Author's Note: Howdy! Thank you so much for reading this fanfiction. We had a great time coming up with this concept and hope you have just as much fun reading it. This is a slightly au story taking place at Hogwarts beginning in the year 2020. It follows the school career of two friends who try to figure out the spell casting, growing up aspects of life. This is going to follow a non-linear timeline, telling their story through anecdotes and snippets throughout their time at Hogwarts. Feedback of all varieties is enthusiastically encouraged. With no further ado, please read, review, and most of all enjoy!
Second Year
The halls and corridors of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry have witnessed the growth of hundreds of thousands students and instructors alike. They've seen nameless horror and small acts of kindness; they've seen tyrannical and honorable leaders; they've heard rumors of darkness and whispers of interest. Nothing is secret to these walls. Especially the juvenile tricks of second years.
Holly Higgins peered around a corner to make sure the coast was clear. She held a small bag that seemed large in proportion to her pixie like body. Her wide eyes scanned the corridor and she slowly made her way toward the Gryffindor common room. She fumbled with the bag, as the creature inside had quite the mind of its own, and adjusted her grip. Nessa Squire, Holly's accomplice, followed suit. She bounded toward the portrait at the end of the corridor, her raven black hair bouncing in rhythm with her strides. Nessa, alert and ready to rock and roll, looked back at Holly.
"I really hope this will be worth it. Do you know how much candy I'm going to owe Laurence for smuggling this into the school? I'll be forking over care packages from home until fifth year!"
Holly struggled with the bag as the creature was desperate to escape. It wasn't often she handled magical creatures, and she was impressed as well as annoyed with its determination to be freed.
"It'll all be fine," she sang as she wrestled with the bag a little bit more. "Just think of all the talk there'll be tomorrow during breakfast. That alone will be worth it!"
Holly and Nessa wanted to make sure that they had a legacy at Hogwarts. Magical creatures weren't new to the world of practical joking, and letting one loose into a common room would let them have 15 minutes of fame without the probability of becoming infamous. Their scheme had been concocted during the summer in the middle of a conversation about all the cool kids at Hogwarts and what made them cool. Some were great at quidditch, some had impressive and obscure knowledge of wizardry, and some had famous relatives. But Holly and Nessa? Even Nessa's enchanted cactus wasn't enough to get her cool points with the rest of the school, though it did make a great conversation topic when she was forced into conversation. The two of them were desperate to be set apart from their peers and after about 4 and a half minutes of deliberation, had decided that smuggling a magical creature into the Gryffindor common room was the only option. They weren't about to prank their own respective common rooms, and Ravenclaw was out of the question as Laurence Copper, their fellow second year, had transfigured the creature into a spoon after their Care of Magical Creatures class so it'd be easier to smuggle into the castle. He agreed to help only if Nessa gave him a few pounds of her Muggle candy. Nessa's Muggle father always included candy in her monthly care packages from home. She was still lamenting the loss of her treats as she approached the portrait of a rather large woman wearing a frilly pink dress.
"Holly, are you ready?"
Holly was surprised with how relaxed the creature had suddenly become, and decided to peek inside the bag. She was even more surprised to find it empty. Her face drained of all blood, making her freckles stand out more than usual.
"Um," she croaked, "Can you give me a minute?" She buried her face in the bag, just to make sure the creature wasn't hiding from her. She turned it inside out. Nothing. Her heart started pounding as she got on her hands and knees and searched the floor for the black, furry animal.
"Why do you need a minute? Everything is in place! We have the password!" Nessa turned to face Holly, who was contorted on the ground.
"Okay," Holly untangled herself and stood up slowly, "Stay calm."
Nessa dropped her gaze to the floor. The bag. Was empty. Nessa's jaw tensed in rage and her eyes locked with Holly's. "You LOST IT?!"
"Well, more like he escaped." Though Nessa's death stare and balled fists would intimidate most human beings with a pulse, it didn't phase Holly one bit. "He couldn't have gone far!"
Nessa yelled in frustration, the attempt to be stealthy set aside. She threw her hands up in the air and shouted to the ceiling, "How on earth are we going to find it?"
And just like that her question was answered as a thunderous crash came from an adjacent corridor. Holly grabbed Nessa's arm and broke into a sprint towards the noise.
"Holly! What if it's a professor?"
They turned a corner and found a suit of armor collapsed on the ground, the helmet missing. There was movement coming from inside the suit, and Holly crept nearer to it. "It's the niffler," she whispered. "I'll get it." Nessa looked up and down the hall to check if there were any witnesses. She pulled her wand out, ready to cast a spell and run if the need arose.
The niffler peered over the chest of the armor and looked Holly in the eye as it popped the arm of the armor and shoved it into its pouch.
"You're going to come with me," Holly sang. She tiptoed ever nearer to the niffler, hands at the ready, ready to pounce. "You're going to cooperate, you hear? Because we're friends!"
Then niffler added the other arm to its collection.
"We're friends and friends submit toooOO THE ALPHA!" Holly lunged at the niffler and missed. It scurried past her as she landed among the pile of the dismantled armor. She gasped in pain as she pulled herself out of the debris. She looked at her forearm and held it gingerly. "Oh," she muttered. "That's definitely going to bruise."
Nessa kept an eye on the niffler and without breaking her gaze grabbed Holly. "He's headed towards the stair cases," she announced. Wand still out, she ran after him once Holly regained her balance.
"This will be a fun story to tell in the morning!"
Nessa looked over at her friend as they continued to run. Holly was smiling and letting giggles slip out in between gasps for air. Nessa exhaled and sped up. "It'll only be fun if we don't get caught."
They screeched to a halt once they arrived at the grand staircase. They began scanning the individual stairs, hoping to find the niffler. Nessa could feel her heart pounding in every part of her body. She felt the air enter and leave her lungs. She cleared her mind and began searching with more intensity. Meanwhile, Holly dangled over ledges and hummed dangerously in her search for the creature.
Suddenly, Nessa saw it. She nudged Holly and pointed at the niffler three staircases up. The duo ran up the stairs, skipping steps where they could, and closed the distance between them and the niffler. Once it saw the two of them coming closer, it causally made its way down the nearest hall.
Holly made a squeaking noise and whined, "He's the Alpha. There's no way we're going to catch him!"
The niffler escaping them was not on Nessa's agenda. She raised her arm and aimed at the niffler and shouted, "Stupefy!" She missed and the spell hit an unsuspecting portrait of an old wizard drinking tea. He shouted in surprise and toppled over into another portrait and created a chain reaction of portraits shouting and complaining.
Ignoring the chorus of wailing, Nessa and Holly raced down the hall, the niffler still in sight. With horror, they realized what it was going after.
"He's going toward the trophy room!" Nessa said, exasperated to high heaven. She made a mental note to never let Holly handle another magical creature again.
The niffler successfully broke into the first trophy case in the room. Glass shards sprinkled the ground as it unceremoniously shoved trophies and medals into its pouch, purring as it did so.
Nessa was overwhelmed with stress and did the first thing that popped into her head: jump. It didn't work for Holly earlier, but she had the perfect opportunity to…
"Petrificus totalla-AAH!" in Holly's attempt to freeze the niffler, she slipped on a glass shard. Her spell shot through the air and missed the intended target and hit her friend instead. Nessa froze in midair and her momentum sent her flying into the trophy case inhabited by the niffler. Glass shattered all around her and the empty shelves were the only thing that broke her fall. Her entire body radiated with pain and she lay there motionless and in shock.
Holly scrambled to her feet and profusely apologized as she ran to Nessa's side. Nessa tried screaming and swearing, but the only thing that came out of her mouth were gutteral moans. To add insult to injury, the niffler crawled onto her face and began unfastening her pearl earrings.
Holly immediately grabbed the niffler with both hands and refused to loosen her grip. Nessa continued to make noise as Holly sat next to her. "Let's put this whole fiasco on pause. I don't think I want a legacy any more." Nessa made another noise.
"I'm really sorry about freezing you. I really didn't mean it. Who knew glass was so slippery!"
Nessa grunted.
"We should probably get you to the nurse. I think you're bleeding."
The sound that escaped Nessa didn't seem human.
"Why are you turning so red? You only blush like that when you see Professor Potter!"
Another inhuman noise was made as Nessa screamed with her eyes. Holly turned around in time to see a tall, cloaked figure briskly walking toward them. He had a head full of messy black hair and round glasses that were askew on his angular face. His wide green eyes looked incredulously at the scene before him and he was breathing almost as heavily as Holly. Nessa again made a muffled wailing noise as she saw her celebrity crush, Professor Harry James Potter.
There were a few moments of stunned silence from both parties. It ended as Professor Potter flicked his wand toward Nessa. She regained use of her body and immediately hid behind Holly, getting redder by the second.
Professor Potter inhaled sharply and said, "Right. What happened here, ladies?"
Holly smiled and replied, "Mostly a mistake, Professor!" She tried slipping the niffler behind her back, but the professor simply held out his hand and she knew that they were caught. She sighed and carefully handed over the niffler.
Professor Potter began emptying out the niffler's pouch, trophies and medals quickly piling on the floor. The girls removed themselves from the wreckage of the case and Professor Potter repaired it with another flick of his wand. He exhaled and looked back and forth between each girl. The niffler squirmed, but was unable to escape the professor's grip.
"I'm impressed how confident you feel around magical creatures," he said. "And I'd be lying if I said I wasn't amused by this act of rebelliousness. Unfortunately, this isn't something that I can let slide. Before going back to your dormitories, you will put back all of the artifacts removed by the niffler. 50 points from Hufflepuff and Slytherin. Each."
Holly looked down at her feet and Nessa face palmed.
"And for every Saturday this next month, you'll be cleaning the owlery. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Professor," Holly said. Nessa nodded. They began setting the trophies back in their case. Professor Potter secured the niffler in both hands and began walking away.
Nessa sighed. She groaned and hit her head against the cabinet. "That was humiliating." She turned her head to face Holly. "Tell me again how this was worth all my favorite candy?"
Holly shuffled her feet and bent down to pick up a medal. She bounced it back and forth between her hands. "I'm real sorry about all this, Ness." She placed the medal in its place on a shelf and picked out another trophy from the niffler's pile. She frowned and examined it. "I don't think I want a legacy at Hogwarts anymore," she muttered.
"What?"
"I mean," she set the trophy down, "this was so much effort. And it didn't even succeed."
"What are you getting at?.."
"Maybe we should consider just being average students?"
Nessa stared blankly at Holly for a moment. "I guess we're pretty good at being average…"
"Ness! We're witches at the greatest school of magic on the globe! The only average thing about us are our wand lengths! We can have fun without a legacy… And without cleaning the owlery."
Nessa pondered this idea. "Okay. No more legacy. Let's see how this goes."
Holly squealed and hugged her best friend. "We're gonna have a blast!"