FicWad

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

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Chapter 16: Breakfast at the Slytherin Table


Monday, October 1st, 1990


Over the past few days, Oren had been keeping a mental list of everything that pissed him off. It was not a short list. He had tried to pick out items that were articulable problems—ones where, if he tackled them, it would be clear whether he had solved them or not.

Right now he was in the library, trying to do homework at a table near the back. The Hogwarts library was a cavernous, rectangular space with a high, vaulted ceiling, and lit by enormous and elaborate stained glass windows set in peaked arches. Rows of tables ran down the middle, with an aisle on either side, and broken up by low shelving containing various reference works and what passed for catalogs and indexes in the wizarding world. On the outer sides of the aisles were the stacks, sometimes arrayed in even rows, sometimes mazelike, and usually, but not always, in the same configuration from day to day. These rose fifteen feet high, out on the floor, and a perilous twenty-five along the walls, the upper shelves accessed by rolling wooden ladders in various states of stability.

In the back right, currently to Oren's left, the Restricted Section was set off by a combination of inward-facing shelves and wooden railings. It was notoriously easy to get into it unnoticed, and fiendishly difficult to figure out which books would not shriek or bite you. Oren had never bothered going in there.

The library's floors, walls, and ceiling were all stone, causing the sounds of whispers to carry the length of the room (although not necessarily comprehensibly), and louder noises to echo. Madam Pince had to make some hard calls as to when scolding a student for noisiness would actually improve things, or just contribute to the problem. Normally she limited herself to stopping ongoing conversations that had gotten out of hand. Oren had been watching her, and she seemed like a nervous wreck.

Right now she was stalking the length of the room, from her desk at the front, back to the table next to Oren's where a group of girls had abandoned homework in favor of enthusiastic gossip. He wondered why no one had bothered to put silencing charms in here; that certainly seemed easier than changing students' behavior.

One of the major premises behind his business in the original timeline was that the world in general, and the wizarding world in particular, were absolutely full of interesting things that no one had thought of, or at least that no one had gotten around to doing yet. He decided the lack of silencing spells in the library was probably due to a combination of tradition, a mindset focused on changing behavior instead of adapting to it, and the fact that getting it right would be damnably tricky.

Total silence was potentially unsafe—you needed partial dampening, compartmentalization, and rapid adjustability. Oren took out a spare piece of parchment and started drawing a diagram of the room. It had nothing to do with the wizarding war, and he would have to do it all covertly, but he would be changing things, and it would help him stay in practice.


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Tuesday morning saw Oren walking along the lake before breakfast, looking at rocks. In this part of Scotland there was no shortage of glacial till, bedrock outcroppings, and occasional ruins and construction debris from pre-Hogwarts and founders-era times. The glacial deposits in fact gave him a wide variety of stones to choose from; he was looking for durability as well as the ability to hold runes and charms. He would have to do all his cutting on-site and hide whatever was left behind—he wasn't powerful enough to hover-charm boulders all the way to his room, let alone avoid detection while doing so. Those things were heavy.

After noting a few decent candidates, he headed back to the school. His route took him past Hagrid's hut, and he saw the half-giant ahead of him, most of the way to the school. Oren had never taken Care of Magical Creatures the first time around, but in this timeline he planned to take all the courses he had missed. He wondered how knowledgeable Hagrid actually was about the large, dangerous beasts he seemed so fond of. Oren, like the rest of his house, had always assumed "not much", but had never really talked to Hagrid, either. If Hagrid turned out to actually be competent, it would be very useful to have someone like that to consult.


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At breakfast, as Oren was casting the third drying charm of the morning on his dew-soaked socks and shoes, Bernard was flipping through the morning's Daily Prophet. "Here's another stupid Potter article."

"What's it say?" asked Erwin, chewing on sausage.

Bernard ran his finger from line to line. "Same damn things they always say—Longbottoms refuse interviews, the Minister says some pointless stuff, and nobody likes Dumbledore . . . then it says they should investigate him, see if he's really fit for his jobs if he let Potter get beat up by muggles. Heh. My father will like it, I bet."

"Was it that Skeeter woman again, writing it?" asked Oren.

"Yeah. Has she done a lot of them?"

"Over and over. It's like she's obsessed. Do you suppose she has a thing for ten-year-old boys, and refusing to give her interviews is just making him mysterious and turning her on?"

Erwin snorted. "I saw her once at some event my family made me go to. The way she looks, it's more likely she has a thing for ten-year-old girls." Bernard laughed.

"Could be both, you know." Oren tried to make progress in small steps.

"Yeah."

There was a fourth-year girl sitting next to them, Becky Eakins. "My father's met Rita Skeeter a few times. He says she overdoes everything but is basically okay. I mean, he didn't say she wasn't a pedophile. If you guys are done speculating about her, could I see that article? Thanks." Then, after a few minutes, "you know, my little sister was really upset that she didn't get invited to Harry's birthday party. She was too young, or I guess too stubborn, to understand the reasons why. Cried and screamed for days. But my point is, she cuts out every photo of the kid that the Prophet prints, and hangs them up in her room. It's like a little shrine to him. And I know some of her friends do that too. I don't see the attraction there, but if it works for little girls, maybe it works for Skeeter."

"Yeah," chipped in a girl, Rissa Silverbrier, who was sitting across from Becky, "when he gets here next year all the girls from the other houses are going to be all over him. My mother says when she was here there was this kid—Gilderoy Lockhart—he's really famous now—that had the girls all after him. She said he pretended to be all noble even back then, but he did every one of her friends in the broom closets. So anyway that got out of hand and they all started trying to use love potions on him, and then on each other, and it was an awful mess. She says she stayed out of it."

"Ouch," said Becky, "that sounds bad. I hate girls like that. And they wouldn't care about detentions or house points, they'd just think they're suffering for their twoo luvv. I bet all you can do then is get good at defensive charms and stock up on love-potion antidotes, and hope your house has it less bad than the others if you want to win the cup."

while At this point Oren was feigning disinterest and reading the rest of the Prophet, having stolen it back from Becky. Erwin and Bernard had been following along intently. "Wait, love potions are real?" Erwin asked.

"Oh, sure, there are lots of different kinds," Rissa explained, "and they'd be really dangerous too if the antidotes were hard to get. It's really just a prank, almost, because somebody's friends always figure it out and rescue them."

"It's a prank until somebody gets pregnant!" protested Becky.

"There are potions for that, too," said Rissa slyly, "and anyway they feel like they're consenting at the time, so nobody ever gets traumatized by a love potion—just embarrassed. And afterwards everyone else knows it wasn't really them doing it, so nobody's going to think they're morally challenged or have bad taste or something."

"What, so you'd be okay with it if some Gryffindor dosed you with one and made you suck him off in the closet seven times a day, until your friends decide you weren't actually a slut to start with and notice something's wrong—of course, assuming your friends don't think it's hilarious and leave you to it, right?" Bernard and Erwin snickered.

Rissa looked exasperated. "Of course not, I'd hunt him down afterwards and get revenge. Look, all I'm saying is there are far worse things to have happen to you. Look at the Potter kid—imagine you're him—what's worse, losing your parents, almost getting killed by Voldemort, living with muggles for nine years, who whip you every day or whatever—heck, having Dumbledore as a guardian sounds dangerous enough by itself." At this point they were attracting looks from up and down the table. "Or, or, you could have sex with Rita Skeeter."

Rissa paused for effect, glanced at some older boys down the table, and noticed that Oren was pretending not to listen. "So, Oren, which would you prefer—whipped by muggles every day, orrrr, Rita Skeeter?"

"Rissa!" Becky tried to kick her under the table.

Oren, having failed to stay out of it, decided to play along. "Well, you asked what I'd want if I were Harry," he said, grinning so that they'd let him continue, "and for all we know he likes his whippings. Maybe he gets Neville to do it now?" There was a satisfyingly wide variety of expressions now, ranging from mild horror to extreme amusement. "And besides, Harry hasn't really met Rita, right? Mrs. Longbottom won't let him—so he—or I— wouldn't know what my options were."

Two seats down on Oren's right, on the far side of Bernard and Becky, were another pair of girls who had been dying for an excuse to break into the conversation. Alexandra Misselbrook and Angelica Crane, usually known as Sandra and Angie, were roommates, and, when they weren't fighting, best friends.

Sandra was pointing at the photo of Rita. "Oh, he's right—I mean, that photograph of her is so small, and in black and white . . . Can I see it for a moment? Oh, we can totally work with this. Rissa, can you help me put a glamor on Angie here?"

Rissa had a look of dawning realization, then excitedly started waving her wand over Angie's face. "Can you do facial features? I'll get her hair . . . oh that's really good! You even got those pointy-ended glasses she wears. She has green lipstick too, though—you can't see it in the photo . . . there!"

Angie looked at herself in a mirror that one of the girls had pulled out. "I like it. Mmmm." She moved her lips around, seeing if the glamor would be flexible enough. It was. "Oh, and I'm supposed to have green nails, too, can you do that?"

"Oh, right! Uhh, there!"

"Okay Harry," said Sandra, leaning forwards around Becky so she could see Oren's face, "what do you think?" Angie played with her hair, and smiled sweetly at him.

Oren decided to see how far they'd go with it—he had never joked around like this the first time around. "But I'm supposed to be Harry, too!"

The girls all looked at each other; Becky as if she were watching a train wreck, the others considering the possibilities. "Are you sure?" asked Sandra.

"Yeah, go for it." He gave his best confident grin. He had practiced a lot of expressions in order to make clients more comfortable, but this exchange was calling for some new ones. He was winging it.

There followed a flurry of activity as Angie slipped under the table, coming up on his left, and Sandra moved Bernard out of the way to sit on his right. Rissa prodded Erwin, saying "pass it down—front of the table—we need a distraction," then turned to start in on Oren's glamor, explaining "just in case it gets out of hand."

"Okay, first we get that scar, right?"

"Here, use the picture from the article -- it's from a year ago, but who cares."

After adding the scar, the glasses, a few changes to facial features, and making his dirty blond hair look darker, they showed Oren the mirror. "Now my hair's too neat—mess it up some. Nice!"

"Alright, Harry," said Angie, once that was done, "don't you prefer me to those nasty muggles?" She put her arm around his shoulders and pouted her lips at him.


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Miles Bletchley was sitting near the head of the table, nearest the staff, when the request for a distraction came down. That usually meant somebody was up to something that would potentially lose them more house points than a food fight, or else was hilarious but likely to get broken up by the teachers. Usually both.

He had a mission now, which was exciting. "Okay guys, get ready, but don't do anything until I get them to retaliate—just keep looking this way and acting normal for now." He broke up a piece of sausage with his fingers, placed it onto his spoon, and in a well-practiced motion, used that to catapult it onto the Hufflepuff table next to them. Five seconds later he did it again. The 'Puffs were whispering to each other.

"Don't worry," said Miles, "I know those guys, and they'll think it's fun, and then everybody else will join in because they hate us. Convenient. Okay—incoming!" The handful of students around him joined in. "Now for Ravenclaw." He started launching food—fruit salad seemed to be optimal—one table further over. At this point there was a commotion, and professors were standing up and saying things no one could hear.


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"Oh Rita!" said Oren, "Mrs. Longbottom told me not to speak to you! She said you were a bad woman!"

"Oh, she did, did she?" Angie then whispered in his ear: "Turn towards me—straddle the bench—if you want me to stop at any point, just call me Angie when you do it, that way you can protest and I know you're okay." He nodded.

Sandra, who over heard this, snickered. "Like he's going to object."

Now they were facing each other. "Oh Harry," she purred, making a show of trailing her long green nails along his cheek, then down his chest, "I want you so bad—don't you want me? Don't you want to know what I can do with these acid-green lips?" She licked them, managing to look genuinely predatory. She had slid up to where their knees were touching, and was running her fingernails down the inside of his thigh. "Please, Harry, let me show you what a woman wants . . .," she made her voice breathy, "don't listen to Mrs. Longbottom. She just wants to control you like Dumbledore did -- the beatings will start any day now, just wait!" She stood up, sitting down on his lap facing him, hands on his shoulders. "Okay?" she whispered.

"Yeah." Then, in a louder voice, "Rita, I don't know if we should be doing this! I'm not sure I'm ready! I've only done it with Neville before!" At this, several Hufflepuffs looked their way, the Slytherins' laughter being more distracting than the food fight.

Tonks had her back to the Slytherins, but was in hearing range, and cringed. From here she could see Rachel over with the Ravenclaws, laughing happily and ducking flying sausage and melon balls. She was surprised when the faculty table suddenly stopped looking agitated—apparently Dumbledore had settled something and they were all looking expectantly at him. He pulled out his wand, and started intercepting flying food, sending it back to its throwers. First one item at a time, then two. After a minute he was handling most of what was being thrown, looking as happy as she had ever seen him.

Once, in the previous timeline, she had watched him take on a dozen Death Eaters at once. It was on a remote hillside, where he didn't have to worry about hurting innocents or destroying buildings. Dumbledore had ripped dozens of boulders from the ground at a time, transfiguring them into iron spears as they flew, and distributed them neatly and evenly among all twelve of his adversaries, battering their shields, never missing. After he had kept this up for what had seemed like twenty minutes, half of them were dead and the other half had apparated away. Dumbledore had looked pretty angry at the time, but not at all fatigued. The man was scary—there was a reason Voldemort feared him.

Tonks felt like she was watching the scene all over again, except with fruit salad instead of boulders. If Dumbledore had felt like it, he could have been transfiguring all the melon balls and soggy grapes and chunks of pineapple, and could perhaps, if he wanted to, grab all the food off of all the tables. Tonks found it incredibly reassuring that this man—probably the most powerful wizard in a century—was cheerfully using that power for a food fight. She wondered if he was doing it on purpose, just to drive that point home, or whether he was merely having fun. He certainly didn't seem to be trying to stop the chaos or teach anyone a lesson.

At the same time, Angie's voice was getting louder and louder behind her, moaning inarticulately and calling out "Oh, oh, Harry!" Tonks found it seriously unsettling, but she also desperately wanted to watch. Finally she joined everyone else at her table who wasn't busy ducking or flinging food, and turned around.

Tonks couldn't see below the table, but Angie—who was a half-way convincing Rita Skeeter—was grinding against the crotch of whoever was pretending to be Harry, while he was thrusting up at her, supporting himself with his arms on the bench behind him. His face was a confused mixture of terror and arousal. Angie whispered something to Sandra, who moved to support Harry as Angie grabbed his hands and placed them on her breasts. "I know they're not as big as Mrs. Longbottom's, I hope that's okay . . . ooh . . ." Then she grabbed his head, pulling him by the hair until his mouth was against her breast—Tonks guessed the kid didn't know how far he was supposed to take this. "That's right, Harry, give me an interview, interview my breast . . ." she was moving faster, throwing her head back now—Tonks didn't think it looked like an act anymore. "Harry! Harry!" Her voice approached a shriek. "If only Minister Fudge were here!"

Sandra and Rissa wasted no time, dashing to the sixth year boy behind Angie, who was practically drooling at this point. Sandra grabbed the paper and flipped furiously, presumably finding a photo of the Minister, and within thirty seconds had a passable Fudge. "Okay, Fudge, go!" they said, and got out of the way. Angie got up and turned around, grinding back down onto Harry, beckoning to the Fudge lookalike—"Oh, Oh, Cornelius, we need you! Neither Harry nor I can cum without you here!!!"

The boy looked at a loss, briefly, before inspiration struck. "Oh, Rita, you know I want to, but I really think I . . . I should get Dumbledore's permission first."

Angie nearly fell off the bench laughing; it was clear nothing else was going to happen to top that. The glamors were taken off with a quick series of "finite!"s, which was good, because Dumbledore was so thoroughly dominating the food fight that students were losing enthusiasm. Rissa sent a quick "We're done over here—thank you!" down the line, and the food stopped flying from the Slytherin table.

Angie, standing up now, turned to Oren. "You okay?"

"Yeah."

She managed a hurried "okay, good," and ran out of the room.

"Uhh," said Oren, looking dazed as he watched her go, "did I do something to her I shouldn't have?"

Sandra snickered. "You didn't put out, and now she's all turned on and has to go take care of it. Maybe you should run after her—after all that, I bet you have the same problem." She grinned.

Becky hit her. "Sandra, you're awful. It was hilarious, but you're lucky he took that so well. You can't go pulling that stuff on first years—they can't all play along like that."

Oren started to say "I'm okay," but Sandra cut him off. "Oh, come on, he was totally into it! They were acting for, oh, the first few seconds, and then it was all grinding and moaning from there on out!" This was true, and when it had been happening it seemed like the sort of thing he would be foolish to say no to, but now Oren just wanted to slide under the table and hide.

"Oh, don't look so embarrassed. That was the funniest thing I've seen in a really long time. Better than Filch and the geese, even."

"Yeah," said Erwin, "he was just giving us a hard time yesterday about how we had to come up with something better than the Weasleys' stupid pranks."

"Uh, that wasn't really what I had in mind," said Oren.

Sandra snorted. "No, instead you were thinking of Angie's crotch."

"Hey," said the former Fudge, a boy Oren hadn't met in his first timeline. "I'd rather be thinking of that than geese any day, if it was me."

"I can't believe you all haven't gotten in trouble for that. She was nearly screaming!" protested Becky.

"That was what the food fight was for—the guys at the end were covering for us, so we'll have to be nice to them later," explained Rissa.

"Are you sure?" asked Oren. "It looked like Dumbledore saw us. Like he thought he was covering for us, or something."

Variants on "Why would he do that?" came from several directions.

"Huh." Oren looked thoughtful. "Does Slytherin house usually laugh so much together at meals?"

Rissa answered "No, I don't think so. Definitely not at breakfast—that would be weird even for the Gryffindors. Hey Dermot, do you remember anything like that ever happening?" She looked at the boy who had been Fudge.

"No way. I'd remember it if it did, I'm sure."

"So you think Dumbledore wanted us to have fun or something?" asked Rissa.

Oren considered this. "Maybe? Couldn't he also be trying to make some point, like, he'll bend the rules for us, too, like he does for everyone else, if we do what he wants?"

"So what you're saying he wants, then," offered Sandra, "is more simulated sex with loud moaning in the Great Hall?"

Dermot added "I know I'm all for it," giving a lascivious look.

Rissa stuck her tongue out "Oh, you just wish it was you it happened to."

"You know it!" he replied, unembarrassed.

"Well," said Oren, "nobody got hurt, nobody jinxed anybody, we looked like we were having fun, and we kept the other houses out of it."

"Or maybe he just really hates Skeeter," suggested Bernard.

"Or," said Erwin, "maybe he's getting off on it himself."

It was mutually agreed that if Dumbledore had meant to send a message, no one knew what it was.


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Oren had spent the day reliving the scene from breakfast, barely paying attention in classes. It had been the most he had done with a girl in either timeline. He hadn't been a social outcast or anything, but he hadn't hit it off with anyone he met, either, and had never learned how to go about meeting them. He had wondered about the motivations of a few witches who hired him to work in their houses, but had been far too professional to try anything. His parents, who wanted the family name to continue (his sister would probably give them grandchildren, which are not the same as an heir), weren't happy about it. So far that hadn't risen to open fussing, though, since it wasn't weird for wizards not to get married or have children until middle age; they had a little more leeway than muggles did, health- and fertility-wise.

Oren was puzzled as to what was going differently this time around. A lot of Slytherins had been pretty over-the-top the last time, too, but he didn't remember them doing anything so blatantly sexual and public. His question about laughing, too, had been sincere—for all he knew they had previously only ever joked around when he was out of the room.

He was in bed with the lights out, thinking about this while staring at the ceiling, when he heard footsteps and a tentative knock on the door. "Come in!" he called, using his wand to turn a lamp on.

The door opened to reveal Angie, in a close-fitting nightgown. She slipped in as if trying not to be seen, and quickly shut the door behind her.

"Can we talk?" She looked incredibly awkward.

"Sure."

"Can I sit?" she asked, looking at the foot of his bed. He nodded. He had a chair a few feet away at his desk; she could have sat down there despite the robes flung over it, but had gone for the bed.

"I kind of wanted to make sure everything was okay. I kind of got carried away this morning." She was blushing. Oren briefly wondered if some girls could fake blushes.

"I'm not traumatized or anything, if that's what you mean. If we had gotten in trouble I might have been. Uh, did any teachers say anything to you later? None of them said anything to me."

"No, I think we're good—there is no good reason for that though. I totally lost it there." She smiled, which Oren interpreted as looking for reassurance.

He smiled back, then realized she was probably looking for something a little more definite out of the conversation, like knowing he wouldn't press charges or something crazy. This was one of those moments where he worried about sounding his age—he had never sounded his age the first time he was eleven, and wasn't sure how far he should fake it this time. His strategy so far had been 'don't treat them like clients, and don't pretend not to be nervous or socially awkward.' This seemed to be working; it's not like Hogwarts lacked its fair share of weird smart kids, or like anyone was actively looking for time-travelers. Or, at least, like anybody from this timeline was looking for them. Angie was looking at him. Right.

"Uh, if you are worried about me complaining or getting you in trouble, it's really okay." He decided to take a small risk. "Sandra said you ran off afterwards because of the way I did things—was what I did okay?"

He thought Angie looked like she was choking on her response, trying not to laugh, but also like she had been caught off-guard and was having to go off-script. She gestured, fidgeting with her hands in amused frustration.

"Argh! I don't know what to say."

"If it helps, it's okay if you laugh about it—I went along with it—originally, I mean—because it was too funny not to."

"What do you mean, 'originally'?"

"Ack." He felt himself blushing (and not faking it, he thought to himself). "I didn't mean to say it that way—it sounded okay in my head before I said it. I mean, er... sorry—I'm not used to talking about this stuff when I'm not joking around with Bernard and Erwin or somebody." This was true; he didn't need to fake awkwardness! Awesome! Sort of.

Angie grinned. "Nobody really expects you to be. If it weren't for Sandra, I wouldn't be either." Neither of them said anything for a while; Oren watching her, Angie staring at the floor. "You seemed to be really getting into it too," she teased.

"Yeah. Was that okay?"

"Oh! Of course. I mean, I kind of started it. I wouldn't have kept going like that if I hadn't felt you . . . respond. Argh. I sound like some kind of child molester! Uh, don't take that wrong—you're really mature for your age, but—"

"How old are you?"

"Fourteen."

"Would anybody actually care?"

"It's probably illegal—I mean, if our clothes were off, it would be, so some people would be mad about it."

"Nobody else at the table but Becky seemed to care."

"That's because Slytherins don't give a shit about that—pardon my language—and Becky was totally faking it so she could feel superior." She grinned again. "I bet the 'Puffs were scandalized, though. I saw them watching us."

"Heh. I only just met Sandra, and I can hear her voice in my head saying 'They're just jealous!'" This was half-true, since he was sure the Sandra from the first timeline would, in fact, have said that.

"Hee. Yeah, they probably were. And Dermot's face when we made him be Fudge was just priceless! I have no idea how he came up with that Dumbledore comment—I know you don't know him—that was probably his current events awareness and clever line quota for the year, used up right there."

"I've never actually seen glamors used like that. I guess there isn't much use for an illusion that is really obviously an illusion."

Angie nodded. "Yeah, it's not good enough for stage make-up or anything, since you can't get the facial expressions to change right. It's sort of a sub-set of illusions—Flitwick had us work on those a little last year—he said wizards don't usually need to make illusions, since they can generally do the same things physically with magic. And they require some artistic skill—I'm babbling, sorry."

"No, go on—I'm interested." Oren had learned enough about illusions to pass Charms, so none of this was really new to him, but he had never made any use of them since his N.E.W.T.s. Mostly, though, he was surprised to see Angie talking animatedly about something academic—it was not something Slytherins were in the habit of doing.

"Right, so you can tell Sandra and Rissa have worked on it a little beyond what Flitwick taught us—we screw around trying to look like other people sometimes, and laugh about it, but the play-acting was something new."

"I wonder what Rita and Harry and Fudge would think of it."

"Oh, Fudge would bluster, Harry would be too innocent to understand, and I think maybe Rita would just break down and not know what to think, since she's always doing the making fun of people, not the other way around. I don't think she'd be able to ask for an interview ever again without thinking 'Oh, Harry, interview my breast!' Um, sorry about that, by the way."

"No, that was brilliant—I think sometimes you have to do things just for the sake of humor or aesthetics—like, if you didn't do them, the world would be a much poorer place." Oren actually had a lot of opinions on this, and was trying not to go overboard.

She snorted. "Of course, because pushing your face into my breast was great art."

"Actually, yeah. Yes it was." Now it was her turn to see him look animated. "It was really funny! I mean, I enjoyed it and it made everyone jealous," — he moved on from this as quickly as he could, dropping it in in passing, "but it was the right thing to do at the time. It was just so ridiculous that once you thought of it, you had to do it, and maybe you were so turned on that that was the only reason you had the nerve to say it, but whatever, that's how people work and it made it happen."

"Oh, I see, you're fine talking about sex if it's all academic." She stuck out her tongue, but kept going before he could respond. "Mr. 'Oh, Rita, I've only ever done this with Neville!' That was awesome, by the way. I didn't expect you to say anything like that—it was one of the reasons I wasn't thinking about your age beyond you pretending to be Harry. Well, that and also it was really hot. Come on, you thought so too!"

"I didn't say I didn't! I just didn't want to say something wrong and make you think I was creepy or something."

"Okay, that's fair. Here: I don't think you're creepy, and I give you permission to talk to me about sex without freaking out." She looked like she wanted to add to that, then switched gears: "Unless you're being Harry again and it's in character."

"I don't know, my Harry character was getting pretty comfortable with it by the end there. I could have been shouting 'No, Rita, noooooo!', though, instead."

"Right, and the only reason you didn't was because it wouldn't be aesthetically correct. Sure."

"Well, no, you could totally do a Harry/Rita scene and have it go that way. You did enough grabbing—you could do it. Heck, who else is there who wants to rape Harry?"

"Ack—that makes it sound really dirty."

"Sorry."

"No, it's fine, I liked it, I was just surprised."

"So, who is there?"

"Oh, Merlin, I'm not sure. It'd have to be a public figure—Rissa and Sandra aren't good enough to do it without a photo."

"Have they ever tried other Hogwarts students?"

Angie cracked up. "Oh, that would be awesome! And yeah, they have. Some girls in other houses who you probably don't know. Professor McGonagall. Snape." She snorted.

"Snape? Did they use a girl for that, or drag some boy in?"

"Oh no, they did it to _me_. I make a very pretty Severus Snape, I'll have you know!"

"I don't know, the man has style. I'd like to see that—see if you can pull it off." Angie was doubled over with laughter; he kept going. "You'd have to get somebody to transfigure your clothes properly, and then you'd have to do his body language right. I mean, he really plays it for all it's worth, and you'd be playing at being him, so it would have to be extra exaggerated."

She managed to stop laughing for a moment. "Wait, you think it's all an act?"

"'Act' isn't right. Hm. It really is a style that he's picked for himself, and carefully worked at for years. Nobody can talk like that, or go around in swoopy clothes like that, naturally, without trying really hard. I think he knows exactly what he's doing. Have you ever met Lucious Malfoy? Like, gotten to hang around him?"

"I was at a party wth him once, yeah."

"Same thing. The man has style. You might not like it—most people find it exactly as off-putting as he intends it to be—but he's the same as Snape. Totally polished, deliberate image. Fudge is like the anti-Lucius—he tries, but he just comes off looking stupid."

"Huh. I never thought of it that way before. Is your family friends with the Malfoys?"

"As much as anybody is, I guess—it's like, nobody in my parents' social circles gives their kids a choice about who to play with or who to invite to their birthday parties. You wind up getting to Hogwarts without ever having any real friends, since you never got to choose them yourself."

"I don't think it works that way."

"Maybe not for everyone. It played out that way for us, though."

"You sound bitter. Also like you have thought about it a lot."

"Not really, and also I'm always getting told that kind of thing, because I'm smart for my age and people think that needs some sort of explanation." He was going out on a limb there.

"Oh, sorry. I guess that could sound bad—I didn't mean it that way."

"It's okay." He wanted to change the subject. "I'm not sure how comfortable I'd be doing a scene with Snape."

"Oh! I didn't mean to sound like you had to or anything! And I don't think the rest of the house would be comfortable watching that, either."

"Except for Sandra."

"Right. How about we reserve the Harry/Snape scene as a threat, if we get really mad at people and want to traumatize them?"

He grinned. "That works."

"So, McGonagall, then?"

"In the common room. Not where she could see it."

"Eee. How about Trelawney?"

"Is she the one with the huge glasses?"

"Yeah."

"I'd need some help ahead of time, since I don't know anything about her. Wouldn't it be better to do another student, though? They'd be more likely to be obsessed with Harry Potter."

"Ohhhhhhh. Damn. I wouldn't know where to start. Can we ask Sandra about that?"

"Sure, ask whoever you want."

"Oooh. I like this plan." She was fidgeting with her hands in anticipation, totally caught up in it, and then stopped and looked worried. "You know, I came in here, I mean, when I came in here I really wasn't expecting this conversation to go this way. I had a couple ways I thought it might go, but nothing like this."

"Oh." Oren made a guess. "Now you're worried you're a dirty child molester, and everyone will be horrified and Dumbledore will expel you, and even Snape will laugh at you, and McGonagall will catch you looking like her and transfigure you into an urn or goblet or something . . ." This was beyond what eleven-year-old Oren could have come up with, but he was having too much fun to stop, and he really did want to make Angie stop feeling guilty. He hoped that it would get written off as being precocious with sarcasm, and pass as normal for a Slytherin. In any case she was laughing, but also cringing away from his onslaught. "And right now, they saw you come in here, and they're all out in the hallway listening to you, waiting to hear you moaning and me screaming as you tie me up and rape me over and over, all of them horrified about how you corrupted me, because I'm soooo innocent . . . and they are all planning on bursting in here hoping to catch you in the act, with their cameras,
which they also used to take photos of you being Rita, and they've already sent those off to the Prophet, and Fudge will hear about it and condemn you in public, and," he closed gleefully, pointing at her, "that will lead to an investigation of the school, so they'll close Hogwarts down for good because the Wizengamot thinks all everyone does around here is molest first-years in public, and Voldemort will take advantage of this and even Grindelwald will rise again—yes, even if he's dead—and it will all be because you knocked on my door!!!"

"Eeeeeeeeeeee." She had fallen over onto the bed away from him, burying her face in the covers, shaking her head.

Oren couldn't resist, and put on his best concerned voice. "Angie, are you okay? I know I got caught up in the moment there, but it felt good and I thought it was okay because you were laughing, but I didn't mean to be mean and you're not mad at me or going to get me into trouble, are you?"

He was rewarded with snickering from under the end of his quilt, where Angie was pretending to hide. If she actually thought he was a freak, he figured, she would be looking disturbed, not laughing. It was a good sign.

"Um, Angie, are we even now?" He had sat up, and slid down slightly, so that he could put his hand on her thigh. "Seriously, this was the best conversation I've had in well, I don't know, maybe ever—I have the verbal ability to come off as more experienced than I actually am." This was entirely true. He didn't know what else to say.

Angie eventually sighed and got out from under the covers, sighed again, and looked at him, a resigned and tired expression on her face. "Okay, listen, I had a good time talking to you too, and I don't think you're a freak or anything, and you shouldn't feel self-conscious about your age even though you probably will. I'd like to go back to my room and get some sleep. I'm feeling tired and sort of drained, and I'm worried you'll think I'm mad at you or something, but I really ought to go." She looked away, and started getting up. "Also the longer I stay, the more Sandra is going to tease me. Merlin, this . . . was not how I expected this conversation to go—heck, this whole day has been like that. So, yeah, we're good. I'm going to kiss you on the nose now," which she then bent over and did, "because you won't know how to interpret it and I'm too tired to think of another way to get back at you for teasing me." She gave him a weak smile, and slipped out the door without saying anything else.

Oren just lay back down, staring at the ceiling again. He had to admit he felt pretty tired and drained, too.


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


"Oh, looks who's baaack!" Sandra and Angie shared a bunk bed, with Angie on the bottom; even if Sandra hand't been waiting up for her, she probably couldn't have climbed into bed undetected.

"Sooo. You were out for a long time. Did you convince your first-year you weren't a cock tease?"

"Shut up, Sandra."

"Wait, you didn't, did you? What were you doing all that time?"

"Talking."

"Oh, 'talking'." Sandra made air-quotes. Angie shook her head and started climbing up to her bunk. "What, did that nightgown not work? It's certainly revealing enough. Hey, I can see up it from here when you do that." Sandra had turned around on the bed, sticking her head out to look up the ladder. "Aww, you're wearing panties, that's your problem. Try leaving them off next time and he'll get the picture."

"I said shut up."

"Don't get snippy with me, young lady. You were the one out there taking advantage of his single room and the lack of alarms on the boys' dorms. I just wanted to know if that was all you were taking advantage of."

"Argh!!!" Angie turned the light out and put her wand under her pillow.

"Oh, right, you went in there all horny from breakfast, since you only got yourself off four times afterwards, and you were hoping he'd be an easy lay because he was a firstie and you'd be his—heh—first—I mean, he might not be very big yet, but you got him hard easily enough. Aw, I can see it now, you went in there all confident, but pretending to be awkward, 'Oh, Oren, are you okay? I'm sorry I ran off after grinding into your hard-on and moaning for five minutes in front of the whole school, but really I'm not a cock tease.' And then you'd smile—with this sly look you practiced in front of the mirror for like an hour, and say 'If you want, I can make it up to you . . . I feel really bad about it, and I know you were really horny too . . .,' and then you were just going to pull the covers back without asking, and slip your hands into his pajamas—I bet they were blue flannel with little brooms and quaffles and stuff on them—and—"

"Sandra, if you don't fucking shut the fuck up I am going to hex you until you beg for mercy, and I know some seriously nasty curses. Also I have access to you while you're asleep."

"Wow, you really do need to get laid, I know it's not your time of the month . . ."

"Fuck you! This isn't funny anymore. Leave me the hell alone and let me get some sleep. Maybe it will be funny in the morning, but right now it isn't, and I am seriously pissed at you."

"Okay, okay. Sorry. I'll lay off."

Angie huffed, but said nothing more, not wanting to give her roommate any more encouragement.




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Author's notes:

I spent a really long time on this chapter. Not a long time writing it, but a long time coming up with character names, and an even longer time just wondering whether I really wanted to post it. My warning in my initial notes said the story would creep upwards in content ratings and warnings; I meant that. Once again, if anyone thinks I have the wrong warnings up, please let me know.

I'd also like to note that this story has gotten way more views than I ever expected in such a short amount of time -- even beyond the many that I must have generated refreshing pages to see how my edits looked. I also realize I should be very flattered by the reader ratings I've gotten -- so far as I can tell, with my posting of many short chapters, it takes more votes to get the overall rating up. Right now it is at '3', which is amazing for my first attempt at fanfic, and my longest attempt at fiction ever. Thank you!!!