Gryffindor Has Arrived

Up the twisting staircases of Hogwarts, a fourth year student waddles towards his destination. Palmed in his clenched hand is a tiny wood-and-metal cask, so small it could have come from a dollhouse. The metal was once cool against his fingers, but now it is warm and moist with sweat. A crooked smile is on his dirty face, with crooked teeth. His cheeks are decorated with black patches of rain-smelling soil. A rather large nose sits in the middle, crooked and out of joint, broken by a hard impact. Blood drips down into the lip of his crooked smile. The student’s eyes are tired, from lack of sleep. He’d not slept much last night, too busy, but he doesn’t sleep well most nights either. Too many thoughts, dreams, nightmares. All around the picture of his face is a frame of long ginger hair, greasy and unwashed. The boy’s black robes are damp, and smell of wine. The boy is quite ugly.

“Tenfold trumpets,” says the boy in an English accent, to a portrait of an Englishwoman. This is because they are in England, which explains his teeth. The Englishwoman waves her hand and swings open, revealing the passage to Gryffindor tower. When he reaches the door to the common room, he kicks the door open with his boot and steps inside. On the long red couch, the slight figure of Amalia Oceanborough is looking anywhere but at the boy, guiltily. Standing beside her is the stately figure and trimmed beard that can only belong to Professor Travers, 53rd Count of Middlesborough, in all his ancient plutocratic glory. And beside him is the House’s prefect, the bourgeois-rat suckling authority off of the old man’s hairy teats.

The girl was caught, and she sold him out. Heaving in a vast breath, the English boy prepares in this moment of terminal lucidity to deliver his most scathing speech of fuck you to authority. As he opens his mouth, he sees Amalia shake her head.

Hands folded above his lap, Professor Travers rests his stern eye upon the dirt-and-wine-covered boy. “Do you care to explain what happened, Mr. English?”

“Well, you see,” staring at the wall behind them, the interrogatee sees some of the little animated paper cranes that frequent the Gryffindor quarters. Together they form images and words in the air. Amalia subtly lends him hints, so that their stories don’t go too off the mark. “Earlier today…”

Half an hour earlier…

It all star’ed out innocently enough, like most fings do. Us upstandin’ Gryffindors was out explorin’ the school grounds. Seein’ wot we could see inna nooks ‘n crannies, like. All sortsa cool stuff you find long the castle walls, aye? Vine plants a-growin, got picturesque flowers ‘n wot not up them moldy old grey brickworks.

”You would be focusin’ on the flowers. Bloody girly-boy I swear, ‘n I’m s’posed to be the girl.”

“Watch your tongue, Miss Oceanborough.” When he turns, the cranes scatter, diving amongst themselves and whistling innocently in birdsong.

”Sorry Professor Travers sir, I’ll stuff my gob an’ let Merlin keep tellin’.” She makes a motion of zipping her mouth shut. The moment Travers looks away from her, the little paper cranes are back at their conspiratorial work.

So like Amalia were sayin’, there were other fings onna walls too, like when you see them snakes crookin’ around the corners o’the bricks like, climbing all snakey and wot not. I- I’m getting’ sidetracked sir I know, I’ll get to the meat ‘n ‘tatos, promise on me ‘eart. The walls is important, see, is why I’m talkin’ ‘bout them.

We come across this hole inna wall, well, more like a hole under the wall. Dug out wiff magic, methinks. A tunnel, like. Now like any upstandin’ Gryffindors we was wonderin’ what was the reason for this hole, so’s we climb down the hole. And down the hole we finds it goes into the cellars, down a’nears Slytherin house. And we find some Slytherins there, one Tony Ricketts bein’ one uv’em. And uh, some uvvas, dunno their names. Slytherin though, got the green ‘n wotnot.

“Def’nitely Ricketts, though.”

Yes, Ricketts was there.

Him and his cronies was nosing around these barrels wot was stacked around the cellar. Naturally we asked them wot they was doin’, and that’s when they got all hissy like. Barin’ them Slytherin fangs, see, pointing wands at us. And there was three uv’em, an’ two uv’us, only. We was scared o’course, but mind you we’s is Gryffindors, so we eat fear for breakfuss. Tony Ricketts, he said, Tony said, they’s taking these wine barrels somewhere for Professor Firethorn, on account they’s his wine barrels. But when we ask them ‘bout the big hole they got all funny about it, like they was avoidin’ the subject.

Things got to yellin’ back and forth. Got a little outta hand, I admit, not all their fault. Some real nasty words was said. Honest to goodness, I am sorry for that. But it was Tony Ricketts what fired the first spell. It blew up onna them wine barrels, which be why you see me all covered in wine.

Now, we be all fer defendin’ Gryffindor honor, but fights be strictly prohibited, so we scrambled up them tunnels an’ back outside real quick. So quick I slipped and cracked my nose on some’a that there foundations, see, is why it’s broken. And next fing I know, them Slytherins is grabbin’ our ankles tryin’ to pull us down. Now I ain’t proud uvvit, but I were panickin’ in that there moment, and I booted some fella right inna nose himself. Mighta been Tony Ricketts, not sure.

”It was definitely Tony Ricketts.”

Well you heard it here first, it was Tony Ricketts.

Anywho.

We got outta there and lickety-split it on ovva to the castle. I said to Amalia, I said, you go on ahead and I’m gonna go back and fill in the hole. And she was all worried like, but I says, it’s alright, cause Tony Ricketts didn’t follow us out. And we bein’ good upstandin’ Gryffindors, couldn’t juss leave a hole out there fer some fella to slip an’ fall an’ break ‘is nose, aye? So that’s wot I did, and then here I comes back to Gryffindor, before curfew, like a good student. That’s the whole truth and nuffin’ but, swear on me mum.

A young man with pale skin and droopy straight hair sits fuming in the broad cushions of a green sitting room chair. He’s no longer dripping wet, but his hair and clothes remain damp, and smell of wine. His porcelain-white nose is bent to one side, and he scowls at the black-haired House Head standing above him.

“I didn’t do nothing wrong,” Tony Ricketts spits venom. “It was those bloody consequence-dodging Gryffindors.”

“I’m just asking for you to give your side of the story,” Professor Firethorn’s arms are folded in front of him, fingers gripping the loose fabric of his robes at the elbows.

“You want the truth? Fine. It happened earlier today…”

Half an hour earlier…

I was minding my own d- my own darn business, walking around the dungeons. Looking for a place to study on my own. That’s when I heard some noise from in the cellars. The door was locked, but someone was in there. So I just knew it was someone who wasn’t supposed to be. I wanted to see what was going on, so I blasted open the lock.

Don’t give me that look! I was defending the dungeons from thieves.

”That’s not your job, Mr. Ricketts. You need to bring these things to a staff member.”

Tch. Whatever. Can I tell the whole story? Good.

I blew open the door, and what do I find but these Gryffindor ret- wretches gathered around your wine casks.

”How do you know the wine barrels belonged to me?”

Maybe I smelled the wine on your breath sometime, you ever think about that? Stop interrupting me.

These dumbass Gryffindors had dug a hole down into the celler and they were trying to take the wine casks. I told them to get lost, but they wouldn’t. One of them tossed a cask at me and blew it up with a spell, getting wine everywhere, and they made a break for it. That idiot Merlin English slipped on the wine and smacked his face on the stones, it was the funniest shit- …sorry. Broke his nose. I almost fell over laughing.

I tried to grab their ankles when they climbed out, so they couldn’t escape and clean up the evidence, or whatever. And the bas- the… English kid kicks me in the ffffreakin’ face. I swear, if it wasn’t for…

Yeah, yeah. Deep breaths. That’s basically the end of it, the Gryffindor blighters ran off and left me there in the cellar. I didn’t want to get in trouble, so I tried to sneak into the showers and wash this crap off. You ran into me before I could get there. That’s it. I didn’t do anything.

The truth is…

Two days ago, two fourth year Gryffindor students went scouting around the perimeter off the castle walls to find where they connected to the cellars. They hatched a wily plan. They were going to steal a cask of wine from Nicholas Firethorn, the House Head of Slytherin, and throw a secret fourth-years-only party that night. They’d reached out to their contacts, made the arrangements for the mass exodus, how everyone would avoid the hall monitors after curfew. All that was left was to get the liquor.

Now, the young Gryffindors aren’t the only students with designs on Professor Firethorn’s reserve. Tony Ricketts, an enterprising young wizard with aims on the forbidden and secret. Now, the forbidden and secret do not come easily, nor do they come free. And young Mr. Ricketts has found himself entangled in the affairs of a certain werewolf clan residing in the Forbidden Forest. They dabble in the dark themselves, and can offer the resources young Ricketts needs to make his dark dreams come true. But not easily, and not for free.

And one thing in short supply in the woods is fine alcoholic beverages- therein lies his need.

As the Gryffindors tunneled below with the help of a swarm of magically conjured moles, the Slytherin crept through the dungeons with a lockpick and a plan. Unfortunately, he was not so adept with the pick as he’d imagined in his mind, and frustration became an imminent danger to his plot.

The two busted through at the same time, with a furious spell and a crumbling of walls, and met in the middle. Young English and young Ricketts, being acquainted through circumstances quite beyond the scope of this little tale, met in reluctant parley. A deal was struck, and young Amalia shrunk down one cask of wine for the Gryffindors to take and one for young Ricketts.

For all her talents, however, the spell was unpracticed. The second casting flew haywire, the metal hoops of the barrel squeezing tight until the wooden structure exploded beneath the pressure and doused the lot of them in telltale wine. The Gryffindors panicked and fled with the one shrunken cask, and Ricketts in his fury gave chase, demanding they make good on their deal. This is where the story holds a kernel of truth, for Mr. English did slip and crack his nose on the stone, and as the two of them rolled on the ground laughing, accidentally kicked Mr. Ricketts in the face to leave him with an identical crooked scar.

I like to think this shared experience bonded the boys.

All of these truths revealed themselves to Professor Simon Stan when he fell out of bed on the left side this morning, resulting in a portentously aligned crumple in his blankets. Unfortunately, they will remain forever unknown beyond those culprits responsible, for not a single soul understood what the fuck Professor Stan was saying, when he mentioned it off-handedly at the weekly staff meeting. No one save for myself, the lucid inner cognition of Dankinus Manastone, Headmaster of Hogwarts. And now, dear reader, you.

So why did I not intervene, you ask? Simple. I prefer to save my energy for more important matters, and let these little learning opportunities play out. So long as nobody dies, no harm done.

Besides. Professors Travers and Firethorn have it well in hand. Allow me to demonstrate.

Three students sit on a log in a field, two with freshly mended noses that are now a little more crooked than they used to be, and none of them smelling of wine. In front of them are an old man with a beard and broad shoulders, and a younger man with long, dark hair.

“We have decided that it’s best all of you learn some cooperation and work ethic,” the old man says to them.

“And I know exactly how,” the long-haired professor continues for him. “See, a family of dragons took roost in the forbidden forest some time ago. They’ve left, but there are sure to be valuable components left behind…”

“No. No no, no no no,” Tony Ricketts despairs, for of them he alone knows the shadowed rumors and snickered jokes.

“Tomorrow, for detention, the three of you will be joining me on a trip into the Forbidden Forest to collect the leavings of the dragons. Welcome to dragon dung duty.”