The week started poorly with the care of magical beasts in which they had the assignment to take care of Fev Foxes. The Fev Foxes looked like a combination of Foxes and trees with bark colored fur and leaf green eyes. Their eyes would change as the season changed to reflect the color of the leaves. In England, their eyes would turn the same color as their fur. She had heard that their eyes turned completely white in the northern part of Scandinavia. They were wary by nature and could camouflage themselves so well it was almost impossible to see them.
The foxes were avoiding her; in fact, her presence made them so uncomfortable that none could get them to calm down. They were together in a heap and did not stop hiding until she walked some distance away. Different animals reacted to a werewolf in unique ways. Most of them ignored a werewolf. Some responded with hostility, and some like the foxes with fear. It made the subject tricky as there was no record of how they reacted, so every new creature was a new trial. Hagrid had made it his habit to stand next to her during the lesson. Before, the disposition of the beast could be determined.
In this situation, Rosie's power where an actual boon for once as she could project a calm thought and calm most of the foxes down. The lesson went back to normal with the other starting to get the foxes to trust them and allowing them to take care of their fur. River felt a twinge of envy as the foxes looked adorable. They let the others pet them and even hold them as they brushed their coat. Care of magical beasts was Rosie's third-best subject. Her power was for once beneficial if she remained calm. Which she most of the time did except when creatures reacted aggressively towards River, then she would sometimes panic and made the entire situation worse.
River felt trapped in the class as she did not enjoy the subject. She was fascinated by some creature like dragons, but they were for obvious reasons not on the lesson plan. She was enjoying the obvious delight Rosie took in the class, which made it bearable and made it, so she was able to hide her disinterest from her. If she left the class, Rosie would be on her own and only have her clumsily write bord to communicate. There was a charm that translated thought into words, but Rosie was still maybe two or three years from being able to perform it as it was a complicated charm. There was also the problem of her needing to do the magic nonverbal, which further made things harder for her and made Rosie determined to succeed in the subjects in which spellcasting was not a significant feature.
Her second lesson for the day was transfiguration, where she managed to transform her teacup to a flamingo instead of the intended coffeepot. A feat that if it had been intentional would have been extremely impressive. She was unable to consecrate, and the entire lesson went by without her succeeding once. Which made it so that she was given the assessment as homework and that she had until her next lesson to practice it, which River felt incredibly embarrassed.
Then when the school day was finally over, it was time to watch another tape. They made a bet on what they would ask fist and decided to bet one of the joke articles that she had gotten from George. It seemed the minister of magic himself had made an appearance. He finished a talk with Madam Pomfrey, and as the camera went live and he then promptly went silent. Still, River saw that it seemed to have been some kind of argument, and she was able to pick up her name. To Rivers, slight annoyance, and Rosie's delight, the first thing they did was that they tried to map out the meetings and at what times people had to reschedule. To try to see if he gave up some clue of any of the other member's identities. She wrote down what she thought was the most important and knew that she would watch this again and take more detailed notes. Phoenix had been on every meeting and had never asked to reschedule a meeting that Oscar could remember. Spider had missed two and one of them, which narrowed the number of people as it had been an emergency cancellation when the puddle accident had accrued. River noted the rest of the days were rescheduling
The next topic was how he got recruited. Which had been River guess and made her slightly more annoyed. If they had started with it, she would not have Rosie looking all smug next to her. The recruitment for Oscar was that he first found a letter with instructions on. The later was charmed in such a way that worked like two people could write it at once.
The group started as a group that was going to make sure that Slytherin did not forget last year. It was relative quickly transformed into True Hogwarts. It lost several members before the transition was complete. They finally signed a contract, which stipulated that they would not willingly reveal any information about True Hogwarts except if they already knew the secrets. They had other inquires, which resulted in very little substance River thought except that Spider had been against the poisoning from the very start. He used the reasoning that it was too hard for it not to be the story of poisoning an entire house.
Granger smiled and said, "It looks like they made their first big mistake. The contract likely has similar aspects to the one we used with Dumbledore Army. So, if they break the contract, they will be cursed in a way that obvious enough that they will notice it. They phrased it in such a way that It does not activate with truth serum. With the memory gap charm, he cannot reflect on the fact that he is giving out information. That will give us some time to ….". Granger continued, but Rivers' mind did not follow it the memory gap charm where one of the doctors' favorite and had been used on her and others on several occasions.
It reconstituted everting in her mind, and memories tried to go up to the surface and were consumed by the charm before they had a chance of resurfacing. River felt sick and stood up; suddenly, it was all too similar to her own experience.
She was tapped on the shoulder by Rosie and that and looked at her with concern. That she was unable to contain, she tried for a smile but only felt sicker and said, "sorry, I do not feel so good that charm where used on me from time to time when I was …". She did not have to finish that sentence Rosie just nodded and let her go to her room and lay down. She drank her dreamless potion and lay in bed, waiting to go to sleep.
She was unable to watch the following days recording and had Rosie write down what they had learned. Rosie had taken great effort to make them as readable as possible. It seemed like the well had dried up, and new relevant information was hard to extract from Oscar.
The time came for them to make another the cabins trip, which meant that she would be in the dark with how the investigation was proceeding. The day before they went, there were no new recording. They both assumed that they had given up and moved on, which made River fell like ill. The thing she had uncovered was not good enough to catch the real monsters of dragon and Phoenix. It was with low hopes that they wandered to the designated port key site. It was not until they already were at the cabin that she realized that it was a good thing that they had not taken the pad with them. It was not in range here, and she was not sure if it would reconnect automatically to the device when they returned.
She drank her wolfbane potion. Her escorts left as soon as she put the bottle back at the table. She was surprised that they had not said anything about Oscar. Which she thought meant that they had decided not to release him. It would have been prudent to tell her if that was what they had planned so that she could mentally prepare herself before returning to the castle. They started finished their homework by the first day at noon. Then it was leisure time where they tried to distract themself from the investigation.
Rosie looked up potion recipe when River took time off from practicing expelliarmus to practice the strength charm. She felt the need to justify herself to Rosie as she was looking at her with a skeptical expression. River had to agree that yes, this was something that River probably never would have any real use. It was both harder and more dangerous than a levitation charm, and finally, she still had trouble with expelliarmus, which was a more effective way to defend oneself and one that was on the exams. Finely she confessed that the only reason that she wanted to learn the charm was she thought it was cool, which Rosie accepted with a shrug.
With her natural affinity for charms, it went a lot smoother than her counter jinx training. She knew she wanted to master this when she was able to pick up a large rock and throw it a fair distance away.
They had made a pack try not to talk about the investigation. It was hard as it seemed to affect every aspect of their lives. Rosie had moved closer to Rivers cabin with the rational as she could not get away from the pain, and as she now knew what it felt like, it would not bother her. Her transformation had become routine at this point. A painful and surprising boring routine, one as the wolfbane removed her fear of the transformation. It was strange what one could get used too.
Madam Pomfrey came the day after she transformed. River had to suppress her urge to ask about things she really should not have any business knowing. River was as always exhausted after a transformation. Pomfrey seemed to be under a lot of stress and not her usual self. It did not help that River stared at her as something tried to connect in her mid. Pomfrey's movement was stiff, and she was noticeably uncomfortable with River's examination. Still, she could not help herself something made her uncomfortable
.
She puzzled this new development as madam Pomfrey did her usually check-up. She was then taking her sister's job to remove all the heir on her left arm. She looked forward to the time she could do it on her own and did not have to rely on someone else. She tried to be relaxed, but something felt wrong as Pomfrey went over and removed the heir from her arm, restoring it to a state in which it could conceal the strange of her arm.
Pomfrey looked at River and smiled and, with a warm, friendly voice, said, "cheer up saddens and frowns do not make a cake." It finally connected in Rivers' head. She knew what had bothered her since Pomfrey had arrived and backed away as far away as she could manage suddenly terrified. She looked at Madam Pomfrey in a new light. She recognized the shape of her eyes and nose. The memories of the female scientist that was not blocked scream at her. That expression was that women's favorite and River had heard it on numerous occasions
. She stared at Pomfrey, her mind refusing to work probably as it over and over tried to access information that was blocked. It was the first time she felt disturbed by the charm that blocked her memories. Pomfrey, on the other hand, looked at her in complete shock, then realization dawned on her, and she said, "I see that that was one of her favorite expressions. Sorry I have had reasons to think about that vile person as I have been using one of the charms that she invented." River started to calm down. She asked, "did she invented the memory gap charm?" before realizing that it might give her away. Madam Pomfrey looked at her not with suspicion but with genuine sadness and said, "yes, it was supposed to help people with difficult operations. It has a much more nefarious application, and I think that was her intention for the charm in the first place." River had to ask, "are you related?" Madam Pomfrey answered after a short pause, "sadly, she is my cousin, and I will never forgive myself for not realizing what kind of person she was earlier."
River tried to relax and moved back towards Pomfrey. She knew that Madam Pomfrey was a good person and that it must be difficult for her. She touched her shoulder with her normal hand and with as a firm voice as she could manage, "I do not blame you in the slightest. I was overwhelmed with your physical resemblance and that phrase. It caught me completely off guard." Madam Pomfrey smiled and said, "thank you."
There was an awkward silence as neither seems to know what to say next. Finally, Pomfrey stood up and said, "I must be going now" she was about to leave, then she turned around and with an odd expression and with an awkward tone said, "do you have plans for summer?". That question took River complete by surprise, and it took a couple of seconds to say, "No, I do not have anything planned at the moment." Madam Pomfrey gave her a pained look and said, "I have been instructed to tell you that there might be an opportunity for you to help the ministry with a sensitive problem. It is nothing concrete yet, and it is completely your choice. If anyone tries to pressure you even if it is the magister of magic himself tell me and I will bash their head in" River nodded gratefully for Pomfrey the last word, and she could not put the finger on it, but something about that did not sit right with her.
She turned around to leave again when River blurted out, "my sister, how is she.?" Madam Pomfrey smacked herself on the forehead. "How could I forget; your sister is on the recovering they think they can bring her out of her coma within the weak. I will inform you when you can visit her. "thank you," River said, and she left.
She felt the fatigue came back in full force after Pomfrey left. She, fortunately, made it back to her bed before collapsing. She had already consumed the dreamless potion, so she fell into a peaceful slumber. After she woke up and felt a bit better, she and Rosie meet. Rosie could sense that something was bothering. She had probably felt everting that had happened Madam Pomfrey. River knew her friend was worried about what had happened, so she gave her the summarized version of the events.
When they returned, they expected that there would have been lite development on the investigation. River and Rosie were wrong. There had been five arrests, which meant that there were four left. Excluding Oscar, It was one more Hufflepuff Eli Wright. Then a Ravenclaw named Bonnie May as well as twins from Gryffindor named Ethan and Romeo Webb. The Ravenclaw had been taken down by Luna. The two Gryffindor had tried to take on Hermione in a dual, and she had defeated them quickly.
River was amazed that in less than a week, they had arrested several people. They returned to the dorm and started to look on the tapes. The first tape was not an interrogation but a discussion. It looked like all the teacher and Granger was there. McGonagall started with, "we cannot let Oscar go, and I think that the assumption that dragon went rogue and that the original plan was a mild poisoning which would be perfect as a warning. It also seems like they have deactivated the objects. Even those we have borrowed from other members are all deactivated. We think that the leader is going to ground. So, we should arrest the ones we know of and watch the ones we suspect of any weird movement as we continue to search for Phoenix and Dragon."
She then explained in more detail how exactly she would accomplish this. They were looking at the testimonies of the other Members. There were a lot of similarities and with every capture. They had quickly identified the similarities made a profile in which they easily identified almost all the members. It seemed to consist of year 4-6 and be people that lost one or more members of their family in the previous year. They had expressed anger at the start of the year. Which manifests itself in all sorts of pranks or otherwise aggressive behavior. Which suddenly disappeared, and they seemed to draw away from their friends.
There were only four members left the Spider, dragon, Butterfly, and Phoenix. All of them were probably trying right now to stay as low as possible. She wondered about Phoenix. He or she had been able to know which people to recruit correctly and skills to put a couple of sophisticated charms on several objects. The Phoenix must be either a 6 or 7, years maybe five, if they were at the level of Hermione, which River did not think, was possible.
River was sure that this thought had come to Granger and the other teachers and that they were looking for just that sort of person. River felt like her ability to do something of value had been long over. It was soon Charismas, and River got an early gift as the date when she could visit her sister arrived.