GreenR: hiya, this time the shot is a bit... let's just say, I've been listening to lots of Potterless recently and it really shows. I tried to make it in a way that you should be able to get everything, even if you haven't read a page of Harry Potter in your life, but people who have will probably find many more references.
Enjoy!
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Yawning sleepily, you padded into the kitchen, that was illuminated by rich golden light coming in through the large windows. You scrunched your nose, trying to pry your eyes open. But the light was far too bright so early, so you just mumbled a swear word and yielded to having to find your way around the room by touch only.
"Morning," you harrumphed towards the direction where the greeting came from and continued your quest for breakfast. "Here," a cup of coffee was thrust into your hands and you took a sip of the blessed hot tar. You opened your bleary eyes.
"I love you. You are the best person I know and if you don't mind, will you marry me?" you expressed your gratitude.
"Hmmm, I'll consider if you get down on one knee," Ace offered you a lopsided grin and continued to mush together sandwiches for the breakfast.
"I don't get on my knees," you retorted and stole a piece of cucumber from his sandwich. "But thanks for the coffee."
"Sure. Have you seen my Herbology book?" he took a bite of his food and turned towards you as you sat down by the kitchen table.
"Wait, too early," you took another sip and waited for the caffeine to kick in. At times like that, coffee really was better than any sort of charm you could put on yourself. "Now. Herbology?"
"Yeah, cuz I was doing the homework yesterday buttttttt I can't find it anymore," Ace didn't accuse you of anything, although the two of you knew very well that you had stolen his book to do the homework as well. You had lost your own book a while ago and saw no point in buying a new one, when you could borrow his any time you wanted. Borrowing meaning just taking it when you neededit and forgetting to give it back. You refused to call it stealing, because you always gave it back to him in the end.
"Hmmmmmm....yeah," you willed your brain to work and look in the archives of your thinking organ for the memory about where you had left the book. "Too bad for you," you jumped up from your seat and gave him a kiss on the cheek, racing out of the kitchen and up the stairs.
"Haven't seen it!"
"Y/n!" Ace called after you, laughing. "Come on now, we have to leave in an hour! Just give me my book back!" his smile straightened up and he ran out after you. "Y/n!!"
"I have a temporary memory loss and I have no idea what you are talking about!" you called back from your room, closing the door with a loud bang to change.
You set down your coffee, which was still amazingly intact after your home run, and took pajamas off, dunking them into your open trunk. The trunk already held about half a ton of magic books as required by the teachers of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Also some clothes thrown on top of the books in a crumple.
You looked at the messed up clothes for a moment, thinking to yourself maybe you should pack them more neatly. No, there wasn't enough time, that would have to do. You would have had time to do that yesterday, if you hadn't stayed up until two in the morning to read "The Exclusive History of Pigfarts and Geography of Moon", that train is gone now. You could always do a spell to straighten them up later. Or not. There really wasn't a point in ironing them, since they would wrinkle up anyways when you wore them.
Ace knocked on the door and called after you again. You sighed, feeling a little guilty that you had somehow misplaced his book, but not too much. The thing with lost things is that they always come back to you, but not when you are looking for them or when you need them most desperately. They come back when you are just about to forget them, so the joy of finding them is even greater.
"Y/n? Are you decent?" he called again, by now knowing not to just walk inside. The last time with fox costume and toads had been a little too much for his eyes, or his mind, to take in. But at least he had learned his lesson.
"No, and I don't have my clothes either!" you yelled, tying the laces on your sneakers, already dressed up. You bunched your hair up on top of your head and put it in a bun with your wand. Keeping it in you hair was the best way not to lose it as well. You wouldn't have minded all that much, but the professors didn't really like it when you went to their classes without your wand. Like that was the most important thing there. Hah.
"How long does it take to get dressed?" he tapped his foot on the floor, crossing his arms.
"You can't rush perfection," you got on your knees on the floor to look under the bed. There was a lonely blue sock and a box of chocolates. You threw the sock into your trunk so it wouldn't be so lonely anymore and checked the back of the chocolate box. It had nuts in it. Yikes. You put it on the desk, maybe your little brother would want to eat them, since he was the only one in the whole family that hadn't gotten the blasted nut-allergy.
"Then tell perfection to get out of your room and somewhere else, so I can come in," you rolled your eyes and sat back to go through the cardboard box next to your bed, that fulfilled the task of a nightstand.
"Ha ha, hilarious. Remind me again, why do I love you?" you threw aside a handful of marbles. When one of them sprayed out something smelly you groaned and swore to never let Ace mix your marbles with Gobstones again.
"Because I put up i with your shiz," he poked his head again and sniffed the air. "Is that your perfume? Because if that's the secret weapon you wanted to use on the Diggory kid, it won't work."
"And you know because you are his best friend?" you blushed lightly, thinking of the absolute cutest guy in sixth year. It was too bad he was already going out with Cho Chang, whom you had briefly tried to despise for how perfect she was, but just couldn't. She was just too nice.
"Maybe he would be charmed by my dedication to Gobstones," Ace threw himself on your bed and snorted. "Don't make that face, I don't see you charming anyone any time soon. And Gobstones is a perfectly respectable sport."
"Given that wizards only have like two sports anyways," Ace rolled his eyes. Being a muggle-born, he was unspoilt by the magical world and could see its many wonders and faults more clearly. Like the fact that wizards had Quidditch as a main sport and nothing else. What about basketball? Or just any other sport? Given how much Quidditch actually sucks, I would've expected them to come up with something better by now.
"You are forgetting Chess," you threw him a book about werewolves, "put it in the trunk, will you?"
He chunked it in the trunk and started flipping through your things.
"Whatchu gramps say about staying at here for holidays by the way?" you looked over your shoulder.
"He wants to talk to your mother, and that only if I pass my Apparition test this time," you sat on the ground.
"Man, again?" he nodded gravely and you threw him a Chocolate Frog. "Damn, how many times does that make?"
"One! Two...." he didn't look you in the eye. "Twelve...."
"Man," you sort of wanted to laugh, but the better part of you held it back. "Don't worry about it, Apparition isn't that important anyways. You can always go around on a broom. Or find a Thestral that is less vicious than the rest."
"That's what I told him," Ace was fiddling with the frog in his hands, still not looking up. "But he has decided that I can't skimp on the family career thing, so I sort of have to take the test again until I pass."
You blew out a puff of breath and got up. You waved Ace off a bit so he would move and you sat down next to him, curling up by his side and pulling him into a tight hug.
"Man, don't take it personally, but you would probably the worst Auror in the history of all Aurors," he snorted again under you.
"You really know how to make a guy feel better," he wiggled under you to fish out the chocolate that had gotten stuck between the two of you. You pulled him closer, setting your chin on top of his head.
"Would you prefer I lied that you would be great at it and you would believe me like the blue-eyed naive doll you are and wake up ten years later, doing the job you would be good at but wouldn't like," he stared at your collarbone that was in about the height of his eyes when you were in this position and sighed.
"How do you know I wouldn't like it?" He tried to argue with you, even if he had been the one to rant about how much he would hate it.
"Look up," you commanded. He did so and you picked his arm up. "Now look at the skin. Obeying rules!" Ace shivered involuntarily and goosebumps appeared on his skin. "Now that's what I call allergic reaction."
"Shut up," he flopped down on you to shut you up. The two of you were on seventh year already, and he was taking all the subjects he needed for becoming an Auror anyways. He hadn't told anyone yet, but that was just the smokescreen. The second he graduated, he would be out of the door and gone before his gramps could blink.
He hadn't even told you yet.
"Shut up yourself," you kicked him off you and resumed to packing. "I'm just saying, that prediction about you is so true, it would kick Trelawney off her high tower of teacups."
"Yeah, are you finished, we have like ten minutes left," he looked to his wrist to check the time before he remembered he didn't have a watch. To be honest, he wasn't even sure if he had ever owned a wristwatch. That made his habit of glancing at the watch all the more ridiculous.
"Almost. You?"
"Last night. I packed last night," he ducked to avoid the high-heel that you threw at him and stuffed it on the trunk between a Transfiguration book and a teddy bear.
"And that's why you are my hero and the responsible one of us," you frowned, pretty sure you were the only person on this planet who would call Ace responsible. Or in this Universe. This Multiverse.
"It wouldn't hurt to be in the station a few minutes early," he suggested, playing with the Pikachu keychain you had forgotten on the bed. It had a little flashlight in it and when Ace pressed the button, light shone in his eye and little yellow monster let out a robotic version of his iconic warcry. That made Ace drop the monster in surprise and push it away from him, looking around in case you had seen it.
Even after all those years he had some switch in him that tried to prevent him from doing stupid things in front of you, which in itself was already stupid. You had seen him do nearly everything embarrasing there was possible to do. You were hard to impress these day, yet he could still take his stupidity to new heights.
You slammed the trunk shut and struggled with the lockonthe darn thing. One of them kept opening, being faulty, so you finally grabbed two belts and tied them around the suitcase. Maybe not the most fashionable choice, but at least it held the darn thing together.
"Ready," you puffed out after finishing and brushed a sweaty lock of hair from your forehead. "Get your things or we're gonna be late."
Ace stood up and picked his suitcase up from the ground. He stepped closer tou you and took you hand in his, gripping it tightly, his palm bit sweaty.
"Calm," you said, looking him in the eye. "I'm not forgetting your feet or anything else behind. Although you could do with fewer fingers."
"That's reassuring," he choked and then with a pop! you Disapparated. There was again the feeling of being sucked through a huge tube, which would've been fine, if it hadn't reminded you of Augustus Gloop every time you did it. No one wants to be reminded of that boy at whatever point in their lives.
A millisecond later you apparated in the empty corner of King's Cross station. Ace let go of your hand, dropped his suitcase and hurled towards the thrash can, leving into it his breakfast.
You glanced around quickly to make sure nobody saw you you and took your wand from your hair to conjure up a bottle of water, as he would need it in a moment.
"Thanks," Ace muttered, when he was finally well enough to stand up straight and slowly sip on water. "And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why is prefer brooms."
The two of you got your things and got first onto your platform and then on the train without any new problems popping up. There was, as every year, a problem of finding an empty cart, as you could swear that there were more and more first-years every year, and they all chose to sit in pairs, which of course made it impossible for you to go and sit in the same compartment. Everyone knows it's not a good idea to go and scare those little pumpkins with your talk of classes and exams and whatnot.
Finally you managed to make your way over to a compartment that held only one small and skinny blonde girl, about third-year by the looks of her, who had her nose deep in a colourful magazine. Deciding that being in the presence of a youngling was better than sitting in the corridor, you pushed the door open. It had been Percy Weasley's favourite pasttime since this year.
"Hiya, can we come here?" The girl looked up and blinked her huge bluish grey eyes slowly like an owl. Then she pushed up the magnifying glasses onto her head and her eyes became normal-sized.
"Sure, come on in," you breathed in relief and plopped down on the leathery seat for a second before getting up once more to put your trunk above your heads.
"Thanks," you smiled to the girl but she had already gone back to reading her magazine with her magnifying glasses.
The ride to school was shorter than you were accustomed to. On the first year it had seemed to take about forever and few minutes on top. Every year after that it had gotten shorter and shorter, just about enough time to eat a few things bought from the trolley witch and take a short nap and then it was over.
You didn't feel like taking a nap, so you buried your nose in the book by Lockhart, who had been a professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts a few years back. As usual to Hogwarts, he had been gone by the end of the year, in his case due to horrendous memory loss. Now, reading his book you couldn't understand how such a powerful wizard had gotten done in by one of the most simplistic memoryloss spells in the existence. Guess everyone has that one stroke of bad luck in their lives.
You leaned your book on Ace's head that was using your lap as a pillow. Rather uncomfortable pillow, by the way he complained and wriggled around, but he refused to move nevertheless. You tried to keep the book still as he turned again to be on his side and pull his legs on the bench as well. He failed, and found himself laying on the floor, looking up to the compartment roof. It had a piece of grey gum stuck to it.
"What are you doing?" you sighed and nudged his shoulder with the nose of your violently purple sneaker.
"Looking at the stars," he grumbled, getting up from the floor.
You rolled your eyes, not deeming the answer worthy of a comment from you and raised your book from your lap so he could lay back down. This time he stopped moving after ten seconds and started to snore instead. You debated for a second putting silencing spellon him, as he was interrupting your reading time but decided against it. Instead you clapped the book on his face. It muffled the sound well enough. It was also more merciful, silencing spells had the habit of causing horrible headaches.
"Your friend has a lots of wrackspurts around his head," the blonde girl said suddenly, looking up from her magazine. "Basically a whole nest on one side."
"Is that so? Can you see them?" like every respectable witch you knew what wrackspurts were. You read the Quibbler, for love's sake. You weren't uneducated.
The girl tapped the side of her glasses as an answer.
"Did you know that people with brown eyes attract more wrackspurts than any other?"
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The train pulled into the Hogsmeade station and students were unloaded from it - first years into the boats (which was horribly unsafe, but good for aesthetic reasons) and others into the carriages pulled by thestrals. You went up to one of the dark horse-like creatures and patted its muzzle. It was soft and thestral huffed a breath of hot air at you.
You glanced around quickly and pulled few sugar cubes from your pocket, offering them to the creature who ate them as quick as a flash. You got into the carriage and shut your mind off from the world to protect it from the waterfall of gossip that released as soon as the people from your year saw someone they hadn't talked to yet - you.
You turned your brain back on when it was time the great feast. And for Dumbledore's speech, of course. That speech was supposed to be really important this year (but they had treacle tart!) And like you had listened to any of his speeches before. The ones in the beginning of the year were always the same, for welcoming babies of the first year. As for the ones at the end of the year, you had sort of listened to them before Harry Potter came. Now, whatever happened during the year, year end's speech was about whatever this guy did and Gryffindor always won the House Cup. That was blatant favoritism, that's what it was.
You chomped furiously into a piece of toast and listened with half an ear. Then you choked on the toast and as perfectly expressing your feelings, one of the red-headed Weasley kids yelled: "Are you kidding me?!"
You didn't hear whatever Dumbledore answered to that, because you had already ducked your head closer to Ace.
"Mate," you furiously whispered. "Do you know what that means?"
"Someone is going to die a horrible death because of centuries old competition?"
"How can you be so calm?" You hissed to Ace, furious that he had chosen that moment to be almost an adult. "That someone is going to be one of us."
"Why?" you groaned as if in pain and rolled your eyes hard enough to see the back of your skull.
"Dude," you breathed in slowly to explain your steamtrain of thoughts. "Entering it means having a chance of winning. Winning means money. Money means that you can get away from that dear gramps of yours," to whom you were really itching to send a Howler by now.
You watched as Ace's eyes slowly lit up and he broke into a wild grin.
"But we gotta do it before something happens and we have to deal with this Potter kid again," you mumbled and shot a glare at the dark-haired kid, who shivered as if he had felt it.
"Don't you think you are being paranoid? He is still underage, means he can't enter the competition," Ace patted your head, messing up your hair in the process.
"Never say never, when Potter is involved," you swatted his hand away. "We just have to win it before something weird can happen."
"Come on, we are almost finished with it all in here. What could still happen?"