Chapter Summary: In which the start Flying, Ogglebert continues acting suspicious, and Hiccup has a Very Bad Idea.

A/N: Wow. I just... wow. I just feel so guilty. I just reread my fic to get some perspective of what you guys know, and I read that last note saying 'see you next week' and like,,,,, it's actually been several months,,,,, and I'm just now getting back to it? Wow. I'm such a turd.

So we(me) were experiencing technical difficulties and then when they were fixed I had to pull myself out of my slump, but... Idk I'm really sorry.

Thanks to those of you who have stuck with this for these months even though there was literally no word on if I was like,,,, dead,,,,,, or,,,,,, so like, yeah, thanks guys, here's that chapter you guys so much deserve :)

October hit the castle with a vengeance. The temperatures dropped and the trees burst with shades of red and gold that made Gryffindors smile and Slytherins frown.

The past few weeks had consisted of more than just classes for the heroes of our story. Hiccup made frequent visits to Toothless in the Forbidden Forest and questioned Columbarius along with Jack. Merida and Rapunzel spent nearly every free moment in Hogsmeade, especially at Zonko's and Honeydukes. The weeks had been generally happy for the four of them, so of course it couldn't last.

"Ugh!" Merida glared at the notice posted on the bulletin board in the Gryffindor common rooms, some irrational part of her dearly hoping that that would make it disappear. "I can't believe this! Why? Why did they have to ruin the thing I was looking forward to most? 'Punzie, can you believe this?"

Rapunzel looked at the notice as well, her brow furrowed slightly in confusion. "What are you talking about? You've been carrying on about this for the past week, telling me how exciting it seems. So what's the problem?"

"The problem," Merida explained through gritted teeth, unable to believe Rapunzel didn't understand, "Is not that we're flying in a week. The problem is that we're doing it with Slytherin!"

Rapunzel sighed and rolled her eyes. "Merida, aren't you over that yet? I've told you, the three boys I met the other day actually seemed very nice. It's very prejudiced of you to hate them all on the basis that they were sorted into a different house than us. They're not going to go out of their way to ruin this for you. Well, not all of them at least, but I suppose I can't speak for people I've never met."

Merida rolled her eyes. "Rapunzel, you just don't seem to get it. Sure, maybe there're a few who might seem like nice people, but then, there's weirdos in every group, you know, outliers. I'm sure there's a Gryffindor out there somewhere who's... well, I don't know, left a one-year-old baby out in the cold for a whole night in October or something. But that doesn't mean the rest of us aren't noble and everything."

Rapunzel stared. "First of all, that is oddly specific. Second, you're kind of proving my point."

"Okay, but my point is that sure, you happened to meet three nice boys from Slytherin. Great! They'll be the only ones for the next few centuries or so!"

Rapunzel frowned. "Merida, that's not true. Stop being so prejudiced. Why are you, anyway? Prejudiced, I mean. You aren't even from a wizarding family, so there's no real reason for you to be so biased."

Merida shook her head, exasperated. "Alright 'Punzie, but mark my words, this flying lesson is going to be a mess."

Jack ran ahead of Hiccup and Merlin on Friday afternoon, absolutely thrilled at the prospect of learning to fly on a broom. His two friends were less excited, Hiccup in particular ("I'll probably end up back on the ground with a broken wrist and broom.") but Jack thought it sounded awesome. They had explained Quidditch to him - Hiccup supported it quite enthusiastically, even if he didn't think he'd be any good - and Jack was already looking forward to next year, if only for the fact that they'd be allowed on the Quidditch team.

As they reached the rows of brooms laid out on the lawn, Jack noticed Rapunzel, with her unmistakable golden braid, talking to a girl with frizzy red hair. After a moment, Jack realized that she was the girl they'd helped on the first day. She turned and happened to catch his eye, and immediately turned away with a glare. Jack didn't really mind. She wasn't even in the same house.

Any thought of the two girls was immediately banished from Jack's mind as the flying instructor, Madame Hooch, barked at them all to stand by a broom, stick out their hand, and yell "up".

Jack's broom immediately shot into his grip, mirroring his excitement and slamming into his hand so fast that his skin tingled. Grinning, he looked around at the rest of the class, just managing to catch the sight of DunBroch's broom shooting into her hand, leaving the girl grinning in triumph.

Hiccup's broom was jerking twitchily on the ground, the frustration in his voice slowly heightening. Merlin's seemed to have it in for him, vibrating manically and smacking the boy in the shins.

Xar, for all his bragging and boasting, couldn't convince his broom to give even a tiny movement. Astrid's broom jumped into her hand not long after DunBroch, but Snotlout's kept rolling lazily away from him.

After a good long while, everyone except Xar had managed to make their brooms jump high enough for them to grab it. The boy in question quickly snatched his up, flushing a violent shade of scarlet that could rival the Hogwarts Express (Jack even reckoned he could see steam shooting out of the boy's ears).

Finally, they were instructed to mount their brooms. Jack scuffed up the ground with his feet, impatient to get into the air. After checking everyone's grips, Hooch commanded them to push off at her whistle, then come straight back down. The moment the shrill sound hit Jack's ears, he kicked his feet into the ground, rocketing into the air.

He shot up a good ten feet from the ground, and he felt the urge to go higher. He came back down reluctantly, knowing that if he disobeyed the instructions, it could very well get him kicked out of the lessons for good.

"Right," Hooch barked when they were all done with that simple exercise, "I want you to repeat that until your confident with taking off and landing. When you feel ready, you may spread out across the lawn and practice flying in small circles, staying low to the ground." She stressed the last bit, glaring at them all as if daring them to refuse. When nobody did, she continued, "Gradually fly in larger circles and higher in the air. Be careful that you don't go too fast; I've had more than one student fall off their broom and be sent to the Hospital Wing because they made themselves dizzy."

The students started again, some still trying to perfect their landings, some immediately starting the circle exercise. Jack quickly got bored with circles and made a game of doing tricky stunts when Hooch's back was turned. He lifted both hands off the broom, hung by his knees, pointed the broom straight up and stayed there, and hung from it with his hands like a gymnastics bar, among other things.

Finally he hissed, "Hiccup, look!" and the boy paused in his shaky circles to look at Jack, who pulled his feet up ever so carefully and stood slowly, slowly, up on his broom, holding out his arms. His heart thumped in his chest and he grinned, exhilarated, balancing like it was a beam. There was a heart-stopping moment when Jack nearly fell, flailing his arms desperately, and several people gasped loudly (apparently he had a larger audience than just Hiccup) and Hooch spun around.

Hooch's eyes narrowed, but all she saw was a large group of students doing exactly what they were supposed to, in various stages of the process. She squinted suspiciously at the lot of them before slowly turning back to the young Gryffindor she had been assisting.

Jack, who had regained his balance, dropped to a seating position and resumed his slow circles in one swift movement, grinned and just barely managed to restrain himself from whooping happily. Hiccup shook his head in fond exasperation, and Jack smirked smugly. Clearly, he could get away with just about everything.

Merida was not pleased. Their Flying lessons with the Slytherins had gone perfectly smoothly, but of course that stupid Frost had to ruin it by showing off with his stupid tricks. Merida had been very pleased when her broom shot into her grip almost immediately and she'd rapidly gotten the hang of flying. Then, Jack Frost had to go and ruin her satisfaction by showing her up completely, him and his stupid tricks and his stupid sparkly white hair. Why was his hair white anyway? Did he dye it? It actually looked natural to Merida, but of course it couldn't be. Could it?

She shook her head vigorously. No. She was getting of track. Jack Frost and his stupid, flashy, tricky, impossible-

"Merida!" Rapunzel glared at her from across the library table. "You're not even paying attention! What are you going to do tomorrow when you can't remember anything about Switching Spells?"

Merida groaned and dropped her head on the table. She'd been sulking all weekend, but so what. It didn't matter that it was a totally stupid thing to be mad about, Frost had shown her up, and he hadn't even broken a sweat. Shameful.

Rapunzel sighed. "Tell you what, why don't we go to the Three Broomsticks and you can chug some butterbeer?" Merida sighed. "Alright, then. If it's even open still."

The Three Broomsticks was, in fact, open, despite the fact that the sun was quickly disappearing over the horizon. And if anybody thought it odd that two eleven year old girls with bright hair were sitting at a table drinking butterbeer like a pair of men would down firewhiskey, well, they didn't say anything.

"So," Rapunzel started, "Why the heck are you sulking so much?"

Merida made a hrmph sound. "I'm not sulking." She was indeed sulking.

Rapunzel rolled her eyes. "Well okay then, why are you sitting around with a big grumpy frowny face and generally looking like an old, sick platypus?"

Merida snorted with laughter over her butterbeer at this comparison. "Well, when you put it that way, I'm acting like a platypus because-"

"-an old, sick platypus-"

"I'm acting like an old, sick platypus because of Frost and his-"

Suddenly, Rapunzel shushed her, her face creasing into a frown as she looked at something over Merida's shoulder. Merida turned to look, but she didn't see anything out of the ordinary. She turned back to Rapunzel, frowning, her mouth open.

Rapunzel pointed. "Look. Look at Professor Ogglebert. What's he doing here?"

Merida turned again. "Having a drink?"

"With...?"

Oh. Merida caught what she was referring to. Ogglebert, with his impressive mustache, was sitting at a table with three very unsavory looking characters. They all had several tattoos covering every visible part of their bodies, and two of them had chunks of metal in place of several of their teeth. They were missing several body parts each, an eye patch here, a hook-hand or a peg leg there, and they just looked Not Very Friendly in general.

The group of four were downing firewhiskeys and talking in low conversation, heads bent together conspiratorialy. Not the kind of activity you'd expect from a school teacher on a Sunday night before school. Or ever, really.

"Huh." Merida frowned. "Well... that doesn't look too wholesome, does it?"

Rapunzel nodded. "There's something I need to tell you Merida..."

And she told Merida about the suspicious activity of Alvin Ogglebert.

Hiccup had wolfed a hasty dinner and slipped several chicken legs into his bag before leaving the dinner table, informing Jack and Merlin that he would be in the library. They seemed a bit confused, but they let him go without further questioning.

He didn't go to the library, of course. He went straight down the lawn, around the lake as the sun began to set, and into the Forest. A few weeks ago, he would likely have been terrified, but now he knew this small section of the trees quite well, and he was confident that nothing would attack him.

He reached a clearing that was a bit farther from the school than the one he'd first found Toothless and dropped his bag. He had persuaded Toothless to stay here, making sure that no one (Hagrid) would happen upon the dragon should they decide to go for a carefree stroll in the monster-inhabited forest. A small river ran through the clearing, so Toothless didn't need to worry about food or water. He could drink from the river, and there were plenty of fish for any dragon who might take up residence (Toothless).

"Hey buddy, I got some chicken!" Hiccup called, knowing the dragon wouldn't be too far. Sure enough, a black mass of scales launched itself at Hiccup from in the trees as Hiccup pulled a drumstick out of his bag.

"Give it to meeee, I'm so sick of fish." Toothless nabbed it from Hiccup's fingers with his retractable teeth. Hiccup hastily pulled the rest out so Toothless wouldn't destroy the bag.

After Toothless had eaten the all the chicken, Hiccup decided to spring his idea on him.

"Okay, so, Toothless," Hiccup was very aware of the fact that the Night Fury could kill him as easily as breathing, "I kind of, sort of, had this idea..."

Toothless listened as Hiccup detailed his plan. The dragon seemed reluctant, but after Hiccup went over his ideas excitedly, the black dragon reluctantly agreed to let him try.

Then it was very late and very dark, and Hiccup was very tired, so he had to head back up to the castle. And if Jack and Merlin were suspicious about his night-time wanderings or hurt that he wasn't spending as much time with them, well, they didn't say anything.

A/N: Aaaaaand there it is. There's the chapter. It's kind of short? But? At least it's up?

I also feel the need to share that in this one kids song about the ocean and stuff, there's a verse that goes:

Way down here beneath the ocean
Where the boats fly above
I've seen a lot of them land here
They never go back up

Idk I thought it was funny.

Also- someone inform me on the government of Scotland. I know nothing about it and I'm not confident in the research I've done, but also I don't want to get anything wrong, so...

About updates - Now that I'm not really in a slump anymore kind of, updates will hopefully be more frequent, but I won't have an actual solid schedule until further notice.

HOWEVER.

Until now. I kind of had a plot, though it was a bit shaky and kind of weak, BUT. NOW, I have a perfectly ROCK SOLID plot and it just like, popped into my head fully formed and I am SO. PROUD. OF. IT. It's so solid guys, and I just... ehehehe I can't wait. This is gonna be DELICIOUS.