Magic? || Years 5-7

Bitter News and Felix Felicis: Year 6

Harry—to Hermione's increasing chagrin—was neglecting his duties in getting Slughorn's memory, and instead devoting every minute of his spare time in hijacking the Room of Requirement. It was not boding well for either of their tempers, since Harry was quite certain Hermione would be a great help if she actually offered her opinion. But Hermione was nothing but stubborn, dodging yet another attempt at Harry justifying his actions and instead filling them in on the Daily Prophet.

The news wasn't good news.

Mundungus had been arrested, locked away in Azkaban for impersonating an Inferius during a burglary. A man named Octavius Pepper had vanished. And a nine-year-old boy was arrested for trying to kill his grandparents, allegedly under the Imperius Curse.

The morning was considerably less cheerful after hearing that.

Snape abused them yet again in Defense Against the Dark Arts, which wasn't particularly surprising but insensitive nonetheless. Seamus had been asking about the difference between ghosts and Inferi—a wholly fair question, in Amisty's opinion—that Snape had shot down and proceeded to bully Harry over when asked to tell the difference. Honestly, 'ghosts are transparent and Inferi are not' is a good enough answer. Ron was right, no one's going to waste time asking if the time comes in a shady alley. Regardless, twenty points from Gryffindor, that class. Ten for Harry being late—he'd been scoping out the Room of Requirement again—and ten for Ron's snark.

Then, on the seventh, Ron and Hermione left the castle for their practice Apparition lessons in Hogsmeade. Amisty watched them go, tamping down her jealousy. She hadn't been able to leave the castle in weeks, both on the restrictions and also because Noel had yet to return to the town. He was somewhere in Wales, apparently, tracking down a Death Eater after a series of suspicious thunderstorms reported by Muggles. It didn't help that it was a rare gorgeous morning, sun shining, not a cloud in sight. Harry had decided to spend his morning tackling the Room of Requirement, as was his new hobby.

Amisty just curled up in the common room, deciphering a particularly difficult passage of notes as Hazel regaled her with visions of pummeling McLaggen into a pulp.

A tad past eleven, she joined her friends back in the Great Hall for lunch.

"I did it—well, kind of!" Ron said, ushering her into a seat as Harry came through the entrance. "I was supposed to be Apparating to outside Madam Puddifoot's Tea Shop and I overshot it a bit, ended up near Scrivenshaft's, but at least I moved!"

"Good one," Harry said, grinning. "How'd you do, Hermione?"

"Oh, she was perfect, obviously," Ron said before Hermione could open her mouth. Amisty smirked. "Perfect deliberation, divination, and desperation or whatever the hell it is—we all went for a quick drink in the Three Broomsticks after and you should've heard Twycorss going on about her—I'll be surprised if he doesn't pop the question soon—"

"And what about you?" Hermione asked, a wise decision before Ron decided to elaborate on that thread of conversation. "Have you been up at the Room of Requirement all this time?"

"Yep," Harry said, undeterred by Hermione's exasperated expression. "And guess who I ran into up there? Tonks!"

"Tonks?"

"Yeah," Harry said, "she said she'd come to visit Dumbledore, but he isn't here. Gone away again. She looked really terrible, and she was saying she wanted to see if anyone else had gotten hurt. Then she asked if I'd gotten any letters and. . . well, when I didn't, she—" He made an aborted hand gesture, wincing. "She looked like she was going to cry."

They let that stew for a minute. Amisty chewed on her lip, thinking. "That doesn't sound like Tonks at all."

"If you ask me," Ron said, "she's cracking up a bit. Losing her nerve after what happened at the Ministry."