Chapter 12: Infectious Magic

Teddy had assumed, based on his own distaste for starchy, cumbersome formal wear, that nobody would want to follow along in the footsteps of the small and determined group of Slytherin fifth and six year girls who wore ever more decorative attire each day. He was wrong.

Girls mainly, but also a number of guys from the various houses, had seemingly overnight decided that they too wanted to wear their fanciest clothes to the great hall. He felt that morning at breakfast like he had not left Seavelle's table from the night before and instead her little room had somehow ballooned into the great hall.

Even Violet, who had seemed to make a point in the previous year to stay out of the vain, girly, activity within her own dorm room , was looking coiffed and smart this morning. She had a shawl draped around her own robes that from time to time she flapped out of the way as she spoke with her fellow second year girls.

"Did your Godfather ever tell you about the Philosopher's Stone, Teddy?"

"What?" Teddy said as he whipped around to find Clippy with an inquisitive look on his face.

"Some people were asking me about it," Clippy said.

"What?- Who?" Teddy asked.

Clippy shrugged. "Some Slytherins."

"We haven't gone to class yet!" Teddy said. He hadn't expected the conversation from the previous evening to remain a great secret- what with the increased people at the dinner and the heightened interest in the event, but the day hadn't even started yet.

"No he hasn't told me anything about it," Teddy replied. "I think it was from his first year anyway. A lot more interesting things happened to him after that episode."

Clippy nodded. He pulled a schoolbook out of his bag and began to read as he ate his breakfast. Which was odd considering most meals he and Kaitlin would talk throughout. He must have noticed Teddy looking at the empty space next to him though. "She's eating with the Hufflepuff's."

"We can do that?" Teddy asked.

Clippy shrugged again.

No one questioned Teddy during breakfast but he figured that wouldn't last long as he had Potions with the Slytherin's that morning. He was right, no sooner did he sit down in the lab then Nagaeena and Decima were standing next to him with wide smiles on their face.

"Any chance you want to sit with us today?" Nagaeena asked.

Teddy rolled his eyes. They were still waiting on an answer though, so he shook his head.

"You sure?" She asked him again.

Teddy glanced over the table where poor Mullicent, the burly girl who made up their trio, was standing with her bag, clearly waiting to see if she was going to be swapped out for the class.

"I already have a seat here," Teddy said, indicating his spot by Stephen and Violet who were doing a nice job of pretending that they were not listening to the conversation. "If you want to ask me about anything then you might as well."

Nagaeena and Decima shared a quick side-eye look at this but continued to smile sweetly at him.

"Well of course we have things we want to ask you," Nagaeena replied. "But I doubt you want to talk about your Godfather here anyways."

Teddy stared at her but she did not look away.

"Actually though, I was wondering if you were considering joining the Ball Committee," she said.

"What?" Teddy replied. He was not expecting that one bit.

"Of course you don't need to join in order to make the court," Decima said. She and Nagaeena both giggled at this to Teddy's annoyance. He was going to tell her that he could give a Pygmie Puff about court or the dance when the two girls switched their gaze to Violet.

"You are joining the committee, aren't you?" Decima asked her.

Violet shrugged.

"Violet," Nagaeena said with a sigh. "Don't make us drag you there."

"You wouldn't need to drag me," Violet said. "If I decide to go, then I will walk alongside you like a normal witch."

Nagaeena and Decima shared another look but didn't say anything. Fernius' chalk had stopped writing out the day's instruction on the board, the usual signal for everyone to take their places, and the girls made a quick retreat back to their table.

They had gone a good deal into the day's work when Teddy asked Violet out of the side of his mouth, "Are you really going to join the Ball Committee."

Violet shrugged again. This time, Teddy suspected, was less as a posture of indifference and more so of not really knowing what she wanted to do. Or maybe his cousin just didn't want to talk today as since they entered the room she and Stephen had not spoken one word to each other.

Teddy took the cue and did not pursue the subject. He was packing up his stuff at the end of class when Stephen, to his surprise, tapped him on the shoulder.

"Yes?" Teddy asked.

"Are you planning on going to the library anytime soon?" Stephen said. He had positioned himself between Violet and Teddy so that his back was to her.

"Uhm... I hadn't planned on it," Teddy replied.

"I was hoping to do some Potions studying," Stephen said. He pulled out their text book and pointed to it unnecessarily. "Drill on antidotes and complimentary ingredients for future potion work."

Teddy shrugged. "I guess we could work on that. Violet?" he asked her.

She was closing her bag and leaving. "Can't this week," she replied over her shoulder, adding, "Ball Committee."

Teddy and Stephen watched her hurry over to Nagaeena, Decima, and Mullicent to walk with them.

"Does that ball committee meet every night?" Teddy asked Stephen.

He shrugged. "Library tonight?"

Teddy nodded. "I'll tell Kai and Dewey- they could use the study too."

Even though Stephen would definitely not make a list of his top five people to study with (or his top ten for that reason), he really could stand to brush up on his Potions knowledge. He knew that he was the weak link of their table; it would be nice to hold his own during the work.

What he hadn't told Stephen, was that he already planned on meeting with his other two friends at the library that evening. When the Slytherin boy had suggested a time a half hour later than he was already going to be there he had simply agreed. The last thing he needed was someone like Stephen listening in to their conversation.

When Teddy got to the library that evening his friends were already there. It was the first night of the various clubs and, coupled with the popularity of the inter-house common room, the library had noticeable thinned out.

"We gotta hurry this up," Kai said in lieu of a hello.

"And why is that?" Teddy asked.

"I'm meeting some people at the Muggle Science Club."

Dewey rolled his eyes at that. "Is this the same way you went to the Charms Club?"

Kai laughed, but shook his head. "The 4th years talk about Muggle Studies the most- and they're the best students."

"What?" Teddy asked.

"What, what?" Kai said back.

"The fourth years being the smartest," Dewey said back to him.

Kai shook his head again. "I didn't say they're smarter, just better students... Everyone fifth year and up only either cares about the standardized tests or their future careers, everyone third and under doesn't know enough to do anything proper. The fourth year is the best year."

"You sure know a lot for a second year," Teddy told him.

"Not as much as a fourth year," Kai said with the sort of smirk that made Teddy wonder how he wasn't hexed much more often.

"Anyway- if Muggle Science Club is anywhere near as worthwhile as the Muggle Studies Class then we should all be going there."

"Pass," Dewey said in a more dismissive tone than he normally would use with Kai.

"I would be interested," Teddy admitted. "But let's get through this first."

The boys had all agreed after their meeting with the Ravenclaws that they would think of a few plans to tag the entire school with the blood identifying charm. Dewey hadn't seemed to put much thought into his idea as it was basically variations of the same thing- lace the pumpkin juice, lace the eggs, lace the oatmeal, lace the mashed potatoes."

"Stop!" Kai said. "We get it- your ideas Teddy?"

Teddy glanced for a moment at Dewey, who, of course, looked a bit hurt by their not even considering his idea. Teddy cleared his throat and said, "Well... I also had thought about putting it in food- but I kind of figured that the Professors would be on to that after last year."

"Duh," Kai said. "I'm sure they were on to it last year as well, they just wouldn't have realized that a band of house elves might turn on-"

"Anyway," Teddy interrupted loudly before bringing his voice back down. "I think our best bet is give me the doses, I pose as someone, maybe a prefect or older student and then..."

This was as far as he had gotten and it only took a moment of him looking back and forth between the other two before they picked up on it too.

"Great Teddy- let's do that," Kai said and this time Dewey smirked back at him. Kai didn't bother to see if he was going to get a response, instead he pulled a large roll of parchment out of his bag which he unrolled on the table as if it were a transfiguration essay and not their very confiscatable map.

"What are you doing?' Teddy said.

"It's ok," He said quietly, as he scanned the surface of the map. "I put an enchantment on this paper so that it looks like a Charm's Practical Diagram."

"Really?" Teddy said as he jumped up from his seat to look over Kai's shoulder. The drawings on the map did indeed look like their Charm's Practicals. Panel after panel of a bored wizard swishing his wands in the extremely slow and exaggerated method of that particular step.

"Can you add us on?" Dewey asked.

Kai cast a revealer spell on the map and then on Teddy. "Did that work?" he asked.

"No," Teddy said.

Kai tried it again. "How about now?"

"You sure that's the right spell?" Teddy asked.

Kai was about to try it a third time when he noticed Teddy and Dewey grinning at him.

"You know for guys who come up with spiking food and randomly changing ones identify as their best plans, you actually can be clever sometimes."

"What's the plan, Kai?" Dewey said after having the revealer spell put on him.

"My sister's finacee doesn't respond well to wizarding remedies," Kai said. "Cho insists on giving him pep me up and restorative draughts when he gets a cold, but besides making steam shoot out of his ears, and Merlin is that funny, they don't do much."

Teddy didn't know where Kai was going with this and considered speeding him up as Stephen would show up any minute, but he didn't say anything.

"When Muggles get sick, they sneeze and cough on one another and that makes the other Muggles sick."

"Gross," said Teddy. Dewey nodded in agreement.

"I'm sure Dr. Babbit knows a lot more about what they are sneezing at the other person that causes them to get sick, but that's not the point. We have to think less about tagging everyone ourselves, and more about letting this thing spread itself."

"And how do we do that?" Dewey asked.

"We start by being a lot friendlier with the opposite sex," Kai said. He waggled his eyebrows at them, but probably didn't need to, as the looks on their faces was more than any reaction he was probably hoping for.

Dear Teddy,

Thank so much for continuing to write to me. I wish you wouldn't have told me about the ball though, or about new fashion trends- I would rather think of Hogwarts as a boring old school with a strict dress code.

I don't know how much the owl's can carry- and I know you mentioned packages being searched and suspicious items confiscated- but I enclosed some of my old eye shadow, lipstick, and eyeliners. Believe me, I have more and could always use an excuse to make some room for new stuff. Tell Kai I say good luck.

It's very strange that Julie and April are asking questions about you and I. Julie and I didn't speak much last year, I don't think she liked me much, but she sent me a letter a few months ago and has sent me a few more since. I know this sounds weird but I think she feels bad about what happened to me- like it was somehow her fault. Don't ask me why- like I said we weren't close- but if she's asking you about me it might be that.

I would really like to see you over the Holidays. I need to figure out how to skive off my parents for an afternoon in London but that shouldn't be too hard. Let me know the time and day.

Keep writing Teddy- and, I can't believe I'm saying this, do something reckless and fun. You sound so unhappy and worried there. You live in a castle where you do magic all day- enjoy it.

Love,

Chloe.

"She said what to you?" Dewey asked.

"That I'm not being reckless," Teddy grunted. He was having a difficult time talking as he was upside down, his feet anchored securely to the ceiling overlooking the corridor.

"Well that sure sounds silly right now," Dewey agreed. He too seemed to be struggling to keep a normal conversational tone as he was hanging upside down next to Teddy. "But" he continued after murmuring yet another amalgamara spell in the direction of his feet. "You have been a lot more... in the background this year."

Teddy shot his own amalgamara spell at his feet, forcing them to stick to the ceiling despite the pull of gravity. He checked his watch, feeling a bit nauseous as the floor was where the ceiling normally would be.

"Well Harry and Gran better tell me fifty times over holiday how happy they are that I have kept myself in the background this year; considering they've told me a hundred times to do precisely that."

"Well besides this," Dewey said with a grimace on his face. He had to say this loudly because there was quite the commotion coming from somewhere down the hall.

"Right, besides this," Teddy agreed with his own grimace.

The two boys aimed their wands at their feet, performed the release spell, and fell to the crowd below.

"Alright, so walk me through this one more time," Neville asked Teddy.

They were sitting in his office, which appeared at the moment to have been hit by some sort of cyclone. Papers were strewn everywhere. His Gryffindor flag was hanging limp from just one of its corners overhead. Only the plants seemed untouched- although Teddy would guess that they would be the first thing that Neville would have corrected after tamping down the chaos of the past ten minutes.

Teddy concentrated on keeping the laughter off his face as he spoke. The situation wasn't exactly funny, but his Head of House was seated on top of a crate with a very boisterous Diricawl inside.

"We were trying to get through the Batty challenge, Dewey and I, when-"

"This challenge," Neville interrupted, jumping a little up and down on the cage which seemed to pacify whatever was shaking it underneath him. "I've already talked to the Ravenclaw girls- they claim they've never heard of this."

Teddy shrugged in what he hoped was a cheerful way. Neville did not seem to be in the mood for shrugs, cheerful or otherwise.

"So are you saying they are lying?" Neville asked him.

"Well we assumed if things went bad, they would deny their involvement. That's how these things generally work."

"So you're hanging upside down- over a corridor that people almost never use - when you and Dewey hear a huge mob of people- panic- and drop down onto them?" Neville asked.

This didn't sound like a question and Teddy didn't answer. He did rub his shoulder, which was fairly sore after hitting the ground rather painfully. It was the only part of their plan that had not gone as hoped.

"And you don't have any idea how this ridiculous bird somehow got into the school- chasing equally ridiculous students all over the castle?"

Teddy suspected that he would later in life explain what really happened that afternoon to Neville; just not until he was well out of Hogwarts. He chose his words carefully. "Professor, if I did know something like that would happen, you can bet the last thing I would want to do that day is to stick my feet to the ceiling and hang around."

Neville stared at Teddy for a moment. "No... that actually makes a little sense."

He sighed and then spelled the door behind Teddy open.

"Who goes through hazing to join the Charms Club?" he said, not fully able to keep the hint of a grin off of his face. "Ron will never believe this story."

If he were to look beyond the first few moments the next morning in the corridors and entering the great hall where people openly pointed and laughed at him (he could imagine what sort of stories must be going around about Dewey and himself)... If he looked past that, then there was nothing really to complain about. Neville hadn't punished them, no one had gotten hurt, and best of all, they had gotten the serious start which they needed to infect the castle.

Teddy still wasn't sure exactly what germs and virus's were or how they infected the body, but Kai had tried to explain to him the concept anyway. When Stephen showed up in the library a few nights ago and they were about to head out to Professor Babbit's Science Club, Teddy had reluctantly told Kai that he had promised the Slytherin that they would go over Potions work. Kai hadn't looked back but did manage to fill Teddy in on all the various things they would be studying.

It turned out that virus's were a perfect example of what they had started with their Batty challenge. They had a good amount of the blood identifying potion coated onto their hands, their arms, their hair, their clothes, etc, and when they fell into the throng of students, they had spread that potion very quickly. They might have overdid it a bit actually, going out of their way to nudge and bump and handle as many people as they could. In the frenzy of the mob of students though, each trying to figure exactly why students were dropping off the ceiling, as well as why frumpy birds were nipping at their heels in the staircases- everyone was pushing and budging everyone.

As soon as Teddy was excused from Neville's office, he had met Kai and Dewey in the Inter-House Common Room where the Ravenclaw girls already had a table for them and the enchanted map open on the table. Now there were thirty little red dots and they were spread out over the map- pacing in the student dorms, walking the hallways, some just moving around.

"And they just keep multiplying?" Dewey asked after a moment.

"Not multiplying," Eloise said. "Just revealing themselves."

It was a testament to the amount of time the boys had spent with the girls lately that no one giggled at this statement. Eloise must not have realized how suggestive her own statement was, or perhaps didn't care, as she smushed her side up against Dewey's.

The six of them sat in silence for quite awhile as they watched the map. Every time a new dot appeared on the map one of the girls would whisper, "Nomenus Revelus" and a name would appear next to the dot. It was fascinating discovering these new people- particularly in connection to the dot that "revealed them". Clippy popped up from Ursula of all people, near the library. Kaitlin and Leonard popped up not too much later near the Hufflepuff dorm. Teddy suspected that everyone was trying to visualize how these people were meeting and why. If perhaps people might have their own secret friendships that up until now no one knew about.

The six were the among the last to leave the Inter-House Common Room that night. They smiled at one another and left without saying another word.

The map filled in quickly. The easiest way to keep track of their progress was at the meals where the entire school was in one place. They had each taken extra doses of the blood identifier and found excuses to tag people within their own houses and Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw were all completely filled up.

Slytherin and the faculty were proving difficult. Teddy did manage to bump into his head of house and Kai had gotten his as well.

"We'll put the charm on a letter and distribute it to the teachers," Teddy said to Kai as the two were looking over the map near the end of the afternoon meal and discussing the problem.

"I dunno," Kai said. "They're looking at the mail and probably checking them for magic."

"They wouldn't check a note from a student."

Clippy, who was seated nearby, was watching them. "You guys sure look at that Practical a lot."

Teddy nodded. "Charms Club."

"Uh huh," Clippy said. His look suggested, though, that he didn't buy this story.

Kai rolled the map up. "I'm just going to keep some on me and hope to run into them in the hallway."

"The sooner the better," Teddy said.

"Yeah" Kai agreed, before he changed the subject. "What's this I hear about you joining the Ball Committee?"

Teddy frowned at him. "Who said that?"

To his surprise Clippy colored at this. "I did."

"Well I don't know where you got your information from but I didn't join that committee."

Clippy shrugged. "Madame mentioned it to me."

"Madame?" Teddy said.

"Yeah," Clippy said. "She said everyone from the brain trust signed up."

Kai looked back and forth between them. "Brain trust?