13TH NOVEMBER 1994 - Transfiguration P4

"What were you doing with Diggory that made her concoct this plan?" Evie asked suspiciously.

"I was explaining to him why the support badges are not good." Meera replied. "I was about to leave when she dropped this bombshell on me. There has to be a way to stop this before Rita's quill has a mind of its own."

"Lory's here." Evie said. "Should we tell her?"

"No!" Meera said.

"Hi! Have you chatted with Diggory yet Meera? I'll spare Harris,' cause he's working on finding Malfoy's stock, but if Diggory's not backing down from pickingon Harry, then he's going to have a real close up with my fist." Lory said. She was talking very fast and her jaw tense and fists closed so tight that her knuckles were white.

"I've dealt with him. Evie will keep me updated on reports of his progress. If they don't work he's accepted to join our cause." Meera shrugged.

"We have a whole operation going on here: Harris destroys the stocks, Diggory and Meera can deduct points on students wearing them as it has derrogatory statements and me and you blow up any badges they collect." Evie grinned.

"Yep...is there anything else I should know?" Lory asked.

"No! Course not." Meera said a little too quickly. "Why do you ask?"

"I don't know...I thought I might have forgotten something." Lory replied. "Do you guys wanna..."

"Oi, Black!" a voice called.

"Or not."

"Hey, Meera , hey Evie!" Fred said cheerily as he casually slipped an arm around Lory's shoulder. Lory shrugged it off and stepped away. "Have you imparted wisdom on your little brother yet?"

"I thought I'm an idiot. How could I impart wisdom?." Fred joked.

"My wisdom, Weasley. My wisdom which I shared with you." Lory poked him, looking unamused. "Now's not the time for jokes. Harry needs all the friends he can get."

Fred sobered and placed a hand on her shoulder. "I've tried talking to him, but he's not hearing it. He's as stubborn and pigheaded as the rest of us."

Lory exhaled forcefully. "Yes, but he's a pigheaded idiot who I can't intimidate at the moment."

Fred chuckled, his arm extending around her shoulder once more. "Oh you most certainly intimidate him. He'll come around soon you know, don't worry about it Lo."

This time Meera noted that Lory didn't shrug his arm off, she looked at Evie who was grinning.

"Something funny Evie?" Fred asked.

"No, nothing in particular." Evie replied. "Oh, I just remembered! Meera and I have to go to the owlery. We have to send a letter to our parents about..."

"Dress robes. See ya around." Meera said and the pair left.

"I think Lory's finally ready to get out of relationship denial." Evie said once they were clear of Lory and Fred. "Let's not give her an excuse not to."

"We have to get to Transfiguration now." Meera said. "We're going to be late."

"Time to face my arch nemesis." Evie rubbed her hands together clearly eager to cause mischief.

They made their way to the classroom and as they did so people who saw them parted hastily hurrying away. "Oh, my God! When did we become royalty?" Evie asked.

Meera shrugged. The people looked uncomfortable rather than respectful. A Gryffindor girl actually screamed and ran away from them.

"And you call me crazy." Meera commented.

"Well you are." Evie said. Meera glared at her. "But we don't talk about that."

The pair entered McGonagall's classroom which was already filled with Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs.

"Glad to know that you've considered arriving." She said sarcastically. "Please take the remaining seats."

There was one in the middle row and one right at the front. Meera quickly took the seat in the middle row causing Evie to glare at her.

As Evie went to the front seat, Meera realised why the Gryffindor had ran. Behind the Hufflepuff, trailed a pack of rats. Eight rats were faithfully trailing behind her in single file as if she was their mother hen.

"Miss Brooke! My God! What is this? A form of protest?" McGonnegal exclaimed as she saw the rat pack.

A few student jumped up onto their desks, but most kept their cool fearing McGonnegal's reaction.

"What?" Evie screeched when she saw the rats and almost immediately jumped up onto her seat.. "Go away! GO!"

To Meera's astonishment the rats stopped, turned and began walking away. McGonnegal looked from Evie to the rats, her eyes widening a little. She pushed her glasses up and straightened her robes. "Ok...if I can have your attention please...we will continue with the lesson."

Evie appeared very disconcerted throughout the lesson and Meera couldn't blame her; a family of rats practically imprinted on her.

Why? Why her?

Meera jabbed her quill into the inkpot a little too violently, causing some of the ink to splash onto her hands. Some of it had also splashed onto a Hufflepuff's notes and Meera smiled apologetically, before returning to her notes.

For the majority of the lesson Evie was incessantly tapping her table or twirling her quill much to McGonnegal's irritation. As soon as the bell signalling dinner rang Evie had hurried away before McGonnegal even had a chance to get a word in.

"To the ones who are remaining I would like to remind you to revise for your upcoming assessments in Transfiguration. It will be reflective of your OWL exams in terms of duration and number of questions but the topics you will be assessed on only include the theoretical topics you have covered in fourth year. Please focus on communicating clearly with your words , your proficiency at casting a spell will not aid you very much in your written exam if you cannot begin to articulate the purpose of its existence." McGonnegal said sternly. "Dismissed."

THe Hufflepuff girl was nowhere to be seen by the time Meera managed to make it out of the room. She stopped as her lungs burned after running the short distance from the classroom to the staircase.

"Hey Meera." Cedric grinned, his smile fell as he noticed her breathing heavily, bag half open and slung rather haphazardly over one shoulder. "Are you ok?"

"Rats..." Meera exclaimed as if it explained everything. Cedric frowned as he reached over to close her bag

"Why don't you sit down?" Cedric suggested, stumbling as he caught the full weight of her bag which had slipped of her shoulder whilst he finished closing it. "What the hell are you carrying in here?"

"Rats." Meera continued, as she breathed heavily leaning onto the Grand Staircase. Cedric fumbled the bag looking thoroughly confused. "No, not in there you moron. They followed Evie!"

"What?" 

Meera rolled her eyes and threw her hands skywards.

"Hey, that's not fair. You're not giving me much to go on here, what the hell am I supposed to make of 'rats followed Evie'. You don't look so good? Are you sure you don't want to sit down?" Cedric asked bending down so he was level with the Ravenclaw who was now carefully scanning her bag for ink leaks or tears.

"Yes I'm sure, did you see where she went?" Meera asked.

"She's probably in the Great Hall eating dinner, like everyone else." Cedric replied. "Come on why don't we go and get something to eat, you look like you could use it."

He got up again and took her bag in one hand and used his other to pull her up. Meera's vision became blurry for a second as her glasses slid of her face threatening to fall of.  "I have a feeling that she's not in there, she looked irritated when she left Transfiguration." 

"Evie's always irritated." Cedric laughed, beginning to walk towards the Great Hall.

"That's not funny how would you feel if you got chased by a pack of rats." Meera said relunctantly following him.

"Oh, you were serious about that?" 

"Yes! Anyway, she seemed pretty eager to get somewhere at the end of the lesson today. Annoying thing is I don't know where." Meera responded clearly vexed by the Hufflepuff girl's speedy disappearance.

"I'm sure we can find her." Cedric said. "She can't have gone too far."

"We?"

"She's my friend too, plus I don't really have much to do tonight." Cedric replied opening the door to the Great Hall. "And I wanted to tell her about Rita Skeeter's interruption today."

"I've told her." Meera replied. "I'll take my bag now. My lungs aren't burning quite so much anymore."

Meera stumbled a little when the brunnete returned her bag to her, regretting how much she had crammed in there.

"He's carrying your bag for you now?" Padma asked her eyebrows skyhigh as Meera sat down opposite her.

"Oh, stop!" Meera snapped, tired of making excuses and explanations for the simplest of things.

"Come on Meera. You've got to admit that there is something going on between you guys now!" Padma threw her hands exasperatedly. Meera looked behind her hastily, hoping the fourth year's voice didn't carry. "According to some people you two are spending loads more time together, particurlary during your prefect duties."

"Yes Padma. Diggory and I are having a tryst in the haunted corridors of Hogwarts, while ensuring horny teenagers aren't out fucking in broom cupboards past curfew...how romantic?" Meera said sarcastically as she forked a piece of chicken in a particularly violent fashion. "And would these people happen to be Roman?"

Padma raised her hands in surrender, noting the older girl's sour mood, quickly changed the subject. "Where's Evie?"

"I'd like to know the answer to that question myself." Meera replied.

"She's probably with Harris, the Slytherins were saying that he disappeared after making a brief appearance for dinner." Padma shrugged. She frowned however, when she noticed Meera stop cutting her food abruptly. Meera noted that whilst most of the Beauxbatons including Fleur Delacour, their champion was here, one particular brunette was missing. "Anything wrong?"

"No, everything's fine. I was just checking to see if Harris was still missing." Meera lied, whilst wondering where the hell the Slytherin boy and Beauxbatons girl could be.

Meanwhile, Evie bounded down the steps to the Dungeons, making sure to avoid Snape, on her way. She approached a corner which was seemingly a dead end that had a wall with the faded etchings of a sleeping dragon, Evie traced around its head and body, triggering the sliding of the panel. She winced at the loud sound the panel made with the surrounding stone cold walls.

Warily she made her way down a few rickety steps, pulling her cloak around her more tightly and forcefully stopping her teeth from chattering. At the end of the chamber there was a pale blue glow just about lighing up that corner.

"If you wanted to see me, you could have asked nicely!" Evie shouted. "You didn't have to send a pack of rats after me."

The small glow grew and floated towards the middle, you could then begin to make out the prominent features of a large dragon, with magnificient scaled features.

"Apologies, my old friend but I had to take drastic measures to get your attention. You have been quite caught up with minor insignificant things these days." a deep voice replied.

"Why am I here?"

"Because I wish to point out that I was right. I told you there was something special about your friend and now I tell you that you will find another ally very soon." he replied.

"And when exactly will that be?" Evie asked. "How do I know who it is."

"Perhaps they will find you...who knows." the dragon replied vaguely.

"So is that the only reason you called me? To gloat about the fact that Meera's a seer?" Evie snapped.

"Mostly, yes." The dragon replied. Evie rolled her eyes. "Tell me. How is my old friend?"

"Who?" Evie asked.

"Merlin of course my dear. I couldn't ask you before, because you didn't know who he was."

"He's fine, except for the fact that he's competing in a rather deadly tounrament against a bunch of teenagers." Evie said. "Wait you know Merlin?"

"Of course I do, and you know him a lot better than you think." the Dragon replied, a smug smirk appearing on his scaly features. Evie frowned at him. "Oh, you will find out soon, my dear. "

"Wait! What do you mean?" Evie shouted as the insubstantial features of the dragon began to dwindle into the shadows. The Dragon's hearty laughter echoed of the cold stone walls of the dungeon. "Don't you dare leave me on the edge! This isn't funny!"

"All in good time, my dear." she heard. "All in good time."

------***------

Evie walked into the Great Hall, pensively, before taking a seat next to Cedric and collecting some food quitly. She noticed a few Hufflepuffs observing her curiously. "What are you all looking at?" she snapped. The Hufflepuffs returned to their conversations being the polite bunch they are.

"Is it true that a pack of rats followed you today?" Roman asked.

"I think someone jinxed her." Cedric said nonchalantly. "It's the only explanation."

"No shit Sherlock." Evie said dryly.

"The question is who would do that." Roman said.

"The Weasley twins?" Cedric suggested.

"Well they are in huge trouble then." Meera said, placing her hands on Evie's shoulder. "Where did you run off too?"

"I went to the library, to return some books." Evie replied. Meera narrowed her eyes at her. "What? They were really heavy and I didn't want to lug them in here. You have done the same so many times."

Meera said nothing and simply nodded, before taking the empty seat next to her.

"Did you hear? Harris hasn't been seen for the entirety of dinner." Roman said. Cedric gave him a warning look. "Wanna guess who else is missing?"

"Other people who have finished dinner?" Meera suggested dryly.

"Yes." Roman agreed.

"Shocking." Meera said, with an edge to her tone.

"But the only one I care about is that Beauxbatons girl Freya...she and Harris are nowhere to be seen for the entirety of dinner. Now do you wanna know what I'm thinking?" Roman asked eagerly, clearly oblivious to the younger Ravenclaw's irritation.

"We all know what you're thinking Roman." Meera interrupted dryly.

"Can we please drop it?" Evie asked.

"Oh come on..." Roman protested.

"I'm not really in a speculating mood Roman, we've got a really big test next week. Maybe another time." Evie forced a smile, she'd lost her appetite from earlier, but knew that Meera wouldn't let her leave the table until she finished at least what was on her plate.

The rest of dinner was fairly uneventful and Evie had asked Meera to join her in the Hufflepuff common room. Meera knew she'd probably be there for a while and so she went to Ravenclaw Tower to drop her school books of and changed into more comfortable clothes. Thankfully she didn't have prefect duty today, whilst Cedric had rounds, meaning that Roman's speculation wouldn't be fueled.

Currently, Meera had comfortably settled herself into a sofa by the fireplace as she and Evie played a game of snap. Evie won quite easily as Meera wasn't really paying much attention, being busily half asleep. Evie on the other hand was very hyped up and snapped the table violently each time and cursed loudly if Meera actually managed to get there before her in her drowsy state.

Roman had found great amusement in this as he watched them whilst completing his divination homework. Meera could have probably done it for him since Trelawney has made her an expert in the sixth year course over this past month, considering how 'advanced' she was. Cedric joined him a little later as he'd finished his rounds early and they'd engaged in their own game of wizard's chess.

It seemed that Roman would win for a good proportion of time before, Cedric managed to take a considerable number of his pieces and promote four of his own pawns to Queens. Roman had accepted defeat at that point and went to bed.

Most of the other Hufflepuffs also turned in but Cedric stayed and glanced at Meera and Evie while they continued playing. Meera noticed this and rose her eyebrows at the elder boy who hastily returned his gaze to his  Advanced Transfiguration book.

At one particular moment she and Evie were focused on a battle of top trumps. (Evie had suggested that this might be a more suitable game, considering how exhausted Meera seemed) Meera was too busy pondering about what section she should choose to notice Evie's change in demeanour and Evie's attention had wandered.

"What?" Evie snapped harshly. Her tone had been so sharp that it made Meera jump. Meera followed her glare and noticed a slightly nervous looking Cedric.

"Um...I'm just a little worried." Cedric replied.

"Why? I'm perfectly fine." Evie said indignantly.

"Evie you are seething. What's wrong? Talk to me." Cedric said. He got up and moved Meera's legs of the sofa she was laying on before sitting down. Meera kicked his legs, before stretching hers across him to place her feet on the other sofa arm. Cedric looked down puzzledly. "Excuse me?"

"What you did was very rude: you don't just push someone's legs off like that!" Meera chided. "I was just getting comfortable and you ruined it. You'll be stuck there until I choose to remove my legs."

Meera stretched to get comfortable and cracked her knuckles, before stifling a yawn. He opened his mouth to say something but stopped knowing that arguing would get him nowhere.

"Glad we have an understanding." Meera said, appearing very pleased with herself.

Cedric ignored her and continued. "What's wrong?"

"I have already told you to keep your nose out Diggory." Meera said, while indolently examining her cards. She knew he wanted to help but wasn't quite sure if Evie would react very well to it, considering the fact that she didn't like sharing these kind of feelings right of the bat even with Meera. "Or I'll..."

"Break it?" Cedric interrupted coolly. "I know, but I can't sit back knowing that my friend is upset."

Meera looked up from her cards, her eyebrows shooting up at the brunette's sudden defiance. He met her cold eyed stare with an equally unwavering one and Meera realised that for once it is her turn to concede.

"Alright." Meera shrugged, before placing her cards face down on the table before them. "I fold."

They turned back to Evie when they heard some rustling as she paced in front of the fireplace, aimlessly. She then sat down and looked at them.

"You want to know what's wrong? I'll tell you!" she said finally. "Harris Smithson your best friend has been hanging out with Freya...whatever. When he's with us all he talks about is little miss silky black hair all the damn time! It's fucking infuriating! Do you know how it feels to watch the guy you have had for feelings for, for the past year or so, going on walking around the school with a new girl that has taken his breath away in like...five seconds?!"

Evie was red in the face and she sat down holding her knees close to her chest as she glared at the fire. Cedric's facial expressions were rather amusing to watch as they morphed into confusion, then changed to one of shock, then confused again and then his eyes widened a little.

"I think you've broken him Evie." Meera laughed, trying to get a smile out the Hufflepuff girl. Cedric glared at the amused Ravenclaw. He resisted the urge to retort something equally derisive and turned back to Evie.

"So just to clarify things, you like Harris?" Cedric asked calmly.

Meera clapped sarcastically. "Truly the greatest discovery of the century. Diggory."

Evie exhaled forcefully. "Yes, I do. Regardless of how much I want to ignore it, its true and it's only getting bigger, the more I let it fester."

Cedric leaned forward, once again pushing Meera's legs off with little difficulty, much to her annoyance. "Look Evie you mean a lot more to him that you think. For God's sake Roman and I can't shut him up when he starts talking about you sometimes. He always finds a tangent to the conversation we're having that's related to you."

"Really?" Evie asked her voice small as she still stared at the fire. Cedric nodded.

"Listen, I don't know what's going on with Harris, maybe he's a little sick of waiting and has moved onto someone else or something, but to him you are definitely much more important than a friend." he continued sincerely. "To be honest, it's one thing you've beaten me in."

A small smile grew on her face at the last part surprising Meera. 

"Feel better?" Meera asked.

"I would if I could kick Freya's ass off the Astronomy Tower." Evie replied. "But alas that is classed as murder. I'm sorry for shouting at you."

Cedric leaned back and nodded. "It's fine."

Almost subconsciously Meera had replaced her legs over Cedric and the Hufflepuff boy  did nothing to stop it. Instead he lazily summoned his Transfiguration book and resumed his reading. Evie bit back a smile and the got up placing her cards on the table much to Meera's disappointment.

"I forfeit the round. G'night." Evie said stifling a yawn. "You two stay safe okay? We don't want any little ones running around." 

Cedric's eyes remained trained on his book but his reddened cheeks betrayed his guise of inattention. Meera tried to lean over the back of the sofa to slap her but Evie dodged nimbly. "There's the Evie I'm looking for. The annoying smartass." Meera said. 

Evie's laughter echoed a little as she left for her dormitary. A strangely comfortable silence settled after it passed; one which Meera eventually broke, because she could never enjoy any kind of silence

"So..." She began, but couldn't think of any conversation starters that were remotely interesting.

"So..." Cedric repeated, trying to find something to clear the air. "Any developments on the Skeeter situation?"

Meera grimaced and moved into a more seated position and crossed her legs, causing Cedric's book to fall into his lap. "Nothing yet. I'll talk to Lory about it tomorrow."

Cedric nodded and another more, awkward silence settled, only broken by Cedric idly fidling with the pages of his Transfiguration book. Meera looked away, moving a loose strand of hair away from her face. 

This time Cedric was the one to break the silence. "You better do that soon. Otherwise we'll have to start pretending to be a couple."

Meera's eyebrows shot up at the comment and she retreated her legs sitting upright.. Cedric smiled sheepishly. "Or I could just enlist Evie's help to murder Rita Skeeter. I'd much rather do that by the way."

He chuckled and nodded. "Do you want me to walk with you back to Ravenclaw tower? Just so you don't get into trouble for being out past curfew you know..."

"No thanks, I'll find my way back." Meera said hurrying to the barrel. "Night."

Before he could respond she'd left the common room hurrying back towards the staricase. She resolutely ignored the comment the Hufflepuff boy made as she made her way to Ravenclaw Tower.

If there is one thing she knows for sure there is no way in hell, she's going to pretend to be Diggory's girlfriend or love interest or whatever to satisfy the thirst of some despicable reporter who's clearly sick in the head.