Aladdin's POV
I never realized how hard researching actually was when you were doing it in secret. For the entire time I had been at Hogwarts, all I had to do was tell Madam Pince what I was looking for in a book and she'd give it to me with a look of disdain planted on her face. It wasn't me, she just didn't like children in general, said they were too rough to her books.
However, no one could know what I was trying to do. I couldn't even imagine what would happen if someone found out-for all I knew, I could be sent to St Mungo's for insanity. Maybe they'd let Romana be my roommate, I thought to myself morbidly as I flipped through yet another book.
It had been three weeks since the incident with Myrtle. Three weeks since I last had a full conversation with Albus. After that awkward conversation, I tried my best to ignore him since avoiding him was quite literally impossible. I could tell it was getting on his nerves, but the things I felt around him scared me to high heaven.
By the time I had reached the end of the thick tome I had been flipping through, the library was dark except for my single oil lamp. Nothing. There was nothing about the Basilisk except for things that are common knowledge:
-kills with direct eye-contact
-paralyzes with indirect contact
-the cry of a rooster is deadly to it
-the power to control the basilisk is passed down through Salazar Slytherin's lineage
-lived in the Chamber of Secrets in Hogwarts
The last part scared me. If I was right, and the basilisk regenerated when killed, nothing was controlling this large beast living inside Hogwarts.
Could it have been the thing that flooded Myrtle's bathroom? A shiver ran through my body at the thought. That's it, I stated in my mind, closing the book and standing up, you are going crazy from sleep deprivation.
It was probably true, I hadn't had a full night's sleep in all those weeks. Between the buddy system and this new worry dragging my mind down, I was terrified for OWLs, though I knew I shouldn't be all that worried. By the time I graduated, there would be some rule that anyone sorted into Slytherin was immediately expelled from Hogwarts and banished from the wizarding community.
In the dead of the night, I snuck back to the Slytherin dorm, unaware of eyes watching me pass as the thoughts of the next day being Saturday filled my head.
"I just don't get him!" Romana complained as I watched the clouds pass over our heads peacefully. "How can he just look me in the freaking face and say that I have absolutely no problems what-so-ever! HE DOESN'T EVEN KNOW ME!"
At her scream, a large wave of water erupted from the Black Lake to splash her causing me to laugh at her dismay. Well, now we know the Giant Squid can hear. Lovely.
"The world hates me!" Romana cried dramatically as she collapsed on top of me, soaking me as well.
"Ew!" I complained. "Ge'off me, you big lump!"
Pushing her off of me, I quickly cast a drying spell before the coldness could fully register. Glaring at her, I cast one on her as well.
"Thank you." Romana muttered quietly sitting next to me and looking out at the Black Lake.
I laid down again without a word, going back to watching the clouds.
"You know, the muggles would probably love to do research on our Giant Squid. They found out they existed a while back, but have no clue how to conduct research on them because they don't survive well in captivity and are extremely dangerous in the wild."
"Well, that was wonderfully random." I sighed. "Is something wrong?"
"Besides James Potter? Yes." Romana groaned, running a hand through her dark, curly hair that she refused to let grow longer than chin length.
"What is it?" I asked, resigned to the fact that I wouldn't have the quiet afternoon I had planned. For some reason, I was everyone's therapist. Sitting up, I leaned on the tree looking at her.
"I-it's my mum." Romana explained pulling a crumpled letter out of her robes. "My sister wrote to me-she's getting worse." At this Romana's voice hitched to slightly hysterical as she stood up and started to pace. "How the bloody hell can she get worse?! She's bedridden! Has been since the freaking battle! Turns out, though, dear Mum has lymphoma. Lymphoma! Do you know how bad that is?!"
My eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Lymphoma is bad-for muggles. "No. I mean, for muggles its-"
"She can't get medical attention!" Romana screamed, tears rushing down her face as her hands knotted in her hair. "Because of the stupid Decrees!" Romana fell to her knees, her face in her hands as she sobbed. "I hate her! I have always hated her! Why the bloody hell do I care now?!"
"Roma-" I started going to her, to comfort her, something. I was used to her emotions that changed like the wind, it's how she coped. Romana would hide the bigger feelings in the form of anger or something easier to manage.
"No." She whispered through the tears. "Just leave me alone."
Shock was apparent on my face, but she wasn't looking at me. "I can't just-"
"Just leave me alone, Aladdin!" Romana screamed without looking at me.
Silently, I walked backwards, watching her until I got what I deemed far enough away, then turned on my heel and sprinted back to the castle feeling guilty. I should have stayed with her, but Romana was someone whose emotions controlled her reasoning and also had spouts of uncontrollable insanity that caused the part of her raised dark to emerge. Though I'd never admit it, I was afraid of one of my closest friends.
I ran through the castle without aim. There was no place to go, but I couldn't keep running forever. The only thing running through my mind was 'I need a place to think' on a continuous loop. The place my feet led me to ended up being Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.
As I stood there, gasping for breath, I noticed a window that I hadn't seen before on the bathroom wall. It looked out onto the Black Lake where I had been moments before. Crossing over to it, I looked out of the grimy window and wiped away some of it with my too-long sleeve. You see, my definition of what fits and Miss Hannah's varies by a large margin and I was too proud to let Astoria buy me clothes-though she always found ways to sneak them into my trunk over the summer.
Peering out, I saw Romana in the same place and position that I had left her in and noticed James crossing the lawn towards her. When he reached her, James placed a hand on her back, kneeling next to her. She turned her head towards him and sprang up immediately, her hands wiping furiously at her face. Romana opened her mouth to say something to him, but I couldn't hear what. Quickly, I casted a supersensory charm and opened the window a bit.
"I saw Parker run into the castle from the Owlery, and noticed you were just sitting here." James explained, his hands in his jeans pockets. "Just wanted to check up on you."
Romana raised one of her eyebrows in a suspicious look causing James to groan, "C'mon, do all you snakes have to be so suspicious all the time? Seriously, I tried to help that girl…Farrah?...with her books when some git Ravenclaw pushed her over, she was positively stunned."
"That'd be Weasley's fault." Romana said curtly, remembering last year.
"Which one?" James joked with a half-smile.
"Fred, and I think another Gryffindor, ambushed her and a younger Slytherin last year. They both ended up in the infirmary. Farrah has anxiety attacks now because of it." Romana explained with a glare.
James looked taken aback, "I-I'm sorry. I never, I never knew…"
"What do you want?" Romana asked, rolling her eyes, her cool demeanor hiding her true blue feelings.
"Look, I think we've both realized that this whole hating each other thing isn't working out very well, especially since we're buddies now. Plus, I can't think of why we actually started hating each other, so I was thinking…truce?" James asked holding his hand out for Romana.
Romana's eyebrows raised but before she could say anything, "I'm not pulling a prank on you, promise." James smiled kindly.
"Alright," Romana smiled warily, taking his hand. "Truce. But I swear if this is a prank-"
James laughed, throwing his arm around her, leading her towards the castle, "It's not."
"Finite Incantetum." I muttered, ending the spell, shocked at what I just saw.
"Well, isn't this interesting." Myrtle said in her nasally voice right next to me.
"Isn't it?" I smiled at her.
She seemed shocked at the display of kindness, but smiled back.
"A Slytherin and a Gryffindor-friends!" Myrtle laughed. "I never thought I'd see that!"
"Neither did I, Myrtle, neither did I." I whispered, quickly leaving the bathroom.
I failed to notice that, as I left the bathroom, the window disappeared.
Something was wrong. Romana called it a 'mother's intuition'. After fussing over the younger Slytherins and Anna so much, she said that I had become so much like a mother I had adopted it prematurely.
It didn't matter, however, because at that moment, I knew something was wrong. Neither Anna nor the Dursley triplets had made it to dinner. Josh was there, but he had been with Scorpius all day. This was due to the fact that the Hufflepuff prefect Amber Streisand seemed to be trying her best to catch him doing something wrong. He had already gotten three detentions over things that most students wouldn't have even lost points over such as accidentally knocking a first year Ravenclaw's books over in the library. Before dinner was over, I was out of me seat and looking for them.
I had been at it for maybe ten minutes when the sound of footfalls behind me caused me to turn around. Upon turning, I noticed none other than Albus Potter.
"What do you want, Potter?" I growled, preoccupied with trying to find the girls.
"Why have you been ignoring me?" He demanded, obviously frustrated.
I shrugged, too focused to deal with him at the moment. "Look, I am currently looking for four girls who almost never shut up. How the heck anyone is able to misplace them is beyond me, but, currently, no Slytherin has seen them since lunch."
"There's four of them. I'm sure they aren't hurt, probably just in the library or something." Albus shrugged.
"They aren't in the library and the thing is, as a Slytherin, if you go missing, most likely someone has caused you to go missing, even if there are four of you." I explained as we walked down empty corridors.
"Seriously?" Albus was shocked. He grabbed my elbow to stop me, making me look into his all-too-familiar eyes.
"School isn't exactly safe for us," I laughed humorlessly.
A look of determination passed over Albus' features and he quickly pulled a piece of parchment out of his robes along with his wand.
"What is that?" I demanded, looking at the thing with interest. It seemed like an ordinary piece of parchment.
Without an answer, he tapped it with his wand, "I solemnly swear I am up to no good."
With that, a map appeared. Not just any map, though, a map of Hogwarts showing secret passageways and people. Currently, it showed the girls, Hugo Weasley and Lily Potter in a room near the astronomy tower.
"This cannot be good," I muttered.
"What are Hugo and Lily doing?" Albus whispered worriedly, looking at me.
Without a second thought, we took off towards the Astronomy tower. We got to the room quickly and I heard the sound of muffled screams inside the room along with laughing. Albus quickly opened the door and we walked in to see the two third years laughing at the poor predicament of the Slytherins and their own house mate. They had obviously set boggarts on the children since each one was screaming in fear of something near her. Anna was inside a small crate and my blood boiled, knowing where that fear came from-she was one of the few girls in the orphanage who were taken away from their families, hers because of abuse and neglect.
Sophie had her hands clamped on her ears as a woman with a rather long neck, pale, thin blonde hair and wrinkly skin screamed things about her being a freak. The woman changed into a portly man with almost no neck. Then into a muscular, well-built man who seemed to have kind features and back to the woman. All I could guess were that the people were the infamous Dursley family that the girls explained hated magic, though their father had been more accepting since they'd gotten their letters.
Susan was shaking in fear as snakes crawled all over her body, mostly around her neck. Their eyes were red and their scales white, with black forked tongues. I liked snakes and these frightened even me.
Sarah was silently sobbing as she reached in front of herself blindly and opened her mouth yet no words came out. She pulled on her ears, missing a few times, as if trying to get them to work. It seemed she was afraid of being unable to see and hear, though that was more unclear.
"What do you two think you are doing?!" Albus screamed in anger, looking at his little sister and cousin.
My eyes were solely on the girls, however. "Albus, help me."
He immediately got the message and whipped out his wand.
I walked towards Anna and pointed my wand at the crate shaped boggart. "Ridikulus!" I exclaimed. The boggart turned into a rainbow, floating across the sky and I faked a laugh, letting it be destroyed. Anna, a sobbing mess, ran at me, flinging her arms around me waist. I rested an arm on her back and turned towards Sophie, muttering the same word, hers changing into the fat man wearing a bikini-disturbing but effective.
Albus had gotten rid of the other two boggarts and my arms were then filled with sobbing little girls.
When they all calmed down, the triplets seemed more embarrassed at having cried in front of their tormentors and a look appeared on their face that I recognized well. It was the look of someone who refused to be broken. It happened to all Slytherins, the moment where you from then on flat out refuse to cry or show any emotion to certain people.
Anna, however, was not a Slytherin. She was a Gryffindor. And what happens when Gryffindors are made to look like fools? They get mad, really mad.
"Professor McGonagall's office. Now." Albus growled at his little sister and cousin.
Sporting similar, apprehensive looks, they promptly left.
"Aladdin, I am so sorry about-"
"Not your fault," I dismissed with a shrug, looking at the girls. "You four-what exactly happened here?"
Susan shrugged, suddenly interested in the toes of her shoes. Sarah's face looked glum and she ignored my question. Sophie shuddered, most likely at the memory of what happened.
"!" She exclaimed, starting to walk in a circle as she grumbled to herself about housemates and backstabbing leeches. Stopping in her tracks, Anna turned to me, anger raging in her dark eyes. "Lily walked up to me in the library and told me that Professor Wizen wanted to see us at the astronomy tower. It didn't seem weird, I mean he is the astronomy teacher and all. Anyway, we followed her and as we neared the tower, Sarah disappeared. Lily said that she must have gone into this room and before I knew it, I was locked in a freaking crate! How did they know about that, Aladdin?! How?!"
I sighed, kneeling down to her level. Angry tears were in her eyes as she looked at me in confusion. "They don't," I assured her, calming the fear that was coursing through her. "They probably never will. You see, Lily and Hugo set a creature known as a boggart on you, knowing you wouldn't be able to fight back since you didn't know what it was. A boggart hides in dark spaces, like unused drawers and cabinets. This classroom probably hasn't been used in years so as to attract boggarts for third year DADA classes. Anyway, when faced with a witch or wizard, they find out their worst fear and turn into that fear."
Susan looked up at me with tired eyes, "Aladdin, why would they do that?"
I closed my eyes at that question as if trying to make it hurt less. "No clue, I've been asking myself that question since I was a first year." With that, I stood up and surveyed the girls. "Now, off to the kitchens with you, you seem to have missed dinner."
"Missed dinner?!" Anna exclaimed, horrified at the prospect. With that, she scampered off with the triplets in tow. As I watched them leave, I sighed, turning to Albus.
He was leaning against a wall and seemed like he was trying to comprehend what had happened.
"You OK?" I asked in what I hoped was a sympathetic voice.
"My little sister. Merlin, I remember her when she was freaking asking me to play Barbies with her. And Hugo? Whenever I see him, I usually remember the tiny six year old screaming when his toy broom went just a little too fast. What the bloody hell happened?" He asked in a drained voice.
"Hogwarts." I grumbled. "C'mon, Mr Prefect, you sent them to McGonagall, remember. I doubt they know the passcode."
Albus chuckled at my mention of him being a prefect and followed me out of the classroom. When I started heading towards the dungeons, though, he grabbed my wrist.
"Where are you going?" Albus asked in surprise.
"Uh…to my dorm?" I said, but the statement turned out to sound more like a question.
Albus raised his eyebrows. "I need another witness or else it's two against one."
"So you'd rather it'd be two against none?" I smirked. "McGonagall hates me."
Albus rolled his eyes and started to pull me in the direction of her office against my protests. When we reached the gargoyle, we saw Hugo and Lily by it. Lily was sitting against the wall next to the statue while Hugo was standing, bouncing his knee in impatience.
"Well, it's about time!" Lily exclaimed, popping up.
Albus glared at his little sister. "Lily, might I remind you of what you were just caught doing?" Her pleasant demeanor suddenly fell into something much more somber as she gulped.
Albus quietly whispered the password and the gargoyle jumped away to reveal the magic staircase that lifted us into McGonagall's office. McGonagall's office was as professional as the woman who worked in it. In one corner a dozen crystal balls sat, each on its one pedestal, acting as a sort of security system. Bookshelves stuffed full with books lines the walls, going up to the very tall ceiling. The color scheme was an array of reds and gold. Towards the back of the office and the first thing you saw when you walked into the room was an impressive, mahogany desk where Professor McGonagall sat regally. Behind her, the many portraits of past Headmasters and Mistresses chatted or snoozed, my favorite one being a certain Professor Severus Snape who always had something snarky to say and was found more often in the Slytherin Common room frame than his one in the office.
"Professor?" Albus called politely so as to not startle the somewhat elderly headmistress.
"Potter, Potter and Weasley what brings you here?" She asked, seeming to not notice me. Or just not care enough to acknowledge me presence.
"I'm not sure." Albus snarled, looking at the other two. "Why don't you tell the Professor what is going on?"
Lily sighed exasperatedly. "I don't get why it's such a big deal, their just snakes." She shrugged.
"Yeah, snakes who you terrified!" I exclaimed angrily, glaring at the young red-head.
Professor McGonagall sighed and looked at us all. "Please, children, sit down and we can work this out like the calm, level-headed young adults you are."
She summoned two chairs to accompany the two that were already in front of her desk. I sat to the farthest left with Albus on my right. Hugo sat next to him and Lily on Hugo's right.
"Now, what exactly is going on? Miss Parker?" Professor McGonagall addressed me.
"I was looking for the Dursley triplets and my si-their friend Anna," I caught myself. "No one had seen them since lunch, and I was worried. Albus decided to help me in looking for them. We found ourselves near the Astronomy tower when we heard what sounded like screaming and laughter from inside a room near the tower. When we walked in, we found that Hugo and Lily had released boggarts on them."
Professor McGonagall sighed, "Miss Parker, we all know you are liable to jumping to conclusions. Are you positive that Hugo and Lily had purposefully released the boggarts on the children?"
"They were laughing," I explained.
"Could they have been trying to get the boggarts to go away? You must surely know that laughter is one of the keys to ridding a boggart." Professor McGonagall said, clearly not believing me.
Why did I even try anymore? No one ever believed a snake. They didn't believe Farrah or Abby last year, even when they ended up in the hospital wing. Scorpius was said to be a liar when we were in second year and he was pushed down the stairs by an older Gryffindor.
"You're right, Professor. I must have read the situation too quickly, sorry for causing such trouble." I spat out, turning around and heading out of the office chanting 'two more years' in my head.
Two more years until I was out of hell.
Albus' POV
I couldn't believe the professor. How could she show, so blatantly, that she thought Aladdin was a liar? As Aladdin stormed out of the room, Lily and Hugo had smirks on their faces that let the world know they thought they had just gotten away with what they had done. And they hadn't even said a word, the professor just immediately believed that there was no possible way Gryffindors, whose parents were part of the Golden Trio, could do wrong.
"Professor," I said, looking at Professor McGonagall. "I agree with Aladdin. These two were in no way trying to help them!"
Professor McGonagall sighed as she looked me over with what looked like sympathy in her eyes.
"Albus," She began. "I know that over the month, you must have gotten close to Aladdin. I am pleased that you wish to stick up for your friend's honor, but she has a track record of lying and looking too far into things."
"But she isn't lying!" I yelled, standing up in anger. "I saw these two! Their wands weren't out and they seemed perfectly happy at the fact that first years were screaming their heads off in terror!"
"Albus!" Professor McGonagall exclaimed, not at all pleased with my display of anger. "Do you really believe that your cousin and sister would do that?"
I looked at the two with disdain and then back at the professor. "I don't know what to believe anymore," I growled with narrowed eyes. "But it's none of you, and definitely not what Gryffindors have become."
With that, I left her office with rage and one question poking at my brain:
Why did I care so much that Aladdin had been treated like that? She'd been ignoring me since admitting that she thought I seemed familiar. Something weird was going on-really weird. And I mean so weird that I was worried I may have adopted my dad's trait of just stumbling into trouble.
Wow, that was a LOOOOONG chapter, longest one I've written (to make up for the ungodly short one I left you all with)! And it's not half bad if I do say so myself. I'm sorry that there hasn't been any Scorose since chapter 4, but at least there is some progress between James and Romana. YAY PROGRESS!
You know the R&R drill (though some of you refuse to do one of the 'r's (review)). Happy Spring Break (though everyone is off at a different time) I am currently off. YAY! Anyway, Adios!
Silent