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Chapter Text

Clarke heaved her trunk onto the railway trolley as the ministry car that had dropped her off sped away into the distance. It took far more effort than when her mother’s flunkey whisked them all into the boot of the car back at home. That only took a flick of his wand. Still, she fully understood why he hadn’t repeated the trick at the busy unloading zone at Kings Cross station. There were muggles everywhere, pushing wheeled suitcases and loaded up with enormous backpacks, racing to catch one of the red London double decker buses dropping off and picking up train passengers. Black cabs weaved in and out of traffic, as ordinary cars battled the city traffic. For a moment Clarke wished she was back in their country home, but she was excited about returning to school too.

Clarke sighed and tried to shake off her annoyance at the departing car. It was not the driver’s fault that her mother was too busy to see her off to school. Again. She carefully balanced the animal cages on top of the trunk, before setting herself to get the heavy load moving.

Clarke was well aware that being a single mother and Minister for Magic would be no easy feat. Her mother was always racing from one engagement to another and her reading pile was enormous. The spell was yet to be invented that would simply insert all that information into a brain in the way that a memory could be extracted to review in a pensieve later. Even worse, they couldn’t use any of the AI summarising programs that Raven had been raving about either. Clarke’s best mate Raven spent a good chunk of all her holidays perusing muggle technology magazines and checking out the internet at the local library.

Despite Clarke’s begrudging sympathy for her mother’s position, she was also well aware that she had been pretty much left to her own devices for most of the summer holidays. And even though she felt lonely, she appreciated that her mother trusted her. She would like to think that she was a reasonably mature sixteen-year-old too. The school seemed to agree. Her Sixth-year prefect badge had arrived with her list of books and equipment she needed for her proposed NEWT level studies, and her mother had proudly activated the spell to have her robes embroidery updated, the word Prefect appearing in swirly cursive script underneath the Gryffindor crest. Now that she was heading back to Hogwarts, her mother didn’t have to worry at all about her day-to-day welfare. No wonder her mother had seemed so relieved at breakfast.

That’s not to say her holidays had been entirely boring. Raven had come to stay at the Griffin country manor down in Cornwall for three weeks, and she had gone on a trip with Monty Green’s family to Japan and Korea, which had stretched her mind and her taste buds in all sorts of different directions.

Before that, her mother had taken her on a trip to Paris to celebrate after she received her Ordinary Wizard Level results. There was nothing ordinary about the scores she had received. She had ‘Outstanding’s in Potions, Defence Against the Dark Arts, Transfiguration and Herbology as well as ‘Exceeding Expectations’ in Care of Magical Creatures and Charms. She had dropped Divination as soon as she could and Arithmancy made her brain hurt. She had scraped a passing mark on the exams, but it wasn’t something she planned to continue on with for NEWTs.

Unfortunately, Marcus Kane, Head of Gryffindor House, and her mother’s not so secret boyfriend, came along for the trip. Clarke had done her best to ignore the constant goo-goo eyes they made to each other when they thought she wasn’t looking, and the frequent allusions to the ‘City of Love’. If this is what love was about, she wasn’t sure she could stomach it.

Her mother had also insisted that they make formal visits to the French Ministry and the Beauxbatons Principal while they were there. This would not have been on Clarke’s itinerary for a fun week in France, but perhaps it justified her mother’s expense claims that she was going to submit on the way home. Clarke did enjoy the opportunity to do some shopping while she was there, splurging some galleons she’d saved from birthday and Christmas presents on some very classy sunglasses and a new set of dress robes.

Clarke approached the stone wall between platforms nine and ten and took a deep breath. No matter how many times she’d gone through in the past, entering platform nine and three-quarters still made her heart rate get elevated. The social anxiety of crashing into the wall, spilling her trolley contents out in front of all the muggles had given way to an existential dread of becoming stuck inside the stone. Neither of the occupants of the cages she had sat on top of the trunk even flinched; Mecha and Agro merely glared at her for her hesitation interrupting their sleep. Mecha twitched her whiskers and closed her eyes again, while Agro hid her head under her wings, as though Clarke’s hesitation caused her embarrassment too.

Once Clarke was through the secret entrance she moved away quickly so as not to be collected in the back of the legs by the next trolley-wielding student and looked around for her friends.

She saw Raven ahead and mouthed ‘save me a seat’. Raven nodded and continued on with her conversation with Nate Miller. Clarke saw Roan and one of the Slytherin Prefects, waving at her from the train doors. She nodded that she’d be there as soon as she could and promptly headed over to drop off her luggage with a porter so that her trunk and animal cages could be stowed appropriately, ahead of the all-day journey to Hogwarts. She understood why the train didn’t simply apparate most of the way – trainspotters would be sure to notice if a historic steam train entered one tunnel and then didn’t leave it again – but it was not the most convenient mode of travel in the wizarding world.

After touching base with Roan, Clarke and the other prefects made their way up and down the platform encouraging children to finish their farewells and board the train. She pointed out that if they settled into a carriage quickly, they would be able to wave to their families out the window as they departed.

She deliberately tried to make a point of smiling at the younger siblings of children who were going to Hogwarts for the first time, especially the non-magical background families, muggles, who stood out like dogs’ bollocks, with their normal muggle clothing and nervous expressions. Clarke hadn’t changed into her Hogwart’s uniform yet, and was wearing jeans and a hoody with a big yellow G on a maroon background. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be a parent, having done all your planning for your child’s education at the best muggle school you could find, only to have them receive a thick envelope inviting them to take up their place at Hogwarts.

Anyone who failed to respond, ‘yes’ via the school owls within a reasonable amount of time would then receive a follow up visit from a Hogwarts’ Professor from the school. Most muggle families did receive this visit. It was simply unrealistic to expect a family with no exposure to the magical world to react well to a letter written on parchment and sealed with wax.

Those who didn’t believe the Professors got to meet someone sent by the Ministry of Magic’s underage magic department next. Nothing was more critical to the Ministry than preventing muggles discovering the magic world. In this case, they had to weigh up the risk of a muggle-born child performing uncontrolled magic in front of scores of muggles by mistake against the revelation to their parents when they sat them down to explain that magic was real. At the same time, they could inform them that their child had won a free place in an international standard boarding school to learn how to perform it in a controlled manner. Children born into the wizarding world  might have had more leeway to decline their place, in favour of being home-schooled, but then responsibility for their education fell to their parents who were already bound to follow ministry injunctions.

Finally, the whistle blew, and the announcement calling for all passengers for Hogwarts to board now was made so Clarke leapt aboard.

As the train pulled out of Kings Cross station, Clarke dodged all the waving students and made her way to the Prefect’s compartment. It wasn’t as if she had anyone on the platform to wave to.

Clarke took her place in the Prefect’s compartment as the others made their way through the train. She had time to examine the Head Boy. He wasn’t a big selection surprise. The Hufflepuff student wore his hair long, mostly tied back in a bit of a man-bun so that it wouldn’t get in the way and an easy, cat-like smile. He wasn’t one to shout or carry on or engage in excessive self-promotion. His quiet confidence in his own abilities wasn’t readily apparent as strength to casual observers, however no one who knew him doubted the quality of his backbone, given how much he went against his family’s history when he was sorted into Hufflepuff. Every one of his cousins and his parents, grandparents and even great- grandparents from what Clarke had heard, had been gone into Slytherin house.

Roan was more of a classy support act, who helped everyone around him succeed, and as such was ideally suited to the model of leadership Headmistress Indra espoused.

Anya, the Head Girl from Slytherin, was his natural opposite in many ways, though like him she was also reserved and not prone to unnecessary conversation or talking for talking’s sake.

The beauty of this combination, Clarke realised, was that Prefect meetings were never likely to last excessively long, and within fifteen minutes, they had welcomed all the new prefects and explained their expectations before releasing them to go back to their normal carriages to maintain order during the eight-hour journey northwards. They didn’t ask them to do more than keep an eye on things, though Roan did remind them to make sure that the new students had someone to sit with and were doing OK.

*****

An hour out from Hogwarts, the soporific clackity-clack of the wheels on the rails was replaced by a noisy hubbub as prefects reminded everyone to get changed before arrival. Some items of clothing had to be rescued from the trunk’s stowage compartment, but eventually each carriage was checked to ensure that everyone, especially the new children, were wearing their black leather lace up shoes, regulation grey socks, shorts, trousers or skirts for preference, white shirt, tie, and Hogwarts standard robes, with their pointed hat ready for the feast. Some clothing might have been mended more often than others, but by the time they arrived, they all looked more or less identical.

The first years looked even more identical, given that the magic inherent in the Hogwarts uniform, activated when the sorting hat made its declaration of which house the student was to go into, had yet to occur so they had no coloured trim on their robes yet.

It was a one-time only spell, which made it hard to hand down items of uniform like scarves and jumpers to younger relatives if they were in different houses, but it was still impressive magic.

A few members of Hogwarts staff greeted them on the platform, gathering up the first years to travel down to the boats. When each boat was full, the staff member pushed it away from the wharf, and the next one would drift into line. Then the giant squid gathered up all the handles at the bottom of the boat and silently pulled them across the lake as new students got their first ever look of the castle that housed the school and its surrounding outbuildings.

Clarke and Raven climbed into one of the thestral-drawn carriages together. Clarke glanced across at Wells, who had told her once that he’d always been able to see them. He’d lost his mother early to a long illness before he even joined Hogwarts. He’d said once that he was worried that he could not tell the difference between memories and what was shown in wizarding photos.

Raven had never known her dad, but had been the one to find her mother’s body when she arrived home after first year. Since then, she’d spent her holidays split between a number of families. Raven had saved a few apples to bring with her and surreptitiously fed them to the horse-like animals, trying to ignore the funny looks some of the other students, who obviously had never seen death face to face and therefore could only see plain air where the thestrals stood harnessed in front of the carriages. Clarke had suggested to her previously that they generally ate meat, but Raven had simply pointed out that she couldn’t very well keep a piece of bloody steak in her pocket for the entire journey. They never seemed to refuse her offering, at any rate.

Clarke followed her school friends into the Great Hall, knowing that Agro would have been let out of her cage and would be heading to the owlery under her own steam already, while Mecha and her trunk would have been sent directly to the Gryffindor girl’s dormitory. This year she would only be sharing with Raven; one of the privileges of finally making it into the senior school. For the first time, they would have desks in their rooms, rather than being forced to work in the common room.

Of course, Clarke had long ago started studying in bed. No one got results like she did sitting next to raucous games of exploding snap every night. And Abby Griffin was not the kind of parent who would have accepted poor marks or excuses.

Once all the second year and beyond students had taken their places at the four long house tables, the gaggle of students who’d made their way by boat and were now gathered in the entrance at the front of the room were pushed forward. Some of them had robes long enough to drag on the ground, and they tripped over them while trying to get a view of their surroundings. Clarke could not believe that she and her friends had ever been so small.

The numbers were thinner amongst the senior students, that is, the sixth- and seventh-year ones. Evidently, not everyone had achieved the OWL results they required to proceed to NEWT level studies.

Clarke noticed Octavia Blake sitting alone at the Gryffindor table, without her shadow of an older brother who had been by her side since she’d arrived at the school two years behind him. Clarke had heard that Bellamy Blake had only been permitted to commence sixth year the year before on a remedial study program, having only scraped through with barely acceptable OWL results.

It didn’t look like he’d done enough to be allowed to continue with this NEWT studies. She didn’t like to be critical of her fellow Gryffindor, but maybe if he’d been more focused on his studies he would have returned for seventh year? Clearly the temptation to spend his time policing Octavia’s love life while running around doing whatever the hell he wanted and trying to show off to his mates had been too strong. Clarke made a mental note to keep an eye on Octavia to make sure she was all right without him. Frankly, the sparkle in her eye as she surveyed the room suggested to Clarke that without Bellamy’s overbearing presence, she was going to be thriving sooner rather than later.

Professor Kane, Gryffindor’s head of house, tapped on a glass melodiously and Indra stood, using her wand to amplify the tinkling glass sound until the room fell silent.

Without further ado, the Headmistress introduced the sorting hat to the first years, rapidly regaining their attention which had been almost universally drifting to the sights and sound of the Great Hall.

All the children, regardless of their background, looked nervous about the sorting process. The houses would shape many of their friendships over the next seven years, as well as where they lived throughout their stay at Hogwarts’ School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Clarke found herself zoning out a little at the sorting went on. She perked up each time to cheer for another child being sorted into Gryffindor with the rest of her housemates, and a promising little group seemed to be forming. Suddenly a name was called for a second time. The whole room went quiet as the first years looked at each other accusingly.

“Keenan Mykulac. Keenan? Is there a Keenan here?”

After a further silence, Headmistress Forrester caught Professor Byrne’s eye and she stood and slipped out of the hall, presumably to look for the missing little girl.

Professor Cartwright continued with the names but Professor Byrne returned just as she reached Emily Zachariah, the last child left standing next to her. There was no reappearance of the missing student.

Indra took to her feet and welcomed everyone officially to the new school year.

“Welcome, everyone, to Hogwarts.”

Now that the room was silent, Indra had no trouble projecting her voice to reach the very back corners of the room, even without apparently using magic.

“Just a few start-of-term announcements. There are to be no students outside of their dormitories after curfew without permission from a teacher and, as I must reiterate every year, the Forbidden Forest remains out of bounds to all first years and is not recommended except to those who are prepared to risk a most painful death. I’d like to especially welcome two new members of staff this year. Mr Lincoln Forrester is taking over role of Keeper of Grounds and Keys, as well as responsibilities as the Care of Magical Creatures Instructor. Mr Lovejoy, on my right, is relieving Mr Filch who has headed off on a well-deserved retirement holiday with Mrs Norris the Fourth.

There were whispers around the room as people explained to the new students that Mr Filch was formerly the school caretaker and Mrs Norris was not someone’s wife; in fact, she was his cat. And probably should have been Mister or Master Norris.

Speaking of cats, Clarke assumed that Mecha would have managed to curl up and fall asleep in their dormitory by now. For Raven’s sake, she hoped she’d found her bed rather than Clarke’s, as Mecha had been sleeping at the foot of Clarke’s bed for a couple of months now. Raven’s peripatetic summer holiday lifestyle, flitting from one household to another wasn’t so suitable for a cat, so Clarke had permission from her mother to keep her during the holidays before presenting Raven with the kitten for Christmas a few years ago.

Indra had nearly finished her speech, and Clarke realised with a start that she’d probably zoned out for at least half of it.

“Remember students; here at Hogwarts we expect everyone to work hard, study hard and ask your professors and the senior student lots of tough questions! Now, enjoy the feast!”

With a flourish, Indra waved her wand and dinner appeared on the table to ooh’s and aah’s and spontaneous applause from every member of the school community present.

Clarke’s stomach growled. The food trolley on the Hogwarts Express had been a long time ago. She wasn’t sure how some of the teenage boys sitting around her had even survived the sorting and the speech.

The food at Hogwarts was unbelievably good and the opening night feast always got them off to a fantastic start. Big platters of chicken drumsticks. Bowls of roast potatoes. Large dishes with steamed asparagus and broccolini. There was a huge platter of pre-carved leg ham on each table and salads and fresh fruit within easy reach of every student.

Other than the scrape of cutlery on plates, the Great Hall was mostly quiet. Conversation was kept to a minimum, barring the need to ask someone to pass another plate of something. Astonishingly fast, Clarke placed her knife carefully next to her fork and pushed her plate away from her, completely satiated. She hoped that there would be a bit of a pause before dessert, even if her eyes were threatening to close by themselves as she slipped into a food coma.

Once the dessert courses arrived, she helped herself to a little portion of jelly and a bunch of green seedless grapes and a slice of watermelon. The chocolate self-saucing pudding tempted her, but she knew from experience that she’d probably feel sick afterwards.

She glanced down the table at Octavia and noted that she was practically drooling, and it wasn’t over her chocolate chip ice cream cake dessert. Clarke followed her line of sight to see Lincoln over chatting to a group of junior Slytherin students.

Clarke had always been surprised that he was a member of that house. She knew it was near blasphemous to doubt the sorting hat’s judgment, but as far as Clarke could tell, Lincoln was the least ambitious person you could find. He did his work without any trouble but you were far more likely to find him lounging against the trunk of a shady tree sketching his classmates rather than being the first to insist on extra quidditch practice ahead of a bit match. Despite that, he was a far better than average player, his imposing size made him an impressive beater, though maybe not good enough to turn professional, despite a stellar school career for Slytherin house.

Clarke snorted at Octavia’s single-focused expression and then had to pretend to cough when Octavia turned and looked at her quizzically.

She didn’t want to explain herself. Clearly, Octavia had never seen Lincoln as a pimply student. He looked taller and more confident than when he’d left Hogwarts, only a few years prior, so Octavia was no doubt the only teenaged witch swooning after him. She trusted that Indra would have reminded him of his responsibilities when it came to the teenaged witches and wizards entrusted to his care, but there wasn’t much the Headmistress could do about the students’ raging hormones.

She turned to Raven to share the joke with her, but she seemed to have an equally one-tracked focus on the head girl. Raven mooning after Anya wasn’t a new development, but it was far more upsetting in Clarke’s view, as it affected her best friend. Raven was one of the smartest witches she knew, but she seemed to have terrible taste in both men and women.

She sighed. If you had a taste for unattainable ice-maidens, Clarke would happily concede that the Head Girl was hot. If you wanted your arse kicked or your head filled in, though, you were probably more likely to have your wish fulfilled. She had been really optimistic that Raven might have forgotten her infatuation with the woman over the long holiday period, but it didn’t appear to be the case.

Finally, she noticed Charlotte. She hadn’t had a chance to catch up with the junior Gryffindor yet.

“Hey Charlotte, did you get up to anything good in your summer break?”

“Hmm, sorry, what did you say Clarke?”

Clarke realised that Charlotte was just as deep in drooling stations as Raven was. For a moment she thought that Charlotte was making heart eyes at the Head Girl too and then she realised that she’d set her sights on Tris who followed Anya around like a bit of a puppy dog. Clarke sighed.

“Charlotte, I get it. Tris is cute. I’m hardly going to judge, but she’s still a Slytherin. They’re just not necessarily good people, you know?”

As if her sixth-year prefect counterpart in the Slytherin house had enhanced hearing, Lexa Woods turned around and glared at them until Clarke dropped eye contact.

When she turned around again, Clarke turned to Charlotte.

“Just promise me that you’re really going to get to know Tris before you try to actually get involved, OK?”

The fourth year nodded. Clarke sighed. If only someone had given her similar advice before Finn-a-ling came on the scene when she was just a little bit younger.

After everyone was finished, the older students drifted away and the prefects gathered their house’s first years together to show them the way. It was not just that they needed to know how to get from the Great Hall to their common room and dormitories; they also had to be able to find their way back independently the next morning for breakfast.

It was easiest for Hufflepuff. Their basement dormitories overlooked the kitchen gardens and were built basically adjacent to the kitchens. This was almost directly below the Great Hall, to minimise the risk of moving the food from a to b.

Slytherin’s dungeons were also relatively unchallenging to find, being on the side of the castle that abutted the lake.

Gryffindor and Ravenclaw towers, on the other hand, represented real traps for the unwary, the new, or the distracted. If you didn’t have your wits fully about you, you were just as likely to find yourself on a stairway that moved while you were already on them, rather than taking you to where you were expecting to go. All the kids would work it out in the end, but you generally needed to know how to get back from all sorts of different landings, as well as more than one route to your preferred destination. She simply assumed that if she had managed to work it out, eventually these kids would too.

The fifth- and sixth-year female prefects led their charges up the stairs to the girls’ dormitories where the first years were divided between two adjacent dormitories lower down in the tower. Most of them had marked their trunks clearly, so it was a simple job of finding their bed and cupboard. Clarke helped them get the key things packed away and encouraged each child to quickly write a letter home that they could send in the morning to let their families know that they’d arrived safely and which house they were in.

One of the new girls was crying and Clarke went to comfort her.

“What’s the matter? It’s Madi, isn’t it?”

The girl nodded and sniffed, rubbing her tears away with her shirtsleeve.

“I’ve never used a quill and ink before.”

Clarke noticed that she had upset her inkpot and there was royal blue ink spilled everywhere, threatening to seep through the bed spread onto the sheets below.

Clarke quickly charmed it back into the bottle with a light flick and swish.

She helped Madi write the letter and neatly penned the address on it, so that they could take it to a school owl in the morning before breakfast.

Madi was starting to cheer up, and Clarke turned her attention to the other four girls in the room. Most of them needed some help unpacking their trunks and she made sure that they each had their clothing for the next day and their bathing things set out and ready for the next morning. Once they were all in bed, she was able to blow out the lamp and return to her own room. She felt exhausted from the chatter of the eleven-year-olds, and it seemed like hours had elapsed since she left the Great Hall.

Raven was already asleep in bed, with Mecha also curled up on her feet. Clarke pulled the curtains of Raven’s four-poster bed closed so she could move around without disturbing them. She opened her trunk and quickly got a uniform ready for the next day. She’d have to sort out the rest of her gear tomorrow evening. She glanced over at Raven’s side of the room, which was already threatening to descend into chaos. Despite the extra time she’d had, only half her clothes were hung up. With the wardrobe door still open, it was evident that they weren’t in any particular order either.

Raven had some muggle thingumajig taking up pride of place on her desk. With Clarke’s limited understanding of the muggle world, she would have guessed it came from a car as it smelled faintly of grease. She didn’t think it was anything explosive, but you could never be entirely sure when it came to Raven. Clarke just hoped that she’d had the sense to put something absorbent underneath it. Charming spilled ink back into a bottle while it was still wet was one thing. Oil or grease that had soaked into the wood and dried out was another order of magnitude more difficult.

Clarke blew out the lamp and paused at the dormitory window. From here, she could admire the stars and then look down to see the just waning moon reflecting off the lake. She imagined that the ripples she could make out were caused by the giant squid languidly making its rounds, but she knew that the autumn breeze blowing away the last warmth of summer was more likely to be responsible. She distantly heard howls coming from the woods. She wondered how many of the first years heard it to and were trying to convince each other that there was something out there, just waiting to eat them up. It was probably just the outcome of one of the many rewilding projects at work in this part of Scotland. That was part of the joy of going to school in such a pristine and remote location.

Clarke sighed with happiness as she climbed into bed. She only had one more year after this one and the workload would be intense. This was the year that she became an adult in the wizarding world and she was determined that sixth year was going to be the very best yet.

Chapter Text

Clarke groaned as her alarm clock rang and rolled onto the floor, forcing her to unscramble herself from her cocoon of sheets and blankets to chase after the clock before it rolled underneath a bed or became a target for Mecha’s style of feline enthusiasm.

She’d set it early, as many of the first years wouldn’t even be used to the fact that alarms on mobile phones or electronic watches didn’t work in Hogwarts. Cell phones were specifically on the list that students were forbidden to bring to the school, along with weapons, gunpowder and non-prescribed medications. Electronic watches simply stopped working, but no one would stop someone wearing one as jewellery.

Her clock was a present from Raven. Typical of her friend, it was some kind of borderline-legal combination of magical and the mundane. Raven said that she’d found the old-fashioned wind-up clock at a garage sale, where muggles offloaded their old household items for extra pounds and pennies. Clarke was dubious, but Raven had unscrewed the back of the clock one day, to show her how the various springs and gears ran the clock’s mechanisms and told the time. The part that Raven added, other than the elbow grease to clean up fifty years of grime, was a charm that made the clock leap up in the air, curl up into a ball and zoom around the floor until the clock’s owner chased it down, like a maniacal dormitory based non-flying golden snitch.

Clarke sighed as she flicked the lever to turn off the alarm and carefully placed it back on her bedside table. Her heart was pounding, and her hair was a mess, and she knew that she had a higher chance finding a boggart in her breakfast cereal than returning to sleep by mistake.

She grabbed her toiletries and towel and made her way to the Gryffindor senior girls’ bathroom. The prefect’s bathroom was gorgeous, but really only practical for a weekend soak. Wandering across the castle in her slippers and a breezy dressing gown would take more time than she could really afford when it came to getting ready on a school day.

Before long she was presentable again and took a moment to check in on the first years. The girls from the other years seemed to be doing the right thing and helping them out, and before long a gaggle of Gryffindors was making their way down the steps, through the common room, past the Fat Lady portrait and into the Great Hall.

She already knew she had the OWL results she needed for the NEWTs she wanted to take. Potions, Herbology, Defence against the Dark Arts, Charms and Transfiguration. A couple of other students were talking to Professors nervously. Clarke was grateful that her sixth-year letter hadn’t included the dreaded ‘subject to confirmation’ caveat next to any of her proposed courses, so she had purchased textbooks and the required equipment confidently. Clarke was certain that Agro wouldn’t have minded being sent off to pick something up something from Borgen and Blotts, but she just preferred being prepared. She might only be sixteen, but she already knew that life had a habit of being unpredictable enough. Why add to the chaos through your own neglect?

Trusting that she’d have time to return to her room after breakfast to gather what she needed for class, she had headed off for breakfast without any textbooks or equipment weighing her down.

Clarke made sure that everyone was helping themselves to breakfast and then went and got a fresh mug of coffee from Blinky, one of two Australian baristas on Hogwarts’ payroll (the other being Bluey). One of the teachers had let slip that they’d only had instant coffee when she was at Hogwarts, and Clarke wasn’t sure how she would have survived.

The house-elf exchange program followed the Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards’ announcement that house-elves were to be free in every part of the universe, discovered or otherwise. Clarke was proud that her country had pushed for this. She’d learned in History of Magic that following Voldemort’s defeat, the UK Ministry of Magic had quickly passed the House Elf Freedom Act, only to discover a few families sending their house-elves to relatives living outside the country to circumvent the law.

Many people thought that House-elves would use this new freedom to travel internationally to go and see the rest of the world. Unfortunately, unlike wizards, most house-elves found holidays deeply unpleasant, being constitutionally just not designed to just flop on a beach for any period of time, with or without a fancy drink sporting a garishly coloured paper umbrella.

House-elves couldn’t relax without succumbing to the temptation to collect and remove all flotsam and jetsam marring the sand. A deeply unhappy house-elf had been known to even attempt to remove all the seashells, and didn’t recuperate until housekeeping permitted them to spend an hour per day assisting them to straighten out rooms.

This gave rise to the suggestion of a working exchange program to different countries which had proven to be extremely popular. No wizarding café in a popular UK location was complete without a barista from the antipodes. Bluey had been working at Madam Puddifoot’s, when she had formed an attachment to a Hogwarts-employed house-elf and had happily accepted the position when it was offered. When the service turned out to be enormously popular, she got in touch with her mate Blinky and told him not to be a great galah and to come and take up the opportunity.

Over time the students began to understand their accents and strange slang and found them to be quite harmless, except around quidditch world cup tournaments, when they kept yelling out aggressively partisan sayings, like ‘ave a go yer mug’ and ‘aussie aussie aussie - oi oi oi’ and drinking enough butterbeer afterwards to still smell of it the next morning.

Kane passed up and down the group passing out timetables as Clarke sipped the rest of her coffee after finishing her food. The seventh years had already gone off to their classes and the sixth years’ were next to receive their timetables. Clarke tried to ignore Professor Kane’s attempts to make eye contact and smile at her.

If he was disappointed that she’d dropped the subject he taught, at least the Arithmancy Professor had the grace not to show it. Frankly, Clarke planned to avoid the man during term time as much as possible. The last thing she needed was someone sending detailed owls about her moods and day to day (mis)adventures to her mother. It had sent her mad with curiosity how her mother had come to know some of the things she referred to last year. She’d even accused Raven of letting something slip, noting that her mother tended to act more maternally to her friend than she did towards her. When Kane showed up on their trip to France, the penny had dropped in a most unpleasant way.

Just as she was standing to add her empty mug to the tray of dirty crockery heading back to the kitchen, Professor Kane touched her arm to get her attention. She flinched with surprise retracting it and he mumbled sorry.

“Just one more thing, Clarke.”

She stiffened and stood straighter so she could come closer to staring him eye to eye.

“Master Jackson has requested you drop in this week. He has a proposition to make. Give him a few days to see all the new students, and pop in when you’re free after class.”

Clarke stammered an acknowledgement and escaped. That hadn’t been what she would have guessed at all.

A few days later she made her way up the Hospital Wing. Clarke couldn’t understand why he had chosen to work at Hogwarts, of all places. Her mother was always saying how much she liked his medical skills. If that was the case, why had he chosen not to progress to an area of specialisation at St Mungo’s?

The ward was empty, which was always good to see. In winter it started to fill up with sporting injuries and respiratory illness cases that were better recovering away from their dormitory mates but right now a dozen metal-framed beds faced each other, neatly made up with white linen and hospital blankets. With the curtains on the beds pushed right back, the afternoon light streaming in the large tower windows was unobstructed. While Clarke admired the view, the hospital wing’s overseer emerged from his rooms.

“So, Miss Griffin. I see Professor Kane passed on my message.”

Clarke nodded. “Master Jackson.”

“I know that you have a full load of classes, but I was wondering if you would take on the role of potions assistant?”

“Potions assistant? Is this a regular role?”

“No, it’s honorary, but I could do with a hand, and I understand you’re planning to study medicine.”

“That’s right. I want to be some kind of Healer.”

“I can give you a jump on the practical requirements of your studies, if you like. Bit of mentoring, answer any questions you have, you know? We’ll keep records of the potions you’ve successfully made without assistance, and when you have your competency log, send it to me, and I’ll sign them off.”

“You can do that?”

“Of course. I got it cleared with St Mungo’s Chief and the Head of Training already.”

Clarke’s eyes narrowed. “Did my mother put you up to this?”

“No. No of course not. It was Professor Cartwright’s idea, actually. I asked her if she would be available to provide help with potions for hospital wing use, but she said that she’s too busy with being Ravenclaw’s Head of House as well.”

That sounded fair to Clarke, and she let her shoulders relax again. Professor Cartwright was renowned for being house mum as well as Head of House.

“She was very sorry that she couldn’t help, as you’d imagine, and said she’d try and think of something. She came back to me when the teachers returned to Hogwarts and suggested that while the seventh years were too busy, you were her most promising sixth year potions student. Not to mention that you were also interested in healing. It sounded perfect to me, what do you think?”

“It sounds perfect to me as well. When do I start?”

“No time like the present? Here’s a list of basic potions that form the building blocks to many of the draughts we require for patients. Professor Cartwright suggested that you work through these first and we’ll meet back at the end of the week to review your progress.”

****

Everyone else had long left for the day but a lone sixth year Gryffindor was working late after Thursday’s dinner. After discovering she’d skipped dinner the night before, Raven had insisted Clarke actually come to the Great Hall to eat properly.

Food was forbidden in the potions laboratories, for obvious reasons. The risk of accidentally ingesting an ingredient rather than your dinner was just too high and the outcomes were unlikely to be beneficial. While health and safety requirements in the wizarding world weren’t quite on par with the muggle world, Indra had insisted on some dramatic improvements since she’d been a Hogwarts student herself.

Clarke refreshed her lumos spell, sending a new ball of glowing light into the air above her head. Then she sent another spell after it, charming it to be mobile so that it would move around her to ensure that the desk and her cauldron were never cast in shadows.  

The spare potions laboratory for students’ use was located in the dungeons. This was where the infamous Professor Snape used to teach, though it likely predated his tenure. As a Slytherin he might have had an affinity for the dark and dank corners of Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry, but Professor Callie Cartwright had been appalled. Light and fresh air were essential in her view if one aspired to become a truly proficient potioneer.

The Potions Professor, known to all her students as ‘CeeCee’, never taught senior classes there. It was all very well for junior potions classes, if there was a clash and it couldn’t be avoided.

Although plenty of students found potions challenging, Clarke knew that it was usually just an issue of focus. To get a pass mark at OWL standard potions it really was all about following the recipe. Three drops of moonshine oil and a generous pinch of frogweed - not the reverse. If it’s meant to be stirred clockwise four times, a careless fifth stir in the other direction won’t make it better. Don't say gardiola when you mean gardiolo.

Provided you followed the same recipe, you could expect to get the same acceptable results. 

Senior classes needed a bit more... touch. The combination of the wizard and their wand mattered. A slight emphasis on one syllable and not another. An extra drop of a secret ingredient added to achieve an enhanced effect. An extra stir clockwise but not the other way round. But done deliberately, to match an individual’s magical signature. That’s where the practice was required. Your book learning of all the ingredients is important. But even more so was the touch and intuition that could only be gained from hours in front of a cauldron sitting on a burner. Trial and error; guided by intuition and recording the positive results, as well as the unexpected outcomes that might lead to whole new potions in the future. That was the approach Professor Cartwright championed.

Ordinary Wizard Level potions was simple science.

NEWTs raised it to an artform.

To that end, Professor CeCe constantly emphasised the need for lots of natural light to help observe the subtle graduations in colour saturation; the point where a mixture turned cloudy or started to fizz. All of these could guide you as you produced your potion.

Fresh air was a must as well so that you can assess how your brew is going by its changing scent. The dungeons classroom seemed to have a residual rotten egg smell from one too many first-year class explosions over the decades. 

Or perhaps it was one of Raven’s more recent experiments? Whenever Raven was left to her own devices for too long, she could be reliably found attempting to create explosions.

She was one of the reasons why they weren't permitted to practice their potions work in the regular laboratory, or their dormitories. She'd almost burnt down the Ravenclaw tower. She'd suffered the incredibly rare feat of being thrown out of her House and this was one of the grounds. The bronze raven knocker on the door simply refused to give her any more riddles or questions to answer, so she couldn't get in, even if she was plenty smart enough to excel in that House.

It wasn’t the only reason, but it was the one given out in public, if anyone asked.

Ravenclaw’s loss was Gryffindor’s gain. Clarke didn’t know what she’d do without her best friend. Wells had been her best friend growing up, but since being sorted into different Houses they had started to grow apart. His father’s role in leading to and covering up Jake Griffin’s death hadn’t helped either and meant she never saw him outside of school anymore. Not that she blamed Wells. Having his only parent locked away in Azkaban must have been tough. She’d heard that underage wizards weren’t even permitted to visit as the risk of being unable to defend themselves against the Azkaban guards, the Dementors, was just too high.

She still missed Jake every day.

Her mother might now be Minister for Magic, no doubt assisted by a wave of voters sympathetic to her cause who had followed Jake, but plenty of the Council Members under Jaha had retained their positions and others loyal to him were still holding senior positions in the department. 

She wanted nothing to do with it, despite her mother’s assurance that she could get her a safe job in any department.

Clarke didn’t want a job just because it was safe, and she certainly didn’t want something just handed to her on a platter. Not that she was crazy brave seeking out something reckless, but she wanted to do something that mattered. And she was willing to back herself to be able to undertake the studies and training required to win that job on her own merits.

She really did think that something medical was where her interests lay. Maybe she should work at St Mungo's, developing better cures for the most serious of maladies effecting the magical community? Or she could become a travelling medical researcher, finding new ingredients for healing spells. Work with hidden magical communities to learn and improve their methods to share with the wider community? Magical maladies that effected the mind interested her too. There were still casualties of the second wizarding world who were shadows of their former selves. Imagine being able to bring them back into a position to fully engage in the world, while they were young enough to still reach their potential after so many wasted years.

So long as the branch she chose was something miles different from her mother’s area of expertise. Her position as Head of the Magical Surgery Department had given her the profile she needed to get into politics when she first sought out a seat on the Council. 

Politics. That was one thing she absolutely would not be doing. She had seen all the back room deals and it depressed her. Besides, she might have been given a prefect badge but she was no leader.

She was determined to forge her own destiny. She didn't want anyone to think everything had been given to her.

Not like that stuck up Slytherin sixth year, Lexa Woods. She'd been their quidditch captain since second year. Everyone had heard that Lexa had inherited a whole house and so many gold coins it took a team of Gringotts goblins two weeks just to confirm that they were all there.  She would not have to work a day in her life if she didn't feel like it. Maybe just deal in dubious antiquities like the Malfoy family in shops located down shady alleyways. Clarke had heard rumours that the Lexa’s father’s family and the Malfoys had shared a common ancestor not that many generations ago.

The old-fashioned clock in the corner gave it’s chime sequence to let her know that it was a quarter of an hour to curfew. While as a prefect she could claim that she was undertaking some kind of duty requirement, it was too early in the semester to start making up excuses. Clarke packed away the unused ingredients and stoppered the cooling bottles of a muscle soothing draught she’d produced. She washed out the cauldron, chopping board and other equipment and left them in the drainer to dry overnight. Professor Cartwright had given her a key to the teacher’s preparation room so she didn’t have to constantly lug her equipment back to the dormitory each night, and from here she could also access the safe with more ingredients than the standard ones used for homework practice stored in the cupboard at the front of the laboratory.

She made it back through the portrait with five minutes to spare and dragged herself up the stairs to the girls’ dormitories, regretting that the smaller senior girls rooms were right up the top of the tower.

Raven was working on the final touches of her homework and Clarke bit her tongue before issuing the complaint about her workload that was on the tip of it. Raven had signed up for Arithmancy and Advanced Muggle Studies as well as four of the five NEWT’s that Clarke was working on. The projects she was constantly tinkering with often included the creation of small devices like Clarke’s alarm clock. Selling these to other students was her main source of sickles and the occasional galleon to fund her Hogsmeade purchases. As an orphan, the ministry gave her a small stipend, but that barely covered her clothing and school books.

The lamplight illuminated the sign above Raven’s desk.

“Make a Bang at The Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes”

Clarke had retained the ministry brochure that she spotted at the careers fair held toward the middle of the previous year that was supposed to motivate them to greater efforts in their OWLs and to help guide subject selection for years 6 and 7. She’d kept it in mint condition and had it framed for Raven for her birthday.

To the best of Clarke’s knowledge, Raven hadn’t decided on what she wanted to do after Hogwarts. With the sort of NEWTs she was likely to get, she’d have no trouble finding a job, but it would be a waste if she didn’t get one that used her brain to its fullest extent. Growing up with a muggle mother, Raven was still learning about new magical occupations, and didn’t want to commit to anything too soon.

Raven rinsed out her quill and put the lid back on her bottle of ink.

“Long night?” Raven turned to Clarke.

“Yeah. It took me a few goes with this draught tonight. It’s similar to something we last made in second year, so it took a while to get back in the swing of it.”

“Sounds like good revision.”

“It is. I’ve still got some reading to finish for tomorrow.”

“Don’t stay up all night. It’s still only the first week, remember.”

“Hey, pot calling kettle!”

Raven laughed and cancelled the charm causing the origami crane to flit around the room. It looked tired, and Clarke guessed that Raven had put the spell on it hours ago. She always set it up for Mecha to play with while she was engrossed in her studies. If the cat wasn’t sufficiently tuckered out when the humans went to bed, she had a most upsetting habit of launching herself at feet in order to wake someone up to go play with her. But Mecha had clearly satiated her urge to play and was curled up at the end of Raven’s bed, soundly asleep.

Chapter Text

The first Saturday of term finally dawned and Clarke was dead to the world.

A couple of avid joggers may already have slipped out past the Fat Lady’s portrait at ridiculous o’clock in the morning, but there was no compulsion to be up or to be anywhere at all, really.

Physical education at Hogwarts had gained a bit of a foot hold in the previous twenty years to be more regular, like a muggle school’s gym class. At some point, someone must have worked out that the students needed more than just broom stick flying classes with the three very generous meals a day to stay healthy. Team games other than quidditch never really managed to gain a foothold. It was simply too difficult to stop Hogwarts students from using magic to give their side an advantage.

Sport was one of the places where muggle-born children with magical capabilities were discovered. The ten-year-olds with the ability to bend the football much further than Beckham were going to stand out. Ministry officials often worked undercover posing as talent scouts for football or other sporting academies to investigate claims that a child was too good to be true. Despite claims that Muggle Studies was a ‘soft’ subject, there were definitely job prospects out there for people with a solid NEWT result and a bit of acting ability.

The first breakfast bell chimed. Seven o’clock. Clarke still felt no compulsion to move. Breakfast was served until ten o’clock on weekends. This was another area where things had radically improved in recent years. Perhaps it was a concession to research that teen’s sleep clocks didn’t work like adults. When Abby had been at St Mungo’s, she’d told Clarke about a program where magical healers reviewed the latest muggle medical research to see what changes they should make to their own clinical protocols.

It frightened Clarke how much anatomy and biology she would have to learn as part of her medical studies, and she envied muggles who had been given the chance to learn some of this earlier in their schooling. She vaguely wondered if timeturners were issued to all medical trainees. They were banned at Hogwarts now. Clarke was so tired that even without living through more than twenty-four hours in one day, the best she could do was to roll over and settle down to sleep again. She was distantly aware that it was morning, but her body and mind were both craving another hour or two’s worth of sleep.

She only returned to the dorms after curfew, earning a reproachful look from the handful of Gryffindor’s still up and hanging out in the common room. She knew she’d missed the start of the season quidditch robe presentation ceremony, but Friday night had been the first time she could meet with Master Jackson since he’d spoken to her about her duties as potions assistant, and it had gone much longer than expected.

Clarke promised Nate that she would be there to cheer the Gryffindor team on when they played on Saturday afternoon. To be honest she didn’t really want to go. Watching quidditch matches was something that she’d always done with her father. The Holyhead Harpies had been the team he’d supported since he was small so, naturally, they became her team too. Before coming to Hogwarts, her bedroom walls were covered in magical posters, but she’d taken most of them down now. Occasionally her mother had joined them at a game, but that was mostly to make an appearance as part of her campaign to be re-elected to the Council, that select group of Wizangemot members who chose and advised the next Minister for Magic. Now that she was Minister, Clarke couldn’t imagine her stepping foot inside a grandstand until the next election came round. Clarke could barely pack her supporter’s jersey in her trunk at the end of summer because it reminded her too much of her dad. Even watching school matches held less of an appeal to her now.

Clarke eventually got up, bathed and dressed in comfortable weekend clothes, hoody and jeans that had been washed so many times they were buttery soft. She picked up her copy of the weekend edition of the Daily Prophet, that Agro must have dropped off, before heading downstairs to enjoy a relaxed breakfast of tea with crumpets and jam. While reading she could let the rest of the Great Hall’s hustle and bustle pass her by. A short snippet grabbed her attention between the longer articles that she had been enjoying. Amongst the regular reporting was a small article referring to a missing child who hadn’t been spotted since departing for Hogwarts. The name, Keenan, seemed familiar to Clarke. She put the paper aside and refilled her mug of tea, idly adding sugar and milk and setting a charm on the spoon to stir the sugar in until it was dissolved while she kept her attention on the paper. Vaguely she wondered if it was the same child who didn’t attend the sorting ceremony, or if two children were missing. It sounded like the Aurors were getting involved, so she doubted it would take long to find out the cause.

She never bothered with a whole pot of tea during the week, but weekend breakfast was a pleasure not to be rushed. She glanced across at the Hufflepuff team. They had a few new faces, one of whom was looking decidedly green as their captain tried to encourage them to tuck into a big, cooked breakfast to keep their strength up. They would need it if the game extended long into the afternoon.

Clarke returned to her dormitory and reviewed the homework she needed to get through over the weekend. She had several chapters of reading for Transfiguration. For Charms she needed to memorise a dozen spells, and Herbology required her to produce a dozen neatly labelled plant diagrams. She had two scrolls to write on checking for curses and hostile wards for Defence Against the Dark Arts, and Master Jackson had suggested that while she was researching her Potions essay for Professor Cartwright, she might spot some information relevant to treating werewolves.

She had completed the Charms work and her Herbology drawings were drying on the bed while she turned her attention to her transfiguration readings when Monroe banged on her door.

“Come on Clarke, time to grab a sandwich and head down to the game - have you got your Gryffindor scarf?”

“Coming!” She cleaned the ink off her quill on a rag and screwed the lid back onto her inkpot. Her notes on the readings weren’t too bad. She’d be able to finish the rest after the game. She just hoped that it was over in a reasonable amount of time. And that Gryffindor won. She wasn’t such a misery guts that she just wanted Gryffindor to rollover for Hufflepuff simply to get it over and done with.

Nate Miller was waiting for them downstairs. He’d suffered a training accident, and Master Jackson had only just cleared him to play on the weekend. Initially, he wasn’t prepared to let Nate back up on a broom so soon after hitting his head when he landed. Concussion protocols were not to be sneezed at. Skelegrow might help your skull, but there was no substitute for rest when it came to treating the soft squishy brain that had bounced around inside of it more than it was designed to cope with.

Clarke suspected that the mushy things Miller had said to the young healer didn’t help his cause one bit when he tried to argue that he hadn’t really been all that concussed. Given that the first thing he’d done when he opened his eyes was tell Master Jackson that his eyelashes were as long and as beautiful as a hippogriff’s, the proposition that he hadn’t hit his head all that hard wasn’t really tenable. Of course, conversations between students and the healer were meant to be private, but Nate had said it loudly, and naturally it was all over the school by dinner.

Nate insisted he couldn’t remember saying it, but his on-again, off-again boyfriend Bryan had returned to the Hufflepuff dormitories in a stink. This game could be a bit of a grudge match, particularly with Nate now being cleared fit to play.

Clarke hadn’t seen Raven all day and was surprised to see her already seated when she finished climbing to the top of the internal staircase. At least she could count on Raven being in the same Gryffindor House stand that they always chose.

The wooden-framed structure itself always reminded her of her dad. He was fascinated with muggle buildings, among other things; how they built things out of all sorts of relatively flimsy materials without being able to reinforce them with any kind of spell. He’d shown her how the different cross pieces were meant to work by building a model out of paddle pop sticks. Considering that the stands seemed horribly top heavy when full and never even seemed to waver when the winter wind howled down the valley and across the lake, Clarke doubted that these structures had been made without magical protection. This was especially true when players, and even bludgers, seemed to end up regularly crashing into them, turning structural beams into chop stick sized splinters, and generating plenty of work for the hospital wing into the mix.

Clarke shuffled down their row to her seat next to Raven. While she was getting her breath back from the climb, she unwrapped some extra sandwiches and pumpkin scones wrapped in a tea towel and offered them to Raven along with a flask of tea, which Raven accepted gratefully.

“You’re very keen today, Raven. You know that there are plenty of seats, right? You don’t actually need to get here so early that you miss lunch. There is no need to worry about the best ones being gone.”

“I’m just getting a bit of sun. You know, vitamin D. Strong bones and all that good stuff. And I’m doing my reading, see?”

Raven held up her advanced arithmancy textbook that had been resting, open on her lap. Her argument would have been stronger except it was clearly upside down. And her field glasses were hanging round her neck with the caps protecting the lenses off already. Not really something that was required to help someone see a textbook at close range.

Clarke turned her attention to the field and saw a flash of seven green quidditch robe garbed players departing on broom sticks. That made far more sense as to what was distracting her normally study-addicted roommate.

Despite her responsibilities as Head Girl, Anya remained on Slytherin’s team. It helped that she had happily handed over the captain’s armband to Lexa years ago after seeing how well she commanded the team when on the field. She was an intimidating presence in goals; considered to be an almost impenetrable barrier to quaffles getting through. The teams not involved with the game of the day often scheduled practice sessions on Saturday mornings. That Raven may have got wind of the time Slytherin had booked should hardly have come as a surprise. Raven might insist she was getting ahead on her studies, but unless she’d arranged to get extra credit for a special project in observing the human figure, it wasn’t going to be all that helpful.

Clarke sighed. She’d always thought that Raven must have been cured of her appalling taste in romantic partners after Finn. To be fair, at the time, she’d been just as guilty of obliviousness when it came to Finn’s less admirable qualities. How he was clever enough to be in Ravenclaw she would never know. It wasn’t until they’d discovered that he was dating both of them simultaneously that the scales fell off their eyes and they saw him what he really was - reasonably good-looking guy, who was capable of great kindness and empathy when he chose but was more often than not quite shallow yet deeply possessive. The irony of his jealous streak only stood out more when they realised that he was the one doing the cheating, rather than being cheated on.

Anya didn’t seem to be shallow. Nor did she seem to be the type to cheat. Fierce loyalty to those in their inner circle was a characteristic of Slytherin House, along with a dangerous affinity for dark magic and hatred of non-pureblooded mages. Considering that Raven had been raised by a muggle, and no one knew who her father was, it seemed like a recipe for disaster to Clarke. She desperately wanted to talk Raven out of it, or just throw other people in her way, and hope that one of them would get her attention. Of course, not only was that too unethical for Clarke to really consider it seriously, it wouldn’t even work. Raven was simply too smart not to realise that Clarke was up to something, even though she had a blind spot approximately one Head Girl tall and broad when it came to the Slytherin.

The stands were starting to fill up and Clarke put the spare scones and flask away for the first break, bringing out her Gryffindor scarf to wave when their team emerged onto the pitch.

Gryffindor’s team started strongly. They scored from their first two shots on goal and disrupted their opponents’ attempt to regain some momentum passing the quaffle between themselves with a well-struck bludger. Gryffindor attacked again and Nate’s attempt on goal was rebuffed by just the very tip of the Hufflepuff keeper’s glove. They were closing in again when confusion in a variation on the play resulted in an intercept to Bryan, who pushed his broomstick to the limit to get into a position where scoring was inevitable, despite being against the run of play.

Gryffindor made another attempt on goal and seemed to have put the conceded goal behind them when Hufflepuff had another successful attack. Clearly rattled, Gryffindor struggled through until the break. Despite the fact that they had enjoyed the weight of possession, scores were locked up. There hadn’t been a single sighting of the golden snitch, so the seekers simply drifted around on patrol above the rest of the play. The other players were feeling the effect of the first game of the season with very little practice time and returned to the ground eagerly when the first break whistle sounded. Team reserves passed water bottles around and the players flexed fingers that had been gripping broomsticks too hard trying to get blood flowing properly again.

Nate gathered them into a circle and tried to rev everybody up. Everyone was standing there, but Clarke thought from the body language that they weren’t fully engaged. It was the one thing Bellamy had been good for; rousing speeches, even if they were generally stupid, like ‘do whatever you want, just win’. His heart was in the right place, and coupled with a fairly rigorous training program it had been enough for them to win more often than they lost, though they hadn’t been quite good enough to take out the actual trophy. Clarke doubted that they were going to be in contention this year either, but wasn’t likely to share that assessment with her house mates.

Soon enough, the second period of play started. The different sections of play weren’t called quarters or halves. There was no way of knowing how long the game was going to continue. It would finish when the golden snitch was caught, unless bad light saw the game called off early. Professional players could keep playing for days, but there were already enough accidents to keep the hospital wing busy during the playing season without high-speed collisions in the dark. 

Gryffindor once again had the early running and ground out two more goals without conceding any points. Hufflepuff’s defence wasn’t in disarray, however, and they kept threatening to score on the counterattack. Even deep into the second period of play Clarke didn’t think that the snitch had emerged. Certainly, with the score so close, neither seeker would be terribly motivated to look. In a competition like this where each team played each of the others three times without a final series, bonus scores applied for the margin of each game. Catching the snitch when there was only a twenty-point margin was only worth two points. Additional points could be had for every fifty points extra margin. At this point, the team who was behind was equally motivated to capture the snitch, in order to end the misery and limit the bonus points being accrued.

Clarke had put up with endless sports-mad roommates telling her about quidditch trivia, as if she hadn’t spent hours in the stands watching professionals play with her dad’s encyclopaedic knowledge of the game. One day she recalled Monroe reporting that, according to Quidditch Through the Ages, at one time within living memory even, catching the snitch was worth one hundred and fifty points as well as ending the game. As though the only relevant player on each team was the seeker, and the entire rest of the battle was worthless! Clarke was glad that the rules had been amended. She mightn’t love quidditch right now anywhere near as much as she used to when she used to go with her dad, but the old version sounded seriously weird and dysfunctional.     

Gryffindor started gaining more confidence after the break, and at the next end change they had quickly piled on the pressure to be up by sixty points. The Hufflepuff seeker spotted the snitch first just above one of the flags on a Slytherin grandstand and got there ahead of his Gryffindor opponent to finish the game. Clarke felt relief more than anything else, even though she was surrounded by her cheering housemates, yelling themselves hoarse as Nate and Monroe led the Gryffindor team on a victory lap around and even between the stands.

Even though there’d been enough breaks for toilet stops and getting more hot tea, Clarke found that she was starting to get cold and her bottom was going numb against the hard chair. She briefly wondered if there was some way of improving these factors through magic but suspected it wasn’t high up on anyone’s list of priorities for magical research.

Everyone headed back to the common room after that. An hour or so later, Clarke headed to the library after staying for the obligatory number of rousing cheers and speeches promising to do it all again in their next match against Ravenclaw. She’d endured one or two child-friendly non-alcoholic Butterbeers and a few cold party-size sausage rolls and sandwiches, which she figured would have to substitute for dinner. Real Butterbeers were so low in alcohol that someone Clarke’s age would probably need a dozen to end up lightly buzzed. Still, on a Saturday evening riding high on victory and sugar loaded treats, she didn’t doubt that in the past some student had managed to drink the three-dozen required to get properly wasted. If anyone was that desperate to get drunk at Hogwarts, they would do better to make friends with Monty and Jasper whose still in one of the barely visited student greenhouses was notorious for producing moonshine Firewhiskey. She’d been told that it wasn’t far off the real thing taste or alcoholic potency-wise, and was popular if you didn’t mind the occasional issue arising from a lack of strict quality control. Losing a toenail was apparently less than unusual, and she’d heard that one person’s hand had turned purple, and they needed to wear gloves for a term before it faded.

She rose to her feet and considered going up to her dormitory, but a whizzbang shot up the stairs in front of her and she stumbled trying to stop in a hurry to make sure it didn’t hit her. She sighed. She was never going to get any work done with this much noise. When the magical firework finally ran out of sparks, she ran upstairs to get her study things; her quill and some spare rolls of paper and headed off to the library.

It was blessedly empty, and she made a list of the remaining work she needed to achieve this weekend. Her morning had been so productive, but she still had so much work to go. Not for the first time, she wondered if maybe she’d bitten off more than she could chew.

Her NEWTs load was heavy enough and she still needed to attain very good grades in each subject to earn the right to study to become a Healer. With the extra work brewing potions on top, this was going to be a battle. She hadn’t considered how much extra research would be involved on top of the extra potions-laboratory time.

She looked around at the library. The ancient bookshelves and wooden desks with strict locations for placing lamps where they couldn’t be knocked over by a student pushing a book too far back were familiar to her. They were steeped in tradition, and looked to be in place for centuries, dating back to when her distant ancestors, who might even have claimed to be descended from Godric Gryffindor himself, attended the school. At least it was quiet here. Or at least quieter, as the sound of shrieks and laughter wormed their way through the open windows. Every house seemed to be having some kind of start of term party. Out the window, she could see all sorts of sparks and a bonfire down by the water. Mostly junior students partying hard, she surmised. Or maybe she was the only senior student struggling to keep on top of their work, and everyone else was finished and off living it up?

Her anxiety ate at her. Her mother was always impressing on her that healing studies were no joke, and then the real work started during healer’s residency at St Mungo’s or one of the other magical hospitals. If she couldn’t cope with sixth year studies and a couple of extra duties, maybe she was just not cut out for this line of work?

She forced herself to turn to her books and mentally blocked out the noise of the post-quidditch parties and hijinks. Steadily she worked through each task, placed lines through her to-do list and soon her desk was surrounded by filled scrolls ready to be rolled up and returned to her bag for Monday when the ink dried.

She stood and stretched, working all the kinks out of her neck and back. She walked over to the window that looked out over the Forbidden Forest. Even as a sixth year, she found it nerve wracking walking through there during the day with the rest of her class around her. You could see and hear evidence of the creatures residing there all over the forest, if you knew what to look out for.

She thought over Master Jackson’s revelation from the previous night. After he’d inspected all the basic potions she’d made for him during the week, he’d let slip that the most important one she was going to have to learn next was how to make a standard Wolfsbane Potion and then they would start “tweaking it to fit.”

Clarke had latched onto that.

“To fit? You mean that you want me to brew a Wolfsbane potion for an actual person? Like, I’m going to be brewing this for a real werewolf? Is it one of the staff? A student?”

“Clarke, you know I can’t tell you that. It’s patient privacy basics. If you get a chance over the weekend, do as much reading up on the potion as you can. Just remember, it’s still quite a new potion. The basic recipe was refined only forty years ago and is considered too complicated for someone without a gift for the discipline of potion making. It’s something only very fine potion makers can make. Even then, it’s not perfect. The basic potion can calm someone down, but they are really only fit to sleep. Better potion brewers can help someone to retain their mind once shifted, so that they are not a threat to the people around them. With your talent I’m sure that is a goal you could reach. Even if you could come up with improvements that shortened the time of being incapacitated or reduced the pain associated with shifting - that would be a gift. Giving someone control over their lycanthropy, so that they could even delay or control their shift. That would be an incredible leap forward that no one has managed to date and would really change the stigma attached to werewolves or at least let them hide their condition more easily from people who might want to hurt them.”

Clarke had read through everything in the textbooks about Wolfsbane potion. The taste was supposed to be horrible, and it couldn’t even be mixed with something else to hide the taste. To be effective, it needed to be consumed out of a pure pewter goblet. The smoke that is given off when it is in the goblet should not be breathed in and the empty goblet continues to give off smoke for ten minutes after the contents are consumed. She picked up her lantern and headed into the restricted section and her heart nearly stopped as she crashed into a solid body. Her lamp fell to the ground and extinguished itself and she only got a glimpse of the other person as he pushed past her, slamming the metal gate shut as he ran out of the restricted section.

She didn’t know how long he’d been there, but he must have been leaving as she entered. She’d seen enough that he’d recognised him.

She shouted after him.

“Athol? What are you doing! Stop, I’m a prefect! Come back and explain yourself.”

She’d thought she was alone in the library, and seeing Athol shocked her. She didn’t know him well, even though they were in the same year. She never took him as the studious type. Besides, she'd have expected all the Slytherins to be hanging out together in their common room tonight. She went to follow him and nearly crashed into the librarian, Vera Kane.

Marcus’s mother had been the librarian at Hogwarts practically forever.  She’d previously instructed Transfiguration but moved on to the librarian job at the point when normal people usually retired. Marcus taking up the vacant Arithmancy job no doubt helped to convince her that staying at Hogwarts was the right decision.

“Dear, you seem to be terribly highly strung tonight. Shouting the library is just not done, no matter how difficult you are finding the research.”

“Didn’t you see him?”

“See who, dear?”

“That Slytherin, in the restricted section.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, dear. It’s Clarke, isn’t it?” Vera lifted the lamp to take a better look at her.

“You're the only one who has permission to access the restricted section tonight, Clarke.” Vera looked at her strangely and Clarke thought for a moment that she was about to put her hand on her forehead to check her temperature.

“But Athol, the Slytherin guy. He must have broken in.”

“Don’t you think you’ve been working a little hard, dear? Burning the midnight oil? You need to get some proper rest in too. Why don’t you come back to my sitting room, hmmm? I’ve got a nice pot of tea brewing and can add a little draught to it. It will help you sleep.”

Clarke quickly scrabbled her things together back into her bag and placed the books to be reshelved in the appropriate trolley.

“Thanks for the offer but, I couldn’t… I wouldn’t want to trouble you. I’d better race back to the Gryffindor Tower. You know, to beat the curfew.”

“Are you sure? I can write you a note. It is Saturday night, after all. You can get a little sleep in if you need. I remember being a teenager too, you know.”

“Positive. Thanks though.” Clarke buckled her satchel closed and hoisted it over one shoulder.

“Make sure you take some time to rest tomorrow, do you hear me? I might just be a foolish old woman in your eyes, but all work and no play this early in the term is never a good sign.”

Chapter Text

It took almost another whole week for Clarke to finally settle into her new routine. She sighed. By the half-term long weekend, she might even be caught up. Raven, in all her wisdom, realised they could dull the sounds coming from the common room by placing a muffliato charm on the door to their dorm. It was a great help on the nights when Clarke didn’t require any books from the library; she could come straight up from dinner, settle into a comfy pair of pyjamas, and work on her assignments.

On this particular evening, though, she headed to meet with Master Jackson to find out what potions he was in need of. Her plan was to brew any of the simple stuff he required and then start prepping for the wolfsbane potion. She had been reading a couple books she thought would be helpful in being able to bring the brew it to the next level. One of books, The Artistic Potion Makers of History, walked through how creative minds had improved upon already invented potions. Clarke focused not so much on the end results, but what changes were made to the initial recipe, how it was changed, and what affect it had. She also started to note everything she found, hoping to notice any trends or practices that had similar effects on multiple potions.

When she entered the hospital wing, Jackson was analysing a piece of parchment as he sat next to a young boy, maybe second or third year. It was dark in the room, but Clarke thought she recognised him as one of the Ravenclaw students that was part of their gobstone team. If it was him, he was apparently a surprise addition to the team having grown up in a muggle household, but he had been a master at marbles, the muggle version of gobstones.

Clarke waited near Jackson’s office, wanting to give them privacy. She was about to go check on the potion stock herself when he finally made his way over.

“Good evening, Clarke.”

“Evening, Master Jackson.” She replied politely. “I came to see if there were any particular brews you were in need of before I started working on the wolfsbane potion.”

“Ah, yes,” he said, then glanced over his shoulder to the boy lying in bed. “I haven’t needed it in a while, but I need some Duplicator for blood; he seems to have lost a lot. I’d say some creature got to him, and barring some small bruises, I can’t find any real injuries that would have caused it. He swears black and blue that he didn’t go near the Forbidden Forest, but you know what boys are like at that age if someone dares them to do something, though.” He sighed and scratched is head. “It’s quite odd, and none of my usual remedies are working.”

Clarke’s gaze had followed Jackson’s, and she needed a quiet vocal nudge to bring her back to the conversation.

“Yeah. I, mean, yes. I’ve never brewed that particular one, but it’s next to Skele-Gro in my textbook and I’ve looked over it. From what I can remember, it looked quite easy. I should only need to take a little over an hour.”

With that, Clarke went to the ingredient storage room to collect what she needed. Duplicator was an odd potion in that it could be customised for different healing needs; the potion base ingredients were mostly the same, until the last couple of ingredients, when the potion maker added something specific to make what needed to be duplicated, be it blood, white blood cells, antibodies, and so forth. One bald man had tried to do make it duplicate hair. Unfortunately, it worked too well, and he ended up in St Mungos when he woke the next morning as furry as a hound.  As she shifted through the shelves, she struggled to find any dried up pufferfish, a key ingredient in both the Duplicator and Skele-Gro formulae. Nor could she find any saprolite, a claylike substance that was high in iron and helped with making blood-specific Duplicator.

She took a deep breath in and exhaled with a groan. She would have to go down to the ingredient cupboard located in the students’ potions classroom down in the dungeons, and then hike all the way back up to room she used upstairs in the hospital wing. All thoughts of being able to work on the wolfsbane potion tonight flew out of the tower window faster than an owl permitted to go out to hunt on a moonlit night.

The trek down to the dungeons was quiet. It was getting close to the curfew for the younger students, and by now most would have already made their way back to their dorms not wanting to be caught out after hours. As she reached the dungeon, the cold cut through her Gryffindor jumper. With no thoughts she’d be down here tonight, Clarke hadn’t bothered to bring her jacket or cloak.

Clarke couldn’t understand how the Slytherins managed to live down here. Maybe it was their already cold hearts that made the dungeons perfect. Or maybe the cold is what froze Lexa’s face into her well known ‘expression’ of nonchalance, that only gave way to a smirk when she was amused or constipated. It was hard to tell. No, that was wrong, Clarke reminded herself. She shouldn’t judge the whole house on the fact that she and the other sixth year prefect didn’t get on. There may had been bad blood between the other three houses and Slytherin for centuries, but for the past couple of decades, it had slowly become more of an intense rivalry, more like what the other houses had between one another.

Wanting to get back upstairs as quickly as possible, she made her way over to the cupboard to grab her needed supplies. She found the saprolite, it not being used in many potions until OWL levels, but she struggled to find the pufferfish scales. Reaching far into the back on the upper shelf where ingredients sourced from animal carcasses were stored, her elbow hit the box of death moths and knocked it to the floor.

“Ugh!” This was not her night. The last thing she needed was to clean up a box of fragile, dried out moths. But when she checked the middle shelf, there was nothing there either. That was odd. Cece, the potions Professor, was really good about keeping this cupboard stocked, and was quite anal about insisting students tell her when they were getting down to reserves.

Finally finding the pufferfish, stashed on the bottom shelf, as if it had been placed back in a rush, she took some mental notes about other items running low, and headed back up so she could start brewing the potion for the boy.

As she was walking one of the dark hallways, she heard harsh whispering up ahead. Her first instinct told her to freeze, but then she reminded herself that as a sixth year with a great Defence Against the Dark Arts OWL result, there was hardly anything in the school that could harm her. Not that that hadn’t been the case in the past. Sometimes it amazed her that her parents and grandparents’ generations had even been allowed to attend the school. Her curiosity got the better of her, intrigued to see who it was, she placed her body close to the wall and crept forward.

“What were you even thinking?” she heard. The pitch, disguised slightly by the whisper, sounded like it came from a girl.

Clarke froze. Normally, she didn’t like to eavesdrop too much, but if this girl was bullying someone, it was her duty to stop it; so, she continued to listen so she could determine her next steps.

“I’m sorry,” the sound of a little boy spoke up, “I was scared what would happen.”

“Slytherins already have a bad reputation, even after all these years of trying to prove ourselves worthy of being included,” the girl said in her normal tone. Clarke recognised that voice of Lexa Woods. “And you’re sneaking around after hours, after last being seen outside with Archie, who is now in the hospital wing?”

Lexa’s tone was harsh. Way too harsh for the age of the boy, based on how young his voice sounded. Clarke peaked around the corner and saw she was talking to the first year, Aden. Leave it to Lexa Woods to use her power to bully the newest Slytherins into compliance.

Lexa continued. “There is more at stake here than you know, Aden. We cannot be bringing unneeded attention to ourselves right now.”

Clarke made herself tall and prepped herself for the upcoming clash she was about to start. She turned the corner and confronted the other Prefect.

“Maybe berating a first year in public isn’t the best practice if you want don’t want to attract unnecessary attention.” Clarke observed, walking towards the boy.

Lexa turned to scold the person who would dare tell her how to deal with members of her own house. But when she saw it was the ‘high and mighty Clarke Griffin’, she became even more heated.

“Maybe YOU should learn to mind your own business.”

Clarke ignored Lexa and focused on Aden. “Are you okay?”

The boy hunched in on himself. No words came out of his mouth, but he nodded.

“Are you worried about Archie? Do you know what happened to him?” Clarke asked.

Lexa moved in front of him, preventing Clarke from being able to see him. She turned her body slightly and indicated that he shouldn’t say anything then she turned back to face Clarke.

“This matter doesn’t involve you, Griffin. Now, why don’t you make your way back up to your own house and leave us lowly cellar-dwelling people to ourselves,” she sneered the last few words.

Clarke bent slightly to the left and took one last glance at Aden. “You sure you’re okay?”

“I am,” he squeaked.

With that, Clarke glared at Lexa before finally taking her leave. Though she would be checking in on Aden soon and taking more of an interest in him for the next few days, just to make sure he was safe.

The Duplicator potion was easy enough to make, though it was fiddlier than she’d first estimated. It ended up taking her two hours to prep all the ingredients, brew the potion, and then let it set at a specific temperature for the allotted time before it was complete. The colour was deep crimson with a luminescence from the scales of the pufferfish, yet opaque from the saprolite which also thickened the texture. There was no way this potion would be at all palatable, but generally the worse the taste, the more likely it was that the medicine would do its job.

Still fired up from her run in with Lexa, Clarke knew she wouldn’t be able to fall asleep any time soon.  Instead of heading back to the dorm just to toss and turn, she decided to start her preparations to make the basic version of the wolfsbane potion the next day. It definitely helped that one of the key ingredients was powdered moonstone. Moonstone was sold in its rock form, but it could only be used in potions once it was powdered. You couldn’t buy it ready-made, as the quality waned if it wasn’t used within five days of being ground up.

Placing the stone under a heavy cloth, she picked up a small hammer and the beat it into very small pebbles. She put these into her mortar and pestle, grinding it firstly into a sand-like consistency. She could feel the anger flowing out of her as the grains got smaller and smaller. The remaining frustration was released as she ground it in into a fine powder.

The moonstone was really the only ingredient she could prep beforehand, so instead, she went the storage cupboard and selected the best-looking dried mandrake leaves and juiciest Sopophorous Beans, setting them off to the side in separate jars. She’d double check again when she made the potion to see if anything better came in, but for now she was happy with what she had.

The next morning, Clarke headed down to breakfast, ready for the last day of the school week. Agro dropped the Daily Prophet’s morning edition onto her lap, almost spilling Clarke’s artisanal brew from the coffee stand. It was almost as if he was intentionally aiming for it, and Clarke realised she had been neglecting the poor owl. She would have to hit up the animal shop in Hogsmeade on their first trip for the semester, scheduled for the weekend after next to pick up some extra special treats.

Based on the news articles, there didn’t seem like there was much going on in the wizarding world. The front page was dedicated to the major fundraiser gala the ministry put on every other year. The picture in the middle of the article was of her mum flashing an award-winning smile as she stood in front of piles of gold to show off how many galleons had been donated at the previous gala.

The article noted that this year’s event was for medical research, specifically for the foundation Abby had founded in Jake’s name. There was a smaller photo of her father that made Clarke pause, however much she’d hated that her mother had insisted on keeping his name out in public. The article stated that high profile guests this year included the Clutterbucks, Winters, and Wallace’s.

She wasn’t sure who the young man with greasy, lank shoulder length hair next to Mr Wallace was. She wondered if it was his son who she’d met once when she’d been too small to leave behind when her mum did a house call when she was working at St Mungos. When she hadn’t seen him at Hogwarts, she’d assumed the Wallace’s had hired tutors to home school him. Their house was opulent enough to suggest that they could afford it. She almost felt sorry for him, being home alone all the time.

Clarke’s mother had invited her to a couple of these fundraisers over the past several years even though they were held on Fridays during term time., Clarke was grateful that she had always able to use school as an excuse. The reality was, she simply hated galas. She hated how her mum acted when she was at them now. She had gone a few times to St Mungo’s events when her father was still alive. Jake had made sure to complete his duties as the Chief Doctor’s spouse, but soon after, he and Clarke would sneak off and make their own fun. They would savour the odd food chefs would come up with for the event, rating them and saying what they’d do different to improve it. The same was true for the weird concoction of drinks too, though they did have a unfortunate event happen when Jake tried the wizard’s version of the muggle favourite fireball shot.

They thought they were alone outside when Jake took a huge swig of the fiery drink and lined himself up to shoot the ball of fire towards a strategically placed fizzing wizzbee. He held his breath as long as he could, feeling the heat build. Just as he started to blow, Abby stormed out into the gardens and yelled Jake’s name, making him turn towards her. The fireball went straight towards Abby, and though not explosively hot, was still sparking enough to ignite the fine hippogriff feathers that covered the lower half of Abby’s dress. The dress quickly became its own fireball, but fortunately Abby reacted quickly enough, and she had the flames out in a few seconds. She stood in a singed, soaked dress, with only a few minutes before she was supposed to present an award to none other than Jake himself for his voluntary work supporting the institution.

Clarke laughed at the memory. She remembered the fear in his eyes when he saw who the fireball had been launched towards. Of course, Abby was able to magic the dress dry, but she couldn’t do anything about the burnt material. If it had been stained or ripped, she could have easily fixed it, but a burn completely changed the properties of the fabric and was non-reversible. It took years for Abby to be able to laugh at having to wear her cloak over her specially made dress while she delivered her final speech and presentation of awards.

Raven arrived downstairs into the Great Hall as Clarke was wrapping up breakfast and her reading of the newspaper. On one of the last pages, she noted a small article from a small town outside London about another muggleborn child gone missing. She recognised the name as one of the young Hufflepuff girls who had gone home for a long weekend because her father was in an accident.

Her disappearance now made it two muggleborn children that had disappeared on the way to or from Hogwarts.

“Another kid’s gone missing.” Clarke said, pointing to the article as Raven sat.

“Huh?” Raven questioned. Clearly, she wasn’t fully awake yet, even though she’d been snoring softly when Clarke had made it in from the hospital wing the night before.

“Clarissa Felmway, from Hufflepuff? She went home yesterday but never made it. And remember that girl from the sorting ceremony that just disappeared?” Clarke explained.

“Oh yeah,” Raven snapped her fingers. “Weren’t they both muggleborn?”

“Yup.” Clarke answered. “And get this, last night, that kid from Ravenclaw who is their gobstone protégé.”

“Smith?” Raven offered.

“Him! Yeah, he was in the hospital wing last night.”

Raven’s eyes narrowed as she studied Clarke’s faces. “Ooookay?”

Clarke huffed, folded her paper, and dropped it on the table. She leaned in and not so quietly whispered to Raven.

“He’s muggleborn too. Didn’t you see his parents at the train? His dad was wearing a suit and a tie! All the kids who have been attacked are muggle born. And get this,” she looked around to make sure no one was near, “last night when I was coming back up from the dungeons, Lexa was yelling at a young first year, Aden, about Slytherin’s reputation. And something about how he can’t be bringing attention to them because there is more at stake.”

Raven just stared at her in disbelief. Clarke was not one for conspiracy theories; she tended to be a very logical person who relied on facts to guide her decisions. But based on what she was saying now, it seemed Clarke was starting to leap to some very troublesome conclusions.  Raven was about to jump in, but her silence must have gone on too long because Clarke continued.

“Don’t you think it’s odd that all this happens, and it’s Slytherins that are the ones sneaking around?” She asked.

“And!” Clarke went on. “There was that boy from their house that crashed into me running out of the restricted section of the library last week.”

Raven took a breath. “Couldn’t they argue that you were sneaking around that same night, too?”

Clarke looked at her indignantly. “They could, but they would be wrong. Firstly, I’m a Prefect and I’m allowed to be out late in the evenings. And secondly, I had permission from a professor to access the restricted section. All it would take is for someone to ask the right professor and they would know that I was where I was supposed to be.”

“Well,” Raven dragged out, “Lexa is also a Prefect, is she not? Did you bother to check with any professors to see if she was also just where she was supposed to be the other night?”

Clarke’s eyes narrowed. “Why are you taking her side? Is this because of Anya?”

Raven laughed at the accusation. “Seriously, Clarkey? I’m not taking sides. I just think your hatred of Lexa is making you imagine things that aren’t there.”

“I don’t hate Lexa.” She clarified. “We just don’t see eye to eye on everything.”

“You don’t see eye to eye with her on anything. Ever since you said that their dorms were in the dungeon to practice being locked up in Azkaban when they’re older – on the same week that she found out that her dad had just died there – you’ve been funny about her. I don’t know why you didn’t just apologise immediately and move on. But this isn’t about that. How many times have we been places where we shouldn’t be? Daring each other to walk a few feet into the forbidden forest, teasing the whomping willow, or exploring parts of the castle that were out of bounds to students; where we never should have been in?”

Clarke rolled her eyes but wouldn’t give Raven the satisfaction of being right.

“Also, Lexa may come off harsh to you, but apparently, she’s very protective of her house, its members and its reputation. The little ones basically revere her. I just think you’re reading things into the situation that just aren’t there.” Raven pocketed the blueberry muffin Clarke had been saving for later, swallowed the rest of Clarke’s coffee and disappeared just as the bell to let them know that the first class started in ten minutes rang.

- - - - - - - -

It was finally Sunday and Clarke and Raven sat strategically against a large tree trunk, soaking up the sun while they could before the autumn winds moved in. Yesterday there had been another quidditch match that did not look to be going to end well for either team. Ravenclaw had eventually managed to pull out a last-minute win and in the resulting adrenaline rush took the celebrations a little too far. One of the cocky fifth year students had animated a corridor worth of the suits of armour to follow Slytherin team members around, teasing them about their loss.

Anya was already fuming after the first hour of tracking them down but lost it completely when the spell started to wane and the suits of armour started to turn their harsh words to anyone they encountered, introducing first years to fifteenth century vulgarities that muggles never heard until they were properly introduced to the works of Shakespeare when they were a few years older. Her loss of temper had resounded throughout the castle when she collapsed every suit of armour into a pile of metal.

Clarke was engrossed in an advanced book about potions while Raven worked on a muggle trinket she had brought from home. They were both too distracted to realise that someone was headed their way until a sudden shadow loomed over them. Raven was the first to look up at the intruder.

“You’re blocking my sun, cheekbones.” Raven said to the Head Girl.

“Sadly, I’m not here for you. Clarke, the Headmistress wishes to see you. Well, all the Prefects.” Anya stated.

Clarke looked up, “why?”

“I have a feeling it has to do with the chaos from yesterday.”

Clarke looked over at Raven, who was no longer working on her project, but rather staring at Anya. Clarke shook her head; she could not figure out what Raven saw in her. She closed her book, stood up, and gestured towards the castle doors. “After you,” she said.

“See you later, sweet cheeks,” Raven called out. “And I’m not referring to your cheekbones this time.”

Clarke could hear Raven laughing but was surprised to hear a chuckle come from Anya, followed by a slight grin, even though she was shaking her head the whole time.

When they reached the stairwell under the stone eagle, the rest of the Prefects and Head Boy were waiting for them. She gave Wells a small wave before they all clambered onto the stairs for the quiet ride up. As far as Clarke was aware, the Headmistress had never called a meeting with everyone; most information and duties were handed down from the Head Boy and Girl.

The door magically opened, and the group trudged into Indra’s office. It was pristine and organised. The portraits of former headmasters and mistresses looked approvingly over her shallow tray with dividers, so official documents delivered by owl could be placed in order of receipt. A pad of freshly pressed parchment rested in the middle of the desk, with three bottles of ink in various colours placed on the right-hand side. The rest of the room, from the tidy bookshelves to the pensieve, mirrored the desk. There was a place for everything and everything was in its place.

Indra stood behind the desk. Her expression was blank as her eyes glossed over everyone in the room. She didn’t invite them to sit down, not that there were enough chairs and sofas available. Clarke knew Indra was a woman of few words. She was always to the point, but never purposefully mean. To some, she was seen as harsh, but Clarke knew that she was fair and cared deeply for all her students.

“Do you know why I appointed you all into leadership positions?” She started. No one answered. “Anyone?”

When no one spoke up, Indra continued. “I put you in these positions to help me run the school in a manner that is safe for everyone. I picked you all because I thought you were respected, brave, and smart. However, there is a ‘but’.” She walked around the desk to stand on the same side they were all on, “It seems many of you have just been enjoying the privilege of the position without doing any of the additional work.”

Some hung their heads at the accusations, silently admitting the truth.

“When the suits of armour were taunting the Slytherins yesterday, who helped put a stop to it?” Only Anya, the Head Boy Roan, Lexa, and Wells raised their hands.

Indra continued, “and when someone set off dung bombs in the hallway, did anyone step up to clear it out or direct people a different way, or did you all leave it up to Mr Lovejoy and the house elves to sort out?” This time no one moved.

Indra shook her head. “Disappointing. I fully understand the tendency to stick to one’s own house, and that you all have your own schedules. However, you are Prefects for the whole school, not just for your house. I am tired of the inter-house rivalries. A little friendly competition is fine when it comes to quidditch and the house cup, but when it prevents you from doing your jobs, it crosses a line.”

The rest of the group had the wherewithal to finally look embarrassed.

“If you cannot be the sort of team player I require, let me know now so I can replace you with someone who is.”

The children all looked around at each other, but no one responded.

“Very well. Now, from here on out, I expect you to be working together. Anya and Roan will be reporting to me directly on who is helping and who is not.” The two Heads nodded. “And if you see something suspicious or wrong, I expect you to go to them, or to your Head of House. Understood?”

A chorus of “Yes, Headmistress” rang out as everyone confirmed they heard what she said and agreed to it. Clarke thought back on what her and Raven had talked about yesterday, all the sneaking around the Slytherins seemed to be doing and debated on bringing it up with Indra privately. In the end, she decided to sit on the information a bit longer until she had more. Based on Raven’s reaction, if she was going to bring something up to any of the staff, let alone the Headmistress, she clearly needed tangible proof.

Chapter Text

Golden leaves littered the gravel path that led from the grounds of Hogwarts to Hogsmeade. There was no satisfying crunch as Clarke stepped on them; the dew that was starting to form each morning covered any organic matter it could. The sun had risen high enough to cut through the early morning bite, but it couldn’t entirely overpower the autumn crisp that was in the air.

Clarke cradled her coffee mug, letting the warmth seep through her fingers and into her body. She wasn’t worried about it splashing out as she walked due to the charm she’d put on it, The flow of heat through her hands mimicked the way the caffeine and Picker-Upper Potion she had added slowly spread throughout her core and limbs.

Ever since Indra had told the Prefects that they needed to be more present in the daily lives of all Hogwart’s students, Clarke’s days and nights had been a blur. On top of her school work, and additional potions work for Jackson, Anya had put everyone on a rotating schedule to patrol the grounds and the school after hours.

“At least I don’t have to patrol tonight.” Clarke told Raven, taking a large pull of her coffee. “With it being a full moon tonight, I can only imagine what type of crazy things will happen.”

Raven grabbed a flask from her jacket pocket and poured it into her own coffee before offering it to Clarke who waved her off. As much as this trip to Hogsmeade and away from school had been just what Clarke needed, she still had a job to do later.

“Who’s on tonight?” Raven asked.

“The Slytherin Prefects.” She took a deep breath in, the cool air waking her more than her drink. “Oddly enough, Anya is going to be patrolling too, so they’ll have one extra tonight to help them.”

Raven’s eyes became distant, and Clarke cleared her throat. “Still pining over her, I see?”

A grin spread across her face. “Absolutely. She could slither in any time. Know what I mean.” Raven wiggled her eyebrows.

“Gross.” Clarke commented.

“Actually,” Raven kicked a rock out in front of them, pausing. “Anya asked me to meet her in town later. For a date.”

Clarke’s eyes widened, her steps faltering for just a second. She couldn’t have heard Raven correctly. Sure, she knew that Raven had a thing for Anya, and she’d never really seen Anya completely turn her down. But she’d also never seen Anya initiate conversation with Raven.

“What? When did this all happen?”

Raven explained how Anya had found Raven in the library trying to convince Vera Kane, the librarian, to allow her to check out two more books than allowed. No amount of sweet talking, reassurances they’d all be returned by the due date, or reminders that Vera literally knew where she lived got the older woman to budge. While they were arguing, Anya walked up to the stack of books, pulled a couple from the top, winked at her, then told the librarian she would be checking them out.

Raven had a huge smile on her face. “She asked me what I needed them all for, and before I could answer she said I should tell her about it over lunch instead. Today.”

The amazingly quick development seemingly out of nowhere had Clarke’s brain swimming with emotions. On one hand, she was super happy for her friend; Raven had been pining over Anya for more than a year now, with no indication that her feelings were reciprocated. After Finn, Clarke worried about Raven getting her hopes up and her heart broken again.

Anya had always been an honest person, as far as Clarke knew. Sure, she had a tendency of putting her House first (but who didn’t), and she was scary as all get-out on the Quidditch Pitch, but she was also fair, never favouring her own house when it came to handing out duties.

A wave of jealousy also overcame her. She and Raven were supposed to hang out for the day. They had been talking about it for two weeks now, planning the best way to hit up the stores to avoid the crowds. But again, Raven was her best friend, and she was clearly excited, so Clarke put on a happy face, even if Clarke’s own feelings had been slightly hurt.

“So just ditching me for a pretty girl, huh?” she asked, making sure to emphasize the teasing in her tone.

Raven shrugged. “I figured you wouldn’t mind. We are meeting up after you start your Prefect duty, and I plan to meet you at the Three Broomsticks before we head back.”

Clarke groaned at the reminder that she was going to have to be on call for a few hours. It came as no surprise really. There had been a supposed kidnapping in Hogsmeade a few days ago. And although she’d later been told that the child had just slipped away from her parents and gotten lost in the woods trying to sneak into the Shrieking Shack, she could see why it would still set off alarm bells for Indra and some of the Professors.

The Head Mistress had decided additional security measures would be put in place for the trip. Several professors had been sent to chaperone the students, and to keep an eye out for anything suspicious. But with the realisation that if something happened, some students would not feel comfortable talking to a professor, Roan and Anya decided it was best to keep a Prefect posted at the gazebo in the town square throughout the day as back up. Just like their night time schedules, there was a rotation throughout the day so that no one had to miss out on an entire trip.

The sounds of a bustling village hit Clarke’s ears as they walked over the bridge that brought them into Hogsmeade. With the beautiful weather and it being a Hogsmeade day for the students, the streets were filled more than normal. It reminded Clarke more of Diagon Alley than a quaint little village.

Clarke smiled as some kids sat with their parents, telling them about their first month at school. It was common for wizarding families to come to Hogsmeade on the school’s formal Hogsmeade days to see their kids for a few hours.

They walked past the tightly packed joke shop, Zonko’s. George Weasley had bought out the owner years ago, since the he was ready to retire and move to somewhere warmer and quiet. George had kept the name for nostalgic reasons.

Zonko’s was one of the first places the younger kids ran to. The second most popular destination was Honeydukes, where they could be found buying up as many items as their pocket money allowed. The Hogwarts caretaker, Lovejoy, never really appreciated the sheer number of whizzbangs, dungbombs, and canary creams that were set off after each Hogsmeade visit.

Raven decided that the first place they needed to stop at was Brood and Peck, the best store for beast-related items. She wanted to buy Mecha a few tasty treats to entice him to work on some new tricks she was attempting to teach him. Clarke was happy to go along. Agro had been distant lately, and she could understand why. There had been a lot more correspondence with her mother now that she was working with Master Jackson. Abby was constantly nagging Clarke, who made it a point to keep her responses very concise and to the point. This only seemed to have led to more questions, and thus more flights for the owl, who deserved the mealy worm biscuits that were her favourite Brood and Peck treat.

The last place they went before Raven’s date was to J. Pippin’s Potions. Clarke loved the place. The smell was always different and completely unique, depending on what jars people had been opening, or what the owner had been brewing at the time. The shelves along the walls were orderly, the rows of product crisply lined up. Each had its own bronze label telling customers not only what was in that line of jars, but what magical properties it held, how to determine quality, and what it was most useful for.

In the middle of the store were tables filled with all different types of cauldrons. There were mini ones that were great for the traveling witch or wizard, and ones of different metals that could change the properties of whatever potion one was brewing. She could spend hours combing through everything.

Pippin’s wasn’t overly crowded­—only a few students roamed the shop along with a couple of adults, but the small space filled to the brim with all the gadgets and ingredients made it feel more packed than it was.

As she was fawning over the newest concoctions, Clarke heard a giggle. When she turned, she saw Tris and Charlotte together. The fingers on the hands closest to the other were loosely intertwined, allowing them to use their free hands to pick through items. She wasn’t eavesdropping but couldn’t help but overhearing parts of their conversation.

“… says the revitalizing effects would help with your tiredness as well as your achy joints and itchy teeth.” Charlotte read out loud from the label on the shelf.

Tris looked over at Charlotte, smiled, and rested her head on Charlotte’s shoulder. It was adorable, and as much as Clarke had wanted to worry for the young Gryffindor, it was impossible to do so after observing the way Tris looked at her so fondly.

“It’s only been like that for a day or so. Probably just a twenty-four hour bug. I’m sure I’ll be fine by Monday.”

“Still ….”

The symptoms that she’d heard Charlotte mentioned swirled around in her head. She’d read them before, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on them. She was starting to get lost in thought when she heard Raven.

“Yo, Griff!” she yelled from across the room, without a care in the world that the shop was a rather quiet atmosphere.

Clarke turned in a rush to quiet her friend and slammed into the back of another student. He fell forward and started to choke on something. Clarke hoisted him back up, and slammed his back, trying to dislodge whatever had gotten stuck in the person’s throat.

It didn’t help that the boy’s hands shot up to his mouth after one final harsh slam, trying to keep whatever had caused him to choke in his mouth.

When she turned him around, she was surprised to see it was Athol. He had never come off as the potion making type. In fact, she had to work with him in remedial potions just last year. It was almost as surprising as spotting him in the library. He wasn’t all that proficient at reading either. Most of the books in the restricted section would have been well beyond his ability to comprehend them.

“Are you alright?!” she asked, adrenaline coursing through her. His eyes seemed to be almost bugging out of his head and she was confused by his actions. She needed to double check that he hadn’t been confunded.

He nodded his head.

“You’re sure?”

“M otay, Carke. Tank you.” he mumbled.

“Is your tongue swollen? Need me to check?”

His eyes widened in fear and he clamped down on his jaw, shaking his head. “M good.” He stood up and hurried himself out of the shop.

“What a weird guy.” Raven said, watching his abrupt departure. Clarke could only nod, determined to keep a closer eye on him.

The two wrapped up their shopping and headed out towards the main square. Clarke stopped by a food trolly to grab herself a warm pretzel with beer cheese, made from the Hogshead Amber, and a Butterbeer. She’d need something to eat while on her Prefect duty if she was going to last until meeting up with Raven for dinner.

The gazebo in the center of town was the perfect place to keep an eye out. From here, she could see down the main strip, as well as the path that led to Hogwarts. She greeted Wells with a hug before asking if there was anything she needed to know.

“Only issue I’ve seen was an older kid trying to coax some a third year down an ally, but the kid’s boxing telescope went off and popped the dude in the eye. It was awesome.”

“Ugh.” Clarke chimed in.

“Agreed. I talked to the manager at Zonko’s and she replaced the telescope for free, which was nice.”

Clarke nodded. “If she got a testimonial, she’ll no doubt sell boxes to more of them. It’s good business too.”

With the update complete, Clarke sat on the gazebo’s bench and took in the movements around her. Students were now heading to the different restaurants and cafés. Those that were with their parents seemed to head towards the Hogshead; it would be less crowded than the Three Broomsticks, and since they were accompanied by an adult, the owner didn’t care that they hadn’t turned seventeen yet.

There were a couple of familiar faces Clarke recognised from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement strolling throughout the village. She assumed they were here for the same reason that the prefects and a few of the professors had to patrol today too. That made her sit up and take notice. If the Department were taking the threat so seriously, perhaps Indra wasn’t exactly sharing everything she knew with the Prefects.

She saw Charlotte and Tris make their way out of the potion shop and headed towards Madam Puttifoot’s Tea Shop. They both seemed happy to just be in each other’s orbit, at least they did momentarily. Clarke was shocked to see them so close at one point, and then mere seconds later, Tris was ripping her hand out of Charlotte’s and creating a gap between them.

Clarke followed the direction of Tris’s gaze and saw none other than Anya and Lexa. Was Tris afraid of Lexa seeing her with Charlotte? Or Anya? Clarke struggled to figure out why the two girls, who were so happy just seconds ago, were now suddenly shy about being near one another.

“Whelp, my hot date is here.” Raven piped up, slapping Clarke on her knee. Clarke had forgotten she was still sitting there after Well’s handover briefing. “Wish me luck.”

Clarke shook her head. “You don’t need luck, Raven. You’re amazing.” She smiled; a truly happy smile this time. “Have fun.”

- - - - - - -

“We should probably order some food while we’re here. It’s late and way past dinner time at the Great Hall.” Raven commented as she grabbed the menu to peruse it. The Three Broomsticks had a set menu every evening, but in the past few years the new owner had added a smaller rotating menu based on seasonal foods.

“Didn’t you just eat not that long ago?” Clarke said.

“I’m always hungry. This big brain of mine needs to constantly be fed.”

Clarke balled up a piece of napkin and threw it at her friend.

“Think we’ll make it back before curfew? I know Indra’s worried, but having us come back before sundown during this time of the year doesn’t make much sense.” Raven asked, not bothering to look up.

Outside, the sun was already making its descent, and the stars would soon be out. If the food was prepped fresh to order, they probably wouldn’t make it.

“Most likely not. Unless we get a salad.” Clarke grimaced. She was all for eating healthy food, but she could do that at school. What was the point of going to a tavern and not getting a burger, or something fried?

“Can’t we just say you were out searching for someone?” It was a good suggestion by Raven.

“And what excuse would you have for being there?”

“I could be the one you’re looking for.”

“For being a genius, you’re kind of an idiot.” Clarke chuckled. “Everyone here can see I’m with you.”

“Touche, Clarkey.”

The two ordered a few appetizers to share, and some Butterbeer. Raven flourished the tiny flask out of her jacket pocket again, and poured whatever was in it into the drink. Clarke nodded her head this time at the offer to do the same to hers.

“So, tell me about your date.” Clarke prodded.

Raven’s eyes lit up as she went into full detail. Anya had an ‘in’ with the waitress at the Puddifoot’s and had placed an order to go by owl, the same night she’d asked Raven to go on a date with her. They’d taken a long stroll through the forest to the small lake nearby. Because of how shallow the water was, it was still warm so it was a popular swimming hole in the summer months.

“She already had a blanket and pillows laid out in the open so the sun could keep us warm. There was a bottle of Rosmerta’s Mead with a clever magical snow pile covering it to keep it cold. And the spread she pulled out of the basket was top grade. It was a sampler so there were a few bites of almost everything they sell off their menu. Plus! That rhubarb crumble I really love.”

Clarke wrinkled her nose; she was not a fan of rhubarb.

Raven sighed, her gaze filtering off to a recent past while a large smile grew on her face. She told Clarke all about how chivalrous Anya had been, giving her the comfier pillow, plating all the foods, lending Raven her scarf when a massive cloud covered the sun and the temperature dropped.

“She’s amazing, Clarke. Everything that Finn isn’t. And funny! I mean, you’ve witnessed her dry humour, but she’s actually goofy funny too. She told me some stories about some of the crazy things she’s gotten into with Lincoln and Lexa. Would never have guessed that someone so serious-looking would get into so many scrapes.” Raven took a swig of her Butterbeer.

Clarke smiled. “Sounds like a match made in heaven. I take it there will be another date?”

Raven nodded and Clarke held up her tankard.

“You deserve it, Rae. Cheers.” And she did deserve it, so why was Clarke suddenly feeling left out?

They finished their meal and hurried back to Hogwarts. While they walked, Clarke tried to work out the mix of emotions coursing through her. She was confused; the mention of Lexa had her reeling back to the mess she made years ago with her poorly timed, and not at all funny, joke at Lexa’s expense about her father. She had later learned that it hit way too close to home but she’d never taken the opportunity to apologise. Plenty of people seemed to see a different side to Lexa than she did – they all loved and respected her and now it seemed Raven did too.

Then there was the mention of Finn. He had played them both. Clarke knew this feeling, she was jealous that Raven was able to move on, that someone else wanted her. Didn’t Clarke deserve that too?

Though she couldn’t complain about how the thing with Finn ended. If it hadn’t been for him, Raven and Clarke would have never been as close as there were now, especially since they had originally been in separate houses. And she probably wouldn’t be Master Jackson’s potions aid either!

She remembered the day that she had found out Finn was cheating. It was Valentine’s Day, and she was excited when she had gotten to her dorm to find a box of goodies on her pillow with a card. The card was handwritten by Finn telling her how much he loved her and that her gift this year was extra special because each treat held a memory of theirs that she could relive through his eye. She should have guessed something was up when she opened the box and it wasn’t the normal chocolates that she loved, but a bunch of tiny looking pies. She knew something was up when the taste of rhubarb hit her tongue, followed quickly by Finn’s memory of her helping him study multiplication tables. That couldn’t be right though, she hadn’t known him when she was that young. Then she saw the face he remembered, and it wasn’t hers. It was Raven’s. That’s when she knew.

Being caught was the least of Finn’s troubles. Not only had word spread of the cheating, but he soon found out that he had cheated on the wrong girls.

The first issue came a day after the scandal. Clarke had discretely delivered a box of chocolates which had shown up on his bed with a note that just said, ‘you deserve better’. He dove into them, immediately feeling the euphoria of the chocolate, or so he thought. The real effect was slow, so it took a while anyone to notice that something could be wrong. It started when a friend found him making heart eyes at one of the Hogwarts statues. Apparently, he was sweet talking the statue, and using his ‘signature’ hair flip to while talking to it. Later that day, he was found doing the same with one of the gargoyles. The next day, his focus was on the owl that had dropped off some mail to the other third year he was sitting next to at breakfast. The girl was so grossed out with how Finn was flirting with her owl that she scooped it up and ran off, calling him a freak. But it was the third day when he started to flirt with objects that bore not even a resemblance to a sentient object, like the tables in the library, that someone finally took him to see the healer, Master Jackson.

It was discovered that he had been given a love potion with a twist that caused him to see random, inappropriate objects as beautiful women and to swoon after them. Master Jackson was actually quite impressed with the potion, though he’d never be able to admit it outside of the staff room.

Finn’s hospital stay wasn’t horrible. He was happy to have a break before he had to face the school, knowing too many people had seen him flirt with random objects. But his reprieve was not apparently meant to last long. It was a day after his return from hospital as he was walking around the entrance outside the Great Hall when something even worse had happened. The tingling started at the base of his skull and spread around to the top of his head. There was a sudden pop, which sounded like a bang to his own ears, as his hair literally exploded. There was no damage to his skull, but each individual hair on his head shot off, the strands floating around the air like the seeds of a blown dandelion. He stood there, dumbfounded. His hair. His precious, light brown locks that he used to flip so elegantly were no more. What was worse was that no one cared about his plight. People were just furious mad at him for getting his hair in their faces, on their clothes, and into their mouths.

Once the professors put two and two together, they were able to pin down who the culprits of Finn’s woes had been. Raven and Clarke were both given two weeks’ worth of detention. It was over that time that they realised that they had both been taken advantage of, and that Finn was the jerk, not the other girl. They bonded over each of their curses, both applauding the skill and imagination of the other. In fact, and much to the professor’s chagrin, they even worked out a plan to get Moaning Myrtle involved. Whenever she was bored, which was most of the time given that her only other hobby was thinking about death, she would follow him around, haunting him with wails and loud sobbing, and dousing him with buckets of toilet water until Indra confronted her and insisted that she had to stand down.

This was the other key event that led to Raven getting removed from Ravenclaw that no one else knew about. The public story was that she had almost burned the tower down, and that the bronze raven refused to ask her questions or riddles for entry. And while that was one hundred percent true, it was the fact that Raven had threatened Finn with some unspecified new threat that would happen to him in his sleep that was the last straw. While Raven knew that she’d never endanger his life, or his limbs in any kind of permanent way, his fear of retaliation was deemed to be valid.

Accordingly, it was decided to remove her from Ravenclaw and sort her into another house. The sorting hat had laughed when it was placed on her head for the second time. It extensively debated putting her into Slytherin, based on the sheer genius and bastardry of what she’d done, as well as the plans that she was yet to put into action, but eventually decided that she might thrive if she was moved across into Gryffindor.

Remembering just how much she loved Raven, Clarke looped her arm through best friend’s as they made their way across the grounds from Hogsmeade and into the castle.

Unfortunately for Clarke, their earlier conversation about having to look for someone must have pushed some kind of negative thought out into the universe. Clarke and Raven managed to slip in just after curfew, but when Clarke did bed checks of the girls’ dormitories, she realised that Octavia was missing. She asked around but no one seemed to know where she was.

Going off a hunch, Clarke decided to go out to the grounds to check the Groundkeeper’s hut where the Care of Magical Creature’s professor still lived, holding the role of Keeper and Keys of grounds too.

As she snuck down to the cottage, Clarke noticed a number of figures surrounding Professor Lincoln standing just outside the front door. She bounced back and forth to random boulders to get closer, trying to be as stealthy as possible. Then, when she got close enough, she used the abnormally large produce in the garden to hide behind.

There she saw Ontari, Athol, Echo, and Lexa. She automatically assumed that Lexa was on duty and had gone down to escort the rule breakers back to their dorm. Lincoln patted Lexa on the back and told them to use his hut as necessary when they were ready, but they had better not get caught. She overheard him tell them that the one close call they had had was enough and if they were caught the ministry would have their heads. If they weren’t careful, they were likely to get killed. Or worse, expelled! The four Slytherins looked suitably contrite and nodded before heading off.

Clarke was surprised when, instead of going back to the castle, the group turned towards the woods. She was even more surprised when a professor of Hogwarts yelled out to them to be extra careful, rather than running after them to head them off.

With Octavia nowhere to be found, she made her way back to the main school building. Reaching the stairs that led to her dorm, Clarke saw legs approaching her; legs carrying a handful of pastries, cheese, and fruit. She eyed the oddity curiously, then saw the jet-black hair.

“What the hell Octavia,” Clarke seethed.

Not being able to see, Octavia jumped, dropping half her food. “Clarke!” Octavia gulped, bending down to pick up what she could.

“Wingardium leviosa.” Clarke said, pointing to the remaining food on the ground. It all rose in one big bundle and hovered in front of her. She glared at Octavia pointedly. “What are you doing out after curfew?”

“Sorry, Clarke. Our dueling club got out late, and we’ve been practicing some pretty physical spells. I’m so hungry, and I couldn’t wait till breakfast, so I dropped down to the kitchens. Want a chocolate croissant?” she asked, handing one that was only a little bit squashed in her grip out to Clarke?

Clarke shook her head. “I want you to get back upstairs before we both get in trouble. And stop sneaking out, it’s dangerous right now, ok?”

- - - - -

The sheets were cool against her skin as she crawled underneath to finally snuggle into her bed. The small brazier in their room kept it quite comfortable as the cold nights settled in.

“So, you’ll never guess who I saw breaking curfew,” Clarke baited Raven. She then told her how she saw Lexa, Ontari, Athol and Echo down at Lincoln’s sneaking into the woods.

Clarke thought on what she saw some more. “Maybe that’s why Athol was being weird earlier. Because of what they were getting up to tonight.”

Raven nodded. “Acting odd doesn’t mean anything bad though. Maybe he accidentally ate something that puffed his tongue up. Or got one of those muggle tongue piercings,” she suggested.

“No. They’re clearly up to something, and Lincoln is protecting them.” Clarke accused. “And, Lexa was supposed to be on duty tonight. She’s not only not doing her job; I think she’s the ringleader for whatever they are up to!”

Raven huffed, and small growl following suit. “Cut the bullshit, Clarke. Listen, I love you. But you have got this chip on your shoulder about Lexa that I just don’t get. It’s like, you hurt her feelings and rather than woman up and say sorry, you just made her out to be the bad guy so you don’t have to feel bad.”

Clarke opened her mouth to rebut the accusation, but Raven’s hand flew up to silence her.

“No. Lexa is a wonderful person. You need to suck it up and talk to her. Especially since, with Anya being around more, hopefully, Lexa will be too. I really think you two would get along well, if you just stopped whatever this,” she waved her hands up and down towards Clarke, “is. If I didn’t know you so well I’d think you had a secret crush on her.”

Clarke’s mouth actually dropped this time. A crush, on Lexa Woods? I mean, obviously she was beautiful, there was nothing wrong with Clarke’s eyesight, but she didn’t even know her. But that seemed to be the crux of Raven’s issue; Clarke didn’t know Lexa. Perhaps she could try, especially for Raven, but every bone in Clarke’s body was on high alert. As far as Clarke was concerned, Lexa was up to something. With all the disappearances and close calls that had occurred since term began, she would wager it was something a whole lot more serious than just sneaking food out of the kitchen after curfew. But how would she convince Indra if she couldn’t even work out how to get Raven on her side?

Chapter Text

Clarke groaned and pulled the covers over her head to hide from the sunlight flowing through the window in an attempt to stave off having to get out of bed.

Raven had obviously left the window curtains wide open when she left earlier that morning, and in Clarke’s late night stupor, she had forgotten to shut her personal curtains around her bed. Either Raven was off for round two of her date with Anya, or more likely, she was trying to catch up on her studies after taking the entire Saturday off for the Hogsmeade visit.

At least with it being Sunday, there was no rush to move. Breakfast even stayed on longer. That thought perked up Clarke’s stomach and gave her some impetus to move. She felt even less appealing than a pre-chewed and spat out snot-flavoured every flavoured bean. She was convinced she hadn’t slept more than ten minutes in a row before dawn, having tossed and turned all night.

Between the sounds of wild animals far too close to the Hogwarts castle, and Raven’s snoring, she struggled for any peace and quiet. Even her thoughts were loud, replaying Raven’s words round and round in her head.

The very idea, that she might have a crush on Lexa Woods was preposterous. All night had been a see-saw of visions, from picturing her classmate’s plump, kissable lips to then the tone of Lexa’s voice when she told her to get lost after Clarke had confronted her over how she was treating Aden. Sure, she was attractive, physically, but she was a typical Slytherin; sneaky, deceptive and up to no good. She didn’t have time to worry about whether or not she was attracted to Lexa. What she needed to do was use the limited time that was available to her to work out what on earth the Slytherin sixth year was up to, before someone else got hurt.

Clarke remembered the posse that she had seen slinking off into the Forbidden Forest. It was best to get up to see if any of them were at breakfast. She could check in with Master Jackson as well to see if anyone had been hurt overnight. It had been the full moon after all. Even muggle researchers knew that statistically more people presented to accident and emergency services on a full moon. Besides, she had to check in with him about the Wolfsbane potion preparations. It would be easy to ask if there had been any casualties from the Hogsmeade day, as well as to see if any of the Slytherins had been admitted after visiting a place that was off-limits to students for good reasons.

****

Down in the Great Hall, at the Gryffindor table, Clarke intentionally chose a seat where she could look over the Slytherin table.

It didn’t hurt that it was the end of the table where Charlotte was sitting too. Clarke glanced over at her to see how she was doing.  She seemed a little bit subdued as she aimlessly shuffled the eggs on her plate. Clarke tried to remember whether she had been so moody at that age. They’d only just celebrated Charlotte’s fifteenth birthday.

Her parents had sent her a mobile phone, even though all muggle parents had been informed that the technology didn’t work within a five-mile radius of Hogwarts. Charlotte’s friends and house mates had chipped in to buy her more useful presents, such as merchandise from her favourite professional quidditch team, a broom repair kit, new quills with inbuilt spell-correct and fancy coloured inks. She used some of the latter to write a note to her parents to explain why she hadn’t been able to call them up straight away, and to keep the box safe for her until she returned home at Christmas.

Clarke wondered who she would even call at that time. Family, obviously. But she wondered if she still kept up with any of her friends from her old school. As far as she knew Raven had never bothered to do so. It had been the wizarding world who looked out for her when the troubles with her mum got to be too much, not any muggle relatives or authorities.

Clarke saw Tris stagger into the Great Hall. Her eyes seemed to be barely open, and she almost stumbled into other students making their way to their tables. She looked as though she had managed even less sleep than Clarke.

Lexa called her over and bade her to sit down. Tris glanced up over her shoulder towards Charlotte, but Lexa insisted that she stay where she was while she pulled together a plate of breakfast for the teenager herself.

Clarke’s brow furrowed, remembering the interaction from the day before when Tris had pulled away from Charlotte. She wasn’t exactly clear what was going on, but she was certain that she didn’t like it one bit.

She glared at Lexa, watching as she piled Tris’ plate up high with bacon, eggs, and sausages. She didn’t bother with toast. Her fellow prefect looked perfectly put together, despite her evening adventures, but when she hiked her robe up to keep it out of the food, Clarke noticed her wrist was bandaged. She filed that one away for good measure.

****

Master Jackson was grateful for a second pair of hands when she arrived. Ontari was screaming out in pain, as he attempted to treat some vicious looking gashes on her cheeks.

“Clarke, can you grab some of the analgesic paste - yes the one with the dittany extract, and help hold her down while I clean out these wounds?”

“Wow, that does look painful. What happened?”

“I don’t know, she’s too incoherent to say anything. She’s lucky she didn’t lose an eye. It looks like some kind of animal attack. Athol and Echo dropped her off before dawn, but they’ve disappeared again.”

The paste worked and Jackson applied some sleeping draught while he finished up the vulnera sanentur spell. The stitches were tiny, Jackson explained, so that they would heal without scarring, and the dittany would help with that too. Jackson explained that he hadn’t ruled out sending her for a plastic surgery consult at St Mungo’s. He didn’t want to take any risks with a patient so young, particularly with it impacting her face.

Clarke helped Jackson change the bloodied sheets and pass them off to the laundry chute. When she was first at Hogwarts, Raven had confessed to her that she’d thought the laundry system was part of the magic. Dirty clothes went one way and then reappeared, nicely folded on the end of your bed. She’d said it had been the biggest disappointment to find out that there was a house elf enterprise responsible for making it all happen.

When she returned to the ward, Ontari was sleeping peacefully with Anya by her side. Clarke was pleased to see that at least one of the Slytherins seemed to be caring enough to be there when Ontari woke up. Raven had chosen well. It didn’t surprise Clarke for a moment that the others were too cowardly to show up in case they had to answer hard questions about what happened to their housemate.

“Clarke, before you go, do you have a moment?”

“Yes, Master Jackson?”

“Do you think you can prioritise the Wolfsbane potion? Maybe work up a base potion, and we can use it to test and adjust different variations before next full moon?”

Clarke nodded. She wondered if any of the remaining batches had been used up the night before.

She thought back to Ontari’s wounds. She agreed with Master Jackson that they looked like they’d been made by claws. Could a werewolf be out in the Forest? Surely not. No teacher, not even one as inexperienced as Lincoln, would have allowed students into the Forbidden Forest on a full moon if they’d had any inkling that a werewolf was loose.

Or would they?

This whole term had been a litany of disasters, one after another, and they were barely half way through the term. Two students had disappeared, Archie Smith had been admitted dangerously ill to hospital, attempted kidnappings were whispered about in Hogsmeade and now wild animal attacks. The only common denominator? Slytherin students sneaking around.

She couldn’t forget Athol caught trying to slip out of the library restricted section. Lexa yelling at Aden and keeping her students away from other houses. The group sneaking off last night. And where was their house master or mistress in all this? Nowhere. And on top of all that, a new teacher seemed to be aiding and abetting Slytherin students in getting up to no good.

It was serious now. The snatchings happened closer to the muggle world. But it seemed the trouble had slowly made its way to Hogwarts. First, Ministry Agents in Hogsmeade, and now, the injuries were happening at the school, inside the grounds. If the Ministry didn’t think Indra could protect the kids, would they shut down the school, sending them all home? At least here, they were more secluded and almost always surrounded by highly trained professors. Surely there would be more deaths out in the world, but Clarke had observed enough politics up close to be well aware that logic was no guarantee.

If Hogwarts was closed, she would have to wait indefinitely before she could sit her NEWTs. Without graduating from Hogwarts, she was never going to be able to start her studies and get out from underneath her mother’s thumb. She could not bear to wait an extra week, let alone months if Hogwarts was closed indefinitely.

By Sunday afternoon, Clarke had resolved to go and visit Master Kane. He was the Gryffindor Head of House, and despite the fact that Clarke couldn’t bear him since he’d started seeing her mother, he seemed to be the best of a bad set of options.

She could have complained to the Slytherin Head of House, Titus Flemington. Professor ‘tits and ass‘, as too many of the students referred to him ironically, was a zero-humour grump who wouldn’t know the first thing to do with a sexy person of any gender if one showed up naked in his rooms. He dressed more like a monk than a wizard and had a bald, tattooed head that seemed odd even by the standards of the wizarding world. His own students tried not to talk to him if they could help it.

She had heard that his best advice if someone was struggling with a course was to drop their boy or girlfriends immediately. “To be a great witch or wizard is to be alone.” Clarke snorted. With that kind of attitude, at least there weren’t going to be any baby Titus Flemingtons running around.

Callie Cartwig, Ravenclaw’s Head of House, was far more approachable. Before Abby ran for elected office, she and her mum had been friends. When Clarke was much younger, Callie often visited their home for dinner or for the weekend when the weather was nice, and Clarke used to refer to her as Aunt CeeCee. She wasn’t nearly as close to her mother anymore, and she’d made it clear in the past that she wasn’t going to treat Clarke differently to any other student. The other thing Clarke knew about the woman was that she was quite by the book. She was likely to refuse to talk about students that weren’t her direct responsibility.

Clarke wasn’t sure about how to go about talking to the head of Hufflepuff, Professor Byrne. She had only shown up at the beginning of the previous year, a tall imposing woman who kept her blonde hair tied back in a sensible pony tail. It seemed strange that she’d assumed a leadership position so early in her tenure, but Clarke figured that perhaps she’d worked there earlier in her career. She had observed that she was often sitting next to the Headmistress at meals, and she and Indra seemed to go way back. Talking to her might get the message to the Headmistress most quickly, but she seemed to be even more serious about the rules than Professor Cartwig. Kane would have to do.

Still, it was with a measure of reluctance that Clarke found herself hauling her way up the staircase to the rooms that Professor Kane lived and worked in. For a moment, she hoped she’d find his study vacant, but he was nothing but reliable. His Sunday afternoon open hours had been a source of rescue for many a student completely confunded by what their professors wanted completed for homework due first thing Monday morning.

“Clarke, there’s a surprise, how wonderful to see you! Would you like some tea?”

He grinned his trademark smile and started pouring the kettle into an extra cup that he’d already charmed over from the sideboard without even waiting for her answer. Clarke grit her teeth. It was hard to tell what annoyed her more, the patronising smile or his core belief that he knew what was best for her and that her opinion didn’t even matter.

He kept grinning and Clarke consciously relaxed her face. He was probably just genuinely happy that she’d come to see him. She took some deep breaths as she focused her attention on the outdated wooden furniture, the overstuffed lounge, and the faded circular rug under the little table, rather than how much her professor irritated her. She knew her mother no doubt badgered him for information about how she was doing. For a change he’d actually have something to say.

She held the saucer steady and tried not to grip the handle of the small teacup too powerfully, though her nerves were threatening to get the better of her.

“Are you all right, Clarke? You seem troubled.”

“It’s all these attacks, sir.”

“The attacks?”

“On the muggle-born students.”

Kane relaxed and added sugar to his own tea, stirring it noisily.

“Well, no need to worry about them, Clarke. Your blood is as pure as it comes. Salthazar Slytherin could have claimed you for one of his own, if it came down to it.”

Clarke shuddered. “About that.”

“The school founder?”

“No, no. He’s long gone, right? I meant the Slytherins. They’re up to something, and Lexa Woods is behind it all.”

“Clarke, you’re a very intelligent girl, and sometimes the clever ones have way too much imagination. Do you have any evidence?”

Clarke spilled out the story of everything that had happened and all the Slytherin students, particularly Lexa, behaving strangely.

“Oh, Clarke. It’s nothing, really.” Kane offered her a plate of pastries that she hadn’t noticed before. Clarke ignored them and put the cup and saucer down on the table.

“Well, if it is really nothing, tell me why there were Ministry agents all over Hogsmeade yesterday. I saw them. Us prefects are on night shifts, and the professors were making extra rounds. Am I making that up?”

“Clarke, there is nothing to be worried about. There are no credible threats against Hogwarts right now, and the agents are there for your protection.”

“Yeah, the students need to be kept safe.”

“Not just the students, Clarke. For a smart girl, you’re being awfully dense right now. Your mother is the Minister for Magic. Young Wells’ father used to the be the Minister. Don’t you think the Ministry has a responsibility to afford family members at least some degree of protection?”

Clarke stared at him goggle-eyed. Kane took that as permission to continue.

“Now I know that you’re almost an adult and you think you can defend yourself from whatever goes bump in the night, and I’m sure you are probably correct. But, let’s be honest, your mother has the whole wizarding population in this country to administer. The last thing your she needs is to have to worry about you now, isn’t that right?”

Clarke nodded glumly. “So, you won’t talk to Headmistress Oakhurst about Lexa and the Slytherins? Or about Lincoln not doing his job?”

“It’s Master Forrester to you now, Clarke, and I certainly won’t be wasting Indra’s time on your suspicions. You need to put all these thoughts out of your mind, and focus on your school work. Between your prefect duties, working with Master Jackson, and the efforts you’re going to need to convert those OWLs into some seriously impressive NEWTs results, you’ve got far too much on your plate to be concerning yourself about making up conspiracies involving other students.”

*****

Clarke worked through her Monday evening homework in a rush. There was nothing she could do about getting Kane to take her concerns seriously, so she decided to shift her attentions. The first step was to get started on the Wolfsbane base. If Master Jackson wanted her to be ready to start tweaking it, it sounded like she would be spending more time with him. As an adult, he was far more likely to hear interesting titbits of information from the other staff. Clarke might even get the opportunity to share her concerns with him directly and he might ensure that the message gets to more receptive ears. She wasn’t looking for personal credit here, she just wanted the attacks to stop.

Thankfully, Clarke was a gifted enough witch that her half-arsed attempt at her homework was better than most student’s normal efforts. After dinner she grabbed an extra-warm hoody and ran down to the student’s potions lab to get started on her second task of the night.

She’d barely gathered her ingredients together and finished measuring them when she heard footsteps approaching. Internally, she groaned. She hadn’t wanted Jackson to witness her first efforts, or she’d have worked up in the medical tower. She didn’t want anyone else to be watching either.

Even worse, it was Lexa. She set her things down on one of the benches in the back quarter of the room, as far as possible as she could get away from Clarke. Still, she had to move around the room to collect equipment and was soon crouched down in front of the ingredients cupboard looking for whatever it was that she needed.

Clarke glanced around her set up. Everything was in beakers ready to mix in. Nothing had lids, and the hospital wing was simply too far to pop everything on a tray and relocate; not without spilling some of the ingredients or having the lighter ones blow away in a draught.

Lexa seemed to be taking forever to find what she was looking for.

Clarke’s tongue moved quicker than her brains sometimes.

“It would be a hell of a lot easier to find things, if you lot put them away properly the first time.”

“Do you ever have something nice to say, or are you just overly fond of the sound of your own voice?”

“I’m just tired of dealing with arrogant pieces of work like you who think rules don’t apply to them because they reckon that they’re better than everyone else.”

“Like what?”

“Like putting ingredients away properly.”

“Seriously? You can prove I didn’t repack the cupboard properly. Give me one example of where you’ve seen me breaking the rules.”

“How about, I don’t know, sneaking into the Forbidden Forest last Saturday night? And you’re always trying to keep members of your house away from the other houses. Different rules for Slytherins, right?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Lexa said stiffly, folding her arms in front of her.

"I'm not stupid, Lexa. I know what you're doing with Tris and Charlotte."

"Oh?" Lexa raised one of her perfectly coiffed eyebrows that made Clarke wonder if she transfigured them, in clear breach of Hogwarts grooming and uniform policy.

"You’d do anything to keep them apart. You’re a complete control freak and you don’t care about what anyone else wants. I bet it’s because you think Charlotte might be muggle-born!”

Lexa shook her head as if slapped. 

"You really think that lowly of me? I’m not the one here who makes outlandish accusations about someone just because of what house they’re in, Clarke.”

The comment took Clarke aback. “I…” She struggled with what to say, knowing Lexa had every right to call her out.

Lexa waited for the usual harsh retort. In the beginning, she’d foolishly hoped for an apology. But she wasn’t a fool anymore.

“Since you seem to have to stick your nose in everything, I’m worried for her safety.”

“Charlotte wouldn’t hurt a pigmy puff.”

“Of course she wouldn’t.  It's because she's a werewolf."

Clarke couldn’t believe it. "Charlotte's not a werewolf."

Lexa shook her head. Suddenly it all clicked together.

Simultaneously she answered and Clarke blurted, "Tris!".

“Tris is a werewolf? Since when? What happened?”

“It’s none of your business! I’ve already told you more than I should have.” Lexa glowered at her.

“Maybe, but these ingredients,” Clarke indicated the bench in front of her, “are for Wolfsbane potion. The more I know about the intended recipient, the more I can personalise the treatment. You know, make it work better, reduce side-effects.”

Lexa held onto the bench in front of her and pushed her lips together.

“Lexa, I saw Tris on Sunday morning. She looked terrible. Don’t you want to help her?”

“That’s exactly what we’re trying to do. It’s what we were doing in the Forbidden Forest.”

“What? You took a young, poorly medicated werewolf out in a forest on the full moon? What were you thinking? I saw Ontari’s face, and your wrist was injured too.”

“No, she stayed here, with Master Jackson and the last of the old Wolfsbane potion.”

“So, what were you doing? Injuries like that are no joke. I’ll go straight to Indra if I have to - I suppose Tris is behind the missing students as well? Even if she isn’t, Indra will have to take me seriously, and you and Lincoln will get taken out in the investigation.”

“No! We haven’t been doing anything wrong. We have been working on animagi spells so we can keep her company when she shifts. Lincoln has been helping us. It was just coincidence that we were outside on the full moon, though it was a good coincidence. We need to know that it’s going to work then too.”

“So how did the injuries happen?”

“By accident.”

“Accident?”

“Athol, he couldn’t control his form. He shifted into a bear. We had to wrestle him down when he turned on Ontari.”

“So, Lincoln helped you become animagi? That's… Lexa, that's incredibly dangerous. Why would he do that?”

Lexa shook her head. “No, he caught us. We were almost finished. He agreed not to tell Titus and Indra provided we promised to allow him to oversee the final stages. He said there was precedent, people becoming animagi to support a werewolf friend. He made sure that no one followed us into the forest, and he was the one that finally managed to get Ontari to safety.”

“So, the spell...”

“Yeah, the one in the textbook doesn't work. It just makes you a bit furrier.”

“You're furry?”

Lexa rolled her eyes. “There's an antidote, Clarke. Besides, we got Athol to test it.”

“Of course you did.”

‘That figured,’ thought Clarke. Typical Lexa getting someone else to do her dirty work. 

“Oh no, he insisted. Haven't you ever seen Athol's dad? He's bald as a badger. He was happy to improve his odds.”

“Anyway, we sent him into the restricted section of the library.”

“He can't even read!”

“Well, slight exaggeration but you're not that far wrong. He can act though. He just created a distraction so Echo could locate and copy the spell we really needed.”

“But Echo is terrible at potions. The only one of you who is any good at potions ... is you!”

Lexa leant back on the neighbouring bench and flicked her hair back. She was well within her rights to smirk now. 

“Colour me impressed! Only a tiny handful of people are able to master the whole process.”

“It was more than just brewing up all the different potions needed, of course. The ingredients are hard to find, and we needed a few goes for each step. The part where you had to stick a mandrake leaf under your tongue for a week, that was awful! Echo had to do it twice after swallowing it accidentally! We had to mess up the cupboard to make it less obvious what was missing. Set lookouts and guards to stop people getting too close. Manage information flows. That sort of thing. It was tight hold, need to know basis only.”

Clarke could imagine Lexa leaning forward tapping her nose. Thankfully she didn't and Clarke was able to resist the urge to snort. Considering how serious Lexa looked right now, she didn’t think it would go down well.

“Yes, well. I imagine under your leadership Slytherin runs a tight ship. I suppose that is why you didn't want Charlotte getting too close to Tris? In case she told her?”

“No, Tris had no idea about what we were doing. We didn’t tell her until we knew that it worked. I just wanted to protect...”

“You wanted to protect Tris from Charlotte? She's not some kind of werewolf-hating bigot, Lexa!”

“If you would just let me finish, Clarke.  I wanted to protect them from each other.  Tris was only turned over the summer holidays. She doesn't have great control right now. Besides, the references say there is a risk of them imprinting.”

“Imprinting? Like baby ducklings?”

“No? That’s not quite what I meant. Maybe more like mating. They're both so young, Clarke. Are they ready for that kind of commitment yet? Either of them?” Lexa looked serious and Clarke realised that she’d really thought this through.

“So, what are you saying is, the more full-moons Tris gets through, the more control she's going to have, and then you will stop being so over-protective?” 

“Exactly! I don't have a problem with cross-house relationships. Who do you think convinced Anya to finally woman up and ask your friend out? She's been mooning over her for three years now!”

“Mooning - you're sure she's not a werewolf too?” Clarke smirked.

“Clarke, that’s awful!”  Lexa groaned but Clarke could see the corners of her mouth twitching up.

“Well. She'd better treat her right. You do remember what happened to Raven's ex?” Clarke stood to her full height to make sure she looked as menacing as possible.

“You bet, it only added to the attraction! It takes a lot to impress Anya.”

“Well, good. She’d better keep it in the forefront of her mind. If she hurts Raven, she'd better know that she's taking on me too, and we're twice the witches we were when we kicked Finn's scraggly arse.”

Lexa unfolded herself from the bench and made a point of agonisingly slowly looking Clarke up and down. 

"Noted."

Before Clarke could react, Lexa jumped back over to shut the door to the ingredients cupboard, gathered her things back into her bag, and let the door to the lab close behind her with a bang, shocking Clarke out of her daze.