IV

Grega woke up with a start, uneasy and covered in a sheen of sweat. It wasn't that it was hot, but it was seven-fifty-four am on Saturday. The day Pansy and Hether would engage in a duel, one which only one could walk out of alive. She feared for Hether, who was a shell of bravado around a timid yolk. She wasn't much different from herself. Try as she might, she couldn't end the duel. They had made an unbreakable vow and it could not be broken.

She jumped from her bed as if it had stung her, throwing her duvet aside and made a dash for Hether's bed. She tossed the canopy aside, ready to smack her awake, but froze.

Hether was gone. She couldn't have been kidnapped - the bed was perfectly made, with her nightwear folded and neatly placed in the corner, but she was gone. Her things were still there, so she couldn't have run away. She could have gone and hidden, just like she would have if Pansy had challenged her to a duel.

Grega's blood ran cold. She skittered about, pulling on clothes haphazardly but managing to look presentable, grabbed her wand and coat, and bolted out of the dormitories and down the stairs faster than she had ever seen herself do. There was only one person who could help her find Hether, and they had less than four hours left.

The corridors were quiet and void, save for the occasional studious witch or wizard shuffling along. She stole across the courtyard, keeping to the side so she would not be seen as she slunk towards the Gryffindor tower. She wasn't sure if it were true; it was only rumours she'd heard, of a map that could show you where anyone was.

Grega paused as she got to the hall-full-of-stairs (it had another name but she wasn't quite sure what it was) and checked to see if she had been followed. When the coast was deemed clear, she whipped out her wand, a thin but firm long piece of woven white beech, and pointed it at her feet.

"Silencio," she whispered, and shuffled her feet to check that the spell had worked. Then she brought out an old yellow and red scarf, draped it round her neck, and walked up to the Fat Lady with sleepy eyes.

The painted lady rose from her seat and looked down at Grega, fan in her hand. "Where've you come from?"

"The library," Grega faked a yawn. "I studied for a bit but I'm certain I need to go back to sleep."

"Well, what's the pass, dear?"

"I remember its 'Godric', but I don't know if its been changed." Grega rubbed her eyes and made as if she would start nodding off.

"It has been changed, but you look like you're about to fall, so I'll let you in." the Fat Lady said and the painting lifted on its hinges, and swung open. Grega nodded in gratitude and climbed into the Gryffindor common room. The enormous amount of red there hurt her eyes. It was a round room, like Ravenclaw's, and there was a huge fireplace that took up a whole wall, and on either side of that there was an archway with a staircase leading up. She assumed that one led up to the boys' rooms and the other to the girls', but she didn't know which one. She didn't have time to check, because it was running out. She brought out her wand and formed an 'x' with it in the air.

"Silencio, accio Harry." She said quietly and waited to see if the improvised spell had worked. Soon enough, to her surprise, Harry Potter came vaulting down the stairs; with his arms flailing about to stop his fall and his mouth open in a silent yell. The spell dumped him in quite a pile at her feet, and he looked up, disoriented and annoyed. He started to tell her off but realised there was no sound coming out of him, and so rose and brushed the dust off his nightwear.

Grega raised a finger to her lips to tell him to be quiet as she lifted the spell off him. "Harry, I need your map." She whispered.

"What map?" he whispered back furiously. "You drag me down the stairs at eight-thirty to ask me for a map? What are you -"

"Hether's gone missing." She cut him short, and his face blanked. She rolled her eyes. It was very clear now why the boy would never have made the cut for Ravenclaw. "Hether. The duel. Between Pansy and her, remember?"

Harry's face paled. "What do you mean she's missing? The duel's today!!"

"You don't say," she responded bitterly. "I know you have a map that shows everyone at Hogwarts. I need it to find her."

"What's going on down here?" a voice cut into the air. Grega and Harry spun around. It was Hermione Granger, bundled in a fluffy blanket, hair scattered all round her face. She looked as if she had just crawled out of bed, yet her face was bright and sharp. Grega grimaced and kept quiet. She didn't like Hermione, but she didn't hate her either. She was a bit of a thorn in the neck; always showing that she was the better one, whether it was unintentional or not.

"Grega here needs the map to find Hether." Harry explained.

"Hether absconded the duel?" Hermione looked stupendously distraught and hurried down the stairs, looking back and forth between them. "We've got to find her! It's a duel to the death – what are you waiting for, Harry? Go on then, get the map!"

Harry blinked and stumbled into action with a nudge from Hermione. "Accio map!" he pointed his wand, and a folded piece of parchment flew into his open hand. Grega watched as he opened it up and whispered some words. She leaned in, curious, to see the wonder of the map.

It was indeed a wonder – at Harry's words, the blank paper began to disappear under blots of ink that joined to form the map of the grounds. As she watched, tiny banners bearing the names of students began to pop up here and there. The three of them huddled over the map, each scanning fervently for a banner that bore Hether's name.

"There she is!" Hermione cried out in a hushed whisper. She pointed to a part of the map with her wand. It was in the Transfiguration Courtyard, right under the old tree. There, a banner stood unmoving, the name 'Hether Weson' plastered over it. Grega let out a breath she didn't know she was holding. Hether hadn't absconded – she was at the place of the duel, still as a statue, waiting for the stroke of twelve. But as she looked, she noticed something seemed amiss. The banner was flickering. Her eyes darted across the map to see if this was how other names appeared, but it wasn't. Their banners, clustered together in the Gryffindor common room, were still and stagnant. Hether was there, but something was wrong.

"Something's wrong," She broke away from the cluster and moved to the door. "her banner is flickering. She's there, but something's wrong. I've got to go – "

"We'll come with," Hermione interrupted her and discarded her blanket unto a chair.

"You don't have to. Thanks for the help." Grega turned again towards the door.

"It's only safer," Harry looked at Hermione, as if to check if they were thinking the same thing. "If there's some Slytherins scouting the area for Pansy, they won't take kindly to your being there."

Grega sighed. She always forgot that Gryffindors were Ravenclaws, but Hufflepuffs at heart.

"You're right. But we've got to go, and quick."

The three of them; an odd little group of two Gryffindors and a Ravenclaw, snuck out of the common room with the help of a Silencio charm, and crept as quietly as they could to the place of the duel. It was a rather cold morning, and the sun was delayed in its rising, as if it could sense the tension in the air. There was a slow breeze that swooped down on them, blowing their hair gently in an annoying manner across their faces. Grega hoped in earnest that Hether was alright. She looked like someone that could very well carry their own weight, but most of those people ended up being someone else.

Hether was, as we know, perfectly alright. She'd left the dorms shortly after seven for a brief swim in the Black Lake like she always did (even though it was forbidden to do so), and had made her way to the place of the duel straight away so she didn't have to ignore any looks of pity thrown at her. She'd gone to the old tree at the end of the courtyard, and had sat there, on its lowest branch. It was supposed to be over two centuries old, right at the heart of the school. A preservation spell was renewed every new session to keep it from crumbling away as it should have decades ago. Instead of moving on, it was frozen in this small niche of time, as the world revolved and changed constantly around it. If the old tree were a person, they would be the most relatable of people.

Hether sat and watched as the sun climbed its way slowly into the sky in yet another sunrise. The early-morning-cold dwindled away, leaving light kisses of dew behind on each grass blade. She bent down, mesmerised by a sight she had seen a thousand times, and ran her fingers over the plants until they were wet with dew. When she raised her head, she was greeted with the sight of three students jogging towards her in the oddest gear. She recognized hem instantly – at the forefront was Grega, dressed to the nines in winter apparel, and a Gryffindor scarf that was wrapped around her neck and stuck out like a sore thumb. Behind her, following closely, were Hermione Granger from Arithmacy and – was that the one called Harry? She wasn't sure. He looked like he had been tossed like a salad, with his hair sticking out in all directions.

"Hether!" Grega's voice came out as a shrill squeak. "Thank goodness, you're alright."

She watched, bewildered, as Grega came to a halt before her, panting, her face red as sherry. Hermione slowed down her jog and came round to stand at Hether's side.

"Grega thought you had absconded or something bad happened to you." She wheezed.

"Well, you can see I'm fine, so you can go." Hether spun on her heels and walked back to her spot on the tree.

Grega let out a great scoff. "We came all this way to check on you! A 'thank you' would be nice, you know."

"I didn't ask you to, did I?" Hether rolled her eyes. "If you would just stick your nose out of my life and stop acting like my bodyguard, you wouldn't have to!"

"We're in the same house," Grega said, exasperated. "We're supposed to look out for each other!"

"No, we're not," Hether marched up to her and looked her square in the eyes. "That's what Gryffindors do. We're Ravenclaw, we're supposed to be smart. If you had a duel at twelve o'clock on a Saturday morning, tell me, would you sleep in till ten?"

Grega narrowed her eyes, giving up. Hether was right, but she didn't need to be so rude about it.

"Can't you see you're hurting her feelings, Hether?" Hermione spoke up. Hether eyed Hermione warily and sat back down on her branch.

"You should probably fix yourself, Harry." She said dryly. "It's almost eleven and you look a right mess."

Harry and Hermione stormed off, leaving Grega behind. It was obvious Hether didn't want to talk, but the dorms were on the other side of the school and she wanted to watch the duel. So, they both sat there, one branch apart from the other, waiting in silence as time passed.

Five minutes passed. The school began to fully wake up, and some students began to roam around the courtyard in anticipation of the duel. The duel. There hadn't been a duel in years, not since... nobody even knew when the last duel was. Staff and student alike slowly began to position themselves at the best views, mumbling to each other. Thirty minutes passed.

At fifteen-to, the Slytherins announced their presence, with their voices travelling into the courtyard as they hailed their champion in. Hether smirked to her wand. It was a flimsy one, carved from stag bone rather than wood as most wands were. She considered it an accessory, one that she only used when she had to. Everything else, she would do herself, or just manually. There was no pride in being dependent on it.

They marched in, hollering their praises, with Pansy in the middle. When they got to just outside the entrance, they stopped, except Pansy, who stepped into the courtyard. Hether saw Grega rise hurriedly from the branch she was sat on and scurry to the edge of the yard. Now the showdown had begun.