Five Potato
References to your other stories should be made often. After all the work you put into those other characters and plots, they have now become canon to your fanon.
Harry had seen to it that Keira, Anex, and Joey were safely delivered to their Care of Magical Creatures class outside near the greenhouses. He did not stay with them, much to Keira's disappointment, because he had flat-out refused to have that class added to his final year at school. He had had quite enough of learning the proper procedure to cleaning up the dung of animals that could burn, poison, insult, stab, or seriously maim him in some unnatural way.
What Harry found odd was that, according to his own timetable, along with Care of Magical Creatures, McGonagall had neglected to sign him up for hardly any courses at all. He had the requisite Advanced Defense Against the Dark Arts, History of Magic, Charms, and Transfiguration... Thankfully, McGonagall had the sense to not bother assigning him Potions again. But she had signed him up for only two other courses. His whole week was nearly blank.
Ron would collapse in a jealous spasm when he saw Harry's schedule devoted to giving him as much free time as possible. And Hermione would tut-tut her displeasure and lecture Harry for not being ambitious enough. He would never hear the end of it. There had to have been a mistake, Harry reasoned. McGonagall had simply been busy fitting in Dumbledore's "transfer students" at the last minute and his schedule was misprinted. He felt a little better at this forcefully accepted decision and stuffed the parchment back into the pocket of his robes as he climbed through the portrait hole to the Gryffindor common room.
Harry had been sent on a mission to deliver Valore's timetable and Anex said the last place she saw her was on the couch in front if the large fireplace so their tower had been his first destination. But with everyone off to class the common room was void of humans and the previously mentioned comfy couch, now empty, looked like it needed him.
He supposed she might be up in her dorm but there was no way to confirm it. The staircase to the girls' side did not accept boys. Harry had tried it once his first year, looking for Hermione, and nearly broke his neck. He no longer went anywhere near those bloody stairs. He had watched through the years as other hormonally enraged boys tried it but, as far as known to Harry, no male had yet managed to violate the sanctity of the female lair. Last year the event known as The Great Knicker Nicking had ended with several seventh year boys in hospital as retribution for their attempted attack on Pants Privacy.
No, if she was up there, she would come down eventually. Or he would just sit there and wait for time to pass until he had to leave for Ancient Studies.
Bored, Harry sighed dramatically.
With his loads of free time.
He used a spell to inscribe Harry Wuz Here in the grey and white ashes piled up in the long dead fireplace.
"Not off to a good start, yeah?" a female's voice called out from behind him. "How late am I?"
Harry looked back over his shoulder to see Valore descending the cursed staircase, her curly hair still damp from the poorly timed shower. "You're not, actually, but you missed breakfast." He stretched over the timetable McGonagall had given him, "We've got free time right now."
She thanked him and blinked hard to focus on the small parchment and thin writing. "History of Magic? Seriously? Damn it, McGonagall, haven't I had enough?"
"Apparently it's a required course this year." She grumbled her dislike of that answer. "Wake up late?" Harry mused in what he hoped sounded like a casual inquiry.
"Yeah, well," she shrugged and dropped into the adjacent wingback armchair, "late night, new place." She pulled over her rucksack and stuffed the scrap of parchment in the front pocket.
"It was hinted that you'd been having nightmares," Harry said conversationally. She snapped the zipper closed and looked up to him with narrowed eyes. "Having trouble adjusting to the new bed?"
"Harry, that really is none of your business, now is it?" her low tone matched her eyes.
"You sort of threw me into your business yesterday, didn't you? I have to know what you're doing, taking up with Malfoy like you are. I wasn't kidding around when I warned you off him; and if he's enough to give you nightmares, you should take that as–"
Valore let out a loud bark of laughter, "You think-" she took a moment to compose herself, "you think Draco Malfoy scares me?" Taking the moment to compose herself had not worked very well. She was still laughing at him. "That little rosebud holds me in the clutches of uncontrollable terror, does he? Draco The Terrible, frightening girls and scouring the country for trouble!"
"You're the one that put me in the middle of this, you know. Am I seriously supposed to forget you made the strangest plan ever to pretend to be best mates?"
She did him the favour of taking a deep breath. "You're not in the middle, Harry," she shook her head at him. "Off to the side maybe, but not the middle. And if you're really not comfortable with that, I can do fine on my own now. The deed's been done; he's let me in."
"Well, that's comforting."
Valore sighed and lounged back in the chair, "What do you want from me, Harry?"
"The truth seems like a splendid start."
"The truth," she chuckled dryly. "What is that anymore? What's up with you two anyway? I mean, I get the whole house rivalry thing but you guys take it to whole 'nother level."
Harry rolled his eyes, "I don't know." He ran a hand through his hair and sat up straighter on the cushy sofa. "He's always been a spoiled prat, rubbed me wrong from the get-go. But his father's a Death Eater and over the last few years, he's been hinting more and more that he will be as well. Probably one already. No good can come from being his friend, Valore."
Valore finally looked straight at him with a somber smile, "Draco will not be the death of me, Harry. He may be a total prick with a big mouth but he's not his father. I am not afraid of him. So, for the love of Merlin, let it go."
"Okay, fine," Harry ran a hand through his hair as she stood to leave. "If not him then what's up with the nightmares?"
"You're like a dog with a bloody steak, aren't you?" she snapped and leaned closer to him. "All right. Somebody around here already has dibs on Madam Pomphrey's entirestock of dreamless sleep potion. Who could that be, I wonder? That particular potion takes forever to brew and she forbade me to make my own. Would you care to tell me all about what follows you around in Sleepyland, Harry Potter? No? Well, me neither. So can we say that we've both been through some absolute, bat-shit crazy hell and leave it be at that?"
She had him there, he admitted, now feeling guilty as she snatched up her bag from the floor and stalked away. He had forgotten Madam Pomphrey agreed to supply him with a large quantity of doses so he didn't have to go back every few weeks to get more. He did not know that meant her entire stock.
One last try to squeeze a grain of truth from her, "Have you even given thought to what will happen if you're found out?"
With one foot already out the hole in the wall, Valore paused. "Yes," she answered after a moment. She looked at him as though she might elaborate but decided to leave him hanging with just that and the portrait closed up the opening behind her.
Anex looked around the large "Great Hall" and took another bite of her cheese sandwich. She had heard horror stories about British cooking. Black pudding (made with real blood, ew!), haggis, spotted dick (apparently a harmless thing with raisins, but it sounded more like a horrible venereal disease). When she told her friends back home in Chicago she had scored a chance to study abroad, the second thing they did was giggle and gag senselessly over British cuisine.
It was only lunch on the first day but so far everything seemed fairly normal. No steak and kidney pies, no bangers (another horrible venereal disease). Just a cheese sandwich and pumpkin juice.
Looking around the room, half way down the Hufflepuff table Rainbow Starshine dreamily gazed at the blue sky and puffy clouds beyond the enchanted ceiling. Anthony Goldstein, a fellow Hufflepuff sitting nearby, simply stared dreamily at her.
Aiden Ricter at the Ravenclaw table surrounded by a horde of teenage males avidly watching her eat and read. She successfully managed to ignore them as they all gazed wondrously at her ability to chew. The same thing had happened in their Ancient Studies class, only it had been her taking notes. She had said something about needing paper and a dozen boys dived away to their bags and shoved a dozen pieces of parchment at her. Smiling, she took the one from Seamus Finnagan, who beamed with so much pride his skin should have melted off right there in class.
This time it must have been a cookie. Anex counted a mass of fourteen boys climbing over each other, chocolate crumbs flew, shoving ensued. In the end, it was a Ravenclaw boy who was the chosen one, earning him the coveted thanks of Aiden and the death glare from Seamus.
"How does she do that?" Anex asked out loud. "All through that animal class Aiden had boys following her around like little lost puppies."
Keira plopped into the bench across from Anex with Harry Potter's arm wrapped around hers, forcing him to sit too. "Happened all through the train station. Wouldn't mind if she shared a bit."
Joey followed, sitting on Harry's other side, and pulled out the book she had been reading at breakfast.
"Must be heavy on the pheromones or something," Anex grabbed up another sandwich from the pyramid-shaped pile on the plate. "She told me she doesn't do it on purpose, it just happens."
A tall, gangly, dark haired boy in Hufflepuff's house colours sat down on the long bench next to Anex. "Hi, Harry," he paused for a polite smile-nod of his head to the girls surrounding Harry. "Sorry I couldn't come find you earlier, with it being the first day back and all, but I knew you would want to know. Heard back from Arlie a couple of weeks ago and it's been set."
Harry's demeanor improved dramatically, "So she is coming this year then?"
"Yeah, in a few weeks," the boy, she later identified as Justin Finch-Fletchley, nodded vigorously and, if possible, his grin actually grew bigger. "She has to finish up a thing in India, stop off at home for a few days and then head over here. She ordered me to say Hi! and See you soon! with emphasis on the use of her extra punctuations and excessively bold lettering. I'm also supposed to give you a big hug and kiss but I told her she can do that herself when she's here, if you don't mind."
"Hermione will be glad—" Harry's comment was cut off by shrill screams and loud laughter erupting from the Hufflepuff table. Hannah Abbot's long blond hair was producing a thin stream of smoke. She had put it out easily enough but the scream came when Ernie Macmillan overreacted and unloaded a pitcher of pumpkin juice over her head anyway. Hannah sat drenched in the cold, sticky liquid, stunned and gasping for air as the laughter immediately followed. Ernie sat next to her, horrified and still holding the empty pitcher over her head as she turned angry eyes up to him. Never taking her eyes from him, she reached for her own cup of juice and proceeded to dump it over his head as an act of cold-hearted revenge. It had taken only two seconds later for them both to join in on the laughter breaking out around them.
"Harvey Jenkins, you know from Ravenclaw," Justin explained, chuckling, "his sister is finishing up her seventh year of school as an intern at St. Mungo's and she smuggled out a fire salamander from the animal injuries ward. It has a cold so it keeps sneezing little bursts all over the place. I've caught fire twice already, which isn't really a surprise, I suppose. Don't tell Arlie though, she'll never let me live it down. She still talks about when I set the library on fire. Anyway, I'll leave you to it, then," he stood to rejoin the rest of his fellow Hufflepuffs and the sick salamander.
"Who's Arlie?" Anex asked after Justin had left.
"She's Justin's girlfriend," Harry answered, grinning at Ernie smoothing down Hannah's sticky hair.
Keira put down the apple she was about to bite, "And she doesn't start the semester with the rest of us?"
Harry shrugged, "She usually has stuff to finish up right at the end of summer holidays and the last I heard of it she was thinking of going to her old school in Los Angeles for seventh year."
Keira bit her apple and looked around the large hall. "There she goes again,"she jerked her head behind her toward Rainbow, who still stared up dreamily at the sky, but was now casually waving her hand around in front of her.
Anex leaned close to Harry, "Watching the wind," she mimicked Rainbow's airy voice. "She's a bit flakey."
"Completely bonkers is more like it," Keira giggled at her joke and played with the green heart-shaped pendant on her necklace.
"Hard to get to know her," Anex poured herself another glass of pumpkin juice. "I've tried but she talks like a fortune cookie."
Neville watched her curly black hair bounce its way around the corner, out of sight just as he peeked around the adjacent corner by the stairs. He stepped as softly as he could through the dank corridor, keeping close to the wall. The damp stone floor did not take as well to his clompy shoes as he would have liked and he hoped she was far enough ahead that she didn't notice.
He had been headed to lunch when he saw Valore exiting the Great Hall carrying two sandwiches. Abruptly, he decided to follow when she turned toward the stairs leading to the dungeons. Harry once told him that was where the Slytherin House was located. Neville wondered if the other sandwich was for Malfoy.
He quietly clomped down the corridor and peeked around the corner she had turned. She had stopped halfway down the corridor in front of a door and knocked. Whoever she was patiently waiting on took their time answering but, eventually, the door creaked open.
"Hello," Valore said with a bright smile. "Brought lunch," she held out one of the sandwiches. The other was already half gone from eating along the way.
"I already ate," a distinct, definitely un-Malfoyish voice sneered from behind the opened door.
Neville's heart thumped harder at hearing Professor Snape's venomous vocals slither into his presence. He had been expecting Draco Malfoy. He could handle Malfoy. If he or Valore had caught him sneaking down there, he could just say his toad was lost again. It was a viable excuse. It happened all the time.
He could not handle Snape. Since his very first potions class as a first year, Snape scared the piss out of him in a way nobody else could. This was a bad idea.
Valore shrugged, "More for me then," and took an obnoxiously large bite of the other sandwich. "You gonna let me in or what?" she mumbled through her mouthful.
He could feel by proxy Snape's cold, black eyes boring into her. His eyes, like empty black pools of lustful violence, could set Neville to nightmares for days. The malice radiated from him, bounced off her and smothered Neville around the corner. It was a bad idea to have followed her down there. He felt the familiar panic rising but he dared not breathe for fear of being caught hiding. He painted himself against the wall and did his best to pretend he wasn't there. Bad idea. Bad idea!
"If I must," Snape finally drawled and another wave of hate wafted over Neville. The door hinges squealed again as the door opened further.
"Thanks so much, Professor." The door closed behind her.
Neville took a much needed deep breath when the latch clicked in place. His lungs and muscles burned with the effort to anxiously remain silent. The corridor was still deserted, thank goodness. The last thing he wanted was for anyone to find him lurking anywhere near Snape's office.
Unfortunately, immediate danger having passed, he felt a little braver again. He had come down here to see what she was up to, not to chicken out at the first sign of complications. And damn it, he was in Gryffindor. Gryffindors don't turn a soft tail to danger. Quietly clomping the rest of the journey to the door, he pressed his ear to the aged wood.
"You know what?" Valore's muffled voice could still be faintly heard. "If you'd helped the first time I asked, I wouldn't be here now. So don't start..." He smashed his ear harder to the door as if it might help get better reception that way but they had moved further into the room and her voice drifted away.
He listened with his painfully squished ear, hearing only random sounds inside and the throbbing of his own wildly beating pulse. A voice here, a bump there. There was nothing left to discover from this except Neville Longbottom sneaking around where he certainly did not belong.
It was high time he got out of there.
A/N: Reviews would be awesome. Thanks for reading!