Chapter Twelve
Post, Disarming, and Terrifying Creatures
The next few weeks after Mia's birthday seemed to fly past. The teachers were handing out more and more homework, reminding them that second year was a step up from first, and Mia had Quidditch practice at least once a week. Before she knew it, it was the last week in October, and all anyone could talk about was the Halloween feast, on Friday night.
"Still two days of lessons to go before the feast," Lily sighed at breakfast on Thursday morning.
"Honestly, Lily, anyone would think you didn't want to be here," Hugo said, or at least that was what Mia thought he was saying – in the last year she'd become somewhat of an expert at translating his grunts through mouthfuls of food.
"I do!" Lily protested. "It's just sometimes... when I see Duncan on my timetable..."
"You see Duncan on your timetable four days a week," Mia reminded her.
Albus came and sat down opposite them.
"Hi Al," Lily said. "Where's Rose?"
"Still snogging Scorp in the Entrance Hall," Al said, sounding mildly disgusted. "You'd think they hadn't seen each other for years the way they carry on sometimes."
"So, who do you like?" Lily asked – she'd been asking her brother that question every time she saw him recently.
"No one," Al replied, but Mia could see him turning slightly red. She giggled, and he rounded on her. "What?"
"You do like someone," Mia grinned. "You're blushing."
"Do not... am not..." Al said. "Hey look, there's the post."
Mia noted the deliberate change of subject, but let it slide, looking up as a hundred or so owls soared in through the high windows. Mia wasn't expecting any post – her parents didn't own an owl, and so only wrote to her when she sent her owl, Felix, home.
Something landed in the milk jug in the middle of the table, splashing not only Mia, but Al, Lily and Hugo too. Al reached into the jug and fished out a small, black, feathery owl which Mia recognised as belonging to Will Darrow, last year's Gryffindor Keeper and Head Boy. The letter tied to its leg was soaked in milk, but Al dried it with a charm, and then Mia opened it.
She was surprised to see the letter was fairly long, at least compared to Will's usual two-or-three sentence exchanges.
'Hi Mia, thanks for your letter and I'm sorry for not replying sooner. I've been really busy – I played for the Wasps in a real match last week, and the reserve team have had lots of matches against other reserve teams. Congratulations on winning the match – pass this on to the rest of the team for me? And tell Roxanne and Mary that they need to keep a better watch on the Bludgers – but I'm glad you're alright. Madam Pomfrey's good like that – no injury's serious for more than a few minutes when she around. Please do keep me informed about what's going on at Hogwarts – I miss the place. Will.'
"What's that?" Lily asked.
"Letter from Will," Mia told her, watching his owl try to steal some bacon from Hugo's plate. "Just saying well done for the first Quidditch match, and saying that he played a real game for the Wimbourne Wasps last week."
"Cool!" Lily said. "I wish I could've gone – I haven't seen a professional Quidditch match since before I started Hogwarts."
"But you used to?" Mia asked. "Before Hogwarts?"
"All the time," Lily nodded. "Mum used to chase for the Holyhead Harpies – she retired just before I was born – and now she's Quidditch correspondent for the Prophet, she can get tickets pretty much whenever she wants. Maybe I'll see if we can go to a game next summer, and take you too."
"We'd better get to Defence Against the Dark Arts," Hugo said, pushing Will's owl away from his plate. "Go on, get lost. Go and have a sleep in the Owlery or something before you go back to Will."
The owl hooted indignantly and took off, as Lily, Mia and Hugo got up from the table. When their parents were at school, over twenty years ago, the Defence Against the Dark Arts job had been jinxed by Voldermort so that no one could hold it for more than a year. After his death, the jinx had been lifted, and their current teacher, Professor Edwards, had held the post for over twenty years, after being the only one brave enough to prove the jinx had been lifted.
"Good morning, second years," he said, shutting the door once they had all arrived. "Alright, books away, wands out."
Everyone grinned – all the best lessons started out like this. Once they'd all put their books away, Professor Edwards moved the desk to the sides of the room with a flick of his wand, and told them all to get into pairs and stand facing their partners, several feet apart.
"Alright, from now until Christmas, we're going to be learning some simple defensive spells," Professor Edwards said. "Starting with disarming... so, who knows the incantation?"
A dozen hands waved in the air.
"Mr Weasley?"
"Expelliarmus," Hugo said.
"Exactly – five points for Gryffindor. Now then, without wands, let's practice the incantation: Expelliarmus."
"Expelliarmus," the class echoed.
"Good, good," Professor Edwards said. "Right, wands at the ready, and then on the count of three, I want you to try and disarm your partner... one...two... three!"
"Expelli-" Mia began, but Lily was quicker than her, and she found her wand flying out of her hand and across the room towards Lily.
"Alright, well done, collect your wands and try again," Professor Edwards said. As they practiced, he walked up and down the lines, offering corrections and advice. "A little more force, Miss Andrews; you're trying to disarm Miss Davies, not tickle her... Try and aim better, Mr Pryor; Miss Longbottom's not your partner, is she?... I hope that's only disarming that's going on down there, Mr Finnigan, Mr Abercrombie..."
Throughout the course of the lesson, Mia managed to disarm Lily several times, although Lily was obviously better at it than she was. Every one found it amusing to watch Alice and Frankie Longbottom, who only seemed capable of uttering the incantation simultaneously had having their wands fly out of their hands together in perfect mirror arcs. At the end of the lesson, Professor Edwards got them to put the tables back, and then set them questions on disarming and wandlore.
If there were some subjects, such as Defence Against the Dark Arts, which were almost universally liked, there were others which were almost universally disliked. Divination was one of these. Although some people, such as Liam Coote and Oscar Peeks, and Dove Ackerley and her friends, seemed genuinely interested in what Professor Trelawney had to say, the general consensus was that she was an old bat who talked a load of rubbish.
The second year Gryffindors and Ravenclaws had Divination every other Thursday afternoon. As they walked up to the very top of the castle, Lily was already in a bad mood – she'd had arguments with both Luci and Professor Duncan in Transfiguration, and narrowly avoided getting detention.
"I might just skive Divination and get started on those Defence questions," Lily sighed.
"I wouldn't do that, young miss," a portrait of an old wizard with a boil on his nose, said. "You'll get into trouble if you skip classes."
"Shut it," Lily scowled at the portrait. "You can't tell me what to do."
"That's no way to speak to your elders, young lady!" the wizard said, running into a neighbouring painting to keep up with them, and knocking over two unicorns as he did so.
They all ignored him. "Divination'll be a laugh," Hugo told Lily. "It's fun to see how many ways we can predict our own deaths."
"Hmm," Lily said.
"Divination is a noble subject," began the wizard-with-a-boil, who was still pursuing them up the corridor, followed by shouts of 'watch where you're going!' from the occupants of the other paintings he was running through.
No one paid him any attention as they climbed the last flight of stairs to the landing below Professor Trelawney's classroom, joining the rest of the class in waiting for the ladder to be let down from the trap door.
As they headed down to Hagrid's hut, almost an hour later, Mia had to agree with Lily that the Divination lesson had been a complete waste of time. Professor Trelawney had got them to each recount their most recent dream in turn, and the proceeded to explain why that meant they were destined for an early death, or at least a serious amount of misfortune.
"At least Hagrid won't predict our untimely death in Care of Magical Creatures," Hugo said, as they headed out of the oak front doors.
"Yeah, but maybe Trelawney's predictions will come true in Hagrid's lesson," Louis said darkly. It had been Kieran's turn to pick a quality for a magical creature last lesson, and he'd requested something terrifying.
The four of them joined the group forming by Hagrid's hut. Kieran and Alexander were noisily debating what creature Hagrid would be showing them. Dove Ackerley and her friends looked nervous – Mia expected they'd rather they stuck to 'pretty' creatures, such as unicorns. Mia thought that the lesson on unicorns had been the best lesson so far, but she was still looking forward to what Hagrid would deem 'terrifying'.
"Alrigh', are we all here?" Hagrid asked, looking around the group. "Now, Kieran, yeh wanted sommat 'terrifying?... the creature I'm gonna show yeh today, I don' think she's terrifying, but I guess some o' yeh might... alrigh', follo' meh."
He set off along the edge of the forest, with the second years hurrying to keep up. Within five minutes, they reached an enclosure. In the enclosure were two wizards, and a green scaly creature, about the size of a large dog.
"Is that a dragon?" Kieran asked.
"Uh huh," Hagrid nodded. "Name o' Gwensi. She's a Welsh Green, jus' a baby, really."
"Cool!" Alexander and Kieran said together.
"Unfortunately, I'm not allowed to let yeh into the enclosure wi' her – only meh NEWT students can do tha' - but I'll go in, an' try an' bring her this way so yeh can get a closer look."
"I'm not sure I want a closer look," Dove said nervously.
Lily rolled her eyes. "It's hardly going to eat you through the enclosure."
"No, but it might breathe fire," Dove returned.
Sure enough, the class watched as the dragon greeted Hagrid by breathing a jet of fire at him. He just dodged the flames and laughed. "Now, now Gwensi, no need t' be like tha', now is there?"
"Didn't Hagrid have a pet dragon once?" Hugo asked Lily.
"Yeah," Lily nodded. "Norbert, except she turned out to be Norberta, and she got sent to live with Uncle Charlie in Romania."
While they had been talking, Hagrid had lead Gwensi over to the edge of the enclosure, prompting everyone to take several steps backwards.
"Now then, don't be shy," Hagrid was saying. "Come an' take a closer look."
Most of the class looked like they'd rather take a week's worth of detention with Professor Duncan, but they nevertheless edged half a step forwards and peered at the dragon, who shot a jet of fire in their direction. Dove Ackerley screamed and ran backwards.
Hagrid spent the rest of the lesson talking about dragons, whilst the class alternated between watching Gwensi and retreating when she breathed fire. At the end of the lesson he set them an essay: four inches on why dragons were terrifying – or why they're not, Hagrid said, grinning – and another two on whether or not you'd like them for a pet, and why.
The next day, Halloween, seemed to drag by, even to Mia, until eventually it was time for the Halloween feast. As had been customary for the last few years, the four long house tables had disappeared, replaced with two dozen smaller, round ones. Each had a carved pumpkin in the middle, there were several hundred live bats hanging from the ceiling, and the Hogwarts ghosts were out in full force.
Lily, Mia and Hugo spotted Louis sat with Mac, Cassie and Zoe. The three of them went to join them, followed by the rest of the Gryffindor second years who made up the larger part of the gang. James, Fred and Chris were sat at the next table, enchanting their goblets to race each other around the glowing pumpkin.
"Good day?" Mac asked the second years.
"It was alright," Lily shrugged, answering for everyone, as usual. "Slow, though."
"I'm glad it's the weekend tomorrow," Mac sighed. "I've got so much homework to catch up on... whoa, what's she all dressed up for?"
Everyone craned their necks to look where he was looking. Mac's older sister Chlo was marching through the tables towards them. Instead of her usual black Hogwarts robes, she was wearing a very pretty blood red dress.
"She looks mad," Lily observed. "She's gonna yell at someone."
Mac nodded. "I hope it's not me."
Just before she reached their table, Chlo turned to the neighbouring table, where James was sat with Fred and Chris.
"Well, if you don't want me to sit with you, it would have been kinder just to tell me," she exploded, and everyone on the surrounding tables turned around to look.
"What – hey, there's room," James said. "Shove over Chris-"
"I asked you to wait for me, and you didn't!" Chlo said. "Some boyfriend you are!"
"What – when?" James said. "You didn't – at lunch I said I'd see you down here."
"Yeah, an' then I sent you a MI and asked you to wait for me in the common room!" Chlo said. "But if you don't want to sit with me, that that's fine – maybe I don't want to sit with you."
She turned and stalked off, ignoring James calling after her. "Wait! Chlo! I didn't get your MI, otherwise you know I would have waited for you! Chlo!"
"They never argue," Mac said incredulously, watching his sister walk away to the other side of the Great Hall and sit with some of her friends.
"Looks like they are now..."Louis said.
