Mikaela didn’t talk to me the next day at all, or the day after that. I didn’t talk to her either; frankly, I was too scared. What had happened at the lake was so utterly disturbing that I didn’t think either of us had finished coping yet. Nothing like that had ever happened before. Ever. And what’s worse, I was the only one who got off scot-free. Daphne resented me, Lavender and Parvati hated me, Millicent had felt embarrassed by me, and only Tracey was the same as usual, but only because she was an android.

“Neville,” I asked one day in the Great Hall, “is Mikaela mad at me? On a scale from one to ten, how mad is she? Take your time, Neville. But tell me now.”

“Er--” he started uncertainly, “I dunno. I think she’s... medium?”

“Medium?” I asked incredulously. “What does medium mean? Medium angry, or medium normal? Or just emotionally medium all around, like not happy and not sad? Like, depressed medium? Apathetic medium?”

“I--er-- just medium, I guess.”

I sighed defeatedly.

“Neville, what are you doing in Gryffindor anyways?” I asked. “I mean, you’re nice and all, but how come you’re not in Hufflepuff, or Ravenclaw, even?”

“Well,” Neville swallowed, “when I put the hat on, I told it to put me in Hufflepuff. I guess Gryffindor was for brave people, and I’m not-- I don’t think--” Neville floundered for words. “But it didn’t listen to me. I don’t really know why.”

“You’re not brave, Neville.” I said. “But I think you ought to be. And probably the Sorting Hat thought so too. And I’m not particularly cunning, or mean, or clever, and I barely fit in in Slytherin. Everyone there has an agenda. I don’t. I have no agenda.” I leaned back against the table, and gazed up at the enchanted ceiling. “Being in Gryffindor doesn’t make you automatically in the right. And being in Slytherin doesn’t automatically make you better at handling things.” I sat up again and looked Neville straight in the eye. “Is there something I don’t understand?”

“There’s a lot I don’t understand,” Neville said sadly.

“I feel horrible.” I said. “I feel like I’ve eaten an entire carton of every flavour beans. I feel like a wet butt.”

“Maybe you should apologize.” He said.

“I’m sick of apologizing to people. I was right, by the way! I am in the right! I keep on being right, too!”

I swelled with anger all of a sudden, which seemed to materialize out of nowhere. My eyes turned bleary, and the mahogany grandeur of the Great Hall faded into hot tears. I knew then that I was about to do something drastic, but I didn’t have any clue what it was going to be. Against every bit of my better judgement, I stormed over to where Mikaela sat with her Gryffindor friends, where they were going over different ways to treat werewolf bites for the DADA final. 

“Hey!” I said, not loudly enough to be a shout. “I don’t understand why you didn’t believe me about my mermaid. I’ve seen her three times and she’s real.” Mikaela looked visibly shaken and uncomfortable, like a rabbit in the headlights. I felt very much like one. 

“I thought you only saw her two times.” Mikaela said in a low voice.

“Three,” I replied. “The third was the night I made your birthday present, but I didn’t tell you about it. I don’t understand why you didn’t believe me.”

“It wasn’t that I didn’t believe you, I was just tired of hearing about it!”

“Well,” I continued without listening, “I have proof. Proof! And if anyone--” I looked around at Mikaela’s study group, “-- is interested in watching me, I’m about to dive to the bottom of the Black Lake to get it. Right now.”

“Madeline,” Mikaela started. But it was too late. I’d found my rollercoaster car and I was going to ride it all the way to destruction. “I’m not coming down there!” She called after me as I left. “I’ve got a study session!”

This was certainly something drastic.

From the time I left the building to the time I reached the shores of the lake, word had seemed to spread about what I was going to attempt. Each step I took made me feel less confident in my ability to succeed at this, but each follower I gained made it more important to try.

“All right!” I called when I was at the edge of the dock. It was a beautiful morning, very British, with low-hanging clouds and a nip in the spring air. The water looked freezing. I remembered something my mom had told me once about people dying from the shock of cold water, but I figured that if Cormac Mclaggen could survive, I could as well. 

I realized that I really had no idea where the Slytherin common room was in the lake. It would need to be rather far out into it, since the water was so deep out my window.

“What on earth are you doing?” Daphne shouted.

“Something stupid!” I called back. “Okay, on the count of three! One, two--”

My heart made a jump before I did, and I hit the cold water before I could say another word. It was absolutely freezing. It was like icewater. It was like all of winter had simply condensed into the lake instead of disappearing, and the cold was so powerful that I couldn’t keep my head underwater at first without getting a brain freeze.

Still in my sweater and pajama bottoms, I swam around a little to get used to the water. People were chattering and giggling onshore. I realized that I wasn’t a particularly popular student, which had never bothered be before. If the Slytherins were mad at me, I could live. But if Mikaela didn’t like me anymore, it meant that I was truly friendless.

I began to swim out towards the center of the bay, where I figured the common room would be, or where it would make sense to start looking. I wasn’t remotely worried about drowning. I was a strong swimmer, and could likely lap the whole lake if I wanted to.

I plunged my face into the water, which was murky and hard to see in. After awhile, I found a trace of a faint green glow, and followed it. When I took a breath and looked around, I found myself very far from shore. I could hardly hear the shouting people I’d left behind, or see their faces anymore. 

It was a very deep dive, I realized. The greenish lamplight of the Slytherin common room was directly underneath me, and I could even make out where my favorite window was. It was like flying over a building, except without a broom, and there was little chance of crashing into anything. I was a lot higher up than I expected to be, though. I didn’t know if I could actually make it.

I took my first try.

I kicked as hard as I could, but before I was able to pass the top of the stone building I ran out of air and had to return to the surface. I wished I was an animagus, like Mcgonogall. A dolphin animagus. I tried again, this time with only half the breath I’d taken before, hoping it’d help me sink faster. It did, but I ran out even quicker, and didn’t make it very far past the point from before. I tried a third time, and a fourth. And then a fifth, and a sixth, and a seventh, and a tenth and a thirteenth. Slowly, the crowd which came to watch me trickled away, until there was no one left but Tracey Davis, and soon even she left me.

By high noon, my feet and fingers were numb, and I was getting very tired. I decided that I’d probably swim better without the hindrance of pants, but when I went to unbutton them I discovered my wand was still in my pocket. It gave a good idea. I grabbed the wand and ducked under the water, pointing it above me. In a sputtering slur of bubbles, I shouted, “Flipendo!” And found myself being propelled backwards very quickly. I almost laughed in excitement, but didn’t want to waste any more breath. “Flipendo!” I shouted again. “Flipendo!” 

Soon I was at the bottom of the lake, which was much, much colder than the surface. I found the little stone statue the mermaid had made for me and clutched it. 

Interestingly, I could see directly into the common room now, and, to my amusement, Crabbe and Goyle were staring incredulously at me from the leather sofas. I waved at them before starting to swim back.

Something cold and slimy wrapped itself around my heel, and I let a slurry of bubbles loose in a scream. I looked down to see what had grabbed me, and met the puffed-up eyes of a very ugly and very large Grindylow. I tried to kick it loose, but its grip was iron. I swung the statue through the water and ground it into his long, spindly green fingers, which made him let go of me, and I darted upwards as fast as I could.

In a second, the thing was back on my leg, and there was another one with it, which was smaller, clinging to my foot and biting me. I dropped the statue and tried to pull them off, but they were fish-things, and I was a mammal-thing, and my lungs began to burn in desperation. A third Grindylow hooked onto my other foot. I kicked and fought as hard as I could, but I still sank, and the light from above faded.

It occurred to me that I was drowning. I’d be in so much trouble if I drowned. I opened my mouth and accidentally inhaled some water.

All of a bright sudden, the water around me flashed red, and two of the Grindylows got knocked away. I took in a lungful of water and my brain went blurry, and the next thing I knew someone was dragging me onto shore. The someone hit me in the rib cage. I sputtered water all over the place. Fresh oxygen flowed into me for the first time, and the color scheme of the world seemed to shift from red to blue. 

Mikaela sat over me, completely soaked, and Percy Weasley stood next to us looking concerned.

“Are you alright?” He asked in a more gentle voice than I’d heard him use before.

“Yes-- hurrgh” I coughed up more water.

“Good. I’ll have to take twenty points from Slytherin. Swimming in the Black Lake is not permitted by Hogwarts without supervision.”

For the second time that year, I passed out.

Madam Pomfrey was not pleased with me.

“Honestly! It’s as if students are trying to get maimed. I should wonder if they really are teaching you anything.”

“I feel weird.”

“That’ll be the hypothermia. And oh, dear, look. These bites are infected.”

“They are? But they’re new, how can they be infected?”

“Trust me, dear, I know my trade.” She uncorked an unpleasant-smelling potion bottle and dabbed the bite marks with something stingy and acidic. “Leave that on, and don’t move.” She said, exiting. 

Mikaela peeked her head in through the doorway.

“My hero!” I said, but it came out very weakly.

“I didn’t think you were going to drown yourself.” Mikaela said. She sat by my hospital cot. 

“I didn’t either. So there.”

“I was really mad at you, you know. I thought you were going to jump in the lake and everyone would laugh and be impressed and you’d be done with it, and I thought, ‘well, she can do that if she wants to, and she can get hypothermia if she wants to.’ I didn’t think you’d actually get hypothermia, though. When Tracey told me you were still down there, I decided to get Percy.”

“Tough call.” I said.

“I didn’t see you out there, but I saw your pajama pants floating in the water, and I knew you were probably in trouble. So I swam out to save you.” I closed my eyes. Ever since spring started, there was too much sunlight everywhere. “Are.... are we fighting?” She asked.

“No.” I said. “No, I think I’m pretty much done. How about you?” 

Mikaela sat back in her chair, and her face was a little red.

“At the beginning of the year you said you wouldn’t be friends with mean people.” She said.

“Yeah.” I replied.

“Well...  aren’t you friends with mean people?”

I thought about it.

“No, I don’t think so.” 

“Pansy? Millicent? Malfoy?” 

“I’m not friends with any of them. There’s a difference between being friends and being frenemies, and being hostile cousins. Slytherin isn’t like Gryffindor, you know. We’re not all best friends, and we don’t do everything together.”

“Gryffindors aren’t all best friends.” Mikaela objected. “We’re in all the same classes, so yeah, I’ve kind of gotten to know them really well, but they still bother me sometimes.”

“Well, then, how come you always pick them over me?” I asked. I was starting to cry, too.

“I don’t! You’re always with Tracey Davis, and now Daphne and Millicent. I can’t get a word in at all.”

“You avoided me for two weeks, though!” I shouted, and this time tears spilled out. 

“I thought you didn’t want to talk to me!” 

“Well, you were so mad at me about Mclaggen!”

“I wasn’t mad, I was scared, because you were turning into a Slytherin.”

“I think I’ve been less of a Slytherin recently than I’ve ever been before. Standing up for Millicent, jumping into the lake to prove a point. It’s very Gryffindor.” I sat up in bed a little. “And you know what? I’m bad at it. I’m bad at being Gryffindor. I only get myself and other people hurt.”

“Maybe that’s why you’re not a Gryffindor.”

“And you, you’ve been very Slytherin lately. And you’re not good at that, either. When you try to be brave, good things happen. When I try to be brave, bad things happen. When I try to avoid my problems, they go away. When you try to avoid them, I almost drown. Maybe that’s what the Sorting Hat meant.”

“I don’t know about that.” Mikaela said. I looked up at the ceiling.

“I wonder if Neville could be brave.” I said, after a silence.

“Anyone can be brave.”

“You know, this is the dumbest thing we’ve ever fought about.” I said. “It’s also the longest fight we’ve ever had.”

“I think we’ve beaten out our last fight by twelve days now.”

“What was the last one about again?”

“I can’t remember.”

“I kinda remember something about pickles and potatoes.”

“The pickles and potatoes fight was a lot less dumb than the Gryffindor and Slytherin fight.” Mikaela said.

“Yeah. Because we all know that pickles and potatoes can never get along. They’re just too different. Gryffindor and Slytherin go together like ice cream and hot fudge.”

My food reference prompted Mikaela to sneakily take a thing of Every Flavour beans off the nightstand next to the cot on my other side, on which lay a scarred and unconscious Harry Potter. He had so much candy, he probably wouldn’t miss it. We poured the beans out onto the blanket, and sorted out the white ones for Neville.

“He looks sort of cute, like a sleeping baby.” I mused. Potter looked much smaller than I remembered him. “I wonder what he got into?”

“I bet it was cool.”

“I bet he lost you guys a buttload of points.”

Mikaela chose a speckled purple bean and popped it into her mouth, making a face. I picked a sandy-colored one, which I shouldn’t have been surprised tasted like sand. The sunlight streaming through the white curtains of the hospital wing didn’t seem as harsh now as it had when I first woke up, and the thin, lacing shadows that the medieval windows cast on the floor fell long and golden.

“Do you think we can do this? Stay friends even though we’re in enemy houses? For six more years?” Mikaela asked.

“No,” I said. “I think we can stay friends much, much longer than that.”