Chapter 1: Of Mud Fights and Scariness

Thank you so much Lvmj, Lrose000, and InsertManiacLaughterHere~! ^_^

Disclaimer: I do not own the lovely world of Harry Potter. I do, however, own the red-haired sixth year, and *coughcoughunfortunatelycough* the Abigails.

The Collective Abigail: *perk up* What was that? *glare*

Me: Nooooothing...

TCA: ... *growl*

Me: Gah~ *fleeeeeeeeee* Enjoy~!

TCA: Get back here!

-x-

A week after the start of school, Harry and Ron found themselves enjoying strangely good weather. It was a Saturday, and they were lounging easily on the grass by the lake. Harry was talking to his friend about why he thought the flavor of the pudding was all off last night, and Ron was disagreeing.

"Honestly, Harry, I don't know what your problem is. The pudding last night was delicious!"

"No, it really wasn't."

"Was too."

"Was not."

"Was too." They continued in this vein for a little while, when suddenly Harry felt a cold chill run up his spine. This was strange, because it was usually his scar that symbolically foreshadowed creepy and mentally-scarring events to come... He shoved this thought to the back of his mind, and slowly turned around. No one was there. He let out a small sigh of relief, and turned back to Ron, who had suddenly turned invisible.

"Ron? This is really no time to show off your mad skills," Harry said, crossing his arms over his chest. A giggle and an exclamation drew the boy's attention towards the lake. There was Ron, unceremoniously plopped in the squelchy mud at the edge of the lake. He lifted a hand up from the goop, and watched as the muck slowly oozed off his fingers. He glared at Harry.

"Thanks a load, Harry," he said miserably. Suppressing laughter, Harry got up and walked over to his friend, and extended a hand to help him up. Ron's hands were slippery with mud, but Harry was able to pull him up. Smiling, the black-haired boy turned to walk out of the bank, and was greeted with an upside-down scary face, deathly pale and with blood-red lips, eyes sunken in and haunted, but a surprisingly familiar shade of dark blue, and (also strikingly familiar) pale blonde hair hanging straight down in a shimmery curtain.

"Boo," the smallest Abigail grinned. With a small squeal and a yelp, Harry fell in a spectacular arc that managed to be both a slip and a leap at the same time. He landed on his back in the spot Ron had just recently vacated. Groaning, he sat up to see all three Abigails sitting in the nearby tree and chortling, quite pleased with themselves. Harry drew in a breath to yell at them, but stopped at a gesture from Ron. The two both tried to stand up on their own, but only succeeded in falling face-down in the mud, bringing a new chorus of laughter from the girls in the tree. Surreptitiously, the two boys gathered mud in their hands, sculpting it as they "tried and failed" to get up. Suddenly, in one motion, the two straightened up and hurled the balls of mud towards the girls in the tree. The soft muck splattered on impact with the branches and trunk—ok, so Harry and Ron's aims weren't the best—and got on the robes of the girls. They stopped laughing abruptly, and looked down with eery silence. The dirty-blonde grinned.

"So this is how you want to play, huh?" The Collective Abigail leapt from the tree to land cat-like on the ground, and began gathering mud balls of their own. With stupendous war cries and some not-so-stupendous fight yodels, the two groups set upon each other with splattering, smelly "fury". Eventually, the commotion attracted fellow students, mostly Gryffindors. Soon it was a full-scale mud battle, and no one was safe.

"STOP!" a feminine voice cried. Surprisingly, everyone halted where they were, and turned to face the girl who had spoken. Bushy hair bounced as Hermione tapped her foot in aggravation. "Don't you realize that if the teachers were to glance out the window and see this, we'd all be in detention for weeks! Honestly, you just don't think!"

Although many wanted to splatter the busy-body for interfering with their fun, they had to admit that she had a point. Someone actually did let one fly at the girl, but it missed and hit someone in the face instead. With a loud "GROSS", the boy yanked off his robes and waded into the lake in his uniform, scrubbing at his face. There was a brief moment, silent but for the sputtering, splashing sounds of the kid, then everyone clambered at once into the edges of the lake. Hermione found herself the mostly unwilling guardian of over a dozen robes while everyone scrubbed themselves clean. The few older students who had gotten involved were nice enough to temporarily transfigure robes into fluffy towels, and as student after student wandered back out and into a fluffy towel, Ron and Harry found themselves alone in the lake with the Collective Abigail again. Hermione had left in a satisfied huff, so their robes were hanging un-transfigured from the branches of the tree. The boys stared at the girls, and there was an awkward silence. Then the burliest Abigail broke the stand-still with a grin and a nod.

"Not bad, boys." With that, the Collective Abigail wandered off, grabbing their towels as they went. Harry and Ron stared after them, agape.

"D'you have any idea what just happened?" Harry asked Ron finally, turning. Ron shook his head with a gulp.

"Nah, mate, none at all." There was silence for a moment, then,

"They're pretty scary, though."

"Yes, Ron. Yes they are."

-x-

Please review~! I've got about half the next chapter up, and I'm sorry for this one being so short! I'll make it up in the next one, honest! I'm neglecting my Fictionpress story for joo~! XD /whine

~Latni-chan~