"Seems Fred and George were right, weren't they?" said Theo. "He really knows his stuff, Moody, doesn't he? When he did Avada Kedavra, the way that spider just died, just snuffed it right—"

But he fell suddenly silent at the look on Lyla's face. Defense Against the Dark Arts had been a class it seemed everyone was talking about, something Lyla wasn't all that fond of. While she agreed he appeared knowledgeable in the field, the shock of seeing all those curses used after one another… had been nauseating. Arabella shared similar thoughts and remained silent when groups of people spoke loudly about Moody. The small group of friends sat in their usual spot in the library, scribbling away at work.

"Wouldn't Moody and Dumbledore be in trouble with the Ministry if they knew we'd seen the curses?" Blaise asked.

"Yeah, probably," said Ron. "But Dumbledore's always done things his way, hasn't he, and Moody's been getting in trouble for years, I reckon. Attacks first and asks questions later— look at his dustbins— Ugh, this Divination stuff is killing me."

Arabella plopped her copy of Unfogging the Future onto the table and grunted in agreement.

Blaise smirked behind his Arithmancy books, which greatly irritated Daphne and Draco.

"I haven't got a clue what this lot's supposed to mean," Theo said, staring down at a long list of calculations.

"You know," said Ron, whose hair was on end because of all the times he had run his fingers through it in frustration, "I think it's back to the old Divination standby."

"What— make it up?"

"Mhm," said Ron, sweeping the jumble of scrawled notes off the table, dipping his pen into some ink, and starting to write.

"Next Monday," he said as he scribbled, "I am likely to develop a cough owing to the unlucky conjunction of Mars and Jupiter."

He looked up at his group of friends with a grin. "You know her— just put in loads of misery, and she'll lap it up."

"Right," said Draco, crumpling up his first attempt and lobbing it into the nearest fire. "Okay. . . let's see… on Monday, I will be in danger of— hm— burns."

"Yeah, you will be," said Arabella darkly, "we're seeing the skrewts again on Monday. Okay, for me, I'll. . . erm. .."

"Lose a treasured possession," suggested Daphne, who was scribbling down her own predictions.

"Good one," said Draco, copying it down. "Because of… uh. . . Mercury…"

"Why don't you get stabbed in the back by someone you thought was a friend?" suggested Theo to Lyla.

"Yeah. . . cool. . ." said Lyla, scribbling it down, "because... Venus is in the twelfth house."

"And then, I think I'll come off worse in a fight," sighed Daphne.

"Aaah, I was going to have a fight," mumbled Ron, frowning. "Okay, I'll lose a bet."

"Yeah, you'll be betting I'll win my fight…"

All throughout this exchange, Blaise gave his friends a series of disapproving looks. They continued to make up predictions (which grew steadily more tragic) for another hour while the library slowly emptied to leave for bed.

Staring around the room, trying to think of a kind of misfortune she hadn't yet used, Lyla caught sight of Fred and George huddled behind a bookshelf, heads together, quills out, poring over a single piece of parchment and what appeared to be a book of hexes. It was most unusual to see Fred and George hidden away in a corner and working silently; they usually liked to be in the thick of things and the noisy center of attention. There was something secretive about the way they were working on the piece of parchment, to which Lyla was reminded of how they had sat together writing something back at the Burrow. She had thought then that it was another order form for Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, but it didn't look like that this time; if it had been, they would surely have let Lee Jordan in on the joke. She wondered whether it had anything to do with entering the Triwizard Tournament.

As she watched, George shook his head at Fred, scratched out something with his quill, and said, in a hushed voice, that nevertheless carried across the almost deserted room.

No— can't have that— sounds like we're accusing him. Got to be careful. . ."

Then George looked over and saw Lyla watching him. She grinned and quickly returned to her predictions— she didn't want George to think she was eavesdropping. Shortly after that, the twins rolled up their parchment and picked up their book of hexes.

Fred and George had been gone ten minutes or so when Hermione's head appeared behind a shelf the opposite of where they sat, carrying a sheaf of parchment in one hand and a box whose contents rattled as she walked in the other.

"Hello," she said, "I've just finished!"

"So have I!" said Daphne triumphantly, throwing down her quill.

Hermione sat down, laid her things in an empty armchair, and pulled Daphne's predictions toward her.

"Not going to have a very good month, are you?" she said sardonically.

"Ah well, at least I'm forewarned," Daphne yawned.

"You seem to be drowning twice," observed Hermione.

"Oh, really?" said Daphne, peering down at her predictions. "I'd better change one of them to getting trampled by a rampaging hippogriff, then…."

"Don't you think it's a bit obvious you've made these up?" questioned Hermione.

"How dare you!" cried Daphne in mock outrage.

Arabella laid down her quill, too, having just finished predicting her own death by decapitation.

"What's in the box?" asked Blaise, pointing at it.

"Funny you should ask," said Hermione, with a nasty look at Ron. She took off the lid and showed them the contents.

Inside were about fifty badges, all of different colors but all bearing the same letters:

S. P. E .W.

"Spew?" said Draco, picking up a badge and looking at it. "What's this about?"

"Not spew," said Hermione impatiently. "It's S-P-E-W. Stands for the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare."

"Never heard of it," said Ron dismissively.

"Well, of course, you haven't," said Hermione briskly, "I've only just started it."

"Oh?" said Lyla in mild surprise. "How many members have you got?"

"Well—if you all join— seven," said Hermione.

"And you think we want to walk around wearing badges saying 'spew,' do you?" said Ron.

"S-P-E-W!" said Hermione hotly. "I was going to put Stop the Outrageous Abuse of Our Fellow Magical Creatures and Campaign for a Change in Their Legal Status— but it wouldn't fit. So that's the heading of our manifesto."

She brandished the sheaf of parchment at them.

"I've been researching it thoroughly in the library. Elf enslavement goes back centuries. I can't believe no one's done anything about it before now."

"Hermione— open your ears," said Ron loudly. "They. Like. It. They like being enslaved!"

"Our short-term aims," said Hermione, speaking even more loudly than Ron and acting as though she hadn't heard a word, "are to secure house elves fair wages and working conditions. Our long-term aims include changing the law about non-wand use, and trying to get an elf into the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures because they're shockingly underrepresented."

"And how do we do all this?" Arabella asked.

"We start by recruiting members," said Hermione happily. "I thought two Sickles to join— that buys a badge— and the proceeds can fund our leaflet campaign. You're treasurer, Blaise—- I've got you a collecting tin in my dormitory— and Draco, you're secretary, so you might want to write down everything I'm saying now, as a record of our first meeting."

By the time Ron, Arabella, and Hermione returned to the Gryffindor common room, the three were dead tired. The silence between the sleepy fourth years was broken by a soft tap, tap on the window. Arabella looked across the now empty common room and saw, illuminated by the moonlight, an owl perched on the windowsill.

"Merlin!" she shouted, and she launched herself out of her chair and across the room to pull open the window.

Merlin flew inside, soared across the room, and landed on the table on top of an empty table.

"About time!" said Hermione, reaching forward and ushering the owl closer to her.

"He's got an answer!" said Ron excitedly, pointing at the grubby piece of parchment tied to the owl's leg.

Arabella hastily untied it and sat down to read, whereupon Merlin fluttered onto her knee, hooting softly.

"What does it say?" Ron asked breathlessly.

The letter was very short and looked as though it had been scrawled in a great hurry. She began to read aloud:

Arabella, Lyla,

I'm flying north immediately. This news about your scar is the latest in a series of strange rumors that have reached me here. If it hurts again, go straight to Dumbledore— they're saying he's got Mad-Eye out of retirement, which means he's reading the signs, even if no one else is.

I'll be in touch soon. My best to your friends. Keep your eyes open. Sirius.

Arabella looked up at Ron and Hermione, who stared back at him.

"He's flying north?" Hermione whispered. "He's— he's coming back?"

"Dumbledore's reading what signs?" said Ron, looking perplexed. "Arabella— what's up?"

For Arabella had just hit herself in the forehead with his fist, jolting Merlin out of her lap.

"I shouldn't haven't told him!" she said furiously.

"What are you on about?" said Ron in surprise.

"It's made him think he's got to come back!" said Arabella miserably, now slamming her fist on the table so that Merlin landed on the back of Ron's chair, hooting indignantly. "Coming back because he thinks we're in trouble! And there's nothing wrong with me or Lyla! And I haven't got anything for you!" Arabella snapped at Merlin, who was clicking his beak expectantly, "You'll have to go up to the Owlery if you want food."

The owl gave his master an extremely offended look and took off for the open window, cuffing her around the head with her outstretched wing as he went.

"Arabella," Hermione began in a pacifying sort of voice.

"I'm going to bed," Arabella said shortly. "See you in the morning."

Upstairs in the dormitory, she pulled on her pajamas and got into her four-poster, but she no longer felt remotely tired.

If Sirius returned and got caught, it would be her and Lyla's fault. Why hadn't she kept her mouth shut? A few seconds' pain and he'd had to blab. . . . Suppose she'd just had the sense to keep it to herself. She heard Hermione enter the dormitory a short while later, but did not speak. For a long time, she lay staring up at the dark canopy of her bed. The dormitory was utterly silent.


Early next morning, Arabella woke with a plan fully formed in her mind, as though her sleeping brain had been working on it all night. She got up, dressed in the pale dawn light, left the dormitory without waking Hermione, and went back down to the deserted common room. Here she took a loose scrap of parchment from a table and wrote the following letter:

Dear Sirius,

I reckon I just imagined my scar hurting, I was half asleep when I wrote to you last time. There's no point coming back, everything's fine here. Don't worry about me, my head feels completely normal.

Arabella

She then climbed out of the portrait hole, up through the silent castle (held up only briefly by Peeves, who tried to overturn a large vase on him halfway along the fourth-floor corridor), finally arriving at the Owlery, which was situated at the top of West Tower.

The Owlery was a circular stone room, rather cold and drafty because none of the windows had glass in them. The floor was entirely covered in straw, owl droppings, and the regurgitated skeletons of mice and voles. Hundreds upon hundreds of owls of every breed imaginable were nestled here on perches that rose right up to the top of the tower, nearly all of them asleep. She spotted Merlin nestled between a dark gray owl and a blue one and hurried over to her, sliding a little on the dropping-strewn floor.

It took her a while to persuade him to wake up and then look at her as he shuffled around on his perch, showing Arabella his tail. He was evidently still furious about her lack of gratitude the previous night. In the end, it was Arabella suggesting he might be too tired and that perhaps she would ask Lyla to borrow Nicholas, which made Merlin at last stick out his leg and allow her to tie the letter to it.

"Just find him, okay?" Arabella said, stroking the owls back as she carried it on her arm to one of the holes in the wall. "Before the dementors do."

He nipped at her finger, perhaps rather harder than he would ordinarily have done, but hooted softly in a reassuring sort of way all the same. Then he spread his wings and took off into the sunrise. Arabella watched him fly out of sight with the familiar feeling of unease back in her stomach. She had been so sure that Sirius's reply would alleviate her worries rather than increasing them.

"That was a lie," Hermione said over breakfast when she told her and Ron what she had done. "You didn't imagine your scar hurting, and you know it."

"So what?" said Arabella defensively. "Sirius's not going back to Azkaban because of me."

"Drop it," said Ron sharply to Hermione as she opened her mouth to argue some more, and for once, Hermione heeded him and fell silent.

Arabella did her best not to worry about Sirius over the next few weeks. True, she could not stop herself from looking anxiously around every morning when the post owls arrived, nor, late at night before she went to sleep, prevent herself from seeing horrible visions of Sirius, cornered by dementors down some dark London street, but between times she tried to keep her mind off her godfather.

"I wish we still had Quidditch to look forward to," said Lyla grimly one evening, biting at her lip in worry. "A distraction one would be nice…."

On the other hand, their lessons were becoming more complicated and demanding than ever before, particularly Moody's Defense Against the Dark Arts.

To their surprise, Moody had announced that he would be putting the Imperius Curse on each of them in turn, to demonstrate its power and to see whether they could resist its effects.

"But— but you said it's illegal, Professor," said Hermione uncertainly as Moody cleared away the desks with a sweep of his wand, leaving a large clear space in the middle of the room. "You said— to use it against another human was—"

"Dumbledore wants you taught what it feels like," said Moody, his magical eye swiveling onto Hermione and fixing her with an eerie, unblinking stare. "If you'd rather learn the hard way— when someone's putting it on you so they can control you completely— fine by me. You're excused. Off you go."

He pointed one gnarled finger toward the door. Hermione went very pink and muttered something about not meaning that she wanted to leave. Ron grinned. It was a known fact that Hermione would rather eat bubotuber pus than miss such an important lesson.

Moody began to beckon students forward in turn and put the Imperius Curse upon them. Arabella watched as, one by one, her classmates did the most extraordinary things under its influence. Dean hopped three times around the room, singing the national anthem. Lavender imitated a squirrel. Neville performed a series of astonishing gymnastics he would certainly not have been capable of in his normal state. None of them seemed to be able to fight off the curse, and each recovered only when Moody had removed it.

"Potter," Moody growled, "you next."

Arabella moved forward into the middle of the classroom, into the space that Moody had cleared of desks. Moody raised his wand, pointed it at her, and said, "Imperio!"

It was the most wonderful feeling Arabella had ever felt. It was as if she were floating through the air, every thought and worry in her head wiped gently away, leaving nothing but a vague, untraceable happiness. She stood there feeling immensely relaxed, only dimly aware of everyone watching her.

And then she heard Mad-Eye Moody's voice, echoing in some distant chamber of his empty brain:

"Jump onto the desk. . . jump onto the desk. . ."

Arabella bent her knees obediently, preparing to spring up.

"Jump onto the desk… jump onto the desk…"

'Why, though?' Another voice had awoken in the back of her brain. 'Stupid thing to do, really.'

"Jump onto the desk..."

'No, I don't think I will, thanks,' said the other voice, a little more firmly, '. . . no, I don't really want to.'

"Jump! NOW!"

The next thing Arabella felt was considerable pain. She had both jumped and tried to prevent herself from jumping— the result was that she'd smashed headlong into the desk knocking it over, and, by the feeling in her legs, fractured both his kneecaps.

"Now, that's more like it!" bellowed Moody's voice, and suddenly, Arabella felt the empty, echoing feeling in her head disappear. She remembered exactly what was happening, and the pain in her knees seemed to double.

"Look at that, you lot. . . Potter fought! She fought it, and she damn near beat it! We'll try that again, Potter, and the rest of you, pay attention— watch her eyes, that's where you see it— very good, Potter, very good indeed! They'll have trouble controlling you!"

"The way he talks," Arabella muttered as she hobbled out of the Defense Against the Dark Arts class an hour later (Moody had insisted on putting her through her paces four times in a row, until she could throw off the curse entirely) "you'd think we were all going to be attacked any second."

"Yeah, I know," said Ron, who was skipping on every alternate step. He had had much more difficulty with the curse than Arabella, though Moody assured him the effects would wear off by lunchtime. "Talk about paranoid. . ." Ron glanced nervously over his shoulder to check that Moody was definitely out of earshot and went on. "No wonder they were glad to get shot of him at the Ministry. Did you hear him telling Seamus what he did to that witch who shouted 'Boo' behind him on April Fools' Day? And when are we supposed to read up on resisting the Imperius Curse with everything else we've got to do?"

All the fourth years had noticed a definite increase in the amount of work they were required to do this term. McGonagall explained why, when the class gave a particularly loud groan at the amount of Transfiguration homework she had assigned.

"You are now entering a most important phase of your magical education!" she told them, her eyes glinting dangerously behind her square spectacles. "Your Ordinary Wizarding Levels are drawing closer -"

"We don't take O.W.L.s till the fifth year!" said Dean indignantly.

"Maybe not, Thomas, but believe me, you need all the preparation you can get! Miss Granger remains the only person in this class who has managed to turn a hedgehog into a satisfactory pincushion. I might remind you that your pincushion, Thomas, still curls up in fright if anyone approaches it with a pin!"

Hermione, who had turned rather pink again, seemed to be trying not to look too pleased with herself.

Arabella and Ron were deeply amused when Trelawney told them they had received top marks for their homework in their next Divination class. She read out large portions of their predictions, commending them for their courageous acceptance of the horrors in store for them— but they were less amused when she asked them to do the same thing for the month after next; both of them were running out of ideas for catastrophes.


The professors seemed to be conspiring against all the fourth years. James, the American witch who taught History of Magic, had them writing weekly essays on the goblin rebellions of the eighteenth century. Snape was forcing them to research antidotes, and in his advanced class that Lyla and Draco attended, they were researching a series of medically acclaimed potions whose properties were still unknown. Flitwick had also asked them to read five extra books to prepare for their Summoning Charms lesson.

Even Hagrid was adding to their workload. The Blast-Ended Skrewts were growing at a remarkable pace given that nobody had yet discovered what they ate. Hagrid was delighted and as part of their "project," suggested that they come down to his hut on alternate evenings to observe the skrewts and make notes on their extraordinary behavior.

"I will not," said Pansy flatly when Hagrid had proposed this with the air of Father Christmas pulling an extra-large toy out of his sack. "I see enough of these foul things during lessons, thanks."

Hagrid's smile faded off his face.

"Yeh'll do wha' yer told," he growled, "or I'll be takin' a leaf outta Professor Moody's book. . . . I hear yeh made a good little guinea pig…."

The Gryffindors all roared with laughter while Lyla sniggered loudly. Pansy flushed with anger, but apparently the memory of Moody's punishment was still sufficiently painful to stop her from retorting.

Later that evening, Gryffindors and Slytherins alike returned to the castle. Daphne was in high spirits seeing Hagrid put down Pansy, especially because Pansy had done her very best to get Hagrid sacked the previous year.

When they arrived in the entrance hall, they found themselves unable to proceed owing to the large crowd of students congregated there, all milling around a large sign that had been erected at the foot of the marble staircase. Ron, the tallest of the group, stood on tiptoe to see over the heads in front of them and read the sign aloud to the other two:

"TRIWIZARD TOURNAMENT

THE DELEGATIONS FROM BEAUXBATONS AND DURMSTRANG WILL BE ARRIVING AT 6 O'CLOCK ON FRIDAY, THE 30TH OF OCTOBER. LESSONS WILL END HALF AN HOUR EARLY—"

"Brilliant!" said Arabella. "It's Potion's last thing on Friday! Snape won't have time to poison us!"

"STUDENTS WILL RETURN THEIR BAGS AND BOOKS TO THEIR DORMITORIES AND ASSEMBLE IN FRONT OF THE CASTLE TO GREET OUR GUESTS BEFORE THE WELCOMING FEAST."

"Only a week away!" said Ernie, a Hufflepuff fourth year, emerging from the crowd, his eyes gleaming. "I wonder if Cedric knows…Think I'll go and tell him. . . ."

"Cedric?" said Ron blankly as Ernie hurried off.

"Cedric Diggory," said Arabella. "He must be entering the tournament."

"That idiot, Hogwarts champion?" said Ron as they pushed their way through the chattering crowd toward the staircase.

"Ron!" snapped Hermione. "He's not an idiot. You just don't like him because he beat Gryffindor at Quidditch,"

"He's a really good student," chimed in Arabella, a faint blush creeping across her cheeks "— and he's a prefect." She spoke as though this settled the matter.

"You only like him because he's handsome," grouched Ron scathingly.

"I don't like people just because they're handsome!" snapped Arabella indignantly.

The appearance of the sign in the entrance hall had a marked effect upon the inhabitants of the castle. During the following week, there seemed to be only one topic of conversation, no matter where Arabella went: the Triwizard Tournament. Rumors were flying from student to student like highly contagious germs: who was going to try for Hogwarts champion, what the tournament would involve, and how the students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang differed from themselves.

Lyla noticed, too, that the castle seemed to be undergoing an extra-thorough cleaning. Several grimy portraits had been scrubbed, much to the displeasure of their subjects, who sat huddled in their frames, muttering darkly and wincing as they felt their raw pink faces. The suits of armor were suddenly gleaming and moving without squeaking, and Argus Filch, the caretaker, was behaving so ferociously to any students who forgot to wipe their shoes that he terrified a pair of first-year girls into hysterics.

Other members of the staff seemed oddly tense too.

"Longbottom, kindly do not reveal that you can't even perform a simple Switching Spell in front of anyone from Durmstrang!" McGonagall barked at the end of one particularly difficult lesson, during which Neville had accidentally transplanted his own ears onto a cactus.

When they went down to breakfast on the morning of the thirtieth of October, they found that the Great Hall had been decorated overnight. Enormous silk banners hung from the walls, each of them representing a Hogwarts House: red with a gold lion for Gryffindor, blue with a bronze eagle for Ravenclaw, yellow with a black badger for Hufflepuff, and green with a silver serpent for Slytherin. Behind the teachers' table, the largest banner of all bore the Hogwarts coat of arms: lion, eagle, badger, and snake united around a large letter.

Lyla and her Slytherin friends made their way toward their Gryffindor friends and plopped down, chatting excitedly.

"You two got any ideas on the Triwizard Tournament yet?" asked Lyla eagerly. "Thought any more about trying to enter?"

"I asked McGonagall how the champions are chosen, but she wasn't telling," said George bitterly. "She just told me to shut up and get on with transfiguring my raccoon."

"Wonder what the tasks will be," said Daphne thoughtfully. "You know, I bet we could do them. We've done loads of dangerous stuff before. . . ."

"Not in front of a panel of judges, you haven't," said George seriously. "McGonagall says the champions get awarded points according to how well they've done the tasks."

"Who are the judges?" Arabella asked.

"Well, the Heads of the participating schools are always on the panel," started Blaise, and everyone looked around at him, somewhat surprised, "—because all three of them were injured during the Tournament of 1792 when a cockatrice the champions were supposed to be catching went on the rampage."

He noticed them all looking at him wonderingly.

"It's all in Hogwarts, A History," he said with annoyance, "Though, of course, I'd say none of you have read it, judging from your stupefied expressions."

"That book's not entirely reliable," mused Hermione. "A Revised History of Hogwarts would be a more accurate title."

"Or A Highly Biased and Selective History of Hogwarts," added Blaise quickly.

"What are you two on about?" said Theo, though Lyla thought she knew what was coming.

"House-elves!" said Hermione, her eyes flashing. Over the days, Blaise had become enthralled in S.P.E.W.

"Not once," she continued, "in over a thousand pages, does Hogwarts, A History mention that we are all colluding in the oppression of a hundred slaves!"

Arabella and Lyla shook their heads and applied themselves to their breakfast. The rest of the group's lack of enthusiasm had done nothing whatsoever to curb Hermione's determination to pursue justice for house elves. True, they all had paid two Sickles for a S.P.E.W. badge, but they had only done it to keep her quiet. Their Sickles had been wasted, however; they made Hermione more vociferous. She, now with the help of Blaise, had been badgering their friends to now wear the badges, then to persuade others to do the same, and she had also taken to rattling around the Gryffindor common room every evening, cornering people and shaking the collecting tin under their noses.

Ron now rolled his eyes at the ceiling, which was flooding them all in autumn sunlight, and Fred became extremely interested in his bacon (both twins had refused to buy a S.P.E.W. badge). George, however, leaned in toward Hermione.

"Listen, have you ever been down in the kitchens?"

"No, of course not," said Hermione curtly, "I hardly think students are supposed to—"

"Well, we have," said George, winking playfully and indicating Fred, "loads of times to nick food. And we've met them, and they're happy. They think they've got the best job in the world—"

"That's because they're uneducated and brainwashed!" Hermione began hotly, but her next few words were drowned out by the sudden whooshing noise from overhead, which announced the arrival of the post owls. Lyla looked up at once and saw Merlin soaring toward her. Hermione stopped talking abruptly; everyone watched as the owl drifted down slowly, landing directly in front of Lyla.

Lyla pulled off Sirius's reply and offered Merlin her bacon rinds, which he ate gratefully. Arabella merely rolled her eyes.

"Not talking to me, are you?"

Merlin only clicked his beak and flew off.

Checking that Fred and George were safely immersed in further discussions about the Triwizard Tournament, Lyla quietly read out Sirius's letter in a whisper:

Nice try.

I'm back in the country and well hidden. I want you to keep me posted on everything that's going on at Hogwarts. Don't use Hedwig, keep changing owls, and don't worry about me. Just watch out for yourself. Remember what I said about your scar.

Sirius

"Why d'you have to keep changing owls?" Ron asked in a low voice.

"Merlin will attract too much attention," said Draco at once. "It's best to rotate so as not to raise suspicion…."

Lyla rolled up the letter and slipped it to Arabella, wondering whether she felt more or less worried than before.


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