"Acromantulas?" the girl said. "Is that what they were called?"

Moody scowled at the girl.

He'd been hearing earsful about her from a variety of people, and none of it was good. She was Slytherin, which was to be expected given the other things he'd heard about her. She was clever and violent and dangerous.

It was a perfect prescription for a Dark Lord in training. Nothing he had seen had convinced him of anything else. Other Wizards would look at her and they'd have seen an innocent seeming little girl. They'd remember the ridiculous rumor that muggleborn couldn't use magic as everyone else. They'd assume the was as harmless as she looked.

Moody had seen monsters hiding behind the eyes of children, and he had an uneasy feeling that he was looking at one now.

There was no guilt in her eyes, no fear. Any ordinary child would have been shaken by what had happened, even now, hours later. They'd given the boy a calming potion, but hadn't even bothered to offer the girl one. That was enough to tell him that Dumbledore and the staff of the school knew there was something seriously wrong with the girl.

"How did you know they were going to be there?" he demanded.

"I know things sometimes," the girl said, shrugging. "I always just assumed that it was my accidental magic protecting me."

"It stops being accidental at your age," Moody said. "Especially if you do it all the time."

The girl shrugged. "I get some glimpses usually relating to things that are going to harm me. It makes it easier to take... steps."

Steps.

Moody had heard about some of the steps the girl liked to take, and he didn't like any of them. The school had covered up the boy with the boils, but Moody knew who the real suspect there was. How many other things had the girl done that hadn't even been made public?

"I've heard they were looking into you for the death of Argus Filch," Moody said. "Sent a couple of duffers in."

Making an accusation out of the blue sometimes helped; people who were disconcerted made mistakes, said things they hadn't meant to say.

"They didn't find anything because I didn't do it," she said, shrugging.

She was too calm...too confident. A first year should have been quaking in her books at the sight of him. She looked at his scars dispassionately, and without any sign of revulsion. That wasn't ordinary for purebloods; it was even less ordinary for muggleborn. At the very least they tended to stare curiously.

She acted as though she'd seen worse in the past, although it was possible that she might just have an excellent poker face. She was a Slytherin after all.

Still, he'd looked over the files, and there wasn't a motive. It was likely that Filch had run afoul of a Death Eater with a grudge. Making enemies of the last twenty graduating years of Wizarding Britain really hadn't been very bright, not when you had no magic to protect you.

Interrogating her about this might be a lost cause. If she'd done it, she'd covered it up well enough that she was confident that they'd never find him. If she hadn't, interrogating her was just going to antagonize her, which would make her a worse witness about more important matters.

"So you and Potter got lost when you fell through a hole in a secret passage; you found yourself out in the Forbidden Forest. What happened then?"

"I had a flash that the Death Eaters were coming," the girl said. "And another flash warning me about the Acromantulas. I decided to see if the two things coming to kill me would cancel each other out."

The girl said it coldly, as though the deaths of five men and the mutilation of one more didn't bother her at all. Moody had been out to the crime scene, and he'd found the blood covered wands that confirmed her story.

Following the tracks had showed that two more of the Death Eaters had escaped; most likely they'd apparated. There was blood that showed they'd been injured; with any luck at least one of them had died before he could get treatment for the venom.

"So you decided to kill them all," Moody said.

"They decided to kill themselves," the girl said calmly. "I just chose not to save them."

"Right... and then what happened?"

"I dropped some darkness powder when I saw that the Acromantulas were about to attack," the girl said. "And shoved a Christmas Cracker in that guy's mouth. I'm amazed that you guys let kids have those. I got a nice hat out of it, though."

She gestured toward the hat on her head. It was a jaunty sort of beret, colored in the Slytherin colors. Moody could see a bit of blood on the brim though. He wondered if she knew, but was choosing to wear it for the intimidation factor.

"The Acromantula killed the guys who were farther away, but didn't bother with us, probably because we were small and scrawny and they had a lot to eat. I healed up the guy I just killed, as much as I could, then I dragged him to the castle using that spell that lifts people up by one foot. I'm sure the Headmaster has told you the rest."

She wasn't afraid of Dumbledore, but she also didn't have that hero worshiping expression that a lot of the younger kids had. As a muggleborn that wasn't unusual; they didn't have a sense of who and what Dumbledore was. Moody had a feeling, though, that this girl knew exactly what Dumbledore was and it didn't bother her.

"It matches up with what the Potter kid said," Moody said, turning to Snape and Dumbledore. He'd questioned them separately, not that this would make much of a difference. They'd had at least twenty minutes to get their stories straight.

The Potter boy didn't seem like he'd be a very good liar, even though Moody knew that all kids lied. This girl, though, would lie without question.

"Send the girl outside," Moody said. "While we look at the pensieve memories."

He wouldn't trust the girl not to stab him while his face was in the pool. That was mostly true of anyone other than Dumbledore himself, but even more so of the girl.

He waited until they sent the girl out, and then he asked.

"Do you believe her?"

"I am not certain that I believe them about how they found themselves in the Forbidden Forest," Dumbledore said. "But I do believe that they met Death eaters outside."

"Oh, the man she brought back was definitely a Death Eater," Moody said. "I've got a hand picked team questioning him right now, as well as they can given the state of his jaw."

It was possible that this was the break that they'd needed. Moody was sure that there were agents in the Department, but if they could find out who, it might go a long way to restoring the balance of power. Even finding out how Voldemort was always a step ahead of them might help them find ways to ambush his people in return.

Success bred success, and the more Voldemort won, the more people flocked to his banner. Some losses would help to stem that tide, and maybe even get the higher ups in the Ministry to get up off their asses and do something.

"Let's look at the boy's first," Moody said.

The other two men glanced at each other, then nodded.

The three men plunged their faces into the pool.

Potter's memories were muddled; he hadn't seen much, and he'd been distracted by the Cruciatis, which caused all of the memories to become jagged and unreliable.

The girl's memories were clear.

The first part of the confrontation played out just as the boy had remembered, but the memories were clearer.

"Stop," Moody said. "Repeat that."

They listened to the Death Eaters again; this was before they'd discovered the children.

"Voldemort has a Seer?" Moody said. "One specific enough to pinpoint the general area of the children? That's disturbing."

"That's new," Snape said, looking pensive.

Moody scowled and turned toward Dumbledore. "Most seers aren't worth spit, but a good one can be bad in the wrong hands. Your pet seer is still here, right?"

"Sybil is right where she has always been,' Dumbledore said, "And her skills, while real, tend to be somewhat overstated."

"Look into it," Moody shook his head. "The Death Eaters already have too many advantages. We need to keep them from getting any more."

The scene continued.

It surprised Moody that the girl hadn't been more aggressive. From what he'd heard, he'd have expected her to roll into the bushes and grab the boy's wand, or to do something other than simply sit there.

Being trapped at wand point would have been enough for any other Wizard, but...

"She's waiting," he said, pointing. "Delaying. She knows that they are coming."

The girl had her eyes closed when they'd been discovered, Was that the point where she'd seen what was coming? It was an impressive ability if that was true.

Moody watched the girl while the boy was being crucioed. Most children her age would have been screaming if they'd seen their companion being tortured right beside them, especially knowing that they were going to be next.

She simply watched him dispassionately, with a slight tightening of her mouth the only sign of a reaction at all.

A moment later she was taunting them. Interrupting their plans to further torture the boy looked deliberate. He saw that realization on the faces of Dumbledore and Snape as well.

They stopped the memory again.

"She intended for them to turn on her instead of him," Snape said.

Dumbledore frowned. "Because she thought he would break?"

Was it because she knew the Acromantulas weren't ready to arrive yet? A delaying tactic? Letting the boy be tortured would have worked just as well; better in some ways, because they would have moved on to torturing her afterwards, perhaps doubling the time they had before she was killed.

It was subtle, but heroic.

Did it mean that she wasn't as bad as everything else he'd seen so far indicated that she was? Moody couldn't be sure. Even Death Eaters occasionally showed mercy, all but those who were irredeemable.

"She didn't mention the torture in her story," Moody said. "Not something that I would have expected."

The boy hadn't either, but he was a Gryffindor. He probably would have hated anything that made him look weak, especially in front of a girl.

"Perhaps she didn't think it relevant," Snape said. "She has suffered something similar before."

There weren't any records of the girl's family's murder, which was disturbing. It was possible that there were other muggleborn murders that the aurors had never heard about. The only thing that indicated there weren't was the Book and the Quill. It was easy to match known names with the dead. Why was the girl's family simply disappeared, when the others were made to look like accidents?

"Resume," Moody said.

The girl staggered a little when she was hit with the Crucio. All of her muscles were tense, but

There was no visible expression on her face, though. She didn't fall to the ground, screaming. Moody had known full grown aurors who would have been incapacitated.

Staring the man directly in the eye, the girl laughed.

It obviously wasn't a real laugh, but it was enough to disconcert her attacker, who let his wand drop. The man was obviously a fool.

"Stop," Dumbledore said. "That was most peculiar. Did it look like he miscast the spell?"

"No," Moody said grimly. "It affected her. She probably wouldn't have done as well against someone like Riddle or Bellatrix, but it shouldn't have mattered. She shouldn't have been able to push her way through the spell like that."

"She has brain damage," Snape said. He was staring at the girl, whose face was frozen mid-laugh. He looked seriously disturbed. "It was scans of her brain that allowed the Cruciatis cure to be developed."

All three men stood, staring at the scene before them. Moody turned.

His magical eye didn't give him any advantages here; these were just memories after all. But years of experience had alerted him to small details. It was an ability that had kept him alive.

"Look," he said. "In the trees."

The acromantula were in the trees, hidden. Only their eyes were visible, with an occasional limb being placed to look like just another part of the tree. The Death Eaters were facing away from them.

"She's not looking at them," Moody said; the girl's gaze was on the Death Eater, but there was something about her expression, a minute change. It was almost a look of anticipation.

It fit with what he'd heard about her; how she'd often know things without looking. The Death Eaters should have seen her expression and realized that something was happening. They were likely too astonished by her shrugging off the Cruciatis.

Laughing had to have been a calculated gesture. It had convinced the Death Eater to stop his attack, and it had gotten all eyes on her.

Dumbledore gestured, and it began again.

"This isn't a chance I normally give people," the girl said. "But I'm feeling generous. Run away and I will let you live, for today at least. If you don't, then I will kill you. I'll kill your friends, your families. I will destroy everything you've ever loved."

"You won't be going anywhere," the Death Eater sneered. "It's not worth bothering with you."

He still thought he had the upper hand. It made Moody feel a little better; if this was the quality of agent Voldemort was hiring then the Ministry still had a chance.

Not that there weren't a lot of aurors who were just as stupid.

The certainty the girl had... was it all a bluff, or was she actually the type who would try something like that?

"I warned you," The girl said.

The image froze. The girl was already in the process of dodging to the left. The powder was on its way to the ground.

"Darkness powder... good stuff," Moody grunted. He liked it in particular because his magical eye could see through it.

The acromantula were already dropping from the trees toward the unsuspecting backs of the Death Eaters.

It looked like the girl was telling the truth. It was amazing.

"She led them right into the trap," Moody said. "Kept them talking long enough so that they were all in the right place, and then she executed it."

Everything went black and they could hear screams and see dim flashes of green light. Moody had already explored the scene. He'd seen the tracks, and this memory and the locations of the flashes matched up with what he'd seen perfectly.

He could heard the sounds of two men apparating.

Watching the girl unflinchingly stopping the bleeding on a man whose face was half blown off was interesting. Seeing her lift him in the air with magic by one food and then drag him behind her like a muggle wagon was interesting as well.

"Did the girl just suggest that bringing him in might keep them from getting House points taken away?" Moody asked.

Snape nodded. He was staring at the scene in front of him, his face expressionless.

"I suspect that Miss Hebert does not care about House points at all," Dumbledore said quietly. "Yet she chose to leave us with this memory."

"Trying to distract us from something?" Moody asked. "Or maybe she was taunting us."

"What will the Ministry's position be on this?" Dumbledore asked, staring at the scene frozen in front of them.

"Exactly what the girl wants, I suspect," Moody said. "We're going to cover it up. It's Christmas so most of the students aren't around. Warn the boy not to talk about what happened. I doubt you'll have to tell the girl."

"I think that would be best for the school," Dumbledore said, nodding. "And the country. Were people to know that Tom was preparing for an attack on the school, there would be a widespread panic."

"They were just scouting," Moody said. "But I think that it would be best if you continue to upgrade the school's defenses. We need to think about what comes next."

"I think Tom might attribute this to his men's incompetence," Dumbledore said. "But I fear that this will have aroused his interest in the girl."

"If they come in force against the school, what will you do?" Moody asked.

"I am not helpless," Dumbledore said. "This school is safer than anywhere else in Britain for the students, and I will continue to make it so. Unfortunately, we live in a world where no place is truly safe. The students would be less safe at home."

Moody nodded.

"I've got a Death Eater to interrogate," he said. "I'm assuming that you'll take care of our two pint-sized heroes."

"I am uncertain who is more at fault," Snape admitted. "Miss Hebert is dangerous, but not foolhardy. The boy on the other hand..."

"He's a Gryffindor," Moody said. He chuckled. "What do you expect... he's the spitting image of his father."

Snape's expression turned sour.

"Both of them shall receive adequate punishments," Dumbledore said. "I would like to accompany you to the interrogation. Perhaps we will finally be able to take steps to win this battle of attrition."

Moody nodded shortly, and they both left Snape alone with his thoughts.