The Empty Chamber (Harry Potter Next Generation Fanfiction)

Chapter Six: Genevieve

Hope was up to something. Genevieve knew it; she knew her sister better than anyone else. Hope may be perfect - Head Girl, brightest student in her year, holder of a record clear of detentions - but she didn't really have any friends. Most of the time, Hope hid in her room reading, and her years at Hogwarts consisted mainly of studying. So there must be a reason that she was always returning to the Ravenclaw common room late at night, and why she jumped whenever Genevieve saw her on the fifth floor. Genevieve was going to figure it out.

Just not today. Today was Genevieve's first Charms class, and the Ravenclaw Head of House was the teacher. It was also Herbology, and all Genevieve ever heard about Herbology was that Professor Longbottom was the best Professor in the whole school. Apparently Alice had friends in both Slytherin (who they had Charms with) and Hufflepuff (who they had Herbology with), and she was excited to catch up with them. Genevieve wasn't really sure how Alice already had friends: Alice was a muggle-born, she shouldn't have known anyone.

Genevieve was a half-blood, her father a muggle and her mother a witch, but she had grown up pretty isolated from the wizarding world. This didn't bother her - Genevieve had spent her years of home-schooling reading muggle literature. Hope told her this would be considered weird at Hogwarts, that no one went near anything muggle related, but Genevieve didn't mind. Ravenclaw was the house of the eccentric anyways.

Due to her isolation, however, Genevieve's only friend prior to Hogwarts was her owl Penelope. When, at the feast following the Sorting Hat Ceremony, Genevieve found herself making three new friends, she could hardly believe her luck, even if these friends weren't quite ordinary.

Lorcan and Lysander were the children of Luna Lovegood, a magizooligist famous with wizard families for her discovery of nargles and also as Harry Potter's zany friend who helped defeat Voldemort, but it only really showed in Lorcan. He was distracted at best, and at worst, insane. "You've got Wrackspurts in your ears, did you know that?" he said when she said sat down across from him.

"What was that?" said Genevieve, self-conscious. She reached for her ears, but felt nothing out of the ordinary around them.

"Wrackspurts," Lysander said dejectedly. "He's been obsessed with them recently, our mum's a fan." He looked annoyed that his brother was acting strangely, much like a mother whose child was throwing an unnecessary temper tantrum.

"What are Wrackspurts?" asked Alice.

"Who knows," Lysander said, but at the same time, Lorcan began to babble.

"They're invisible, and they float into your head and make your mind go fuzzy. My mum has researched them for years, and she just discovered how to recognize the symptoms of a Wrackspurt infestation without Spectrespecs," he crossed his arms, looking satisfied. He directed his final comment at Genevieve, "You're definitely infested."

Though Lorcan and Lysander were twins, they were easy to tell apart. Lysander's wavy blond hair was cut close to his head, and Lorcan's was just long enough that he pulled it up into a small, high pony tail in the back. Lorcan's blue eyes bugged out when he spoke, and he looked eternally astounded. He had also drawn on himself: next to his left ear, he had two ink stars and a crescent moon.

Genevieve got along with Lysander very well at the feast, and Lorcan and Lysander were something of a package deal. Lysander scolded Lorcan every time Lorcan spoke of one of their mother's research projects, but refused to go anywhere without him. Alice liked Lorcan more than Genevieve did; she was very happy to hear him talk about fresh-water plimpies and dirigible plums. Perhaps she was so new to the wizarding world that she couldn't tell everything he said was nonsense, but she read enough that Genevieve would have assumed otherwise. When Lorcan offered to have Luna send Alice dirigible plum earrings, however, Alice responded, "Oh, well, I don't want to cause you any trouble..." and changed the subject.