"Nox," Scorpius muttered as they reached the edge of the forest. They'd be caught by prefects if he kept his wand lit.

Even with her hood up, rain splattered onto Sariah's face. She felt it soaking icily into her hair and robe as they skirted around the lakeside. She stopped him as they approached the charmed barrier's edge. It was invisible but Sariah recognized the spot, even in the dark. There was a fallen tree just to the left of it, and a collection of rocks she'd sprayed with glow-in-the-dark paint for occasions just like this. It was like following a trail of glowing breadcrumbs.

Water sloshed around her shoes as they walked into the lake. Scorpius cursed as his boots entered the water. Obviously, his weren't waterproofed. She wondered what he was doing out here in the first place. Ahead of them, the glowing lights of Hogwarts castle reflected off the lake. The yellow light shimmered eerily on its surface as the rain assaulted it. She and Scorpius shared quiet conversation as they walked back up to the castle. Eventually, its side entrance came into sight. From past experience, she knew Filch loved nothing more than locking students out of the castle and then issuing them with detention slips. Sometimes he'd deliberately leave the gate open, lying in wait for any students unlucky enough to be late.

When she spotted a figure illuminated against the gate, her heart jolted. She recognised the hunched form. It was Filch.

"Run for it!" Sariah shouted, as the aged caretaker pushed the gates shut.

Sariah and Scorpius sprinted for the closing gates. Scorpius' shoes sloshed with icy lake water. They made it in the nick of time. A rather disgruntled-looking Filch glowered at them, deprived of the chance to punish them. He was a hunched old man with stringy grey hair. His breath smelt foul.

"Well, well. Two students outside the castle at night. Getting up to all sorts of... mischief, I'm sure," he leered, raising a slug-shaped eyebrow. His lantern's light revealed their dripping cloaks, and frowned. "Don't think for one minute that you're going inside in that state. Unless you want to mop the corridors for a week!"

Scorpius stared at the elderly caretaker with disdain.

Sariah got the impression he was about to say something very rude. "We'll dry off before going inside. I promise."

Filch made a face that highlighted the yellow, cracked nature of his teeth. He slammed the gate shut. "You'd better, I know every student in this place."

The caretaker was still muttering punishments under his breath when they retreated under the cover of the castle's stone walkways.

Scorpius looked across at her. "How exactly were you planning on 'drying' us off?"

"Easy," Sariah drew her wand. Scorpius blanched backwards as she drew it. Of course he did. He shared her charms class as well.

"Relax," she told him, sighing a little. "I'm not going to point it at you."

She held the wand parallel to her body. "Accio water!"

She felt the water weighing down her robes leave the fabric. It began to pool at the end of her wand. Sariah ran her wand over herself, and then her dreadlocks. She'd never get completely dry, of course, but it would certainly stop anything from dripping on Filch's pristine corridors.

When finished, she flung the spherical ball of water at a statue in the quad with surprising accuracy. She glanced across at Scorpius, who looked comically shocked.

"What?" she asked.

He shook his head. "Nothing. I've never seen anyone use it like that."

"It's like a magnet, you know?"

He looked at her blankly, before realisation crossed his features."We learnt about those last year, right? They were overrated."

"Says the wet one," Sariah muttered.

The great hall was empty of both food and students. Extinguished, candles haunted the air above the tables like ghosts. Above those, roiling clouds lit up with thunder and lightning.

"Come on, there might be something thing left over in the kitchen," Sariah said.

"You know where that is?" Scorpius asked, surprised.

"I may not be able to turn a lizard into a pipe, but I can find food," she replied.

They passed a group of Gryffindors laden down with textbooks. She noticed Scorpius had fallen behind her momentously as if he was ashamed to be seen with her, and ignored the twisting feeling in her gut.

They trailed out of the main entrance hall, and she led him down a small left stairwell, and through a series of labyrinthine corridors, flaming torches sent shadow flickering along the moody stone walls. The kitchen's location was something of a secret, but she'd discovered it about halfway through her third year. Gigantic portraits lined the walls around them. Their inhabitants stirred as they walked past, something Sariah had never gotten used to. Maybe she'd seen too many Horror films, but the idea that something foul might grab her and drag her into the painting had always terrified her. She stopped him just around the corner from a portrait of a gigantic fruit bowl.  

"Turn around," she announced.

"I've never been to this part of the castle before," Scorpius protested. "I'm probably not going to find it again."

"Turn around already! And if you tell anyone, I'll jinx you twice a day for the next decade," she warned him.

He sighed, and turned around. 

Her threat was a good one: even the Professors had trouble reversing Sariah's jinxes. Her regular spells were poorly cast and chaotic, and these were the two aspects that made her jinx's particularly nasty. When a Slytherin girl had made fun of Britta's pimples (a Hufflepuff acquaintance of hers) Sariah had jinxed the Slytherin's long plait to attempt to strangle its owner. They'd had to cut it off in the end, and even then still chased her around the classroom, like a furry strangulating caterpillar.

Sariah slipped around the corner to the portrait, casting a whispered "Silencio," at the pear. Checking to make sure Scorpius wasn't spying on her, she reached up and tickled the pear. It laughed silently as it morphed into a doorknob. With a familiar rumbling sound, the rest of the painting morphed into a heavy oak door and swung inwards.

 She inhaled with a sigh. It smelt so inviting that she almost forgot to fetch Scorpius. The kitchens were warm inside. Heat emanated from a roaring fireplace at the opposite end of the room. After wading through crowds of bowing house elves, Sariah and Scorpius took seats in front of the brick fireplace. They basked in its warmth, sharing a plate of pumpkin pasties and dark hot chocolates that the house elves brought over. She couldn't help but notice how alienated Scorpius was by the presence of the elves. The look on his face mirrored how she felt about magic in general.

The kitchen's layout mirrored that of the great hall, minus the fireplace, with four large tables lining its length. Food that the house elves laid here would be magically transported onto the house tables above. Apparently, this was news to Scorpius. Sarah laughed after explaining it to him.

"Well, where do you think your breakfast came from?"

Red spots blotted his pale cheeks. "I don't know! It's magic. It just happens."

"But that's the problem!" Sariah exclaimed. "Nothing can just happen! There are laws of physics energy! Nothing can just happen; there has to be a logical method behind it."

"It is logical. You just don't understand because you're a m-" he cut himself off abruptly.

Sariah frowned. He was going to say a mud-blood. He was definitely going to say it. She didn't bring it up, not wanting to start an argument. She pushed her black bangs off her face, watching the steam rise off their robes.

"Come on," she said. "We've probably overstayed our welcome here anyway."

As usual, the elves profusely declined her offer to help them clean up, much to Scorpius' horror, and left the warmth of the kitchen.

They wandered the corridors for some time after that. The castle was brightly lit, albeit empty. Following the wizarding war, the student roll had plummeted; many wizarding families had relocated in the aftermath, and virtually all record of muggle-borns had been destroyed - including lists of future pupils. Sariah herself was an oddity: one of the few who'd stumbled upon their powers in a public place. She'd received an owl not three hours later explaining the situation. Because student numbers were so low, the chances of meeting other students out so close to curfew was very low. She and Scorpius discussed very little. The conversation was light, and trivial at best.

She told him about she was definitely going to fix the Anglia in the woods. Scorpius scoffed at her and returned that he was going to Transylvania for the Christmas break.

"Watch out for vampires!" she said.

"I'll be sure to carry garlic cloves at all times," he promised sarcastically. 

A loud tolling sounded through the castle. They would have to be in their common rooms in half an hour. They reached the entrance hall again and stopped. "This is the longest conversation I've had all term," Scorpius said eventually.

Sariah couldn't imagine why. A pure-blooded Slytherin being excluded? It seemed intangible. "But you always seem so confident, though."

He shrugged, and an awkward silence permeated the air. "See you around, I guess."

"I will be fixing the car next term," Sariah said. "You can come by. If you want, I mean."

"Maybe," Scorpius said.

With that, he walked away from her. Sariah desperately wanted the definition of 'maybe' to change. Their meeting had made them victims of coincidence, nothing more. But when she thought of his thin smirk and pale eyes, she was surprised at how much she wanted to see him again.