I didn't dare look as I cast the spell. I heard a gasp next to me and I cracked my eyes open in triumph.

"See? I told-Oh no…" I covered my mouth to smother the giggles frothing from my lips.

Somehow I must have pointed my wand at Fred. Somehow it must have worked. Somehow he was flying in the air.

Fred was waving his arms wildly trying to get down. He kept going higher and higher though. It was hysterical.

The whole class had noticed by now and was laughing. I couldn't see George's face, but the way his shoulders were shaking, I'm sure he thought it was funny. I risked a glance at Flitwick…he seemed to think it was funny too. Whew, that was a relief.

"Miss Peverell," He said trying hard not to laugh. "Although you have displayed the spell correctly, it is not to be used on –low chuckle- humans." He took a deep breath and continued. "Please put down Mr. Weasley." The whole class erupted in laughter once again.

I turned bright red, partly form laughing and partly from embarrassment. But I swallowed my laughter and turned to my teacher. "I'm not sure I can." I said timidly.

"Trixy! Put me down, or I swear I'll—" But he was cut off. He was still yelling at me, but no noise came out. Hmm, a silencing charm perhaps? Impressive. I didn't think any first year could pull that off yet.

I glanced at George who was putting his wand back in his pocket. He gave me a look that said "I won't tell if you don't". I grinned and nodded discreetly. Luckily Flitwick didn't seem to notice the exchange, but the rest of the class did. The class was laughing louder than ever now.

"Miss Peverell, just direct your wand down. Class quiet down!" He commanded.

I hesitated, "Do I have too?" I whined at Flitwick.

A smile still danced at his lips. "Yes, I'm afraid so."

"Rats." I said as I lowered him to the floor, maybe a little harder than necessary. He landed in a heap but as soon as the silencing charm wore off, he was whispering angrily to me again. But this time to shut him up I threatened him with flying lessons again.

I practiced on my feather the rest of class, actually managing to control the height of its flight. Fred didn't manage it, much to my chagrin. But George did and a few others. Gryffindor and Hufflepuff got house points by the end of class.

Break was after Charms, so the twins and I headed out to the grounds to soak up the sun. We also got a laugh at levitating Fred.

But breaks don't last forever, not nearly as long. We headed back inside and raced off our separate ways to get to class before we were late.

Surprisingly I found DADA quickly and without any help, later on I heard Fred and George weren't that lucky. I walked into class rather hurriedly to find that it actually wasn't that big. I saw maybe four Gryffindors, six Slytherins, and the rest were Ravenclaw. I noticed Nott was also in my class, but at least Heidi and Patricia weren't part of the class. Thank Merlin for that.

I took a seat at the back of the class with a nervous looking Ravenclaw. I waited for the teacher to make an appearance, as far as I know it was never mentioned in the books. Finally a very tall man glided into the room. The class went dead silent; the Ravenclaw boy stiffened next to me and sat up straighter.

He stopped at the front of the room and observed us with a closed smile.

He had a pale face that pronounced the dark circles under his eyes, probably lack of sleep; I got them all the time.

Almost everyone looked away when he made eye contact with him. I wondered why, until he focused his gaze on me. He had a piercing gaze that seemed to look into your soul. Well, you know what they say; eyes are windows to the soul.

I was going to look away like the rest, but then I thought 'why should I look away, he's just a teacher. Albeit a very scary teacher, but who cares?', so I stared hard back at him.

His dark eyes stayed on me for a few extra seconds but when I didn't look away he betrayed a thin approving smile and moved on to my desk mate who quickly buckled under his gaze. I don't know what just happened, but I think I had just proven something to him.

After he had successfully had a stare down with every student he spoke. "I am your Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Sanguini Colti."

His voice was low but still carried across the room. "I was hired to prepare you for the world and its hardships. Should you ever find yourself in a duel I hope you use the knowledge that I teach you to survive. If you ever have a run in with a troll or other beast I hope to prepare you for that."

He paused in his monologue to see if we were paying attention, which we were. Everyone was riveted to his speech; he just gave off that kind of aura.

"Today we are going to learn basic defense spells, and if you manage to master them by the end of the month, we will have a duel."

The class broke out in whispers. He let them go for a moment but then held up his hand. We all fell silent.

"I said if."

"Today we will begin simply." He walked up to the chalk board and began to write in beautiful calligraphy. For the first time I noticed how long his fingernails were. They were perfectly manicured and sharp looking. Creepy.

Anyways the board spelled out, "The Verdimillious charm."

"The Verdimillious charm is very versatile spell. Its main use is to generate green energy in the form of green sparks."

I glanced to my right and saw the Ravenclaw boy furiously copying everything down. I looked around the room to see at least half the class copying his words, so I took out paper too. I wrote my name with the quill, but after that I used a pen.

"The sparks can be used to reveal hidden objects hidden by the dark arts or somehow used for dueling purposes." He continued coolly. "The spell, if cast powerfully, behaves like a muggle electric shock and can hurt the victor slightly."

"Slightly." A Slytherin coughed from the back.

Professor Colti slowly turned and looked at the girl who had uttered 'slightly'.

"Perhaps you would like to come up and demonstrate the spell Miss Wynch." It was not a question, it was an order.

When she didn't move he put the piece of chalk down. "Miss Wynch, were waiting."

To Mervyn Wynch's credit when she finally scraped her chair backwards and stood up, she didn't betray much fear.

She walked slowly up to the front of the room and stood next to Colti.

"You're brave, I'll give you that." Colti murmured.

He addressed the class, "When using the Verdimillious charm in a dueling situation one has to know how to point there wand. I assume most of you have been to charms class so I'm not going to go down that route."

He theatrically pointed his wand at Mervyn Wynch, while the class laughed. She steeled her face and glared openly at Colti. Merlin, this guy was awesome.

"Verdimillious." He said loudly and evenly. A burst of green sparks exploded from his wand and hit Wynch right in the stomach. She jumped back a step wincing painfully, but she didn't cry out. When she straightened up, there didn't seem to be any lasting damage.

He gestured for her to go back to her seat. She did so begrudgingly.

"As you can see, it slightly disorientates the victim and doesn't do much harm. Can we all have a round of applause for Miss Wynch?"

We all clapped politely.

The rest of class was devoted to Verdimillious and a certain knock back jinx I had used on Fred and George on the train. We were supposed to master the spells by next class; at least half of my homework was already done, I thought evilly as we jotted down notes on Flippendo.

I loved our teacher, he rocked. He knew his stuff as well as being able to stop trouble. Even if he looked a little funny.

I yawned as I looked at my arm for the next class, Transfiguration with the Ravenclaws. Ugh, I would have to put up with studious note takers during McGonagalls class. I don't think she would be happy to see me again after the events of last night. At least I would spend it with a few Gryffindors.

I know I wouldn't be with the twins, but maybe Angelina or Alicia would be there.

I walked in actually on time with no rushing about or tardiness. McGonagall was sitting on her desk in cat form observing the class in front of her. Everyone obviously didn't know it was her except for a choice few.

The class was messing around and creating a general ruckus, except for the few students who were aware of her animagus status. Probably older siblings or parents. Unfortunately, even though I was on time, the only seats left were at the front.

I took a seat next to Angelina, who surprisingly also happened to also be at the front. It seemed that Alicia wasn't in this class but Patricia and Kenneth Towler were. I also noticed Lee Jordan and the timid nervous boy who I had sat next to in Defense.

I let my eyes wander about the room taking in the design of the architecture. It was really a wonderful room with windows near the ceiling letting light into the room. Bright tapestries aligned the walls with cool designs threaded in.

During my inner musings my gaze fell upon the cat eyes of McGonagall. She had her head cocked to the side and seemed to be staring through me. I gave her a smirk and mouthed 'hello professor' to the cat.

The cat's whiskers twitched in surprise but then she switched to her customary glare. I smiled; I had gotten through to her skin.

After I was sure class should be underway, the cat stepped forward and jumped off the desk. The transformation of animagus to human in the movie was pretty close to what just happened before my eyes. When she morphed to a human form the whole class froze and stared at their teacher who had appeared out of nowhere.

"Thank you class. Mr. Green, stop pulling Miss Hathaway's hair. Detention Miss DeNor, hitting another student is not allowed. Mr. Benson, please stop eating your parchment." She paused in her punishments and took a deep breath. "Please take out your books to page three and copy down the first paragraph."

Everyone groaned.

She raised her eyebrows. "Unless you would rather have me continue to report the things I have seen in this class room. Let me assure you that many of the actions I have just seen are not all legal by the school rules."

Everyone quickly took out there books.

McGonagall was a tough teacher, but good. It wasn't a boring class, but it wasn't fun. Then again all we did was take notes.

I was satisfied with my classes at the end of the day. I liked my schedule and liked my friends. Professor Colti was awesome, and his subject was also awesome. I think I could get used to McGonagall after we got over the water incident. I pretty sure she knows who started it.

I caught up with Fred and George during dinner. I spotted lasagna and my mouth started watering. Cheesy Italian goodness, just waiting to take a roller coaster ride down to my stomach.

We all swapped stories over our class experiences during the meal. Thankfully Patricia didn't bring up my partnership with Nott, but we did get a laugh when I told the story of blowing up my desk in History of Magic.

Apparently Lee Jordan managed to set his desk on fire in DADA. And after much cajoling and pleading we dragged out an embarrassing experience from Alicia. She had potions with Snape that morning and she got so nervous in front of him she spilled her potion on Snape.

It shouldn't have been that dangerous because she was making a cure for boils, but she added some ingredients wrong because she melted Snapes cloak and gave her partner first degree burns. That's not including melting both of their chairs down.

She said she would be serving detention with us. There's a silver lining in every cloud.

After we were full of lasagna and amusing stories we headed up to bed.

This time there was no water fight and we fell right asleep. So much for homework.