Star Girl | Cedric Diggory

|*| One Hundred Nineteen |*|

The students of Slytherin House weren't surprised to find out that the eagle had been an animagus. In fact, upon Aquila's transformation back to her human state, one Slytherin boy slapped his friend on the shoulder and boasted, "I bloody called it! You owe me a whole galleon!"

Still cloaked under her long black robes, Aquila knew this would be her last opportunity to back out and fly away before anyone could figure out her identity. She honestly didn't know what she was even doing down in the dungeons when a war was being prepped for above.

This is bloody stupid, Quil, she told herself, but I'm gonna do it anyway because... it feels right.

Something about using herself to unite the Slytherins and help turn the tides of the battle seemed logical. She knew that the students would be skeptical of her (because she was responsible for several murders and tortures), but she was confident that it would sort itself out in the end. They'd follow her if they could trust her.

"Go on then," one impatient girl said, her voice raising above the crowd. "Tell us who you are." Aquila caught a glimpse of the girl-her medium length brown hair covered one eye, while the other gazed at Aquila suspiciously.

Aquila quickly removed the hood from her head like ripping off a bandage after getting a nasty paper cut. A few of the students jumped back because they recognized her as a Death Eater; the rest of them thought she was familiar... she kinda looked like that girl with the green hair from a few years ago...

"I am Aquila Whitman," she said, trying to keep her voice steady despite noticing out of the corner of her eye that Horace Slughorn had drawn his wand and pointed it at her. "I am not here to fight with you."

"You're a Death Eater!" a student shouted. "You work for You-Know-Who! You're going to murder us!"

"I do not intend on murdering any of you," Aquila said. "If I did, I wouldn't have put myself in a vulnerable position and attempted to explain my backstory. That's only a villain thing, and I'd like to think I'm not the villain here."

"We should take her out!" the girl with the hair-covered eye exclaimed. Some of the students backed her up, raising their wands to Aquila, shouting and jeering.

"We should hear what she has to say," the blonde girl from before spoke. She was the girl Aquila had landed on in the Great Hall, and there was something about her that Aquila found puzzling. She was the type of person who looked like she could read minds.

The other Slytherins all seemed to know that this girl was someone to listen to, and a dark skinned boy was the first to speak up, lowering his wand as he addressed the gathered students. "Ami's right," he said. "Let's hear what the eagle has to say before we blindly attack. We are not violent like the rest of them say we are."

The students nodded in agreement and all lowered their wands as well. Aquila cleared her throat and began speaking again.

"Ten minutes ago, I didn't know what side of this war I was on," she told the students. She didn't really know what she was about to say until she said it; there was no time to prepare a speech before now, so she was flying by the seat of her pants. "But after I saw you all in the Great Hall-when you shoved a giant metaphorical middle finger in her face-that's when I remembered what I'm really fighting for.

"I'm not fighting for a noseless snake monster, nor am I fighting for a boiling hatred of lesser wizards. It was always Hogwarts that held a special place in my heart. It was here that I met my best friends; here that I finally felt free; here that I was able to take control of my own life and stop being the archetype of my pureblood family.

"Just then in the Hall, you all reminded me of why I love this place-because Hogwarts is my home, and all of you are my family. And if we're going to win this war for our family, we're going to have to trust each other."

"How can we trust you?" the dark skinned boy asked. "You've murdered people!"

"And you've used the torture curse on first years," Aquila countered like a juvenile schoolgirl.

"I have a choice!" the boy exclaimed.

"Neither did I!" she informed them loudly. "We are all in the same boat here! And it's time to put aside all the snobbish rubbish and animosity for each other and work together because our boat is sinking! And not only is it sinking, but it's being attacked by an army of ruthless Death Eaters! We have to stand united-not as four separate houses-but as one school: Hogwarts! Who's with me?"

It was silent for a moment, and Aquila was suddenly worried that they'd all turn on her. The silence was so loud that she was about to speak again, but a small voice from the background spoke up.

"I'm with you!"

It was a shaky voice, but after hearing it, more and more Slytherins joined in until the blonde girl confirmed it: "We're all with you!"

Cheers erupted in the common room, and students hugged each other, and some ever started to cry. Aquila just stood in the middle of it all with her eyes wide open-was this really happening?