Ch 4. Final-ly Busted
If the new assistant was half as good as Zambini swore he was, Scorpius couldn't wait until next year. He stretched when Binns, the old ghost, declared that the Final was over and for them to leave their papers on their desks. Two hours of racking his brains to summarize the Witch Hunts of the fourteenth century, and he still had that nagging feeling he'd forgotten something.
After he set his quill down to join the other Slytherins and Ravenclaws that were leaving the room, he wondered how Binns graded their papers anyways. Spirits couldn't pick anything up, and they certainly couldn't use magic to move stuff about. He wrote it off as one of the mysteries of Hogwarts as he looked for his friends in the crowd escaping from the dusty room.
Someone bumped into him as soon as he crossed the threshold, and Malfoy was annoyed but not surprised to find a pair of green eyes looking up at him. "Morning, Rose. Shouldn't you be cramming for transfiguration?"
The Weasley gave him a freckled grin, "Oh I never need to cram my studies. I was just wondering, Malfoy, if you remembered to mention Wendelin the Weird's fascination with being burned at the stake, and her invention of the Flame-Freezing Charm?"
His left eye twitched. As soon as she said it, he of course remembered the point he'd meant and forgotten to write about in the final. Dammit, how did she always know exactly what he needed to work on? "She was caught no less than forty-seven times during the Witch Hunts," His voice gave no evidence of his irritation, "Though disputable accounts provide evidence the number may actually be in the sixties."
He smirked when she frowned, then huffed indignantly, buying his act. "Well, I got an Outstanding on the test yesterday. What do you think you'll get?"
"Probably a T, since even a Troll's better company than him." They both turned to see James striding up to his younger cousin, the crowd of students automatically parting for him as they did on a daily basis. Malfoy instinctively checked the back pocket of his bookbag for his wand, the Hawthorne wood calming him greatly. Despite what he'd told his friends, if James went after him in broad daylight Scorpius wasn't going down without a fight.
"James," Rose Weasley started to blush and took a step back from Malfoy. "What are you doing here?"
"Just killing time before O.W.L.s," He grinned, then turned to look Scorpius up and down with a disapproving glance. "You look rather disgruntled, Malfoy. Been sneaking around again?"
"Always," he met the hostile gaze with a grin, running a hand through the bed-head that couldn't be tamed when he'd been up late the night before. "What about you? Done anything actually worth mentioning today?"
Potter's face grew red. "Loads, though it's none of your business. I will say I did get some practice in with the Gryffindor team." His confidence sank back in. "How about your attempts at becoming Seeker? Want some tips? First, dye your hair. Then, stop being a ferret-face like your dad..."
Scorpius grit his teeth and couldn't stop himself from growling at the back of his throat. He was annoyed that he let James of all people get to him, but everyone was well aware he'd been trying for the Seeker position since he got into Slytherin. He spent three hours every week at the pitch, shadowed every practice and even though it was beneath him, even chased the Quaffle when the team needed it. Somehow, he still kept getting turned down from officially joining. He wasn't even a back-up.
"... I suppose you could always buy your way onto the team, Malfoy, since that's just about the only thing decent about you." James finished.
Scorpius's amused snort caught both of the redheads by surprise. "That's rich, coming from the Legacies who use their parents as credentials." Rose's jaw dropped, and he basked in their gobsmacked expressions for a moment, musing that this just might become a Patronus memory.
"All good and fun you two, but I have another final in a half hour, so..."
James caught his arm and forced him to meet his brown eyes, which glared at him hatefully. "Don't think you're that great, Malfoy. Everyone knows your parents even better than ours."
"James," Rose's small voice piped up. "Could you walk me to Transfiguration? I know there's a shortcut but I can't remember which portrait it's behind."
Potter looked at her, surprised, before he gave Malfoy's arm one last squeeze and dropped it. "Of course I will, Rosie. I've got the time."
Scorpius looked at her with suspicion as well. Was she serious, or- his mind shot back to Nott's comment about liking him better than they thought- was she attempting to get James off his back? Not a chance, he had decided yesterday, but narrowed his eyes a bit as he watched her retreating figure today.
"I was doing just fine on my own," Her voice floated through the hall. "I already beat him in History of Magic- Ooh, you don't have to look that smug, James. Your face gets all scrunchy."
Nope. Not a chance.
"And then once you've confirmed the Anti-Cheating Charms, you must first determine if the students have maintained the proper titles of their essays. Only then may you proceed to checking their grammar, and..."
Jonovan rubbed his eyes, trying to stay awake through Binn's slow and monotone lecture on how to properly give grades. If this was how the ghost taught his students the whole year long then it was no wonder Hogwarts was getting bad reviews about this class. He glanced toward the open classroom door, sorely tempted to walk through it.
Orion was certain Kingsley had stuck him in here to get back at him for his impertinence in the Headmistresses Office. There really wasn't a point to this, he had worked with grading essays before. Even if it was a long time ago, practically another life, he didn't need to hear all this. Jon found himself wishing he had joined Zoey on her explorations of the Grounds.
"... never forget to make sure indentations in their essays are the same size, and their lines evenly spaced. Students must name at least four major events and the names of two famous witches or wizards in each of them within every essay..."
That did it. Jonovan threw down his pen and laced his fingers behind his head, tilting his chin to the ceiling. He wouldn't take this for a minute longer. Closing his eyes, Orion brought to mind the spell he had cast on Zoey just that morning. He focused on what he wanted until he felt a sensation like running water pour down on him, and he grinned as he lifted his hand. It was now opaque and mostly see through, and he rushed to gather his supplies, shoving his pens and paper into his backpack in no particular order.
Kingsley was always entertained by Jon's insistence on using muggle items, but they were more familiar to him and were yet another thing the young man refused to budge on. But having gone undercover as a muggle a few times himself, the Minister admitted that there were some things that muggles had gotten right. Jon had given him a set of colored pens last Christmas.
Binns didn't even notice his new assistant disappear from his seat, or the breeze that flowed through the classroom when the door budged a bit as Jonovan snuck out, leaving a note for Kingsley on his desk. Glancing at his watch he decided Zoey was probably still skulking about the third floor and, mostly sure of the way there, started walking down the corridors.
He ignored the students he passed since most of them didn't notice him, but was greatly amused when a small boy with messy black hair grabbed the girl next to him and shouted "See Lily, see? I told you the new ghost was a boy!"
An hour and a half after he'd survived Binn's final, Scorpius set his quill down atop another final essay in a classroom full of Slytherins and Gryffindors. This time he knew he had covered all the points of the theory behind the Draconifors spell and comparable transfigurations that required the precise knowledge between the similarities between animate and inanimate.
Popping his neck with a crunch that he knew made a certain red-headed Weasley girl cringe every time, he stretched and massaged his wrist as he looked over his words. He spent the next thirty minutes revising what he'd written and making it as close to perfect as possible, determined to receive nothing less than Outstanding.
When Professor Patil called time, Scorpius couldn't resist the confident smirk he gave her. All that was left was a practical demonstration and, well, everyone knew he could do that with his eyes closed.
He reached into the main pocket of his bag to grab his wand, frowning almost as soon as his fingers touched it. Something was bothering him as he lined up with the rest of the class to take turns walking into Patil's office for the last part of the test, many students taking the opportunity to quietly whisper together. The Professor took each of them into the room alphabetically, last to first, which of course meant Zambini went first, followed by Weasley.
Zambini took awhile and left the room looking disappointed as he walked by his classmates, but cheered up as he quickly escaped the classroom for the relative freedom of the hall.
That feeling of dread kept growing the shorter the line got.
Scorpius frowned; it was rare that he ever felt nervous over a practical. He flicked his wand through the seven standard spell motions, then froze and looked down at it, cursing after he pulled it up to his eyes for closer inspection. At the base of the wand were three, curly W's that should not be there. You don't have to look that smug.
Nott frowned from his spot ahead of him in the line. "What's wrong Malfoy?"
The door opened and Rose came out of the office, practically beaming at Professor Patil. Scorpius barely contained his anger until the door the Professor's office closed again, and then all but charged into Weasley and grabbed a fistfull of hair.
Her surprised shout gained the attention of the classroom and even the Slytherins were looking at him in shock as he pressed her against the blackboard, a murderous look in his eye when he demanded "Where is he?"
There were a lot of benefits to exploring Hogwarts while invisible. Or, as Zoey preferred to call her current chameleon state, unvisible like she was. She could wander anywhere she wanted and there wasn't anyone who would try and stop her, except for that short Caretaker-elf whose name Malfoy had warned her to stop saying.
So far this morning she'd found two more shortcuts off the third floor and an empty room that seemed like it would make a good hide out. Or hiding place, Zoey amended as she remembered her sudden flight through the school three days ago. She'd been planning to go down to the Great Hall next, like she'd told Jon, but she didn't.
The Malam had gotten just one of those feelings, that maybe the Great Hall wasn't where she wanted to be most at that moment, and let her feet take her to the greenhouses instead. Unfortunately she couldn't get to the prettiest flowers because of a crowd of students that had been crammed in there, but she hung around anyways and found a funny little plant with leaves that changed colors. They fell off their shoot when she touched them gently, and Zoey was struck with worry that she'd killed it.
Then she noticed the many petals on the floor and deduced that it was simply time for these leaves to come off on their own. Having done a bit of gardening in the past, she knew that it was important to pick dying leaves off plants as soon as possible to keep them healthy. So Zoey decided to be a good samaritan and started humming as she pruned the colorful plant, placing the trimmings in careful stacks on the nearby table. When she finished the first pot, she wandered until she found another one to work on, then another. Eventually the last plants were at the back of the greenhouse, and the trips with her armfulls of leaves were getting longer and longer.
She was so buried in the repetitiveness of it and trying to remember the next lines of the song she was singing that she didn't notice the boy until it was too late. He was tall, and he had round glasses perched on his nose. Even Zoey knew this was rare for a wizard, since there were apparently many spells to help with eyesight trouble while wizards were young. Yet he must be a wizard, for he was wearing a student robe and was even, she looked closer at the black tinge in his red hair, one of the Gryffindor's who'd refused to talk to the McGonagall statue for her.
If she hadn't practically rammed into him he wouldn't have noticed Zoey at all. But standing three feet from him there wasn't much her unvisibility could do as he looked her up and down, his gaze stopping on her hands. His face grew red and he reached for his pocket as he shouted "Hey! Why are you stealing Rainbata leaves?"