I dropped my bag onto the Charms desk with a heavy thud. "Hannah Abbott, we need to talk."

Hannah stared up at me with wide, brown eyes. "About what?"

Slowly, I lowered myself into my seat. Glaring at her with all my might, I said, "Why did you join a secret society without telling me?"

At first, she looked puzzled. Then, the blood slowly drained from her face. She gulped and looked down at the cover of her Charms textbook. "I don't know what you're talking about."

I scoffed. However, she looked as though she might faint at any second, so I tried to tone down the anger and said, as kindly as possible, "Hannah, you could never be a master criminal."

"I don't know what you're talking about," she said stubbornly.

When I'd imagined confronting Hannah in class, I'd planned on keeping the conversation teasing, but her denial caused my stomach to twist. She was treating this like a dead serious matter. But I couldn't just put aside my annoyance either, and I ended reaching for some sort of middle ground. I pulled my Charms textbook out of the bag and dropped it onto the desk with a dull thud. "It's 'cause I'm useless, isn't it?"

Hannah blinked and finally made eye contact with me. "What?"

"I saw you entering the Hog's Head," I explained. "Hufflepuffs, Gryffindors, and Ravenclaws all went inside, no Slytherins which makes sense." I made sure to add an extra dose of affrontedness to my tone. "I get it, I get it. I'm terrible, I don't get invited to the secret meetings."

Hannah opened and closed her mouth several times, trying to find the right words. "No… No, no. Ashe, you're not like other Griffindor's."

I scowled at her. "'Other Griffindor's'? You mean my friends?"

"I mean like Evie Lovegood," said Hannah hurriedly, "and Morgana Black."

"Theyre my friends."

"Sorry," said Hannah, staring down at the wooden surface of the desk. "I know she's your friend."

I sighed. "You're not wrong."

"And, uh…" Hannah managed a weak smile for me. "I'm not in a secret society. And if I were, I couldn't tell you about it because it's not my secret to tell." Hannah chose her words very carefully. "But if I were the head of a secret society, you would be one of the first people I'd invite to join."

I stared at Hannah for a moment, trying to sift through all her carefully selected words. Then, a wide smile spread across my face and I said, "Thanks. I'd invite you too. We'd be the secret society of people who put library books back on the wrong shelves."

Hannah gasped. "It was one time. And it was two years ago!"

"You're so evil." I shook my head and tried to look sad. "Imagine how many days it took for Madam Pince to find that book…scourging the shelves to the point of exhaustion…maybe she thought she was losing her mind, because she was sure she put it back in the right place. She probably had an existential crisis because of you."

Hannah placed hand over her mouth. "Oh, don't joke about that. Now I feel bad. Maybe we should go to the library after class and see if she's found the book yet."

"Sometimes I can't believe someone as nice as you exists," I said. My eyes narrowed. "Are you sure you're human?"

"Ashe."

"Just checking." I shrugged.

Our conversation came to an end as Flitwick tapped the end of his wand on his desk to let us know that class had started. He spent most of the period lecturing us on the theory behind mending charms. By the end of class, Hannah was putting broken dishes back together with a flick of her wand, while I kept breaking them further. At least I was better off than Evie, who had somehow managed to knockout Susan Bones with a flying Charms textbook, Which was quite funny.

When the bell rang to signal the end of class, Hannah and I went our separate ways. Hannah went to the Hospital Wing with her fellow Hufflepuffs to see how Bones was doing, and I made my way down to the Great Hall for dinner with the rest of the fourh-year Griffondor's. As we walked, Morgana and I laughed loudly about the expression on Bones's face when Evie's textbook had hit her. Evie was red with embarrassment, muttering under her breath that it'd been an accident and she'd been aiming for the broken teacup.

"She'll be fine," I said. "Madam Pomfrey can fix concussions in a heartbeat."

"Still," said Evid, "you should have seen the murderous looks Macmillan and Finch-Fletchley were giving me."

"Well, you definitely didn't improve our reputation," said Morgana as we entered the Great Hall.

"If you two hadn't laughed, I could have explained it was an accident," Evie fiddled with the strap of her shoulder bag. "Smith was yelling at me."

"Zacharias Smith is a tool," I said. "And Hannah knows it was an accident. She'll explain."

Evie sighed. "You're right. But still, I'd rather get through one year of school where the other houses didn't hate us."

"Not going to happen." I slid into my regular seat at the end of the Griffindor table. "We might as well embrace our reputations"

"You couldn't be bad," said Morgana.

"Sure I could." I watched as food materialized on the plates in front of us. "All I have to do is dress in black and talk about pureblood superiority. You know, the Dark Lord will come to power again and all that kill the mudbloods stuff."

A Hufflepuff third year, who just so happened to be walking by the Griffindor table, glanced at me. When we made eye contact, a look a sheer terror crossed her face, and she raced across the hall to get as far away from me as possible.

"Now who's adding to our reputation?" asked Morgana.

"That," I said grimly, "was an unfortunate accident." I briefly wondered if I should go after the third year to explain jokes and the negative consequences of believing the reputation we had earned. However, I remained seated.

"Did you hear what happened in Divination today?" asked Evie.

Morgana didn't even look up from her plate. "Umbridge."

Evie nodded. "She put Trelawney on probation."

I paused, fork halfway to my mouth, and asked, "What?"

"Trelawney spent half the class rambling about what a horrible, close-minded person 'that woman' was and about how Seers have been persecuted throughout history by non-believers."

Morgana shook her head. "Has Trelawney made one true prediction since you've taken her class?"

"Well," said Tracey thoughtfully, "third year, she predicted 'one of our number would leave us forever' and Granger did quit the class for good. But I don't know how much of that was foresight and how much was luck."

"She must be a true Seer if Dumbledore hired her," I said.

Evie nodded. "Dumbledore may be many things, but a crackpot old fool he is not—despite what the Daily Prophet says."

"I thought newspapers were supposed to be more reliable," muttered Evie.

"Even if they try to be neutral, newspapers are just another form of propaganda," I said. "They're about as reliable as my spellwork."

Evie shuddered. "Why do we read the paper again?"

"It's good to be informed," said Morgana. "Don't you want to know what the Ministry is telling the masses?"

"I'd rather the Ministry tell the masses the truth," said Evie.

"There you go," I said. "Career option for you. We have those career planning survey things come April, right?"

Evie groaned and buried her face in her hands. "Don't remind me."

"Well, some people have it all figured out," muttered Morgana. She glanced at me and asked, "What about you? You're lost and confused like me, aren't you?"

"Actually," I said, "I want to be an arithmancer. There's a lot you can do with numbers and magic that hasn't been explored yet—"

"Odin's knickers, Ashe!" cried Evie. "You're supposed to be as aimless as us."

I rolled my eyes. "Sorry for having direction."

Right then, the dishes in front of us disappeared and were replaced by dessert. Evie had one arm propped up on the table, and her chin rested on the top of her palm. She had a sad little smile as she stared across the table.

I held up my water goblet in a mock toast, and Morgana bumped his drink against mine. Evie did the same.

"To our future," said Evie. "May we decide what we're doing with our lives—"

"And not become our parents," I said.

"And not become the evil henchmen everyone assumes we'll be," Morgana added.

We all took long sips of our drinks.