Chapter 11: Back to School with a Slug
Two grim faced, bearded aurors dressed in muggle suits stood at Kings' Cross station to see the students onto the train.
"Hmph, very comforting for new first years, not" said Krait. She was also dressed muggle fashion with a short skirt, Newrocks and spider pattern tights or stockings.
"I dunno" quipped Harry, arriving with the Weasleys "Not as scary as Scales and Padfoot…"
Severus and Sirius would also be travelling on the train for added security and waited nonchalantly on the muggle platform. Harry was plainly in a good mood, sporting his new House Quidditch Captain's badge, which qualified him as a prefect.
"Tights or stockings?" Ginny asked, indicating Krait's legs.
"Ain't saying….that's for Severus to find out later" said Krait grinning wickedly as her husband blushed furiously.
A small boy came running up, and fell over his cauldron with a crash. Severus gave him a sharp look.
"Would your name be Crouch-Jones by any chance?" he asked with resignation.
"Yessir! I say, how did you know, sir?" the small boy gazed worshipfully up at him. Severus gave a grim smile.
"When I was a prefect a boy called Crouch-Jones left his cauldron on the step of the train, into which I placed my foot and tripped up the step, putting my tooth right through my lip….your father, I fancy."
"Er…might be" said the boy, flushing.
"Mr Crouch-Jones, I implore you not to emulate him in his ideas of where it may be appropriate to leave a cauldron" said Severus.
"Nossir! I mean, yessir, I mean.."
"Just hop along through the barrier and get in" said Severus.
"I always wondered how you started that term covered in so much blood" said Sirius. "Yes, lad?"
"Please sir, is this the school train?" the boy was diminutive, almost as small as the Creevey boys had been in their first years.
"This is the place for the Hogwarts express" said Sirius.
"Oh…I'm not sure that's the right train…" said the boy. "Only I saw boys in uniform going through the wall there…"
ssssSir, if he can see them, isn't Hogwarts the right place for him?ssss David put in in Parseltongue.
ssssHe may be sensitive but not have enough to actually cast the spells….ssssSeverus was the one who replied.
ssssIsn't it a bit rude to discuss a chap as though he wasn't there? ssss the small boy asked indignantly. Several people spun and stared at him.
"You understood what we said?" asked Severus, sharply.
"Yes sir." Said the boy.
"David, get this boy aboard, we'll worry about squaring the school he should be at later, scrounge him some kit if you can" said Severus decisively. "If he can't cast a spell to save his life I'm not losing a Parseltongue."
"Right away, Sir" said David. "Is that another Prince cousin?" he indicated a youth with a distinct look of Severus about him with a raised shoulder and slight limp.
"Find out" said Severus. "Boy….yes, you….go with Mr Fraser here." The lad grinned.
"Ed Dinalt" he said to David. "Not enough hands here to shake, sorry, hi!"
"I'm Crispin D'Aubrey" said the Parselmouth. "Your first year?" they went through the barrier exchanging life stories.
The Malfoy twins arrived with two protégés in tow; a girl called Hayley Betts who had seen Kinat and Ellie for what they were when the youngsters were visiting Hawke's old street gang; it seemed that her name had been scratched off the book and, Abrax explained, Madam McGonagall was investigating. The other was a boy called Victor who clicked his heels in a very German way, and Abrax lapsed into Parseltongue to explain that he could not go to Durmstrang because his mother was a muggle, the Princess of a tiny Eastern European country called Belsornia and his father wanted him somewhere safe because there had been threats from ODESSA.
"As if there wasn't enough going on" groaned Severus.
"It's all right, sir, his father has Malfoy connections, so we can claim him a cousin…he's not stuck up" Abrax explained confidentially. "His house elf bodyguard has ideas about the way he ought to be treated with consequence but he's forbidden him to mention it. Victor's okay, sir, honest."
"Yes, but that's the view of a New Marauder" said Severus dryly.
"I look forward to seeing how he settles in!" said Sirius brightly.
"Don't encourage them, Padfoot, they're bad enough without semi official sanction"
Abrax and Hawke grinned almost identical grins.
"Oh sir!" they said in identically hurt tones.
"Don't worry sir, we won't let you CATCH us at any mischief" said Kinat.
"You don't really mind, do you dad?" asked Romulus.
"Why me?" Severus asked the sky.
-/-
Draco turned up, bright eyed; Harry wasn't the only person celebrating, Draco had been made Head of House Slytherin. Though the pressures of what Voldemort had demanded showed in the slight strain on his face, his belief in his friends to make all right allowed him to indulge his delight scarcely alloyed by the thought of potential problems.
Krait grinned at him.
"Well! You get out of the prefects' meeting then, while we wait to vote on which house head is head boy or girl of the school…can't be that usual for a lower sixth to be made up to house head…"
Draco was grinning cheerfully.
"Nope….but then, the opposition in the upper Sixth isn't exactly taxing… excepting you, but you've a lot more on your plate, I guess Dumbledore's wanting to spare you…"
"Nah, that's God's own truth….both about the opposition and how much I have on my plate….I want to put it to the other prefects that it would be nice to institute one of the Beauxbatons customs, do you remember how they rose when the head came in?"
Draco nodded.
"A lot of people sniggered….but it kind of shows respect, doesn't it…."
"I was talking to Finch-Fletchly, he visited Eton before going there, only he came to us instead….they rise every time a master comes into the room, and they are supposed to have top manners there….you know I like courtesy…"
Draco chuckled.
"Yeah, I suspect you'd say 'excuse me' before you killed someone…I'll talk to the other House Heads while you lot are voting."
"Good egg. If I can swing it we can spread it amongst the train via the MSHG."
-/-
Krait was doing her rounds as a prefect after the voting – she had canvassed for Draco, naturally - when she caught Ginny casting a bat bogey hex on a boy. Krait put her head round the door.
"Y'know I'm going to have to give you lines for illegal wand use?" she said. The rotund figure of Horace Slughorn wheezed up beside her.
"It was a beautiful hex….surely you can let her off on the first day, Miss, er…"
"I live under the sign of Malfoy" said Krait. "And if I used the principle of letting people off for it being the first day, my cousins Abrax and Hawke and their nefarious friends would interpret that so liberally I dread to think of the state of the train when we reached Hogwarts! They are determined to outdo the misdeeds of the Marauders, you know, and I shudder to think of the mess…."
"Well….don't be too hard on her, hmm? Because I ask nicely?" he treated her to one of his charming smiles.
"A prefect is bound to take the orders of a member of staff where they countermand their own, even as it is custom for the staff to back up prefects in public even if they bawl them out in private" said Krait in a deceptively docile voice.
"Good heavens, not countermanding anything….just asking a little favour! And Miss…"
"Weasley" supplied Ginny
"Miss Weasley, perhaps you will have the goodness to join me for a bite later….I'll send out a formal invitation of course, and to Miss Malfoy as well….neither of us bears any grudges, I'm sure?" he beamed at Krait.
She regarded him thoughtfully. Tolerant, she thought, Albus wants you to be tolerant. She smiled politely.
"I'm sure we can make a fresh start sir, if you are generous enough to offer that" she said. "Ginny, you can research a counter to that hex as your detention, it'll be good practise for you."
Ginny grinned.
"That should be quite interesting" she said. "Krait always gives creative punishments, sir, and always fair. Even the woodlice would agree."
Slughorn blinked.
"Woodlice?" he asked blankly.
"I had occasion to reprimand a couple of boys who were quarrelling over race issues…I turned them into woodlice, giant woodlice of course, and leaving their minds quite intact, to ponder over the error of their ways" said Krait.
"Minds intact? That's extraordinary! But it used to be a forbidden punishment…"
"They didn't complain….I guess they thought I could have come up with worse. I probably could too" she added meditatively. "The potions dungeon drain often gets blocked….a little ridicule versus smelling for a week….no contest I guess."
"I'll say" said Ginny "Give me the four foot floating woodlouse treatment any time over that….especially as Myrtle would be bound to shoot out of the drain to gloat."
"Well….I'll see you both later" said Slughorn, wheezing his way down the corridor.
-/-
Harry and Neville both got invitations from Slughorn, and Draco. The four of them marched to Compartment C in perfect step and came to a smart halt.
There were other invitees ahead of them in Compartment C; Blaise Zabini, a Slytherin boy in Harry's year whom Krait cordially detested for his assumption before her name change to Malfoy that she would consider his advances flattering; Cormac McLaggan, a Gryffindor in some of Krait's NEWT classes; and Marcus Belby, a thin nervous looking boy from Ravenclaw, also sharing classes with Krait. She nodded to him cheerfully and ignored McLaggen whom she had described to Hermione as Neanderthal. Slughorn made introductions all round.
"We're two short" said Krait.
"I'm sorry?" Slughorn stared.
"Harry's bodyguard…I don't see Ron Weasley here, nor Hermione Granger. They've been his friends forever, since he started Hogwarts…." Krait's eyes narrowed. "we all do everything together, you know….Harry, Draco, Ron, Hermione, Neville, Ginny and me…." she looked at him. "We're arithmantically correct too you'll find…."
He gave a thin smile.
"Er, yes….quite. Perhaps I shall get to know them later….too many at one time can be a crowd…."
"Granger's only a mudblood anyway, sir" said Zabini ingratiatingly.
Slughorn's eyes narrowed slightly.
"Birth status is immaterial" he said.
"She's the cleverest witch in the year" blurted Harry.
"Did you WANT me to break your nose again Zabini?" said Krait, dangerously. "Sir, I don't think we'd care to stay in the company of Zabini, he's a creep and as sex crazed as his much married mother."
Zabini whipped out his wand and pointed it at Krait. She smiled gently, arms crossed, as hex after hex poured out of it, wordlessly and wandlessly holding her protection charm in place. Zabini was getting hot and bothered. When he finally tried the entrail expelling curse – Krait had to concentrate a little harder to deflect that without changing expression – she narrowed her eyes and flicked a glance at his wand. It flew up the carriage. With another glance, Zabini followed it, landing in a heap in the corner.
"Merlin's beard!" gasped Slughorn "I do believe you are more powerful than your father…."
"It's to be hoped so" said Krait. "Get out, Zabini. I don't want to see your smug face for the rest of the journey or I'll let Ginny loose on you…and she has a mean way with the bat bogey hex." She looked at Slughorn. "I beg your pardon sir – he's your guest. Perhaps you'd rather we went and he stayed."
"Well…I'm sorry Blaise can't display civilised manners…" said Slughorn, looking at Harry and making a quick decision. "He'd do better to go and calm down…."
Zabini went off muttering, casting darkling looks at Krait.
"Tell me, er, Krait, how did you come to break his nose?"
Krait shrugged.
"He tried to touch me up before it transpired that I had a family to back me….so I nutted him with a good old fashioned Glaswegian Kiss" she demonstrated the move. "Did the same thing to McLaggen once, but that was only interhouse politics, nothing personal, so I only bloodied him a little."
"Not your wand?" Slughorn was surprised.
"Sir!" Krait was all outraged innocence. "You know it's forbidden in corridors!" she shrugged. "Besides, I feel more comfortable enacting violence physically than by wand, somehow it seems sullying to do anything violent by wand….."
"Giving people pig's tails and noses or asses ears not counting of course" grinned Harry.
"You slit my nostrils on the first day!" said Draco.
"Yeah, and I felt so bad about it…..I guess I just have a weird outlook" said Krait.
Harry and Draco exchanged a glance.
"Yeah!" they both agreed.
Krait shrugged.
"I'll use such spells as I have to for real danger…..I'm not an idiot. I just have my preferences."
"Very commendable, my dear" said Slughorn. "Now we've settled down…." He questioned Belby about his uncle Damocles, inventor of the Wolfsbane potion; and lost interest in the boy when it transpired he scarcely knew his uncle because his father did not get on with him; Krait made an effort to drag the boy into the conversation however, partly because she liked him and partly out of gentle malice towards Slughorn's snobbery. McLaggan's chief claim to fame seemed to be the possession of an Uncle Tiberius who was a previous favourite of Slughorn, who had taken him Nogtail hunting with, among other people, Rufus Scrimgeor before he had become Prime Minister.
"Never mind, McLaggan, I'm sure you'll live it down" said Krait, kindly. "After all, we all have our embarrassing acquaintances….Ginny's brother Percy is an official creep at the Ministry too."
Slughorn laughed.
"One might almost think you disapproved of the Ministry my dear" he said.
She regarded him thoughtfully.
"Oh I do" she said quietly. "I'm of Albus Dumbledore's opinion…that they are all more concerned with how they look than of doing the right thing, busy playing the nepotism game and avoiding the real issues. They talk 'Chosen One' now but only because everything is out in public and there are dementors on the loose…maybe this Prime Minister will show better than Fudge, and after all he can scarcely be worse; but what I've seen is things done for show rather than real protection, real defensive measures. It's all illusion and bella figura and through all that, Harry stands in harm's way because of the prophesy and I betcha there's somebody in the Ministry who's hoping to use him as a Judas Goat to sucker Fishface and his Dirt Suckers in…." she was flushed with anger.
"But Harry has extraordinary powers…I remember that Terrible night – Lily – James – but Harry, you survived." Slughorn said.
"I survived because my mother sacrificed herself and gave me blood magic protection" said Harry too loudly.
"He survived. We'd like to keep it that way" said Draco. "But when all's said and done we're only schoolkids….has anyone in the Ministry tried to find out how Fishface survived his body's death? No. Has anyone in the Ministry tried to find out how he recruited his Death Eaters and how he controls them? No. Has anybody but Harry faced, fought and defied him? No. Can you wonder none of us have a deal of respect for the Ministry, even those of us who hope to become aurors? It's an office which is famous for its integrity, but with the head of the office doing too little too late now he's in charge I for one begin to wonder….I suppose one can only ever do one's own job to the best of one's ability…."
"I don't believe there's ever been a Malfoy Auror" said Slughorn. "Or many Slytherin who go for what is after all a dangerous and thankless task."
"Somebody has to" said Draco. "Somebody has to overcome fear so others need never feel it…."
"I intend to be an auror too" said Harry. "I think you have to enter the job with ideals and assume any who betray those ideals are just blips, out of the ordinary…."
"Neville, your parents were aurors, the best….would you advise your friends to go ahead?"
Neville flushed.
"Yes sir I would" he said. "I don't know if I can get the grades myself, though I intend to try…the next best thing would be to support my friends who are cleverer than me. I'm PROUD of my parents!"
"Quite rightly too….you must be worried, I hear rumours that they have disappeared from St Mungo's…."
"They gave their sanity to try to stop Fishface" said Neville, flushed with the effort not to lie too much "I guess if the Death Eaters decided to finish the job and kill them it might be a welcome release for them….much the Ministry cares."
Slughorn swept a glance around the present blood group members.
"I look forward to meeting your two friends" he said, seriously. "I rather suspect that you are an insanely brave group…."
"We do what we have to do" said Krait.
He nodded.
"I can see you're all taking it extremely seriously…."
"Yes sir" said Harry.
"Your help was vital" said Krait. "We know what and how much we need to find…."
He swallowed.
"Well….I'm sure Professor Dumbledore will know what to do…." He said. "Good gracious, is that the castle in view already? You'd better change into your robes…"
-/-
Marcus Belby fell into step with Krait.
"I didn't follow even half of that" he complained.
"You don't really want to, Marcus" said Krait.
"Harry's going up against Fishface, isn't he? And you're going to help" said Marcus.
"He has little choice….because Fishface has spent Harry's entire life trying to kill him….he didn't get that scar falling out of his tripper whilst drunk on gripe water" said Krait. Belby flushed.
"I know that….you are insane, you know, you could stay well out, you're not even in Potter's House…"
"I have my own, very good reasons….which I'm not prepared to discuss, Marcus. If you want to help, join the MSHG. Otherwise don't ask questions. End of conversation." Said Krait.
-/-/-/-/-
The Belsornia reference is partly a tribute to Elinor M Brent-Dyer and partly because it ties in with something I shall be using in 7 books' time. Bear with me; some of the stuff I throw in now that seems irrelevant comes back later. And some of the ideas did not actually get as fully developed as I intended. Crispin has a reason for his Parseltongue and so do his cousins when they arrive in the story.
Well you didn't expect all of Salazar's descendants to be well behaved around the muggle wenches in the local villages, did you?
This was the first year in which I worked out all the kids in the year in every house; not that I necessarily planned to use them all but they were there if I needed them. I have a big file with brief notes about all of them; and the secret is for those kids who are initially peripheral, to cheat. I have four tables of personality traits, 100 traits to each house, in a 10x10 grid and I use two ten sided dice. Giving 2-3 characteristics to each kid produces a round enough character for 'extras' and if anything interesting comes up it can always be developed.