29th February 2024
Percy acting absolutely clueless in the new series inspired me for the second half of this chapter.
On the last week of term before the Christmas break, the students help us decorate the classroom with conjured bits of holly and tinsel that wrap around the walls and the sword racks. Someone puts a Santa hat on the skeleton, and it starts singing 'God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen' every time someone touches the pom-pom on the end of the hat. It was funny the first few times, and then after that I started throwing knives at anyone who went near it.
The castle goes full-out for Christmas, the rest of Hogwarts looking much like our classroom, with colourful flashing candles lining the staircases and the suits of armour decorated with red noses and antlers.
Our last lesson on Friday turns into a party, because no one can be bothered to do any work - not that I would say the usual classroom activities could count as work - and as the fourth years run out 10 minutes early, with kids that definitely weren't meant to be in that particular class, I let out a large sigh of relief and flop onto the desk at the front.
"Percy. Percy, we won't have to come back to Hogwarts for another 2 weeks. 2 weeks Percy!" I grin. "No spells, no reading, and no Umbridge."
"Sounds like Elysium."
Our big plans for the Christmas go as followed:
Visit Sally, Goddess Among Mortals, Queen Of All Beings, and stay at the Jackson household over Christmas
Visit Camp for the New Year (Chiron turns a blind hoof at alcohol when we give him a glass, and what Mr D doesn't know can't hurt him)
Enjoy our freedom from the world of magic
Get back to Hogwarts on time
(And if anyone or anything ruins the Great Plan I will be mad because no one can get in between me and Sally's Christmas dinner)
With the kids out of the classroom, we start packing immediately. We plan to leave Hogwarts straight after dinner, then shadow travelling to New York where we will recover from jetlag. Of course, we mess this up almost instantly, and an hour later our room is even messier than before, with Percy having a sword fight with the skeleton that I'm controlling on top of the dresser. It's the only type of sword fight I can win against Percy - no matter how hard he wacks the bones out of place or hit the ribs like they're a xylophone, I can just bring the bones back to their original position.
At some point in this, we remember we had a job we were meant to be doing, and all the things we need to bring back to America are packed - we can travel light, as we both have more clothes at Camp.
Dinner thankfully goes quickly, and with Umbridge on the other side of the staff table, we can have an almost decent conversation with the other staff members. We say our goodbyes, and then rush to our room to grab our (badly) packed bags. "Well, if we've forgotten anything, it probably isn't important. And besides, we're going to my mum's - she has everything," Percy had said. Wise, yet probably misguided.
"Good riddance, Hogwarts. I'll see you in the New Year," Percy mutters as we shadow travel away from our room.
As usual, we land on the fire escape outside Sally and Paul's apartment, as I feel bad whenever we land inside the apartment because everytime Paul seems as shocked as the first time I did it and I don't want their neighbours to think they regularly murder small girls.
Usually, Percy uses the key underneath the flowerpot to open the door, but this time there's something in the flowerpot.
And it's not a flower.
"Why is there a small child in mum's geraniums?" Percy says.
"I don't think that's a child-" I start to say, before the small grey goblin-looking creature springs at us with teeth that are too big for it's mouth and a face that looks like Gollum had a child with one of the gargoyles that you would find on the side of a church.
I jump out the way, spinning to put my back to the wall as Percy uncaps Riptide and slashes at it, but the little beast jumps onto the railing of the fire escape, cackles, gives us a little wave and then leaps off the edge of the railing.
"Kobalos. Mischievous elf creatures that like to trick mortals," I say as we peer over the edge of the railing to see an empty alleyway. "I guess this one was tricking Sally into thinking it's a plant?"
"We can't just let it terrorise New York," Percy says. "What if it tries to become a flower again? Half the buildings here have flower baskets - it could be in any of them by now!"
I squint at the block of flats opposite us. "Or," I say pointing to a balcony with a sagging deckchair and a huge leafy plant, "It could be right there."
It's waving at us again, but this time I don't give it enough time to jump away before I'm shadow travelling us onto the balcony, and Percy grabs it by its large floppy ear. It shrieks at us, kicking its little legs and trying to snap at Percy's arm, but he swishes Riptide and turns it into gold dust before it can bite him.
"Nothing like being greeted by monsters as soon as we return home," Percy says, capping Riptide.
I huff a laugh, and am about to reply before an old man wearing a camo-patterned T-Shirt and cut off shorts swings open the balcony door and roars, "What are you doing with my deckchair! This isn't the bloody park! Wave your sticks about somewhere else!"
"Sorry, I thought I saw a," Percy flounders slightly, "Child in your plant. A child cat. A baby cat. A kitten - my kitten in your plant and we were trying to tempt her away with the sticks but she-"
"She's gone now," I say, trying to salvage the mess as the man gapes at him, "And my friend has really bad eyesight. He sometimes mistakes my child for a cat too. I mean-" He's now gaping at both of us, but at least he doesn't look angry anymore. Just completely bewildered.
"Could we please use your apartment door to leave?" I ask, deciding to leave the cat/child conversation behind us and move onto our escape route. He wordlessly steps aside and we quickly walk through the messy apartment to the front door, yelling "Thank you!" as we leave. As soon as the door is shut behind us, I grab onto Percy's hand, shadow travelling us directly into Percy's, deciding to entirely skip out the door situation. At least this way we have plausible deniability if there's another Kobalos in the plant pot.
Word count: 1145
Song: Amaranthine by Amaranthe
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Defense Against The Dark Arts
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