CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE - Tricks and Secrets

Two days after their meeting at Hogsmeade, Umbridge enacted the Educational Decree Number Twenty-four, forbidding all organisations, societies, teams, groups or clubs to meet without the knowledge and approval of the High Inquisitor herself.

Attuoria, Harry, Ron and Hermione immediately knew that their meeting had been watched. But who it was, they had no idea. Hermione had put a curse on the list of signatures so that anyone who betrays information about the group will grow a large amount of pimples, but no one showed up to class with an unusual breakout of zits on their face.

That very same day, Harry got a reply from Sirius, but there was clear evidence that someone had attempted (or even successfully) intercepted the mail.

After dinner, Attuoria and her friends sat by the fire in the common room, waiting for Sirius's head to pop back up through the flames. He was due to show up at around twelve fifty in the morning.

While Harry tackled an extra Potions essay he was assigned, the rest of the common room was bustling with commotion. Fred and George had finally perfected their Puking Pastilles, and was giving the entire house a good show. They would take a bite of the orange end of the pastille, launch out a projectile of vomit into a bucket, before forcing down the leftover purple chew, and then straighten up as if nothing had happened. People cheered and whooped, trying placing their orders with the twins before they ran out of stock.

"Can't you just go and stop them?" Harry said irritably, scratching out something on his parchment with his quill. Hermione had been taking loud, disapproving sniffs for the past ten minutes straight.

"I can't, they're not technically doing anything wrong." Hermione said through gritted teeth.

Harry glanced at Attuoria, exasperated. "Can you please get your boyfriend to stop?"

"You think there's any stopping this guy?" Attuoria said amusingly, her arms crossed in front of her chest as she watched Fred retch into a bucket. He ate a purple pastille, and then raised his arms up proudly. "That is definitely no good for his digestive system. Isn't that technically dangerous?" Attuoria pointed out, glancing at Hermione.

"How?"

"If you vomit once or twice, I suppose it's harmless. But look at them, how many times have they demonstrated their vomiting trick? Four, five times each? They're practically forcing it out at this point. Forceful vomiting can cause tearing of the lining of your esophagus. If it tears, it can bleed, which can sometimes be life-threatening." Attuoria practically recited out a line from the human body science textbook that was stored in her memory.

Ron stared at her as if she had just spoken an alien language, while Harry and Hermione looked shocked.

"Really? You guys never learned human body systems in biology?" said Attuoria. But once the words left her mouth, she realised that she was in Wizard school, not muggle school. "Nevermind."

She stood up and headed over to the twins, pushing through the crowd of laughing kids. Just as Fred was about to down another orange pastille, Attuoria quickly snatched it out of his hand.

"Hey! What - Oh hey," said Fred, grinning widely when he saw her standing in front of him. "Come to watch the show? I know you were watching me from there. Can't keep your eyes off me, can you?"

"Oh yeah," said Attuoria, pulling out a new tone of sarcasm she had learned from her friends. "You're sooo attractive when you're puking."

"Mm, that's how you know you really like me." Fred said, ignoring the sarcasm in her voice.

"Jeez guys, stop acting so fluffy in front of the children," said George, making a weird face at the many younger students that were staring at Fred and Attuoria with wide eyes.

"Right." Attuoria spun around so that she was facing the kids. "Show's over, place your orders. But just a heads up, if you're going to use these, please refrain yourself from taking more than two a day."

The students immediately lined up in front of Lee Jordan, who was holding a clipboard and jotting down the names of the students. George stood next to him, collecting all the kid's money in a wooden box.

"What's wrong with taking more than two a day?" asked Fred. "George and I took about seven each, and we're just fine."

"For now you're fine. Ultimately, puking isn't good for your health. You shouldn't risk your health just to put on a show for little kids."

"It was fun though, and worth it. Look at how much money we got," Fred beckoned to the box George was holding, which was getting fuller and fuller with gold coins.

"Just please take care of yourself." Attuoria said with a sigh, bringing her gaze back to Fred. She handed him the pastille she had taken from him before slinking back over to her seat by the fire.

"Well done," said Harry, not looking up at her as he continued writing his essay.

Attuoria gave him a nod despite knowing he wasn't looking at her, and glanced over at Ron. He looked like he was about to fall asleep. Hermione was reading a book. There was still almost an hour before Sirius was to show up.

Laying back on her armchair, she pulled out her wand. Whenever Attuoria got bored, she would play around with spells. That's how she learned to cast nonverbal spells. Just saying the incantations over and over in her head made it easier for her to perform magic.

She pointed her wand at Ron's hair, watching him doze off. "Colovaria," Ron's hair turned a light shade of lilac. "Nope. Colovaria." Bright sky blue. "Oh no. Colovaria." Platinum blonde. "Hey look, it's Malfoy. Hermione, look - Finite!" Attuoria quickly reverted Ron hair back to normal when she felt a hand clasp down onto her shoulder.

"Did I just see our wittle brother with blonde hair?" said Fred, trying to push Attuoria off her chair.

"Hey! What are you doing?" Attuoria whined as she got yanked out of her seat. Fred sat down on her armchair and smiled at Attuoria cheekily.

"Sit," he said.

"I've got nowhere to sit."

"Here." He patted his lap.

"I'm not going to sit on you, are you even okay with that? Wouldn't I be hurting you?"

"Aw come on," Fred leaned out and grabbed Attuoria by the arm, trying to pull her over. She tried to resist, but it was no use. She was now sitting on one side of the armchair with her legs over Fred's. It wasn't exactly comfortable, but seeing that Fred wanted it, she didn't say anything.

"Why are you guys staying up?" George asked, standing next to Harry.

"Um, we're just keeping Harry company while he writes his essay," Hermione said, glancing over at Harry's parchment, which he had made little progress on.

"Ron's asleep," Fred pointed out.

"I am aware." Hermione said dryly.

"You guys should go to sleep, too. Who cares about Snape's essay."

Harry groaned, throwing down his quill. "Snape hates me so much."

"I can write it for you," Attuoria suggested.

"No, you can't," Hermione immediately said. "Your style of writing is very distinct, you write everything like it's an instruction manual. If you wrote Harry's essay for him, Snape would easily be able to tell who wrote it. Then both of you would get in trouble, and Snape is already giving Harry enough trouble."

"With Snape teaching Potions, I don't even care about my O.W.L.s anymore." Harry rolled up his parchment and put the cap on his ink bottle.

"That's the spirit! George and I only got three O.W.L.s each, and look at us, we're doing just fine," said Fred, giving George and air high-five.

"You guys definitely deserve more than three O.W.L.s," said Harry. "You really know your stuff."

"Only bits and bobs," George shrugged. "Enough for us to get by, though. Fred, let's get to sleep, shall we?"

"Alright George," said Fred, and Attuoria hopped off his lap so that he could get up. ��Wanna come, too, Attuoria?"

"To sleep?"

"Yeah," he replied, "with me," he then quickly added. George let out a weird spitting noise.

"With you? Are girls even allowed in boys dorms?" Attuoria asked.

"Yes they are," said Harry, casting Hermione a look. This morning he and Ron had tried to run into the girls dorm to find Hermione, but were forced out when the staircase turned into a slide. "But boys aren't allowed in girls dorms."

"So are you coming?" Fred asked again.

"Sure."

"Attuoria!" Hermione cried over the immediate laughter from Harry, Fred and George.

"What?" Attuoria said with a frown. Sleeping was sleeping. She didn't think there was anything wrong about sleeping with someone. Although it was pretty pointless, because there would be no social interaction involved when both people were asleep.

"Your girl needs a lot of protecting," said George, his laughter dying down. He gave Attuoria a serious look. "You do know that sleeping with someone can mean two different things, right?"

Attuoria nodded. "Yeah, you go to sleep with someone. The other one... Well, I know there's another one, but I have no idea what it's supposed to mean."

George glanced at Fred. "You should show her -"

"Shut up!" Fred immediately yelled, and Harry started laughing again. He turned back to Attuoria and said gently, "You're welcome to come over any time, if you want to." Fred gave her a quick peck on the forehead before dragging George up the stairs to the boys dorm. George's loud "aww"-ing slowly faded as they shut the door behind them.

"Fred is actually so in love with you," Hermione said with a sigh.

"In love? No way." To Attuoria, love was such a strong emotion she couldn't begin to imagine someone being in love with her. She had no idea what love even looked like. All she knew was that love was extremely powerful. It was something that could change a person entirely.

"Well he definitely really likes you." said Harry.

"Why would he even like me? I still don't get it." Attuoria sank back into her chair, staring at the fire. She wasn't even human. She didn't think she was a fun person to be around, either. Most of her time was spent thinking and asking questions that other people thought were stupid. She couldn't even tell if something was a joke, an insult, or a compliment.

Fred, on the other hand, was always full of energy and ideas, and his charisma was through the roof. Everyone knew who he was, and everyone wanted to be his friend. He had so much life in him, and that was something that made him more human than others.

Attuoria knew why she liked him so much. Coming from a world where everyone fed off of negative energy, she was attracted to his positive energy, and his eagerness to live life to the fullest. It was such a new feeling, a good feeling, to be around Fred. That's why she couldn't get enough of him.

She was smiling again. The mere thought of Fred made her happy. Was that love?

No, it can't be, she told herself. Love is too hard for me to understand. It's too human. I'm just attracted to him, that's all. I'm just curious.

Suddenly, Ron's voice pulled her out of her thoughts. "It's Sirius!"

All four of them immediately scrambled down onto the carpet by the fire. And there he was again, Sirius Black with his dark locks hanging over the sides of his face.

"Hi," he said, grinning.

"Hi," the four of them chortled.

Sirius asked how school was, and mentioned their secret Defense Against the Dark Arts group. Turns out, a man named Mundungus Fletcher had been listening to their meeting from the corner of the pub. He had reported all the details to "the order", which was something Attuoria heard her three friends mention a lot, but they never explained to her what it is. That was a part of their secret.

"Speaking of the order," said Sirius after passing on a message from Mrs Weasley to Ron. "You guys can stop hiding it from Attuoria. I'm assuming you already know all about the Order?" He said casually.

Attuoria frowned. "No, I don't, actually."

"Really?" Sirius had that suspicious look on his face again as he questioned her skeptically. Attuoria suddenly realised what he meant. He didn't know she could read minds, but he knew about her possible affiliation with Voldemort. Sirius suspected she was collecting and leaking all kinds of information to the Dark Lord.

Humans and their unfounded assumptions, Attuoria thought to herself.

"I really don't. You said so yourself, they were hiding it from me."

"But that doesn't mean you couldn't have secretly listened in on their conversations."

"I respect my friends' privacy." Attuoria said coolly. She understood why he didn't trust her, after all, she was somehow connected to the Malfoys. But she didn't like how he doubted her integrity. She might not have emotions, but she was still an honest, fair person.

Eager to disperse the rising tension, Ron pulled the conversation away from Attuoria. "Sirius, you said my mother was on duty. On duty doing what?"

"Don't you worry about that, just stuff for the Order." Sirius said a little bit too quickly, which Attuoria immediately caught on. She entered his mind and found out that Molly Weasley was currently guarding a special door to a place called the Department of Mysteries. It was the same door that the man named Sturgis Podmore had tried to break into.

The name sounded so familiar, but to her surprise, she couldn't remember where she heard it.

What was so important about this door?

The question lingered on her mind as her friends began discussing possible meeting places for the Defense Against the Dark Arts club.

Sirius knew a few good secret spots from his time at Hogwarts, but neither of them were spacey enough for thirty people to be in at the same time.

"Well I'll have to get back to you about it," said Sirius. "Maybe we could -"

Suddenly, his head disappeared from the fire and was replaced by a stubby hand. Pink furry sleeves could be seen near the bottom of the flames, and all four of them gasped in realisation.

Umbridge.

They scrambled up as fast as they could and bolted for the dormitories. Hermione slammed the door shut behind them once they reached their room, the two of them panting heavily.

"What's the matter with you two?" Parvati asked. She was sitting on Lavender's bed (as usual), rolling up her friend's brown curls with socks.

Hermione ignored her and turned to Attuoria. "How would she have known? The letter she read from Harry's owl only said same time, same place. How could she know?"

"She tapped the Floo Network," said Attuoria. "It can't be too hard, since she's a ministry official. Not many people at Hogwarts use floo powder in the first place."

"But - But she can't do that! That's an invasion of privacy!"

"Not when you're the Hogwarts High Inquisitor." Attuoria pointed out. Hermione let out another groan and flung her arms up in frustration.

"I hate that woman!" She cried, pulling at her hair and making it even messier than it was.

Attuoria patted her friend on the back gently. "Don't worry. We're going to make this the worst year of her life."

"Count me in!" Parvati chortled.

"Me too!" said Lavender, waving her sock at them.

Attuoria smiled at the two and turned back to Hermione. "See? She's going to regret ever coming to Hogwarts."

Hermione's angered expression slowly faded, and was replaced with a smirk. "Then we better find a meeting place."

***

"I've found it," Harry said proudly to his friends on one thundering morning.

"Found what?" asked Ron.

"A place. For our meetings. Dobby told me yesterday."

"Dobby told you?" said Attuoria, scrunching her nose up in thought. "Isn't Dobby that weird little house elf you freed from the Malfoys during your second year?"

"Mhm," Harry hummed. They were on their way to potions, which usually put Harry in a bad mood, but today he was more excited than ever.

"I don't know about that, Harry," said Hermione. "Dobby's plans have never been very safe. Remember how he made you lose all the bones in your arm?"

"Well, Dumbledore knows about the room too." Harry said with a huff.

"Dumbledore told you?"

"He sort of mentioned it."

Hermione didn't protest any further as they entered their classroom in the dungeon. Today's lesson was for students to brew a Sleeping Draught. Attuoria was used to Snape completely ignoring her existence, but today, it was different. Snape was actually paying attention to her. A little too much. To the point where she wondered if he had mixed her up with Harry.

He tried to nitpick at the smallest things, which was difficult, because Attuoria barely made mistakes.

"Knight! The texture of your paste is wrong. It says four sprigs of lavender, you've added too much." Snape scolded, vanishing the pale purple substance from her mortar with a wave of his wand.

Attuoria blankly stared at her now-empty bowl. "I added four sprigs," she said calmly, glancing up at the Professor. He glared right back at her with those menacing, dark eyes.

"Then it should've turned out correct. Do it again." He turned away sharply to the Slytherin table.

"I saw you add four sprigs. There was nothing wrong," Hermione whispered. She pushed another handful of lavender towards Attuoria. "Here, use mine."

"Thanks," Attuoria mumbled, carefully picking out four slender stems of lavender and dropping them into her mortar.

Snape looked me in the eye. He never does that, Attuoria thought to herself as she scooped out two measures of standard ingredients. He doesn't want his mind to be read. Unless…

Attuoria's eyes widened in realisation.

She quickly dumped five blobs of Flobberworm Mucus into her cauldron before adding another large handful of Standard Ingredients.

"Attuoria, what -"

Her half-crushed paste of lavender and herbs were poured in as well. The fire underneath her cauldron flared vibrantly, immediately heating all the contents of her potion until it began to sizzle.

"Knight!" Snape hollered from across the classroom. "What do you think you're doing?" He trudged over and vanished the burning hot mess inside Attuoria's cauldron.

"Making the Sleeping Draught, sir." said Attuoria, flicking her gaze towards the laughing Slytherins.

"Likely story, it looked more like a barbeque to me." Snape sneered, giving her a hard look in the eye. The Slytherins cackled even louder.

"I have a message for you from the Dark Lord," said Snape in his thoughts. "The least suspicious way for us to discuss this matter is through a detention. It would be easy if you acted as obnoxious and stupid as Potter did, but you always act like that know-it-all Granger."

It was a message from Voldemort. And by the tone of Snape's thoughts, it was urgent. Attuoria knew what she had to do.

"If you hadn't vanished the paste I made, I probably would've been halfway through by now." Attuoria said, mimicking the way Harry talked when he was angry.

"Are you saying that this is my fault?" Snape said, his lips curling. She could tell he was satisfied.

"Yes." Attuoria stood up from her chair. A few people around the classroom gasped. The entire room watched with their breathes held as she stomped over to the Slytherin table, stopping in between where Draco and Goyle sat. "I suppose I should thank you, actually. It seems you don't care too much about the education of the students in your own house." Attuoria pulled out her wand and pointed it at Goyle's cauldron. A gooey lump of unevenly crushed herbs and purple-tinged Flobberworm Mucus levitated out of the pot. The edges of it were singed, like a burnt marshmallow. "Now that's a hell of a barbeque, isn't it?"

"Mind your words, Knight." Snape drawled, folding his arms across his chest. He was enjoying the show. She scowled at him, thoroughly annoyed now.

Attuoria turned towards Draco's cauldron. His potion was perfect. She glanced at him. He kept a straight face, but looked slightly intimidated.

"Sorry," she muttered under her breath before raising her wand up again. The Slytherins around her flinched. "And Malfoy, here. Have you been spooning instructions to him like a little baby? Even Hermione hasn't started the brewing process of her potion yet, and we all know she's your best student. So what's your trick for Malfoy? Pre-measured ingredients? Did you even make his paste for him?"

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Draco's knuckles turn white as he clenched his fist. She was going to have to apologise to him, later.

"Knight, I would advise you to sit back down before you cause anymore trouble." Snape was still stalling. Attuoria had no idea what he wanted her to do now. She thought her behaviour was already bad enough to earn her a detention.

"Professor," Pansy's whiny voice spoke up. "She's disturbing our work. Can you please ask her to leave the table?" She said, baring her teeth at Attuoria in a malicious smile.

They both looked to Snape, who was simply staring at Attuoria pointedly, as if asking her to do something about it. Attuoria could feel anger boiling up again. If he wanted her to cross the line, then she was going to cross it. And what better way of doing that than on the girl who groundlessly insulted her on the first day of school?

"You're one to talk," Attuoria snapped at Pansy, who immediately looked taken aback. "What's in your cauldron, huh?" With a flick of her wand, she tipped over Pansy's cauldron. One blob of Flobberworm Mucus Slowly oozed out onto the table. Pansy's face turned bright red. "Won't you look at that. You haven't even finished the first step! Why? Too busy ogling over Malfoy?"

"How dare you!" Pansy stood up, her stool falling back behind her. "You - You're no better! Going around spreading lies about how Draco was so madly in love with you, and then, and then - now you're dating that blood-traitor Weasley - You're nothing but a slut! A SLUT!" Pansy snatched the Flobberworm Mucus off the table and threw it at Attuoria. But with two quick waves of her wand, the mucus projectile vanished-

And so did Pansy's mouth. Below her nose was now nothing but a flat surface of skin, with no evidence of her lips ever being there.

The Slytherin girls around her immediately began screaming, and the boys scrambled away from her. Cauldrons were spilled and sprigs of plants were on fire. Pansy's eyes widened as she furiously clawed at the bottom half of her face, desperately trying to bring back the mouth she once had.

"Enough!" Snape shouted, finally satisfied with the damage Attuoria had done. He waved his arms and the big mess on the table disappeared. The Slytherins were all backed up in a corner of the dungeon, peering at their deformed housemate with fear in their eyes. "Ten points from Gryffindor and detention this afternoon. Reverse the spell on Ms Parkinson right now or else I will deduct even more points and extend your detention to a week."

"Yes, Professor," Attuoria mumbled. She pointed her wand at Pansy, who recoiled so suddenly she hit the shelves behind her. "Finite."

The layer of skin peeled away and Pansy's mouth returned to her face. She touched her lips unbelievingly for a second before it registered in her head what had just happened.

"YOU ABSOLUTE BI -"

The bell rang, cutting off whatever word she was about to say. Snape hastily grabbed onto the back of Pansy's robe just as she was about to pounce onto Attuoria, and roughly propped her onto the stool.

"In my office at five, Knight."

"O-kay Professor," Attuoria said in a bored tone, walking off to her table. She was so done with playing along with his tricks.

Her friends were on her heel the moment they left the classroom.

"What was that all about? Hermione hissed, trying to keep up with Attuoria's fast pace.

"Bloody brilliant, if I have anything to say about it," said Ron, a wide grin on his face. Due to the thunderstorm, breaks were now indoors, and the four of them entered a classroom with the rest of the upper-year Gryffindors.

"That was probably the first and only interesting potions class I've ever had," said Harry. "Like Ron said, bloody brilliant. What came over you there?"

Attuoria shrugged.

"Yes, okay, very funny indeed," said Hermione, slamming her hand down on the table in front of Attuoria's face. "But now Attuoria's landed herself in detention, and we have our first meeting at eight o'clock tonight."

"I'll be there." said Attuoria.

"Will you?"

"Relax, Hermione," said Ron, leaning over the table and whacking Hermione's arm with his copy of One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi. "I'm sure Attuoria knows what she's doing."

Attuoria gave Ron a grateful nod before staring back out the window, watching each droplet of rain pelt onto the glass like darts being randomly thrown at a target.