Chapter Ten:

Prank Wars

Tuesday, November 30th,1993,

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry,

Kali Kalakaua Lupin Morrigan Black,

"He's a despicable human being," Kali ranted, pacing up and down Remus's comfy little living room in his quarters.

Remus had decided to eat in tonight rather than battle the castle's many staircases. So after dinner, Kali had gone to see the house-elves in the kitchens to thank them for the meal and they'd piled as much food into her arms as she could carry, and she'd brought it all up to Remus who'd still been ravenous – unsurprisingly. It was after he'd asked her about her day and she'd skirted around the topic of Snape's Defence the Dark Arts lesson that he'd realized something was wrong. Unfortunately he was a smart man who knew her far too well: he was quick to figure out that if she was refusing to talk about it, then it had something to do with him, and that she was trying to protect his feelings by keeping it from him. She'd forced herself to tell him then, because she knew that his imagination and fretting would blow it out of proportion if he was left in the dark. She told him and she saw the look in his eyes, despite how he tried to hide it: the hurt, and the worry, and the disgust – not directed at Snape, but at himself; and she'd felt the familiar itching in her veins of anger boiling just beneath the surface, because how dare he be angry with himself? How dare he blame himself and hate himself? But shouting at him would do no good, telling him he was worth more would do no good, it never did. So she turned her rage onto the person who most deserved it.

"He's cruel and bigoted and he's not fit to teach."

Remus didn't say anything. He sat back, and he let her pace and shout, and he let her be angry.

"Not only did that git deliberately take away your chance to teach about an issue that personally affects you, to teach it as it should be taught, to educate students that people with lycanthropy should be treated, not as monsters, but as people with an affliction; but he also took away our chance to learn about werewolves from the unique perspective of someone who is personally affected by the issue and bloody grew up with it. He took away your right to represent yourself, and for that he's -"

She was too frustrated to find the words so she groaned and dropped onto the couch, running her hands through her hair.

"I hate him," she said instead. "I hate him and he deserves worse than what I did to Ryan."

Remus hadn't been in the most jovial of moods before, but the mention of Ryan sent him into a panic.

"Kali -"

"I won't do anything," she said stiffly, she did not want to go through that lecture again, "because I know that it will upset you, but know that that is the only reason. If I thought I could get away with it…." She shook her head and stared off out the window. Tears were stinging in her eyes, and her voice shook as she said: "He's a bad person."

Remus sighed and came to sit next to her, wrapping his arm around her shoulders and resting his chin on top of her head. "I know, sweetheart, but we do not lower ourselves to that level, because if we do then we're not better than he is."

"So we let him get away with it?"

Another sigh, this one heavier than the last. "No. But you have to learn to choose your battles."

"Will you be mad if I choose this one?"

"I won't be mad. But promise me you won't…." His sentence trailed off uncomfortably but she knew what he'd meant to say.

"There will not be another Ryan incident, I promise," she said softly, and he kissed the top of her head and moved on to a less troublesome conversation topic, but Kali's mind was elsewhere.

Ryan Denton had been a student at Ilvermorny when Kali had been there. He'd been in his last year, while Kali was in her first, and halfway through the second semester Kali had found a girl bleeding out in one of the bathrooms. Isla Jones had slit her wrists after Ryan had forced her to do things…. The school nurse had gotten to her in time, but Isla was never the same after. She'd been too frightened and humiliated to testify, and despite all the proof against Ryan, the faculty had done nothing. Kali had never been so angry. She'd wanted to hurt him, to break him like he'd tried to break Isla; so that's what she did. It took her a couple of months, but eventually she'd managed it: using information and techniques that she'd been taught by both Remus and Grandpa Lyall, she'd trapped a dozen boggarts in an old classroom that was never used, then she'd led Ryan into that room and locked him in.

She wasn't proud of what she did, but neither was she remorseful; it wasn't the best way to deal with the situation, but he'd deserved to be punished, and Isla had deserved to walk the halls of Ilvermorny without having to see him there laughing with his friends without a care in the world. Ryan had been sent to a magical mental institute in New York where he remained to this day, and Isla was now working to become an Auror for the MACUSA; Pan kept trying to use this as proof that being judge, jury, and executioner all in one wasn't necessarily a bad thing, but Kali knew that so long as Remus was around she would never pull a stunt like that again, because she never again wanted him to to look at her the way he had when he'd found out what she'd done.

She'd find another way to deal with Snape.

Saturday, December 4th, 1993,

Kali was woken by a strong clap of thunder on the morning of the Quidditch match. The weather had been horrendous all week, but it had worsened steadily as the match drew nearer.

"I would not want to fly in this," said Pan, who was currently outside rolling around in the mud as an elephant, while the rain and hale beat down on him.

"This is ridiculous," she said, pulling on the warmest clothes she could find as quietly as possible so as to not wake up her roommates. "The players aren't going to be able to see anything. They should cancel the match."

"It's Quidditch," he said, shaking off the mud and smoothly diving beneath the turbulent surface of the lake as a narwhal, "you don't cancel Quidditch."

"That is a terrible rule." She sneaked out of the dorm, only to realize there was no need: her roommates beds were empty. "What time is it?"

"How should I know?" he said unhelpfully.

She found her watch on her nightstand: half past eight. She'd slept in, which wasn't all that surprising given what time she'd gone to bed last night. Shrugging it off she got to the Common Room in time to hear Draco and the rest of the Slytherin Quidditch team lamenting to the gathered crowd Draco's untimely injury which made them unable to play today. Kali scoffed as she passed and she did not go unheard.

"You got something to say, Black?" grunted Marcus Flint, the team's Captain, a tall, and broad, dark-haired boy who was repeating his Seventh Year because he'd failed his exams the first time around.

"Do not engage," Pan warned while he played at poking random Grindylows hidden in the seaweed with his sword-like tooth then transforming into a pygmy seahorse until they calmed down, and starting all over again.

Predictably, she ignored him. "Just wondering whether Draco enjoys playing the weakling."

"I'm not weak," Draco spat.

"I didn't say you were weak, I said you were pretending to be, either because you're a drama queen or because you're too scared to go up against Gryffindor in this weather."

"I'm not scared."

"Then you admit to being a drama queen?"

"No!" His cheeks were tinged red and she was almost convinced he was going to stamp his foot.

"Then why back out of the game?"

"My arm isn't healed yet."

"You managed to play during the Slytherin versus Ravenclaw match last month."

"I guess I overexerted it."

"Of course, I didn't realize you were so frail."

"I am not frail!"

"It's one or the other: either you're worried your teammates and yourself aren't good enough to beat the Gryffindor team; or your body's too weak to heal from an insignificant little scratch. Or perhaps it's both."

"I was attacked by a hippogriff!"

"And I saved your hide before any real damage could be done, remember that? Regardless, I was only asking because if the reason for not playing is the weather, then I was wondering if you recalled that the Gryffindor Seeker wears glasses?"

"Of course I know Potter wears glasses, his eyesight's as awful as the rest of him."

"Knowing that, did you stop to think that perhaps the rain might be more detrimental to his vision than it is to yours?" Silence. "I've seen him play during his practices: he's good; better than you and you know it. There's nothing wrong with that, but given the circumstances, you want to be taking every advantage you can get, and low visibility would have worked for you. So I just wanted to say that this may not have been a good strategy on your part; but good luck trying to beat Gryffindor when the weather gets better."

She walked away, leaving them staring after her open-mouthed. Spotting Daphne over by one of the small clusters of armchairs, Kali headed for her.

"You really shouldn't rile them up like that," said Daphne, looking up from her book as Kali plopped down in the seat in front of hers.

"I wouldn't do if they weren't such gits."

"Just so you know: if you wear red and gold to the Gryffindor versus Slytherin game, I'm going to pretend I don't know you."

Kali smirked. "And here I was, thinking we were friends."

"We are friends, but I'm not as perilously impulsive as you are."

"I'm not impulsive," she scoffed. "All my actions are perfectly well thought out beforehand."

"That makes it so much worse."

The girls laughed and headed up to breakfast.

Despite the thunderstorm, the whole school turned out to watch the match, but they ran down the lawns toward the Quidditch field, heads bowed against the ferocious wind, umbrellas being whipped out of their hands as they went. Rather than risk an umbrella, Kali used a Water Repelling Charm to keep herself and her friends dry, but it did nothing to protect them from the strong gusts that had them staggering sideways as they walked to the elevated bleachers. It wasn't much better after they found seats: the wind roared; the thunder rumbled overhead; the gale pounded against the stands around them; the trees in the Forbidden Forest swayed and creaked; and they could barely hear the crowd cheering over the fresh rolls of thunder. It was difficult to concentrate on anything but the weather.

The players walked out onto the field, blurry outlines of scarlet-red and canary-yellow, and Kali thought that perhaps it wasn't such a bad thing Slytherin wasn't playing today, because with the team's darkly coloured Quidditch robes they wouldn't be visible at all. Kali didn't hear the whistle blow, but it must of done because fourteen players rose up into the stormy sky, swerving slightly with the wind.

Even with her enhanced vision she had to squint to see anything, and still it was just blurs. She could barely make out the commentary, but from what she could gather Gryffindor was in the lead although only barely.

The sky was getting darker and darker and it was impossible to distinguish which team each player belonged; everyone was now so wet, and the rain so thick, you could hardly tell them apart...

With the first flash of lightning came the sound of Madam Hooch's whistle; the Gryffindor Captain had called a time-out and the teams splashed down into the mud.

"What's the score?" Blaise shouted to be heard over the clap of thunder.

"Gryffindor is fifty points up," Kali shouted back.

"They better catch the Snitch soon or we'll be here all night."

The game was back on, the forked lightning adding some much needed light to the pitch, but making it all the more dangerous to be out here. Someone needed to catch the Snitch right now.

Just as that thought crossed her mind another flash of lightning illuminated the Hufflepuff Seeker, Cedric Diggory, pelting up the field, a tiny speck of gold shimmering in the rain-filled air in front of him. Harry noticed it too, and he threw himself flat on to his broom handle and zoomed toward the Snitch.

But something odd was happening. An eerie silence was falling across the stadium. The wind, though as strong as ever, was forgetting to roar. It was as though someone had turned off the sound, as though Kali had gone suddenly deaf – what was going on?

And then a horribly familiar wave of cold swept over her, inside her, just as she became aware of something moving on the field below…

At least a hundred dementors, their hidden faces pointing up at the players, were standing beneath them. It was as though freezing water were rising in Kali's chest, cutting at her insides…

"Kali, block them out." Pan's voice broke through the icy mist and she clung to it. She melded her mind with his, feeling the wind slice through his feathers, the rain weighing him down, his talons catching in the soaking wet material of scarlet Quidditch robes –

Kali snapped her eyes open and jumped to her feet. Harry had fallen from his broom; Pan was slowing his fall as best as he could but the weight difference made it a fruitless battle. A tall figure rushed out onto the field, and with a short wand wave Harry's fall lost its momentum, like he was plummeting in slow motion, and he hit the ground with much less force than he'd been going to.

Pan turned into a tiger and stood over Harry's limp body protectively, baring his teeth at the approaching dementors. The tall man – Dumbledore – started shouting furiously at the hooded figures, but they kept advancing until he cast a Patronus and a silvery phoenix shot out of the tip of his wand and the dementors scattered. Pan watched Dumbledore warily as the anger etched into the old man's face faded away until it remained only in his blazing blue eyes.

"I can take it from here, Pandoran," he said softly, but Pan didn't uncoil his muscles.

"Let him help," said Kali and he slowly moved off of Harry.

The rest of the players all landed in the mud with a squelch and Dumbledore magicked Harry onto a stretcher, quickly walking up to the school with Harry floating beside him, before the boy's teammates could crowd in. Pan followed at a trot; his sharp hearing focused on Harry's uneven breathing and thundering heartbeats, and Kali's own heart rate unwittingly sped up to match his.

There was a commotion down on the pitch; Diggory was waving the Snitch around, trying to get Madam Hooch to agree to a Hufflepuff versus Gryffindor rematch, but he'd caught the Snitch before Harry had fallen, fair and square. People were rushing from the stands to the castle, and Daphne dragged Kali along with them.

Sunday, December5th,1993

Harry's fall was the talk of the school that day. There was a brief worry among the students that he hadn't survived it which was quickly dissipated when his teammates were let into the hospital wing to visit him. Professor Flitwick carried in the remains of Harry's broom which had flown straight into the Whomping Willow after he'd fallen, and Kali hexed Draco's vocal cords to make him sound like a monkey whenever he opened his mouth after he made some disparaging comments regarding Harry's flying skills and the Gryffindor team's dwindling chances at winning the Quidditch Cup.

Madam Pomfrey insisted on keeping Harry in the hospital wing for the rest of the weekend, and while Kali had joined in his steady stream of visitors, Pan had refused to leave his side ever since the fall.

It was on Sunday night, when Kali was wandering the halls – very much out of bounds – that Harry had his worst nightmare yet. He'd had a couple last night, waking Pan up with all his thrashing and shouting, but nothing compared to this. She was only a couple of corridors away from the hospital wing so that's where she went, once there though she wasn't sure what to do, but she needn't have bothered thinking about it because Harry jerked awake a couple of minutes after she got there.

He looked terrified: his eyes were wide and his breathing erratic; and he reached for his glasses on the nightstand, slamming them on and searching the room skittishly, pausing as his gaze landed on Kali.

"Kali," he said a little breathlessly. "It's past curfew, you shouldn't be here."

"You keep waking me up," she said, gesturing at Pan who was snuggled against Harry's side purring.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to -"

She dropped into one of the chairs beside his bed. "Don't apologize. He's the one who refuses to leave."

The oncilla chirped. "There's this little something called watchful vigilance, look it up."

Kali smiled and rolled her eyes. "Here I thought it was called being an overprotective worrywart, silly me."

"Just because you have a complete disregard for care and safety does not mean the feeling is universal."

"He appears to have taken a liking to you," she said, watching as Harry's smiled bloomed, and he looked down at the small feline fondly, scratching him under the ruff around his face. "So what's keeping you up at night?"

Harry's smile faded.

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," she said quickly. She didn't want to overstep despite how worried she was. "But you should tell someone, Ron or Hermione, or anyone."

Harry's eyes searched her face for something, and whatever it was, he must have found it because he told her everything.

He told her about the Grim appearing to him twice, and how both appearances had been followed by near-fatal accidents; the first time, he had nearly been run over by the Knight Bus; the second, he'd fallen fifty feet from his broomstick. He worried that the Grim might haunt him until he did die, that he'd have to spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder for the beast. He told her about the dementors; how he felt sick and humiliated every time he thought of them. Everyone said the dementors were horrible, but no one else collapsed every time they went near one. No one else heard echoes in their head of their dying parents. But when the dementors approached him, he heard the last moments of his mother's life, her attempts to protect him from Lord Voldemort, and Voldemort's laughter before he murdered her. And he told her that when he fell asleep, he sank into dreams full of clammy, rotted hands and petrified pleading, and every time, he would jerk awake to dwell again on his mother's voice.

Kali listened silently, letting the words spill out of him like a confession. By the time he was done he looked drained, and Kali let his words sink in.

"I don't think you're going to die," she said after a moment's thought. "There are accounts of the Grim existing, but there's no solid proof that it's ever failed before or shown up more than once with the same person – that I know of – I'll look into it. But it happening twice is still just a coincidence, if it gets to three then it becomes a pattern. We'll worry about it more seriously then. Just try not to die in the meantime."

Harry chuckled. "I'll do my best."

"As for the dementors: they feed off of happiness by dragging up bad memories. You went through something very traumatic at a very young age, they must sense that somehow and are drawn to you because of it."

"How do you know all this?"

"My surrogate father's the best Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher this school has ever seen, remember? That and I'm really very clever." She winked at him and he laughed with her.

"I should let you get some sleep," she said. "Goodnight, Harry."

"Goodnight, Kali."

"Oh, and Harry?" she said, stopping at the door. "Talk to Remus about the dementors. He can help."

Thursday, December 9th, 1993,

It had started with Fred and George Weasley laying a Dungbomb trap outside the Slytherin common room on Monday morning after the match. Unfortunately for them, it was Kali who set it off. She laughed it off but warned the twins that she'd get even. Sure enough she did. The next day the twins woke up with bright purple hair and eyebrows longer than Dumbledore's beard. They took their vengeance by charming a serving dish of Banoffee pie to fly straight at her face during dinner; she ducked just in time and it hit a Ravenclaw Sixth Year who'd been passing behind her, starting a full scale food fight which only ended when Professor McGonagall received a face full of whipped cream. After that, the pranks went back and forth between Fred and George, and Kali and Pan, each pair trying to outdo the other. As the good-natured rivalry went on, the magic used got more and more impressive: Kali charmed every staircase in the castle to turn into a slide the minute one of the twins got past the fourth step, regardless of whether they were going up or down; the twins somehow transformed her hair into many long, writhing snakes sticking out of her head; she cast a spell that made them dance the Time Warp at random throughout the day; and so on. Flitwick had congratulated Kali and the twins a couple of times on their perfect spellwork. Even McGonagall, who was very much against these kinds of shenanigans, was left in awe despite herself at the mastery of magic she witnessed. Everyone knew who was responsible but the four of them were always clever enough not to leave any evidence that was too incriminating.

One day, after Snape had been particularly vile during class, Kali decided to enchant every coat of armour in the castle to sing 'You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch', modifying it slightly so that the song included Snape's name instead. She'd completed the spell on all the lower levels of the castle and was halfway through the sixth floor when Peeves came to say hello.

"What trouble is little Kali getting into today?" he asked, floating above her as she cast the spell again and again.

She didn't look up at him, too focused on getting the charm just right. "Hello, Peeves."

"Does Kali need help with her scheme?"

"Are you offering?"

"Oh I believe I am," he sang, "there's something quite alluring about your brand of chaos."

She finished and smiled up at him. "Well, in that case, could you keep Filch busy for awhile while I finish up."

He bowed lowly, his nose brushing against his curly tipped shoes. "It would be my pleasure." And he zoomed off down the corridor.

She was about to start on another coat of armour when the hairs on the back of her neck tingled, warning her that someone was behind her. She checked the coat of armour for a reflection but saw nothing. She turned slowly and spotted a tabby cat with spectacle markings around its eyes.

"Hello, Professor," she said, relaxing slightly.

McGonagall transformed back into herself, staring with narrow eyes at Kali and her drawn wand. "May I ask what it is you're doing, Miss Black?"

"Nothing much, Professor."

"I don't believe that for one second," said McGonagall, eyes searching up and down the corridor for anything amiss. "For someone who's so often in trouble you'd really think you'd be a better liar."

"I don't need to be a better liar," said Kali with a winning smile to distract McGonagall from looking too closely at the coats of armour. "I'm so utterly charming people let me off easy."

The Professor scoffed, but her lips twitched as though she was holding back a smile. "Be that as it may, if anything abnormal happens down this corridor in the near future, I'll know who's to blame."

"I can assure you, Professor, nothing abnormal will happen down this corridor today." Tomorrow, however…

McGonagall nodded swiftly and began walking away when Kali was hit with an idea.

"Professor?" McGonagall stopped and turned. "I was wondering if you could help me with something."

"What is it, Miss Black?"

"I was down in the trophy room earlier, and I noticed that Slytherin has won the House Cup an inexplicable number of times over the past ten years."

A scowl of displeasure crossed McGonagall's features. "Yes, I'd noticed that also."

"It coincides with Professor Snape's tenure here."

"What are you implying, Miss Black?" McGonagall asked.

"I'm implying that Slytherin students don't, overall, have a better academic performance or better behaviour than students in other Houses, not enough so to justify us winning so many times. What we do have, though, is a Head of House who blatantly favours us."

The Professor was looking at her curiously and let out a loud sigh. "It isn't your place to question Hogwarts professors, Miss Black."

"It is when the Headmaster and the rest of the teachers won't. You're all very smart people, so I imagine you're aware of the situation, are you not?"

"Miss Black -"

But Kali kept going before McGonagall could shut her down. "But if you know what's going on, then you're being harrowingly negligent toward your students by letting such an unfair situation continue."

The Professor had her mouth open as though about to speak, but the words had gotten lost along the way.

"You're a good person, Professor, so I can only assume that Professor Snape is teaching here against your wishes. But still, this problem must be dealt with."

Professor McGonagall was frowning at her. "What do you suggest?"

"By my count, my actions and those of my housemates in all seven years should have led to a combined eighty-five point deduction, if Snape weren't so biased and treated us as he treats everyone else. Minus an extra ninety points that he's awarded to his students undeservedly. So one hundred and seventy-five points total. I require you take those points away from us."

McGonagall stared at her, baffled. "You want me take over a hundred points from Slytherin?"

Kali shrugged. "Professor Snape won't dock points off Slytherin, trust me, I've tried to make him. But if you do, and you make him know why, perhaps it will incite him to act more fairly in the future."

"You realize this will penalize your own House."

Kali smiled. "The game is rigged in Slytherin's favour. Professor Snape is setting his own House up to win through absolutely no merit of our own, and winning is of no value if it isn't earned."

"You're full of surprises, aren't you?" said McGonagall thoughtfully.

"So you'll do it?"

But the Professor shook her head. "I can't undermine another teachers authority like that. I'm sorry."

"Well, the other option is that I cause just the right amount of chaos that you and the other teachers are forced to take the points from Slytherin for my awful behaviour. But I figured you wouldn't approve of that alternative."

"Are you threatening to unleash hell on this school if you don't get what you want, Miss Black?" McGonagall asked, her eyes twinkling with mischief.

"I wouldn't call it threatening," Kali said sweetly.

McGonagall's smile broke through, softening her strict features. "I'll see what I can do. So don't go blowing up half the school just yet."

Kali grinned as McGonagall walked away. "That went better than expected. "

"Do you think it'll work? " asked Pan who was in the dungeons, spying on Fred and George.

"I don't know. I get the feeling Snape isn't here because he has a passion for teaching; he certainly doesn't like his students. But until we can figure out what's making him stay, I don't think we'll be able to make him leave. "

"We can try, though, and we can make him wish he did. "

Kali agreed wholeheartedly and carried on charming the suits of armour. Her patience could be endless when the cause was right, and she promised herself that by the time she left this school, Snape would no longer be teaching in it.