"So we're defending the Carrow girl?" Hannah asked, following Hermione into the mysterious room, listening out to determine if anyone else were trying to gain entrance. Ron and Terry were already inside, practicing spells with Mafalda. That's sweet of them. "And what was this about our memories being erased?"

"I did it," the Ravenclaw explained, handing her a length of parchment. That explains not turning into a werewolf in weeks... not that I wanted an explanation. "We hid Draco, Crabbe, Goyle, Nott, Tracey, Bulstrode, Derrick, and Bole, as well as Evan in a shrunken chest, though they would have been memory charmed to forget everything that would have happened since before the duel of New Year's Eve.

"Wait, so we turned on Tracey?" the Hufflepuff asked, reading the letter.

"She'd have forgotten everything that made her hate Malfoy," Ron explained, showing the first-year a basic shield. "We basically reset her to hating just us."

"Isn't that like taking a version of her and killing her?" Hannah asked.

"Do you die every time you forget something?" he returned. "It's a gray area. There's nothing fundamentally different about her, she just doesn't have a few weeks or so of memories. It's something we were willing to do to ourselves."

She racked her brain trying to determine what was missing, but of course there was nothing missing; there was nothing that she would notice. It was as if she had traveled to the future and killed her future self. That somehow makes it seem better.

"Well, where the hell did we hide them?" She turned around sharply- No, it's been too many days for that.

"We couldn't risk putting them in here, so we put the boxes in Hagrid's well."

"People are going to think he put them there!" Hannah objected. "Now that one of them's out, if he knew where they were-"

"I asked Neville to move them. He doesn't know what the boxes contain," Ron supplied. "Well, I didn't tell him."

Hannah sighed.

"Okay, okay, what are we doing with them?"

"Well, Flora was supposed to be telling people they've been out muggle-baiting," Terry explained, casting a wandless spell into Mafalda's shield. I suppose it's his turn now. "She hates Malfoy because he basically killed her sister and the all-knowing Death Eaters refuse to correct the situation because he's the only heir of his family. Yesterday she was found outside the-"

"I heard about that. Have we spoken with her?"

"We've had the chance. Basically, we're on our own. The teachers can help, but not the Heads of Houses or Snape," Ron said, visibly reminding himself Snape was no longer a Head, technically. "It'll be the three Headmasters deciding her fate, so we've got a fair chance unless he just decides to ruin us. Makes sense to assume Madame Maxine'll want to see us in graves."

"Then we don't know how they're going to rule," Hannah decided. I can't imagine which way Karkaroff would go. "Are at least two of them blood purists?"

"Hannah, we can't just make that kind of argument-" Hermione objected. "It will make us look like one of them."

"Don't we already? Why are we sticking our necks out for some bitch who's related to Death Eaters?" she asked, angry. I don't get it. We're not really going to convince the people in my House that we're not supporting the blood purists and dark wizards.

"Because we can't just abandon law and justice," the Ravenclaw wizard argued. "There might not be anything worth saving if Voldemort wins, but we can't simply ensure he doesn't at its expense. He is not the first Dark Lord, and he will likely not be the last, and a civilization that simply suspends its legal system every time that happens is no civilization at all." He sighed. "There are people who won't be participating in the war, they'll avoid it at any cost, and there's a morally disturbing amount of them; it's close to ninety percent. They won't fight until their comfortable lives collapse, and when that happens they'll pick the side that puts them back straight again as quickly as possible. We need the system working, if for no other reason at all, to keep the majority out of it."

The Hufflepuff let out an exasperated sigh.

"What's the plan?"

"We're going to argue it was standard self defense," Ron said.

"How did she beat them all by herself if she didn't have the element of surprise?" Hannah asked. Whether I believe it or not, we need a reason.

"Dark magic," Hermione explained, insufficiently. "Neville says the ground was practically irradiated with it. He did not use the word irra-"

"You can't just say she used dark magic and be done with it. That only gives her a few spells her opponents didn't know."

"It's a specialized curse; it creates a shock wave around you, dead useful, it is," the Gryffindor explained. Well it's nice to know they all talked about it before I arrived. "Reason we think she happened to know it was because Snape showed it in one of his classes and she asked him."

"Well he's going to deny that!"

"That's the reason we think, not the reason we're using. We're going to say that she learned it from Evan."

"He'll say he didn't."

"The only reason he hasn't been expelled yet is because he has to finish the Tournament. Durmstrang has an incredibly high expulsion rate, and he's done a fair bit more than the rest of them. They're more likely to believe her, and if they put her on Veritaserum, we'll stick with the truth. Besides, they probably won't call him to the stand."

"Well, who's representing the attackers?"

"They'll be healed before the trial starts, so they're representing themselves," Hermione explained. "We don't know what kind of arguments they can be expected to make-"

"But they'll probably say that Flora attacked them out of nowhere and it was all they could do to defend themselves. If I were on their team I would say they were all either blood traitors or conspirators, and Flora attacked them to even out the score after Malfoy and company disappeared. Since she was transferred to Beauxbatons, they'll probably say that her main targets were her own classmates, but while she was at Hogwarts she would have to take the opportunity to attack Hufflepuffs."

The legal planning took the rest of the day and went into the night, leaving her with assignments to do the following morning. It was not as exciting as most courtroom dramas, which she liked in that the characters seemed to have to come up with how the perpetrator killed the victim, but real life was even more bogged down with laws and precedents to memorize. Doing this alone, I would have rather left the case to someone else than taken it and lost. I'm sure the junior Death Eaters would be honored to defend the last Carrow kid.

In class the following morning, she decided she knew virtually nothing about Flora herself, which probably made her judgements prejudicial, and also probably made her a bad representative. I'll have to talk to her if I want to know anything, but I can't imagine what she'd tell me. She might think we're trying to sabotage her chances, but if she gets removed from Beauxbatons she'll just go to Durmstrang starting next year. They wouldn't care about this sort of thing on her record. Hannah remembered that more serious punishments awaited her if she were expelled, and that the verdict from the schools' trial would essentially pass to the next court, most likely the Wizengamot.

She really does have to count on us.

The blonde witch pretended not to hear the foreign students talking behind her on her way to lunch, not because she understood what they were saying and was trying to eavesdrop, but because they most likely did not think she could hear them at all, and it would do her no favors if anyone found out she had sharper hearing than the average human. Her sense of smell was also probably a little better, but the average human nose was so useless it was almost vestigial, and it took an animal mind to know how to interpret the scents. There was a chance she was developing mild color-blindness, which made her feel somewhat less feminine, but it was a sight better than fur.

By the time she was done with classes, it was another round of assignments, each more time-consuming than the last. Potions even required actual brewing, this time an extended invisibility potion, which was more complicated than she had thought it would be. Upon reaching level two or three, she had been under the impression that the time component of potion effects could be explained by the quantity of the finished product, or a single ingredient. The theory and practical data turned out to be inconsistent with her hypothesis, though she would have to get used to that. Having been raised ignorant of the magical world, that was the expectation, and what Terry had been saying about making reasonable assumptions that she had to be ready to modify at any time was steadily making more sense.

She decided to find Flora rather than meet back up with the group, which some combination of them had taken to doing most every night. It stood to reason it would be hard to find a witch accused of magically reducing several students to a bloody, screaming heap, but Hannah managed it. She had sat with Mafalda at the Slytherin-Durmstrang table, closing her eyes and listening for relevant conversation, waiting for the girl next to her to tug on her robes as the target passed by. She stole a glance, wondering for a moment if she had seen the witch before having a section of her memories erased.

She said she was going to the library to pick up a book that might help with an assignment. Why do I think it's a coded message?

The Hufflepuff's contemplation took place on the stairwell, wondering what else could be meant by the library. She might actually be going to the library, but there's no way that's all she's thinking of doing. Making her way there, finding the stairs oddly cooperative, she discovered her client of sorts at a public table, alone. No need to hide when no one wants to sit next to you, I would imagine.

"Hello," Flora began politely. "Are you here to attempt to kill me?"

"No. I'm one of the ones representing you," she responded, sitting across. Look at that, she actually has books out. I don't think they're law books, but...

"I'm as capable of representing myself. I would not like to reveal the arguments I intend to make, unless I can interest you in a lie."

"Yeah, and I have my own secrets. I don't want to be here either," Hannah nearly growled. "Why don't you tell me why I shouldn't just have my friend erase your memories and be done with it? You could pass a lie de- a Veritaserum test saying that you can't use whatever spell they're accusing you-"

"There is no need," Flora answered with an odd degree of serenity. "My defense is entirely prepared. I have anticipated not only their arguments, but also their attack. It was not for nothing that I studied dark magic, and it was not for nothing that I used it."

"Don't tell me-" she started, attempting to read the spines of the books.

"I have the Gift."

The other witch let out an exasperated sigh, her fingertips over her closed eyes. Hermione had only managed to vaguely figure out how Divination was supposed to work, and the theory only barely overcame the enormous leaps of logic the instructor and the course material seemed to take. The first thing, she remembered, that made little sense about the class and apparently the books were all the different ways the future could be determined, and that the theory seemed to change for each one; tea leaves remained in a cup based on the magic that the drinker was putting into it, the crystal ball was a product made by a magical craftsman who had some understanding of the theory, and Astronomy was a field of study all on its own. The mere possibility that all these different causes and competing theories would all lead to the same future was questionable at best.

"Well, have you determined that you're going to get away with this?"

"It's not so simple as that," Flora answered. "The Inner Eye warns me only of the most ambiguous notions." Well, that might be more frustrating for you than it is for me, but your attitude hardly gives that away.

"Well, what do you know about the future?"

Flora glowered for only a moment before getting a book out of her bag.

"Consider the aorta. This is the present, and this is where you act on decisions. Major arteries that lead away are the near future. This is where you make decisions."

"Okay." I imagine the capillaries are all the consequences and further decisions.

"I make decisions in the arteries based on what I know of the capillaries. My actions continue to take place in the aorta, but they set up for future actions." It reminded her of something Ron and Hermione had been discussing about chess. A computer program could see all the ways it could possibly lose, and simply avoid all of them by making moves that closed the worst possible decision trees. The human player's decision would close other decision trees, but the computer could see all that remained, and closed the ones that would lead to loss, meaning the human player was really only picking one way to die over another. It was an interesting conversation to overhear, especially since Ron knew about as much about computers as she did.

"So there are capillaries that give you a generally positive response, and ones that do the opposite?" Hannah guessed.

"More or less. I would have to explain the theories about symbols and their meanings to explain my visions and why I make decisions based on them," the Slytherin witch said, going through the book on the table. "I believe the scholarship refers to me as a soothsayer, receiving accurate, but limited, frequently fatally misleading ideas of the future."

"How do you ever survive?"

"Logical skills are perfectly essential. I must be careful not to draw conclusions too easily. For example, I may learn that if I live for the next few days, and I encounter an ogre as a consequence of living, seeking out an ogre will not make me any more likely to survive the next few days."

Hannah mostly followed, though it sounded more like Hermione's specialty. She might be right about being able to defend herself in court.

"We were thinking we could help you gather evidence. Do you know the names of the people who attacked you?"

"Many of them are still in the Hospital Wing, I believe. I do not know them."

The Hufflepuff witch frowned briefly. Most physical wounds could be resolved in a matter of minutes, though some were more complicated than others. If the injured were still receiving care or still recovering for any amount of days after the incident, their injuries were either truly disastrous, or worsened by dark magic. There was a chance that her friends' theory about the castle's warding was the only reason they were still alive. Hermione and Terry know little the warding around the school, but the trend is that there have been more than a few times when a student or faculty member should have died, but lived. Supposedly, Hogwarts has an incredibly low rate of student deaths in the centuries it has been open, so we can assume any explanation in the warding would likely go back to the Founders.

"I'll check them out," she decided. "If any of my friends talk to you in the next few days, I recommend you at least hear them out. They really want to help you."

"I suppose I can recognize them by their naivety."

Hannah walked off without saying anything, lacking a clever remark at that particular time. I always think of something, but I almost always think of it too late. Over the last few weeks of ignorance of her memories, which started before the duel where they lost Parvati, she still had more than enough in her mind to keep her awake at night. It made her feel bad, being distracted by what was important, whether Hermione obliterated it from her mind or not, but she remembered receiving no reward in the form of being less stressed.

Even what might have been an enjoyable conversation with Susan ended up making her head hurt. She tried to tell her a little of what was going on with Ron, saying that she had a boy she liked and reason to believe he liked her. Her friend could not really offer any helpful advice about their situation without knowing more about it, and Hannah decided she was better off alone than risking the whole school finding out her secrets, but Susan surprised her by saying she was happy for her, and whatever happened, if she ever decided it would be okay to talk about it, she would be willing to listen.

Well, I still don't think I can tell her I'm a werewolf.