Chapter 7 - Halloween Headways
If there was one flaw that could be found about young Harry Potter, it was that he got bored rather easily. That was the reason he had so many projects going on at the same time. As he made any leeway in any of his projects, he quickly grew bored of it and shifted his attention to another of his many enterprises.
As it was, Harry was quickly growing restless at the little progress he made with Sir Nicholas. Hedwig, who he had sent with letters to the Marauders, was also nowhere to be found. He was proud of himself for making a dent in the number of rules he had already broken in the student charter, but he still craved that exhilaration he felt when he started on new projects or when he made a large headway in any of his difficult ones.
"Harry!" Wayne greeted as he took the seat next to him on the Hufflepuff Common Room couches.
He turned to the boy who seemed to be very persistent in creating a bond of friendship with him.
"Yes?"
"You're bored out of your mind, aren't you?" the taller boy asked, his dark eyes lit with amusement.
"Why, yes. I am. Now if you don't mind, I shall continue staring at the fire. Surely a more entertaining enterprise will pop into my mind sooner or later." he told his sort-of-friend and turned back to the roaring fire.
"Well, when I'm bored I play exploding snap with my brother. Want to try a game?" Wayne asked while holding up a deck of cards.
Harry suddenly felt a jolt whiz through his body. He turned to Wayne, his eyes wide, and said, "A game?"
Wayne nodded, more enthusiastically than Harry had seen him. Wayne started shuffling the deck of cards and explaining the rules to Harry in great detail.
The two boys ended up playing 23 rounds of exploding snap, Harry discovered that he was quite good at playing the game and wondered what other games he could be good at. See, even as a child, Harry rarely played what children interpreted as 'games'. Or at least he never really called them that. They were projects, things to accomplish. If its end purpose was to provide him entertainment of any sort, like a game would, he never really associated the two ideas. Games were the sort such as 'Harry Hunting' where he defended himself rather than 'played'. Projects were those that consumed most of his time and really just killed boredom while providing him with a good laugh afterward. With such a simple beginning, Wayne Hopkins had inadvertently woken the inner gamer found within young Harry. Of course, Wayne would realize too late that this was not entirely a good thing. Especially, as Hogwarts was also soon to see, was it a bad idea to introduce Harry to the concept of games on day of Hallows Eve.
"Mr. Potter!" a voice called to Harry as he was making his way to his favorite class: Defense Against the Dark Arts.
Harry turned to find the Nearly-headless ghost gliding towards him.
"Good day, Sir Nicholas." Harry greeted, bowing as he did so.
Sir Nicholas looked particularly excited at seeing him. "Is there any progress in line of that project you approached me about? I would very much like to schedule a time we could practice your methods."
Harry frowned. "I haven't made much leeway other than what I presented to the council. I was able to create a whiff of a flame on a real candle but it quickly died out. But I am confident to find my niche in it soon."
Sir Nicholas frowned but his spirits, pardon the pun, didn't die down. "I beg your pardon, I am just so intrigued and enlivened by your proposition that I forget that you are merely a student and only a first year. I shall leave you to your duties, but call for me anytime you need a hand or if you feel ready to start the experimentation."
The Gryffindor ghost bowed to him one last time before disappearing off to some other corridor.
"Wh-wha-what wa-as tha-that a-a-about, Mr. P-p-p-potter?"
Harry turned again and found his favorite Professor ushering him into the Defense classroom.
He smiled at the Professor and said nothing, merely entering the room while taking a glance at his Professors turban. Right on cue, his scar prickled and his smile grew wider. Defense that day merely consisted of Professor Quirrell stuttering out the paragraphs on seemingly random defense spells from their books and more than half the class sleeping the hour away.
After half an hour had passed in the Defense room, Harry suddenly found himself having another bout of boredom. He turned to his right and found Wayne snoozing soundlessly. Peeking from a pocket of Wayne's satchel, however, was a deck of cards.
Those who remained awake and were trying their best to take any amount of knowledge from their stuttering Professor did not notice when their classmate started to levitate Wayne Hopkins exploding snap cards out of the satchel, duplicated the deck, and levitated the original deck back into the pocket while taking only ten of the exploding cards out of the copied deck. The rest of the copied deck disappeared and young Harry started to reminisce of the time he was allowed to watch a classmate in his non-magical school play a simple game on a school computer.
The Hufflepuff-Ravenclaw class was dismissed just in time for them to have a fifteen minute bathroom and rest break before the Ravenclaws went to have History of Magic with the Slytherins and the Hufflepuffs would have Charms with the Gryffindors. Harry wasted no time in packing up his things and heading to the Charms corridor early. As predicted, the Charms Professor was still in his office doing last minute preparations and the classroom was empty. Quickly rearranging the desks, planting the cards, and casting a few spells with James, Harry left the Charms classroom and was back in the Defense corridor before Wayne could wipe the drool from the corner of his mouth.
"Ready for Charms?" he said innocently to his fellow Puff.
Wayne yawned, stood, then picked up his satchel. "Let's head to the loo for a bit. I need to wake myself up with some water."
After a detour to the boys loo, the two Hufflepuffs joined their Charms classmates wait outside their Charms classroom.
"What's taking so long? Why can't we go inside?" A Gryffindor girl he remembered was named Granger was grumbling outside the door. Naturally, she was first in line to enter the room.
Harry turned to Wayne who shrugged and the two stood at the back of the line of students waiting to enter.
"Why are you all waiting here?" a tiny voice spoke as it approached the assembled students.
"The door was locked." Granger supplied to their Professor.
Professor Flitwick looked surprised before waving his wand in front of the door handle. "After you, Ms. Granger.", he smiled at the Gryffindor girl.
Granger flushed then entered the room. The door immediately closed after her and the assembled students quickly heard her shriek.
"What happened to the Charms classroom?!"
This time, Professor Flitwicks jovial mode had disappeared. He quickly opened the door and entered, only to have it close again. The remaining first years all started to get worried. This unusual behavior could only mean one thing: the unknown pranker had pranked the room.
"He left first years alone but it seems like he's coming after us now!" Ron Weasley, another Gryffindor squeeked. He looked utterly terrified since he was just after Granger in line to enter.
"Students!" they all heard Professor Flitwicks voice from within the room. "Just enter one-by-one. It seems we have an additional ten desks and the arrangement of the desks are slightly different that it was before. Other than that, there is no need to worry. It is still the same Charms classroom you entered yesterday!"
Ron Weasley turned to his fellow Gryffindors, and with a serious face said to them, "We we're sorted into Gryffindor for a reason. This is it, gents and..err.. girls. Let's show that prankster that we can take it just like any other sixth year!"
"You mean crying and trying to find the counter-curse in the library while rocking back and forth?" Seamus Finnigan supplied.
Harry visibly blanched. Is that how some of his pranks were received?
Ron glared at his friend and opened the door.
After a few tense minutes, they heard his voice. "Oi! It's alright. Granger and I just have these numbers floating above our heads! You get one after you sit down! I've got a three and she has a one!"
One by one, each of his classmates entered the room and had the door close right behind them. They each chose a desk and shouted out their numbers to the person going in after them.
Rapidly, the Charms corridor began to empty until only Harry, Neville and Wayne were outside. They turned to each other.
"Well, you might as well go first. If you hadn't woken me up, I would have arrived last anyway." Wayne smiled as he turned to Harry.
Neville remained silent and stared at his shoes. It was obvious that the Gryffindor boy was nervous, which was why he kept putting his turn off and letting the other students go in first.
Harry nodded and patted Wayne on the back. It had become increasingly difficult in keeping a straight face as each of his other classmates had entered and he couldn't believe the luck they had so far. He remembered his muggle classmate losing to this game quite often and fairly quickly. Maybe he didn't do it right?
He turned to look at his surroundings and couldn't help but smile. All of his classmates had numbers floating above their heads. There were those with blue colored ones, green colored twos, red colored threes, and dark blue colored fours floating above their heads. Professor Flitwick had a green two above his head as well as he was sitting in the front row, center desk.
Harry quickly sat down on the desk that was next to Hermione Granger who had a blue one on top of her head. She was sitting at the front row, one seat off from the very right end of the row and Parvati Patil, who also had a blue one, was seated right behind her. Lavander Brown to the immediate right of Parvati and also had a blue one.
"Wayne, it's alright! Come inside!" Harry bellowed.
Wayne stepped into the classroom and looked inquisitively at all the colorful numbers on top of everyones heads.
"What is this?" he asked to no one in particular.
Harry couldn't help but grin when Wayne seemed to choose the unclaimed seat next to Hannah Abbot who spotted a green two on top of her head. That left the only seat anywhere near the other Gryffindors to be the vacant one next to Dean Thomas who had a large, red, number three on top of his head.
Wayne hollered at Neville that it was safe. The Gryffindor boy entered the room and bit his lip. As Harry expected, he moved towards the only available desk near another Gryffindor.
Just as Neville was sitting down, Hermione Granger suddenly proclaimed, "Wait. I know what this is!"
The entire Charms Corridor, the adjacent Defense Corridor, and the Transfiguration Corridor just below the Charms one, shook as the 'mine' on Neville's desk exploded, triggering the explosion of the nine other 'mines' hidden among the desks of the Gryffindor-Hufflepuff first year Charms class.
Harry, covered in soot and burnt up pieces of parchment couldn't help but smile at the now empty Charms classroom his classmates and Professor had vacated. It was completely empty.
'Minesweeper, indeed.'
The prank on the First year Charms class spread like wildfire and every step students took, seemed more cautious than before. Even Fred and George looked a bit more cautious as they swirled their pumpkin juice around their goblets first, taking a good whiff, then sipping it slowly instead of just gulping it down like they usually did.
It was the Halloween Feast and the mood was far from festive. With the students eating so cautiously and the Professors discussing various ways on how to capture the perpetrator of the various pranks, young Harry found himself once again bored.
He felt a slight tinge of guilt that he hadn't really exerted a single brain cell into trying to figure out Sir Nicholas de Mimsy Propington's problem, but it was Halloween. And after discovering the personal significance of the day, he raised a glass, toasted to his parents, and finished the contents of his goblet in one gulp. Wayne and a few other students followed suit but sipped their juice instead of gulping it down.
Harry gave up. There was no fun to be had in the Great Hall that night. Besides, the students never even took a second glance at the pumpkin pies. It was those that he rigged to explode the minute a sequence of ten people stood up from each table. He excused himself from the Hufflepuff table and left the boring hall.
Yawning, he started to wander the Hogwarts corridors. As every bout of boredom he had ever encountered in his life, he knew that this would end as soon as it began. And this bout ended when he saw a box of cleaning materials left by the caretaker on one of the abandoned corridors in the castle. Inside this box was a spray bottle with a picture of a white petal'd flower.
'Hmm..'
It had always been a game he had wanted to play for a while now and he knew that this was a one-player game.
He glanced around to make sure no one was watching him as he closed his eyes and conjured several levitating boxes with a brick pattern painted on them. Then he conjured what looked to be large green pipes, walking mushrooms, and turtles who stood on two feet.
Smiling, Harry Potter played his first ever game of Super Harry.
Jumping over an incoming mushroom, he found himself on top of one of the pipes. He jumped again and he landed on top of one of the boxes. He jumped in place and his head hit an invisible box. A glowing flower bloomed from on top of it and he jumped again to trigger its blaster power.
He jumped onto another pipe and crouched down, phasing through the floor to move one floor below where he was. He fell to the stone floor and smiled as about twenty gold coins bigger than his head floated in front of him. Jumping his way through all the coins and collecting them, he crouched down on another pipe that brought him right back to the floor above. Phasing through the castle floors or levitating up before phasing through the ceiling was way more easy than forcing himself to teleport around the castle. Sure, the distance it could bring him was rather short but it far outweighed the energy he spent trying to teleport. He now had a new means of transportation in the magical castle, and he was about to abuse the knowledge tremendously in his new game.
That was how young Harry spent the next hour of his time. Dodging, crushing, and blasting mushrooms as he jumped, ran, and laughed his way through his game. Of course, he banished and erased all evidence of his game every time he passed them, making it impossible for him to go 'backwards' in the game.
A deep rumble suddenly stopped him in his tracks just as he was about to blast another turtle. He couldn't help but grin even wider when he remembered his pumpkin pies. What he didn't expect, however, was the screams that followed long after his pumpkins exploded followed by a sudden silence that he did not like the sound of.
Waving James one last time, the boxes, turtles, pipes, and mushrooms vanished. Making himself invisible, he started to jump, skip, and slide the various corridors he had passed during his game. He was surprised to come across Ron Weasley and Seamus Finnigan on a corridor near the Transfiguration classroom.
"Are you sure she's in this loo? We've checked around four!" whined Finnigan.
Weasley shushed him. "I'm sure. No one's seen her since Transfiguration so she's probably in the loo closest to here."
Intrigued, Harry decided to follow his two Gryffindor classmates to see what they were up to. After all, he felt another bout of boredom creeping on.
The two Gryffindors were nowhere near covert in their traipsing around the Transfiguration Corridor but Harry discovered that his training in secrecy paid off. After all, he was able to enter random rooms, make some revisions to their state, and come back out fast and silent. So much so that the two people he was following didn't even notice.
His boredom, however, flew out the window the second he saw a huge walking Troll in their immediate vicinity. It was entering a loo and Harry could only stare bug-eyed as the two Gryffindors waited for it to completely enter before locking the troll inside. Taking a glance at the sign on the door, he noticed it was a girls loo. The two Gryffindors must have noticed this as well since they turned to each other and shouted, "Hermione!"
The two Gryffindor boys rushed inside the loo, leaving Harry all by himself in the corridor. Suddenly imagining himself once again playing Super Harry, the young Potter grinned. The Ultimate Boss level provided itself to him without nearly the effort he thought he would need to create it. It was like a dream come true. Not only that, but the two Gryffindors even provided him with two hostages and a princess to save!
Pulling his transfigured plumber hat down, and snapping his jumper straps, he entered the girls loo. The sight that greeted him wasn't a pretty one. The two Gryffindors had their backs to him and Granger was passed out near one of the stalls. None of them looked seriously hurt but the Troll had already destroyed two stalls and one sink. Water covered the entire bathroom floor.
Whispering a spell to make the two Gryffindor boys fall asleep, then surreptitiously moving them to a relatively 'safe' bathroom corner, Harry quickly conjured boxes, turtles, mushrooms, venus-trap plants, green pipes, and a large star with eyes on top of the trolls head.
Cracking his knuckles, and stretching his limbs, he smiled at the troll.
"Hello, beautiful."
The troll screamed in rage and quickly landed a fatal blow in the spot Harry occupied mere seconds before. Luckily, Harry had already run towards the first set of boxes and was quickly collecting the coins by hitting his head on the boxes.
The way he had set up the game was in such a way that the boxes surrounded the troll, effectively trapping it within the invisible cylinder of activity. The troll roared once more before trying to smash its club into the boxes Harry had just collected coins from. It had just gone right through the boxes, as if the boxes were made out of some ghost material. And as simple as that, there it was: his niche in ghost product development.
Ignoring his breakthrough for the time being, he continued his game. Harry quickly gathered a flower and was busy blasting the mushrooms and turtles coming at him as the Troll continued to try and hit him with its club. However, when a near grazing hit was delivered to him, he turned and blasted the club, making it leap from the trolls hands and land right on top of an empty toilet stall near the front of the bathroom. The troll became even more enraged and tried with all its might to catch Harry with its bare hands to squish him to death. But the game was called Super Harry and he did his best to live up to the name.
Conjuring a small castle around Hermione to make sure none of the debris would harm her, Harry continued on his way through the game. The levels getting higher as he magically lifted the game a meter every time he leveled up.
The troll, completely confused by the colorful boxes, turtles, mushrooms, and pipes as well as the oddly upbeat music, started to whack at the nearby sinks, flooding the bathroom even more. Harry simply went into the bonus round, going back to the ground level and making a hole in the floor while collecting his coins. If the hole went directly into one of the potions labs, it wasn't his fault. After all, he was only trying to save his classmates from drowning on sink and toilet water.
Jumping over another mushroom, Harry was collecting another coin when he got an idea. Every time he got a pass at the Troll, he would use his blasting power to hit it. The only thing the troll could do was roar then look around confusedly as Harry started running around it then turning back and running the opposite direction. Soon, the troll got so confused that it fell straight down, its head going into a toilet bowl. Its club flew straight in the air from the impact and landed on its head in a crushing blow.
Harry jumped one last time, collecting the star with eyes on top of the trolls head. Now there were many stars circling the Trolls head and he couldn't help but laugh. Heading towards where Hermione Granger was, he entered the small castle and 'rescued' her.
Seeing as she was still knocked out cold, he sighed then banished all his game components away. He placed Weasley and Finnigan at the entrance again of the loo with their wands in their hands before he left. Conjuring another pumpkin pie, he placed it on the floor infront of the door of the loo. Walking away, he started to wonder about Hedwig. He hoped she came back with a reply.
As he was turning a corner, the pie exploded. Soon, shouts of "Bloody Hell!" was heard as all traces of the pie vanished. All in all, Harry counted it as a fun Halloween.