a_writer_bro
I own nothing.
Thank you EraxNeverxEndsx for the first review! Hopefully more will follow. I'm getting anxious to lay down the ground work of Kale's first year at Hogwarts so I can move on to the 5th year (that's when things really start to pick up), so bear with me!
"This can't be a real class."
Kale shot his new friend Sirius an amused look. He had to agree, of course. Out of all the classes Kale had experienced today, his first day of classes, History of Magic was by far the most boring. Kale was still trying to fathom how a class taught by a ghost could be so utterly, almost painfully boring.
Kale looked around to see that as a whole, the room of first years all seemed to feel the same way. Sirius was still in a state of shocked denial that this was all there was to the class, James was on the verge of losing his hair from pulling on it because of sheer boredom, and Remus, who initially tried diligently to take notes, was now instead scribbling pictures of Professor Binns on his notes.
"I hear he's a ghost of the teacher he used to be," Kale said, hoping to get a rise from his roommates.
Remus graced him with a laugh but James and Sirius were too deep in a bored depression to even hear the joke. Fed up with the class and desperate for some sort of entertainment Kale impulsively transfigured his inkpot into a mouse using an improvised variation of a spell McGonagall had taught them that morning. That got his friends' attention. They watched him with a mixture of confusion, anticipation, and giddy nervousness as he folded a piece of paper into a plane.
"What are you doing-" Remus started.
"Just watch."
In truth, Kale was not sure what he was doing but just improvising as he went along to entertain his friends. He placed the mouse on the newly made paper airplane and then charmed the airplane to be sturdy enough to hold the mouse whilst staying afloat. Kale then gently pushed the plane into empty air and then guided its course with his wand using the Wingardium Leviosa spell he learned in the previous charms class. Soon the there was a tiny mouse apparently piloting a tiny aircraft in swift circles around the oblivious Professor Binns. This gesture earned a hearty laugh from James so loud it startled the tiny redheaded girl in front of him. She turned around and glared daggers at the four boys behind her.
"Would you please keep it down, some of us care about our education."
Lily Evans was a tiny thing whose hair seemed likely to make up half of her weight. She had long, thick locks of deep auburn hair that contrasted interestingly with her vivid green eyes. James's reaction was as if he was being berated by a slug.
"Don't you have a sense of humor?" asked James, pointing to the mouse still piloting the paper airplane around Binns's head.
Lily's response was a huff of indignation as she turned around to continue to take notes.
"That's a mighty good piece of magic mate," whispered Sirius in a sincere voice to Kale. "How did you manage that bit of transfiguration?"
Kale's response was an uncomfortable shrug. He felt as if he'd been deflecting that question all day. Since his first class he'd noticed that the material just came easy to him. His mothers had told him that he had a quick, clever mind, but because he'd never been to school he was never able to gauge his abilities against his peers, until now. The result was that, to him, the lessons seemed to move at a glacial pace to accommodate his classmates. The upside, Kale decided, was that his new friends felt the same way, for the most part.
Looks like I'll be teaching myself a lot mused Kale.
"What do you make of him?" asked Dumbledore. "Is he a good seed?"
The headmaster and deputy headmistress sat in the Albus's office surrounded by his numerous gizmos and magical devices, both silently sucking on lemon drops and considering the enigmatic question that was Kale Bastion.
Professor McGonagall mulled over the question and she pushed the lemon drop with her tongue, from side to side in her mouth.
"He's certainly gifted." And he was, there was no doubt about it. The boy, who was initially brimming with excitement at the beginning of her transfiguration class, completed his task of turning a match into a needle on the first attempt. Afterward, when he noticed that that spell would be the lesson for the remainder of the class, adopted a familiar look of boredom McGonagall often saw on the faces of children too advanced for the slow pace set by their peers.
Indeed, McGonagall thought, with a small, indulgent smile on her face, all four of the Gryffindor boys showed promise as students. Then again, Minerva's smile turned into grimace, after last night's debacle with the Slytherins…
"Minerva," Dumbledore's voice nudged her gently out of her musing.
"All four are gifted, and already thick as thieves." McGonagall paused thoughtfully, " The Black boy, Sirius, doesn't have an ounce of the malice his family does."
Dumbledore was happy with that news. He had admittedly been worried about Kale's interaction with a child whose family was so heavily involved with the increasingly troublesome Lord Voldemort.
McGonagall interrupted Albus's thoughts, "Is it necessary to watch him so carefully?"
Albus stood and walked toward a beautiful ornate oak cabinet. He opened the double doors to reveal a large stone pensieve and then proceeded to extract a silvery memory from his temple which he then deposited into the stone basin. Afterward he turned toward his deputy headmistress and regarded her with a serious expression uncommon for his usually genial face.
"There is a war coming. A war that is as of now evenly balanced. That boy has the potential for remarkable power; power that could tip the scale- one way or the other. I don't know when the war will come, but when it does, we must ensure he is on our side."
McGonagall was shocked, "But he's just a child!"
Dumbledore nodded, "And we will let him have his childhood- for now. But a time will come when he has to pick a side."
Dumbledore sat down his plush office chair and formed a steeple with his long fingers before his face.
"I just hope it's ours."
Kale's week passed uneventfully, or as uneventfully as possible in a magic school, until Friday when Kale and his roommates sat down in the great hall for lunch before their last class before the weekend. A class James hadn't been able to stop talking about since he'd arrived at Hogwarts.
"I can't believe they won't let first years on the team! I mean- why not? The whole rule is ridiculous!" James's rant was met with a now familiar good-natured groan from his friends. Kale guessed he'd heard this tirade from James maybe twenty times already this week, but decided to indulge his friend anyway.
"So-" Kale began casually, while helping himself to more chicken, "James, are you any good at flying anyway?" Kale had timed his question precisely for when James next drank from his glass of pumpkin juice. The result was when he heard Kale's question he sprayed his entire mouthful of pumpkin juice directly on the unsuspecting Lily Evans to his right. Kale suspected that trajectory of James's juice spray may have been less than random, even predetermined.
"Eeeek!" she let out a shrill scream of surprise from the unwarranted pumpkin bath. James ignored her easily, instead favoring Kale with his best mask of mock-horror.
"Any good?Am I any good? My father once"- Remus and Sirius rolled their eyes and Kale had to refrain from laughing, "My father once called me a generational phenomena. The Wimbourne Wasps have been scouting me since I was five. My first word was quaffle." By then anyone at the Gryffindor table who was listening was laughing, even Lily Evans. James handled it like a natural; Kale noticed he thrived on attention.
After lunch, the foursome hurried down to the Quidditch pitch. The class split in two rows, made up of Gryffindor and Slytherin first years. The flight coach was a monstrous woman with a gentle face named Madam Leyder. Kale heard that before teaching she had played Quidditch for the Holyhead Harpies. It was apparently a big deal. Judging from what Kale garnered about Quidditch positions, he had to guess she was played beater. Once she was sure her safety rules had reached the ears of each distracted student, she began handing out old school brooms to everyone. James had some choice words to say about the quality of his broom, but changed his tune when she threatened to take it back. Kale was last in line and held out his arms expectantly when she finally reached him.
"I'm sorry Kale." She looked down sympathetically at the young boy. Kale screwed up his eyes in confusion.
"Dumbledore said you're exempt from this lesson, because of your narc… Narco-something." She furrowed her brow trying to come up with the second half of the word.
"Narcolepsy," the word came out of Kale like an old gust of wind, a mean familiar friend.
"Right," Madam Leyder finished lamely. By now Kale and the flying instructor had caught the attention of the class.
"Oi! What's the hold up?"
"That one, the small one, he can't fly."
"You reckon he's scared?"
Kale did not want to raise his eyes, because he feared if he tilted his head back the tears that were brimming around his eyes would threaten to spill down his cheeks. But he didn't need to look up to recognize the voices as some of the Slytherin students he shared potions with.
"Maybe he's a squib."
The last comment was met with hoots and jeers from the Slytherins, and though Kale didn't know what the word meant he took it as his cue to run for the castle before anyone saw him cry, or worse, fall asleep. The last thing he heard was a short scuffle and Madam Leyder shouting before he ran into the tunnel leaving the Quidditch pitch.
Minutes later a gloomy Kale Bastion was shuffling along a random corridor of the castle, occasionally striking out at the stone walls with his foot, affronting undeserving paintings, and just generally feeling sorry for his self. It's not even that he wanted to fly, he told himself angrily. It was that he was so close to fitting in. To feeling normal. Normal. Kale scoffed at the notion.
He was intelligent enough to realize he was something of an anomaly, even in the wizarding world. What kid has fourteen mothers and no father? Oh and there is a catch, the mothers are really just whores. Kale lashed out at a wall with his foot, hitting the stones ineffectually and drawing his foot back in pain.
Don't forget your narcolepsy, Kale he mocked himself in the voice of one of his many mothers. How could he? It was the constant reminder of the things he couldn't do. Sure, he had tried many different medicines that he could get his hands on, but nothing worked. Once, his mothers had saved up enough money to see a specialist (a feat that had taken them months of saving). But even the doctor was at a loss as to why Kale's narcolepsy acted as it did. Even Professor Slughorn, upon hearing of his disease, took an interest and brewed something he assured Kale would work. Kale excitedly drank down the potion, but when Slughorn produced a boggart to test him Kale still fell asleep. The worst part wasn't even the failure of the experiment but Slughorn's face when he woke up Kale. He had seen Kale's boggart, it had taken the shape of his friends, shouting things like, "Street wretch!" and "Son of a whore!" and "Thief!" Safe to say, after that debacle Slughorn had shown much less interest in acquiring Kale for his Slug Club; choosing instead to fawn over his Slytherin students and Lily Evans, who was popular with all the teachers.
"Hey Kale, wait up!"
Kale spun around on a dime, eyes wide. "What are you guys doing here? Shouldn't you be outside?" He asked his three friends as they ran down the corridor to meet him.
"We… got… kicked… out… after…" Sirius was struggling to regain his breath. They must have been chasing down Kale for a while. "." He said in a rush between breaths.
Kale didn't know what to say. He was touched. "You guys didn't have to do that," he admonished them.
They all just shrugged. It was an easy decision for them. Even James, who was looking forward to showing off his flying skill, didn't seem the slightest bit put out. An awkward silence descended then, as there was nothing left to say except for the obvious question that had gone to long unanswered.
Surprisingly, it was Remus who poached the question.
"Kale," he began gently, "Tell us, what was that all about why couldn't you fly?" Remus reached out and gently touched Kale on the shoulder. Kale took a deep breath, realizing he couldn't dodge the question any longer.
"You guys promise you won't laugh?" The three nodded their heads, fixing their faces into solemn masks.
"I have this thing, well a disease actually- a muggle disease… though I suppose if I have it wizards must get it to-" he paused when he saw his friends growing impatient with his stalling.
"It's called Narcolepsy. Basically I fall asleep when I get stressed or scared or whatever…" He trailed off.
James let out a loud snort, "Is that it? That's the big deal, huh?"
Sirius nodded his agreement with James's sentiment, "It's going to take a lot more than that to scare us off." Kale noticed at the moment the uncomfortable change in Remus's demeanor at Sirius's words.
Kale let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. He realized now how important his friends were to him. How much they mattered.
"I just hope the rest of the school shares your opinion," he said.
James ran his hand through his hair thoughtfully, "You know, I bet everyone would forget about what happened today if something else, something funny, happened tomorrow."
Sirius seemed to follow his train of thought, and his smile grew with each word, "Like a prank?"
"Like a prank." James nodded.
"And if this prank just happened to be directed to the Slytherins who made fun of Kale…" Remus led on, with a rare gleam in his eye.
Kale was grinning from ear to ear. He liked where this was going.
"Just promise you won't fall asleep on us, alright mate?" James joked while nudging Kale playfully in the ribs.
Kale shot his arms in the air, pretending to be hurt by James's words. "You wound me, brother!"
During Kale's theatrics, his right hand accidentally grazed the portrait of a bowl of fruit behind them, or to be specific, grazed the pear in the bowl of painted fruit behind them.
The effect of was an immediate rumbling as the portrait moved to reveal a large entrance to a room, probably a kitchen, full of short, bustling creatures with large floppy ears and tennis ball sized eyes. One rushed up to Kale and politely asked, "How can I help the young master?"
Kale smiled to himself and said aloud to his friends, "I think I just found our prank."
"Are you sure they won't know it was us?" asked Remus nervously the next morning at breakfast. They had all woken up early in order to assure a prime seat for the festivities they had planned during breakfast. Going as far as all sitting on the same side, backs to the wall, for a perfect view at the Slytherin table.
"How could they possibly prove it was us?" asked Sirius. He was lounging cockily, arms folded with both feet on the table and his back against the wall.
"Hmm, I don't know, maybe ask the house elves who we had put that special ingredient that Slytherins 'really love'?" Remus pointed out.
"I still can't believe they fell for that," interjected Kale.
"I hadn't thought of that," admitted Sirius, returning to Remus's concern.
The Great Hall had been gradually filling with students for the past thirty minutes, and the Slytherins had yet to show up. Just as Kale was getting worried that they may not come to breakfast, Lily came through the double doors talking to Snape (or Snivellus, as James and Sirius had affectionately named him). Walking a few yards behind Snape was Mulciber, Avery, and Wilkes, all glaring at Lily's back. Clearly, they did not approve of Snape's odd friendship with Lily, Kale noted.
Lily separated from Snape and made her way to the Gryffindor table, all the while waving to Kale, James, Sirius, and Remus, mistaking their focus in her direction for friendly attention.
"Hey guys," she greeted cheerily while taking a seat across from James, "have you started that Transfiguration essay, so far it's-"
"Shhhh!" James cut across her amiable chitchat rudely, and then returned his focus to the Slytherin table.
Lily looked as if someone had just insulted her mother, "Excuse me for being polite, I was just-"
"SHHHH!" This time the noise came from all four Gryffindor boys, who after silencing Lily, returned their undivided attention to the Slytherin table.
Lily leaned back on her bench, clearly affronted by their behavior. She looked as if she were about to talk again so Kale saved her the trouble by pointing across the Great Hall where the Slytherins were about to start eating. Her curiosity trumped her anger and she silently watched, for the moment. The food arrived in front of the Slytherin first years, eggs and ham. They never saw it coming. The effect was not immediate. A few bites in and the first bomb went off, then another, and another. Tiny puffs of smoke billowing out of the Avery's mouth as he gagged and wretched, the food turned into whatever particularly foul smelling stink bomb James had chosen. Soon every Slytherin first year was gagging or pouring pumpkin juice down their throats to negate the foul odor.
Kale and his friends were rolling with laughter, along with every other student from the other, non-Slytherin houses. Even some of the more humorous teachers spared a smile. Lily gave them a half-horrified, half-amused look. She was perhaps the only one privy to them being the culprits. Kale took a moment to dry his eyes and truly bask in the harmony he had found here at Hogwarts, his home, with his friends, his family.
"We should have a nickname, you know, for the group as a whole," proposed Kale. The others nodded their heads in agreement.
"How about… The Bandits!" Sirius pounded his fist into his palm for emphasis. Lily rolled her eyes and Remus shot him a withering look, "That's an awful name."
James mulled over the name, moving his tongue in his mouth as if he could taste it.
"I like where your head is at Sirius, that's the right direction," his face lit up and he paused dramatically, "How about, The Raiders!" He looked around eagerly for his friends' approval, his glasses slipping down his nose.
Remus and Kale mocked throwing up in their hands.
"Fine, you come up with one if you're so good at naming," demanded James.
"The Outlaws, The Pirates, The Pillagers, The Plunderers," Remus listed off while counting on his fingers.
"Bad, bad, bad, bad," mimicked Sirius while counting on his fingers.
"I feel like we're just naming definitions and synonyms of the word we're looking for," said Kale. The four Gryffindors descended into thoughtful silence. Lily was looking at them as if they were crazy.
"You're thinking of the word Marauder," cried an exasperated Lily.
James stood up and snapped his fingers, "That's it! The Marauders, we're The Marauders!"
"Brilliant!" Kale clapped his friend on the shoulder.
"Excellent James, good going."
"How did you come up with that?" asked Sirius appraisingly.
"Just a wave of genius I guess," shrugged James with tremendous false modesty.
Lily was staring at the Marauders incredulously. She gaped and stuttered trying to get the words out, but settled for simply screaming and pulling on her hair before leaving in a huff.
"What's got her knickers in a bunch?" asked James. His friends just shrugged, unconcerned.
Months later, December 10th, a week before Christmas break.
Late into a frigid December night, Dumbledore was pacing back and forth in front of his office fireplace; the fire's glow tinting his silver crescent moon robes a warm shade of bronze. He was thinking, and as was customary when he would think, he would eat candy, after muggle candy. There was a small pyramid of multicolored wrappers on his desk; a testimony to how long he'd been pondering this specific problem.
The problem came to his office earlier that day in the form of a human question mark, as Dumbledore had come to think of him. But to his friends and classmates, he was Kale Bastion.
Kale…
The boy was truly remarkable. He had a brilliant mind that shone like a beacon in all his classes. Judging by the teachers' complaints about his witty retorts, he had a tongue like a knife too, and wasn't afraid to treat people like whetstones. Dumbledore smiled despite himself. He saw a lot he liked in the boy: he was fiercely loyal to his friends (or marauders as they called themselves, Dumbledore chuckled at this), had a very straightforward manner, and an easy laugh. But there was a lot in Kale that worried him too. He was very much aware of the superiority of his power compared to his peers, making him quick to fight and regard his enemies similar to how a human might a mosquito. Dumbledore believed this also stemmed from his life growing up in the slums; perhaps a sort of fight-or-flight instinct.
Dumbledore crunched hard on the tiny, watermelon sweet in his mouth, turning it to powder. He reached in his pocket for another, mean while stealing a glance at the pensieve he had been revisiting repeatedly this night. He made to go use it again but decided against it; he had watched the memory enough times to realize that there was no hidden agenda, no message to find. The boy was being honest with him.
Kale had approached him, asking of Dumbledore to teach him occlumency. To put it lightly, Dumbledore had not seen the request coming. Kale argued his point rather reasonably, saying he had done research on occlumency and said that because the nature of occlumency was to clear the mind by controlling one's emotions he believed that occlumency was perhaps his last hope at squashing his narcolepsy. The fire in his eyes when he told Dumbledore this suggested that he would learn it, with or without the headmaster's help.
Albus was shocked that he didn't think of it himself. Occlumency and narcolepsy seemed a perfect marriage; one precludes the other. Then again, he probably didn't think of it because who in their right mind would assume a child of eleven, (or was he twelve now, yes twelve), would be up for learning one of the most challenging and demanding schools of magic? The problem was if Kale mastered occlumency, he would be able to shield his mind from anyone, even a master legilimens like Dumbledore if the Kale's mind was strong enough. Essentially, the question came down to would he put his faith in the child or not. Kale would become a closed book, something Albus did not fancy. Not that he didn't trust the young Gryffindor, he seemed innocent enough, but so had young Bellatrix when she first came to Hogwarts. And Albus knew how that story ended. Dumbledore had a choice: help Kale and forever close off his mind, or deny him but risk his distrust. Then there was the matter of Kale's planned use of Occlumency. He was still a child; would he constantly abuse it in order to avoid interaction with more stressful emotions? What effect would that have? Dumbledore could not think of any studies involving the long-term effects of misusing Occlumency.
Albus let out a long, gusty sigh. It was best to worry about such a thing. He had enough immediate problems as it was. That was future Albus's problem. His pressing dilemma was whether to help Kale. He did not fancy the positions his power sometimes allowed him. Especially if it required the manipulation of the students he swore to protect.
Dumbledore crunched determinedly down on other sweet, followed by reaching in his pocket for a replacement. No, no- he would help Kale, he decided. He was a headmaster first, and it was his duty to help his students. Besides, the boy was determined to learn, with or without him; better to earn his trust by helping him than lose his trust and risk him teaching himself anyway. He would send a note to Kale in the morning asking him to stay at Hogwarts this winter.
The lessons will begin on the first day of Christmas break. Albus chomped down on another candy.
Wooooooooooooh, that chapter was doozy! Sorry for skipping few months, but at the pace I'm writing, we'll be stuck in first year forever! Better to stick to the important stuff, shade the characters a bit, and then really start digging into the story during 5th year. Please review and let me know what you think. Do you like it, do you hate it? I promise that if I get 5 reviews, just a measly 5 reviews, I'll finish the next chapter by tomorrow night! Next chapter things really shake up a bit, and there is a pretty killer magic scene where we see what Kale is truly capable of. But no more spoilers! Review and you'll get to see soon enough!