Year 2: Show Some Strength

Chapter 16: February 2016

"Last one to the courtyard has to tell Madam Maxwell that we spilled ink on that library book!" Justin shouted as he and Louis rounded the final corner of the castle.

It was a crisp Saturday morning, and the boys were completing their daily laps of the castle for Professor Derlid. At first, the whole training regimen had seemed like it was going to be an effort in futility, that there was no way the two Gryffindors would ever get in shape enough to fight off a hoard of Slytherins. But after a couple of months of training, things were looking up. They could complete their laps with breath to spare, their muscles were getting stronger, and most important of all, they were both feeling much more confident in themselves.

"It's not a race!" Louis shouted back, as Justin took the lead.

"You're only saying that because you're losing," Justin shot back, redoubling his efforts and shooting forward with a little burst of speed.

Louis rolled his eyes and pushed forward in the hopes of outrunning his friend. But Justin was too far ahead now and the courtyard was too close for Louis to have any chance.

The two boys burst into the entrance courtyard and came to a stop right at the bottom of the stairs that led into the castle, where Professor Derlid stood looking at his watch.

"Better," he said shortly.

"Oh, come on Professor," Louis groaned, putting his hands on his knees as he took a few deep breaths to cool down. "That was our best run yet."

"You were only a few seconds faster than last week," Professor Derlid replied. "I'd like to see you shave off a full minute by the end of the month."

"Isn't it enough that we're actually completing the circuit?" Justin asked. "Can't we just look at how far we've come?"

"You can always be better," Professor Derlid replied. "I'll expect next Saturday to be a significant improvement from today."

Louis rolled his eyes. Professor Derlid acted all strict, but he knew the defence teacher was proud of the boys' dedication and commitment. Not many students were this invested in physical defence – most relied on magical defence instead. But Louis and Justin knew the importance of physical strength in addition to magical prowess.

With their run finished, the boys followed their professor up to the defence classroom for some more training. Today they worked with some weights, and then Professor Derlid had the two boys wrestle against one another as a practical application of their new strength.

When they were done, the boys started to head back to Gryffindor Tower to get a head start on their weekend homework.

"Alright, so here's that library book," Justin said when they were about halfway there. He pulled the book in question out of his bag and handed it to Louis.

"And what do you expect me to do with this?" Louis demanded.

"Return it to the library," Justin replied. "You did lose the race after all."

"First of all, I wasn't racing. Second of all, you're the one that knocked that inkwell over, so you should be the one to return it," Louis insisted.

"But you're the one that put the inkwell so close to a library book," Justin pointed out. "And technically, it was checked out of the library under your name."

Louis sighed. "Alright fine," he agreed. "I'll return the book. But I'm telling Madam Maxwell that you're the culprit."

"Can't we just say the elves did it?" Justin pleaded.

"No," Louis shook his head. "We are not blaming the elves for something they didn't do. That's not fair."

Justin sighed and Louis shook his head as he peeled off in the opposite direction to take a detour through the library. "I'll see you in a few!" he called out after him.

The library was all the way down on the second floor, and Louis was up on the sixth, but there was a nearby staircase that would take him straight down to the corridor that led to the library, so it wasn't a huge inconvenience.

When he arrived in the library, Madam Maxwell was busy yelling at a group of third years, so Louis slipped the damaged library book into the returned books pile and slipped in and out without a word. He'd lucked out, because usually Madam Maxwell insists on paging through returned books when students bring them back to check for damages in order to scold the offender to their face. At least this way, if Louis avoided the library for a short while, she would have forgotten about it by the next time he saw her.

As he exited the library corridor and made his way to the Grand Staircase, Louis found himself whistling joyfully. It was a good day. He was feeling strong, he'd avoided a confrontation with Madam Maxwell, he was doing pretty well in his classes… Things were really starting to look up.

"Hey Louis!" a female voice rang out as Louis began to climb the first set of stairs.

Louis paused and turned around to find Brooke, his older sister's friend, coming up behind him.

"Hi Brooke," Louis returned, pausing so the fourth year girl could catch up.

"You seem cheerful today," Brooke commented.

"It's a good day," Louis returned.

Brooke smiled. "That's nice to hear."

As the two continued up the stairs, Brooke stumbled and one of the sandwiches she was carrying fell to the floor.

"Why are you carrying so much food?" Louis frowned, taking stock of the contents of Brooke's arms. There were tons of sandwiches, as well as a bowl filled with soup that was balancing precariously between her arms.

"It's for Domi," Brooke replied, regaining her balance.

"Here, let me help you," Louis instead, grabbing the bowl of soup so that Brooke could focus on the sandwiches. "And since when can Domi not go down to the Great Hall to get her own lunch?"

"She's having a bit of a problem today," Brooke informed him. "I'm sure she'll get it sorted by Monday. At least I hope she does. But anyway, she won't leave the common room until it's been fixed."

"What's the problem?" Louis wondered. He didn't know of anything going on with his sister, and he wondered if he should be concerned.

"It's nothing terrible," Brooke assured him. "And I don't think she wants people to know. Of course, people already know, so it's not like I'd be giving away a secret…"

Louis nodded, encouraging Brooke to go on and just tell him what it was.

Brooke sighed. "She's gone bald," the girl revealed.

"Gone bald?" Louis frowned. "How is that possible?"

"Well she hasn't gone bald so much as been balded. Summer Snow did a spell to embarrass her. It certainly worked."

"So you're telling me that my sister presently has no hair?" Louis asked for clarification. "As in zero hair?"

"That's right," Brooke nodded. "She's working on finding a spell to reverse it, but so far nothing."

Louis was able to keep his calm for all of five seconds before he burst out laughing. The image of his beautiful sister with no hair was too funny. He couldn't wait to get back to the common room to see it for himself.

"It's not funny!" Brooke insisted. "Domi is devastated. It was a malicious move on Summer's part, done purposely to hurt her."

"I'm sorry," Louis said, sobering. "I'm sorry, I know it's really not funny, it's just the image of her without hair…"

"You can't laugh if you happen to see her," Brooke insisted. "You can't laugh at her. Enough people have done it already. If you need to laugh, then stay in the hall."

They had come to the portrait hole and all that was left was to say the password and climb inside.

Louis nodded, forcing a frown to his face to push away the laughter. "It's okay, I'm good," he assured Brooke.

"Alright," Brooke nodded, glancing at Louis nervously before giving the password. "Babbity Rabbity."

The portrait hole swung open and Louis crawled in after Brooke, following the fourth year to a far corner of the room, where a student sat alone, hood pulled up over her head in an effort to remain unrecognizable.

"Domi?" Brooke said gently, putting the sandwiches down in front of her. "Any luck yet?"

"What do you think?" Dominique muttered back, angrily shutting the book she was leafing through in favor of a sandwich.

Louis placed the bowl of soup down in front of his sister and Brooke produced a spoon.

"Don't worry Domi, I'm sure it's not that bad," he assured her.

"Not that bad?" Dominique cried, lifting her head to meet her brother's eyes. There was fire in her eyes, which told Louis that she was taking this whole thing very seriously.

In the swift motion of her head movement, the hood slipped a little and Louis got a nice view of her balded forehead. He had to stifle a giggle as she furiously tugged the hood over her face properly.

"Louis, what did I say before we came in here?" Brooke demanded dangerously, sensing Louis' amusement.

"Right, sorry," Louis raised his hands in defence. "I'll just be…" he glanced around the room. "I'll be over there," he pointed to where Justin was sitting with his herbology notes all around him.

Neither Brooke nor Dominique acknowledged this, and Louis left before he lost control and did laugh I his sister's face.

"What's all going on over there?" Justin wondered as he scribbled something down on his assignment parchment.

"Nothing much," Louis shrugged. "Just Domi's hair is gone and she's trying to grow it back."

As he said the words, Louis found himself chuckling out loud. It was just such a hilarious situation, and of course Dominique would be the one to get herself into it.

"What do you mean?" Justin demanded, dropping his quill and shoving his homework aside. "Where's it gone?"

Louis shrugged. "I guess some other fourth year was playing some kind of prank and did a spell to remove all her hair," he replied. Brooke hadn't given all the details.

"Tell me who, and I'll make them pay," Justin declared, pushing himself up into a standing position, looking ready to strike.

"Oh no," Louis shook his head. "I'm not telling you who did it if you're going to be like that. We should just leave it alone, it doesn't involve us anyway, and I don't think Domi would want you retaliating for her."

"If you don't tell me, I'll just find out from someone else," Justin threatened. "So you might as well tell me now."

Louis sighed. Justin had a point. And Louis knew that if he pried and asked the right people, he'd surely figure it out in no time. "Alright fine," Louis said. "But remember that I'm against you getting involved."

"You've made your opinion very clear," Justin affirmed.

"Alright then," Louis nodded. "It was Summer Snow."

LlLlLlLlLlL

Over the course of the next few days, Justin spoke of nothing but his plans to make Summer pay for embarrassing Dominique. Of course, he had no idea what he was going to do in retaliation, only that he was going to do something.

Louis tried talking his friend out of it. Getting involved was a bad idea for so many reasons. For one, Dominique didn't need some random second year fighting her battles, and probably wouldn't appreciate it if she knew. For two, Louis had thought that Justin's weird obsession with his sister was over, but that was obviously not the case. Not to mention getting involved could put a big red target on Justin's back, which was the last thing either boy needed. They had enough problems with the Slytherins in their own year, they didn't need to be picking fights with the older students too.

But Justin was adamant that Dominique be avenged. And he was determined to embarrass Summer Snow just as badly if not worse than how she'd embarrassed Dominique. Preferably in front of the entire school. He just had to come up with an idea. And after a few days of thinking on it, he did. It just wasn't a very good one.

LlLlLlLlLlL

"Don't do it," Louis pleaded as Justin scoped out the best place to play out his revenge plot.

"I'm sorry, but I have to," Justin replied.

"You can just walk away now and forget about it," Louis insisted. "Pretend nothing ever happened."

"But something did happen," Justin pointed out. "I have to respond."

"You really don't," Louis said. "You are the last person who needs to be responding to this. It has nothing to do with you, you shouldn't be involving yourself."

"You're right," Justin agreed, to Louis' surprise.

"I am?" Louis frowned.

Justin nodded. "I am the last person who should be involving myself. It should be you. She's your sister. You should be defending her honor, as her brother. But you're not, so I'm stepping up."

Louis sighed. "Just leave it alone," he begged.

But Justin shook his head. "Not a chance," he said. "And I think I've picked my spot."

Shaking his head and wishing his friend wasn't so stupid, Louis watched as Justin carefully positioned the banana peel on the floor at the top of the stairs that led up from the dungeons. While there were multiple routes out of the dungeons, this was the one most often frequented by Summer and her friends, and therefore, Justin's best shot at catching her.

Once the peel was placed, Justin focused his energy and cast a quick invisibility spell on it. It was an extremely advanced spell, which Justin absolutely had not mastered yet, which meant that if Summer didn't show up in the next five minutes, the spell would fade and Justin's plan would fail. Which was why Justin had been watching Summer for the past few days to ascertain her schedule, and why he knew that she would be heading up for breakfast any moment now.

"Okay, hide!" Justin hissed at Louis once the trap was in place.

With a roll of his eyes, Louis followed Justin and hid behind a large pillar to avoid being seen. While he thought the whole thing was a terrible idea, he certainly didn't want to be spotted at the scene of the accident by anyone who might connect him with it.

A chorus of voices began to become audible, and Louis and Justin knew that Summer was on her way up. Justin eagerly shifted so that he could watch the whole thing unfurl, while Louis covered his eyes, wishing that he was anywhere but there.

The voices got closer and closer, passed the boys, and then got further and further away. Confused, Louis opened his eyes to find Justin walking back out into the middle of the corridor and looking down at the ground where he'd placed the peel with a frown.

"What happened?" Louis asked.

"She must have missed it," Justin said, sounding like he could barely believe his own ears.

"Well where did you leave it?" Louis asked. "Was it even in her path?"

"I don't… I can't seem to find it," Justin admitted as he kicked around on the ground, searching for the invisible banana peel.

Louis groaned. "Good job," he muttered. "You lost your revenge. Genius move making it invisible."

"Well she wasn't going to slip on it if she could see it," Justin retorted. "She'd have just walked around it."

"She did that anyway!" Louis pointed out. "And now you can't even find it!"

"The spell will wear off any minute now," Justin insisted. "We just have to let it run it's course."

As he said that, a new group of voices started approaching from the bottom of the stairs. Neither Louis nor Justin paid them any mind until the leader of the group became visible. It was David Flint.

"Ah, my least favorite Gryffindors!" Flint called out menacingly.

Louis immediately flinched backwards.

"Why are the two of you lurking at the top of our stairs?" he asked suspiciously.

He moved forward, as if to block Louis and Justin into a corner, but then suddenly, his foot swung out from underneath him and he flew into the air, sailed backwards a bit, and landed on his behind right on the edge of the top stair.

There was a moment where Flint's eyes went wide as he realized what was about to happen. Louis could see it all happening as if in slow motion, and he had no way of stopping it even if he'd wanted to. Flint's whole body tilted backwards and then he began to slide down the staircase, bumping along as he went, arms flailing out for something to grab onto, but nothing within reach.

The other Slytherins gave him a wide berth, not wanting to be knocked over themselves, and Flint's cries out outrage could be heard all the way down the staircase until he landed at the bottom with a veritable thump.

"Weasley! Spinnet! I'll kill you!" he roared as he got up and brushed himself off.

Knowing he would probably make good on his promise, the two boys shared a glance at each other and immediately took off at a run, their destination the only place a couple of Gryffindors would be safe from a rampaging Slytherin: Gryffindor Tower.

It wasn't until they were safely back in the common room that the boys stopped to catch their breath. And when they finally did, Louis grabbed Justin by the shoulder and threw him into the wall.

"See what you've done?" he roared, his anger surprising him. "Now Flint will be out to get us even worse! I told you this whole thing was a terrible idea!"

"How was I supposed to know Flint would trip on the peel instead of Summer?" Justin demanded. "It's not my fault she missed it."

"Not your – this is all your fault!" Louis cried. "If you'd just stayed out of this whole thing – "

"It was your choice to come with me today," Justin pointed out. "You could have gone to breakfast on your own, but you came with me instead. Don't blame me for things going wrong, it's not like I did it on purpose."

Louis clenched his teeth, took a deep breath, and then unclenched them. Justin made a good point. And Louis couldn't really blame Justin for how the whole thing had played out. Justin was in just as much trouble now as Louis was, and Louis certainly couldn't claim that Justin had wanted things to happen that way.

"You're right, I'm sorry for snapping," Louis apologized. "It's just – suddenly I feel like how I felt the last time they came for us. Helpless, and useless, and unable to do anything to change that."

"But you're not helpless anymore," Justin reminded him. "We aren't. We've been training for this. When Flint comes for us, we'll be ready. We'll fight him off, and then we'll use the shield charm to keep him off, and then he'll realize that we're stronger and not so easily bullied anymore."

"Yes," Louis agreed. "This is what we've been training for. And the day was going to come sooner or later."

"Looks like it's sooner rather than later," Justin said apologetically. "And I am sorry for that."

Louis shrugged. "I guess I can't really blame you," he said. "But for the record, this really sucks."