Arrival at Hogwarts
Alright, I had some difficulty posting the previous bit. Trouble with LJ. Misspellings. Not enough /fic. But I think I have edited it passably. It ought to be read-able now.
I ought to have mentioned earlier, this story arc takes place before the events of Valentine's Day, which was years back and we still have yet to write our way out of. But I think this is more interesting. In it, Wheel and Weaver Black (The Double Double U's) visit Hogwarts in the guise of semi-ignorant (re: normal) children.
A plump woman with a clean apron and kindly smile slid back the door. "Anything off-" she began to speak, but Sammy was irritated at being intruded upon. Or maybe he was embarrassed to speak to an elder with a mouth jammed full of pink Big League Chew. Perhaps he was just itching to do something even if it was wildly inappropriate. Whatever the reason, as soon as the door opened he began opening his black case.
A beam of greenish light shot from the skull-tip of the obsidian rod and disintegrated the plump woman into a pile of sizzling ash.
"Jesus fuck," exclaimed Fizzlewick. Sammy and he both stared at the dark smear where the woman had been seconds ago. They noticed that she had, prior to her instant death, been trundling a cart of sweets down the passage between train compartments. "Jesus fuck," Fizzlewick repeated, better words abandoning him.
"Shit. I'm going to put this away," Sammy said. He carefully replaced the rod into its case.
"You're in trouble, Sammy."
"I am not!" he protested. However, his shrill words couldn't un-murder the lady from the sweets trolley. And he realized, after he'd blurted them out, that his voice might be heard by others through the open door. "We should get that cart in here."
Fizzlewick nodded.
They looked warily up and down the train, then awkwardly shoved the woman's cart into their private compartment. The cart took up a lot of the space. Even with the door closed again, the presence of the cart was pretty incriminating.
"We'd better get rid of this," Fizzlewick said.
"I'll save the candies," Sammy heroically volunteered to empty the cart, dumping most of its contents onto his seat in a jumbled pile.
"Jolly good show, Sam," Fizzlewick said with sarcasm. He produced his tethaman once more, and twirled it expertly. He made a few passes overhead, then began to recite, "Sword of Omens, hear my call: give me the might, the muscle - "
"That's not how it goes."
"Shut up, you fucker." He moved the spinning charm forward and it sliced off a section of the sweet cart in its arc. The removed section crumpled in upon itself. "Yeah, who's the man? Who's the man?"
"Youf da man," Sammy said. He had traded his wad of gum for a pumpkin pasty. However, even though it may have been magical, he was discovering it required the same degree of chewing as mundane food to prevent choking. He compensated for this disappointing fact by enjoying another pasty more cautiously.
After eating a few more items, Sammy felt content. "Damn, I need a ... A." He was confused. He knew he needed something. He was sure of it. But he was full of screaming chocolate fairies, Scrungy Munge's Every Synthesis of Pleasing Flavor Alchebeans™, licorice flails, Nixie Stix, sour Evil Eyes, and the pumpkin pasties. What was this strange craving he was left with - this tingling sensation on the back of his tongue? It was perplexing.
"What?" asked Fizzlewick. He had finished banishing the dead woman's incriminating cart and was now enjoying the spoils Sammy Suicide lately had.
"I need something. But I don't know what."
"You're thirsty?" He was confused as well, now. Normally Sammy didn't seem so retarded. "Here, have this Ecto-Cooler. But you owe me."
Sammy sipped on the box of green juice, soon producing slurping noises from the bottom of the partly imploded juicebox. "Nope. That wasn't it." He seemed kind of edgy to Fizzlewick.
"Well, you can't have my thermos." Fizzlewick jealously moved his Captain Bucky O'Hare lunchbox behind him on the seat. "You've already gotten my juice, I'm not trading you my Purplesaurus Rex Kool-Aid for anything."
"I feel...I just feel. Off."
As Sammy sat there for a while, in twitchy, irritable thought, Fizzlewick amused himself. The boxes of the screaming chocolate fairies also had a magic-user trading card inside each. After checking for any rare Black Lotuses, he busied himself by enchanting the pictures on the cards to fight each other. Eventually Sammy became interested in the brutal melée Fizzlewick had going. The tournament he had been running became boring, so now he had an exposition match between a Solomon the Wise card and a pack of ten Nostradamuses. If Nostradamus learned to coordinate with himself, Solomon would have a rough time of it.
Just as Fizzlewick ordered his cardstock minions to engage, the door to their compartment slid open. A girl stood there, her new robes contrasting her disheveled hair.
"Have either of you lot seen a cunt?" she asked. She had spoken loudly, except that she was clearly unsure of what she was asking. "One of the third years told me he'd lost his. I've been asking around for an hour and seems no one has seen this cunt, either that or they just laugh like ninnies. I promised I would help look, but I'm about," she then noticed two copies of Nostradamus circling a battered-looking Solomon, they were wielding what appeared to be paper razor-edged broken flasks of rosewater. "Ooo! Are you doing magic? I'm terribly keen on it."
Fizzlewick was squinting and snorting, blushing red up to his Hulk Hogan bandana as though he was about to explode with laughter. In spite of this, he managed to wave the girl over to look. She appeared to not notice his amusement, instead entranced by his card tricks and the pile of mangled magic paper corpses they fought atop.
Sammy was as interested in this girl as she was in Wheel's magic. His cravings and former interest in the magic card battle were, for the moment, forgotten. (He also forgot completely that he'd killed a person.) He looked at the girl, her frizzy mantle of brown hair, her piercing blue eyes, and when she spoke she showed her large, permanent front teeth which would probably need braces. She had an annoying, bossy tone whenever she spoke which he completely ignored because of her English accent.
She introduced herself as Hermione Granger.
"I'm Fizzlewick Napoleon Orwell Roarty Daedalus the third, esquire" said Fizzlewick.
"Charmed," Hermione said, shaking his hand.
"I'm Sammy Suicide," said the young Weaver Black.
"Oh, right. Pleased to make your acquaintance," Hermione replied. She seemed to have forgotten he was in the compartment.
She questioned Fizzlewick who replied with long, imprecise, non-formulaic explanations for her queries. He explained that he had first gotten the idea to ani-magic cardstock figures with his collection of Garbage Pail Kids. That, however, had been a disgusting mistake. She was impressed, but he still expertly ignored her technical questions concerning this spellcraft. Then Fizzlewick described how he had brought some of his father's baseball cards to life. Although he survived the savage ass-beating which followed his destruction of collectible sports memorabilia, he stressed that it was worth it. Babe Ruth knocking Lou Gehrig's head for a homerun was worth the pain.
"Are all animated cards prone to such savagery?" asked Hermione.
"Yes. Definitely yes," said Fizzlewick. "I carried Babe Ruth in my pocket for some time, and he would advise me into all kinds of mischief. But looking back, I realize now he invariably steered me towards trouble and mayhem."
"What ever happened to Babe Ruth?"
"He got what he deserved. He got run through the washer."
While the discussion of Fizzlewick's prowess at creating figures of history which maimed one another continued, Sammy sat back on his own seat. Without similar magical talents, he was at a loss for how to get this girl's attention. His pile of ill-gotten candy was no consolation to him — he was already full of candy, and there were not any expendable people in the car. He cursed his luck, how no people had blundered into their compartment since young miss Granger. Disintegrating someone with the Rod of Orcus would surely draw her interest.
He sighed. His strange craving had returned to his notice now. Poor Weaver Black was at a loss to understand that although transformed to a younger form of himself, he was starting to experience nicotine withdrawl. He could not even know that he had ever smoked in the first place, since his mind was regressed to match his younger appearance. (Of course, although younger in physical appearance and most of his life's memories were barred from him, Weaver Black was not any younger as Sammy Suicide. Nor was his companion, Wheel, any younger.) Sammy was a child, but only as an adult who has been transmogrified into a child body with most of his mind smushed into a magical prison within itself. Dumbledore's spell affected him to almost-perfectly resemble a younger version of himself.
Searching around for something to occupy himself (and pointedly not rifling through his own magic trading cards which remained fairly inert, Sammy happened upon a lump in the folds of his robe. Removing it turned out to be a silver flask with an engraved web pattern. Upon removing the stopper he found the liquid therein positively reeked of magic, although he did not know what kind of magic.
He took a cautious tip from the flask. Freed from the flask, its contents burned within him.
Hermione asked Fizzlewick hadn't he ought to change into proper wizard's robes?
"No." Fizzlewick had never grasped the strange imperative that led wizards and witches to dress in cumbersome, mostly ugly robes. (Whether it was poor fashion sense or that the miracles of denim and zippers had yet to reach some certain "magic circles" he hoped to discover in during the academic year.)
"Well you're most certain to get into trouble for it." She managed a nervous laugh. "Hogwarts is a private school, not some grubby, public facility." She forced a nervous, braying laugh which cut through Fizzlewick.
"I," he was about to tell her to cram her advice, and further that he attended a prestigious college of uncanny arts back in the States. But he halted, because he could not remember having done so. Although he certainly had, Fizzlewick was unable to remember having attended the Novo Collegium Caeci. He was struggling to remember exactly where it had been that conformist appearance was not seen as an essential part of outstanding education.
"You what?" she said.
Fizzlewick nearly smacked her in the face, making a distracted, dismissive gesture. "Sammy, dude, you alright?" Fizzlewick was saved from fashion tips from the gauche Hermione, as he noticed Sammy choking on something. Or, like a reverse of choking actually. "Dude, don't do that in here. If you ralph I'm going to have to sit wherever Scarface and Emo-red ended up. Don't do that. Don't you dare."
There was a raspy reply, "I'm fine," which sounded not at all fine. "Here!" Sammy held out his silver flask. "It's rad."
"Have some," Fizzlewick took the flask and thrust it at Hermione.
"Are you daft? Or do you just think I'm stupid?? Look at him-"
"Oh, sorry. I thought I was talking with an aspiring witch, not some-" but Fizzlewick need not have thought his attack out any further beyond questioning Miss Granger's dedication to magic. (A shame, really- he had thought up a lovely bit along the lines of it being a potion of not-being-such-a-panty-waisted-Muggless.
She snatched the flask from him. Then she took a large swill as though it was apple juice, which it most definitely was not. She began coughing, the violence of the fit bringing her unkempt hair to new levels of disarray. Fizzlewick raised an eyebrow, and caught the flask as it slid from her formerly greedy clutch.
"Dude," managed Sammy Suicide, "try some. Doors ..of perception. Break on through." He swallowed hard and regained some youthful composure. But it was clear from his squinted, teary eyes that he was not going to be continuing his argument.
"No!" wailed Hermione. Coughs interrupted her speech. "It's poison, I'm sure of it. Get a prefect." Doubled-over and unable to look him in the face, she grasped at Fizzlewick's arm to restrain him. "Save us."
She needn't have wasted her gasps of breath. Fizzlewick gave Sammy (who returned the gesture) a thumbs-up. A quick sip of something which smelled a unnervingly like lighter fluid...
A clear sky of blue.
The Bay.
Old buildings and faculty almost as ancient and steeped in mystic traditions.
Oberron's Throne.
Bacchanals to the Horned God,
Bowing to the Horned Goddess,
Horns painfully attached to his own skull. Burning.
His mouth burned and his mind burned as well, memories surging in — he could feel the rush.
Years gained and forgotten.
"Ooooo," moaned Wheel, from somewhere outside his body.
He was vaguely aware of a small, adorably young version of himself. The apparition of Wheel past kicked a young girl dressed as a witch out.
It was kind of funny, really.
"Dude, maybe they're right. I mean, how are you supposed to get any studying done when people are gaping at your duds?"
Fizzlewick fixed a patronizing look at Sammy. "My power, Eris' Gift, comes from these. Her raw, un-tameable energies are nestled in these threaded fibers, from Hulkamania," he said, tightening the knot at the back of his bandanna, "to my white cotton briefs. Savvy?"
"So you're not just trying to stand out on purpose? I always assumed Eris was part of you, and that your duds only had secondary-"
"Listen, do I question your.. Wait, where do you get your power from?"
"I have no idea," Sammy said with a shrug. He leaned and rested his forehead against his fist. Bits of his memory were floating back to him, like frames out-of-sequence on a cutting room floor. Not able to make sense of them, however, he was quite glad to have to have his magical items — if need be, backed up by the power of Fizzlewick's underwear. In melancholy, he stared out the window at the passing countryside. His reflection caught his attention - his eyes seemed, lighter? No, they were the same color. But they definitely appeared different.
"I'm sick of being here. Let's go bother people before they come bother us."
Agreeing with the change of pace, Fizzlewick left the compartment with Sammy to seek out and freak out his fellow students.
(Fizzlewick and Malfoy had not gotten along well on the train ride earlier. It had started out innocently enough, with Fizzlewick agreeing he would be Draco Malfoy's friend. Go shopping for clothes, sure. Whatever. Things sharply declined when Fizzlewick managed to make a number of Malfoy's silver sickles "disappear". Fizzlewick managed to avert the certain violence afterwards. However, Malfoy happened to be unable to guess which of young Wheel's hands his coins were in. He was even less lucky at Three Card Monty. By way of consolation, Fizzlewick had placed an American Chinese fortune cookie in Malfoy's palm before vanishing in a puff of talcum powder.
With dim suspicion, Malfoy had crushed the cookie open. His suspicion that he had been tricked once more was unfounded, as his tiny fist of rage had felt something aside from crumbs. A tiny strip of parchment. He was then relieved of suspicion, instead certain Fizzlewick had cheated.
"A Fool And His Money Are Soon Parted.
lucky numbers 64 23 23 23 23 23"
Following the train ride, Fizzlewick and Sammy Suicide had boarded an enchanted boat. Draco Malfoy had then imposed, backed by his cronies, Crabbe and Goyle. Between the three of them they upset Fizzlewick over the rail. He sank without a trace and no one but their boat's passengers seemed to have noticed. They thought this hilarious, and had themselves a good chuckle. They began to taunt Sammy in the absence of his more burly friend.
"You're not a bright trio, are you?" Sammy said darkly. Slouched in the bow, he fixed them each in turn with his eyes.
"Duh," was all Crabbe managed. Goyle just giggled inanely. Malfoy managed to shut them both up.
"Such talk. What do you mean? You can't think you'll fare better than that Muggle-looking grifter against us!"
Only just more than the motion of the vessel crossing the waves of the crystal lake, Sammy made the barest of nods. "Don't be such a stooge. What do you think is going to happen to you?" There were no looks of comprehension. He gestured over the stern. "He hasn't surfaced yet."
"He's drowned! I'll be expelled!" Crabbe's eyes were wide with fear in his dull face. Sammy almost felt pity for the brute.
"My father wouldn't let them do that to me," Malfoy countered.
Sammy shrugged. "If you say so. But I happen to know there was a boy who drowned here. It was probably ten years back. He was shoved overboard, and he went under," he gestured behind them once more, "just like that. He drowned, Malfoy. In this very loch. It was this. Very. Boat." The others we huddled in fear as he punctuated the last words with sharp stamps on the hull.
Sammy watched Malfoy, the brightest of the three. Malfoy's last look, probably last thought, was alarm that their boat had drifted so far apart from all the other magic boats.
With a horrible crack, a wedge of darkness appeared directly through the boat's keel. It was an old blade, flat, broad, filthy and rusted. Water pooled where it clove through the wood. Malfoy and Crabbe scampered to one side, tilting the boat while Goyle remained grotesquely petrified at the stern.
With a lurch and tug, the machete disappeared. With horror fixed on their plight (both the weapon and the expanding water in the boat) Malfoy and Crabbe clung to each other. Crabbe gibbered. "IT'S HIM!" cried Sammy. "YOU'RE DOOMED — IT'S JASON VOORHEES!"
The boat violently listed to the side opposite Malfoy and Crabbe, almost swamping as a hideous and weed-covered bulk heaved aboard. The two scrambled to get away, then tried using the insensible Goyle as a shield. A jabbing thrust - there was a guttural and brief sound from where Sammy had crouched at the bow. Then a baleful hockey goalie mask slowed turned to face the huddled mass yearning to escape in the stern. The dripping bulk raised its machete to strike.
They closed their eyes.
There followed a second cracking of wood, much louder than the first.
In the badly tilted (but floating) remains of the bow, Sammy Suicide and Fizzlewick drifted toward Hogwarts across the loch. "Hey, campers!" Fizzlewick yelled jubilantly. In the barely afloat remains of the stern, three sets of eyes dazedly peered over the rail. "You should use some of that water you got to wash out your Pampers!" Fizzlewick crowed loudly before carefully sitting. Three monstrous, suckered arms rose to propel the splintered boat holding Sammy and Fizzlewick forward. In no time they had rejoined the flotilla.
Safely landed at Hogwarts, the first year students anxiously awaited to be sorted into their houses.
Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Hogwarts, and the Harry Potter book series are the creative properties of Joanne Rowling. © 1997 J. K. Rowling. Used here without permission for purposes of parody and lack of anything better to write.
I ought to have mentioned earlier, this story arc takes place before the events of Valentine's Day, which was years back and we still have yet to write our way out of. But I think this is more interesting. In it, Wheel and Weaver Black (The Double Double U's) visit Hogwarts in the guise of semi-ignorant (re: normal) children.
A plump woman with a clean apron and kindly smile slid back the door. "Anything off-" she began to speak, but Sammy was irritated at being intruded upon. Or maybe he was embarrassed to speak to an elder with a mouth jammed full of pink Big League Chew. Perhaps he was just itching to do something even if it was wildly inappropriate. Whatever the reason, as soon as the door opened he began opening his black case.
A beam of greenish light shot from the skull-tip of the obsidian rod and disintegrated the plump woman into a pile of sizzling ash.
"Jesus fuck," exclaimed Fizzlewick. Sammy and he both stared at the dark smear where the woman had been seconds ago. They noticed that she had, prior to her instant death, been trundling a cart of sweets down the passage between train compartments. "Jesus fuck," Fizzlewick repeated, better words abandoning him.
"Shit. I'm going to put this away," Sammy said. He carefully replaced the rod into its case.
"You're in trouble, Sammy."
"I am not!" he protested. However, his shrill words couldn't un-murder the lady from the sweets trolley. And he realized, after he'd blurted them out, that his voice might be heard by others through the open door. "We should get that cart in here."
Fizzlewick nodded.
They looked warily up and down the train, then awkwardly shoved the woman's cart into their private compartment. The cart took up a lot of the space. Even with the door closed again, the presence of the cart was pretty incriminating.
"We'd better get rid of this," Fizzlewick said.
"I'll save the candies," Sammy heroically volunteered to empty the cart, dumping most of its contents onto his seat in a jumbled pile.
"Jolly good show, Sam," Fizzlewick said with sarcasm. He produced his tethaman once more, and twirled it expertly. He made a few passes overhead, then began to recite, "Sword of Omens, hear my call: give me the might, the muscle - "
"That's not how it goes."
"Shut up, you fucker." He moved the spinning charm forward and it sliced off a section of the sweet cart in its arc. The removed section crumpled in upon itself. "Yeah, who's the man? Who's the man?"
"Youf da man," Sammy said. He had traded his wad of gum for a pumpkin pasty. However, even though it may have been magical, he was discovering it required the same degree of chewing as mundane food to prevent choking. He compensated for this disappointing fact by enjoying another pasty more cautiously.
After eating a few more items, Sammy felt content. "Damn, I need a ... A." He was confused. He knew he needed something. He was sure of it. But he was full of screaming chocolate fairies, Scrungy Munge's Every Synthesis of Pleasing Flavor Alchebeans™, licorice flails, Nixie Stix, sour Evil Eyes, and the pumpkin pasties. What was this strange craving he was left with - this tingling sensation on the back of his tongue? It was perplexing.
"What?" asked Fizzlewick. He had finished banishing the dead woman's incriminating cart and was now enjoying the spoils Sammy Suicide lately had.
"I need something. But I don't know what."
"You're thirsty?" He was confused as well, now. Normally Sammy didn't seem so retarded. "Here, have this Ecto-Cooler. But you owe me."
Sammy sipped on the box of green juice, soon producing slurping noises from the bottom of the partly imploded juicebox. "Nope. That wasn't it." He seemed kind of edgy to Fizzlewick.
"Well, you can't have my thermos." Fizzlewick jealously moved his Captain Bucky O'Hare lunchbox behind him on the seat. "You've already gotten my juice, I'm not trading you my Purplesaurus Rex Kool-Aid for anything."
"I feel...I just feel. Off."
As Sammy sat there for a while, in twitchy, irritable thought, Fizzlewick amused himself. The boxes of the screaming chocolate fairies also had a magic-user trading card inside each. After checking for any rare Black Lotuses, he busied himself by enchanting the pictures on the cards to fight each other. Eventually Sammy became interested in the brutal melée Fizzlewick had going. The tournament he had been running became boring, so now he had an exposition match between a Solomon the Wise card and a pack of ten Nostradamuses. If Nostradamus learned to coordinate with himself, Solomon would have a rough time of it.
Just as Fizzlewick ordered his cardstock minions to engage, the door to their compartment slid open. A girl stood there, her new robes contrasting her disheveled hair.
"Have either of you lot seen a cunt?" she asked. She had spoken loudly, except that she was clearly unsure of what she was asking. "One of the third years told me he'd lost his. I've been asking around for an hour and seems no one has seen this cunt, either that or they just laugh like ninnies. I promised I would help look, but I'm about," she then noticed two copies of Nostradamus circling a battered-looking Solomon, they were wielding what appeared to be paper razor-edged broken flasks of rosewater. "Ooo! Are you doing magic? I'm terribly keen on it."
Fizzlewick was squinting and snorting, blushing red up to his Hulk Hogan bandana as though he was about to explode with laughter. In spite of this, he managed to wave the girl over to look. She appeared to not notice his amusement, instead entranced by his card tricks and the pile of mangled magic paper corpses they fought atop.
Sammy was as interested in this girl as she was in Wheel's magic. His cravings and former interest in the magic card battle were, for the moment, forgotten. (He also forgot completely that he'd killed a person.) He looked at the girl, her frizzy mantle of brown hair, her piercing blue eyes, and when she spoke she showed her large, permanent front teeth which would probably need braces. She had an annoying, bossy tone whenever she spoke which he completely ignored because of her English accent.
She introduced herself as Hermione Granger.
"I'm Fizzlewick Napoleon Orwell Roarty Daedalus the third, esquire" said Fizzlewick.
"Charmed," Hermione said, shaking his hand.
"I'm Sammy Suicide," said the young Weaver Black.
"Oh, right. Pleased to make your acquaintance," Hermione replied. She seemed to have forgotten he was in the compartment.
She questioned Fizzlewick who replied with long, imprecise, non-formulaic explanations for her queries. He explained that he had first gotten the idea to ani-magic cardstock figures with his collection of Garbage Pail Kids. That, however, had been a disgusting mistake. She was impressed, but he still expertly ignored her technical questions concerning this spellcraft. Then Fizzlewick described how he had brought some of his father's baseball cards to life. Although he survived the savage ass-beating which followed his destruction of collectible sports memorabilia, he stressed that it was worth it. Babe Ruth knocking Lou Gehrig's head for a homerun was worth the pain.
"Are all animated cards prone to such savagery?" asked Hermione.
"Yes. Definitely yes," said Fizzlewick. "I carried Babe Ruth in my pocket for some time, and he would advise me into all kinds of mischief. But looking back, I realize now he invariably steered me towards trouble and mayhem."
"What ever happened to Babe Ruth?"
"He got what he deserved. He got run through the washer."
While the discussion of Fizzlewick's prowess at creating figures of history which maimed one another continued, Sammy sat back on his own seat. Without similar magical talents, he was at a loss for how to get this girl's attention. His pile of ill-gotten candy was no consolation to him — he was already full of candy, and there were not any expendable people in the car. He cursed his luck, how no people had blundered into their compartment since young miss Granger. Disintegrating someone with the Rod of Orcus would surely draw her interest.
He sighed. His strange craving had returned to his notice now. Poor Weaver Black was at a loss to understand that although transformed to a younger form of himself, he was starting to experience nicotine withdrawl. He could not even know that he had ever smoked in the first place, since his mind was regressed to match his younger appearance. (Of course, although younger in physical appearance and most of his life's memories were barred from him, Weaver Black was not any younger as Sammy Suicide. Nor was his companion, Wheel, any younger.) Sammy was a child, but only as an adult who has been transmogrified into a child body with most of his mind smushed into a magical prison within itself. Dumbledore's spell affected him to almost-perfectly resemble a younger version of himself.
Searching around for something to occupy himself (and pointedly not rifling through his own magic trading cards which remained fairly inert, Sammy happened upon a lump in the folds of his robe. Removing it turned out to be a silver flask with an engraved web pattern. Upon removing the stopper he found the liquid therein positively reeked of magic, although he did not know what kind of magic.
He took a cautious tip from the flask. Freed from the flask, its contents burned within him.
Hermione asked Fizzlewick hadn't he ought to change into proper wizard's robes?
"No." Fizzlewick had never grasped the strange imperative that led wizards and witches to dress in cumbersome, mostly ugly robes. (Whether it was poor fashion sense or that the miracles of denim and zippers had yet to reach some certain "magic circles" he hoped to discover in during the academic year.)
"Well you're most certain to get into trouble for it." She managed a nervous laugh. "Hogwarts is a private school, not some grubby, public facility." She forced a nervous, braying laugh which cut through Fizzlewick.
"I," he was about to tell her to cram her advice, and further that he attended a prestigious college of uncanny arts back in the States. But he halted, because he could not remember having done so. Although he certainly had, Fizzlewick was unable to remember having attended the Novo Collegium Caeci. He was struggling to remember exactly where it had been that conformist appearance was not seen as an essential part of outstanding education.
"You what?" she said.
Fizzlewick nearly smacked her in the face, making a distracted, dismissive gesture. "Sammy, dude, you alright?" Fizzlewick was saved from fashion tips from the gauche Hermione, as he noticed Sammy choking on something. Or, like a reverse of choking actually. "Dude, don't do that in here. If you ralph I'm going to have to sit wherever Scarface and Emo-red ended up. Don't do that. Don't you dare."
There was a raspy reply, "I'm fine," which sounded not at all fine. "Here!" Sammy held out his silver flask. "It's rad."
"Have some," Fizzlewick took the flask and thrust it at Hermione.
"Are you daft? Or do you just think I'm stupid?? Look at him-"
"Oh, sorry. I thought I was talking with an aspiring witch, not some-" but Fizzlewick need not have thought his attack out any further beyond questioning Miss Granger's dedication to magic. (A shame, really- he had thought up a lovely bit along the lines of it being a potion of not-being-such-a-panty-waisted-Muggless.
She snatched the flask from him. Then she took a large swill as though it was apple juice, which it most definitely was not. She began coughing, the violence of the fit bringing her unkempt hair to new levels of disarray. Fizzlewick raised an eyebrow, and caught the flask as it slid from her formerly greedy clutch.
"Dude," managed Sammy Suicide, "try some. Doors ..of perception. Break on through." He swallowed hard and regained some youthful composure. But it was clear from his squinted, teary eyes that he was not going to be continuing his argument.
"No!" wailed Hermione. Coughs interrupted her speech. "It's poison, I'm sure of it. Get a prefect." Doubled-over and unable to look him in the face, she grasped at Fizzlewick's arm to restrain him. "Save us."
She needn't have wasted her gasps of breath. Fizzlewick gave Sammy (who returned the gesture) a thumbs-up. A quick sip of something which smelled a unnervingly like lighter fluid...
A clear sky of blue.
The Bay.
Old buildings and faculty almost as ancient and steeped in mystic traditions.
Oberron's Throne.
Bacchanals to the Horned God,
Bowing to the Horned Goddess,
Horns painfully attached to his own skull. Burning.
His mouth burned and his mind burned as well, memories surging in — he could feel the rush.
Years gained and forgotten.
"Ooooo," moaned Wheel, from somewhere outside his body.
He was vaguely aware of a small, adorably young version of himself. The apparition of Wheel past kicked a young girl dressed as a witch out.
It was kind of funny, really.
"Dude, maybe they're right. I mean, how are you supposed to get any studying done when people are gaping at your duds?"
Fizzlewick fixed a patronizing look at Sammy. "My power, Eris' Gift, comes from these. Her raw, un-tameable energies are nestled in these threaded fibers, from Hulkamania," he said, tightening the knot at the back of his bandanna, "to my white cotton briefs. Savvy?"
"So you're not just trying to stand out on purpose? I always assumed Eris was part of you, and that your duds only had secondary-"
"Listen, do I question your.. Wait, where do you get your power from?"
"I have no idea," Sammy said with a shrug. He leaned and rested his forehead against his fist. Bits of his memory were floating back to him, like frames out-of-sequence on a cutting room floor. Not able to make sense of them, however, he was quite glad to have to have his magical items — if need be, backed up by the power of Fizzlewick's underwear. In melancholy, he stared out the window at the passing countryside. His reflection caught his attention - his eyes seemed, lighter? No, they were the same color. But they definitely appeared different.
"I'm sick of being here. Let's go bother people before they come bother us."
Agreeing with the change of pace, Fizzlewick left the compartment with Sammy to seek out and freak out his fellow students.
(Fizzlewick and Malfoy had not gotten along well on the train ride earlier. It had started out innocently enough, with Fizzlewick agreeing he would be Draco Malfoy's friend. Go shopping for clothes, sure. Whatever. Things sharply declined when Fizzlewick managed to make a number of Malfoy's silver sickles "disappear". Fizzlewick managed to avert the certain violence afterwards. However, Malfoy happened to be unable to guess which of young Wheel's hands his coins were in. He was even less lucky at Three Card Monty. By way of consolation, Fizzlewick had placed an American Chinese fortune cookie in Malfoy's palm before vanishing in a puff of talcum powder.
With dim suspicion, Malfoy had crushed the cookie open. His suspicion that he had been tricked once more was unfounded, as his tiny fist of rage had felt something aside from crumbs. A tiny strip of parchment. He was then relieved of suspicion, instead certain Fizzlewick had cheated.
"A Fool And His Money Are Soon Parted.
lucky numbers 64 23 23 23 23 23"
Following the train ride, Fizzlewick and Sammy Suicide had boarded an enchanted boat. Draco Malfoy had then imposed, backed by his cronies, Crabbe and Goyle. Between the three of them they upset Fizzlewick over the rail. He sank without a trace and no one but their boat's passengers seemed to have noticed. They thought this hilarious, and had themselves a good chuckle. They began to taunt Sammy in the absence of his more burly friend.
"You're not a bright trio, are you?" Sammy said darkly. Slouched in the bow, he fixed them each in turn with his eyes.
"Duh," was all Crabbe managed. Goyle just giggled inanely. Malfoy managed to shut them both up.
"Such talk. What do you mean? You can't think you'll fare better than that Muggle-looking grifter against us!"
Only just more than the motion of the vessel crossing the waves of the crystal lake, Sammy made the barest of nods. "Don't be such a stooge. What do you think is going to happen to you?" There were no looks of comprehension. He gestured over the stern. "He hasn't surfaced yet."
"He's drowned! I'll be expelled!" Crabbe's eyes were wide with fear in his dull face. Sammy almost felt pity for the brute.
"My father wouldn't let them do that to me," Malfoy countered.
Sammy shrugged. "If you say so. But I happen to know there was a boy who drowned here. It was probably ten years back. He was shoved overboard, and he went under," he gestured behind them once more, "just like that. He drowned, Malfoy. In this very loch. It was this. Very. Boat." The others we huddled in fear as he punctuated the last words with sharp stamps on the hull.
Sammy watched Malfoy, the brightest of the three. Malfoy's last look, probably last thought, was alarm that their boat had drifted so far apart from all the other magic boats.
With a horrible crack, a wedge of darkness appeared directly through the boat's keel. It was an old blade, flat, broad, filthy and rusted. Water pooled where it clove through the wood. Malfoy and Crabbe scampered to one side, tilting the boat while Goyle remained grotesquely petrified at the stern.
With a lurch and tug, the machete disappeared. With horror fixed on their plight (both the weapon and the expanding water in the boat) Malfoy and Crabbe clung to each other. Crabbe gibbered. "IT'S HIM!" cried Sammy. "YOU'RE DOOMED — IT'S JASON VOORHEES!"
The boat violently listed to the side opposite Malfoy and Crabbe, almost swamping as a hideous and weed-covered bulk heaved aboard. The two scrambled to get away, then tried using the insensible Goyle as a shield. A jabbing thrust - there was a guttural and brief sound from where Sammy had crouched at the bow. Then a baleful hockey goalie mask slowed turned to face the huddled mass yearning to escape in the stern. The dripping bulk raised its machete to strike.
They closed their eyes.
There followed a second cracking of wood, much louder than the first.
In the badly tilted (but floating) remains of the bow, Sammy Suicide and Fizzlewick drifted toward Hogwarts across the loch. "Hey, campers!" Fizzlewick yelled jubilantly. In the barely afloat remains of the stern, three sets of eyes dazedly peered over the rail. "You should use some of that water you got to wash out your Pampers!" Fizzlewick crowed loudly before carefully sitting. Three monstrous, suckered arms rose to propel the splintered boat holding Sammy and Fizzlewick forward. In no time they had rejoined the flotilla.
Safely landed at Hogwarts, the first year students anxiously awaited to be sorted into their houses.
Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Hogwarts, and the Harry Potter book series are the creative properties of Joanne Rowling. © 1997 J. K. Rowling. Used here without permission for purposes of parody and lack of anything better to write.
