Chapter Five: The Debacle of Childhood Rationalities
Harish soon discovered that Quidditch practice was a lot more work than he had initially expected. Flint set them on a gruelling practice schedule and, once he got whiff of Harish's abilities as seeker, he became determined to not let anyone see them play as to keep Harish a secret until their first game. This resulted in their practices being held at ungodly hours of the morning, which forced Harish to resort to sleeping through half his classes. As a result of their practices every morning from Monday to Saturday, the team flew very well together, they knew the moves by heart, and Flint was absolutely positive that they would win the upcoming season. As it got close to mid-October, Harish had even managed to catch the snitch two minutes into the game three practices in a row.
Finally though, Flint cooled off accepting that they had it down pat and the first game was half a month away. Therefore, the trio began to enjoy their time outdoors (and their sleep) more as their practices lessened to only three days a week. And when I say, enjoy time outdoors, I mean, attempt to get past Fang, the gamekeeper's giant boarhound. It had become a sort of game that the three boys had running. They would sit outside on the lawn for an hour or so, doing homework or such, until one of them would stand up and say, "Bet ya you can't make it into the forest this time," and they would dash off into the brush giggling.
Then Hagrid would come stomping outside, Fang bounding at his heels. If Hagrid couldn't grab them, then Fang would grab the seat of Harish's pants with its teeth and drag him back to the gamekeeper, who would dole out punishments. But, more than likely, Hagrid would pull them all out on his own. Sometimes Harish couldn't decide which was scarier; the werewolves that were rumoured that the forest contained, or five hundred pounds of raging giant coming straight at them.
On this particular day, Harish was laying back on the grassy field in between Hagrid's cabin and the castle. On either side of him were the twins, arguing about who they should prank next.
"What about Adrian?"
"Nah…Have you seen his stunning jinx?"
"Well what about that girl…Anna? Aria?"
"It's Arora," Harish groaned, one arm over his eyes to block out any sunlight.
"Huh?" both twins said, turning to him.
"Her name is Arora."
"Oh," they said before continuing.
"So what about Percy? We haven't pranked him in a while?"
Harish sighed, getting bored of their argument, but nevertheless stayed silent for several long minutes. Eventually, he cracked. The boy stood up slowly and glanced inside Hagrid's cabin. All of the curtains were drawn shut. Then, he turned to observe the forest which seemed to have nothing moving around in it that day. Finally, he turned back to the twins and said, "Hey! I bet ya you can't make it to the big pine!"
"Of course I can!"
"Hey wait for me!"
"Come on Fred, are you a sissy?"
"Who are you calling a sissy, butt-head?"
"Butt-head?"
"It was better than poop-head."
And their game went something like that. The pine Harish had mentioned was the largest pine in the forest that wasn't too deep to venture towards. As the three boys ran to it, shouting and laughing, a large hairy face peered through one of the windows of his cabin. Quicker than a stampede of mad hippogriffs, Hagrid puffed his way out to the woods.
Harish and Fred were standing on either side of George, who was carving something into the tree as they heard the snapping of trees and harsh breathing of the half-giant, Hagrid. "Hurry up!" Fred shouted to George frantically.
"You're not the one carving!" George shouted back, his face red with concentration.
"Oh, move over," Harish commanded before pulling out his wand and casting a spells that caused slashes in the tree's bark.
"I thought I told yer boys to stay 'way ferm these woods!" shouted Hagrid angrily.
"Oh, hi Hagrid," the twins said, smiling innocently at him.
"Detention with me!" he yelled causing all three boys to shrink a bit, their smiles frozen on their face.
They walked off sadly, yet triumphantly. They had finally managed to carve something on one of the trees yet it was a bitter-sweet victory. As they walked up to the castle, a leaf fluttered past the message, "Property of the Marauders—Junior Edition".
MARAUDERS-STARTED-A-THING—sniff—SO-ACCOMPLISHED!
Harish, Fred, and George followed Filch out to Hagrid's cabin. They were going to be doing their detentions with him, enlarging the pumpkins for Halloween. Hagrid loomed over them, making sure that they didn't talk. It took them a lot longer than Harish had initially expected there were nearly a hundred pumpkins to enlarge and each took about five minutes. Between the three boys, it took them just over two hours. So basically, by the time they finished, it was well past dinner time.
"Anyone else fancy a trip to the kitchens?" Harish asked as they walked away, each stowing their wands up their sleeves.
The twins shot him identical grins, which he took as a yes. The moment the portrait swung to the side and the three boys entered the kitchens, house elves began swarming all around them.
"Master Blake! Masters Weasley!" they all squeaked. So they may have had a few late night snacks last year.
"Could we have some dinner?" Harish asked.
"Of course Master Harish!" and they were steered over to a table and heaps of silver platters were piled in front of them. The three growing boys happily dug into all of the food, devouring as much as possible. After they finished off the multiple main courses, they ate dessert in comfortable silence. Finally they exited, thanking the elves as they went.
Once they were back out in the corridor in front of the kitchens, Harish pulled out two tools that he and his friends considered crucial to life, the Marauders Map and Harish's newly found Invisibility Cloak. "This seems like a good as place as any to start looking for the Chamber," Harish said, turning back to the twins.
The red-heads nodded and asked, "Exactly what are we looking for?"
"I don't know a big—chamber like thing," Harish said inanely, flapping his hands out in indication of a large room helplessly.
"Great," they replied in unison.
"Very insightful," Fred said sarcastically.
"We totally couldn't tell that it would be a chamber from, I don't know—the Chamber of Secrets?"
Harish rolled his eyes and handed the map over to the twins while he pulled the cloak over himself. For a couple hours or so, the boys looked around every crack around the kitchens and the upper dungeons. After a while, they met back up and the twins suggested that Harish say something in Parseltongue to open it, but they still couldn't find the Chamber. As silvery light flooded through the windows and the moon rose higher in the sky, the Slytherin trio finally gave up as they were already exhausted.
So, the three of them ran down to their beds and fell into a deep sleep.
SLEEPY-TIME-FOR-LITTLE-BOYS!
Oi!
Everything was normal in the Weasley household. It was a regular Saturday morning at the Burrow. Molly Weasley was sighing about how soon all of her babies were going to be out of the house as she cooked more bacon, Mr. Weasley was sitting at the head of the breakfast table reading the newspaper, Ron was inhaling all of his food and making loud comments, spewing his younger sister, Ginny, with crumbs. Ginny herself was eating her eggs daintily while drawing a picture of a snake in the shape of an 'S'.
"Whatchew drawin'?" he asked spewing eggs everywhere. Ginny glanced at him and angled her paper where her obnoxious brother couldn't see.
"Nothing," she replied evenly.
Ron swallowed all of his food in one big gulp and furrowed his eyebrows. "What are you drawing?" he repeated.
"Nothing!" Ginny replied again heatedly, this time slapping her paper face-down on the table and keeping her hand on top.
"Lemme see," he said, grabbing it from her. When he looked at it, his mouth fell open in shock. The cretin's eyes darted from the paper, to his sister, and back to the paper again. "Are you wanting to be in Slytherin?" he asked incredulously, looking mightily betrayed.
"So what if I am?" Ginny asked, sticking her nose in the air.
"So they're all evil!" Ron exclaimed, throwing his hands out in exasperation.
"Are Fred and George evil then?" she asked slyly.
"Yes—No!" the boy exclaimed looking confused.
The little girl smiled smugly. "And if I were in Slytherin, would that make me evil?"
"No…"
"Well, then what's so different about other people?" she asked brightly before hopping out of her chair and plucking her paper back. "I'll take that, thank you." And she pranced out of the room.
Ron sat in his chair, a confused look plastered on his face, opening and closing his mouth in protest. Then, when he recovered from his shock, he slumped against his chair moodily and began picking at his food. Mr Weasley sighed. He was going to lecture Ron about insinuating that his brothers were evil, but it seemed as though his daughter beat him to it. Molly got her spatula, dropped more bacon on Ron's and Arthur's plates, and sat down to eat.
Their meal continued in silence for another minute or so, but then a Hogwarts owl swooped into the kitchen screeching, and dropped a progress report on Mrs Weasley's lap. She opened the letter and read it before relaying information to her husband.
"The twins had another detention," she said.
"What for?" Arthur asked.
"Trying to explore in the Forbidden Forest again."
"Again?"
She nodded. "Do you think I should send them a letter? Or a Howler?"
Arthur shook his head. "They're just curious. There's no harm coming from it."
"I suppose," the Weasley matriarch sighed, not looking all that convinced.
Silence overcame the table once more and then yet another owl dropped a letter in. This one was actually from the twins. Instead of falling on Molly's lap, this one fell on Arthur's. It read:
Dear Dad,
We know that it's kind of early, but we were wondering if we could spend the holidays at Harish's. He came up with the idea because we were discussing Christmas, and he said that since he came over last year, we should go over to his place this year.
Love,
Fred and George
"The twins want to spend the holidays at their friend, Harish's house."
Ron, unnoticed by anyone, stabbed a pancake rather viciously. First Harish corrupted the twins, now he's corrupted Ron's baby sister. Oh how the ten-year-old red-head wished he could go to Hogwarts already to knock some sense into that boy.