I still don't own Harry Potter. Shocker. I only own what you don't recognize and the story plot. That's all; nothing more, nothing less.
It was Thursday before they had Defense Against Dark Arts. It was a fact they discovered at breakfast that morning when they were comparing their schedules for the day.
"First we all have Transfiguration with the 'Puffs. Then double History of Magic with the 'Claws. Lunch, our elective, then double D.A.D.A. with the 'Ins. Think the teachers took the Hat's song to heart? I do." James said.
Remus rolled his eyes, "The deduction skills you have simply astound me."
Either James didn't catch the sarcasm or he decided to ignore it as he continued, "Thanks Moony. I always know I can count on you to see reason."
Ben and Remus shared a look before they started softly laughing. James didn't even seem fazed at their laughter.
Suddenly, James got a forlorn look on his face. Then just as suddenly as his expression changed, it changed again; this time to a smirk.
"Oi! Evans!" He shouted down the table.
The red head turned and scowled at James. It didn't matter that she was relatively impressed with the potion skill he demonstrated earlier that week, she still was angry with what happened in the Entrance Hall earlier that night. It also didn't help that she was still sore about being turned into a human sized Gryffindor Scarf.
James didn't even wait for her to respond before he asked, "Would you magic me up some glasses? I just got blinded by your beauty."
Alice, who was sitting across from Lily, spat out her pumpkin juice in a spray that drenched Lily. But Lily didn't notice. She was too busy seething at what James said. She closed her eyes and seemed to be struggling to not hex him into the next millennium while James's friends were dissolving into fits of laughter.
Finally, Lily opened her eyes and looked calmly at Potter, "I suggest checking you face." She waved her wand, uttering a spell that they couldn't hear. With that, she stood up, grabbed her book, and started walking out of the Great Hall.
The six other Gryffindors turned to look back at James to see what she had done to him. Their eyes all widened when they saw what Lily had done. She had used to engorgio charm to enlarge his glasses tenfold- and they were still growing.
They slid off James's face and shattered on the table, covering everything in little bits of glass and shards of wire framing. James, who was legally blind at this point, moved as if he was to start groping at the table to find his glasses. Sirius grabbed his wrists and held them up. "I wouldn't do that if I were you."
Remus by this point had pulled out his wand and waved it over the table, "Oculus Reparo."
The glasses pulled themselves together and after Ben shrunk them back to normal size, he handed them back to James. "Here you go, mate. What with this sudden obsession with Lily?" He inquired.
James just raised an eyebrow, "What obsession? Let's get to class. Minnie will feed me to the Giant Squid if I show up late to her class."
"I thought you said she loves you?" Ursula challenged.
"She'll kill me with love," James said as he swooned into Ursula as he held his hands to his heart. She rolled her eyes and shoved him away from her.
Hours later, the girls were waiting in the Defense corridor after they got out of Divination early. Sirius and Peter were the first to join them.
"So how was Crazy Carpenter?" Sirius asked of the Divination Professor that was known for being completely off his rocker. Ursula shuddered while Elyse fake vomited.
"Teh idiot doesn't know a thing aboot teh future!" Elyse said in disgust.
Sirius laughed, "He can't be that bad." He tried to defend the teacher.
Elyse gave him a deadpanned look, " 'e told me 'hat I had a closed mind 'n I was not in touch with me 'inner eye'."
Immediately, Sirius stopped laughing and looked at his twin with wide eyes, "Sissy, did he really say that?"
When Ursula nodded, Sirius snorted in disbelief. "That man has less seer in his entire body than you do on just on a strand of your hair."
"Who does?" Ben asked as he joined the group outside of their defense classroom. He was joined by Remus and James, who had all elected to take Arithmancy. James was the surprise in that group; he never seemed the type to take such a subject. When asked about it, James explained that although his best friend could see the future with much more certainty, it didn't mean that he could learn what he could about the subject; this was only way his non-seer blood allowed him to do so.
"Crazy Carpenter. He told Elyse she had no inner eye."
Just like Sirius had reacted, the rest of them looked at the said girl in shock. James shook his head, "Blimmey, Carpy's crazier than I thought."
Their conversation was cut short when the rest of the Gryffindors and a few Slytherins walked down the hallway. The gang quickly went into the room and got their seats in the back of the class on the Gryffindor side.
They didn't have to wait long before the new professor showed up. She was wearing a burnt orange robe and her hair was pulled into the messiest bun the girls had ever seen. She walked down the center aisle to her desk. She threw some papers haphazardly on her desk. Turning around she smiled at the class and stuck her wand into her bun.
"Good afternoon class. My name is Stella Clarke and I am your Defense Against the Dark Arts professor this year. From what I understand you've have two other teachers before me. I can promise you this; I am not a Death Eater," she pulled up her left sleeve and showed the whole class, who mostly chuckled. She smiled along with them before she started speaking again, "I can't really make a promise against dying, but I'll try my best to live until the end of the term." She winked at them.
James elbowed Sirius in the ribs, "I think I have a new favorite professor." He whispered.
Sirius snickered and whispered back, "Just don't let Minnie know."
Professor Clarke crossed her arms and leaned back on her desk, "I'm not going to lie and say that this year is going to be easy. There are dark forces out there. Chances are you already know someone who has lost someone or you personally know one of the dead. This year is possibly going to be one of the most important years in you education, defense-wise. Lord Voldemort is not just going to be gathering up other wizards; he's going for dark creatures. Those creatures don't have human emotions; they won't hesitate slaughtering you or your family."
She regarded the class for a moment and took in their terrified glances. She sighed and shook her head, "Here I am terrifying you on the first day. I'm not saying that a horde of centaurs are going to storm into your dorms tonight and kill you all. I'm saying that you need to be prepared for anything; the good and the bad. What my goal for you this year is to take what you might consider bad, and maybe try to see it in a different light. Being a muggleborn witch, I had the image of mermaids being beautiful. I got pushed into the Black Lake my fourth year and saw just how beautiful they are up close," she said making a face.
There was some scattered laughter. She smiled at them, making her look younger than she already was. "I thought that today we could start out with a little debate of sorts. I think I can assume that this class has some differing opinions, so I want to see what they are. Muggleborns. Good? Bad? Go."
The class was silent a moment before Avery spoke up, scars still marring his face from the disastrous prank from last year, "They don't belong here. They aren't worthy of being taught magic."
Some of the Gryffindors made to stand up and hex the heck out of Avery, but Professor Clarke stopped them with a simple hand motion. She then turned to Avery, "Why do you think that?"
"Their blood is dirty."
She turned to the Gryffindor side for a moment. "Is there a pureblood and muggleborn that would like to try an experiment with me?"
Ursula's and Elyse's hand instantly shot into the air. Clarke looked between the two and then waved them both up. She motioned for them to come close to her and she whispered her idea to them. They looked a bit hesitant, but they went behind a curtain. They appeared a few seconds later with two small vials full of red liquid. It took the class a second to realize what it was. It was blood.
"As you are probably aware, Mr. Avery, Miss O'Brian here is a muggleborn and Miss Black here is of extremely pureblood. Can you tell me the difference?" She asked as she took the vials from the girls and held them in front of Avery and Snape (who was sitting right next to the other boy).
Avery looked affronted for a moment before he pointed to the vial that Ursula was holding, "That is cleaner than the mudblood's. You can see it." He looked at the other vial in disgust and hit it out the professor's hand. It shattered on the ground and the blood spattered on the ground and on the professor's robes. She looked at him with cold blue eyes.
"Detention. That word will never be uttered again in this room. And just to inform you, Mr. Avery, that blood that is spattered on the ground and is 'unclean'? That's was Miss Black's. They switched behind the curtain."
Avery looked absolutely furious but he kept his mouth shut. Clarke stood straight up again and walked to the middle of the room. She looked tired all of a sudden.
"There are people out there right now that are getting murdered just because of the family they were born into. Your classmates have already lost family members because of some man's idea that the only people that should learn magic are purebloods. My own little sister and my twin were caught in an attack just over the summer. My twin, Estrella, was killed. I had to bury my identical twin sister when I was just 31 years old. All because we are muggleborn witches."
The class was dead silent. Sirius and Ursula looked at each other with fear in their eyes. They had never considered what being blood traitors really meant in this world. To most purebloods, being a blood traitor is worse than being muggleborn. What if—what if one of them got killed in this war? It was obvious they couldn't take a bystanders position; their best friends were the Minister of Magic's son, a werewolf, the former Head Auror's son, another blood traitor, and a muggleborn. They would be fighting. And people would be dying. They had never been apart before; the idea was ludicrous in their minds. But the finality of death was something that neither Black could control. Their silver eyes communicated emotions they would never be able to put into words as they stared at each other only seats away but at that moment, too far.
Clarke started speaking again, this time so softly the entire class leaned in to listen.
"This war is not going to end quickly. It is possible that a fair few of you might die in the process, on whatever side you decide to be on." She gave a look at the Slytherins before she continued. "But if there is one thing that I want you to take out of this class is to think for yourself. Break away from your family if you must; don't just go along with what others try to force you to believe if you truly don't believe. I see we already have a few that have done that in here," she smiled at Sirius and Ursula. "There are always two sides to an argument, just as there are always two sides to a person or dark creature. For your homework, I want you to create a good versus bad chart on a creature that is traditionally considered dark. We will discuss them next week. Class dismissed." She walked around her desk and sat down and started looking at some of the papers she threw there earlier in the class.
The students just sat in awed silence. Finally, a few kids started putting their stuff away which caused a domino effect. Soon, everyone was rushing to pack up to get out of the class so they could talk about what just happened.
"Oh, Miss Black and O'Brian, could you please come up here." Clarke spoke over the noise.
Ursula and Elyse looked at each other and wondered if it was something about their volunteering earlier in class.
"We'll be right outside the door," Ben assured them as he walked past them.
The girls waited before everyone was out of the classroom before they walked up to the teacher's desk. Clarke must have seen their expressions because she smiled reassuringly at the girls, "Don't worry, you aren't in trouble. Unless you have something to be in trouble for?"
Ursula and Elyse tried to look innocent but they kept on thinking back to the frizzifying charm they put on the boy's shampoo that morning.
To their surprise Clarke laughed, "Don't worry girls; I was in a bit of a prankster myself. Nothing compared to what I heard about you and your friends, but just enough that I think I drove Minerva up a wall."
"You were in Gryffindor?" Ursula asked curiously.
Clarke nodded, "My twin and I were both in Gryffindor. But this isn't about me. Minerva also told me of you 'accident' last year. I want you to both know that if you ever need extra help with something, feel free to ask."
"We don't want any special treatment," Elyse said in a stiff tone.
Clarke shook her head, "You don't understand me. A lot of what we are going to be doing is visually looking at things so you can identify different magical creatures and we are going to be doing a fair bit of spell work that at your level required verbal incantations. I know Flammel's disease can sometimes flare up and the symptoms come back without warning. I just want you to know that if you ever can't do something, don't hesitate to tell me. Trust me, I will understand better than most people."
Before Ursula or Elyse could comment on their professor's statement, a long bang and a swear was heard outside the hallway. Clarke smiled like she was remembering a past experience.
"You should go to your friends. They're probably worried I'm some vampire and I stole more of your blood." She winked good naturedly at the girls.
Elyse and Ursula laughed; it was a kind of conclusion to boys would jump to.
"Goodbye Professor," Ursula said.
"Bye girls." Clarke said before she went back to looking over the papers
When Elyse and Ursula stepped out of the classroom, they were immediately accosted by James and Sirius.
"Are you guys in trouble?"
"Did you do anything?"
"Is she mad at you?"
"Did she want more blood from you two?"
"Is she a vampire or something?"
Elyse and Ursula just shared a look before they dissolved into a fit of laughter. They knew their friends too well, and apparently, so did their new professor. They would have to watch themselves now; there was a teacher that understood them. And for some reason, that didn't bother any of them in the slightest.
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