(Disclaimer: Man, do I hate these things. Can we just say that you know that I don't own rights to anything Harry Potter and get on with it? Thank you. Oo;)

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Hypnotism

Chapter 5:

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The next week of Aimee's life was the busiest she'd ever known. After the departure of the one person who could have helped her, Aimee was forced to rely on hand gestures and her terrible French-speaking skills. "Comment allez-vous, Madame?" she asked, attempting to be polite. The only response she received was a glare. The obviously unhappy woman who had been talking to Arthur Weasley just a few minutes ago grabbed Aimee by the hand and led her down a long, twisting staircase to what appeared to be a basement of some sort.

The woman bustled over to a tall set of shelves with thin boxes of all lengths set upon it. She pulled out box after box, opening each to reveal a different color stick, which Aimee would soon find out to be a wand.

After waving a few of these rods around, Aimee finally found out that she had magical powers. Luckily, she liked the wand that had chosen her the best of all of the wands, so she had no problem there. She was having a lot of fun pointing her wand at various objects and seeing what happened to them until she received a slap on the arm from the poor lady trying to help her.

Next, Aimee was brought over to a table with a heap of books piled on top. The woman dug through them, occasionally picking one out and setting it in a separate pile. When she had finished, she tied a string around them (which happened to be a book that Aimee had gotten to with her wand) and placed one end of the string in Aimee's hand. She held up a finger and shook it, saying "wingardium leviosa", meaning that Aimee should do the same with her wand. Aimee did, and found that after a great many tries, the books floated behind her as she pulled them with the string.

Since Aimee had no free hands, she found herself being dragged this time by her ear to a wall of cages. "Chat?" the woman questioned. "Oui," Aimee answered, wondering why she had just answered "yes" to "cat", which didn't seem like a valid question in her opinion. She didn't have to think about it for very long; the woman stood on her tiptoes and peeked in a few of the cages (and eventually had to get a ladder to get to a couple of them, which was saying quite a bit since the woman was larger than most hippopotamuses) to find a small grey kitten. The kitten looked like a mere dust bunny in her large hands, but it had the voice of a banshee. It shrieked like the world was about to end until it was placed safely in Aimee's arms, which were a few good feet closer to the ground.

"Endymion," the woman told her. Aimee held up her wand and shook it at the cat, repeating its name over and over, as the woman shook her head and started to walk away. After about the fifth step of Aimee hopping along holding a kitten, dragging about fifteen books, and shaking a wand at a cat while repeating what she thought to be a spell, sparks started to come out of the tip of Aimee's wand. The woman glanced downward, amazed, as the sparks gathered around the kitten's neck to form a golden collar, engraved with the name Endymion.

The woman had never seen anything like this before, but other than giving Aimee a glance of disbelief, she tried her best not to let it show. She was already furious that a juvenile delinquent was placed in her care; all she needed was for the little brat to have an unknown penchant for magic.

She stormed up the stairs as Aimee struggled to keep behind her; after all, the woman still had her ear pinched between her fingers. Finally, they arrived back at the room they had started in, and Aimee collapsed tiredly onto the bed.

Her relaxation didn't last for long, however, when she realized that she was laying on most of her possessions and what looked like a bunch of black bathrobes. Looking up at the woman for approval, she began to unpack her things, too tired to question how they had gotten there in so short a time.

"'Urry up, pleese," the woman told her as she pulled her skirt out to sit down, "I haf much to explain."

Taking the woman's advice, she placed her books on a table, arranged her stuffed animals on her bed, and pushed everything else to the floor. "You speak English?" Aimee questioned in surprise.

"Af course. But eef I vould tell you zees, you vould not 'ave 'shut up'," she said, grinning to herself at her cleverness. "Now, I vill explain. Tes parents sont Death Eaters, zhey are taken to jail. You are 'ere to learn ze magic, because you are a vitch. Zees," she continued, holding up Endymion by the scruff of his neck, "ees a familiar. 'E vill help you, but I know not 'ow. Zeese," she now gestured toward Aimee's robes, "are your ooniforms. You vear zeese to schoole. Do you 'ave any questions?"

Aimee had millions of questions, but at the moment, she could only think of a few. "How am I supposed to learn magic? I mean, I don't know anything but how to give a cat a collar and make books float. Also, what's a Death Eater? Who are you, and what is your name? Why-"

The woman interrupted Aimee before she had to answer too many questions. "My name ees Madame Maxine, I am 'Eadmistress of Beauxbatons. You vill learn ze magic same as everyone else, but you vill 'ave to vork harder, since you are very much behind. Death Eaters are ze followers of," she paused, then decided to whisper a name, "Voldemort. 'E ees very bad wizard, and your parents are very bad too." She seemed content with her answers, and as a goodbye, she pointed to a door that Aimee thought was a closet. "Ze common room ees zhere, and ze girls vill be glad to 'elp you." The woman rose from her seat and exited the room as Aimee gathered her belongings from the floor and began to arrange them around her room.

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Aimee was changing into her robe when she noticed that it seemed to be trying to tug itself off her. She hoped it wasn't magicked, and looked for the source of the pulling. She sighed in relief; it had just been Endymion. She reached over to her top drawer, pulled out a hair elastic, and dangled it in front of the cat's face, planning to send it zipping across the room with the cat in pursuit. As she looked at the cat, she stopped moving (and nearly stopped breathing). She had never seen eyes like his before; they were purple! She picked him up, blinked, and checked again to be sure. 'Yup,' she thought, 'they're as violet as... well... violets.'

Sick of being examined, Endymion felt he had to remind his new owner that he was no stuffed animal, like the ones on her bed. He reached out a paw and gave her a nice pat on the nose, which didn't make Aimee happy in the least. She resumed dangling the hair-thing, finally stretching it out and letting it fly across the room.

Aimee watched as Endymion chased after his new toy, then turned to pick up her brush from her dresser. She glanced in the mirror, and began to brush her hair. 'At least nothing's different here,' she thought. 'Same long, puffy brown hair. Same funny-looking eyebrows. Same violet-colored eyes. Same... wait a second.' Her eyes shot up to meet their duplicates in the mirror, lingering as they took in their new color.

"Cool," she breathed.

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(A/N: Hope you guys are liking this so far; I've stayed up until 12:30 just to write this for you. ^^; Needless to say, I'd love for you to review, even if it's constructive criticism. Stay tuned! Judging by the reviews I hope to get, I'll write more if that's what you want. Chapter six is on its way!)