A/N: So yes! I return. Unfortunately, probably not for long. Long story short - I'm on fictionpress now. Same username and everything, but with my actual novel, per recommendation of the literary agent who rejected me + constructive criticism. I could use additional reviews there, even though it's just the prologue right now. Sorry to post the first chapter of this just to get people there...
About this story - it is a sequel to "Mischief Managed" and takes place two years later. Please enjoy, even though the first bit is slightly disjointed.
Chapter One - Under a Paper Moon
"Do you suppose he'd respond if we pried his eye open?" Dylan whispered.
"I think it would be a generally bad idea," I whispered back, opening my eyes and staring up at him. Al, Dylan, and Em were leaning over my bed staring at me. When I spoke, all three jumped back and clutched each other in a panic.
"Did you lot really think he'd sleep through you leaning over him?" Will asked from the corner.
"They did," Rose answered from the other corner.
Just then, there was a loud squeak of pain. Everyone turned to see Sam desperately clutching his hand while it swelled to the size of a small pumpkin.
"That book has my Gringotts vault key in it," I explained. "It does that when someone touches it who isn't me."
"It was called Charms for Chipper Chaps!" Sam exclaimed. "How was I supposed to know?"
"Only you, Sam, would pick that up and think it was a real book," Will pointed out. Sam flipped him off with his swollen middle finger.
"So…if you don't mind me asking, what are you lot doing in my bedroom at," I checked my watch, "Three thirty in the morning?"
They exchanged guilty looks.
"We sort of have a job…" Al said finally, looking shifty.
"What sort of job?" I asked.
"Uncle George said something about 'but it's not really corporate espionage since they're dead'," Rose replied, looking pensive.
"So what are we doing, exactly?" I asked.
This was how I found myself suspended from a rope into a Muggle airshaft on the roof of an abandoned building that had once belonged to the now deceased owners of Zonko's.
I brushed my hair out of my eyes with one hand and wrapped my leg tighter around the rope that was suspending me in the ventilation shaft. I pulled the Muggle tool out of my mouth and went back to trying to remove the grate.
"You're taking for bloody ever," Rose called from the roof.
I rolled my eyes. "Would you like to be suspended by your waist while attempting to use a Muggle screwdriller?"
"Driver," Rose corrected.
"That's what I thought," I replied grumpily, unscrewing the last bolt. Thankfully, I'd had the foresight to clip the grate onto my harness, because it started to fall into the room below. The rope it was connected to stopped it before it could hit the floor and make an unearthly amount of noise or set off a load of booby-traps.
"We're good," I called, reeling in the grate. I held it while they pulled me out of the air duct.
"Took you long enough," Al said, crossing his arms at me. I unclipped from the rappelling rope and started to clip Sam in.
"I didn't see you volunteering to use Muggle tools," I reminded him. "In a Muggle building. Where we can't actually use magic, thanks to the Trace."
"Yes, yes, you're very put upon, now shut up," Dylan recommended, checking Sam's harness.
"Someone remind me again why I'm bait," Sam said as we started lowering him through the ventilation shaft.
"Because you're Muggleborn and actually have an address you could potentially give the Muggle police if occasion arose," Will said.
"Yeah, but so's Dylan," Sam pointed out.
"And I'm more generally valuable to the team," Dylan replied. "Please tell me you actually have the hair spray we gave you."
I peered over the edge of the ventilation shaft in time to see Sam give him the thumbs up and then flip him off.
"You know, it was sort of clever of them," Rose said, sitting on one of the gear bags we'd brought and filing her nails.
"What was?" Em asked.
"Hiding their company secrets in a Muggle building. With Muggle security," Rose explained. "Most wizards would just walk straight into the motion detectors and be instantly fucked."
"Yes, Zonko was a brilliant old codger before he died and locked all his secrets up, we know," Al said grumpily.
"What's your problem, Al?" Rose asked.
"He's tired and didn't get enough food today," Dylan explained.
"And perhaps also because it's three in the fucking morning?" I suggested.
"It is not," Dylan replied indignantly.
I checked my watch again. "Sorry. Four. It's four in the fucking morning."
"I think you're the only one grumpy about that, Blondie," Rose replied. I glared at her.
Before any of us could say anything else snippy at each other, we heard Sam yell in triumph.
"I fixed it!" he yelled.
The lot of us clipped into our harnesses and followed Sam down into the bowels of the building.
"You know, all the wizards who tried to get in here would've assumed there'd be magic and then they'd just be screwed," Sam said cheerily when we reached him.
"Yes, Sam, we've established that," Will informed him, leading the way out of the room that looked sort of like a cafeteria and toward a hallway. The minute we stepped out the door, we were set upon by small, fluffy, pink and purple balls.
"They're vermin," Em exclaimed, batting one of the pygmy puffs off. "And didn't your uncles breed these?"
"They did," Al agreed. "But they've sort of…spread…"
We waded through the pygmy puffs until we reached the stairs. Zonko's office was supposedly in the basement.
After we crossed several more motion detectors on our way down the seven flights of stairs, we reached an unmarked door that had to be Zonko's office.
"We'll keep watch," Will, Em, and Sam offered.
I nodded, stooped to pick the lock, and Rose, Dylan, Al, and I walked into the office. We split up to search for the files George Weasley had sent us in for.
Eventually, we found them crammed in a locked drawer under a secret panel behind the bookcase.
"Really liked his Muggle tricks, didn't he?" Rose asked as we made our way back up to the roof.
"I think that's why Zonko's was so popular for so long," Dylan guessed.
"Of course, the WWW is better, but that's neither here nor there," Will said. The rest of us nodded in agreement and hoisted Will through the airshaft back to the roof. He helped pull the rest of us out. I was elected to put the grate back in place, and then we climbed down the fire ladder and made our way towards the Leaky Cauldron.
Hannah Longbottom gave us sketchy looks as we walked through the pub at five in the morning, but let us pass all the same. Al tapped the brick that let us into Diagon Alley and then we made our way to the end and to Weasley's Wizard Wheezes.
"You found it!" George Weasley exclaimed, grabbing Al and Rose in a gigantic bear hug.
I handed him the files.
"Thank you!" he said. "It wasn't really espionage of course, since he's been dead for years, but I still figured it was better to have someone else do it than go myself."
"Do you have any coffee?" Al and I chorused.
"Yeah, sure, right this way," George said, leading the way to the back of the shop and up a flight of stairs to his flat.
"Why didn't you just have Fred and James and Frank do it?" Rose asked once we were seated around the dining table.
George shrugged. "I figured since they're of age if they got caught they'd be in more trouble than the seven of you. Also, they told me what you lot did in your fifth year and I have to say I was impressed."
"Unfortunately, it doesn't really amount to a career," Will pointed out.
There was momentary silence while George considered him.
"You did walk through my shop to get here, right?" he asked finally.
"Oh yeah," Will said, looking abashed.
"And you're supposed to be the smart one," Dylan grumbled.
"No, actually, that's me," I reminded him. Will flicked me in the side of the head. "May I go home and go to sleep now?"
OOooOOooOOooOO
September first dawned much too early. Perhaps it was because I'd gone to sleep at four in the morning, but it seemed like the crack of dawn when my mother barged into my room and shrieked that I had to get up that instant or I'd miss the train.
"Mum, I passed my apparition test," I groaned into my pillow.
"Yes, and it's ten fifty!" she exclaimed, yanking off my blankets.
I grumbled and climbed out of bed, grabbing a pair of trousers and pulling them on, figuring I might apparate directly onto the train and find a shirt then.
"I don't know where you were last night-"
Drinking with friends, but I wasn't about to tell her that.
"But I don't like those friends of yours," she said, rushing around my room and collecting the things she thought I'd need that I hadn't packed the night before.
"So you were worried sick for the first four years of Hogwarts because I didn't have friends, and now that I've had friends for two years, you disapprove," I summarised, plucking Tribble out of her hand before she could accidentally squish him.
"It's just that…girl…" Mum said, folding a t-shirt smaller and smaller while she pursed her lips in utter distaste.
"That's not a nice way to talk about your niece," I said, taking the t-shirt out of her hand as well and draping it over my shoulder.
She narrowed her eyes at me. "Not Emerald. The other one," she said. "The redhead."
"Oh, you mean Rose?" I asked. "Yes, very dangerous that one. You should be terrified."
She rolled her eyes at me while I ducked into my toilet and grabbed my toothbrush.
"I just don't approve of the way she carries herself in the world," she explained.
"That's great, Mum, I have to go," I said, sticking the toothbrush in my mouth and tapping my trunk with my wand to send it on ahead. Ever since fifth year, we've had a compartment at the very end of the train. No one save ignorant first years set foot in it anymore.
"Bye," I gargled around my toothpaste as I disapparated.
With a pop I landed in the Hogwarts Express.
The first thing that caught my attention was a pair of black high heels, topped by very long crossed legs that were partially covered by a black, lace dress. Her face was covered by an issue of Witch Weekly, and her nails were painted Gryffindor red.
Slowly, she lowered the magazine and raised a perfectly arched eyebrow at me.
"Sexy," she said disparagingly before looking back at her magazine.
"What?" I gargled. It was then it occurred to me my mouth was full of toothpaste and by all probabilities, I looked like a rabid crup.
"Would you like me to start with the fact you aren't wearing shoes, you've forgot to put on your shirt, the pygmy puff you're holding, your hair, or the toothbrush?" Rose asked.
"Well, I don't recover from hangovers like others do," I accused. "And as it wasn't precisely my fault I was inebriated last night, you have my kind permission to fuck off."
"Yeah, I'm still never going to be used to you swearing," Dylan said from the door. He noticed what I was and wasn't wearing at that moment. "One of those mornings?"
"Are you kidding?" I asked, opening the window and spitting my toothpaste out. "It's always one of those mornings."
"No, it really is," Al agreed, joining us. "You don't live with him."
I opened my trunk as the train started to move and attempted to find a pair of shoes. I eventually found an old pair of trainers and socks and pulled them on.
"You're not going to put on your shirt?" Rose asked from behind her magazine.
"No," I replied obstinately, hoisting my trunk into the overhead rack.
"Why not?" she asked.
"Because it makes you dreadfully uncomfortable, and that isn't an opportunity I can pass up," I replied, sitting back down and propping my feet on the empty seat across from me. I decided I didn't much care for shoes at that moment either, so I pulled them off and chucked them into the overhead rack as well.
"Anyone know where Will, Sam, or Em are?" Dylan asked.
"We passed Will and Em on our way to the compartment," Al reminded him. "They've got their own compartment and are taking full advantage of that fact."
"So where's-" I started.
At that moment, the compartment door burst open and Sam appeared, out of breath. "I just saw Will and Em and they're snogging! For real! They're actually snogging in the middle of a compartment in the train!"
"Yes, Sam," Dylan said. "They are."
Sam looked flummoxed and sat down next to Rose.
"Since when?" he asked.
I shrugged. "Halfway through sixth year?" I guessed.
Sam still looked floored.
"Wait, Scorpius," he said. "Why aren't you wearing clothes?"
"It's just not a clothes day," I replied drily, unable to fail to notice Rose squirm uncomfortably.
"So is anyone else excited for NEWTs?" Al asked. "Should be fun, right?"
There was silence for a moment while the rest of us stared at him.
"No? Just me then?" Al asked. "All righty…"
He looked awkward and stared at his knees.
We rode in silence for a while until Dylan looked pensively at Rose's magazine. Without warning, he grabbed it out of her hands and flipped to the back.
"Dylan, what the hell?" Rose demanded, glancing at me despite herself, turning bright red, and then putting up her hand like a blinder.
"Listen to this," Dylan said. He cleared his throat. "Everyone knows the graves of the most well-known wizards and witches of all time – Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Salazar Slytherin – have been lost over the centuries. However, new evidence has come to light that their graves may in fact be located at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."
He put the magazine down and Rose snatched it back.
"Rose, we all know you think Scor's fit. You can put the magazine down," Al said. Rose gave him a death glare and folded the magazine in her lap.
"So what, Dylan?" she asked, decidedly not looking at me. I chose that moment to stretch my arms over my head and then fold my hands behind it.
Rose spared me a withering look.
"We could find them," Dylan said enthusiastically.
"The graves of the founders?" Rose asked.
Dylan nodded.
"Dylan, everyone who reads Witch Weekly is going to be looking for them," I pointed out. "Well, that go to Hogwarts, anyway."
"Yeah, but they all lack the necessary skill set to find them," Dylan said. "We definitely have that skill set."
"So is that what we're going to do while we study for our NEWTs?" Al asked. "Search the bowels of Hogwarts for dead people?"
The rest of us exchanged looks (except for Rose, who had her face pointed resolutely away from me). "Yeah," I said finally.
Well, this should be fun.
Review!
The title means absolutely nothing relevant, it's just the song I was listening to at the time...
