Year 2: Show Some Strength
Chapter 19: May 2017
With the arrival of May, Louis no longer had time to feel sorry for himself. There was too much to do. Exams were coming, and Louis needed to revise all his subjects for himself, not to mention the parchment full of questions the Slytherins provided him and Justin with for each of their classes just like last year. Louis did his best not to mind about the extra work Flint and the others were piling on. It was just an extra, albeit unusual way, of studying.
Justin did not feel the same way. Over the past two months, Justin had become very bitter, very irritable, and very irate. He hated the Slytherins with a passion and spent every waking minute cursing them.
"Some day, I'm going to learn how to perform a real curse, and I'm going to put one on each and every one of them. They're going to pay for what they've done to us," he insisted.
"Just let it go," Louis sighed. All the fight had long since left Louis. It took too much energy to fight and Louis just didn't have the energy anymore. "We'll be out of this place soon enough."
"Five more years isn't soon enough," Justin grumbled.
Day after day, Justin would run through all sorts of possible curses he might put on the Slytherins. He wasn't going for one big terrible moment, but rather for a lifetime of annoyance. He wanted to punish the Slytherins for a long time.
"What about a curse so that for the rest of time, there's always a pebble in one of their shoes?" Justin suggested.
"Do you know how to do that?" Louis asked, exhausted at listening to Justin and his crazy curse ideas.
"Not yet," Justin replied. "But as soon as I get ahead of all this homework, I'm going to start researching curses in the library."
"Sure," Louis nodded, going along with things. "Whatever you say."
But Louis knew that that day would never come. They'd never get ahead of the homework. The minute they did, more got piled on. Louis only hoped that come summer, he'd finally make some time to sleep.
"Or what about a curse so that for the rest of their lives, they always hear a little hum somewhere off in the distance, but they can never find the source," Justin suggested.
"Oh yes," Louis said in a dead voice. "You've really got them now."
"Or a curse that makes it so that there's always a black spot in their vision, not directly ahead, but in the peripheral, so they're always trying to figure out what it is, but it never goes away," Justin made another suggestion.
"Look, I really don't care," Louis sighed. "Whatever you do, it's not going to change our current situation, so it really doesn't matter to me."
"Hey! I'm doing this for the both of us," Justin insisted. "You could show a little bit of appreciation."
"Forgive me if I don't seem more enthusiastic," Louis said sarcastically, "but I'm a little worn out these days."
"So am I," Justin cried. "But I'm still trying. You've just given up."
"I haven't given up," Louis protested. "I'm choosing my battles. And right now, fighting this battle with you is just not worth the payout."
"Anything to bring those bastards down a peg or two is worth the payout in my opinion," Justin declared, grumpy that his friend wasn't afire with revenge plans like he was.
"And if they discover that it was you that cursed them?" Louis asked. "What then?"
Justin shrugged. "They won't find out. It takes way more skill than any of them have to trace a curse. Not to mention they'd have to realize they were cursed first, and I'm not convinced they're that bright."
"Don't underestimate them," Louis insisted. "Just because we do all their homework does not mean that they're dunces."
"Really?" Justin frowned. "You're telling me you think Darian Reed is intelligent enough to realize that he's been cursed?"
Louis shrugged. "Maybe not Reed, but Pritchard definitely would be. And if they're all experiencing the same thing, they'll realize it's all interrelated. And once they realize that it's just the five of them that were specifically targeted, it's not going to take long to trace back to us."
"You worry too much," Justin insisted. "They won't figure it out."
"You don't worry enough," Louis countered. "And I don't fancy ending up in the hospital wing again. So leave me out of it."
"Fine," Justin agreed. "I'll do it on my own."
"I'm just glad you're likely years away from being able to perform a curse at all," Louis muttered quietly to himself.
"What's that?" Justin asked.
"Oh nothing," Louis shook his head. "Come on, let's get these potions essays over with."
LlLlLlLlLlL
As the days wore on, Louis' energy only continued to diminish. He had so much work to do, and Justin was no help, as he kept trying to imagine creative ways to torture the Slytherins, leaving Louis with more than his fair share of their extra work. So when Louis headed upstairs to his dorm one Wednesday night, weary, worn out, and ready to collapse, the last thing he needed was his three other dormmates waiting for he and Justin angrily.
"There he is!" Philip cried, pointing a finger at Louis.
"What's going on?" Louis frowned, taking in the scene around him. The dorm was a mess. The contents of all five of their trunks had been strewn about, the beds had all been unmade, and soggy parchment littered the entire room.
"You really have to ask?" Randall practically spat.
"Where's Justin?" Russel demanded. "He should be here for this."
Nervously, Louis took a step back. He didn't like the looks on his dormmates' faces. They were clearly angry – angrier than he'd ever seen them. Louis had enough people angry with him in Slytherin house. He didn't need it from his own dorm too.
"He's just downstairs finishing up some homework," Louis replied.
But at that moment, Justin appeared in the doorway, stopping in his tracks when he saw the scene that was unfolding.
"No, I'm right here," Justin replied nervously. "What's going on up here?"
"What's going on is you lied to us!" Randall cried.
"Lied?" Justin asked, bewildered. "Lied about what?"
"That toad of yours," Philip explained. "You said you set him free, but obviously you've been hiding him somewhere. And now he's gotten out and ruined all our notes."
Philip brandished a handful of soggy parchment in Louis' and Justin's faces.
"These were all my notes for the entire year for herbology. What am I supposed to do now? Exams are in a couple of weeks!"
At this, Louis startled and took a step forward. It had been one thing for their dormmates to be mad about Toby back when Justin had been letting him roam free in the dorm. But Justin had let Toby go into the lake. Louis had watched it happen. He wasn't going to let their dormmates blame this all on them.
"Look, I don't know what happened here, but it has nothing to do with Justin's toad," Louis said, surprising himself with his confidence. "You can't go jumping to conclusions like this."
"This isn't us jumping to conclusions," Philip declared, walking over to his bed and gesturing to his bedside table drawer. "Why don't you take a look inside here before you try taking the high road here?"
Frowning at Justin, Louis walked forward, his best friend close behind him. They walked up to Philip's bedside table and carefully, Louis pulled the drawer open.
Almost immediately, a toad launched itself out of the drawer and landed right on Justin's face. Justin screamed in surprise and fell over as the toad hopped from Justin onto Philip's bed, and then continued to jump from bed to bed, leaving behind little wet patches wherever he went.
"Is that… is that Toby?" Louis frowned, recognizing the toad's features.
Justin frowned. "It certainly looks like Toby."
As if to confirm his statement, the toad hopped back over to Justin and settled on his shoulder, nuzzling into his neck.
"The toad seems awfully friendly with you," Russel pointed out.
"But how did he get back in here?" Louis frowned.
"Stop playing games with us!" Randall roared. "You never let the toad go free, and now he's ruined all our notes. We're all going to fail and it's all your fault."
Though the toad was Justin's, it was clear that all three of their dormmates blamed both Justin and Louis for Toby's misdeeds.
Having had quite enough of the unfair treatment, Louis stomped over to the boys' trunks and began to produce piles of notes that were completely unharmed.
"What do you call all of this then?" he demanded. "Seems to me that Toby only damaged a few pages each. Figure out what you're missing and then share your notes with each other to fill in the blanks. It's not the end of the world!"
"You're missing the point!" Russel cried. "The point is that this shouldn't have happened in the first place. If you'd gotten rid of the toad when you said you were going to – "
"First of all, Justin did set Toby free," Louis insisted. "Obviously Toby found his way back to him, and you can hardly fault him for that."
Justin sent Louis a grateful look, which Louis ignored.
"Second of all," Louis continued, "sometimes things happen in life that aren't exactly in line with your own vision. But when things happen, we deal with it. We don't start accusing our friends, or yell, or scream. It's a few pages of notes. You'll be fine. So quit whining and pull yourselves together."
Nobody said anything when Louis finished. Russel, Randall, and Philip simply stared at Louis in surprise. It was the first speech Louis had made like that, and quite honestly, none of the boys would have expected it from him.
"Look fine, whatever," Randall finally muttered, passive aggressively. "Just don't let it happen again, okay?"
And with that, the three boys filed past Louis and Justin towards the door and disappeared through it, probably to go down to the common room to talk about Louis' outburst.
"Hey man," Justin said, finally getting up from the floor. "Thanks for that."
Clenching his teeth and refusing to make eye contact, Louis stalked over to his own bed and began to pull the curtains closed to privacy.
"Get a damn cage for that thing if you're going to keep it," he ordered, before pulling the final curtain closed.
It wasn't fair of him to be angry with Justin, but he was. It wasn't because of the toad; the toad had only exacerbated everything from the past weeks and months. Louis was tired of having to always pick up Justin's slack on their extra Slytherin homework. He was tired of looking out for Justin, tired of listening to Justin's big plans, tired of dealing with the fallout of Justin's words and actions.
Louis was simply to the bone exhausted. And he didn't think any amount of rest was going to improve things.
LlLlLlLlLlL
The next morning, Justin avoided Louis all through breakfast, even going so far as to sit on the other end of the table in the Great Hall. In transfiguration class, Justin took a seat far from where the two usually sat, which resulted in Louis having to sit next to Anne Miller from Hufflepuff.
By lunchtime, Louis felt wretched. It wasn't fair to take this all out on Justin. Justin hadn't done anything wrong. It wasn't as though he could have predicted that Toby would return, or that he would create such a conflict with their roommates. And it wasn't fair to blame Justin for everything that had happened with the Slytherins. If there was anyone to blame, it was Flint. And Louis shouldn't get mad at Justin when he'd start thinking up ways to get back at the boys in green. It was simply Justin's way of dealing with the stress.
"Hey," Louis said, approaching Justin in the Great Hall. "Is that a pet supply catalogue?"
Justin shrugged. "Well if Toby's just going to keep coming back, then I should buy the proper equipment."
"I didn't mean what I said yesterday," Louis said, feeling badly. If Justin was only doing this because of his comment –
"No, you were right," Justin insisted. "Toby needs a cage. He can't be allowed to roam free in a shared dorm space. It's not fair to anybody."
"I'm sorry for how I acted yesterday," Louis said, sitting down. "I've just been under a lot of stress, and the whole thing with Toby kind of pushed me over the edge."
"Hey, we're both under a lot of stress," Justin reminded Louis. "But we can't turn on each other. Not now."
"You're right," Louis agreed. "We're in this together."
"That we are," Justin agreed. "And you know what? I doesn't just have to be the two of us either."
"What do you mean?" Louis frowned. He certainly wasn't about to try reporting the Slytherins to anyone. He knew that wouldn't end well.
"The astronomy club," Justin declared. "They're our friends. We haven't seen any of them in ages. I bet even just going to a club meeting would do wonders."
"You're right," Louis realized. Just because they couldn't tell anyone at the Astronomy Club about what they were going through didn't mean they couldn't help. "We should go today.
LlLlLlLlLlL
That afternoon, as soon as classes were finished, Louis and Justin made their way up to the seventh floor, where the Astronomy Club met. For some reason, Louis found himself a little nervous as they came to the door and prepared to go in. It had been so long since they'd last attended. Would their friends be mad that they'd abandoned them all year?
It turned out Louis' fears were unfounded. As soon as he and Justin walked inside, they were immediately greeted by a vey excited Ben, and a very enthusiastic Trent.
"Louis! Justin!" Ben cried, hurrying over to give each boy a quick hug. "It's been a while."
"Yeah, sorry about that," Louis said, hanging his head guiltily.
"No need to apologize!" Trent assured him, ushering them both inside. "Come on, check this out, it's so cool."
At the front of the room was the longest roll of parchment Louis had ever seen, covered with some of the most interesting information. It was the celestial mapping project the club had been working on all year. Louis and Justin had been away for so long, they hadn't gotten a chance to see it put together yet.
"This is so cool!" Louis exclaimed, bending over it and taking it all in. Though he was disappointed that he hadn't contributed more to it, he was excited to get to see it up close like this.
"And you're just in time to help with the finishing touches!" Trent said excitedly.
"Oh, we couldn't," Justin said, shaking his head. "This is your project, not ours. We barely did anything. It should be you guys who finish it off."
"Nonsense," Trent said, waving his hand in the air. "You're as much a part of this club as anyone else. Just because you've been away doesn't make you any less of a member. We want your help, if you're offering it."
"Well I'm game," Louis smiled happily. He wanted his name on the project, even if it was the last name listed.
"Same here," Justin grinned.
As the rest of the club members started arriving, Louis and Justin became enveloped in a bubble of animated 'welcome backs' and fervent 'we've missed yous'. It was nice.
Though there was still a ton of work waiting for the boys when they got back to the common room, for now they could just sit and enjoy being with friends.
