Year 1: A New Generation

Chapter 5: January 2012

"Brianna! There you are! I've been looking all over the train for you!" Victoire exclaimed, dragging her trunk into the compartment. Christmas break had ended much too quickly and now they were all heading back to Hogwarts for the second term.

"Kara just went out to find you!" Brianna exclaimed, jumping up to help Victoire heave her trunk up onto the luggage rack. "So, did Teddy love the owl?" she asked. "What did he name him?"

"Moony," Victoire smiled knowingly.

"Huh, that's a weird name for an owl," Brianna commented.

"Victoire! There you are!" Kara cried, bursting through the door and giving her friend a hug. "How was your Christmas? Did he like the owl? He better have."

"He loved it," Victoire replied.

"Apparently he named him Moony," Brianna told her.

"Oh cute!" Kara cried. "Because it's an owl, so it's nocturnal. I get it!"

"Right," Victoire agreed. "So how were your Christmases?"

"Absolutely fantastic!" Kara exclaimed, sitting down across from Brianna and Victoire. "My parents bought me this awesome makeup kit, we are so going to have to test it out tomorrow morning."

"Awesome!" Victoire exclaimed. "What about you Bri?"

"Oh, you know, just a normal Christmas for me," Brianna shrugged.

"Didn't you do anything special?" Kara asked.

"I don't know," Brianna said, looking out the window and then back at her friends. "I guess Christmas just isn't that big a holiday for me."

Victoire could tell that something was bothering Brianna, but she didn't think her friend wanted to talk about it at the moment, so she decided the change the subject.

"So how did you guys make out with your homework over the holiday?" she asked.

"Ugh, I only did about half of it," Kara groaned. "I'm going to have to finish it tonight."

"Me too," Victoire sighed. "Hey, what parts did you do? Maybe we can copy off each other if we did different stuff!"

The three girls pulled out their work to discover that amongst the three of them, they'd actually completed all the work. It only took a couple hours of copying and a bit of re-wording before they had finished it all and were happily putting it away, looking forward to an evening of exploding snap.

The welcome back feast was delicious as always and soon everyone was heading back to their houses to get some sleep before morning classes.

"So are we getting kicked out of the common room again?" Victoire wondered aloud as they climbed through the portrait hole.

"Nah, that's just at the beginning and end of the year," Teddy replied, having overheard the comment from inside the common room. "Most of the upperclassmen probably spent the past two weeks partying and now they have to sleep it all off. Actually, the common room should be pretty quiet tonight."

"Great!" Kara exclaimed. "I'll get the card, you guys get a good spot," she instructed her friends, bouncing up the stairs.

Surprisingly, there was a pretty good spot between the two sets of staircases with a couch and a couple of armchairs that hadn't been claimed yet, so Brianna and Victoire hurried over and spread themselves out to make it clear that it was reserved. Kara returned in moments with the cards and they started their game.

"Teddy, you wanna play?" Victoire offered when she noticed he was still sitting alone by the portrait hole.

"Can't, I've got to finish reading this chapter of my Charms textbook by tomorrow. We're doing Cheering Charms and if I can't do it, I'm going to get assigned a bunch of extra work," Teddy replied.

"Alright," Victoire said, dealing for three.

They played for over an hour before Kara decided that she was bored. By then, the common room had emptied out considerably, but the girls weren't close to tired yet.

"Ooh! Let's play truth or dare!" Kara suggested.

"Yes!" Victoire agreed. "I'll go first. Brianna, truth or dare?"

"Dare," Brianna decided.

"Hmm… I dare you to… get up in the middle of the room and dance like a chicken," Victoire declared.

"What? But there are people still here!" Brianna cried.

"That's what makes it so much more fun," Victoire smirked.

Reluctantly, Brianna got up, stood in the center of the room and started flapping her arms like wings and spinning around. At first, nobody really noticed her, but soon people started pointing and staring. Kara and Victoire were laughing so hard they were clutching their sides.

"Alright, alright, I'm done now," Brianna said, coming back over and sitting down. "I bet I know what everyone's going to be gossiping about tomorrow morning."

"Oh, it's not that bad," Kara said. "There's barely anyone left down here. Most of the house are asleep."

"People talk you know," Brianna pointed out. "Alright Kara, your turn, truth or dare?"

"Truth," Kara decided, wise enough to know that if she chose dare, Brianna would make her do something even more humiliating than what Victoire had forced her to do.

"Have you ever kissed a boy?" Brianna asked.

"What?" Kara asked, her face turning beet red. "No! I'm only eleven!"

"Have you?" Victoire asked Brianna.

"It's not my turn," Brianna said.

"Alright then, Brianna, truth or dare?" Kara demanded.

"Dare," Brianna said with a smirk.

"I dare you to tell us if you've ever kissed a boy," Kara said.

"That's not really in the spirit of the game, you know," Brianna said.

"Answer the question," Kara insisted.

"Fine, yes, I have," Brianna replied.

"Seriously, when?" Victoire asked.

"I don't believe that was part of the dare," Brianna smiled. "Your turn Victoire, truth or dare?"

"Uh… dare I guess," Victoire decided. If she chose truth, Brianna would ask her about kissing boys and after seeing Brianna's reaction to Kara's confession, she wasn't sure she wanted to admit that she hadn't yet.

"Hmm," Brianna said, scanning the room. "I dare you to go over there and kiss Teddy."

"What?" Victoire cried. "Eww, that's gross, he's like my cousin!"

"A dare is a dare. And technically, he isn't your cousin," Brianna said.

"I changed my mind. I pick truth," Victoire declared.

"You can't change once the dare has been issued. You've gotta do it," Brianna told her.

"And if I don't?" Victoire challenged.

"Then in the middle of the night, me and Kara will take Raina's fertilizer and spread it all in your hair. You won't be able to get the smell out for weeks. Remember when it happened to Caitlin when she tripped and fell in it?" Brianna asked.

"You wouldn't!" Victoire cried. "Then it would be all over your hands too!"

"We have gloves," Brianna said.

Victoire looked nervously at Kara, but she was staying noticeably silent.

"Fine," Victoire declared in a huff. She walked over to where Teddy was sitting and crept up behind him. Closing her eyes, she leaned over and placed a swift kiss on the top of his head.

"What? Victoire?" he asked, spinning around in his chair.

"Sorry, it was a dare!" Victoire said hurriedly, running back to her friends.

"You cheated!" Brianna accused her. "You only kissed his head."

"Technically, the dare didn't specify where I had to kiss him," Victoire pointed out. "Just that I had to do it."

"She's right you know," Kara said, siding with Victoire.

"Fine, whatever, this game was lame anyway," Brianna muttered, getting up and leaving in a huff.

"What's up with Bri?" Kara wondered when she had left.

"I don't know," Victoire said. "She's been kind of weird all day."

"Should we ask her about it?" Kara wondered.

"No," Victoire said. "If she wanted to talk about it, she would. We should leave her be for now."

"Alright," Kara agreed. They stayed in the common room for another twenty minutes to give Brianna the chance to get into bed before they came up. When they finally did, they found that the curtains of her bed had been pulled tightly shut.

"What's up with her?" Caitlin asked, looking up from the book she was reading on her bed. "She came up here in a huff and totally ignored me when I said hello.

"It's none of your business," Victoire told the girl.

"Fine," Caitlin said, going back to her book. "Sorry for trying to be a concerned citizen."

Too exhausted to deal with anything else that day, Victoire quickly brushed her teeth and got into her pyjamas and then collapsed into her bed, pulling her curtains closed too. The day had started off so nicely. She wondered what had gone wrong.

VvVvVvVvVvV

"Good morning!" Raina greeted Victoire when she awoke the next morning. "Have you seen my new Shrivelfig?" she asked. "My Aunt got it for me for Christmas. I was just fertilizing it."

"I hadn't seen it," Victoire admitted. "It looks great, but you'll have to excuse me, I have to go to the bathroom." Victoire grabbed her bathroom kit and bolted for the door.

"Hey, have you seen Raina's new Shrivelfig?" Kara asked when Victoire entered the bathroom.

"Oh yes," Victoire said. "She's fertilizing it now."

"Aw man," Kara groaned. "The dorm always smells ten times worse after she has the fertilizer can open.

"I know," Victoire agreed. "I think I might ask Madam Eldridge if she has stronger nose plugs, because I think mine are getting defective."

"Oh good, it's not just me," Brianna said as she entered the bathroom and began to wash her face.

"Definitely not," Victoire said, exchanging a glance with Kara. Brianna seemed fine this morning. Maybe they could just move past whatever weirdness had been going on yesterday.

"You guys ready for History of Magic?" Brianna asked.

"I'm never ready for History of Magic," Kara muttered. "But I guess an extra hour of sleep couldn't hurt."

Victoire laughed. "Who's taking the notes today?" she asked. The three girls had begun a rotation a couple months back so that only one of them had to pay attention each class. It wasn't like Professor Binns noticed most of the class was sleeping through his lectures.

"It's your turn Vic," Kara said apologetically.

"Aw man," Victoire said. "Do either of you want to switch with me?"

"Not a chance," Brianna muttered as she brushed her hair out.

"Don't look at me," Kara said, avoiding eye contact by turning to the mirror and poking at a zit.

"Kara, remember what I told you? Don't pick at it, you have to use the cream," Brianna warned before Kara could permanently damage her face.

"I ran out," Kara admitted. "Do you have any more?"

"Here, take it," Brianna said, passing her the tube. "I don't need it anyway."

The rest of the day passed extremely slowly. Victoire was practically the only person awake in History of Magic and every time she started to doze off, Kara would poke her with her wand, sending sparks zinging through Victoire's body. In potions, they were preparing to brew their third potion of the year; babbling beverage. In Charms, Professor Flitwick fell off the pile of books he usually stood on and it took forever for him to climb back on. By the time he had, so much time had elapsed that they didn't have time to practice the lumos charm. In their final class of the day, Professor Tonks had them silently reading the chapter in their textbook that they had been assigned to read over the break, rightfully assuming that nobody had done it.

By the end of the day, Victoire was so tired from her long day of nothing that she went up to bed almost right after dinner, collapsing on her bed without even brushing her teeth.

VvVvVvVvVvV

Victoire awoke in the middle of the night desperately needing to pee. She was still in her robes and her mouth tasted disgusting from not having brushed it, so she decided to grab her bathroom kit and take care of herself now that she was up anyway. She swung out of her bed and hissed as her feet connected with the cold floor underneath. Carefully, so as not to wake the others, she crept towards her trunk at the end of the bed. Unfortunately, something was lying on the floor in her path and she tripped over it, falling to the floor and crying out in pain.

"What's wrong?" Brianna's voice called out immediately.

"I tripped, go back to sleep," Victoire called back.

"What's going on?" Caitlin's voice asked.

"It's nothing, go to sleep," Victoire repeated.

"Guys? Why are we all awake?" Raina asked, getting up too.

"I don't know," Caitlin said. "Does anybody know the lumos charm?" she asked.

"Guys, it's fine, really, just go back to bed," Victoire insisted, embarrassed that her tripping had caused such a commotion.

"Yeah, I think I can do it," Raina replied. "Let me just find my wand… oh, there it is! Lumos!"

Light from the wand-tip of Raina's wand filled the room and as soon as they saw the room, the four girls started to scream.

"Oh my gosh what is that?" Brianna cried in terror. Overnight, it seemed that Raina's Shrivelfig plant had grown so big that it filled the whole room. Arms were wrapped around bedposts and branches stretched across the floor – it looked like that's what Victoire had tripped over. Vines climbed up the walls and covered the ceiling. The entire room looked like the middle of the Amazon Rainforest.

"It's Raina's plant!" Victoire cried fearfully.

"Merlin Raina, what did you do to it?" Caitlin screamed. "This isn't normal!"

"I don't know!" Raina cried. "I just watered it like the instructions said and I fertilized it with my special fertilizer.

"I'm so fed up of this fertilizer!" Victoire cried out angrily. "First you blew up my cauldron and now this? Raina, that fertilizer has seriously got to go."

"You don't know it was the fertilizer's fault," Raina defended.

"Really? Because I've never heard of a Shrivelfig do this before!" Brianna exclaimed.

"They're right Raina, this is seriously pushing things too far," Caitlin agreed.

"How is Kara not awake right now?" Victoire wondered, standing up to check on her friend. To her horror, she discovered that the Shrivelfig had wrapped itself around Kara's bed completely, effectively trapping her inside. Thankfully, Kara remained fast asleep. "Guys shhh!" Victoire hissed. "We have to make sure Kara doesn't wake up. Look at her, she'll totally freak out."

"What are we going to do?" Brianna whispered.

"Don't look at me!" Raina insisted. "It's not like this has ever happened to me before!"

"One of us needs to get Professor Longbottom," Caitlin decided. "He'll know what to do."

"Victoire, you're closest to the door, you should go," Brianna said.

"Okay, I'll be back as soon as I can," Victoire said, eager to get out of the room as soon as possible.

She climbed carefully over the branches of the plant and breathed a sigh of relief when she found herself outside of the room in the stairwell. Just in case, she made sure to shut the door behind her – she wouldn't want the plant getting out while she was gone and overrunning all of Gryffindor Tower.

Moving at a run now, Victoire hurried down into the common room, ignoring the cries from the older students that it was long past curfew and she couldn't be out roaming the corridors. Professor Longbottom's quarters were all the way down on the first floor and the staircases kept moving to inconvenient locations.

Eventually, Victoire made it to the Professor's quarters and began pounding on the door.

"Professor Longbottom!" she cried. "Professor Longbottom!"

The door opened and Victoire found herself facing Professor Abbott-Longbottom. "I need Professor Longbottom," Victoire cried.

"What's the matter Victoire?" Professor Abbott-Longbottom asked.

"It's a Herbology problem," Victoire told her. "And a Head of Gryffindor House problem."

"Alright, just a moment," the potions Professor said. She disappeared for a moment and then returned with her husband, who looked like he'd only just woken up.

"Professor Longbottom, we need your help," Victoire said. "There's been an… incident in our dormitory."

"What seems to be the problem?" Professor Longbottom asked.

"She said it had something to do with Herbology," Professor Abbott-Longbottom said.

"It'll be better if you just come with me and see for yourself," Victoire said. "And please hurry, we have to fix it before Kara wakes up!"

Victoire grabbed her Professor by the arm and began pulling him down the corridor. "Alright, alright, I'm coming, no need to drag me," he said. "You're sure you can't tell me what's wrong now?"

"You really just have to see it," Victoire said.

They ran up the stairs, Victoire sometimes taking the steps two at a time. By the time they reached the Fat Lady, Professor Longbottom was wheezing and begging Victoire to give him a moment.

"We don't have time to take a moment!" Victoire insisted. "Come on," she insisted, calling out the and password crawling through the portrait hole.

"Professor Longbottom!" a sixth year cried out in surprise when the two of them emerged in the common room. "I swear; I was about to go to sleep!"

"Stay awake if you want to Paul, but exhaustion won't get you out of your oral presentation tomorrow," Professor Longbottom warned.

"Of course Professor," the student, Paul, cried, scrambling to gather himself and hurrying up the staircase to the boys' dorms.

"Come on Professor, we're almost there!" Victoire exclaimed, running up the other staircase, only coming to a stop when they reached the door to her dorm.

"Alright Victoire, what is going on?" Professor Longbottom asked again.

"See for yourself," Victoire said, opening the door and following her Herbology Professor through.

"Oh my… what happened here?" Professor Longbottom asked.

"It's all Raina's fault," Brianna accused. "She has this special fertilizer and she puts it on all her plants, and it turned one of them into a monster!"

"Raina, is this true?" Professor Longbottom asked, turning to Raina.

"Yes Professor, this is my plant and I did put a special fertilizer on it, but I'm still not convinced that this was the fertilizer's fault," Raina said.

"I'm going to need to see a sample of this fertilizer," Professor Longbottom said. "And in the meantime, I'm confiscating all your plants. Merlin knows we don't want another situation like this on our hands."

"Yes Professor," Raina said, hanging her head.

"Out of curiosity, what kind of plant is this?" Professor Longbottom asked.

"A Shrivelfig, Sir," Raina responded.

"Amazing!" their Professor said, marvelling at the room. "Simply amazing!"

"Uh, Professor?" Victoire asked. "Do you think that maybe you could do something, like, before Kara wakes up and realizes that there's a giant plant giving her the world's worst hug?"

"Oh my!" Professor Longbottom exclaimed. "Has she been asleep this whole time?"

"Yes, and we'd prefer to keep it that way. Of all of us, she's the one that's going to have nightmares if she sees this," Brianna said.

"Oh, yes, of course," their Professor agreed. He produced his wand and muttered a few words under his breath and in moments, the plant had retreated and shrunk back to it's original size in the pot.

"Oh thank goodness!" Caitlin gasped. "That thing was starting to give me the creeps!"

"Well, if you girls don't need anything else, then I'll just be taking these plants and going. Raina, you can drop that fertilizer sample off in my office anytime tomorrow," he said, pointing his wand at Raina's plants and levitating them out of the room ahead of him.

"Phew," Victoire said, collapsing onto her bed. "Glad that's over."

"It was like attack of the Shrivelfig in here," Brianna agreed.

"It wasn't that bad," Raina said. "It was just a slightly overgrown plant."

"Slightly overgrown?" Caitlin said incredulously. "That thing was a monster!"

"You guys just have no appreciation of the herbological sciences," she muttered.

"That's not even a thing!" Brianna shot at her.

"Whatever," Raina shot back, pulling her covers over and turning out the light of her wand.

The next morning, Victoire awoke to find Kara rummaging through her trunk for some fresh robes.

"Sleep well?" Victoire asked her friend.

"Like a log," Kara said. "Although I did have this really weird dream that a human-sized plant was giving me a hug."

"Huh, weird," Victoire said.

"Yeah, I guess I shouldn't take seconds of dessert again," Kara said.

"Probably not," Victoire agreed, relieved that her friend had no idea what had happened.

VvVvVvVvVvV

"So there's some pretty weird rumors going around about you and Professor Longbottom," Teddy said, finding Victoire in the library later that afternoon.

"Excuse me?" Victoire asked, affronted. "What rumors are these?"

"Well, supposedly you were dragging him back to your dorm room in the middle of the night," Teddy said.

"Well then I guess the rumors are true," Victoire said. "Because that did happen last night."

"Care to fill me in?" Teddy asked.

"It would seem that Raina's fertilizer works way too well. Her Shrivelfig grew to like, fifty times it's regular size. It was like a jungle. I had to get Professor Longbottom to shrink it back down," Victoire explained.

"Wait, so you're telling me that there was a giant monster plant in your dorm room and you didn't come and find me so that I could see it?" Teddy asked.

"Boys aren't allowed in the girls' dormitories," Victoire pointed out. "Besides, I had a little more on my mind than inviting my friends in to see the freak show."

"Too bad, I bet it was insanely cool," Teddy said.

"More like insanely terrifying," Victoire countered.

"Hey, well at least you got one positive thing out of it," Teddy said optimistically.

"What's that?" Victoire asked.

"A really great story," Teddy smiled.