The week that followed was the longest, grayest seven days of Fila's life. The Headmaster's "advice" had settled in her stomach like lead.
By Thursday, the Great Hall felt less like a dining room and more like a cage.
"Fila, you're stabbing that potato like it's trying to run from you," Milles remarked, leaning back and eyeing her warily. "The potato hasn't done anything to you. It's a neutral party."
Fila didn't even look up. Her white dragon-skin gloves were pulled tight, the leather slightly stained with the juice of a particularly aggressive species of Fanged Geranium she'd been cultivating in secret. "I'm not hungry."
"You haven't been 'hungry' since your birthday," Calla noted, her voice dropping its usual teasing edge. She reached out, her fingers hovering near Fila's wrist before she thought better of it. "You've been...distant. What did the Headmaster say to you in the training hall? You haven't been the same since."
"He told me to be a good girl," Fila said, her voice a flat, dangerous rasp. She finally looked up, her eyes dark and sunken from lack of sleep. "He told me that winning would be 'bad for the optics.' That the world isn't ready for a Grindelwald who actually knows how to fight."
The table went silent. Even June, who was usually a fountain of relentless optimism, stopped mid-chew.
"He told you to throw the match?" Theo asked, his jaw tightening. He looked toward the High Table, where the Headmaster was calmly sipping tea. "That's... that's low, even for him."
"It's safe," Fila corrected, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "It's very, very safe. If I lose, I'm just a tragic footnote. If I win, I'm a threat. And apparently, Ilvermorny doesn't want to house a threat."
A heavy, suffocating sadness seemed to roll off her, thicker than the morning mist over Mount Greylock. It wasn't just anger; it was the bone-deep exhaustion of a girl who had spent the last years trying to prove she wasn't a monster, only to be told that her success was the most monstrous thing about her.
"Fila," June whispered, reaching over to squeeze her hand. "You aren't going to listen to him, are you?"
Fila stood up abruptly and stormed out of the hall, leaving her friends sitting there.
Theo looked as the black haired flower stormed out. "I will talk with her." He told the others as he stood. He knew best how to handle this, Theo was the kind of guy who secretly really cared about Fila. Like a big brother.
Theo caught up to her in the West Corridor, where the afternoon sun was slashing through the tall windows in sharp, jagged triangles. He didn't call her name—he knew her well enough to know she'd just walk faster—instead, he simply matched her pace, his hands shoved deep into his pockets.
For a long minute, the only sound was the rhythmic thud-thud of their boots against the stone.
"You're not actually considering it," Theo said finally, his voice low and steady. It wasn't a question. "You're not the 'tragic footnote' type, Fila. You're more the 'set the book on fire' type."
Fila stopped so abruptly that Theo overshot her by two steps. She turned to face him, her face pale, the dark circles under her eyes making her look hauntingly like the portraits she tried so hard to ignore.
"What am I supposed to do, Theo?" she whispered, the 'birthday-grump' armor finally cracking to reveal the raw exhaustion underneath. "The Headmaster, the MACUSA... they all want a version of me that doesn't exist. They want me to be a garden rose with the thorns clipped off. And if I don't clip them myself, they'll do it for me."
She looked down at the white dragon-skin gloves he had given her. The leather was scuffed from her hours in the training hall, a silent testament to how hard she had worked to find her own way to fight.
"He's right about one thing," she said, her voice trembling slightly. "If I win, I stop being Ophelia the student. I become Ophelia the Heir. Every person I duel, every spell I cast... they'll see him."
Theo stepped closer, his shadow falling over her. He didn't offer a platitude or a hug. He just looked at her with a grim, brothers-in-arms kind of intensity.
"Let them see him," Theo said firmly. "Let them look and see a Grindelwald. And then, while they're busy being afraid of a ghost, you show them something they've never seen before. You show them your magic. Not his fire, Fila. Your forest."
He reached out and tapped the internal wrist of her glove, right where her name was embroidered in shimmering thread.
"I didn't buy these for a girl who throws matches," he reminded her. "I bought them for a girl who wins. If the school won't protect you, then we will. Me, Milles, Calla, June and Elliot. We're the ones who have to live with you, not the Headmaster. And I'd much rather live with a 'dangerous' champion than a miserable martyr."
Fila looked at him, the heavy, suffocating sadness in her chest shifting, just a little, into something sharper. Something that felt like a thorn.
"You're a pain, Theo," she muttered, wiping her eyes with the back of her gloved hand.
The pain and sadness settled a little. Not to make it disappear, but to actually have a good couple of hours at least.
But she still needed a moment for herself. So she walked with slow steps towards the old training yard, where she had made a fully enclosed hall. It still drew many students to come and relax. It even had gotten the name, Ophelias hall. It was mostly students saying it but the professors seems to have caught on as well.
She made a new chair near the edge of the yard. There were a few students still here enjoying the afternoon sun. probably studying towards the finals.
Honestly she had dropped the studying. The feeling of repeating something for the eleventh time made her feel angry and annoyed. One time she even threw her book into the fireplace forcing her to buy a new one.
A soft rustle at her feet caught her attention. A small, pale flower was pushing through the grass, its petals a translucent white that almost glowed in the fading sunlight. It wasn't one she had specifically asked for.
She reached down, her gloved fingers trembling slightly. As she touched the petal, the flower didn't just bloom; it shuddered. It felt... brittle. Like it was made of glass.
"You too?" she whispered, her voice barely a breath. "Told to stay small so you don't break?"
The magic she possessed often did this, making flowers depending on her mood. But making flower on specific things she felt is quite new. Even the black flower just a couple of days ago.
The flower grew back into its stem as she held it close and leaned back into her chair. The reason she came to this place was because she needed to send a letter.
During this summer she wanted to visit her grandpa. Sensitive? Maybe. did she care? No.
Fila wanted him to train her, not just in magic. But in other aspects as well. As someone who used to have basically his own army, that shouldn't be a huge pain for the old man.
But of course she wasn't just going to come out of nowhere with a request like that. Since her coma, he hadn't sent a single letter. And hadn't even responded to any letter that Elsbeth and Rowan had sent either. The reason for this? no clue.
The letter wasn't very long, only saying that she is coming to stay for a bit during the summer. And she would come on the last day of school.
It barley covered half a page.
Fila stared at the sparse lines on the parchment. It felt less like a request and more like a summons, a trait she had clearly inherited, whether she liked it or not.
And with a sharp whistle an owl came and picked up the letter before flying out of a small opening in the roof made of vines.
Ordering her grandpa to welcome her into his prison or home that looks like a prison. Funny how things work.
As the coming weeks went by in a blur of Fila sitting with almost the whole Thunderbird tower, teaching young and old students what a charm is and how it isn't a hex. Or well maybe it is. The difference is really small, more just that one hurts and the other doesn't.
"Look," Fila said, her voice dry as she adjusted her white dragon-skin gloves. "If you flick your wrist like you're trying to swat a fly, the birds will come out angry. If you want them to just... exist, keep it smooth."
She demonstrated with a lazy wave of her hand. A flurry of small, jade-colored sparrows erupted from the tip of her wand, circling a first-year's head before settling on a nearby vine.
"See? Not a hex," she muttered, though she didn't miss the way the birds' beaks looked just a little sharper than they should have been.
It was a strange, quiet rhythm. The grand, suffocating drama of her lineage and the Headmaster's warnings hadn't vanished, but they had been pushed into the background by the mundane chaos of school life. She spent her mornings dodging Milles' attempts to "borrow" her notes and her afternoons sitting with Calla and June, who were currently obsessed with predicting which professors would be the most "bloodthirsty" during finals.
"Professor Ward definitely has a vendetta against anyone who breathes too loudly," June sighed, slumped over a mountain of parchment. "I saw him sharpening his grading quill yesterday. It looked like a dagger."
"He's just efficient, June," Calla replied, not looking up from her book. "Fila, are you coming to lunch? It's Friday, which means the House Elves usually make that cranberry tart you actually like."
She shook her head. "No, im a different person now. Since they served that raspberry pie last Friday." It had been so sour which she loved. She didn't like sweet things too much.
"Calla is just trying to make you plump." June laughed. "She said that she thinks you would look cute with a little more body fat around your face, like a chipmunk."
Calla stood and hurried over to cover Junes mouth before she could say more. While covering Junes mouth she turned to look at Fila for damage control.
"She's clearly delusional, I will take her to madam Thorne." June struggled at the grip of Calla who was now dragging June out of the dorm.
Fila sat on her bed. She looked down at her stomach and pinched it. "did I get fat?"
Fila stared at the small fold of skin between her fingers for a long, quiet moment. In the dim light of the dormitory, with the sounds of Calla's frantic "damage control" fading down the spiral staircase, she felt a rare, fleeting sense of being a normal teenage girl. No dark lords, no dueling quotas, just a sudden, irrational concern about raspberry pie and facial volume.
She let go of her stomach and sighed, falling back onto her pillows. "If I'm a chipmunk, I'm a damn cute one." she said proudly.
By the time she finally could relax, or thought she could. Finals had arrived in the middle of May.
Fila stood in the green house in front of Professor Nyra. This time Fila had been given a rather different test. Last year she got the finals for a couple years over her, only because the professor knew she could handle it. but this finals was a unique test just for her.
And the test included a underwater plant. Gillyweed.
A plant that if consumed would basically turn you into a fish, or mermaid, the specification was a bit different from person to person.
What the test included was to show how to take proper care of the plant, how to tend to it, when it was ready for harvest.
"Professor, you do know that its too cold for it" Fila said while feeling the water. The underwater plant was native to the Mediterranean Sea, so it needed warmer water. And a little more salt.
Fila shook her head towards the professor. "And here I thought you cared for you plants…" she said jokingly.
Professor Nyra didn't even look up from her clipboard, though the corner of her mouth twitched. "I care for the ones that don't have a personal tutor with a knack for atmospheric manipulation. Fix the water, Miss Grindelwald. That's why you're here."
Fila sighed, but there was no real heat behind it. She reached out, her bare fingers dipping into the tank. The water was biting, proper Massachusetts mountain cold, and the Gillyweed was looking decidedly pathetic, its slimy, rat-tail-like fibers huddled together in a grey-green clump.
She didn't reach for her wand. Instead, she let that low hum of magic in her chest bleed down her arms. She pictured the sun hitting the coast of Greece, the way the salt crusts on the rocks, and the deep, heavy warmth of a stagnant tide pool.
Slowly, the water in the tank began to shimmer. A soft, golden heat radiated from her fingertips, and she felt the Gillyweed begin to unfurl. It stretched out like a waking sleeper, its fibers turning a vibrant, healthy silver-green. With her other hand, she reached into a nearby jar of coarse sea salt and sprinkled a precise amount into the swirl she was creating with her magic.
"It needs to breathe," Fila murmured, more to herself than the professor. She gently brushed the silt away from the delicate nodes. "If the water stays still, it rots. It needs a current."
Under her touch, the water began to circulate in a gentle, warm vortex. The Gillyweed didn't just look better; it looked like it was thriving in a way it never could in a standard school greenhouse.
After giving the plant the care it needed and talking with Naya about harvesting and aftercare. She was released with outstanding marks.
"The Chipmunk Queen returns!" Milles shouted, waving a sandwich at her from a stone bench where he was lazily 'studying' with Theo and Elliot.
Fila rolled her eyes but couldn't stop the small smile. "If you call me that in front of the first-years, Milles, I'll show you exactly how 'aggressive' a Fanged Geranium can get."
"She's in a good mood," Theo noted, closing his Arithmancy book. He looked at her bare, slightly damp hands—the white gloves were tucked into her belt. "Outstanding marks?"
"The Gillyweed lived," Fila said, dropping onto the bench beside them. "And Professor Nyra basically told me to go away before I turned her greenhouse into a spa. So, yes. Outstanding."
"Good," Theo said, his expression softening into that big-brother look he wore when he was actually being serious.
Fila looked around. "where is Calla and June?"
Elliot finished shewing on his sandwich, which now Fila realized. How did they even get sandwiches.
"They went to the library to get some final study time before the dark arts finals this afternoon." Elliot and Calla had actually become official, the whole school already knew but good for them Fila wasn't jealous at all but June looked like she wanted to strangle them when they cuddled on the couches.
"They're dedicated, I'll give them that," Fila said, leaning her head back to catch the fleeting New England sun. "Though if Calla spends another hour memorizing the counter-curse for Incarcerous, her brain might actually short-circuit. She was reciting it in her sleep last night."
"Better than June," Milles added, grinning as he offered Fila a corner of a spare sandwich—turkey and cranberry, a classic Ilvermorny staple. "She's convinced that the Dark Arts final is going to involve a surprise duel with a Boggart. She's been practicing her 'intimidating face' in the mirror for twenty minutes."
Fila took the sandwich piece, noting it wasn't raspberry, but it would do. "If she makes that face at a Boggart, it'll probably just turn into a puppy out of sheer confusion."
The group lapsed into a comfortable silence, the kind that only comes when the hardest part of the year is behind you. The courtyard was buzzing with the sound of distant laughter and the rhythmic thump-thump of a Quidditch ball being tossed around by some Pukwudgies near the tree line.
Theo leaned back on his elbows, watching a pair of swallows dive-bomb a stray crust of bread. "So, the library, then? Or are we going to actually enjoy the fact that we aren't currently being tested on our ability to not die?"
"I should probably go find them," Fila said, standing up and brushing crumbs off her robes. "If June is really that stressed, she'll start eating the parchment.
She began to walk toward the massive oak doors of the Great Hall, her boots clicking softly on the stone. She felt Theo's gaze on her back, the silent, protective watch he always kept.
The library was cool and smelled of vanilla and old leather. She found June and Calla tucked away in a back corner, surrounded by a literal wall of books. June was indeed making a very strange, narrowed-eye face at a diagram of a Red Cap, while Calla was whispering incantations under her breath so fast it sounded like a beehive.
"Break time," Fila announced, dropping her bag on the table with a heavy thud.
Calla jumped a foot into the air. "Fila! Don't do that! I almost cast a Leg-Locker curse on the librarian!"
The dark arts finals were like any other, a written part and than a practical part.
As the students were franticly writing down answer after answer, Fila sat there leaning her head into her arm while writing with the other. The questions were very basic, and if you focused you could even see that the first question were things the professor had gone through in the first month of class. This made Fila feel good about actually listening in class.
But. The biggest problem, she was in a coma for half the term.
Catching up hadn't been easy and she had almost given up on even learning everything, but than someone else would get first spot on the ranking for her year and she couldn't have that.
The thought about seeing the Grindelwald name at the top made her smile for herself. Maybe she would even get a meddle like last year for being the best student to be in a coma.
The Practical Final
The training hall was filled with the low hum of nervous energy. Students stood in pairs, the air smelling faintly of ozone and floor wax. Professor Hale paced the center, his eyes scanning the room like a hawk looking for a mouse.
"Miss Grindelwald," Hale called out. "Center circle. You'll be paired with Mr. Vance."
Vance was a tall, sturdy student from Pukwudgie house who looked like he'd rather be anywhere else. He gave Fila a respectful, if slightly terrified, nod. Fila stepped into the circle, pulling her white dragon-skin gloves snug. She didn't look at the High Table; she just focused on the weight of her wand.
"Begin," Hale commanded.
Vance was quick, sending a standard Stupefy her way. Fila didn't even move her feet. She flicked her wand in a lazy arc, and instead of a Shield Charm, the stone floor between them suddenly sprouted a thick, lush carpet of moss. Vance's second spell went wild as his feet slid out from under him.
He scrambled to find his balance, but Fila was already moving. She didn't use any dark hexes or "scary" magic. She pointed her wand at the air above him. "Avis."
A flurry of small, jade-colored birds erupted from her wand. They didn't attack; they just fluttered in a tight, confusing whirlwind around Vance's head. He tried to swat them away, laughing despite himself. "Hey! I can't see!"
"Expelliarmus," Fila said softly. His wand flew into her gloved hand before he even realized he'd lost it.
"Match to Miss Grindelwald," Hale announced, a small, approving twitch appearing at the corner of his mouth. "Creative use of charms, Ophelia. And thank you for not turning the hall into a swamp this time."
By the time the sun began to dip behind the mountains, the stress of the day had melted into a cozy, exhausted glow. The Thunderbird dormitory was a mess of half-packed trunks and stray socks.
Fila was sprawled across her bed, the paper bag of sour raspberry treats from June sitting between her and the others. Calla was sitting cross-legged, finally letting her hair down from its tight study-braid, while June was busy trying to fit a suspiciously large stuffed owl into her suitcase.
The finals were over. Everything had gone better than expected, even getting an outstanding in potions which is a miracle. Professor Crowley must have been in a very good mood.
Tomorrow would be the ceremony before heading home.