"Professor Fowl wasn't pink this morning," Fred said, looking around the Umbridge's office.

"No my dear brother, it would seem as though he is just as good at evading our pranks as the other teachers," George said sorrowfully, waving his wand. A bucket of Permanent Pink Paint (also known as PPP or the 'Really Long P' by the brothers) levitated slowly to the ceiling.

"Well, let's hope that Madam Umbridge is not nearly as successful," Fred said, walking around the room. He stopped when he saw the papers on her desk - files of the other teachers. Smirking, he silently picked them up.

"Georgie, perhaps she would be a bit more inclined to change color with a bit of bait," he said. Fred walked over towards where George was hanging up the bucket and set the teacher files on the ground beneath it. On the top of the pile was the file of one Professor Fowl with his blood status – muggleborn – circled several times in angry red, and "Mudblood" scrawled across it.

Artemis nearly growled, throwing the phone he had worked so hard to make across the room. It was strange, he mused;he had been angry before, many times in fact, but he had always worked through it coolly and sought revenge coldly. However, this...incident...as Artemis would later refer to it, was akin to throwing a tantrum.

Butler wasn't answering. The area he was supposed to be in had cell service; Artemis had checked earlier. So why wasn't he answering!? Butler could have moved, if the fairies had found him already. But no, there was no reason for them to go looking for him. He had been very careful with the tracking device in moving it to Butler, and unless it was measuring more than he had initially thought, it shouldn't have been able to tell the difference. Unless, Butler had tipped off the fairies about him!

But no, Butler wouldn't do that. He was loyal. Completely loyal. Right?

Domovoi Butler. 12 letters, a multiple of 4. Artemis bit his lip as he noticed that his little tantrum had upset the five writing utensils on his desk. Absently adjusting the feather quill so that it once more lined up with the others, he straightened the small pile of papers and walked out of his office.

Upon entering the dining hall, however, he couldn't help but be surprised. He had heard about Hagrid, the half-giant who was temporarily gone, but he hadn't quite comprehended what that meant. The man sitting at the staff table was much larger than Butler. In fact, his feet might have been the same size as the entire body ofone of Artemis' brothers. Miles might have come up to this man's shin. And, unfortunately for Artemis, the last remaining seat was next to the rather large man. He silently walked up and took the seat without any sign of his discomfort.

"'Ello, you mus' be Professor Fowl! I'm Hagrid, Care o' Magical Creatures," Hagrid said, holding out a hand. Artemis couldn't help but noticed it was oddly colored, as if the man had been holding something which stained his hands. Artemis really didn't want to shake it, but it would be rude not to.

"Hello Professor, you are correct in your assumption," Artemis said quickly, dropping his hand after shaking Hagrid's. He silently wiped it on the napkin on his lap and hoped that whatever was on the other man's hands wasn't harmful. He had to admit, he did wish that Hagrid emphasized his words a bit more; he hated having to deal with boorish speech.

"'Ow are you settlin' in?" He asked. Well, even if Hagrid spoke oddly, at least he seemed like a kind-hearted individual. Of course, appearances could be deceiving. For all he knew, that substance on Hagrid's hand was blood. Artemis shivered as he looked at his plate. His eyebrows furrowed, four. There were four eating utensils. Two forks, a knife, and a spoon. Why were there four, anyway? Artemis straightened out one of the forks to line up with the rest. Why not five? Five was a nice number. Even three. Artemis would settle for three. Who needed the salad fork, anyway? Hogwarts served buffet style, not in three course segments. And besides, he could use the normal fork for salad. Or give him a butter knife. It didn't have to be used, but Artemis could set it up anyway. Four was bad luck.

"Professor? 'Ow are you settlin' in? Students arn' botherin' ya, are they?" Artemis' gaze shot up. What had he just been thinking? Four was bad luck? Preposterous.

"I am settling in just fine, thank you. I had a few students at the beginning of the year who doubted me because of my age, but they settled down," Artemis said. 30 words. A multiple of 5. Had he just counted his words?

"If you would please excuse me a moment," Artemis continued. 8 words. A multiple of 4. Artemis felt sick. Keeping his eyes raised and rousing all the dignity he could salvage, he fled the hall.

Artemis did not run. He was a Fowl, and Fowls do not run. More than that, he was Artemis Fowl II, self-made wizard and genius extraordinaire, he did not run. Instead, he walked briskly. He walked briskly to the nearest bathroom.

"If there are any students in here, clear out immediately or I will deduct points," Artemis said calmly. 15 words. There were no students. Naturally. It must have been because of the 15 words, had he used 12 or 16, there would doubtlessly have been some. Artemis froze as he realized where his thoughts were going and violently waved his wand at the door, locking it. Spinning around, he looked at himself in the mirror. He wasn't looking good. He was already naturally quite pale and slightly unhealthy looking, but the image looking back at him was far worse than normal. His cheeks had sunken and bags had formed under his eyes, as if he hadn't slept in years. Sure, Artemis kept waking up during the night and he wasn't getting to bed on time, but surely he wasn't that sleep-deprived?

"I am Artemis Fowl," He said clearly. 4 words. A stinging sense of wrongness filled him. "The second," He added. 6 words. Better, but still uncomfortable. "Discoverer of the fairies," There. That brought it up to an even 10. The feeling settled. So, somehow his words were influencing his feelings. He just hoped that it didn't run in reverse, he would hate to lose control of his speech.

Artemis gripped the sink tightly, unsure of what to do. Biting his lip, Artemis resolved himself. He was going to stop this ridiculous number thing right here, right now.

"I am Artemis Fowl," He growled out. 4 words. Artemis bit his lip, refusing to say anything else even as the sense of wrongness settled in his gut. This was wrong. This was bad. The world was wrong and if Artemis didn't fix it right now, everything would fall into ruin. The skies would darken, Butler would die, the fairies would hate him, Holly would...

"The heir of the Fowl Empire," 6. Plus his previous 4 made 10. Damn. Damn, damn, damn! Artemis was not one for swearing. Vulgar language was for the lower class, but he could not find better words for his situation. Why was this happening? It was compulsive, he hardly realized he was doing it.

"Tempus," Artemis said faintly. 1 word, hardly a problem. He didn't have any more classes for the day since he had just left dinner, but it would probably be good to get some rest. Yes, sleep sounded good. He would not speak again for the rest of the day and tomorrow he would begin breaking this habit immediately.

The next day, however, he found himself having difficulty doing so. Same with the day after that. However, though Artemis was frustrated about his predicament, he did not forget his décor. Seeing as he had walked out on Hagrid during their first conversation, he now owed the man an apology and there was no way he was saying it in the dining hall where everyone would hear. And so it was with a heavy heart that Artemis was trudging down the snowy hill, already planning his words, and trying not to freeze to death. Warming charms could only do so much before you set your clothes on fire and shivering was undignified.

Artemis knocked on the door twice and successfully resisted the urge to knock another three times by shoving his hand in his pocket and grabbing a small notebook he had brought along just for this. He pulled it out and marked down a tally. There were now 134 tallies on the first page. Artemis bit his lip and ignored the urge to make one more just to make it even. He was keeping a careful tally of these urges, but he didn't mark down the ones regarding the tally itself, since that would defeat the purpose. The hope was that by consistently keeping track of the habit, he would be better able to defeat it. It wasn't working so far, but he had only started on this method yesterday.

"Oh, shut up you great big mutt!" Hagrid's voice called out over the noise being raised by a dog on the other side of the door. The door opened a moment later and Hagrid peered out, beady eyes hidden behind the mess of wild hair.

"Professor Fowl?" He asked, clearly confused.

"I am here to apologize," Artemis said succinctly. 5 words.

"Apologize? Wha' fer?"

"For walking out of our conversation in the Great Hall,"

"Tha'? You don' need to apologize fer somethin' like that,"

"Nonetheless, I feel I must. I apologize for leaving early,"

"Er, well, apology accepted then. You wan' some tea?" Artemis cringed. 8 words, with a 4 word invitation. No, he did not want some tea. He did not want some tea because he did not want to go into Hagrid's house, it was doubtless too small, awkward, and uncomfortable. No, it would probably be the kind of place Holly would like, but not him. No, not at all. Especially after Hagrid invited him in using 4 words. No, he did not want to go. It would be very bad if he went after Hagrid asked like that. Artemis frowned and squeezed the small note pad in his pocket. It was true that he did not want to have tea for his own reasons, but it seemed the majority of his distaste for the idea stemmed from the 4 word invitation. He would not allow this...thing to control him.

"Thank you for the offer, I would quite enjoy some," Artemis said before stepping into the man's hut. He was completely correct, it was horribly small for the large man and therefore did not comfortably accommodate the both of them.

As Hagrid poured the tea, Artemis looked around the cabin. The only sound was the deep raspy breaths of Fang and the thunderous footfalls of Hagrid. It was interesting, looking around, because Hagrid had exactly 22 things hanging on his wall, 6 pieces of furniture, and 1 particularly ugly rug. Artemis fought the urge to pull out his wand and fix it, his abnormal OCD calling to him to change the entire room, but instead he made another tally. Hagrid finally dropped a mug of what might be able to pass as mud in front of Artemis. He grimaced, but politely took a courtesy sip of the drink. Hagrid was definitely not an artful tea maker. Setting it down, Artemis looked up at Hagrid, who was peering at him through his mess of wiry hair. There was a bit of an awkward silence as Artemis calmly gazed back. Hagrid began shifting in his seat.

"So, er, Professor...'ow are your classes goin'?"

"You asked me that when we spoke before. They are the same since then, thank you. I heard that you are a teacher right now, how are your own classes going?" Artemis asked. Hagrid's eyes lit up with a passion.

"Oh, it's goin' great! 'Oo should see wha' I've got fer them next week! Come!" Hagrid said, barging out of the house and stopping only to steal some of Fang's red meat. Artemis looked on in disgust, but followed silently, eyeing the flopping steak in the half-giant's hand.

They walked out to just inside the edge of the forbidden forest, where Hagrid began calling and whistling. Artemis frowned, running through the veritable library within his mind, but there were far too many possible creatures. A lot of things lived in the forest and ate red meat. However, after a moment, there was a sound, like the crunching of leaves. Artemis turned to look behind him and came face-to-face with a disgusting creature that resembled an enormous zombie Pegasus – a Thestral, if he remembered properly.

The Thestral walked past him and began sniffing at the meat in Hagrid's hand. A second emerged from across the clearing.

Artemis frowned. He remembered reading about Thestrals and wondered how 'seeing death' would affect one's perception of the animals. It clearly wasn't the animals themselves, as they had no way of distinguishing whether one has or hasn't seen death, so the magic for it mustcome from the viewer.

All that Artemis could think of at the moment was that 'seeing death' likely opened up some part of the brain or forced it to make new connections in such a way that affected the visual centers and allowed one to see the Thestrals. However, for that to happen, the person needed to be capable of full emotional exposure to the experience; babies, the extreme elderly, and anyone with less than a fully operational brain would not be capable of the experience and, thus, would not be able to gain the ability even if they 'saw' death. Furthermore, that theory would also imply that a person does not actually have to see someone die, merely truly believing that they are dead could be enough to trigger the response.

So, was the death that he 'saw' Butler's? Was it Holly's? He could remember the incident so it would have hadthe same effect on his mind as if he hadn't changed time to let her and the others live. Or was it any of the various people that died as a result of his actions?

No.

He clamped down on that thought. He had noticed that his horrible OCD directly responded to guilty thoughts, becoming significantly worse if he ruminated on past mistakes or the effects of some of his trades. From the smuggling operations to the cutthroat business, Artemis had a hand in everything. Aurum est potestas. Gold is Power.

Why were there two thestrals? It brought the total number of animals in the clearing up to 4. Si. The number of death. And, of course, in the Wizarding World, thestrals were a major symbol of death. Was the universe trying to tell him something?

Artemis shook his head and marked the notebook. Rubeus Hagrid. 12 letters, 3 times 4. Another mark. Artemis began shaking, drowning out Hagrid's explanations of the thestrals. The clearing felt small, as if the trees were slowly moving inward. Could they do that? Were there any Walking Trees in the Forbidden Forest? Every crunching leaf echoed painfully in his ears, every shadow held a predator, just waiting to jump out gnashing, spitting, gashing, crushing, grinding, slicing, burning, freezing, stinging...

"'Oo okay? 'Oo look kind of peachy," Hagrid said, reaching out with his bloody hand to set it gently on Artemis' forehead. Artemis quickly stepped away from the the enormous hand and made another small mark in his notebook. Looking at it once more and looking around him, Artemis let out a very controlled sigh.

"I'm afraid that I'm rather short on time right now, if you would excuse me," 15 words. Artemis hated contractions, but his hate of any number that wasn't a multiple of 5 was quickly overpowering it.

"Uh, yeah, sure, see 'oo later I guess," Hagrid said, blinking. Artemis turned and stiffly walked back up the hill to the castle.

Butler was having an adventure. Or, at least, he liked to call it that. In all actuality, he was worried. He had begun receiving all kinds of letters from Artemis, sending him on various chores and escapades throughout a few different countries. Perhaps it was a good thing though, Butler mused, since the fairies had been following him. He had left Cygnus Hemming back in the mountains of China where he could study his plants all day long happily and where Butler could find him later if necessary. As for Butler himself, well, he had been sent on fun little missions. Strange things. For a while, he was picking up random electronic parts for Artemis. Anything from fairy tech to a toaster, which he had then sent to Artemis.

Now, though, just what did Artemis need with a butter knife? He could hardly pick it apart and if he was going to melt it down for something, he would have told Butler to pick up the metal itself. It was cheaper. Butler sighed; he hadn't heard much besides general orders from Artemis recently. No status updates, no new ideas, nothing. Just simple orders. It was gettingworrisome. Artemis didn't confide much and he wasn't a very talkative person, but he was usually a bit more chatty than this with him. Butler eyed the owl in front of him as he tied the tiny package to it. What was going on?

Artemis sighed as he looked down at the normally intelligent girl. Miss Granger was fretting, and it was erasing her focus. Not that Artemis could say much about that, these last few weeks had been hell for him. Eventually, though, he had begun to realize that there was little he could do here. Over break, he planned to go find someone who might be able to explain his sudden development of number related OCD. In the meantime, he was carefully watching himself to make sure that it didn't get any worse.

It was strange, though; normally there were15 students in his class. With the absence of Mr. Weasley and Mr. Potter, however, there were only 13; Ms. Granger, Ms. Patil, Ms. Brown, Mr. Thomas, Mr. Longbottom, Mr. Finnigan, Mr. Malfoy, Ms. Parkinson, Mr. Crabbe, Mr. Goyle, Ms. Bulstrode, Mr. Zabini, and Mr. Nott. 13 students. Not horrible; at least it wasn't a multiple of 4, but not normal. Not the usual. The usual of 15 was comforting; bad things didn't happen very often in a normal teaching day. No, bad things were far more likely to happen on an unusual teaching day.

Perhaps there was more to the number 13 than Artemis had initially transcribed. No, he wasn't letting himself get any worse. He was counting his words, and that was enough. He wasn't going to count the students. He wasn't going to count the pens on his desk or his papers. And he most certainly was not going to let this get any worse.

"You are dismissed," he said. 3 words. He held his tongue even as he nodded to the students leaving excitedly for the break. Ms. Granger nearly ran out of the room, clearly out of her mind with worry. He was not going to do it. He was not going to say anything to turn the 3 into a multiple of 5. Even if it would please the number gods.

"No way," he whispered. Number gods? 2 words. That made 5. He froze. How could this be happening to him? He was Artemis Fowl, a genius, and he had always prided himself on his mental facilities. Perhaps, he had been poisoned? He had done a lot of studying, yes, but he was no potions master. Perhaps there was a potion out there that could make a person start to act like this? But why would someone make something like that in the first place? And why give it to him? And, most importantly, who did it?

No, there was no way he could go and see someone about this. Although embarrassing that these compulsions were affecting his speech pattern, it was still controllable. He just needed will. He just needed to be willing to accept that he was having problems and that he didn't know what was happening, and then fix it. He had been fighting the acceptance for several weeks now, but it was clear that something was very wrong with him.

Artemis remained silent all through dinner. He did not notice that he had tapped the table in cycles of exactly 20 taps with his fork as he thought. He did not notice that he flinched whenever someone came too close, watching for any potions that might be slipped into his food. He did not notice that he had begun tapping his foot. No, he did not notice that at all. If he had, he would have been appalled.

By the time Dinner had ended, Artemis found himself a terribly nervous wreck. He was having difficulty functioning. Partway through dinner, he had caught himself counting the number of people in the room. Forcing himself to stop and focus on his food had been a monumental task. He could only hope that there was a multiple of five people in that room. Finishing eating quickly, he began meandering back towards his room.

He had to find out who had done all this. Who had ruined his communications with Butler? And how? Had they sabotaged his phone? Sabotaged Butler's? Or was Butler ignoring him? Why had Umbridge suddenly turned against him, when he had purposely gone out of his way to be nice even when he didn't like her? Who had manipulated her against him? With what information? And this thrice-damned compulsion regarding numbers! Who had ruined him? The only person Artemis could think of who would be able to do all this was Snape, but why? What would he have to gain from this?

Was Butler behind the communications thing? With Artemis out of the way, Butler could pretend to be Artemis' voice. He was so large that no one would stand against him. No, he couldn't do that with the rest of the Fowl family keeping a casual eye on the company. Actually, yes, he could. If he killed off the rest of the family, he could take complete control and with Artemis trapped here, there was nothing he could do. No, Butler wouldn't do that. He would probably cut off communications for them as well.

What about Umbridge? Could Butler have been the one to turn her against him? If Snape had slipped him some kind of potion, could he have been the one to do it? He was smart enough to, though he and Umbridge, from what Artemis had seen, did not get along very well. What information had he given her to make her hate him?

Or, even worse, could he have been wrong about the fairies not knowing? What if they were the ones manipulating everything, trying to keep Artemis from learning more about their people? He wouldn't put it past Foaly. He had hacked Foaly's computers several times, but it was possible there were files that he had missed. They could have been kept in a completely separate system, making them impossible to access without some piece of technology connected to the system. It would make sense, Artemis hadn't been looking for those kinds of files his first time hacking and Foaly could have moved them out after. But Artemis should have been able to recover the files! Perhaps it was simply because he wasn't looking? Why would they be doing something like this though? Just keeping the world away from him isn't enough, they must know that there's no way they could do that. Revenge? Holly could still be upset about her kidnapping. Foaly would be jealous of Artemis' ability to hack into his systems and reverse engineer his technology.

Unfortunately, Artemis was pulled from his thoughts by the approach of two large Slytherin boys – the two seventh years who had previously been bullying Mr. Creevey.

"Mr. Halevue, Mr. Bontamoth, can I help you with something?" Artemis asked, slowly reaching into his pocket for his wand when he saw they were armed.

"No, Professor Fowl, we're just here for a bit of petty revenge," Bontamoth said, smiling.

"Stupefy!" Halevue called out.

"Protego!" Artemis said, flicking his wand upwards. He was panicking. Sure, he had been in fights before, but never on his own. Always with Holly or Butler, someone who could actually react well, he was the behind-the-scenes planner. Artemis knew theory. He knew how to cast these spells in controlled circumstances like a classroom or his living room or the testing room, but he had never used them in a fight before!

"Tarantellegra!" Bontamoth yelled. Artemis jumped sideways to avoid the spell, but failed to dodge the second beam of red light. Artemis fell over, frozen.

"No offense, teach, but we don't forgive people who embarrass us. Consider this your warning and remember that we could have done anything to you in this hall tonight, but chose to leave you," Halevue said, smirking. The two boys then stepped over Artemis' body and walked away. Artemis, meanwhile, was fighting a battle to stay awake. Stunning rarely knocked someone out by itself, but it was very easy for someone to hit their head on the way down and get knocked out that way. Artemis hardly had time to hope to himself that he hadn't damaged his frontal cortex before everything blacked out.

Holly huffed, watching Butler through the window. She had been very careful to stay out of sight this time. Each of the previous times she had managed to get caught up with him directly, he had found her and knocked her out. It was very frustrating. Worse still was that, despite all her stalking of Butler, they still hadn't managed to find Artemis.

"Anything Foaly?"

"No! Still no! I am running all kinds of scans on that area for every kind of technology we know of, and I am not picking anything! There are no signals going from Butler to the outside world, there's no communication between him and Artemis!"

"That can't be though, Butler has to be getting his orders somehow," Holly said quietly, watching the man carefully. He seemed to be petting an owl. Holly's eyes narrowed.

"Foaly, do your scans include wildlife?" Holly asked. Foaly snorted.

"Of course not, do you know how much wildlife is running around within 50 meters of you? My computers would be fried," Holly highly doubted that was true, but she could imagine how Foaly would consider wildlife to be extraneous information. "Why?" He asked suspiciously. Holly was silent for a moment as she watched Butler open the window and gently push the owl out. Reaching up to her helmet, she zoomed in on the leg of the owl as it left. A small letter was tied to it. She heard Foaly suck in a breath as he watched through the visuals.

"I think Artemis found another way around your systems," Holly said, frowning. It was very unlike Artemis. He enjoyed proving he was the best and rubbing it in people's faces by beating them at their own game, not being sneaky for the sake of completely avoiding suspicion. He was more likely to continue the hacking contest he had with Foaly than do something like this. He truly was doing everything within his power to keep them away. Holly really hoped she wouldn't be faced with an evil Artemis again.

"Follow that owl!" Foaly ordered.

"Already on it," Holly muttered, powering up her wings and taking to the air.