Aymee Parker B2 - The Cursed Mark

Chapter 13 : Hug war

The month of November was... special. Or, in any case, Aymee suddenly had the impression that they had all fallen into some space-time bubble typed 'February 14' for a long time.

One day, without warning, the fifth years had gone into some kind of hug frenzy end hugged every single person crossing their way, especially if said person was on the same year. Crossing a single corridor, Aymee had received at least three surprise hugs. The next day, the seventh years imitated them. Aymee had even seen a student pretend to be in tears to get a hug from Sprout. It took several more days and almost all the students of every year to do so for Aymee to finally learn the end of the story.

"How could hugging prevent you from having the Mark?" she frowned.

"That's what I was told," confirmed Duncan. "Apparently, of the seven students who had the Mark of the Loser at the start, three lost it in the days that followed. After the teachers' investigation, it turned out that they had all hugged someone."

They were both seated on a bench of an inner courtyard. Duncan had his scarf wrapped tightly in several layers around his neck and ears. One could barely distinguish his brown eyes between his blue and bronze scarf and his Afro cut. He was shivering so much that Aymee expected him to start chattering at any moment.

"Aaaaaaah," finally understood Aymee. "So hugs are some kind of grigri?"

"Maybe," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "If you remember the piece of paper, it said friendship will save us. People interpret it that way."

Aymee frowned. Something didn't seem to make sense. It pissed her off.

"It didn't say exactly that..."

The Ravenclaw dug into her bag to pull out one of the half-torn old parchments that Duncan had managed to pick up. He leaned with Aymee over the sheet to read.

Dear students, we present to you the Loser Mark. Whoever wears it shall be the victim of their karma. Friendship will be your salvation or your end here. Justice will be done: you are solely responsible for your misfortunes.

"It says it will be our salvation or our end. Maybe it's not a good idea to cuddle."

"Maybe. It depends on your karma. I imagine people think they'll have a better one if they suddenly become nicer."

"You think? Ah! Is that why Penelope suddenly became weirdly nice?"

Just the day before, the blonde had come to ask her if she needed help with her homeworks. It was rather odd considering that Penelope hated doing group homework since it felt like she was working for other people. Besides, it could be seen in her eyes that she hoped that the answer would be no.

Aymee looked up to look around her. She really felt like she had fallen into a Care Bear version of her universe. Everyone had turned smooth and displayed fake smiles. There were even students who used to openly hate each other who now forced themselves to play wizarding chess or gobstone together. This atmosphere of forced friendship was beginning to be suffocating.

"You think it's a Gryffindor stunt?" Duncan asked suddenly. "Some kind of a prank? Or is someone trying to play the masked vigilante?"

"Maybe... But it must be a student of the advanced years. Casting a spell like that must be really hard."

"Honestly, it seems more like some kind of curse than a spell. Especially since Flitwick still hasn't found the counter spell."

Aymee nodded. Her mind trailed back to what she had seen and heard in the infirmary.