A/N: This is my take on a post-Deathly Hallows "Auror Potter" story. It involves a time-skip. And apparently, in that time skip, I took a break from writing, and decided the story needed a perspective change, but never rewrote one of the parts. I'm not sure which perspective was the one I wanted, upon reflection, so here's both – I'll indicate it with a break so as to guide you through it!
Seven Deadly Drabbles
Training Day
The twin pop! sounds, like cap guns going off, broke the silence of the night inside the empty manor.
Dust lined every surface, and great white sheets covered every piece of furniture – it was clear that, while once impressive, the house had remained empty for many years prior.
The two figures who arrived were unpleasant looking. Though not unkempt, there was a certain unsavory aspect to them. The taller one amongst them had dead eyes, that gave him away – as he moved silently through the house, his wand poking and prodding at random directions, no emotion showed in those dulled eyes. Indeed, they had been devoid of life and emotion for nearly two decades.
The squatter man, though he was simply more compact, and not fat in any way, had eyes that showed cruelty and suspicion. A few days worth of beard, grey scattered with just a hint of the original brown, covered up his craggy face – the remnants of a childhood affliction of Dragon Pox that would have killed a lesser wizard. He was a bit stooped in his back, bent over slightly as he, too, ran his wand around the room, looking for danger.
"Well Augustus, it appears that you were right, your mother's family manor was never searched by the Aurors. It should make an acceptable hideout. No more than a week, of course, but one spent in luxury, I should say." A hint of a smile came from the shorter man as, with a swish of his wand, the covers on the furniture stripped themselves off, and neatly folded themselves into a stack, settling into a closet. With a brief whirl and a flick, the layer of dust over everything gathered into a whirlwind, and then suddenly vanished into nothingness.
The taller Death Eater closed his eyes for a moment, drawing his own wand. The room's wall sconces and large central chandelier suddenly lit up as though controlled by a dimmer, and the room was summarily brightened to a suitable level. Another three flourishes of his wand, and the three fireplaces in the living room, parlor, and kitchen had blazing fires dancing in their hearths.
"Of course, Antonin. I told you the Aurors would never do such a thorough background check into my residences. They naturally assumed that we would flee to one of your hidey-holes, in whichever of a myriad of countries they exist. Bulstrode always thinks of the obvious." Augustus Rookwood said in his monotonous, almost bored croak of a voice, removing his dark cloak and placing it on a hideously carved coat-stand. Outside, the pitter-patter of raindrops could just barely be heard over the crackling of the new fires in the house.
From a sealed liquor cabinet, he poured two healthy measures of an amber liquid into sturdy glasses, and handed one to Dolohov before wafting the aroma and taking a sip himself.
Antonin Dolohov mirrored his move as he raised the glass to his lips, taking a bit deeper of a draw of the liquid, and seeming to savor it a bit more – since Rookwood's face bore almost no expression, this was unsurprising; he closed his eyes as he swallowed the alcohol, and grunted in agreement with his fellow refugee.
"We're just lucky that bastard Gerry doesn't have a team ready. Or Potter, for that matter. You know as well as I do, that boy would be the damned cleverest wizard – if he hadn't opposed the Dark Lord…"
"I don't want to know what kind of terror he'd have been. Boy took to dark magic like no one I've never seen – except Bellatrix, maybe. And everything short of Dementors seem to just love him, it's…disturbing."
A light flashed outside the window, lighting up the street outside. Without hesitation, both men flung their wands, and the window exploded, letting in a bit of hissing wind and water from the rapidly escalating storm. Rookwood tapped himself on the head with his wand, fading out of view just as he leveled his wand at the window; Dolohov leaped clear over the couch and huddled near the side of the window, wand at the ready beside his face as he looked outside. His face got wet with rain as he stood stock still for a moment, water dripping down his chin as he stood still as a statue.
With a look of disgust and a muttered, "Reparo" later, the window was mostly back to its prior state, if a touch more drafty. Dolohov shook his head ruefully and let out a short choke of laughter.
"Must've been a muggle car driving by – their headlights can be bright, you know. Or lightning from the storm, even. Heh, we're just jumpy, is all." Dolohov said; Rookwood had yet to put up his wand, still trained on the window; he wore the same blank expression on his face.
"Your mother's family didn't happen to have any young house elves that might still be around? I'd kiss a mudblood for some fresh food, Augustus, I really would." Rookwood finally lowered his wand, and simply nodded to the negative. Dolohov grumbled good-naturedly.
"Well, that just figures," Dolohov lamented. He looked toward the stairs leading up to the first storey – bedrooms, no doubt just as dusty and abandoned as the ground floor had been. "I'm going to find a room and bed down for a few hours; it's been nearly a full day since I've had any rest at all."
Rookwood peered nervously outside once more, out the window, at some invisible and unknown enemy, before turning up to Dolohov and nodding succinctly.
Another flash of light outside, this time accompanied by a peal of thunder that shook the house. The lights dimmed, flickered, and then puttered out.
"How the hell can lightning knock out magical lights?" Dolohov questioned from his place on the stairs. A clear light appeared at the end of his wand, and Rookwood's too.
"It certainly shouldn't, I've never heard of such an electro-magical reaction, and I'm certain I would have in the Department of Mysteries over the decades." Rookwood said in his flat, coarse growl.
Dolohov spun around to face up the stairs and advanced slightly, but was then flung across the room to impact with the far wall with a crushing sound.
The lights came back on as Rookwood's wand light went out, and he snarled at the figure now visible on the stairs.
It was a man, his rather pristine red robes trimmed in white, and an unadorned black cloak over it – the textbook garb of an Auror Cadet. Rookwood didn't bother sparing a word, he simply thrust his wand, and an angry purple curse zoomed over to his opponent. The cadet didn't so much as move until the last moment, when he somewhat contemptuously smacked the curse out of the way by moving his wand sharply across the front of his body. The crack that sounded as he did was like the ricochet of a bullet; to Rookwood's left, the curse impacted the wall and blew a hole in the plaster, leaving angry burn marks around the outline.
The cadet left his arm curled across his body, his wand at the ready for Rookwood's next move.
"Sloppy, Harry. Countering spells properly will simply have them veer away from you – no need to smack them with your wand." Rookwood's next curse – dark blue – spat at Harry with a bit of a hiss as Rookwood flicked his wand in an overhand loop at his opponent. This time Harry's counter was subtler, and the curse seemed to wrap around him before it careened up the stairs and solidly impacted with the wall of the first storey hallway.
"Very good." Rookwood said. Harry took two steps forward, so Rookwood likewise took two steps back. With very carefully controlled, subtle motions, Rookwood began his next spell. With a bit of luck, Harry would never see the attack coming after the more obvious displays.
"Augustus Rookwood, you are under arrest for the charge of treason against the Ministry of Magic. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defense if you do not mention when questioned something you later rely on in your Wizengamot trial. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Your wand will be confiscated and used as evidence. You have the right to a solicitor, and may consult or communicate, privately, with said solicitor, in person or by Floo; independent legal service is available free of charge, should you be unable to provide your own representation." Rookwood merely snickered at the boy's obliviousness. With a snarl and a snap of his wand, Harry simply dove out of the way.
The liquor cabinet, which had been behind Harry as he now advanced upon Rookwood, had grown into a monstrous golem, and barely missed wrapping arms - that had a moment ago been cabinet feet - around the young Auror.
Harry slashed his wand once, and the legs were cleaved off of the transfigured beast – the railing up the stairs was next in line, and three feet of it were also shorn off as Harry's curse continued its path. The cabinet fell with a crash, and liquid poured from the golem's chest area. Rookwood, his face still belying no emotion, sweeped his arms up, and fire erupted up the crawling golem and the floor surrounding it.
Harry whipped his wand around himself - a simple Flame-Freezing Charm to prevent him from being burned - and then attempted to disarm Rookwood, who contemptuously countered with a shield charm before snapping off three quick curses of his own.
The front door imploded in upon itself at that instant; three flashes of sharp white light appeared and outlined a dome where Harry's shield absorbed the curses, but both opponents turned to this intrusion with equal wariness before Harry smirked. The chips of the destroyed door were quickly turning into a fog that blocked the entrance of the house from view; both combatants knew now who would be joining the fray.
After snapping off a quick reductor curse that impacted and blew apart the torso of the golem crawling on the ground, and ended the chance that it might get another chance to grab him, Harry dove fearlessly through the flames towards the smoke-filled entryway; Rookwood's dead eyes followed him, before he seemed to spin on his heel. His attempt at Apparition failed, he pointed his wand at the cabinet and it leaped up as it was transfigured into a perfect replica of the wall.
"Anti Apparition Jinx won't last long once he decides to really fight it, Potter." The figure who stepped out of the smoke announced. A quick wave of his wand later and the smoke was once more chips of broken door, and with another, they flew together to reform the door to the house.
"Good timing, Gerry, thanks." Harry said, nodding at his fellow Auror. Unlike Harry, this man was older, clean-shaven with a short cropped head of grey hair. His robes were of a serviceable sort, though unlike Harry's were not pristine and pressed, and also differed in that the trim was gold, not white - the robes of a Senior Auror. If his ribbon bar was any indication, a highly decorated Senior Auror, at that. His cloak was further decorated; though free of frills in design, it bore a white stitched caduceus on one shoulder, and a silver braided cord on the other that twisted into quite an unusual design of a triangle within a circle.
"Stupefy," Gerry said, pointing at Dolohov's still body. Harry recognized it as a just-in-case measure, not uncommon with Gerry. The Senior Auror looked as though he was about to do more to secure the unconscious Death Eater, when a loud boom and two sharper cracks shook the house - Rookwood had run into the other two members of the team, then.
His ears perking up at the sound of the impacts, Harry immediately ran through the still-burning living room up the stairs to the second floor.
"Potter, where the hell are you going? Reducto!" Rookwood's transfigured wood-paneled wall turned to sawdust under Gerry's spellwork, but behind the wood paneling was solid steel. Harry glimpsed it from his position leaning over the banister, and sprinted into the bedroom above the hall Rookwood blocked.
"Rookwood's a master of transfiguration, I figured he'd do something like that! Reducto!" Harry blasted through the floor beneath his feet, landing safely in a tumble thanks to a shield charm. Gerry scowled in Harry's general direction on the floor above him before hustling up the stairs after him.
When Harry burst through the wrecked doorway from the back of the house to the terrace at the back, he noticed that his fellow Aurors were in dire straits - he and Gerry had the best dueling instincts on the team, so this was unsurprising. A dark haired witch was entirely encompassed by brick pavers in the ground, having somehow sunk into them; only her fingertips, wand, and tip of her nose were visible. Harry had no clue how to reverse such a complex environmental transfiguration, so he only hoped that she would survive until the end of the skirmish; her nostrils were not above the level of the ground.
The other member of the team was faring only slightly better. His legs and robes at the waist seemed to be switched with Rookwood's own, and the dark wizard's legs seemed to be bashing him into the fenceline, while the dark-skinned Indian Auror's legs were making it nearly impossible for Rookwood to land a spell, with his constant jumping around at inopportune times.
"I'm here, Kapur!" Harry called to his teammate. Harry wasted no time, snapping off two quick Stunning spells, but both bolts of crimson light went wide of Rookwood; the legs he stood on jumped up to throw off the aim of his Entrail-Expelling Curse. Rookwood glared at the newly arrived Harry, some emotion finally crossing his solemn face, and snapped his wand in a complex motion; Kapur was recovering from a particularly jostling tackle and fell on the floor as Rookwood made his legs go limp. He couldn't see what Rookwood was attempting, and the legs attached to Rookwood momentarily went still.
Rookwood's spell complete in a quick instant, the fence curled savagely around the prone Auror after sprouting spikes - the fence had formed a medieval death trap for his teammate.
The legs Rookwood stood on collapsed limply with the closing of his trap; only Harry's refusal to grieve at the gruesome fate and likely death of his comrade allowed him to cast his own spells at the temporarily helpless Death Eater.
"Stupefy!" Harry shouted, letting rage fuel his spell. The crimson light tore from his wand and impacted Rookwood with a crunch; brick pavers on the terrace likewise crumbled as they caught the edge of his spell. Another, duller red spell erupted from his own as he silently tore the wand from an unconscious Rookwood, and thin ropes bound him tightly from neck to toe, incapacitating him totally. Through the rough treatment, though, Rookwood didn't stir, such was the strength of the vengeful Stunning spell.
"Finite!" Harry desperately shouted at the transfigured fence; its spikes seemed to melt, but it kept the form of the cage that held Auror Kapur.
"Relashio!" Harry yelled, throwing an attempt at transfiguration - which would have probably been ill-fated, anyway - out the door and sticking to what he knew best. The cage exploded outward from the unconscious Auror, but this only released the flow of blood.
"Ferula," a much deeper voice than Harry's called out calmly, wrapping Auror in bandages from head to toe, leaving only his mouth free to breath. The white linen bandages quickly stained with blood in a dozen places that Harry could see.
"He's still bleeding fresh, Harry, his heart's still pumping. Get him to St. Mungo's, quick as you can. I'll wrap up here." Gerry said seriously, eyeing the ruined terrace and the wrapped up Rookwood.
At the sound of a loud 'crack', both Harry and Gerry turned, wands pointed at the direction of the sound.
"Oh hell," Gerry cursed. "I had to run off after you without wrapping up Dolohov and completely incapacitating him, and just our luck Kapur cast the Anti-Apparition Jinx."
"Gerry," Harry said, as another matter came to his mind. "Parkinson's under the terrace, some kind of transfiguration - I'm not sure if she can breathe!" Worry hit Gerry's eyes as he nodded and strode quickly toward the wand and nose poking through the terrace.
"Go, Harry, get Kapur to a damn Healer, I'll handle this!" Gerry said as he wove his wand intricately - there was a reason Aurors got so many N.E.W.T.S., and not for the last time, Harry cursed his lack of education; even the remedial classes could only do so much, as he'd found out over the past two years.
Harry grabbed his bandaged teammate, whispered, "Hold on, Sanjit!" And with a solid 'crack', the both of them disappeared to the entrace hall of St. Mungo's Hospital.
A/N: Here's the time-skip and perspective change – back to the beginning!
It was a new method of Auror training, and we were the guinea pig class.
Which made sense, since we were guinea pigs in a lot of other ways, too. Kingsley opened up enrollment to anyone who participated in the fight at Hogwarts, after all, even if we didn't qualify in terms of N.E.W.T.s.
Or, in my case, a complete education.
So, standing in three rows in the dark, only a dozen feet from the cliff edges and a drop into the Atlantic, a few feet on either side to a comrade, in the pissing, torrential downpour – a bit chilly since it was either late at night or early morning in mid-July, but just generally uncomfortable – we were getting yelled at.
I think it started with a condemnation of our general incompetence and progressed to room assignments, at which point I listened over the din of the torrential rain for my own name. It took a while. Then, all the other lads' names had been called – Ron was rooming with Oliver Wood, Neville with Ernie Macmillan, a few more I vaguely remembered from overlapping years at Hogwarts. I was surprised to have noticed a few former Slytherins a few hours ago as we all came in – Flint, Warrington, Malfoy, Zabini; out here, in the elements, they seemed to be even more bedraggled than the rest of us. Still, I hadn't gotten a room assignment – odd.
The man yelling, who'd be in charge of our training for the next few years, was called "Gerry". No other name was given, no title, and neither pomp nor circumstance was expected. I liked that, and could respect it. He was middle aged, with a uniform eighth of an inch of silver-gray hair all around his head and wrapping around his chin and under his nose. He had a squat face atop a stout but muscular body, and was wrapped in a dark cloak that repelled the rain. I guess he didn't need to be made uncomfortable like we did.
He called off the girls' names, then, and I recognized a few more names. I had even gotten a few friendly glances or smiles from across the room as we'd assembled last night in the too-crowded room just a few hundred paces off. Alicia and Katie from Quidditch, Lavender and Cho. Marietta had shown up, too, the harpy, though at least she avoided meeting my gaze.
Room assignments were over. I still hadn't gotten one. I figured that Gerry's yelling wouldn't appreciate an interruption on such a trivial matter, though, so I kept quiet.
"…Open enrollment might have been the worst idea I've ever heard of. It trivializes the work we do. Investigating dark wizards isn't easy, and it's not rewarding. The best of us have ended up villainized by newspapers as batty, paranoid, or dark wizards ourselves." Gee, I wonder how that feels. I should fit right in with the old crowd, then.
"But that's what our new interim Minister decided to do, so that's what we'll do. In light of that, I was personally put in charge of training, and I guarantee an experience that'll prepare you for the job and that's unlike anything any of you have ever experienced." Gerry seemed to glare at each of each of us in turn without so much as letting us see his eyes from underneath the tightly wrapped cloak, daring us to object that we had actually had an experience like this. Whatever this was.
Having actually died once already, I suspected that nothing could be too much more intense than that, but kept those suspicions to myself. After all, nobody likes a smartass.
"You will spend each night in your respective rooms in the dormitory, and each day here on the compound training. You will not go home, get vacations, or have free time until I otherwise dictate. If any of you have a problem with that," Gerry's mocking smirk was almost audible, "then get the hell out of my face."
I certainly didn't. Two entire months of freedom from underneath Voldemort's thumb had reminded me just how much I hated my celebrity – which was worse than ever. Kingsley Shacklebolt had stepped forward as the interim Minister of Magic, and while he generally tried to stay out of my hair – once upon a time I minded him so little I even let him have access to Grimmauld Place – he still insisted on the public gawking that was my induction into the Order of Merlin and the presentation of my First Class award. I tossed it as soon as the ceremony ended, but I think Hermione put it in a shoebox somewhere, where it presumably remains.
Kingsley was still sore about that, insisting that it was a prestigious honor rather like the Victoria Cross or the Order of the Garter, and that I should display it reverently. Bollocks to that.
He didn't quite get how my aspiration in life was to be able to walk down Diagon Alley without being gawked at.
"I asked you, Potter –" Uh oh, I'd apparently missed something he'd been yelling in my reverie, "Why you are here. Generally OM recipients help train Aurors, and are people we get advice from – in other words, arrogant cocks! So, are you here to show everyone how much better you are than them? I doubt your fellow cadets would take kindly to that mindset!"
Apparently he's been reading too much of the Prophet, as well. Rita Skeeter had a field day the one time I appeared in public after the Order of Merlin ceremony without my award pinned on my cloak. Apparently I disrespected a thousand years of tradition and loads of other tripe by failing to do so.
"No sir, I don't think that at all." I responded at a normal volume tone. He was right in front of my face; there was no reason to scream at him in response. "I'm here because maybe I don't feel as though I deserve that award, and I'd like to make it so that I'm somewhat capable, so that maybe I will."
His face – I could see skin from just under his nose to his chin now that he was right in front of me – didn't change, his lips a tight line at my response. But he turned away, at least, and went on yelling about the tight leashes all of us were on, and how a single mistake would get us thrown out so quickly we'd 'splinch through the Floo'. I was reasonably sure that couldn't happen, and it was just an expression.
Still though, I never have trusted the Floo.
After another three hours in the rain – for a grand total of six, though I wasn't keeping track – we were finally dismissed to our bunks.
There was only one problem – I didn't get a room assignment.
Everyone else broke off and shuffled to the two story rectangular concrete building that was apparently our dormitory. It didn't look nearly large enough to hold everyone, and I couldn't imagine it was comfortable.
"Ready to hand me your resignation already, Potter?" Gerry asked when he saw me making my way to him instead of the dorm.
"No, sir, it's just that I hadn't received a room assignment." There was someone else left, I noticed. He was small, whoever he was. About my height and build, actually. He was chatting a bit with a group walking away, but I noticed that he wasn't actually walking away himself.
"I'm aware of that, Potter. We had a bit of an oddity with the numbers, and you were picked to have…unusual accommodations." I almost sighed – special treatment wouldn't endear me to the other cadets any more than a haughty attitude.
"Sir, if this is about the medal –"
"Shut up Potter. Your medal earns you no special privileges here – you'll be treated like any other cadet. You just drew the short straw. Parkinson! Quit gabbing and get the bloody hell over here!"
Wait. Parkinson? The other figure ran up, and now I could clearly see that what I had mistaken at twenty yards from behind for a boy in a cloak was, in fact, a girl with long black hair.
"You and Potter are assigned to room 16."
She and I both objected with, "But sir!" at the same time. We looked at each other, disgusted at our synchronicity.
"I'm sorry, what were you saying?" He asked in a falsely sweet tone. It seemed almost diabolical after his hours of yelling. "Were you saying 'I want to wash out of Auror training'? No? Well then, you two had better grab your bags from the Mess and get settled into your rooms. Training begins at 0400, and you wouldn't want to be late."
"Sir, that's in an hour and a half! We'll hardly have time to unpack, much less sleep!" Pansy interjected.
Gerry growled under his breath. I didn't need a second warning, heading off to the Mess Hall where we'd gathered the evening before.
The ground was muddier now, and I saw several other cadets, having already retrieved their bags, slip and douse themselves in it.
The first thing we'd done when we arrived – it had been seven hours before, for me, as I arrived with Ron and he was inevitably late – was have the trunks we'd packed dumped out onto the floor and repack them into a small green canvas duffel. I'd managed to fit everything of mine, but I noticed with some satisfaction that many of Malfoy's belongings were binned, as was everything that couldn't fit in the duffel. I'd brought my old Hogwarts trunk, and was therefore rather unconcerned with its rough treatment as it was tossed with the others, but Malfoy's gleaming ebony trunk with silver adornments and multiple compartments was horribly scuffed and there was even a deep gouge in it from the corner of another boy's trunk.
I picked up my new duffel without complaint and was about to head toward the dorm when I saw Pansy attempting to pick up a few scattered belongings she'd been unable to squeeze in.
"Nothing but what you can fit in the duffel, cadet!" I jumped nearly a foot as a voice sounded out of thin air and a Stinging Hex hit Pansy in the hand.
"Bloody hell!" I cried, drawing my wand on her attacker.
"Put your wand up, cadet! I'm Auror Toots – I'll be one of your instructors this year. And Gerry was quite clear, girlie, that you can only take what fits in your bag. Move along, Potter."
I was torn. I mean, Pansy was a bitch, no doubt about it. But having to leave your stuff? That sucked. And I figured I'd have to offer a peace branch at some point, if I was going to be living in the same room with her.
"Er, I think I have a bit of room in my bag still, Pansy, if you want to put something with me until we get to our room." She made a twisted, disgusted face as though I'd just offered to shite on her shoes.
"If you ever touch my things, Potter, I'll curse you to within an inch of your life!" She threw a Remembrall and a few extra clothes into a bundle and hurled them across the room at the fireplace. Then, before they reached the wall, she pulled her wand and used a silent Blasting Curse, and the entire wad exploded, leaving only flaming scraps of fabric.
She saw the surprised expression on my face as I lifted my eyebrows – more at her blowing up her clothes than the curse, though it was good, I suppose.
"Some of us are here because we fulfill the minimum requirements for Auror training, not because of a Ministry decree so that precious Potter can be a token Auror." She rolled her eyes at me and flung her bag upon her back, leaving me alone with Auror Toots.
"You're rooming with her all year, kid?" A bodiless voice called out from my left. "Do yourself a favor and quit now."
I had a feeling he wouldn't be the only one giving me that advice before long.
I followed Pansy to the dormitory, slipping twice on the mud and coating myself rather thoroughly in it when I fell spectacularly. We finally reached the iron door – it must have had some kind of weatherproofing on it, because it was bare steel, rivets and all – and yanked it open, the shrill metal-on-metal grating a bit unnerving as the two of us proceeded into the hall.
It was a cement block building, squat and uncomfortable, with small port holes cut into the side at short intervals – surely the rooms couldn't be that small. I wasn't sure, but suspected it might double as a ship if the cliffs suddenly dropped us into the ocean; it had that look about it as keeping whoever was in it alive no matter what the circumstances. A waterproof, bulletproof, seaworthy bomb shelter, as it were.
Once inside, the whole building seems to twist itself – lots of magic here, then. It made sense; there was no way thirty witches and wizards in their late teens could fit into a twenty by forty two-story bungalow. Even if the plan was to make us uncomfortable in the close quarters.
Pansy and I went to room 16 – left side, almost to the end – and she glared at me when she twisted the handle and shoved the door open. The room was rather plain and bare – two desks next to each other facing the wall on the right, a set of bunk beds on the left. A closet to the left of the door, and not much space besides. Pansy immediately took out her wand when she saw the small dormitory and attempted to enlarge its confines.
"Propagatio," She said as she waved her arm around the room and attempted to push its walls just a bit further out. It didn't budge.
"Tough luck there, Parkinson, no extra room for your private parlor. Sure you're supposed to twist your wand like that?" Truthfully I had no idea – that was a charm taught in Seventh Year at Hogwarts. Hermione knew it, and had cast it on her purse to make it large enough to carry a whole portrait around. She could probably make this room as large as the Great Hall, if she wanted.
She, of course, wasn't here to expand the dimensions of her own room, much less mine.
Hermione was at home, furiously revising for her return to Hogwarts. She couldn't pass up McGonagall's offer to come back and sit another year, taking her N.E.W.T.s with the next year's class.
I tossed my bag on the top bunk at the same time Parkinson did, and they collided in midair as they landed. She once more glared at me. No wonder the bitch had such a pug face – it seemed she rarely used another expression.
"Don't think I'm sleeping under you when you invite Granger over to shag, Potter!" She hissed waspishly as she grabbed my bag from the top bunk and thrust it at my chest. I caught it easily and flung it back up, pulling hers down.
"No visitors allowed outside of us cadets, remember? So I don't want to sleep underneath you when you shag Malfoy!" I threw her bag at her. She too caught it and flung it back to the top bunk. She laughed at my declaration – her laugh was shrill and annoying, mocking.
"Malfoy? You're so behind the times you can't even properly insult me, Potter. No one's going to shag Malfoy. His family was one of the few proven to be on the wrong side at Hogwarts. They're persona non grata. God, you're an idiot."
So I didn't pay any attention to news. Or politics. And certainly not current events.
"Shut up, you pug-faced bitch." I said tiredly, pulling my bag to the bottom bed as I capitulated. I didn't really care, anyway.
She laughed again, that same mocking tone. "Some people grow into the faces they have when they're eleven, Potter. And some never grow at all – look at you, I think you're scrawnier than you were in First Year! And that's saying something because you were a shrimp then, too. What, those Muggles too poor to feed you?" I rolled my eyes at her and brushed her out of my way as I hit my bunk, asleep almost as soon as I hit the pillow.
It was about ten seconds later when I was rudely awoken by a stream of water hitting my face. I sputtered as I fell off of the small mattress onto the thinly carpeted floor, jarring my elbow.
"It's 3:30, Potter. I figured I should give you time to primp yourself before we're due on the field – so many fans looking forward to meeting you, I'm sure you wouldn't want to disappoint." Ugh…3:30 meant…a half-hour before I actually needed to be up. If I were Ron, I'd probably have killed Parkinson.
Heh, what do you know – sometimes I did wish I was Ron. I made a note to remember that and tell him, he always loved to hear about those days.
Soaking wet and with my head too groggy to properly cast – or, truthfully, even remember the incantation to – a Drying charm, I decided to settle for a glare, an under-my-breath denouncement of "Bitch," and headed off to the Mess Hall once more. It wasn't like I would be staying in the room with Parkinson any more than was absolutely physically necessary.
Finally making it to the other building after a hurried shuffle – the chill was starting to seep in, now, and the rain hadn't let up in my hour of rest – I shivered and took another glance around. The hour had transformed the Mess Hall, and one table was decorated with fresh fruits, bagels and muffins and other kinds of breads, pitchers of every juice imaginable, and all kinds of other quick and easy breakfast foods. My stomach growled at the mere sight of them – the entire night spent in the cold rain had apparently inspired it to lodge a request for reparations.
"Make sure you eat up, Harry!" An excited Scottish brogue broke my thoughts as a third bagel made its way onto my plate. A quick glance at the only other cadet to populate the cafeteria – sorry, Mess Hall – revealed my former Quidditch captain.
Of course – Oliver Wood could be excited for an excuse to get up at an ungodly hour and do grueling exercises and training. In the rain.
Too bad it wasn't colder, that would really get his rocks off.
"You know, Harry, a good healthy-sized diet is the key for success in a rigorous training regimen." Oliver said through a half-mouthful of bagel. I sucked down a cupful of orange juice and then got a cup of tea – not before eyeing the small pot of coffee with some disgust – and sat down next to Ollie. I was only vaguely zombie-like from the rough night, but pushed it off – if my suspicions were right, things would only get worse.
A/N: Hope you enjoyed that bit of first person, sorry about the mid-story switch!