Hogwarts Story: Part 20
Jan. 24th, 2006 07:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
unforthAs demanded by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
drake_rocket, here is more Hogwart's story, written to fill the dull, dull hours. (Class is still not done. :) ) This is another kind of long one. Also, I had to make up a bit for this one, because the beginning of this was time when I was actually playing Maeve Weasley, so Delia was in limbo. :)
As I hurried my housemates back to Ravenclaw, I couldn’t help but think that, for once, the Headmaster was asking far too much of us. The way Auror Weasley had spoken made it sound as if Icaria Tremen’s guilt was a foregone conclusion, and that meant that an investigation had already turned up evidence of her guilt. If that was in truth the case, well, there was very little doubt in my mind that Professor Tremen’s was innocent (there was a small amount of doubt, but I’m a fairly suspicious person by nature), and if no one else was going to look for evidence of her innocence, than it fell to others to do so. I was perfectly prepared to have myself be one of those others. The Headmaster has asked the impossible when even I am planning to violate curfew and explore for means to secure Professor Tremen’s release.
Having no interest in getting others in trouble as well, I escorted my fellow students back to the common room, as was my duty as Prefect. They were full of questions and concerns and all manner of other topics, and I spent many minutes sitting around with them and answering their concerns. Curfew came all too quickly, though, and I hustled all of the others off to bed. There was not a doubt in my mind that most would leave bed as soon as they thought it would be safe to do so. Sad that I was setting such a poor example, still I decided that my own departure would be cue enough to others that it was safe to leave, and so after a little while I left and made my way carefully through the darkened halls of the castle.
About ten minutes into my “adventure” it occurred to me that I didn’t really have any clever ideas of how to go about this duty. I walked past Professor Tremen’s office, thinking perhaps to search in there, only to find it guarded by a truly imposing automaton. My suspicions suggested that it would deny entry to anyone other than the Professor in a rather violent and painful fashion. As I pondered how best to approach this matter, I found my mind considering things that were not altogether helpful. In such an eventful day, there was much to think about. I dwelled on the Quidditch game, and how much practice I would need before I would feel comfortable serving as Keeper for such an important match. Moving on, my mind considered how Auror Weasley had referred to the Headmaster by his first name, and how very odd that was, and what it might signify, and why it mattered what it signified, and other such thoughts. More and more, though, my mind moved to the matter of the ball. My parents had mentioned arranged matches to me more than once over the summer, and I feared that fate more than I feared being caught by the Groundskeeper as I walked the halls. Images of my brother, ugly, unintelligent and unimaginative, loomed large in my mind. He was what my parents thought a good pure blood man was like, and I thought in terror of who they might find that fit that mold. If they found out about the ball, if they found out that I had no one to accompany, they would find someone to fill that roll. I thought of those in House Slytherin who might fit their ideal, and shuddered. No, I had to come up with a way around an arranged match. No, I shook myself angrily. I had to come up with a way to help Professor Tremen’s. That was why I was wondering the hallways, the matter of a companion to the ball could wait until tomorrow.
Pulling my attention to the present, I started once again to move with purpose through the hallways of Hogwarts. I was beginning to feel very foolish indeed, having no idea what my destination was, risking torture in the dungeon, thinking about boys when I should be thinking about justice, and I started to convince myself to call the whole thing off and return to the common room when I heard voices from ahead of me. A violent stab for nerves was followed moments later by relief as I realized that they were the voices of students, and I decided, rather cautiously, to approach.
I approached the voices cautiously, not wanting to frighten the students as hearing them had frightened me. Still, it seemed somewhat unavoidable, and finally I stuck my head around the corner and saw standing there Wilifred Himmelblau, a young Hufflepuff I knew little about, Katrina LaGuar, still radiating her beauty field, and, to my shock, Marcus Relius, the head boy. Of all of the people I had thought I might discover breaking curfew, he was surely the last. He was, I thought, even less likely than myself to be in this position.
Seeing me, Wilifred gave a cry and pointed, looking distressed, and, hoping to calm her down, I came forward so that they could see me clearly.
“Ms. Prince?” Marcus asked. “Is there anything we can help you with this evening?”
“Are you trying to help Professor Tremens?” I asked bluntly, deciding that it was far better to be straight forward than to disseminate.
The three exchanged glances. Katrina was scowling in a way that clearly suggested she would much prefer I go elsewhere, or perhaps that she didn’t trust me. Wilifred, on the other hand, simply looked nervous. After a moment, it was Marcus who said, “yes.”
Nodding, I stepped into the room farther. “May I join you? I want to help her also.”
Marcus smiled widely. “Of course. We would welcome your help. Let me fill you in on the plan as we have developed it thus far.” I was greatly impressed by his ability to smile cheerfully while Katrina was glaring at him. In a way her, her rancor surprised me, for she didn’t know me. Perhaps it was connected with the way men fell all over themselves around her – generally, women didn’t seem to like her, that I ahd observed myself. Still, as she realized that I had noticed her expression, she smiled at me sweetly.
“Yes,” she said. Her voice was beautiful and smooth and sweet, with a French lilt that I could not think of any term for other than sensual. “We would appreciate your expertise, Ms. Prince.”
“Very good,” Marcus said cheerfully. “We think that we should…well…enter Professor Tremens office. The automata in front of her door most certainly will not allow anyone to enter through the main door, and so we did some investigation of alternative means of entry. More correctly, I should say that Fred did that checking. She has discovered that we can gain access to Professor Tremens’ office by way of the fireplace in Professor Lestrange’s office, for the offices share a chimney. However, the problem is that Professor Lestrange’s office is directly linked to her personal rooms, where she presumably is right now. So we have been considering ways of entering into and securing passage through Professor Lestrange’s rooms.”
I nodded. “Alright,” I said, digging through my mind, trying to think of ways to accomplish this. “No one has an invisibility cloak, do they?” I asked, remembering our mysterious follower in our trip through the dungeon.
“Sadly not,” said Marcus.
All of us stood there in silence for many long moments, considering expressions on our faces. “I would try to have Mr. Whiskers help,” said Fred, indicating a rat which was sniffing around in a small cauldron that she carried, “but he’s terribly afraid of Professor Lestrange, for there is a large cat that often frequents her office.” It shocked me to realize that I felt intense sympathy for her rat. Something about Fred, she was so sweet and adorable, with her long blonde braids and her slight accent, her soft, timid voice, that I couldn’t help but sympathize with the concern that she felt for her rat. I really rather liked her already, despite only knowing her a brief moment.
“Yes, we have already dismissed several animal-related solutions,” Katrina added. “Marcus has said he can turn two people into, what was it, squirrels,” the word sounded strange with her accent, “but again, the cat would be a problem.”
Thinking hard, I worked up a list of the resources that I had at my command that might be of help. I had left Ravenclaw with a full stock of potions. However, even as I tried to assess things, once again my mind wandered. It amazes me, looking back, just how concerned I was about the issue of a date, and yet it did, it was somehow even more pressing than the mortal danger of a woman I greatly respected. Yet I had a thought, while I was so seriously considering how to break into a teachers office, and I realized that I had a solution to the problem with my parents, standing right in front of me. Marcus Relius was a pure blood, he was well known for it, since it was so unusual to see a pure blood in Hufflepuff. I gave him an appraising look. He was good lucking, and he had a reputation for intelligence which I had seen born out in the few classes I ahd shared with him. Katrina glowered at me again, though, and sidled slightly closer to Marcus, in a signal that any woman would recognize as one of ownership. Marcus seemed blissfully unaware of both looks, though.
“Do you have any ideas, Ms. Prince?” he asked.
“Please,” I started, getting my thoughts rearranged and back on track. “call me Delia.” I paused for a moment, a took a deep breath. “I have a few potions that might be helpful. I have two body swap potions, which allow the drinker to change bodies with another. I have a shrinking potion, which reduces size of the drinker by approximately a third. I have two levitation potions, which will allow the drinker to fly for a short period of time. I have a few other potions that I think would be less useful.” Including, I thought to myself, a love potion. Irritated, I crushed that thought as unworthy, though. I would never stoop to such means, to do so would simply be pathetic.
“About the chimney…” I started, an idea beginning to shape in my mind. “It leads to the roof as well as the Professors’ offices, right?”
“I would assume so,” Marcus replied.
“Well, then, instead of trying to win our way through Professor Lestrange’s office, why don’t we attempt to gain access through the roof?”
“The roof?” asked Katrina. “How would we get onto the roof?”
“I have chocolates that will allow the eater to levitate for a minute or two,” Fred commented, sounding doubtful. “Is your potion more effective?”
“Yes,” I said. “My potion will last for about 10 minutes. We could use it to get onto the roof. Not all of us could go, though.”
“I’ll go, and the rest of you should stay here.” Marcus said firmly. “I’ll turn into a squirrel, use the levitating potion, and go into the Professor’s office.”
All three of us had matching incredulous looks on our face. “She’s the head of my house,” I pointed out. “And they are my levitating potions. I’d like to go as well.”
Marcus seemed to think of about for a long moment. Katrina and Fred both looked mildly irritated at being left out. “And what should we do?” asked Katrina.
“Delia and I will go into the Professor’s office. The two of you should stay somewhere safe until we come back.”
“No,” said Katrina firmly. “I have an idea, we could distract the automata. After all, if you make any noise it will notice, will it not? We’ll make sure it doesn’t notice anything.”
A look of concern came to Marcus’ face briefly, but then he nodded. “Alright. Be careful. And remember, what we are doing is very, very bad. I should not be condoning this. Under no circumstance should you follow my example in this in the future, do you understand?”
drake_rocket, here is more Hogwart's story, written to fill the dull, dull hours. (Class is still not done. :) ) This is another kind of long one. Also, I had to make up a bit for this one, because the beginning of this was time when I was actually playing Maeve Weasley, so Delia was in limbo. :)As I hurried my housemates back to Ravenclaw, I couldn’t help but think that, for once, the Headmaster was asking far too much of us. The way Auror Weasley had spoken made it sound as if Icaria Tremen’s guilt was a foregone conclusion, and that meant that an investigation had already turned up evidence of her guilt. If that was in truth the case, well, there was very little doubt in my mind that Professor Tremen’s was innocent (there was a small amount of doubt, but I’m a fairly suspicious person by nature), and if no one else was going to look for evidence of her innocence, than it fell to others to do so. I was perfectly prepared to have myself be one of those others. The Headmaster has asked the impossible when even I am planning to violate curfew and explore for means to secure Professor Tremen’s release.
Having no interest in getting others in trouble as well, I escorted my fellow students back to the common room, as was my duty as Prefect. They were full of questions and concerns and all manner of other topics, and I spent many minutes sitting around with them and answering their concerns. Curfew came all too quickly, though, and I hustled all of the others off to bed. There was not a doubt in my mind that most would leave bed as soon as they thought it would be safe to do so. Sad that I was setting such a poor example, still I decided that my own departure would be cue enough to others that it was safe to leave, and so after a little while I left and made my way carefully through the darkened halls of the castle.
About ten minutes into my “adventure” it occurred to me that I didn’t really have any clever ideas of how to go about this duty. I walked past Professor Tremen’s office, thinking perhaps to search in there, only to find it guarded by a truly imposing automaton. My suspicions suggested that it would deny entry to anyone other than the Professor in a rather violent and painful fashion. As I pondered how best to approach this matter, I found my mind considering things that were not altogether helpful. In such an eventful day, there was much to think about. I dwelled on the Quidditch game, and how much practice I would need before I would feel comfortable serving as Keeper for such an important match. Moving on, my mind considered how Auror Weasley had referred to the Headmaster by his first name, and how very odd that was, and what it might signify, and why it mattered what it signified, and other such thoughts. More and more, though, my mind moved to the matter of the ball. My parents had mentioned arranged matches to me more than once over the summer, and I feared that fate more than I feared being caught by the Groundskeeper as I walked the halls. Images of my brother, ugly, unintelligent and unimaginative, loomed large in my mind. He was what my parents thought a good pure blood man was like, and I thought in terror of who they might find that fit that mold. If they found out about the ball, if they found out that I had no one to accompany, they would find someone to fill that roll. I thought of those in House Slytherin who might fit their ideal, and shuddered. No, I had to come up with a way around an arranged match. No, I shook myself angrily. I had to come up with a way to help Professor Tremen’s. That was why I was wondering the hallways, the matter of a companion to the ball could wait until tomorrow.
Pulling my attention to the present, I started once again to move with purpose through the hallways of Hogwarts. I was beginning to feel very foolish indeed, having no idea what my destination was, risking torture in the dungeon, thinking about boys when I should be thinking about justice, and I started to convince myself to call the whole thing off and return to the common room when I heard voices from ahead of me. A violent stab for nerves was followed moments later by relief as I realized that they were the voices of students, and I decided, rather cautiously, to approach.
I approached the voices cautiously, not wanting to frighten the students as hearing them had frightened me. Still, it seemed somewhat unavoidable, and finally I stuck my head around the corner and saw standing there Wilifred Himmelblau, a young Hufflepuff I knew little about, Katrina LaGuar, still radiating her beauty field, and, to my shock, Marcus Relius, the head boy. Of all of the people I had thought I might discover breaking curfew, he was surely the last. He was, I thought, even less likely than myself to be in this position.
Seeing me, Wilifred gave a cry and pointed, looking distressed, and, hoping to calm her down, I came forward so that they could see me clearly.
“Ms. Prince?” Marcus asked. “Is there anything we can help you with this evening?”
“Are you trying to help Professor Tremens?” I asked bluntly, deciding that it was far better to be straight forward than to disseminate.
The three exchanged glances. Katrina was scowling in a way that clearly suggested she would much prefer I go elsewhere, or perhaps that she didn’t trust me. Wilifred, on the other hand, simply looked nervous. After a moment, it was Marcus who said, “yes.”
Nodding, I stepped into the room farther. “May I join you? I want to help her also.”
Marcus smiled widely. “Of course. We would welcome your help. Let me fill you in on the plan as we have developed it thus far.” I was greatly impressed by his ability to smile cheerfully while Katrina was glaring at him. In a way her, her rancor surprised me, for she didn’t know me. Perhaps it was connected with the way men fell all over themselves around her – generally, women didn’t seem to like her, that I ahd observed myself. Still, as she realized that I had noticed her expression, she smiled at me sweetly.
“Yes,” she said. Her voice was beautiful and smooth and sweet, with a French lilt that I could not think of any term for other than sensual. “We would appreciate your expertise, Ms. Prince.”
“Very good,” Marcus said cheerfully. “We think that we should…well…enter Professor Tremens office. The automata in front of her door most certainly will not allow anyone to enter through the main door, and so we did some investigation of alternative means of entry. More correctly, I should say that Fred did that checking. She has discovered that we can gain access to Professor Tremens’ office by way of the fireplace in Professor Lestrange’s office, for the offices share a chimney. However, the problem is that Professor Lestrange’s office is directly linked to her personal rooms, where she presumably is right now. So we have been considering ways of entering into and securing passage through Professor Lestrange’s rooms.”
I nodded. “Alright,” I said, digging through my mind, trying to think of ways to accomplish this. “No one has an invisibility cloak, do they?” I asked, remembering our mysterious follower in our trip through the dungeon.
“Sadly not,” said Marcus.
All of us stood there in silence for many long moments, considering expressions on our faces. “I would try to have Mr. Whiskers help,” said Fred, indicating a rat which was sniffing around in a small cauldron that she carried, “but he’s terribly afraid of Professor Lestrange, for there is a large cat that often frequents her office.” It shocked me to realize that I felt intense sympathy for her rat. Something about Fred, she was so sweet and adorable, with her long blonde braids and her slight accent, her soft, timid voice, that I couldn’t help but sympathize with the concern that she felt for her rat. I really rather liked her already, despite only knowing her a brief moment.
“Yes, we have already dismissed several animal-related solutions,” Katrina added. “Marcus has said he can turn two people into, what was it, squirrels,” the word sounded strange with her accent, “but again, the cat would be a problem.”
Thinking hard, I worked up a list of the resources that I had at my command that might be of help. I had left Ravenclaw with a full stock of potions. However, even as I tried to assess things, once again my mind wandered. It amazes me, looking back, just how concerned I was about the issue of a date, and yet it did, it was somehow even more pressing than the mortal danger of a woman I greatly respected. Yet I had a thought, while I was so seriously considering how to break into a teachers office, and I realized that I had a solution to the problem with my parents, standing right in front of me. Marcus Relius was a pure blood, he was well known for it, since it was so unusual to see a pure blood in Hufflepuff. I gave him an appraising look. He was good lucking, and he had a reputation for intelligence which I had seen born out in the few classes I ahd shared with him. Katrina glowered at me again, though, and sidled slightly closer to Marcus, in a signal that any woman would recognize as one of ownership. Marcus seemed blissfully unaware of both looks, though.
“Do you have any ideas, Ms. Prince?” he asked.
“Please,” I started, getting my thoughts rearranged and back on track. “call me Delia.” I paused for a moment, a took a deep breath. “I have a few potions that might be helpful. I have two body swap potions, which allow the drinker to change bodies with another. I have a shrinking potion, which reduces size of the drinker by approximately a third. I have two levitation potions, which will allow the drinker to fly for a short period of time. I have a few other potions that I think would be less useful.” Including, I thought to myself, a love potion. Irritated, I crushed that thought as unworthy, though. I would never stoop to such means, to do so would simply be pathetic.
“About the chimney…” I started, an idea beginning to shape in my mind. “It leads to the roof as well as the Professors’ offices, right?”
“I would assume so,” Marcus replied.
“Well, then, instead of trying to win our way through Professor Lestrange’s office, why don’t we attempt to gain access through the roof?”
“The roof?” asked Katrina. “How would we get onto the roof?”
“I have chocolates that will allow the eater to levitate for a minute or two,” Fred commented, sounding doubtful. “Is your potion more effective?”
“Yes,” I said. “My potion will last for about 10 minutes. We could use it to get onto the roof. Not all of us could go, though.”
“I’ll go, and the rest of you should stay here.” Marcus said firmly. “I’ll turn into a squirrel, use the levitating potion, and go into the Professor’s office.”
All three of us had matching incredulous looks on our face. “She’s the head of my house,” I pointed out. “And they are my levitating potions. I’d like to go as well.”
Marcus seemed to think of about for a long moment. Katrina and Fred both looked mildly irritated at being left out. “And what should we do?” asked Katrina.
“Delia and I will go into the Professor’s office. The two of you should stay somewhere safe until we come back.”
“No,” said Katrina firmly. “I have an idea, we could distract the automata. After all, if you make any noise it will notice, will it not? We’ll make sure it doesn’t notice anything.”
A look of concern came to Marcus’ face briefly, but then he nodded. “Alright. Be careful. And remember, what we are doing is very, very bad. I should not be condoning this. Under no circumstance should you follow my example in this in the future, do you understand?”
