Harry Potter – The Next Chapter, Part 1
Introduction: This is intended to follow on from "Nineteen Years Later" in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It continues the Hogwarts story, but from the eyes of Harry, Ron and Hermione's children and their friends. Naturally, this is not official HP, but I hope it's OK! As this is my first FanFiction, I'd appreciate feedback and comments – thanks!
It was the Christmas holidays again. Albus, now in his third year at Hogwarts, was rather cold. Normally the house-elves would see to things like this, but they had apparently been kept a bit busy clearing up the kitchen and redoing the Christmas dinner after Peeves had been up to a bit of trickery. Trickery which – or so the rumour said – involved putting sleeping potions into all of the gravy and pouring it over all the poor little elves. They hadn't stood a chance, and now the few of them that weren't at St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries were running round without much chance to keep things like the fires going. It was Albus's first Christmas when he hadn't gone back to his parents, and – although his older brother James had gone off on a skiing trip with one of his muggle-born friends and their parents – Albus was hardly alone. For a start, his little sister, Lily was still at Hogwarts. There was also the fact that the instant the news got out that Albus would be staying at Hogwarts for Christmas, a lot of students had suddenly cancelled their seats on the train. Albus wouldn't even have considered himself popular, but he did have celebrity status more than James and Lily.
The reason for this, is that Albus was Harry Potter's son. Harry Potter, the boy – or man – who lived…twice. Although Albus was no more knowledgeable about the epic Battle of Hogwarts than his siblings, or really anyone else, he got a fair bit of fame from his father. And the minor incident at the end of last year when he possibly made a first year land right onto a bad-tempered Hippogriff's back. Which didn't go well. Or the term before that, where someone who'd been annoying him mysteriously appeared locked in Professor McGonagall's office. McGonagall had been famous during the Battle, too. She was getting on a bit now, but she was still an excellent headmistress at Hogwarts – said to rival even Dumbledore. When Albus thought about it, there had been rather a lot of accidents apparently "involving" him which had gotten him a reputation. But in all fairness to him, he didn't even think that he was doing it. In fact, as far as he had been concerned when it started happening in first year, it had been someone playing a bit a trick on him. When in continued, and escalated, he felt a bit more vulnerable. But because he hadn't done anything, no-one could prove that he had. Or so he thought.
In any case, Albus was playing wizard chess with his best friend, Rose. Her brother, Hugo was talking to Scorpius Malfoy. In a very rare situation for the Malfoy's, Scorpius had been placed in Gryffindor by the Sorting Hat; despite warnings from their parents, Hugo and Scorpius had become great friends. All seemed calm.
Later that day, enjoying an evening meal after a fabulous meal at noon (despite Peeves' best efforts), Albus was chatting to Hugo. Discussing the properties of potions ingredients was not normally a particularly popular topic for mealtime conversation, but today it was slightly more amusing.
"So, let me get this straight: you want to poison Hampufflin by giving him one of his own Salamander tails?" scoffed Albus.
"Why not?" replied Hugo, "It should work…if he takes it."
"Because," Albus argued back, "he's evil, but not quite that stupid. There's no way that our Potions Master would possibly be fooled by some First year whom he's never liked offering him a cake all of a sudden. Also, if you steal from his stor-"
"-and whose stores might that be?" said Hampufflin, appearing behind the boys without them noticing.
"Ummm…" started Hugo, though he was interrupted by Rose.
"Don't worry, sir, Albus was just telling a joke about Honeydukes – y'know, the sweetshop they had before Weasley's Wizard Wheezes take over?"
"Ah, yes…I believe I remember," he said, his voice softer and admiring (as it always was for Rose). He directed a much more stern voice at the boys, "Very well, you two, but don't make jokes about stealing things again – for a moment, I thought I heard talk of poisoning people too!"
"Thanks, Rose," said Albus gratefully once Humpufflin had turned away.
"What were you talking about?" probed Rose, pretty much ignoring Albus's thanks and turning to her younger brother.
In unison, Albus and Hugo said, "Nothing."
After laughing at their feeble excuse, she quickly became serious. "Well, please don't try anything like that again, because I won't help you if you do anything more than just talking about it. OK?"
"OK…" mumbled Hugo, rather feebly.
"Promise," demanded Rose.
"Alright, I promise," said Hugo.
"You too, Albus," she prompted.
"I s'pose," he said, glumly. He knew that they couldn't go ahead with their plans anyway – they would never have worked in the first place. But they'd been having such a good time discussing all the ways they could have poisoned Humpufflin. Albus didn't know why, but he always felt a sort of bubbling hatred when his professor was around.
Back in the common room, Rose was still in a pretty foul mood at Albus and Hugo. Nevertheless, they had a bit of fun with Hugo's new Owl, much to the disapproval of the Head Girl, Charlotte, who ended up telling them that if they didn't stop the owl from yelling curses, she'd destroy it. With Charlotte's reputation for blowing things up, and her grandmother's reputation for blowing other things up during the Battle of Hogwarts, Hugo wasn't too keen to see if she was serious or not, for the sake of his owl.
Once Rose had cured Fluffykins (a rather wonderful name, or so Hugo thought) of the his dreadful affliction, they all sat round the fire playing games. Hugo was doing surprisingly well, and Albus was grinning in delight as he beat Rose at their card game once again. About a second after he openly laughed at her, Albus ended up magically bound on the floor, with some very hairy arms. Rose looked surprised, but Hugo looked round towards the girls' dormitory just quickly enough to see a robe that looked very much like the head girl's swishing up the spiral staircase.
He was about to point it out to Rose, when he realised that he would probably be more use helping his friend to the hospital wing. Rose was currently trying every counter-curse she could to unfreeze him so that he could walk to the wing on his own. This was to no avail.
"Well, come on, help me carry him," she snapped eventually. Hugo, who had just been watching in awe at how she effortlessly sparked off spells (even if they didn't work) came out of his trance to help his friend.
By the time they'd even reached the door of the Gryffindor common room, they knew it was no use. Albus had clearly eaten a lot of Christmas dinner and chocolate, and he was far too heavy for a 13 year old and an 11 year old to carry.
"What now?" asked Hugo. Rose sighed; she didn't normally wish that she was physically stronger, but now that her unrivalled magical abilities had failed her, she was a bit apprehensive.
"I don't know…" she eventually replied, "Who could help us? I don't want to wake anyone up, though. And I don't know why my magic isn't helping – I can't even use a charm on him to try and make him lighter or anything. I can do anything to anything or anyone else," she continued, making Hugo's head the shape of an elephant to prove her point, "but not to Albus." Hugo tried to nod, but this was difficult as his head was really quite sore from the shape it had taken on. "Oh, sorry," she said sarcastically, returning his head to a normal size. She hadn't meant to leave it, but she laughed anyway – as anyone would.
"What about the Elves?" Hugo suggested, "I know mum wouldn't approve, but they won't mind helping." Rose sighed again. She knew he was right, and there was no way that they'd move Albus without help – Elves from the kitchen would be an ideal solution, but she didn't really like taking advantage of the Elves. She admitted defeat, and called them after making very sure that Hugo wouldn't tell their mother about it.#
Albus woke up still frozen…or rather, he tried to wake up – his eyes had been stuck open all night anyway, so sleep had been pretty hard. Plus, he couldn't sit up, so he didn't really think of it as getting up. Professor McGonagall sat at the foot of his bed. Albus was surprised and would normally have asked her what she was doing at the foot of his bed, but then he reminded himself that he couldn't speak.
McGonagall, however, did, "The curse on you is extremely strong and unheard of – I have developed a counter-curse for it this morning but we need your consent to test it on you. As you have no way of giving your consent, I thought I'd wait until you became mentally conscious before warning you that accepting this counter-curse test, there may be severe complications if it goes wrong. No need to panic though."
At this, Albus panicked. She did not, however, but cast the counter-curse.
Instantly, Rose and Hugo – who had been allowed to watch from a distance, given that this was their friend – knew that it had worked. The hair started to disappear. Even McGonagall, a very talented witch looked relieved.
Rose and Hugo breathed a deep sigh of relief, and Albus would have if he could.
Then there was an explosion overhead, and all hell broke loose.
TO BE CONTINUED…