Rumors on Rumors
Marietta had settled on a doubling spell, Alter Ego, which had oddly worked its way into common speech, even among muggles. Mastering it would allow her to leave a clone of herself in class while she was invisible. For all the known purposes of the school, she would be attending classes and taking notes without making anything resembling a scene. In reality, she could escape out of a closed door without opening it.
Before she could learn that, however, she had to find the appropriate research material, and before that she had to actually attend class. In Potions, her inner skirt disappeared, but she thought nothing of it. She had heard of brews that would make her invisible, but it was apparently quite difficult to brew, and all she really had to do was keep her legs together. What concerned her, by contrast, was the rumors.
Ravenclaw had double potions with the Hufflepuffs, and there were whispers that some first or second year had found Justin Finch-Fletchey and Zacharias Smith, and told him that all the rumors about Marietta Edgecombe were true, and that she was easily the sluttiest witch in the castle. It explained the stares she was receiving from both Houses, but what was odd was she had used the Imperius Curse to get the boy to say the exact opposite.
"He must have resisted somehow," she decided at length, remembering from last year that there was some mechanism by which the cursed could avoid doing as instructed. The wizard she thought was Professor Moody laughed at her when she did not succeed, though it seemed like a counter-intuitive lesson in the first place. Why was it ever a good idea not to do as a teacher instructed? She remembered everything making perfect sense when that teacher turned out to be a dark wizard. It was quite fortunate that nothing ever came of the fact that there was a Death Eater in Hogwarts for the better part of the year, and he was most certainly not involved with any sort of plot to revive the most certainly dead Lord Voldemort.
She could hardly help but go red at everyone's stares. Professor Snape shook his head and told her to leave, since she was distracting the class. Wiping a single tear, she accepted her first ever dismissal and swore revenge, first on the younger boy for resisting the Imperius Curse and then on Finch-Fletchey and Smith for spreading the rumor. They would have behaved the same way if they had heard the correct rumor, of course, but one course of action did more damage than the other, making it the worse. The two of them might have been in Potter's group at some point, though he might not have counted them as personal friends, seeing as they did not show up to the meeting where they were supposed to remove her curse.
After her classes, Professor Flitwick overrode Professor McGonagall's detention to call her to his office, a meeting she did not expect to enjoy. He had not wanted to handle the matter himself; that much was evident. The only explanation for why he was taking matters into his own hands was because he believed the rumors. She found herself coming round to the Headmistress's position on the proper places of part-humans and magical creatures of near-human intelligence. If he had never been allowed to teach in a school, she would not have been summoned to his office.
"Professor?" she asked as she walked in. "You wanted to see me?"
"Please, please, come in. It does you no good to act like you have no idea why you are here, dear girl. The rumors about you are quite... ubiquitous." Somehow the word sounded even more silly when squeaked. "Surely your friends have already told you."
"I don't have- well, they know why I already know about it." It seemed better than telling him that Cho had completely betrayed her. To be sure, she was still acting pleasant, but no real friend would have ever believed what they said about her. A strange look passed over the Charms teacher's face.
"Oh, dear me, if it is truly like that it is no small wonder why there are rumors. Please, make no effort to stop the rumors; it will only make them worse. If you would prefer, the teachers can dock points for anyone spreading false accusations about you."
"That would be most appreciated." It was about then she realized that the reason there were rumors about her, in his mind, was because she had no friends. Quietly she supposed that ordinarily, one's friends acted as a defense against such things, spreading good things rather than bad. She did not like the fact that he was taking pity on her, when really it was more correct to say that she had one friend who needed to learn a lesson, but it was enough that the bad actors were being punished, if weakly.
The meeting ended, fortunately without incident. Her outer shirt and her cloak disappeared as she walked through the corridors, but she took it in stride, reaching the library in a normal amount of time. Her outer skirt disappeared as soon as she was in there, but she knew it had nothing to do with reading books, since she had already done plenty of that. Unfortunately, the simplicity ended there.
Her reading material proved more difficult to understand than she would have liked. Creating an illusory copy of herself that would sit there and follow along with the lesson was complicated magic, and there was not a lot of theory on it. What she had in front of her was dense and unforgiving.
Marietta remained in there, reading and taking notes, practicing wand movements every now and then, until even Granger had left, and around then she noticed her inner skirt disappear. There was no one looking at her table, fortunately, and the library was almost empty, so she contented herself with putting her bag on her lap and continuing her study. Hours passed and closing time came, but she decided that if she would disillusion herself to leave, she may as well disillusion herself in order to stay and keep reading. With all the students gone, she could remove the charm. It was weird not being able to see her hands as she turned the pages.
At long last she was alone in her study, and she had no reason to look up whatsoever, meaning she did not do so. It came as quite the surprise when a cough came from in front of her. It was Sir Nicholas.
"Excuse me, Miss Edgecombe, I must apologize for my earlier behavior."
"It's quite alright," she said, faking forgiveness. She usually saw no point in acting angry if she really was angry. There were limits to that, of course; she could not simply keep her anger bottled up forever, but she was having a hard time remembering what the ghost did to offend her. She decided that it must have been the fact that he did not take her side when she was having an argument with Granger.
"No, my dear, I am afraid there is but one way for me to make it up to you. I heard you were practicing a spell that would render you temporarily incorporeal."
"I am, but I run into the problem of finding it hard to test. I can't seem to get it to where I can go through doors, just small spaces and around people. If I had a better idea of what I'm doing wrong..." She trailed off.
"Miss Edgecombe, I think we might be able to help each other. Try the charm with your eyes completely closed." She raised an eyebrow, but went along with it. Perhaps in addition to wand movements, there were physical tasks that could aid in the casting of a spell. She closed her eyes and said the incantation as she waved her wand. "No, open your mouth more on the last syllable. She did as instructed, but instead of drawing in more air her mouth was filled with an impossibly cold foreign object with a distinctly gross flavor. Opening her eyes in shock, it appeared the Gryffindor ghost had his manhood out of his frilly trousers and in her mouth.
If it were possible for her eyes to widen further, they would have, but it also seemed quite impossible for her to resist being violated orally. Like the ghost that made her drop the book, Sir Nicholas seemed to be overriding her will with his own. She thought every protesting thought she could think of, but it did not seem to slow him down.
"Oh, dear, you may find it a bit colder than you expected, but it only feels all the warmer for me... my, has it been a long time indeed..." He continued to invade her throat as he rambled, apparently thrilled by the experience. It seemed she could still control her fingertips, which she wrapped around her wand. She felt as though she could not cast a spell, though she had to try. The spiritual member had not flagged once in its campaign to her stomach, or perhaps her lungs, whichever would be more content to dance to its rhythm.
Finally managing to resist, she cancelled the charm of temporary incorporeality and the ghost traveled through her into the wall behind. She suspected his possibly involuntary control loosened because of his proximity to orgasm, a truly disgusting part of the sex education books she had forced herself to read. It seemed the appeal of oral contact was the simulation of the feeling of copulation without the effort, and the orgasm could just come whenever it pleased. Marietta would probably hurt her eyes if she could roll them with enough force to content her.
Hoping Sir Nicholas was satisfied, at least for the moment, at least enough not to return and bother her again, since she truly had no idea what to do about a ghost, she went back to the dormitory. She suspected that the charm to make her incorporeal could be reversed and make a ghost temporarily corporeal, but it would require further research either way. It sounded like the kind of thing someone would have tried before, but then, she was in a rather unique situation, and she liked to think her cleverness was at least somewhat unique as well.
In the Tower, she passed no one, which was fortunate since her clothes only came back as she went into the girls' dormitory, at which point she decided there was no way it was a complete coincidence. Granger must have used the word 'randomly' either out of a lack of understanding the curse she implemented, or to keep her from figuring out the rule. She supposed that, colloquially, the word could mean 'without any apparent reason', but there was a reason for everything, even if it involved a lot of Arithmancy in the unseen background.
She did her best to get some sleep last night, but her attempts to fall into such a state were interrupted by thinking of suitable ways to get revenge on a ghost. Though she could theoretically turn him corporeal for a moment, she seriously doubted she could kill him. It could wait until the following morning, she told herself, but the occasional thought interrupted her with its genius. She stared over at the other beds, thinking for a moment how lucky Cho was not to be cursed with such a mind, never mind such a curse. Again, she mollified her thoughts of revenge for poor friendship. It was hardly her fault for not being surpassingly intelligent.
Marietta took another moment to watch the other witches in the dorm before falling asleep. For a moment when she came in, she might have detected movement, but that was highly unlikely. Returning to her plans of revenge against the ghost, since that might come back around and help her fall asleep, she decided it was a good thing for all parties that the Grey Lady had thus far done nothing to wrong her.