Soon after the incident with the unicorn, school life became much quieter but a little bit more hectic at the same time.
With final exams approaching soon, Hagrid had started to refuse to give Flynn any more jobs, saying that while he was okay with Flynn helping him out throughout the rest of the year, he didn't want to hurt Flynn's grades by taking away his study time, and he turned out to be surprisingly stubborn about it. Flitwick had also cut off their usual tutoring sessions, with Flitwick becoming too busy during the exams season to dedicate his time to a single student. Technically, Flynn knew that he could walk into Flitwick's office and ask him for advice at any time, but with the sudden influx of students who only just seemed to realize that he had office hours now that they were panicking about their finals, Flitwick was always busy.
Though Flynn hadn't been happy about the sudden influx of spare time, he filled his time with even more studying.
The classes leading up to the finals were reduced to review and self-study, with some classes even having optional attendance, so Flynn spent most of his time holed up in his abandoned classrooms, practically nesting in a pile of textbooks and food that he'd hoarded from the plates in the Great Hall.
A few weeks passed, and the final exams rolled around without much excitement, though he couldn't help but notice that there were three very distinct and annoying Gryffindors that were missing from the exam hall. Though the rest of the Gryffindors seemed anxious and fidgety, they didn't seem any more nervous than the rest of the grade, so Flynn assumed that the trio's absence had a reasonable explanation.
Shame.
The final exams started, and though Flynn still had a little bit of trouble with the spellwork in both Transfiguration and Charms exams, he technically managed to complete both of his assignments, even if his snuffbox still had whiskers and his pineapple's tapdancing had been heavy footed enough that it made a few cracks in Flitwick's desk.
Astronomy and History of Magic only involved a pure written exam, and while Flynn didn't have any real interest in either of the subjects, he felt like he managed to do well enough with how much he'd been studying over the past few weeks.
Herbology was uncomfortably easy, just like the classes generally were, and with how much he'd been reading from the Potions book that Snape had recommended to him, he felt like the Potions exam went well enough. Since Snape didn't even bother to glare disdainfully at the potion that he had brewed, merely glancing down at it with a vague disinterest instead, he assumed that Snape agreed.
For some reason, the Defense Against the Dark Arts exams were cancelled completely, something that a large part of the student body seemed to enjoy, especially since Quirrel's lessons hadn't been cohesive enough for them to even guess what he might've included on his final exams.
All in all, Flynn thought he did okay on his exams, though not everyone seemed to agree with his internal sentiment. Among the Slytherin first years, most of them kept up an air of confidence, except for Gregory and Vincent who were loudly moaning about how their allowances would be cut down for their poor performance.
Though Flynn wasn't familiar with a majority of the students from the other houses, the few Hufflepuffs that he knew seemed to be split equally in their confidence after the exams.
"They're going to kick me out," Lily said, staring blankly into the fire as she stroked the air where Fang had been a moment ago, not realising that he had wandered off into a different part of the hut. "Why didn't I study? They're going to kick me out for being dumb."
"They don't really kick people out of Hogwarts for having bad grades, do they?" Sally whispered to Flynn, trying not to be overheard by the near catatonic Lily.
"How the fuck should I know?" Flynn said, not bothering to lower his voice to not be overheard by the near catatonic Lily.
She didn't seem to hear either of them regardless, as she continued to pet the air beside her, mumbling to herself about what an idiot she was.
When the final grades were released about a week later, Flynn was glad to see that he hadn't gotten a failing grade for any of his classes. His lowest grade was an Acceptable, and he had even gotten an Outstanding in Herbology and an Exceeds Expectations in both History of Magic and Astronomy.
Even Lily, for all of her doomsaying and whining, managed to get two Exceeds Expectations in both Charms and Potions, which apparently was enough to counteract the Dreadful she got in Astronomy and the Troll in History of Magic.
Sally's marks were a little more tame, with Acceptables across the board, save for an Exceeds Expectations in Transfiguration, which she seemed satisfied with.
- - -
About a week before the last day at Hogwarts, the Slytherin house had fallen into a quiet panic when a hundred and sixty points had been suddenly added to the Gryffindor house point total. With Prefects having their ability to take points away being revoked from them after the final exams were finished, the entire house was trying to think of ways to manipulate the points to their favour so they would win the House cup when the Final feast came around in a week. Flynn didn't bother paying attention to any of it, not giving a shit about whatever the House Cup was, but on the day before the last day of Hogwarts, he was surprised at breakfast when a small grey owl dropped a letter into his lap.
"See me at my office. I am available from 10 am until noon. Severus Snape."
Flynn glanced up at the teacher's table, but with McGonagall being the only staff member that was there, he didn't get any sort of explanation for what Snape might want.
After finishing his meal, he hid away in one of his hideouts to try and take his final notes on A Theoretical Guide to Crafting Spells to study over the summer, since he would have to return the copy of the book to the Library before he left. After a few hours passed, he left the room, and made his way to the Dungeons to Snape's office.
Once he got there, Flynn knocked twice on the ominous black door.
"Come in," Snape answered almost immediately.
From the bored tone of his voice, Flynn couldn't help but assume he wasn't in trouble, but he forced his face into a neutral expression regardless, not wanting to give Snape any hint as to what he might be feeling. When he pushed open the door, he couldn't help but feel that his effort was somewhat wasted, as Snape didn't even bother to look up from the papers at his desk.
"Mr. Fredericton," Snape said, as he jotted something down on one of his papers, giving him only the barest amount of attention. "I am a busy man, so I will make this brief. As I vaguely recall, you were the one to help bring attention to the fact that a unicorn was injured in the Forbidden Forest, yet you were never awarded the House Points that would be appropriate for such an valiant deed. I simply wished to ask whether you wanted these House Points awarded to you retroactively, or if you simply wish to lay low."
"Lay low?" Flynn asked automatically, not immediately understanding what Snape was talking about.
From the way that Snape briefly looked up from his papers to give him a flat stare, before returning his attention to his desk, he seemed a little disappointed by that fact.
"When House Points are awarded or taken away, it is not announced with any sort of fanfare, but the knowledge of which student was responsible is available for anybody who might be curious enough to check," Snape said, with a bored voice. "This is done so students are encouraged to achieve excellence in the eyes of their peers, and to avoid failure in fear of being shamed. While I will admit that I was rather eager for any opportunity to showcase my superiority over my peers during my own time as a student, I am coming to realise that you are a very different person than I was."
Snape didn't give a concrete explanation further than that, but Flynn finally understood what he was asking and why.
At first Flynn was tempted to say no to the House Points, given that he legitimately could not give a shit about the stupid House Cup, especially with the snot-nosed pieces of shit that occupied his House, but Snape's final words struck a chord with him.
While he didn't care about what the other shits in his house felt about him to expend any energy on them, he wasn't going to turn down such an effortless way to "showcase his superiority" as Snape said.
"I'll take it," Flynn said.
Snape paused for a split second in his writing, but continued quickly after.
"Very well," he said, still not bothering to glance up at Flynn. "Sixty-one points to Mr. Fredericton for preserving an important facet of magical culture, and helping save the life of an innocent. Now begone and leave me to my work."
"Sure," Flynn said, before turning around and walking out of Snape's office.
Though Flynn's house points earned Slytherin the House Cup by fifty-one points, nobody acknowledged him directly for it other than Blaise, giving him a simple nod and a single, "Good show" before never bringing up the subject again.
Despite that, Flynn could feel several pairs of eyes on him whenever he entered the Slytherin dorms and a blissful blanket of silence falling on anyone who noticed him, saturated with a feeling of mortified gratitude.
Even Malfoy shut the fuck up for once in his life. Maybe these House Points weren't so pointless after all.
At the end of year Feast, one of the few dinners where Flynn's attendance was mandatory enough that it would be more of a pain to skip it than to participate, the rest of the Slytherin table seemed to adamantly be looking away from Flynn, as if they didn't want to remember who exactly they owed for their good mood and the green and silver decorations that hung around the Great Hall.
With the House Cup secured in their figurative pockets, all the anxiety of being down in points for the past week seemed to melt away completely, and all the angry discussions about how Harry and his friends must have cheated to get a grand total of 170 points melted away into snide discussions about how the youngest Weasley must have been playing an entirely different game under the table to make Dumbledore think it was "the greatest game of chess ever played".
Though none of the other Slytherin first-years besides Blaise, who frowned and stopped eating for about ten minutes, didn't seem to understand the joke but laughed along and repeated it regardless.
Though none of the Slytherins were stupid enough to talk loudly enough that the teachers would hear, the Gryffindors definitely heard it, and though Ron didn't seem to understand either, apparently Fred and George Weasley went on a hexing spree after the final Feast, that earned Gryffindor a total of negative thirty house points to start the next year with.
When Lily asked him about what the Slytherins were talking about later on in the evening, Flynn decided it wasn't worth the hassle to explain it to her, and eventually she stopped asking.
- - -
The next day, as Flynn, Lily, and Sally sat in the same compartment on the Hogwarts Express on their way home, the train ride was surprisingly quiet. Lily barely said anything for about thirty minutes until she randomly stood up, and grabbed Flynn's hand to try and pull him up.
With how weak she was, she could barely make him budge, and when he gave her a blank stare, she gave him an annoyed glare before she gave up on trying to pull him out of his seat. Instead, she turned around and grabbed Sally's hand, almost making Sally drop her book. Sally seemed confused by the wordless request, but put her book down on her seat let herself be dragged over to the other side of the compartment.
Lily sat down next to Flynn and pulled Sally down to sit on the other side of her. With Flynn still sitting in the centre of the seat, not moving to accommodate them, the two girls were uncomfortably wedged between him and the wall until he sighed and scooted over to give himself some room.
Annoyingly, Lily didn't let him have it, pressing herself against his side despite not needing to, dragging Sally along with her.
"I had a lot of fun," Lily said. "I'm gonna miss both of you."
"Aww, Lily," Sally said, pressing herself closer to Lily, pushing the small blonde girl further into Flynn's side as a result. "I'm gonna miss you too."
Sally paused, as she seemed to realise something, before she looked up, over Lily's head.
"I'll miss you too, Flynn," she said.
Flynn scoffed.
"Fucking idiots," he grumbled. "Summer break is two months."
"Two months!" Lily moaned. "Don't remind me."
Sally giggled quietly enough that he could barely hear it, as he let out a sigh.
"You're a fucking idiot," he said again.
Sally giggled again.
"I actually live about ten minutes away from King's Cross Station," Sally said. "It's in the Muggle part of town, but you're more than welcome to visit. We could go to the London Zoo or something."
Lily immediately stiffened and her eyes widened as she stared at Sally with an intense glare.
"Sally," Lily said. "You're a genius."
"You're a fucking idiot," Flynn said once more, because apparently two times wasn't enough to get the message across.
Unfortunately, the only thing he had achieved was to draw attention to himself, causing Lily to immediately start hounding him for his address. After ten minutes of refusing to tell her where he lived, she somehow managed to annoy him enough for him to swear on his life that he would maybe possibly visit her and Sally over the summer break, at least three times, which he had negotiated down from fifty.
Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.
Once the hours passed and an announcement chimed out that all students should change into their Muggle clothes if they hadn't done so already, Flynn was kicked out despite his protests that they were already wearing their clothes underneath their robes and were just going to pull their robes off, and was scolded for improperly undressing in the hallways when he didn't bother to pull his robes off in the compartment.
As the Hogwarts Express finally pulled into the station, and an announcement chimed out, wishing all the students a good summer break, Lily led the group out of the train once the initial rush of the more impatient students came to pass, but when she was just about to step off the train, she stopped suddenly, almost making Sally bump into her.
Flynn was about to ask what was wrong, but Lily seemed to unfreeze herself before he could say anything, though he did notice that her shoulders were noticeably drooping downwards.
When Flynn stepped off the train, now that he was standing at an angle where he could see Lily's face, he noticed that she was desperately trying to avoid looking in a specific direction.
Flynn's eyes narrowed when he followed the gaze of where she wasn't looking and saw a man a couple of feet down the platform that he could only describe as being sharp. From his expression, to his neatly trimmed beard and hair, to the rims of his square glasses, the man exuded an air of intense focus as he glared up at the train.
For no reason at all, as if sensing Flynn's glare, the man's eyes shifted sideways without turning his head. He met Flynn's glare with one of his own, and even from this far away, Flynn could see the man's eyes subtly twitching as he seemed to scan Flynn quickly, as if doing a quick threat assessment. The man's glare seemed to intensify to a dangerous point, until suddenly, his eyes widened and he spontaneously started to sprint towards Flynn as fast as he could.
With the man being too close for Flynn to think of casting a spell, and with the man being wandless himself, Flynn raised his fists in preparation for a fight, but his eyes widened when he realized that the man wasn't even looking at him anymore.
Flynn reached out to try and grab Lily before the man could get to her, but he had realized too late. The older man reached out and grabbed Lily around the shoulders.
And started to rub his cheek against hers?
"Oh, Lily! My beautiful little flower! Daddy missed you so much," the man shouted out, rubbing his face against hers.
Flynn simply stared, dumbfounded.
"Stop it, Dad. You're embarrassing me," Lily whined, lifting her arm to wedge her hand in between her face and her father's.
As suddenly as he had started, Lily's father stopped rubbing his face against hers and let go of her shoulders to stumble backwards with a look of abject horror in his eyes.
"What did you just say?" he asked.
Lily ignored him for a moment, to brush her hair with her hands in an attempt to tame it. She glanced back at Flynn and Sally, but barely gave them a sheepish smile before turning her reddening face away from them.
"You're embarrassing me, Dad," Lily said, grumbling up at her father.
The man fell to his knees, his body growing weak like a puppet with its strings cut as he stared up at her.
"Dad?" he repeated. "When did you stop calling me, Daddy?"
Lily turned around immediately, grabbed Flynn and Sally's hands, and started to pull them away..
"Lily? Sweetie?" Lily's father called out. "Where are you going?"
Lily didn't answer him, as she continued to wordlessly drag Flynn and Sally further into the crowd, before giving the both of them a red-faced glare, as if to challenge them to say anything.
Neither of them did.
Lily didn't drag the two very far before she seemed to notice someone that made her let out a sigh of relief and loosen some of the tension in her shoulders. Even without following her gaze, it was very easy to assume where she might be looking, given how the woman that sat on the bench reading a book was very nearly a perfect copy of her in every way, except bigger.
"Mommy," Lily called out.
Lily's mother reacted immediately to Lily's voice, putting down her book and standing up, though she didn't seem to be able to locate the source of her daughter's voice immediately. Though Lily pulled at Flynn's hands, as if to urge him to hurry up, he glared down at her and continued to walk at a steady pace, refusing to run.
Lily's mother smiled once she finally located her daughter, and her smile quickly turned into a grin as she glanced at Flynn and Sally before she started to walk forward to meet Lily halfway.
Lily finally let go of Flynn and Sally's hands once her mother got close enough and the two shared a hug that was much more graceful than the one that Lily and her father had just shared.
"Oh, Lily," her mother said. "It's so good to see you, little flower. Did you have a good trip here?"
"I did," Lily said, giving her mom a tight squeeze before letting go. "I missed you, Mommy."
"I missed you too," Lily's mother said, before standing back up and looking around. "Speaking of which, did you see your father? He was waiting a little closer to the train for you."
"Nope," Lily said, with a smile.
"I suppose you must've missed him," Lily's mother said. "Oh well, he'll come find us on his own eventually. In the meantime, why don't you introduce me to your two lovely friends?"
"Oh!" Lily said, starting in surprise as if she had just remembered that they weren't alone. "Mommy, meet Sally and Flynn. Sally and Flynn, meet my mom."
"It's very nice to meet you Mrs. Moon," Sally said, giving Lily's mom something that looked partway between a nod, a bow, and an attempt to hide herself from view.
"It's very nice to finally meet you too, Sally," Lily's mom said, with a smile and a nod of her own. "But please, call me Olivia."
Sally nodded, though from the shy look on her face, Flynn doubted that she would.
"And you must be Flynn," Olivia said, with more of a grin than a smile. "It's very nice to meet you too."
"Sure," Flynn replied.
Olivia laughed at that for some reason, and shook her head with some amusement.
"He really is exactly like you said, sweetie," Olivia said.
"I know, right?" Lily asked.
Flynn scowled at the pair, sensing that he was being made fun of, but that only seemed to make Lily, Olivia, and even Sally giggle.
It was at this moment that Flynn realised that he had no reason to be following Lily around to begin with, but when he turned around to leave, he nearly bumped into an even more annoying blonde to add to the duo.
"Liz," he said, glaring up at her in a silent demand not to say anything stupid.
"Why hello there, Flynn," she said, with a grin that silently refused his demand. "It's been a while, hasn't it?"
"Not long enough," Flynn answered.
"Ten months felt like ten years without my favourite little boy around," Elizabeth said, with an even wider grin now. "But now that I look at you, I'm starting to wonder if I hadn't just imagined it. Look at how much you've grown. I barely even recognized you, you little rascal."
Flynn slapped away the hand that reached down to pinch his cheeks, and Elizabeth drew her hand away and started to nurse it with a mocked pain expression.
"You shouldn't treat girls like that, Flynn," Elizabeth chided, though she still had a smile on her face.
Flynn scowled at her, to which Elizabeth stuck her tongue out at him, but before he could say anything, Lily popped up between them, staring up at Elizabeth with an expression of awe on her face.
"Hello," she said. "Are you Flynn's mom?"
Elizabeth stared down at Lily with a brief look of confusion in her eyes, before she dispelled it with a smile and a laugh.
"More like an aunt," Elizabeth said. "But I'm flattered that you thought I was young enough for that, Little Miss."
Lily nodded to herself. "I thought it was something like that. You're way too friendly to be Flynn's mom, unless he gets it from his dad's side," Lily said.
Elizabeth let out a loud laugh, drawing a few stares from around the platform. "Very true, very true," Elizabeth said. "I like this one, Flynn. She knows you well."
"My name's Lily," Lily chimed out. "And this is Sally. I know Flynn won't be bothered to introduce us himself, but it's still very nice to meet you."
"Wow, you know him really well," Elizabeth said, sounding genuinely impressed as she knelt down and reached her hand out for a handshake. "My name's Elizabeth."
Lily ignored the offered hand and gave Elizabeth a hug instead.
Elizabeth laughed and squeezed Lily tight enough to lift her off the ground a few inches before setting her back down.
"Oh I really like you," Elizabeth said, squeezing her once more before letting her go completely. "Did you know Flynn doesn't let me hug him?"
"Oh that's a shame," Lily said. "He's not horrible at it."
Elizabeth stared wide-eyed at Lily and turned back to stare at Flynn with a look of shock on her face before her lips split in the widest smile that he had ever seen on a human being.
Flynn immediately turned around to try and walk away again, before he was stopped by yet another person blocking his way.
Lily's father stood in his path, with a look of fury and terror in his eyes, that might've been more intimidating if his eyes weren't so puffy and bloodshot.
"You," he whispered, with the voice of a man close to death. "You're the little shi-" he coughed, glancing at Lily before continuing like nothing had happened. "shiphead that took my daughter away from me."
Flynn glanced up at the man, feeling a bone-deep tiredness that made it too difficult to even glare.
"What the fuck are you talking about, asshole?" Flynn sighed, not even able to summon any bite to the question.
"Don't you corrupt my little flower's ears with that filthy fucking mouth of yours," Lily's dad growled, his hands shaking as if he were physically restraining himself from throttling Flynn.
Lily let out a long groan, making her father immediately perk up with concern, seemingly forgetting about Flynn instantaneously.
"What is it, my little flower?" he asked. "What's wrong?"
"Please, just stop," Lily said, letting out an exasperated sigh. "You're embarrassing me, father."
Though a few people stopped and stared when Lily's father seemed to drop dead in the middle of the busy platform, Olivia Moon quickly ensured the onlookers that everything was okay, and eventually pulled out her wand and cast a spell to levitate her husband's body and positioned him to lie on a bench, so passersby would stop mistaking him for a corpse.
It was a few minutes after that, that Sally's parents managed to find her, and introduced themselves as John and Mary Smith. Though they seemed somewhat embarrassed to show up as two very ordinary muggle accountants, with nothing special about them, Sally was quick to give them both a hug and insist that she very much enjoyed the fact that they were normal.
Though they seemed a little confused, they were quick to exchange phone numbers and business cards with Elizabeth, to Olivia's confusion. Regardless of her lack of understanding of Muggle communication, the adults (minus Lily's father, Hugh Moon) exchanged promises to let their kids meet up over the summer, much to Flynn's disappointment.
"Can you show me some magic before we go?" Elizabeth asked once they got to her car.
"We're not allowed to do magic outside of the school until we're seventeen," Flynn said.
"Seriously? That's a bummer," Elizabeth whined.
Flynn grunted in agreement. He patted the two textbooks that Hermione had gifted him, as well as the notes that he'd copied from the Spellcrafting guide that Snape had lent him. It wasn't quite the same as actually being able to cast spells, but he would have to make do.
After Elizabeth unlocked her car, and started the ignition. Flynn expected her to start driving, but after about a minute of them sitting in silence in the parking lot, he glared at Elizabeth who was staring blankly forward.
"What?" Flynn said.
Elizabeth sighed, shaking her head, before finally pressing down on the accelerator and leaving her parking spot.
"There's no real 'good' time to bring this up, so I'll just be blunt with you," she said, keeping her eyes forward, on the road. "Just know that Jones, Tom, and I all love you very much, and that we'll do everything in our power to help you."
"Just spit it out," Flynn said.
"You know how your orphanage had a policy that the kids have to sleep there a couple of times a week to continue staying there?" Elizabeth asked.
"Apparently Flitwick talked to her about that after he met me," Flynn said, not failing to notice the use of the word, "had".
Elizabeth shrugged. "She doesn't remember," she said. "Or she was drunk and/or high at the time. Is this Flitwick fellow by any chance a gnome?"
"He's a midget," Flynn said.
"Ah, that might've done it," Elizabeth said.
"So I'm homeless," Flynn said.
"Technically," Elizabeth said. "You know you're always welcome to stay with any of us. We all love you, Flynn."
Flynn shrugged.