The day that everyone who'd gone away for the holidays had returned, something odd happened to the suits of armour that lined the hallways of Hogwarts. They started at certain points of the day, where the halls were packed with rushing students, belting out random lyrics of different Muggles songs: some of which were not appropriate for the younger students to hear (the more mature ones tended to play when sixth and seventh years and teachers were walking by). The reason for why or how this happened, no one could figure out. Flitwick and McGonagall spent all of their free time that day trying to get it to stop, which only made the clanky suits start screeching the words rather than somewhat pleasantly singing them.

"LET IT GOOOO-"

"WAKE ME UP INSIIIIIIIDE-"

"-AAAAAAAAAAAAA-"

Many Muggleborns actually tried requesting songs for the armour to sing, which sometimes worked, and sometimes was ignored.

"Can you try some lyrics from the Muffin Song?"

"How about the last few lines from Back in Black, AC/DC?"

"Maybe something from Mother Mother or Panic! At The Disco?"

"Listen here, you bisexual space rock-"

This baffled those born from wizarding-only families and a few half-bloods, but most of those with one Muggle parent joined in.

It was not a quiet first day back to say the least.

About three weeks after term had started back up (and the singing suits of armour had finally been fully silenced), the Gryffindors (and a few of the non-Gryffindor Hermits who'd snuck in to study with their friends) heard someone audibly struggling to climb through the portrait hole. Iskall and Grian looked at each other questioningly and went to check on whoever was there and emerged half-dragging Neville Longbottom, whose legs seemed to be bound together with invisible rope. Once the pair let go, Neville immediately face-planted onto the floor.

"You alright, dude?" Iskall asked over the uproar of laughter from the other Gryffindors, helping the poor boy to his feet (very awkwardly). Percy Weasley started scolding those who had laughed while Harry, Ron, and Hermione rushed over to help Neville. Hermione muttered the countercurse while asking what had happened.

Trembling, he answered, "Malfoy. I met him outside the library, he said he'd been looking for someone to practice that on."

"Go to Professor McGonagall!" Hermione urged. "Report him!"

Grian, who rarely agreed with Hermione, nodded furiously. Neville, on the other hand, shook his head.

"I don't want more trouble." He mumbled sadly.

"You've got to stand up to him, Neville! He's used to walking all over people, but that's no reason to lie down in front of him and make it easier." Ron, for once, said something smart.

Iskall gave Ron a small thumbs up from behind Neville and mouthed, "Good!"

The Hermits had taken liberty to explain certain things to Ron that he clearly didn't understand: like feelings. The redhead had asked for help after he'd nearly gotten Hermione killed (he wasn't the direct reason, but he felt pretty guilty). They'd explained how the way certain things were said could sound a lot more offensive than intended, which helped Ron not constantly make everyone want to punch/hex him in the face.

Wait, we've gotten off-topic again. Back to the now:

"There's no need to tell me that I'm not brave enough to be in Gryffindor, Malfoy's already done that." Neville choked out, taking Ron's words the wrong way.

Harry pulled out something from his robe pocket: a Chocolate Frog, probably one he'd gotten for Christmas. He handed it to Neville, who looked like he was about to cry, and said, "You're worth twelve of Malfoy. The Sorting Hat chose you for Gryffindor, didn't it? Besides, not even the people in Malfoy's own House like him: just ask Doc, he has to share a dorm with him. He's told me he'd rather sleep in their common room than his dorm if Malfoy's there."

Bdubs, who'd just walked away from his pile of homework, replied, "Can confirm: most Slytherins hate Malfoy. It's just the mean ones that hang 'round him."

Neville's lips twitched upward into a weak smile as he unwrapped the chocolate. "Thanks, all of you... I think I'll go to bed... Harry, d'you want the card, you collect them, don't you?"

As Neville walked away, Harry stared at the Famous Wizard card. Grian looked over his shoulder to see-

"Dumbledore again. He was the first one I ever-" Harry gasped as he turned the card around, scaring the three Hermits around him. Harry looked up at Ron and Hermione excitedly, forgetting about Bdubs, Iskall, and Grian.

"I've found him!" He whispered. "I've found Flamel! I told you I'd read the name somewhere before, I read it on the train coming here- listen to this: 'Dumbledore is particularly famous for his defeat of the dark wizard Grindelwald in 1945, for the discovery of the twelve uses of dragon's blood, and his work on alchemy with his partner, Nicolas Flamel'!"

"Who?" Grian asked as Hermione asked them to stay there and ran up the steps to the girls' dorms. Harry and Ron jumped.

Ron blurted out, "We accidentally walked into the forbidden corridor and saw a three-headed dog that was guarding something to do with Nicolas Flamel!"

The Weasley's hands bolted up to his mouth in a panic. Harry gave him a "seriously?" look as the three Gryffindor Hermits looked at each other.

"Oh. Cool?" Iskall shrugged (seriously, how does someone react to that?) as Hermione rushed down the corridor, carrying an enormous, ancient, dusty book.

Still seeming as though the trio of Hermits were invisible, the bushy-haired brunette whispered excitedly, "I never thought to look in here! I got this weeks ago for a bit of light reading."

Grian and Iskall, who'd both been in the Ravenclaw Tower countless times and had seen Mumbo read some fairly large texts in the past few months, joined Ron on saying, "Light?"

Hermione just told them all to be quiet and continued frantically flipping through the brown-ish white pages, muttering to herself rapidly.

During the several minutes of Hermione looking through her gargantuan book, Bdubs asked Harry if this was normal for her, to which he responded with a dull, "Yeah, pretty much."

Finally, Hermione whispered louder than before so the others could hear, "I knew it, I knew it!"

"Are we allowed to speak yet?" said Ron grumpily, only to be ignored (Bdubs patted Ron's shoulder sympathetically).

"Nicolas Flamel-" she whispered dramatically,"-is the only known maker of the Sorcerer's Stone!"

The five boys stared at her blankly, clearly not having the effect Hermione had hoped for.

"The what?"

"The huh?"

"Oh, honestly, don't you read? Grian, I thought you were close friends with Mumbo, he'd ought to have told you about this at least once, he's the one who gave this to me. Look, read that... there." She pushed the book towards them, pointing at the particular section of the page, which read:

"The ancient study of alchemy is concerned with making the Sorcerer's Stone, a legendary substance with astonishing powers. The stone will transform any metal into pure gold. It also produces the Elixir of Life, which will make the drinker immortal.

There have been many reports of the Sorcerer's Stone over the centuries, but the only Stone currently in existence belongs to Nicolas Flamel, who celebrated his six hundred and sixty-fifth birthday last year, enjoys a quiet life in Devon with his wife, Perenelle (six hundred and fifty-eight)."

"See?" said Hermione once the boys had finished. "The dog must be guarding Flamel's Sorcerer's Stone! I bet he asked Dumbledore to keep it safe for him, because they're friends and he knew someone was after it! That's why he wanted the Stone out of Gringotts."

"A stone that makes gold and stops you from ever dying! No wonder Snape's after it! Anyone would want it." Harry deducted.

At the mention of Professor Snape wanting it, Iskall, Bdubs, and Grian became confused again as Ron replied, "And no wonder we couldn't find Flamel in that 'Study of Recent Developments in Wizardry'. He's not exactly recent if he's six hundred and sixty-five, is he?"

The three Hermits looked at each other awkwardly. 'Clearly we're all missing something.'

"I'm sorry, Professor Snape's after this thing?" Grian asked, raising an eyebrow. While Harry, Hermione, and Ron gave a full explanation about what they thought was going on, Iskall wondered why they'd started looking into this in the first place. If he'd (why did it feel wrong for him to say "he" in their own head?) come face-to-face with a troll, a three-headed dog, a very suspicious magic mirror that showed his deepest desires, and nearly been thrown off his broom via a teacher hexing it, he'd rather do the opposite: act like nothing ever happened and move on with life.

'Actually,' Iskall thought, scowling at the ground and half paying attention to Harry's story about his hexed broom. 'This seems kinda important. Why haven't they told any of the teachers? If Professor Snape is trying to steal something that's omega important, shouldn't someone like Dumbledore know? But they also don't seem to have enough proof for someone to believe them... This is really hard.'

"Earth to Iskall? Iskall?" Grian dragged out the Swede's name, pulling them out of his thoughts.

"Huh? Sorry, dozed off!" Iskall chuckled and rubbed the back of their neck. The two smaller Gryffindors snorted and started talking about what they'd just heard.

Impulse turned the corner from the Transfiguration classroom to see Tango yelling at a fourth year Gryffindor, with a sniffling Zed hiding behind the Ravenclaw.

"Slytherins aren't evil, just because they've got a few bad apples doesn't mean they're all like that!"

"What do you know? You're just a first year. By the time you're thirteen, that snake will abandon you and become obsessed with the Dark Ar-"

"Hey!! What's going on?" Impulse ran up and purposely interrupted the older student. Tango, who was glaring daggers at the mean Gryffindor, practically growled as he explained how Zed had been exploring alone only to be harassed by "this lousy twat". Every time the Gryffindor boy tried to interrupt, Impulse gripped his wand tighter, stared him in the eye, and asked Tango to be louder so he could hear him better.

Once Tango was done, the older Gryffindor started explaining his shrewd version, saying that Zedaph was doing things that anyone who knew Zed personally would find very OOC (out of character) for him. Luckily for the ZIT trio (and unluckily for the Gryffindor bully), a certain Transfiguration teacher had seen and heard the whole thing.

"Mr Hanson, detention! I'm very disappointed with your behavior against Mr Packwood. Stay after class tomorrow so I may give you your punishment." Professor McGonagall came from around yet another corner, scaring the life out of the four boys. Three of them, however, sighed in relief as the other one started to protest arrogantly, saying he was only trying to protect the "clearly very naive Ravenclaw". That earned ten points off of Gryffindor, and she threatened more if the "Mr Hanson" were to continue arguing. While the stubborn Hanson continued to argue with McGonagall and lose more and more points for his House, Impulse and Tango took to comforting their Slytherin friend.

"Hey, look at me Zed." Impulse gently wiped away a tear from the purple-eyed blonde's face. "Don't listen to him. He doesn't know you."

Tango nodded and added, "But you do. You know yourself better than anyone else. You know that you're not like that, and we know you're not like that."

Shaking and sniffling, the young Slytherin gave his two closest friends a weak smile. "C-Can I have a hug please?"

As McGonagall finally got the overly-stubborn Gryffindor to accept the consequence to his actions, she turned around to see the young Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw hugging their poor Slytherin friend, whispering words of comfort and quietly joking around to lift each others' spirits.

Letting a small smile shine through, the Professor asked, "Mr Packwood, are you alright?"

Mr Packwood poked his slightly flushed face between the gap of his friends' arms and responded with a quiet "yes".

*time for a very rare time skip! Approximately thirty minutes later*

Tango put a hand to his heart as the other two members of Team ZIT laughed until they cried and almost couldn't breathe anymore.

They'd just been walking through one of the many hallways when a random suit of armour next to the Ravenclaw suddenly started screeching "WAKE ME UP INSIDE", which made Tango scream like a young child who'd inhaled a small balloon filled with helium. Once he was sure that he wasn't in danger, he started laughing his butt off too.

About an hour later (ANOTHER RARE TIMESKIP SIGHTING), Nebula and Doc were chatting in Nebula's dorm (they'd found a way to sneak Doc past the anti-boy enchantments after much trial-and-error over break).

"Hey, Doc?"

"Hm?"

"Why do you seem a bit more... blank with the other Hermits most of the time?"

"How do you mean?"

"Mon ami, you don't act the same way with them as you do when you're alone with me: you hide your emotions a lot more with everyone else. And if you say you're in love with me, I'm joining the giant squid."

Doc wheezed a laugh. "Nebs, no. I'm literally gay. I guess I'm still learning to be myself in public, despite who I'm talking to. Even with you or any of the other Hermits, being myself in a space where anyone can hear freaks me out. It's just that most of the time when you and I talk, we're somewhere private."

"That's fair."

"Wait, you knew I was specifically gay, didn't you?"

"Well, you seem about as straight as a silly straw for Bdubs, and you've never seemed interested in girls, so yeah. Not surprised at all." Nebula chuckled. Doc laughed a bit too before replying again.

"Wow. My friends are either really oblivious or don't want to tell me that they know."

"Yep. You're about as subtle as a brick, though. You have a secret pet name for Bdubs, and he even thinks you're insulting him."

"Yeah, but in fairness it's in German."

Nebula and Doc screamed and fell off the beds they'd been lounging on. "OH MY MERLIN- ZEDAPH- WHERE DID YOU- HOW-?!"

Zedaph Packwood himself was chilling on the floor next to the dorm door, acting as if he hadn't snuck under the radar of the two most paranoid Hermits ever. "I've been here the whole time. I already knew. Also, please ask Bdubs out already, it's honestly starting to get painful to watch. At least have some type of plan to eventually ask him on a date, please."

Doc and Nebula stared awkwardly from the floor, still in the position they'd been in when they fell/leapt off the beds. After a few seconds of blankly staring at each other, Doc finally blurted out, "No wonder you're in Slytherin."

After shifting her position to be more comfortable, Nebula agreed and said, "I see you in an entirely different light, Merlin's beard."

"Surprise!" Zed smiled mischievously and made jazz hands.

OH MY GODS, FINALLYYYY. I WAS SO STUCK AT ONE PART FOR A WHOLE MONTH.

*clears throat*

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed! If you have questions, thoughts, commentary, ect, please comment! PLEASE DON'T FEEL LIKE YOU'RE SPAMMING MY INBOX IN A NEGATIVE WAY. YES, YOU ARE SPAMMING IT, AND I LOVE IT BECAUSE I'M LACKING SOCIAL INTERACTION. IT'S NOT A BAD THING, TRUST ME. PLEASE SPAM THIS STORY WITH COMMENTS.

Another thing, if you have an idea for the Short Story Book, please let me know! I'll gladly take ideas for more content and more stuff to do lol.

On that note, have an amazin' day, evening, and night! Goooooooood bye!!!

- CaptainMarra (hates Writer's Block with the burning passion of a few million Marras)