XVI

The snow eventually disappeared, as did the ice, and the greenery awoke to greet the warm sun. Spring had arrived, and was spreading its wings all across the highlands.

Hether's eyes followed the strand of hair that flitted past her face. She felt immensely bored to death, especially with the Professor's voice droning on somewhere in the background. She was an alright person, the Professor, except that she was a particularly terrible Transfiguration teacher, in her opinion.

She had to constantly remind herself that she was only in the course to track Draco's progress, which was probably the only reason why she hadn't walked out the moment McGonagall began to speak.

Hether sighed and dropped her head to her desk with a loud thump.

"Is my lesson not satisfactory enough, Ms. Weson?"

Hether lifted her head a fraction of an inch to see the whole class staring at her. The professor had paused her teaching and was now looking at her so disdainfully with lips so pursed that they weren't there anymore. She sat up and cleared her throat.

"Sorry, Professor." She apologized, but inside she was dying of boredom.

"You seem to already understand the concept. Would you care to demonstrate to the class how to transfigure this cauldron?" McGonagall said with a scowl.

Hether felt like slapping herself. She had slipped up, again. "Yes, Professor." Grega gave a small snicker, and Hether flicked her in the face with a scowl. She got up grudgingly and made her way to the front of the classroom, where everyone looked on keenly.

She yawned and withdrew her wand from her pocket, pointing it at the bronze cup that the professor had placed on the teaching pedestal. If she was truthful, she hadn't been listening to anything the professor had said, and did not know how to transfigure it as she had said.

"Anytime now, Hether." The professor folded her arms.

Hether took a deep breath and began the start of a transfiguration chant, when the doors flung open and a boy clinging to a flying tuba for dear life burst into the room. The class broke out into gasps and everyone ducked as he whizzed all over the class, his face as white as a cloud. A few seconds later Professor Flitwick hobbled into the room followed by a couple of students, faces all red and sweaty from running after the boy.

Hether's face broke out in a grateful smile and she used the distraction as an opportunity to sneak back to her seat.

"Jason, you must let go of the tuba!" Professor Flitwick was saying as he hopped about the room after the boy.

"I can't, Professor!" the poor soul cried out.

"Minerva, please escort your students out immediately!" the professor's voice warbled.

Professor McGonagall looked extremely displeased but nonetheless, shooed everyone out of the classroom. For once, Hether was grateful for the distraction. She caught up with Grega outside the room and thwacked her upside with her book.

"Ow!" Grega gave her an evil glare.

"That's for laughing at me." Hether looked back at the closed doors of the classroom. "D'you think he'll be alright?"

"Who?" Grega frowned. "The boy? Who cares? I don't know him. I'll catch you later. I have to go see Professor Sprout soon, anyway."

Hether watched as she turned around and headed the other way, towards the greenhouse. Grega had changed. When they first met, she was sweeping the floor everyone walked on; constantly helping everyone. Now she acted as if 'the boy' didn't have a name; like it wasn't 'Jason'. Hether didn't know whether to frown or to ignore it. She sighed and went straight ahead. She'd told Draco to meet her in the chamber during the next period, so she might as well go there now. It seemed that the class had been unanimously cancelled.

As she turned the corner and vanished from sight, thoughts flooded into her mind. She wanted to get to grips with what she was doing, but there was a nagging voice in her head that pressed her to just carry on with it as if she were a normal human being.

The problem was that she wasn't normal, and she wasn't a human, and she wasn't a being. She was essence; energy crafted at the centres of existence to make sure everything went the way it was supposed to be. So, she couldn't just sit back and 'go with the flow'. She had to be constantly aware of what she was doing and be completely in control of it.

Yet, somehow, this unwilling saviour with a blinding slick of hair had managed to glue his tiny insignificant presence in the vast ocean of her essence. She had thought she was ready to do her task in this timeline, but now she wasn't so sure why it was her task. There was a part of her that just wanted to forget everything except him and hope that he would do the same. There was a part of her that would snatch him out at the slightest opportunity she got and let the rest of the timeline crumble to dust. Then there was the part of her, the one she deemed most rational, that preferred to just let the timeline crumble and move on to whatever was next.

She'd told her Father this so many times, but yet He insisted that every life was worth saving if she could do it. She didn't understand why He would want to preserve even the most damned shards of life, but there were a few times it made sense. He felt it would best suit her place as a Ravenclaw, but right now, it didn't, because His plan was toying with her sanity. Still, it was His plan, and if it made Him happy, then she would do it. Oddly, she noticed, it made her pleased too.

Hether lifted her hand to open the bathroom door, but stopped, letting it hover above the knob. There were voices coming from inside. One; high-pitched and all-knowing. Hermione. The other was quick and clipped, and each muffled word was said with spite. Draco. Hether rolled her eyes. She didn't want to know why Hermione was there, or why they were arguing, because whatever it was spelt trouble.

Hether flung open the door and shut it behind her, startling the two of them. Her eyes flitted between Draco, who was red with rage, and Hermione, who was red with disbelief.

"What are you doing here?" She turned to Hermione.

Hermione looked outraged. "Me? You should be asking him! This is the girls' bathroom!!"

"No one uses it anymore except that ghost." Hether kept her gaze on Hermione. "Besides, we want to make out. Would you rather us do it in the boys' bathroom, or shall I bring you a seat and popcorn?"

Draco and Hermione turned even redder, to her amusement. It seemed both were surprised and unnerved by her sudden unfiltered truth. Hermione looked as if she were about to swell up like a full balloon and burst into shocked stutters, but she seemed to change her mind and instead stormed out of bathroom. Hether scoffed quietly. What a pansy, she thought, and turned to Draco, who raised an eyebrow at her.

"I didn't think we were here to snog." He smirked. "Yesterday you didn't want any."

"Would you rather I told her we were going into the chamber to resurrect the basilisk?" She stretched her hand towards the engraved faucet and said the words in her mind. Just in case.

Draco hesitated and paled. "Are we actually? You know its gaze kills you."

"Your fear is beginning to overpower your scent." Hether held out her hand for him to take. She tried to ignore the sudden bundle of nerves that appeared in her stomach when he took it and they apparated below.

As Draco steadied himself from the still unfamiliar transformation, she steadied herself and gathered her focus.

"Okay," she faced him. "Are you ready, Draco?"

"We already talked about this." He frowned. "I'm ready to do what needs to be done." She blinked at him. Was he, really? She always thought she was ready for everything, but the truth was that she wasn't.

He wished he could read her mind sometimes. She was glad he couldn't. She was always complex, but to him she was quite simple. He didn't know how to explain it – it was just complex. Still, he wished he could see what was always making her look so serious.

"First we start of by checking what you know through duels. One verbally with wands, one nonverbally with wands, one without wands, and the last a battle of the elements." She listed.

"Battle of the elements?" he repeated.

"You duel me with water, and I with my element of choice." She smiled briefly at him, then drew out her wand. "Now, what spells do you know?"

"We're starting now?"

"DRACO. There's little time."

"By the way," He said as he walked away from her to observe duelling protocols. "I think Hermione is unto us."

"We'll deal with that later. What are you doing?" she frowned.

"Observing duelling protocol." He said like it was the most obvious thing.

"What – Draco, if I were a wizard that needed to kill you, why would I waste ample time observing protocols when I could just kill you? Now, Avada Kedavra!" She aimed the curse straight at him.

His eyes widened in fear and he raised his hands instinctively to protect himself, but the ring sprang to life and the curse fizzled out before it came within three feet of him. When he was sure he was still alive, he dropped his hands and went off at her.

"Are you mad?!!" His eyes bulged. "You could have killed me!"

Hether groaned. "What part of 'I-am-a-desperate-wizard-who-needs-to-kill-you' don't you get?! There is no time for discussions during life and death situations. And don't tell me you've forgotten everything I told you about the ring because you would have had time to strike back if you remembered."

"Hether," Draco rubbed his temple. He was still trying to register the fact that she had just shot a killing curse at him. "Please don't try to kill me."

"What if I was someone else?" She folded her arms.

"But you're not someone else! You're you, and we're dating. I'm not going to kill my girlfriend." He rubbed his eyes.

"How about now?"

He lowered his hand and froze. Whatever feelings of compassion he had in his body vanished, and there instead was this immense ball of loathing and bitterness. Hether nodded internally at his sudden change in composure.

He was white with fury, and hatred had seeped unto his face as a scowl. Now, she would get the results she wanted. She knew she shouldn't have taken that route and become him, but unlike Draco, she wasn't going to let her empathy obstruct her objective.

"What's the matter, Malfoy? Scared?"

Her voice wasn't hers; no, it had become his voice, just as she had become him. And now, the jeering and gloating was no longer hidden. He had set it out in the open now; the fact that he was better than him, and now he was going to end it once and for all.