CHAPTER EIGHT: GERANIUM

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moonwatchersilveny: okay... thanks for reviewing!

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Guest: yeah, you'll get a lot that from Marlene :). Thanks for reviewing!

Word count: 2,127

ONTO THE NEXT CHAPTER!

Raven overslept.

Of course she did; she wouldn't be Raven of the House of Nightshade if she didn't oversleep on the first day of school. That was just how great her luck was. At least she wasn't the only one who was late; Hestia was, too.

No, she didn't oversleep; she just stayed back to try and get Raven to wake up.

The only good thing was that breakfast ended at 8:30, and (finally) she woke up at 8:15. She had just enough time to grab a piece of toast.

At least, she would've, if this wasn't the first day and neither she nor Hestia had any idea where anything was.

So when she was finally ready at 8:25 (she knew she shouldn't have taken that long, but it was too early for her brain to work and making a good impression had been drilled into her mind as one of the top ten most important things since a young age), she and Hestia suddenly realized that they had no idea where anything was. They quickly scratched out the idea of breakfast from their minds, which made Hestia feel guilty because she blamed herself. Of course she did. It wasn't like Raven was the one who overslept or anything.

And so, they found themselves wandering around together for the next thirty minutes. Hestia was panicking, and Raven quickly learned that she cared more about first impressions than her mother did—and her mother cared about it a lot. Once, Raven accidentally spilled tomato juice (why she had tomato juice, she didn't know; it was gross) over her incredibly strict grandmother's incredibly fancy dress the first time they met. This would've been fine if she was older and more experienced when it came to controlling liquids that weren't water, but back then, she lacked the finesse she had now. So when she tried to pull the water out, the tomato pulp was left on her dress. Her mother had almost cried.

Then again, that was worthy of tears; her grandmother's face was terrifying in general, never mind when she was glaring. However, getting lost wasn't, even though Hestia seemed to think it was, because she burst into tears the moment they realized they had less than a minute left before class started.

Raven stared at her, slightly glad that she was just sniffling quietly and not full-on bawling, but she wasn't entirely sure what to do. What could she do? She wasn't good at comforting people in general, and Hestia Jones was a human. And what made it worse was that Lily and Marlene found them at that second.

They assessed the situation for a second. Then, in less time it took for Raven to blink, Lily was at Hestia's side, comforting her, and Marlene had grabbed Raven's shoulders and glowered straight into her eyes.

"What. Did. You. Do?" she asked.

Raven glared back, not in the least bit intimidated. Others might've been, but she saw her grandmother, Silvia (like silver) Nightshade, when she was angry; not much scared her after that. "Nothing." she said shortly.

In between teary sniffles, Hestia managed, "She—She's telling the truth."

Marlene scoffed. "Great, Hest's been brainwashed."

It took Raven a second to realize that she had just called Hestia "Hest," and that she was now accused of brainwashing people. She shoved Marlene's hands off her shoulders—which were also very warm, by the way; she was starting to think that the coldness of her skin was abnormal, not their warmth—and snapped, "I didn't brainwash her, fool. We're late and we can't find our class, so she started crying."

Marlene paused and exchanged a look with Lily. "Do you know what class we have now?" she asked hesitantly.

"History of Magic." No, they didn't have their schedules—they were supposed to get them at breakfast, which they conveniently missed—but apparently, Lily had asked the prefect last night like the good student she was and passed it on to Hestia.

Marlene nodded. "And do you know what class this is?" She pointed to the door they were standing in front of—the one she and Hestia had passed at least a bajillion times.

"No…?"

"This is History of Magic. Now, come on, fool."

…Okay, her bad luck was out of proportions now.

Raven's only consolation for the embarrassment she felt just before History of Magic was that she didn't cry, and that the class was boring anyway, so it would've been a blessing if she missed a few minutes. All classes were boring, actually. They were just taking roll call and the professors were explaining everything. But even though History of Magic was always boring (according to some older students, at least), other classes weren't. Specifically, Defense Against the Dark Arts.

She had Defense Against the Dark Arts on Monday's and Wednesday's at one o'clock, immediately after lunch. Since Monday and Tuesday had already passed, Defense Against the Dark Arts would be her first actual class (History of Magic, which she had on the same days as Defense Against the Dark Arts, didn't count; it was too boring). She was surprisingly excited for it, considering the fact that it's a class.

She had a vague idea of what to expect; probably spells to repel/defeat dangerous creatures or even other dangerous spells. It made sense; humans didn't sword fight as much as heartless did anymore—probably because they couldn't control fire. Pyrokinesis was a big part of sword fighting, after all. That was why she sucked at it so much. Totally the only reason. And although Leif would probably be horrified that they didn't teach sword fighting (Leif was well known as a master swordsman), Raven was glad. Sword fighting was too strict, too intense. Waving a wand and reciting some words seemed a lot easier.

But although she was mostly correct, there was something she forgot about; if she had to learn how to defend herself, she had to learn about what she was defending herself from.

Professor Alderton, the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, wrote a barely legible word on the chalkboard—Heartless.

…Of course. How ironic.

"Hello, class!" Professor Alderton greeted chirpily. "As you know because I wrote it on the board, today, we will be talking about heartless."

The sad thing was, most probably didn't know; his handwriting was that bad. Raven only recognized it because it looked uncannily like one of the ancient heartless syllabaries, which could be translated into and vaguely resembled Roman script. Although it had now advanced into the proper Roman script, it looked like a bunch of unintelligible scratches if you didn't know what you were looking for.

"Of course, you've spoken about this in class last year—Ah! Yes, Miss Evans?"

Lily, who had raised her hand, frowned and said, "But we're first years? We weren't here last year?"

Professor Alderton blinked. "Really? Oh. Well then... your parents have probably downplayed the horrors of heartlessness. Unless your parents are Muggles. Then you won't know anything."

Harsh.

"But I will tell you the truth! So, let's start with the basics of heartless!

"Heartless can control any element at will."

Hold on… that wasn't right.

"They can also change their appearance at will."

Okay, that wasn't even close to accurate.

"And heartless get their name because they literally don't have hearts."

Was this guy an idiot or something?

Technically, heartless were called quignis. They were only called heartless because when humans first studied a live heartless, they thought that thy didn't have a heart because it beats impossibly slow compared to a human's. About a minute later, they learned they didn't have a heart, but still decided to called them that—not because they actually didn't have hearts. Heartless only called themselves heartless because it was an ironic joke, as if to say, Yes, you guys are the ones who have slaves and commithorrifying crimes that aren't really crimes because that's just how jacked up your system of justice is, but we are heartless. Of course.

How in the world did this guy get hired?

"Also, heartless are tribal savages."

Raven had to restrain herself from getting up and punching this guy in the face.

"How many of you heard of Nus Wisteria?"

This made Raven sit up straighter. Although no one raised their hands, Raven had heard of Nus Wisteria, so she was curious about what Professor Alderton had to say about that heartless specifically.

"Well, Nus Wisteria was a peasant of a heartless in England. He went around killing humans and eating them raw, and guess what? Heartless congratulated him for it!"

A gasp rang through the room, but Raven was not amused. Professor Alderton's storytelling skills could use some work; there was a lot to say about Nus Wisteria, and three sentences couldn't even begin to cover it. Also, he could be a lot more accurate.

One: Heartless were not tribal savages. Honestly, this guy was really rude.

Two: Nus Wisteria was still alive.

Three: Nus Wisteria lived in America.

Four: Nus Wisteria was practically royalty; the Wisterias were like the American version of the Nightshades.

Five: Nus Wisteria didn't go around and kill humans then eat them raw, and if anyone did, they would not be congratulated. They would be locked up in a mental asylum.

And six: Nus Wisteria was a girl.

Defense Against the Dark Arts was actually pointless. Professor Alderton clearly had no idea what the hell heartless really were, and the worst part? Everyone believed him.

Raven was in a bad mood because of him. Not even moving the ink in Sirius Black's ink bottle and making it spill over him made her feel better, because Professor Alderton simply waved his wand and cleaned the ink up. Of course he did; the one time Raven was counting on his ineptitude, he proved that he wasn't completely useless.

Class couldn't end fast enough. When the bell rang, Raven grabbed her stuff as fast as she could and—

"Miss Nightshade? Could I speak with you for a second?"

Raven felt her face pale. Of course. Alderton was the most heartless-hating human she had met, and Raven was so caught up in how inaccurate his lecture about heartless was that she forgot that she was a heartless herself. And although Alderton was clearly an idiot, he wasn't worthless; he knew how to use magic. So, her question was; what was he going to do? Attack her? Threaten her?

The smart thing would be for her to pretend that she didn't hear him and walk away. But Raven was—as she had said many times—bored, and curious as to what Professor Alderton had to say. So while everyone else packed their bags and left free from that hellhole, Raven stayed behind.

Professor Alderton was a man with blonde hair that resembled a strike of lightning—it was such a pale blonde, it looked white. Despite this, he had youthful features and warm brown eyes. He looked kind, and maybe he was; being stupid didn't necessarily mean that you were cruel. At least, he might've been kind with his own race.

When the rest of the class was gone (it took some time; humans were lazy in general, and Raven had to reassure Hestia that she would be fine. Ever since she cried on Monday, she'd been trying to redeem herself to Raven. It was annoying), Professor Alderton looked to her and gave her a... sympathetic smile.

A sympathetic smile?

"I'm aware of your problem," he said. "I'm sorry that the heartless kidnapped you when you were a child and experimented on you, giving you... hydrokinesis. But I want you know that despite this, you can always talk with me if you must."

Okay, Professor Alderton might've been kind, but he was delusional, too. As Raven walked outside, the tea in his cup spilled out. Alderton cursed, and Raven slammed the door shut.

In the language of flowers, GERANIUMS represent foolishness and stupidity.

Questions:

1. Favorite quote from chapter eight?

2. What do you think about Professor Alderton?

And, remember; please review!

~Sarcasticsnark13