Chapter 7
Albus and Sam walked into Charms the next morning, chattering away about their findings last night. They sat at the back of the classroom with Rose and Jamie. A man stood on a chair at the front of the classroom. He had white, blonde hair and seemed very tall, though this might have been because he was standing on a chair.
"Listen up children," he had no reason to shout because everyone's face was turned towards him in a jiffy, "I am Professor McMillan and this is now your Charms classroom. Now today we are going to practising the levitation charm. Say after me, Wingardium Leviosa!"
The whole class repeated the words "Wingardium Leviosa!" in a loud collective voice that vibrated round the school.
"Good. Now we do the hand movement. Just swish and flick," He did the movement. "It's your turn now!"
The first-years started to practice. Albus tried and tried but he just couldn't do it. Rose reached over and tapped Albus on the shoulder. He immediately stopped the frantic movements.
"Albus it's simple. Go swish and flick, just like Professor said," she explained, moving her hand slowly. Albus copied.
"That's it. Good work. What is your name again?" Professor McMillan asked Rose.
"Rose Weasley, sir," she replied politely.
Professor McMillan turned away, as Rose beamed to herself in glee. He walked slowly back to his chair, making sure to check on every person.
As Albus was watching this and everything going on in the loud Charms room, Rose whispered to him, "The dragon was there for a reason."
Albus turned to her very quickly. "What then?" he asked a few seconds later after he had got over the shock of wetting his pants.
"Did you not see what was behind that dragon?"
"Of course not! I was too preoccupied with the dragon's fire!" he burst out.
"A door! There's more in there, believe me!"
Their attention turned to where Professor McMillan was standing on his chair again.
"It seems that many of you have managed to do both tasks, so now we try it together!" he said, overenthusiastic, "Wingardium Leviosa!"
The feather in front of Amber lifted off the table to her amazement. It flew smoothly towards Professor McMillan, who caught it in his hand. He stood there for a second before realising that the first-years were waiting for him to speak.
"Go!" he said plainly and bluntly.
Lily and Matthew were practising in a corner, shouting Wingardium Leviosa at each other. At least, Lily was shouted, Matthew was mainly trying to calm her down. Jamie was trying so hard to get his feather to float, but no matter what he did, it would do no more than bounce off the table. Of course, genius girl Rose had got it exactly right first time round. Professor McMillan congratulated her.
"Well done! Well done! Ten house points to you," he said as Rose smiled.
The bell vibrated through the whole school at that very moment.
"OK... That's all for today. I want two rolls of parchment on the Levitation Charm in for next week. Class dismissed!"
The Gryffindor first-years then trekked over to where Transfiguration class is held. They lined up outside like good pupils should, so they'd been told. Albus could see Scorpious coming down the corridor towards him. His two cronies pushed people out of the way to create a path for Scorpious. A smart looking boy, who was maybe his his fourth year, stepped forward directly in front of Scorpious.
"You are wrongly shoving people aside and making them feel bad about themselves. What do you have to say for yourselves," he said bravely.
Scorpious's two thugs pushed the boy back against the wall, the other pupils pushing each other to stay out of the way.
"Don't talk to me like that!" Scorpious threatened, walking towards the poor boy.
"I'm older than you. I can hurt you with my wand," the boy says hesitantly.
Mike leaned towards the boy and wrestled his wand from him, the boy putting up a good fight.
He shouted, "No! No! Not my precious wand!"
Scorpious was handed the wand when he held his hand out.
"So you like your wand?" he asked.
The boy did nothing. Scorpious motioned to Crabbe who hit the boy with surprising speed and power. The crowd gathered around them all reacted to the shot.
"Now that is what will happen if you defy me." He tilted his head back and emitted a dark and evil laugh. "Mwa ha ha ha! So now you tell me; do you like your wand?"
"Yes, yes," the boy sobbed.
Scorpious held the wand out ahead of him, a hand at each end. He slowly bent it as the boy fought weakly against his jailers. The loud snap of the boy's wand made the shocked cries cease as Scorpious shattered the dreams of this poor boy. Scorpious drew back his hand and punched the boy on the nose, smashing his glasses. The boy was punched again and again, Scorpious getting pure pleasure from his doings. After many punches Albus stepped forwards, sick of what was going on in front of his nose. He pointed his wand at Scorpious.
"Do you really think that will stop me?" Scorpious said laughing.
He beckons to Crabbe and Mike who step forward, aiming to grab Albus. Luckily Rose and Sam are paying attention and they position their wands at Crabbe and Mike. Crabbe just stares at the wand, managing to go cross eyed in the process.
Professor Zabini appears out of nowhere.
"I will take it from here," he said smoothly. "Ten points off Gryffindor for each of you, Albus Potter, Sam Grigg and Rose Weasley." He spat out the names as if they were deadly. "You should not attack students," he added when he saw the fourth year student.
Albus hesitated in putting down his wand.
"Albus, wand down now!" he shouted and walked away quickly.
A teacher peered out from the half closed Transfiguration door.
"What is going on out here?" she asked as if she hadn't just heard the shouting and screaming.
A bounty of voices replayed their own very different versions of their fight.
"Just come in," she said quietly, all her energy gone in a blink. She turned and sat at her desk.
The Gryffindors and Slytherins bundled into the classroom. The teacher looked up and saw the fourth year boy still sitting with his head in his lap against the opposite wall. She started, seeing the Ravenclaw beaten up so badly.
"I'll be back in a minute, but I need to get a boy to the Hospital Wing. I require three people to help. You! You! And you!" she said, pointing at Albus, Sam and Rose.
She got up and strode out. She knelt down by the boy and talked to him softly. Rose went after her, eager to help. Albus and Sam were reluctant to move, until they saw the murderous faces of the Slytherins. They picked themselves up and rushed towards Rose.
The four of them half carried, half dragged the boy to the Hospital Wing.
"I don't want to intrude, but who is this boy?" Rose asked politely.
` "This is Alexander Riley, fourth-year student in Ravenclaw," she answered.
They travelled the rest of the way in silence, each of them trying their best to keep Alexander off the ground. Rose threw open the doors to the Hospital Wing. Madam Pomfrey turned around at the sound from treating a patient who had come in minutes before. She shrieked, seeing Alexander barely propped up between the four of them.
"Put him down!" she exclaimed, pointing to a spare bed.
They let Alexander down gently onto the bed. Madam Pomfrey quickly examined him.
"Now what happened?" she asked, starting to pick the pieces of glass off Alexander's face.
"Alexander, here," Rose said, nodding towards Alexander. "He got into a fight with Scorpious Malfoy."
"The new first-year?" the teacher asked.
"Yes. And anyway Alexander stood up for the crowd, he got beaten up. We stepped in with our wands to stop Scorpious. Then we got blamed for the whole thing by Zabini," Albus summarised.
"Did you get points taken off?" the teacher, Professor Delacour, asked.
"Yeah! Ten from each of us," Sam said, distracted.
"I give you each twenty points to Gryffindor for helping me carry Alexander here," she said, "Madam Pomfrey?"
"Call me Poppy, dearie," she said.
"OK. Poppy, will you be all right looking after Alexander, I mean he is in my house, so he's my responsibility-"
"It'll all be fine," Madam Pomfrey assured Professor Delacour.
"Are you sure? I just don't want to leave him-" said Professor Delacour.
"Dearie, just go," Madam Pomfrey said, sounding exasperated.
Rose led Professor Delacour out of the Hospital Wing. They walked up to the Transfiguration classroom, where there seemed to be a lot of noise coming from it. Professor Delacour walked in and immediately there became a deathly silence among the pupils in there. Mike had his wand pointed at a girl in the corner of the room, Amber Burns it was. Lily Read had passed out on the desk and James was frantically feeling for a pulse. Crabbe had something, it seemed to be egg, down the front of his robes. Nancy Greengrass was standing on the teacher's desk, all the papers were everywhere and a window had been smashed so all the glass had sprayed everywhere.
"What on earth has gone on here?" she cries.
Albus, Sam and Rose sneak in and look upon the disaster zone of a classroom. Several people mutter the answer.
"What was that?" she asked.
Amber Burns stood up.
"They kinda trashed it," she said.
"And how did they do that Amber?" Professor Delacour asked.
"They did spells and broke everything," Amber said.
"OK. Ten points off anyone who was in here," She decided. There were a few mumbles and groans. "Amber, can you tell me whose fault it was for this mess?"
"Um... Scorpious, Nancy, Mike, Crabbe and all the other Slytherins."
"The main people then."
"Scorpious, Nancy, Mike and Crabbe."
"Good. The four of you, detention at eight in here cleaning this up for the next week."
You could hear the groans of the Slytherins and see the smiles of the Gryffindors.
"Now you sit and I am passing round an ant for each of you. Do not crush it and try to kill it. Don't lose it either. I have spares but not enough for a spare for all of you. Do you get what I am saying?" Professor Delacour asked.
The students nodded in response.
"Good. You are going to turn this ant into a matchstick."
Crabbe put up his hand.
"What is it Crabbe?" she asked him.
"How do we exactly do that?" he asked boldly.
She sighed. "That is what I am about to tell you. You just point your wand at the ant and say 'Excribious Extorpus'. Say it now."
The class replied, "Excribious Extorpus."
"Good, good. Try it on the ant," Professor Delacour said while passing round the ants from a box on her desk that had luckily not been broken.
Albus caught his ant and stuck his wand to it.
He said, "Excribious Extorpus."
Albus held the ant up to his eye. It had not changed at all as far as he could see. He looked to where Sam was sitting next to him. Sam wasn't doing much better than him. His ant's head may be a bit pointier than his but it wasn't like he was jealous. Was he?
Suddenly, a loud explosion came from the corner of the classroom. Matthew, as always, had managed to blow up his face in the process of doing the spell. He still had his wand held to his ant which didn't seem to be harmed and his hair was blown back from his face, black as coal. He had a shocked look on his face still as if he had been paralysed. Professor Delacour rushed over to Matthew and looked closely at him. Matthew's eyes were staring straight in front of him, his pupils dilated to an extremity. She waved her hand in front of his face, trying to get him to respond to her movements.
"This is no use. He isn't moving. I need to get him up to the hospital wing," Professor Delacour said to the class deflated. "Three volunteers if you may, or rather if I may. Lets see..."
Three people put up their hands.
"Lily Read, Amber Burns and James Arthur come with me." With this she stood up and came over to Matthew. She straightens up after looking closely at him. Nobody had moved. "Come on then. What're waiting for? The rest of you..." She looks around. "...just keep on practising that spell."
The three students moved forward and together lifted Matthew out of the classroom. When they left the classroom, the Slytherins began to misbehave, no matter what Rose did to try to stop them.
Scorpious, Mike and Crabbe had got up and were throwing something across the classroom. Rose stood up and cleared her throat.
"Ahem!" Rose said loudly. No one took any notice of her.
"Ahem, I said! What are you doing?! That's not even near what we were asked to do!" she shouted, sounding exasperated.
Scorpious strolled up to Rose. "Exactly, we were only asked to do it. But it's not like I would listen to someone like her anyway," He said easily.
Rose stood in shock of what she had just heard.
Crabbe shouted out, "Aha! That got you then!" sounding pleased.
Rose sat down and and started to practice the transfiguration spell.
Soon enough, Professor Delacour arrived back with her three helpers. As the door opened, the students froze as one. Professor Delacour walked in and they all looked up and locked eyes with her. The three helpers slipped in and escaped back to their seats. The class was unmoving as their ants crawled out of their grips. The ants opened their wings and took off.
In that moment the whole class went crazy as they tried to capture their mutant ants. One ant was lazily flying in the middle of the room. Crabbe, Mike and James stood and jumped with their arms stretched out. The ant flew higher and the three boys managed to slam their heads together with a sickening bang. The ant then flew all over the classroom wreaking havoc.
"Eeeeek!" Jamie cried as the flying ant came towards him.
He dived beneath the desk with his behind sticking up in the air. Albus leapt to the rescue! His hands went up around the ant as it continued it's path. Unfortunately the ant was too quick for him and he fell to the floor.
Sam was the next to try to catch that pesky ant.
"Lead him to me!" he shouted.
"And how do we do that?" Lily asked, quite puzzled with the concept.
"I don't exactly know," Sam admitted, "But I'll think of something."
An ant landed on the table. Sam slowly moved and suddenly squished it with a book.
"Got it!" he shouted, holding up the squished version of the ant on the back of the book.
Every few minutes another ant would be killed and everyone would cheer since they were one step closer to getting rid of all the ants. Regrettably this also got the ants to fly away again but you couldn't have everything, could you?
Finally the last ant was squashed.
"Now we have got over that crisis, I'll give you each out another ant," Professor Delacour said.
Rose took hold of her ant and immediately started to practise the spell on it. All of a sudden the wriggling ant changed into a matchstick, to the amazement of Sam!
"So that's what a matchstick is..." Sam muttered.
Rose jumped up and shouted, "I did it!"
Professor Delacour took the matchstick from Rose and examined it carefully.
"Well done..." Professor Delacour paused. "What's your name?"
"Rose Weasley, miss."
"Well done Rose. This," she looks at the class, holding out the matchstick, "This is a fine specimen of a good transfiguration spell. Now for the rest of you, you will only manage it if you keep practising."
She gave the matchstick back to Rose.
Sam on the other hand hadn't even a pointy end to his ant, let alone an actual matchstick. He tried everything! He prodded it and pinched it; he flicked his wand and swiped it. But nothing happened!
He shouted, "Excribious Extorpus," hoping to see some change in his ant. Nothing happened.
Sam noticed Rose watching him out of the corner of her eye.
"What am I doing wrong?" Sam asked Rose.
"You have to say ExCRIbious ExTORpus! Not Excribious Extorpus!" said Rose.
"How is that different, not to be rude or anything."
"You have to put emphasis on the second syllabus. That's where you're going wrong!" Rose said, as if it was obvious.
That week came and went and soon it was Friday and the three Gryffindors had an afternoon to themselves.
"I said I'd meet Hagrid today. Do you want to come with me?" Albus asked.
The others nodded in response. They were sitting in the Gryffindor Common Room, the room empty since it was a warm and sunny day outside. The light streamed in from the high windows and warmed up the room. The set off outside, travelling across the Hogwarts grounds to the tiny hut by the Forbidden Forest, Hagrid's hut. His hut seemed small on the outside and the pumpkins in the garden were ripe and almost ready to harvest. Rose knocked on Hagrid's door.
A deep, rumbling voice shouted from inside, "C'mon in."
Rose slowly pushed open the door. Inside she could see traps attached on strings to the roof. A large table and chairs sat in one corner. Suddenly a giant black dog bounded forwards and knocked Rose over. It started licking her face.
Hagrid said, "Fang, calm down!" pulling at Fang's collar. He looked up to see who his visitors are. "Ah! Albus! It's so good to see you!"
He walked forward and wrapped his bear arms round Albus, leaving his feet floundering in mid-air. Hagrid gently set Albus down onto solid ground.
"Who are yer friends?" asked Hagrid.
"This is Rose Weasley and this is Sam Grigg." Albus said quickly, pointing to each of his friends in turn.
Hagrid walked further into his hut and sat heavily on a reinforced chair. Albus followed him hesitantly and sat on another chair. Hagrid pushed a plate of strange rock like objects towards Albus.
"Rock cake?" Hagrid asked Albus, Sam and Rose.
The three of them shook their heads.
"Oh go on! They're good!" Hagrid said excitedly.
Albus took a rock cake and bit into it. He felt his teeth scrape against the edge of the rock-hard cake. He could see the pained expressions on Sam and Rose who had also just bitten into a rock cake themselves. Albus tried to resist the urge to spit the rock cake out, instead trying to swallow it. Hagrid would be crushed if he found out they didn't like his rock cakes. Hagrid took one and ate it in one bite.
"Water?" Hagrid asked.
"Yes please!" Albus easily answered. "That would be great!"
Hagrid reached across to where a jug stood filled with fresh water. He poured the water into four gigantic mugs and passed them round.
"Ye look so much like 'arry, ye know," Hagrid remarked, "He helped me a lot with all ma pets. Would ye do that as well, Albus?"
"Yes, of course. What sort of pets did you have?" Albus answered.
"Well, there was Fluffy, ma three-headed dog; an' Aragog, ma giant tarantula; an' Norberta, a Norwegian Ridgeback Dragon. But Norberta was taken to Romania and Aragog died."
Hagrid starts crying.
"What pets do you have now?" Rose asked gently.
Hagrid lifted his head from the table.
"I have this dragon. Such a sweet thing really, but it did set ma beard on fire a few times," Hagrid said sheepishly, "He's quite like Norberta. His name's Firewhisky."
They looked at him strangely.
"Ye know, after the drink."
"Where is your dragon at the moment?" Rose asked.
Call him Firewhisky an' he's in the Hogwarts dungeons."
"How would you get past that dragon?"
"Call 'im Firewhisky!"
"Firewhisky then!"
"There ye go! All ye have to do is wave some honey in front of its nose an' it'll do what ye want. Ye see I always used to... Wait! Why do ye want to know this? Ye don't know about the thingy in the basement, do ye?"
"Well we knew about the dragon and you just admittedc there was something else down there. Anyway, we knew it was guarding something," Rose said plainly.
"Oh."
Hagrid stood up and started to pace from one side of his hut to the other, causing the whole structure to shake. He seemed to be thinking.
"I shouldn't tell ye any more an' it's getting dark so ye need to head back up to Hogwarts. Ye know you're not allowed out at night," Hagrid finally said.
They started to grumble.
"But..." Sam started to say.
"No. It'll be me getting told off for not sending ye up there soon enough," Hagrid said.
He carted the three Gryffindors out his door and saw them slowly walking up the hill towards the front door of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
