Disclaimer is in chapter 1.
The arrival of the Express in Hogsmeade was a somber, yet frenzied, affair as Aurors rushed the train, and students struggled to get off. Xander and Wednesday pushed their way off, Xander carrying Luna who was still shivering.
"Hey! Can we get a medic here!?"
A shabbily dressed figure rushed over to them and, quickly eyeing the three of them produced a large slab of chocolate and handed it over. "Share this between you. It'll help."
Xander glanced at it, "it's chocolate."
The man grinned, "Trust me."
Wednesday accepted the slab and broke it into pieces, handing some to Luna and the rest to Xander after she had taken her own. Xander was surprised at how quickly the warmth returned as the chocolate melted in his mouth, and in a few seconds Luna asked to be put back on her feet.
"Whoa." Xander blinked, "Ok, I can admit when I'm wrong."
"Practice does make everything easier." Wednesday replied dryly.
"Hey!" Xander glare over at her, "That's uncalled for. Probably true, but uncalled for."
Luna giggled slightly, then clapped a hand over her mouth, her wide eyes even wider than before.
"I'm everyone's entertainment." Xander sighed theatrically.
"Not everyone's," Wednesday said, nodding to another group.
Draco Malfoy was crowing in Harry Potter's direction, "Fainted, Potter? Really now, I knew you were overrated but come on..."
Xander shook his head as Harry was helped off by Ron and Hermione. "Harry fainted?"
"Dementors affect different people in different ways," Wednesday said by way of explanation. "Most of our age experience a mild chill, and a sensation of happiness fleeing forever."
Xander nodded, "Yeah. That... sounds about right."
"The worse your experiences, however, the stronger the effect." The girl went on, "If your life has been hard enough, a Dementor can summon up the very worst thing you have ever experienced and force you to relive it."
Xander grimaced, knowing that Harry's life hadn't exactly been perfume and roses. "You didn't seem too bothered, not until it left anyway."
Wednesday looked over at him for a moment, then turned toward the castle. "That... thing had no idea who it was facing. I react differently to darkness than most."
She was walking away by the time she finished, leaving Xander to stare after her.
"She ain't kidding, either." Xander finally said, chuckling as he too headed for the carriages.
The sorting ceremony was a subdued affair, with the teachers and students both quietly going about their business with very little of the boisterous behavior of previous years. Xander had mixed feelings on that, since he was having doubts about his planned opening salvo against the Twins.
He'd been planning it all summer, however, and as the firsties were being sorted off Xander finally decided to go for it and surreptitiously began casting.
He used his Graphite/Unicorn Hair wand, because he figured that it wouldn't leave the same tell tales as his matched wand, and carefully began laying the charms needed on the room. The Great Hall was a spectacular piece of enchantment, something Xander would have recognized even without Hermione hammering it in every year, practically everything in the room was charmed or enchanted somehow. The spells were, in fact, nearly impossible to break or alter in any permanent way, the strength of the magic involved was so great.
However, they were also explicitly designed to accept temporary modifications as a method for adapting the room to different needs. Technically only the Headmaster or a Professor was supposed to be able to make said modifications, however over the years several students had worked out the methodology for doing so... including the Coven and the Marauders.
Now Xander prepared his first sally of the year using their techniques as the hat droned on, sending students to their tables.
By the time the sorting was done, and the Headmaster's requisite nonsensical words had been uttered, Xander too was finished and the meal appeared.
This year no one was digging in too fast, having remembered the events of the year before, and the upper students were carefully vetting the food. Xander, however, didn't. He quickly dug in and drew surprised stares from around him.
"Did you check the food?" Daphne nudged him.
Xander shook his head, "nope.
"But... the Twins?"
"If they get me, they get me." Xander replied, then smirked, "but I don't think they're stupid enough to try. Not after last year."
Daphne considered than, and had to admit that it was likely true. She shrugged and took a sampling for herself, "You think they've given up?"
Xander snorted, "not hardly. But they'll come from a new direction this year, I'll bet."
"That's hardly comforting."
Xander just grinned.
The meal progressed with little incident, apparently even the twins were feeling less than eager to mix things up given the events of the day, until the desert course was served. Xander waited until that was petering out, most students looking around more and at their food less, then he tripped his charm string and carefully made a point of digging in to a new slice of pie.
At first nothing happened, then a gasp and series of whispers began to echo back and forth through the hall. Xander looked up, putting on a confused expression, and looked to where the others were pointing.
On the charmed ceiling of the Hall a large banner was playing itself out.
HEIRS OF THE MARAUDERS, BEWARE.
Xander smirked inwardly, really he felt kinda cheap stealing Mold in his Short's lines, but it was too good to pass up. The tension in the room had cranked up noticeably, and Xander was only mildly surprised to see the twins pale slightly.
He had been wondering if they knew anything about their predecessors, but from what he could tell from the book it was entirely probable so he'd played it out as if they did.
'So, I wonder what little piece of the marauders they found?' he mused as the ceiling changed again.
THE COVEN AWAKENS, AND WE ARE WATCHING YOU.
It really was all he could do not to grin insanely at the sudden look the twins shot each other, their freckled face paling a little more as they searched the room for their unknown adversaries. That was a memory worth savoring, Xander decided, as he looked around the room himself.
The twins reaction was exactly what he had hoped for, but it was the *teachers* reactions that sent his mind into overdrive.
The shabby looking man who had given them the slabs of chocolate earlier was sitting, wide eyed and opened mouthed as he stared up, and *every* other teacher including the Headmaster, was staring at him with suspicious eyes.
Well, except for Snape, who was glaring with killing intent.
'What the hell is that?' Xander wondered, as he wracked his brain for the man's name.
Lupin, he thought. He hadn't been paying a lot of attention when the Headmaster introduced him.
Remus Lupin.
Xander frowned, his focus shifting as he started thinking about the reaction from the teacher's and filed the twins away as less interesting for the moment. Lupin was now shaking his head and whispering intently to the headmaster, obviously denying involvement.
Xander knew that Lupin had no connections to the Coven, at least none that he could think of. So, realistically, that only left one possibility.
Was he a Marauder?
The teachers quickly dispelled the charms Xander had laid, and amidst the whispers of the students, the assembly was broken up and everyone sorted out to their dorms.
"Well!" Daphne blinked, "What was that all about?"
"Don't know." Xander lied, "Did you see the teachers, though?"
"Yeah, they were glaring at that new Professor. I wonder if he did it?"
"Snape seemed to think so."
Daphne cracked a wry grin, "True, however as much as it pains me, that may not be a good judge of the situation."
Xander chuckled, but nodded as the two of them let themselves into the Common Room.
"You filthy little worm! What possible excuse could the hat have for letting something like YOU disgrace our great House!?"
Xander looked up and rolled his eyes. Apparently Draco had made it back first, and had quickly corned a First Year. "God, Draco, it's the first day. Do you HAVE to be courting trouble already?"
Malfoy spun on him, "Stay out of this Harris."
"What did this one do?"
"This little mudblood, who belongs in a ZOO, touched my robes."
Having spent a little time chatting back and forth with Draco's mother, Xander had to wonder where the guy got his lines. His mother, while a pureblood supremacist to be sure, at least had style.
"Dude," Xander sighed, "Isn't it enough that two thirds of the school would probably look the other way if they saw you bleeding on the floor? Do you HAVE to make enemies in the place you sleep?"
"What are you babbling about?" Draco turned on him, the first year scrambling away.
"Pretty much every Gryffindor hates your guts..."
"As if I care."
"Which means most of the Puffs hate your guts," Xander continued.
"Useless twits."
"And a good chunk of the Claws too." Xander finished, "I figure that amounts to about two thirds of the school. I don't know WHY you seem to want them to hate you, and I don't care. But, if it were me, I don't think I'd be trying to make enemies of people who, A) have been sorted into the house of ruthless cunning, and B) Have access to where I *sleep*."
Draco looked a little lost for a moment, then paled. "Are you threatening me?"
"Me? Dude, I don't hate you." Xander shook his head, "If I did, I wouldn't be telling you this, I'd just slit your throat or whatever while you were sleeping. This brings me to my point..."
Draco looked around, noting the people listening to the conversation even as they struggled to NOT appear to be listening, and swallowed. "No one would dare."
"You and I have GOT to be using different definitions of the words 'ruthless', 'cunning', and 'ambitious'," Xander said dryly as he pushed past Draco and headed for his room.
Behind him he left a completely confused, and newly paranoid, Draco Malfoy looking around with new eyes.
"Nice speech."
Xander glanced up and nodded to Blaise Zabini as the boy entered the room. He didn't respond, though, having noticed that Blaise tended to be quiet himself, and just went on with unpacking.
"I doubt he'll take it to heart."
Xander looked up again, and this time shrugged, "Distracted him long enough for the Firstie to get away. That's all I was aiming for. If he takes it to heart, that's a bonus."
Zabini nodded, not saying anything more.
Xander opened his trunk and pulled out some of his research books to set by his bed. He didn't take out any of his notebooks or the Grimoire, of course, those remained safely secured. Then he shifted the trunk to another compartment and drew out a change of clothes.
That caught Blaise' attention, and the dark skinned boy leaned over.
"I say, is that an expanded trunk?"
Xander nodded, "Yeah, why?"
"Surprised to see one." Blaise admitted, "They're bloody rare."
"You have one, don't you?" Xander asked, having noticed it before.
Blaise nodded, "Sure, but my Grandfather builds them. I'd bet good galleons that we're the only students in the school with one."
"You'd lose." Xander smirked.
Blaise stared for a moment, then nodded, "Addams. Of course. Grandfather Zabini sold two last fall to Gomez Addams. He only sold three all year, and one of those was to a Master Auror who had the standard Ministry subsidy they all get."
"I didn't know they were that rare. Aren't all school trunks a little expanded?"
Blaise nodded, "Yes, but those are child's play compared to a multi compartment trunk. Those are bought premade from Muggles, then charmed by apprentices usually. True expanded trunks are handmade, and it takes a Master Charmsmith and Carpenter to do it."
"Wow." Xander said, looking at the trunk again, impressed. "I didn't know. How much are they worth?"
"That depends on who you ask," Blaise smiled very slightly. "My Grandfather would say that they're priceless. I believe the going market value is around twenty thousand Galleons, unless you have the Ministry subsidy."
Xander blinked, thinking it through. A Galleon was worth about one point three Golden Eagles, and a Golden Eagle was worth... last time he checked, Xander tried to remember the exchange, a GE held 6 grams of pure gold at around thirty dollars a gram... Xander's eyes flashed opened and he whistled.
"That's a lot of cash." he admitted, wondering at how much Gomez had spent on him.
"And now you know why I was surprised." Blaise said simply.
Xander nodded silently, and made a quick promise to return the favor to the Addamses when he could. He also eyed the trunk with a little more respect than he had before, surprised at the value of something he owned.
It seemed that there was more to the Wizarding world than cool toys.
There were *expensive* cool toys.