Fundi Hogwarts

Make a wish,
Make a wish.
Take this life away from me.

Make a wish,
Make a wish.
Cast away the old with glee.

From The Wishing Song

Prologue – Make a Wish


"Rule breaking! Insolence! Uppity knuckle-dragging smug snotty children! What is our school coming to? Oh, if only it was going to the dogs. But it's going to the lions. Those pathetic little abominations Dumbledore likes to coddle so much. Dumbledore will be the death of this school. Do you know what he did today? He let Harry Potter go scot free after he helped that mass murderer escape somehow. I just know it was him. It's always him. And do you know what Dumbledore always does? Banish him? Cast him away? Curse him? Punish him? No. Oh no. He lets him do whatever he wants. Never will he punish him. And he'd never let me punish him either, not really. He encourages him, I tell you. I see the way he smiles at the little monster. If I ever catch him… but what good would that do me? Dumbledore will wave it off with some new excuse and find yet another flimsy pretext to give him the House Cup again like he's been doing for the past three years. What shall we do? What can we do?"

Severus glanced at his drinking companions. Filch was not much of a conversationalist but he had enthusiasm and in spades. Lucius was too cocky by half but where liquor was concerned he was without peer even if he did become a tad maudlin and sentimental. And Snape could talk enough for all three of them combined. There was no bottle deep enough or fiery enough to make his talented tongue stumble in its intricate dance of enunciation. He talked. Boy, how much he talked.

Filch mumbled "Hear, hear!" lifting his cup over his head and spilling a bit on his pate before he could stop himself. Lucius opened another bottle and refilled Severus' and Filch's empty cups.

"But what can we do, old friend?" Lucius belaboured, patting Severus on his shoulder to his great discomfort. "What can we do? None of us is a match to the great Dumbledore and the Dark Lord is but a shade, powerless to stop that interfering old sop. By the way things are going he'll lord over us all till we've all turned into addled toothless… tots. This is no world for snakes. Dumbledore has made certain sure of that."

"Bah, Humbug!" Filch interrupted him. "Dumbledore 's not the problem." He grouched, for once deciding to add his own Knut to the pile. "No. It's those niggardly rules we 'ave. If only they let me use my whips a bit, aye, and fill my shackles proper, the school would be up to snap and then some! I tell you, Dumbledore is not important. You'd be a nice fill-in, Professor Snape, and you too Mister Malfoy, but as long as they let those brats do as they please nothing will ever change."

"Oh, come off it, Argus." Severus interrupted him. "The chances of that ever happening are lower than the chance we'll ever have a competent Minister of Magic. We'd need to live in a different world entirely for such things to be possible. It's hopeless. Hopeless I tell you.

"The real problem is the snogging. You see how those vile wretches slobber in every niche and corner, scratching every snatch, jerking every gherkin, boffing all around, boinking in the shade, boning… by Salazar! Nothing will be done while children are allowed to act like randy goats. It's an affront! A fetid taint on our vaunted school. Were it up to me the girls would walk on the up and narrow. They would have chastity belts like in the Old Days and separate classes and dormitories. And Ghouls would guard the corridors to catch them in the act! If it was up to me —"

Lucius snorted. Snape needed to get laid. Lord, what fools his fellows were, he chuckled to himself, coiling a lock of gorgeous golden hair around his finger. "Well, if I had my wish, I would be Headmaster of Hogwarts. Then I'll do whatever I wished with this school and that would be that. Really, you two think too small." He grinned at his two hearty fellows. "But what can any of us do? Fools, the lots of us. Mere hopes and wishes never got any wizard anywhere."

All the bottles looked empty. Lucius sighed. He wished he'd brought another bottle. He didn't want to leave his two dear bosom friends already. But the bottles were empty and the Sapphire Shrew at home had to be placated before she decided to lock him out for the night. If only he had packed another bottle!

Suddenly there was a crash from across the table. Looking up he saw Filch stumbling with a yell to his feet. He had a wild look in his eyes. Grinning dementedly at his two companions he started stumbling around their table as he pawed his pockets for something. "Listen to me, Professor, Sir. I 'ave the answer to all our worries right 'ere in my pocket. Aye, it's the answer to every hitch, the answer… to any glitch!"

Severus and Lucius grinned at each other and directed rapt, blurry gazes at their drinking companion. The entertainment was about to begin.

"What have you got for us tonight, Argus?" Severus purred. "What newfangled scheme have you cooked up for us this time? With bated breath we await your words of wisdom. In rapt anticipation we hold our breaths." Lucius, joining him in the joke, widened his eyes in mock anticipation but Filch paid no attention to either of them. He was too excited for that.

For Argus Filch, Hogwarts' cantankerous Caretaker, had a flaw. He was what dodgy dealers fondly liked to call, a sure bet. If it looked magical, if it promised miracles, Argus Filch got it. Dubious magical artefacts, flaky enchantments' recipes, you could always find them clutched eagerly in his hands beneath that horrid victorious grin, for Argus Filch firmly believed that all would be well in his life, like magic, if only he found one good Miracle Artefact. Being his faithful drinking companions, Lucius and Severus often got the benefit of his largesse. In short, he had a talent for coming up with the most harebrained schemes to magically solve all their problems. He was a bit of a loon but an entertaining one nonetheless. It was the main reason why he was invited to these get-togethers Lucius and Severus had. Once or twice he even managed to stumble on something mildly useful.

Filch stopped suddenly and reverently placed a cracked old bone on the table. It had three knobs protruding from a thick centre coloured here and there in rings that had been vibrant once but had since long faded. It looked like cheap trash. "What do you suppose this is?" crowed Filch triumphantly. "No, don't guess. I'll tell you what this is. It's a Nundu Wishing Bone. A real one. By my crooked toe it is."

Severus hid his grin behind his glass. Lucius outright laughed. Putting on their serious faces they asked simultaneously "Indeed?"

"Indeed!" Flich shouted, glorious in his self confidence.

Nundu parts, let it be said, are to all practical purposes impossible to acquire. Understandably, the Nundus don't like to part with them and they have the teeth and claws and speed and might and noxious deadly breath that wipes out whole villages to see to that. It takes at least a hundred experienced Wizards in their prime to defeat one. What's more, African Wizards don't allow any remains of a Nundu to remain after its death. They are too afraid of its malignant effects. The methods for safely preserving one have long been forgotten, intentionally so. But to Filch all these impossibilities didn't matter in the slightest. Let us hear his explanations:

"I was cleaning the lower subbasements. Dust been piling down there for fifty years, I reckon. What with the year over I had the time to do a proper job at it. I opened the door to a storage room and there it was. A big box made of cedar. Waiting down there year after year for someone to find it. I felt pulled to it the moment I saw it. There was something special about it, something Magical. When I looked at the label I knew I was right. 'Artefacts from the expedition to Eastern Africa including Nundu Wishing Bone, twelve cursed stone figurines, a jackanapes' pelt and a pair of shaman's eyes, pickled' it read. I opened the box and sure enough the Bone was there with the figurines, all broke, around it and colourful dust and glass shards from the pelt and eyes beneath."

Severus winked at Lucius. "That settles it then. There's no doubt in my mind, now that you told us how you found it, that the priceless artefact now resting serenely on our table is indeed… a Nundu Wishing Bone. As a Master of Potions I can say with some confidence that I have never laid eyes on a better example of a Nundu Wishing Bone." Filch rose proudly at this vindication. "Do you know the attributes and the proper way to use a Nundu Wishing Bone?"

"Erm, you rub the bone and make a wish?" Filch guessed. "No, wait. You kill an infected rat and cover it with its blood and then make your wish. Or maybe…"

"Stop!" Severus shouted. The last thing they needed was for Filch to infect students, faculty and familiars with something nasty from a Knockturn Alley Rat. "It seems like you have not in fact researched for the proper method to activate a Nundu Wishing Bone. You wished to try it willy-nilly as you would; you wished to rub it with unclean oily dirty hands, to blemish it with lowly tainted blood, to compromise its efficacy with foolish juvenile rituals. No. I will not let you ruin this irreplaceable Wishing Bone with your imprudent rituals."

"Yes Sir." Filch cowered into his sit from his ire. "I don't wish to hurt the Bone. So how do we use it?"

Severus pursed his lips and stared into the distance trying to look wise. He rarely studied useless fairytales. Nobody living today possessed a real Nundu Wishing Bone. The whole concept was probably just a myth, intended to give the matchless Nundus even more grandeur than they already possessed and lure sensible Wizards from their huts and homes to fight the Nundus.

Lucius opined from his side "To use a Nundu Wishing Bone three Wizards or three witches have to come together. Each pricks himself on one of the Bone's points and gives voice to one selfless wish. The Bone fulfils the three spoken wishes if they are unselfish and as a boon fulfils three other wishes, private selfish wishes that each Wizard has in his heart."

Severus eyed his friend. "Where did you hear that?"

"My nanny told me?"

"Your nanny?" Severus asked incredulous.

"Yes, my nanny. Are you saying my nanny was a liar?" Lucius laid his hand on his cane.

"No, of course not." Severus hurried to placate his friend.

Lucius turned his gaze on Filch. "What about you? You doubt my nanny?"

Filch shook his head repeatedly. "No Mister Malfoy."

"Well, why don't we perform the ritual, then?"

Severus eyed the protrusions on the bone. "I don't see how we can. These knobs wouldn't pierce a flobberworm."

Filch bit his lip. They were so close, he thought. He stared with hopeful puppy eyes at Lucius.

Lucius smiled genially back. "Really Severus, have you never heard of De-Aging Enchantments?" He patted Filch shoulder and took out his wand.

Severus stared resentfully at the two of them. Lucius knew all about De-Aging Enchantments. Being a Manor owner he probably spent half his days mumbling them over crumbling pieces of furniture.

Sure enough, Lucius cried "Bonus Novus!" in a Clarion voice and the Bone's knobs grew needle sharp while the coloured bands regained their lustre.

"Well, well." Lucius muttered, "It certainly looks like my nanny knew what she was talking about."

"You don't honestly think it's really a –" Severus retorted while looking distrustfully at the bone.

"It doesn't matter. We all said our lives are mucked. We need an egress. One Nundu Bone Wishing Ritual can't hurt it any more." He definitely didn't want to hear his Sapphire Shrew any time soon.

"But what if –"

"Oh bother, if you're going to be this way lets make it about Hogwarts and not us. That way no one will be hurt. We've been talking about it all night."

"Well, I suppose…"

"Then it's settled. Come on chaps. Make a wish, an unselfish wish."

The three companions looked at each other, then at the Bone.

Then three hands came to hover over the Bone: one sweaty and eager, one cold and reluctant and one dry and indifferent.

Face scrunching in pain Filch shouted "I wish that schoolchildren will be punished properly, with corporal punishment." He nodded vigorously.

Looking amused and hopeful Lucius spoke clearly "I wish Slytherins will stop being discriminated at Hogwarts." That certainly sounded unselfish. Draco will never stop thanking him if anything came of it. And best of all, Dumbledore won't be able to play his little games any longer.

Clenching his teeth and glaring down at the Bone skewering him Severus pronounced his wish. "I wish songging and romantic nonsense will not be tolerated in Hogwarts or allowed to ferment."

In silence each added a silent private wish. The Bone seemed to suck the blood out of the three Wizards. An odious green fume started rising from it, filling the room in seconds and then bursting out the doors and windows to fill the whole castle. Thinner and thinner yet no less potent it spread in all directions. The sun rose and sank time and again beyond the murk but little could be seen below.

A year and a day later the greenish fumes finally dissipated. In a little room in the bowels of Hogwarts three Wizards shook their heads. Of the Bone, there was no sign.

Lucius rose to his feet. "Well, I suppose it's time I got home."

"Give my regards to Narcissa." Severus called, also rising to his feet and walking him to the door.

"Of course. Goodby."

"Goodnight, Mister Malfoy. Professor." Filch mumbled as he joined Lucius at the door.

The room went dark as all left it.