Advance Arrangement
by Teddylonglong

All recognizable characters belong to J. K. Rowling, and I am not earning anything by writing this story. I am not a native speaker of English. Please excuse my mistakes.


The following weeks passed uneventfully, and Harry began to wonder if he had somehow missed Bobby's prank.

Classes were easy for the twins and their friends from the primary school to say the least, and they took turns helping Dudley and Hermione catch up. The teachers were strict but otherwise nice, with the exception of Professor Quirrell, whose constant stuttering graded on their nerves.

The twins and their first-year friends spent much of their free time in the founders' quarters, where they took turns working in the Alchemy lab. Sparkle had built it as an exact replica of the lab at Merlin's academy, which the children found extremely comfortable, as they were used to it.

Knowing that the first Quidditch match Slytherin had to play was the match against Gryffindor, which was going to take place sometime in November, their goal was to have brooms for each of the team members ready by then.

"Thank Merlin we only need to make three brooms…"

"… as the Weasley twins and we already have ours."

"That's true," Draco agreed. "But we should make some more and equip the second team as well."

"Shouldn't you make one for Madam Hooch?" Hermione spoke up. She and Dudley were eagerly observing their classmates working on the construction of broomsticks.

By the end of October, the first three brooms were done, and Harry and Bobby asked the Weasley twins to do some test flying. When the older twins approved of the brooms, they handed them to Marcus, the Quidditch captain, instructing him to give them to the team members on Halloween.

Bobby smirked, as he had planned his stunt for Halloween.

HP

In the evening of October 30, he set his alarm clock on two o'clock in the morning before casting a silencing charm around his bed. When the alarm went off, he sleepily rubbed his eyes, the thought of his prank quickly coming to mind. 'Claws,' he thought to his familiar, 'I'm going into the castle for an errand. Just sleep on, I'll be back in an hour or such.'

Claws lazily stretched his limbs. 'No, I'm coming with you.'

Bobby swiftly transformed into his Paciguise Animagus form and further into a phoenix. 'Hold on to my tail feathers,' he instructed the canine and waited for a moment. When he could sense the canine's pressure onto his back feathers, he flashed right into the Great Hall. Glancing around, grateful for his phoenix form's expanded vision, he noticed that a couple of house-elves were just putting up Halloween decorations.

'Dang,' he thought. 'Hold on rightly,' he thought to his familiar, before he flashed into the shadows of the Slytherin house table. 'What are we going to do now?' he wondered, only to decide, 'Let's wait it out. It won't take them forever.'

'All right,' Claws replied, letting out a jaw cracking yawn, which Bobby felt extremely contagious. However, he kept himself awake counting the legs of the chairs surrounding their house table. It felt like an infinite time, before the house-elves finally popped away.

Deciding to let Claws sleep for the time being, Bobby made his way to the high table giving his object of interest a close look. 'I wonder if it's heavy,' he thought, as he stepped around the table towards Dumbledore's throne like chair and tentatively reached out to lift it. Unfortunately, it did not move at all.

'That's what I feared,' he thought, grimly. 'I need Harry's support.' For a moment, he pondered involving Sparkle, however, decided against it. 'And I won't ask Harry either,' he resolved. 'I still have plans.' He transformed, choosing the form of a griffin, before he crawled under the throne, growling at the fact that the legs were so short that he was barely able to fit under the chair. However, to his relief, he was able to lift the throne.

He slowly made his way out of the Great Hall, carrying the chair on his back, only to stop in front of the doors. 'How annoying,' he thought. 'I forgot to open these beforehand.' He slid out from under the throne and transformed into his human form to open the doors, before he changed back and moved the large ornament out of the Great Hall. To his relief, the entrance hall was as empty as it was supposed to be at this time of the night. He grudgingly closed the doors behind himself and lifted the throne again.

'I hope it'll stay on my back, when I try to fly up the stairs,' he thought. 'I can't well climb them with that thing sitting on my back.' He carefully began to fly just barely above the stairs, relieved that he had secretly practised flying as a griffin during the last couple of weeks.

'Thank Merlin it's only that one large staircase,' he thought, when he almost reached the top. Later, he did not know why it happened, probably due to an instant of relief and inattentiveness, but the chair toppled and fell off. After a couple of loud thuds, it landed head-first at the bottom of the stairs.

'Oh no!' Bobby sighed, deeply, when a sudden thought crossed his mind. 'Perhaps, I can shrink that thing.' He all but jumped downstairs, transformed and pulled his wand to cast the shrinking charm, which Remus had taught him and his classmates a few months ago. 'I can't believe that this works on such an artefact,' he thought in relief, as he easily pocketed the tiny chair in his pyjama pocket.

Not trusting the chair to remain in his pocket if he flashed, he hurriedly made his way to the founders' quarters in his human form, purposefully not casting any kind of Lumos charm to not be seen by the numerous paintings on both floors sides of the corridor.

Five minutes later, he was standing in front of the portrait of the founders, glad that the portrait used to open on a simple touch. Only inside the founders' living room, he dared casting Lumos.

"What are you doing here at this time of the night?" Helga was the first to address him.

"I was just playing a prank on the headmaster." Bobby looked unsurely at his great grandparents.

"Ah, pranking the old coot is always fun," Godric commented, earning a playful slap on his arm from Rowena. "Will you let us in on the secret?"

Bobby nodded and hesitantly pulled the shrunken chair out of his pocket. "I'd like to hide this somewhere." He questioningly looked at the portrait.

"What exactly is it?"

Bobby chuckled. "It's the headmaster's chair from the Great Hall. It's kind of a throne."

The founders chuckled, causing him to inwardly sigh in relief. "Do not leave it here in the living room," Rowena advised him, "nor in the parlour. Perhaps, you are going to invite one of the professors here in the future, and you wouldn't want them to find the chair here."

Bobby nodded. "Yes, that's true. Excuse me, Professor, the parlour?"

"Please just call me Rowena. The parlour is here around the corner and is the only room, in which you can speak with Hogwarts without touching her wall."

Helga shook her head. "You may introduce yourself to Hogwarts at another time though. It is the middle of the night, and I suggest that you hide the chair and then return to your dormitory, before your head of house will notice your absence."

Salazar suddenly chuckled. "I have a better idea. Do you know the girl's bathroom on the second floor?"

Bobby stared at Salazar in disbelief. "Excuse me, sir, why in the world would I know a girl's bathroom?"

Godric and Salazar chuckled, while the ladies shook their heads in apparent annoyance.

"That specific bathroom is not used at all, because it is haunted by Moaning Murtle. It also holds the entrance to my Chamber of Secrets, but that's not common knowledge," Salazar added as an afterthought.

Bobby filed the information for later, deciding to address the topic at another time.

"That might be a good idea," Helga agreed. "Why don't you ask Sparkle to show you to the bathroom?"

Bobby agreed, and ten minutes later, he was back in his bed, chuckling at the idea that the headmaster's throne was now stationed in a toilet cubicle.

tbc...

Thank you for the kind reviews for the previous chapter. Please continue feeding my muse. Any ideas, suggestions or opinions are welcome.