Lux stood in the common room, being scolded by someone he didn't know for reasons he didn't understand.

"You already lost Slytherin ten House Points?! We're in last place now! What happened?"

Lux gave the hollow-cheeked boy with tidy hair a confused look. "Who are you?" he asked him.

"Who am I?" The boy repeated Lux's question in disbelief and let out a sigh. "I'm your Prefect, Felix Rosier. That means its my job to keep order in the house, and help first-years like you with their problems." Felix let out another sigh. "I should've kept a closer eye on you, considering your brother's reputation."

"I'm not my brother, Felix," Lux firmly told him. 

"In any case," Felix said. "Professor Snape already sent you a letter directly to our Common Room." Felix handed Lux an unopened letter.

"Why didn't he just send it to me?" Lux asked.

"Probably because he despises you," Felix answered. "I wouldn't take it personally, Snape hates everyone. I don't know about you, but I'd read that letter immediately."

Lux took that as an order. He unsealed the envelope, unfolded the letter and listlessly read its contents aloud to his Prefect. "'Aeterna, I have discovered that your evidence may have indeed been tampered with. While it does not prove your innocence, it does cast some doubt on my belief that you are hopelessly incompetent. Bring me a jar of Pickled Slugs from the Potions Storeroom, and I will consider restoring your House Points. Snape.' …Then there are directions to the storeroom at the bottom."

"He's offering to give us back the ten House Points you lost?" Felix asked, raising an eyebrow in skepticism.

"I mean..." Lux quickly read through the letter again in his mind. "It seems that way."

"That's awfully suspicious..." Felix remarked. "Snape would never do that... Whatever. Just hurry to the Potions Storeroom just in case this letter is real."

"Right."

So Lux left the Common Room and followed the instructions on the letter. He found himself standing in front of a door in a corridor in the East Towers. Without thinking much of anything, he opened the door and walked inside. As soon as he entered the dark room, the door slammed shut behind him. He could hear it lock behind him. Yep. Trap. Now Lux was standing in a pitch black room, completely blind. What was that wand-lighting charm, again? He tried to remember as he removed the transfiguration from his wand. As he recalled it, he swished his wand in a loop de loop and called out "Lumos." A warm, dim white light illuminated from the tip of his wand, lighting up the immediate vicinity. As he pointed his wand around the room, he noticed that the walls were moving. Upon closer inspection, the walls were covered in a squirming mass of tendrils and vines, slowly creeping their way onto the floor and towards him.

"What the f-" A large vine shot out from the walls and wrapped around Lux's neck. Lux tried to tear the plant away from his neck, but it only grew tighter around his neck, strangling him. Soon enough, both of his legs were wrapped up in these damp tendrils, as well. As he raised his wand hand to his neck, he found that the vine strangling him had swiftly retreated back into the wall. So these thing recoil from light? Breathing heavily, he pointed his wand down to one of the tendrils at his feet. The tendril slithered back and cowered from the dim light. Then a large vine wrapped around his torso, as another vine tightened around his arm. As he tried to yank his arm free, the plants binding him only constricted harder. The more he struggled, the greater force the plant exerted. He pointed his wand at the tentacle-like appendages, driving them away from him. 

Lux was stuck in that dark, damp room fighting a war of attrition against a semi-sentient plant monster for the better part of half-an-hour. Every time he'd free himself from one appendage, two more would bind and suffocate. As time went on, he strained harder and harder against it. The more he strained, the tighter and faster the plant would constrict around him. He knew the perfect spell he had to cast to get him out of this situation, but he found it hard to chant the incantation while being strangled. The only reason it took him so long to escape was because there was only one instance when he was able to use his voice - and he did not let that one instant escape. As almost every bit of his body was being strangled by this plant, he kept a tight grip on his wand. He flicked his wand, drew it back, flicked it again, closed his eyes, and roared. "LUMOS MAXIMA!"

Following his cry, the plant cowered back against the walls as a blinding flash of light filled every corner of the room. The heat that the spell had produced was as hot as fire, but it only burned Lux for an instant. The tendrils and tentacles of the plant seemed to recoil in pain from it, and bits of it even started to spark. Lux fell to the ground as he was released, and tried catching his breath. He was about to cast the knockback jinx on the door when a loud voice boomed from the other side. "What's goin' on in there?" Something slammed the door. "Outta the way!" the voice called again. There was another slam, but this time the door flew open. The man that entered was giant. His face was almost completely hidden by long, shaggy black hair and a wild, tangled beard. He was twice as tall as the ordinary man and at least three times as wide. "Gulpin' gargoyles, Slytherin!" he cried as he saw Lux on all fours, panting. "Get away from that Devil's Snare. Yer scarin' it!"

"Oh," Lux breathed, turning back to the plant. "Sorry," he told it.

"C'mon," the giant said. "Let's get yeh outta here." The giant picked him up with one of his hands that were the size of dustbin lids and carried him out of the room. 

"Thanks, mister..." Lux said, wiping sweat from his brow. "What's your name?"

"Rubeus Hagrid, at yer service," the man introduced himself. "I'm Keeper of the Key and Grounds here at Hogwarts. Pleasure to meet yeh."

"I'm Lux Aeterna..." he said. He felt ashamed of his short introduction.

"Ah, yer the one everybody's been talkin' about. Maybe trouble really does run in yer family. How'd yeh even end up in there, Lux?"

"Someone locked me inside."

"They did?!" Hagrid cried in outrage. "Who was it?"

"Don't know," Lux told him. "I only have a suspect. Have classes started already?"

"They're about teh," Hagrid told him.

"Alright. See you around." Lux turned to leave, but as he started walking to his next class, Hagrid called out to him. 

"Lux! Yeh might wanna do somethin' about those robes. The Devil's Snare got yeh good."

Lux looked down at his robes. The sleeves and hem were torn, holes were ripped into it, and dirt was smeared all over it. Lux looked back towards Hagrid, gave him a nod, and walked straight to class. He'll fix his robes at a later date. 

---

The rest of Lux's week passed without incident. He was enjoying lunch in the Great Hall, when he noticed a kid run in and talk to his friends. Then he and his friends ran out of the Great Hall in a hurry. Lux could begin to hear a scuffle coming outside from the Clock Tower Courtyard, and judged that the people who ran out went to witness some kind of fight. Intrigued, Lux finished his sandwich and went outside to join them. Lux thought that this cloister was one of the older parts of the castle, seeing that the ceiling and walls are dilapidated, and overgrown. In the center of the courtyard is an antique fountain surrounded by statues of eagles with snakes in their mouths. In the far end of the courtyard, a large crowd of onlookers formed a large semi-circle around something. At the edge of the crowd, Lux saw Rowan, looking on in fear. 

"Rowan," Lux walked up to her. "What's going on?"

"It's Ben," she panicked. "Merula keeps threatening him. He keeps trying to walk away, but Merula won't let him."

Lux peeked around the fountain to get a better view of the scene.

"You're an embarrassment to everyone in our year!" Merula yelled at a cowering Gryffindor boy. He was tall, had tidy blonde hair and was doing his best to hold back tears.

"Just leave me alone!" the boy cried.

"Disgusting mudbloods like you shouldn't even be allowed in Hogwarts! Leave the magic to the real witches and wizards."

Lux looked around at the crowd. Some were enjoying the sight of this poor boy being humiliated, but most were clearly concerned. Yet nobody stepped in to help him. The Bystander Effect. A social psychological theory that states people will not offer help to a victim if there are other people present to help them. The more people that are present, the less likely anyone will offer assistance. Lux thought that everyone of those concerned bystanders were thinking the same thing. There are plenty of people here. I'm sure someone will help him.

Lux scanned the crowd once more. I mean... Guess it may as well be me.

Passing through the edge of the crowd, Lux hobbled with his cane out into the open, standing in front of the cowardly boy he didn't know. Everything fell silent. Only the tapping of his cane could be heard amongst everyone as they watched this lame boy enter the fray. He gave Merula a gentle smile as he spoke to her. "I don't suppose you'll leave this boy alone, will you?" he asked her.

Merula scoffed at him. "You never learn, do you, Aeterna? Why don't you be more like your mad brother and go missing?"

Lux ignored her and turned back to the bullied boy. "Just go," Lux told him. At his words, he hesitantly walked backwards, and then burst out in a sprint and ran back inside the castle. "Alright everyone," Lux addressed the crowd. "Show's over. Go away-"

"Flipendo!" Merula cried. There was a loud bang as a white light flew out of Merula's wand, and Lux felt himself flying on his back as if he just got kicked in the chest. The onlookers behind him scattered out of the path of his flight. He could hear some of the kids laugh at his pathetic image, but Lux didn't care. "I didn't say you could leave, Aeterna!"

Lux staggered up to his feet with the support of his cane. "I don't want to fight you, Merula," Lux told her, firmly.

"Too bad," she said. "You don't get a choice. Flipendo!" 

Once again, there was a loud bang, and Lux felt like his stomach was smacked by a Warhammer. Lux went flying back into the stone cloister behind him, and the back of his head made heavy contact with the pillar. But he remained standing. He placed a hand on the back of his head, and felt a sticky liquid coming out of it. He looked at his hand to find that it was covered in blood. He wiped the blood off on his robes and walked back to his original position. "Are you done yet?" he asked in low, cold voice.  

"Quit trying to act cool, Aeterna," she mocked. "Maybe I should knock some sense into that empty skull of yours. Flipendo!"

Lux was hit by another knockback jinx. This time, however, it was aimed at his head. It felt as if a battering ram was thrust at Lux's face, and his head was thrust back and forced to face the sky. But he didn't go flying. He didn't even flinch. He slowly lowered his head and gave Merula and ice-cold stare. "No more warnings, Merula. Any more, and I'll be fighting back."

Even Merula broke a sweat after being seeing Lux angry. She even hesitated to cast the next jinx, but she still decided to. Lux could see she decided to cast another spell as soon as she decided to. So he acted first. Before Merula could even say 'flipendo,' Lux turned his cane back into a wand, pointed it at her and roared. "EXPELLIARMUS!" A scarlet ray of light burst out of the tip of his wand, hitting Merula. The wand she was holding flew out of her hand, and Merula was blown off of her feet by the impact. The crowd went nuts.

"Did he just use the disarming charm? You're supposed to learn that in second-year! Isn't he a first-year?"

"Did you see how powerful it was? It sent Merula flying!"

"How is that the thing that surprised you the most? Didn't you see him transfigure that cane into a wand?"

"Don't be stupid! It's the other way around! He untransfigured the cane back into his wand!"

"I thought it was impossible to transfigure wands!"

"Not only that, but he transfigured his wand with a nonverbal spell! I thought they taught that stuff in sixth-year!"

Lux shut out the annoying voices, walked up to Merula and looked down at her.

"How'd you learn that spell already?" she demanded to know.

"Fuck you, that's how." He gave a straight answer. "Just stop bullying people and get along with everyone, please."

"I'll never get friendly with you losers and mudbloods," she yelled, rising back up on her feet. "I'm Merula Snyde! Fourth Generation Slytherin! The greatest witch at Hogwarts! I do what I want, when I want! I run this bloody school! I-"

"Ahem." A voice cleared their throat, interrupting her spiel. Just that mere action sent all the bystanders running for the hills. Both Lux and Merula turned their head like broken dolls to look at the source. Lux saw that Ben kid standing next to Professor Flitwick. But Lux was more fearful of the other professor with them. The one that cleared his throat and sent the kids running.

Lux forced a smile and greeted him, hoping that being friendly would result in a reduced punishment. "Good afternoon, Professor Snape."