Woo! Sorry for the delay, school has been coming to a close. So you know what that means? TESTS. AND PROJECTS. AND SO MUCH HOMEWORK.
So I've been working on this in like 10 minute increments, and it took me a while to churn out. But I haven't forgotten about it, don't worry! And your comments helped motivate me :)
Here you go!
The morning was rainy.
Albus has had quite enough of the rain, thankyouverymuch. He didn't care how much Scorpius enjoyed the ghostly echo of castle, it was about time for the sun to start shining, or the snow to start falling. Anything to get rid of the insistent rain.
The first class that Monday was Defense Against the Dark Arts, a class which Albus loathed on the best of occasions. Coupled with the fact that it was raining oceans outside, it was safe to say that Albus was not a very happy camper that morning.
Defense Against the Dark Arts was a class everyone expected Albus to be good at. But then, there were lots of things people expected from Albus, and many of which he had yet to follow through with. So the first day of practicals, the teacher, Professor Wolpert, had high hopes for the young Potter boy. Until Albus set his own wand on fire and they had to evacuate the classroom until the fire could be put out.
He and Scorpius walked into the classroom that morning, and Albus let his mind drift off as the Professor began to talk about jinxes and hexes. Scorpius had to elbow him in the side to make sure he didn't miss the important information.
"Albus, what if the exams cover this?" Scorpius scolded as Al began to doze off again. "Pay attention."
"You're not my mom." Albus hissed back. Scorpius didn't say anything else so he wouldn't set off Al's foul mood, but glared out of the corner of his eyes every now and then.
"All right, who can tell me the incantation for a knockback jinx?" Professor Wolpert asked. The students looked back and forth amongst each other, but no one offered an answer. "Okay, who can tell me what a knockback jinx is?"
"A jinx...that knocks you back?" Said Farris Miller from the other end of the room, earning him some light chuckles from his peers. Wolpert smirked, and nodded.
"In essence, yes. A knockback jinx is simple and useful in certain situations, but not particularly harmful. Casted correctly, it only throws the victim back a pace or two, or makes them stumble a bit." He picked up his wand, and showed the class a certain jabbing motion with it. "Everyone, pick up your wands and try this."
Albus and Scorpius raised their wands, and tried to imitate Wolpert's movements. Albus almost lost his grip on his, but for the most part it seemed simple enough.
"The incantation is Flippendo." Wolpert continued. "Put your wands down before saying it, we don't want to trigger anything unpleasant. Yes, Flippendo. Flip-end-oh. Yes very good. Now, all of you split up into partners and spread out across the room, and we can try it together."
All at once, the first years stood from their seats. Wolpert levitated the desks over to the side of the classroom, and the pairs of students took their spots throughout the area. Albus noticed that most of them were edging as far away from Albus and Scorpius as possible. And for good reason. He though grudgingly.
"Lighten up, Albus." Scorpius whispered. "If you keep fuming like this you'll overcharge the spell, and it won't end well for anybody."
Albus glared at his friend, but sighed in defeat when he realized Scorpius was right. Albus took a few deep breaths, and then spread apart from Scorpius in the practice dueling stance.
"Okay, everyone choose one partner to go first. On my count, you will cast the jinx at the other person. Remember, Flippendo." Scorpius raised his wand at Albus. Albus lowered his, but tensed up, bracing for the impact of the incoming jinx. Wolpert counted to three, and half the students in the room simultaneously stumbled, Albus one of them. None of them had lost footing, but it was enough to make a few students slightly dizzy,
"Good, very good!" Wolpert congratulated. "Exactly what I expected of you! All right, next partners up!"
It was Scorpius's turn to tense up when Albus raised his wand to the Malfoy. On Wolpert's count, he let the jinx fly. It was a weak bolt, and not enough to make Scorpius stumble, but it did make him sway a bit. Both partners were relieved that nothing worse had come of it.
The next half hour passed by similarly. Wolpert led the next few castings, and then let them practice on their own. Most of the students progressed well, managing to knock their targets back two or three feet with every impact.
They were just about to wrap up when a jinx sent by Carson Nelson missed the target and went soaring straight for Albus. The jinx not only sent him flying back, but he flew upwards towards the ceiling.
This wouldn't have been much of a problem, except Albus didn't fall back down.
"Ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod somebodypleasegetmedownI'mstuckontheceilinggoodgod Scorpiuspleasegetsomebodytohelpme" screamed Albus, his eyes wide with terror. Some of the students laughed, others of them gasped, but it was only Wolpert who did anything to help.
It didn't take long to get Albus down, all it took were a pair of cushions and a "Finite Incantatem," but it left Al extremely shaken. Scorpius was still laughing about it when they left the classroom.
"It wasn't even me this time!" Albus growled. "Even when I'm doing perfectly well, something ALWAYS manages to happen."
"Why are you so jumpy today?" Scorpius asked. "It's unlike you."
Albus sighed and refused to meet Scorpius's eyes. In truth, he didn't know why he was so bitter. He figured the rain must just be getting to him.
They made their way towards the great hall to scoop up lunch before all the good food disappeared. As they sat down, Albus started spooning bread and leftover eggs onto his plate and Scorpius rummaged through his bag for the petition papers.
"Thanks to your cousin, and then the match last Saturday, we finally have the signatures needed to make an impact on the headmaster." Scorpius looked excited as he spoke. Albus was only partially listening, he was too invested in his egg sandwich to care much about Scorpius's triumph. "I wonder how they'll take it when they see all the signatures?"
Albus swallowed his mouthful of egg to respond. "Even if they do buy it, what makes you think they have the power to do anything about it? He's a ghost, he can't exactly be sacked, can he?"
"Well we might be able to reach some sort of compromise." Scorpius said, folding the parchment back into his bag. "It's better to try and fail rather than not try at all."
"How poetic." Al muttered. "When are you gonna talk to Macmillan?"
"Not today, seeing as it's Halloween. The teachers have too much on their plates right now to pay any attention to this kind of thing. Maybe sometime this or next week." Scorpius said, finally grabbing for a bowl of pasta to eat. "You're coming with me by the way."
"What? Why?"
"I'm the brains of this operation. You're my muscle. I need the backup."
That actually got Albus laughing, and his spirits were lifted enough to enjoy the rest of his meal without his morning's angst.
Lunch was almost over, and the students were hustling to get back to class. In the confusion, Farris knocked a glass of pumpkin juice across the table, managing to soak through at least three book bags. Farris yelled out apologies to anyone who would listen, but Nott managed to appease him by offering to clean up the spill.
"Scourgify" Nott muttered. A beam of light surrounded the orange liquid, and it looked like it was about to clear up, until the light surrounded the entire table.
"Damn!" Nott yelled. "Everyone back up!"
The few people with soaked bags clutched their belongings and darted away just in time to watch every utensil and plate on the table come crashing down to the floor below it.
"You vanished the entire table!" Gwen Robins screamed out. Nott looked at the broken tableware in horror. The other three houses erupted in laughter at the dumbstruck Slytherins.
"He didn't vanish it!" Albus yelled out. "He transfigured it! Look!"
Everyone followed Al's pointed finger to a rather startled cat, its fur the same color as the wood of the table. Even the Slytherins started chuckling this time, but the teachers that had come down to see what was going on were less than thrilled about the situation.
Some questions and transfigurings later on the teachers' part, the Slytherins all managed to set off to their next classes.
"Potions next." Scorpius said. Albus brightened up a little at the news. He had a talent for the brewing of potions, which was a surprise to him because he had never shown much skill at it before school had started.
They made their way down to the dungeons, and as they descended further into the castle the pounding of the rain faded off into the distance. When they reached the Potions classroom, the Slytherins and Gryffindors took their usual seats on opposite ends of the classroom. The students were just pulling out their standard brewing ingredients and equipment when Professor Sprout entered the room.
"Hello class!" She called out, dumping an armful of scrolls onto her desk before making her way to the chalkboard. "You can put the ingredients away, we're only doing book work this time."
A couple of the students groaned, Albus with them. Most of the others just cast confused glances at their peers.
"Follow the instructions on the board, and I'll leave you to it!" said Sprout as she finished writing on the board.
"What does it say?" Said Albus. Because he wore reading glasses, his long distance vision wasn't as good as it could be when he had them on. Scorpius squinted at it before responding.
"We have to read about the twelve uses of dragon blood and answer questions on it. It's page two hundred in the textbook."
Albus pulled out Magical Drafts and Potions and flipped to the said page. It was a ten page long article on the history of dragons and discovery of the twelve uses. He pulled out a piece of parchment and copied the questions down.
"Why do you think we're doing theory today?" Scorpius asked in a hushed tone. Most everyone in the class was working in partners, so the room was filled with chatter, and as such their conversation went unnoticed. "Last week Sprout said we were doing hair-dying today."
"Maybe she ran out of material." Albus suggested. He looked down at the first question: What qualities does dragon blood possess that basilisk blood does not?
"It is odd though, don't you think?" Scorpius continued as he wrote down the answer. "Dragon blood is completely random for right now, the curriculum has nothing to do with it."
Albus wasn't paying much attention, instead he was copying the answer Scorpius had written. "Oh just go along with it. There could be any number of reasons."
"What if there was an accident or something?" Albus glanced up at Scorpius. Did he look excited? Of course he did. If there was anything that Scorpius loved most, it was a mystery to explore.
"I'm sure everyone's fine." What is the most controversial aspect of red versus green coloring of dragon blood?
"Wouldn't you rather know instead of guess?"
Albus sighed. "Not particularly." What works of famous literature have been created on the topic of dragons blood?
"Oh c'mon." Scorpius whined. "Where's your sense of adventure? Isn't that what Hogwarts is supposed to be about? Solving mysteries, fighting evil..."
"If you want adventure, we have our hands completely full with the Lexicon." Albus pointed out. "We were gonna go plot the Astronomy tower tomorrow, remember?" If you had to choose your favorite use of dragon's blood, what would it be?
"Okay, what is up with these questions?" Albus finally exclaimed under his breath. "They are so random!"
"Exactly." Scorpius hissed.
"Lumos." Albus muttered. The tip of his wand lit up in a bright yellow glow, illuminating the face of his cousin.
"Perfect!" Rose exclaimed. "Took you long enough."
"Thanks for your encouragement." Albus muttered, but there was an amused smirk in his voice.
Albus, Rose, and Scorpius were sitting in the library. Rose, as promised, was tutoring Albus in the various spells he had been having trouble with lately. Scorpius was reading Hogwarts, a History to himself, but often offered input on whatever it was Albus was doing wrong.
"What do you need to work on now?" Rose asked. Albus shrugged, and cast a glance at Scorpius for confirmation.
"I haven't quite mastered Flippendo yet, but it's not a spell to practice in the library." Albus said.
"What classes did you two have today besides Defense Against the Dark Arts?" said Rose as she flipped through her homework assignments.
"Potions, but all we did was written work." Albus explained. Rose looked up.
"You too, huh?" she said. "It was the same for me last Friday. The other classes have stopped brewing things too. They reckon all we're going to be doing for a while is book stuff."
"Why is that?" Albus asked, the disappointment clear on his face.
"All the potions have been acting up." Rose said.
"Yeah, remember Edward Mustang's muffling draught?" Scorpius added in.
"It's not just that though." She continued. "Spells and potions are going wrong all around the school. Haven't you noticed?"
"You mean like this morning, with the table?" Scorpius asked. Rose nodded.
"How many scourgifys turn the recipients into cats?" She said.
"She has a point." Al fretted. "What if something really bad happens and we get kicked out?"
"Don't get paranoid." Scorpius muttered. "Besides, the teachers are looking into it. I overheard Professor Holmes and Professor Sinistra talking about it."
"I have to get going." Rose said, looking at her watch. "I promised Serena I would go with her to the Owlry before the feast."
"Okay." Albus said. "While you're there, can you make sure Hohenheim is okay? I haven't gone to visit him lately."
Rose waved her hand at him to let him know she heard, and then walked off without saying anything else.
"She does that a lot, doesn't she?" Scorpius said as he watched her go. Albus nodded.
"She has a flair for the dramatic I think." He put in. "We still have an hour or two before the feast starts, and I don't have any homework left. Want to go exploring?"
Scorpius looked tempted, but shook his head.
"No, if we want to work on the Lexicon we need to work on compiling notes into pages before exploring any more through the castle." He said. "We still have to finish the classroom descriptions for Charms and Transfiguration. And we promised the Fat Friar we'd show him his page once it's done, and we haven't even started."
Albus shut the spellbook he had open and tried to levitate it back onto the shelf. He succeeded, but only at the price of knocking another one over. Sighing, he walked over to the book and put it back in its place.
"I don't know about you, but I'm tired of writing things down." Said Albus. Scorpius seemed to agree, and started putting his work back into his bag.
"Well Hagrid said we could help him set up for the feast if we wanted to." He offered. "Want to go find him?"
Albus paused, and after a moments consideration consented to this idea. The two grabbed their bags and headed off to the Great Hall.
It didn't take them long to reach it from the Library, and when they looked into the Great Hall it appeared they had only just started to decorate. The charms teacher, Professor Scratford, was leading a small group of fourth years in carving Jack-O-Lanterns with their wands, and Professor Grumman was standing atop a very large stepladder working on changing the weather spell on the ceiling into a dark and stormy atmosphere. Sitting at the front of the hall was Headmaster Macmillan having a whispered discussion with the school healer–Mister Watson–while he oversaw the decorating. Hagrid himself was hanging enchanted bats from the walls while he carted pumpkins to Scratford.
Albus and Scorpius hurried in, trying their best to stay unnoticed. They scurried over to Hagrid, who beamed at the sight of them.
"I had hoped yeh would show up!" He said. "Come ter help with the decorating?"
"If that's all right." Scorpius asked politely. Hagrid waved his hand jovially.
"The more th' merrier! I could really use some help mesself. Ol' Scratford over there has his team o' students, but none o' them ever think o' me." He set down his bag of bats on the nearest table and beckoned for the two Slytherins to follow him.
They set their bags down and followed the old half-giant to the other end of the room. Hagrid reached into a large burlap sack and started pulling out rolls of parchment and various random materials (a plastic bag full of dead cockroaches, streamers that wriggled around like snakes, bouncy balls enchanted to look like eyeballs, etc.).
And so Albus and Scorpius spent the next hour as Hagrid's personal henchmen. They carted bugs over to the tables, hung streamers from the windows, and they even helped Professor Scratford with his pumpkins.
"You two are good grunt workers." Scratford had complimented them. When his fourth years had finished carving each of the pumpkins Albus would distort and enlarge them, and send them to Scorpius who levitated them into the air.
"Look at them." Headmaster Ernie Macmillan muttered under his breath. Mister Watson glanced up from his writings and followed the headmaster's gaze towards the two Slytherin first years, who were in the midst of hurling pumpkin innards at each other.
"That's the Potter kid, isn't it?" Watson asked. "I had him in the wing a couple weeks ago. That broomstick accident."
"I remember." Macmillan acknowledged. "Harry Potter's son, bad at flying. Strange, isn't it?"
"He is a Weasley too." The healer reminded him.
"All the more reason to be surprised. He comes from a line of Gryffindors, all of them Quidditch players, gifted at Defense Against the Dark Arts, and here comes little Albus Potter, the first Slytherin of the lot. What makes him different?"
Mister Watson, having never known Harry Potter during his days at school, simply shrugged at the headmaster. The two then continued their previous discussion without mention of Albus Potter again.
The feast turned out to be a fantastic event.
The duo had stayed in the Great Hall right up until all the houses started trickling in. The hall had undergone a certain transformation during the time it took to decorate it. The weather outside was a light drizzle, but the ceiling reflected dark lightning storms. Bats hung in all the crevices, popped out from under tables, streamers wrapped themselves around the arms of the students when they weren't looking. The normal candles that usually floated above their heads had been replaced with the Jack-O-Lanterns, each one uniquely carved and enchanted so no two pumpkins were alike. The ghosts also had tremendous fun in scaring the daylights out of the first years by coming up through the plates. There was even an incident where one of the Gryffindors brought a jar of serpents in the hall with the intent of scaring some of the younger Slytherins. That was a terrible fiasco for the Gryffindors, because the snakes refused to touch the Slytherins and let themselves be instructed to chase the Gryffindors down by a particularly frightening Slytherin seventh year.
"Oh don't worry about them," The seventh year had said about the scared Gryffindors as the snakes coiled themselves around the students' ankles. "They won't hurt nobody, and they had it comin to them."
Albus and Scorpius ate their fill and laughed with their fellow Slytherins. Their table all took great fun in making faces at the other houses, making hissing noises, and muttering fake enchantments under their breath.
"Why do you suppose everyone here enjoys freaking out the other houses?" Scorpius asked Albus during dessert. "No one here is actually as bad as they pretend to be."
"Maybe everyone here just has inferiority complexes." Albus said. "Besides, it is sort of fun. Playing the bad guy. You get to go against what everyone expects."
"I suppose. Oh, hey," Scorpius stopped mid-thought. "You dropped one of your books."
"Huh?"
"On the ground there."
Albus turned, and sure enough, there was a book on the ground lying not far from his bag. He leaned over to pick it up and read the title out loud.
"Encoding the Uncodable: A Beginner's Guide to Ciphers and Encryptions." He said. "This isn't mine, it's some sort of Ancient Runes textbook." Scorpius took it from Al's hands and leafed through it.
"There isn't a single rune in here." He said. "You sure it isn't yours?"
Albus nodded his head. "Does it have a name in it?"
Scorpius checked the covers. "Doesn't look like it."
Albus took the book back and pocketed it. "Who knows, maybe it'll come in handy." He said. "We can figure out where it came from later."
Scorpius looked uneasy at the idea, but said nothing.
Later, when they returned to the dormitory, Albus put the book in his bag with the rest of his supplies.
The next morning, it was gone.
Die Roxfort Lexicon - Page 4
Hogwarts Ghosts
Hogwarts is one of the few places in the wizarding world that is able to harbor ghosts for any extended period of time. Many believe this is because of all the excess magic that the school has absorbed, making it possible for ghosts to "survive" without the need for haunting or possessing to take in energy. Each house has one certain ghost, while other ghostly residents come and go as they see fit to. Most are well tempered folk eager to point new students in the right direction.
List of Permanent Ghostly Residents Within Hogwarts
-Sir Nicholas De Mimsy Porpington (aka Nearly Headless Nick)- Ghost of Gryffindor Tower. Died 1492 by beheading.
-Helena Ravenclaw (aka the Ghost of the Grey Lady) - Ghost of Ravenclaw Tower - Died early 1002 century by knife.
-Redmund Perkins (aka the Fat Friar) - Hufflepuff House Ghost. Died 1340 by Execution.
-Nelson Barrymore (aka the Bloody Baron) - Ghost of Slytherin House. Died 1002 by suicide.
-Myrtle Mason (aka Moaning Myrtle) - Ghost of the First Floor Girls' Toilets. Died 1943 by Basilisk gaze.
-Cuthbert Binns - History of Magic Professor. Died 1867 by natural causes.
-Lord Donald Draben - Ghost of the Cavalier. Died 1666 by loss of duel.
-Edgar Cloggs - Ghost of the Quidditch pitch. Died 1709 by head injury.
-Remund Edgar (aka the Black Night) - Died in 1342 by arrow to the head.
-Amberose Swatt - Died 1724 of liver poisoning
Any ghosts found in Hogwarts that are not on this list are not permanent residents of the school. There are ghosts who come to visit the school from time to time, sometimes for parties, or just to recharge on the excess magical energy the school possesses. The Ghostly Gazette listed Hogwarts as number 3 in the list of "Most Charitable Haunting Sites in the World," second only to Atlantis and Buckingham Palace.
HP doesn't belong to me yadayadayada. The writing does though so no touchy. Also, most of the ghost dates are from Harry potter wikia. That site is my bible for this fic.
(Anyone notice the sherlock holmes cameos in there? XD Unfortunately they won't be anything more than cameos and a mention here and there, I just suck at coming up with original names.)
Plot will hopefully start speeding up by next chapter, but I hope you enjoyed this one!
Nova is out. Peace.