, Margaret woke up with a horrible pain in her lower back that only meant one thing.

She turned onto her stomach and groaned into her pillow. After a few minutes of muttering swear words under her breath, she crawled out of bed.

Before taking a shower, Margaret dragged herself out of her room and down the hall, hitting her head thrice on the second to last door on the right, that she knew to be the dorm room Hermione, Ginny, Lavender and Parvati shared. The pain that erupted in her forehead was nothing compared to the cramps she was gifted with every month.

Thankfully it was Hermione who opened it, being the early riser she was.

"Oh, good morning Margaret - what's wrong?" says Hermione, frowning at her bent over friend.

"What do you do when mother nature gives you the monthly subscription gift?"

"What?" Hermione asks, confused.

"When Japan's flag makes too much sense, ya know," she groans back. Hermione looked even more perplexed.

"What do girls here do when it's a full moon for them and they turn into grumbling monsters?" Margaret rephrases because she really was starting to feel like a grumbling monster. A very tired, grumbling monster, hunched over by the opposite wall while holding her abdomen that hurt like a beyotch.

Hermione only gave her groggy friend an odd look. "What in the world do you mean, Margaret?"

"I mean," says she exasperatedly, "what do you do when you have your period, Hermione?"

Hermione's mouth formed an 'O' in realisation and she nodded in understanding. "You should've just said so. We go to Madam Pomfrey - but wait, you have it now, don't you? Wait here."

"Where am I even going to go?" Margaret mumbles under her breath when Hermione disappears behind the half-open door. A moment later, Ginny appeared in her place.

"Wotcher, Margie," she greets cheerfully but only receives a groan in response. Ginny laughs. "Hermione's just told me it's your - hem hem - full moon."

"Please don't," Margaret whines. "It's bad enough we have a double lecture with old toad-face today, I don't need any more of her toad-ness in my life."

Ginny laughs again, "I agree."

Hermione returned, opening the door wider so that she can see Margaret leaning on the opposite wall and smiled sympathetically.

"Here," she says, holding out a small pouch with a teddy bear illustration on it. Margaret took it, glancing at her in question. "We can get Madam Pomfrey's sanitary napkins today after classes. They are quite nice - last longer and have some sort of permanent perfume spell. For now, that has some muggle pads in it. My parents don't really understand Pomfrey's way and insist I have some for emergencies."

"Good thing you do," Margaret remarks. "Thanks so much, you two. Sorry for bothering you this early."

"No worries," Hermione smiles. "What are friends for?"

At breakfast, Margaret was more miserable than ever. So much that the twins took one glance at her with her head resting on the table, her plate empty in front of her, and exchanged a look. Meanwhile, Ron was trying to convince her to eat.

"What about Cherry-Owls? You like Cherry-Owls," Ron says, sending a questioning glance towards Harry, who nodded vigorously, not knowing what else to do. Margaret grumbled something incoherant under her breath. "What?"

"I said," she repeated grumpily, "I feel sick... not hungry."

"Mum always says you've got to start your day on a full stomach-"

But Margaret cut Ron off, pointing in his general direction somewhere on the opposite bench without looking up.

"Hey! No uterus, no opinion!"

Ron sent an incredulous glance at Ginny, who shrugged.

"I'm with her on this one," says she.

"Good morning, grumpy goblin," George teases, squeezing into the bench between Harry and Ron opposite Margaret.

Margaret groaned in response, dropping her hand.

Fred slid into the seat to her right and gives her an odd look. "Are you alright?"

"I'm freaking fantastic," she mutters sarcastically before realising who it was. Margaret sits up so fast that even the cramp that was in process of rising up, went back down. "Wait- no, I'm sorry-"

"You're freaking forgiven," says George, smirking, then his brows scrunch up in confusion. "What are you forgiven for, exactly?"

"For snapping at both of you the other day - I know it's been like a week but still, I didn't mean to, especially not for Draco to take the edge out of it-"

"It's no biggie," says Fred, waving his buttered toast dismissively before taking a large bite out of it.

"Malfoy's a git," says George flatly. "You're our friend."

"But that wasn't justified whatsoever, I shouldn't have," she mumbles guiltily.

"Sch-eer uk, bu-er-cup!" Fred says rather incoherently while chewing, pushing her shoulder with his. He swallows, adding, "It'll take much more than that for us to be mad at you."

"But if you feel that bad," continues George, his gleaming eyes exchanging a glance with his twin, "you can always help us with... something."

A weird sort of dread filled Margaret. She wasn't sure if it was a good idea, especially if they made her eat something terrible.

"I'm not volunteering to taste any of your puking pastilles," she tells them firmly. "Or any of those Skiving Snackboxes candy."

"No, no, not even if you ask," Fred shakes his head.

"That is an honour we don't simply give to people of weak hearts," George says.

"Hey! I'm not-"

"You can help us with that confusing candy you came up with the idea of during summer," Fred says over her, causing her to pause in realisation slightly taken aback that they even remembered the random idea she had casually suggested one summer afternoon.

Hermione took the chance to intervene from Margaret's left. "You mustn't, Margaret. You've got to spend time studying - it's O.W.L. year and-"

"Oh, Hermione," George says, sighing exaggeratingly.

"Don't be a downer, Hermione," Fred says in the same tone.

"It's fine," Margaret tells her. "It's only a box of candy with strange surprising flavours."

"We've already got Bertie Bott's Every Flavoured Beans, though," Ginny speaks up from next to Hermione.

"But they are horrible," Ron adds before stuffing more cereal in his mouth.

"Yeah," Harry agrees, "if you make some candy, make it so that you don't have the sudden urge to vomit after a particularly bad one."

"Friendly candy," Ginny suggests jokingly, and the group of them chuckle.

"It's two different kinds of ideas, to be honest," Margaret mumbles, her mind already spinning with ideas. She turns to the twins. "I don't know how to make candy though, you'll have to manage that."

"Nothing to fear," says Fred dramatically.

"To assist, we are here," says George, thumping his chest proudly before choking on his piece of toast and starting to cough violently, making everyone laugh.

Margaret smiled genuinely at the two, shaking her head just as the bell rang, followed by the sounds of a rickety ladder and something being hammered into the stone wall outside.

, well, more so than usual.

"Yeah, Umbridge gave the Slytherin Quidditch team permission to continue playing straight away; I went to ask her first thing this morning. Well, it was pretty much automatic, I mean, she knows my father really well, he's always popping in and out of the Ministry... It'll be interesting to see whether Gryffindor is allowed to keep playing, won't it?"

Educational Decree Number Twenty-Four had been passed that very morning, stating that all student groups, including Quidditch, were banned. Any group that wished to continue meeting required permission of the High Inquisitor Umbridge.

Margaret sighed exasperatedly as Harry and Ron watched Draco with their faces set and hands fisted. Hermione sharply whispered to them in warning.

They were all queued up in the main dungeon corridor, waiting for the bell to ring so that they would be allowed to go into Snape's classroom for their Potions lecture.

"I mean," Draco continues, raising his voice a little more, his grey eyes glittering maliciously, having taken notice of Harry and Ron, "if it's a question of influence with the Ministry, I don't think they've got much of a chance... From what my father says, as for Potter, it's only a matter of time before the Ministry has carted him off to St. Mungo's... apparently they've got a special ward for people whose brains have been addled by magic..."

Just as Malfoy made a horrible face, his mouth falling open and eyes rolling back, something collided with them hard, knocking them sideways and heading straight towards Malfoy.

"Neville, no!"

Harry leapt forward and seized the back of Neville's robes; Neville struggled frantically, his fists flailing, trying desperately to get at Malfoy who looked, for a moment, extremely shocked. Crabbe and Goyle, who were giving their usual grunts of laughter, and Pansy Parkinson who was shrieking with glee, stopped abruptly.

"Help me!" Harry yells at Ron, managing to get an arm around Neville's neck, just as Ron flung himself on him and held both his arms back. Both of them struggled to drag Neville backwards, away from the Slytherins.

Margaret's blood was boiling, her eyes flickering to a red-faced Neville still fighting Harry and Ron's grip, in front of whom she and Hermione had stepped up so that he couldn't get past them. It was one thing reading about Draco's insults; it was a whole another thing standing there and listening to him, mindless as ever.

"Oh yeah," says she, scoffing and turning to Draco, "by the looks of it, they ought to have a ward with your name on it. For special cases of baboons constantly high on Babbling Beverage."

Draco rounded on Margaret, his expression morphing into the one of barely controlled rage.

"How dare you talk to me like that?!"

"Oh, come on," Margaret says, folding her arms in front of her and shooting a glance at a seething Pansy. "What was it? Right, Drakey, you and I both know you are nothing special."

Draco took a step forward, absolutely furious. "You think you're a clever little-"

"Yeah, I get it, your father will hear about this," she tells him, waving her hand dismissively. Some students around them sniggered.

"You filthy little mudblood!"

For a moment, Margaret was confused as to why Draco's voice had suddenly gotten so shrill. Then she looked in front of her to see Pansy's wand pointed directly at her, a spell on the tip of her tongue.

It all happened so quickly, even Hermione who was standing right next to Margaret had so much time to blink. Before Pansy could've uttered a syllable for her hex, Margaret's hand had reached forward, wandless, her eyes still staring at Draco over Pansy's shoulder. A bright scarlet spun in the midst of her usual black irises.

A split second later, Pansy's wand had flown out of her outstretched hand, outlined by a barely noticeable scarlet aura, and Margaret barely moved her arm up as she caught it from the air and turned it so that it pointed at Pansy herself. Pansy stared down at her hand as if unable to believe that it was empty.

Margaret's eyes stopped glowing, but Draco had once again seen them clearly and had stumbled back, looking very startled once again.

There was a moment of silence in which Hermione had drawn her wand and pointed it at Pansy, a shield charm ready to be cast, before several of them noticed that Pansy had been disarmed.

A curious round of whispers rose up among them, many noticing that Margaret hadn't even drawn her own wand.

"You were saying?" Margaret grits out, glaring at the foolish Slytherin girl who had paled.

"You - you - how...?"

"Whatever spell you were trying to cast rebounded before you even finished saying it, genius," Margaret lies without hesitation. "Obviously, nothing else can be expected from a half-concussed troll like yourself."

Pansy gave a half-scream, tearing up instantly and looking down desperately at her wand in Margaret's hand.

"What is going on?" a voice drawls from behind them. Professor Snape had just walked out of his classroom, making the crowd part. "Two... against one?"

Hermione had quickly returned her hand to her side, looking rather pale, but Margaret gave Pansy a warning look before she turned to face Snape.

"Oh, no, Professor," she says innocently, confidently, "Parkinson here just wanted to play fetch."

A couple of people dared to snicker behind their hands, and Pansy gave what sounded like a mixture of a sob and a whine.

"Miss Xenakis, how dare you speak to a Professor in such tone?" Snape snarls, his eyes narrowing at the wand. "You've just earned yourself a week's worth of detention. And Miss Granger, ten points from Gryffindor. I would not expect a repeat of this behaviour... or the consequences... may be quite severe. Is that understood?"

"It's literally not even my wand," she tells him flatly, holding up the crooked black wand that disgusted her to hold. She hated things that were not balanced. "I haven't even drawn my wand."

"That does not mean you did not crew up two against one-"

"Does Parkinson look alone to you, Professor?" Margaret questions interrupting Snape, and as a result making him angrier. Hermione pulled at her sleeve in warning, looking utterly terrified.

"That is enough. Ten more points from Gryffindor and another week of detention, Miss Xenakis. Inside, everyone; now."

Margaret sighed; that was more than what she had bargained for. Turning, she threw Pansy's wand at her, who failed to catch it and it hit her square on the forehead and clattered to the ground.

"Professor!" she cries, but Snape had turned his back to them and was sweeping back to the front of the classroom.

"You!" Pansy shrieks, grabbing a hold of her wand in her shaking hand. "You filthy-"

"Save it, Parkinson," Margaret replies, following the rest of the students inside.

As the crowd made their way inside whispering among themselves, Margaret ignored them as she realised that she had lost her place in the queue, and not caring much, she joined the line from where she was. Unfortunately for her, it was next to Theodore Nott.

"You've got a knack for trouble, haven't you," states Theodore, smirking joyously. "I like that."

Margaret raised a brow at him, then turned her head to the other side to see if he was talking to someone over her head; not that he was any taller than her.

"I'm talking to you, Xenakis," Theodore says.

"Oh, wow, have you got written permission from your leader to do so?" she questions sarcastically, mentally begging for the queue to move forward.

"Leader? You mean Malfoy?" Theodore shoots a look over his shoulder at the said boy, who had been held back by Pansy as she muttered something furiously to him. Theodore adds casually, "He's kind of overrated, don't you think?"

Margaret noticed when she looked over her shoulder as well that Draco's stormy eyes were now on her. He didn't look scared as he had in the boathouse, only perplexed. A similar expression on Daphne Greengrass's face as she looked at Margaret while keeping an arm around Pansy.

Margaret shook her head, facing forward again. And Theodore took the chance to talk to her more.

"Y'know, that was a good catch there," says he. "If you were in Slytherin, I'd say you'd make a good seeker. Of course, Malfoy's one but-"

"I didn't know girls were allowed to play on the Slytherin team; and do you always talk so much with strangers?" Margaret interrupts as they finally enter the classroom, feeling suspicious and a bit odd that he was keeping up a conversation with her. During the entire time she had been in the Wizarding World, she never expected to be talking to Theodore Nott of all people.

"Girls in Slytherin don't want to play, something about it being 'unladylike'," Theodore says, his brows furrowed, staring at something behind her. He continues, "And why not? Isn't that how friends are made?"

"Friends?" Margaret gives him a half-smile of disbelief, stopping in her tracks and making him look back at her. "In case you haven't noticed, I'm a Gryffindor, and I did just piss off two of your housemates and got two weeks worth of detention from your Head of House for it."

"No, I've noticed, alright," Theodore tells her, looking equally amused. "Like I said; I like your knack for trouble. And as far as I remember, you snap at your fellow Gryffindorks too. Anyway, I'm Theo Nott."

"Okay, and I need to get to my seat," she tells him coldly. She didn't want to discuss what had happened with the twins. She would very much like to forget that whole day if possible. Margaret made a move to brush past Theodore, but he stepped in the way.

"Won't you introduce yourself," he says, smiling goofily.

"I will when you are worthy of it."

Theodore's smile dropped at her words, looking dumbfounded, as she smirked.

"C'mon, Nott."

Draco Malfoy had reappeared once again, clearly irked that he was talking to Margaret as he threw an arm around Theodore's neck and pulled him along sideways. Pansy rushed after them, pointedly ignoring Margaret, and so did Daphne, except she shot her confused glances.

Margaret was one of the last people to get to her place, too busy staring at the Slytherins in confusion. As soon as she had put her bag down and Snape had begun the lecture, however, Margaret realised that Harry, Ron and Hermione had noticed her interaction with Theodore.

"What did he want?" Ron whispers, his eyes narrowed at Theodore accusingly.

Margaret took time in examining the Strengthening Solution that she had made on Friday, pleased to find that it had matured properly.

"Another baboon high on Babbling Beverage, of course," she replies under her breath, removing her wand to light the fire under the cauldron.

The dungeon door had opened once again, echoing ominously in the dark place. Many turned but no one dared speak.

"Good morning, Professor," a familiar saccharine voice pierced through the silence; making Margaret exhale sharply, her patience running thin. Umbridge continues, "Did you receive my note informing you of the date and time of your inspection?"

"I did receive the said note," Snape says in his low tone, then turned to the class. "As you can see, we will be having a guest with us today. We are continuing with Strengthening Solutions. If you had followed the instructions properly, your potion should have matured well over the weekend. The process to continue the same" - he waved his wand and the instructions appeared on the blackboard - "can be found on the board."

Margaret noticed that Harry was becoming increasingly careless with his potion as the minutes passed. It was especially comical when she took the vial of a wrong ingredient from his hand, replacing it with the right one and he did not so much as blink; quite concentrated in watching the corner where Umbridge had taken a seat and was taking many notes on her clipboard.