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The Harry Potter universe is the creation of J.K. Rowling. This is fanfiction. The standard disclaimers apply.



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Chapter 13: Detention


Friday, September 21st, 1990. Evening.


Fred and George had lost ten points for Gryffindor each and were assigned by Filch to muck out the Owlery by hand. It was chilly and dimly lit. Charlie had followed along to laugh at them.

"Come on, tell! It's not like you're going to do it again."

"Well."

"We're not saying we did it, you see."

"In fact, we're rather miffed about it."

"You know why we got in trouble?"


"Because you got a bloody flock of geese to the hall outside Snape's office! But how?"


"No, no, that's not true."

"You see, we got in trouble because Snape discovered a flock of geese outside his office."


"Surely you weren't expecting him to not notice—I mean, what's the point if he didn't, right?"


"It's just, my dear brother . . ."

". . . that Filch just assumed it was us . . ."

". . . without any proof!"

"He reasoned that since we, having carefully perused his list with a scrutiny heretofore unheard of . . ."

". . . were the only ones who knew that poultry were against the rules, . . ."

". . . clearly, clearly, we must be responsible for it somehow."

"It's completely unfair, of course."


"But how did you get them in? I saw Filch chasing them out. There had to be at least twenty of them!"


"Thirty-two, we counted. Which, of course, . . ."

". . . is not to say we did it. But if we did, it would be a trade secret."

"We might have to do it again sometime, you see, and anyway in the meantime we'd hate to see anyone else do it wrong."


Charlie thought for a moment. "It's not easy moving big, aggressive animals around. I read that when the MacFustys have to move an injured Hebridean Black, they have a special apparatus, like a combination of slings and splints, to keep it from hurting itself further, and it takes eighteen wizards using hover charms to get it from place to place! I guess you could hover charm geese one at a time, or put them all in a crate, even."


Fred and George looked at each other, seemingly dumbstruck. "We have got to try that."

"Oh, yes, Charlie, that's brilliant!"

"And hilarious!"

"Making a bird fly, who would think of that?"

"So much easier!"

"You know, I think, if we did it . . ."

". . . and we're not saying we did . . ."

". . . the main thing we learned is that geese bite."

Charlie laughed.

"But, Fred, I thought the main thing we learned was how fast Mrs. Norris could run?"

"Oh, right. That too."

"In case you are wondering, brother dear, the answer is really, really, fast."

"It was brilliant!"

They worked in silence for several minutes.

"Hm. Charlie, do you think these owls are eating only mice? The bones in these pellets don't look right."

"Huh. No, I don't think so," he said, after leaning in to take a look. "I wouldn't really, know, though. Small animals were never my thing."

The twins snorted. "George, do you have a sample jar with you?"

"I think so . . . ah, here." George pulled out a small glass container from the evidently deep pockets of his robes.

"Do you two have any idea what you're going to do with that?"

"Oh, no, not at all!"

"It's purely for our own edification!"

"How on earth could we possibly be thinking of pulling of a prank involving owl pellets!"

"Um, Fred, you don't actually have a plan, do you?"

"Well, no. I got carried away there."

"Darn."


"Well, some of us aren't always finding new ways to get in trouble, and I have homework to do. Have fun!" And with that, Charlie was off.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


"Well, if you don't like it, do something better." Oren was in the common room, trying to get two childhood friends of his to "stop being a bunch of whiners" about the Weasley's goose prank. Not that he'd call them that out loud, but he was tempted. Erwin Yost and Bernard Ebbit had known Oren since they were very young, and their parents had thrust them together often enough that "childhood friend" was a passable description of their relationship.

"Like what?" asked Erwin.

"That's my whole point—you don't have anything to compare it to, you're not pulling off stuff like that yourself, and you're just sitting there calling it 'dumb'. Besides, how would you get a flock of geese into the dungeons? Even if it was a dumb prank, and I guess I agree with you that it was," Oren smirked, "it was still an impressive one. They were showing off."

"But it was a dumb showing off. Why'd they do it, anyway?" asked Bernard.

Oren shrugged. "I overheard one of the sixth-years saying they did it just because it was against the rules. Like, they actually went through Filch's list looking for ways to get in trouble, and there was some line about poultry in there. And I guess they wanted a victim, and Snape or anybody in Slytherin was all they could think of."

"So they weren't getting revenge for something by doing it outside Snape's office, or trying to send a message?"

"Who knows? It's like Gryffindors have some long-standing, permanent grievance against all Slytherins. And maybe geese are some bizarre Weasley in-joke?"

"Typical. Morons. Heh." joked Bernard.

"Not really, no." Oren was irritated again. "You don't know much of anything about the Weasleys other than red hair, amazing fertility, and mutual dislike."

"They're poor, too." added Erwin.

"Middle-class, really, by wizarding standards. They just have seven kids and the parents have no ambition. The family has been around for a long time. Purebloods. Anyway, they might be god-awful annoying, but they're all geniuses. It's true. Even my father admits it, and you know how he is."

"What? No way."

"Well, go ahead and outprank them then."

"Why should I?"

"I don't know. What else are you going to do? They'll keep pulling stuff like this day in, day out, for the next six years, regardless of how many detentions they get. You can sit here and take it—"

"—I'm not gonna just sit here and take it!"

"Well, that's great, but you can go out there and show them up, or you can do something half-assed that makes you feel better and leaves the rest of the school thinking you're morons. Go ask the older students—see what they say."

"Hmph." Bernard grunted. Erwin just sat there, presumably lost in thought. Oren had never been sure how smart these two were. A lot of Pureblood wizards never really had to use much intelligence in order to succeed in life, so when trying to account for their behavior, he had to assume there was a decent amount of 'won't' and 'don't' amongst the 'can't'.

Oren had picked up the 'won't, don't, or can't' idea from a muggle biology student when he was at the design school; the student had been trying to explain that the definition of a species didn't care whether two organisms won't, don't, or can't interbreed—just by looking at it you don't know which it is. Oren wasn't really clear on that, but the phrase was handy—there were so many things wizards would not or for whatever reason did not do, that it was easy to lose track of what they could in fact do.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Lately, Oren was faced with a number of things he really wanted to do, but which he had no idea how to accomplish. Or rather, no sane ideas. If things followed the original timeline, next year Voldemort would possess Quirrel, actually kill unicorns just to get some of their blood, and it would all lead to the death of a six-hundred-year-old alchemist and his wife. It had been one heartbreaking death after another. Senseless. Why had Dumbledore let it all happen? Why had Flamel gone along with it? Was he pressured? Hogwarts had been manifestly less secure than Gringotts—it was unlikely that Harry could have broken into the bank at age twelve. This path just led to more and more unanswered questions.

He had contemplated making protective charms for the unicorns. It was the sort of thing Gryffindorish people would never do—magical, noble beasts, surely they can protect themselves, let them roam free! Oh, tragedy, Voldemort is stronger than a unicorn—we had no idea! We were planning on using those unicorns to win the war! But we can protect them ourselves—we have a single groundskeeper on the job, and oh, he's not allowed to do magic. He's big, though!

Or maybe the centaurs would step in and save the day, or were supposed to so that they could feel like they participated, or to teach Harry a lesson about interspecies cooperation. Oren could only attribute that sort of thinking to point-blank, willful denial that for the most part, centaur minds were really alien, they not only didn't share Dumbledore's values but probably couldn't even make sense of them, and they didn't really like us all that much. The Forbidden Forest was like a zoo or small reserve for animals like the unicorns—tiny compared to their natural range, but big enough that they could muddle through their existences as a reflection of what they once were. But for a species as, or maybe more, intelligent than humans, it was practically a concentration camp. The centaurs had nowhere else to go—wizards didn't want muggles seeing them, but in the end these were British centaurs—their ancestors had been here for thousands of years. They speak English as their native language, for Merlin's sake. Argh!

He had been staring at the wall in the common room, his transfiguration essay in his lap, for the past half hour. Ever since he came back, he had gotten caught in these frustrating loops where he would get angrier and angrier but not any closer to a solution. He knew he was supposed to get out there and make everything better, and it was clear that the other time traveler or travelers had done a lot more work so far than he had. That was, however, all done with relatively manageable tasks, he noted. Kidnapping a nine-year-old was in fact much simpler than expanding the walls or the Forbidden Forest, or protecting the unicorns, or moving the fragments of a dark lord's soul around. He was used to being a professional, motivated mostly by clients' commissions and a vague desire to raise the aesthetic standards of wizarding society. Maybe if he just picked a small, easily articulated annoyance, he could treat it like a commission, and make it go away. He needed to do something, at any rate. "Like, say, my homework." He sighed, and stared at his paper again.