Liar Liar
We were taken into the dungeons, following our Prefect towards our dorms, passing ghosts and moving paintings as we made our way down. Eventually, we came to a stop at a bare wall. Our Prefect turned to face our group, looking us up and down as if determining if we were worthy of the knowledge he was about to bestow.
“This is the entrance to the Slytherin common room. To enter, you must know the password. Lucky for you, it hasn’t changed for centuries.” He turned towards the wall and said in a clear voice, “Pureblood.” A giant snake slithered up the wall after he gave the password, creating an archway where a door began to form.
Following our Prefect into the common room, we were directed to our dorms. After unpacking our bags and setting up our beds, the girls and I decided to head back to the main room so that we could get to know our housemates better. The dorms weren’t large enough to fit all our year in, and the boys weren’t allowed up with us, so we had to go back down where there was enough room for us to mingle.
We sat down in a large circle, trying to keep our voices down to avoid disturbing the older years who had already vanished into their dorms for the night. It was Mattheo who broke our chatter, waving his hands around and pretending to speak into his hands as if they were a megaphone.
“Excuse me, everyone, may I have your attention? May I have your attention, please?” His voice was muffled and nasally as he was covering his mouth with his hands. All of our eyes turned towards him, some confused and others mildly amused. “We, the new first years, are gathered here today to learn about the people who we will be inevitably sleeping with. Owww, It was a joke!” There were several groans at Mattheo’s statement, as well as some laughs when Enzo elbowed him in the ribs, glaring at the curly-haired boy. I could see him attempting to mask a smile as he did it, though, so I knew he was secretly amused.
Mattheo turned back to the group, rubbing his ribs whilst trying to keep our attention on him. “I have decided that to truly know each other, we must play a game called ‘Two Truths, One Lie’.” Again, there were several groans, as well as objections, mostly from the boys who believed this to be a muggle girls game. To be honest, I was quite surprised that Mattheo was the one to suggest it. He was a Pureblood, after all.
“Hey, it’ll be fun, I swear. Just shut up and let me explain the rules." He waited until we were all silent again before continuing. “One person will tell us three things about themselves. Two of them will be true; one will be a lie. The person next to them on their left will have to guess which is the lie. If they get it right,” he brought out a large rainbow-coloured bag from behind him. “They get a chocolate frog. If they get it wrong, the liar gets it. We’ll go around the circle so that everyone will get a chance at being both the liar and the guesser.”
Now that there was candy involved, the boys looked a little more excited. The girls were whispering to each other, obviously interested in the gossip which was about to ensue. Pansy leant over to me and whispered in my ear, “Bet I’ll have two chocolate frogs by the end of the night.”
“We will see. I am quite good at reading people.”
We went round the circle, just as Mattheo said. It was actually quite fun trying to guess people’s lies. It was also interesting to hear their truths. Apparently, Mattheo had chugged an entire bottle of Firewhiskey at Malfoy Manor when he was just six years old, and Enzo had fallen out of a tree when Blaise had dared him to search them for mangoes. Both boys had acquired two chocolate frogs.
When it came to be Theodore’s turn, he sat for a minute pondering his facts before he spoke. “Ok, the first fact about me is that the first piece of magic I performed was when Draco was annoying the hell out of me.”
“Hey!”
“I was eating, and he kept stealing all my chips, so I levitated a jug of water that was holding his mother’s freshly picked flowers and tipped it all over his head.”
We all burst into laughter. Draco was bright red, humiliated likely, and I could tell that this story was true. Theodore continued: “Alright, second fact. One time, when I was angry at my father for working all the time and not wanting to spend any time with me, I hid all his shoes in my wardrobe so that he couldn’t leave the house. He was furious when he found out and made me polish every single one of his shoes as a punishment.” He finished his fact quite quickly, which did not escape my notice.
I smirked to myself. It seemed that Theodore had a knack for troublemaking. The other boys seemed to have a similar mindset, save for Tom. I had a feeling my time at Hogwarts was going to be very chaotic. I wouldn’t have asked it to be any other way.
“Final fact about me, you ready?” He turned to the girl next to him, who nodded in response. I believe her name was Daphne. She was the one who had to guess which of his ‘facts’ was the lie. “Ok, when I was younger, I used to read all my mother’s potions books. I got really into potion making, and even though I wasn’t allowed to make any real potions since I couldn’t do any magic, I would still try to create my own concoctions from things I found around in the house. For example, I once combined orange juice, milk, fireplace soot, a dead rat’s tail and some grass so that I could pretend I had made a Polyjuice potion.”
“Did you drink it?” asked Pansy.
“Nah, my House Elf was the unfortunate soul who I forced to try my potion. She never complained though, acted like it tasted good even.” He leaned back on one of the couches and rested his hands behind his head, finished with his part in the game. “So, what do ya think Daph? Which ones the lie?”
I watched as Daphne crossed her arms in thought. I believed I knew the answer. Not because of what he had said but because of the look I saw in his eyes. His first fact was obviously true, Draco’s reaction alone proved it. But the second one had to be false. When Theodore mentioned his mother in his third fact, he had a warm, distant look in his eyes as if revisiting a fond memory. When he talked of his father, however, it seemed like his ‘fact’ was more something he wished he had done. His eyes looked sad and cold, and the fact that he brushed quickly over the story made it feel like he almost did not want to tell it. I doubt Theodore would have opened up about his father like that if the fact had been true.
“The third one was a lie,” Daphne finally decided. “It was too long and detailed. You clearly made the story up.”
“Wrong.” The response was out of my mouth before I could stop it. Everyone’s eyes turned to me.
“What?”
“You are wrong,” I said again, shrugging. Theodore was staring at me now, a smirk tugging at his lips.
“Then which one was I lying about?”
“The one about your father. You never stole his shoes.”
“But it has to be the third one. It was way too long. It was the odd one ou….”
“Astrid’s right,” Theodore interrupted Daphne.
“What?”
“But how did you know?”
Not wanting to reveal that I had been closely observing Theodore during his stories, nor out him to our entire year level, I thought on my feet, quickly coming up with a clever response that would get us both off the hook. “I know this because it is books that you steal, not shoes.”
There were several chuckles from the group, but from his friends, there was boisterous laughter, their knowledge of how Theodore and I met, causing them to practically howl as they lay on the floor clutching their stomachs.
Theodore glared at me. “You’re never going to let that go, are you?”
“Until the day I die.”
A few more rounds passed before it got to Pansy and me. I had just earned a chocolate frog off her for correctly guessing her lie.
“How in the world did you guess it?”
“Pansy, no offence, but out of everyone here, you are the last person I would expect to enjoy camping, even with a wizard tent.”
“Fair enough,” she sighed. “Alright, your turn. Give us two truths and a lie.”
I turned the frog around in my hand, thinking. What could I tell them? ‘Keep it simple and light, they’ll like that’. I can feel their stares on me as they await my response. I raise my head higher, staring back. “This is the fifth wizarding school I have attended in the last four years. I began my education when I was seven at Uagadou and did exchange programs in France, Japan and Brazil.” I see my classmates eyes widen in surprise. Even Theodore, who had witnessed me perform magic, was looking at me with disbelief written on his face.
“No way!” said Pansy, taking my hand and examining it as if it would tell her if I was lying. “There’s no way that’s true!”
“We’ll see. Either way, it’s not you who has to guess. It’s her,” I gesture to the other girl sitting beside me. “Shall I continue?” Pansy nods, encouraging me to go on. “At home, I own a cloak that changes colour as my magical ability improves and also as a result of my grades.”
There were gasps at my statement. “That’s so cool!”
“What colour is it now?”
“Can you show us?”
“Well, like I said, it is at home, but I can tell you that it is violet at the moment.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that I will not have any trouble using the silencing charm on all of you if you do not let me finish my turn,” I smirk as they instantly shut up. Of course, I would not actually do it, but I was getting tired of the awed gazes and decided it would be much more fun to mess with them.
“Alright, last fact. After Harry and I received our Hogwarts letters, the Minister of Magic met with both of us at the Leaky Cauldron because he wanted to be there when we were reunited. He was concerned that we would draw a lot of attention to ourselves, preventing us from getting to our school supplies and completely overwhelming us. So, he decided to chaperone us to make the transition easier.”
“Well, how the hell are we supposed to know which ones the lie?” Mattheo asked. “They all sound ridiculous! Attending five wizarding schools, a cloak that changes colour based on your grades, having the Minister as a chaperone!” He threw his arms in the air, waving them around as if he was going crazy.
“Well, lucky for you, you don’t have to.” I turn to the girl sitting next to me, noting the confusion on her face as she attempted to figure out my lie. “So?”
“It has to be the cloak, right? Our cloaks don’t change colour.”
“Wrong.” This time, it was Theodore who had spoken, mimicking my previous words. He was still lying back against the couch, his hands unmoved from behind his head and his mouth set into what seemed to be his signature smirk.
“Then what did I lie about,” I say, turning to him and quirking my eyebrow.
“The Minister.”
“And you know this how?”
“Accio is not a first-year spell.”
I sniff, quite amused at his comment and not at all surprised that he linked the cloak and the schools together. The Minister was the odd fact out and based on the puzzled looks from the rest of my peers, Theodore was the only one who had figured it out. Probably because he was the only one who had seen me perform magic. “Touché.”