Hidden Slytherin

Chapter 13 Is It Paranoid Or Anoyed ?

Over the next few days all anyone could talk about was the package. Rumors ranged from it contained a bird with a dark curse to one that was dead but charmed to flap its wing. One even said that it was cursed so Natalie Spring would die within the week. Professors had started taking away points if they caught anyone talking about it. Some seemed downright paranoid, but most Professors looked to have decided it was a one off.

In History of Magic some first year Gryffindors started talking about it. Loudly.

"I heard that she turned down some boy for a date and he was getting revenge. Rumor is she can't even cast now."

Jane scowled as the two Gryffindor girls twittered away, and beside her Roman growled. Jane had never spoken two words to Natalie Spring in her life and generally wasn't overly invested in people she didn't know but something about the needless nattering made Jane want to hex them. Thanks to Roman she even knew a few truly creative ones. They had discovered over the last weeks that Roman was utter shit at Transfiguration, whereas Jane was slowly flourishing. She wasn't getting the spells on the first try but was able to accomplish them within the class. She had taken to helping Roman in exchange for lessons of equal or greater value in hexes, curses and jinxes. The problem now was resisting the urge to hex irritating people.

She could just tell the two to shut it, but that might make them think she was invested in their conversation and start talking to her. She would rather shave her head then talk with them at this point. It was a survival thing, what if she caught their stupid?

She understood wanting to know more about what happened. Jane herself had started to eavesdrop on teachers whenever she had the free time to see if she could get any more information. So far she had had both success and failure. She had discovered it was a dying raven with a red string around its throat and a symbol of a rabbit burned into it's chest. Which was fucking disgusting in Jane's opinion. It also seemed oddly specific for some deranged prank, but most teachers seemed to disagree. A dying raven to a Ravenclaw was pretty on the nose.

Further attempts to eavesdrop were foiled by the fact that there were so many bloody students. The best time to listen in to teachers was when they talked to each other, and that only happened consistently during meals. Which meant that even if one broke ranks and talked about the package, most stuck to the party line and said everything was fine. Which could be true or total bull for all Jane knew. To compensate she had started experimenting with listening to heart beats to try to gauge lying. She had read about signs of lying and seen shows talk about polygraphs before, so she figured she just needed to learn what a persons resting heartrate sounded like and then pay attention to the differences. She was also working on trying to recognize people by the sounds of their footsteps and noises they naturally made. Mainly so she could avoid teachers asking her what she was doing wandering the halls. So far she had avoided the answer it's a school.

The sounds of footsteps approaching the classroom at a steady march brought Jane out of her thoughts and she silently sniggered. Professor Bishop wasn't a teacher to slight. A tall lean women with pitch black hair she kept up in a swooping bun and a habit of marching around lithely with a pipe firmly between her lips, if she told someone not to do something, she wouldn't say it again. Jane pitied anyone that got on her bad side, but at that moment couldn't wait for her to enter. Although not biased, the Professor had been Ravenclaw once upon a time and took such talk as a personal slight.

Professor Bishop entered the classroom, her blue robes so dark that only the breeze ruffling them showed their blueish tint. The Professor immediately locked on the Gryffindors, who hadn't noticed her enter with their backs to the door.

Bishop stalked forwards as the room silenced in till everyone could hear the two talking. She had stopped between the girls and waited.

"-a shame really. The girl was barely a witch to begin with, nose always shoved in a book. Wouldn't know a good thing if it bit her in the a-" Just then Professor Bishop slammed her hand onto the wooden desk right in front of them, leaning between the two girls. They screamed, jumping in their chairs. Slowly turning, their eyes following the length of arm in till they had turned full to face the Professor.

"See me after class." With that she walked towards the front of the room. "Open your books to one hundred and thirty two."

That's how class carried on, everyone silently taking notes and the two Gryffindor girls shaking nervously. As class ended her and Roman walked beside each other as Draven and Neryssa argued ahead of them about what quidditch team was the best. Jane hadn't actually flown yet. It seemed that, at least according to some older Slytherins, the course had been overhaled to teach them etiquette and rules. Same with the history class. Jane heard it used to be taught by ghost right up in till about twenty years ago.

"I wonder if I'll like flying," Jane muttered.

"Are you afraid of heights," asked Roman.

The other two slowed, curious what their friends were talking about.

"Not particularly, but I guess I'll find out next week. Apparently Professor Price thinks we're ready," Jane said.

"How do you even know that? She didn't say anything about it in class," Draven was looking around the group, seemingly looking for answers.

"Overheard her in the halls," Jane said serenely. It wasn't untrue, so she didn't need to lie, even if they thought it a bit weird she always seemed to know news before most others.

They made their way to Herbology quietly whispering about flying. Apparently Draven and Neryssa had been on a broom plenty of times, but Roman had only been on one for a short period. He moved around too much for much practice. He did however know more about something called a port key and he understood how to Apparate, which was apparently a spell to disappear from one location and reappear at another.

They arrived in greenhouse one, Professor Longbottom waving them in. They began working on their Aconite, or wolfsbane. They had to see how it grew best as Longbottom quizzed them on its properties.

"Aconite is also known as what," he pointed to Neryssa.

"Umm, wolfshood. Wait no. It's Wolfsbane or Monkshood Professor."

Longbottom smiled, "well done Miss Nott." Neryssa smiled.

"And what is one use of Aconite, Mr. Gerone," he pointed to a Gryffindor.

"Wolfsbane Potion Professor."

"Excellent work."

Class carried on and soon enough they were heading to the library. They commandeered a table and all began pulling out their books, getting to work on their homework. Jane tried to work fast and effectively so she could finish her homework and move on to her other work. She had discovered that her and Sorel liked a lot of the same things. So now whenever he got caught on a problem he would send it to her.

Recently Jane had been working on a warding problem he had mentioned in his first letter. Ignoring the fact that her introduction to warding was shortly before coming to Hogwarts when Pidge had warded her bags, and she had never actually made a warding spell work yet. She had pulled a few books from the library, going so far as to brave the Librarian, who Jane was sure hated everyone. Before Hogwarts, she would have just locked herself in her room in till it worked. Now she had classes and homework and friends. Not to mention spying on the staff for any new information. Even she had begun to question if the package wasn't a one off, but her gut said they would be seeing more.

Back when she lived in London, she had frequented libraries and had read anything she thought might be useful or even just interesting. One had been on psychological profiling. This had led to a series of criminology, psychology, and psychopathology texts. If she applied all of this to what she knew of the package, then whoever sent it had a signature, if they sent another. It was definitely a message, it was too specific to not be.

Jane went back to her work, and silently hoped she was wrong.