She didn't think about it. Just didn't. She refused to. At least not during the day, but at night—the nights were a different thing altogether. After the first two nights back at the castle, she stopped sleeping without Dreamless Sleep. She kept busy. She needed to keep her mind occupied...

Veela training was first on the list, and she needed live test subjects. She didn't really care anymore about the boundaries she set for herself. They didn't matter anymore, nothing truly mattered anymore. She vaguely remembered a conversation with a Hufflepuff in the library—yes, Lemon something. Anna? Annie? Angela? Angie! Angie Lemon, she remembered now, she reminded her of Emi. Emi... No. Just no! She ran to the owlery and woke up her family's eagle-owl.

Miss Angie Lemon,

If you are still interested in continuing our conversation about my Veela heritage, I will be expecting you on January the 8th, at precisely 20:00. You will find me in front of the tapestry depicting Barnabas the Barmy teaching ballet to the trolls. It is located on the 7th floor.

I trust you will find your way safely, without being accompanied or followed.

It was 19:45. She couldn't get out of the habit of being early and it was terrifying. Being early meant having to wait, having nothing to do, and her mind needed. to. be. occupied. She started altering her skirt. Too long. Too short. Too frilly. Too tight. Too many pleats! Too—what was she doing? She chuckled. Was she losing her mind? Truly? She suddenly turned around, wand pointed at the presence she felt coming towards her. It was the girl, but she still didn't lower her wand. She waited to see if anybody else was behind her—there wasn't. She lowered her wand slowly and put it back in its holster

"Good evening, Miss Lemon" she said smiling without looking at her. "The reason for the secrecy I asked of you, is because I will invite you into a room that best remain unknown to as many as possible" she said as she started walking in front of the wall opposite the tapestry. "You see, the best room Hogwarts can offer me for my needs, is the Room of Requirement" she walked back to the girl, looking straight through her. "I'd like not to be disturbed and need several-appliances. Shall we call them appliances?" she asked herself, losing her trail of thought for a second. "Appliances it is!" she smiled triumphantly, twitching her head to the left for a second. "Yes, I need certain appliances that facilitate dueling, and other such things—you'll see when we get in" she waved her hand at the air.

She walked by the wall again, in the opposite direction, then quickly returned. The door finally appeared! Grinning form ear to ear, she clapped softly, and without thinking she turned to look at the Hufflepuff.

Slowly, her grin faded, hands frozen centimeters apart from each other.

Squinting her eyes, Amara took small steps towards Angie, until she stopped right before her. "Such a resemblance. You have a beautiful face... I wonder if it would still resemble her with half of it burnt—and the eye patch! Let's not forget the eye patch," she hummed musingly, dragging each word out slowly in a low voice. But quickly she distanced herself, plastering a polite smile on her face as she walked towards the door. "Quickly now, Angie—can I call you Angie? I think I will. Tout de suite, or else, we'd have to go through all that walking back and forth again. We wouldn't want that, would we?" she huffed softly.

Angie had been attempting to get her restless kitten to relax when an owl came for her; it's note bearing Amara's beautiful and intricate signature at the bottom. It was short and to the point, and Angie got the feeling that her classmate wished for promptness. Without being followed, as indicated on the parchment.

Half an hour before the time which she needed to meet Amara, she fixed her outfit. Trading the day's robes with a simple beige cotton dress and boots to match. She twisted her hair up into an elegant yet messy updo and grabbed her wand, leaving her now sleeping kitten on her bed as she ran off to meet up with her classmate.

"Good evening, Amara," she greeted in return, wondering what all the formality was for. The fact that Amara hadn't lowered her wand worried her, but her confidence didn't waver as she approached her. As Amara returned her wand to it's holster, Angie approached with lighter steps, sticking her own wand in the side of her tall knee-high boots.

Her breath hitched as Amara drew close, mumbling about resemblance and... burning half of her face. "Umm, thank you?" She said in reference to having her face called beautiful. Angie figured this was one of those Slytherin moments where her darker counterparts were allowed to have their crazy moments. "Angie will do," she replied, quickly following her into the door.

Her normally warm eyes surveyed the room, heart pounding steadily in her chest as she wondered just what it was that was making Amara act so oddly. "Where are we? What are these things for?" She questioned allowed, walking even further into the secret room.

The room looked like always[1], but at the same time it didn't. The platform was there - but it seemed to be made out of white marble, the practice dummies were there - but instead of the simplistic constructions, they were human-sized china dolls, the bookcase was there - but every book in it seemed to be in complete chaos, even the desk with the two armchairs was there. And instead of the elegant, if dreary, color scheme the room had last sported, it now looked as if decorated by someone that had clashing visions about the world.  The floor had a checkered pattern of black and red, the upholstery of the armchairs had a pattern of small pink roses on a white background. The curtains that covered the walls were of a dark royal purple, and every other piece of furniture had a different color and style, all creating a cacophony of dark, twisted ugliness.

But what surprised even Amara were the new additions to the room: a tree was now towering over the room from the middle of the floor. It's branches and half of the trunk were a glistening white, but the base of it was pitch black, and the blackness seemed to slowly, slowly advance upwards. Around the roots of it were mushrooms, of all sizes and colors, and flowers she had never seen before and Amara couldn't help but be reminded of... Wonderland? A dark twisted version of it, but Wonderland all the same. Was that how she felt? Like Alice? Down the rabbit hole?

She chuckled softly and soon threw her head back holding her stomach while laughing hysterically. It all happened rather quickly and before her companion could comment on it, she strode to the armchair and practically jumped on it. "Come, sit!" she told Angie with frozen smile on her face and a disturbing look in her eyes. She waited for the girl to finally take her seat across of the desk from her and summoned the tea tray to them. "Tea? It's lovely, my own blend–" and she stopped, teapot in midair and mouth hung open. Or was she the Hatter starring in her own version of a mad tea-party? She quickly brushed it off and continued to pour the water over the infuser. "Yes. Tea! Then you can ask me everything you want about my Veela abilities and after you're done I have a proposition for you, yes? Lovely!" she smiled politely. She pushed the sugar bowl towards her and stared at the bottom of her own teacup with a lost look on her face.

1.	Like described here

Angie gulped, visibly to anyone watching, and cast her eyes about the room. She felt as if she was walking into a nightmare; and she tried to soak it all in but it confused her. Everything clashed with... everything - the walls, the floors, the furniture - it turned Angie's equilibrium about like a top.

Amara seemed to be enjoying it though; and Angie wondered if this was what went on in the Slytherin's head. A dark, twisted fantasy world full of a myriad of different shapes and colors. She jumped as Amara threw her head back, her eyes growing wide before the other girl jumped into an armchair; rather like a child would.

Cautiously, with baby steps, Angie approached and sat down delicately like a fragile doll. She accepted the tea cup, but didn't drink from it. "Thank you," she said, trying to keep her calm in this madhouse.

"Questions? Oh, I didn't bring many questions; but I could think of some I suppose," Angie said, taking a sip of tea before setting it down, clasping her hands together and leaning forwards. Her mind worked at a thousand miles an hour to come up with a question, putting off Amara's inevitable proposition... whatever it might be. Angie was focused on the negative at the moment though, and anything coming out of Amara's mouth in the moments ahead of them couldn't be good.

She tilted her head curiously to the side, blinking her dim eyes at the girl who was now lost in thought. "Is it particularly hard to control?" She blurted, finding her words. "At times of high emotion - stress, loss, despair - pardon if I'm pushing you," she stated, noting Amara's erratic behavior, compulsive actions... Something had happened since the last time Angie had seen her, she was positive of that.

She shrugged off her own thoughts and raised her faces to look curiously at the girl. Angie seemed afraid and Amara realized she quite liked that, but, still, she couldn't quite figure out why... It was like some unconscious part of her mind relished in having power over others, over knowing she could frighten and throw her into an emotional imbalance. She smiled at the other girl while she talked–smiling seemed to be Amara's new answer to all those moments in which her mind derailed into its own reality.

"It's fine" she said without thinking, a remnant of her past excruciating propriety. She looked to the tree and took a sip of tea, then carefully put the cup down. "No, it's not actually." She turned to look at Angie—not at her, but rather through her. "I've had a death in the family..." she said softly while absentmindedly playing with the small black ribbon camouflaged into her jacket. She turned her head down and stared at the bottom of the teacup like it held the mysteries of the Universe, and whispered softly "She was so young, it should've—" she quickly straightened her posture and smiled at the girl, yet again.

"It used to be. Veela magic tends to clash with our wizarding magic and so it is relatively hard to gain control over it. If other magical attributes are also in the equation, such as curses - for example, the sort you would inherit from an ancestor - it is even harder to battle with it. I still have the occasional outburst, either the charm activates itself without me having anything to do with it or I have problems regulating its effect and the intent needed for it to work. For other people it comes easier. Me? I've been training several times a week since I was seven and I'm still nowhere near being in full control of the charm" she said matter-of-factly, switching her gaze from the girl, to the teacup and around, at the strangeness of the room.

"Actually—I don't know anymore. Given the current circumstances, I should've had terrible fluctuations in the charm so far, but I haven't" she said musingly. "Maybe it just leveled itself..." she hummed. "As a matter of fact this brings me to what I've been meaning to ask you. Unless you have anymore questions that is?"

Angie put her hands in her lap, her teacup sitting delicately on the table in front of her. She wasn't aware of it, but her hands were shaking. Her eyes cast downward at them when she realized, and she shoved them into her lap; curling her tiny hands into fists to get some sort of a grip on herself. And the odd world around her.

But Amara's smile was twisted, or so it felt in this deranged wonderland she'd fallen into. To put it shortly, it was scaring the hell out of Angie. She wasn't normally pushed over the edge so easily, but the Hufflepuff found herself ready to start trembling at the thought of continuing this conversation with Amara.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered to her; Angie's heart ripping itself up as she heard that Amara had a death in the family. That seemed to explain most of the odd behavior, and she found some solace in the fact that she could keep her calm and think her way through this situation.

Her mind took mental notes as Amara spoke, and she distracted her mind from wandering by taking another sip of the tea before her; wincing as she scalded her tongue a bit too much. "Since you were seven? That seems really hard for a seven year old, I couldn't imagine it..." She trailed off, letting Amara continue. She felt as if her comments were being made to a teddy bear, one that babbled by itself and required little to no outside stimulation.

"I think I have gathered enough information," Angie said, placing her teacup back down. She was using the movement as a way to gather her thoughts and provide a routine momentum to keep her steady. "Ask away, Amara."

She absentmindedly nodded her acknowledgement at the girl's apology and poured herself another cup of tea. "It was... tedious" was all Amara said to Angie's assessment of her early training. Once the girl gave her the green light, she uncrossed her legs and brought herself closer to the table and stared at her. Just stared for a couple of seconds and then finally she straightened her face into a smile and settled back down into her armchair.

"Veela Charm is hard to cultivate, probably most of all because one needs to actually use it in order to learn about it and learn how to control it. To use it, of course, you need a person to test it on and while at home I have willing boys and girls hired to help me with this, I'm sure you can see how here, at school this might be a problem..." she mused while absently looking through the room.

"To get to the business at hand, I would like to ask you if you would help me out with my training and willingly subject yourself to the charm" she asked swiftly in a serious tone. "Of course, there will be compensation if you agree - financial or, depending on what you might be interested in, of other sorts. Just name your price" she smiled invitingly.

She hoped Angie would agree, she was growing restless and had to know in what standing was she with her abilities after the incident.

Tedious, training like that seemed like it would be more than just tedious. At least that's what Angie thought, but she kept her opinions to herself for her own sake, and so as to not offend Amara in her time of mourning. Even if it didn't seem like she was in the middle of a mourning period at the moment, Angie made the note to tread lightly.

And then she thought, who would willingly be a test subject for someone with Veela charms? Oh wait, she was crazy enough. Or at least, so she thought she was. How bad could it possibly be? A test subject, willing to subject herself to the effects of the charm... she pondered Amara's offer, with no idea what sort of compensation she'd want.

"I'm willing to assist you in your training," she said, nodding her head as she said so. "We can discuss terms of compensation at a later time, I would need a few days to figure out what would be an appropriate price."[1]

"Of course, there would have to be a set schedule," she said, almost eagerly, but still hesitant. "I am a Quidditch Captain, and I do have responsibilities to worry about... as you probably do as well." Angie paused, waiting for whatever Amara was about to throw at her. Happiness, insanity, whatever it was next.

1.	We can just do whatever you think would be easiest in terms of in-character.

Finally she turned to really look at the girl, straight into her eyes, with her brows furrowed and bewilderment clearly etched on her face. "You—you agree?" she asked in a daze. She never actually thought she'd agree, who would be so deranged to do something like this? If something could go wrong, chances were it actually would. And Amara wasn't sure she'd care much if it eventually did. She closed her mouth, and recovered from her shock, swiftly putting back her serious face.

"Of course, take all the time you need. You should not decide carelessly" she said, thinking it was the normal answer. In reality she could not care less, she just wanted a test subject that was willing, instead of having to go through the trouble of restraining someone. "I currently follow a set schedule for my training, perhaps some of the days would also suit you. Mondays and Tuesdays are rather early from 05:30 to 06:30. But, Thursdays and Fridays are at a more reasonable hour, from 09:00 to 10:00. What do you think?"

She took her scheduler from her bag hanging on the back of her chair and put it on the table, followed shortly by her quill and waited for the girl to decide.

Angie was starting to question not only Amara's sanity, but her own as well. She wasn't exactly sure what this training process was going to entail, she could only sit and wonder about what she was getting herself into.

It wasn't as if she had never done anything risky, it was just that... she didn't know, there was more to her than anyone knew, and taking risks - such as this one - was something she'd never done before. Actually, to be honest, she'd never done anything this risky before. At least she believed this was going to be risky. Training that was described as tedious, and a charm that was 'hard to cultivate' as Amara had said; well it didn't sound really wholesome.

The Hufflepuff could not have been in her right mind as she reassessed the offer, because she was bent on accepting for whatever strange reason that it may be. Angie wasn't one to decide carelessly, she thought out her options; most of the time anyways.

"The schedule sounds reasonable, and it shouldn't have any effect on my own schedule." She replied, taking another sip of tea, now a bit chilled from resting in it's cup for some time. "I accept the proposal to assist you in your training."

Where the words had come from, she wasn't exactly sure herself. Maybe later she would regret this, but Angie had retreated into her shell, leaving behind the reality of the situation and pushing herself to do this. The poker face she had adopted was solid though, and she was positive Amara wouldn't be able to tell that she was more than slightly out of it at the moment. It didn't seem like the Slytherin would care much though.

"Lovely!" she exclaimed with a frown on her face as she scribbled in Angie in her scheduler. This was all rather going better than she had expected it and she let a small chuckle escape her lips. The girl was either as mad as herself or she was simply dense. And Amara couldn't help but want to poke at her until she saw the reasoning that led her to accept. She raised her head to look at Angie, hand frozen on the quill.

"Do you often find yourself with a death wish?" she asked perplexed, and yet serious in her tone. She really wanted to know, it was not a sarcastic remark. "I'm sorry, I am most certainly not trying to drive you away. I need you" she said accentuating each word. "I am merely trying to find out how or what in the name of Circe has driven you to accept such a request? It goes against the basic instinct of survival in aaaaa-all humans" she mused humming the last words.

"Would you like to try now? See if you're actually up for it?" she said with a rather disturbing grin as she dropped her quill and closed her scheduler. She raised on her feet, smoothing her skirt. "Just a small demonstration, see if it is anything that you imagined" she leaned her head to the left and crossed her arms, looking down at the girl.

Angie watched as Amara scribbled her name into the scheduler, wondering if 'lovely' was really the right word for it. She pursed her lips as Amara suddenly seemed to stop, and she avoided the intense stare she felt she was sure to get by shifting her eyes towards the ground. There as a sudden fascination with the tiles on the floor right near her feet as she avoided the other girl's gaze.

"I don't toy with thoughts of death often," Angie said, suddenly lifting her eyes back up to look at the girl sitting across the table. She lifted her hands to lean her elbows on the edge of the desk, resting her chin on the open palm of her hand. There were drops of perspiration forming in the crevices of her hand and she felt disgusted at the fact that she was now nervous, and starting to sweat. So just as fast as she put her hands up, she pulled them back off the desk and shrugged; betraying her indecisiveness that was tearing her apart. "Recently I've found that there's nothing to my life, nothing of worth really; without taking a few risks. The adrenaline from playing Quidditch is nice, but that's not enough."

She stood up, matching Amara like a strange mirror image. "I guess so, I've got time on my hands..." She said, feeling like Amara was evaluation her just by looking at her. She played with the folds in her beige dress, fixing the way her dress looked. "I haven't been imagining much really, I guess. It's not really something you can imagine, right?"

"If you want risks and adrenaline, try the Dark Arts" she said with her arms crossed over her chest and an arched eyebrow. "Isn't that what all teenagers with too much time and want for adventures do?" she asked musingly. "Of course, they all get burned after that, but that's the entertainment in those little anecdotes" she huffed and rolled her eyes.

"Of course you can" she said as she took another step towards the girl, uncrossing her arms and rubbing her hands together. "If you've ever been in love, or so I'm told. Well then, let's see what comes out of this" she said exhaling deeply as she squinted her eyes for a second, then shook her head. It wasn't a very magical experience, in all honesty, it just felt like a normal build-up of magic only perhaps warmer and more violent, in a way. She felt Rózsa vibrating, and she was glad that at least one thing remained constant. The Veela hair in her wand had always resonated beautifully with her charm. She smiled at Angie and then started humming the tune to Moonlight Sonata, and she could already sense the charm growing, demanding more of her magical resources. But then, she upped it a notch, and as much as she hated singing she wanted to see, observe the beauty of her charm, so she started vocalizing in her lovely soubrette voice.

She lowered her voice and continued humming for a couple more seconds before stopping altogether, while still keeping the underlying charm active. She didn't really know how Angie would react, or if she'd remain conscious of her actions while under the effect so she smiled, almost charmingly, because it was said to help with the effects. "How do you feel?" she asked with her eyebrows raised curiously.

If you've ever been in love, the words struck a chord in Angie and the settling of that thought didn't feel right. Love, she should have known better than to dabble in such a  dangerous emotion, especially when the object of her affection was silly, stupid. They were never meant to be together from the start. So no, at the moment, Angie couldn't stay positive about the feeling of love.

She could associate more with a familial love, seeing her little sister light up when they saw each other... or the warm and fuzzy feeling she got when her mother smothered her in hugs when she returned home from school. But it didn't matter now.

Angie watched Amara, and suddenly felt an inward tug to do something. She curled her hands into fists by her side, but relaxed and gleefully listened to the lovely tune that the Slytherin was singing. In the middle of the song, Angie felt enchanted; and she wondered briefly what she could do to make Amara happy. What could she do to stay near her? To hear her lovely voice again...

But she fought it. It felt wrong to have every thought and emotion geared towards Amara to be so different than what she normally felt. A mutual acquaintance of sorts now felt more like a best friend, Angie felt like she needed to admire Amara. And it wasn't a good feeling.

She curled up her left hand and dug her nails into her skin, the prick of pain enough to jog her a bit. She bit her lip as Amara asked her how she felt... she felt great! Perfect! She was near Amara and she couldn't be any happier. Meaning to say that she was fine, the charm got the better of her and basically answered for her. "I'm perfect," she said lightly, a smile gracing her lips. "But don't ask about me, how are you? I mean - I see that you're okay but - oh God, this is messing with my head!"

Finally, normal Angie burst out from under the charm, but barely before she was stuffed back in. She looked back up at Amara with sparkling, happy eyes, "I'm sorry, I don't want to be mean."

She laughed, or huffed for a moment before she ended the charm altogether and settled back in the chair with a thump. "Creepy, it's always so incredibly eerie" she said, before she shook her body as if shivering. "All the attention suddenly ends up on you and while it might sound pleasant in theory, the first instinct is to run" she said while rubbing circled around her temples.

"There's not that much changed apparently, my control seems better and my magic isn't fighting the charm anymore. My wand seems more attuned to it, but that was was barely a few minutes" she raised her eyes to look at Angie. "You can even learn to control it, if your practice with me. Learn how to shake off the charm completely. You can become almost immune to my own and shake others completely, before there's damage done" she said with a small smile. 'That should sweeten the deal', she thought to herself.

"If there's any questions, Angie" she asked with a grimace as she felt the awaited headache kick in. It was more of a polite offering than actually awaiting any questions, all she wanted was a strong cup of tea and Freija in her lap for a long cuddle, before her next meeting.