Mary Smith and The Three-Headed Dog

14. What Exactly Is Obliviate?

"It is said that it can grant you eternal life or fortunes beyond your wildest- what now? Oh! I was under the impression you were asking after the same as that Potter boy. A Hellgate you say? Well dear me, why would you ask about something as terrible as that when there's a whole Philosopher's St-wait! Where are you going?"

--Mundungus Fletcher

Chapter 14: What exactly is Obliviate?

Cedric was not proud.

As soon as my last class was up, he dragged me to our usual meeting place.

"What the hell is wrong with you?!" Several things I think, but I was quickly learning when Cedric wanted a question answered and when he was just talking to hear himself talk. I think he called them rhetorical questions. Not to be confused with trick questions. A trick question is when there is no right answer. A rhetorical question is when there is a right answer, but the person asking it doesn't care what that is. I hadn't even gotten to sit down. He was hovering over me. His brow wrinkled together in anger, making his unibrow look even thicker. "Do you know, how many people I've had to obliviate today?"

Again, I was silent.

"Well! Say something!"

Nope. I knew better now. He didn't mean it.

Cedric sighed and slumped into the dusty teacher desk chair. It looked comfy but like it hadn't been sat in, in years. "This close. You came THIS," he held his fingers up really close together," close to becoming the laughing-stock of the entire school. I had to overhear a group of sixth-year girls in the bathroom with the lights off chanting 'Bloody Mary' over and over again before laughing their arses off."

"What were you doing in the girl's toilet?" I asked, genuinely curious. Cedric didn't strike me as a pervert. He hadn't tried to kiss me once.

He blushed anyway. "Never mind that. Focus." For once, I didn't doubt I was focused on the right thing for a change, but I let it go just the same.

Cedric is my Guide. He knows best. "Yes, Sir."

"And stop calling me 'Sir'. I'm only two years older than you."

"Yes, Mr. Cedric."

"Cedric, Mary. Just Cedric."

"Alright."

"Try it. Say it out loud or you'll forget."

"Cedric. Yes, Cedric."

"Good." I think he was done yelling at me. "You really have to be more careful, Mary. I know-um-having your-that-um- can be difficult-um-at your age." He looked disgusted. "I can't do this. Didn't that woman you lived with ever talk about this with you?"

"Mama doesn't like to talk about that. She says ladies don't talk about those kinds of things. But it's okay Cedric. I didn't have my period."

Her Guide's face seemed to pass through relief to confusion. "Then why does everyone seem to think you have?"

I frowned. My thougts returned to how Cedric found out in the first place. I thought I should help Cedric out too. If he was spying on girls in the toilet, he was going down the wrong path. I think we cannot help being born servants of Satan, but we can resist certain temptations. I am working on my gluttony at meal times. And I think for Cedric being a gross boy, he has to resist watching girls in the toilet. "I was just trying to help a friend. She's not used to being laughed at."

"A friend? You found another advisor. Good for you, Mary!"

I beamed. "Yes! She's really cool. Her name is Daphne Greengrass."