Begin Transmission

Lacy here kids with the next Heidi chapter. We're gonna have some fun this chapter and some drama. I know, what's new. We're gonna have the dueling club, you'll love the reaction from Sirius, Remus and Heidi on that, and that also means finding out Harry's a parselmouth. Yeah, that'll be interesting. Have fun!

Disclaimer: I own Heidi.

End Transmission

~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~

Dueling club, good idea of Dumbledore's part. The teacher for it, not so good.

"Lockhart?" Heidi said in shock as said man walked onto the stage. It looked as though Snape would be helping him.

"Oh this is going to be funny as hell." Heidi chorused with Sirius and Remus.

Lockhart motioned for everyone to be quiet. "Gather round, gather round. Can everyone see me? Can you all hear me? Excellent!"

Sirius nudged Heidi forward. "Go on Heidi."

Heidi huffed. "If I get hit by a stray spell from him, I'm hexing him."

Sirius coughed, covering a laugh. "You can't hex a teacher, Heidi."

Remus crossed his arms. "I can."

Sirius shook his head as Heidi moved to stand with Luna and Ginny.

"Now, Professor Dumbledore has granted me permission to start this little dueling club, to train you all up in case you ever need to defend yourselves, as I myself have done on countless occasions," Lockhart smiled. "for full details, see my published work."

Heidi shared an eye roll with her brother. And they thought Sirius's ego was bad.

"Let me introduce my assistant, Professor Snape," Lockhart continued, flashing a wide smile. "He tells me he knows a tiny little bit about dueling himself and has sportingly agreed to help me with a short demonstration before we begin." Heidi could tell from Snape's face that he had been ordered by Dumbledore to help and he'd much rather be admitting his long hidden love of McGonagall then helping Lockhart. "Now, I don't want any of you youngsters to worry, you'll still have your Potions master when I'm through with him, never fear!"

Heidi cocked a brow and raised her voice. "What about our Defense teacher?"

The boys broke into laughter, even a few of the girls, Luna, Ginny and Hermione included, started laughing. Heidi could hear Sirius laughing hard and turned to find him leaning on Remus while the other man tried to hold his own laughter in. It was only a few seconds before the two fell to the floor in a heap of laughter. Heidi grinned and turned back to Lockhart, her brow still cocked in question.

Lockhart smiled, not bothered by the laughter. "My dear, as I'm sure you know from my many books, I have a vast knowledge of dueling techniques. I assure you, I will be just fine. No need to fret."

Heidi barely held back a snort. Oh she wasn't worried. She was looking forward to watching the git get his ass kicked.

And get his ass kicked he did. After bowing and raising their wands, Lockhart counted to three and Snape managed to cast his spell first.

"Expelliarmus!"

In a flash of scarlet light, Lockhart was off his feet and flying backwards into the wall, where he slid down, sprawled out on the floor. Basically everyone, again minus most of the girls, broke into laughter. Heidi and Luna leaned on each other as they laughed and even Hermione seemed to get some amusement out of it. Apparently the twins' talk with her had worked.

"Do you think he's alright?" Ginny asked.

"Who cares?" Harry and Ron chorused.

Lockhart got back to his feet and started rambling about Snape's spell being a Disarming Charm and how it was a good example to show the kids but how it was also pretty obvious what he was going to do and if Lockhart had wanted to stop him, it would have only been too easy. Thankfully Lockhart decided to move on because Heidi was getting the feeling, if Snape's expression was anything to go by, that he wouldn't be using a Disarming Charm next time.

"Enough demonstrating!" Lockhart said. "I'm going to come amongst you now and put you all into pairs. Professor Snape, if you'd like to help me-"

Sirius also moved about the kids, sorting them into pairs. He got to Heidi before Snape or Lockhart and let her pair with Luna. Heidi knew Sirius thought it best that she was paired with someone she liked otherwise she wouldn't be inclined to use Disarming Charms.

"I don't think so." Heidi heard Snape say to Harry. "Mr. Malfoy, come over here. Let's see what you make of the famous Potter. And you, Miss Granger, you can partner with Miss Bulstrode."

Heidi ground her teeth. It annoyed her to no end that Snape could act nice, as nice as he got, towards her but he worked his hardest to be a sodding git to Harry.

"Let it go, Bug." Remus said softly as he moved to stand near the kids. Just in case.

Heidi exhaled and nodded to her uncle before facing Luna. They both laughed as they bowed to each other, making shows of it as Lockhart did. Heidi could see Remus shaking his head at them.

"Wands at the ready!" Lockhart shouted, back up on the platform. "When I count to three, cast your charms to disarm your opponents, only to disarm them. We don't want any accidents. One...two...three-"

~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~

Heidi couldn't believe it. Another secret out. All because of Malfoy. She leaned back on the couch in the Marauder's Quarters and listened to her guardians talk. Harry was sleeping in his old room. Well, at least they thought he was sleeping. Sirius had sat with him until it seemed the boy had fallen to sleep but Harry and Heidi had long ago perfected the art of tricking Sirius and Tonks into thinking they were sleeping. Remus they could never fool.

"Almost the whole school was there, Sirius. There's no way we can keep it quiet now." Tonks said, trying to calm her raving cousin.

"I don't care about that." Sirius threw a hand up. "I care that they lied to me again."

Heidi glared. "Hey, I'm right here and we didn't lie this time. You never asked us if Harry could talk to snakes and it only ever happened once."

Remus turned to face Heidi. "When did it happen?"

Heidi sighed. "When we were little. I was four, Harry had just turned six, I think. We were out in the backyard. Uncle Ted was watching us and he'd gone inside to get something. A snake, not a big one but I was four so everything was big, it came out of the bushes and scared me. Harry came over and he talked to it. I couldn't understand him and it worried us both so we agreed not to say anything."

Sirius sat down with a loud exhale. "You two have got to stop hiding things from us. You know we'll never look at you differently. We just want you safe."

Heidi nodded. "I know." she bit her lip. "The whole school's gonna think he's the Heir, aren't they?"

"Most likely." Tonks said. "Which means you are going to have to keep your temper in check. No more hexing people who say bad things about him."

Heidi huffed. That wasn't going to be easy.

~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~

Begin Transmission

Yeah, keeping her calm is not going to be easy at all but Heidi's friends will help her. Drag her away when she looks like she's going to lose it. It'll make for some funny moments, that's for sure. Alright, let me know what you think, flame policy stands and thanks for reading.

End Transmission