Potterbook | *Started*

Alice Potter/Allen Selwyn | In the Great Hall

“That was hilarious!” Alice snorted out between snatches of giggling and chortling all over her food. “Did you see the look on her face? That was precious.” Allen raised a questioning eyebrow, but said nothing. In his opinion, pranks were overrated. Not that he could really stop Alice from doing anything she wanted; but wasn’t it just a waste of time, or something? “Oh, come off it. Admit it, it was funny.”

“I didn’t really see what was so funny about it...” he trailed off, staring at her pumpkin juice. Something seemed off about it, but he wasn’t sure what it was. At any rate, it didn’t seem too dangerous, but he had to check, just in case. “Hey, can I have your pumpkin juice?”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Don’t be such a pig, Allen. You’ve already had three glasses of the stuff.” It was true--he liked his pumpkin juice a lot. But that wasn’t the point. He stuck his tongue out at her and reached for the goblet, but she slapped his hand away. “No means no, Allen.”

“I swear, I’m not going to drink it. I thought there might be something in it--”

“No.” Saying so, she put the goblet to her lips--and then the goblet exploded in her hand; the juice landed straight in her face, while her hand had several cuts on it. Before Allen knew it, she let out a shriek of pain. “EEEEEEEEK!” He reached for her face instinctively and tried to dab off the juice, but she shoved him away. “GOD, IT HURTS! GET IT OFF, GET IT OFF, GET IT OFF!”

“I’M TRYING TO!” A couple of boils sprouted on her cheeks, making him reel back in surprise “What the bloody hell is that?!”

Professor Snape | The Great Hall:

Snape entered the Hall just after the girl started shrieking, having heard it from the dungeon hallway. He’d been on his way back to his office to sort out potion ingredients when he’d heard screaming. What he found was, in fact, a very loud Alice Potter. He could only stare for a moment before he strode over to his house’s table and stood right beside Potter. “What is all the yelling about, Potter?” he asked, and then he hesitated. Potter’s face was covered in boils, and as he stared at them she slapped Selwyn’s hand away as he tried to tend to her. “What in the name of Merlin? Bubotuber pus?” He sneered at them.

“I-it was in her pumpkin juice--” Selwyn stammered out as Potter whimpered in pain.

Snape exhaled, trying very hard not to get any angrier. “Was it now?” he asked, scanning the Slytherin table. None of the students were looking his way--and Samara was, apparently, absent. Gone to class, most likely, he thought as his gaze drifted back to Potter. “I would like very much to know who decided to pull this prank on Miss Potter, but first--”

“It hurts...”

He sighed. “Very well, Miss Potter,” he snapped. “If you would please get up so I can escort you to the Hospital Wing.” He turned to go, pausing when Potter whimpered again. And again, he sighed. Snape turned back. “Selwyn, if you would.” The pale-haired boy nodded nervously and pulled Potter up by the arm gently, helping her out of the seat. Soon enough, he was tugging the girl along, helping her walk.

Snape snorted and turned to stalk out of the Hall, leaving Selwyn and Potter to catch up, which he had no doubt they would. Eventually. As it was, the werewolf muttered darkly behind his back about ‘slippery snakes’ and the like. Snape ignored him, striding through the entrance hall, his robes billowing out behind him.

Alice Potter | Near Hagrid’s hut; it’s detention time, folks!

Alice cuddled herself as the trio walked gingerly towards the small hut that belonged to the Hogwarts gamekeeper, wondering what on Earth had possessed Snape to send them out on something as dangerous as this. She didn’t like the look of the Forbidden Forest. Actually, she didn’t like the look of anything that looked remotely dangerous nowadays. Ever since the whole bubotuber pus incident, Alice had gotten wary. Perhaps a little too wary. Allen commented on her change of personality several times the last few days.

“Blimey, are you even the same Alice Potter?” he now said as they walked down from the main castle. The young Gryffindor had dark rings around his eyes and looked generally pale in the silver moonlight. Well, to be honest, she herself wasn’t all that rosy-cuddly-cheeks right now either. "Honestly, the way you’ve been going on since that whole incident--”

“It’s dangerous!” Alice snapped without warning. “I just...Allen, I’ve lived in the Muggle world all my life, I’m not used to having that sort of thing spilled in my face! Do you have any idea how much it hurt?” The girl wrapped her arms tightly around herself. “It was like...acid. Like...it was eating away at my face.” Allen went quiet and looked away, unable to form any words. On the other side of Alice, Samara rolled her eyes.

The first-years arrived soon in front of the door, but there was no Hagrid and only two other students to be seen--namely, a certain Leopoldina Rockharrow and Fiona O’Connell. Alice almost instinctively bared her teeth as she saw both of them before she caught herself and pulled back. “S...sorry,” she said meekly.

Samara shot Alice a strange look before muttering something about being stuck with annoying people under her breath. Alice shot her a scared-mouse look and glanced back at Allen. Why was everyone suddenly being weird around her? She was allowed to be wary, right? No one was going to abandon her again because she wasn’t interesting anymore, right?

“Alice, calm down, would you?” Samara muttered, shooting the other two a dark look. She wasn’t keen on having Rockharrow there. Well, it wasn’t as if she had to like the girl, considering the comment the Gryffindor had made earlier about her and her family. Alice had gotten back at her for that and what had that gotten her? She had gotten bubotuber pus in her face; no, in her eyes, even. She wondered who it had been.

She wondered.

Allen leaned back, looking somewhat irritable as he spied Rockharrow. He and Rockharrow apparently had had some bad blood between them--Alice had suspected blackmail, but Allen never told her anything about it. She wondered if Allen really trusted her. They were back to being friends again, yes; but that incident back in the year made her nervous. It made her think that her friendships weren’t really secure after all. “Hey, Allen?”

“What?” His voice came out all cracked and dry; it sounded harsh and irritable. He cleared his throat, even more irritable. “Sorry. What, Icy?”

“...Icy?” Alice stared. “Did you just. Give me a nickname?”

“...well, it’s better than saying Alice all the time.” Allen rolled his eyes. “You’re not Alice in Wonderland, for cripe’s sake.”

“But that’s a Muggle book.”

“I lived in the Muggle world for a bit.” Allen shrugged nonchalantly, as if it wasn’t a big deal. Well, Alice knew it really wasn’t; living with the Dursleys sort of cured you of assumptions like that. “That’s not the only thing I know about Muggles.”

“Somehow, I don’t think I want to ask,” Samara muttered, not looking at anyone. She was looking at the ground and fingering a bag she’d brought along. Allen shot her an inquiring glance while Alice simply stared at the ground, waiting for Hagrid to show up. She just wanted to get this over with.

And then go and curl up on her bed and under her blanket.

Fiona O’Connell~Near Hagrids Hut

There were so many other things she could have been doing. Like her nails, straightening her hair. But instead, Snape had decided he had had too much of her sass, and she was subjected to a detention. With first years. She didn’t even mind detention much. The first years, however, were a different story. It was almost humiliating, if she dwelled on the though. She just had to keep an open mind and not let them irritate her. She sneered at the Potter girl as she passed. If Maggie were here, they would have traded a snide remark just loud enough for Potter to hear, linked arms and skipped off.

She was sure she had done this exact same detention in her first year. Or, maybe she had heard her siblings talk about it, going out into the cold, forbidden forest. One girl in her sister's year stayed in the infirmary for a week after it.

Really. This entire detention was too much for one little remark.

She pulled out her wand, clutching it tightly. The wind blew her hair into her face, and she pushed it back. Remember to bug the Rockharrow twins for something to tie my hair back, she thought. She also had to talk to Snape about his method of punishment. Fiona would have preferred writing out ‘I will not talk back to Professor Snape.’ one hundred times.

She had a slight headache, and the first years going on about some Alice in Wonderland wasn’t helping. She thought about using some type of curse that would shut them up. But if this was the detention she got for talking too much, she didn’t want to know what would happen if she cursed them.

“Focus, Fiona.” She said under her breath, “concentrate on getting out alive. Then I can talk to Snape.” She saw Samara shoot her a sidelong glance the moment she said Snape’s name.

“Mind your own business,” she called to her. Ultimately degrading. She stood apart from the group, awkwardly hovering. She pushed her hair from her eyes and braided it quickly so it was out of her eyes. She regarded the looming forest with a small frown.

Would she be able to make it out alive?

Samara Devereux | Near Hagrid’s Hut: With Alice, Selwyn, Rockharrow and O’Connell:

Samara fingered her bag again. That darn book was burning a hole in it, or so she thought. Why she had decided to bring it along, she had no idea. But there it was, in her bag. She glanced towards Alice, then Selwyn, and then fixed Rockharrow with a wary, narrow-eyed look. And then caught Fiona O’Connell looking her way. She glared at the older girl, who stood a little apart from them. It was awkward, really, really awkward. Where was Hagrid? Shouldn’t he have been there by now?

Allen ran a hand through his hair and looked at his hand--except there wasn’t a watch to look at. He scowled and looked around. It was as quiet as...well, pretty quiet, at any rate, except for the lot of them all bunched up together. “You’d think he’d at least have the decency to be on time or something...” Alice gave him The Look, but didn’t say anything. She was still busy hugging herself. Samara, meanwhile, was sniggering at him.

“It’s Hagrid, Selwyn,” Samara muttered after her sniggering had died down. She then frowned at him. “I don’t think he even owns a watch.” She looked away, eyes grazing her bag again before she jerked them away from it and started scanning the forest that loomed up before them. Something flickered in the distance, off in the trees. Samara squinted at it. Is that a light? she thought, tilting her head to one side, watching as it got a little bit closer. Yes, that is a light... “Um, Alice, Selwyn, please tell me that’s not a Will-o’-wisp...” She gestured towards the forest, turning to her friends.

Alice squeaked and immediately disappeared behind Allen’s shoulder, but the latter only narrowed his eyes and shook his head. “It’s Hagrid.” The redhead blinked and immediately pulled away from him.

“I knew that.”

“Sure you did.”

Alice opened her mouth to respond to that, but Samara cut across her, rolling her eyes. “Oh, do shut up, you two,” she snapped, stalking away from them a few feet. She glanced back once to see them both staring after her, along with Rockharrow and bloody O’Connell. Samara shot the other two girls a glare, each.

Suddenly, a shadow darted out of the trees, avoided Selwyn, and promptly pounced on Rockharrow. Samara, Alice and Allen stared for a moment before all three of them abruptly burst out laughing. Rockharrow was too busy trying to tell Fang to get off her to tell them off.

“Oi, Fang. Ge’ off ‘er, would ya?” Samara glanced towards the light and found Hagrid just stepping out of the trees and onto the grass in front of them. The light was courtesy of the lantern he held in one hand. She couldn’t quite see his face, since said lantern was in her line of sight. “A’d yer lot are ‘ere fer detention, righ’?” A few nods; a couple of glares. “Alrigh’, follow me.”

Samara hesitated, glancing towards Alice and Selwyn. Her friends exchanged glances with her, then turned to follow Hagrid. “Ah, Hagrid?” she began, but he didn’t seem to hear her. Samara sighed. It was going to be a long night.

Blue Roald~The Library

Blue sat in one of the comfy chairs, shoes on the floor, feet tucked under her. She balanced a large book on her knees, so she could partly read and partly daydream. It was late, and the library was empty. She could hear the wind pass through the trees and kiss the windows. She shivered. It wasn’t cold. She just felt like something was coming.

She couldn’t concentrate on her book, even though it was assigned reading. She just didn’t like the History of Magic. Professor Binns never got her name right.

She heard something behind her and she turned around. No one knew she was still in the library. No one knew her. She pulled her wand from her bag that lay next to her shoes. She gripped it, wondering if she should have paid more attention in DADA. She stood up, digging her bare toes into the plushy carpet. She held her wand out, turning slowly in a circle, like she saw in the movies.

It was like they were trying not to let her hear them. Blue stood still, picking out the foreign noises and screamed into the silent room, “Stupe--.”

“No, no, I don’t think you want to do that.” A voice smoothly cut her off. She couldn’t see the speaker, but he was right.

“Kai...” Another voice rang out. Blue’s breath caught in her throat. There were two of them. They came into the dim light at the same time. She took a step back without relinquishing her grip on her wand.

“Imogen, isn’t it?” one asked.

“It’s Blue,” Blue said. They both laughed. As if being named after a colour was childish.

“Well, Darling Blue, why don’t you sit down? We just want to...talk.” Blue noted their different eye colours. They were old. She wondered what, exactly, what they had to talk about. She tried to formulate words, but nothing came. She froze. She could feel her heart pounding.

“I’m fine standing, thank you,” Blue said cooly. She had never heard that voice come out of her.

“No, we insist,” the one with blue eyes told her.

“Kai...” The one with green eyes insisted. Blue wondered if he could see that she was terrified.

“Just a bit of fun, hmm, brother?” The blue eyed one said back, “please, Imogen. Sit.” Imogen slowly sat down, on the cover of the book. She stood, removed it and sat again. She stared at them, her eyes going back and forth. She wanted to say something, but she couldn’t find the words. She just sat and watched, wondering what was going to happen.

Julius & Kaius Rousseau | The Library, with Blue Roald:

Julius narrowed his gaze at his brother, watching him closely as the other boy leaned over the girl--Imogen, wasn’t it? Kaius was grinning, one hand braced on the back of Imogen’s chair. They’d been out looking for inspiration for a new prank. Instead, they’d found themselves in the library. And found Imogen Roald. Why, oh, why had his brother decided to pick on this girl?

The girl looked terrified. He thought she was terrified. Her wide blue eyes blinked up at between them, trying to figure out what they wanted from her. He didn’t know what they wanted from her. Something told him that Kaius did, and somehow, Julius found he didn’t really want to know what that was.

“Kai,” he said, tone tinged with warning. His brother ignored him, shifting to look down at the girl. Julius sighed, leaning back against the nearest bookshelf. Definitely terrified, he thought, gaze still narrowed and locked on his brother.

“So, Imogen, what are you doing in here after curfew?”

“It’s Blue,” Blue said again, “and I was just reading.”

Silence for a long moment. Julius thought that his brother had given up, but when Kaius looked up, he knew he hadn’t. “Just reading, eh?” Kaius asked, raising an eyebrow. Julius ground his teeth together. “Well, now... Why don’t you just read this?” And Kaius dumped a third year DADA book on her lap. Imogen blinked at it.

“What? Why?” Blue asked. Kaius had to bite back a laugh. She was so sweet, so innocent, so overly naive. Julius covered his face with one hand. Why had he done that? It’s not like they couldn’t do the work themselves!

“Kaius!” he hissed, attracting his brother’s attention. Blue eyes met green and Kaius grinned. “We should just leave. Right now. We can do this ourselv---”

“Julius.” Kaius’s tone was ice cold. It made Julius blink. His brother had never used that tone with before. He’d only ever heard it a few times, and never directed at him. It was always at someone else. Julius’s eyes narrowed. He wanted to reply, but Kaius’s attention was already back on the girl. “Why? Well, because I’d like you to.”

“But why?” Blue asked, “This is your work. Its not fair if I do it.”

Kaius scowled at her. “And it’s not fair to me and my brother if we’re stuck doing school work when we’re meant to be testing out new spells and potions and the like for when we’re older and want to open a shop or something, right?” The girl didn’t look like she was impressed.

“My brother and I,” Blue snapped, and then bit her tongue. If anything, she had just made her situation worse, “I mean, no.”

Julius sighed but didn’t move from his position against the bookshelf. Kaius was grinning now. “So, you’ll do it?” the blue-eyed twin asked, shifting until his head hovered right next to the girl’s. “You’ll do it so Juls and I can go off and experiment with magic?”

“No!” Blue said, “I won’t.” She got up to leave, the DADA book falling to the ground a muffled thud.

Kaius moved fast, grabbing her by the arm and yanking her back down into her seat. “You’re not going anywhere.” He glared down at her, daring her to disobey him. She stared up at him with wide eyes. Kaius smirked, flicking Julius a glance. The green-eyed twin looked like he was holding his breath.

Alice Potter | Detention in the Forbidden Forest

Alice wondered who’d had the wise idea to separate into groups--whomever it was, Alice hoped they choked on their breakfast tomorrow. If they all got out of it alive, that is. As it was, she was stuck minding a big slobbery coward of a dog and a senior she didn’t get along with very well at all. Alice shot a glare at Fiona O’Connell, remembering to keep Fang between them.

“Some fine mess we’re in now,” Alice muttered. “I don’t know enough spells, Fang’s hopeless at doing anything and you’re well...you’re you,” she said, as if being Fiona was enough of an insult. Fang panted at the mention of his name and licked Alice’s hand.

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Fiona said cooly, although she knew it wasn’t. She was a third year. She, at least, paid attention in class, “Trust me when I say I don’t want to spend my night toting around a firstie.”

“I have no wish to spend precious time staring at your face, either, so you’re not the only one, Connell.” Alice glared at the girl with intent and then looked ahead. Was it her imagination, or was there a sound of something slinking around them? She shook her head. Just had to be the wind, really. Surely they wouldn’t have anything that lethal hanging around near the school, would they?

“Come on, then. The faster we get in is the faster we get out,” Fiona said. She had not released the death-grip she had on her wand for a moment. She started as a howl suddenly bounced off the trees in an eerie cacophony of noise and dissipated just as quickly. It didn’t scare her. She was an O’Connell. She had experienced things much more scary than this. In any case, she raised her wand a little bit higher. Her hand shook gently.

Alice, however, had quite frozen up, almost like a block of ice. “Wh...what was that?”

“I uh, I don’t know,” Fiona said slowly.

In an uncharacteristic fit of bravery--or maybe Alice just really really wanted to get out as soon as possible--the redhead stepped ahead of her senior, her wand out as well by now. “Let’s just...hurry up...and get the hell out of here,” she gritted out. “We’re just looking for dead unicorns, right?”

“Yes. Get in, get out, and then I get to talk to a charming potions professor,” Fiona said, unable to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

“At least it’s more than just ‘get in and die there’ so shut up.” Alice scowled and waved her wand about. “Lumos!” That was probably a really bad idea; the scene in front of them wasn’t one ickle firsties needed to see. A unicorn lay on its side, silver blood pooled all around its body. A shadow loomed over the poor thing’s body, and at the light, turned around and made a horrible sound that was something between a sibilant hiss and the sucker noise a plunger made. Scarlet eyes gleamed at the redhead with a measure of malice, long, thin and bony fingers extending towards her from beneath its cloak--

--and she screamed. “O’CONNELL, DO SOMETHING!”

“Get back,” Fiona said, pushing the firstie back. She raised her wand, taking a deep breath and tried to keep her aim steady. She muttered the spell that would release fireworks from her wand. They blasted from the end, bright greens and reds and angry colours. It didn’t seem to work. The cloaked figure didn’t even flinch and reached out for her--

--and then it drew back as an arrow flew right between its hand and Fiona, hitting in a tree. The figure, startled, took a quick look to the right and scampered off.

“Oh my god,” Fiona breathed after a moment. She wondered why fire had flickered across her mind. Surely, she could have done something better.

It was Alice who noticed the new arrival; relieved and not quite aware that it was Fiona, she tugged at the other’s sleeve and pointed. “Look,” she whispered. Alice had read about centaurs before, of course--but she’d never thought she’d see one up close. He trotted into the clearing calmly, carrying a bow that labelled him their saviour.

“You must get back to the castle.”

“Who are you?” Fiona asked, “I mean-no, who are you?” She started to release the grip she had on her wand, feeling her heart pump. Died. She nearly died. The centaur simply shook his head, saying nothing at all. When Fiona looked around, Alice was gone.

“Thank you.” Fiona said, the two words strangely coming from her mouth. She turned and ran off.