DreamyApe
patreon
HPTD - CH 117 - Toast Crimes and Newspaper Slimes
🕑 Added 2025-04-29 21:00:22 +0000 UTCThe Ravenclaw table buzzed with the low hum of chatter and clinking forks. Saturday mornings were usually slow, but not today. First match of the season: Gryffindor versus Slytherin. Half the castle couldn't wait to see Slytherin lose. The other half already knew about their brand-new brooms.
Roger Davies was midway through explaining — for the third time — how the new Nimbus Two Thousand and Ones gave Slytherin an unfair advantage.
"I'm serious," Roger said, waving a spoon like a wand. "They're faster, they turn tighter, and they were gifted them. Gifted!"
"Tch. Of course they were," Edgar muttered, shaking his head. "Daddy Malfoy probably bought the lot to make sure Draco doesn't fall off again."
"Honestly, I'd fall off too if I had to listen to Flint's voice for more than ten seconds," Marianne Fawcett— Fawnie, as he'd started calling her, just cause she hated it so much— added, rubbing sleep from her eyes.
Ben chuckled a little at that. Truthfully, Draco wasn't that bad of a flyer. It was just that sometimes, during lessons, Ben couldn't help but 'accidentally' help him reacquaint with the ground when his smugness got out of control.
"With their skills, I don't think it'll be long before one of them flies into the stands. My bet's on Marcus Flint," Ben said, thinking of the Slytherin captain's perpetually crooked nose and a set of teeth that gave the whole of Britain a bad name.
"Please let it be Flint," Eleanor said, staring into her tea. "If I have to hear him scream 'bludger left' one more time like he's calling cattle—"
"You okay?" Owen asked with concern only reserved for Eleanor.
"I'm never okay during Slytherin season," she replied flatly. "It's the sound of their voices. Like a banshee swallowed a foghorn."
"You reckon if I knock Flint hard enough, he'll rattle loose and fly straighter?" Tobias grinned, already halfway through his second plate of sausages.
"Let's not talk about assaulting the other team over breakfast," Owen said dryly.
"Relax, Cap," Marianne drawled. "He didn't say when."
"It's gonna be hard to watch them brag all match," Edgar grumbled. "'Oh look at me, I'm on a Nimbus 2001, I'm so fast, I'm so rich, I'm so pure-blooded' — must be nice to have a vault stuffed with Galleons and zero shame."
Roger smirked. "Careful, Cornfoot. Sounding a bit jealous."
"Shut it, Davies."
Ben stabbed a sausage and leaned back, eyeing the enchanted ceiling lazily. Cho hadn't shown up for breakfast. Again. He'd tried to talk to her yesterday, but she kept discovering a very interesting bit of ground whenever he looked her way. He figured he'd catch her in the stands later. One way or another, he had to say something.
Across from him, Marianne was buttering a mountain of toast like she planned to build a house out of it. "Oi, Fawnie, leave some for the rest of Britain," Ben said.
She stuck out her tongue and lobbed a grape at his head before going back to buttering her toast.
A few seats down, Luna Lovegood had arranged her breakfast into colour groups. She tilted her head, studying him like he might sprout antlers. "You have the same face as a Blibbering Humdinger before it explodes," she said dreamily.
Ben paused, fork mid-air."...Cheers, Luna," he said, because honestly, what else could you say to that?
Before he could work out whether that was an insult or a warning, a sudden flurry of owl wings swept down. Newspapers rained over the tables. A copy of the Daily Prophet landed squarely in Ben's porridge, splashing it up his sleeve.
"Brilliant," he muttered, peeling it off. His eyes caught the headline.
HOGWARTS INCIDENT UNDER INVESTIGATION?MINISTRY YET TO COMMENT ON "CURSED OBJECT" CLAIMS
By Rita Skeeter, Special Correspondent
Petrified cat, vanished students, and whispers of a hidden chamber — Hogwarts is keeping secrets. But what, exactly, is being hidden from the public?
More on Page 3
Now Ben had to turn the page. In fact, he had been looking forward to something like this.
-
In the wake of recent alarming events at Hogwarts, in which the caretaker's cat was found petrified and several students briefly went missing, concerns are now growing about what some are calling a significant breach of school safety.
While Hogwarts officials insist that the incident involved a cursed object — now allegedly destroyed — other sources hint at something far more troubling.
"No cursed object petrifies a cat," one concerned parent remarked. "This reeks of a cover-up."
Whispers from sources close to the Hogwarts Board of Governors also suggest that the true nature of the threat may have been far more serious.
"It's all very hush-hush," said one source, who asked to remain anonymous. "But there's talk of a creature, something dangerous. And it was roaming the school unchecked for weeks."
Sources also report that six students briefly went missing this Thursday and were later rescued from a hidden chamber beneath the school itself.
And where was Headmaster Albus Dumbledore during this crisis? Absent.
Some speculate that this may be connected to the long-rumoured Chamber of Secrets, a legend Hogwarts has long denied holds any truth.
Questions are also being raised about Headmaster Albus Dumbledore's ability to maintain student safety — when asked for comment, Albus Dumbledore declined to elaborate, stating only that "the matter is resolved."
Adding to the mystery is the role played by a pureblood second-year boy, whose reputation for unusual magic continues to raise eyebrows.
According to the parent of one missing student, who described the ordeal as 'traumatising', he was instrumental in locating the missing students.
“It was like he knew what to do,” she said. “The professors were still searching the corridors.”
While some are calling him a hero, others are left wondering how such a young student was able to act so swiftly — and why he was first on the scene before any professors.
"It is deeply troubling," says one concerned official, "that certain individuals were allowed to roam unsupervised while innocent lives hung in the balance."
The Ministry has yet to confirm whether investigations into these irregularities will be formally opened, though internal sources confirm that an inquiry is likely.
For the sake of Hogwarts' future, one can only hope that wiser leadership — and stricter measures — are soon in place.
-
Ben quietly folded the paper and set it aside.
No name. But the finger was pointed all the same. It reeked of Lucius. He didn’t need to write a word when Rita Skeeter was ready to do it for him.
Ben hadn’t expected this, if he were honest. If the Ministry actually dug deep, they’d just find skeletons stuffed neatly into Lucius Malfoy’s closet — probably alphabetised. More likely, this was just a smear job, thrown together to soothe Malfoy’s bruised ego now that a second year had foiled his grand plan and cleaned up his mess.
-End of Chapter-
What do you guys think? Should I start my own newspaper?
Comments
Xazo
Cheers, and thanks for the chapter.
Mitchell Bizon
TFTC
