The Kind Hufflepuff

Chapter 15: Knockback Jinx

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The Kind Hufflepuff - First Year
Chapter Fifteen: Knockback Jinx
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In the month following the existence of Squealer, a name that came from a muggle book that Greta was reading. He was an incredibly talkative pig and had grown a habit of following the small girl around though Cali suspected that this was primarily because Bas, her cat, absolutely hated the squealing creature.

Originally, she had been incredibly worried that Squealer would miss being a desk but anytime she fed him a cupcake, she would come to the happy conclusion that he was content. Surprisingly, none of the professors were ever against the existence of the small creature and Slughorn had been enormously impressed by her skills in Transfiguration and had even offered her 10 points.

Some of the students were attempting to use different spells to create their own pets, the Ravenclaws were most successful though many guessed that the older students were performing the spells in hopes of gaining house points. Because of this, there were a myriad of animals, like ducks and pigs, that were running around the castle and some of the professors would change the creatures back into their original form if they noticed one of the animals were moving freely throughout the castle which resulted in rather random items being placed throughout the castle.

Cali spent much of her time in Defense Against the Dark Arts worrying about Wilkes and Squealer, as he would threaten to kill the small creature so that he could eat him for breakfast. He seemed to enjoy the amusement regarding the frustration that she shared, watching as her face would turn red and her fists turn white.

"Can anyone tell me about the knockback jinx?" The professor announced, sighing when nobody raised their hand and looked around the room. "Nobody? That is not good considering you guys had to write a paper about the jinx which is due at the end of class. Mr. Wilkes, can you answer for us?"

"It's a jinx used often when you're dueling. It causes the target to be pushed backwards."

"Correct, Mr. Wilkes." The professor nodded, taking out their wand and twirling it around as he looked around the room.

"Mr. Snape, can you tell me what the incantation is?"

"Flipendo," He announced, straightening in his chair as he pushed his hair back.

"Correct. Now, this is the wand movement." He twirled his wand, slowly creating a check mark with a small 'u' at the highest point of the wand. Once he had repeated this a few times, he gestured towards us and said, "Now it is your turn! Please try it on your partner."

Everybody stood up, getting a safe distance as they took out their wand. "Maybe I should try this out on your disgusting creature," Wilkes snapped as Cali rolled her eyes, grateful that he was sleeping under the desk and out of aim.

"What's the fun in that?" Cali asked, "It's the perfect opportunity to use the spell on me."

"I can use a spell on you whenever I want."

"The same goes for me and yet..." Cali replied, spinning her wand before pointing it at him, quickly performing the movement before shouting, "FLIPENDO!"

It was like there had been a rush of wind, pushing Wilkes to the ground in surprise before he quickly jumped up from his seat, glaring at the girl. "You managed to get me once, but you won't be able to do it again," Wilkes growled. "FLIPENDO!"

Cali was pushed back, slamming into the ground and ignored the burn on her hands from landing on the cement, waking up Squealer who ran towards her, snorting in her face in concern as Cali petted the small creature for a few moments. "It's okay, I'm okay. Now go back under the desk," He looked at her for a moment, not trusting her decision before slowly going back under the desk.

"Good job Mr. Wilkes and Miss. Higgs. 5 points to Slytherin and Hufflepuff for successfully knocking down your opponents, feel free to sit back down and do whatever until the end of class."

At the end of class, the professor announced that it was time to turn in their 16 inches of parchment about the knockback jinx and Cali leaned down to grab her notebook when she noticed shredded paper all over the ground that Squealer had clearly caused. "Oh no," Cali muttered, grabbing her entire bag and ruffling through it to see what he had gotten a hold of when suddenly Wilkes growled, slammed his books as he took out his wand, pointing it towards Squealer.

"Mr. Wilkes! What is the meaning of this!" The professor shouted, walking up to the pair when he noticed the wand was seemingly pointed at the Hufflepuff.

"Her smelly piece of garbage ruined my paper!" He growled, his face red from anger as his eyes were practically turned into slits.

"5 points from Hufflepuff for not keeping a close enough eye on her pig but Mr. Wilkes. It's alright, you can turn in your paper when we get back from break. I understand that this was a mistake," He growled, shaking his head before turning to Cali, his eyes lit with anger.

"I will get my revenge," He threatened before storming out of the classroom. Shortly after class was dismissed, her two friends came up to the girl.

"Are you alright?" John asked, wrapping his arms around her.

"I'm fine. I'm just worried about Squealer," Cali mumbled, hugging the boy back.

After dinner, they were walking back to the Hufflepuff common room with Greta and John when Squealer began shrieking loudly causing the group to turn around to see that the small pig that had been trailing behind them was now slowly transforming into a desk.

Cali rushed to the small creature, watching as his legs became wooden and his body grew into the familiar desk from the previous month. Tears had filled her eyes as she walked up to the desk, rubbing the desk slowly as the tears began to fall. She ignored the laughter from around her, the Hufflepuff students that had paused on their journey back to the common room who recognized the girl for the pig that was no longer around and watched as she cried while hugging the desk.

They all noticed the Slytherin boys and Greta watched as Wilkes slowly placed his wand in his pocket, abruptly turning around to get away from the situation which she thought was weird as he would typically stand there to watch Cali's agony in amusement. Greta shook her head, slowly walking up to the smaller girl as she grabbed John's wrist, dragging him towards her before they both engulfed her in a hug.

"They changed him back, he died," Cali finally whispered into their ears as she melted into their hug.

"He's not dead," John argued. "He's just a desk again."

Cali shook her head, "They killed him when they changed him. He's gone forever," Cali sniffled before pulling herself away from her friends and running to the common room.

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A/N: Are you guys as annoyed with Wilkes as I am? Like boy, what the heck are you doing? He's being such a little jerk for no reason. Like just because he ruined your paper doesn't mean you need to do this? But don't worry, by the end of the book he'll start to leave our little Hufflepuff alone. I'm sure many of you are getting annoyed with the fact that she hasn't gotten him in trouble yet...

Also, Regulus is returning in the next chapter which I'm really excited about because Regulus was meant to be a bigger character in this book but I just couldn't get it to make much sense since he's not at Hogwarts and all of their conversations are happening in a fireplace which is still happening. But we're getting awfully close to the end of this book (it's already December) so we'll be getting Regulus so much more after this part. The Marauders also will be getting a bigger focus in Year 2 which is really exciting.

Sirius will also be in the next chapter so it's basically just a big Black family reunion. But... Sirius is returning home for the first time since getting sorted...