"and I'm jumping from the plane we flew
first I'm gonna tell the truth
but then i'm burning my bridge to you"

The next morning, Maia didn't know where she was when she woke up. Fleeting rays of light blinded her eyes when she tried to open them —without success, making a noise and laying her head back on the pillow. When she managed to see beyond, she frowned a little: this wasn't her Slytherin room: she didn't see darkness nor was she cold, but she saw how the sun rose and the atmosphere was warm.

She turned her head and discovered with surprise a pair of warm eyes that watched her, amused, as if they expected Maia to react and realize where she was. A wide smile spread across her face when she saw Ginny staring at her from the bathroom door, her arms crossed over her chest and a playful smile.

"Morning." Maia rasped, rubbing her eyes. She sat up and leaned against the pillow, narrowing her eyes at the light filtering through the window. "Why are you dressed?"

"Because it's nine in the morning, and we have to go to class."

Like a spring Maia rose from the bed, instinctively searching for her uniform among the sheets. Ginny giggled, and the blonde assumed it was because of the pajamas she'd borrowed: a tank top —perhaps too short for someone so tall— and shorts, both in Gryffindor colors. When the redhead turned red with laughter and even couldn't seem to breathe, Maia looked accusingly at her.

"It's saturday, you idiot."

Maia reached for the nearest cushion and aimed at Ginny's body, but missed. "You fucker."

"Damn right I am." Snapped Ginny, smirking.

Maia wheezed and grabbed a pillow again, hitting Ginny this time. "Oh my god, shut up! I hate you."

"You don't! You love me." The redhead approached her and hugged her from behind with a shy smile.

"Not anymore." This time it was Ginny's turn to gasp and be offended, and she laughed out loud as Maia scooped her up and tossed her on the bed and tickled her ribs.

That could be a good summary of the routine they had every morning from now on. When there really was class, Maia was busy the night before getting the books and materials she needed for the next day, as well as a change in her outfit so that no one suspected she was wearing the same clothes from the previous day. She woke up much earlier —it used to be six in the morning when Maia left the room— with the intention of going to the Slytherin Common Room and at least being more discreet than she really wanted to be.

Ginny smiled when she saw the girl enter her room every night, but she made a sad face when she opened her eyes imperceptibly and saw the Slytherin crouched beside her, arranging her green and gray tie with agility, waiting to be able to say goodbye to the redhead.

"I have to go now. I'll see you tonight, okay?" Ginny hummed while Maia kissed her on the cheek.

Maia realized how happy she could be when the nights came. During the day, her mind was filled with memories that had happened the day before or thoughts of things that could happen that very night. They often stayed up late, practicing spells —Maia was still determined that Ginny learnt more, never knowing when she was going to need it— or telling stories from childhood. Maia had discovered how interesting the Weasleys' lives were, always surrounded by people to talk to and with complete freedom to do whatever they wanted, unlike her home.

The nightmares had diminished considerably. Maia would hardly wake up late at night, drenched in sweat and almost screaming in horror, and when she did, Ginny, by her side, worried that she would fall asleep again while stroking her hair and whispering nice things. However, the redhead also knew that she should give her space, that she couldn't wrap her arms around her whenever she wanted because the blonde's anxiety prevented her from doing so.

When they woke up, hours after those incidents, Ginny never mentioned anything about it, but Maia was aware of what had happened. She was infinitely grateful that the redhead didn't bring it up, ashamed of everything that was still going on in her mind, but she was also able to recognize that it was the presence of Ginny every night at her side that made those nightmares lessen.

The Slytherin glanced furtively at the Gryffindor at breakfast —they had both agreed to go to the Great Hall early so that no one would bother them— almost as if it proved she was all right, that no one had bothered her. And it was that Maia had developed a great protective instinct towards the younger one —although she was aware that the Gryffindor was perfectly capable of defending herself— based mainly on the fact that she knew what the Slytherins were capable of, much more now than Maia had spoken out against Pansy when she messed with Ginny. She sent her a small smile every time she saw her sit in her seat, right in front of Neville, whom she also sometimes greeted.

However, one morning Eden Whitaker disturbed her staring debate with Ginny. He dropped directly in front of her, and motioned for her not to speak.

"I know you don't want to talk to me, but I'm sick of this. I'm sick of waking up every morning and knowing that you won't be by my side every Potions class as we laugh at the concoctions Pansy makes, or— Wait a minute."

Maia raised an eyebrow with the cereal spoon in her mouth. "What?"

Eden sniffed the air like a dog. "You smell like sex!" the boy yelled in a whisper.

The girl struggled not to spit out the contents of her mouth, but she wiped her mouth nonetheless. "What do you even mean?!"

"Please, Mai, accept my apology. I cannot bear a single day more not knowing what is happening in your life, and less when you have done things that you have not even told me."

The Slytherin tried to stop a smile from spreading across her face, but Eden's face was too comical for her to succeed. The boy's face lit up. "I forgive you only because I know for sure that I am not going to marry anyone my parents choose, but I hope that from now on you will tell me everything."

Eden took her by the hands and filled them with kisses, which made Maia laugh. She was aware that Ginny's gaze was still on her, so she sent her a shrug. "Never again. Tell me! What happened?"

"Ginny and I are... together? We haven't formalized anything, but... I suppose so."

"I knew it! You have a different glow. All this time I have been watching you, and I have seen you happy for the first time in a long time. She makes you happy, right?"

"I think I am the most me I have ever been, Eden. Everything changes when I'm with her. She makes me forget all the problems, and, you know me, I don't have few."

"You've been sleeping in her dorm, haven't you? Pansy and Daphne say that you haven't been in the room for weeks, even Millicent and Tracey —you thought I wasn't going to find out, right?— have confessed that you haven't slept in their room these days."

Maia nodded. "I know it's risky, but... it's worth it. So worth it."

"I'm happy for you, Maia. I am."

"Thanks. But what exactly are you doing here? I was hoping to see you with the whole clique." Maia commented sarcastically.

Eden rolled his eyes. "There's no clique anymore. Daphne is kind of depressed, doesn't talk to anyone except when she has to and she's always alone —I really don't know why, though, never asked—, Blaise is a free spirit, you know him, and Draco and Pansy change when they're together. Ever since you walked away, they've been together all the time, and I think it's bad for the both of them. They think they're the baddest bitches around —don't laugh, I'm being serious— and bully everyone around them, saying it's 'just a joke'. Besides, Draco and I fought, so I'm kind of not talking to anyone right now."

"What? Why?" Maia wanted to know.

"I guess I did something he didn't like. It's nothing, really." Eden dismissed. He picked up a piece of Maia's toast, who shot him a withering look. "Anyways, how are you doing with the horcruxes? Any luck?"

"Not really. I'm still convinced that my aunt has something in her possession, but I don't even know what and I don't know for sure, so I go where I was at first. As for the one at Hogwarts... I still feel a strange presence, but I can't be sure of myself anymore."

Eden pulled out a notebook —Maia thought he was literally taking it anywhere— and opened it, putting it in front of her. "Then you're lucky that I have had all the time in the world to think. I've been reading, and since you told me the Slytherin item is already removed, we only have Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw left. The Ravenclaw item we were looking for was —at first— the diadem, but guess what? It has been lost for a long time, nobody alive has seen it."

"Brilliant." Maia snorted.

"But if no one alive has seen it, we can ask someone who is no longer alive." Eden tried to say, tilting his head so that no one would listen to them.

"Helena." Maia realized, her mouth ajar. "We can ask Helena where it is, and then we will know if it's one of them or not."

"Who is Helena and who is one of them?" A voice beside them said, and immediately Eden closed the notebook. The voice was Pansy's, raising an eyebrow as she sat next to Eden, accompanied, as always, by Draco, who didn't take a seat and didn't look at Eden, only at his sister discreetly.

"Nobody." The two friends replied in unison.

Pansy shrugged. "Anyways, I see you're talking again. Does that include us, too?"

"I have nothing to talk to you about, Pansy. You're evil, and we're late." Deadpanned Maia. She took her things and, together with Eden, left the Great Hall. "I swear she gets on my nerves sometimes. I don't know how I could even befriend her."

"It was said the other day that she insulted Weasley and that you defended her, insulting Pansy. Pansy said something about you —that she hoped you weren't a blood traitor— and Draco told her not to talk about you in his presence or things would get ugly. I think he wants to get close to you but doesn't know how."

"Oh, now little Draco has pants. I don't know what goes on inside his head, really. He confuses me, and I'm his sister."

"He is sorry and wants to fix things with you, but he is afraid to position himself. I mean, it's obvious that you made your own path a long time ago, but he's afraid to make up his mind once and for all. He's scared that if he gets out of the way like you did, he won't be brave enough to face it."

They got up the stairs to the Ravenclaw Common Room. "Someday he will have to choose which side he is on, regardless of whether that side wins or loses the battle. You can't be in the middle and expect everything to turn out well." Maia sighed. "I am afraid he'll choose the wrong side."

"Because it isn't your side?"

"No, because if he chooses the wrong side he's more likely to die than if he chooses the one he thinks is the wrong one."

Eden put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. "Everything will be fine. When the time comes he will be safe. It's basically everything we're doing, right? Protect him."

Maia nodded as she looked around. The Ravenclaw Common Room stood before them, with a huge portrait of a woman in the center, staring at them intently as if it knew the students didn't belong in her house. "I think we don't have to go inside. Ghosts are never in their Common Rooms, are they?"

"They say she is always in the yard, wandering around." Eden said with a shrug.

That's where they headed. Maia looked at the time, thinking that perhaps the ghost of Ravenclaw's daughter would not be found there. However, a whitish figure passed through the wall at that very moment, and stared at a fixed point on the wall while muttering something the Slytherins couldn't hear.

"Go." Eden whispered. "I will wait for you here. It is something you have to do."

The girl nodded, although not quite convinced. She didn't even know where to start; probably the ghost thought everything she came to tell her was crazy —Merlin, they didn't even know for sure if the object they were looking for was the diadem. However, time was running out. With each passing day, more power gathered Voldemort, and if she was able to avoid it, she had to at least try.

She tried to be as stealthy as she could —she didn't want to scare Helena— but it didn't seem to work, for the ghostly figure turned toward her as soon as the girl crossed the courtyard. Helena said nothing, just looked at her, as if waiting for Maia to say something at last.

"Hello. You are Helena Ravenclaw, right?" That probably was a very stupid question. "My name is Maia—"

"—Malfoy. I know who you are. What do you want from me?" Helena's voice was hard and cold.

"There's something from Ravenclaw I'm looking for, Helena. Something small but meaningful. Do you know by chance where's the diadem?"

The ghost widened her eyes and looked at her intently. Suddenly, the gesture on her face turned to horror, and Maia instinctively closed her eyes as the ghost ran through her. She felt a sudden chill inside her, and she turned to see where Helena had gone: she feared she had been too direct or disrespectful.

"Helena, please. It's urgent. Do you know where the diadem is?" The Slytherin assumed, with relief in her heart, that it was indeed the founder's diadem, given her daughter's reaction.

"There is no diadem. I stole it. I sought to make myself cleverer, more important than my mother. I ran away with it. My mother, they say, never admitted that the diadem was gone, but pretended that she had it still. She concealed her loss, my dreadful betrayal, even from the other founders of Hogwarts. Then my mother fell ill — fatally ill. In spite of my perfidy, she was desperate to see me one more time. She sent a man who had long loved me, though I spurned his advances, to find me. She knew that he would not rest until he had done so."

"And what happened?"

"He found me. I fled to Albania with the diadem, and he found me. I don't know what happened, but he ended my life, and then his, repentant. We both came back to Hogwarts —as ghosts— the place where we grew up." The ghost recounted in a deep voice. She kept very close to Maia, who was looking at her with pity.

Maia breathed shakily. It was the object they were looking for, now she had no doubt. "You've told this story to someone, right? A student?"

Helena Ravenclaw looked at her haughtily. "You aren't the first Slytherin to try and trick me. He was flattering, good looking. He seemed to understand what I was going through. But he... shattered the meaning of the diadem and made it his in a way no one would understand."

"Wait, Helena!" Maia screamed as the ghost seemed to leave, sorry, still torturing herself for her mistake. "I don't want the diadem, I want to destroy it." Helena braked hard, but it took her a few seconds to turn to look at Maia again. "I am not Tom Riddle, despite our similarities. I know he can be persuasive and manipulative, but I'm being honest, Helena. I want to get rid of the evil within your most precious object, the one he defiled."

The wraith looked away for a moment, her translucent eyes wetting. "You're a friend of Luna's. I've seen you with her from time to time; you don't judge her. Sometimes us Ravenclaws can be misunderstood and confusing, but only the ones who can see through us get the best from us." The ghost's eyes softened, as if Maia had awakened even tenderness in her. "The diadem is still here at Hogwarts. If you know where it is, just ask. If you don't know, you will never find it."

Helena Ravenclaw broke through the courtyard wall and disappeared; Maia never saw her again. Her heart was pounding, for she was closer to finding the horcrux than ever. She turned her gaze back to the courtyard entrance, where she met Eden's urgent gaze.

"So?"

"We have it, Eden. She said that we have to ask for it, or else we will never know how to find it. But who can we ask?" Maia snapped her fingers not long afterward, remembering what Draco had done to get Death Eaters to enter Hogwarts, or when Ginny had passed three times in front of the Room of Requirement, asking for what she needed. "The Room of Requirement. We have to ask where the diadem is, and it will appear."

"We can go tonight, I have guard. But we have to go back to class or we will get in trouble if we get caught here."

"If you're right. We should go somewhere quiet —how about the library?— so we can investigate how to get rid of the diadem. We can't take the Gryffindor sword, and it doesn't do with a simple spell."

Classes that morning were extremely slow for Maia. She was impatient to go to the Room of Requirement and find the damn diadem, and then a way to destroy it forever. Her foot shifted involuntarily, and Eden had to kick her under the table to keep her from shaking it every time Maia moved. She was constantly looking at the clock, praying that the bell would ring, but it seemed that things weren't in her favor that morning.

From the looks they were giving them, Draco and Pansy seemed to have a problem with Eden and Maia having reconciled. They whispered discreetly behind their backs, but the Slytherins could perceive them just the same.

"What's the matter with them? I feel like I can't even breathe without them whispering about it."

"They're obviously jealous." Murmured Eden. "We're smarter, prettier than them." Maia laughed at that, and that increased the whispering behind them.

That night was the first of many that she stayed in the Common Room for more than ten minutes. When the clock struck twelve at night, Eden walked down the stairs, carefully closing his dorm's door. He gave Maia a brief greeting, making sure there was no one around who could disturb them.

"Shall we?"

Maia carried the flashlight for Eden, who stood farther back, looking at the illustrations he had made in his notebook. They knew that the Room of Requirement could be full of useless things, so they had to take into account the shape and size of the diadem.

"If we find it, what are we going to do with it?" Eden finally asked, when they were already outside the door.

"Now that we already know where it is, I think it's best if we kept it. Anyone could find it here, but no one would suspect it's us who have it."

"Okay, then. Do you want me to keep it?" Eden said and Maia nodded. They entered the room, filled with artifacts stacked on top of each other and furniture that had never been there before. "Welp, it is what it is. Let's do this."

The two shared a knowing look and snorted, but they had no choice. Maia had never seen the Room of Requirement so disastrous. There were piles of stacked chairs, the end of which the girl could not see; smashed and burned armchairs and sofas, but there was no trace of anything shiny to catch their eye.

They decided that the best thing was for each one to take a different path and be able to find the diadem earlier. Maia laughed out loud throughout the room as Eden yawned loudly. However, she told herself that they were probably locked up for a while, and that it was best if she concentrated her efforts on locating the horcrux.

She put her hand to her chest and closed her eyes. She flinched a little when a slight pain appeared. She took a deep breath and opened her eyes again: it was there, there was no doubt. The pain increased each time she took a step, indicating that it was closer than she expected. "Accio diadem." But nothing happened. It wasn't going to be that easy.

She looked up when something started to shake. It was a small box, with gold clasps, much like the ones her mother had in the Manor where she kept the jewelry. Maia climbed onto the lowest chair, and held on tight to the nearest bookshelf to keep from slipping. She climbed as best she could, with difficulty but determined to reach the box.

She stifled a scream as the chair gave way under the weight of her supported foot, but she pulled herself together and grabbed onto something sturdy above. She reached for the box as best she could, and the pain returned to her chest, so this time she screeched.

"Maia!" Eden ran as fast as he could and arrived just in time to catch the girl, who was holding the box tightly against her chest. "What happened?"

"Found it." The girl whispered as she opened it. The pain gradually subsided, and disappeared entirely as the tips of her fingers caressed the diamonds embedded in the tiara. "It's beautiful. No wonder he wanted to keep it."

"We have to leave before they see us. I will keep it; it will be worse for you." Eden confirmed as she stuffed the chest into her backpack. "I assume you are going to the Gryffindor Common Room?"

"You assume well." Maia smiled.

"Good. I'm glad we're speaking again, and I'm glad you're happy. God knows you deserve this. I'll see you tomorrow at breakfast."

When she arrived at the portrait of the Fat Lady, after all those days she already treated her like one of them. She still looked at her suspiciously —something she even did with some Gryffindors— but she wished her good night and had never snitched of her presence. It was too late, so she tiptoed to Ginny's room, who was probably already sleeping.

But she was wrong, because when she opened the redhead's door, a ray of red light went to her hand and she pulled it away quickly, as it burned her. "Damn, woman!" Ginny pointed her wand at her and breathed when she realized it was Maia. "You could at least warn me next time you decide to burn my hand!" Maia shook her hand to avoid the burning.

"I'm sorry! It's late and you weren't coming, and I was scared something happened."

"My God, Ginny, if you haven't killed me yet then I'm immortal."

"Don't be a crybaby! I already said I'm sorry. Can we go to sleep now?"

Maia was frowning from the pain induced by the burn —the redness was more than evident on her pale skin— but when she looked at Ginny, her face relaxed. The redhead wore a dressing gown, her hair tied back in a ponytail and looked at her tenderly —unfortunately, she found, she couldn't be mad at her.

"We can."