The Pit

Rock On Chapter 15 C

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:24:50 GMT

Professor Maelstrom was well known for being something of a revelation when it came to Defence teaching. In the words of Rose Weasley, it was mind-boggling that the man hadn’t been carted off to a padded cell in Saint Mungo’s for the protection of both himself and every person who would otherwise come into contact with him.

He was a man of average height, in his mid-thirties with short dark hair, a strong chin, and a particular love of the word carnage.

He believed the best form of defence was attack and his teaching approach consisted of spending a week or two explaining and demonstrating a range of spells and leaving the students to practice them outside of lesson. He would then test the abilities of the students by setting them up in a sort of last man standing event. He would pick the first pair to face off one another and the student who ‘took out’ his or her opponent would stay in to battle the next student, picked at random by the professor. The person with the most wins would earn fifty points for their house.

If there was one good thing about this method of teaching it was that it got the kids to do their homework.

At the beginning of these practical lessons, the room would be cleared of all desks and chairs, the students creating a kind of ring-side audience, and Maelstrom would state that he wanted to see some real competition, he didn’t want people holding back, worrying they might embarrass or cause minor injuries to their classmates.

Then he’d slam on the pounding techno and the less-prepared students would soil themselves while they waited their turn in the ring.

Mary Hargreaves was the current contender, having dispatched her previous three opponents with a disturbing efficiency, one had been taken out with a body-bind curse, another had had his tongue turned numb and was unable cast any counter-spells because of it, and the third was in the corner singing an aria. Hargreaves was now scanning the remaining students and had the look of a vulture scouting for prey, as was Professor Maelstrom. Scorpius pressed himself further back into the stone wall, hoping to avoid their searchlight eyes.

He kept telling himself that even though Albus was standing right next to him, hiding behind the other boy really wasn’t an option.

Scorpius did not like duelling, especially not in Maelstrom’s classes; it felt too much like performing. His palms got sweaty and his heart rate would increase. He was always scared that his stammer would come back mid-duel and he wouldn’t be able to cast any spells properly.

No, he really wasn’t fond of Defence lessons.

Scorpius looked across to the other side of the classroom where the students who had already battled and lost. One boy had the ears of the donkey and every time he tried to talk he made a hideous braying noise. Rose was there, too, trying to trim her nails that were now three feet long and made it very difficult for her to hold anything.

Scorpius pressed his left arm against Albus, who turned his head and grinned before going back to focussing on Hargreaves, looking for any kind of weakness he might be able to exploit.

“Hey, Malfoy.”

Scorpius whipped his head round to see Pritchard sidling up to stand beside him.

“Um, hi,” Scorpius racked his brain for a name. “Jason?”

“You nervous about battling?” Pritchard asked, ignoring the questioning tone Scorpius had applied to his name.

“Yeah, a little,” Scorpius admitted, wiping his hands on his trousers.

“Don’t be, you’ll be fine,” said Pritchard, attempting a warm smile. “Duelling is pretty straightforward when you get into it.”

“Wish I had your confidence,” said Scorpius, feeling a little awkward at talking to one of Albus’ friends.

“Yeah? Well, I wish someone would take down Hargreaves, she’s getting way too far into her stride.”

“You know much about duelling?” Scorpius asked.

“I’m not bad, it’s pretty much all I read about,” Pritchard chuckled. “And I sometimes practice with Hargreaves, which is why I know we need someone to go in there BEFORE SHE KILLS EVERYBODY! OH, COME ON, SIR!” Pritchard bellowed as Hargreaves took out her latest opponent by tuning him into a canary.

“Okay, Pritchard,” Maelstrom yelled back. “You think you can take on your girlfriend, be my guest.”

“Finally!” Pritchard crowed, winking at Scorpius before jumping to his feet. “But, sir…she’s not my girlfriend.” And without warning he turned his wand on the girl and sent a bolt of azure light flying directly into her face.

“What the hell did you do to me, you bastard? I CAN’T SEE!” Hargreaves screamed, tears streaming down her face as she started to send hexes flying in all directions, students ducking and diving to avoid the renegade spells.

“Hargreaves, you’ve been taken out, get to one side!” Maelstrom shouted, impressed that someone had taken down the whirling dervish of hex-casting. “Perkins, you’re up!”

Scorpius was a little shocked at the ruthlessness of Pritchard, but had to admit, it was a rather impressive move. He was also quite thankful that the threat of Mary Hargreaves no longer lingered.

This relief was quickly staunched when Pritchard took out another five students with a range of spells that looked both embarrassing and rather painful in the case of one girl who came out in an impressive rash of boils.

“He’s really determined to win today,” Albus muttered, watching Pritchard even more closely than he had Hargreaves.

“Malfoy, you’re up!”

“What?!” Scorpius squeaked. “Please no, professor! I don’t want to leave here completely mangled.”

“Neither do any of us!” snapped Elisa Boot, an outspoken Ravenclaw girl. “Just take you turn!”

“Yeah, come on, Malfoy,” Pritchard smirked. “Take it like a man!”

“Oi!” Albus snarled.

Scorpius took a deep breath and walked forward, praying to whatever deity listens to the pleas of nauseous students possibly about to be ripped to shreds that any spells Pritchard sent at him would be quick and not too disfiguring.

He had expected an attack to come fast and sharp, it would be true to Pritchard’s form, but the Slytherin wasn’t moving, instead watching him steadily, eyes glinting. Instead of reassuring him, Scorpius felt panic rising, assured that Pritchard was thinking up something especial unpleasant to afflict him with.

After about thirty seconds of non-movement, Elisa Boot sniped at them to “damn well get on with it!”

Scorpius’ arm moved almost of its own accord as he sent a stinging hex hurtling across the classroom. Pritchard’s eyes widened in alarm, but he managed to deflect it with a last-minute shield charm. Someone in the crowd let out a yelp.

“Come on, Malfoy! You can do better than that,” Pritchard yelled, and Scorpius was hard pushed to tell whether it was meant as a taunt or encouragement.

He rolled his shoulders and tried again with a good old-fashioned stunner. Pritchard had to side-step to deflect it, once again sending the curse winging its way to the sidelines. The crowd, now having seen the results of Pritchard’s shield charms dived for cover from the runaway stunner.

“Better!” Pritchard grinned. “Now try again.”

“This is supposed to be a competitive exercise, Pritchard,” Maelstrom bellowed. “You’re not meant to be coaching your opponent!”

Pritchard glared at the professor, Scorpius took advantage of the distraction and cast a coughing curse. The spell caught Pritchard by surprise and hit him squarely in the chest. A ripple of surprise went through the room and Scorpius was torn between feeling proud and insulted.

Pritchard was bent double as he tried to catch his breath, body heaving with hacking coughs. Scorpius frowned and withdrew the spell.

Pritchard managed to catch his breath a lot faster than Scorpius had anticipated.

“Okay, Malfoy,” said Pritchard, wheezing a little. “It’s your turn to deflect.”

Pritchard made an odd series of slashing motions with his wand.

Nothing happened.

Confused looks were exchanged around the room.

Even Pritchard looked a bit taken aback, and he held up his wand glaring at it as if it had betrayed him.

Scorpius raised an eyebrow.

“What exactly was I supposed to deflect?”

As soon as the sentence had left his mouth, something that felt like an open palm slammed into his chest and the resulting force sent him up and backwards, careening through the air until the stone wall of the classroom was kind enough to halt his brief flying stint.

A sickening crack was distinctly heard over Maelstrom’s techno backdrop.

“SHIT!”

“SCORPIUS!”

“PRITCHARD, YOU STUPID MOTHERFUCKER!”

The rest of the sudden uproar of voices was lost to Scorpius as everything was a bit blurry. All of a sudden Albus, Rose and Pritchard were crowded around him and they seemed a little blurry too. Scorpius decided to announce the fact.

“Hello, Al, you’re looking very blurry today.”

“Oh, Scorp, what is it with you and head injuries,” Albus moaned despairingly.

“Iss probably divine intervention taking out it’s debt on the heirs of Malfoy thanks to my grandfather being a bit of an a-hole,” said Scorpius, his words running together a little. “My dad’s losing his hair while I’m gradually losing parts of my skull.”

“Um…is he delirious?” Pritchard asked.

“I think he’s allowed to be!” Rose snapped, as Albus dragged Scorpius’ arm across his shoulders and tried to heave the not-very-cooperative body to its feet.

“Look, I’m really sorry, I-I didn’t know what that spell did!” said Pritchard.

“I learned from my dad a long time ago that you don’t perform a spell unless you know what it does,” said Albus, his voice cold and level and very, very angry. “I think he had a good point there.” Albus turned to Professor Maelstrom. “I’m taking him to the hospital wing, sir, seeing as you don’t seem to be doing anything about it.”

Maelstrom opened and closed his mouth several times, looking quite lost.

“I’ll help you take him,” Pritchard offered, moving to drape Scorpius’ other arm over his shoulder.

“It’s alright,” said Rose shortly, quickly moving to take that place herself. “I’ve got him.”

As the classroom door closed on the trio all eyes were upon them.

Well almost.

“Hello! Still blind here! Would someone please tell me what the hell is going on?!”

Rock On Chapter 15 B

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:22:39 GMT

Hugo had been eight years old when Teddy had passed the Marauders’ Map on to him; and while he was an intelligent child the gesture had confused him at the time. It was to be another three years before he was to start at Hogwarts and yet James had started there that autumn. When Hugo pointed this out to Teddy he had just smiled and shook his head.

“James would only use it to get into trouble,” he had chuckled. “I think you can find a much better use for it.”

Hugo didn’t agree. He was eight years old; it was illegal for him to perform magic and he didn’t even have a wand. He had considered just sending it on to his Gryffindor cousin, but had quickly nixed the idea thanks to his vivid imagination.

Just as he had been scrawling an explanatory note to the boy, images of James getting caught spying on a dungeon full of Slytherins with the aide of the Map and consequently being tortured had flittered through his head… Hugo had to admit that his father’s bedtime stories pre-Albus’-sorting hadn’t been very flattering to the house.

Later on in life, Hugo would wonder whether they hadn’t damaged him in some way.

Hugo had then considered passing on the map to Albus or Rose, but he couldn’t really see any situation where his sulky cousin would care to find out the specific location of anyone, except maybe a good psychiatrist, and the notion of Rose stopping her studying for anything other the house catching fire was simply laughable.

It was Lily who had actually revealed to Hugo the possible potential of the map, even if only by accident.

“You shouldn’t have that,” she said, one afternoon when Hugo was round at the Potter house while his parents were working. He had been sat in the middle of the living room staring blankly at the parchment as if it would reveal the secret of the universe if only he looked at it long enough.

“What?” he said. “Not allowed parchment now?”

“You’re a bad liar, Hugo. You’ll end up in Hufflepuff like Teddy, he can’t lie either.” Lily stated. “Why do you have his Map?”

“He gave it to me,” Hugo replied, knowing that she was right. Not about the Hufflepuff thing, but about the lying. Hugo as a truly terrible liar; something the boy found quite odd considering how good at acting he was.

“Don’t be daft, why would he give it to you? You’re not even at Hogwarts yet! Why didn’t he give it to one of the others?”

Hugo shrugged.

“Because James is a troublemaker, Al’s a Slytherin and Rose just wouldn’t be interested. It’s not a book.”

“Yeah, I know it’s not a book,” snapped Lily, rolling her eyes. “Why didn’t he give it to me?” She pouted the way she had learned from watching Albus manipulating their mother and Hugo made a mental note to start building a resistance to all his cousins’ attempts at being cute. It would take some time.

“What would you do with it?”

“Duuuh! I’d spy on people!” Lily announced, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Aren’t you going to do that?”

Hugo didn’t say anything for a while.

“I can’t work it. Don’t have a wand.”

Lily grinned. Hugo was certain she was going straight to Slytherin.

“That’s not a problem,” she said reaching behind herself to slowly draw out a long dark wand from the waistband of her jeans. Hugo jumped to his feet.

“Where did you get that!”

“Ssssh!” she hissed. “You’ll make mum come running. I pillaged it.”

Hugo stared at her, waiting for her to elaborate.

“From dad’s study.” Lily’s eyes darted shiftily.

“Isn’t it locked?” said Hugo, suspicious.

“Did you know Uncle George can pick locks?” Lily asked brightly.

Hugo closed his eyes and counted to ten.

“So you’ve just pinched your dad’s spare wand?” he said, as evenly as possible.

“I don’t think it’s his,” Lily tried to reassure her cousin. “It was locked in a draw in his desk and it was all dusty. I don’t think it’s been used for years.”

“Put it back,” Hugo pleaded.

“But don’t you want to know Rose is up to at school?” said Lily, slyly.

Since Rose and Albus had gone off in September it had been just him and Lily…Hugo had never thought he’d miss his sister when she left. Or Albus and his little bubble of pre-teen angst. Hell, he even missed James. He had missed him last year, too, of course, but there had been more people around to distract him then.

Before Hugo could even consider the possible repercussions of Lily’s actions, such as, oh say, an angry letter from the Ministry of Magic, she had touched the mystery wand to the Map and had spoken the words that she had heard in so many of her father’s stories. Hugo stood, transfixed taking in the sight of the scrawling inky lines spreading across the parchment.

“Oh, look! There’s Al,” she practically squealed, pointing to the dot representing her brother.

They sat down on the floor, finding all the people they could think of on the map, Lily quickly got bored, saying that if she didn’t know what they were actually doing or saying she didn’t see the point of looking. Hugo on the other hand just sat and watched the dots, following the movements of his sister and cousins.

It was reassuring. Soothing, almost.

He sat watching the Map the whole time Lily was getting shouted at by her mother for performing underage magic, the Ministry owl having arrived while they were examining the Map. Then Aunt Ginny had discovered how Lily had procured the wand and there had been more shouting. Then Uncle Harry got home and he got shouted at for still having the wand. If he hadn’t been too busy watching his sister move around the school, Hugo may found that odd, but as it was he was occupied, waiting for his parents to pick him up, and Lily had been sent to her room.

Hugo didn’t deactivate the Map until the first night he was at Hogwarts and during the prolonged time the Map showed the school, he found himself watching it more and more often. As he saw the increasing amount of time Rose was spending with a dot labelled ‘Scorpius Malfoy’, Hugo had to admit Lily had a point about the wholelistening in thing. He would really like to know what they were taking about in the corridors of Ravenclaw Tower.

Hugo knew curiosity probably wasn’t that good a character trait, but he somehow found himself watching Malfoy’s dot just as much as he was watching his sister’s. He would have assumed the boy was quite popular due to the number of dots that appeared to speak to him if it weren’t for his worryingly frequent visits to the Hospital Wing. Alone. Usually after spending time with a dot labelled ‘Dominic Deakes’.

When Hugo had started at Hogwarts, and hadn’t been sorted into Hufflepuff as Lily had been predicted, he had looked out for Rose hanging round with Scorpius, but their friendship appeared to be quite a discreet one. It didn’t stop him wanting to know what they were talking about in private, or why the blond never had any visitors in the Hospital Wing.

It had been this curiosity and an urge to protect his sister that he previously hadn’t realised existed that had driven his personal development of the Map. It hadn’t been easy, but then again he was a remarkably intelligent child and had no aversion to writing to his mother, subtly asking for any insights she might have on the matter of the mechanics of the Map.

It had been this protective impulse that had made him start collecting information on other members of the student body, select individuals that could be useful to have on side. Hugo had never considered just how Slytherin that could be considered, but then again he had only ever used any of this information to his advantage in the past few months.

Then again the Map had been invented by four Gryffindors and they didn’t seem to care that breaching peoples’ privacy wasn’t exactly a Gryffindorish trait.

But still, the main use of the Map was that every night he would check on each of his family members in turn. Every night he would make sure they got to bed safely, happy and well and if not he would watch and wait and then consider any way he may improve the standing of said relatives the next day.

Every night he would listen to their last conversations.

Every night.

Hugo thought that of all the people in his year for Albus to choose to be friends with, Jason Pritchard seemed like a very odd choice. The again he wasn’t really one to talk, as he was currently draped over one of the armchairs in the Gryffindor common room wearing a tennis dress he had managed to sweet-talk out of one of the girls in his year. She had found the whole idea hilarious and had said if he needed any other clothes he only had to ask.

Hugo thought girls were very peculiar.

The hairs on the back of Hugo’s neck were standing on end. He was being watched. He lifted his head to see a fourth year watching him with an indiscernible expression, his jaw slack.

“You’ll catch flies,” Hugo said simply. The fourth year closed his mouth with an audible snap, and Hugo turned back to the Map. Finding the conversation between Albus and Pritchard effectively over Hugo slid off the chair gracefully standing up and striding off to the dorms.

If there was one sight that was dreaded at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, it was that of Lily Potter being overly cheerful. It was universally known that if Lily was in a good mood she had either made somebody cry or was about to let loose with a cunning plan.

So it was a general consensus that Lily Potter bounding into the Great Hall with a wide grin and a sheet of paper clutched in her hand was a sign of oncoming doom.

“Please tell me you haven’t hospitalised anyone,” said Rose, as Lily bounced on the balls of her feet. Absinthe trudged in behind her looking tired and ill-tempered. She sat down heavily between James and Hugo, who was wearing a girl’s uniform he had scrounged from his helpful housemate.

“Of course I haven’t,” Lily waved off. “That’s Albus’ forte.”

“Um, hello?” said Scorpius, raising a hand.

“Oh, okay, Al and Scorp’s forte.” Lily amended.

“I think Scorpius was referring to the time you had him drugged,” Rose sniffed, dipping a toasted soldier into a hard-boiled egg.

“Well, technically that would fall under one of Al’s hospitalisations-”

“Okay, okay!” Albus interrupted. “If you haven’t severely injured someone, then what has you in such a good mood?”

Lily slapped the piece of paper she had been holding down on the tabletop with a flourish. The noise caused Absinthe to jolt awake from where she had accidentally fallen asleep on James shoulder.

James wasn’t very good at hiding disappointment.

“Wha’s tha’?” Hugo asked round a mouthful of corn flakes.

“It’s the poster for the Halloween Ball,” said Lily, sounding as if this was a monumental statement.

“Please...just act excited,” Absinthe yawned. “I can’t quite manage it anymore.”

Lily’s disapproving frown went unnoticed.

“What’s so exciting about it?” Albus asked.

Lily tapped the poster insistently.

Rose, Scorpius, Albus and Hugo all leaned forward to get a proper look at the sheet. James didn’t bother as he was too busy trying to prevent Absinthe from falling asleep in the communal bowl of porridge.

“Hey cool, we’re actually listed on the poster,” said Albus, in an attempt to be interested.

Scorpius looked a little paler than usual, seeing it written down made the fact that he had to perform to a rather substantial audience all the more real.

“I’ve still got that logo on my back,” Hugo admitted.

“I drew that on you last week!” Lily exclaimed. “Do you just not wash?”

“Yeah…it’s just not coming off.”

“I’m sure your friend from the library would be more than happy to scrub your back for you, Hugo,” Scorpius smirked.

Hugo didn’t say anything but launched a spoonful of cornflakes in Scorpius’ direction.

“As much as I find this fascinating, Hugo, I will be expecting a full update on this friend of yours later, by the way,” said Lily, “the band’s listing wasn’t actually what I was indicating.”

“What were you indicating then?” said Rose, pouring herself a glass of pumpkin juice.

“Fancy-dress costumes are mandatory,” Absinthe moaned sleepily.

“Weren’t they mandatory to begin with?” James asked.

“No, she just wanted you to think they were,” said Absinthe, jerking her thumb at Lily.

“Yeah, well now they are so it doesn’t really matter that I lied,” Lily said hurriedly. “So, whose gonna let me get their costume for them?”

There was a loud noise of general protestation and Lily’s face morphed into a pouty scowl.

“Oh, come on! I pick good costumes!”

“That may be,” Rose began. “But you prefer laughing at other people’s expense.”

“I’m dressing like a girl for a week just to make sure you don’t pick my costume,” Hugo reminded.

“Rose already said she’d help me with mine,” blurted Scorpius.

“I did?” said Rose. There was a dull thud from under the table and Rose was suddenly doubled over, reaching for something near the floor. “Yes, yes, I did, I did!”

“Fine,” Lily huffed, and turned an expectant glare on Albus. “Al? You going to be brave enough to put your fate in my hands.”

Albus snorted.

“Oh, please. I’m a Slytherin, Lil’. We’re not known for our bravery. Besides,” he added, “the chances of you putting me in a tutu are far too high.”

Lily crossed her arms and breathed a frustrated sigh. She noticed Absinthe pleasantly half-asleep and promptly elbowed her in the ribs, again jolting the other girl from leaning on James’ shoulder. “C’mon, wake up!”

“Sod off!” growled Absinthe, making a half-hearted attempt to push the other girl away. “You were the one who woke me up at four by jumping on my bed and smacking me in the face with a pillow.”

Several pair of curious eyes turned on Lily.

“It’s a long story,” she said, claiming the milk jug for her own cereal.

“No, it’s not,” Absinthe contradicted. “You couldn’t sleep and decided to share the pain. You have other people to talk to now, so leave me in peace to fall asleep on your surprisingly comfortable brother.”

“Er, you probably shouldn’t do that,” said Albus, obviously amused.

“Why not?” Absinthe asked. “You don’t mind do you, James?”

“No he doesn’t,” Scorpius jumped in. “That’s the problem.”

“That doesn’t make sense to me right now,” yawned Absinthe, snuggling her head back into James’ shoulder. “Say it again later when I’m properly awake.”

James didn’t say anything for the remainder of breakfast.

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