Chapter Three

Mad-Eye

After the bell rang, Lorena was still a bit dazzled about her first magical class, and as she walked through the corridor, she spotted Abril coming from the dungeons.

"What happened?" Lorena asked when she saw Abril's angry face.

"He is even worse than he's described in the books! That bloody git"

"Who?" Lorena asked confused.

"Snape!" Abril answered exasperated, "I just had class with him. It was awful! Now I understand how Harry feels. He's so mean! He even asked me how I had passed my Potions O.W.L."

"Well, you have no idea either" Lorena said smiling.

Abril just huffed and both friends headed outside the castle and into the grounds.

"Hey Abril!" a voice suddenly called behind them.

Abril gave Lorena a pleading look before turning to see who had called her. Fred and George Weasley were strolling down the corridor towards them, huge smiles on their faces.

"There you are. We've been looking for you all morning," Fred told Abril when they reached them, "The chocolates you asked for just arrived. How many do you want?"

Knowing the twins, those chocolates were surely going to be far from normal, so Abril warily asked:

"Remind me what the chocolates do."

Fred and George exchanged a mischievous look and Abril got nervous.

"Well, none of them do the exact same thing as the other. They are all unique" Fred answered.

"But what do they do, exactly?"

"Let's just say you'll be extremely popular with guys," George told her with a wink.

Lorena giggled and Abril turned red but smiled.

"All right, how many are they?"

"Each box has ten chocolates"

"Give me two"

The twins gave her two little purple boxes with green ribbons

"Oh, I don't have any money to pay you back!" Abril exclaimed.

George smiled, "Don't worry. We were hoping you would—"

"—Pay us with a favour" Fred finished, "I understand you have a, let's say, friendly relationship with that Smith guy?"

Abril blinked, not knowing whom they were talking about, but Lorena immediately got interested.

"Zacharias Smith?"

"That's the one"

"What about him?"

"He has something that we desperately want. And hey, you could even try one of the chocolates on him"

Abril blushed, but Lorena looked excited.

"Ok, what's the deal?"

"The other day, Snape gave him detention, and while he was cleaning the ingredients cabinet, Smith was able to retrieve some flobberworm mucus. He knew that we were trying to steal it, so he got it first and now he wants us to buy it from him, the bastard"

"So let me get this straight," Lorena said thoughtfully, "You want Abril to take the chocolates, seduce Smith into giving her the mucus and then pay you the chocolates with it, right?"

"Exactly" the twins said in unison, and then Fred added: "Of course, we want it for academically purpose only"

"Of course" Abril said raising an eyebrow.

Lorena and the twins turned to look at her expectantly, so Abril just sighed.

"All right, I'll do it" she said.

"Pleasure doing business with you" Fred said and then he and George

gave an exaggerated bow as farewell, "Ladies"

They turned away, and Lorena and Abril headed to the Forbidden Forest for their Care of Magical Creatures class. Abril nudged Lorena, and she smiled.

"What?" she said innocently.

"What was all that about?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you seemed very eager to snatch Smith. Since when are you like the twins?"

"You'd be surprised" Lorena answered casually, "Relax, it'll be fun!

Look at it as our first adventure. Besides, Smith is like your type of guy"

"Really?" Abril asked, suddenly interested, "What does he look like?"

"Don't you remember him? He was…I mean, he's going to be in Dumbledore's Army. He's some git who all he seems to do is offend people every time he opens his mouth"

"Yeah, sounds like my type of guy" Abril answered sarcastically, but

Lorena just smiled.

"He's blond, tall and has blue eyes. And he is a 'Puff too"

"Ugh, stop calling us that way! It's Hufflepuff, not 'Puff"

Lorena laughed as they crossed the courtyard along with some other students who were heading to class. As they neared the main doors, they saw a crowd had gathered around some students.

"All my money on Harry being involved" Lorena told Abril as they went to see what was going on.

"…the Ministry was plunged into fresh embarrassment yesterday by the antics of Arnold Weasley, of the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office."

Malfoy was reading out loud so everyone could hear while Harry and

Hermione tried to stop Ron from punching Malfoy.

Malfoy looked up.

"Imagine them not even getting his name right, Weasley. It's almost as though he's a complete nonentity, isn't it?" he said exultantly.

He kept reading as more and more students gathered around them, some snickering at the things the Prophet said and smirking at Ron while others glared at Malfoy.

"Get stuffed, Malfoy," said Harry. "C'mon, Ron. …"

"Oh yeah, you were staying with them this summer, weren't you, Potter?" sneered Malfoy. "So tell me, is his mother really that porky, or is it just the picture?"

"You know your mother, Malfoy?" said Harry — both he and Hermione had grabbed the back of Ron's robes to stop him from launching himself at Malfoy — "that expression she's got, like she's got dung under her nose? Has she always looked like that, or was it just because you were with her?"

"Oh no! It's this part!" Abril suddenly said with a chocked voice. The ones who were nearer turned to look at her oddly as Malfoy, outraged, pulled out his wand, but before he could hex Harry's retreating back, a loud BANG was heard, and where Malfoy had been standing just a few seconds ago, now stood a white ferret.

Lorena laughed along all the other students, finally understanding what Abril had said.

Professor Moody was limping down the marble staircase. His wand was out and it was pointing right at the pure white ferret.

"Did he get you?" Moody growled.

"No," said Harry, "missed."

"LEAVE IT!" Moody shouted.

"Leave — what?" Harry said, bewildered.

"Not you — him!" Moody growled, jerking his thumb over his shoulder at Crabbe, who had just frozen, about to pick up the white ferret.

The ferret tried to scurry away, but before he could get to the dungeons, Moody through him to the air and bounced him up and down as the poor creature wriggled helplessly.

"This is better than anything I had imagined" Lorena told Abril as she tried to breathe from so much laughing.

Abril didn't look like she was enjoying it as much as everybody else, and actually felt relieved when McGonagall arrived to intervene. As Moody and Malfoy, now back to human, retreated to Snape's office, Lorena turned to look at Abril with a huge grin.

"That was awesome," she said happily.

"Oh yeah, sure," Abril said disgruntled, "Draco Malfoy, the amazing bouncing ferret…"

Ron, who was a few feet away, turned around when he heard her and gaped.

"That's perfect!" he told Abril with a gleam in his blue eyes.

Abril looked at him oddly as the crowd started to dissipate and everyone went on their way.

"I think you have an admirer," Lorena told her friend with a nudge while they walked to their next class.

Abril turned to look at her with a face of pure horror.

"Eww! No!" she answered bewildered.

Lorena laughed and started picking on her as Abril nattered about gingers not having souls all the way to class.

The group of Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff students arrived at the border of the Forbidden Forest for their Care of Magical Creatures class. Abril and Lorena still couldn't believe they were at Hogwarts, and took in every inch around them, from the tiniest grass to the huge castle.

Hagrid smiled eagerly at all the students when they arrived.

"'ello, students. Welcome back!" he exclaimed, clapping his huge hands happily, "I got some amazin' creatures for yeh today"

The whole class around gulped. Knowing Hagrid, it was surely going to be dangerous or disgusting, or both, and as they followed him deeper into the forest, they started to listen high pitched cackles, and finally seeing the creature they had to study that day, which at least was not repulsive, but it surely was creepy.

"Today, yeh're goin' ter make this erklings go into those cages over there "Hagrid said, "Choose anything yeh want from that box to distract them. C'mon, off yeh go!"

Sighing, Abril, Lorena and all the other students resigned themselves to pick a snack or a toy from the box, and headed to where the elfish-like creatures were, who were staring at them with their macabre smile and blank eyes.

"Ugh, I really hate Care of Magical Creatures" Lin Mei said. "And with Hagrid's love for monsters, it's even worse."

The group of Hufflepuff girls was heading for lunch at the Great Hall.

With ripped clothes from the erklings' attack, and almost famish, they sat

in the middle of the Hufflepuff table.

"C'mon, serve the food already, I'm hungry!" One of Abril's roommates, Sabine Hardcastle, said.

"For once, I can't do anything but agree with you Sabine" another one of

Abril's roommates, Mariah Kingston said. "Bloody creatures, they absolutely ruined my cloak."

After a few more minutes of complaining about Hagrid's class, lunch was served, and everyone started eating eagerly.

"Ok, let's review everything again, shall we?"

"Right. First, I take one of the chocolates"

"Then..."

"I go down to the common room and ask him for help with a charm"

"And after that?"

"I take him to an empty classroom and then seduce him until he gives me the mucus" Abril finished drily.

"Exactly" Lorena said, smiling wickedly, "This is going to be brilliant!"

"Sure. You say that because you're not the one who's going to eat something the Weasley twins made and actually seduce a boy" Abril said looking nervous but also excited, "How am I supposed to do that, anyway?"

"Oh don't worry about that. Improvise! Besides, maybe the chocolates work like Felix Felicis"

"I hope you're right"

They were sitting in Lorena's bed, and the light Sun rays filtered through the window that Saturday morning.

Lorena opened one of the drawers of her night table and took out the purple box. Taking the green ribbon off she opened it, and both girls gasped when they saw what was inside. Ten colourful chocolates sat inside, each with a different topping and a note attached to each one. Abril took a dark chocolate one with vanilla icing and a cherry on top.

"Bigger Opportunities" she read as she inspected the note, "¿What does that mean?"

"Dunno. You'll have to try it to find out," Lorena said excitedly.

Abril gulped and gave a little bite to the chocolate. It tasted delicious, so now, more confident, Abril ate it all in one bite.

"How do you feel?" Lorena asked as Abril swallowed the chocolate.

"Nothing really" she said, "Maybe it takes time to work"

But Lorena wasn't listening anymore, as she stared at Abril's chest with wide eyes. Abril frowned and turn to gaze down at herself, and her eyes opened in surprise when she saw her cleavage growing bigger. A few seconds later it stopped growing, but it had doubled its original size.

"So" Lorena said smirking, "getting bigger indeed"

"Not bad" Abril said, smiling when she saw that one of the buttons of her

shirt had popped off "Do you think we could eat more than one chocolate?"

"Good question. I'll have to ask George"

Abril eyed Lorena suspiciously.

"Only George?"

"Well Fred too, of course"

Lorena jumped off the bed and took Abril's hand for her to stand up.

"Anyway, c'mon. You have a lot of work to do" Lorena said smiling.

Abril sighed nervously and followed her friend outside the Ravenclaw Common Room.

"You have to tell me all about it when you come back, all right?"

"Sure! I just hope I don't make a fool of myself," Abril said as they strolled through the castle with arms entwined.

"Don't you worry about that. Besides, with those, you'll have every boy drooling for you" Lorena said pointing at two handsome Gryffindor and Ravenclaw seventh year boys who were walking in the opposite direction and were currently checking Abril out.

Both girls laughed and Abril smiled. They arrived too quickly to the Hufflepuff Common Room, much to Abril's displeasure, and before she could say anything else, Lorena shoved her through the door, and the last thing Abril saw was the Cheshire Cat's smile Lorena had.