"Okay so how's that been again? You can't perform magic?", Blaise asked, sitting straddle-legged on one of the noble divans of the Slytherin common room. His arms were lying on the armrests in a way that made him somehow look like a mafioso. Wasn't he Italian? Maybe this was part of his genes.

Next to me, Gregory spit out the water he'd intended to drink. "You can't do magic?!"

Fortunately, the common room was empty to a great extent; many students were still in class (when I had asked Blaise why he as good scholar hadn't chosen History of Magic like Pansy, he had just looked at me with a very serious expression, telling me, he wasn't a masochist) or rather sitting outside in the sun in order to prevent getting the same teint like the Dark Lord. There was probably a library in Hogwarts where a few Slytherins could be hiding and the dorms were also an option.

Or one did it like Draco and disappeared in the dark cosmos of the Hospital Wing.

Anyways, except us there was only a snogging (I'm growing so British already) couple in the room and the two had visibly better things to do than listen to us.

"I can't", I weakly murmured. "In the wand shop every stick reacted to me, mine too, of course. But now nothing is working anymore. I don't know why."

"You haven't done any magic for seven years?" Blaise's face didn't seem to know if it should show disbelief or taunt and looked rather amusing.

"Uhhhhhhm..." Okay, that went a bit not so good. I had just survived the first day of school because I had knocked myself out before and now I should already be exposed? That would indeed be pathetic. But maybe- "Could I briefly lend somebody's wand, please?"

Blaise wiggled his brows. "My wand is always on hand for you."

Gregory sighed and handed me his. The one out of wood. Help, why, Blaise? "I'm not sure if it will serve you as you haven't taken it from me in a duel but here you go."

The wand was relatively short and dark, didn't lie very comfortably in my hand but I didn't let this bother me: The quest was at hazard. When this won't work, it would be over.

I did everything exactly like Clarisse had explained and shown to me, performed a smooth spin of my wrist, thought Vaporo with all of my mind, kept my arm relaxed.

And it worked. I think, I was the most surprised - I had just performed magic. Vapour was shapelessly swirling in the air and when I waggled the wand a bit, the clouds turned into bustling fish, a lolling mermaid, a whale, which was lazily beating its fluke.

In wonder, Gregory lifted his fingers but didn't dare to touch the clouds of vapour. A small school of fish approached his hand and swirled around his fingers. Gregory's eyes were bright and he mumbled: "Wow."

Blaise was watching the underwater spectacle enamoured, the green light imitating the water of jade-coloured lakes and the scales of the fish shillering silvery, the mermaid playing with her moon-coloured hair and a steaming fountain of vapour was erupting out of the whale. While it had merely seemed like we'd be underwater before, now it was also feeling like it.

Slowly, the vapour disappeared, shapes turned into silhouettes and eventually it were pale memories, hanging in the air between us.

A loud smack destroyed the atmosphere, I turned my head but I only saw a lot of bare skin and I didn't want to know more.

"Why isn't your wand working then when it has chosen you?" Blaise's voice sounded enraptured, his eyes were holding an expression of dreamy entrancement. "After all you actually aren't without talent."

"Ah, thank you very much", I grumbled even though I was still more than just surprised that it had worked. Like, I performed dam magic! Because of the many failures I had already started to doubt myself. But who wouldn't do so, surrounded by prodigies?

"This spell is really beautiful? Can you please teach it to me?" Gregory looked at me pleading, his apple cheeks rosy with admiration.

I nodded. "Clarisse has learnt it to me, I hope, I can do it as well as she." I instructed him and after a short while, Gregory was chuffing clouds into the air like a steam engine, Blaise copying him.

We were delighted like small children, building cloud-castles and fighting wars with tiny soldiers who didn't know pain. A dragon was coiling around one of Gregory's towers and Blaise had created somebody like a village prostitute who was rather precisely showing, what the couple behind Gregory and me was doing. She even opened her small mouth when the girl was moaning; around her the battle was raging but the village prostitute didn't care about that.

"Mandie is a femme fatale of the worst kind", Blaise entrusted us, while one of his warriors was trying to behead Gregory's dragon.

"You have called your mistress Mandie?" I laughed, eyes directed at the spectacle in front of me.

"Obviously." Gregory pursed his lips and his dragon managed to grill the attacking knight.

"Well, it's logical, isn't it? Man, die!", Blaise yelled over the loud moaning, whilst Mandie was running across the battlefield in nothing but a nearly invisible rag of clothing and the men weren't paying attention anymore to their own actions, leading to a lot of them falling off their horses or getting speared by enemy lances.

"That's unfair, Blaise!", Gregory whined, looking at his dead knights. "How can you cold-bloodedly take advantage of the fact, that my men haven't seen a woman in years?"

"There are no rules in war, my friend." Blaise sent a new knight to the dragon to finally slaughter it, his other warriors were dealing with the few who'd survived Mandie's attack in the meanwhile.

"Well, there actually are a few", I interjected but it probably got lost in the moaning of the boy. The two didn't seem to know shame.

"No rules? You can have that!" A tall, tiny man, paced out of Gregory's castle,  clad in fine robes out of vapour in contrary to Mandie, to whom he was wandering, a pointed hat decorating his head. As soon as he had reached Mandie, he whispered something in her ear, a bulging bag changed its owner, now dangling on a naked hip. "He is immune to lust and has recanted women years ago. Take that, Blaise!"

Mandie moaned again and knight fell off his horse.

"As if Mandie has turned against me now!", Blaise grunted, while Mandie was running across the battlefield happily moaning and killing his men.

"Your whore is purchasable", I noted slightly amused.

"My whore is a whore!", Blaise sweared. "Such a fraudster! Disloyality is a no-go, Mandie, shame on you! Merlin, beware of scammers!"

"Ha!", Gregory rejoiced, when his dragon ate Blaise's knight at one bite.

"Shit, Mandie!" Blaise's men died like flies, with Mandie Gregory's knights were a lot deadlier than without her. "You mean slut!"

"It's not her fault!", I tried to calm him. "Maybe she has children she has to feed at home? She needs the money!"

"But have you seen how she's just opposed me? Disloyality should actually be a deadly sin!" Blaise looked as if Mandie's behaviour was hurting him a lot - still no excuse to treat her like that.

"You could buy her back though, if you love her that much?" Gregory waggled his wand and his dragon rose itself fire-spitting into the air.

"I don't want to deal with Mandie anymore!", Blaise griped and his men fell to Mandie's feet. "I never want something from Mandie ever again!"

"Who is Mandie?" Pansy stepped into the common room. When she spotted the couple, she fell the few steps, which were leading down to the actual room, down because of fright. As soon as she had stopped falling, she dusted her bottom and hurried to sit next to Gregory and me. Pansy wasn't prude but after an hour of History of Magic she probably could imagine something prettier.

"Mandie is Blaise's prostitue", Gregory explained to Pansy who was watching the drama closely, already intrigued.

"She was my harlot. Now she's your whore", Blaise corrected Gregory.

"You've created her, she's all yours." Mandie got rid of the bit of fabric that had covered her rather badly and swinged it like a trophy while dancing, no man was able to avert his gaze of Mandie's naked body. Most of them probably suffered a heart attack, but the important fact was, that none of them moved anymore.

"Mandie is brilliant", Pansy marvelled.

"Now she has turned against me too!", Gregory pouted.

"Mandie is her own party now", Blaise confirmed with a look at the wildly moaning Mandie. The two behind us just didn't find any salvation.

"Mandie is a femme fatale of the worst kind", I quoted Blaise.

And then, Mandie finally came and fell dead.

(nobody should call a lady whore, etc devaluing, just to make that clear)