❝ But when reality was hopeless, fantasy became more and more necessary. ❞ — Michael Grant

I'm going to kill her, was my first thought when I opened my eyes to find myself in the Hospital Wing. The sky was pitch black outside the big windows that allowed the moonlight to spill into the room. I leapt to my feet. That vixen had put some Sleeping Potion into that damn water she gave me.

"Ah, dear, you're finally awake. Thank Merlin!" Madame Pomfrey's voice sounded behind me. I turned around to see her approaching my bed with a medicine bottle in her hands.

"Madame Pomfrey, how long have I been out?" I asked.

"How long? Blimey, I've lost count of the days," she said. "I'd say about a week. It's a miracle you're finally awake."

I looked at her with eyes wide open. My jaw fell. "I—what? A-A week?"

"You were under the effects of a heavy Sleeping Potion," she continued. "I'd never seen anything like it in all these years I've been a nurse here. I had professor Rasp come up here and examine it and he told me it was the Draught of Living Death."

"WHAT?" I bellowed. I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

"Oh yes, tough one to heal from, that is. Here, take a sip." She handed me a glass half filled with the liquid medicine.

My hands were so shaky as I reached for it I had to grip it tightly so that it wouldn't fall to the floor. I raised the glass to my mouth and gulped it down like a shot. What did that traitor do to me? Why did she put me under the spell of the Draught of Living Death?

"Can I—Can I get out and head back to my house, Madame Pomfrey?"

"I'd rather you stay the night, dear," she said. "I'm so relieved to see you're awake and I believe the effects have worn off by now, but just in case, I'd rather have you here. You can leave by morning if you show no further complications, okay?"

I nodded absently. My head was going to explode. I couldn't believe this. Why did I even drink that damn water in the first place? But the real question was why had Maddie given me the potion? What had she done after she left the infirmary? What did she tell my friends? What did they think had happened to me? What had happened in the time I'd been here?

Madame Pomfrey left the medicine on my bedside table and walked back into her office. I considered sneaking out. My blood was boiling and I needed to tell Sibi and Mike everything. I raked my fingers in my hair in frustration. My hair was greasy and knotted. Of course, I hadn't showered in a week.

I walked to the bathroom, stripped and got in the shower. The feeling of cool water against my skin was almost therapeutic. I shampooed my hair twice, scrubbed the hospital smell from my body and then got out. Another pair of pajamas were on a chair beside my bed along with my Gryffindor robes, which were freshly laundered and folded. I wouldn't be surprised if Sibi had washed and placed them there for me.

I got dressed into the clean set of pajamas and used a spell to straighten my hair. My wand was on my nightstand. I grabbed it and traced the wood with the tips of my fingers. A thousand possibilities of what could have happened in this week I'd been unconscious flashed in my mind and I tried hard not to panic. I wanted to talk to Breeze and tell her everything. Breeze was smart—she must've noticed something was off. She must've done something about it before things got out of hand. Breeze wouldn't let things get out of hand.

Stupidly, I wanted to cry. The possibility of Maddie and Akker succeeding in their plan to do. . . whatever it was they wanted felt more tangible than I wanted it to. I sucked in my lips and plopped down on the bed.

I spent the rest of the night sobbing my eyes out. Not that I had anyone to hide from. The only sleep I was able to get was a solid three hours. At nine o'clock, I was awake.

"Watch out what you're drinking from next time, will you?" Madame Pomfrey told me before I left, her tone one of concern. "Not everybody has your best interests at heart, ms. Kin."

"Clearly," I murmured as I was heading out.

I made my way to the Great Hall. Something I couldn't help but notice (not that it was easily ignorable, anyway) were the weird stares everyone was giving me as I walked down the hallways. Some students looked angry and sneered at me or flipped me the bird, others looked terrified and scurried away the moment they made eye contact with me, as if I'd jinx them right then and there.

My heart dropped. I didn't know what to think. Something was definitely up. I didn't even have time to give it more thought than that because I felt a pull at my ankle and couldn't do more than let out a scream. Before I knew it, I found myself hoisted into the air.

"For a cunning murderess such as yourself, you're not the brightest bulb in the box, are you, Kin?" a boy said. "Haven't you learned to watch your back?"

I saw his approaching figure with three other boys by his sides. All of them were unfamiliar faces but him. Akker Simmons. I ignored the blood rushing to my head from the upside down position I was in and started flailing my arms.

"You bastard, what have you done?!" I yelled. "I'm going to kill you!"

"Oh, I wouldn't put that past you, Kin," Akker said. He walked up to me, his piercing blue eyes staring at me in amusement. He was smiling. "Good thing the Ministry officials will be here in no time. Everyone knows your true colors now."

My heart was pounding. I wanted to pull him by the collar and strangle him. "What the hell are you talking about, you lying, two-faced scumbag? You're one to talk about true colors."

"I knew you were not to be trusted from the moment you walked in," he said. "Your kind are killed for a reason. Enjoy your last twenty four hours of freedom because tomorrow, this school will be rid of you for good."

I could barely think straight with all the blood rushing to my head. "What the hell are you talking about?" I repeated. "What have you done?"

"Wouldn't hurt to take a look at that beautiful magazine of yours," one of the boys said, a Ravenclaw. He pulled out a crumpled page of a magazine from his pocket and tossed it at my face. "I bet McBon's gonna pay too for setting up your little fascist propaganda."

"Oh mate, I'd be psyched to see that," Akker said. "That nutter is the biggest joke this school's ever had."

"Watch your mouth when talking about Breeze, you imbecile." I balled my hand into a fist and tried to punch him, but he dodged, so I spat in his face instead. He clenched his jaw, his face flushed.

   "You've got some nerve, don't you?" he muttered between gritted teeth. He raised his wand, but one of the boys stopped him.

   "Leave it, mate, not worth it. She is probably gonna come murder you in your sleep."

   Akker smirked and dipped his wand back in the pocket of his robes. "Shame that I can't see your best friend's pretty face anymore, but I guess some sacrifices had to be made." He wiped at his face and then turned to the group of boys. "Let's go. If I'm late for one more Herbology class, Umphassen threatened she'd write a letter to Dashawn to have me removed."

   The three boys gave me contemptuous looks before walking away with Akker on the lead. When they were almost gone from sight, he turned around and swished his wand, making me fall to the ground. I clenched my teeth at the impact and rubbed my arm.

   What did Akker mean that the Ministry officials were coming tomorrow? What the absolute hell had he and Maddie done? With trembling fingers, I reached for the crumpled paper the Ravenclaw boy threw at my face. My heart leapt to my throat as I read on top of the page the familiar title, The Case of Dolphinuses. This was our magazine.

   I glanced at it. The page was consumed by a very long article, with the only addition of color being some small moving pictures every here and there. This didn't look like any of the articles we had published. My heart was basically rending itself in my chest now. It felt like the breath had frozen in my lungs.

   I started to read.

   The truth about The case of Dolphinuses

   After months of contemplating when the right time to come forth and speak our truth would be, we finally decided to take the risk and speak up. Our names are Madison and Akker Simmons and we are fifth-year students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

   We were recruited against our will, under threats of violence and potential death, to become part of an anarchistic organization that is responsible for the creation of this magazine. The aim was to spread pro-Dolphinus propaganda in order to brainwash the wizarding community into accepting these individuals among our kind like normal citizens.

   We were the ones who had no choice. We were robbed of our free will and dragged into this initiative in a nonconsensual way. We just happened to be friends with three of the members, Rena, Ralph and Melvin Richards.

   Little did we know, that professor Breeze McBon, our Deputy Headmistress was the one who orchestrated this entire plan. Her sinister intentions became clear as time went on. The truth was, she was trying to recruit students for a clandestine army that would help her stage a coup to take down the Ministry.

   However, McBon worked on her initiative through a protégé, a student, who she aimed to turn into the figurehead of the upcoming revolution she was plotting. She instructed this student to try to win the admiration and support of others, which she successfully achieved.

   This person is Polly Kin, daughter of the infamous Dolphinus, Robert Kin. She transferred to Hogwarts this year, but despite the ignominy surrounding her identity, many chose to look past that and befriend her. At first, even we considered her a friend of ours. The scariest part is realizing how wrong you can be about a person. How someone so seemingly kind and sweet can turn out to be malevolent and manipulative, and only at the age of fifteen at that.

   We tried to warn our friends. But she quickly sensed that we were aware of her real intentions, definitely through her dark perceptive powers. So she threatened to torture and kill us. We wouldn't have escaped and been lucky enough to live and tell the story, if it weren't for the fact we had collected data to prove her conspiracy plans.

   All year long, she managed to make friends, all of whom she converted to her side through her brainwashing techniques. Kin's closest friend, Isabella (Sibi) Mayo, used a Love Potion to make Akker fall in love with her. They started dating for a period of time, and all along she was actually using him for Kin's vile plans. Her aim was to keep him under her spell so that he would have even less of an incentive to let someone know of their illegal organization.

   Then there's another Dolphinus named Stella Cole, who quickly became allies with Kin after her and Cole's cousin, Alexander Forster started dating. Apparently Kin had planned out everything in advance to make all odds be in her favour.

   So we really had no choice. We found ourselves cornered and powerless. We were scared of what the Dolphinuses and the people who supported them blindly were capable of doing to us (not to mention Breeze McBon), so we had to keep our mouths shut for a long time.

   But push came to shove and we finally decided to do something. We couldn't continue helping these people and enabling their brutal treatment. We had to send word out to warn the Ministry that they were planning to start a war that would put the whole wizarding community in danger, as well as the muggles.

   With major help from another friend of ours—who prefers to remain anonymous—we finally attained our goal. Upon realizing that we had accumulated enough data, we finally decided to speak up.

   It feels like a big weight has fallen off our shoulders now that we decided to tell everyone the truth. We hope no one ever has the unfortunate fate of experiencing the type of treatment we did.

  
   If I had been at a loss for words before, I was now thunderstruck. My throat was dry. I couldn't move a single muscle, I couldn't even blink. I just stared, aghast, at the words written on the page of the magazine, appalled at this brazen manipulation of the truth.

   I looked at the pictures they had attached as "evidence". Several of them were of me studying in the library or study hall—which were grouped under one caption, "Polly Kin, plotting her coup in a solitary environment to prevent being seen." There was the picture of Sibi and Akker walking hand in hand that I saw her take at the Christmas party. Underneath it was the caption, "Polly Kin's friend, Sibi Mayo, with Akker Simmons. Taken just after she had given him a dose of Amortentia."

   Attached were also pictures of Breeze's letters with Zico Peterson, the Minister of Magic, in which she asked him for more time to send out his Ministry officials for the examination, and his agreement to a one-month extension. So that was the reason they had stolen them—to show that Breeze had supposedly deceived and manipulated the Minister to turn the cards in her favor.

   My stomach churned. Tears started welling in my eyes before I could prevent them and I dropped to my knees, clutching the page in trembling hands. 

   "What am I going to do?" I whispered to myself.

   I bit the insides of my cheeks to hold back the tears but it was useless. They flowed down my face and dripped onto the page, smudging the printed ink.

   I couldn't tell for how long I sat there in silence, staring blankly at the page. A million question were racing through my head, but only one kept repeating itself like a broken record inside my skull. The same useless and depressing question.

   What am I going to do?

   But this time I felt it, I knew it, that there was no optimistic answer to it.