Pre-Hogwarts. Showcasing two of the three main OCs for this fic.
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter
Many of their classmates didn't know how the seemingly opposite girls had become fast friends almost overnight. It was their belief that the over happy-peppy girl that had constantly expressed her distaste of any book with a spine larger than a centimeter and many suspected as the perpetrator of the various small pranks that had happened within the classroom (though she had never been proven as such) and the quiet, reserved, always-has-her-nose-in-a-book, Asian girl would never mesh well. So it would come to their surprise to learn that it was actually Hadyn Nyugen that approached Emmie Summers on that fateful spring day.
Many of the classmates would remember how their teacher had shown them the live frogs that she had ready and prime for dissection. She hadn't expected them for one or two more days, hoping that they would come in over the weekend as she was planning the dissection lesson for the following Monday. When they came in that Friday, however, she took it as an opportunity to peak her student's interests. She didn't know it at the time but it would be that exact "opportunity" that would cause the entire thing to blow up in her face.
Hadyn had always been a lover of animals, having three cats at home that she loved cuddling up with as she read. This love was also fueled by the fact that she always found books about animals more interesting than anything else. Suffice to say, when she first saw the live frogs her educated brain knew exactly what was going to happen to them and her love of animals protested such treatment so her nine year old imagination supplied an alternative. Unfortunately for Hadyn this alternative needed an accomplice.
Hence it was after school that Friday that Hadyn approached Emmie with a proposition. It wasn't hard to corner the other girl; she simply informed her mom, who was always encouraging her to be more outgoing, that she was going home with a friend and she would text her later with the address and a time to pick her up, then simply followed Emmie onto her bus and took the seat right next to her.
Hadyn had made the first move but Emmie said the first word, "You're the one in my class that always has those horrid books with her. What are you doing here? I haven't seen you on this bus before."
Slightly distracted by the shear amount of peppiness that had just been directed at her, it took Hadyn a moment before she was able to compose her thoughts. "I know that it was you that rearranged Ms. Higgleton's desk last month, now I'm not going to tattle but I do want something from you."
"I don't know what you are talking about, I didn't do that," Emmie's face screamed pure innocence.
Expression unchanging, Hadyn continued, "As such you must have some way that you are able to enter the classroom even when it is locked … I need to know how."
The innocent child disappeared and was replaced with a calculating one, "Now why would you need to know that?"
It was at this point that Hadyn became uncertain of her plan, faced with what seemed to be the doppelganger of her classmate. "I...I-" finally managing to find her resolve, "I'm going to release the frogs."
The almost scary look on Emmie's face seemed to dissolve as a huge smile appeared. "That's brilliant! Why didn't I think of that?" Finally remembering the reason for the conversation Emmie swung the topic back on track, "Okay, I'll help you, but on one condition, I'm coming with you. No way am I missing something this good!"
...
"We'll have to grab a few things in order to deal with all the heavy boxes, I was thinking a trolley but then we would have to use the door and two girls pushing a box on a trolley down the road would look really suspicious. Hmmm. Well that's a predicament, any ideas?"
After stepping off the bus in front of an old-looking set of gates, Hadyn had taken to looking around as Emmie led her down a seemingly endless driveway, so it was distractedly that she replied, "The ducks are being stored at school overnight tonight, figured it would be easier to put the frogs with the them and let the rest happen."
"That is SO brilliant! You really thought of everything didn't you?"
Hadyn would have responded except at that moment Emmie's house came into view and she found herself staring at a huge manor in what appeared to be gothic style. "This is your house!?"
"Yes and no; I live here but the manor and property belong to the museum that my parents work for, they are currently cataloging everything about it and writing books about all its historical relevance and what not. It's incredibly dull." Emmie continued to lead Hadyn into the house and up a flight of stairs to a less assuming room near the back of what Hadyn guessed was the left wing.
"You can drop your bag in here; this is my room. Now where did I put that trolley, I know I hid it around here after that last time." Hadyn got the distinct impression that she didn't want to know what "that last time" was.
"Aha! Here it is!" Turning to Hadyn as she pulled a trolley from under an ancient looking couch, Emmie continued, "Now we just have to get back to school."
"Shoot! I forgot about that"
"Don't worry about it," Emmy soothed as she led Hadyn towards a window overlooking some trees. "You know that forest behind the playground?" After a nod from Hadyn, "Well you're looking at it. It's usually about a ten minute trek, but I've never done it with this trolley before."
...
Peering in the window, the newly formed duo stared at the box of incarcerated frogs. "So what is your magical entrance into the classroom?"
"The window."
"The window is locked from the inside."
"Nothing is ever locked for me," Hadyn watched as Emmie seemed to fiddle with something at the base of the window they were currently closest to. Emmie looked over at Hadyn, "You should probably duck."
As soon as Hadyn followed the advice the window swung open right over her head. Emmie wasted no time climbing through the entrance and Hadyn quickly followed. By the time that she had climbed through, closed and re-locked the window, and turned back around, Emmie had already hoisted the large box onto the trolley and started pushing it towards the door.
What followed was what spy movies would hype up with dramatic music as the heroines cautiously peered around each and every corner, maybe even ducking into an alcove at just the right time to avoid the security guard that proceeds to not acknowledge the alcove's existence or the possibility of someone hiding in it as he walks right past it. In real life it was just Emmie looking both ways before she pulled the cart into any intersection while easily dodging all the cameras in the hallways and Hadyn bringing up the rear while keeping one eye behind them.
It wasn't that hard either, their classroom was on the bottom floor so they didn't have to worry about stairs, and it really wasn't that far away from the gymnasium in the first place. The gymnasium, of course, being where the ducks were being stored overnight. Stored, not guarded, because who could predict that they would need to guard a giant box full of rubber ducks. It only took a few seconds for the girls to open up the lid of the duck box, dump the frogs upside down into said box and close the lid again before the stunned frog could recover enough to attempt escape.
…
It was the next day that kicked off the Running of the Ducks. You see in a small town of Ellath Valley, only an hour or so outside of London in the English countryside, it had become tradition for the townsfolk to set off ducks into the small river that ran through/alongside their town (and what had probably made the surrounding area into a valley in the first place). It started way back in the day when trappers would spend a few weeks collecting live ducks and then there would be a ceremony and a special person would get to "send off" the ducks as they were released into the river, supposedly to symbolize the need to just flow with the river through the good and the bad and especially with the harvest coming up.
In more recent years it had just become tradition, a time for all the townsfolk to gather and host a giant picnic. The townsfolk would go all out with decorations and food and almost every citizen would attend. Not to mention that someone still gave a speech. They also used rubber ducks now as they were much easier to acquire and manage. The kids really loved it, though, as it was a symbol that summer was coming and with it the end of school, not to mention that after the boring speech the kids were basically given free rein to run around and play with pretty much every other kid in the town.
There were two exceptions to this; our favorite newly-partnered pranksters. One for the reason that she was mostly kept out of the kids' games if she even made it to the event at all and the other because of the speech-giver. Now the tradition for the choosing of the speech-giver was that a small town council would meet to determine the most worthy resident of the town and ask them, with backup choices of course. In the early years of this tradition it was most often the town mayor that was chosen but in the recent years it has always been one Mr. Howard Blythe.
For those of you not familiar with such an esteemed man, Mr. Howard Blythe is in fact the current CEO of REM Corporations. I won't go into all the things that they handle but needless to say, it is a very prosperous company leaving Mr. Blythe very rich. The generic train of thought would then lead most people to question what a highly successful CEO was doing giving speeches in a no-name town such as this. Well, Mr. Blythe actually owns a very nice summer home right at the edge of the city, a home that currently houses his daughter, and only child, along with her daughter, and as such, his granddaughter whom we know as one Hadyn Nyugen. Seeing as Mr. Blythe's daughter had some daddy-issues and she was the one to raise Hadyn, it goes without precedence that Hadyn doesn't really like her grandfather, hence her dislike of the festival.
This year was different. This year instead of Hadyn wishing she could fall asleep as her grandpa droned on and on in front of her, she instead sat with anticipation, completely disregarding the speech and never seeming to be able to sit still. Every few seconds her eyes would stray over to the box containing the rubber ducks and the soon to be liberated frogs that had been placed on a platform over the river so as to allow the ducks to immediately fall into the water upon the opening of the box.
Another child was also looking at the box, but seeing as Emmie was in the crowd she could get away with staring intently, with a smile on her face that suggested she knew something that you didn't and when you found out it was going to be extremely enjoyable, for her.
It wasn't long before the speech was done and the town mayor handed Mr. Blythe the remote that would open the container of ducks and with a grandiose flourish he pressed the button. The ducks seemed to explode outward as the frogs immediately fled from confinement and went everywhere. The delicate women of the town (and some men) started screaming, the children started running rampant, the rest of the people tried, and failed, to restore order and one Howard Blythe had let out a rather high pitched and feminine squeal as one lovely, glorious frog landed dead center of his face.
There were only two people that had stayed in their exact positions; one happy, a happy grin on her face, glad at seeing the animals set free, the other had her head thrown back, laughing at the marvelous chaos of the scene.