19 Happy Funny People

Reappearing in my private room in the boy's dormitory of the Ravenclaw Tower, I put my school uniform back on first and then grabbed my new flute and the master coin out of my mokeskin pouch.

Next, I cast a shrinking charm 'Reducio' on the Knut, and then attached the bronze coin to the flute. That would allow me to subtly activate the coin while acting as if the flute was doing the magic.

Finishing my preparations, I departed from my room for the Great Hall with a smug smile on my face, feeling super confident of my success.

Traveling down the Ravenclaw Tower, I played the flue a bit to see if I even had a skill for that instrument, and to my extreme surprise, the flute started whistling a rich, mellow, and graceful tune all by itself. Everything I did was to blow into its mouth-piece. I didn't even use the five little holes of the flute.

''What kind of flute is this?!'

It was definitely not a magical one because I could focus and sense magic in an object no matter how small the amount, and there was definitely something strange was going on, but I got quickly distracted by the merry laughter of the students I passed. They showered me in high praises and lavish compliments, and the girls were squealing my name, blushing fiercely when I replied with a flirty wink.

Seeing that, I kept pumping air into the flute and carried on.

Every student that I encountered on my way showed the same odd behavior. I realized that it was the flute's doing, but I didn't do anything to stop it and continued playing with a carefree demeanor. I got quite curious about the situation and decided to carry on with what I was doing in an attempt to discover the full ability of my mysterious musical instrument.

I only stopped playing the flute when I finally arrived at the Great Hall. Dumbledore was sitting on his golden throne-like chair and was casually reading the Daily Prophet while the school around him was sinking in chaos.

With my golden flute in hand, I approached him while numerous frustrated students around me were chasing after the hundreds of farting frogs.

"Ehm, Headmaster?" I mumbled to get his attention.

While waiting for his reaction, I realized that the old headmaster erected a barrier that would defend against frogs and the farting noises around his place.

"Ah, Mister Vegaz," Dumbledore greeted with a carefree smile. His sky-blue eyes were sparkling with amusement. "What brings you to me on this wonderful day?"

"Ehm, well, I am here to solve the school's frog problem," I replied with an air of confidence.

Dumbledore nodded, chuckling in amusement while he gave the chaos that was going on around him a small glance. "Yes, of course... our frog problem. It seems that I almost forgot about it. But don't let an old man like me stop you, Mister Vegaz. Carry on, and do what you think is best."

Giving the eccentric Headmaster a firm nod, I turned around and observed groups of students from all Houses struggling to catch the frogs that plagued the area. There weren't really successful in their attempts, and one might even dare to say that a bunch of animated paper frogs were outsmarting all these students.

That being said, I started the next step of my plan and inhaled a deep breath.

"Students of Hogwarts!" I bellowed loudly. "It is me, the magnificent Johnny Vegaz, the one that will get rid of The Plague of Hogwarts!"

My words were heard, but nobody paid much attention to me. So, I subtly activated the master coin attached to my new flute. The frogs wouldn't attack me or anything but would follow my lead after I left the room.

Lifting my golden flute to my lips, I began blowing my breath into the mouthpiece and listened to the surprisingly beautiful tune that began to fill the Great Hall, suppressing the farting noises of the frogs.

Everyone present stopped what they were doing to turn around and look up to me. It didn't take long before I was confronted by the same behavioral pattern I already encountered on my way here. Students began to laugh and cheer. They clapped their hands with loud applause as I walked past them towards the main exit of the Great Hall. The frogs were slowly beginning to follow me like an army of loyal soldiers.

More cheering and jolly laughter erupted when I entered the Entrance Hall with the small legion of frog in tow.

I totally knew that my new flute was abnormal, but I couldn't care less at the moment. One can call me an attention whore, and I would proudly admit it without hesitation. Receiving so much positive attention felt overwhelmingly awesome. The music of the flute also didn't seem to harm anybody, so it was alright.

"Johnny, you are so cool!" roared a random Hufflepuffy boy.

"You are so awesome, Johnny!" cheered an older girl from my own House.

"Johnny, can I be your friend? Please!" begged another Hufflepuffy boy.

"Do you have a girlfriend?" a blonde lioness in gold and red asked. "Hey, answer me. Please! No, don't go away!"

Followed by an army of frogs, I began to journey all over the ancient school in order to collect the remaining ones, but mostly to see how the school's population would react to me. It was quite the experience, and even the Slytherins were assaulting me with countless praises and compliments.

"You are so cute, Johnny!" Dysnomia squealed with a heavy blush, getting several nods of approval from the female snakes around her.

'What?!'

That was the moment when I realized that the golden flute in my hands had mystical powers. It wasn't driven by magic, but it still possessed the miraculous ability to affect the minds of subjects that heard its tune.

Each and every student, and even the few professors I passed, reacted in the same manner. Hagrid erupted with a burst of roaring laughter, drumming his large belly while praising me for being such a good lad. I also met McGonagall, Sprout, and Flitwick on my way. They displayed similar reactions of praise and joy.

Paulina eventually appeared. She quickly caught sight of me and approached me with a confused expression. To my surprise, she didn't appear affected by the tune of the flute.

"Johnny, what is going on?" she inquired while her gaze scanned over the cheering students around us. "Why is everyone acting so weird?"

"They love my music," I replied quickly before blowing the flute again.

Paulina raised a curious eyebrow at me but must have decided to simply follow me and observe the situation. She joined me at my side and kept me company while we were collecting the last few frogs.

Some students decided to follow me, clapping their hands while singing happy songs to the tune of my flute. When they saw Paulina walking beside me, they started to comment on it.

"Aww, they are so cute together!"

"Such a lovely couple!"

Paulina's face flushed scarlet, but she stubbornly ignored the words and kept walking next to me, acting as she didn't hear anything.

Convinced that I collected the majority of the frogs, I guided them all towards Hagrid's Hut. The giant man sometimes enjoyed roasting his food above a bonfire and had a large circle of stones prepared for these occasions.

It was the perfect place to get rid of the frogs. Arriving there, I pulled my wand out and set the wood that was piled up inside the circle on fire. While the students who followed me so far were cheering loudly, I subtly took the shrunken coin attached to my flute, overpowered it, and then flung it into the growing flames.

In response to my actions, the small legion frogs began their suicidal march towards the small fiery inferno, leaping into their deaths after erupting with roaring farts. Their deaths caused small balls of fire to rise up and explode with farting sounds.

"The deed is done," I announced loudly after stopping playing the flute. "Johnny Vegaz saved Hogwarts from the army of farting frogs!"

Rotating around on my feet, I watched the two dozen or so students waking up from their cheery stupor, blinking their eyes in confusion.

"W-Where am I?" muttered the first.

"Why are we gathered around a fire?" another confused student asked. "Did something happen?"

"Wait, where are the frogs?" exclaimed some random boy. "What-...?"

"They jumped into the fire!" yelled some random boy.

"Yeah, I remember it now. Vegaz made them jump into the fire!" some older girl from my House confirmed.

"Blimey, you are right," a young Gryffindor gasped, his face an expression of shock and joy. "We can finally eat in peace!"

Paulina eyed me with an inquisitive gaze, silently telling me that I had to explain the situation to her later. I nodded before turning to my audience.

"That's right. I saved Hogwarts from the Farting Frogs Plague!" I loudly proclaimed with a heroic posture. "Johnny Vegaz saved your day!"

"That means Ravenclaw wins the 200 points," an excited student wearing bronze and blue pointed out.

More muttering broke out, and the students eventually thanked me for getting rid of the frogs before returning back to Hogwarts. After we were left alone, Paulina and I shared a silent moment.

My face split with a wide grin. "It seems that we just got our House a 200 points big advantage."

"But it's not fair," Paulina argued with a frown. "We were the ones that caused the problem in the first place."

"Paulina, that's how politics work," I chuckled in amusement. "You fuck something up, hide your ties to the problem, help to find a solution for the problem you caused, and then take credit for it in order to increase your popularity. That will make the population vote you into office again. Why do you think the word is such a mess?"

"Nobody will ever know the truth," I added with a grin. "But people will remember us as the ones that solved the problem, as heroes."

She nodded with some reluctance.

"What do you mean by – us – Johnny?" Paulina inquired curiously. "It was you that got rid of the frogs."

"Yeah, but since I am the master of the lie, I can twist and shape it how I wish," I replied with a shrug. "Nobody will question me if I tell everyone you helped. People like heroes, but two heroes are better than one."

"That's pretty Slytherin of you, Johnny," Paulina pointed out, her lips curving with a small smile.

"Yeah, the snakes would love to be as cunning as us eagles," I huffed in amusement.

"Fine," Paulina said with a nod, sighing in defeat. "I will play along, but only if you explain to me why everyone was acting so strangely. You are not that popular, Johnny. You must have used magic. I want to know."

"Sure," I agreed easily, smirking at her. "But after you let me claim my kiss."

Paulina flushed red and turned her head away. "You still haven't officially won the 200 points yet."

"But very soon I will," I reminded her in a flirty tone. "And then I will come to claim my kiss from you, Paulina."

"Prat," she huffed cutely.

To reduce her embarrassment, I switched topics as we traveled back to Hogwarts, discussing our first and very successful prank. We didn't just cause chaos but would be soon rewarded for our actions, too. That was probably the ultimate prank in the history of all pranks.

It was quite the experience, and my skill with animation charms improved by quite a bit as a result. Paulina also learned a few tricks, and besides that, learned how to use the Oppugno Jinx, which a spell that would allow her to weaponize objects or conjured animals and cause them to attack an opponent.

I also learned that charming stuff in the Chamber of Secrets made the charms a lot more effective. The rich amount of magic of that place automatically overpowered the enchantments and increased the quality, making them very long-lived, potent, and tougher against counter-spells. Such stuff was common knowledge, but it was usually rare to have a place where you can actually practically test out the theory.

Locations like Hogwarts with seven Ley Lines crossing paths at a single point were extremely rare. There were only three such kinds of places in the world, and one of them was deep down in the cold waters of the North Atlantic Ocean, where some historians suspected the ruined remains of the ancient and legendary city of Atlantis.

Indeed, the Chamber of Secrets was bloody freaking useful.

The golden flute that I got from old grandpa Jian today also proved to be quite useful. Its mystical powers baffled me to no end, but then I recalled that the members of the wizarding world weren't the only ones with reality-shaping powers.

The Ancient One and her so-called 'Practitioners of the Mystic Arts' were, however, a different kind of breed. They could shape magical energies but not produce magic on their own. Their magical powers usually originated from powerful patrons. Individuals like Dormammu, for example, the ruler of the so-called Dark Dimension.

There wasn't much information available in the UK about these people, but another reason why I called them a different kind of breed of magic user was because of their inability to step through the Veil without the company of a 'true' magical being. The pureblood supremacist were actually somewhat right in this regard when they claimed that the mystic arts practitioners weren't true magicals, but muggles that learned how to 'steal' and manipulate magical energies. It just was another thing that made some purebloods paranoid and unreasonable.

At any rate, my thoughts on this topic were pure speculation at this point. While I was confident that my knowledge on this topic wasn't far off, the mystic arts guys weren't exactly public figures, and rumors clouded the waters, which prevented me from seeing the bottom.

Well, back to the main topic.

The golden flute I got from Jian was most likely an artifact made by some Master of the Mystic Arts. It didn't emit any magic because it wasn't created with the help of magic, but with the support of whatever mystical energy its creator harnessed. Depending on the strength of the patron or realm that the mystic arts guy made use of, the flute can be a lowly piece of crap or something on par with the Philosopher's Stone in terms of quality.

So far, I concluded that the Flute must be something of a higher quality. Its tune manipulated listeners into a state of cheerfulness and to act positively towards the one that was playing the flute. It even managed to influence Hagrid and McGonagall, and the former was a half-giant with a powerful resistance to all forms of magic, and the latter was most likely a trained and proficient Occlumens. I had no idea why Paulina wasn't affected, though. Maybe becuase she was recognized as my ally or something.

I could only speculate at this point, but I was sure that my estimation of the flute wasn't far off. Still, I would be careful and keep it hidden and observe how everyone that was under its influence would react in the following days. Manipulating people with such an artifact wasn't quite legal, and children with more 'conservative' parents would be able to cause me a lot of trouble, claiming that I was manipulating them into doing things.

Having said that, I made a note in the back of my mind to pay Jian a visit in the future. He was a curious old Chinese guy with a small shop full of random stuff, located in the middle of China Town. It was the biggest cliché ever. I was sure that I would find more stuff with magical powers in his shop.

But first, I had to collect my 200 points for Ravenclaw and make myself and Paulina more popular with the students of my house.

…