Harry is the first to move. "How did that happen?"
"Ten points to DUMBLEDORE!" The seven kids whip their necks to the staircase behind them. Sure enough, Dumbledore comes waltzing down trailed by McGonagall, Lupin, Sprout, Hagrid, Flitwick, and Snape.
"So... I guess people are actually afraid of him..." Gail says to Kaity as she turns to face him and his posse.
His triumphant face changes to concern at the sight of the McGonagall running past him to meet the kids. "Oh my. Oh my!" she fusses, helping them out of the room.
Snape is the first to proceed to the Reawakening Stone on the pillar. "Professor Dumbledore, what's this thing?"
Dumbledore shoots a worried look at the Quadruplex. All they can do is shrug. He ignores Snape's question and simply tells him to bring it along with them.
"How on earth did this happen? What were you doing down here? Who else was here?!"
"Minerva, calm down. We'll question them after we get them to the hospital wing. Quickly, kids." Dumbledore turns on his heel and leads everyone out of the chamber.
ΤΠΧ
After a quick examination in the hospital wing, the kids explain exactly what happened to Dumbledore in his office. When they finish, he sits silently for a second, thinking to himself.
"Professor Dumbledore, may I ask why the ritual didn't work? Was it a real thing?" Hermione asks cautiously, leaning on the edge of her seat
"Yes, Miss Granger. Well, it seems to be so. The Reawakening Stone is an old legend, as old as the stones themselves. When the Philosopher's Stone fused with the Resurrection Stone, their powers combined to complete each other. Each of them use the power of life in a different way. One prolongs life, the other brings life back. However, legend says that the Resurrection Stone will only bring someone back physically. Their mental, spiritual, and emotional state remain dead. That's how the power of the Philosopher's Stone comes in. It fills in the gaps the Resurrection Stone leaves. It's arguably the most powerful magical object in the world. Yet, the legend explains that the stone is extremely unstable with the amount of magic it contains. It most likely could only be used once before it destroys itself. Naturally, we will be destroying it before it can be used at all. Life magic may sound useful, but it can be very dangerous. As for why it didn't work, I couldn't tell you." Well, he could, but he doesn't want to compromise the identity of the would-be Dark Lord, so he keeps his mouth shut.
Harry looks to his feet, then back to Dumbledore. "Sir, what does Avada Kedavra do?"
"WHAT?!"
K.C. hits him in the arm. "Harry, don't say it out loud!"
"Well, why didn't you mention it while we were telling—"
"Just stop talking about it," Kaity says to him, though her eye contact is with the floor.
"No, but they tried to hit us and Cici did something that—"
Dumbledore eyes Harry and then Cici, who slouches sheepishly on the chaise lounge. "Harry," he says, still keeping eye contact with Cici. "That is the killing curse." The Golden Trio stiffens their postures.
"Oof, no sugarcoating there," K.C. snorts.
Dumbledore's icy eyes peer over his half-moon spectacles at Harry once more. "What exactly did Miss Chiccolini do?"
"She said some sort of spell and this glowing dome appeared around us and absorbed the blow. It was amazing!" He leans back on the couch to look over K.C.'s shoulders at Cici. "You saved our lives!"
"You didn't use your... you-know-what?"
"No, sir." Cici shakes her head swiftly, knowing he's referring to her powers.
"Magic, then?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, for the others. If you are ever in a situation like that again, never use a protection charm. They never work. The only thing that blocks the Killing Curse is a physical barrier."
"But Cici's wasn't physical. It was magic!"
"That's enough, Mr. Weasley. You may all return to your common rooms. It is well past curfew."
Each of them proceeds out one by one, but Dumbledore holds Cici back. "Miss Chiccolini, how did you... you know?" He seems genuinely baffled as if he's never heard of something like this before.
"I used Greek magic."
He cocks his head to the side. "Greek?"
"Yes... sir." The scene looks odd to Cici. This man is the greatest wizard of his time, yet here he is, in the Hogwarts Headmaster's office surrounded by a countless display of magical equipment and award plaques not understanding something a first-year is saying to him. Surely he has heard of Greek magic before...
"I... that is... well, anyway, thank you for keeping the students safe."
"My pleasure." What is she saying?! That's only something Chick-Fil-A workers say!
ΤΠΧ
-----
June 19th
Hey, Students of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry,
This just in: seven students including the famous Harry Potter himself saved the so-called Philosopher's Stone from getting into the wrong hands. Apparently, this stone has the power to resurrect people from the dead. According to my sources, last night, twenty masked figures attacked the students and threatened to kill them with "the Killing Curse" which would all have caused them to explode if it wasn't for Harry Potter. He single-handedly saved the other six kids with some sort of unknown protection charm. After that, he drop-kicked the leader of the masked gang who wanted to resurrect the Dark Lord. Thanks to him (not the Quadruplex, who didn't even show up), the Philosopher's Stone is safe!
XOXO
—Gossip Girl
P.S. Draco Malfoy, you still suck.
-----
"Well, this is pathetic," Gail says, holding her phone across the table for K.C. to see.
"Can we just stop talking about Harry's self-promotion? We have enough bad news already." She gestures to the green and silver banners engulfing the room, then to the overjoyed Slytherins banging their fists at the table. The clatter of plates is getting really annoying.
Gail looks over K.C.'s shoulder and beams at the sight of Draco rallying his friends. "He's on this new ad I saw in The Daily Prophet. I cut it out and put it in my suitcase so I can still see him at home."
K.C. looks up from poking at her food and shoots Gail a look. "So, you're serious about liking him? It's not just a running gag you have?"
She doesn't bother to pry her eyes from him. "Hmm? Oh, look it's Vincent and Greg, too."
"Who the hell are they?" Hannah sits down next to her, making Gail jump out of her trance. It isn't long before Susan slides in next to K.C.
"Crabbe and Goyle. They're on a first-name basis, apparently," K.C. comments, going back to her end of year feast. "I mean, seriously. When are you ever going to give it a rest?"
"Hey!" Gail drops her fork and glares at K.C. "I will when you stop being so infatuated with Ced—"
K.C.'s eyes flicker above Gail's head. "Oliver!"
"That's not who I meant, but—"
"Hey, K.C."
Gail turns to look behind her and sure enough, Oliver Wood is right there, smiling at K.C. across the table.
"Excited for summer?"
"Yeah, I'll be devising strategies for the coming Quidditch season. Can't wait to beat you guys again this year."
"Oh, please. You're looking at the best chasers you'll ever see, Gail Farr-Visentin and me, of course. Hufflepuff is gonna kick your sorry arse." (British insults all the way.)
"We've got a secret weapon. You know Cici Chiccolini? We've established a new position. Seeker-Chaser. She and Harry Potter are going to be interchanging their roles depending on the game." He playfully smirks at her, then Hannah and Susan realize the situation and start whispering to each other and giggling.
"At least we're not in last place for the House Cup this year." K.C. nods in the direction of the hourglasses that keep track of house points.
Oliver is about to retort when Dumbledore struts in. "This isn't over," he says with a grin.
"Have a good summer, Ollie!" K.C. calls after him mockingly.
"Ollie?"
"Wipe that look off of your face, Abbott, or I'll slap you."
The entire school looks up from their plate to watch Dumbledore join the teachers at the head table. Before he sits down, he makes his farewell speech. "In light of recent events, Gryffindor gets three hundred fifty house points, fifty for each student who saved the stone, because I can't bear Slytherin winning another year and Gryffindors are better than everyone else. That's just a fact. Adios, chicos. Have a great summer. Tuck in."
The only sound in the room is rubies piling into Gryffindor's hourglass, making it overflow. Slytherin is completely silent. Until Malfoy screams, "WHAT IS THIS—"
"RAWR. RAWR. RAWR. LIOOOOOONS! WOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!" Oh, there go the Gryffindors. "SLYTHERINS ARE LOSERS. SLYTHERINS ARE LOSERS!" Ya know, I'm just gonna stop quoting this so you don't have to hear the unpleasant screams.
Back at the Hufflepuff table, K.C. and Gail are sulking. One hundred of those points should've been Hufflepuff's.
Kaity and her Ravenclaw friends couldn't be more indifferent to Dumbledore's bias or the fact that Fred and George Weasley are dancing on the tables launching fireworks into the air. Luna's babbling on about nargles or something, Cho's talking with Padma and the two are sneaking glances at Cedric, Terry Boot and Michael Corner are trying to put some sort of potion in Anthony Goldstein's lemonade, and Kaity, as usual, has her nose in a book. Well, she did have her nose in a book until she realized that Cici's now being hoisted on the Weasley twins' shoulders and that Katie Bell and Oliver Wood are kicking everyone's plates off the table and screaming "GRYFFINDOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOR!" Now, she can't stop watching. It's like a car crash.
Cici and K.C. make eye contact. From her place seven feet above the ground, Cici screams, "¡QUÉ PENA!"
ΤΠΧ
The next morning, the girls are all standing in the aisle of the Hogwarts Express, feeling the train begin to move under their feet. Kaity stumbles back from the inertia and steadies herself on a window, watching Hogwarts slowly shrink out of view. "I can't believe first year is already over," she says to no one in particular.
"Me either," says a dreamy voice in her right ear.
Kaity jumps back, ramming her shoulder into the window. "Gosh, Luna! You scared me!"
Luna ignores her last statement. "It doesn't feel like it should be over. In fact, I'm quite young to be going into second year. Aren't you four young, as well?"
"Yeah, I guess...," Gail tells her, stepping up next to Kaity.
"I mean, we aren't twelve yet, like a lot of other kids, so...," Cici says.
"Me either. My eleventh birthday was in February. Daddy said he wanted to send me early because of the Umgublular Slashkitler infestation we acquired a year ago. It's quite embarrassing, actually. He had to speak to Dumbledore."
The Quadruplex is silent for a moment, wondering what she just explained to them. Luna doesn't seem the least bit fazed by this. She wears her absentminded smile and big wonder-filled eyes like what she said was perfectly normal. Well, they assume it was for her. "Anyway, have a great summer, Luna," K.C. says hurriedly, grabbing the twins by their wrists and dragging them behind her.
"Wait!" Luna calls after them. "Would you like a Quibbler?"
"I'll take one," Cici says, holding out her hand
"Here you are. I'm giving these out free, because of the headline article. It's a great read. Very eye-opening." She hands Cici a technicolored tabloid with a big red Quibbler logo, followed by a questionable headline. "Ministry of Magic Reckons the Quadruplex is Made Up of Merpeople: Revisit the Second Prophecy."
"Cici, come on! We've found a compartment with Hermione and Ron!" Kaity calls from down the train.
Cici nods to Luna and starts running down to the compartment. "Thanks, Luna! Have a good summer!"
Finally, the Quadruplex, Hermione, and Ron all settle into their seats. Cici pulls her legs up onto the seat and opens up the tabloid, settling back for a long ride to London.
"You're reading The Quibbler?" Hermione looks revolted. She straightens her posture. "That has about as much credibility as Harry's gossip blog."
"Am I not allowed to read for fun? Besides, mermaids can't be witches. There's no way anyone's gonna believe the headline article about the Quadruplex."
"Speaking of the blog," Gail starts. Everyone groans, not wanting to be reminded of it. "What's with Harry taking all the credit? I mean, Cici's the one who—"
Cici doesn't look up from the magazine. "Just leave it."
"No, but you should get—"
"It's better if you leave it." She glares at Gail over the magazine. Gail huffs. Low-profiles can be really annoying.
Suddenly, there's a muffled crack coming from outside the closed compartment. "Malfoy...such...loser."
"That sounds like Harry." Ron leans his face on the glass to get a better look down the hallway. "Bloody hell!"
BANG. BANG. BANG.
"He's dueling Malfoy!"
"He's WHAT?!" Cici and Gail scream at the same time. The next thing they know, Gail's yanking the door open and all six kids are running down the aisle to see Harry and Draco with their wands drawn. Hermione takes her own wand out and disarms both of them. You'd think that would stop them, but no.
Draco charges for Harry and jumps on top of him. "YOU DIRTY HALF-BLOOD, POTTER. CAN'T FIGHT WITHOUT A WAND, CAN YOU?"
"YES. I. CAN." That's when he punches Draco in the nose.
Draco flails around for a hot second, being the overdramatic idiot he is. "AH! I'M DYING! I'M DYING!"
The girls and Ron kind of just watch in amazement for a few seconds.
"YOU'RE A COWARD, DRACO! NO ONE LIKES YOU!"
"GoYlE, CrABBE, HeLp mEEEEE!" Draco sobs, leaning against the wall of the train.
"RAWR!" Golye emerges from a compartment, dragging Crabbe by the hem of his sweatshirt. He makes more indescribable noises and stomps over to the fight, trying to hoist Draco's skinny figure over his shoulders like a potato sack.
"GOYLE, NO—OW! GET ME MY WAND!"
Crabbe scrambles to get Draco's wand and hand to the upside-down kid hanging from the twelve-year-old beast of a human being.
"THIS IS FOR EVERYTHING YOU'VE DONE TO ME THIS YEAR." He centers his wand at Harry, who has just stood up. "EXPULSO!"
The next split second is a chaotic masterpiece. Draco misses Harry by a hair, but successfully explodes the candy trolley that was approaching the kids. The Honeydukes witch is screaming, chocolate frogs are jumping all over the place, kids are sticking their heads out of their compartments to see what all the commotion is, Draco is crying, Harry's singing some Drake song for no apparent reason, and the Quadruplex, Ron, and Hermione slam themselves against a compartment door to avoid being exploded by Draco, but end up breaking the door and stumbling into Neville, Luna, the Patil Twins, Sue Li, and Ernie Macmillan on the other side. "FIRE! BLOODY HELL, A FIRE!" Ron screams, struggling to his feet.
"Aguamenti!" someone yells. A rush of water washes through the train, exterminating the smell of burnt carpets.
Kaity falls back into a wall for the third time today and collapses to the ground next to K.C. Gail lies on the floor and closes her eyes. "WHY ARE YOU GUYS SO PROBLEMATIC?" she yells to the ceiling all of a sudden, punching the bottom of a seat next to her.
When she opens her eyes, she sees Neville's face over hers. "Need a hand?"
So naturally, she's about to allow him to help her up, when Crabbe's head pops into the doorway. "Oh no, you don't, Longbottom. Flipendo!"
"AUGH!" Neville whacks his head on the wall behind him and collapses on the floor next to Gail.
Crabbe is about to help her up when, yet again, overdramatic Draco wildy appears, shoving him out of the way. "OOF!" Crabbe falls into the exploded trolley cart and lies on the floor in defeat.
"M'lady," Draco says, extending his hand.
Believe it or not, Gail is about to take it. However, K.C.'s fed up, so she hauls Gail up herself and slaps Draco across the face so he falls on top of Crabbe. She's the first to step over them all and head back to their compartment. The others follow her and Ron takes Harry by the arm and drags him back with them. Hopefully, the school doesn't hear about this.
ΤΠΧ
The girls successfully apparate back home to Club Penguin Island without Ministry detection, as intercontinental apparition is impossible to keep track of. Gail and Kaity both drop their bags on the snowy ground outside of the Dojo. K.C. smiles, breathing in the slightly volcanic air coming from the dormant volcano a mile behind the Dojo. It's been months since they've heard the rushing of the distant waterfall or seen dark silhouettes of ninja penguins in the rice paper windows. "I can't believe we're back!" K.C. sighs, turning behind her to get the mountain view of the rest of the island. "I can't wait to see what's in Penguin Style for June! We're totally going to the lighthouse tonight to see if anyone's performing!"
Not bothering to pick up her bags again, Gail pushes open the large bamboo doors. "Guess who's back?!" she announces to the room of multicolored penguins doing Card-Jitsu training. Everyone stops what they're doing to look at them. She looks to her left to see Sensei at the corner of the room, sitting comfortably on his usual green throw pillow.
He turns his gaze to the four of them and changes his peaceful smile to an ecstatic one. "Girls! I can hardly believe it! How was your first year?" He gets up and walks over to them to embrace them in his grey flippers. "Is Dumbledore alright? Make any friends? What're your favorite classes?"
"We'll have to wait," K.C. says, trying to release herself from the hug. She eyes everyone else as they scramble from their Card-Jitsu mats to surround them. "It's such a long story. We'll tell you when we see everybody."
The mob of penguins in the room envelops them asking similar questions and welcoming them back. "Kaity, guess what? I'm on my blue belt now!" one yellow penguin dressed in a princess costume tells her.
"Fairlylark421, that's amazing! I'm so proud!" Kaity jumps up and down and runs over to hug her old friend.
"Alright, everyone!" Sensei claps his flippers together. "Back to work, back to work. We need to give the girls some space after their long journey. Why don't you girls get settled in back in the hidden room? I'll text your parents and let them know you're back. They're all at the Stadium. It's Red versus Blue today. Drew didn't want to miss it, so he pulled them all along with them."
"Sure thing, Sensei," Cici says with a salute. "Come on, guys." She walks over to pull down a familiar part of the wall to reveal a secret staircase to the place the girls have lived for the past eleven years of their lives. Cici begins to try and heave their bags down the stairs when K.C. interrupts her.
"You know what the best thing about being home is?"
"What?"
"The Ministry of Magic has no control over us doing underage magic. Wingardium Leviosa!" K.C. doesn't even need to pull out her wand for this spell. All of the trunks successfully float down to the bottom of the steps.
"Nice thinking, K.C.," Gail says, hopping down the steps with glee. She pulls the rice paper screen back to reveal the light green painted room that smells like home. Kaity places her bags next to the door and runs to the center of the room, beaming at the sight of the plants lining the walls, the tea table set for in one corner, the chiseled grey puffle statue in the other, and the exposed support beams on the ceiling.
"We'd better start unpacking," Cici says walking across the room to the other rice paper screen that leads to the hallway. Each of the girls follow behind her and head to the farthest door in the hallway. Cici pushes it open to reveal their bright blue bedroom with a quadruple bunk bed resting inside the wall. K.C. places a bag on one of the smaller bunks and begins taking her clothes out and setting them neatly into her drawers.
Cici and Kaity, on the other hand, both crawl up the ladder and face plant themselves on each of their beds, letting the creamy white comforter swallow them whole. "So... cold outside. So... warm in here," Kaity mumbles into her pillow. Then, she rolls over onto her back and spots something hot pink out of the corner of her eye. "DAISY! OH, HOW I MISSED YOU!" She cradles the tiny stuffed monkey in her hands.
"Oh gosh," Cici says to herself, sitting up on her bed.
"Forget something, Gail?" a familiar voice says, cracking the door to their room open a bit. All of their parents stand in the doorway, with Jonathan Scott holding Gail's suitcases, wet from melted snow.
"Uncle J! Uncle Drew!" Kaity falls off of her bed ungracefully and runs to meet her adoptive parents. Gail on the other hand is much more reserved. She actually knows how to walk like a human being.
"Mom! Dad!" Cici yells, hurrying to embrace Jessie and Tony. K.C. doesn't say anything, she just runs to Phyllis and Bob.
"Come on back into the main room, girls. We brought home pizza! We got chocolate sprinkles, cheese, and seaweed," Bob says, beckoning everyone to follow him. The girls' mouths begin to water. There is no better pizza on the planet than Club Penguin Island's pizza. Needless to say, everyone, including Sensei, heard a marvelous tale of magic that evening over dinner.