The sun hung brilliantly over the grounds as students strolled along the lakeshore or sat around lazily in groups, catching up with friends they’d missed over the holidays and taking advantage of what could be summer’s last warm and homework free weekend. Draco Malfoy, flanked by his usual oversized sentinels, Crabbe and Goyle, smirked as a second year Hufflepuff raced by, trying to catch a flying disk that whizzed over their heads. Malfoy’s foot snaked out, and the young, dark-haired boy went sprawling, looking up in indignation at the offender. Crabbe and Goyle guffawed, and Malfoy sneered at the boy, his pale eyes daring the Hufflepuff to retaliate. He didn’t, naturally, as said offender was not only a Slytherin sixth year, therefore much larger and much more skilled with a wand, but his cronies could dwarf a yeti.
“Why do you have to be such a foul git, Malfoy?” Ron Weasley demanded, glaring up at the Slytherins from his place beside his sister, Ginny, on a blanket.
Malfoy gave him an imperial sneer. “Steady on, Weasel. Where’s your precious Potter? I didn’t think you ever stepped out from under his shadow.” He didn’t pause to sling further insults; he wasn’t in the mood to fight with Weasley or the little Weaslette, who was holding onto her brother’s arm to stop him jumping on the smirking Slytherin while giving him an unladylike gesture with her free hand.
Crabbe and Goyle sniggered, endlessly entertained by their leader’s indiscriminate bullying and general rudeness. They continued along the path, across the still lush, green grass, brushing passers-by unceremoniously out of their way. “…Daddy isn’t pleased, but I promised to help him find one next summer,” a pale, waifish blonde Ravenclaw girl said, smiling dreamily. “I rather think we will. This time, we’ll know exactly where to look.”
Malfoy’s eyes gleamed unpleasantly as his lips curled. “What’s that, Lovegood?” he drawled, malice in his marble pale face. “Spend the summer hunting Crumply snorkaxes again? Or has your father finally got himself chucked into the loony bin? Maybe he’ll find one in there.”
To his surprise and the surprise of everyone watching, it wasn’t Luna Lovegood who responded. The Ravenclaw girl beside her jumped to her feet in a single move, her translucent green eyes blazing. “You shut your face, Malfoy!” the sixth year girl snarled.
Malfoy blinked at her a moment. He knew her, of course, had known her for five years, but he couldn’t remember her ever speaking, least of all to him. She was decidedly odd in appearance. Her long, dark red hair fell straight to her waist in stark contrast to skin so pale he looked positively tan in comparison. It wasn’t the unnatural whiteness of her skin or even the strange glow it seemed to emanate that was most unusual, however. It was her hands, which were slender and moved with eerie grace. Her fingers were long, nearly twice as long as normal fingers and inhumanly flexible as if there were no bones in them at all. He thought he remembered seeing her flick the strange abominations as one would a wand and wondered if she even needed a wand to perform magic.
He recovered his wits quickly, especially since everyone within earshot was suddenly listening raptly. “Oh, so the white demon does speak,” he drawled in a cold voice, and a few people gasped at the words. “I was under the impression you were merely”an illusion.”
“Keep talking, Malfoy, and I’ll show you what an illusion is capable of,” she replied in a low, dangerous voice.
He chuckled. “Is that so? When did you grow a backbone, Armstrong? I didn’t realize iluzii even could.”
There were more shocked gasps at this statement as if he’d said something incredibly obscene. Aine Armstrong didn’t gasp, but the fire burned more hotly in her jade eyes. “More backbone than any Slytherin could ever have,” she said, drawing out the word as if it were the foulest she could sling at him.
His lips turned up in a snarl, and he pulled out his wand, aiming it at her face. She didn’t even flinch, this unusually brave and foolhardy Ravenclaw, but stared at him coldly. “Keep talking, half-breed, and I’ll show you what a Slytherin is capable of,” he told her, mimicking her dangerous tone.
They were advancing on each other, and Crabbe and Goyle stayed where they were as if afraid the odd-looking girl could do funny, dangerous magic if they got too close. Armstrong and Malfoy were inches apart, glaring into each other’s eyes with unbridled loathing. “Try it, Malfoy, if you think you’re brave,” she growled, and he didn’t see arrogance in her eyes; he saw honesty. Could she do funny, dangerous magic?
“I’m not afraid of you, white demon. You’re nothing but a bedtime story to me,” he hissed.
“And you’re nothing but talk, Malfoy.” That wasn’t true, and she knew it, but she didn’t back down, didn’t look away and didn’t pull her wand to defend herself.
He narrowed his eyes at her, feeling oddly light-headed, oddly off-centre. Why wasn’t she pulling out her wand? Could she, like the creatures of bedtime lore, hypnotise men with their eyes, cloud their minds and confuse their thoughts? He didn’t feel hypnotised, but the proximity of her incandescent face and unyielding eyes was unnerving. She was psyching him out, he realised. “I know magic you couldn’t even dream of,” he said quietly, and she suspected not untruthfully as she peered into silvery eyes that flashed with barely controlled anger.
“Naturally.” Her voice was smooth, almost sweet. “Probably the same magic that got your father chucked in prison.”
That was the final straw. Malfoy felt the icy composure snap as she dealt the low blow, causing the spectators to gasp in as much shock as they had at his remarks. She almost winced herself at the unnecessarily nasty retort, but she didn’t back down”and she still didn’t produce her wand as his flew up, into her face. “Mr Malfoy! Miss Armstrong! That is quite enough!”
The entire crowd turned to see Professor McGonagall speeding up the path, holding down the tartan sun cap on her head. Malfoy didn’t move to finish the curse, but he didn’t move away from Aine, either, who continued to hold his eyes defiantly. It wasn’t until Luna and Ron pulled her backwards by the shoulders away from him and Crabbe and Goyle stepped up to flank his sides again that the tense face off was broken.
“What in the name of Merlin is going on here?” Prof. McGonagall demanded. “Miss Armstrong?”
Aine looked at her then raised a dark red eyebrow, replying easily, “Nothing, Professor. Malfoy and I were merely having a discussion.”
“A discussion.”
Malfoy was looking at Aine, nonplussed, sure she would have reported the attempted attack that would have landed her opponent detention or lost him house points. “That’s right,” Aine continued. “It just got a little heated.”
McGonagall’s lips were tight, but she didn’t demand any further explanation. “I see. Do try to keep your discussions less heated in future.”
“Yes, Professor,” Aine murmured smoothly, and Malfoy echoed her sullenly.
When she spun away, striding back the way she came, Malfoy spun on the red-haired girl, his eyes stormy and his pale, sculpted face etched into a dangerous sneer. He wasn’t sure if he was angrier that she had broken his composure or that she’d saved him from detention. “This isn’t over, Armstrong. Not by a long shot.”
He didn’t wait for his bodyguards to follow him. He spun, storming away with fury in every line of his face.
It was the start of the whole thing. Perhaps if it hadn’t started their lives would never have been so entwined; perhaps they could have avoided the entire nightmare.
~~~“Did you hear about Malfoy and that Armstrong girl?”
“I thought he was going to murder her right there in front of everyone…”
“I’ve never even heard her speak before…”
“I assumed she couldn’t speak”you know, considering…”
The Great Hall was buzzing about the ‘heated discussion’ between the Slytherin and Ravenclaw sixth years that evening. “It was brilliant!” Ron Weasley told Hermione Granger and Harry Potter at the Gryffindor table, his blue eyes shining with mirth. “I thought his head was just going to explode right there; he was so mad. She’s really brilliant.”
“You’ve already said that, Ron,” Hermione told him, rolling her eyes. “It’s all you’ve been talking about all day.”
“Yeah, but”you should have seen his face. And she just---“
“Yes, yes, she just stared him in the eye and never backed down,” Hermione finished for him. “Is anyone talking about anything else?”
“I always thought she was kind of quiet,” Ginny mused. “Luna said she mostly keeps to herself and never really talks to anyone, even in her house. I’m surprised she stood up to him like that.”
“It was really nice of her to stick up for Luna,” Harry remarked. “I don’t think many people do.”
“I think Luna might be her only friend,” Ginny added, her eyes drifting to the Ravenclaw table where Aine Armstrong was sitting between a number of her larger male housemates, who were guffawing about the look on Malfoy’s face when Aine had stood up to him. Ginny suspected they had surrounded her in case Crabbe or Goyle got the urge to retaliate for her slight on their fearless leader.
“Not anymore, looks like,” Harry put in. “I reckon she'll be pretty popular now.”
“It must be hard looking like that,” Hermione murmured, cocking her head at the girl across the hall. “She probably doesn’t like people asking a lot of questions.”
“What was that Malfoy was calling her?” Harry asked. “A white demon”what did he mean by that?”
“Well, she does kind of look like one,” Ginny said very quietly.
“Like what?”
“She looks like an iluzii!” Ron exclaimed, leaning over the table to talk in a stage whisper, lest anyone overhear the hated words.
“What is an iluzii?” Harry asked, frowning.
Hermione was not the one to answer this time, though she had opened her mouth to recite what would likely have been quoted directly from a textbook. “The iluzii are mythical creatures,” Ginny explained. “They look like humans except their skin is really white like Aine’s, and they have really long limbs and fingers. Some of the stories say it’s because they have no bones.”
Harry watched Aine across the hall. She wasn’t smiling, but her pale eyes twinkled, lighting up her striking face as she listened to the conversations around her. “She looks like she has no bones; the way she moves. I’ve noticed it before, but couldn’t describe it.” When he caught the others looking at him, eyebrows raised, he ducked his head, glancing away from the red-haired Ravenclaw.
“The iluzii shape shift and read minds. Sometimes they can even alter them or control them. And they are masters of illusion,” Hermione continued because Ginny was peering at Harry in interest. “But they aren’t real.”
“So you say,” Ron interrupted. “But what about all the babies?”
Harry’s attention snapped to Ron. “What babies?”
Hermione rolled her eyes, but Ron ignored her. “They say they aren’t real, but there were all these babies born with long fingers like Aine’s and white skin and white eyes.”
“Honestly, Ron, she isn’t an iluzii,” Hermione scolded. “She’s just a witch.”
“Yeah, a witch with hyper-digitised hands and really white skin,” Ron replied.
‘Don’t go starting rumours, Ron, and reminding people of old wives’ tales,” Ginny told her brother sternly. “It’s bad enough with Malfoy running around using the word.” She looked at Harry. “Wizards don’t like the iluzii. If they were real”well, wizards would treat them a lot like they do werewolves. Those babies had a really bad time of it”anyone who looked like one of them was persecuted. Some were even killed or chucked in prison.”
“But that’s silly,” Harry muttered. “She’s really pretty.”
Hermione and Ginny rolled their eyes, but Ron nodded. She may be distinctly odd, but she was striking. “I hope Malfoy doesn’t do anything terrible to her,” Hermione said.
“I hope he tries it so she’ll jinx him into next week. She’s really good at Defence Against the Dark Arts and Transfiguration. Maybe she’ll turn him into a ferret like Impostor Moody did,” Ron put in, grinning at the memory.
“All I hope is no one gets hurt too badly,” Ginny said.
“Unless it’s Malfoy,” Harry added.
~~~The war began on Monday in Charms. Though her popularity had, as Harry had predicted, increased exponentially since the now infamous run-in with Draco Malfoy, Aine sat quietly at a table by herself, watching Flitwick demonstrate a non-verbal shrinking charm on an angry, beady-eyed raven. She could feel eyes on the back of her head, knowing it was the Slytherins whispering viciously. Smoky eyes like tiny, raging storms followed her every move, narrowed in concentration and loathing. It occurred to her to be thankful looks could not, in fact, kill, but they could surely make her squirm. She had had occasion to notice Draco Malfoy, as it was truly hard not to notice him, but she had never found herself actually thinking about him.
Well, perhaps he had crossed her mind once or twice but mostly as a source of righteous indignation or moral outrage and almost never because he was actually quite good looking in a not terribly nice and not terribly unappealing sort of way. However, he had certainly never been a constant presence there before; an awareness of him now hovered in the back of her mind, even when she wasn’t actually thinking about him”or worrying what sort of retaliation a boy like Draco Malfoy, who was infamous not only for his even more infamous and thoroughly disgraced family but for his ability to torment anyone who attracted his ire with little or no remorse or consideration of possible consequence. She wasn’t afraid, not really; she was sure he had not been lying when he’d claimed to know magic she’d never dreamed of”all of it Dark, surely”but he hadn’t frightened her, even when his eyes had born into hers with such rage and hatred. In the long moment their eyes had been locked, it was as if she were peering into two swirling, furious tempests, barely contained and dying to be unleashed. In the long moment they had stared at each other she had, for the blink of an eye, almost wanted them to consume her.
Have I gone mental? She wanted no such thing. She had been angry, livid with his casual slights on her rumoured birth, but she had seen something there”something that had made staring at him impossible to avoid, something that made stepping away even more impossible. What had it been? What had she seen? No, not seen. It was what she hadn’t seen that had given her the confidence to goad him. It was the absence of malice. Anger, yes. Loathing, absolutely. But murder”no. Perhaps he wanted to shake her around a bit, even slap her, but she had gotten the distinct impression that Draco Malfoy, despite his and his family’s reputations, would never actually cross the line. She wondered if anyone else had realised it yet. She doubted it, and she doubted he wanted anyone to.
Aine yanked herself out of her ridiculous reverie. Draco Malfoy, I ask you. Thinking about him like this was surely exactly what he would want. He was probably not only hoping but counting on her being consumed by him, by invading her thoughts with wondering what he would do next, what he had planned for her. He was probably smirking like a proud peacock right now, and if she turned it would only confirm exactly what he suspected. She would not give him the satisfaction. Do your worst, Malfoy. But I’m not going to waste time worrying what it’s going to be.
She didn’t have much time to waste at all, really. A chorus of muttered Reducios chimed through the room despite Professor Flitwick’s instructions. Ravens cawed nervously then in tiny, squeaking voices as the charms shrank or revived them. She pointed her wand lazily at her raven who was eyeing her suspiciously with tiny, black eyes. “Red”“
“Reducio!” An odd sensation overcame her, as if she was growing larger and larger instantly, outgrowing her black robes. What had been wide and billowing was now shrinking, shortening to reveal bare legs and a short, pleated grey skirt. She jumped up, hearing sniggers and guffaws from the Slytherins and startled exclamations from the Ravenclaws. She chanced a glance behind her as the collar started to close around her throat, and her eyes met Malfoy’s. He was grinning, and his eyes glinted mischievously. She instantly understood”he had performed the shrinking charm on her robes.
She didn’t give him the satisfaction of shrieking, glaring or reacting in any way to his prank. She spun her wand on herself and muttered, “Finite.”
“Miss Armstrong, is there a problem?” Professor Flitwick squeaked, alarmed.
She caught Malfoy’s eye, and he raised his eyebrows, his eyes defiant and challenging. “No, Professor,” she said just as smoothly as when she’d addressed McGonagall. “Must have missed my raven and shrunk my robes instead.”
Malfoy looked furious that she had saved him from trouble a second time. What was she playing at? Normally he would have enjoyed getting away with such a trick, but he certainly didn’t want it to be because she had covered for him. The nerve of that Ravenclaw. Whispers broke out all over the classroom; those who hadn’t seen Malfoy perform the spell could probably have guessed its source, but no one spoke up to contradict her. If she didn’t know what she was doing, she was doing a bang up job of hiding it.
“Do try to be more cautious in the future, Aine,” Flitwick said gently, reversing the damage, and she sat back down, relieved that she could move and breathe freely.
“I will certainly try,” she replied, smiling.
“What was that about?” Terry Boot demanded, catching her arm as the class packed up their bags to head for lunch. “I saw Malfoy hit you with that spell. Why didn’t you turn him in?”
Aine smiled at him, casually sliding books into her oversized bag. “I prefer to deal with Malfoy my way,” she told him easily. “Detention is too good for him.”
A slow grin spread over Terry’s face. “What, exactly, do you have in mind, Aine?”
She looked at him solemnly, swinging her bag onto her shoulder and striding towards the door. “Gryffindors might fight with their hands; Slytherins might fight with their mouths, but Ravenclaws”we fight with our minds.”