Angela Cross and the End All Spell

Angela Cross and the End-All Spell

--a Harry Potter Universe fanfiction--

Chapter Thirteen

**Little Camper in the Snow**

On a cold December morning in the classroom down in the icy depths of Hogwarts Castle, Potions finals came and went. As expected, it was indeed an extremely demanding test: when all was said and done and students slowly filed out of the room, only a select few such as Granger came out with smiles on their faces. Even Malfoy looked as though he had been through the ringer; rumor had it that when Draco had spoken to some second-year Slytherin students about what the upcoming test would entail and mentioned that he was in tight with Professor Snape, the students just laughed riotously and told him that if there was one thing Snape never did, it was play favorites during a final - no curve, no help, no sympathy. Sure, he might be all smiles and handshakes to Slytherin students during the school year, but when test time came he expected them to show the other houses who was boss based on merit.

Angela certainly didn't find herself breezing through the test - it was as hard as reputed - but when Professor Snape finally said pencils down and the doors to the class had opened with a thud, she gave Double Potions not a single thought and instead hurried back upstairs. The wind was supposed to be picking up outside and the snow had started falling again, just a light sprinkle but expected to start dumping much larger quantities as the day progressed, and Angela was heading for the Flying practice yard, wanting to grab a broom and start making up for all the days of airtime she had missed thus far. She had prepped herself before even heading down for her final final of the term, taking her warmest clothes with her along with her class supplies that morning, and was determined to give those rickety old practice brooms a real run for their money.

"Angee!"

Angela hadn't heard her name called at first through the loud murmur of students that were emerging from tests of their own, but another call and the young girl looked behind herself to see Kathy trying to maneuver through the hordes of much larger students.

"Hi!" Angela said, feeling a little embarrassed that she was so enthusiastic about going to fly again that she had actually forgotten to wait for Kathy after class.

Upon arriving to her friend's position, Kathy gave Angela a mock-reprimanding look. She wasn't able to really pull it off convincingly though, as she knew what had gotten her friend so fired up: upon finishing class the day before, Angela had immediately tracked down Kathy in Herbology and, once she was out of her own final for that class, told her all about literally acing her Flying class test. Kathy was predictably ecstatic for her young friend's success.

"No time to talk!" Angela said with a big smile on her face. "Plenty of time once we're on the broomsticks!" Both girls raced down the corridors, past the many students who were all somewhat dazed now that their final test before Christmas was over, and completely ignoring Peeves who was in the process of watering down the hallways floors with buckets of water in the hopes they would freeze and send many students on their merry way down the corridors on their behinds. The young twelve-year-old was so excited that she barely got any sleep the night before, spending most of the night daydreaming of aerial maneuvering and breaking school windows with sonic booms; destroying any more parts of the school wasn't really on her agenda, but daydreaming was safe enough.

Down the hall, past the tall marble stairs, through the side doors into the open snow-filled garden, through another set of doors, down another corridor past a series of small classrooms, and finally outside in the quietly drifting snow, through the tower passageway, and into the Quidditch practice field. As she and Kathy came to a stop in the sweeping soccer-field-sized training area, their breath coming out in wispy, fluffy clouds, it suddenly occurred to Angela that Madam Hooch wouldn't just be standing outside in the cold waiting for her with a broom. Kathy seemed to have come to the same conclusion as Angela did, though odds were she just followed her friend expecting she knew what she was doing.

"Um, do you know where Madam Hooch's office is?" Angela quickly asked Kathy, a little embarrassed. Kathy just shrugged and shook her head.

Well, this was certainly a bit of a pickle. Angela gave a quick thought as to what she should do now and quickly figured that Hooch, being a Quidditch referee, might have an office adjacent to the Quidditch field, and so she and Kathy made a quick bee-line around the large wall of the school and down the short path leading to the main field. Angela hoped she would find someone there in the hopes of not just procuring a broom but maybe even being able to take a spin around the large Quidditch field itself which offered a lot more room to maneuver in than the practice area.

Unfortunately, there were no buildings or structures near the main field. There were no students or faculty of any kind around there either, and Angela was beginning to feel slightly frustrated: she wanted to fly, now! True, she may have been a little demanding for thinking that she was just going to go to Madam Hooch, get a broom, and spend the rest of the day up in the air, but considering how she had been grounded for the last three-and-a-half months she felt she was entitled to a little leniency in this regard.

After scouting around the field to make sure they hadn't missed anyone (and perhaps a spare broom lying around on the property that no one would mind her using for a few hours), the girls ran back up the path and into the school, rubbing their hands desperately to get them warm again after being out in the morning cold for so long and promptly taking a sliding tumble down the icy corridor, a maniacal giggle from the local poltergeist as they passed him bobbing about in midair like a buoy. When they reached the end of the hall with a thud and gathered themselves up, rubbing their rears to get rid of the numbness from the cold ice on the flagstones, the duo decided to do the smart thing and ask for directions from one of the faculty.

A quick point of the finger and some choice instructions from Professor Vector, the Arithmancy instructor, and Angela and Kathy headed off towards the opposite side of the school near the Hufflepuff dormitory, finally finding their query as she stepped out of her office with a bag in one hand, a set of keys in the other, and a broomstick-shaped leather satchel across her back. She looked rushed.

"Madam Hooch!" Angela said as she approached her, feeling particularly winded from all the back-and-forth running; a broomstick would certainly take care of that particular problem.

The instructor looked up from the keys she was sorting through in her hand, a little surprised at suddenly being addressed. "Miss Cross? What seems to be the trouble?" she asked, returning to locking her office door. She was obviously about to go somewhere, probably for a while considering her packed bag.

"Um..." Despite wanting to fly, if there was one thing Angela disliked it was holding someone up just as they were closing up shop for the day. But she had come as far as she did and didn't want to just walk away without trying, so she made it brief. "I was just wondering if you could tell me where the practice brooms were, I want to try getting some airtime over the holidays. So I'll be ready for the next term."

"Well," the instructor responded with a rushed chuckle, "I don't think there's any danger of you being left behind the others. But in any event, I'm afraid you cannot use the practice brooms without a member of the faculty present."

"Oh." Angela sunk her shoulders and sighed, her plans of spending the rest of the day in the gray sky thwarted. Of course it made sense, though it was still rather annoying.

"And I am sorry, but as you can see I'm in a bit of a rush," she continued, pocketing her keys and hoisting her bag onto her shoulder. Once she was sure she had everything set and ready, she gave Angela a little more attention, if only for a moment.

"Don't worry, Miss Cross, you'll have plenty of opportunities to use the broomstick in the next term. If your performance then is anything like it was yesterday, you'll be in absolutely no danger of failing your end-of-the-schoolyear final. Now," she continued, turning to head down the hall, "if you'll excuse me I must be off. Enjoy your holiday." And with that she headed down the hall in large strides and vanished around the corner, leaving Angela and Kathy standing alone in front of her office door.

"Rats," Angela said unhappily.

"That's not so bad, though," said Kathy, trying to keep Angela's spirits up. "If we can find an instructor or some member of the faculty to watch you then you can still use a broom."

"No, they're all probably getting ready to leave for Christmas too," the young Gryffindor responded sourly.

"Not all of them."

Angela and Kathy jumped at the new voice and turned around. George was there looking like the boy who shaved the cat.

"What the heck are you doing there?" asked Kathy.

"Why, I've been hanging out in front of Hooch's office with you both the whole time, right?" The girls just looked at him, a little confused at his tone as he put his arms around their shoulders. "Riiiight?" he repeated, not so much a question as a statement of fact. The girls continued to look at him, a bit confused.

The situation made a little more sense as in a flustered fury Mister Filch came running around the corner, his cat Mrs. Norris cradled in his arms and looking utterly miserable; this was most probably due to the fact that she was now completely bald. Filch looked - nay, was - utterly murderous.

The boy who shaved the cat just stood there casually with the girls, as though he had been chatting with them the whole time; when Filch came up, George looked as taken aback and shocked as Angela and Kathy (even more so, though if this was to pad his part or simply because the girls weren't entirely surprised because of his very presence, Angela couldn't say). Mister Filch strode right to them, stopping mere inches away and practically foaming at the mouth, and looked at the threesome viciously, though he made no attempt to hide the fact his primary suspect was the Weasley boy.

"Filch, old boy!" George exclaimed. "It's the middle of winter! Bad time to give the old ball-and-chain a haircut."

"What did you do to my precious?!" he hissed with a resonating growl, holding Mrs. Norris up just slightly to emphasize his point. The cat eyed George with as rancorous a look as her master, her red eyes trying desperately to burn a hole right through him.

"Here now," George respond, looking aghast that he had just been accused of a serious crime without provocation, "what makes you think I did it?"

Filch moved even closer to George and backed him against the wall, his eyes squinting hard and his face lined in an even more-agonizing-than-usual scowl; he obviously found the boy's protestations of innocence completely without merit and appeared ready to dispense some old-fashioned medieval justice on the supposed perpetrator.

George actually looked worried, if only for a second, and Angela and Kathy looked at one-another trying to figure a way out of this apparent mess that they were undoubtedly about to be involved in. It seemed inevitable that George was about to tell Filch he had been with the girls the whole time and have the girls back him up, something that Angela was definitely not looking forward to.

She had no idea about Kathy, but Angela in particular didn't lie. Ever. She could avert the truth to a certain extent and was more than capable of evading a topic, but when it came to out-and-out fibbing Angela was absolutely hopeless. She'd get stories mixed up, she would get nervous and shaky with worry that she'd mess up one of her facts and get someone in trouble... Those particulars, coupled with the fact that Angela simply didn't like being deceptive and would always feel bad inside no matter what the lie was entailing afterward, kept Angela from telling mistruths, even to save her own skin. And if Filch asked her to confirm this story, Angela was probably going to end up seriously peeving the Weasley boy when he found out she was going to have to rat him out.

'Peeving' him was an interesting way to describe it, though, as ironically this was the very thing that saved her from having to get George in trouble.

It was just a snigger, but it was just enough to carry over the silence of the hall and catch the ear of everyone present. As soon as it started it stopped, but one snigger was all it took: each person present immediately recognized the giggle they had heard so many times before. Spinning around (but not giving enough distance to provide George any room to escape had he chosen to), Filch's eyes darted wildly about the hall. "PEEVES!" he yelled out at the top of his lungs, a shrill and angry sound that sounded even louder in contrast to the otherwise quiet passage.

"Oh poo, me and my big mouth," came the poltergeist's voice in a chuckle, and above the whole group appeared the disembodied head of the little floating man. "Heyyyy," he said as his head floated about, trailing off with an evil grin on its face, "now there's an idea..."

"Peeves, you little rat!" Filch snarled through clenched teeth. "You did this to Mrs. Norris!!"

The poltergeist popped completely into being with what sounded like the burp of opening Tupperware. "Who, me??" he said in a blatantly faux tone of self-defense, his face contorting into a mock-hurt expression as he held his hands over his chest in pain. "Why would I do anything to hurt you or your little bundle of joy, Argus old bean? And besides," he added, floating down and behind Kathy, "I was with these two young ladies the whole time."

As opposed to getting George in trouble, Angela would have been more than happy to spill the beans on Peeves, but it wasn't necessary as Filch didn't need any convincing.

"Peeves! You- You- I-" Filch was so unbelievably angry that he couldn't even get a word out. All he could do was shake with rage and stammer. He was so angry he hadn't even noticed he was holding Mrs. Norris too tight and the cat began to look a mite uncomfortable in the grip of his bony, weather-beaten fingers.

"I-We-You-Her-Um-Duh-" Peeves crossed his eyes, repeatedly stuck out his tongue and contorted his face into retarded expressions, mocking Filch's anger and easily succeeding in making him even madder than before. The caretaker's face had skipped completely past red and had turned almost purple.

Filch dove for the apparition and only succeeded in colliding with the brick wall; the girls dove out of the way as Peeves deftly bobbed about, avoiding every attempt from Filch to grab him. Angela wondered if Mister Filch could actually hold onto him even if he managed to connect, but she never would find out that day: putting down Mrs. Norris and pulling what looked like a Quidditch bludger-paddle out of his weathered old duster-coat, Filch swung madly at a cackling Peeves who just remained in a casual sitting position as he floated about nimbly about the hallway. The spirit let his opponent hopelessly lash at him to the point of total exhaustion, then (possibly from boredom) he tipped his hat politely to everyone with the expression of someone who had done a good-day's work and floated up through the ceiling with a raucous laugh that echoed through the halls. Argus, who was gasping for breath, had completely forgotten the other students present and shook his fist at the ceiling with fury.

"You aren't getting away from me that easily, you nasty little imp! When I'm done with you the Bloody Baron's going to look like a bleedin' pussycat in comparison!" And with that, the caretaker spun around and bolted up the stairwell to the floors above, sweating profusely and determined to hunt the poltergeist to the very ends of the school. Angela, Kathy and George, who had managed to maneuver themselves out of Filch's paddle-range during the scuffle, just watched him disappear up the steps, the clomping of his leather boots against the cold marble slowly vanishing along with him.

"Hm, speaking of pussycats..." George pointed down at his feet, where Angela and Kathy both noticed the bald Mrs. Norris looking up at the steps in what could only be described as shock. "Old Filch must've been really mad if he forgot his favorite playmate."

Angela had to agree; for Filch to leave Mrs. Norris behind, especially completely devoid of hair as she was, was undoubtedly a sure sign Peeves had pushed all the right buttons on the man. The cat, who had always walked about with an air of snotty superiority, actually looked hurt.

"Hey, I wonder how if losing all that hair made the girl more aerodynamic." George eyed Mrs. Norris, rubbing his hands together, and the girls immediately recognized the wheels turning in the boy's often-mischievous head. Kathy ran forward and in one quick motion swept the bald cat up into her arms.

"Don't you dare!" exclaimed Kathy, holding Mrs. Norris and turning her back towards the boy to keep him separated from the feline. The naked kitty, on the other hand, suddenly realized she was being held by someone other than her master and begin to squirm wildly to get free; Kathy easily kept a hold of the cat, though.

"What? I didn't do anything."

"You were thinking it."

"I was just going to pet her was all."

"Don't insult my intelligence, George."

"Oh come on-"

"Touch this cat," Kathy said, suddenly turning and giving the Weasley boy a look of reprimand so severe that he actually winced, "and we'll see how aerodynamic you are."

The threat was so unexpected that even Angela and Mrs. Norris were shocked; for this little girl to pull off such a potent look was actually quite impressive. Whatever he had been planning, Kathy's telling off was so effective that he immediately gave up his sure-to-be-unpleasant plans for Mrs. Norris and put his hands up placatingly. To everyone's amusement, he even gave the young girl a sly grin, obviously impressed with the fact she had laid down the law so effectively; undoubtedly, few people on this earth were capable of turning the Weasley twins from a path once they had decided to walk down it.

Mrs. Norris still struggled, though not anywhere near as much as she had moments before; Angela suspected the cat was beginning to see that Kathy was what was keeping George from making a sock-puppet out of her.

"Oh you poor dear," Kathy said, petting the cat lightly on the head, and Mrs. Norris completely ceased trying to escape.

"So you really didn't do it," Angela said to George, though with just enough question to it to invite George to still fess up if he was indeed responsible for the naked cat.

George shrugged with a smile. "Gotta hand it to Peeves, he sure picked the time and place to pass this off on Fred and me. Here we were, switching old Argus' Quickspell scrolls with flypaper, and suddenly this flying naked cat comes right at us, lands right on my head it did. Then ugly comes barging into the room and chases me and Fred halfway across the school."

"So where is Fred?" Angela asked.

George waved away the question nonchalantly. "We split up partways through, he'll turn up soon enough, I'm sure. Anyhoo, you two're trying to find a broom?"

"Uh, yeah." The change of topic was certainly sudden; Angela had all but forgotten why she was outside of Madam Hooch's locked office door.

George looked around to make sure the hallway was clear of prying eyes, then pulled out his wand. Before Angela could stop him he pointed the wand at the doorknob and cast an enchantment.

"Alohamora!" A sudden sparkle of orange light puffed from his wand-tip to the lock and with the quiet din of a click the door popped open a crack. He promptly pocketed his wand and motioned to the door for Angela to enter.

"No!" Angela protested, "I'm not going to steal a broom!"

"Now, now, it's not stealing," George rationalized, "you'll be returning it after all, right? Besides, no one is going to be using them over the holidays."

"Forget it." Angela crossed her arms defiantly and frowned at George.

"Cripes, I'm with a pair of little goody two-shoes here," he responded, rolling his eyes.

"Yes, and we're proud of it," said Kathy boldly, petting Mrs. Norris on the head and keeping her bundled up and warm in her cloak-sleeves. The cat was obviously enjoying the attention now, though she still eyed George viciously.

"Hey, I want to fly, but I'm not about to get expelled to do it."

"School is overrated, believe me." Neither girls budged from their positions and after a minute George sighed. "Fine, fine, I get the picture." He casually pulled the door shut and with a click it locked itself back up.

"Besides," Angela said, "what did you expect me to do, walk around the school with one of those things on my shoulder? First-years aren't allowed to have brooms, remember?"

"You two need to learn to live more dangerously," George said as though he were trying to imprint an important lesson upon the girls. "Risk is the spice that makes life so darn tasty, after all."

"Uh huh," Angela responded incredulously with a raised eyebrow. There was living regular-dangerously, and then there was living Weasley-dangerously; it was like comparing cherries and cherry-bombs, in her opinion.

The day had unfortunately passed broomless for Angela. Since they had waited for a while and Filch hadn't come back for his cat, the girls headed off to his office to see if they could find him there to return Mrs. Norris (George had headed off on his own to regroup with Fred). On the way, they found Professor Flitwick, who was quite surprised to see the cat completely bald; once they had convinced him they weren't the ones responsible for it, he cheerfully pulled out his wand and with a few swift twirls zapped the cat with a shot of blue energy. Mrs. Norris immediately fluffed up full of fur in Kathy's arms, though now she was in need of a little trim and possibly some relaxant too; Angela wondered why so many wizards she had seen were bald if there was obviously a counter-spell for male-pattern-baldness available at the wave of a wand.

Filch, who was just coming out of his office still looking absolutely exhausted, was indescribably euphoric and practically in tears when the girls handed a once-again-hairy Mrs. Norris to him; despite the fact he had run off without her, Mrs. Norris was equally happy to be reunited with Filch as well. As nice as it was to see him happy for once, his smile was so awful what with his horrible teeth and wrinkly face that the girls were silently relieved when he finally resumed his posture, a little embarrassed of his temporary lapse in character, and sent them on their way without so much as a thank you.

Over the course of the next week, students began to leave the school in droves. Despite the fact the school would soon be nearly empty, the faculty had done a marvelous job of decorating for the season: beautiful twinkling lights hung about the halls like stars and candles, wreaths of green, and some of the biggest Christmas trees Angela had ever seen up close were placed in the larger rooms and the Great Hall; the scent of fresh pine began to permeate the building, made sharper by the crisp air. Even ghosts were getting into the spirit of things, floating about and singing some very dreary Christmas carols; on more than one occasion, Angela spied Professor Dumbledore chatting pleasantly with a trio of unusual ghosts: one which was a small girl in white robes, a gigantic one with a mug of ghostly ale in his hand who reminded her a lot of Hagrid, and one that wore a black shroud, carried a scythe and looked like death itself. What with all the movement and suitcases, Hogwarts felt more like an airport terminal than a school at this point.

The biggest exodus occurred the following Friday as the Hogwarts Express carried its last load off for London. Jason and James tracked the girls down to say goodbye this day: Jason was off to see his father's side of the family back in the United States, while James didn't volunteer where he was off to, just that he had business in the non-magical world to attend to since he wasn't going to be at school. Before they headed out though, both boys handed the girls hand-wrapped packages with ribbons on them and wished them a merry Christmas before leaving. And with that the holiday season had officially begun.

With everyone gone, Hogwarts seemed more like a ghost town than anything, though even this was not exactly accurate since even the ghosts seemed to vanish for the season. The only one that seemed to have no social life was Professor Binns, who spent most of his time either in the library or in one of the armchairs in the teacher's lounge, asleep. Harry Potter was still there, as were Ron and Percy Weasley, though Fred and George had mysteriously (though not surprisingly) disappeared from the school grounds. A few of the faculty members, such as Quirrell, Snape, McGonagall and Dumbledore were still there too.

And of course Kathy was there, which made the whole experience extremely fun; not wanting either to be too particularly lonely in their house dormitories, both Flitwick and McGonagall gave the girls permission to stay in either dorm during the holidays, which made the whole thing even more enjoyable. Seeing as how Harry and Ron were bogarting the best fireside chairs in the Gryffindor common room, the girls decided they would spend most of their time in the Ravenclaw dorms instead.

"Who's this, then?" asked the painting of a stately man dressed as a college professor, his foot propped on a stack of books, a pair of wire-rimmed glasses perched on his hooked nose and his short black hair plastered greasily upon his tall head. Angela had a small bag with a change of clothes but was still dressed in her Gryffindor uniform at the moment.

"She's my friend," responded Kathy in a friendly manner to the tall painting. "She has permission to stay here for the holidays. E Pluribus Unum."

The man in the painting nodded and the picture swung to the side, allowing access to the Ravenclaw dorms. Once inside, Angela could see it really wasn't all that different from the Gryffindor common room: big fluffy chairs, nice fireplace with house emblem above it, tables for studying, announcement board on the wall. About the only real difference was the décor was more of a blue/white motif as opposed to Gryffindor's red/gold color scheme, and the fact that Ravenclaw's book shelves were considerably more organized and well-stocked. The only person present when Angela stepped in was a tall second-year girl with long, brown hair that didn't even look up from a phonebook-sized tome she was reading as the two came in.

The next few days were fantastic. Angela and Kathy spent all their time together, trying out different spells that they had learned over the last term, they sat in front of the fire and either read or drew pictures or snacked on the many desserts that seemed to find their way onto the plates on the house table, and they would often head outside and play in the snow as well. Angela was especially happy because this was the first time in her life she had actually spent her holiday with a friend that she knew she wasn't going to be swept away from any time soon. It was a shame James and Jason weren't around to play with as well, but Kathy was taking up quite a bit of her time as was so it was no major loss.

Christmas day came and the girls awoke to find presents placed beneath a beautiful tree in the corner of the Ravenclaw dorm room. Most of the presents were for Kathy, and Angela was a little disappointed at the fact that there were only a few for her, none of which were from her family; they may not have been the tightest knit kin out there, but they still tended to provide her with presents at all the pertinent dates. Angela considered that perhaps Percy just couldn't make another heavy-package run in the current weather conditions, and put the concern out of her mind: when the snow and wind eventually stopped in the near future odds are the owl would be able to make deliveries again. Still, the fact that she had received a few presents from non-relations was pretty cool: Kathy (a handmade wicker basket with a flower wreath laced around the handle), James (a series of patches of alternate Hogwarts and Gryffindor emblems she could stitch to her clothes or bags if she wanted; the word 'bags' was highlighted yellow on his note along with a drawn-in smiley face), Jason (a framed, colored drawing of her flying her broom through space zapping tie-fighters with her wand; it had been enchanted so the stars zipped past them as they flew), and funny enough one from Arthur Weasley (a thick, hand-knitted orange sweater with a big 'A' on it and a card from him and his wife). Kathy, on the other hand, had received something from Angela (a thick book of collected poetry from reputed wizards and witches over time), and numerous presents from her own parents and family members that somehow made it there through the weather, probably since there was no major ocean separating her from her family.

After presents had been opened, the girls had spent the afternoon out in the snow building snowmen and a snow fort, which it turned out protected them quite adequately from Fred and George who had finally shown up during the night and were now ganging up on her in a snowball barrage along with their brother Ron and Harry Potter; Angela was determined that during the next year she'd learn how to enchant the snowmen she and Kathy made to defend the base while they were inside. To her amusement, all the boys were also wearing sweaters knitted by Mrs. Weasley; even Percy, who was brooding inside, had one on.

Halfway through the day, Kathy said her goodbyes to Angela and in a burst of green smoke took the fireplace to her family's place to spend the rest of Christmas day. It was a shame she left, for Christmas dinner was an amazing experience that she would have liked to have shared: too many turkeys to count, mountains of sweet potatoes and vegetable casseroles and all types of delicious bread to choose from, not to mention the endless choices of sweets available and all the magical party favors. Every time a noisemaker was used or a tweeter or a slide-whistle made noise, something wondrous happened, be it an explosion of rainbow colors and magical streamers that danced through the air or even a rain of cartoonish, roundish stars with cute beady eyes (which was Angela's personal favorite), not to mention all the hidden prizes that kept popping up out of nowhere, either from the party favors or even in her desserts.

All the Weasleys were present, as were the remaining faculty members (minus Snape, Quirrell and Filch, surprise-surprise), Harry Potter, a couple of Gryffindor seventh-years, the second-year from Ravenclaw Angela had seen before, and a troupe of seven Hufflepuffs of varying years that despite all the fun looked utterly exhausted; she overheard Ron telling Harry that this was the Hufflepuff Quidditch team, who had been convinced by their captain to spend the entire holiday at school practicing for the upcoming season while everyone else was out getting soft over Christmas. Harry voiced that he was glad the Gryffindor team captain Oliver Wood hadn't found out about this or odds were there would be six more Gryffindors sitting at the table that evening. Everyone present (except it seemed for the lone Ravenclaw girl who just ate spartanly and resisted all attempts to get a smile out of her) was enjoying themselves immensely though; even the faculty was very much into the spirit of things, and Angela suspected from Hagrid's rosy cheeks and McGonagall's giggling that they had had more than a one cup of Christmas cheer that evening.

Angela spent that night back in her own bed, though the next morning Kathy had returned, a few more presents in hand, and the duo resumed their playtime once again.

A couple of days following Christmas, Angela and Kathy were out in the snowfield of the Flying practice grounds trying to use Wingardium Leviosa to construct the largest snowman they could manage, when a sudden series of loud thuds and what sounded like a tree being uprooted caught their ears; the thunderous noises came from the direction of the Forbidden Forest, specifically the small hut that Hagrid lived in.

"What the heck was that?"

Angela shrugged. She had no more idea than Kathy did.

Curious to see what the ruckus was, the girls carefully made their way over to a vantage point they could see Hagrid's from, trudging carefully through the deep snow while getting ready to bolt back to the school should anything unpleasant rear its head; Angela kept herself mindful of the gnawed-upon tree stumps from the last time she and Kathy had visited his home, so instead of walking right up to his house this time they made their way up to the castle battlements one floor up from the ground.

Alone in the white snow, its back against the dark and foreboding trees of the Forbidden Forest, sat the tiny hut, a thick plume of white smoke rising steadily from its single chimney. All looked nice and quiet now, no strange noises, though there were a number of gigantic, muddy indentations in the snow near the hut. Angela and Kathy moved about, huddling in their cloaks for warmth as they peered over the walls to the open grounds beyond, but still nothing out of the ordinary appeared.

And then, suddenly following a loud shout that sounded very much like Hagrid, a thick and leafless tree hurdled across the snow from behind his house. It flew a good thirty feet as it spun deftly across the powder, wobbling about clumsily in its trajectory parallel with the border of the forest, when launching itself out from behind the house was what had to have been the biggest three-headed dog Angela and Kathy had ever seen; considering they had only seen one three-headed dog before this, it may have sounded like a meaningless description, but as the animal was about the size of a bull elephant it still was an appropriate one. The dog, some sort of tri-headed black mastiff, moved with blinding speed, its three mouths slobbering in the cold air as it thudded across the ground with amazing power. As the tree came close to completing its flight, nearing the ground more and more, the monstrous dog closed the gap between them in no time at all and caught the tree in all three jaws simultaneously as it skimmed the snow, bringing itself to a sliding halt in the mud beneath the whiteness.

She had almost missed it, but catching movement from the corner of her eye, Angela spotted another tiny three-headed figure chasing the big dog. Or trying to, at any rate, as Pepper could barely get her head above the snow; in order to catch up to what must have been the dog Hagrid had so adeptly named Fluffy, the tiny puppy was trying to bound from footprint to footprint, each of her cute heads yapping the whole way. In the meantime, Fluffy was fiercely ripping the gigantic tree to pieces with its many mouths, shaking it about wildly and sending heavy chunks of bark and numerous branches in every direction.

"Wow," was all Kathy could say at the sight. Angela said nothing, as she was beginning to get worried at seeing Pepper closing the gap between herself and the giant three-headed machine of destruction.

The tiny dog finally reached the larger, and Pepper hopped around in one of the massive footprints, barking insanely at Fluffy; whether she wanted to play or was just trying to intimidate the mastiff Angela couldn't say, but whatever the case was Fluffy stopped rending the tree and looked down at Pepper almost amusedly. He then proceeded to drop the tree in front of the little dog and hunched up his rear end, his heads and front paws placed about the ground and his tail wagging playfully. With the tree on the ground, Pepper stopped barking and ran up to it, trying to get a grip on some of the remaining roots with her mouths and failing miserably to pull the tree away for herself. Meanwhile, Fluffy bounded about playfully (and coming dangerously close to landing on Pepper a number of occasions), barking what sounded like cannon explosions as his tail continued to whip about; with her prize in her possession, though, Pepper utterly ignored Fluffy and continued to try and take the tree for herself to play with.

"Bring it 'ere, Fluffy!" called Hagrid who had just emerged from behind the hut, and Fluffy promptly stopped hopping about and grappled the tree shaft with his central head, lifting it off the ground as though it were nothing and bounding back to his master. Halfway through the run, Pepper had finally lost her grip of the roots and went tumbling through the air and into the snow, left behind by her big brother who promptly dropped the tree on the ground in front of Hagrid and sat with a tail that slapped the snow heavily as it wagged. Hagrid just chuckled and walked over to help the little dog out of the snow.

As he picked the puppy out of the two-foot deep entrenchment, he looked up and made eye contact with the girls up on the battlements. "Good afternoon to ya!" he called with a wave. Kathy and Angela waved back enthusiastically, happy that they wouldn't have to cover any dangerous giant-dog-occupied ground to say their hellos.

Pepper noticed the girls and began to whine crazily, wagging her tail excitedly and trying to wiggle out of Hagrid's grip so she could run over to the twosome; Fluffy on the other hand was not anywhere as enthused to see strangers and began to bound across the snow rapidly, barking viciously and making short work of the distance between them. Angela and Kathy, both going wide-eyed, quickly backed off from the wall in a panic, which when Fluffy finally reached it was quite a good idea since his paws could easily reach over the edge.

"No! Bad Fluffy! Down!" yelled Hagrid as he ran across the snow to reach the giant dog. The dog continued to bark wildly and tried to pull himself over the wall with his paws, though he didn't have enough grip to do it effectively. The girls took no chances though and bolted into the nearby parapet tower, slamming the door behind them and climbing up one more floor.

When Hagrid finally reached the walls, he yelled at Fluffy a couple more times to get down and stop barking. When Fluffy ignored him and continued to try climbing the wall to get to the door the girls were behind, Hagrid had enough. He put down Pepper into the snow and, with one massive open palm, swatted the dog on the rear, hard.

One spank was all it took. Fluffy, immediately backed down off the wall and away from where the girls were; Angela and Kathy were now up at the top of the little tower and were looking out its single open-air window at the scene below. A dog as huge and ferocious as this one was certainly a different sight to see when it knew it had done something to get it in trouble: all three of Fluffy's heads dropped down submissively, a sad look on each one.

"No!" Hagrid said with a waggling of his finger, like a parent scolding a child. "Bad dog!" Fluffy whined at being reprimanded. Hagrid waved his finger a couple more times, but at the sight of his dog looking as apologetic as it did he obviously couldn't stay mad at it and proceeded to give it a loving hug and head-petting. Seeing that it wasn't in trouble any more, the dog bounded back up and barked happily; the walls of the parapet shook with the booming sound.

Sure that the danger had passed, Hagrid looked up at the tower with the girls. "It's okay, you kin come on down, he won' bite ya."

"We'll stay up here if that's okay with you," Angela called back down, taking no chances that Fluffy would change his mind and use the two as chew-toys.

"Naw, really, I promise. Fluffy's a good sport, aren't ya lad? Oh that's a good dog, that's a good dog, that is!" Fluffy was licking Hagrid happily with his three gigantic tongues, almost knocking him to the ground, while the giant man baby-talked the three-headed monster.

Hagrid continued to protest that Fluffy was utterly safe to be around, but the girls wouldn't come back to the ground-level until he had taken the giant dog back to the hut and tied him up nice and tight. After almost being devoured, neither girl was ready to take Hagrid's word that 'E's just a playful sort, 'e is. Pepper, on the other hand, was much more their speed; the little puppy just wagged its tail happily and hopped around the girls, yapping eagerly at the company.

"Poor fella," Hagrid said, looking back at the hut. "Ain't fun bein' cooped up in the school all day an' night, let me tell ya."

"It's nice of you to take him out for a little while," said Kathy. Had Fluffy not been so overtly vicious the twosome would have most-likely loved meeting the big dog, but Hagrid had a reputation for assuming everyone was as powerful as he was when it came to handling dangerous beasts and as such the girls weren't willing to just take him at his word that Fluffy had finally calmed down.

"Best when there's no one abouts," he said. "You kin see it takes a while fer 'im ter warm up t' strangers."

Angela picked Pepper up and was promptly licked by three different heads at once. "Where's your other dog, the black one?"

Hagrid shook his head. "Fang? 'E's hidin' in the house, not too fond of Fluffy, I'm afraid. But then again, 'e's scared of 'is own shadow, the big chicken."

Angela couldn't imagine why.

While Fluffy was something they wanted to avoid at all costs, Pepper was another story. The little dog was so cute and so fun to be around that Angela and Kathy wanted to make a point of seeing her every day they could during the holidays. Assuring them he would keep Fluffy out of the way while they were visiting, the girls made daily visits to Hagrid's hut to play with the little dog. It took an amazingly short time for Angela to teach Pepper the meaning of the word 'cookie', and after a while it became apparent that any mention of cookies had to be addressed as 'the C-word' or by spelling it out letter-by-letter. And as Hagrid was a jolly sort of man, it was always nice to spend time in his presence; the man seemed to know quite a bit about magical creatures and spoke fondly of beasts that any normal soul wouldn't have touched with a one-hundred-foot-long pole. As Hagrid was a member of the faculty, being groundskeeper and all, Angela at one point attempted to get him to help her track down a broom and observe her as she flew, but Hagrid turned her down saying even if he had a broom to loan her (all he had was a beat-up flying motorcycle) he was far from qualified to make sure she didn't get hurt in a flying accident; again, Angela was forced to await Madam Hooch's return.

Then, three days before the second-term was about to start, Angela and Kathy noticed something strange on the way to the hut. The snow was deep as usual and there was quite a bit of it falling from the sky. A few students had returned, but the larger groups weren't expected for at least another day or two. As their boots crunched into the thick white snow, their vision almost completely obscured by the precipitation and foggy haze, they came across a very curious sight: large tire-tracks were carved into the snowdrift leading to the hut; aside from Arthur Weasley's car and Hagrid's bike, Angela hadn't seen a modern vehicle in months. In between the long tire-marks were massive footprints that could have only been Hagrid's.

The girls continued to trudge through the snow when they could finally see the hut nearby. The tracks were leading around to the side of the house out of view; Angela thought about taking a glance around to see what had left the impressions in the snow, but it was cold and she wanted to warm her feet in front of Hagrid's fire before doing any further exploring. Besides, the last time she and Kathy had snuck around to the other side of the hut they were greeted by a slobbering Fang, and who knew what surprises Hagrid had back there; maybe a circus truck with a pack of wild manticores or something equally horrible...

Kathy went and prepared to knock on the door, when suddenly the hairs on Angela's neck began to bristle. It was only a second, but through the crunching of the snow under their shoes and the blowing snow the young girl had heard something that sounded very familiar from the hut. She wasn't sure what it could have been, until she quickly recognized the sound, the voice, coming from within the hut.

Kathy knocked on the door, and Hagrid's voice came from inside. "Comin', comin'," he said as he always did, and he opened the door enough for the girls to get in without too much snow joining them. The girls stepped in.

"Hi, Ang!" said Sheri, sitting on one of Hagrid's oversized chairs and drinking a cup of tea. Pepper was sitting in her lap.

Angela was stunned into shock. Her mother was there. It took her a moment to realize it, until Sheri came up and hugged her, bringing to earth the reality of the situation.

"Merry Christmas! Well, a little late, but happy New Year anyway! Sorry it took me so long to get here, I sent a letter to the Ministers of Magic with your owl, he is so useful, and they just got around to helping me bring the trailer out here."

"Mom!" Angela finally said. "Hi!"

"Yer mum got 'ere a couple o' hours ago," Hagrid said, a little relief in his eyes; undoubtedly, Sheri had been talking his ears off since she got there, and now maybe he could hoist her off onto Angela for a respite. "She's been tellin' me all 'bout 'er trip. An' 'er booths and such," he confirmed. "Very interestin'," he lied.

"Oh, before I forget, this is for you." Sheri picked up a large box that had been sitting next to her chair. It was addressed to Angela and had string about it, as though it was ready to be shipped via owl; good thing Percy never had to actually carry this load. "These are your Christmas presents, I felt so bad that you couldn't get them before now."

"Really?" Angela lit up a little; having her mother present at Hogwarts, where she had been mentally separating herself from her past life rather effectively until now, was a very disorienting experience, but she was about to get all the Christmas presents she hadn't gotten before, so the visit had at least started off on a positive spin.

"And I got to meet this nice man, Mister Hagrid." Sheri smiled at Hagrid in the way Angela was all too familiar with; she wondered just how much the giant man was capable of lifting at one time. "Did you know he takes care of the grounds at your school?"

"Um, yes Mom, I know."

"And he's really strong, too! Why, he pulled my camper through the snow all the way from the train station with his own hands!"

"He what?"

"Well, er," Hagrid started, "Muggle-machines-"

"'Muggle', that means people who don't know magic. I guess that means you're not a Muggle, Angee."

"I know, Mom."

"Um," Hagrid tried to continue, "Muggle-machines don't work right near Hogwarts - too much magic in the air, you see - so we jus' put it in neutral and I pulled it up to the school fer now."

"You made him drag the camper up from the train station?" Angela could already feel the onset of that familiar mother-induced migraine coming. "That's over a mile. In the snow. Uphill in the snow."

"Oh don't worry, he does stuff like that all the time, right?"

Hagrid nodded politely with a smile. He might have moved lots of heavy things in his time, but Angela was fairly sure he didn't enjoy doing it in these kind of conditions. And a camper-truck certainly wasn't the same thing as a tree or some boxes.

"And did you see this?" Sheri bent down and picked up Pepper, who was certainly more than happy to see Angela and Kathy and was wiggling about amusingly. "Three heads! This dog has three heads, I've never seen anything like it! Isn't she funny?"

Petting the little dog on the heads, Angela took a deep breath and tried to keep an upbeat attitude. Okay, so her mother was here without any warning, that wasn't so bad: she had wanted to spend the holidays with her anyway.

"Oh, sorry," Angela said, "I forgot to introduce you. Mom, this is my friend Kathy. Kathy, this is my mother Sheri Cross." The young girl motioned to her friend, who smiled and waved politely.

"Hello," Sheri said politely, barely noticing the young girl.

"Hi," said Kathy, "Angela's told me a lot about you."

"Oh?" Sheri said, suddenly sensing an audience. "She must have told you I work in antiques and primitives then? It's good work. When the prospects were too dry I tried being a clerk for a law firm for a little while, but that fell through, so I went back to boothing. Unfortunately it's always hard to find a good place to open a stall where you'll get a lot of people to see your goods. Not to mention I can't always move the antiques around myself and sometimes need someone local to help me out, and if you just can't find someone in those towns willing to help you out then you're pretty much out of luck; Angela's too small to help me lift the bigger things, you see. Sometimes I can find a nice man willing to help me since the antique stores don't always help you carry things in from your truck, but it's hard to find a good man that's any use for that sort of thing." She looked at Hagrid and smiled as she said this, while he just looked around a little embarrassed.

The pause lasted for about three seconds as Sheri began again, now telling everyone about the theme she had set up for a booth she had in Broken Arrow for the holidays. Kathy and Hagrid just listened politely, though it was obvious both were trying to find an opening in Sheri's unending spiel to change the subject. Angela meanwhile was trying to keep from losing her temper in front of her friends. Despite the fact that she tried to block out most of her mother's talk about antiquing, as it always seemed to be the same rant from her, she did notice one thing that began to leave an uneasy feeling creeping into her stomach: Sheri had for once not mentioned any of the booths she was currently running.

"So Mom," Angela said, interrupting her mother partway through a sentence about how much gas she used to drive her goods between stores, "how did you get the whole camper here from Broken Arrow?"

"Those nice Ministry people helped me bring it. I'm telling you, if I could figure out how to send stuff from one place to another by throwing it into a fire, I'd have booths all over the world."

"They had you drive the truck into a fire?"

"No. At least, I don't think so. That's how they got me over here, I don't know how they got the truck over here. I just told them that I needed it and they said they could have it over the next morning. Then they put it on the train, brought us out here, and that's that. Oh, and they told me that bringing the truck out here cost a certain amount, but I don't have any magic-people money, so I figured you could cover me with that money the government gave you."

"I... see." During her stay at Hogwarts, Angela had used very little of her stipend funds for anything, so paying for transporting a truck wasn't a terrible ordeal, though the fact her mother did this and then just assumed she had the money did irk the young girl quite a bit. "How much was it?"

"Um. Hold on." Sheri rummaged around in her pocket and pulled out a scrap of parchment paper the looked like a receipt. "Thirty galleons. How much is that?"

Hagrid and Kathy coughed loudly at this; Angela was still getting used to the value of wizard-currency in relation to Muggle-money, but even she knew this was expensive as heck.

"Is that a lot?" Sheri asked.

"A couple week's salary fer me," said Hagrid under his breath.

"I hope that's for shipping the camper both ways. You know, Mom, there are inns in the town near here, you could have just stayed at one of those instead of bringing the whole thing."

"No, I had to bring the camper, it's got all my stuff in it. And it's just one-way shipping."

There is a certain sensation people have, when they hope against all hope that they are actually wrong about considering something, yet in their hearts they know no matter how much they beg and plead within themselves for something to not be the case that it, in fact, is. That very feeling now permeated the young girl as she considered both the present situation, balanced with the history of her mother. Yet she continued to hope that she was wrong in her assumptions anyway. Sheri's next words put that hope to rest.

"Oh, did I tell you? I finally sold the house."

Stunned silence. "You sold the house." A pause. "You sold the house?" Sheri nodded in response. "No, you didn't tell me."

"Well, I actually have you to thank for that. I've been wanting to move out of that little town forever anyway and when I got that letter from you saying that you got in trouble and had to stay for the holidays-"

"I didn't get in trouble, Mom."

Sheri looked surprised. "Oh. Well, what did you expect me to think? That owl came to the house and had that letter in its mouth and I thought you had done something to get you in detention or something." Kathy and Hagrid, thankfully, said nothing about Angela blowing up part of the school. "And so I thought to myself that a little girl shouldn't be living without some kind of parent around, you need some kind of discipline growing up, right? And I was thinking about moving anyway-"

Rolling her eyes at the gall her mother had at claiming she provided any sort of real parental influence on her, Angela could already see where this was headed. That very feeling of dread that she knew was coming finally reared its ugly head.

"Mom, you can't live at the school in the camper."

"Why not?" It was a matter-of-fact question, as though there were no other option now that she brought the whole thing out to England with her. "Hagrid lives here."

"Hagrid works here."

"I can find a job here."

Angela looked at Kathy and Hagrid with such an apologetic expression; she and her mom were once again getting into it, and it was in front of two friends. Kathy looked back at her, obviously aware and sympathetic of her lousy predicament, while Hagrid just looked down as though he had just noticed something fascinating with the floorboards and wasn't aware some argument was brewing.

"Mom, lets go out to the camper and talk about this, ok?"

"I don't see why I can't work at the school," Sheri continued on, obviously hurt that her daughter wasn't as enthusiastic as she was about this move.

"Mom, you don't know anything about magic, what could you possibly do at the school?"

"Maybe I can learn some myself and then teach it. I've been a substitute teacher before."

"You can't learn magic, Mom."

"Why not? You are."

Kathy cut in, trying to come to her friend's rescue. "Actually, Mrs. Cross, only certain people born with magical ability can learn magic. Muggles just can't make spells work."

"Angela wasn't born with magic, though."

"... What?" Both Kathy and Hagrid looked at Sheri confusedly, then at Angela. Angela, meanwhile, was trying to salvage this situation before her mother dug her into any deeper a hole.

"That's different. Look, Mom, you can't teach here at the school. They already have enough magic teachers who have been studying this stuff for decades. ...And they all graduated from here, too," she tacked on, hoping it would seem like you had to be an alumnus to be an instructor.

"Well... I bet none of the students here know anything about American History, maybe I could teach that."

Angela groaned. "Mom, this is England. No one here needs to learn American History. Besides, just how much history do you know anyway?"

"I can read up on it."

"Mom-"

Hagrid raised his finger politely. "Beggin' yer pardon, Missus Cross, if I may. But I'm afraid the staff at Hogwarts is already well filled-out."

"Oh." Sheri sounded particularly disappointed; Angela suspected her mother had come out to the school just expecting things to work out in her favor. "Well, what am I going to do then? I already sold the house and everything."

The migraine was already in full swing, with ulcers quickly following; Sheri made it sound as though Hagrid or someone else had convinced her to come out under false pretenses. And Sheri actually had the audacity to bring all this drama up in front of complete strangers, too... Angela had already been more than happy to get away from all this, she hadn't needed any reinforcement on the matter.

"Well now, it ain't so bad as you might think," Hagrid said consolingly. "The town a' Hogsmeade is just down the ways a bit, an' you said it yerself that you know lots about Muggle goods an' such. I'm bettin' you kin find a good place t' set up shop there if you want."

From the light that went off behind her eyes, Angela could see Hagrid had saved the day. While Sheri was probably aware, at least slightly, of a neighboring town's existence, she suddenly realized she had a dream situation she had never had before: there were good odds no one in the wizarding world had an antique booth that sold Muggle merchandise.

"You know, that's right," Sheri said, the wheels turning so fast in her head a person could almost hear them clatter about. "I was going to start some booths out here but no one here has anything from the U.S., I bet I can sell a lot of stuff! When do you think you can help me, Mister Hagrid?"

"Um..."

"Mom! Don't be rude! And he works here, he doesn't have time to do manual labor for you."

"No, no, quite alright," the large man said in response, waving his hand dismissively with a smile. "Always happy to help out a family in need."

Angela groaned once more. Just like that, her mother had moved back into her life... This was going to be a long school year, indeed.