Chapter 2: One Tentacle, Two Tentacle, Three Tentacle, Four
IN WHICH: Our Friends Are Confronted with More Squid than Necessary
"And you're sure it won't blow up in my face like last time?" Peter asked sheepishly, watching Art warily as she moved in to drop in a sprig of flutterby.
"Almost certain," Art replied, despite her face being turned away and having been watching the proceedings through one winced eye.
She liked to think she had a knack for potions; even ignoring the large boils bobbling on the cheeks of her very unfortunate Potions partner, Peter Pettigrew, such was not true.
She dropped it and ducked, covering her head with her arms.
Poor Peter hadn't had such foresight.
As expected (though not by all), there was a very, very loud explosion.
"I knew it was one too many knotgrass weeds," Art murmured thoughtfully, stroking her chin.
On the top of her head, a small number of once dark dirty-blonde, now black hairs were standing on end; their newly shortened tips alight with cinders.
She considered herself to be an excellent display of a practitioner of the art of potion-making.
And clearly, that was just not true.
Peter Pettigrew let out a breath, and started sneezing like mad.
…Nope, not true at all.
"What do you mean 'one too many'? You practically poured the entire bag!" Peter screeched, trying to extinguish the minimal flame born on his blonde head.
Art wrinkled her nose. "I could have sworn that's what the recipe read." She was still stroking her chin, hairs still alight.
"5 points from Gryffindor for Miss Bray's ineffable lack of common sense..." drawled the professor, Professor Vidal, sweeping the dungeon and resting his glance to Peter, "And five more for damages done to Mister Pettigrew."
Art sighed. So there'll be no going back to the Common Room then.
The bell rang, signaling the end of the class.
She trailed after Peter sulkily, her heavy messenger bag balancing its weight on her neck.
"Nice move there, Art," James said, raising his eyebrows in sarcasm.
"Well, it is only ten points," Remus countered with a small, sheepish smile that somehow made things much better.
Art glanced at him gratefully.
"Yeah, but that isn't even the end of it," Sirius said. He had crossed his arms behind his head as they walked up from the dungeons. "This is the second set of points you've lost us, Art. At this rate, we'll be down to negatives by the time the House Cup comes round."
Art sent a glare towards him, but it was half-hearted. Hearing the kind of truth she didn't want to hear often did that to her.
In fact, so unwelcome was the comment that it spurred a childish poking out of her tongue between her lips.
"Might want to keep that firmly in your cavity, considering someone's in a ripe mood to chop it off." The "that" in question quickly snapped back to its safe place in her mouth so that it made a sound loud enough to bring heat to Art's cheeks.
"Who?" she asked, and Sirius only jabbed his thumb in the direction of a storming McGonagall, heading her way.
Only narrowly did she escape the wrath of an angry Scot, because Sirius's hand had somehow curled round her tied-up hair and yanked it hard.
"Ow!" she shouted, gripping the base of her ponytail, trying to make sure it was back to its calculated messiness. Anymore than the messiness she had set it at this morning would not be socially acceptable.
"Well, it's your own fault," he muttered, pouting as she frowned.
"Why's she in such a rush anyway?" James had finally put a word in, after recovering from a rather dangerous giggle-fit at the sight of Art yanked backwards by the hair. He had been slapping the backs of nearly everyone near him – poor Remus and Peter will still massaging their aching shoulders. "She's bound to plow someone over. Hell, she near did you in. Now what in Merlin's name is so important that she's ready to make her beloved students road-kill?"
Art shrugged. McGonagall scared her often; all Scots did.
"So who do you have next?" Remus asked generally.
"Binns," Sirius and James said.
"Flitwick," Peter murmured.
"McG, but I don't think she's showing up," Art said.
"No fair, you'll have a sub!" James shouted indignantly.
"Some kids get all the luck," Sirius shrugged enviously. Art only sighed and began on her merry way to Transfiguration.
"Psst."
Art ignored it, hoping she wouldn't have to look up from the shelter of her arms. She was skulking in her own misery, and she preferred to do it alone, thank you very much. Maybe if she pretended to be dead, they'd stop. So she held her breath and tried to concentrate on looking dead.
…What do dead people look like anyway?
"Pssssssst."
Okay, Art, she thought, you've seen dead people before. Just try to look like them.
Pale!
Already pale.
Cold! They were usually cold, weren't they?
But how does one get cold?
Think cold thoughts. Yeah, that'll work.
"Psssssssssst."
Her nose itched. Oh, how it itched.
Come on, Art, only hold out a bit longer and maybe she'll forget about you.
But it itched so very much.
No, Art.
So very, very much.
No! Will power!
Oh, but it just itched and twitched and tingled and pricked and-
Oh Damnit, scratched it.
"Psst."
"What?" Art nearly shouted, drawing the attention of the class to her. She laughed nervously and smiled, and the class re-railed itself. She inconspicuously lowered her head back into her arms.
"Psssst."
"What?" she asked again, taking care to whisper this time.
"What's your name?" It was a girl, with wild, corkscrew-curly brown hair and light eyes. Her nose was pointed, giving her an almost rabbit-like quality.
"Artemesia Bray," she muttered back half-heartedly. That was it?
She replied, "I remember you from the Sorting. You were the one they had to call twice."
Art nodded nervously, a case of the blushies already burning her cheeks. Her cheeks had been taking a scalding since she arrived at Hogwarts.
"I was right after you, too," she replied loftily, and quite loudly. So loudly, in fact, that Art winced, looking around to see if anyone had heard. No one had, all heads conversing of their own accord while the substitute sighed, looking defeated.
"Relax, kiddo, it's only a lecture. Besides, she's already given up. Look at her, straight out of Wizarding School and already her dreams of teaching the bright-eyed youth of tomorrow have been dashed. Our job is done, and it's sad, yes, but we couldn't possibly allow a naïve visionary to teach us as a real professor. It's just not done."
Art quirked her nose. She hadn't thought of it that way.
To be honest, she'd never thought of it at all.
Substitute teachers often took second seat in her mind when compared to boys and school and gossip.
"Moria Briggs, nice to meet ya, Art," she said with a grin, holding out her hand.
Art took it, allowing a smile of her own to slide across her face.
This whole friend-making thing was getting to be more and more a habit.
The Marauders and Art made their tedious way to the lake. It always had the best trees round it to sit by and talk smack about this or that, or who was dating who.
There was a lovely beech tree, just five or ten yards from the lake, that was beautiful that time of year.
It had the best shade and it was furthest away from the slight cluster further away.
Due to its innumerable perks, that beech tree had been their adopted haven.
Art sat quietly, scribbling some gibberish for an assignment from Professor Binns on the Giants War. Remus was beside her, leaning against the tree, reading a book he'd extricated from a pile in the library labeled "Give Away".
Sirius and James were off in the corner, plotting something or another. The rest knew better than to involve themselves just yet, lest they wind up headless due to James's and Sirius's paranoia.
She took a moment to observe her finished work and smiled despite herself.
Now this was fine, phony work. Sirius and James would have been proud – that is, if they weren't so impossibly enveloped in their own ministrations.
Art rolled her eyes at the thought and turned her attentions to the lake.
There were always students grouped on the other side, huddled into their cliques, conversing. But there was a straggler, too, a figure roaming idly about the other side, avoiding the clumps scattered about the lakeside.
There was always a straggler.
Art turned her attention to the lake surface, where it was calm and undisturbed.
It was charming, as its light colour at the center blended into darker and darker hues at the shallower parts.
And it was so smooth, like glass…
Wait, Art thought, Smooth? What happened to the-
And sure enough, as soon as the notion stole across her mind, there it was.
The squid broke the surface of the water, swinging and whipping its tentacles all about it like a demented swing-o-rama.
Art stared, unable to move, at the squid.
It looked to be even bigger now that it was angry, or, the more plausible explanation, now that Art was actually scared of it.
It took all she had of the years of social insecurity not to scream; she screamed now, and she would never be able to walk into Hogwarts with her head held high.
A tentacle came whipping round her, moving so quick it left a speed blur trailing behind it.
It was heading towards her, at a break-neck speed.
Mind blank, she began to run. This was not one of the brightest ideas, considering the speed at which it was moving, and her history for being the worst runner ever to wear sneakers. But, as was said before, her mind was blank.
Situations such as these did that to Art's head; they turned it into a very, very empty place.
Art stumbled - what a time for clumsiness – and rolled over for two seconds.
This time was just long enough, coincidentally, for the tentacle to whiz right over her head with a whistling noise that sounded to Art like victory.
Until, of course, she heard the resulting yell.
"Oh Merlin," she murmured, and chanced a look up.
Remus was being swung round like a rag doll, wrapped in the tentacle of the squid.
"Oh Merlin," she whispered, hardly able to catch her breath. Another tentacle – she'd forgotten he'd had more than one – appeared from beneath the surface and swiped at Peter's feet.
He jumped just in the nick of time, as though he'd been expecting it.
He hadn't, however, been expecting it to swipe a second time.
When he fell, it grasped him by the feet and held him upside down.
He was shrieking like a banshee.
Sirius was being taunted and tripped by a tentacle, and James had been throwing spells at it, trying to stun it.
It kept tripping Sirius each time his hand got too close to his wand, and James's spells were rebounding off the appendage.
Seeing both her friends thrashing above her head caused her mind to suddenly clutter.
Come on, Art thought, come on, and think!
She rummaged through her mine-field of a brain, looking for a spell, any spell, that would help them.
A stunning spell? No, it's already got two of them; they'd be stuck there.
A levitating spell? No, it would hurt the squid, and that would cause repercussions.
Her head began to pulse, temples burning.
Oh, how she'd love to sever that stupid squid's head off for making her think this hard.
Wait…severing!
That's it!
"Diffindo," she shouted, waving her wand just as Professor Flitwick had taught in class. She pointed her wand towards the tentacle that held Remus.
As both the tentacle and he fell, he coughed, having been constricted before in the squid's grasp.
"Finite Incantatem," she squeaked only barely loud enough, just as the squid's tentacle and Remus not long after dropped to the shallows of the lake. The sight had made her a tad queasy, but once more, the societal rules applied.
The tentacle reattached itself to the squid's stub, Remus-less.
There was still the matter of Peter, who was making himself quite known due to his shrill cries.
The tentacle taunting Sirius had finally been stunned by James; he'd hit a weak spot.
Sirius jumped to his feet, only just gaining his balance without the tentacle to chase him.
He quickly cast the same charm, watching with a strong stomach but a weak, conveying face, as the tentacle fell to the ground, twitching a bit as Peter still rolled around, screaming. The undoing charm was shouted, too loud to be sincerely strong and just before Sirius bit his fist and swallowed the bile in his throat.
"James, stun it!" she yelled.
James looked at her and nodded. "Stupefy!"
The squid froze. Art flopped onto her bum, sighing.
Peter was still shrieking.
"Peter, shut up! It's over."
"What do you think caused the squid to attack? It's usually as sweet as a puppy." They had been sent to the hospital wing as soon as word had gotten round, and it had gotten round fast. It was purely for a night of bed rest, because none of them had sustained serious injury. Sirius was still lying on his face, an ice-pack pressed to his bum where he'd fallen, so his voice was muffled.
"I don't know," murmured Art, who sighed.
"Weird though; two semi-docile beings turned mental in one day, McGonagall and the Giant Squid," James murmured.
"McGonagall, docile?"
"He said semi-docile, Sirius," Remus replied, lying on his back. He was half-asleep, the usual tired look on his face multiplied tenfold.
Peter was soundly snoring in the corner bed. He hadn't had more than a scratch on his face when he'd arrived, but his mind had been quite a state. He hadn't stopped screaming since they'd arrived, until Madame Pomfrey had given him a sleeping potion.
"Whatever it was, I hope it's the end of it," Art whispered, drifting off into a light sleep, "I can't take too many more days like this."
Chapter 3: …
To be honest, I don't really know yet.
I'm going to New York tomorrow, so I won't be updating for a while.
I don't have much time now, really, so this last part is rushed.
Review please. :D