Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The fireplace roared dangerously. 

“That looks good,” said someone from the flames. 

Carla slowly glanced down at her sushi. 

The Floo network was an easy way to invade someone’s privacy in their home, and Lu had done it so many times as her best friend that Carla no longer jumped at the sound of her voice in Carla’s own living room.

The only difference now was that they weren’t best friends and had not been for a while, and that made the reason for her visit all too clear. 

“Are your parents here?” asked Lu, walking around the room and inspecting the paintings and objects around her, as if she hadn’t already seen them more times than Carla had. 

“No,” she said absently, poking around at her food.

“Are you busy on the 15th?” 

Lu stood in the exact same spot as she had that one summer after fourth year, when Carla had come down for breakfast at eleven, only to find Lu chastising her for waking up so late. She had been waiting there so long that she was now able to pick apart every little detail of the golden statue settled on the cabinet—in fact, it was still there, untouched. 

Times were simpler then.

Marina hadn’t been dead then. 

“You mean her mass.” 

Lu smirked. “You’re still as sharp as ever.”

She downed half of her wine in one go. “Did you expect any less?” 

A shrug. “I don’t know what to expect anymore.” 

“But you know who I am.”

“I thought I did.” All of a sudden, it seemed like an unwasted opportunity to throw a jab at Carla. “So we’re both wrong, no?”

She stayed silent. What did Lu want her to say to that? That she was right, and Carla wasn’t the same person they’d once known simply because she wasn’t too keen on being marked as a blood traitor? 

Lu took a deep breath, resetting her harsh tones. “I’m expecting you to come.”

Finally, Carla looked up. She had her arms crossed, back to her, standing by a large piano that not a single person in the house had ever touched. Behind her, the rain splattered the windows aggressively. 

“I wasn’t aware that I had to come because of you,” said Carla. Lu didn’t have the right to tell her anything anymore. Carla would say that she never had the right in the first place, and that Carla did not consider anyone’s opinions, but . . .

She thought about them a little bit. A little bit too often, even, for people who didn’t want to associate with her. 

“Are you saying that you wouldn’t be there?”

Carla clenched the chopsticks in her hand. “Does Guzman want me to be there?”

The answer didn’t even matter. Her parents would force her to go, despite her best objections, hoping that once the Nuniers recovered from the tragedy of Marina’s death, then perhaps they could join each other for a round of butterbeers, and Teo and Beatriz could fill their ears with talk of Voldemort.

She didn’t know that for sure, but she definitely knew that for sure. 

Merlin, what had Carla’s world morphed into? Marina was dead, and everyone was gone, and now she was sitting here, searching for a way to feel less guilty about it. 

But Lu didn’t respond at all, so she took that to mean the worst. 

“How are you?” said Lu quietly. She turned to face Carla. 

“Are you asking because you want to know, or because you feel bad?”

“Why can’t it be both? You’re sitting here, just trapped, and I’m trying to help you out of this shithole—”

“Shhh!” she hissed, standing up and peeking her head past the entrances of the room. She was only met with the usual long and narrow hallways. Lu watched her with an immeasurable amount of pity that she could drown in. It almost made her angry. “Have you gone mad? You’re trying to tell me that in my own home? You shouldn’t even be here in the first place!” So why had Carla let her stand there so long? 

“You told me that your parents were gone.”

“The house-elves are still here,” she countered. 

“And Teo always has them slaving in the kitchens or the studies,” Lu fired back. Carla hated the bitter reminder once more that Lu knew this house like the back of her hand. 

Carla crossed her arms, and now they were on opposite ends of the room, mirroring each other’s exact quirks. “As if you wouldn’t be happy if they heard.” 

A smile worthy of Slytherin stretching across her face painfully. “Poor me. You keep uncovering my master plans.” 

“Then maybe it’s best you stop with these master plans.” 

“Or maybe it’s best you stop giving me a reason for these master plans.” 

“Merlin, Lu.” Carla scoffed. “How many times do I have to tell you to leave it alone?” 

“Leave it alone?” challenged Lu, and the fire burned greener. “That’s what you want?” 

Carla made her way back to the couch. “It’s what’s right.” 

“It’s right to act like a Death Eater—”

“I’m not a Death Eater,” she growled, her mouth beginning to taste suspiciously like sand. If only her words could mean anything after Hogwarts. “And don’t ever say that again, because you know full well how I feel about them. I’ve never acted like one.” 

A disbelieving eye roll. A disapproving head shake. “And yet . . .”

“And yet what?” she responded fiercely. She wasn’t a Death Eater. She wasn’t a blood purist. 

She just needed more time. 

“And yet you’re still here.” 

“Because I have to be.” 

“Unless you come back with me.”

“Where?” said Carla with a bitter laugh. “Guzman’s house? What a reunion.” 

“That’s what you’re worried about? Guzman? He can swallow his bloody pride.” 

“It’s not Guzman.” 

“Then what’s the problem?” 

Carla’s eyes flickered outside the window, where the rain now began to rage, clouding the glass and hitting it with more emphatic taps. Lu was watching her expectantly, bringing herself back to this war, even though she’d already cried through it and pushed past it and escaped it. What was she doing here? It was such a waste of time. It was putting both of them at risk. 

You can do it, as if she were a bloody first year learning to ride a broomstick. As if things could ever be so simple. Maybe Lu had done it, and Valerio had done it, but it was always easier said than done. Because when she was standing in front of her parents, who had given and taught her everything and made her into this Slytherin queen, she couldn’t even think of it. She couldn’t even think of being anything, anything, other than Carla Rosón Caleruega . . .

Because what else did she have if not that? When she was sitting around the other Slytherins, and they saw her as the Slytherin queen, why would she prove them wrong? What for? She’d built up this life and reputation, and now Lu was—she was here, for some odd reason, and it was too much, it was all too—

Carla closed her eyes for a moment. 

“I just can’t,” she said when they opened. “Not for you. Not for anybody.” Not even for herself. “I’m sorry.” 

The room died of any sound. Lu’s face died of any trust. 

“I can’t believe you.” 

And Carla knew that the two of them would never reach an understanding again. 

She never thought that she’d say that, because for the longest time, it had always been her and Lu in the same Sacred Twenty-Eight boat. Her and Lu and Guzman and Ander and Polo against anyone who doubted them. 

But this wasn’t even fifth year anymore, where she could live in peaceful bliss and happiness knowing that her parents were proud of her, and the Slytherins cherished her, and her friends more-than-tolerated her. 

Carla stared into her food, where some rolls had been completely picked apart during their conversation, leaving a mess behind. She heard footsteps that grew even more distant, and Carla glanced over her shoulder. Lu was reaching into the bowl of Floo powder, looking into the ground.

“He said he wouldn’t mind if you came,” said Lu quietly, and her stomach dropped in even worse guilt than if she had told Carla that Guzman wouldn’t be able to stand the sight of her at the funeral. “Not that you care.” 

Then the fireplace went up in smoke and flames. 

---

Carla blinked once, and then she blinked twice. 

2002-2018.

2018.

The same year that Marina had died.

The same year reality had slammed into her like a pile of bricks. That it was a war, and it was breaching Carla’s life, all while infecting her parents’ own. 

A pair of shoes skirted against the gravel behind her. 

“I didn’t think you would be here,” said a voice—almost rough, definitely quiet, and yet still heavy. It was hard not to recognize. 

Any other places to be in these empty grounds, and Samuel had joined her in front of Marina’s tombstone. 

She crossed her arms. He wasn’t here for friendly chatter. 

“She was my friend, too,” she said. To him, to the tombstone, to whomever cared. 

“Not for a while.” 

“And you weren’t, either,” she shot back, which shut him up for a sweet, peaceful moment, and Carla knew it would work, because it would shut her up, too. Who were they to judge each other? There had been a time when they’d meant both the most and the least to Marina, victims of her impulsiveness. 

But none of that even mattered anymore, because she had loved Marina, and Samuel had loved Marina, and Marina had loved them, and now she was dead.

Her hand flew up to her neck, a feeble attempt to chip away at whatever feeling had lodged itself in her throat ever since she had apparated there. Carla felt his eyes scan over her, asking himself how it was possible for her to have any feelings at all. “I’ve never seen you like this.”

Her lips settled flat. “You don’t know me.” And he wasn’t supposed to. This had to be their fifth time ever speaking, even though it felt as if their paths were always inches away from crossing over the past six years. 

Carla was intent on keeping it that way. 

He ignored her and every implication that entailed, returning to his usual brooding state, and that irked her to her core. 

They’d seen each other at their worst a few months ago, and now they were standing here, at their best, pretending that the broom cupboard was a fluke, all because they were both too ashamed. As if she didn’t have the power to ruin him, and he didn’t have the power to . . .

Well, he didn’t have any power over her at all.

But he was an Animagus. And really, she could’ve completely exposed him, but there was already too much of that already happening. And Marina—Carla hadn’t been there for her. And so she was trying to make that up, to wick away the guilt, bit by bit, and the least she could do was not send her closest friend all the way to Azkaban, no matter how much he provoked her. The punishment of Dementors, sucking out every last ounce of happiness from one’s soul, was truly the worst fate in life, Carla believed. 

“And do you think that you know me?” he questioned. 

Carla glanced over at him. His hands had been shoved into his pockets. His eyes were honed in on the tombstone—pensive, wary. He stood still—not confident, but attempting to come off that way. She could’ve laughed. 

It was almost a shame that they were at odds with each other. Merlin knew that they both needed to catch a break. She could picture him across from her in a cupboard, just like a few months ago. She could almost feel how her hands could run down the hard lines of his jaw or through his hair, unchanged since she’d seen it last, except maybe slightly longer. 

But Carla also knew that those were simply natural effects. She’d been a snap away from snogging him in a broom cupboard last year. And when that thought occurred once, it was bound to occur again. But she couldn’t forget that he was standing there with a purpose, taunting her for whatever noble reason he had now. 

“Do you think that any of that really matters right now?” she said. 

It most certainly did. Because she knew that he was—to put it simply, a pest, and now that he had gotten the smallest bits of information out of her, he was willing to use it to paint this giant picture of who she was, just like everyone else tried to. 

Carla didn’t need any of that. Especially now. 

Samuel didn’t answer, which was perfectly fine by her. She hated his voice, simply because of how he used it. 

“This war is getting worse,” he muttered. “It’s affecting everyone.” 

It was redundant for Carla to think about that when she was already staring into the flaring truth of it. 

2002-2018. 

She breathed out deeply, letting her hands fall away to her sides. Samuel was a pest, she reminded herself, and he loved challenging others. It was in his nature—the bloody Quidditch captain, the bloody Gryffindor, the bloody memory of Marina. 

She turned on her heel, tossing a look over her shoulder. Samuel remained a still, falsely confident figure, watching the wind beat against the grave. 

And while she felt bad for apparating away without a second thought, Carla knew that she had no right to be there, and that message had been clear as soon as she walked in, with Lu and Guzman and Ander and Valerio and Rebeka and Samuel’s eyes closely watching her. 

Traitor. 

---

By the following night, her pillow had already been flipped three times, her sheets had become a rumpled mess, and her neck had begun to ache. After deciding that she couldn’t bear to hear the empty ticking of her clock anymore, she trudged quietly downstairs and into the kitchen, grabbing her wand and—Lumos. 

Carla crossed her arms and tapped her foot against the perfectly wood-stained floor as she waited for her tea to steep. This had been becoming a more common routine than Carla wanted it to be. At first, it had just been a Sleeping Draught, but this was much more convenient than brewing or buying them and always worked just as well. 

It was the only muggle convention her parents were sure to accept into the household. 

Click!

Carla whirled around, pointing her wand at the switch, blinking away the sudden brightness around her. 

But it wouldn’t have mattered, because the intruder was . . . 

. . . much shorter than her line of sight. 

“Merlin, Ophelia.” She lowered her wand. “You scared me.”

Her hands folded in front of her, eyes gleaming apologetically. Carla immediately felt bad, knowing that Ophelia would punish herself for it later. “I is sorry, Miss Carla.”

“No—ugh—don’t be sorry, Ophelia.” 

The house-elf stood there awkwardly, as if she could not know what else to be if not sorry. 

The House of Rosón employed multiple house-elves—twelve, Carla thought, if her father had not decided to fire or behead any others for his study display. She rarely saw more than four at a time, and while most mainly stayed silent, Carla had always been a bit fond of Ophelia—there since birth, the most loyal of the lot, and in Carla’s opinion, the best. Duke was always nice, but he was rather tied to her father, more than she cared to question. Carla had rarely seen him outside of the study. Hermione could be quite a favorite, too, but she would snap at poor Ophelia sometimes, which Carla refused to tolerate. 

“Youse here late again?” Again. 

Carla waved that off. “So are you.”

“Master Teo says I is to tend to the house,” she explained. 

Carla let out a loud sigh. Of course. 

Ophelia came closer to the counter. “Let me—“

“No, no, I’ve already made it. It’s okay.” 

The house-elf backed off. Carla discarded the tea bag and brought the cup up to her mouth. It burned the roof of the tongue, but it was at least something. 

“Youse bothered, Miss Carla?” 

She licked her lips numbly. “I don’t know. Why would I be bothered?” 

“Youse here again when youse sleeping. Youse worried?” 

Carla stared into the sea of steam. Worried didn’t even capture the half of it. “Where has my father been going?”

Ophelia’s ears drooped. “Oh.” She looked up with wide eyes. “Master Teo says it is business. I do not know what. I am sorry.”

“Right,” she muttered, pushing herself slightly off of the counter. It wasn’t hard to put together what his “business” was—always at the same time of the day, sometimes joined by her mother. 

“Youse not worry,” suggested Ophelia. “Hermione says worry is bad.”

Carla’s eyebrows lifted in doubt. “Hermione says so?” 

“Yes, but . . . I says so, too. Youse not to worry.” Her usually jubilant face darkened. “Worry is bad. Youse not worry.” 

Carla managed to smile faintly. “Thanks.” She looked the house-elf in the eye, which caused her to squirm. Most of the time, they were only ever addressed in passing. “You should get some sleep, Ophelia.”

Ophelia shook her head frantically. “But I cannot, Miss Carla. I is to tend to the—“

“Get some sleep,” repeated Carla. A command. 

She hesitated, and her hands fidgeted nervously, and for a moment she looked like she either wanted to disobey Carla or throw up, but then her tiny head bobbed up and down.  

“I thanks you, Miss Carla,” she said, before she shuffled out of the room. 

Carla lingered a little while longer, staring into the restless night. Her nails tapped against the mug. Then, with an aimless sigh, she downed the rest of her tea, turned off the lights, and pulled herself in bed, only to stare at the ceiling until it made her nauseous. 

---

Carla turned her head away from the bright green flames. 

“6 Amesbury Drive,” she said clearly, taking a step into the fireplace. No matter how many times she had Flooed somewhere before, she never got used to the feeling of traveling through—like she was being swallowed whole and spit out into millions of little pieces. Luckily, it never lasted long, and a second later, she was in the Benavent’s living room. 

She was suddenly reminded of when Lu had visited her two weeks ago, and that regurgitated feeling came back. But unlike Carla, Polo was not ready for her, jumping as her steps drew closer to where he was lounging. 

“Merlin!” he yelled, hand over his heart. “Carla, why?”

She took a seat at the edge of the couch. “I wrote you that I was coming.”

Polo sighed and sat upright again. “You know that I don’t check my letters as often as you do.” 

That was funny, because she had seen the stack of letters that Polo had on his desk. She didn’t know who they were from, but they definitely weren’t fake. And while Polo was getting all of those messages that he never read, Carla was getting none, and yet still most of her free time was spent sitting by the window like a sad sack of sod, hoping that her owl would present her with one. 

“That’s why I came here to tell you,” she said smoothly. 

“Funny.” He crossed his arms, glanced at her, then at the ground, then back at her. “How was the mass?”

Carla had already chosen to forget about half of the things that had happened that day. “Am I supposed to say fun? Enjoyable? Pleasant?” 

His lips pursed. “Are they okay?”

Right. Polo hadn’t talked to any of them for longer than she had. How fun. Enjoyable. Pleasant. 

“They’re the same as ever,” she told him with a shrug of indifference, because she didn’t care. She didn’t. And that was the best answer she could give him, since she wasn’t exactly sure, either.  

“The same,” he repeated. Even without us, was what he was thinking. Maybe in spite of us. A long silence fell over them. 

These were how their conversations usually went these days. Their monthly check-ups on each other. 

Well, Polo didn’t check up on her. She had only checked up on him. A part of her wanted to say that it was because she cared—she did, but not enough to come on her own accord when Polo was also the same as ever—but a measly and bordering on selfish feeling nagged in the back of her mind, reminding her that that wasn’t the reason at all. 

Because Ander and Guzman were gone, and she couldn’t hold a conversation with Lu without arguing about their parents. And in all honesty, who else was there besides those three? 

And two years ago, Polo had begged her to forgive him for his mistake—the one he had committed for her, and she had listened. And she was still feeling the effects of that decision now, as she stood there in his living room, bearing the tense facets of their friendship. 

Just because it was better than going home and waiting by the window again. 

Polo knew it too, fidgeting with his hands, thinking of something to say to fill the void between them that had only grown deeper and deeper as they spent more time together. 

This was all routine. This was all the same as last month and the month before that. This was shaping up to be Carla’s future, right here, and she had to just watch it unfold in front of her, like this, because she was a coward, and that was all she’d ever been and would be. 

And if the only reason she was still there really was because of her concern for Polo, then Carla would be getting much better sleep these days.

Polo rubbed at his temples. “Do you think they still—would they ever forgive me?”

She looked away. “You wouldn’t like my answer.”

“They know I’m—”

“And they know that what you did wasn’t an accident, Polo. You meant it when you told Phillipe—”

“But I—”

“—and you knew that something would happen to her. Maybe not her death, yes, but you still had no right—”

“I can’t change it—”

“—to be an utter prick, and wish that—”

“Then why are you still here?” he retorted, less helpless, more aggressive. “Helping out an utter prick?” 

Carla crossed her arms. “You know why.” 

He didn’t—not really. Or maybe he knew the half of it, the half that was strengthened by the bonds of purebloods, and not the half that thought that Polo was the only one who could understand what was happening to her. 

“I’m doing fine, Carla.” He failed to hide the annoyance creeping in his voice. “I’m not the same person that asked you to stay.” 

She glared at him. “You’re saying that you wouldn’t mind if I just stopped—”

“Yes!” Polo shouted, slamming the pillow he’d been gripping tightly into the cushion as he turned his head up at her. 

Carla did not move. The lock in his jaw disappeared, the gap between his eyebrows widened, and the hard set of his eyes was replaced with remorse. She knew that he would immediately apologize, just as he was now doing, but she did not care, letting the little rubber bullets puncture through to the bone. 

“If you really were as fine as you say,” she gritted out, “then you wouldn’t be asking me if they would forgive you like they haven’t made it clear they don’t want to see you again.”

If you hurt me, I’ll always hurt you more. 

He opened his mouth, and Carla already had a list of responses on the tip of her tongue, but he faced the front again, holding the pillow taut against his body as he stared into the ground. 

The emptiness of the room blanketed them again, but this time, it loomed over like a large, dark cloud. 

Everything that she had grown so used to before was slowly slipping away from her. Marina and Carla had used to be best friends—and now she was dead. Lu and Carla had used to be best friends—and now that was as good as gone.

Polo and Carla had used to be the couple of the dungeons, the couple of the Sacred Twenty-Eight—and now the thought made her shudder. 

She barely had ways to occupy herself, and yet time moved both faster and slower than it ever did before. At this point, Carla just wanted to start fresh. Sometimes, when she couldn’t sleep, she’d daydream about what it would be like if she could transfer, too, like Marina had, or maybe even run away. Away from Hogwarts and Slytherin queens. Away from the war. Away from obligations and expectations. 

And then she’d realize that she’d be left with more of nothing than she already had. 

“I’m fine,” Polo began, still stuck in his trance. “But I could be better.”

That was the best of their shared understanding.

“How’s Cayetana?” she asked distantly. 

His fingers flexed. “She’s nervous. How else could she be?” 

One thing about Slytherins? They lived for tricks and games, but as soon as the roles were reversed, they didn’t take it too kindly. And all of that time Cayetana had spent lying about her family, conversing with Dumbledore, and it hadn’t even been enough. 

But Cayetana was rarely ever seen without Polo, and his mothers wanted to protect their Golden Boy, so nobody cared enough about a muggleborn to cross him. Especially when the Slytherin queen also showed her restraints about getting revenge.

In another dirty little trick, Polo swore on Voldemort’s name that his relationship with Cayetana was only temporary, and Carla had mentioned the same things, all in passing, to her parents. Harsh and disappointed were their reactions, but they weren’t intimidated by Cayetana. It was easy for them to get rid of her like some pile of rubbish, and then Polo and Carla would be on their way to an arranged marriage after Hogwarts. 

But something told Carla that their relationship wasn’t temporary, and by the time they graduated, Polo would have successfully defied Voldemort once. 

“What will you two do after?” she asked him, watching his expression with great care.

Polo took a brief moment of thought before chuckling bitterly. “I don’t know.”

A life of uncertainty. 

Carla had to applaud his bravery. 

---

“Should I get new robes?” asked Penelope, examining the clothing floating above the shelf.

Carla was gathering her supplies for the school year with Evan Rosier and Penelope Parkinson. Really, she was only there for image. The Rosiers and Parkinsons were respected pureblood families, so she couldn’t exactly go wrong. 

“How long have you had yours?” she replied immediately. She liked to keep her responses short—just enough to seem interested. 

“I bought some at the Hogsmeade trip last year.”

“Ah, what was it?” Rosier swooped in with a toothy grin, hand on Penelope’s back. “The one where those muggleborns got attacked.” 

No muscle in Carla’s face moved. Rosier and Parkinson weren’t bad company, but they were well on their way to becoming Death Eaters, so that was the end of that. 

“You can buy some now,” said Carla, with much indifference. “It’ll last you the rest of the year, especially if they repair themselves.” 

Penelope looked satisfied enough with that answer. They entered Flourish and Blotts, dispersing evenly throughout the shop. Eventually, Carla went upstairs, searching for her Charms book. 

“Look at this,” a familiar voice broke out. Her shoulders set rigidly. “Charm Your Own Cheese. Samuel might like this.” 

“I . . . don’t think he would,” said a girl, less familiar, but recognizable enough. 

Guzman was handing Nadia a much larger book than Carla expected for the ins and outs of charming cheese. His eyes caught on her, and they swiftly dimmed. His forehead creased with resentment. Carla practically stared into his soul while he was trying to search for hers. 

He looked around the rest of the store, finding Penelope in the creatures section and Rosier with all of the DADA books, the dark magic fueling his happiness.

Then, he set the book back on the shelf and walked away. She hadn’t expected any less. 

Carla went back to searching for her schoolbooks, scrambling her brain to remember the title again. 

“Er . . .” Nadia extended an arm to slip a book out of its neat arrangement. Carla had thought she would’ve followed her boyfriend by now. “Here.” 

She stared at the Charms textbook blankly. Nadia urged her to take it. 

Still slightly confused, she did. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” she said airily, veering around the bookshelf. Carla lingered in that direction for only a few more seconds. 

If Guzman had been right there and hadn’t bothered to say something to her, then he’d decided that she wasn’t worth anything from him anymore, especially hate. 

Penelope appeared by Carla’s side when she returned downstairs. “Did you get everything you needed?” 

“Yes,” said Carla simply. 

Her eyes suddenly caught on Guzman and Nadia leaving the shop. “What are they doing here?” she hissed, turning her head to Carla. Her hand began to creep to the wand stowed in her robes. “What did they do? Did they say something to you?” 

Carla’s arm lashed out, preventing Penelope from acting further rash. 

If you really were as fine as you say, then you wouldn’t be asking me if they would forgive you, she had told Polo. 

“It’s nothing, I’m fine,” she maintained. “Besides, it’s Diagon Alley. We’re not looking to pick a fight here, Penelope.” 

That was enough to keep her down. Penelope called Rosier’s name, and he joined them as they Flooed home. 

Carla’s head was still spinning as she stepped out of her fireplace. There was nothing out of the ordinary in her room—Bruno was still coming up to nuzzle her feet with affection, the clock beside her was still rapidly ticking away, the photographs of herself on her desk were still moving, and . . .

. . . there was an owl perched on her windowsill.

Carla glanced around, as if she’d find someone with a camera, ready to capture the prank here—that she’d finally gotten a letter for the first time in a month. It was a majestic creature, with gold fur that shimmered even more under the sun, and wings that gracefully took the bird away once she grabbed the letter. 

Carla Rosón Caleruega. 

She flipped it over, the tips of her fingers brushing over the seal, where four colors flared back at her. The symbol of Hogwarts. She furrowed her brows. But that wasn’t right. At all. She’d already gotten her yearly letter from them. 

Unable to hold off on her curiosity any longer, she ripped open the envelope, pulling out the letter and the—

The badge. 

A badge. 

It was impossible to ignore what kind of badge it was when her own mother had it displayed down in her study, the yearly mark of a top student at Hogwarts. 

Carla was the Head Girl. 

Carla. 

Her. 

Not Lu, not Nadia, not anyone else. 

Carla had a Head Girl badge, and it was already weighing down her hands. 

But how had that—what was even—why would Dumbledore even think of her? 

On paper, maybe it held some sort of verity. Carla was one of the few that had authority over the entirety of the school—especially the Slytherins—because they’d all heard her name and were terrified of what she could do with it. 

But she did know that Slytherin queens didn’t deserve the appointment of Head Girl. It would be the start of the rotting of Hogwarts. And Merlin, who was the Head Boy? 

For a foolish moment, her mind flashed to Phillipe or Polo, but Dumbledore would never let two pureblood Slytherins lead the students this year. The castle would sprout into poison ivy, and she would have to live through the maddest idea their Headmaster ever had. 

Carla triple-checked the letter, searching for some falsity between the lines, but it was of no use. It had the exact same print and signature as all of her previous ones. 

She heaved out a long breath, running her hand down the length of her hair. 

So this was real life. 

“Miss Carla?” came a voice from the doorway.

Carla whipped her head around the back of the chair. “Yes?”

Ophelia took a step back. “Miss Beatriz says to me, says to you, dinner is ready.” 

Her eyes darted to the clock, wondering how long she’d been sitting there. “Right,” she muttered, pushing herself out of her chair and walking downstairs.

The house-elves were all bustling through the doors, and Ophelia popped out from behind Carla to race to the kitchens and help. The radio was playing in the back, broadcasting the Puddlemere match against Falmouth. Carla blinked twice to readjust her eyes to the brightness of the chandelier hanging above. Her father sat at the head of the table, newspaper propped up against the flat surface, and Carla expected him to be reading about new muggleborn attacks. Her mother was seated directly across from him, watching all of the elves carefully.  

“Mamá, Papá,” she began, with proper poise and elegance.

Two pairs of eyes paused to share their divided attention. 

She held up her badge. 

“I’ve gotten Head Girl.”

Teo peered over the top of his newspaper at Beatriz, raising his eyebrows, and Carla felt a little bit soddish, but she maintained her proper poise and elegance. 

Her mother’s smile was kind. “That’s lovely, Carla. I’m proud of you.” 

Carla nodded in gratitude, waiting for her father to speak. 

“Congratulations,” Teo said plainly, going back to the Daily Prophet. “Do you know who your Head Boy is?” 

“No. I don’t think it’s anyone I know.”

“Well . . .” He flipped a page. “Sit, please.”

Carla felt as if she’d just told them she’d gone for a walk in the park today. 

But she took her seat in the middle anyway, placing the badge in her lap. It burned against the fabric of her clothing. She sat up straight and fought to keep her face as neutral as possible. Her mother was happy—excited, even, though her words didn’t show it. And her father . . .

He was impressed. That was fine. 

But he was decidedly not impressed enough. Decidedly, he wouldn’t ever be impressed enough, unless she snagged the title of Head Boy, too. 

But Carla tried not to let it mean anything to her. Rosóns didn’t ask for any more than they received; they simply paved their own way the second time. 

The dinner was the same as always—clinks of cutlery against porcelain and the whooshing of the house-elves levitating their plates into the kitchens—and Carla’s parents dismissed her to go upstairs. 

She sat at her desk and laid the badge in front of her. 

She stared at it. 

It stared back. 

Annoyingly. 

Carla sighed. She should’ve been much happier. She should’ve been celebrating. She was Head Girl, even if it didn’t feel like it with these lackluster reactions. 

Paving the way, she reminded herself, and reached up towards the desk compartments. Quills. Parchment. Ink. 

But as she tapped her quill on the desk, Carla already found herself stuck. Who was going to enjoy a letter from her? Polo? Maybe. But he wouldn’t read it until they were back at school anyway. Penelope? No. Carla would rather wholeheartedly choke. 

“You’re at least happy for me, right?” she murmured, looking at Bruno. He purred, and Carla chose to believe that that was a yes, and not a response to her petting him. Bruno probably pitied her. Carla pitied him, because he heard every spoken word and took the brunts of all of her rants. 

She heard light footsteps behind her, swinging around. 

“I interrupts, I is sorry,” said Ophelia, standing in the doorway, holding a tray that looked far too large for her size. 

“You are forgiven, Ophelia,” she said. “You’re not interrupting anything.” The house-elf sighed in relief. “What are you doing with that tray?” 

“I made tea,” she said excitedly. “To sleep! Ophelia hopes that is okay.”   

Carla wasn’t planning on sleeping any time soon, but she still waved Ophelia over. The teacups and kettle rattled on the tray with each step. Carla poured a cup for herself and took a sip. It was warm on her tongue, a much better regulated temperature than she usually tried it at. 

“Thank you,” Carla called to the elf now walking away, picking up her quill again. “Thank you, Ophelia.”

Her movements stopped. “You is welcome, Miss Carla. And I is happy for you,” she added. Carla paused. “For Hogwarts. Youse do good. Youse not worry.” 

She closed her eyes slowly. “Have you been to Hogwarts, Ophelia?” 

The elf didn’t respond for a moment. “No,” said Ophelia. “I has not. But I knows it is pretty. Like pretty stars.” 

“Pretty stars?” 

“Yes,” said the elf, not missing a beat. “Pretty stars. I sees them outside. I tries and thanks them, but I is not sure I can.” 

Carla’s eyelids burst open. “My father has never let you see the pretty stars?” 

My father has never let you take a step outside at night? 

But Ophelia was already used to it. “It is okay, Miss Carla. I is not worried. I thanks them one day.” 

A violent pang of guilt in her chest. “I’ll thank them for you, Ophelia, if you can’t.” 

“You will?” she asked, a whinge hopeful.

“Of course.” For some reason, the thought of disappointing Ophelia seemed to be an Azkaban-worthy crime. “I swear on Merlin’s name.” 

She didn’t have to see or hear the shock to know that it existed. 

“Thank you, Miss Carla.” 

Carla managed a smile. When Ophelia left, she was sucked back into reality—what had she been planning on doing again? 

Bruno burrowed himself into her lap. Quills. Parchment. Ink. 

Right. Paving the way. 

She pressed her back flush against the chair. Almost like she had summoned him, the floorboards creaked under the burden of the House of Rosón’s patriarch. 

“Did you tell Ophelia that it was okay to stop working the other day?” asked Teo, probably leaning against her door frame, probably with his hands crossed at the stomach. 

She grabbed the bottle of ink. “It was late. She didn’t need to still be up. They all didn’t.” 

“They’re house-elves. That’s what they were born to do. That’s what I’ve hired them for.” 

“And they also listen to me,” she said, keeping her voice kind. 

“I would suggest you not interfere, because I have business to tend to.” 

“Your business is listening to Puddlemere matches?” 

“I’m looking to invest in the team. They’re quite successful.” 

Carla’s lips turned in disgust. “Does a break one night matter that much if they’re terribly overworked?” 

“Who says they’re not working this much because they must tend to you now?” 

She glanced at the tea in front of her, still steaming.

Her father knew exactly how to land more than a bullseye on her, every single time, striking every nerve imaginable in her body. She hated it, not just because it was a weakness, but because it was a weakness he could freely exploit. 

Her hand clasped the cork of the bottle, but her skin was slightly slippery, so it wouldn’t budge. Her father moved in closer, reaching for it. 

“I’ve got it,” she told him forcefully, tugging it back from his grasp. Merlin, she was surprised he didn’t call in a house elf himself to open it for her. His eyes strayed over to the Head Girl badge. A small and foolish part of Carla hoped that he would stick around a little longer to say something about it, but he backed away, out of her view. Her grip on the bottle and top held firm, and when her hand twisted, she was met with a resounding and satisfying pop! 

She set it on her desk.

“Who are you writing to?” he asked. 

“Penelope,” she lied smoothly, like it was included in the purity of her blood. 

Her father hesitated. “Give her parents my regards, will you?”

There was a small rivalry between their parents—who could pledge more loyalty to Voldemort? Carla’s quill formed the strokes of a greeting to Penelope, just so he could leave quicker. “I will.” 

His footsteps echoed down the hall, and Carla double-checked his departure before finally letting her tense breath go. She pointed her wand at the parchment to tear it into illegible shreds and discard them into the bin. She refused to write to Rosier or Penelope. 

So Carla stared into a fresh sheet of parchment. She picked up her quill. Then she sat it back down. She was still missing the most important part of a letter. 

And really, the one name that popped up in her mind wouldn’t appreciate hearing from her. Lu had been vying for Head Girl for years, and Carla had snatched it from right under her nose—the most Slytherin thing she could’ve ever done. 

Carla swiped the parchment off of the desk, crumpling the paper into a ball and tossing it into the bin. It was fine. Her parents had been proud, and that was all she needed until she returned to school. 

She looked out the window, watching the wind sweep through the grass. It wasn’t until the sky darkened and Bruno hopped off of her lap when she finally moved again, cleaning up her room. She drew her curtains closed. She put her quills away. She put her parchment away. She put her ink away. When she breathed, it didn’t feel normal, or free, but she also shoved that away. 

She glanced around the room when she finished. It was a job well done, and now she could drink her tea and fall into oblivion. 

Gone was the heaviness pressing into her chest or collecting inside her heart. Gone was the gnawing feeling of wishing she could write to someone without having to pause and wonder if they’d scowl at the sight of her name. 

It was all gone, because sometimes, in acts of betrayal or loss, Rosóns didn’t feel what they wanted to, so they had to pave the way themselves and feel what they should feel—success. 

Carla was feeling successful tonight. 

Chapter Text

King’s Cross was filled with a handful of Hogwarts students that Carla could recognize, being coddled and squeezed tightly by their parents. They complained and laughed and shook off their embarrassment until they were finally let go. 

Her father took a step closer and placed a hand on her shoulder. “You’ll do well, cariño.”

She first looked at his hand, and then up at him, pondering his expression for a moment. “I will,” she said stiffly, like she was his soldier going to war. 

The corners of his mouth pushed upwards—a smile, without all of the feeling or commitment. 

She hated that. 

Another hand forced her head to turn the other way. 

“Enjoy your year,” her mother kindly instructed. “And you do not have to write to us.”

Oh, was Carla’s initial thought, but it was much too ridiculous for her to say aloud. Oh. Oh. 

“I doubt we’ll have the time to respond,” added Teo simply. 

“And I doubt that you’ll have anything new to tell us,” agreed Beatriz, joining her father off to the side. 

And yet, it still felt like a blow to the stomach. Carla wanted to hurl. 

Don’t write to us. Merlin knows we’re tired of it. 

But she nodded, gripping her hands tightly around the bars of the trolley and barreling through the wall. 

She continued to move forward onto the train. The prefects’ carriage. That’s where she had to go, she decided, only stopping for pumpkin pasties from the Honeydukes Express. The poor new fifth year prefects were already waiting there. Most of them were sitting tall in their seats, chins tilted upwards. 

But when they recognized her badge—or maybe it was just her—it was almost as if their confidence had never been there at all. 

Carla liberated a deep breath before unwrapping a pumpkin pasty. She felt a light pressure on her leg. 

“Here,” she murmured, breaking off a piece for Bruno and then lightly stroking his head for good measure. He never liked going into Platform Nine and Three-Quarters.

“Cute cat,” someone commented, and when Carla looked up, Nadia was already taking a seat. 

She straightened back up. If Nadia was here, that only meant that the person following suit would be Lu, and Lu was already restless, because someone had bested her this year—and it wasn’t Nadia. 

That realization seemed to weigh in on everyone, because when Lu finally entered the room, they had all fallen silent. Nobody dared to miss this. And Lu had prepared herself for every possibility—all except one. 

Carla didn’t need to look to predict the twisted face of faint anger or the narrowing of jaded eyes—whatever it was, it simply didn’t matter. Bruno began to groom himself, uninterested in drama that he hadn’t created. 

Lu turned away and planted herself into the spot beside Nadia. She swung one leg over the other, still a figure of grace, too stubborn to let Carla change that. 

But even still, she was wondering what Carla had done that Lu hadn’t done better. 

“You’re Head Girl,” said a voice, though it wasn’t Lu’s. It had come from the door, and when Carla looked that way she’d forgotten to replace the callousness of her gaze with anything much softer. 

Though it wasn’t as if seeing Samuel enter the carriage made her cheer up, either. And it certainly didn’t brighten his spirits, and he couldn’t tear his attention away from the badge on her robes, as if it had come alive and threatened them all. At least hers had merit, unlike his bloody useless Quidditch captain one. There was a new one, too, and it almost looked like another copy, with the trademark Gryffindor red and gleaming gold. And the words spanning across the badge:

Head Boy.

Oh.

That was quite something, wasn’t it? 

And with everyone else now enamored by this new position, too, Samuel scratched the back of his head, knowing that not a single one of them was thinking that he belonged there. Even Bruno paused his deep cleaning routine to bare his teeth at the new Head Boy. Friend, foe, or stranger, he had his strong opinions like that. 

But the thing was that . . . if Samuel was Head Boy, then neither Polo nor Phillipe were. 

How could Carla be ungrateful for that? 

Her knowledge of him didn’t extend farther than that of a random fourth-year, but that didn’t matter. Carla wasn’t rusty in her skill of picking apart people within mere seconds—for example, the tall seventh-year prefect who had just walked in, wiping his hands on his robes, was the sweet, innocent, bumbling type. Hufflepuff, indefinitely. And Carla had warded off pests before. If she could play to their raging hormones, it’d be as if they hadn’t been there at all. 

“Carla?” 

It was a bloody party right now. 

Lu’s nails beat a steady rhythm against her seat. “Oh, perfect. Guess they’ve reunited.” 

Carla focused her unnerving stare on her. 

Polo pointed a finger at Lu. “Did you know?” 

She looked up at him, narrowing her eyes, as if she couldn’t understand why he was trying to speak to her. “Why would I know?” she asked bitterly.

Polo didn’t respond, turning to Carla with an accusing glare. “Did you know?” 

Carla scoffed. She felt a lot more peckish than usual. “I’m standing right here, aren’t I?” 

“And you didn’t send a letter?” 

“Trouble in paradise?” said Lu unapologetically. 

“You don’t read your letters,” she snapped. They were not doing this here, not when the prefects were actively listening. 

“Did you know when you visited me?” 

Samuel, who was still standing across from her, exchanged a look with Lu, who was still sitting across from him, and she exchanged a look with Nadia, who was an arm’s distance away from her, and it all felt like a practiced ritual among friends. Carla felt like she was sinking.

Shut up! she wanted to growl, right in Polo’s stupid bloody face. She didn’t owe the prat anything. But she never got the chance to, because the walls of the carriage began to shake, and the engine rumbled and let out a sharp hiss. 

“Let’s start the prefect meeting,” Nadia offered quietly from her seat, and a few others mumbled in agreement.

The Hogwarts Express had begun its voyage. 

---

Creak!

Creak!

Creak!

“Can you not?” Carla snapped. 

Valerio looked her directly in the eye and begrudgingly brought his chair forward, returning it to its four-leg state. 

“Thank you.”

He sighed dramatically. “It’s our second day back,” he said, smiling stupidly just to mock her, and for a moment he looked exactly like his sister. “What’s got you so stressed?”

She wasn’t stressed. As long as she wasn’t, then she wasn’t—simple deduction skills. A first-year could make them. “My annoying Charms partner.” 

He laughed and swung his brown boots onto the table. “Sleep. It helps relieve stress.”

“I’ll try it out when I’m stressed.”

“You’re stressed right now.”

“Draughts of Peace have been known to mess with your mind, Valerio.”  

He fanned his hands out. “That’s how I felt back then.”

Carla’s blood ran cold. Back then meant anything, but there was only a small period of time when Carla had known Valerio and all of his complaints. Lu had gone through too much, but Valerio had meant to be the heir—the Sacred Twenty-Eight preferred patriarchs in their prison. 

But she’d come to Hogwarts to escape it all, and—simple deduction skills. She was using simple deduction skills, in a manner that was cool, and composed, and effective. Carla didn’t have to worry about any of that. She had time. 

“I’m just trying to help,” he said. 

“We aren’t one in the same, Valerio.” 

“And I’m more than grateful for that.” 

“Who taught you to be an ass?” 

“My parents.” He squinted. “Maybe we are one in the same.”

The tip of her quill pressed incessantly into the parchment. 

Valerio didn’t know what he was saying. 

Merlin, he didn’t even want to be in that class, much less in the seat beside her, but he’d shown up late, and Flitwick had sentenced him to his doom. That was how ruthless some of the Professors at Hogwarts could be at times. A seat? Next to Carla? They practically wanted him dead. 

Word of this year’s new Head Girl had made its way into Hogwarts’s gossip pool quickly. People had stared, and people had congratulated her, but Carla had just stared back, so they stopped congratulating her. None of the reactions went without the general consensus of s he snaked Head Girl? Sooner or later, Carla expected headlines—especially since the choice of Head Boy had faced its own scrutiny, too. It felt as if this was the year that students would forget ever happened—a fever dream, an Essence of Insanity potion. 

“Dumbledore is forcing you to work with a mudblood?” Penelope had said at dinner, covering her full mouth.

Carla glanced at her sideways. “It doesn’t matter what he is, but he’s better than any other candidates, isn’t he?” 

“I guess so.” She shifted in her seat. “Evan, can you pass the strawberries?” 

Shortly after, Carla left the Great Hall. Schedules tonight. That was all. If she got through that—well, she could get through anything, couldn’t she? 

“Carla!” someone snarled, turning her around, right when the Head office was in sight.

She wrenched her wrist out of Polo’s harsh grip. “What do you w—”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were Head Girl?” 

“Why does it matter?” she retorted. 

“Why did Dumbledore choose you?” 

Carla scoffed. “Thanks.”

“You know what I meant.”

“Do I? It sounds as if your tongue has gotten hexed to the roof of your mouth.” 

“And you’d love that, wouldn’t you—”

“I would!”

Polo crossed his arms. She wondered when he’d realize that everything would’ve been better if his mouth was kept shut. Everything. “Something just isn’t right.” 

As if on cue, Carla’s back felt all prickly and warm, like an out of control, inoperable furnace. She turned over her shoulder, but the corridor was still empty. Silent. 

Carla turned back. “Nothing’s different, Polo. I’m sorting out schedules, and then I’m going back to my dorm. Nothing has to be different.” She prayed things wouldn’t be different. Different was a spectrum. Different was an endless list of possibilities. There was only one different that would bode well for Carla, knowing her luck. 

She took that back. That different was an impossibility. 

Polo sighed and rubbed at his temples. 

“What are you so bloody worried about?” she said angrily. I’m fine. You’re fine. That’s all that matters. 

“Samuel is Head Boy, right?”

It was like a puzzle piece clicking into place. That’s what this was about? “You want to complain to me about your feud with him?” 

“It’s bound to be yours, too.” 

Carla laughed, but it was a dry and unconvincing sound. Of course it was bound to be. 

“First of all,” she began slowly, “I can handle Samuel well enough.” Shouting in the broom cupboard had been one thing, but she wasn’t intent on repeating her mistakes. Carla was more careful now. She had to be. “You’re no knight in shining armor.” 

“I’m not trying to be. It’s just—he’s a Gryffindor, and he’s friends with Lu—”

“Second of all,” she quickly interjected, “all Gryffindors are predictable, Polo. Merlin, I thought you’d encountered enough in your lifetime to know that.” He opened his mouth, but she stopped him. “Don’t ask me about this again. I have schedules. Bring your bloody pity party to someone else. I’m sure they’re just as upset as you about the choice of Head students this year.” 

Polo clenched his jaw. He looked as if he was ready to take her up on that offer. “I’m going to find Cayetana,” he said, and then left her alone. 

Carla emitted a deep, heavy, drawn-out sigh. One more thing tonight. That was it. She turned on her heel, fixing her hair during the passage down the corridor. It might’ve been three minutes or so until the Head Boy walked in.

“You’re late,” she said, as if she hadn’t taken her seat seven minutes past eight. 

“I know.” He grabbed September and November to schedule and took a seat. He sounded peeved. That was always nice. “I had Quidditch things.” 

Quidditch things. 

Carla did not fancy Quidditch and Quidditch did not fancy her. That was how it’d always been. Her only memories with the sport were rather embittered by the players, all of whom were prize arses. Phillipe, Mulciber, one of the Abbott sisters from Hufflepuff, and a celebrity player who had hit on her outrageously after her father brought him into their home last year.

“Is this all that we have to do tonight?” asked Samuel, minutes later. 

Her eyes flickered over to the empty bulletin board behind him. “How much of Head business did you get told?” 

His eyebrows knit—angrily? Offendedly? Definitely impetuously, like he couldn’t fight it, despite his best attempts to. He didn’t like her putting his impotence on display. “None of it.”

Her chair screeched against the floor. “You might want to deal with that.” Samuel watched as she swiped her finished schedules off the desk and marched up to the board, encouraging him to work faster.

“My mother wasn’t a Head Girl like yours,” Samuel thought it noble to clarify, coming up beside her. 

She took a moment to pick out a green pin before responding. His mother. A muggle. From what she’d heard, not a good one, at that. “And you’re angry about that.” 

“No,” he said bluntly, and stabbed a red thumbtack into the board. “I’m not. Are we done here?” 

Carla turned her chin up at him, her eyes like laser pointers built for precision, able to pick apart every important detail of his face. He felt it all, but made no further movements. Practically encouraging it. His lips were slightly downturned, though that was hardly less than his default, especially around Slytherins and such. 

Then, she shoved the rest of the papers into his chest, which received them unrelentingly. It burned through her hand. “We can be.”

Samuel finally granted her a look, although it was resentful and bitter and everything Carla was too used to already. 

“Unless you’re having trouble here,” she said with a smug smile. 

His hands reluctantly came up to take control over the papers. 

Pride was a fickle, fickle thing—a dangerous, dangerous game—and Carla knew how to exploit it better than anyone. It was different from when they were in the cupboard, because . . . because—well, Carla had wanted to play nice for a few moments. 

How badly it had backfired on her. 

But this was Hogwarts, and this was where she’d been coined as the Slytherin queen. A Gryffindor wasn’t going to be successful in rewriting that. 

Carla moved away, grabbing her bag. She tossed him one last glance over the shoulder. The next time she checked the board, she expected to see annoyingly red thumbtacks everywhere, but at the moment, that was far more digestible when weighed against the benefits of being able to head to her dorm. 

Carla fell atop of her bed.

The dorm was quiet. She didn’t know where Lu was. She rarely entered the dungeons these days, and when she did, the Slytherins looked at her like she was a Gryffindor, and she looked at them back like she was nothing more than a Slytherin. 

So it was peaceful.

Again.

It felt like she was back in her room at home. 

Again. 

Carla opened up her drawer, checking the time on her pocket watch. She set it back down beside the singular potted peony on her nightstand—it didn’t need the pot to survive, but it certainly made its life a lot easier within those confines. Its white leaves were slightly dull, muted, worn. 

Life back at Hogwarts had been mundane, but that was all Carla needed now. And yet . . . 

She couldn’t sleep. 

What was the point of being Head Girl if she couldn’t work herself to pieces? Half of her regretted leaving the office so early. What was the point of being Head Girl if she couldn’t busy herself enough to lend her thoughts to other important matters? Because right now, Carla’s mind was buzzing, which meant that—

She whipped the covers off of her and popped open her trunk. Sleeping Draughts. Ophelia had packed her some. Sleeping Draughts. Where were—Merlin, she needed the Sleeping Draughts. 

Her hand wrapped around the neck of a bottle. She yanked it out and brought it into the light. 

Carla let out a sigh of relief. A Sleeping Draught. A Sleeping Draught. She had a Sleeping Draught. 

In less than a minute, her senses began to drown out, and with it, any intruding thoughts that only revealed themselves when the moon came out.

And tonight, it was a full moon, so Carla was grateful that she took the potion not a second later. 

I’m sorry, was the one thing that managed to slip through.

---

Samuel had given her the first batch of rounds for the year. 

She was irritated, yes. He had been given the options of that uncongenial fifth year from his Quidditch team and Polo—and he had chosen neither. 

And now she was standing across from that new Hufflepuff prefect—his name was Yeray, he had said—and true to his house, he was nice enough to make things easier for Carla, but she was still reeling from the principle of it all, because Carla always felt like between her and Polo, she was stuck on the short end of the stick. 

“At Beauxbatons,” Yeray began, “we have two duos doing rounds each night.” 

He had been providing the occasional commentary as they had cruised through the castle, but that was the first one tonight that was worthy enough of an actual response. 

“You came from Beauxbatons?”

Beauxbatons produced some of the most cordial people she’d ever met. They were insistent on poise and elegance—the type to curtsy and greet with a kiss on the hand.

Here at Hogwarts, everyone roamed free until McGonagall got their hands on them. 

He smiled proudly, now walking backwards to face her. Carla was awaiting his inevitable trip. “Et je parle français.”

Carla took a peek inside an unlocked classroom. “How long did you go there?” 

Yeray’s eyes crinkled a little in confusion. “Do you not remember me?” 

Carla stopped short. “Should I have?” She couldn’t really discern anything about him that was particularly familiar.

“No!” he scrambled to say. “You shouldn’t have. I meant—well, I used to go to Hogwarts.”

“Really?” 

Yeray nodded. “I left after fourth year.” 

Good for him, she thought, that he had become blissfully unaware of everything unfolding here over the past two years. She was sure he wouldn’t be nearly as cheerful if he knew. “Why did you decide to come back?” 

He gave the question a respectable amount of thought. “I don’t know. I love Hogwarts. I guess I got a little bit homesick.” 

Homesick. Carla loved Hogwarts, but it always felt as if it couldn’t be her home—like a disservice to her parents to think otherwise. But she didn’t always feel safe, or comfortable, in either. Wasn’t that what a home was? Carla didn’t know. Home was simply what she’d learned it to be.

Yeray reached into his pockets, and an unsettling feeling washed over her until she heard the crinkling of plastic echoing down the hallway. 

“Pumpkin pasty?” he offered, extending his arm. 

She glanced at it. It smelled of fall. It gleamed with deliciousness. It looked fresh. It was everything a pumpkin pasty should’ve been.

“No thanks.” Carla looked off to the side. “Keep them.” 

“You don’t want to feed them to your cats? Mine—”

“Cat. Just cat.” 

“—love them. We have four, but I can only bring one to Hogwarts, so I bring none.” 

She raised her eyebrows fleetingly before splitting down the opposite side of the corridor to cover more ground. Not a single bad bone in his body. Carla wouldn’t be surprised if she ever saw him greet a fly, show it around the room, and maybe pay for its dinner afterwards. 

Though Hogwarts needed more people like that.

Yeray didn’t get many words in after. They continued moving separately, which Carla couldn’t complain about. It was still in the castle, a night best suited for her ears. Somewhere along the way, she’d found a lost first year, who had claimed his older brother made him do it; two snogging whatever years—Carla took points away before quickly shutting the door, and she was still attempting to wipe those horrors away from her brain; and Filch’s cat, Mrs. Norris, who harbored a vicious hatred for her. Bruno must’ve gotten the message across that he was the Slytherin . . . prince? He loved to wreak havoc on anyone who had become a thorn in Carla’s side. 

When they reached the Entrance Hall, she threw Yeray one look over the shoulder—he was still fidgeting with his hands—before opening up the door to the staircase that led down to the Slytherin pit. Carla didn’t really like entering it so late—it was all stone and blue and black, and it sent a chill sweeping right through her bones. 

“Have you and Samuel planned Hogsmeade dates yet?” 

Carla was still halfway turned, but she settled her eyes on him. “Excuse me?” 

He seemed to melt under her dull stare. “Um—I meant . . .” He waved his hand listlessly. “I just thought that—well, when Hogsmeade is scheduled—”

Merlin, she realized. He wanted to go to Hogsmeade with her. 

He’d seen her on the train and thought she was fit. 

He had no idea what he wanted to get into. 

“—that maybe we could—”

“Yeray,” she cut in plainly, because they’d really known each other for the better part of three or four days, “Hogsmeade dates aren’t my top priority right now.”

Yeray stopped his monologue. “Oh.” He paired the word with an awkward laugh. He paired the awkward laugh with a few incumbent nods. “Oh.”

“But there’s a lot of other girls out in the castle who would say yes.” After all, he was tall, and from what she’d heard from Penelope, rich, and pureblood. Could there be anything better? 

He frowned. “But none like Carla Rosón.”

She let out a snort of mirth. “You don’t know who Carla Rosón is.” It was a ludicrous idea. 

“Of course I do.” He grinned, quite boyishly, and if he truly knew who she was, it’d be falling steadily into a frown. 

“You do?”

“Well . . . I know that you’re dead clever.” She’d actually give him credit for that one, not as common as most compliments she’d heard before. 

“And beautiful.” A lot more common. 

“And the Slytherin queen.” The most common of them all. 

And the worst to entertain. 

“Not too many can claim that,” he added. 

“Not too many should,” said Carla grimly, and looked back to the bitter and dreary steps, calling her name. 

“Do you not remember when you helped me out in fourth year? From those Slytherins who were making fun of me for my robes?”

She looked at him, a bit surprised that he was still pushing forward. 

“Not from that very vague description,” she decided.

“I don’t know if they’re still here,” he began, “But they were . . .” 

“Horrible? That sounds about right.” 

Yeray hesitated, as if he hated saying that about anyone. “Something like that. They wouldn’t stop. But one day, you were walking past, and you overheard them.” He could’ve been pulling every detail of this story out from his arse, and Carla would be none the wiser. “You told them to shove off.”

“Did I? That was oddly noble of me.”

“There were other things in there, too, but that was . . . that was the big idea.” 

“Ah.”

“But they were so scared of you—”

“They were so scared of me?” Carla’s blood ran a bit cold. 

“—that they did stop, and they never bothered me again.” He shrugged in cool nonchalance. 

“You’re very welcome, then.”

“Wait!” he blurted out when Carla turned away . “I never got to thank you.”

She glanced around. “You . . . want to take me to Madam Puddifoot’s to thank me?”

Yeray’s eyes widened. “Well—no? That’s not—”

Carla shot him a congenial smile, one that didn’t need much effort nor feeling. “Goodnight, Yeray.”

“If . . . if you ever reconsider—”

“I won’t,” she said, truthfully and finally, before stepping down into the dungeons. 

After she had broken up with Polo, Carla had quickly learned that there were many people too good to deserve her. What had happened in fourth year was a touching story, sure. But Yeray was just too bloody respectable. A Hufflepuff in his own right, with a world unbothered by this war, a home that he found with both his parents and Hogwarts, and two years of Beauxbatons up his sleeve. 

In the end, it was best that nobody decided to know Carla Rosón. 

---

“Ah! There’s Slytherin’s very own Head Girl!” 

Her Head of House neared closer to her vacant table, his arms held up in honor and elation. The Slytherin house had not gotten a Head student for as long as Carla could remember—at least ten years. Carla was still working out whatever that meant for her character. 

“How are you, my dear?”

“How am I?”

“But of course.” 

“You just saw me the other day, Professor.”

“It doesn’t hurt to ask,” he countered. “Head Girl is a very capricious position. I remember when I became . . .”

Carla turned away with a yawn, which gave her the perfect view of Nadia and Guzman walking in together, still a few minutes to spare before the bell rang. Both of them parted down two different paths, all the way down to two separate chairs at the same single table. 

Like a mutual understanding. 

Carla tore her eyes away, beginning to rummage through her backpack. She pulled out one quill. Then another, for good measure. She couldn’t forget the bottle of ink, either. And one piece of parchment, too, pressing against it with her hands until the only thing differentiating it from her desk was the dull color. 

All of that to hide the bit of teenage longing she thought that she had left outside the doors of the castle. That, somehow, just by watching the two of them, Carla knew the level of unanimity and trust there wasn’t tied together by some rotten bonds or conditions. They sat together because that was what they both wanted. 

Something had lodged itself into Carla’s throat. She hopped back onto Slughorn’s words just in time to hear him say:

“And your fellow Head Boy is treating you well?” 

Carla swallowed hard. She hadn’t really seen the Head Boy since their meeting a bit over a week ago. They had . . . what was it? Charms, Transfiguration, Defense Against the Dark Arts, and this class together, but if they weren’t forced to commune, they didn’t. 

“Yes, he’s lovely,” said Carla simply, unsure of why else he wouldn’t be. 

A wide smile stretched across Slughorn’s face. “That’s great to hear!” Then, accounting for the people piling in, he shrunk down in volume and size, elbowing her side. “Maybe you could teach him a thing or two about Potions, eh?”

Carla raised her eyebrows. That was quite a daft idea. Her Professor turned back to the front with a chuckle, readying himself to teach. 

And from the same door out of the same corner of her eye, she saw Polo enter with Cayetena. They parted down two different paths, all the way down to two separate chairs at the same bloody table in the front. 

Carla clenched her quill tightly. It was hard not to resent him. The constant reminder of he’s doing much better than I am. 

And she was stuck here, watching it all. 

Did that mean that everything she’d done was inexcusably worse than all of Polo’s actions?

It made her want to hex his hair clean off of his scalp. How dare you be a better person than I am? she’d almost spat, dozens of times. How dare you suffer ten times less than I—

“Who sits here?” 

The voice made her realize that she’d been staring, much longer than she meant to. Glaring, even. Merlin. She looked up at Samuel, tugging at the tie he’d probably rushed to spell in the morning. 

Carla took a moment to scrutinize his expression, which didn’t give any reason to not trust him. “Why?”

It was a Ravenclaw, and Carla couldn’t really recall her name, but she rarely spoke. Funnily enough, she’d seen that same girl talking the ears off of virtually anyone else. 

Samuel tossed an aimless glance off towards the front of the room before dropping his bag down. 

Carla reacted quickly, whipping her hand over the stool with a glare to match. “No.” 

He crossed his arms. “Abigail doesn’t mind switching seats.”

Oh, Carla didn’t trust him one bit. 

“Switching seats?” she challenged unabatedly. “Why would you want to do that?” 

“You’re the seventh-best in Potions,” said Samuel easily. “I’m rubbish at it.” 

“And Lu?” Who had just entered the classroom, failing to regard this scene in front of her. 

“She wouldn’t help me even if I paid her.”

“You couldn’t pay her,” she said automatically.

An annoyed gust of breath left his nose, but he still stood there, staring at her. “Head students have to stick together, don’t they? 

Finally, the bell rang, and now all of the other seats were occupied. And Carla was sure that if she asked nicely enough for someone far, far across the room to get up for Samuel, they would comply, but she felt the strong need for none of that. It was a bloody seat, not a personal attack on her. 

And even if it was, what did it matter? There was nothing else that he could say that could rile her up now that she’d already experienced it all from him, or Lu, or anyone else. 

Carla had all of the power here. 

And that meant more if she was able to maintain it. To use it. 

So she looked him dead in the eye as she retracted her hand off of the seat. He nodded and took it, and no other words were exchanged. 

Admittedly, as Slughorn continued to speak of the properties of sloth brain, a part of her heart was beating out of her chest, with the sickening feeling that Carla had just made a horrible, horrible mistake. 

---

“Carla!” called Polo. 

Carla sped down the corridor as if he was leading an army of wizards infected with spattergroit. 

“Carla!” 

He sounded desperate, or urgent, and maybe she would’ve answered if it weren’t currently a Sunday evening, which already deeply disturbed her mood.

Carla didn’t hate Sundays. She was born on one, actually. But she used to believe that, in her naive glory, Sundays would be her lucky day. Now she found that she quite resented them. They reminded her of the times when she and the others stayed over at Guzman’s house. She’d wake up from Guzman, Ander, and Polo yelling at each other as they played Quidditch outside. She, Marina, and Lu would sit at the dining table and toss insults out the window, until eventually three became two, and Sundays suddenly became less special. 

Even better that she and Polo had kissed on a Sunday, sparking the worst choice she’d ever made. He and Cayetana began to date on a Sunday, too, sparking the best choice he’d ever made. He never said that himself, but Carla knew that it was true. 

And at Hogwarts, Sundays were just the throwaway days where everyone crunched in McGonagall’s and Flitwick’s essays. Which meant that there was no peace in the library, forcing her back down somewhere in the dungeons. 

Though she supposed that made Sundays more symbolic of herself than she cared to admit. 

The library, however, was the perfect spot to shake someone off her trail. And when Carla looked over her shoulder, he was nowhere to be found, so she let out a sigh of relief, and began to search for the books she’d needed to finish up her assignments, anyway. 

Carla’s table wasn’t occupied by anyone else, and while the room was filled with all sorts of people she held a strong dislike for and bustling with all kinds of noise that Madam Pince was currently shutting down, she knew that Polo was going to be waiting for her in the common room. Whatever issues he was asking her to resolve this time, it wasn’t worth chasing—

“No.”

Polo was standing right in front of her face, his arms crossed with a flagrant frown. “That wasn’t funny.”

She brushed past him. “I had a nice laugh.”

“And you weren’t the one on a wild goose chase.”

“I’ll take that into consideration next time.”

“Carla—”

“Not now, Polo. I can fix your rounds again later.” 

He remained hot on her trail. “I don’t care about the schedules. This is important.”

“I’m busy.” 

“It’s about Samuel.”

“And now I’m even busier.”

“Why are you so pissy?” he said hotly. “I haven’t bothered you in bloody days.”

The book slammed against the table. She spun around. “What do you want then?” demanded Carla, and Polo backed up slightly, but his will remained strong. “Go on, say it!” 

“Samuel’s been talking too much.” 

Carla scoffed. “That’s it? That’s what you want? For me to fix your feud with Samuel because you’re bloody uncomfortable?”

“That’s not—”

“What do you want me to do? Steal his badge? Stop asking me to fix another one of your issues, Polo!” 

His eyebrows knit angrily. “Another one of my issues?” 

“Yes, you prick, another one of your issues! You always—”

“It’s both of our issues when your Head Boy has been warning Cayetana about the two of us!” 

Carla’s stomach sank. 

“What,” she gritted out, and she felt as if she was halfway to choking, “did you just say?” 

The two of us. He couldn’t possibly mean—because then that would be—and if he thought that . . . and she and Polo—

“Shhh!” hissed Madam Pince. 

Oh, Samuel was so bloody dead.

Chapter Text

“How do you know?”

“What do you bloody mean, how do I know?”

“I mean,” she repeated, “how do you know?” 

“I don’t know.”

“Great,” she said bitterly, and watched a few sixth-years settle themselves into a table. “That’s so great.” 

The two of us. 

“Cayetana isn’t lying.”

“I didn’t think she was,” Carla retorted. 

Polo gripped the top of the chair until his knuckles were stark white. 

She had hoped she had escaped these chains long, long ago, leaving them with Polo—no, leaving them. But somehow the two of us had wormed its way into Samuel’s vocabulary. It was possibly the worst place it could ever be, because Samuel was a Gryffindor, and Gryffindors took one feather and made several potions. 

There was no Carla and Polo.

Had she been foolish to think that that could be true? If there had once been a Carla and Polo, and now there was only a Carla and only a Polo, then who was to say there still wasn’t a Carla and Polo? Who made that decision? The Sacred Twenty-Eight? It certainly wouldn’t ever be Carla’s choice any more than it would be Polo’s.

Polo glanced around the room. She supposed he had chains he’d wanted to escape, too. 

She breathed deeply out of her nose. “Where is he?”

His head turned slowly. “You don’t know?”

He didn’t know?

“Why would you even think I would?” she asked, and that was another answer he couldn’t give her. “When did he talk to Cayetana?”

“Yesterday.” He paused. “Or the day before. I don’t know.”

An empty beat. 

“She’s not lying—”

“I know,” Carla huffed exasperatedly. She made a quick swipe at her book. “This is stupid, Polo. I can’t do anything right now. We don’t know where he is.” 

“You don’t have a single clue?”

“No.”

“No schedules?”

“No.”

“No slips?”

“No.”

“No other Head business?” 

“No—” Carla stopped short. Oh. 

“Carla?” He bristled. “What? Do you—”

“Yeah,” Carla muttered, because how much more obvious could it be? “I know where he bloody is.” 

---

Exactly four days ago, Samuel had asked her to move any of his rounds that fell on a Sunday to any other day—for he always had Quidditch practice on Sundays, and he would be far too sore to walk around the castle and lift his wand.

Naturally, as payback for giving her the first set of patrols of the year, she moved one of his rounds November to Sunday. Even better was that the Gryffindor prefect on his team, Davies, had already gotten duty that night in the first place, so the two of them were to power through rounds together. 

But that wasn’t the point. The point was that it was a Sunday evening today. 

She stood off to the side of the locker room, waiting and waiting. Everyone had to pass her eventually. It was only a matter of time. 

That didn’t make the act of prowling by the Quidditch pitch any less dignifying, however. Most of the Gryffindors failed to notice her, which raised an alarming concern for Carla. Had she been anyone else, they’d be easily hexed from the back.

“Come to spy on us, Slytherin queen?” proposed a bashful voice. Carla had been so invested in the group of students now off into the distance that she’d almost missed the person to her close right. Almost. “You’re a little bit late.”  

Rebeka wasn’t really the type she’d pick a fight with, nor had she ever, really. Carla suspected that they respected each other too much to initiate one.

“I wouldn’t care enough for Quidditch to do that,” said Carla. 

Rebeka shrugged, which was a very congenial reaction, all things considered. “Fair enough. Then what is your plan here?”

“Just Head business. I need to talk to Samuel.”

Her smile faded. “Weird. He didn’t mention anything.”

Carla flexed her hands. No matter the situation, Rosόns weren’t made to lose their cool. That was reserved for the rest of the Slytherins, for the Malfoys and the Carrows and the Benavents of the world. “I don’t really tell him anything, he just deals with it.”

“Hmm.” She nudged her head towards the entrance. “Well, he’s still in the locker room. Samu’s always the last one to leave, so . . .” Her shoulder thrust forward in a circular motion, forcing her bag to sit more comfortably. “Have fun with that.”

Carla watched her tread all the way back to the castle. Her back hit the rough surface of the wall. How many people were on a Quidditch team? There was one Seeker, one Keeper, two Beaters, three Chasers . . . plus a few of the benched players . . .

She’d seen eight leave already. Carla brought out her pocket watch. She would give it seven more minutes before she barged into the locker room herself.

When five minutes had passed, and she’d seen two more people exit but no further sign of Samuel, she wondered if there was an alternate route to the castle. There wasn’t—not one that was less efficient, anyway. Surely Samuel didn’t intend to make things harder for himself that way.

And if he did . . . 

Sighing, Carla stared down into her wand. Phoenix core. Fit for a Slytherin of the highest prospects. 

At least, that’s what her mother had told her. Her father, however, had been slightly disappointed that she hadn’t matched with Dragon heartstrings like him. She had as well. 

But now Carla quite appreciated her wand. It’d been rough at first, because Phoenix feathers were always the hardest to pin down, but she had eventually figured it out. Carla carefully tapped down the length of it, entranced by the hollow sounds of the Vine wood. In duels, her wand never disappointed, even against those with a Dragon core.

Although she wondered if she was still as proud of that as she used to be. 

“Carla?”

She snapped out of her stupor. 

That was right. She had a thing to do. 

Carla channeled her inner poise. “Samuel.”

Samuel threw a quick glance down the empty field before taking a few steps closer. “What are you waiting for?” 

He somehow smelled more like the grass of the pitch than the grass of the pitch. 

She inched backward in lieu of projectile vomiting. “I needed to talk to you.”

“Oh.” His voice wasn’t any less . . . neutral than hers. “Why?”

“Head business.” 

His head bobbed in understanding. “What kind of Head business?”

“The slips kind.”

Truthfully, Carla had already done the better half of the slips that’d built up this month, but ignorance was bliss. 

“Why are you really here?” he asked suddenly. 

She laid her eyes sternly upon him. “Did I not just tell you?” 

He crossed his arms. “You hate Quidditch. You wouldn’t stand out here for . . . however long, if it was just for slips.”

She couldn’t help but to smile. Game recognized game. “You caught me.” So he was more clever than she thought. “What have you been telling Cayetana, Samuel?” 

He didn’t flinch like others might’ve. In fact, he only looked a bit disturbed. “Where did you hear that?”

“Where do you think?” His jaw tightened. “You sounded mad. How could she believe you?”

“She didn’t?” he asked, and tilted his head to the side. “Because it sure sounded as if she did. Isn’t that a little concerning?”

A lump appeared in her throat. There wasn’t a single possibility that Cayetana would believe that she and Polo were sneaking around behind her back. The thought made her want to hurl. 

“Look,” he continued, as if he were the one in control here. “I don’t care what’s going on with you and Polo—“

“There is no me and Polo—“

“But she’s suffered enough, so—“

“Don’t insert yourself into problems that aren’t even problems, Samuel,” she scoffed. “And don’t make them into one.”

“I’m not making any problems,” Samuel said. “I told her to be careful.”

For some reason, his calmness made her want to shout. How dare he be so unmoved? “Samuel, you know nothing, and it’s none of your concern. Let it go.” 

“I don’t care if it’s my concern or not.” He sounded as if he thought of her as an affront to society. “You’re not going to get to parade around your power over muggleborns.”

“My power over muggleborns?” hissed Carla. That was such bullshit. “Because I always have to have something up my sleeve, don’t I?”

“Do you not?”

“Typical of you to assume such.”

“Just as typical as it is for you to have a trick,” he fired back. “A plan. An escape route.” 

“Fine,” she said, and pressed a finger into his chest. “You want to try to play the hero? Go ahead. It obviously hasn’t worked before.”

“As if being the hero is a bad thing.”

“Placing yourself into unwanted business is,” she said angrily. This was so—why was he even bloody doing this? They could’ve been fine, they could’ve been amicable Heads, and now . . .

He brushed her hand away. “This isn’t about what you want. It’s about what’s right, because that’s what matters.”

“And what is right?” demanded Carla. “Tell me, what’s right? Spreading silly little rumors like a bloody coward? Has—“

“A coward?” People never dared to call Gryffindors out on their bravery. It was the same as playing a Slytherin. Just unnatural, a bad idea, a death wish. 

“—it ever occurred to you that you just might be wrong—“

“If none of these silly little rumors are true, then why do you bloody care?” 

Her stare faltered. Why? 

She’d waited outside of the Quidditch pitch for twenty minutes. Why? 

To be truthful, Carla didn’t even know. 

Gryffindors liked to take a single feather and make multiple potions, but Samuel didn’t even bloody have a feather. He had a leaf that he’d transfigured into one. 

Everyone had gotten a leaf from her before. So if she cared about all of these leaves, she would be a mere shadow of who she was. But . . .

But this particular leaf was irking. 

This particular leaf was poison ivy.

There was something unsettling and upsetting about how fitting this all was for the Slytherin queen. Or even if it wasn’t, people would make it fit. 

Samuel was making something fit. A leaf, a feather. 

Then, someone cleared their throat, and it wasn’t Carla, and it wasn’t Samuel. 

“Guzman,” said Carla calmly, despite the resurface of an incessant pressure on her chest, even though Samuel had now backed away from her.

Guzman eyed them carefully. “What are you two doing?” The sky was beginning to darken, and the air was settling more stiffly around them. It was almost dinner time.

She glanced over at Samuel. “Nothing. Just—”

“Head business,” Samuel supplied, surprising her. “We had Head business to take care of.”

Guzman looked unconvinced. “It must’ve been some intense Head business.” 

“We’re done now,” she said at once, and pushed herself off of the wall. “It’s all sorted.”

Carla leveled the Head Boy with a withering stare before she left. 

“Stay out of my business, Samuel,” she muttered, only for him to hear. 

---

Monday had brought forth much pain and suffering for Carla. 

She’d woken up late, missed breakfast, come close to losing a finger to a plant in Herbology, and had been chewed out by Professor Sinistra for failing to detect a rogue planet from the top of the Astronomy Tower. 

All of this trouble because she’d run out of Sleeping Draughts yesterday. 

Carla tapped three times on the entrance to Slughorn’s office. It clicked open, and she stepped inside. “Good evening, Professor.” 

Slughorn looked up from his two stacks of papers. His face broke out into a smile. “Slytherin’s very own Head Girl! How can I help you, my dear?” 

“Am I able to brew a Potion, Professor?” 

“Can you—” He slapped his hand on the desk and rose, chuckling heavily. “Of course you can. What kind of potion?” 

“A Sleeping Draught, Professor.”

“A Sleeping Draught?” Carla inwardly cursed. “What do you need Sleeping Draughts for?”

She brushed down the front of her skirt. “For me, Professor.” She paused. “And the Head Boy,” she added. “For rounds. Sometimes it’s hard to sleep after you’ve been up and around the castle all night.”

Slughorn tilted his head in thought. “I’ve never seen it that way before. But that’s very considerate of you to do.” He waved towards the door on his left. “Knock yourself out.”

“Thank you, Professor.” Before she entered the Potions classroom, she stopped by the fireplace. There were rows of pictures arranged neatly beside each other. The most recent one was of last year’s class, dating all the way back to even before her mother’s time. She felt drawn to it. 

Slughorn materialized at her side. He picked up one of the frames from the end. “Beatriz.”

Carla wasn’t really sure what he meant by that until he handed her the picture. It was a group of people, all lined up together. Her mother stood in front, and in the moments before she had turned to smile at the camera, she laughed at something the guy behind her had said. At that moment, Carla felt as if she were violating her mother’s privacy. She’d never witnessed her mom look like that before. She wasn’t just happy—she glowed.

It seemed like something Carla wasn’t supposed to see.

Further down, there was the etching of Slug Club, March 7th, 1998. Her thumb brushed over it. 

She frowned. “I didn’t know she liked Potions.”

“Really?” Slughorn said. “When I taught her, she loved it.” And he’d taught her almost thirty years ago. “She doesn’t brew anymore?”

“Potions? No. She doesn’t mention it.” She looked back to the picture. Carla couldn’t recognize half of them, even if she wanted to. “Or any of these people, really.” 

“Ah! Well . . .” He tilted the frame for a better view. “That’s”—he pointed to a lankish boy beside her—“Michael Fawley. He works for the Ministry. Muggle Relations, I think. And she—well, you know her, don’t you? She’s—”

“Daily Prophet,” she confirmed. 

“Right. And this one, she teaches over in America.”

“Ilvermorny?”

“A Slytherin here, a Horned Serpent there,” said Slughorn proudly, with a nod. “She’s a Charms Professor.”

“And not at Hogwarts?” Or Durmstrang? 

He hesitated. “The wizards there are more . . . accepting of muggleborns. No-Majes, they call muggles. She prefers it.”

A low silence swept over the room. Carla snuck a glance at Slughorn, and then back at her mother’s looping, chatty face. He was waiting for her to speak. 

She pointed to the boy who stood tall behind her mother. “You didn’t mention him.”

It took Slughorn a moment to register. “Ah,” he murmured. “Matthias. Brilliant young man.”

Matthias. The name didn’t really click. 

“He was the Head Boy,” he continued, and looked down. “Your mother’s year.” 

“Was he a good one?”

“He wasn’t one of mine,” Slughorn admitted with a light laugh. “Though I wish he was. He used to work in the Ministry, too.”

“Used to?” Carla prompted.

“He was killed. Cursed.” His face darkened. “Some three years ago.” 

Suddenly, her place in the room felt insignificant. 

“I’m sorry to hear that, Professor.” 

“Yes, well. It was just a shame.” He returned to his chair with a stumble. “They always target the best people, don’t they?” 

There was no need to confirm who they were. 

Remembering Slughorn’s very real peace before she had walked in, Carla set the frame back on the neat array of memoirs. “Thank you, Professor,” she muttered, and opened up the door to the Potions classroom. “I’ll be done quickly.” 

She’d gotten four cauldrons under the burner and been reading the instructions when the door creaked open—not the one leading to Slughorn’s office, but the usual classroom one.

“Stop,” she commanded, and the usual and most practical response was to not test her even further. 

The footsteps did not stop, however, and Carla added sixteen Lavender sprigs into the mortar before looking—glaring—up, wand at the ready.

The end of it almost touched Polo’s nose. He slowly moved it out of his face. 

She lowered and pocketed her wand with a sigh. “What do you want?”

“I have an idea,” he explained, which was horrible, because Polo’s ideas were usually severely flawed and warranted a knock on his head. 

“Is that all?” 

“You don’t want to hear it?”

She added a few drops of Standard Ingredient. “I don’t want to hear it unless it involves me, and if it involves me, I don’t want it to exist.” 

Polo watched her cauldron bubble silently. “What did Samuel say?” he asked after a moment.

Even though the whole ordeal wouldn’t have even been made possible without Polo and his intervention, her conversation with Samuel felt oddly private, as if suddenly Carla had taken the entire conflict out of Polo’s hands.

Carla’s head throbbed. “I don’t even know.” What did that mean for any of them? What had Samuel and Carla really talked about yesterday? If it felt important, then why couldn’t she recall a single thing of substance? 

Polo took his place on a stool across the table. “He denied it?”

“No, he didn’t—” She blew the hair out of her face. “I don’t know, Polo.”

“You don’t know? What did he say?”

All that she could remember him saying were things that she didn’t want Polo to hear. Why did she care so much? She hated that he had seen that. It was so . . . 

Incriminating. 

It felt as if there had been a point in the conversation with Samuel where it wasn’t even about the things with Polo, or the leaves, or the feathers, but—

It had been something personal. 

Why do you care? 

She’d pay someone ten galleons to be able to answer that question.

“I don’t know if he thinks we’re dating, or whatever,” she said. “But he definitely thinks that we aren’t just . . . here. He thinks that we’re doing something.”

“Doing something?”

Carla let out a deep sigh through her nose. “He thinks that we’re taking advantage of Cayetana.”

Something resentful rooted in Polo’s eyes, and for a moment, he reminded her of herself. He gripped the edge of his seat tightly. “Of course he bloody does. The all-knowing Gryffindor.” 

Carla didn’t respond. All of her anger had been spent up the previous day, and now she saw no point in indulging him on his.

“What else did you tell him?” He looked at her expectantly. “Other than . . .”

“Nothing,” she said, and Polo had been her friend long enough to know that when Carla went vague, there was no stopping her. 

But he also refused to not probe any further. “What are you planning to do?” 

“Are you expecting me to do something?” asked Carla. 

“Yes. Not because—not because I want you to, but . . .” He shook his head. “You wouldn’t let something like that go.” 

Would she? Could she? “If I did, would anything be done?”

“I told you I had a plan,” Polo countered. “But you didn’t want to hear it. Do you want to hear it?”

Carla glanced up at him. Bloody git. He knew what he was doing. 

Let it go, she warned herself. Let it go. 

But there was something in the back of her mind just irking her about it all.

It had been personal. 

“What is it?” she gritted out, despite everything she hated and loved and valued. “Just tell me.”

“I was talking to Cayetana,” he began. “About it . . . all.” Polo paused, gauging her reaction. “And would it be so bad if people did think that we were dating?”

If the cauldron had been connected to her emotions, it would’ve exploded Sleeping Draught all over the walls of the dungeon, and Carla would’ve forced Polo to clean it up, because had he gone bloody mad? 

“What sort of fucking plan is that, Polo? ” He opened his mouth, but Carla quickly cut him off. “I’d rather nothing happen at all if that’s what you come up with.”

“Just listen—”

“What problem does that even solve? Other than proving him right?”

“It doesn’t even have to be about him!” defended Polo fiercely. Carla stabbed her pestle into the mortar. “It doesn’t even matter what he thinks anymore! It—”

“Polo,” said Carla darkly. “I refuse for you to make me look like a fool after yesterday.”

“Since when did you care about looking like a fool to a Gryffindor?”

“Since when did you not care?” she shot back. “You were the one who chased me down the castle, Polo, you did.”

“That was—” He let out an exasperated breath. “I was worried about what Cayetana would think. But—we talked about it, and—if people really thought that I was only playing her, it could—she could be safer.”

“She already is safe,” Carla drawled. “And I already helped with that. I refuse to be in this.” She liked Cayetana well enough, she did, but how much more worth it could this be? She was already protected. Carla had made sure of it. 

“We don’t have to make it look like anything, just to not—to not deny anything, either.”

“No.”

His brows briskly knit in fury. “Why are you so opposed to it?”

She scoffed. “I’m not a part of your mess anymore, Polo. So don’t drag me in it.”

“Then why did you even ask? You—”

“Don’t act as if you weren’t making it—”

“—could’ve just carried on—”

“Polo.” She leveled him with a stare. 

It brought him down at least a notch or two. He sighed and slid off of the stool. “Fine,” he relented. “Fine. I’m not involving you.”

Carla returned back to her potion. She was still very aware of the possibilities of some trick he was playing—they were, after all, Slytherins, and didn’t take well to not getting their ways—but she also knew that when the time came, it was her word over Polo’s. 

It was so silent that Carla wondered if Polo had silently slipped out of the room, but that couldn’t have been the case. He was still there, watching her drop the mucus in the cauldrons. Carla waited. 

“Dinner started twenty minutes ago,” he told her, and then left.

She pulled out her watch, mindful not to get mucus smeared on it. “Shit.” He was right. 

She could come back after dinner to finish up the potion. She had time. She sprinkled in the crushed lavender, waved her wand over the cauldrons, and then rushed out of the classroom, thanking Slughorn for his help. 

---

“Can you pass the ketchup?”

Carla switched her attention to Rosier, who was pointing to the bottle in the middle of the table, untouched by the rest of the Slytherins. “No.”

He scowled. “Why not?” 

“Because you’re gross and don’t need to be eating ketchup with your mashed potatoes,” she said dully, but slid it over to him anyway. 

“There you go again,” he muttered, “hating everything.” He gave the bottle an aggressive shake before squeezing a large dollop out. 

“Hey,” Penelope whispered, nudging her in the side. “Are the rumors true?”

Carla grimaced. “What rumors?”

“About you and . . .” She made a beckoning gesture. “Polo.”

Carla glanced over at the boy in question, who was happily chatting with Cayetana. Had whatever Samuel thought spread that quickly?

Of course it had, because if Samuel knew, so did Guzman, so did Ander, so did Lu, and so did the rest of the castle. 

Polo’s measly plan for her was to not deny a thing. That would fix it, he believed. That would fix everything.

She met Penelope with a look that caused her to fidget around. “We’re not.” It held all of the firmness of truth. “We’re not dating.”

No more leaves. No more feathers. 

He could handle things on his own. He had to.

A snort of mirth came from across the table.

“What’s funny, Rosier?” Carla asked, fixing him with an unnerving stare. If she could tell him to piss off, she would, but that’d only make him more inclined to stay.

“Nothing,” he said, with an exaggerated shrug. “I just feel bad for him.”

“Evan,” Penelope chided. “Not this.” 

Carla held her hand up. “You feel . . . bad for him?” she repeated slowly. 

Rosier ignored her. “We all know that it’s going to happen anyway.” He discreetly nodded his head towards Polo. “And at this point, you’re just prolonging it and making him suffer. But, hey . . .” He shrugged. “I guess I can’t be too surprised.”

“Evan!” groaned his girlfriend. 

He shrugged. “She’s done it to half of the poor blokes at this school.” 

“You still can’t—”

“Let him talk, Penelope,” Carla interjected, forcing the pangs of her heart away and her voice to remain still. How could she even be upset at this point? “Let him talk.” 

“See?” Rosier pointed out with a satisfied grin. “It’s all jokes. She doesn’t care, she knows it.”

She supposed she did. 

“Remember last year?” he continued, his mouth full. “They all thought they had a chance, and then what? She sleeps with the mudblood.” 

“Piss off, Rosier.” 

“He’s just trying to rile you up,” Penelope cut in. “It gives him an adrenaline rush, testing you like that.”

Carla could only wonder why. “Hexing a few third-years doesn’t already do that, Rosier?”

He smiled wickedly and dropped a bare chicken bone on his plate. “Find out for yourself, won’t you?”

“I’m not sure she can,” said Penelope. “Head Girl, and all.”

“I’m sure she can have a few moments of fun.”

“By tormenting you, maybe,” Carla said immediately. “Detention tomorrow night. Have fun scrubbing the trophy room floors.”

“What—you can’t—you can’t do that!” he sputtered. Penelope fell into a fit of giggles beside her. “You’re—”

“Head Girl, so get used to it,” she reminded him. “Unless you’re looking to go a second time. Merlin knows Penelope would be a lot happier with you if you could.”

The side of her face suddenly felt warm, and that was all Carla could focus on, drowning out the cacophony of appreciative laughter that Rosier had barked out. Someone was watching her. She didn’t know how she knew, but she knew. And she felt it coming from the Gryffindor table, which only meant one thing.

She locked eyes with the Head Boy across the Great Hall. 

For a second, that transported them into this shameless limbo where he held her gaze, and his eyes even narrowed, but it was so slight that Carla could’ve imagined it. Though she didn’t. The gravity of the situation was worth more than that, because it had been personal. It had been. 

They’d not even exchanged so much as a look between now and their argument, which both sparked her curiosity and fueled her anger. He hadn’t even begun to start more, or worse—apologize. Gryffindors could never back down from anything, no matter how mad it was. They’d jump into a pit full of Swedish Short-Snouts to prove someone wrong.

A Slytherin. They’d jump into a pit full of Swedish Short-Snouts to prove a Slytherin wrong. Always. Because they simply couldn’t resist, rooted deeply into their nature from Godric Gryffindor himself. 

Always.

Finally, Nadia tapped him on the shoulder, and his attention went back to his friends, which meant that Carla had won this round. Nobody else around was there to tap Carla on her shoulder, to interrupt her with other matters. Evan and Penelope were now engaged in their own conversation. Lu sat with the Gryffindors tonight. Polo wasn’t even faced her way. She had won, hadn’t she? 

A drum pulsed in her neck. This narrative that she and Polo were best buddies who headed to Hogsmeade together on the weekends to drink butterbeer and laugh uproariously—Samuel had helped push it. She wasn’t sure the last time she’d laughed with Polo. She wasn’t sure the last time she’d laughed at all. 

And what did Samuel know? Nothing, and that was the point. Because he wouldn’t be able to handle knowing nothing. That meant he’d have to sit still and risk his pride, risk the fact that he was wrong. 

So why was Samuel the only one who could get to play games? That wasn’t how the world worked. At least, not at Hogwarts. Not with Carla. 

He wanted to toy with her, and that was fine. He wanted some type of revenge for anything she’d ever done to him or his friends, and that was also perfectly fine. Polo had said that it wasn’t even about Samuel anymore, and that was true for him, but for her—

It had been personal. 

Carla knew that it had been, and so did Samuel. And if he thought for even a second that she was going to make it easy for him, his head was going to spin. 

Because he’d looked her in the eye, and behind his own had come a daring accusation, perhaps the worst and most common feather of them all:

Blood purist. 

Chapter Text

When Carla had initially walked into the abandoned girls’ toilets on the second floor of the castle, she hadn’t been expecting to find a first-year passed out, but she supposed Hogwarts had its charms.

“Fuck,” she hissed sharply, squatting down beside her. The little girl was as pale as a sheet. “Myrtle!”

Moaning Myrtle floated out from one of the worn bathroom stalls. 

“It wasn’t me.”

“What happened to her?” demanded Carla. 

She crossed her arms. “She passed out.”

“Yes, I can bloody well see that, Myrtle.” The ghost drifted past Carla, hovering in front of the sink, looking at herself in the mirror. “I told you to stop last year.” 

She spun around. “So Peeves can scare the children, but when I do it, I’m the bloody villain?” said Myrtle angrily. She sniffled. “That’s not fair, and you know it!” 

“Why are you crying?”

“Guess what happened! Go on, guess!” 

“I don’t want to.”

“It’s outrageous!” 

“I’m sure it is.”

“Sir Nicholas didn’t invite me to his deathday party yet—”

“So go anyway.”

“—but he asked Peeves to come! Peeves! And Peeves, he—” Myrtle wiped at her face. “He made fun of me—”

Carla pinched the bridge of her nose. “Merlin. Is Peeves better than you?” 

“Of course not! He—”

“Then show it.” 

With an agonizing grunt, Myrtle stomped her nonexistent feet and disappeared through the stall door. It was blissfully silent for a few moments, and then Carla heard a wail. 

“Shit,” she huffed, and slowly dragged the body out of the bathroom, tug by tug, actively underestimating the power of dead weight. The worst look it would be, for someone to stumble upon her. When the body was finally propped up against the walls of the castle, Carla pointed her wand at the little girl’s chest. 

Rennerv—

A jet of light sailed past Carla with a whoosh!, blinding her in the process. It barely skimmed her breast, making contact with her wand and sending it flying down the long corridor. 

“Hey!” a boy roared, and Carla could’ve sworn it made her stumble. She turned her head slowly, recognizing the voice all too well. 

Too well.

“Thank you for that,” she said.

Guzman stomped towards her, red-faced, and with a quick summoning charm, caught Carla’s wand in his empty hand.

Carla’s wand. 

“What,” she gritted out, losing all pretense of her cool, “do you bloody think you’re doing?” 

His hand extended further backwards as Carla reached for it. It was her wand. Who did he think he was to get his bloody paws on it? 

His face twisted. Not even in anger. In disgust. “What are you bloody doing?”

“Give that back.”

“This is a new low, even for you.” 

“And what of you, Guzman? Stealing people’s wands?” she accused. It was hers. One of the only things that was hers—sacred to every wizard, from the day they were admitted to Hogwarts, and—and from the moment a wizard received their own wand, they knew not to touch anyone else’s. Watching someone else with her wand was comparable to the Cruciatus curse—it was hers, reliably, and now she was watching helplessly as it wasn’t.

“Why is she unconscious?”

“Merlin, Guzman, let’s bloody think! Whose bathroom is here?”

He glanced at the girl, flat on the grounds of the castle, and then back to her. “And you? What were you doing?”

She narrowed her eyes dangerously. Carla’s hands came around her wand. “Don’t piss me off, Guzman,” she threatened, “and let go.” 

Ages ago, that would’ve made him surrender immediately, but distance made the heart grow bolder. Not even a flinch. 

“What happens if you get pissed off?” he said. “You’ll hex me?”

“I’d do much worse, you idiot.” 

“What were you doing?” he repeated, more firmly this time. 

She tugged forcefully, but Guzman didn’t budge. Instead, it only brought him forward. Carla glared up at him. “If you truly need me to answer that—”

“I’d rather not take chances,” said Guzman harshly. “Look what happened the last time I did.”

That wasn’t bloody fair.

It wasn’t my fault! she wanted to yell, that everything that had happened to Marina had happened, and it wasn’t bloody fair for him to say that and wholeheartedly believe it. None of it. 

And yet, in a sick and twisted way, all of it, because look at what she’d been these past few years. Frightful. If the first-year had woken up with Carla looming over her, would her immediate reaction be to crawl up the wall and plead for mercy?

“I thought you knew who I was, Guzman,” she said. His friend. She was supposed to be his friend. His presence was like a piece of her life. It was only one of many things she was familiar with, yet it still made up the puzzle, didn’t it? She had known Guzman since they were in diapers. She had seen him fall off his broomstick while she had soared in the air with Marina. She had walked the halls with him since the beginning of first year. She had sat with him in the Great Hall for as long as she could remember.

He swallowed hard. “I thought I did, too.”

The piece of her in his life was gone, as well. 

She should’ve known, instead of believing that if it wasn’t false, then it was automatically true. 

“What are you doing?” she said darkly, and watched him take a step back out of the corner of her eye. With a simple levitation spell, the girl was floating down the corridor. 

“If you want your wand back,” he said, like he was some bloody genius, “you’ll come with me to Pomfrey.” 

Carla had half a mind to punch him. Or slap him. Or sweep him with her feet and scramble away with her wand. Or all three. Whichever wounded his pride the most. But it was clear that he was not stopping to wait for her, and it would be one hell of a fight to regain power here. 

Carla could only follow. 

---

Pomfrey, as expected, fussed as soon as they entered the Hospital Wing. She had already been tending to too many clumsy people today, she claimed. Nevertheless, there was an open bed for her directly in the middle of the room. 

“Who knocked her out?” Pomfrey laid the back of her hand flat against the girl’s forehead. She looked up. “Who knocked her out?” she said again, with much more annoyance. 

Carla glanced over at Guzman. Go ahead, her look said, if you’re so omniscient. 

“Moaning Myrtle,” he answered. “Moaning Myrtle knocked her out.”

Fortunately for him, Pomfrey didn’t dig further than that, and instead woke the girl from her stupor. Guzman, slightly sulkier, rubbed at his throat before pausing and staring somewhere over Carla’s head. 

“Samu.” The name made Carla straighten up. Guzman walked right past her. What were the odds that he was speaking to anyone else? She threw a glance over her shoulder. 

Slim to none, apparently, because Samuel was definitely standing there, and Guzman was definitely speaking to him, and Samuel had definitely been shamelessly boring into the side of her head. 

“Fucking shit,” she scorned under her breath, and thought to distract herself instead by watching the poor first-year again, whose injury was now being inspected carefully by Madam Pomfrey. This was a scene from her worst nightmare. 

Carla was unable to hear their conversations—nor was she sure that she wanted to. It’d practically be Guzman feeding Samuel feathers about his lousy trip around the castle. She saw no point. 

After a prolonged period of hushed whispers that grew more aggressive, there was only silence paired with a shuffle in movements. Suddenly, Guzman was in front of her, slamming her wand down on the table. 

“Here.” He sounded as if he would rather say anything else, but he still bit back his tongue and walked away. 

Carla swiped it off the table, as if he would double back and change his mind. “Twenty points from Gryffindor,” she muttered, to the level that he could still hear as he left. “Stealing.” 

All of a sudden, she felt a tingly sense in her spine that lingered, even as he appeared at her side. 

She willed her voice evenly. “What are you doing here?” 

Samuel shifted in his robes. “I have a concussion,” he said easily. “Bludger hit.” He nudged his head to across the room, which probably didn’t do his injury any justice. “I’ve been waiting for Pomfrey to hand me my other potion and clear me.” 

“This must’ve been an inconvenience for you, then.”

Pomfrey, who she supposed had not gotten a break since last night, had gone somewhere into her office to retrieve a potion for the first-year. Carla debated speaking to the first-year in lieu of this conversation. Her feet began to move. 

“Carla.”

The thing was that Carla didn’t want to turn. She didn’t care enough to. 

But she did anyway, because she enjoyed the thrill of fire and impulsiveness. 

Speak, she willed him. You’re the one asking for my attention.

Finally, he did, and then Carla wished he hadn’t really opened his mouth at all. At times, she wondered what life would be like if she could apparate from inside the castle, preferably away from these types of situations and perhaps people in general. 

“Sorry about last week,” he said. 

There was a heavy beat of silence where he looked down at her closely. She turned her head up at him. His brain had chosen that moment to quiet down from his usual loud, loud thoughts. There was something on the tip of his tongue, ready to lash out at her. It burned. It felt wrong. Could you shoo something away without knowing what it was, only that it . . . burned and felt wrong? 

“You’re apologizing?” she asked. Somewhere behind her, the first-year fell into a coughing fit. Pomfrey had come back with the medicine. Gryffindors didn’t apologize. “For what you said, or for what you did?”

“Both.” 

Two things, she remarked. Impressive. “For which part of it?”

“For all of it,” he answered easily. 

“And so why did any of it happen?” she asked.

“I was angry.” 

“You were. It was almost comical.” 

He gritted his teeth. “I said some things I didn’t mean—“

“You’re lying.” 

There was a slight falter in his thought process. She supposed he hadn’t ever been caught so egregiously. 

“You meant it,” she continued, albeit a bit aggressively, “because you wouldn’t have said it if you didn’t.” And it would’ve been too bloody insulting to them both to forfeit so easily—as if it simply wasn’t worth his time. It shouldn’t have been, but when purebloods were on the other end of things, he always seemed to find time, didn’t he? That’s how it was in fifth year, with his chin upturned against her and Lu and Polo and Guzman and Ander, and again the end of sixth year. 

And if there was a guilty part of him that wanted to say sorry, it would not have taken a week, in the face of the Hospital Wing, mid-concussion. He had sat beside her for long enough to say something, but instead their side of the classroom had been filled with nothingness. 

The facet he had carried up to her three minutes ago hadn’t changed, but she knew at least some part of his blood was red-hot, boiling. 

“Madam Pomfrey,” she found herself saying, catching the witch’s attention. “I can take her back to the common room.”

Pomfrey waved her off. “You’re free to go. She’ll stay overnight.”

“Great.” Carla stole another glance at Samuel. He must’ve heard many things about Carla from Guzman and Lu—things the two didn’t mind sharing, as it made her look like the worst person in the world. There wasn’t anything Carla could do to change that. So why was Samuel acting as if she had? A sorry— that wasn’t normal, nor was it sincere. 

She felt as if she could never understand him. How could she even begin to? 

“Good luck with your potion,” she said at once, and straightened up to leave. “I heard it tastes like dragon vomit.”

He did not respond as she brushed past him. 

Bloody insulting to them both. 

---

The cauldrons were all ready when Carla and the rest of the class came piling in.

She didn’t have to guess what that meant. 

“I hope that you all have come prepared for one of the most difficult potions yet!” said Slughorn, much too cheerily for the afternoon. 

A collective groan shuddered through the classroom, which only wound the Professor’s smile tighter. 

“Now . . . this potion is a very special one.” He tapped the blackboard, where he had written a few quick bullet points. Blue smoke. Taken for seven days to gain effects. Invented by Damocles Belby. “Sound familiar?” 

Veronica Selwyn raised her hand. “Is that the thing that makes your hair grow quicker?” 

“That’s Sleekeazy’s,” a Prewett twin challenged. Carla rolled her eyes. 

“It’s not Sleekeazy’s,” Slughorn said. Veronica stuck her tongue out at the boy. “Other guesses?” 

“Oh!” cried Penelope, hitting the table wildly. “Is it Twilight Moonbeams?” 

“Absolutely not.”

“But—”

“It would be a Ministry violation,” said Slughorn. Penelope deflated in her seat. “But it is close . . . er.”

“Dogbane?” suggested Emmeline Vance. 

“Even closer!”

Emmeline shrugged. “I’ve got nothing left.” 

Slughorn tread across the room, waiting for any more answers. However, aside from a few timid whispers, it seemed that the class had gotten stuck in a stalemate. His face fell into a frown. How was it possible that not a single person there knew? 

Seven days . . .  It was so specific that Carla had to have seen or heard of it before. Not many potions in the Wizarding World required seven whole days of use. It was impractical. Who ever did anything consistently for seven days? Everything always changed within seven days. No wonder Carla couldn’t attach a name to it.

Finally, someone mumbled something, and Slughorn doubled back to that half of the classroom. 

“What was that?” he asked, rearing his ears forward first. He scoured the seats ahead. 

“Wolfsbane,” said someone sharply, but it was more like a snarl. Slughorn looked down at the boy in front of him while Carla pulled her chin away from where it was propped on her hand. “To relieve werewolves from pain.” 

Carla recognized that edged sword. She had heard it only a few days ago, after all, and in her recent experiences, Guzman’s bitter voice was the easiest to distinguish out of all the Gryffindors. 

The classroom fell silent. People began to exchange knowing, pitiful, and even fearful looks. 

There was something so stinging about hearing a name unsaid. The watch in her back pocket was suddenly frigid.

It would be a year since she died next month. Twelve full moons. 

Carla stole a glance over at Samuel. His face was unreadable. She didn’t think he had taken his eyes off of the chalkboard since it had been written on. 

Someone cleared their throat. 

“Do you mind if I take some after we brew, Professor?” said Rosier loudly. “I think I’ve found some monsters in the Forbidden Forest that would need it more.” 

Carla sighed.

Snickers started in the room, but they fell quickly at Guzman’s stare. A crowd of approving remarks from beside him still rumbled, coming from his own posse. He grinned up at their professor, who would be walking an extremely thin line with any type of response, admittedly. 

Then a stone flew out of nowhere, making direct contact with the side of Rosier’s head. 

He touched his temple and looked over at his aggressor. “What the hell—” 

“You would think seeing those monsters would make you more self-aware by now,” Rebeka shot at him. 

A few protests broke out from either side of the classroom, including some from Professor Slughorn. Evan rose from his chair, but Penelope was quick to tug him back down by the sleeve as Guzman matched his actions. Nadia hissed at her boyfriend to sit back down, and so he did, but only after slamming his fist down on the table. Both of them had gone mad if they thought they could get away with something when a professor, two Head students, and multiple angry opposing houses were in the same area. 

Sensing the growing hostility’s chokehold over the general mood of the class, Professor Slughorn tapped repeatedly on his board.

“That’s enough!” Slughorn yelled, over all of the clamor. “Twenty points from Gryffindor and Slytherin for disruption!” 

There were only a few more murmurs of dissent before everyone piped back down. Guzman looked capable of strangling someone with his bare hands. That someone had gone back to his uninterested state as Professor Slughorn droned on about their directions. 

Carla released a weary breath and cracked open her book to page 134. 

“I will collect your Wolfsbanes at the end of class,” Professor Slughorn said. “All of your ingredients are up here—including the main one: wolfsbane! And another thing—you will work with your table partner.” He smiled evilly. “Good luck.” 

Most of her schoolmates began to spread out through the room to collect their ingredients and equipment before Carla even processed her professor’s words. 

Her head slowly wheeled right. Samuel stood behind his stool, contemplating every decision he had ever made up until that point, just as she was.  

It would’ve been funny, actually, to anyone except them, and the Head Boy and Girl would’ve made sense, actually, to anyone except them. 

But this wasn’t funny at all. 

“Let’s get this done,” she huffed, and hopped off of her seat. Samuel pondered the possibility for a long, still moment before moving.

“I’ve got the wolfsbane,” he muttered, and broke off to the side.

---

“Move your bloody arm.”

“Why?”

“Because I can’t reach the bamboo,” she hissed. Because not everything I do has to have an ulterior motive. 

Samuel stared at her for a stubborn second before snaking his arm to his side. He wasn’t really in a position to argue about potion-making with her. Last year, his attempt to make a Cough potion had gone terribly wrong, so much so that even Slughorn could not identify the concoction he had created. Meanwhile, Carla had worked with Lu, and the mutual understanding that they both knew that the other had enough experience brewing the potion on sick days was more than enough to launch them above the pair of Nadia and Christian. 

But at least now Samuel would listen. 

“Here.” Carla slapped a handful of bloodroots into his open palm. It made her skin a bit tingly, but she shook it off. “Crush that in.” 

Without further complaint, he did as told, and the cauldron erupted into a haze of dark blue smoke. 

“Bravo!” Slughorn threw his hands up and made his way over. He leaned over the cauldron and swiped at the cloud. It divided itself easily. “Well done, you two!” 

Carla nodded. As the Potions professor began to collect their successes, she waited. There were five minutes of class left. 

Across the room, Carla heard loud curses. Rebeka had pricked herself on a bloodroot, and now Valerio was laughing at her obnoxiously. Her stomach churned unpleasantly. They seemed to be having their fair share of fun. 

When she tossed a quick glance over her shoulder, Samuel was already looking at her. 

“What?”

“Nothing,” he said, and he didn’t sound guilty or ashamed. “It’s just you didn’t say anything.” He turned to face the front and picked up a quill. “When your friends were insulting her.”

“They’re not my friends,” she said immediately. 

“They still listen to you, don’t they? It was Marina they were insulting. You had all the power to stop them.” 

“It’d be an insult to Rebeka to think she couldn’t handle it. And anyway, who are you to speak on power? You had the authority as Head Boy to tell them to piss off.” 

“Not in the dungeons,” he said under his breath, returning to his doodles on the parchment. Carla wondered how long he had been holding that in. It was a fiery thought, that, and it was only contained inside his short frame. She’d probably be angry, too.

Showing wasn’t power. Telling wasn’t power. Being was power. And right now, she was being annoyed. 

Carla watched everyone trickle past the rows out of the corner of her eye. “Don’t forget about rounds tonight,” she said idly. “Don’t be late.”

“I can be responsible enough.”

“We’ll see.”

It was a sour feeling, that Marina had treated her poorly in the past few years, and Carla had still wanted to save her, but she could not, even now, with all of her power. 

It was a sick and twisted sentiment, but a sentiment nonetheless.

---

“You may come in.”

Carla positioned herself into a seat in front of the Headmaster’s desk. Professor Dumbledore drew the curtains closed, where the moonlight was pouring in, with a flick of the wand.

Carla pressed the planes of her skirt flat. She wasn’t really sure if she was supposed to speak first. He reached into a basket of candy, the same one on his desk that she’d been eyeing, and raised his brows, inviting her to join him. 

She did not move. If she wanted sweets from Honeydukes, toothflossing stringmints could be quite upsetting. She already had a bowl of them at home. They sat in the direct middle of the dining table, and when they ran under halfway her father would usher one of the house-elves to replenish them. The bowl used to be filled with Honeydukes chocolates, but Carla enjoyed them far too much, so her mother pulled them away and insisted on the stringmint alternative. 

Dumbledore hummed disapprovingly, as if it were her loss, and popped one into his mouth. “They’re good for your teeth,” he explained. “And make your breath smell lovely. Filius doesn’t think so, but they’re better than sugar quills, in my opinion.”

“They are,” she agreed with a nod. They weren’t. 

“Hmm.” He eyed her suspiciously—no, amusedly. That was Dumbledore’s whole thing: he enjoyed a good joke or two. He placed the basket somewhere behind his desk and returned to his usual questioning, Headmaster state, his hands steepled together in a show that would be intimidating to fourth-years and below. “Is something the matter, Miss Rosón? You don’t come into my office quite often, you know.”

“I know, Professor,” she said. “Everything is fine.” 

“You’ve come to humor me, then?”

“This is possibly that.”

“If it is—“

“I just have a question,” Carla started calmly. “A real question.” Dumbledore leaned forward in intrigue. “You chose me to be Head Girl.”

“That’s not a question,” he noted.

“Why?” The word had been haunting her for ages now. Why? Or better yet, how? How could anything make sense anymore when she had become those she had once pitied? And how could that even qualify her as a proper Head Girl? What had Carla done that Lu hadn’t? 

Dumbledore did enjoy a good joke or two. 

“Ah,” he said. It was a simple click of the tongue. Still, it made her uneasy. Ahs weren’t just ahs when it really mattered. They were strategic, because someone as wise as Dumbledore wouldn’t make the mistake of letting a surprise turn into an ah for the world to see.

It just didn’t make sense.

None of this made any form of sense.

But Carla wouldn’t let the world see that, of course. 

“Do you not enjoy being Head Girl?” 

“I—” Carla blinked. “I do.” She supposed the answer wasn’t very left-field. Wasn’t it just to be the nobler version of the Slytherin queen? 

“Ah.” There it was again. “So you’re simply curious?” Carla shrugged. Dumbledore lurched back in his chair. He opened his mouth, and then it shut again, carefully falling into a frown. “You are Head Girl because you’ve proven that you are capable and receive near top marks in your classes.”

“And others haven’t?” 

“Well . . .” His hands clamped together. “I’m not able to speak of others’ qualifications.”

“But I can,” she pointed out, “and I know that I’m not the first in my year who can turn vinegar into wine with my own feet square.” 

“You certainly aren’t,” he said. So what was the deal? What had happened to Lu? To Nadia? The ones who tried because they wanted it and wanted it because they tried? “But you are respected by your peers. More now than ever, that’s what this school needs.” 

She’d led the Slytherins better than Lu had, was what Carla was hearing. 

She hated that. 

“And your qualities were also weighed with the possible Head Boy choices.” 

“And Samuel?” she prompted. “He’s the best option with me as a Head Girl? He makes a good Head Boy?”

“I believe so.” 

“His friends sneak around the castle under his watch,” she pointed out dryly. 

“And you’ve already caught it,” he countered. “Samuel does not strive for perfection, but he shows chivalry and courage. Possibly more than anyone else here.” 

Carla leaned forward. “I thought you couldn’t speak of others’ qualifications.”

His face slowly stretched into a bright, wide smile. “And I thought you were a Slytherin, not a Ravenclaw.”

Somehow, those words seemed to swell some pride in her chest. “You could’ve had one of us and then another. Not both. That would’ve been bet—”

“It would not have been,” he interrupted, quite firmly. “At least, not in my opinion.” 

Carla looked off to the side and then back to him, letting her still face speak for herself. 

“You’re too different,” explained Dumbledore, as if he’d launched into a two hour long lecture about it. “Which makes you too alike.” 

“Too alike,” she repeated, unsatisfied by those words. “Somehow, that doesn’t seem right.”

“Well . . . I’m afraid the rightest things are the wrongest, Miss Rosón.”

“So do the wrongest things seem the rightest in return?” 

“That may be something for you to find out for yourself,” said Dumbledore airily. Carla shifted in her chair. She hadn’t remembered the last time Dumbledore had been this cryptic. This . . . deflective.

“But,” he continued, “if you feel as if I made the wrong decision, you are allowed to give up your badge.” Carla blinked. When had the conversation taken such a sharp veer? “And then I would appoint a new Head Girl.” 

You are allowed to give up your badge, said Dumbledore. You are allowed to be a coward, was all Carla heard. 

“No,” she decided, her voice almost sudden, like a low rumble, as she leveraged herself off the arms of her chair. If the Headmaster believed that she was the best for Head Girl, then why would she prove him wrong? Carla had never been so rash before. “Professor. I’m not resigning.”

He let out an approving hum and rose as well. “I didn’t think you would. But it’s a formality of mine, whenever a Head student comes in with a complaint.”

“It wasn’t a complaint. I was just—”

“Curious?” he said. “I know. But isn’t it more meritable of me to always keep you questioning?” With a heavy tread across the room, he opened up the door for her, sending a gust of air over Carla’s skin.

“Certainly more frustrating,” she told him, and stopped just beside the frame. “Thank you, Professor.” 

The thing about Dumbledore’s eyes was that they were always alive, and they would always reflect something akin to happiness. It made it hard to be angry at him. “I’d advise you not to miss dinner on my behalf, Miss Rosón.”

With that, Carla was left alone in the corridor. 

She took a deep breath and fixed her hair, even though it was unlikely to be ruffled at all. Dumbledore was always planning two steps ahead. How could she even begin to find out what those steps were? He’d tried to circle her ten times over. 

She glanced back at the stone gargoyle that guarded his office. Half of it was worn, the other half a bit polished but still a victim to the tests of time. She’d never seen it talk before, but Ander had once told her he heard it speak to the ghosts of Hogwarts. 

It sat still. Mocking her. 

“Don’t look at me like that,” she said with a glare. It didn’t care enough to respond. She wondered how lonely it was, tied to someone else for ages and ages. She started down the staircase. 

Carla took out her watch. Dumbledore was right. She needed to get back to the Great Hall within the next five minutes to even get a chance at picking at a muffin or two. 

She felt a warm presence ahead that pulled her gaze. Carla held her chin high. Samuel was walking down the opposite end of the corridor, tossing her a fleeting glance as he moved past. 

The only reason he would be up here was if he also needed to talk to Dumbledore.

Over a month, it had been. A month of being Head students. 

Turn around, she could’ve said, you’re wasting your time. But Carla did not force those words out. 

She was not foolish enough to believe that Samuel attempting to talk to Dumbledore did not correlate with the likes of her. So what was he to talk about? About how awful she was, as the Slytherin queen and the Head Girl? About how she was nasty? Hateful? And when Dumbledore would give him the ultimatum of resigning, would he consider it for more than a half-second? 

It was hypocritical of her to be so annoyed by it. And frankly, Carla hated feeling this way. But if everyone else was to play a game, what was she to do? Stand by and freeze up? Was that life? 

Life was trouble. 

It was impossible, but that was all the more reason to just worry about herself. People were digging. Samuel was digging, just as he always did, until he could be satisfied with himself. One day, he was going to reach the bottom and fall right through.

Carla would personally see to it. 

---

“Merlin.” She snorted. “Someone wanted to prove me wrong.”

At almost half past nine, Samuel was already standing in front of the Great Hall, looking quite bored. 

He shoved his wand into his pocket. “If I come late, I’m an irresponsible Head Boy. If I come early, I’m a petty Head Boy.”

“Well, irresponsibility certainly suits you better than pettiness.” 

He ignored her and waved down the corridor. “Ladies first.”

If Carla wanted to be a real arse, she would’ve demanded that he walk in front of her. But because it was the beginning of rounds, and both of them just wanted to get it over with, she complied and ultimately took the risk of him stabbing her in the back. 

---

There was a mutual agreement that they would search from the top down, but Carla suspected the only reason why was so Samuel could avoid the dungeons for as long as possible. And so they did. 

But Merlin was Carla tired by the time they reached the third floor. If there was one thing that she’d learned from doing rounds, other than the fact that couples loved to stake their claim by the staircases on the second floor, thus traumatizing Carla on numerous occasions, it was that she would never step foot near the level of the Astronomy Tower again. 

“What are the chances Dumbledore will notice if we end rounds early?” Samuel’s voice rumbled through the corridor. 

“If you have anything better to do, you can take that chance,” she responded absently. Her hand followed the lines of the castle, rough on her fingers. Six full years, and she wasn’t sure the last time she had been able to appreciate it. Sometimes, at Hogwarts, there really was no peace. 

Except now. 

“And you don’t?” he said. “On a Friday night?” 

“Some of us aren’t always causing mischief, Samuel.” No, she had a duty to uphold, and that word as Head Girl meant more than anything here.

“It isn’t mischief.”

“You’re right, it’s running around the castle in invisibility cloaks as if you all were children.”

“The castle needs someone to cheer them up,” he said in a low voice. “But I doubt you’ve noticed.”

“Party tricks aren’t favors,” she said. She didn’t bother to look behind her when she could already imagine the sour expression printed on Samuel’s face. “Slytherin doesn’t need your little stunts.” 

“Slytherin is the reason why they exist in the first place.”

“Why? Because we care about things, and when we want them, we get them? By all accounts, that’s not much different from what you do, except a little less of a moral code. Slytherins are always going to exist, always going to find a way, so it’s only about who has the sense to get to it first.” 

“That’s no moral code at all.” His eyes bore into the back of her head. 

Carla found herself falling into the comfort of the surface of the castle walls again. “You know the best way to get something?” 

“Through hard work and strong will?”

“No,” she said. That was to work harder, and not smarter. “To act like you have it already.” 

“That’s what you did with Head Girl?”

Carla, with a sigh, took a peek around the corner before pressing her back against the wall. “I never even thought about Head Girl until I got that envelope, Samuel.” 

Samuel had come to a full stop. 

“Yeah,” he muttered. “Same.” 

She glanced over at him, standing as if he felt small, and there was almost a pang of sympathy in her chest. Neither of them had asked for these roles, and yet both of them had too much pride to give them up. And if Carla had to feel alone, then she’d rather do it with authority in her back pocket. 

“You know,” Samuel said, “you were annoyed today.” Her head whipped over. His voice had gained a newfound sense of impassiveness, which was bad news. Really bad news. “In Slughorn’s.” 

“I was annoyed?” 

“Your face was a tell.” 

Carla snorted and crossed her arms. “Samuel, if I didn’t want you to know something, you wouldn’t.” 

“You’ve made that perfectly clear.” 

“And it’s a shame,” she told him slyly, “because I was honestly beginning to enjoy our conversation. Until you brought that up.” 

He gave the weakest shrug she’d ever seen, as if she wasn’t even worth the shoulder motion. “I’m still enjoying it.”

She pushed herself off the wall. “We’re wasting time,” said Carla, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “There’s still floors to go.”

“You were perfectly fine with a break a minute ago.”

“The break’s over. We have things to do.” 

“We’ve found one person tonight,” Samuel pointed out. “And they weren’t even hiding, either.” 

“Shit,” she huffed exasperatedly. “If you want to run away from your Head Boy duties, be my guest.”

“You act as if I had any control over me being Head Boy.”

“If I had it my way, you wouldn’t be Head Boy at all.”

“Luckily, you don’t always get your way.”

Carla spun around, so abruptly that Samuel almost ran into her. “You wouldn’t want to test that,” she said dangerously. 

Much to her dismay, the Gryffindor barely flinched, only glancing down at her. How could Carla shake him? After a few quiet moments, he spoke again.

“People call you the Slytherin queen,” he said, his words coming out far too casually, “and they like you.” 

She watched him carefully. 

He shook his head. “But you’ve just been pretending the whole time.” 

Carla had so many—too many—questions. How long had he been waiting to say that? The entirety of rounds tonight? Had he been looking for that first piece to the puzzle of her, all this time? And if he could have it…

“With the way you look at them, it’s like you want to—”

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” she shot at him. She imagined what it would be like to slap him. Just a clean smack, right across the face. 

“—be anywhere else. It’s nothing like how they look at you. And so you tell me these things, and you act—”

“That’s it, then? You’ve seemed to have gotten me all figured out?”

“—as if you have it all, but in reality—this is how Slytherins work, isn’t it? You wanted power, and so you tried to have it—”

“Piss off, Samuel.”

“—and now you’re left with this…fake power.”

“Fake power?” Carla felt an outraged part of her open up, to the point where she was almost yelling. She stepped forward, backing him down the hallway. “Fake power?”

“You could’ve said something in class today,” he told her, matching her push-back tactics. It was as if he’d grown as a looming tower over her. “Because you hated the things they were saying, and they would’ve listened to you. But you chose not to.”

“Little point in making a scene in front of everybody else,” she countered.

“Or maybe you don’t want to lose their support,” he accused, ignoring her signs of protest, “which is a shame, because from what I’ve seen, that only means one thing.” 

Carla scoffed, but he was still closing the distance, and she was a push away from losing. 

“You have no power over them. Over anyo—”

She grabbed onto his collar and tugged him closer. 

“Don’t,” she began sharply, more of a faultless breath, “make things worse for yourself.”

She’d brought his face level to hers. Perhaps she was out of practice, but Carla still knew how to entice someone like it was a first-year spell. Like she knew nothing better. And it was time for Samuel to learn that. 

His eyes hadn’t gone wide, but they’d taken on the appearance she would only expect to see standing in front of a group of fire-breathing tarantulas. Through the fabric, his body was unbearably warm. 

For a moment, she saw that he was going to drop it. To drop everything and back away. And for that same moment, Carla wasn’t sure what she would do if he did. Would that mean that he’d won, and she really had lost it all? 

But with a sharp swallow, he stayed there. 

Waiting. 

And then he let out something akin to a heavy sigh, grabbed her face, and kissed her. 

The two of them stumbled backwards until Carla pressed flush against the wall. Her hands encircled his neck, bringing him closer with a faint grunt. Maybe he was angry that she’d caught him so easily, but the way Carla saw it, it was only fair. 

The way Carla saw it, he wouldn’t know her, and he had no power over her. And if she couldn’t get her way, then she certainly wouldn’t let him get his. 

“I hate what you’re doing,” he breathed out, and she sensed the pain and truth behind his words. His eyes were squinted, and he tried to peer into her soul, as if he truly couldn’t understand it, but he wouldn’t stop until he could. 

And she kissed him even harder, because he should’ve known better. 

Their feet shuffled into a nearby broom cupboard. There was a rhythm in how things worked. Wand. Muffliato. Colloportus. Cloak. Trousers. It was ironic, finding that in this discord of hell. Her hands worked on his trousers, but he stopped her. 

“Are you sure you want to do this?” 

This’ll ruin your life, he was saying.

No, Carla thought, and fully sank down on him, but it’ll surely ruin yours. 

“You wouldn't know about girls like me,” she muttered, her lips ghosting all over his skin.

When he looked up at her, Carla knew that if he wasn’t already partially gone for her, for her charms, then he would be come the morning. 

If he wanted a leaf from her, he already had one. 

But if he was searching for a feather, he’d have to pry it out of her cold hands. 

And in that struggle, if he believed that she was nasty and hateful, then she would be much, much worse.