2nd Sept 1992
Hogwarts Castle
"Woof, woof!"
The tranquility of the quiet autumn morning was shattered by the loud barks coming from my oldest friend. I was violently ejected from the very nice dream I was having, although I can't remember exactly what I was dreaming about. I am pretty sure there was a dragon in it though, and I was kicking it's ass. Nice!
I blearily opened my eyes a crack. The bedside clock showed 5:32, while the windows displayed a dull cloudy grey sky outside that had yet to properly light up.
"Five....five more minutes, buddy," I mumbled. I drew the blanket close, choosing the warmth of my bed over the cold winds outside. Which is of course when he decided to pull the covers away with his teeth and leave me shivering in the morning cold. The jerk!
"Alright, alright, I'm up!" I groused, getting up with a huge yawn. Teddy was running around the room excitedly, and I couldn't help but smile. "I know, buddy....it's walk-O-clock! Just give me a minute to freshen up, okay?" I said, moving to the washroom. After brushing my teeth and washing my face, I changed into my sportswear and running shoes, and together we set off for the school grounds, where the first years usually received their flying lessons.
Powerful magic can only reside in a powerful body. I plan to augment my physical form in a couple of years, but in the meantime, regular exercise will have to do. To that end, an early morning run has been part of my routine for years now.
We started running laps while most of the school was still blissfully asleep, the chilly september morning air doing nothing to curb Teddy's enthusiasm. It was an excellent way to start the day with a clear mind. I used the time to mentally schedule the rest of the day, forming my to-do list.
After running for about 30 minutes, I spent a few more doing some push ups and sit ups, before heading back to the castle. The warm water falling from the shower did an excellent job of relaxing my tense muscles. After spending 15 minutes in the bathroom, I emerged refreshed and ready to face the day.
I went down to the common room at about 7 AM, sat down on an armchair with The Standard Book of Spells - Grade 6, and began waiting for Hermione so we can go to breakfast together.
A few minutes later, the door to the girl's dormitories opened, only it wasn't Hermione that walked out.
"Good morning." Luna said brightly as she came down the stairs.
"Good morning, Luna," I said. "You're up early."
"It's the best time to think," she remarked with a smile. "Besides, you're up earlier."
"Force of habit," I replied, as she took a seat on a nearby couch. "Also, my stupid dog won't let me sleep." I cast an annoyed look at Teddy, who barked happily in return.
"Are you going for breakfast?" she inquired.
"I am. Just waiting for Hermione to show up." I answered.
She nodded, then started playing with Teddy, who shook his tail in delight.
We didn't have to wait for long. Soon, Hermione entered the room and we made our way to the Great Hall. As usual, Harry and Neville came in later and joined us at the Ravenclaw table, as did my sister and Ginny. I looked over at the Slytherin table and saw Astoria looking longingly at her friends, but sitting quietly with her sister. I guess peer pressure is a tough nut to crack.
I was helping myself to some bacon and eggs, when the professors started handing out the course schedules. I took a look at the parchment Professor Flitwick had just handed me. Double period Charms with the Slytherins, followed by History of Magic with the Hufflepuffs, then DADA with the Gryffindors.
Professor Flitwick was his usual effervescent self, managing to make charms seem almost like a game rather than a learning experience.
"Good morning, students," Professor Flitwick said, having finished roll call. "Welcome to your 2nd year charms classes. Today, we will be learning one of the most frequently used spells in duelling - the disarming charm. A handy (even life saving) spell for removing an object from an enemy's grasp.
"The incantation of the spell is Expelliarmus. We'll practice without wands first. Repeat after me, please...Expelliarmus!"
"Expelliarmus!" said the class together.
"Good," said Professor Flitwick. "Very good. Now, watch closely as I demonstrate the wand movement."
After that, Professor Flitwick divided the class into pairs and had us start practicing. The room soon became full of shouts of "Expelliarmus!"; wands flew in all directions, while missed spells ricocheted off the walls. Most of the students were not succeeding in disarming their opponents at all, but merely causing them to be pushed back a couple of steps, or the spells just feebly whizzing out.
"Expelliarmus!" said Hermione, and I felt my wand fly out of my hand.
"Well done, Hermione," I said, retrieving my wand with a wandless Accio.
"Well done, both of you." Professor Flitwick came towards us, beaming. "A well executed disarming charm, Ms Granger, and on your third try, no less." Hermione glowed. "And I happened to witness your wandless performance of the Summoning charm, Mr Carter....a 4th year spell. Wonderful. 10 points to Ravenclaw, each." He said with a wide smile.
"Oh, and Mr Carter, I have something for you. So, please stay for a moment after class is over."
"Of course, professor," I replied.
It was a fun morning, all things considered. Hermione and I made a game of trying to disarm one another and try to catch the opponent's wand with the other hand. I also took pleasure in covertly disarming Malfoy, who was standing several feet away, behind his back quite a few times, much to the blonde ponce's frustration.
After class was over, I stayed behind while Hermione decided to wait outside the door. A few moments later, Professor Flitwick walked over.
"Mr Carter, here is the key to a fifth floor classroom that's currently not in use," Professor Flitwick said, taking out a key from his coat pocket. "As per the Headmaster's orders, you can use this room as your personal workshop, provided you don't damage it or harm yourself and others in any way. So, use it well." Saying so, he handed me the key.
"Thank you, sir. I'll do my best," I said, accepting the key with a grateful nod. "By the way..." I said, remembering something, "would you happen to know if Professor Dumbledore has any prior commitments this evening?"
"As far as I am aware, no." He shook his head. "Why?"
"I need to talk to him about something... something important. Could you please pass on the message?" I requested.
"Of course," he said, looking at me closely. "Do you need me to be present at this meeting?"
"It might be better if you were," I acquiesced. "Professor McGonagall too. Although, I would advise against inviting Professor Snape. He might find the subject of discussion a bit...touchy."
History of Magic probably hadn't changed its formula for hundreds of years. Or, at least, since well before Professor Binns' death. The ghost's monotonous recital of the text book was enough to put almost anyone to sleep within the first five minutes.
I had asked Professor Dumbledore a few months back why he didn't replace Professor Binns with someone a bit more, well, livelier. His answer had been simple - tenure. Apparently, the law doesn't take into account whether the person with tenure is alive or not since, really, who would want to teach after they're dead and don't need to anymore?
Anyway, I cast a noise cancelling spell around me and started on the essay Professor Flitwick had assigned us in the class prior. I was on the 2nd parchment, when Hermione elbowed me that the class was thankfully over. We gathered our things and made our way to the Great Hall for lunch.
"So, how was your morning?" Neville asked me over his cottage pie.
"Well, it was fun and boring," I said, digging into my Cornish pastry. "We had double Charms where we practiced the disarming spell, followed by History of Magic."
"That sounds fun and boring," Harry nodded. "Let's hope Lockhart can make the class more interesting than Binns. Although that's a low bar, right there."
We finished lunch and went outside into the overcast courtyard. Hermione sat down on a stone step and started reading Voyages with Vampires again, while I showed Harry and Neville the disarming charm.
Both of them grasped it pretty quickly. Neville's new wand had done wonders for the boy's confidence. Whereas before he would struggle everytime, now he was usually one of the first students in class to perform any new spell.
As Neville was playfully trying to disarm Harry, I caught sight of a small mousy-haired boy wearing a gryffindor uniform, watching us. The ordinary muggle camera he was holding, plus the almost creepy way in which he was watching Harry, made it easy to identify him.
"Hello!" I called out with a small smile. "Can we help you, Mr....?"
"Creevey, sir. I'm...I'm Colin Creevey." he said breathlessly.
"Why don't you come on over here, Colin?" I waved him over.
He tentatively walked over, all the while shooting glances at Harry, who by now was watching our interaction, along with Neville and Hermione.
"So, I noticed you watching us, Colin," I gently informed him. "Is there something you need?"
"I was just wondering...would it be alright if...can I have a picture of Harry?" He said, raising the camera hopefully.
"A picture of me?" Harry repeated blankly.
"So, I can prove I've met you," said Colin eagerly. "I know all about you. Everyone's told me. About how you survived when You-Know-Who tried to kill you and how he disappeared and everything and how you've still got a lightning scar on your forehead and a boy in my dormitory said if I develop the film in the right potion, the pictures will move." He drew a great shuddering breath of excitement and said, "It's amazing here, isn't it? I never knew all the odd stuff I could do was magic till I got the letter from Hogwarts. My dad's a milkman, he couldn't believe it either. So I'm taking loads of pictures to send home. And It'd be really good if I had one of you." He looked imploringly at Harry.
"Sure," I said, much to Harry's surprise. "In fact, why don't we make it a group photo...you alongwith Harry and his friends. How does that sound?" I proposed.
"That would be great!" Colin cried out with a huge smile, then frowned, "But who's going to take the picture?"
"Don't worry about it. Just come over here." I gestured to the boy. A lot of people tend to give flak to Colin Creevey, calling him an annoying little no-good stalker. Those same people forget that Colin died at 16 against Voldemort's army...because he chose to fight for Harry and for Hogwarts, instead of hiding in safety. That makes him a hero in my books.
So, he is enthusiastic about magic and everything related to it. Well, which muggleborn in their right mind wouldn't be, when introduced to honest-to-god reality altering magic? His fascination with Harry is equally justified. Colin's family was a working class one, and he himself would've probably followed in their footsteps if he hadn't gotten his Hogwarts acceptance letter, which would've never happened if Voldemort had won. Because "Harry Potter defeated Voldemort", Colin could now learn magic in a magical school, and his future was basically limitless. So, of course he had every reason to idolise Harry.
"Alright everyone, nice big smile now." I said, balancing the camera in front of us with a simple Telekinetic hold. On my left were Colin and Harry, while Hermione and Neville were on my right. Everyone smiled as the camera flashed, momentarily blinding us.
"There you go," I said, handing the camera back to the boy, who took it eagerly. "It was nice meeting you, Colin. We have class now, so we'll have to get going. See you later."
"See you later, Ben! Bye Harry! Thanks for the picture, everyone!" He waved at us excitedly as we made our way out of the courtyard towards the DADA classroom.
"What was all that about?" Harry asked, once we were out of earshot.
"Colin's a good kid. You won't find a more loyal friend than him. A lot of bad stuff happened to him in the other timeline, because he was a muggleborn. He died at 16, fighting Voldemort's Death Eaters." I explained, getting sympathetic looks from my friends. "I guess I felt sorry for him."
The rest of the way passed in sombre silence, and soon we arrived in the DADA classroom. There were a few differences in the room than last year. Pictures of Lockhart adorned the walls now. Especially eye-catching was an enormous moving portrait of Gilderoy Lockhart....painting a smaller moving portrait of Gilderoy Lockhart. It looked like the two Lockharts were constantly complimenting each other on their appearance when not looking out towards the classroom with dazzling smiles. Another was a small cage-shaped object on the desk which was covered by a purple cloth. Occasionally, it shook violently, suggesting that some Dark creature was trapped inside.
Most of the Second Year girls sat on the front row giggling with excitement, while the boys were on the back rows. Knowing Lockhart, I refused to sit at the front, and instead sat with Harry and Neville in the back. Hermione huffed and joined Lavender at the very front of the class.
Suddenly, the door in the back of the classroom was flung open, and Lockhart strode through, resplendent in ultra-fashionable robes of tan and beige, his wand already in his hand. The class grew silent as he imperiously addressed the room.
"Welcome to Defence Against the Dark Arts. Your teacher this year will be … me! Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, third class, honorary member of The Dark Force Defence League and five times winner of Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile Award....but, I don't like to talk about that. After all, I didn't get rid of the Bandon Banshee by smiling at her!"
Here he waited for us to laugh at his feeble joke; when almost no one did, he started again, "I see you've all bought a complete set of my books....well done. I thought we'd start today with a little quiz. Nothing to worry about... just to check how well you've read them, how much you've taken in..."
Unlike every other teacher at Hogwarts who preferred to use a spell to send papers to the students desks, Lockhart then picked up the pile of papers on his table and walked around the room, handing out each one individually.
"You have 30 minutes...start...now!"
I flipped through the 3 pages of the questionnaire. 54 questions about Gilderoy Lockhart, 0 questions about anything related to DADA. Amused, I started writing:
Q: What is Gilderoy Lockhart's favourite colour?
A: Black
Q: What is Gilderoy Lockhart's secret ambition?
A: To grow a wavy mop of actual hair (so that he can stop wearing a wig).
Q: What, in your opinion, is Gilderoy Lockhart's greatest achievement to date?
A: Managing to fool the wizarding world into thinking that he is a hero, and not just a cunning thief.
Q: When is Gilderoy Lockhart's birthday, and what would his ideal gift be?
A: Don't know, don't care; probably a new story to steal and turn into his latest book.
On and on it went. I actually had fun answering the questions. Once time was up, Lockhart manually collected the papers and started rifling through them.
"Tut, tut...hardly any of you remembered that my favorite color is lilac. I say so in Year with the Yeti." He said with a disappointed tone. "And a few of you need to read Wanderings with Werewolves more carefully... I clearly state in chapter twelve that my ideal birthday gift would be...."
Here he stopped, his attention focused on a particular paper (which based on the handwriting, was mine). He gradually blanched and looked around the room, before his eyes met mine. I gave him a meaningful smile. He quickly averted his gaze and removed my paper from the pile, and judging from the sound, crumpled it behind his back.
"Enough of that!" Lockhart said, standing up. "I believe that it's time to introduce you to the first of the many dangerous creatures that you're likely to meet. But have no fear," Lockhart continued, "while you're with me in this room, no harm can befall you."
Lockhart moved to the cage and put his hand on the cover.
"I must ask you not to scream," he said in a low voice to the nervous students. "It might provoke them."
With that, he ripped off the cloth with a flourish to reveal a brass cage containing what looked to be about a dozen or so tiny blue-skinned humanoid figures with big eyes and buzzing wings. It was decidedly anticlimactic.
"Cornish Pixies!" Seamus Finnegan's voice rose in disbelief above the rest of the class. "What's dangerous about Cornish Pixies?"
"Don't be so sure!" Lockhart said, waggling a finger at Seamus. "Devilish tricky little blighters they can be! But if you think otherwise, then let's see what you make of them!" And he opened the cage.
Pandemonium ensued. Tiny blue flashes zipped here and there, causing as much damage as possible. Books were torn, quills were broken and ink bottles were tossed about and smashed. Half the students disappeared under their desks, only peeking out when they thought that it was safe. Girls' screams pierced the din as their hair was caught in long blue fingers and pulled.
Thanks to the benefit of foresight, I had already cast LIGHTNING AURA (covers the caster's entire body in a field of low powered lightning) on myself. It wasn't very effective against powerful opponents, but very useful for dealing with low level swarms. Plus it required negligible amount of power to maintain.
So, when a couple of pixies had the bright idea of reaching for the sole island of tranquility among the sea of chaos, my body lit up in a soft blue glow, and the pixies jerked as if being electrocuted before fluttering away limply.
"Come on now...round them up, round them up, they're only pixies," shouted Lockhart.
He rolled up his sleeves, brandished his wand, and bellowed, "Peskipiksi Pesternomi!"
It had absolutely no effect. Instead, the pixies retaliated against Lockhart's (probably made-up) spell by seizing his wand and throwing it out of the window. Sharp claws emerged and raked along one cheek, eliciting a shriek more shrill than any of the ones that the girls in the classroom had been making. Three grabbed handfuls of hair and got more than they bargained for when a blonde wig tore off in their hands.
That, it seemed, was the last straw for the beleaguered Professor. With a parting, "I'll just leave you to pop them back into their cage, then," he vanished up the stairs and into his office with a slammed door.
"Can you believe him?" Neville angrily yelled, trying to fend off a couple of pixies that kept going for his ears. "Leave you to pop them back into their cage! After he let them out in the first place?!"
"He just wants to give us some hands-on experience," said Hermione, using Immobilus to freeze a couple of pixies.
"Really? Could've fooled me." I said, sitting serenely, as another pixie came by and electrocuted itself. "Seemed to me like he had no idea what he was doing." Not just Harry and Neville, but every boy in the vicinity nodded vehemently at this.
Hermione gave an exhausted sigh and turned on me.
"Are you going to do something? Or are you just going to keep glowing like an overgrown fairy?" she said with an annoyed look.
I raised an eyebrow at this.
"What did I do?" I asked.
She answered by narrowing her eyes. I surrendered.
"Fine, fine," I said, taking a look around and noting the remaining pixies in the air. I raised my hand and snapped my fingers.
Immediately, LIGHTNING AURA switched from defensive to offensive. Tendrils of low powered lightning spread out and stunned every flying pest in the room, causing them to drop like flies. Silence followed.
"Well, that was fun," I said to my stunned audience. "Who wants to bet Lockhart won't be trying that anytime soon?"
True to form, all the boys in class raised their hands in unison.