November 5, 2015

Rory sat with Isla at a circular table near the front doors of the library. She struggled to keep the exasperation out of her voice as she walked Isla through yet another Arithmancy assignment. Rory had completed the assignment hours ago, but she had promised to help Isla, so here she was. She couldn't keep her left leg from bouncing as her thoughts returned to studying for both her second year exams and her next Astronomy test, which were all only a day away. She should be doing that now. She should be holing up with her textbooks and a bag of potato chips. She should be shutting off her phone and turning away from all distractions, studying with such unbelievable concentration that not even a broomstick zooming between her eyes and the textbooks strewn in front of her could interrupt her thoughts. She should be absorbing as much information as possible so she could kick butt tomorrow.

Instead, she had to listen to Isla complain some more.

"Lol I, like, don't get what we're doing here," Isla whined.

Rory stifled a groan. "If you were paying any attention in class, you'd know that this is Exaggerated Sign Arithmancy. It uses your star sign to produce an exaggerated prediction," Rory explained.

Isla just stared blankly and twirled her hair around her pinkie.

"Let's start with this problem," Rory said, pointing at the first problem. "Find the Exaggerated Sign prediction of a Sagittarius with a name including infinitely many characters."

Isla scrunched her eyebrows together. "Um, yeah, what do I do with that?"

Rory gritted her teeth together. "You have to look up the z value assigned to the zodiac sign and then use the series of Exaggerated Sign Arithmancy first."

Isla giggled. "I don't get it."

Rory inhaled deeply. She tried to keep her voice from shaking as she asked "Can you at least look up the z value?"

Isla shuffled through her notes, which were cluttered with doodles of stars and hearts and smiley faces. After three minutes of silence, she finally asked "Lol, is it .88137?"

Rory nodded. "And do you have the Exaggerated Sign series we are using in your notes?"

Another four minutes passed before Isla found it. It was an infinite sum of z^(2k+1)/(2k+1)!, which Rory knew simplified to sinh(z). Isla scribbled the formula and the number .88137 into her notes.

"Good. Now figure out what that equals and plug in z."

Isla stared blankly at the page for another 5 grueling minutes before Rory said, "I'll give you a hint. It's similar to the name of this kind of Arithmancy."

Isla shrugged and continued staring blankly.

The seconds ticked by ever so slowly until Rory got too impatient to wait for Isla to respond. "It's the hyperbolic sine of z."

Isla giggled. "I would've, like, never gotten that in like a bazillion years," she gushed as she wrote sinh(z). Then she dropped her pencil back onto the table. "Is the problem done yet?"

Rory shook her head. "Plug in z."

Isla wrote on her paper sinh(.88137). And then she dropped her pencil on the table again.

"Do you know what the result is?" prompted Rory.

Isla smiled and batted her eyes at Rory, begging silently for the answer.

"It's approximately 1."

Isla wrote 1 on her paper.

"And now you go to your textbook to see what exaggerated prediction that lines up with."

Isla stared at her textbook.

"It's on page 321."

Isla flipped to page 321 and continued staring.

"It's under #1."

Isla copied over the prediction under #1. You will drop your fork during your next meal and everyone will judge you. They'll never ever talk to you again and they'll start making fun of everything you do. Your world will end.

Rory chuckled at the prediction. Isla's eyes widened in fear. Figures, she thought. If anyone were to take that kind of prediction seriously, it would be Isla. "Don't worry," Rory said, "your name doesn't have infinitely many characters."

Isla nodded. Rory looked at her watch again. Rory had been helping Isla for an hour. She could finally leave without feeling guilty. "I have to go," Rory said.

Isla started to protest, but Rory cut her off by saying "Good luck on the remaining problems," as she ran out of the library. Rory considered where she should go to study for her approaching exams. She considered studying at the quidditch pitch, as she had been doing for quite some time now, but remembering Fritz's objection to her presence and realizing that she would probably more efficiently study elsewhere, she decided to head to the Astronomy Tower instead.

After 5 hours of studying for her second-year exams, Rory's stomach began to rumble. Looking at her watch, she realized dinner was about to end. She needed to go to the Great Hall now if she had any hope of eating tonight. Her stomach twisted as she thought of the possibility of running into Jane, who hadn't spoken to her in almost a week, or running into the Slytherins or the Superficial Four, or even Isla, none of whom she felt like dealing with. Luckily, eating this late meant that she should avoid the bulk of these students.

Rory shoved her books in her rucksack and sped towards the Great Hall. However, as she walked in her stomach regained that sinking feeling. At the Ravenclaw table sat several students, and from afar, Rory recognized both the Superficial Four and her favorite group of Slytherins. Won't this be a fun meal, she thought. She sneaked to the Gryffindor table and began filling a plate with food. As she piled various fruits on her plate, she heard someone clear his throat close to her left ear. She jumped and swiveled quickly to face the mysterious throat-clearer, in the process launching several grapes off her plate and across the floor.

She was surprised when she saw who approached her; it was the Ravenclaw boy who sat behind her in Astronomy, the one who was trying to find the center of balance of his quill.

"Hello, I'm Quinn," he greeted. "It's Rory, right? Would you be interested in partaking in my social experiment?" He gestured toward the mix of Slytherins and Gryffindors at the Ravenclaw table.

"What's the experiment?" Rory wondered.

Quinn wiped his hands on his cloak. Rory noted that his palms must be sweaty. Was he nervous for some reason? "We're playing a game to scientifically determine which house is better," said Quinn.

Rory stole a glance at the Ravenclaw table. There was something wrong with this proposition that made Rory squirm: the arrogance. It made her want to puke. One house shouldn't be superior to the other. It could be different than the other, and perhaps it could be better in certain aspects, but overall superiority seemed fundamentally wrong. In fact, this whole system she had stumbled into seemed wrong. She believed that both present houses were obnoxious products of rivalry and overt social pressures.

"How do you expect to determine overall superiority?" she asked. "I feel like that can't exist. This is already flawed."

"A game," Quinn responded, meeting Rory's gaze. He stared back at the floor as he added, "the house that wins will be declared the best."

"How is this a new experiment? Isn't that what Quidditch is for?" asked Rory.

Quinn's eyes flashed to hers. The corner of his eyes wrinkled in amusement. Gesturing at his fellow Ravenclaws, Quinn explained, "we are seeking to determine it through a competition more social than quidditch. Maybe getting your two houses talking will help reduce the rivalry. Or it might make it worse."

Rory's stomach clenched in unease at the thought of the rivalry worsening. She really wanted to leave the Dining Hall. She thought of Nate's and Fritz's anger at the beginning of the year when she was sorted into the wrong house. She thought back to the train ride when she wore a green shirt and suffered through stinging remarks from the Superficial Four. "I'm inclined to pass" she told Quinn.

"Rory, come join us!" shouted Abigail.

"Yeah join us, Rory," added Matt.

Quinn smiled and hearded Rory toward the Ravenclaw table, forcing Rory to abandon her half-filled plate of food on the Gryffindor table. He explained, "we are playing a weird kind of social perception game. You can eat after."

Rory took a seat next to Abigail and across from Nate. Upon noticing her, Nate raised his eyebrows. "Rory, you weren't at quidditch practice today. What gives?"

Rory shuffled her feet and stared at the ground. "I was studying," she said.

Jerry snickered, "Gee Rory, why do you have to be such a Granger."

"Such a what?" puzzled Rory.

"Granger is slang for someone who prioritizes school over the rest of her life," explained Quinn. Rory noted that he would be an adequate Encyclopedia.

"Of course school is the most important thing in my life," she told Jerry. "Why else would I be attending?"

"Compulsory education," responded Fritz. Rory was surprised; she had assumed that compulsory education was a muggle thing. She supposed that it was probably for the best all adults were trained wizards, though, so the compulsory system would make sense.

Rory glanced at Nate. He arched one eyebrow at her. "You were just studying? Don't you usually do that at the pitch?" he asked.

Rory shrugged.

"It has nothing to do with anything else, does it?" he asked. Rory wondered if this question was his way of acknowledging that he had seen her in the corridor by the Muggle Studies classroom two weeks ago. Rory chose not to engage by shrugging.

Nate's eyebrows scrunched together. He looked ready to discuss the subject more, but to Rory's relief, Quinn began explaining the game.

"The first test involves a game in which there are two teams: a purple team and a silver team. These teams are assigned through shuffled cards. We will play three rounds of this game. Whoever the leader of the purple team is has to name all of the people on his or her team, and he or she is given a card with two highlighted names; one is the seer, and the other is a silver team member. The seer on the purple team knows three of the silver team members. However, the seer cannot reveal the names of the silver members. The goal of the silver team is to convince the purple team that at least one of its members is purple, and the goal of the purple team is to figure out who isn't actually on the purple team. There are five people on the purple team. There are four people on the silver team. Is everything clear?"

Abigail twirled a finger through her dark hair and asked, "how do we convince you who is better. Is the "better" house better at lying, or worse?"

"Yeah," agreed Jerry. "If it's to see who the better liars are this task is skewed to favor the snakes."

"One would argue that the morally superior house is less accustomed to lying," added Fay.

"Others would argue that the better house is the one that isn't so arrogant to think it is already morally superior to the other," warned Hailey, another Slytherin seated at the table. Rory hadn't talked with her much. The girl had a small frame and bright eyes, and if it weren't for the long silver braid, Rory would have never recognized her as the intimidating captain of the Slytherin quidditch team without her broom.

Hailey's comment sparked bickering between the students seated around the Ravenclaw table. The Gryffindors were stuck on defending their moral superiority, claiming that the Slytherins' divisive retorts were only further proof, and the Slytherins clung to the argument that Gryffindor arrogance made humbled Slytherins the superior house. To Rory, both houses were overconfident, fueled by stereotyping that naturally occurred when eleven-year-olds who were already too alike were isolated from interaction with other personalities for four years.

"Alright, alright!" shouted Quinn. The room was instantly quiet. "You are judged by how well you do given your house," he said. The answer was vague enough to please everyone. Rory smiled, knowing that Quinn was improvising. "Now is everyone good?" he asked.

"This game seems kinda boring and unmagical," complained Matt.

Quinn rolled his eyes. "It's a student-made game," he said. "What are you expecting? Quidditch on paper? Give me a break!"

Abigail muttered something about Slytherins and lacking morals, so Rory "accidentally" stomped on her foot. Quinn passed out team the team assignments.

"Look at your card," he said. "It should say a color, and if you are a leader or a seer, your card will highlight for you the information you should have."

Rory wondered what Quinn meant. Were the cards enchanted? They looked like normal sheets of paper. Rory discretely flipped over her card. It was purple. When she glanced up at the other students, she noticed that Matt and Fay were taking longer to look at their cards than others; they must have the special information cards. She also noticed that all the Slytherins were smirking, indicating that they were all on the silver team. Great, she thought, way to enforce that stereotype, Quinn.

Rory watched the first round play out. It went by quickly, the Gryffindors' natural suspicion of the Slytherins unchallenged. Within two minutes, Matt successfully named all five Gryffindors as members of the purple team. Pumpkin pasties appeared in front of all of the Gryffindors, since they were all on the winning team.

Quinn redistributed the cards. When Rory checked her card, it was again purple, but it also said "seer" in shining letters, and it featured a map of the table. Three names were highlighted: Fritz, Abigail, and Alex, the fourth Slytherin. Interesting, thought Rory. Now he's mixing up the teams. She noticed that Hailey also took too long to read her card. Hailey must be the leader of the purple team. As soon as the game commenced, Rory tried to explicitly state her information, but she found that her mouth was magically glued shut. The words "the seer cannot reveal the names of the silver members" reverberated through Rory's head.

After discovering that words no longer worked, Rory stared ardently at Hailey. The girl's eyes were wide as she glanced around the table. Finally, her eyes darted between Rory and Nate. So that's how this works, thought Rory. The fourth spy is the one listed on the leader's card! The next time her eyes met Hailey's, Rory winked. Hailey's eyebrows shot up, and Rory meaningfully glanced at Abigail.

"Is Abigail silver?" she asked. Rory nodded.

Abigail said, "no?"

Hailey tutted and refocused on Rory. Rory shot meaningful looks at the other Slytherins. Hailey lifted one eyebrow. "Really? All of them? Again?" Rory nodded, and Hailey proceeded to name all of the purple team members.

When the materialization of toffees confirmed that the purple team won yet another round, Abigail huffed, "I told you I'd be bad at lying; I'm a Gryffindor!" All of the Slytherins, Rory, and Quinn glared at her. The only people who seemed to accept the comment were members of the Superficial Four.

"You are aware that as a silver team member, your goal was to convince her that you were innocent, right?" asked Alex.

Abigail shrugged. "I wouldn't ever really want the bad side to win, though."

"Who said silver was bad?" asked Quinn.

Abigail looked at him as if he had six thousand heads. "Of course they're evil. They are predominantly Slytherin."

Once more, Quinn redistributed the cards. Rory lifted her card, shocked to see silver shining back at her. Rory's mind raced. What game should she play? Should she pretend to be the oh-so-righteous Gryffindor who could not tell a lie, or was she in it to win it? The first option seemed wrong to her, as it would defy her competitive nature to give up on a task just because her peers wanted her to.

Rory quickly returned the card to the table, and observed Alex and Abigail staring at their cards suspiciously long. When the round started, Abigail glanced between Rory and Jerry. Remembering that Hailey had done the same thing in the previous round as she tried to determine whether she could trust either Rory or Nate, Rory decided that she must be the silver team member listed on Abigail's purple leader card, and winked. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Alex give her a thumbs-up. Abigail looked confused. When Alex looked meaningfully toward Fritz, Hailey, and Nate, Rory mimicked him by glancing meaningfully at the same members. If she was going to win, she had to build Abigail's confusion over who to trust.

Both she and Alex had now provided the same valid information, and Rory was pretty confident that between a corrupt Gryffindor and an honest Slytherin, Abigail would choose the former. Rory waved at Abigail and glanced meaningfully at Alex, her heartbeat increasing with every false gesture she made. Alex angrily shook his head and glared toward Rory, who did her best to look offended. She put her hand over her heart and shook her head in an attempt to look as sincere as possible. She hoped that her doing this didn't draw any attention to her racing heartbeat. Looking down at her hand for a moment, she realized that her heart was pounding so hard that she could virtually see the adrenaline pulsing through her veins.

Rory and Alex continued fighting in this manner for a few minutes. Finally, Abigail broke the silent fight by saying, "The purple team includes me, Fay, Jerry, Matt, and…"

She paused to assess the faces of Alex and Rory one last time before saying "Rory."

Rory exhaled breath that she didn't realize she was holding as a wide smile spread to her hears. Glancing around the table, she saw smirk of approval on the faces of all of the Slytherins-even Fritz looked impressed despite his obvious hatred for her.

Quinn shook his head at Abigail. "No," he said. "I'm sorry, but Alex was the last purple team member."

"What?!" shrieked Abigail. "It can't be! Gryffindors don't lie like that!"

Quinn looked down at her sadly. "You're missing the point. Gryffindors, while brave, are not always honest. Slytherins, while clever, are not liars. Your bias against a school house prevented you from winning the game."

Fay glared. "No! It was Rory who messed us up. Don't blame this on Abigail. Whether we are bad liars or not, we should always be able to rely on members of our own house!"

"We were playing a game," Rory protested. "Houses didn't matter; teams did." Her outburst earned glares from all of her housemates. "Are you seriously going to hold this against me?" she asked.

"You know, I think we should leave," sneered Abigail. On cue, the other red-clad students at the Ravenclaw table stomped out of the Great Hall.


Rory returned to Gryffindor Tower later that night, after another bout of studying, of course. To her chagrin, she found Isla waiting for her. She took a deep breath before asking, "Isla, what are you doing here?"

Isla stood. "Oh it's so great to see you!" she gushed in her usual manner. "I was struggling with the last few Arithmancy problems, and I just thought, you know, who better to help me than the smartest person I know? I mean, omigosh, you really know your stuff!"

Rory sighed. "I can't help you tonight Isla. I already helped you this afternoon, and I have tests early tomorrow morning. I need to sleep."

Isla giggled. "You've managed to pass tests without much sleep before, though. C'mon it'll be fine. I know you can help me with this tonight and still pass with flying colors tomorrow."

"I said no. Go back to your room."

Rory turned to the portrait of the Fat Lady and whispered the password so that Isla couldn't hear. She quickly walked through the passageway and to her room. She ditched her rucksack at the foot of her bed and went to the lou to change into her pajamas and comb her hair. When she returned to the room, yawning and ready to sleep, she froze. Isla sat on her bed. How had she even gotten in?

"What are you doing?!" Rory snapped. "You're actually stalking me."

Isla giggled. "No I'm not, silly. We're friends. Just help me with this one tiny problem."

"No! Get out!"

A pillow hit Rory squarely in the back of her head. She furiously spun on her heel to face her attacker. It was Abigail. "What's your problem?" asked Rory.

"You." said Abigail. "Shut up and take your stupid drama elsewhere. We don't need to deal with a poser like you."

"Seriously?" Rory asked. "There's an intruder in our room, and you're blaming me?"
"You're the one who let her in," Fay fumed from the other side of the room. "Avis," she said, swishing her wand at Rory. Suddenly there was a flock of bluebirds at the tip of her wand. "Oppungo." The birds flew at Rory, beaks scratching at her skin and pulling at her hair. In the fraction of a second immediately following the spell casting, Rory glanced at Isla with pleading eyes. Help me, she thought. Isla just sat on her bed, bouncing as she witnessed this act of violence. As the first razor-sharp beak sliced Rory's shoulder, she ran out of the room, swatting at her avian attackers. They kept pecking, piercing her neck, her hands, her arms, until she escaped into the blissful hallway outside Gryffindor Tower.

Rory collapsed on the floor, tears springing from her eyes. She couldn't believe how one stupid game catalyzed such a violent response from her housemates. She didn't understand how Isla could so easily manipulate her and stalk her without any repercussions. And now, Rory couldn't even seek refuge in her own room! Where was she supposed to go? Where was she supposed to sleep? And how in the world was she supposed to take her exams tomorrow? She would be injured and sleep deprived and shaken. That was no state in which to take an exam. She thought that it might be time to visit the headmistress, but at this late hour, Rory doubted that a visit was appropriate.

As Rory shakily rose to her feet, plucking feathers from her hair, the portrait leading into the Gryffindor common room creaked open. Isla emerged through the passageway.

"Well someone was being a drama llama," she said. "Like Merlin's beard, that looked like a lot to deal with. Lol, want to help me with those homework problems?"