Marauders, the next generation

Screaming, lots of screaming

That night I couldn't sleep. It wasn't that I was scared, I wasn't scared. Maybe anxious or nervous, but not scared. Certainly not terrified. I was worried. Well, wouldn't you be if you had just been attacked by vampires solely because of the colour of your hair?. Gregory solemnly handing me a sharp pencil before bed hadn't helped.

I thought I heard something. I sat bolt straight and my hand groped for the pencil. I pointed it at the room at large but there was nothing there. Just the big empty room and the mirror. The mirror. I slipped out of bed and padded over to it. I watched as my reflection held out its hand out as I touched the mirror. There was nothing wrong with it, a perfectly ordinary mirror. It didn't even compliment you like the ones we have at home. I didn't miss the one at home, it was rather disconcerting to be brushing your teeth and having the mirror constantly pointing out the bits that you missed. This mirror was perfectly ordinary and, in a place like Hogwarts, that was odd.

That night, there was something about it that bothered me. For some reason I couldn't get a phrase I'd once read in a book out of my head. A Witch should never get caught between two mirrors. I had no idea why I kept thinking that; there was only one mirror.

As I stared at it, I couldn't help noticing a shadow behind the mirror. I don't think I would have noticed it if I wasn't so highly strung that night. It may have only been a figment of my imagination. It may have been something I subconsciously made up afterwards to explain what I did next. I grabbed my wand and pointed it at the mirror.

"Alohomora!"

A segment of the mirror swung forwards. Behind it was a musty corridor. Some forgotten thing that just screamed secret lair. I took a few steps forward, it echoed. I gasped and fled back in to my room, then realised how silly that was and walked confidently back out in to the corridor. It was completely empty.

This shouldn't have been happening. Everyone knows that girls that go through mirrors come out in wonderful fairylands. Then again, they also talk to Mr Bluebird and once you're there, there's nothing for it but the chainsaw.

I considered going back to get Gregory but thought against it. I was a strong, confident almost-teenager; I could handle anything this dank place threw at me.

Even now I realise how dumb I was back then.

I wandered down the corridor, looking around at the soggy decor. This place was crumbling away. No wonder it had been boarded up. Something hit home and I realised how stupid I'd been. It was just an old corridor, nothing mysterious or romantic. It was been boarded up and unused for so long that it had been forgotten. They'd built the girl's dormitory right next to it and put a mirror over a wall that just happened to contain a door. Then I'd opened it with my spell and voila, there I was.

I was just about to turn and leave when something caught my eye. There was movement in a room just off the corridor. There was a doorway there that, unlike the others, wasn't boarded up. It fact it was wide open and there was a movement inside. I edged my way near it. As I approached I could hear a high-pitched squeaking inside. I peered round the doorway. The room seemed to be completely empty. Inside my head an argument raged. One side of me was saying I was just being silly. I was highly strung. Who wouldn't be when they'd just been attacked by vampires that very day? The other side, that side that always tried to make you feel like an idiot. The side that always tells you your plans won't work and that they'll end in destruction. That side was still protesting that something was seriously up and, just to stay in character I felt, that I was too wimp to find it out. I stepped straight in to the room mostly to prove it wrong but ended up proving it right.

As soon as I was fully in the room I was surrounded by black bats, swooping all around me, turning the already dark air, pitch lack. All I could hear were wings flapping and bats squeaking, all I could see were beady black eyes and unusually bright white teeth. I screeched and tried to hit the ugly creatures away but they closed it, completely surrounding me, their wings brushing off my skin. I opened my mouth to scream but couldn't. I was too scared.

For coming towards me, through the cloud of bats was a figure dressed in a long black cloak. The bats simply removed themselves from the space he was moving in. It was like he had a bat free shield around him while the horrible rodents were trying to batter me to death.

Everything was happening at once. I thought, for a moment, I heard a child scream. The figure raised his arm towards me. The bats scattered and I ran. I turned, ran out the room, ran down the corridor, ran in to my dormitory and just kept going. I ran up the stairs, in to the common room and up the tower leading to the boys' dormitories. I pushed open the door to the First-year boy's room and only then did I stop. Gregory's four-poster bed was the only one with the curtains drawn. I ran over to it and pulled back the curtains. Gregory had already been woken up by my entrance and was sitting upright in bed. He took one look at my face and his anger turned to concern.

"Kettle," he said, "What's wrong?"

I was aware that I was breathing very fast.

"Bats," I gasped, "Scream."

"Was it the vampires?"

I shrugged and promptly fainted.

***

Lucy gaped at me.

"I don't believe it!" she cried.

I stared at her.

"You don't believe it!" I exclaimed. "I was there and I don't believe it."

"It was so scary," Gregory put in.

I turned to stare at him.

"You weren't there."

He blushed.

"I mean when you came in," he said hurriedly. "She was white as a sheet. Gasping for breath as if she'd been drowned. Then she fainted, just like that. Collapsed on the floor. I didn't know what to do."

It was the first day of the new term. I was explaining to Lucy and Joseph what happened on Christmas night.

"It was probably a vampire," concluded Joseph in a way that said 'probably' was not really on the agenda.

I nodded and absentmindedly scratched my shoulder. Gregory watched me cautiously. He was the only one who knew about my birthmark. I hadn't told the others just in case they freaked out.

I could predict their reactions perfectly. Lucy would gasp then start talking in a squeaky voice about how that meant I was related to Voldemort or Slytherin or someone. Then, while I tried to calm her down, she'd be able to convince me, anyone who was listening, five dogs (who'd be the only ones who could hear her at this point) and a passing bird that she was right.

If I told Joseph he would consider it for a while then begin telling me basically the same as Lucy. Except not as hysterically or well explained. But he would, being much smarter than Air Jet, be slowly edging away as he said it.

It was bad enough Gregory giving me odd looks; I didn't need my other friends avoiding me. Ever since she'd got back, Laura had been giving me apologetic looks. I guessed she'd heard about what happened.

I was fed up. I was fed up of people asking me about the vampire event (The one near the kitchens, no one knew about the hidden corridor), teachers giving me encouraging looks and the girls in my dorm kept stopping talking when I walked in the room. Everyone was acting as if something might happen to me any moment. I wanted to do something. Something that would take their minds put me for just a minute. That's all I needed!

"Guys," I said, "Now we know where the kitchens are, a whole new range of excellent pranks are at our finger tips. I have an idea."

***

It was quarter to six the next evening. Dinner had been made and was being prepared to be sent up to the great hall. Joseph, Gregory, Lucy and I crept down to the kitchens. I put my back to the painting and tried to recreate what I did on Christmas day. As the picture gave way I jumped up.

"You tickled the pear," Joseph told me.

I nodded my thanks. As we entered the kitchens the house-elves looked up at us.

"Where's tonight's dinner?" Lucy asked politely.

The house-elves pointed over at five large tables, set up exactly in the same way as the tables in the great hall above. They were already laden with food, ready to be sent up on command.

I nodded at Gregory, he nodded back. I nodded at Lucy, she also nodded. Finally I nodded at Joseph, he nodded back; we were ready.

I jumped forward and thrust my arms out in a way reminiscent of the way I did it on Christmas with the Vampires.

"I never wanted to be a student!" I declared, "I wanted to be a house-elf!"

All the house-elves stared at us, probably out of shock that I, a witch, actually wanted to be a house-elf. Lucy crept away.

"Leaping from stair to stair," I continued, loudly as I could. "As I polish the suits of Armour. With my best dishcloth by my side, I'd sing, sing, sing!

I'm a house-elf and I'm okay,

I work all night and I work all day!"

Joseph and Gregory came in with a deep bass chorus.

"She's a house-elf and she's okay

She works all night and she works all day!"

"I stoke the fires,

I cook their Lunch,

I clean the lavatories!

On Wednesdays I go shopping,

And cook buttered scones for tea!"

"She stokes the fires,

She cooks their Lunch,

She cleans the Lavatories!

On Wednesdays she goes shopping,

And cooks buttered scones for tea!

She's a house-elf and she's okay!"

Lucy crept back over and nodded at me. I nodded at Gregory and Joseph. They quickly turned the last line in to a rall.

"She works all night and she works allllllllllllll daaaaaaaaaaaaay!"

"Thank you kitchens!" finished Gregory before we dived out. "You rock!"

We ran up to the Great Hall, giggling all the way.

"Why'd we have to put it in ours as well?" Lucy asked.

"Because if we were the only ones in the entire hall this not happening too," stated Joseph, "We might as well paint a huge, flashing sign above our heads saying 'We pranked you all, please beat us up.'"

"Nicely put," I said.

We were going to put it in everyone's but ours until Joseph pointed that little tit-bit out for me.

"Well spotted Joey."

"Joseph."

"Whatever," I said, scratching my shoulder again. "Same difference."

Joseph frowned. "You keep scratching that shoulder," he said suspiciously. "Is there something wrong with it?"

I was impressed; Joseph was smarter than I had given him credit for.

"Did one of the vampire bats bite you?!"

But Lucy was just as apt at jumping to conclusions. I saw Gregory sigh and shake his head.

"No," I said, trying to sound casual. "Must be a mosquito bite."

Lucy relaxed. "Maybe you should go to the Hospital wing to get a cream of some sort?" she suggested.

"Nah," I said, "Best to ignore it."

We continued our assent for a while in silence.

"Strange," mused Joseph as we approached the doors of the Great Hall. "It's not as if I've noticed any mosquitoes flying about."

Dinner was a lot of fun. The Corsairs and I just tucked in, avoiding talking to each other or meeting anybody's eye. The first sounds came from the Hufflepuff table.

"What's going on!" someone squeaked.

And I mean actually squeaked. Have you ever sped up a piece of music some how and listened to a serious, depressing song in a way that made the artists sound like they were on pep pills? Or inhaled helium giving you that extraordinarily high-pitched voice? It was exactly like that.

Soon the hall was full of squeaks. Lucy was the first to erupt in to a spasm of giggles, Joseph was grinning like anything and Gregory was trying to annoy everyone around him so they would burst out at him to shut up, a lot funnier when the person is under a squeaky speaking spell. I smiled smugly at everybody then started to conduct myself in a truly appropriate TV theme tune.

"We're the Chipmunks!"

Across the table, Laura Potter joined in.

"Alvin, Simon, Theodore! Doo, doo, doo doo doo doo! Doo doo doo-doo doo doo!"

Even when I left, after the main bulk had rushed off to find out what happened and when the potion had worn off, there was still a lot of laughter. I reckoned it was a prank that would go down in history. For centuries afterwards students would look at the wall of pranksters and go,

"Gregory Weasley, Lione Davies, Joseph Bower and Lucy Malfoy. Weren't they those pranksters that pulled that huge squeaky voice prank on the entire school centuries ago?"

"Yeah! We'll never be able to match up to that!"

Needless to say I left the hall with rather a big head. Lucy was waiting for me outside.

"What's up with you, Kettle?" she asked.

"What'd you mean?" I queried, absent-mindedly scratching my birthmark. Lucy didn't appear to notice.

"You don't usually enact revenge," she commented.

I laughed. "You've been reading too many Gothic murder stories," I said, "And besides, pranking is all about revenge."

Lucy couldn't have looked more shocked if I had told her that her brother was, in reality, a large purple hamster that had found a way to turn it's self in to a human being.

"No," she cried, "It isn't. You've always said that, Lee. Sometimes it's about giving people what they deserve. Reaping what they sow. Taste of their own medicine, that sort of thing. But never revenge. It's all a bit of fun you said. Anyone who takes it seriously doesn't have a very good sense of humour and will probably end up lonely and miserable anyway. That's exactly what you said, I checked with Joseph."

I turned on her. I actually turned on the poor girl. Shorter than me, more venerable than me and I turned on her.

"Do you listen to everything I say?" I demanded.

I swear I saw tears prick in her eyes. Her face was an expression of anger and betrayal. But there was a hint of morbid curiosity. She stepped closer to me, screwing up her eyes as if she was trying to see something more clearly. I realised she was examining my face.

"What?"

"Something's different about you," Lucy said, "And not just your attitude. Your eyes. There's something seriously up with your eyes."

I sighed. "They were always that pale," I said, "It's not my fault."

Lucy suddenly looked panicked. She started to back away.

"Y...y...yeah," she stuttered, "Of course. I've got to... I'm just... I gotta go. See you in the common room Lee."

She scarpered.