Hogwarts: The Legacy

(c)2005 by Josh Cohen. May not be reprinted, except for personal use. The Potterverse was created by JK Rowling, and remains her property. I\'m just borrowing it for a little while.

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FIVE: IN ON THE SECRET

Warning: contains sex, spanking, wanking, and peeping.

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On Sunday night, Andrew held an informal meeting in Professor Flitwick’s classroom – the professor had given him a key to use it for strategy sessions on the weekends. “I think the match went well,” he said. “We’ve proven that we’re still a high-scoring team, even without John.” John Doverline had scored even more goals than Lisa DeMarco, and the strategy for the past four years had been to outscore their opponents so that even if they caught the snitch, Ravenclaw would still win. “Our next match is against Slytherin, and we all know what happened last year.” Jason flashed back to the previous year’s Quidditch final, when the Slytherin seeker had caught the snitch two minutes after the game began. “Gryffindor is our final match, and with Mr Weasley here, I don’t want to think they’ll get any unfair advantages, but it’s still a possibility.”

“You don’t really think he’d show favoritism, do you?” asked Marianne.

“Why not?” Lisa was buffing her bright-red fingernails against her robe – she must have applied the polish earlier in the day; no Quidditch player kept polish in such good shape for very long. “Professor Morrigan favors the Slytherins. Vector is always easier on the Gryffindors. Even Flitwick is more forgiving with us in Charms. Why wouldn’t the flying instructor feel house loyalty as well?”

Andrew gritted his teeth; in the past few weeks, Jason had learned that while Lisa was his second-in-command to Andrew’s captaincy, he was less than pleased with her cavalier attitudes. But he held his tongue. “Lisa has a point. But we’ll think about the Gryffindors when we play them in April. For now, let’s just concentrate on Slytherin.”

“Come on, Andrew,” Wesley said, his voice dull. “Let’s have a little time off, shall we?”

“I’m sure that the Hufflepuffs aren’t taking any time off,” Andrew shot back. “Just because Keeler caught the snitch is no reason for you to mope about. We won, remember?”

“Doesn’t matter.” Wesley slumped lower in his chair. “Never happened last year. Or the year before.”

“It’s all right, Wesley,” Jason said. “Like Andrew said, we won. If anyone’s at fault, it’s Keeler, for catching the snitch before her team had enough points to win the match.”

“He’s got a point,” Marianne added. She was holding Wesley’s hand under the table. “You played a great game except for that, anyway. You kept her from catching the snitch plenty of times.”

Wesley refused to brighten, though. Andrew gave up on him for the moment and moved on. “Slytherin will still be difficult. They have two new beaters, but the rest of the team’s the same unit we’ve come to expect. Wesley, you’ll have to keep Locksley off of the snitch until we can run up the score.” Amber Locksley was the Slytherin seeker, and Jason had walked in on Andrew and her enflagrante delicto, as it were, in the broom shed one early morning. They hadn’t noticed, and Jason didn’t want to rock the boat. “When we start drills again next week, we’ll work on quick-scoring plays and stratagems to extend the match as long as we can. The longer it goes on, the more advantage we’ll have.”

“I think we all figured that out last year,” Lisa said. “Can we go now?”

“Fine.” Andrew cast evanesco at the blackboard, where he’d drawn up a couple of Slytherin-specific plays that were in the playbook already, and they all trooped out of the room. Jason heard Marianne and Wesley talking in low tones behind me.

Francesca, though, was walking beside him. “You did well out there,” she said to him.

“Thank you.” Jason noticed that she was almost six inches shorter than he was, and he was at five-eight and on his way up. However, she had enough force of personality that, combined with her delicate-yet-elegant appearance, assured Jason that disappointing her would be a terrible idea.

“Andrew told me to let you in on the secret.” Francesca slipped her hand into her pocket and drew out a gold pocketwatch.

“What secret?”

She handed him the watch. “For forty years, Ravenclaw has had a network of mirrors and Disillusionment Charms in place in our dormitories. It lets people... watch.” She said that last word lasciviously.

“What do you mean, ‘watch’? Do you mean someone’s watching me while I change my clothes?”

“Not you, no.” Francesca clucked her tongue at him. “In addition to great intelligence and deductive reasoning, one of the other qualities in most Ravenclaws is a willingness to try new things. It’s sort of an underground society. Every year, a few third-years are chosen to get in on the secret. Every year, the fifth-year girls are offered, in private, to join in. Most of them don’t say no.”

Jason started to put the pieces together. He pulled Francesca off to one side of the corridor. “Do you mean to tell me,” he said in a sharp whisper, “that the upper-year girls are having sex and showing off? To just anyone?”

“Not to just anyone,” Francesca amended. “To those we think are worthy. Like you.”

“The hell with that.” Jason held out the watch, but Francesca refused to take it. “I don’t want any part of this. I definitely don’t want to get caught, and I most certainly don’t want to end up in Flitwick’s office. Or Snape’s.”

Francesca, though, shook her head quickly. “No one ever gets caught. Not only do you have to know how to use the watch, but you have to be a certain age. If anyone outside the age limit is within ten feet of you, the watch won’t work. We’ve had a lot of time to work on these.”

Jason slipped the watch into his pocket. “I’m not going to look at it,” he said.

“Fine. Your choice. But trust me, you’ll eventually change your mind.”

Francesca started to walk off, but Jason tapped her on the shoulder. “One other thing,” he said. “What about the girls who don’t want to participate?”

“There aren’t any,” she said smugly. “Every house has their traditions. Slytherin is known for sex, Gryffindor for practical jokes, Hufflepuff for tear-the-wall-down parties, and Ravenclaw for the shows it puts on. By the time the Ravenclaw girls hit fifth year, they’re good and ready to join in.”

“My grandmother was a Ravenclaw,” Jason snapped. “Do you really think she was in on this?”

“Why don’t you ask her yourself?”

“That’s disgusting.”

Francesca shrugged. “Do what you want with the watch. But if you tell anyone, I promise you, your life will be miserable for the rest of your years at Hogwarts.”

Jason leaned back against the corridor wall, his fingers on the watch in his pocket, as Francesca walked away.

“Bugger.”

Dina walked into the Ravenclaw third year girls bathroom and stopped in shock. “I’m... I’m sorry,” she stammered, and backed up.

“No need.”

“But... you’re...”

Alison turned to face Dina. She was sitting on a low stool in front of the vanity, braiding her long hair into several narrow groups. She was wearing nothing but a pair of white pants. “We’re both girls. It’s not like you don’t have the same thing.”

Dina looked positively pale, which for her, was about the same color Alison got after a long soak in the sun. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, her hands clasped tight in front of her.

Alison sighed and dropped her hair. There was a long black t-shirt on the counter; she pulled it over her head. “Is that better?”

Dina blushed, even though she remained paler than normal. “I... I’m just... always... I’ve always been...”

“You’re very private. I get that.” Alison continued braiding her hair, picking up where she left off. “Everyone’s different. I’ve noticed, you know.”

“N... noticed?”

“You always turn your back when you change. When you’re changing your pants, you always go into one of the stalls, or you close the curtains of your bed.”

“I didn’t realize I was so... obvious.” Dina unclasped her hands and folded them across her chest, as if she was hugging herself. “It doesn’t... offend you, does it?”

Alison laughed, loudly enough to startle Dina and push her back another quarter-step. “No, it doesn’t offend me. Like I said, you’re private. Modest. I didn’t realize it extended that far outward, though.”

“It usually doesn’t.” Dina slowly walked to the vanity counter and pulled out a stool, sitting next to Alison. “I mean, I’ve never said anything when you or Margot change in the main dormitory room.”

“No, but you always turn away.”

“Do I?”

“Yeah.” Alison tied off the braid with a blue-and-gold rubber band and started on the next one. “And whenever Margot or I are drying off after a shower, you make it a point not to even turn slightly in our direction.”

Dina blushed again. “It seems so silly now.”

“It’s not silly.” Alison held her hair in one hand and patted Dina’s left hand, which was resting on the vanity counter. “It’s kind of endearing, really.”

“En... endearing?”

“Sure.” Alison continued braiding. “In my family, nudity wasn’t taboo. I mean, doing it on purpose wasn’t exactly encouraged, but walking from the shower to our bedrooms, for me and my sisters, wasn’t such an issue. Your family was probably different.”

“I don’t know about that.” Alison gave Dina a questioning look. “We have a pool. Or, at least, we had one, until mum sold the house and moved us to a smaller flat in England. Parvati showed no restraint about sunning herself in the altogether.”

Alison finished that braid and turned to Dina. “Did something... um... happen to you? Something... you know...?”

Dina flushed again, but shook her head. “Nothing like that. Maybe I got it from dad. He always frowned on Parvati when she came in from the pool with no clothes on. Mum was never upset about it, but she never did anything like that, either.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being modest,” Alison said again. “I’ll try to keep it in mind, so to keep you from getting uncomfortable.”

“You don’t have to change yourself just to suit me,” Dina protested.

Alison held up a hand to cut off any further argument. “It’s all right. It’s not a hardship for me to keep a shirt and pants on. Trust me.”

“If you say so.”

“I do.” Alison picked up another three strands of hair. “By the way, what did you come in here for, anyway?”

“Oh!” Dina’s cheeks flushed again and she got up. “I just came in to use the loo.”

“Well, don’t let me stop you.”

Dina stared at Alison until the other girl started to giggle. Dina actually joined in.

Christopher dropped a piece of paper on Jason’s bed. “I ran into Francesca Fyreton downstairs,” he said. Jason looked up from his Muggle Studies textbook – Professor Stein had asked them to read Chapter Four before class on Monday, and he’d put it off for far too long. “She asked me to give you this.”

“What is it?”

“I don’t know.” Christopher sat on his own bed and pulled off his trainers, then his socks. “I’m not going to read your private messages. Unless you want me to.”

“No, I’m sorry. Francesca just... said some strange things earlier tonight, and I was trying to figure out what she wanted.”

“Oh.” Christopher shucked his shirt and got back up. “I’m going to take a shower.”

“You finish that scroll for Flitwick?”

“Yesterday afternoon, before the victory party. You?”

“No, I’m going to do it after I read this. I’m really behind, thanks to the Quidditch.”

“But it was a brilliant game, mate,” Christopher said over his shoulder.

“That it was.”

The bathroom door closed behind Christopher, leaving Jason alone again in the dormitory room. Julian was probably in the common room, flirting with someone and getting shot down, and he knew Edward, Colin, and Michael were working on Potions homework, which Jason had finished at dinner on Friday night.

Jason tried to read the Muggle Studies textbook, but the note from Francesca – it said simply “Jason” on the outside in flowing blue script – kept staring at him. Finally, he ran his fingers under the seal and opened it.

Andrew agrees, you can do whatever you want with the watch. But you really ought to take a look at it. Turn it to 5:05, 6:06, or 7:07. If you can, a Bubble-Head Charm around the watch and your head will give you sound as well.

I’ll be doing something very special for you tonight. I’ll be quite hurt if you don’t watch.

Francesca.

Jason pointed his wand at the note and evanesco’d it. Then he crumpled up the bit of parchment it was written on and dropped it in the bin next to his bed. He went back to his Muggle Studies textbook, and was still reading it when Christopher returned to the dormitory rooom. He was still reading it, completely oblivious, when Christopher closed his curtains.

When Edward, Colin, and Michael returned and undressed for bed, they inquired about Christopher’s seclusion. “No idea,” Jason said. “Maybe he wanted some peace and quiet, and I was reading for Muggle Studies anyway.”

“Oh.” Edward was the first to get into bed, followed by Michael and then Colin. “I really hope Julian doesn’t come back too late and wake us all up.”

“You could always close your curtains,” Michael said helpfully.

“That just feels weird. Plus, I had beans for dinner, and I’d rather not be trapped with that air.”

“And we would?” Colin shot back. “Close your bloody curtains, Edward. Or plug your arse, whichever you prefer.”

“I’ll just close my own curtains, thank you,” Jason said. “Goodnight.”

A short chorus of “goodnights” followed Jason as he drew the curtains. They had a slight silencing spell woven into them – loud or even regular-level noises would be heard, but soft conversations, as the boys occasionally had when they couldn’t sleep, would be kept out.

Jason tossed and turned for several minutes, though, thinking about the watch in his nightstand. It didn’t look at all threatening or illicit, so he didn’t worry about hiding it.

If only it didn’t occupy his mind so much.

Jason had tried every position, every shift of the covers, every use of the pillows he could come up with, but sleep continued to elude him. The damned watch was looming in his mind, and despite himself, his curiosity was getting the best of him.

“Just this once,” he whispered as he reached into the nightstand and pulled out the watch. He drew the curtains and cast a low-power lumos spell so he could see the dial.

“All right.” He opened the watch and, by the light of his wand, found the tiny release button that flipped open the glass face. Carefully he turned the hands from 12:05 to 5:05 and waited.

The inside cover of the watch started to shift, turning from gold to gray and then to a reasonably-clear picture of a dormitory room. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary; Jason could see two beds. One was empty. He guessed that the girls who didn’t want to participate claimed the beds he couldn’t see; he knew for a fact there were currently five fifth year girls in Ravenclaw at present.

Jason turned the watch to 6:06. The inside cover shifted again and resolved to something Jason thought he would never see.

Francesca Fyreton. Completely nude. Over the lap of Ravenclaw’s senior prefect, Annalise September. Her bottom being spanked, turning bright-pink under the prefect’s palm.

Jason’s eyes went wide as he nox’d his wand, watching Francesca getting swatted. Annalise appeared to be enjoying herself, and surprisingly, so did Francesca. Jason had been smacked a few times in his life – most notably for taking out his father’s broom and flying it, either through the house or around the town. The last time had been when he was ten, and at no point had he enjoyed it.

Francesca’s amber eyes were staring into what was probably the transmission mirror she’d mentioned to him earlier that existed in the fifth, sixth, and seventh year dormitories. Jason felt like she was looking directly at him, even though intellectually he knew other people might be watching as well.

Despite himself, despite his promise to watch “just this once,” he found himself with his hand down the front of his pajamas as Francesca clambered off Annalise’s lap and pushed her back onto the bed, on her back. And he found himself stroking rather fervently as he watched Francesca’s slender bottom, bare and crimson, as it swayed while she did something to Annalise with her mouth and her hands that Jason couldn’t quite make out.

Annalise must have been enjoying it; she shot straight up in bed, her eyes wide, her hands in Francesca’s hair, her mouth open. She must have been shouting something. At that moment, Jason dropped the watch, flooding the front of his pajama trousers with come.

“Holy shit,” he whispered, his eyes glassy. He’d wanked before, but it had never been like that.

Maybe, he amended mentally as he shucked his pajamas and wiped himself off with them, I’ll watch it just a few more times.

The next day, at breakfast, Francesca gave Jason a look that melted his insides. There was something about that girl that hit every single button that he thought he had. It was positively maddening. Every time she looked at him, he lost track of what he was doing. Alison and Dina noticed it too.

Christopher didn’t, though. Jason didn’t realize it, but Christopher was just as easily-distracted as he was.

Christopher had been watching, too. Jason didn’t know that, but he would eventually find out.

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Notes: I\'ve always wondered about privacy in communal-living settings. I had a roommate for a year in college -- a roommate in the same room, that is, as I moved into an apartment after first year -- and we just sort of ignored each other or waited for each other to leave the room before changing. But in an environment like Hogwarts, where you live with other people for months on end, coming and going... As for the boys... well, 13-and-14-year-old boys always talk about farting. It only made sense that it would come up.