The Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition

Title: Honest Dishonesty

Team: Ballycastle Bats

Position: Captain Dishonesty

Reserve: No

Word Count: 1,601

Warning for mentions of stealing and torture, and a slight bit out character. I would like to take this time to thank everyone who beta read my story for me. It truly means a lot that you would help me out like this. So, thank you all very much and I hope you enjoy Honest Dishonesty.

Heart pounding in my ears, I slip into Professor Slughorn's store of potion ingredients, trying my best to be as quiet as possible. I know that if I'm caught by Slughorn I won't get into that much trouble. Probably a stern talking to about stealing and what have you but then he'd send me on my way. But most times nowadays it's not the person that the classroom and teacher's room beyond that who catches you. It's the Carrows and they aren't so nice about catching children out of bed after lights out.

I look at the scars from the last round of torture that I had to endure to defend Neville from them. They still stood out starkly upon my pale skin. A reminder that this was no longer a safe haven in which students are taken care of. It's more of a prison for those of us who support Harry and The Order of the Phoenix.

Taking the list of potion ingredients out of my pocket I scan it quickly. I can't help but pray that all of it is here and easily reached. That would make my evening that much easier. But as my luck would have it. The first ingredient on the list on the top shelf of the case. I can't help but inwardly wince.

Wingardium Leviosa, I think to try to use non-verbal magic on the item. It doesn't seem to float or anything and I'm pretty sure that I thought the right incantation. Accio, Dittany.

This works really well. The only problem is that my nerves were getting to me at this point and the bottle of Dittany flew over my head. I waited to hear the crash of breaking glass and when it didn't come a cold dread filled my stomach.

"What are you doing here, Miss Abbott?" the cool harsh voice of Alecto Carrow asked as she towered over me. "What exactly do you need Essence of Dittany for?"

"I was practicing my healing potion for the Potions assignment that Professor Slughorn assigned us yesterday," I said. It wasn't entirely a lie. Professor Slughorn had assigned us homework to make a potion. It just wasn't a Healing Potion. Not that Alecto or her brother would know that. They only came into the classroom when it was one of their own or they had to send someone down for discipline.

"Is that so?" the older witch asked, cocking her head towards the stairs which led to Slughorn's room. "If we go up those stairs and ask Slughorn, he'll confirm what you just told me?"

"He will," I said, eyes widening in fear at being caught in the act of stealing Potions ingredients. "But I don't think we really need to go and wake Professor….."

Before I could finish saying what I'd said, she was already pulling me towards the stairs and we were almost halfway up. I prayed that Slughorn was either still out in Hogsmeade or so fast asleep that he didn't hear the knocking on his door.

"Slughorn," Alector screamed through the door as she pounded upon it, "get your miserable skin out here now!"

I continued to pray that he wasn't in there. That he was perhaps at The Three Broomsticks getting drunk like he usually was nowadays in class. I prayed until I thought I could pray no more and then the worst thing that could happen did. Slughorn opened the door bleary-eyed and dressed for bed.

"Professor Carrow," he said, sleepily blinking his eyes, "what can I do….."

"This child was caught in your Potions store taking ingredients," she said, shoving me forward so that I almost fell into Slughorn. "She says that you assigned them homework to come up with a…."

I looked at him pleadingly and he seemed to understand because he, in turn, interrupted Professor Carrow. A thing that rarely happens and only a few people have been known to get away with.

"Yes," he said, a look of dawning crossing his face. "I'm sorry, Hannah. I forgot that you would be stopping by for some Potion ingredients before I went out to Hogsmead for my evening drink. You must have seen that I wasn't here earlier and came back when you thought that I would be here?"

The question almost seemed a bit probing and I couldn't help but hope that Professor Carrow didn't pick that up. I look up at him and nod, not trusting my mouth to form words at the moment. I looked between the two teachers like a deer caught in a stream of light unable to know which direction would help me escape.

"I'm sure that you aren't going to begrudge Miss Abbott a chance to do her homework properly, Professor Carrow?" Slughorn said, raising an eyebrow in question. "It would be a sin if one of my best students was to fail a homework assignment because of something as trivial as a missed meeting to pick up Potion ingredients, wouldn't you agree?"

While Professor Carrow's head was turned my way, Professor Slughorn nodded his head at me which I didn't entirely understand. But I figured that he meant that I should answer the question that he had just asked.

"I would agree on that count," I said, gulping at Professor Carrow's glare.

"Fine," Professor Carrow snapped, glaring at me and Slughorn both. "But I will make sure that both your Potion ingredients and yourself make it back to the Hufflepuff Common Room, Miss Abbott. We've had enough students disappear lately and don't need one more added to their score."

"Of course, Professor Carrow," I said, crossing my finger behind my back, a sign my cousins had told me would ward off any promise or invalidate a truthful statement made by me.

"Was there anything else that you needed for your Potion besides the Dittany in my colleague's hand, Hannah?" Professor Slughorn asked, smiling kindly at me.

I held out my list of ingredients to him and looked it over carefully as he led us back down the stairs.

"This is a rather complex Healing Potion," he said, grinning at me and winking. "I'm proud to see students who take the initiative and do things that are more complex." He took down ingredient bottle after ingredient bottle and put them all together carefully in a box for me and handed it over. "I added a few more ingredients that I think will be most helpful for your Potion. I look forward to seeing what you come up with."

"Thank you, Professor Slughorn," I said, smiling and holding the box like the treasure trove it was. I could see ingredients for more Potions than just a Healing Potion and I prayed that Professor Carrow was never good at Potions.

"You're most welcome, Miss Abbott," he said, waving before turning and going up to his sleep once more. "Good night," he called back sleepily.

The walk back to the Hufflepuff Common Room was one of the tensest and nerve-wracking ones of my entire life. I knew that most if not all the Hufflepuffs had taken refuge in the Room of Requirement when they started torturing students for detention. Hufflepuffs weren't torturers and we soon found out that it was either torture or be tortured. No one wanted to be tortured so we ended up going into hiding with the few people who already were in hiding.

"Good night, Professor Carrow," I said when we arrived at the common room door. I prayed that she would just go on her way but she didn't.

"I will wait until you and your ingredients are inside the common room to leave," she said, folding her arms in a way that brokered no arguments. "Unless you have somewhere else you have to be tonight."

I gulped and chuckled nervously. "Where else would I have to be?" I asked, hoping that I was doing a better job of lying than I thought I was.

"I don't know, perhaps you can tell me?"

I shook my head and turned toward the portrait of the barrels at the doorway to the common room and tapped the rhythm on them that I knew to be the correct one. The door swings open and I walk into the deserted common room and close the door behind me.

"Hannah," Susan says, breathing a sigh of relief when I enter the common room, "the rest of us have been worried sick about you. Where have you been? Did you get all the ingredients…."

I put a finger to my lips and mouth that Professor Carrow might be still out in the hallway.

"There's nothing to worry about, Suze," I say, smiling. "Hogwarts is one of the safest places in the world."

Then we wait while looking through all the potion ingredients that Professor Slughorn has given us. We wait and we wait and we wait some more. Just make sure that we don't walk right out into a trap. We end up waiting until we know that the Carrows will be switching places and then we head to the Room of Requirement. Hearts hammering in our chest until we are safe with our friends once more.

I tell my story of almost getting caught and Neville decides that someone else should go for the ingredients next time. He doesn't want the same person getting caught two times in a row. But as I went to sleep that night I couldn't help but think I'd honestly enjoyed being dishonest for the first time in my life and couldn't wait to do so again.

I hope that you all enjoyed Honest Dishonesty as much as I enjoyed writing it.