What had gotten Cad into trouble in Potions he wasn’t entirely sure.  One minute he had been working at his station – the next …well he might have decided to throw some dandelion heads into the cauldron of the Hufflepuff next to him.  Ok – so he knew but he wasn’t entirely sure why had had decided to play the prank on the unfortunate classmate.  Still Professor Valenduris had been furious and given him a rare detention – Cad guess that what he had done must have created some very dangerous reaction or something.  But who could know. 

Valenduris had passed him off to the caretaker who had demanded that he and his fellow detention slave to clean out a classroom that hadn’t been used in god knows how long.  It was full of cast off furniture  - stacks of unused tables and desks that took up much of the floor space and made navigating very difficult.  Their job was to move the furniture from the room and stack it in the hall without magic.  Boring! Cad hadn’t bothered to introduce himself to the other  boy – he recognised him as a slytherin and that was as far as his interest ran, by the cut of his clothing the other boy was clearly of a poorer class and that was reason enough for Cad to not want any further intimacy with him. 

Afterwards – he wouldn’t be able to tell accurately which of them had bumped the stack of chairs that had started the chain reaction of falling furniture that obstructed the door.  All he was sure of was that somewhere in the thunderous rumble of cascading chairs and toppling tables he was hit squarely in the chest by a hot white energy that left his stomach tumbling end over end. 

Picking himself up off the floor he stared around bereft ’My wand!’ he exclaimed holding up the shattered implement – the core very exposed and a vague white light emanating from within.  ’What happened?’

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   Bragi Holm

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Behold the Awesome of Stefanie!

In all honesty, Clue had yet to truly understand what had landed him in detention that day — the minutia of what was expected of him, and how he should behave was largely lost on him. All he knew was that in response to his naivete he was being forced to stack chairs with a boy from the year below who nevertheless looked a lot older than him.

Small and fragile while the Gryffindor was tall and sturdy, Clue had yet to make any move to help at all — it seemed counter-intuitive. Though when he saw one particularly precarious stack of chairs look set to topple, he intuitively reached out a delicate hand to save the day, only to make it worse as the whole thing came clattering down on them both.

As he picked himself up painfully from the floor, he felt very peculiar indeed. Something had hit him in the chest, but it hadn't been a chair. Had the other boy's broken wand shot a spell at him? "Never mind that", Clue asserted suddenly, in a manner that was quite unlike himself.  "What did you do to me?" He rubbed his chest, glowering at the other's wand.

  

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’ME?’ he demanded as the other boy dared to accuse him of any kind of wrong doing.  He took a deep breath preparing to beret him for daring to accuse him, but stopped as he realised his own chest was aching painfully.  ’I….’ Cad started his head suddenly swimming, ’I didn’t’ he shook his head trying to shake away the odd feeling, like cold water trickling down his back, a sense of unease and general suspicion clawing at his throat and stomach that disquieted him and made the hair on the back of neck stand on end. 

After a moment the feeling coldness and discomfort subsided but the feeling of suspicion for the other young man remained, along with a general sense of dislike.  ’How do I know you didn’t do this?’ he asked, his tone smoother and more controlled but filled with a very obvious sense of distrust.


Clue Leverett

  

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Behold the Awesome of Stefanie!

"Because I'd know if I shot off a spell, obviously", he shot back without a beat, giving Selwyn a withering look. "Although, to be fair... you don't look like you could do much harm, so maybe nothing happened. We just got hit by the chairs." Clue shrugged one slender shoulder in a manner that made him come across a lot more brawny and casual than he was.

"Speaking of which, better get a move on", he added, turning to the huge mess of scattered chairs. He picked two up with considerably more strength than he had a moment ago.

It's amazing what having the right mindset can do.

  

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’Would you?’ Cad asked his eyes narrowing at the other boy, watching him in the way that a bird watches a cat who might eat it at any moment. His whole frame had crumpeled in on itself, gone was the son of the Selwynn patriarch, the broad man that Cad usually took after physically. In his place was a boy who seemed coiled like a spring, but eager to take up as little space on the ground he stood upon as was physically possible.

’Would you tell me if you did?’ Cad asked, his hand gripping at the broken ends of his wand. It was useless now, but he didn’t feel right now that he was wasn’t armed. Cad could feel the hairs on the back of his neck were standing on edge, what the hell had this guy done to him? It was almost certainly some sort of spell the young man had cast on him behind his back. After all, Cad didn’t know what he’d done to get into detention in the first place.

When the other boy motioned towards the mess of chairs, not obstructing the door way Cad complied, but moved in such a way as to make sure his back was never to the other student – he wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. ’How did you end up in detention?’ he asked, his curiosity getting the better of him and after all – forewarned was forearmed as far the other student was concerned.

Clue Leverett

  

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Behold the Awesome of Stefanie!

Somewhere in the hazy back of his mind, Clue felt that he would be asking exactly these questions if he'd been so inclined, but... the forefront of his mind chased those questions away with a scoff. In fact he almost scoffed outloud, but didn't quite.

"I'm not into firing off random, sneaky spells like a goblin in the shadows. If I had a problem with you, you'd know about it." He felt an uncharacteristic flare of aggression, wanting to glare at the Gryffindor and give an example of what he would do if he had a problem with him. But he bit his tongue and focussed on stacking the chairs again. They had a job to do.

As for how he'd got into detention — "a professor misunderstood something I said. Stupid reason for a detention, really. I should've caused some real havoc if I was going to end up in trouble anyway", he added resentfully, shrugging a shoulder.

"You?"

  

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Cad narrowed his eyes, did he really want to tell this fifth year any more than he really had to? Okay, so he had asked first, but he wasn’t buying the whole wide eyed ingenue thing that the Slytherin boy was putting out there. If his wand had been working he would have considering casting a protection spell around himself but a glance at his battered wand showed that that wouldn’t be possible. Cad stuffed the remnants of his wand into the pocket of his school robes.

It was then he realised he still hadn’t answered the other student. ’I … well I…’ Cad cleared his throat, ’I pulled a prank in potions.’ even as he said it his brow furrowed again, it didn’t feel like something he would have done, and it say uneasily on his shoulders like a shirt that was too large to fit – the feeling caused Cad to tense his shoulders pulling back his shoulder blades so they almost touched.

Cad shook his head, trying to chase away the feelings that didn’t seem right -there was something about this that just wasn’t right. ’I need to get out of here.’ he said in almost a whisper, and almost entirely to himself. He started to move the chairs again, and where before he had lifted 3 or 4 at a time, now he lifted 2 stacked neatly, as though he didn’t trust his body to respond to task he had empirically performed only a few minutes before. ’Would you…?’ his questioned trailed off and thought it might be implied that he wanted the other boy to help him move the items that were barring their path.


Clue Leverett

  

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Behold the Awesome of Stefanie!

Clue couldn't help but feel slightly resentful as he continued moving and stacking chairs after the boy's request. He didn't want to seem like he was trying to help him or whatever — it just so happened that Clue's activities were also in the Gryffindor's best interest. He gathered another three chairs in his slim, pale arms, stacking them easily, and carried them out into the hall.

"So what was the prank?" the Slytherin asked with a slight smirk. He liked a good prank, so he might as well hear tell of it and be entertained if they were stuck here for a while longer.

  

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Cad picked up two more chairs and moved them from the front of the door, 'The prank?' he knew he had just said that he had been responsible for a prank but it didnt feel like the sort of thing he would do. Like something he had done in another life, and the the memory of the prank was a shadow and a mist in his mind.

But having admitted to the act there was no point in lieing about it. 'I threw a handfull of some plants into another students potion...it eh...boiled over and had a bad reaction.' that bit was true enough, he didn't know exactly why the students spoiled potion had been worthy of detention but apparently it had because here he was. He did know he hadn't seen Professor Valenduris this angry in a long time.

'Can we just get these chairs moved? I want to go and see if someone can get my wand sorted before my next class.' he said glumly, gesturing to his pocket where the remnants of his want still hissed and spit coloured sparks.

Clue Leverett

  

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Behold the Awesome of Stefanie!

Clue shook his head and chuckled. "Don't be so abashed; that's a pretty solid prank. Last time I pulled off something like that was... I don't even know when", he mused. The truth was, he couldn't recall any time he'd pulled a prank. This made no sense at all, so Clue was quiet for a moment as he mulled on this.

And before long, their combined efforts and eagerness to get this done had resulted in all the chairs being moved as ordered. "Done", he announced, dusting off his hands. "I'm off. Good luck with the wand", he added. And the young Gryffindor would need good luck for a lot of other things too — he didn't seem in the best state.

Then again, Clue didn't feel like himself either. But the queer feeling came with a self-assurance he'd never felt before. Surely there was no harm in just enjoying it.

  

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Cad didnt know what to say when the other young man shrugged off his concerns and his fears about the nature of his prank. Cad could only shrug and feel sheepish. He was a little surprised when they got the door clear, and the door was open the other boy just left him too it. There were still dozens of chairs to be moved into the hall, but Cad didn't feel like it was his place to contradict him. He just watched him go.

On his own, and for the next hour Cad moved chairs from the classroom to the hallway on his own. Just as he was finishing the move a strange shiver ran down his spine and he found himself standing in the hallway angry as hell that that little slytherin prick had left him to do all of the work. As soon as his wand was fixed that little fucker was going to get it.

  

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Behold the Awesome of Stefanie!