Hello, my lovelies! So glad you guys are liking it so far, and believe me, there is much MUCH more to come, so hold onto your socks!
Sgdp1261: Ezra is indeed one beautiful human. I had to include him! What story can survive without Aria and Ezra together? (no story) And yes, Spencer is notoriously known for getting into sticky situations, no matter what time of day it is. But hey, that's why we love her, right? ;) And I'm sorry, I couldn't update late last night. Something came up, and before I knew it it was, like, midnight :( but I have the chapter for you now!
LAs: Read on and you'll find out what Spencer got! And you will definitely see a friendship between Aria and Caleb in this story. It's one of my favorite parts of this story since Aria is my favorite girl character (well, favorite liar. My favorite girl character is Mona Vanderjesus) and Caleb is my favorite guy character, and whenever they interact on the show, they have this hilariously snarky relationship, and hopefully I do a good job depicting it. And as for Noel and Scorpius... they'll continue their battle for biggest jerk. As for who wins, that's up to you to decide!
Erica: Well, it says in my description on my profile the girls' houses, but I'll address it here as well: Hanna is a Hufflepuff, Emily is a Gryffindor, Aria is a Ravenclaw, and Spencer is a Slytherin. And please, thank you for reading this!
Ava B: That's an interesting theory, and I wouldn't be surprised since he is Malfoy's son... and I like responding to every review! It feels like I'm talking to you guys, you know?
Goldenheart11: You'll get plenty of Spoby in this story. The next chapter is entirely Spoby, as a matter of fact! And thank you so much for saying that! Caleb is so much fun to write for because he's just such a great character, so I'm happy I'm doing him, and the liars, justice. And heh... I really do watch the show a lot. Maybe a little too much. But if it means getting this story to be the best it can be, then I'll watch it even more!
I've gotten a few reviews asking for the girls' houses, and I wanna put them to rest: in the longer description on my profile, you'll find the girls' houses. Look there. Thanks! :)
Alright, next chapter. This is where things kinda start to heat up, but this is literally just the beginning. So many more moments to come! But for now, enjoy this chapter, and review/follow/favorite/WHATEVER to let me know if you like it or not!
"Spencer, what is this about?" Emily asked as she exited the Great Hall at Aria's nervous, yet confused, request, saying Spencer needed them.
Spencer stood before them, constantly switching between opening her mouth to give an answer and closing it, only to stare at her shoes, a bad habit of hers that she would get into when she wanted to avoid a situation.
"Spencer," Aria said evenly, "you're starting to scare me."
"Yeah, me too," Hanna said as she crinkled her nose in disgust. "It's creepy."
"Hanna!" Emily and Aria scolded as they turned sharply toward Hanna, who just threw her hands up in front of her in a what-do-you-want-me-to-say fashion.
"Guys, chill," Spencer finally said. "I... I brought you guys out here to show you something."
With a heaving gulp, she tentatively reached into the pocket of her robe and felt around a little, before pulling out a small object that was wrapped in a napkin. The other three girls just stared at it, unsure of what they were looking at, until Spencer removed the napkin, and the girls gasped, feeling their heartbeats speed up.
"Is that..." Emily began, unable to utter another sound for fear that she would throw up.
Spencer weakly nodded her head. "Yeah, Em. It's a fang."
"Where the hell did you get a fang from?" Hanna asked bluntly.
"I have no idea!" Spencer whispered, keeping her voice low as she gave a wary look in the direction of the entrance to the Great Hall. Someone could interrupt their conversation at any given moment, and they needed to be careful. "It was in my shepherd's pie."
"What?!"
"Yeah, that's what I said!" Spencer exclaimed exasperatedly, before lowering her voice once more. "If anyone at my table got anything similar in their pie, they didn't show it. But what about you guys? Did you find anything suspicious?"
Aria shook head, her raven locks whipping across her face in the process. "I can't eat shepherd's pie since it has meat in it. I had lentil soup instead."
"Yeah, and I've already gotten the guidelines for dieting restrictions for Quidditch," Emily said. "Shepherd's pie unfortunately is not on the very small list of things I can actually eat."
"I just think it's gross," Hanna offered up.
"Spence, I bet it was just some mishap in the kitchen," Aria assured. "I read an article in The Daily Prophet on how house elves have been slacking lately."
"I doubt this was a mishap though," Spencer whispered as she turned the fang, still engulfed in the napkin, over in her hands, revealing three red jagged slashes on the whole of the other side of the it.
Hanna looked perplexed. "What is that?"
Spencer gulped. "It's an 'A', whatever the hell that means."
"'A' could mean anything," Aria said softly, thoughtfully, with just a tinge of fear in her voice. "It's a freakin' letter of the alphabet!"
"So this was on purpose?" Emily said apprehensively, suddenly worried for her friend. All three of the girls were.
Aria bent forward, examining the fang a little more closely. But that was the closest she was going to get, because the minute she raised her hand to touch it, Spencer smacked it away. "Are you insane?!"
Aria stepped back, startled. "Wha - "
"Aria, you don't know where this came from. It could be poisonous!"
"Poisonous?"
"It was in my dinner," Spencer pointed out. "Why else would someone put that in there? It probably has some of venom on it that's going to slowly and painfully kill me!"
"Or it might not," Aria said matter-of-factly, a little disoriented at how quickly Spencer was jumping to conclusions. Spencer was not one who was known for thinking things through or thinking rationally, despite how smart she was, yet neither of the girls had gotten used to her constant accusations yet. If someone got a higher grade on a test than she did, she would accuse them of using dark magic to figure out the answers. If she couldn't find an article of clothing while getting dressed, she would accuse someone of stealing it to snag some of her DNA so that they could do horrible things with it. And here Spencer was, accusing someone right off the bat to be killing her? It seemed a little out there.
Aria sighed before continuing. "It could just be someone playing a prank on you! This could be fake, you know."
Spencer paused, and then looked to the ceiling, deep in thought. Truthfully that hadn't crossed her mind; the fang being fake.
Emily just shrugged. "It would make more sense. Why would someone go to the trouble of scaring you like that with something as rare and unattainable as a fang when they can go right down the street and buy a fake one?"
"Wait, you can just buy fake fangs?" Hanna asked, her eyes bulging.
"Yeah," Aria said casually. "They're everywhere. I used to have a pair of earrings that looked just like what Spencer's holding. But then my owl ate them..."
"Umm, guys?" Spencer said in a catty manner, bringing the girls' attention back to her once again. "Can we go back to the possibly poisonous object in the palm of my hand?"
"Aria is probably right," Hanna assured. "It was probably just a stupid prank. Someone was just trying to scare you."
"Well, okay, but who would do that?" Spencer challenged.
Emily pressed her hand to her head, which was pounding furiously. "One question at a time guys."
"Okay," Spencer finally said, taking a deep breath. "I guess it could be fake, but I don't know for sure. I need to do some research to find out whether this thing is real or not. And maybe where it comes from! Maybe if I learn more about all of that, I'll know who did this to me."
"Yeah, and then you'll know how serious this is," Aria agreed.
"They don't open up the library until after classes start, though," Emily pointed out.
"I have to wait an entire day?" Spencer screeched, eyes ready to pop out of their sockets and scurry away. Already, her hair was starting to curl at the ends, and if the girls looked closely enough, they could pinpoint a tiny vein that was bulging at the tip of her forehead, just under her hairline. She was freaking out.
"Hey." Hanna reached for Spencer's forearm comfortingly. "Weren't you the one who said to me in the train car that all dark magic is gone? Remember that?"
"No, I said that the Dark Lord himself is gone," Spencer corrected, snatching her arm away, only to immediately regret it at seeing Hanna's hurt expression.
"But he took all dark magic with him," Hanna pointed out, crossing her arms protectively over herself. Spencer opened her mouth to say that this wasn't necessarily true, but immediately closed it. She was too tired to get into an argument right now.
Spencer finally lowered her head. "Okay," she whispered, defeated. "I'll just suck it up and wait. But when I do go, I don't wanna go by myself. Can one of you come with me?"
The girls stood at bay, looking conflicted and a little uncomfortable. "Qudditch tryouts for returning players are tomorrow," Emily confessed.
"I'm kinda not allowed in the library," Hanna admitted sheepishly. "Madam Pince has hated me ever since she caught me making out with Caleb in the Restricted Section."
Normally the girls would have laughed at something like this, but the atmosphere was so solemn and thick with tension that a lighthearted laugh would stick out like a sore thumb. Spencer tried to hide her disappointment and growing fear at the first two declines, but then showed a speck of hope in her brown eyes as she turned to Aria.
Aria chewed on the inside of her cheek to the point that one side of her face was completely sunken in. On the last day of school last year, she and Ezra had promised to meet up in their secret hiding place the first day that classes started. She felt bad having to cancel since they hadn't seen each other in 3 months, but Spencer needed her right now. Ezra would have to wait.
Aria reached out for Spencer's hand and gave it a loving squeeze. "I'll go with you."
"Thank you," Spencer said appreciatively as she sighed with relief, throwing her head back dramatically. But when she brought it back down, her face hardened again. "Can we keep this between us, guys? Please?"
Emily and Aria both muttered that of course they'd keep it a secret, but Hanna looked unsure. "Caleb's out there waiting for an explanation. I don't know how he'll react when I don't tell him anything."
"I'd think he'd be understanding," Emily reasoned. "I mean, it's none of his business."
"Yeah, but we don't keep secrets," Hanna said simply. "We never have. And he'll probably get concerned and think that I'm hiding something from him."
"... You are hiding something from him..." Aria pointed out candidly, only to earn a bitter glance from Hanna. But then, Hanna's eyes lit up, and she grabbed Aria's arm eagerly.
"You can just lie to him for me!"
"Me? Why me?!" Aria cried, shocked.
Hanna just gave Aria the most knowing look she could, as though it was all so simple and so obvious, that how could Aria NOT get it? "Because," she began, "you're going to see him tonight in the Ravenclaw dorms, so he'll probably come up to you and ask about it. Also, you're ten times better of a liar than I am!"
"I really don't thi - "
"Gotta go!" Hanna said abruptly as she paced over to the door to the common room, throwing a "Be careful tonight, Spence!" over her shoulder in the process.
Emily, Aria, and Spencer stared at each other awkwardly for another moment, wondering what their next move should be. As soon as they realized that there was nothing left to talk about, they gave their goodbyes and parted ways.
Side note: How many of you are familiar with AfterEllen? It's a website that recaps all these different shows, one of them being PLL, and it's HILARIOUS. Aria's fang earrings are a small shoutout to the AfterEllen readers/the legend Heather Hogan herself, because let's face it; we all know Aria has that article of jewelry SOMEWHERE in her repertoire :) Don't forget to review!
