Angela Cross and the End All Spell

Angela Cross and the End-All Spell

--a Harry Potter Universe fanfiction--

Chapter Ten

**Salt and Pepper**

A large green backpack was suddenly planted on the plate in front of Angela with a thud.

"Happy Halloween!"

"Um, hi?" she said, both herself and Kathy turning around to face Jason Wages who was standing behind them, rocking back and forth on his heels with his hands behind his back and a big grin on his face. Standing next to him was James McGee.

It was the first time Jason had really approached them since the incident with the frog a month-and-a-half before; he often waved to them or shot out a passing "Howdy" in the halls, but that was it. Even in the classes he shared with them he always tended to keep to himself, which Angela and Kathy noted was very much the case since no one in his house seemed to associate with him. At first the girls thought it was because he always seemed distracted and played around instead of focusing on the assignments, but over time they figured out the more likely reason.

"James, this is Kathy and Angela," Jason said, gesturing towards the girls.

"Hi." James didn't say much, just smiled and nodded at the two politely. Angela shared every Flying and Potions class with him, but since she was always in the front row for Snape's lectures or grounded for Hooch's lessons she never really got to see him up close and personal before. James was a handsome dark-skinned Asian boy, same height as Jason with shiny black hair groomed perfectly, his clothes all neatly pressed and worn. As always he wore his sunglasses, even indoors, though at the moment they were far enough down his nose that his dark-brown eyes could easily be seen.

The most notable colors on his person, though, were the green and silver on his tie, his cardigan, and the house crest worn on his cloak. It was this color that drew the attention of everyone on the Gryffindor table, and not a one of their gazes seemed particularly happy to see him.

"Hi!" said Kathy in her usually smiling, friendly manner. To her credit, she didn't seem to care one bit about the colors he wore, which made Angela quite happy. Unfortunately, she didn't care too much for the reaction of her classmates: even the Weasley twins, who had before made such a poignant point regarding the foolishness of over-enthusiastic house patriotism, were just gawking at the fact that a member of Slytherin was socializing with one of their own.

"What's this?" Angela asked, ignoring her fellow Gryffindors and looking back at the bag sitting on the table in front of her.

"Well, this being Halloween, I thought I'd give you a little present," said Jason with a big, goofy grin. Angela raised her eyebrows, wondering what could be in the backpack, and proceeded to open it up. Whatever was inside, the bag was apparently filled to capacity and rather heavy at that-

It was as though a candy store exploded. With the zipper undone, the bag popped open and candy of all kinds poured out as though from a piñata. Chocolates of all sizes, suckers, hard candies in multi-colored wrappers, a bag of what looked like Tootsie Rolls... Even a couple of boxes of jelly beans, which Angela winced at when she realized they were in Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans. Both she and Kathy was flabbergasted at the sight, and even the other Gryffindors at the table took a moment from glowering at James to stare in awe at all the candy.

"This is all for me?" Angela asked, looking at the pile without a clue of just what to think.

"Well, you and Kathy. I don't know if you can eat it all on your own." Angela was sure she could but decided sharing with Kathy would be the nice thing to do.

She hunted through the bag a little, though she pulled her hand back quickly when she felt something inside twitch at her touch. Kathy, looking at the bag with her, put her hand in and came out with the culprit: a five-sided gold carton.

"Wow," said Seamus, "you've even got chocolate frogs in there!"

"Chocolate whats?"

"Don't worry," said Kathy with a wink, "they aren't what you think." She popped open the container and inside was a little chocolate in the shape of a frog. To Angee's surprise - and mild disgust - the chocolate was moving. "They're just enchanted to move, they aren't actually alive." Kathy proved her point by placing it on her palm and opening her mouth, and to Angela's total shock the frog hopped high into the air and landed right in her mouth.

"Ooh, that was a good one!" exclaimed Dean. "Got a whole ten feet into the air!"

"What card did you get?" asked Neville.

"Card?" Angela looked at the empty container and noticed a little gold card inside. There was some writing on it:

Gwenog Jones

Quidditch Captain

1968 - present

Captain and Beater of only all-female national Quidditch team, the Holyhead Harpies. After a game she enjoys relaxing with friends, drinking butterbeer, and listening to The Weird Sisters.

When she pulled it out, she was delighted to see that on the opposite side was a holographic picture of someone, a woman with a plume of dark-brown hair and in her mid-thirties who looked like she was in tremendous physical shape. She was wearing an interesting mauve Quidditch uniform and holding a broom in one hand, twirling a paddle in the other.

Lavender Brown looked over the table at the card Angela held. "Ooh! Gwenog Jones, I have a poster of her in my room."

To Angela's amusement, the picture of Jones looked around for a moment, then wandered off and vanished past the side of the picture. Apparently the cards worked the same way as all the other pictures in the wizarding world. "She'll come back, right?" she asked Kathy under her breath. Kathy smiled and nodded in return.

Sure she wasn't going to be able to eat an entire backpack full of candy at the moment (and not wanting to let her breakfast go to waste), Angela zipped the bag up and put it by her Charms supplies, deciding she would instead spread out the bounty over the course of the day. The other Gryffindors just looked at her, the faces showing dismay: apparently they also noticed how much candy there was and were hoping she was going to share with them.

"Here," Angela said in a magnanimous tone, "you can share these with each other." She pulled out every box of Every Flavour Beans she could find in the backpack and gave them to the other Gryffindors to share amongst themselves; despite how excited they were to get them, Angela herself never intended to eat another one after her first experience with the beans back at the Welcoming Feast.

"Thanks!" Angela said to Jason. The boy just smiled widely and chuckled.

"Um, Jason," mumbled James, "that's my bag."

"Don't worry, you'll get it back when she's done."

"But it's got my homework in it..."

Jason shrugged and made a rude noise. "Feh, what's Quirrell going to care, he never looks at any of it anyway. And all we ever do is read the book in that dumb class anyway."

"Look, it even says Slytherin on it."

"She doesn't look like she minds."

"Come on, dude, I need my homework."

"You can copy mine."

"... Did you even do your homework?"

"I always do my homework. Now shut up and let the girls eat their breakfast."

"But-"

"Enjoy your candy," Jason said, leading James back to the Hufflepuff table.

"Uh, nice meeting you two," James said quickly with a wave before being dragged off down the isle. "Let me just get my homework-"

The girls waved as the boys continued their strange banter.

"Don't worry, I took all your stuff out of the bag. It's under my seat."

"... Why didn't you tell me?"

"It was funnier to watch you beg for it."

The day had passed quite nicely. Angela was thankful for the bag of candy as the constant aroma of pumpkin pie filled the school and made her constantly hungry. Students just eyed the candy longingly as she lugged it around, a bit of an effort but well-worth it. Angela also had to guard the bag from the many bats who were fluttering about the school hallways and classrooms that day, some of which followed her like dogs hoping for a treat. "Mine! Shoo!" became a mantra for her that day for both student and bat alike.

Charms had been a lot of fun, for the students finally learned the infamous Wingardium Leviosa spell that would levitate items and make them fly around the room, something everyone had been excited to do after Professor Flitwick had performed a number of aerial acrobatics with Neville's toad. Hermione Granger was the first one in the class to perform the spell correctly, though unsurprisingly Jason Wages got a reprimanding look (or as close to one as could be mustered) by the instructor for trying to levitate himself instead of the feather he had been given to practice with. When asked why he tried such a thing, Jason said he was trying to find an alternate means to flying by broomstick.

When evening rolled around, Angela's elation at having candy had turned into sourness, as she was so full from snacking all day on sweets that she was feeling almost too sick to have the evening meal. Despite this, Angela intended to force down some pumpkin pie when dessert was to roll around; she wasn't about to miss having some of that. The Great Hall was wonderfully decorated, pumpkins floating in midair with lit candles in their carved mouths, and as during the whole of the day bats were fluttering about, trying to be menacing but in the end just being cute. A spooky, roiling mist was also wafting about on the floor. Angela had learned since she had arrived at Hogwarts that the hall's ceiling, which at the moment showed a crystal clear night with a bright full moon at its zenith, was in fact enchanted and could appear as any environment Dumbledore (or perhaps the school itself?) wanted.

The arrival of dessert was cut short though as Professor Quirrell, looking quite disheveled and worn out, burst into the Great Hall, his wild purple turban askew on his head. He ran through across the misty floor, past Angela and up to the teachers' table, falling before Professor Dumbledore with an utterly horrified look on his face.

"Troll!" he shouted. "In the dungeons. Thought you ought to know." He then proceeded to completely faint.

Every student in the hall jumped about like monkeys, screaming wildly and looking as utterly horror stricken as Quirrell had. Angela wasn't sure just how to react: there was such a to-do about the Halloween decorations, perhaps this was just another surprise to add atmosphere to the evening? Angela looked behind her at the Ravenclaw table where Kathy was sitting, wondering if she could get a confirmation from her friend, but with all the students running about like chickens with their heads cut off she couldn't even see the Ravenclaw table, much less Kathy.

The ruckus was quickly quelled when a series of purple explosions fired from the headmaster's wand. All the students stopped in mid-motion and looked to him as he stood tall.

"Prefects, lead your Houses back to the dormitories immediately!" he commanded, calm as could be but with great intensity nonetheless. Angela promptly ascertained that the troll situation was indeed real.

Percy Weasley immediately made his presence known to his entire class, waving his arm back and forth amongst the students. Quickly he ordered everyone in House Gryffindor to follow him calmly to the tower, yelling the well-known fact that he was a prefect over and over again to make sure people knew he was the one in charge that moment.

The group lined up behind Percy as he began his march out of the Great Hall and towards the stairs that would lead them to the Gryffindor common room. All the other House prefects were doing the same with their fellow students, the classes sifting through each other before branching off towards their respective rooms. Angela hoped to get a glance at Ravenclaw's group and make eye contact with Kathy, but while she could see the group head off she wasn't able to see Kathy in it as they passed. She did note that Percy gave the Ravenclaw prefect girl a blushing smile and that he got one in return, but as they were hurrying the glance didn't get to last long at all.

Up the stairs, through the paintings, around secret passages and suits of moving armor, they finally reached the painting of the Fat Lady that led into the Gryffindor commons. Percy bent forward and spoke to the Lady.

"Pig snout."

The Lady nodded at hearing the password and swung to the side, and everyone clambered into the comfy room, which to their delight was filled with plates of food and desserts. It looked as though Angela wouldn't be missing that pumpkin pie after all.

"Alright," announced Percy once the painting closed shut, his arms out above his head for everyone to see, "we are to remain here while the instructors deal with the troll threat. As long as we all remain calm and relaxed, there should be no-"

The students in the center of the room were parting, all looking towards the center of their congregation a little strangely. Percy's mouth dropped open when enough students had parted for him to see a yellow and black tie amidst all the red and gold.

"Uh, hi," said Jason Wages with a nervous wave.

The entire Gryffindor house looked at Jason as though some kind of virulent plague had found its way into their room. Jason, on the other hand, looked so nervous and embarrassed he could easily have been mistaken for being infected and sick with such a plague.

Percy immediately strode up to Jason, completely aghast that a non-Gryffindor had found its way into the Gryffindor common room. "W-WHAT are you doing here??" he shrieked, totally stunned that he had let something like this happen.

"Well," Jason stammered, "we were all leaving the Great Hall, and Hufflepuff and Gryffindor were passing through each other, and I saw a couple of Gryffindor students go with one group and so I thought that would mean I needed to go the other way, and it turned out that the way I went was with you guys, and we were moving so fast I lost track of where my group went, so I stuck with you so I wouldn't get eaten by a troll or something, and... uh..."

"Wait," interrupted Seamus, "where's Ron?"

"For that matter," said Parvati, "where's Harry?"

"And Hermione?" asked Lavender.

Everyone stopped looking at Jason and immediately looked to Percy for answers. Percy, on the other hand, looked pale as a ghost.

"Oh no this is not happening not Ron oh please I'm going to kill that little bast-"

Percy closed his eyes and rubbed his temples vigorously. He was apparently trying to figure out what to do before finally popping his eyes open and taking a deep sigh.

"Okay, Mister..."

"Wages."

"Mister Wages, as we're under quarantine until the troll is found, you will remain with us." A number of Gryffindors groaned at this but stopped promptly at the deathly glare they received from Percy; he was apparently not in the mood to have his authority questioned at this point. He returned to his calm demeanor with another prompt inhale of air. "Feel free to make yourself at home until I can return you to your proper dormitory.

"In the meantime, I am going to brave the dangers of the halls at the moment and go track down our missing students. Prefect Junt will still be present, so I will expect you to remain on good behavior without my supervision."

"I am right here, you know." The other prefect looked at Percy incredulously, obviously quite annoyed that her counterpart didn't trust her judgment and had made the point quite clearly in front of the entire house.

Percy didn't respond though, his mind was on other things (like finding his brother and his friends before the faculty found out he had lost three students, most likely). He quickly plowed through the huge class and burst out the exit, the painting swinging open swiftly with a irritated "Hey!" as he raced desperately down the hall beyond.

The moment Percy was gone, all eyes went right back to Jason Wages, who was still standing in the middle of the group with a mortified look on his face.

"... can't believe someone from Hufflepuff is in here..."

"... a lot of nerve if you ask me..."

"... probably snuck in on purpose..."

"... got in when Potter slipped out, right?"

"... troll ate him, maybe?"

"... bloody thing interrupted dinner!"

"... treacle treats are sure good..."

"... chocolate pie?"

The conversation, which had initially started off as a series of complaints about Jason's unexpected presence, slowly moved to the fate of Harry Potter and company, then to the many different desserts that were available in the common room. Within only a matter of minutes, the Gryffindors seemed to have completely forgotten about the Hufflepuff's presence and were more enraptured with speculating about the troll and snacking on cakes.

"Hi!" said Angela, coming up to Jason with a small plate in each of her hands, a piece of pumpkin pie sitting upon both of them. When the young boy saw her his eyes lit up, enormously relieved to see a familiar face; when she handed him a plate with a slice of pie on it, his smile became even wider, stretching from ear to ear as his eyes scrunched up in joy.

The two sat down by the fireplace, trying to make conversation over the din from all the students chatting in the room. Angela found it funny that even though a troll was stumbling around the dungeons somewhere none of the students seemed worried - on the contrary, some of the Gryffindors were actually hoping it was going to find Snape while down there and maybe trash his classroom so they wouldn't have to attend Double Potions the following morning. It was a rather annoying direction the general discussion had taken, and Angela did her level best to ignore it, focusing instead on her friend who was talking excitedly about how much he was enjoying being in some place civilized like Hogwarts.

"What do you mean 'civilized'?" Angela asked between bites of her pie.

"Are you kidding? I told you, I come from the Old Country."

"Um, there are a lot of old countries out there. Narrow it down some."

"Out in the Slavic mountains. We had that whole annoying ordeal with the rising of Avoozl a couple of years ago, remember?"

"No," Angela said.

"Werewolves, vampires and other walking dead guys, we get a lot of that out there. It's pretty nice countryside, but pretty boring too."

That's boring? Angela thought.

"Nothing to do there except farm and listen to my great-great-great-grandmother go on and on about forest spirits and all that stuff. Bleh." Jason made a face at the thought of his home.

"So... your mom is a witch and your dad is a Muggle?"

"Not really a witch. Her side of the family are all druids; about the same thing as wizards and witches, except the rituals are a little different and they call upon different forces for their spells."

"Then that would make you...?"

"Yeah, I'm half-Druish. I'm a non-practicing druid, though, wizarding magic is much easier to use: wave the wand instead of having to scribble symbols into the ground and stuff. Plus wands are a lot cooler, like a phaser!" He proceeded to hold his hand out as though he were holding a wand and made a series of fwoosh, zap and boom sounds.

As the two chatted, the entrance to the common room swung open and Percy walked in with Hermione Granger. She looked a little roughed up, bits of what looked like porcelain in her hair and her robes dripping wet, but she appeared more embarrassed than injured. Percy was still pale, though he had more of a resigned annoyance in his eyes than the desperation he had when he ran out earlier. As she stepped into the room, everyone crowded around her and asked her where she was, what happened, where was Harry, etc... Hermione just stayed quiet and kept her head down, not wanting to say much, so the students in the room turned their attention to Percy.

"Yes, yes, they're fine," said Percy in response to the barrage of inquiries thrown at him. "And the troll-situation has been handled." He didn't go into any more depth regarding the incident than that.

Seeing that they weren't going to get any more information out of Percy than they had from Hermione, the Gryffindors promptly returned to eating and speculating about the evening's events. Percy, on the other hand, made his way straight over to Angela and Jason.

"Alright, back to Hufflepuff House we go," he said brusquely, slapping his hands together in a hurried chop-chop motion. He obviously wanted to get all traces of his little embarrassment for the evening out of sight as fast as possible.

"Alrighty, see you later," the young boy said, getting up from his chair and shooting Angela a smile. "Thanks for the pie."

Angela gave Jason a little wave as the prefect ushered his young charge out of the passageway and off to the Hufflepuff dormitory.

The rest of the evening passed quickly and without event. Ron and Harry arrived a couple of minutes after Percy had left, the other students so enraptured with their own conversations that they hadn't even noticed the twosome at first. Angela had decided to call it an early night and headed off to bed before the massive question and answer session would begin - which she could hear beginning even as she climbed the stairs - and with that her first Halloween at Hogwarts came to a close.

And so the next four weeks continued on.

November in northern England was a chilly time indeed. The skies had grown gray and the wind had picked up substantially, a sharp breeze cutting through the school like a knife whenever anyone opened a door leading outside. Peeves the Poltergeist's latest hobby was opening windows throughout the school to keep the temperature down, a tactic which endeared him to no one - even the paintings were scowling at the mere mention of his name, all of them forced to put on something warmer in the gale that coursed through the hallways. The weather outside had also grown unpleasant enough that Angela and Kathy weren't able to have outdoor picnics for their meals anymore, but with the influx of additional classwork the two rarely had the luxury of time to indulge in relaxing picnics. And on the positive side it gave Angela an excuse to wear her warm and stylish Gryffindor-colored scarf.

A week after the Halloween incident - which gained Harry and Ron no small amount of notoriety as it turned out they were the ones who had dispatched the wandering troll - Friday classes had been cancelled in lieu of the upcoming Quidditch match between Gryffindor and Slytherin. Angela thought it was just as well that her Potions class was off considering how much Professor Snape had been limping around the day after the troll had invaded the school; speculation amongst the students was that it had gotten a good swipe in on him at some point during the evening.

Angela knew very little of the sport of Quidditch, as she was never much of a sports enthusiast to begin with and found it hard to recall all the information regarding it. All she could remember was that it played a lot like soccer or rugby: knock a ball through a goal, win points, and whoever caught some flying gold ball would win the game (which made her wonder what the real purpose of any of the other balls or even players was). She wasn't really thinking about the way the game played, however: she had seen the players out in the Quidditch field that one day and was anticipating seeing some more broomstick acrobatics.

The Quidditch field was laid out like a standard football field, a grassy walled arena about a hundred meters from end to end, a smooth circle of sand book-ending each side like a polar ice cap. A set of three unevenly-tall hoops were positioned on each end in the sand, one goalie for each team, and a number of hundred-foot-tall stands draped in multi-colored curtains for each house were positioned around the walls where students and faculty could watch the game from on-high. Angela considered the stands to be rather precarious to sit in considering how tall they were and wondered if perhaps it would have been wiser to take a spot on the lower wall's bleachers where locals who weren't part of the Hogwarts community or late arrivals were perched, but once the game got underway she could see that at a lower altitude you just wouldn't get as good a view of the players zipping about in the wind.

Madam Hooch was there acting as referee, a pair of cool yellow-lensed aviator goggles sitting on her head and wearing a black and white uniform designating her position. When the players flew out on the field, Gryffindor in their red and Slytherin in their green, the crowds went insane with cheers. Angela had again wondered about the wisdom of such tall towers, especially ones made out of wood, since the roaring of the students around her as they jumped about and hollered caused them to shimmy and shake about.

It was a concern she didn't toss around in her head for long as Madam Hooch threw a large brown ball into the air and the players bolted off like lightning into the sky. What came next was certainly more than she'd expected: once the match had started that bright, frigid Friday morning it was a non-stop knock-down drag-out airborne battle between the two houses. It was an awesome spectacle as blurs of red and green flurried about in the air on their brooms. The upperclassman with the thick Scottish accent Angela had met before, Oliver Wood, had maneuvered himself over to the goal, while Fred and George Weasley went charging in following one of their teammates who had the brown ball, deflecting a pair of flying red balls that Angela quickly recognized as the ones that almost smacked her in the face that one day. The red balls were relentless and were trying to topple, hammer and bludgeon everyone around them, but Fred and George had a handle on them, often knocking them towards members of the Slytherin team with a graceful swipe of their wooden paddles in an attempt to de-broom them. And above all the other players, looking about rather confusedly in every which direction, was Harry Potter; Angela assumed he was trying to find the little gold spec Madam Hooch had released just before the match had begun.

Over the course of half an hour, players zoomed about through the sky, balls flew back and forth, and Gryffindor scored on a number of occasions as did Slytherin, although the players in green played rather roughly and ruthlessly, more so than Gryffindor ever did. Once or twice the players almost crashed into the tall stands, which always resulted in an excited cheer from everyone who got to be so close to the action. At one point Oliver Wood took a red ball to the head and went tumbling down from the sky, landing in the sand pile beneath the hoops which Angela could now see was apparently there to break the fall of the goalie. Back and forth they moved, up and down, and partway through Harry Potter had broken his solitary hovering position in the sky and bolted downward after something, a Slytherin player doing the same and chasing Potter about. And as the game progressed, Angela suddenly noticed she was no longer just focusing on the flying maneuvers of the players but was actively cheering along with her classmates; she had to admit, it was really exciting to watch, and she gave in to the urge to stomp, cheer, and yell uproariously at the game with everyone else. Partially through the match Potter stopped his power-diving and began bucking up and down on his broom as though he were riding a bronco, and there were mutterings of confusion from the Gryffindors as to why Harry was showboating when he should be chasing after the 'golden snitch'. After a few minutes, though, Potter stopped bounding around in midair and once more zipped downward where the Slytherin seeker was whizzing about.

The game seemed to pass by rather quickly from that point. According to Lee Jordan, a black Gryffindor third-year who was playing announcer through a magical voice-amplifying horn, Potter was diving after the golden snitch and after a wild maneuver where he actually climbed onto the nose of his broom and dove for his target, the crowd went into a powerful hush. Harry Potter had tumbled off his broom and with a couple of easy rolls over the soft grass he got up and coughed the little golden ball out of his mouth and into his hands. Gryffindor had won the first Quidditch match of the year, one-hundred-and-seventy to sixty.

Had Angela thought the previous cheering was impressive, the following hullabaloo from Gryffindor House was ear-splitting. Pointy black hats went flying everywhere, sparks of all colors went blazing into the noon sky, and Angela actually grabbed her seat just in case the tower toppled over from all the stress. She gave a quick glance across the way to the Slytherin towers and while it was hard to clearly make out from this distance, she could at least tell that they weren't sharing the hoopla from the other houses; looking at the other house towers, she could see that Gryffindor had been the primary favorite for everyone to win.

The tension between the two houses over the next few weeks was so thick it felt as though you had to swim through it. Still, with the Gryffindor victory well in hand the Slytherin students really couldn't say anything that could remotely bother their rivals, being forced to relegate to nasty glares or insults muttered under their breath. The Gryffindors, however, had no problem insulting the Slytherin students at every opportunity they had. Angela could see that with the general school consensus favoring her house there was little chance of reprieve for Slytherin, a situation that didn't make her happy or particularly proud of Gryffindor. She, however, was one of the rare cases in the school who felt this way. No one seemed to stick up for the Slytherin students, not even Professor Dumbledore it seemed.

Professor Snape only made matters worse by intensifying his criticisms of his Gryffindor pupils, Harry Potter in particular; Angela couldn't see even a chance of anyone becoming sympathetic to them with Snape being so apparently vengeful. On more than one occasion she found Slytherin students even scowling at her in the hallways, which annoyed her considering she was just a spectator in all of this. True, Draco Malfoy and his gang continued to make some nasty comments to everyone that just seemed his usual spiteful manner, but no one really took him seriously after the match.

Angela had practically given up on flying a broomstick during these weeks, and though she could see some guilt and frustration in Madam Hooch's eyes she was no longer receiving coaching on broomstick usage; the instructor just couldn't afford to take as much time off during class hours to help what apparently seemed to be a lost cause. After the Quidditch match she found herself not even wanting to attend classes, as it was simply painful to see her fellow classmates growing better and better at aerial maneuverability while she was stuck on the ground. Unfortunately, Hooch told her that regardless of ability she would still at least have to be present at the lessons if she wanted to get a passing grade, so begrudgingly Angela came out to the practice field every Thursday afternoon and tried to ignore the elated cheers from students as they zipped about free in the air.

She had also heard nothing from the Gray Lady regarding her situation: Angela found it was rather difficult to track down a ghost when a person actually needed one. She decided it wouldn't be a good idea to bring the matter up with the headmaster during evening meals in the Great Hall as this was something that needed to be kept as private as possible, and she never seemed to find the time or be in the right place when she wanted to confront him about it during the actual day.

All in all, she was getting rather frustrated.

A pleasant break in the routine came about on a Sunday morning near the end of November. Angela was sitting in the Great Hall having breakfast with her History book unfolded out before her on the table. Professor Binns had assigned everyone to provide a three-foot-long roll of parchment to him on Wednesday morning comparing the motivations of pre-thirteenth century giants with their counterparts from fifty years ago in regards to the two major uprisings of both eras. The paper wasn't particularly hard, just a lot of busy-work that Angela anticipated was going to keep her occupied for the next few hours. All around her students were doing similar assignments, though Professor McGonagall had recently removed a Hufflepuff student from the Great Hall for practicing her Potions assignment - the populated dining area was not a place she wanted something to potentially explode in.

Angela took a bite out a croissant as she read when a thick flutter of wings made itself heard above: morning mail had arrived. Owls filled the hall above, dropping letters and packages and newspapers before students, and Angela looked up to see if Percy the Owl Prefect was there with anything for her.

To her shock he was. The owl looked like he was going to explode with all the effort his wings were making to keep him aloft. Quickly Angela moved her book to the side as he set himself down with a small thud, the large box he was gripping in his talons by a thick string planting itself right in front of her and almost spilling her cup of orange juice. Percy proceeded to flop onto the table and catch his breath; he looked utterly exhausted.

"What've you got there?" asked Kathy coming into the hall with her own to-do homework under her arm. The package was wrapped in brown paper and the fact an owl had flown any distance with a two-feet-cubed package that looked as heavy as it did drew the attention of more than a few students.

Angela was just busy shaking her head and gave Percy a little piece of ham to nibble on to get his strength back; she couldn't believe her mother had sent an owl across the ocean with something as large as that box. When Percy finally got enough energy to get back on his feet, Angela turned her attention to the package. The young Gryffindor girl looked curiously at what sat before her before her eyes popped wide and a huge smile appeared on her face. Kathy just looked on confused as her friend dove at the box, ripping away the wrapping and slicing the tape from the cardboard box within with a knife. When the package opened up, Angela squealed happily: within was a small grouping of what appeared to be wrapped presents as well as letters in colored envelopes.

"I completely forgot!" Angela said as she pulled present after present out of the box.

"What?" asked Kathy.

"My birthday! Birth-day, birth-day!" Angela chanted happily.

It wasn't that she actually forgot her own birthday, but without anyone from her pre-Hogwarts life around and since the British didn't celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday which always accompanied the special day, the young girl hadn't really given the date much thought. She had expected to just eat a little more cake at dinner that evening and then just put the whole thing out of her head, but this was certainly a wonderful surprise to get from her mother. This definitely made up for some of her more usual thoughtlessness.

"Your birthday?" Kathy exclaimed. "And you didn't tell me?"

"I just didn't think about it for a while since I'm not back home." She put her ear to a couple of presents and shook them to see if she could figure out what they were.

"How old are you, then?"

"I turn twelve today." Angela dispensed with trying to guess what was in the packages and began ripping at the paper earnestly. Multi-colored wrappers showered Kathy's head like rain while Angela went through one present after another, smiling ear to ear all the way.

"Ah! My Little Ponies! And a collection of Elvis on cassette! Cool, Cole Porter tapes! Yay, a complete set of Prismacolor pencils! And another sketchbook! And elves!"

"You... got a house elf for your birthday?"

"No, no, I got these!" From one of the packages filled with crumpled white paper, Angela proceeded to pull out a series of bendy-legged elf figurines, each one a different size and shape, some wearing green outfits with pointy hats, some wearing a combination of blue and red medieval costumes, and all of which having long pointy ears and disturbingly huge grins that reached up to their eyeballs.

Kathy just looked at the figurines, not sure what to say. "I've never seen elves like those before," she finally got out with a raised eyebrow.

"You can hang them from things, see?" Angela bent one of the arms on an elf and hung it from her finger. Kathy grinned at the little elf as Angela swung it lightly back and forth from her finger.

"They are cute. And you play with these?" Kathy asked, picking up one of the My Little Ponies.

"No!" said Angela, waving a finger reproachfully. "You don't play with them. You put them up in an artful display for everyone to see. Playing with them just gets them all filthy and messes their hair up."

"Greetings, Program! Hey, what's all this stuff?"

Angela and Kathy turned around and found Jason and James standing behind them, both of them looking over Angela's stash of presents she had arranged neatly in front of her.

"Hi!" said Kathy.

"It's my birthday presents," said Angela, admiring her new Minty, Blue Belle and Snuzzle ponies. "My mom got me these, aren't they cute?"

Over the last month, Jason had been chatting more and more with Angela and Kathy. He would drop in on their meals, not staying long since Gryffindors tended to look at him with some resentment for having to host him on Halloween, or he would make small chitchat with them whenever they bumped into each other after classes or in the hall. James tagged along with him on occasion, though tended to remain quiet and just listen to the conversations. Angela and Kathy would both notice the fact that many of the girls, even some Gryffindors, would look at him and sigh, funny smiles on their faces, which amusingly enough James seemed utterly oblivious to.

"If you say so," Jason said, regarding the ponies dubiously.

"Look! It's Berry Pickin' Fun with Butterscotch!" Angela said gleefully, holding up a little orange pony wearing a bright pink hat with a pair of ribbons tattooed on her rump. "So cute!!"

"Angee got elves, too," said Kathy, picking up a few of them from the table and holding them in front of James. The Slytherin boy just cringed and promptly backed off a couple of feet, not taking his eyes off the little figurines.

"Creeeepy..."

"They're cute!" insisted Angela.

James just stepped back another foot and looked repulsed at the sight of the elves, even sticking his tongue out in disgust.

"I have to admit," Jason agreed, "those are some pretty creepy smiles on their faces."

"'Ere now, what's all this then?"

The foursome turned as a huge shadow was cast over them. Walking between the isles, his girth so huge that he easily blocked the path leading down between the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff tables, stood the towering figure of a bearded man in a gigantic furry coat. Being as tall as he was, Hagrid didn't have to bend over the group to see what Angela had gotten in the mail.

"It's her birthday!" Kathy spoke up immediately at Hagrid's inquiry. "She's twelve today."

"You are?" the giant man said cheerfully. "Well, 'appy birt'day to you! Les' see..." Hagrid patted around in his pockets, of which apparently there were many in the infinite maze of his coat. "Hmm... Not 'ere... Or in 'ere... Is that owl wearing a Prefect's badge...? Ooh, forgot I 'ad that in there... Jus' a minute now..." Unable to find whatever he was looking for as he sifted through his pockets, the mountain of a man emptied some of the contents onto the table - there were whole balls of thick twine, three old books with broken spines (all of which were about dragons, wyverns and manticores), a pair of large rusty keys with dragonfly wings on them, a small pink umbrella, another set of smaller keys with a Honda motorcycle logo, a black pot, numerous small glass jars that were too dirty to make out their contents, and many other miscellaneous and random items which ended up in a hodgepodge pile which grew ever larger until...

"Ah-ha! 'Ere we are!" Hagrid reached his hand out of a pocket from the inside of his coat and produced his makeshift birthday present for Angela. "I remember 'ow much you liked th' last one I got you, soooo..."

It was another rock cake.

"Now, I don' 'ave any candles, but jus' make believe there're twelve of 'em and you'll be in good shape." Despite the fact he was presenting her with another inedible cake (again, with raisins in it), Angela couldn't help but give Hagrid a big smile; the man, despite his monstrous size, looked adorable when his eyes crinkled up in a big grin. She could practically hear Kathy gushing in affection next to her, as the Ravenclaw girl had obviously gotten the full brunt of Hagrid's friendly face as well.

"Now, I best be off, loads to do today," the groundskeeper said as he shoveled his pocket-contents back into the many compartments of his massive coat. "'Ave a good birt'day, young lady!"

"Bye!" said Kathy waving widely. Everyone else said their goodbyes to Hagrid as he continued off down the isle and out the door, and Angela looked at the heavy cake in her hand. It wasn't something she'd be eating without letting it soften up in a bowl of milk for the rest of the afternoon, but in the end it was still a birthday cake. Angela was feeling extremely pleased at how her day was starting out...

... Until she looked back down at her neatly organized birthday presents.

Her eyes popping wide and her body giving a sudden and uncontrollable shudder of dread, Angela immediately put the cake on the table and looked around frantically, first on the table, then in the box, then on the floor, then on her lap and her friends' hands.

"What's wrong?" asked Kathy curiously, looking around herself to see if something was amiss. Jason and James looked around their persons as well, wondering if perhaps they had left their zippers open or something equally ridiculous.

"It's not here!" Angela said, sitting up and looking urgently pensive.

"What's not here?"

"Butterscotch!" the girl exclaimed. "She was sitting on the table right here!"

"Oh," Jason said, "you mean one of those pony things? Mister Hagrid scooped up all his junk when he left, maybe he grabbed it by accident."

Angela scrunched her eyes for a moment of thought and then nodded. There was no reason to worry, Hagrid had the little pony. In his pockets. Somewhere. In his deep, dirty, furry, filled-with-unnameable-junk pockets...

"I've got to go. Now." The birthday-girl immediately got up and threw on her cloak and multicolored scarf. Seeing Angela prepare to leave the room, Kathy got up as well and tossed on her own cloak, wrapping her blue-striped scarf around her neck.

"You two," Angela said, pointing at James and Jason, "watch my stuff."

"But-"

"Uh-"

Before any more of the protests from the boys could be heard, Angela and Kathy were already out of the Great Hall, leaving the Hufflepuff and Slytherin boys stuck at the Gryffindor table, glowers still shooting at them from the other students. Percy the Owl Prefect, having gotten his strength back, decided he'd seen his fill for the day and hopped into the air, cutting out and leaving the boys to fend for themselves.

"Where would he have gone?" asked Angela, looking around quickly and imagining every second her pony was out of her hands that it was being coated in a thick black film from the inside lining of Hagrid's coat.

"He might be in his hut, out back near the Forbidden Forest," Kathy suggested.

"Ok." Angela let Kathy lead the way outside and around the building, though on the way she suddenly realized something.

"Waaait a second... How do you know where Hagrid lives?"

Kathy faltered in her walk for a second before catching her step and continuing. "I, um, sort of followed him one day," she stammered embarrassedly.

Angela looked at Kathy incredulously for a moment. "You did what?"

"... I followed him. To his house. A few weeks ago."

At first Angela said nothing, a little surprised. The stunning didn't last long though as the young girl burst out laughing hysterically.

"You're a stalker!"

"No I'm not!" Kathy said defiantly, her face going beet-red. "I... just wanted to know where he stayed... in case we needed him for something."

"Uh huh." Angela was still giggling.

"Oh be quiet. We're here." The two had crossed the grassy grounds out in the cold, gray day and approached a ramshackle little hut with a beat-up old motorcycle parked out front and a gigantic pile of chopped wood placed at its side.

For such a large man, it was certainly a small hut, probably about the same size as her house on North Date back in Broken Arrow. The little shack was built out of stone bricks with a thatched wooden roof and a brick chimney sticking high out from it, smoke coming from it in puffs. The door to the hut was rather large in the wall, obviously big enough for Hagrid to step in through. It looked as though it had been around a while, but was kept in pretty good shape despite its age.

"So. I guess we can go up to the door and knock," said Angela as both of the girls came to a stop outside the hut. Each just looked at the other expectantly. After a moment of waiting for the other to knock first, Kathy stepped forward, her face still a bit red.

"I'll do it," she said, walking up to the huge wooden door and preparing to rap it with her hand. Before her fist touched the wood, though, the sound of thick, heavy barking resounded loudly and Kathy jumped away from the hut. Both she and Angela backed off quickly from the house; from the powerful booming of the barks and the ferocity they carried, the girls didn't want to find themselves on the receiving end of whatever animal was delivering them.

More barks followed, and the girls looked at each other, wondering if perhaps it wouldn't be more prudent to confront Hagrid about the pony at lunch or dinnertime. Their decision-making was cut short though as they heard Hagrid's voice, muffled but coming from the hut. Had he perhaps seen them through his window or something?

It didn't take long for them to figure out Hagrid wasn't talking to them: as he spoke the barking toned down, though as the heavy barking subsided a series of smaller, higher pitched barks could be heard. The sounds were apparently coming not from inside the hut, but from behind it. The girls moved in closer to the hut and edged alongside it, seeing if they could make out what Hagrid was saying and maybe catch his eye so Butterscotch could be retrieved.

"... said hush now, Fang!" Hagrid could be heard saying with his booming voice, and what there was of the heavy barking dropped down into a whine. The little yapping on the other hand continued. "You, too! Keep it down, all of you!" commanded the giant man, though he didn't seem to have as much success this time as numerous barks continued.

"Aw, come on, now," he could be heard saying, this time not so much commanding as pleading. "You've been at this all week, I haven't been able to get a full night's sleep." The yapping just kept going.

There was a pause from Hagrid, followed by a heavy sigh. "You know, they wouldn't be so worked up if you didn't keep provoking them." Another whine from the large barking animal; it didn't seem so threatening at this moment.

Angela wondered if perhaps she should just cut her losses and get the cleaning supplies ready for when she got the pony from Hagrid later, and looked to Kathy to see if perhaps her friend agreed with the assessment. Before they could whisper their consensus on the matter, though, Kathy's eyes opened wide and looked up with a gasp, and from the familiar thud of a gigantic foot behind her Angela knew what had gotten Kathy's attention. When she looked around, it seemed Hagrid was more surprised to find them by his hut than they were to have been caught.

"What th'-? What in blazes're you two doin' out 'ere?" The animal with the thundering bark promptly jumped behind him, startled at the presence of the girls as well. Its appearance belied its apparently cowardice nature: it was a massive black boarhound, almost as tall as the girls on its four legs and slobbering like a running faucet. As soon as the gigantic dog saw the girls were in fact just that - little girls - it gathered up its courage and ran up, rudely sniffing them all over and licking them on the face and ears crazily. Angela and Kathy had to put up their hands to keep the animal from getting too up-close-and-personal; it felt as though a waterfall of drool had opened up on top of them.

Hagrid looked uneasily at the girls, his eyes darting back and forth between them and the constant yapping from what sounded like a group of small dogs behind his house. He didn't seem to be prepared for surprise guests.

"Um," Angela started, trying not to impose any more than she already was on him, "a little while ago, when you gave me the cake in the Great Hall..."

"Oh!" interrupted the large man, raising his finger. "That's right, found it in my pocket when I came back out 'ere. So sorry, should've paid more attention, I should've." From his front coat pocket he pulled out a little orange pony with a hot-pink sunhat; in his massive hands Butterscotch looked like a tiny spec, but he handed it gently to Angela, who promptly pocketed it in her cloak to keep the curious black dog from slobbering all over it. She'd assess any potential scuffing and dirtiness later.

"It's okay, thanks for taking care of it," she said. The big man looked embarrassedly at the ground, though he kept eyeing behind himself as the yapping continued.

"'Spose yer wonderin' what that noise is," he said under his breath awkwardly.

"No no," said Kathy, seeing Hagrid was looking like he got his hand caught in the cookie jar and not wanting to cause him any stress, "we didn't mean to come by unannounced or anything."

"Nah. It's okay." He seemed to shrug his lack of comfort off quickly; perhaps the barking was so continuous that he just thought he might as well fess up to whatever he had behind there instead of leaving the girls to speculate. He turned around and began to head back around the house to the back, prompting the girls to follow him with a friendly gesture of his hand.

"Jus' keep it hush-hush, awright?" he asked politely. Kathy and Angela enthusiastically nodded and then followed him around.

As Hagrid first turned the corner, the yapping became more elated, the sound of many little dogs barking with glee that they had some company again. When Angela and Kathy came all the way around the back, they looked at what they saw in utter astonishment.

There was a small wooden pen built behind the house, its far end bordering the infamous Forbidden Forest. Next to the pen were three dog dishes of widely varying sizes and a pair of water troughs, also of two distinctly different sizes. The largest of the dog dishes had the name Fluffy painted clumsily on it and was about the size of a kiddie swimming pool. From what the girls could see, it had nothing in it except some really huge, completely cleaned bones. The other dog dishes were more normal sized, probably big enough for something like a wolf dog or about the boarhound's size; one of the two dishes had Fang scribbled onto it and was licked clean recently. The remaining dog dish was filled with dry dog food but had nothing written onto it. As for the water troughs, one was a regular barrel cut in half and filled with water, while the other was a gigantic wine barrel about the size of a wagon, also cut in half and filled with water. Whatever ate and drank from the bigger items must've been the size of a dinosaur.

However, none of this was as surprising as what the girls saw in the pen. Three cute, tilted heads were staring at them curiously, but all three heads were attached to one body. There was a three-headed puppy in the pen, probably the size of a large housecat, and despite its obviously unusual nature Angela thought it was positively one of the cutest things she'd seen in a long time. The puppy (puppies?) had large brown eyes, cute ears, short peppery-colored hair, and was apparently some kind of mixed-breed with a strong terrier background.

Six eyes were transfixed on the newcomers, until they again caught a glimpse of Fang and began to bark at him furiously. It was a funny sight, as the little three-headed dog was considerably smaller than the boarhound; perhaps it thought its three heads made it tougher than a dog with just one head, no matter how much difference there was in apparent size. Hagrid quickly tried to calm the puppy down, waving his hands in a placating manner, but the tiny dog just kept at it, its three heads making quite a din. Fang looked like he wanted to bark back (from his wagging tail Angela suspected his barks were more playful than aggressive), but Hagrid's reproachful looks kept him quiet.

Angela suddenly remembered hearing about a three-headed dog a while back; hadn't Harry Potter and Ron Weasley mentioned they'd met one in the castle a couple of months ago? Was this the dog they had made such a fuss about? If so, they seemed to enjoy telling exceptionally tall tales as the dog in their stories was supposed to be the size of a house; Angela could imagine the boys running into this puppy in the school halls, freaking out at its barking (and the fact that it had a trio of yapping mouths) and running off like chickens, telling everyone about a giant monster afterwards so they wouldn't look so foolish.

"It's adorable!" said Angela, wanting very much to pet the puppy. "Where did you get a three-headed dog?"

"Sort've a package deal from a couple o' months back," Hagrid said with a shrug. "She's Fluffy's little sister."

"Fluffy?"

"Ah, now 'e's the cute one," Hagrid said as his eyes glimmered at the thought. "So sweet an' friendly. Playful too, I taught 'im 'ow to fetch jus' th' other day." The large man pointed towards the other side of the pen; lying outside of it on the grass was what appeared to be an old tree that had been uprooted. Its bark was all gone and all its top branches were torn away. Along its trunk were what appeared to be giant, foot-long gashes carved deeply into it, as though something disturbingly large had been chewing on it. The gashes didn't seem to be casually made either but were scarred all over the length of the tree wildly.

Angela and Kathy looked at the huge food dish, then back at the tree, then back at the food dish. Apparently Harry and Ron weren't fabricating their story after all.

"You don't think this one is cute?" asked Angela, walking up and reaching over the pen with her hand carefully. The little dog ran up and all its heads began sniffing her, trying to identify who she was.

"Oh, don' get me wrong," said Hagrid as the dog's three heads now proceeded to gleefully lick Angela's hand, "the lil' one is amiable an' all that, but she's a bit fragile right now, way too tiny fer my tastes. Not enough o' 'er to hug." Angela could see what the man meant, as the puppy could probably fit in one of his shoes had it needed a place to sleep.

"What's her name?" Angela was now petting the dog, which seemed very happy to make a new acquaintance, its tail wagging quite excitedly.

"'Aven't come up wit' one yet, actually."

"You've had her for two months and you haven't named her?"

"Not 'less you count 'Hey you'. Nothin' I thought up sounded quite right. All I could come up wit' was Fluffy II."

Angela winced at this makeshift name; it would not have been her first choice. Kathy came up and started to pet the dog along with Angela; the nice thing about it having three heads was there were plenty to pet. The little dog's right head began to play-chew on Angela's hand, prompting the other heads to become playful too. Angela laughed as the heads all tried to play with her, hopping around and occasionally yapping at her. Then, out of nowhere, all three heads blinked, took in a half-breath, and sneezed.

The young girl had an epiphany. "What about 'Pepper'?" suggested Angela.

"Pepper?" asked Hagrid.

"Well, she's colored a lot like pepper, and she sneezes like she just took a whiff of the stuff, too. " The dog hopped around some and yapped playfully. "And her personality even seems a little peppery. Doesn't it? Yes it does!" Angela added on, addressing the little dog with a gleeful grin.

Hagrid tilted his head and shrugged slightly. "Hmm, seems 'Pepper' there's taken a likin' t' you," he said with a great smile, apparently approving on her choice of a name.

The little dog's three heads sneezed again. Angela wondered if perhaps it was too cold for her to be outside: her wiry fur didn't seem thick enough to keep her warm out in the British November.

"Why did you want her to be hush-hush, anyway?" asked Kathy.

"Well, we don' want people knowing too much 'bout 'er big brother Fluffy bein' in the school, 'e's there on official Hogwarts business."

"You mean the other three-headed dog in the third-floor hallway?"

Hagrid just looked surprised at the girls for a second, then groaned and shook his head. "Impossible t' keep a secret in this place, let me tell you."

The girls just laughed and kept petting the little dog; it was certainly turning out to be a fun birthday indeed.