"Jack!" Henry called out. "Pull up some chairs, old sport, we've brought you some booty!"
"Hey guys," Jack greeted them distractedly, not looking up from the book. "Bilbo and the dwarves just got caught by three trolls–"
"Oh, that part is brilliant!" Teddy proclaimed cheerfully, swaying slightly. "Gandalf tricks 'em into arguing till sunrise and they all turn to stone!"
“Marshy!” Jack raised his eyes, outraged. "You just spoiled it!"
"Oh…sorry mate," Teddy had the grace to look slightly abashed, then brightened. "Come on now, look what we brought you!"
His three friends gathered around him, producing packages from their coat pockets. Honeydukes chocolates, a large bag of Pepper Imp Crisps, and - Jack's eyes lit up - three packs of Ignis Fatuus cigarettes.
"Figured you'd be running low," Oliver explained, tossing him the tobacco.
"I'm still ticked off about you spoiling that, Teddy," Jack grumbled, stacking the packs into a little pyramid and helping Henry pull up two more armchairs.
"Merlin, that is a nice copy of Tolkien! That’s not the paperback editions the library’s got." Henry whistled, peering at the enchanted cover with interest. “Where’d you get it?”
"McGonagall let me borrow it," Jack replied, carefully marking his place with a paper bookmark. "After I almost hexed Pal and Wiggy for blowing up their Snap cards."
"The little first-year with the glasses?" Oliver asked. "Didn't know she had it in her to be social."
"She's not social, she's considerate," Jack corrected, feeling oddly protective. He snatched the book away before Oliver could place an ashtray on it. "And this is a really nice book, so don’t use it as a friggin’ coaster!"
Oliver raised his hands in mock surrender, but before he could retort, Teddy leaned forward with a wide grin.
"The best is saved for last," Teddy said with a flourish, pulling out a preposterously large bottle out of his inner coat pocket, "This is the latest from Madam Welcome at the Three Broomsticks – 'Ginger Snapdragon.' Has a bit of a kick. And by that I mean it kicks like a sleipnir."
"You shouldn’t have," Jack grinned, examining the bottle's warning label. The first-year boys perked up from the corner, watching with interest as the older boys broke out their contraband.
"Fetch us some glasses, Hitchens," Henry waved him over and settled into the chair opposite Jack. Pal jumped up from his game and scurried off to the drinks cabinet under the stairs.
The radio started playing
"This some of your American Muggle jazz? I like it.” Henry’s toe wagged lazily to the swing beat.
Jack adjusted the wireless, tuning out the static and turning up the volume slightly.
“Here you go Mr. Ravenhurst!” Palamedes Hitchens raced back with four lowball glasses for them.
Henry tossed him a Honeydukes chocolate, adding a shove with his foot to send him back to his corner. Teddy filled the glasses a third full with the precision of a practiced tapster. The liquid swirled through shifting colors of iridescent gold and red like glowing embers.
"To making it through, to friends tried and true," Henry raised his glass.
"Here's to the lads, may no witch split our crew!" Teddy added waggishly.
They drained their glasses. The Ginger Snapdragon burned all the way down Jack’s throat as if it were 160 proof, then went off in his stomach like a bomb. A pleasant warmth flooded outward to his extremities, and his mind went slightly floaty for a second before everything shot back into focus. The aftertaste was like a spiced Christmas cookie.
There was a chorus of coughing.
“Merlin’s false teeth,” Henry squeaked in a higher voice than usual. “‘Bit of a kick’, eh Ted?”
“Ahem…” Teddy refilled their glasses, his face bright red. “Must be brewed with pure cinnamon bark,” he whispered. “And capsicum.”
Oliver massaged his cheeks, "My tung'sh gon num.”
"That means it's working!" Teddy declared with a grin.
The second round went down smoother, and the euphoric effect lasted longer. They sprawled in their chairs by the fire, swapping stories from Hogsmeade and Ilvermorny’s Adams, their laughter punctuated by coughs and tiny, sparking hiccups.
Mina and Lavinia shooed the remaining first-years up to bed at 10:30 and declined Henry's invitation to join them. Lavinia hesitated at the stairs, looking back, but Mina tugged her along.
"Saw Mossflower cornered by O’Neill when we walked into The Three Broomsticks," Teddy grinned. "Poor beggar gave us a look that cried ‘Help me!’”
"Speaking of helping..." Henry produced a bag of squishy autumn-colored candies. "Got you a little something from Honeydukes. Their own seasonal line: Moodmellows. Guaranteed to improve your disposition or your money back."
"And even if they don't work," Oliver added, "They’ll go down easier than Teddy's knucker milk here."
“Thanks guys,” Jack smiled.
“Don’t be down about the gating, old sport,” Henry said encouragingly, “Hogsmeade won’t be any different by late September, and the autumn leaves will be properly out.”
They passed around the bottle and sampled the Moodmellows, which filled Jack’s mouth with warm flavors of cinnamon, apple, and deep-fried dough that made his ears and nose steam pleasantly.
"These aren't half bad," Jack admitted, reaching for another butterscotch-colored mallow. His whole body felt warm and bubbly, as if he was floating in a hot spring.
"Better than eating your feelings in the library with Ludd tomorrow night," Teddy agreed, then yelped as Jack kicked him while laughing.
The combination of good drinks, magical candy, and good company had lifted his spirits considerably. Every Moodmellow added another layer of golden comfort to the evening. The fire crackled merrily, Bing Crosby crooned about , and even detention tomorrow felt like a distant concern. His prefrontal cortex had been thoroughly routed from the field.
In fact, Jack was starting to have a brilliant idea. That brand-new (to him) Spitfire was in his dorm room. If Cassandra had gone to Hogsmeade, she would be back by now. Probably sitting by her window in the faculty tower, maybe reading by lamplight. Which window would it be?
He could fly up there to check. Not to talk to her, obviously - just to see if she was ok. To make sure Montfort hadn't been bothering her. It wasn't that far past curfew yet, technically. And he was such a good flier now, especially after today's practice. He could hover there, quiet as a ghost, just for a moment...
The thought filled him with a warm, burning certainty.
Yes. This was exactly what he should do. This would solve everything.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
"Say," Jack said, aiming for nonchalant and missing by a country mile, "do the dormitory windows open all the way? Like, person-sized all the way?"
A contemplative silence fell. The wireless warbled
"Trying to sneak out? To where?" Oliver frowned, then his eyes widened with belated realization. "Oh no. No, no, no, no, no."
"I just want to find her window," Jack said, the idea seeming perfectly reasonable. There’s no way MacLeod could get upset about something as innocent as that. "Just to see if she's ok.”
"No Jack," Henry said firmly. Then ruined the sound of his resolve with a loud hiccup. "Absolutely not."
"But I just want to apologize," Jack defended himself. "In the moonlight!"
"That's the Snapdragon and your silly Muggle movies talking, Semmes." Teddy burped a dancing spark that burst into little pink stars. "Serenading after midnight is poncey. Witches don’t want to hear you gassing when the lights get low. Actions speak louder than words. Just fly up there and grab a hold of her thickest bits."
“Godric’s sake, shut up Marshy!” Henry snickered. “I’d take love advice from a drunken gnome before listening to you two.”
"That Hightower is built like a secret," Teddy continued undiminished, "She’s been swanning about in expensive robes these past five years, never seen her outside a knee-length skirt and stockings. Merlin knows what she’s hiding under those sweaters! Could be all bony angles, could be the softest, ripest peaches you’ve ever seen."
Jack sputtered, his drunkenness dispersed in an instant. "Franklin's kite, Marshy!"
Oliver and Henry roared with laughter.
"Ah, now he’s thinking about it!" Teddy cackled, pointing triumphantly. "A mystery, isn’t she? All that fabric, all those high collars…she's a royal pain in the arse but I bet that’s why you're so interested in melting that ice witch. I'll bet a Galleon she’s got legs like a chorus girl, Yank."
“Mate,” Oliver leaned over and put his hand companionably on Jack’s, “There might be a time for that, but it’s sure as hellfire not right now.”
Jack felt the great idea slip through his fingers like dry sand, leaving behind a hollow feeling that he’d almost done something incredibly stupid.
Teddy, smug as ever, stretched out like a fox that had just raided the henhouse. "Not for me, all that ice and prudery," he smirked, lighting a cigarette. "I prefer witches who know things a bloke isn’t supposed to know. Let me tell you what I got up to in the Restricted Section last term." He leaned in conspiratorially. "Let’s just say, the books weren’t the only things getting thoroughly stuffed between the shelves." He blew a perfect smoke ring, grinning through the haze like the Devil himself.
Oliver snorted. "Yeah? With which girl, Marshy?"
Teddy’s grin widened. “Now, now, old sport. A gentlewizard never kisses and tells.”
"Which means you're talking out of your arse," Henry declared.
Jack was caught between disbelief and the faint hope for more details, "What kind of girl would do that in the Restricted Section?"
"Any of them! It’s the danger, Yank," Teddy assured him with mock seriousness. "Gets them wet as April."
They finished the bottle as the fire burned low, their conversation drifting from Teddy’s wildly exaggerated tales of conquest to Quidditch tactics to increasingly harebrained plans for sneaking Jack into Hogsmeade next weekend.
"You could transfigure me into a cap!" Jack held up his flat hat to demonstrate.
“Aye, nothing suspicious about a cap that shouts 'gee whiz!'” Teddy sniggered.
"No way," Henry shook his head violently. "Your accent would give you away."
"Not if I’m a really quiet hat!"
The portrait hole creaked open, and they all froze.
It was Mina Mulholland, returning from night patrol. She took in the scene - the empty bottle, cigarette butts, stained glasses, scattered candy wrappers - and sighed.
"Boys, it’s gone past half-eleven," she said. "Please... clean up before MacLeod does his midnight rounds."
"You're an angel, Mulholland!" Henry called tipsily after her as she headed past them for the girls' dormitory to do bed checks.
She didn’t acknowledge him. The door closed behind her.
The three others exchanged gleeful looks. Jack was delighted to have someone else’s love life under the magiscope for once.
"You're an angel, Mulholland!" Oliver mimicked. “O, speak again, bright angel, for thou art as glorious to this night!”
"Oooh, sweet Mina,” Teddy pulled out his wand and wiggled it suggestively. “I woo thee with my sword."
"Lads, shut up," Henry's ears were turning red. “She’ll be coming back."
The Moodmellows had a strongly mnemogenic side-effect. "Let us go then, you and I,” Jack quoted, “when the evening is spread out against the sky-"
"-to the giant bathtub in the prefects' bathroom!" Teddy crowed.
"That’s not even the bloody line!" Henry protested, aiming a sharp punch at Teddy’s shoulder. “And really, Semmes? Eliot?”
“Ilvermorny graduate!” Jack boasted. “He’s a Horned Serpent, but I still claim him.”
"Well then shall I compare her to a summer's day?" Teddy continued, standing up and safely out of Henry’s reach. "She is more Irish and thus more buxom." He made a lewdly curvaceous gesture. “What say you lads, think Henry’s ready to be a father right away?"
“Marshy!” Henry hissed. “Stuff it!”
"So fair art thou, my bonnie lass, So deep in love am I! And I will love thee still, my dear, till all the seas gone dry." Oliver rumbled, with such a deep and true Scottish accent that Jack started, thinking that MacLeod had suddenly joined in.
"Still, to hear her tender-taken breath," Jack added dreamily, "And so live ever - or else swoon to death."
"Throw Keats at me and I’ll swoon you to death," Henry threatened Jack with a cushion.
"Why how now, Hal, why swoon in vain when she’s just upstairs? If love be rough with you, be rough with love,” Teddy gyrated his pelvis. “Prick love for pricking, and beat love down–" He was cut off by Henry standing up abruptly and knocking over the empty bottle of Ginger Snapdragon.
"Merlin’s sock stays," Henry started gathering up their glasses and trash. "That's quite enough of that for one night. And if any of you breathe a word of that to Mina..."
"Wouldn't dream of it," Jack said with a final belch. "We'll let you speak for yourself.”
Teddy and Oliver collapsed laughing, while Henry muttered viciously about bludgeoning them with an armchair.
They tidied their corner quickly, vanishing the last evidence of revelry. Jack tucked Minerva’s copy of The Hobbit under his arm as they headed up to bed, the mountain range on its cover now resting under a dark blanket of tiny twinkling stars.
You know, he thought, the best cure for your own romantic troubles was laughing at someone else's.
He realized he hadn't thought about Cassandra for nearly two hours...
Well, except for that stupid plan about the broom flight.
And now.
Franklin.
He placed the borrowed book on his nightstand, the little red dragon on its cover curled up in sleep. At least Bilbo Baggins hadn't gotten himself tangled up with witches – just confusticated and bebothered by dwarves.
Lucky hobbit. Witches were trouble.
Footnotes:
Noted Squib scholar John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892–1973) taught Ancient Runes at Hogwarts during the 1920s. The Muggles think he was at the University of Leeds during that time, but that was a series of clever memory modifications to make his resume Muggle-friendly before leaving to pursue an academic career at Oxford. His fascination with ancient magical languages shaped his storytelling. He founded a Squib writing club while at Oxford, the Inklings, where they shared tales inspired by their heritage. Tolkien's The Hobbit (1937) and The Lord of the Rings (1952-1955) became enduringly popular and sparked a cultural craze in the Wizarding World, with several magical families naming their children after his characters. Gandalf and Galadriel were particularly popular choices for wizards and witches born in the late 1950s, much to the annoyance of my professors trying to keep track of my fellow students in the ‘70s.
Healer-Poet John Keats (1795-1821) wrote most of his famous works while experimenting with various countercurses. "Ode on a Grecian Urn" was actually about a cursed artifact in the Department of Mysteries. He died young after contracting the very curse he was studying. A tragic, if somewhat ironic, loss to the Wizarding World.
Animagus and Skinflint Robert Burns (1759-1796) was a Scottish wizard known for enchanting his haggis to sing and for constantly trying to unsuccessfully borrow money from his friends. The "wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie" was a failed Animagus attempt.
Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888-1965) graduated from Ilvermorny in 1906 before moving to Britain because he thought he was too good to be from St. Louis, MO. "The Waste Land" was his doctoral thesis on magical decay in urban and industrialized environments (something that he was very familiar with...being from St. Louis). The footnotes were added to confuse Muggles. Prufrock was a particularly anxious house-elf who served at the Ministry of Magic with a passion for white flannel trousers.
Author’s Note: All of these authors’ works were required reading at Hogwarts in ‘Magical Lore and Literature’ until 1992, when the curriculum was revised and the course was removed. By then young people had moved on to quoting Wizarding TV shows. Still better than the brainrotted nonsense they spew nowadays though. Bloody Muggle internet culture. Even the Sorting Hat can’t keep up. All my students spout is “Based”, “Cringe”, “Based”, “Cringe”, "Real" AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA