Highly Spirited
folder
Harry Potter AU/AR › Slash - Male/Male
Rating:
Adult
Chapters:
16
Views:
1,881
Reviews:
0
Recommended:
1
Currently Reading:
1
Category:
Harry Potter AU/AR › Slash - Male/Male
Rating:
Adult
Chapters:
16
Views:
1,881
Reviews:
0
Recommended:
1
Currently Reading:
1
Disclaimer:
I do not own Harry Potter or High Spirits nor do I make any money on this.
Chapter 2: Off to Castle Hogwarts
Summary: Chapter 2: Off to Castle Hogwarts -----The guests arrive.
Warning(s): See Chapter 1 for warnings and disclaimer. I still don’t own anything.
Chapter 2: Off to Castle Hogwarts
Down in the Great Hall, everyone was busily attacking their chores. The last few week had seen a flurry of cleaning where appropriate, such as bathrooms and guestrooms, and actually creating messes where appropriate, like adding cobwebs to newly tarnished suits of armor. Albus had been busy getting the word out to potential guests. It was so easy these days to dupe would be ‘Paranormal Tourists’ to want to check out anything remotely labeled “Haunted.”
The staff was unhappy that some of these chores had to be done the muggle way, but real magic had been been wonky at Castle Hogwarts for the last fifty years. They tried, but often an “Alohamora” became an “Accio” and the door you were trying to unlock came flying at you instead. The group attempted magic, but realized quickly that they couldn’t depend on it to create the atmosphere that they wanted. And certainly they didn’t want to try it again after a “Caterwauling Charm” aimed at a mounted bicorn head didn’t make it howl eerily as intended but instead made it sing the “Macarena” for ten hours straight.
Albus sat near the bar in the Great Hall where a new telephone had been installed. He was trying to be somewhat accommodating to the younger wizards and witches who had adopted many of the newer Muggle technologies. He hoped it wouldn’t conflict too much with the inherent magic in the place. He wanted to try it as he’d had his hair singed a few times since the Floo didn’t always work properly. He didn’t think that would be good for business if his guests’ heads caught fire. It had been quite the risk earlier speaking with Mr. Malfoy. No one dare attempted the Floo for actual travel. It would be worse than spliching oneself.
He listened to the person on the other end and put on his most charming voice. “Yes, Mr. Weasley, the accommodations are strictly modern in so far as the renovations have been consistent with maintaining the classic ambience of Castle Hogwarts.”
A headless, rusty suit of armor was staggering clumsily past the bar, but Albus continued speaking, ignoring the clanking noise. “Dry rot, selected damp, some fungus here and there, ghosts galore. Yes, these things do exist. Thank you,”* he said and hung up the receiver. He looked across the room and saw that the rest of his staff were absorbed in something his maintenance man, Argus Filch was demonstrating.
---
On the other side of the room, Argus stood upon a makeshift stage presenting the special effects and sets he had created for entertaining the guests. The stage’s backdrop was a poor rendition of a dungeon, as if he had let the doxies paint it. Filius seemed amused by the man’s enthusiasm. The man hadn’t been so excited since Mrs. Norris, his pet,had finally managed to catch a rat – terrible huntress that she was.
“Illuuu-sion,*” Argus explained to the bemused audience. His balding head glared in the spotlight. "Like you, Minerva, hanging high on a wire as a flying banSHEE,"* he over-exaggerated the last syllable, emphasizing the point, "would be MAGNIFICENT."* His mumbling made the shots of whiskey he'd consumed not long before only slightly obvious.
Minerva looked less than thrilled at the concept. Poppy Pomfrey, a woman about a decade younger than Minerva, began snickering, until Argus described his idea for her. “And you, Poppy, you could be a mermaid – or Lady Godiva.”* The last suggestions brought leering and cheers from Hagrid and Filius Filius, a very short man still wearing a rusted headless suit of armor. He was looking out of eyeholes cut into the chest. Albus chuckled at the scene and thought , ‘We really need to get some fresh blood on the staff.’
---
A few hours later, the group found themselves outside watching Argus at the top of the tower. There was a fake body lying in front of them. They all jumped when a silver metallic sheet crashed down and cut the poor body’s head off.
“Anybody dead down there?*” Argus looked down at the group as he yelled.
“Only the corpse, Argus,*” answered Filius.
Hagrid squinted up at Argus. “What in the ruttin’ hell are you doin’ up there?*”
Argus looked smugly at them and crossed his arms. “Genius, poor genius.*”
---
Later
Minerva was swinging helplessly from a rope about three stories up after Argus had pushed her off the tower as they rehearsed her “Banshee” routine. The wig and make-up came from Mrs. Dumbledore’s old costume trunks. The screaming came naturally.
---
“Put the bloody hand on the front,*” Albus instructed Hagrid another hour later. “And the bloody feet at the back.”* Albus watched as the groundskeeper put the final touches on the new “Castle Hogwarts” closed-top carriage which would be used to transport their guests from Hogsmeade. Since Floo travel was too risky and apparition wasn’t possible on the grounds, he wanted to be sure the guests enjoyed some excitement on their ride from their arrival point at the Floo Station in the nearby village of Hogsmeade.
The carriage was a gaudy, white atrocity covered in puffapods that randomly dropped seeds which burst into obnoxiously pink flowers. Still, they were better than the Fanged Geraniums that Hagrid had first put on it. Three people had been bitten before Hagrid realized that maybe covering their transport vehicle with vicious plants that had sharp teeth wasn’t a good idea.
---
Over the ocean, a large jet was crossing from New York to the UK. Harry Potter was in his seat holding two glasses and a bottle of champagne. He eyed the glasses closely as he poured, trying not to be his usual clumsy self. A beautifully handsome blonde man sat next to him, slowly lifting the eye pillow off his face.
“Harry, what are you doing?”* the aristocratic voice asked sleepily.
“A little champagne toast to us.* To Ireland… homeland to your Mother and the Loch Ness Monster.”
Draco eyed him with distain. “The Loch Ness is Scotland, Harry.”*
Harry looked sheepishly through his long black lashes and rectangular, silver glasses. He colored a bit. “I knew that.*” He nervously fumbled with the champagne flutes, then lost control of them.
“Oh, ah!” Draco shot up as the cold liquid spilled in his lap. “Oh, Merlin’s Saggy Left Nut! Harry, I’ve just taken a dose of ‘Tension Ease’ and now you’ve completely ruined that.” Harry had leapt up from his seat to try to dry his husband off, and attempted to ignore the other people now watching them.
Draco stopped Harry and dried himself as he muttered complaints about his spouse. Then he said in a disgusted tone, more loudly than Harry liked, “Next thing you know you’ll want to have sex.*” Draco turned in his seat and pulled his eye pillow back onto his face to go back to sleep.
Harry flushed in embarrassment. He looked at the other passengers who were trying not to snigger. He quietly slipped over to another seat across the aisle. An old woman was sitting alone, reading a book and listening to something on her iPod. Harry sat next to her and tapped her shoulder. He offered her the extra champagne glass. She looked up with an irritated glance at being disturbed and shook her head. She turned back to her book. Harry shrugged his shoulders. “I suppose sex is out the question too,*” he muttered. She didn’t hear him. He sighed and guzzled both glasses. At least they’d be able to Floo the rest of the way once they landed.
---
During the final dress rehearsal, Poppy rode out on her thestral to position herself as Lady Godiva. She wore a nude colored body stocking to give the appearance of recreating the famous ride. As she rode past a tree, Minerva leaned down and grabbed her long, blond wig off her head. Pomfrey mockingly glared at her.
“I think I should be the tart on the horse and you should be the hag in the tree.”* Minerva grinned at the younger woman.
Poppy laughed, “And I think I should go home. Now, give me my hair back.”* They were both in remarkably good spirits considering how ridiculous they felt.
---
The Next Morning
The carriage left to pick up their first round of guests, and Albus happily waved them off yelling, “Bon Voyage!” as they pulled away. He eagerly awaited the Galleons that would save the family homestead.
---
“On the left we have the Forbidden Forest,” Hagrid recited to the group of travelers aboard. He had been giving a litany of pseudo paranormal facts throughout the trip, each less plausible and more outrageous.
“It’s the home of more grizzly and gruesome murders than anywhere else*. It’s filled with all kinds of creatures – giant spiders, blood-sucking bugbears, and flesh-eating slugs.” Passengers were looking out the window taking in the scenery. There were ten guests on the carriage.
“Up ahead, just past the castle, is the Black Lake, home of the giant squid,” Hagrid informed them in his most ominous voice.
“I heard Hogsmeade and the Castle have a dark history. Is that true?” a young woman with blond hair asked in almost a hushed whisper. She was slightly built and quite pale.
“Oh, yeah…One of the original founders, Salazar Slytherin, liked to murder Mugglefolk in the most gruesome of ways. The other founders, Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, and Rowena Ravenclaw weren’t much better. The four battled each other trying to reign supreme.”
Hagrid kept up his litany of crimes committed by the Founders and the wizards that followed them. Not that any of it was true. “And the raping and pillaging...*” he was saying as he finished a particularly gruesome, if albeit exaggerated, story about a wizard named Grindelwald.
“Ah, we have children on board,*” interrupted a tall, red-haired man, seemingly appalled at the quickly deteriorating conversation.
Hagrid hesitated a second but then continued on even if he seemed to adjust the content a bit. He reminded them that the dark history of the location was the reason magic didn’t work as expected and why they had to sign release forms, “indemn..indeli…indure…making Hogwarts not responsible for any injuries sustained while performing magic on the grounds.”
As they approached Castle Hogwarts, Hagrid began to speak of the “Infamous Wailing Whomping Willow” and the howling Banshee that lived in it.
From a distance, Argus yelled at Minerva to start “howling and waving” which she did and proceeded to lose her balance and fell out of the tree and on top of the carriage.
A loud thunk was heard inside the carriage and all the passengers began to look around in a panic. They could hear a woman yelling for help, but the carriage wasn’t slowing. A young, dark-hair man dressed in priest's robes began pleading for the driver to stop.
Harry jumped up and opened what seemed to be a sunroof in the carriage. Minerva was laying face down, screaming at Harry as he reached up to try to help her.
“Hey, there’s a lady on the luggage rack!!”* Harry yelled at Hagrid.
“I’m no lady. I’m the Banshee!”* Minerva was yelling into Harry’s face, trying very hard to look convincingly like a Banshee and not some crazy old woman wearing ugly make-up.
“There’s a Banshee on the luggage rack,*” Harry corrected himself at full yell.
“And the Banshee’s howling...*” Hagrid continued his narrative. “And coming in front of us, riding naked on her unicorn is Lady Godiva.*”
At that point Poppy had started out on her thestral, outfitted with a plastic horn strapped to its head, but quickly lost control as it was spooked by the other thestrals drawing the carriage. Hagrid swerved to avoid her. The carriage ran right through the awning, by the stunned owner and staff, and went straight down towards the lake. It came to a dead stop on a pier.
A loud groan and creak was heard from underneath.
The pier broke apart and the carriage fell into the water in a large splash. Fortunately the water at that location was only about four and a half feet deep.
Minerva, having grabbed onto the awning as the carriage sped underneath, was hanging off of it. Her feet were swinging in Albus’ face as he came around to see where the carriage had gone.
“The things I do for you, Albus!*” Minerva shook her head a little at him while still trying to hang on.
He reached up and grabbed her foot fondly. “Deeply appreciated.” He shook his head slowly as he watched the carriage go under. “Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear…”*
As the passengers struggled through the water, Draco began having hysterics. “I’m drowning, I’m drowning!” He jumped on Harry’s back as Harry tried to calm him with a “Don’t panic.”
“Don’t panic? What do you mean don’t panic?”* Draco yelled, pushing Harry into the water on his way out the door. The bespeckled man came up sputtering water glaring at the figure of his blond husband leaving him behind. ..
Hagrid had quickly exited to rescue the thestrals, leaving the passengers to fend for themselves.
* Verbatim dialogue from the movie 'High Spirits'. * inside the quotation marks means just that sentence. Outside the quotation marks would indicate everything inside the quotation mark, not just the individual sentence.
Warning(s): See Chapter 1 for warnings and disclaimer. I still don’t own anything.
Chapter 2: Off to Castle Hogwarts
Down in the Great Hall, everyone was busily attacking their chores. The last few week had seen a flurry of cleaning where appropriate, such as bathrooms and guestrooms, and actually creating messes where appropriate, like adding cobwebs to newly tarnished suits of armor. Albus had been busy getting the word out to potential guests. It was so easy these days to dupe would be ‘Paranormal Tourists’ to want to check out anything remotely labeled “Haunted.”
The staff was unhappy that some of these chores had to be done the muggle way, but real magic had been been wonky at Castle Hogwarts for the last fifty years. They tried, but often an “Alohamora” became an “Accio” and the door you were trying to unlock came flying at you instead. The group attempted magic, but realized quickly that they couldn’t depend on it to create the atmosphere that they wanted. And certainly they didn’t want to try it again after a “Caterwauling Charm” aimed at a mounted bicorn head didn’t make it howl eerily as intended but instead made it sing the “Macarena” for ten hours straight.
Albus sat near the bar in the Great Hall where a new telephone had been installed. He was trying to be somewhat accommodating to the younger wizards and witches who had adopted many of the newer Muggle technologies. He hoped it wouldn’t conflict too much with the inherent magic in the place. He wanted to try it as he’d had his hair singed a few times since the Floo didn’t always work properly. He didn’t think that would be good for business if his guests’ heads caught fire. It had been quite the risk earlier speaking with Mr. Malfoy. No one dare attempted the Floo for actual travel. It would be worse than spliching oneself.
He listened to the person on the other end and put on his most charming voice. “Yes, Mr. Weasley, the accommodations are strictly modern in so far as the renovations have been consistent with maintaining the classic ambience of Castle Hogwarts.”
A headless, rusty suit of armor was staggering clumsily past the bar, but Albus continued speaking, ignoring the clanking noise. “Dry rot, selected damp, some fungus here and there, ghosts galore. Yes, these things do exist. Thank you,”* he said and hung up the receiver. He looked across the room and saw that the rest of his staff were absorbed in something his maintenance man, Argus Filch was demonstrating.
---
On the other side of the room, Argus stood upon a makeshift stage presenting the special effects and sets he had created for entertaining the guests. The stage’s backdrop was a poor rendition of a dungeon, as if he had let the doxies paint it. Filius seemed amused by the man’s enthusiasm. The man hadn’t been so excited since Mrs. Norris, his pet,had finally managed to catch a rat – terrible huntress that she was.
“Illuuu-sion,*” Argus explained to the bemused audience. His balding head glared in the spotlight. "Like you, Minerva, hanging high on a wire as a flying banSHEE,"* he over-exaggerated the last syllable, emphasizing the point, "would be MAGNIFICENT."* His mumbling made the shots of whiskey he'd consumed not long before only slightly obvious.
Minerva looked less than thrilled at the concept. Poppy Pomfrey, a woman about a decade younger than Minerva, began snickering, until Argus described his idea for her. “And you, Poppy, you could be a mermaid – or Lady Godiva.”* The last suggestions brought leering and cheers from Hagrid and Filius Filius, a very short man still wearing a rusted headless suit of armor. He was looking out of eyeholes cut into the chest. Albus chuckled at the scene and thought , ‘We really need to get some fresh blood on the staff.’
---
A few hours later, the group found themselves outside watching Argus at the top of the tower. There was a fake body lying in front of them. They all jumped when a silver metallic sheet crashed down and cut the poor body’s head off.
“Anybody dead down there?*” Argus looked down at the group as he yelled.
“Only the corpse, Argus,*” answered Filius.
Hagrid squinted up at Argus. “What in the ruttin’ hell are you doin’ up there?*”
Argus looked smugly at them and crossed his arms. “Genius, poor genius.*”
---
Later
Minerva was swinging helplessly from a rope about three stories up after Argus had pushed her off the tower as they rehearsed her “Banshee” routine. The wig and make-up came from Mrs. Dumbledore’s old costume trunks. The screaming came naturally.
---
“Put the bloody hand on the front,*” Albus instructed Hagrid another hour later. “And the bloody feet at the back.”* Albus watched as the groundskeeper put the final touches on the new “Castle Hogwarts” closed-top carriage which would be used to transport their guests from Hogsmeade. Since Floo travel was too risky and apparition wasn’t possible on the grounds, he wanted to be sure the guests enjoyed some excitement on their ride from their arrival point at the Floo Station in the nearby village of Hogsmeade.
The carriage was a gaudy, white atrocity covered in puffapods that randomly dropped seeds which burst into obnoxiously pink flowers. Still, they were better than the Fanged Geraniums that Hagrid had first put on it. Three people had been bitten before Hagrid realized that maybe covering their transport vehicle with vicious plants that had sharp teeth wasn’t a good idea.
---
Over the ocean, a large jet was crossing from New York to the UK. Harry Potter was in his seat holding two glasses and a bottle of champagne. He eyed the glasses closely as he poured, trying not to be his usual clumsy self. A beautifully handsome blonde man sat next to him, slowly lifting the eye pillow off his face.
“Harry, what are you doing?”* the aristocratic voice asked sleepily.
“A little champagne toast to us.* To Ireland… homeland to your Mother and the Loch Ness Monster.”
Draco eyed him with distain. “The Loch Ness is Scotland, Harry.”*
Harry looked sheepishly through his long black lashes and rectangular, silver glasses. He colored a bit. “I knew that.*” He nervously fumbled with the champagne flutes, then lost control of them.
“Oh, ah!” Draco shot up as the cold liquid spilled in his lap. “Oh, Merlin’s Saggy Left Nut! Harry, I’ve just taken a dose of ‘Tension Ease’ and now you’ve completely ruined that.” Harry had leapt up from his seat to try to dry his husband off, and attempted to ignore the other people now watching them.
Draco stopped Harry and dried himself as he muttered complaints about his spouse. Then he said in a disgusted tone, more loudly than Harry liked, “Next thing you know you’ll want to have sex.*” Draco turned in his seat and pulled his eye pillow back onto his face to go back to sleep.
Harry flushed in embarrassment. He looked at the other passengers who were trying not to snigger. He quietly slipped over to another seat across the aisle. An old woman was sitting alone, reading a book and listening to something on her iPod. Harry sat next to her and tapped her shoulder. He offered her the extra champagne glass. She looked up with an irritated glance at being disturbed and shook her head. She turned back to her book. Harry shrugged his shoulders. “I suppose sex is out the question too,*” he muttered. She didn’t hear him. He sighed and guzzled both glasses. At least they’d be able to Floo the rest of the way once they landed.
---
During the final dress rehearsal, Poppy rode out on her thestral to position herself as Lady Godiva. She wore a nude colored body stocking to give the appearance of recreating the famous ride. As she rode past a tree, Minerva leaned down and grabbed her long, blond wig off her head. Pomfrey mockingly glared at her.
“I think I should be the tart on the horse and you should be the hag in the tree.”* Minerva grinned at the younger woman.
Poppy laughed, “And I think I should go home. Now, give me my hair back.”* They were both in remarkably good spirits considering how ridiculous they felt.
---
The Next Morning
The carriage left to pick up their first round of guests, and Albus happily waved them off yelling, “Bon Voyage!” as they pulled away. He eagerly awaited the Galleons that would save the family homestead.
---
“On the left we have the Forbidden Forest,” Hagrid recited to the group of travelers aboard. He had been giving a litany of pseudo paranormal facts throughout the trip, each less plausible and more outrageous.
“It’s the home of more grizzly and gruesome murders than anywhere else*. It’s filled with all kinds of creatures – giant spiders, blood-sucking bugbears, and flesh-eating slugs.” Passengers were looking out the window taking in the scenery. There were ten guests on the carriage.
“Up ahead, just past the castle, is the Black Lake, home of the giant squid,” Hagrid informed them in his most ominous voice.
“I heard Hogsmeade and the Castle have a dark history. Is that true?” a young woman with blond hair asked in almost a hushed whisper. She was slightly built and quite pale.
“Oh, yeah…One of the original founders, Salazar Slytherin, liked to murder Mugglefolk in the most gruesome of ways. The other founders, Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, and Rowena Ravenclaw weren’t much better. The four battled each other trying to reign supreme.”
Hagrid kept up his litany of crimes committed by the Founders and the wizards that followed them. Not that any of it was true. “And the raping and pillaging...*” he was saying as he finished a particularly gruesome, if albeit exaggerated, story about a wizard named Grindelwald.
“Ah, we have children on board,*” interrupted a tall, red-haired man, seemingly appalled at the quickly deteriorating conversation.
Hagrid hesitated a second but then continued on even if he seemed to adjust the content a bit. He reminded them that the dark history of the location was the reason magic didn’t work as expected and why they had to sign release forms, “indemn..indeli…indure…making Hogwarts not responsible for any injuries sustained while performing magic on the grounds.”
As they approached Castle Hogwarts, Hagrid began to speak of the “Infamous Wailing Whomping Willow” and the howling Banshee that lived in it.
From a distance, Argus yelled at Minerva to start “howling and waving” which she did and proceeded to lose her balance and fell out of the tree and on top of the carriage.
A loud thunk was heard inside the carriage and all the passengers began to look around in a panic. They could hear a woman yelling for help, but the carriage wasn’t slowing. A young, dark-hair man dressed in priest's robes began pleading for the driver to stop.
Harry jumped up and opened what seemed to be a sunroof in the carriage. Minerva was laying face down, screaming at Harry as he reached up to try to help her.
“Hey, there’s a lady on the luggage rack!!”* Harry yelled at Hagrid.
“I’m no lady. I’m the Banshee!”* Minerva was yelling into Harry’s face, trying very hard to look convincingly like a Banshee and not some crazy old woman wearing ugly make-up.
“There’s a Banshee on the luggage rack,*” Harry corrected himself at full yell.
“And the Banshee’s howling...*” Hagrid continued his narrative. “And coming in front of us, riding naked on her unicorn is Lady Godiva.*”
At that point Poppy had started out on her thestral, outfitted with a plastic horn strapped to its head, but quickly lost control as it was spooked by the other thestrals drawing the carriage. Hagrid swerved to avoid her. The carriage ran right through the awning, by the stunned owner and staff, and went straight down towards the lake. It came to a dead stop on a pier.
A loud groan and creak was heard from underneath.
The pier broke apart and the carriage fell into the water in a large splash. Fortunately the water at that location was only about four and a half feet deep.
Minerva, having grabbed onto the awning as the carriage sped underneath, was hanging off of it. Her feet were swinging in Albus’ face as he came around to see where the carriage had gone.
“The things I do for you, Albus!*” Minerva shook her head a little at him while still trying to hang on.
He reached up and grabbed her foot fondly. “Deeply appreciated.” He shook his head slowly as he watched the carriage go under. “Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear…”*
As the passengers struggled through the water, Draco began having hysterics. “I’m drowning, I’m drowning!” He jumped on Harry’s back as Harry tried to calm him with a “Don’t panic.”
“Don’t panic? What do you mean don’t panic?”* Draco yelled, pushing Harry into the water on his way out the door. The bespeckled man came up sputtering water glaring at the figure of his blond husband leaving him behind. ..
Hagrid had quickly exited to rescue the thestrals, leaving the passengers to fend for themselves.
* Verbatim dialogue from the movie 'High Spirits'. * inside the quotation marks means just that sentence. Outside the quotation marks would indicate everything inside the quotation mark, not just the individual sentence.