Mungo Gorsson and the Several Stoned Sorcerers (and one or two Sorceresses)

Author's note: This story takes place in Harry Potter's second year, (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets) but it is the main character's first year, and thus I am writing the chapter names and the general storyline like the Sorcerer's Stone.) Oh, and if some of you out there are worried about the title, don't worry; alcohol and drugs have no place in this story. The 'Stoned' bit merely refers to the petrified students.

Also, I invented all incantations not from the books, by using a Latin-English dictionary from the closest essences of the spells.

Author's Note (Appended): It is, I think, more than a year since I wrote this. More than two, perhaps. And I came back to look at it, and it is terrible. People wondered why I got so few reviews, and I wondered why I got any at all. That is why I've decided to redo this story.

Trouble is, this will be the fourth or fifth time I tried a revision. Nearly all the time before, it never got on the computer, or it got lost into oblivion somewhere. Maybe this is fate's way of saying,

"Enough with Mungo Gorsson, the Scottish Hufflepuff! Forget him I say!"

But I laugh in the face of Fate! (Mostly because he has a funny nose.)

So, presenting Mungo Gorsson and the Several Stoned Sorcerers: Version 6.34!

Chapter One: The Boy Who Lived in Mortal Dread of Fish, the Vanishing Fish, and the Letter from Fish (I mean, Someone).

The Gorsson family was as magical as you could please, thank you very much. They lived in a small, fishing village called Altnaharra in the Scottish Highlands, where Mrs. Gorsson ran a potions shop that was mostly overlooked by the Muggles in the town, and where Mr. Gorsson stayed when he wasn't working as a photographer for the Daily Prophet, the wizarding newspaper. Alice Gorsson was a very attractive woman, with a kindly face and long black hair, but her beauty was marred by a black eye-patch she wore over one eye, having lost it in an accident. Bungo Gorsson was tall and lanky, with light brown hair, and was so thin and delicate-looking that he looked like he might break himself if he moved too quickly, so he always moved with slow, careful movements.

They had a tall, skinny house high above the town on a rocky hill, surrounded by a garden containing strangely colored plants and herbs, as well as more than its fair share of gnomes. They also had a baby son, called Mungo, who they could agree could be a little more handsome, and a little less prone to drool, but they also had a secret, and a most terrible fear that someone would find out.

They were vegetarian.

This might actually be seen as harmless to the Muggles, as far as the Gorssons were aware, but they weren't willing to take a chance, being the only wizarding folk within fifty miles.

Several years passed, and Mungo became a little better-looking, and stopped drooling, for the most part. He went to school with the village children, though he was easily recognizable as an outsider, due to his parent's conceptions of Muggle wardrobe. Mungo, though a friendly and amiable lad, never made great friends with anyone. He was also an obstacle to the teachers, because he frequently interrupted in class when he plainly didn't understand why they needed to bother with such things as pencil sharpeners.

When he was older, and when many complaints from the school had been made about Mungo's eccentric behavior, Mr. and Mrs. Gorsson explained to him the difference between the wizarding world and the Muggles, and the necessity to keep them separate and secret. After Mungo understood, incidents and accidents happened last often. In fact, so little out-of-the-ordinary happened that Mr. and Mrs. Gorsson were beginning to worry, though they didn't tell Mungo. They were hoping for some sign of magic to show, but weren't seeing any. Mungo wasn't subjected to very much in his life that would make him outraged or terrified, and spook his talent out, until one day…

It was Mungo's eighth birthday, and to celebrate Mr. Gorsson had decided that it would be fun to experience what all the tourists to Altnaharra did: fishing on the loch. So, after Mungo had been considerably relaxed by cake and presents, Mr. Gorsson dragged Mungo to the lakeside, and spent a half hour trying to rent a boat while Mungo ran amok along the rocky shoreline.

At last, after finally understanding that forty pence was not sufficient to rent a fishing boat, they got their vessel and shoved it into the loch. Mungo took an immediate distaste to it, and sat sullenly in the bows while Mr. Gorsson rowed out into the middle of the lake, then rowed back upon remembering that he had left the fishing rods and bait back on shore. When Mr. Gorsson finally cast his line into the water, Mungo was thoroughly tired of it.

Hour after hour passed, and no fish bit the hook, even after Mr. Gorsson got up the courage to put a bit of bait on it. If boredom had any material power, Mungo could have blasted a hole in a brick wall with his, and Mr. Gorsson wasn't much better.

It was nearing dusk when Mr. Gorsson said,

"That does it."

And began rowing to a secluded nook along the coastline. He began talking to Mungo as they went,

"We'll just hide away here, then show these Muggles why we REALLY stayed on the water for six hours."

Mungo didn't bother to understand what his father meant by this; he had made a vow not to try to comprehend anything his father did or said ever again three hours after they started fishing.

When they were out of sight, Mr. Gorsson drew his wand from his pocket, and said,

"Here comes the making of the envy of Altnaharra!"

He waved his wand vaguely over the length of the loch, and said triumphantly,

"Accio FISH!"

For a moment, nothing happened, as Mr. Gorsson held his wand up expectantly, and Mungo looked on with bewilderment. Then, suddenly, the entire loch began to churn, white bubbles began appearing all along the surface, as if it was being stirred violently from below. Then, without warning, about three hundred fish suddenly leapt out of the water, and began soaring through the air directly towards Mr. Gorsson, like a swarm of silvery darts, attracted by the spell.

Mungo screamed, and Mr. Gorsson lost his head and began waving his wand frantically, as if he was trying to shoo the fish back into the lake, but his efforts were of no use.

The fish were nearly at the boat, and Mungo was certain his doom was upon him. Shivering in the bows of the boat, he raised his hands, as if to shield himself from the deluge of cold, slippery, and boat-capsizing fish about to strike.

Then, abruptly, the fish disappeared entirely with a loud bang. Simultaneously, the Day of Joyous Falling Fish was first celebrated in a remote, famine-struck village in China.

Mr. Gorsson and Mungo took a while to recover their senses, sitting in the boat while dusk crept in. At last, Mr. Gorsson said,

"Ah, M-Mungo. You'll be a g-g-good lad and not mention this t-t-t-to your mother, won't you?"

Mr. Gorsson mistook Mungo's shocked silence as agreement, and they rowed home, and Mr. Gorsson never went fishing again.

More years passed, and Mungo changed considerably. He grew very tall, for his age, but his eyesight grew steadily worse, a little to his shame. So, though he wore glasses, he never deigned to look through them unless he had to, and typically wore them on the tip of his nose, and looked over the rim.

His dark brown hair also grew longer, to the dismay of his mother, who knew better than to try to cut a wizard's hair, until it was below his shoulders, and his parents insisted that he keep it tied back in a ponytail.

At his tenth birthday, in the middle of May, his parents inexplicably brought him out of school early, and began getting him more involved with their more magical activities. Mungo welcomed this; many of the few students in school that had been halfway friendly with him had already gone off to private schools. Mr. Gorsson occasionally let Mungo help develop his photographs for the Daily Prophet, pictures of events and personages in the wizarding world, but what Mungo got most involved in was his mother's work.

Every day when Mrs. Gorsson went down to open her shop, Jigger's Quality Apothecary, she took Mungo with her. It was hidden from the eyes of Muggles by an enchantment that made it look like an antique store, and came from years when there were many more magically-inclined people in Altnaharra's area. Mrs. Gorsson's father, Arsenius Jigger, had left the store to her instead of one of his older sons, as she was much more talented in potion-making.

Indeed, though the store got little foot-traffic, the quality of her potions was so extraordinary that many ordered her work from all over the country, and she sent the potions to her customers via owl mail.

Mungo helped his mother in the shop nearly all the time, at first just helping her name and sort the phials and packing them up for mail-order customers, and soon he developed a keen interest. Mrs. Gorsson noticed, and soon was letting him assist her with more important tasks, mixing simple solutions and catalysts, and eventually helping her mix simple potions. Though the smell was little hard to bear at first, and he occasionally had to work with unpleasant substances, such as walrus blubber or dragon liver, as the months went by he got more accustomed to it, and by the start of summer he could handle even slippery, gooey thanderbrant roots without making a face.

So Mungo whiled away the time, while his parents, un-noticed by him, began waiting for something, always pausing at breakfast-time to look a few moments out of the window.

On a day halfway through July, when Mungo and Mrs. Gorsson were getting ready to go to the apothecary, something peculiar happened, and apparently the same thing Mr. and Mrs. Gorsson had been waiting for all this time.

A white barn owl flew in the window, holding a parchment envelope with writing in green ink on it in its beak. This was peculiar, because the Gorssons hardly ever received mail that wasn't connected to a holiday, and all mail requests for Mrs. Gorsson's potions went to the shop. Mr. Gorsson, when he saw the bird with the letter, suddenly grew animated, and walked briskly over and snatched the letter from the owl. He dropped it a moment later after sneezing particularly violently; he had picked up a rather nasty cold while working on a story about Romanian dragons. He blew his nose before picking up the letter again, looked at the address, and smiled broadly.

"Mungo," he said, "It's for you!"

Mungo took it out of Mr. Gorsson's hand, very confused. The Gorssons as a whole received little mail, so letter specifically for him were much more rare. He glanced at the address, written in shining green ink.

Mungo Gorsson

The Uppermost Bedroom

The-Tall-Skinny-House-A-Little-Way-South-East-of-The-Loch (the Gorssons had had trouble thinking of a name for their home

Altnaharra, Scotland.

Well, it was certainly for him. He definitely did live on the very top of the house, which gave him a healthy fear of heights. He tore open the envelope, and read the letter inside aloud, in his Highland accent that his parents, being originally from the south, lacked;

"Hogwarts School o' Witchcraft an' Wizardry,

Headmaster Albus Dumbledoore," He skipped over the long line of confusing titles, not knowing what they meant, or what they had to do with him,

Dear Mr. Gorsson,

We're pleased t'inform ye tha' ye've been accepted at Hogwarts School o' Witchcraft an' Wizardry. Please find encloosed a list o' all necessary books an' equipmen'.

Term begins September 1, we awet yer owl by no later than July 31.

Yers sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall.

Deputy Headmistress"

Mungo puzzled over this a moment, and asked,

"What's Hogwarts?"

His parents exchanged happy looks, and Mr. Gorsson came forward and put a hand on his son's shoulder, looking down on him proudly.

"Mungo, you're a w-blachoo!" He said, suddenly sneezing in the middle of his sentence and narrowly avoiding Mungo.

"I'm a which?" Mungo asked, edging a little away.

"No, no, no! You're a wizard!" Mrs. Gorsson said worriedly.

"But I knew tha' already."

"What I meant was, you're a wizard, and as such, you have a magical talent. To train it, and to improve it, you must study. You've been to a Muggle school, and learned the basics. How to read and write, do basic arithmetic, and so on. Now, you have been accepted- Oh, bugger, have to sneeze again. Alice, would you go on, please?"

Mr. Gorsson retired from the field of conversation to sneeze and cough fitfully in the corner of the room, while Mrs. Gorsson continued.

"You have been accepted at Hogwarts, the school of magic for England and Ireland. We've never mentioned it, as it's a tradition in my family to leave it as a pleasant surprise. There you'll learn how to cast spells, make potions, and generally learn about how to get along in the wizarding world. For the longest time, we were worried that you might not be accepted. You've lived a very sheltered life, and there has never been occasion to startle your magic out of you," Mr. Gorsson shuffled uncomfortably in the background, remembering the incident of the fishing trip, "But now you are, and I have a very special gift to give you."

She left the room, and went upstairs. The Gorsson's house was arranged very curiously; each floor only had one or two large rooms, with the entry hall on the ground floor, and the bedrooms and so on further up.

While she was gone, Mungo read through the equipment list, and Mr. Gorsson sniffed miserably in his corner, though his face was still happy. Robes, hat, gloves, cloak, all black with name tags. A book list that he only skipped over. Cauldron, phials, telescope, scales, and- Mungo's heart suddenly leapt- a wand. Mungo had lived all his life in envy of the terrific things his parents did with their wands, and many times he had plotted (unsuccessfully) to try to grab them and use them. Now, he was to have one of his own!

Mrs. Gorsson came back downstairs, holding a hat in her hands. It was a black, pointed wizard's hat with a wide brim, with a black satin headband. In the headband was a long feather, about a foot long, of a dull grey color.

"This was my great-great-great-great grandfather's hat, passed down through the generations, to the most worthy descendant. My father, to the chagrin of your uncles, favored me over them, and handed it down to me when I went to school. And now that you're going, it's yours." Mrs. Gorsson handed him the hat. Mungo stared distastefully at the feather. He thought it looked a little silly, and very bland. But he didn't want to hurt his mother's feelings by expressing his dis-satisfaction.

"Erm, could we get a new feather fer it, p'raps?" Mungo asked, trying to keep disappointment from his voice.

"Oh, I think you'll want to keep the feather, lad. Might prove to be a little more interesting than you think." Mr. Gorsson said, winking. Mungo looked down at the hat again, and put it on his head. Surprisingly, considering how many people had worn it, it fit him perfectly.

"Well, now we have to get Mungo's supplies, soon. I think we should leave to London next Monday, don't you? Spend a little time in London and Diagon Alley, so we won't be rushed?" Mr. Gorsson suggested.

"That's a good idea. We could go to Horizont Ally, in Edinburgh, but we'd have to go south anyway. And there's always better selection in Diagon Alley, and Ollivanders…"

Mungo wandered outside while his parents talked, confident that, whatever plan they worked out, he would be agreeable to it. He sat on a bench, after spooking some gnomes away, and took off his hat to look at it more closely. It had belonged to generations of his mother's family… They must have had fairly poor taste back then, to put such an ugly feather in it. He ran his finger along the plume's length, and was startled to suddenly see a streak o f yellow appear where his finger had touched it. It vanished as soon as it had appeared, and Mungo dismissed it as a trick of the light.

The next couple days seemed to be filled with talk of Hogwarts. His mother would tell him little things and secrets she had discovered while she was there, and both of his parents reminisced about their experiences at the 'castle', as they called it, over meals. Soon he almost got tired of all the talk, while at the same time wishing and wishing that he was there already.