A Piece of Mind

Chapter [14]

Artemis walked into Professor McGonagall's classroom, finding himself having to ignore the loud whispers surrounding him. The stares, the muttering behind hands, the fact that everyone avoided his table like the plague. On top of all this, he was actively fighting off the drowsiness from the night before when sleep had not been his priority. Julia had lent him magical concealer to hide the dark skin circling his eyes.

Grace and Julia sat down next to him, thankfully warding off another ambush from their housemates. While the last few students filtered in before the bell, McGonagall gave Artemis an unreadable yet unmistakable once-over. After a moment, she continued shuffling papers and Artemis wondered if she had found what she was looking for. He guessed not when her mouth pressed into a thinner line than usual.

"Quiet down, class. Before we begin class today, everyone pass their essays to the front of the room- none of that Miss Parkinson, you had the weekend to finish it."

Artemis sat through the class, taking attentive notes and nodding in understanding where most of his classmates wore panicked and confused expressions; he was keeping up with his classes exceptionally well. The bell rang suddenly, and into the sudden rush of noise her students made gathering their things McGonagall yelled out a reminder that their essay was due on Wednesday. In the usual commotion, she hadn't noticed the small, empty book that had appeared on her desk, tucked under a few rolls of parchment. As the trail of students trickled out the door, she saw one looking back at her.

Artemis Fowl. He was staring at her with those unnerving blue eyes of his, as if waiting for her to realize something. His mouth twitched up in a smile as his friends tugged at his sleeve. She turned away, shaking her head, when she saw the book peeking out from beneath a few essays. She sucked in a breath- this was Albus's book, the one that included notes on the Order. She tucked the book into the folds of her emerald green cloak and walked briskly away.

It was only the second week of school, for Merlin's sake. Couldn't those children wait until the second month to start stirring up mischief? She had classes to teach.

_.~._

Artemis grabbed a piece of toast and a napkin and walked out of the dining hall early. It had been a week since he had returned the book, and he hadn't been told off or summoned to Dumbledore's office. McGonagall was obviously keeping a close eye on him, but he wasn't too worried; there was nothing they could do without risking the exposure of the Order.

After reading through the copied pages of notes again, he sent a letter to Butler and the People about the secret organization aimed to fight back against this dark wizard, Voldemort. He also included what Dumbledore had told him about the Minister, and how he could deal with Ministry influence at the school, but it would be a good idea to find this prophecy he'd heard of hidden in the Ministry in London and destroy it. Hearing it once would do, but no good could come of a magical prophecy in the hands of a wizard with dark magic at his fingertips and a cult of powerful wizards at his beck and call (if Grace's story was anything to go by).

All of this, of course, was written in Gnomish, with another pitiful note tagged to the end in English asking for help with his ancient runes homework. Hopefully whoever read it bought it because it was a solid three pages of "runes".

He was walking, warm napkin in hand, when he bumped into Luna- not metaphorically. She grabbed him by the arms to keep them from falling, his toast still grasped in one hand.

"Sorry about that," she said dreamily, with a light smile. "I was distracted by the hipmerflunks. They sleep in fire and I've been seeing them around the school. Cute little things."

"It is quite alright, I assure you," Artemis said, relaxing when he realized who it was. Struck with sudden inspiration, he asked, "Miss Lovegood, if I may... are you muggle-born, by chance?" If he was going to solve his communicator problem, it wouldn't hurt to ask around. And he was fairly certain Luna Lovegood was not going to judge or use his words against him.