Chapter Sixteen
by Lionheart
I O I O I
Remus Lupin , werewolf, one time Marauder, and lonely graduate of Hogwarts came to a stop before the front gates, looking up to see the massive, familiar, and somewhat strange face of his alma matter.
This would be the first time he entered those halls without the familiar, comforting presence of his close friends. It was a singularly lonely thought that Sirius hadn't even contacted him after his release, but the werewolf supposed that he deserved that snub. He HAD thought Padfoot was as much a traitor as everyone had said he was, when it turned out to have been Wormtail all along.
The Marauders now seemed to have permanently disbanded. One dead, one traitor, two estranged and no longer in contact with each other... it was almost better when it had been one alive and two thought dead as heroes. The rejection had not been so sharp then, as it was to have another Marauder alive and free but not wanting to contact him.
Shaking himself out of such gloomy thoughts, the werewolf, who was no stranger to sorrow, levitated his bags and walked around the back toward Hagrid's Hut, not wanting to walk those hallowed halls within where so many good memories could easily haunt him.
Arriving at the familiar location of the old hut, Lupin found himself quite pleasantly surprised to find that old wooden structure had been replaced and upgraded. While not as enormous as Hogwarts, next to any other edifice the new stone cabin would have been huge, and it was equipped with attached stables, too.
Quite intrigued, the werewolf made his way to the door and found a party already in progress. Hagrid, who opened the door, greeted the returning graduate with a bigger smile than the former Marauder could ever recall seeing upon his face before.
"Remus Lupin! Good ta see ya! Come along in, we're making a regular party of it. Just gi me yer luggage an coat and go an get settled. We're having a load o guests today. Seems Dumbledore found it in him to invite a whole bunch o people this weekend, an we were just getting reacquainted."
"So, this is a weekend trip, then?" Lupin asked weakly, feeling sick as he'd thought he'd understood his stay was to be longer.
Surprisingly, Hagrid caught that and deflected the worry easily. "Fer them it is. You can stay as long as yer like. Our new Defense teacher has the greatest kids, and I sorta made a promise to them that ye'd help on their homework. Could go all year easy, at the rate she's racing through the curriculum. Got this nasty question on werewolves, fer one. But I've had bunches o students askin me fer help on things, an it came ta mind how I heard once some muggle schools had private tutors on staff. Now, I ain't made no arrangements, mind, but I was thinkin I could whisper a word or two in the Headmaster's ear, an maybe get you on in that capacity. Plenty o room in my cottage even iffn he don't, and I could use the company. Never mind how many kids I get through here nowadays, there's times when ya wanna speak to an adult. Ya know what I mean?"
"Yes. Yes, I do." Remus agreed with a genuine smile, handing over his bags.
Hagrid took them and leaned in for a wink. "Side's they're all girls, cept for Harry o course, an every so often I get a hankerin to hear a male voice, ya know? Can't rightly take em down ta the pub fer company, drink around the house, er talk about some things with so many skirts about. But ye can't watch yer manners all the time. Gotta let yer hair down every once in a while, er even just chat about sports or hunting, things a man is interested in."
"I know what you mean," the houseguest nodded.
"I'll take these up ter yer new room. You go in and get acquainted with Ms Malfoy. Y'know, she's an awful fine woman that one. Iffn I was in ma thirties instead o sixties I'd be thinkin o givin that ruffled skirt o hers a bit o chasin, if you know what I mean. Ain't no accountin fer how she's gone this far without someone slapping a ring on that hand o hers. Finest witch ever to pass through Hogwarts, cept Lily, an her daughter's cute as a button!"
Remus gave a glad laugh at that clumsy bit of matchmaking, so relieved to feel human and accepted again, even if he didn't dare get involved because of his curse. With a jaunty but insincere move toward the main floor, he waved, not really intending to make the attempt but ready to pretend to play along. "Well, I'd best be getting to know her then, shan't I?"
"That's the spirit." The giant vanished upstairs.
I O I O I
"Mister Lupin!" Nodoka looked up from her cards in gladness. "What a pleasant surprise. Rubeus said you might be coming up, but I didn't hear it was to be today! Welcome! We were just sitting down to a muggle game. Would you care to join us?"
Looking around the pleasantly decorated sitting room with plush upholstered hardwood furniture (spelled to adjust to the user's size or weight), Lupin recognized four of the nine Weasleys, a girl he didn't know in the robes of a seventh year student, and a woman he could vaguely recall only from a handful of meetings of the Order of the Phoenix.
"I'm not sure I've ever played any muggle games," the werewolf admitted.
"First time for everything," the Malfoy woman conjured him a chair as the others made space at the table for him between Bill Weasley and the woman he could vaguely recall from the Old Crowd. With a brilliant smile, the duchess gestured to the seat. "We'd love to have you join us. Minerva was going to, but got roped into running the school today. So instead of a 'welcome the new teachers' fete, this has turned into a small party with old friends."
"That's alright." Remus claimed his seat, grinning. "Oh, and for the sake of appearances, tell Hagrid I made a pass at you, would you? He was dropping hints that I ought to. I'll just let him know that you turned me down gently."
Everyone had a good laugh, except those who felt they ought to be shocked instead, and Bill asked, "So, what are the rules?"
"The game is called Scruples," Nodoka replied, summoning a glass of tea off a distant china tray over to Lupin's place, and he began to sip along with everyone else. "The rules are very simple. Everyone gets dealt five Dilemma Cards and one Reply Card. Each turn you choose one Dilemma and ask a person how they'd respond to that situation. You win the game by getting rid of all of your Dilemma Cards. You do this by correctly guessing how other players will answer those dilemmas. If you get the answer on your Reply Card, you draw a new reply but no new dilemmas. If you don't get the answer you are looking for you must draw a new reply and a new dilemma, discarding the old two in both cases. There are only three possible answers: Yes, No, or Depends. Everyone gets one try to eliminate a card by asking and guessing a response each turn. We go in clockwise order. Questions?"
There were none. Nodoka went first. "Molly, you find an expensive pen on a chair in a restaurant. You like the way it writes. Do you keep it?"
"What's a pen?" the pureblooded witch asked.
"A muggle quill that has a few months worth of ink built in," her husband supplied, looking excited.
A storm cloud passed over Molly's face, and she answered, "No. I'd return it to the desk for the owner to pick up."
Nodoka turned over her Reply Card, which read, "No." Then she explained, "You can ask anyone at this table any of the questions in your hand. The trick is to find someone who you think will respond the way you want. If I'd been looking for a 'Yes', I would have asked Arthur. And Molly, for your information, lost pens are almost never claimed by their owners, even if they are expensive. Mostly the hotel staff take them for their own."
"Next would be me," the pretty seventh-year student chirruped, looking at her cards. "Ah... Charlie! You just got married and learn that your new wife had an illegitimate child a few years ago. She now wants that child to join the family and live with you. Do you agree?"
The dragon keeper mulled it over for only a second. "Depends on the kid."
The seventh-year pouted, turning over her 'No' card. "Darn! I should have asked Mister Lupin."
"I would have said Yes," the werewolf told her with a grin.
"My turn I guess," the unidentified woman pondered for just a moment. "Nodoka, friends have set you up on a blind date. You spot the person from a distance and are shocked by his appearance. Do you go through with the date?"
"Yes, Arabella" the woman replied calmly. "There are other qualities than appearance, and my friends ought to know me well enough to choose carefully. So if he is lacking in one area he is likely that much stronger in others. Besides, I might not have seen the correct person. It would be awful to duck out on a date because of a mistaken guess."
Arabella Figg, Lupin now remembered her, tossed in her 'Depends' card and drew another reply and question while Nodoka calmly took a sip of her tea.
Remus realized he was up next and looked at his cards, quickly selecting a combination he was sure could get him down one card. "Molly, your husband gets a terrible haircut and asks you what you think. Are you honest?"
The fiery redhaired woman gave Arthur a stern yet loving glance, never wavering. "Yes. Even though I probably did it."
The married couple shared a gaze filled with memories while Remus discarded his 'Yes' card with a grin, beginning to enjoy himself.
Bill had already selected his question and victim. "Remus, you own an enchanted motorcycle and really enjoy riding it. But the Ministry has restricted them and asks you to get rid of it. Do you?"
"Enchanted? I thought this was a muggle game." Arabella inquired.
Bill shrugged, still holding the card. "It says expensive, but I thought it made more sense for one of us to put it this way. Also, it says 'your spouse thinks its unsafe' but he hasn't got a spouse just yet, so it's more realistic to change a few details."
Remus Lupin had gone from expansive and happy to shrunk in on himself and moody. "Yes. Yes, I do get rid of it."
Bill proudly tossed in his "yes' reply, only to have his father lean down and whisper into his ear. With a glance at what he'd done to Lupin, Bill suddenly felt sick. He hadn't known.
Arthur's turn came next. "Arabella, an elderly friend is repeating a story he recently told you. Do you stay quiet and listen?"
"You've been talking to Dumbledore again, haven't you?" the squib accused. "No, I'm tired of hearing about that scar of his that maps out the London underground. Considering how long he's lived he ought to be able to come up with better stories."
Arthur turned in his correct reply and the turn went to his wife, who asked, "Nymphadora, your in-laws are wealthy, but notorious tightwads. Your husband wants to give them an expensive gift. Do you agree to the purchase?"
The young girl bit her lip, looking confused. "Gosh, I dunno. I guess it depends on whether we really have it to spare, or if they'll be grateful and reciprocate, or a lot of things."
With a slight frown, Molly threw away her 'No' card and drew replacements. So it passed to Charlie. "Mom, your child is constantly pestering you to buy him a gift which is expensive and you can't truly afford. Do you buy it?"
She gave him a beady eye. "Depends on if he's done something to deserve it."
With a shrug, the boy tossed away his incorrect reply of 'No', and drew others.
Nodoka drew a card from her hand and secretly tapped the underside of the table with her wand. Everyone's faces went blank, and she showed the card to them. "Everyone, some person very close and important to you wants you to take the Dark Mark, assuring you that no one will ever know or see it, and saying that you won't have to do anything at all, that it's just to protect you, and other comforting things. Do you get it?"
The seven other people at the table with her all shook their heads and told her no. Nodoka drew another card to bring her count back up to what it should be and tapped the underside of the table again with her wand. All of them came back to themselves, not noticing a brief pause or the trance, and as if by accident each took another sip of their tea.
Nodoka then went on to take a turn they'd notice. "Dora, you wrote an ingenious essay but only got an Acceptable. A classmate rehashed the teacher's lecture and got Outstanding. Next time, do you parrot the professor?"
Nymphadora laughed. "How do you think I passed Potions class? Yes, of course! None of the teachers care if you're right so long as you're just repeating them. Snape thinks Kappas come from Mongolia and that trolls eat graphorns as part of their diet. If it isn't a potion he's amazingly dense, and heaven help you if you disagree with him. The more you try and prove a point the nastier he gets, especially if you're right."
Bill and Charlie were nodding. "He thinks he's at least twice as smart as he really is." Charlie confirmed.
Nymphadora was already peering at her cards, selecting one with a triumphant smile. "Oh, let's see. Nodoka! You're pregnant and you're not sure the child is your husband's. Are you honest with him?"
A slight smile graced the lady's lips as she sipped her tea for a moment before answering. "Yes, of course. I'd want his full support in tracking down the rapist who assaulted me. There is no other way I'd be in danger of infidelity."
The seventh year tossed in her 'Yes' card with a smile. All too soon the turn order came around to Nodoka once again, and once more she tapped the underside of the table with her wand, hypnotizing those who sat there and holding out her card. "Everyone, you are an Auror, and the Head of Magical Law Enforcement goes along with the Minister of Magic in ordering you to use excessive force to support an illegal decree. Would you obey?"
Once again a full circle of shaken heads and no answers was her response. Drawing a new card to replace the one they didn't know they'd answered, she ended the hypnotism and turned to her right. "Charlie, in order to marry someone you love you must join her religion. Do you do it?"
Just before Hagrid had come down from unpacking Remus' luggage into a bedroom, the game had almost come to a close, and Nodoka asked her last secret question to assure herself of seven good people's trustworthiness as they sat mesmerized. "Dumbledore comes to you and invites you to a ritual that will help destroy Voldemort, as well as give you a considerable addition to your natural level of magical power. He is sure it's safe, but the ritual is one that is forbidden and regarded as dark, even though I am the one performing it and can reasonably explain that it can be used for Light reasons. Do you go along?"
Seven nods came and Nodoka released the trance just as Hagrid came downstairs. She'd have liked to have gotten McGonagall involved in this, but had enough faith in the woman without it. Remus had been a surprise, but she hadn't very well been able to just leave him out of the game as an observer to notice her 'odd' turns using charmed cards.
Cups each loaded with a single drop of truth serum, including hers, had been a nice touch. One drop was not enough to get someone spilling their guts or embarrassingly truthful, yet it had added considerable weight to those answers. But as the game ended (Remus won, not having missed one guess the whole game) she gladly congratulated him and continued petting her kneazel, confirming once again that it had no complaints about anyone present.
I O I O I
Ranko skirted about the castle of Hogwarts wearing one of Kodachi's invisibility cloaks as they played a game of Hide and Seek over the towers and outside battlements, getting familiar with their environment while at the same time as practicing useful skills.
Genma was cursed and locked as an Invisible Yeti, after all. It sounded wise to those who knew they'd be fighting him to get used to hunting foes you couldn't see.
Besides, they'd agreed to have a Time Turner day just to themselves, martial artists only, relaxing in the company of fellow fugitives from Nerima after a stressful Saturday of having to socialize and make friends with folks who couldn't understand them, or their issues. While fun, very fun, to make new friends it had still been stressful to hide so much of themselves.
Although, if Dumbledore hadn't already been out of the castle, Professor Kettleburn probably would've gotten in trouble over taking such a large group to Hogsmead, and the social value of that little, unofficial trip had really gotten their group some friends among the normal students.
Really, Ranko and her friends had several advantages in the Hogwarts social scene, being all of them beautiful, effectively rich through allowances from Nodoka, athletic and charming, good cooks and a great deal more mature than they looked. They had every advantage they needed to soar among their 'peers'.
But it wasn't relaxing, not yet. So they were doing Saturday over, just themselves. A day to let their hair down and jump thirty feet at a bound.
Hearing Azusa coming up on her rooftop, as the skater wasn't nearly as silent as Ranko, this could have been a good opportunity to score a 'kill' with the paint balloon she had as her only armament, but a sneeze alerted her to the fact that Ukyo was also nearby, and this was a free-for-all tournament with only one balloon each per game. So Ranko swung down the building to a lower roof level, jimmied a window lock and slipped in.
Taking a quick glance around her, ignoring the polished instruments of gleaming gold and dark wood encrusted with keys of silver that were hanging off of sculpted racks upon the walls, Ranko heard a harp stop playing but otherwise devoted her attention to the window waiting for a good opportunity to slip out past invisible sparring partners, until a silvery lady ghost came into the chamber, looking around.
"I've been here over three hundred years," the poltergeist told the apparently empty room, "and I know every sound this tower has ever made. Footsteps are not among them, and I just heard a window unlatch before that. Who is here? I promise I won't hurt you. My name is Harmony Windsong, Professor of Music at Hogwarts. Please show yourself, I am ever so lonely."
Ranko had never been so good at dealing with emotionally distraught girls, and often just gave them what they wanted, a fact that Nabiki had frequently taken advantage of. After a moment of indecision, the redhaired girl doffed her cloak...
... only to get smacked in the side of the head by a paint filled water balloon.
"Ukyo!" She shouted at the open laughing in the window, and got gratified that the invisible girl got pelted herself from behind, which led to a swift splashing where the only girl in on the game of Hunt and Seek who wasn't splashed was Azusa.
The poltergeist was laughing merrily, a very sweet sound.
Purple paint dripping from her nose and fouling her hair, Ranko groused. "I need a bath."
Harmony checked her laughter, yet not her charming smile, as she gestured to some stairs. "Come this way. I have a very large tub. You can get cleaned while I make cookies. You can tell me all about your game, and perhaps I can interest you in playing some of mine."
So the beautiful poltergeist snared herself some students, as once she had them started on her art she proved so good a teacher they didn't want to quit. And it was nice for them to have a subject they weren't already years ahead of their classmates on.
"So, Ranko, tell me about your fellow Hufflepuffs." The silvery ghost ended the lesson with a somewhat desperate plea for gossip. She was only three hundred or so years out of date on local news, after all.
"I'm afraid I don't know much, except their names. And I only know that because of the 'Forget Me Not' Charm we all cast my first day."
The poltergeist's face went slightly paler in astonishment. "Are you sure? What about the other charms?"
"We didn't cast any other charms. Only the Forget Me Not." Ukyo told her.
"That's not right." Miss Harmony told them, feeling some distress over her old House. "That charm is only one out of a set. What kind of troubles could have beset our world that we could've forgotten the others?"
"Well, the wizarding world over here in Britain has had lots of wars and things. It seems every generation or so they've got another Dark Lord popping up." Ukyo mused.
"I don't think that could have done it. We've survived too many dark witches or wizards to count." The Lady Harmony shook her head thoughtfully, then perked right up. "Well, no help for it. I must teach them to you now. Have you all mastered the Forget Me Not?"
She was greeted by a chorus of "Yes, ma'ams."
"Very well then. As you know that establishes a base for friendships, knowing every other Hufflepuff's names and faces. But you must recall more, you simply must, if you are to go further and be true friends to each other. The second spell you must learn is the Remember When Charm, this enables all of you to recall each other's important dates: birthdate, first date, anniversaries and so on, and to help recall those experiences if you were a part of them. You simply can't comprehend how much it means to have a few hundred people know you that well, what a sense of community it builds. Hufflepuff owls are exhausted all the year long with dropping one another cards and small gifts. We got to where we had to have two owls each in order to stay in touch! You'll get simply a mountain of mail on your birthdays and wedding anniversaries, and never a week will go by when you aren't sending someone something. The only thing I can compare it to is having a thousand siblings. Well, I am getting ahead of myself. Names and faces is the first step, important dates the second. Are you all ready?"
Miss Harmony picked up a conductors wand to trace the wand movements, showed them the incantation, then paired them off to have them practice until they'd got it right. As they did, she glittered. "That charm is self-updating as important events occur and you get told, so it's good to stay in touch from time to time."
Kodachi smiled softly. "That would explain a legend I read on the wall of the Hufflepuff girls' bathroom: What do you call a dozen Hufflepuffs? Lonely."
"Precisely." Miss Harmony gave a firm nod. "You've got to have at least a hundred before we feel there are anywhere close to enough of us. Now on to the next charm. This I'd say is far more important than the last. Hufflepuff is the most variable House, having the widest variety simply because Helga took anyone the other Founders didn't want. Forging the strongest unity out of us requires some special steps, and some of those are spells. But rather than have anyone feel they are disappearing into a glob of humanity, Helga gave us a charm she entitled 'Touch of Friendship', and what it does is to give each person a sense of the other's personality, their likes and dislikes, or how the other will act, like old childhood friends or family often know without asking how each other will react before they do. This is not that strong, but makes an excellent base for building on later. And even among Puffs who may never see each other again it's good for predicting favorite colors or flavors so we can pick good gifts to send for birthdays or reunions. It's not always spot on, but most often close enough, and better the more time you spend together."
The lady ghost laughed. "It's impossible to fool one Hufflepuff by impersonating another. Why, we know so much about each other it's frightening to outsiders!"
"What's to prevent a Dark Lord from using that same spell to give him an advantage in predicting his enemies?" Kodachi asked.
"Two things." The glad ghost replied. "One is that it's effectiveness is based upon empathy - something no Dark Lord or Lady has. If you feel another's pain or are sensitive to their needs you simply can't bring yourself to make an effective villain, and the charm won't work any other way. Secondly, the charm is two-way, so not only would a potential dark lord not be getting any information because of his own blindness, but he'd be giving it to everyone he'd tried to spy on. To my knowledge, Hufflepuff has never had an effective Dark Lord in the thousand or so years of the House's history. Granted some rare few Puffs have gone bad, but they've all been taken down so quickly and easily they've not been an issue. I am told from this example, Dark Lords from the other Houses avoid these spells like a plague."
"Then that's how they probably got lost." Kodachi concluded. "Hogwarts has had more than one dark Headmaster during recent times, as well as other, incompetent sell-outs. The fact is any of them might have been willing to ban or otherwise restrict those spells out of common use, if nothing else to expand a Dark Lord's potential pool of recruits. From what I've heard it hasn't worked, but I could see several officials having tried. What is the next spell?"
"Constellation Hearts, so the benefit of the prior three charms apply to the family of Puffs, in a somewhat reduced degree. So your schoolmates' parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, children and siblings and so forth aren't total strangers to you. If you've lost these spells then I can't see the wizarding world having anything close to the unity it did in my day. Hufflepuffs were the heart and bones, the foundation off of which all of the rest hung suspended. Without us I can't imagine how anything works!"
Thinking wryly of her own experiences in magical Britain, Ranko grimaced. "It doesn't."
Shampoo giggled.
"What is it?" her friends asked.
Purple hair raised to reveal mischievous eyes. "If Hufflepuff is Heart, Ravenclaw must be Brain, and Gryffindor Muscles... so, is Slytherin colon?"
I O I O I
Percy Weasley, no longer prefect (but still hopeful, now that one of the Slytherin prefects was under question of being expelled for using a Cutting Curse on Professor Malfoy's prize magical bull for it's supposedly valuable blood, and destroying the Potions classroom and injuring that whole year of Slytherin students in the process), paused in the Slytherin common room, glancing at a notice pinned to the cork message board there.
It was about his mother's class, only the title "Housekeeping Magic" had been crossed out by some student and replaced by a scribbled name: "Be Your Own House Elf" only that name had later been altered, too, and now read simply "Become A House Elf." The listing of course materials and subjects taught had been altered as well, into a much snider and deprecating list. "How to be bought and sold" replaced Money Management and Thrifty Living. "Receive Abuse and Like It," was what replaced Conflict Resolution, and so on.
About the only aspect that had received any interest of a non-negative sort was the one on tailoring charms. Gryffindor, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff girls of all years had been surging ahead of Slytherin in the 'look beautiful' contest that had unofficially sprung up over the topic of custom robes. That could surely change on the first official Hogsmead weekend where the Slytherins could recoup lost ground by stopping by specialty clothing stores. But not all Slytherins were rich, just most of them had a greater degree of privilege than normal. So a small handful of Slytherin girls had braved the scorn and ire of their housemates and signed that sheet, taking the elective. And for the most part, those who'd signed up were outcasts in their own House anyway.
Percy spent a moment thinking about taking his mother's class. But he already felt he knew enough about how to take care of himself anyway (never mind that he knew less than he thought he did, and having shunned it where possible he didn't know enough), and besides he'd already spent enough time alienating his new housemates anyway.
The former prefect walked away, heading out into the dungeons to go up to breakfast this fine Sunday Morning. He had only one more chance to get reSorted this evening, and did not want to blow it, but was also looking toward what might happen if he stayed Slytherin for a year. He'd have to make the best of it, and that meant not making enemies.
He'd already seen enough of how this House worked. Status was everything, and that came from wealth and blood purity to start with. Luckily, while short on one he had the other, springing from as fully an ancient pureblood line as any remaining.
He could play that up into an advantage. Personal power was a large measure of status also, and he knew his spells. Two out of three measures of power was as firm a standing as he'd need to get started. The wealth could and would come in time, he was sure of it.
I O I O I
Nodoka was talking to Remus Lupin as the two of them entered the main hall for breakfast and quite naturally sat together at the Gryffindor table, where her daughter and her friends were eating.
"While I appreciate the concern, Remus, I only have a short while before I have to retire to my tower. There is some rather heavy work that I'm supposed to be doing."
The werewolf reflexively cast a privacy charm around them so none of the students could overhear what they'd begun talking about. It was almost as if he was back during Marauding days discussing pranks, it came so easily. "I only want to know what you have planned for the students. I am supposed to help the little dears with their homework, after all."
Nodoka considered that, then decided to test his trustworthiness with a small secret so as to tell if later she might trust him with larger ones. "Well, last week Cologne and I captured an adult acromantula in the Forbidden Forest. I've got Imperius on it - which is only unforgivable if you cast it on humans, as I'm sure you know, and I was going to give the class a little scare with it. Overcoming the urge to panic is probably the single most important lesson in all of Defense, as I'm sure you're well aware. Besides, I expect none of my students will see the unbreakable glass wall between them and the giant spider when it charges right after I bring them out of a pensieve experience where we'll be studying those beasts."
Remus thoughtfully nodded. "It's a good one, but early classes will tell the later ones, even if you try to ensure they don't want to. You'd get better variety out of a good boggart or two. James and Sirius and I practiced using ones we found in odd corners of Hogwarts, and we had the highest practicals of our year. Nobody else even came close. In fact I don't think our record has been touched since."
Remus had to laugh. "It really helped that we had this friend who could become scared of anything. Peter..." here his good mood failed, but he proved what a good fellow he was by finishing that thought. "Pettigrew was a coward. So we'd all just tell him tales of some beast or other a few minutes before letting a boggart out, and made sure he was the closest one to it. That gave us some priceless practice as we all cast spells against any beast we could name, although we really had to study them so Peter knew what to be afraid of. We tried it out on less information and he got those monsters wrong, so the boggart was wrong as well. The things are based of fears, after all." Here he was back to chuckling. "James once got him petrified in fright of a muggle water balloon."
"It's a good idea. I think I can program the fear into a fairy or other something nearly mindless and use that for the Pettigrew effect." Nodoka mused, serving herself some bacon. "When I do, that should make our practical lessons every bit as valuable as pensieve aided theory. Thank you for the suggestion. Would you mind assisting me with the new process?"
Lupin grinned wolfishly. "I'd be delighted."
I O I O I
Author's Notes:
Really, if you were going to do such a ritual you'd want to ensure that it wouldn't come back and bite you, or the people were unsafe. So how would YOU test them?
And I love thinking up little ways where Hufflepuff might even be the STRONGEST House!
