Uric the Oddball and the Wild Hunt

They arrived on time for breakfast, but only through Mena's stubborn insistence. Uric sat down and was immediately engrossed in planning a foray of his soldiers against the evil bacon king. Unfortunately for the war effort, others sought Uric's attention.

"Hey, Uric," said Jasper. "Where were you this morning? Al tells me you've been up since three. Haven't you ever heard of a little thing called sleep?" He had an amused grin on his face, but Al was glaring darkly at Uric.

Uric regretfully ate one of his soldiers, and adopted his usual perplexed expression. "I was asleep," he said. Mena groaned.

"He means the whole night, Uric. Most sane people try to get more than four hours of sleep," she explained.

"Well that explains it. Uric's not really sane, now is he?" said Neil McGowan. The red-headed boy's bed was next to Uric's and he had already heard his roommate's reputation. Many of the students at the table nodded in agreement; well aware that Uric's breakfast bore an uncanny resemblance to a map of Europe with opposing armies advancing upon it.

"I don't need to sleep that much. Mum says it's because I used up all my sleeping time when I was a baby, so now I have to ration it if I want to sleep at all when I'm older." Uric cocked his head thinking. "Of course, the house elves said I've never slept a full night in my life. That's why they had to play with me whenever I woke up."

"Your poor parents," said a rather tired looking Eustace. Prefects were required to patrol the halls on certain nights, and last night had obviously been his. "No wonder they let the house elves take care of you." Uric shrugged.

"I like house elves. I would have played with them earlier today, but I couldn't find them." He neglected to mention that he had never really been looking for them. Eustace grimaced.

"Yes, well, that is the other thing I must mention. You can't just go wandering around at night, Uric. We could loose a bunch of house points. You got off lucky this morning," he said.

"But if I don't go out, how will I find the badgers?"

"The badgers?" Eustace looked flummoxed. Dealing with Uric on no sleep was not a good idea.

"Yes. The badgers. They live in the walls," said Uric. Eustace buried his head in his hands then spoke in a muffled voice.

"Look, Uric. I don't care if you need one hour of sleep or ten. If you get caught wandering around again you will be in big trouble, with me and Mrs. Kurze." Xanos, who was sitting next to him, winced.

"That's harsh, Eustace..." He began, but stopped as he noticed his friend's head drooping slowly to his chest. All the first-year's eyes were now on Xanos. Well, everyone except Uric, who had gone back to his war. The toast was attempting to negotiate a peace, but it was on limited time because Uric was hungry.

"Uric." Xanos waited. "Uric." The boy looked up, toast poised. "Don't get into anymore trouble. Eustace is tired now, but he will make sure you regret it. Though hopefully he won't involve that harpy." He inclined his head slightly towards where the Headmistress sat straight and proud, eating her eggs with the grace of a well-bred lady. "It would be as much a punishment for him, as for you."

Their schedules arrived then, and everyone was busy looking to see which classes they had first. Uric opened his, read it once, and then folded it into a hat he would give Simon later. He would have gone back to his battle, but Mena poked him in the ribs.

"What do you have first, Uric? Can I see your schedule?" she asked. Justine spoke up from beside her.

"He should have what we all have Mena. Why do you want to know anyway?" Justine was just curious, but Mena took it the wrong way.

"I was hopping I didn't have classes with him, that's all. You should mind your own business!" Justine was taken aback.

"Alright," she said quietly, than went back to her eggs. Mena stared at her for a moment, realizing she had hurt the girl, but not sure how to make things right. Then she got angry at herself for worrying about it. Who cared what Justine thought? She looked down at her schedule again. History of Magic. She made a face. It even sounded boring.

She got up from the table, intending to get her books and head for class. Half way to the door, she stopped and turned back. Uric was drawing pictures with his leftover egg yolk. She sighed, walked over to him, grabbed his collar and pulled him off the bench. Maybe he wouldn't lose them too many house points if she kept an eye on him.

*****

All the first-year Hufflepuffs went to History of Magic together, mostly so they wouldn't get lost. Unfortunately, this meant that they all got lost together, were attacked by Peeves the Poltergeist, and made it to History of Magic ten minutes late, their robes covered in glitter from Peeves sparkle bombs.

Professor Bear sat at his desk, his large body looking absurd in the small chair he was using. He looked up when they entered and smiled at their glitter bedecked bodies. The professor cast a simple spell to remove the glitter and asked them to take their seats. Mena tried not to giggle when he first spoke. Eustace had been right. His voice was so deep it made her stomach rumble.

Professor Bear read off the register and even Uric responded when his name was called. Mena wondered if the professor knew just how rare it was to get Uric's full attention. One of the Slytherin girls, Seraph Cazher, was missing, however, and when Professor Bear asked for her, it was a pale, blonde-haired girl who answered.

"Professor Thacher is lecturing her right now and she's been given detention." The girl did not sound very upset by the information, even though Slytherin must have lost a lot of points. Professor Bear looked shocked at such an early infraction of the rules.

"Thank you, Alexis. I think that was a little more information than we needed though," he chided gently.

"I'm sorry, Sir." Alexis was the picture of submissiveness and Mena snorted softly to herself at the act. Her mother would have seen through that ploy in seconds, but Professor Bear seemed to take the girl at face value.

"It's okay, Alexis. Everyone please take out a quill and some parchment. We have a prodigious amount of history to cover and only seven years to do it." His face sported a huge grin, though all his students were stifling groans.

Over an hour later they were still bent over their parchments, quills scribbling furiously in an attempt to keep up with Professor Bear and his animated lecture style. He would write a sentence on the board with his wand, then remember a funny anecdote from that time period and launch off on a story about Chester the Confused or Stub-toothed Tovar. Then, he would suddenly remember the sentence he had written on the board and expound upon it in great length and at twice the speed. Some of the slower students were near tears trying to keep up with the professor's strange pacing. Not to mention his use of words that Mena was sure weren't in any dictionary, Muggle or wizard.

Abruptly Professor Bear stopped talking and stared at them all. Most of the students were still scribbling his last words. Mena wrote the date of the great Egyptian wizard, Amhotep the Wise's death and looked up to see that big smile she remembered from the beginning of the class plastered across Professor Bear's face.

"Everybody put your writing implements down," he said. The students looked up at him in shock but did what they were ordered (once they realized what implements were that is). "Did anybody read your textbooks before coming to this class?" Several students raised their hands. "Then why were you taking notes?" Everyone stared at him blankly, sure that there was some logic lurking behind his question, but weren't able to discern it.

Professor Bear focused on a Uric who was, unfortunately, sitting next to Mena. She looked at him as well, and saw to her shock that he hadn't been taking notes. In fact, there was nothing on his desk except for his wand.

"Uric. Right?" asked Professor Bear. Mena kicked Uric under the table, and he nodded, though she was sure he had no idea what the question had been. "Well, Uric was the only one of you who read the textbook, since he obviously found the sentence on Page six-seventy eight telling you not to take notes on the premiere day of class, since class notes would be provided for you. Ten points to Hufflepuff." Uric was shaking his head 'no', so Mena kicked him under the table again. He gave her a hurt look.

"Leave it alone," she hissed at him. He looked at her for a moment, then shrugged. Professor Bear handed out the class notes, which were considerably neater than any the students had taken, and dismissed them for their next class.

"Let's go find the first year Ravenclaws and see what they'll pay us to know about the class notes." Mena heard Alexis say as she left the class. Meanwhile, the Hufflepuffs were congratulating Uric on his studious efforts. Mena decided to put a stop to that.

"Did you actually read the textbook Uric?" she demanded.

"Yes," he said. That took her aback. Why had he been shaking his head 'no' then? Uric continued. "I read it a couple of years ago. I don't remember a sentence like that."

"Well, they wouldn't have bespelled the book a couple of years ago, would they?" said Al. His disgust with Uric was rather evident, but Justine was puzzled.

"Why didn't you take notes then Uric?" she asked in her soft foreign accent.

"I don't believe in ink."

"What?!" said the rest of them simultaneously.

"Really, if you think about it, ink is a very dangerous medium. Anything you write down could come back and destroy you." Somebody had to ask the inevitable question.

"So what do you write with, Uric?" said Neil. Uric looked at Neil curiously.

"Ink of course. What else would I write with?" he said. Neil's mouth dropped open.

"But you just said..." he protested. Mena decided to insert a note of reality into the proceedings.

"We're all going to be late for Charms if we don't get moving." The Hufflepuffs took off for their next class, while deep within their textbooks the letters and words breathed a sigh of relief. Their secret was safe for a little longer.

Meanwhile, Uric, the future Oddball, debated to himself whether plaid could be considered a proper skin colour...

*****

The Hufflepuffs made it to Charms without incident and took their seats. Neither their teacher nor their counterparts from whichever house, were there. Perhaps five minutes later a man in dark blue robes with lots of parchments in his arms entered the room. He looked around at the lot of them, his expression totally bewildered.

"Is this the Charms classroom?" he asked. They all stared at him. Mena was the only one brave enough to answer.

"Yes sir," she said. He smiled at her.

"I've been teaching here for over four years. You'd think I would know how to find my own classroom," he said in a genial tone. Mena could only nod. This really wasn't what you expected from the Head of Slytherin.

"Right. Well..." He looked around the room. "If I'm not mistaken I'm missing a number of students. Anyone happen to know where they are?"

"No sir. We don't even know which house is supposed to be here," said Al.

"Hmmm," Professor Thacher sat down and looked over his class roster. "Let's see. Seraph Cazher. Louis Iliescu. Alexis Lupin. Athar Starling. Sounds a bit like my first-year Slytherins." No one said anything. They had just had class with the Slytherins and they definitely should have made it to Charms by now. It was also hard to tell if Professor Thacher was joking about not recognizing them. He did not seem inclined to say anything more and they sat in an uncomfortable silence. Well, most of them sat in an uncomfortable silence. A glance at Uric revealed he was staring intently at the ceiling with that goofy smile of his gracing his face. Mena snorted under her breath. Uric probably found the Charms professor perfectly normal.

Almost twenty minutes later the door opened and the Slytherins filed in with Alexis Lupin at their head. She came to stand in front of Thacher's desk, motioning behind her back for the others to take their seats. There was a pretty, red-haired girl with freckles who hadn't been in History of Magic. Mena assumed it was the infamous Seraph. She turned her attention back to Alexis and found the white-haired girl in the middle of an impossibly long and convoluted explanation of where the Slytherin first-years had been.

If Mena had been a professor, she wouldn't have believed a word of it. And in truth Professor Thacher didn't seem to believe it. He smiled at the girl and asked her a question causing her to scramble for an answer that wouldn't incriminate her and the rest of the Slytherins. When Alexis was unable to think of something, she actually began to cry. The whole class could hear her quiet sobs. Professor Thacher seemed taken aback by this and quickly let her and all the Slytherins off the hook. Alexis turned around, and gave her housemates a knowing grin, while the Hufflepuffs gaped in astonishment. They had never seen anyone so openly manipulate a teacher.

They had little time to consider Alexis' methods however, since Professor Thacher actually began to teach now that his students were all there. The class was interesting. Mena had a feeling she was going to enjoy Charms, but she was as glad as everyone else when it ended, and they were able to go to lunch.

*****

It was a long trek down to the Potion's dungeon. So long in fact, that Uric began contemplating the number of steps in Hogwarts. He thought about his midnight meanderings. If his count was accurate, there were approximately 145 staircases, each of a varying length. Each staircase, averaged out to about 60 steps each. That meant that there were 8,700 steps in Hogwarts. But you had to take into account all the tiny sets of steps, like the three steps leading out of the boy's lavatory. Which meant a more accurate number was around 8,760, give or take a few hundred. He wondered if there was a place he could check his answer, and turned to ask Mena if she would know.

He found himself facing a suit of armour instead.

"Erm. Hello." The armour began cackling evilly. Uric took a step back, which turned out to be a bad idea, since the stair curved at that point and he stepped right off the edge. Uric shut his eyes tightly as he fell. He didn't want to see this.

Consciousness returned and Uric found himself on his back looking up. Two faces were peering down at him.

"Hi Louis. Hi Mena. Did you see me fall? Because I didn't. Do either of you know where I could find out how many steps there are in Hogwarts?" He smiled at them, and saw Louis shake his head.

"Well his head hasn't been hurt," Louis said. Mena looked at him.

"How can you tell?" She took a closer look. "Aren't you a Slytherin?" Louis looked down at himself.

"Why so I am. I was wondering why that snake was sewn on my robes," he said. Mena gave him a strange look.

"Are you always this sarcastic?" she asked.

"Yes." He looked down at Uric who was humming to himself. "You can get up if you're alright Uric. We do have classes to get to. And you should try looking in Hogwarts: A History, or maybe asking the librarian." Uric pushed himself up, noting that his shin was aching, but decided to ignore it.

"Okay. Are you coming to Potions with us?" he asked. Louis adopted a tone many people used to talk to Uric, the tone of an adult explaining something to a child.

"No Uric, I'm not in your class. I was just picking up some books for Transfiguration."

"The Slytherin common room is all the way down here?" said Mena. "How do you ever get to classes on time?"

"We don't. Didn't you see that masterful performance by Alexis in Charms?" he asked. Mena snorted.

"All she did was lie, and then cry in front of the teacher. Anyone could do that," she said. Louis shrugged.

"But only a Slytherin would use it to get out of a detention. Which is the whole point. Look, why don't we meet after classes in the library and discuss the whole house issue thing, and maybe help out the librarian when she meets the conundrum that is Uric. Okay?" Uric was already nodding, though in truth he had missed half the conversation when he noticed the suit of armour from before, making rude gestures at him from the top of the stairs. Mena considered for a second before nodding as well. "Right then. See you after class." Louis ran off, and Mena quickly pulled Uric down another set of stairs. She smacked him upside the head when she realized he was counting them.

*****

The Potion's classroom was at the very bottom of the castle, and judging by the manacles on the walls, had recently been converted over for the student's use. Despite the general dreariness of the room, Professor Darshan had peppered the walls with brightly coloured parchments, saying such helpful things as "Keep your eyes on the cauldron!" and listing the recipe for a good Potions class. Uric started reading them with fascination as soon as he got in the room, ignoring the rest of the class and Mena's frantic tugs on his arm. She glanced over at the professor to see if he had noticed.

Professor Darshan was sitting at his desk, wearing elaborate spring green robes. A light blue hat in an unfamiliar style was perched on his dark hair. He was smiling happily to himself as he read something on his desk. Mena gave up on Uric and went to find a seat, noting that there were only three empty seats left, none of which were at the same table. Uric was going to have to sit with someone other than her. There went Hufflepuff's points in Potions for the year.

She sat down next to an unfamiliar girl, absently noting the blue hawk embroidered on the girl's robe. So this was the Ravenclaw class. She looked around and spotted someone she recognized. Sitting in the front of the class was Varys Nachleen. She glared at the back of his head, still mad at him for making her look foolish in front of everyone on the train. She had to give up after awhile though, when her eyes began hurting.

Professor Darshan appeared to finish whatever he was reading and stood up to address the class. Rather, he tried to stand up but found his robes glued to the seat. A lot of laughter and an ungluing charm later, he was standing in front of the room taking the roll. All went smoothly until Uric's name was called.

Uric had, by now, read every parchment on the walls and for some reason had taken one off. While Professor Darshan was talking, he had climbed up on top of the professor's desk and was busy sticking the parchment to the ceiling. The entire class was watching Uric with an ominous fascination, barely noticing when their own names were called. Sure, Professor Darshan had taken the sticky robes joke well, but what would he do if he found a student on top of his desk?

"Uric Beaufolle?" Uric took no notice. He was on his tiptoe's trying to secure one of the corners of the parchment. "Uric Beaufolle? Does anyone know where Uric is?"

"He is behind you on top of your desk," said Varys in a casual tone. Mena was seething inside. He was going to get Uric in trouble. Ten more seconds and Uric would have been off the desk. Professor Darshan turned around. Uric was looking down at him, one hand still on the parchment.

"Good evening, Sir," said Uric. They couldn't see Professor Darshan's face, but they could hear him.

"Good evening, Uric. What are you doing up there?" he asked. Uric stated the obvious.

"Moving one of the parchments."

"Well, would you mind getting down and taking a seat. That way I can introduce myself and we can get on to the fun stuff." Uric nodded and jumped lightly off the desk. He spotted an empty seat near the front and sat down. "Oh, and Uric?" Uric looked up. "Would you mind not climbing on my desk again?"

"Yes, Sir." Uric paused. "Is the chair alright, Sir? How about the student's tables? Can I climb on those?" Professor Darshan laughed, and Mena knew he thought that Uric was joking.

"Not while I'm watching you can't." Uric nodded to himself, though Mena couldn't even think of a reason why he would want to climb on chairs and tables in the first place, or move parchments to the ceiling for that matter. She would have asked him had he been sitting near her, but Uric was on his own. She glanced over at Varys again.

He didn't like Uric. She had noticed it on the train, which was part of the reason she had defended him, but Uric had no clue. He had only responded to the boy when he had insulted Simon of all things. She shook her head. "Why the ceiling?," she said under her breath. The Ravenclaw girl looked at her strangely, and edged away. Mena didn't notice.

*****

Uric liked the Potions classroom. He liked the professor as well. Not everyone would give him permission to climb on the desks. He listened intently to what the professor was saying, wondering if he would explain what all the strange sentences on the parchments meant. He was slightly disappointed when the professor started talking about himself instead.

"To start off I'm going to tell you a bit about myself. Then we'll have a little test and spend the rest of the time getting to know each other. Okay?" He didn't wait for their reaction, which was mostly to groan at the word test. "My full name is Bhanu Darshan. I am 27 years old and for the past six years I was a Chaser on The Raging Tigers, the official team of India. But that was not my dream. I've always wanted to be a Potion's Master. When the opportunity came to teach here, I resigned my position before the day was out and flew here." He was smiling broadly at them.

"What?" exclaimed a voice in the back. Uric turned in his seat to see a pimply-faced boy with brown hair. His face was turning red as he talked to the professor. "You gave up being Chaser on one of the greatest Quidditch teams this century to teach Potions!" He was an obvious Quidditch fan. A little golden snitch hovered above the Ravenclaw emblem on his robe. Uric found it fascinating to watch.

"But this is my dream!" Something in the professor's voice made Uric turn around. The professor's dark eyes were shinning with a fervour that was usually reserved for mad scientists, or religious fanatics. "Potions are the most fantastic things in the world. With a potion you can do anything a wand can do, but you don't need magic to do it. The implications of that are astonishing." He was pacing agitatedly now, and waving his hands in the air. "Why, we could learn how to cure lycanthropy or stopper death!"

"He's bonkers." Uric heard a boy behind him whisper. The professor continued his rant about Potions, but Uric had stopped listening when a thought about the mating habits of books intruded in his brain. There had to be a reason why the number of books under his bed seemed to multiply exponentially at every turn. It never occurred to him that he might be putting them there.

Uric's thoughts were interrupted by a piece of parchment being placed on his desk. He looked up and saw the professor walk by him, placing a parchment on everyone's desks. He turned to the girl sitting next to him.

"What is this?" He indicated the parchment. She gave him an incredulous look.

"It's our tests. Just fill it out and stop talking, or else he might think we're cheating." She turned back to her own parchment, dipped her quill in her ink and wrote the name Nascha Ollivander on the top of her test. Uric turned to his own paper.

Ink. He needed ink. He got out the ink and a quill. He signed his name to the top of the paper with a flourish, consciously imitating the way he had seen his father do it so many times before. He read the first question to himself.

"What type of potions are Jobberknoll feathers used in?" Uric grinned. He knew how to answer that one.

"Memory potions and truth serums," he wrote carefully in the space provided them. He went on to answer questions about knotgrass, bezoars and shrivelfigs. He described the purposes of several potions and quickly wrote the essay at the bottom of the page asking about the possible uses of a unicorn horn in a potion.

He blew on the page to make sure the ink was dry, then pushed the paper to the edge of his desk. He was putting away his things when a shadow fell on the desk. He looked up.

"Finished already Uric?" asked Professor Darshan, smiling broadly. Uric just nodded. "Can I take it then?" Uric nodded again. Darshan took the test then crossed the room to the desk across from Uric, where Varys was sitting. Uric had noticed the boy before, but hadn't really bothered to look in that direction. He could still remember Varys saying that Simon would die before Halloween. But, then again, he had always been taught to be polite to people and give them second chances. He looked at the boy now, seeing that Professor Darshan had taken Varys' test as well and was sitting at his desk grading them.

Uric's hazel-eyes met Varys' blue ones. Uric smiled tentatively, but Varys's face was cool and expressionless. A closer look revealed that there was anger in those bright blue-eyes. Uric's smile turned into a frown. Why was Varys angry now? He didn't have Simon with him...He turned uncomfortably to sit straight in his seat, ignoring the dark-haired boy's stare. It was safer to think about simple things, like how to defeat a Quintaped...

Professor Darshan waited patiently for everyone to finish their tests, while Uric drifted off into his own world, though to be more precise it was the world of the Flibbergidgets and Uric was only visiting.

Darshan then gave them an assignment to find out as much as possible about their Potion's partner before sitting down to grade the tests. Uric listened politely as Nascha told him all about how she was the second child of the current proprietor of the famous wand shop, Ollivander's, how she loved dragons, and how hard that test had been even though she had read the first four chapters of the Potions textbook before class. Uric, in turn, confessed that he had read the whole text book before hand, as well as some other books and found the test very easy, that he loved badgers, was deathly afraid of pudding and didn't she think breathing would be easier if everyone had their lungs on the outside?

He was telling her all about Simon when Professor Darshan got up and redistributed the tests to their respective owners. Uric waited expectantly for his, but it never came. Instead Darshan strode up to the front of the class. He held up two parchments in his hands.

"Now, I want to assure you that the mark you received on this test counts as only a small part of your grade." Some audible sighs of relief could be heard. "But I wanted to honour those of you who show a true understanding of the Potions art. To Varys for getting 98 out of 100 on the test. Ten points to Ravenclaw." Uric risked a glance at Varys and saw he was smiling as his friends patted him on the back and congratulated him. He turned his attention back on the professor. "And to Uric, for scoring a perfect, I award Hufflepuff fifteen points." Now it was Uric's turn to be congratulated, but he couldn't help but see Varys angry stare out of the corner of his eye. Was Varys angry about the test, or was Uric's hair messy again? Uric quickly redid his braid just in case.

After the last class, Professor Darshan sat down in the chair behind his desk. It had been a long day. He took a deep breath then stretched back as far as he could go without tipping the chair over. As he did so, a flash of colour on the ceiling caught his eye. He froze.

There in brilliant blue letters on a yellow background were the words, "Do you know where your badgers are?"