An Exquisite Pain

Unfortunate News

"…Eye of newt, toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of frog…no—tongue of dog! That's it. I'm done with this," Danielle said aloud, throwing her Defence Against the Dark Arts textbook down on the table. She sat back in her chair, rubbing her eyes and staring up at the ceiling. If she had to read one more word, she would go insane.

Not that I'm not there already, she thought wryly. Thank Merlin it's December…two more months to go. And thank Merlin things have settled down a bit.

After the Olive Hornby incident back in October, Danielle had been sure to keep a low profile. She wasn't sure she could handle anything else.

And, luckily, nothing else had happened. The rest of October and November had dragged by—albeit slowly, but with little interruption. At least, this was the case for Danielle. The Muggle war was getting worse and worse, and students often got letters from their families informing them of the frequent air-raids and bombings. One tragic incident had occurred just a few weeks back, where a third-year Gryffindor boy had had to go back to London because his mother had been killed. This had served as a sort of wake-up call to Danielle. Being as isolated and as far north as Hogwarts was, it seemed as if they were fully protected, worlds away from the fighting and death that both the Muggle and wizarding worlds were caught up in. But after Danielle started reading the Daily Prophet, she had to admit that the war was starting to unnerve her. She remembered learning about Hitler and the Holocaust from when she went to Muggle primary school, and felt a profound sense of sadness that she couldn't do anything to help somehow. But she was helplessly bound to her promise to Dumbledore that she wouldn't reveal anything about the future. What happens is meant to happen, she told herself firmly, but there were still times when she read an article about another air-raid or death, and felt positively sick inside.

On a different note, in early November the teachers had started giving the students twice as much homework…to be completed in half the time. Danielle was grateful for this, as it meant she could concentrate totally on her studies and not have to worry about things like the fact that she was a time-traveler, that Dumbledore would never be able to fix the Time-Turner, that she would accidentally reveal her secret …whenever she was studying, Danielle liked to pretend that she was back in 2011 and that nothing had changed. It was probably the only thing that kept her functioning.

Of course, her spending long periods of time in the library hadn't gone unnoticed. At first, Alyssa and, less often, Dylan (things were still awkward between them) tried to get Danielle to venture outside or to Hogsmeade once in a while, but eventually they gave up after her frequent, vehement refusals. Alyssa often asked Danielle if she was going mad. "All you do is closet yourself up in that library," she frequently complained. "It's not healthy."

However, the upside was that because of this, Danielle still competed with Riddle for top student of the year. Honestly, she'd been surprised she could keep it up. Maybe she was that smart. However, the more likely explanation was that she had just gotten lucky and caught Riddle on his "bad days"…he'd gotten answers wrong in class several times already, to general astonishment.

A smirk slid across Danielle's face as she remembered his livid expression and Slughorn's shocked one when he'd incorrectly brewed a Love Potion. To be fair, Danielle hadn't done too well either, but at least her potion hadn't resembled toxic sludge like his.

A loud bang from across the table startled her, and she looked up to see Alyssa, slightly disoriented. She'd almost fallen asleep.

"You're still here?" Alyssa asked in disbelief. She jerked her finger over at the window, where a brilliant sunset lit up the grounds sparkling with freshly-fallen snow. "It's five o'clock. You've been in here since eleven. Nobody, and I mean nobody, should ever study that hard for that long."