laraF's nest

“This lump is exceptional with the Space-Expanding charm.” Ron had been buzzing like crazy since lunch break when a blushing Lavender dropped an eye-wateringly pink love letter among his potatoes. Harry sighed. Every year Slughorn’s Christmas Ball became even more extravagant – and ridiculous. Ron was right. No one could’ve guessed that the enormous, tent-imitation of a ballroom with its sky-copying, faux-snowing ceiling is just an average, modest potion’s classroom on boring weekdays. Haggard looking fifth-year students were running around the fancy hoard of guests carrying plates of weird finger foods and dangerously towering glasses of champagne and cocktails. In one corner, on an elevated platform invisible musicians played something classical. Harry saw Colin Creevey taking a picture of a moderately famous politician and Slughorn himself, with one hand on a poor Hufflepuff’s shoulder. The boy looked like a frightened deer caught in the headlights. Harry could sympathize, but better a stranger than himself. He turned in the opposite direction and loosened his tie.

“I see Lavender, do you mind if I go and…” In the next moment Ron disappeared.

“Hoes before bros,” muttered Harry dejectedly. If he could just find a friendly face for reinforcement…! They could quickly greet Slughorn and sneak away into the dorms to sleep. The match between Slytherin and Ravenclaw was coming dangerously close. In two days, the school’s going to be filled with pro quidditch players, managers and coaches hunting after the exceptional talents Hogwarts has to offer. Harry desperately wanted to play in a professional team and he firmly believed in the traditional way of getting in – showing what he got rather than shaking hands in these parties and licking stuck-up asses. What he needed was a healthy amount of undisturbed sleep, not alcohol filled nights spent with strangers.

“You look terrible, Harry.”

“Ah, hey Luna, you on the other hand look… cool.”

Luna was wearing a pale green dress, no shoes and a crown made from tall, colorful feathers. Her necklace was probably carved from bones. She resembled a wild forest witch from America rather than a studious Ravenclaw student of the Brit Isles.

“Thank you. Are you looking for a way out? I was about to join Mr. Sanguini here on a night stroll. He’s a vampire and he never saw any Nargles in Romania so I’m gonna show him around. There’s a nice, big infested bunch of mistletoe on the second floor, and he was kind enough to promise me some stories about the Heliopaths he encountered in Europe.”

‘Mr Sanguini’ was a sallow and shady figure. Harry didn’t know if he was being paranoid – and prejudiced –, but his grin seemed to be more hungry than honest. He absently picked up two butterbeers from a stressed-out walking tray and followed Luna and the vampire out into the corridor. They had perfect timing too – at the exact moment Luna left the ballroom a big commotion involving one shamelessly young Italian diplomat, a most honorable Wizengamot member and his lovely wife escalated into a screaming match. When the first plate of octopus balls got thrown Harry ducked his head outside and just breathed in the peace and quiet gratefully.

On their way toward the second-floor bathroom – apparently someone thought himself mighty funny and hanged the biggest mistletoe in existence above an abandoned loo’s door – Luna twittered away about her favorite topic; magical creatures that may or may not exist. Either way Sanguini listened with rapt attention, so much so that once he missed a step on the moving staircase and almost fall down a level. His saving grace was Harry and his quick reflexes but he had to throw away his cup of butterbeer, which in exchange got splattered on a small, anxious man who tried to pass the trio. While Sanguini sorted himself out and Luna asked him if he knew about Rufus Scrimgeour being a vampire (here Sanguini lost his balance all over again and slapped his hand on a portrait of a quite indignant priest to keep his laughter-shook form from crumpling) Harry apologized to his victim.

“Are you alright? I’m sorry, it was an accident. Should I clean that up for yo…”

The man looked up at him… and promptly burst into tears. He had mousy hair and eyes so pale they were almost white. Harry never met him before but the strange little fellow started bawling upon laying his gaze on him. And he was deafening. Then he hugged Harry’s torso and buried his head into the boy’s shoulders. Harry froze on the spot and grew uncomfortable and tear-stained real fast.

“I’m sure a little water can wash it out?” He started to panic as the man’s sobs turned into wheezing hiccups. It seemed he attached himself permanently onto his attacker’s side. Fortunately, Luna – the angel that she was, Nargles and all –, joined them in a second and cooed at the inconsolable stranger. She gently but firmly grabbed the hunched shoulders and steered the man in the direction of the loo. Harry let himself feel sorry for the spilled alcohol but before he could regret all his life choices forced himself to follow Luna. Now he had a hungry vampire and a depressed, strange man on her hands. Harry felt responsible for whatever happened next. He supposed that was how an older brother must have felt most of the time, fondness and dread settling in their stomach in equal measure.

Before everything went to shit, thanks to an evil ministry official – the little man’s boss –, a lovesick dead girl who played the dirtiest tricks on arguably innocent schoolboys and Luna’s insistence to show his new friend some fantasy creatures Harry already sensed something… foreboding. Maybe it was the man’s name – Pettigrew, a familiar-but-not-quite word –, the lack of sleep thanks to the ever-present Draco-drama or the aforementioned ministry official greeting them in the loo, smirking evilly next to a giant serpent.

Harry hissed, someone laughed like a villain, Pettigrew tripped and Luna kicked and that was all it took for them to end up in a dirty ditch with a decidedly unfriendly basilisk in it.

Everything else, as the saying goes, was history.

And a giant headache for the newly discovered Heir of Slytherin.