My brain has been getting dry on ideas for this fic…may take another short break to expand on my Death's Hunters storyline in the near future.
I don't own Harry Potter…but I didn't have to tell you that, did I?
----
Chapter 3 - Voices in the Walls
After struggling with mandrakes for an hour and a half, followed by an hour of History of Magic (where three of the four Marauders caught up on their sleep), then an hour of Transfiguration, the four Marauders were filthy and tired, and they immediately went up to their respective dormitories to take a long hot shower.
Later, Hermione and Harry were doing their homework while Michael and Blaise were playing chess. The portrait creaked open, and Hermione's sister Emma shuffled in quietly.
"Hi, Emma," Blaise said, wincing as Michael's knight crushed her pawn. Emma jumped in surprise, and turned to Blaise.
"Hey," she said quietly before hurrying up to the girl's dormitory. Everybody frowned at her performance.
"That doesn't seem like the girl we met in Diagon Alley," Harry said. Hermione furrowed her brow in concern.
"Yeah," she said absently as she closed her book and followed her sister to the girl's dormitory. Blaise groaned as Michael checkmated her king. Sighing, she pulled out a book and started flipping through it, muttering about how cruel the teachers were for setting homework on the first day back. While Michael was putting away his chess set, he looked up to see a memo for Quidditch tryouts on the bulletin board. Michael stepped closer to see which positions were available.
"Hey, Harry! The Gryffindor team is looking for a seeker!" he said excitedly.
"So?" Harry asked dully as he flipped through a charms textbook.
"So…you did great catching the key last year, maybe you should try out," Michael said. "It'd make Dad happy." Harry considered the possibility for several moments before nodding his head.
"Alright, I'll try it." Whooping in victory, Michael did a happy dance in the Common Room, with Blaise giggling at his antics and Harry simply rolling his eyes before returning to his book.
The next three weeks were mostly uneventful. Later that day, Hermione came down saying that Emma was simply homesick, although none of them really believed that story. Rather than give the students any practical experience, Lockhart opted to regal the class (although the Marauders thought that "bore" was a more accurate term) with retellings of his exploits from his books. Thankfully, no one had yet been called upon to act the role of whatever monster Lockhart was fighting, but Harry wondered just how long that would last. Nevertheless, the one thing that the students were not learning in the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom was defense against the Dark Arts.
Finally, on September 23, Harry stood amongst a dozen or so students vying for the seeker position, some quite older and taller than him. The students were talking amongst themselves while Harry hung a fair distance away until a shrill whistle blow drew their attention to a tall sixth-year boy with short brown hair carrying a small bulging sack and several empty ones.
"Okay, boys and girls," the boy said with a Scottish brogue, "so you're here to try out for seeker position. For those of you who don't know, my name is Oliver Wood, captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team." He started pulling out walnut-sized gold balls out of the sack he was carrying and throwing them towards the field, where they sprouted wings and flitted away in mid-air. When he had finished, he turned back to the seeker hopefuls and started passing out sacks. "I've released twenty snitches, you have ten minutes to catch as many as you can. Good luck. Mount your brooms!" Everyone quickly mounted their brooms. When Wood blew his whistle, they all kicked off the ground and zoomed off.
Almost immediately, Harry saw a golden glint about twenty yards away, and zoomed forward to snatch it and place it into his sack. After looking around for a few seconds, he saw another and immediately snatched it up. While it was fairly obvious that many of the seekers were having trouble finding the snitches, Harry found it all too easy to find them. While he had been beaten to some snitches, Harry was confident that he had at least half of the snitches when Wood sounded his whistle ten minutes later. After inspecting the sacks, Wood laid his hand on Harry's shoulder.
"Well, at twelve snitches, it looks like we have a winner," Wood said proudly before shaking Harry's hand, eliciting groans and grumbles from the rest of the hopefuls. "Welcome to the team, Potter."
"Glad to be on, Wood," Harry said. Wood shook his head.
"You're a part of the team now, the name's Oliver," he said. Harry gave a small smile.
"Harry," he said, shaking Oliver's hand again.
Later that day, in the Common Room, Blaise squealed in delight while Michael patted Harry on the back.
"You've got to get the Nimbus 2001!" Blaise gushed. "It just came out last week, and it'd be great for a seeker like you!" Harry shook his head in amusement at Blaise's excitement over his winning the position. "And you need to get some books! Quidditch Through the Ages, 100 Greatest Moves in Quidditch History..." Harry simply returned to his book, allowing Blaise to continue her tangent to deaf ears.
Two days later, Whizzy popped into the second-year boy's dormitory, holding two long parcels.
"Master Black sends these for young masters," Whizzy said. When Harry and Michael thanked him, the house elf disappeared, and the two boys tore into their gifts, revealing two black, polished broomsticks with the words Nimbus 2001 painted onto the handle.
"Wicked!" Michael said, lovingly caressing his broomstick. Soon, the other boys were crowded around them, admiring their broomsticks, although Harry noticed that Weasley seemed to be jealous of them. After showing Hermione and Blaise (and being showered with praise by the latter), Harry tracked down Oliver using the Marauder's Map, and told him about his recent acquisition. After nearly fainting, Oliver scheduled Quidditch practice for the next day at dawn. As Harry left, he paused when he heard a voice hiss faintly. "I liiiiiiiiveeee..." Shaking off the chill running down his spine, Harry picked up the pace back to the Gryffindor Common Room.
The next day, the Marauders shoveled down their breakfasts and dashed off to the Quidditch pitch, where Harry was introduced to the rest of the team. When they walked out onto the pitch, Oliver groaned when he saw several figures in green and silver uniforms.
"Flint, what the hell are you doing here? I booked the Quidditch pitch for the entire morning." Flint, who looked like he was part troll, sneered and pulled a scroll from his pocket.
"Well, Wood, it just so happens that we have a waiver from Professor Snape," he said smugly as he handed the parchment to Wood, who unrolled it and read it.
"It says, `I, Professor Snape, head of Slytherin House, permit the Slytherin team to use the Quidditch team in order to train their new seeker.' Oh, you have a new seeker too?" Oliver asked, cocking his eyebrow. Flint stepped aside to show a second-year boy with gelled, platinum blonde hair.
"Malfoy," Oliver growled. Flint grinned smugly.
"He's not the only addition to our team, Wood. Look," he said, showing that the whole team had black, shiny Nimbus 2001's. "A gift from Malfoy's father."
"At least no one on Gryffindor team had to buy their way in," Hermione said, glaring at the larger boy. "They got in on pure talent."
"Blaise, grab my robe," Harry whispered.
"What?" Blaise whispered back, confused.
"Just do it." Shrugging, she grabbed the back of Harry's robes just as Malfoy turned to Hermione.
"No one asked for your opinion," Malfoy spat, "you filthy little Mudblood!" Michael immediately lunged towards Malfoy, but was grabbed just in time by Harry, who was being pulled back by Blaise.
"Come on, Mike, let's go to Hagrid's," Harry grunted, struggling to keep his brother restrained. After finally calming down, the four Marauders turned around and walked over to the large man's house, Michael practically running, Blaise trying to keep up with him, leaving Harry and Hermione straggling behind.
"Thanks for keeping Michael from doing something stupid, Harry," Hermione said, smiling. Harry shook his head.
"Don't thank me, Hermione. Malfoy would have deserved it." Hermione's smile was immediately replaced with a look of shock.
"You-you wouldn't have let him beat Malfoy up, would you?!" she gasped.
"Nah," Harry said, prompting Hermione to let out a sigh of relief. "I would have joined him." Hermione gaped at him.
"Harry!" she admonished. "You can't just beat people up just because they call me names! I'm a big girl, I can take care of myself." Harry looked at her with an unreadable expression.
"I know you can, Hermione, but Malfoy just insulted you, my mother and my stepmother in one sentence. Believe me, it took a lot of self-control to not struggle out of Blaise's grip and pummel him into the ground." Hermione didn't say anything for the rest of the walk over.
When they reached Hagrid's hut, their mouths started watering at the smell of chicken and tomatoes emanating from the hut. When Harry knocked on the door and was beckoned in, they saw several rooster feathers and Hagrid tending to a large cauldron bubbling over the fire.
"'Arry! How're yeh?" the half giant said happily.
"I'm doing great, Hagrid, you?" Hagrid shrugged before turning back to his cauldron.
"I'm okay. Summat's been killin' off the roosters `round here, but `tis a shame ter let `em go ter waste, so I'm whippin' up a recipe I got from a French bloke I met one time. It's called `kooky vine' or summat like that."
"Ooh, you're making coq au vin!" Hermione said excitedly. Upon seeing the confused looks from Harry, Michael and Blaise, Hermione went into her textbook mode. "Coq au vin is a French cuisine, which basically means `chicken with wine.' It's got chicken, onions and mushrooms in a wine sauce, and it's great! But it's supposed to take like, three days to make." Hagrid chuckled.
"Well, I don' wanna wait three days ter eat, so I just threw everything into a pot and boiled it." Hagrid took the pot off the heat and ladled it into five bowls. After eating Hagrid's tough but otherwise surprisingly good food, they headed back to the castle for lessons.
That night, the Marauders were running down random corridors in an effort to shake off Peeves, who was tossing water balloons at them, until they finally lost him near the second floor girl's bathroom. Exhausted, they shuffled down the hall until they stepped in a puddle of water. They looked up to see the entire hallway covered in water.
"Ugh, Moaning Myrtle must have flooded the bathroom again," Blaise said in disgust.
"Eww, toilet water," Michael said, pulling his pants and robes up. Harry was about to respond when he heard the same voice from the previous day.
"Ssssssssso hungry...for sssssssso long..." it hissed.
"Did you hear that?" Harry asked.
"Hear what?" Michael replied, confused.
"Let me feasssssst, massssssster..." the voice continued.
"That voice!" Harry exclaimed. "You don't hear it?" The other three Marauders looked at each other, concerned.
"Harry, we're not hearing any voices," Hermione said softly.
"Let me rip...tear...kill..."
"It says it's going to kill, this way!" Harry said, splashing down the hall, his friends running behind him.
He turned around to see more water, and the warm light from the torches illuminated a message seemingly written in blood.
THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED ENEMIES OF THE HEIR BEWARE
And hanging from a torch, was the still form of Filch's cat, Mrs. Norris.
----
Well, I hope that you enjoyed that.
About the coq au vin scene, I just thought it'd be a somewhat funny way to introduce the plot point that roosters are being killed off, and coq au vin was invented for using old roosters. And I know that coq au vin is a bit more complicated than throwing everything into a pot and boiling it, but this is Hagrid we're talking about; the guy isn't exactly a gourmet chef.
Don't forget to read and review!
Edited September 6, 2007 for typos and sealing a rather gaping plot hole.
-->