The way I see it, everything has rules, but that doesn't mean they need to be followed.

Sometimes, it's better to break them, if it means that someone will gain something. When I set off three Dungbombs in one corridor to make sure that Tristan, Yasmeen's crush, would run into her, that was justified in my mind. I've played pranks for selfish reasons, too - to get out of doing Charms homework, to take revenge on someone who'd said something - or was rumoured to have said something - about me, or to simply cause havoc.

Of course, there's always the messes I've made trying to actually help others, try to improve the greater good.

The only one I can think of is the fight with Mr. Weseka - no, I tell myself fiercely, like I do nearly every day, it wasn't him, it was El Dorado controlling him. You saved Mr. Weseka. He wouldn't hurt you.

Someone had hurt Alejandra, though.

I squeeze my hand into a gentle fist, releasing the tension slowly as I let my eyes open. It still scares me to think that it could have been me who never came home.

Perhaps it should have been.

Survivor's guilt, they called it - thinking that you should have died in the place of someone who had. I hadn't known Alejandra, but surely she was a better person than me - me, who'd been disobeying all rules but my own since primary school. Me, who'd done every trick in the book and then some. Me, who'd broken my own rules.

It was for the better, El. You can't live life following those stupid rules all the time. It's not living if you have to stop every few seconds to make sure you're in line with your own brain.

Yes, sometimes it was better to break the rules, especially the ones that were keeping you hostage inside boxes of clean-cut lines and one, two, three.

Most of the time, though, it was much better to follow the proper rules.

This is one of those times.

I wait outside Professor Dannel's office for the first time in months, letting my feet swing freely, the tips of my shoes scraping the stone hallway. The gray walls match the gray stone bench I'm perched on, my hands gripping the sides tightly, as if I'm going to fall.

Lately, it feels like I'm going to fall even when I'm lying down.

Psychological trauma, they called it - at least, that's what the shrinks said. Wizards are quite bad at these sort of things, so Dad took me to a muggle therapist, explaining only the barest details so he wouldn't ask too many questions - it was a school trip, there was an accident, some of El's classmates were badly hurt, she's very shaken up, and could you take a look at her brain to make sure she's not mad?

He didn't say that last part, but he was implying it. Ever since I've got back, they've been treating me like I'm made of glass, fragile enough to shatter at any given moment; though, it's not unwarranted. I did make them get rid of everything gold in my room, including my Nan's earrings.

"Just for a little while," I'd told them, staring at the ground, where I didn't have to look at the sunlight reflecting off the golden hoops and remember the light that shone through Mr. Weseka's eyes. "Just until I'm ready."

"And when will you be ready, sweetie?" my mother had asked, her soft brown eyes sad, her voice trembling only slightly. She was better at hiding it than I was - I couldn't speak without shaking and stammering.

"I- I don't know."

I had told them I was ready to go back to school, for the summer term at least. They'd sent what felt like hundreds of owls to the school after that, figuring out schedules and exams and whether or not I'd have to do anything, but I didn't care. Anything to get out of the house, where I was stuck with my mother, who acted like she could only touch me with white gloves on.

Finally, they decided - I would go back, and take two classes to finish off the year, but I wouldn't take exams and I'd be trying to rest and heal and forget what happened at the City of Gold.

Like that was going to happen.

My friends weren't much better - Jemima was frantic, what with studying for exams and trying to make sure that I knew that she'd read about these things, they heal eventually, you might have some things that you can't be around for a while.

I didn't need to be told that again.

Katie, bless her heart, did try to act normal around me, but it wasn't the right type of normal; I wasn't the same as I'd been a year ago, and I wasn't ready to do things like wrap the common room in spider webs or steal all the horned slugs from the Potions room. She acted like nothing had changed, when it was clear that everything had.

Yasmeen just avoided me. It was easy for her - she surrounded herself with the people she'd found who were less complicated than my problems. For her new friends, the only thing that worried them were the Quidditch games so many of them play.

I'd kill for that to be my biggest issue.

I managed, spending my days being unusually quiet in Charms and taking real notes for once, spending my free time when the others were all in their real classes to wander the grounds - something I'd never had the time or inclination for before, but now, the fresh air seemed to help, the cool winds that throughout May turned into warm, still air that threatened of summer thunderstorms in July and tousled my hair with its calming touch.

It was easier outside - in the common room, there was always a chance that some seventh year or another sixth year would wander in on a break and see me. It was always awkward when someone noticed me, because I could see their thoughts.

Why isn't she in class?

Wait, who is that?

Don't I know her from- oh.

It's that girl, the one who survived the El Dorado expedition.

Should I talk to her? Or ignore her?

God, she's been through so much.

I can always see the pity in their eyes, like I'm some sort of dog that's been left out in the rain and kicked and starved. Instead, I'm a human who's been abandoned and gotten lost and fought a centuries old guardian and somehow won.

After the first week, I decided it was best to avoid the common room altogether when I can. I come in after dinner and go straight to bed, pretending to sleep, trying to get at least a few minutes of sleep.

It's hard to sleep much anymore, what with the night terrors, and the tossing and turning, and the way that everything looks so much worse when the lights are out.

Of course, the sun isn't much help either.

I stare at it now, on the stone floor of the corridor, the light seeping in through the windows turning everything a soft shade of gold that makes me want to throw up. I shut my eyes again and lean back against the stone wall, the cool rock hard against the back of my head.

A slow rumbling starts, the one I've heard so many times before, as the statue in front of the wall rotates away and the staircase behind it is revealed. The last time I was here, I was the middle of a sandwich, with my parents as the worrying bread, talking in hushed voices when they thought I wasn't listening, my father pacing a hole in the corridor.

Now, I fear I've picked up his habits, as my feet surely wear a groove in the stone of the floor as my toes scrape back and forth across the floor under the bench. I don't stop even when Professor Dannel stands in front of me.

Even she looks like she pities me.

"It has been a while, Miss Ladds. I can't say I've missed your frequent visits."

I smile stiffly, standing and accepting her offered hand to shake. Just like always, I follow her to her office, and it's strange standing here when I'm not in trouble - though, lately, that seems to be the pattern.

First the interview, then the meeting, and now this.

I can't help but wonder why she's called me, and why now. She obviously planned it - morning on exams day, when everyone but me - everyone but the charity case - is in stuffy classrooms or the Great Hall, writing furiously on their written exams or casting spells on their practical, proving what they've learned.

What have I learned?

How to escape a murdering automaton.

How to start falling in love with someone despite the fact that you're constantly in danger and it's a very bad idea to be a hormonal teenager.

How to come back different than before.

We ride to her office in silence, the moving staircase providing enough to noise to lessen the edgy quiet. Still, it doesn't help that she's casting me glances every few moments, as if to make sure I'm still here, still breathing.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm a ghost, the way people look at me, like I died and tried to come back and no one has bothered to tell me yet. My hands seem solid, though, and I can see myself in the mirror just as I was before, but perhaps all ghosts think they're still alive.

I've never bothered to ask before, never even had the thought cross my mind before.

Perhaps I have changed, in more than one way.

"Miss Ladds?" Professor Dannel asks, a note of hesitation in her voice. Even she is treating me like porcelain. "We've arrived."

I swallow hard and push my thoughts to the back of my head - focus, El. "Of course. Sorry."

I sit down and my feet start swinging again - I can't seem to sit still nowadays, especially not right now. Am I in trouble? I haven't done much of anything since I got back. Maybe she knows I've been climbing the trees on the edge of the forest - but it's quiet up there, and I can get distracted by the lake and the squid and the creatures in the forest. It's easier to not think when there's things to watch.

"Miss Ladds, you're probably wondering why I've called you here, on nearly the last day of exams."

"Yes, miss. I was wondering, but I didn't want to ask." The words come out too rushed, too quiet, and for a second, I fear that she's seen through my carefully constructed veneer of all right and straight to the center that screams not fine at all.

"I have, of course, been worried about you since you returned to England, and I would like to offer once again my deepest condolences. You never should have been put through that, but I- we never imagined-"

"It's all right. No one expected it. I'm just happy to be safe and home."

It's a rehearsed response, my usual soundbyte for these types of things. People ask me what it was like, how it felt, how I survived, and I give them my classic answers. I don't enjoy the attention, not like I would have months ago, but it's better than the people who start their own versions of the story.

"You weren't close with the other students, were you, Miss Ladds?" she asks carefully, watching my reaction. I shake my head before I answer.

"Not really, no. Of course, Mareth returned before the trip, but he tends to keep to his friend group. I never got to know Xena before she disappeared, and Marielle-" I pause, wondering how to phrase it. "We became acquaintances on the trip, but never really friends."

I wonder, sometimes, what it would be like if we had gone further than simply pairing together for things based on proximity, if we'd become real mates. Perhaps I wouldn't have to deal with the scathing words from her real friends, though not all of them were mean. Some of them tried to get closer to me, to reminisce about Marielle and her many achievements, but it wasn't something I wanted to do.

For me, it was best if she was left with El Dorado.

"I'm sure it still affected you very much, though," she presses.

"Yes, but I am getting help. I'm doing better, really, I can sleep through the night now."

The first semblance to our conversation in the beginning of the year - a lie. I haven't been able to sleep a full night since September, at least not without medication or potions. It's hard enough to return to El Dorado every day in my thoughts - I don't want to go back in my dreams as well.

Still, the smile that flashes across Professor Dannel's face for a second is gratifying. I've pleased her.

It's strange that I feel like I have to please people nowadays. In a perfect world, we'd all be content without false stories and swaddled care, but in this world, it's more like I take then give, and they take then give, and we're all just depending on each other for happiness instead of accepting our own.

"Well, El, I called you here because I, along with the rest of the staff, have been worried about you. As much as we'd like to let you finish out your school year without our poking our noses where they don't belong, I have noticed a lack of. . . exuberance in you of late. Surely by now there should have been some sort of Sparklers Shenanigans?"

I give her another tight smile, the only type I've been giving of late. My face doesn't want to stretch out enough for a real one, or perhaps it can't. "I haven't really felt up to it, Professor Dannel. I'm trying to catch up with charms, and, well, I was hoping I could try to do the others next year. The ones I missed."

"Oh, no, Miss Ladds! We don't expect you to have to make up the work you missed. It's all been excused, after the trip - it was an unforeseen, and very unfortunate circumstance."

So that's what they're calling 14 deaths. Unfortunate.

"I'd still like to. I was hoping, actually, that I could redo this year and then take my seventh year as well. I'd still like to do my NEWTs. I've been thinking about trying to be a Healer, lately, and they usually want you to finish school."

"I'm sure that given the circumstances-"

"No. I want to. Please."

I've never begged in my entire life, but I might if she doesn't give me some hope. All I want is to go back to school next year and take my classes with the current fifth years - people who weren't involved with the drama of El Dorado.

My feet keep swinging, the grating sound the only thing breaking the silence before Professor Dannel sighs. "I suppose we can look into it, Miss Ladds. Are you sure you wouldn't like some sort of break? A reprive from the school work?"

"I've had almost a year. It's time I started getting serious. I can't keep messing around and disregarding my classes." I give her a small smile before saying what might be the truest thing I've said all morning. "Besides, I need something to focus on."

"Very well, but I will speak to your parents, and possibly recommend a vacation - for all of you. They have been through just as much, Miss Ladds, as you."

I stare at my hands, which curl in my lap, unmoving. I watch them clench together slowly, like they're not mine.

"I know. They're planning a trip to Brazil this summer. For a few weeks."

"Brazil? Miss Ladds, are you certain that will be healthy? It is-"

"I know, but I have a friend there. He was one of the- one of the students there too. One of the- the survivors."

It's hard to say the words, hard for me even now to hear those three syllables, hard for me to speak them with the way they clog my throat.

Survivors means that there were some who didn't survive.

"Of course. A friend."

She shuffles papers, perhaps looking for details about this friend, but I'm sure she's heard at least the rumors from the authorities, the teachers, even the students who have gotten wind of the details of that last night - how I clung to Chris as they brought us back to safety; how he held my hand as gently as possible, like it was a precious gem; how he kissed the bleeding wound on the side of my head from that branch and cradled me as we both shook.

He's been sending me letters every day since, long rolls of parchment filled with cramped handwriting and stories about his day, what he ate, the classes he went to, what he learned in alchemy, what his classmates said or did that made him smile in hopes that it will get a laugh out of me too. It's hard for me to write back to his ever-cheerful notes, hard for me to fake a happy tone, but it gets easier when I remember that he, too, is faking.

He was just as scared as I was in El Dorado.

He might be the only one who understands.

"Well, Miss Ladds, I do believe that is all, unless there's something more you wish to talk about?"

"I don't think so. I-" I swallow hard. "Thank you, Professor. You've made this easier for me. It means a lot that you've helped so much, really. I- I don't know what I'd be doing without support."

She smiles, but it doesn't reach her sad eyes. "Of course, Miss Ladds. Whatever we can do to help. You've been through a lot."

Yes, I have, but I got through it.

At least, I'm trying to.

I'm almost to the door when she calls out in a shaky voice, "Miss Ladds?"

I turn, my hand on the doorknob, not wanting another pitying look, but facing Professor Dannel's watery smile anyways.

"You've changed, Miss Ladds."

I give her one in return. "Perhaps it's for the better."

Everything has rules.

Some are the ones you learn early, the ones you're told and taught - don't run with scissors, don't go outside in a rainstorm without wellies, wash your hands. Some you have to teach yourself, like how to talk to new people or be polite to teachers or what to order in primary school lunch lines. Others are the ones that creep up on you, or arise from the situations you never thought you'd be in.

Everything has rules, but that doesn't mean you have to follow them.

Every now and then, I find myself thinking in 3 rules, and I have to stop myself. It's hard to break old habits, but it's for the better.

Those rules were the ones that got me into so much trouble in the first place, and being able to break them may have saved me in El Dorado.

I used to think that there were 3 rules for everything. Now I know there's so many more, and I want to learn which ones to follow.

Of course, some were made to be broken - after all, what good is a troublemaker who follows all the rules?

I, for one, would certainly be a failure, especially now that I've finished my NEWTs. One week until the end of school, and there's a million things I haven't done.

The Pumpkin Juice Prank isn't going to play itself.