Begin to Hope

I was surprised to find, the next morning, that neither Klaus nor Maverick were still lying in their beds. I had never known either of them to be early risers, if they could help it, and yet they were dressed and out of our room before eight.

Much to my chagrin, I found I was in need of a shower. Luckily, there weren't many others awake, and I was able to survive the ordeal without much harassment.

By the time I made it down to the cafeteria for breakfast, it was nearly nine. There were a few others lounging around, but mostly the cafeteria was empty.

I found Maverick surrounded by five or six fat whorey chicks. He was sitting on top of one of the empty lunch tables, and they were all gazing up admiringly at him.

Getting within earshot of them, I heard him say "So that's when I raised my sword and--BAM!--I cut the dragon's head clear off." he boasted. One of the girls fanned herself, as if she couldn't take the heat of his story.

"Oh, please," I said, standing in front of him with my hands on my hips. "That didn't happen! Prosper, what are you telling these girls?"

One of the fattest girls looked up at me with a smirk on her face. "Prop, who is this girl? One of your sluts?" She looked up at me smugly, and I had to hold myself back from slapping that silly smile right off her face.

"Sadly, no." he replied, standing up and wrapping an arm around my shoulder. "She is just my older, more unfortunate-looking sister."

"I resent that!" I said, throwing his arm off me. "And have you see Will at all today?"

He shook his head and sat back down next to the girl that had talked back to me. "And he didn't come in the room last night, either. I staggered in around midnight, and I was awake until two."

"And he never showed up until then?"

He shrugged. "He's probably just around somewhere. Maybe he's found some ladies of his own." The girls all beamed at him and he turned to one of them and tapped her nose with his finger.

I was nauseated by these actions. "Okay, I'll see you during class," I said to him, but I doubt he heard me. He was entertaining the girls with another story of his brave (but false) heroics.

And if I didn't find Klaus? Oh well. We had first period together, and it's not like he could miss that.

Apparently he could.

"Where is he?" I hissed to Maverick as the bell rang and he slid into the seat beside me.

He shrugged nonchalantly. "What does it matter? He knows what he's doing."

"Good morning, class!" The professor called. "My name is Professor Astley, and I will be your History of Magic teacher!" He set his briefcase down on his desk and looked around at us. He sniffed the air, a suddenly happy expression on his face. "Ah, I'm just so glad to be back in my chosen profession of teaching. I love kids!"

Looking around, I noticed not many of the students were paying attention. Even Maverick, beside me, was drawing crude stick figures on a piece of parchment.

"Today we will begin with 1945, with the defeat of Grindelwald. Now, during this time, the evil mastermind Dumbledore was just gaining fame. He had been offered the position of Minster of Magic twice by this point, and yet had both times turned it down. The entire world was wondering why such a powerful wizard would possibly not want to have the best job available for him at that time. Of course, it later became evident that he was after power--the power that Grindelwald held. Grindelwald was rather potent, but of course if we compared him with the Dark Lord, it would be no contest as to--"

The door slammed open and Klaus stood in its threshold.

"Excuse me, Mr...?"

"Truth. Will Truth."

"What do you think you're doing?" The teacher gave him the stink eye as Klaus sauntered back towards our table.

"I think I'm going to my seat," he replied coolly. He sat down on the other side of Maverick and put his feet up on the desk.

"What are you doing?" I leaned over and hissed at him. "Do you want to get us all in trouble?"

"Excuse me, Miss...?"

"Truth. Ria Truth."

"Ah, a case of siblings! How wonderful." Astley pointed between us. "You there. Tall skinny one in the middle. Are you a sibling, too?"

Maverick sunk as low as he could in his seat. "Unfortunately..."

"How perfectly stunning...no, really. Well, my three little Truths, because of your brother's outburst into my classroom, you will be glad to know that you three are going to have detention with me tonight."

"But that's not fair!" I yelped, standing up quickly. "Prosper and I didn't do anything!"

The professor raised one eyebrow at me. "What is that, Miss Truth? Arguing with a teacher? Are you looking for double the detentions?"

I balled my hands into fists and slowly sat back down. "No, Professor," I muttered almost inaudibly.

"Good...now if you three are done disrupting me, may I return to my lesson plan?"

"Sure, pops!" Klaus replied, snapping his fingers and signaling for the teacher to go ahead.

Astley stopped and stared at Klaus, apparently astonished that he had done something so bold as answer "sure, pops!" to his question. "Make that a detention, and you each have a foot long essay on "Why It Is Wrong to Be Disrespectful To The Professor", due to me tomorrow morning promptly."

I groaned inwardly. Another essay? Klaus, you little shit, I'm going to beat the shit out of you when we are finished here.

The class went on and on, seemingly taking forever. Meanwhile, Klaus kept doing things to piss off the teacher. This included, but was not limited to: chewing gum loudly; tapping his feet on the ground and his fingers on the desktop; saying loud, irritating things to the teacher; and making fun of other students.

We finally made it out of the class later with only two weeks' worth of detentions for him and an essay from all of us that would only have to be five feet long.

As soon as we made it out of the classroom, I slammed him up against the hard cement wall right outside the door.

"Whoa, Ria!" he exclaimed, looking impressed. "I knew you wanted me, but let's wait until we get back to our room, eh?"

"Just what do you think you're doing?"

He shrugged and pushed me aside so he could begin walking back to our dormitory. "I know what I'm doing. And I'm doing good."

"Will, seriously, that was some crazy shit you pulled back there. What were you thinking? The professor was getting so angry at your shit, I don't know what--"

"Guys," Klaus interrupted Maverick's long spiel, "You are now talking to a brand new Level Three."

Maverick let out a low whistle. "How'd you accomplish that?"

"I pulled a few strings and talked to a few important people..." Klaus responded slyly.

"Will, no, really--what did you do? You must have done something really sweet to get that high so fast..."

"I told the Dark Lord a few things that he wanted to know."

My eyes bulged. "Things? You told him things? What kind of things? Important things? Dear goodness, I hope not. Will, if you told him something that would help him track us down and kill us--"

"Ria, don't be a moron. Do you really think I'm that stupid?"

Maverick and I replied in unison, "Yes!"

"Well, I'm not. Just a few things... that may or may not turn out to be true."

"Will, that's even worse!" Maverick ran a hand through his hair. "What if he finds out what you told him was false? He'll kill us!"

"Cool your jets, guys. Everything's fine. I have a plan." Without another word, he started to wander off.

"Do you think he knows what he's doing?" Maverick asked, biting his lower lip anxiously.

I shook my head. "I'm scared the dipshit will give something away." We looked at each other before calling after him.

"Wait, Will! What kind of plan? Get back here!" Maverick and I ran to catch up with him, but by the time we caught him he was already arm in arm with Kristy.

"Excuse me, lads, but I'm with my lady now and I can't be bothered," was all he took the time to say with us before strolling off with her.

I just watched as he walked off with her. I was terribly disgruntled, to say the least. He had changed an awful lot since we had been here. He wasn't talking to us, he was going off with Kristy, being a downright little shit in classes... all of this behavior was so unlike him.

It took me until lunch the next day to corner Klaus and get him to sit down and talk with me for a while. Luckily he wasn't acting as strange, which I think I can attribute that to the fact that Kristy wasn't around.

I filled Klaus in on all of my classes, but especially what had gone down in Legimency the day before. He seemed surprised that Marcie spoke out like she did.

"I don't think the people here are supposed to have secrets." he said thoughtfully, sucking on a juice box.

We had been eating a lot recently. The food here, at the very least, was decent enough to eat. Well, a lot better than anything Annabelle could have cooked up.

"Why not? Doesn't everyone have secrets? Or -- at least things they'd rather not show everyone else?" My thoughts flashed back to Orlando and I cringed. I sure as hell wouldn't want to share that with anyone.

"The Dark Lord wouldn't want people to be hiding things from him. He wants to know everything about everyone in this place. He needs to. It's the only way to run this place. Otherwise,

"Well, I don't know. But you would think that each person in that class would learn a bit about Occlumency, just from the irritating sensation of Legimency, you'd want to learn to block it out." Klaus threw a cherry into his mouth and looked at me seriously.

"Exactly."

"I'm just glad I don't have Occlumency until Saturday. That professor sounds like a real--" Maverick stopped speaking as another professor wandered by, looking at him sharply. "--great person!" he finished lamely.

I rolled my eyes and glanced at my watch. I was surprised to find that time had gone by so quickly. "Damn. I have to get going to my next class. I have to get all of my homework finished." I groaned and leaned forward towards Klaus to mutter under my breath, "If I had known I would be working this hard I never would have condoned this excursion."

He just grinned back at me as I scooped up my notes and parchment. I stuck my tongue out at him and marched out of the room.

I spent the remainder of my lunch period in the library, looking up Dark spells to satiate my teachers. It was already ridiculous, the amount of homework I had been assigned. Two essays and practicing hexes? I couldn't believe it.

We had been learning the most useless junk in all of my classes. Needless spells, comparative arguments about time travel, disastrous potions, and meddling professors just made everything worse. I was completely tuckered out by the time I made it back to our room each night, where I would have to sit and do homework for as long as I could before passing out and then waking up only a few hours later to do it all over again.

And for all the homework that I was getting, Klaus was either not getting any or just blatantly not doing his. I never once saw him in the library, or even just in our room, doing any sort of work. I tried once to ask him why he was ignoring all the work he was getting, but he didn't even bother to respond. He was changing a lot, and I didn't like it.

It took until Thursday for our "grandmother and cousins" to send a letter back to us. Klaus came waltzing in with it while I was in our room alone. Maverick was attending a class and I was studying hard. Klaus had been out and about, doing who knows what.

He had been spending an awful lot of time with Kristy lately, but what could I do? Maverick told me the best thing for me to do was pretend that it didn't bother me at all, and maybe he'd stop doing it. I was hoping against hope that it would work.

Klaus bounced in the room, looking excited at finally getting a response. I looked up from the table where I was studying and greeted him.

"A letter from the others arrived!"

"Really?" I said, setting my quill down and resting myself. "What does it say?"

He ripped it open and read through it. His expression, excited when he first opened it, slowly changed to horrified as he read through the letter. He sneered at it before throwing it down on the table.

"What do they think they're doing, writing like this to us? Anyone could have intercepted this letter!"

I scooped the letter up immediately and read through it.

Dear Will, Ria, and Prosper (whoever that is),

We had no idea what you were talking about in your last letter. Please rewrite it and send it back.
Also, if we are who we think you are, we found a certain something that maybe we think you should know about. If you are who we think you are, then you can write back to us and tell us if you are who we think you are and we'll tell you what we found.
However, if you are not who we think you are, do not write back. Thank you."

Love,

Grandmother and all the cousins back home.

"What?!" I shouted after I finished perusing it. "That letter made no sense!"

"It made perfect sense! The part about 'we are who you think we are'--they're just playing with us!" He grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me roughly. "Kerry, maybe they've been caught!"

I wrenched myself away from him. "Klaus... that was just one of them acting ridiculous."

He mulled the idea over. "Maybe you're right. Yes, you're correct. It was probably just Annabelle--I mean, Grandmother--playing a joke on us."

"Yeah, right." I rolled my eyes. "Annabelle and her fantastic sense of humor."

Klaus nodded eagerly. "Of course...now, let's write another letter back to them and tell them who we are."

I told him to go ahead and start the letter himself. I was much too busy finishing homework