Disclaimer: I only own Hex, Maeve, Peter, Robert and the Turkish Tramplooses. JK Rowling owns the rest of Hogwarts, the Lestranges (but I made up their first names), and Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans. Barbra Streisand belongs to herself. I don't know if there is such a thing as Cottleston pie, but a recipe for it appears in pages 70-71 of the Winnie the Pooh Cookbook by Virginia H. Ellison (Dell Publishing, 1969).

Technical Notes: To all Barbra fans out there, please see the Technical Notes for Chapter 9. If you don't want to, please read my lips: Ms. Streisand is not a witch.

Author's Notes: Thanks to Chad-Catsmeat for the rockin' reviews! :D Please, please update "The Magical Band" soon!

Crucio

The Dementor episode tightened security around Hogwarts considerably. The Hogsmeade weekend was cancelled. Students were ordered to stay in the castle and were accompanied to their classes by teachers or prefects. "I would appreciate it if we got to your next class by tomorrow," Snape told the Hufflepuffs acidly one morning as he walked them to Charms.

"Someone's in a hurry," Hex murmured to Peter.

"You'd be in a bad mood, too, if you were up all night keeping watch," the big boy replied.

"Step lively, Holmstrom, Brandegoris," Snape ordered. "If you devoted as much energy to walking as you did to talking, we would be making more progress."

"I feel like I'm in prison," Hex muttered. A teacher always had to accompany him to the practice field so he could use the Portkey and get to Maggie's, and he had to be back exactly at five because another would be waiting to take him back to the castle. Hex wondered why they weren't being watched while they were in the bathroom. People were always most vulnerable in there. Then he had the most unsettling thought that maybe they were being watched in the bathroom, through some kind of wizard closed circuit TV or something.

Maeve smiled as he and Peter caught up with her. Hex grinned back as her small hand stole into his. The one good thing about the tighter security was that he got to hang around her more often. She didn't seem to mind.

Someone else did, though. "Father isn't too happy that you've taken up with this Mudblood, Maeve," Malfoy said darkly, glowering as they passed the Slytherin table.

"Why should you care?" Hex retorted. "I thought Maeve wasn't royal enough for you."

"And I thought you knew that she is in my father's custody until she comes of age. While she is under our roof, Father will not — and I quote — 'tolerate any consorting with Mudbloods or other such foolishness.'"

"Congratulations, Barf-boy. You actually listen to your daddy."

"It would do Maeve some good to do the same."

"What's he gonna do if she doesn't? Throw her out on the street or something?"

"It's only fitting if she is going to repay our kindness by consorting with Mudbloods."

Hex raised an eyebrow. "That's got to be illegal, even in the magical world. Child neglect or something like that. Or are you oh-so-mighty Malfoys above the law?"

"They like to think so," Maeve finally said, her voice strained, "but they aren't." She tugged at his hand, to which she had clung all through the exchange with Malfoy. "Come, Hex, let's go."

The sneer on Malfoy's face as he watched them leave grated on Hex's nerves. "Are you all right?" Susan asked as they joined her and Peter at the Hufflepuff table.

"I'm fine," Maeve said, her composure restored, helping herself to some Cottleston pie.

But her palm had been clammy when she had led Hex away.

"What did Malfoy say to you?" Peter asked Hex in a low voice during Care of Magical Creatures. That day, Hagrid had them bathe the Turkish Tramplooses, huge four-footed animals that looked like they were part-yak, part-moose and part-Clydesdale. It was soggy, messy work, much like bathing a Hagrid-sized sheepdog; and like most of the girls, Maeve was only making half-hearted efforts to help. But it was apparent that she had much more on her mind than just keeping away from their Tramploose, which liked to shake itself a lot.

"He told Maeve that his dad wasn't happy that she was hanging around me so much," Hex replied as he soaped up his side of the Tramploose, making sure that the suds penetrated the coarse, matted fur. "Actually, Malfoy pretty much said he didn't want her hanging around me, period, and if she didn't stop they'd throw her out on the street. Stop that." This last was said to the Tramploose as it shook itself vigorously, spraying them and the nearby groups with soapsuds and smelly water.

"No wonder Maeve is so preoccupied." The other boy wiped suds off his face and shot Maeve a sympathetic look. "The Malfoys are making her choose between you and her home."

"Yeah, well…" Hex rubbed some more suds into the Tramploose's fur a little harder than he should. The animal whinnied in protest and shook itself again. "It's pretty obvious what she'll go for."

"Maybe Maggie can take her in," Peter said innocently.

"What are you talking about? She's not going to choose me."

"If Maeve is going to choose Malfoy over you, Hex, I'll have to hold her up by her ankles and shake some sense into her."

The other boy smiled briefly. "Thanks for the vote of confidence, dude, but you've got to be practical about these things. She needs to eat and stuff. She can't choose me."

"Well, if it were that simple, she wouldn't be thinking so hard about it," Peter pointed out.

Hex looked at Maeve sitting beside the bucket of sponges, her brow furrowed delicately, the way it always did when she was trying to work out a tough Potions essay. "There's nothing to think about." He helped Peter rinse away the suds, then tossed down his sponge and walked over to Maeve, wringing out his sodden robes as he went.

She looked up when he came to a stop in front of her. Ignoring the roaring beginning in his ears, Hex took a deep breath. "We need to talk."

Maeve nodded, smiling tremulously. She looked a lot like What's-her-name did when she'd dumped him in the back seat of her car last summer, right before he got his Hogwarts letter. "I have something to tell you," she said softly. She looked at some nearby Ravenclaws emptying out their buckets and getting ready to leave for their next class. "We have a break coming up — will you walk with me?"

"Sure thing." With any luck, they could end up in the deserted side courtyard again and she could kiss him goodbye. Shut up, you moron. This is a life-changing decision we're talking about here and all you can think of is making out.

He gestured to Peter that they were going on ahead, but Susan had appeared and was helping the big boy finish up, so Hex figured it was no use trying to get his attention. "So," he ventured once they were a discreet distance away, "you wanted to say something?"

Maeve nodded and took his hand. Hex supposed it was a good sign, but the look on her face when he first came up hadn't. There was probably nothing in any Divination book in the Hogwarts library that could help him figure out the signals Maeve was sending him. "And it is…?" Hex prompted.

She kicked her way through the rocky ground, where some scrubby patches of new grass were beginning to appear. "First, I want to thank you for standing up to Draco yesterday."

"It was nothing. Barf-boy was being a jerk."

"The things he said were not very nice."

"Like I said, he was being a jerk." Can we get to the point already?

"I'm sorry I wasn't much help in class today."

"Don't worry about it. You had a lot on your mind." He managed a smile. "And you know Pete — the more he gets to muck around with animals, the happier he is. I wouldn't be surprised if he inherited Hagrid's job one day."

She, too, smiled wanly. "You are both such good friends to me."

"So…you were thinking about what Barf-boy said yesterday?" Hex asked, trying to get the conversation back on track.

Maeve nodded again. "He said a lot of things that made me think."

"And you're going to tell me what you were thinking…?"

"Well, it's mostly still all mixed up," she admitted. "I was hoping you could help me sort it all out."

His heart began to pound. "But, Maeve…I don't know what to tell you." He wasn't sure if what he wanted for her was the right thing. He wasn't even sure what he wanted for her, period. Just thinking about it made his head spin.

Hex stumbled over a tree root and realized for the first time that they hadn't gone in the direction of the castle, but quite a ways into the Forbidden Forest. "Uh, Maeve, I think we'd better get back to the castle. We're not supposed to be here."

All around them was a vast expanse of tall trees. It was dim under the dense canopy formed by the branches overhead. "Are we lost?" Maeve asked, squeezing his hand a little tighter.

"No, look — we came from this direction, so all we have to do…is…"

His voice died as he heard a rustling some distance away. Hex motioned for her to stay quiet as the rustling drew nearer. He squeezed her hand, ready to make a run for it, when the bushes to Maeve's right parted in a shower of dead leaves and twigs. She screamed.

Hex, for his part, stood rooted to the spot.

It was a woman, gaunt and ragged, with filthy, matted hair. She was tall, however, and it was obvious that she had once been very beautiful. Her haunted, staring eyes were a deep blue. "Hello?" she called in a hoarse voice. "Hello? … Is anyone there?"

Hex and Maeve looked wildly at each other as the stranger wandered around the small clearing, calling out for anyone to hear her. She was plainly insane. What was she doing in the Forbidden Forest? "D'you know her?" Hex whispered to Maeve.

She shook her head. "She looks like she needs help."

"Let's go get Hagrid."

"But she looks like she's about to die."

"Well, we don't know how to take care of her. Go get a teacher."

Maeve frowned, pouting stubbornly after a whole day of spacing out. "I can't leave you here. And if we go for help she'll get lost again."

"Let's take her to Hagrid, then." Hex stood in the woman's path and waved a hand in front of her face. "Uh…over here, lady. Are you, uh, lost or something?"

The woman stopped walking, as if she had finally caught sight of them, and smiled sweetly. "Why, hello there." She looked at their black school robes. "Do you go to Hogwarts?"

"Uh, yeah, it's right outside of this forest. Why are you here? Do you need some help?"

"My, such pretty children," the stranger said, still smiling. She seemed particularly interested in Maeve. "Selenius would love to see you."

"We're not supposed to leave Hogwarts," Maeve told her, shrinking against Hex's side. The woman was starting to get creepy. Scenting danger, Hex surreptitiously reached for his wand. "Come with us," Maeve was saying. "We can help you."

"No," the stranger replied, grabbing onto Maeve's sleeve, "you must come with me."

She was surprisingly strong and had hauled Maeve to her before Hex could react. He drew his wand, ready to duel, but the madwoman had wrested Maeve's wand away and was holding the girl in front of her as a shield. "Will you come with me now?" she asked in that same placid tone, pointing the wand tip against Maeve's temple.

"Hex, get help," Maeve told him as she struggled to get free.

"I can't leave you here," he said. "Let her go," he told the woman in what he hoped was a calm voice. On TV, they always tried to talk hijackers and kidnappers into surrendering before ultimately riddling them with bullets. "If you let her go, we'll go with you."

"That's what they all say," the stranger replied in a singsong voice, tightening her hold on Maeve. "I'd stop fighting if I were you, child," she hissed in the girl's ear.

Maeve shook her head and whimpered in pain as the arm around her neck tightened even more. "Let her go," Hex repeated. "What do you want for you to let her go?"

"I need people," the woman said, smiling blissfully before bursting into song. "People who need people…"

Of course Barbra Streisand would be a witch, Hex thought as he watched Maeve struggle again. Afraid that she would get hurt, he could do no more than hold his wand at the ready and hope that he would be faster on the draw than her captor was.

Maeve sobbed and stopped struggling. "Do it, Hex," she told him. "Run—curse her—anything. Don't worry about me."

"I'm not leaving you with her."

"Curses!" the woman said in a delighted voice, wrapping her other arm around Maeve. "I am good with curses! What curses do you—AAAAHHHHH!!!"

She gave an unholy shriek as Maeve sank her teeth into the arm holding her wand, galvanizing Hex into action. "Furnunculus!" he yelled.

The madwoman shrieked again as painful red boils erupted all over her face. Gasping in pain, she wrenched her arm from Maeve's reach and thrust the wand she held at Hex. "CRUCIO!"

Instantly, Hex's body was wracked with pain, as if a thousand Hanks were beating up on him all at the same time. He barely heard Maeve scream as he fell to the ground. The familiar red haze came down upon his senses as wave after wave of agony broke over him. Hex cried out and twisted his body this way and that to try and escape the torture, but nothing helped.

He opened his eyes to the madwoman's shrill laughter and her captive's screams as Maeve again fought to get free. Finding his wand still clutched in his spasming fingers, Hex tried to curse the woman, but the needles drilling into his brain made it impossible to recall any useful spells. Still he gritted his teeth and tried to recall a curse, a charm, anything, that could help them get out of there.

Suddenly, Maeve bent over double, flipping her captor over her back and finally breaking her hold. The woman landed with a hard thud right next to Hex, and he willed himself to clutch at her robes and keep her from getting at Maeve again. Exerting supreme effort, he heaved himself onto his stomach and tried to drag the madwoman toward him.

She kicked at him, but by then Maeve had jumped on her and was trying to beat up on the woman and regain her wand. Hex raised his body on trembling arms and tried to drag himself slowly over to the pair, then dropped himself heavily on the woman's flailing legs, too spent to move.

He heard a voice say "Sonorus," and his magically magnified screams ripped through his ears. The last one, seemingly torn from his very soul, reverberated through his brain and he knew no more.

Hex jolted back into consciousness on a mighty gasp of air, his body twisting reflexively. His eyes flew open, but he was no longer on the floor of the Forbidden Forest. And the terrible pain was gone, leaving behind a familiar soreness.

Madam Pomfrey and Professor McGonagall's faces popped into view. Both looked terrified. "Holmstrom?" Professor McGonagall barked weakly.

"Uh-huh?" he rasped. His throat was raw. Madam Pomfrey put a goblet to his lips. "Where'm I?" This wasn't his bed.

"You are in the hospital wing."

Hex sat bolt upright, remembering. "Professor!" Wildly he scanned the faces at his bedside: Hagrid and Professor Sprout, who were in tears, Professor Dumbledore, Peter. "Maeve! The forest—"

"Miss Moondaughter is fine," Madam Pomfrey told him, wrestling him back down. "She is resting."

"There was this crazy woman—"

"Eris Lestrange has been taken into custody," Professor McGonagall snapped, more like herself now that she knew he was OK.

"Eris Lestrange?"

"Yes, Mr. Holmstrom," Dumbledore said. "Eris Lestrange. One wonders how and why these people wind up in Hogwarts. How are you feeling?"

"Like I just got run over a few hundred times by an asphalt roller. What did she do to me?"

"If you were paying attention to your Defense Against the Dark Arts lessons," Professor McGonagall told him, "you would know that that was the Cruciatus Curse, one of the Unforgivable Curses."

"It was fortunate Miss Moondaughter regained possession of her wand and placed the Sonorus Charm on you," Dumbledore interjected gently. "The sound of your voice alerted Hagrid that you were in trouble." At the mention of his name, Hagrid nodded and blew his nose loudly.

"Whatever were you thinking?" Professor Sprout sniffled. "Going off by yourselves like that—"

"We didn't notice where we were going," Hex mumbled, feeling stupid.

There was a sob and Maeve, small and pale in her dressing gown, materialized behind Madam Pomfrey. "Miss Moondaughter!" the matron reproached her. "I told you to stay in bed!"

"I wanted to see how Hex was doing," she said softly. "Are you all right?" Maeve asked him as Dumbledore gave her his seat at Hex's bedside. She had a long scratch going down one side of her face.

He managed a smile. "I'm fine. How about you?"

She sniffled and nodded. "I'm fine, too."

"You were both lucky," Professor McGonagall reproached them. "If Eris Lestrange was sane enough to place the Cruciatus Curse on you, then she could also have killed you. Twenty points from Hufflepuff for blatant disregard of school security regulations."

"Twenty?"

"Each." Peter cringed and Professor Sprout started in her chair. "Just imagine," Professor McGonagall went on, with a meaningful look at her colleague, "what the deduction would have been if you had both turned up dead."

Dumbledore nodded solemnly. "While you are on Hogwarts grounds, you are the school's responsibility. I hope you now understand that our security measures are in place for a reason." He smiled as Hex and Maeve nodded. "But at the same time, if you hadn't disobeyed school regulations, then Eris Lestrange would not have been caught. You each earn fifty points for Hufflepuff." Dumbledore chuckled at the surprise and relief mingled on Peter's face. "Now that we have established that Mr. Holmstrom and Miss Moondaughter are all right, and the disciplinary actions have been determined, I believe it is time to let these two young people rest."

"Finally," Madam Pomfrey said, and began hustling people from the hospital wing.

Dumbledore was the last to go. "What did Eris Lestrange say to you?" he asked Hex as Maeve was sent to bed.

"Nothing, really," the boy replied as he struggled to remember. "She wanted Maeve to go with her. She said someone named Selenius would love to see her or something like that."

"That means Selenius Lestrange is also nearby. Did she ask you your name?"

"I can't remember. Maybe she did after she put that curse on me, but I don't remember her asking before that." He observed that Dumbledore looked relieved. "I wasn't supposed to tell her, right?"

"That is correct."

"Why?"

The headmaster rose to leave. "The knowledge of your name would have given the Lestranges greater power over you," he said cryptically. "Be careful, Mr. Holmstrom. Selenius Lestrange is even more dangerous than his wife."

Maeve spent only one night in the hospital wing, while it took Hex three days of bed rest before Madam Pomfrey deemed him fit to rejoin the land of the living. By then, the news that he had been discovered in the Forbidden Forest under the Cruciatus Curse had spread all over the school.

"What's everyone looking at?" Hex murmured to Peter as they joined the Hufflepuffs for breakfast on his first day back. The entire Great Hall was eerily silent as everyone watched every step he made.

"What do you think?" his friend replied. "You just spent three days in the hospital wing recovering from the Cruciatus Curse. I reckon they're all expecting you to start foaming at the mouth or something."

"Well, if everyone knows I was under that curse, how come they don't know I'm fine?"

"I tried to tell them, but they wouldn't believe me."

Presently, Neville Longbottom walked up to them, his round face white. "All right there, Hex?" he squeaked, looking at Hex like he was a ticking time bomb.

"Yeah, I'm fine, Neville," he replied. "How are you doing?"

"All right," the other boy replied, smiling shakily. "I–I'm glad you got over that curse. It's—I heard it can be horrible."

Stout, slow and easily scared, Neville was the kind of guy Hex liked to pick on once upon a time. In fact, if he wasn't feeling so lousy, Hex still could have had a little fun at his expense. But what they were talking about was no laughing matter, and Neville looked as if he were going to cry. "Thanks."

Having said his piece, Neville nodded jerkily. "Well…I'm glad you're all right. See you in Herbology."

Conversation was markedly subdued at the Hufflepuff table that morning. People spoke in hushed tones when asking Hex how he was doing. He got sick of repeating that he was fine, thank you, but it was touchingly funny that each and every Hufflepuff felt they had to come up to him and find out.

The other fifth years trod carefully around him and Maeve at first, but Robert broke the ice by presenting Hex with a piece of parchment. On it was written, in elegant calligraphy, I'm fine. Thank you for asking.

Hex laughed, causing people to look quickly in his direction, and pinned the sign to his front. "Thanks, Rob. This will come in handy for the next week or so."

Robert's present helped ease the students' fears somewhat, but Hagrid still burst into tears at the sight of him. "I'll never forget the sound o' yer screamin' till me dyin' day," the huge man vowed, blowing his nose on a polka-dotted handkerchief the size of a bed sheet.

"Uh, I'd rather you forgot that I screamed at all," Hex said. Maeve did the only thing she could think of to alert anyone nearby that they were in danger, but he wasn't too comfortable with the idea that at least half the fifth year class had heard him screaming. It wasn't a very macho thing to do, after all.

Hagrid shook his head and blew his nose again. "Now yeh stay righ' where yeh are!" he ordered between sobs. "I ain't goin' ter rest till I see yeh safely inside the castle with every'un else!"

And it was back to the prison movie again.

After Hagrid deposited them in the Hogwarts castle, Hex, Maeve, and Peter went to hang out in the main courtyard until Transfiguration. They sat beside the fountain and shared Peter's bag of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans while preparing for the coming lesson.

Hex was spitting out a liver-flavored bean when Ron Weasley turned up with his friends. "Erm, hi," the redheaded boy said, nodding at them. "All right th—" He stopped short when he read the sign pinned to Hex's robes and laughed. "Glad to know you're all right."

"We wanted to visit you," Hermione said, "but Madam Pomfrey wouldn't let us in."

"He was asleep most of the time," Peter reported. "It was very boring."

The Gryffindors laughed. "We're used to it," Ron told him. "Harry gets put in the hospital wing for that sort of thing all the time."

"Well, we can't let you have all the fun," Hex told Harry.

"I definitely don't mind sharing," the other boy replied, smiling.

"I heard you screamed like a girl, Holmstrom," someone sneered. Standing behind Ron was a smirking Malfoy, accompanied by a gang of Slytherins who were laughing and squealing mockingly.

"I'd like to see how you'd react to the Cruciatus Curse, Malfoy," Harry said coldly.

"He'll probably cry for Daddy," Hex said, glaring at the Slytherins.

The pale boy smiled cockily. "There's no need to pretend for my sake, Holmstrom. I saw you leaning on Brandegoris this morning. If you're still feeling faintish, maybe you shouldn't be playing quidditch." The Hufflepuff-Slytherin match was coming up in two weeks. "Maybe Hufflepuff should concede the match right now."

"Oh, don't you worry about me, Barf-boy," Hex told him sweetly, "I'll be there. You just worry about whether or not we'll kick Slytherin's ass harder than Gryffindor did."

Malfoy flushed pink as Harry and Ron laughed. "You sound brave now, Mudblood, but we'll see how things turn out at the match. Maybe we'll be the ones kicking your ass, and you'll be squealing like a—"

Although his monologue sounded promising, he unfortunately didn't get to finish it. A small whirlwind brushed past Hex, and the next thing they all knew, Maeve was in Malfoy's face. "Lay off, Draco," she ordered, her voice shaking as she tried to keep her temper in check, and gave him an angry shove. "Eris Lestrange didn't put the Cruciatus Curse on you. (shove) You weren't (shove) even (shove) there. (shove) So don't pretend you know all about it. Screaming like a girl, indeed. (shove) If I hear another screech out of you or any of your toadies, Draco, (shove) you'll be the one screaming like a girl."

He glared at her. "You forget, Maeve Moondaughter, that I can have you thrown out of Malfoy Manor tomorrow. All I have to do is write to Father."

Hex's insides went cold at the threat, but Maeve drew herself up and treated Malfoy to a glare of her own. "And you forget, Draco Malfoy, that your father doesn't manage my money," she replied in a clipped voice. "Stop threatening me with the loss of your family's hospitality. It doesn't become you."

Malfoy's nostrils flared. "We'll see about that."

"Nice comeback," Peter observed mildly as the Slytherins stalked away.

Ron grinned at Maeve. "Blimey, Maeve, you can be every bit as snotty as Malfoy when you want to. And I mean that in a really good way," he added quickly.