As the greatest white wizard of the twentieth century and the distinguished headmaster of Hogwarts, Dumbledore could hardly have imagined these words coming from a student before now.
First year, eleven years old.
"Miss Quinlan, it sounds like you are more than eleven years old." Dumbledore even suspected whether she had been put under the Imperius Curse.
Yet the girl's eyes were clear and serene.
"Obviously, I am eleven."
The delivery owl interrupted their conversation. Deeply troubled by the contents of the letter, Dumbledore frowned heavily.
"I am sorry, Miss Quinlan, you may leave. Today's conversation will have to end here."
Vespera nodded in acknowledgement. Catching a glimpse of the return address on the letter—London—she left the headmaster's office and spotted a rather heartbroken Hermione in the distance along the way.
"Hermione?"
"I'm sorry, Vespera. I didn't notice you... I'm a bit..." She looked on the verge of tears.
Considerately, Vespera pulled her wizard's hat down over her head. "The girls' bathroom is empty right now. Go ahead and let it all out in peace."
-
The Halloween atmosphere at Hogwarts was thick. The Great Hall was beautifully decorated, with carved pumpkins hanging at varying heights from the ceiling, while hundreds upon hundreds of bats fluttered back and forth.
The new dishes provided by Vespera were immensely popular among the young wizards, and everyone was eating with great enjoyment.
"Troll—troll—" Professor Quirrell burst into the Great Hall in a panic, and everyone turned to look at him. "There's a troll in the dungeons!"
And then he fainted dead away, right in full view of everyone.
"—Ah!"
Headmaster Dumbledore stopped the students from descending into chaos. "Quiet, now. Prefects, lead your houses back to the common rooms."
Thinking of Hermione, who should still be in the girls' bathroom, Vespera informed her prefect that she needed to step away. Hilliard looked somewhat hesitant, but ultimately let her go.
After all, you can never stop someone who is determined to leave.
Just in case, Vespera walked briskly. Hermione was indeed still in the bathroom, where the sound of low, muffled sobs could be heard.
"Hermione?"
Hearing her own name and a familiar voice, Hermione choked out, "Vespera?"
"We need to leave right away. Professor Quirrell said there's a troll loose in the dungeons."
Regaining her senses and unwilling to risk her safety, Hermione immediately wiped the tears from her face and opened the stall door.
However, disaster struck anyway.
The troll, which should have been down in the dungeons, unexpectedly blundered right into the second-floor girls' bathroom.
It wore a brownish-yellow vest over a massive, grey-green body, and carried a wooden club as tall as a person.
It began wildly smashing the bathroom facilities, sending Hermione and Vespera scrambling in terror amidst its erratic and violent attacks.
"Hermione!"
"Vespera?!"
Ron and Harry appeared at that moment, pelting the troll with broken chunks of stone. Though feeble, it effectively diverted the troll's attention.
Harry scrambled up the troll's body, wrapped his arms around its head, and jammed his wand right up its nostril. "Quick, we have to do something! A spell, anything!" Hermione shouted loudly.
"Wingardium Leviosa!" Ron made the troll's club levitate high into the air.
"Wingardium Leviosa!" Vespera's spell hoisted the troll up toward the ceiling, where it thrashed about helplessly. "Stupefy!"
Vespera let out a long sigh of relief, tucked her wand back into her belt, stepped over the unconscious troll, and helped Hermione up from beneath the washbasins. "All right, taken care of."
"Wizards really should keep their wands on them at all times." Hermione expressed her wholehearted agreement with this statement.
Looking at Harry's wand, which was now smeared with the troll's snot, Ron felt a wave of nausea. "Good grief, Merlin. What on earth are you lot doing here?"
Professor McGonagall and Professor Snape arrived fashionably late. "What on earth is the meaning of this?" Three-quarters of the students present belonged to her Gryffindor house.
Hermione opened her mouth to speak, but Vespera cut her off. "I'm sorry, Professor, we aren't entirely sure either."
"Is that so, Miss Quinlan? Can you explain in detail?"
"I ran into Hermione before dinner, and seeing that she wasn't feeling well, I persuaded her to go to an empty bathroom to compose herself. After Professor Quirrell appeared, I was worried Hermione was still in the bathroom, so I came to tell her to return to the dormitory."
As she explained, she caught sight of the surreptitious glances passing between Harry and Snape. "As it turns out, the troll that was supposedly in the dungeons somehow managed to appear in the second-floor girls' bathroom in a matter of moments."
"For our own safety, Ron and I used the Levitation Charm. Finally, I used a Stunning Spell to knock the troll out."
Professor McGonagall's heart felt as though it were riding a runaway minecart at Gringotts with no brakes.
Hearing that, in the end, no one was injured, she finally let out a breath. "Miss Quinlan, next time you wish to persuade someone to return to the dormitory, you must inform a professor first."
"Understood, Professor."
"For your bravery, five points will be awarded to Gryffindor and Ravenclaw each."
In the corridor on the way back to the dormitories, Hermione linked her arm through Vespera's, then let go within her field of vision.
With a conflicted expression, she hesitated and stammered, "Vespera, I... thank you."
"It's fine, Hermione."
"Mm."
"There's no need to try and shoulder all the blame alone. Sometimes, simply stating the facts is quite enough."
Harry and Ron were whispering back and forth behind the two girls, and perhaps failing to reach a conclusion, they quickly hurried to catch up with the two clever girls.
"Professor Snape's leg was injured; he must have let the troll in," Harry declared. Ron looked a bit conflicted; he felt Snape fit that description, yet somehow didn't seem the type.
Hearing this, Hermione thought for a moment. "What do you think? Someone wanted to use the troll to create a diversion and do something in secret."
"The thing the three-headed dog is guarding!" the three of them said in unison.
Vespera narrowed her eyes slightly. "Snape? Why?"
"The other teachers were escorting the students back to their dormitories, and Professor Snape was the only one missing. Besides, he's always singled me out." The latter half of Harry's sentence, directed into Vespera's eyes, was still filled with a great deal of grievance.
Vespera didn't care. Ignoring the boy's grievance and accusation, she found the reasoning in the first half unconvincing as well.
"Professor Snape only disappeared from the Great Hall after Professor Quirrell spoke. As a professor at Hogwarts, leaving at that moment—"
"There is a fifty percent probability it was for protection, and a fifty percent probability it was for theft. What you said is merely a possibility."
"Similarly, Professor Quirrell, who reported the wrong location for the troll, has a fifty percent probability of having staged the whole thing himself, and a fifty percent probability of having been scared out of his wits and getting the location wrong."
Prompted by Vespera's analysis, Harry and Ron recalled the loopholes in Professor Quirrell's words. "You noticed Professor Snape was missing, but no one can account for Professor Quirrell's whereabouts after he supposedly fainted either."
The trio fell silent to think it over carefully. Ron thought of Professor Quirrell's timid demeanor in class. "But Professor Quirrell seems, well... very, cowardly."
"Indeed. A domineering Potions master from Slytherin, and a fragile Defense Against the Dark Arts professor."
Vespera and the three of them stopped at the parting of the stairs. "However, the image people project is often just the one they want others to see."
"It isn't necessarily the truth, is it?"
That was why the usually calm and detached Quinlan had once held a knife to Malfoy's throat and delivered such a stinging, aggressive speech.
According to those present: that rational madman from Ravenclaw.
The moving stairs shifted, and Vespera vanished around the corner, leaving the rest of the young wizards to head toward the Gryffindor common room together.
-
A Quidditch match—a sport that swept through the magical world. A few days ago, Harry Potter had broken the rules to become Gryffindor's Seeker and had received a Nimbus 2000 broomstick.
Vespera had little interest in the matter; the pitch was so vast that players looked like mere specks darting about in the sky, making it hardly worth watching.
Slytherin scored yet another goal, bringing the score to a tie of twenty points each between Gryffindor and Slytherin.
"Oh, Vespera, look!" Amidst the noisy clamor, her roommate Catherine exclaimed, handing her a pair of binoculars.
Gryffindor's first-year Seeker was struggling to stay balanced on his new broom, which was bucking violently. Vespera saw Hermione hurriedly leaving her seat.
"Catherine, I'm going to the restroom." Used to her roommate's calm demeanor, Catherine thought nothing of it.
It seemed that since the start of term, the only time Vespera had experienced any major emotional fluctuation was that one incident, which had turned out quite terrifying. Shivering slightly at the memory, Catherine pulled herself together and refocused on the exciting match.
"Vespera?"
"Where are you going, Hermione?"
"Snape is casting a curse! He's trying to make Harry fall!" Hermione said, her mind spinning with panic as she hurried down the steps. "I have to go help him."
She was walking too fast, leaving Vespera with no choice but to follow. The two of them arrived directly beneath the professors' seating area.
"Ignis Voco—" Vespera grabbed her arm. "What are you doing, Vespera? I..."
"Quiet, Granger." It was an absolute, unyielding command, and Hermione felt as though the air had been squeezed from her lungs. "There is more than one person casting a spell here."
"Focus your attention. Steady your heartbeat. Do you hear it?" Another voice, hissing curses from right above Hermione's head, muttered, "Die, die."
She widened her eyes and nodded. Her gaze asked silently: Who is it?
Recalling who was seated around Snape, the person positioned directly above them was none other than—Quirrell!
A heavy stench of garlic drifted down, and both of them found the answer in each other's eyes.
"Ignis—" The spell-casting was interrupted once more, and Hermione looked at her in confusion. "Use this..."
Having heard the soft incantation whispered in her ear, Granger suppressed a silent giggle. "Rictusempra."
"Sonorus."
A sudden, uproarious burst of laughter erupted from the tense viewing stands, and the source of it was the usually timid Professor Quirrell.
"Hahahaha, hahahaha! It tickles, it tickles so much!" His laughter echoed across the entire Quidditch pitch.
Both professors and students began to think Professor Quirrell had lost his mind.
Meanwhile, Hermione and Quinlan quickly slipped away from the scene.