House of Four
For Benedict, the day had gone very well. He was feeling more and more comfortable in his role as the boyfriend of the Little Coven. He moved seamlessly, intuitively, from girl to girl, touching hands and giving smiles, hugs and compliments. Maybe his flame of love burned a little hotter for Alyssa than it did for the other two, but it was certainly no burden to receive warm hugs and adoring smiles from girls as pretty as Meriko and Freya.
When they were all four together, Alyssa and Meriko tended to dominate the conversations, but Benedict made the effort to interject himself and ask Freya for her opinion. He was glad that he gave Freya that extra moment before Arithmancy. Holding her hand had been the perfect touch, even if it had fired up the gossip mill and earned him some bitter stares from Dennison and Thompson.
He had hoped to keep that moment with Freya private from the other two, but in a school as small as this, it was impossible. By the time he was sitting with the three girls in the library, Alyssa and Meriko had heard about it. “You should have heard Ava Swansea today,” said Alyssa. “She came up to me in the bathroom before Herbology. She said, ‘I thought Benedict was your boyfriend, but I saw him holding hands with Freya today. So I told her, ‘It’s more like he’s our boyfriend.’ The look she gave me! That thought had definitely not crossed her mind.”
The other two rolled their eyes and laughed. Freya shot a nervous look towards Madam Pince. No one around them was doing any real studying, but that might not keep Pince from scolding them for talking too loudly.
Meriko asked Benedict, “What does your sister think of this arrangement?”
“Oh, she thinks I’ve lost my mind,” said Benedict, amiably. “Says it’s going to end badly. But I think we’re doing rather well, don’t you?”
“I think you’ve been doing marvelous,” said Alyssa.
“But you can’t go running off to Guishar at the end of the night,” warned Meriko. “You are ours.”
“Believe me, Lara has her own friends,” said Benedict. “She’s not sitting around the common room pining for me to get back.”
“She better not be,” said Meriko.
“It’s not like you can’t say hello to her on your way to breakfast in the morning,” said Alyssa. “Or ask her some question about Healing Arts. Just remember who your girlfriends really are.”
“I won’t forget, I promise.”
Across the room, directly behind Meriko, Ben could see Reginald Dennison’s troop watching him. Alyssa followed his gaze, as did Freya. Meriko turned around, and the three girls gave irritated glares back at the Slytherin boys.
“Don’t worry about him,” said Alyssa. “We have a plan. Freya and I did some research this summer.”
Freya nodded. “My sister has a book on coven magic. I borrowed it from her and shared something with these two. If Dennison tries something, he’s in for a surprise.”
“Great. I can’t wait,” said Benedict.
At eight-thirty, Benedict walked the three girls down the steps to the Entrance Hall, and down the straight, narrow stairwell to a hallway that led to the Slytherin common room. “This is probably far enough,” said Alyssa. “Give us all a goodnight kiss and send us off to bed.”
“Don’t go running into the arms of another girl once you get to your own common room,” warned Meriko. “You are ours.”
“Believe me,” said Benedict, “no Hufflepuff girl has the charm of you three.” He gave Meriko a hug. She preened her lips for him, so he gave her a brief kiss on the mouth.
Alyssa gave him a firm hug. She did not wait to be kissed but pushed a firm kiss onto his lips. “You are ours,” she repeated.
Freya folded shyly into his arms. He felt her small hand clutch his sweater. Then, she lifted her head and said, “You are ours.” With the third kiss, he felt a rush of magic envelope him. They’ve cast some sort of charm or spell on me, he thought. That was an incantation they were repeating.
He did not go back the same way, but instead went down the hallway to another stairwell that would lead him to the main entrance of Hufflepuff common room. The hallway torch had gone out, casting the path ahead of him in darkness. With a wave of his wand, Benedict rekindled it.
Waiting on the foot of the stairwell, illuminated now by the yellow-orange torchlight, stood Reginald Dennison and his troop. “How often must we do this, Took?” asked Reginald. “I gave you a very reasonable request – stay away from the girls of Slytherin House. Yet you continue to disobey me.”
“I thought you would have figured it out by now,” said Benedict, sounding braver than he felt. “These girls don’t like you. They prefer my company.”
“Regardless, when Lord Mahglin gives you an order, you had better follow it.”
“I don’t take orders from you, Dennison.” It was clear that he would need to defend himself. Benedict drew his wand and called to mind the various dueling spells that he knew.
Just as his wand flicked forward into the cold air of the stone corridor, there came a voice, an eerie blend of Alyssa, Freya and Meriko: “He is ours!”
In response to the voice, Thompson and Reese immediately lowered their wands and looked around. The others ignored the warning. Carter and Jones spread out on either side of Benedict, with Dennison directly in front.
Benedict set his face with a grim expression. He knew the Protego spell, but he doubted he could cast one potent enough to block three hexes coming from three different angles. He remembered the lessons from Defence Against the Dark Arts. Alternate defensive and offensive spells. Block and attack, attack and block.
Dennison waved his arm in the air and shot a hex at Benedict. A second later, Jones and Carter followed suit with hexes of their own. Benedict shouted, “Protego!”
To his own voice was added the voices of the girls. “PROTEGO!” All three hexes ricocheted away, crashing against the stone walls around him. It was as if Alyssa, Meriko and Freya were all there, fighting with him.
There was a moment’s hesitation as doubt crept into Dennison’s mind for the first time. Benedict seized the initiative. He shouted, “Expelliarmus!” and once more, the girls shouted with him. “EXPELLIARMUS!”
He could see it this time, not one jet of magic, but five, one for each assailant. Wands flew into the air. The boys scrambled after them, and the passage ahead of him was left open. Benedict took off at a run. He climbed the steps and through the wooden door at the top. He was in the passageway on the opposite side of the kitchens from the barrels.
If they follow me up the stairs, the Badger Guards will come from all sides and send them off. He walked past the kitchen doors. When he got to the barrels, he looked back. No one had come through the door at the top of the stairs. He quickly tapped on the barrel and entered the common room.
Dennison, in his enraged and jealous state, may well have tested the vigilance of the Badger Guards. But, as soon as he had grabbed his wand off the stone floor, Jim Clarke’s voice rang out, “All right, you louts. That’s enough. Off to bed with you!”
Four prefects closed in on them from separate ends of the hallway: Jim and Gurpreet from one direction, Q and the other fifth year Gryffindor prefect from the other. Aiden and Terrill promptly shoved their wands into their belts. The rest of the troop was forced to follow suit.
Dennison sneered at Jim and said, “You’re consorting with the enemy!”
“I’m doing my job,” answered Jim. “You are a nuisance and a brat. Get to bed!”
The group of them walked down the corridor in the direction of the Slytherin common room. At the straight stairs that led to the Entrance Hall, they parted ways with the Gryffindors. Jim gave a hug and kiss to Gurpreet. “Q and I can take things from here,” he told them. “Good night.”
“Be safe,” she told him.
“You too.”
With wands still drawn, Jim and Q drove Dennison’s troop back to the Slytherin common room. When they reached the door, Reginald snarled at Jim. “You disgust me.”
“You disgust me as well, Dennison,” said Jim. “Disgust, however, is not the password for this fortnight. The word is ‘Triumph.’ As in, ‘Took and the Little Coven have triumphed over you.’”
The door swung open, and the boys filed in. “That was a neat trick by the Little Coven,” said Q. “I’ll ask them about it.”
As soon as the five boys reached their dormitory, Reginald confronted Aiden. “You could have helped! I know you don’t like Took hitting on Freya. So, why did you give up on us?”
“What good would it have done?” asked Aiden. “I was picking my wand up off the ground, same as the rest of you.”
“If you had fought with us, we might have beaten it!” argued Reginald. Jason and Freddy were quick to agree.
Aiden, however, was unmoved. “I’ve told you before, it’s a waste of time challenging the Little Coven. They’ve only gotten more powerful. Didn’t you hear those voices? That was coven magic. More than the likes of us can handle.” With a cruel smile, he added, “I guess love is the stronger power still.”
Reginald had not forgotten the words of Lara Guishar. He grabbed ahold of Aiden’s shirt and shoved him against the wall. “Don’t you dare say that to me again! I will show you who is stronger. I will beat them. I will beat all of them!”
Aiden flushed, but he kept calm and hid his fear. No you won’t, Reggie. The harder you push to become a Dark Lord, the quicker you bring your Doom down upon your head.
As soon as Q reached the girls dormitories, Alyssa, Freya and Meriko came out into the hallway. “Is everything alright?” asked Alyssa.
“Did Dennison have another go at our Benedict?” asked Meriko.
“Did our spell work?” asked Freya.
“Your spell worked marvelously,” said Q. “Yes, Dennison was being his typical twerp self. Four of us prefects were tracking him and coming at him from two different directions. We would have put a stop to whatever Dennison had in mind. When we got there, though, he and his gang were picking their wands off the floor, and Took was long gone.”
The girls let out a collective sigh of relief and then began to giggle. “We weren’t sure it would work,” said Freya, “and there was no way to test it except to provoke Dennison and then see what happened.”
“What spell did you use, exactly?” asked Q.
“It came from this book that Wennie has, a book of coven magic,” said Freya. “It was a spell for protecting a man going off to war. His wife, mother and sisters were supposed to say this incantation to keep him safe. It didn’t fit our situation perfectly, but we were able to adapt it.”
“There was a line about keeping his eyes from straying to other girls while he’s away from his wife,” said Meriko. “I mean, if she’s protecting him with her magic, he better not be fooling around with other girls.”
“So, we tried it,” said Alyssa. “And it worked! How cool is that?”
In the morning, as the Hufflepuffs gathered in the common room prior to heading up for breakfast, the Fourth Year boys started teasing Benedict. “Come on, Ben, won’t you share?” asked Cosmo.
“Yeah, Bennie,” said Theo, another of the Fourth Years. “You’ve got three. You can let us have one, can’t you?”
“Not my decision, boys,” said Benedict.
Liam, Michael, Fortney and Philip joined the younger boys. “What are you going on about?” asked Liam.
“Took’s got three girlfriends!” said Cosmo.
Liam shook his head. “You’ll never pull that off, mate,” he said to Benedict. “Even if they’re in three different Houses, this school is too small. They’re going to find out about one another.”
“No!” said Cosmo. “Took’s girls are all in Slytherin. He’s got them going all at the same time!”
“Three girls at once?” said Michael. “Ooo-la-la, menage a trois!” All the boys laughed.
Pauline’s words came back to Philip right then, and he said, “No, no, no. Bennie makes it four. That’s menage a quatre.” At this, the boys laughed even louder.
Liam set his hand on Benedict’s shoulder. “Three girls at once? And they’re all in Slytherin?” Benedict nodded. “You are way over your head,” said Liam.