The first thing to remember about magic is that dark magic is not inherently evil and light magic is not inherently good. Magic is magic — the wielder decides such intentions of the magic itself.

That is the saying that Isabelle Lockley was raised upon. It is what her grandmother constantly reminded her of growing up. Isabelle enjoyed the days that her grandmother would teach her.

The days that her grandmother — Evanora Lockley — would take her to the little hoodoo shop she owned and allow her to study her magic there. The Lockley family was more than well off in terms of money, her grandmother owned the hoodoo shop for fun.

America is a very large country, therefore unlike England which had one major shopping district of Diagon Alley, the U.S. had many locations in various places. One of the most famous was on the wizarding side of New Orleans — a district where wizards shopped, worked, and lived called Port Orleans.

It is where Lockley House of Hoodoo & Voodoo was located.

While Isabelle Lockley enjoyed walking around New Orleans at times, she truly loved going around the wizarding side of it — Port Orleans. Like the no-maj side of New Orleans, Port Orleans was full of magic, music, dancing, tasty foods and at times there were even parades.

Nothing would be able to truly describe the wonders of Port Orleans, one simply needed to visit and experience it for themselves.

Now, back on topic, the second thing that Isabelle was taught from a very early age was one simple concept.

At some point, people are going to to come for her.

When that day comes, Isabelle will need to know how to defend herself. She should be so prevalent in her magical skills that she could take on anything that came at her.

It is why she is Witch Supreme: why the wizarding community should one day respect and look up to her.

At least, that is what Isabelle was trying to remind herself as she sat in Divination class miserably.

Her eyes felt heavy — and if she was being honest — whatever crazy shit Trelawney was rambling about was not enough to keep her attention.

Rather, thoughts flew through her head — mostly thoughts about how she missed her home right about now. Hogwarts was more than fun, but what she would give to be learning from her grandmother in her old voodoo shop with a bowl of hot gumbo and a centuries-old grimoire in front of her.

It was hard because Hogwarts taught her the usual and practical information: simple spells, how to live in the wizarding war, and histories of mainly European magic. They did not get into the fascinating details, and they certainly did not teach the dark arts.

They only taught the defense of it.

Personally, Isabelle thought that was stupid because how the hell is one meant to defend themselves against magic that they do not even understand?

Dark magic does not always mean evil: Isabelle had an interest in it, did that mean she was evil? No — or like — not totally evil, at least.

Spiteful at times? Probably. But who isn't?!

However, at the moment she is sitting next to some Hufflepuff seeing as Clementine and Anthony had chosen to sit together at the table next to her. Isabelle kept her gaze locked onto the crystal ball in the center of the table watching the swirling magic within.

Her mother has always lectured her on certain feats and magical abilities that she would need to gain before she could truly say that she has mastered all the magical abilities of a Witch Supreme.

Divination was one of them — the ability to see into the future. It was a skill that Isabelle had never been able to do: peering into the future took immense focus.

Focus and patience that Isabelle did not have: her grandmother suggested that visions would begin to come to her accidentally before she would be able to intentionally make prophecies and look into the future.

Trelawney's classroom smelled of natural teas and other hippie-like products. Unsurprisingly, this was Clementine's favorite classroom in Hogwarts.

With a deep sigh, Isabelle finally lost it and allowed her head to slip into her arms as small silent snores escaped her.

But her mind whirled.

He was born alone — alone and furious.

As a child the boy never stopped crying — as he grew, he grew to be beautiful on the outside but vicious on the inside.

Always alone.

Always angry.

But always so powerful.

"Sir — I have a question about a bit of rare magic...?"

He was always alone, he was always powerful because he was alone. There was never anyone who could betray him, never anyone who made him weak.

"Horcrux?"

"Horcrux?"

"Horcrux — seven..."

"Seven, Merlin's beard! To rip the soul into seven pieces!"

His soul was tarnished from the moment he was born, he was alone — it mattered not what was done to his soul so long as he always only had himself. No love, the only love he understood was for himself.

His soul was gone already, what did it matter if he made it official for the promise of unlimited power?

"Malfoy, Mulciber, Nott, Lestrange, Black..."

"Malfoy, Mulciber, Nott, Lestrange, Black..."

"Malfoy, Mulciber, Nott, Lestrange, Black..."

"My friends, my followers, my Knights of Walpurgis..."

"Dear child..."

Isabelle awoke with a loud gasp, jumping into a standing position. A scream was stuck in her throat from the shock of being awakened so suddenly. Her vision was blurry for only a moment before she was able to focus it.

It seemed the last few students were fleeing out of the door, the only ones left in the classroom were herself, Trelawney, as well as the Goldstein twins who stood behind Trelawney looking at their friend worriedly.

"Why, are you alright?" Trelawney questioned, but her gaze was knowing as she looked at the child.

Isabelle suddenly felt uncomfortable under her gaze — the girl was already worked up from whatever-the-hell-that-was.

"Uhm, I think your balls are broken," She said before cringing at the lack of context.

Trelawney blinked as though she had been slapped and Isabelle flew forward, grabbing her two friend's hands and pulling them out of the classroom. Anthony was the only one who bothered to say goodbye to Trelawney.

"Thank you for an enlightening class, Professor! See you—" He was unable to finish as he was tugged out of the room.

"Okay, what was that, Isabelle?" Clementine questioned as they made their way down the swirling staircase.

"Yeah, you were like dead asleep..." Anthony finished for his twin.

The Goldstein twins did not have a bond anywhere near as close as Fred and George Weasley had with each other, and the two were polar opposites in many aspects. Such as Clementine taking to the creative side of Ravenclaw while Anthony took to the classic bookworm intelligence. But the two loved each other nonetheless.

Isabelle hurried to think of an excuse. The truth of the matter was that this was probably just the first Divination vision she had ever had. Of course, it was confusing as hell and she had no clue if this was a vision of the past, present, or future.

She decided that it could not be the present for she did not recognize the boy, but she did recognize the names he spouted.

Malfoy, Mulciber, Nott, Lestrange, and Black.

There was, of course, Draco Malfoy and Theodore Nott who were currently in attendance at Hogwarts, but she had a strong feeling that the voice had not been referring to those two. Her mind blanked at the term Horcrux — she had research to do.

"Hello? Isabelle!"

Her mind came back to the present as she remembered they had asked a question and she had still yet to answer.

"It was a dream about Malfoy. We were naked in—"

"HAH — Merlin's beard, don't even think about finishing that! I am so sorry I asked!" Anthony cried, gagging as though he had just smelled something terrible.

Isabelle internally smirked knowing that she had got him off her back. Anthony would definitely not be asking any questions. However, Clementine only raised a suspicious brow.

She believed that if this were actually the case then Isabelle would be far more giggly.

'She's lying, she's lying, she's lying...'

Isabelle was quick to shut her mind.

Legilimency was another one of the many magical abilities that came easily. Another perk to being a Witch Supreme. But it was not welcome, Isabelle did not particularly like hearing what others had to say in their minds.

The mind was an incredibly private place: a place where thoughts ran unfiltered. Isabelle often heard things that she did not want to hear, therefore she kept her mind closed so she could block out others.

At times though, she slipped.

At the moment, it seemed to do her good as she was able to read how suspicious Clementine was — the girl knew Isabelle was lying.

Giving Clementine a forced smile, Isabelle bit her lip. She would think of something to make her friend less suspicious later, but for now, she desperately wanted to get her mind off the vision she had.

That was not hard for within the next few minutes they were all in potions class. Now, this was a class she shared with Draco Malfoy.

This was possibly the only class in which Draco Malfoy chose to sit at a table up front with Pansy Parkinson, Blaise Zabini, and Theodore Nott. And Isabelle sat in the back along with Clementine, Anthony, and Padma Patil.

At the moment, they were brewing the common poison antidote. Anthony and Isabelle were paired together while Clementine and Padma were paired together.

Isabelle was carrying Anthony, the girl doing just about everything. She only allowed Anthony (who could be quite heavy-handed) to read the instructions to her, and even then she made sure to double-check.

While Clementine and Padma were not struggling they were working quite a bit slower than she was.

Here was the thing, in theory, Isabelle should have the spot as the top student in their year. But seeing as the girl literally chooses to fail some assignments just to keep things interesting (more so to not draw attention to herself) then she was bumped down the roster. While she was one of the top students, she was not one of the top three students.

Those titles belonged to Hermione Granger, Draco Malfoy, and some kid that she could not remember.

The only assignments she had never failed were potions assignments — that would simply hurt too much.

A) because Snape would chew her out and B) because seeing as her calling in life was hoodoo magic and that was largely wrapped in potions brewing she just could not make herself fail it.

Not when she loved it too much.

Isabelle did not even need to focus, the girl brewing the potion as though it were second nature while humming and watching Draco Malfoy brew his own potion. His robes and sweater had long since been discarded leaving him in his sweater and neat tie.

She was admiring him from afar.

He seemed to be having no trouble with the potion either, moving through the steps easily while also keeping a conversation with Nott and Zabini. Surprisingly, Parkinson was in conversation with another girl from Slytherin who was at the table next to her.

She appeared to not be paying attention as Nott brewed their potion.

Isabelle wondered what they were talking about.

Malfoy suddenly laughed loudly at something Zabini said causing Snape to eye them disapprovingly but he still said nothing. It did not take a genius to figure out they were talking shit about Granger based on the way they suddenly side-eyed her.

Isabelle rolled her eyes at this, but it did not stop her from biting her lip as she gazed at Malfoy appreciatively.

Snape liked Isabelle for the most part. The girl rarely raised her hand, but when he called on her she always knew the answer. She always brewed her potion correctly, she could take instructions and apply them immediately. Not to mention, she never gave him trouble.

And to be honest, Isabelle liked Snape as well. She worked well under the kind of teaching he did, though some might call it mean — he taught similarly to how her mother taught her.

She had never held any real conversation with the man, but she was okay with that. His silent nods of approval and even rarer compliments, when she finished brewing a potion, were enough for her.

"Oh, Isabelle!"

The girl ripped her gaze away from Malfoy and looked to Padma who was smiling at her.

"I saw that letter that was meant for Malfoy on your dresser! I assume it was for him but sent to you by mistake, so I went ahead and gave it to a Slytherin first-year to give to him later!"

.
   .
      .

WHAT?!

Clementine's eyes went wide and her face was frozen as Isabelle stared at Padma blankly.

Isabelle had to have heard that wrong... right? Her ears must be deceiving her because there's no way. There was no way that the letter she had specifically meant to burn or keep hidden far far away from anyone else was currently on its way to the last person she ever wanted to read it.

"I'm sorry — whatttt?" Isabelle laughed a high-pitched giggle that made her sound insane while turning to Padma.

Padma's brows furrowed. "I said that—"

At that exact moment every single cauldron in the room combusted in a fiery explosion.

Chaos immediately ensued as all the students began screaming in panic — some having been burned or injured. Thankfully, nothing so terrible that anyone's life was in jeopardy, but bad all the same.

Anthony was quick to pull both Clementine and Padma away from their own exploding cauldrons.

Isabelle remained standing near her cauldron but any remnants of the fire or potion seemed to bounce off an invisible shield around her.

But no one except Clementine and P̶r̶o̶f̶e̶s̶s̶o̶r̶ S̶n̶a̶p̶e̶ noticed. Everyone was too focused on the chaos around, many had sought shelter under the tables.

It was Draco Malfoy's pained yell that managed to catch Isabelle's attention, the girl still stuck on Padma's previous words that she seemed to have not even noticed the chaos around.

"OUCH! Merlin's bloody fucking beard!" Draco was barking in pain as his hand had been burned — the boy having been hit by a screaming Pansy Parkinson right into the fire.

He was now crouched down clutching his hand and cursing out Pansy who was fretting over him.

"I'm so sorry! Does it hurt terribly, Draco?" Pansy tried, attempting to touch his shoulder only to have him recoil from her.

Draco rounded on her with his eyes ablaze and tears forming in the corners. "What the bloody hell do you think, Parkinson!? My hand was just scorched by FIRE!"

Harry Potter through all of the chaos and from where he was crouched under his own table with Ron and Hermione was snickering at him.

Draco turned to the Golden Trio with a roar, "SHUT UP! You filthy blood traitors and mudblood!"

The three only laughed harder, even Hermione was not fazed by his horrible hollering and cursing seeing as she was desperately fighting off tears of laughter. With all the times that Draco had made Hermione cry, it was nice for the muggleborn to see the roles reversed.

That scene was enough to snap Isabelle out of it, the dark-skinned witch gasping and suddenly the explosion from the cauldrons stopped. While students were still panicking, there was no more fire shooting out of the tops of the cauldrons.

Isabelle looked around the room horrified — she had been taken so off guard that her magic slipped. It acted with her emotions.

Her eyes were wide with panic.

First that damn vision and now this? Why the hell did her magic feel so much more chaotic than normal?

She swallowed heavily looking around the classroom. Her gaze clashed with the dark eyes of Snape, the Professor staring at her harshly. She shrunk already knowing that the Professor was suspicious.

Slowly, he moved his gaze away from her and to the rest of the classroom taking in all the students and calculating if anyone was seriously harmed.

"Are you three alright?" Anthony asked — Padma nodding while Clementine only stared at her best friend.

Isabelle stared back, her eyes wide and becoming watery.

This was all too much, and Isabelle suddenly found that for the first time, she did not want to try and be a typical teenage witch. Not when occurrences like this happen and embarrassing letters get sent to crushes.

"Isabelle—" Clementine started gently only to be cut off by Snape announcing to the class.

"Class is dismissed: if you are harmed please immediately make your way to the infirmary. I will be investigating the cause of this..." he ended darkly, his eyes once again straying back to Isabelle who was already packing up her things and sprinting out the door.

She was the first one barreling through the corridors, the girl barely hearing Clementine call for her. Her robes whipped behind her as she rushed through the school, her eyes filling with tears.

She did not mean for anyone to be hurt. Isabelle had just been taken off guard.

The thought of Draco Malfoy reading that letter brought even more feelings of despair to the surface. No teenage girl wanted their crush to read something such as that. Especially seeing as Isabelle has never even wanted to act on her feelings.

Isabelle did not stop running until she was outside of the castle: she did not stop until she was in the Forbidden Forest. Not deep, simply within the edges of the seemingly endless forest.

Isabelle came to the Forbidden Forest when she wanted to be alone. Students rarely ventured into the thicket of trees in fear of the creatures that roamed, but it was only really dangerous if one went out there by themselves at nightfall.

Isabelle enjoyed watching the Thestrals during the day; however. While frightening in appearance to those who were able to see them, they were rather peaceful creatures who minded their business.

Although, Isabelle had a personal favorite, a Thestral she had decidedly named Tom who wandered close to her and would often let her pet him.

The girl threw her bag to the ground as she stomped — growling and kicking over a pile of leaves before screaming in frustration. Stamping her foot down, she crossed her arms angrily.

What the hell was she meant to do?

As bad as it sounds, she was already calmed down about the explosion that occurred in class. Other than Snape, no one had been suspicious of her. And it wasn't like she killed anyone... again.

AND that had been a total accident, okay! She had been too young to realize just how powerful she was and just how much she could hurt a person without really trying.

It was not her fault the stupid muggle man yelled at her from his car. He had it coming! He and that stupid car that she threw into a house.

Luckily, no one had been in the house when it exploded in a firey show.

Isabelle's concern was more on what the hell she was supposed to do about Draco Malfoy. The first year that Padma had given the letter to had no doubt already left it in the common room for Draco to find.

She could always try to break in and take it back before Draco found it. He was bound to be in the infirmary for a few hours at least with that burn on his hand, not to mention it would take even longer because of the other students who were injured that would also be getting treated.

But no — sneaking into the Slytherin common room would be too risky. If someone saw her, questions would no doubt arise and then it'd look like she was stealing Malfoy's mail.

"Isabelle, what's going on?"

The girl gasped and whirled around only to face Clementine who was approaching her with a frown on her face. The blonde threw her bag on the ground next to Isabelle before crossing her arms.

The two girls stood across from each other in the Forbidden Forest with pursed lips.

Clementine knew something was up with her friend for a while, but this incident in potions proved it. She was not sure how, but Clementine knew that Isabelle had something to do with it.

"Nothing, Clem — I just need some time to myself," Isabelle said tiredly, turning away.

"No, Isabelle, something's up, I've known for a while. You weren't okay in Divination today and you definitely weren't in potions either,"

"Well, yeah," Isabelle deadpanned, "did you not see the huge explosions?" That was probably a bit ruder than Isabelle should have been, but she had to get Clementine off her case somehow.

Honestly, sometimes Isabelle was surprised that she was not sorted into Slytherin.

"Isabelle—" Clementine started in disbelief but her friend was having none of it.

"No, Clem, there's just a lot on my mind. And you heard Padma, she gave my personal damn letter to Malfoy, which is my fault really because I was stupid and left it out in the open on my dresser, but still! You'd think you'd ask a person before going and doing something like that!"

And Isabelle is being 100% honest with herself when she says that she truly did not mean to let her emotions get the better of her. But sometimes it is just so damn hard, and Draco Malfoy was able to bring strong emotions out of her.

Perhaps that is why it was currently snowing...  but only above the two girls.

See, Isabelle did not notice this seeing as she is too busy ranting about how stupid she is, and how inconsiderate Padma is, and how hot Draco is...?

But Clementine noticed the snow, and her eyes widened at the sparkling snowflakes falling around them. Her lips quirked into a smile of amazement, and she knew that her friend was the cause of it. She could literally feel Isabelle's power thrumming around them, and no normal witch could make it snow like this so easily.

There was only one question that Clementine had.

"What are you?" She tilted her head to Isabelle who sucked in a breath while looking at the snow.

Shit, shit, shit, SHIT!

Isabelle took a deep breath and figured that it was time she told her most trusted friend the truth. At this point, there was no hiding it, and it was better that Clementine knew the truth and the importance of keeping it a secret rather than being confused and possibly saying something she should not.

Mad-Eye Moody, their new DADA teacher was quite observant. And Isabelle got bad vibes around him, he was someone who she had no doubts could easily uncover this and she did not want that to happen.

"What do you know about a Wizard or Witch Supreme?"