Author's Note: I originally started this story without a real plan, in a Dutch lesson. I had to describe a room , I didn't know what to describe so one of my friends suggested something from Harry Potter, this is how the first 2 paragraphs came to existence. About a month ago I came up with the idea of finishing (we never had to finish it, just do it in the class) what I already wrote and came up with the idea of Labters. I translated the first 2 paragraph of my original assignment and worked further on that. This chapter is basically to explain how the plague got in place and what Labter are, the other chapter(s) will be about dealing with them. Please leave a review and tell me if you find a mistake or something that doesn't make sense so that I can correct it.
Disclaimer: I didn't create the Harry Potter universe, the honour of that goes to J.K. Rowling.
1. The Beginning
I was walking through the castle, I had an exam of Defence Against the Dark Arts next week. I didn't master all the spells yet and had to practice. But there was no-one who wanted to practice with me.
If I just had something to practice my spells on.
I was pacing up and down in the hallway of the seventh floor while I was thinking of a good place to practice. All of a sudden a door appeared out of nothing! I have been at Hogwarts for six years and I keep getting surprised by all its secrets.
I opened the door and entered the room, it was a big room and it was almost empty. Against the right wall was a bookshelf, in the back in the left corner there were about a dozen cages covered with a blanket, there was a couch next to the fireplace which was located in the middle of the back wall. Against the left wall, there were a few of these dolls with a red ring on the chest, they were all holding some sort of wand.
I could use this to practice my spells.
I walked towards the bookshelf and looked what sort of books it contained. I discovered that it contained mostly spell books, especially the books that contained the spells that I needed to know for the exam. After examining the bookshelf I went to the fireplace and sat down on the couch, it was very comfortable. but I stood up again nevertheless, I couldn't afford to rest I needed to practice. I walked towards the dolls and got a better look, they had wheels and were made of wood, they had a skeleton like head and looked like they were wearing a robe of some kind. admittedly they were kinda creepy.
I moved one of them in the middle of the room and pulled out my wand and aimed it at the doll.
"Confundus!"
My spell barely managed to push the doll backwards. I sighted, if I wanted to pass my test I needed to master all 16 spells, some of them I already mastered, this one I certainly didn't. I started practising
I practised about three hours, by that time I 3 spells: Confundus, Conjunctivitis and Rictusempra. For the exam I also needed to hit moving targets, these dolls were great to practice on, but they didn't exactly move. I walked towards the cages, I had been curious about what they contained for a while but I had decided to practice first. I removed the blanket and saw what animals were in there. They were Labters, Labters were accidentally created when the wizard Theradel Carldrem was trying some new potion on rats about 2 years ago, one of the few things muggles and wizards had in common was testing things on rats. Labters were pink and were smaller than a rat but bigger than a mouse, despite the fact that they were originally created in a lab they could reproduce naturally,therefore they could really become a plague. But the weirdest part about Labters was the fact that they were basically immune to magic. You could use every curse you could think of on them and they would actually get the effect of it, but in 30 minutes to an hour, they would be healed and free of magic like nothing had happened. This made them very effective to practice on. Of course, there were rules on which spells you could practise on them because you weren't allowed to torture them.
I realised that I could practice the spells on them, they were on the list of spells you were allowed to practise on Labters. So I opened three cages, letting the three Labters who were in those cages free. I quickly grabbed my wand and fired Confundus at one of them. It was successful and the Labter really was confused, walking funny and falling down. I laughed triumphantly. Then I noticed the other two Labter escaping through the air shaft in the wall. I ran quickly to the shaft but was too late
"Oh no!"
Two loose Labters were enough to create a plague. I put the confused Labter back in its cage and ran quickly out of the room, if a plague started I didn't want to be the one found responsible for that!
The rest of the week I kept coming back to practice, I had realised that this was the room of requirement and I knew how to find it, the remaining Labters had disappeared and the dolls were moving now. I passed my exam easily. The two missing Labters never showed up again and when I left the castle for the summer holidays I figured that they must've died or something.
I had yet to discover how wrong I was.
