Roy grinned wickedly and leaned close to Dumbledore's ear, quietly laying out his plan.
After hearing Roy's plan, Dumbledore looked astonished. Staring at Roy's mischievous grin from across the room, he asked in disbelief.
"Setting aside whether the attacker will take the bait, are you sure Miss Grindelhill will agree to go along with this nonsense?"
Roy smiled and pulled out a bottle of Felix Felicis, waving it before Dumbledore's eyes.
"I'll offer her terms she can't refuse."
"I'm afraid that alone won't be enough."
"Then throw in a little more."
"..."
In the Hufflepuff dormitory, Cedric sat alone at his desk, seriously previewing the material for tomorrow's classes.
Just then, Roy burst in. He threw one arm around Cedric's shoulders and slapped a bottle of Felix Felicis onto the desk with his other hand.
"I have a PLAN!"
Thus spoke Hufflepuff's mastermind, "Roy Vanderlinde."
"Uh..."
The next morning, Slytherin and Hufflepuff had History of Magic together. Professor Binns's classes had always been sleep-inducing, and ordinarily the Hufflepuff students would be asleep in droves. Today, however, most of them stayed awake.
Throughout the thoroughly dull lesson, nearly every student kept glancing toward Aisling, who sat in the corner of the last row, just as they had during yesterday's feast.
Clearly, the Aurors' and Dumbledore's attempts to clear her name had not done much. Rita Skeeter's article mentioned that Aisling had once used similar magic against Roy during a dueling match. Nearly every student in the school had watched that duel, leaving them all somewhat suspicious of Aisling.
Cedric sat not far to Aisling's right, and throughout the entire lesson, he kept glancing toward her on his left.
Seeing Aisling suspected by the entire school, the nervous Cedric kept reassuring himself.
*I'm doing this to help clear Aisling's name. That's right,