January 8th, the Seventh-Floor Corridor, around 1 AM following First Year Astronomy

If Dione ever got her hands on the genius who kept choosing Latin passwords for the Slytherin dorms, she would wring their neck, Prefect or no.

She fumed silently as she hurried down the seventh-floor corridor, trying to catch up with the little knot of Slytherins who'd slipped away while she was making her final notations on that evening's star charts. Usually Sadie or one of her other roommates would wait for her, but as late as it was she supposed she couldn't blame them for their eagerness to get to bed. Anyway, it shouldn't have been a problem. She should have been able to get around by herself. It wasn't her fault the translation artifact was set for English, not some rubbish dead language.

She'd just resolved to write straight the Mother the moment she got her hands on a quill when her ears caught the slightest tap of a shoe against the stone just around the corner. Dione slowed and schooled her face into a careful smile, freeing one hand so she could voice a greeting. Perhaps someone had realized she wasn't with the group and doubled-back. She breathed a sigh of relief as she stepped around the corner to meet them.

The spell hit before she even guessed it might be coming. Petrificus Totalus.

Dione managed only a half-turn before her body rebelled. Her feet moved first, snapping into first-position, then flat together. Her arms dropped straight to her sides, pinning her skirt to her hips and sending her notebook clattering to the floor. Her jaw locked and her spine froze, her entire body going ramrod-still.

"Hello," said the gem at her neck, translating the greeting sign she'd barely been able to complete before the spell took hold. With no way to correct her own balance, she rocked heel to toe, heel to toe, then fell straight back onto the stone. Her heart pounded in fury and her wide eyes darted from shadow to shadow, searching wildly for whoever it was who had the gall to raise their wand against her.

Her meeting with Angie and the charm demonstration had left Amara with a throbbing headache and foul temper. She hadn't really planned to set both meetings on the same day, but her mind was not exactly in perfect form these days. However, Gwyllion meetings were always rather intriguing, however Amara now found that the entire show had lost part of its intrigue. She couldn't care less about Domovoi and his threats, on the contrary, she was rather amused by the childishness of the entire thing. It all seemed irrelevant. However Felinae was always proving to be a nice distraction. She enjoyed the intellectual nature of their meetings, but most than all, the rivalry kept her well-entertained.

And so precisely for the sake of entertainment, but also because her head felt like it was on the brink of collapsing in on itself, she hadn't returned to the dorms for her mask and robe. Instead, she remained in the Room, shredding a training dummy with some hundreds of well-aimed Sectumsempras and trying some of the more creative hexes in her Maleficium. At one point however, she had gotten completely sick of her new training grounds, and the mishmash of colors and that damned tree. They only worsened her headache. So she had exited the RoR, to enter it again and see if there was any change or whether she was stuck with the new layout.

She started walking the corridor furiously, but when she turned the corner she came face to face with a girl. And before she had time to even process it, her wand was out of the holster, into her hand and the younger girl was literally frozen in place. Amara let out a breath she didn't know she was holding and furrowed her brows. She tilted her head slightly in time with the rocking of the girl's body and her brows raised high on her forehead as the body finally hit the floor. And then she was laughing, and she felt the cold, black tendrils of her curse wrapping themselves around her. She laughed loudly, manically for a couple of seconds, holding a hand over her stomach and then she stilled immediately, a dangerous grin on her face. "Would you look at this..." she mused "I knew it had to get worse before it got better" she said in a high, amused voice, completely uncharacteristic to herself.

And then she flicked her wand once and the body rose in the air, as Amara let out a content hum. "Yes, you'll do" she proceeded to say as she moved her wand again and the girl started levitating towards the Room entry. She stopped, and leaned to take the notebook between her fingers and slipped it in her bag. Once the walking ritual was done and the doors opened, she maneuvered the body inside only to stop dead in her tracks. She frowned and her lips pursed. the room was, begrudgingly even more chaotic. She looked around and finally she started laughing again. "There's chairs on the ceiling" she said between laughs. "Why in Circe's name would I need chairs on the cei—oh, look, young Slytherin! There's belts on the armrests there" she said positively glowing as she watched the chair in the middle of the room with sparkles in her eyes. "It's for you, I believe. Why, thank you, Room. I'll forgive your strangeness today, if only for this" she said with a giggle as she directed the body towards the chair and settled the girl in it.

Once the girl was secured in the chair, Amara pulled one of the armchairs from the desk and positioned directly in front of the girl. She threw her bag on the floor and sat down with a thump. "Awfully sorry for all this" she said with faux-remorse in her expression as she crossed her legs. "I promise I have no intention to harm you... Or at least I hope so" she said pensively, furrowing her brows "you never really know with experimental potions."

She eyed the girl carefully with squinted eyes and nodded approvingly before smiling. "I'll tell you what, Miss. If your promise not to scream, I'll release the spell. I have an awful headache, you see" she said with a bright smile. "If you do scream—" her eyes instantly darkened and her expression went from bright and smiling to ominous in less than a second "you'll regret it profusely."

Promise not to scream? Dione held the mad girl's gaze, unable to glare though she wished for the ability with every fiber of her being. The hag was mocking her. She couldn't 'scream' even with her hands free, the translation device spoke at a set volume. How she longed for her wand. It was so close, right there in her left sleeve, the chair's straps pushing it into her skin. If she could only reach it, she'd have this doe-eyed half-breed beldam Silenced and dancing white-hot until she blew out her cords trying to scream.

Oh yes, now that she'd gotten a good look at her, Dione knew exactly who her captor was. Báthory. Fourth-year. Her family claimed pure blood but regularly slept with fae beasts and called it tradition. In the world her grandfather dreamed of they'd have been exterminated with the rest of the half-breeds, their stolen knowledge of the Dark Arts reclaimed for proper wizards whose blood was truly pure. That she'd been trussed up and dragged about by such a hag burned her soul.

Her mind tensed at the reappearance of the other's wand. The moment she'd been freed from the body-bind[1] she began a silent struggle, pulling against the armrests. When its belts did not give in she threw her head back in frustration and kicked her feet, which didn't quite touch the ground. At times like this, ladylike or not, she would give her wand hand for the physical ability to swear.

1.	Assuming that she will be -- will change if that's not the case.

The current Hexy level is Green

---

There had once been a plan. A plan that, out of context, could be magic considered so rediculous because of novelty value and evil only by simple-minded morality by the effect that one person or persons would be uncomfortable. But when it came down to it the plan was about...

Hair. Hair was technically dead cells, like fingernails, and the only thing hair was good for was to dissolve quickly in polyjuice potions. In Hexy's opinion. Although she liked the shaggy brown wig much better than the thin blondish hair. Wait, why was she fixating on hair again? Stop it.

As Hexy made her way to meet Avialae in her usual cat masked outfit she expected that they were going to report about their test of the 'Death by Hair' concept from the Maleficium they were testing after the holidays. Going for the subterfuge approach, she was ready to talk about the effectiveness of the associated hair-growing potion that gave plenty of hair to manipulate like a weapon, a speckled haired Hufflepuff[1] being the unknowing victim. Avialae wanted her own way of testing all the parts of the complete ritual.

So when Hexy entered the room of requirement she stopped, and expressionless figure under the cat shaped mask and cloak.

Shock wasn't the proper word, nor confusion, nor fear or surprise, although surprise was probably close because the scenario within the room was so unexpected. So unexpected that Hexy paused after the entrance.

There was the silver haired Báthory as one occupant. The other being a younger girl strapped in a chair that hung from the ceiling, hair falling away from her face. A somewhat recognizable face from the Slytherin first years. Wasn't she deaf? Or mute?

Normally Hexy's mind would be buzzing with multi-layered thoughts but entering the room to this sight had brought silence.

1.	Planting Seeds - morning of the same date

"Stop thrutching about a like a headless chicken, girl" she muttered. Upon seeing the young girl struggle, Amara frowned and took her hands to her temples to rub in soothing circles. The headaches were something of a constant as of late. She briefly wondered if her curse, the psychopathy was actually damaging her brain some way and then, just like that the curse slithered it's tendrils away from her and she felt she could breathe again. But then she raised her eyes and saw the girl strapped to the chair and she let out a grave "Oh..." before slumping in the chair for just a second, and the she was on her feet, circling the girl.

Well, this was not exactly how she had envisioned the experiment unfolding. Nonetheless, the girl was here, the deed was done so they might as well put her to good use. She'd worry about covering her tracks later, now she had more urgent issues to see to. Like Felinae. However, dubious in nature the other Gwyllion member was, Amara feared this might be a bit much even for her. Perhaps having the girl rendered unconscious might be best—but, before she could even contemplate on ways to achieve that result she heard the massive door being opened and she scowled.

Amara simply stood there, staring at Felinae, staring at her. The silence was obviously rather uncomfortable and Amara couldn't for the love of all attempt to explain the situation so she merely shrugged and took a few steps away from the lab rat. At this point she refused to admit to herself that the girl was anything but a test subject. She feared if she actually attempted to make sense of her temporal bout of insanity—well, that way lay madness.

"Felinae, punctual as always" she said, obviously not impressed, in ways of a greeting. She squirmed, fumbling with her hand on her skirt for a second before she took a deep breath and made a gesture with her hand than encompassed the entire room. "I am terribly sorry for the décor. The Room has been oddly... temperamental as of late" she said factually staring the other hooded girl straight in the holes of her mask. "It would be rather fascinating to attempt to research how exactly it could create live trees and... fungi inside of it, however. Or defy gravity, for that matter" she continued, tilting her head upwards with her brows furrowed, shrugging her shoulders and still ignoring the rather gargantuan elephant in the middle of the room.

"The hood and mask rather lacked in taste" she hummed as she grabbed her bag and went to sit in her seat at the desk. "And, upon further inspection and a change of circumstance I found the veiling of my identity more tiresome than it was worth" she sat down, carefully tucking the skirt under her bottom and crossed her legs. "I suppose, reintroducing is in order" she mused absentmindedly as she skimmed through the Maleficium. She raised her eyes to look at the girl and smiled at her reassuringly—or so she hoped, she hadn't quite gotten the gist of facial muscles yet. "Amara Ecaterina Báthory, fourth year Slytherin" she said as she indicated one of the seats across from her. "The Maleficium has been rid of all censorship and I will have full access to it in a few weeks" she continued still smiling before she focused her attention on her bag and extracted a vial from it.

"I..." she frowned and looked at the restrained girl, then back to Felinae and back at the young girl. "—acquired a test subject for our potion" she said the nodded once, reassuring herself as if that had been a normal, perfectly reasonable explanation. "I also have a vial of the potion. I visited my home during the break—" her voice faltered, and her nose flared once and she could feel the anger raise inside but she firmly grabbed the desk, sinking her nails into the wood. "I received help with it from someone more familiar with the methods, I believe I was able to brew an adequate first attempt" she finally managed to say,if a bit stunted. Her hold on the desk loosened. "I have not yet tested it, however" she turned to look at the young girl and for the first time she wondered why she had been silent all this time.

It was when Amara starting talking that Hexy's mind slugged off the Imobulus-like clench of mental thought. The girl speaking in her usual tones confirmed a suspicion that had been fostering. Amara was likely part of the Gwyllion Fae. Anybody else would be too old or two young and there had been something about Avialae's tone that matched that of the silver haired Slytherin.

There were still things Hexy couldn't figure out about this whole situation. Something seemed very off but nothing that could be put into words. Having spent a great deal of her spare time inside the Room of Requirement as well, she had grasped that sometimes the room could tease out the most subconscious of wants. Plants, at least certain kinds of plants, weren't outside of the cababilities of the room either.

How the room did so would be, to use Amara's word, 'fascinating' but Hexy had a different kind of forboding question: what exactly did the room interpret as a 'need' to warrant half the room being upside down?

Still, she couldn't do nothing. Knowing Avialae's identity didn't amount to anything but Hexy registered the instability of the situation. It would be best to test the waters.

She stepped closer. "I also found a subject." Keep it to business. She glanced to the captured girl without moving her mask. Slytherin. Sayers? Hexy wasn't unnerved by the use of test subjects in this venture (after all she had poisoned a Hufflepuff's juice with this stuff at breakfast) but Amara's action in the experiment was risky.

There was something Hexy needed to confirm. She outstretched one finger in the direction of Sayers. "Do you have anything against her?"

Test subject. Grudges. Experimental potion...

Dione went icily still as the exchange between the two older girls sank in. Her hands began to tremble. Her breath came in pants so short her chest seemed to vibrate, like a frightened rabbit.

No, she thought. No no no no no no, not again…!

She had been too young at the time to clearly remember the potion that took her voice, so the nightmares that occasionally haunted her subconscious did it for her. In her weakest moments she dreamed of foul acid upon her tongue, of liquid fire streaming into her stomach, demon’s claws entering through her mouth and raking up her throat from the inside. And now, these witches – hags! demons! bloodtraitors! – wished to subject her to more of the same.

She twisted her hand, trying to negotiate her fingers back far enough to loosen the strap on her wrist. It was a futile endeavor, but better by far than taking this nonsense without a fight. She kept her eyes fixed on the mysterious girl in the mask, Felinae. There would be no reasoning with Bathory, she knew. The half-breed was raging mad, no doubt thanks to her tainted blood. Felinae, whoever she was, seemed more reasonable. Perhaps…perhaps she even bore the heart to take pity on the poor girl with no voice of her own.

Dione consciously forced her anger into the background, summoning a shaking lip and crocodile tears that pooled uncomfortably in her upper lid with the way she dangled. She gave a pathetic whimper – one of the only sounds she could make – and leaned her body what little bit she could away from Bathory and towards Felinae.

"Oh... Have you?" she asked pensively. Of course she did. Felinae was efficient... If Amara had any control over her previous actions, she probably might've taken that fact into consideration, given that her efforts proved rather futile now. She frowned and let out a deep sigh, cradling her hand on the heels of her palms.

"No" she replied with a frown of confusion. "I don't even know the girl. That would be rather unprofessional, wouldn't it?" she asked with a small smile, angling her head to the side and letting her hair spill on the desk. "Why?" her eyebrows rose in question. "Should I?" she ended in question, voice now steady, an icy tone to it.

Seeing the girl again squirm in her seat, Amara suddenly raised to her feet and scowled, rolling her eyes. "Oh, please, do stop that. Crying your way out of a situation is not at all dignified for a young lady" she said in an exasperated voice, a pitch higher than usual. "Especially if your tears are only a method of summoning pity" she crossed her arms over her chest and glared at the girl, nose crinkling in disgust. Tears were not only a sign of weakness, but they reminded her of Emi, and how the traces of her tears contrasted with her otherwise dirty, blood splattered face...

"I realize the entire situation might seem frightening and I probably could've handled it better" she waved her hand in the air as if dismissing the fact that she had practically kidnapped the girl "but, while experimental, the potion does not pose any lethal or otherwise injurious consequences, if you do not take the possible loss of hair into calculation—" she mused, stopping to think whether, indeed, losing your hair was considered injurious or not. "I have a common antidote on hand" she turned and pointed at her bag "so if anything were to go terribly wrong, there's that. We will administer the potion, note it's effects and duration, and once the reaction has passed, you will be released" she said with a sweet smile, clapping her hands once, however, her eyes were glinting with the demented spark of her curse.

"If you cooperate and keep your act together, I promise I will even attempt better concentration on the Memory Charm I plan to put on you once we're finished" she said still smiling sweetly, but scrunching up her eyes in warning. "You never know what could go wrong if I'm irritated..."

In a few short steps she made her way close to the center of the room, closed her eyes for a moment making a silent plea to the room, and once her eyes had opened again, the chair was now in the right position, on the normal side of gravity. "Well, Felinae?" she turned in all seriousness and looked at the hooded girl with her usual no-nonsense expression.

This would be the opportune moment for one's open palm to strike forehead but Hexy didn't subscribe to such movements. Although maybe she should. It would be unprofessional?! How about adding risk be not hiding your identity over a victim?

There was something wrong here, not only the fact that Amara now confirmed herself as a Gwyllian Fae member. She also wasn't acting like her usual self, the silver haired and rigid Slytherin that took no time for frivolities in her classes. Hexy kept silent. There was an unstable element to her.

What was that sound? It took a frantic moment to realize that it was the gushing of blood from her heart. An increased palpitation. Why was she nervous? Because Amara had gone and abducted a first year for their test? It shouldn't matter! The unknown risks where the very reason they were testing this on other individuals. There probably were going to be interesting side effects, like that Hufflepuff with the spiked juice this morning.

That was the thing though, wasn't it? Via seemingly impossible means Hexy had chosen an unknowing target at random. That test subject was in a public place and within the capabilities of the school healer if things got sour. Vs Amara's method of scaring this girl and hoping that the antidote held. Which made Hexy begin to question whether Amara's potions were brewed correctly, even if they had drawn from the same source.

Hexy couldn't stay silent forever. "If the results are imperative then the method works." Although not if there's madness in the method. She could hear the sound of blood louder in her ears. The rushing...and a plop of something dribbling from somewhere, what was that?

"In that case, I could be the one to cast the memory charm," she offered. It was a good solution, not that Hexy would trust Amara near her mind at this point. But then no one was getting to her mind. The offer was also a way to test the waters. "It depends on what all you did before bringing her here. Because there's an easy way to make her forget."

Ooooooooooh...

The sudden switch of perspective was one of the most disorienting things Dione had ever felt. For her alone the room seemed to shudder, twist and melt. Then she'd been righted, gravity pulling her down into the chair rather than against the straps. Her hair dropped across her face like a cloak and her crocodile tears splashed unbidden down her cheeks. Dione gasped and gripped the armrests for dear life. Her stomach turned, but thankfully settled before any of her dinner could make an appearance.

She gritted her teeth and glared at Báthory, then 'Felinae' through the curtain of her hair. She tightened her jaw as they spoke, locking it as tight as she could muster so that not a single drop of their vile brew, whatever it was meant to do, would pass her lips. And to think they would dare to use a memory charm on her. Like a common muggle! If only she could reach her wand...

But it was no good. So she glared over tear-stained cheeks and clenched her jaw and cursed them both in her mind with the foulest names she could imagine. 'When my mother hears about this, you won't live to see another sunrise...'

Amara continued to ignore the child in the middle of the room as she walked back to the desk. "Very well then, Felinae. Suit yourself" she said, waving a hand in the air at her offer to cast the charm. "What I did?" she asked, turning to raise an eyebrow at the masked girl. She hopped on the desk as soon as she was near it and took the vial with it's iridescent blue content in her hand. She turned her head up, humming as she went over what exactly she had done while... confused.

"I've been in here for a few hours, when I left the room to enter it again and attempt to fix—this" she gesticulated with one finger to the entirety of the room. "Then I stumbled over her. Stunned her and levitated her inside" she said eyes squinted, with a concentrated face. She shrugged, playing with the small vial. "I secured her in the chair and then you came in" she said sighing, remembering Felinae's badly timed entrance.

She jerked and jumped off the desk, shaking her hair to get it out of her eyes. She made the few steps between herself and the chair and settled next to the seated girl. She raised the vial to the level of her eyes and shook it once, squinting her eyes to check its consistency. "Shall we get on with it?" she asked Felinae, still analyzing the vial. "I'd like to be able to get some sleep" she hummed as she finally took her eyes off the vial and uncapped it. "There's two ways we can go about this" she continued, icily, lowering her gaze to look at the younger girl. "You can either take this without a fuss and I'll be right next to you with the common antidote and a bezoar" she pointed her benevolence with a tight smile. "Or you can make me restrain you and force feed it to you. And I only have one set of hands..." she smirked, shrugging.

"Felinae you'll monitor the initial effects, while I administer the potion, yes?" she asked in an airy voice, pointing a finger at the parchment and writing utensils on the desk. "Well, little Slytherin... the choice is all yours" she drawled sweetly as she nudged the vial.

"As long as you've just stunned her and strapped her to the chair, it doesn't matter who casts the memory charm then." The cat mask distorted Felinae's voice though at this moment it sounded droning yet gutteral. Between exploring self memory modification and Occlumency the topic of memory charms had been part of her research. There were two general, most used schools of obliviation. Erasing everything from a certain time past, leaving a blank of everything in the past few minutes; or, if you could discern what the target would have remembered (or were a legilimens) you only eliminated specific memories. It left he subject less dazed and confused after the memories were wiped but you had to be sure all you wanted forgotten was, unlike a total blanking.

Ideally, had they known in advance that Báthory would be capturing somebody with no cover story in place, Hexy would have attempted a false memory to replace the erased ones. But she really needed her pensieve  to check that it was formed well enough. And asking a pensieve out of the Room in this state was ludicrous.

Her eyes strayed to the upside down trees again. They shimmered! Or rather, something was oozing down them, a congealed liquid. Had that caused the plop from earlier?

"You'll need her hair pulled back. Both for administering the potion and so there's a clear path with modifying her memory later." Hexy crossed in front of the girl, Sayer, that was it, briefly blocking her from view from Amara. "I'll aim the spell here. Targeting the front is the cleanest method."

Hexy pointed but she was also implementing a desperate ploy that she just thought of when she realized who the girl was. The silent Sayers. Technically she wasn't a deaf-mute but maybe she knew how to read lips. If she could even read lips upside down. Hexy had raised her mask slightly before she had walked between Amara and Sayers. Enough that her lips were visible. And after preping she silently spoke: Please comply. I'll assure you won't be greatly harmed by this and that this will never happen again.

Hexy finished crossing to the table with the parchment. With a stifled sniffle she covered the shifting of her mask. She picked up the quill. "Ready to begin." Hopefully the bezoar wasn't past its shelf date.

Dione glared at Báthory through her whole spiel of easy ways and antidotes and fussing and restraints. When she finally offered her 'choice,' Dio gathered what moisture her mouth could manage and spat in the half-breed's face.

Before that rash action could come back to bite her, the masked girl Felinae stepped between them, her mask lifted to reveal her lips. They moved without speaking, the movement pronounced and exaggerated to make up for the lack of sound. Dione was not a lip-reader -- she'd never needed to, she could hear just fine -- but she'd spent enough time watching jealously while others spoke to catch fragments:  Please comply and this will never happen again.

Dione closed her eyes and took several short breaths through her nose. Blast it all. Blast everything. She didn't have a choice.

She tried to force herself to relax. It didn't work. Every muscle in her body was on high alert, especially those in her jaw. For as long as she could remember, she hadn't opened her mouth more than the few centimeters needed to eat. For a terrifying moment, she thought she might have forgotten how. Then the joint finally shifted, like rusted hinge on an ancient trunk, and her mouth opened.

Ruined black teeth like shards of charcoal sat embedded in scared and shallow gums. Her tongue, little more than a withered husk, was shrunk to the size of a crisp and tucked into the space at the very bottom. Jagged black and white scars rippled all the way to the back of her mouth and -- though they couldn't see -- well past it, down through the hollow of her throat.

Do it then, she thought, gripping her hands into tight fists to hide their trembling. Get it over with. All the while she did her damnedest to make note of every sense, every touch, smell, sound, and sight, layering it into as many different associations as she could manage. Maybe then the memory charm wouldn't stick. Maybe then she'd have her revenge.

Amara extracted an embroidered handkerchief from her jacket and wiped her face completely unimpressed, then turned to glare at the girl, but before she could take any sort of action against that sort of insult, Felinae was positioning herself between them for whatever reason. She was sure she'd said something to the subject but she couldn't really be bothered with that.

Amara acknowledged Felinae's instruction and plan and moved behind the chair in the middle of the room. She took a deep breath and settled one hand on the girl's shoulder smiling a bit to herself. The silver-haired witch dragged her hand upwards, to the crown of the little girl's head and tilted her head backwards, gently tucking the hair behind her ears.

When she noticed her mouth, Amara's breath stopped in her throat and she was reminded of Emi's scarred face, scars she had inflicted herself. Her hand tightened around the vial. "That is an awful thing to happen to someone so young" she eventually said, going for her usual cold tone, but her voice wavered for a second. "I'm sorry you had to go through something so terrible" she said in a smaller voice caressing the girls hair. She took a deep breath and shook her feelings off.

"Let's get on with this then, shall we" she said brows drawn in concentration, raising her hand to tip the small vial against the girl's lips. Once she was sure the liquid had been swallowed she came to stand in front of the chair at a safe enough distance, while also closely keeping an eye on the girl. The effects should be fully developed in about ten minutes, if the potion was brewed correctly. Amara felt a twinge of excitement surge through her just then, but she kept calm and collected, crossing her arms over her chest.

Hexy sat in the new role of taking notes of this experiment. Saints to Salazar for her mask, though keeping a face blank of emotion was becoming easier through Occlumency practice.

Why was all of this suddenly feeling wrong? She'd been reviewing the problem again and again in her head with little progress, no insights. Causing deliberate harm to someone was not a gripe to her. Insults because of weakness, jealousy towards those physically stronger and of higher stamina. Humiliation from allergic reactions. All of that fueled vengeful dueling, self training with wicked spells, actions taken from the shadows. Letting the teasers feel some of the hurt. Could the conflicting emotions she was experiencing now merely be from a style difference than Amara's blatant attack? Although Jasper Warlock was a beloved character for always overcoming odds with only wits and sheer magical effort, there was something to be said for the villains that hounded him each and every show, working grand plans unnoticed that Jasper barely managed to stop in time. And sometimes he never noticed at all.

A dry heave was suppressed at the status of Sayer's mouth. Why should that be pitiable? Eat the wrong food and her own mouth would inflame and feel like she'd been eating nettles for salad. True, there wasn't anything in her compendium of medical maladies that afflicted her with silence. Lifelong silence.

Salazar's Shiny Frickin' Pate.

After the potion was forced up Sayer's throat there's an added difficulty, let's have the subject upside down before a potion is administered to them there was slow silence for a few minutes as the effects took place. Sayer's hair started to grow gradually unlike the Hufflepuff's hair at breakfast. Amara's brew had brought much more subdued growth.

There wasn't much to write down. Or it didn't feel like there should be much to say. The potion grew hair, chalk it up as success. They could sell it to balding men for all she cared. She also wrote a little bit more about the effects the Hufflepuff at breakfast received. When Hexy wasn't writing there wasn't much else to do but watch Sayer under the effects of the potion.

Hippogriff Hypocrite. You feel sorry for her scarred throat but you're going through with this anyways? Who? You or Amara? What if it was a different girl? What if your suspicions weren't confirmed that Amara was Avialae? Values were one thing, morals were for non Slytherins.

And yet you claim to be Hufflepuff, just like subject #1 this morning. Why? Just because no one suspects a Hufflepuff? It's not as if Amara or Canidae have been trying to figure out who's behind the cat mask.

Hexy's grip on the quill was starting to hurt her hand. She felt something had to happen but she didn't know what she wan't to happen. What she would do. What Amara would do.

---

...and back in a corner of the room, there was a trail of shimmering viscous liquid running down a wall. Another soft *plop* as it congealed on the floor. It was purple. The unnatural sheen of this liquid matched the ooze on the tree and fungus about the room. It almost made the ceiling look like it was rotting inside out.

A taste drifted in the air. Rather, a smell. Traces that came from various corners of the room. Spoiled tomatoes. Onions and garlic. Decaying mushrooms. Something corpselike.

There was something alive about the Room tonight, though the combined stench was that of death...