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ALBANY DIDN'T WASTE ANY TIME in searching the whole castle for the twins, or even using the guiding light spell again. She had a feeling she knew where she would find them, and made a beeline for the old classroom. It was their home base away from the dorms, and not just for purely business purposes. All of their brainstorming and thinking was done in the room; she was sure they wouldn't leave it if not for pranking, eating and class.

Well, perhaps that was an exaggeration, but she knew Fred was also still keen on solving the mystery, and if he was going to be thinking about it anywhere, it was going to be in the Weasleys' Wizard Headquarters.

She hadn't quite counted on it being just Fred in there, however. She was a little surprised to push open the door and find the boy alone, unaccompanied by his twin, or even Lee or Angelina.

More shocking was that he was reading.

Fred was seated criss-cross on a desktop, and had a large array of books stacked or open around him. In fact, he was so involved in his research, that he didn't glance up and acknowledge Albany until she cleared her throat, a little awkwardly.

Fred looked up slowly, and his own eyes seemed to have sank a little further into his skull than usual, his long red hair more unkempt than his mother would have liked it. Albany swallowed the rising guilt in her throat, sour in its taste, and met his gaze almost tentatively. Apologetically.

Fred's expression was impossible to read, and a thousand emotions flashed through it in the most subtle of ways before, eventually, he seemed to understand her without words.

"He's not himself, Albany," he said quietly. "I think he's still under a spell."

"I know," Albany mumbled, hastily stifling the sudden urge she had to cry. "I'm sorry."

Fred slid off the desk, careful not to knock any books. "Thank you for coming back."

"I was an idiot," Albany admitted, and her fists clenched, angry only with herself. "I was jealous. And I was blind. But - someone convinced me to see sense, and I realised that George hasn't been acting like himself at all, and that I was wrong, and I want to help make things right-"

In a matter of steps, Fred had crossed the classroom and thrown his arms around her. She blinked, freezing up in surprise - and frankly she thought she didn't deserve his forgiveness - but slowly melted into the hug, realising how much she'd missed him the past few days.

"Fred-" she began, but he cut her off, and stepped back with a smile.

"That's good enough for me," he assured her.

Albany smiled up at him, shaking her head; there were many things she didn't deserve and Fred Weasley was one of them.

She glanced around the room curiously; it had become quite cluttered with the addition of the numerous books Fred had brought. The chalkboard no longer depicted the darkness marble they'd been tinkering with the last time Albany had been in the room. Instead, there was now a detailed mind map of sorts, various words and phrases circled and connected to one another with paragraphs of small writing branching off from each one. She stepped closer, frowning as she realised what exactly it was for.

'George Weasley' was written in large writing at the centre. Other key words were circled around it; 'golden eyes', 'strange magic', 'Yule Ball date' were all underlined heavily.

"I don't suppose you know anything new?" Fred asked, sounding weary. "Carly sent me Moody's way; he was really happy to help, actually, gave me loads of books. More than I've ever read in my life, but I still don't know how it all fits together."

"Pass me the chalk," Albany said. Fred tossed a piece her way, and she clumsily caught it. "I found a few things, actually."

She walked over to the board, and struggling to find space to write, managed to connect 'golden eyes' to 'strange magic'. Fred glanced questioningly at her, and raised his eyebrows as she squeezed in the term 'old magic' on the line she'd drawn.

"Old magic?" he read aloud, visibly confused. "What's that?"

"Magic that's old," Albany joked lamely, and satisfied with the small chuckle she got from the redhead, elaborated in a more serious manner. "It's a branch of magic that was used in Merlin's time. You didn't need a wand or incantation to perform it - there was only one giveaway sign if you were using it. Your eyes would-"

"Turn golden?" Fred assumed, eyebrows raising. Albany nodded. "How'd you find this out, anyway?"

Albany faltered, glancing hurriedly back to the chalkboard. "Er, a book," she lied. "From the library."

"Well, it sounds like you were on the right track," Fred remarked, impressed. "We should get that book; it might be useful in reversing the spell."

Albany panicked slightly, because such a book, to her knowledge, didn't actually exist. Arthur had explained everything to her, but she wasn't very well about to drop that on Fred. "Um, actually, I was hoping we wouldn't need to reverse the spell," she said hastily. "That if we find the caster, they'll do it for us."

"Yeah, that makes sense, actually," Fred agreed, scratching his chin in thought. "Old magic sounds like it would be pretty difficult to use. So how do we find who cast the spell?"

"You saw her, right? The golden-eyed girl?" Albany questioned, and Fred nodded. "Would you be able to recognise her if you saw her again?"

Fred pressed his lips together firmly. "I can't say for certain, but I'd like to think I could."

Albany nodded. "That should be good enough. Because I think I know who it might be."

Fred glanced at her. "Faith Moran?" he guessed.

She nodded, a little surprised that he'd come to the same conclusion. Fred let out a soft laugh at her expression.

"I did mean it when I said George wanted to go to the ball with you, Allie," he explained, a small smile gracing his lips. "The thing he acts weirdest about is his date to the ball - this Faith Moran one. She has something to do with it, anyway."

"I agree," Albany said, frowning. "Thing is, she's been missing ever since George told us."

Fred raised an eyebrow in concern. "You know her?"

Albany swallowed, her gaze drifting to the ground. "Yeah. We were best friends, actually." Fred's eyes widened a little at this revelation, and she continued. "This year... she changed a lot. Well, we both changed. We kind of had a falling out."

"Kind of?" Fred echoed, as though he knew she was trivialising the issue.

Albany bit her cheek. "I guess she sort of hates me now?"

Fred's eyebrows raised, though he didn't inquire further. Instead, he seemed more convinced. "That makes her even more of a suspect, right?"

Albany shrugged, frowning; she wasn't overly fond of the implication that the entire mystery was revolving around her, and her relationships with George and Faith. However, she couldn't deny that it would make sense, and it filled in the gaps quite well. Regardless, Faith was involved somehow, and for various reasons, she needed to figure out what exactly was going on.

As much as she hated to admit it, if old magic was involved, this ran far deeper than an attack on George Weasley.

When she glanced back up, Fred was standing still, staring blankly at the chalkboard. She felt a weighted sorrow in her chest watching him; it was clear that he was upset by what had happened to his twin brother. She felt another pang of guilt for abandoning her friends to tend to her own feelings, when she hadn't been suffering alone to start with; she fought it off a moment later. There was no time to linger on her mistakes when she could be looking for Faith.

"Fred," she called, softly, and the boy startled himself out of his thoughts, smiling instinctively at her. You good? she wanted to ask, but stopped herself. Of course he wasn't okay — but she was going to make sure that changed. "You ready?"

Fred glanced momentarily back to the mindmap he'd drawn up. He swallowed heavily, and then turned to her, nodding. "Let's do this."

The guiding light spell did not work. At first, Albany thought it was her nerves interfering with her magic, as she was beginning to grow anxious again. Though as Fred attempted the spell, only for it to fail again, she wondered if Faith had cast counter-charms to prevent others from finding her. One way or another, the girl was hiding.

"Where is George?" Albany asked quietly, as the pair began the painstaking process of manually searching the entire castle.

"I left him with Lee," Fred admitted, not sounding particularly content about it. His gaze dropped to the floor as they walked, jaw tight with troubled emotions. "He gets... weird, when I would try and ask him about what happened. I couldn't try and help him... with him."

A bitter sadness weighed on Albany's shoulders; the twins were so often attached at the hip that she could physically feel Fred's pain in being separated from George in such a manner.

"I'm sorry," she murmured sympathetically, hoping her words conveyed effectively how truly apologetic she did feel for leaving them alone. "It can't be easy."

Fred flexed his fingers, glancing sideways to her. "We're gonna fix it, Allie," he said, words firm, and hope shone in his hazel irises.

"We will," Albany agreed, and she gave an affirmative nod. We will.

"Oh, my bathroom! My poor, poor bathroom!"

Startled, the two looked up to find the ghost of Moaning Myrtle drifting along, high above the corridor as she lamented.

"Nobody wants to help poor Moaning Myrtle, and her poor bathroom!"

The girl was sobbing in earnest, burying her face in her hands as she rained ghostly tears on the hallway. It was quite unusual to see Myrtle outside of the bathroom she haunted, though the student body of Hogwarts seemed less than excited about this, a pair of younger Hufflepuffs hurrying to turn the corner before the ghost could harass them. She wasn't exactly known for being the most bearable company.

Fred and Albany were not so lucky in their escape. Just as Albany had been silently gesturing to Fred which direction to run on her count, Myrtle swooped right down into their faces.

"Everyone is so horrible to me!" she shrieked, evidently distraught. Her round, youthful face was screwed up and shiny with tears — or as shiny as a vaguely opaque ghost's face could be. "Everybody runs away, and no-one will help!"

"Er, Myrtle, we would love to help, but we're actually really busy at the moment," Albany explained awkwardly, trying to sidestep around the ghost to no avail.

Myrtle rounded on her, distressed expression quickly distorting into one of fury. "Isn't that what everyone says! Oh, poor Moaning Myrtle, we would love to help, but we'd much rather run away and make fun of you behind your back!"

Albany bit her cheek. "Um — no—"

"What's wrong, Myrtle?" Fred asked, and seemed genuinely concerned.

Albany groaned under her breath, shooting the redhead a pointed glance that he either ignored or didn't see.

"What's wrong?" Myrtle echoed, mocking him pitifully. "My bathroom, did you not hear me?!"

"What happened to it?"

"What happened?" Myrtle repeated, lip curling in disgust before she fell into another bout of horrible sobs. "That awful girl destroyed it!"

Albany, who had been rolling her eyes with her arms folded, itching to get away, faltered in her impatience. She turned urgently to the ghost. "What girl?"

"Oh, now she's interested!" Myrtle wailed.

Albany sighed in frustration, but Fred gave her a gentle nudge, stepping forward to take over conversation with the tearful ghost.

"This girl, Myrtle, could you describe her?"

Myrtle sniffed, wiping at her eyes. "Oh, she's simply horrible. I thought she was funny, at first. Then she kept getting angry and — and yelling at m-me!"

She broke down again, chest heaving with sobs, and Fred exchanged a sympathetic glance with Albany, who was still quite apathetic about dealing with the ghost despite her piqued interest.

"Could you tell us what the girl looks like?" Fred asked politely.

Myrtle was unhappy with the interrogation. "Just come see her yourself, if you want to know so badly!" she shouted, and went to shove Fred; this didn't exactly work, given that she was a ghost. Fred was left looking thoroughly chilled as her arms passed straight through his chest, teeth chattering for a moment.

Myrtle whipped around and drifted off at a speedy enough pace for a ghost that was still sniffling loudly, and Fred and Albany had to jog to catch up with her. She floated straight through the door to her bathroom, and Albany paused before opening it, hand hovering over the door knob.

Fred glanced sideways at her hand, frowning as he noticed its light tremble. Albany met his gaze nervously.

"You'll tell me? If it's the girl?" Albany asked him, biting her cheek.

Fred nodded, and managed a small smile. "And you'll tell me if it's Faith?"

Albany nodded back, and put her hand on the door knob, steadying it. She twisted it open, and warily pushed the door in, drawing her wand on instinct.

Myrtle might have been an overdramatic ghost, but she hadn't lied about the state of the bathroom. It was destroyed. Shattered glass littered the cracked, discoloured tiles; where full mirrors had once covered the walls, bare, scratched plaster was left. The sinks were cracked and chipped, some of them completely dislodged. Taps and exposed pipes were spewing water all over the floor, a distasteful pale yellow-brown hue to the puddles. The stalls weren't left unscathed either, holes in the wood and splinters on the ground where doors had been ripped off their hinges. The sound of trickling water echoed around the beaten-down room, accompanied by Myrtle's sniffling, where she had retreated to a high windowsill.

A girl lay on her back at the centre of all the destruction, staring dully at the mouldy ceiling above. Her school robes were wet and torn, numerous scratches on her pale face and exposed arms. Her hair was knotted and clumped where it spread out around her head like a dark aureole.

Albany took a shaky breath, glancing warily sideways to Fred. He nodded.

"It's her."