Here's the second chapter of Dead Bunnies. More specifically, it's the second chapter of the story that used to be posted as Shards of a Dreaming Mirror. Now it is part of the Dead Bunny Chronicles. I feel the need to repeat, for neither the first nor the last time: I am afraid of my own mind.
Disclaimer: I think I already said this, but I also think I forgot to say that no, this is not a crossover, and that Karen Johnson and the Forest are my own creations. I think. As far as I know they are. Unless the florescent lights of the kitchen took control of my mind and turned my body over to the government. Or, you know, I could be as loony as Luna. :shrugs: I'unno.
Once all the students were out of the Hospital Wing, the first years were finally able to be sorted. Of course, add Karen into the Sorting, and it was rather obvious that something would be different. Oh, how right they were.
At first it was almost like a normal sorting. That is, if the normal sortings included several casts and a couple of concussions.
The older students were all sitting at their House tables. The first years were at the entrance of the Hall. That was where things started to get weird.
First of all was the fact that Snape looked vaguely terrified.
Then there was the fact that Madam Pomfrey was in the Hall and looking rather annoyed.
And finally, there was a tall person in the middle of the midgets, looking rather like Hagrid among normal people.
This last was the source of the other two, not that anyone but her and Harry would ever know. Snape was terrified because, well, another of Potter's friends was at the school. Not to mention the fact that she was the source of Mr. Malfoy taking a rather... unexpected... nap on the train. Pomfrey was there because she wanted to make sure several students did not overexert themselves.
After a while of the uncomfortable as-near-to-silence-as-you-can-get quiet, McGonagall started the Sorting.
The Hat had a rather interesting song this year. It went something like this.
(The songs sucks, I know. I can't write poetry to save my life. XD)
The houses four are threatened,
Our tale soon may end.
If we remain ignorant.
And divided form with'n!
Gryffindor is
Bold that's true,
Rather short-sighted
And a dime a dozen too.
Hufflepuffs are
Loyal to some,
Not to all.
Some are not as seen.
Slytherin is
Cunning and ambitious,
But not all are
Black as they are painted.
Ravenclaws are
Sharp of wit
And quick of thought.
but even they can be misled.
Hogwarts is threatened,
From within and without.
Save us please
O Warriors of Animalis!
Else we head,
Swift to ruin.
And disaster will follow.
Save us please.
Place me on your head.
I'll Sort you right quick.
But this division
Shall bring tragedy.
Harry looked at Karen in astonishment mouthing us? at her silently. She responded with a quick, short nod. Harry felt his mind reel with the import of what he had just learned. he and Wulf were to save Hogwarts? Together? How? He will have power the Dark Lord knows not, his mind shot at him spitefully, mocking his confusion. You knew it would come down to this eventually. You just hoped that Wulf would escape unharmed, for after all, neither can live while the other survives.
Karen, seeing Harry's glance and question, nodded. Rex had told her the name of the animal kingdom and how Harry and her were to be warriors of it.
Albus Dumbledore was, for perhaps the first time in a hundred years, shocked speechless. The Hat had always pleaded for House Unity and no more Sortings, but never, never in a hundred-fifty years, had the Hat requested help from a specific person, or persons as the case may be. They had to be extremely powerful! He had to get them on his side. They just had to train the Chosen One, Saviour of the Wizarding World! Little did he know that one of the Warriors was, in fact, the Chosen One. Not to mention the fact that his plans on having Harry Potter be the perfect weapon, defeat Voldemort, and then have himself get killed, allowing Dumbledore to take credit, had well and truly fallen into Murphy's domain.
Minerva McGonagall, realizing how long they had been staring at the Hat, slack-jawed and silent, cleared her throat- hem-hem - most of the students jumped, and said, further startling the recently injured Hogwarts, "Blaque, Aine."
A rather pretty girl with extremely black hair walked up and put the hat on her head.
"GRYFFINDOR!"
"Caligari, Josephine."
"SLYTHERIN!"
"Cyroin, Aled."
"RAVENCLAW!"
And so on. With the Sorting reaching the end, more and more curious stares were being turned on Karen, who was, of course, utterly nonplussed.
Finally, the last first year ("Yvesson, Anita") was sorted ("HUFFLEPUFF!"). And now all gazes were turned on Karen, the cause of much commotion and she wasn't even Sorted yet!
It was at this point that Dumbledore stood up and got the schools attention via liberal use of Weasleys Wildfire Wheezes, or whatever the fireworks the twins made up are called.
"Students! This year we have a new student in our midst. She will be entering sixth year and will have to make up five years of magical education. I expect you all to help her get up to snuff with her education." the Fish called, eyes twinkling.
Karen snorted as the Fish continued speaking random crap she didn't care about. He looks like he's about to go supernova. she thought sourly, annoyed from having to stand so long.
"Johnson, Karen"
"That's me!"
"No, Miss Johnson, you are supposed to come up here when I call your name."
"Oooooohhhhhh. Okiziiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeees!"
After that rather odd conversation with McGonagall, Karen skipped up and sat down on the stool very cheerfully.
Miss Johnson, you need to lower your Occlumency shields so I can sort you.
"Aaaaaah! The voices! The voices! It's finally happened! I've gone mad!" Karen cried jumping up from the stool. Dumbledore's eyes went into eyernova with the twinkle. God I hope that it's not infectious.
"Miss Johnson, that is simply the Sorting Hat. It will sort you into a house." Dumbledore explained.
"Touched in the head, you all are." Karen muttered sourly glaring at the hat with a ferocity that made Professor Snape jealous. "Fine I'll put the stupid Hat on but you're paying for the lice medication bill." Several Muggleborns cracked up, while the Purebloods looked at each other in confusion.
Karen sat down and put the hat on her head. As I said before Miss Johnson, you need to lower your shields if you wish for me to Sort you.
Kay then.
Ah, quite different than any other person I have sorted. Except, perhaps, Mister Potter.
Yeah, yeah, whatever. Just pick my mind and get it over with. I want to eat.
Ah, quite feisty, aren't we?
Ya' ain't seen nutting ye', boyo.
Should I be afraid?
As long as you sort me quick and give the Fish a headache with it, no.
Very well then, I guess, since you are cunning enough to see an opportunity and brave enough to exploit it, it better be SLYTHINDOR!" the Hat finished, ignoring both the silence in the Hall and the wince of pain from the kid he had just Sorted.
"Ow. By all means, blow my ears out!" Karen grumbled as she took off the Hat. Several students slightly started out of their daze to snigger at how well her low whisper carried in the silent Hall.
Harry stood up and began clapping. He was the only one to not have been too shocked to do anything. He had known her for too long to imagine she could ever do anything by halves.
"Brava! Brava!" he called, certain in the knowledge that only Karen would get his understanding of the elaborate game she was playing. Hermione, of course, looked at him funny.
"Arigato! The Wulf and the Bear shall free the wolves!" Karen responded, using their old codenames for each other and a captive (wolf). Now everyone turned their funny stares on her. Karen ignored them and walked over to sit next to her Harry, casually pushing the random bodyguard sixth-year out of the seat. Dumbledore, shocked by the fact that his Golden Boy and the insane new student apparently knew each other from outside of Hogwarts, was shocked out of it by that act. Snape, however, beat him to the point.
"Miss Johnson." Snape hissed, voice full of dangerous promise. "What do you think you are doing?"
"Why, Professor," Karen replied sweetly, a little too sweetly in Harry's opinion. "I am sitting with half of my house. I am, after all, both a Slytherin and a Gryffindor. Therefore, I have the right to sit at either table. I suppose it is a situation quite like Muggle joint custody. Dealing with two parents who now hate each other, but put up with each other for your sake. Yes, I'd say this is exactly like joint custody. Therefore, it is the prerogative for the kid to decide which parent to go to."
Harry was now very near to rolling on the ground laughing.
Fish stood up. "Miss Johnson, please meet me in my office after the feast, in the meantime, I have a few start-of-term announcements to make." Hey, the Defense teacher was some guy no one knows, who was actually ogling Karen, disturbing her greatly! At that point both Harry and Karen began ignoring the idiotic Headmaster. Honestly, for the 'most powerful wizard of the century' he was an idiot. Who in their right minds would keep a dangerous forest near a school? Finally, the food appeared. Almost immediately Karen began staring at the apparently mandatory lemon drops on the table.
"Wulfie? What's wrong?" Harry asked Karen, noticing her speculative glances between the bowl of lemon drops and the Headmaster.
"Nothing." Karen replied, shifting her gaze yet again.
"C'mon Wulf. You could never pull that on me. Now what's wrong? Tell me or the Incident will be brought to the gossips. You know, the one with the duck and the cocktail." Harry threatened.
Karen blanched. "You wouldn't," she hissed.
"Try me," Harry smirked back.
"Fine," Karen sighed. "You see those candies on the table?"
"Yeah," Harry replied, confused, not noticing that the entire Hall had gone quiet.
"What shape are they?"
"Ball-shaped."
"And who, do you think, required that every student eat some?"
"Headmaster Dumbledore."
"What do you think it says about the Headmaster that he wants the Wizarding World to suck on ball-shaped candies?" Karen asked, with the long-suffering air of the parent of a toddler. Harry, meanwhile, had gone pale at this question.
"Eeeew! Nasty mental images! Get" :thump: "It." :thump: "OUT!" :THUMP: Harry had realized where Karen was going with this line of questioning. No one else had gotten it, so, temporarily ignoring the Chosen One now trying to give himself brain damage, they turned their puzzled stares on the Headmaster. Hermione was the next one to realize it.
"EEEEEEW! You're implying that Headmaster Dumbledore is a gay pedophile!? Nastynastynastynastynastynasty!" Hermione had now joined Harry in attempting, without training, to break the table with their bare heads. After Hermione's announcement, all the Muggleraised who knew what a pedophile was joined them in banging their heads to remove images. Karen just looked at the chaos she had caused. Upon hearing one of the Purebloods say "I don't get it. Of course the Headmaster is happy.", she lost it. She was rolling on the ground laughing.
~0o0o0~
There was really only one thing of interest after the sorting and before the end of the Feast. Dean Thomas, star-struck by Karen's beauty apparently, tried a lame pickup line on her. Harry felt sorry for him.
"Hey baby," he cooed at her, not noticing the annoyance on her face at having been interrupted in her catching up with Harry. "if I could rearrange the alphabet, I'd put U and I together."
Harry nearly smirked. Poor bastard had no clue at what he was getting in to.
Karen did smile. "Well," she started off sweetly, "If I could rearrange the alphabet, I'd put the letters F and U together."
Dean blinked, and then actually had a comeback for that. "Is that a promise?"
Karen winked at him saucily. "You couldn't handle me with a hundred vitality potions. Face it. I'm too much for you." she literally purred. Okay even Harry was surprised at that one. He got over it though. Dean on the other hand, was left stuttering for the rest of the Feast.
~0o0o0~
After the feast, Karen dragged Harry with her up to the Headmasters office. After the mandatory guessing of candies, the gargoyle opened. Karen and Harry barreled up the twisting stairs, tumbling into the office, startling Dumbledore, McGonagall and Snape.
"Mister Potter, why exactly are you here?" sneered Snape sourly.
"I'm not entirely sure sir." Harry replied, scratching his head in confusion. "Wulf just randomly grabbed my arm and dragged me here."
"Miss Johnson?" Dumbledore inquired with a raised eyebrow.
"I wasn't going to face teachers without a face I knew." Karen replied, shrugging unconcernedly.
"Anyways..." McGonagall brought the conversation to the topic Karen was asked to come to discuss. "Miss Johnson, what do you want to do regarding your sleeping arrangements? As you are in two Houses it is your choice."
"I wish to fly." Karen responded cryptically.
"Excuse me?" Dumbledore asked.
"The wolf has been a wolf too long. The wolf wishes to fly." Karen 'answered'.
"What she means is that she wants to be high in the air. She has been trapped too long and wishes to be free to do what she wants." Harry interjected before the professor could ream Karen out. He rolled his eyes. "When she gets like this it's a fair few days before she will speak straight."
"The bear is left-handed. The wolf wishes for flight and to be a wolf no longer."
"I am right. She wants to be high up and to be trapped no longer."
"Am I to take it that you two do, in fact, know each other from before Hogwarts?" Snape asked, dreading the answer.
The two teens leaned against each other and grinned. "Well, of course we know each other Professor. Her foster parents visited the Dursleys for a month at a time every year. They were after all adopted siblings. We've been best friends for sixteen years now. We've been through a lot together." Harry drawled.
"Mister Potter," McGonagall asked, "you were born sixteen years ago and didn't go to the Dursleys' until you were eighteen months old. Therefore, the most you could have known her for is fifteen years."
"The Forest lapsed us so we could learn the physicks of evil and how to turn snake on its tail." Karen stated, with the air of one reading from ancient tomes.
Harry stared for a second before deciphering her message. "An- Our true home slowed time for the week we were there. There were things we had to learn, and we needed a year to do it. So we got it. A week passed in regular time but for the Forest, a year passed. We are a year older than we appear. I shall keep the rest of her message to myself. It was to remind me of the last thing we learned together."
"Potter! I demand that you tell me what she meant! It sounded dangerous! What's more it sounded DARK! Not the sort of thing that a schoolboy should know!" Snape yelled, rising to his feet.
Infuriated, Harry stood as well, frightening Snape by the aura of power around Potter. He looked like he was the center of a storm. Lightening was dancing over his fingers, and a powerful wind seemed to be whirling around him. "How dare you? If I still have my soul after six years of knowing this knowledge, I hardly think that I am in danger from it. Rex and Jalis have been using it longer than me and they teach their kids at a younger age than me. I am in no danger. Now, if that is all, I am tired and so, I am sure, is Wulf. I shall guide her up to Gryffindor tower. Good day." With that Harry and Karen stalked out of the Headmasters office, but not before Karen shot a parting remark over her shoulder.
"Futue te ipsum et caballum tuum!"
Dumbledore sank his head in his hands and sighed. How had it all gone wrong? His plans required the Weapon to be a defenseless, abused, defeated orphan. Instead, he had gotten a friend and learned of magic before Hogwarts. How long had he been fooled by this farce that the Weapon apparently had been putting up? When had the Weapon gone into this forest? Had he known about magic before Hagrid was sent? All his plans were ruined! They had well and truly fallen to Murphy's realm!
~0o0o0~
Harry looked at Karen, eyebrow raised. "Screw you and the horse you rode in on? What'd they do to piss you off that much?"
Karen shrugged. "Did you see the way he was looking at you? He was planning something bad. I just wanted to head off that train of thought."
"Yes, I know."
"Good. Pranks?"
"Pranks."
And with that, they reached the Fat Lady, went in and, in a supreme display of anticlimacticness, absolutely nothing happened of note.
Oh yeah, I forgot to disclaim something! Anticlimatcticness is my own word, and I have used it in a conversation, and gained many weirded out looks!
Oh, and Futue te ipsum et callabum tuum! actually is Latin for Screw you and the horse you rode in on. I think I learned that off some story, however I don't know what story it featured in. SORRYS!
