The Saturday mornings had a certain magical quality to them.
They didn’t rush anyone.
They didn’t shout.
All they asked for was a proper rest and an enjoyable day.
That is if you were anyone else besides the Hufflepuff first years.
Arthur had plans involving them.1
“Cedric wake up we have to go for an early run.” Arthur said putting on his sneakers.
When there was no response he continued, “You know you’d probably be selected for the Quidditch if they saw just how dedicated to improving yourself.”
“I’m up, I’m up.” Cedric said throwing his warm covers away, “Be ready in ten minutes.”
“Then I’ll wake up Lucian and Teddy.” Arthur said walking towards the door but paused when he heard Cedric say, “Can I wake them up?”
“Welcome to the Dark Side.” Arthur replied, his chest filled with a sense of accomplishment, “We do have more fun.”
…
“How do we get the girls?” Lucian asked looking at the door to the girls dormitory, “We can’t exactly walk in.” Arthur didn’t know the answer either.
All the boys were already warned that they couldn’t access the girls dormitory.
No one was brave enough to test whether there was a magical defense involved or not.
“Should we shout?” Cedric suggested still excited with his experience of dragging two grumpy boys from their bed.
It wasn’t necessary to go that far, but Arthur didn’t trust them to follow through so Cedric it was.
Before anyone took the suggestion to heart, Arthur said, “If I didn’t know for sure that you guys didn’t have any dangerous spells then I wouldn’t have taken the risk to wake you up. You have to be cautious about getting hurt as a morning person. So, no shouting.”
“Then what do we do?” Cedric asked while holding Lucian’s collar and stopping him from taking a step towards the dormitory door.
“We improvise.” Arthur said with a vague plan in mind.
….
Arthur held the bundled up owl like a ball and checked to see that the package was secure.
He took a running start toward one of the huge opening in the owlery and threw the owl as far as he could.
Sir Newton travelled some distance with his wing tucked in and spread them when gravity started to work.
The owl smoothly glided towards the Hufflepuff dorms.
“Does he really like that?” Teddy asked greatly concerned at the unusual method of flight.
“I can vouch for Arthur.” Cedric answered the mostly silent boy, “They always do this. And if you think this is concerning you should stay to watch how it comes back.”
They made light conversation as they waited for Sir Newton to fulfill his mission.
They didn’t have to wait for very long before they heard a screech coming from outside the tower.
Arthur looked out to see his owl flying free from his package, indicating mission completion.
Knowing what the bird wanted Arthur spread his legs slightly and got ready to catch it.
Sir Newton picked up some altitude and suddenly tucked his wings.
“I’ll never get used to that.” Cedric said watching the strange pair of bird and owner.
Just as Arthur was getting ready to say something they heard Lucian called loudly from the other side of the room, “Um, Guys?” They all turned to look at their friend who was observing the scenery through another opening as he said, “I think I just stepped in something squishy.”
“I know what you stepped in.” Arthur said giving the boy a look of pity.
“I know that too.” Lucian said with concern in his voice, “My question is why is it in such a huge volume?”
“It happened to me too. I think it has something to do with their diet. The kids sometimes feed the owls when they deliver something in the great hall. Not everything is good for them.”
“I think my sock is getting wet.”
“…”
The four boys all ran down the stairs as fast as possible.
…
The Great Lake, alternatively known as the Black Lake, was a large landlocked freshwater lake in the grounds of Hogwarts Castle, located to the south of the school itself.
The castle stood on a cliff overlooking the water.
It was about half a mile in diameter and the castle’s plumbing network drained into it.
The lake had a number of unusual inhabitants, including a Giant Squid, a village of merpeople, and many Grindylows.
The above facts were available in the book Hogwarts: A History written by Bathilda Bagshot.
Arthur had read these very lines at least a dozen lines while searching for the species of the Giant Squid.
Arthur stood in front of his friends with his back to the lake and announced, “Try to lift those rocks by the lake real high.”
“Gee!
Excellent speech.” Anna said sarcastically as she took out her wand, “Come on girls, Let’s go to that shallow area.
Looks fun.” The two girls tagged along with her, probably worried that an unsupervised Anna was in a real danger of drowning.
She knew how to float, but couldn’t swim.
Flora found out that fun fact when they were both in the middle of the lake and had already jumped off the boat.
The Giant Squid had demonstrated how useful it was that day.
…
“Teddy and I will try to find out how big of a splash we can make.” Lucian said dragging a silent Teddy along leaving Arthur and Cedric standing there.
“So… Rocks?” Arthur asked Cedric for confirmation.
“Actually, I have something else that I want to try.”
“What is it?” Arthur asked curiously.
He too didn’t want to just practice the same spell over and over.
“What if we could summon water from the lake?” Cedric said with considerable excitement, “It’ll probably be really cold around Christmas, if we’re lucky we can even summon snow. Then we just dodge their spells and wait.”
“Great idea.” Arthur said, feeling proud of his friend, “Let’s try it.”
“Alright.”
“3,2,1..”
“Accio Lake water.” they both chanted as they pointed their wands towards the lake.
The Summoning Charm was a charm that summoned an object toward the caster, meaning that it wasn’t designed to be dodged.
Watching the mass of water rapidly getting closer to him Arthur realized that he had not thought this through.
He really wished that they had learned some charm to warm themselves up as the cold water hit him right in the face.
…
“Arthur, don’t tell me that after waking up to a shrieking alarm clock and an entire hour of running around the lake your plan was to have us climb up a cliff.” said a very angry Anna, who noticeably toned her voice down, probably due to pity for the two wet boys.
Arthur did know that the castle was located on a cliff.
He also knew that a morning run around the lake would be a good experience.
Somehow he had never considered, or even given a single thought to the fact that they would have to climb a cliff at the END of the run.
He also hadn’t considered that he would be wet.
Arthur stayed silent as he looked at the climb in front of him.
He took deep breaths through his nose and tried to think of a plan through his wet clothes.
Nothing came to him.
“What about sending some sparks like we learned in Defense class?” Patricia suggested while catching her breath.
Arthur had considered that except for the fact…
“Genius here woke us up too early.” said Anna pausing to take a breath, “No one’s awake in the castle. Besides the fog from lake would obscure the spell.” Arthur hadn’t thought of the second part at all.
“So either we walk to the castle or we rest here for a little while.” Cedric said while shivering dramatically, “I’m feeling very cold. What do we do?”
“Can’t we just jump in the lake and let the squid take us back?” Lucian suggested.
Arthur was almost tempted to accept his suggestion given that he was already wet but he stayed silent.
He had a feeling that anything he said would earn him a vicious pinch right about now.
He could tell a tired Anna wouldn’t care that he had already started to sniffle.
“Let’s get to Madam Pomfrey fast. These two dunderheads probably need something for the cold.” Patricia said while starting to walk ahead.
She had decided for the group.
…
The sunrise over the water was a quiet and glowing moment when soft pink and gold light spread across the calm surface.
The flat surface of the water acted like a clean mirror.
Bright yellows and red colors danced and shimmered on the tiny ripples.
A long path of golden light stretched straight across the water toward the shore.
A cool, light morning mist floated just above the surface of the water.
Gentle waves made a soft splashing sound against the edge of the land.
The first year Hufflepuffs were not in the mood to enjoy any of that.
They were currently dragging their bodies up the sloping path that led to the Hogwarts castle.
They had to if they didn’t want to miss eating breakfast.
Sweet warm filling breakfast.
About my first paragraph :- As I read the lines again it felt like AI with two continuous ‘They didn’t’ but I promise that I wrote it.
Took me for a loop when I realized that I could subconsciously think like that but I figured that AI had to train from somewhere so I just let it be.