VOLDEMORT
ANYWAY, HELLO MY FOLLOWERS! (IF I HAVE ANY) WHAT CHAPTER IS THIS? SEVEN? MAYBE I SHOULD STAY IN ONE PLACE FOR A LITTLE BIT… THE FUTURE GETS VERY CONFUSING. WHILE I RECOMMEND TIME-TRAVEL, MAKE SURE YOU ALWAYS GO BACK TO WHERE YOU STARTED, BECAUSE THEN IT JUST GETS CONFUSING.
DID YOU KNOW, A FRIEND OF MINE ACCIDENTALLY INVENTED THE HOVERBOARD IN THE 70TH CENTURY! HA!
OH, YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT. FORGET THAT. UN-READ THAT.
THIS IS DEFINITELY MY LONGEST ONE SO READ AND REVIEW! I LOVE THOSE REVIEWS.
Text-Post Base: Senior Ditch Day
"You know, back in my day, we used to ditch class. Just once or twice a year, really. The entire class would go and celebrate a day off from school, and so all the teachers wouldn't know. Have you ever done that?"
These were the words Michael Crane's father had said to him the day before September 1st. It sounded like a good idea. He brought it up with his friends in the compartment they were sitting in. They all thought it sounded like a great idea. Jay volunteered to go tell the rest of the Slytherins, Dani the rest of the Hufflepuffs, Ace the rest of the Ravenclaws, and Michael himself told the Gryffindors. They were all a part of these houses, anyway. Inter-House relationships were encouraged by teachers, anyway.
Michael went up the corridors, searching for Gryffindor students. He came into a compartment full of Slytherins- that wasn't fun.
Finally he found a Gryffindor with her Hufflepuff friend.
"Hey, Alyssa," Michael said. "Listen…"
He launched into Senior Ditch Day.
"Of course, we'd have to plan on where we're going and when," he added to the end, "But that can all be worked out if Prefects and popular people from each house discuss it in the Room of Requirement. You're a Prefect, you could go."
She agreed to this idea.
Eventually, when everybody got to the Great Hall in Hogwarts, there were many more whispers flying around than usual. Headmistress McGonagall decided that students were just happy to see each other again after summer break. What could they be planning, anyway?
During the Great Feast, Headmistress McGonagall was shocked to see two sixth-year Gryffindors- Gryffindors, of all Houses!- go over and actually sit at the Slytherin table. And what was even weirder was that they all got along! It was practically unheard of!
Over the next few days, teachers constantly saw Ravenclaws sitting with Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs with Slytherins, and Gryffindors with Hufflepuffs! It was all very confusing. Why weren't the Slytherins banishing others from the table? How come Hufflepuffs were getting braver? (Uh, no offense to anyone in Hufflepuff House, by the way.) Ravenclaws were getting trickier and Gryffindors getting smarter.
They decided to put a stop to it.
At the next Feast, Headmistress McGonagall made the announcement that
"While inter-House relationships are encouraged, I shall have to ask you to sit at your own House Tables while at Feasts. Thank you."
Following this came many whispers, and McGonagall heard "Oh no! Do you think they know?" from a student that had practically shouted it out. The entire Great Hall then proceeded to shhhh! that person all at once.
The teachers thought this very strange.
After making the rule that people had to sit at their own House tables, there were faces in each house that professors didn't know were in their house. But they went along with it, because they couldn't trade robes.
Granted, but they could cast a spell that made their robes different colors.
The teachers, obviously, didn't know about this spell.
Michael and his friends had spread senior ditch day throughout the whole school, so now every student had heard of it. Every time they were asked about what they were whispering about, or "Where are you going to go when, Mr. Harper?" was very easily paid for by an excuse, such as, "Well, we're planning on going somewhere special for the next Hogsmeade trip, Professor," and "Oh, we're just talking about the lesson, Professor".
The teachers knew nothing, and at the next meeting of plans in the room of requirement Michael congratulated everyone on how good they were keeping this secret. At that very meeting, though, a first-year Ravenclaw piped up and told them of a place their family used to go to every year for summer vacation, and they owned it so nobody would be there. She brought a picture. It had a lake and everything. It was big enough for everyone to go for a day. Hufflepuffs decided to bring food because the Ravenclaw said there wouldn't be any, so that was taken care of. Somebody whipped out their phone and checked the weather forecast for the next two weeks and said that any day they could go was fine. It was decided for the day of 9 March. It would be a school day, to their satisfaction, and no rain or any weather other than sun would disturb them. Kids were asked to get owls from their parents containing swimsuits and other beach items they might have, and, let's just say, there were more owls than the post office in Hogsmeade had.
A Prefect wrote it all down on a large piece of parchment the Room had given him.
1: Hufflepuffs, bring food and drink.
2: Gryffindors, bring music. Muggle and Magical, please.
3: Slytherins, collect beach items and bring them along- swimsuits not included.
4: Ravenclaws, please bring beach-chairs and goggles.
5: Each person is responsible for their own belongings. Please remember towels and school robes.
6:All sixth and seventh-years who know how to Apparate will do so with first and second-years.
7: Third, fourth, and fifth-years will take their brooms. Two people to a broom, please. If needed, take the school brooms.
8: The teachers MUST NOT know what we are planning. Keep them in the dark.
9: All Houses are responsible for their own Years. We have to make sure every common room is deserted, no teachers must be able to find us. No student, however annoying, is to be left behind if we want to pull this off.
10: Ravenclaw Prefects are in charge of keeping track of time. We don't want to be late for dinner.
They were doing it; they were really doing it! Everybody was so excited. Teachers were worried, what was going on? They were unable to find out.
Finally, on the day before they were deemed to go, everybody ate dinner and made sure everything was perfect for the next day.
When each House was fully awake, they all had a meeting in their Common Rooms.
Gryffindor's went spectacularly.
Prefect Annabeth Jackson held their powwow.
"Alright, everybody got their swimsuits on underneath? Good. Make sure, when you come back after breakfast, everything you need is in your bag. We won't be coming back until dinner. The most important thing is to not let the Professors know about this. Don't say one word at breakfast. At all. Everybody act mad at each other so it won't give way. Got that? Good. Let's get down to business.* No, don't sing it- sing it in the great hall."
When the Gryffindors got to the Great Hall, it was eerily quiet. All the other Houses had decided to not say a word either, in case of letting it slip.
At exactly 7: 36 Headmistress McGonagall knew there was something wrong. Every table was quiet. Not a Slytherin talking to each other. Not a Ravenclaw talking about the homework and how easy it was. In fact, when she took a better look, every student was glaring at the other.
She stood up.
"Good morning, students," she said.
Stony silence.
"I said, good morning, students." She sound quite like Delores Umbridge when she said that.
"Good morning, Headmistress," they said in one big voice. But then that was it. Nothing else.
"Why are you all so quite today?"
All she got were glares at students and at her for asking this.
Suddenly, at the back of the Ravenclaw table the was a small shuffle, so small that nobody noticed. Well, it looked like nobody noticed, but really, the Houses were sending and undetectable signal to each other: Three more minutes and it was time to go.
Headmistress McGonagall gave them all a queer look, but sat down to eat anyway, deciding not to disturb the silence.
Exactly three minutes after she sat, all the Houses, as one, got up and left the Great Hall.
The teachers all watched them go.
"…Well,that was strange."
Back in Slytherin Common Room, the seventh-years had paired up with one first-year and the sixth-years had all taken a second-year. (Okay I'm going to interrupt here: I know you can't apparate directly in or out of Hogwarts but headcanon that McGonagall took that down after Dumbledore died) They'd made copies of the picture the little Ravenclaw had brought, so they all thought of that and apparated. The third, fourth, and fifth-years had all gathered the leftover first and second-years and sneaked to the Entrance Hall and flew off. (The teachers were still eating.) Those who had phones used Google Maps to get there and the rest followed.
Pretty soon (or to be exact, 17 minutes after they had left breakfast), the whole school was deserted except for the teachers. The teachers, in turn, went to their classrooms to prepare for the day- but the students didn't come. They waited and waited- but no students. Nothing and no-one. So they all went to Headmistress McGonagall, who lead the Heads-of-Houses to search the Houses and the rest of the teachers search the rest of the school.
Professor Flitwick came to the Ravenclaw Tower. He knocked the knocker.
"Feed me and I will live, give me a drink and I will die. What am I?"
"Uh.. Uh…" Professor Flitwick thought a moment.
"Fire! Fire. You are fire."
"Correct," the knocker said, and it swung open to admit him.
He raced up the stairs to the boys' dormitory. There was no-one there, even under the beds. He cast the "Point Me" spell to any magical being in the room, and it spun only towards himself. He went to the girls' dormitories- or at east tried to, as he wasn't a girl. "Let me up, I'm a teacher, for Merlin's sake!" So they let him in. It was deserted. Nobody was in here except himself. He went back to the common room and was about to leave when he saw a note taped to the back of the door. It read:
Dear Teachers:
This is the whole of Ravenclaw House, if you didn't know. We've taken a day off. All of us. There's no-one here in the castle except the teachers and ghosts. Now, yes, this may set you in a panic, but don't worry as we have been planning this out all year. We're at a beach- you don't know which one, so don't try to find us. We'll be back for dinner.
Sincerely,
Ravenclaw
He went to the other teachers with his note, and, to his surprise, Slytherin, Gryffindor, and Hufflepuff had left one, too. The other teachers reported not seeing anyone else in the castle.
So they resigned their search and prepared their lessons for when the students came back.
Alyssa was having a great time at the beach. She wondered why they hadn't thought of Senior Ditch Day earlier. As she swam in the big, crystal clear lake, she wondered if pure-bloods were wrong about Muggles, with their especially amazing invention called 'goggles' that let you see underwater. Combined with the Bubble-Head Charm, you could swim for hours without going up for air. So this is exactly what she did with Sophie.
Hector and Ash were busy slashing water on each other in the lake, and Hector got a brilliant idea to dunk him. So while he was rubbing his eyes after a particularly large splash, Hector took Ash by surprise and shoved his head under the water.
Ash came up. "Hey!" he spluttered. "What's up with-" he was interrupted by two particularly big-boned Slytherins cannonballing into the water. He and Hector both got soaked. As for the rest of the Slytherins, most were either wading in the hallow parts or sunbathing. Not many of them had gotten in the water. The Ravenclaws were having a good time with the music- they were having a dance party inside the little shack. The Hufflepuffs were taking turns swimming and handing out snacks and drinks, while mostly Gryffindors were in the water. Some people from different Houses had decided to get together and play volleyball, teaching the pure-bloods how to play when they came over. Others still who were not sunbathing or swimming or snacking or partying were building sandcastles on the beach where all the sand molds were. It was an almost exact replica of Hogwarts, except smaller. Everyone was having a good time.
When they decided to break for lunch, everyone forgot about their House rivalries and sat amongst one another. Hot dogs and hamburgers were magically cooked by those who liked cooking; Ravenclaws still held the music and the rest managed to eat lunch through all the talking they were doing of sharing their experiences.
Finally, when it was time to go back to Hogwarts, the Ravenclaws announced that they'd be late for dinner if they didn't pack up. Grudgingly, everyone changed into appropriate casual attire and set off for Hogwarts.
The teachers were worried even more now. It was almost dinner time; where were the students?
Gradually everyone managed to get back to their own common rooms without being detected. They all sneaked downstairs very, very, very quietly and sat themselves at their tales, but ended up sitting with their new other-House friends they'd made that day, regardless of what McGonagall had said earlier. They sat waiting until the food appeared, evene then they didn't eat until the teachers came in to find four House tables filled with lots of different people from each House.
Damn. How did they get in here so quietly? As soon as the teachers stepped foot in the Great Hall, everything stopped. The chattering, the clanking of silverware.
The teachers all stared for a moment, then McGonagall said, really quite politely,
"Well?'
The students stared at one another.
"How was it?"
