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Disclaimer: This is a work of fan fiction using characters and places from the Harry Potter world, which is trademarked by JK Rowling. However, all plots are my own and are in no way endorsed by JK Rowling or anyone affiliated with the Harry Potter universe.
Chapter 1: September 2014
"Kara!" Victoire exclaimed, bursting into the train compartment and giving her friend a hug. "It feels like it's been forever!"
"It's only been two months," Kara pointed out with a laugh.
"I've been stuck in a house with a twelve-year-old and a ten-year-old all summer. It feels like a lot more than two months," Victoire groaned, shoving her trunk under her seat and flopping down onto the bench.
"I wish I had siblings," Kara sighed wistfully. "All summer it was just me and my parents – and they were out working most of the time anyway, so I was mostly on my own."
"At least nobody was bothering you," Victoire pointed out.
Kara shrugged. "At least you were entertained."
Victoire shrugged. "Agree to disagree," she said.
"Have you seen Brianna yet?" Kara wondered, suddenly realizing that the train was already moving.
"I haven't," Victoire frowned. "Where could she be?"
"Should one of us go look for her?" Kara suggested.
Before Victoire could respond in the affirmative, the door to their compartment flew open and Brianna sauntered inside.
"No need to panic!" she cried. "I'm here!"
"We were just about to go looking for you," Kara declared.
"You remember Cameron Philbrick?" Brianna asked, gesturing behind her to the Gryffindor in question.
"Sure," Victoire agreed. Cameron was one of their classmates and housemates, and though they had never been close – he tended to hang around with Adrian and Caitlin – they all knew each other relatively well.
"Great!" Brianna smiled, gesturing for Cameron to enter the compartment, which he did, sitting down next to Victoire and across from Brianna, who was sitting next to Kara.
Victoire and Kara exchanged a confused look. What was Cameron doing with Brianna and why was he sitting in their compartment?
"Cameron and I ran into each other at Diagon Alley this summer," Brianna said by way of explanation. "We ended up doing some shopping together and well… one thing led to another and… well we're dating now!"
"Dating?" Kara asked in surprise.
"That's right," Brianna confirmed. "Almost one month now."
"Wow," Victoire said, at a loss for what to say. "Congratulations?"
"Thank you," Brianna said.
"Yeah," Cameron spoke up. "Brianna's great."
Victoire nodded awkwardly. "Well we certainly think so," she agreed.
Following Victoire's comment, there was an awkward minute or so of silence where nobody could come up with anything to say. It was weird, Victoire thought, having Cameron in the compartment with them. He wasn't one of them, and she didn't know what to say in front of him. She certainly wasn't going to talk about anything personal with him around.
"So…" Victoire began when the silence became too great. "Did you guys all finish the summer homework?"
"Well I certainly did," Kara jumped in immediately, eager to get the conversation going, even a conversation as boring as one about homework. "What else was I supposed to do, stuck in my house for weeks on end with nothing to do?"
"We finished ours about a week ago," Brianna declared, speaking for both herself and Cameron. "We split the work, see, and then copied each other."
Victoire glanced over at Kara uncomfortably. Not only was Brianna suddenly announcing that she was dating someone – which she had never mentioned in any of her letters – but now they were a 'we'?
"What about you Victoire?" Kara wondered.
"Oh yeah, I got it all done. Well, my cousin Molly did a quarter of it," Victoire rolled her eyes.
"Oh, do you have a cousin in one of the upper years?" Cameron wondered.
Victoire exchanged yet another look with Kara. "Oh no," she said. "Actually, Molly's just starting her first year. She's a bit of a know-it-all though, and she thought doing fourth year summer work would be a nice challenge to prepare her for the coming year."
"Oh," Cameron deadpanned. "That's… nice."
"Yeah," Victoire continued, not sure why she was still talking about it, but not wanting the awkward silence to descend again. "She started out with my younger sister's work, but Dominique is only going into her second year, and Molly didn't think it was challenging enough. Of course, Dominique probably would have liked her to have finished it all for her."
"Can't say I'd blame her," Cameron said. Victoire wasn't sure whether he was referring to Dominique or to Molly, but she didn't dare ask.
"Anyway, Molly should be on the train somewhere with some of the other first years," Victoire continued, aware that she was rambling a bit, but finding herself unable to stop. "Papa told Dominique to let Molly sit with her and her friends, but I'm sure Domi ditched her as soon as the train started moving. I might check in on her later, just to make sure she's alright."
"I'm sure she's fine," Brianna assured her. "No need to go barging in on her. She needs to make it on her own, the same way the rest of us did."
"Sure," Victoire nodded, not in the mood to argue with Cameron there. Though it was true that many Hogwarts students had to fend for themselves, she knew from experience that having a friendly face to turn to was extremely helpful – especially in those first few days.
"Shall we play a game of exploding snap?" Kara suggested for lack of anything better to do.
"Sure," Victoire agreed readily.
"I guess so," Brianna shrugged.
With a sigh, Victoire grabbed her deck from her trunk and began to deal the cards. It was going to be a long ride to Hogwarts.
VvVvVvVvVvV
By mid-afternoon, Brianna had gotten bored of exploding snap and Brianna had elected to curl up next to her boyfriend and take a nap. Victoire had moved over to sit next to Kara, not having enough room on her bench with Brianna sandwiched in the middle. Though Cameron had still attempted to play cards with the other two girls, it was a difficult task with a human wrapped around him, and so exploding snap had been abandoned.
Just as it was starting to get unbearably uncomfortable, there was a knock at the door and it opened to reveal the trolley lady with her two trolleys full of snacks.
"Anything from the trolley dears?" she asked.
"Yes," Kara said immediately. "I will have a couple of licorice wands and a water." Though the healthy food trolley hadn't gained much success since it's inception, the water was a popular choice amongst students who weren't in the mood for pumpkin juice.
"And I think I'll have a cauldron cake," Victoire requested, deciding to splurge a little.
"I'll have a tuna sandwich," Cameron said, probably choosing something healthy out of loyalty to Brianna. As the trolley lady passed out their orders and took their money, he shook Brianna awake. "Hey Bri, did you want anything to eat?"
"Maybe a garden salad," Brianna said sleepily rubbing her eyes and sitting up.
"And a garden salad," Cameron added to his order, handing over the extra knuts while the trolley lady retrieved the salad.
"Thanks," Brianna smiled as the door closed again and the four Gryffindors dug into their lunches.
"Of course," Cameron said, kissing Brianna swiftly on the lips.
In moment, Cameron's quick kiss turned into much more than that, as Brianna shoved her salad aside and wrapped her arms around her boyfriend's neck, pulling his face closer to hers and giving him a longer kiss. Victoire looked away uncomfortably, not sure whether she should be watching, but not having much else to look at. When Cameron tossed his sandwich to the side and wrapped his arms around Brianna in turn, Victoire stood up and suddenly announced that she needed to use the washroom.
"I think I'll come with you," Kara agreed, standing up too and following Victoire out into the hall.
Brianna pulled herself away from Cameron for a moment. "Going to the bathroom isn't really a two-person endeavour," she pointed out.
"Well by the time we get there, I'll probably have to go," Kara declared.
Brianna shrugged and returned her attention to Cameron.
Victoire slid the compartment door shut, Immediately thankful for the tranquility of the train corridor.
"Was it just me, or was that whole thing very awkward and uncomfortable?" Victoire asked.
"It definitely was not just you," Kara assured her. "If they're going to be like this all the time now, then I don't know if I'm going to be able to keep hanging around with Brianna."
"I'm sure they'll break up soon anyway," Victoire said. "This is Brianna we're talking about."
Kara nodded. "So now what?" she wondered. "You don't actually have to go to the bathroom, do you?"
"Of course not," Victoire assured her. "I just needed to get out of there."
"Oh good," Kara said in relief. "Because the bathrooms on trains are definitely not the cleanest of bathrooms."
Victoire nodded her agreement. "Let's just take a walk, I guess," she suggested, gesturing down the hall.
Kara fell into step next to Victoire and together they began to take a leisurely stroll in the opposite direction of the trolley lady – not wanting to get into a traffic jam.
"Hey look, it's my cousin Molly!" Victoire pointed out as they passed a compartment in the car adjacent to theirs.
"Did you want to go inside and see how she's doing?" Kara wondered.
Victoire thought for a moment, but decided against it. Molly was with another first year, and they were having what appeared to be a pretty intense conversation about something. She seemed like she was doing fine, and Victoire didn't want to be the annoying, interrupting older cousin.
"Nah, she's alright," Victoire said. "Besides, if we go in there, it might be a while before we get out, and Molly's not exactly the most fun person to talk to."
"Noted," Kara said as they continued down the hall.
As they neared the front of the train, they came upon Teddy and Billy's compartment and decided to stop in a say hi.
"Victoire! Kara!" Billy exclaimed when they opened the door and asked if they could join. "Come in!"
"Where's Brianna?" Teddy wondered.
Victoire and Kara rolled their eyes simultaneously.
"She's with her new boyfriend," Victoire informed them. "They're being insufferably annoying and we had to get away from them."
"Oh, are they doing that really annoying thing where they finish each other's sentences?" Billy wondered.
"No, actually they're behaving a bit like how Teddy and Beverly did back when they were dating last winter," Victoire said.
Teddy's face immediately turned red as he tried to look away.
"Oh I see," Billy said knowingly. "Well then I don't blame you for leaving."
"So what were you guys doing?" Kara wondered. "We didn't interrupt anything, did we?"
"We were just speculating on who the new Headmaster was going to be," Billy said. "Apparently Teddy still hasn't heard anything from his grandmother, so either she's not getting promoted, or else she'd very good at keeping secrets."
"Those both seem like plausible options to me," Victoire said.
"I keep saying she wouldn't keep something this big from me," Teddy insisted, his face back to it's natural color now that the conversation topic had moved away from his relationship with Beverly.
"And I keep saying, she might not have a choice in the matter," Billy claimed. "You're a student. Maybe it's a breach of confidentiality or something. You know, everyone finds out at the same time?"
"Then why did she spend all summer working on lesson plans?" Teddy demanded.
"Alright fine," Billy surrendered.
"You know what I'm interested in knowing?" Kara asked. "Who's going to be Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher?"
Billy shrugged. "Couldn't it be anybody?"
"Well I've just been thinking… what if it's Harry Potter?" Kara wondered.
"No way," Teddy said, holding his hands up. "Uncle Harry wouldn't leave the Auror office. He's Head Auror. Besides, he definitely would have told me something like that. I spend practically half the summer at Grimmauld Place with him and the family."
"But don't you remember when he came to give those guest lectures?" Kara reminded him. "Don't you think he'd be a perfect candidate?"
"Well obviously he'd be great at it," Teddy agreed. "I just don't think he's going to do it. He'd rather be out in the field, not sitting behind a desk grading papers."
"But as Head Auror, doesn't he have to spend a lot of time sitting behind a desk doing paperwork?" Kara asked.
"The word you're looking for is delegation," Teddy said. "He's the Head of the office. He can do whatever he wants."
VvVvVvVvVvV
Later at the welcome feast, Teddy was proved right on both accounts. Professor Longbottom introduced the new Headmaster, a man named Silas Slinkhard, who had spent the last forty years teaching at Ilvermorny, and the new Defence teacher, who was named James Derlid. Professor Derlid elected to simply wave and smile at the students, while Headmaster Slinkhard gave a short introductory speech, inviting students to feel free to get to know him and meet with them if they had any concerns about anything.
"I bet he'd listen to my pitch about advertising for the healthy food trolley," Brianna muttered as he sat back down and the feast began.
"Don't tell me you're still on about that," Victoire groaned.
"Of course I am!" Brianna insisted. "Headmistress McGonagall might not have wanted to hear me out, but maybe this new guy will."
"You should let it be," Kara said. "You already got the trolley on the train. The food is there. Be happy it's an option and let people decide what they want to eat."
"But if nobody eats from it, they're eventually going to realize it's not worth the trouble and take it away again," Brianna complained. "I have to raise awareness."
Victoire sighed. "Well don't be disappointed when the Headmaster doesn't want to invest in advertising for a trolley on a train that travels all of six times a year."
VvVvVvVvVvV
The following morning, the fourth years had their first Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson with their new Professor.
"Good morning students," he greeted them. "My name is Professor Derlid, and as you know by now, I'm your new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. I've been going over your previous instructor's notes from this class and have noticed that the course has been highly theoretical, with only minimal practical applications thus far. I'm here to tell you that this is going to change. I believe that Defensive magic can only be mastered through practice, and it is for this reason that these desks will no longer be needed."
Professor Derlid flicked his wand, and in an instant, all the desks in the room except for his disappeared. Books that had been placed on top of desks fell to the floor, some landing in students' laps or on their feet.
"All defensive theory will be covered in your homework assignments. If you feel that your textbooks are not descriptive enough, feel free to find me outside of class to discuss any questions you may have. As for class time, we will be devoting our lessons to the safe practicing of defensive magic," he declared. "You will learn to cast both offensive and defensive jinxes and hexes, and we will be applying these spells in regular classroom duels. And be warned – performance during these duels will contribute to your final grade for this class, so do not take them lightly."
May Enlow raised her hand.
"You said we would be learning both offensive and defensive spells," she said. "But isn't this a class on defense?"
"This is a class on defence against the dark arts," Professor Derlid clarified. "In order to defend against dark magic, sometimes one must go on the offensive. As fourth years you should know this. Offensive magic doesn't mean dark magic. We will of course, only be learning light magic in this class."
Since there were no other questions, Professor Derlid decided they should get right to it, and instructed everyone to push their chairs back against the edges of the room. Then he paired them all up and instructed them to duel each other for the remainder of the class so that he could assess their relative skill levels.
By the end of the lesson, Victoire was exhausted and ready for a calm Muggle Studies class where she could just sit and listen to Professor Carbourough talk about electric lights or refrigerators or laundromats.
VvVvVvVvVvV
A couple weeks later, Brianna had her meeting with Headmaster Slinkhard about the healthy food trolley advertising. Victoire and Kara wished her luck, not expecting her to have much luck with the new Headmaster. So when Brianna returned to the common room later beaming, they were surprised to find that Headmaster Slinkhard was totally on board with her plan. In fact, Brianna claimed that he'd called her ideas 'inspired'.
"He's agreed to make announcements at the end-of-term feasts in December and June, as well as the evening before the Easter holidays," Brianna said excitedly. "And he's going to finance the creation of large banners to hang inside the train promoting the healthy food over the candy."
"That's amazing," Cameron said, sitting down on the couch next to Brianna and wrapping his arm around her shoulder. "Congratulations."
"Thanks," Brianna smiled up at him, kissing him quickly on the lips. "Anyway, I'm thinking we see how this goes, and maybe we can even expand to other wizarding trains if this picks up."
"Maybe just start with the Hogwarts Express," Victoire suggested. "We still don't know if it's going to be successful with the new advertising. Don't want to get ahead of yourself."
"I suppose not," Brianna shrugged. "But isn't it so exciting to think about?"
Just then, Caitlin and Adrian burst into the common room and ran over to where they were all sitting.
"Guess what?" Caitlin cried, talking mainly to Cameron. "We made the Quidditch team!"
"Really?" Cameron said excitedly. "That's great news!"
"Well I only made the team because Hannah graduated," Adrian said. "But Caitlin actually beat Brad out of his spot as chaser."
"Did you really?" Cameron asked.
Caitlin smiled and nodded, clamping her lips shut in an attempt not to scream in excitement.
"Well that's fantastic!" Cameron said. "Really, congratulations on that. That's impressive."
"Congratulations to both of you," Brianna smiled, joining the conversation.
Kara and Victoire exchanged a confused look. Since when was Brianna nice to Caitlin, let alone willing to congratulate her on something like this?
"Thanks Brianna," Caitlin said suspiciously.
"I really mean it," Brianna assured her. "I think it's really great that you guys made the team. It's going to be a pretty exciting year."
"Well we thought we'd celebrate by running a few laps around the castle before curfew," Adrian declared. "Want to join Cameron?"
"Yeah definitely," Cameron agreed. "Bri? Want to come?"
"No, you go ahead," Brianna said. "I'm not much of a runner."
"Alright," Cameron said, extricating himself from Brianna's grasp. "See you later."
As the three Gryffindors climbed out the portrait hole, Victoire and Kara rounded on Brianna.
"Since when are you nice to Caitlin?" Victoire demanded. "You've never even been civil towards her."
"She's one of my boyfriend's best friends," Brianna shrugged. "Which means she's my friend now too."
"Does it?" Kara asked, unconvinced. She and Victoire exchanged a doubtful look, but let the subject drop.
VvVvVvVvVvV
The rest of September saw an unprecedented era of peace in the fourth year Gryffindor girls' dormitory. Brianna acted like she and Caitlin were suddenly best friends, and in turn, Caitlin treated Brianna with respect and even a little bit of kindness. Kara and Victoire were so grateful for the respite from all the fighting that they hesitated to do anything to ignite a fire they wouldn't be able to put out. Brianna had even stopped making fun of Raina, and as a result, Raina had slowly stopped being as annoying as she had been in the past – Victoire wondered if she had been annoying on purpose to prove a point.
"It's bizarre," Victoire said to Teddy one night in the common room. "Brianna doesn't comment about the dirty clothes Caitlin leaves lying around on the floor. Caitlin's stopped complaining about how long Brianna spends in the bathroom in the morning. Raina's even stopped snoring!"
"Do you think it'll last?" Teddy wondered.
"Probably not," Victoire said. "Eventually Brianna's going to get fed up. Or else she and Cameron will break up. And then we'll be right back to where we were last June."
"Enjoy it while you can then," Teddy advised. "You'll miss it when it's gone."
"Oh trust me," Victoire said. "I will."