As a special birthday pres from me to you, I will be posting a few stories as full ones!
If there was one holiday Lal loathed above all others, it was Halloween. She had nothing against the concept of the holiday itself and everything to do with the date in question.
Bad luck always followed her on October thirty-first, starting with the murder of her parents.
It took her several moments to remember what nuisance happened this particular Halloween, but when it did she wanted to roll over and groan.
Right...Quirrelmort let a troll in to distract Dumbledore and the teachers so that he might have a chance to make it past Fluffy. In the process he nearly killed Hermione because Ron had shown an incredible lack of tact and sent her crying to the bathroom the troll happened to crash into.
Yeah...not going to happen this time.
Lal had no desire to see the feast, and even less desire to actually celebrate it.
The second the last class was over with...which happened to be Charms, Lal was fully prepared to make a beeline to the kitchens.
"Ms. Potter, a word," said Flitwick.
Lal paused in exiting the classroom.
"You don't seem to be in the festive spirit today."
"Give me one good reason why I should celebrate the very holiday that my parents were murdered on, and had brought me nothing but bad luck," said Lal bitterly.
Flitwick hid his wince well, but she still saw it.
"Are you going to be alright?"
"I'll stay in the kitchens until the feast is over. That way I'll still get fed, but avoid being reminded of a holiday I hate. Everyone is so eager to 'remind' me of my title as the Savior, but they conveniently forget the price I had to pay for that fame," said Lal tiredly. "I really don't want to ruin everyone else's fun."
Flitwick patted her on the arm in a show of support. There was a reason she still thought of him fondly even after she abandoned England.
Lal headed straight for the kitchens with a book to keep her occupied until the feast was mostly over. She had no desire to celebrate anything today.
"Little miss should not be in here! The feast is not ready!" chided a house elf.
"Please spare me the Master speak. I know you lot are devious little fuckers perfectly capable of putting any number of wizards on their ass before they can even cast a spell, and I am simply not in the mood to deal with it," deadpanned Lal. "Besides, I have no intention of going to the feast anyway. I just want someplace I can mourn my parents and those I've lost in peace without having children trying to get me in the mood of a holiday I hate."
The house elves paused, ever so briefly, which she took as a sign she had surprised them. Good. She hated having to deal with their cryptic speech because the wizards expected subservience.
She radiated enough apathy that one of the senior elves gave her a measuring look.
"Normally we'd let you stay here until the feast is over, but considering how excited we are to surprise the children..." said the elf.
"...Can you deliver it to the Come and Go room instead then? That way I don't interfere with your preparations and I can get some peace and quiet until the night is over and not have to deal with anyone."
The elf nodded, and Lal left the kitchens. Once she was on the seventh floor, she made a beeline straight for the tapestry and created a doorway to a sniper's playground. She wanted to work off some steam and blowing shit up with her rifle sounded like a fantastic way to do it.
Lal noted the presence of food (and a small selection of candy, mostly chocolate) and paused long enough in her one-woman war against imaginary targets long enough to eat.
Then her eyes gleamed and she was fully prepared to go back into attack mode when she remembered something important.
"Right...Hermione and the troll. Let's see if things played out like they did last time..." said Lal.
On the plus side, it was a troll which was decidedly more fun to play with than enchanted targets and allowed her to get her bloodlust out properly.
Downside, she would have to do some quick bribery of the bookworm to keep her damn mouth shut if the girl saw anything. Good thing she knew Granger's weakness to knowledge.
And wouldn't you know it? Hermione still got cornered by that damn troll because Lal had been in a foul enough mood to leave the other children behind and Granger had the bad luck of being cornered by Ron the Tactless who decided to mock the girl who liked reading.
Lal was going to give that brat an earful before telling his mother exactly what happened and then watching the fireworks. Perhaps a little Weasley-style humiliation would temper her mood.
Hermione screamed, and then had to gape stupidly when she suddenly realized that the troll wasn't killing her...because it was far more concerned with the hole in it's leg.
"Hey you ugly fucker, over here! I got a nice treat for you!" cat-called Lal with far too much glee.
Hermione's eyes were as wide as saucers at the behemoth of a gun Lal had in her hands.
"What in god's name is that?" she squeaked in horror.
"It's a specialized sniper rifle. Total pain in the ass convincing that arms dealer to give me a discount, but sooo worth it!" cackled Lal. There was a massive boom followed by an explosion of blood, brain matter and bone.
Hermione felt a little sick seeing it, in all honesty.
"You okay?" asked Lal, looking entirely too happy with the death of the troll.
"What the hell is wrong with you? Guns are illegal!" hissed Hermione.
"...I literally just blew up a troll's head with a sniper rifle and that's what you're worried about?" said Lal amused.
"Why do you even have that?" said Hermione, still in shock. It was probably because of the gun in Lal's hands, or the near death experience.
"I'm a gun junkie who plans on joining the military the second I turn eighteen. Besides, arms merchants will happily sell military grade hardware to damn near anyone so long as they get paid. On an unrelated note, did you know that the magical cops won't even bother charging you with murder if you use a gun instead of a wand?"
"What."
Hermione's voice was flat.
"So long as you don't use an enchanted weapon or a blade of some sort, they literally have no way of determining cause of death, much less have the ability to charge you. I could walk up to Snape right now, shoot him in the head and no one would be able to do anything because they have zero idea what a gunshot wound even looks like."
"That is totally ridiculous!" said Hermione.
"I dare you to look at the most current law books in the library to prove me wrong. Or better yet, ask Susan Bones of Hufflepuff what the standard procedure is for investigating a case where a gun is used on a wizard, rather than a wand or a blasting curse."
Challenge clearly accepted, Lal was quick to hide her 'toy' as she lovingly called it and went right through the same doorway that had teleported her halfway through the castle in the blink of an eye.
Hermione, being no fool and in no real mood to be caught in what she thought of as a crime scene, followed her without hesitation.
(She would only discover with dismay that Lilac was not joking in the least that wizards had absolutely NO laws against guns or their use. And that Susan, who was the niece of the current head of the DMLE, had zero idea of what Hermione was talking about when it came to gun laws. Finding out Lilac could legally own an entire armory of modern weaponry was somewhat terrifying and oddly comforting at the same time.)
Lal actually loved quidditch, but it was very boring watching the amateur teams fight over their points. And to be honest she also vaguely recalled a near-death attack on her person via Quirrelmort during the game, only this time she wasn't in the air and the only method she could think of that he would have at his disposal would be to sabotage one of the bludgers.
Getting attacked by rogue cannonballs when she wasn't in the air was not something she was interested in. Besides, she almost had her animagus form unlocked again and she wanted to have that down pat before all hell really broke loose.
The only question was how to kill her summers, because truce or not she really didn't want to spend any second longer with the Dursleys than she had to.
Then it hit her... normal kids went to summer camps, didn't they? If she worded it right she could visit Italy or some other country a little early and not have to deal with the idiocy of England for a while. Best of all with the aversion the adult Dursleys had of her, it wouldn't take much to trick...er, convince Vernon into it. After all, he kept taking Dudley with him to Majorca.
Maybe some of the pure bloods would know of magical summer camps? Or perhaps she should get some ideas from the first gens.
"Summer camps? What's that?" asked Penelope.
"It's like a sleepover with lots of fun activities where kids do art projects, group sports, and general bonding," said Lal. "I was wondering if the magical enclaves had anything like that or if I should stick to the non-magical side."
"Can't say I've ever heard of such a thing," said Penelope. "Generally speaking most parents prefer to keep their kids close to home and only allow them to socialize with small groups of friends and rarely let them spend time away from the protection of their wards."
"Are you talking about summer camps?" asked Hermione.
"Yeah, I was wondering what sort of camps the magical side of things had to offer, since I know my uncle would happily pay for one if only to get me as far away from the house as possible. There was a reason he was so quick to send me to a year-round military boarding school after all," said Lal.
"My parents usually take me on vacation," admitted Hermione.
"So these 'camps' are normal for muggles?" asked Penelope, curious.
"It's a good way to for children to socialize outside their comfort zone and gives the parents a break from their kids. They usually only last a few weeks to a month and have all sorts of fun activities for kids to enjoy," said Hermione.
"I suppose it makes sense that the magical enclaves don't have them... they are ridiculously closeminded and prefer to keep things in-house."
"What is that supposed to mean?" asked Penelope.
"Do you have any idea how often the pure blood family trees intersect together? Everyone is related to everyone else, it's only a matter of how close and how often the bloodlines cross together."
"I'm almost afraid to ask," said Hermione.
"I'm related to Draco Malfoy through his mother," deadpanned Lal. "I'm also related to the Weasleys through both their parents, though it's more through their mother because she was a Prewitt who married into the Weasley family."
Hermione stared at her.
"How are you related to that complete cad Malfoy?!"
"Because his mother was originally a Black, and my paternal grandmother was her great aunt," replied Lal without hesitation. "Families don't get the word 'Ancient' added to their title for nothing you know."
Hermione stared at her. Penelope took it all in stride, as she already knew most of this.
"Anyway, if the magical side of things is out, I guess I'll have to go non-magical."
"Let me guess...military camp?" said Hermione.
"They don't have them, except for the older kids at least fifteen plus. Unless they did something to get into trouble, which means they'd be sent to a mandatory boot camp and most of those wouldn't interest me," said Lal without hesitation.
Mostly because the female boot camps were all pathetic in her opinion and she didn't want to accidentally be labeled a troublemaker.
"Isn't it a bit early to be thinking of summer vacation? I mean Christmas hasn't even hit yet," said Hermione.
"Please, first year exams are a breeze... they don't want to tax children just now learning how to use a wand. I might as well do something productive with my time, since I already know what the final exams for firsties are," said Lal rolling her eyes.
"Isn't that cheating?" said Hermione scandalized.
"How is it cheating to ask the older students what the final exams for their first year were about and study ahead so that they can focus on more interesting applications of magic?" asked Lal confused. "I mean the only wildcard is Defense, and that's because the teacher changes every year."
"..."
Hermione was torn. One on hand, Lal essentially had a 'cheat' to what the exams were and got to avoid a lot of useless studying. On the other hand she got to free up her time for more interesting and useful applications of magic.
"Do you think the older students would tell me?"
"I'll give you a general list," said Lal with a pat on her shoulder. "Just remember to help Neville with his studying so he can come out ahead in the written work until we figure out why his practical is so difficult."