16,822Chris was pissed off. Why?
It had started with the asinine sorting ceremony. His grumpiness had abated more or less after the sun went down, and he finally woke up properly. The more he saw of the wizard's society, the more he disliked it.
It was full of ignorant idiots who followed the human schedule instead of normal witches. The main problem he had with even going to the school was that they had a strict six to ten schedule, whereas he had a twelve to three one. Hermione might get by because of her parents, but it was going to be a bitch waking up in the morning.
And Chris really didn't want to change his schedule to keep a daytripper pacified.
After the mix up in the sorting (where the teacher called his birth name that he had abandoned a long time ago) Chris waited patiently for his name to be called.
"Christopher Tenebrae."
He blinked. He wasn't aware that he had a last name.
Still, he went under the hat and waited.
Interesting. We've never had a true Inderlander in our school before. Try not to destroy too much, will you?
I make no promises if people wake me up early.
Fair enough, please, try not to summon too many demons here. Hogwarts isn't as young as she used to be.
You're built on four different ley lines and you're worried about me summoning demons? You should be more concerned what sort of charms I brought with me than that.
Not my problem. Give the goat a heart attack in...
"Slytherin!"
Chris grinned. Slytherin would be perfect, because it was in the dungeons and no one would look twice if he cursed people in the halls.
He sat next to Draco, who gave him a look.
"Should we warn the head of house about your morning habits?"
"Only if you're dumb enough to wake me. I will warn you lot now, anyone stupid enough to wake me before eleven is going to be cursed. I don't give a damn what your status is, I do not wake up before then," said Chris looking at his new housemates.
They gave him a long look, not getting why he was even warning them.
Chris was awakened by another snake, who was shaking him roughly. It was a prefect from the looks of it.
He snarled, and cursed the boy with a rather nasty case of boils.
"I warned you already, no one wakes me up before noon and gets away with it unscathed," he snapped.
"You'll be late for class," said the prefect annoyed.
"I'm not a stinking daytripper. And if you try to make me one I will be very hard to deal with later," answered Chris, not bothering to shower.
He used his charm to wash the grime off, and headed down to breakfast.
"Don't bother. Breakfast has been over for five minutes," said Draco, catching him on the stairs.
"Like I give a damn. Only a fool tries to make an Inderlander into a Human," snapped Chris.
Chris asked the Bloody Baron where the kitchens were, and Draco left him to deal with McGonagall. He wasn't going to take a hit because Chris couldn't wake up in the mornings.
Halfway into the first period, McGonagall came into the kitchens unamused. Apparently she finally learned where he had been for the past half hour.
Chris was clutching the coffee cup like it was his last drink on Earth.
With the look McGonagall was giving him at the moment, there was a very good chance it was.
"Why are you not in class Mr. Tenebrae?" she asked frostily.
He leveled a glare of his own at her.
"Do I looking like a damn daytripper? Real witches never wake up before noon."
"I don't know what you mean by daytripper, and the term witch only applies to females. Fifteen points from Slytherin."
"Whatever. I'll have Dray tell me the homework assignment. Just don't count on me agreeing to wake up before noon."
"Five points for backtalk. Now are you going to class or not?"
"Let me finish this cup," Chris growled back.
When he finally got into the classroom, and learned what they were doing, he was less than amused.
"You dragged me out of bed and from the kitchens to learn how to make needles from matchsticks. Are you #$%^% serious?"
"Five points for language!" she growled.
"Like I care! What moron decided the wake up call around here?!"
Which really set the teacher off. McGonagall started to harp about how these traditions had been in place long before he was born, and he wasn't going to be changing the schedule just because he wouldn't get up in the morning. The Slytherins had been highly impressed that Chris managed to get under her skin so easily. He Gryffindors, not so much.
Draco saddled up next to him once the class was over.
"How many points did you lose for standing up to her anyway?"
"Accumulative total, fifty easy. Is it true Snape favors us? And gives points for no actual reason?"
"Absolutely!"
"Then it won't matter. I guarantee you by next time this year, I won't have to get up before noon. Otherwise I'll bring this castle down on that old codger."
"Which one?"
"The one who is clearly color blind."
"...Mind if I watch?"
"Not at all Dray, not at all!"
Their next class was Binns, which Chris used to catch up on his sleep. Perhaps he could arrange his schedule to have History for the first class?
After lunch, Chris was finally awake enough to go find Snape. The Potions teacher, while less than amused by the fact that Chris was most definitely a night owl like himself, found the fact that a Slytherin had told off McGonagall hilarious. Which was the only reason he didn't mind the loss of nearly sixty points on the first day.
He gave that many to Slytherin during a class, easily.
Though he did tell Chris to tone down the hexes he shot at the people who tried to wake him up before ten.
After that incident, Chris took the proactive approach and tried to calmly explain to his morning teachers that he was a night owl by nature, and was quite literally unable to wake up before at least ten. While Flitwick and Sprout were sympathetic and agreed to his suggestion to sit in with the Puffs and Claws (who were lucky enough to have classes after ten) McGonagall was not so helpful. Even when she learned that Hermione Granger, her new favorite student, had the same problem.
So Chris tried another tactic. He had marked who was Inderlander and who wasn't in three days. He wasn't surprised to find over half the school population was either a Earth or Ley Line witch in disguise.
Most of those were in fact muggleborns. Once he outlined his idea, the rest of the Inderlanders finally stood up to the outdated system.
By the time Halloween came around, Chris had lost a total of 5,000 points from Slytherin, mostly because of McGonagall. Snape could honestly care less, because the Inderlander-Wizard line had caused him a few problems in the past.
Chris already knew Snape was an Earth witch himself. There was a reason none of his classes were before ten. Thanks to Chris, he could finally sleep in while the prefects dealt with the younger children. His temper around accidents had shown a marked improvement.
He was enjoying the feast with Hermione (who in a petty spite of revenge against Ron had decided to eat with the Slytherins) when Quirrel burst in ranting about some troll.
Most of the purebloods panicked, but the Inderlanders mostly shrugged it off. Chris had been very upset to learn that hardly any of the Inderlanders in the school had been able to keep up with their true magic. Thankfully he was able to get them up to speed.
Dumbledore came up with the idea to return to the dorms, which caused Chris to protest, loudly.
"Are you #$%^&*( serious?! There is a troll on the loose in the halls, and your bright idea is to have the entire school populace roaming the halls? And what about us Slytherins?! Our dorm is IN the dungeons for crying out loud!"
The Ravenclaws applauded his wisdom, while the Gryffindors looked shocked he had worked out something that obvious.
"Five points for language!" yelled McGonagall over the uproar.
Chris grinned. McGonagall had it out for him ever since he hit her with the drunken hex one morning when she had a prefect drag him out of bed. The two of them were in an ongoing war since day one.
It didn't help that he had contempt for her class once he realized they wouldn't be doing anything worthwhile until third year. It really didn't help when, in a fit of annoyance, Chris demonstrated a ley line charm that worked better than most wand work.
Snape had found her rants hilarious, and was not so secretly enjoying her rage.
Dumbledore, when confronted by such logic, was forced to keep the children in the great hall while the teachers looked for the troll.
They left the prefects to watch the younger students.
Which turned out to be a big mistake, since ten minutes after they went to deal with the troll there was a loud banging noise on the doors.
The Terror twins went out a side door people didn't see, and came back looking pale.
"It's the troll! It's trying to get in!" said Fred.
Chris stood up, and slammed his hands on the table.
"To hell with this shit. I am not going to let this damn troll cause any more ruckus! No matter what you guys hear, don't open the door until I tell you."
Chris went out the door the twins held open, and a minute later there was a roar of rage from the troll. Everyone could feel the power through the door, but they were too terrified to open it.
Chris slammed the great hall doors open, and everyone could see the troll, quite clearly dead. The head was separated from it's body!
"I hate trolls."
"Chris...what did you just do?" asked Hermione slowly.
"Hermione, I deal with demons. I make their charms for them. Do you really think I would survive this long without having some black charms for myself? Even dead Vampires don't bother me unless they want their heads ripped off."
Seeing their stares, Chris shrugged.
"Besides, the ley lines that run through this place haven't been tapped since the last wards were put up at least a hundred years ago. The charms might be a bit overpowered when I tap them."
Hermione sweatdropped.
"Chris, you are certifiably insane."
"Why thank you. At least I'm interesting!"
Dumbledore and the others came down, saw the hall doors open, and Chris out of his seat.
"You people are #$%^&* idiots. At this rate, I really don't see a reason to come back next year."
"Mr. Tenebrae, what is the meaning of this?!" said McGonagall.
"I live with Vampires and Weres. Do you really think a troll can stand against someone who deals with demons and can tap a line without a familiar?"
"Ten points from Slytherin!" snapped McGonagall.
"Whatever. Not like I care about your stupid point war anyway."
During the first Quidditch match of the season, Chris became bored with the entire thing within ten minutes of the games start. At least, until he realized that the players came far, far too close for his comfort. He set down his grimiore of ley line charms (he was picking out which ones to teach the others that week) and stood up.
That was when all hell broke loose. Anything that flew in the air started going after him like he was a magnet. Chris growled, and grabbed a potion vial he kept in his vest.
He downed it in a second, and soon took flight. He didn't even feel the pain of transformation anymore. His red tailed hawk form (which had been a total pain to make, since he had to bribe a Were who worked in the zoo for the tail feathers he needed) weaved around the bludgers and the like.
He enjoyed the look on McGonagall's face when she realized it was Chris who was avoiding the bludgers. Finally he figured out who was behind the spell, and dive bombed Quirrel. Snape had enough common sense to duck, realizing Chris would never attack him.
Quirrel didn't duck fast enough, and felt the bludgers plow into his stomach.
Chris flapped twice, then decided he had enough of this nonsense and went flying around the castle.
Later Draco told him that not only was Quirrel behind the bludgers that nearly killed him, but he apparently had Moldy Shorts in the back of his head. That little tidbit was the talk of the school for weeks.
When Christmas came, Chris was among those who went home. Hogwarts was boring, and more importantly so behind the times it pathetic. He needed internet and cheeseburgers, stat!
(He had unsuccessfully tried to convert the house elves to real food like pizza, burgers and salads. They simply couldn't figure out how to treat the beef to turn it into hamburgers. He fully planned to bring some from home in hopes to change that.)
He had already told them of his return, and knew that the vamp in charge of the church was planning a party.
Right before he got on the train, Dumbledore started towards it. Hagrid had started early on the mead, and had finally spilled the fact that the so called Boy-who-lived had changed his name.
The fact that Chris still visited him, despite being a Slytherin, didn't actually bother him. Chris was one of the nicest Slytherins in the castle. Chris even demonstrated how to stir up a charm, which Hagrid didn't understand until Chris had him join his unofficial Earth Witch class.
Hagrid, due to his unique nature as half giant, was an Earth Witch. Chris was one of the few people in the school who could teach others how to stir up their own charms or tap a line without killing yourself.
He was also the only person in the school who had thought to buy the ingredients needed in bulk. Snape had sat in on a few of those lessons, and had to admit Chris was a hell of a teacher.
Even though McGonagall was still spitting nails over the fact that Chris could not only turn into an animal without years of study (and no registering with the Ministry because it was only temporary) but that he could transform into any animal he wanted provided he had a piece of the animal in question.
She had sat through that class, and had been rather annoyed to learn that because of her status as animagus, she was unable to change her species. However, that didn't mean that should she get fur from a larger cat, she could use it in an Earth charm.
Dumbledore had unsuccessfully tried to get the classes stopped, but since the classes were more of a study group for those with unusual magic, there was nothing he could legally do.
Dumbledore was going to try and get Chris to look up to him. He had no idea that Chris had his opinion of the man already set. He would never listen to Dumbledore unless someone forced him to.
Someone who was stupid enough to allow children in the halls with a mindless killing machine on the loose clearly needed to have his head examined.
Chris was grinning. He was finally home, and the first thing he asked for was a burger and fries. Since there weren't any human children in the church, he was able to drown his fries in ketchup.
Since Hogwarts was so out of date with the times, Chris had been able to eat tomatoes with every meal. Hermione had been delighted to find that because of the outdated system, tomatoes had never been banned even during the Turn.
If there was one thing they weren't going to change, it was the tomatoes. Humans wouldn't touch them since they were the main reason that Inderlanders came out of the darkness. Even though the virus that caused the devastation was extinct permanently, humans wouldn't go near tomatoes out of principle.
Finding anything with tomatoes in it inside a human friendly restaurant was almost impossible. (Read: extremely impossible outside of an Inderlander only restaurant. Asking for ketchup for your fries was liable to get you kicked out and banned.)
Draco had been rather shocked when he learned how much Chris loved tomatoes. He had commented on it, and clearly didn't know why Chris only had them for special occasions. Even when Hermione, who was the only other first year Ley Line witch in the school, explained about the virus that nearly wiped out the humans he still didn't get it.
Chris chalked it up to culture differences, and left it at that.