A huge thank you to RisemboolRanger and Queztionz for leaving such lovely reviews~ You guys are awesome! I really can't thank you enough!

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter =( . And Credit for Nicholas Harrison goes to Syao Blossoms.


Chapter 3: Getting Down to Business

Nicholas Harrison had expected a great many things to happen during his fifth year at Hogwarts. As soon as he was informed that he would be a prefect, he had learned all he could of the responsibilities and obligations that came with the job. He had thought, as he walked into one of the prefect compartments, that nothing they said would be able to surprise him. He expected many things, and reasoned that by being so prepared nothing unexpected would happen.

For perhaps the first time in his life, Nicholas had no idea how wrong he was.

'This is certainly better than the normal compartments.' Was Nicholas' first thought, as he glanced around the large, comfortable, room. He had boarded the express early, so not many of the other prefects were in; the few who were had taken to talking in hushed conversation. They looked up at the newly arrived Ravenclaw for only a moment, before returning to whispering to each other. Nicholas resisted the urge to roll his eyes, why they felt the need to speak like children planning a prank was beyond him. Sliding the door closed, the Ravenclaw sat down nonchalantly, pulling a book from his robe pocket for entertainment while he waited for the time they would begin giving out instructions.

It was not long before another person entered the compartment. Nicholas lifted his eyes from his book at the noise of the door opening, a tall boy with coal black hair similar to his own strode in, not wasting a second before he plopped down on a free seat. Taking up the whole length of it as he laid down, an arm over his eyes in an obvious attempted to find darkness.

Uninterested in the new occupant, Nicholas turned his attention back to his book. Reading only a few lines before yet another person came in.

"Hey everyone!" A well known red haired girl greeted as she moved into the room. She was well known for the fact that she was a Weasley, Molly Weasley to exact. After the end of the second wizarding war the Weasleys and Potters had become very famous, and any child attending Hogwarts related to them was treated like some sort of celebrity. Personally, Nicholas could care less that they were offspring of heroes; not that he didn't respect their parents, but after all it was not as though they themselves had helped any in the battle. If children should not be judged for the sins of their parents, why should they for their good deeds?

Shaking his head slightly, Nicholas shifted his eyes back to his book.

"Oh? Hello there, you must be one of the newbies." The energetic voice of Molly said, leaning towards the Ravenclaw; who resisted the urge to sigh. It would seem he was not going to get anymore reading done for awhile.

"Yes. Nicholas Harrison, it's a pleasure to meet you, miss Weasley." He replied, placing a blue ribbon to mark his page before putting the book back in his pocket.

The addressed Weasley let out a friendly laugh, waving her hand back and forth in front of her face. "No need to be so formal. Just call me Molly, everyone does."

As Nicholas opened his mouth to speak, a noise came from the teen resting on the seat opposite him. It sounded suspiciously like a snort of laughter. The boy no longer had his arm over his eyes, instead he was using it to prop his head up as he looked at Molly in what Nicholas could only describe as amusement.

"Aren't you going to greet me too, Molly?" He asked, rolling her name off his tongue in a purposefully slow manner.

The Ravenclaw found himself understanding the reason for the boy's amused expression as Molly's face turned pink. Though whether it was in anger or embarrassment, was debatable. She turned to face the boy, hands on her hips.

"When I said everyone, it didn't include you, Netherwell." The red haired girl responded, hissing out the last word as though it were something truly foul. Nicholas idly connected the dots in his mind at the mention of what he knew to be the boy's surname. The Netherwell family was known in much the same way as the Malfoy family, for their pure blood. They were far less involved in the war, but it was rumored that they had silently supported Voldemort. Though there was never enough evidence found for the law to do anything about it.

"No need to be embarrassed. Call me Kael, Molly." The Netherwell male said, sounding bored out of his mind despite the way his brow quirked in mirth.

Molly spluttered, waving her arms about in the air as she tried to speak coherently. "S-Stop that!" She demanded, stomping her foot in frustration. "You are to refer to me as Weasley, or some sort of derogatory nickname. Understand? Weasley." She let out a long breath, trying to calm herself down. "Now you try." She added, sounded much more composed.

Kael was silent for a few seconds, and Nicholas shook his head in the background, knowing what he was going to say even before the two simple syllables left his mouth.

"Molly?" He finally said, sounding like he had innocently tried to refer to her right.

"No, no, no! Weasley!"

"Molly."

"Netherwell..." She grit out warningly, eyes narrowing.

"Yes, Molly?" He asked, fluttering his eyelashes, but still speaking in a nonchalant monotone.

Molly's face grew bright red, her cheeks puffing out, and her hands shaking in such a way that Nicholas was sure she was about to burst in a fit of rage. Nicholas found his emotions torn between joining the Netherwell in his amusement at how easily riled Molly was, or joining Molly in being annoyed. But, while Nicholas had no qualms against fighting when provoked, he was normally more of a pacifist; hence he decided to end the rather ridicules argument before Molly lost it.

"He's only trying to get a reaction out of you, ignore him and he'll stop." Nicholas said in a true Ravenclaw fashion, stated like the fact it was. Molly's anger immediately simmered somewhat down, and she turned her back to Kael as she faced Nicholas.

"Yes, of course. Ignore him, that's a good plan." She murmured, before slowly sitting down next to the Ravenclaw.

"Why must you soil my fun, Nicholas?" Kael asked, half-lidded eyes sliding over to the tanned boy. Said boy raised an eyebrow at being addressed so familiarly, was this Kael Netherwell hoping to get a strong reaction out of him as well? If so, he would find himself sorely disappointed.

Before anyone could say anything else, the head boy of Hufflepuff (if his robes and badge could be trusted) cleared his throat loudly enough that everyone's attention was brought to him.

"Er, right..." He started, shifted nervously. "I think it's about time to explain to you what your duties will be, so listen up."


"You know," Lorcan said, breaking the silence that had settled over the four eleven-year-olds. "If we fell from here we'd probably die." He stated in his dazed voice, as he looked over at the scenery passing by them with fascination.

"Isn't it exciting!" Quezt asked in response, stars practically dancing in his onyx eyes. He had to shout in order to be heard over the wind that wiped around them, which would leave them all with very messy hair later on no doubt, not that Quezt cared. He was ready to jump around in pure bliss at the feeling of pure freedom that he felt while crawling on top of the Hogwarts Express. He held back only because it was not exactly smart to jump around while on top of a moving train. Not when you didn't have anything to catch you.

"Yes quite." Lysander replied, sharing a dreamy smile with his twin. "Though, I do hope we don't run into any Nuffblagers."

Lorcan nodded his head gravely. "Oh yes, I'd almost forgotten about them. It's a shame really, I even remembered to pack the earplugs."

"What are you guys going on about?" Quezt said, turning his head back to look at the twins with a grin. "If we had earplugs how would we hear each other?"

The twins looked to each other, blinked, then simultaneously shrugged.

"That would be a small setback." Lorcan admitted, while Lysander nodded in agreement. Quezt laughed, before shaking his head and continuing to move with the twins following closely behind.

A little ways behind the Scamander twins, Kayla clung onto the train with the desperation of cat hanging off a tree branch with its claws scrambling to stay firmly implanted in the bark so as to avoid falling. She had tried to speak a few times (like just a second ago when she asked what a Nuffblager was), but her soft voice was lost in the wild wind; to the point that she couldn't even hear it herself. She slowly scooted forward, thanking every great wizard she could name that she hadn't changed into her skirt yet. That would have made everything a whole lot more difficult. Though really, she wasn't even sure what she was doing up there in the first place. Absently, she wished that Lysander hadn't been able to transfigure iron bars along the side of the train outside their window. She was almost certain that they were going to get in trouble for this later.

"Alright!" Quezt shouted, carefully leaning and craning his neck as he looked down the side of the train. "This should do it!" He motioned for the others to come next to him. "Think you could make another one of those handle thingies, Ly?" The half werewolf asked Lysander, who nodded.

"Of course." He said, waving his wand and muttering a spell as he pointed to a particular spot on the express. The metal of the train seemed to melt as it reformed, out and over, until there was a nice handle in place. Quezt grinned in satisfaction, and gave Lysander a friendly pat on the back.

"Brilliant." He breathed. "Now, here's what we're going to do-" Quezt stopped, forehead creasing as he noticed that only two or his three accomplices were around him. "Oi!" He called out as he found Kayla very slowly making her way towards them. "Hurry up, Kay! You'll need to hear this too!" The dark eyed boy chuckled at the unmasked surprise that flew across the smaller girl's face as he called her by the nickname he'd decided to give her. He liked to give people nicknames, though he'd never seen anyone look so stunned because of it before. Weird girl, she was. Funny, but weird.

She speed up, and reached the other three soon enough. Her mouth moved, and Quezt leaned over to try and hear what she was saying. To no avail. It seemed that Lysander understood her though, as he shook his head lightly.

"No need to apologize." He said simply. "What was it you were saying, Quezt?"

Quezt looked over his current company for a moment, from the terrified Kayla, to the eerily tranquil Lysander, and finally to Lorcan who was dreamily staring up at the clouds. How had he managed to come across such unique people?

'Just lucky, I guess.' He thought to himself, grinning widely as he began to talk again. "Right, so here's the plan..."


Author's Note: So, what do you guys think? Can you guess what they're planning on doing? I'm becoming increasingly fond of Quezt the more I write about him. I also like Nicholas' character, though I'm not sure he turned out how his dear creator had in mind. I worried a lot about messing something up, but after it got to the point that I was afraid to write just about anything, I decided to not think about it and simply write to my hearts content. Which was like a breath of fresh air. Hopefully this chapter didn't turn out too bad, though there are probably a few mistakes here and there that I didn't catch; and if you find them don't forget to point them out so I can fix them. Thank you all so much for taking the time to read this!

The character art for this chapter is (as you probably already guessed) Kael, the link to his picture is on my profile.