Chapter XV

Detention

"Ugh!" Scorpius grunted as a black wad of dust came off the Quiddich Trophy of 993 that he was polishing. "This is so humiliating! I can't believe I, of all people, have to clean this worthless junk, especially without magic!"

"This actually isn't so bad," Rose muttered, vigorously scrubbing each trophy clean while Scorpius slowly wiped some of the dust off his second trophy. Rose had already cleaned 17 trophies.

"Not so bad?" Scorpius exclaimed, his eyes wide with shock, "this is bloody awful! Of course, one would expect a Weasley to know all about cleaning the muggle way."

Rose rolled her eyes, "I'll take that as a compliment."

Scorpius grunted and took up his third trophy, sighing when he looked down the long hall of trophy-lined cabinets and grumbled, "It wasn't meant to be a complement."

Rose shrugged. Even though she knew Scorpius was only acting the part of a Slytherin, it was still annoying.

"Well, I thought our punishment was going to be much, much worse," Rose said while putting all the trophies back into the first cabinet.

"Stinging seagulls, Rose! You just finished the first cabinet!"

"Mmm," Rose nodded like it was no big deal, "but I still have 49 ceiling high cabinets to go."

Eyeing Scorpius' fifth semi-clean trophy in his hand, Rose smiled and said with a laugh, "And you still have 50 cabinets to go."

"Hey! I'm halfway finished with my first cabinet!"

"Um, Scorpius? Each cabinet has about 50 trophies in it… you're not even nearly halfway done with you're first cabinet."

"Gah!" Scorpius spat while moodily eyeing his trophy and rag. How did you finish so fast then?"

"Well, you actually have to put some pressure on it while rubbing…"

Scorpius heaved a heavy sigh and followed Rose's instruction. To his surprise, most of the dust and grime came off.

"Whoa!" Scorpius exclaimed with a smile, holding up the trophy to show Rose.

Rose grinned and continued working.

After some silence Scorpius asked, "what did you mean when you said you expected worse?"

"Well, my mum told me that the first time she had detention, she had to go into the Forbidden Forest to search for something for Hagrid."

"But, isn't it dangerous in there?" Scorpius said, alarmed.

"I've already been…"

"What! You've been in the Forbidden Forest! Are you out of your mind? Why would you do that?" Scorpius shouted, waving his rag in the air, dust and dirt falling off of it and onto his face.

"Well, I didn't go there on purpose… at least I don't think I did?"

"What on earth do you mean?"

"It was almost like I couldn't control were I was going… I was kind of dazed. When I came back to reality, I was in the middle of the forest."

"Huh, did you ever find out who did it?"

"Who did what?" Rose asked confused.

"Who did what?" Scorpius rolled his eyes, mimicking Rose. "Well obviously someone used magic on you. Nobody in their right minds becomes tired and dazed and says 'Oh goody! I think I fancy a stroll through the Forbidden Forest! Who know's? Maybe I'll end up as some kind, giant grasshopper's dessert! Wouldn't that be just lovely?'… But then again, you are a Weasley…"

"You think someone controlled me?" Rose asked astonished, "but why would someone do that?"

"I don't know…" Scorpius whispered, itching his nose and thus smearing dirt across his cheek.

"Nearly done!" Rose exclaimed as she opened her tenth to last cabinet, "who knew so many quidditch games were played at Hogwarts, not to mention all the house cups?"

Scorpius looked down at the trophy in his hands and read the inscription.

"Rose?" Scorpius breathed while his face turned ash white, "this one isn't quidditch, a house cup, or a triwizard tournament…"

"What else is there to award a trophy for?"

"In the memory of…" Scorpius gulped.

"So they've given trophies to students who did something good, or won a kind contest?"

Scorpius looked sick.

"Are you OK?" Rose asked, noticing the trophy shaking in Scorpius' hand.

"In memory of Colin Creevey for dying with bravery in the battle of Hogwarts… Rose, this whole cabinet is devoted to the students that were killed!"

"Students killed at Hogwarts? When was this?" Rose asked a bit frightened.

Scorpius starred at her disbelievingly.

"In all those books you've read, you've never come across the Battle of Hogwarts? The battle our parents fought in? You know, The battle were your uncle Mr. Potter saved my dad and destroyed You-Know-Who?"

Rose felt embarrassed, "um, no."

The trophy clattered on the floor as Scorpius stood stunned.

"It's true then? My dad told me that the Potter and Weasley children weren't allowed to know what happened until they came to Hogwarts… something about avoiding publicity… but I didn't think you'd be completely and totally ignorant of it all!"

"How come everyone's been acting like…" Rose began, but was cut off by Scorpius.

"Rose! Come look at this!" Scorpius held out a trophy to Rose.

"In memory of Eithne Speirling for dying with bravery in the battle of Hogwarts," Rose read.

"Could it be a Speirling as in Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor Speirling?"

"She didn't die with bravery…" a deep voice echoed behind them.

Rose and Scorpius slowly turned to face Professor Speirling lurking in the shadows.

"Sir?" Rose dared ask.

"She didn't die with bravery…" Speirling whispered again in a far off voice and hurriedly strode away through the shadows, leaving Rose cold.

"Well, that was pleasant." Rose said as she turned to face Scorpius.

Scorpius' face was struck with disbelieving terror.

"Rose, don't move…"

But it was too late, Rose had already whipped her head around. She had a quick glimpse of a ghost and the next thing she new, a think layer of garbage was sprayed all over her.

"Ugh!" Rose gasped as she wiped a banana peel off her eyes.

Scorpius was spitting out something slimy onto the floor, Rose didn't want to know what that was.

"Hehehe! Peeves has slimed the detetionies!" The ghost chanted merrily while throwing more garbage at all the trophies that took hours for them to clean.

"You have got to be joking!" Scorpius gasped, enraged.

"Hehehe!" The ghost laughed.

"How could you dishonor your fellow dead?" Scorpius shouted at Peeves, waving one of the trophies in the air.

"Uh-oh!" Peeves said an evil crackle, "Eithne Speirling won't be happy! Hehehe! No indeed she won't be happy!" Peeves fled.

"I don't like the sound of that," Scorpius muttered while trying to rub something green off his face.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOO INDEEEEEEEEEEEED!!" an ear-splitting scream filled the air.

Rose felt like a brick wall passed through her and fell to the ground in astonishment.

"Let me go!" Scorpius commanded.

A ghost with a Hogwart's uniform was dangling Scorpius in the air, her hands clenched tightly around his throat.

"You DARE to SOIL my trophy?" the ghost shrieked.

"It.. wasn't… me!" Scorpius said through gasps.

"Let him go!" Rose cried.

Eithne let Scorpius drop to the ground where he landed with a hard thud and spun to Rose.

"My trophy is SOILED!" Eithne cried.

Rose was pretty sure the whole school would've been able to hear that.

"We'll clean it for you."

Rose felt cold air tighten around her neck as her feet left the ground. Eithne soared out of the trophy hall and into the adding hall with cathedral high ceilings. Rose looked down and saw Scorpius run after her, except he looked like he was the size of an ant from the hight she was at.

"Listen…" Rose tried to reason.

"You listen to MEEEEEEE!" Eithne howled, flaying Rose in the air.

Rose felt her heart race uncontrollably. She hated hights. When she was five her dad had taken her on a broom ride with him and she'd cried the whole way, even though the broom was barely off the ground. She didn't mind being up high in a tower though, as long as her feet were on something firm.

"Anyone who DARES touch MY trophy will be punished!" Eithne hissed centimeters away from Rose's face. Eithne's short, light hair stuck out on all sides as if she were underwater. Needless to say, the effect was frightening.

"We're so sorry…" Rose tried to apologize.

"Hahaha," Eithne crackled with a wicked laugh, "yes, you will be SORRY!"

Rose felt the coldness leave her neck and a gush of wind slap her body. She was falling and she couldn't even scream.

"Wingardium leviosa!" She heard Scorpius shout and watched as a bench from along the hall floated up to meet her halfway through her fall. Her body slammed into it and she grunted as she felt one of her ribs crack from the impact. The wingardium leviosa charm wasn't strong enough to hold her though. She met Scorpius' terror filled, gray eyes as he struggled to hold the charm. Seconds later the breathless feeling of falling overcame her again.

"Kick the bench away!" Scorpius shouted to her.

Rose saw that the bench would fall on Scorpius if she didn't push it. Her leg gave it a kick and a split second later the bench splintered to pieces and Scorpius briefly caught Rose in his arms before falling over from the impact.

"You OK, Rose?" she heard Scorpius gasp.

She felt like she might pass out from the pain any second, her vision was starting to darken as she stared up at Scorpius' face. Something caught the corner of her eye, Eithne had one of the larger trophies raised in her hand, ready to throw at them.

Rose pointed at the ghost and gave a little gasp. Scorpius followed Rose's eye's and flung the two of them out of the way just as the object was hurled at them.

"Eithne!" The low voice of Professor Speirling boomed across the hall.

Eithne froze in terror and disappeared through the wall.

"No! Eithne, wait! I wan't to forgive you…" Speirling shouted desperately and sighed sadly when she was gone.

The last Rose remembered seeing before everything going black was Speirling's great black robes folding over her like giant black wings and Scorpius' face with a look of pure concern and fright.

Thank you for reading! Hope that chapter had a little bit more action in it. Please help me get better by giving me some feedback. Thank you!

And again, this chapter is devoted to Hillary for inspiring this chapter.

-I didn't answer you're questing yet about why the DADA teacher is so creepy, but I'm leading up to it.