Chapter 9: Straight Out Trolling
Morning arrived once more and Harry woke up to Ron excitedly shaking him awake.
"Harry! Get up! Don't you know what day it is?"
"No… Please enlighten me…" said Harry as he got up groggily. He was finally getting some decent sleep, only to be disturbed by an excited Ron Weasley.
"We get to go to Hogsmeade Harry!"
"Ron, you're going to Hogsmeade. I didn't get my form signed. Now let me sleep, it's the weekend!"
Ron looked put off suddenly, "No Harry, you've got to come. We'll ask McGonagall! She'll make an exception for you!"
"Fine, fine. I'm coming."
So Harry quickly got dressed and made his way to dinner. He knew McGonagall was going to say no anyway, so tried to think of what he was going to do for the day. It looked like today was going to be one of those 'sit-by-yourself-and-brood' days. Harry sighed. He could always go flying or something.
So Harry soon found himself in front of McGonagall. Ron and Hermione asked and pleaded if Harry could come, but alas there was nothing that could be done. Harry saw them off and wished them fun, then turned around to go walk around the castle.
But it turned out that fate wasn't going to give Harry the day off.
After turning around the first corner, Harry found Luna flattened against the wall with her wand out, sliding along very slowly. Harry called out to her.
"Luna, what's up?"
"Shh! I have finally located the origin of the Nargles!" said Luna whispering.
"Oh, what is it?" asked Harry in a hushed voice.
"It is a Balrog of course!"
"What's a Balrog?"
"I saw one in a muggle film. They light on fire and can only be defeated by yelling, 'You Shall Not Pass!'" (1)
Harry let out a nervous laugh, "Well, I guess I'll leave you to your business." Harry turned to walk the other way, but Luna grabbed his sleeve.
"Wait, Harry"
"What?" asked Harry.
"…"
"…" Harry started to walk away, realizing the awkwardness of the silence. Luna grabbed his sleeve again.
"Wait, Harry"
"Why?"
Then Harry heard footsteps as a group of Ravenclaws walked right by him. As soon as they passed, Luna let out a sigh. Harry turned to ask her about it.
"What's wrong?"
"Those guys always take my things and hide them, and they always call me silly names. Not that I mind though…"
Harry sighed. He needed something to do. He quickly disillusioned himself and ran out in front of the group. He also used a spell to amplify his voice.
"Oi! What has two legs and walks around funny?"
"Who said that!" said one of the Ravenclaws.
"I said what cries out in terror and rolls on the floor"
"No you didn't!" shouted out one of the snottier Ravenclaws.
"The riddle is all the same"
"Umm… Well that would be…"
"You" finished Harry.
"What!"
"Incendio!"
The middle Ravenclaw's cloak lit ablaze. The screamed and ran around, before diving to the floor and rolling around. Harry laughed and made his way back towards Luna.
"So what did you think?" asked Harry.
"What did I think of what?"
"You know, the show?"
"What show?"
"The Ravenclaws over there." At this Luna seemed to take a moment to think.
"I don't know the answer to that riddle."
"Not the riddle the- Oh never mind. Good luck on your Balrog hunt!"
And with that, Harry left while shaking his head, wondering what he would do for the rest of the day. He couldn't just sit around and do school work, because he had already finished all of it. Plus that would just be a waste. Harry sighed and went up to the owlery.
Harry took a short flight around Hogwarts just for fun, before spotting Snape's window open. Harry smirked on the inside as he swooped down and perched on Snape's window sill. The man was hard at work, having to stamp 'T' for Troll on every paper that he was grading. He was mumbling about how incompetent every student was. He then came to Harry's paper. He paused for a minute, and looked at it. Then he stamped a 'A' for Acceptable while mumbling that the boy most likely cheated and was a stuck up loser.
Harry hooted, calling Snape's attention to bird. The man turned and sneered out, "What do you want?"
Harry just simply cocked his head to the side innocently. Snape sighed and got back to his work. Harry saw that he was now grading Hermione's paper. He briefly glanced at the ten page report, before moving his hand towards the 'A' stamp. Hermione always got 'A's' on her work from Snape. The only time he ever gave out an 'E' was with the Slytherins, and he never gave out 'O's'. Harry smirked on the inside again and swooped over to the table.
Snape was surprised and tried to shoo the flying bird away, but to no avail. Harry knocked over the 'O', for Outstanding, stamp that was lying over a pile of books onto Hermione's paper. He then flew back over to the window sill. Snape looked at the damage and lost it. Harry noticed that it was high time to leave, but as he was flying away, he heard Snape yell out, "Bloody bird! You will pay!" Harry only could imagine what all the other students were thinking.
After his short, yet constructive, flight, Harry went over to the Great Hall for lunch. He briefly looked around for Ron and Hermione, before remembering they were most likely still gone. Instead, he saw Fred and George sitting at the far end of the table. Harry made is way over and sat with them.
As Harry was walking up to them, Malfoy stepped in between.
"Oh, Potter, looking for a new pack of weasels?"
"You don't have to be jealous of my friends, Malfoy."
"I'd rather die than hang around those fools..."
"You don't need to hide it Malfoy!" Harry said very loudly. Suddenly the whole room was watching him, and listening with anticipation.
"Hide what? I don't have anything to hide from you!"
"Ah, Malfoy, we're all friends here! No one will make fun of you!"
"Just quit it! C'mon!" said Malfoy with his eye twitching.
"Alright, but don't blame me if they find THAT out..." and with that, Harry walked away with a bumbling Malfoy and a room full of crazy rumors.
"Hey Harry! Nice of you to join! Loved the show by the way!" said the twins in their usual fashion.
"Yeah, but why are you two here?" asked Harry.
"Ouch, we are wounded from such a sharp tongue. We are here because we had detention, and our Hogsmeade rights were taken away for a bit. Besides, we thought we'd keep our sister company a bit!"
Apparently, Ginny still hadn't made many friends at school, most likely due to the events of last year. But no matter, Harry was sure she'd rebound soon. She just needed a push in the right direction. Harry couldn't help a grin spread across his face.
"Hey, Gred, Forge? Don't you think this place is kinda boring right now?"
His grin was contagious as his ideas caught on. The twins looked at each other before nodding.
"Yeah, I think its about time that we extend that penalty of ours."
The three left the Great Hall dragging Ginny along with them, only to lock themselves up inside their dorm room for quite a while. Eventually, Harry showed up for dinner, along with his 'team'. He saw Ron and Hermione and made his way over to sit with them.
"Hey Ron, how was it?"
"It was great! Loads of fun! We even-" Ron was cut off by a nudge from Hermione.
"Anyways, what did you do Harry?" asked Hermione.
"Not much, just planned a little fun."
"What do you m-" and Hermione was cut off by a rather strange scene.
Malfoy jumped up onto the table and began singing, at the top of his lungs, "THUNDERBOLTS AND LIGHTNING VERY VERY FRIGHTENING ME!"
Then Crabbe and Goyle stood up and yelled out, "GALILEO!"
"GALILEO"
"GALILEO"
"GALILEO FIGARO"
"MAGNIFICOoOoOoO"
Then it was Snape's turn as he stood atop the professor's desk.
"I'm just a poor boy nobody loves me!"
Then Draco continued, "HE'S JUST A POOR BOY FROM A POOR FAMILY! SPARE HIM HIS LIFE FROM THIS MONSTROSITY!" (2)
And then the whole cast sat down while the room was bathed in silence. Several seconds passed before Harry began clapping. Then the twins started clapping. Then all of Gryffindor was clapping. And soon enough, the whole room was laughing at the expense of the cast.
"Well that went better than I thought!" came the twins voices.
"That was bloody brilliant, how did you do it Harry!" asked Ron.
"Well it was mainly the twins potions, a couple timer spells, and a certain house elf willing to help us out."
"You could get in trouble for that Harry!" came Hermione's voice of reason.
"Put on a straight face and tell me that wasn't funny!" Hermione tried but a smile caught on.
"Fine you win."
"Never knew you had it in you Potter! Yeah, Harry" came the twins voices.
"Oh yeah! Ginny, did you get those pictures?" asked Harry.
"Erm... I think buy I've never used one of these before..."
"Its fine, they probably turned out good. Blackmail material is always good."
"Why didn't you just ask Collin?" questioned Ginny.
Harry simply replied, "The less people know, the better."
After Dumbledore finally quited down the hall and got everyone to finish their food, Harry made his way up the stairs to his dorm. Of course, Ron was still going on about how awesome Hogsmeade was, but Harry didn't mind too much. He knew what he was missing. As he was about to go to sleep though, Harry noticed the Daily Prophet on his bed. He had put it there because he didn't really feel like reading it this morning. Harry unwrapped it and opened it up, but the front headline made his eyes grow wide.
'TRIAL SCHEDULED FOR SIRUS BLACK'
Footnotes:
(1) In case you didn't figure it out already, thats good old Lord Of The Rings right there.
(2) Yep, thats a real song for those that don't know. Its Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen.