"I need to enter the training area that has been provided to me so many times before, room only accessible to me and Miss Felinae this evening" she thought as she passed for the third time by the wall facing the Barnabas the Barmy tapestry. The intricate ornate wooden door finally appeared and she cautiously looked both ways before opening the door. Her conversation yesterday with Miss Lemon, had instilled a deeper sense of caution into her.

She closed the door behind her and relished in the familiar setting of the room. It wasn't a very big room, her training grounds didn't require much space, but it was rather crowded: it had a raised platform for dueling, some training dummies  facing their back to a mirror for the caster to analyze their stance, a foe glass of her own device -she had rather taken a liking to creating the artifacts[1]- a small library filled with books on wandwork, dueling, jinxes and curses and as a new addition, a desk with two comfortable looking armchairs facing each other, in the corner of the room, next to a fireplace. The room had no windows, but it was brightly lit; the walls were dressed in black velvet curtains, and the floor was soft and spongy to cushion possible falls and other accidents that might occur.

She was early by quite some time so she went straight for the desk and sat in the armchair, that proved, indeed, very comfortable. She sighed exhausted, and let her body sink into the armchair. Her lack of sleep had been starting to truly show in her everyday life. But before she had time to relax, the huge mirror in the other corner of the room lit up to show a white silhouette[2], dressed in a floor-length robe and a shining silver mask in the shape of a cat's face. She quickly pulled her own raven mask from her robes and covered her face with it, before raising to her feet and straightening her posture. At the last moment, she remember to pull the hood over her head to make sure her hair was hidden. If anything, her hair was a dead giveaway to her identity. Just as she was finished, her Gwyllion Fae colleague had just entered the room.

"Felinae" she nodded to acquiesce her presence. "Do take a seat, please" she pointed to the armchair facing her own on the other side of the desk. She pulled a package bound in leather from her robes and placed it on the desk to enlarge it. She then leaned back in the armchair, while the cat-masked girl settled across her.

1.	4th years Runes presentation
2.	Same presentation; white indicates a person that holds no sympathy for you

The current Hexy level is Green

---

The Room of Requirement. If every Gwyllion Fae meeting had taken place here it would be far too predictable. Dumbledore's Army had experienced that. If you understood the room completely you could get it to link to different areas of the castle than just the seventh floor, though that had last happened during the height of the Second War when students had been at siege in the interior. Perhaps the room wouldn't respond that way without an immense threat within the castle.

Upon entering after the phrasing of where Avialae wanted to meet, the cat themed counterpart paused, momentarily taken aback. The training dummies she instantly recognized along with the overall purpose of the room. Training grounds. Though much smaller than what Hexy got when she asked for it, with a bigger center stage and high ceiling and magical phonograph in the corner.[1] Avialae sat with familiarity to the room in her posture. Hexy had presumed she'd never been the first to ask for training space in the Room of Requirement; she half expected the room would design similar elements like the battle dummies for each user; but she hadn't expected that this would be Avialae's room. Functional for training and work but also intimate. Well, smaller than Hexy's.

That suddenly explained a lot. It was so obvious now. Avialae had so many tricks that she had never come up with, in neither the Casey or Hexy personas. The girl behind the raven mask would have needed similar length of time and isolated work space to foster these abilities. Something Hexy resented about her. She (well, Casey) was supposed to be the greatest spell caster in their year. Grades and reports didn't matter, just casting the most powerful magic than any other fourth year.

In a word, Hexy was jealous. Jealous of a better rival.

"Cosy," she said while sitting. Her eyes had glossed over the home made Foe Glass in the corner, taking the mirror as a symbol of vanity. "Lucky you managed to book the room tonight. I heard someone in a Runes class went on and one about the room during their project. It's a wonder the whole school isn't lined up to use it now."

1.	This thread is dated later but the design is largely the same as it would be at this current date. link

"Well, now, you know the room doesn't let just anybody inside" she said smirking behind the mask, confidence her voice, not betraying the slight shock in her mind. "Besides, so few actually know where it is or how to enter it. I wouldn't worry about it, i trust the Room to protect itself from unwanted... visitors"she said the last word with some form of veiled disgust.

"Pleasantries and chit-chat aside, this" she stroked the thick leather-bound package in front of her with affection "is why I called you here" she said while slowly untying the leather strips holding the package, to reveal a large book, with velvet-dressed covers, golden corner bosses and jewels encrusted on the spines. "This is my family's Maleficium, basically some 600 hundred years of my family's forays into the magical arts. It has just been passed down to me some time ago, as it is my right to inherit it."

"From what I've been reading, the book contains everything from spells, curses, hexes, potion recipes, instructions for creating various magical instruments and all other sorts of uses of magic. Basically it covers everything from transfiguration tricks, charms, spells and such, a lot of amazing pointers for potions, great information on various magical flora and fauna.... rune applications, even ways to improve your wand stance and a lot more. I thought you might want to assist me in uncovering its wonders?" she said with a small chuckle.

"But before you even give me an answer I do have to warn you of a few things. First of all: for the protection of my identity, all references to me or my family, such as names, places, signature spells, curses,  recipes, experiments and so on have been veiled. Look on the cover, here" she said, and turned the book towards the other girl. "All such words will appear in gibberish: random letters and signs, and out of respect for our relation I do hope you will not try to bypass my spell" she added in a threatening tone. "Secondly, courtesy demands that I inform you of the contest of this particular Maleficium. Over 40% of it, can be considered magic that's... frowned upon, let's put it that way,  30% of it is dark magic, another 20% is downright illegal and the rest of 10% is safe and doesn't hold much danger. If you care to learn from it beside me, you will do so at your own risk, and will not hold me responsible of any accident that might occur" she took a deep breath and looked the girl straight in the eyes of the mask.

"Thirdly, because my inheritance situation is a bit unusual, and I have redeemed most of my rights at a younger age than usual, most of the book has been made unavailable until I turn of age. So the truly dark and dangerous contents of it are tightly locked under a spell. I haven't even been able to identify it."

She opened the book towards the middle, and when she tried to flip the next page, the paper glowed a faint blue and seemed to glue itself to the next couple of pages. Holding the few seemingly glued pages up in the air, she tried to pry them open, and the paper suddenly glowed red and she quickly retracted her hand. "It's quite painful. I tried until I got a second degree burn a few days ago" she said while frowning and rubbing her fingers.

"Fourthly: my Maleficium, my decisions. Just so we're clear... If I say no, then it is final. Of course, you're free to browse it, tell me if something interests you specifically, and I'll decide if we should follow through or not, is that understood?" she fell back on in the armchair and crossed her legs. "Ah, and let's not forget: nothing is free in this world. Since I'm sharing such precious knowledge with you, of course, I expect something in return. I want your full cooperation on finding out the true purpose of our little group and the identity of our Mr. Puppeteer and, of course if you ever hold information on any of these subjects you will not withhold it from me."

She leaned over the table and turned the book to the last page. She extracted a piece of parchment from the book and laid it on the table before Felinae. She then pulled a scarlet quill out of her robe pocket and set it next to the parchment. "If you agree to this arrangement, then I'd like you to sign this contract" she said in a sweet voice. "Oh, and that's a blood quill, and this is a blood contract[1]. Unbreakable vows are too drastic, I think, but blood contracts do the trick nicely, don't they?" she said in an amused voice.

"Of course, you don't have to decide now, you can think on it for a few days if you'd like" she said as she rose to her feet and moved to a small table next to the fireplace. "Tea?" she asked serenely.

1.	I figure if you break them, you get cursed or something close to it. It's not lethal, but it is definitely a very nasty and permanent side-effect.

If Hexy had wanted a history lecture she would have left it for Professor Jowd. One who seemed more chipper than Avialae. Though that wasn't to say Hexy wasn't hooked on the offer right away. The book and its presentation was slightly pretentious but that was worth it to see an actual Maleficium.

Maleficiums were rare and obviously not an open book one left in plain view on the coffee table. Even the Restricted Section in the library wasn't going to have Maleficiums in stock because these tomes were kept in families. Not that the O'Dohertys had one. Especially in the last hundred or so years there weren't any break through thinkers or progressive designers, just a very powerful wand. In fact...

Though Hexy kept the parts of her face behind the mask interested but stony there was much more glee to be had further in her mind.. True, anything that identified the family that owned this Maleficium was rendered in unintelligble foreign characters as it was presented to her. But Avialae was revealing much more than what she realized. Since Maleficiums were so rare the list of families rumored to posess one was extremly narrow. Coupled with a dynasty lasting at least 600 plus years limited applicable canditdates even further. Rough guessing would eventually defiine where Avialae's Maleficium had come from.

The challenge was almost so easy to pursue that it would be boring, not that it really mattered anyways because Hexy was more drawn to the information being offered than who was offering. The age restriction became a more popular mystery as if the sealed pages were limited to those above seventeen something like an age line must be at work.

As to the warning of the contents being dark: "Did you see me blink?" When Maleficium was the only non-veiled word in the title you could tell it was not going to be a childrens' book about witches and unicorns.

"I've just got the letters, same as you," Hexy said of the entity that brought the group together. Plus all the extra parchments they had to send secret messages. "My only guess thus far was if you had some terrible secret this Donn Domovoi managed to find out to convince you to join."

Though given how Hexy could recognize the manners, demeanor and early partial inheritance in her own...well, 'other life'...Avialae was probably in Slytherin, especially for how she gravitated for the use of contract.

"Understood," she said definatively of Avialae's proposal. "You need a third for Unbreakable Vows anyways and Canidae isn't here." Not that Hexy wanted to be placed in an Unbreakable Vow or coach Canidae through the application of one. "No need to wait." She picked up the blood quill, well aware of the risks involved with such a contract and the original use of blood quills for this very reason. Martin O'Doherty had occasionally administered such contracts before.

"Though before I sign you don't mind if I peruse," Hexy said, taking the document in her other hand. "On the tea no lemon if there's honey, no honey if there's lemon. No mint at all. Morning blend if the house elves gave it to you unless you brought your own." Food and drink being the two of the things the Room of Requirement couldn't readily make.

"So where's your signature scar?" Hexy asked with an expectant look towards Avialae's hands for recent use of blood quill.

"I find the Hogwarts tea atrocious, to say the least. No, this is my tea, my own Rose Congou blend. I'm not particularly fond of black teas, but the Asian varieties do tickle my senses. Lemon tends to distort the fragrance of this blend, so, honey, I believe?" she said as she slowly dipped the infuser in the delicate rose patterned porcelain cup. Once that was done, she moved the small wheeled table next to desk and laid the tea service on it.

She raised an eyebrow at Felinae's last question and gave a small chuckle. "Surely you can't expect me to show it to you, after the trouble we've all went through to keep our identities hidden? The scar will appear on your right thigh, courtesy of my custom-made blood quill. A lady really should not have scarred hands, don't you think? But most importantly, it will appear in the form of your signature. Granted, my signature is rather flourished, but still easily recognizable. I do understand your caution, however, it seems, tho, that we are at a bit of an impasse" she said with amusement in her voice.

She wrapped her robe around her and sat back in the armchair with effortless grace. "I don't think my veiling spell, will work on blood magic. Pity" she said with an overly dramatic sigh. "Well, then, if you don't have any suggestions, I suppose you'll just have to trust me?" Her last sentence was said with an obvious dangerous smile on her face, but happily, hidden by the mask.

Rose Congu made from Asian teas. Joyful. No doubts there would be something in there her stomach wouldn't agree with. Hexy almost made the admenment of restraining the input of honey if she didn't know what it would react to but decided not to. A cautionary sip would let her know how much she should have.

"Custom blood quill?" Hexy's eyebrows raised in surprise. "And just how long is that scar going to last me after one use?" The more one wrote with a blood quill, especially repeated lines, the less the cuts would heal afterwards and the scar would linger. Hopefully it wouldn't continue past a day. Was it really ladylike to be branded on the thigh in lieu of having marred hands? Course Hexy didn't want to be ladylike at all, not the kinds of ladylike demeanor she knew of.

Though Hexy readily realized what Avialae was after behind cultured attitude. Avialae wanted to keep her identity safe while trying to worm out who Hexy was behind this cat mask. Hexy knew because this was exactly the sort of thing she would do if she was in the position of offering exclusive knowledge to a supposed masked ally.

"Well of course your spell would only work for you," Hexy said as sweetly as poisoned strawberries. She had her own tricks to combat Avialae's inquiry into her identity. One for the signature and even the signature itself.

"I've got a means to make blood invisible," Hexy declared. It was one of the things picked up from her copy of The Invisible Book of Invisibility. "It won't interfere with blood magic. What makes a blood contract so binding, short of an Unbreakable Vow, is that the signature is made with something of the person signing, the blood. As long as nothing contaminates the composition of my blood the binding magic is still triggered even if my signature can't be seen."

Truthfully, since the binding of a contract with blood magic used one's blood, it didn't really matter what the signature was unless one wanted to entice confusion. Hexy could even write 'Felinae' and the quill would still use her blood, satisfying the contract. But that would raise suspicions.

Hexy raised a fingertip and brought her wand to it, drawing a drop of blood from a cut after a mumbled spell. She dabbed her finger on the line she was meant to sign then performed her invisibility spell, turning the blood clear like flavorless jelly. Then she took the blood quill and began signing from the enchanted blot, the crimson lines turning clear after a second's exposure to the air as if she was signing with water. As Hexy wrote she kept her jaw clenched as the letters were sliced into the skin along her thigh, the trickle of blood evaporating for use for the quill. These letters:



She felt the skin stitch back together, not knowing the status of the skin beyond feeling inflamed.

"With that settled, let's see what's in that book of yours."

"It will start fading after a few weeks, but it will leave a permanent scar. Not recognizable as the signature, just a scar, like you would've pricked your skin on something. And I found no scar removers, spell or potion works, but glamours hide them if necessary" she responded as she raised her cup of tea to her lips. She had a few more of these on her body, her family thought it necessary that whatever contract she signed as the legitimate heiress would have to be signed in blood. She thought the Báthory ways positively medieval at times, but recognized their use and caution when necessary.

She enjoyed her tea while Felinae signed the contract, and for a moment was rather interested in her ways of making blood invisible, but perhaps she'd ask some other time. When she was finally done, she took the contract, folded it in three and settled in front of her, before extracting her wand from the holster. She pointed the wand at the folded piece of parchment and sealed it magically with an invisible sigil, her own blue Báthory rose sigil, before settling it back between the last pages of the book.

"Well, now that's done with, you can feel free to peruse the Maleficium. I have added a magical Index of sorta, it's not very accurate, as some of the items don't have titles, but you can still understand their purpose. Since it's the first meeting, it's my treat, I suppose... so you can choose whatever you fancy and I'll agree" she smiled mechanically.

At least Hexy had the composure to not have her mouth hang open and her eyes wide with shock. No, not at all. Rather she swallowed and her tongue rested somewhere in the vicinity of her lower large intestine.

Idiot! She should have been more suspicious of the 'custom' nature of the blood quill. Not only scarring on the first use but being practically permanent. Even if it didn't turn out like the signature, who wanted a physical reminder of blood quill use for the rest of their life?

Her voice did falter once with confusion. "Glam--ors? Do you mean, illusionary spells?"

Now that she was allowed to see the Maleficium her heart had gone out of it given what she had to do to see it. She flipped to the first pages that Avialae mentioned that indexed the contents. Some were clearly titled and some were vague. A borrowed curse from the Dolohov family here to the Chisel Curse next to Various Other Disfigurements that contained more of the same.

Hexy's eyes scrolled up and down the index. Then stopped. "Death by Hair. Are you serious?"

"Yes, glamours, beauty spells, make-up spells and other such things. If not that, then foundation will work as well, but foundation smudges, glamours don't" she said in a rather curious tone as she sipped on her tea. Glamours were probably the first spells a girl learned as soon as she hit puberty and she was very interested in finding out just why had Felinae reacted like she'd never heard of the things. "Don't you use them?" she asked serenely. "I find them almost quintessential, especially during exam weeks. Nobody wants dark circles, do they?" she arched an eyebrow.

"Of course. The right hair can always be used as a weapon." Her own hair color proved that. The potion her "aunt" Elena was working on, when she inadvertently introduced the silver hair gene in the Báthory family, was supposed to do just that: turn hair into a weapon. A spiky, dangerous weapon, very Medusa, actually. Too bad it never worked. "But you need a good amount of hair attached to your scalp, and there's always a whole array of side effects that come with potions or spells that affect your hair. Why, are you interested?"

Makeup. Beauty charms. Of course glamours had to refer to those things. If there was ever one branch of magic Casey had never pursued, nay!, avoided with a ten foot pole it would be Beauty Charms. Loads of rubbish spells about hexing pimples and straightening hair and all that gunk. The thought made the skin crawl...

But wait, did Hexy have to know Beauty Charms because all the other girls would? Did not knowing automatically exclude her and make her more suspicious? Still, the thought of covering your face with the stuff that looked like scummy leftovers from potions to linger on your skin, like clean filth, didn't sound very appealing. The stuff with those heavy damp smells around the Aunts' rooms at Doherty Manor that made their rooms smell like it would catch on fire.

But...maybe Avialae had a point? You never did see a girl looking injured or bruised if they were all covering it up with makeup. There had been plenty of injuries and illnesses in times past where Hexy would have liked to draw attention away from it, had the secret all along been this cream or foundation or whatever?

Why was it called foundation? Is it like brick cement used to build basements?

"I'm not good with them," she said simply. "I take you're one of those spend ten minutes primping at the mirror every morning people." Death by Hair hadn't been her first choice but it was something unheard of and highly unusual. Even if they never did anything with it, it was a novelty for this Maleficium where they could see if they could be compatible in joint training.

"What the hey." Hexy opened the book to the page where it began. Eldritch drawings of ladies with rather frightening or deadly looking hair, one even with a bun in the form of an acromantula.[1] This was accompanied by the main text that went on for several pages before ending in a sealed section, two pages pressed together by that age restriction enchantment.

Scary...but it looked like enough for a substantial first look into the Maleficium. She turned back to the start of the article and found a portion of the words squirming in unknown characters as she tried to read.

"Your ancestors must be cramming all their signature hair-do's in here." Hexy held the book back out to Avialae. "You'll have to read it."

1.	What do you say we give this odd picture some attention link

Amara actually spent about 30 minutes in the mirror, or more on times when she forgot to braid her hair before bed. Untangling her never-ending silver mane was not an easy feat and using tangle-free charms on it always proved disastrous. It was probably the curse interfering with the charms. For a second she was tempted to share that information, given the girl's obvious dislike for such beauty rituals, but then she remembered herself. There weren't that many girls with her amount of hair at Hogwarts.

"No, not really. Apart from the dark circles caused by studying late" -not really, it was her insomnia- "I have a flawless skin. But learning them was part of my upbringing, I didn't have much choice" she said calmly as she fiinished her tea and put it aside

She listened to Felinae and waited for her to peruse the deadly hair section, then rotated the book towards herself to see what section was a danger to her identity. It was in fact Elena's notes on the experiment that went wrong... Part of it was a dead giveaway to her identity, but if she never went into much detail she was safe.

"It's a sort of variation of the Polyjuice potion. It was rather common in the middle ages, and it looks rather primitive and usually had unfortunate side-effects." Elena's psychopathy had been pushed to the limits because of the failure of the experiment, but she was rather mad to begin with. "It's supposed to affect only a targeted area, like hair, and the reactive agent can be of either human or animal nature. Like that drawing there, see? Supposedly you could turn your hair into a frightening hair-acromantuala of sorts" she read on when suddenly she stopped and raised her eyebrows in wonder, then gave a chuckle. "It would viciously bite those of less than pure magical heritage that tried to touch it..." she moved her head left and right, unbelieving. "It was a rather fancy of telling the other ladies of the court this hair, here, belongs to the fairest and most magical of them all, and only those of truly noble birth, would ever know the trick to it, end of quote. The reason this part is jumbled to you, is because the introduction also talks about a variation of the potion, that was invented and only ever used once by an ancestor of mine. She failed and there were visible, known repercussions. I suppose the notes on that part, specifically, are in those last two restricted pages."

The variation Amara was speaking about, involved taking specially extracted samples from animals with impressive magical defense systems to use as a catalyst for the modified Polyjuice. Her "aunt", for example, had tried to imbue her hair with the fire breathing ability of one of the family dragons: a sickly, albino Romanian Longhorn. Reading this for the first time Amara, couldn't help but give a loud snort, realizing she had the hair of a discarded albino dragon.

"The original potion is on the next pages, not jumbled, so we can work on that without having to worry about my identity..." she stopped suddenly, but if they were working on hair, then it would all have been in vain. She couldn't use altering charms to her hair because of the curse, so she really had no way of keeping it hidden. "We need a test subject, if we are to do this. It's highly dangerous, and I am rather fond of my hair. I wouldn't have anything go wrong where it is involved" she said sternly. There that was safe enough, was it?

Why was it what every girl desired most was flawless skin? What did that even mean? No pores or pimples or embarrassing rashes? Skin was the organ that kept all of you in you, it didn't make sense to consider it flawless like diamond or perfect spell execution.

"Potions..." Stated with a dry exhalation of air. There wasn't anything wrong with potions, per-see, but Hexy much preferred wand magic for the immediacy of effect. Very strong magics took root in potion and brews but that required immense preparation and lengthy wait in most cases. "There wouldn't happen to be a spell component to this ritual, would there?"

There was a strange dried citrus taste forming in her mouth as Avialae went on with the explanation of the origins of the hair treatment. Death by Hair sounded like just the sort of thing the O'Doherty witches would love, especially as a superior showing over the magicless and a means inflict pain on those barely higher than a muggle. The thought of hair being lively enough to strangle things or take the shape of vicious beasts didn't sound like an evil or amoral thing, when left on its own, but the intent witches of old had behind it slightly unnerved her. If by 'unnerved' she meant 'increases the citrus taste to make her throat burn.'

"Test subject. Yeah, I agree." They both probably didn't want to be identified by their hair. Given hers was technically a wig it probably wasn't compatible with the potion as originally designed. "We would almost need a subject outside of the group." The Gwyllion Fae. "Any ideas as to how we find this text subject?"

She herself was curious what else the Death by Hair chapter included, spells were indeed much more convenient if sometimes a little less potent only. She dragged the big heavy book closer to her and started flipping the pages in search of a spell. After a few minutes of perusing and reading tidbits off each page, she raised her head and nodded at the silver-masked girl.

"There is this one spell, although there isn't much to work with I'm afraid. I'm not even sure what exactly it does, the thing is entirely in Hungarian, medieval one at that, and although I do speak it, I can't say I'm proficient in it, much less in its archaic form. The instructions are relatively easy to discern, but not so much the actual use and effects. What I can make out of it is simply 'and thy hair shall catch a life of its own to do your bidding and plant the seed of terror in your enemies'. It sounds rather ominous, but as to how exactly it will plant the seed of terror, I can't say..." she said still enthralled in reading, her hidden face etched with concentration.

"It depends on whether we'd like our test subject aware of its status or not. With the potion, it would be relatively easy. Slipping the potion in the pumpkin juice-" she stopped for a second to purse her lips in disgust, she could not stand the thing, yet apparently 80% of the Hogwarts population found it more than tolerable "of an unsuspecting victim, wouldn't be a terrible feat. After that, all we have to do is observe the subject from a safe distance and once the effects start showing fully, we just have to make sure he or she won't run screaming to the nurse's. I am fairly good with memory charms, I've never actually went so wrong as to provoke brain damage, but one one or two occasions, I might have miscalculated the amount of memories to be modified" she said in a serious tone.

"On the other hand, acquiring a willing test subject would probably work more to our favor and we could also try the spell. That might take some persuasive skills and knowledge, but it would definitely benefit us more. We could take a leaf out of our own Donn Domovoi's book, and use our... social skills" she said almost choking "to attract our test subject. I can gather the information needed, my family has ears and eyes in a lot of places, while you'll do the actual interaction. I'm sure you'll understand why this will be tasked to you?" she said sternly, willing to admit her own difficulties with social interactions. "Does this sound reasonable?" she asked.

"Hair planting the seed of terror in your enemies?" Hopefully this wasn't meant to be taken literally. Hexy could imagine someone's hair piercing through someone else's skin to continue on a curse given that phrasing.

Like earlier, upon the reflection of Avialae's Maleficium being a family heirloom helping to suggest possible families she could be in, Hexy revalued just how much Avialae seemed to have known before this group had been started. She talked about past memory charm experience as if she was an MLE Obliviator. Had modified memories seemingly several times with only one or two cases of going to far. On whom? Beyond Occlumency, Hexy's past forays into Mind Magic had been tied to Pensieve use.

Powerful magic like this had always been alluring to her. Yet why does it sound so alarming coming from behind that bird mask in that cold, lofty voice? Furthermore, how had Avialae been able to keep this hidden for so long? None in their peer group appeared threatening in day to day affairs, not like Avialae's more uncaring tendencies coming up when she had the freedom of a secret identity.

Hexy resolved to further redouble Occlumency efforts and have memory backups in her Pensieve, in case things with the Gwyllion Fae went sour. Hexy figured, far higher than a 25 percent chance, that she knew what house Avialae from. Can't deny those same thoughts haven't been considered before...

"A thought occurs to me about testing," Hexy said. "Finding a random subject or not, how are we going to implement the test without disregarding the reason why we stick to 'dress up?' " She gestured to the cloak and mask. "Can't say that cloaked and masked figures aren't going to be unnoticed at breakfast." Especially after the Second War. "Nor would it attract much trust in a willing test subject."

Though even has she raised the point Hexy could think of one answer. She did like the appeal and means of easy Invisibility, like her method of entering the first Gwyllion Fae meeting that had ever been assembled.

She arched an eyebrow under the mask, considering whether the girl simply did not think enough before asking or was lacking in the brains department today. She waved her wad and levitated the teapot to refill her cup, before turning to look back at her.

"Well, there are a few different ways we could go about it, but surely you did not think any of them would involve either of us walking masked with billowing cloaks on the corridors of the castle?" she asked mockingly. "Firstly there are ways to keep your presence hidden without having to disguise yourself, an invisibility Potion would do the trick. But then again how would you react if a voice without corporeal form would suddenly start talking to you, proposing you'd be a test subject? And I very much doubt any of them would think us the Holy Spirit" she said in her cup, as she was preparing to take a sip of the tea. She surprised herself more and more, sarcasm and irony from her own lips? Now this was getting rather out of hand....

"We could always use a messenger, either an owl or even a human messenger. For a few galleons everything can be resolved. And we could always imply that perhaps the messenger is not us. Simply direct the test to a meeting room, stating that the message comes from an orchestrator and the other people in the meeting -that would be the two of us-  do not know of each others' identity including the test subject itself, then distract the subject by urging him or her to disguise himself or herself as well. Add the promise of compensation, make sure the test subject is not of an inquisitive nature and desperately in need of something, make a threat or two to make sure once we're done they keep their mouth shut and, voilà, you have the perfect puppet. It's all in very Gwyllion Fae spirit, you have to admit. And all rather déjà vu..." she added in an ominous voice.

On that train of thought now, she couldn't help but wonder just how much like their own test subject she was. She was definitely not a dunderhead like the one they'd need, but surely the same calculations went into the decision of just how to attract the members of the group. She hated the idea of Donn Domovoi more and more, but she couldn't help but notice that she was taking more and more... indirect pointers from the man.