HP X LOTM : Please Call Me Mr. Error.

Chapter 448: In Search.



A tense silence reigned inside the classroom as Loki stared at Umbridge.

There was a short pause before Umbridge simply looked at her watch as she spoke in her sweet tone, ignoring Loki completely.

"Oh! Would you look at that? Silly me, I forgot that we would have to take a test to see how much you remember from your previous years. We shall begin the test now so that we have some time left for the test at the end of the class."

Everyone frowned at Umbridge choosing to dodge the issue, but Loki didn't say anything anymore, instead, he sat back down on his desk before using his illusions to pretend like he was attempting the test.

And when Umbridge passed by his way to check how he was doing, Loki simply stole the answers from Hermione's body of heart and mind and projected them onto his paper using an illusion.

Umbridge looked a little annoyed that Loki was doing well, but with nothing to latch onto to try and get back at him, she waddled away disappointedly.

"Oh! Luna!" Loki exclaimed as he spotted the white-haired girl entering the Hogwarts Honest Mill classroom 2-21 from the corridor.

Luna turned to look at Loki and sported a small smile when she saw him.

"Are we going to draw Crumple-Horned Snorkacks? I've been gathering materials about them! Would you like to see them!?"

Loki looked at Luna's enthusiasm and found it a little hard to reject her, so the two of them entered the room at the same time and moved to the area where Daphne previously worked, her art station corner.

Luna unfurled a few drawings of her favourite creature while Loki examined them and after a few changes that Luna agreed with and some that she would not compromise on, they finalized the first drawings of the article that Luna was involved in.

"What do you think Mione?" Loki asked Hermione as she entered the room.

It took Hermione a few seconds to realise that Loki wasn't pointing at Daphne when he was pointing in the direction where she usually was, and it was a bit of a surprise seeing Luna there, but Hermione quickly recovered before walking up to Luna and peering over her colourful drawings.

".....are they part of some adventurous story the ghosts told us?" Hermione asked with a confused look.

But Luna didn't keep Hermione in the dark, and quickly explained-

"These are Crumple-Horned Snorkacks! They reside in countries like Sweden. They have poison that can transmigrate you into a different dimension altogether! It is said that those even scratched by one of their horns will be marked for life and never be able to return home no matter how hard they try!"

Hermione looked unconvinced as she stared at the strange creature that had a spiral horn, purple skin and a stout nose that looked like a boar's or a pig's and the body of a very very short catterpiller.

Hermione looked at Loki with a judging gaze and he just shrugged.

"Who knows, there might be something like it? I mean it's not like wizards have really put effort into finding them have they?"

Loki was about to say more, but Luna interrupted them-

"Mr. Scammander says they exist too."

Hermione frowned at the revelation, not able to believe it even a little, but before she could say anything, Colin rushed into the classroom.

"I got amazing pictures!" Colin exclaimed as he rushed straight towards Loki and thrust a series of pictures that had been developed recently into his hands.

Loki looked at the pictures and with each new card he flipped, his eyes widened further.

"Seriously!? How did you even manage to get these? Did no one spot you during this?"

Colin shook his head.

"No! I made sure to be quick and used a spell to brighten the pictures magically so I didn't have to use a flash!! The rest was all up to the twins!!! They kept her distracted enough for me to take the pictures and rush away quickly!!"

Loki looked at Colin with short surprise at his skill and motivation to learn potions that not many wizards in their fifth year knew and passed the pictures to Hermione for her to take a look.

Hermione's eyes widened similarly-

"You can't be serious! How did you get these!? This is so wrong!!! Umbridge will be so cross with us once she learns that we published these!!! And I doubt Professor McGonagall will take it kindly to us publishing such pictures that make Hogwarts Professor look bad!!!"

Loki deadpanned, deflating at Hermione's 'realistic' interpretation of the situation but Luna suddenly spoke up.

"Are we not going to be honest? Lying is bad. Even the Quibbler does not publish any lies."

Loki's smile widened and he quickly nodded at the implication of those words since the Hogwarts Honest Mill was literally supposed to be honest, it was in their name!

Everyone looked at Hermione with moony eyes, especially her two juniors who seemed eager.

Loki noticed the unwilling expression on Hermione's face and *sighed*, but since he didn't have the heart to reject his juniors he played 'devil's advocate', sort of.

"I have a feeling as a fortune teller that these images will help us much more in the coming days! Let's keep it for then!"

Noticing that Loki was helping her, Hermione spoke quickly.

"These images are good Colin. And Luna, you are right. We need to speak the truth. So why don't we do this? I have a suspicion that Professor Umbridge isn't being truthful with us about her purpose here at Hogwarts. Why don't we figure that out and let everyone know about her lies!?"

"Really?" Colin asked with wide eyes as he looked at Loki, but before he could say anything, Luna interrupted.

"The wackspurts don't like her very much, and wackspurts only don't like people who lie."

The implication was clear, Luna was on board too.

As such, the staff of the four people at Hogwarts Honest Mill began to collect material for their new article on Umbridge. Each person focusing on a different direction in their research.

Colin was tasked with collecting more pictures, Luna was going to talk to the wackspurts, and Hermione was contacting Umbridge's classmates and possible ex-colleagues who might have a thing or two to say about her.

Loki in the meantime consulted with the ghosts and tried asking them what they thought Umbridge was here to do, trying even to see if they had any orders from Dumbledore regarding how they could handle Umbridge.

Loki studied their bodies of heart and mind but didn't really find much other than the fact that Dumbledore had told them to help students escape Umbridge if she was ever in the corridors.

With none of them knowing much, Loki turned to his trusty reliable ghostly friend-

"Helena, could you help me out?"

"...what is it?"

"Really? You're so cold with me after I helped you find your mom!? And helped your dad!!??" Loki nearly shouted at the injustice, but he knew that Helena simply talking to him was an achievement in itself since she ignored most students.

As such, he quickly continued before she might decide to change her mind and ignore him like the other students.

"I'd like to know if you can 'learn' more about a certain Professor that likes pink too much and could happen to accidentally tell me about it."

Helena's eyes narrowed.

But when she saw that Loki was serious about it she spoke calmly-

"Fine."

Helena could snoop around very easily, especially because she was a wraith and could hide in plenty of reflective items, and Loki knew this so he waited patiently for the next day to arrive when he might learn something 'incriminating' about Umbridge.

She rubbed him the wrong way and Loki intuitively felt as if having more information about the woman would be nice for him.

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