Chapter Eight

                                    

                                          
 But it wasn't until Halloween that they realized something terrible was happening.
                          
The Halloween feast was amazing. Enormous pumpkin lanterns lined the Great Hall. The Enchanted Ceiling showed a stormy sky.
                          
Kane was in the middle of eating a french fry when Professor quirrell comes bursting through the double doors.
                          
Everyone stops talking at once as he sprints to the High Table.
                          
"TROLL IN THE DUNGEON!" he screams. "Thought you ought to know." Then he collapses in a heap onto the floor, unconscious.
                          
Everyone immediately starts screaming, but Kane and Anna just look at each other. Troll?
                          
Dumbledore steps up to the podium and shouts for silence. Everyone obeys. He tells the prefects to lead their Houses to the dormitories.
                          
They join the scramble to the doors. The Slytherin Prefect leads them quickly down the stairs and almost screams the password, not even stopping as he sprints through the doorway into the common room.
                          
It's too early to go off to the dormitories, so everyone just lingers in the common room.
                          
Because there are more people than ever in the room at once, some of the fifth years practice a Duplicating Charm that they've been learning to make more armchairs.
                          
Soon the Slytherin Common Room is crowded with soft green chairs and students of every age talking to each other and laughing.
                          
 Kane and Anna chose two two soft armchairs a little way away from the fire and everyone else.
                          
For a moment, they just sat there awkwardly. Then, they found something to talk about.
                          
"So... how did you find out you were a witch?" he asked her.
                          
She giggles softly.
                          
"Well, it's a funny story. So, I'm just laying on the sofa on a Saturday in the middle of the day, I just woke up, and I want to watch television. I'm super tired, and the remotes all the way across the room. So I just close my eyes and try to go back to sleep because I was too tired to stand up and I feel something hit my lap. I open my eyes and I'm holding the remote. I freaked out because I thought someone was in the house, but I didn't really know until I got my letter."
                          
She giggles again.
                          
"How about you?"
                          
"Um... well, apparently, I walked straight through an area that had a Muggle Repelling charm over it. I didn't know, of course, but then I ran into a Hippogriff and just ran away. And one time, I dropped my pencil on the bus and it rolled all the way to the back but then it started floating and came to me. I'm still surprised no one saw it. I kind of freaked out too, but I didn't want to tell anyone."
                          
They paused for a moment, giggling, then looked around the room at the other Slytherins. They thought the same thing.
                          
"Do you think they all know we're Muggle— Born?" she whispers, leaning forward.
                          
"I don't think so..." he replied, but really he was just trying to convince himself.
                          
"Hey, can I see your wand?" she says, suddenly excited.
                          
"Why?"
                          
"Just let me see it. You can look at mine, too."
                          
"Uh, okay."
                          
They pull out their wands and trade. He begins to examine hers. It's a light brown color, a little shorter than from his elbow to wrist.
                          
"What's the core?" she asks, looking right at the end of it as if she could see it.
                          
"Phoenix Feather."
                          
"Mine too."
                          
They continue to look at them.
                          
 "Why is your's so rough? You got it at Ollivander's, right? I thought he made perfect wands or something like that."
                          
"It's Rowan with Phoenix Feather," he says, a bit defensively.
                          
"Hm. Mine's Vine with Phoenix Feather. It's really flexible, but DO NOT bend it!" she warns.
                          
"Oh, can I try a new spell? I read it somewhere in the library."
                          
"Okay."
                          
"Let me see my wand."
                          
She hands him his wand. He touches the tip of his wand to her wand.
                          
"Priori Incantato!"
                          
A misty ghost— like mist rises from her wand. It takes the form of a trophy exploding. The Reductor Curse.
                          
"Cool," they both say at the same time.
                          
He gives her back her wand. They sit there for a while, just twirling their wands in their hands.
                          
"So... if they don't know we're... Muggle— Born," she whispers carefully. "what's our story?"
                          
"Um... half— blood parents? That makes us pure— blood, right?"
                          
"No, not at all, that would make us half— bloods, but what about the people who heard Pansy scream Mudblood?"
                          
"We just have to not do anything and not draw attention to ourselves and maybe they won't notice us."