FIC AMNESTY DAY - NO CHALLENGE
Title: A Girl, a Quidditch Match, and an Internship
Rating/Warnings: G-PG
Characters/Pairing: Horace Slughorn/Cedrella Black; Septimus Weasley/Cedrella Black
Summary: Why DID Horace Slughorn treat Ron Weasley like dirt?
Word Count: 1320
Author's Notes: If true, this will explain a lot...
Registered purchases?: BOTH items
When Horace Slughorn returned to Hogwarts in Harry's sixth year, everyone noticed that he bent over backwards to always acknowledge the success of Harry Potter and Hermione Granger, but he seemed to forget their mutual friend Ron Weasley - claiming not to remember his name even. However, the reason for this was not what you would think. It had to do with the fact that Ron Weasley looked and acted exactly like Ron Weasley's grandfather and Horace's old nemesis: Septimus Weasley. And why did Horace have a grudge on Septimus which lasted more than seventy years since he last saw him? It boiled down to three things: a girl, a Quidditch match, and a job.
I) The Girl
Horace was a first-year in September 1908 at the traditional pre-Hogwarts picnic when he first laid eyes on her: the gorgeous raven-haired, violet-eyed Cedrella Black who was going to start Hogwarts with him. When the picnic spreads turned into a flying carpet to take the first years to Hogwarts, Horace met Cedrella and they talked about their ambitions, what they thought about Hogwarts, and how they really really really wanted to get into Slytherin, which they both did. Strategizing, he knew he wasn't going to ask her out right away; rather, he'd get friends to figure out what she liked and try to match that. Unfortunately for him, she tended to have a crush on really lanky men, which Horace was not. However, although Horace would never be thin, during his second year he practiced a lot of flying to get himself muscled up: both to make the starting Beater spot and to have a muscular body which would do for Cedrella. By his third year, both goals were met: Horace and Cedrella were to be the new Beaters and Cedrella started going out with him.
They had a great relationship for four years, when suddenly... the breakfast before NEWTs began, Cedrella told Horace that she had been seeing someone else and that they needed to break up. Horace was barely able to keep his composure during his first subject, which was Potions; fortunately, he knew the subject so well that he was still counting on acing the exam. But, then, he went to lunch, and saw his gorgeous ex-girlfriend over at the Gryffindor table, snogging... none other than... that annoying fifth-year Septimus Weasley! This immediately brought back another flashback:
II) The Quidditch Match
Since he became Quidditch captain his fifth year, Horace had developed a strategy called the “pinball defence” (pinball was actually a Wizarding invention; not a Muggle one) in which the two Beaters of a team would swing their bats like pinball flippers at the Bludgers so that the Bludgers would hit the head of an opposing player, bounce at an angle to hit another opposing head, and then return to a 'flipper' of one of the Beaters. If done properly, the pinball move could knock out an entire opposing team! Slytherin had won two straight Quidditch Cups with that move and were counting on winning a third: having steamrolled over Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, they only needed to score 160 points in their final match against Gryffindor to capture the cup (Hufflepuff had scored 860 points in their three matches; Slytherin had scored 700 in their first two - and as Slytherin had beaten Hufflepuff they had the tiebreaker). Horace and Cedrella immediately began with a pinball move, knocking out the opposition's Beaters, Chasers, and Seekers (ignoring that annoying presence in goal). All they needed to do was score ONCE before letting Abraxas Higgs catch the snitch, but no... that annoying weedy fifth year blocked every shot that went in for two hours. At one point Horace and Cedrella tried knocking out Cedrella with the bludgers, but no... that preppy douchebag (whose parents, in trying to get on with the Latin vogue, named their seven kids merely with their birth order in Latin: Sextus, in Horace's year, had narrowly beaten him out for Head Boy) blocked THAT too! Finally, two hours and forty minutes in, Abraxas couldn't take it any longer and took the Snitch anyway: although Slytherin won 150-0 and had an undefeated season, Gryffindor had given the cup to Hufflepuff: 860 to 850
When Horace saw Cedrella snogging Septimus, he barfed up his lunch several times and was in a state of delirium when walking to his next exam, Arithmancy. He answered every question with an imaginary number; as the examiner, Professor Kronecker, didn't believe in imaginary numbers, Horace was assured a T on his examination.
III) An Internship
Horace had landed an internship with the Ministry of Magic in January of his seventh year, provided that he maintained at least an “Exceeds Expectations” average on the NEWTs. In case he didn't do that, being a Slytherin, he also had backup plans to work at Gringotts, which only wanted an “Acceptable” average. Horace managed to recover after his Arithmancy disaster to get an E in Charms, an E in Defence against the Dark Arts, and an O in Transfiguration; he breathed an enormous sigh of relief when he figured out that his average would round up to “Exceeds Expectations”. Much to his surprise, he received a rejection letter saying “We have been informed that you have received an Exceeds Expectations MINUS average on your NEWTS. While this does indeed round up to Exceeds Expectations, we have had to rescind your offer; especially when it turned out our reserve candidate, Sextus Weasley, received a straight Exceeds Expectations average. We wish you the best of luck.” While he had definitely met the Gringotts offer, the Howler from the goblins there saying that not only could they not employ someone with a Troll in Arithmancy but they couldn't even let him keep his account there anymore said otherwise.
Needless to say, Horace was suddenly worried about his future - until the headmaster, Phineas Nigellus Black (who had been really looking forward to having him as an in-law) realized he NEEDED a job and decided to hire him for the Potions vacancy starting that fall, in 1926. And, with his dying breath, the ailing Black patriarch burnt his relative Cedrella off the tree: not for marrying a blood traitor, but for helping to screw up Horace's life.
Epilogue: When Sextus received his internship, he quickly rose through the ranks and became Minister of Magic; enacting the Weasleys' tradition of loving all things Muggle. His initial plan to use a Muggle train for Hogwarts was sarcastically derided as the “Hogwarts Express” when everyone realized that the eight hours the train would take (four slower than the carpet) would require the students to leave at 11 AM instead of 3 PM - and that's IF they canceled the picnic. So, he got his way with that by having flying carpets banned, reinstating the train... and was immediately impeached from the Ministry of Magic (with that, the Weasleys had spent the LAST of their dying political capital).
Slughorn never married, but one of his immediate goals at Hogwarts was not only to make connections among people who deserved them, but to ENSURE that no deserving student would be screwed out of life for a single bad performance in an exam: the otherwise-elite should be looked out for in the way Phineas looked out for him. So he came up with the Slug Club, which we all know and love for... among other things... allowing the elite the opportunity to make mistakes and not have their lives ruined. Of course he had to continue the Slug Club when he returned to Hogwarts in 1996: but was he EVER going to let that gangly fifth-year redhead who looked and exacted EXACTLY like the man who had single-handedly almost ruined his own life anywhere NEAR that place? Not a chance in hell! In fact, he would rather 'accidentally' poison that Weasel...
William//Slytherin
1320 words/30 = 44 base points
44 points + 10 for bonus items = 54 points for Slytherin
Rating/Warnings: G-PG
Characters/Pairing: Horace Slughorn/Cedrella Black; Septimus Weasley/Cedrella Black
Summary: Why DID Horace Slughorn treat Ron Weasley like dirt?
Word Count: 1320
Author's Notes: If true, this will explain a lot...
Registered purchases?: BOTH items
When Horace Slughorn returned to Hogwarts in Harry's sixth year, everyone noticed that he bent over backwards to always acknowledge the success of Harry Potter and Hermione Granger, but he seemed to forget their mutual friend Ron Weasley - claiming not to remember his name even. However, the reason for this was not what you would think. It had to do with the fact that Ron Weasley looked and acted exactly like Ron Weasley's grandfather and Horace's old nemesis: Septimus Weasley. And why did Horace have a grudge on Septimus which lasted more than seventy years since he last saw him? It boiled down to three things: a girl, a Quidditch match, and a job.
I) The Girl
Horace was a first-year in September 1908 at the traditional pre-Hogwarts picnic when he first laid eyes on her: the gorgeous raven-haired, violet-eyed Cedrella Black who was going to start Hogwarts with him. When the picnic spreads turned into a flying carpet to take the first years to Hogwarts, Horace met Cedrella and they talked about their ambitions, what they thought about Hogwarts, and how they really really really wanted to get into Slytherin, which they both did. Strategizing, he knew he wasn't going to ask her out right away; rather, he'd get friends to figure out what she liked and try to match that. Unfortunately for him, she tended to have a crush on really lanky men, which Horace was not. However, although Horace would never be thin, during his second year he practiced a lot of flying to get himself muscled up: both to make the starting Beater spot and to have a muscular body which would do for Cedrella. By his third year, both goals were met: Horace and Cedrella were to be the new Beaters and Cedrella started going out with him.
They had a great relationship for four years, when suddenly... the breakfast before NEWTs began, Cedrella told Horace that she had been seeing someone else and that they needed to break up. Horace was barely able to keep his composure during his first subject, which was Potions; fortunately, he knew the subject so well that he was still counting on acing the exam. But, then, he went to lunch, and saw his gorgeous ex-girlfriend over at the Gryffindor table, snogging... none other than... that annoying fifth-year Septimus Weasley! This immediately brought back another flashback:
II) The Quidditch Match
Since he became Quidditch captain his fifth year, Horace had developed a strategy called the “pinball defence” (pinball was actually a Wizarding invention; not a Muggle one) in which the two Beaters of a team would swing their bats like pinball flippers at the Bludgers so that the Bludgers would hit the head of an opposing player, bounce at an angle to hit another opposing head, and then return to a 'flipper' of one of the Beaters. If done properly, the pinball move could knock out an entire opposing team! Slytherin had won two straight Quidditch Cups with that move and were counting on winning a third: having steamrolled over Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, they only needed to score 160 points in their final match against Gryffindor to capture the cup (Hufflepuff had scored 860 points in their three matches; Slytherin had scored 700 in their first two - and as Slytherin had beaten Hufflepuff they had the tiebreaker). Horace and Cedrella immediately began with a pinball move, knocking out the opposition's Beaters, Chasers, and Seekers (ignoring that annoying presence in goal). All they needed to do was score ONCE before letting Abraxas Higgs catch the snitch, but no... that annoying weedy fifth year blocked every shot that went in for two hours. At one point Horace and Cedrella tried knocking out Cedrella with the bludgers, but no... that preppy douchebag (whose parents, in trying to get on with the Latin vogue, named their seven kids merely with their birth order in Latin: Sextus, in Horace's year, had narrowly beaten him out for Head Boy) blocked THAT too! Finally, two hours and forty minutes in, Abraxas couldn't take it any longer and took the Snitch anyway: although Slytherin won 150-0 and had an undefeated season, Gryffindor had given the cup to Hufflepuff: 860 to 850
When Horace saw Cedrella snogging Septimus, he barfed up his lunch several times and was in a state of delirium when walking to his next exam, Arithmancy. He answered every question with an imaginary number; as the examiner, Professor Kronecker, didn't believe in imaginary numbers, Horace was assured a T on his examination.
III) An Internship
Horace had landed an internship with the Ministry of Magic in January of his seventh year, provided that he maintained at least an “Exceeds Expectations” average on the NEWTs. In case he didn't do that, being a Slytherin, he also had backup plans to work at Gringotts, which only wanted an “Acceptable” average. Horace managed to recover after his Arithmancy disaster to get an E in Charms, an E in Defence against the Dark Arts, and an O in Transfiguration; he breathed an enormous sigh of relief when he figured out that his average would round up to “Exceeds Expectations”. Much to his surprise, he received a rejection letter saying “We have been informed that you have received an Exceeds Expectations MINUS average on your NEWTS. While this does indeed round up to Exceeds Expectations, we have had to rescind your offer; especially when it turned out our reserve candidate, Sextus Weasley, received a straight Exceeds Expectations average. We wish you the best of luck.” While he had definitely met the Gringotts offer, the Howler from the goblins there saying that not only could they not employ someone with a Troll in Arithmancy but they couldn't even let him keep his account there anymore said otherwise.
Needless to say, Horace was suddenly worried about his future - until the headmaster, Phineas Nigellus Black (who had been really looking forward to having him as an in-law) realized he NEEDED a job and decided to hire him for the Potions vacancy starting that fall, in 1926. And, with his dying breath, the ailing Black patriarch burnt his relative Cedrella off the tree: not for marrying a blood traitor, but for helping to screw up Horace's life.
Epilogue: When Sextus received his internship, he quickly rose through the ranks and became Minister of Magic; enacting the Weasleys' tradition of loving all things Muggle. His initial plan to use a Muggle train for Hogwarts was sarcastically derided as the “Hogwarts Express” when everyone realized that the eight hours the train would take (four slower than the carpet) would require the students to leave at 11 AM instead of 3 PM - and that's IF they canceled the picnic. So, he got his way with that by having flying carpets banned, reinstating the train... and was immediately impeached from the Ministry of Magic (with that, the Weasleys had spent the LAST of their dying political capital).
Slughorn never married, but one of his immediate goals at Hogwarts was not only to make connections among people who deserved them, but to ENSURE that no deserving student would be screwed out of life for a single bad performance in an exam: the otherwise-elite should be looked out for in the way Phineas looked out for him. So he came up with the Slug Club, which we all know and love for... among other things... allowing the elite the opportunity to make mistakes and not have their lives ruined. Of course he had to continue the Slug Club when he returned to Hogwarts in 1996: but was he EVER going to let that gangly fifth-year redhead who looked and exacted EXACTLY like the man who had single-handedly almost ruined his own life anywhere NEAR that place? Not a chance in hell! In fact, he would rather 'accidentally' poison that Weasel...
William//Slytherin
1320 words/30 = 44 base points
44 points + 10 for bonus items = 54 points for Slytherin