[Chapter Size: 2000 Words.]
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The first class on Tuesday morning was Defence Against the Dark Arts.
There was nothing special about the classroom except for a long strip of space between the desks and chairs, apparently used by students to practice spells.
When Amanda entered, she caught a sharp, pungent smell of garlic.
Blaise pinched his nose and bolted, intending to get some fresh air before class began.
"This smell is suffocating. I miss Daphne's perfume," he complained.
Blaise's remark brought the name to Amanda's mind. Daphne had been one of Pansy Parkinson's followers, the blonde girl who sat in front of Pansy on the first night and laughed along with her. She was also Astoria Greengrass's older sister.
Astoria the girl who would one day marry Draco.
Amanda glanced at Draco beside her and then at Daphne not far away, imagining how Draco and Astoria might look together. They were all blonde, it was a pleasant sight.
Draco noticed her stare and frowned. "What are you looking at?"
"Nothing, just picturing your future," Amanda teased.
Draco's pale cheeks flushed. "Don't joke like that."
He muttered under his breath, "Blaise shouldn't be saying things like that every day. Who knows how many heads he'll turn."
As he complained, Professor Quirrell opened his office door and descended the steps. His face was pale, his eyes hollow, he looked drained, almost as if some terrible habit had eaten the color from him. The garlic smell in the classroom intensified until Amanda's eyes watered.
Harry scrunched his nose. "Amanda… I don't think we need to guess what's in his turban. Whatever is wrapped in there must be full of garlic."
Amanda pinched her nose as well. "Maybe he's trying to put everyone off with the garlic. Did he smell like that when you met him at the Leaky Cauldron?"
Harry thought for a moment. "Right! When I first saw him at the Leaky Cauldron, he didn't smell like this at all."
Amanda leaned toward Harry and lowered her voice. "I think… it might be connected to Voldemort."
Harry's expression changed suddenly, as if the idea had not occurred to him. "But, everyone says Voldemort is dead."
"Others say he's merely weakened and fled to another host, perhaps now hiding in the back of Professor Quirrell's head," Amanda suggested, nodding toward Quirrell, who stood nervously on the podium, stammering.
"I heard Quirrell was normal before he returned from the Forest. He came back different," Amanda continued. "Maybe he found a weakened Voldemort there. Besides, your scar only reacts to Voldemort, it must be connected."
Harry considered her words. "But… shouldn't we tell the other teachers? Or Headmaster Dumbledore?"
"Without concrete proof, until we can expose him ourselves, telling others would only warn the enemy. If Voldemort is comfortable there…" Amanda tapped the back of head with her finger, imagining it, "he could simply escape or latch onto someone else."
At that moment, Blaise raised a hand and addressed Professor Quirrell. "Professor, I heard you met a vampire in Romania. Was the garlic in your turban to keep that vampire away?"
The class erupted into laughter, and everyone craned their necks to see if there really was garlic tucked into the folds of Quirrell's turban.
Quirrell flushed and stammered. "M-Mr. Zabini… I assisted… an prince to rid him of… an undead revenant, and he… he gifted me the turban as… a present."
Millicent Bulstrode snorted softly. "Professor Quirrell, how did you defeat the vampire?"
Quirrell's hesitant manner did little to convince the students. Faced with rapid-fire questions, he grew so embarrassed he nearly toppled off the podium. The room buzzed with amusement.
Quirrell stammered and pivoted awkwardly. "The weather today is… quite pleasant…"
Draco joined the conversation. "Professor Quirrell certainly seems suspicious."
Amanda reached for Harry's hand. "Anyone with eyes can see it."
She seized the chance, while the class teased Quirrell, to tell Draco what she had just confided to Harry. Draco's face drained of color.
"If what you say is true, the Dark Lord my father once followed is now living in the back of some garlic-wrapped professor's head," Draco muttered, incredulous. "Before this, he might have been hiding inside some strange creature in the Forbidden Forest."
"My father would be mortified," Draco added. He sighed. "He'd probably rather die than know this."
Amanda said lightly, "It's the family honor, after all."
Draco sounded helpless. "Father followed the Dark Lord because the Malfoys backed him. He couldn't risk the family."
Amanda shook her head. "If Voldemort returns, you might profit temporarily by aligning with him, but you'd be risking your life. After so many years, Voldemort has grown extreme and brutal, Death Eaters are only pawns to him."
Draco nodded soberly. "I remember what you said, only by becoming truly strong can we prevent others from deciding our fate. Following the Dark Lord is not a safe option. Father's life, our whole family's life, would be in his hands."
Amanda smiled with satisfaction. "Exactly. We should prepare for the coming storm. The best protection is not to be the tiger's accomplice or walk with wolves."
"Slytherins must minimize risk," she concluded.
Harry added, "And if we can remove Voldemort while we're at it, end the source of our fear for good, that would be even better."
Amanda looked at Harry with approval.
"Well said."
The Defense Against the Dark Arts class ended with Professor Quirrell stammering helplessly, unable to form a single proper sentence, until he finally managed to blurt out: "Class dismissed."
During her free time before lunch, Amanda decided to visit the library on Hogwarts' second floor.
After stepping through the small side door, it was hard to tell whether the place felt overwhelmingly cramped or utterly astonishing.
Thousands of bookshelves stretched as far as the eye could see. Every ten meters or so stood a spiral staircase leading to the upper level. In the center ran a raised walkway, lined with shelves on both sides. Beside them, rows of tables and chairs, lit by oil lamps and candles, invited students to study.
Amanda wandered through the aisles.
The shelves towered above her, the books stacked so high they could only be reached with ladders. Beyond the Restricted Section, there were also curious areas, such as the section of Invisible Books.
Most of the volumes stored there were unseen, so Amanda could only spot the occasional book floating alone on the shelf.
After browsing for a while, she wondered, "Which books should I borrow first?"
Amanda faced a dilemma. Almost every book there fascinated her.
She glanced up at the shelves and thought, "Then I'll just read them all, one by one."
She pulled down an entire row of books from the top shelf of the first column and sat nearby to begin.
She read quickly, turning a page and immediately moving on to the next.
Immersed in the vast ocean of knowledge, Amanda lost all sense of time.
Behind her, a surprised voice broke the silence.
"You're really reading all of that? Merlin, I was about to say, you read incredibly fast."
Amanda frowned in irritation. She hated being interrupted, especially while absorbed in a book.
But when she turned, her annoyance melted into surprise. Standing there, with her fluffy brown curls, was none other than…
"Hermione?"
"Amanda!" Hermione exclaimed, before quickly covering her mouth and glancing around.
After all, loud voices were not tolerated in the library.
"How did you end up in Ravenclaw?" Amanda asked, voicing the question that had puzzled her since the Sorting.
She added, "Didn't you once say you thought Gryffindor was the best house?"
Although Amanda already suspected the answer, she wanted to hear it from Hermione herself.
Hermione pouted slightly, then sat down beside her.
"At first, I really did think Gryffindor was the best. All the books praise it, and most heroes and great witches and wizards came from Gryffindor. But after what you told me on the train…"
She gave Amanda a small smile.
"…I realized I should follow my heart."
"When the Sorting Hat was on my head, it told me I had traits of both Ravenclaw and Gryffindor. But it also said I might fit better in Ravenclaw. Then it asked me where I wanted to go."
"I said Ravenclaw. I wanted to learn as much as possible there. So, it placed me in Ravenclaw."
Amanda's lips curved into a faint smile.
"Congratulations."
"Ah, you're in Slytherin and Harry too! By the way, there are so many rumors flying around about you, terrible ones. Some say you're the next Dark Lord or something like that…"
"I know," Amanda replied calmly.
"But you're not that kind of person, are you? No matter what they say, I don't believe it." Hermione's voice carried an anxious edge.
"Of course not."
"Then you have to find a way to clear things up. I mean, to prove them wrong somehow."
Amanda thought to herself: "There's no need. It's impossible to explain. People believe what they want to believe. Only through actions will they gradually change their minds."
Still, inviting the brilliant Hermione Granger to join her SO group seemed like a promising idea.
"By the way, would you like to join the study group I founded, SO?"
She briefly explained its purpose.
Hermione furrowed her brows and considered, but eventually shook her head.
"No, thank you. I respect you, Amanda, but I don't think there are many shortcuts when it comes to learning. The most useful knowledge is already recorded in books, isn't it? If we try untested methods too hastily, it's like Professor Flitwick says, it could lead to uncertain or even disastrous results."
Amanda felt a pang of disappointment, though she understood.
Hermione was an exemplary student, brilliant but also rather traditional and rigid. She clung tightly to textbooks and seldom questioned them.
Amanda's path, however, was different: innovation, spell invention, and pushing boundaries. For her, following the rules was wrong, and defying authority was right.
Still, if Hermione ever changed her mind, she would undoubtedly be a valuable ally.
"I hope you'll consider it someday," Amanda said.
After Hermione left, Amanda climbed the wooden stairs of the library again, moving on to the next row of shelves.
Her Sage's Ring could store vast numbers of books. If there were no restrictions, she might have emptied entire sections.
But to avoid depriving other students and to prevent chaos, she limited herself to borrowing twenty books at a time.
After some quick calculations, she realized that at this pace, twenty books a day, not counting summer and Christmas holidays, she would only manage about 40,000 books by the end of her seventh year.
A pitiful number compared to the boundless ocean of knowledge housed in the Hogwarts library.
So, she decided to prioritize books on her areas of study, and then select others at random.
When she approached Madam Pince with a towering stack of books balanced in her arms, the librarian lifted her glasses, astonished.
"Dear girl, is that all you want to borrow?"
"Yes, and I also picked one out for a friend."
Amanda pointed at the top book, Quidditch Through the Ages.
She planned to give it to Harry and Draco.
Madam Pince no longer questioned her, assuming she was gathering books for others as well. She quickly recorded the titles and numbers onto the loan list.
"Slytherin, hmm? The Slytherins seem unusually studious lately. Quite a few have borrowed books in the past couple of days."
It seemed Amanda's speech on the first night had left some impact.
Although the Slytherins behaved the same as usual in public, privately they had begun to compete, no, to strengthen themselves.
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