V

Pansy smirked at Hether, who returned the gesture with a look of indifference. As a spell of silence fell across the now large crowd, they approached each other and observed the polite protocol required before a duel. Hether refused to meet Pansy's face, who took it as a sign of anxiety. They walked away from each other, back to back, and spun around on their heels to face themselves.

Draco slipped into the shadows of the courtyard. No one would suspect that he was here to see her, but to see the duel. There seemed to be a collective breath held as everyone waited to see who would cast the first spell.

It ended up being Pansy. "VENTUS!!" she yelled across the yard; her wand aimed at Hether. He watched as the wind seemed to gather itself at the tip of her wand. It spiraled, unsteady and volatile, towards Hether, who hadn't moved an inch. Hether raised her wand towards the miniature tornado spinning her way.

"Nuliferus," she counteracted the spell. To everyone's surprise, the gust dissipated, splitting clean in half like a rock, and dissolved into nothing. Even Pansy seemed stunned. No one had ever heard of a spell like that. Hether decided to keep the rest of the duel short. Using Pansy's shock to her advantage, she hurled her wand in the former's direction with a cry of "Serpenholdia!"

As Hether's wand spun through the air, it grew and twisted, until it was a fully grown snake flying towards Pansy; with its maw wide open and its fangs poised to strike. Pansy's eyes widened, as did everyone else's. Was Hether really going to kill Pansy? That didn't seem very much Ravenclaw, but then again it was in their nature to obey rules.

Draco recognised the viper as it hurled towards Pansy. Black, thin, with a sleek body and emotionless eyes – it was a black mamba, a particularly venomous snake. It would be quick bite, and an even quicker death. He'd used a similar spell before, but it was only to summon a snake. This one was different because the snake was the wand, and so it had a mind of its own.

Pansy couldn't move; her feet were stubbornly glued to the ground. She couldn't counteract whatever it was that Hether had cast at her. Now the duel seemed a very bad idea as her life flashed before her eyes. She couldn't raise a defensive barrier – her entire body seemed to be frozen in a state of shock despite the screaming going on in her mind. She shut her eyes and braced herself. This was the end.

Time came to a halt. Everything fell to a deadened silence all around her. Hether was truly ruthless. Was this how death was? If she opened her eyes, would Cadea be there waiting to welcome her with open arms? Her eyes fluttered open. Her heart sank. There was no blinding light, no blond-haired girl with a fool's grin that stretched from ear to ear plastered across her face. There was only Hether, whose face was so close to hers that she could see that her brown eyes had a thin grey ring surrounding them. Those eyes weren't filled with hatred or malice or even pity; they were still and emotionless, as if the whole duel has been an arrant waste of her time. Her heart lifted, but not enough. She wasn't dead.

There was something cold wrapped tightly around her body. She looked down. It was the viper, wound twice around her form, its head resting gently in Hether's open palm. She looked back up at Hether, who still looked as if she would rather be drown in a puddle than be here.

"Look around you," Hether whispered to her. "Half the crowd wants me end your miserable life, but everyone wants me to show compassion. I should kill you, because you're very irrelevant to me."

Her voice sent chills down Pansy's spine that went straight to her bladder. She wouldn't actually kill her, would she? There was no way she wouldn't get expelled if she did.

"But I wont. I have an image to consider." Hether continued and rose to her feet. The viper removed itself from her body and slithered into Hether's palm, shrinking back into a wand as it did so. "And, I don't want to end your misery just yet."

Pansy didn't realise she had been kneeling on the grass until the viper released her and she collapsed face-first to the ground. Humiliation washed over her like a wave. Salty tears she didn't realised had spilled seeped into her mouth. She lifted her head, to see Hether's retreating back. The crowd was beginning to disperse. There was Draco, at the rear, his platinum blonde hair getting farther away from her. He had seen it all, and had been embarrassed. No one was coming to help her. She was alone and helpless.

No. She wasn't helpless. She was Pansy Parkinson, and she wasn't going to let some arrogant lowlife newbie humiliate her in front of people she'd grown up with. Pansy clambered to her feet and raised her wand. She was Pansy Parkinson.

"AVADA KEDAVRA!!!"

Time stood still for Hether. It would be a blur for everyone else, but for her, it would happen one after the other in a sequence. The curse began to spew from Pansy's wand in an unsteady stream of green light. Hether looked over her shoulder. There was Pansy, whose eyes were as wide and as red as a raving bull, mouth open in an anguished cry. There was Draco, who appeared next to her, and knocked the wand out of her hand. Hether watched as the curse, rather than stopping as perhaps he had hoped, changed course, from her, to Grega.

Poor, unfortunate Grega. She didn't see it coming. She didn't even deserve it. Hether felt the strange twinge of compassion, and for one of the very few times in her entire span of being, she ran. No one would remember seeing her run, as time and magic are two chemicals which do not react together in any state. This time, she would have to run to beat the curse.

She did, and stood behind Grega, clamping her hands down on her shoulders and spinning her around so she wouldn't see as she took the brunt. Her eyes widened slightly as she took the curse. It wasn't ever surprising, but it always came as a bit of a shock when she didn't plan to do so.

Time sped up again. There was talking, but the sizzling sounds of the energy settling in drowned out the voices. Grega turned to see who had grabbed her, and stumbled when she saw what Hether had become. Her deep, coffee skin had disappeared, and was replaced by an ashy grey horror with glowing green irises where brown ones used to be. There were cracks running up and down her skin, as if it had become a brittle china and not flesh, where something green glowed and pulsated beneath. Grega gasped, backing away.

Hether ignored her reaction. You'd think by now she'd gotten used to it, but she hadn't. It was a reaction she'd seen one time too many on the faces of people she treasured, and it stung every time. She walked up to Pansy, who was clinging to Draco like a baby monkey to its mother. It infuriated her. He wasn't hers to claim. But he isn't yours either, the voice in her head nagged, don't lose concentration.

She could tell they were all afraid of her. At first it was because she was black, but now it was because she had become a monster. Pansy's lips and eyes quivered in fear, her bravado reduced to a shell of what it never was.

"I spared you, yet you tried to kill me." Hether was surprised her voice came out normal. "Do it again, and I'll kill you."

She didn't wait for Pansy's response, but bent down and touched the grass. As her fingertip made contact with the first blade, the energy surged out of her and spread, killing the grass in a widening ring. Students yelped and scrambled back, for fear that the curse would flow up them and kill them. Grega looked on in disbelief as the ring of death travelled towards her, and stopped at her feet.

Draco watched as Hether cocked her head at Pansy as if to say, 'you've seen what I can do', and then waltz off the courtyard behind them, unfazed by the stares. He didn't know whether to be afraid of this girl or to befriend her, because she was powerful. He'd never seen anyone absorb a killing curse and live, let alone pass it on unaffected.

Grega blinked, her senses returning back to her. She'd escaped a death she didn't see coming, and what was that she had just seen? She knew Hether was strange, but this was beyond strange. Her body kicked into action and she ran after Hether, who was rapidly disappearing into the depths of the castle.