Finn wakes very early, about three in the morning. So he grabs a wand core and gets back to work on his project. Three and a half hours later, Xavier wakes up.
"Finn.. What're you doin'?" He mutters sleepily.
"I'm trying to create a glove that can repel most minor jinxes, hexes and curses, and, with practice, I'll be able to make one that absorbs them to be shot back in a huge blast.. With any luck."
"Cool — How far have you got?"
Finn slips the glove on. "Hex me."
Xavier thinks of a hex, then decides on one.
"Rictusempra!"
Finn catches the spell in his hand and it bounces back against someone's bed whilst sending Finn flying backwards.
"Smooth." Xavier says coolly. "Really well done."
"It needs practice.. We have about half an hour 'til breakfast, so.. And I'm not hungry."
"Neither am I. That's about an hour's more work."
An hour later, they try again. This time, Xavier's spell is absorbed into the glove. He shoots a couple more, then Finn shoots it all back from the tip of his index finger.
Xavier doubles over at the tickling jinx — is shot into a wall — goes limp at the Stunner — and the last spell does nothing notable to him, due to his being Stunned.
Finn points, and mutters, "Enervate." Before muttering the other counters necessary.
Xavier slowly sits up. "Christ..." He's left speechless except for that, staring at Finn slack-jawed.
"I got the idea from powerful wizards doing magic with their hands." Finn smiles sheepishly.
"Wicked... Really brilliant. Can you make one for me, too?"
"That'd be twenty Galleons per glove, please."
The duo enjoy showing off in the common room for half an hour, duelling with wands until Xavier disarms Finn, who catches the next two hexes and sends them back at Xavier, then, with a sweep of his hand, sends Xavier flying into a wall, though secretly cushioning his friend so injury does not ensue. Their performance continues being repeated a lot, until their next class. And Finn got several more requests for gloves (He gives them to people for thirty Galleons, five or ten off for his friends).
In the next duelling club, Professor Nightshade takes him to one side.
"Those gloves are impressive, Jones." He grunts — Finn has a pair now and is able to create one in under an hour. "But wands only, please, unless necessary." But the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher is smiling as he says it. Finn smiles back and swears he won't take unfair advantages, then goes into the duel, once again against Marius.
They fight hard, spells flying. Finn uses two spells he created himself — Caecia, the Blinding Jinx from last time, and Simula Imperio, the Shadow Control Charm (Which was incredibly difficult to pull off — O.W.L or N.E.W.T standards easily.) However, Marius Rosier manages, this time, to beat Finn.
"Good job." He smiles as he helps Finn up. "You gave me an opening, though — When you grabbed me with that shadow-hand, you didn't block my wand. Make sure, when trying that, you pin someone's wand to face away from you."
Finn grins. "Thanks for the advice!" He says, though he didn't really need it — he had seen his own error. Marius gives him one last encouraging smile, then walks off. Finn wanders off, too. But at the door to leave, a girl runs up to one side.
"Hi!" She says breathlessly. "I saw that spellwork... Never seen anything like it before... Wondered if, um, you might consider joining the Charms club?"
Finn considers for several moments. "Why not?"
"Great! See you there — we meet every Sunday, ten o'clock." And she was gone.
Finn stands there a while. He hadn't imagined joining a club, but was surprised he had been singled out because of his magic. He wandered off to the Gryffindor tower feeling quite happy.
Flying lessons.
It was Saturday, a warm, sunny weekend — it had been snowing for a while though — and they were being taught to fly.
Their instructor looked around and said, "Gather 'round.. Now, each of you should step up beside a broom. That's it,.. Now, I want you to put your hand over you broom, and, sharp and commandingly..." She puts her hand over her broom. "Up!"
The broom flew into her hand. Everybody follows suit. Several catch their brooms perfectly, a dozen can do nothing with them, and Finn's broom flies up and hits him in the face, to the delight of Xavier and worry of Emily.
"You okay?" She asks concernedly.
"Yeah.. Fine.." Finn mutters as he picks up his broom.
"Now, mount your brooms and kick off on my command. One., Two.. Three."
Finn kicks away from the ground. He pulls his broom back to try and raise it. So far so good. He accelerates, shooting towards a tree, and turns back to fly back to everybody when he nearly hits it. He flies towards a goal in the Quidditch pitch, and flies through it, rolling on his broom as he goes. He watches Marius doing intricate flight movements and decides to try a loop.
That's when it all goes wrong.
He speeds forward, turns up, continues turning backwards to a full circle, then loses his grip and slides from the broom.
Yelling, he holds the end of his broom for dear life while it raises itself. Fifty feet... One hundred... He continues estimating subconsciously as he screams for help.
Then he falls.
The wind whistles in his ears as he drops like a stone, albeit one doing a lot of thrashing in midair. His vision darkens at the edges... He hears screams of terror... An incantation,.. Feels himself slow down..
"You fool... The Dark Lord will return! It is just a matter of when, and by whose hand.."
"B-But, sir... All of the Dark Lord's Horcruxes are destroyed.. How can he be brought back?"
"You are foolish, Cecil.. Foolish... Who else broke out?"
"F-Ferdinand Damiel, Quoneel Seria, Theodore Nott—"
"Nott created a Time-Turner once, Cecil.. It was used in an unsuccessful attempt to bring back the Dark Lord... He also created another, which I do not know the whereabouts of.. But he can do it again..."
"Master Grant.. Nott is to create a new Time-Turner, to bring about t-the Dark Lord's return?"
"Yes, you fool — that was obvious... And I will be the man credited with the honour of bringing the Dark Lord back."
Finn stirs. A realisation — the hospital wing. He looks around, wondering about his dream, then closes his eyes and tries to put the scenes to the voices.
A darkened room... Two men, one tall and radiating power, the other weak, a servant... He watched from low, catching sight of his paws every so often... But he didn't have paws.. They looked to be that of a ferret's, maybe..
He sits up, looking around again in search of somebody. Madam Pomfrey walks through, tutting.
"Quidditch always was dangerous.. You fractured your ankle on landing, dear. You won't be able to walk without pain for another ten minutes, but leave it half an hour to be sure." And she walks away again.
Finn lies back. After five minutes or more, Xavier and Emily wander in. Xavier has his hands in his pockets, the image of cool — Emily looks on the verge of tears.
He lets them babble a bit about how worried they were — Emily mostly — but before he can talk about his dream, Rosier walks in, looking sheepish.
"Hey." He says awkwardly. Finn feels resentful at the breach of peace between he and his two friends, but doesn't hold Rosier to account for it, and is able to respond with a nod and a "Hey." of his own.
"That was a cool move you tried... Ambitious though. I once tried it, after half a year of broomstick practice, and broke my wrist. I haven't tried it since.." He trails off into silence, unsure what to say. Then Xavier says, "Must have hurt like a bitch."
Rosier laughs; Emily looks reproachful at the language used.
The four friends chat a while. It was unusual that three Gryffindors should spend so much time chatting in such a friendly way with a Slytherin, but Rosier was different. He wasn't snide or cruel — he thought being Pureblood made you a better witch or wizard, but only due to a different upbringing to Muggle-borns, and magical children raised by Muggles, and was genuinely helpful with them, and seemed surprised when Finn said he was Muggle-born.
"Really? Wouldn't know it from how you duel — you're great at it."
When Finn replies commenting on his father being a Muggle-born wizard, Marius frowned.
"That should make you Half-blood."
"Well, think about... James and Lily Potter, for example. The former a Pureblood, the latter a Muggle-born. But Harry Potter isn't a Pureblood, he's Half-blood."
"That's different — you only get a Pureblood if you have a Pureblood witch and wizard as parents." Marius pushes politely.
"Makes you wonder where the first Pureblood wizards and witches came from."
"True."
Emily shyly chews her lip. "I'm Half-blood. My mother was a witch, my father was Muggle-born."
Xavier announces he's Pureblood.
"Really? I never heard of the Phentermine family in relation to Purebloods."
"Yup." Xavier says cheerfully. "My dad changed his name to Phentermine. Our family started about fifteen or more years ago."
Talk turns to siblings afterwards. Xavier talks about his brother in more detail, Emily tells them she has no siblings, Marius echos this, and Finn does, too. Xavier looks surprised.
"None of you have siblings?"
They shake their heads.
"Huh."
Finn suddenly jumps, remembering Charms club. "Is it still Saturday?"
"Yeah, just a few hours after you fell." Replies Marius. "Why?"
"Nothing, just.. Checking."
Eventually, he got Emily and Xavier alone, after he had been cleared by Madam Pomfrey, and told them about his dream.
Emily frowns thoughtfully. "Sounds like Legilimency. But it can't be — you're not powerful enough, by far, to perform Legilimency without realising." Her hair today was a pale blonde, and her eyes were pink. She looked amazing, but Finn, when about to compliment her, found his throat constricting itself, and couldn't get the words out.
"Yeah, I know. What d'you think?" He asks Xavier, who had been looking thoughtful.
"Well... I'm surprised Emily didn't suggest it... But d'you maybe think it was an ordinary dream?"
"No." Emily interrupts before Finn can reply. "It couldn't be. Finn, did you ever hear Theodore Nott's name before?" He shook his head at her query.
"Well, I remember hearing about him being in Azkaban for creating an illegal Time-Turner. And Quoneel Seria was a mass murderer who was born too late to join Voldemort— Don't be pathetic, it's only a name.." Finn had cringed.
"Just, please, call him You-Know-Who, or He Who Must Not Be Named, or something."
"Fear of a name—"
"Only increases fear of the thing itself, I know, I know, Albus Dumbledore's famous words..."
"Well, the point is, you knew none of these names before and they're real people."
They end up going to sleep brooding.
The next day, shock runs down the Gryffindor table as the Daily Prophet spreads a story of a break-out from Azkaban.
Xavier, who always got the Prophet delivered — Finn had stopped since Xavier shared his copy when he was finished with it — speed-read the newspaper then, looking pale, handed it to Finn.
Seven images, all of people — two women and five men — glared up at him.
MASS BREAKOUT FROM AZKABAN
Heart sinking, Finn reads on. He recognises four names — Garian Grant (Thought to have helped in the breakout), Theodore Nott, Ferdinand Damiel and Quoneel Seria. He also sees another name — Cecil Hesai — that appears familiar, though he doesn't know why.
A flash — Everything goes black — a rush of images with sound to go with them —
The house is small and dank and infested with rats and cockroaches and giant spiders, most around the size of a dinner plate, one as large as a sheepdog. It trails the Master obediently, a pet, just like Cecil.
The viewpoint is set somewhere in a small crack in the wall's skirting boards.
"Master, please..."
"You failed, Cecil... I told you to not let her escape... She knows where we are, that damned Animagus..."
The viewpoint recedes into the wall like an animal retreating for cover.
"M-Master—"
"Ah, Cecil... Alas, you remind me of Wormtail and the Dark Lord.. And you require some, ah, shall we say... Discipline, too.."
Cecil starts to splutter, but doesn't get far. The Master's voice comes again, just one word, a strange word, nothing in English...
"Crucio."
And Cecil screeches in pure agony, and—
Finn comes round suddenly, sat up, fork halfway to his mouth. Nobody had noticed except Xavier and Emily.
"The hell, dude?" Xavier mutters.
"You really scared us... Your pupils went really wide—"
"Dilated." Mutters Xavier under his breath.
"And you wouldn't respond and—"
"Easy.." Finn hushes her. He looks at her and his chest feels tight once again upon laying his eyes on her, like he should never look away. "I'll talk later. Too many ears here."
Finn had finished talking to Emily and Xavier by the time they got to the room used for Charms club. They looked at him, wide-eyed.
"Harry Potter had visions of whatever V- You-Know-Who, sorry, sorry... Whatever he was doing when he was feeling angry or..." Emily trails off.
"But Finn isn't a Horcrux for a ferret, is he?" Xavier notes dryly.
"I think it's a female Animagus, based on what I heard." He says quietly, and after a while, sighs quietly and enters the classroom, as unsure of himself as can be.
Yes, I'm planning a lot more than eight years of peace at Hogwarts! Over those eight years, Finn will endure loss, find new friends — and enemies — learn more about his strange connection with the Animagus, who the Animagus actually is...
And I've been planning a plot twist involving Death Eaters, a Time-Turner and a friend of Finn's since the start. You'll want to stick around for this.
Please review! Tell me what you thought!