Nobody had trouble guessing why the Auror office-- with Ron Weasley acting as Head Auror, it would be extremely easy to find him, Malfoy’s main target. But it was also rather stupid, because the place was full of Aurors, ready to capture any Overseers they found. The Auror forces hadn’t even needed to be summoned to the scene of the crime!
People rarely spoke of ‘Draco Malfoy’ anymore. It was now much more common to hear people discussing “The Dark Master” or even “You-Know-Who.”
“They’re not even saying his name anymore!” exclaimed Haley. “It’s like Voldemort. Dad says people were afraid to say ‘Voldemort,’ too, until he snuffed it.”
“Yeah-- watch this.” Emma leaned over toward a passing first year. “MALFOY!” she hollered into his ear. The boy jumped and made a horrible squealing sound like Ted trying to sing, and Emma chortled.
Ivy’s face was thoughtful as she remarked, “Really, it’s just like when our parents were at school, only--”
“Only there’s no ‘Chosen One’ to save the day,” Jordan finished up, and everyone stared at him. He sighed.
How could they not understand what he meant? When his father had been in school, he’d been the ubiquitous saver-of-the-day. Got a malevolent dark lord running around, inconveniencing you by murdering people and being a generally nasty racial supremacist? Harry Potter will dispense of him. Got to save an all-purpose magical amulet from an evil formerly dead immortal wannabe? Harry Potter will do it for you. Got to locate a previously undiscovered part of the school, slay a fifty-foot serpent, and save the school from being destroyed by the memory of the same evil formerly dead immortal wannabe? Harry Potter will do it in his spare time. And any time anyone needed a few lives saved or some general evil to fight, Harry Potter would always make everything right. Nobody had to worry about doing the dirty work for themselves, because they had Harry Potter.
There weren’t any kids like that at Hogwarts today. Jordan looked around the Common Room, where he sat with his friends, surveying the other students there. He couldn’t imagine any of them destined to be ‘The Chosen One.’ Scattered around the room were a few miscellaneous giggly girls, some Quidditch jocks, some so-called ‘tortured artists’ whatever that meant, some swots, some slackers, the ever-popular Tyrone Thomas and his entourage of friends and admirers. He could sort all of them into little boxes, in three words or less. None of them were your archetypal hero.
And who was he, Jordan James Potter? An odd little nerd, a misfit who had barely even made it into Gryffindor, that was who. He remembered his sorting all too clearly.
Tiny, eleven-year-old Jordan stood in the Great Hall, watching with increasing apprehension as his future classmates put on the Sorting Hat. There were less and less students left to be sorted now, and he could feel the hundreds of eyes of the students in the Great Hall on the back of his neck.
“Malfoy, Ivy,” Professor Granger-Weasley called out, and a pale, nervous-looking girl with a long blonde braid and a pinched expression stumbled up toward the hat. Jordan thought, ‘A Slytherin, of course,’ with a vehement certainty; everyone knew that there was no such thing as a good Malfoy.
Or was there? Because after about ten seconds”shorter even than it had taken to sort Ted-- the hat had proclaimed, “GRYFFINDOR!”
Jordan was as shocked as everyone else. And ‘everyone else’ seemed to be whispering amongst themselves as Ivy took a seat at the Gryffindor table, a look of disbelieving joy on her thin and pointed face.
After “Nott, Charybdis,” became a Slytherin, and “Paterson, Paul” was sorted into Hufflepuff, Professor Granger-Weasley called, “Potter, Harriet-Lily”
“Potter? Did she say Potter?”
“Harry Potter’s kid?”
“No doubt she’s a Gryffindor!”
There were assorted excited murmurs as Haley actually skipped over to the stool, sat on it, and slipped the hat onto her head. It had barely brushed against her shiny black hair when it yelled, “GRYFFINDOR!”
Jordan applauded for his sister along with everyone else as she jumped up from the chair and made a noise best described as a ‘squee!’, then suddenly realized, feeling sick to his stomach, that it was his turn next.
“Potter, Jordan!” Professor Granger-Weasley called.
“Another Potter?”
“Awww, look, he’s got messy hair and glasses, just like Harry Potter! Isn’t he cute?”
“With these two, Gryffindor’s going to win the House Cup for sure this year!”
Jordan’s knees buckled suddenly, and he had stumbled toward the stage, collapsing onto the stool. A little voice spoke inside his head, startling him so much that he almost fell sideways off the stool.
“Hmmm, this is an interesting case. A very interesting case. Very intelligent… unusually so, in fact, but I don’t think Ravenclaw would suit you. Hardworking, but Hufflepuff isn’t right, either. Hmmm, cunning, resourceful, secretive, a thirst for power and to be noticed, and, oh my, a Parselmouth? You’re one to make even Salazar Slytherin proud, you are. I say you’re a--”
“No! Not Slytherin! Please, I can’t be in Slytherin!” Jordan thought frantically. “What would my parents say? What would the entire wizarding world say, for that matter?”
“You don’t want to be in Slytherin?” the hat’s voice enquired softly. “Unusual, you almost never see someone with such potential turn down an opportunity to be in Slytherin. But I suppose it’s not my place to put you in a house if that’s not where you want to be...”
Jordan had become very aware of the fact that he’d been on the stool for over a minute now, and that everyone was staring and whispering.
“You don’t want to stand out in your family? To be apart from everyone else? To not live in your father‘s shadow?” the hat asked.
“I… I do,” Jordan had thought, amazed at how much this hat knew about him, things that even he didn’t like to admit to himself. “But I can’t be in Slytherin! I just can’t!” He couldn’t imagine the look on his father’s face when he heard that his son had been sorted into Slytherin. Harry Potter was the ultimate Gryffindor”there was no chance he’d understand.
“All right, then,” the hat had sighed. “I’ll take a chance and put you in… GRYFFINDOR!”
“Jordan? JORDAN? JORDAN JAMES “STINKY” POTTER!” Haley was waving her hand back and forth in front of fourth-year-again-Jordan’s face. “What’s up? We’re talking about our plans for a big prank, and you haven’t said a single thing about how dangerous and inappropriate it is. Are you all right?” It was March 31st, which meant that April Fools’ Day would be the next day, and the girls were planning a big prank, as per usual.
“Are you sure that you’re all right?” repeated Ted, looking closely at Jordan’s pale face and glassy eyes.
Jordan snapped out of his reverie and stood up, clutching his book to his chest. “Terrific. Never better,” he muttered, then slouched off to his dormitory, not that he planned to sleep anytime soon.
Later that day, Haley, Emma, and Ivy were holding court in the Room of Requirement. “You do realize,” announced Emma, “that we, the Maraudettes, have not yet caused any chaos, made any mischief, wreaked any havoc, or pulled any pranks, aside from a few little things we did to Zabini, and that hardly counts. The Marauders would be very displeased.”
Ivy nodded. “I know. The whole business with Malfoy is getting to everyone. We can’t think of anything else, which really isn’t very practical. I mean, having some fun will keep our minds off of it, relieve some of our stress.”
“And here to explain the reasons why breaking the rules is good for you, it’s Ivy Potter!” announced Haley in a newscaster voice, using a sugar quill for a surrogate microphone. She gazed thoughtfully down at the sugar quill for a second, then shrugged and ate it.
After a brief interlude of crunching, Haley flopped down on her back. “Well, this should be a really huge prank,” she proclaimed. “Something that people will be talking about for ages. We have to prank the Slytherins, Professor Zabini, and we might as well get Tyrone Thomas while we’re at it…”
“He’s not that bad,” noted Emma casually. Her friends stared at her in disbelief. The half-finished sugar quill flopped onto the ground as Haley’s mouth flopped open. In the distance, a cricket chirped.
“Emma, are you all right?” asked Ivy, breaking the silence. “You’ve hated Thomas since… since before we were friends! You’ve always hated him, like Haley hates Zabini! Like I hate… well, probably not as much as I hate Malfoy…” she trailed off quietly.
Emma rolled over onto her back. “Look, the night that Malfoy broke into the school, Thomas was with me. We had a sort of… talk. And he really isn’t that bad. I mean, I wouldn’t, like, want to date him or anything, but I don’t hate him anymore.” Haley and Ivy continued to stare at her, jaws dropped and eyes wide and unblinking. Emma laughed. “Come on, guys. Well, anyway, if not Tyr-- Thomas, Thomas that is, why don’t we prank Jordan? He’s the perfect target! If you ask me, he’s got to get off his high hippogriff.”
Ivy and Haley joined her in a three-way high-five, then got down to scheming for their Ultimate Four-Part Prank. But Haley was dwelling on one thing as she contributed her ideas to their plans-- Jordan. She was worried about him, and Haley, unlike Ivy, rarely worried about anything unless it was really big.
Jordan was different from how he had been before their fourth year. He’d been moody and irritable ever since he’d been about ten, that much was the same, but this year, he had changed. He barely yelled or raged anymore-- in fact, he didn’t speak much at all-- but he was always quietly unhappy. He seemed to be drifting away from his friends and was now spending hours at a time off on his own. She didn’t think she’d seen him smile once since the Valentines’ Day Ball, and that had been over a month and a half before.
Haley knew that Malfoy’s escape was upsetting everyone differently; Emma had grown fiercer than ever, Ivy was nervous and emotional, Ted had become protective and watchful. Haley, though, seemed the same insane girl as ever, if maybe a tiny bit less carefree, and she found it slightly unsettling how things were becoming now. She hadn’t even grown taller!
Jordan was different, though, there was no doubt about it. Part of her very deep down had to wonder-- could anything drive her ‘baby brother’ to lose it at last? Because she was afraid that one last annoyance might cause him to completely crack, and she hoped that she prank she was now planning wasn’t it.
Harry noted with some apprehension that it was March 31st. April Fools’ Day was tomorrow, and he was as sure that Haley, Emma, and Ivy would pull something as he was that the sun would rise in the east the next morning. (Unless, of course, their prank involved changing the path of the sun. He could never be sure with those three.)
He shook his head. Did Haley take anything seriously? She was the opposite of Jordan and Ivy in that aspect-- both of them seemed far too serious for someone their age at times.
Ted was another one who made light of everything. His werewolf condition, for one. Since his first transformation, he’d begun to look more and more like his father, growing thinner, paler, and more tired-looking each month, but he never once complained. Instead, he cracked jokes. Harry wondered if Ted did this to make his parents and friends (especially Ivy) feel better, or if he really was that much of an optimist. After all, Ivy had been so fragile these days, and everyone seemed to treat her as though she were spun out of glass.
“Harry?” came a voice from behind him. He turned around from his desk, where he was planning a lesson on boggarts. Standing behind him was Hermione, looking rather harassed.
“April Fools’ Day is tomorrow!” she exclaimed.
“Yes, I’d noticed,” replied Harry.
Hermione sighed. “Look, you know why I’m coming to see you. Emma. You know she’s going to lead your girls in to some type of trouble, and--”
“Emma? I’d always thought that Haley was in charge, after all that’s happened to Blaise Zabini in the past several years. Or, who know, it could be Ivy who--”
“Harry, stop.” Hermione cut him off. “Anyway, they’re going to pull something. I think we should watch them extra carefully for the rest of today, to prevent… whatever it is that they’re planning.”
“I think we should go ahead and let them do whatever it is that they’re planning,” Harry supplied, and Hermione stared at him as though she had never seen him before. “Everyone is so worked up about Malfoy, a little mischief would be a welcome change,” he continued. “Especially for Ivy.”
Hermione continued to stare at him for a long moment, then stated, “Harry, you know who you’re becoming more and more like every year?”
“Who?”
“Dumbledore.”
Harry smiled. “Thank you. I try,” he said, and there was nothing sarcastic about the twinkle in his eye.
Jordan didn’t really need people anymore, he’d found lately. When he was with his friends, he felt annoyed that they couldn’t read his thoughts and feelings. Not that anybody could, though. His latest obsession was Occlumency and Legilimency, and he’d been reading up on it since the beginning of the school year. He’d managed to teach himself some basic Occlumency, though he didn’t have quite the sufficient power to be a Legilimens just yet.
It was strange, his relationships with his friends. Ted had been his best friend for as long as he could remember (at least, when they were little and were convinced that girls had cooties) but now you never saw Ted without Ivy, and Jordan never really seemed to have time for them, either.
Emma was always fun for a little Quidditch practice, a study session, or a little friendly hexing competition, but she was always with Haley, his obnoxious twin. And Ivy… well, she was his sister now, and he had accepted this as a fact of life, but she was so vulnerable this year. As if he wasn’t depressed enough as it was, spending time with Ivy would do it, though at least she was always good for intelligent conversation.
He pulled out his red guitar and sat down on his bed in the dormitory. One thing he really liked to do when he was sure he was completely alone was to play the guitar and sing; unbeknownst to most, Haley was not the only Potter who was a talented singer. Very few people had ever heard him sing”most people saw him only as a slave to schoolwork who happened to be no slouch on the Quidditch field, but he liked it that way. He didn’t see why everyone in the world needed to know about him.
He strummed a few chords aimlessly, then launched into one of his personal favourite songs, one that seemed appropriate at the time.
“You say you wander your own land
But when I think about it, I don’t see how you can.
You’re aching, you’re breaking
And I can see the pain in your eyes.
Says everybody’s changing, and I don’t know why.
So little time
Try to understand that I’m
Trying to make a move just to stay in the game
I try to stay awake and remember my name
‘Cause --”
Jordan stopped abruptly as the door to the dormitory swung open and somebody walked inside. Not Ted, either. It was Tyrone, and Jordan quickly hid the guitar beneath the covers of his bed. He was not in the mood to be ridiculed-- he could get that from Haley and Emma if he wanted it, though he didn’t expect he ever would.
“Don’t stop just because I came in!” said Tyrone indignantly. “That was pretty good. Maybe I’ll let you play with my band sometime when I’m famous! I play bass.” He squatted down and rummaged around in his trunk, then pulled out a small bundle. “Aha! There’s Isadora’s Hufflepuff tie! She’s been looking for it since February. Right, well, if you see Emma, say ‘hi’ to her from me. Keep on playing! Bye!” And he was back out of the room in a flash.
‘Emma’ now, was it? She had always been ‘Weasley’ to Tyrone for the past four years. What was up with that?
Jordan pulled out the guitar again and sang the last line of the verse slowly.
“’Cause everybody’s changing and I don’t feel the same.”
“Wake up!” Haley yelled in Ivy’s ear the next morning. “Wake up, Malfoy’s got into the school somehow, and Zabini’s threatening to blow up Gryffindor Tower unless McGonagall lets Malfoy take over!” She was not one for Occam’s Razor.
Ivy sat up bolt upright immediately, her eyes flying open. “What?” she yelped.
“April Fool!” howled Haley, dissolved into a gale of mad giggles.
“That isn’t funny. That isn’t funny at all,” Ivy said quietly as she rolled out of bed.
“Yes, it is,” Emma stated as she finished running a brush through her long wavy hair. She wasn’t usually a morning person-- quite the contrary, actually-- but Ivy knew why she was so bright-eyed and cheerful. It was April Fools’ Day, one of her favorite holidays.
After Ivy dressed, the three girls headed down for breakfast. That was when the fun began.
For some odd reason, as soon as the Slytherins sat down at their house table, an unusual change took place in their appearance. Their house ties morphed to Gryffindor red and gold, but that wasn’t the extent of it. Their hair changed to gold with red streaks or red with gold streaks, their eyes turned a frightening gold-flecked scarlet, their nails were suddenly painted red and gold, and bright crimson pustules across their faces spelled out, “GO GRYFFINDOR!”
As angry yells from the Slytherins, hysterical laughter from the members of the other three houses, and confused noises from several others filled the Great Hall, Haley chortled. Stage one of their Ultimate Four-Stage Prank accomplished, no problem.
Except for one thing…she’d almost forgotten that her father was sitting right there at the staff table, watching the chaos. And he wasn’t stupid-- he’d never doubt for a second that this was Haley, Emma, and Ivy’s doing. She wondered how many points would be taken from Gryffindor.
She looked up quickly at the staff table and gave her father a small, nervous wave. He waved back, with an apparent expression of slight surprise-- but was it Haley’s imagination, or had he just given Haley a conspiratorial wink?
“Is it just my imagination, or did Dad just give me a conspiratorial wink?” asked Haley.
“It wasn’t your imagination,” answered Emma, bewildered. “And since when do you use the word ‘conspiratorial?’”
“I think I’ve been spending too much time with my baby brother,” replied Haley. “It gets to you.” The aforementioned ‘baby brother’ turned toward his sister with a death glare affixed on his face.
“Look, Dad might be completely insane, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know who did that to the Slytherins. It was obviously you three. Who else would put so much time and effort into such nonsense?”
“Uncle Fred and Uncle George,” replied Haley.
“The Marauders,” answered Ivy.
“Your mum,” responded Emma. Jordan looked at her quizzically. “April Fool,” she muttered. “Sheesh, some people can’t take a joke.”
“Yes, well, that’s beside the point. The point is, I know you’re going to ruin things for everyone. You’re going to lose us house points, and I’m going to get in trouble for not controlling you better. So you’d better watch yourselves, or… or… I’ll be very upset indeed!” Jordan informed them, then stalked out of the Great Hall. Haley couldn’t help but giggle slightly at her twin’s version of a threat-- “or I’ll be very upset indeed.”
“He didn’t seem too happy about Step One,” noted Ivy, “What do you think he’ll be like when we pull off Step Three?”
Emma pondered the point. “Livid,” she told Ivy cheerily.
Jordan knew something was up when Haley and Emma couldn’t stop giggling on their way to Potions. They sound of it was giving him a headache, but the headache wasn’t nearly as bad as the ominous, foreboding feeling that was hanging over his head. His sister hated Professor Zabini. He was her arch nemesis. There was no way she would pass up an opportunity to prank him.
Jordan couldn’t believe that their father was willing to turn a blind eye on his daughter’s foolishness, but the most maddening part was that, inexcusable as this seemed, he knew his father had a good reason for it. Jordan didn’t know what his good idea was, but his father obviously had one-- there was always a method to his madness. He never contested what his father had to say, because deep down, Jordan knew that he was always right. He was Harry Potter, for crying out loud.
Sometimes, Jordan wished he had never taken that Pensieve from his father’s study four years before, never explored the contents, never witnessed the final battle in which his father had defeated Voldemort. But he had. It had been a huge shock for him-- after all, nobody really took Voldemort seriously anymore. He was in the past, a defeated Dark Lord, just a name touched upon in History of Magic. Like Grindelwald or one of the many leaders of goblin rebellions.
Sure, Jordan had known his father was the hero of the wizarding world, but he’d never known why. Oh, he’d known there had been a battle against Voldemort, but he’d never expected it to have been so… real. It had been so hard, so fast, so full of pain and death. And Voldemort hadn’t been destroyed by a quick, painless spell. It had been a lot more complicated than that.
The hardest part to grasp was that Harry had only been seventeen when he did it, only three years older than Jordan. He knew he would never be able to do what his father had done-- looked pure evil straight in the eye, risked his life to save his friends, faced death for the good of others.
He had emerged from the Pensieve shaking, and he’d never been quite the same since. Nobody else knew about his little jaunt into his father’s memory, and he wasn’t sure he’d ever tell. What had happened between Harry Potter and Voldemort that terrible night would have been hard on anyone, but it was especially traumatic for a ten-year-old boy. He knew he’d never forget what he’d seen.
“Ahhh, maybe you, Mr. Potter, can tell me the chief ingredient in Polyjuice Potion,” came a cold voice from behind him.
Jordan blinked. He wasn’t ten years old and staring into the Pensieve. He was fifteen, and sitting in Potions class. What had gotten into him? He rarely, if ever, daydreamed during class. Most unlike him. “A bit of the person into whom you plan to transform, sir,” he answered Professor Zabini calmly. Of course he knew the answer-- he always did.
Professor Zabini looked vaguely irritated that he didn’t get to snatch away any more points from Gryffindor. “Correct. Now, please, get to work on your potions. I know that this is a N.E.W.T. level potion, but I still expect all of you to produce a sample worthy of at least an A by the end of this period.”
Everyone got to work, though Jordan noticed with some annoyance that Tyrone had raised his hand. Oh, no. If you asked question in Professor Zabini’s class, it was a sure ticket to the land of negative house points.
“Professor?” asked Tyrone. “I was absent when we started the potions last month. What can I do while everyone else is finishing up?”
Jordan winced. This was it, the loss of twenty points. But incredibly, Zabini strode over to his desk and began giving him instructions. While his back was turned, Emma whipped out her wand, pointed it at the blackboard, whispered something unintelligible, then quickly stowed it back in her robes.
Jordan wasn’t sure what incantation she’d used, but a sentence that was all too familiar to him appeared in shimmering gold letters on the blackboard. He groaned and buried his face in his hands-- he should have known.
However, most of the class didn’t share his opinion that this was groanworthy. Instead, they were muffling giggles and snorts, and were pointing, grinning, at the blackboard. Zabini whirled around theatrically.
“What’s so funny?” he asked, barely moving his lips. His black eyes narrowed at the sight of the blackboard, skimming across the words. “Professor Zabini should…” he read quietly, then blinked. “…and a potato?”
The class openly cracked up now, with the exception of one Jordan Potter. “Who is responsible for this?” he snarled, though his cold eyes settled unblinkingly on Haley. His least favorite student. A silence rippled over the classroom as Zabini’s eyes flared up dangerously-- he had quite possibly the scariest eyes of anyone Jordan had ever seen, and that included Lord Voldemort in the Pensieve.
“Nobody leaves this classroom until I find who did this,” he hissed. The classroom was as silent as the grave, until a deep, silky voice called out,
“It was me, Professor.” Everyone turned to look at the source of the voice to see Tyrone Thomas, lounging casually in his seat, arms folded. Zabini’s dark eyebrows shot up, and he fixed his gaze on Tyrone, his lip curling dangerously.
The bell rang, and everyone gathered their books, eager to leave the classroom. Zabini pointed his wand at the blackboard. “Scourgify,” he murmured, but for some strange reason, the spell didn’t clear the words off the blackboard. Instead… instead a shower of potatoes rained on top of him out of thin air, burying him in the lumpy tubers up to his neck. “GAAAA!” he roared.
And just then, something completely unexpected happened, something that not even the most gifted Seer could have predicted, something that was a shock to everyone present. At the sight of the Potions master buried alive in potatoes, Jordan James Potter… laughed!
Harry knew that Blaise Zabini was not in a good mood just from the way he had slammed the door to the staff room and strode toward the table, his eyes blazing. He also smelled faintly of… could it be… potatoes? Harry groaned quietly as he checked his timetable, noting that his children had just finished Potions last period.
Sure enough, Zabini roared, “That daughter of yours disrupted my class today, humiliating and very near injuring me in the process!”
“Typical Haley,” thought Harry, but he simply smiled blandly and asked, “How did you find out that it was in fact Harriet-Lily?”
Zabini’s scowl became even more pronounced. “I did not allow the class to leave until the culprit confessed to her crimes.”
“And Haley said she did it?” Harry asked, knowing where this was going.
“Actually, Tyrone Thomas said he did,” admitted Zabini. “But I know it wasn’t him, because I was assisting him with his potion at the time when… the prank was pulled.”
“If Tyrone said he did it, you can’t punish anyone else for it,” Harry informed him calmly. “Though if you believe Tyrone to be innocent, you can’t punish him either.”
His composure only enraged Zabini more. A vein was throbbing in his temple, and his teeth were bared. Harry could see why the students were so frightened of their Potions master. “I see,” said Zabini through gritted teeth, and he stalked from the room, shaking with anger.
Harry hummed to himself as he graded the last of the sixth years’ essays on resisting the Imperius curse. He thought he might like a baked potato for lunch.
* * * * *
“That was hilarious back in Potions,” complimented Ted. “Even Jordan was cracking up. Whose idea was the shower of potatoes?”
“Mine,” Ivy volunteered shyly.
Ted looked impressed. “Wow, good one, Ivy!”
Ivy smiled as Tyrone sauntered by. “Hey!” called Emma. “Hey, thanks for covering for me back there.”
“No problem,” Tyrone replied in a leisurely manner. “Terrific prank, by the way. Even if I got detention for it, it would have been well worth it. But I didn’t, so it was even cooler this way. Did you see Jordan laughing?”
“Yeah,” answered Haley. “But believe me, he won’t be laughing after our next prank.” Her eyes gleamed in a slightly eerie manner as she said this.
“Wait, so you’re still going to pull more pranks?” asked Ted.
His question was answered that day at lunch.
“Ted, you know, we’re supposed to have a surprise quiz later today in Defence Against the Dark Arts,” Ivy stated casually as she took a bite of salad, though loud enough for Jordan to hear. “I heard it from my cousin, Edwin. And a lot of it is supposed to be on fighting off lethifolds and nundus.”
Jordan half-choked on his black pudding. “What?!” he spluttered. “Are you serious?”
“No, actually, I’m Ivy,” said Ivy innocently. “Sirius is dead, remember?”
Jordan ignored her comment and began speaking very fast as he usually did when agitated. “Nundus and lethifolds? Those were the two lessons I missed when I had the flu two weeks ago! I thought we wouldn’t be tested on that for ages and ages! I’ve got to go to the library!” And with that, he bolted out of the room as fast as his legs would carry him.
Ted turned to Haley. “There isn’t really a test today, is there?”
“Nope,” she replied happily. “Well, that should get him out of the way for now.”
She pulled out her wand and pointed it at the large Hogwarts crest tapestry that was hung on the wall over the staff table. “Projecto!” she whispered, waving her wand. Instantly, the tapestry became a white, flat screen, and video footage of dancing lights was projected onto it.
“Please face the front of the Great Hall for some very special entertainment,” came a voice broadcasting out of Haley’s wand. The voice belonged to her cousin, Edwin Weasley, though he had disguised it so that it sounded uncannily like a voice-over announcer.
“Welcome to Hogwarts Camera, a student produced show filmed entirely on location at Hogwarts. Everybody has secrets. Everybody does things they wouldn’t want others to see when they think they’re alone. Hogwarts Camera explores these secrets, one student at a time. Today, we will be witnesses to five minutes in the life of Jordan Potter, age fifteen. Top wizard in his year, best seeker Hogwarts has seen in years, son of Harry Potter. Let’s see what he does in his spare time, shall we?”
The screen changed from the background of flashing lights to the boys’ dormitory. (Haley had gotten in via Invisibility Cloak to make her film.) Standing in the middle of the room was Jordan, wearing nothing but a pair of red boxer shorts with little snitches flying around on them, and the national flag tied around his neck like a superhero cape. His bright red guitar was strapped to his shoulder, and his wand (using the Sonorous charm to amplify his voice) was propped up on top of the stand for his Astronomy telescope.
Jordan began behaving very oddly, strumming wildly on his guitar and screaming out the song “Satisfaction,” by the Rolling Stones. He held nothing back, yelling, thrashing about with the mic stand, strutting around the dormitory, even shaking his head madly like a punk rocker, causing his hair to look even messier than usual.
Some people, including Antonia Carville (Jordan’s date to the Valentines’ Day Ball) looked quite impressed, but nearly everyone else was in hysterics at his out-of-character behavior.
After the song ended, Edwin’s voice announced, “Well, that been Hogwarts Camera, the secret lifestyle of Jordan Potter. Tune in next April Fools’ Day for even more fun. Good day, everyone!”
The film ended, but not without enthusiastic applause. Haley resisted the strong urge to bow-- it was not in her best interest to let Zabini know that this was her work.
Jordan didn’t know why so many people pointed and laughed at him as he walked down the corridors to and from his classes, or why people screamed, “Wooo!” when they saw him passing by. He thought maybe Haley, Emma, and Ivy had done some kind of odd enchantment on him so that he looked silly or embarrassing, but he had cast aside that notion after a thorough check in the mirror.
He pulled Ted aside in the hallway between classes. “Ted, I don’t know what’s going on, but why is everyone laughing? Did Haley, Emma, and Ivy do something to me?”
Ted looked uncomfortable. “Erm, yeah… yeah, they did,” he replied, his voice cracking embarrassingly.
Jordan glared at the wall over Ted’s shoulder, as though he was trying to bore holes through it with his eyes. “Did they…” he rummaged around in his brain for something horrible and immature that the girls could have done. “Did they hang my underwear in the Great Hall where the Hogwarts crest tapestry should be?”
“Er… actually… you’re, uh, freakishly close…” Ted answered hesitantly.
Jordan’s eyes narrowed, and he suddenly bore a striking resemblance to one Professor Zabini. “Tell me,” he growled.
“Well, uh, Haley-made-a-movie-of-you-in-your-boxers-impersonating-Mick-Jagger-and-broadcast-it-to-the-whole-school-during-lunch,” Ted told him, speaking faster than Jordan ever had. “But, hey, don’t get mad at me.”
“Mad? I’m not mad,” said Jordan quietly, and Ted looked surprised. “Why,” Jordan continued, “I’m FURIOUS! ENRAGED! LIVID! I’m INCREDIBLY IRATE! I’m EXTREMELY ANGRY!” Ted couldn’t help but wonder if his friend had a thesaurus inside his brain. “AND WITH GOOD REASON!” Jordan shouted. “YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE MY FRIEND! BUT YOU DIDN’T TELL ME UNTIL I MADE YOU! WHAT KIND OF A FRIEND IS THAT, I ASK YOU?”
Jordan was yelling now. All year, after his tantrum when he found out about Harry teaching, Jordan hadn’t yelled once-- he just kind of stewed in fury. But now he was letting it all out at Ted, siphoning off the tense anger that had filled him all year. This was the last straw.
Ted remained calm. He had seen his friend much worse than this before. “Look, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but I didn’t know what they were going to do until they actually, well, did it. And you were in the library, so I couldn’t let you know then. And this is the first time I’ve seen you, not counting class, because Ivy and I were doing our Herbology homework, and--”
“YOU AND IVY? I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN! YOU’RE ALWAYS TOO BUSY WITH IVY TO TALK TO ME ANYMORE! NOBODY WANTS TO TALK TO ME! IT’S LIKE HAVING THE BUBONIC PLAGUE, ONLY WITHOUT THE INFECTED BOILS!” Jordan bellowed. He knew he was being selfish and unreasonable, but he couldn’t help it.
“No, it’s not like that!” Ted protested. “It’s you who doesn’t talk to anybody anymore. It’s like you’re afraid of people. And Ivy… well, Haley and Emma might be good friends to her and all, but they don’t really get how upset she is. They don’t notice that type of thing. So Ivy and I sometimes just hang out and do our work together-- this year’s really hard on her, she’s got a lot of problems, and--”
“LIKE I DON’T HAVE PROBLEMS!” Jordan hollered. “GOT IT, THE GIRLFRIEND ALWAYS COMES BEFORE YOUR BEST MATE! SEE, THIS IS WHY I HATE PEOPLE!” And he stormed off down the hallway to who knows where.
Ted blinked. Best mate? They hadn’t even been close for years, mainly because Jordan had gotten so withdrawn. And Jordan’s words… “See, this is why I hate people.” The words reverberated around in his head, sounding just as chilling each time as they had the first.
He couldn’t help feeling a strange apprehension that this was the last straw before Jordan snapped, a sinking suspicion that Jordan would lose his mind and do something rash. “Someone needs to catch Malfoy,” he thought. “Look what he’s doing to everyone.”
Later that day, Haley, Emma, and Ivy were happily heading down for dinner. But for some reason, Emma proceeded in a different direction than her friends. “Emma, the Great Hall’s this way! That hallway leads to the Hufflepuff Common Room!” Ivy reminded her, pointing her in the right direction. “Surely you’d know that after going to Hogwarts for nearly four years.”
Emma grinned mischievously. “Oh, I’m not heading for the Great Hall just yet. That hall leads to the kitchens, and I have a few things to deliver to the house elves-- certain spices for the food, let’s say, before I go down to dinner.” Phase Four of the Ultimate Four Part Prank had already begun.
Haley and Ivy headed off for the Great Hall without Emma, waiting for the food to pop up on the house tables. They were soon joined by Ted, who looked rather shell-shocked (Ivy wondered what had happened); Tyrone, who wanted to compliment them on their video of Jordan; and not Jordan. Haley’s twin didn’t seem to be anywhere at all.
“Where do you suppose Jordan is?” Haley asked carelessly.
“Well, he’s a bit upset,” Ted told her. “Or in his words, furious, livid, enraged, incredibly irate, and extremely angry. He didn’t like your prank very much.”
“I did!” Tyrone chipped in loudly.
Ivy looked slightly guilty. “I was afraid that would happen,” she said softly.
“What, me liking it?” asked Tyrone. Everyone ignored him, something to which the boy was very unaccustomed.
“Yeah, so was I,” Ted replied as Emma joined them, smiling mysteriously. Of course, Haley and Ivy knew exactly what was going on, but the boys had no clue.
“Hello Ted, Tyrone,” Emma greeted them breezily. “I wouldn’t eat any of the food if I were you, unless you really want to be among my latest victims.”
“There are times when she really scares me,” Tyrone noted to Ted, who chuckled. Emma’s eyes were indeed ablaze with vindictive pleasure.
Nobody seemed to notice that the five of them weren’t touching their food at all when it appeared on the house tables. But they definitely noticed that everyone in the Great Hall was suddenly turning into a large, yellow canary with a loud chirp.
“Canary creams!” Haley shouted to Ted over the angry chirping. “Emma gave them to the House Elves to put into the food! And look at what Ivy did!”
‘What Ivy did’ soon became apparent. Triggered by the chirping noise, a sound-activated panel opened in the ceiling, and lots of confetti and ‘Weasleys’ Wildfire Whizbangs’ fireworks floated down, accompanied by a burst of riotous polka music. The effect was so hilarious that the five of them who hadn’t eaten the food cracked up, Haley actually falling backward off the bench and hitting her head on the ground with a loud ‘crack.’
“I love April Fools Day!” she exclaimed gleefully from the ground.
“Me, too!” replied Emma in a fit of laughter.
A lone figure slouched by the door, a book clutched tightly to his chest. He peered into the chaos-filled Great Hall, his bright green eyes narrowed angrily. “I don’t,” he muttered.