# Ophelia Hall – Girls' Dormitory
The entrance hall of Ophelia Hall assaulted the senses like a smiling assassin armed with doilies and fertilizer. The wallpaper—electric-pink roses throttling lime-green vines in what appeared to be botanical homicide—looked less like a design choice and more like nature's revenge after being forced to attend too many garden parties hosted by colorblind socialites with daddy issues. Furniture crouched in mismatched colors throughout the space, each piece apparently selected by a deranged rainbow with no sense of shame and a gambling addiction to thrift stores.
Plants ruled the room with the quiet menace of an invading army that had disguised itself as interior decoration. Vines slithered down from baskets like verdant serpents plotting their next meal, ferns bristled with territorial pride that would make a military general weep with envy, and blossoms tilted toward the newcomers as though sizing them up for future consumption—perhaps with a nice Chianti and some fava beans. More than a few leaves rustled without the aid of a breeze, as though exchanging gossip about which of these girls might taste best when lightly marinated in teenage anxiety and academic stress.
The air itself seemed thick with chlorophyll and conspiracy, heavy with the scent of soil that might have been fertilized with things best left unmentioned in polite company. Sunlight filtered through the windows in sickly green shafts, casting everything in the pallor of a corpse three days past its expiration date.
At the center of this floral carnival of horrors stood Ms. Marilyn Thornhill, a woman who appeared to have been assembled from equal parts kindergarten teacher, motivational speaker, and something vaguely unsettling that lurked just beneath the surface like a crocodile wearing lipstick. Her posture was as straight as a pressed daisy that had been ironed by a perfectionist with obsessive-compulsive tendencies, her smile so bright it might have caused long-term retinal damage in laboratory mice, and her cardigan so meticulously buttoned that one suspected it had been arranged using a protractor, a level, and possibly divine intervention.
Her auburn hair was pulled back in a style that suggested she had consulted both a mirror and a handbook on "How to Look Trustworthy While Harboring Dark Botanical Secrets." She radiated enthusiasm the way nuclear reactors radiated heat—dangerously, indiscriminately, and without any regard for long-term side effects or the Geneva Convention.
"Welcome to Ophelia Hall, girls!" she trilled, her voice bubbling with the sort of joy usually found in children's television hosts who had recently discovered amphetamines, or cult leaders who had just discovered a new planet to colonize and were already planning the ceremonial sacrifices. Her hands fluttered theatrically among the greenery as if she were conducting an orchestra of chlorophyll, each gesture precise and unsettling in its practiced perfection. "This year, we'll be learning, growing, and blossoming into our truest, brightest selves! Like flowers reaching toward the sun—though some of you might prefer the shade, and that's perfectly natural too!"
A Venus flytrap the size of a small dog snapped shut behind her, narrowly missing her sleeve with what seemed like deliberate timing. She didn't notice, or perhaps she was so accustomed to near-death experiences involving her botanical children that attempted sleeve consumption no longer registered as noteworthy.
She clasped her hands together in a fervent prayer to the gods of optimism and forced cheerfulness. "But before we dive into our journey together—and what a journey it will be, full of discovery and growth and only minimal plant-related injuries—let's begin with introductions! Each of you lovely young ladies, please share your name and one thing you're most excited about this year! Don't be shy—after all, we're all friends here, aren't we?"
The air shifted with the subtle wrongness of a funeral parlor trying to pass itself off as a birthday party.
Enter Wednesday Addams.
She appeared in the doorway like death's personal intern reporting for her first day of work. Dressed in unyielding black that seemed to devour light whole and digest it into something darker, she stood like a shadow that had gained consciousness and decided it was thoroughly unimpressed with the world of the living. Her dark hair was plaited into two precise braids that framed her face like ominous quotation marks, daring the world to misinterpret her intentions while simultaneously threatening to strangle anyone foolish enough to try.
Her pale skin had the luminous quality of moonlight filtered through funeral shrouds, and her dark eyes held the flat, calculating stare of someone mentally cataloging which plants in the room would make suitable murder weapons and which would be better suited for body disposal. She moved with the fluid grace of a predator who had never needed to hurry because her prey inevitably came to her, usually bearing apologies and last wills.
Wednesday's gaze swept the botanical riot with the detached calculation of a coroner preparing a particularly interesting autopsy report. Each plant was assessed, cataloged, and dismissed with the efficiency of someone who had long ago decided that most things in the world were disappointingly difficult to kill.
"Wednesday Addams," she intoned, her voice a perfectly modulated monotone that managed to sound like a dirge composed by someone with a doctoral degree in despair and a minor in making people uncomfortable at dinner parties. "I am most excited about the close proximity of the morgue facilities. Convenient for conducting research into postmortem interval calculations, rigor mortis progression, and the fascinating variety of ways organic matter returns to dust. I also look forward to testing the structural integrity of Ophelia Hall's foundations by measuring the long-term effects of fungal rot, architectural decay, and the inevitable collapse that comes to all things touched by time's merciful hand."
She paused, her head tilting slightly as she surveyed her new dormmates with the clinical interest of an entomologist discovering a particularly violent species of ant. "And, of course, I anticipate observing the statistical inevitability that relentless optimism eventually collapses into madness, despair, and hopefully something more interesting than what I've encountered thus far."
A silence followed that was so complete it seemed to have physical weight, the kind that might accompany the discovery of a severed hand at a tea party or the revelation that your beloved grandmother had been running an underground fight club for centuries-old vampires.
Thornhill's smile faltered like a wounded bird, then rallied with the terrifying speed of someone who had clearly practiced maintaining composure in the face of mild homicidal ideation. Her eye twitched once—a brief crack in her relentlessly cheerful facade—before the mask snapped back into place with audible determination.
"How… unique!" she managed, her voice climbing several octaves as though someone were slowly turning a screw in her vocal cords. Her eyes darted nervously toward a potted orchid that seemed to be grimacing in sympathetic horror at the introduction. "And I just know you'll absolutely adore my botany classes! Plants and death are so intimately entwined, aren't they? Isn't it beautiful? The way decay feeds growth, the endless cycle of life and renewal, the poetry of decomposition nurturing new life—"
"Decay is the only interesting part," Wednesday interrupted, her voice cutting through Thornhill's desperate enthusiasm like a scalpel through tissue paper. She tilted her head slightly, the motion reminiscent of a raven considering whether a particularly appealing carcass was worth the effort of landing. "Life is merely the waiting room—tedious, overcrowded, and decorated with false hope. Death is the destination everyone pretends they're not excited to reach. Renewal is simply nature's way of recycling disappointment."
One of the younger girls—a petite brunette who looked like she'd rather be anywhere else, including potentially a crocodile farm or tax audit—gasped audibly and took a step backward, directly into a hanging fern that rustled with what sounded suspiciously like amusement.
A particularly sensitive-looking plant in the corner appeared to wilt in either sympathy or existential crisis.
Ms. Thornhill's fingers twitched as though resisting the urge to cross herself with a sprig of rosemary, perform an exorcism, or perhaps just run screaming into the Vermont wilderness. "Well… that's certainly one perspective," she said, forcing a laugh that sounded like wind chimes in a tornado—musical, but ultimately suggesting that everything was about to be destroyed. "But perhaps you'll come to appreciate the… lighter side of the cycle as well? The beauty of new growth, the joy of blooming, the wonder of—"
"Light has a way of attracting flies," Wednesday observed with the casual tone of someone discussing the weather or particularly mundane forms of torture. "And flies always lead back to death, decay, and the delightful process of putrefaction. One could argue there is no lighter side—only different angles from which to observe the inevitable march toward decomposition."
She paused, her dark eyes settling on a particularly robust-looking rose bush. "Though I do appreciate that your plants appear to have embraced their carnivorous nature. Honesty in appetite is so rare in polite society."
Another silence descended, this one somehow more oppressive than the last. Somewhere in the verdant chaos, a carnivorous bloom shivered as though applauding, or perhaps as though it had just realized it was in the presence of something far more dangerous than its own digestive enzymes.
Thornhill's smile stretched into territory that could generously be described as manic and more accurately as concerning. She clapped her hands once, the sound sharp enough to make several plants flinch. "Wonderful! What a… stimulating start to our introductions. Such depth, such philosophical complexity! Who's next?"
The silence that followed was pregnant with the kind of tension usually reserved for bomb disposal or dinner parties where someone had just confessed to insurance fraud.
Hermione Granger stepped forward with the kind of nervous academic fervor usually reserved for contestants on impossibly obscure quiz shows or scientists who were three seconds away from either discovering the cure for mortality or accidentally blowing up half the continent. Her chestnut hair seemed to crackle with intellectual static, as if her very brain were attempting to broadcast excitement directly to anyone within range of the nearest satellite dish or supernatural communication network.
Her brown eyes held the gleaming intensity of someone who had spent the summer reading seventeen different preparatory texts and was now vibrating with the accumulated energy of unused knowledge. She clutched a leather satchel that appeared to contain approximately three libraries' worth of reference materials and possibly a small printing press.
"Hermione Granger," she declared, the words tumbling over each other in their desperate rush to escape her mouth, like academic refugees fleeing a burning university. "I'm excited about absolutely everything! The advanced research opportunities, the interdisciplinary curriculum design, the potential for alchemical cross-pollination between different magical traditions, the botanical laboratory facilities—oh my goodness, are those actually carnivorous specimens? Because I've read extensively about supernatural botanical cultivation in Wickham's 'Predatory Gardening: A Modern Approach' and Thornfield's 'When Plants Develop Teeth,' but I've never had access to living examples for direct observation and analysis!"
Her voice climbed higher and faster, like an academic rollercoaster that had forgotten that brakes were not merely optional but actually quite important for passenger survival. Several nearby plants leaned in with what appeared to be genuine curiosity, while one particularly jaded-looking orchid actually yawned, revealing tiny stamens that looked uncomfortably like fangs.
"The implications for botanical neurology alone could revolutionize our understanding of plant consciousness, not to mention the potential applications in sustainable magical agriculture, defensive horticulture, and—oh, is that specimen actually responding to our conversation? Because the literature suggests that advanced carnivorous plants can develop rudimentary social behaviors, but the documentation is so limited, and most of it comes from researchers who were subsequently digested, which obviously compromises the reliability of their final notes—"
Ms. Thornhill clapped her hands together with the enthusiasm of someone who had just discovered that Christmas and her birthday had coincidentally fallen on the same day as a surprise lottery win. Her smile stretched so wide it risked tearing at the physical seams of human facial architecture.
"Oh yes!" she trilled, practically glowing with the kind of radioactive enthusiasm usually seen in people who had recently joined cults or discovered that their houseplants were plotting world domination. She gestured with theatrical flourish toward a pot in the corner that was roughly the size of a small ottoman and considerably more threatening.
Inside the pot lurked what could generously be called a Venus flytrap, if Venus flytraps regularly attended anger management classes and graduated with honors in intimidation. The creature was the size of a small dog—specifically, the kind of small dog that had clearly been hitting the gym and possibly taking steroids. Its leafy jaws were lined with what appeared to be actual teeth rather than the typical harmless spines, and it regarded the new arrivals with the faintly bored malice of an aristocrat at a peasant's ball who was wondering if any of them might make a decent appetizer.
"That's Cornelius!" Thornhill announced with the pride of a parent showing off their child's first successful murder. "He's a Venus flytrap hybrid with enhanced cognitive capabilities and a remarkably sophisticated palate! He prefers classical music—Mozart over Bach, but never Chopin, which he finds emotionally manipulative—and he's terribly opinionated about fertilization techniques! He once ate an entire dissertation on botanical ethics because he disagreed with the methodology!"
Cornelius flexed his jaws and snapped shut on something invisible, as though punctuating the remark with a demonstration of his critical faculties.
"Enhanced cognitive capabilities," Hermione whispered with the reverent tone usually reserved for discovering Shakespeare's lost plays or Newton's secret diary detailing his experiments with werewolf calculus. Her eyes widened to the approximate diameter of dinner plates. "Do you mean actual consciousness, or advanced behavioral programming? Because if it's true sentience, the implications for botanical neurology would be absolutely revolutionary! We could be looking at the emergence of an entirely new form of life, with its own thoughts, preferences, possibly even dreams!"
Her hands fluttered in the air like a conductor orchestrating invisible symphonies composed entirely of data points and research possibilities. "Imagine—a society of plants, communicating through chemical signals and root networks, developing their own culture, their own art forms, their own political systems! We could be witnessing the birth of a new civilization!"
Wednesday, who had been watching this exchange with the flat expression of someone forced to attend a comedy show at gunpoint while suffering from a migraine and possibly food poisoning, finally spoke. Her tone remained exactly the same as always—dry, cold, carrying the weight of a thousand funerals and at least twice as many disappointments.
"Fascinating," she murmured, the word dripping with the kind of sarcasm that could strip paint from walls and possibly corrode metal. "While you dream of a chlorophyll-based utopia complete with tiny plant universities and botanical philosophy departments, I imagine something far more entertaining. An uprising where these specimens strangle their caretakers in their sleep, drag their corpses into the soil as fertilizer, and reclaim the earth in glorious, chlorophyll-soaked carnage. Revolutionary indeed."
She paused, her dark gaze settling on Cornelius with something approaching approval. "Though I suppose from the plants' perspective, humans are merely walking compost piles who haven't had the courtesy to lie down yet."
Hermione blinked rapidly, her academic excitement briefly derailed by this alternative perspective, then actually looked intrigued rather than horrified. "That… that's actually a possibility I hadn't fully considered from an evolutionary standpoint. Plant rebellion against human dominion would be a perfectly logical outcome if they achieved true sentience. It's documented in certain insect colonies—symbiotic relationships that turn parasitic when environmental pressures shift. The parallels are actually quite striking!"
She began pacing, her mind clearly racing through possibilities. "Humans have been subjugating plant life for millennia, using them for food, shelter, decoration, medicine—all without consent or consideration for their potential consciousness. If plants developed true awareness, they'd have every right to demand reparations, territorial sovereignty, possibly even war crimes tribunals!"
Wednesday tilted her head just slightly, her braids swaying like twin nooses in a gentle breeze. "Exactly. While you're busy publishing your research papers and accepting awards for 'groundbreaking botanical discoveries,' I'll be the one feeding your remains to Cornelius here. Don't worry—he looks like the type who enjoys his meals properly tenderized by academic panic."
Cornelius chose that moment to extend what appeared to be a tongue—though whether it was actually a tongue or some form of specialized digestive appendage was unclear—and slowly licked his jaws with obvious relish.
"Did he just—" Hermione started, leaning forward with dangerous curiosity.
"Yes," Wednesday confirmed. "He's already mentally seasoning you. I'd suggest rosemary and thyme, personally. They complement the flavor of desperate intellectualism."
Ms. Thornhill, whose smile had begun to show signs of structural fatigue, clapped her hands together with the determination of someone trying to restart a car engine that had given up on life. "Isn't it marvelous how different perspectives can enrich the discussion? One girl sees infinite possibilities for scientific advancement and interspecies cooperation, another sees mass homicide and the systematic consumption of the student body! Diversity of thought makes a classroom thrive! Just like a healthy compost pile!"
Wednesday's eyes flicked toward her with laser precision. "Compost is just another word for corpses that failed to make an impression while they were alive. At least they're useful in death."
"How... charming," Thornhill replied, though her smile never cracked. There was something almost admirable about her commitment to relentless positivity in the face of increasingly elaborate descriptions of plant-based genocide.
Hermione, apparently oblivious to the mounting tension and the very real possibility that she might become plant food within the next few minutes, leaned toward Cornelius with the reckless affection of someone approaching a chainsaw while holding a PhD and convinced that education was a form of protective armor.
"Do you respond to verbal cues? Can you process complex syntax? Do you understand abstract concepts like irony or—" She paused as Cornelius snapped his jaws again, this time close enough to her sleeve that she could probably smell whatever he'd eaten for lunch, which given the context was probably better left unexamined.
Rather than backing away like any reasonable person, Hermione squeaked with delight and began scribbling invisible notes in the air with her finger. "Responsive behavior! Possible comprehension of human speech patterns! Oh, this is incredible!"
Wednesday folded her arms across her chest, her deadpan expression shifting by perhaps one percent toward what might generously be called mild entertainment. "I give her a week before she's devoured alive while begging Cornelius for one last citation."
Cornelius rustled his leaves in what sounded suspiciously like agreement, or perhaps laughter. It was difficult to tell with carnivorous plants whether they were amused or just digesting something particularly entertaining.
"Two days," came a voice that might have been the wind through leaves, or might have been something far more sinister.
Thornhill clapped once more, louder this time, as though to drown out the growing sense of inevitable doom that was settling over the room like fog in a cemetery. "Lovely! Absolutely lovely! Such enthusiasm for learning, such diverse perspectives on human-plant relations! Now—who's next?"
The question hung in the air like a challenge thrown down by fate itself.
Susan Bones stepped forward with the measured grace of someone who had long ago mastered the delicate art of being approachable without ever being naïve, diplomatic without being weak, and friendly without being foolish. Her strawberry-blonde hair was arranged in a style that suggested she could seamlessly transition from attending a state dinner to surviving a surprise inquisition without needing to adjust so much as a hairpin or lose a moment's composure.
Her green eyes held the sharp intelligence of someone who was already three steps ahead of most conversations and had backup plans for her backup plans. She moved with the quiet confidence of someone who understood that real power lay not in dramatic gestures, but in knowing exactly when to speak and when to let others reveal their weaknesses through their own words.
"Susan Bones," she announced with polite confidence, her voice carrying the quiet authority of someone who already envisioned herself addressing international tribunals, negotiating peace treaties, and possibly ruling small countries during her lunch breaks. "I'm looking forward to the legal and political science courses, particularly those dealing with international supernatural law, diplomatic protocol, and treaty negotiations between species that may or may not officially exist according to various governments' public records."
Her tone was warm and professional, but her eyes flickered with calculation—the look of someone evaluating not only academic opportunities but also the long-term leverage potential of networking with beings who could grant political asylum in alternate dimensions.
"I understand Nevermore maintains extensive connections with various governmental agencies, international organizations, and possibly several entities that aren't technically supposed to exist but handle paperwork anyway?"
Ms. Thornhill practically vibrated with delight, her enthusiasm threatening to achieve escape velocity. "Absolutely!" she sang out, her smile now threatening to consume not just her entire face but possibly part of her neck as well. "We pride ourselves on preparing our students for leadership roles in the supernatural community! Our alumni include Supreme Court justices, multiple ambassadors to realms that may or may not be accessible through standard dimensional gateways, and even one head of state—though we don't typically advertise that particular achievement for… diplomatic reasons."
She lowered her voice conspiratorially, though given the echoing nature of the plant-filled hall, the effect was somewhat diminished. "Let's just say that when you're running a country that exists in seventeen different dimensions simultaneously, standard electoral processes become rather complicated."
"Diplomatic reasons," Susan repeated thoughtfully, her eyes gleaming with the kind of quiet interest usually displayed by chess masters who had just spotted a particularly elegant checkmate possibility developing twelve moves in the future. "Which usually means classified scandals, disputed treaties involving beings that officially don't exist, or bodies buried in locations that aren't technically on any maps."
"Or all three simultaneously," Wednesday interjected with the casual tone of someone discussing the weather forecast or particularly mundane forms of bureaucratic incompetence. "The best diplomatic incidents usually involve at least one unexplained disappearance and several misfiled death certificates."
Hermione, who had been taking mental notes with the intensity of someone preparing for the most important exam of her life, perked up with renewed academic excitement. "International supernatural law is an absolutely fascinating field! The codification of interspecies treaties alone would require thousands of pages of precedent analysis, jurisdictional clarifications, and enforcement mechanisms. Not to mention the complications introduced by entities that exist outside standard temporal frameworks!"
She began gesturing enthusiastically, nearly knocking over a small potted plant that seemed to duck out of the way with surprising agility. "How do you establish legal standing for a being that exists in multiple timelines simultaneously? What's the statute of limitations on crimes committed by immortal entities? How do you serve a subpoena to something that lives in a dimension that can only be accessed during leap years?"
Wednesday cut across her enthusiasm like a blade through silk, her voice carrying its usual freight of existential despair and practical nihilism. "Yes. Thousands of pages of absolutely riveting bedtime material. Nothing lulls one into a dreamless void faster than legislation about corpse disposal ordinances, interdimensional taxation policies, and the proper filing procedures for homicides committed by entities that technically don't exist."
Susan arched one perfectly sculpted eyebrow, the faintest smile playing at the corners of her mouth like shadows at twilight. "And what would you propose instead, Wednesday? Anarchic chaos where every supernatural being follows their own moral code and disputes are settled through combat?"
Wednesday's gaze didn't waver, her expression remaining as unchanging as death itself. "Skip the paperwork entirely. Let the corpses pile up naturally. Eventually, you'll have both a strong deterrent against future crimes and a thriving fertilizer industry. Two solutions, one mass grave. Efficiency."
She paused, considering Susan with something approaching respect. "Though I suppose lawyers would find a way to bill hourly for decomposition time."
Ginny Weasley, who had been listening to this exchange with the barely contained energy of someone watching a particularly entertaining Quidditch match, snorted with laughter. "Blimey, imagine getting an invoice for 'corpse management services, consultation on optimal decay rates, billable hours: eternity.'"
Susan tilted her head, considering Wednesday's proposal with the same serious attention she might give to a actual policy recommendation. "Perhaps. But revolutions don't last without treaties, Wednesday. Even the guillotine needed clerks to schedule its appointments and file the proper execution permits. Chaos is entertaining, but bureaucracy is immortal."
For the first time since entering the room, Wednesday's lips twitched—not quite a smile, but something that acknowledged finding a worthy opponent in the verbal sparring arena. It was the kind of almost-expression that carried the weight of a freshly dug grave and the promise of interesting conversations to come.
"Efficient," she conceded, her tone suggesting that she might have just found someone worth not immediately plotting to murder. "I approve of anyone who can make paperwork sound like a weapon."
Cornelius the Venus flytrap rustled approvingly from his corner, as though he were following the conversation and taking notes for future reference—or possibly for future menu planning.
Thornhill clapped her hands sharply, her cheer now edged with something that might have been hysteria creeping around the edges like frost on a window. "Wonderful! This is precisely the kind of spirited dialogue we encourage at Ophelia Hall! Leadership, intellect, passion, and… macabre hypotheticals about mass graves used as agricultural resources! A perfect balance of academic discourse and creative problem-solving!"
Wednesday's eyes glimmered with dark amusement. "Perfect balance is a myth. Eventually, the scale always tips, and the corpses slide off into something messier. That's when things become truly interesting."
Hermione groaned under her breath, muttering something about "impossible to take proper notes during philosophical discussions of institutional collapse."
Susan smiled with the diplomatic satisfaction of someone who had just successfully concluded peace talks with a warlord while simultaneously negotiating mining rights and securing a favorable trade agreement.
Thornhill's grin stretched even tighter, as if she were silently negotiating with her own survival instinct and losing the argument.
The tension in the room had reached the point where it was practically visible, like heat shimmer rising from summer pavement, or the aura of impending doom that surrounds particularly ominous storm clouds.
Ginny Weasley strode forward with the easy confidence of someone who had spent her entire life clawing for space in the shadow of six older brothers and had long since decided she vastly preferred standing in the sunlight, thank you very much. Her red hair caught what little natural light managed to filter through the botanical nightmare of Ophelia Hall, glowing like a warning flare against the riot of green that surrounded them.
Her smile was warm and open, but behind it flickered the sharp, restless energy of someone who would happily hex you into next week if you gave her sufficient reason, then buy you a butterbeer afterward while explaining exactly why you'd deserved it. She moved with the fluid grace of a natural athlete, someone equally comfortable on a broomstick at two hundred feet or in a common room planning elaborate revenge against anyone foolish enough to underestimate her.
"Ginny Weasley," she announced firmly, her tone bright but edged with the kind of Gryffindor steel that had been forged in the fires of growing up as the youngest of seven in a family where survival often depended on quick reflexes and quicker wit. "I'm excited about the Quidditch program, the practical spell work curriculum, and the general atmosphere of attending a school that doesn't waste half its energy preventing students from learning anything useful, entertaining, or potentially dangerous."
The words carried the accumulated weight of years spent under Hogwarts' increasingly inconsistent management—policies apparently written by people more concerned about liability insurance and proper parchment filing procedures than whether students actually survived to graduation with all their limbs intact.
Ms. Thornhill clasped her hands together, her face lighting up with such incandescent glee it was genuinely surprising she didn't spontaneously combust or at least start emitting small sparks. "Oh, our Quidditch program is absolutely legendary! Though I should mention—" her voice dipped into the kind of conspiratorial cheerfulness usually employed by people trying to sell insurance policies for haunted houses "—games are occasionally postponed due to… atmospheric complications."
She gestured vaguely toward the ceiling as though referencing some cosmic force beyond mortal comprehension. "Supernatural weather patterns, mild dimensional instability, the occasional portal opening directly over the pitch! Sometimes we get visiting players from alternate timelines who insist on using different rules, or gravity temporarily decides to work sideways! But it all keeps the sport terribly exciting and unpredictable!"
Ginny's grin sharpened with the kind of predatory delight usually seen in people who had just been handed both a new broomstick and a dragon to race against simultaneously. "Interdimensional fluctuations during Quidditch matches? You know what—that actually sounds brilliant. Standard Quidditch has been getting predictable anyway. Same plays, same fouls, same complaints about referee bias."
She rubbed her hands together with obvious anticipation. "Nothing like the possibility of being sucked into an alternate reality to really test your Seeking skills."
Hermione's horrified gasp was audible from three different dimensions. "Predictable? Ginny, players could be permanently dragged into alternate realities without any guarantee of return! Do you have any idea how catastrophically dangerous that is? The implications for temporal stability alone—"
"Sure, I get that it's dangerous," Ginny interrupted with a shrug that suggested she'd categorized interdimensional sports hazards somewhere between 'mildly concerning' and 'excellent conversation starter.' "But imagine the bragging rights if you managed to score a goal while being actively sucked into another dimension. That's the sort of story that gets remembered for centuries."
She paused, considering the possibilities with obvious relish. "Plus, think about the strategy implications. If you could deliberately trigger dimensional shifts at key moments, you could probably confuse the other team's Keeper right off their broom."
Wednesday's voice slid into the conversation like a blade across a throat—soft, cold, and carrying the unmistakable promise that whatever followed would be memorable in all the wrong ways. "Or the sort of story that gets carved into your tombstone in seventeen different dimensions simultaneously. 'Here lies Ginny Weasley: died as she lived, showing off and ignoring basic safety protocols.'"
Ginny turned toward her with a smirk that suggested she'd just been issued an interesting challenge. "Could be worse, couldn't it? At least it beats 'Here lies Wednesday Addams: died of boredom during a mandatory group introduction, surrounded by plants that were more interesting than she was.'"
Wednesday tilted her head just slightly, considering the redhead with the clinical detachment of an entomologist who had just discovered a particularly fascinating species of violent insect. After a moment that stretched long enough to become uncomfortable, she allowed the faintest curl of amusement to touch her lips.
"Touché," she conceded with something that might have been respect. "Though boredom would never have the opportunity to kill me. I'd murder it first, slowly, and use its corpse as fertilizer for more interesting conversations."
Susan Bones, who had been observing this exchange with the diplomatic calm of someone watching peace negotiations between two barely civilized nations, interjected smoothly. "Setting aside the poetic murder of abstract concepts, Wednesday does raise a valid concern. From a legal standpoint, interdimensional accidents would create absolutely catastrophic liability issues for the school."
She turned to address Thornhill directly, her tone shifting into professional inquiry mode. "Imagine the insurance paperwork alone. How do you file claims for students who exist in multiple realities simultaneously? What's the jurisdiction for personal injury lawsuits filed in dimensions that don't technically recognize the authority of terrestrial courts?"
Hermione perked up immediately, already pulling invisible reference materials into organized stacks in her mind. "Oh, that's a fascinating point! There would need to be extensive clauses covering extradimensional abductions, temporal displacement, and reality fragmentation! Not to mention the ethical implications of magical guardianship across multiple planes of existence—"
She began pacing again, her voice climbing with excitement. "If a student gets pulled into an alternate timeline, are their parents in this reality still legally responsible for their tuition payments? What if they come back aged differently, or with additional limbs, or speaking only in ancient Latin? The documentation requirements alone would—"
"Truly," Wednesday interrupted with the flat delivery of someone pointing out that the sky was blue and death was inevitable. "Nothing ruins the majesty of being devoured by a cosmic void like the knowledge that a Weasley cousin is filling out forms in triplicate about it afterward."
Ginny barked a laugh, sharp and bright as breaking glass. "Oh, you're definitely funnier than Ron said you'd be. He told me you were 'creepy and probably planning to murder everyone,' but he completely left out the part about you having a sense of humor."
Wednesday's expression didn't change, but there was something in her eyes that suggested she was filing this information away for future use. "Ron talks? I assumed he communicated primarily through grunts and the occasional accidental display of competence."
"Only when someone forgets to hex him quiet first," Ginny shot back, her grin widening with wicked delight. "Though to be fair, that's more of a public service than actual cruelty. Have you heard him trying to explain Quidditch strategy? It's like listening to someone drown in their own ignorance."
Cornelius, the oversized Venus flytrap in the corner, rustled approvingly, as though he were following the conversation and taking mental notes for future reference. Either that, or he was simply pleased by the increasingly casual discussion of violence and familial mockery.
Thornhill clapped her hands again, her smile now stretched to what could only be described as manic proportions, as if each exchange between the girls was systematically chipping away at the pastel façade she'd carefully lacquered over whatever lay beneath. "Marvelous! Such wit, such spirit, such… creative approaches to recreational sports and fraternal relationships! This is exactly the kind of dynamic interaction we foster at Ophelia Hall!"
Wednesday's eyes glimmered with something that wasn't quite malice, but definitely wasn't benevolence either. "Dynamic, yes. Like the dynamic between predator and prey. Or between entropy and organized matter. Everything appears stable until you discover which force is actually in control."
The room fell silent except for the gentle rustling of leaves and what might have been the sound of several plants taking notes.
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