[Chapter Size: 2000 Words.]
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After borrowing twenty books from the library, Amanda returned to her dormitory to read in silence.
After all, no one enjoys being watched like a parrot on display, surrounded by whispers and murmurs, even when people lower their voices, thinking she cannot hear. Their wandering eyes betray them all the same.
Bang, bang, bang.
Just as Amanda opened a book, a sharp knock rattled the door of Dormitory 221.
She frowned. Few things irritated her more than being disturbed while reading. Still, out of courtesy, she rose to answer it. Who could possibly want her now?
Before she reached the door, a girl's voice rang out:
"Amanda, are you in there?"
The voice was familiar. She opened the door without much thought and found a blonde girl standing there, sobbing loudly. Amanda squinted, then remembered Daphne Greengrass, Pansy Parkinson's closest friend.
The moment Daphne saw her, she swayed as if she might collapse.
"What's wrong?"
Amanda had a bad feeling. She and Daphne had no connection. If Daphne had come here, it could only be because of Pansy.
"Please… please help her…"
Daphne lifted her tear-streaked face, eyes pleading.
"Pansy is my best friend. I beg you…"
Amanda's voice was flat. "Why should I? I have no obligation to help her."
She started to close the door. After all, Pansy's situation was entirely her own fault.
But Daphne quickly pressed her trembling body against the doorframe, stopping it from shutting. Amanda frowned, her patience thinning.
"You could ask a prefect or the Headmaster."
"Pansy said she only wants to see you. Please…"
"No."
"Please, if you just talk to her, it'll be all right. She's… she's in a very dark place. From now on, I'll listen to anything you say. Just please…"
"Please…"
Amanda sighed. The girl before her was a mess of tears, and it was clear that refusing would only prolong the scene. How troublesome.
"Fine. Where is she?"
…
Amanda climbed the narrow spiral staircase to the Astronomy Tower, the highest point at Hogwarts, where the first midnight class of the term would be held.
"Amanda, you finally came."
Pansy stood at the edge of the tower's platform, her school robes whipping in the wind. Her eyes were swollen and red, proof she had been crying.
The gusts distorted her voice, but Amanda heard:
"Do you know how important Draco is to me?"
Amanda stepped closer, her tone calm.
"Whether he's important to you or not has nothing to do with me."
Pansy ignored the words, her voice trembling.
"When I first saw him at a family banquet, I was five, I decided I would marry him. His platinum hair caught the light, even then, he was so confident, so charming. Extraordinary."
"So I acted foolish around him on purpose, just to draw his attention. He always helped me, always solved my problems. But since last year, he's grown cold, avoiding me deliberately. I thought he was only shy… but…"
Her voice cracked. "On the train, I saw you three together, laughing, eating, practicing spells. He smiled in a way I've never seen before. So happy. I knew, he has someone else in his heart!"
"…You're probably imagining things," Amanda said quietly.
"Impossible!" Pansy snapped. "He even turned against me to protect you!"
Amanda fell silent, staring at her. Was Pansy truly so blinded by jealousy?
"I swear I'll have Draco, no matter what!"
"Is that really so important?" Amanda asked, bewildered. She could not understand someone whose world revolved around nothing but love.
"Yes. If I can't have Draco, I'd rather die!"
Pansy laughed and sobbed at once, stepping closer to the platform's edge.
"All this crying and noise will only make him despise you more," Amanda said, her voice cool but faintly amused.
"Chasing someone means proving your worth and drawing them in with your charm, not clinging blindly."
"But, but how am I worse than you?" Pansy groaned, clutching her head. Jealousy burned in her gaze.
"You're an orphan, yet you have everything! Talent, beauty, status, admiration! Everyone favors you! And me, compared to you, I'm petty, foolish, worthless. Draco ignores me. Even my parents want to abandon me. I have nothing left!"
Amanda's eyes hardened, ice-blue against the dark sky. She moved closer, voice cold and steady.
"Everything you envy, aside from the title of Merlin's heir,nI earned through my own effort. While I studied through the night, what were you doing? While I practiced magic, what were you doing? How I treat others, how do you behave?"
"You want everything without lifting a finger. What kind of dream is that?"
Though Draco and Harry called her a genius, Amanda knew it was simply because she had started ahead, and because she worked harder than anyone else. Something most people overlooked.
Pansy flinched at her words, gasping for breath.
"I… but no matter how hard I try, I'll never be like you!"
"You'll never be me," Amanda said coldly. "But if you don't work at all, of course you'll never even come close."
"But what's the point of trying? Draco has already rejected me…"
Her voice weakened.
"That doesn't matter."
"No!"
"What matters is being yourself," Amanda said suddenly.
The words slipped out before she could stop them. A flicker of regret crossed her face.
What was she doing? Offering comfort to the very girl who had humiliated her?
…
Maybe, by chance, perhaps accidentally, her words worked.
Pansy's face shifted into confusion. She repeated Amanda's phrase over and over, as if trying to etch it into her mind.
"Be myself… be myself… be myself…"
Amanda exhaled in relief. It seemed her impromptu counseling session was finally drawing to a close, though she had no idea what Pansy was actually thinking.
"Yes… I just need to be myself!" Pansy whispered, her expression suddenly brightening.
"Then may I go now?" Amanda asked politely. "It's nearly lunchtime."
"No!" Pansy's scream tore through the wind. "Not yet, Amanda, please, promise me, pull me out of this abyss!"
She stood on the edge of the tower, desperation raw on her face, and stretched out her hand.
「...」
Amanda really wanted to leave.
But Draco's face flashed through her mind.
If Pansy leapt and died here, right before her eyes, because of him, because of Amanda's letter, how much psychological damage would it cause Draco?
His childhood friend, dead three days into term, haunting the castle as a ghost?
Amanda grimaced. She owed Draco, those books he'd lent her, the favors he'd done in Diagon Alley perhaps, for those reasons alone, she could, reluctantly, offer a hand.
So be it.
She strode forward and extended her hand. Her other hand gripped her wand, concealed in her robes, ready for anything.
Pansy clasped her hand. "Amanda… thank you."
Her lips curled, but her eyes turned cold.
Amanda felt a flicker of warning, but too late.
Pain shot through her body like lightning. Her limbs went numb. She couldn't move.
"Amanda," Pansy whispered, her voice chillingly calm, "you will fail because of your kindness and credulity. That is your greatest weakness."
Her tone sharpened. "You once said Slytherins do whatever it takes. I've learned that lesson."
She yanked Amanda forward, heaving her toward the abyss.
Caught off guard, Amanda felt herself hurled from the Astronomy Tower.
The roar of the wind filled her ears.
She should have seen this coming—shouldn't have been so foolish as to listen, to trust, to play at saving her enemy.
Regret and self-reproach flickered through her thoughts, but survival instinct drowned them out.
The weightless plunge hammered against her chest. The ground below seemed to claw at her, dragging her down.
Never had she wanted to live so desperately.
The wind strangled her mouth and nose, slashing her face like blades. Pain kept her conscious.
Her fingers twitched, she could move them.
With a scream that tore at her lungs, she cried:
"Accio Broom!"
The wind ripped at her voice, threatening to shatter her chest. And then, horror. Her wand had slipped from her hand during the fall.
In that instant, the emerald set in the Ring of the Sage blazed with light, so bright it rivaled the sun.
From somewhere within the castle, a broom came hurtling like an arrow, slicing through the air to reach her grasp.
She seized it, swung it beneath her body, and clung on for dear life.
Even though she had never ridden a broom before.
Her scream had already drawn half the castle's attention. Shouts and gasps rose from all directions.
Amanda spotted her wand tumbling near. With one hand still on the broom, she dived, accelerated, and snatched it mid-air, perfect.
But then—Hogwarts's stone tiles rushed up to meet her.
She was seconds away from smashing face-first into the ground.
The crowd's cries grew louder, piercing her ears.
Blood pounded in her skull. She yanked the broom upward with all her strength.
And skimmed the ground, her toes almost brushing stone.
She soared higher, past the rooftops, until the Astronomy Tower lay level with her, until the sky itself opened wide before her eyes.
"No!!!"
Pansy's enraged scream echoed behind, swallowed by the wind.
Amanda darted between Hogwarts's towers, over the covered bridge, through the autumn air.
Students all over the grounds pointed skyward, shouting in shock.
"Look!"
"Someone's flying inside the castle!"
"Who is it?"
"Wait, it's Merlin!"
She swept past the edge of the Forbidden Forest, skimmed over the Quidditch pitch, looped around the Whomping Willow and Hagrid's hut, where giant pumpkins gleamed orange in the sun. For a fleeting moment, she longed for Halloween, if only this fiasco hadn't happened.
The cool air pressed against her skin.
She spread her arms wide, fingers grazing the autumn breeze, before guiding the broom down toward the Black Lake. Ripples spread in a perfect V-shape across the surface, startling a cluster of tentacles back into the depths.
At last, she landed hard on the stone square before Hogwarts's main gates.
Her chest heaved with ragged breaths, sweat dripping from her brow. And yet, for the first time in days, she felt almost free. The rumors, the whispers, the suspicion, burned away in sweat and wind.
The castle doors burst open.
Professor McGonagall stormed out, face flushed with fury, Professor Snape gliding darkly behind her.
"How dare you—you nearly cracked your skull—Slytherin's…"
Amanda had never seen McGonagall so livid. Her lips trembled with rage, words breaking off.
Snape's low, velvety voice cut across hers.
"Minerva, I trust Miss Merlin more than any student in my House. Perhaps we should hear her side first."
「...」
Amanda saw no reason to cover for Pansy or Daphne.
Pansy had truly tried to kill her. If not for her quick reflexes, and perhaps sheer luck, she would already be dead.
And then there was the Ring of the Sage. Its emerald had unleashed a hidden power, enabling wandless magic. She would need to study that more closely.
Gathering herself, Amanda recounted everything that had happened atop the tower.
McGonagall's face turned crimson.
"Murder. This is attempted murder! In all my years at Hogwarts, I have never!"
She looked seconds away from fainting with fury.
Her eyes snapped to Snape. "Severus, you cannot cover for your students this time. Slytherin or not…"
The incident had clearly surpassed even Snape's calculations. His face remained calm, though his fingers brushed strands of greasy black hair from his eyes.
"Given the gravity of this matter," he said softly, "it should be brought to Dumbledore first."
"My response," said a firm, elegant voice, "is immediate expulsion."
Everyone turned.
Dumbledore stood not far away, his expression unusually severe.
No one knew when he had arrived.
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