The Prince's Secret

The Dark Forest

She woke up the next day with her eyes red and swollen; she'd been crying all night. She pretended to be asleep while Daphne got ready for breakfast, and waited for the girls to leave, so she could have time to pull herself together.

Last night she was so upset she couldn't think straight. Now, she decided to gather her thoughts. She picked up her journal from the bedstand and dipped her quill in ink.

I need to find out more about Dark Magic.

It had all become clear to her. Snape had never told her about the Dark Arts for a reason; he had something to hide, and if he wasn't going to tell her, she had to find out about it on her own.

She skipped breakfast and walked straight to Professor Quirrell's classroom. Daphne was already there, talking to Blaise.

'There you are, Leilla,' she beamed at her. 'We've got something for you.'

She handed her a battered copy of Modern Magical History.

'We were at the library, and we saw one of the Weasleys hand it in,' said Blaise.

'Thanks!' Leilla put it in her bag, and they walked into the classroom. As she sat down, she decided she would pay more attention than she usually did. Even though for the past few months Professor Quirrell only taught them about vampires and trolls, she hoped that maybe she'd learn something useful about the Dark Arts today.

To her disappointment, Professor Quirrell went off on a tangent about hags, and the entire class boiled down to him stuttering violently, attempting to describe the five foolproof methods for telling a hag from a witch.

Leilla flipped the pages of their textbook, The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection, but didn't find anything she could associate with Snape, so instead, she took out Modern Magical History. She flipped the pages and found the chapter Ernie Macmillan had read them a few months ago before History of Magic.

It was the chapter about the rise and fall of You-Know-Who. Leilla looked at the page, and saw the Dark Wizard's name written in cursive right there, before her very eyes:

Lord Voldemort.

She stared at it for a while, spelling it out in her head. It sounded scary, she thought, but not so scary that she wouldn't be able to say it out loud. She started reading the chapter's preface.

For twenty years Lord Voldemort and his followers wreaked havoc in the wizarding community, killing and torturing thousands of innocent beings. Those twenty long years would go down in British history as the war where the Dark Arts prevailed, and changed the face of the world forever. Never before had humanity seen such wide use of Dark Magic, and never again – we shall hope – will it allow such horrifying events to occur.

Leilla looked up at Professor Quirrell, who had conjured up a drawing of a hag and was pointing out its noticeable traits. Leilla looked at Modern Magical History, and then at her Defence Against the Dark Arts textbook.

Then, an idea came to her mind, and she furrowed her brow. She flipped the textbook's pages and nudged Daphne with her elbow. Daphne, who was attempting to draw a convincing portrait of Professor Quirrell on the margin of her notebook, looked up at her.

'What?'

'Don't you think it's weird,' Leilla whispered, 'that there's nothing about You-Know-Who in our textbook?'

They sat in the back of the classroom, so there was no way Professor Quirrell could have heard them. Still, Daphne looked around in panic.

'What are you talking about?' she hissed.