Chapter 6
The Doxy Swarm
“Please,” Albus instructed to the small gathering before him, “everyone sit.”
Scorpius and Rose looked to one another, as though searching for some clue of how to behave. But eventually, the two took their seats on the damp tile floor, eyes glancing upwards to watch Moaning Myrtle, making sure she remained convinced of the ruse.
“Okay,” Albus began, first taking a deep breath to calm his rattled nerves. “So, an Erkling didn’t just wander into the school by itself. How could it have gotten into the corridor?”
Rose and Scorpius remained silent, trusting themselves to meet each other’s gaze. But the act had to keep going, so Albus ploughed onwards. It was starting to feel more like Albus was talking to himself rather than having a meeting.
“It’s possible that Peeves let it in,” Albus suggested, “as sort of a pre-Halloween prank; my cousins say that he pulls stunts like this near every year…it could’ve also been Fred and James behind this…”
“I don’t think James and Fred would do something like that,” Rose spoke up suddenly. “They might be immature jerks, but I don’t think they’d do something that could actually get people killed.”
“And Peeves is a poltergeist, so he isn’t really capable of using magic,” Scorpius added. “Did either of you know that Erklings are only native to Germany, so that whoever did let that thing in would have had to transport it here?”
Albus shook his head slowly while Myrtle circled around their heads, listening intently to every word spoken.
“Or that the last reported Erkling attack on a human was in 1912, and that the German Ministry of Magic has been keeping tabs on their population ever since?”
Albus continued to shake his head, but he noticed Rose beginning to purse her lips together tightly. This had been a typical Rose expression, usually only brought out by Victoire or Dominique when they were younger, whenever Rose felt her intelligence was being insulted. It wasn’t a very hard thing to do, to make Rose feel insulted, but the condescending tone Scorpius used as he spoke would have been enough to get to even the most level-headed person.
“And a person would have to collect a large amount of Chizpurfles and bring them all together for an infestation as huge as the one we had that day in Potions,” Scorpius took his turn to speak. “Maybe whoever was responsible for the Erkling is the same person who collected all those pests.”
“Wait, go back,” Rose stopped him. “What happened in your Potions class?”
In a bored, drawling tone, Scorpius recounted the events of the day’s Potions lesson, thankfully leaving out the fight between Albus and himself.
“You didn’t know?” Albus asked, noticing that the conversation was begin to lose the rehearsed feel it had started with and had begun to sound like a real exchange of words.
“No!” Rose exclaimed, shocked. “Nobody in Ravenclaw has been talking about it. And if there’s gossip to be heard, it’s the girls in my House who will be saying it.”
“Well, think about it,” Scorpius said. “The other Houses don’t talk to each other as is, and all the years pretty much keep to themselves…”
“And other first and fourth-year Gryffindors and Slytherins all take Potions together anyway,” Albus expanded, “so the only way anyone else would know is if the teachers had told them.”
“Why would they?” Rose shrugged her shoulders. “Chizpurfles go after potion ingredients; it’s what they do. Don’t you remember the awful infestation that Grandma Weasley’s place had a few years ago, Rosie?”
“An infestation is one thing, Albus,” Scorpius interrupted, “but you were there. What happened that day was not normal. There were hundreds, maybe thousands of those things in there. It was a carpet of them, for Merlin’s sake! Even Professor Vhartan was freaked out; what does that tell you?”
“Chizpurfles by themselves aren’t out of the ordinary,” Rose agreed “But I’ve been listening in on the Care of Magical Creatures N.E.W.T. students for ages now. I’m learning pretty much everything there is to know about magical creatures, and-”
Albus stopped listening to Rose’s words and instead chose to watch her and Scorpius’ banter. Rose’s hands were moving animatedly and Scorpius remaining still and composed. Rose seemed to be becoming more and more excited the longer she spoke, but Scorpius just kept shaking his head at the end of her every sentence and keeping his tone flat. Whatever their conversation was, it was anything but fake. Almost as though they had forgotten this whole ‘Arcane ScoRA’ business was all a stunt to keep Moaning Myrtle from running to the teachers.
“Either one of these incidents by themselves could be passed off as random.” Albus finally started paying attention to Rose’s actual words again. “But the two of them occurring within barely a week of each other…I smell a rat.”
“You smell a conspiracy, Weasley,” Scorpius snapped back. “You’ve spent your entire life hearing your parents and your relatives talk about their days of saving the world, so you’ve learn to see a plot in every little bump in the night.”
“Isn’t that what the Arcane ScoRA exists for, Malfoy?” Rose answered. “To make sure the bumps in the night really are just bumps in the night?”
“There is n-”
Scorpius was able to stop himself from finishing his sentence just in the nick of time.
He finally settled on, “You can’t prove it is!”
“And you can’t prove it isn’t!”
Albus could have warned Scorpius that there was no out-arguing Rose Weasley, but it looked as though he was learning that lesson on his own.
What was shocking Albus the most, though, was how their imaginary society had begun to take on a mind and will of its own. Certainly Scorpius still though of it as only a means to keep from being expelled, but Albus could tell that it was already becoming something much more to Rose. It was almost as though it were becoming more of a means of carrying on a legacy. And if that was the case, then it was Albus’ legacy too.
“We’re not going to be moving on from this point tonight,” Scorpius said in a resigned tone, relaxing his previously stiff posture. “We should go back to bed.”
Without another word, Scorpius pushed himself up off the floor. He didn’t make a move for the door, though, he just seemed more interested in getting away from Rose and her ideas of a conspiracy.
“So what do we do?” Albus turned to his cousin.
“We wait to be proven,” she answered. “Right or wrong.”
The three students stood together in silence for the remainder of their time together, barely looking at one another. Albus shuffled his feet against the tile floor, but nearly felt his heart jump out of his chest when Moaning Myrtle rose up through the floor, not three inches from the end of his shoes.
“It’s clear on the way to Slytherin,” she informed him, after waiting for Albus to catch his breath.
“Alright, Scorpius,” Rose said with a slight push against his shoulder. “Go!”
Scorpius stumbled, but took the time to glare at Rose, who only glared right back, before racing out the door. Albus could hear Scorpius’ footsteps tread softly at first, but then become louder and less weary the further away he got.
“I didn’t see anyone around Gryffindor or Ravenclaw,” Myrtle informed Albus and Rose once they felt Scorpius had had enough time to get away. “But I can check again if you’re worried.”
“We’re fine,” Rose answered shortly, grabbing Albus by the arm and dragging him towards the door. “We’re set. Thank you for all your help, Myrtle.”
And with that, still dragging Albus by the sleeve of his robes like a ragdoll, she led him down the corridor, not nearly as carefully as they had been when they had first snuck to the bathroom. At first, Albus believed it to be out of desire to get back to her dormitory before getting caught. But the further away from Myrtle’s bathroom the two of them got, the more Rose’s previous excitement began to return.
“I can’t believe all this! Can you, Albus?” She spoke at a near-rabid pace. “I mean, before we left for school, my dad sat me down and told me all about how you and I were going to have the normal, boring school years that everyone is supposed to have, and that how he, my mum, and all our aunt and uncles were never going to know what that was like. But now”now were going to-”
Albus barely listened to his cousin speak. She was going so fast that he could tell if her fast tone was coming from excitement or from worry. The two seemed to coincide in the mind of Rose Weasley. And when they did, Rose became this strange new creature who needed to speak the way other people needed to breathe. It was almost like a grease fire in a way; it could not be put out, one simply had to let it burn itself out.
“Albus, Rose,” a familiar voice in an unfamiliarly harsh, authoritative tone called out to them. “Where have you two been?”
Of course, sometimes an outside force, if it proved strong enough, could prove enough to stop these bouts of rambling speech.
Albus and Rose both cringed, but the simultaneous action did not stop the two of them from being spun around and brought face to face with the furious glare of Victoire Weasley. At home or at any other Weasley family gathering, Victoire was no force to be reckoned with, as rare as her wrath might be. But here at Hogwarts, were she was Head Girl and held real authority over the lives of her younger cousins, the very thought made a chill go through Albus’ soul.
Towering from a height much greater than Albus had recalled from before, Victoire stood above the two younger children with her arms crossed in front of her and a stone-cold quality in her clear blue eyes.
“I suppose there will be a wonderful story behind this,” Victoire said, her voice low and deadly sounding, “and I’m certain that James and Fred have made sure you are both very well rehearsed.”
“You’re too hard on those two,” a kinder, but still wary voice spoke up from behind Victoire. “If a phoenix died in flight and crashed through one of the Great Hall windows, you would somehow find a way for it to be Fred and James’ fault.”
Albus had never seen the girl standing behind his cousin before, but James’ letters home gave him a fairly good idea of who she was. This was Theresa Fatone, a Hufflepuff seventh year who had been Victore’s best friend since their first year. She was a heavy-set girl who was far from being lovely in the sense that Albus’ cousin was. Albus knew it was horrible to think such things about a person, but he couldn’t help it if they were true.
“Did you honestly believe I wouldn’t notice if the two of you didn’t show up to one of the biggest feasts of the year?”
Victoire’s shrill, angry voice brought Albus out of his own thoughts and back to the deep pit of trouble he and Rose were now in.
“Since you two are my family, I’ll make this simple for you,” Victoire informed them sternly. “I’m going to give you till the count of three to tell me who you’re wandering the halls this late at night. One…”
Albus didn’t move. He felt a little nervous, testing his older cousin’s authority like this, but Rose stood behind him, strong and steady. And if it ever did come down to a fight between the two girls, Albus was confident that Rose would walk away victorious with a fistful of veela-witch hair to prove it.
“Two…”
Still, neither of the children moved. Albus shuffled his feet and Rose stuck out her chin defiantly, as though she were daring Victoire to do her worst.
“Two and a half…”
“Some Head Girl you are, Weasley,” came a sneer at the end of the corridor.
Albus had to strain his eyesight to see into the shadows and the figure of the voice’s owner that lurked there: her hair and eyes were so black that she could have easily stay hidden in the shadows for hours, had she made no sound. But as she sauntered out into the light, she could no longer be described as anything other than outstanding. She was quite lovely, her dark beauty nearly rivaling Victoire’s veela inheritance.
“Can’t find it in your own abilities to bring first-years to a Halloween party?” she went on. “How poor of a leader do you have to be to lure children away from caramel apples and candy corn?”
A momentary glance away from Victoire brought the girls attention downwards towards Albus. A sly sort of smile spread across her face, the kind of smile Albus was certain the foxes in fairy tales took on just before they ate the adorable little animal.
“Well, aren’t you the cute one.” She smiled that same smile as she ran a cold hand across Albus’ cheek. “My name is Jocelyn. Can you tell me your name?”
Even though this girl’s, Jocelyn’s, words bayed him to talk, the intense gaze in her pitch-black eyes held his voice captive in his throat. From the small smile that appeared across her lips, Albus could tell that she knew what was happening, she was even enjoying it. This girl was like a mean child who would set a fairy free only to capture it again after it had only flown a few feet.
“Aw, too shy to talk?” she cooed in a voice dripping with sweet venom. “You are even more adorable than I thought.
“Or maybe you just let the little yappy one do all your talking for you?” she pondered aloud, casting Rose with same disgusted look one might have towards a crushed beetle.
“Can’t even keep your own relatives in line?” Jocelyn asked, turning her attention to Victoire. “I don’t know what the professors were thinking when they thought you capable of being responsible for the whole school.”
“This doesn’t concern you, Dale!”
Jocelyn clucked her tone in disapproval. “Now, Victoire, as seventh-years in positions of power, don’t you think it is our duty to be civil towards one another? You’ll set a bad example for the children.”
Jocelyn’s dark eyes flicked down to the red and gold badge on Victoire’s chest and then back up to look her in the eyes.
“I would have thought that Head Girl badge you’re so proud of actually meant something to you.”
“At least Victoire’s badge actually means something!” Theresa spoke up, though still lingering back behind her friend.
Like a provoked snake, Jocelyn snapped her gaze across to Theresa. Albus expected her to be angry, but instead, her expression was almost happy. As though responding to Theresa was what she had wanted all along and had simply been waiting for an excuse.
She took her time answering, twisting a long, black strand of hair through her dexterous fingers, “Yes, and I’m going to take popularity advice from Theresa Fat-One.” She spoke in that Slytherin drawl that all its members seemed to be capable of. “You know, there are a couple of Chasers on my team that pal around with a girl a lot like you, Fat-One. They call her their ‘boost’, because whenever the boys see her, everyone else seems so much more beautiful and interesting by comparison.”
Once she was confident that Theresa had been beaten down, she turned her attentions back to Victoire.
“What I’ve never been able to figure is why, Victoire ‘The Veela’ Weasley, Hogwarts’ favorite half-breed, would even need a ‘boost’ friend.”
Theresa slinked back, almost like a whipped puppy, but Victoire’s reaction was one of blazing rage; turning the famous Weasley red featured both in their hair and their tempers.
“Twenty points from Slytherin, Dale!”
Even in the face of Victoire’s anger, Jocelyn didn’t so much as flinch.
“Ouch,” she drawled. “That hurt, Weasley.”
“I’d better go,” Jocelyn said, slinking her way towards the Slytherin dungeons. “I must get back to the dormitories before the Slytherin first-years start causing as much trouble as the Gryffindors.”
But before lurking back into the darkness, she ran her hand across Albus’ unruly mop of black hair.
“Bye-bye, cutie pie,” she drawled, ruffling Albus’ already messy hair as she passed.
And so, the sweet venom girl known as Jocelyn Dale, disappeared down the dungeon staircase and back into the shadows. Albus had noticed before that the staircase had a terrible echo. This sound soon surfaced once again in the form of what sounded like a dragged out scream at a decibel too low to have been authentic.
“Did that girl just howl?” exclaimed Rose, looking ready to storm down the dungeon stairs after the noise.
“We’re leaving, Rose!” Victoire told her cousin, grabbing her roughly by the back of her robes and dragging Rose behind her.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Victoire,” Theresa called out to them before she faded from sight, down towards the Hufflepuff common room.
Rose stumbled as she struggled to keep up with their older cousin while at the same time walking backwards. Albus could understand why Victoire was so angry and how Jocelyn knew such a random action would infuriate her so. Victoire’s dad, their uncle Bill, suffered from lycathropy, not enough so that he would become a werewolf at every full moon, but he did have an unusual taste for rare steaks and an extremely strong sense of smell, along with the unusual ability to bond with any canine that came their way. His face was also horribly scarred from the encounter with the werewolf that had given him the disease, not something that could be as easily overlooked as some of his other symptoms.
Not only that, but it also happened to be common knowledge that Victoire had been seeing Teddy Lupin ever since her fourth year, whose father actually had been a werewolf. This, possibly, was the reason that Victoire’s anger was always on breaking point “ she constantly had to put up with the taunting of her fellow students.
“Here’s your door, Rose,” Victoire said through clenched teeth, as though it were taking all her willpower not to scream. Violently, she threw Rose out of her tight grip, nearly hurling the redheaded girl against the wall. But although she stumbled, Rose finally steadied herself just in time to meet with the knocker for the riddle that would allow her into her common room.
“Mountains will crumble and temples will fall, and no man can survive its endless call,” the bronze knocker spoke. “What is it?”
“Time,” Rose answered effortlessly.
“Correct,” the knocker answered, opening the door for her.
“Life gets complicated when you get old, doesn’t it, Victoire?” Albus asked his older cousin once Rose was gone.
“Yes, it does, Albus,” she answered. But Albus knew they were thinking of very different things.
Thump, thump, thump…
Albus opened his eyes a crack and glanced around the room. Everything was still and, for the most part, quiet. To his left, Damien slept with his arm tossed over his head, and to his right, Simon snored at a volume that Albus had usually been able to ignore. But clearly, no one in the room was awake this early on a Saturday morning. Thoroughly convinced of this reasoning, Albus shut his eyes and tried to drift back to sleep.
“Get the lead out of your shoes, Potter!”
“I’m moving as fast as I can, Corner!”
These shouts gave way to more shouting from other unseen owners of voices, giving no signal of stopping or weakening. Giving up on returning to the place of sleep, Albus kicked the covers back and pulled himself out of bed. His bare feet made no sound as he made his way across the floor, not one of his roommates stirring as he left.
Once at the bottom of the staircase, a racing sea of crimson robes rushed back and forth, shouting advice and insults at each other. Even though it was a spectacle Albus had never seen before, he needed no one to tell him what it was: the Gryffindor Quidditch team, up before everyone else in the school preparing for the first match of the year. Albus had nearly forgotten all about it, despite the fact that the entire house had been buzzing about it for weeks. He had had much bigger things on his mind.
“What going on?” Albus called over the collective noise of the team.
“Get lost, runt!” James shouted as he tied his boots, although he didn’t even bother to look at his younger brother.
“Potter!” a taller fifth year girl with a short, pixie haircut scolded, whacking James on the back of the head. “Don’t talk to your little brother like that!
“We’re sorry we woke you up, Albus.” The girl’s voice became a lot more gentle. “We’re just doing some last minutes drills before the match this afternoon. You can go back to bed.”
“No, no, Albus.” Roxannne stood up and stopped him before he could even turn to start back up the stairs. “If you go back to bed, you’ll never get to the game early enough to get good seats. First match of the season, not to mention Gryffindor vs. Slytherin, it’s going to draw a huge crowd.”
“Albus is still in his first year, Tracy,” Louis, a Chaser, just like Roxanne, spoke up. “So he doesn’t know these things yet.”
“Oh, my little brother is a first-year too,” the team captain, Tracy remarked. “Eli Corner in Ravenclaw; do you know him?”
“I’m sorry,” Albus apologized for not recognizing the name. “I don’t know him.”
“Hmm, Eli’s always been a shy little thing. I guess that’s why he’s not in Gryffindor,” Tracy mused as she gathered up some idle Quidditch equipment. “But you make sure you stop by the Ravenclaw stand and have your cousin introduce you.”
Albus nodded, even though silently he told himself he was too old for ‘play dates’. But this girl had gotten James to back off of him before any real abuse started, so he told himself he would be polite.
“When is Dugan going to be getting his last bones out of bed?” Roxanne remarked suddenly.
“Maddox isn’t going to be playing today,” Tracy grumbled, her mood shifting suddenly. “Mr. Dugan just had to mouth off to the captain of the Slytherin team in plain view of Professor Hardarse, so he’s out of the game for the day.”
“He called her a Blast-ended Skank!” Fred snickered, causing James and every other boy on the team to laugh under their breath.
“That’s right, Fred Weasley! You just laugh it up!” Tracy shouted at her team Beater. “It is absolutely hilarious that we lost our team’s Keeper and now we have to dip into the reserve pool for a replacement!
“I’ll tell you what, though, Albus.” Tracy stopped herself before leading the team out of the common room. “Before you go to meet up with your friends, why don’t you come down on the field with the team?”
“Okay,” Albus answered, not telling Tracy that he didn’t play Quidditch, and hadn’t even decided if he would be going to the match today. He could hardly refuse to go now, though.
“Great,” she remarked happily. “We’d better get a move on. And, Albus, you go back upstairs and try to get some more sleep. Despite what your cousin says, even the earliest arrivals will not be choosing their seats for hours. You’ll have time to get a few moments rest.”
“Yes,” James followed in a mocking tone, “we wouldn’t want ickie Albie-kins to be all sweepy and cwanky for his vewy first Quidditch game.”
“POTTER!” came a loud yell from Tracy on the stairs.
“I’m coming, I’m coming!”
Once James was gone, Albus found himself smiling. He was beginning to really like this Tracy girl.
Albus, once back in bed, watched the sky shift through brilliant shades of scarlet, orange, and pink and the shadows shift across the room before he finally decided he wouldn’t be falling back to sleep. Making his way gingerly across the stone floor, he pulled on the clothes from the night before, as well as shucking his winter cloak and wrapping his scarlet and gold scarf tightly around him to guard against the early November chill.
Albus left the boys’ dormitory and eventually the Gryffindor tower, finding himself walking into a scene he never believed he would ever see: a silent Hogwarts. Save for the occasional prefect, and Nearly-Headless Nick muttering some bitter rant that Albus could not distinguish. The corridors were completely empty; so quiet, Albus was sure he could hear the tiny feet of mice racing across the floor above him.
The early morning dew soaked into the leather of his shoes. The warmth of the sun had yet to grace the school grounds, Albus noted, hugging his cloak tightly around him. Despite all this, it felt wonderful to be outside. The air was delightfully crisp and the soft scent of fresh grass lingered on it. The still rising sun left the outside world in a glow that no form of magic could ever bring inside the dreary castle walls.
Etched into the Hogwarts skyline, the Quidditch stadium was a most impressive construction. Tall, pillared stands offered the spectators a magnificent aerial view that rivaled some professional stadiums (at least according to his mother). The goal posts stood at near eye level with the seats, forcing the players to compete dozens of feet above the ground. The idea of it made Albus queasy, but according both his parents, there was no greater rush in all the world. And James had taken the liberty of adding that whenever a player fell from their broom, it was nearly as entertaining to the spectators as watching the game itself. He made sure to emphasize this point with a dramatic fall to the living room floor which their mother didn’t find amusing, but that Albus had heard their father snicker at behind his hand.
Even before entering the stadium, Albus could make out the flashes of scarlet that were the Gryffindor Quidditch team. Louis and Roxanne practiced some sort of agility drill, racing over and under one another in complicated loops. Fred and the other Beater, a girl with hair tied back painfully tight, smacked a Muggle football back and forth, caught in some game where the two tried desperately to keep the ball from losing any altitude.
Another girl whom Albus was not familiar with flew lazy laps around the Gryffindor goal. She must have been the reserve Keeper that Tracy had been talking about in the common room. As Albus watched, he began to notice that the girl’s slow pace didn’t stem from a lack of energy, but from pure effort to stay on her broom. Several times, Albus watched the girl shake, shriek, and then clutch at her broom with both hands while on the verge of crying. No wonder Tracy wasn’t happy!
It wasn’t until Albus got inside, though, that he finally did find Tracy practicing with his brother. From the deep gulps of breath James was already taking, it was a clearly a brutal session; no doubt Tracy’s idea of punishing James for this morning’s behavior, which Albus had come to see as normal interaction between the two of them. What the drill entailed of Tracy tossing three Muggle golf balls into the air at a time and James having to catch every single one of them before gravity took effect and they began plummeting back to the turf. And from the frantic way James raced to catch them, Albus didn’t feel he wanted to know what his brother would be forced to do if he missed any of them.
The damp earth squished under Albus’ shoes, causing Tracy to turn in the direction of the noise.
“Potter, take five!” Tracy ordered before making her way over to Albus, who watched his brother simply drop to the ground, making no attempt to get up.
“Albus,” she greeted him with a jovial tone, “I’m glad you made it; and so early too. You must really be stoked for the match today.”
Albus nodded in a distracted sort of way, his eyes moving past Tracy to look at his brother, who still hadn’t gotten up off the ground. Despite everything James had ever done to him in his short life, he still hoped his older brother wasn’t dead. There was nothing like a dead sibling to ruin the Christmas holidays.
“Oh, don’t worry about him,” Tracy assured him. “Your brother is a bit of a drama queen.”
To illustrate this, Tracy made her way towards James with Albus following closely at her heels. When she reached his side, Tracy expressed her sympathies for James Potter in the form of a swift kick to his side.
“Suck it up, Potter,” Tracy said sternly as James groaned. “On your feet before I put your little brother on your broom and let him Seek for the game.”
Although reluctant, those words were what it finally took to get James up off the turf and onto his feet. He glared at his younger brother, knowing that Albus was at least partially responsible for Tracy’s treatment of him. Albus couldn’t help but answer with a smirk. Tracy Corner seemed to be one of those people with the rare ability to make James do as he was told. To make things even better, she had taken an instant liking to Albus. Even though he had no idea of what he had done to earn such fast favor with the Gryffindor captain, he did know that he would be using every ounce of it to his full advantage.
“Not bad, eh?” Tracy remarked, gesturing up towards the practicing players of the team. “Do you have a favorite position?”
Albus shook his head no. He knew Tracy had meant his favorite position to play, and he didn’t have one, mostly because he didn’t care for playing Quidditch as much as he did for watching it. He did love the game, though. From even before he could remember, Albus’ whole family had followed the professional Quidditch season, taking advantage of his mother’s special privileges as a member of the press and former Chaser for the Holyhead Harpies.
Guiltily, Albus admitted to himself that he had not been fully honest with Rose and Scorpius about his inability to fly on the night of the Erkling attack. With parents as heavily involved with the game of Quidditch as Harry and Ginny Potter, they would never have allowed one of their children to go through life without learning how to ride a broom.
Though Albus did seem to get passed over on a few things that his parents had paid more attention to with James and Lily, flying lessons being one of them. His Grandma Weasley called it the middle child syndrome. James had gotten a toy broom for his first birthday, but one windy day, after he fell off of the broom and into one of the neighbor’s swimming pool, nearly drowning, his mother declared that all the Potter children were going to learn how to walk, swim, and tuck-and-roll before they would be allowed on a broom. Still, after Albus had learned to do all these things, his mum was still wary of allowing Albus anywhere near a broom; (though his dad still snuck him out for rides on his old Firebolt whenever he thought they could get away with it). The only reason Lily had learned to fly was because one day, the two-year-old toddler hand wandered into the garden shed, found James’ old toy broom, and began racing laps around the yard before their mother could wake up and stop her.
Somehow, though, because his brother and sister had both learned to fly on their own, the family had just never gotten around to teaching him.
“Well, you’d better make up your mind soon,” Tracy told him. “You’ll be old enough for Quidditch trials before you know it, and I’m going to be losing a fair amount of players in the coming years.”
Before Albus could repeat all his previous thoughts aloud for the Gryffindor captain, a velvety voice interrupted, “Scrounging through the talent pool already, Corner?”
Albus recognized the source of the voice, and apparently, so did Tracy: she had her expression changed to one of animosity and annoyance.
“At least Gryffindor has a talent pool, Dale,” she remarked without even turning around. “I saw that inbred little gaggle of first-years you had coming into your House at the feast.”
Tracy spun around, and like her little shadow, Albus did too. Standing before them was a group of seven emerald-robed figures, brooms in hands and smirks on faces. And towering above them all, the same captain’s badge that Albus had seen the night before gleaming on her chest, was Jocelyn Dale.
“Oh, look who it is,” she remarked coyly, stepping away from the group. “Little cutie-pie Potter!”
Just like the night before, she reached out to stroke his hair, like he was a puppy. The older girl’s touch was slowly becoming one that made his skin crawl
“I might have thought you’d be drawn to this little doll, Corner,” Jocelyn said as she returned her hand to her side. “I know I certainly was.”
Albus retreated closer to Tracy, again behaving like the puppy Jocelyn seemed to believe he was.
“Too bad not enough of his ancestors were brother and sister,” Tracy shot back. “Then maybe he would have ended up wearing green.”
Jocelyn didn’t laugh this time. This time she glared, an acid glare that could have pushed any first year to the point of tears. It even seemed to scare a few of her fellow teammates.
“Go to hell, Corner,” she hissed.
“After you,” Tracy answered back.
Not being the type to slink away, Jocelyn led the rest of her team up into the air and began working them through their drills, shouting abuses and profanities, at least, that’s what Albus believed the muffled sounds to be, anyway. It was hard to tell from so far down on the ground.
“Oh, this is going to be quite a show,” Tracy said in a hushed tone, as she watched the furious Slytherin captain.
Standing opposite one another, ruby and emerald, the two Quidditch teams faced off against one another. The Gryffindor seats were filled with screaming fans, the first-years taking up most of the front ones. Damien Towler’s face was covered with red and gold paint, and Leo Edwin and Gavin Foss shouted at the top of their lungs, louder than anyone else in the stands. The first-year girls all leaned over the edge, displaying a very large ‘Go, Go Gryffindor’ banner.
Next to the Gryffindor seats, in the Slytherin stands, Albus could make out the shape of Scorpius Malfoy in the left corner of the box. There was no paint on his face and no flags in his hand, but he was cheering for his house team just as vigorously as anyone else.
A sudden hand grabbing at his shoulder caused Albus to jump out of acquired reflex, even though he could see Fred and James on the field right in front of him. But when he turned around, he was still shocked by what he saw: Rose Weasley out of the castle, no Gryffindor pride gear, but with her blue-and-bronze Ravenclaw scarf wrapped around her neck.
“Hey, Albus!” She smiled brightly at their cousin. “How long until the game starts?”
“Um,” Albus muttered, still shocked to actually see his cousin, “just a few minutes, I think.”
Rose nodded and elbowed her way up to the front to stand in between Riley St. John and Jodie Canning.
“Let’s go, Gryffindor!” Rose shouted out onto the stadium. “Let’s win this!”
Most of Albus’ cousins were on the Quidditch field, but when he turned, he could see Victoire, Dominique, Molly, and Lucy standing towards the back in just as much shock as Albus had been in. It would appear the Rose’s self-pitying mood was officially over. Rose Weasley was now a happy member of Ravenclaw house, but at the same time, had no problem associating with her all-Gryffindor family.
“Welcome one and all,” came a booming voice from the announcer’s box. “I am Kiki Powell, proud Ravenclaw and your very own Quidditch announcer. It is a lovely day, and I personally don’t feel we could have asked for a more perfect day for the Hogwarts opening match.
The gathering crowd cheered loudly in agreement.
“Madam Wood has asked me to remind the players to make sure that this stays a clean game and that the fans remember to keep their emotions in check. Speak of the devil, here comes Madam Wood onto the field now, with the game balls in hand.”
A collective set of eyes moved downwards, towards the centerline of the field where Madame Wood stood with a leather trunk under one arm. She set it down onto the turf, released one of the straps, and unhooked the latch, releasing the first ball.
“There goes the Snitch…”
Albus watched as both his brother and Jocelyn Dale focused their eyes on the golden, winged ball. Madam Wood then reached down and released two more straps.
“…And the Bludgers…”
Finally, Madam Wood powerfully tossed one last ball into the air.
“The Quaffle is in play…”
A loud whistle blew a shrieking blast that could be heard even above the screams of the crowd.
“…And the game has begun!”
Tracy Corner and one of the Slytherin Chasers raced forwards to grab the Quaffle while other players darted around them.
“And Tracy Corner of Gryffindor intercepts the Quaffle for an early lead for Gryffindor. Just look at her go! Someone has been training over the summer. You know what else she’s been doing this summer? Word has it that she spent two weeks in Paul Harris’ family summer house where they stay every year at the exact same time !”
“Kiki’s such an awful gossip,” Rose whispered into Albus’ ear. “It’s all she ever does whenever she’s in the common room.”
“Roxanne Weasley makes an underhand pass to Louis Weasley who throws to Corner “ OH! Intercepted by Marie Barton of Slytherin! That has to be a low blow to the Gryffindor team captain. Barton passes to Toby Danes, who is now making a beeline for the goal. With Maddox Dugan out of commission for today’s game, it looks like Slytherin is looking to take the Gryffindor team out hard and fast “ but wait, Corner redeems herself and steals the Quaffle back. Back towards the Slytherin goal. Oh, no! That Bludger’s right about to “ Never mind, Fred Weasley smacks that baby clear into the stratosphere! Fred Weasley is showing excellent form this year, and the Weasley family Quidditch legacy is still living up to its name. Speaking of family names, let’s see if we can find Seeker James Potter...James Potter…James Potter…Nope, no sign of him right now, people. Let’s get back to the midfield action. Tracy Corner flies for the goal “ Wendy Crawford of Slytherin comes in from the side to intercept “ but Corner passes back to Roxanne Weasley. Roxanne Weasley flies for the goal, throws it right for Keeper Lucus Taylor’s head…GRYFFINDOR SCORES!”
Loud cheers erupted from the Gryffindor stand, and groans from the Slytherin stands next to them. Hanging over the side of the stands, was a familiar-looking Slytherin with pale blond hair looking as though he were contemplating throwing himself over the edge.
“Chaser Barton takes position of the Quaffle,” Kiki Powell shouted over the crowd. “But Chaser Corner is right on her tail “ she’s almost there…I think she’s going to “ OH, MERLIN! WHAT ON EARTH IS THAT?”
Albus looked up along with the rest of the crowd to see what was exciting enough to catch the Quidditch announcer’s attention. A large, cloud-like mass had begun to descend onto the field. It buzzed and began to spread off in all directions. The closer it got to the stands, the more Albus began to notice the individual, shiny bodies that made up the mass. Soon, the individual forms began to swoop in on the students, screeching as they got caught in the long hair of girls and squeaking as they were trampled under the feet of boys.
“Players off the field!” Madame Wood shouted, her voice magnified by a voice-enhancing charm as she attempted to fire her wand at the flying pests that rushed all around her. “Players off the field! Spectators, too! We have a Doxy swarm!” Everyone off the field.”
With dozens of hands swatting over their heads, the Gryffindor students made their way towards the staircase in the fashion of a rehearsed fire drill. But still, the Doxies swarmed down to bite at the students, bright purple welts rising on the exposed skin of those who ran out in front of Albus. Worried, he pulled his cloak up over his head, barely leaving enough room to see through. He knew that Doxy bites were poisonous, not to mention horrifically painful, and he had no intention of going through whatever painful antidote it took to cure a Doxy bite.
The first-years, being the ones furthest away from the exits, were the ones the Doxies invested the most time in attacking. Damien’s red and gold face was soon mixed with purple as the Doxies were drawn to the bright colors. The girls all screeched as several of the little creatures swooped down on them and half of them ended up tangled in their hair, biting at their ears.
Older students remained at the exit way, rushing the students, one by one, out of the stadium. By the time Albus and Rose reached the door, they were more or less shove down the stairs and the older students raced to get away from the swarm themselves. Suddenly, at the bottom of the first staircase, Albus couldn’t go forward any further. A hand held him back, gripped by his hood.
Albus, down!” Rose ordered as she yanked him down to the floor while dozens of feet passed over him.
“Rose, what are you thinking?” Albus hissed under his breath, just in case Doxies responded to human voices.
“We have to get rid of them!” Rose insisted as though the reason were obvious.
“And how do you propose that?”
Before Rose could answer, the clicking buzz of flapping wings became louder. At the top of the staircase, Albus could vaguely make out the black bodies that they had been running from. They didn’t appear to see them at first. At least they didn’t until Albus decided on impulse to throw his cloak at the gathering. Now they saw exactly where they were, and Albus had just offered them a plethora of new places where he could be bitten.
“Rose…” he said warily, shuffling backwards until his back was against the wall until there was nowhere else to run.
Without answering, Rose stood to her feet, pulling her wand from her robe pocket and pointed up out one of the small windows and towards the sky with definite purpose.
“Adsector Lux!” Rose screamed as she pointed her wand toward the sky.
An orange, neon-like beam shot from her wand and the light blazed a trail through the sky and soared into the Forbidden Forest. The Doxies flew upward and followed the trailing light as fast as they could.
Where is my cousin learning all these charms?” Albus thought to himself as the Doxies disappeared out of sight.
Rose watched the Doxies race off into the horizon with a triumphant look on her face
“The Arcane ScoRA still lives,” Rose whispered before the two of them followed the other Gryffindors down the stairs.
The infirmary was crammed from wall to wall, green robes to the left, and red to the right, with the elderly Madam Pomfrey running herself ragged between the two. The bite marks on Jocelyn’s face had begun to turn purple, and she was screaming about how they burned. James lay in a cot at the far end, but with a very satisfied smile on his face. As Albus had learned from the Gryffindor fans crowding around the hospital wing while he had been out of the stadium, following after Rose and the other Gryffindors, James had spotted the Snitch through the cloud of swarming Doxies.
Ignoring Madame Wood’s orders to dismount their brooms and evacuate, James had flown and towards the golden target. Reaching out and leaning forwards on his broom, James had grabbed the Snitch out of the sky, only to have the small bit of exposed skin on his wrist painfully bitten, the shock of it causing him to fall from his broom. He had to be carried off the field by the less-than-thrilled Slytherin Beater, the Snitch still struggling in his fist.
According to Madam Pomfrey, James had actually been hurt worse from the fall than from the Doxy bite that had caused it. And because Kiki was still in the announcer’s box at the time and had seen the whole thing, Gryffindor had been declared the winners. So in James’ mind, having an arm that was broken in three places was a small price to pay for victory over the Slytherins.
While the students either celebrated victory or anguished over defeat, the teachers rushed in and out of the hospital wing, taking tallies of all the injured and whispering to each other in panicked, hushed tones.
Albus and Rose stayed in the Gryffindor side of the Hospital Wing, seated on Roxanne’s bed. Roxanne had a rather nasty bite on her left forearm, the resulting welt swollen and discolored, but otherwise, their cousin was perfectly fine. Aside from Roxanne and James, no one on the Gryffindor team had been seriously hurt. Fred had taken a Bludger to the stomach when he wasn’t paying attention and Tracy had miscalculated her landing and gotten a few scrapes when she fell from her broom, but neither of them were in hospital beds. Madame Pomfrey made sure to stress how lucky they all were.
“Jocelyn!” a familiar voice shouted from the doorway.
Rose and Albus looked up just in time to see Scorpius race across the infirmary, right to the bedside of Jocelyn Dale. A look of frantic worry appeared on his face which seemed completely out of character for the cool and collected Scorpius Malfoy Albus had come to know.
“Jocelyn, are you okay? Do you want me to write to Aunt Daphne and Uncle Richard?”
“No, Scorpius,” Jocelyn assured him, running her hand through his hair much the same way she had done with Albus. “Don’t you worry about me. I’m fine, really.”
“If you want to worry about something, worry about her pride!”
Albus shifted his eyes back to the Gryffindors. James, propped up against the pillows of his bed, had noticed Jocelyn’s visitor and decided now was the perfect time to add insult to injury.
“A real Seeker never leaves the Snitch flying in the air.”
Jocelyn, wincing from the pain of her welts, pushed herself up so she could look James dead in the eye with that cold Slytherin gaze of hers. Scorpius held tight to her shoulder, as though not sure what else he could do.
“Don’t you dare get cocky, Potter!” Jocelyn shouted back. “No Seeker is capable of anticipating a freak Doxy swarm!”
“Excuses, excuses…”
Rose and Albus pushed themselves off Roxanne’s bedside, leaving the two team Seekers to sort out their little catfight. Scorpius remained with the other Slytherins, resting on the same bedside.
“Scorpius,” Rose hissed in a hushed tone to get his attention, gesturing from the open door.
Finally, she was able to get Scorpius’ attention, and he followed her and Albus out into the corridor. His eyes, though, remained on the worried members of his own house, who raced back and forth between each of the emerald and silver figure on the cots, groaning in pain.
“How do you know Jocelyn Dale?” Rose asked once they were away from the crowd.
“She’s my cousin,” Scorpius explained. “Her mother and my mother are sisters.”
Rose regarded Scorpius with a nearly disgusted look, as though she could not believe he was related to someone as awful as Jocelyn Dale. Yet, Rose had only known Jocelyn half as long as Albus had, so she hadn’t even gotten a real feel for the venomous current that ran deep in the girl.
While his cousin continued to stare in disbelief, Albus looked into the Hospital Wing at the rushing teachers, the crying students, and the bewildered look on Madame Pomfrey’s face; as though she had never encountered anything like this before.
“We’re not disbanded yet, are we?”
“No, Albus,” Scorpius answered, shaking his head, “we are not.”
The Arcane ScoRA and the Wand of MacArt by OliveOil_Med
Chapter Notes: The first Quidditch match of the season opens to a gigantic crowd, but an invasion of a certain venomous pests turns the event into a free-for-all.
Thanks go out to my new betas: Caitlin, Rhi, and Azhure.