Capítulo 183: Rewards, Curses, Ravens.
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"Uhmnngh."
Eddie slowly opened his eyes, letting the dim light enter his eyes. His heartbeat fastened when he couldn't see properly as everything was blurred, but before the panic could set in, his vision cleared, and he could see the white ceiling in his sight.
"Nmuhmnghumn," his throat was really parched, and he could feel it hurt if he even gulped a little too hard.
"You're finally awake, huh, you little—," he heard with a sigh at the end.
Eddie slowly turned his head to the side to see Quinn sitting there with a book in his hands. Eddie didn't say anything but took in the sight of his best friend.
". . . . You look terrible," said Eddie in a voice too quiet for him.
The Quinn West, he knew, was meticulous in most of the things he did, especially in the way he dressed. But right now, Eddie could see ever so little out-of-place hair, a shirt that wasn't ironed, tie out of place, and with half the shirt not tucked into the pants.
"You look like you lost control of a broom at high speed and crashed hard into the ground," said Quinn.
Eddie weakly smiled and laughed just to fall into a coughing fit. . . . "Ah, so that happened, huh. I do remember being clashing with the beaters and then taking a bludger into the back. . . ."
"You lost control," said Quinn, snapping his book close, "you were too aggressive — no, you were plain reckless. There's a reason why chasers work in a three-man squad."
"Hmm," said Eddie, avoiding commenting on the subject, "how long was I out?"
"It's been thirty hours since your crash."
"Did we win?"
Quinn silently stared at Eddie for a good few moments before sighing in answer, "Barons won. They say it was a blowout."
"They?"
". . . . I wasn't at the game."
"Ah — you were here, huh. . . . It must be serious."
"It was and wasn't — you could've died on the spot, but because you held on, Madam Pomfrey was able to patch you up. It was either all or nothing."
Eddie laughed into another coughing fit, "Ah, it hurts. . . . of course, I held on — my life is too precious for me to let go of it."
Quinn smiled just a bit, staring at Eddie. "You look like a mummy with the bandages all over you."
"Hmm, I'm sure rocking this look. . . . also, I've been coughing here for a while, why are you just sitting here, can you call Madam Pomfrey? My throat is really hurting."
"You will be fine," said Quinn, "you slept with your mouth open." He took waved his hand, and Eddie felt a soothing feeling in his throat. "I'll give you a potion later; that will fix you up completely."
Eddie stared at Quinn's empty hand and smiled before going back to staring at the ceiling. "When do I get out of here?"
"You'll be back to normal in three to four days. Madam Pomfrey will discharge you out of here in a week."
Eddie groaned at the thought of staying in the hospital wing for a week under the vigilant eye of prison warden Pomfrey.
"You should rest; you really look like shit," said Eddie, "I'll be fine and go back to the dorm to get some sleep."
"I'll be fine—"
"You're too ugly for me to look at, so you should go."
Quinn faulted for a second at the blatant disrespect even though he had just spent an entire day by the bedside.
"I will inform Madam Pomfrey; she'll perform a check-up," said Quinn getting up with a sigh, "Marcus will be coming next to keep you company."
"He doesn't have to do that."
"He doesn't have to, but he wants to, so don't complain and just lay there. If we leave you alone, you'll get bored out of your mind and try to do something stupid."
"Even I can behave, you know?!"
"Sure, you can."
With that, Quinn left, leaving Eddie alone for the first time since his accident. Eddie sighed and stared intently at the ceiling, glared at the ceiling, trying to hold it back, but he couldn't.
"Fuck, we lost. . . . and I wasn't even there. . . . fuck. . . lost."
Poppy entered the curtained-off bed and saw that her patient had red eyes, trembling lower lip and chin as if holding something back.
"Are you crying?" she asked.
"No! You're crying!"
"What?" she uttered before moving closer while thinking if Eddie had hit his head a little too hard.
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- (Scene Break) -
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"Sorry to keep all of you waiting," said Quinn sitting down behind his desk in the AID office. It was a few hours after he had left the hospital wing, and he had freshened up and was back to his usual self.
He looked up at the six people in front of him and smiled, "To start this off, I would like to thank all of you for all the hard work that you did for the past few months. It was because of your constant efforts that our quidditch tournament became as big of a thing as it did and proceeded as smoothly it did."
Daphne Greengrass, Tracey Davis, Susan Bones, Hannah Abbot, Fred, and Geroge Weasley sat in front of Quinn, the students Quinn had hired to help him with the tournament.
"Ms. Bones and Ms. Abbot," said Quinn to the Hufflepuff group in the room, "your efforts in maintaining the sales of merchandise were a great help to the tournament. The sales were more than enough to cover all the day-to-day costs needed to run the tournament. Your performance was outstanding, and the fact that you handled everything on your own for most of the time showed how capable you were. . . . please extend my gratitude to the students working under you."
The two Hufflepuff girls smiled and nodded in appreciation. While the work had been tough, they had a lot of fun after getting used to it — over that, their popularity and status in Hogwarts had taken a jump.
"Now, Daphne and Tracey," said Quinn to the Slytherin group in the room, "how do I even start. . . . if you two weren't part of this — I'm pretty sure I would've been big, big trouble. The amount of work you guys put in was tremendous. Daphne, you were in contact with ten teams which were seventy people — the number of problems you solved for me was life-saving. And, Tracey, your job was even tougher — the number of unsavory letters you got really made me realize the number of shitty people out there; thank you for handling everything so well."
Daphne gracefully nodded while Tracey beamed with pride. Both of their jobs were pretty time-consuming, and now with hindsight, Quinn would've contracted more people for the job the two Slytherin did alone.
"To thank you for all that time you devoted week after week, I would like to thank you with a reward for your hard work," he said and levitated four rectangle coupons of parchment into the hands of the girls.
"What is this??" asked Hannah.
"In your hands are all-you-can-buy coupons for Madam Touswade's at Horizont Alley."
" " " "Madam Touswade!!" " " " All four girls in the room exclaimed at the same time. It was the premier store for woman's fashion in the country, and having an all-you-can-buy coupon was
"Uh-huh," smiled Quinn, "you can avail any service from there, and they will send the bill to me. You don't have to feel shy so go nuts if you feel like it. The coupon is good till you another three years; as such, you don't have to go right now and can use the coupon when you actually need it."
The girls stared at the ornately printed coupons in their hands with amazement.
"Well, I hope you like it. If you don't, I can always switch it with a hefty amount of coin for you to use."
"No, thank you," replied Susan while the other girls nodded.
Quinn looked at the Weasly twins and just smiled at the Gryffindor group in the room. He wordlessly took out one stack of parchment and one of paper before handing it to the twin brothers.
The brothers stared at Quinn, then at each other, before reading their respective stacks. For a couple of pages, the twins nodded and continued to read, and at a certain page, their eyes widened.
"A-Are you serious?" "I-Is this amount real?!"
"Oh, it's real," smiled Quinn, "I will invest that amount in your shop. From what you have pitched to and I've calculated, the amount I'm promising will keep your shot afloat for a year even if you don't sell a single thing — everything from store rent to research and production can and will be covered by the promised amount."
The twins dumbfoundedly stared at the paper. Not only was the amount immense, but Quinn was only asking a very reasonable volume of share of the shop in return.
"If you flip a few more pages. It also says that I will re-invest my part of profits back into the shop for the first three years to support the growth," said Quinn and leaned ahead with his arms crossed over the table, "so what do you two say? Is this enough of a reward for your services? Am I to look forward to working with you two as part-owner of the future Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes?"
"Yeah—" "— Absolutely."
"Alright then, read the papers over a couple times and sign the one drafted in parchments and bring it back to me; I'll sign it, and then it will be one West and two Weasleys — three W-s with my W hidden behind you two W-s."
" "O-Okay." "
Quinn pulled back and gazed at the four people and found that all were a little too engrossed in their rewards, so he dismissed them so that they could take it in.
As they left, Quinn called out to Tracey.
"Yes?" she asked.
"Eddie is awake," said Quinn, "you can go see him if you want."
Tracey's eyes widened. She nodded and wordlessly left the room with a bit of hurry in her steps. Her destination had changed from the common room to the hospital wing.
With everyone gone and Quinn left alone in the office, the smile that had been present the entire time he talked to the six members drained away.
There was only one more thing left on the docket for today, it was the most important thing, and he was going to take care of it today itself.
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"That was a great party yesterday," said one of the Treacherous Baron's beaters, "those Durmstrang sure know how to party."
"Uh-huh, the amount of firewhiskey they had was insane," said the other beater.
The two beaters were Hogwarts students who were backup beaters for Slytherin as the starting beaters from every Hogwarts house team went with their house captains. As such, the other six teams had to do with backup beaters and then some.
"It was worth it," said the first beater.
"It sure was," the other one agreed, "we sure made a lot of money."
They had a bet a lot of money that Treacherous Barons would win and that Eddie Carmichael would score less than a certain total, and the two had bet on a number that was not statistically probable given Eddie Carmichael's performance — but their bet had come true in the form of Eddie not playing for a large portion of the, and thus they had a made money from outstanding odds.
They reached the dungeon stair as they were going upwards, and when they looked up, they froze.
"I heard you made a lot of money."
The two Slytherin beaters immediately felt their throat dry up and body heat up with cold sweat drip down their backs. Quinn West was sitting on the steps, with his elbows resting on his knees, and was staring at them with half-lidded eyes.
"Money is a great temptation," he said, "it incites greed, and believe me when I say that I know what greed feels like," the hollow look in Quinn's eyes scared the Slytherin beaters, "and I know what you felt when you decided to give in to the greed. . . . it was so simple, wasn't it? One night after supper, you were enjoying that stashed away firewhiskey and how it's your last year and were talking about what to do after — how it would be great to travel for a bit and only if you guys had the money."
The two started to tremble in their shoes as Quinn spoke in a flat tone. Everyone knew that Quinn West and Eddie Carmichael were as close as brothers, and right now, they were face-to-face with Quinn West.
"Then it struck like the Eureka! You were sitting on coin multiplying well, so you decided to place bets on the final game — the game in which you were playing and could. . . . manipulate it," they saw Quinn stand up and climb down, "it's just that you went a little far in that manipulation — you gave a little too much into greed and let it take control over it."
"I-I don't know what you're talking about, m-mate."
"West, look, we don't have this."
"Yeah, mate. It was just an accident."
"The crash had nothing to do with us."
Quinn reached the last step, and a deep voice came from him, "I never said that you did." His hands went up and grabbed their temples with a loud snap; he gripped so hard that veins popped out from his arms.
"W-What are you—"
"S-Stop — Stop!"
They tried to protest, but before they could do anything more, their eyes rolled up, and the two guys went soundless. Their bodies remained stiff, and they remained standing, but their minds had been made to disable a lot of its functionality — namely conscious thought.
Quinn stared at the two as his magic entered their bodies, "I'm going to exact some revenge, okay?"
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Quinn sat near the edge of the great lake, looking over the calm surface of the water. Coincidentally, the spot he sat on was the same he had laid injured from the Aquatic vault, trying to heal himself while dementors descended above from above. He looked to the side at the trees where he had seen his past self heal himself and cast a Patronus for protection.
Quinn had exacted revenge on the two beaters, as he stated.
Now, whenever they would hear or spoke the word quidditch, they would violently hurl out their stomach contents and shit from behind without warning. Quinn cursed them such that while they would be fine till the end of this school year, but the second they graduated, the curse would take hold of them.
"Good luck traveling or going out at all or talking to anyone," he said with no regret. Of course, he had erased their memories of the incident, erasing any evidence from him.
Quinn sighed and rubbed his temple. He originally wanted to inflict the same injuries that Eddie suffered back on them by beating to an inch of their life, but his self-control decided against it and just went something that would haunt them for a very long time.
'Was my betting the reason. . . .' thought Quinn, before shaking that thought off. He didn't want to go into the direction.
Flutter, Flutter. . . . a raven landed right now in front of him.
"A raven," said Quinn, "what's the deal with these ravens? I've been seeing so many of them these days. Is there a season or something, I don't know about?"
Flutter. . . . Quinn heard another flutter of wings and saw another raven land to his side.
Then another one landed.
"Huh."
One after another, ravens started descending from the sky, landing on the ground and the trees to his side. He looked up and saw a murder of ravens flying above him.
Quinn hurriedly stood up, and even though he knew this was an abnormal situation and something was off, he couldn't remove his eyes from the sky. The murder of ravens that flew above his head was flying in a circle — a ring — and from through the center of that raven ring, Quinn could see the half-moon hanging in the sky.
A blood half-moon.
Beat, beat, beat. . . . Quinn's hand went over his chest, and he could feel his heartbeat faster with no fault of his own.
'What?'
Quinn looked down at his hands, and he could feel the magic inside his move. He wasn't doing anything, yet his magic moved on his.
'Something is coming.'
Quinn could feel it from within that something was changing in his body and that he couldn't stop it. What happening to him wasn't the start — it was already the end.
As Quinn was looking at his hands, his eyes caught the first raven that had landed right in front of him. The human's stone-grey eyes met with the raven's pitch black as the bird and human stared at each other.
Then it happened.
The ravens from all around him spread their wings and flew towards and formed a dome of flying black around him, layers upon layers of birds of death covered Quinn.
There was a sharp pulsating burst of white light from within the black dome before it died down. When the ravens flew away, what remained wasn't a human but a raven standing on the ground.
The raven was the biggest a raven could be, and if you looked closer, the pitch-black feathers had a purple sheen to them under a certain light. The last thing that made this raven different was the eyes — they weren't black, but a deep stone-grey color.
The raven spread its wings, raised its claws, cawed loudly, and pecked the ground before going still. Suddenly, the raven twisted and turned at wild, unnatural angles, and not long after, a human was standing in its place.
Quinn stared at his hands in shock, surprised, and a whole bunch of emotions flashed on his face.
"Holy shit! Holy Shit!! HOLY SHIT!!!"
Quinn West was an Animagus.
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Quinn West - Anger Investor - Caw! Caw! Caw!
Eddie Carmichael - Mummified - I'm not crying! *Sniff*
George and Fred - Weasley twins - Just secured funding.
Four Girls - Hufflepuff and Slytherin - There's shopping in the future.
Slytherin Beaters - Cursed - Future seems tough for them.
FictionOnlyReader - Author - It was an internal Hogwarts conspiracy.
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