Author's Note: Welcome back to another chapter of KatSL! I'm kind of doubtful anyone's reading this, but I felt like writing. I really want to write out all that I've planned for Kurania! That won't be enough to make it through the whole story, but I'll get as far as I can. Reviews would be super-duper amazing for me, so don't be stingy with them!
EDIT: Thanks to Ellie717 for your review and for adding me to alerts! Also, did anyone know that dogs have a ridge on their cranium like monkeys? It's weird to pet it with your foot...
Leslie McCoffrey was easily the strangest-looking person Kurania had ever seen. She had graying brown hair in dreadlocks down to her waist, bright red eyes glinting maliciously, and had arms thicker than a gorilla's. It was this woman that stood in front of the first year Hufflepuffs and Slytherins at four in the afternoon on Wednesday.
"Hullo, brats!" She chirped. "There's no fighting allowed, so I want wimps to line up here," she gestured at one line of brooms, "and Slytherins over here!" There were cries of protest from the Hufflepuffs, but Kurania and Christine exchanged awed looks and quickly took spots beside a broom. They leaned to pick them up, but other Slytherins stopped them. Not a moment later, McCoffrey yelled, "Put that broom back down, wimp! Are you a muggle, bending over to pick it up... that's not how you take up a broom!"She stood beside her own, raised a hand over it, and snapped, "Up!"
Kurania blinked as the broom flew right up, and gave it a shot herself while McCoffrey gave further instruction. "Once the broom's in your hand, I want you to sit on it and wait until the wimps are ready. If you're having trouble getting the broom to answer you, its because you're a crybaby and you don't want to fly." Kurania's first couple attempts failed while McCoffrey was talking. 'I want to fly,' she thought hopefully, and her third attempt got the broom into the air. It didn't quite reach her hand but she snatched it up before it could fall and grimaced.
Floating on the broom was almost as scary as sitting on a thestral: in both cases, Kurania couldn't tell what exactly was supporting her. This time though, she couldn't close her eyes and imagine that her support was actually visible because she couldn't feel anything between the broom and ground. Her nervousness had a sort of domino effect - because she didn't go as high as the other Slytherins, McCoffrey declared her a wimp and bellowed at her. Because McCoffrey was loud, Kurania was startled off her broom. Because she fell, Christine panicked and performed a barrel roll; McCoffrey telling her, "That's a great move!" Scared her into nosediving into Kurania, who had just gotten back on her broom. One stupid Hufflepuff girl with enough makeup to worry a clown thought they'd done it on purpose, and leapt off her broom to scold them, fracturing her ankle when she tried to land on it. There were many more injuries, and McCoffrey didn't help things at all. She claimed that wimpiness was the true cause of their bruises and broken bones, and tried to make everyone get back on their brooms. Many people limped off the pitch before class was over, leaning on their housemates.
Denise, Roderick and Opal were completely unhurt, and were too busy laughing to notice when Kurania and Orion accompanied the others to the Hospital Wing. All of the Hufflepuffs sat around in there, trying not to distract the matron from cussing her colleague out under her breath because she appeared ready to tear someone, anyone's head off. There was only one person who was not in the last Flying lessons class in the Hospital Wing, and Kurania nearly snorted when she realized that it was Roselyn Andersen. Someone had written 'boyfriend stealer' across her face in two rows of vividly green boils, but Roselyn seemed oddly happy. She was twirling a red rose in front of her face, humming one of Taylor Swift's happier songs, and barely noticed when Kurania walked up beside her. She wasn't sure what to say, but Edmund the Hufflepuff spoke to Roselyn first from the next cot.
"My sister do that hex?" He wanted to know.
Roselyn smiled. "Yes - can you believe it?"
"No - Roald's way too nice for you." Edmund snorted. "I mean, he's too nice for sin, too, but still." He'd actually said Cyn, but at the time Kurania did not know that and was very confused.
"Aren't you a bit young for dating drama?" Kurania asked Roselyn, a little annoyed. "You're only thirteen."
"And you're only eleven, snake-freak! Don't try to tell me what I can and can't do!" Kurania was a little surprised at the suddenness of Roselyn's anger. "And tell that albino annoyance to leave me alone already, I'd have had Roald last week if he hadn't been clinging to me all the time!"
"I'm not Hidan's babysitter." Kurania reminded the older girl irritably before walking away. After the Slytherins had been released from the Hospital Wing Kurania, Christine, Lyra and Orion went to the library to work on essays for Professor Clay until dinner. Afterwards, Kurania gathered up her snakes and ran down to Hagrid's for her final detention. Hagrid had mentioned an interest in meeting Charon, Deidei and Kinnyoa after Kurania had talked about them, and the three were also quite interested in the half-giant.
The next morning, Kurania woke up screaming from an awful nightmare where all sorts of people spoke at once and dressed in bright colors and smothered her with them. Opal Anders offered her some makeup to cover up the rings around her eyes, but Kurania didn't really care about the way she looked. DADA wasn't as much fun this time around, but it was very practical.
"Got an annoying little sibling? A snoring roommate? An angry aunt? A yappy puppy? Well, I've got just the spell for you!" Veronica began the class by announcing. Kurania wasn't amused by the way the teacher sounded like an advertisement, at least not until she said, "The Silencing charm!" And then Kurania was all ears. A spell that could shut people up was a spell that she very much needed, with Denise and Hidan running around. Of course, Veronica had to pair Hufflepuffs with Slytherins for this lesson, and Kurania's partner looked such a mess that she couldn't stand to jinx her and was Silencio'd so hard she stumbled backwards and knocked Lyra over. At least Myrtle thought it was funny.
Actually, Myrtle was astonishingly easy to talk to that day, and Kurania ended up skipping lunch. Kurania was quite glad that she had stumbled upon one of Myrtle's favorite topics while talking about flying lessons; bullying.
"I came in here to cry every time someone insulted me." She informed Kurania. "That's why I was in here, the day I died. Oh, she regretted her cruel words so much, once I'd started haunting her... I flooded every bathroom or kitchen she set foot in for years! She became frightened of water, it was just hilarious..."
"It sounds kind of like dying was a good thing for you." Kurania said without thinking, and then hurriedly added, "Now you can make people pay if they bother you, instead of having to go cry about it."
Myrtle grimaced. "If only that were true... I can't leave Hogwarts, not any more. I was nearly exorcised after ruining a wedding, and now I'm stuck here. Elsewise I'd make Harry Potter pay for breaking his promise!"
"Harry Potter? The famous guy who murdered a murderer?" Kurania thought for a moment. "Did he promise to come back to see you? Is that why it's so hard for you to trust me?"
Myrtle nodded miserably. "He's not the only one who said that, but he kept it a little better than the others. Every couple of years he would run into me somewhere, but I always had to go looking for him rather than him come to see me." She sighed forlornly. "He seemed so nice, and so cute..."
Kurania cast about for a way to cheer her up. "I heard from someone that he comes and lectures for DADA classes once in a while; maybe you could irk him then?"
The once-Ravenclaw's eyes lit up. "I could ruin his class!" She said excitedly. "Flood the entire DADA floor, Make a mess of whatever room he stays in - it'll be lovely! He'll regret never coming to see me!"
After her final class of the day, Kurania noticed that Ravenclaw and Gryffindor first years were heading towards the Quidditch pitch and talked several other Slytherins into coming with her, and Christine ran to grab her camera. "You never know when you'll need blackmail." She told Kurania with a smirk. When Teddy Lupin noticed that Slytherins were watching the lesson, he tried to complain to McCoffrey. She was quite pleased to see Roderick, as one of the few non-wimps she'd seen thus far, and was more than willing to allow the Slytherins to watch. Most of the Gryffindors didn't notice that quickly, though.
Kurania had known quite well that Hidan was scared of heights and that had been the main reason she had wanted to watch his first lesson. It was even more amusing than she'd expected, watching him squeak the second the broom moved more than two feet away from the ground. When McCoffrey bellowed at him that he was a useless, cowardly wimp, he yelled right back that she was an over-muscled cow that nobody would ever want to marry. Their insult competition was highly amusing and became more and more creative as it went on, and Kurania just about fell over laughing.
"How dare you laugh at Hidan!" A familiarly angry voice snapped at her, and Kurania looked up to see O'Connell reaching for her wand.
Kurania was much quicker. "Densaugeo!" She yelled the first spell that came to mind. The Gryffindor stared for a moment, and then grabbed at her face suddenly as her teeth began growing at an alarming pace.
"You're not allowed to hex each other!" McCoffrey interrupted one of her insults to yell at Kurania. "But, that's a pretty neat spell! Guess you're not as much of a wimp as I thought. Any idea how to undo that spell?"
"Er, no?"
"Right, then, we'd better take her to the Hospital Wing." McCoffrey put Roderick in charge of the class and threw O'Connell over one shoulder, dragging Kurania along with the other arm.
"Uh heh oo!" O'Connell managed to say despite her teeth, glaring at Kurania.
The mahogany-haired girl couldn't help snickering, although she knew she'd get hell for this. She really hoped that Christine had taken a picture.
End Notes: Please review! I like to wait for story stats to tell me twenty people viewed my most recent chapter before I post the next one, so I know that there are some folk reading my story. Why haven't there been any new reviews? :'/
I have virtual blueberry or raspberry muffins (or something else if you dislike those, though I think you'd have to be crazy not to enjoy blueberry muffins,) for anyone who reviews! And if there aren't any reviewers (or if reviewers want to read them) this time 'round the next chapter will be omake fun. There's all sorts of silliness I want to stick in here, might as well share them...
It'll mostly be goofiness I thought of while I was writing that was far too silly to fit in the story, so I set it aside.
In response to Guest, who reviewed on chapter 1: Kurania isn't a British name, because her mother chose it and her mother is not British at all. I don't plan on even mentioning her until Halloween, and she won't be very important then. Thank you very much for reviewing!
