Chapter One: Two lies still don't make one truth
Haley Versailes was bored.
Stuck wandering around the ancient and draft riddled castle while her father was in a meeting with the board of governors, she had nothing to do.
The castle was so strange in contrast to the noisy streets of London. Don't get her wrong, Hogwarts was beautiful and all, especially the view out of the stained glass windows. But creepy at the same time, the dead silence of the corridors so sharp in contrast from her people filled pavements, it was disconcerening. Growing up in a city full of noise Haley was used to subways full of sarcastic passengers and rude people elbowing her in the street.
To make matters worse, Haley's mp3 player wasn't working, it had started acting weird the moment they had got into Hogsmede, but now it was on full shut down- she could only pray it was okay. And obviously the ghosts had been of no use to her, apparently lying wasn't exactly approved of here, not that she'd all it lying, more like just not telling the truth - ughh this was a sucky day, about to get worse if the way the clouds were rolling in was any indication.
So here she was confined to the lower floor of the castle, exploring all the empty rooms she came across, filled with dust and cobwebs, along with the occasional unusual creature (she could have sworn she saw a giant spider earlier) impatiently waiting for this 2 day disaster to end.
At the end of the corridor, there was a staircase, something else thankfully, she would be thankful to get out of the freezing cold corridor, honestly it was like wizards had never heard of central heating. Running up the stairs, Haley made a huge show jumping over the cracks in the stone like the child she was and deliberately going as fast as she could up the spiral stairs, especially as these one's didn't move.
The second floor was exactly like the first, cold, airy and filled with absolutely nothing. A few empty classes lined the corridor, but the lack of screaming led her to believe there was no one on this floor, so she continued upwards to the third floor, wobbling on the uneven stone in her boots, this passage was a little less walked than the others, probably because it was further out the way which made the stone less polished by years of moody teenagers storming over it.
Yet again, the third floor was nearly an exact replica of the second and first, except now she was above tree level, so light flooded the empty corridors, staining the floor reds and greens, a row of closed classroom doors lined the hallway again, stretching off until the corridor sharply tuned right, all the doors locked except for the one at the end, and old wooden door with a deadbolt hanging open, noise coming out of the room.
Straightening out her muggle jeans and grey t shirt, in a pitiful attempt to not look like she'd just rolled into the first thing she found, Haley approached the door although removing her wand from her hair was probably also a good idea, along with praying no one noticed the copious amounts of holes in her blue jumper- family reputation to uphold and all that.
"Hello?" Asked Haley knocking on the door. A class full of her peers, roughly 14, stood in a semicircle, watching a man demonstrate how to neutralise a leg locking curse using a crudely drawn diagram on the chalkboard.
"Yes Miss?" He trailed off, waiting fir her to answer and Haley felt her mouth move with a mind of it's own, as per usual. Smith, Eva Smith. Haley tried to say but managed to correct herself last minute.
"Sm-Versailes, Haley Versailes, I wondering if you would let me watch your lesson, I'm a" Foreign exchange student whose parents are dead and is raised by an evil nanny. The voice inside her head automatically filled in.
Her hand twitched in an effort to not lie. "Home-school student you see."
The man's mechanical eye swivelled briefly and Haley resisted the urge to cross her arms over her chest as it felt like he was looking straight into her, slightly awkward, especially considering the way the eye seemed to move on its own, unknown to its owner. "Sure, just don't interrupt." he gestured for her to come inside.
"Thank you Professor Moody." Of course, she'd known who he was the moment his eye had started swivelling, Mad Eye Moody was a legend her father's employees sometimes talked about, whenever they were stuck 'watching her', the guy was practically a celebrity among the younger one's.
She stood at the back of the class, as he demonstarted how to counter it on a boy named Ron, who looked exceedingly nervous as Moody put him in the bind.
Across the classroom, she met the eyes if another boy, with a shock black hair and glasses who was looking nervously onto the scene in front of him, but then again, who could blame him, apparently Moody had a way of unsettling people, whether it be the excessive drinking or not. Green met blue and before Haley could even blink or avert her eyes, a spark of bright hot pain shocked her from her wrist. The boy stumbled back and she muffled a hiss of pain as the bracelet on her wrist began gripping her in a bruising embrace, getting unbearably tight nearly instantly. Pins and needles shooting up her numbing arm
She scrambled to undo the clasp and for a frightening second she couldn't get the magnetic clip undone, but thankfully it eventually loosened. Haley sighed in relief as it dropped into her palm, completely harmless. Now warming with energy, the innocent looking ruby in the centre, pulsed in time with her heartbeat, like the weird piece of protection charm her family heirloom was.
Across the room, the boy she had caught eyes with had stumbled into his bushy haired friend, and was being held aloft, gripping his forehead.
What an interesting reaction. Haley thought, slipping the bracelet into her pocket until it cooled down long enough for her to put it back on. Turning back to the lesson just In time for Haley to see Moody help the ginger boy up, undoing the charm on his legs, before staring to explain how this would be useful. Truthfully - not that it was something she was very good at- Haley had already learnt this from her defence tutor, who was insistent on a more practical approach to learning magic, and had skipped ahead to the curses section of her work.
"Miss. Versailes, since you're new to the lesson, how about you have a go with our next subject, the truth spell." the glint in Moody's normal eye told her he knew something about her 'condition' as he beckoned her up and she felt the airy, lost feeling often associated with the truth spell settle over he mind, trickling down her spine like that time Ava had cracked an egg on her head as a joke.
"I am going to ask you a few questions about yourself and you are going to try and lie, okay." He explained, cutting through the fogginess of her mind,
Truth spells made it so hard to focus and centre yourself that you didn't have the cognitive function to stop your brain to mouth filter blurting out the first thing you thought of when you heard, a certain trigger phrase, talented Wizards could trick people into telling them the truth. The theory was great, muggles 'truth gas' or Sodium Penthol was a similar acting drug, slower acting, yes, but just as effective, except in practice, for someone like Haley, who had to focus on actually telling the truth, in which case it worked in the exact opposite way - making it easier to lie.
"What is your name?"
"Bruce Wayne, I'm a billionaire philanthropist from Gotham." She blurted, unable to stop her brain to mouth filter. A few muggle students laughed, while the pure bloods merely looked confused, her mind flicking back to the recent edition of Robin that had come out.
"And what do you like to do?" Moody deadpanned, clearly unimpressed
"I like playing the piano and dancing on rooftops when I think no one can see me, sometimes I go out and fight crime under the pseudonym Spider-Man." She tried, her brain taking a few minutes to catch up, still stuck on last weeks comic books.
"Interesting. Tell me, do you have any parents."
"My mother was killed in an avalanche, my father died in WW2." She made up on the spot, her eyes focusing on an old spyglass behind Moody, something she'd seen in diagrams of Wizards fighting in the war.
"Interesting any family."
"No, sadly both my parents were killed in a forest fire 2 years ago, It was horrific, right before they died, they were able to call and say they were proud of me." Her brain took a few minutes to realise he'd repeated the question, then a few more to realise what she' said. "Oops."
"I think we're done." The trickling sensation receded an immediately her mind cleared, she shook her head. "Sure fire way to tell if someone is lying, ask the same question twice slightly differently worded and see what the first thing they say is." He told the class, "get writing." The sounds of quills scratching on parchment filled the room.
"Ughh, well that was fun." She turned to see a rather shocked class standing behind her, glancing up at her between filling out notes. "What did I do?" Everything from the past couple of minutes seemed to have disappeared with the spell, leaving her slightly lightheaded.
"Pathological liar?" He asked, as she joined the class
No, I'm Batman. "I suppose that's the closest term for it." Her head rang a little from the cloudiness being so suddenly removed but she was mostly okay.
"You always hesitate before you tell the truth." He told her, "Your hand twitches as well"
"fantastic." A bell sounded from somewhere in the school and the class filed out, Haley with them, maybe dad would be free and they could get Lunch. According to her watch it was 1 o clock and she'd had quite enough adventure for one day.
Please Review, I will hopefully be posting every fortnight until I have up to 6 chapters done.
NiebelayEstrella xxx
R&R