Disclaimer: I don't own anything. All characters/settings/lore are the property of their respective owners.

Would you believe it if I said I've had this on my computer for two weeks but forgot I hadn't posted it?

Needless to say, the next week was very awkward for Hailey. She'd returned late at night on Halloween with brownish red patches on her normally very pale skin from the troll blood stains. Madam Pomfrey told her the stains would fade in a week or so, but until then it was a painful reminder to both her and the rest of her friends of what happened.

She had to sneak back into the common room in her bloodied robes to change. Some of the older kids who were still awake got quite a fright when she'd passed through with her clothes covered in dried blood. It made her feel unclean, but it was better than sneaking in her undergarments.

Hailey could feel there was palpable tension in the air whenever she was with her friends. They were uneasy around her, which she couldn't fault them for. Hell, even she felt uneasy around herself. That was violent, even by her standards. But in her defense, she thought Hermione was dead, and it wasn't like that troll wasn't going to kill her if she hadn't killed it first.

Well, that was before Ron knocked it out. Everything after that was just revenge. Hailey had congratulated Ron for that spellwork when she returned, but he didn't seem very proud of himself. He seemed rather queasy, actually. Her friends had sworn up and down that they didn't see her any differently after that Halloween night, but the fear plastered on their faces told Hailey otherwise.

Later that night, a note appeared under her bed from Achilles through the portal she'd had Iris establish. Haiely had assured her father she was unharmed, but that didn't stop her from receiving two more notes from the Psychoanalytics Department who'd made her fill out a questionnaire at midnight. No doubt Dumbledore had told them what she'd done. The lack of any further correspondence made Hailey suspect she'd passed whatever safety test they needed her to complete, but they'd made her take additional hours of tests during her weekend trip to Site 19. She'd been cleared as psychologically sound without much of a fuss. But Hailey had a suspicion that the SCP Foundation's definition of "psychologically sound" was a bit… off.

News of what she'd done had somehow spread to the whole school. At breakfast the next morning, Hailey had to endure a relentless bombardment of questions. Seamus Finnigan wanted all the gory details. He claimed she was now 'totally wicked!' which Hailey suspected might have been a compliment. The Weasley Twins wanted to know how she did it, and a third year Slytherin that gave Hailey the creeps asked her to teach him the spell she used. She had to lie again and say it was accidental magic. Admitting to carrying a knife on school grounds wasn't something she was insane enough to do. Especially since Hailey still had the knife on her. The troll blood had washed off very easily, without leaving a stain. If anything the knife looked cleaner than before. She had argued with Hermione about keeping the knife. Hailey argued that it was useful and Hermione argued that it was dangerous. But Hailey couldn't bear to part with it. This knife had saved her life. A part of her wanted to give it a name.

If there was one positive to this mess, it was the way Nott shied away from her in the hallways. Seeing him stumble out of her way at the sight of the brown troll-blood stains on her skin made Ron laugh for the first time since Halloween night. Hailey had given Nott her best menacing grin, and the Slytherin flinched. Hermione scolded her for that, but Hailey could tell she was enjoying seeing Nott scared. She must still be hurting over what he'd said to her yesterday, and Hailey couldn't blame her. If Neville and Ron hadn't restrained her, it might have been him taking the place of that troll.

And he knew it.

Even Malfoy stayed clear of her like she had the plague, even though he tried to not make it look obvious. He walked with the same confidence and had the same arrogant smirk that infuriated her, but it looked just a bit more forced whenever they made eye contact.

But as all things did, the story of Hailey versus the Troll was forgotten in favour of the Hogwarts Cohort's favourite topic: Quidditch. The whole school was practically buzzing about the upcoming Gryffindor versus Slytherin match, which are apparently the highlight of the year. Hailey was glad for the distraction. If there was one thing that made Ron forget about seeing his friend covered in something else's blood, it was Quidditch. Talking to her about strategy for her position as seeker certainly helped renormalise their relationship. Hermione made sure she knew all 700 ways of committing a foul in the game. And even Hailey's new reputation as somebody capable of brutally killing a fully grown mountain troll wasn't enough to stop some courageous Slytherins from commenting that they'd be running underneath her with a mattress for when she fell.

The day before her first Quidditch match, the four of them were out in the freezing courtyard during break. Hailey sighed happily, the snow-covered stone reminded her of home.

"Bloody hell Hailey, it's freezing out here," Ron complained, rubbing his arms to warm them. "Did you just forget your winter cloak?"

Hailey looked down at her clothes like it just dawned on her that everybody had long since donned the wooly Hogwarts cloak. She shrugged. "I'm not cold."

"You're mental," Neville said. Ron nodded in agreement.

Hermione conjured a bright blue fire in a jar for warmth and the boys huddled around it. Hailey pulled out her Quidditch through the Ages book. It would do her good to know the rules behind this game. She barely knew the American Quidditch rules, let alone the British ones.

"Psst, Hailey," Ron hissed, trying to get her attention. She looked up from her book to see him tilt his head subtlety to the right.

Great, now she had to deal with him.

Like a giant bat descending from the castle, Snape strode into the courtyard. Hailey noticed that he was limping. Now, why could that be?

"What's that you've got there, Potter?"

"A book, sir," Hailey replied cheekily. Ron chuckled quietly, but was silenced by a hawkish glare from the potions master.

Snape sighed with irritation. "What kind of book, Potter."

"One that you read, sir."

"Give me that. Ten points from Gryffindor for cheek."

He snatched the book out of his hands and limped away out of sight.

"It was worth it," Hailey declared. Like a dam had broken, Ron and Neville burst out with laughter.

"Honestly you three, must you always antagonise him?" Hermione scoffed.

"You have to admit, it was pretty funny," Ron reasoned.

"Is anybody wondering why he was limping?" Hermione asked.

Neville gained a thoughtful expression. "Now that I think about it, he's been limping for a while now. Since Halloween, I think."

"Well whatever it is, I hope it's really hurting him," Ron said bitterly.

The Gryffindor common room was annoyingly noisy that evening. Noise wasn't something Hailey had really gotten used to, she'd never been around people this talkative. Most of them wished her luck on Saturday's game. It made her feel good to have people happy around her instead of terrified, but it made finishing her Charms homework all the more difficult.

She was still mildly seething over Snape taking her book. Sure it was funny at the time to annoy him, but now she really wanted the book back. It would be humiliating to cost Gryffindor team the victory on account of her committing one of the several hundred fouls.

Screw it, Hailey was getting that book back. She told Hermione, Ron and Neville she was going to ask Snape for the book back. Or steal it. Whatever worked.

"Hailey! It's just a book!" Hermione said.

"Would you say if it was your Transfiguration textbook?" Neville remarked whirly.

Ron looked at Neville in awe. "Bloody hell, did Neville just make a joke?"

Hermione huffed and turned back to her charms homework. Hailey took this as her cue to leave, irritating Hermione while she was working was never a good idea.

She made her way down to the staff room and knocked. Hopefully they'd be another teacher around when she asked, it would make it harder for Snape to say no. She knocked on the door again, but there was no answer. Maybe nobody was in there? Well, it looks like the stealing option was back on the table.

Pushing the door open slowly to make less noise, Hailey peeked out around the door and was met with the pungent odor of healing potion. Snape and Filch were inside, alone. The potions professor held his robes above, giving Hailey a good view of the bloody and mangled mess that was his leg. How the hell had he been walking with that kind of injury?

"Blasted thing," Snape cursed. "How are you supposed to keep your eyes on all three heads at once?"

She closed the door quietly and scrambled away up the stairs. Her book could wait, she'd just learnt something more important. What had Neville said, he'd been limping since Halloween? And three heads? There was only one monster she knew of in this castle with three heads, and it had nearly eaten her friends.

Hailey sighed with relief as she made it through the common room door. Ron approached her immediately, taking note of her ragged breathing.

"What happened? Did you get the book?"

"No, but I found out something I think you guys need to hear," she gestured to Hermione and Neville to follow towards a quieter corner of the common room. "So I made it to the staffroom. Snape was there, with Filch. But Snape's leg, it was absolutely mangled. It looked pretty bad. I think I got out of there before he saw me."

"So that's why he's limping.

"It gets worse. He was telling Filch he "had trouble keeping his eyes on all three heads at once". Three heads, Ron."

"When did you say he's been limping since, Neville? Halloween?" Ron asked, but he didn't wait for an answer. "You know what this means? He tried to get past that three-headed dog at Halloween! He's after whatever it's guarding. He must have let the troll in to create a diversion!"

Hermione shook her head. "I know he's horrible, but I don't think he'd tried to steal something Dumbledore was keeping safe."

"I do," Neville chimed in.

"Honestly Hermione, not all teachers are good people," Ron snapped. "I wouldn't put this past Snape. What do you think Hailey?"

She paused, thinking to herself. "I think it means that we'll need to make figuring out what that thing is guarding a higher priority."

The next morning was just as cold as the previous, which suited Hailey just fine. Hopefully the other seeker would get sick and wouldn't show up. But that was too much to hope for.

The Great Hall was full of the delicious smell of fried sausages and the excited babble of the students looking forward to the Quidditch match later that day. Hailey spotted Lee Jordan tallying up bets from a group of second years outside of the watchful eyes of the teachers. He caught her staring and gave her a thumbs up.

"You've got to eat some breakfast," Hermione insisted.

"'m not hungry," Hailey mumbled glumly.

"Come on, just a bit of toast. You love toast!"

"Toast can go die in a fire. It has betrayed me."

Hailey felt absolutely awful. Only an hour's time, she'd be in the air, getting shot at by the equivalent of cannonballs. And so many people were depending on her to catch a tiny little object to win their house game.

Hermione sighed exasperatedly. "You're being ridiculous. You need breakfast."

"Yeah you need your strength," Seamus Finnigan said. "Seekers always get nobbled by the other team."

"Cheers Seamus, I really feel better now," Hailey remarked dryly. Those Slytherins would have no trouble 'nobbing' her. Even compared to the other first year girls, she was on the small side. Achilles called her 'petite' to cheer her up. She called herself short.

"Come on Hailey," Ron began, sliding into the seat next to her. "It's not like you don't have experience beating ugly trolls, the Slytherin Quidditch team should be a piece of cake!"

Hailey smiled for the first time that morning. "Thanks Ron."

"Besides, Lee Jordon's taking bets on the match and I've got three Galleons on Gryffindor winning."

"Ron! Don't make bets on Hailey's game!" Hermione chastised.

"But the odds are bloody unbelievable! You've seen Hailey on the broom, I reckon we'll be heading back to the castle in less than half an hour after the game starts!"

Hailey giggled at her friend's antics.

"What's all this about?" Neville asked as he arrived.

"Ron," Hermione began, scowling as she said his name. "Has bet three Galleons on Gryffindor winning."

"Well yeah, have you seen the odds? I just made a five Galleon bet on the way here."

"NEVILLE!" Hermione shouted.

Hailey bent forward over the table, unable to hold in her laughter anymore. "Well, I certainly wouldn't want you to lose your money," she stood up out of the chair. "Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a match to win."

She swiped a piece of toast off the table as she left, smiling confidently.

"Told you it would work," Ron said, nudging Neville with his elbow.

"What-" Hermione began, breathing heavily through her teeth. "What did you two do?"

"Ron said that we should both tell Hailey we put a bet on her winning so she'd know we believed in her," Neville explained. "It seemed to have worked."

Hermione seemed to deflate. "So all this, was just an elaborate way to make Hailey feel better? You didn't actually bet on her game?"

"Oh no we totally did that," Ron grinned. "The odds were unbelievable!"

The excited talk of the Gryffindor table wasn't loud enough to suppress Hermione's cry of frustration.

Hailey held the Snitch triumphantly above his head as the crowd around her cheered. As she touched down, the Gryffindor team surrounded her. Fred and George threw her into the air like she weighed nothing and placed her on their shoulders.

"HAILEY HAILEY!" they cheered, pumping their fists in the air triumphantly.

But Hailey didn't feel nearly as excited as she looked. Far from it, she actually felt rather queasy. That moment in the air, when her broom tried to buck her off, was terrifying for her. She was considering teleporting off her broom when the random jerking finally ceased.

They'd practically carried her all the way to the Gryffindor common room, despite her protests. Apparently the Weasley Twins had planned out a whole party for when (and they were very clear that it was when, not if) Gryffindor won the Quidditch match in the common room. The whole house was there, all congratulating her and the other team members for the victory.

It was late afternoon when Hailey slipped out of the common room to meet her friends for a trip down to Hagrids hut for a cup of tea.

"How yer liking your tea?" Hagrid asked her after they'd settled into their chairs.

"Tea isn't usually my thing, but this is very good," Hailey complimented him. It was true, Hagrid made good tea even if the rest of his cooking left much to be desired. Tea was usually a drink she only tolerated for the sake of her companions. One of the great woes of being raised an American but having three English friends.

"So as I was saying, I think it was Snape who cursed your broom," Ron was explaining. "We saw him muttering and he wouldn't take his eyes off you."

"Creepy," Hailey remarked dryly.

"Rubbish," Hagrid said. "Why would Snape do something like that?"

"We think he tried to get past that three-headed dog on Halloween, Hailey overheard him talking to Filch about it," Hermione explained.

Hagrid dropped his teapot. "How do you know about Fluffy?"

"Fluffy?"

"Yeah- he's mine. Bought him off a Greek wizard I met at the pub las' year. I lent him to Dumbledore to guard the-"

"Guard the what, Hagrid?" Ron asked, listening intently to the large man.

"Now don' ask me anymore," he said gruffly. "That's top secret."

"Yeah but Snape's trying to steal it," Ron protested.

"Rubbish," Hagrid repeated. "He's a Hogwarts teacher, he'd do nothin' of the sort."

"So why did he try to kill Hailey?" Hermione pointed out. It would seem that she'd changed her mind about trusting teachers. "I know a jinx when I see one, Hagrid, I've read all about them. You've got to keep eye contact and Snape wasn't even blinking."

"Enough!" Hagrid shouted. "I don't know why that broom was acting up like that, but Snape wouldn' try to kill a student! Listen here, yer meddlin' in things that don' concern yeh. Forget Fluffy a' forget what it's guarding, that's between Professor Dumbledore an' Nicolas Flamel -"

"Who's Nicolas Flamel?" Hailey asked innocently.

"Out! Out all of yeh!"

He hurried them out and told them to head back to the castle. The quartet waited until they were halfway there before talking again.

"Well," Hailey began. "I know what I'll be searching up in the Foundation archives if I get permission."

"I'll check the library," Hermione added.

"I can write a letter to my Grandma," Neville offered. "She's friends with Dumbledore, she might know who Nicolas Flamel is."

"And I'll ask my brothers, they're bound to know something about this guy if he's even somewhat famous."

Hailey smiled to herself. Her friends were better than any Site 19 research team.

The holidays were coming. One morning in mid-December, the school awoke to find the grounds covered in several feet of snow. That Saturday, they'd had a snowball fight on the frozen surface of the lake. Hailey still stubbornly refused to wear any warm clothes.

"I am invincible!" Hailey shouted from her hastily constructed fort, only to receive a snowball to the face by Fred (or maybe George). They'd paused their snowball war to watch the Weasley twins bewitch snowballs to throw themselves at the back of Quirrell's head. Professor McGonagall had punished them both severely for that. Hailey had fled the scene quietly before anybody told McGonagall that she'd got a hit directly on the underside of the turban.

Nobody could wait for the holidays to start. While Gryffindor common room and the Great Hall had warm fires, the corridors had become draughty as icy and bitter wind rattled through the windows in the classrooms. Not for the first time, Hailey was glad for her borderline-unnatural tolerance to the cold. The other students looked positively freezing. Even Hermione, who'd managed to place warming charms on the inside of her cloak, was cold by the end of the day.

If the corridors were cold, the dungeons were freezing. Their breath came out as a frosty mist before them. Even Hailey felt a bit chilly down here (maybe she should have worn her winter cloak after all), but she didn't want to huddle as close as possible to her hot cauldrons like the other students seemed to be doing. Snape seemed to have just as much of a cold tolerance and used it to enjoy seeing the students uncomfortable. Hailey wasn't about to give him the pleasure of seeing her cave in. Besides, she was sitting next to Malfoy again and it was especially amusing to see the normally very composed boy shiver.

"Honestly Mardas, how are you not cold?" he said through chattering teeth. She smiled and shrugged in response and went back to cutting up her potion ingredients. Often, not responding to Malfoy was better than any verbal response could ever be.

Her relationship with the Slytherin boy hadn't changed much since the Quidditch game. They still traded insults and bickered with each other on a semi-regular basis, but for the most part they weren't trying too hard to deliberately antagonise the other overly. But Hailey was still on her toes around him, he was a lot more dangerous than she'd like to give him credit for.

Her other Slytherin rival hadn't so much as spoken to her since she'd killed the troll. If she looked behind her, Hailey was sure she could find Nott huddled in the back corner of the room. He left her alone due to a combination of fear and a lack of support within his own house, leaving Malfoy as her sole active nemesis. Speaking of which...

"I do feel so sorry," Malfoy began, after one potions lesson. "for all those people who have to stay at Hogwarts for Christmas because their parents would rather spend Christmas with family members that aren't disappointments."

He was looking over at Ron as he spoke. Mr and Mrs Weasley were both going to Romania to visit Ron's brother Charlie, which meant he was spending Christmas here at Hogwarts with Neville who was looking for any excuse to miss the Longbottom family Christmas party which were always incredibly boring events filled with a bunch of old wizards making political deals. Ron didn't blame his parents for not spending Christmas here, they hadn't seen Charlie in a long time, but she could tell the comment about not measuring up to his brother angered her friend.

"Shut it Malfoy," Hailey said. "Ron's a way better person than you could ever be."

"Please, he's the least special member of an already disappointing family that needs to hide behind his girlfriend to protect himself."

Ron tried to step forward, but Hermione held him back.

"Am I detecting a hint of jealousy, Malfoy?" Hermione mocked. "Well Hailey isn't dating Ron, so she's available if you're interested."

Hailey's green eyes met Malfoy's grey ones and they both gained identical looks of disgust on their faces.

The blonde girl behind Malfoy who's name Hailey still didn't know stepped forward now and turned to sneer at Hermione. "You seemed awfully quick to deny Weasley had a girlfriend. Maybe you're the one who's jealous? Never knew you liked freckles, Granger."

Hermione inhaled sharply and opened her mouth to shoot back a response, but Hailey cut her off.

"Who are you again?" Hailey asked the Slytherin girl. "Wait, I just remembered. I don't care. I'm just going to call you 'Malfoy lackey #2' for simplicity's sake."

"It's Daphne Greengrass," she replied, emphasising her last name like it was supposed to mean something. "See, one name. I don't need to make up another last name to be special, Mardas."

She clenched her teeth in anger, but restrained herself from showing any other signs of how much the insult had affected her. Hailey took her last name proudly, Achilles was as much of a father to her as any father could be and insulting his name angered her.

If she stayed any longer she was going to attack one of them, and with the way Snape tended to hover around this area Malfoy was likely trying to goad her into snapping in front of a teacher and being punished. The best thing she could do was bow out of this verbal duel.

"Well it's been awfully nice to catch up with you again, Malfoy," she drawled, exaggerating her American accent which was her tried and tested way of irritating the blonde Slytherin. "But we've got classes to go to now."

"Oh, any by the way," Hailey continued. "Ron isn't staying here. He'll be visiting my family in America."

"I am?" Ron asked incredulously.

Hailey hit him in the back sharply. "Yes, you are. Neville too."

"I am?" Neville asked. She hit him in the back too. "Oh, er, yes! Yes I am!" he clarified.

"That Muggleborn hovel in the middle of nowhere?" Malfoy sneared.

She closed her eyes and tried to reach a calm place in her mind. Taking a few deep breaths to calm herself, she turned back to Malfoy.

"Yeah, that's the one. So we'll be going now."

When they were out of earshot from anybody else, Ron and Neville rounded on her with questioning looks.

"What was that all about?" Ron demanded.

"Well I was going to invite you later today, but I thought now was as good of a time as any," Hailey explained. "I don't know, I didn't like Malfoy's gang teasing you guys like that so I wanted to make it look like you weren't staying in Hogwarts by yourself."

"But we are staying at Hogwarts, and he's going to know that."

"I wasn't thinking, OK. I know I should have asked you beforehand but the way he insulted you made me so angry I just wanted to stick it to him and that's the first thing that came to mind."

"But you are actually offering us to come visit you on the holidays, that wasn't just something you said."

"You can both stay here if you want to, but I floated the idea to the Site Director and he said I had permission. I think you'll have a good time meeting my family if you come ."

"Your secretive, creepy and incredibly terrifying family?" Neville replied sarcastically.

"They're not all like that!" Hailey insisted, but she could tell none of them bought it. "Ok, they are," she admitted. "But once you get to know them they're really nice! I can show you all the cool places of my home. There's this one place where you can get a drink of anything you want. And when I say anything, I mean anything."

Ron paused for a few seconds to carefully weigh his options. "Well alright, but no kidnapping! Also, is Hermione going to be there?"

"No, I'm having Christmas with my dad's side of the family," Hermione told them. "They're all Muggles, so it'd probably be a bad idea to invite you two. And Hailey as well, it'll be hard to explain suddenly having another cousin."

Hailey turned to Neville. "How about you?"

"Can't be any worse than listening to my great uncles tell me how much I don't live up to my parents."

Hailey squealed slightly with excitement and pulled the two boys into a hug. "Yes! Trust me, you are going to love the Site 19 Christmas party! The researchers always have the best Secret Santa competition. And every year the SCPs always try to ruin the party, and -"

Ron and Neville shared identical looks of grim realisation. What had they just agreed to?

"- yeah Abel can be a bit of a dick sometimes. Oh and Grandpa Lawrence does this thing where he breaks out these guys from Block E, and then they go around hunting the D Class until -"

Hermione, meanwhile, could barely keep the smirk off her face. It was about time somebody else was dragged into Hailey's madness.

"And last year I broke Lewis out of containment and convinced him to help me hang mistletoe above my dad and Dr Williams. You should have seen the look on their faces!"

A/N: Well it's been a while. I've started back at uni so I've been pretty busy, but I managed to finish this chapter in less time than the last one which is good.

So, now we get to Christmas. Naturally Hailey actually has a home to go back to in this canon, so she isn't going to be spending Christmas as Hogwarts. Neville and Ron are just coming along for the wild ride that is Site 19. Next chapter, they both get introduced to some SCPs. This is supposed to be the beginning of some SCP major characters, namely SCP-053/Alice.

Again, I basically just summarised the Quidditch lesson. It wouldn't be any different to canon, so there's really no reason to include it. We all know what happened. Only difference is this time Hailey considers just teleporting away.

Yukine-ren: Hey glad you liked it, I wasn't sure if the tone was too dark or not, but I'm glad it worked well with the story. I really enjoyed writing it.

Well I personally really liked Ron and Hermione, and due to them having a mutual friend I thought it would be more realistic for them to be nicer to each other. Ron doesn't have such an inferiority complex and Hermione is less abrasive both through the early influence of the other.

Perhaps. Though Lucius certainly had his fair amount of cold and calculating. There is an explanation for this that lies in how Draco was raised in this alternate universe, and yes Narcissia does play a major part in this.