The Three New Teachers
The next day at breakfast Hermione sat at the Gryffindor table with Ginny and Demelza, McGonagall was walking around all of the tables handing out sheets of parchment as she went. When Hermione was handed a sheet, she picked it up and looked at it, it was her new timetable. She looked over at the Friday row and saw that she had double transfiguration followed by muggle studies followed by double defense against the dark arts.
"They made me have all of the new teachers in one day." She told Demelza and Ginny.
"I've got muggle studies after double transfiguration; I have to have a lesson with my dad." Cried Ginny.
"I've got the same." Said Demelza.
"Well you would do, I take all of the classes apart from divination and care of magical creatures, so that's probably the only lesson that you won't see me in because I'll have ancient runes or arithmancy." She told them.
"I wish that I hadn't of decided to take divination, I thought it would be an easy outstanding because all you have to do is predict your own death most of the time, but still, at least I've got Firenze instead of that old fraud this year." Said Ginny, the other two laughed.
After they had finished breakfast the three of them made there way to McGonagall's old classroom, they saw about eleven other seventh years there, Luna was amongst them, and they sat at their desks. Soon enough Aberforth came walking into the room and up to the front,
"Now class," he said in a voice similar to Dumbledore's, "To avoid any confusion you shall not address me as Professor Dumbledore, for those of you who know me after the portrait hole in the hogs head, you may call me Aberforth, the rest will address me as Professor D, alright." There was a general nod around the room, "Now class today you will be learning about metamorphamagi, please turn your textbooks to page two hundred and forty seven, now can somebody please tell me the difference between a metamorphamagus and an animagus?" as usual Hermione's hand was the first to shoot up into the air, though she knew that Ginny and Luna must know the answer after meeting Tonks, "Yes, Miss Granger?"
"An animagus is a wizard who can transfigure into no more than one animal whereas a metamorphamagus can change any aspect of there appearance at will." She explained.
"Very good Miss Granger, ten points to Gryffindor." He said. "Now today I want you to practice some of the things that a metamorphamagus must go through during their many years of training, unless they are the lucky few to be born one." They really did go through many years of training as the section in the book about becoming a metamorphamagus was twenty pages long.
Later on in the lesson they were told to practice changing each others appearances to their own using wands, by the end of the lesson Ginny had become an exact copy of Hermione and changed back again whereas Hermione had ginger bits of hair and eyes that were different shades of brown to each other, it had to be Aberforth who changed her back to normal. Luna's hair had been partially blackened by Demelza. Everyone returned to their seats before the end of the lesson,
"Now I want you to study and practice the methods of becoming a metamorphamagus because during your transfiguration N.E.W.T you will be asked to change some aspect of your appearance and change it back again exactly as it was before." Aberforth told them before he dismissed them for break time.
During break Hermione and Ginny sat down on a bench in the transfiguration courtyard,
"I do not want to go into that class room, it'll be mortifying, why did I take muggle studies?" Ginny was complaining about her dad being a teacher.
"I'm sure he won't be that bad." Said Hermione but Ginny seemed not to hear her,
"And he doesn't even know anything about muggles." It was true; Mr. Weasley's knowledge of muggles was as limited as Hermione's knowledge of Quidditch.
When they got to the muggle studies classroom there was only about five other people there, of course, none of them were Slytherins (who all hated muggles). Everyone sat down at their desks and Mr. Weasley stood up at the front,
"Hello, um, class, I-I'm Professor W-Weasley," you could tell he was nervous, "T-today we'll be l-looking into th-the w-world of elctri-tricity," he reached into a box and pulled out a plug, Hermione looked over at Ginny who was bright red in the cheeks and a couple of Hufflepuff girls sniggering at her. "Today I w-want you to take apart a pl-plug with a screwdriver and try t-to fix it a-all b-back together again." He was stumbling over fewer words and now was going around the desks handing out plugs and screwdrivers.
Hermione found this task quite easy as she grew up in the muggle world and had changed many fuses in her time, other people however seemed to be severely struggling.
"No wands." Mr. Weasley had spotted Demelza trying to force out her screws using magic. At the end of the lesson they had some very mangled plugs, Hermione's was the only one that finished how it had started, Luna fitted the casing together but didn't put in any of the wires inside it, Demelza had cracked hers trying to pull out the screw and Ginny did something odd with the wires that gave her a small electric shock.
"Now for homework I would like you to have a foot long essay on what muggles use electricity for and why they do it." Everyone left the class slightly annoyed that they had received homework on the first day but this could be one of the easiest essays that Hermione had ever done.
They went to the great hall for lunch,
"It wasn't that bad." Hermione was telling Ginny.
"I suppose not but people in the class are a bit annoyed with me because my dad gave out homework on the first day." She said.
"Yeah but it's an easy essay just writing about what electricity is used for." Hermione tried to comfort her.
"For you, you were raised by muggles, today was the first time I've ever seen a ploog." Demelza cut in.
"A plug you mean?" said Hermione, she had forgotten how wizards didn't know simple muggle objects like a plug or the idea of using electricity.
"What have we got next?" asked Ginny.
"Defense against the dark arts." Said Hermione.
Professor Ruperts' classroom was decorated with scary looking rag dolls hanging from the ceiling and broomsticks in cases on the walls. She stood at the front in wavy, lilac robes,
"Good afternoon kids," she spoke in a kind, gentle voice, "Please don't take your seats, we'll be active this lesson, okay, I want you all to move into an open space with a partner, one person will run at the other and the other person will have to stop them, take it in turns, house points to whoever uses the most interesting spell." The class spread out, Hermione was with Luna, she saw people using simple spells and then she thought of a spell that was not known to many people, Luna ran at her and Hermione thought "Levicorpus." And Luna flew into the air.
Professor Ruperts walked up to her and said,
"Very good, miss?"
"Granger."
"Very good Miss Granger, twenty points to Gryffindor, and I don't think I heard an incantation, another ten points for using a non-verbal spell." She said. After half an hour of stunning, disarming and tripping, Professor Ruperts called in all of the students. "Now, being an auror, you work with lots of dementors, can anybody tell me how you ward off dementors?"
"A patronous charm." Said Luna.
"Yes, five points to Ravenclaw, the patronous charms wards off dementors, they are hard to produce, you must think of the happiest memory you can and say the incantation expecto patronum, now producing a patronous charm is not compulsory for your N.E. but it will earn you several extra marks which is why I want you to spent the rest of the lesson practicing them.
This was going to be easy, in the DA Hermione learned how to make a patronous charm, she knew Luna did to and was pretty sure that Ginny did, she whipped out her wand, thought of Ron, and said,
"Expecto patronum!" a silvery otter burst out of Hermione's wand and it was soon joined by a silver hare which she knew was Luna's patronous and a silver horse which she saw Ginny casting.
"Incredible, absolutely incredible, a full body patronous on the first go, forty points to Gryffindor and twenty points to Ravenclaw." Said Professor Ruperts.
For the rest of the lesson Hermione saw a lot of silver vapor coming out of peoples wands that soon evaporated, though Demelza did manage to form a silver shield for a few seconds.
"Now class, I would like you to practice a couple of non-verbal spells and for some extra credit you can practice producing a patronous, see you later." Professor Ruperts dismissed them.
"I quite like her, she seems nice." Luna was telling Hermione on the way out of the classroom.
"Yeah, she seems it." Replied Hermione.
A week later, after they had had four defense against the dark arts lessons, they were in the dormitory and Demelza was practicing making a patronous,
"Yes, yes, I held the shield for a whole minute!" everyone in the dormitory gave a clap, that included Hermione, Ginny, Mindy Mantis, Jacqueline Mitchell and Griselda Withers.
"Yeah great." Said Griselda,
"Only took you, what, three hours?" said Mindy,
"Now can we get some sleep please?" said Jacqueline.
"Well sorry." Retorted Demelza. She got changed into her pajamas and went to bed, as did the rest of the dormitory. Crookshanks jumped up onto Hermione's bed and fell asleep on her head, waking her up. She moved the cat to the feet end of the bed and saw Demelza standing there wither wand out whispering,
"Expecto patronum." And Hermione swore that she saw a fully formed, silvery bat fly out of the end for a few seconds before it dissolved into silver vapor.
"YES, I DID IT!" yelled Demelza waking up everyone in the dormitory.
"Louder, please, I think that Hagrid might not of heard you all the way out in his cabin." Said Ginny looking very tired, "now go to sleep!"
"Whatever, I produced a full body patronous." Demelza looked very pleased with herself,
"It's true, I saw it, it's a bat." Said Hermione,
"Who cares, go to sleep!" said Mind. This time Demelza actually did go to bed, you could tell she was asleep because of her snoring, Hermione had Crookshanks fall asleep on her head again and went to sleep, every time she breathed in she got a mouth full of ginger cat hair.