Have I mentioned I don't own Hogwarts? Or Blaise Zambini. He makes an appearance in this chapter, and has become my favorite character to write. You can expect to see more of him in future chapters. Not making any money, but I will work for smoothies.
Kerri Potter and the Little Sisters of Doom!
Chapter Three: Petitions
December came, bitter cold as November. Kerri felt the cold even more so, now that she was missing her favorite pair of slippers. To make matters worse, her snake seemed to have disowned her for a while. Only to have promptly shown back up, complaining that no one truly appreciates evil these days. He took residence in Kerri's scarf once more and life for Kerri resumed as normal as possible.
Slytherin and Gryffindor seemed to be doomed to have double potions in the morning. Kerri was stuck being a partner with Blaise Zambini, the only other Slytherin to be some what of a loner. Blaise was an extremely intelligent, business-oriented Slytherin. He ran a homework-for-hire service, which was extremely popular in most houses. He was also credited for starting the only text book swap program between grades. Anything for a profit. He was also rather adventurous in potions.
Kerri sat next to Blaise, chopping ingredients for the Restorative Draught they were brewing. Her potion was going better than expected, seeing as she never really took the time to actually chop her ingredients properly. Blaise's potion was smoking: which it wasn't supposed to be doing.
Kerri winced at the gray bubbling mixture in Zambini's cauldron.
"What are you brewing?"
Zambini flashed an evil-genius style grin. It was all teeth. "Guess!"
"Oh no. I'm not even attempting to guess what you are trying to kill me with. Please, just tell me that it won't blow up this time."
Zambini tipped his head to the side and regarded his cauldron thoughtfully.
"Nah, it shouldn't." He jumped back when a particularly large gray bubbled burped and popped on the surface. "...er.. I think."
Kerri didn't look very convinced. She slid her chair further away from her partner.
That isn't a poison.
Her snake hissed in her ear. She almost jumped too, not realizing that Voldemort had tagged along to Potions. She was trying to keep her head down and stay out of Snape's radar. He was too busy sneering at Harry Potter to notice, so Kerri hissed back to Voldemort.
No... Mine is Restorative Draught.
It's not a poison. You should be making poisons.
I don't want to make poisons.
I know a particularly great poison. I'll teach you how to brew it.
No thanks.
You need venom of a...
Kerri clamped her fingers over the snake's mouth, while stirring her potion the correct number of times.
Zambini stopped trying to stir the cement-like goo in his cauldron, and started poking Kerri with his wand.
"Why did you bring your snake to class? I didn't even know you had a snake." He half-whispered.
"I didn't know he was in my robe, he must have hidden in the pocket. He wants you to add venom and Lionfish spines to your potion. It creates some sort of poison."
Zambini raised an eyebrow to Kerri, and tried poking the snake with his wand.
"How would your snake know how to brew poisons...and when did you learn to speak with snakes?"
Kerri squinted at Zambini, then waved her hands in front of him.
"Hello, is that you Zambini? Are you feeling well? This is the most I've heard you speak in five years!"
"Don't change the subject Callahan. Just answer the question."
"My snake is a special snake. I'm a parseltongue."
She stopped to listen to Voldemort hiss at her. "...and apparently he wants to poison Harry Potter. Scratch that Zambini, put those spines away. No need to go to Azkaban..."
It was just Kerri's luck that Professor Snape decided to creep up and scare the living crap out of her... I mean, check her potion.
"Callahan, do tell me why you've decided to bring your pet to class."
"Er.. I'm showing House pride?"
Snape narrowed his eyes, "I am not amused. Animals are only allowed in this class room if they are being used for potions ingredients."
Volde was hissing at Snape as we walked away from Kerri.
I'm going to bite him.
No, no you aren't.
Watch me.
No. I don't need to get in any more trouble.
Kerri tucked her snake into her pocket.
Just a nibble?
Once upon a time in Transfiguration, Krista was turning a bottle cap into a ...well something. She hadn't quite decided what it was yet. They were supposed to be doing something boring, like turning guinea pigs into guinea fowl. Krista was much better at Divination anyway, so she had tried to make her clone go to classes; but her clone couldn't use a wand, and she kept attempting to bite Dennis Creevy.
Krista was idly poking her bottle cap with her wand. It had started to glow red and green. Her mind was definitely not focused on Transfiguration, not with Christmas so soon. It was mid-December, and everyone was looking forward to Christmas, mostly because of the presents. Krista was determined to stay in the castle for Christmas, whether her parents liked it or not. She had already been to Hogsmeade for the last bit of things she needed for gifts. Though, to tell the truth, she had ended up getting Honeydukes candy for herself more times than not.
When class was over, Krista had transfigured her bottle cap, two pieces of lint, and her hat into a strand of blinking Christmas lights, two glittery snowflakes, and a plush goldfish. She had managed to get around to her assignment as well, but her guinea fowl had red and green feathers.
She hurried back to her common room, a flurry of red and green blinking lights.
Caitlin sat in the Gryffindor common room, scribbling hurriedly onto a piece of parchment. This time of year meant fewer owls available for her work, and she didn't want anything to be late.
Racing to the owlery, Caitlin had attached no less than seven pieces of parchment to seven different owl legs, and sent them off with a couple of owl treats. She sighed heavily and trudged back up the stairs to her common room, hoping to relax before lunch.
Krista had a large stack of parchments in her hand, wand at the ready. She waltzed right up to her sister, Caitlin, who was reclining in an overstuffed chair in front of the fire. Krista fluttered the top sheet like a flag in front of her face.
"Sign my Petition!"
Caitlin started and glared at her sister's smiling face. "Get lost. I'm busy."
"Sign my Petition!"
Caitlin sighed, leaning further back into the cushions on the chair, pulling her hat over her eyes. "Busy."
Krista started to dance around the chair, twirling around and singing in a high pitched squeaky voice, "Sign my petition, sign it sign it, you know you really want to. Sign my petition, sign it sign it. You really really want too!"
Caitlin pointed her wand in Krista's general direction and tried to hex her. Krista was very used to dodging hexes, curses, and general magical attacks. The hex hit the wall behind her, and dissipated harmlessly into brightly colored blue sparks.
Krista thrust a pen into her sister's hand.
"What is this petition for?"
"I was doing research on the space-time continuum, and found that the liberal use of time turners in the Ministry's history is much more dangerous than say, being allowed to clone oneself. Apparently it is frowned upon to use any sort of magic to duplicate oneself... "
She continued on for about five minutes uninterrupted, talking about the space-time continuum, vacuums, cheese burritos, and any manner of things. Caitlin watched her, with her eyes half closed, wondering, "How on earth does she breath when she talks so fast? I bet she'd be a squirrel animagus." Caitlin scribbled her name on the parchment just to shut Krista up.
Krista skipped away happily, "Yes, that makes twenty-four and a half! Who else will be a willing victim..er.. volunteer!"
Kerri was sitting in an unused classroom, her snake wrapped around her arm. She was muttering spells and practicing the coinciding wand movements, as according to a book that Voldemort chose from the library.
The snake was still trying to turn Kerri into a dark Witch. Kerri figured it wouldn't hurt to learn new spells, it wasn't like Madame Pinch would really let her check out, Unforgivables and You: A Practical Guide to Getting Away With Murder. And A Beginners Guide to Death and Dismemberment was already checked out. She settled on a dusty tome chock full of dark curses with illustrations on their effects to boot. She wrinkled her nose at a particularly nasty one, when a piece of parchment flutter in front of her face.
Krista could be absolutely silent when she wanted to be.
"Sign my petition." She demanded.
Her clone was tagging along, only half covered by an invisibility cloak. She was hugging the goldfish bowl.
"No. Go away."
Krista employed the same methods that got forty other students and two members of the staff to sign her petition. Dancing, singing, and generally being a pest.
Kerri read over the petition on Legalizing Cloning. She flipped through the entire stack of parchment to the last page and read out loud, "Upon signing this parchment, the signee has thus promised one such Krista Erin Callahan full possession of their soul."
Kerri paused for a moment to make sure she had read that correctly, then spun around to her sister.
"KRISTA! You can't start collecting people's Souls! That is ridiculous!" She promptly set the parchment on fire.
"Drat. You're the only person to have read that far." Krista and her newly covered up clone left the room.
In retaliation for Kerri's thwarting, Krista had decided to devote most of her day to thinking up different ways to take over the world.
She returned to the classroom Kerri was still practicing in, with a group of animated folded paper. "Forward March!"
Kerri sighed, and looked at her snake.
You can bite her.
No thanks, I think that is one way to catch insanity.
The group of folded paper was steadily hopping its way to the desk Kerri was sitting at.
"What the crap are those?"
"My army of Origami! ... of Doom!"
Kerri bent down and lifted an origami giraffe. "Oh, my, how cute!" Then preceded to stomp on all the other origami animals.
Krista narrowed her eyes, watching the her Origami army of Doom be obliterated so soon. "I worked an entire twenty minutes on those. You are going to pay!"
Then she dashed from the room.
Kerri decided it would be wise to relocate to another classroom.