked over the wooden cabinet in the corner of the room with the vials of potions and alcohol and whatever else was forbidden in the dormitories. He opened it, the glasses of several crystal bottles clicked softly together. He didn't ask her preference; he simply poured two fingers of a dark, aged liquid and walked back, holding the glass out to her.

She took it, her cold fingers brushing his warm ones. She stared down at the whiskey, watching the way the green light distorted through the crystal.

Draco sat back down in his armchair, crossing one leg over the other, resting his elbows on the armrests. He watched her for a moment, his grey eyes guarded. "She’s only worried about you, you know," he said softly.

"You all think I’m a dead witch walking, don’t you?" Liesel murmured, bringing the glass to her lips. The liquid burned, a sharp, grounding sensation that helped chase away the lingering cold in her veins. But it didn’t leave her, she only felt the scattering of its escape through her veins.

"No," Draco countered, his voice steady. "We think you’re a target. And all of us can’t be wrong."

He leaned forward then, the casual demeanor shifting into something sharp and political. The boy she had grown up with disappeared, replaced by the calculating heir of the Malfoy family. "Which is why you need to listen to me," he said, his voice dropping into an intimate whisper. "You need to join the Inquisitorial Squad, Liesel."

Liesel paused, the glass halfway to her mouth. She lowered it, setting it down on the low table between them with a small, precise click. "The what?"

"The Inquisitorial Squad," Draco repeated, a faint, proud smile touching the corners of his mouth. "Umbridge signed the decree tonight, just after you left dinner. A select group of students, chosen directly by her. We are being given extraordinary authority, Liesel. The power to dock points, to hand out detentions, to police the corridors. We answer only to her, not to Dumbledore, not to the other heads of house."

Liesel studied his face. The smooth, unmarked skin of his jaw, the arrogant tilt of his chin. He looked entirely sincere, entirely convinced of the brilliance of this arrangement. "You want me to join a group of Umbridge’s spies?"

"It’s not spying, it’s protection," Draco pressured, leaning closer until she could see the tiny, dark flecks in his irises. "Look at what happened with Nott. The only reason you aren't currently sitting in a cell or being expelled is because Snape managed to pull you away before Umbridge could interfere. But she has her eyes on you now. She knows you are volatile–”

“Volatile?”

“Yes. And protection is exactly what you need"

Draco reached out, his hand resting on the back of the sofa near her shoulder, not touching her, but creating a boundary that kept her fixed under his gaze. "The Ollivander name doesn't carry the weight it used to. Your grandfather is old, your family is small… if Umbridge decides to make an example of you, no one is going to stop her. Joining the squad puts you on her side. It makes you untouchable."

Liesel felt a hard knot form in her stomach. The gentle memory of Harry felt a million miles away, replaced by the stark, ugly reality of the politics that had been stirring for the past year. She felt sick, wondering just how far all of this could go. "Who else has joined?"

Draco shifted slightly, his smile becoming a fraction more guarded. "Myself. Warrington. Pansy is considering it. Crabbe and Goyle, obviously."

Liesel let out a short, dry laugh that held absolutely no amusement. "Crabbe and Goyle? They can barely cast a proper jinx without hurting themselves, and they spend their evenings tripping third-years in the corridors for sport. It’s disgusting. How can you possibly work with them?"

“They’re friends.”

“They’re loyal. And that’s all you want, isn’t it?”

Draco’s face hardened, a sharp line appearing between his brows. The ideological rift between them, which had been a small, silent crack for the past year, suddenly widened into an open chasm. "They are loyal, Liesel. In times like these, loyalty matters more than talent. They know which way the wind is blowing."

"Draco," Liesel said flatly, her voice rising slightly as her disgust took hold. "They are using a Ministry badge to justify being brutal to people who cannot fight back. Is that what you want for yourself? To be Umbridge’s lapdog?"

"My father thinks it is a fantastic opportunity," Draco said, his voice dropping into a cold, defensive register. He drew his hand back, leaning into his chair, his posture rigid. "He wrote to me this morning. He said that establishing ourselves within the Ministry’s new order at Hogwarts is essential. The old way is dying, Liesel. Dumbledore is an old man clinging to a broken system. My father knows what is coming."

Liesel looked at her best friend. The boy who had taught her how to ride a broom in the orchards of Malfoy Manor, the boy who used to share his sweets with her on the Hogwarts Express. He looked so small in the oversized leather chair, despite his sharp clothes and his arrogant words. He was being hollowed out by his family’s expectations, turned into a vessel for a war he did not fully comprehend.

A sudden, sharp impulse took hold of her. She needed to know how deep the rot went. She needed to know exactly how far the boy she would dance with at galas her whole life had been drawn away from her.

"Draco," she said softly, her voice returning to that gentle, intimate register that usually brought him back to reality.

He looked at her, his expression wary.

"If your father came to you tomorrow," she began, her eyes locked onto his, searching for the child hiding behind the pureblood mask, "and he told you that the Dark Lord wanted you to take the Mark… if he asked you to become a Death Eater, right now… would you do it?"

Liesel meant it as an extreme example. She meant it to shock him, to make him see the absurdity of the path he was defending, to force him to acknowledge the reality of the darkness he was flirting with. She expected him to hesitate, to look uncomfortable, to deflect and say that it was different.

But he didn't hesitate.

Draco looked straight into her eyes, his grey gaze flat, unblinking, and chillingly certain.

"In a second," he said.

Liesel felt her breath hitch, her heart stopping for a fraction of a beat.

"At least they are actually fighting for something," Draco continued, his voice steady, entirely devoid of doubt. He leaned forward again, his fingers tightening around the arms of his chair. "Dumbledore talks about peace and unity, but he lets children fight his battles for him. He uses people and leaves them to die. The Dark Lord… he offers an order. A purpose. He doesn't hide behind old stories and empty promises, and he’s actually trying to change things."

Liesel felt a hot, prickling sensation behind her eyes. The room seemed to grow incredibly dim, the green light from the lake turning a sickly, bruised color. The air vanished from her lungs.

"You know," she whispered, her voice trembling, the realization crashing down on her with devastating force, “You know, don’t you?”

Draco did not answer, but the slight tightening of his jaw was all the confirmation she needed. For months, the Malfoys had been the public face of the Ministry’s denial. Lucius Malfoy had been standing in the Daily Prophet, telling the world that Harry Potter was a liar, that the boy was attention-seeking and unstable. And yet here, in the dark of the Slytherin common room, his son was admitting the truth.

They knew. They had always known.

And Cedric was dead because of it.

The memory of Cedric’s hazel eyes, of his rich laugh echoing across the grounds, came rushing back, colliding violently with the cold reality of the boy sitting across from her. Draco - her best friend, her confidant - was actively choosing to align himself with the people who had erased Cedric from the world. He was protecting the murderers, ensuring that Cedric would never receive the justice he deserved, all for the sake of a warped sense of pureblood superiority.

"Don't," Liesel choked out, a single, hot tear spilling over her eyelashes and tracing a fast path down her cheek. She stood up from the sofa, her legs shaking so badly she had to press her hand against the armrest to keep her balance. "Don't answer that, Draco. Don't say another word."

"Liesel, listen to me-" Draco stood up, his hand reaching out toward her, his face suddenly dropping the arrogant mask, replaced by a frantic panic as he registered the grief on her face. This grief was different than he had seen plague her over the past few months, as this one was more of a bone-deep terror.

"No," she said, her voice a sharp, jagged edge that made him stop in his tracks. She pulled away from his hand as if he were diseased. "Don't touch me."

She turned and moved toward the girls' corridor, her movements hurried, the dignity she usually cultivated entirely blown away in the wind of her heavy breath as she tried to process what she had heard from her best friend. She didn't look back to see the expression on his face, or to see if he was following her. She simply needed to escape the green light of the room, to get away from the horror of the choices her friends were making.

Liesel pushed through the heavy door to the dormitory and sank onto the edge of her bed, pulling the dark green curtains shut around her until she was entirely enclosed in darkness. The warmth from Harry was entirely gone, replaced by a cold, hollow ache that felt permanent. She pressed her hands against her face, trying to stop the tears, but the quiet, agonizing sobs came anyway, tearing at her throat in the dark space of the room, mourning the loss of a friend who was still standing right outside the door.

Pansy’s sleepless sleep was interrupted, listening to Liesel’s sobs. But at least it was better than the silence from earlier. She listened, and listened, and listened… the declarations of Liesel’s exploding emotions like music to Pansy’s ears after hours of thinking the worst for her cousin. Soon, the sobs slowed and eventually came to a full stop, followed by the bending of bedsprings. The curtains of Pansy’s own bed opened to reveal Liesel standing by her bedside.

Pansy sat up in her bed, looking aimlessly into the dark that her eyes had not yet adjusted to, “Liesel?”

“Pansy… Please don’t tell Draco.”

“Tell Draco what?”

“I was with Harry Potter tonight.”

Pansy paused, trying to understand what Liesel was saying. There had been rumors for weeks about Harry’s forbidden group. In fact, she knew main job with the Inquisitorial Squad was to find them and crush them as soon as possible. But hearing Liesel here, whispering this between curtains in the darkness of a room full of several other girls, made Pansy question exactly what was going on with her cousin. What kind of reckless attitude would lead her to associate with the very boy that had only brought trouble to the school since first year? To kiss him? Maybe that’s what she wanted. Recklessness. It was better than tossing herself into the Black Lake.

“Potter?”

Liesel nodded, but offered no further explanation.

“… Alright, then,” Pansy muttered, “I won’t tell Draco.”

Pansy opened her covers and allowed Liesel to slip in as they had many times as children. And there they slept, backs against one another, neither of them able to sleep for the rest of the night.

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The November wind sweeping across the Quidditch pitch was a bitter force that turned the tips of noses red and twirled hair in the air. It ripped through the stands, tearing at the banners and snapping the silver and green scarves of the Slytherin students into frantic ribbons. From her seat in the middle rows, Liesel pulled the collar of her woolen cloak higher against her neck, her gloved fingers resting on the freezing, splintering wood of the bench beneath her.

In the air, the game was a blur of crimson and emerald, a swarm of broomsticks darting through the overcast chill. The noise of the crowd was a constant, deafening roar, a tidal wave of sound that vibrated in the marrow of Liesel’s bones. Beside her, Daphne Greengrass was cheering, her voice lost in the collective shout of their house, but Liesel remained quiet. Her eyes were fixed on the sky, tracking the two Seekers.

Draco was a sleek, silver dart, moving desperately through the air And Harry… Harry was a completely different entity. Every dive, every sharp pivot, was executed with an innate, breathtaking grace that made Liesel’s chest tighten. She watched him pull out of a spiraling dive, the wind plastering his untidy dark hair against his forehead, and she felt that familiar, fragile warmth bloom softly in her chest, dissimilar to the cold draw she would only feel when their hands were messily grasping at each other’s skin.

A sudden gasp swept through the stadium, yanking Liesel from her thoughts.

Down on the pitch, Harry had gone into a steep vertical dive, Draco hot on his tail. The ground rushed up to meet them with terrifying speed. Liesel’s fingers dug into the wooden bench, a jolt of adrenaline spiking through her veins that perfectly matched the declining altitude.

At the very last second, Harry pulled up, his arm extended. A flash of gold glinted in the dull light.

Liesel found herself letting out a yelp of joy… or was it relief? Her face flushed further when she saw Harry lock eyes with her on his Firebolt and smile.

The whistle blew. A shrill, piercing sound that cut through the wind. Gryffindor had won.

The crimson side of the stadium erupted into a frenzy of cheers, but the Slytherin stands fell into a sullen, disgruntled quiet. Liesel let out a slow, deliberate breath, watching as the players began to descend toward the muddy grass of the pitch. She watched Harry land, his posture weary but victorious. A few yards away, Draco touched down as well.

Even from the stands, Liesel could see the rigid, furious set of Draco's shoulders. The defeat was a bitter poison in his veins, and Draco had never learned how to swallow his pride quietly. She remembered this from the many years besting him in Crossed Wands before he finally quit.

She watched as he tossed his broom aside and walked toward Harry and the Weasley twins. The distance was far too great for Liesel to hear the words being exchanged, but she didn't need to hear them. She knew the cruel, sharp tilt of Draco’s chin. She knew the arrogant, mocking sneer that he used as a shield when he felt small.

He was talking. And talking.

Liesel stood up, a deathly dread in her stomach. The celebration around the pitch seemed to slow down, the cheers warping into a dull, muted chatter as everyone looked on. She saw George Weasley step forward, his fists clenched. She saw Harry’s posture snap from exhaustion into the rigid hostility he’d held since at least their second year.

Stop, she thought, her pulse beginning to hammer against her ribs. Draco, just walk away.

But Draco didn't walk away. His mouth moved again, delivering a final, barbed insult. Fred Weasley lunged forward, but three Gryffindor players immediately grabbed him, dragging him backward. But George and Harry were faster. However, hey didn't draw wands. No, the two of them took a page or two from Liesel’s book and simply snapped, abandoning magic entirely as they threw themselves at Draco, their fists flying.

The moment the first blow landed, sending Draco stumbling backward onto the mud

The magic resting at the bottom of her sternum registered the threat… not just a threat to Draco, the boy she had grown up with, but the horrific collision of the two worlds she was desperately trying to keep separate.

The horror of it was creeping, slithering into her veins like ice water. It recognized her desperation, her overwhelming need to intervene, and it decided to act.

Liesel didn't draw her wand. She didn't think of a destination. The world around her simply… tore. Folded around her.

Liesel felt a sickening, sliding sensation, as if she were being pulled through the tiny, invisible spaces between the atoms of the air itself. Her vision inverted, a wash of pure, lightless void replacing the stadium, accompanied by a sound like tearing silk. It was a suffocating, breathless leap through the dark, her joints protesting against the unnatural displacement.

Her boots hit the soft, rain-soaked mud of the Quidditch pitch with a dull, wet thud.

She was suddenly on the sidelines of the playing grounds, a hundred feet away from her seat in the stands. The wind roared in her ears, replacing the vacuum of the slip. For a split second, no one registered her arrival. Hardly any of the students in the stands had seen her move; they had only seen a blur, a trick of the overcast light, before she was standing on the grass.

George had Draco pinned by the collar, his fist drawing back. Harry was right beside him, his face contorted in a furious, blinding rage.

Liesel instinctively sprinted toward the sidelines toward the scuffle, her Slytherin scarf billowing behind her.. She shoved George back from Draco, her hands coming up to grab the front of Draco’s robes.

"Get off him!" she shrieked, her voice tearing from her throat with a jagged, raw edge.

She used her entire body, throwing her weight backward and dragging Draco away from the Gryffindors. The sheer, unexpected force of her intervention broke George's grip. Draco groaned , his face smeared with dirt and blood from a split lip, his eyes wide with shock. Liesel stepped in front of him, turning to face Harry and George to analyze whether or not she was going to get collateral damage, like both Ginny and Newton did when they broke up her fight. Her chest heaved, her hands trembling violently at her sides.

“You never know when to BLOODY stop, do you, Draco?!”

“Mff, Liese-”

“SHUT IT!”

Madam Hooch’s whistle blew furiously from across the pitch, the sharp sound finally cutting through the haze of the fight. The professor was running toward them, her yellow eyes blazing with fury.

But Liesel wasn't looking at the professor. She was looking at Harry.

He stood a few feet away, his chest rising and falling rapidly, his knuckles scraped and bleeding. His green eyes locked onto hers, and the expression in them was a complicated, devastating mixture of betrayal, anger, and profound confusion. He looked at her as if she were a stranger, an enemy who had just stepped onto the battlefield to shield the boy who had insulted his dead mother.

She shot Harry a look. It wasn't a look of hatred, but a look of pure, agonizing exhaustion. A silent plea for him to understand the impossible, fractured position she was in. She didn't wait for his response. She couldn't bear to see his face harden.

She turned away, grabbing Draco by the sleeve of his Quidditch robes. "Get up," she hissed, her voice trembling. "Get up, Draco, now."

Draco spat a mouthful of blood onto the grass, his grey eyes dazed. He tried to pull away from her, his pride still demanding a fight, but his legs were unsteady.

"Let him go, Ollivander," a voice said.

Liesel turned her head. Ginny Weasley was marching across the pitch, her red hair a bright, angry beacon against the sky.

"I’ve got him," Ginny said, her tone devoid of any sympathy. She grabbed Draco’s other arm, her grip entirely unforgiving. "Come on, Malfoy. Let’s get you to the hospital wing before you manage to say something else incredibly stupid and get yourself killed."

"I don't need your help, Weasley," Draco spat, though he leaned into her grip anyway, unable to support his own weight.

Liesel kept her hold on Draco’s left side, wrapping his arm over her shoulder. She didn't argue with Ginny, but she was more than happy to argue with Draco, “You wanna act like a Flobberworm, Malfoy?! You’ll get carried like one!”

As they began the slow, agonizing trek across the pitch toward the castle doors, the world around Liesel began to shift. Her heightened, magical senses, still irritated and awake from the slip through space, began to pick up on things that shouldn't be visible.

She looked at Draco’s head, resting near her shoulder.

Hovering just above his slick, blond hair were tiny, semi-translucent wisps, similar to the fire she had seen in the hallway. Liesel blinked, her vision swimming slightly. The wisps didn't disappear.

"What are those?" she asked, her voice a brittle, exhausted whisper. She hadn't meant to speak aloud, but the words slipped out, carried away by the cold wind.

Luna, somehow appearing beside the two on the side of the pitch, looked over. A serene, knowing smile touched the Ravenclaw’s lips. "Oh, you see them too? I usually need my Spectrespecs to see them. They’re Nargles."

Liesel stared at the swirling ash. She chose to ignore the giant lion hat on Luna’s head, "Nargles? Here?"

"Yes," Luna said simply, reaching out a pale hand to bat gently at the empty air near Draco’s ear. "They infest mistletoe, usually. But they’re drawn to people whose heads are full of angry thoughts. Troublemakers, they are."

"He’s a Nargle-filled git, is what he is," Ginny muttered darkly, adjusting her grip on Draco’s waist as he stumbled over a divot in the grass. "Keep moving, Malfoy. Madam Pomfrey is going to have a field day with that lip. If we’re lucky, she’ll amputate."

Liesel didn't say anything else. She focused on the rhythm of their footsteps, on the cold stone of the castle as they finally crossed the threshold and entered the entrance hall. The journey through the corridors and up the moving staircases was a blur of stone and muttered insults from Draco. Liesel had heard them her whole life, but every single mutter made Ginny’s lip twitch, like she wanted to serve a few more punches to his gut.

When they finally reached the large, wooden double doors of the Hospital Wing, Madam Pomfrey was already rushing out to meet them. She took one look at Draco’s bleeding face and ushered him inside, ushering Liesel inside with her as Ginny and Luna stomped back off to the pitch.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

Harry’s knuckles throbbed with a dull, incessant ache. The skin was broken, smeared with dried mud and a faint trace of Draco’s blood, but the physical pain was nothing compared to the drop in his stomach.

The match was over. Gryffindor had won. But standing in Professor McGonagall’s office minutes later, listening to Dolores Umbridge deliver a lifetime Quidditch ban in that high, simpering voice, the victory had burned up right in front of him. He had lost his broom. He had lost his escape. And he had lost his temper, letting Malfoy drag him down into the dirt.

But worst of all, he had seen Liesel’s face.

The memory of her sudden, impossible appearance on the pitch looped in his mind as he walked slowly up the marble staircases toward the Hospital Wing. One second she had been in the stands, and the next she was standing between him and Malfoy, her hands gripping the Slytherin robes, protecting the boy who had just spat on the memory of the Weasleys and Lily Potter.

He knew she was a Slytherin. He knew she and Malfoy had a history that predated Hogwarts. But seeing her publicly choose that side, seeing the furious, devastated look she had shot him before turning away, had felt like a physical blow to his ribs.

Harry knew where to find her, though. With Draco.

Liesel was there.

She was standing just outside the closed doors of the Hospital Wing, bathed in the dim, diffused light filtering through a tall window. A large, formidable-looking owl was perched on the stone sill, its amber eyes unblinking in the gloom. Liesel was leaning in the sill, a piece of parchment pressed flat against the cold, uneven stone. She was scribbling furiously with a dark quill, her brow furrowed in deep concentration.

Harry stopped, his heart giving a painful, irregular thump.

She looked entirely isolated, entirely removed from the chaos she had just intervened in. The absolute exhaustion he had seen from her on the pitch was gone, replaced by a quiet vulnerability that she only ever let him see in the late hours of the Room of Requirement. Her mousy hair was escaping its intricate braids, framing her face in soft, messy wisps. The ink was staining the tips of her fingers, and her shoulders were hunched, protecting the words she was writing from the drafty corridor.

The light from the window traced her silhouette gently, making it look like she was holding the sky on her shoulders.

Harry didn't want to be angry with her. He couldn't be. Not when she looked like a girl trying to hold up the sky all by herself.

He took a step forward, his boots making a soft scuff on the stone.

"Liesel."

She jumped, a full-body flinch and the unexpected blinking of her eyes. Of her lashes… She spun around, her left hand instinctively moving toward the pocket where she kept her wand. When she registered that it was him, the tension in her shoulders collapsed, leaving her looking infinitely tired.

"How’d you find me?" she asked, her voice a soft, breathless rasp that echoed in the quiet hallway.

Harry walked closer, stopping a few feet away, keeping a safe distance. He shoved his injured hands into the pockets of his robes to hide the blood. "It’s a small castle."

Liesel let out a long, shaky sigh. She relaxed back against the stone wall, the defensive posture melting away. She turned her attention back to the parchment, bringing the quill up to scribble another line.

Silence stretched between them. It wasn't the comfortable, warm silence of the Room of Requirement. It was fraught, heavy with the unsaid arguments of the Quidditch pitch, filled with the ghosts of the things they couldn't fix. Harry watched the rapid, elegant movement of her hand, wondering what she could possibly be writing with such frantic urgency while her best friend was bleeding on a cot in the next room.

Liesel stopped writing. She looked up at him, her dark eyes searching his face, taking in the split on his lower lip and the bruising starting to form on his cheekbone. She cleared her throat, a small, nervous sound.

"Erm…" she started, her gaze dropping to the parchment in her hands. She shifted her weight, suddenly looking incredibly small. "It’s… my father’s birthday. I write him every year."

Harry blinked, the information stalling in his brain for a second. Garrick Ollivander’s son. A known Death Eater. A man currently locked away in the highest security wing of Azkaban prison.

"Oh," Harry managed to say. He gave a slow, uncertain nod.

Liesel scribbled one more small word at the bottom of the page. She hesitated, her teeth catching her lower lip in a gesture of profound uncertainty. Then, awkwardly, she held the piece of parchment out toward him.

"Um, actually…" she said, her voice dropping into a register that was almost timid. "I’m sure he’d like it if you signed, too. You know. Your autograph."

Harry stared at the paper. He stared at the girl holding it. She shifted awkwardly from foot to foot, avoiding his gaze, a faint pink flush creeping up her pale neck.

He couldn't fathom the logic. Why would a convicted Death Eater, a man devoted to the dark wizard who had murdered James and Lily Potter, want the autograph of Harry Potter? It was absurd. It was contradictory.

But looking at Liesel… at the desperate, fragile hope she was trying to mask.. he realized it didn't matter. She wasn't asking for her father. She was asking for herself. She was trying to bridge the impossible gap between the boy she loved and the family she was tethered to. She was pretending, acting out a fantasy where her father was just a normal man who would be impressed by a famous signature. And Harry, well… It felt too soft to say he would do anything for her, but it sure felt like that.

Harry pulled his bruised, aching hand from his pocket. He reached out and took the quill from her fingers.

"Oh, sure," Harry said, his voice quiet, trying to inject a normalcy into the moment that didn't exist. "Absolutely…"

He stepped up to the window sill, flattening the parchment against the stone next to the waiting owl. He didn't read what she had written. He respected her privacy too much. He simply looked for a blank space at the bottom.

As he dipped the quill into the inkwell, a sudden, cold realization washed over him. He looked up at the fierce, golden eyes of the eagle owl. He thought of the dementors, the freezing, soul-sucking void of the prison in the North Sea.

"I didn't know they let owls into Azkaban," Harry said casually, signing his name in messy, uneven letters.

The silence that followed was instant and suffocating. Harry finished the loop of the 'r' and looked up.

Liesel had turned a deep, agonizing shade of red. She wasn't looking at him; she was staring down at the scuffed toes of her boots. Her hands were clasped tightly together in front of her.

"They don't," she whispered.

Harry froze, the quill suspended in the air.

He stared at her, a profound, aching wave of guilt crashing into him. He was an idiot. A stupid, unthinking idiot. He mentally kicked himself, his stomach twisting into a tight knot. Of course they didn't let mail into Azkaban. She was writing words to a father who would never read them, sending an owl into the void just to feel like she was still a daughter. And she knew it. She knew the bird would fly over the ocean, find no entry, and eventually return, or drop the parchment into the sea.

He had just forced her to admit the delusion aloud.

Harry wished, with a similar violence he felt on the pitch, that he could snatch the words back out of the air. They'd left his mouth without thought, ordinary curiosity colliding with a life he still couldn't fully imagine. He had never had a parent to write letters to. She had two she could never reach. Somehow they'd ended up standing on opposite sides of the same loneliness.

Surely this day could not get any worse.

Harry stayed completely silent. He folded the parchment with meticulous care, making sure the edges lined up perfectly, treating the useless letter with the utmost respect. He turned and held it out to her.

Liesel took it, her fingers brushing his. Her skin was freezing. She turned to the owl, attaching the folded parchment to the leather binding on its leg with practiced, efficient movements. She stepped back, giving the bird a small nod. The owl hooted softly, spread its massive wings, and launched itself out the window, becoming a dark speck against the Scottish sky.

Liesel watched it go, her expression unreadable, besides the slightest smile of pleasure on her lips.

Harry shifted uncomfortably, desperate to fill the silence, desperate to fix the damage he had just done. "Do you do this for your mother’s birthday as well?"

Liesel didn't turn around. She kept her eyes fixed on the horizon, watching the space where the owl had vanished.

"…No," she said. The single word was flat, devoid of any inflection, but it carried a weight that made the air in the corridor feel impossibly dense.

Harry winced. "Right," he muttered, running his uninjured hand through his messy hair, feeling entirely out of his depth. He had hit a nerve, he knew it.. He awkwardly maneuvered around the silence, forcing his tone to soften. "Sorry. I shouldn't have asked."

"Don’t be sorry," Liesel said, finally turning to face him. The flush had faded from her cheeks, leaving her looking wan and tired once again. "There’s no point."

They stood there for a long time, the only sound the faint, distant chatter of students navigating the lower floors. Harry looked at the girl standing before him. He saw the way she carried the tragedy of her family like a physical burden, performing her life rather than living it, pretending everything was fine while she stood in a drafty corridor sending letters to a prison and caring for a boy Harry himself put in the Hospital Wing.

He needed to apologize. Not just for the questions, but for the pitch.

"I'm sorry," Harry said, his voice dropping into a sincere, quiet register. He took a step closer, closing the gap between them. "About the fight. I know… I know Malfoy is your friend. I shouldn't have lost my temper like that. He just… he started talking about my mother, and about Ron’s family, and I couldn't stop myself."

Liesel looked at his bruised face. The exhaustion in her eyes flickered, replaced by a soft, reluctant understanding. She reached out, her cool fingers lightly grazing the unbroken skin near his jawline.

"Draco is an idiot… and he deserved it, I know," she murmured, her thumb tracing the edge of the bruising. "But you shouldn't let him drag you down into the mud, Harry. You’re better than that."

"I don't feel better than that," Harry admitted, leaning slightly into her touch. "Umbridge took my broom. A lifetime ban for me and George."

Liesel’s eyes widened slightly, a flash of genuine shock crossing her features before settling back into a grim acceptance. "Of course she did. She can’t control you."

She dropped her hand, stepping back, the aristocratic mask beginning to slip back into place.

"You should go inside. Let Madam Pomfrey look at your face and hands. And, Harry… Don’t worry about Draco. He’s exactly where he wants to be."

“What do you mean?”

Liesel seemed surprised for a moment that Harry didn’t know what she knew, “He wants to be a MediWizard or something of the sort. You’ve given him a chance to snoop around.”

“Draco, a Mediwizard?”

“I’d give him a chance if I were you. He’s quite good at it.”

Liesel turned to leave him alone outside of Madame Pomfrey’s domain, but Harry reached out, catching her gently by the wrist.

Liesel stopped, looking back at him over her shoulder.

Harry swallowed hard, his heart doing that frantic, irregular rhythm again. He didn't want her to go back to the dungeons. He didn't want her to retreat behind the silver and green walls where he couldn't reach her.

"Go on a date with me," Harry blurted out, the words tumbling out before he could second-guess them.

Liesel blinked, completely caught off guard. "What?"

"A real date," Harry insisted, his confidence growing as he saw the genuine surprise on her face. He let go of her wrist and stepped in front of her, forcing her to look at him. "I like sneaking around with you in the Room of Requirement, believe me… But I’d like to take you on a real date. Next Hogsmeade weekend. To the Hog’s Head."

Liesel stared at him, the corner of her mouth twitching as a reluctant, highly amused smile broke through her melancholy. The tragic heroine act faltered, replaced by the sarcastic, brilliant girl he had fallen for.

"The Hog’s Head?" Liesel repeated, raising an elegant eyebrow. "Harry, that pub is utterly disgusting. I doubt it’s been cleaned since the goblin rebellion"

"It’s private," Harry countered, a grin breaking across his own face, making his split lip sting. "We wouldn't have to hide there."

Liesel studied his face, her dark eyes scanning his hopeful, bruised expression. The smile softened, reaching her eyes, transforming her entirely. For a moment, the weight of the her malfunctioning magic, the tragedy of Azkaban, and the impending war vanished. She was just Liesel.

"You are ridiculous, Harry Potter," she whispered.

She stepped forward, closing the distance between them in a single, fluid motion. She leaned up, pressing a soft, lingering kiss to his unbroken cheek. Her lips were warm, a stark contrast to the freezing corridor, and the brief contact sent a shock of pure adrenaline straight to his heart.

"Fine," she murmured against his skin. She pulled back, her eyes dancing with a quiet, genuine affection. "I will go to your disgusting pub. But you’re buying the Firewhiskey."

"Deal," Harry said, his voice slightly breathless.

Liesel gave him one last, lingering look before stepping around him. She walked toward the heavy wooden doors of the Hospital Wing, pushing them open. She didn't look back as she stepped into the bright, sterile light, letting the doors swing shut behind her, leaving Harry standing alone in the corridor, a bruised, foolish grin spread across his face.

He hadn't planned to ask her. Not today. Not after fists and blood and Umbridge and Malfoy. But watching her stand there with ink on her fingers, pretending that impossible things could still reach impossible places, something inside him refused to let her disappear back into the dungeons without giving them one ordinary memory to hold onto.

Tomorrow, the castle would remember what house they belonged to.

.✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧.

Dad,

The Weighing of the Wands went well. I met the girl I'm going to marry.

- Cedric

.✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧.

Dear Cedric,

The fame has gone to your head. It had been two weeks and you already think you're too good for full sentences. The apple doesn't fall too far from the tree, I suppose.

Who is she? I need details, my boy.

I remember when I met your mother. In Feldcroft, the summer after I graduated. She was arguing with a market vendor about the weight of a fish. Very convincingly, might I add. I knew she was the one within five minutes. So I understand the feeling. I do. But I also wasn't about to compete in a dangerous international magical tournament at the time, so my circumstances were somewhat different.

Is she from Beauxbatons?

Best, Your Dad

.✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧.

Dad,

Liesel Ollivander. She was the one who actually handed the wands at the weighing. Her grandfather let her do it, which apparently is not standard practice, but she clearly knows what she's doing.

It's been decided, and I am to face her in the dueling finale in a week. Don't worry, I won't go easy on her.

I miss mother dearly. Give Mittens my best.

- Cedric

.✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧.

Dear Cedric,

She's a Slytherin, isn't she?

I'm not saying anything about the house. I shall let you discover that yourself… But all of this. The Triwizard Tournament, Crossed Wands, school… Don't you think it's too much? I surely hope your pursuit of this girl doesn't complicate things further.

Be safe during the duel. I don't need my Hogwarts Champion in the hospital wing before the First Task.

Is she good to you?

Mittens is stepping all over the parchment, which I assume means she would like to say hello.

Best, Your Dad

.✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧.

Dad,

I lost the dueling finale. You should have seen it, though. I thought I had Liesel in the third round. I'd been told she holds to specific combinations, which she absolutely does not, and then she disarmed me and followed it immediately with a blast to the chest. I was on the floor before I understood what had happened. It was fantastic.

I asked her to the Yule Ball and she said yes. She's been teaching me to dance, which has been an experience for both of us. She's ruthless about the footwork. Completely merciless. She stomped on my foot every time I stepped on hers, but called it even after the second time. I think that answers your question about whether she's good to me, or perhaps it makes it looks worse.

I'm starting to think you and mum should have taken me to the Ministry Galas after all.

-Cedric

.✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧.

Dear Cedric,

The two left feet are entirely from my side, I'm afraid. Your mother had beautiful footwork. Light as anything. She used to dance in the kitchen when she thought no one was watching.

Going to the Yule Ball together does not mean you need to buy a ring, remember. I'm glad you're happy. I'm glad she said yes. I'm glad she stomped on your foot, because you probably needed it.

Focus on the first task.

Best, Your Dad

.✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧.

Dad,

The heart wants what it wants.

I know you're right about the tournament. I know I need to focus. But I'd like some advice, if you have any.

I don't know how to explain it properly. She's very composed most of the time. Very precise, and then occasionally she laughs and the whole room lights up.

I'd like to make that happen forever.

What did you do with Mum? In the beginning, I mean. When you knew.

-Cedric

.✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧.

Dear Cedric,

What I did with your mother was make a significant fool of myself for about six weeks. I'm not sure that's advice as much as a cautionary account.

Your mother wasn't very easy to get to know. She let you in slowly. I learned fairly early that the best thing I could do was show up consistently and not make a production of it. She didn't want to be pursued. She wanted to be met.

If Miss Ollivander is anything like her grandfather, it may be unpredictable. But I think you already know how to do this. You've always been good at paying attention to people.

Also: Don't step on her feet.

Best, Your Dad

.✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧.

Dad,

The Yule Ball was last night.

I'm fairly certain she had a good time. She laughed at least three separate occasions and one of them was a real laugh, not the polished one. I know the difference now.

I kissed her at the end of the evening, in the corridor outside the Great Hall. I don't know if I handled it well. I'm a bit worried I made a fool of myself. The dancing was much better than the lessons suggested it would be, and Liesel said I'd improved, but when the moment came I think I may have fumbled my speech.

She kissed me back, though. That part I'm sure of.

But I keep thinking about the dancing and the fumbling and whether she went to bed thinking well of the evening or thinking I was an idiot.

- Cedric

.✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧.

Dear Cedric,

Your mother stayed married to me for seventeen years with both my left feet and every foolish thing I've ever said, of which there were many. She found them endearing. Or she pretended to, which amounts to the same thing in practice.

Stop worrying about whether this girl likes you. She went to the Yule Ball with you, and she kissed you back. That's all the answer you need. You need to focus on the tournament. The second task is coming and I'd prefer my son to be cracking that egg rather than the alternative.

Jokes aside, I'm happy for you, my boy. I mean that.

Best, Your Dad.

It had startled Liesel, the directness of it… the way Ginny said it without any clear reason or cause. After it was said, she waited for the redhead to continue with a "but…" or "You're useful…" or something of the sort. It never arrived.

Luna had attached herself somewhere during the second meeting, simply sliding into proximity the way Luna adored to insert herself unapologetically. She didn't ask permission, and assumed a closeness that most people would spend months earning. By the third meeting, Luna had started narrating things to Liesel in a low voice during the lulls, containing eccentric theories about which students had Wrackspurts clouding their aim, a complaint about the how the acoustics of the room interrupted the energy that seemed, on reflection, seemed to be planted in truth even if it sounded ridiculous. Liesel had found herself listening properly, the way she listened to her grandfather discuss wand cores. Luna was a lot like Garrick Ollivander in many ways. The madness of the two of them. They would get along well.

What she noticed most, as she adjusted her position on the bench, was the shift in how people looked at her. Somehow, some way, these students treated her with more respect than fear, as most staff and students in her own house would since the incident with Theodore Nott. Hannah Abbott had asked her opinion on a wand grip without flinching at the answer. Ernie Macmillan had deferred to her correction on a wrist angle without the visible annoyance he hand held the first week, when listening to Liesel seemed to physically pain him. Even Zacharias Smith, who disliked her on principle and said so frequently, had stopped saying the quiet part as loudly.

People were actually looking her in the eye.

And Harry.

Liesel kept circling back to this, the pure concept of it feeling estranged in her mind. The way Harry looked at her during the meeting… It wasn't necessarily different from how he looked at the others, not in any way she could point to and name without sounding foolish, but there was something peculiar in the way his eyes found her first when he scanned the room to see who needed help, the way he asked her opinion on pairings and drills as though her answer mattered more than confirming his own instinct. She had spent the past months being looked at, being handled as if she would shatter if they did something wrong. Harry looked at her like she could only do right.

"ABSOLUTELY DESPICABLE!" Her grandfather's voice boomed through the door.

Garrick Ollivander did not raise his voice often. In the shop he moved quietly, spoke quietly, and handled everything with reverence as if the objects themselves were sentient. When he did raise his voice, such as in this moment, it rattled the walls, sounding like it had been building pressure for decades and had burst.

"Headmaster, I ask you plainly," He spoke, "How could you allow this to continue?"

Liesel looked at the floor, noting the uneven levels of the flagstones from centuries of use. She traced the edge of one with the toe of her shoe.

Professor Umbridge's voice came through next, clipped and high and entirely self-possessed, "Mr. Ollivander, your granddaughter broke another student's ribs and his nose in the Great Hall in front of five hundred students. We must have no favorites. The Ministry has granted me full authority to discipline as the situation requires, and I exercised that authority appropriately--"

"Appropriately…" Garrick's voice dropped dangerously. The drop was somehow worse than the volume, "You dare stand in front of me and use that word…"

Dumbledore began, "The High Inquisitor's methods are--"

Garrick interrupted, his voice carrying through the wood clearly, "I will tell you what I found on my granddaughter's hand… I will tell you exactly what I found… and then you will explain to me which word you would like to use for it."

Silence from Umbridge's end. In fact… there was silence from everyone in the room. Liesel half wondered if her grandfather would've dragged Umbridge across the Great Hall table just as she had Nott.

"If I find…" Garrick continued, each word deliberately chosen to punch in his point, "that another mark has been put on that child by any instrument in this school, I will withdraw the Ollivander name from every outstanding Ministry contract. Every wand order. Every consultation, every agreement, every courtesy." His voice gradually began to rise in volume. "And when Liesel inherits the business-- Which she will and which will occur whether the Ministry finds it bloody convenient or NOT-- I will ensure that the first entry in the new ledger is a formal and permanent refusal to conduct any business with the Ministry of Magic whatsoever. I will put it in my will if I must! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?!"

Dumbledore said something, low and measured. Garrick responded to it with something Liesel couldn't fully make out, but he had made his point extremely clear.

Then, the door opened.

Her grandfather came through the threshold, still carrying the momentum of the argument, his breathing still faster than usual and his silver hair completely disheveled. Though… his hair didn't often find itself anything other than disheveled. Liesel almost giggled at how Harry and her grandfather could bond.

Upon seeing Liesel, the fury on his face didn't leave as much as it did push down and reorganize itself into his set shoulders. Garrick crossed to the bench, sat beside her, and took her left hand in both of his as if she were one of the prized wands he weighed the year before. The two of them needn't speak words to one another to understand the desperation they both held to their connection. The only family they both had.

Her grandfather lightly pulled the wrappings from her hand and looked at the jagged edges of the words, his lips retracting into his mouth so hard Liesel thought it might draw blood.

He sighed, speaking softly, "Everything is alright now, little bird."

Liesel believed him. She didn't know if it was true, but she believed it. That had always been her grandfather's special gift… the ability to say anything in a way that made one feel like he was speaking it into the universe.

"Does it hurt?" he asked, placing the bandages back over her hand.

"Sometimes," Liesel mumbled, simply appreciating the warmth of his hand on hers, "I don't know, I think I'm getting used to it."

He looked at her hand for another moment, then nodded, refusing to release his grip immediately.

"Do you know," Garrick said, "I went to a Muggle school before Hogwarts. Just three years, but I remember it clearly." He turned her hand over again, studying the wrist and arm with the same attention he gave his woodwork, looking for any signs of abuse from the school's new punishments, "There was a teacher there. A cruel woman that looked like a banshee woke up on the wrong side of the bed. She kept a ruler on a desk in case some young foolish boy pulled a girl's braid-- which I did, of course, because I was eight and stupid and completely in love with her-- she would have you put your knuckles on the desk and would bring the ruler down on them."

He brought one of his hands up and slammed it down three times softly, stopping before he hit her hand. "Whack. Whack. Whack."

Liesel looked at his face, a slight smile appearing, "Grandfather…"

"I cried," he said plainly, "Bitterly. Like a little baby."

Liesel couldn't help but let out a giggle at her grandfather's usual chatty demeanor and held on tighter to his hand in hers.

"The point," he said, with a whimsical air to him that she hadn't seen moments ago, "is that this is an old tradition everywhere… the inflicting of minor suffering on students for the sake of inflicting it. It changes shape, uses different instruments… But it is a very old and unimaginative tradition." He finally set her hand down, gently, on her own knee, and placed his hands between his own knees as a young child would. "The question I have for you is… did Theodore Nott cry?"

"When? In the Great Hall?" Liesel asked.

Her grandfather nodded with a light mhm.

A bright shame flooded onto the girl's cheeks, "I-… I don't know. I couldn't really see his face-"

"Ah, ah. Did he cry like a little baby or not?"

"… Yes."

Garrick's expression didn't quite change, but there was a spark in his eyes; an unexpected satisfaction that Liesel never expected from him, considering he was a large lover of life, the founder of their family's ranch. The man wouldn't hurt a fly.

"Good."

Liesel laughed then, a real one, out of utter shock, and he laughed with her.

Umbridge came through the door approximately four minutes later.

She had recomposed herself fully. The cardigan was straight, as was the clipboard in her hands, and the stiff smile on her lips. She paused when she saw them sitting together on the bench, Liesel still with the tail end of the laugh on her face, and Garrick sitting with his hands foolishly folded between his knees. Umbridge raised her chin by a fraction, assessed the scene before her, and then continued down the corridor without a word, her kitten heels clacking rhythmically on the stones.

Severus Snape came through the door next, lightly closing it behind him. He looked between the two wandmakers with an analytic expression, squinting his eyes and twitching his nose. Something in his expression made Liesel believe she might be in a worse position than her grandfather thought.

"How are we." he said. It was not quite a question.

"I will be wonderful, Severus," Garrick said, standing up to be face to face with the professor, "when the school stops inflicting torture on my granddaughter."

Snape accepted this without flinching, his familiarity with the Ollivander family throughout the years on display, "I attempted to arrange an alternative. I initially requested that she serve her detention in my classroom. Cauldron scrubbing. I made the case at some length this time." He paused, "Once again, the High Inquisitor declined to allow it."

Her grandfather sighed, "The Headmaster was not particularly helpful, might I say."

Snape was quiet for a moment. "The Headmaster's position is more constrained this year than it has been in some time. The Ministry interference is significant. He is managing several competing pressures and some of them are not visible from the outside." He looked at Liesel directly: scrutinizing, scolding, a glare a father would give his daughter when she misbehaved, "What she did to Theodore Nott was grounds for expulsion. You are aware of this, yes?"

Liesel's face turned into a shocking bright red, her head nearly feeling dizzy from the embarrassment.

"I am aware."

"The fact that she is still sitting on this bench rather than halfway back to London is not the result of inaction. I want that understood," Snape said, "Miss Ollivander must learn to control her behavior."

Liesel wanted to disappear into the bench.

Garrick looked at Snape for a long moment. The expression had in it everything that their long acquaintance since that fateful night at the Malfoys' Gala when Liesel's mother and father were taken by the Ministry. The trust, yet disagreement. The exasperation, yet the absolute comfort. He nodded, "I know it, Severus."

Snape gave a stern nod back, "I will keep an eye on her, Garrick."

"You always do," Liesel's grandfather mused.

Snape looked at Liesel one more time. His dark eyes held something that wasn't quite soft… but wasn't hard either. Then, he turned and walked back in the direction of the dungeons, his robes settling into their usual authority behind him.

The old man watched him go. "That man, little bird…" he said, "has been keeping an eye on you since you were a child, and that eye shows no sign of tiring."

A small, breathy squeak came from Liesel's throat, "I know."

"Don't make it harder than it needs to be."

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

The corridor inside the Defense Against the Dark Arts tower ran itself into several different staircases and floors, sporting windows that looked out over the edge of the grounds and the late afternoon light came in at a sharp angle, making the stone floors look warmer than they were. Liesel walked through with her head slightly down from the pure embarrassment of the meeting earlier, her satchel strap worn tightly across her chest rather than hanging over one shoulder. She heard voices.

Ginny and Luna were standing near one of the window alcoves. Luna was in the middle of a sentence about the new Charms module Professor Flitwick had introduced that week, her voice carrying the unhurried, slightly meandering quality it always had, as though the words were finding the path as they went instead of following a meticulously filtered plan. Ginny simply leaned on a pillar, head leaning against the stone as she listened to Luna's rambling as if it was her lifeline. For a moment, she interrupted Luna's speech to reach up and readjust her butterbeer cork necklace.

Liesel attempted to walk by without being seen, but, unfortunately, she stole the moment from them.

"Ollivander," Luna said, looking over at her.

Liesel stopped, "Hi Luna. Ginny."

Ginny straightened slightly, turning her nose up and pushing her shoulders back, "Liesel. We- um… Is it true? Your grandfather is here?"

"He came to discuss my detentions.” Liesel shifted the strap of her satchel, "He's not particularly pleased with the school's disciplinary approach."

"I'd imagine not. My mum threw a fit when she heard Fred and George went through it," Ginny said, "Is he going to do anything about it?"

"My grandfather made his position very clear." The Slytherin girl cleared her throat, unwilling to go further. The sight of her grandfather in such distress brought up some emotion within her that she didn't want to expose, "Are you both coming to the DA meeting tonight?"

"Wouldn't miss it!" Luna exclaimed, twirling her hair by her shoulder, "Ginny told me that Parvati said that Neville said that Harry said we'll be covering Expelliarmus again today."

"Good. Everyone could use the practice," Liesel noted, "It's more useful than people give it credit for."

Luna tilted her head to one side with a dreamy smile playing on her lips, "Professor Flitwick says the same thing, actually. He says the theory is in the gesture, not the words, and most people have the gesture wrong before they're even-"

Something moved at the edge of Liesel's vision.

She turned her head before she fully decided to, the same way Luna talked without an exact plan, the way one would do instinctively.

Down the corridor, where the architecture curved toward a staircase in the corner and the light from the windows didn't quite reach, there was something suspended in the air Liesel couldn't identify. It was small, no larger than a closed fist, and it moved with a lively nature, with charming blue flames flickering in every direction, but in the way a conjured flame couldn't possibly mimic.

Then came the noise. A very faint chirping sat on the border of what would be considered audible, the kind of sound that forced the hairs on Liesel's arms to stand up before her brain even processed the threat. Beneath the chirping was a dry, papery crackle. Like stepping on dead leaves in a silent room.

A sickening shudder started at the base of her spine, a sensation exactly like the dozens of needle-thin legs skittering upward, climbing her vertebrae one by one. The blood in her veins plummeted in temperature, as if the icy fire before her tore into her body.

But the blue flame remained in its position. It stretched, elongated sideways, pulling its edges out into a shape that didn't exist. A flicker, a reach, a withdrawal. If the light caught it just right, it looked exactly like a skeletal arm. A slow, patient extension.

Come…

There were no words. There was only the gesture, repeating over and over, the flame pulling forward and retreating with a type of agony Liesel could only feel in the tingling of her own fingers, as if the fire had been waiting decades for this moment.

"What is that?" Liesel murmured, completely entranced.

Ginny tried to follow her eyeline, but found nothing, "What is what?"

Liesel pointed. The flame hovered in the gloom, pulsing.

Ginny looked. As did Luna. The both of them stared directly into the shadowed corner cooperatively, then turned their backs with blank faces.

"I don't see anything," the Weasley girl said, with furrowed brows and a softness in her now-worried shoulders.

"There." Liesel took a step. The skittering sensation up her spine flared, forcing her legs to move. The flame drifted backward… Not necessarily fleeing, but maintaining the distance. It floated deeper into the alcove, the beckoning motion never stopping. That reaching, pulling shape.

Come…

Come…

"Liesel," Ginny called, stepping after her, "What does it look like?"

"Fire," Liesel whispered, her feet carrying her to the steps. "Blue fire."

She followed it to the stairwell's hollow, low archway of raw rock that bordered the steps upstairs. The wisp drifted to the railing, pulsed once, and then floated toward the back wall behind the staircase.

Except it wasn't only a wall. It was a massive wardrobe shoved deep into the stone recess. The wood was nearly black, its surface entirely swallowed by intricate, interlocking clockwork gears and sharp geometric lines that refused to form a coherent pattern. It looked almost industrial.

The wisp pressed itself into the gears and the astronomical markers. The blue light finally vanished, fading into the dark grain like a dying star.

The corridor went completely still. The crawling sensation beneath Liesel's skin snapped shut, leaving her with a hollow exhaustion.

Liesel stood inches from the wardrobe. Out of curiosity, her hand drifted up, her fingertips brushing the carved gears. The wood was freezing, having sat in the dark so long it had no warmth of human touch The edges of the gears were worn smooth either by time or, perhaps, by desperate hands. She traced the channels between the metal0like carvings, feeling the eerie wrongness of the design, the way every gear was just slightly offset from where they logically should have been.

She let her arm drop.

Ginny and Luna came to a halt behind her.

"It's a wardrobe," Ginny offered, "Fred and George have been trying to get into it since their third year. They're convinced there's a room behind it. Nothing's worked."

Liesel looked at the carved surface, unsure of how to continue, her mind continuously running over the flame.

"What you saw," Luna placed her hand on Liesel's shoulder, "If it was blue fire… That sounds like a will-'o-the wisp. They're native to Scotland, you know. They appear near water, mostly, but they'll go wherever old magic is."

"There's no such thing," Ginny sighed, but she said it without her usual full conviction, which was more honest than full conviction would have been.

"The Kelpie is native to Scotland, too," Luna said serenely, "and no one argues about those."

"That's different."

"Is it? A Kelpie is just a will-'o-the-wisp that decided to be larger," Luna's voice began picking up speed, "They show people things. That's what the old stories say. They show you where to look… Whether what you find when you look is good or bad depends on a lot of factors."

Liesel stood before the wardrobe, only half listening to the debate behind her. She thought about Umbridge's office and the drugged tea, and the voice she had heard that wasn't Umbridge's. She thought about the frost at the windows of the Hog's Head, and the twisting and turning of her vision.

"I… think I must've imagined it," Liesel muttered under her breath, "Magic can do strange things."

"It can," Luna agreed, absentmindedly smiling at Liesel with her trademarked wondrous eyes, "Though imagining is a form of seeing too, really."

Ginny muttered something under her breath that contained the words 'Loony Lovegood'.

"That isn't a very kind nickname," Luna said, unpleasantly.

"I know," Ginny said, pleasantly. She gave a side eye at the accusatory Luna and smirked.

The silence that followed had Liesel wondering if she should kick the wardrobe wide open and shove the two of them in… or better, hide in it until the exchange was over.

Liesel studied the wooden structure one final time. The gears were still. The wood was dark. Nothing moved. She turned away from it.

Luna reached out and touched the bottom of Liesel's braid lightly, turning the ends over in her fingers, "Has anyone ever suggested two braids?"

She should've locked herself in the wardrobe. It would've saved her from the hex Ginny was surely plotting in her mind.

"Instead of the one," Luna continued, "It would look very nice on you."

Liesel blinked at her. Luna looked back with absolute sincerity, as if she wasn't completely aware of the guard dog she had at her ankles.

The Slytherin thought back to all of Pansy's suggestions. She had made many, but Liesel learned to stop listening the previous year before she turned her into a Pansy doppelgänger. "Er… no. No one has."

Luna smiled, "You should try it. You have the right face shape for it."

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

The Room of Requirement arranged itself a bit differently for the DA than it had when her and Harry were initially brainstorming. It was larger, the ceiling higher, The training dummies stood neatly in rows, looking unnervingly like the front lines of an army, but exactly where she had suggested they place them.

Liesel sat on the floor near the far wall while people filed in, resting her spine against the cool stone after many hours of climbing up to the Headmaster's office, down to the dungeons, back up to the Charms classroom, back down to have tea with Professor Snape, and so on. She let the noise of twenty others organizing themselves wash over her. Around her, the DA consisted of the same personalities she had seen the past few weeks: Seamus and Dean bickering like an old married couple, Neville nervously chattering with Fred and George, and Hermione keeping a mental tally of attendees beside Harry and Ron.

Luna dropped into the chair nearest to Liesel, reached into her woven bag, and produced a tortoiseshell comb.

"May I?" she asked.

Liesel looked at the comb, and then at Luna's wide, excited eyes, "You were serious about the braids?"

"I'm always serious." Luna replied, leaning slightly closer, "Even though people think I'm joking often, I'm actually quite a serious person."

Without another word, Liesel untied the ribbon at the base of her existing braid, shaking her hair loose. Luna went to work. Her hands were deft, surprisingly firm for someone who moved through the world with such a sense of wonder. She divided the hair, the comb's teeth cool against Liesel's scalp. The repetitive motion was so unexpectedly soothing that Liesel stared blankly around the room, letting the sensation fall over her.

Across the room, Harry was talking to Ron. He slipped Ron's wand out of his pocket and began drumming the two wands against his thighs, his lips pumping with a beat that clearly gave away his anxiety. When Ron noticed, he yanked his wand out of Harry's hand and whined that he would break one one day. Harry laughed and looked away… glancing directly into Liesel's eyes.

She smiled. Just a small smile. There was nothing to it, really. A smile that one would give someone passing on the street. But Harry's natural response was to warmly smile. He seemed as if he was ready to walk over to her, but Ron pulled him back and began to speak to him one again.

Luna's fingers moved through her hair: Dividing, crossing, crossing, dividing. The room filled with voices as everyone arrived.

The meeting began.

Liesel had cast Expelliarmus thousands of times. She knew the spell the way she knew the wizarding waltz, or the grain of hornbeam wood…. Her body had learned it so completely that a single conscious thought only got in the way. It was natural.

So Harry inevitably asked her to help about 5 minutes into the lesson.

She moved between the pairs, watching their wrists, nothing where the energy of the wands may snag at the gestures. The gesture was the entire trick, just as Flitwick had said, just as anyone who had actually disarmed a determined opponent would know in their bones. Most people, especially a room full of angry children, wanted to throw spells like a punch: all shoulder, no wrist. She corrected them. 'Follow through.' 'Don't stop at the release.' 'You're holding your breath, let go.'

Liesel watched Harry demonstrate for Seamus. He was a far better teacher than he gave himself credit for, which aligned perfectly with how he viewed the rest of his own abilities.

When the session finished, people collected their belongings, chatting loosely with exhaustion.

Liesel crouched to pick up her robes from the floor, placing them in her elbow, and grabbing the leather strip of her satchel.

She stood. Cedric was looking straight at her.

She was standing directly in front of the long mirror she had requested for checking dueling forms. She'd glanced at it a dozen times today and hadn't seen this. Someone had put it there after the session started, or she simply hadn't stood at this exact angle before.

A photograph was taped to the glass. Cedric.

It wasn't a formal portrait, not quite the polished images the Prophet circulated. This photo was candid. Someone had caught him in motion, mid-laugh, with his head turned slightly, the corners of his eyes crinkled. Beside it, arranged with great care, were clippings from the Prophet. She recognized the font, the column widths… Liesel probably could've read them off from memory, as she had obsessed over them all summer.

Liesel stared at the photograph. Cedric's image was still, which meant it was a Muggle photograph. That stillness was somehow worse… somehow better than the moving kind. It was clear it came from Newton Gold's collection.

"Who put this up?" Liesel asked softly, without any particular edge.

"I did." Harry's voice spoke up from right behind her. "We can take it down. I can take it down right now, I just thought-"

"No." She cut him off before he could finish, "Don't." She examined the clippings, the photograph, the deliberate arrangement by the one person who also understood that the why mattered just as much as the what, "You did the right thing. People need to know why they're fighting."

Liesel looked past the photos and past her own reflection in the mirror to look at Harry. He was standing a few feet behind her, his hands shoved into his robe pockets.

She turned around, her satchel swinging on her shoulder. The room was empty except for the two of them. She registered this slowly, absorbing the slight disorder of the wooden chairs, the absence of the chatter they had heard before.

Liesel looked at her shoes. Harry looked at her.

"I'm stuck there, too, you know." Harry broke the silence between the two of them.

The Slytherin girl glanced back up at the Boy Who Lived, "What?"

"The maze." Harry delivered the words as if he had memorized them several times, but failed to remember the proper lines, "I still have nightmares. The same ones, mostly. The same few seconds." He paused, running a hand through his dark hair, a tell that he was working up to something difficult. "If you ever-… I mean, if you wanted to talk about him. About Cedric. I'm… I was there. No one else was. Well, besides Voldemort, and I think maybe no one else-" Harry stopped, "No one else gets it the way I do. That's all I mean."

Liesel nodded, the words entirely absent from her throat. Her gaze dropped back to her shoes as she felt him watching her silently, attentively. Thoughts were racing in her mind, but she couldn't bring herself to speak. Her throat was constricted.

"… Right." Harry muttered. She heard the subtle shift of his boots, the small transfer of balance that preceded departure, the intake of breath right before 'I'll be off then.'

The satchel on her shoulder and robes over her arm hit the floorboards with a dull thud. Harry's attention diverted to the sudden noise as he found himself trapped in Liesel's hands. Right as he was about to say goodbye to his nose, she dragged him in and placed her lips on his.

Harry didn't even have time to close his eyes. The impact of her hands on his cheeks was startling, the rough edge of the linen wrapped around her knuckles scraping slightly against his jawbone. He had spent the entire term observing her from across the crowded classrooms, keeping a careful distance, navigating how to talk to the girl who lost just as much as him that night. Now she was pulling him toward her rapidly, collapsing the space between them before his mind could catch up. Her lips were slightly salty, trembling as they pressed against his with an urgency that derailed the words forming in his throat. The relentless noise of his daily life simply vanished. The dread of the Ministry interference, the nightmares, the constant throbbing in his scar, all disappeared. In its place was the friction of her thumbs resting against his cheekbones.

For Liesel, the action had completely outpaced her reasoning. It was driven by a sudden- feral, even- need to feel something... someone... before the silence in the room could eat her alive. Only their mouths actually connected before the reality of the decision struck her. The stiff wire frames of his round glasses bumped awkwardly against the bridge of her nose, clumsily shoving up toward his eyebrows and brought the identity of the boy she was kissing into sharp focus. He was radiating an incredible amount of heat, from both the activity of the meeting and nervousness, she supposed. She hadn't calculated the angle, hadn't adjusted her posture, hadn't prepared any sort of aristocratic poise that she normally hid behind.

It was messy.

A heartbeat later, Harry's hands found her waist, and he eagerly kissed her back.

For one fractured second, a unit of time too miniscule to name, the hands on her waist belonged to someone else. The mouth pressing against hers felt familiar in a completely different way. The body standing close was taller, and the glasses were non-existent. And Liesel jumped back to look at Harry.

His eyes opened, too. Liesel studied him from this newfound close proximity… The bright green of his irises. The untidy hair. The round glasses. The fading sunburn along his jawline. This was real.

The grief remained. Liesel wasn't naive enough to believe a kiss could unmake grief, and she should've known this would happen. But it was no longer the very first thing… He wasn't the entity that arrived first in every quiet moment, demanding her attention. For the first time since that night by the maze, something in the present stood in front of it.

She kissed Harry again.

This time, the boundaries blurred. Hands shifted, his sliding slightly inward to drag her in at the waist and hers moving outward to wrap her arms over and around his neck.

As their mouths moved together, exploring one another, Liesel once again felt something burst in her stomach.

Burst was not quite the right word. It leaked. A creeping, insidious cold began to seep from the base of her spine, crawling up her vertebrae like frost on a windowpane.

She sensed him. She sensed… it.

Whatever it was.

Liesel felt the temperature of her own blood plummet as she wrapped her arms further around Harry, and as Harry pulled her further into his chest. Something inside of her wanted to reach out, to coil around whatever lay behind his lighting scar, to feed on it. The sensation was clearly wrong to Liesel, but she found it undeniably intoxicating.

Then, Harry pulled away.

The separation was abrupt. His hands dropped from her waist to her elbows, steadying her as he took a distinct half-step backward.

Liesel's eyes fluttered open, her lungs desperately trying to breathe him back in. The sparks within her recoiled at the sudden loss of Harry. She looked at his face, expecting to find the same intoxicating intensity that she felt.

But he wasn't looking at her.

His eyes were focused squarely over her shoulder. She didn't need to turn around to know what had caught his attention. He was staring directly at the long mirror on the wall behind her. At the muggle photograph of Cedric taped on the glass. In the image, Cedric wasn't moving, wasn't watching… He was simply there to bear witness to what they were doing.

Harry shifted his weight, the quiet of the room turning stale.

"Liesel," he murmured, his voice catching in his throat, "I'm not- I don't want you to think I'm trying to replace him. Cedric, I mean. I know I can't. I just… I thought you needed the company. I don't mean to cross any line."

Liesel lifted her hand. Her fingers found his face, tracing the angle of his jaw before she pressed a single finger gently against his lips.

She kept her mossy eyes locked onto his, forcing his gaze away from the mirror and back to her. The room held them quietly. The danger waiting for them outside had not yet vanished. The war was still coming. The Ministry was still prowling the corridors. But here they were.

"He's not here, Harry. You are." Liesel said quietly. She hesitated, watching his lips intently before flicking her gaze back up to his, "I don't need another Cedric."

Harry blinked. He let out a soft, shaky exhale against her finger.

Liesel lowered her hand, her fingers catching the collar of his jumper beneath his robes, and pulled him back in.

When they kissed his time, the hesitation was entirely gone.

Liesel glanced over her shoulder once again with a smirk pulling at the corners of her lips, "No one is being thrown off of the Astronomy Tower anytime soon, I'm afraid."

"Brilliant. So where are we going?"

"Harry."

"What?"

"Stop talking and walk faster."

He did, falling into step beside her rather than trailing behind, and Liesel graciously left him space. The corridor narrowed as they climbed, developing into newer stones that very clearly shown the centuries it had taken to complete the castle in its entirety. She was aware, in the particular way she had become aware of most things since she found herself silent during the summer, of the small distance between them and the way it rapidly adjusted as they walked. Harry walked similarly to the way he flew. It was responsive, yet slightly unpredictable, occupying space without performing it. It was rather irritating. Liesel had been raised to walk into rooms and own them, to meet eyes and hold them, to meticulously monitor her speaking and never open her mouth without filtering her words for fear something may be given away. Around Harry, she found herself doing what her parents would consider most undignified: letting words fall out of her lips, noticing her own hands, glancing at him and then finding something else to look at quickly.

She was not accustomed to bashfulness. She had no programming for it in her soul… and no patience for it, either. Yet here it was, following her up the staircase like something she that had clung to her from Grimmauld Place. The truly inconvenient part was that, underneath the bashfulness, there was something else, something that had nothing to do with nerves and everything to do with the specific and unrepeatable fact of Harry Potter, himself.

He make her feel more awake than she had in months. It wasn't exactly the raw, electric shockwaves of her grief… She knew that kind, had lived inside it for months, and felt trapped by the sharpness if provided her consciousness, to the point it left her bleeding on the edges of ordinary tasks. This was different. Cleaner. It pointed somewhere other than backward.

Harry didn't tiptoe around her the way everyone else had learned to do. He didn't lower his voice or look at her the way the professors and members of the Order did, like she might tear herself apart without their direct supervision.

He had been there. He held Cedric in front of the maze while the band abruptly silenced themselves and the stars in the sky dissipated, and the world conjured a line between Before and After. Liesel understood that Harry carried it the way she did, something she simply knew; the way one would know which staircases moved and which portraits were worth speaking to. He understood her without requiring her to explain herself, and she had not known until this year how much of her energy had always gone into the explaining.

Liesel decided enough was enough, and to give him an actual hint, "There's an advantage to having one of the oldest wizarding bloodlines in Britain. We know just about everything about this castle."

Harry considered this, and nervously chuckled, "That sounds like something your lot would say right before the floor opened up."

Liesel smiled without a response, which made Harry slightly nervous and caused him to watch his feet a bit more closely. He was quiet again, but she could see him working something out from the corner of her eyes, that small crease between his brows that appeared when he was thinking rather than reacting. Two different expressions. She had catalogued both.

"Speaking of blood…" Harry began.

Liesel raised her eyebrow. What a fascinating way to start a conversation, "Yes?"

"I've been meaning to ask you something," Harry fiddled with the sleeve of his Gryffindor robes, something born out of habit due to being undersized, "You're a half-blood."

"That I am."

"But the Ollivanders are in the Sacred Twenty-Eight."

"They are."

Harry huffed, "Those two things are famously in contradiction."

The Slytherin girl tilted her head, watching her feet similarly to how Harry was. However, she wasn't looking for traps, but observing her feet to make sure she didn't trip in front of the Chosen One, "My great-grandmother was a bit of an enigma. She arrived at Hogwarts in her fifth year. No record of where she came from. She never told anyone, never wrote it down."

She thought, briefly, of the woman she had known only through other people's descriptions of her: quick-handed, unconventional, deeply private, utterly certain of her own worth in a way that had apparently not required external confirmation. Her grandfather spoke of her rarely and always in the same register, somewhere between admiration and bafflement. Liesel had always strived to be exactly her.

"So she was hiding something." Harry suggested.

"Possibly. Or she simply didn't think it was anyone else's business," Liesel paused at a landing, choosing to enter the left corridor over the right by something that looked like instinct, but was clearly years of being taken through this castle by someone who knew it well, "Some people believed she was a pureblood because she was such a powerful witch."

"People say my mother was a powerful witch. She was muggleborn," the boy noted, "So's Hermione and she's absolutely brilliant."

"Well, some others took the secrecy as proof of the opposite. I'm not sure my grandfather even knows. He's never confirmed anything either way, and I learned young that there are some questions you only ask him once."

Harry thought for a moment, his thinking crease deepening, "What do you think?"

"Quite frankly, I don't care," Liesel glanced at him, taking in the crease, his set jaw, his crooked glasses, "I think even Draco has Muggle blood somewhere in his family tree that has probably been buried. Blood purity is just a story people tell themselves. Magic doesn't particularly care where you come from, and a thought like that could make the Malfoy dynasty completely collapse."

Harry let out a short breath that was close to a laugh, though heavily diluted by the panting from climbing the staircase a moment ago, "You'd get hexed if you said that in your common room."

"Hexes get cast around for much less in our house."

Liesel stopped. They were standing in front of a long blank stretch of wall, the kind that populated the upper floors in numbers with no documented purpose and no portraits and nothing to suggest anything had ever happened in front of it. However, on the opposite wall, was a particularly fascinating portrait of Barnabas the Barmy teaching trolls ballet in bright pink tutus, "I want you to pace back and forth in front of this wall and think very specifically about what we need. A space large enough. Hidden enough."

Harry looked at the wall, and back to Liesel, "You let me all the way up here to make a fool of me? Brilliant."

"Just do it, Potter."

He held her gaze for a long second, clearly on the edge of arguing, and wondering if he would've preferred the trip off the tip of the Astronomy Tower instead. Then, he apparently decided that she had yet to actually lead him wrong, which was generous of him given the available evidence. He started walking. Three large steps to the left, three large steps to the right, his brows drawing together.

"Focus." Liesel murmured.

"I'm focusing."

On the third pass, a door materialized. It was a dramatic appearance, but it was as if the door had resolved itself out of the stone, coming out of hiding. The door was entirely unremarkable from the outside, which was precisely the point.

Harry stopped walking and make a double take toward the door, "That wasn't there."

"It comes when you need it," Liesel crossed the corridor, took the handle, and pulled it open, stepping aside so Harry can enter first, "After you."

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

Liesel stood in the Transfiguration courtyard and five minutes past midnight, her cloak pulled close at both shoulders and her back pressed against the solid stone next to the trick door next that led to Central hall. The trick door that, upon trying to open it, it would seem as if it's locked, but when you walked away, it would swing open, sometimes clipping your heels. To get through the door, one would need to trick the trick door, pretend to turn around, and sprint through.

The castle held an eerie quiet in the early hours that she had noticed every time she stepped outside the common room at night. It wasn't simply the absence of sound that scurried the halls, but more like the castle was reserving its energy for the next day. The castle itself slept along with the students.

The courtyard torches had burned to their last hour and the light they gave was a warm amber, letting the shadows deepen around her.

She heard his footsteps before she saw him. It wasn't a careful, deliberate creak that she expected to her, but the loose and easy stride of someone who found nothing complicated about sneaking around at midnight. Cedric Diggory came around the far colonnade with a light jog, now changed out of his bright yellow Hufflepuff tracksuit from the dueling finale and now in his Hufflepuff school robes. His hair was cleanly fixed from the earlier events, swept elegantly to the side.

Upon seeing Liesel, he let out a breath he was holding, "You came."

"You asked." Liesel felt a blush creep up onto her cheeks, "Where are we going?"

But Cedric didn't answer. He stepped up to her and caught the hood of her cloak, drawing it up over her curls with a confidence that belonged to someone who had known her much longer than he had. Liesel simply giggled at this action, the cloak's hood slightly covering her eyes, as if they had known each other for years, "Cedric, what are you doing?"

"You must be cold, birdie!"

"Oh, Merlin!" Liesel laughed, pushing the hood up so she could see, "Don't call me birdie. And I'm fine."

Cedric craned his neck down to see eye to eye with her, the hood still obstructing his sight due to his height, "That's what your grandfather calls you, isn't it?"

"He calls me Little Bird."

"Right… Well," Cedric playfully rolled his eyes and pulled the hood down over her eyes again, "You need to keep your hood up. Just in case."

Liesel nodded with a giggle, then looked at his appearance upon freeing her eyesight… At the bright yellow of his Hufflepuff tie, which caught the last of the courtyard torchlight with an enthusiasm that was difficult to describe as anything other than visible from space, "And what's your plan, exactly? Filch will be able to see that tie from the greenhouse."

Cedric grinned. "I'm a prefect. A golden boy. Completely above suspicion."

He pressed one finger to his lips to silence her, his eyes shining. His hand caressed her shoulder and then reached down to grab hers only to turn around and rush into the dark, crouching lightly.

The castle at midnight belonged to a different world than in the daytime. The sleeping corridors gave off a low constant frequency after the sun dipped behind the highlands, resonating in the teeth rather than heard. As if the sting of a harp was plucked and required to ring forever.

Cedric weaved Liesel through the corridors fluently, one hand trailing the stone wall at turns, taking routes that avoided Filch's patrol seemingly without much thought.

"Do you sneak around often like this?" Liesel asked quietly on the fifth floor landing.

"An excellent wizard never reveals his secrets."

"That's the second time tonight you've said something that sounded profound that contained absolutely no substance."

Cedric laughed…a real laugh, one he had no mechanism for suppressing, one that was entirely too loud for a castle at midnight. He clapped his hand over his mouth immediately, his eyes creasing in amusement above it. She watched the smile reach the edges of his hand. Liesel pressed a hand over her own mouth, letting out an excited giggle.

They were about to step onto the Astronomy tower stairs once again, moving through the deep shadow between two wall sconces, when Cedric stopped.

He put a hand out, catching her elbow, and she stopped as well.

Down the hall, where a side passage branched off toward the east wing, two figures were moving with the self-conscious stealth of people who believed themselves to be invisible. One of them, catching a slant of torchlight, was wearing the heavy dark-skirted uniform of Durmstrang. The other had Gryffindor red at the collar.

Liesel and Cedric looked at each other, eyes wide. As he shoved Liesel behind a statue in the hallway, Cedric's expression cycled through several things in rapid succession, landing somewhere between duty and amusement, with duty winning just barely. He straightened, and the transformation was instantaneous: prefect badge, Triwizard champion, the whole package.

He stepped forward into the torchlight, "Do you two have any idea what time it is?"

The Durmstrang girl went rigid. The Gryffindor boy, which Liesel recognized to be Lee Jordan in Cedric's year, turned approximately the color of his tie.

"Cedric! Look, mate…" Lee glanced between the prefect and the girl, "Pretend you never saw us and I'll give you three galleons."

Cedric raised an eyebrow at Lee's attempt to charm him and the girl next to him, "I'll pretend I didn't see you if you return to your dormitories right this instant."

They went. Quickly. The Durmstrang girl had the presence of mind to look dignified about it, but Lee simply did not. The Gryffindor scrambled out of the corridor, leaving the other far behind.

When both of them rounded the corner and their footsteps faded, Cedric turned back to the shadowed alcove where Liesel was pressed against the wall, and she came out from behind the statue of a one-armed warlock. They looked at each other for one silent second before breaking into giggles once again.

This laughing was surely the result of the adrenaline rush. The kind of laughing that could only happen in places you weren't supposed to make noise, which meant it had nowhere to go and turned itself inside out trying to stay quiet, shoulders shaking, hands pressed over mouths. Cedric recovered first, grabbing Liesel's hand once again and pulling. She followed him down the corridor with a controlled stumble, both of them still fighting the laughter.

He stopped short at the next turn and looked back they way they'd come, listening. She watched his profile; the laugh lines still at the corners of his eyes, fading now into the composed and attentive expression she had usually seen from him.

"Clear," he murmured.

"You," she said, keeping her voice low, "are the best prefect I've ever seen."

"Is that sarcasm?" He looked down at her, that quiet amusement still flickering beneath his composure, "Don't answer that. Come on."

With the same natural, unhesitant certainty he'd used to pull up her hood earlier, he reached out and took her hand. His grip was warm, safe. Liesel stared at their joined hands for a fraction of a second, then shifted her gaze to the empty corridor ahead, saying absolutely nothing.

Cedric stopped her before a stretch of blank sone, directly opposite a painting of trolls in ornate pink tutus. He released her hand, rubbing his palms together with the anticipation of a magician preparing to perform a card trick, a comparison that Liesel later discovered was much more accurate than she had anticipated. "I need you to walk back and forth in front of this wall three times."

Liesel stared at the blank stone, and then blankly back at Cedric, "I beg your pardon?"

"Trust me."

"You are going to have to give me considerably more than that, Diggory"

"Walk back and forth," he instructed, adopting a patient cadence, "And think about what you want. A room to dance in. Large… Private, preferably."

Liesel studied him. She had humiliated him in a duel in front of three schools, and he had simply brushed off the dust, asked her to the Yule Ball, escorted her through the midnight castle, and handled rule-breaking with the effortless authority of someone born to it. Whatever else might be said about Cedric Diggory, in the span of a single evening, he had earned her cooperation.

She began to pace.

Three passes. She focused on the cold stone and thought of music, of a proper, polished floor, and of the fact that she had promised to teach this boy how to dance before he turned December into a catastrophic social event for them both.

A heavy wooden door materialized from the brickwork.

Liesel stopped dead and turned slowly toward the newfound door. Cedric was leaning against the opposite wall, arms crossed, wearing a terribly satisfied expression at her awe of the castle's magic.

"What is this?" She asked softly.

"They call it the Room of Requirement… Some call it the Come-and-Go Room." He tilted his head at Liesel, "My great-grandmother told me once, when I was very small, that there was a room in this castle that appeared only when you truly needed it. She used it to hide animals from poachers when she was in school."

Liesel smiled, "Poppy."

Cedric nodded, smiling, "A certain Slytherin named Dorothea Sparrow showed it to her. The room gave them what they needed and asked for nothing in return." He paused, letting the silence settle.

The name stuck Liesel's chest long before her conscious mind could process the impact. It settled deep into her ribs. It was a name she had never expected to encounter outside of her family's old ledgers or old antique papers in the restricted section. Her great-grandmother, the enigma. Dorothea in particular belonged to a part of her lineage that seemed to be more myth than fact.

Before she could do anything embarrassing, Liesel pressed her lips into a thin line and pivoted toward the door. Cedric reached past her shoulder, the warmth of his breath landing on her neck, and pushed the doorknob forward.

The room waiting for them was not massive, as it didn't need to be. The floor was a sea of pale hardwood. Against the far wall, the magic had conjured a vintage gramophone. It sported a fabulous dark, polished mahogany with a gleaming brass horn that caught the candlelight around the room and cast it back in a warm amber glow. The floating candles hovered low, creating a ceiling of light above them. Liesel was slightly worried Cedric's head might bump one of them.

"It always knows," Cedric said, now leaning lightly over her shoulder from the back, "Whatever you need. It's never wrong about it."

Liesel turned her head toward him, jumping at his proximity. But she didn't move away. She simply couldn't help but have a gentle smile approach her lips as she drank in his profile, and then his lovely hazel eyes when he also turned his head. On his neck, there was a faint smear of chalky dust along his pumping artery that he hadn't noticed.

"You have-"

Without consciously deciding to do it, Liesel reached up and brushed the dust from his neck with her thumb. His breath caught, stopping for a fraction of a second, and she could feel his racing heartbeat.

Liesel dropped her hand instantly, feeling a brutal heat flush her cheeks as she turned briskly toward the gramophone, "Right. Well, we can't be here all night. Let's get started."

Cedric chuckled lowly as she turned on a three-beat tune, following her across the floor, "I want to be fully transparent with you, Liesel… Perhaps we shouldn't start with the waltz. Your toes will be sore."

"Sounds like we'll have to make some guidelines, then," Liesel smiled, walking up to Cedric as the gramophone spun a melancholic mid-century waltz, "You step on my toes, I make sure you can't walk for the first task." She placed her hand on Cedric's chest as they wrapped up in each others arms, prepared to dance.

He laughed, and this time, she felt it more than she heard it. The rumble of his chest against her hand awoke the butterflies in her stomach and caused the contagion of laughter to reach Liesel. When the giggles faded between the two of them, they were still standing close. Far closer than the waltz strictly required. Neither of them made any move to correct the distance.

He stepped on her toes twice. Both which ended with Liesel stomping on the offending foot.

"I warned you," she pointed out.

"You made it sound… manageable," Cedric replied, an edge still buried in his voice from the pain.

The gramophone kept spinning. The candles kept their low, protective height above their heads. The proximity between the witch and the wizard provided them the warmth they needed in such an old castle, energy passing between the two of them with every step.

They couldn't pinpoint exactly when the dancing dissolved into talking. Liesel only know that at some point, they were sitting side-by-side against the far wall. The brass horn was still humming softly, their shoulders were pressed together, and Cedric was telling her about the summer: The Quidditch World Cup, his father's ridiculous hat, and a comment Fred Weasley had made about the Bulgarian team that required a much more diplomatic phrasing to sound even a fraction less offensive.

Liesel watched his profile as he spoke: the slight, expressive waves of his hands when he rambled on, the way one stubborn piece of hair kept escaping from its gelled position and falling onto his forehead no matter how many times he pushed it back.

At some point, she stopped observing him and just started looking at him. Simply looking at him. A terribly different action. She noticed the difference between the two, mentally noting the vulnerability it required, and did absolutely nothing to stop it.

It was nearly six in the morning before they had gained enough sense to go back to their common rooms, but Liesel didn't want to. She held the thought in her mind, turning it over and over: I do not want to leave him.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

The Room of Requirement had understood Harry's need for something rather different. It offered space where the other room had given warmth, height where the other had kept them sheltered. Light came from no discernible source and filled every corner without shadow, and the walls had arranged themselves with low platforms and a wide open stretch of floor that felt purposeful rather than merely empty.

"How did you know about this place?" Harry asked.

Liesel looked around at the room, at this version of it. "Cedric showed me." She said it the way she sometimes managed to say it… without the catch in it, flat and simple, the way you might point at an object and name it. "Fourth year. He knew the trick of it."

Harry was watching her when she looked back. He had the expression she had started to recognize, the one where he was deciding between the careful thing and the honest one.

"He'd have liked this," Harry said, looking up at the ceiling, "Knowing the room was still being put to use."

It was the right thing. She didn't know how he kept finding the right thing to say. "Yes," she said, "He would."

They let it sit for a moment without either of them rushing to fill it, which was rarer than it should have been and worth noticing when it happened.

Then Harry looked at the open floor and said, "This is perfect," with the same directness he applied to everything, and the weight of the moment shifted, and they set about working.

Liesel walked the perimeter, thinking aloud about the platforms, and Harry followed at her shoulder asking the useful questions rather than the polite ones: where would observers stand, whether there was room to rearrange if the group grew, whether a dummy positioned there would block the sightline from the entry. She found she liked talking to him while she was thinking. He didn't wait for her to finish a thought before understanding its direction and asking the next one. It was an efficient and quietly pleasant way of working, and she had not had many occasions to notice how much she had missed working with someone rather than beside them.

"There," Liesel huffed, stopping at the center of the floor. "Leave that space open. It reads better for large groups."

Harry walked to the spot and stood in it, turning to look back toward the entry. "You're right."

"I usually am."

"You know, you could just say 'yes' and leave it there."

"I could. What's the fun in that, Potter?"

He smiled at the door and she looked at the side of his face, the line of his jaw in the sourceless light, and also smiled, privately, before turning to a training dummy that had somehow magically drifted two feet from where she'd intended it.

They moved it together, one on each side, and set it back. When they straightened up they were standing closer than the dummy's width had strictly required. Neither of them moved immediately.

The angle of his weight, slightly forward. The way his eyes had gone still on her face. Liesel became aware of Harry's state incrementally out of the corner of her eye.

She held the look. One second. Two.

The room was quiet in a way that felt chosen rather than empty. The light didn't move. Neither did either of them… not quite.

But when Liesel turned her head to look at him, it was different. Not a thing she could have named if asked. It was less like seeing and more like the sensation that preceded hearing, that slight change in air pressure that meant something was about to arrive. She didn't move her eyes from Harry's face, but the edge of him: the line of his shoulder, the side of his head, the angle of his jaw against the light… began to shimmer in a way that her eyes registered as wrong, such as one would register half-awake dreams as wrong.

It was blue. She couldn't tell if it was a crisp sapphire of a levitation charm or the harsh, blinding flash of something she'd use on the dueling catwalk. This was older, an uncategorized color. The best metaphor she could possibly use to describe the hue was a feeling, a concept. It was the final, fading light inside a dying star that was burning simply because it had forgotten how to extinguish. It was static at the very edge of his silhouette. If she looked straight at it, the color vanished. But looking straight at Harry, the edges of his skin in her periphery, the light bled like spilled oil.

In focusing on this glow, Liesel couldn't help but look straight at Harry's forehead, her gaze snagging on the lightning bolt etched into his forehead. It wasn't a conscious choice. Her focus drifted toward the mark the exact same way a compass needle twitches north, pulled by a magnetic current that predated human decision.

Describing what she felt from the scar… no, what was under the scar… was impossible, because it lacked any kind of geometry. Not round, not blunt, not dead, not sleeping, not restless. The wrongness in its nature bypassed Liesel's logic and shocked her straight into her bone marrow. It was as if, whatever was there, was sealed sight witht eh assumption that it would remain undisturbed for centuries.

And the magic within her withdrew.

Recoiled was the wrong word. Words clearly weren't Liesel's strongsuit at the moment. The magic backed away the way a hand instinctively jerks from a hot stove.

The axis of the room tilted. Slowly, sickeningly, like she had felt in Professor Umbridge's office during detentions. A high, whining frequency pitched in her ears.

Liesel ripped her eyes away from his forehead, gripping the wooden shoulder of the training dummy before her.

"Liesel? Are you alright?"

When she glanced back, the blue static was gone. Or perhaps it had faded moments ago and her brain was simply lagging behind the reality of the room. She couldn't tell. She was too occupied with the overlapping sensations inside her own body: the flash of her own magic, and the dread sitting behind Harry's skin.

Liesel pushed it down. The suppression was becoming muscle memory, like a daily exhausting chore one would do. She had done it in the offices, in the Hog's Head, and in the dead of night when her own power woke her in a cold sweat from a nightmare. She was mastering it, or so she convinced herself. The crawling in her skin yielded, leaving behind only the ringing in her ears and numbness in her fingertips.

"Sorry…" Liesel murmured, blinking, "I got lightheaded for a moment. It's…"

She wanted to say it was nothing, but she couldn't quite lie to him.

"It's perfect," the girl said, simply echoing his earlier words, "You should go spread the word."

Harry was still looking at her. She felt the gaze without meeting his green eyes. She didn't know what exactly he had caught, whether it was the hesitation, the hand on the wood, the glassy stare… Perhaps nothing.

"Are you coming?" He asked.

Liesel finally met his eyes. All she saw was a boy with messy hair, a faded burn along his jawline from quidditch practice, and dorky-looking classes upon his nose. Harry Potter… not quite the Chosen One.

"I'll stay back a bit," Liesel replied, gesturing vaguely toward the haphazardly arranged dummies. "I want to make sure it's properly sorted."

Harry accepted the excuse with a quiet grace, or an awkward fear. Either way, no probing questions. No demanding to know what's wrong. He allowed her the space she clearly needed, a specific and rare kind of understanding that Liesel was still trying to figure out how to accept.

Harry took a step toward the exit, offering a small smile that lacked his usual self-consciousness, "Thank you for showing me."

She nodded. A simple tilt of the chin that held the unspoken things she couldn't say.

He turned, pulled the brass handle, and stepped out. The door shut with a soft, unassuming click.

Liesel remained rooted in the center of the vast space. The dummies she had claimed to want to organize stood untouched.

She tilted her head back, staring up at the vaulted ceiling. Her mind drifted to a compressed version of this exact room. A gramophone humming through a brass horn. Candles hovering at eye level. Cedric leaning his shoulder against the wood paneling, tucking that same stray lock of hair for the fourth consecutive time.

Whatever you need, Cedric had told her, leaning against that wall, watching her face process the magic. It’s never wrong about it.

I need you. Liesel thought, her fingers once again finding the emerald ribbon on her wrist.

Liesel halted. Her fingers twitched, a sobering ache flaring in her own knuckles. She remembered the blinding momentum of her fist connecting with Theodore Nott’s face, and she remembered the frantic, scrambling bodies trying to pull her away. She had shoved Ginny. She had thrown her aside with enough force to send the Gryffindor crashing into the wall beside the Slytherin table.

"Ginny," Liesel breathed, the word snagging in her throat. She took a tentative step forward, her natural instinct to assess, to heal, overriding her usual guarded demeanor. "Your face."

Ginny did not uncross her arms. Her jaw set into a stubborn, rigid line, her eyes flashing with a spark of resentment Liesel hadn’t quite seen in her friend before, at least towards herself. "It feels worse than it looks, I hope you know," she said, her voice clipped, devoid of the usual warmth she normally reserved for her. "Madam Pomfrey fixed the cartilage, but she said the bruising would take a few days to fade. Said I was lucky it wasn't a clean break."

Liesel looked down at the back of her own hands. Beneath the wrappings, she knew her knuckles were split, the skin red and angry. A hollow sense of shame pooled in her stomach. She had lost control. The pristine, untouchable facade of the wandmaker’s heir had cracked, revealing something feral and unhinged beneath. It was exactly what she was afraid of: Being seen as a successor to her mother's rage.

"I didn't mean to hit you," Liesel said, her voice dropping to a quiet, earnest murmur. She forced herself to meet Ginny’s gaze. "You just-"

"Got in your way of killing Nott?"

Liesel's heart sputtered, ashamed that she might be speaking the truth, "I didn't mean to."

Ginny watched her for a long, silent moment. The anger in the Gryffindor’s eyes flickered, warring with the inherent empathy that defined her family. She shifted her weight, one hand dropping to her side to fish something out of her robe pocket.

"I know," Ginny finally replied, though the edge in her tone hadn't completely dulled. "Harry said you wouldn't have done it if you were in your right mind. He said Nott pushed you over a ledge. Even Ron was on your side, you know. That about made me want to knock him out at first."

Then, Ginny extended her hand, holding out a small folded square of parchment.

Liesel looked at the paper, then back at Ginny’s face. "What's this?"

"An invitation," Ginny said, pushing the parchment closer until Liesel had no choice but to take it. The paper felt rough and dry against her fingertips. "To join us this weekend. At the Hog's Head. Harry and Hermione are putting something together. A new defense group… like a new Crossed Wands, I suppose."

Liesel stared at the folded square. The implications of the tiny piece of parchment cascaded through her mind. A secret society. Rebellion. Gathering in a dingy pub off the main street. It was exactly the kind of reckless Gryffindor behavior that usually ended in detention or worse. Yet, the thought of holding her wand again, of standing on a platform and feeling the pure, clean rush of her magic, sent a thrill of longing straight through her chest. Liesel had forgotten entirely about the Hogsmeade weekend coming up, and she had expected to be spending it carving words into her flesh as a drab reminder of her rage, but the thought of causing a different kind of trouble was thriling.

"Who else is invited?" Liesel asked, her voice cautious.

"People we trust," Ginny stated bluntly. "People from my house. Some Hufflepuffs. A few Ravenclaws who aren't completely blind to what's happening." She paused, her brown eyes narrowing slightly. "None of your lot, that’s for sure. You're the only one wearing green who got a piece of paper."

Liesel felt the familiar, isolating chill wash over her. She was the exception. The anomaly. The Slytherin who was tolerated only because of the boy she had loved and the boy who currently sought her out. She looked at the bruised, swollen skin around Ginny’s nose, a physical manifestation of the chaos she brought with her.

Slowly, Liesel held the parchment back out to the ginger.

"I can't go," Liesel said softly, trying everything in her power to match her eyes, but failing. "No one would want me there. They tolerated me before, but now? Ginny…"

Ginny did not take the paper. She let out a short, humorless scoff, the sound echoing sharply against the stone walls, "Nonsense. Everyone's wanted to smash Nott's face in since my first year. You remember how he tied Macmillan up by the feet in the courtyard and wrote 'blood-traitor' across his forehead with Pansy's lipstick?"

Liesel remembered it well. However, she remembered being more upset about the fact that he used Pansy's lipstick instead of her own. Liesel tapped her foot, deep in thought, and shook her head, "It'll only hurt Harry's chances. They won't trust me."

"That's too bad," Ginny said, stepping closer, her chin tilting up. "Because you are going to be there. Harry wants you there. And frankly, after the way you nearly took my nose off my face, you owe me. So I had better see you walk through the door of that pub, Liesel, or I swear to Merlin, your nose is going to look exactly like mine."

A tiny, unexpected smile tugged at the corner of Liesel’s lips. The sheer audacity of the younger girl was oddly comforting. It was straightforward. It was honest.

"Alright, then…" Liesel murmured, lowering her hand, her fingers curling around the parchment.

Ginny nodded, a curt, satisfied motion, and turned on her heel to head toward the stairs. She took three steps before she stopped. The silence in the corridor stretched for a long, taut second. Ginny turned slowly back around, the bravado fading from her expression, replaced by a cautious, unsettling curiosity.

"Liesel," Ginny said, her voice dropping to a near-whisper. "When McGonagall cast the disarming charm… your wand was…" She swallowed, her eyes tracking down to Liesel’s empty hands as her speech trailed off. "…I'm lucky you gave me the elbow instead of whatever was about to come out of that wand. What were you going to cast at him? Some curse?"

The question hung in the cold air, sharp and probing.

Liesel stood perfectly still. She searched her own memory of the Great Hall. She tried to find the incantation that had been sitting on her tongue, the spell she had been pulling from her core. But when she looked inward, she found only a yawning, black void. There had been no thought. No word. There had been no calculated strategy. There had only been a searing, blinding urge to unmake the boy who had mocked the last piece of her first love that she possessed.

The realization of that blankness seeped into her bones. The realization that she could have cast a maiming hex, or a dark curse, without a single conscious thought was a chilling revelation. The darkness her mother possessed, the rot that had sent her parents to an island prison, was not a distant concept. It was alive inside her, sleeping just beneath the surface, waiting for a trigger.

Liesel looked at Ginny, her mossy eyes turning darker by the second.

"I don't know," Liesel whispered, the truth slipping out of her like a sour confession to a priest, as if she were on her knees and going through the motions of the sign of the cross without truly meaning it. "I truly do not know."

Ginny studied her face, reading the genuine fear etched into Liesel’s features. The younger girl gave a slow, solemn nod, accepting the harrowing honesty of the answer, before turning back to the stairs and disappearing into the depths of the castle.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

The trek to Hogsmeade that weekend was a miserable affair. Sleet fell in sharp, slanted sheets, stinging the exposed skin of Liesel’s cheeks, sinking deep into the bandages on each of her hands, and matting her curly hair against her forehead. She walked alone, a solitary figure draped in a thick wool cloak, keeping a deliberate distance from the clusters of students laughing and shoving each other on the path.

The village itself offered little comfort. The thatched roofs dripped with freezing rain, and the cobbled streets were slick with a treacherous slurry of mud and melting ice. Liesel bypassed the cheerful, brightly lit windows of the Three Broomsticks that contained her own friends, turning down a narrow, crooked side street that seemed entirely devoid of life.

The Hog’s Head Inn materialized from the gloomy fog, its rusted sign creaking on loose hinges. The painted boar’s head upon the wood was chipped and peeling, its painted eyes seeming to follow her as she approached the door.

Liesel pushed the door open. The hinges screamed in protest, a long, drawn-out scrape of metal that immediately drew the attention of everyone inside.

The pub was small, dimly lit, and remarkably filthy. The floorboards were coated in a sticky layer of spilled ale and years of accumulated grime. The windows were so crusted with dirt that very little of the grey daylight managed to filter through.

An uncomfortable silence crashed over the room as Liesel stepped inside.

She estimated nearly thirty students packed into the cramped space. They were arranged in loose, informal circles around a collection of rickety tables. The moment they registered the green and silver scarf wrapped around her throat, the murmurs died. Expressions hardened. Eyes narrowed. The suspicion rolling off them was a tangible pressure in the air.

Liesel kept her chin level. She did not allow her gaze to dart around the room like a cornered animal. She walked with deliberate slowness to the bar, ignoring the collective stare of the room. The barman, a tall, gruff-looking man with a great deal of grey hair and a distinctly familiar, irritable face, stared at her with deep-set, piercing eyes.

"Firewhisky," Liesel said quietly.

The barman did not question her age or her request. He reached beneath the counter, retrieved a small, dusty glass, and filled it with a measure of amber liquid. Liesel placed a sickle on the scarred wood of the bar, took the glass, and turned away.

She did not join the gathering at the center of the room. Instead, she moved to the side wall, pressing her back against the damp plaster beside a grime-covered windowsill. She leaned her shoulder against the wood, lowered her head, and brought the glass to her lips. The Firewhisky burned, a swift, harsh trail of heat sliding down her throat, settling into her stomach to combat the bone-deep chill of the Scottish weather.

From beneath the frozen, wet curtain of her bangs, she watched them. She saw Harry, standing near the front alongside Hermione and Ron. He looked nervous, shifting his weight from foot to foot, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his coat.

The hushed chatter had dragged on just a fraction too long when a voice cut through the air, louder than he intended.

"I still do not understand why she is here."

Zacharias Smith, a Hufflepuff with blonde hair and a perpetually supercilious expression, was glaring openly at Liesel. When he realized he spoke too loudly, he crossed his arms over his chest, leaning back in his chair with a sneer twisting his mouth. He decided to own it.

"We are supposed to be forming a defense group," Smith continued, his voice echoing in the small space. "Not a recruiting ground for You-Know-Who. How do we know she won't go straight to Umbridge the second this is over?"

Liesel stopped breathing. Half the others did as well at the mention of You-Know-Who

The glass in her hand felt suddenly fragile, like it would smash straight in her palms.

A crawling sensation began at the base of her spine. It was not the hot, blinding flash of anger she had felt with Nott. This was completely different. This was cold. It felt like a thousand tiny insects hatching beneath her skin, writhing their way up through her veins. The edges of the room began to dim, the shadows in the corners stretching, reaching toward her like grasping fingers.

The air in the pub dropped by several degrees. The condensation on the windowpanes beside her began to freeze, a slow, intricate webbing of frost spreading across the glass. The magic inside her did not want to strike him. It wanted to unspool him. It wanted to crawl into his mouth, slide down his throat, and rot him from the inside out. It wanted to collapse his lungs and watch him gasp for a breath he would never catch.

She stood up straight, pushing off the windowsill. The floorboards creaked beneath her boots as she took as single step forward.

The sound of her boot hitting the floor was shockingly loud in the silent room. Liesel’s fingers curled. A low, barely audible hum vibrated in the air around her, a sound felt in the teeth rather than heard. The shadows lengthened across the floor, creeping toward Smith’s chair.

Smith’s sneer faltered. He uncrossed his arms, leaning back slightly, his eyes widening as he registered the possibility that he may be the next one with a shattered nose.

"Liesel."

The name was spoken softly.

Liesel blinked. The crawling insects beneath her skin instantly died away. The creeping, horrific need to spread her own rot evaporated.

She looked up and found Harry’s eyes.

He was watching her, his expression a complicated mix of caution and understanding. He didn't look afraid of her. He simply looked at her, offering a hand in the disorienting storm of her own newfound rage.

Liesel exhaled, a shaky, uneven breath. The tension bled out of her shoulders. She stepped back, leaning her weight against the windowsill once more, resting her head against the cool glass. The frost that had begun to form there slowly melted.

"See?" Smith demanded, his voice pitching higher, betraying the brief flash of panic he had just experienced. He stood up, gesturing erratically toward her. "She can't even control herself! She's unhinged."

"Shut your mouth, Smith," Ron snapped, taking a step forward. His ears were turning a bright, angry red. "She has just as much of a right to be here and learn how to defend herself as you do. More so if you ask me."

"Ron is right," another voice added.

Newton Gold pushed his way through a cluster of Ravenclaws. The broad Hufflepuff boy looked at Liesel, offering her a small, solemn nod before turning to face Smith. "If she was good enough for Cedric, she's good enough for me."

A profound silence followed Newton's words. The mention of Cedric Diggory hung in the air. His presence commanded an immediate, respectful quiet. Liesel's hands folded, her finger findings itself digging deep into the wounds above her thumb to prevent herself from crying, from looking weak, in front of all of these people.

Hermione cleared her throat, breaking the spell of silent grief among the student body.

"Well," she began, her voice a little too bright, a little too hurried, "now that we are all here… we should probably get started."

The meeting commenced much like pulling teeth. Hermione explained the purpose of the gathering, the necessity of learning proper defensive magic in the face of Umbridge’s purely theoretical curriculum. But the students were restless. They hadn't braved the sleet and the secrecy just to hear about educational reform.

"Is it true?" a Ravenclaw boy asked, his voice cutting through Hermione's explanation. "Is it true that You-Know-Who is back?"

The atmosphere in the room shifted instantly. The idle curiosity vanished, replaced by a tense, hungry anticipation. They all turned to Harry.

Harry stiffened. He looked at Hermione, who gave him a small, encouraging nod, and then he looked out at the sea of expectant faces.

"Yes," Harry said. The word was quiet, but it carried to every corner of the pub. "He's back."

A collective murmur rippled through the group. Some looked terrified; others looked skeptical. Liesel watched Harry, drinking up every inch of his emotion toward the return of Voldemort. She wondered what it was like that day, deep in the graveyard.

"How do we know you aren't just making it up?" Smith challenged again, unable to let an opportunity pass. "Dumbledore says he's back, but Dumbledore wasn't there, was he? You claim you fought him. What exactly makes you qualified to teach us anything?"

Ron stepped forward again, ready to fight, but Harry put a hand on his friend's arm, stopping him.

"I'm not saying I'm a trained Auror," Harry said, his voice surprisingly steady. "But I have faced him. And I have faced the things that follow him."

"Harry has done more than just face him," Hermione interjected, her chin lifting defiantly. "In our first year, he saved the Philosopher's Stone from You-Know-Who. In our second year, he killed a Basilisk and destroyed Riddle's diary. In our third year, he fought off a hundred Dementors at once with a corporeal Patronus."

The students murmured among themselves, clearly impressed by the list of accomplishments.

"And last year," Ron continued, his voice fiercely defensive of his best friend, "he won the Triwizard Tournament. He faced a Hungarian Horntail and—"

"I didn't do that alone," Harry interrupted, his voice sharp enough to halt Ron mid-sentence.

He didn't look at his best friend. He turned his head, his green eyes cutting through the crowd, finding Liesel in the shadows by the window.

"The dragon," Harry clarified, his tone shifting, becoming something quieter, something meant just for her, even as the whole room listened. "I wouldn't have survived the first task if it wasn't for Liesel. She trained me for weeks. She taught me how to move, how to think, how to survive it. Everything I did in that arena, I did because she made sure I was ready."

The entire room turned as one. Thirty pairs of eyes snapped toward the dark corner of the pub.

Liesel felt an intense rush of heat flood her cheeks. The back of her neck burned. She was completely unaccustomed to being thrust into the light, entirely unused to being praised in front of a crowd. Anything she did she worked hard for and expected. But this… This felt terribly exposing. She looked down instantly, her hair falling forward to shield her face. She stared at the toe of her boot, tracing the intricate stitching of the leather, desperately willing the attention to drift away.

She counted to three in her head, letting the silence stretch, before she forced herself to look back up.

She ignored the Ravenclaws. She ignored the Hufflepuffs. She bypassed Ron and Hermione. Her gaze locked directly onto Harry.

He was still looking at her. The nervous tension that had plagued him since the meeting began had completely vanished from his features. He looked grounded. He looked certain.

The conversation around them resumed, the topic shifting rapidly from Harry's qualifications to the logistics of forming a secret society, but Liesel tuned it out entirely. The words became a meaningless drone, background noise that faded away until there was only the quiet, intimate space between her and the boy at the front of the room.

She watched him with an intensity that bordered on clinical, yet felt personal. She noted the way his dark hair stuck up in the back, defiant of any attempt to flatten it, how it crawled upon his neck. She observed the exact, vivid shade of his irises, a green so bright it felt entirely out of place in the drab, grey world of the pub. She saw the way his jaw tightened when Smith spoke, a tiny, repetitive flex of muscle. How it made her stomach flip.

She noticed the flush on his cheeks, a residual pinkness from the freezing wind outside. She watched his mouth, tracking the movement of his lips as he answered questions, observing the slight, chapped texture of the skin. He looked exhausted. He looked far older than fifteen. He looked like someone carrying a burden he had never asked for, yet refusing to set it down.

Somewhere in the periphery of her vision, an argument broke out.

"Heliopaths are spirits of fire!" Luna Lovegood's dreamy voice carried across the room. "Great tall flaming creatures that gallop across the ground burning everything in front of them."

"They don’t exist, Luna," Hermione said tartly, her patience clearly wearing thin.

"Oh, yes, they do," Luna replied calmly, entirely unfazed by Hermione's tone.

"I’m sorry, but where’s the proof of that?" Hermione snapped.

Luna's soft tone transformed into something rather aggressive and unlike her, "There are plenty of eye-witness accounts. Just because you’re so narrow-minded you need to have everything shoved under your nose before you-"

Liesel allowed her gaze to drift briefly from Harry. She watched Ginny. The Gryffindor girl was looking at Luna. The annoyance that usually characterized Ginny's interactions with those outside her circle was entirely absent. Instead, there was a profound, quiet fondness in her brown eyes, an affection that softened the sharp lines around the tape on her nose. A smirk played on her lip in a way she had seen in the girls in her house; the biting of the inside of her cheek and licking of lips.

Liesel noticed a movement near the edge of the group. Michael Corner, a Ravenclaw boy who was currently dating Ginny, was watching the exchange. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, his jaw clenching. He looked at Ginny, then at Luna, and a distinct flicker of unease crossed his features. It was a minuscule, passing moment of insecurity, a silent observation that Liesel cataloged and filed away before returning her attention to where it truly belonged.

Hem, hem.

Cho Chang had stepped forward, offering a startlingly accurate imitation of Professor Umbridge’s high, girlish cough. Several people jumped in alarm, looking toward the door, before a ripple of laughter moved through the group.

"Weren’t we trying to decide how often we’re going to meet and have defense lessons?" Cho asked, a smirk playing on her lips.

"Right, well, we’ll try to find somewhere," Hermione was saying, taking control of the meeting once more. "We’ll send a message round to everybody when we’ve got a time and a place for the first meeting."

Hermione reached into her beaded bag and rummaged for a moment. She produced a long roll of parchment and a quill, hesitating briefly before placing them on the table nearest to her.

"I think everybody should write their name down, just so we know who was here," Hermione said, her voice turning serious. "But I also think that we all ought to agree not to shout about what we’re doing. So if you sign, you’re agreeing not to tell Umbridge or anybody else what we’re up to."

A silence descended on the pub once again. The prospect of rebellion was thrilling in theory; putting one's name on a piece of parchment that could easily become evidence was an entirely different matter.

People shifted nervously. Glances were exchanged. No one made a move toward the table.

"Er…" Ernie Macmillan began, looking highly distressed. "I- …well, we are prefects. And if this list was found… well, I mean to say… you said yourself, if Umbridge finds out-"

"You just said this group was the important thing you’d do this year," Harry reminded him, his tone flat.

"I- …yes," Ernie stammered. "Yes, I do believe that, it’s just…"

Liesel pushed away from the wall.

The quiet creak of the floorboards drew every eye in the room back to her. She did not look at Ernie. She did not look at Hermione. She kept her eyes fixed on the parchment resting on the table.

She walked with an unhurried march, deliberately crossing the room until she stood directly in front of the table. She reached out, her long bandaged fingers wrapping around the feathered quill. She dipped the nib into the inkwell beside it, ensuring the ink saturated the point perfectly.

She leaned over the table.

With smooth, elegant strokes, she wrote her name at the very top of the list.

ℒ𝒾ℯ𝓈ℯ𝓁 𝒪𝓁𝓁𝒾𝓋𝒶𝓃𝒹ℯ𝓇

The script was precise, the ink a stark, undeniable black against the pale parchment. It was a commitment. It was a statement. It was a line drawn in the sand, separating her from the house she slept in and aligning her with the boy who had called her out of the dark.

Liesel placed the quill back on the table.

When she straightened up, she found herself standing very close to Harry.

The noise of the pub seemed to vanish entirely. She looked up into his face. He was staring at her, his lips parted slightly in surprise. She searched his eyes, finding the familiar, bright green, tracing the faint golden flecks near the pupil. She looked at his lips again, noting the way his breath hitched imperceptibly in his chest. She saw the rise and fall of his collarbone beneath the frayed edge of his jumper.

It was an excruciatingly intimate moment, stretched out in the span of three seconds. They did not speak. They did not need to. The silent exchange held more weight than an hour of conversation.

Liesel broke the gaze first. She turned, her braid, still dark with the wet of the sleet sweeping over her shoulder, and walked toward the door. She pulled it open, the hinges screaming once more, and stepped out into the freezing sleet without looking back.

The pub emptied quickly after that. Seeing the Slytherin girl sign her name without hesitation had effectively shamed the rest of the group into action. One by one, they stepped forward, scratched their names onto the parchment, and hurried out the door, eager to escape the dingy atmosphere and the weight of what they had just committed to.

Soon, only Harry, Ron, and Hermione remained.

Hermione carefully rolled up the parchment, ensuring the ink was entirely dry before slipping it back into her beaded bag. She let out a long, slow breath, a mixture of relief and exhaustion.

"Well," Ron said, scrubbing a hand over his face. "That went better than I thought it would. A bit mental, but better."

"We have a lot of work to do," Hermione murmured, though she sounded pleased. She turned to Harry, her expression shifting into one of careful, analytical observation.

Harry was still staring at the door, his mind entirely occupied by the girl who had just walked through it. Hermione slightly smirked.

"Ron," Hermione said softly.

Ron turned to look at her. "Yeah?"

Hermione tilted her head, studying him with a gaze that felt slightly too perceptive. "Did you notice?"

"Notice what?"

"Liesel," Hermione stated, the name spoken with a mixture of curiosity and lingering unease.

"Oh yeah," Ron chuckled, "Doubt Harry, did though."

Harry blinked, turning to his two best friends, "What?"

"The entire time we were talking about logistics, and the meetings, and the Ministry… she didn't look away from you once. Not even for a second."

Harry felt a strange, complicated knot tighten in his chest. He didn't know how to explain the way Liesel looked at him. He didn't know how to articulate the feeling of being entirely seen, of being focused on with a precision that felt both unnerving and profoundly grounding.

"She was just paying attention," Harry muttered, shoving his hands back into his pockets.

Ron let out a short, incredulous scoff. "Mate, she wasn't paying attention to the meeting. She was paying attention to you. It was a bit intense, honestly. I thought she was trying to read your mind or something."

"She isn't like that," Harry said quickly, defending her instinctively. "She's just… observant. She notices things."

Hermione exchanged a brief, meaningful look with Ron before turning back to Harry.

"I'm not saying it's a bad thing, Harry," Hermione reasoned, her voice gentle but firm. "I'm just saying… she's gotten herself into a strange position. The way she reacted to Zacharias Smith… And then you said her name, and she just… stopped. And the way things… change… around her."

Harry remembered the feeling perfectly. He remembered the unnatural cold, the stretching shadows, the creeping sense of dread that had suddenly filled the room when she stepped forward toward the Hufflepuff. And he remembered the way she had looked at him when he called her back, the sheer vulnerability in her dark eyes.

"She has reasons to be angry," Harry said quietly, his gaze drifting back toward the door, toward the sleet and the cold village beyond. "She lost Cedric, too. And nobody ever talks about that."

Hermione softened slightly, recognizing the truth in his words. "I know. I just worry about her. And I worry about you."

"Don't," Harry replied, his voice firmer now. He thought of the elegant, precise signature at the top of the parchment. He thought of the way her eyes had searched his face, finding exactly what she was looking for. "She signed the paper. She's with us. That's all that matters."

Ron clapped Harry on the shoulder, breaking the tension. "Right, then. Let's get back before we freeze to death. I reckon I've had enough secret society business for one day."

They turned toward the door, pulling their cloaks tight against the impending cold. Harry stepped out into the street last, pulling the door shut behind him. The screech of the rusted hinges echoed in the empty alleyway, a final, harsh note marking the beginning of something new, something dangerous, and something entirely inevitable.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

1 Year Earlier - After the Dueling Finale.

The blinding flashes of the Daily Prophet cameras were still dancing in Liesel’s vision following her dueling win, creating purple and gold spots that made the shifting crowd look like a kaleidoscope of house colors. She had been passed from hand to hand, congratulated by a beaming Professor Flitwick, stoically acknowledged by Snape, and swarmed by a gaggle of younger Slytherins who looked at her as if she were a conquering queen. The heavy silver trophy was clutched in her hand, the metal now warm from the humidity of the Great Hall and the frantic heat of her own palms.

She was attempting to navigate a path toward the barricades to find Harry once again when a familiar, sturdy presence intersected her path. Cedric Diggory, still looking remarkably handsome despite the singe marks on his Hufflepuff tracksuit, caught her elbow with a gentle, grounding pressure.

"Ollivander," he called out over the din of the celebration. He leaned in closer, his voice low enough to create a small, private pocket of space amidst the roar. "A word on that last combination? I think you’ve just rewritten the standard defensive theory for sixth-year Charms, and I’d hate to be the only one who doesn't understand how I ended up on my back."

He gestured toward a slightly quieter corner near the oak doors in the back, subtly shielding her from a trailing photographer who was trying to get a shot of the winning trophy. Liesel allowed him to lead her away, her heart still hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs.

"It was a pivot," she explained, her voice a bit breathless as they came to a stop in the shadow of a stone gargoyle. She shifted the trophy to her other arm. "I used the kinetic recoil from the Protego impact to bank my weight. Most people wait for the shield to drop before they fire the second volley, but if you time the Expelliarmus to hit the resonance of the shield itself…"

"It shatters the concentration before the physical barrier even fails," Cedric finished for her, a look of genuine, academic admiration in his eyes. He shook his head, a stray lock of fair hair falling over his forehead. "Masterful. Truly. Your wand work is… it’s different, Liesel. It’s more precise than what they teach us. It’s like you’re listening to the core. Wampus hair, right?"

Liesel nodded and felt a flush creep up her neck that had nothing to do with the physical exertion of the duel. "It’s the family business, Cedric. You don’t grow up around thousands of wands without learning that they have a rhythm of their own."

Cedric smiled, but the expression shifted into something slightly more hesitant, a rare flicker of nerves crossing his usually unflappable features. He took a half-step closer, his shoulder nearly brushing hers. "Listen, I actually wanted to ask you something. I was going to do it yesterday when we passed each other in the Owlery, but I figured if I asked you then, you’d think I was just trying to get into your head."

Liesel’s brow furrowed. "Ask me what?"

"The Yule Ball," Cedric said, the words coming out steady but with a distinct weight to them. "I’d very much like it if you’d go with me."

The world seemed to tilt on its axis for a second. Liesel, who could calculate complex arithmancy in her head and disarm a champion in a matter of seconds, felt her brain go entirely blank. Suddenly, she was agonizingly aware of her own state. The absolute perfection she cultivated so carefully had been stripped away by thirty minutes of magical combat.

She could feel the fine sheen of sweat glistening on her forehead and the way her mousy brown hair was escaping its messy braid in frantic, frizzy wisps. She suddenly became awfully aware that was a sharp, stinging scratch along her jawline where one of Cedric’s stray sparks had grazed her, and her dueling outfit was dusted with the pulverized remains of the catwalk. She instinctively brought her free hand up to her face, her fingers brushing the scratch on her jaw before frantically trying to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear. For the first time all evening, the unflappable Liesel Ollivander looked completely flustered.

"Cedric," Liesel started, her voice faltering slightly. She let out a breath that was half-laugh, half-disbelief. "I look like I’ve just been dragged through a hedge backward. I am fairly certain I saw a Beauxbatons girl literally faint when you won the first round tonight. Half the castle is currently plotting how to get you to ask them. Why on earth are you asking me?"

Cedric threw his head back and laughed, a rich, genuine sound that made the corners of his hazel, seemingly sun-lit eyes crinkle. He didn't seem to care at all about the sweat, the frizzy braid, or the dirt. In fact, looking down at her, he seemed entirely captivated by it.

"Well," Cedric said, his smile softening as he leaned a shoulder against the stone wall. "They want a winner. And as you so brilliantly demonstrated in rounds two and three, I didn’t win tonight." He reached out, his fingers lightly, almost hesitantly, brushing a speck of catwalk sawdust from the shoulder of her leather-stitched uniform. The touch sent a warm shock straight through her collarbone.

"Besides," Cedric murmured, his voice dropping into a register that made her heart skip an entirely different kind of beat. "So do I. I want a winner."

Liesel stared at him. The sheer, unabashed charm of the Hufflepuff Seeker was notoriously lethal, but having it directed entirely at her was a different experience altogether. She forced her chin up, a familiar, aristocratic smirk finally breaking through her nerves.

"You realize it is a terrible strategic move for a Triwizard Champion to take me to the ball," Liesel warned, her eyes flashing with returning confidence. "I am absolutely going to upstage you, Diggory."

Cedric’s smile widened into a full, devastating grin. "I’d be deeply disappointed if you didn't. Though, if you want to coordinate, I think you should wear something dark. Perhaps maroon. It matches your… competitive streak."

"Are you trying to dress me now?" she teased, arching an eyebrow.

"Just a suggestion," Cedric countered smoothly, taking a reluctant step back into the flow of the passing crowd, but keeping his eyes locked on hers. "So? Is that a yes, Ollivander?"

Liesel looked at him, the heavy silver trophy in her arm suddenly feeling a lot lighter. The Stepford perfection didn't matter. The messy braid didn't matter.

"Yes," Liesel said, her smile genuine and bright. "It's a yes."

Cedric’s expression shifted into something incredibly relieved, the tension in his broad shoulders melting away entirely. "Brilliant," he breathed out, before his easy confidence slid right back into place. "Though, I do have a secondary motive."

Liesel shifted her weight, resting the trophy against her hip. "Oh? Do tell."

"Well, considering the way you moved on that catwalk tonight," Cedric said, his eyes dropping to her boots before tracking back up to meet her gaze, "I'm assuming that someone with footwork that precise must know how to dance."

Liesel let out a soft huff of amusement, her chin tilting up proudly. "I was raised attending boring high-society galas with my grandfather, Cedric. Of course I know how to dance. The waltz, the foxtrot, traditional wizarding sweeps… I know all of them."

Cedric let out a dramatic, exaggerated sigh of relief, stepping just a fraction closer. "Good," he confessed, a self-deprecating grin breaking across his face. "Because I am a bloody awful dancer. Two left feet. It's a genuine hazard. You can teach me."

Liesel let out a bright, unrestrained laugh, the sound catching the attention of a few passing Ravenclaws who stared in surprise as they saw the camaraderie between the two. "The great Cedric Diggory, terrified of a waltz? …Alright. I suppose I can manage a few remedial lessons to ensure you don't embarrass me in front of the entire school."

"I appreciate your sacrifice," Cedric said solemnly, though his eyes were dancing with mischief. "In fact, I think we should start our lessons tonight."

Liesel’s eyebrows shot up. She glanced over her shoulder at the massive, enchanted grandfather clock near the Great Hall doors. The hands were already creeping dangerously close to the top of the hour. "Tonight? Cedric, there’s hardly any time left before curfew. By the time I put this trophy away and wash the explosion residue out of my hair, Filch will be prowling the corridors."

Cedric smirked, a surprisingly roguish expression that looked entirely out of place on the golden boy, but suited him perfectly. He leaned in, dipping his head until his mouth was just inches from her ear. The warm breath of his whisper sent a sudden, electric shiver straight down her spine.

"I know a spot," Cedric murmured softly. "Meet me in the Transfiguration courtyard at midnight."

In front of Liesel was a teacup. She didn’t like tea without sugar. She glared at Umbridge, unsure:

"You have a very remarkable talent, Miss Ollivander," Umbridge sighed. Her voice was thin, a high-pitched piping sound that seemed to vibrate against the delicate porcelain plates hanging on the walls. Behind her, three painted kittens rolled over a ball of pink yarn, their tiny mouths opening in silent, synchronous meows. "A talent for disruption. First your little… club, and now this rather unseemly display in the Great Hall. Your grandfather is such a respectable man. It must be terribly disappointing for him to see his blood behaving like an animal."

Liesel did not reply. She kept her hands in her lap, her fingers curling around the strap of her leather satchel. Her left wrist was still bound by the green ribbon, the dried stains dark against her skin, now mixed with the blood of three. Umbridge gestured once again toward the tea. Liesel had no choice but to take a sip.

"Very good. We must learn to master ourselves, you see," Umbridge murmured, her smile widening until her lips were thin lines. She reached down, sliding a small slip of parchment across the polished dark wood. On it, four words were written in a sharp, cramped hand. "You will write this for me today. Just so it stays with you."

Liesel’s eyes shone brightly at the woman, “You won’t expell me?”

Umbridge’s face turned sour, like Liesel was daring her, “No, dear. I don’t believe in expulsion. I believe in… reintegration.”

Reintegration. Umbridge said it like the girl in front of her was a child raised by wolves.

Liesel reached into her bag, her fingers automatically searching for the cool, square glass of her ink bottle and the long, feathered barrel of her eagle-quill.

"Oh, no," Umbridge chuckled, the sound like dry leaves scraping across stone. "Not your own things, dear. No, we won't be needing your ink. You will use the special quill I have provided on the desk."

Liesel’s hand stopped inside her bag. She looked down at the desk. A long, thin black feather lay beside a fresh sheet of parchment. It had no nib, only a tip so sharp it looked like a thorn.

"Go on," the woman urged, her head tilting slightly to the left. The kittens on the plates behind her stopped their play, their painted eyes turning toward the desk. "Pick it up."

The wood of the quill was light, almost hollow, when Liesel touched it. It felt cold against her thumb. She pressed the point against the paper, waiting for the fluid to come, but the parchment remained white, a clean, blank eye staring back at her as it did in the classroom. Liesel furrowed her brows, her mind scrambling, as if she were about to see two of everything.

"Ah," Umbridge whispered, leaning forward. "You haven't begun. You must look at the words, Miss Ollivander. Read them with your mind, and let your hand follow."

Liesel lowered the tip. She didn't look at the paper… She looked at the silver-framed mirror behind Umbridge’s head. In the reflection, the room seemed to stretch, the pink curtains flattening out into long, vertical ribbons that looked less like fabric and more like columns of old grease. The smell of roses grew sharper, chemical and thin, like vengeful spirits in her nostrils.

She pressed down.

The pain was not a sharp sting, but a deep, dull thud that started in the meat of her thumb and traveled all the way up her forearm to the crook of her elbow. On the back of her left hand, the skin parted. It split smoothly, like wet parchment under a blunt knife. A thin, perfectly straight line of dark red rose to the surface, filling the groove just barely.

On the paper, the same line appeared, written in a wet, dark brown that looked exactly like old tea.

"Very good," Umbridge said. Her voice sounded far away, as if she were speaking through a long iron pipe. "Again."

Liesel drew the second letter. The room began to tilt, the small wooden legs of the chairs turning long and thin, like the legs of water-striders on a pond. The ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece had slowed down, each mechanical thud taking a long, agonizing second to complete itself, echoing inside her ears until her teeth vibrated.

The kittens were moving faster now. They weren't rolling yarn anymore; they were batting at things that weren't there, their tiny claws catching on the painted edges of the porcelain plates. One of them, a ginger tabby with a white patch over its eye, seemed to be staring directly into Liesel’s eyes.

Down. Curve. Cross.

The fourth letter tore deeper. Liesel felt her skin tightening, the blood running down the side of her wrist and soaking into the cuff of her blouse. The white linen fabric drank it greedily, turning a blushing red.

The room was hot. The small coal fire in the grate was a pale, sulfurous yellow that cast no heat but made the shadows in the corners look green. The lace doilies on the backs of the armchairs looked like giant, white spiderwebs that had dried in the sun, their threads thin and brittle enough to turn to dust if she breathed too hard.

"We must make an impression," Umbridge’s voice drifted over the desk, heavy with that curdled sweetness. "The Ministry is very keen on impressions, Miss Ollivander. Your father understood that, didn't he? Before he made his… errors."

Liesel’s fingers didn't shake. Her father had taught her how to hold a knife when she was seven, how to carve the grain of an elder branch without letting the steel slip into the meat of her palm. Control the tool, he had said, his voice soft and adoring. The tool doesn't know who it hurts. You have to tell it.

She pressed the thorn into her flesh again. The four words were taking shape now, the skin on the back of her hand swelling up in thick, white ridges around the red script. It looked old. It looked like something that had always been there, waiting under the surface for someone to come along and scrape the top layer away.

The lace on the curtains seemed to be crawling, the tiny, stitched flowers turning over on themselves like maggots in a sack of flour. The smell of rosewater was gone now, replaced entirely by the flat, iron tang of her own body, rising from the parchment in small, warm plumes of steam.

Liesel stopped writing, swallowing hard as she attempted to speed up the slow motion in which she was moving, “Did you… Was there something in… in my tea?” But she didn’t know if the words were audible.

"That’s it," Umbridge murmured, the words reaching around Liesel’s head and suffocating her. She was leaning back now, her plum-colored shoulder sinking into the velvet cushions until she looked like she was part of the furniture, a large, soft growth that had sprouted from the wood. "Keep going until the lesson is learned."

Liesel lost the hours. The dead of night outside the window turned to the black of a well, but the yellow fire in the grate didn't change. The clock stopped ticking entirely, its brass hands frozen at twenty past one, though she knew she had written the line fifty times, sixty times, a hundred times. Her hand was no longer hers; it was a small, wet animal that lived at the end of her sleeve, tearing at itself with a small black tooth.

Umbridge stood up, but Liesel focused on her twin beside her.

"You may go now, Miss Ollivander," Umbridge said, her voice back to its bright, standard chirp. She didn't look at the paper. She didn't need to. "We shall see each other again tomorrow."

Liesel stood. Her legs were numb, the blood having pooled in her boots while she sat. She reached for her satchel with her right hand, leaving her left hanging at her side, heavy and dripping. She didn't look at Umbridge. She didn't look at the desk.

She walked out into the corridor, but her memory stalled until she reached the bottom of the Slytherin common room stairs.

The common room at the bottom was dark when she reached it, as most students had gone to bed. The green lamps had been turned down to small, luminous eyes, and the fire in the hearth was nothing but a pile of dull grey ash that gave off a faint, sulfurous smell.

However, few fifth-years were still sitting near the low tables, their books open but their faces quiet. When the portrait hole groaned open and Liesel stepped through, the silence in the room changed. It became rigid.

Daphne Greengrass looked up from a roll of parchment, her fingers freezing over her inkwell. Beside her, Blaise Zabini didn't move his head, but his dark eyes followed Liesel as she crossed the rug. They looked at her the way people look at a dog that has come back from the woods with burrs in its coat and blood on its muzzle… unsure if it’s still the same animal that left the house.

Liesel ignored them. She walked toward the long leather sofa near the back wall, her left hand pressed against her ribs with her other, bandaged hand, to keep the red from dropping onto the carpet.

Draco Malfoy was sitting in the corner of the sofa, his long legs stretched out toward the dead hearth. He had his silver signet ring resting between his teeth, his jaw working at the metal with a faint, clicking sound.

When Liesel stopped in front of him, he didn't ask her what had happened. He didn't look at her face. He looked at her sleeve, where the white linen had turned a bright red with moisture.

He stood up without a word and walked over to Liesel, offering his hand. She hesitantly took it, appearing utterly numb. It wasn’t the hollowness of the rage that had consumed her earlier, but a hungover depression. She placed her hand in his. Pansy, resting lazily beside the others, watched her cautiously, as if her next actions would be unpredictable.

He walked her over to a leather anrmchair across the room, and Liesel sat. There, he opened the low wooden cabinet built into the stone wall where the older students kept their private stores—the spirits, the illegal tobacco from Hogsmeade, the small vials of essence they didn't want the professors to see. He opened the small latched door and reached inside, his long fingers selecting a small bottle of green glass in a teardrop shape.

"I made this last October for Quidditch," he said as he came back. His voice was very quiet, lower than the draft coming through the lake-windows. "It has kelp and a bit of dried butterfly weed to help the pain. A bit of hemlock, too, but don’t worry, it’s to stop the throbbing."

He sat down on the low stool in front of her. He reached up, his fingers cool and dry as they closed around her right wrist, guiding her down onto the leather cushions.

Liesel sat. The room felt small now, the stone ceiling heavy enough to touch.

Draco didn't ask for her permission. He reached down and took her left hand, turning it over so the back faced the ceiling. The four words were raw, the edges of the skin grey and curled like burnt paper. The red was still coming, slow and thick, filling the small hollow between her thumb and forefinger and dripping from the tips.

He uncorked the bottle with his teeth, holding the cork between his lips while he tipped the green glass forward. The liquid inside was thick, the color of skimmed milk. When it touched the raw script, Liesel’s jaw hung open and a strangled whimper fell out of her lips.

The room went grey around the edges again. The green lamps seemed to flicker, their light stretching out into long, thin needles that pierced the darkness.

Draco didn't look up. He took a clean linen bandage from his pocket, one of his own handkerchiefs, the silver M embroidered in the corner… and began to turn it around her knuckles. His fingers were methodical, his thumb pressing down on the cloth to keep it tight, wrapping the white linen until the red was hidden away.

As he worked, a single drop of her blood escaped the edge of the cloth. It ran down his thumb, catching on the edge of his silver ring and sinking into the engraved groove of the Malfoy crest. It stayed there, dark and wet against the sleek metal.

Liesel watched it. She could feel his breath on her skin—it smelled of the mint lozenges he chewed during Transfiguration to keep from falling asleep. He was so close she could see the tiny, faint pale line on his jaw where he had cut himself shaving three days ago.

A strange heat settled behind her ribs. It wasn't the stabbing, clean ache she felt when she thought of Cedric; it was something older, thicker, like the mud at the bottom of the Black Lake. She looked at his mouth. The thin, pale lips that usually twisted into a sneer before he even spoke. For a second, the room seemed to lose its air entirely, and she had the sudden, lucid thought that if she leaned forward, if she pressed her forehead against his shoulder, he would smell like the library at Malfoy Manor. The old leather, beeswax, and the dust of things that hadn't been moved in a hundred years. She’d found comfort in his home for many years.

"Where’s Theo?" she asked. Her voice didn't sound like hers. It was dry, cracked like old ice.

Draco didn't stop wrapping. He tucked the loose end of the linen under the topmost turn, his thumb lingering for a second against the inside of her wrist, right over the green ribbon.

"The hospital wing," Draco said. He let his hand fall away, though he didn't stand up from the stool. He looked at his thumb, where her blood was beginning to dry into a brown crust under his nail. "Madame Pomfrey is still trying to get the bone straight. You broke it in three places. He looks like an owl that flew into a wall."

A minuscule smirk touched the corner of his mouth, but his eyes stayed dark. "The Gryffindors think you’re a hero. Dean Thomas was talking about it in the corridor. He said he didn't know Slytherins had the backbone."

Liesel looked down at her hand. The bandage was neat, the white cloth already showing a small, pale pink circle in the center where the red was soaking through.

"… He shouldn't have said that,” she whispered, referring to the cruelty of Theodore during dinner.

Draco looked at her. Really looked at her. His silver eyes were unblinking, his face so still it looked like it had been carved from the same stone as the castle walls. He studied her eyes, her nose, her lips… the pulse of her neck. He wanted to know exactly who he was talking to, if the gentle Liesel he had grown up with was still there. But when he looked at her, all he could see was the little girl he laughed with. There was no way of knowing just who that girl in the Great Hall was earlier. And as he found himself staring, staring, staring at the crest between her neck and shoulder, he snapped back into reality.

"He’s an idiot," Draco said simply. He stood up, turning his back to her as he walked back to the cabinet to put the green bottle away. "He always has been."

Liesel watched his tucked white shirt shift as he moved. The world felt loose around her, the edges of the room blurred by the hemlock in the potion or the exhaustion in her bones. She could feel the blood under his fingernails from across the room. There was an intimacy to it… the very fluids inside of her staining her childhood friend’s body.

Suddenly, she was five years old again, standing on a floor polished to the sheen of a mirror.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

10 YEARS EARLIER…

The gala at Malfoy Manor had been an event of infinite, crushing scale. Her parents, Gideon and Amora, had dressed 5-year-old in a frock of stiff black silk that chafed against her knees, while the ballroom roared with the laughter of people who felt themselves to be masters of the earth. Liesel even remembered the smell in the air; overwhelmingly dense, thick with the scent of aged firewhisky, blooming gardenias, and the expensive perfumes of women swathed in rustling silk.

Liesel stood near a towering column of white marble, her small hands clutching the stiff black tulle of her dress. She felt entirely dwarfed by the towering adults around her. Her grandfather, Garrick, had vanished into the sea of sweeping cloaks twenty minutes ago, his silver hair bobbing enthusiastically as he cornered the Minister to discuss the finer points of wand legislation. However, the Minister seemed to have his focus elsewhere, nervously glancing around the room.

Beside Liesel, Narcissa Malfoy rested a slender, elegant hand on the shoulder of her son. Draco, clad in a tiny, impeccably tailored black suit, looked utterly miserable, shifting his weight from one polished shoe to the other.

"She has your eyes, Amora," Narcissa observed smoothly, her voice a refined hum over the swelling waltz music. "Such a striking shade of green. It is quite unmistakable."

Amora Ollivander offered a smile that did not reach those exact striking eyes. She smelled of sharp citrus and dark wine, a scent that always made Liesel feel inexplicably anxious. Beside her, Gideon, Liesel’s father, adjusted his velvet lapels, his attention wandering toward the heavy oak doors of the ballroom. He was sweating, despite the cooling charms placed around the hall.

"Thank you, Narcissa," Amora replied, her tone perfectly dapper. "Though unfortunately she also inherited her father's quiet disposition. She is dreadfully shy."

Liesel stared down at the polished floor, watching the reflection of the chandeliers shimmer. The noise of the gala was buzzing in her ears. She felt a sudden urge to vanish.

Peeking past her mother’s flowing skirts, Liesel’s gaze snagged on a long, mahogany banquet table set against the far wall. The table was draped in an ivory linen that brushed the floor, and atop it sat a towering, tiered silver tray piled high with delicate, powdered-sugar lemon tarts.

A quiet glint sparked in her mossy eyes.

While Lucius Malfoy engaged Gideon in a hushed, intense conversation about export tariffs, and Amora turned to inspect a passing tray of champagne, Liesel slipped away. She moved with the silent, practiced stealth of a child accustomed to making herself invisible in a crowded shop.

She reached the table, her small fingers darting out to snatch a fragile porcelain plate holding three golden tarts. In one swift, seamless motion, she ducked, lifting the edge of the ivory tablecloth and sliding into the dark, hidden space underneath.

The world instantly shrank. Under the table, the deafening noise of the gala was muffled into a distant, oceanic roar. It was a private, dim sanctuary just for her. She sat cross-legged, placing the plate carefully on her knees, and let out a long, shaky breath of relief.

A second later, the linen lifted.

A sliver of bright chandelier light sliced into her haven, followed immediately by a small boy in a tailored suit. Draco scrambled under the table, letting the fabric fall shut behind him. He blinked in the dim light, his silver eyes adjusting, until he spotted her sitting in the shadows.

He didn't say anything. He just crawled over and sat beside her, drawing his knees to his chest. He looked at the lemon tarts. Liesel looked at him.

Slowly, she picked up a tart, the powdered sugar dusting her fingertips, and held it out.

Draco took it. He bit into the soft pastry, a tiny dusting of white sugar clinging to the tip of his nose. Liesel giggled took one for herself. They sat shoulder-to-shoulder in the enclosed, safe darkness, chewing in companionable silence. Outside, the adults played their dangerous, intricate games of politics and power. In here, there was only the quiet crunch of sugar and the soft, steady breathing of a boy she hardly knew.

Then, the crystal above them shattered.

CRAAAAAAASH.

It wasn't a simple breaking of glass. It was a concussive blast that shook the floorboards beneath them. The muffled waltz music was instantly sliced apart by a chorus of panicked shrieks.

Liesel flinched, dropping her pastry. Draco froze, his eyes going wide and dark in the dim space.

Heavy boots slammed against the marble floor just inches from the tablecloth, shaking the dust from the underside of the mahogany wood. The only sound Liesel could possibly compare it to was the rushing of soldiers, marching to war. Spells cracked through the air—harsh, bright flashes of red and purple light bleeding through the ivory fabric.

"Draco!"

Lucius Malfoy’s voice roared above the chaos, stripped entirely of its refined aristocratic drawl. It was raw, frantic, and panicked. "Narcissa, where is he?!"

Draco whimpered, a small, frightened sound. He shifted onto his knees, reaching out a trembling hand to push the tablecloth aside to look for his father.

Before his fingers could touch the fabric, the linen was ripped upward.

The blinding light of the ballroom flooded their sanctuary. A tall, severe figure clad in pitch-black robes leaned down, his sallow face tense, his dark eyes sweeping over the two children. Severus Snape did not speak. He reached in, his large hands gripping the scruff of Draco’s jacket and the shoulder of Liesel’s dress, and dragged them both roughly out from under the table. He took Draco’s hand and swept Liesel up by the waist, running with her on his hip.

The gala was gone. It had been replaced by a warzone.

The chandeliers swayed violently, throwing wild, moving shadows across the panicked guests fleeing toward the exit. A line of Ministry Aurors, their wands raised and glowing, had formed a barricade near the center of the hall.

Narcissa Malfoy let out a choked cry, rushing forward. She didn't care about the mud tracking across the hem of her gown; she fell to her knees, snatching Draco from Snape’s grip and burying the boy’s face tightly into her neck.

Liesel stood frozen, her eyes wide, entirely unable to comprehend the nightmare unfolding around her.

A few yards away, her father, Gideon, was forced to his knees. Thick, glowing magical ropes bound his wrists tightly behind his back. An Auror stood over him, wand pointed steadily at his throat. Gideon’s face was bruised, but his eyes scoured the room frantically until they found her.

"Liesel!" Gideon shouted, his voice cracking with a desperate, broken agony. "Liesel, look away! I love you, little bird, it will be alright! Look away!"

"Quiet!" the Auror barked, tightening the magical bindings until Gideon groaned.

Liesel took a step toward him, her tiny chest heaving with an overwhelming terror. "Father—"

"Don't you dare look at her!"

The voice was venomous, slicing through the air like a poisoned blade. Amora Ollivander was pressed against the marble column, her own wrists bound. Her striking green eyes- the eyes Narcissa had praised mere minutes ago- were wide, paranoid, and flashing with a deranged fury. The Ministry had finally found the evidence. The hidden ledgers, the dark artifacts, the proof of their loyalty to the Dark Lord from years prior.

Amora didn't look at the Aurors holding her captive. She looked directly at her five-year-old daughter.

There was no maternal warmth in her gaze. There was no desperate, tragic goodbye. There was only a cold, deeply paranoid hatred. In her twisted, cornered mind, the sudden raid could only mean a betrayal from within.

"You snitched, didn't you?" Amora hissed, her lips curling over her teeth in a vicious snarl. She struggled against her bindings, leaning toward the small, trembling girl. "You little brat. You ungrateful little spy. You told them."

The words hit Liesel with like a kinetic blast she would bear all those years later dueling. She staggered back, her breath catching in her throat, the innocent, sugary taste of the tart turning to ash in her mouth. Her mother’s hatred was a gaping, dark maw, threatening to swallow her whole.

A hand settled firmly over Liesel’s eyes.

Narcissa had reached out, abandoning pureblood decorum entirely, and pulled the trembling five-year-old flush against her own skirts. The older woman’s hand was cool and steady, shielding Liesel’s vision from the horrifying sight of her mother’s snarling face and her father’s weeping.

"Enough, Amora," Narcissa said, her voice a low, chilling reprimand. "She is a child."

"She is a traitor!" Amora screamed as the Aurors began to drag her toward the heavy oak doors. "A filthy little—"

A silencing charm cut her off, leaving only the chaotic shuffling of boots and the continued cries of the fleeing guests.

"Liesel! Where is my granddaughter?!"

Garrick Ollivander’s voice cut through the throng, desperate and hoarse. The eccentric wandmaker burst through the crowd, his silver hair wild, his robes torn. When he saw her pressed against Narcissa, he fell to his knees, wrapping his long, spindly arms around Liesel and pulling her tightly against his chest, burying his face in her hair.

Narcissa stood up slowly, her arms still wrapped protectively around her own son.

In the span of a single heartbeat, the world stopped tearing itself apart. The screams of the guests faded, as did the marching of the Aurora. There was only the look exchanged between two children who had just realized that the adults who were supposed to protect them were the ones summoning the monsters. It was a silent understanding they shared. A knot pulled tight.

Lucius grabbed his wife’s elbow, barking a command, and Narcissa swept out of the hall, taking the white-blonde boy with her into the cold corridors of their home.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

The air in the Owlery the following morning was freezing. Drafts whistled through the unglazed stone arches, bringing in bits of morning sleet that melted instantly on the flagstones.

Harry stood near the back wall, tying a small roll of parchment to the leg of his snowy owl, Hedwig. His fingers were numb, clumsy in the dawn chill. He didn't hear her approach. He only registered the sudden shift in the draft, the faint smell of the essence Draco gently spread on her wounds, just a second before she spoke.

"What are you going to do about it?"

Harry jumped, his hand knocking hard against the wooden roost. The owl hooted in annoyance and took flight into the grey sky. He spun around, his heart hammering against his ribs.

Liesel stood in the shadows of the archway. Her dark cloak was pulled tight around her shoulders, the hem dusted with frozen rain. She looked incredibly still, like something carved from the stone of the tower itself, her mossy eyes fixed on him with an unnerving focus.

Harry let out a choked breath, resting a hand on his chest. "Liesel. You can't just sneak up on people like that."

She didn't smile. She didn't move. "The decree," she said, her voice a low, flat whisper that carried perfectly over the wind. "The club is disbanded. People need to know how to defend themselves. What are you going to do?"

Harry frowned, his eyes slightly narrowing at the girl opposite him. The exhaustion of the past twenty-four hours sat heavily in his posture. "Why me? Hermione brought up teaching defense ourselves. Just the practical stuff. But…" He looked at her, confusion knitting his brow. "Why can't you just restart Crossed Wands? Do it in secret. Keep it underground like it used to be."

"Hermione is right," Liesel replied, ignoring his suggestion entirely. She stepped out of the shadow, the morning light catching the hollows of her cheeks. "It’s your responsibility, Harry. They will listen to you. You are the Chosen One."

Harry scoffed, a bitter sound lost to the draft. "They think I'm a liar. If I try to organize anything, Umbridge will just hand me another week of detention. You're the dueling champion. You have the title. They would follow you."

Liesel stopped a few feet away from him. The wind whipped a loose strand of mousy hair across her face, but she made no move to brush it away.

"I could have killed him," she whispered, “… I think I would’ve.”

The words were spoken with a deadened, chilling flatness. No inflection. No boastfulness. Just a simple, cold stating of fact. She didn't name Theodore. She didn't need to. The quiet certainty in her voice made the hairs on the back of Harry's neck stand up. It was a glimpse into a very dark, very deep well Liesel found herself stuck in, and it unsettled him to his core.

She would not hear his excuses. She would not accept a refusal. "Figure something out, Harry."

It was a command.

Harry stared at her, the reality of her confession settling heavily in his chest. He slowly nodded. "Okay. I will."

As he spoke, his eyes dropped. The movement of the wind had shifted the edge of her dark cloak, exposing her left hand. The cuff of her blouse was pushed back, revealing thick, white linen wrapped tightly around her knuckles and wrist. The edge of the fabric was stained with a faint, blooming circle of dark brown.

"What did she make you write?" Harry asked, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper.

Liesel looked down at her own hand. For a long moment, she simply stared at the linen. Then, with her right fingers, also bandaged around the knuckles, she caught the edge of the knotted Malfoy handkerchief.

She unwound it slowly. The fabric gave way with a faint, dry friction. Strip by strip, she peeled the bandage back, exposing the swollen, angry skin underneath. She held her hand out to him, palm down.

Harry stepped closer, the distance between them vanishing. He reached out to hers. His fingers, warm and calloused from a the years of gripping a broom and wand, slipped beneath her hand to support it. The contrast of his heat against her freezing skin was jarring. He traced his thumb just below her knuckles, careful not to touch the raw, weeping cuts carved into her flesh.

The Owlery fell dead silent. The wind seemed to die outside the arches. Harry’s eyes tracked over the letters, reading the permanent scar left by the black quill.

He swallowed hard. The bob of his Adam’s apple only confirmed his nerves.

A tension snapped between them, the same tension Liesel had felt with Draco. The intimacy of his touch—so gentle, so starkly different from the clinical, silent mending Draco had performed the night before—pierced straight through her defenses. It was too close. Too raw.

It was at this moment that Liesel realized: The gentleness the boys used was not out of kindness, but out of fear. Surely this was the only reason they both would caress her in such a way.

But something was different with Harry. It was the way that he, not only remained gentle with her carved hand, but also reached for the bruised knuckles of her other. Deep inside him, Harry knew the anger. He knew the grief. The truth settled… Liesel and Harry were the same. If Theodore had said that to Harry, he would be dead.

Liesel snatched her hands back, a breathless, awkward sound catching in her throat. She fumbled with the linen, her hands shaking slightly as she hurriedly wrapped the handkerchief back over the cuts, hiding them from the light.

Harry let his empty hand fall to his side, his cheeks flushing a faint pink in the cold, but he didn't look away.

Liesel finished the knot. She looked up, her mossy eyes meeting his. They shared a single, lingering glance. It a quiet acknowledgment of the lines they were both crossing, of the dark things they were both carrying.

Without another word, she turned on her heel and walked toward the spiral staircase, leaving him alone with the rustling feathers and the biting draft.

Underneath the linen, still burning into the back of her hand, were four cramped, neat words.

Liesel sat rigidly in a high-backed leather armchair near the hearth, the emerald firelight casting long, shifting shadows across the sharp planes of her face. She was not reading. She was not studying. Her dark eyes were fixed downward, entirely consumed by the frayed edge of the green silk ribbon tied tightly around her left wrist. The fabric was stiff in certain places. Rusted. Brown. It was the blood of Cedric Diggory, dried and preserved against her pulse. She rubbed her thumb over the darkest stain, feeling the rigid texture of the silk, anchoring herself to the only tangible proof she had that he had existed, that he had mattered, and that he had died.

Beside her on the leather sofa, Pansy Parkinson was talking, leaning her elbows against the arm and knees tucked under herself. She had been talking for twenty uninterrupted minutes, her voice a relentless, grating scrape of aristocratic trivialities.

"—and honestly, it’s just entirely inappropriate," Pansy huffed, aggressively filing an already-perfectly manicured fingernail. "Daphne agrees with me. You can’t just wear a summer cloak in November, even if the lining is charmed for warmth. It looks desperate. Like you’re trying to hold onto August. I told her, I said, 'Millicent, you look like a stray kneazle,' but she just—"

"Pansy."

Liesel’s voice was barely louder than the crackle of the hearth, but it cut through the air with the jagged edge of broken glass.

Pansy stopped filing. She blinked, her dark hair falling perfectly around her cheekbones. "What?"

"I do not care," Liesel said. She didn't look up from her wrist. Her tone was hollow, stripped of all its usual diplomatic grace. "I do not care about Millicent’s cloak. I do not care what she looks like. Please, just stop making noise."

The silence that fell over their corner of the room was stinging. Liesel closed her eyes, a sharp, immediate pang of regret biting at her chest. She had slipped, mildly offending her cousin.

She took a slow breath and finally lifted her head, intending to soften the blow. "Pansy, I—"

"No, don't bother," Pansy snapped. The other girl’s eyes were squinting with a wounded, haughty pride. She stood up, smoothing the front of her pleated skirt with short, aggressive movements. "Forgive me for trying to distract you from sulking in the corner like some squonk. If you want to sit here and rot in silence, be my guest."

Pansy didn't wait for a response. She turned on her heel and marched across the common room, sliding into an empty seat between Daphne Greengrass and Blaise Zabini, throwing a highly theatrical, dismissive look over her shoulder.

Liesel watched her go, the isolation wrapping tightly around her throat. She was entirely alone in a room full of her peers. She sank deeper into the leather chair, pulling her knees up slightly, her fingertips returning instinctively to the rusted edges of the green ribbon.

Closing her eyes, she let the ambient noise of the common room fade away. She let the present slip from her grasp. It was easier to live in the past. It was warmer there. ✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

It was the late autumn of her fourth year. The Great Hall had been entirely transformed, stripped of its four long dining tables. In their place, a massive, raised wooden catwalk stretched the entire length of the room, elevated under the enchanted, star-swept ceiling. The space was packed to the stone walls, all the way out into the corridors. Students from Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang were crushed against magically reinforced barricades, their voices blending into a deafening, echoing ocean of sound.

It was the final round of the Autumn Dueling Tournament for Crossed Wands. Cedric had won the first round through a gentlemanly disarming, and Liesel had won the second by knocking him flat on his arse. It all came down to this one.

Standing at the far end of the long wooden platform was Cedric Diggory. He looked every inch the golden champion of Hogwarts. Clad in a slightly loose athletic tracksuit of Hufflepuff yellow and deep black, he rolled his broad shoulders to stay loose, flashing that easy, brilliant smile as Professor Sprout enthusiastically patted his arm.

At the opposite end, standing half-swallowed by the shadows of the towering oak doors, was Liesel.

She looked lethal. She wore a tailored, dark green dueling uniform that seemed to be at least a century old and still in fantastic condition. The fabric was intricately reinforced with stiff leather stitching along her ribs, shoulders, and forearms. Emblazoned directly over her chest was the antique, silver crest of the traditional Crossed Wands society. She stood perfectly, unnervingly still, her Wampus-hair wand turning in her hand like the gears where they practiced. She glared at Cedric Diggory, sizing him up.

Severus Snape stood beside her, his black robes a severe contrast to the bright energy of the crowd. He did not offer her a warm smile or a gentle shoulder squeeze. He simply leaned down, his voice a low, clinical hiss against the roar of the students.

"He favors wide stances for balance, and relies heavily on his physical athleticism to dodge," Snape murmured, his dark eyes tracking the Hufflepuff boy. "Keep your spells tightly clustered. Confine his lateral movement, then break his guard."

Liesel gave a single, tight nod. She didn't take her eyes off Cedric. "Understood, Professor."

"Duelists, to the center!" Professor Flitwick’s magically magnified voice squeaked, ringing out over the barricades.

Liesel and Cedric walked up the wooden steps, their boots thudding softly against the floorboards, and strode to the center of the catwalk. The noise of the crowd swelled into a frantic crescendo. The Slytherins and Durmstrang students chanted her surname in a heavy, steady cadence, while the Hufflepuffs and the Gryffindors roared for Cedric.

They met exactly in the middle. Cedric looked down at her, offering a genuine sporting smile that crinkled the corners of his hazel eyes.

"Good luck, Liesel," he said kindly, his voice a warm hum beneath the noise.

"And to you, Cedric," she replied smoothly. Her posture was relaxed, but her eyes were darkened... cold, calculated, and entirely focused, "You'll need it." Cedric chuckled, charmed by her comment.

"Bow to your opponent!" Flitwick ordered.

They bowed, a formal dip of the shoulders. They turned their backs. The countdown began. When the voice hit one...

They spun simultaneously.

Liesel struck first. A blinding red streak of energy whipped from her wand before Cedric had even fully squared his shoulders. It was a flawless, impossibly fast cast. Cedric ducked it by a hair's breadth, the spell singing over his ear and bursting harmlessly against the magical ward behind him.

The crowd shrieked.

Cedric fired back immediately. For the next solid minute, the wooden catwalk became a blinding blur of light and motion. Blue, red, and gold magic ricocheted across the Great Hall, accompanied by the sharp, cracking sounds of splitting air. Cedric was incredibly fast, rolling and side-stepping Liesel's precise, clustered strikes while firing off heavy hexes of his own.

Liesel parried a Stupefy, redirecting the light upward into the enchanted stars, which resulted in a boom and shatter of slight that resembled fireworks, but Cedric immediately followed it up with a low-sweeping Blasting Curse aimed directly at the floorboards beneath her boots.

The wood splintered with a deafening crack. Liesel stumbled backward, her leather boot sliding on the broken debris. She dropped hard onto one knee, her balance completely compromised.

The Hufflepuffs screamed in triumph. Cedric raised his wand to deliver the final, sweeping disarming spell.

But he misunderstood the nature of the girl across from him. He underestimated the sheer, blistering speed of an Ollivander backed into a corner.

Before her knee even fully settled against the wood, Liesel gathered herself. She didn't retreat to find her footing. Instead, she lunged forward off her back foot, turning her fall into momentum. She unleashed a devastating, rapid-fire volley of non-verbal spells: the exact combination she had perfected in the dusty light of the clock tower.

Crack-crack-crack-crack!

The speed and ferocity of the assault startled Cedric. He was forced to abandon his offensive strike and throw his arms up in a desperate defense. "Protego!"

A shimmering blue forcefield erupted in front of him. Liesel’s spells slammed into the shield like cannonballs. The impacts were so heavy the forcefield actually began to waver, the edges flickering and hissing. Cedric gritted his teeth, his boots sliding backward on the wood from the sheer, concussive force.

He was entirely pinned down, his vision obscured by the blinding flashes of her assault.

That was all she needed.

The exact second the shield flickered and fell, Liesel’s wand slashed in a perfect, hooked arc.

"Expelliarmus!"

The spell hit Cedric squarely in the center of his chest. His pale wand was ripped from his grip, sailing high and uselessly into the air.

Without pausing to watch it fall, Liesel pivoted elegantly on her heel, dropping her center of gravity, and fired a final, concussive basic blast. It caught Cedric in the stomach, lifting his feet an inch off the floorboards and knocking him flat onto his back with a heavy thud.

Silence hung in the Great Hall for a fraction of a heartbeat.

Then, bedlam erupted.

The Slytherin section exploded into deafening cheers, students jumping onto their benches and waving green scarves. The Durmstrang students joined them, roaring their approval and stamping their heavy boots in a thunderous rhythm against the stone floor.

Professor Flitwick waved his wand, dropping the protective wards. "A spectacular finish! The winner is Liesel Ollivander!"

Liesel lowered her wand, her chest heaving slightly beneath the stiff leather of her uniform. The lethal, calculated coldness melted completely from her eyes, replaced by a bright rush of joy. She walked over to where Cedric was sitting up, rubbing his chest with a soft wince.

She stopped in front of him and offered her hand.

Cedric looked at her fingers, then up at her face. His golden-boy smile returned, completely devoid of bitterness or bruised ego. He took her hand, his palm warm and calloused, letting her pull him to his feet.

"Brilliant combination," Cedric laughed breathlessly, shaking her hand firmly. "I didn't even see the last two coming."

"You made me work for it, Diggory," Liesel smirked, offering a gracious nod of her head. "Well fought."

Professor Flitwick hurried up onto the catwalk, levitating a beautiful, gleaming silver trophy shaped like a cup and two wands crossed at the base. He presented it to Liesel, his tiny face beaming with profound pride. "Masterful footwork, Miss Ollivander! Truly a credit to your house."

Liesel took the silver trophy in her hands, the cool metal grounding her. She turned toward the crowd, letting the overwhelming wave of applause wash over her.

Her eyes scanned the sea of faces, sweeping past the jumping Slytherins, past the clapping professors, until she found the Gryffindor section.

Harry was standing near the front of the barricade, clapping so hard his hands were flush with color. He looked incredibly proud, though the dark shadow of anxiety regarding his own impending tournament task still lingered at the edges of his bright green eyes.

Liesel caught his gaze. The cool, she usually wore for the school completely fell away, leaving a bright, genuine, sixteen-year-old smile. She lifted the heavy silver trophy with one hand, pointing directly at the polished metal, and then extended a single finger directly at him.

I won mine. Now it's your turn.

Harry understood the message instantly. He let out a soft laugh, shaking his head, but the tension in his shoulders loosened just a fraction. He looked a little less frightened, bolstered by the unspoken promise that the most dangerous girl in the room was entirely in his corner.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

”Are you going to eat that, or are you going to stare at it until it rots?”

Liesel was sitting at the Slytherin table during dinner. Her plate was full of roasted lamb and radishes, entirely untouched. The noise of the hall was a low, anxious murmur, heavily subdued under the watchful eyes of Dolores Umbridge, who sat at the head table wearing a cardigan the color of raw meat.

Theodore Nott had slid into the empty space on the bench opposite Liesel. He leaned his elbows on the polished wood, his dark, highly intelligent eyes tracking the way Liesel’s fingers were still unconsciously resting over her left wrist.

Liesel glanced up at Theodore with her eyes, her neck not bothering to crane her head up. She gently ran her fingers along the fork at her side, then stabbed it into the meat and raised it to her mouth, taking a ravenous, angry bite out of the thickest part. She started at Theodore, silently asking ‘Is this what you wanted?’

Theodore chuckled at the action, glancing at Blaise beside her to make sure he was seeing it, too.

"Leave it alone, Theo," Blaise Zabini murmured from across the table, taking a slow sip of his pumpkin juice. He sensed the sudden, dangerous shift in the air, the way Liesel’s spine snapped completely straight as she tore into the meat.

But Theodore was bored, and cruelty was his favorite pastime. He tilted his head, a nasty, knowing smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth.

"I’m just curious…" Theodore mused, his voice carrying just enough to draw the attention of Crabbe, Goyle, and a few neighboring sixth-years. He reached out with the tip of his silver fork and gestured to the fraying edge of the green silk ribbon. "You’re still wearing that thing, Ollivander?”

Liesel’s eyes followed his eyeline to her wrist and then looked back at him, her jaw slowly ceasing her chewing with the food still in her mouth. She dared him to say more.

“Don’t tell me you’re not over him... You were together, what? A few months? That’s puppy love, innit? Nothing serious.” Theodore chuckled to himself, but no one else was laughing, “I thought you would have thrown this pathetic little scrap out by now, Ollivander. It’s filthy. It’s covered in leftover Hufflepuff."

“Oi, Theo!” Blaise snapped, unlike his usual self. The minute Blaise raises his voice is when things are getting real serious, “Mind your own business, would you?”

"Come on, Blaise, look at it," Theodore continued, completely misreading Liesel's stillness for submission. His voice grew louder, laced with a cruel amusement. "It's a biohazard. If you insist on mourning the bloke, you could at least have the decency to wash your dirty laundry before you bring it to dinner."

But Blaise didn’t look at the ribbon. He looked at Liesel, who easily looked like a shell of her former self. Her head hung cocked over her right shoulder, eyebrows furrowed and eyes so wide and glassy that Blaise rather saw a marionette sitting beside him. She stared, unseeing, at Theodore’s mockery, and the boy directly beside her wondered if there was even a thought left in her head, or if she was waiting for a ventriloquist to gently sneak his hand up her back and speak for her. For a moment, Blaise swore he could feel the hairs of the arm closest to him raise, an electric pulse between them.

Then, Liesel’s lip twitched, and Blaise reasoned that she was alive… but she wasn’t human anymore.

Theodore reached out his hand, his long fingers stretching his wand. "Here. Let me take care of it for you. I'll burn it right off your-"

He moved hardly halfway across the table when Liesel’s patience absolutely snapped and came crashing down.

The reaction was not a conscious decision. It was a feral instinct clashing to the surface. Before Theodore could even blink, Liesel’s left hand shot out like a striking serpent. She clamped her hand around Theodore’s outstretched wrist, her grip locking like an iron vice, causing him to drop his wand in shock. She stood up from her seat and, all at once, let out a massive burst of air that spat her half-chewed food all over Theodore's face, robes, and the table.

Pansy and Daphne shrieked at the mess, as Draco and Blaise both attempted to gather exactly what was happening. They shared a glance with one another, sharing a single thought: Who is that?

With a single, fluid twist of her hips, she wrenched his arm downward, using his own momentum to pull him entirely off balance. As his upper body jerked forward, Liesel brought her right fist up in a punishing, sweeping arc.

Crack.

Her knuckles connected directly with the bridge of his nose. The sound of cartilage giving way was sickeningly loud, echoing sharply over the dull chatter of the dining hall.

Theodore let out a muffled shriek of shock and agony, his head snapping backward and whipping back into his only free hand, bringing it to his face as bright red blood instantly spilled over his lips and down his chin.

Liesel didn't hesitate. She didn't think. The Death Eater’s daughter drew her wand from her pocket in a blur of motion, raising it far above her head. The dark wood crackled with an angry, electric charge and glowed a bright blue, the air around her suddenly smelling sharply of ozone.

"Expelliarmus!"

The incantation rang out from the head table. A flash of red light slammed into Liesel’s hand. Her wand was violently wrenched from her grip, flying high over the Slytherin table and clattering loudly onto the stone floor near the aisle.

Professor McGonagall was standing at the staff table, her own wand raised, her chest heaving slightly.

Without her wand, a normal student would have surrendered. They would have frozen in shock.

But Liesel was already gone. Far... unrecognizably... gone. She didn’t even know why she was moving anymore, everything blurred together. Deprived of her magic, she resorted to the brutal, physical reality of her anger.

She lunged. She grabbed the lapels of Theodore’s pristine school robes and hauled him violently forward. She dragged him bodily over the wooden dining table. Silverware clattered, ceramic plates shattered, and goblets of pumpkin juice tipped over, spilling like a sudden massacre across the wood.

Theodore thrashed, blinded by the blood pouring from his nose, as Liesel threw him over the edge of the table and onto the stone floor. He hit the ground hard. Before he could gather the consciousness to scramble away, Liesel was on him. She drove the toe of her leather boot into his ribs—once, twice—a breathless, silent assault driven by months of her festering agony.

"Order! I demand order!"

Dolores Umbridge’s high, shrill voice shrieked over the sudden, explosive chaos of the Great Hall. Liesel didn’t hear her.

The Slytherin table had completely fractured. Pansy squealed, having jumped backward to avoid the spilling juice and was nearly doubled over behind Liesel screaming for her to stop. Crabbe and Goyle, lacking any actual loyalty to either party, began hooting and cheering Theodore on, completely oblivious to the fact that their housemate was losing badly. Across the hall, the Gryffindor table erupted. Fred and George Weasley stood on their benches, whistling sharply and roaring Liesel's name in approval.

She shouts of her friends around her were simply background noise. She growled in rage as she fell to her knees and grabbed the collar of his button-down shirt and sweater, picking him up and slamming him to the floor again. Her arm raised again, only to strike him one again on his cheekbone.

Daphne Greengrass and Blaise Zabini hovered at the edge of the fray, their hands outstretched but hovering uselessly in the air. They were terrified to intervene. They had never seen Liesel like this… so unhinged, so completely feral. She was a stranger. Blaise wished he had punched Theodore himself, so Liesel wouldn’t have unleashed such torture on him.

"Get her off him!" Umbridge shrieked again, pointing her stubby wand uselessly at the mess of limbs, but none of the professors could cast any spell through the crowd of students.

A blur of yellow, red, and green suddenly crashed into the aisle. Ginny Weasley and Newton Gold, ignoring the boundaries of house tables, sprinted across the stone floor. Ginny grabbed Liesel by the shoulders, while the broad-shouldered Hufflepuff boy hooked his arms under Liesel’s elbows, pulling with all his weight.

"Liesel, stop! Stop it!" Ginny yelled, her voice straining as she fought against the older girl's thrashing.

"Let me go!" Liesel snarled, her voice tearing at her vocal cords.

She wrenched her shoulders violently, shoving Ginny backward and driving an elbow sharply into Newton’s side. The boy grunted, his grip failing. Liesel broke free, stumbling backward, her chest heaving, her knuckles bruised and smeared with Nott’s blood.

Theodore was curled on the floor, groaning, clutching his bleeding face.

Liesel stood over him. Hundreds of faces were staring at her. Shock. Fear. Pity. Celebration. It was suffocating.

Before she could bend down for more, the crowd of students parted.

Severus Snape strode down the aisle, his black robes billowing out behind him like a storm cloud. His sallow face was furious, more so than the first night of the academic year. Professor McGonagall followed closely at his heels, her lips pressed into a thin, white line, picking up Liesel’s wand smoothly as she scattered forward.

"What in the name of Merlin has gotten into you, Miss Ollivander?!" Snape hissed, his voice incredibly aggressive, carrying to every corner of the silent hall.

Liesel sneered at Professor Snape, an expression she had never made toward him and never thought she would make, and turned sharply on her heel. She stormed toward the heavy oak doors, shoving past a group of frightened second-years, fleeing the hall as fast as her legs could carry her without running.

"Detention!" Umbridge’s voice echoed shrilly behind her, bouncing off the stone walls. "A month of detention for that animal!"

Liesel burst out of the Great Hall and into the cool atmosphere of the Entrance Corridor. 

At the Gryffindor table, Harry, Hermione, and Ron remained fixed in their seats, watching the scandal. Their features were carved out of unadulterated disbelief. They remained that way for a long time, staring at the mess of blood, shattered ceramic, and wild eyes before Ron squeaked out, his voice cracking straight down the middle, “Bloody Hell…”

The wooden doors slammed shut behind Liesel, cutting off the noise of the crowd, but the silence of the hallway was worse. It rang in her ears. A whining pitch, like the insects that once crawled all over her skin were now beating their wings against her glass skin.

She staggered away from the doors. Her legs, which moments ago had kicked into the ribs of a teenage boy, suddenly felt like they were made of lead. The adrenaline, that scorching fuel from deep inside of her, evaporated from her veins in a single ragged exhale. What remained was a hollow shell that left her vision swimming with black spots. She hugged her arms around herself to in an attempt to prevent the intense tremor of her muscles. The sounds of hurried footsteps echoed from the staircase.

Severus Snape rounded the corner first, his dark eyes locked onto her. McGonagall hurried closely beside him, her stern face softening considerably as she saw Liesel stopped dead in the center of the hall, curled inward, shaking so hard her teeth clicked together.

"Explain yourself," Snape demanded. "Now."

Liesel turned around as Snape approached her and didn't have the autonomy to control what her body did next. She took a step forward and gripped his black robes, hiding her face in his chest as a strangled, wet sob tore itself from her throat. Her knees buckled, her body completely empty of the energy she had used to wreck Theodore Nott, and collapsed into the professor. Snape moved on pure instinct. He lunged downward, abandoning his princely posture, his hand snapping forward to assist her. His long fingers clamped firmly around her right wrist, jerking her upward to arrest the fall. A sound tore through the corridor. A jagged sound that Snape was sure wasn't a sob, but an animalistic shriek of pure agony. The moment Snape's grip closed over her arm, the damage in her joint ignited. The adrenaline had masked the injury flawlessly, but now, the brutality of smashing Theodore Nott's nose in and dragging his body over the dining table was coming back to bite her. Liesel's wrist radiated a searing heat, swelling with every second. She had surely sprained it in the heat of the moment.

“Liesel-“ Snape began, the anger draining out of his posture. He lowered himself as Liesel's weight dragging him down until they were both on their knees. He wrapped his arms around her, placing his hand on the back of the shivering, grieving child on the floor. Snape hesitated on speaking more. He was a man deeply uncomfortable with emotion, a man who lived his life entirely behind a meticulously crafted shield. But looking at Liesel, he saw the same desperation for answers he had sought all his life. The toll this took on him was a creeping nausea in the pit of his stomach. He saw the mirror of his own childhood staring back at him.  He simply remained still. The noise she made was awful... Loud, maddening... The sobs bounced off the stone ceilings, multiplying, distorting, breeding, until the corridor was stuffed with screams. It bounced right back at Liesel, causing a disorientation that made her fraying mind feel like she was falling down an endless shaft. The echoes mutated. They sounded like the castle itself was mocking her. The shadows from the torches along the walls warped and lengthened… scoffing, simpering, wailing in amusement at her misery. McGonagall stood a few paces away, watching the scene with complete silence, the sorrow becoming overwhelming. She was known for her unshakable composure, but the intelligent girl unravelling in front of her felt like a stabbing sensation straight into her heart. She reached up with a trembling finger, wiping a solitary tear from her wrinkled cheek and tucked Liesel's wand into the pocket of her own robes. Professor Snape turned his head a fraction, only showing McGonagall his profile, "Minerva, kindly tell Dolores I will handle her discipline. She will scrub cauldrons in the dungeons every evening for the next month. Without magic." It was still a punishment, but the two of them knew it was better than the alternative. The dungeons were safe. It was a place Snape controlled, far away from the malicious eyes of the rest of the school. But McGonagall did not nod. Her face grew incredibly grim. She looked down at Liesel, and then back up to her colleague, sharing a dark, knowing look.

"I do not know if that will be possible, Severus," McGonagall said quietly, the Scottish lilt of her voice heavy with an unspoken dread. "You heard the High Inquisitor. The detentions she issues... they belong solely to her now. I doubt she will allow you to intervene." Snape's jaw tightened so severely his teeth threatened to give out and the muscle jumped beneath his skin. He glanced down at the girl huddled against his chest and slowly, delicately pulled away from her, placing his hands on either side of her puffy face.  "Come, Liesel." Snape instructed, his voice low and firm, "You will remain in my office until things are sorted." Liesel attempted to answer, but another wet sob snagged in her throat. The fly-aways of her braid shot forward with her breath, "No... no..." "Yes." Snape commanded, leaving no room for negotiation, "You will go to my office and hope Professor Umbridge does not recommend your expulsion." Expulsion... With even the insinuation of being cast out, of losing the only ground she had left to stand on, Liesel sobered up from her sorrowful high. She sniffled roughly, wiping her nose with the back of her uninjured left hand. She gave a single, weak nod.  Pushing herself up on shaking legs, she kept her injured wrist cradled tightly against her ribs, protecting the throbbing joint. She didn't look back as she slowly limped away with the breath she could muster, leaving the two senior staff members standing in the suffocating quiet of the corridor. "Severus..." The senior professor muttered, her hand lightly resting on her lips to hide her own weakness, "What do we do?" Snape stared at the empty archway.

Beside her, Pansy Parkinson was tracing mindless circles into her notebook with a black quill, occasionally releasing a soft sigh of her trademarked performative boredom. She wasn't quite like Daphne and Blaise: seemingly exhausted by the mere thought of moving. Pansy used her privileged boredom as a weapon for attention. Liesel ignored her. She focused her eyes on the grain of the desk, noting the elm wood used to make it. She traced the tiny, overlapping grooves left behind by generations of students with her thumbnail. If she pressed hard enough, the wood would slightly give in, making it seem like it was breathing.

Professor Dolores Umbridge stood draped in a fluffy pink cardigan, similar to what she had worn at the welcoming feast, but it was now paired with a long, purple wool skirt and pink kitten heels. Thankfully, she rid herself of the bow. Liesel hoped Fred or George's clockwork canary caught it aflame.

The professor smiled down at the class, a wide, stiff expression that stretched her features, but failed entirely to reach her cold, bulging eyes.

"Wands away, please," Umbridge instructed. Her voice was a high shrill that grated against Liesel's eardrums, "There will be no need for wands in this class."

A murmur of confusion rippled through the rows of students. Liesel's eyes narrowed, unsure of what the professor could possibly mean.

"You will be using Defensive Magical Theory by Wilbert Slinkhard," Umbridge continued, turning her back on the students to step daintily up to the blackboard. "We will be studying the theoretical background of defensive magic. A secure, risk-free way to understand the spells."

"What use is theory in the real world?"

The voice rang out from the middle of the room. It was sharp and defiant, carrying a barely contained anger. No one had to turn their heads to see who had spoken, but they looked nonetheless.

Harry Potter was leading forward at his desk, his jaw locked, and his green eyes burning into Professor Umbridge from the center of the room.

Umbridge turned slowly, her smile remaining perfectly in place, "This is school, Mr. Potter, not the real world. There is nothing waiting out there to attack you. Who do you imagine wants to attack children like yourselves?"

Liesel's thumbnail nearly plunged into the desk.

Don't say it. Don't say it, Harry.

"Oh, I don't know," Harry said, his voice dropping into a sarcastic register that made the hairs on the back of Liesel's neck stand up, "Maybe Lord Voldemort?"

Several students gasped audibly. Neville Longbottom flinched so hard his elbow knocked his inkwell dangerously close to the edge of his desk.

Liesel remained sill. But on her wooden desk, her hand clenched into a fist as her manicured fingernails bit deeply into her soft palms, leaving sharp crescent moons embedded in her skin. The corners of the ceiling seemed to stretch, distorting the pink room into a tunnel.

"Ten points from Gryffindor, Mr. Potter," Umbridge said softly, the sweetness in her tone curdling, "Let me make this quite plain. You have been told that a certain dark wizard is at large once again. This is a lie."

"It is not a lie!" Harry shouted, standing up from his desk. The sound of his chair scraping against the stone floor echoed like a bone snapping, "I saw him! I fought him!"

Umbridge's voice rose, a commanding bark, "Detention, Mr. Potter!"

Sit down, Harry. Don't push her further.

"So according to you," Harry continued, his chest heaving, completely ignoring the punishment, "Cedric Diggory dropped dead of his own accord?"

The name hit the room and the air went stale.

Liesel felt a spark as her heart skipped a beat.

Where one would expect a sudden flash of grief to strike, Liesel rather experienced a bizarre displacement. The colors in the room inverted for a fraction of a second. The pink cardigan became a sick green. Every person in the room turned their collective focus toward her in the corner. The silence stretched, drawn tight as a bowstring. She could hear the frantic fluttering of her own heart in her ears. Liesel didn't hear Umbridge's reply. All she could focus on is the creeping feeling of every eye in the room bearing into her. Even Pansy side-eyed her as Harry and Umbridge launched into a debate.

Liesel felt exposed. The eyes of her classmates felt like insects crawling across the back of her neck- hundreds of tiny, scratching legs searching for a fracture in her skin. She slumped, sinking lower into her chair, staring blindly at nothing in particular. The white parchment on her desk, in her glassy stare, seemed to open up, a blank eye staring back at her, daring her to scream.

The moment Umbridge finally dismissed them, Liesel was the very first out of her seat. She frantically fled into the corridor, the floor soft under her feet. Spongy and unreliable. She didn't even bother to collect her books and satchel at her desk.

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By Friday, Liesel hoped the tension of the first academic week would come to the end with the introduction of her favorite activity at Hogwarts: Crossed Wands.

Liesel stood in the center of the expansive Clock Tower floor that had been the home to the club since it was secretly created a century earlier. She was methodically adjusting the cuffs of her crisp white blouse, seeking comfort in the repetitive motion as she waited for the students to arrive. As the dueling champion of last year, she was expected to lead the club despite only being a 5th year. As usual, she wanted to be perfect.

The wrought-iron gates of the room swung open, and in walked Theodore Nott. He moved with a nauseatingly unhurried grace of a boy who believed the castle and everyone in it existed solely for his amusement. His dark hair was impeccably neat, curls falling just perfectly across his forehead. He gaze was just as detached as her other friends, with a glint in his eye that measured up anyone in his path.

"Well." Liesel said, crossing her arms over her chest as he approached the sign-up table. "Look who decided to grace us with his presence. Where have you been, Nott? You missed the train entirely, and you certainly weren't at the Welcoming Feast."

Theodore stopped in front of the table, leaning his hip against the edge of the wood. He offered her a lazy smirk, "I had better things to do, Lee. Family business. The world doesn't stop turning just because Dumble-whore serves a banquet."

Liesel arched a single eyebrow at both hers and Dumbledore's nicknames. "Family business," she repeated, her tone dripping with a dry sarcasm, "How delightful. It must be awfully nice that the Ministry is allowing owls into Azkaban these days so you can coordinate your schedules with your father."

Theodore scoffed. It sounded genuinely amused, though a flicker of rage flickered in his eyes. He knew her own parents were locked in the very same fortress, otherwise his wand would've been pulled before Liesel could even react. It was an unspoken camaraderie between them. If they didn't have this bond, one of them would have had their heads bashed in long ago… Perhaps after Theodore cheated on Liesel with Pansy in their second year. Or when Liesel hit him with a tongue-tying hex before the third year dueling finale, causing him to lose and get blasted with Stupefy straight in the nose. He got back at her by transfiguring her canines into fangs for a week. Safe to say, the two Slytherins did not get along.

The feud had come to an end the previous year when Cedric cornered him after Liesel showed up to The Great Hall crying one day. They'd been rather neutral since.

Liesel wonders what happened that day.

"Careful, Lee," Theodore hummed, raising his hands to his mouth to mimic a pair of sharp teeth, "Your fangs are showing." He hissed through his fingers and then chuckled when Liesel rolled her eyes, patting her bicep and tossing his wand up to catch it once again.

Students began to flood in. Harry and Ginny walked into the room together. Harry looked hesitant, his shoulders tense and defensive, while Ginny radiated her usual fierce, determined energy. She was practically dragging him inside.

As Harry picked up the quill to sign the sheet at the front of the room, Liesel's face fell.

Professor Dolores Umbridge stepped into the dueling club. She was now wearing a violently pink tweed suit, her hands clasped neatly in front of her waist holding a clipboard. Her smile made Liesel's blood run cold.

Liesel walked up to the professor, "Hello. May I help you?"

"Do carry on, Miss Ollivander," Umbridge mused, taking a seat on a wooden chair to the side of the room, her eyes locking immediately onto the back of Harry's head. "I am simply here to observe. The Ministry is, of course, highly invested in the extracurricular activities of our students."

Liesel swallowed hard, her mouth feeling like cotton, "As you wish."

She pulled her attention away from the pink-clad woman and stepped up to the raised dueling platform in the center of the room. The motion gathered the attention of the students in the room.

"Welcome, everyone, to Crossed Wands," Liesel announced, her voice projecting clearly over the crowd, "Congratulations. If you are here, that means you have been personally invited to participate in the club. Here, we will practice the recognized sport of martial magic. That means we utilize only non-lethal, internationally-approved spells, hexes, and charms. However, you will find that spells will not be your greatest tool. This is about precision, footwork, and core stability, not brute force."

Liesel glanced at Umbridge, attempting to see what she was thinking, but her face was blank.

A small second-year Ravenclaw, Archie Stunfeed, near the front raised his hand. "How are we supposed to defend ourselves with non-lethal spells against… against You-Know-Who?"

Everyone in the room held their breath.

Liesel's eyes focused once again on the crowd, gulping and trying to analyze how to respond properly, within Umbridge's expectations.

"A solid foundation is key to any successful defense, Archie," Liesel answered carefully, using the proper diplomatic caution to skirt around the dangerous question without invalidating the boy's fear, "If you cannot master a basic disarming charm under pressure, you will not survive a genuine conflict."

She quickly changed the subject, "Erm… Perhaps we can show you all an example." Her eyes landed on a boy near the middle of the crowd, "Newton. If you would."

Newton Gold, a broad-shouldered seventh-year Hufflepuff with dark brown hair and a wide, friendly smile, stepped up onto the platform, towering over Liesel. He had been on the Hufflepuff competitive dueling team the previous year, fighting alongside Cedric. The mere sight of his yellow and black tie on the platform made Liesel's stomach twist.

Liesel than looked directly at Luna Lovegood, who had been a valued member of the club since her first year, "Luna, do you care to moderate?"

Luna took a few steps forward, taking the role of Moderator, ensuring the duelists are properly introduced and no illegal moves were made.

Luna spoke with her usual soft tone, but loud enough to carry across her room, "The rules of the sanctioned duel are strictly non-lethal. Any deviation into restricted hexes or curses will result in immediate disqualification. Duelists, present your wands."

Newton and Liesel reached into their pockets and drew their wands smoothly, holding them in front of their bodies horizontally.

"Please state your wand compositions, beginning with Mr. Gold."

"Pear wood. Phoenix feather core. 12 inches. Garrick Ollivander." Newton stated as a soldier would his rank.

Then, it was Liesel's turn. She repeated what she had said a million times, "Hornbeam and Cherry. Wampus Hair Core. 11 inches. Unknown Wandmaker, American-Made."

Luna nodded, noting to them that it was time to begin the duel.

Newton and Liesel turned to one another, bowing a formal motion, before spinning around and taking ten measured paces apart.

"Wands at the ready," Luna called out as the two turned to face each other, dropping instantly into a flawless, balanced dueling stance.

Newton fired first. A bright, rushing jet of red light surged across the platform. Liesel didn't bother shielding. She sidestepped it effortlessly, the spell sizzling harmlessly into the protective wards surrounding the stage. She flicked her wrist, sending a rapid pair of stinging hexes back at him. Newton deflected the first and ducked the second, countering with a sweeping jinx aimed at her ankles.

They volleyed back and forth for a full minute, a mesmerizing sight of light bouncing on the wards. Liesel was entirely in her element, her eyes tracking his wand movements, reading the subtle shifts in his shoulders, predicting his casts by the movement of his wand before the incantations even left his lips. For a wonderful moment, the noise of the world faded, leaving only the hum of the magic flying past their years. Liesel let out a loud, amused laugh as she dodged the rays of light.

"For Cedric, Newt!" a boy hollered.

The shout came from the crowd. It was a boisterous, encouraging cheer from a group of Hufflepuffs standing near the edge of the platform.

Liesel's vision snapped out of place. She didn't see Newton Gold in front of her. His face shifted, pushing and pulling, blurring in the light, and for a devastating second, she saw another boy hurling spells at her. He was laughing, too. Her wand arm dropped slightly, her flawless rhythm stuttering to a dead halt.

Newton had already cast the spell. He couldn't pull back.

A blasting charm clipped Liesel directly on her shoulder. The force of the impact spun her around, sweeping her feet out from under her. She fell backward, landing hard on her hind end against the polished catwalk.

A booming cheer echoed through the towering walls.

Liesel sat on the floor, trying to catch her breath, her facial muscles still tense from the duel. She wasn't embarrassed, simply disoriented as she stared at her shoes and waited for her awareness to catch up with her body. Her shoulder throbbed with a dull ache.

"Liesel!" Newton called out, rushing forward with his wand lowered, "I didn't think that would hit you." He looked completely horrified that he had just knocked the club leader to the ground.

Liesel blinked, the fog rapidly clearing from her mind. She took his offered hand, allowing the large Hufflepuff to pull her back to her feet. She smoothed the front of her skirt, brushing a speck of dust from her cuff, forcing a calm she did not feel into her posture.

"Do not apologize, Newton. You did fantastic," Liesel said, her voice steady and loud enough for the room to hear. She turned to the crowd, offering a small, wry smile. "That, everyone, was a fantastic example of why you must never, under any circumstances, lose your focus. The moment your mind wanders, you leave yourself exposed. A brilliant cast, Newton. You take the round."

She stepped off the platform, her shoulder still aching, but her pride entirely intact.

"Would anyone else like to give the platform a try?" Liesel asked, looking over the crowd.

Ginny Weasley immediately raised her hand, using her other hand shove Harry's in the air, "Harry and I will give it a shot! He's got quick reflexes, you know."

Harry seemed horrified at this suggestion. No sane witch or wizard would want to go against Ginny. Before he could even protest, a throat cleared on the side of the room.

Ehm, ehm.

"Excuse me, Miss Ollivander," Umbridge said, standing up from her chair, her clipboard clutched tightly to her chest. "I have a few questions regarding the… curriculum of this gathering."

"Of course, Professor," Liesel replied, "I can speak to you after the meeting if you'd like."

A large smile spread across her lips: a smile one would give a toddler as she ignored Liesel's request, "Who exactly authorized the use of these specific kinetic charms?"

Liesel stared at the woman, fighting the urge to roll her eyes, "These are spells recognized by the International Dueling Association. The club's rules themselves are based on the standard guidelines set by the Hogwarts Board of Governors, Professor. Our faculty sponsor, Professor Flitwick made sure of it."

"Mhm." Umbridge squeaked, taking her time writing this down on her clipboard with her quill, "And… Are you keeping a detailed ledger of the students who demonstrate an aptitude for such… aggressive magic?"

The Crossed Wands meeting ended as quickly as it began. Students stood in their place, eventually resorting to tossing wands back and forth to cure their boredom as Professor Umbridge poured question upon question onto Liesel. Eventually, the natural light in the clock tower dissipated, and Liesel had no choice but to dismiss the members.

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Everyone heard the news by Monday morning.

Dolores Umbridge: The New Hogwarts High Inquisitor.

The concept of a walking toad having such power made Liesel's stomach turn. Even the Slytherins felt the same, though they were much more tolerant. "I'll do what that hag wants, but I won't be happy about it," Draco would repeat anytime the professor was brought up.

That evening, it felt like the peace Liesel found in the club shattered.

Liesel sat at the Slytherin table, tearing a soft dinner roll into miniscule pieces as she chattered with Daphne about the newest Charms essay.

At the head of the room, Professor Flitwick stepped up to the podium, calling attention from the room.

"May I have your attention, please," the tiny Charms professor announced, his usually cheerful voice sounding tight and deeply unhappy, "As I'm sure you have heard, Professor Dolores Umbridge has been appointed by the order of the Ministry of Magic to the newly created position of Hogwarts High Inquisitor. Furthermore, I have been instructed to announced that, as her first Decree, any and all extracurricular use of hexes or defensive jinxes have been banned. This includes the immediate and permanent cancellation of the Crossed Wands dueling club."

Liesel's fingers stopped tearing the bread. The noise of the Great Hall rushed back in, an overlapping wave of angry muttering, but it sounded muffled to her. She reached her right hand across her body, her fingers tracing her left wrist. She found the soft, frayed edge of the green silk ribbon tied tightly around her skin. Cedric's ribbon. The one she had given him for luck before he walked to his death.

The noise of the Great Hall rushed back in, overlapping waves of angry muttering, but it sounded muffled to Liesel.

Crossed wands was her domain. It was where she found her credibility, where she proved she was more than the daughter of Azkaban inmates. More devastatingly, it was the society where she was truly bonded with Cedric. It was theirs.

The gossip was already spreading like a wildfire down the Slytherin table.

"Why would they cancel Crossed wands?" a fourth year Slytherin whined, having been permitted into the club for their first time.

Another answered conspiratorially, "I heard Umbridge told McGonagall that the dueling practice is fear-mongering. She says it's making people believe that You-Know-Who is back."

Liesel slowly released her death grip on the silk ribbon. Her fingertips felt numb… prickling… They were banning martial magic to suppress the fear, to pretend the world wasn't ending. But Liesel knew better than anyone that ignoring the dark didn't make it disappear.

Her mind drifted backward, away from the atmosphere of the Great Hall, and thrust into the warm sunlit memories from fourth year.

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The rhythmic tick of the massive brass gears in the Clock Tower was nearly drowned out by the cracking sound of spellwork.

Liesel Ollivander was a blur of constant motion. She wore her uniform with the sleeves rolled up past her elbows, her mousy brown hair pulled into her messy braid that whipped through the dusty air as she moved.

She was dueling Draco Malfoy, but there was no malice in the exchange. It was a fluid, intricate interaction between two people who knew exactly how the other moved.

Draco sent a bright stinging hex hurtling toward her right shoulder. Liesel didn't even bother raising a shield charm. She simply sidestepped it effortlessly. The spell sailed past her, shattering harmlessly against a stone pillar. Without missing a single beat, she fired off a rapid wordless combination to throw him off balance, followed instantly by a sweeping jinx aimed directly at his ankles.

Draco’s eyes widened in sudden alarm. He tried to pivot, trying to shift his weight, but he was a fraction of a second too slow. His legs were swept cleanly out from under him, and he hit the floorboards flat on his back with a heavy, resounding thud.

Liesel lowered her wand and let out an unrestrained roar of bright giggles. It was a full, bubbling, entirely carefree sound that bounced off the brass gears and echoed high into the rafters. The cold Liesel of 5th year didn't exist here. She was simply a girl who had bested her best friend.

Draco lay on the floorboards, staring up at the high ceiling, shaking his head. A boyish grin spread across his face. He let out a breathless chuckle and raised a hand in surrender.

Liesel stepped forward, still giggling softly, and grabbed his hand, hoisting him up with a strength that belied her small frame.

"You got lucky, Ollivander," Draco laughed, brushing the thick layer of dust from his dark trousers before pointedly patting his perfectly styled platinum hair back into place. "And I am warning you, you will not be laughing next time. Just watch the hair. It takes an hour to get this right."

"Oh, the tragedy of the Malfoy mane," Liesel teased, her eyes sparkling with her rare, mischievous light. Before Draco could react, Liesel shot down to the floor. She snatched his polished hawthorn wand right off of the floorboards and immediately turned on her heel, sprinting in the opposite direction.

"Hey!" Draco shouted, a genuine, delighted laugh escaping his chest as he lunged after her. "Give that back! Liesel, I swear to Merlin—"

"Or what? You'll tell your father?" she called over her shoulder, dodging him around a wooden crate, and then hopping upstairs, weaving nimbly through the maze of towering clockwork gears. Her laughter rang like a silver bell.

But the playful, childlike chase came to a screeching halt when they descended the other side of the clock platform.

Harry Potter stepped into the archway. He was fourteen years old, his Gryffindor tie hanging crookedly from his collar, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his robes. He looked exhausted, his skin wan and sallow, looking deeply haunted by whatever he had just discovered about the upcoming First Task of the tournament.

The carefree joy completely vanished from Draco’s face as if it had been smacked off. The grin was instantly replaced by his usual sneer he had for the other boy. He stopped chasing Liesel, his posture snapping into a rigid line. He walked over to her, snatching his wand back from her hand with far more force than necessary.

"I ought to get back to the common room," Draco drawled, his voice dripping with icy disdain, ripping his dragon-hide dueling gloves off his hands. "I'll see you later, Ollivander."

He turned his back on the both of them, striding out of the clock tower through the opposite archway, his dark robes billowing in his arms as he disappeared into the shadows of the castle.

Liesel smiled at Harry, "Sorry about Draco. He's just embarrassed I knocked him to the ground."

But Liesel didn't question Harry's presence just yet. She needed to reset the room to get her remaining energy out.

She pointed her wand at a burlap dueling dummy standing against the far wall.

"Leviosa!" Liesel commanded. The heavy dummy was yanked violently off the floor, suspending mid-air.

Without missing a beat, she fired off another wordless combination to vent her lingering adrenaline. Three bright red bursts of basic striking magic slammed into the dummy's chest, sending it spinning backward.

BANG. BANG. BANG.

Before it could hit the wall, Liesel slashed her wand in a sharp crescent.

"Accio!"

The dummy violently halted its backward momentum and jerked forward, flying rapidly back toward her. As it hung defenseless in the air, Liesel leveled her wand and fired another punishing volley of blasts, striking the burlap chest three more times before she finally flicked her wrist, letting the battered dummy crash to the floor.

She lowered her wand, her chest heaving as she fought to catch her breath, a fine sheen of sweat glistening on her forehead.

"You know," Harry hesitantly echoed from his very same spot, "the Goblet of Fire really should have spit your name out instead. You'd probably have a better chance."

Liesel let out a long breath, tucking a stray lock of hair that fell out of her braid behind her ear. A wry smirk pulled at the corners of her lips.

"Alas, Potter, I am not the Chosen One. I'll leave the death-defying glory to you." she joked, walking over to one of the wooden crates and sitting down, crossing her ankles. "I'm preparing for the autumn dueling tournament finale in a few days. I'm up against Diggory, and I need to make sure my footwork is flawless."

She pulled out a handkerchief from her pocket and gently dabbed her forehead, "Though, if you're lucky, I'll hex him so badly he won't be able to participate in the first task at all."

Harry didn't laugh. He stepped fully into the room, the anxiety radiating off of him practically visible in the dusty amber light.

"Actually, I'm kind of here for that," Harry said, his voice dropping into a nervous register. "The first task. I, erm… I overheard… well, there are dragons involved. And I don't have a clue what I'm doing. I need to learn more defensive spells, and you're the best duelist I know. I need your help."

Liesel stopped wiping her forehead. The cloth hung suspended in her hand. Dragons? The word echoed in her mind, sounding utterly absurd. She opened her mouth, fully intending to ask what kind of lunatic would force underage students to face a literal, fire-breathing apex predator for sport.

But looking at Harry’s ashen face, she swallowed the question. He didn't need her outrage right now. He needed a strategy. A lifeline. She knew it was bad if he was asking help from a Slytherin, of all people.

Liesel gave a single, decisive nod. She turned and pointed her wand at the battered dummy on the floor. "Reparo." The torn burlap knitted itself back together, and the dummy righted itself, sliding back to the far wall. Liesel turned back to him, her posture shifting from casual banter to strictly business.

"Alright," she said briskly, stepping toward him, her mind rapidly calculating the odds. "If we are dealing with dragons, basic shielding charms won't hold up against sustained dragon fire. The heat will melt the magical barrier in seconds."

"Right, thanks. That's quite comforting."

"If you'd let me finish, Potter…" Liesel trailed off, slightly smiling, "We'll play to your strengths. What are you best at?"

Harry blinked, looking thoroughly overwhelmed, "Uh. I don't know. Getting lucky?"

"Getting-…" Liesel heavily sighed and rolled her eyes. "Do not be self-deprecating, Potter, it wastes valuable time. I have seen you on the Quidditch pitch. You joined the Gryffindor team as a Seeker during your first year. You are an absolutely fantastic flier. You don't need to fight the dragon, you just need to outmaneuver it."

"We aren't allowed our brooms," Harry pointed out miserably, his shoulders slumping. "We just get our wands."

"Then you bring the broom to you," Liesel countered simply, as if the solution were the most obvious thing in the world. "Have you covered the Summoning Charm with Flitwick yet?"

"A bit. But I'm rubbish at it. Even Hermione can't help me."

"Granger isn't the most patient witch in the world, I'm sure," Liesel said, still sour from their academic rivalry. She crossed her arms and tapped her foot in deep thought, "We'll fix it. Right now."

She walked over to a stack of abandoned wooden crates and picked up a solid iron gear that had fallen off the clockwork years ago. She carried it halfway across the room and set it on the dusty floorboards.

"Summon it," she instructed, walking back to stand directly beside him. "The incantation is Accio. You need complete, unwavering concentration on the object. Focus your entire mind on the gear, Harry."

Harry drew his wand, taking a deep, shaky breath. He pointed the pale wood at the gear. "Accio!"

Nothing happened.

Harry let out a frustrated sigh, dropping his arm, looking incredibly defeated. "See?"

"Your wrist is far too stiff," Liesel noted immediately, her keen wandmaker's eyes diagnosing the mechanical failure.

She stepped into his personal space. "It is not a jab, Harry. It is a pull. Here."

Without thinking twice about the intimacy of the action, she reached out and gently wrapped her hand over his. Harry’s breath hitched slightly, his eyes dropping to where her slightly rough, calloused fingers guided his grip.

"Relax your shoulder," Liesel murmured. She was standing close enough that he could smell the faint, comforting scent of wildflowers clinging to her wool uniform. "The wand movement is a sharp swoop. Imagine you are literally hooking the object with an invisible line and yanking it toward yourself. Try it again. Feel the motion."

She guided his arm through the exact, precise curve of the spell. Harry swallowed hard, trying desperately to focus his mind on the heavy iron gear and not the surprising, anchoring warmth of her hand resting over his. He could feel the cool air of her breath on his neck, running down his shirt.

Liesel let go and stepped back, giving him room to breathe. "Now. Put the power behind it."

Harry gripped his wand, staring fiercely at the gear. "Accio!"

The iron gear violently rattled against the floorboards. It scraped forward about three inches, wobbled on its axis, and then went completely still.

Harry’s shoulders slumped again, but Liesel actually smiled. She was proud of her new student.

"It moved," she said encouragingly. "You have the raw power, you just need to refine the focus. We keep practicing."

And practice they did. It wasn't until the sun had fallen behind the highlands around them and left them in a soft blue hue did Liesel realize he needed something smaller, lighter. She retreated to the side of the room to her abandoned satchel and retrieved a book.

Harry stood at one end of the room, panting slightly, his wand aimed dead center at a heavy Arithmancy textbook resting on a crate thirty feet away.

"Accio book!" he shouted, pouring every ounce of his concentration into the spell. The book twitched, slid forward an inch, and then suddenly launched itself through the dusty air, sailing gracefully right into his outstretched hand.

Liesel watched as those small eyes scanned the sea of students, moving with a cold, bureaucratic precision from table to table until, inevitably, they found their way back to the Slytherin benches, and latched onto Liesel once again.

The scrutiny was instantaneous, an unblinking assessment that made Liesel feel as if her heart fled for cover inside her stomach. Umbridge did not look away this time. Instead, her thin lips stretched into a wide, sickeningly sweet smile that didn't reach her eyes. Liesel's lips twitched into a thin line.

The Ministry was here, its presence no longer a distant murmur in the papers she would read in the mornings, but a physical motion occupying the space beside Dumbledore. They knew exactly who Liesel was. They knew her lineage, her capabilities, and the empire she was set to inherit. Umbridge was sizing her up, waiting to see if she would bow to the Ministry like her grandfather, or crack under the pressure and bow the Dark Lord, like her parents. Liesel had wondered if Umbridge knew which path she was bound to take, if she knew her weaknesses.

Slowly, deliberately, Liesel placed her hand over her wand in the pocket of her school robes. Something felt off.

Liesel became deafeningly aware of the lack of a silver and green badge pinned on her chest. No emblem of authority to shield her from the whispers, no mark of trust from the school governors to signal to the wider wizarding world that she was deemed stable, responsible, and whole. The absence of that small badge felt like a public stripping of her dignity. It was a declaration by the administration that the Ollivanders heiress has been passed over. Surely the Ministry wouldn't trust her now.

BANG.

A sudden boom echoed through the cavernous hall, followed immediately by a plume of thick black smoke rising from the middle of the Gryffindor table.

The chatter in the hall came to a jarring halt, rapidly replaced by a chorus of surprised shouts, coughing, and scattered, mocking laughter. Through the dissipating cloud of smoke, the figure of Seamus Finnigan slowly emerged. His round face was completely coated in a thick layer of charcoal soot, and his sandy hair was standing on end, the very tips singed and smoking. He hacked violently into his elbow, waving a hand in front of his face to clear the air, while Ron Weasley leaned as far away from him as possible, looking thoroughly exasperated and slightly scorched on his shoulder.

At the Slytherin table, the reaction was absolutely merciless.

"Finnigan's at it again," Blaise Zabini hissed. He leaned back in his seat with a slow, practiced smirk, swirling his pumpkin juice in a goblet with lazy movements. His black eyes caught the candlelight, flashing with a cruel amusement.

Draco rolled his eyes at the chaos of the Gryffindor table, "Honestly, you would think McGonagall would have confiscated his wand by now. The boy is a walking hazard to himself and everyone within arms reach."

"It's embarrassing, really," Pansy chimed in, her shrill, grating laugh scraping against Liesel's deeply frayed nerves. "It's a miracle he's still alive. He's a hopelessly incompetent wizard."

"It isn't incompetence," Liesel noted quietly.

Her voice was soft, barely rising above the ambient noise, and it carried her usual gentle musicality that indicated her mind was truly elsewhere. The immediate area around her fell silent, her housemates turning their heads to look at her in surprise. She rarely engaged in their petty blood-sport anymore.

It was at this moment that everyone at the table realized that Liesel didn't do as much as flinch at Seamus's dinner-time experiment. Her eyes remained wholly trained on the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor at the front table.

"It's the composition of his wand," she explained, "Oak requires an incredibly grounded and patient owner- A wizard who knows exactly where his feet are planted in the earth. A clear, deliberate mind."

She paused, slowly turning her gaze across the wide expanse of the hall, settling on Seamus. She watched as the Gryffindor boy desperately tried to wipe the soot form his eyes with a linen napkin, his shoulders hunched in deep humiliation. Then, she looked at the blackened, smoking piece of wood clutched tightly in his shaking right hand, "And the core is dragon heartstring. It produces magic with the most explosive power of the other cores we utilize, but it is notoriously temperamental fi the wizard's emotions are unfocused."

Unfocused. Interesting coming from Liesel, whose gaze landed back on Umbridge the moment she finished explaining.

Daphne sighed from her seat at the table, head resting against her right shoulder and absentmindedly braiding a section of her hair as she waited for the feast to end, "So? He's still a terrible wizard."

Before Liesel could continue, Draco interrupted, "Are you going to stare at that old hag all night, Ollivander?"

Liesel's eyes shot back to Draco, a sudden realization of her distractions. The Slytherins stared at her in profound silence for a long moment, the casual cruelty of their gossip entirely derailed by Draco's observation. Pansy Parkinson glanced down at Liesel's untouched plate and softly pushed her own cup of pumpkin juice toward her, while actively rolling her eyes and turning away. Liesel didn't respond, as it had stuck her straight in her ribs that her friends were, in fact, worried about her.

An hour later, the golden plates and tablecloths vanished, leaving the long wooden tables bare and highly polished. When the Headmaster finally dismissed them, the scraping of hundreds of wooden benches filled the hall.

Liesel stood up, her hands automatically smoothing the front of her skirt. She was overwhelmingly bone-deep tired. The kind of exhaustion that sleep could not fix. She just wanted to retreat into the dark, damp, merciful quiet of the dungeons, draw the thick velvet curtains around her four-poster bed, and disappear from the world entirely.

But as the older students began to filter out toward the Entrance Hall, a shrill, commanding voice rang out, sharp enough to cut class.

"First years! Slytherin first years! gather round me!"

Liesel's feet felt as if they were glued to the floor.

A few feet away, standing near the end of their table, Pansy Parkinson had climbed up onto the edge of the wooden bench to elevate herself above the crowd. Her chest was puffed out with arrogant pride, her hands rest haughtily on her hips. Pinned securely to the lapel of her tailored, expensive robes, catching the candlelight and gleaming with a blinding, mocking brilliance, was a silver and green Prefect badge.

"Form a line, you lot!" Pansy barked, clearly reveling in the newfound authority she held over the shivering eleven-year-olds staring up at her with wide eyes. "Keep up, and do not dawdle! I will not have you embarrassing this House on your first night! Follow my lead!"

Draco stood right beside the bench, his own silver badge gleaming proudly on his chest. He looked immensely satisfied with himself, puffing his chest out slightly as he sneered down at a particularly small, nervous-looking boy.

The rage hit Liesel like a hot fire. But in the same breath, crept into her veins like a slow-acting poison, freezing her blood and constricting her lungs until she could barely draw breath. It was paralyzing.

She watched Pansy: A girl who had spent the entirety of her fourth year relentlessly gossiping about Hermione Granger's teeth and complaining that her Yule Ball dress was not nearly as decorative as she had hoped. A girl who had barely managed an 'Acceptable' in Charms. A girl who has not sought to obey a single adult in years… parading a badg eof honor that represented leadership, and trust…

Liesel couldn't watch this.

Without saying a single word to her friends, without offering a goodbye, Liesel turned sharply on her heel. She slipped into the crushing throng of students pouring out of the heavy oak doors, letting the crowd swallow her whole before she did something she would deeply regret.

The 5th year Slytherin girls' dormitory was a sprawling, circular room buried deep beneath the surface of the Black Lake. The curved walls her constructed of rough-hewn ancient dark stone, normally illuminated solely by the eerie, rippling emerald light that filtered through the window in the ceiling from the lake. However, tonight, the flickering fires of several lamps gave of just enough light to get around the room.

Liesel sat on the very edge of her four-poster bed, the emerald velvet hangings drawn back. In her blinding, ruminating anger, she moved with a mechanical, auto-pilot precision, going through the motions of her nightly routine without registering a single action. She unlaced her leather boots, setting them neatly side-by-side at the foot of her wooden trunk. Her fingers trembled slightly as they worked the delicate white buttons of her blouse free. Liesel slipped into her green, knee-length silk nightgown.

When she had finished, she lay flat on her back, staring blindly up at the dark canopy of her bed. She waited for sleep to come. She closed her eyes, desperately trying to focus on the measured tick-tock of the grandfather clock beside her bed.

But the moment her mind began to drift, the fragile silence of the dormitory was torn apart by the by the phantom sound of a rushing wind. In her mind's eye, the dark fabric of the canopy dissolved entirely, rapidly replaced by the towering, skeletal silhouettes of the ancient, moss-covered gravestones Harry had once described to her. And the chilling hiss of a snake: Kill the spare.

Liesel's eyes snapped open. Her heart was hammering a frantic, agonizing pace against her ribs. Her breath came in short, shallow gasps, her lungs unable to pull in enough oxygen from the damp air of the Slytherin dungeons. A clammy sweat had broke out across her skin, making the delicate silk of her nightgown stick uncomfortably to her.

She turned sharply onto her side, pulling her knees up tightly to her chest.

Liesel reached her right hand over, her fingers frantically seeking her left wrist. She found the frayed, soft edge of the green ribbon still tired securely there. She traced it, over and over again, rubbing the silk between her thumb and forefinger, trying to ground herself in the present, trying to remember the warmth of the boy who had once smiled when she tied it for him.

But the memory of his smile, tonight, was consumed by the memory of his blank, staring hazel eyes looking up at the starless sky, his skin the color of old wax.

She couldn't breathe. She couldn't stay in bed. Not with the tempest inside her very soul.

Throwing the heavy fur comforter aside, Liesel sat up. The cold air of the dungeon washed over her, raising goosebumps on her arms, but it wasn't nearly enough to shock the panic out of her system. She needed to move. She needed to walk until her legs gave out, until she was too exhausted to think, until that one night retreated.

She slipped out of bed, observing the other girls in the room: Pansy, Daphne, Tracey, and Millicent… all fast asleep. Liesel hadn't even noticed them coming in, as they surely stayed in the common room for awhile after dinner. Liesel pulled a black robe over her silk nightgown, wrapping it tightly around her waist and knotting the sash with shaking hands. She didn't bother to tie her hair back into her usual braid or look in the mirror. She simply stepped into a pair of black ballet flats and slipped silently out of the dormitory door.

The Slytherin common room was completely deserted, cast in the dying, emerald glow of the colored embers in the grand fireplace. Liesel didn't stop to seek warmth. She pushed herself up the winding staircase and marched into the twisting corridors of the dungeons.

And it was just that. Marching. Usually, Liesel remained aware of everything her body did, ensuring that any and all onlookers admired rather than laughed. Her usual walk was smooth, something wizards and witches of many ages would respect. Confident, commanding of respect. Tonight, it was aggressive and unrelenting. The blinding adrenaline of her panic had slowly curdled in her veins, hardening into a hot, focused rage that propelled her forward like a fired curse.

She reached the iron-banded door of the Potions classroom. She didn't knock. Liesel raised both hands, placed them flat against the wood, and shoved the door open with every ounce of strength she possessed.

The door hit the interior stone wall with a resounding, thunderous CRACK, shaking the glass jars of floating specimens lining the shadowed shelves.

Liesel looked around at the abandoned classroom, and rounded student desks to peer into the open door of Severus Snape's office.

Professor Snape, who had been sitting quietly at his desk illuminated by a single, flickering tallow candle, reviewing his lesson plans, didn't flinch. He didn't jump. He slowly, deliberately laid down his sharp red quill, folded his long hands over the parchment, and looked up. His obsidian eyes fixed directly on her, hold a look of profound, exhausted irritation.

"To what do I owe this disruption of my evening, Miss Ollivander?" Snape drawled, his found a silky whisper that seemed to slither across the stone floor toward her. "It is nearly two in the morning. It is hours past curfew. I sincerely hope the common room is currently on fire."

Liesel didn't apologize. She didn't cower or shrink under his glare. The girl was all too familiar with his tactics used throughout the years. She marched forward. When she reached his desk, she planted her hands flat on the edge.

"Pansy Parkinson," Liesel said, her voice shaking and chest heaving, "You gave the prefect badge to Pansy Parkinson."

Snape sighed. He leaned back in his high-backed leather chair, steepling his long, ashen fingers together and resting them lightly against his chin.

"if you had read even a single chapter of Hogwarts: A History, Miss Ollivander," Snape murmured, his dark eyes devoid of all emotion, "you would know that Heads of House can only recommend candidates. It is the Headmaster who makes the final… irrevocable decision."

"And what did you recommend?" Liesel demanded.

"I recommended both of you," Snape replied smoothly, completely unmoved by her fury, "However, the Headmaster and I both agreed that given the… tragic events of last June, thrusting the responsibilities of a prefect upon your shoulders would not be the wisest choice." He paused, his gaze dropping to the dark circles under her eyes, before looking back up, "You are grieving. The Headmaster felt you required peace. He felt you were too vulnerable to handle the stress."

Liesel's jaw tightened so hard a sharp pain shot up into her temples. Her teeth ground together, producing an audible scraping sound. "And Pansy?"

"Miss Parkinson," Snape continued dryly, "is highly prone to dawdling in the corridors, vicious gossiping, and possesses a distinct, highly irritating lack of academic focus. The Headmaster believed the discipline of the position would be beneficial to her… lacking character."

Snape unsteepled his hands, reaching forward to pick his red quill back up, hoping she would take this as a dismissal, "Furthermore, you do not require a badge to validate you. The primary function of a prefect position, outside of basic school discipline, is to add to a resume for Ministry employment. You already have a guaranteed, highly lucrative career waiting for you at your grandfather's shop. The prefect position is entirely superfluous to your future. Goodbye, Miss Ollivander, and go back to bed."

Liesel saw red.

"So let me make sure I understand this perfectly," Liesel said, her voice dropping to a trembling whisper, "Pansy gets rewarded with authority for being fundamentally mediocre, and I get passed over because my boyfriend was murdered?"

"Do not twist my words!" Snape commanded, "I say you congratulate your cousin and accept it!"

"What am I twisting, Professor?" Liesel yelled, completely abandoning any pretense of student-teacher respect she had previously known "I am the first woman in the centuries-old history of the Ollivander line to inherit the business! The first! Do you have any idea what that means?! Every single wizard in Europe… Every patriarchal system from Paris to Prague is waiting for me to stumble and call me unworthy, don't you see? They doubt my competence before I even open my mouth, all with hope that the Ministry will sweep in and take everything!"

"Liesel-" Snape warned harshly, sitting up straight, his dark eyes flashing with warning.

"No, you listen to me!" Liesel cut him off, hot tears of frustration pricking at the back of her eyes, "My name is not the golden ticket you think it is!"

Snape went deathly still in his chair, his nostrils flaring.

"My parents ruined my reputation before I took my first breath," Liesel choked out, the crushing pressure of her parentage pouring out into the thick air of the classroom. "And now the Ministry is here!" her voice cracked, her hand slamming onto his desk to drive in her point, "Umbridge and the Ministry are here, looking for any excuse to discredit anyone who doesn't align with their lies-"

"I'd be careful if I were you!"

"I NEEDED TO PROVE TO THEM THAT I AM UNIMPEACHABLE, AND YOU FAILED ME!" Liesel shouted at the top of her lungs to overshadow anything the professor was prepared to say, "I needed to show my worth, to prove that I am stable, and Dumbledore gave it to a girl who can hardly cast a basic shielding charm- simply because he PITIES ME!"

Silence.

Silence rang in the classroom for a long moment, broken only by the sputtering hiss of the candle flame.

Snape stood up slowly, the heavy chair scraping against the stone. He rounded his desk, his black robes billowing out behind him like shadows taking form, and loomed over her. He was a tall man, and he used every inch of his imposing height to intimidate. He looked down at her with a cold, unforgiving sneer, utterly devoid of the sympathy or understanding she was so desperately seeking.

"Are you quite finished?" Snape asked, his tone dripping with venom, "Because if you are… I suggest you close your mouth and listen very carefully… You stand before me throwing a melodramatic temper tantrum, acting as though the world owes you a grand apology. You look… foolish."

Liesel scoffed in disbelief, opening her mouth to argue, but Snaped raised a hand, silencing her with a look so sharp it could draw blood.

"You are incredibly privileged, Miss Ollivander," Snape hissed, leaning in closer, forcing her to look directly into his dark, bitter eyes, "You may weep over the legacy your parents tarnished and forced you to work for… but you possess a vault full of gold at Gringotts, an ancient, highly respected shop, and an internationally recognized name. There are students in this school who have absolutely nothing. Who return to homes that despise them. Who are nothing to the world at large. These students fight tooth and nail for the pathetic scrape of authority a prefect badge provides just to be noticed."

"You think this is about a tarnished legacy, Professor?" Liesel fired back, refusing to back down, "This is about reviving it. To retain everything my family built. I have to work ten times harder just to be seen as legitimate!"

"Then prove your legitimacy with your magic, not a piece of tin!" Snape roared back, his composure finally slipping into genuine, raw anger, "If you wish to be treated as a professional, then cease behaving like an entitled, emotionally volatile child! Stifle your pride, Miss Ollivander! It will do you no favors in these coming years!"

"Based on Dumbledore's choice," Liesel shouted, the tears of frustration finally falling down her cheeks, "pity was more important than my future, and you stood by and let him take it from me!"

"I let him," Snape sneered, "because looking at you right now, I see precisely why you are unfit for the role. Your grief of Mr. Diggory has taken you over. You cannot even control your own temper in a classroom, let alone police a corridor full of children."

Liesel stared at him.

The cruel sting of his words hit her like physical blow to the chest.

She looked at her Head of House, a man she had deeply respected, and she realized with a drop in her stomach that… either he was never going to understand… or he was right. While Liesel saw herself as a committed student advocating for her own future, she knew he saw her as only one thing in this moment: a privileged heiress complaining about not getting what she wants. He saw her exactly what she had feared everyone saw. A fragile, broken liability.

"You know what?" Liesel spat, her voice thick with disgust, trembling so hard she could barely get it through her vocal cords. She took a step back, prepared to run at any moment, "You're nothing but a miserable, bitter old man who resents anyone fighting for a future because you're too busy rotting away in a dungeon, nursing decades-old grudges!"

Snape's sneer vanished, replaced by a look of profound, furious shock.

Liesel didn't wait for his retaliation. She didn't want to see the damage she had just inflicted on the man she had seen like a father, nor the punishment he would undoubtedly deal. She spun on her heel and stormed toward the door.

She grabbed the brass handle and yanked the door open with a massive force-- only to be greeted with a sudden, freezing wall of icy mist.

Bloody Baron, drifting aimlessly through the dungeon corridors in the dead of night, had been hovering directly outside the door. Liesel's momentum carried her straight through the center of the ghost's ethereal chest.

The sensation was horrifying- like being plunged naked into a bath of ice water while having the breath sucked violently from her lungs. She gasped, stumbling out into the dark corridor. Her velvet robe swished aggressively around her ankles as she pushed past the shocked, translucent ghost without so much as a glance backward.

From inside the classroom, Snape's voice echoed out into the hall.

"FIFTY POINTS FROM SLYTHERIN, MISS OLLIVANDER!"

Liesel didn't stop. She marched down the dark corridor, shivering violently; should whether it was from the residual chill of passing through the ghost or the sheer adrenaline of the argument, she didn't know. She didn't care.

The uneven flagstones beneath her feet felt treacherous as her vision blurred with hot, angry tears. She could not go back to the Slytherin dormitory. The thought of walking into the circular room, of seeing Pansy Parkinson's gleaming silver badge resting triumphantly on her mahogany bedside table, made Liesel feel violently ill. She needed air.

Liesel took a sharp right turn, abandoning the route back to her bed and heading toward the shifting stone staircases that led up to the ground floor.

The noise inside Liesel's own body was deafening. Her heart was beating so fiercely it felt as though it were trying to crack her ribs open from the inside. Her blood roared in her ears.

And then, she felt it.

It did not start of a conscious thought, or an incantation, or the familiar flick of a wand. It began as a purely physical sensation as the cold in her body expanded, starting deep in the marrow of her sternum, and humming, vibrating outward like a struck tuning fork. It cascaded down her shoulders rushing through the veins in her arms.

Liesel gasped, slowing her frantic pace. The tips of her fingers felt searingly cold, prickling with an immense energy that was rapidly waking up in response to her distress. She looked down at her hands, confused and frightened, only to see whisps of blue around her fingers.

What is happening to me?

She tried to clench her hands into tight fists, but the energy pushed back, fighting her restraint.

She turned the corner into a wider corridor illuminated beautifully by the moon's glow filtering through the high arching windows. To her right, resting upon an ornate, carved stone plinth, sat a massive, centuries-old porcelain vase, filled with an arrangement of eternally blooming white lilies.

Liesel took one step past it.

The anger inside her spiked- a sudden flash of Snape's sneering face, or Pansy's smug pride, and now of the magic she can seemingly no longer control… The hum in her arms reached a crescendo.

An arc of crackling energy lashed out from her empty fingertips. It didn't look like standard magic. It wasn't a jet of colored light or a recognizable spell. It was a distortion of the air itself. A lightning bolt made out of the sights around her, shooting straight to the case.

The vase detonated.

Liesel shrieked, instinctively throwing her arms up over her head and dropping sharply to her knees as a large mist of ceramic dust and razor-sharp shrapnel rained down around her.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

Autumn of 4th Year

The rain was lashing violently against the small, high windows of the dungeon, sending miniature rivers cascading down the glass. It was late, early in her fourth year, and she had sought refuge in the quiet isolation of the Potions classroom to assist Professor Snape.

She had been wandering around his desk, idly categorizing the scent of the various lacewing fly preparations, when her eyes caught a small, remarkably weathered journal resting precariously near his inkwell. The leather binding was cracked and flaking, smelling of dry earth and old magic. Driven by the innate curiosity that always possessed her around ancient things, she had gently opened the cover.

The parchment was fragile, the ink a faded, rusty brown. Across the top of the very first page, written in an elegant, sweeping script, was a name: Isidora Morganach.

Before she could read the first line of text, the heavy wooden door of the supply closet groaned open. Snape emerged, holding a jar of pickled toads. He froze, his dark eyes snapping instantly to the journal in her hands.

With a sharp, wordless flick of his long wand, the journal snapped shut with a harsh crack, nearly catching her fingers. It zoomed across the desk, sliding safely out of her reach.

"That," Snape had murmured, his voice a low, dangerous hum that vibrated in the quiet room, "is none of your concern, Miss Ollivander."

But she had already seen the small inscription at the bottom of the page. "Professor Eleazar Fig?" she asked, her brow furrowing slightly, her curiosity vastly outweighing her apprehension. "Who is that? I’ve never heard of a professor by that name here."

Snape paused. He placed the jar of toads down, his shoulders relaxing just a fraction. It was in these rare, solitary moments that he allowed the strict, terrifying mask of the Potions Master to slip, revealing the man who harbored a quiet oft spot for the brilliant girl standing in his classroom.

"He was a very old professor," Snape finally answered, his tone smoothing out into a weary sigh. "A man hopelessly dedicated to making something out of nothing. He spent the latter half of his life investigating a ridiculous old wizarding myth, desperate to make it sound true. It is merely an old, decaying book I confiscated from the restricted section years ago. A complete and utter waste of time."

Liesel tilted her head, watching the way his eyes lingered on the leather cover. "If it is a waste of time, why keep it on your desk?"

Snape’s gaze flicked up to meet hers, a faint, almost imperceptible smirk touching the corner of his mouth. "Because, Miss Ollivander, it serves as an excellent reminder that even educated men can be profound fools." He walked around the desk, his black robes sweeping over the stone floor, and paused just beside her. "Speaking of fools… your grandfather sent me an owl this morning. He wished to inform me of Mr. Diggory’s… fascinating interest in you."

Liesel felt a hot blush creep up her neck, her mossy eyes widening in mortification. "He told you that?"

The professor uncharacteristically upturned the corners of his lips, which Liesel caught for only a fraction of a second, "Indeed. You don't think this kindness is… strategic?"

Liesel looked away, focusing intently on a jar of pickled griffin claws to avoid his gaze, "Cedric is kind to everyone, Professor. That's just his nature, from what I hear."

Snape's eyes narrowed, "Hufflepuff kindness is a weapon of misdirection. He is likely trying to get you to let your guard down before the first round of dueling matches coming up. He is surely intimidated by your reputation, and he doesn't want to be humiliated by a fourth-year in front of every wizarding student in Europe."

Liesel laughed, the sound bright and unbothered. She looked at Snape, her eyes dancing with amusement. "Cedric isn't intimidated by me. And he certainly isn't playing games. Not everyone is kind because they want something."

"Oh, little Ollivander," Snape mused, "I have lived many years, and you will soon find that to be false… People are rarely what they appear to be." He paused, his expression softening again. "You are capable of handling yourself. You have a talent that most wizards twice your age would kill for… But you must ensure that your own heart does not become your greatest liability."

Snape looked at her, and for the briefest of moments, a flicker of genuine paternal pride fell over his features.

Liesel nodded, feeling a strange ache of gratitude for his concern.

"I can handle myself." Liesel said firmly, her voice steady.

Snape let out a small, almost imperceptible huff of air. The closest he could come to a chuckle.

"I know you can," he said, "And see that you do. The dueling ring is our pride and joy. Be prepared to be ruthless."

Liesel smiled, collecting her satchel and overcoat. She turned to leave, her hand on the oak door. She looked back at him, the office her safe harbor.

Snape watched her for a moment longer, his gaze lingering on the door as it closed behind her.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

A ringing silence descended upon the corridor following the explosion of the vase,

Liesel stayed on her knees, her breath coming in ragged gasps. Her hands, completely empty of her wand, hovered over her lap, the residual chill slowly fading from her fingertips. She stared blankly at the ruined shards surrounding her feet, the delicate blue patters of the porcelain now fragmented into a thousand meaningless pieces.

"They're terribly loud tonight, you know."

Liesel flinched, her head snapping up.

A few yards away, stepping out from behind the corner of an intersecting hallway, was Luna Lovegood. The Ravenclaw girl was wearing a long, bizarre nightgown pattered with bright orange radishes stitched on top of the blue and bronze Ravenclaw plaid. Her bare feet made no sound on the cold stone beneath them. Resting upon the bridge of her nose was a pair of large, wildly colorful glasses with strange, spiraling lenses.

Luna didn't look shocked by the devastation in the hallway. Her silvery eyes blinked slowly behind the psychedelic lenses as she surveyed the shattered vase, and then drifted gently down to Liesel, huddled among the splinters.

"Luna?" Liesel breathed, hastily trying to wipe the tear streaks from her cheeks, pulling her velvet robe tighter around herself. "What are you doing down here?"

Luna reached up and tapped the rim of her peculiar glasses with a slender finger. "The Nargles," she said simply, her voice carrying a soft, dreamy quality that felt entirely out of place amidst the destruction. "They’ve been swarming the lower levels all evening. They’re drawn to things that are deeply unsettled. They took my shoes."

She stepped carefully around a particularly sharp piece of porcelain, closing the distance between them.

"I was trying to find them," Luna continued, offering Liesel a small, serene smile. "But I suppose they were just leading me to you."

Then, she turned her head to the right. Standing beneath the flickering amber light of the station lamps was a gathering a bored statues donned in polished silver and tailored silk. Her people. They were gathered by the heavy brass doors of one of the train's central carriages, insulated by a ring of empty space that other families instinctively afforded them. They demanded a wide berth, and the station obliged.

One of the statues spotted her from across the platform and crossed his arms.

"Liesel? Vincent and Greg can't hold our seats forever. Are you joining us or what?"

Draco's voice cut through the roar of the station. His stark white-blond hair caught the light of the station lamps, looking every inch the young lord his father demanded him to be.

“Merlin, Draco. Quit calling them that. I’m not calling him Greg.” Liesel's maternal cousin, Pansy Parkinson, shuttered beside him, looking equally as impatient as the wind brushing through the station split her bangs and she desperately tried to push them down. Daphne Greengrass and Blaise Zabini, however, seemed rather thrilled to see Liesel. Daphne's faint laugh carried across the platform as Blaise valiantly held up a silver flask he had somehow managed to conceal well in his pocket.

Liesel offered one last, fleeting glance toward the Gryffindors. Through the break in the crowd, she saw Harry bring unceremoniously shoved toward the train doors by an anxious-looking Ron. She had an irrational urge to sidestep the other students around her and join the boy with the lightning scar, just to stand in his proximity where the shared weight of their grief didn't need to be explained or justified. But she clamped down on the feeling, forcefully pushing her cold hands deep into her silk-lined pockets of her coat.

"I'm coming," Liesel called out. She turned her back on Platform 9 3/4 and stepped into the shadows of the carriage.

The journey north seemed like it was going to be accompanied by a bite of cold as the rain-streaked glass provided a thin layer of fog. However, the private Slytherin compartment was sweltering, heated by a small brass grate near the floorboards. The crushing lack of personal space, with seven people in the single compartment, did not help. Even then, Liesel couldn't find the will to banish the chill radiating from her own bones. She pressed against the cold windowpane, watching her faint reflection ghost over the passing shapes of wet birch trees and rolling, desolate moorland.

Those sitting with her were her best friends. They were the people who knew she took her tea with exactly one sugar, who had covered for her when she snuck out of the dungeons in third year, who understood the exhausting, unspoken rules of their bloodlines. But today, sitting knee-to-knee with them on the fading beige and maroon upholstery, the space between them felt vast.

Draco had launched into a bitter, restless tirade the moment the heavy metal door clicked shut. He was obsessed with the Ministry trial, his eyes flashing with a nervous, vitriolic energy that Liesel found entirely exhausting. "I simply cannot fathom it," Draco spat, kicking the hell of his expensive dragon-hide boot against the floorboards. "Potter getting off without a single charge. It's a farce. The Ministry is making a mockery of itself. My father says the Board of Governors is going to have a field day once they formally realize Dumbledore is practically holding Potter's hand through all of this nonsense."

"Bet you wish you were the one holding his hand, don't you, Draco?" Pansy asked, hardly looking up from her mirror, in which she was using to helplessly attempt to put on her chestnut lipstick.

Draco sneered at her, but the others ignored it entirely.

Liesel stared out at the passing trees, watching a droplet of water trace an unpredictable path down the glass. She spoke, her voice startingly even, lacking any inflection, "The Dementors were in Little Whinging. That's not exactly something a teenager can conjure up for attention."

Draco leaned forward bracing his left hand on the sill of the window, his face twisting into a harsh glare that couldn't quite mask the anxious tension tight around his mouth. "Oh, naturally. You'll defend him, won't you? I suppose it's to be expected, defending a half-blood like yourself."

Blaise, who had been lazily flipping through a light copy of Transfiguration Today in the corner, slowly lowered his book. He looked up at Draco with a bored, yet lethal expression, before going back to his reading, "That joke grew old in second year, Draco. You're making a fool of yourself."

Draco's jaw locked. His knuckles turned stark white as he tapped his pointer finger on the windowsill. He opened his mouth to snap back at Blaise, but Pansy reached out from beside him and smacked his thigh with the back of her manicured hand.

"Do shut up, Draco," Pansy drawled, her voice dripping with an airy, mock-boredom that expertly hid her territorial protectiveness over her cousin, "You’re acting like a lover-boy with an unrequited crush. It’s pathetic. Talk about something else."

Draco flushed an indignant red. He slumped back into the seat opposite of Liesel, his chest having slightly as his eyes darted to her face. He noticed then that she hadn't even blinked at his insult. She hadn't flinched. She was just staring at a patch of mist clinging to the glass, her eyes nearly vacant. Her mind existed somewhere far away from the train, from school politics, from him.

The defensive sneer melted off of Draco's face, washing away to reveal even a glimpse of the frightened boy underneath. He watched her for a long moment. The harshness in his angular features softened into something fragile. He knew the deadened look in her eyes. It was the same emptiness he had seen late the previous year after Cedric had passed. Sometimes, however briefly, he saw it in himself, too. The death of the prize Hufflepuff was not a localized grief.

Draco shifted his long legs, brushing his knee against hers. His voice dropped into a low, gruff tone that lacked his usual arrogant bite. "How are you, Liesel?" he asked, a rare gentleness he reserved for his childhood friend, "How was your summer?"

Liesel didn't turn her head. Her voice sounded like it was coming from the other side of the glass, "It was quiet."

Her answer wasn't brief for the sake of being vague about her whereabouts that summer. She knew it was inevitable that they would ask, so she was well-prepared. Liesel would practice her alibi in between conversations with Mrs. Weasley during dinner preparations, in the mirror every time she would find the will to bathe, and every minute she spent psychologically chained to her bed the first few weeks at Grimmauld Place.

"Quiet is better than what you've been dealing with," Draco replied softly, as if sensing her shattered heart. He looked down at his own lap, his long fingers anxiously twisting the silver signet ring on his pinky finger. "Have you… Have you heard from Amos Diggory? Since… you know." He didn't dare say it.

Liesel closed her eyes, the muscles in her throat tightening painfully. Cedric. This, a mere thought of a name, made her heart skip a beat. It felt like the air was sucked out of the carriage. "No," she breathed out. "Not a word."

"Maybe it's for the best," Draco reasoned, sounding like he was repeating a justification he had rehearsed in the mirror. "He's an old man looking for someone to blame. You don't need that kind of poison in your life right now. You have enough to deal with."

Pansy leaned over, her dark bob swinging forward, her brow furrowed in genuine curiosity. She had been entirely excluded from Liesel's summer whereabouts despite being family. "Where were you, honestly? None of us received a single owl from you since the feast at Hogwarts. I assumed you'd be working the counter at the shop, but your grandfather told my father you were 'indisposed' when he went in for new wand wax."

Liesel forced a small, perfectly practiced smile as she turned away from the window to face her friends. "He kept me at the family ranch," she lied smoothly, the fabricated story rolling off her tongue with a polished ease. "He thought it would be beneficial for me to get the London air out of my lungs. After last year…" She glanced down at her hands in her lap, "He thought the countryside would do me well."

Daphne, sitting composed in the corner with her hands folded neatly in her lap as she craned her neck to peek at Blaise's magazine, nodded sympathetically. "That sounds quite lovely, actually. I wouldn't mind being banished to a country estate. My father's house in France was completely overrun with nothing but his dull Ministry associates all summer."

Liesel continued looking at her lap, her tone dead, "It was isolating," she admitted, the true word slipping out and tasting like the platform's smoke on her tongue. When she noticed Pansy and Draco sharing a quick, worried glance, she quickly recovered, "But lovely, of course. Very restful."

Pansy let out a dramatic, airy sigh, adjusting the collar of her expensive robes. Liesel sank back into her seat and watched quietly as her cousin launched into a highly detailed, brilliantly self-absorbed monologue about the horrors of her own summer: the agonizingly boring garden parties, the unforgivable lack of quality imported silk for dress robes, and the absolute tedious mess of navigating her mother's social calendar.

Liesel let the words wash over her. It was a comfortable, familiar tide of petty grievances that she participated in the years before, but now they felt as though they were happening in a completely different century. To think she sounded the same this time last year. To think no one in the carriage felt the same impending doom that Liesel felt. She rested the side of her head against the cool, vibrating glass of the window, letting the rhythmic click-clack of the train wheels over the iron tracks lull her into a strange trance.

The sound mimicked a heartbeat. Not hers. But one she dreamt of every night.

Click-clack. Click-clack.

Her mind slipped. Locked doors inside her head began to spring open, one by one. The memories didn't hit her in a single, crushing wave; they bled into her consciousness in simple drops.

She remembered the library. The way the late afternoon sunlight used to filter through the high arched windows, casting long, golden geometric shapes across the dusty wooden tables. Cedric had been sitting next to her, supposedly studying, but he wasn't looking at his parchment. He was looking at her. She remembered the precise, calloused texture of his fingertips as he reached across the table, blindly finding her hand. He had a habit of tracing her bone of her wrist with his thumb, over and over.

Click-clack.

She remembered his laugh. Not the polite, charming chuckle he reserved for the professors or the vultures at the Daily prophet, but the real one. The one that was loud, unpolished, and entirely… entirely hers. They had been standing in the courtyard in February, her teeth chattering as she made a particularly dry, borderline cruel observation about Professor Sprout's new earmuffs. Cedric had tried to reprimand her, being the upstanding gentleman he was, but he failed miserably, throwing his head back and laughing so hard the corners of his hazel eyes wrinkled into tiny lines and his nose crinkled, freckles meeting. He had unwrapped his own thick yellow and black scarf and looped it around her neck, pulling her close by the ends of the wool until their lips met. She remembered how he smelled. The earth of the Hufflebuff common room, the cedarwood of his room, the leather of his Quidditch gloves.

Click-clack.

She remembered the way his gaze felt. Safe. Adoring. When she was with him, she didn't feel as cursed by her Azkaban-bound parents or pressured by her legacy. She was just his Birdie. He looked at her as if she were something precious, something he wanted to memorize.

Liesel squeezed her eyes shut, pressing her fingernails into the palms of her hands until crescent moons of pain blossomed against her skin. She had to stop. She had to lock him away again.

She opened her eyes and looked at Draco, who was now quietly bickering with Crabbe about his strategy for this year's Quidditch season. They were teenagers. They were sixteen. The world outside the train was actively preparing to tear itself apart. Voldemort had returned. Potential blood purity laws were being whispered about in the dark corners of Diagon Alley. War was blooming on the horizon. And they were arguing about a ball game.

In the face of all that impending ruin, Liesel wondered, with a sickening twist in her stomach, if her grief was simply a theatrical indulgence. Was she being dramatic? Every single person in this compartment carried the burden of their family names. Draco lived in a manor, trapped by his loyal dark family. Pansy's parents were leveraging her future just to survive. Yet here Liesel was, completely paralyzed because a boy she loved had died.

People die. It was the only guarantee their world offered.

She knew things were going to be vastly different this year, and clinging to the ghost of Cedric Diggory felt like a weakness she couldn't afford.

Liesel reached her right hand down, her fingers blindly grazing the hem of her left sleeve, instinctively searching for the soft, frayed edge of the green ribbon she hadn't taken off since that haunting night sitting outside the hospital wing.

"Liesel"

Blaise's hand was firmly shaking her shoulder from across Daphne. "We're almost there. We should change into our robes."

Liesel blinked rapidly, her vision snapping back into focus. The compartment was dimming significantly as the last afternoon sun finally sank behind the jagged peaks of the Scottish mountains, casting long shadows across the students. She looked around at her friends: Draco's shifting eyes settling on Pansy's bursting makeup bag, Pansy's dramatic, heavy-lipped pout, Blaise's sharp observant gaze, Daphne's polished detachment. And then whatever Crabbe and Goyle were doing, happily muttering while rolling something between their fingers.

These people were what kept her anchored. They were the only people in the castle who truly knew the shape of her life, who understood the immense pressure of a last name. As detached as they seemed, they were the people that would stick by her through anything. The time with the Weasleys was fun, but returning to Hogwarts after the previous year would be no simple task, Liesel knew.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

The tiny train station at Hogsmeade was a freezing, mud-slicked nightmare. The lanterns dotting the platform glowed with a sickly yellow luminescence that did very little to fight back the darkness creeping down from the surrounding valley.

As students flooded off the warm train, the crowd surged forward like a dark river toward the muddy dirt road where the school carriages waited. Liesel stayed safely tucked in the slipstream of her Slytherin peers, navigating the mud with a hard focus.

Pansy, who was walking just ahead, let out a sharp laugh. She pointed toward the edge of the platform as they approached their designated carriage, "What in Salazar's name is Potter doing talking to Loony Lovegood?"

Liesel paused, her hand resting against the cold, damp wood of the carriage frame. She turned her head, following Pansy's gaze through a break in the milling crowd.

Harry was standing completely still near the far edge of the platform, detached from the frantic flow of students. He looked exhausted. His oversized muggle jacket hung loosely off his thin frame over his school robes, and his intent eyes were scanning the dark space around the carriages with a deeply lonely intensity. He wasn't looking at Ron, who was shouting something near the front of the line. He wasn't looking at Hermione, who was trying to herd shivering first-years. He was looking directly at the darkness. At the charcoal beasts pulling the carriages.

Beside him stood Luna Lovegood, her wand tucked carelessly behind her ear, wearing a necklace made up strung butterbeer corks. Neither of them looked at the other.

Liesel bit the inside of her cheek, swallowing hard as she got into the carriage, "I doubt anyone has explained Thestrals to him. He's probably lost seeing those things for the first time."

Pansy scoffed, "Well, he should find better company to explain it. Or read a book for once in his sorry life."

"Luna's smarter than people give her credit for. People mistake her strangeness for ignorance, but it's a foolish assumption. Don't you think, Draco?"

Draco, already in his seat, rolled his eyes, "I suppose she's quite the clever one. We don't really… engage with that side of the family, though, dear." He always hated acknowledging the eccentric offshoot of their bloodline in public, but he couldn't deny the underlying intelligence her direct family.

Goyle, who had finally gotten onto the carriage after Vincent helped boost him up, squinted into the darkness where Harry and Luna were staring. His thick brow furrowed in confusion, "Wait…" Goyle rumbled, "Can you see them? The horses? I thought they were just a myth. Like Muggles and their hamsters."

Everyone stared at him for a beat, not quite sure what he was talking about.

"Shut up, Goyle." Draco muttered pointedly.

Liesel cleared her throat, "Thestrals are quite real… just like hamsters, darling. I can see them, yes."

Goyle stared at Liesel for a moment, as if trying to figure out if she was joking or not, "But when did you watch someone die? You weren't there with Cedric."

At the mention of his name, the others in the carriage fully turned toward him, fully aware that Cedric's name was off limits for conversation. Blaise, from the other side, threw his hands up in disbelief and pinched the bridge of his nose. They all knew it was too fresh. A grief too horrifying to mention. Liesel glanced back to the massive, skeletal, bat-winged horse tethered to their own carriage. Its dark, leathery skin was stretched tighter over protruding ribs. It stood quietly, smelling faintly of raw meat and dried blood.

She ignored the reaction of the others, "My parents weren't caught for years after the war. I remember one time my mother cast the killing curse on some Ministry official in the living room… And she forced me to stand over the body and look at him. She made sure I knew he wasn't coming back"

Pansy stared at Liesel, a rare flicker of genuine empathy crossing her usually haughty features. She looked away, staring hard at the muddy ground, a slight shiver wracking her frame that had nothing to do with the misty rain around them.

"I will never know," Pansy whispered, her voice laced with a disturbed bewilderment, "how your mother and my father were raised in the same house."

And with that, the carriage wheels screeched as the Thestrals began to walk down the path, heading straight for Hogwarts.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

The Great Hall was a massive sea of flickering, floating candles and gold rimmed plates across the tables. Liesel took her usual seat near the middle of the Slytherin table, the heavy emerald and silver banner hanging proudly from the stone wall directly behind her head. Following the Sorting Ceremony, the air was thick with the rich scent of the appearing roasted meats, pumpkin juice, and treacle tart.

She looked around the hall, her eyes expertly scanning the room and cataloging the usual faces: The gossiping, vain older years clustered together comparing summer holidays, the terrified first-years shivering near the front, and the boisterous Gryffindors acting completely oblivious to basic decorum.

But then, as Dumbledore stood to give his opening remarks, her eyes drifted to the head of the table.

Sitting right near the center, surrounded by the familiar faces of the Hogwarts staff, was a woman Liesel had only seen in the background of Harry's trial pictures. The stranger was dressed in an aggressively bright, nauseatingly fluffy pink cardigan, with a matching velvet bow perched atop her short, curly brown hair. She looked entirely ridiculous.

"Who is that?" Liesel asked quietly, leaning slightly to her left and nodding her head subtly toward the head table.

Blaise leaned in close to her ear, his voice dripping with his usual detachment as he took a sip of his pumpkin juice. "That, darling, is Dolores Umbridge. My mother told me she's the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor."

Liesel turned to Blaise, "But she works at the Ministry, doesn't she?"

"Apparently, the Ministry has decided Hogwarts is in desperate need of a bit of a… realignment."

"My mother mentioned her name over the summer. She's Fudge's personal lackey, I've heard," Pansy added, slicing aggressively into a piece of roast beef, her voice dropping into a secretive whisper, "If she's here, it means the Ministry is coming directly for Dumbledore's throat."

"Took them long enough, that's what I say," Draco said before stuffing his mouth with a piece of his dinner, "He's done nothing but put us in danger."

As Liesel gazed a the woman, the deafening clatter of silverware and the roar of five hundred overlapping conversations washed over her. Liesel picked aimlessly at the food on her plate, the roasted potatoes and gravy tasting far to rich on her tongue. As she sat there, surrounded by the noise, she felt a strange hum begin to vibrate in the very back of her mind… a low frequency that had absolutely nothing to do with the hall or the people it it. It was the exact same humming sensation she had felt in the dark, mildew-ridden room back at Grimmauld Place. The same hum that rang in her dreams every night.

She looked down at her own hands resting on the golden tablecloth. The tips of her fingers were tingling.

Though there was no visual difference, Liesel knew deep in her chest that something was changing. Something incredibly foreign was stirring beneath he floorboards of the castle, waking up after a long sleep, and she felt as if she were overtaken by an anger she hadn't felt before.

She took a slow sip of her pumpkin juice, her mossy eyes drifting across the wide expanse of the hall to the Gryffindor table. Harry was sitting there, sounded by the warmth of his friends, laughing at something Fred Weasley had just transfigured. For a split second, he looked normal. And Liesel envied him. He was so free from the thoughts that haunted them at the end of the previous year.

Liesel's head seemed to spin.

She couldn't have been much older than him. She was standing behind the massive, wooden front desk carefully dusting a number of trinkets on the shelves behind her. The girl treated each and every item with reverence, as if she were cleaning a crown jewel. Every few seconds, she would pause her meticulous work to peek over her shoulder, her mossy eyes landing squarely on Harry.

Harry shifted his weight, clearing his throat. He reached a hand up, instinctively trying to flatten the messy fringe over his scar.

The girl noticed his discomfort. She set her polishing cloth down gently, wiped her hands on her apron, and stepped out from behind the counter. After glancing over her shoulder to ensure her grandfather was still thoroughly distracted by the shelves of elm wands, she walked over and held out her hand to Harry.

"I'm Liesel," she said. Her voice was soft, carrying a rather posh cadence, but her tone was bright and inherently gentle. She offered him a remarkably warm smile that seemed to perfectly match the warm light illuminating the room, "I'm a first-year, too."

Harry visibly relaxed. He took his hand out of his pocket and returned her handshake, grateful for even a drop of feeling normalcy in this intimidating new world of magic and mythical creatures. Her grip was firm, surprisingly so for someone so small. "Nice to meet you, Liesel. I'm Harry."

"Harry Potter," Liesel said instantly, "I know." She pressed her lips together, her a spark of excitement swimming in her eyes that she was clearly trying very hard to hold back for his sake. She raised her free hand and gestured toward her own forehead.

Harry let out a breathy chuckle. he ran his hand back through his messy raven hair, self-consciously brushing his fringe to the side. He was already getting used to the way people in the Leaky Cauldron had gawked at the lightning bolt, treating him like a zoo animal or a saint. But Liesel's expression wasn't intrusive or greedy; it was simply endearing. There was a quiet intelligence in her gaze that made Harry feel seen, rather than just looked at.

"Guess that gives it away, doesn't it?" Harry murmured, feeling a flush of embarrassment heat the back of his neck.

"A little bit," Liesel smirked, "Don't worry. I won't ask to stare at it. Though I must admit, I'm curious. My grandfather has been waiting for you to walk through that door since I was a toddler." She lowered her voice conspiratorially, leaning in slightly, bringing her faint scent of wildflowers with her, "He remembers every family's wands he's ever sold, you know. He talks about yours constantly."

"Mine?" Little Harry asked, bewildered, "But I haven't got one yet."

"No, silly," Liesel laughed, a bright, musical sound that echoed softly in the narrow aisles. "Your parents' wands. Mahogany and willow. He's been dying to know what wood will choose you."

Before Harry could process that piece of information, a loud clatter echoed from the back of the shop.

"Ah! Here we are!" Garrick Ollivander emerged from the stacks, his wild white hair covered in cobwebs, holding a long box. He looked between the two children, his eyes nearly twinkling, "Making friends, are we, little bird? Good, good. Now, Mr. Potter. Let us see."

What followed was the most baffling, frustrating twenty minutes of Harry's short life.

He was handed wand after wand. Beechwood and dragon heartstring. Maple and phoenix feather. Ebony and unicorn hair. Every time his fingers wrapped around the smooth wood, he would either feel absolutely nothing, or a shock would fire into his hand, and Ollivander would snatch it back almost instantly with a loud, "No, no! Of course not!"

The pile of rejected, open boxes great higher and higher, ready to topple over onto the floorboards. Harry felt a cold, sinking dead settling into his stomach. What if he was the only wizard in the world who didn't fit a wand? What if it was all a mistake, and he really was just Harry, the freak from the cupboard under the stairs?

It was unbearable; thinking about what would happen if this all failed and he had to go back to living under the wrath of the Dursleys after this fiasco.

"Tricky customer, eh?" Ollivander muttered, though he sounded morbidly delighted by Harry's suffering. He wiped a smudge of dust from his spectacles, "Not to worry, we'll find the perfect match somewhere." And the man bounced off to another shelf across the room.

"Don't panic," Liesel said, back behind the counter, noticing the mounting terror in the Harry's wide eyes, "It took me three months to find my wand. Had to go all the way to Budapest for one."

"Three months?" Harry whispered back, clearly horrified by the trouble she must have gone through, and the possibility that he would have to go through the same thing. "Are we going to be here until Christmas?"

Liesel stifled a laugh behind her hand, "Merlin, no. Wands happen to be more picky with my family. We'll find yours soon."

"Liesel, my dear!" Ollivander called out suddenly, balancing precariously on a stack of books to peer over a towering stack of cedar wands, "Would you please fetch me the hornbeam and dragon heartstring… nine inches… quite rigid! Aisle four--"

"Third shelf from the top, got it!" Liesel called back, clearly familiar with the shop already. She spun on her heel and disappeared into the labyrinth of dusty shelves.

But it took her a long moment to return.

When she finally emerged from the shadows of aisle four, she was walking much slower. Her bright energy was entirely gone. She held a long, rectangular wand box in her hand, but the way her brow was furrowed in a nervous expression, Harry almost thought she was carrying a bomb. She didn't march over and hand it to her grandfather right away. She stopped a few feet away from the pair, glancing between the box and Harry's scar on his forehead- the exact thing she promised not to gawk at.

Ollivander took one look at the box and waved his hand, "No, dear, I asked for the hornbeam," The man began, adjusting his spectacles and reading his ledgers, "That box is holly-"

He stopped abruptly, letting his glasses slide right off his nose and onto the large book in front of him. The grandfather and granddaughter both seemed to hold their breath as Harry stood to the side, hoping they didn't collectively decide to kick him out to hopelessly find a wand elsewhere.

"Oh," Ollivander breathed. The eccentric delight he held just a moment ago vanished entirely from his eyes, which made him look like every single one of his many years. "Oh, you clever girl."

He didn't take the box from her. He gestured toward Harry.

Liesel swallowed hard. She stepped forward, her small hands shaking slightly as she lifted the lid of the box, revealing a gorgeous, supple wand resting on faded red velvet.

"Eleven inches," Liesel whispered, her voice barely carrying over the buzzing of the shop. "Holly, with a core of phoenix feather."

Harry reached out, his small fingers wrapping around the smooth wood.

The moment his skin made contact, a sudden, explosive warmth rushed through his fingers, shooting up his arm like a bolt of electricity. A shower of red and gold sparks exploded from the end of the wand, casting dancing, fiery shadows across the dusty walls and illuminating the shop in brilliant, blinding color.

It was perfect.

And as Harry looked up, completely awestruck, his heart pounding in his chest, the first thing he saw was Liesel Ollivander, watching him with a profound, solemn understanding that he wouldn't truly comprehend until a graveyard four years later.

Over the years, Harry had often thought back to that moment, watching the wandmaker's heir navigate the halls of Hogwarts with her quiet, aristocratic grace. But the transformation over the past summer was staggering. The soft, gentle edges of her childhood had been violently sharpened. The quiet first-year girl was gone, replaced by someone who knew exactly what the dark looked like.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

~ Summer Before 5th Year ~

Late the previous evening, while Harry was enduring the exhausting ordeal of his disciplinary hearing in the depths of the halls of the Ministry of Magic, Liesel had sequestered herself in the stuffy, cramped confines of Fred and George Weasley's room.

The air in the twins' room was hazy, smelling sharply of singed copper wire, peppermint oil, and a harsh sulfur that bit the back of her throat. To Liesel, it was absolutely glorious. In a way, the chaos reminded her of the tiny, dust-ridden shop. Liesel sat cross-legged on George's bed as George leaned lazily on the side and Fred worked intently at his desk. Her sleeves were pushed high above her elbows and her hair, which she knew could usually only be contained in her usual loose braid, was tied up into a bun using her wand. Sitting in front of her on the bed was the hollowed-out wooden shell of a mechanical canary.

Liesel leaned over the scattered array of tiny brass cogs and delicate springs. She held a pair of fine-tipped tweezers, carefully maneuvering a microscopic gear into the bird's exposed chest cavity. She handled the intricate pieces similarly to how she held the trinkets in the shop, with a deep reverence. Upon clicking the gear into place, a piece of sliver jumped out of the bird and clattered onto the ground, drawing the attention of the two troublemakers.

"Right… That would be the problem," Liesel murmured under her breath, squinting her eyes to try to find where the spring came from inside the bird, "You're putting too much pressure on the main spring, Fred. The thermal reaction in this thing is going to blow the beak straight off if you don't adjust that."

"She's right, mate." George snarkily said over his shoulder to Fred, pushing the small monocle back into his pinched eye, his hands carefully holding the detached wings of the canary, "Remember the prototype last July? Took Mum three days to scrub the scorch marks off the floral wallpaper."

"I say an unexpected explosion adds character, don't you think, Gred?"

"You know me best, Forge. But we should do it Ollivander's way if we want to live 'til 30."

Liesel let out a soft, genuine chuckle, the rigid tension in her jaw finally melting away. She tapped the spring and gear back into place with a satisfying click.

This cramped, chaotic room had become her sanctuary over the summer and she considered herself lucky that any of the Weasley siblings would bring her into their circle. After all, Ron was right. Liesel made the choice of standing by her friends, and she doesn't blame him for giving her the consequences of those actions. But the Weasley twins and Ginny looked far past that, seeing the complete and utter solitude Liesel was tortured with. She was grateful. The tactile nature of the twins' inventions required a focus that grounded her and pulled her back to the present moment if she ever found herself felling headfirst into what could have been.

There was simply no room for Cedric amidst the clutter of spare parts and the ignition of flames almost daily.

The grandfather clock downstairs chimed well past midnight, but the solemn sound was instantly swallowed by the metallic whir coming from the floorboards. Fred and George's canary twitched, sputtered, and promptly burst into a shower of harmless, bright yellow parks.

Liesel yelped as the twins burst into laugher and they all frantically scrambled to stomp out the smoldering tail feathers. She never heard the front door of Number Twelve reopening through her amused giggles. She didn't hear the hushed, relieved voices of the Order in the hallway, nor the exhausted footsteps of Harry finally dragging himself upstairs to bed.

The following morning, the kitchen at Number Twelve was bathed in the dim, grayish light of a somber London dawn.

To Liesel, the early mornings in the house was a comfort. It allowed her a time of peace after waking up, giving her a chance to start her day on a good note before her grief creeps into her heart.

It doesn't always help.

Sometimes she wakes up crying, tossing in her bed. Sometimes she even wakes up struggling to breathe, shooting up and feeling a sense of dread after a nightmare she didn't even remember. And sometimes she couldn't force herself out of bed at all.

But this morning, the smell of frying sausages, black pepper, and strong, bitter tea filled the damp air as Molly Weasley bustled about the iron stove, her wand directing a cast-iron frying pan to flip eggs. Liesel stepped into the dining area and sat at the grey washed table. She was no longer dressed in an oversized sweater, but in one of her meticulously chosen social outfits. She worse a high-necked, vintage ivory blouse, the lace collar fastened securely at her throat, paired with a brown skirt that ran to her knees. She looked remarkably composed for the early hour, her posture as straight as a wand.

Liesel was absentmindedly polishing a bright green apple against her sleeve before taking a crisp bite, the sound filling the room, her attention entirely fixed on the Daily Prophet spread out in front of her. Reading the news was a rather masochistic morning ritual for her. She scoured the pages for the names of the dead, for the whispers or signs of Voldemort's movements, reading between the lines of Ministry propaganda.

For some reason, knowing Cedric wasn't alone in the list of casualties brought more comfort to her than hearing that everyone was safe from Voldemort's hand. And this is what Liesel had to live with.

A creak sounded from the doorway, and Liesel looked up over the edge of her newspaper and locked eyes with Harry in the threshold. He was fully dressed, but he looked as though he'd just survived a particularly frantic whirlwind rather than a night of sleep. His oversized flannel shirt was slightly rumpled, buttoned unevenly at the collar. And his hair, as usual, was defying every known law of gravity, sticking up in several directions at once.

A bright giggle broke through the oppressive quiet of the kitchen.

The sound of her giggles startled Liesel just as much as it startled Harry. It was a sound far more youthful, far more loose than the cold persona she had maintained since leaving Hogwarts during their 4th year. She had heard it with Ginny, with Hermione, with Fred and George, with Mrs. Weasley, but hearing it with Harry felt wrong…

"Merlin's beard, Harry," Liesel teased, her voice nearly musical. She tilted her head, taking another bite of her apple as she set the newspaper down on the table, "Do you ever actually run a comb through that thing on your head, or do you just let the Cornish Pixies style it for you while you sleep?"

Harry's face flushed a deep pink, a stark contrast to the usual paleness in his complexion she's seen that summer. He instinctively reached up, his hand tangling in the messy raven locks as the tried in vain to flatten a particularly stubborn tuft standing at attention near the back of his crown.

"I do it every day, actually," He said, his voice with a hint of defensive, endearing nervousness. "It's just… like that. It's been that way since I was a kid. My Aunt used to chop it and it'd… grow back the next day."

Liesel let out another soft huff of amusement, waving her hand dismissively, "Relax, Harry. I'm joking with you. It's part of your charm."

She turned the large newspaper around, sliding it across the worn table toward the empty seat beside her, "Besides, you're big news today. Front page and everything. You need that charm."

Harry crossed the room and sat down next to her, the wooden chair scraping against the stone floor. His eyes landed on the large, moving photograph of himself from the Wizengamot trial. In the picture, he looked small against the centuries-old towering courtroom and jury. His eyes were wide behind his round glasses, looking every bit a boy on trial.

"They got your good side," Liesel noted, her thumb tracing the inked edge of the newsprint with a gentle caress, "You look quite dapper, actually. Very serious. Very… 'Chose One'."

"The whole trial was ridiculous," Harry said, irritation crossing his face as he stared at his own moving image, "The Ministry is just trying to make me look like I'm unhinged. They want everyone think I'm making it all up for attention."

Liesel shrugged, taking another bite of her apple and furrowing her brows, "Oh, stop brooding. If anything, the Prophet has inadvertently done you a massive favor. They've made you a heartthrob. Girls quite like the 'bad boy' look."

Liesel set the paper aside completely and reached for the floral ceramic teapot resting in the center of the table. She lifted it and poured a steaming cup with the same practiced grace she had been taught her whole life, the grace she had tried to use in the twins' bedroom the night before to try to stop the canary from bursting into flames. There was a mesmerizing rhythm to the way she worked her hands, tapping the edge of the cup with her fingers as she poured, each movement smoother than the last. She slid the teacup over to him before pouring one for herself, the hot steam curling between them like a physical veil.

"I'm sorry I missed you coming in last night," Liesel said quietly just for their ears. Her voice lost its teasing edge, dropping back into the wistful tone she reserved for him. Another result of the baggage they shared with the death of Cedric. She stirred a single sugar cube into her tea, clinking her silver spoon against the ceramic, "I was caught up trying to keep Fred and George from blowing their eyebrows off again."

Harry wrapped his hands around the warm teacup, taking a grateful sip, letting the heat ground him in the present, "I'm glad you missed it, honestly," He admitted softly, looking down at his reflection in the dark liquid, "I was hoping for a normal year this time, but that won't happen. Not with everyone at the Ministry pretending I'm a liar."

Liesel sat back in her wooden chair, her posture rigid once more. Her fingers began a nervous habit, continuing to tap a slow, thoughtful beat against the wood of the table. She watched him for a long moment, observing his eyes, his shoulders, how his hands gripped his cup.

"This year won't be easy for you, Harry," Liesel acknowledged, her tone fascinatingly steady with the weight the words held, "People are afraid. And when people are afraid, they find it much easier to hate the person telling them the truth than to face reality."

"Right. Got that part."

Liesel paused, her tapping fingers coming to a dead rest. "But you're the one who survived. That counts for something. You need to use that."

Liesel looked down at her hands, her throat suddenly constricting, making it hard to swallow. Her heart skipped a few beats, causing a sharp pain deep in her chest, sharp and blinding. Cedric. She closed her eyes for a fraction of a second, forcing the memory of his cold skin and lifeless grey eyes back into the back of her mind.

"And that's exactly why," Liesel continued, her voice crisp and commanding, "I reserved you a spot in the dueling club this term."

Harry looked up, blinking in surprise, "Crossed Wands? Why?"

"The Ministry is officially funding it this year," Liesel explained, leaning forward slightly, her tone urgent. "It was such a massive hit last year during the tournament, they want to use it as some kind of stunt to show the students are safe. You should take me up on the offer, Harry. And so should everyone else with what's coming."

Harry frowned, confusion lining his brow. "Liesel, I doubt the Ministry wants me anywhere near a dueling ring."

"It doesn't matter what they want," Liesel insisted, her expression seeming indifferent, but her voice seething with the nervous energy ready to burst, "There's a war on our doorstep, and I'm not going to sit around waiting for the Ministry to do something."

Harry knew what she meant, but would never say. I can't lose others that I love. The weight that Harry was holding in his own isolation felt a little lighter in the face of her honesty. He interpreted it as I can't lose anyone. And that would include him. She wasn't treating him like the crazed teenager that the Ministry painted him as, or as the fragile victim the Order painted her as.

"We need to be prepared," the girl continued, suddenly becoming conscious of how her fingers were warping the corners of the Daily Prophet, miniscule shreds ripping under her nails.

Harry unconsciously leaned forward toward her, searching her face for any find of faltering expression, "And what about you? Malfoy and the others won't be happy about me joining. Or about you staying here this summer… Or about us…" Harry paused, trying to find the proper words, "talking. Being friends."

"They don't know I'm here. And if they find out, I'll let them be unhappy. I'll have you know, Harry, I don't live my life for Draco's approval. Crabbe and Goyle are the leeches, not me." Liesel pressed her lips into a line, almost like she was hiding a sharp, wicked little grin that he would only see from Fred and George, or from Hermione when she would sneak into the Restriction Section of the library, "Besides, Ginny would be more than happy to hex him into oblivion if I asked her to, don't you think? Draco knows better."

"I don't doubt that for a second," Harry chuckled.

They sat in a comfortable silence for a few minutes as Liesel continued eating her apple, flipping to a less startling page in the paper- the weather. Mrs. Weasley's humming carried through the beaded doorway into the dining room elegantly, and combined with the smell of cooking bacon, the whole scene felt strangely domestic. The sipping of tea. The crunching of apples. The turning of newspaper pages. It oddly made Harry feel out of place. This kind of loving tension was not one he was familiar with, and it almost made a question burst out of his lips: Why are you still here with me?

But he held back.

"So…" Harry said, anxiously spinning his cup around on its saucer and trying to steer the conversation to something lighter than the previous, "Are you going to tell me what you're working on with Fred and George? Or is it a trade secret?"

Liesel side-eyed him with a mischievous glint in her eye, a smirk pulling on her lips, "Let's just say that if you see a clockwork canary winding its way down the hallway, do not under any circumstances try to pet it… George hasn't quite perfected the fire-extinguishing charm on the tail feathers yet." She didn't even turn her nose from out of the paper, "We almost took out the drapes."

Both of them cracked up into a silent giggle, like they were both in on the joke themselves.

"I'll keep that in mind," Harry said from behind his hand that was stifling his laughter, "Knowing my luck, I'll probably end up being the one finding out the hard way."

"Don't worry, Potter. I'll make sure they have a burn-healing paste ready for you."

As the warmth of this moment had finally settled into Harry's veins, a sudden commotion erupted from the hallway. A flurry of wings, the indignant screech of a barn owl, and then the unmistakable stampede of Hermione rushing down the stairs, carrying Ron by the collar of his pajamas.

Liesel had instinctively drawn her wand and stepped out into the corridor beside Harry.

"Hogwarts letters!" Ron bellowed, helping Hermione pick them up from off the ground. When they were all in a pile, he waved the stack of thick, yellowish parchment envelopes in the air. He looked slightly winded from the rude awakening by Hermione, but was strangely equally excited.

Ron tossed one to Harry, handed one to Hermione, and with a brief, awkward hesitation, held the last one out to Liesel. She couldn't help but roll her eyes at his attitude and snatched it out of his hands, turning around to open it.

The parchment was heavy, crafted from the finest wizarding parchment, the emerald green ink addressing her elegantly: Miss L. Ollivander, Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place. She had always adored reading "Miss L. Ollivander," as it made her feel like she already had a place in the world- a place in which everyone recognized her as the natural heir to her family dynasty. She ran her thumb over the purple wax seal bearing the Hogwarts crest, feeling a sudden anxious flutter in her stomach.

This was the year. Fifth year. The year prefects were chosen.

For the Ollivander family, the prefect badge was not merely a school honor. It was an expectation that passed from generation to generation. Her grandfather had been a prefect. Her father, before his fall from grace, had been a prefect. The heir to Britain's most prestigious wandmaking business needed to command respect. And to Liesel in particular, the honor of being a prefect felt like a need, as she was the first prospective female owner of the shop in its long history. Liesel needed to prove she was worthy of carrying on its legacy. She needed it to prove to the board of governors, to the ministry, and to herself that she was ready to lead. It was one step closer to being Head Girl.

"I don't believe it," Ron whispered, his voice cracking slightly.

Liesel looked up. Ron was staring down at his opened envelope, his mouth hanging open in shock. Resting in the palm of his hand, gleaming brightly in the dim light in the hallway, was a gold and red metal badge. A large 'P' was engraved on the front.

"Ron!" Hermione shrieked, nearly bursting into tears of pure joy. She threw her arms around him, nearly knocking him backward. "I knew it! I knew it! Oh, I got one, too!" She held up her own gleaming red and gold badge, her face radiant with pride.

"Wait," Harry said, looking genuinely stunned as he looked between the two of them. "You're both prefects?"

"I… I reckon I am," Ron stammered, looking at the badge as if he expected it to turn into a spider at any moment. "Mental, isn't it?"

Mrs. Weasley came rushing out of the kitchen upon hearing the news through the walls, wiping her hands on her apron. When she saw the badges, she, too, let out a shriek of delight, immediately pulling Ron into a bone-crushing hug. The hallway exploded into a clamor of congratulations and laughter.

Amidst the celebration, Liesel stood perfectly still, a sinking dread pooling in the pit of her stomach.

With trembling fingers, she broke the purple wax seal of her own envelope and pulled out the thick parchment letter.

She turned it upside down. She shook it.

She peered inside.

No silver and green badge.

The air in Liesel's lungs vanished. The world around her seemed to slow to a dull, muffled crawl. She could only bring herself to stare at the empty envelope, a physical wave of nausea washing over her.

She hadn't gotten it.

She, the top student in her house, the dueling champion, the girl who had spent the last four years crafting a flawless academic record, had been passed over.

Who could it have gone to? Millicent? Daphne? She supposed Tracey Davis would have been a good choice, but the mere thought of the badge being brandished on another girl's robes made her sick with envy.

Who else would they choose, birdie? Cedric pecked a kiss on her cheek with a confident chuckle, using a variant of her grandfather's nickname for her that he found endearing one warm evening sitting by the Black Lake, You want that badge more than anything. You'll get it.

The voices of the Weasleys cheering felt like a physical assault against her eardrums.

Cedric never let her worry about the badge. That's what he would do every time. Reassure her that it couldn't possibly go to anyone else… It must've been a mistake. They would have to be hexed to not give it to you.

Liesel closed her eyes, fighting the violent sting of tears threating to pour over her lashes. She could not cry here. Not in front of Ron. Not in front of Harry. She would not let them see her break over a prefect badge.

With a supreme, agonizing effort of will, Liesel clutched her jaw and raised her nose in an attempt to look like several of the portraits on the wall of Grimmauld Place: aristocratic, graceful, indifferent.

"Congratulations, Hermione. Ron," Liesel said, her voice perfectly smooth save a short choking at the end. She offered them a brief smile that didn't reach her eyes, "That is quite the accomplishment."

Before they could respond, before Harry could look closely enough to see that she was shattered on the inside, Liesel turned on her heel, "If you'll excuse me, I need to review my book list."

"Liesel?" Harry called out.

Liesel stopped in her tracks, only turning her head so her profile was revealed to Harry, "Yes?"

But Harry remained silent. He didn't know what to say. All he knew was that something was wrong.

Liesel waited mere seconds without a response before she continued on, walking up the stairs as silently as possible. She did not run. She did not falter. She maintained her tight posture until she reached the second-floor landing and slipped into the dark, dusty room she shared with Ginny, and gently closed the door.

She turned the brass lock. Click.

Ginny was still fast asleep in her bed, the covers falling halfway off the bed and her red locks covering her face. The room was suffocatingly quiet, save for the commotion from downstairs; the cheering, the chatter, the clanking of pots and pans being used to make a celebratory breakfast.

Liesel sat down on her bed, gripping the edges as if her life depended on it.

It wasn't about the badge. It was about everything the badge represented. It was the crushing realization that no matter how hard she tried to be perfect, to command respect, and no matter how desperately she tried to keep moving forward, everything came back to what happened that night in the graveyard.

She had failed Cedric.

She wore a faded, oversized sweater with the sleeves pushed up past her elbows. The sweater had once belonged to one of the Weasley twins, but many of her blouses had fallen victim to their experiments over the summer holiday, so they ultimately had to share. Her mousy curls were tied back in a loose braid with a fraying burgundy velvet ribbon her and Ginny found while rummaging through an old craft box in the room they were sharing. 

"The onions are diced beautifully, my dear," Mrs. Weasley said gently from a few feet away, where Liesel had set her previously chopped vegetables. Her voice held that careful tone that everyone had used with Liesel for months.

Liesel smiled lightly as she finished up her final carrot, "Thank you, Mrs. Weasley. May I help with anything else?"

Mrs. Weasley waved her hand dismissively, "Why don't you let me finish the rest? You've been on your feet all morning. Besides, it's an exciting night."

Before Liesel could question what was so exciting, the heavy wooden door of the kitchen swung inward, pushing in a greatly appreciated breeze of chill air. Ginny Weasley slipped into the room, her bright red hair disheveled and her cheeks flushed with a sudden electric energy that had been mostly absent from the dreary house all summer.

Liesel glanced between the girl and her mother, "Exciting night? Did something happen with the Order?"

Ginny beamed, leaning against the doorframe to catch her breath after the rush she was in to get into the kitchen, "He's here," she whispered, "Harry just arrived."

Liesel's heart gave a painful stutter. The knife she realized she'd still been holding clattered onto the wooden block as her feet carried her straight past Ginny and through the doorway without as much as a single thought.

Harry.

For weeks, the house had suffocated under the weight of his absence. Ron in particular had a rather hard time and he begged his mother, Lupin, Sirius- anyone that would listen- to let him write to Harry. Not only that, but the hushed talks of the Order: the Dementor, the War, the looming threat of the ministry trial… It all centered around the boy who wasn't there. Harry had finally arrived on the evening of the 6th of August, escorted safely to the headquarters.

Liesel didn't know why a rush of adrenaline flushed through her veins at the mention of the Gryffindor's name. The numbness receded, replaced by a desperate need to see him in the flesh with her own eyes, to assure herself that he was really there… that he was really alive. 

Liesel had checked two sitting rooms before turning to Ginny and asking, "Where is he?"

"Upstairs," Ginny shouted back from the kitchen, gesturing to the ceiling, "Ron's room. He looks absolutely livid, by the way."

Liesel didn't wait to hear the rest. She sprinted up the steps, each one with the click of her heels echoing through the melancholy halls. The floorboards groaned underneath her light footsteps as she tried to listen for any sign of life on the next floor. As she neared the first landing, the muffled sounds of an argument began to bleed through the oak door of the bedroom. She slowed her pace, her bare hand resting against the brass doorknob.

"Four weeks I've been stuck at Privet Drive!" Harry's voice was raw, echoing with a fierce tone that nearly made Liesel scared enough to not even dare to interrupt, "Nicking papers out of bins to try and find out what's been going on! And you two… You were together the whole time! Why didn't you tell me anything?"

"We wanted to!" Hermione's voice drifted through the wood, "We really did, but Dumbledore made us swear not to tell you-"

creeeaaak.

Liesel pushed too hard on the door, and it had silenced the private conversation in the room. The faces in the room all turned around to see who interrupted their conversation.

The bedroom was a cramped, shadowy space, cluttered with trunks and whatever trash Ron had left lying around. Ron stood near the window, looking thoroughly guilty. Hermione sat on the edge of his moth-eaten bed, twisting her hands in her lap. And Harry… Harry stood in the center of the room, his fists clenched at his sides.

He looked taller than she remembered. His shoulders broader, though she could observe that he was painfully thin beneath his baggy Muggle clothing. His raven hair was wilder than ever, and his jaw was locked in a line. Liesel wasn't a stranger to this expression. She had seen it before when Cedric would lose a Quidditch match, or when his father wouldn't stop bragging during the tournament. A deep rage that has been held in too long. But the moment Harry's eyes snapped toward the door and landed on her, his fury transformed into confusion- awe, even.

Liesel remained frozen in the doorway, the rush of the excitement vanishing and being replaced with a sudden shyness she hadn't anticipated. 

"Hello, Harry," Liesel finally found the sense in her to speak.

Harry shuffled awkwardly on his feed and raised his hand to fix his hair. The residual anger instantly dissolved, softening into something of a deep relief. He look a hesitant step forward, his eyes drinking the sight of her: the loose braid, the oversized sweater, and the pale exhaustion written all over her.

"Liesel," Harry breathed, the tension draining out of his posture, but the expression turned more studious, "It's… It's really good to see you."

She knew what he saw. She knew what everyone saw. She had even seen it in herself in the cracked mirrors of her room. Her skin, which was usually a light olive from summers spent on her family ranch, was a shocking white. The only hint of a tan was the freckles dotting her face and neck, grouping immensely around her nose and cheekbones. The dark circles under her eyes and her noticeable weight loss were clear signs that her grief from the past year was still very much present.

Liesel looked as if she had survived a Dementors kiss herself.

"I heard what happened," Liesel said, taking a small step into the room, her green eyes searching his face for injuries, "The Dementor attack in Little Whinging. The trial coming up. Are you alright?"

Behind Harry, Ron let out a quiet, disgruntled huff and crossed his arms, but Harry completely ignored him.

Harry ran a hand through his messy hair once again, "Yeah, it was… is… a bit of a mess," he muttered, "But I'm alright. Yeah, I'm here." He hesitated, his eyes dropping down to her tightly folded hands to prevent them from shaking before looking back up to her face, "What are you doing here, Liesel? In this place?"

Liesel offered a bashful smile, her fingers finding the frayed edge of her sweater and twisting it. "My grandfather," She explained softly, her gaze flicking momentarily to Ron before returning to Harry. "When the news of Cedric broke, he didn't think it was safe for me to remain at the shop. Especially considering…" She swallowed hard, a flicker of shame crossing her features, "Considering my parents. They were loyal to the Dark Lord in the first war. Grandfather was terrified the might try to recruit me."

Harry's expression softened further. He took another step closer, hoping he wasn't invading her personal space, "So he sent you to hid here?"

"With the Order, yes." Liesel whispered, "Just in case."

Liesel chuckled frailly. Harry didn't smile back. He just looked at her. Observed the shadows under her eyes and the way her frame looked almost malnourished under the sweater, just like him.

Without thinking, without caring about the audience behind him, Harry closed the final distance between them. Liesel didn't hesitate to join him. She shot forward, wrapping her arms tightly around his waist and burying her face into the crook of his neck.

Liesel's mind wandered against her will, and her muscle memory turned against her. Harry was a few inches shorter than Cedric. her chin didn't rest in the hollow of his shoulder the way her body instinctively expected it to. When she breathed in, the scent of the boy she expected wasn't present. The realization that they body holding her was the wrong one felt like a physical blow to her ribs. A wave of guilt washed over her. She was standing in a safe room, being held by a boy who was breathing, while Cedric was decomposing six feet under the earth, and her mind was still buried with him. 

Harry let out a shuddering breath, his arms closed tightly around her shoulders, pulling her against him. He buried his face in her hair, closing his eyes. She smelled exactly how he remembered from last year: a mix of dried wildflowers, vintage clothing, and a type of wood he couldn't quite identify. Amidst the chaos of the summer, he hadn't expected her presence to be comforting. 

Liesel, of all people.

"I'm so glad you're safe," she whispered against his collarbone, her voice thick.

From the corner of the room, Ron cleared his throat with a shocking lack of subtlety. Harry swallowed a flare of annoyance and slowly pulled away, though his hands lingered on Liesel's wait for a few precious seconds longer.

Liesel reached down to feel his hand on her waist. The realization hit her like a stunning spell.

As her fingertips brushed his hand, her breath hitched. She was touching the very skin that had last touched Cedric. The Cedric that she knew, not whoever Harry had held in that damp grass while the band squealed into silence. Harry's hands, Harry's arms, the warmth that radiated from his embrace… this could have been the last living comfort Cedric could have had. 

A crushing wave of grief swelled in her throat. She had to take a sharp, deep breath, her lungs trembling, just to snap back into reality. She squeezed her eyes shut and forced herself to focus on the boy in front of her, not the boy she had lost. He is alive, she reminded herself, He is here.

Liesel stepped back, a faint flush returning to her pale cheeks. She smoothed down her sweater, her polite mask sliding back into place. "I told Mrs. Weasley I'd help finish the dinner preparations," she said, her voice steadying. She offered Harry one last lingering smile, "We'll catch up properly later, yes?"

"Yeah," Harry said, an awkward smile playing on his lips, "Sounds good."

Liesel gave a polite nod to Hermione, but merely glanced at Ron before she turned on her heel and slipped out of the room, pulling the door softly shut behind her.

Liesel pulled the bedroom door shut behind her.

She didn't go back down to the kitchen. Her legs felt like lead. She walked quickly down the hall and ducked into her windowless room devoid of Ginny and pulled the door shut, plunging herself into absolute darkness. 

Liesel collapsed against the wooden door, her mind unwilling to grant her the soft surface of her bed, and slid down until she hit the floorboards. She pulled her knees to her chest and covered her mouth with both hands to muffle the sound as her lungs gave out.

This was not crying. It was a horrific hyperventilation. Seeing Harry, seeing the boy who brought the body back, had dragged her straight back to the night Cedric died, an event she had spent all summer running away from. She remembered the crushing weight of Cedric's head in her lap on the grass of the Quidditch pitch as his father wailed next to her. She could suddenly feel it once again, pressing against her thighs. She sat there for a few minutes, which felt like an agonizing eternity to Liesel. 

As if a switch slipped in her head, Liesel regained her composure, staring blankly at the ground, straightened her spine, and stepped back down the creaky stairs into the kitchen. She looked exactly the same as when she had sprinted out, besides the light in her eyes that had dimmed.

The moment the latch clicked after Liesel's exit, the tension in Ron's room returned.

Ron let out a loud scoff, throwing his hands up in the air. "Mighty weird having her 'round, innit? We've dealt with that all summer!" he grumbled, "I mean, with her being a Slytherin and all that, it don't make any sense why they let her in."

Hermione immediately stood up from the bed, marching over and smacking Ron hard on the bicep.

Harry had the feeling that this wasn't the first time Hermione had smacked him on the arm like that, because Ron had tried to barely shield himself.

"Ow! What was that for?"

"You haven't even given her a chance, Ronald!" Hermione scolded, "I thought we talked about this!"

Coming from Hermione, it meant a lot. For the first three years of their magical education at Hogwarts, Hermione and Liesel had somewhat of an academic rivalry and the former was highly suspicious of the latter. It wasn't until their fourth year, when Hermione felt completely out of place joining the ranks of that of Viktor Crum and the other highly-thought-of students, that Liesel had quietly sought her out and included her as much as possible, including during the preparation of the Yule Ball. 

Harry crossed his arms, taking a hard stance right next to Hermione, "She's been through enough, Ron." he said, his voice dropping into a dark warning, "She doesn't need anyone giving her a hard time after she lost…" Harry couldn't bring himself to say Cedric's name, "She lost as much as I did that night… maybe more."

Ron shifted uncomfortably, looking chastised, but stubborn.

"She's actually an honorable person, Ron," Hermione added softly, "You'd know that if you talked to her for more than five minutes this summer. She hasn't exactly been hiding. She's been down in the kitchen every single morning at dawn, helping your mum with breakfast. She's been up in Fred and George's room, helping them do… whatever it is they do. Merlin knows she needs the distractions, and you haven't been there for her."

Ron rolled his eyes, nearly earning another smack from Hermione, "Right and I got to be there for her so she'll go back to Hogwarts and be best friends with her lot. Any friend of Malfoy's is unlikely to be any friend of mine!" After dodging another hand from Hermione, he rubbed the back of his neck, his ears turning a violent shade of red, "Fine! Fine! I… suppose I'll give her another chance. 

Hermione shared a quick look with Harry, one that he could read very clearly.

We'll see how that goes.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

The Beginning of 4th Year

It was late autumn, and the small disused classroom just off the Great hall smelled faintly of melting beeswax and mahogany polish. The air was thick with the nervous energy of the newly chosen Triwizard Champions as Rita Skeeter shot daggers at them, waiting for anything she could smack on the front cover with her enchanted quill. Fleur Delacour sat in a corner with immaculate poster, though her eyes darted at her fellow champions around her. Viktor Krum brooded by the window at the end of the room. Cedric and Harry stood awkwardly in the middle of the room as they watched officials flood in. 

In the center of the room, seated behind a long desk, sat the eccentric figure of Garrick Ollivander. And right beside him, setting up velvet polishing cloths, some waxes, and a large ledger, was Liesel.

Harry couldn't stop staring at her. Over the summer, she seemed to have completely shed what little childhood awkwardness she had. She looked stunningly mature, radiating a confidence Harry didn't know was possible from someone his age. She was sharply dressed in a tailored charcoal waistcoat over a crisp white blouse. Pinned onto the front of her clothing was an O with a line through it, the logo of her family business: Ollivanders. Her curls were neatly combed and pinned up in a twist, elegantly exposing her neck. 

"The Weighing of the Wands," Mr. Ollivander announced, his electric blue eyes gleaming as he looked over the champions, "Before the Tournament commences, we must ensure your instruments are fully functional, perfectly aligned, and that no dark magic has been recently cast from the cores."

"Dark magic?" Fleur questioned from her seat, "Do you believe us to harm the others?"

From her seat beside her grandfather, Liesel looked up. A smile touched her lips, "No, Miss Delacour," she said, her voice smooth and carrying effortlessly through the quiet room, "Dark magic reacts differently depending on the wand and may cause misfires if used incorrectly. It is an efficiency check, that's all."

"So if dark magic is used, but the wand is okay functionally, the champion may still participate?" Fleur continued with wide eyes, "That hardly seems fair."

Garrick Ollivander is about to speak up, but Liesel took the question with grace, "My Great-Grandfather Sebastian used dark magic quite frequently during Ranrok's Rebellion in an attempt to cure his sister's maladies. One may have an opinion on the usage of Dark Magic, but our job is not to judge. It is to make sure your wand is at its best working capacity to ensure your safety."

Mr. Ollivander smiled and gave Liesel a slight nod at her answer and his eyes crinkled with amusement, "Now, hush, you both! No time for historical Gobbledegook. Let us admire these beautiful wands, shall we? Mr. Diggory, if you please."

Harry watched as Cedric stepped away from his side and forward toward the table. The Hufflepuff champion looked radiant, his golden-brown hair perfectly tousled, a charming smile resting on his face. He didn't hand his want across the desk to Garrick, but handed it directly to Liesel.

Liesel took the wand into her hands. Harry watched, fascinated, as her slender fingers traced the smooth grain with an innate reverence.

"Twelve and a quarter inches, Ash wood. Pleasantly springy. And the core.." she murmured, closing her eyes for a brief moment to feel the hum of the magical core, "… yes. A single hair from the tail of a particularly fine male unicorn."

She opened her eyes and looked up at Cedric, her professional demeanor softening into something incredibly warm. "Actually," she added, a soft smile blooming on her face, "He was most likely from our family ranch. Our male unicorn's name is Poppy."

Cedric's smile widened. he leaned casually against the edge of the desk, entirely focused on the girl in front of him. "Poppy," he repeated, his voice dropping into a smooth, teasing tone. "You know, my great-grandmother's name is Poppy. She was incredibly fascinated by magical creatures from the time she was a little girl." He tilted his head slightly, his gaze running along Liesel's features before meeting her eyes, "Perhaps the two Poppies could meet each other someday."

Standing by the curtains, Harry felt a strange twinge in his chest. It wasn't quite jealousy, but it was a sharp ache of admiration. He watched the way Cedric looked at her and the way Liesel commanded his attention so effortlessly.

Liesel's cheeks were brushed with a slight rosy color, but she maintained her composure, turning the wand over to inspect the handle. "Perhaps they could," She replied, her voice dropping into a soft murmur with her shy smile. She handed the wand to her grandfather for the final spell test, and locked her eyes onto Cedric, "It is in pristine condition, Mr. Diggory. You've taken beautiful care of it. Your wand is very lucky."

"I'm the lucky one, Miss Ollivander," Cedric said softly, holding her gaze for just a second longer than was strictly necessary.

Harry felt like he was intruding on their private moment.

"Mr. Potter," Mr. Ollivander called out, pulling Harry back to reality.

Harry stepped forward, his stomach performing a violent flip. He reached into his robes, pulled out his wand, and placed it gently into Liesel's hands. The moment the wood touched her skin, the playful banter she had shared with Cedric faded. She ran her thumb over the supple holly wood, her eyes closing as she felt the warmth of the phoenix feather inside.

"Eleven inches, Holly." Liesel said. She looked up, locking eyes with him, bypassing his famous scar entirely to look directly at the boy beneath it, "I remember the exact day you got this, Harry. I was the one who pulled the dusty box off the shelf in the back room for you."

A small smile broke across Harry's face, "I remember."

"It remains one of my proudest moments, you know," Liesel said earnestly, her fingertips lingering delicately on the woof, "I can feel the connection between the two of you right through the grain. You should be incredibly proud of have cultivated such a beautiful bond with it."