The Prince's Secret

Dark Magic

Time at Hogwarts seemed to fly at unusual speed. It felt like only yesterday that Leilla arrived at the castle and entered the Great Hall for the first time. She had no idea how September managed to pass by so quickly. Before she knew it, October was coming to an end, and the weather was starting to get gloomy and rainy, and days became shorter.

Leilla was beginning to settle into the Slytherin house. Their last disagreement was quickly forgotten, but it greatly altered the relationships between them. Daphne and Pansy, who seemed like good friends at the start of the year, had become more distant. Pansy's behaviour and opinions put her more on the side of Draco, Crabbe and Goyle. Milicent and Tracey – who showed a pitiful lack of personality – rallied around her, and the six of them soon formed an inseparable gang.

Leilla and Daphne kept to themselves, and their friendship blossomed with each day. They were frequently joined by Blaise Zabini, who also showed slight aversion for Malfoy and the other boys.

Nonetheless, they all spent time together in the common room in the evenings, having made an unspoken agreement not to interfere in one another's business.

Leilla knew she would enjoy Hogwarts, but she didn't realise just how much she would love the lessons. Every class was an opportunity to learn more about the magical world, and she could see that she was making rapid progress. She didn't even notice when her pine and unicorn wand practically became the extension of her hand. She quickly found herself among top students in her year, overtaken only by Hermione Granger.

After the first couple of weeks, once she'd got hold of the schedule and had met all the teachers, she could say with confidence that her least favourite subject was Defence Against the Dark Arts. She had no idea why she disliked Professor Quirrel's lessons so much, but she suspected it had something to do with the teacher himself. Quirrel had a distinct aura of weirdness to him, and his classroom notoriously reeked of garlic, the smell of which most likely emanated from the professor's strange bulky turban.

Leilla was so enthralled by Hogwarts, the new friendships she had made, and the utter magic of the school itself that she didn't even have time to think about Snape. In her mind, Potions classes were just another timeslot in her schedule, and she quickly accepted the fact that Snape was now her teacher. She realised that the Snape from her childhood and the Snape from Hogwarts weren't actually so different. The only real change was that here at Hogwarts, she had to address him as Professor Snape (which – now that she thought about it – sounded way more appropriate than Severus).

Most Slytherins appreciated their head of house, but Leilla could frequently hear hateful remarks ­– coming mostly from Gryffindors ­– which made her realise that Snape was most likely the least popular teacher at school. If Leilla was being honest, she wasn't surprised; if she hadn't known him for years, she too would've most likely found Snape's demeanour unpleasant.

୨♡୧

It was the morning of Halowe'en, and Leilla, Blaise and Daphne were sitting at breakfast with a few older students. Everyone at school was talking about Harry Potter, whose performance catching the glass ball last month had earned him a position on the Gryffindor Quidditch team. The whole school was eagerly awaiting the first match of the season to see The Boy Who Lived in action.

The students they were sitting with were Norah and Terrence – both on the Slytherin team. They had just finished explaining the rules of Quidditch to Daphne.

Quidditch was played on broomsticks, between two teams of seven people. Each of the players had a different role: three Chasers were responsible for passing the Quaffle and scoring points by tossing it into goal posts, protected by the Keeper. Each team also had two Beaters, whose role was to keep Bludgers – two notorious balls who tried to knock players off their brooms – from hitting their own teammates. The seventh player on the team was a Seeker, responsible for catching the Golden Snitch, a tiny flying ball, almost impossible to find. The team who caught the Snitch first scored 150 points and ended the game. It was a Seeker Harry would play as in the upcoming match.