Golden Girl; 𝓕𝓻𝓮𝓭 𝓦𝓮𝓪𝓼𝓵𝓮𝔂

Fifth Year: A Bookshelf Revelation

The night of the incident with the Fat Lady was only the beginning. As the days passed, the mystery surrounding Sirius Black's break-in filled every corner of Hogwarts. Students whispered in hushed tones during meals, huddled together in the common rooms, and speculated in the hallways between classes. Theories about how Black had managed to enter the castle grew wilder by the hour. Some claimed he had used a secret passageway unknown even to Filch, while others insisted he'd turned himself into a swarm of bats and flown through the windows. The castle seemed alive with speculation, each theory more far-fetched than the last.

For Bambi, the endless chatter was overwhelming. The constant buzz around her only amplified the noise in her head, making it impossible to focus on anything else. Every time she thought about the break-in, an uneasy tension settled in her chest. It didn't help that the whispers about her had only just begun to fade, if not momentarily be pushed to the back of her usual perpetrators minds. If there was one silver lining to Sirius Black's sudden notoriety, it was that the school's attention was finally shifting elsewhere.

Fred and George, however, were thriving in the chaos. They had taken it upon themselves to feed the rumour mill, gleefully spinning increasingly absurd theories and planting them among the first-years to see how far they'd spread. Percy, of course, tried to put a stop to it, but as usual, he had no control over his younger brothers.

"Did you hear?" Fred said loudly to a group of second-years near the Gryffindor table at breakfast one morning. "Black turned into a flock of ravens to get through the windows! They say Filch is still picking feathers out of the carpets."

"Rubbish," George chimed in, his voice dripping with mock seriousness. "It wasn't ravens—it was bats. Thousands of them! He commanded them to swarm the castle and flew in under cover of darkness. They say Hagrid had to wrestle three of them out of the pumpkin patch."

By lunchtime, the stories had escalated.

"Did you know," Fred whispered conspiratorially to a group of wide-eyed first-years, "that Black can turn into a giant spider? Eight legs, eight eyes, the works. He crawled right up the castle wall. That's why the Fat Lady ran off—she hates spiders!"

"That's not even the best one," George added. "I heard he's got a flying cauldron. Just plopped himself in, gave it a stir, and floated straight through the Astronomy Tower. That's why Trelawney's been acting so jumpy. He probably nicked her favourite teapot on the way out."

Meanwhile, Percy was in a perpetual state of exasperation. "You're not helping!" he hissed at them one evening in the common room after catching wind of their latest tale. "The castle is already on high alert without you two filling everyone's heads with nonsense."

Despite herself, Bambi couldn't help but smirk at their antics. Fred and George had a way of lightening even the most sombre of moods, and their mischief worked in their favour. With all eyes on Sirius Black, the whispers about Fred's near-expulsion began to fade into the background. It was a small relief, but one Bambi clung to. The guilt she carried over the entire ordeal felt heavy enough without the weight of the school's gossip adding to it. She hoped the distraction of the break-in would be enough to let the matter quietly dissipate.

But even as the rumours brought a strange sort of levity to the castle, Bambi couldn't shake the unease curling in her stomach. The Fat Lady's shredded portrait, the thought of Black being so close, and the fact that no one could figure out how he'd done it—it all made her feel as if the walls of Hogwarts weren't as safe as they used to be. And that was a thought she wasn't sure she could laugh off, no matter how many bats, spiders, or flying cauldrons Fred and George conjured in their stories.

The conversation about Fred's expulsion never came up again between them. It was as if an unspoken agreement had been made to let it sit in the past, unresolved. Fred, it seemed, was perfectly content to pretend his problems didn't exist. But the evidence of the fallout was harder to ignore. The bruise on his eye darkened over the next few days, shifting from purple to an angry black that contrasted sharply against his freckled skin like a smear of ink on parchment.