On Monday of the next week, Oliver and Adrianna had plans to meet after
class and go downstairs to dinner together. He came inside after teaching
his flying class and walked up the stairs to the Muggle Studies classroom
to meet Adrianna. Her class had just let out as he arrived. She walked out
of the classroom behind a group of Slytherin 7th years including Isabelle,
Morgan, Crabbe and Goyle. Oliver walked up to her side, and they went down
the hall together behind the students. Oliver tried to start a conversation
with her, but she wasn't listening to him. Instead, she was concentrating
on what the students in front of her were talking about.
"...don't know why we have to take this bloody awful class," Morgan was saying. "From listening to Brighton, you'd think that muggles were the most fascinating things on earth."
Crabbe and Goyle grunted in agreement.
"Well, she would think so, wouldn't she? She's a mudblood," said Isabelle.
Adrianna's face turned very red, but she said nothing.
"You mean Dumbledore actually hired a mudblood to teach here?" asked Morgan.
Crabbe and Goyle both wore confused expressions, but then again, that wasn't anything unusual for them.
"She fits right in if you think about it," said Isabelle. "There's Brighton the mudblood and Hagrid the half-giant, and remember in our second year when we had that werewolf Lupin for Defense Against the Dark Arts? I guess it's Dumbledore's idea of fun to hire freaks as teachers. I wish my parents had sent me to Durmstrang instead of Hogwarts."
At this, a silent tear slid down Adrianna's cheek.
Oliver was furious. He couldn't believe that a student would talk about a teacher like that. The only other person he'd ever heard talk like that was Draco Malfoy.
"Perhaps, Miss King, you should be more careful what you say about your teachers. You never know who might be listening," Oliver said loudly.
The whole group of Slytherins stopped dead in their tracks.
"Mr. Wood!" Isabelle said with a shocked look on her face. "Err... lovely day, isn't it?"
"You would be very wise to shut your mouth, Miss King. You are already in quite a lot of trouble. I am disgusted that you would even think of speaking about your teachers with such foul words. Rest assured that you will be serving a detention in the very near future."
Next to Isabelle, Morgan smirked. She tried to hide it with her hand, but Oliver saw it.
"Think it's funny do you, Miss Heard? Perhaps you'd like to join Miss King in detention."
The smirk was now gone from her face.
"I will see both of you in my office for your detentions on Friday night."
Oliver waited until the students walked down the corridor, then pulled Adrianna into an empty classroom. To his dismay, Peeves was in there writing very rude words on the chalkboard.
"Out Peeves, or I'll call for the Bloody Barron!"
Peeves threw the chalk on the floor and stuck out his tongue as he zoomed out of the room. Oliver turned to Adrianna.
"Are you alright?"
"Yes, I'm fine. Just a little surprised. I didn't know my students felt that strongly about my subject, or my blood for that matter." Another tear rolled down her cheek.
"There is nothing wrong with your blood," Oliver said firmly. "You're just as good a witch as anyone else I know. And you're a damn good quidditch player. You might even be better than me," he said with a wink, trying to cheer her up. It almost worked. He got a half-smile out of her.
"Thanks." She gave him a hug and laid her head on his shoulder for a minute. He returned her hug and rubbed her back comfortingly. After a few moments she pulled away from him.
"Do you still want to go to dinner?" he asked her. "Yes, I should probably put in an appearance even if I don't feel like eating. I can't let those awful Slytherins think that they've won."
Oliver knew that Adrianna was really upset about what had happened, and he really wanted to do something for her. He thought about it all night on Monday and finally figured out what he wanted to do. He decided to talk to Dumbledore the next day after breakfast. He was going to need some help if he wanted to pull this off.
"Professor Dumbledore, I was wondering if I could talk to you about something."
"Yes Oliver, what is it?"
"Adrianna has been upset lately, and I wanted to do something to cheer her up. I was wondering if I could throw her a surprise party and invite her friends from home. I have it all worked out, but I'll need some help. We could have the party in the History of Magic classroom since that's a pretty big room. I could plan it for Saturday, and the guests could arrive while she's helping with the dueling club. But I am also helping with the dueling club, so someone else would have to take the guests upstairs."
"That sounds alright Oliver, but how are the guests going to get here? And how are you going to know who to invite?"
"I'm sure she has letters from her friends stored away somewhere. I'll just have to look around in her rooms and see who she writes to, and that's who I'll invite. As for how they'll get here, can't they just apparate?"
"Assuming that they all know how to apparate, which is not likely, it is still too great of a distance. Remember, she is from America. People can not just apparate across entire oceans."
"How did Adrianna get here then? She was waiting for Hagrid in Hogsmeade with me on the day we arrived."
"I sent her a portkey to Hogsmeade."
"Well, we can send portkeys to her friends then. Can a portkey be made to bring them straight to Hogwarts, or do they have to be brought to Hogsmeade and picked up?"
"They can be brought straight to the grounds, and if you like, I will meet them outside and take them upstairs."
"Thank you so much Professor Dumbledore. I don't know how I would do this without you."
That day while Adrianna was teaching, Oliver tried to sneak into her rooms so he could find out who to invite. It wasn't as easy as he thought it would be. He stood in front of the bookcase, trying to remember what the new password was. He knew it was a slogan for some muggle device, and it was something that sounded really American, but what it was he just couldn't remember.
"Why can't I remember?" he though. "Or as Adrianna might say, 'Dude! Why can't I remember?'"
Something clicked in his head. "Dude! That's it! Dude, you're gettin a Dell!" he said clearly to the bookshelf.
It swung open, only to reveal Chip guarding the door and growling.
"What is this, an obstacle course?" thought Oliver as he took a tentative step forward.
Chip growled louder.
"Come off it Chip! How am I ever going to throw this party for Adrianna if I can't find out who her friends are?"
Chip seemed to be considering what Oliver had said, and then he stopped growling, turned around, and headed toward the bedroom. He looked over his shoulder as if to get Oliver to follow him. Oliver followed Chip and opened the bedroom door. Chip bounded across the floor to the bedside table and stood in front of it. Oliver opened the small drawer in the bedside table. Inside were a Bible, a small box full of ballpoint pens, quills, muggle paper and parchment, and next to that, an address book. The address book was divided into two sections: muggles and wizards/witches.
"Chip, you're a lifesaver."
Oliver petted Chip under the chin, and then went back to his rooms so that he could write to Adrianna's friends before he had to go to class. In his office, Oliver flipped through the address book. In the muggle section were her parents, sister, grandparents and all of the aunts and uncles that she had told him about. There were also a bunch of people that he assumed were her friends from the muggle college that she went to, or else people that she had grown up with.
The wizards/witches section didn't have a whole lot of names compared to the muggles part. Oliver found that rather remarkable considering that he didn't really know any muggles. He wrote down the names of the people that were in the wizards/witches section. First there was Brenda Beikert, then Nikki Clayton and Daphne Cortes. Then there were Flynnie and Kilch.
"Strange names," thought Oliver. "I wonder if they're witches or wizards."
Next was Sonia Pluta. "She's the American quidditch team captain," Oliver remembered.
After that was the name Michael Poole with a thick black line drawn through it. "Hmm, guess I won't be sending him an invitation. I wonder what he did to make Adrianna mad at him," wondered Oliver.
The last name in the book was Steph Trisch.
Oliver picked up his quill and parchment and wrote a letter to each of them explaining that he was throwing a party for Adrianna to cheer her up a bit. He spent over an hour turning empty butterbeer bottles into portkeys for the guests to be able to come to Hogwarts. Then he walked through several corridors to the owlery and gave each letter along with a bottle to a different school owl, hoping that they would make it to America in time.
The next day, Oliver decided that he needed to return the address book before Adrianna discovered that it was gone. When he was sure that she was teaching, he snuck into her office and opened the bookshelf, then crept into her bedroom and stuck the book back in her nightstand. He breathed a sigh of relief as he emerged from her rooms and left her office. So far, so good.
He went back to his own rooms and found Lightning perched on the windowsill with a letter lying on the coffee table. He opened up the letter and read:
Oliver,
Quidditch practices will start this Saturday at noon. We will practice every Saturday from noon to six, and every Sunday from three to nine. See ya soon!
Leslie
"She had to pick this weekend to start practices," Oliver said to himself after he read the letter.
Oliver was torn. He really wanted to be at quidditch practice, but on the other hand, he had a lot of things planned at Hogwarts this weekend that he didn't want to miss. Besides, if he wasn't at Hogwarts on Saturday he would be letting a lot of people down. He would just have to skip quidditch practice on Saturday, and show up on Sunday. He scribbled a quick reply to Leslie's note.
Leslie-
I won't be able to come to practice on Saturday because I have a prior commitment that I can't break. Sorry. I will be there on Sunday though.
-Oliver
He gave Lightning the note to deliver, and then wandered down to the kitchens to ask the house elves to make some snack foods for Adrianna's party.
On Thursday night and all day on Friday, rain fell over the Hogwarts grounds in sheets. The ground turned into mud so deep that it squished around Oliver's feet and ran into the tops of his shoes. Nevertheless, the house quidditch teams continued to practice. Sofie seemed even more determined to practice in the bad weather. She wanted to make sure that the Ravenclaw team was prepared to play in any weather. Malcolm also had the Slytherins practicing in the torrential downpour.
This worked very nicely to Oliver's advantage, because Isabelle and Morgan had detentions to serve that night. Before the Slytherin practice began, Oliver handed Malcolm a large cloth bag and told him that when his team was done practicing, they were supposed to put their muddy robes in the bag instead of dropping them down the laundry chute. He also asked Mr. Filch not to mop the floors when the team came in from quidditch practice, and Filch was more than happy to oblige when he learned that it was for a detention.
After practice was over, Oliver asked Isabelle and Morgan to accompany him to his office since they were both on the quidditch team. He took the laundry bag from Malcolm and got a bucket and a mop from Filch, then took everything upstairs to his office. On his way back to his office, he got Adrianna from her rooms so that she could come with him to see the girls serve their detentions. The group finally arrived at Oliver's office. Isabelle and Morgan sat in the chairs by his desk while he and Adrianna stood side by side in front of them.
"Alright girls," said Oliver, "first things first. Hand over your wands."
Both girls grudgingly pulled out their wands and handed them to Oliver.
"I believe that a punishment should fit the crime," he continued. "What you called Professor Brighton the other day was a filthy, disgusting name and I hope that I never hear either of you saying it again. I have come up with a separate punishment for each of you. Miss Heard, you will mop the entire entrance corridor until it is so clean that I can see my reflection in it. This will be no small task, considering that your entire quidditch team has just walked through there with muddy shoes and robes on. Miss King, you will wash the robes for your quidditch team using the old ringer washers in the laundry room. I would suggest that you do a good job. Your teammates might not be too happy with you if they have mud stains on their quidditch robes. Professor Brighton and I will be overseeing you, and we will inspect your work when you are finished. You will not be dismissed until we are both satisfied."
He handed the bucket and mop to Morgan, then picked up the laundry bag and motioned for Isabelle to follow him. Both girls worked for several hours cleaning. Morgan was the first one to finish, and Oliver and Adrianna came to inspect her work. Adrianna walked up and down the corridor inspecting it but left footprints as she went. She returned to where Morgan was standing and pointed to the trail of footprints.
"I think you missed a spot," said Adrianna. Morgan was fit to be tied.
"I already mopped that! It was clean until you walked down the middle of it!" she shouted.
Adrianna simply shrugged.
Morgan turned to Oliver.
"If Professor Brighton is not happy then neither am I. Perhaps next time you will think twice before you call her a dirty name," said Oliver.
She mopped the hall again, quickly this time, while Oliver watched.
"I'm not doing it again," Morgan said stubbornly.
Oliver looked down the corridor. He couldn't deny that it was clean enough to see his reflection in.
"Very well Miss Heard, you are free to go." He handed her wand back, and she practically ran in the direction of the Slytherin common room.
Downstairs, Isabelle was washing the last quidditch robe. The front of her own robes was soaked, and she had mud all over her from the filthy quidditch robes. She glared at Oliver and Adrianna as they entered the room but said nothing. She washed the last robe in silence and hung it up to dry.
"I'm finished," she said.
Oliver and Adrianna inspected the robes, but didn't find and dirt anywhere.
"Fine, you're dismissed," said Oliver and handed her wand to her.
She stuck her nose in the air as she left the room.
"Do you think either of them learned anything?" Oliver asked Adrianna.
"I think that we might have got through to Morgan, but Isabelle is a lost cause. I wouldn't be surprised if she turns out to be a death eater," said Adrianna.
"...don't know why we have to take this bloody awful class," Morgan was saying. "From listening to Brighton, you'd think that muggles were the most fascinating things on earth."
Crabbe and Goyle grunted in agreement.
"Well, she would think so, wouldn't she? She's a mudblood," said Isabelle.
Adrianna's face turned very red, but she said nothing.
"You mean Dumbledore actually hired a mudblood to teach here?" asked Morgan.
Crabbe and Goyle both wore confused expressions, but then again, that wasn't anything unusual for them.
"She fits right in if you think about it," said Isabelle. "There's Brighton the mudblood and Hagrid the half-giant, and remember in our second year when we had that werewolf Lupin for Defense Against the Dark Arts? I guess it's Dumbledore's idea of fun to hire freaks as teachers. I wish my parents had sent me to Durmstrang instead of Hogwarts."
At this, a silent tear slid down Adrianna's cheek.
Oliver was furious. He couldn't believe that a student would talk about a teacher like that. The only other person he'd ever heard talk like that was Draco Malfoy.
"Perhaps, Miss King, you should be more careful what you say about your teachers. You never know who might be listening," Oliver said loudly.
The whole group of Slytherins stopped dead in their tracks.
"Mr. Wood!" Isabelle said with a shocked look on her face. "Err... lovely day, isn't it?"
"You would be very wise to shut your mouth, Miss King. You are already in quite a lot of trouble. I am disgusted that you would even think of speaking about your teachers with such foul words. Rest assured that you will be serving a detention in the very near future."
Next to Isabelle, Morgan smirked. She tried to hide it with her hand, but Oliver saw it.
"Think it's funny do you, Miss Heard? Perhaps you'd like to join Miss King in detention."
The smirk was now gone from her face.
"I will see both of you in my office for your detentions on Friday night."
Oliver waited until the students walked down the corridor, then pulled Adrianna into an empty classroom. To his dismay, Peeves was in there writing very rude words on the chalkboard.
"Out Peeves, or I'll call for the Bloody Barron!"
Peeves threw the chalk on the floor and stuck out his tongue as he zoomed out of the room. Oliver turned to Adrianna.
"Are you alright?"
"Yes, I'm fine. Just a little surprised. I didn't know my students felt that strongly about my subject, or my blood for that matter." Another tear rolled down her cheek.
"There is nothing wrong with your blood," Oliver said firmly. "You're just as good a witch as anyone else I know. And you're a damn good quidditch player. You might even be better than me," he said with a wink, trying to cheer her up. It almost worked. He got a half-smile out of her.
"Thanks." She gave him a hug and laid her head on his shoulder for a minute. He returned her hug and rubbed her back comfortingly. After a few moments she pulled away from him.
"Do you still want to go to dinner?" he asked her. "Yes, I should probably put in an appearance even if I don't feel like eating. I can't let those awful Slytherins think that they've won."
Oliver knew that Adrianna was really upset about what had happened, and he really wanted to do something for her. He thought about it all night on Monday and finally figured out what he wanted to do. He decided to talk to Dumbledore the next day after breakfast. He was going to need some help if he wanted to pull this off.
"Professor Dumbledore, I was wondering if I could talk to you about something."
"Yes Oliver, what is it?"
"Adrianna has been upset lately, and I wanted to do something to cheer her up. I was wondering if I could throw her a surprise party and invite her friends from home. I have it all worked out, but I'll need some help. We could have the party in the History of Magic classroom since that's a pretty big room. I could plan it for Saturday, and the guests could arrive while she's helping with the dueling club. But I am also helping with the dueling club, so someone else would have to take the guests upstairs."
"That sounds alright Oliver, but how are the guests going to get here? And how are you going to know who to invite?"
"I'm sure she has letters from her friends stored away somewhere. I'll just have to look around in her rooms and see who she writes to, and that's who I'll invite. As for how they'll get here, can't they just apparate?"
"Assuming that they all know how to apparate, which is not likely, it is still too great of a distance. Remember, she is from America. People can not just apparate across entire oceans."
"How did Adrianna get here then? She was waiting for Hagrid in Hogsmeade with me on the day we arrived."
"I sent her a portkey to Hogsmeade."
"Well, we can send portkeys to her friends then. Can a portkey be made to bring them straight to Hogwarts, or do they have to be brought to Hogsmeade and picked up?"
"They can be brought straight to the grounds, and if you like, I will meet them outside and take them upstairs."
"Thank you so much Professor Dumbledore. I don't know how I would do this without you."
That day while Adrianna was teaching, Oliver tried to sneak into her rooms so he could find out who to invite. It wasn't as easy as he thought it would be. He stood in front of the bookcase, trying to remember what the new password was. He knew it was a slogan for some muggle device, and it was something that sounded really American, but what it was he just couldn't remember.
"Why can't I remember?" he though. "Or as Adrianna might say, 'Dude! Why can't I remember?'"
Something clicked in his head. "Dude! That's it! Dude, you're gettin a Dell!" he said clearly to the bookshelf.
It swung open, only to reveal Chip guarding the door and growling.
"What is this, an obstacle course?" thought Oliver as he took a tentative step forward.
Chip growled louder.
"Come off it Chip! How am I ever going to throw this party for Adrianna if I can't find out who her friends are?"
Chip seemed to be considering what Oliver had said, and then he stopped growling, turned around, and headed toward the bedroom. He looked over his shoulder as if to get Oliver to follow him. Oliver followed Chip and opened the bedroom door. Chip bounded across the floor to the bedside table and stood in front of it. Oliver opened the small drawer in the bedside table. Inside were a Bible, a small box full of ballpoint pens, quills, muggle paper and parchment, and next to that, an address book. The address book was divided into two sections: muggles and wizards/witches.
"Chip, you're a lifesaver."
Oliver petted Chip under the chin, and then went back to his rooms so that he could write to Adrianna's friends before he had to go to class. In his office, Oliver flipped through the address book. In the muggle section were her parents, sister, grandparents and all of the aunts and uncles that she had told him about. There were also a bunch of people that he assumed were her friends from the muggle college that she went to, or else people that she had grown up with.
The wizards/witches section didn't have a whole lot of names compared to the muggles part. Oliver found that rather remarkable considering that he didn't really know any muggles. He wrote down the names of the people that were in the wizards/witches section. First there was Brenda Beikert, then Nikki Clayton and Daphne Cortes. Then there were Flynnie and Kilch.
"Strange names," thought Oliver. "I wonder if they're witches or wizards."
Next was Sonia Pluta. "She's the American quidditch team captain," Oliver remembered.
After that was the name Michael Poole with a thick black line drawn through it. "Hmm, guess I won't be sending him an invitation. I wonder what he did to make Adrianna mad at him," wondered Oliver.
The last name in the book was Steph Trisch.
Oliver picked up his quill and parchment and wrote a letter to each of them explaining that he was throwing a party for Adrianna to cheer her up a bit. He spent over an hour turning empty butterbeer bottles into portkeys for the guests to be able to come to Hogwarts. Then he walked through several corridors to the owlery and gave each letter along with a bottle to a different school owl, hoping that they would make it to America in time.
The next day, Oliver decided that he needed to return the address book before Adrianna discovered that it was gone. When he was sure that she was teaching, he snuck into her office and opened the bookshelf, then crept into her bedroom and stuck the book back in her nightstand. He breathed a sigh of relief as he emerged from her rooms and left her office. So far, so good.
He went back to his own rooms and found Lightning perched on the windowsill with a letter lying on the coffee table. He opened up the letter and read:
Oliver,
Quidditch practices will start this Saturday at noon. We will practice every Saturday from noon to six, and every Sunday from three to nine. See ya soon!
Leslie
"She had to pick this weekend to start practices," Oliver said to himself after he read the letter.
Oliver was torn. He really wanted to be at quidditch practice, but on the other hand, he had a lot of things planned at Hogwarts this weekend that he didn't want to miss. Besides, if he wasn't at Hogwarts on Saturday he would be letting a lot of people down. He would just have to skip quidditch practice on Saturday, and show up on Sunday. He scribbled a quick reply to Leslie's note.
Leslie-
I won't be able to come to practice on Saturday because I have a prior commitment that I can't break. Sorry. I will be there on Sunday though.
-Oliver
He gave Lightning the note to deliver, and then wandered down to the kitchens to ask the house elves to make some snack foods for Adrianna's party.
On Thursday night and all day on Friday, rain fell over the Hogwarts grounds in sheets. The ground turned into mud so deep that it squished around Oliver's feet and ran into the tops of his shoes. Nevertheless, the house quidditch teams continued to practice. Sofie seemed even more determined to practice in the bad weather. She wanted to make sure that the Ravenclaw team was prepared to play in any weather. Malcolm also had the Slytherins practicing in the torrential downpour.
This worked very nicely to Oliver's advantage, because Isabelle and Morgan had detentions to serve that night. Before the Slytherin practice began, Oliver handed Malcolm a large cloth bag and told him that when his team was done practicing, they were supposed to put their muddy robes in the bag instead of dropping them down the laundry chute. He also asked Mr. Filch not to mop the floors when the team came in from quidditch practice, and Filch was more than happy to oblige when he learned that it was for a detention.
After practice was over, Oliver asked Isabelle and Morgan to accompany him to his office since they were both on the quidditch team. He took the laundry bag from Malcolm and got a bucket and a mop from Filch, then took everything upstairs to his office. On his way back to his office, he got Adrianna from her rooms so that she could come with him to see the girls serve their detentions. The group finally arrived at Oliver's office. Isabelle and Morgan sat in the chairs by his desk while he and Adrianna stood side by side in front of them.
"Alright girls," said Oliver, "first things first. Hand over your wands."
Both girls grudgingly pulled out their wands and handed them to Oliver.
"I believe that a punishment should fit the crime," he continued. "What you called Professor Brighton the other day was a filthy, disgusting name and I hope that I never hear either of you saying it again. I have come up with a separate punishment for each of you. Miss Heard, you will mop the entire entrance corridor until it is so clean that I can see my reflection in it. This will be no small task, considering that your entire quidditch team has just walked through there with muddy shoes and robes on. Miss King, you will wash the robes for your quidditch team using the old ringer washers in the laundry room. I would suggest that you do a good job. Your teammates might not be too happy with you if they have mud stains on their quidditch robes. Professor Brighton and I will be overseeing you, and we will inspect your work when you are finished. You will not be dismissed until we are both satisfied."
He handed the bucket and mop to Morgan, then picked up the laundry bag and motioned for Isabelle to follow him. Both girls worked for several hours cleaning. Morgan was the first one to finish, and Oliver and Adrianna came to inspect her work. Adrianna walked up and down the corridor inspecting it but left footprints as she went. She returned to where Morgan was standing and pointed to the trail of footprints.
"I think you missed a spot," said Adrianna. Morgan was fit to be tied.
"I already mopped that! It was clean until you walked down the middle of it!" she shouted.
Adrianna simply shrugged.
Morgan turned to Oliver.
"If Professor Brighton is not happy then neither am I. Perhaps next time you will think twice before you call her a dirty name," said Oliver.
She mopped the hall again, quickly this time, while Oliver watched.
"I'm not doing it again," Morgan said stubbornly.
Oliver looked down the corridor. He couldn't deny that it was clean enough to see his reflection in.
"Very well Miss Heard, you are free to go." He handed her wand back, and she practically ran in the direction of the Slytherin common room.
Downstairs, Isabelle was washing the last quidditch robe. The front of her own robes was soaked, and she had mud all over her from the filthy quidditch robes. She glared at Oliver and Adrianna as they entered the room but said nothing. She washed the last robe in silence and hung it up to dry.
"I'm finished," she said.
Oliver and Adrianna inspected the robes, but didn't find and dirt anywhere.
"Fine, you're dismissed," said Oliver and handed her wand to her.
She stuck her nose in the air as she left the room.
"Do you think either of them learned anything?" Oliver asked Adrianna.
"I think that we might have got through to Morgan, but Isabelle is a lost cause. I wouldn't be surprised if she turns out to be a death eater," said Adrianna.