Leon finished putting on his pyjamas and brushed his teeth. He had to hand it to Harry, that had been an interesting lock he'd put on his door, but he knew he'd eventually be able to break it. Nothing Harry'd done over the years could compete with him. So Harry was now an apprentice of sorts at Hogwarts. Just wait till he went there. Then there'd be two apprentices. Only they'd have a pranking apprenticeship. Yeah. That'd be great. Maybe get Zonko's to do a training course or something. Then…
As Leon walked back in the room, he'd turned off the light and went to bed. Suddenly a dark hand shot out from under the bed and grabbed Leon's ankle, trying to drag him under the bed.
"Aaaahhhhh!!! Mom! Dad! Help! Aaaahhhh!!"
Leon's cries awoke several of the girls who had gone to bed earlier as his mother and father rushed into his room.
"What is it, honey?" Lily inquired, turning the light on.
The arm immediately withdrew under the bed. Leon saw only a quick movement but he'd seen enough.
"There's something under my bed! It attacked me!"
"Ssshhhh, there, there, honey. James, you'd better take a look."
James withdrew his wand and pushed the bedspread up onto the bed so he could get a better look. He shot a beam of light out from his wand under the bed. After a moment, "Oh. My. God."
"What is it, dad?"
"Come over here, you little… ahh, gotcha." James Potter calmly got up from the floor and looked his son in the eyes. Shelia and Rose were at the door looking nervous.
"Leon, what did your mother and I say about eating in your room? This," here he held up a rotting banana peel, "is not something I want to have spoiling our floor, mister. What happen, you slip on it while getting into bed?"
"No, dad, I don't know how that got there. I don't eat in my room. Well, hardly anything that's good for me that is. But I swore I heard something from under my bed saying that I was next. And there was this big black arm trying to drag me under."
"Really, Leon," Rose commented, her eyebrows raised. "A monster under the bed? Aren't you just a little too old for one of those?"
"Leon," his father said looking the boy in his eyes, "there's nothing under there. It must have been your imagination."
His breathing returned to normal, Leon looked at this father, mother and siblings. An awkward smile later, he grinned and said, "I guess you're right. I must've slipped on the banana peel. I could have sworn it was so real though. Oh well."
"False alarm, folks," James used his Captain-voice. "Time to move along now. Nothing to see here that you haven't seen somewhere else before. Okay, young ladies, let's get you back to your room."
"Okay, dad," Shelia acknowledged.
The family (minus Leon) moved out of the room. Once gone, Leon closed the door and then went back to the bed and looked under it for himself. There was nothing there just like his dad had said. Shaking his head over nothing, Leon turned off the lights again and walked back to the bed.
Suddenly a dark arm shot out from under the bed and grabbed his ankle again.
"Aaaahhhhh!!! Mom! Dad! Help! It's attacking me again! Aaaahhhh!!"
The dark arm/hand finally reached the hem of the pyjamas and gave it a good yank.
Leon's britches fell down around his ankles.
James and Lily rushed back into the room and turned the light on (again).
The dark arm retreated back under the bed and to the safety of the shadows. Harry watched with a large grin on his face as his frightened brother attempted to convince his father that there was something under the bed.
Finally, the situation was too much for James and he let out a loud laugh.
It took Leon a moment to catch on and then he quickly reached down and pulled up his PJ bottoms. "You prat, dad! Why didn't you tell me this was one of your pranks?!"
"Heh-heh, because it wasn't one of mine, son. This one was Harry's. He said he had something in mind for you. Now I guess we know what it was."
Leon looked around the room and under the bed again. He stood up, a grin on his face. "Okay, he got me. But how did he do it?"
"Don't know, son, don't know."
"What are you two talking about? Harry wouldn't pull a prank like this? He's an apprentice for god's sake. He doesn't have time to pull pranks. You on the other hand…"
"Pax, woman, pax! I surrender. But I still didn't do anything."
Leon surveyed the room again. "Man, I sure wish I knew how Harry did that."
Grinning, Harry shadowed back to Hogwarts and his waiting bed.
Sunday night, Gryffindor 1styear boy's room
Neville was sleeping. Dreaming. It was a favorite dream. He was flying through the air on his broom, racing the other chasers as they headed for the loops. They were cheering him on: Go, go, go, they chanted towards their star player.
He rushed the goal and began to throw when something odd happened. The broom began to buckle, then shake, and Neville dropped everything in order to hold onto the broom with both hands. The broom changed direction and zoomed off over the spectators.
A few moments later he was by the lake and the broom began shaking again. He went lower where he was only three meters off the lake's surface and the broom shook even more. Finally, his grip gave out and he fell a short distance into the lake. He went under the water only to reappear a moment later looking waterlogged (understandably).
His dream self didn't know what had happened. The crowd was still chanting his name so all was not lost. He just had to find his broom. An eye suddenly appeared next to him. It was the giant squid, he recalled. Oh, what did it want now? He'd heard it was friendly.
The squid began to rub his tentacles around Neville. He wasn't sure what was going on until he felt himself lifted out of the water a bit. Oh, that's a relief - it didn't want him to drown he surmised.
Then the squid brought Neville's face up to the squid's "face" and rubbed the two of them together.
What the…?
Then the squid started to really get frisky.
"Aaaaaahhhhhh!" Neville yelled, lurching out of bed quickly to get rid of that dream. Where the heck had that come from?!
"Neville?" came Ron's voice. "You okay, mate?"
"I'm fine, Rufus. Just a bad dream."
"It's Ron."
"Whatever. I'll tell you about it tomorrow. Go back to sleep."
A grinning shadow popped out of existence a moment later.
....
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