Finding Courage [Vignette][Complete]

The Artefact Room - home to countless generations of abandoned magical items, scrawled notes, and dubious reagents - was no stranger to being used as a hideaway for various students. Whether they sought its contents, or merely solace from the world outside, many wizards and witches would find themselves in its cramped confines at one point or another.

This evening was no different, as a lone witch found herself digging through its nooks and crannies in search of something. Draped in the dull green colors of Slytherin, a striped scarf wrapped around her neck, the girl bounced between cabinets and drawers. Her bangs - held together by a hairclip - proved to be much more of a nuisance than expected, and she repeatedly swiped them away from her freckled face. She cursed herself, her enemies, and her professors while performing her task, wishing for one thing:

She wished she hadn't been left alone to accomplish it.


"Oh!" The girl let out a startled gasp, "What's a hideous little thing like you doing in here? I don't think you belong here," she knelt down low enough for her scarf to touch the floor, casting the light of her wand over the small creature, its pupils shrinking in response to the illumination. "It's a good way to get yourself hurt, or... worse!" she feigned a jump at her sole companion in the Artefact Room, only to be let down by its unflinching gaze. A devious grin spread across her face, "Oh? Not scared, are you? I could squish you beneath my feet like..."

*BAM*

Her boot slammed into the ground mere inches away from the lowly animal, but garnered no response - not even a wince. "Hmph, you're not dead already are you?" She poked it with the lit end of her wand, and it finally answered, with a low warbling croak. "There you are. You've got guts, I'll give you that much."

She dropped into a crouch, placing her wand on the ground, and inched closer. "So, what's your deal? Someone figured you were too ugly and just threw you out? Or did they stop caring for you, and you took off on your own?"

The creature puffed up a sac below its mouth and let loose another, slower croak, before taking a short hop towards the giant in front of him. "I see... hmm. Well, can't have you sticking around here and mucking up the place," she extended her palms and found her gesture was understood, as another short hop placed the scaly thing in her hands.

After a pensive glance around the room, assuring she was alone, the girl ran her fingers along the dry skin of her handheld pet. "So, you're what? A toad or something? Gotta say, you're as ugly in person as in the books." Another stroke along its back was met by a sound almost like a rumbling purr, as it narrowed its eyes.

"Which brings me back to the question: what are you doing here? Don't think anyone's got a taste for toad's legs, so definitely not from the kitchen. A pet? But, what kind of freak would want to keep you around? Ooooh, a prank then?!" She wondered aloud, half to the toad and half to herself, as she tilted her head back and forth, gazing towards the ceiling. "Nah, no one uses the live ones in their tricks anymore. Honestly, can't think of much else, but you are awfully friendly," she shuddered, "and almost clean for something so vomit-inducing."

She caught an odd look in its eyes as she continued mindlessly petting its wart-covered skin, "What? Then why am I holding you?" She scrunched her nose up and narrowed her eyes, "Maybe..." her voice dropped to a whisper, "that's my thing." Winking, she let out a soft chuckle, "Maybe, you're just a good distraction from what I was supposed to be doing."

"Speaking of..." she turned her attention to the shelving unit behind which the toad had chosen to hide. She swept her black bangs out her face to gain a better view, using her hairclip to hold them in place behind her ear. With her free hand, she began rummaging through the miscellaneous supplies left on the shelves throughout the years.

Occasional croaks - reminders that she was not alone in her task - caused her to pause briefly every few moments to rub the toad's back once more. While the varied jars filled with bones, pouches filled with foul-smelling sand, and tins of oddly-named oats caught her interest, frustration soon overcame her. Meanwhile, the croaks from her accomplice became increasingly frequent, louder, and distracting.

"WHAT?!" Her fierce gaze set upon the source of her annoyance, as she yelled. "What. Do. You. Want? Can't you see I'm busy, you damned pest?" Though it had previously remained unshaken by her threats and actions, the toad hunched back on its hind legs this time. "Hah! Finally got you! You're just a weak, little sca-" Her words trailed as the toad calmly adjusted itself using its hind legs and turned in her hand, croaking once more, as if in satisfaction. "-redy... Wha-what are you up to now?" Her question lingered in the air, met by another series of croaks in quick succession.

Her interest piqued, the girl tried to read the beast's intentions, noticing it had focused upon the location where they had first noticed each other. She returned to her crouched position, and then to her knees, watching the toad move and croak as she got closer. As she neared the boot print left by her feigned assault on the toad, the creature leaned forward, prompting her to mimic its movements. Moving her wand near the rear of the shelf, her light unveiled a concealed metallic tin.

Another gasp escaped her lips, this time in surprised excitement. "No. Way." She grabbed the tin, reading the label on its top, and jumped in glee. "YES! You have no idea how great this is! Merula's going to be so happy to see this. Oh, and that Ymous is going to ab-so-lute-ly hate it! Wonderful!" The excitement overwhelmed her, sending shivers down her spine. With a smile she had kept hidden from the world, she looked back down to the creature in her hand, who had itself turned to gaze back at her.

"You do know, don't you? You helped me out right when I needed it." Unable to contain her extreme elation, and letting her mind wander back to fairy tales from her childhood, she pursed her lips and brought her hand close to her face, "MWAH!"

"Pttthhh aaaack ptthh!" Instant regret. She spat on the ground and wiped her mouth on the sleeves of her robe, "Gross!"

After a few moments, she settled down, and scowled at the dry, scaly thing in her hand, slightly disappointed, "You're no Prince Charming, you know," a sigh escaped her mouth, "Buuut, you did have my back, so I'll forgive you this once. You and I make a great team, maybe I oughta keep you around. Give you a name. Maybe then, I'll have someone who'll listen to ME." She cast her eyes to the floor, as a frown spread across her face, but with a long drawn out sigh, she returned to a soft, relaxed smile, "You're a good toad. Whoever abandoned you doesn't know what they lost."

The toad let out a croak and adjusted slightly to face the door behind the girl. "You're right. I got what I came for, and a little extra too," another pat along its back, "Let's get out of here and show this to Meru-" As she turned, pleasant grin still in place, her eyes set upon another surprise. This one took the form of a blonde Gryffindor student standing in the open doorway, frozen in horror, eyes wide as saucers. Her grin slowly faded as realization set in, and she too froze, mirroring the boy in the door.


A brief moment of silence and stillness fell over the small room, until finally the stupor which had rendered them both dumb was broken with a lonely croak from the toad in Ismelda's hand. A flood of words followed, as both scrambled to resolve their awkward encounter.

"I di-di-didn-... I m-mean... I'm s-s-sorr-" A frantic spattering of syllables spilled out of Ben's lips, as he watched Ismelda's pale face burn a red more intense than the color of his house's banner. He spastically waved his hands in front of himself, as if he was attempting to absolve himself of wrongdoing.

"You disgusting MUDBLOOD! H-how long were you standing there, w-watching me like some sort of freak?!" Intense embarrassment stewed into unbridled rage, mixing with a desperate hope that the boy had only just arrived. Meanwhile, despite the surprise, her voice instinctively adopted its 'normal' gruff tone that her friends and enemies had known her for.

"I'm not! I mean, I wa-wasn't! I m-mean, ju-just now! N-no, I mean, not l-long," voice cracks giving away his panic, "Y-you grabbed so-something and- and- and-" His eyes grew wider and his body froze once more, realizing too late the mistake he had made: admitting to watching her plant a kiss on the toad.

Ismelda assumed an awkward dueling stance on her unsteady feet, balancing a toad with one hand and fumbling for her wand with the other.

 "I'm going to KILL you! There's no way out for you, you filthy coward!" She raised the wand in time with her voice, disregarding the fact that the door remained open with Ben in its way, allowing her voice to escape the small room into the hallway beyond.

"Please don't! I sw-swear I won't tell anyone. I d-didn't see a thing," the cowering Gryffindor shrieked.

"Oh, I'll make sure you won't tell a soul. I-"

"Just please-" Overcome by fear, and facing certain death, the boy somehow managed to deliver a final plea to the raging witch, "Don't hurt him." Tears escaped his eyes, as he gave one last mournful look to Ismelda's rapidly croaking companion, before clenching his eyes shut.


After an eternity of waiting for oblivion, Ben realized it had already arrived, and opened his eyes to the afterlife that lay before him.

But he was still there. He was still standing in the Artefact Room's doorway with a dazed-looking Slytherin girl, holding his dear toad in her hands.

Ismelda had been disarmed, not of her wand, but her sense. Ben's terrified stammering had given way to something almost like a demand, something with conviction. She had paused to process his words, before a croaking sound returned her to reality.

"Whuh? Hurt who? Him? What the hell are you talking about?" No sooner had the words escaped her mouth than an understanding came over her. She swayed from the dizzying situation, struggling to reorient herself.

"My toad. I d-don't want to d-die, but please just leave him be." With his head and hands shaking, Ben gestured to his longtime friend.

She looked upon the toad in her left hand quizzically and brought it out in front of her, lowering her wand lazily. "This thing? Is yours?" Her fugue faded as the croaking gave way to a low, inaudible rumble. "This thing, is yours?!"

Righteous indignation set in, with her recent embarrassment becoming a distant memory, "This is yours, and you just abandoned it in here, like some unwanted child?" A new source for her fury had surfaced, "I should kill you for being so incompetent! What kind of idiot-"

"I lost him. Someone pushed me into the fountain on our walk..." Hands slowly lowering, Ben swallowed his fear and focused.

With this admission, Ismelda's senses slowly worked their way out from under the weight of her anger. She noticed the boy's robes were soaked, and a trail of water from the hallway lead to a small puddle at his feet. Once more, confusion returned, "The floor fountains? How the hell did you get into the Slyth-"

"Nonono! The Courtyard. There's the f-fountain-"

"Shut up! Of course I knew that! That still doesn't explain why I found him here." She had adopted an accusatory tone, examining his every word, as she clenched her right hand around her lowered wand.

"Well he... he uhhh... he likes hiding here with me," his eyes cast downward, hinting at his meekness and shame, "When I get scared. Of you, or Merula, or the forest, or-"

"Yeah, yeah. I get it - you're a damn pansy, everyone knows. Some Gryffindor you turned out to be." Rolling her eyes, she started to feel something strange towards the wimp in the door. She tried to stifle the feeling, dismissing it as a moment of weakness resurfacing from the past.

Ben attempted to recount what had happened, "When I finally climbed out of the fountain, he was gone. I thought... I thought someone took him. But then I remembered how much he liked it in here. So I came and saw-"

"Saw what?" A stamp of heavy boots cut Ben off.

"N-nothing." Twiddling his fingers, Ben was eager to leave, but the words for his request were stuck in his throat.

"Good." Most of Ismelda's rage had subsided, its place taken over by pity. She despised this feeling of sympathy, and this boy even more for causing it, and yet- "So what, you want him back or something?" She tilted her head to the side, furrowing her eyebrows to gauge the boy's reason for staying around.

Ben's face shot up quickly from gazing at the ground, setting him a bit off balance from the sudden change. He met her baleful gaze, "Y-yes. Please. Yes please. I just want him to be safe." He tempered the spark of hope with hesitation, confident this was just another trick played by Hogwarts' cruelest witch.

"I could end him right now. Squish him beneath my boot. And then do the same to you." A threat escaped her lips, though it didn't quite carry the air of her usual taunts.

"No! Please!" A cry of objection came in response, as he grew pale.

"Then we understand each other. If you ever tell anyone what you saw here, I will splatter him against the floor, force his guts down your throat, and throw you to the beasts of the Forbidden Forest." Though she had built up a tolerance to her stomach turning in response to her thoughts, this threat caused a particularly strong feeling of unease.

In spite of the gruesome description, hope returned to Ben's dread-filled heart. "I-I won't! I promise, I will forget everything! I mean, I did hit my head real hard in the fountain." He felt proud of coming up with such a strong lie on the spot, and his strength seemed to return to him.

"Good. And if I ever hear so much as an inkling about this from any other student-" She dragged her wand against her throat menacingly and gave her best impression of a dead person.

"I understand." He trembled

"You better. Now, get out of here!"

"B-but, my toad..."

"Oh..." Ismelda turned once more towards the toad that had guided her, provided a brief respite, and even brought her a smile. She let out a remorseful sigh, but caught herself and quickly attempted to mask it with a threatening growl towards Ben. "Fine." Her instincts told her to threaten or hurt him in some way, but she kept them at bay and gently set the toad down in the boy's shaking, outstretched hands.

The tension of the last few minutes released suddenly, making way for the excitement of being reunited with his dear friend. "Thank you! Thank you thank you thank you! I won't forget this!"

"You WHAT?!" She hissed in his face.

"Wait! I'm sorry! I mean... I will forget this?" He tilted his head and squinted his eyes to make sense of what he said.

"Be sure that you do. Now get out of my sight before I change my mind." Ismelda crossed her arms, huffed, and looked away from her quarry.

Ben nodded emphatically and quickly turned to run off, his shoes squelching with the water that had soaked them. At the behest of a strange feeling rising up in his stomach, he turned back to the lonely girl standing in the Artefact Room. He caught her eyes, and for a moment, felt he recognized something familiar hidden within their depths.

A burning question lingered on the tip of his tongue, but despite his relief of the conflict being over, he couldn't manage the words. Instead, he mustered what little resolve remained within and quickly stated,

"His name is Animo. He likes to take walks in the evenings in the Clock Tower Courtyard..."

Before Ismelda could register what he said, or what he might have meant by such a thing, Ben had disappeared down the hall.


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*This is likely to be the final revision of the story, as far as structural changes go. I'm open to further feedback and criticism, but not sure I'll be making further changes, unless they are dire enough or are spelling/grammar-related.