Foreshadowing the Past

Chapter 5

Never Explain - your Friends do not need it, and your Enemies will not believe
you anyway. - Elbert Hubbard

With the close of October fast approaching, Connor, Quentin and Ivy were spending more and more time out on the Quidditch pitch, training for their first match. The Slytherin team was booking the pitch so often, that the Gryffindors were often forced to appeal to their head of house for equal time. Their first match would be on November second, and both teams were determined to win. The days were growing colder, and the weather more turbulent.

On Halloween, the Gryffindor team ended up practicing in the pouring rain, and Connor's teeth were chattering as he followed Quentin and Ivy through the portrait hole.

"There isn't enough hot water in the world to make me properly warm right now," Ivy said with a shiver.

"I'm going to stand under the shower until my skin prunes," Connor said as they squelched their way to the stairs that led to the dorms.

"Your skin is already pruny," Quentin pointed out.

"Then I'll stand there until it un-prunes," he shrugged.

"I'll meet you guys down here before the feast," Ivy said, and dripped her way up the stairs that led to the girl's dormitory.

The boys stopped off in their room, and glanced over at the drawn drapes of Andrew's bed. He had barely spoken two words to them since he'd stormed out of the Common Room more three weeks before. He still gave them all dirty looks and smirked a lot lately whenever they saw him, as if he knew something that they didn't. They didn't know about Andrew, but the other three boys were happy with the new arrangement, and often pretending that he wasn't even there. The two soaked boys stripped off, and left their wet things in a heap by their trunks, trusting that the house elves would tidy up after them before wrapping themselves in thick dressing gowns, collecting their toiletry bags and heading off to the shower.

Twenty minutes later, they returned to their room to dress for the feast, and found that their wet clothes were now missing from the floor. They glanced up at each other, and noted that Andrew's bed hangings were no longer drawn, and the boy was pretending to read with a smug grin on his face. Zack walked into the room just then, and sat on h is own bed.

"You two still not ready?" he asked. "The feast is going to start in twenty minutes."

"Working on it," Connor said. "It took this long to get all of the mud out of my hair."

Quentin opened his trunk to get out some fresh clothes, and stood up saying, "Bloody hell!"

Zack stood up and walked over to look into Quentin's trunk. "That's a shame."

Connor glanced over and saw that all of Quentin's wet clothing was now heaped into his trunk, on top of a few sheets of parchment, with ink smeared everywhere. He walked to his own trunk and flipped the lid open, to find a similar mess. All eyes turned to Andrew who looked up at them with an unconvincing look of innocence.

"Oh!" he said with a nasty drawl. "I put your clothes away in your trunks before someone tripped over them; careless of you to leave them lying about."

"Well," Quentin said with the smallest of smiles playing at his own lips. "How very considerate of you." He reached in and pulled the sodden clothing out, and let it wall to the floor with a wet plop, and pulled out some parchment that was covered in dripping ink stains, with barely a few words legible on it. "Funny though, I don't remember leaving this out on top of my things when I closed my trunk earlier today."

Connor had done the same with a similar parchment from his own trunk. "This really is a mess, isn't it? I know for a fact that I left my potions book and this parchment on my bed."

Andrew was looking nervously at the three boys, who, far from acting outraged and angry, were behaving as though they had stumbled upon a mildly interesting scene. With a look of defiance, he said in his oiliest tone, "Oh no! I had borrowed the essays you wrote for Potions and Defense Against the Dark Arts to check my own work by, they were just sitting on your beds, inside the covers of your books, so I didn't think you'd mind! When I returned them, I just set them right on top in your trunk so that you would be sure to find them!"

"Well," Connor said mildly. "That would explain how this happened." He shook the parchment, and droplets of diluted ink went flying everywhere.

"Yes!" Quentin agreed with some amusement in his voice that only made Andrew more confused than ever. "We should have known that leaving our books out in plain sight would be offensive to our tidy-minded roommate."

"Of course we should," Connor said. "But I'm afraid we have some bad news for you, Drew. The essays you borrowed from us to check your work by?"

"What about them?" Andrew asked uneasily.

"Well I hate to tell you this, but they were your essays. Quentin and I borrowed yours to check our work by! That's an odd coincidence, isn't it?" Connor walked over and laid the ruined parchment on the boy's bed, and Quentin did the same. From the few words that had survived the drowning, Andrew could see that it was indeed his own writing; a fact that he had overlooked in his haste.

As Andrew looked down at what his handiwork had done, his face began to turn an impressive shade of scarlet. "You! YOU!" he began, his rage building.

"Don't worry Drew," Zack said, opening his own trunk. It's not as bad as all that. See, I borrowed your Herbology work, and here it is, safe and sound." He laid it down on the bed beside the other stack of parchment. "And since you're so fond of cleaning up all of the little messes around here, it should be a real treat for you to handle this one!" He gestured toward the soggy pile of parchment and runny ink, only to have his hand slapped away as Andrew snarled incomprehensibly and stormed out of the room, slamming the door as hard as he could.

Zack laughed so hard at this that tears formed in his eyes. Quentin and Connor grinned and touched their fists together in a sign of solidarity, and then pulled dry clothing from the bottom of their trunks. They met Ivy at the bottom of the stairs, waiting for them in a seat by the fire. She demanded to know what has caused Andrew to leave in such a rage, and soon they were all headed down to the feast, still chuckling merrily over the backfired prank, knowing that war had been declared against them.

They were approaching the main staircase, when Quentin suddenly grabbed Connor's sleeve, and tugged, then gestured for them all to duck low against the banister. He pointed through the thick stone columns toward the small alcove beside the stairs, where they could see Andrew talking to someone who was hidden from their sight by the angle of the stairs. They couldn't hear much of what was being said over the noise coming from the open doors of the Great Hall, but he was obviously angry and making furious gestures with his arms and hands. The only words that they could hear with any clarity were, "How could they know?" Within moments, he stopped as though listening, and then nodded moodily and walked quickly away, into the Great Hall. Zack made to follow him, but Connor held him back. With in a minute, the person Andrew had been talking to stepped into view, and walked calmly into the Great Hall as well.

"Vanessa," Quentin breathed angrily, as he watched the perfect curtain of silvery blonde hair disappear.

"We should have known that Tillman wasn't smart enough to think up a good prank on his own," Connor said, finally rising and following the others down the rest of the stairs. "I think I'm going to have to appeal to my uncles for a better arsenal if this keeps up."

"But why would Vanessa be helping that little git?" Zack asked. "She hates Gryffindors, most people below her year in general."

"Probably to get to me without getting caught," Quentin surmised. "But we'd best keep our eyes out for both of them from now on. She's going to have to pay for this one."

The feast turned out to be a merry occasion, with Peeves making an appearance and making the clouds of live bats fluttering around dive-bomb people at random. Professor Lupin was absent from the festivities, and when Connor looked up at the enchanted ceiling, he found that the clouds had cleared enough to spot the full moon shining above. He knew that his Uncle/Professor would be curled up in the shrieking shack, which had bee refurbished and made into a cozy home for him when he had accepted the permanent position as Defense Against the Dark Arts professor ten years ago. Connor had fond memories of going to the Shrieking Shack by way of a long tunnel many years ago, and being encouraged to make as much noise as possible with his cousins, to help perpetuate the rumor that the house was still haunted. Very few people knew that Lupin made his home there, and Connor himself had only visited there twice.

"So," Zack said as they finished their meal, and puddings appeared on the table. "If it's not storming out tomorrow, do you all want to go down to the pitch early so I can get in some time in the air?"

"Sure," Quentin said, reaching for a tart. "But you hardly need lessons any more."

It was true. Once Connor had discovered Zack's balance problem, they had made relative short work of correcting it, and Zack had become good enough on a broom to play a clumsy, but fun game of Quidditch with some of the other kids on weekends. He wasn't the best of the lot, but he was far from the worst.

"But I still need the practice," Zack pointed out. "Now that I'm getting the hang of it, I really like it. I kind of wish my parents could see me at it. I wrote them a letter, and they just don't see how a body can sit on a broomstick in the air; I suspect they think I'm stretching the truth about things when I tell them about my lessons and stuff."

"I keep forgetting you're Muggle born," Ivy said. "It must be hard for your folks to understand what you are and what you can do."

Zack nodded. "It is. I think that they seriously considered making me attend a Muggle school this year instead of sending me back. I had to really argue with them about it, and show them all of my books to prove that it wasn't a big joke. I even had Connor take a picture of me next doing a levitation spell on my Charms book so that they could actually see me using my wand and getting results when I got back to school."

"So they're convinced now?" Quentin asked curiously. His father still had prejudices against Muggle-borns, however much he worked at not showing it, and it was interesting to him to hear about how Zack and his family viewed the Wizarding world, since he rarely had contact with anything Muggle related.

"Pretty much," Zack grinned. "Though my parents were a bit startled by the moving photo."

At Quentin and Ivy's blank looks, he explained about Muggle photographs not moving. Quentin looked fascinated, and Ivy just looked confused, causing Zack to laugh.

"Did you know that Muggle pictures don't move?" Quinten asked Connor, who was also laughing.

Connor nodded, and pointed to Rachel, who was sitting with her other cousins. "Rachel's mum is Muggle-born, and my Dad was raised by Muggles. Aunt Hermione's parents visit every once in a while and send them Muggle gifts all the time. After seeing some of the weird toys and things they've sent, I'm seriously thinking about taking Muggle Studies next year."

"I've thought about it, too," Quentin said seriously. "But I think that that would be a bit more than my Father's nerves could take."

**********

The next day dawned sunny, but cold and windy. After breakfast, Rachel and Zack got brooms from the shed, and net Quentin, Connor and Ivy out on the Quidditch pitch. They were already in their practice robes, which meant that Connor and Quentin were wearing predominantly red, and Ivy was wearing mostly gold. Rachel begged again to be allowed to ride Connor's broom, but he wouldn't give it this time, and so they set off into the air, with about forty-five minutes to fly for pleasure before the rest of the Gryffindor team arrived for practice.

Zack was daring to fly as high as the others now that his skills had improved, but tended to be more cautious in his maneuvering than the others, who enjoyed aerial acrobatics learned over a lifetime of flying. He laughed as Rachel tried to get him to do a simple loop in the air and told her that he wasn't quite ready to fly upside down yet.

It happened so fast, that no one had much time to react. Connor stiffened on his broom, several feet above Zack, and suddenly called out, "Catch him!" Everyone looked up at his to see what he was talking about, when only a few seconds later, a gust of wind hit the fliers, and Zack slid sideways and tumbled off of his broom. He was at least forty feet above the ground, and barely had time to register he was falling before both Rachel and Ivy managed to get below him before he'd fallen more than fifteen feet. He threw out his arms, desperately scrabbling in the air for anything that could save him, and grabbed the handle of Ivy's broom, as Rachel grabbed his other arm, leaving him dangling between them in the air. They slowly sank down to the grassy pitch and helped Zack regain his feet. Quentin and Connor were both a bit white-faced as they landed with and ran over to see if their friend was all right.

"That was close!" Zack said, blowing out a shaky breath, massaging his shoulder, where it had been jerked when Rachel grabbed him. "Thank you so much!"

"Lucky Connor gave us a few seconds of warning, or we might not have caught you!" Rachel said.

"I thought he was already falling when I shouted," Connor said. "I'm glad it turned out to be a warning instead."

"You and me both," Zack said with feeling.

"This is one case where I'm not going to ride you about keeping that pre-cog stuff quiet!" Quentin said, sitting on the ground to catch his breath.

None of them noticed Quentin's sister, Vanessa, standing just out of site in the stands, where she had hidden herself in order to spy on the Gryffindor's team practice, or the calculating look that entered her eyes as she listened to the Gryffindors. As the Gryffindor team approached the pitch for their practice, Vanessa drew herself further into the shadows and prepared to see what her own team would be up against the next day.