Chapter 18

Those who were staying for the Easter holidays to have their revision carefully supervised discovered that the Weird Marauders had left them a jape to cheer up their leisure time.

They found out during a knockabout match of fifteen-a-side quidditch when sundry of the brooms started breaking wind in a rather equine sounding way.

Lilith used the Revellaspell ruthlessly and started laughing.

"It's quite enterprising of the little tykes" she said, conveniently ignoring the fact that all the 'little tykes' were older than she. "I gather it's an engulfing charm well twisted with vanishing components to take the gas from the back end of the various horses of the stables and redirect each horse's personal product to a particular broom; it's moderately sophisticated."

David, riding a particularly flatulent broom, hid a wry grin over the fact that Lilith and co had been producing even more moderately sophisticated japes for a number of years now.

"I suppose" drawled Sextus "We should be pleased that it's only the gas they've usurped."

"Spoken too soon" said Mimi "Your boom is peeing Sextus."

Sextus gave a howl of dismay.

"We need to cancel this quick or the cricket pitch will be ruined!" he said.

A quick chant returned the bodily functions of the rear end of the horses to their proper owners and the game continued without further interruption.

oOoOo

Sextus was really pleased when his father and new stepmother travelled up to Hogsmeade to see him.

Ashley Pencastle was still bemused and delighted by the wizarding world though his shop was doing very well for selling the muggle articles that could be used by wizards; and he had received a licence to sell enchanted muggle items that were on the permitted list too. This included typewriters charmed to type whatever was spoken, on a command word, rather like QuickQuotes pens; and hand sewing machines with the special morphing foot designed by Lydia Snape. The steam engine that brought them thrilled him; and his wife Albertine was having fun showing him the world she had taken for granted hitherto, even though she had not actually partaken of many of its thrills.

Ashley hugged his son, and then hugged Lilith.

"Sextus, Albertine and I were considering starting a family" he said "Are you still all right about that?"

Sextus hugged his father hard.

"Dad, I think that would be wonderful!" he said "You and Mum Albertine OUGHT to have children; and I'll be the luckiest big brother in the world; and I shan't let mum stop me visiting because if she tries I'll jolly well threaten her with asking to be YOUR responsibility. That's why I asked you to come here; because she threw one over me splitting any holiday between her and you."

Ashley sighed.

"I don't know WHY she hates me so much" he said "When she found out I was a muggle you'd think I had turned into a serial adulterer crossed with Ghengis Khan with Voldemort for a mother!"

Sextus gave a shaky grin.

"Scary visual place" he said. "I guess….. what, you mean I was conceived and she never knew your blood status?"

"It happened rather fast" said Ashley dryly "I'd stopped the car and wandered over to get a better look at the people on brooms actually flying – I thought it was a movie set and they had some kind of movie way of making it look real – and your mother and I sort of got very friendly very fast and….. well I didn't like to ask questions about the game, it seemed impolite to the lady I was with….. we fixed to go out for a few dates, and somehow we never actually talked about me not being quite sure what was going on; and I figured she was a bit too scatty for me, and I was going to end it when she told me she was pregnant. Well of course I was going to do the proper thing and marry her; but she got to asking questions about my family and it transpired I was a muggle and she screeched at me a lot and – I know now – disapparated. Well I wasn't going to lose touch with any child I had, if she did not have an abortion; so I grabbed the first goblin I saw in London and asked to be taken to the Ministry – she had mentioned going to the ministry for a marriage bond – so I saw several people and was registered as the muggle parent of a wizarding child and issued rights of visit. And to do Lucretia justice, she did tell me to get out of the country during the time Voldemort had control of the ministry in case I was murdered for sleeping with a pure blood witch. She wasn't pleased to acknowledge me but she didn't want my death on her conscience. And it's gone on for years that she's ashamed of having been hot for a muggle and having his child."

"Well if you could see a game of quidditch and goblins you're not a pure muggle" said Lilith "You're a sensitive. And actually I think your hybrid vigour has probably made Sextus a stronger wizard for it. Because a lot of old pure bred families are awfully inbred. We think it was a picture of Albertine and various Prince cousins in a society mag that's made her a bit dippy at the moment; jealousy of Albertine's place in society."

"But I don't HAVE a place in society" said Albertine, bemused.

"I get it though, Tina" said Ashley, using the pet name he gave to his wife "You don't have to be in society, it's just that Lucretia THINKS you're in society."

"Yes" said Lilith "So too we thought. Do you want us to call you Tina, cousin Albertine?"

Ashley sighed.

"Poor Luctretia" said Tina. "Yes please, I should like to have a shorter name; Albertine IS a little unwieldy!"

"You're good to pity her more than be angry" said Sextus "Thank you; I mean, she IS my mum."

"Let's put such clouds behind us and have a good day" said Ashley, firmly. "Show us the sights."

So far as Sextus was concerned the sights included the small bookshop in Hogsmeade. Lilith took over sight seeing to take them to see the castle – which was no longer disillusioned in any case, but Ashley could also see the quidditch pitch well enough and laughed uproariously when the youngsters showed him the bog of very long lasting stench and insisted on jumping on the stepping stones to make them give off their horrid bubbles of gas.

He was stunned by the flying horses too; there was so much about this world that he did not know!

And his son and any other children he and his Tina had were going to be a part of it!

oOoOo

David was delighted that his programme of carefully enforced periods of rest and leisure seemed to induce a more relaxed attitude amongst his students. The balance between relaxed enough and too laid back to get up the energy to study at all was a fine one; so he took a leaf from Severus' book and organised a quiz for each of the two age groups – or rather, bearing in mind that Sextus and Lilith were involved, the two levels of exam.

As there were a larger number of students he decided to organise it as a House competition; and in the same way as Severus had done had dedicated wands to buzz and glow when tapped for the first team to get there to answer a starter question.

There was almost an unseemly brawl because Drusillina Hallow crowed cheerfully that Slytherin had Mimi AND Lilith AND Mafalda, and she had to be rescued from fellow Marauders Maud and Isabel who felt they had to be partisan for Gryffindor, and Bella had to go hunting for all Drusillina's fingernails to put back on and to release her from the ceiling whence she had been floated and her hair glued to it.

Drusillina took it with philosophy.

The Gryffindors felt that house honour had been satisfied.

The Ravenclaws shrugged and declared that they would do their best but that Lilith Snape was a menace to society for being unwholesomely clever.

The Hufflepuffs laughed and said it was the value to their revision that counted not the winning.

Which as Sampta Patil said privately was just as well as all the intelligent Huffers were in the lower sixth not the exam class.

oOoOo

It may be noted that Slytherin NEWT students carried the day decisively with as many points as the other three houses added together; and most of them came from Lilith being quick on the wand and knowing most of the starter questions including those in subjects she had not yet taken OWL in even.

None of the scholars of the Slytherin Sixth cared; she played for House honour, and what she did NOT know for the followup questions – which tended to be deeper – they were permitted to confer over anyway.

Lilith was awarded pats on the back and chocolate cauldrons by her fellows.

oOoOo

The Slytherin OWL class had four Marauders in it too; because Walter Crabbe was taking seven OWLs with his chronological contemporaries though technically only in the third. He had decided that it was time to pull up his mark and move forward, for all that he enjoyed being with the other Weird Marauders; and they had done all they could to support him. Walter intended moving into the Sixth with the Pepperingye Marauders and taking a few more OWLs in the Lower Sixth because if he did fall behind, then he could drop back to the class he had been in. David had been impressed by his attitude – and his hard work – and had permitted this readily.

The Ravenclaw OWL class had three Marauders of its own, Sextus, Jingjie and Wanda.

It was however a totally shaming situation that Hufflepuff managed not one single starter question; and though the two Marauders of Gryffindor House rallied their own fellows to perform with some ability, it was, as Tobala said in resignation, the Slytherin and Ravenclaw show. She had lost their team a few points by buzzing too quickly and answering what she thought was being asked – which sometimes led to her giving an erudite and NEWT level wrong answer – but as she had got as many or more right her team forgave her for impulsiveness.

Ravenclaw won by five points and the House was much relieved to be able to salvage some pride from the Slytherin whitewash at NEWT level.

oOoOo

The whole point WAS, as David said, they had discovered what they DID know, and what they did not; and so had a responsibility to revise harder on the questions in their chosen fields that they had been unable to answer or had answered incorrectly; and to be aware if they were likely to misread an exam question for over-excitement.

This was aimed at Tobala; who flushed. She determined to be very methodical in the exams!

oOoOo

To recover from the quiz, and to give the students time to consolidate what they needed to revise, David took them all to a muggle funfair.

He slipped a few garden gnomes Hagrid had caught into his pocket too; gnomes loved funfairs, which was why David had built a few devices in his own time at school that they could operate for themselves, like the gnome-hurling machine. It kept them occupied and out of Hagrid's way. Degnoming the excess by taking them into Glasgow and leaving them with a visiting funfair was as efficient as any way of degnoming and more humane than many.

The wizarding children found the muggle rides surprisingly enjoyable and exciting and were entirely puzzled by the ghost train since there were no real ghosts in it.

"It's most peculiar" complained Mafalda Prewett to David – the NEWT students were permitted free rein unsupervised, the fifth expected to go about in groups of three or four – "There are all these muggles shrieking at nothing."

"Muggles don't, on the whole, really believe in the existence of ghosts" said David "Or rather, a lot of them HALF believe. And because their training and common sense as they see it tells them that ghosts are not real, they can get a thrill from what is essentially almost a pretend fright and therefore not really threatening – but it's still a stimulation. Like the roller coaster. Everyone knows that it's not going to be really dangerous, but it FEELS a bit dangerous. Muggles have humdrum lives; and their laws preclude anyone from having any real fun if there is the most minute risk involved. This is their compensation for the lack of thrill."

"Oh!" said Mafalda "My parents would probably like a law that prevented them having any thrills or fun."

"And would you?" asked David.

"N….no" said Mafalda "I should like the option to choose. I think I would generally pick a safe option but it should be up to me and not the Wizgamot. Poor muggles! They are then more enslaved by their own legislation than Voldemort would have had them?"

"Only in a way" said David "They are trammelled rather than enslaved; Voldemort would have put them in pens and camps and made them work to death without caring about their safety."

"Oh well; I suppose at least if they choose their government they almost deserve it" said Mafalda "But I'm sorry for the ones that didn't vote in their council."

David shrugged.

"Unfortunately the urge to control permeates all their politicians whatever they claim to represent" he said "They operate on a system of two semi-credible and one risible party of belief structures and being a politician is a career not a duty."

"Maybe we SHOULD be infiltrating and controlling muggles then!" said Mafalda "To rescue them from the consequences of such folly."

David gave a rueful laugh.

"The trouble is, Mafalda, you can't take people over for their own good; it's unfair to them and interferes with their personal development. And it doesn't work. They resent the control and if you give them back their independence after you think they've learned, the chances are they slip back into their old ways. Whereas if you left them alone they might have learned by your example. Not that we can show the muggles our example; but we can hope they get over their current sillinesses. We got over our terminal stupidity when the ministry showed how inept they were and how foolish we were to trust them in the years of the second wizarding war. And it's why we did not crush Gerhardt Grindelwald ourselves, but infiltrated Jade Snape into Durmstrang to do it with the team she assembled there. We gave material help for the big battle against his forces; and then faded away to leave the Germanic peoples to win their own peace. Yes, Jade is still interfering. But not too overtly."

Mafalda nodded.

"Remind me I want nothing to do with politics sir" she said.

oOoOo

After the fun of the fair, and because David wanted to use it as an exemplar, he set races for each group of exam students in which they had to used charms and transfigurations to make and negotiate almost fairground like obstacles in an obstacle course. This included for the NEWT students transfiguring a pile of wood into a roller coaster fitting the wheels of a shopping trolley that had to be enchanted to follow the track and then fly after being launched from the final rise. The races were held with teams of four and covered Arithmancy in having to solve a number of difficult practical problems on their course, and Dark Arts in defeating foes on the way and indeed was almost a miniature Triwizard maze. The OWL students had much the same but toned down.

It was voted really good fun by exhausted students who went to bed that night tired but happy.

Mafalda did complain that she was having dreams of riding a rolleroaster and having to answer questions shot at her from both sides however; and knowing that Mafalda was inclined to over work and to worry about her grades, David prescribed her the Elixir to produce Euphoria – with the improvements Severus had introduced – allied with the Draught of Peace to give her a full day round with a clear and happy mind.

"I don't normally believe in using potions to correct thought imbalance" he said "But your brain goes into overdrive – er, works too furiously for your own good – and I think it will help you get back into perspective."

Mafalda had learned the wisdom of not over working and nodded ruefully. It was why she had reported the nightmare instead of keeping it to herself as she had been wont to do in her younger years.

She sat about in the common room all day with a happy smile on her face doing crosswords – which was Mafalda's idea of being laid back – and found herself much refreshed.

Bella poked a pot of Severia flowers at her.

"We brought these on to flowering" she said "Keep the ruddy things by your bed and they should give you calm, dreamless sleep. And make you feel good. It's a more subtle effect than the potions Fido poked into you but it'll help until the exams are over."

"Thank you Bella" said Mafalda gratefully. The Belle Marauders were good sorts.

oOoOo

Bella was more excited by the fluttery kicks inside her than by the exams; although Bella was always wont to take exams in a fairly phlegmatic way, working on the principle that as she had put in the work during her years at school she should be able to pass any exam on what should be something anyone who did the work knew backwards. It was a Marauding principle that revision should never be more than a check and should not take the place of a nose to the grindstone approach to learning all year round. She knew that she had done the work and felt that she knew her subjects well. Bella fully anticipated getting most of her five NEWTs at 'O' grade and preferred to do that than take more and risk dropping grades. Had she known that Lucius would judge the twelve hour chant a suitable stand-in for the practical for her year and the previous she might have done one more NEWT; but her decision was made. And it was always possible to study further when in the world of academe teaching, as well she might. Bella looked forward to revising the OWL level work in ancient runes and in enchanting in her spare time, and then taking both studies deeper; largely in order to be ready to meet the daily challenges a professor must meet.

The daily challenges Bella was used to were a little more excessive than most professors might consider reasonable; Hogwarts having been a central target for both Voldemort and Odessa. However she accepted fighting off jealous dark wizards with phlegmatism as part of the way things were.

And in a new school where the divide between the haves and the have-nots was perhaps one of the greatest in the world it might not be unreasonable to suppose that there would be those who would oppose the idea of the street children of India's wizarding world getting any kind of education.

Bella however did not pause to consider the philosophy; she just accepted. Even as she accepted motherhood because that was the way things were supposed to be. Tigers took things as they came; and Bella had made herself, essentially, a tiger.

And she was permitted to spend some time with her husband over the holidays; since Assim had firmly distanced himself from her during the term for the good of her studies.

Assim was like that; but if she needed him to take any problem to, Bella knew he would be there for her and lay aside distance to let her bury herself in his fluffy white tummy.

It was what fluffy white tummies were there for.

oOoOo

The Belle Marauders spent much of their time together. It was an unspoken agreement; because after they finished their exams Bella and Assim were straight off to India, and the others would be marrying as soon as the holidays began, and scattering to disparate places. Mimi and her Darryl were to start educating French goblins; Maud would join her Fabian teaching in the new free school in Munich; Drusillina would join Leo in Schloss Adler where he had elected to stay for now while she trained as a Healer in St Bernard's free hospital which would help her knowledge generally as an animal healer too. Isabel, marrying Chad, would be keeping him in order and researching for his dramas that were becoming well known on Wizarding Wireless Vision. Isabel also planned to write on her own account; she planned to write History text books under her own name, and historical novels to keep, as she put it, the wolf from the door, under the name of Mildrusabelle Tibbins. She had achieved this name by taking Mimi's name, Drusillina and Bella as well as her own for the first name; and Tibbins was a surname that derived from one of the Medieval shortenings of Isabel. Isabel was quietly elated since her first novel had been accepted by Malfoy Press; and 'The Quiet Warlock' would be out in print by the time she was married. It might not be great literature – Isabel was sure it was anything but – but it was the sort of novel to appeal to a large proportion of the witches in England, set around the time of the Statute of Secrecy where a background of jealousy and fear meant that some of the more vulnerable of the wizarding world were not found places to retire quietly to hide. The eponymous warlock seemed to be an ordinary and even boring young wizard who secretly put his life on the line to save families of goblins from panicked wizarding folk who wanted to be the first behind disillusionment charms or in wizarding space enclaves. The romance running through the story was with the quarter goblin nursemaid of his young son from his arranged marriage that ended in widowhood; and how she nurses him when he is wounded by racist extremists. The Belle Marauders had read Isabel's efforts first and had made constructive criticism and they voted it a good read. Whilst they were a trifle biased, Isabel had hopes that the general public would agree.

Lucius certainly agreed; it raised still further the positive profile of goblins and part goblins and that had to be to the good.

"Not that you need to keep the wolf from the door, Izzywiggles" said Mimi lazily as they discussed Isabel's hopeful success "Because your mum has money and so does Chad."

"Well it's best not to rely on that" said Isabel "And besides, you never know when it may come in handy."

"That's true enough!" asseverated Bella "With all the things Marauders get up to!"

"Anyway, then I can help support those who need it in the various schools you oiks are spending your inherited lolly on" said Isabel.

"She's a good egg" said Drusillina.

"And you at least will have the freedom to go globe trotting Izz" said Mimi "So you'd better come visit us all."

"Oh I shall" said Isabel "Passing on the dirt about which of you I have seen previously and grabbing local colour for more stories."

"Tacking on some purple patches" said Mimi.

"OY! The rest of us gave up ancient runes; leave Horace out of it" said Bella.

"Well at least you know the quote" said Mimi.

"I know his smutty ones too but that doesn't mean I want to be reminded of them" said Bella.

They had a grass fight, which ended with a lot of giggling and the need to cast a lot of grooming spells to be able to return to the school looking like sixth formers and not like a load of heedless scarecrows.

oOoOo

Lilith and Sextus enjoyed their Easter break as well; holding to the same tenets as their elders in the matter of revision they treated their set revision periods with respect and enjoyed themselves between whiles, Lilith testing Sextus at his request and declaring it utterly unnecessary since she knew exactly what he knew and if it was equal to the japes they had been pulling it was more than equal to half a dozen OWLs.

The ensuing duel would probably have worried any non marauders of their own class had they witnessed it; but Sextus and Lilith quite enjoyed it and were both giggling as they had to go in hot pursuit of the stag which sported Sextus' ears on its antlers. Sextus was a trifle hampered by having his legs glued together but Lilith apported onto the stag's back to get a good fix on the ears to return them to their rightful owner since she was a little hampered in running for having her feet on backwards.

oOoOo

The Pepperingye Marauders with Walter wandered into Hogsmeade to see how many subtle charms and transfigurations they could pull off wordlessly and wandlessly for the most humorous effect.

Aberforth Dumbledore was later to scratch his head in faint confusion to find his goats sporting bunny ears – it being appropriate for Easter – and pale lavender – just because. The tankards in The Hog's Head belched from time to time and those in the Three Broomsticks hiccupped, and said 'pardon me' coyly. The sign outside the broom repair shop started singing 'Jingle Bells' because it was NOT appropriate to Easter; and all the costumes displayed in the window of Gladrags Wizardwear were solemnly dancing with each other. Selected sweeties in Honeydukes Sweetshop were singing Madonna's 'Candy Perfume Girl' in the voice of the Chipmunks.

Feeling that with this amount of mayhem a job had been well jobbed the Pepperingye Marauders went back to the castle with a bag full of singing sweeties that they had bought to keep them company.

The good folk of Hogsmeade grumbled faintly but the disruption was only of the nuisance level variety and readily cancelled so they sighed and muttered a little and decided not to bother to make any complaint. These little vicissitudes went with having a school on the doorstep and the school on their doorstep covered a great part of their livelihood.

And at least, as Aberforth said, scratching between the horns of one of his restored goats, it was better to have silly japes then dirty tricks such as Voldemort used to get up to and frankly he strongly suspected the author of the pranks to be as likely to be his brother as any of the kids up for exams.

Albus, who had got in a babysitter as soon as he heard about the mayhem so he could see for himself shook his head.

"Not me, Aberforth; but I half wish I'd thought of it first" he said.

"You're an old fool" said Aberforth affectionately.

"Yes. It keeps me young" said Albus cheerfully.

This was something of a non-sequiteur so Aberforth grunted and drew him a pint of cider in one of the tankards which was still affected by magical eructation.

"Which would not be so bad" said Albus, as he cured his tankard in a hurry "If there wasn't a distinct morning-after smell to the burping."

"Are you implying I don't wash my crockery out?" said Aberforth.

"Either that or it was a more efficient charm than I realised" said Albus. "Ah well! Your very good health!"

oOoOo

It may be said that the non marauding members of the fifth who were in Hogsmeade enjoyed the effects of the japes whilst being privately very glad that they had not been the victims of such; as Edward Kettleburn said to Nathan. Being Edward Kettleburn he almost made the expression of relief into a lecture little short of accusation.

"Look here, Kettleburn, since when have you thought we might be low enough to upset exam students by japing them?" demanded Nathan belligerently. "That's just beyond the pale, you know!"

"Hear hear" said Charis "As well as being decidedly against school rules."

"I was only saying I was glad that it wasn't us you japed!" said Kettleburn.

"Well saying it in a tone that suggests that this is a surprise and implying that we've risen above the rather base sort of nature that would do that is NOT conducive to it being taken well" growled Isambard. "You are such an officious prig, Kettleburn, you're in danger of being taken for the worst sort of Hufflepuff; especially as you mind other people's business so well that your grades suffer. Harris is well shut of your suit, I can tell you!" he added.

Kettelburn scowled; he had not MEANT to put any backs up; he did not understand how he had done so. He retired hurt; taking on the Marauders by word or deed was too risky a business to even contemplate.

"Some of us enjoyed the japes and appreciated that they were all minor and easy to reverse" said Orlando Ogden.

"Well thank you, Ogden" said Nathan "We do try to be fair. Have a singing sweetie?"

Ogden cautiously took a sweetie that crooned in its high pitched voice that he was a young velvet porcelain boy and asked him to devour it when he was with it.

Ogden shuddered but manfully popped it into his mouth.

The sweetie dissolved far enough to stop singing in a rather muffled way that it was his candy perfume girl by the time he had sucked it a few times.

"You are a right bunch" he said, a trifle thickly.

They all grinned at him.

oOoOo

The only person who was not happy with the Headmaster's scheme of things was Walter Trimmer who felt that there should be more revision work; especially as his parents wrote to him daily and asked him how much revision he had done.

He wrote back explaining that the head banned revision all the time; and the Trimmers sent a complaint to David.

David wrote back rather coldly that since the institution of his scheme the previous year the results of the students had surpassed any other results ever in the annals of Hogwarts – admittedly having Gorbrin and Ming in the same year for NEWTs had helped that average – with the average for NEWT level exams rising to four at grade 'E' or better over the previous high average of four with two at 'E'; and the OWL average had risen to nine with an average of six at 'E' or better, surpassing the previous high of an average of nine passes. He added that if they continued to harass their son he would have them reported for child abuse and suggested that when he wanted his drains cleaned he would call in an expert like Mr Trimmer and thought that they might do HIM the professional courtesy of assuming that a Professor had some idea about the education of children.

He also had Walter in his office and told him that on no account was he to risk his attainments by addling his brain and that the boy should know the consequences.

He had asked Mafalda Prewett up to explain what her parents had put her through and how ill it had made her, and that since she was working at a less febrile pace she was doing much better.

"And your parents are stupid to think that you can revise all hours of the day too, Trimmer" said Mafalda "And it shows they don't have any idea how the brain actually works. In fact, I'd go so far as to suggest that, in common with MY parents, their brains DON'T work. So shut up whining and use the ruddy revision books that were written by the New Marauders that you discarded because you think them too flippant and try not to act the goat."

It was not a speech David could have made; but he concurred very well with its sentiments.

Walter was sulky; but David had no intention of letting him flout orders and set house elves to watch him and confiscate any revision material the boy smuggled anywhere out of revision time.

By the time a house elf had appeared in the toilet three times to take a book from the boy he was starting to get the idea.

Some people were just so hard to help!