𝐀 𝐆𝐈𝐑𝐋 𝐎𝐅 𝐑𝐈𝐃𝐃𝐋𝐄𝐒 | h. potter

4 | Conquest

CHAPTER FOUR: CONQUEST

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After such a physically draining lesson, Ron surprised himself by managing to drag Harry out of the greenhouse. He vaguely heard Hermione mutter about asking Professor Sprout something, but quickly tuned out when he realised it was about more work. They might be in a school, but Ron wasn't here to just learn.

He cautiously looked around himself, and walked a little faster; he definitely wasn't here to watch his best friend die either.

Quickly, he dived into his concerns.

"I'm not saying you shouldn't trust her—"

"Aren't you?" interrupted Harry with a dry stare.

Ron rolled his eyes. "All I'm saying is to be careful. Last year Quirrell had You-Know-Who on the back of his head, and now his daughter's at the school? It's a bit fishy to me."

"Must be the smell of the mandrakes," said Maya dryly as she walked past them towards the castle, before stopping and turning to face them.

"Look. I know you don't trust me," she said to Ron, who blushed but frowned in a sort of admission. And then she looked at the other Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs who conspicuously slowed down to eavesdrop on the confrontation. "I'm not going to ask you to either. But I'm here the same reason you are: to learn. So rather than weaving conspiracies about my 'true intentions' just do what you would do if I wasn't here. Read a book," she said, waving her hand in the air, "fight a tree for all I care. Just leave me out of it. Stop gossiping about me like a bunch of housewives. I have no responsibility nor any intention to be what you think I am."

Turning on her heel she left them in silence — and then she heard the muttering break out. She rolled her eyes, but caught herself in surprise when someone matched her pace. "Well said, Riddle," said a voice to her right, and Maya only caught the flash of a green tie before the boy sped up and joined his friend. They looked like first-years, and Maya could only think about how this may have been the first time that a student interacted with her without any contempt.

After washing away the dirt under her fingernails, Maya made her way to the Transfiguration classroom with Professor McGonagall.

Transfiguration proved to be one of the hardest classes yet — when she was teaching herself first-year spells she struggled quite a bit. The task was to transfigure a beetle into a button, but no matter how many times Maya said the incantation, the only thing that happened was that her beetle would scuttle across the desk. She was pretty sure that wasn't because of her wand.

Her desk-partner, Neville Longbottom (who didn't seem to visibly mind her as much as the other students, but was just a bit weary), was even worse; he accidentally set the beetle on fire and McGonagall said it was because of 'mispronunciation of the incantation'. Neville strongly doubted that.

After lunch, Maya made her way to the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom with Professor Lockhart. She felt a vague sense of foreboding.

A few minutes later, she was joined by the rest of the class and they all clambered in and sat down. Maya sat at the back where there were three more seats which were soon taken by Harry, Ron and Hermione. Although Hermione was a little reluctant — it seemed she had wanted to sit at the front near Lockhart.

Harry pulled all of his books out and stacked them on top of each other in front of him to block his view of Lockhart, which Maya silently appraised. Smart move.