Year 2: Show Some Strength

Chapter 15: January 2017

As usual, the Christmas holidays didn't last nearly as long, and before he knew it, Louis was back on the train to Hogwarts. He and Justin found a compartment together and settled in for the day-long train ride back to Hogwarts.

"Good holiday?" Louis asked Justin.

"Pretty good," Justin replied. "You?"

"Ran a lot," Louis replied. "So that was good."

"Not me," Justin shook his head. "I did all my exercises and stuff, but there's nowhere to run when you live in a flat. I'd have had to go down onto the street."

"There's nothing wrong with that," Louis said.

Justin shook his head. "I wasn't doing it," he declared. "It'll be fine, I'll start running again as soon as we get back to school."

"If you say so," Louis shrugged, not about to start a fight.

The boys lapsed into silence for a while, Louis starting out the window thoughtfully and Justin staring at his trunk with an odd expression on his face. It wasn't until the trunk fell flat on its side that Louis paid it any attention.

"Is everything alright with your trunk?" Louis asked. He wouldn't have bothered except for the degree of attention Justin was giving it. Normally they stowed their trunks in the above-head racks and forgot about them, but Justin had insisted on leaving his on the floor, and now it was behaving oddly.

"Fine," Justin replied shortly. "It's just a trunk. Clothes, books, cauldron. Nothing special in there."

"Are you sure?" Louis frowned, completely unconvinced. Now he was almost positive Justin was hiding something. "Can I take a look?"

"No you may not!" Justin exclaimed in outrage. "A man doesn't let another man go searching through his trunk! That's incredibly inappropriate."

Louis tried to stifle a laugh. Justin was being very serious and protective of his trunk, and it was only making Louis more and more curious.

"Just tell me what you're hiding," Louis insisted. "I'll find out soon enough anyway."

"You won't," Justin shook his head. "Unlike some people, I intend to keep my trunk locked during the day, so that snoopy roommates don't go pawing through it for no good reason."

"It wouldn't be for no good reason," Louis pointed out. "Not if we just wanted to know why you're acting strangely."

Before Justin could respond to this, a strange noise came from inside his trunk. It sounded almost like a muffled groan. Louis' eyes shot to the trunk suspiciously and then back at Justin.

"Please tell me there's not a person in there," he begged.

"Don't be daft," Justin rolled his eyes. "Of course there's not a person in there."

"Well there's something in there," Louis said. "Something alive. Something had to have made that noise."

"That was just my new talking… socks," Justin replied.

"Talking socks?" Louis repeated, wholly unimpressed. "You're going with talking socks?"

"Well you didn't give me enough time to come up with something better!" Justin exclaimed.

"Aha!" Louis cried. "So you are keeping something a secret."

Justin sighed and hung his head. "If I tell you, do you promise not to tell a soul? It's really embarrassing."

"Of course," Louis agreed. "The two of us are keeping enough secrets as it is, what's another one?"

"Alright," Justin replied, slowly moving over to his trunk and setting it on the proper side so that he could open it. "Now just remember that this was not my idea," he said as he clicked open the latches and prepared to open the lid. "It was a Christmas present from my uncle. Don't know what he was thinking."

"Just open the thing," Louis insisted, tired of Justin's procrastinating.

Justin did open his trunk, and as soon as he did, something slimy and slippery launched itself out of the trunk and landed on Louis' face.

"Ah!" he cried in surprise, shaking his head one way and then the other to try and get the thing off. It was clinging pretty hard though, and wouldn't budge. "What is it? Get if off!"

"Sorry," Justin apologized, grabbing onto the thing and tugging it off of Louis' face. He pulled it away and Louis got a proper look at it. It was a toad. "I didn't expect it to jump like that."

"Uh, Justin?" Louis frowned. "Why do you have a toad?"

"I told you, it was a Christmas present from my uncle," Justin replied. "I know, it's the lamest pet ever, but what was I supposed to do? My parents thought it was such a thoughtful gift."

"Toads have been out of style since forever," Louis pointed out. "I'm pretty sure the last time they were in style, my father was just starting at Hogwarts."

"I know," Justin shrugged helplessly. "But now I'm stuck with one."

"What was it doing in your trunk?" Louis questioned. "Shouldn't it be in a cage or something?"

"Well I didn't want everyone to see it!" Justin defended himself. "It's not like I wedged it in between my books and my inkwells. I put it in my cauldron and set it up with some grass and some food, to make it comfortable."

"No offense," Louis muttered, "but I don't think the toad liked being in there."

Justin shrugged. "Well too bad," he said, more to the toad than to Louis. "Because I don't like having you around, so you're just going to have to learn to live in my cauldron."

"You can't keep it cooped up like that!" Louis protested. "You have to let it hop around, enjoy life. You can't punish the toad for existing. It's not it's fault it's an uncool animal."

"But if I let it hop around, people will know I have one," Justin groaned.

"It's not like we were ever cool to begin with," Louis pointed out.

This was an excellent point, and Justin conceded. Over the course of the remainder of the trip to Hogwarts, the boys debated on what to call the toad. 'It' and 'toad' were getting old, and until now, Justin had refused to name the thing in protest.

In the end, they settled on 'Toby'. According to Justin, it was sufficiently lame to match the toad's lameness. As for Louis, he agreed that a short name was more appropriate for the small creature.

When they arrived at school, Justin stuffed Toby back into his trunk. Louis wanted to protest, but the alternative would have been carrying him into the welcome back feast, and Louis understood why that wasn't an option. It would be one thing for their dormmates to find out Justin had a toad. It would be another to announce it to the whole school.

When the feast came to a close, the boys headed back up to the Gryffindor common room and then straight to their dorm to let Toby out. None of their roommates were back yet, which was a positive. Justin let Toby out, and Toby immediately started hopping around the room.

"Toby no!" Justin cried, chasing after him. "Come on, you can live in my drawer. It's nice and dark in there when it's closed, just like you like!"

But Toby wouldn't listen, choosing instead to hop from bed to bed, leaving big wet marks all over the boys' blankets and pillows.

"Toby no!" Justin cried when Toby stopped on Philip's bed and started to pee. "Toby, gross!"

Thankfully, this gave Justin the chance to grab the toad before he hopped away again and shove it into the drawer in his bedside table.

Just as he closed the drawer, Philip, Russel, and Randall returned from dinner and started to set themselves up and unpack.

"Why is my pillow wet?" Russel frowned, picking it up and poking at the wet spot.

"And why is my bedspread wet?" Randall added, pressing his hand to the spot Toby had jumped on and removing it.

"My bedspread is wet too," Philip said, gesturing to his own. "And it smells kind of funny."

Louis wrinkled his nose as Philip got closer to the pee stain to smell it. Justin was turning all shades of red and looked like he wanted to hide.

"Louis? Justin? Is anything on either of your beds wet?" Philip asked, looking at the two boys.

"Erm," Louis began. "Well, my pillow is actually a little slimy…"

"The elves must be getting lax," Russel muttered. "I think I'll have a word with Professor Slinkhard about it, because this is unacceptable."

"It wasn't the elves," Justin groaned, burying his face into his hands. "I'm sorry guys, it's my fault. Or rather, it's Toby's fault."

He opened his drawer and Toby hopped out, landing on the floor. He started hopping up and down and Louis shook his head. Of course now Toby behaved decently.

"You have a toad?" Randall exclaimed, his eyes going wide. "That's about the lamest thing I've ever seen!"

"I can't believe you brought a toad to Hogwarts!" Philip added. "You're never going to be able to live this one down."

"Just keep it away from my stuff," Russel insisted, glaring at the toad angrily. "And I'm still going to have to call the elves to come get me a new pillow, because there's no way I'm sleeping with this one."

Justin hung his head in embarrassment, and Louis carefully picked up Toby and put him back in the drawer for the night.

"That wasn't so bad," Louis said, trying to cheer Justin up. "And now they know. It was only a matter of time."

"I'm going to bed," Justin muttered, hopping into his bed and closing the curtains around him.

Moments later, the elves arrived. They tore through the room like a hurricane, changing all four of the boys' beds and leaving them as good as new.

"Thank you!" Louis called after them, but they were already gone.

LlLlLlLlLlL

The next morning, Justin refused to get out of bed until all three of their roommates had left for classes. Only one they were gone did he emerge and start getting dressed. The boys were late to their first class, which lost them a cumulative five points for Gryffindor, but Justin saw it as a fair trade-off.

Over the next few days, Justin tried ignoring Toby. Unfortunately, Toby wouldn't be ignored, and if Justin didn't let him out of the drawer during the day, Toby would hop around inside it until it opened by itself. Even a locking spell didn't seem to prevent Toby from getting out, much to Justin's dismay. Justin was becoming more and more unpopular in the dorm, and Louis was starting to see why keeping Toby in the cauldron had seemed a better plan at first.

One day, Louis and Justin returned from an astronomy club meeting to find Russel in a rage. He was tearing the room apart for no apparent reason, just upending things and throwing things around and screaming all kinds of obscenities.

The moment he saw Justin, he stopped in his tracks and focused all his rage on him.

"You!" he cried, pointing his finger at Justin and advancing menacingly. Justin immediately braced himself and Louis was suddenly glad for the training sessions with Professor Derlid. They might not be ready to face the Slytherins quite yet, but he was sure Justin could hold his own against Russel. "You and that toad have got to go!"

"Hey, this is Justin's dorm too," Louis insisted. "You can't go ordering him around like that, or kicking people out. This is a shared space."

"Well then he should respect my space," Russel cried. "Look at this!"

He waved a stack of parchment in Louis' face, but Louis couldn't tell what it was.

"Okay, just calm down and explain," Louis said, trying to hold his cool since Justin was clearly not going to be useful.

"Here," Russel shoved the parchments into Louis' hand and Louis started paging through them. They had clearly been written on, appeared to be some sort of assignment, but the pages were covered in large water stains, making them completely illegible. "It was my potions essay," Russel clarified. "Now it's just a big mess."

"Toby did this?" Louis asked.

"Who else would have done?" Russel demanded. "I left them on top of my trunk this morning, and when I came back, they were skewed across the room and that toad was hopping around like mad."

"But you can't be sure it was Toby," Louis pointed out. "You didn't actually see him do anything with them."

"Oh, it was Toby," Justin said, finally speaking up. "We all know it was Toby. He ruins everything." Justin sounded defeated.

"Don't say that!" Louis insisted, not sure why he was fighting for Toby. "Toby doesn't know any better. He'd a toad. It's what he does."

"Well something has to be done about it," Russel insisted. "Because I'm not putting up with this anymore. I already have to re-write my potions essay, which I'm not happy about. It was completely finished!"

"At least you already know what you want to say," Louis pointed out. "It's not like you're starting from scratch."

"I might as well be," Russel muttered, storming away with his ruined essay clutched in his hand. Louis could hear him continue to mutter about Justin and Toby all the way down to the common room.

Once Russel was out of earshot, Louis turned to Justin.

"This wasn't your fault," he insisted, knowing that Justin would be taking everything Russel had said to heart. "Russel can't blame you for something Toby did while you were at class."

"Sure he can," Justin insisted. "I brought Toby into the dorm. I'm responsible for his actions."

"Everyone's just going to have to get used to Toby," Louis said. "Obviously it's going to take awhile, but eventually they'll come around."

"No," Justin shook his head. "Russel was right. Toby has to go."

LlLlLlLlLlL

No matter what Louis said, Justin wouldn't change his mind. He'd decided and that was that. The followed afternoon, as soon as classes were over, Louis and Justin went up to the dorm to collect Toby.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Louis asked. "He was a present from your uncle."

"A lame present I never wanted," Justin insisted. "Trust me, I'm sure."

"What will your parents say when you come home for the summer without him?" Louis asked.

"I'll tell them he ran away," Justin replied. "They can't get mad at me for losing him. I mean, maybe a little, for being careless, but that's all. And it's not like he didn't have a knack for opening drawers and escaping when I wasn't around."

"I just don't think you've thought this through!" Louis insisted as they headed down the stairs towards the Entrance Hall.

"Oh believe me, I've thought this through," Justin said.

"You're just reacting to what Russel said yesterday," Louis insisted. "You're acting from emotion, not logic."

"I was thinking about doing this even before what Russel said yesterday," Justin replied. "The whole potions essay debacle was just the final nail in the coffin."

"Once you do this, there's no going back," Louis reminded his friend. "As soon as he's gone, he's gone."

"I know," Justin said. "But I'm decided. I'm doing it."

They came to the Entrance Hall and headed outside. It was cold, so they'd put on their cloaks and scarves and gloves, but they were still immediately chilled upon stepping out of the castle.

Louis followed Justin down to the frozen lake and then out into the center of it. Taking out his wand, Justin performed a simple spell to crack the ice just a bit, and Louis helped him remove the broken off piece of ice from the rest. Then Justin knelt by the hole in the ice and pulled Toby out of his pocket.

"Alright," Justin said, holding his hands out so Toby could see the water. "Go on, get in. This is your new home now."

"I don't think Toby understands English," Louis pointed out. "You might have to just drop him in there."

But Toby did seem to understand, because he hopped out of Justin's hands, landing on the ice right at the edge of the hole and peered down into the icy depths.

"It'll be cold up at the top," Justin agreed, sensing the toad's wariness. "But you just have to swim down to the bottom, and then it'll be nice and warm. And there'll be all sorts of other fish and things to be friends with down there. And one it gets warmer and the ice melts, you can come up to the shore and hop around on the grass all you want."

Louis suddenly got the strong feeling that he was intruding on a private moment, so he slowly backed away and went to wait for Justin on land. He watched from a distance as Justin said his final goodbyes to Toby, and then the toad hopped into the hole and disappeared from view.

"Are you alright?" Louis asked when Justin returned to shore.

"Fine," Justin nodded, hiding his face. Louis could have sworn he saw a tear, but he decided not to bring it up.

"Well what's done is done," Louis shrugged. There would be no going after Toby now, not now that he was down at the bottom of the lake. And once spring came, there would be tons of toads hopping around on the shore, and it would be next to impossible to know which one was Toby. "We'd better get going. Professor Derlid will be waiting for us."

And so the two boys set off for their physical defence training session, thoughts of Toby slowly drifting away as they refocused their attention on all the other important things going on in their lives.