Right before dinner


Linus had spent the better part of his day, not studying, but playing around outside, crawling around in the grass. Not only were his palms tinted green and speckled with dirt, but his trousers were stained green at the knees. His clothes were soaking wet and his hair was pasted to his forehead from the rain. It was harder to find normal common frogs at this time of year, so the sort that he had gathered were sturdier, made to handle all sorts of temperatures. He wasn’t sure what they were called, but Linus recalled seeing them at pet shops in Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade. So they probably had some sort of magical quality that he wasn’t educated in yet.

There was a problem that came with his habitual frog gathering.

Sometimes they escaped from the makeshift froggy homes he made for them, usually while he was out and they were unsupervised.

As he entered his common room,  he saw one hop into a student’s hair from it’s place on the wall.

Another had made a perch on an upperclassman’s shoulder.

One of them hopped right in front of him, and he dove to catch it in his hands. As he did that, five of these frogs escaped from the pockets of his robes and began to roam through the common room. Some of them had gone airborne due to the speed with which Linus had thrown himself to catch the nearest frog.

Oh no. Oh no. Oh no!  Linus was, simply put, in a panic. His little friends were all over! They weren’t nestled safely in their froggy homes! What if his classmates hurt them? Or got angry at them? No. He needed to keep his cool. He put on his goofiest grin and pretended that absolutely nothing was going on, and he had flung himself onto the floor for no reason.

Ambrose had been wrapped up trying to make head nor tail of some cold and flu remedies for Moira McBoid, his classmate and friend, when the frog had landed from his shoulder into the pages and let off a loud croak. He wasn't afraid of the creature, but he hadn't expected it to drop into the book.

"What the...?" He tentatively scooped up the creature and looked around, seeing cousin Linus sprawled on the common room rugs.

"Li.... is this yours?" Ambrose asked, sitting up and revealing a frog in one hand that squirmed, none too happy to be held. "You know these things need water and tanks to bathe in after being picked up, right?" He caught sight of his cousin's hair and clothes. "Or have you had a bath with them in your clothes or summin'?"

For all Ambrose's inability to cast a decent charm and his clueless nature in most of his lessons, creatures he did enjoy, and his natural interest in the subject allowed a good proportion of the knowledge to get past the sieve in his brain and be retained.  Much as he loved his little cousin, these frogs would be in Di Luca's potions if they didn't get a bath.

Alas, Ambrose had noticed.

Well, if anybody was to be the frogs’ first victim, Ambrose was probably the prime choice. As Linus’ older cousin,  Ambrose was someone that the young Gryffindor felt comfortable around—in fact, you could even say that Li looked up to Ambrose in a brotherly sort of way. Growing up without a dad in the picture, he tended to latch onto any reliable male figure around, be it his uncles, grandpa Ianto, or—even Ambrose. In fact, since Ambrose was also a Gryffindor, he was an easy one to look up to. He was there, and he was a family member.

Plus, he was older. And had a pretty girlfriend with fancy hair.

You’ve gotta trust a guy whose girlfriend has fancy hair.

He got up off the floor, and one more frog hopped out of his pocket. 

“Yes it’s mine. The one that hopped on you is named Francis. After your dad. He'd like that."  Li said as-a-matter-of-factly. He approached his cousin and lowered his voice in a whisper. “All the frogs in here are mine.” He admitted, as if it was his deepest, darkest secret.  “I think they escaped and got lost.”

Rowena had been curled up in one of the cushy chairs writing a letter. Or trying to write, it was still hard to know what to say even a month after the awkwardness of Valentine's day. And the few lines she had put down were promptly destroyed by the wet, slimy impact of a large frog.

"Linus!" She lifted her head and looked around for the most likely suspect.

And there he was with Ambrose. Which seemed-"Boudicca!" Rowena turned to glare at her kitten, who was watching one of the frogs with far too much interest.

Nicholas was sitting near the wireless trying to enjoy  Kip Baugh, Hitwizard when it seemed the common room was being overrun by frogs.   One of which had decided to jump right at him.  With a quick flick of his wand, the frog froze in midair, giving a lazy croak as it floated there, unconcerned.  Looking around, and aided by Rowena's shriek, he spotted the first year who had unleashed this plague on the Gryffindors.

He floated the frog over to Linus and Ambrose, "One of yours?"  He wasn't upset, maybe a bit annoyed but frogs were far from the worst thing that had been unleashed in the common room.  "You should keep better track of these or Di Luca will use them as potions ingredients."  And she'd probably make Linus get them ready for her jars.

"Worse yet, they could end up in whatever stew the house elves have for dinner."

Ambrose's features twisted into confusion over the statement that the frog was called Francis. Then as Li quickly explained, it was indeed named after Ambrose's father.

"I guess, as long as you didn't sit on him, or dry him out." Ambrose agreed, lowering his own head to listen to his cousin's low whisper.

"Really?" He replied, a little less quietly. "All of them?"

"Linus! Boudicca!"

The two boys looked up hastily at the exclamations from Rowena who was across the room in a chair. Her features were trained on her cat that was hunting the frogs.

"One of yours?" Nick held it up floating in the air.

"His." Ambrose hastily corrected, pointing to Linus. He did many silly things himself, but not usually collecting and releasing frogs.

"Freezing them's a good idea. Ew - well, they are edible sometimes…" He replied to Bevan's suggestion of stew.

He drew his wand and pointed it at the frog nearest Boudicca, hoping to freeze it with a wordless spell.

A moment later, the frog had grown to the same size as the kitten and Ambrose's eyes had bulged like saucers.

"Er… not what I was hoping, oh cr-"

Ribbet!

Magnified in size, the noise of the frog and the nose had increased and deepened. It gave an experimental small hop towards the kitten, and then launched itself onto a nearby portrait which screeched.

Oh no!

People were beginning to notice his frogs!

And they were in danger! Boudicca was quite the hunter. And what if Di Luca got ahold of them? He wasn’t ready to have Francis stew!

What was happening? Now Ambrose made one giant?!

Okay, Linus had to admit that was pretty cool. “Wicked!” He exclaimed, running over to the rather large frog.  “Raine Junior!”[1] He was practically bouncing. He rather admired the fiery upperclassman—she just seemed so awesome. Although he didn’t know her that well, he respected her enough to name a frog after her. He was oblivious to the fact that some people wouldn’t exactly enjoy having frogs named after them. Some might even be insulted.

But then Raine Junior launched onto a portrait.

“She just wants a hug is all! No need to scream! The frogs just need to be loved.” Linus insisted.

1.	Affectionately named with Nuri's permission.

"Go hug it, then." Rowena scooped up her kitten and glared at the suddenly giant frog. They seemed to be becoming a common thing around Hogwarts. Though she still preferred the kitten. Softer.

She shot Ambrose a look. What was it about boys and giant frogs? She didn't understand what Sophia saw in them at all. "Don't make it bigger."

Boudicca was nestled against her chest, and Rowena crossed her arms protectively in front of the small fuzzball of a kitten.

In the middle of her reading, Lexi had fallen asleep in her dorm room and woken up an hour or so later to find it strangely empty of first years. She straightened her uniform with a charm she'd been taught, of course after attempting said charm six times until she'd got it right, and then opened the door to the room to hear a mass commotion going on in the common room.

She almost stepped on one of them going down the stairs. Frogs. Gross.

She came to rest near Rowena, who was glaring at a giant frog. What? What was going on? "Rowena, what is this?" She asked as Linus went running to get his now-giant frog. "Ohgod," she blurted as a frog hopped onto her foot. Not cool. She shook her leg, dropping the frog to the floor.

Josh had been studying in his room, when he heard a commotion in the common room. Walking out onto the stairs, he was a but surprised to get a frog bouncing right into his face. " What is going on?" he said, then he spotted the giant frog. " and are these frogs wild, or owned by somebody? if someone owns them, would they like help getting them back under control?" he said, his voice betraying it wasn't exactly a suggestion. The common room was normally some variety of rowdy; this, however, was ridiculous.

The frogs had begun to cause a real commotion, especially the one that Ambrose had enlarged - which went by Raine, according to Li. Ambrose wasn't sure if Raine Senior would necessarily have approved.

Thankfully Boudicca was wrestled into Sophia's arms, in the nick of time as Harcroft, one of the prefects reached the scene.

"They're Li's..." Ambrose explained to the older Gryffindor, "I've accidentally enlarged it, sorry!" The fourth year blushed, "Li doesn't mean any harm by them I'm sure."

"Only edible sometimes Pepper, preferably not tonight", Nicholas said as the fourth year enlarged one of the frogs, which according to the over excited first year was named Raine.  A fact so amusing that it almost made him lose control of the spell holding the still normal sized frog up.  The giant frog, and the commotion caused by the cat drew more people down into the common room.

So much for a quiet night in front of the wireless.  He lowered his wand, and the frog, before he was tempted to send it zooming toward Josh's face.  "I'd be more worried about the cat than the frogs, either it's", Nicholas pointed at the cat in Rowena's arms, "going to eat one of the frogs.  Or Raine is going to eat the cat," He pointed his wand at the large frog, which of course without a word started to grow larger again and turned toward the girls getting ready to hop.  "Sorry, errant thought."  He said trying not to laugh, or smile, though he failed at the latter.

" I'm sure he doesn't, but this is just ridiculous" Josh said to the first year that had talked to him. Then Bevans piped up. " Bevans, stop trying to stir things up. climbing down the stairs, dodging more frogs jumping around, Josh approache3d the large frog, looking carefully at it. "Well, there's no risk of this frog eating much of anything. It's got too large- if it gets much larger, it won't be able to breathe." Josh said. "Reducio" he added, pointing his wand at the expanding frog.

Rowena raised an eyebrow, wondering again if she should have begged the Sorting hat to put her in Ravenclaw. This was bizarre. Had she missed a frog-enlarging contest somewhere?

"No one is eating Boudicca," she said, nodding and holding the kitten tighter.

At least the frog was smaller again. For now. She glared at it.

Josh soon had the accidentally-enlarged frog shrinking back in size, but it hadn't caught the rest of the frogs which were now making headway around the common room, bouncing from one place to the next. Convinced he wouldn't enlarge any more of them, Ambrose set off in pursuit, seizing a nearby jar of sweets someone had been nursing since Christmas, and emptying the rest of them out. It would do nicely to put the frogs in.

Behind a sofa there was a bang of magic, a puff of blue smoke and suddenly a small army of frogs burst forth across the room, each hopping away from Ambrose and his rubbish magic.
"I think I got one!" Ambrose meanwhile yelled, reappearing with a frog in the jar, looking triumphant.