After the War

Chapter 33

Recap: Shawn Parkinson, Slytherin seventh year/cousin to the infamous Pansy Parkinson, and his friend were caught attacking a muggle-born Slytherin student at the first Hogsmeade visit of the year. Harry confiscated their wands and assigned them three detentions each where they had to read from the Muggle Studies textbook. Parkinson still has yet to complete or even start the three detentions, and consequently, still does not have his wand back.

Wednesday, December 1

With the first day of December always came the onslaught of festive spirit and the thought of the looming holidays became too close to be able to ignore. As the oldest of a rather large family, Bill Weasley met this familiar sensation with both excitement and dread. Of course, he loved the holidays with all the cozy greetings and warm cheer, but it also meant having to think of quite a few presents to buy. Especially now that he was married, he and Fleur had the Delacours and the Weasleys to think of.

As he strode through the Hogwarts corridors, his mind wandered to the windows of Diagon Alley, trying to rack his brain for the perfect gift for anyone, yet not for the first time, he came up blank. He smiled at the students who greeted him on their way to the Great Hall, letting the smile fade as quickly as it came to allow himself complete concentration to wander through the random ideas that popped into his head.

Yet frustratingly, nothing good came to mind. He scowled at the stones that passed underneath his feet, determined to think of something. But still: nothing.

Miraculously, he found himself at the door to his classroom, not fully sure how he had gotten there, but deigned not to question his success. Instead, he pulled the door open and took a great amount of satisfaction from hearing it slam noisily behind him. He walked across the room through the rows of desks and took the issue philosophically. Something will come to him eventually. And if not, he will just have to look around shops until he finds something somewhat decent.

With a renewed motivation, he turned to the desk running along the side of the room and grimaced. Once again, his piles of papers were out of place. They may look like there was no organization to them, but Bill could tell anyone who asked exactly where to find anything they needed. Every object had its place. He really must tell Harry to stop messing with his things, he thought.

Thump! Bill jerked his head to the right towards where the noise appeared to come from and his brows furrowed slightly, ruining his carefully constructed expression of nonchalance. He crept up the curved stairs to the offices and saw that the door to Harry's office was resting slightly ajar.

Excellent. I'll have a word with Harry now, he thought. If he had his wits about him though, he would have realized that there was a very small probability Harry was at Hogwarts in the middle of the lunch period when he should be at Auror Headquarters. Nonetheless, he was still quite distracted and he shoved the door open with his shoulder, already prepared to admonish the wizard, no matter how famous he may be.

"Harry! I thought I told...," he stopped mid sentence. "Parkinson," he amended once he didn't see the black-haired teen, but rather another teen wearing his student robes paired with a green and silver tie. Bill's eyes squinted at his student and the boy grew very red as he fumbled with the stack of books he had evidently dropped on the floor.

"Professor," he greeted coldly, seeing no way out of his predicament.

"May I ask what you're doing here?" Bill crossed his arms and tilted his head at the shorter wizard, watching him carefully place the books back on the shelf.

"I was... going to leave a note for Potter... about planning my next detention," he said, his face turned away from Bill.

"It's Professor Potter to you," he said with careful emphasis. "And I happen to know that your detentions are scheduled quite regularly. Every Thursday afternoon, in fact." Bill left the statement hanging in the air, determined not to fill the empty space with his own words, choosing instead to wait for Parkinson to speak.