Rose Weasley and The Beast of the Black Lake, year 2

Albus Dies

The upcoming Quidditch match between Gryffindor and Slytherin was much anticipated by the entire school. To everyone else, this was the most gruesome match between the two most violent rivals. For Rose, this was the first time she got to fly with one of her best friends. She had never competed against Scorpius, so she didn't know how he played. Albus was finding this more brutal and intense training that Slytherin Quidditch captain, Keith, was putting on them to be an inconvenience rather than necessary. Scorpius was taking it hard physically. He was lolling on the library tables with his arms by his side like a zombie, being so sore he couldn't move them.

"Scor?" Rose said tenderly.

"Uuugghh?" he moaned.

"You should go to bed. I'll finish up your History of Magic essay."

Scorpius was waving his quill lazily above his parchment without touching the paper. "Nah," he groaned, lifting his head so that his chin rested on his books to get a look at his progress. "I'm nearly finished, and the Slytherin stairs are so far away. I think I'll just kip under the table tonight."

"Oh, no you won't!" barked the ancient librarian, Madam Pence who looked as though she and Filtch both broke out of a museum. "I'm not levitating your corpse to bed, oh no sir! You'll use your legs! Be grateful while you still have some that work." She snorted and turned back to dusting.

Scorpius looked up in disbelief. "Does no one get a joke these days?"

A strapping young man turned the corner. He was the new librarian who did more of the heavy lifting, the sorting of the books, the cleaning up after sloppy students. "Sorry 'bout her," he said. "Doesn't like children. Never had some of her own."

Rose had tried to be as understanding to Scorpius as she could. Her friends had been too kind to her when she was incapable of movement last school year because of rough Quidditch practices. Albus didn't seem affected at all, which greatly bother Scorpius. He was bustling around books in a manner of a lunatic.

"How are you not writhing in pain?" Scor asked.

"I don't have time for pain," said Albus.

Max raised his eyebrow impressively, and Olivia slightly laughed as she paced the room with books in her arms; she never studied sitting down.

Albus dropped a heavy and immensely dusty book over the rest of papers and quills the others had out. There was a small 'pop' that was Scorpius' ink bottle shattered atop his History of Magic essay. Rose considered saying that she warned him not to put his ink on top of his paper, but then she thought it wouldn't be such a good idea that at this time and by the look on Scor' s face. Al grazed the page, shut the book, and replaced it on the shelf now with a large ink stain on the cover. He scribbled something down in his back-pocket book and grinned broadly.

"I've been researching this for weeks!" he exclaimed, placing his notebook on the table so the others could openly stare. Along the page was hand-drawn pictures of wand movements, feature changes, and Stella. "Weldon Eshable!" He pointed the title of this page.

"I recognize that name," Rose thought allowed.

"He's been mentioned briefly in a handful of our studies," Al said quickly. "I've been watching for him and have collected everything I know in here. The man is a bit of a nutter. He believed his pets, and every other animal for that matter were just humans trapped in beast bodies. But that's not important. What's important, is that he tried to change them back!"

Sugar leaned in closely to listen.

"I've found that he was the first ever to attempt reverse animagi, sort of. He did it all wrong. Weldon didn't quite have Animagus in mind; he was kind of just shooting counter spells at them. But he did get a bunny to have a human nose using a mending spell. That book just there!" He jabbed at the large dusty book. "That holds a copy of his journal entries regarding his experiments."