An Unlikely Coven

*

"Sleepless In Seattle."

"No chick flicks."

"Um.....Austin Powers III."

"Seen it too many times. Try again."

"The Phantom Menace."

"I refuse to watch anything with Jake Lloyd in it."

"Howard the Duck."

"What the hell is that?"

"A movie, dumbass. What do you think it is, a Chinese restaurant?"

Joey Malfoy threw his hands up in the air. "I knew it was a bad idea to let you choose the movie."

"Well, maybe if you'd stop criticizing my choices, and just pick the damn film, we might get somewhere!" Linda Potter sighed, and flopped backwards onto a couch.

"Maybe if you'd pick a good flick, I'd stop criticizing your choices!" Joey joined her on the couch, with a sigh. "Have you ever watched a halfway decent movie, ever?"

Linda snorted. "Number one- I'd rather watch a terrible comedy than a great drama. I can't make fun of the great drama."

"Oh, yes, Linda Potter, the next cast member of Mystery Science Theater 3000."

"They canceled that show years ago, Joey."

"I don't care. It's still the best, even in reruns!" he protested.

She ignored him. "Number two, what you consider to be a good movie and what I consider to be a good movie are two totally different things altogether."

"If you're implying that I watch.....um, let's say inappropriate films, you're sorely mistaken, m'dear. I'm shocked that you'd thing so lowly of me. I am just an innocent little boy from suburbia who is completely shocked when his best friend uses foul language."

"You're impossible, you know that."

"Since when am I the impossible one? You're the one that can't pick a decent movie. What the hell is Howard the Duck, anyway? It sounds like a bad porno."

Linda groaned. "It almost is. It's this terrible 1987 movie in which an alien duck comes down to Earth and tries to impregnate the female lead singer of a bad acid rock band."

"Ouch." Joey glanced again at the television and VCR that they'd managed to conjure up. "It's a shame we couldn't get a DVD player, you know?"

Linda shook her head. "Not really. They haven't been making good movies since the turn of the century. Everything decent is on videotape."

Joey rolled his eyes. "You sound like Bobby."

Linda was momentarily silent at this pronouncement. "I feel awful, you know. Just sitting here doing nothing, while he's got a high likelihood of getting caught and roasted."

"What were we supposed to do, Linda?" Joey asked rhetorically. "He wasn't staying. You know what he's like when he spots a new prospect."

"You make it sound so mechanical," Linda replied darkly. "'A new prospect'. You have a point, though. It's as if there's a little remote that controls his actions, and his hormones have overthrown all rationality."

"It happens periodically," Joey explained. "To everyone at some point or another, but Bobby just happens to be a frequent victim. Most people can control it."

"All right, Mr. Expert," Linda inquired sarcastically, "how do you know so much?"

"Because teenage boys are the prime offenders, and I include myself in this. We're all just these big, walking, talking hormones. I consider myself to be lucky, as I can keep my mind enough to be able to psychoanalyze the situation," Joey replied knowledgeably.

"Right." Linda rolled her eyes.

"What? I'm serious. Most guys can't even retain enough control to make intelligent conversations. Thus forth springs grunting."

"And ESPN, I suppose."

Joey nodded sagely. "In short, hormones are a hellish thing. Necessary, but hellish just the same. They turn otherwise rational beings into disgustingly lewd owners of overly eager reproductive organs. Not that I'm completely excluding myself."

Linda punched him lightly on the shoulder. "As if we could ever leave you out of that group. 'Overly eager reproductive organs'. Impressive terminology, but isn't 'pervert' a much handier expression?"

"Mine sounds better. It actually lends credibility to myself and my kind. Yours just sounds so disdainful." Joey wrinkled his nose.

"Oh? And since when is being a pervert something to be proud of?" Linda waited for the answer.

"Being the owner of overly eager reproductive organs is nothing to be proud of, of course. It just takes a bit of the blame from our minds and transfers it to.....uh, other areas."

"Whatever." Linda got up, and stretched. "This conversation is getting far too deep for me. What do you say we just watch Return of the Jedi again, huh?"

There was no response from Joey.

"Hey, I know we've seen it a billion times, but....." Linda trailed off as she turned around.

Joey was sitting perfectly still on the couch, almost entranced. His shoulders had stiffened, and his eyes were narrowed in intense concentration. His silvery-blond hair was almost electromagnetically standing on end, and his pale, thin lips were pursed shut.

"Joey? Wha- what's wrong?" Linda quickly sat back down next to him. "Joey? Can you hear me?" She touched his arm; it was like touching a glacier. He had gone icily cold.

"Joey?" She squinted a few times, readjusting her contact lenses, and bent in closer. He had gone into some sort of concentrated meditation; he was barely moving, except the slow, steady rise and fall of his chest, inhaling and exhaling.

Wait a second! Linda thought. Upon further examination.....

Yes, that was it. Joey was grinding his jaw muscles, as he always did in stressful situations. Linda clearly remembered the screams of pain coming from Dr. Cohen's office when his parents had finally taken him to get a device for his mouth, to keep from straining his jaw muscles.

He's still here, and he's not dead, she thought in relief. There's really nothing I can do right now, except to wait for him to snap out of it.

Immediately, almost as if on cue, Joey's eyes suddenly snapped wide open, and his shoulders relaxed.

"Joey! What the hell was that?" Linda asked incredulously. "Are you trying to give me a heart attack or something?"

"The day when Linda Potter was relieved to see me speaking....." Joey rolled his eyes. "Thought it would never happen."

"Well?" Linda asked impatiently. She, for once in her life, was in no mood for sardonic banter. "What? You looked like you fell into a coma."

"I-I- I got a, I think I just got a telepathic message," Joey worked out, seemingly amazed at his own statement. "I just got this weird feeling in my mind- then, everything else seemed to shut off. I think it was from Bobby- wait, hell, I know it was from Bobby. He's in some sort of trouble, and he's trying to get back here."

Linda's eyes were wide. "Creepy. Uh, where exactly did Kaites say that they were meeting?"

"Down at the Quidditch pi-" Joey stopped himself. "Oh, no. No freaking way, Linda. There is no way in bloody blue hell that I'm letting y- that we're going down there. it's pouring rain, pitch dark, and we have no idea what we're doing! We'll get ourselves killed!"

"Joey, listen to what you're saying! Our best friend is in trouble, and it sounds like he needs help. There's no way we can just let that go!" Linda was already off the couch, and pulling a jacket from her bag.

"Linda Felicity," Joey said evenly, "it's not happening. Bobby's the one who got himself into this mess- now, he can get himself out of it."

Linda, who was in the doorway, turned around. "You don't want to do anything, Joey? Fine. I'm going down there, and you aren't stopping me." She fluttered out the door.

Joey sighed resignedly. "Dammit, I can't believe I'm doing this." He picked up a sweatshirt- as Linda had, inadvertently, taken his track jacket- and hurried out the door.

*

Kaites Patil shifted uncomfortably in her hammock lounger. "Perhaps I should have gone along with them," she said aloud. "They have no idea what they're doing, and my sister is so often rather foolish....."

What an idiot I am! she thought. To let them go off, by themselves, and attempt to Apparate to London and back, without the aid of the proper Concealing Charms? I truly am irresponsible.

"Perri always has been prone to her little flights of fancy," she fumed outwardly. "Going off, doing whatever she pleases, without any regards whatsoever to the consequences. I am not the irresponsible one, it is her!"

Maybe I should attempt to bring them back, she mused. It wouldn't hurt a bit, and we'd all be for the better.

Yes, I think I will.....off to the dungeons, where no one will be able to hear of what has transpired.....

She spirited out the side door, the one that led to the back stairwell.

Her timing couldn't have been better- or maybe worse?

As soon as the door had snicked shut behind her, the main door slammed open.

"Kaites? Perri? Are either of you in here?" Neville Longbottom's voice echoed through the darkness.

"Perri? Kaites?" He turned on the light. Normally, Persephone would have been sprawled out in front of the telly, with one of her favorite soaps on, and Kaites would have been in the hammock lounger, nose buried in a magazine. However, this was not the case.

The lounger was conspicuously empty, swinging softly, and the television was ominously quiet.

This cannot be good. Not good at all, he told himself. Especially after I found Gryffindor Tower to be vacant.

I should tell the others.

He turned and walked to the Ravenclaw wing, letting the door close gently behind him.

*

"Linda, this is insane! This is beyond insane!" Joey Malfoy tossed a rain-soaked lock of hair out of his face. "Do you have any idea what the hell you're doing?"

"No, Joey, actually, I don't!" Linda shouted back; although Joey was only about ten feet behind her, the pelting rain and howling winds made communication almost impossible. "Have any ideas?" She stopped, and waited for him to catch up.

Joey sprinted the few yards separating them. "Don't you think that if I'd had any ideas before now, I would have made them known?"

"I don't know, Joey, you said you weren't going to follow me, and you did!" Linda once again began jogging through the rain.

"And what was I supposed to do? Sit there and wait for you? You might be omnipotently powerful or something like that, Lin, but face it- you're about five feet tall and a hundred and twenty pounds. You'd never survive anything brutally physical on your own."

This, obviously, was the wrong thing to say.

"Excuse me?" Linda stopped dead in her tracks.

"Well, Linda, what I meant to say was-"

"What you meant to say was, I can't take care of myself, just because I'm a girl, that's it, isn't it?" Even through the torrential rain, Joey could see her green eyes blazing at him. "And I needed big, strong Joey Malfoy to come out here after me and protect me in case I got outmatched, right? Right? 'Cause, you know, it doesn't matter if I can bench-press more than you, run faster than you, kick further than you, and punch harder than you, because I'm a girl. Right?" The end of this monologue was obviously not posed as a question.

"God, no, Linda, that's not what I meant!" Joey scrambled desperately for the right words. "You can kick my ass, okay? I admit to it, and everyone knows it!" He tried in vain to shake some of the water off of his face. "What I meant was, even though you're stronger than me, you might run into something that's stronger than you. And you wouldn't stand a chance. But with two of us....."

Linda looked him directly in the eyes. He saw the two familiar green pinpoints, unblinking, scanning his own steel-grey ones, searching him for.....what? The truth? He felt like two drills were spinning their way into his mind, searching his soul. Linda always did have an uncanny knack for seeing inside people.....and although Joey'd witnessed this many times, he wasn't always used to being on this end of it. He felt extremely odd- overexposed, somewhat. Linda's eyes were far too piercing for his comfort.

Suddenly, the laser-beams ceased. "All right, then," Linda said determinedly. "However, Joey, there's one little thing. Two may be better than one, but three is stronger than two. So, I suggest that we get our asses in gear, and set out to find-"

"The Third Musketeer?" Joey interrupted. "I don't really think there's any need to keep looking. See?" He pointed past her, at a spot beyond a clump of trees. Even through the storm, there was no mistaking that flaming red hair.

"Come on!" Joey started running, Linda close behind.

*

".....haventiatra Apparendicium!" Kaites Patil threw one final swish of her wand. She wiped a bit of sweat from her brow; this spell definitely could not be described as 'simple'. She waited expectantly.

Sure enough, Bobby Weasley and Persephone Longbottom came tumbling out of thin air, landing at her feet. Both had extremely dazed expressions on their faces.

"Wha- what happened?" Bobby asked groggily. "One minute, I was sitting there, draining a Bloody Mary-"

Persephone smacked him. "Tell the truth, Mr. Alka-Seltzer."

Bobby made a face. "All right, a Virgin Mary, and watching the Electric Piccolos wail onstage, and the next, I'm hurtling through space, thumping down here. What's going on?"

"I'll tell you what's going on," Persephone responded, a vengeful look contorting her features. "My overprotective ninny of a sister decided that it was too dangerous for us to be out of the castle, and decided to summon us back here. Really, Kaites, you didn't have to waste all that energy on bringing us back- we'd have done it eventually."

"Damned right you'd have done it eventually," Kaites replied through gritted teeth. "And with what? I checked the atmosphere around the castle- your auras were definitely present, and there was no evidence of any sort of Concealing Charm being performed! One of the Dark Side's servants could have tracked you down, and only God knows what would have happened!"

"Um, Kaites, we're fine. No one found us," Bobby said, in a small voice.

"Just because no one found you doesn't mean that they haven't found your trail. It would be so easy for a Dark wizard to just find your auras, and follow them!" Kaites was practically shrieking now.

"All right, all right!" Persephone was already starting up the dungeon stairs. "We'll get Linda and Joey, and cast a few charms, bata-bing, bata-boom, we'll be OK, right?"

"That, unfortunately, is not the case. I heard Linda and Joey leaving some time ago- to find you two, no doubt. Secondly, there's no way we can cover up your tracks now. If we'd have done some Concealment Charms before, it would have diminished it somewhat. Now, however, there is no such possibility. The Dark Forces may be approaching as we speak! We must now stay here and wait."

"Like hell we're staying here," her twin replied. "We're going to tell Father and the rest of the adults about this. I don't give a damn if we get in trouble or not, because they're the only ones that'll know what to do!"

Kaites nodded. "That might be your first halfway intelligent suggestion of the evening, Perri." She and Bobby followed Persephone up to the Assistant Headmaster's quarters.

*

Knock, knock.

Hermione lazily opened her eyes, and glanced at the door of the room. "What in the bloody hell was that?"

Harry, too, looked over. "I'm-" kiss. "-sure-" kiss. "-it's-" kiss. "-absolutely-" kiss. "-nothing," he managed, gradually losing interest.

"Yes, I suppose you're right." She tore her eyes away from the door, and went back to gently playing with her husband’s messy hair.

Knock, knock.

"Wait! There it is again!" Hermione pulled herself into a sitting position. "I think you'd better get that."

"Why should I bother? It's probably just Ron, trying to be a royal nuisance."

"Harry....." Hermione rolled her eyes.

"All right, all right, I'll answer the damned door." He reluctantly unglued his lips from her neck, pulled his tee-shirt on, and strode over to the door.

Knock-

"Yes, what do you want, Neville?" Harry asked impatiently.

Neville looked past him, and surveyed the scene at hand. "While I hate to- ah, interrupt you, I have some disturbing news."

"What?" Hermione had pulled on his button-down shirt, and walked over to the door to join them.

Neville cleared his throat solemnly. "Well, I've just been talking to my daughters and the young Mr. Weasley, and it seems that, to make a very long story very short, your daughter and Mr. Joey Malfoy have disappeared from the castle. Apparently, they left a short while ago to look for Bobby and Persephone, and haven't returned."

"Oh, shit." Hermione strode back over to the couch, and picked up her wand. After muttering a few words, both she and Harry were again fully dressed, and looking quite determined.

"Let's go," she said, but Harry was already halfway down the corridor.

*