A/N: This chapter has been re-uploaded in attempt to fix a strange formatting issue.

The previous chapter (43) has also been updated as I left a small portion at the end of when it was originally posted. Hope the issues are resolved now!

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Millicent had not stayed long after their interview. Professor Snape had interrupted them, holding a bag full of her belongings someone had collected for her and informed them both that Millicent's grandmother was expecting her return. Asher had given her one last quick hug before she left.

Blaise had been upset, but not surprised, to have missed Millicent. "I mean, I wouldn't want to see anyone either," he told Asher with a shrug the next morning. "Especially not with all the rumors that usually surround her mom."

Asher rubbed both palms together in small circular pattern, as if rolling a small ball of dough between them and raised his eyebrows in question. Meaning?

Blaise leaned in closer to him from across the breakfast table. "Meaning everyone knows about her mom and how many times she's had to be sent to St. Mungo's for something like this. She's a mess."

He must have noticed the look of reproach in Asher's face and quickly added, "I feel bad for her and Millicent, obviously. But this isn't the first time and it probably won't be the last either."

Asher frowned. He pushed a flat hand from his chest outward and downward. Then he held his right hand in a thumbs-up position and placed it on top of his flat left palm and moved it slightly out and to the side. He finished with two gentle taps of his three straightened middle fingers of his right hand against the palm of his left. Need help mother.

His friend nodded. "She does need help. But you can't make someone get help. They have to do some of it on their own."

A sudden trembling of the bench he was sitting on drew Asher's attention to his left. "I'm starving," Draco announced as he dropped into place at the table. "They got anything good here?"

"The usual," Blaise responded, passing Draco a basket of pastries.

Draco picked through the basket, touching every single pastry as he did. He settled on a chocolate croissant and dropped the basket into the center of the table, nearly spilling the contents. "I miss having my house elves," he said as he buttered his croissant. "My father ensures that they all know my favorite foods. And they're really good cooks."

"Yes, we know," Blaise said, rolling his eyes.

The blond boy sneered at him, "You're only jealous because you don't have any."

Blaise shook his head, "My mum used to have one but he died. We haven't replaced it yet." He looked at Asher who was watching the conversation with no small amount of confusion. "I don't know how the muggles do it," Blaise said, shaking his head. "My mum's been driving herself nuts with keeping up on what Osiris used to do."

"Your mum's doing house elf work?" Draco asked, his upper lip drawn up in repulsion.

"Well," Blaise grinned, "Maybe she's driving her newest boyfriend crazy with telling him what to do. I heard this one is sending an elf over every other day to clean up the house. And you know my mum's not going to do any cooking."

Asher caught his eye and flicked his fingers out in a 'ta-da' motion, eyebrows raised.

"Magic? Yeah, the house elves have magic," Blaise answered.

"Not like ours though," Draco said, shoveling a forkful of eggs into his mouth before continuing. "They aren't like wizards."

"Their magic is more for household things," Blaise started to explain before seeing Asher's pencil flying across his notebook.

Why doesn't your mum use magic for chores? He wrote.

"Oh. I mean, she could," Blaise said with a smirk. "But I don't think you understand who my mom is." Trying to imagine his mother, who prided herself on her gorgeous looks and took time and care to maintain herself, wasting magical energy on household chores.

Draco laughed, "Yeah, she's not exactly a Weasley is she?"

A few students at the table laughed in response to Draco's jest.

Encouraged by this, Draco continued, "We all know they can't afford to own an elf. I've heard Mrs. Weasley even cooks her own food."

There were some startled looks in reaction to this, as if cooking your own food was a shockingly lewd thing to do. Asher was even more confused now. He thrust his right fisted hand, pinky finger extended, downward in a quick motion and then tapped his left shoulder with the side of his right index finger. Bad why?

Draco narrowed his eyes at Asher. "I always forget you're one of them," he said with a somewhat confused look on his face, as if he had a hard time reconciling the fact that his friend, whom he liked, could also have been raised by muggles, who were little more than Neanderthals.

Blaise sent Draco a scathing look of warning. "Shut up, Draco, or I'll—"

What Blaise would have done to Draco was interrupted by an explosion at the table behind Blaise's back. The Slytherins turned in surprise at the noise (and the quickly rising red colored smoke) emanating from the Ravenclaw table.

A boy, Asher guessed in his third or fourth year, was staring at an opened box in front of him, clearly shocked into immobility. His face was covered in a thin layer of soot so that his eyes stood out wide and comical through the mess. A high-pitched laugh started at Ravenclaw table and moved around the Great Hall as the boy's hair turned a shocking shade of red and gold in alternating and undulating stripes.

A female Ravenclaw handed the boy a hand mirror to investigate his new hairstyle.

"Weasley!" The boy yelled a moment later, jumping to his feet. He nearly fell over backwards as the backs of his knees crashed into the bench he had been sitting on and sat heavily back down. He turned himself, climbed out from the table, and stalked towards the Gryffindor side of the room where two red-head boys were doing their best to look completely innocent.

They were failing miserably.

Asher did note that the Ravenclaw was grinning. He shoved one of the identical twins in the shoulder, knocking him only slightly off-balance.

"It looks good on you, Davies," the other twin said with a smirk.

The hall fell back into the usual excited murmur of mealtime, only quieting again momentarily when Professor McGonagall swept the Weasley twins and Davies from the Great Hall.

"Weasleys," Draco said with the same kind of sneer that would normally accompany a foul word. "Disgrace to all wizards, that lot."

Blaise shrugged in a gesture that either conveyed indifference to or agreement with Draco's statement, but no obvious desire to continue that conversation. Instead he asked, "So, Asher, when are we flying again?"

XXXXX

Asher sat through yet another lecture from a professor he couldn't entirely understand. Despite the magical breakthroughs over the weekend, first with flying and then with performing legilimency with Millicent, he was becoming discouraged again. He was tired of lip-reading and began to let his mind wander.

He thought about the legilimency with Millicent. It had been easier than he had thought. Maybe it was because she was a willing subject. Or maybe…

But no, he couldn't try it on one of his friends. Even if Draco's slicked back blonde head was only an arm's length away. It would be wrong. Hadn't Professor Snape instilled that in him?

It's only a method of communication, a mischievous thought in his head reminded him. He was at school, after all. Wasn't he supposed to be able to learn from his professors? Weren't they supposed to be able to teach him?

And since the headmaster had failed to provide Asher with an interpreter, shouldn't he be allowed to use any and all means of learning that he had at his disposal?

That was a logical line of thought. It was really quite convincing, Asher thought.

As if to join the devil on one shoulder, a more prudent thought crept in arguing the other side. Legilimency is illegal to teach in the UK. You would get in big trouble if someone found out. And what about Professor Snape? He could get in trouble too.

Not for the first time, Asher wished he had more time with Millicent to ask her questions about the legilimency. Had it hurt her? Could she even feel him there? Would she have known he was doing it if she hadn't asked him to?

And while the threat of illegal activity should have been enough to dissuade him from trying, he was certainly giving the little devil his attention.

Professor Snape, though! The little angel reminded him.

Asher frowned. That would bother him. He would not want to see him get in trouble for something Asher did. And would he be disappointed? Would he be angry?

Technically, the little devil mentioned, Professor Snape had not taught him how to perform legilimency, he only taught him to be receptive to it. So he would be off the hook, right?

Before he had a chance to talk himself out of it, Asher began to clear his mind. If Professor Flitwick acted as if he suspected a presence in his mind, Asher would simply duck out. No one would be the wiser. Professor Snape said none of the other teachers could use legilimency, so it was likely they wouldn't recognize it either. Or so he hoped.

A moment later he could sense the professor's mind as if it were an open book on the lecture stand, just waiting for someone to peer over it. Very carefully, very slowly, he approached.

There may have been a tiny flinch on the professor's face, or Asher may have imagined it as he crossed the threshold of the older wizard's thoughts. He suppressed a grin as suddenly the professor's thoughts were as clear to him as his own were. He was getting the lecture his classmates were getting!

Asher resisted the urge to take notes. He would still copy Blaise's at the end of class or he would raise suspicion. But for the first time since beginning at Hogwarts, he was able to understand a lecture outside of Potions.