The Thing About Irony
AN:
Oni: We're almost near the end of the month! Final stretch, guys! Also please check out the poll for this story on my bio!
Tom: Oni does not own the Harry Potter franchise.
Oni: Aaaaand ONWARDS!
Get back! Get back you fiends! Get back or I'll- oh hello there! Is it that time already? I was sitting here, minding my own business when I was suddenly attacked by the dreaded Plot Bunny Horde! I do believe some of them were white, a couple were wearing adorable little waistcoats, and a few (like the our tale here) had pocket watches. Bloody little creatures need to learn that time and place is important! ...I should probably learn this as well
Well then, let's see...ah yes. Tom Riddle's adventures now take him back to the beginning, to Wool's and beyond as he goes to prove his fellow Slytherins wrong. But we all know what he's about to find out, don't we? Oh, the irony.
Irony, ironically, is what I wanted to talk about today. It is humor in our darkest (and lightest) hours, it is a form of art that the universe has defined to keep things from getting too boring. Most importantly, however, it is the humor from which this story itself derives.
From the original story to the bottomless depth that is Fanfiction, irony has given us many a laugh, especially when the story is retold and you sit and giggle and go 'ah, I see what you did there!'. It has already rooted itself deeply in this story, fueling most of the metahumor and now imbuing itself into my pre-story rants.
Why am I talking about this, you ask? Why do I talk about any of this at all? Why must I do these preludes? Why does this story even require such narration?
The answer, my dear readers, is blowing in the wind.
Seeing the pictures in the papers was one thing. Seeing it with his own eyes was another thing altogether. The 'Blitz', as the papers had called it, had lasted until May, which meant that while the city wasn't under attack anymore the place was practically in ruins. Wool's wasn't in the best shape, as the south side of the building had collapsed and the kids had all been shuffled into the basement during the attacks and only know were returning to the surface (though some now had to share bedrooms).
Tom's own room had been part of the ones destroyed (thankfully nothing but furniture had been in there, though he mourned the loss of his snake friends that had perished) so Tom told Mrs. Cole that he would attempt to find lodging elsewhere to free up space. She had been more than happy to oblige, nodding to him (was that a tear in his eye? Nah, couldn't be) as he made his way towards his regular route.
Surprisingly (or unsurprisingly, he thought to himself) Oscar was still alive and kicking (metaphorically speaking) and complaining as much as ever. It appeared that aside from the obvious destruction of everything, things had settled into a tentative rhythm. It wasn't as peaceful anymore, but at least the bombs had stopped falling.
The feel of the city was different now, so much so that before Tom could turn to leave Oscar asked in an uncharacteristically small voice whether he could come along to wherever the 'two legs' was going. Tom had shrugged before depositing the emerald snake into his extendable backpack, the same one the trunkshop owners in Diagon Alley had begun selling (the backpacks flew off the shelves according to them, and on top of a small percentage in sales Tom had also been given one pack of his choice to use himself). The surprised hisses from Pinocchio and Geppetto made him chuckle slightly as he walked out of the alleyway.
Mrs. Rosewood had ended up taking him in and putting him in a cleaned out storage closet (oh wasn't this familiar?), telling him that he could pay her back by helping her out with the bakery. He had offered to pay her instead, but the elder squib waved it off, claiming that not giving him a wage was enough. So Tom spent most of his time making pastries and goodies for the mother henning woman.
When he wasn't, though, he could be found at Borgin and Burke's where, he scoured for interesting books and items that might be useful to him. Nothing came close to his locket, which stayed hidden under his shirt most days (in the streets of London having something like that in the open was like asking to get mugged), but the jar of Death's Head hawkmoth chrysalises was a glorious find nonetheless.
Eventually Tom managed to gather enough nerve to go to Gringott's for his bloodline test. Some purebloods sneered at his obviously Muggle attire as the teen waited for a teller. Oddly enough, Filius' words seemed to have some merit because the goblin had recognized him on sight (though Tom was positive this was not the same one he met on his first visit to the Alley) and gave him the goblin equivalent of the friendly smile (which looked more like a snarl to most people that screamed 'I will disembowel you as soon as you turn your back you festering dungmite') when he asked for the test.
After being ushered into a large room, Tom was told to bleed into a cup with pre-mixed potion and watched in morbid curiosity as the red overtook the clear liquid as it swirled, his finger stuck in his mouth to stop the blood flow. A roll of parchment was them dipped into the bowl and the teen's dark eyes widened as writing began to appear on the previously blank surface and the truth of his lineage was revealed to him.
"So things I have learned about myself." Tom began, unrolling the now familiar scroll of parchment and setting it on the compartment table, "I am in fact the Heir of Slytherin, my mother's maiden name was Gaunt, none of my maternal line was from the circus, and my father is alive and out there somewhere."
His friends all crowded around to get a good look at the incriminating evidence of Tom's true origins with eager curiosity. Tom had been given a family tree and whatever holdings he now had access to. There was apparently a shack in the town called Little Hangleton that was under his uncle Morfin's name (he had an uncle, fancy that, but why hadn't the man ever come to get his own nephew?) since his grandfather was dead (and hadn't that been hard to swallow, other than the fact that neither were from the circus).
"Bloody hell!" Myrtle exclaimed as she wrinkled her nose, "Look at that family tree! I've never seen anything so inbred in my life! Your grandfather and grandmother were mother and son! Eeeew!"
Ew indeed. The Gaunts had inbred themselves into extinction. According to the papers none of the later generations even attended Hogwarts despite having barely enough magic to do so. It would explain why Professor Dumbledore hadn't recognized his mother's name - she had been holed up in that shack for all her life before she met Tom's father.
"The Gaunts had squandered the Slytherin fortune years ago by the looks of it." Filius muttered, looking over Tom's monetary inheritance, "If you were banking on something from your family, you'd be sorely disappointed. You don't have any family heirlooms left, other than a ring from the Peverells and a locket from the Slytherin line, and there's nothing here about their whereabouts. Bad luck, Tom."
It would explain why he remembered his mother having wayward eyes. The reused genetics in the woman would have made her severely deformed. Maybe that was why she had passed away when she did. Her magic could barely hold herself together as it was, having a child must have tipped her over the edge. It was saddening to think that Tom was the cause of her death, but also heartwarming to know that she had wanted to have him anyway. His hand went to rub the locket (his mother's locket, he now knew, the traces of what little magic she had still clung to it and sang to him) as he had found himself doing lately, taking it out to show the half-goblin.
"I have the locket." Tom admitted, "And I also inherited something even bigger, quite literally. Watch this."
With that, Tom pointed his wand at the parchment and hissed out 'reveal' in parseltongue (s he now knew to call it, and bloody hell did these people not know anything about passwords?) and more writing appeared with an extra set of things under the inheritance section. His friends' eyes widened at what they saw.
"You do realize what this means, don't you?" Minerva asked slowly, staring at Tom.
"It means that I technically never have to leave the castle?" The teen tried, smiling sheepishly as the Scottish Gryffindor rolled her eyes.
"Yes, that." Minerva sighed, "But you also have a trove of ancient books and artifacts and the last surviving Basilisk in the world that not even the Ministry can take away from you because it's so deep that it's not considered to be on school grounds!
"Plus think of the seat that you'll hold at the Wizengamot once you're an adult." Filius added, "It's no wonder your ancestors hid this away until someone with a brain could figure it the rest of it, with the way the Gaunts were they would have run the Slytherin name into the mud. Since the seat's been virtually untouched for the past century, your arrival will spark something big in the ring of powerful wizards."
"Can someone please explain what that means for the plebs in the back?" Myrtle asked, though her entire form was vibrating as she sucked in the information like a sponge (and it wasn't even about her, there was a reason she was a Ravenclaw, after all).
"If anyone finds out about this, everyone in the Wizarding world will want to be your friend just to get even a tiny bit of the power and prestige you could get with this." Pomona translated with a vague shake of her head.
At this Tom shrugged.
"Then let them try." he said resolutely, "I've got my real friends right here. If they want to try to get a piece of me I'm pretty sure they'd be hexed into oblivion."
Everyone began coughing. But it wasn't a real kind of cough. It was suspiciously like the kind of cough one would do to cover up laughter when you didn't want the other person to know you were laughing. There was that undertone that sounded too much like giggling, but not enough to make your Uncle Roger think that you found humor in him getting his head dunked in a whipped cream topped steaming cranberry pie. Especially since you couldn't tell if the red was from anger or pie filling.
"Wrong choice of words, Tom." The small Ravenclaw chuckled out, "On another note, I've seen you've gotten... taller... over the holidays."
"What has that got to do with anything?" Tom asked in confusion, tilting his head to the side.
The girls' faces were all bright red as they tried to both stare at him and look away from him at the same time, but Filius and Rubeus (him too? What?!) were both nodding knowingly. It was infuriating when even the normally oblivious half-giant got something before him (especially when no one would tell him what they were noticing like now).
"One day, Tom." Filius said mysteriously (which felt rather familiar), "On day you'll know. Though I do hope to have a pensive so I can relive your reaction when that day comes."
"I knew it!" Abraxas crowed as he and Lestrange scoured the parchment, "There wasn't any other explanation as to why you could do the things you do!"
"You're oddly chipper for the guys that got their arses kicked by a bloke who didn't even use magic to do it." Tom muttered, "I still reserve the right to do so if you piss me off again, too. I'm sure your bodyguards wouldn't mind the tussle..."
Crabbe and Goyle quickly shook their heads and covered their soft spots. Apparently they were traumatized from the last time Tom engaged in fisticuffs. Wizards didn't have much in the ways of physical self-defense, after all. Take away their wands and they'll start begging for mercy.
"You do realize what this means, right?" Lestrange said slowly, handing the parchment back to Tom, "Everyone and their owl is going to want to associate with you if people catch wind of this."
"So I've heard." grumbled the muggleborn (well, technically half blood, but who's counting?).
"Who else knows about this?" Abraxas asked curiously, going into his 'business mode' (because when you find out your sort-of-rival-turned-obligatory-acquaintance-turned-friend is the descendent of the Founder of the House that Merlin himself was in, you immediately roll with it and become his press secretary to make sure he doesn't dump you), "This is big news. We have to find a way to spin this, but it will take some time. My family owns quite a bit of the Daily Prophet so it won't be hard to get them to write a positive article that downplays this..."
"Rubeus knows." Tom interrupted.
The other two Slytherins collectively groaned.
"Then everyone will know by morning." Abraxas moaned.
"Come on guys, it's not that bad!" Tom argued with a roll of his eyes, "I mean, I'm already at the top of my class in most cases and Quidditch Star Seeker. It's not like this kind of this is that big of a deal. I'm pretty sure you all are overreacting."
They were not overreacting. By morning every inhabitant in the castle was talking about the 'Founder's Heir' and the new 'Prince of Slytherin' and the 'Keeper of the Chamber of Secrets'. It was odd, having the entire Hogwarts population stare at you for something you can't control, though at least they weren't nasty or accusing like he was used to. Although... the almost hungry look in their eyes wasn't all that fun either.
Even less fun was the way his friends' protectiveness (including his Slytherin dormmates) went into overdrive. Granted they seemed to have a good reason seeing as how the Prophet got ahold of the information somehow and had printed a headline story (don't these people have anything important to talk about?) about not only his inheritance and lineage, but also his grades, his Quidditch maneuvers, his looks, his wand, his height, and the fact that he could bake a mean apple strudel (and those weren't even his favorite!).
"Bloody hell!" the teen in question swore as his eyes scanned the article, "They went into a disturbing amount of detail about my so-called 'luscious dark locks', 'sculpted build', and 'perfectly firm behind'. What is this, a trashy romance novel?!"
"Well I mean, all of it's true." Myrtle muttered under her breath before replying to him out loud, "I think they got on of the writers for Witch Weekly to do the front page. It would explain the overall tone of the article. But I disagree with one thing though. Your jelly donuts knock any other pastry out of the running."
"Exactly!" came Tom's almost maniacal exclamation, not seeing how his friends shook their heads fondly at him.
The actual Witch Weekly article on him (which came out a month or so later... thankfully) was far, far worse than the Prophet one. This one had pictures of him alongside an explanation of why he was currently 'The Most Eligible Bachelor' with details such as 'type of shampoo used', 'what kind of singing voice he had', and the infamous 'what type of undergarments he wore'. There was the picture of his (admittedly awesome) broom leap from the Gryffindor-Slytherin match the year before, a picture of him doing schoolwork with his friends (which he remembered Myrtle taking with her camera not too long before the end of the year prior), and even a picture of him during Quidditch warm-up practice (judging by the fact that he was shirtless... Myrtle refused to discard that one despite Tom's best attempts at getting her to).
It was an overall horrible, glittery, sultry, scandalous rag that everyone else seemed to enjoy immensely. Especially the part about his 'love life'.
"This is ridiculous!" Tom complained, chucking the offending magazine at the far end of the Great Hall (where a bunch of people began to fight over it... ugh), "Everyone is blowing everything out of proportion! Now they think you girls are either in a harem with me or fighting each other for my affection! Honestly!"
He didn't quite realize then that the giggles from the girls were nervous ones as he continued to rant. Abraxas sighed and gave a smug Filius another five galleons.
"How long has this been going on?" asked the platinum blonde Slytherin.
"Since second year." the ten-galleon (once you counted the bets from Lestrange and Rubeus) richer teen happily supplied, "Thats when it became obvious. Minnie and Mona had noticed him on the train on the first day."
"For someone who's so perceptive about everything else around him, he's really clueless to what's happening right in front of him." Abraxas muttered.
"My thoughts exactly!"
"So this is what the girl's loo looks like..."
Minerva gave Filius a sharp glare, but it was softened by her trying not to laugh at the uncomfortable expressions on the boys' faces (which looked as if they were constipated, worried, and/or about to throw up). They had to cause quite the large distraction in order for the lot of them to gather here without rousing much suspicion (considering the sheer size of Rubeus, this was often the problem in any stealth mission they planned).
Tom had argued that while said distraction was big, there was no good reason for them to let a mountain troll loose into the dungeons (no matter how sedated), especially since this was the Christmas holidays. Pomona had pointed out that any first year with an imagination could knock the damn thing out, and the Slytherin used the fact that very few people at Hogwarts had an imagination as a firm rebuttal. He still lost the argument.
So here they were in the second floor girl's lavatory while teachers dealt with the troll downstairs and the rest of the student body panicked. Picking out the familiar tap with the snake on it, Tom hissed for the entrance to open. Slowly the sink sunk down to the ground, and the tunnel (which was no longer grimy and moldy due to its upkeep) was revealed to them.
"Alright everyone!" called the Heir of Slytherin's chipper voice, "Down the rabbit hole we go!"
With that, he jumped in. Myrtle soon followed (having been the only other one down there) and it didn't take long for everyone to make the trip down, though everyone scrambled out of the way when the tunnel gave a loud rumbling sound and Rubeus thundered out (and most likely would have flattened anyone still in his way like a pancake). Once everyone was accounted for (and only slightly dizzy), Tom led the way deeper into the Chamber.
"Wow." Filius mumbled as he looked around, "Slytherin was either full of himself or his descendants were."
"According to Esmeralda, the Chamber initially was just a big, underground cave for her to stay in while Slytherin taught at Hogwarts above. The name of Chamber of Secrets and the decor didn't come until generations later."
"Well I suppose that makes sense, what with how the Gaunts- GRINGOTTS' RUSTY TOENAILS!"
You could actually pinpoint the moment they caught sight of Esmeralda. Hearing about her was one thing, but he supposed seeing he was another. Minerva and Pomona screamed, and Rubeus made a cooing sound as if he was looking at a baby animal. Then again, this was Rubeus we're taking about.
"Aren't yeh the mos' beau'iful thing?" the half-giant sighed out, his accent coming out stronger as he immediately went over to pet her crest scales to her enjoyment.
This seemed to snap the others out of their stupor, and soon they were all introduced to the gargantuan serpent, who was pleased to finally meet the rest of her young master's friends. Unfortunately Tom still had to translate what she was saying to his non-snake-speaking associates, but it was a small price to pay for what turned out to be a day well spent. Rubeus especially was overjoyed to meet 'such a beautiful beast' (and if snakes could blush, Esmeralda would be a tomato).
"Hey Tom?" Minerva asked as they all sat on the top of Esmeralda's scales.
"Yes, Minnie?"
"I thought the gaze of a Basilisk was supposed to kill you. I've been staring at her eyes and trying to compare it to Rolanda's that I completely forgot about that snippet until now."
At this, Filius began laughing.
"Oh please, if Rolanda had Basilisk eyes Tom would have been dead the moment he got on the Slytherin team!"
At this same time, Myrtle piped up proudly:
"We designed some contact lenses that acts as a filter to prevent her deadly gaze from killing us. I for one don't want to be washing my face in the sink, look up and die just because I saw her eyes."
"Wouldn't that just be embarrassing?" Pomona chuckled, "Dying in a bathroom like that?"
"I would come back as a ghost and haunt the loos!" Myrtle giggled out, wiggling her fingers that were covered in jam, "Beware of Moaning Myrtle! Oooooooh! She'll flood the toilets and drag you down into your doom!"
This elicited a round up uproarious laughter as Myrtle surveyed her good work and treated herself to another jelly donut (which was on a platter floating around with tea that the house elves had helpfully provided), smirking as she actually got Tom to laugh hysterically. It was little victories like this that made her see how much had changed since the day he found her crying in the toilets those years ago. Before she could very much so see herself in such a situation, and yet now here she was surrounded by friends that actually cared and protected her (and her them in return) all because a boy had been trying to inconspicuously escape the girls' lavatory. Funny how life worked like that.
Also, without Tom, she wouldn't have had such good pictures to sell to Witch Weekly and her own collection. That boy was making her rich, even if he had complained about it a little. Still, he got a cut every time his picture was used (not that he knew that as she had the money directly sent into his vault after Filius showed her how).
Of course, at that moment the person in her thoughts just had to turn and smile at her like that. And this was the same teen who didn't grasp the fact that every girl (and even some boys) at Hogwarts had at this point fallen for him. But she won't let them touch him, oh no. They can look, but if they so much as pinch his bum their body will be found in the Thames River with no evidence of how they got there.
A little ways away, Minerva and Pomona had similar sentiments. Rubeus looked at them, then at Tom who was poking a blushing Myrtle in the arm, and sighed. Another galleon went into Filius' waiting hand.
Tom wasn't quite sure what to make of the second year Slytherin standing in front of him with her arms crossed defiantly in front of her, but it was a testament to the madness he had been exposed to since his revelation of his not-circus-Heir-of-Slytherin heritage that his first thought was 'she doesn't appear to be hero-worshipping me so this is good'.
"I hear you have a Basilisk." the small girl began, her dark eyes boring into his own, her sallow face displaying nothing but interested curiosity.
"I might, I might not. Why are you asking?" Tom retorted, leaning back on his chair near the fireplace as Pinocchio, Geppetto, and Oscar warmed themselves while wrapped around his arms and neck.
"I'm what some people call a 'Potions prodigy', Mr. Riddle." the younger Slytherin answered, "As such, I'm constantly on the lookout for rare ingredients, one of which is Basilisk venom. If you so happen to have the last Basilisk and therefore the only source of fresh venom, then obviously you would have to be the one that I go to in order to procure it. In return for the venom, I am willing to brew any potion that may or may not be highly difficult, dangerous, illegal, embarrassing, or all of the above. Think on it, Mr. Riddle."
And with that, she was gone. Tom ended up asking around about her. He got his answers from both his Slytherin friends and, surprisingly, Rubeus.
"Miss Prince comes from a long line of potion brewers," Abraxas supplied as they gathered for their usual study session (well, usual as of this year when the two other Slytherins joined the group, though oddly enough no one protested), "I'm not surprised that she sought you out, though I am curious why she kept her distance until now."
"Probably because she didn't want to look like a fangirl." Lestrange offered, sneaking an apple under the table without the librarian noticing, "Prince is as pragmatic as she is shrewd. I'm guessing she was after the Basilisk venom."
"She's a nice girl." Rubeus stated, squinting at the Transfiguration essay as if it were going to yell at him, "She's my partner in Potions and Defense. Really good at her Potions, Eileen."
"Slughorn's got her pinned for his Slug Club, apparently." Minerva sighed out softly as she aided the pitiable half-giant with the subject she could do in her sleep, crossing out the incantation he had put down (which would have transformed the beetle into a ragtime dancing alien instead of a button) and writing the correct one instead, "He had gone on asking me to go to one of his Slug Club Parties... again."
"He's asked all of us to his parties at least once, Minnie." Pomona pointed out with a roll of her eyes as she stole Lestrange's apple without him noticing, "He's scouted Tom out five times already this past afternoon."
"Wish he'd stop stalking me..." the boy in question muttered lowly as he wrote the most scathing Potions essay he could, "Ruddy House Head and his obsession in collecting people... popped out of nowhere... completely deserved that stew in his face... bloody waited outside of the loo I swear..."
"Back to our original discussion." Filius said after he realized his green clad best friend wasn't going to contribute much to the conversation, eyeing the increasingly frenzied essay with a raised eyebrow, "What should we do about Prince? Is she trustworthy?"
"She sometimes helps around the Hospital Wing by keeping the Potions well stocked." Poppy, who was sitting at the next table, commented as she moved to theirs to get a look at what was making Filus' face go ashen like that, "I'd say on Puffs honor that she's good."
"Plus we could really use her on that pet project, Minnie." Pomona notes as she places the apple back next to Lestrange with him being none the wiser, "Since neither of us would be able to match her prowess in Potions and we do have almost all the ingredients since You-Know-Who gave us the You-Know-What."
"What's that?" Lestrange asked, taking a bite out of the apple before stopping and staring at the fruit that had less flesh than he remembered and wondered if Divination was screwing with his mind again.
"Tom gave us a jar of Death's Head Hawk Moth Chrysalises." Filius supplied, averting his gaze from the now literally smoking piece of parchment and deciding that today he was very glad he was always on Tom's good side (and not Professor Slughorn), "I don't know why you two feel the need to refer to him as You-Know-Who. He's right here."
"And currently on a warpath against his Head of House by the looks of it." Myrtle pointed out and one could hear Poppy mutter 'Merlin help his soul' if you listened close enough, "And besides, it feels natural to call him that when you don't want him knowing that you're taking about him in front of him."
"Why do you need a jar of Death' Head Hawk Moth Chrysalises?" Abraxas ventured nervously, scooting away from the parchment that was not burning despite being on fire (he wondered, briefly, how that was possible before disregarding it as a 'Tom Thing').
At this Filius, Minerva, Pomona, and Myrtle turned to the other hapless members of the study group, which consisted of Poppy, Rolanda, Abraxas, and Lestrange (as Rubeus was in the know But was working diligently on his essay and Tom was... Tom was doing the written version of murder), who were regretting questioning the group's more questionable projects.
Why were they even friends with these madmen (and women) again?
Smiling gleefully, Tom Riddle raises up his Potions essay on the Girding Potion (Slug Roast edition), a wild look in his dark eyes.
As expected, Prince was quick to get on board with their little 'pet project', as she herself was the one to offer to brew in exchange for Esmeralda's venom in the first place. Interestingly enough, it was disturbingly easy to acquire the silver phials needed for the potion as Slughorn had locked himself in his office for the rest of the week. If one pressed the ear to the door, they might even be able to hear the man muttering to himself about 'not being a pedophile' and 'it was only a little light stalking'. Headmaster Dippet tried and failed to coax him out, and classes were instead substituted by Dumbledore's Alchemist friend Nicholas Flamel.
Nobody liked the look of eager interest on Tom's face at the mention of Flamel's infamous Philosopher's Stone, but everybody was smart enough not to say anything. After all, if someone could find a way to make another one, it was Tom Marvolo Riddle, Master of the Strange and Uncanny (secretly he thought this would be an excellent stage name in a circus and decided to use it privately whenever he was pulling off something dramatic, usually in Quidditch).
The other parts of the pet project preparation took a smidge longer. It took one month to gather enough silver teaspoons full of dew that had not seen sunlight nor been touched by human feet in seven days, which was discovered on some moss down in the deeper parts of the Chamber courtesy of Esmeralda (who was neither human nor had feet) and procured by Tom as he was the only person with an acrobat's flexibility to get where the moss was without resorting to magic (which would have tainted the moss altogether). Myrtle had discreetly taken a photo of him in such a position and promised the other girls to pass them around once they were developed.
Another month and an emotionally traumatized mandrake later and the second half of their project was complete, though everyone physically participating in it decided that having a mandrake leaf in one's mouth for an entire bloody month was worth the end result. They had planned and practiced for this for far too long to stop now.
Prince conducted the creation of the potion, her onyx eyes critically watching and barking out orders as the participants spat the leaves into their own phials (labeled to prevent sure disaster) and quickly adding the other ingredients (eliciting an 'ow' from each person after yanking a hair out) before capping the phials and whisking them away, telling them that she will keep them safe and undisturbed until the next lighting storm.
So now here they all were... in the second floor girl's lavatory with their phials in their hands. Exams had come and gone (which had made everyone afraid that they would've had to restart the entire process) and everyone was in position.
At the center was Prince, who was handing out the phials to their proper drinker, all six of whom stood in a circle around her. Those who were only here to witness the completion of the project (or get help if something went horribly, horribly wrong) were scattered around waiting nervously.
A flash of lightning, and the potions turned red.
Setting her lips in a determined line, Minerva swallowed the potion in one gulp. Moments later, a silver tabby cat with spectacle markings sat in her place. She walked around a little curiously before changing back, pleased at her form.
Excitedly Pomona drank hers down, turning into a round little chipmunk that climbed and chittered on an amused Tom before turning back with a large blush on her face.
Filius rolled his eyes and chugged his down with only a second's hesitation, the small yellow canary he transformed into flying a lap around the bathroom before perching and returning to his human form with a giddy grin.
Rubeus, summoning up all of his Gryffindor courage, went next. An English Mastiff with a dark brown Head was soon bounding around until he changed back, a goofy grin on the half-giant's face.
Emboldened by her friends' successes, Myrtle chugged hers down and squeaked before she became a brown haired floppy eared bunny. After doing a few experimental hops she changed back, claiming that it had been the oddest experience to date.
With that, everyone turned to the final drinker, whose shoulders shrunk a little under their gaze. Abraxas jokingly urged that he was sure that if Tom ended up as the venomous sort they're more than equipped to handle it. Deciding that he had stalled long enough (why was he so nervous? It worked for everyone else!) the Slytherin Heir chugged the potion down and watched as everyone started to get bigger and bigger...
And they were vibrating. As if they were laughing. Why were they laughing? As if taking a personal insult to their mirth, Tom decided to let out his animal's trademark cry.
"Squawk!"
This only made the others laugh harder at the African Grey Parrot angrily glaring at them from the floor.
Because that's the thing about irony. It gets you in the best of ways.
AN:
Oni: That's all for now, folks!
Tom: Please Follow, Favorite, And Review.
Oni: And I'll see y'all next time, My Pretties!