Originally, this chapter began with Harry and the others walking back to their Common Rooms, but then it was too short. I lengthened it by adding the actual detention scene.

Extra short chapter, since it's tale-by-tale.

A Night for Stories (Harry POV)

Five o'clock on Friday night was detention. Umbridge's office was a sickening pink, filled with disgustingly cute kittens lining the walls. All of my neighbors were there. The room was already half-full and all but one chair was taken. As I sat down, Antonio waved at me and smiled. I hadn't seen him at all since he broke into my house. Was something really wrong with him? Did that spell really give him multiple personalities?

"He-hem," said Umbridge. "Your detention is lines. Now, write what I say until I tell you to stop."

She gave each of us instructions, and handed us quills. "Hey," said Gilbert. "You haf not given us any ink."

Umbridge gave him a sweet smile. "Oh, you won't be needing it."

I wrote the first line-Ah! A sharp pain struck my hand, like a sharp jagged knife carving through my hand. For a fleeting moment, I saw the words, 'I must not tell lies' imprinted onto my hand. I looked at the others. They didn't seem to notice.

Feliciano had started writing "I will not-" before stopping. He looked at the back of his hand and screamed. "VEEE!" He jumped out of his chair and ran outside, shouting something in Italian.

"Idiota fratello," said Lovino. He then scribbled "I will not swear at the-" before looking at his hand, too. He then ran outside, screaming something like "Wait for me!" in Italian.

"Tsk tsk," said Umbridge. "Oh well. Filch will catch them soon enough."

About thirty seconds later, a high-pitched squeaking sound, like fingernails being dragged on chalk, filled the room. "Agh!" Natalya grimaced. "Whoever is doing that, stop."

The noise stopped. Peter sat up and looked around. "What was that?"

Umbridge gave him a honey-soaked smile. "Please resume, Mr. Kirkland, Miss Arovska."

"Ar-LOV-ska-ya," said Natalya. [1]

"Resume," said Umbridge, a metal edge to her voice. Natalya grudgingly looked back down at her paper and wrote "I will not throw Muggle weapons at teachers." Peter still looked confused, but he started writing again.

The noise started up again.

Natalya stood up and drew her knife. "All right, stop that right now or I'll carve your-" Natalya said something in Belarusian- "lungs ou-"

"Miss Ars-Natalya, please be quiet," said Umbridge. "This is a detention. Mr. Kirkland, why are you not writing? You are here to write, not to laze about."

I looked at Peter's paper. It was blank.

Peter looked up. "I'm sorry, Professor, but I thought that since there wasn't any ink, we were saving ink and that we were only supposed to go through the motions."

"But the point is to do lines, Mr. Kirkland," said Umbridge sickeningly. "We are not here to pretend to work."

"All right, Professor," said Peter, not entirely convinced. "But whenever I try, this happens." He dashed a line experimentally. The screeching noise came back. The paper didn't have a mark on it. "And then there's something pressing down on my hand whenever I do that."

Umbridge looked at Peter's hand. Unlike my hand, there was scarcely a mark. She kept on looking for a long time. "Very well, then, Mr. Kirkland," she said at last. "I will get you a bottle of ink."

Peter spent the rest of the evening writing his lines normally.

I looked at Gilbert. His paper was filled with quick, definite writing, all letters perfectly formed. Unlike mine, his hand was bleeding from the quill. "Are you okay?" I wrote on my paper, and I tapped him on the shoulder. He read the note, and looked at his hand. "It's just a scratch," he wrote on his paper. He wiped the back of his hand on his sleeve.

For a moment, I caught a glimpse of Gilbert's arm. It was covered in scars… Just like Toris.

I watched Antonio next. He wrote very quickly and with no regard for his hand, but unlike Gilbert, with no regard for his handwriting either. His expression was vacant, like he was talking to someone else in his head. I wrote him a note. "Are you okay?"

"Yes," he wrote back. "No," he wrote again, but this time in a slightly neater script. "Well, I'm fine," he wrote in a Gothic script. "That's because you're not the one writing." "Shut up." "Well, you try it." "Fine. Maybe I will." "I will not shoot muggle weapons at the teacher. I will not throw muggle weapons at the teacher. I will not shout at the teacher. I will not shoot muggle weapons at the teacher. I will not…"

And the writing went on, in Gothic script. Was this Antonio's split personalities? Something was off here.

Much, much later, after about fifty lines and gouging my hand out fifty times, the Toad finally let us leave.

I walked down the hallway with my fellow detentionees, my hand still hurting.

"Does your hand hurt?" Gilbert asked.

"No," I lied.

"Don't lie, I saw you clenching your teeth," said Gilbert.

"But the cuts did heal, didn't they?" said Peter. "The pain should stop, shouldn't it?"

Easy for you to say, I thought. The quill didn't work on you.

"Here," said Antonio. "Have a tomato."

This time, I was sure that this was the real Antonio. I accepted the fruit, but I eyed it cautiously. It was a tomato. What was I supposed to do, eat it raw? Like an apple?

"Yes," said Antonio, his voice and expression suddenly changing.

I blinked, but nobody else batted an eyelid. "Which one are you, again?" asked Natalya.

"Fencer," he said. "And the answer is yes, Harry. Like an apple."

I blinked. Did he just-

"Read your mind?" said Antonio/Fencer. "No. You'd be surprised how many times that happens."

Uh… okay. I bit into it. Hm… it was surprisingly good. [2]

"Psst!" hissed someone around a corner.

"Ah, Lovi!" Antonio, back to his normal (?) self, hugged Lovino tightly around the chest.

Lovino pummeled at him ineffectively. "Don't touch me, jerk!"

"Ve?" Feliciano peeked out from behind the same corner, and hugged Antonio. "Fratello! Antonio!"

"Feli!" Antonio hugged him, too.

"Ja, ja, get a room," said Gilbert.

Antonio shrugged. "Come on, we haven't seen each other all week."

"Filch tried to catch us, but no one can outrun us," said Lovino with a touch of pride.

"Ja, ven you're running away," Gilbert retorted playfully.

"Why you-"

"Come to think of it, I haven't seen any of you at all," interrupted Peter. "And I haven't seen any of you together. We're all in different years, and we don't get any of the same classes. I mean, Feli and Lovi do, and-"

"Call me Lovino, jerk!" said Lovino from the dogpile.

"But we never get to see each other," Peter persisted. "We don't share the same classes, we can't talk during meals without a teacher getting mad, and we can't seem to be able to find each other in this huge castle at all."

Everyone looked rather thoughtful. Natalya even paused a bit. "I used to see your stupid faces way too much, but it's weird not seeing you," she admitted.

"Ve, does that mean-!?" Feliciano said. Lovino looked hopeful.

"No."

"So, how vas your veek?" Gilbert asked me.

"Horrible," I said.

"I heard," said Lovino, somehow escaping from the dogpile. "I saw the articles they wrote about you." He handed me a tomato. I accepted. "I know what bad publicity means. Trust me, I know how you feel. You can't retaliate, or else you'll just be proving their point. You have to bottle your anger, but you can never do it for very long."

I opened my mouth to protest, but that was close enough to how I felt.

"So have that tomato. It'll make you feel better."

"Sorry, but I-"

"EAT THE DAMN TOMATO!" Lovino snapped.

I ate it.

"So, how was your week?" Antonio asked Lovino.

"Good," he said.

"Hey, vy don't ve tell each ozzer vot happened during our veek?" said Gilbert.

"Won't that take too long?" said Natalya.

"Hey, we have an excuse to be out this long," said Antonio. "I mean, the Toad woman told us to go back, right? That's almost like permission to walk around."

"And if somevone finds us, ve can say zat ve got lost on our way back from detention," said Gilbert.

Antonio looked at Gilbert. "Hm? I thought that you'd be the one to first one to tell us not to," he said.

Gilbert shrugged. "After all zat, I stopped caring. Who knows ven ve vill see each ozzer next? Besides, ve aren't breaking ze rules…"

"Smashing!" said Peter. "I'll go first."

X (Sealand POV)

After I was Sorted, me and my fellow Gryffindors were sent to the Common rooms. But let's skip that, shall we?

So, my first class was Transfiguration. Professor MacGonagall gave us a matchstick and told us, after several pages of note-taking, to turn it into a needle. It seemed hard at first, but then I realized that was basically like a practical lab, except with magic. Not to mention that it was basically just like taking something apart and putting it back together. Like Alchemy from Fullmetal Alchemist.

Harry? Are you okay? Why are you slapping your face like that? Wait; don't tell me that you never figured it out…

So, anyway, Charms was just note-taking. History of Magic was the same. I slept through Music. Astronomy was great. We got to stay up late, and the stars were amazing! I had never seen them so bright before! Defense against the Dark Arts was really, really boring. At least we never got any work or homework.

Potions? Oh, that was the one where I got detention. So, Professor Snape asked me all these questions about plants and herbs and bezoars. I think I got them all correct. I mean, a bezoar is found in a goat's stomach, right? And the Draught of Living Death is infusion of wormwood and-

Sorry, I got sidetracked. Anyway, we were sent to make a potion that cured boils. When I had to heat the mixture in the cauldron, I stuck my finger in the potion to check the temperature.

The potion froze. With my finger still in it. After struggling for about a minute, Euan Abercrombie called Professor Snape. He said he had never seen anything like it, and he told me to stay put while he would mix up a cure.

I waited for about the rest of the class, and when everyone else had started bottling their potions, I got annoyed. I borrowed Euan's cauldron and heated up some water.

The moment the water had reached a simmer, I poured it on the ice. Unfortunately, that was the moment Snape came out with his cure.

As soon at the water touched the frozen potion, a blinding light flashed, and everything around us blurred. When I could see again, Snape did not look happy.

"Detention, Mr. Kirkland."

I nodded, but Euan just blinked. "What did he say?" he asked me.

Professor Snape frowned deeper. "I said, detention… Never mind."

It took me about ten seconds for me to realize that he had spoken in Vietnamese. I understood, but Snape didn't seem to know if he had said what he meant or if I understood at all. He compromised by writing me a detention slip, and sending me to Umbridge.

X (Harry POV)

"…And that's the story," Peter finished.

"Why did Snape make you go with Umbridge?" I asked. Peter wasn't lying, but something about what he was saying just wasn't right.

Peter shrugged. "Maybe he vasn't sure zat he could reverse ze effects in time, or it vould take so much time zat he might forget about your detention," suggested Gilbert. "Und ve vere already here, so vy vait?"

Wait… Vietnamese? What does Vietnamese sound like? Why did the potions react like that? How did Peter understand-

"So, why don't you two go ahe-"

"Wait!" I said suddenly. "I need to know something!"

Everyone turned around to face me. All of their faces tensed just the slightest bit; I was sure that I would never have noticed if I didn't know them. "Sure," said Gilbert, a slight edge to his expression. Like a lofty eagle scanning the ground, he wasn't going to waste any effort unless he had to, but would kill swiftly and precisely if I gave him a reason. "Vot do you vant to know?"

I opened my mouth…

TO BE CONTINUED!

[1] I'm pretty sure that Belarus's human name is pronounced like that.

[2] Tomatoes- I once read that tomatoes used to taste much better back when they first came to Europe than they are today, due to the fact that merchants and farmers made them more red and attractive rather than tasty. Then again, I don't really like tomatoes that much.

What does Harry want to know? Will he remember what was wrong with Sealand's tale? And will the nations be in detention next?