Chapter 3 - In which Al freaks out
"Dark wizard, dark wizard, dark wizard," James thought to himself. In the back of his mind, he imagined his cousin, Rose, saying, "Or dark witch!"
Where was he supposed to find a dark wizard (or dark witch) in this day and age? James supposed that he could just wait for somebody to break out of Azkaban, but that hadn't happened for over twenty years. Or maybe he could wait for Hogwarts to be attacked by a gaggle of dementors, but that didn't seem very likely, either. Anyway, he would need to know how to conjure a patronus for that one, and he'd only attempted it once, with very dismal results.
So, for the first order of business, James decided that he would need to train himself. It wasn't that hard to find the Room of Requirement; his father had mentioned once what floor it was on and how to get in. James walked around, constantly thinking, "I need a room to practice spells in."
His third time around, he ran into Mickey Thomas, Alex's twin sister in Ravenclaw. "Oh, hello," she greeted him. "Are you looking for the bathrooms?"
"Er, no," James replied. "I'm trying to find the Room of Requirements." He knew that both of Mickey's parents had used the room while at Hogwarts and assumed that they'd told her of it.
"Really? Can I come, too?" she asked.
"Um, yeah, sure," James responded.
The two of them began walking together. "It's been ages since I've been in there," Mickey said in her airy voice. "Last time I went because I got locked out of my dormitory and I needed a place to sleep. There was a very comfortable bed in there with charms all around to keep away the Snuffmins."
"What?" James asked, trying to keep his concentration on finding the room.
"Snuffmins," Mickey said, pushing her unruly hair away from her eyes. "They're a newly discovered species. They're very small and they attack people when they're sleeping by burrowing down their throats. I hear it's very unpleasant."
"Um, yeah. Sounds like it," James said.
Finally, the doorway appeared. James and Mickey entered. The room was large, with mirrors all around and lots of empty space on the ground. "Close the door, will you?" he called over his shoulder.
"What are we in here to do?" Mickey asked.
"I wanted to practice making a patronus," James replied.
"Ooh, that's a tricky one," Mickey said. "It took me ages to get mine." With a flick of her wand and a murmur of words, a ghostlike tree frog began hopping about the room. "Isn't he adorable? I call him Andy."
James' heart sunk. Mickey could already conjure a patronus? James pointed his wand up and shouted the spell. A few wisps of smoke came from the wand, and the tiny fragment of a patronus made the sound "pew."
"Mother fucker…" James said.
"I think you need a happier memory," Mickey said. "What are you using now?"
The memory James was using was, actually, when he lost his virginity to Chitra. But he wasn't about to tell Mickey that. "Um, I was just thinking about the time when… you know… I um… I won my first Quiddich game."
"You should try hugs," Mickey said. "My memory is of my Mum and Dad hugging me. It seems to do the job."
"Hugs?" James asked. Then, he had an idea. Who said that a patronus could only be conjured with a real memory? What if he simply thought of something really groovy that technically hadn't happened yet? James pictured his parents, asking him about how he'd caught two -no, wait, four- dark wizards all by himself. "Har har, son," Harry said, patting James on the back.
"Um, no, that's too corny," James whispered to himself. He refined the fake memory slightly, trying to make it a bit less cheesy. With that, he lifted his wand again and said the spell once more. This time, an entire stream of white light shot from his wand, forming a small waterfall over him.
"That's better," Mickey said. James looked at her. She was putting up some sort of leaves all around the room. He decided not to ask.
Al and Scorpius had the Slytherin common room to themselves. Classes were over for the day and everyone else was either still at dinner or locked up in their rooms.
"She's just really creepy," Scorpius began. "I mean, I don't know, she might've had a nice body when she was younger, but now she's just a complete psychopath."
Al rolled his eyes. "Of course she is," he said. "Everyone knows that."
"Yeah, but she's always telling me how I'm going to die," Scorpius said.
"Trelawney does that to everyone," Al said.
"And today she kept me after class to tell me about how she just knows that if I put a little more effort forward, I can do great things," Scorpious said. "With what? Her bloody crackpot tea leaves?"
Al shrugged. He'd already heard this rant about a million times coming from various students.
"And then she started telling me about when she first started at Hogwarts," Scorpious went on. "And about how she almost didn't get the job, but then the headmaster, she's sure, saw her worth as a seer, and how she knows that maybe I don't do my very best all the time, but she just knows that I'm gifted and she's not giving up on me."
"My father told me about that," Al said, suddenly.
"About Trelawney not giving up on me?"
"No, dip shit, about Trelawney being hired at Hogwarts," Al said. "Apparently she told him about it a long time ago."
"No kidding. She tells everybody everything," Scorpius said. "It's like she wants me to write her biography or something."
"Apparently she wasn't going to get the job, but then she told an actual prediction," Al went on. "I don't think Dad's ever really mentioned it to anyone but me. Said she was interrupted, though."
"Oh, of course, she'd remember something like that," Scorpius said. "Interrupted? Ooh, heaven forbid! I bet she's just the sort of person who would hold a grudge over something like that for a dozen years. And, besides…" Scorpius stopped. He faced Al.
Al was leaning against the wall. It looked like he had a case of the hiccups, but upon closer inspection Scorpius realized that he was trying very hard to breath, but no air was coming to him. Al began to slide down the wall, all the while making strange sucking noises. "Aheh, aheh, aheh…"
"Holy fuck, Al. You okay?" Scorpius asked. "Do you have, like, asthma or something?"
Al didn't respond. His knees buckled and he fell back onto the ground. He put his hands up to his face and grabbed his head. "Aheh, aheh, aheh…"
To Al, it felt like he had a million thoughts flowing through his head at once. He was in a room. Annoyance, frustration, worry. Flash, he was in another room. There it was again, annoyance, frustration, worry. Pity. Flash. The same room, but he was standing in another spot. Hatred, self-loathing. He wanted to die.
"Shit, Al," Scorpius said, started to panic. "Want me to go get Pomphrey?"
"No, not him," Al let out between the sucking noises.
"Um, not to nit pick, but Pomphrey isn't a bloke, mate," Scorpious said.
"Aheh, aheh, aheh," Al went on. Finally, he managed to say, "Lily."
"Right. Lily. I'll go get her." Scorpius raced out the door so fast that he found himself in the hall in no time. He jumped up to the Gryffindor table, getting many glares from surprised Weasleys. He tapped Lily on the shoulder. "Your brother needs you. Now."
"But I…" Lily didn't get to finish her thought. Scorpius was already dragging the small girl through the doors and down into the dungeons.
"Sorry, I wouldn't have bothered you," Scorpius began, "But he asked me to get you."
Scorpius yelled out the Slytherin password and flung Lily through the door. He shoved her toward Al, who was now turning a very peculiar shade of blue.
"Aheh, aheh, aheh," Al went. "I won't. I won't do it…"
Lily crouched down next to her brother. She laid her hand on his head. Instantly, he began to calm. She put her little arms around him and lifted him into a sitting position. "Shhh," she whispered, soothingly. He was breathing again. "It's alright, brother. I see things in the dark, too."
Al coughed. He looked at Lily, a very strange expression adorning his face.
Scorpous cleared his throat. "Well, it looks like everything's okay now," he said. "Say, Lily, how about a hug for Uncle Scorpius?"
Al let out this hissing sound. "Leave… her… alone," he cried at Scorpius.
"Yeah, shut up, you dick!" Lily yelled at Scorpius in her sweet, little voice.
"Joking, joking," Scorpius said, taking a step back. "Just fucking joking."
Al and Lily sat there for a moment, her arms around him. He still had that peculiar look on his face, like he couldn't quite remember where he was. He brushed Lily's hair out of her face. And then, without warning, he bent forward and kissed her.
It wasn't a long kiss. It was just a peck, really, upon the lips. But it was enough to send Scorpius' jaw dropping. "Blimey, Al…"
Lily had a very peculiar look upon her face, too. She stood up and walked out of the room, leaving Al on the ground.
Scorpius was shaking his head. "I'm going to assume that that was a completely platonic hug and kiss," Scorpious began, "And now I'm going to go to bed."
He walked away, leaving a very shaken Albus on the ground, all alone.
"Son of a bitch!" James shouted.
"You'll never conjure a patronus with that kind of attitude," Mickey said. "And you might bring in Karliminks. I hear they're attracted to bad language."
"I just can't get a happy enough memory," James whined.
"Here, let me show you again," Mickey said. In a moment, her ghost frog was leaping about the room once more. "Good Andy."
To tell the truth, being shown up by this spacey girl was really bothering James. Actually, he was downright pissed. Why couldn't he get it right? He stared at Mickey, loathing her superior abilities with all his might.
Suddenly, Mickey let out a screech and dropped her wand as she was cast upward to the point where she was hanging upside down by one leg. "Oh, no! A Dargin's got me! A Dargin's got me!"
"Wait here!" James yelled. "I'll go get help."
"Oh, hurry!" Mickey said. "My clothes are made out of cotton! It'll only be a matter of time before he starts eating them!"
James almost paused to ask what the hell she was talking about, but decided instead that it would be best just to run out of the room and find a teacher. He ran down the halls, bumping past Lance, who was trying to ask James a question. Then he ran past Lily, who was running in the opposite direction and looked upset or scared or something. James told himself that he would have to go back later and ask her what was the matter.
The first teacher James came across was Professor Flitwick. James scooped up the little man in his arms. Flitwick screeched as James began running back toward the Room of Requirement.
"Put me down!" Flitwick shrieked.
"Oh, right," James said. "But you'll have to run." He sat Flitwick down and then began pulling him by the arm.
In a matter of minutes, they were back inside the room with the suspended Mickey. "Oh, hello!" Mickey said, cheerfully. "Turns out that this is a nice Dargin. He's very pleasant. His name's Jumbles…"
"Can you get her down?" James asked.
"Oh, my," Flitwick said. "This spell hasn't been popular for ages. Oh, well." With the flick of his wand, Mickey was released and she toppled down head first onto the ground.
"Next time you go cursing your friends," Flitwick huffed, "Make sure you know the counter curse first!" With that, he strolled out the door.
Mickey leapt up and gave James a hug. "Oh, you're such a good friend! Had Jumbles been a bad Dargin, you would've saved my life just now!"
"Um, yeah," James said, a slight blush on his cheeks. "How do you know his name, anyway?"
"Oh, he told me," Mickey explained.
"Uh… right," James said. Mickey Thomas was just full of mysteries.