Chapter 9
Lilith was to have the first two periods on Tuesday mornings as tutorials with Professor Flitwick since Charms was one of the NEWTs she was to be taking the following summer; and it was a period in which the little Charms Professor was free.
"It will have to be here in my office, I'm afraid, my dear, not a classroom because I AM available for the problems of the upper school members of my house" he squeaked.
"Sir, I'm just well chuffed you're kind enough to put aside the time for me" said Lilith "I feel a bit guilty eating into your free periods but I do sort of feel that Charms is one of my weaker subjects so I do appreciate it big time."
Flitwick laughed and ruffled her hair.
"My dear child!" he said "Most young people who were embarking on a NEWT at the age of thirteen would feel very pleased with themselves in that subject. You only compare it to your quite extraordinary abilities in the fields of transfiguration, potions and Arithmancy."
"Do you think so? That's awfully nice to hear" said Lilith "Mums reckoned that she took a while to get the concept of charms and always felt it was HER weak subject."
"If only my star pupils were as good at it as your dear mother I would be very pleased" said Flitwick mournfully. "We're starting off with memory charms, confundment and obliviation and such. It also covers such things as muggle-repelling spells and the like."
"Oh like the sort of spells you must have needed back in the bad old days when you were first at school to stop people looking too closely at your elf and goblin heritance" said Lilith. "It is mixed, isn't it? Or is it awfully cheeky to ask?"
"My dear child! Well it might be cheeky from some children, but I know you well enough to know that your curiosity is quite honest; so I shall tell you. My great grandmother was half elf and half goblin. I'm a bit of a throwback; apparently I closely resemble my grandfather, who was refused entry to Hogwarts. My father was much taller than me, and had no difficulty once he had transfigured his ears to be smaller, something he did to me at my birth. And as HE had a distinguished Hogwarts career there seemed no reason I should not be accepted; and my father taught me NEWT level spells to discourage people looking too closely when it became apparent my growth was to be arrested. A tiny ten-year-old is not unusual; you're hardly bigger than a ten-year-old goblin yourself my dear and nobody thinks it particularly remarkable."
"Yes, Mimi with her half-elf style form is taller than me by far" said Lilith "But Daddy reckons it was the poisoning with the Chinese Dragon's Heart Blood that mummy got that sent her into labour that affected my growth."
"I would never dispute with Severus over a matter of potioneering" squeaked Flitwick. "But you can see why it was a few years before I needed gaze-repelling spells. Which I have never actually dispelled; showing I think what a remarkable child you are to see through them."
"Oh!" said Lilith "I kinda figured you got rid of them when we first had Kinat and Ellie; I thought everyone knew but it just wasn't important enough to mention!"
"My dear, what a NICE thing to say!" said Filius Flitwick warmly "And yes, I suppose these days it ISN'T important enough to mention; and THAT is very nice. I've often wondered if there was similar blood in the Malfoys; poor Cosmo didn't live long enough to breed but there's that fineness of bone…."
"Malfoys have fey blood" said Lilith "Which is much the same thing, only being the posey sort of gits we of Malfoy blood are they picked Highfey. Which they could still count as pureblood, which is a casuistry if you like. I'm glad that Lucius has decided that race is immaterial and any Malfoy is all Malfoy regardless. Malfoys ARE quite good at charms on the whole – the main line, anyway – which I guess is the same source; elves are most tremendously good at charm-style magic."
"It did help" squeaked Flitwick "And I established myself as a duellist because I felt I had something to prove. And when I had proved it, I returned to teaching while I was still at the top ranking."
"Yes it's always best to quit while you're ahead" nodded Lilith "It's why Viktor retired from Quidditch when he did; he was winning on experience because he was no longer the quickest snitch-catcher in the international league and he felt it was time to pass on to others that experience he had won."
"That's precisely it!" said Flitwick. "Now my dear, you obviously understand the theory of the subtlety of gaze-repelling spells, so let us run through the casting of them."
Lilith knew what she was doing here; repelling the gaze of others was something that was almost essential for serious mischief and she had mastered the art long since. Being a legilimens helped, as she pointed out, because one could fine tune the spells subconsciously in the same way a boggart fine tuned its appearance to suit the fears of the viewer.
"My dear child!" Filius Flitwick sat back in amazement. "It took me many years to come anywhere CLOSE to that ability! Once again you amaze me with your virtuosity!"
"But then again, I've had to work quite hard at some of the charms like banishing and blasting because I don't see a lot of use for them in general pranks and if I was in a duel I'd probably use a transfigurational option like turning my opponent to stone" said Lilith "I guess it's a case of doing library work for what seems important at the time and sneaking up on Xanthia Fawcett to pin a notice saying 'Kick me, I'm a git' needed a thoroughgoing degree of ingenuity in front of the rest of the senior Ravenclaws and I wanted to see if I could do it without invisibility because people can still bump into you but if you misdirect their minds they get out of the way without being aware that they're doing it."
"I rather fancy, Lilith" said Flitwick dryly "That if you can do that, you know more about misdirection spells than I need to teach you. Remarkable! And you succeeded?"
"Oh yes" said Lilith. "She'd been trying to push whatsitsface, Danae, around; and Sec reported it to me and I just thought that was the neatest solution. She assumes everyone is in a conspiracy against her anyway, so we had nothing to lose in conspiring."
Flitwick tutted and shook his head.
"She is a very unbalanced girl" he said. "Dear me, I should NOT discuss her with you!"
"She's sort of rather like my grandfather without the attendant charm" said Lilith "Which is actually just as well; a charmless nurd isn't likely to be a Dark Lady. But she has no feelings for others, no appreciation of the real existence of the feelings of others either I don't think, and a kind of idea that the world is here to serve HER. Sad moo really; shall I go on to obliviating?"
"Yes, do my dear; let's not eat into your tutorials with discussions of my failures" sighed little Flitwick, reflecting that little Lilith had Xanthia Fawcett's personality to a 'T'.
oOoOo
The Pepperingye Marauders were bemoaning the fact that now they were in the fifth they could not really do anything excruciatingly amusing to squash Hazel Spikenard. Nathan was chatting to Walter Crabbe about it.
"When she went haring off on that spoof crystal ball seeing and Madam Spikenard was so waxy it kind of squashed her a little, but apparently she's had a couple of visions in the holidays about darkness coming and vanishing or some such twaddle and it's made her all uppity again" said Nathan "And she's got together a group of admiring Huffer girls – none of the Gryffs will touch her and her prophecies with a barge pole thank goodness – and she's showing off and actually planning a tea party with tea leaf reading!"
"Pretentious moo!" said Walter "I take it that's a strong hint to us because Lilith's lot are sorted for this term's japes?"
"Well if you're not doing anything else…." Said Nathan.
"We were a bit barren for ideas after things like New Zealand from Lilith and co last year" said Walter "It's a tough act to follow."
"I'm sure you'll rise to it" said Nathan.
Walter shared the information with the other Weird Marauders.
"We ought to seriously confund the tea cups to give pictures of the dark mark or something" suggested Niobe.
"CAN you confund teacups?" asked Yulan.
"Of course you can!" said Veronica "Didn't my unlamented father, Barty Crouch Junior, confund the Goblet of Fire to accept a fourth name? And he was no great shakes as a wizard so I guess we can do it easy."
"It was a magical artefact…. Well I guess the principle is the same" said Lavazka.
"It will be somewhere between confundment and enchantment I should think and a chant ought to take care of it" said Seth. "But I think the dark mark might frighten the dippier sorts of girls who go for that sort of thing too much."
"A point" said Walter "But getting the tea leaves to do something to our command is sort of the key."
"There's a muggle rock group called 'Queen'" said Seth "I wasn't allowed to listen to them because they were supposed to be evil and unnatural so of course I did. They had a track called 'the Prophet'; it uses a lot of three or four voice harmony and it's kinda creepy in parts and….. we need to go over to Camburnath and ask Sergeant Trumball if we can use his computer to listen to it on YouTube."
"I really can't get my head round muggle computer magic" grumbled Hasibul.
"That's all right; I can" said Seth "All you oiks have to do is listen."
"All very well, but sneaking off to Camburnath isn't done in an instant" said Chrys "It's a good ten to twenty minutes each way even by broom and we'd be missed."
"CALL yourself a wizard!" scoffed Seth "After all the gates we set up last year, y'think setting up a teensy little gate to Camburnath is going to be difficult? I know my way around there; dad visits Archie Trumball regularly!"
This was hailed with relief and the setting up of a gate to a tree on the outskirts of the muggle village of Camburnath was quickly accomplished. They went to see Archie Trumball.
"Are you wee limbs afther getting into trrrouble?" asked Archie.
"It's almost virtuous" said Niobe "Because a dippy girl who fancies herself as a seer is getting silly girls to go to readings and we sort of want to discourage it."
"Weel, that's as may be; but if onybody asks I'll hae tae tell them" said Archie "Yon machine is oot back."
YouTube was quickly utilised and 'The Prophet's song' was quickly found, Seth picking the video rather than a live version. Freddie Mercury could be a little erratic when live. Chrys played air guitar.
"It's kinda gloomy" said Veronica.
"But COOL!" said Niobe "I love that line 'for soon the cold of night will fall, summoned by your own hand'; it's just SOOO creepy; and that bit near the end when all the voices are chasing each other around."
"It's called a canon" said Chrys, who had had music lessons.
"Well it certainly fired Niobe's imagination!" laughed Walter. "I like; can we actually enchant that canon? The bit 'people can you hear me' and 'now I know' all repeated together and that really clever bit, where one voice is saying 'come here, I …..you' when the second voice follows it so you hear the 'here' as 'hear' in the gap…. That SO would freak them out."
"I think" said Chrys "we might need help."
"Isn't that cheating?" asked Lavazka.
"No more than doing library work if we consult an expert" said Chrys.
"Except that usually library books don't talk back or try to get you to do things their way" said Veronica "And of course we'll be asking Lilith who knows more about music in magic than anyone here and Lilith is so VERY Lilith and getting her to stop talking actually is the trick."
"She won't interfere with a Marauder jape" said Walter "It's against the rules."
"And we can't do it without her" said Hasibul. "What's the betting she actually knows the ruddy song already?"
"More than likely" said Seth cheerfully "It's from the era her uncle Casimir was born in and he's got heaps of muggle music. He's even got the Laughing Gnome!"
He declined to explain this and told them not to worry it would take too long to explain and would leave them no wiser anyhow; and was consequently well poked.
They returned virtuously just in time for tea and went in search of Lilith afterwards.
oOoOo
"Oh that IS a good one" agreed Lilith "If I were you I'd keep it relatively simple; you can do it with two voices, or rather two variants, and you can use the main part repeated in two or three parts to make the canon so your teacups are each singing different parts – that WAS how you planned to do it?"
"We hadn't got that far but it makes sense" said Chrys. "It's going to need a delay charm on it AND a charm to set off each of the other teacups after the first one goes; and we'll mangle it slightly to use that line Niobe likes so much before the canon."
"For soon the cold of night will fall/summoned by your own hand; aah-ah, people can you hear me?" sang Lilith "Yes it kinda works; second voice coming in 'people' as the first sings 'can'. Delicate timing magic; can you hack that?"
"Yes" said Chrys. "It was advice on the music we needed, how to make it work."
"It's ultimately a terribly simple round" said Lilith "but terribly clever in the timing. I should think you'd have to chant AND use a metronome for your chanting after practising all of you singing your parts."
"We can do that" said Walter "Right, let's retire to Salazar's box room; we shan't get interrupted in there except by other marauders and that doesn't count."
It took quite a lot of practice; only Walter – because of living with the Snapes now in the holidays – and Chrys had ever had anything to do with part singing, though Seth vaguely recalled singing 'Three Blind Mice' and 'Kookaburra' in parts at infant school. They got it perfected however as they would never have done had it been some compulsory school exercise; and set out to borrow Hazel Spikenard's special tea service.
"And Veronica can do the Waffling Logic work on exactly what conditions set the first one off" Said Chrys "I'm chronically bad at Arithmancy."
"At least you recognise it's a Waffling Logic problem" retorted Veronica "Even if you have got the sense to leave it to those of us who can. It's an 'and' problem; if tea has been drained AND the cup is swirled then that indicates a reading. No problem."
"Just do it, Crouch; I don't want to know the sordid details of your love affair with numbers" said Chrys rudely.
Veronica threw a cushion at him.
It was also up to Veronica to steal the tea set a little bit as the boys could not get into a girl's dorm in case Hazel kept it there not in a locker in the common room; the Glissand spell on the staircases to the girls' dorms was impossible for a boy to overcome unless he flew; which skill the Weird Marauders had not yet tried out. Chrys was the expert chanter with Seth a good backup; and Walter had learned a lot in the holidays too. Hasibul offered the idea that the tea leaves should also do formation dances in the middle of the cup in time to the music and volunteered to work out a chant to cover that piece of locomotor magic, something he was particularly good at. Niobe was good at charms too and volunteered to help with that; it was tricky because the cups had to set the tea leaves that were not yet in them dancing and there was much muttering and reference to NEWT level books from the library to assimilative locomotion by temporal precision and Lavazka and Purnima, who were steady enough all round stood by to add counterpoint to chanting and to help with the singing. And Chrys cast spells on them to drop their voices an octave leaving Lavazka sounding scarily like Freddy Mercury.
Veronica and her calculations set up the cups and each one was solemnly sung to in turn while the charms experts almost twisted their fingers off tying the music in and the chanters tied their tongues half in knots setting up the conditions. It took well into the night to do and they then had to sneak off to bed, Veronica thankful that the cups had, after all, lived in the common room. Hazel might not be likely to wake if anyone crept into her dorm but Meriel Llewellyn almost certainly would and would ask loud Welsh questions guaranteed to wake the rest of the dorm. And though two of that dorm were Marauders – Charis and Tobala – the rest were not.
They would have to wait for the weekend for Hazel's tea party; and because of the amount of research needed only two days to wait. Which was two days in which to try to find out where it was to be held in the hopes of introducing view-o-sneaks to eavesdrop on the whole business.
They decided to pump Carol Best who was the most sensible Hufflepuff of her year and who had been dubious about the party.
"Do you know when and where Hazel's holding her dippy tea ceremony?" Lavazka asked outright.
"Saturday at four; as far as I know they're using one of our box rooms" said Carol "Why? I'd have thought you had more sense than to want to go."
"Oh, aren't you going?" asked Lavazka.
"No; I have a date with Cyprian Ogren" said Carol, who had forgiven the Ravenclaw boy for his brief infatuation for Genevieve Harris.
"Take him along; you'll neither of you regret it" said Lavazka "And by the way if the pair of you wouldn't mind carrying view-o-sneaks….."
"WHAT are you little horrors up to?" demanded Carol.
"Well if I tell you THAT it spoils the surprise, doesn't it?" said Lavazka "I bet Cyprian thinks Hazel's as dippy as we do; he'll enjoy it, I promise you."
"All right brat; I'll do it" said Carol "Assuming Cyprian says yes. I'll certainly put it to him; I don't think he'd mind seeing her made an ass of. She fuelled all that crap over the Egobitchologist after all" she added with some vehemence. Lavazka had no difficulty in recognising Genevieve Harris from that new and imaginative epithet and filed it away to pass on to the others.
oOoOo
Saturday at four o'clock and seated in arithmantically worked out positions – which, Veronica said, Spikenard had got wrong – the six Hufflepuffs, Cyprian and Hazel took tea together after Hazel had muttered darkly about eight being not as auspicious as seven but at least better than six if, as she excluded Cyprian, Carol left too.
There was much nervous giggling as they drank their tea; all of them had tried tea-leaf reading in the taster classes of divination; but this was a real reading from a real seer and it was a little bit scary and illicit and possibly life-changing. After all, everyone knew that Hazel was a real seer who had real visions. And Lydia Snape, when she was here, had confirmed one of them as definitely true even if she and the other Marauders had been cagey over what it was really about.
It may be said that they expected to swirl their leaves on Hazel's command, and then leave it to her to read their futures; they did NOT expect their own teacups to take over.
Hazel's own cup intoned that now the dark of night was going to fall summoned by her own hand, and then the rest of the cups joined in, in canon. Several of the guests screeched and dropped their cups – Hasibul, half expecting this, had thoughtfully put Unbreakable charms on them so as not to damage Hazel's property – and the rest stared at the dancing tea leaves in horror. Cyprian eased his view-o-sneak to give a better view for the kids; really, they were right, this was the best fun he'd had for a long time, he was glad Carol had talked him into it. They'd laugh over this together for a long while. He felt for Carol's hand and squeezed it.
Ignoring the soppiness of their kind conspirators the Weird Marauders were in whoops of laughter at the pandemonium going on in the box room.
"What's happening? Oh what's HAPPENING?" screeched Heloise Pomfrey.
"The teacups have been taken over by dark magic taunting us about a horrible fate!" wept Tessa Wadluck.
"Grubby round the edges magic but scarcely DARK" muttered Cyprian to Carol "Brats in the THIRD you say? Remarkable skill. If it had been Scarpin and Snape and their lot I wouldn't give it a second thought but…. Most ingenious."
"Pompous git" said Lavazka in the Marauders' hideaway, actually in an attic abutting the Hufflepuff box room.
"Ravenclaw" said Hasibul.
"Oh he's not too bad" said Purnima "Especially compared to his brother. If Xanthia Fawcett ever tries to play Voldemorta, Damian Ogren SO is going to be her Wormtail if he thinks she has a chance of winning."
The tea drinkers were mostly fleeing by now, leaving Hazel to gather – rather gingerly – her teacups that were declaring that now they knew that she could hear them. So, once the door was opened, could half of the rest of Hufflepuff house and curious sightseers came to view round-singing teacups issuing order to come hear, they heard you and winding up with the canon on 'listen to the mad' penultimate line fetching up on different notes with the line 'listen to the mad cow' which seemed more appropriate than 'madman'; and the marauders HAD also left off the last line which almost might give credence to any prophet.
Cyprian was laughing out loud by now.
Hazel rounded on him.
"Did YOU do this?" she demanded equally of him and Carol.
"Not I!" chuckled Cyprian "I just heard a rumour in the wind as you might say and came along for shits and giggles…. Sophisticated piece of foolery. I'm most impressed; only fun I've ever had out of divination."
"Unbeliever!" said Hazel automatically, raising an accusing pointing finger.
"Yes" said Cyprian. "Excuse me; I think I feel another paroxysm of mirth coming on."
Madam Sprout had turned up by this time and wanted to know what a Gryffindor and a Ravenclaw were doing in the box room and what the fuss was about.
Hazel managed an almost coherent explanation, helped – or hindered – by snide asides from Cyprian and informative ones by Carol. Madam Sprout beamed at Carol.
"Well my dear, at least you came along for the show not to be taken in by the sort of rubbish that seems to impress the sillier girls" she said. "Not perhaps terribly kind to laugh at Hazel but then, it was scarcely wise for someone with one minor trick in her box to try to impress the gullible with what is essentially a lie, dear; because pretending abilities you do NOT have is living a lie; and whilst you might manage the odd vision, real divination does rather tend to elude you, doesn't it? Carol and Cyprian will help you take your teacups up to the Headmaster, who is a most competent cursebreaker and he will make sure there is no recurrence of this unfortunate disturbance. Run along!"
Cyprian muttered that he felt about six and as he hadn't even done anything improper he imagined that Hazel must feel so high.
oOoOo
David used Scarpin's Revellaspell on the cups.
"Well well!" he said "Very sophisticated; most competent! Very thoughtful of someone to place an unbreakable charm on the cups too to stop them smashing if they got dropped…. Excuse me" he set the cups off again and listened in deep pleasure. David, as a muggleborn, was certainly familiar with Queen.
"It's that rotten kid Snape, isn't it?" said Hazel.
"Oh dear me no, not Lilith's style at all" said David "Besides if Lilith had been doing it you'd have had at least four part harmony and guitar arpeggios into the bargain. This is much simplified musically; though I would not rule out Lilith having been asked for advice on simplifying the canon. Still, no harm done, is there? I'll issue a statement at tea that the singing tea cups were a clever prank in case anyone was really upset; and that the pranksters – at least three styles in there – put in an unbreakable charm does argue remarkable thoughtfulness. You were had, Hazel; and perhaps if you've been boasting again it may serve as a reminder to keep you out of any more serious trouble. You have a gift; a rather uncontrollable gift and I think your parents have been a little unkind to you in making rather a fuss about it so that you feel that you have to live up to it outside of the visions. If I were you, I'd ignore it and concentrate on being a nice, normal schoolgirl and let the visions happen if they must but don't let their occurrence disturb you. Most unhealthy."
David had very little time for true seers; he remembered Sibyl Trelawney too well. And it WOULD be better for the child if she were to grow up with less fuss made about her rare, and fortunately, infrequent, gift. And it would too be better for those around her; credence in the vague sort of prophecies engendered by either visions or tealeaves tended to cause hysteria and foolishness.
"Aren't you going to punish the people who did this?" demanded Hazel shrilly.
"WHAT a silly voice you can manage when you're upset" said David mildly. "Perhaps a dose of glumbumble juice is needed if you are going to squeak like a ferret caught in a letterbox… ah, better" as Hazel got her voice under control and muttered a hasty apology. Hazel did NOT like glumbumble juice! David went on, "I fail to see what's to punish; if your cups had got broken, then a fine of pocket-money would have been necessary; but it's not as though it was interference with a lesson, or even with your exam studies as you were hardly doing this for revision but for fun in playing teaparties with your little friends, nothing hurt but a little bit of your pride that you may one day thank the authors of this prank for; and though my time might be considered to be wasted, I have to say I waive any feelings of time-wasting on my own behalf for the delight of seeing that Lilith Snape and friends are not the only ones in the school to pull out a beautifully crafted jape of the first water with quite super-classic combinations of assimilative locomotion by temporal precision, Waffling logic and assimilative temporal sonic cohesion by extreme precision. I really MUST ask Professor Flitwick to see it before I take the spells off it" and he clicked his fingers for an elf to fetch the charms Professor.
Little Flitwick came at the run; and listened through to the teacups – Hazel was getting very tired of Queen – and cast the Revellaspell making happy little noises of approval.
"Remarkable! Wonderful!" he squeaked. "Dear me, it does seem a shame to take such a nice piece of work apart!"
"PLEASE take the wretched curse off my teacups!" pleaded Hazel.
"Certainly Hazel" said David. "I believe it will take a brief chant; Filius, if you will repeat over and over at the speed I shall give you 'People you can't hear me' it will assist my efforts."
"Certainly, headmaster" said Filius "Dear me, how very exciting; Severus would never permit me to assist his curse breaking; I must say, having the opportunity to watch an expert at work is most exhilarating!"
David laughed.
"Well it's scarcely dark magic" he said "But it IS very competently anchored. If you'd like to keep the Revellaspell up while I chant you can watch as I undo the layers. And I can't say I've ever even SEEN assimilative sonic cohesion by extreme precision before; most japesters who set up several musical parts do it by getting their timing agreed to start off with, not letting the swirling of the first cup guide the whole timing."
"VERY exciting!" agreed Flitwick.
Hazel just wished they found the silly trick a bit less fascinating and would just get on with it!
David chanted over the cups; and because it added symmetry he sang 'The Seven Seas of Rhye' especially the last line 'I challenge the mighty titan and his troubadour; I'll take you to the seven seas of Rhye."
He handed back the cups to Hazel.
"Here you are Hazel" he said "And if you'll heed my advice you'll just use them for ordinary tea parties in the future."
"Thank you sir" said Hazel, escaping thankfully. She felt very silly; and the headmaster seemed to think that she should feel silly. But if she could not tell fortunes, what else was there to her? It wasn't fair!
Hazel was, fortunately, not the type to try to plan elaborate revenge; the head didn't intend to do anything to the authors of the jape and that she resented faintly because the head was more interested in the wretched spells that had been used than in her inborn talent; and she had not even understood half the words he was throwing around!
She asked Charis Rawlins resentfully,
"Was it your lot of Marauders who cursed my teacups?"
Charis stared.
"Someone cursed your teacups? No it wasn't us; we're in the fifth now you know! It's an unwritten rule of marauders that japes are only pulled in the first four years and then we only do serious marauder stuff like researching dark wizards and so on. We've got too much on our plates charting a potential dark wizard to muck around with japes. What happened?"
Hazel sniffed hard.
"Well I'm not telling you, so there!" she said. Charis shrugged. Doubtless it would turn up in the book of all wickedness some time if it was any good. They had taking to recording japes too for posterity and for any marauder who was feeling down to read through to have a good laugh.
oOoOo
David announced at tea that if anyone had been disturbed by sundry singing teacups that they had been subject to a rather sophisticated jape and that the authors might perhaps have thought about the feelings of those silly enough to get carried away and fail to see a jape as it was. This was quite a nice double rebuke to both those who had not considered the feelings of those they caught and to those who had been daft enough to scream that the cups were infested with dark magic. Which was the triumph of hysteria over experience, since when anything out of the ordinary happened at school, one might always assume Marauders to be at the bottom of it.
Indeed the Weird Marauders rose as a body and Chrys said,
"We're awfully sorry if anyone was actually upset by our singing teacup jape, because we went to the trouble of making something interesting instead of sticking to the rather lame first idea we had of cursing the teacups to make the tealeaves form into the dark mark which we thought MIGHT be frightening, specially as lots of kids right now have parents who were rather menaced by the Second Wizarding War. So we TRIED hard not to scare anyone and we didn't think we would so if we did we ARE sorry."
"Credit to you for thinking of that then" said David.
Little Flitwick was sitting there staring.
"Third years? THIRD years? Remarkable, quite remarkable!" he was saying over and over. "Hasibul my dear boy, now I detect your mark on the tea leaves; and the unbreakable charm. Beautifully done, all of you!"
"Thank you sir" said Chrys, answering for all of them, Hasibul having bowed. "We sort of felt it was a rather unhealthy obsession with fortune telling though at least nobody here tries reading fortunes by fondling the innards of animals which really is a load of old tripe."
"Chrys, you dragged that in solely to make the awful pun" said David. "And I think as you are all so very fond of teacups it might be a nice gesture if each of you got up to make Miss Spikenard a cup of tea in bed for the next er eight days; I don't insist on it, but I do point out it would be a nice gesture. The elves will take the cup for you Gryffindor boys and those of you from other houses."
"Yessir!" said Chrys; to whom, as to all marauders, the Headmaster's suggestion was as the law of the Medes and Persians.
And Hazel was a trifle mollified that the perpetrators had some measure of imposition.