Epic Christmas
By: Scarlett
Based on the Hufflepuff Prompt
December 25, 2008-January 1, 2009
Prologue: The Prompt
Lego, with BAD sitting on his shoulder, moved quickly down
the stairs from the dorm, intent on finding out who or what had disturbed his
sleep. He paused on the bottom stair to survey the room; there weren't
that many places a person could hide. His eyes swept the room, and seeing
nothing amiss, he took the last step into the common room.
BAD gave an excited chitter and jumped from Lego's
shoulder to the couch, then made a beeline to the tree. Lego started to
follow him, but before he could reach the tree, BAD had found the
"gift" that interested him--a box that hadn't been there the night
before. Its tag read 'Ginger Octavia Olivia Douglass'. Nimble
little fingers popped the lid off, ending a sleeping spell on the lemur
inside. GOOD blinked once, focusing on the face peering in at her, with a
little squeal she leapt from the box. Her first jump took her to the
tree, which immediately began to rise. GOOD abandoned the tree, when it
flipped over and attached itself to the ceiling.
She jumped from couch to table to chair, each attaching to the ceiling after
she'd touched it. BAD, very interested in this new comer, followed as
close behind her as he could. GOOD wasn't sure about the attentions of
BAD, so she made for the only person in the room. She knew people meant
protection.
Not fully awake yet, it took Lego a minute to understand the danger he was
in. He figured it out just as a frightened GOOD launched herself into his
arms. BAD leapt for his shoulder, but missed, as Lego's feet left the
floor.
As Lego's world turned upside down, the other Claus, awakened by the crashing
sounds, sprang from their beds and rushed toward the common room. In the
lead was Kezza in her tartan dressing
gown.............
-----
Part 1: The Tower
"What on EARTH is another lemur doing in here?" Kezza asked. "Lego, I thought I told you your term
began next year. What are you doing, bringing in another lemur to
the Common Room?" She tapped her foot impatiently. "I just
un-canceled Christmas. Are you trying to mess it up?"
"I-I-I have nothing to do with this lemur," Lego stated flatly in his
defense. "I heard a noise."
"So did we," Briannah and Gecko said in
unison.
"Sounded like crashing and thundering of feet," June clarified.
Exasperated, Lego folded his arms. "Not that. Another noise."
"Lego, were you looking at those lemur knickers too closely? Did the
shininess addle your brain?" Wolfie asked
worriedly as he walked closer to the upside-down Legobean.
"Ooooh! Shiny! Where?" Scarlett
squealed. A bundle of golden fur flew out of her hands as she swerved to
look around. It hissed as GOOD eyed it and an epic chase began.
"Down girl," Kismatt restrained the
bleary-eyed, yet oddly hyper teenager. "It's early in the morning. Aren't
teenagers supposed to be sleepy?"
"Well, actually, the statistics show that...." Dave began, but Kismatt glared him down. "Sorry, sorry. What is that fuzzball?"
"Don't call her a fuzzball Dave! It's Orla! My new kitten!" Scarlett wailed. "Here Orla," she knelt, "here kitty, kitty,
kitty."
Just as the golden kitten was about to run back into Scarlett's arms after
making a Family Circus-style circuit around the Common Room, GOOD got her paws
on Orla's tail. The kitten slowly rose into the air,
pitifully wailing.
"Kezza! Get her down!" Scarlett cried.
"Lego? Would you get Orla for me? She only just
got used to BAD being around. I think this new one's worse. He's scaring
her."
"Actually, 'he' is a she," Wolfie said as
he held a paper that had been lying next to the opened box. "GOOD. Ginger
Octavia Olivia Douglass. What kind of person names a lemur GOOD?"
Jen2 scoffed. "Well, what kind of person names a
lemur BAD?"
"I'll have you know that Bernard Augustine Danforthe
is a perfectly respectable name," Wolfie stated
solemnly. A fighting glint entered his eye.
"Writing it out takes up more parchment than his tail," Jen2 retorted.
"Guys, none of this is getting this figured out. Who would send us another
lemur?" Kezza interjected, breaking up the
impending argument.
Meanwhile, GOOD, who had succeeded in pawing Orla the
Kitten, was still going in her path. Straight for Scarlett.
"Eeek! Lemur!" Scarlett screeched. Dave
jumped in the way of the racing lemur, letting her scamper away and be
comforted by the other Youngins. However, the
resident Points Watcher drifted up to the ceiling.
"Hey, this way they can't get us for exchanging math," Dave said
excitedly. Kezza, who was focused on Jen2 and Wolfie looked up.
"Don't. Even. Mention. Maths." Her voice
was cool and dangerous. "I can still hex you from down here."
Both of the Ravenclaus affixed to the ceiling went
pale. "Yes ma'am."
"Could we try using magic to get them down?" Kismatt
asked. "Or contain the lemur? Might be more useful than finding the
sender." She tried casting a countercharm. "I've got no luck though.
Dan? Want to give it a try?"
"Finite!" Dan proclaimed as he pointed his wand up at the
ceiling.
"If it were that easy, don't you think I would have---" Kismatt tried to say, but everything came crashing down.
-----
"Well," Kezza remarked, disentangling herself from the pile of
limbs and cushions, "that solved one of our problems. But where did that
lemur go?"
"Do we have to keep her?" Scarlett asked, as she tried to coax her
kitten from beneath a pile of cushions and blankets. "BAD's
already enough lemur for one house."
"I sorta like this lemur," Ali said out of
the blue. Everyone stared at her. "Well, she went after Lego and Dave,
didn't she?"
"Hey, I stepped in front of Scarlett, she could have been doing the Mary Poppins thing just as easily as I did," Dave pointed
out. Gecko and Briannah sniggered at the reference.
"It's not like BAD went after your stuff."
"Less talk, more lemur finding?" Kismatt
suggested. "All we have to do is contain her."
"That's assuming you can catch her," Wolfie
said from his post against the wall. Calmly, he looked over the situation.
"She doesn't seem to like being still."
"Well, you're the one that brought the first lemur to us. You tell us how
we can catch her," Kezza commanded.
"I've got nothing to do with this!" A cry of protest rang out.
"Innocent here." He tried to hide behind June and Gecko, who were
helping tidy up the common room.
"Hey!" June exclaimed. She side-stepped, but the cowering
Ravenclaw followed.
"Fend for yourself!" Gecko pushed him in front.
"You're the one who made Ravenclaws famous for lemurs. Logically, you know
how to handle lemurs. You have been training BAD, right?" Kezza trailed off.
"Training! HA!" Chi snorted. "I'm still missing...items
that I think I saw that lemur parading in the other day."
"Wolfie, do we need to break out the leash
again?" Kezza asked warningly.
"No, no, no, no. We don't need to do that. Why don't I just round up a
lemur for you?" Wolfie conciliatorily stammered.
He grabbed BAD and took off.
"Good. I'm tired and want to go back to bed," Kezza
yawned and led a procession of Claws up the stairs and to their dormitories.
-~-~-
Wolfie was left alone with BAD.
"Now, if I was a she-lemur, where would I hide?"
------
"Why don't we just try looking at the 'Who's Online'
page?" Dave implored. "It's really easy and it'd make it so much
easier."
"Dave, please try to remember what we've told you about that
rubbish," Kezza exasperatedly groaned. Her
tartan dressing gown's belt flung itself at Ali, who was right behind her, as
the Head of House turned around sharply. "I have had a really long
day. You saw what happened when I got frustrated. I don't need more of it.
Scarlett, you got him calmed down last time he was raving, you," she waved
her arms about wildly. "Just take care of it for me will you?"
"But what about Orla?" The redhead was
distraught. "She's a bundle of nerves."
"I don't think we'll be able to sleep tonight with that cat of yours
screeching," Jessy muttered.
"Oh come on, like you'd be any better," June retorted, sticking up
for her friend.
"I feel sorry for the kitten, true, I'm just tired and want to stay
asleep. I'm being logical," Jessy countered.
"True. It's late Kezza, can we do something,
about both of them?" Briannah let out a huge
yawn. "Dave's just tired, it must be why he's speaking crazy-talk."
Scarlett glared at the Head of House as Dave continued murmuring about the
virtues of the page. "I'm not going to do anything about it if Orla's going to stay in this state of shock." She
crossed her arms and stomped her foot.
"Fine," Kezza huffed. A string of Latin
flowed off her tongue, and Orla was soon sound asleep
in Scarlett's arms. "Happy? I'm going back to bed."
A string of Ravenclaws continued onto their beds, where slumber awaited them.
"Dave, honestly," Scarlett sighed as she dragged him down to the
common room. "Don't talk about this silly 'Who's Online' page thing of
yours. You know it upsets the rest of them."
"But it's true! You saw it!" Dave protested. "You believed
me."
"No, that was me calming you down Dave," Scarlett's stubbornness
began to rear its head. "Why would there be such a thing?"
"Why would there be a Marauder's Map? It's the same idea! Find anyone,
anywhere--if they're here at Poufwa!"
"Dave, how much sleep has Kezza let you have
recently? I think those point totals are going to your head," Scarlett muttered.
He groaned and ran off. "Oh come on Dave!" She started to rush after
him, but was stopped short by him returning, a roll of parchment in hand.
"Look at this," he spread the roll out on the floor. A peculiar
diagram of the rooms of Poufwa was there, in a list
form. Colored names littered the are. Some were
vibrant, others dull. "The bright ones, like ours right here, are active.
We've been doing stuff recently. The dull ones, like Shoshana's
since she's out of town, show where they were last seen. He pointed to a pale
white name. See, wasn't Peeves last seen in the Great Hall?"
Scarlett's jaw had dropped. "You weren't lying, were you? Hey! There's us!
And Orla too! Wow."
"Yeah, wow. Now, help me find GOOD. She seemed to have more energy than Acey on coffee."
"Shhh! You might summon her!"
The two bent over the parchment, searching out for the she-lemur, not noticing
the profuse amount of Hufflepuffs that were out and about.
-----
Part 2: The Hunt
"...And she doesn't even notice that you've been
behaving recently. You've left her knicker drawer
alone, haven't you?" Wolfie asked the lemur that
was running along beside him. "And I wasn't the only one that decorated
the tree. Doesn't need to get all around the bend like that."
A maniacal laugh reverberated through the dark hallways. "Ickle lemur is out and about, causing such chaos! What fun!
"There once was a lemur named GOOD,
Who ne'er did just as she should,
Sure, BAD did cause trouble,
But she makes it double,
And Peevsie thinks she's misunderstood"
Both lemur and Claw looked at each other. The species difference didn't matter.
The unholy alliance of Peeves and GOOD must be stopped.
------
"What-do-you-mean-you-can't-find-her?" Scarlett
panted. She leaned up against the wall, exhausted. Her face was flushed,
turning her entire head a shade of red.
"You are a Tomato," Dave
said as he looked at her. She glared. "Hey! Just stating the truth. I told
you, it only shows where one has been."
"You are such an idiot. We can just go there then," Scarlett was
perturbed. It was late. It was Christmas. And she was tired.
"But it crashed. The server got overloaded," Dave whimpered.
Scarlett could only stare at him. Was he speaking some other sort of
language? "We don't need some mystic parchment, just look up."
She grabbed Dave's head and pointed at the ceiling where festively decked out
suits of armor floated about.
"Oh," was the succinct response. "I didn't think about
that."
"And he calls himself a Claw," Scarlett grumbled as she dragged Dave
along, one eye up at the ceiling.
------
Part 3: The Battle
"Okay. So we'll double back at the end. Finally, I'm
going to go in first with a quick out. You do a streak route, but swerve once
you're ten yards in. To your left. Got it?" Wolfie
was somber as he addressed BAD. The duo was crammed in a small broom closet.
BAD looked Wolfie in the eye. He then adjusted his
peculiar head adornment. Wolfie had long decided not
to look at it too closely. He'd only get in trouble if he was caught eying any
of Kezza's or Chi's delicate belongings.
"I'll take that to be a yes," Wolfie
gulped. "Let Operation Domito Lemur catta begin." He turned towards the door. "I
really wish I had something like war paint."
BAD extended something frilly and lacy. Wolfie shook
his head, miming one of many plausible demises that could await him if he were
found with the object.
Kicking the door down, the battle cry of "CHARGE!" and a lemur alarm
call echoed through the hallway.
-_-_-
"Wait a second, that sounded like Wolfie,"
Dave said, stopping Scarlett in her tracks.
"And BAD," Scarlett added, picking up the pace.
"Sweet Merlin, what have they done this time?"
The teenagers nearly flew through the hallway. As the sounds got louder,
their pace quickened.
"Oh my..."
"Sweet Merlin..."
"Is that?"
"In Kezza's?"
"Can't be?"
"PEEVES?!"
"Someone pinch me, I'm dreaming."
Both teens pinched each other.
"Nope," Scarlett said in amazement.
Weakly, Dave added, "Not a dream."
"Shall we storm in and rush to his aid? I think I caught that sleeping
spell Kezza used earlier."
"Great! What I'll do is sneak through. You come up the right flank
and..."
"None of the sports stuff Dave. It's nearly as bad as that 'servers
crashing' thing," Scarlett groaned. "Let's just try not to get pelted
with Dungbombs?"
"Or become acquainted with the ceiling?"
"Yup."
------
Wolfie
was frantically conjuring slabs of granite to deflect the Dungbombs that Peeves
kept throwing at him. "Great idea, go into battle with a lemur. Against a
poltergeist who is bent on raising chaos. Right up there with joining in on the
war against the other three houses."
Then, Da! Da-dah-dat-da-dah!
A demented horn blew from nowhere, and Scarlett and Dave ran in.
"Scarlett!" Dave was shaking his head. "At least try to make it
sound like it's not dying if you're going to do that."
"Sorry," though her grin didn't indicate regrets, "couldn't
resist."
"We're here to help," Dave said. He had to duck as a paint bomb was
sent his way, via Peeves.
~~
"We honestly can't keep getting hit," Wolfie
yelled. The battle had been going on for a good hour. He had been turned neon
green with yellow stripes and smelt faintly of Dungbombs. All of the Claws
looked fairly hard hit as they peered out from their pile of rubble.
"Wait a second, what is BAD doing?" Scarlett asked. For indeed, the
Ravenclaws' house pet was acting quite peculiarly. He was backing down from the
feminine lemur. He was doing some sort of awkward bow while offering something
lacy.
"Guess he picked up on the whole Ravenclaw is dominated by girls
vibe," Dave muttered. He was as bewildered as Scarlett. Even Peeves had
stopped pelting the Claws with Dungbombs to watch.
"Wait a second, it can't be!" Wolfie
exclaimed, dropping his conjured rubber chicken. "She's--isn't it bad
enough that we've got a female Head of House? Now our lemur's gotta get dominated too?"
"Oh cheer up Wolfie," Scarlett grinned
broadly. "Lego'll be Head next term."
"But, but, BAD's integrity!" The Ravenclaw
was slightly distraught. "Will he ever be the same?"
"Not likely Wolfie," Dave winced.
"Though he might stop pilfering the upper Claws' drawers. That'd be a
plus." He helped Scarlett put sleeping charms on both lemurs.
Peeves was so shocked, he glided away without even the thought of a parting shot.
But as he left, he heard Wolfie say:
"True, maybe Kezza won't break out the leash
again..."