Woo another chapter :3

I usually never crank them out this quickly, and it shows. This one is longer than chapter four, but not by much. It's still a thousand words shorter than the previous ones.

Enjoy :)

HP doesn't belong to me, my brother, my parents, my cat, my nonexistent hamster, my other cat, my dog, my invisible cat, or the fly flying around my room at the moment. If I did, I wouldn't be posting on FF dot net. Believe me.

The writing however does belong to me, so don't steal it! NovaMagma at deviantart and pinktwirlz here. ^^

Breakfast the next morning didn't involve much eating.

Albus, staying true to the Lexicon, was taking his final notes on the Great Hall and its many unique attributes. Scorpius was multitasking. He was editing his History of Magic essay, and at the same time organizing a draft to petition for the removal of Binns. As a result, neither of them had much to eat that morning, so they settled on smuggling pieces of toast to Charms instead.

Charms was taught by a middle aged man named Roman Scratford, who always seemed like he would rather be anywhere than where he was. His classes weren't bad, but at the same time they weren't good either. The last class they had with him they did nothing but read passages from the Standard Book of Spells: Grade 1 and recite incantations.

That day's class wasn't much different. Scorpius finalized his draft, and Albus took notes on the classroom. They mumbled incantations with the rest of class, and read from book passages. The most exciting thing that happened through the hour was Farris Miller's book refusing to open, and then flip through all the pages at once without stopping. Scratford didn't fix the problem, instead he just gave Farris a new book.

At the end of class, Scorpius went around to the students and started asking for signatures on his petition. At first, people were hesitant.

"What am I signing?" One of them asked.

"I'm trying to kick out Professor Binns." He would say.

This attracted more people.

"What about Professor Binns?" "Who are we kicking out?" "Can we do that?" "I don't know if that's allowed..." "Where do I sign it?" "If I sign this we can kick out Professor Binns?"

Scorpius nodded to most of the questions, and the students flocked to the paper like starving chickens to feed. In the end, he got all the first year Slytherins to sign his petition.

"That's twenty signatures already." He said to Albus later, surprised.

"Professor Binns is just popular at being unpopular I guess." Al commented. Scorpius nodded, his eyes still wide with disbelief.

The next few weeks passed in a trance. Lexicon pages were completed for three of the classrooms, and words of Scorpius's petition efforts spread like a wildfire. Scorpius didn't even have to seek people out anymore; they found him.

As the days went on, so did classes. In Transfiguration, they had moved on from transfiguring colors of objects to transfiguring the objects themselves.

"Transfiguring the pigments of an object is quite different from transfiguration in the conventional sense." Grumman said when they made the switch in units. "This time around, you have to focus directly on the object instead of its attributes. This means understanding the object, what makes it up, and what makes up the result of the transfiguration."

Though most students didn't realize it, Grumman took a very unique approach in his style of transfiguration. The teacher himself was a muggle born, and never attended Hogwarts because as a child, his parents wouldn't allow it. As such, Grumman grew up in a muggle school with muggle children. He majored in science and technology in college, and it was only then that he learned how to use magic. This was partially why he felt so out of place in the magical world.

Once he learned the fundamentals of magic, he applied his knowledge as a scientist to his magical theory. These theories brought a revolutionary way of thinking about transfiguration. Previously, transfiguration worked like apparition. You simply had to want it to happen. This meant people with the strongest emotional responses were generally the best at the subject. If they were passionate enough about what they were doing, the wand would channel that energy into completing the task. Grumman's ideas said this wasn't necessary; if one simply understood and broke down the substance into its base elements, and transfigured those elements to fit the desired result, the task would be much easier. And it certainly showed. Grumman's methods of teaching moved the students along faster than any other transfiguration curriculum.

They started with matchsticks into needles, a tried and true first transfiguration exercise. Albus, like his aunt before him, was the only one who managed to complete the transformation during the class period, earning him fifteen points for his house.

"How many signatures do you have?" Albus asked Scorpius as they left the classroom.

"I haven't run into anyone who hasn't signed it," The Malfoy boy replied. "I've got practically all the Slytherins, and the Hufflepuff first years. There are too many here to count."

"Want to get the Ravenclaws next?" Albus asked.

"Why them in particular?"

"Well Rose could help us talk to them." Al said. "Lots of the other houses don't like Slytherins, so if we had her help they might be more willing." Scorpius nodded in thought.

"That's a good idea." He said. "Which brings up another question.

"How are we going to make Lexicon pages for the other common rooms?" Scorpius asked.

Albus pondered while they walked to the great hall for dinner. "That's a very good question. I don't really know the answer. I suppose we have seven years to figure it out before we graduate."

Scorpius didn't look like he was willing to wait seven years, but he said nothing.

The duo entered the Great Hall with the rest of the Slytherins, but instead of going with their peers, they headed towards the Ravenclaw students and scanned them for Rose's Weasley-orange hair.

Instead, Rose noticed them first and waved them over.

"Hey you two." She called out. Scorpius smiled, and Al nervously nodded in greeting.

"Who're they?" One of the other Ravenclaws asked. Rose turned around on her bench to face her cousin.

"Serena, Tatiana, this is my cousin Albus Potter and his friend Scorpius Malfoy." She gestured to the boys, who nodded at the girls she mentioned. "Al and Scor, Serena Null and Tatiana Julian." Serena was a korean girl with her hair pulled back into a ponytail, and Tatiana was a tall brunette with unusually large, but pretty, eyes. Both of them cautiously waved at the Slytherins.

"D'you need something?" Rose asked her cousin. Al passed the floor onto Scorpius, who began to speak.

"I'm the one starting the petition against Professor Binns." He started. Some of the other Ravenclaws looked his way as he said it. "We were wondering if you could help us get support from the Ravenclaws." Rose laughed.

"I should have known it would be you guys." She said. "Yeah, I can help you with that." Scorpius smiled at her, and handed her a copy of the parchment with a brief description of the petition.

"Can you get signatures on this and give it back when you have as many as you can get from your house?" He asked. Rose nodded, quickly adding her own name to the parchment, and handing it to her friends.

"This thing is gonna be popular." Tatiana stated to the boys. They glanced her way. "Especially with the Ravenclaws. We hate Binns more than anyone in the school I'm willing to bet."

"Of course!" Rose giggled. "After all, we're the smart ones. It doesn't do any good to be in school if the teachers can't teach."

When Scorpius and Al left the table, Rose was handing it to everyone down the line. Everyone that it was handed to signed it.

The two headed down to their own table to get dinner before the food disappeared. Scorpius ended up striking a conversation with the Nelson twins over that days Charm's lesson, and Albus busied himself with commandeering what was left of the shepherd's pie before the rest of his house finished it.

The night was a chaotic one. Carson Nelson got into a rather loud game of exploding snap with Farris Miller, and there was quite an ordeal when Taylor's owl broke into the common room and started harassing one of the girls. It was nearly midnight by the time Al finally got to sleep.

The next day was friday, and friday meant double potions.

It wasn't a class that warranted any particular dread amongst the students, but the attention span of an eleven year old could only stretch so far.

This particular potions class did have a certain significance to it. They were finally about to brew a potion all on their own. In the past few weeks, all they had done was brew small things, and the Professor had guided them all through it. This time around, all they were given was a recipe and instructions to find a partner.

Albus and Scorpius naturally partnered with each other. The recipe on the board was for a muffling draught, and they were told to complete it before the lesson was finished.

In the end, it wasn't a bad lesson. After adding the cat hair, the recipe needed to simmer for a good half hour, so it allowed the duo to talk while they waited. There were even a few Gryffindors who approached them asking about the petition for Binns. Scorpius gave a piece of parchment to one of them, asking if he could get signatures from the Gryffindor house. The poor Gryffindor was hesitant, but once Albus explained the parchment wasn't jinxed he agreed.

The rest of the class went smoothly, up until there were ten minutes left to go.

Most of the students were just adding the finishing touches. Albus and Scorpius admired their handiwork, they felt this potion would at least get them an "Exceeds Expectations" mark. They were just bottling it up when one of the Gryffindor's Muffling Draughts spouted one large bubble, and it splashed nearly everyone in the classroom.

Even when people tried to scream out, they couldn't. Nearly half the students had been drenched with the draught, and their voices no longer seemed to work. The maker of the potion had not been splashed, interestingly enough, and he kept repeating apologies and saying, "I don't understand, I did everything perfectly!"

Sprout let them go with the promise that the draught would wear off overnight, and not for anyone to worry. One thing was fortunate though; with Albus incapacitated, no one could hear him fretting about it.

"Another potion went wrong?" Macmillan asked.

"I'm sure of it." Sprout responded. She sunk down into one of the staffroom chairs as she said it. "Edward Mustang is one of my top first years, I'm certain he would have followed the recipe perfectly. I don't understand what happened."

"Perhaps he did just make a mistake." Longbottom added. He walked over to the distressed Professor Sprout and handed her a steaming cup of tea. The potions master took it gratefully in her hands, letting the steam clear her head. "They are first years after all."

"You don't understand." Sprout cut back in. "A Muffling Draught is VERY hard to mess up." She took a sip of the tea. "I chose it specifically for my first years for that very reason. You could do all the steps in random order, and the worst that could happen is it might turn an unsatisfactory shade of blue."

"And all the potions have been exhibiting problems throughout all the classes?" Macmillan asked. Sprout nodded.

"Never seen anything like it. Potions don't act this way without very good reason."

Macmillan shook his head in confusion. "Could someone be tampering with the ingredients?"

"I wouldn't put it past that Potter kid." Grumman added in to the discussion. The three teachers gave a start, none of them having noticed he was there. "Sounds like something Potter'd do."

"I'll have a word with James Potter later," Macmillan muttered, lost in thought. "But somehow I don't think that's what's going on." Longbottom and Macmillan caught each other's eyes. Both of those teachers knew from experience never to underestimate any problems occurring at Hogwarts. "For now, there's nothing we can do except wait and see if it subsides. Just remember to watch over the students, make sure nothing extremely dangerous happens. We don't want any serious mishaps."

"Of course, headmaster." Sprout sighed. She tried to take another sip of tea, but her hand slipped and she spilled it all over her robes.

The weekend came, and with it came the first bout of rain for the grounds at Hogwarts. It couldn't be heard from the Slytherin common room, because the room was underneath the lake. Whenever someone ventured out of the safety of the dungeons it was a constant booming from the walls and ceiling, amplified by the spacious hallways.

Scorpius loved it. He said it created a new "mystique" to the castle. He insisted Albus explore the halls with him again, this time to take notes for the lexicon.

So, just like last Saturday, Albus and Scorpius roamed the halls of the castle. Albus took note from Gareth Olivander, the man who had sold him his wand, and managed to bind pages of parchment together to create a notebook. The mess of papers resembled the paper notebooks muggles often used. The binding wasn't perfect, and the ink from his quill tended to blot together if the pages were pressed for too long, but it was easier than carrying around scrolls wherever they went.

The logical beginning to their exploration would have been the dungeons, but since the rain couldn't be heard from there it took away the point Scorpius had originally made in wanted to explore the halls. So they started from the entrance hall and made their way up the staircase into the various halls that stemmed from it.

The first hallway was the first floor corridor, a hallway that was lined with suits of armor. Albus has heard rumors that the suits of armor could move around, and Scorpius was determined to confirm this. Unfortunately, the armor appeared to be asleep. If not, they were all just determined to ignore the first years' attempts.

Scorpius would try to start a conversation with various suits, and Albus took notes. He took notes on the differences in the suits, and the methods Scorpius would use to get a reaction.

First floor - Armor:

Determined to remain still.

Distraction methods used:

-Conversation

-Questions

-Requests for help

-Irritating stories

-Silly voices

-Silly faces

-Insults

-Insults to its mother

-Death threats

Effectiveness: Ineffective

In the end, they couldn't get any sort of movement from the armor, so they jotted down the various tapestries and left the room.

As they left, Albus was sure he heard snickering.

Dear Albus,

It's good to hear you are well! And don't worry about James's descriptions, we know how he likes to exaggerate.

Hohenheim sounds like a lovely name! Ron will be delighted to hear he could contribute to it. He seems like a very nice owl. He made sure not to leave until we had written a satisfactory reply. I'm sure he will make you a loyal companion.

Slytherin! Congrats! You will have to keep us up to date on everything that goes on in there. I'm sorry the Gryffindors are being so horrible, but I guess it puts it all in perspective. Times really have changed.

And don't worry about being sent to the Hospital Wing either. Your father spent more hours in the Hospital than I care to count.

With love,

Mom

Was it any good?
The plot is starting to pick up, so that's a plus. Remember to leave a comment, it motivates me :) Or if you'd like to tell me how I can improve, I'm open any and all suggestions!

And thank you Tom for your comment! I'm responding here since you reviewed anonymously, but it made me happy to read! *hug*

Oh, I almost forgot. I have a question for you guys. Should I give Albus Harry's invisibility cloak? It would be useful later on if Al got it, but I don't want to overpower him or make him a copy of his dad. James already has the marauder's map at this point, so Al won't have that. But the cloak could also be used to expand the lexicon.

Thoughts? Cloak or no cloak?

Okay, farewell and have a happy life!