[Chapter Size: 2100 Words.]
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Beneath the West Tower was the eighth floor of Hogwarts, where the Room of Requirement was also located.
Since there was still some time before lunch, Amanda planned to search for it.
But the moment they stepped out of the tower, one of the most unfortunate things that could happen to a Hogwarts student occurred.
Whoosh
Something shot toward them with a sharp hiss as it cut through the air.
Amanda instinctively dodged left.
Splash!
Behind her, Draco froze.
He looked down at himself blankly, unable to believe what he saw.
His brand-new white shirt and tie were splattered with bright red ink.
The shattered ink bottle hit the floor with a loud crack. Above them, Peeves, dressed in a gaudy floral shirt and a red-and-blue suit, howled with laughter, clutching his belly.
"Hahahahaha! Look at the terrified little first-years! Do you like the fancy new uniform I made just for you?"
Peeves swooped around them gleefully, brandishing a box of chalk and smashing sticks down onto their heads.
"Try this one!"
He flung the pieces at them, one by one.
What bad luck, on their very first day, they had run into Peeves, the most troublesome of all.
Amanda ducked left and right, shielding her head with her arms, trying to fire off a few spells at the same time. But Peeves darted nimbly around each one, cackling louder.
Out of the corner of her eye, Amanda noticed Draco still standing there in shock, taking hit after hit without reacting.
She had no choice but to grab his arm and shout, "Run!"
Peeves yanked the woolen carpet out from under them.
Both Amanda and Draco crashed to the floor.
Amanda landed flat on her face, and Draco didn't fare much better.
Clutching her nose, Amanda shouted, "Peeves! If you keep pulling tricks like this, we'll tell the Bloody Baron!"
Peeves feared Slytherin's ghost more than anything, but Amanda wasn't sure if the threat would work.
Yet the moment she finished speaking, Peeves vanished into thin air.
His shrill laughter still echoed through the corridor.
"Hahahahahaha"
Amanda sighed in relief and was just about to get up when a harsh cough sounded behind them.
"Ahem..."
Argus Filch, the caretaker of Hogwarts, rolled his cloudy eyes at them, a malicious grin twisting his mouth.
"These days, first-years just love their little games. Skipping classes, tossing around the professors' things... Heh, isn't that right?"
"No, it was Peeves…"
Amanda protested.
"Peeves, Peeves, always Peeves!" Filch snapped impatiently.
"Only God knows how much students love lying... always blaming Peeves! Do you know how liars were punished at Hogwarts in the Middle Ages? Locked in the dungeons, subjected to the cruelest torment..."
Filch's voice almost trembled with excitement as he spoke of punishment, his eyes glinting with malice between the wrinkles.
"Your names, tell me your names! I'll write them down now, hehe... and then your Head of House will punish you properly."
"My name is Draco Malfoy."
Draco's muffled voice came from behind her.
Amanda glanced back and saw he had finally accepted reality, standing up slowly with a deadened look.
"Malfoy? That name sounds familiar... let me think... Lucius Malfoy? Yes... could it be Mr. Malfoy?"
Filch's raspy voice trembled ever so slightly.
"Yes, he's my father," Draco answered.
"The Council member... He was the most well-behaved student. His son must be the same... Forgive me, I must've been mistaken with you."
Filch forced a fawning smile onto his sour face.
"Mr. Malfoy, I've always respected your father. I hope you might say a kind word for me when you see him... hehe."
He lingered with sycophantic chatter, but when Draco's expression grew visibly impatient, Filch quickly found an excuse to leave.
Amanda couldn't help but sigh inwardly.
The status of a school council really was useful. Even the most difficult man in Hogwarts was forced to treat Draco politely.
Speaking of difficult people to deal with, if one were to rank them, Peeves would be first, Filch second, and Snape third.
But considering Draco's current state, they had no time left to search for the Room of Requirement.
Covering his face with his hands, Draco trailed after Amanda in despair as they made their way toward the dungeons.
Misfortune never came alone, and sure enough, they encountered the third difficult person at the entrance.
"My dear godson, and Miss Merlin. Did you both bathe in a vat of ink?"
That deep, silky voice belonged only to Severus Snape.
With all the bad luck stacked against them, Amanda could only question whether fortune had abandoned her entirely that day.
She and Draco turned stiffly toward him.
Snape waved his wand in disdain, casting a Scouring Charm. The ink vanished instantly from Draco's clothes.
"Miss Merlin, I would prefer you devoted yourself to learning spells as well as you speak, rather than parading around with my godson, who looks as though a slug has eaten his brain."
"You're right, Professor."
Amanda lowered her head humbly.
Draco, now restored along with his uniform, muttered, "Godfather, I'm sorry."
Perhaps because their apologies were so meek, even Snape, gloomy as ever, looked slightly uncomfortable.
"In any case, I don't want to see you behaving as foolishly as Gryffindors again."
After extracting their promises, Snape turned, sweeping away in his billowing robes toward his office.
…
At lunch in the Great Hall, Harry listened as they recounted their string of misfortunes.
His face was caught somewhere between sympathy and suppressed laughter.
"Merlin's beard, that's awful. Thank goodness I wasn't with you."
Draco still looked shaken.
"I'll make my father have Peeves expelled from Hogwarts!"
Harry frowned.
"Sounds like karma. You're always teasing me for eating too much."
"In the afternoon we've got Charms and Herbology. No classes tonight." Amanda checked the schedule. "Tomorrow is Defense Against the Dark Arts. I'm very interested."
"I'm more interested in the Dark Arts themselves than in defending against them," Draco said.
Harry frowned again, visibly uncomfortable.
"My parents were killed by Dark Magic... so I don't think I'll ever get involved with it."
Amanda stroked Harry's messy hair.
"There's no strict definition of magic. Its nature depends on the caster's intent. In fact, many decent wizards have used Dark Magic."
She gave him a simple example.
"Imagine you were there when your parents were murdered and you were already a fully trained wizard."
"In that moment, could you really restrain yourself from casting harmful spells? Would you only use simple binding charms, waiting calmly for the Aurors to arrive?"
Amanda looked into Harry's eyes, red with anger, and sighed.
"You couldn't, and most people couldn't either. Those who can… are a very small minority."
She didn't want Harry to be too rigidly just.
He was the kind of person who would feel miserable and guilty, forever questioning whether a spell was right or wrong.
Dumbledore was one of the few who managed that, defeating his enemies with only so-called "white" magic. But it was undeniable: if he had used more lethal spells, his efficiency would have been far greater.
That was also one of the reasons Voldemort had been able to dominate the wizarding world.
Absolute justice, the kind Gryffindors idolized, was nearly impossible to defend. In pursuing it, one could end up binding one's own hands and feet.
That was why they were Slytherins.
Slytherins would do anything to protect the people they loved.
Even so, Amanda admitted her own regret.
"I think it would probably be difficult for me to use the Dark Arts."
"I've read the rules of Dark Magic, it requires extremely strong emotions, like hatred or the desire to destroy. I've never experienced feelings that strong."
But at the moment, that didn't seem like such a loss.
"From the way you describe it, I sound rather suited for Dark Magic…" Harry muttered, his expression dark.
Though he understood Amanda's point in theory, he still couldn't accept it emotionally.
Amanda patted his shoulder.
"I'm just saying, don't limit yourself for reasons that don't make sense. A wizard's goodness isn't defined by the spells he casts, but by the choices he makes."
Draco scooped a spoonful of soup and smirked. "Neither salty nor bland."
"Fascinating as your debate is," he added, "I should remind you this is still Professor Quirrell's class."
He gave Harry a pointed look.
"That pain in your scar during the Welcoming Feast—it might have something to do with him."
Amanda raised a brow. "Indeed, I'm curious what he's hiding under that turban."
"What if we find a way to sneak a look?" Harry suggested boldly.
Draco rolled his eyes.
"And lose all of Slytherin's House points in the process?"
…
That afternoon, in Charms, the tiny Professor Flitwick had to climb a tall stack of books to call roll. When he reached Harry and Amanda's names, he squeaked with such excitement that he toppled off the pile and disappeared from sight, causing an uproar in the classroom.
After class, Pansy passed Amanda with a sour look.
"Don't get too full of yourself," she said coldly, before striding off as if she couldn't stand the sight of them.
"Pansy!" Draco called after her. "See you in the common room tonight, I have something to tell you!"
Pansy stopped, turned, and smiled back. "Alright!"
She glanced at Amanda with smug triumph, but Amanda only shrugged indifferently.
The next period was Herbology. While teaching them to identify two-eared grass and sapweed, Professor Sprout remarked casually:
"This morning, one boy, I think he's a Longbottom, managed to tell scurvy-grass from lovage at first glance, in his very first class."
Amanda winked at Draco.
He curled his lips. "Well, you're always right."
Herbalism was not Amanda's strength. To her, all the plants looked the same.
Compared to the textbook illustrations, the real samples hardly resembled them at all, especially the smaller Sleeping Beans, which looked almost identical to mistletoe berries.
For the first time, she felt frustrated with her studies.
"I don't understand why we need Herbology. What, are we supposed to wander into the wild and grab handfuls of grass to see if they're magical?"
Amanda, who never blamed herself but preferred to critique others, couldn't help questioning the subject's usefulness.
"I agree. You can buy dozens of these at an apothecary in Diagon Alley for a few Galleons."
Draco echoed her, wrestling with a particularly rebellious bouncing bulb that wriggled so violently it nearly smacked several students nearby.
Only Pansy laughed, brushing dirt from her robes. "Draco, you're as naughty as ever."
Meanwhile, Harry was studying a withered fig tree, bare of leaves, that had suddenly begun sprouting purple fruit from its center.
"Actually, these plants… are kind of fascinating, aren't they?" he murmured.
Just then, Brace shrieked from behind them as he was chased around the greenhouse by a pack of jumping mushrooms.
Amanda shrugged. "Oh yes. Fascinating indeed."
…
After dinner in the Great Hall, their day finally came to an end.
Amanda turned to Draco and Harry. "I know the perfect place for our SO group to meet. Want to come with me and find it?"
She was still worried about the morning's delays, thanks to Peeves and Filch. The sooner they secured a location, the sooner they could begin their secret activities.
Both Harry and Draco agreed.
"Where are we going?" Draco asked.
"To the eighth floor. There's a tapestry of a giant troll beating Barnabas the Barmy to a pulp."
"What?" Draco and Harry asked in unison.
"Trolls Beating Barnabas the Barmy," Amanda explained, doubting their intelligence. "It's about a wizard who tried to teach a troll ballet, and the troll ended up thrashing him."
Harry burst out laughing. "Hahaha! That's brilliant. Teaching a troll ballet, of all things! I can't even imagine the scene."
Draco frowned thoughtfully. "I think I've heard that story before… but what does it have to do with the place we're looking for?"
"Across from that tapestry is the Room of Requirement. I read about it in Hogwarts: A History. It can transform into whatever the user needs."
Amanda felt a flicker of guilt as she said this, she wasn't entirely sure the book actually mentioned it.
Fortunately, neither boy questioned her. They were more impressed by the sheer number of books she'd read.
"That sounds incredible. Let's go find it," Harry said eagerly.
Draco nodded. "I just hope we don't run into Peeves again."
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