Ah, so Professor Kesali's father must be an expert craftsman. It was always admirable, she found, when dedicated craftsmen could do such amazing jobs without using magic. Her father always used it, she had only ever seen crafting using magic, but to produce something so beautiful without it... that was a feat.

Zoe was quite shocked when the bird began to speak. The first sentence confused her. Was the bird meant to insult others? Then it gave compliments. Flat, short compliments. Five short, forced compliments.

No. Please, Merlin no.

She looked at Alvis, panic obvious in her eyes. Kesali had been waiting, saving up the moment to publicly embarrass the four of them. It was so cruel, in front of everyone in their year?! Some of those things she'd written on that paper... Actually, Zoe didn't really care if Casey or Ambrose heard what she thought about them, but she'd admitted her on Alvis crush, in a round-about way. Wait, did that actually matter since they were a thing now?

Wait, were they a thing?

Yet the bird continued, spitting out more gossip, and soon it was clear no one was going to leave this classroom dignity intact.

Lost in thought, Zoe barely registered Kesali saying her name. Startled, she looked up, trying to process the question. A few seats down, Lovella answered partially, and Zoe began to fill in the blanks. "It's like a hearsay charm." It surprised Zoe how quiet her voice came out. She couldn't meet Kesali's eyes, instead glancing around.

"It must be a sort of combination of a Babbling Charm and the enchantments of a Quick-Quotes Quill, except instead of exaggerating what one says it takes what one says that is already exaggerated. Combined with the Human Recognition Enchantment, it is able to identify who the speech is about and repeats it to their face, just going on and on until it's stopped."

Erin heard the gossip and the ravenclaw seemed to have as good an explanation as any that had been offered.  Erin wanted to write that down, and began to make note of the recognition spell as well as the hearsay.  At that point, Erin's hyperactive mind got working way too fast.

"So...more rumours.  Does a boarding school really need any more those?  Come to think of it does any school need more of those?  I was hoping I could practice flying with this thing or something.  Huh, wonder if we could let it loose during the other teams practice?  Or maybe make the thing more useful.  Say professor, does this thing respond to things like Felicitas, or is it too inanimate to have an effect?" Erin somehow managed to ramble her way to a semi-intelligent question, though not before diverting on her usual off topic speeches.

Erin had a wonder.  She really did not want her secrets blabbed out all over, but she had no way of knowing how the thing would react to magic.  Erin had an idea, but the spell she needed was slightly beyond her level[1], and she knew it.  That did not stop her from asking for help though.

"Lovella, don't suppose you could cast Silencio by chance?" she asked her housemate, figuring that she was probably the better caster between them anyhow.  As she waited for her friends reply, she wondered what the bird would say about her.  She really did not care to find out.  She hoped that somebody (or the professor) had some way to control the blasted bird.  This would be a long class otherwise.

1.	http://www.hp-lexicon.org/magic/spells/spells_s.html?ModPagespeed=noscript

Owlishly, Esther stared after the bird, frozen by the sharp, tinny observations even as the luster of its feathers caught her eye. Of all the things she hadn’t been expecting, it was that, and its negligent remarks made her look at it with something caught between marvel and alarm…

And no small amount of interest. A bird like that, anyone with eyes could see, would be fun; the possibilities were endless!

If only her classmates could see that. As her classmates spoke up, offering their two cents, Esther furtively glanced around the room. Most seemed nervous or unhappy—which was understandable, she supposed. She would be too, if something started telling everyone about how attached you were to your house elf, or totally ignored completely.

(Of course, that didn’t stop Torret from looking like she was seconds away from having her own secrets leaked out. Like anyone cares, Zoe…)

“It’s brilliant, professor,” she enthused, eyes round and shining with sincerity, bottom lip caught in an earnest smile. after shooting Erin a miffed look  Her classmates might have already covered the answer, but that didn’t mean she’d let that stop her. Anyway– a thought suddenly striking her, a puzzled frown disturbed that sweet, angelic expression.

“Can we even do that?” she piped up, tearing her eyes away from the bird. “The enchantments used to make Quick-Quotes quills work– it’s to write things down, whereas if the same or, or something like it was used for the bird—that’s speaking.” Ugh! At this rate she might as well be Erin. Merlin. “Can we do that? Like, translate a type of enchantment meant to carry out a purpose one specific way, to be carried out a different way?”

Oh bloody hell no...

Casey's apparent boredom with Charms turned into barely masked horrification when the clockwork bird started speaking. Because there was only one particular circumstance where Casey's 'love' of his house elf would be made apparent and only one other circumstance where the Charms professor would come into understanding of that information. Casey briefly looked about to the others that had been trapped in that detention of Kesali's; Alvis, Torret and blinking Pepper.

Through gritted teeth Casey was trying not to blow a gasket or make a repeat of the flying strawberry grub fiasco at root cause of all of this nonsense.

"Even if that combination of Charms would do the trick," he began, continuing the conversation started by Zoe, "what kind of information could such a contraption gather without some sort of prompting? I highly doubt it can reveal everyone's secrets, let alone magically protected secrets." Several wars would have had different results if it wasn't for the Fidelius Charm.

"Casey does not believe that anyone is capable of caring for him. He's shut himself up so tight he's forgotten what it means to be lonely."

Alvis nearly swallowed the quill he'd been sucking on. Those were his words, the ones he'd written for detention. The series of clipped, forced compliments that followed could only have come from one of the others'; Ambrose, he guessed, since Zoe was more articulate. He caught Zoe's panicked look and matched it until the bird moved on to Esther Morrell, and then the professor.

Alvis breathed a sigh of relief, grateful that the four of them weren't being singled out. If he thought about it, he found that he didn't actually mind this particular set-up. He didn't completely remember what he'd written that day, but he didn't think it could be anything too bad. And in a setting like this, there was no way to identify the source. That was almost comforting and, despite himself, Alvis found himself growing excited. He would kill to see what made the bird tick.

“Can we even do that?”

"Of course we can," he said, in an automatic response to Morrell's wondering. He chuckled nervously, shifting the parchment around on his desk. "I mean, it's not that hard, if you know what you're doing. Even if there isn't a stable linguistical variation, the added mechanical components and factors of magical design, such as runes, can add both expected and unexpected variations. It takes the enchantment to a completely different level of complexity.

"I suppose then that the actual question is: Professor, are we meant to be learning a spell to use on the bird, or one to create something like her?"

As unlikely as he knew it was, Alvis hoped it would be the latter.

Gloria was quite oblivious to how her questions were annoying the professor. She was greatly interested by what the clockwork sparrow (or was it a finch?) did when it started to jabber away.

Amongst the burning qeustions that developed: What would it say about me, who is Chester, why is the bird partial to Slytherins; Gloria half raised her arm, re-thought about it, then ended up blurting out what she was going to say anyway.

"Isn't an enchantment just a stronger, more permamnent casting of a charm? There can't be that much of a difference to what version of the spell makes the bird work."

Amara sat bored out of her skull in the seat next to Morrell. With each new Charms class, the young Slytherin was growing more sure that Kesali was the most absurd instructor they had ever had. Frankly, she'd never learned much from him and the man has such a bleeding heart, always ready to give help even if it was never wanted. She laughed each time she remembered her immature little crush on him. How could she ever had thought like that? Kesali was weak. She had no business with weakness.

The beginning of the lesson had been droll and pointless, always with the riddles and the guesses.... Why could he not just get into things from the start of it all? Waste of time. Her time. She'd been leafing through the Maleficium when her attention was suddenly drawn to the mechanical bird, and she could feel herself growing more and more panicked with each new word the bird was spouting. There was no chance the thing could know anything, right? She sat there frozen, eyes still glued to the bird as her classmates discussed around her. Her fingers dug into the leather cover of her family's spell book and she could feel cold trickles of sweat at her temples.

It was only when Esther spoke out next to her that she finally shook off the waves of panic and attempted to calm herself. With a few deep breaths, she finally managed to clear her head. She eyed the bird intently, completely oblivious to the actual lesson and with no intention of actually participating until she had some answers. For both her sake and the bird's, Amara hoped Kesali wouldn't turn it on again. If the contraption so much as looked at her, she'd blast it into oblivion.

Before long, Zeta made it there and slid into  the seat before the adjacent desk, equally curious about the bird as many of their classmates.

"Dunno." He shrugged, and then remembered it was Zeta and his face screwed thoughtfully, "Perhaps we have to make pencils slither like snakes, or wigs bark like dogs?" What… it wouldn't be that far-fetched for Kesali, would it? The two of them stared at the pencil in Zeta's hand at the thought.

Norling was staring around the room and Ambrose averted his eyes, scowling should Alvis glance at him, but moments later Kesali began to teach them.

The bird that had been on his desk actually flew, which was impressive, but then it began to talk… about Casey. What a strange thing it was, but to his horror, Ambrose had a recollection of the words it began to spew, and turned pale and slid down in his seat slightly, breathing quickening. His cousin beside might have noticed the fear in his expression, but most of the class seemed to have their eyes on the bird or Casey.

He didn't hear much of what happened afterwards, the bird's words were still cold in his stomach as his classmates theorised on what spells might have created the enchantments. Those were from that horrible detention he'd sat with Zoe, Casey and Alvis weeks back. He's kept the parchments.

In one easy step, the bubbling anger that had been beneath everything since was rising back up in his throat, and his heart was thumping. Kesali was going to ridicule him. He was going to let that bird onto his desk and let it shout the words of others.

Unwittingly, he was sharing the same thoughts as Bathory over what would happen to the bird if it got close.

"I'd prefer the bloody pencils," He uttered fiercely under his breath to Zeta, his pale face flushing at the cheeks, his shoulders hunched and eyes glaring at the bird,
"than secret-spreading 'charms'." he finished, though the end of his sentence was a little more audible and drew attention from nearby students.

Esther shot her classmates an irritated look, Alvis most of all. That hadn’t been what she meant. “I meant now,” she huffed, tossing her hair impatiently. “As in sometime this year. Hence the emphasis on ‘we’.”

She let it go, though, much more interested in the professor’s answer than in cutting the Ravenclaw into neat, tiny bits, and settled for shooting all of them – Ambrose especially – a pointed look. “Maybe if we let Professor Kesali answer…” She trailed off meaningfully, shooting Gale a tight, sweet smile. “You were saying, professor?”

Merlin, they were all so annoying sometimes.

Esther hid her disgust under a polite look of boredom, carefully directing it at her nails. Like they didn’t know half the stuff that had been shared could be surmised by anyone with eyes.

Throughout the entire banter between his class, Gale watched with amusement from the front of the room. He perched on the end of his desk, leaning against the large heavy wooden form in silence as he watched it all unfold. They were so amusing, truly they were. Hell, half the time he liked to think he wouldn't have to even teach the class, all he had to do was set something before them and watch how they tried to take it all apart. It wasn't until Miss Morrell called attention back to him did he realize that he was perfectly content to allow them to bicker until an answer came so easily.

It was a start. My how far they had come as a class since October. "Actually, Class. I'm afraid it's not even that complex," He pressed from the desk to take a few thoughtful steps in contemplation. Though he had gotten better about wearing his robes, the souls of his adventurer boots sounded over the stone like a slow drum of war.

"We are actually pretty far ahead of our lessons, that I thought I'd let you have a crack at a 5th year Charm, as it was Silencio I expected to start. I've learned that it's been a bit of a challenge in the 5th year, especially in crowded rooms. I figured that if you were annoyed and wanting something to be still, it would in turn teach you to keep your secrets to yourself, but this...this intrigues me, My Darlings.'

'What if there is a secret spreading Charm hmm? A truth hunter, one that causes a good deal of a confession long before you ever mean to give it." He studied them a moment,

"Half of you want to figure it out, while the rest ways to keep it silent, and I think I even see a few of you who wish it gone," His one eye settled on Amara, who might have long since lost her bit of a crush on him, but he hadn't stopped caring on her well-being, despite his bleeding heart.

The bird did start again, squawking and fluttering about until it was almost unbearable, but Gale simply turned with his hands folded behind his back as he thought,

"Zoe. Silence it. I know that you can, and don't worry of breaking it. I'm sure that Alvis can put it back together again."

"Casey can learn to be more honest, with others and with himself. He should learn to trust. He should loosen up. We're still young, there's time for fun....Zoe could relax, a little. Occasionally she seems stressed. She would do well to remember, sometimes, that a person cannot be properly quantified by the color of their house robes. And she could probably think of someone better to spend her time with than me." The bird kept going, fluttering around the room, singing in it's mechanical voice,

"As for the rest of you, I'll need a secret. Written on a bit of paper if you will, and I want it to be your worst." He turned to face the class again, eying each and every one of them,

"And as a former Member of the Ministry, I beg you to try and keep it to yourself."

At the mention of of a 'secret spreading charm' Zoe knew that Kesali was trying to mess with them. Everything that had been said was obviously fed to the bird, not the bird finding it on its own. If there was truly a secret spreading charm then interrogations, and school life in general, would be way different. Still, she didn't argue.

Zoe practically jumped out of her seat when the professor called her. She was confident that she could silence the bird, and was happy the professor felt the same. She began to raise her wand when the bird let out its next string of gossip. Once the bird announced her name she rolled her eyes, although as it began the insults she was unsure who had written it. Surely not Casey, even with the house robes comment it was too nice. At the last sentence she paused, glancing back. "Well. I do believe that is the most self-demoting insult I've ever heard, Alvis."

Taking a deep breath, she raised her wand, hoping she wouldn't actually break the bird. It was one of the most annoying enchanted contraptions she'd ever laid eyes on, but it was beautiful. Zoe pictured the bird finally shutting up, summoning her emotions like Kesali had suggested before giving her wand a jab towards it. "Silencio!"

As the spell hit the bird, Zoe could feel the magic of the charm and the enchantment going against each other through her wand. Then the sound of the bird ceased. It continued to move, but slowly. At first Zoe breathed a sigh of relief, beginning to turn to go back to her seat, but then a slightly shimmering smoke began to rise from the clockwork. Zoe yelped, re-aiming her wand.

"INCANTO FINI!"

The bird topped over on its side, motionless, and Zoe quickly retook her seat as the smoke dissipated. "Sorry, Professor. The deactivation charm was the first spell that came to mind."

When Torret nearly jumped out of her seat to disarm the chirping chatterbox Lovella couldn't help but feel exasperated. She had half-wanted it to keep going and see just how many secrets it could detect and divulge in one sitting; if, in fact, it could really reveal one's darkest tales. Just what in the world it could've said about her she had no idea, but it was still fascinating and disturbing all the same.

"For goodness sake Torret." She exclaimed in amusement at the girls rather loud attempt to quiet the bird. "Why not just blow the thing up while your at it?"

Truth be told, at least Zoe had managed to do the job. She could see the relief on most of her classmates faces as they realized the thing had ceased all movement of wing and beak. She really didn't understand why they cared so much about the continued safety of their secrets. It's not like most of them even had anything good to share. However, she obediantly followed Kesali's orders and pulled out some parchment to write down one of her... secrets.

This was difficult as she had little to divulge, except for... She brushed the back of her neck and located the disturbance on the back of her otherwise smooth neck; the scar. She thought for a moment. The bird couldn't possibly know about that could it? But did it even matter? No, of course not, Lovella hardly cared at all if the gibbering piece of metal and jewels went chirping it about. Since when did she care what her classmates thought of her? Quickly she jotted down a few hasty sentences and folded the paper in half, crossing her arms in a defiant way. She had nothing to hide.

As the rest of the class chattered away before the start of the class, Addison continued drawing the bird on her parchment. She didn't deviate from this activity, until Gloria sat next to her and praised her drawing. Looking up from her drawing with a smile, she nodded. "Thanks. The bird's pretty complex, but I try my best."

Just as Professor Kesali was starting class, Addison finished her drawing of the bird. Pushing this piece of parchment to the side, she took out a fresh sheet for actual notes. Looking up to what was actually happening in the class, she watched as their Professor let the bird out of its cage. The bird flew around the room, and her eyes never lost sight of it.

Addison barely suppressed her giggles when the bird started to talk ... about gossip. First to Casey and then to Esther. But, the bird started off about a Chester and Gale. Oooooh, could this Chester person be a love interest for Professor Kesali? Judging by his blushing, it was certainly possible. At the top of her piece of parchment, she wrote down the name Chester. Sure, she couldn't study the relationship of this Chester and Professor Kesali like she way that she studied the relationship of Professors Trishna and Reid. She had no idea who Chester even was. It just seemed like something she should keep in the back of her mind. 

Their fully embarrassed Professor proceeded to ask them if anyone knew the charm. Several members of the class answered the question in bits and pieces, while others asked further questions. Silently, Addison jotted down the more important ones on the parchment in front of her. It didn't take long for Professor Kesali to actually distinguish which charm it was that they were supposed to be learning. Oh, a fifth year Charm: Silencio. But, why use their own secrets or gossip as the catalyst for casting the charm? Kesali surely had the strangest ideas.

Zoe managed to silence the bird, and nearly blow it up in the process. It stopped moving for the current moment. But, Addison's mind was wrapped around something else. Their Professor wanted them to write a secret about themselves down on a piece of parchment. Was the bird going to announce it to the whole class? Was the whole point of the lesson to embarrass his students? Not like she actually cared if anything was announced about her. After all, most of her secrets were probably easily observable.

Taking out a different piece of parchment, Addison jotted down a secret about herself. To the tune of: I am always so insecure and mediocre at magic. After folding up the parchment, she set it down on her desk. 

Erin blinked.  Apparently she had somehow surmised the lesson.  Since she did not have Lovella's love of dueling or it seemed like any of the other Slytherin's dedication when it came to spell practice, but it seemed like Zoe seemed to accomplish the task.  That just left the other task.  To be brutally honest, Erin did not have very many secrets due to her attention span.  Her trains of thought, though not always easy to follow, could be easily led.  With minds like Stone and Bathory, coupled with the gossiping Morella Erin wondered what her biggest secret was.  It was not that big of a secret.  She and her father got along like two chasers on a quaffle.  But Michael Dark was wanted by the ministry, and even she had no clue how to act around him.  It really was not that big of a secret anyways.  So thinking, she tried to decided what her biggest secret was .  No more trains of thought arrived at platform Erin. 

Not for the first time, Erin wished Salazar had graced her with more cunning.  She had ambition enough between her modelling career and playing on the house team, but those were almost handed to her.  She figured out what her secret was.  She scribbled down on a note: I made keeper because no one else tried out.  Figuring it was true enough, she folded up the parchment.  Admittedly, it was probably not the juiciest tidbit available, but it would have to suffice.

Casey's ears were burning so hot he half expected to find a new kind of skin rash on them. Casey can learn to be more honest, with others and with himself. He should learn to trust. He should loosen up. The damned toy pigeon or whatever it was kept parroting more and more things about him. Like hell that was going to make him learn to trust or loosen up. Couldn't the blasted thing slip out more details about someone else? 'Pepper wets the bed at night,' 'Zoe has a list a mile long of people she wants to snog,' anything besides the things it was currently chirping.

He was so peeved he nearly missed Zoe's overzealous attempt to silence the bird. Attempting to end the enchantments was a nice touch, something that Casey himself would have tried to prevent the horrid thing from speaking again at all. Now it only made him think Zoe really was hanging around Alvis too much, junior craftsman savant.

Casey's nerves intensified as he tried to keep his bubbling rage under control, lest he do something that earned Slytherin another loss of half-hundreds or get himself expelled. Which would likely be the case if he attempted to hex Professor Kesali's face off. But really, this was a new low for the Charms professor. He was always weird, trying to make lessons whimsical but deadly serious and learning life lessons while destroying people's lives and loads of stuff that amassed into a load of utter troll scat at the end of it.

"Well you certainly don't need any more secrets from me," Casey said with a snippy tone as the others around him began writing. He stared at Kesali right in the good eye. "In fact, that's kind of a contradiction of terms, isn't it? Asking people for their worst secrets, yet that they try to keep it to themselves? What does that even mean?"

This was an impulse that wasn't going to be denied. All the facets of Casey's mind had the same desire of dishing it out back against the professor. "You must not have been very good at the Ministry if you're rubbish at dealing with secrets. What got you fired there, reading M.U.M.M.s out of turn? Flunking out of the Department of Mystries?"

And he recalled what the bird was about to blurb at the start of lesson. Chester and Gale sitting in a tr- in that sing-song way the phrase was turned to make fun couples with romantic inclinations, real or not. "What about your secrets, Professor? Who's Chester?"