A/N- I know I said all A/N will be at the end, but I have to say, Olaf74, you are, as of right now, my favorite person in the whole wide world and this chapter is dedicated to you because I read that review and wrote this. You're that amazing.
"The Chronicles of Fayt"
Chapter Nine: Snuff
Jason Black's POV
Hogwarts
I rolled over and smacked my wand that was beeping very loudly before rolling out of bed. I was halfway to my trunk when I realized what day it was. I grinned and dove onto Nev's bed as I jumped up and down on him. "WAKE UP!" I yelled as Nev struggled and hit me to get me to stop being obnoxious. As if that was ever going to happen.
"Wha? Get off you hyperactive freak." Nev pulled his pillow over his head.
"It's Halloween though! Wake up!" The last bit was a whine.
"Why do I care?"
"'Cause! It's my birthday so the whole world gets to party and eat sugar!"
"Did you start eating he candy early?" I had to laugh at that.
"I'm going to shower and then come back and try this waking up thing again. Deal?"
"No."
"Too bad!" I scrambled to my trunk and grabbed my morning stuff, towel, shampoo, soap, clothes, that sort of stuff. I all but ran to the bathroom and quickly showered and got ready. I looked in the mirror and rushed through doing my hair and messed up about ten times. Once I got my 'hawk to cooperate and stand up straight I once again went into the dorm room and jumped on Nev. "Wakey, wakey!" I said as I landed on top of him.
"Meh."
"You're a bundle of joy in the morning. Get up and I won't jump on you."
"Fine." Nev pulled himself up and grumbling, went to his trunk. As soon as I was sure he was going to actually move I jumped down the stairs to the Common Room. James, like me, was an early riser, it came in handy in an orphanage. Early birds get the best food.
"Hey, jumped on many people this morning?" James asked as I bounced into the Common Room.
"Only one person." I replied cheerfully as flopped onto a couch.
"You are way to peppy and hyper and cheerful to have a Mohawk."
"Oddly enough, I've gotten that before." I threw James a big grin. "So, what did you get me? I like presents."
!#$%^&*()_+
By lunch time, I'd really gotten on peoples nerves. The whole bouncing off the walls and going insane waiting for my prezzies was bugging everyone. Especially Hermione. "I'm telling you, Halloween was created as a tribute to how amazingly fantabulously incredible I am. Why else would people go and party today? It's not like Halloween existed before I was born. They created it as a tribute to Jason Black. It was originally going to be called "Jason Black Is Amazing Day," but that was too long so they settled for "Halloween.""
Hermione growled. "Would you shut up and stop trying to convince people that Halloween is your own personal holiday?"
"You're the only one arguing with me. Everyone else just knows it's true. You're just bitter that I know more about Jason Black is Amazing Day than you do." I grinned wider as she got angrier at me. Most people just laughed when I told them that Halloween was my holiday because I'm awesome, Hermione wouldn't drop it. I had to say, this Halloween has been my favorite. For one, I'd be guaranteed more presents than usual, and two, this argument was fun.
"Arghh, Jason, you are an impossibly dense prick. I give up!" Hermione shook her head and I couldn't resist a short victory dance as we neared the Great Hall.
"HA! I win! I'm just amazing like that! That's why I get my own holiday!" I laughed as Hermione growled next to me as Nev and James grinned. We walked into the Great Hall and I sat down one seat away from Ashley and of course, James took that spot.
"So," James started, "When are you planning on giving into my charms? Just curious you know."
"How about, oh I don't know… Never?" I laughed at the hurt look on James's face. After brilliant rebuttal I ignored James and his funny and shameless, yet slightly annoying, flirting. The rest of the lunch consisted of a few teammates trickling in and joining us while we all just pretty much chilled in the Great Hall. I got more than a few "Happy Birthday!" wishes which was pretty cool. Back at the orphanage birthdays were two things, not really celebrated and a way of tracking how long you'd been there. Of course, they also determined that you were always getting older and the older you were, the less likely to be adopted you were. Kind of sucked.
"Jason?" I started a little at the voice that broke my thoughts.
"Huh?"
"I was wondering if we could go fly a little before dinner." James looked a little too eager, it was a little creepy.
"Why?" I was giving him a very reproachful look, I didn't really trust James a whole lot.
"Isn't it obvious, I want to go try out your- uh, Flitwick's Nimbus." James had that manic look on his face again and it was a little scary.
"Uhh, sure, I guess. But only if I can use your Cleensweep though. I'm not going to sit on the sidelines and watch you fly around on my broom. Well, the broom I'm watching for Flitwick…" I paused. "Also, there's no way in hell I'm letting you use my broom without supervision. You scare me sometimes. Truly, you do."
James grinned. "Awesome. Let's go." He grabbed my upper arm and dragged me out of my chair. I stumbled and had to jog to keep up with his quick pace. He lead, well dragged really, me to the Ravenclaw Common Room and quickly answered the question before running upstairs to my dorm and grabbing my broom. He appeared no more than thirty seconds later with the two brooms before running to the nearest window and prying it open. "Not quiet legal by school rules but whatever." James handed me his broom, mounted mine then in all his infinite genius, jumped out the window. I looked before mounting and jumping out of the window. I, being the much wiser of us, shut the window and took off to the pitch because really, that was the only place we're supposed to fly.
I sped off and started to do laps around the pitch while James quite literally flew circles around me on my, Flitwick's, broom. Eventually I got bored watching James have fun and pulling out of deadly dives as I slowly flew around, it sucked flying a Cleensweep after flying a Nimbus. Really, it did. "JAMES!" I called and he zoomed over. "Trade ya? I'm bored."
"Aww…" He whined, but, he did head for the ground. I followed and jumped on my own broom and took off. The wind whipped my hair around and I laughed as I took off towards the stormy sky. I stopped and saw I was a couple hundred feet up. I took my hands off my broom and tightened my legs. I leaned forward and held my arms out. I whooped as I hurtled toward the ground at a dangerously fast pace. I grabbed the broom with my hands and pulled up just in time, the ground whizzed by at break-neck speeds and I laughed at how close I'd come to being a smear on the pitch.
I slowed to a stop and rolled off the broom and flopped on the ground, still in that nervous hysterics state. James landed next to me, not yelling but looking at me like I was nuts. I probably am nuts. "That. Was. Awesome." I was still doing my "I almost died and I think that's bloody hilarious" laughter. "I wanna to it again."
"You bloody almost died you maniac!"
"Seriously! It was awesome! You should try it man!"
"You're bloody nuts Jason, get back inside before you kill yourself!" James sounded mad, but I didn't care. It felt like I was free falling and I almost died! It was awesome.
"Dude… almost dying doing something really dumb is fun."
"Dude… almost dying because you almost killed yourself and I beat you up because of the fact you almost killed yourself isn't fun."
I frowned. "I'm not sure I followed that."
James looked confused. "Me neither, anyways, get your idiot self back inside before I do large amounts of bodily harm to you. Move it!" James accentuated the last little bit with a smack to my head. I hit him with his broom. Ah, brotherly love.
It hurts.
~!#$%^&*()_+
I walked into the Great Hall and looked around at all the floating Jack-O-Lanterns and bats and floating candles. It looked pretty darn awesome. "Man, this place is awesome."
"Pretty cool, huh little man?"
"And to think, it's all for me." I winced as Hermione hit me, hard. It really did hurt.
"Shut it about your birthday." I sighed and concluded that really, as much fun as it was to annoy her, it wasn't worth the pain. My arm hurt bad.
"Look." I heard Ron Weasley say as I walked by the Gryffindor table. "It's the psyco murder, Black."
"You got a problem with me?" I asked as I glared at him.
The twins, Fred and George walked up. "You got a problem with our brother?"
"Yeah, I do." Probably not the smartest move to make really. "And, unless he wants trouble, he'd better shut it about me."
Ron decided to jump to his own defense. "What, pissed that people know about your mass murder father?"
"You mean the one that I don't have? I've lived in an orphanage since I was one you genius. Jason Alexander Black was the name that they gave to me. It's not my real name dumbass. I don't even know who my parents are! All I know is that somebody dropped me off at eleven o'clock at night and took off! So shut the hell up about shit that you know nothing about!" I was breathing kind of hard by the time I was done with my little rant.
"Cool it Jason." James said quietly. "Everybody is staring. Just walk away." He grabbed me and started to drag me backwards. "Don't worry, everybody is looking at that idiot like they hate him, he'll leave you alone." I was still pissed as I sat down and glared at my plate. I hate when people make me think about the fact that I was just dumped in the middle of the night. I may tell James I'm okay with it because I know that my parents didn't hate me. But I can't deny that my own family just threw me away. People tried to talk to me but I sent them glares and they quickly stopped trying to talk to me. I wasn't in the mood anymore.
Once enough people showed up Dumbledore stood. "Welcome to the Halloween Feast!" I had the feeling the answering cheer wasn't as loud as usual. "Now, I could sit and talk, but, I'll skip that for now! Let's eat!" He clapped his hands and food materialized down the table and people started to dig in. I grabbed about half of what I usually ate and barely picked at it.
About ten minutes in the loud talking and laughter had managed to alleviate my bad mood enough for me to at least enjoy the feast and holiday for the time being. I had to admit; by the time the feast was winding down I was actually enjoying it and not faking the smiles and laughter.
The doors to the hall burst open and slammed loudly against the wall. I jumped as Professor Quirell came running in. "TROLL!" He screamed. "TROLL IN THE DUNGEONS!" He sort of slid to a halt in the middle of the hall. "Thought you'd like to know." He said calmly before he slumped in a dead faint. The hall was dead quiet for about half a second before it erupted in screams and people jumped up.
"SILENCE!" Dumbledore yelled in a magically magnified voice. "Prefects, escort your houses to the common rooms. In ten minutes your Head of House will be by to do a head count and seal the entrance."
Something popped into my head. "Hermione."
James looked at me oddly. "What? What about her?"
"She left! She doesn't know about the troll!"
"Shit… I'll tell Nick we're going to get her, the girl's bathroom isn't far. We'll grab her and book it to the Common Room." James wove through the crowd to Nick and tapped him on the shoulder. They talked for a few seconds then walked back over to me and Nev. "We need to hurry." Nev and I nodded and we took off down the hallways. Something was off and when we turned the corner to the bathroom we saw the enormous troll. It looked at a door and then ripped it off the hinges and went inside.
"That's… that's the girl's bathroom." Nev whispered.
"James?" I asked quietly.
"I know a couple of spells that can stall it. I'll distract it and you run and grab Hermione. Be quick. As soon as she's out, we run for it. They're dumb, slow creatures. It'll take it a little while to figure out where we went." James pulled out his wand and motioned for us to do the same. "Stay behind me until it's distracted." We both pulled out our wands and slowly made our way to the bathroom. Well, that was until we heard a scream.
"HERMIONE!" Me and Nev ran forward and James ran into the bathroom firing off spell after spell. The troll looked up from where it had Hermione cornered and was about to smash her with its club and slowly lurched over to us as it scratched its tiny head.
"Conjuctivitis!" One of James's spells actually did something and the troll howled in pain as it groped at its now puffy and inflamed eyes. James fired off a few more spells that really didn't do much, the ropes he shot off were easily thrown off. "INCARCEROUS! INCARCEROUS! INCARCEROUS!" He shot off huge amounts of ropes and the troll, after about ten shots, started to not be able to fling the ropes off. A few more and it staggered. Me and Nev ran forward and grabbed Hermione. We pulled her back just before the troll fell where she had been seconds before.
"What's going on here?" We all recognized the squeaky voice.
James stepped up. "During the feast Hermione went to go to the bathroom and before she got back Quirrel ran in screaming about the troll. We knew the bathroom was just off of where we would be going to get back to the Common Room. We were just going to run and tell her but we saw the troll. I hit it with spells that it hopefully wasn't resistant to. I hit it with a Conjuctivitis and Incarcerous because these two can't really do much." James paused. "We didn't have time to get a teacher to take out the troll. I told these two to get her while I distracted the troll. I wasn't planning to actually take it out, it's just that it was really thrashing around when I hit it with Conjuctivitis."
"You should know better Mr. Thompson." Flitwick then fixed us all with hard looks. "However, you did the only thing you could've done in the situation, and if there is one thing I try to impress upon my students it is that you should always think and keep your heads in a bad situation. Fifty points to Mr. Thompson for staying calm and saving another student's life and knowing spells that even the seventh years aren't taught until later this year, I'm impressed. And of course, five points each to Mr. Black and Mr. Longbottom, you could've both been injured when that troll was, what was it you said, thrashing around?" Flitwick gave us all a smile. "I came in right before it fell. Now, Next time, tell a teacher, please. In the meantime, I'll escort you all back to the Common Room. You all are unhurt, correct?" We all nodded. "Good, good. Hurry up now, don't want to get locked out. Well, there really isn't a point to sealing the entrance, there isn't a troll to worry about. Speaking of which." Flitwick conjured a cage around the troll. "Better." He set off down the halls.
I saw Hermione shaking a little. "Are you okay?" She nodded but it wasn't very convincing. I put an arm around her shoulders and she leaned into me and wrapped both her arms around my waist and pulled me closer.
"Thank you." I could barely hear the quiet whisper.
I felt a little bit awkward, I wasn't very good with the comforting girls after near death experiences thing. "Told you I was amazing, I'm a hero. And what do hero's do? Be amazing and save people." Probably not the most comforting or sensitive thing I could say, but hey, I'm a twelve year old guy! I barely know what comforting and being sensitive are, I get a pass. Get out of jail free card.
~!#$%^&*()_+
Who else loves the ending? Because I do. I think it totally fits.
Review Replies- TLDriver66- I guess I again have to apologize for my horrible grammar. I keep meaning to go back and fix it. I will one day. Hemotem- Well, I hope you had run rereading my story, sorry about the long break. But, you're welcome for the last chapter, in fact, I was so kind as to write another one. : ) ams71080- Well, I am back to writing, and I'm glad to be back. (It means I have enough time to actually write, and that's always a good thing.) GrlWithoutAName- Haha, Jason does rock. Just like all the voices in my head! (Note the joke there, I'm not that crazy. I'm only ADHD.) callie258- Well, I'm sorry that you couldn't wait for more because, well, there was a short wait there. Whoops. But, thank you, ego boosts are always welcome!