The world returned slowly. First sounds, its was quiet and only a steady hum could be heard. Then the smell, it smelled clean and unfamiliar.
Fila opened her eyes slowly, the light making it hard to focus.
White curtains surrounded her bed, hanging from a curved rail overhead. The ceiling above was smooth stone etched with faint protective runes, glowing softly at the edges. Her body felt heavy, like she had slept far longer than intended, but the sharp panic from before was gone, replaced by a dull ache behind her eyes.
The infirmary.
"Oh, good. You are awake."
Fila turned her head slowly. A witch stood beside the bed, clipboard tucked under one arm. She had dark hair pulled into a loose bun and kind eyes that missed very little.
"Do not try to sit up yet," the witch added calmly, pressing a gentle hand to Fila's shoulder. "You gave everyone a fright."
Fila swallowed. "I am sorry," she said automatically.
The witch sighed, not unkindly. "That seems to be your favorite phrase."
Fila managed a weak smile.
"You fainted," the healer continued, adjusting a small vial on the bedside table. "Stress induced, combined with exhaustion and a rather impressive amount of emotional restraint finally giving out. Nothing dangerous, but your body decided it was done listening to you for the evening."
Fila stared up at the ceiling, absorbing that.
"How long," she asked.
"An hour," the healer replied. "Perhaps a little more. Your friends carried you here. Very determined bunch."
As if summoned by the words, the curtain shifted.
Calla appeared first, arms already crossed, relief and irritation mixing on her face. June followed close behind, quieter but no less relieved. Miles hovered just outside the curtain, clearly unsure if he was allowed closer, while Elliot leaned against a nearby bedframe with his hands in his pockets.
Theo stood behind them all.
The moment their eyes met, guilt washed across his face.
"You are not allowed to do that again," Calla said flatly, stepping closer. "Ever."
Fila blinked. "I did not plan it."
June reached for Fila's hand, squeezing it lightly. "How do you feel."
"Tired," Fila admitted.
The nurse walked up to the bed again after grabbing a potion. "I have to ask some questions first." She began hold her clipboard. "Do you know todays date?" she asked
"September 8th 1989" she answered without hesitation.
She nodded as she wrote it down. "what do you remember before you fainted?"
Fila thought for a moment and explained how she felt hot, and started to cold sweat and her body felt heavy.
As the healer wrote down things on her clipboard she handed Fila a potion and just did a signal with the hand to drink it.
The stench coming from this cup was foul in every way, it neither looked or smelled good. But as she gulped it down it actually tasted like strawberry.
When the healer stepped away, the group relaxed just a fraction. Miles finally stepped closer. "We told them," he said. "A prefect. About Mason."
Fila's chest tightened. "And."
"They are handling it," June said gently. "You do not have to."
She wasn't going to do anything else, but it was nice feeling that the older students were looking out for her.
"did I miss the duels?" she asked.
The others looked at each other, "No still two hours until then." Elliot answered.
The healer didn't hold Fila for much longer and suggested they take her to get some food, and not to run around. After the duel the were to take her straight to the dorm for her to rest.
They moved slowly after that.
Theo offered an arm without making a big deal of it, and Fila accepted, her steps careful as they guided her out of the infirmary and back into the corridors.
The dinner hall was already busy when they arrived, the usual warmth and noise rolling over them the moment they stepped inside. Plates clattered softly, voices overlapped, and the smell of food settled something uneasy in Fila's stomach that she had not realized was there.
She ate slowly. Soup first, warm and steady, then a piece of bread. Calla watched her like a hawk until she was satisfied that Fila was actually eating, not just pushing food around to make it look convincing.
"Better," June said once color had returned to Fila's face.
Fila nodded. "Much."
Theo had been quiet since they left the infirmary, his attention drifting toward her every few seconds as if checking she was still there. When she finally caught his eye, he looked away, then sighed.
"I really am sorry," he said quietly. "I thought I could handle it."
"I know," Fila replied. Her voice was gentle, not accusing. "But next time, you do not do it alone."
He nodded at once. "Deal."
When the bell rang for the duels, excitement rippled through the hall. Students poured out toward the grounds, voices rising, energy building. Fila felt it too, that pull, that spark of anticipation, though she stayed firmly seated until everyone else stood.
"Slow," Calla reminded her, already stepping in close.
The dueling grounds were open and bright under the afternoon sun. Students gathered along the edges, some perched on stone steps, others leaning against the low walls. The air buzzed with expectation, magic prickling faintly against Fila's skin in a way that made her sit a little straighter.
She watched carefully as the first duel began. The way the older students moved, how they held themselves, how they waited for the right moment instead of rushing forward.
Fila knew how it would look after seeing how Rowan and Elsbeth moved during practice, she wasn't that good yet. But with some training she could get there hopefully.
As she saw duel after duel, she was beginning to almost criticize them, they were sloppy. Throwing many spells instead of one good one. Rowan had told her that a wizard that throws 10 spells it often defeated by the wizard who only threw one.
By the time the duels ended, the earlier tension had loosened its grip on her chest. She was tired, yes, but it was a clean kind of tired, the sort that came after surviving something difficult and coming out the other side still standing.
As promised, they walked her back to the Thunderbird tower without detours. The common room welcomed them like it always did, steady and warm. Fila paused just inside the doorway, breathing it in.
"I think," she said softly, "I will sleep very well tonight."
"You better," Calla replied.
They left her at the dorm door, June squeezing her hand one last time before stepping away. As Fila settled onto her bed, the events of the day replayed themselves.
She didn't worry about what happened. She thought she would but now that Fila laid down on the bed and thought about it, it didn't really feel bad.
That scream she did towards Theo almost felt, good. They listened to her. Not just him, but the others and even Calla and them shifted to look at her quickly as if it startled them.
Fila turned to the side, and pulled the blanket closer.
She closed her eyes, and soon enough sleep came.
Calla and the other in the group sat down in the common room, there weren't many others apart from them. "When she called your name Theo," Calla began, she wounded hesitant to ask the question. "Did you feel that you were pulled to look at her, or to listen to her. I cant explain it."
But she didn't need to explain as everyone nodded slightly.
"Yeah, I felt it too. It felt like someone grabbed my head and made me listen to her." Milles said.
Theo frowned slightly, rubbing the back of his neck as he leaned forward in his chair. The fire crackled softly beside them, the light catching on his face as he thought.
"Yeah," he said after a moment. "I was angry. Really angry. And then she shouted and it was like… everything else just stopped." He glanced toward the staircase that led up to the dorms. "I did not even think. I just knew I had to look at her."
Miles shifted on the couch, uneasy. "That is not normal, right."
Calla exhaled quietly. "No," she said. "But neither is fainting from holding everything in for too long."
They sat with that for a moment, the common room unusually quiet around them. The fire popped, sending sparks upward.
June was sitting in the armchair next to the couches, deep in thought. "What happened to Mason?" she asked as she remembered that the older students was going to do something.
From behind the heard footsteps, "The headmaster is getting involved." The ones who had theirs backs faced towards the voice turned to see Stella and Tristan.
"What, why?" Calla asked, her concern audible.
Stella leaned on the couch, "Because a student fainted as a result of a confrontation, he was going to give a punishment to Mason and talk to Fila tomorrow." She said calmly, they way she said it made it sound like Fila wasn't going to be in trouble.
The tension in the room eased a little at that.
"So she is not in trouble," Miles said, more to himself than anyone else.
"No," Tristan replied, shaking his head. "From what we heard, the headmaster is more interested in why Mason thought this was acceptable in the first place."
Theo let out a breath he had clearly been holding. He leaned back, staring at the ceiling for a moment. "Good," he muttered. "Because that was on me too."
Calla turned toward him sharply. "It was not."
He opened his mouth to argue, then closed it again, rubbing his hands together instead. "Still. I should have walked away sooner."
June watched the stairs leading to the dorms, her expression thoughtful. "She did what she needed to do," she said quietly. "And it worked."
They all knew what she meant.
And upstairs, wrapped in blankets and finally at rest, Fila slept on unaware of the questions already forming around her name.
The next day, Fila woke up feeling better than she had in days. She felt rested and full of energy.
She scanned the room and saw her two roommates still asleep.
With all this energy I could head to the training hall. So she did just that, she went to the old training ground that Theo had been yesterday.
Fila walked in with confident steps, she didn't even think about what happened.
Morning light filtered in through the tall windows, dust drifting lazily in the air. The room smelled faintly of stone and old magic, familiar in a way that made her shoulders relax. A few practice dummies stood along the walls, scuffed and marked from years of use. The floor bore shallow grooves where spells had struck too often in the same place.
She dropped her notebook on one of the benches.
She closed her eyes for a moment.
Not to calm herself. Not to focus in the way Professor Thorne had taught them. Just to check in with herself.
There was no tightness in her chest. No buzzing panic under her skin. Only a quiet awareness of where she stood. Of the stone beneath her feet. Of the air around her.
Good.
She opened her eyes and raised her wand.
"Lets start of easy." She told herself.
She aimed at the nearest dummy and spoke a simple spell, careful and precise. The magic responded smoothly, the impact clean and controlled. The dummy rocked back slightly.
Fila blinked.
She had expected to need a second attempt.
She tried again. Same result. Clean. Focused. No strain.
A faint smile tugged at her mouth.
She moved through a few more basic spells, adjusting her stance, her grip, the way she breathed between each cast. Rowan's voice echoed in her memory, reminding her to slow down. Elsbeth's lessons followed close behind.
The magic felt different today.
It felt more responsive, it did more than what she wanted almost. Or maybe it did what she wanted but she didn't know what she herself wanted.
Fila kept going.
She did not notice the time passing at first. One spell blurred into the next, simple charms giving way to stronger ones almost without her realizing when the shift happened. The practice dummy cracked under a sharper impact, wood groaning before settling back into place. She adjusted, frowned, tried again.
This time she asked for less force.
The spell answered anyway, bright and clean, striking with more weight than she had intended.
Fila lowered her wand slowly, heart thudding once, then twice. She did not feel drained. If anything, she felt clearer. More awake than she had been all morning.
She stepped farther back and raised her wand again.
A shielding charm bloomed in front of her, translucent and steady. She dismissed it and cast again, thicker this time, the air humming faintly as it formed. The stone beneath her feet seemed to answer, the vibration traveling up through her legs in a way that felt almost familiar.
She swallowed and pushed on.
A stunning spell next. Controlled. Focused. The dummy slammed backward hard enough to scrape against the floor before stopping.
Fila froze.
Then she smiled, adjusted herself and did it again. this time more. The spell flew, it could be felt. The power, and effectiveness in the spells were intense. The spell hit the doll and blew a hole in the chest of the dummy.
Fila didn't stop, again, again and again.
After thirty minutes, she definitely felt the strain now. Breathing deep and sweating now.
In though the mouth, out through the nose. Just like Rowan had taught.
During this moment she felt something, with a sharp turn behind her she had her wand raised at a figure by the entrance.
But as Fila had her aim on the figure she slowly lowered her wand. The headmaster.
Professor Fontaine stood still, he didn't move after Fila noticed him. He seemed to be observing.
Shrugging it of she turned back towards the dummies and raised her wand.
Fila cast again.
The spell left her wand with a sharp crack in the air, striking the remaining dummy hard enough to spin it half around before it steadied itself. She lowered her arm, chest rising and falling now, the earlier ease replaced by a deep, spreading fatigue that finally made itself known.
She wiped her palm against her sleeve and forced herself to slow down.
One more, only one more. Hard.
She raised her wand, she felt the intent rising inside her, she really wanted to blow the dust out from this place. The wand lit up with a deep blue. Air almost got sucked towards it and the pressure increased. She focused on the two dummies standing close and aimed between them.
She breathed in one last time before, "Bombarda maxima". The hall went silence as the spell left the wand with a blinding blue light. It flew through the air fast. And then.
Boom!
A big explosion mixed with dust and splinters from the dummies blew everywhere. The hall echoed and it could probably be heard al over the school Fila thought.
The ringing in her ears didn't disappear until a moment later.
Dust settled and revealed the two dummies reduced to mere fire wood spread all over the place. In the middle of the dummies was now a crater, not too deep but noticeable.
With that done, she finally almost limped back to the benches and sat down. Sweat ran down her forehead, and her breathing was rough.
The headmaster finally approached and stood a bit to the side of the benches.
"I must say, that was a rather impressive display." He smiled and looked at Fila. "Its not surprising since both your teachers were some of the best students this school have ever seen." He said.
Fila knew that Rowan and Elsbeth had attended Ilvermorny, but she didn't think they would be some aces.
Fontaine waved his wand and the dummies and ground restored itself quickly. Then he stood silently for a moment.
"I've heard about what happened yesterday." She said, but he didn't sound that serious. "You are in no trouble, and this will just be dropped."
What? Why would it be dropped, I fainted. "Professor, do you know what happened with me?" she felt that there was more to it.
He held his hands behind his back and looked at Fila." I do, but I don't think it time for you to hear it, and not from me either." He said, "You will need to talk with your grandfather if you want the answers." He said and with his words the place got really cold. But only for Fila.
But as she thought she would be angry or sad, she suppressed it. "well I quess that will wait then." She said as she stood up and grabbed her note book. "I'm in no hurry to see him" she said as she walked out through the doors.
She walked the corridor, still sweaty.
I'm not about to go talk to some mad idiot just because something happened, I will figure it out myself.