The Hufflepuff Trickster

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the names you see before you. Except for Sarah and Jake - but J.K. Rowling owns their last names.

Chapter One: Sarah, Elfin and Short.

"Looking forward to your sixth year at Hogwarts, Miss Fawcett?"

Sarah Fawcett, looked up from her mint toast smothered with chocolate that had nearly reached her mouth to see her Head of House, Professor Spout, standing in front of her with a large pile of parchments in her hands.

"Of course," she smiled.

Professor Sprout mimicked Sarah's smile and placed the papers next to her. "Oh, that's better. Don't know how many times I nearly dropped them coming here. Now, Sarah, if you could please give all these to the Hufflepuff students before classes start, I would be grateful. Prefects duty."

Sarah's smile faltered as she looked at the large pile, but somehow managed a cheerful, "All right," as the Professor left. She looked at the first piece of parchment and read, 'Sarah Fawcett - 9:00 Potions (with Ravenclaw)' and squeezed her eyes closed, hoping that what she just read was a mistake. But when she opened them again, the words hadn't changed. Receiving her timetable was probably the least anticipated thing about returning to Hogwarts. Sarah looked at the pile with disgust, but thought out loud, "I'll hand them out right after breakfast." She picked up her slice of toast and was about to put it in her mouth when she heard a chuckle from behind.

"Nothing can get you away from eating your breakfast," Jake Stebbins, a tall boy with chocolate brown hair laughed and sat down next to her, even though he was a Ravenclaw.

Sarah sighed in annoyance and shoved the toast in her mouth. "I'm hoping that if I eat lots, I'll grow at least another two metres. Then at least I might be as tall as some of the first years."

Sarah was short. Very short. She was so humiliatingly short that one of the Gryffindor girls mistook her for a House Elf. This was very annoying as the girl kept trying to get Sarah to join something called S.P.E.W. As well as being short, Sarah had elfin features. She had a thin face with big, bright blue eyes and (though she denies it) not-so-small ears. Her blond hair cascaded down her back like a waterfall of gold. It was quite understandable that she was mistaken for an elf. But being short wasn't her only problem. No, the worse thing was that Sarah was clumsy. She had beaten Neville Longbottom for the record of melting, burning, blowing up, disintegrating, and utterly destroying cauldrons in Potions. (She was amazed that she had even become a Prefect at all). Draco Malfoy, who was a year younger but still quite taller than her, found it enjoyable watching Sarah turn red with embarrassment. She had gotten so used to getting teased by Malfoy that she turned red before he had even approached her, just to save time.

Sarah shook her head to forget that thought and, with a mouth full of toast, muttered, "Besides, I eat more when I'm nervous."

"What is there to be nervous about - Oh!" Sarah had handed him the top piece of parchment and pointed to her first class. "You haven't, have you?"

"Hey, just remember that you are in that class as well."

"Thank-you very much, I was trying to forget. I take it that Snape is still teaching." They both looked up at the Head Table and saw their least favourite teacher with his long, greasy black hair falling in his face. He looked up and gave them a piercing glance. Sarah and Jake spun their heads around so fast that they knew they were in for a bad case of whiplash.

"You know," Sarah said standing up to begin handing out the timetables, "I was thinking about sending him some sort of plague over the holidays. Mum wouldn't allow it. Of course, Mum wasn't exactly in a cheerful mood over the holidays. She was helping Mrs Diggory out most of the time." Sarah felt some of the people around her look up at the sound of the name.

"How are the Diggory's going?" Jake asked hesitantly.

"Better now. It was hard at first. Mum, Dad and I did as much as we could - you know, living next door to them and all."

At the end of the last school year, Cedric Diggory had been killed by Lord Voldemort. Sarah's family were good friends with the Diggory's. Sarah had known Cedric for many years, and she came to look at him as a long lost brother. Though his death happened over three months ago, the students were still in shock.

Potions was actually worse than she thought it was going to be. All the Hufflepuff students wore solemn faces and were very quiet. When Snape had asked a Hufflepuff student for an answer, the boy just shrugged and lowered his head to look at the desk. It was obvious that Snape was getting extremely annoyed by this because he deducted points from anyone who didn't look as though they were concentrating. (Everyone knew he made up any excuse just to deduct points). And it didn't stop there. Not only did Sarah melt Jake's cauldron and caused a chain reaction of fires in everyone else's cauldron, but splattered Snape with what Jake called a "slimy puce coloured blob of mush that looked as though it would attack any minute". Sarah though he might have been right when it leapt from the cauldron, rolled along the floor and started climbing up the nearest person's leg - which just happened to be Snape's.

"Stupid girl. I suppose you think this is entertaining, Miss Fawcett?" he hissed as he tried to tear the goo from his leg.

Sarah gulped. "No sir."

At that moment Sarah realised that the entire class were laughing. Ordinarily this would have upset her, but she felt quite the opposite to being upset. She had made the Hufflepuff student's laugh! For that one tiny moment they forgot about their worries and genuinely laughed. And at that same moment, a bright light bulb lit up in Sarah's mind.

"Miss Fawcett? Miss Fawcett! Are you listening to me?" Snape was yelling from only a few centimetres away. This caused Sarah to snap to attention.

"Yes sir."

"Ten points will be taken from Hufflepuff for your foolish mistake. See that it never happens again! Class dismissed."

As Sarah walked out of the dungeons, and made her way up the steps, she noticed some of the students still smiling and repeating to their friends what had just happened.

"Hey Jake," Sarah began, "I've just had a brilliant idea."

Jake tried to hide a surprised look and asked, "And what, my dear Sarah, would that be?"

"Well, back in Potions, while that thing was trying to bite Snape's leg off, everyone stopped worrying about Cedric and You-Know-Who, and laughed."

"At your expense, might I add," Jake pointed out.

"Yes, but that's beside the point," Sarah said irritably. "Laughter can help heal the soul. That is what Hogwarts needs - someone who is willing to make people laugh!"

They turned a corner, not noticing that a certain pair of redheaded Gryffindor boys had just overheard Sarah's last sentence with interest. Walking out into the huge courtyard, Sarah and Jake sat down on a concrete bench.

"And you are going to do that?" Jake asked.

Sarah nodded. "I wasn't planning to do it alone though."

"No way! I am not going to make a complete fool of myself." Jake looked around at all the faces that had turned his direction. He had said that a little too loud.

"I'm not asking you to. You would be my sidekick." Sarah stood up to leave.

"Hey, I am nobodies sidekick!" Jake spurted out and ran to catch up to her.

"So Fred, what do you think that was all about?" said one of the redheaded boys to the other.

"I don't know, George. But I'm dying to find out!"