Agents of Discord

by KittyrinnAiko

Chapter 89: Mrs Norris goes floof.

When they finished with their talk Mrs Norris volunteered to escort Aerie and Aurora back to their dorms. Mr Filch tagged along.

“Cheer up Argus,” Mrs Norris chided playfully. “They all think I’m a witch.” He made a noise indicating he wasn’t happy about what she’d just said. “Argus, she knows. I think they both know.”

“Mrs Norris, do you know what it means to be an Akkadian Princess?” Aerie asked.

“Um… not really?”

“It means I’m an Alicorn Princess.”

“An… alicorn.”

“I knew you were a changeling when I first saw you,” Aerie offered. “I saw no point in saying anything to anyone. Especially given it could distract from my goal of ending the threat of Tom Riddle once and for all.”

“I see. He’s not completely gone is he.”

“What we are dealing with right now is someone acting on his behalf. A contingency plan. I suspect that Riddle's end plan had nothing to do with upholding blood purity and everything to do with the destruction of Wizarding England. The person presently acting on his behalf may not even know they are doing it.”

“Who are you? I mean, you aren’t exactly an ordinary student.”

“I’m an agent of Discord.”

“What? As in the Discord? But?”

“Order requires a healthy mix of chaos. Without it, we risk stagnation.”

“I see. Any idea what happened to me? I, I just feel so different. The hunger is gone. I feel like I’ve got so much love in me I just have to give it away.”

“Well, you can be sure Lockhart had nothing to do with it.”

“I’ve read that Uru metal can absorb, remember, and then repeat forms of magic,” Aurora said. “Aerie, could what happened with Chrysalis have anything to do with it?”

“Chrysalis? As in the Changeling Queen?” Mrs Norris stopped dead in her tracks with the others stopping a moment later. “She’s not here, is she? That would be a disaster.”

“Who’s Chrysalis?” Filch asked, his usual gruff tone replaced with concern.

“Chrysalis was defeated in a battle royal,” Aerie offered. “The hive swarmed. It was a disaster. Long story short, Chrysalis was defeated.”

“Was it Princess Celestia?” Mrs Norris asked.

“No, a different Alicorn,” Aurora offered. “Princess of Thunder.”

“Princess of Thunder?”

“That’s what they started calling her. She’d a hammer just like Aerie’s only a lot bigger.”

“There was a curse on her, on all the lings,” Aerie supplied. “When Chrysalis was defeated, the curse on her was broken. I’d imagine that the magic spread out to affect anyone nearby at the time, and some of it may well have been picked up by my little pendant.”

“That’d make it a very valuable pendant,” Filch suggested.

“It might. Not just anyone could take it though. Uru behaves a bit like a wand and the Nova Broom. If it doesn’t like someone it won’t let them use it.”

“Fair enough,” Mrs Norris replied. “And you’ve been there. I’d like to go back someday. With Chrysalis gone… she is gone, isn’t she?”

“When the curse was broken she turned into a pony. One of King Sombra’s victims. She just wants to go back to just being herself. As for going… home, for you, that might not be a good idea. Considering the aftermath of the swarm.”

“Oh, right. I suppose it’d be like wizards coming out of hiding to make war on muggles and losing.”

“Pretty much.”

“If people ask about you?” Aurora pressed as they approached the hall to the portrait of the Fat Lady.

“I’m Argus’s girlfriend who got stuck as a cat should be fine.”

“Think I’ll just say you're his cat,” Aerie teased.

“Ha, they’ll love that." She turned to Filch. "Come on Puddin, let's go see if any of the Slytherins are sulking about.”

“Do you think it’s alright for you to stay,” Filch asked as she stepped up to him.

“No one said I couldn't.” Then she leaned in and kissed him on the and of his nose.

“Aww,” Aerie and Aurora said with smiles on their faces.

“Get back to your dorms,” Filch growled.

“Going,” both girls chimed, and hurried the rest of the way down the hall.

There was a crowd waiting for them when they came through.

“We were out with permission.” Aerie protested.

“It’s not even curfew yet!” Aurora added.

“What the hell happened, and who was that woman?!”

“Ya, she’s hot – ow! Well, she is.” The boy who’d just spoken had made the mistake of making his declaration with his girlfriend right behind him.

“That was Mrs Norris,” Aerie informed them. “Come on, some of you must have been suspicious. She’s a Maledictus. She’d been stuck that way. It is a curse after all.”

“Oh, I’ve read about that,” Hermione interjected. “I thought getting stuck was supposed to be permanent.”

“Normally it would be,” Percy offered. “Something happened and it’s got something to do with that writing on the wall.”

“And you’re thinking Aerie knows what’s what, I gather,” Ron put in.

“Our Musketeers were having some kind of premonition of danger,” Aurora informed everyone.

“And that hammer pendant she wears was glowing,” Finnigan pointed out to anyone who hadn’t seen it.

“I did what I always do,” Aerie informed them. “I headed straight for the source to see what it was. Turns out someone used dark magic to put a whammy on Mrs Norris. I thought she was dead. You know how I am around cats. She was stiff as a board and they’d hung her up by her tail.”

“And the writing on the wall?”

“No idea.”

“In a pig’s eye,” Hermione shot back.

“Fine, it’s exactly what it says. Some bonehead got it into their head to start mucking about with dark magic and found,” Aerie switched her tone to melodramatic, “..the Chamber of Secrets.”

“Whatever they opened I can’t imagine it’s any different than any other secret chamber in this place. It’s the person we need to keep an eye out for,” Aurora offered. “With any luck, the culprit will get caught and that’ll be that.”

“Ha, look at me, I’m all floofy!” Mrs Norris called moments after transforming back into a cat. “I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a kitten. I am as giddy as a drunken man.”* And with that she dashed down the hall, dropped to her belly, and slid a good twenty feet.

“Mrs Norris!” Filch called gruffly, but she knew he didn’t mean it by the smile on his face. A smile that turned into a devilish grin when his companion of many years transformed back into a woman, this time with something a bit more stylish, sat up, and turned to look behind a large Grandfather’s Clock.

“Well, well, well, what have we here? Out rather late, aren’t we? Mr Nott. Naughty, naughty, naughty.”

“A student out past curfew? We are in trouble, aren't we.”

“Not quite yet,” Mrs Norris corrected having taken a look at the clock. “He’s got seven minutes. She chose that moment to stand up.

“Tell me Mr Nott, are you feeling lucky? Do you think you can get back to your dorm in seven minutes? Do you think you can get there before we do? Well, do you... punk? Six minutes, better get going. Run, Mr Nott, run! And you better get there before I do!”

“You let him go?” Filch asked confused as Nott dashed past him.

“He’s going in the wrong direction. That and if we take the short cut we should get to the Slytherin dorm well ahead of him. Hey, just because I have got a new lease on life doesn’t mean I’m going to stop enforcing the rules, and nothing says I can’t have a little fun while I’m at it.”

Filch had a puzzled even bemused look on his face, a look that quickly morphed into a smile.

“We sure he’s not the one who scribbled all over the wall,” Filch asked as he started down the hall at a brisk walk.

“I don’t sense anything ominous about him. Far more likely he’s obsessed with the Gryffindors like how Draco Malfoy was. For his sake, I hope he gives it up. We can pass the word along but I’ve a feeling it’s Miss Potter who seems to be calling the shots.” And with that, she went back to being a cat and proceeded to zoom back and forth.

On arrival, Mrs Norris knocked on the Door that led to the Slytherin common room by giving the entrance several swift bunny kicks. When she was satisfied she transformed back into a woman and stood up to wait. It looked like a bare stretch of wall to anyone who didn’t know it was there, but Mrs Norris and Filch knew all too well where the entrance was. It took about a minute for someone to open it up, a Slytherin seventh-year who looked eternally annoyed.

“I do hate to be a bother,” Mrs Norris said sweetly. “Has Mr Nott made it to your dorm before curfew?”

“Mrs Norris? It’s true then?”

“I am indeed Mrs Norris. It is so good to be me again. Ah, I hear running. I imagine that’s my answer. Time? We gave him the opportunity to try to get here before curfew.”

The boy looked at her quizzically, looked in the direction the sound of running was coming from, turned back to look into the common room, and called out, “What time is it? Exactly, I need the exact time!”

“Nine fifty-nine, not quite ten,” Offered another boy as he approached the entryway

“Aye, same as my watch,” Filch offered.

The four watched as Nott burst around the corner, and when he saw Mr Filch, Mrs Norris, and two older boys standing there he slowed to a walk and proceeded to plod along with a look of utmost fury.

“It’s not fair.” He spat out as he approached. “It wasn’t after curfew.”

He remained defiant even as Mr Filche’s watch began to chime.

Ping, ping, ping went the watch.

“Well, what are you waiting for?”

Ping, ping, ping…

“Are you going to take points or what?”

Ping, ping, ping, ping.

“That’s time,” Mrs Norris offered.

“Time?”

“Gave you a chance, didn’t we? Twenty points for being out past curfew,” Mr Filch informed him. He put his watch away, and then he and Mrs Norris walked down the corridor to head back up to exit the dungeons.

“Do you think Professor Lockhart has had any luck removing that graffiti,” Mrs Norris was heard to ask as the two rounded the corner no longer caring about Mr Nott.

“Why are you such an idiot?” Growled one of the older boys.

“I think I like this new Mrs Norris.” The other boy offered.

“Playing with her prey she was. You can turn the cat back into a witch, but you’ll never take the cat out of her heart. Nott! Why are you just standing there? Get your ass in here!”

The next morning everyone was talking about Mrs Norris, and how several girls had felt the presence of someone using dark magic.

“Hi, Aerie,” Hoshiko called as she approached. “I hear you ran straight to where the source of the dark magic was. I’m embarrassed to admit that I went straight to the observation deck to snuggle under a wing.”

“I had fillies under mine last night,” Aurora whispered to her. “Our four musketeers were a bit shaken up.”

“Ginny, are you alright?” Aerie asked the girl. She was looking tired and distressed.

“Oh, I’m fine. Lots of fun waking up in the middle of the night all by myself.”

“I’m sorry,” Apple Bloom offered.

“Next time just come down to our room,” Aerie instructed. “Lavender still has room in her bed.”

“Maybe we should just get one big enormous feather bed?” Lavender suggested.

“My Granny’s got a big feather bed,” Apple Bloom offered.

“Ya,” Louise added. “It’s nine feet wide, and six feet high, soft as a downy chick.”

“Stop that,” Aurora scolded.

“Stop what?”

“It was made from the feathers of forty-leven geese,” Sweetie Belle chimed in sounding like she was going to start singing.

“Bloom,” Aerie warned.

“Took a whole bolt of cloth for the tick,” Isolde added in like tone and a smile on her face.

“Alright, who brought the banjo!?”

“It’d hold eight kids and four hound dogs and a piggy we stole from the shed.
We didn’t get much sleep but we had a lot of fun on Grandma’s feather bed,” all four sang.

“We have classes to get to!”

“Awww.”

The attack was soon put in the back of everyone’s mind. Everyone except Hermione who had burrowed into her books harder than ever. Which was impressive considering homework assignments were assigned by the foot. And writing in huge letters wasn’t an option. Not that Aerie didn’t have a few tricks up her sleeve. Gothic ornamentation. Aerie would start each assignment with a large Gothic letter, and delighted in drawing pictures of the various things, plants, creatures, and or monsters the paper was about. Margins would be filled with vines with leaves, fruit, and flowers.

Many of the teachers loved her art, but Professor Snape proved a hard nut to crack and would just insist on more actual words and less froufrou.

“Hey Aerie,” Ron said as she joined them in the library. Professor Snape had held her back to have her scrape tubeworms off the desks. While she’d been doing this he made sure that she’d overheard him mentioning the fact that Nott had been out past curfew, and his belongings searched, by one of the seventh-year assistants. Nothing unusual was found, but Snape wanted a closer watch on the boy if for no other reason than to keep him out of trouble.

Unknown to Snape this made it the second time Nott’s belongings had been searched. Hoshiko knew to keep an eye out for the book, Justin knew to keep an eye out for it, and yet, Aerie just had a feeling it was likely right under her nose. She was also concerned that Hermione and the Weasleys were too many people.

“Hi Aerie,” Justin called only to get shushed by the Librarian.

Aerie put a finger to her lips and then motioned for him to join them as she sat down at the table everyone had gathered at.

“There’s a nasty rumor about you,” Justin whispered.

“Let me guess, I staged the whole thing to get attention.” Justin nodded his head. “Two guesses where that one originated from. Karen or Lockhart. Take your pick.”

“My bet is Lockhart,” Justin whispered getting a withering look from Hermione. “What? He hates competition.”

“Extra reading, Hermione?”

“I can’t help but think there’s something you aren’t telling us.”

“Alright fine, you got me, I’m a goddess sent to clean up Dumbledore’s mess,” Aerie informed her in a deadpan tone.

“Ha, ha. Very funny. What’s the book look like we are supposed to be trying to find?”

“There in lies part of the problem. I don’t know. Plus, it’s figured out how to mask itself from Moonie.”

“What? But that implies some form of sentience.”

“Artificial intelligence achieved through dark magic. Part of what makes it so dangerous.”

“What’s the other part?”

“If you must know, there’s something in the castle that can be controlled via the book. It’s what petrified Mrs Norris. And don’t ask me how she was revived.”

“I saw,” Hermione said softly. “I was a short distance behind Aurora. I asked Professor Lockhart about it and all he’ll say is that I have to wait for his new book.”

“Not having doubts about him are you?” Aurora asked.

“He’s a great author,” Hermione said defensively.

“Professor Dumbledore said that he hired Lockhart because his books give a good overview of the dark arts. He might have suggested that Lockhart might not be the person he presents himself as. As in, he’s a great author, but that’s about it.”

“Dumbledore said?” Hermione asked.

“Aurora and I had a meeting with him the morning we got caught in bed in our pony forms and no one knew it was us. He'd been rather frank about his opinion of Professor Lockhart. Lockhart is knowledgeable but might not be the one we'd want in a pinch. We had a second meeting right after the incident. Lockhart was there and considerably distracted by Moonie. She was in full Nightmare mode and Lockhart was rather unnerved.”

“Oh… OK, I see... Now that I think about it, Hoshiko seems to have acquired another fox.”

“Mrs Silverwood’s Night Mare.”

“And I am looking up different types of snakes that might be used by wizards,” Aurora offered. “As I think you are aware, I have access to the wards. If I can get a close enough guess at what it is I might just be able to contain it.”

“You think it’s a snake?” Ron asked. “Of course, it’d be a snake.”

“Slytherin's monster,” Aerie offered. “Be nice if it was just a little one. Be easier to deal with.”

“You’re suggesting it’s big?” Hermione asked.

“Big coward, runs away the moment it sees me,” Moonie grumbled.

“Hermione, just don’t go wandering about by yourself. Or if you do, take a mirror, and scan the floor ahead of you when going around corners. Don’t look it in the eyes.”

“And what good is it going to do me if I’m with a group and we come face to face with it?”

“I’m guessing that the culprit doesn’t want to be found out.”

“They’d avoid large groups.”

“So, what are you looking up?”

“I’m looking up counter curses. I just wanted some idea of how Mrs Norris was restored. Any ideas?”

“I have an idea, but I think it best I keep it to myself for now.”

“We’ve History of Magic coming up,” Aurora reminded them. “Maybe you can ask Professor Burbage.” Charity Burbage, the Muggle Studies teacher, had signed on as the history teacher in the absence of Professor Bins. In truth, she’d managed to even win over many of the Slytherin students. Her lectures were lively and informative, and she had managed to impress upon many who didn’t like Muggles that it was always a good idea to keep an eye on what they were up to. Few knew anything about Muggles given wizard attitudes. Fewer still knew of the various times wizard and Muggle history had overlapped.

Author's Note:

“I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a kitten. I am as giddy as a drunken man.”* Paraphrased from Dickens Christmas Charol.

When Mrs Norris calls Filch "Puddin" I was thinking of Harly Quinn. Mrs Norris might be a reformed changeling, but she's been a cat far too long.

Grandma's Feather Bed: John Denver.

Comments

[Theresa hall]

If Hermione gets zapped like in the book I wouldn't be surprised she doesn't like to anyone else good advice unless it was her idea

[Dontar]

loving this story, cant wait till the end

[Flashgo]

This is the second time that song and cmc were involved in a Harry crossover. Started smiling about half way through that first line.

[harts fire]

11851600
but this is a never ending story.
look how many story's there is in the potter story line and this is just the start of book two.

[harts fire]

i love the new and improved Mrs Norris and i am going to say Mr Filch is going to have a new out look on life...

amazing chapter.