FicWad

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


❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧


Monday, October 8, 1990


"Well, Rissa doesn't seem too bothered by the idea of love potions—maybe we should dose her with one." Bernard and Erwin were in the common room, trying to come up with pranks "good" enough not to make Oren cringe.

"Why would you do that? If you were proposing to make somebody lust after, say, Fred and George, you should make it somebody they know, so maybe they'll get suspected of doing it themselves. And the Weasleys are a bit too harsh to do to another Slytherin."

"What if we dosed them to go after Rissa instead?" suggested Erwin.

"That's better," said Oren, "and avoids the problem of trying to get someone to fall for twins simultaneously. If you went for only one, it wouldn't be as funny, and the other would catch on instantaneously."

"Heh," Bernard laughed, "what do you suppose she'd do with them?"

"What, the twins? I have no idea. Don't some people have a thing for twins? Maybe she'd be happy about it. I don't think we can do the thing where we figure out who in our house fancies somebody from another one, and then set them up, because mostly that doesn't seem to happen. We kind of keep to ourselves so far as I can tell. Or else people are good at hiding things."

"So how would you get them to drink the potion?" asked Erwin.

"I don't know. The house elves control the food on the tables at meals, so if it's in food or drink it has to happen elsewhere. I don't know what color they all might be, although I seem to remember amortentia is a swirly opaque thing. So you couldn't put in butterbeer or something. Lace chocolate frogs with them?"

"How do you make sure the twins eat them, and not someone else?"

"Yeah, targeting is really hard. It would be nice if you could make it so that it only affects the target. Hm." Oren looked thoughtful.

"What?"

"Well, my understanding is that potions are better at letting you set a particular person somebody will go for, but anybody who drinks it gets the effect. And charms are better for making sure only the right person triggers it, so you could, say, make a chair that made a person horny when they sat in it, and I think you could only have it trigger for somebody you specify, but you can't use that to make them horny for the Weasley twins specifically."

Bernard and Erwin looked impressed. "Seriously?"

"Sure, generic effects like that are easy, especially if you don't mess around with the triggering business."

"So could we do that on, say, the chairs in this room? Like, ourselves?"

"Sure, I guess, I think I know how, but why?"

Erwin looked exasperated. "Oren, you're smart and all, but sometimes you're really dense. I have no idea how you ended up with a girl in your lap the other day."

"Probably because it seemed funnier to do it to me."

"Yeah. Yeah, that actually makes sense. Anyway, if you make girls horny, you have a better chance of getting some."

"Couldn't they just run off like Angie did the other day?"

"I don't know. Maybe. Could you at least try?"

"It seems like it would just annoy people."

Erwin wasn't going to give up that easily. "You wouldn't have to tell them. Can you make it so the effect isn't very strong, so they won't notice?"

Oren looked upwards, like he was working something out in his head. "Yes. I still don't see the point, though."

"Well, would it be hard to undo, if it goes badly?"

"That depends . . . I'd have to do it with runes—I learned a lot of runic stuff because you don't have to be very powerful to use it, and the Ministry's trace doesn't care about it. So if I just drew in chalk, that would be fine." Oren got down on the floor and looked at the underside of the chair he was in. "This has the upholstery on the bottom, too. Let's see . . ."

He pulled a piece of white chalk out of his pocket. "What," asked Bernard, "you carry chalk around all the time, just in case?"

"Yeah—it's enchanted so the dust doesn't get on anything but what you're writing on."

"Wait," asked Erwin, "how does that work?"

"It's basically just a very specific charm that you are casting through the chalk or stylus or whatever you've got, as you write it, instead of a wand. Some people, me included, like calling it runic magic because that sounds cool, but Flitwick would probably say it's just a charm. So, yeah, you still have to learn each rune or glyph."

"Huh."

"Anyway, this chalk doesn't write well enough on this upholstery. Maybe a piece of paper with a sticking charm? You know, everyone's going to figure out I did it eventually. I don't like this plan."

"I can't do a sticking charm yet, but would spell-o-tape work? Then you could just make the piece of paper and give it to me, and I'd take the blame if we got caught."

"Wow, Erwin, you're really set on this. But, yeah, that sounds okay. Do you have tape?"

"Yeah, in our room." Bernard and Erwin shared a double.

"Okay, let's go get this over with. And don't tell me where you put it, just leave it off the chairs we usually sit in. I don't want to have to worry about it or get involved. I'll get in enough trouble if anybody figures out I helped."

Half an hour later, Bernard and Erwin were looking at a stack of papers, each bearing a surprisingly complicated drawing. They had accepted Oren's (basically truthful) explanation that he had spent much of his childhood in his family's library when they were off playing quidditch.

"Okay, fine, you have your toys. I don't see how you're any closer to getting the Weasleys, though."

"Uh, could we go into the Great Hall when it was empty, and stick these under the benches on the Gryffindor table?"

"Because you want the Gryffindors to have more sex than you?"

"No! Damn it, Oren, stop being a moron. It would just be funny to watch them squirm."

Oren sighed. "And you promise not to tell me how, if, or when you do it?"

"Sure."

"Okay. You don't want to use those in the Great Hall, though—they're both too subtle and not subtle enough."

"What does that mean?" asked Bernard.

"Well, you want the effect to be powerful when it's on, but not so noticeable that anybody thinks to look under the table. I'll think about how to do that. Just don't use the ones I gave you for the Great Hall, okay?"

"This is one of those things where you don't want your name on a prank that you think is dumb, right?"

"Exactly."

"So what else can you do this way?"

"Uh, I'd have to think about that. Off the top of my head, I know how to make them want to eat their vegetables—just don't ask about that one—but it should be pretty versatile. You know, this is turning out to be a better plan than I expected . . ."

"Hah. You didn't think we could come up with one." They both looked pleased with themselves.

"No, I had no idea if you could. Actually, how much can you do with Spello-tape, anyway? Like, how much weight can it hold up? How long does it last? Could I do this on something other than paper?"

"Like what?"

"I don't know yet. Huh. Maybe I should do the installation myself, after all. Just let me think about this for a while. Like, a few days."

Bernard laughed. "Heh. If he's going to actually take whole days for it, it ought to be really good."

"Thanks. There's a difference between actual design work and ordinary impulse control, though—I don't want to run off and make whatever we're putting under the table, and then the next day think of something awesome I wish I had added to it."


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


Oliver Wood wasn't sure whether he was becoming convinced the Weasleys wouldn't get in trouble for playing with their food, or whether he had spent so long being mortified by them that he had run out of the ability to get upset anymore. Right now they were all at dinner, and George was hovering an apple above the table while Fred made three peas orbit around it. "I can't believe Flitwick taught you that. What was he thinking?"

"He was thinking that 'wingardium leviosa' was an ordinary part of the Charms curriculum . . ."

". . . and was pleased to have students—any students—come see him in his office for extra help."

"Personally," added Charlie, "I think he was curious what it was like to be a faculty member talking to Fred and George when they weren't in trouble."

"Oh, that's unfair!"

"We convince Hagrid we aren't in trouble all the time."

"That so does not count."

"Argh!" said Oliver, "Charlie, just because you're their big brother doesn't mean you can just let them do whatever they want. What if they really got in trouble?"

"They don't seem to get themselves in major trouble, and anyway I've been tiring them out with those exercises in the forest." The twins groaned. "Besides, nobody ever gets hurt. Sure, they're a steady drain on house points, but remember, that doesn't count towards the Quidditch Cup."

"Oh, right!" said Oliver, looking a little brighter. "Not that we have any chance this year."

"Well, I'd like to at least get second by a respectable margin, even if we can't beat Slytherin."

"Don't say that! There's always a way! But it doesn't help that somebody always buys them the newest brooms."

"Yeah. Why doesn't Gryffindor have any rich alumni?"

"Ah, that doesn't seem right, though. Just because no one buys us new brooms . . ."

" . . . doesn't mean nobody could . . .

". . . and it's not like we've tried asking. Have we tried asking?"

"Well," said Charlie, "McGonagall ought to know. I'll see if I can catch her in her office alone. It's worth a try."

"Thanks, Charlie!"

"Now, I don't want to get your hopes up. McGonagall isn't the most warm and outgoing of people, and probably hasn't kept in touch with students. I bet Sprout could get new brooms for the Hufflepuff team in no time if she were conniving enough to think of it. But we might as well try."

"That's right, Oliver, you never can tell what you can do until you try!"

"George's right, of course," said George, pointing to his twin. "For instance, if he hadn't tried, we wouldn't know he could hover five peas at a time."

"And if Fred hadn't tried," said Fred, "we wouldn't know that you could levitate a lump of chocolate pudding without the bowl."

"Yes! Of course, it's kind of messy. Want some?" He levitated it, steadily dripping, in front of Oliver, who leaned backwards to get away from it. "Don't worry—I won't drop it in your lap."

"Percy, now, we'd totally go for . . ."

". . . if he didn't strategically sit as far away from us as possible."

Oliver cringed, unwittingly reinforcing everything he was trying to stop.


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


Thursday, October 11, 1990. Evening.

Oren was in his usual seat at the back of the library. In a few minutes Madam Pince would start shooing everyone out and closing up. He had long since finished his homework, and was sketching increasingly elaborate plans for the Gryffindor benches.

Rissa and Sandra had been in here off and on for the past few days, hanging around the potions section and looking increasingly frustrated. They hadn't noticed him, so far as he could tell, because he was small and kept his head down in his work.

"The library will be closing in five minutes!" shouted Madam Pince. The girls began dejectedly to reshelve the two dozen or so books they had accumulated on the table. Oren was able to pack up his things relatively quickly, and walked up to them.

He arrived as Rissa was coming out of the stacks. She jumped. "Oren! You startled me. Were you sneaking up on us?"

"No—it's a library. Some people try to be quiet in them." Rissa stuck out her tongue.

Sandra returned from reshelving her last armload, and the three started back to the dorms. "So what were you up to back there?" Oren asked.

"Trying to find the recipe for polyjuice," answered Sandra, "so that we don't have to just use glamors the next time Angie and you or whoever decide to get it on in public."

Oren had no idea what to say. Rissa correctly took this as embarrassment. "Oh, come on, it's not like we'd be forcing it down your throat or anything. It would just be nice to have around, just in case."

Oren tried to pretend he wasn't involved in this. "Let me guess—you can't find the recipe."

"Yeah. We've been looking for days."

"You realize it's almost certainly in the Restricted Section, don't you?"

"Why?" asked Sandra, sounding genuinely baffled. "It's not like it's the Dark Arts or anything."

"Well, impersonating people is really useful if you want to say, break into Gringott's or the Ministry or something."

"Oh, come onnn. So criminals use it, so we can't have it either. Next they'll ban the hover charm because you can use to throw rocks as well as sausages."

"Sandra, honestly, some people are interested in things other than sex. It does kind of suck for us, though. . . I hadn't really thought of it as a seriously dark potion, either."

Oren realized that he was at a minor crossroads. He knew of several books back home that contained the recipe for polyjuice. The girls' families probably hadn't accumulated as many books as the Waylands had, so it might make a difference whether he helped out here.

One option was to ask his little sister, Sarepta, to go to one of the books, copy down the recipe, and send it to him. But she was a few years younger than him, and he wasn't sure how accurate she would be. He discarded that plan as unsafe.

The other was just to ask his father directly. Oren could imagine how that would go—his father would probably be so thrilled by the request that he'd go down to Knockturn Alley and buy Oren several cases of the stuff, then insist on handing it off to one of the girls on the next Hogsmeade weekend. He'd probably throw in a case of contraceptive potions and an embarrassing lecture, too, and then over Christmas break he'd make both Oren and his sister hear all about his teenage escapades with polyjuice.

No, he wasn't comfortable with the idea of his father handing Angie, or worse, Sandra, a case of polyjuice. Oren was inexperienced, yes, but he was certainly creative enough to come up with an endless stream of possibilities. Assuming Angie was still interested, obtaining an easy supply of polyjuice could easily be a point of no return—a temptation none of them would manage to resist. No.

It wasn't even concern about mucking up the timeline—he was happy to do that. He just didn't want to risk having his formative sexual experiences happen while he was in somebody else's body. There were too many ways for that to go horribly wrong. The fact that due to the time travel, he already was in a different body—that just confused the issue further.

"I guess you could go ask Professor Snape to let you into the Restricted Section, but he's going to know what you're up to, and if the ingredients turn out to be expensive or hard to get he's not going to want you coming back to him, or have you tempted to nick them."

"How would he know what we're up to?"

"You know he's a legilimens, right?"

"What's that?"

"He can read minds. Uh, it means he's good at the spell for that. You can learn to block it. Both are hard. I think he mostly uses it to keep the Gryffindors from throwing stuff at him or deliberately blowing anything up—I don't think he'd tell Dumbledore about anything you were up to unless you were planning to kill somebody."

"Wait—does he do that to everybody?"

"I don't know? I've never heard of him acting on anything he learned from doing it to Slytherins, though, so unless you are planning to do something to him in particular, you're probably safe."

"I guess that's okay, then," said Rissa, "but now we're kind of out of options to get the recipe."

"Actually, I just realized, I guess I should warn you. My father says that while Snape's okay, Dumbledore is also a legilimens, and he's not as scrupulous about how he uses the information."

"What?"

"Creepy old bastard!"

"Yeah. Like I said, if you really care, you can learn to block it—that's called occlumency, and I'd assume there are books on it in the library. But the way Dumbledore does it, it's harder for him if you don't make eye contact with him. My father says he makes his eyes twinkle or something to try to distract you when he does it."

"Ew. So he just goes around, snooping on everyone's sex lives?"

"Sandra . . ." warned Rissa.

"Right, right, I'm secretly the next dark lord and he has to know what I get off on at night in order to save the world from me."

"Actually, I think Sandra's right this time. We don't know what all Dumbledore is up to—remember, this is a guy who got himself custody of a one-year-old kid just so he could leave him with a bunch of abusive muggles. He's not a nice person."

Now the girls just looked depressed. Great. And he really ought to make sure Erwin and Bernard knew about the legilimency thing, too.

"Well, that was a cheery thought. So Oren . . . Rissa and I overheard that Hufflepuff girl—Tonks, I think her name was—talking about that business with Trelawney and the pigeons. Did you hear about that?"

"Sort of?" He had actually been paying attention to stories about Trelawney, just in case.

"You heard what she did with the potions, right?"

"What potions? All I know is she taught some classes on entrail reading."

"Oh, it's better than that. She didn't want the students freaking out, so she made them drink calming draughts and stuff that keeps you from vomiting."

"Wow. That's . . . I wonder what that was like."

"Yeah. Anyway, she got Snape to brew all the potions for her, and she spent two weeks on it, so that was a lot of work for him."

Rissa chimed in. "So the Hufflepuffs were saying if they were Slytherins, they'd act out that scene."

"It was so cute! It's like they can be taught. And Tonks is a metamorphmagus, too—I don't think it ever occurred to her that she could just make herself look like Snape or Trelawney then and there and just go with it."

"Okay, I'm confused. Angie said you guys hadn't done that sort of thing before. . ."

They were now standing outside of the Slytherin dorms. "Well, we hadn't, but that was way too awesome not to do again." Sandra switched to a teasing voice. "Soooo, what's up with you and Angie, anyway? Neither of you has said anything to us since."

"Uh, I wasn't avoiding you or anything, I'm just shy."

Sandra snorted. "Yeah, you were real shy about dry-humping Angie in public."

"Er, look, could we not talk about this so loudly?"

"Sorry. It doesn't look like Angie's around, though—come onnn . . . you don't look traumatized, so whatever happened must have been okay. Come sit with us over here?"

Oren looked uncomfortable, knowing that Erwin and Bernard had probably finished installing his enchantments. He wasn't sure he wanted to test his own handiwork right now.

Sandra saw his hesitation. "Okay, okay . . . we could all go back to your room and you could tell us there . . . I promise we won't molest you!"

Oren managed what he hoped was an unreadable smile. "Hah! No, I'm not worried about that. I don't know what I'm allowed to say, though. Angie hasn't said anything to me since last week, either."

"Seriously? Sandra, what did you say to her?"

"I just . . . I teased her about what she had been doing with Oren, in his room."

"No, what exactly did you say?"

"You guys, I really wish you'd keep your voices down. Uh, I guess you can come back to my room if you want, but I kind of don't want to stay here and watch you talk about this in public."

"Okay, alright. Come on, Sandra, you're not getting out of this."


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


Several minutes later, they were sitting in Oren's room, Rissa and Oren on his bed, Sandra in the chair. His face was beet red.

"Oh come onnn, I know it was kind of overdone, but Angie knows I was just making stuff up. I say stuff like that around her all the time. I don't see what the big deal is."

"Hm. Oren, did Angie actually do anything like what Sandra teased her about? I mean, that you could tell?"

"Hey, he wouldn't know, if she never said anything outright and couldn't get him to go along with anything."

"Uh, not really? She never said anything like that stuff. I have no idea what she was thinking. She looked kind of disturbed when she left, and said she was tired, but I had kind of gone overboard teasing her too."

"No way! Seriously? So maybe it wasn't me after all? What did you say?"

"It was actually kind of similar to what you said, except not quite so . . . psychologically nuanced. I was trying to get her to stop worrying, so I just came up with more and more ridiculous stuff, like saying you were out in the hall with a camera, waiting to hear me screaming. And my version kind of ended with Voldemort and Grindelwald rising again and teaming up, and it all being her fault."

Sandra was nearly speechless with laughter. "That . . . is . . . is priceless. So awesome. I can't believe you did that."

"She looked so worried! I didn't know what else to do!"

"But then she came back to my room and I pulled it on her again."

"But even if both of you teased her like that, Oren's version sounds a lot less nasty and pointed. Oren, did she seem upset with you after that?"

"Not openly, at least, no—I asked her if we were okay, and she said yes. She at least didn't look mad at me. I was wondering if it secretly unsettled her, though—it was like she looked a lot more sober or something afterwards?"

"Huh. Sandra, you don't suppose she actually came in here planning to seduce Oren, do you?"

"Sure. Why not?"

"Er, Oren, you know that Angie could have gotten in trouble if she did that, right?"

"Yeah. At first I thought she came in to get me to promise not to tell on her, so I did that right away, and we just talked after that. But Angie said Slytherins didn't care about that sort of thing, and that even Becky was just faking it."

"Well, Becky is faking it. You can tell because she slips up sometimes. Remember, she tried to act all moral at first, but she was totally getting into it when she was watching you!"

Rissa was searching for words. "I guess . . . mostly we don't care. And you're, what, three years apart anyway? For all I know it would have been fine. It's just . . . Angie worries a lot, and she doesn't have any experience with boys."

"Hey, I don't either, but that doesn't stop me!"

"Sandra, you're special. But what I'm saying is that just because Slytherins, so long as you keep it in the house and it looks more or less consensual, will just leave each other alone—aside from teasing, of course. Just because of that doesn't mean she doesn't think a little like the outside world, or I guess remember what it thinks? I mean, there is kind of a big gap between you—it's not just three years."

Oren was briefly worried—was his cover blown?—before Sandra jumped in. "She means you don't look like you're very developed yet. You aren't, right? Going through puberty? Crotch hair, dick getting bigger, voice cracking?" Oren shook his head.

"Sandra! Argh, you make me feel like Becky. Damn you. Sorry about that, but yeah, Slytherins might tease each other, but nobody's going to stop you or anything."

"So you can go ahead and fuck Angie if you want."

"Damn it, Sandra! No wonder Angie won't speak to you. Okay, at least Oren thinks you're funny. Maybe I should leave you two together—after we're done talking. So anyway, at this point I'm going with a partial version of Sandra's theory—Angie was still turned on from breakfast and wasn't really thinking about age, since you had done such a good acting job—you did, by the way—and then once she got in here, realized how weird it all was, and started worrying what other people would think. Then she freaked, and then both of you laid it on thick in quick succession. Honestly, I think you both owe her an apology."

Oren realized he had just gotten a master class in how Slytherins handled internal conflict, or, at least, how the smarter ones did it. No one had talked to him about anything like this before. The house, on a social level, really did do things its own way, and you kind of had to understand it in order to make it work for you. "I can go find her in the Hall tomorrow," he said, "but I'm not sure what to say. I mean, she said we were okay, and she wasn't upset with me, so I can apologize, but I doubt I'll be able to tell if it made any difference."

"Yeah, that sounds about right. Except with me, I don't think she wants to talk to me. If she's awake when I get back to the room, I'll give it a try."

"Okay. Hm. Oren, you know this isn't a problem we have a lot around here, right? The other houses like to tell themselves stories about pureblood arranged marriages and so on, but that kind of thing hasn't happened in centuries. The stuff the Gryffindors make up about us is way kinkier than most of what actually happens."

"I know, it sucks, sorry to disappoint you!" Sandra grinned. "But some of us at least try to keep them wondering if maybe there's something to the rumors. Good job on that count, by the way."

"Riight." Rissa shook her head, and stood up. "Have to keep up appearances. I don't know. I think my work here is done. You two have fun." She gave them one last look, and slipped out the door, closing it again behind her.

"You know," said Sandra, "I think she was trying to scare the crap out of one of us by leaving like that, but I'm not sure who. I wonder, are you scared of me?" She put her fingers together and peered over them, trying to look predatory, but mostly looking terrifyingly gleeful.

"Uh, yes, but mostly because of that expression."

"Hah. Anyway, Rissa thinks I'm all talk, and can only keep that up because I avoid opportunities."

"Are you?"

"What, you too? Are you coming on to me?"

"No! I wasn't saying something was wrong with you. I just meant that conversationally, because it seemed like a reasonable thing to ask. It sounded okay in my head."

"Oh, yeah, that happens to me sometimes. But usually stuff starts out sounding pretty bad in my head, too, before I say it." She grinned, slightly less gleefully. "So anyway right now I'm in here because confronting the stuff in my head is less scary than talking to Angie."

The more he got to know people this time around, the more Oren's opinions of Slytherins' intelligence increased. He was grateful for the second chance, if only for this reason. "So, what are the chances that Rissa just set us up?"

"Ohh, you mean, leaving us alone so she can tease us later?" Oren nodded. "She would totally do something like that, if she thought of it, which I'm not sure she did. She looked like she genuinely just wanted to go off to bed. But I wouldn't put it past her to think of it tomorrow and give us grief about it then.

Aw, man, I feel like I ought to be saying something awful to you right now, just to do this right, but I'm kinda out of things to say. I could grope you or something, if you want, just to prove I'm not faking it." She gave Oren a questioning look. As best as Oren could tell, Sandra really did want to maintain her reputation, and had no particular sexual morality—or impulse control—to stop her from following through on things like this. She might not particularly want to do it, but he could tell that if he grinned back at her and turned it into a challenge, she'd go for it. He decided to pass.

"That's okay." He smiled the confident, reassuring smile he gave to clients with embarrassing problems. "I think for the first time anyone gropes me, I'd prefer they had a better reason."

"Suit yourself," she said, on her way out the door. "Maybe if my conversation with Angie goes well, she'll come take care of that!" Oren was pretty sure Sandra was relieved to be off the hook, left to face down her own words another day.



❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖


Author's note:

Edited later to make Sarepta's age indefinite, so I'm not bound by it in upcoming chapters.