Unicorns and Roman Emperors

by Mein Liebling

As Hogwarts students of different houses listen to the grand tale of how the Blacks became named after stars, there's a little confusion and questions about this fairy tale. . "So because of all the unicorns and Roman Emperors they got tired of it and then some genius decided that if all the Blacks were to have awful names they might as well be named after a star?"

For the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry Challenge/Competition by Uni

Subjects: Astronomy, Ghoul Studies, and Hogwarts Orchestra

Prompts:

Students are to write about how The House of Black became known to name their children after stars/constellations

Ginger

It has been in our family for generations, who cares that it's weird?

A character must hit another character

And

Blood

And

Pureblood snot

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I don't own Harry Potter.

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It was a dark and stormy night, of November 2nd, 1XXX A.D. (Actually, it was a rather pleasant day in England, but that's beside the point.)

"Where for art thou Fred?"

Fred S. L'Avantellope Michaels Unicorns Bennett Smith Gregory Regulus McFran Black turned his head to look at his (much calmer named) older brother, Augustus Juliard William Bennett Sirius Orion McCheese Black.

"What do you want? Oh, and cut the Shakespeare."

The man with long black hair frowned. "One, Shakespeare hasn't been born yet- he won't be for another thousand years, please Fred, stop breaking the fourth wall- and two, Mother wants you back home to do the dishes." Fred S. L'Avantellope-to-many-middle-names-Black pouted as he crossed his arms. "I don't want to. You do it."

Augustus mirrored his younger brother's arms but instead stuck out his tongue childishly. "I did it yesterday, and Orion did it the day before. It's your turn." The adolescent grey eyed boy shook his head and stubbornly stood his ground, pointing down to the Earth where he was currently planting… Sunflowers? Where did he get the sunflowers from?

"Look Fred," Augustus tried to reason. "I know that you hate doing the dishes- I mean, you do it very awfully just so you can get back to the garden; trust me, we hate it when you do it too- but it's a mandatory thing."

Fred didn't move, only stared straight over Augustus's right shoulder. The older boy sighed as he rubbed his temples.

"We have pie?"

He didn't budge.

"I'll pay you a shilling?"

Not even a blink.

Augustus's eye twitched as he offered one last offer. "I promise that I won't 'accidently' step on your 'cat' ever again."

Fred didn't move.

Augustus blinked. He was positive the last one would get Fred (although he was quite thankful he didn't have to lose a shilling) trudging back to the medium sized home of the Blacks.

"Hey, Augustus?" The lean man turned from his 'thinking pose' to look at Fred. "What?"

"I…uh…think I'm stuck." Normally thin grey eyes widened a tad before shutting all the way closed. "You what?"

"I think I'm stuck." Fred's voice was mild as he continued to stare over Augustus's shoulder. "…How did you get stuck?" Augustus Juliard William Bennett Sirius Orion McCheese Black's voice was just as calm as his brother's. "…I dunno." All around the small field behind the Black home, there was a resounding sound of a 'SMACK!' as Augustus face palmed. "Typical." he muttered.

Fred glared- or would have glared- at Augustus's face, had he not been, er, stuck.

"How do we get you unstuck?" Augustus wondered quietly, moving around in a circle around his brother, sometimes poking either his head or torso.

BANG!

"…" The Black looked down at his non-moving brother on the ground, who was still stuck in his same position. It would have been fairly amusing to see the usually proud boy lying in the dirt, but Augustus didn't have time to document it.

"HEY! WHAT WAS THAT FOR!?" Fred S. L'Avantellope-to-many-middle-names-Black screeched- manly of course- as his brother nudged him with his foot. "Oh, I'm gonna so smack you when I get out of this mess-" Fred threatened his brother.

Augustus sighed as he took out a small thin stick, and muttered something in Latin under his breath. Fred shakily was lifted off his patch of sunflowers- "MY BABIES!"- and was levitated into the air.

Augustus and his floating brother made the short trip from the fields to the small house of the wealthy Blacks, ignoring the complainants and screams of Fred as he 'accidentally' let go off the spell for a second. "You did that on purpose!" Fred accused Augustus.

The famous Slytherin smirk came on full force. "Maybe I did," the boy shrugged.

Fred yelled loud curses at his older brother, who was mocking him silently as he mouthed the profanity used by the other.

"Why you-!"

"WHO IN THE BLOODY WORLD DECIDED TO WAKE ME UP FROM MY SIESTA!? HUH!?"

Fred- still in his pose of crossed arms and staring over an imaginary shoulder- nearly had huge blubbering tears falling from his eyes.

"M-Miss U-Uni! We-e w-were j-j-just-" The two said in union, backing away from where the girl had threw open her window in the Black household, only about fifteen feet away from where the duo was standing.

Steam and smoke was pouring out from the girl's eyes, turning her into-

"OH MY GOD IT'S A GINGER! A GINGER!"

…Yeah. That… wasn't in the script.

Uni immediately switched back to herself. "Huh-?" All thoughts of the boys disrupting her from her siesta vanished.

Another girl poked her head outside. "Eh? What's going on?" Milly asked Uni, before noticing Fred and Augustus standing- er, one standing and one floating- below. Claire quickly joined the others at the window.

"Oh, hi Fred, Augustus." Claire waved from her spot at the window. Augustus waved back, ignoring the girly screams coming from the younger Black as he moved his wand arm.

"…Is there any reason why Fred is floating behind you? And upside down?" Milly questioned politely, her eyes flickering from one form to another.

Augustus Juliard William Bennett Sirius Orion McCheese Black looked back and saw his brother was hovering vertically downward, his face turning a bright beet red as all his blood rushed to his face.

"Oh-" The boy flicked his wand and watched with satisfaction when Fred turn right side up.

"Thanks for the care guys." Fred deadpanned, trying to suck up the snot that fell from his nose in his overturned floatation.

"Eww…" Uni scrunched up her nose as another girl pushed her way towards the crowded window. "Pureblood snot. That's gross Fred…"

Chris elbowed Claire out of the way- apologizing of course, afterwards- and frowned. "Fred, you have snot coming out of your nose."

Fred rolled his eyes, and Claire had a sudden feeling that the Black was quite displeased with the lot of them. "No. Kidding."

Her hypothesis was correct.

"Now, not that I don't enjoy this chitchatting about gingers and pureblood snot-" He shot a look at Uni, who was smiling charmingly at the boy. "But I would prefer, oh I don't know, to get out of this. It would be helpful to go into the house."

Augustus didn't move. He was too busy focusing on his manicure. "Is there a chip in my nail-polish?" He muttered to himself questionly.

The black haired boy coughed. "I said, it would be helpful to go into the house."

"Is it there? I can't really see in this light. Maybe I could ask Chris or one of the girls to help me…"

"IT WOULD BE HELPFUL TO GO INTO THE HOUSE, COUGH, COUGH, AUGUSTUS!"

He was shocked back into reality from his nail-worries and looked at Fred, who managed to find himself horizontal when the other boy checked his manicure.

"What?"

Milly and Uni face palmed spectacularly as Claire patted Chris on the back, muttering, "There there." as the other sighed loudly.

Augustus finally got the hint when he got a glare-of-doom, and quickly herded himself and Fred back inside the medium household of the Blacks and… The mixture of girls who tended to eat their food and clean.

Claire threatened to poke them with a stick the next time the brothers called them 'serving wenches'.

But back to the story.

The six of them found themselves in the parlor, Uni and Chris poking at Fred after Augustus had lovingly (Not really) dropped his brother on the couch before running over to Milly to check to see if his nail-polish was ruined.

"Sweetheart," The girl said soothingly, patting Augustus on the hand. "You shouldn't even have nail-polish. We're in the 1XXXs, remember?"

Augustus recovered from his girlish moment at those words. "Oh yeah. Right."

Fred looked, well, he tried to, around and saw that Mrs. Black wasn't in the house like Augustus said she was. "Where's Mother?" Chris shrugged. "She went out with Annabelle, Ami, and Nami. Something about shopping? I can't remember." Fred attempted to frown. "Why didn't you go with them?"

"We were trying to take a siesta."

"Ah. Right."

Uni stepped back from looking into Fred's ear with a stethoscope- where or why she needed it; it was beyond the understanding of the five- and announced proudly.

"Well this is easy to fix."

All pairs of eyes snapped towards the girl. She tried not to look slightly smug and surprised. Well, it wasn't every day you actually had the Black's listening to you and thinking about what you said. That was a miracle itself.

"He seems to have gone into some paralyzing thingy-ma-jig and needs blood."

"Why?"

Uni shrugged. "How should I know? I'm not a doctor."

That was a very reassuring thing to hear. Suddenly Fred didn't look so eager. "Blood? What?"

The girl fixed him with a stare as she sank down into the fluffy folds of a chair. "Blood. You know, the thing that keeps you alive and circulating and if you don't have enough of it-"

"Uni, stop it. You're going nineteen centuries ahead of time." Milly chided.

Uni blinked. "Oh. Sorry. But anyways, it seems like your blood is clouting- don't look at me like that, I know what I'm doing-"

"But didn't you say you weren't a doctor?"

"Shush you. Your blood is clouting and so all we need to do is get Merlin or someone as close to Merlin-like as possible to do this funky old spell on you and tada! You're saved." She leaned back, looking accomplished.

Fred blinked. "Yeah, one problem. How are we going to find Merlin? And how does blood help clear a blood clot?"

She rolled her eyes. "I said Merlin-like. Duh. We can just ask Annabelle, or Harmony, or Emily, or Bunny, or Regan, or Empress, or Muffin, or -" Augustus held up a hand. "Yeah. We get the point."

"She never answered my question," Fred complained to Augustus. Augustus delicately scrunched up his nose. "She never will. Look-"

And there was the charming Miss Uni conked out on her fluffy chair, muttering something about 'Baby Puffs' and 'Arnold'.

Fred silently wondered who this 'Arnold' was.

After a few moments in silence to think about all the plot holes in the plan, Claire clapped her hands and cheerfully said, "Well, I'll go make snacks, and the rest of you can brainstorm some genius plan to, A: Find the spell, and B: Figure out how to preform it, what you need, who needs to cast it, etc."

She skipped off in the kitchen, leaving the five, or four, since Uni was taking her well-deserved nap, to brainstorm.

Chris frowned as she stroked her nonexistent beard. "I agree with Uni. We could probably get one of them witches to do it."

Augustus twitched. "Why can't I do it?" Chris raised an eyebrow, as if she thought it would be apparent why. "We don't trust you to handle something life threatening like this for your brother,"

Fred mumbled, "Here here."

"You're not a witch,"

"I'm a wizard for goodness sake-!"

Chris continued on as she listed off the points on her fingers. "And we have no idea what the side effects may be."

"We're just cleaning clouted blood. That's easily fixed by Muggle Uses."

"That was first discovered and properly used in the nineteenth century. Keep trying hun."

"Darn it."

Chris nodded sagely, before closing her eyes and sighing. She flopped onto the couch (As it seemed that the lack of furniture and décor that was usable in the Black household came later then the first century.) and muttered something about snacks under her breath.

Claire came back in, holding a plate full of soup and bread. "Eat. I think I have an idea."

The people ate, before Milly finally got tired of the sound of munching and said, "Alright. What's your fancy scheme?" The girl flashed her an award winning smile. "Why, how know you that I have a fancy scheme?"

Fred entered his input for the moment. "Again, stop ripping off Shakespeare."

Claire sighed, but she complied when she spoke again. "Oh you're no fun. How about we just go to town and ask the Apothecary about whether there's a potion or if they know anyone?"

And so, the noble team of five set off on a perilous journey into the great unknown. Along the way the figured out that yes, Blood Clouts and being paralyzed at the same time was quite medically impossible, Merlin-like people were some of the scariest people the group had ever met, and Fred S. L'Avantellope Michaels Unicorns Bennett Smith Gregory Regulus McFran Black did get to hit his brother as soon as he was out of his 'bind' of sorts.

Then you have the sequel, but that's another story for another time.

"And that is why the Blacks are named after stars." Selene Evans finished proudly to her friends, who looked at her like she was crazy.

"But that had nothing to do with-" Carlee Jacobs started, the Hufflepuff crest shining brightly on her Hogwarts robe.

Alicia nodded in agreement, the Ravenclaw looking uncertain at the Slytherin storyteller. "There's absolutely no way that-"

Selene waved off their concerns. "No, really! That's why they are named after constellations! Actually, it's a much bigger theme in the sequel- I can tell you if you'd like-"

"No!" Ali Oswald cried, waving her arms above her head. "No. Just no."

The girls turned to look at the quiet students sitting around on the floor of the Room of Requirement. Emma and Erin Silver shrugged. "It was a good story. But really, why-?"

Selene shook her head and sighed. "I thought you guys were smart. They are named after constellations because after Fred S. L'Avantellope Michaels Unicorns Bennett Smith Gregory Regulus McFran Black and Augustus Juliard William Bennett Sirius Orion McCheese Black, that's a lot of cheese and S. L'Avantellope's and Unicorns and Roman Emperors-"

"Yeah. We get the idea." Anrheithwyr added her input. "So because of all the unicorns and Roman Emperors they got tired of it and then some genius decided that if all the Blacks were to have awful names they might as well be named after a star?"

Selene nodded. "Basically, yeah."

There was a knock at the door?-wall?-door?- hey, it was hard for all the girls to keep track- and it morphed into the form of two tall people.

"What is going on in here?" Professor Onesmartcookie asked, raising an eyebrow at the sight of the girls from different houses sitting together without fighting.

"We were just telling a story Professor," Alicia said sweetly. Emma nodded kindly as she discreetly smacked Erin (who was sitting next to her) and Carlee (who was also sitting next to her) to start nodding too.

Another Professor joined Professor Onesmartcookie. Professor TheMrsPadfoot stared suspiciously at the girls; the only sign of amusement on the woman's lips was the upward crease of her lips.

"What is this I heard about a sequel?"

All the girls present groaned. And yet again would they have to listen to the grand scheme of Fred S. L'Avantellope and his manicure loving brother Augustus. They feared the time when Selene would remember their older brother Orion and add him to the story.

But, all was right in the world.

(Somewhere in 1XXX A.D., Fred S. L'Avantellope and Augustus Juliard sneezed. "I wonder who's talking about us?" Fred wondered.)

"So the story starts off like this-" Selene began.

"'It has been in our family for generations, who cares that it's weird?'"

And the girls settled themselves for another grand story about the Blacks.