A Fiery Streak
A/N: I'm here with another chapter! :) I hope you enjoy it. Oh, yeah, shout-out to Readingbeyondyourvocab for being observant ;) Brooke is Lina's half-sister, she is Voldemort's other daughter but she is NOT a demigod like Lina. Unlike Lina, Brooke is/will be a supporter of her father.
I'm not going to update until next year. That's right! No updates until sometime in January 2015! Lol, I love that joke, it's funny when people believe it!
Hope you guys enjoy the chapter! :) It's pretty long...
Lina POV
Usually I skim through all of the school books before I go to Hogwarts, and I did, all except for Lockhart's books. I couldn't bring myself to read them. They were probably just stupid and egotistical.
We were at breakfast with Harry and Ron.
"The mail's here," Hermione says. Midnight swoops down and gives me an envelope and some chocolate bars. She affectionately nibbles my ear and dips her beak into my pumpkin juice. But she soars away just in time before a grey lump falls into Hermione's drink and splatters us all with milk.
"Ugh," I mutter.
"Errol!" Ron scolds the owl. He was unconscious.
"Don't worry," Hermione says. "He's alive."
"Not that!" Ron says. "Mum's sent me a Howler," he says, pulling a red envelope out of the owl's beak.
"What's a Howler?" I ask him.
"You'll find out soon, Lina," Ron says grimly as he opens the envelope.
"RONALD WEASLEY!" Mrs. Weasley's voice shrieks, making me jump. I didn't know you could send voices...and that loud too. "HOW DARE YOU STEAL THAT CAR? I WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN SURPRISED IF THEY EXPELLED YOU. JUST YOU WAIT UNTIL I GET A HOLD OF YOU. I DON'T SUPPOSE YOU STOPPED TO THINK ABOUT WHAT YOUR FATHER AND I ARE GOING THROUGH. YOUR FATHER IS FACING AN INQUIRY AT WORK AND IT IS ENTIRELY YOUR FAULT. YOU, HARRY, AND LINA COULD HAVE ALL DIED, AND IF YOU PUT ONE MORE TOE OUT OF LINE WE'LL BRING YOU STRAIGHT HOME!"
Then what it said next surprised me even more, as I thought she was either going to be quiet or continue yelling at Ron. "Ginny dear, congratulations on getting Gryffindor, your father and I couldn't be more proud."
The envelope broke to bits. I heard a few Slytherins snicker, and I hear a cackle that almost scared me out of my mind. I look over towards the table. Brooke, the evil counterpart girl, and Malfoy were snickering and whispering to each other and pointing towards Ron.
I can already tell that the two of us are going to be enemies.
"Don't you dare say that I deserved it," Ron snaps, bringing me back to the conversation.
"Well, you did," Hermione mutters.
The good news is that after the Howler was finished, Hermione had felt like we had been punished enough and fully forgave all of us. She was back to her old know it all self. But I am wondering if that is a good thing…
"Come on," Hermione says as soon as Professor McGonagall gave us our schedules. "We have Herbology."
The four of us walk towards the greenhouses. As soon as we got there, Professor Sprout was arriving and I was just about to greet her when I saw Professor Lockhart at her heels, ugh.
"Oh hello," he says to us with a "charming" smile. I was just showing Professor Sprout the right way to doctor a Whomping Willow. But don't go thinking I'm better at Herbology than she is."
"I doubt I will," I mutter in a singsong sort of voice, and Harry and Ron snicker. Hermione however, gives me a scolding look.
"I've met some of these rare species before…" He continues.
"Oh, you have?" I mutter again. "I hope one of them kneed you in the crotch."
This just causes a high five from Harry and more snickering from Ron.
Hermione's glare intensifies. "Lina!" She scolds me. "How could you say such things?"
I shrug, but before she could continue Professor Sprout begins the lesson, good timing!
"Excuse me, Professor," he says. "You wouldn't mind if I borrowed Harry here, would you?"
Professor Sprout had a scowl on her face, she did mind. But he took Harry away, he gave me a look that read: Help me. I just mouthed to him: "I'm sorry."
Hermione, Ron, and I just watched Professor Sprout set up everything. Harry was here, just in time.
"Alright, class, we will be repotting Mandrakes today. Who can tell me the properties of a Mandrake?" Professor Sprout says.
Hermione's hand shoots up in the air. "Mandrake, or Mandragora, is a powerful restorative, it is used to turn people who have been Transfigured, or cursed, back to their normal state."
"Precisely, ten points to Gryffindor." She says. "The Mandrake is essential for healing, but also dangerous. Can anyone tell me why?"
Hermione's hand shoots up again. "Anyone else besides Miss Granger?"
I roll my eyes and raise my hand. "The cry of the Mandrake is fatal to the people who hear it."
"Exactly, another ten points to Gryffindor." The Professor says. "These Mandrakes are too young to kill, but hearing their cry will knock you out for several hours. I want everyone to take a pair of earmuffs, make sure your ears are completely covered."
"Obviously, either that or get knocked out for several hours," I mutter, pulling on the earmuffs.
Ron sniggers. "You are on fire today!"
I wince as Professor Sprout pulls out some sort of…plant-baby thing? It was bawling its eyes out. She placed the thing in a pot and buried it with compost.
"Four to a tray," she says. "The compost is over there, and do watch out for the Venomous Tentacula, its teething."
That was a long class period. The Mandrakes didn't even want to be repotted, so it took effort. And we were all covered with dirt.
In Transfiguration, we had to turn a beetle into a button. By the end of the class, half the class managed to make one button; I had made eight, being second to Hermione, who did twenty.
"What's next?" Ron says on our way to lunch.
I groan. "Defense against the Dark Arts."
"Lovely," Hermione says. "I can't wait to see what Professor Lockhart has in store for us! I'm sure he'll be a great teacher."
"Oh can it," I snap. "He's just an egotistical person."
I just tune out of everything as I eat lunch, and open the envelope Midnight gave me:
Lina:
How's the School of Magic going for you? I see you're as reckless as ever because Annabeth told me that she heard from Chiron that apparently you took a flying car to Hogwarts. Anyways Annabeth and I are going to be going to a boarding school together. Laugh at the idea all you want Beauty Girl, I don't really like it either, but Chiron insisted, you know how persuasive the guy is. I hope you're enjoying yourself all the way across the Atlantic and know that I miss you.
Thalia, who is a much better friend than Kelp Head
I had to put a hand over my mouth so I wouldn't burst out laughing in the middle of the Great Hall at that last line.
That was, until I heard one of my least favorite voices: "Line up everyone, Potter's giving out signed photos!"
"No, I am not!" Harry shouts, his fists clenched.
"Why don't you leave us alone and go back to wherever you came from?" I seethe.
He turns to me. "Well, well, well, if it isn't Quimby, I see you're as feisty as ever. How was your summer?"
I furrow my eyebrow. Why would Malfoy be asking ME about how my summer went? I decided that this must be some sort of trap. It is Malfoy, of all people! "Fine, thanks for asking," I spat.
"Good, good." He says. Slick git…it wasn't until later that I realized that he was genuinely asking me about my summer…
"You're just jealous!" A small first year boy that I've never seen in my life pipes up at Malfoy. Hmm, kid's got spunk.
"Well, well, if it isn't Harry Potter." Brooke, or as I liked to call her 'evil counterpart girl' sneers at Harry. "What a great pleasure to meet you, or is it? Of course, I doubt you'll be alive at the end of the year, especially after what my father and I are planning."
"What are you yapping on about?" I growl. Even Malfoy looked confused.
"Lina Quimby," she muses, eyeing me up and down. "I guess you'll find out soon enough. Then, you'll have a choice to make," She turns and leaves the room, but before she does, she says: "God, you really are naïve."
I snarl after her. I could feel the flames dancing in my fists.
"Eat slugs Malfoy!" Ron snaps.
"Careful, Weasley," Malfoy says. "You don't want to get into trouble or else Mummy will come and take you away from the school. If you step one toe out of line—"
"Shut up!" Ron growls.
"Potter," Malfoy continues. "Weasley can take one of your pictures, it would be worth more than his own house—"
Ron and I pull out our wands on instinct, and mine has a good chance of working and Malfoy knows it, he actually cowers a bit at my murderous gaze, I felt the flames again.
"What's all this?" A voice says. Gilderoy Lockhart. Malfoy actually looked relieved when he came, what a coward.
"Who's giving out signed photos?" He says. He looks at Harry. "I shouldn't have asked. He threw an arm around his shoulder. "Come on, Creevey," he says to the unknown first year. "A picture of the two of us, and we'll both sign it for you!"
Then the bell rings, thank the gods. Actually I take that back, curse them, its defense against the dark arts with Mr. Ego.
Thunder rumbles to the distance. "Oh," I mutter to the sky. "Shut up, Zeus."
The thunder rumbles even louder, but then stops, just then. It was as if another god had begged Zeus to give me slack over how disrespectful a demigod I was being.
"Lina, what do you think Brooke meant, about 'her father'?" Harry says.
"You know Harry, I have absolutely no idea." I say. "I'll show her naïve…" I mutter to myself.
As soon as we get into Lockhart's classroom, Hermione takes a seat in the very front so she could 'see him better.'
Harry, Ron, and I look at each other and we rush for the three-seater table at the back.
Hermione looks at the three of us, as if wondering why no one chose to sit with her.
I mouth to her: "It's not you, it's just that we want to see as less of Lockhart as possible."
Hermione gives me a stern look as she turns around.
"Gilderoy Lockhart," he starts to speak. "Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defense League, and five time winner of Witch Weekly's most charming smile award."
Seriously? That's a THING? 'Most charming smile award?'
"But we aren't here to talk about that," he says. "I didn't get rid of the Bandon Banshee by smiling at her!" He was waiting for us to laugh, but he only got small, weak smiles from some of the girls.
"I see you all bought complete set of my books, well done." Lockhart says. "I thought we'd start today with a little quiz that will show how well you have read my books, nothing too big." He passes out papers. "You have thirty minutes, start now!"
The 'quiz' was just 54 trivia questions on the big headed git. So I went through the quiz, answered correctly what I knew, guessed the rest (which was about 80% of the quiz), and just because I felt like it, I put: 'You need to deflate that ego of yours a bit,' at the top of my paper.
Thirty minutes later, Lockhart collected the papers, and was shaking his head as he looked through them. "Hardly any of you remembered my favorite color was Lilac. I stated so in Year with the Yeti. And Miss Quimby, I think it was unnecessary to put: 'You need to deflate that ego of yours a bit,' at the top of your paper, but I'll ignore it because I'm such a good person."
The class chortled and a lot of them grinned at me. Those who were closer to me gave high fives. Hermione gave another stern look as I just shrug my shoulders. She shakes her head and turns around.
"Lina, you really are on fire today!" Harry mutters.
"But Miss Granger knew my secret ambition is to rid the world of evil and make my own line of hair-care potions. Good girl." He looks at Hermione's paper. "In fact, full marks to Miss Granger. Where is the girl?" Hermione timidly raises her hand. "Well done. Ten points to Gryffindor."
"Now," he says. "Onto business." He looked around the room, thinking he was actually being dramatic. "Be warned! It is my job to arm you against the foulest creatures known to wizardkind! You may find yourselves facing your worst fears in this room. Know, no harm will come to you whilst I am here."
Which basically means, either: the creatures aren't as foul as he thinks, or we're going to get murdered because he doesn't know what he is doing.
"I must ask you not to scream," Lockhart says. "It might provoke them."
The whole class, even me, held their breath. How shameful, Lina! I scold myself. He rips open the cover. "Freshly caught Cornish Pixies!"
Seamus Finnegan lets out a snort of laughter, and he wasn't the only one. Lockhart looks at Seamus. "Don't be too sure. They're devilish tricky little blighters."
I scoff when I look at the creatures. They weren't even a foot tall and they were yelling in annoying high pitched voices. I've taken on Cyclopes before. Of course, that was when I was with my knife. Chiron never lets me bring my knife to Hogwarts; he says I would never need it, because it is impossible for monsters to attack the school.
"All right, let's see what you all make of them!" Lockhart says as he opens the cage. They zoomed out in all directions. Two of them grabbed Neville by the ears and they put him on top of the chandelier and let the poor guy dangle there.
They were causing chaos all around the room. "Come on now," Lockhart was bellowing. "Round them up, they're only pixies!"
"I thought he played them off as big scary monsters," I mutter to Ron who snickered.
Lockhart raises his wand. "Peskipiksi Pesternomi!" That was our rescue spell? We are doomed. It did nothing. A pixie snatched Lockhart's wand however, and threw it out of the window, kudos to the pixie. Then he dived under his desk, and Neville almost squashed him when he fell from the chandelier.
Thank the gods, the bell rang! We all raced for the exit, when he calls out: "I'll just have to ask you four to nip up the rest of them for me. Thanks." Then, he dashes out of the room and slams the door in our faces! Jerk!
"Can you believe him?" Ron snaps.
"Oh my gods, I know!" I exclaim.
Hermione rolls her eyes at us and pulls out her wand. "Immobulus!" she says. All the pixies are frozen. "He just wants us to have some hands-on experience." She says, defending the jerk.
"Honestly I don't know why you defend him. He wrote books he didn't conquer us all." I say.
"Tell that to him," Ron says.
Harry and I laughed while Hermione glared at us. We continued to round up the stupid pixies.
The next few days pretty much sped by. One day, Ron, Hermione, and I were in the Great Hall eating breakfast. Harry was at Quidditch, and afterward, we were going to see Hagrid.
"Do you think Harry's finished yet?" Ron says.
"No idea," Hermione says.
As the three of us make it outside, I am surprised to find the team still on the ground, maybe they finished already.
"Harry!" I call out to him. "Did you finish?"
I was surprised when Harry called back to me, laughing: "We haven't even started, Lina." He mounted his broom and soared off into the air.
The Creevey boy was trying to wave up at Harry, taking pictures.
I whirl around and I see my least favorite Quidditch team. I was about to say something, but Ron beats me to it. "What are the Slytherins doing here?"
"I don't know," I say. "I smell trouble, let's get closer."
Harry and the team were down as soon as they saw the Slytherins.
"This is our practice time, Flint!" Wood roars at the Slytherin team's troll faced captain. "You can clear off now!"
Flint smirks. "There's plenty of room for all of us."
"But I booked the field," Wood says.
"I have a signed note from Professor Snape," Flint says. "'I, Professor Snape, give permission for the Slytherin team to practice on the field today so that they may train their new seeker.'"
"You've got a new Seeker? Where is he?" Wood says.
The six bulky figures move back to reveal a pointy faced figure.
"Malfoy," I spit, giving him a death glare.
"Good morning Quimby, how are you?" I wanted to wipe the smirk on his face.
"Aren't you Lucius Malfoy's son?" Fred says, glaring at Malfoy as well.
"Don't tell me you're the new Seeker," Ron says.
"Yes, I am Weasley. And we were all just admiring the new brooms my father bought for the team." I look at them. Nimbus Two Thousand and Ones. Harry's is a Nimbus Two Thousand. "Good, aren't they? Perhaps the Gryffindor team could raise some gold and get new brooms too. I suspect a museum would buy them." Malfoy smirks as his idiotic goons of a team laugh.
"At least no one on the Gryffindor team had to buy their way in," Hermione shot. "They got in on pure talent."
Malfoy looks at Hermione. "No one asked your opinion, you filthy little Mudblood." I knew what that meant. It meant dirty blood.
Instantly there was a riot. Flint had to dive in front of Malfoy to stop Fred and George from jumping at him. One of the girls was yelling at him.
What was I doing? Oh right, praying to Zeus that the fire in my fist wouldn't release.
"You'll pay for that one, Malfoy!" Ron yells, pulling out his wand, but there was a loud bang, and a jet of green light flew out the wrong end of Ron's wand, hitting him in the stomach and sending him backwards towards the grass.
Hermione rushes to his side. "Ron! Are you alright?" Ron opened his mouth to speak to her, but instead a burp and several slugs dribbled, out of his mouth, and into his lap. Ew.
The Slytherin team was laughing so hard that they barely could stand. The Gryffindor team gathered around Ron, who kept belching the slugs up.
"We have to get him to Hagrid's," Harry told us, grabbing his arm. Hermione, who looked pale, grabbed his other arm. "Out of the way, Colin," Harry snaps at the first year as he and Hermione rushed off with Ron.
"That was a laugh, wasn't it, Quimby?" Malfoy says, smirking.
I lean in close to his face. "Why don't you just piss off," I hiss.
Then, I do something unexpected, even for me. I punch him in the face. When I pull away, I hiss: "That was for Hermione."
Afterwards, I storm away towards Hagrid's hut. That felt good.
A/N: How did you like the 3k+ chapter? I felt fiery just writing it.
Oh! I'm so excited! Either the next chapter or the chapter after that, Lina will find out her true father. I can't wait for you guys to read the reactions of her, Harry, Ron, and Hermione! Will they still accept her? Or will they reject her for her father? Hmm, who knows? You'll have to read on…
Please R&R! :)