Déjà Vu [Harry Potter]

Chapter Seven : Double Trouble

Trouble started the week before Halloween. As if teachers had come to a general agreement, work piled up on students proportionally to the overall excitement as Halloween grew nearer and nearer. Elias had to suffer an abysmal amount of work as well. There were so many things to do before Durmstrang and Beaux-Bâtons arrived!

Firstly, the fourth and sixth years started to study antidotes in Potion Class. They were taught how to separate the constituents of a poison. Elias had never practiced such a thing. Since he was supposed to show skills stronger than the Hogwarts students, Professor Snape gave him a ton of homework and tests to make sure that he was up to his impossibly high standards.

Had Elias only have to deal with Professor Snape's snarky remarks, he'd have managed fine. But Professor Sprout had started giving him homework as well, and he still had to take care of the plants of Greenhouse number one. In addition, as if he needed a busier life, the young man needed to help out his father with the Triwizard Tournament preparations. It was nothing to complicated, luckily, but he still had to give a chunk of his time to make sure everything would be ready.

By that, he meant that every student would have a place to eat, study and sleep. Hogwarts Castle had to be cleaned form inside out to please the foreign students. It was driving Elias insane that it wasn't even interesting things, like stuff for the first task or something, that he had to deal with. His father refused to talk about any interesting gossip -or anything, really, about the Triwizard champions or tasks.

And, as if the amount of work from his apprenticeship wasn't enough, Elias was about to start his tutoring with Marcus Flint. They'd managed to set a time where both were free over the last few weeks. The first meeting was today, after Snape's second year class and Sprout's fourth year class.

It was then that trouble started. Having time before tutor and tutee were supposed to meet, Elias was helping out his father. He was coming back from the kitchens when he heard noise coming from his father's office. Knowing that Argus was working in his quarters, Elias decided to investigate and opened the door to two thieves.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

The familiar red heads lifted their freckled faces from the dangerous objects spread out on the desk. Both grinned at the same time when they saw Elias. One of the twins hid a circular tool in his pocket.

"Put that back on the desk," ordered Elias as he crossed his arms. He leaned back on the closed door, blocking the only escape of the Weasley twins.

"Do what, now?" asked one of the boys.

"We're not mere thieves," refuted the other, "right, Fred?"

"Yep," Fred answered as he took what looked like a telescope in his hands. "We're only getting back what was stolen from us."

Elias pinched the bridge of his nose. He tried not to sigh. This scene was giving him such a terrible sense of déjà vu. And last time, it hadn't ended well for him.

"You're not going to let us pass, aren't you?" asked George with a big smile. Fred took something out of his pocket.

Elias took a step back, his instinct screaming that they were dangerous. Yet, he had to stand his ground. There was no way that they were stealing from his father's office. There was a reason why those objects had been confiscated. They had no right to be here! How had they even manage to get in?

"No," Elias managed to answer. "You're not allowed in here."

"Yet, you can't stop us," answered Fred. "You're not a teacher, technically."