o.o.o.o.o

After the distrastrous lesson in Potions Arthur wanted nothing else but to be left alone. Unfortunately it wasn't quite so simple, and so he reluctantly had went to his lesson in Herbology with the Ravenclawas and his fellow Slytherins before he finally was free for the rest of the day. Afterwards, the moment the class was over, Arthur immediately took the oppurtunity to run down towards the lake. He was finally alone. Perhaps it was stupid to skip lunch, but right now Arthur couldn't stand the thought of entering the Great Hall where everyone was about to eat lunch. Arthur was already tired of the whispers which had begun to spread about what happened to Professor Snape's desk, and it wouldn't surprise him if the whole school would know about what happened before the end of the day.

Once Arthur reached the lake he sat down in the grass and leaned back against a nice, smooth rock and looked out over the lake. It was peaceful here. Unlike Arthur's stormy mind the lake was smooth with not a ripple in sight, and the chilly autumn sun made it sparkle like diamonds. In a way it felt as if nature itself tried to tell Arthur the day was too beautiful to be moping around, and so Arthur took a deep breath and tried to put his anger towards Professor Snape to the back of his mind.

It was hard to believe he had already been at Hogwarts for two weeks, and with the exception of Professor Snape's lessons he loved it here. It was nothing like being tutored at home and the long wait for one of his brothers to come home from work. Speaking of his brothers, Arthur wondered what they did right now. Patrick, William and Scott were probably busy with different kinds of meetings, but Dylan could be anywhere from free for the day to taking care of another rampaging dragon.

Maybe this was even one of those rare days when all of them were home from work early, and right now they could be eating Dylan's homecooked food while they complained about the idiots at work...

Arthur ignored the new lump in stomach and hurriedly tried to put away the thoughts about his brothers to the back of his mind. He didn't miss them. Really. Homesickness was for babies, wasn't it? In any case Arthur would get to see them again at Christmas. Besides, his brothers still wrote letters to him, so it wasn't like he had no contact with his brothers at all.

'This is the first time you have been away from your brothers for longer than two days though,' a treasonous voice in Arthur's head told him.
'Is it really so surprising if you become a little homesick?'

"I'm not homesick," Arthur muttered to himself in denial. "I don't miss them at all."

However if he did, and only if, then that would also be okay. Logically speaking Arthur couldn't be the only one at Hogwarts who was homesick either, which he of course wasn't! Really…

While he tried to ignore the obvious Arthur instead forced himself to do a mental check of his homework.

He had already finished his homework for Defence Against the Dark Arts, Charms and History of Magic, but he still needed to finish his work for Potions and Transfiguration. Professor McGonagall was a great, but strict, teacher, and Arthur wasn't going to risk ending up on her bad side just because he hadn't finished his homework in time. He still had the whole weekend to work on it though, since it didn't need to handed in until Tuesday.

However it didn't take long for Arthur's thoughts to return to his brothers and what they could be doing, and while the lump in his stomach grew stronger Arthur continued to stay lost in his thoughts. Eventually the sun slowly began to make its way down behind the horizon though, and Arthur began to shiver in the chilly autumn air. Perhaps it hadn't been one of Arthur's brightest ideas to sit outside in the cold autumn air in only his normal clothes and wizard robes, but it wasn't like he had planned to sit by the lake for as long as he did. Deciding it was time to head back to the castle Arthur stood up with a shiver of cold, dusted himself off and turned around - not expecting to see the gigantic man who led all first years to Hogwarts on the day they arrived.

"There yeh are, I've been looking for yeh. Were yeh planning to stay here all day til' yeh froze to death?"

Arthur suddenly became aware he must have stayed outside for much longer than he originally thought, if people even had begun to look for him.

"Well?" the man questioned loudly, and stopped in front of him when Arthur forgot to answer.

He didn't look angry though, so at least it didn't look like Arthur was in trouble.

"Sorry… Sir," Arthur hurried to answer while he shivered because of the cold air, unsure what to call the gigantic man since he wasn't a teacher.
"I got lost in my thoughts, but I didn't mean to stay outside for as long as I did."

"Obviously, considering the lack of warmer clothes yeh are wearing. Jus' call me Hagrid, by the way. Have never been much for tha' formal crap anyway," Hagrid grunted and fished out a blanket from one of his many enourmous pockets in his black coat, which he then hung over Arthur's shoulders.

"Blimley, yeh are ice-cold! Come along, we need to warm yeh up before yeh catch yer death."

Dumfounded by the sudden turn of events Arthur followed Hagrid away from the lake. At first he thought Hagrid was just going to lead him back to the castle, but instead Hagrid led him past both the greenhouses and the Whomping Willow. After what felt like an entirnity for Arthur's freezing body, but couldn't have been more than a few minutes at most, Arthur and Hagrid arrived to a small wooden hut close to the Forbiden Forest. Upon opening the door Hagrid was then immediately loudly greeted by an enourmous black boarhound.

"Down Fang, down," Hagrid ordered the dog and eventually succeeded to make the dog, apparently named Fang, sit down so Arthur and Hagrid could enter the small house.

"Make yerself at home. Tea?"

"Yes, please," Arthur answered politely, never able to decline a cup of tea.

While Hagrid went to the fireplace and put a kettle with water over the fire Arthur took the opportunity to sit down on one of the four chair around the big table and look around. However to Arthur's big surprise the house only appeared to consist of a single room. Pheasants and hams hung from the ceiling, the table Arthur sat at stood in the middle of the room, and a massive bed with a quilt stood in the corner. For being someone of his rather large size Hagrid lived in a surprisingly small house.

The water didn't take too long to boil – magic was useful like that – and while they waited Hagrid made small talk with Arthur and asked about how he enjoyed Hogwarts and what kind of things they had learnt so far. When the water was ready Hagrid pured the boiling water into a large teapot and also gave Arthur a plate with three sandwiches.

"Yeh looked hungry, and yeh were repor'ed missing from lunch," Hagrid shrugged with a smile when Arthur gave him a questioning look.

"I figured yeh would be hungry by now. Jus' tell me if yeh want more, and I'll make some for yeh."

Arthur didn't know Hogwarts had a system to make sure the students ate or not, but he supposed it made sense.

"No, this is fine. Thank you."

It was only when he began to eat his first sandwhich Arthur realised how truly hungry he was, and it didn't take long until he had eaten all three of his sandwhiches and slowly begun to drink his tea.

"Yeh know, it is almos' scary how much yeh look like yer dead brother," Hagrid suddenly commented and sat down on the chair on the opposite side of Arthur.

"If I didn' know better I would have said you and Merlin were iden'ical twins or something. Yeh look like a younger copy of him."

"Did you know him?" Arthur asked in surprise.

"Yeah, he was a friend of mine. We fough' together agains' you-know-who's followers a few times too."

"What was he like?" Arthur couldn't help but to ask, now when he finally met someone who actually wanted to talk about him.

Hagrid gave Arthur a wide smile.

"Merlin acted like a grumpy ol' man most of the time, but deep down he was a real softie. Yeh should have seen his face when we threw him a birthday party! Insisted he wasn' happy at all while he couldn' fight the grin and the tears of happiness off his face."

Arthur couldn't help but to smile himself at the new information about his dead brother.

"He was so powerful too," Hagrid continued in a much softer voice. "He was so young and shouldn' have had to figh' in the war, but no one can deny his help made sure we didn' lose the war righ' then and there. Yeh can be proud of him, Arthur. Yer brother Merlin was a fine man."

"How…" Arthur began, but hesitated for a moment while he considered if he really should voice his question or not.
"Do you know what the relationship between my older brothers was like? How did they get along?"

This time Hagrid hummed in thought for a moment before he answered.

"Hard to say, but I got the impression their relationship was a lil' rocky. The few times I saw Merlin together with yer other brothers they were almost always arguing about something. Merlin seemed to get along bes' with Dylan and the younges' twin though, but it was obvious they all cared abou' each other. It's just tha' Merlin, yer red-headed brother and the oldes' twin are people who I would call stubborn and angry worriers. With tha' I mean they have a tendency to get angry if they're worried, and then they're too stubborn to admi' being worried in the first place."

It sounded familiar to Arthur, so it didn't surprise him to hear Hagrid say that. He didn't blame Hagrid for thinking Patrick and William were twins either, and told him so. The two of them looked very similar after all, and were even close in age with only a year between them.

When the both of them had finished their tea Hagrid followed Arthur back up to the castle, where they then went separate ways and Arthur went into the Great Hall for a late dinner. Thankfully enough there weren't a lot of people still eating, but he could still feel eyes follow him when he took a seat at the Slytherin table. Arthur hurried to eat his dinner and then only went to get his books before he fled up to the library, where he just as predicted found Hermione sitting at a table. To Arthur's surprise Neville was with her as well, but Arthur didn't mind. He was thankful none of them mentioned the potion class either, and instead he and Hermione immediately began to take turns to help Neville understand his homework in Transfiguration while they also finished their own. Afterwards Hermione tried to help both Arthur and Neville with their homework in Potions. Key-word being tried to.

It turned out Neville actually was more knowledgeable about the theoretical parts of Potions than Arthur originally thought, because Neville had read about many of the ingredients in his books about Herbology. However even when Neville knew the answer he always asked Hermione more than once if it was the correct answer, "just to be sure". It made Arthur wonder if Neville always had this little confidence in himself and his abilities, or if it only had begun after he arrived at Hogwarts.
To be honest Arthur wasn't sure if he wanted to know the answer to that question.

Meanwhile Potions just didn't make much sense to Arthur. He knew most, if not all, of the ingredients and what they did by heart - however the problem seemed to begin when it came to how the ingredients affected each other to become the correct potion. Arthur always perfectly followed the instructions Professor Snape wrote on the chalkboard, but for some reason Arthur's potions still never seemed to turn out as they should. It didn't make any sense!

"I don't see why you have a problem with potions. You're brilliant at all the other subjects, and as long as you correctly follow the recipe you should be able to complete a working potion. It's very similar to cooking," Hermione commented in frustrated confusion, which didn't exactly make Arthur feel better.

"Then I pray none of you ever will be unfortunate enough to taste the cooking of my family," Arthur just grumbled back in answer, ignoring both Hermione's and Neville's looks of confusion.

o.o.o.o.o

The detention with Professor Snape the next morning was horrible in itself, as if having detention six o'clock on a Saturday morning wasn't bad enough. It didn't help Arthur also had been unable to fall asleep the night before and instead had been laying awake and thought about his conversation wih Hagrid. To be honest Professor Snape was actually not too bad during the detention since he spent most of it sitting at his new (not melted) desk, grading papers with a sneer on his face. For the the most part Professor Snape ignored Arthur and the other eight students from various grades and houses. It was something Arthur actually was thankful for. However at the other hand it soon became clear by the other students' whispers and glances the news about what happened the day before had spread through the school like a wildfire, and somewhere along the way had become distorted.

"Hey, that's the Kirkland kid who melted Professor Snape's desk."

"Yes, I heard he sent at least two of his classmates to the Hospital Wing too. I must say it doesn't surprise me. Slytherins never care if their pranks hurt someone."

"Would a Kirkland really hurt someone on purpose though? I mean-"

"I did not send any of my classmates to the Hospital Wing, and neither did I melt Professor Snape's desk on purpose!" Arthur stated clearly through seething anger towards the two "whispering" Ravenclaw students from second year, who quickly ducked their heads in shame and immediately pretended to be working on their papers.

"No talking," Professor Snape commented without looking up from his papers.

"But-"

"No talking, Kirkland. Or would you rather spend next week after school in detention as well?" Professor Snape asked coldly as he finally looked up from his papers and met Arthur's gaze.

Still seething with anger Arthur reluctantly did as he was told and stopped to talk, but spent the rest of the detention imagining hexing Professor Snape and the two Ravenclaws with an itching spell.

Needlessly to say it was not a happy Arthur who later left the dungeons to eat breakfast, and neither did his mood become any better when the owls arrived with the post. According to the letter from Dylan all of his brothers would be away on international buissiness until the next Friday, and would therefore not be able to write him any letters during the time. To Arthur this also meant they wouldn't be able to send him a new cauldron to replace the old one, which was currently snuggling with Cassie in his bed. No, he didn't know how or why a cauldron would snuggle with a cat, and he didn't want to know either, thank you very much. Arthur was busy cursing the fact he had forgotten to ask his brothers about a new cauldron in his last letter, and now he would have to wait another week before he could ask for one.

That day came quicker than Arthur thought, because now when the first "introduction weeks" were over the lessons quickly became more advanced and their homework more time consuming, even if it didn't necessarily mean it was more difficult than before. As a result Arthur also became too busy to worry about how his brothers would react to the fact he needed a new cauldron not even three weeks into his first school year. What Arthur did wonder about instead was when he another week later - along with the rest of the students in the Great Hall currently eating breakfast - noticed a long, thin broom-shaped package being carried by six large screech owls towards the Gryffindor table and being dropped in front of none other than Harry Potter.

Whispers immediately broke out around the whole hall about the package, which obviously was in the shape of a broomstick. Arthur could practically hear Hermione's voice in his head tell him "First years are not allowed their own brooms!", but that rule didn't seem to stop Harry from reading the letter attached to the package and then in clear excitement show it to Ron before they quickly left the Great Hall with the package. Arthur saw how Hermione immediately left her seat and followed Harry and Ron out of the Great Hall, but this time Arthur figured it really wasn't his problem if Harry ended up in trouble if he was stupid enough to order a broom for himself despite of the rules. Instead Arthur was distracted when Scott's huge Eagle Owl, named Owlio, suddenly landed with a small thump in the middle of Arthur's breakfast with a package. Since his plate of egg and bacon now was ruined Arthur only scowled back at Owlio and gave him a piece of bacon before he took away the package.

The package not so surprisingly contained a letter and his new cauldron for Potions, and against his better judgement Arthur decided to open the letter to read it at once.

"What the hell did you do?" were the very first words written in the letter, and Arthur already regretted his decision to read it.

"I received a letter from the teacher of your house after you were given detention, because you melted his desk in Potions class. It doesn't sound like something you would do on purpose, so how the hell did you manage that? I sent you a new cauldron with Owlio, but try to stay out of trouble from now on – otherwise I'm going to go insane from Dylan's mutterings about the Kirkland genes for trouble. Anyway, both Dylan and I are within the UK again and Patrick is back home in Ireland, so you can expect them to send you letters again as well. Stay out of trouble! /Scott."

Well, Arthur supposed he shouldn't be surprised his brothers were contacted about the incident with the melted desk, but he couldn't help but to wonder why Scott didn't mention where William was. Probably still on international buissiness for the government, but he could still have mentioned where William was… It was good to know most of his brothers were back though, and hopefully this meant they would be able to stay at home for a while.

"Owlio, fly to the owlery and I'll come with an answer for Scott later," Arthur told the gigantic owl, and to Arthur's surprise Owlio actually listened to what he said and flew out from the Great Hall in the direction of the owlery.

With that done he gathered his things and hurried out to meet up with Hermione and Neville just outside the castle. This Saturday the sun was shining with barely a cloud in sight, and together he and Neville had finally convinced Hermione the three of them needed a break from their homework. It was almost October after all, and the weather wasn't going to become better the longer into the autumn they were here, so they might as well take the time to enjoy the nice weather while they still could.

At first Hermione only ranted about Harry's and Ron's earlier behavior with the broom (which also was how Arthur and Neville learnt Harry apparently had special permission for it), but surprisingly enough it was then Hermione who suggested the three of them should play Hide-and-Seek, and after explaining the game to Neville they had a lot of fun running around the grounds and trying to find new places to hide in. During Hermione's turn to count Arthur also got to make use of his climbling skills again, and it didn't take long before he had climbed high up in a pine. Arthur had to hide his laugher as he watched Hermione, and later also Neville, try to find him. It was funny how people usually forgot to look up when they searched for something.

After lunch they went down and sat by the lake for a while, and Neville took the opportunity to teach them a wizard card-game about dangerous plants. For the game the deck of cards were seperated into three piles of cards (since they were three players). Each of their pile of cards faced the ground, and counting to three all of them then turned around the top-card of their pile so they could see the plant on their card. At this point the card activated and a miniature version of the plant would pop up from the card, and the first person to then calm down their plant and make it go back into the card again won the round and received the other players' cards. This continued until one player no longer had any cards left to turn around.

While the game sounded simple, it was much more difficult than it looked. Neville ended up outclassing both him and Hermione at the game. At one point Arthur was unlucky enough to get a miniature version of the Whomping Willow in his deck, but since not even Neville knew how to calm it down they had to push it down into the lake with a stick instead. Later in the game Arthur was then unable to stop his laughter when one of Hermione's plants from the card farted her in the face. This immediately came back to bite him when the plant turned around and farted him in the face as well, which resulted in even more laughter from the other two.

They played the game for so long they almost missed dinner, but it was a still laughing and grinning trio who went towards their respective tables in the Great Hall after they had agreed to meet up in the library the following morning. After dinner Arthur then also answered Scott's letter, where he told his brother about everything he had done during the day. Once Arthur had sent away his reply with Owlio he went back to the common room and played wizard chess with Jack. Though Arthur lost more than he won, he still had a good time playing.

Life was good.

o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o

(. End of Chapter 11 .)

o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o

*/Nervous waving/* Hello everyone! Sorry for disappearing on you for so long. Life outside of the computer has been hectic,
but I want you to know I DO plan on finishing this fanfiction. It will most likely just take a very long time to do so... ^_^;
My education will be finished late May 2018, so if nothing else I should have more time to write by then. :)
Hopefully I will be able to get out the next chapter before then though. Believe it or not, but I don't want to make you wait longer than necessary.

Originally this chapter was meant to be the Halloween chapter too, but I realized Arthur deserved to have a chance to relax before all hell break loose, so I hope you guys don't mind too much the Halloween chapter will become the next chapter instead. :)

I also want to take the chance to thank you all for the wonderful reviews. Thank you!
They mean a lot to me, both short and long ones, since they show me people actually are interested in reading this story.
So yes... Thank you. /Jezzica