Chapter 11
The Quintaped
The train ride back to Hogwarts was far quieter than the ride to Kings Cross for the holidays had been. The Weasley clan had split up for this ride, and Scorpius was nowhere to be found; not that either Albus or Rose suggested looking for him. They ended up sharing a compartment with a group of Hufflepuff third-years who seemed too exhausted to notice the two cousins anyway. Not even Rose seemed to be in the mood for conversation; she didn’t even have the energy to read. Instead, she stared passed Albus and out the window, in a matter that Albus could remember doing himself back in September.
The train station outside the school was still covered in snow and ice, but the wind was still, making it far less miserable. The staff waiting there for them, though, seemed eager to get everyone inside the castle as soon as possible, ushering the students into carriages drawn by the Thestrals that Albus could not see. The teachers had not needed to stay for long when the students had left for the holidays, and they didn’t seem eager to stay outside for very long now that they were back.
The inside of the castle was a fair bit colder than usual from not as many fires needing to be lit. The corridors were also densely crowded and extremely noisy from the immense number of students all there at once. It all carried over into the Gryffindor common room, even gaining more intensity: the space was smaller, tighter, and all the old friends were rushing up to one another, knocking Albus this way and that. And for growing up in such a large extended family, Albus found himself completely overwhelmed by it all, being the first student to run up to the dormitories.
Upstairs, all the trucks were in place, the beds were made, and the chamber was as spotless as it had been the first night at Hogwarts. Taking a seat on his four-post bed, Albus couldn’t help but notice how incredibly at home he felt now that he was back at school. Time after time, he had heard his dad say that as a child, Hogwarts was more of a home to him than where he had spent the first ten years of his life. Everyone said it was because the school was the school was the first real family he had ever known, but now Albus was beginning to think it wasn’t just his dad. He, his brother, and his older cousins had spent so much time within these walls, it was only natural that they would come to think of Hogwarts as a second home.
Albus himself had only been living at the wizarding school for a few months. He wondered how he would come to see this place once he neared the end of his education.
“Hey, Albus!”
The dormitory door swung open and several of his roommates burst through: Riley, Damien, and Gavin. Simon Henry was happily missing from the group. Over the past semester, Albus had come to deeply dislike the haughty, over-opinionated Gryffindor.
Immediately, all the Gryffindor boys began rushing up to one another and bombarding each other with questions. A few of them rushed to their trunks, which were already there waiting for them, and began extracting various Christmas gifts They too were making themselves at home once again in the school dormitory.
“”all would laugh so hard!”
“What about you, Albus?” Gavin asked. “What did you do with your holiday?”
Albus shrugged. “My family came over for Christmas, just the same as they do every year. The rest of the holiday I just spent recovering from the school year.”
“My family went up to the Laplands,” Leo said. “That’s where the Father Christmas legend started, you know. My little sisters loved it.”
“What are their names again?” Gavin asked.
“Paula and Samantha,” Leo answered, still going through his trunk.
“Do you think any of them will get into Hogwarts too?”
“I don’t know,” Leo said. “I hope so. I’ve never seen either of them do anything magic yet, though.”
“If they’re still young, it could still happen,” Damien assured him.
Albus watched the conversation, but feeling more like an observer than an actual participant. After all these months of attending school, he still didn’t feel like he really bonded with his roommates. But he also hadn’t noticed quite how much until this moment in time. Before, even with Rose or Scorpius, he would at least have a half-dozen cousins in the house common room to talk to anytime he wanted. But in the class of first-year Gryffindors, Albus was all by himself.
That at-home feeling Albus had held before was starting to slip away.
The first day of resumed classes started late with Transfiguration with the Ravenclaws. Even with the late start, most of the students sat slumped over in their seats, groggy and not wanting to be out of bed. Rose walked into the classroom, alone among the Ravenclaws, but with her head held high in a new sort of pride that had not been there last semester. She also appeared happier to be in class that Albus had ever seen her before. It gave a feeling of relief to Albus. Even if everything else was a mess for him at school, at least Rose was finally content.
The students settled into their seats, as they did before every class, some chatting with their neighbors and others racing to finish their homework that would soon be collected. But Albus, along with a few others in the class, were staring up at the clock. Eventually, more students shifted their eyes to the large grandfather clock, and the overall mood in the room became more and more unsettling. Professor Dugan had never once been late for class the whole school year, and sternly punished any student who was. But now their Transfiguration teacher was five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes late, without even a note on the chalkboard explaining why or any prefects in the halls to let them know that something was going on.
But the person standing at the front of the class could in no way be mistaken for Professor Dugan. It was a woman with wrinkles and numerous streaks of grey running through her black hair, but despite her age, she still somehow managed to hold herself straight and tall, like a river reed.
In a prompt manner, she made her way to the front of the classroom, the few students she made eye contact with cringing in their seats. When she reached the chalkboard, she began scrawling in white script without so much as a word to the confused students. Finally, without warning, she spun around on the balls of her feet and told the children all she believed they needed to know.
“My name is Professor McGonagall. I retired from this teaching post years ago, but I will be teaching it again today. I will not tolerate behavior going on behind my back that might suggest that I do not know what I am doing or that you believe you have nothing more you need to learn about Transfiguration. Just to warn you, I will not hesitate to send away anyone who disobeys these rules. I will not have the entire student body suffer because of a handful of unruly students.”
The class nodded along in a quiet murmur.
“Very well. Let’s get to work,” this Professor McGonagall woman said, turning back to the chalkboard. “We have a lot of material to cover today.”
The substitute teacher began scrolling a long listed of complicated notes on the board. She wrote them so fast and in such large quantity, Albus was certain that she would soon run out of room. But this was not the chief worry in the classroom. A collection of worried faces, tapping fingernails, and jiggling feet, all posing the same question: ‘Where is Professor Dugan?’ They had never had a substitute teacher in this class, or any class. Even the first-years who had older brothers and sisters couldn’t recall an instance where a teaching substitute needed to be called in. And what was so important that as studious a teacher as Professor Dugan would miss class?
Everyone wondered this, but they were all too afraid to ask.
Finally, Ruby Paddock, one of the Gryffindors, raised her hand, though her shoulders shook and she appeared as though she were going to burst into tears at any moment.
“Yes?” Professor McGonagall asked as she sidestepped her way to Professor Dugan’s desk and picked up a yellowed piece of parchment. “Miss…Paddock, do you have a question about the material?”
“N-no,” Ruby stuttered and took a deep breath. “Where is Professor Dugan?”
A good number of students flinched as they waited for the answer. But Professor McGonagall did not snap or yell, though she did appear a fair bit annoyed.
“Professor Dugan has been called away on personal business,” she told them, “and may, in fact, be away for some time. And that will be the last question I will allow outside the subject of Transfiguration.”
Behind Albus, a tall blond boy named Kian raised his hand. “Is Professor Dugan away because of something that has to do with Transfiguration?”
A mix of snickers and gasps echoed through the room, along with some rather loud grumbles from Professor McGonagall about ‘Ravenclaw smart-mouths’. But Kian had followed the exact guidelines that Professor McGonagall had laid out for them, so he couldn’t even get in trouble. It must have been good to know everything.
“Professor Dugan is away on personal business and that is exactly how it is going to stay: personal,” Professor McGonagall replied as she began pacing through the aisles of chairs. “I know very few details of his absence, but I am certain your teacher would not appreciate me divulging all his private information to the student body. Now I will edit my previous statement to include that no questions will be allowed that have anything to do with your Transfiguration teacher. Any questions you do have about why your professor is gone, you may ask Professor Dugan himself when he finally gets back.”
“So without further a due,” she said, stopping at Kian’s seat to grace him with a stern look, “let’s get started on what you all actually came here to study.”
And then, the new teacher turned her back to the back-row students and walked back to the chalkboard. “And since Mr. Carmichael has shown me you all have such a curious nature, I think you should all be given the opportunity to express it. I expect a sixteen inch composition on today’s lecture topic. Neatness and spelling both count.”
There was not a single body that didn’t groan at that sentence, save for Professor McGonagall, who was becoming the victim of a sly smile creeping its way across her face.
“You all better get used to it,” she said to them as she turned to write more notes yet on the board. “There is a good possibility we will be working together for a long time.”
Professor McGonagall did not lie. She was their Transfiguration teacher for one week, then two weeks, and three weeks, with no sign of Professor Dugan returning any time soon. And the students were all beginning to miss him more than any of them could have ever imagined; not because they actually cared for their old teacher, but because Professor McGonagall was so much stricter with the students, in matters of both schoolwork and behavior, than Professor Dugan could have ever hoped to be.
And apparently the first-years were nowhere near up to the standards she would have expected by now, so she was especially hard on them. Albus, Rose, and Scorpius had not once had time to see each other since they got back to school. The three of them were all hauled up in their common rooms every night of the week studying the piles of reading and working their ways through the feet and feet of compositions they had to hand in. The boys in Albus’ dormitory actually looked forward to their bedtime now, for it was the only relief they knew from the hard days’ work.
One afternoon, however, they received a shocking bit of news from Professor McGonagall.
“Next week, there will be no Transfiguration classes, but I expect you to all be wise enough to still use the time you would normally spend in this classroom to study and come back ready to work the week after.”
“Why isn’t there going to be…” Leo began to ask, but his voice trailed off as Professor McGonagall began to stare him down. Eventually, his raised hand sunk back down to his side and he shrunk into his chair, pitiful-looking as a whipped puppy.
Of course, though, after so many weeks of hard labor, the students were certainly not going to spend their short freedom on more Transfiguration. Most students had barely stepped out into the corridor when they began making plans for how they were going to enjoy the free afternoons that were coming to them. Albus might have been able to come up with a few pleasurable activities himself, but Rose had other plans in mind.
“Albus!” She raced up behind him after class was over. “Albus, you get back here!”
In eleven-and-a-half years of life had taught him one thing, it was that Rose Weasley was not dangerous to him. Rose was dangerous to James, Fred, sometimes Louis, Dominique, maybe Hendric too. Still, Albus himself had nothing to worry about from his wild, sometime manic cousin.
At least unless she wanted something.
Which she did at this moment in time.
Which he was painfully reminded of when Rose grabbed at the hood of his robes, causing him to choke as the rest of his body wanted to keep moving forward.
“Albus, are you brain dead?” Rose exclaimed. “This is just the opportunity we have been looking for! Slytherins won’t have Transfiguration next week either, which means we will actually have time to meet with Scorpius, and he will have time to meet with us.”
“Great,” Albus answered, suddenly swept with a desire to get away from the Transfiguration classroom as soon as possible. “Find out when the Slytherins have Transfiguration, and we can meet him then.”
But when Albus tried to get away, Rose grabbed at his robes and stopped him once again. Clearly, she still had more to say. “I don’t have the patience for that at the moment, Albus. We have time now. We will go down to the Slytherin dormitories now.”
Albus groaned and watched the rest of his classmates run off ahead of him. He would not be joining them any time soon.
“You do know what we have to do? Right, Albus?” Rose asked him.
“No, but I have a feeling I don’t need to know, because you’ll be telling me all about it the whole way there.”
Knowing better than to resist his cousin, he simply held out his scarlet hood so that Rose could drag him once again. Rose glared at her cousin as though she believe he was being condescending towards her, but it still didn’t stop her from grabbing at his offered robes. She dragged him down the familiar route to the dungeon level of the castle, with the stone walls becoming gradually damper the further down they went.
Even though it was in an opposite direction from the Potions classrooms, the way they were going was still familiar to Albus from the first time he and Rose had ventured there. But before, they had just been wandering around outside the entrance. Albus was certain what Rose was proposing this time was that they go in themselves, even though she hadn’t said it. There was certainly no possibility that any of the Slytherins were simply going to allow them inside.
“The password is Severus,” Rose said to him once they stopped at a section of the stone wall that really didn’t look any different than any other along the corridor, “and you have to say it directly to the key stone.” To illustrate, Rose herself locked eyes on one of the stones and shouted, “Severus!”
Albus was about to tell his cousin what exactly he thought about this plan, when she turned and flashed him with a look informing him that he better not. A Weasley woman death glare was more than enough for Albus to take a hint and start looking himself.
“Severus,” he said at barely a whisper. Nothing.
“Severus!” Rose shouted at yet another stone.
“Severus!” Albus took his turn.
Albus could only imagine how ridiculous the pair of them looked right about now, each of them taking turns screaming the same word at the wall. Mercifully, the corridor was empty, or Albus was certain every passing person would be staring at them as though they were mad.
Albus was about to suggest calling it quits when he spotted something on one of the lower stones: a perfect insignia of the Slytherin crest carved right into the rock. The tiny symbol rested just below eye level, so it was easy to see how someone just glancing could miss it.
“Rose, look at this.”
Rose turned her head, but Albus didn’t wait for her to verbally respond. “Severus,” he breathed, keeping his eyes on the carved crest.
When the stone suddenly shifted, Albus yelped in shock as Rose’s mouth hung wide open. They couldn’t believe they actually did it, and with no prefects, no Slytherins, or even guard trolls to stop them.
As they made their way through the entry corridor, they couldn’t help but feel a bit uneasy. The Slytherin dormitories were no-man’s land for the Weasley and Potter clans. Neither Albus nor Rose could recall anyone in their families actually being Sorted here. The dim green light up ahead had an ominous feel to it, given the reasoning they had grown up with.
Even once they got into the common room, they went more or less unnoticed. Students cluttered around the stone fireplace on emerald-green sofas and high backed chairs, lit by green lamps. Further back, more students studied and wrote compositions on polished ebony tables and chairs. One entire wall alternated between stone columns and a solid pane of glass that protected the dungeons from being flooded by the Black Lake.
And sitting at one of the polished black tables, staring out the massive window into the lake, was Scorpius Malfoy. Like a good little Transfiguration student, his schoolbooks were laying open with a composition book beside him and a quill in his hand. However, he did not seem to be very devoted to them, instead staring out the window and chuckling at the Grindylow who would occasionally slam against the glass, trying to attack the students.
Albus and Rose both raced their way across the common room, finally drawing the attention of a few prying Slytherins.
“Scorpius!” Rose shouted. “Scorpius Malfoy!”
Scorpius looked away from the window and whoever it was he was expecting to see, it certainly wasn’t the two of them. He looked up at them as though he had just swallowed a hot coal.
“There you are!” Rose exclaimed, taking up an empty seat beside a shocked-looking third-year girl. “Do you have any idea how long it has been since we have seen each other?”
Scorpius stared up at Albus, who was still standing up behind his cousin, as though Scorpius were looking for some clue as to how to act. “A few weeks,” Scorpius answered. “I’ve been really busy. Professor McGonagall has us doing a lot of studying. There are Hufflepuffs that she pesters through the whole class.”
Albus and I know that!” Rose retorted. “We take Transfiguration too! And I can’t believe you’re making excuses!”
Feeling a bit awkward about the argument Rose was instigating, Albus turned away and looked across the Slytherin common room. Now the entire room was noticing the two intruders in their dormitory. Albus wondered exactly how many students outside the house of Slytherin had ever been inside the common room invited (though technically he and Rose hadn’t been either).
Officially, there were no real rules saying the Gryffindor and the Ravenclaw couldn’t be in the Slytherin common room, and there was no punishment in place for anyone who did manage to get into a common room that wasn’t theirs. The school had passwords, riddles, and hidden doors to keep outsiders out, and anyone who actually did manage to get passed all those things…well, no one had really taken the time to think about it.
“Weasley!” Scorpius suddenly hissed, bringing Albus back to the scene in front of him. “Maybe here isn’t the best place to have this discussion.”
Scorpius gestured around the room, showing the two cousins just how many people were staring at them. This wouldn’t be the best place to hold a meeting for a ‘secret’ society.
“Alright.” Rose stood to her feet. “Let’s go then.”
She didn’t grab Albus by the hood this time. The three of them walked out of the common room in a little cluster while the eyes of every student there rested on them. Scorpius and Rose, however, walked head in head, as though all the staring bodies around them weren’t even there.
“Is this far away and secluded enough for you?”
The threesome had been wandering for ages. Going through different corridors, twists and turns, and finally taking refuge in a little alcove in a hall that none of them had ever been to before. With the changing staircases, though, and hundreds of doors, it was not a difficult thing to do.
Scorpius looked around the empty corridor and finally offered a quiet nod, showing he approved.
“Do you think Moaning Myrtle will be upset that we had a meeting without her?” Albus asked in a joking manner. Scorpius and Rose looked at him with complete seriousness. Neither of them appeared to be in the mood for humor. The two of them took their seats on the floor, and slowly, Albus slunk down to sit beside them.
Did you learn anything?” Scorpius was the first to speak. “Do have any clues?”
Rose shook her head. “Nothing. None of my mother’s books mentioned anything that sounded remotely similar to what’s happening with all these creatures now. I even tried another run at the school library this morning before breakfast. Still nothing.”
Scorpius snorted and rolled his eyes. “A lot of use you made of your time off!”
Oh, that was a big mistake, Albus knew. No one in their own family dared to take that kind of tone with Rose anymore, for fear of her wrath. Scorpius was still too much of a stranger to know that about her, but that most certainly did not mean he would be spared.
“You’re one to talk!” Rose snipped back at him. “Tell me, did you make a lot of lovely connections at your parents’ party while you were doing nothing to help the Arcane ScoRA?”
Scorpius was about to answer back, but then looked as though he thought better of it, mostly likely also meaning he had nothing to offer either. A small trace of a triumphant smile spread its way across Rose’s expression.
“But Albus had some excellent luck,” Rose said with wide grin.
“Really?” Scorpius perked up, excited to learn that their time away from school had not been a complete waste. “What did you get: the cloak or the map?”
“Both,” Albus answered, starting to feel quite please with himself.
Scorpius’ eyes became large and buggy. “Show me!” he demanded.
Remembering the book bag still over his shoulder, Albus tore the flap open and spilled its contents out onto the floor. He didn’t know what had made him think to pack both of his artifacts up in his bag, likely because he still had a few anxieties about leaving these things out of his constant guard.
The cloak was slightly wrinkled now from being crumpled under all his textbooks, but it still had its slippery, silvery luster. The supposed map, however, still resembled nothing more than an ancient piece of parchment. There was absolutely nothing extraordinary about it, and it was the first object that Scorpius went for.
“So,” he mulled, turning the parchment over and over in his hands, “how do we see the map?”
“There’s an incantation for that,” Rose told him before turning to her cousin. “Albus?”
Albus extracted his wand from his pocket and pointed the tip directly at the center. “I solemnly swear I’m up to no good.”
Slowly, swirls of ink enveloped the parchment.
“Look, there’s Professor Branstone in the next hall over,”
“I say we take them out for a test run,” Scorpius proposed with a raised eyebrow and a shift in his glance. “And I think I have just the perfect mission.”
“This hardly seems like a worthy use of the Arcane ScoRA’s efforts,” Rose grumbled to the two boys sneaking in front of her.
Albus, Rose, and Scorpius were all hiding underneath the cloak, taking turns between stepping on each other’s feet and tripping over the excess fabric of the cloak. Back in the damp dungeons, the hem was quickly becoming wet, and the material did not smell very nice.
“Rose, concerned with school rules?” Albus exclaimed, shocked that he had actually an opening to be so sarcastic. “Be careful. People might begin to mistake you for Aunt Hermione.”
“I couldn’t care less about the school rules. I am equal member of this organization too!” Rose snapped, insulted. “I just don’t think the Arcane ScoRA needs to be wasting its time on something as stupid as hiding a broomstick!
“Why do you even need this broom here anyway?” she carried on. “Can’t you just use one of the school ones without needing to skulk around the corridors in the middle of the night?”
Albus gaped. He wasn’t so much a Quidditch enthusiast as the rest of his family, but he knew a good broom when he saw one. “It’s not just any broomstick, Rose!” Albus reprimanded her. “Tell her, Scorpius!”
And so Scorpius explained it to her. “This isn’t just any broom, Rose! This is the Thisher100, the fastest Quidditch broom on the market right now! It’d barely been out for a week by the time Christmas came around. And even then, it was hardly in any shops. I still don’t know how my father managed to get his hands on one.”
Albus thought Scorpius had made an excellent argument, but still, Rose rolled her eyes at the boys and their brooms.
“Anyway,” Scorpius continued, “he wanted me to have a decent broom to practice on before Quidditch tryouts next year. Jocelyn’s graduating, and they’re going to need a replacement Seeker. If I want to do well, I need to get used to practicing on the broom I’ll be using when I try out.”
When they neared the classroom, Albus stalled the group so he would have time to check around a corner. There was no sign of anyone, not even Peeves or the Bloody Baron, so Albus rushed them the rest of the way.
“Jocelyn’s already been helping me practice every holiday since I was old enough to fly a real broom. But with this, I’m really going to race. I just need to keep in a place where no one will see it.”
“Can’t you just hide it under your bed?” Rose asked, annoyed. “Surely that would be much simpler than all this!”
“I don’t trust any of the Slytherins enough to keep it in the dormitory,” Scorpius said. “The first time any one of them get in trouble, they’ll turn me over in exchange for leniency. I don’t have to worry about Albus turning me over to Professor Hardarse.”
Rose still didn’t seem convinced, but she also didn’t make any more arguments about turning back or about the idiocy of what they were doing. Most likely, she just wanted to get it over and done with as soon as possible before any of them were caught.
Besides, they were already in the Potions classroom.
Albus pulled the cloak off of their heads and allowed everyone a few breaths of fresh air. Not very much, though, because Scorpius rushed straight for the Potions lockers, with Rose and Albus following closely behind him. It was a risky move for Scorpius, hiding the broom in the classroom. The lockers were certainly tall enough to hold the broom, still with plenty of room for their potion ingredients. But still, it would have been very easy for a passing pair of eyes to glance into Scorpius locker and see the object that every first-year in the school was forbidden from having. And not all of them could be as trusted to keep their mouths shut as Albus could.
Although Albus wondered if Professor Vhartan was the type of person who would be capable of torturing a student for information.
While Scorpius was rummaging through the Potions locker, Albus became more and more aware of heavy breathing. His own breaths were short and shallow, Rose’s breaths whistled through her nose, signaling the beginning of a cold, and Scorpius was too far away for his breathing to be that loud.
It was a giant spider, except it wasn’t. It had five large, beefy legs surrounding a circular body. It was covered with reddish-brown hair that, oddly enough, reminded him of Rose. The creature lowered its leg and Albus was able to see a face resting on top of the disk-shaped body: close-set, beady black eyes and long mouth with glinting dagger-like teeth. With its face in the direct line of Albus’, he could feel the creatures hot breath moving his hear and smell the stench of blood and raw meat.
“Sc-scorpius…” Albus struggled to stammer. “Rose…”
Scorpius and Rose spun around fast, leading Albus to wish he had also warned them not to make any sudden movement. But as soon as those two saw the creature as well, they went completely silent, their eyes large and their legs shaking. Scorpius’ hands trembled to the point where even his broom was shaking, and Rose occasionally made small, squeaking noises as she breathed.
The creature shifting from side to side on its club feet, drool beginning to drip from its mouth, but it didn’t attack.
“Ro””
Don’t…move…” Rose interrupted. If we run, it will only chase us.”
As though the creature had actually understood Rose, it bent its legs in the matter that Albus had seen on cats getting ready to pounce.
“FLY!” Scorpius shouted, grabbing Rose by the hand and mounting his new broom.
With no room to hold Albus, he instead leapt off to the side while Scorpius and Rose went up, with the creature pouncing just in time to crash face first into the stone wall. While the monster was still dazed, Albus scrambled to crawl across the floor to the cupboards against the far wall. He crawled inside and closed the door behind him just after hearing the creature’s clubbed feet patter across the floor once again.
The inside of the cupboard was pitch black and Albus could feel the top of his head becoming damp (at least now he knew where the dripping noise was coming from). After a few moments, it finally dawned on him that he was a wizard and he didn’t have to sit in the dark if he didn’t want to.
Albus shook his head at his own dimness as he pulled his wand from his pocket. “Lumos.”
Outside, crashes and shouting, as well as the whooshing of an extremely fast broom, could clearly be heard. But Albus could not be tempted to leave his hiding place for fear that the monster might be just outside the tiny door. Some Gryffindor he was! Cowering cramped in a small cupboard while his friends were just outside, racing for their lives. It was pathetic.
Albus was soon distracted from these thoughts, however, by a sharp pain across the palm of his hand. When he pointed his wand down, he saw he had rested his hand right over a broken glass phial. He held his hand up to examine the wound; a large piece of glass was still caught part-way under his skin. As he clenched his teeth, pulling it out, he hoped there had been no potion residue on that phial, especially nothing toxic or otherwise dangerous.
It was at that same time the glass was finally pulled out that Albus’ idea came to him. Outside, he could still hear Scorpius and Rose racing around on that broom. He had actually come up with a plan before his cousin did. This really was a strange night.
But for this plan to work, he would need to get to Professor Vhartan’s potion stores without getting eaten. Hopefully, Scorpius and Rose would still be alive and able to provide a distraction. Taking a deep breath to prepare himself, Albus gently pushed the cupboard door open and peeked out.
The classroom was a mess. The tables lay in splintered fragments and the chairs had been scattered across all corners of the room. The instruments and assorted phials that had been stacked on top of the cupboards had been swept onto the floor with bits of broken glass and metal everywhere. Albus cringed. Crawling would definitely not be an option this time.
“Albus!”
The familiar voice of his cousin hissed to him above his head. Albus looked up through the cracked cupboard door to see Rose and Scorpius floating directly above him. Scorpius offered a ‘shush’ sign and then pointed to a far, dark corner of the room. There the creature was, searching through a pile of broken wood. When Albus looked closer, he could see Scorpius’ black cloak resting among the pile. It must have been just enough of a scent to make the monster believe that Scorpius and Rose were hiding there.
“I have an idea,” Albus whispered to Scorpius and Rose, “to stop that thing for good.”
Scorpius looked around the room at the broken pieces of wood. Simply locking the creature in the classroom would not be a solution for very long. He looked back down and nodded to let Albus know he was listening.
“But I need you and Rose to keep that thing away from me long enough for me to get to Professor Vhartan’s store cupboard.”
“Are you mad?” Rose exclaimed, but still keeping her voice low. “You haven’t seen how past this thing can move, Albus. We have barely been able to keep out of its clutches. You won’t make it before it gets you!”
Scorpius, however, had a different opinion. “My broom, my decision, Weasley!”
And with that, Scorpius raced off once again without even waiting to hear what Rose had to say about it. Her piercing shriek that followed proved to be just the distraction Albus needed to keep the club-footed creature’s attention. Without taking time to think, he threw the cupboard door open and made a mad dash for the potion stores. Halfway there, he became aware of that same heavy patter coming up from behind him growing louder and louder. Albus knew the creature was gaining on him, but could not force himself to glance over his shoulder to see how much so.
Finally, Albus reached the door, ducking inside and throwing it open all in one motion. He fell to the floor with the door slamming at his feet, almost as though by itself. A rather loud groan on the other side allowed Albus to allude to what might have happened: he had thrown the door open right in the creature’s face and the force of the impact had thrown the door back to close, latch and all.
As he listened to the club-footed stumbling, Albus allowed himself a few moments to gasp for his breath. Even though it had only been for a short distance, Albus didn’t think he had ever run so fast in his life.
But once the stumbling noises stopped, Albus reminded himself of his friends still out in the classroom, and he forced himself to his feet. In a rushed manner, he looked over the labels, thanking Merlin that, at the very least, Professor Vhartan had very neat print. He read over potions to cure boils, stomach pains, skin rashes; all in small doses. Albus doubted anything that small would do anything to affect the gigantic beast outside. So instead, he chose to focus his attention on the largest phials in the stores and work his way down.
After some time, Albus came across a large phial labeled ‘Draught of the Living Dead’. He could remember from Professor Vhartan’s lecture that it was one of the most potent sleeping potions in the world, though he could not figure out why Professor Vhartan would need it in such large volume. The sound of more splintering wood outside told Albus he could ponder the notion later. He grabbed the phial, needing both hands to grip it. He ran back to the door and opened it at a crack at first to see how close he may come to being eaten.
Outside, the five-footed monster seemed to have recovered from the blow Albus had given it and was chasing Scorpius and Rose around the room at top speed. Rose had her eyes squeezed shut and was holding both arms tightly around Scorpius’ midsection. Scorpius still appeared in good stamina, though the pressure on his abdomen seemed to be giving him some trouble with his breathing.
“Scorpius!” Albus shouted, being passed the point of worrying whether or not the beast heard him. “Over here!”
In a flash, it seemed, Scorpius was at the door, floating a yard or so above Albus’ head. Opening the door slightly further, Albus showed them the phial he had clutched against his chest. “It’s a sleeping potion,” he told them. “More than enough to knock that thing out.”
“Weasley!” Scorpius shouted over his shoulder. “Grab the phial!”
Rose whined and shook her head, not even wanting to open her eyes. “Can’t you do it?”
“I’m steering!” Scorpius snapped.
It was at that point that the beast noticed them once again and raced across the room towards them once again.
“Rose, now!” Albus prompted, throwing the phial up in the air.
Through some miracle, Rose opened her eyes just in time to grab her phial before it fell back to the stone floor. It was also at that point that the club-foot creature was within grabbing distance of the three children. Scorpius flew up to the ceiling and Albus slammed the stores door shut. The door shook when the beast slammed against it, the force of it throwing Albus onto his back. There were a few key bones in sharp pain, but Albus somehow pushed himself to his feet. He cracked the door open so he could watch the scene from behind a safe barrier.
“Rose, its mouth is open!” Scorpius said as the beast snapped at their dangling feet. “Throw the phial in!”
“Can’t you…” Rose began, but her voice trailed off when Scorpius glanced over his shoulder to glare at her. So instead, she stared down at the beast, watching it snap its jaws at them, as though timing for the perfect opportunity to throw the phial.
Finally, with more force than Albus knew his cousin was capable of, she threw the phial into the monster’s gaping mouth, the sound of shattering glass signally a direct hit. At first, the potion didn’t appear to have any effect on the beast, as it continued to chase Scorpius and Rose in laps around the classroom. But soon enough, its pace began to slow and its movements became more wobbly. Eventually, it got to the point where anyone moving at a brisk walk could have outrun it.
Slowly, Albus crept out of the potion stores, kicking the door open wide and walking sidestep against the wall. Scorpius took the opportunity to fly, much more slowly, into Albus’ previous hiding place. The beast followed them, but was barely three steps in when it collapsed to the floor. From where Albus stood, he could hear the creature snoring loudly.
As Albus’ eyes wandered, he noticed spots of blood across the floor and on the door to the potion stores. Remembering his cut, Albus looked down to see his palm covered with dry and drying blood.
“Shouldn’t we do something? You know, maybe get this thing out of the school somehow?”
“No,” Scorpius said, shaking his head violently from side to side. “A whole phial, and one that size; that thing will be out for days. I say we leave it a surprise for Professor Hardarse and let her worry about it.”
“Sound like a plan,” Rose agreed, ducking back underneath the Invisibility Cloak. “Albus, c’mon!”
And again, Albus was dragged by his collar away from the scene and out of the dungeon.
“Ow!” Albus hissed as Scorpius poured more of the stinging yellow potion over his hand.
“Quiet!” Scorpius snapped as he pressed the hem of Albus’ sleeve to the cut in order to lessen the pain.
There were certainly much easier (and less painful) ways of healing a cut, but they all knew full well they could not go to Madam Pomfrey with Albus’ cut along with a very convincing lie about how he got it. They would have to wait until morning. In the mean time, Albus would just have to have his cut cleaned and protected by means that anyone could manage. Luckily, Professor Vhartan had a supply of bandages and cleaning solution in her desk for all the students who were injured in her class.
Albus, however, was unsure of how he felt about the Slytherin boy tending to his injured hand. He would have felt much safer if his cousin did it, but Rose was in no position to tend to his cut. She had completely absorbed into a copy of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, which Scorpius had also found in Professor Vhartan’s desk. She was obsessed with trying to find the name of the creature that had just rampaged through the Potions classroom.
“I can’t believe we nearly died in there!” Albus was still gasping to catch his breath.
“I can’t believe your cousin is still able to read after we nearly died in there!” Scorpius said, more to Albus, but still loud enough so that Rose could hear it. Rose glared over in his direction, but Scorpius ignored her and instead began wrapping the bandage in a somewhat clumsy manner around Albus’ hand. So still glowering, Rose allowed her eyes to slip back down to her book.
Hiding beneath the Invisibility Cloak, they sat in a tight circle in a tiny alcove near the staircase. The close proximity felt safe. Albus wondered quietly to himself if this was the same hiding place they had been in early that afternoon.
Clutched in Rose’s still trembling hands was a copy of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. She had been thumbing through the pages careful for the past half hour in an attempt to find out what it was they had just barely managed to escape from. A small part of Albus even doubted that the strange monster they had just seen could even be put in into the same category as the creatures they learned about in school. Five legs, fur, and probably taller than two of them standing on one another’s shoulders; there was no possibility that there could be more than one of that…thing! It had to be some sort of freak of nature!
But then, as she was always able to do, Rose proved him wrong.
“Here!” She tapped the page sharply and held it up to the boys. “Quintaped. Look familiar?”
About halfway down the middle of the right page, a tiny little field sketch in the margin beside a heading marked ‘Quintaped’. It was furry, five-legged, clubbed-footed, sharp-toothed and generally very ugly. But there was no room for any doubt that this was the exact creature they had just faced off against in the Potions classroom.
“The Quintaped,” Rose took the book back and began reading aloud, “is a highly dangerous carnivorous beast with a particular taste for humans. Its low-slung body is covered with thick, reddish-brown hair…”
There was still more written after that, but in Albus’ opinion, nothing that followed was really important. All he really felt he needed to know was that the…thing enjoyed eating humans and that wizard-kind had come to the conclusion that it was not very safe to be around.
As Rose went on, her face was quickly becoming whiter and whiter until Albus wasn’t sure he could differentiate her from the Gray Lady. By the time she finally forced herself to close the book cover shut, her eyes were wide as they could get and her lower jaw was quivering.
“Boys,” Rose said to the two of them, “do you have any idea how lucky we are to be alive?”
“You have to tell me?” Scorpius snapped. “I was the one who kept us away from that thing and made sure we didn’t fall backwards right into its mouth. But then again, you had your eyes closed the whole time, so you probably did notice!”
Albus had noticed that whenever Scorpius seemed to be under stress, he had a tendency let his anger out of check and his usually subtle snideness would become much, much more apparent. Unfortunately, Albus also knew Rose’s reaction to yelling directed at her, so she yelled even louder, including a few certain new vocabulary words that Albus certainly hoped she hadn’t been hearing in Ravenclaw. And so in turn, Scorpius screamed back at her, as though he were trying some petty little battle between the two of them.
“Quiet, the pair of you!” Albus shouted, not really out of desire to stop a fight, but more out of fear of having Scorpius angry while working so close to an injured part of Albus’ body. Scorpius had still been working on tucking in the end piece of his bandage the whole time. When there was finally a few moments of silence, he was, at least, able to do it, making Albus feel a lot safer when the other boy finally let go of his hand.
“How did that thing even get to Hogwarts?” Scorpius brought up. “You said they only lived on that Drear Isle? Unless those things became world-class swimmers since the last edition of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, it has to be nearly impossible!”
“None of the creatures that have found their way into the school could have possibly been indigenous to this area,” Rose countered. “Quintaped, Erkling, swarms of insects and insect-like creatures. I’m fairly certain that we’ve established that this is not happening by accident,” she finished.
Albus had been relatively quiet in the conversation up until then, but his next sudden words were a shock, even to him.
“We should tell someone.”
Scorpius and Rose both looked at Albus with the same expression of horror, as though he had suddenly grown a second head.
“Are you mad, Albus?” Scorpius asked. “Do you have any idea how deep it is we are into this right now? We saw the Erkling and didn’t tell anyone, we lied to Moaning Myrtle so she would tell anyone””
“Although we are something of a secret society now, so that part isn’t exactly a lie anymore,” Rose brought up.
Scorpius went on, “And to top it all off, we just came face to face with…” he struggled to remember the name again, “a Quintaped, and I am most certainly not going to go running to Professor Vhartan about it!”
“Forget all the trouble we could get into with the school and with our parents,” Rose said to Albus. “Think of how miserable all those rats in the Prophet would make our lives when word of this got out. It would be all over the headlines for weeks and we would likely never know peace for the rest of our lives!”
Albus could certainly understand his cousin’s fear of the press. They had both her all too many stories about how the papers had followed their parents (Albus’ dad especially) everywhere they went, and it made front page news every time ‘the great Harry Potter’ sneezed. It hardly seemed like torture when a person thought about it in their own heads, but to hear all their relatives describe it, a person might rather have their fingernails ripped out than allow the Prophet to know any details of their private lives.
“No teachers,” Scorpius stated sternly.
“No teachers,” Albus and Rose repeated, Albus a bit less enthusiastically than his cousin.
As they passed the Slytherin dungeons, Scorpius dashed out from beneath the cloak and over to the stone wall that hid the entrance to his common room, taking the Marauders’ Map with him. Albus and Rose didn’t even stop running themselves when Scorpius parted from the group. They reached the Gryffindor tower before Ravenclaw, so Albus, somewhat reluctantly, left the cloak in Rose’s care.
“Have a good sleep, Al,” she said. “And don’t you worry none.”
One some level, Albus knew the cloak would be just as safe with Rose as with anyone else; safer, probably. James had to know the Marauders’ Map was missing by now, and if he went looking for it in Albus things, which he surely would, then he would get his hands on the Invisibility Cloak as well. Ravenclaw Tower was probably the safest place in the world for the cloak now. James most certainly wasn’t intelligent enough to solve the entrance riddles that the Ravenclaw students solved every day.
But he still could not ignore that pang in his stomach as he watched his cousin slip back underneath the material and heard her footsteps race down the corridor. Maybe it came from the place in his mind that still thought of these objects as his, and had observed that fact that he was the only one in the ‘secret society’ who didn’t have one.
The Arcane ScoRA and the Wand of MacArt by OliveOil_Med
Chapter Notes: With two new tools in their possession, the Arcane ScoRA desides to take them on a test run under a cover of darkness. But neither of them are much help for what they encounter.
Thank you Lizzy, Azure, and Caitlyn!