Amaechi sat in the library the following afternoon, sunlight dappling the worn pages of her notebook. Her quill danced as she copied runes from a thick tome titled Fundamentals of Ancient Magical Scripts, but her mind wandered.
She thought about the confrontation the night before. About Draco. About the word he had used.
That word.
It was hard not to frown at the memory.
He had looked so smug when he said it. Yet when she looked in his eyes later near the greenhouses, there had been something else. A crack in the armor.
She didn't believe in pure-blood superiority. Her own family, though powerful and ancient, valued wisdom and power over bloodline. Her grandfather once said, "A foolish pureblood is still a fool."
Still, there was something about Draco that fascinated her. The way he watched everything. The way he moved like he had something to prove.
She shook her head.
A noise snapped her from her thoughts. Draco stood across the table, holding a Charms textbook and a guarded expression.
"Mind if I sit?"
She raised a brow but nodded.
He pulled out the chair and dropped into it, his usual air slightly dimmed. They worked in silence for a while, the only sound the scratching of quills.
Finally, he spoke. "You don't seem to care what people think."
Amaechi didn't look up. "What people think is rarely the truth."
Draco gave a low chuckle. "That's… fair." He hesitated. "What house would you have chosen if not Slytherin?"
"I didn't choose Slytherin," she replied. "It chose me."
He blinked, but said nothing.
After a moment, she added, "And you shouldn't say that word. It makes you sound smaller."
Draco's shoulders stiffened.
She looked at him, calm but firm. "You don't strike me as small, Draco."
He held her gaze. "Noted."
The Mystery Deepens
Later that evening, Amaechi returned to the common room, only to find an envelope resting on her pillow—no owl, no signature.
Inside was a parchment marked with strange aquatic runes and the faint outline of a map. The Black Lake was at its center.
Written in neat, curling script were the words:
"Not all creatures stay beneath the surface."
She stared at the page, heart quickening.
The depths were stirring.