Laura
After a tiring night the day before, I passed out quickly when I reached my bed. I woke up in the morning, still tired, walking over towards my bedside table. (alternate beginning) I woke up, groggily, to the sounds of birds chirping. Why are birds always chirping when you wake up? I'm not some lovely princess rising from an enchanted sleep, I'm just a pubescent second year emerging from my foot-tall heap of comforters and pillows before dragging myself to the bathroom to conceal the bags under my eyes from the exhausting night before. Shut up birds! After making it look like I had gotten more than five hours of sleep, I trudged over to my bedside table. Upon it, I had left a new pair of clothes that I had gotten, perfectly fit, over the summer in Diagon Alley. Groggily (change to sleepily if alternate beginning is used) getting dressed, I grabbed my glasses and my books – all these things being in line and organized on my desk. Although I'm not the smartest, bravest, or richest, I most certainly am the most organized. Honestly, there's something relaxing about just cleaning things up; allows me to just put something in order, even if everything else is falling apart.
Anyway, after getting mostly ready, I decided to head down to the Great Hall for some breakfast. The four long tables, in order of Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, Gryffindor, and Slytherin when looking at the Head Table, were filled with mountains of toast, eggs, bacon, porridge, cereal, pancakes, and waffles. My mouth practically watered as the food shone below the, now, cloudy, gray ceiling. Noel, Hermione, and I, already seated at the table, watched as Ron and Harry came and sat down. Hermione stifled a "Hello" before turning back to her book. She seemed to still be disappointed in the two boys, which, at this point, isn't too shocking. Noel looked up from her, not yet assigned, homework – which I don't even know how she got, in the first place – and made eye contact with me, raising an eyebrow. I shook my head and rolled my eyes, signifying that Hermione would get over it eventually. Before I had a chance to chime in and break the tension, Neville, from a few seats over, greeted Harry and Ron.
"Mail's bound to come in any minute." He explained, "my gran said she'd send some things I'd forgotten."
I took a bite of my waffle before looking up; the air had suddenly filled with hundreds of owls flying around, carrying newspapers, packages, and letters. One owl drew near, before collapsing right into Noel's cereal. She stood up in disgust, and, I presume, shock.
"Errol!" Ron shouted, dragging the owl out of her bowl. The owl lay, unconscious, on the table, his legs sticking up in the air and a purely red envelope clamped in his beak.
"Oh, no..." he gasped.
I gently tapped the owl, with a flinch of reaction. "It's all right," I replied, "he's still alive."
"That's not my problem," he stammered, pointing at the envelope I hadn't payed much attention to.
My eyes widened, and I could feel the panic building up in me. That red envelope just so happened to be a Howler, which is, basically, a screaming letter from those who are scolding you. To be in the Great Hall receiving one would be horrible; everyone will be able to hear everything. Luckily, I haven't received one myself – though some in person lectures have been nearly as terrifying. Juding by the look on Noel's face, I could tell just the thought of herself receiving a Howler was deathly frightening.
"What's wrong?" Harry asked, seemingly interrupting our train of terrifying thoughts. For a moment, I had forgotten both he and Hermione were raised by Muggles.
"S-she sent me a H-howler," Ron stuttered.
"You better open it, Ron." Neville gulped, "my gran sent me one once and I ignored it; it was awful."
"What's a Howler?" I heard Harry ask, but it was too late. Everyone's attention was locked onto this letter.
"Go for it, Ron." Noel urged, concerningly. "It only lasts a few minutes."
Ron's hand was shaking as he reached for the red envelope, gently plucking it from Errol's beak. He carefully unsealed the envelope, as Noel, Neville, and I respectively covered our ears. Though it was quieter, I could hear every word Mrs. Weasley was screaming.
"FOR GOODNESS SAKE, STEALING THE CAR. I WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN SURPRISED IF THEY'D EXPELLED YOU! YOU WAIT TILL I GET HOLD OF YOU! I DON'T EVEN SUPPOSE YOU STOPPED TO THINK WHAT YOUR FATHER AND I WENT THROUGH WHEN WE SAW IT WAS GONE! AFTER WE RECEIVED THAT LETTER FROM DUMBLEDORE LAST NIGHT, I THOUGHT YOUR FATHER WOULD DIE OF SHAME. WE DIDN'T BRING YOU UP TO BEHAVE LIKE THIS, RONALD WEASLEY! YOU AND HARRY COULD BOTH HAVE DIED! I'M ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTED – NOW YOUR FATHER'S FACING AN INQUIRY AT WORK. IF YOU STEP ANOTHER TOE OUT OF LINE, WE'LL BRING YOU STRAIGHT HOME!"
And, with that, the Howler shriveled into ashes. I slowly brought my hands down from my ears, feeling embarrassment for Ron. His face, by now, had turned bright red. The silence in the hall transferred into chatter, or laughter. Finally looking up from her book – yes, Hermione continued to read through screaming – Hermione smirked.
"I don't know what else you were expecting, Ron, but –"
"Don't." He growled, interrupting her.
It seemed the tension only grew, as Professor McGonagall was coming along the Gryffindor table. Quickly, she was passing out each students' class schedule for the day. I took my schedule, gave thanks, and opened the scroll. For today, I happened to notice we had Herbology, Transfiguration, and Defense Against the Dark Arts, meaning that we had to head all the way down to the greenhouses.
About an hour later, once breakfast had been fully cleaned up, we began our swift journey to the edge of the castle gardens. Within the boxy glass buildings lay a variety of plants, all meant for use of class. As we arrived at the third building, the one used for our year, Hermione pointed out a place for us to stand. Around twenty pairs of earmuffs sat in front of each pot, each in its own assortment of patterns and colors, as they were all lined up on a plastic table. I took my place in front of a pair of white, fluffy earmuffs, with no pattern on them, standing in between Noel and Savannah, who I kept forgetting was in my house, and dorm.
Shortly after getting settled, Professor Sprout walked in, with Professor Lockhart trailing her. Suddenly, his face lit up, as he whispered something to Professor Sprout, her judgmental glare drilling into his face. With no care, he laughed, thanked her, and hurried over to grab Harry – Harry looked at us, pleading to help, as he was practically dragged out of class.
"He's dreamy, isn't he?" A voice said, coming from my right, Savannah. "Have you seen his hair? And those eyes..."
"I know, right?!" Hermione drooled, making us pan over to her. Somehow, she managed to overhear the conversation and decided she had to be involved.
At this point, meeting Noel's eyes, I could tell we both were genuinely concerned for those two.
"Savannah, Hermione, you do know he's likely to be over double our age?" I pointed out.
But before either could respond, Lockhart entered the room again, bringing Harry back into class. Harry looked like he had just gone through the oddest conversation he'd ever heard, as he took his place between Hermione and Ron. Besides me, though, I could practically hear Savannah's eyes widening, as she, and Hermione, gawked at Professor Lockhart's reappearance. He muttered an apology to Professor Sprout, before giving a large smile and leaving the doorway. My face contorted with disgust. I turned to my right, looking back at Savannah, as I noticed that she seemed faint. In seconds, she had completely passed out, yet, luckily, Noel and I had caught her before she hit the ground.
"Um, Professor, Savannah just passed out." Noel mumbled, stunned by what was happening.
"Already?" She questioned, coming over to our side of the table. "We haven't even started with the mandrakes yet."
Shaking her head, she walked back to the front of the room.
"Place her sitting upright against the wall. We'll give her water when she wakes up."
Slowly lifting her upright, Professor Sprout began to explain our lesson for the day. We were to be dealing with Mandrakes. She went through a demonstration on how to properly extract and pot the Mandrakes, and she explained proper safety measures. We were to wear our earmuffs, tightly against our ears, until she gave us a thumbs-up. After her demonstration was finished, she assigned for us to do our own repotting. Whilst in process of grabbing supplies, she explained how important it was that we do not take our earmuffs off. Though she glazed over this before, she explained that the seedlings' cries can stun a person for several hours. Yet, fully grown mandrakes can revive one who has been put into a cursed or petrified state – a contradicting trait, if you ask me.
After class ended, all of us covered in dirt from the aching process of repotting those seedlings, we quickly hurried to the castle to wash off. Soon after, the rest of us Gryffindors headed towards Transfiguration. For a class that was decently hard, I happened to be quite good at it. For our first lesson, we were tasked to transform beetles into buttons – a task that I was able to complete in under three attempts. Whilst I watched the rest of my class struggle, McGonagall having congratulated me on my good work, I opened a book I had checked out of the library. Though many topics don't interest me much, I found the description of this book to be interesting. I turned to open the first pages of the book, A Study of Wand Lore, and passed the class by simply reading.
Entranced into the fine descriptions, I nearly tuned out the lunch bell. After packing up, and walking out of class, we placed our books and notes back within the Gryffindor common room. Swiftly walking down to lunch, book in hand, I tuned Ron out as he spent the walk complaining about his broken wand. Normally I'd have chimed in, but I was still so focused on my recent readings that tuning him out was easier than usual.
After a bittersweet lunch – as tension grew in the air between Hermione and Ron; not only had she been showing off her transfigured buttons, but she had drawn hearts around Lockhart's class on her schedule, which seemed to anger Ron even more – we headed to the, slightly overcast, courtyard for fresh air.
Sitting by a tree, Hermione and I both delved ourselves into our books, whilst Noel listened in on Ron and Harry's Quidditch debate. For several, blissful, minutes, we sat peacefully, before I heard an unfamiliar voice from nearby.
"All right, Harry? I-I'm Colin Creevey. I'm in Gryffindor, too."
I looked up to see a small, first year, boy standing nervously in front of Harry. In his, shaking, hands he held what seemed to be a camera.
"Do you mind if I could – could I have a picture?" He continued, fumbling in his words.
"A picture?" Harry replied, questioning and confused.
"So, I can prove I've met you," said Colin eagerly, edging further forward. "I know all about you. Everyone's told me. About how you survived when You-Know-Who tried to kill you and how he disappeared and everything and how you've still got the scar on your forehead."
He scanned Harry's forehead, while continuing to ramble.
"And a boy in my dormitory said if I develop the film in the right potion, the pictures'll move. It's amazing here, isn't it? I never knew all the odd stuff I could do was magic till I got the letter from Hogwarts. My dad's a milkman, he couldn't believe it either. So I'm taking loads of pictures to send home to him. And it'd be really good if I had one of you." He looked over, and saw me watching. "Maybe your friend could take it and I could stand next to you, then maybe you could sign it?"
"Signed photos? You're giving out signed photos, Potter?" An awfully recognizable voice rung out in the courtyard. From behind Colin, Draco Malfoy approached with his two cronies, Crabbe and Goyle.
"Everyone line up!" He shouted, loud enough for the whole courtyard to hear. "Harry Potter's giving out signed photos!"
"No, I'm not," Harry growled, clenching his fists.
"Just shut up, Malfoy." Noel said, scowling.
"You're just jealous," piped Colin, who was at least a head shorter than the lot of us.
By now, at least half the courtyard was listening in.
"Jealous?" Draco asked, "of what? I don't want a foul scar on my forehead, thanks. I don't think getting your head cut open makes you that special, myself."
Standing up, I forced my way into the conversation, "sorry, Draco, but I don't think growing up rich and complaining to your father about everything gives you any leverage."
He met my gaze, as Ron retorted, "eat slugs, Malfoy."
From that, he sneered, "Be careful, Weasley. You don't want to start any trouble or your mummy'll have to come and take you away from school." He began to mock, putting on a piercing voice. "'If you put another toe out of line'"
I put myself in between the two, before Ron did something idiotic, as Ron started to hold up his Spellotaped wand.
"Shove off, Draco." I glared, "honestly, when will you learn to stop being such a prat?"
For a moment, I stood victorious. He stood, somewhat stunned, no response being muttered. That was, until Professor Lockhart just had to get involved.
"What's all this, what's all this?" He said, striding over to us all. "Who's giving out signed photos?"
From this, my victory was taken into less account. The Slytherins began to snicker, as Lockhart reached his arm over Harry's shoulder.
"Ah, of course! We meet again, Harry!"
Noel
At the sound of Lockhart's voice, Hermione, who had continued reading during our encounter with Malfoy, slapped shut her book, Voyages with Vampires, and looked up, breathlessly. I rolled my eyes at her before refocusing on Harry, who was visibly trying to escape Lockhart's grasp, to no avail.
"Come on then Mr. Creevey," Lockhart began, jovially, "A double portrait, can't do better than that, and we'll both sign it for you."
As Colin fumbled with his camera, the bell rang and everyone else began meandering off to class. I motioned to everyone to leave.
"We ought to go to class, I don't see anyway Lockhart's gonna let Harry go."
"Yeah," Ron mumbled, looking as if he was quiet enjoying the show. Which I don't blame him for. Ron and I began to walk away, leaving Laura to drag Hermione along.
"We have Lockhart's class next," she coaxed Hermione, "so even if you let him out of your sight for this one second, you'll see him again." Hermione broke her gaze from Lockhart to shoot Laura a slightly offended glare, not oblivious to her sarcasm. Laura took advantage of Hemione looking away and dragged her along with us.
When we arrived in defense, Hermione immediately walked over and took the front and center seat. I sent Laura and Ron a piercing glare, I did not want to be bombarded by that babbling idiot. Laura, seeming to understand, sighed before taking the seat to the left of Hermione. Victory. I dragged Ron to the row behind Hermione and made him sit with a seat between us, for Harry. Surely, he wouldn't want to end up to the right of Hermione and in direct fire of Lockhart's boisterous attitude. Sure enough, when Harry stumbled in, still glued to Lockhart's side, he looked quite relieved to have the barrier of Hermione between him and Lockhart.
As Harry sat down, I saw the perfect opportunity to comment on the happenings in the courtyard.
"You could've fried an egg on your face," I chortled.
"Yeah," Ron laughed, continuing the barrage, "You'd better hope Creevey doesn't meet Ginny, or they'll be starting a Harry Potter fan club.
"Shove off," Harry snapped, a bit put off from the whole experience.
Ron and I made eye contact before laughing louder, as Harry grumbled softly into his bag while taking out his textbooks.
Just then, seeing everyone was seated, Lockhart stepped out from behind his desk and cleared his throat. Silence fell as he gazed at us expectantly before remembering he was the one meant to teach. Upon this realization, he hurriedly reached forward to grab Hermione's copy of Travels with Trolls, which was sitting, with all her other Lockheart books, in a giant pile in the center of her desk, and presented it to the class with a great flourish of his turquoise robes.
"Me," He remarked, pointing with a broad smile and a wink to the winking and smiling mini Lockhart on the cover. He handed the book back to Hermione, who softly caressed it with awe, before continuing. "Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Forces League, and five-time winner of Witch Weekly's Most- Charming-Smile award – but I don't talk about that. I didn't get rid of the Bandon Banshee by smiling at her!"
He paused with a flashy smile for laughter while a few people weakly smiled, and Hermione sunk her chin into her hands with a sigh, while Savannah, who was sitting to her right, look as though she might faint again..
Seemingly oblivious to our reaction, he happily clapped his hands together before continuing, "Right, so I see you've all got a set of my books, very good. Yes, very good indeed." He then picked up a rather thick stack of papers from his desk and began prancing up and down the rows of desks, distributing them while continuing his speech. "That means that there is a test in order. Nothing too hard. No worry at all, if you've read my books." He finished distributing the papers before returning to the front of the room, and waving his arms, announcing, "You have thirty minutes, you may begin... now!"
I slid the paper, or packet rather, to the center of my desk. I had read all the books, skipping over some of the less informational, more Lockhart heavy sections, so I should be fine. I turned my attention to read the first question.
What is Gilderoy Lockhart's favorite color?
Weird, surely not all the questions could be about him. I scrunched up my nose before finally just guessing. I think I remembered him saying something about lilac. I moved on.
What is Gilderoy Lockhart's secret ambition?
You've got to be kidding me. I scanned the test front and back, across three pages of parchment, and surely enough, they were all about him. I turned to face Harry who was also looking quite concernedly at the back of his test. This was gonna be a long half hour.
Sure enough, in what had to be longer than half an hour, Lockhart was once again bouncing around the room, this time collecting papers. He moved back to the front of the class and began reading them right then and there. Honestly, has he ever even been in a classroom before? After quickly flipping through the papers, he hummed sadly.
"Only three people remembered my favorite color is lilac. I say so in Year with the Yeti. And it seems many of you have not even cracked the spine on Wanderings with Werewolves. I clearly stated that my ideal birthday gift would be harmony between all magic and non-magic peoples – although I wouldn't say no to a large bottle of Ogden's Old Firewhisky!"
He pretended to wipe an invisible tear of laughter from his cheek as Seamus Finnigan and Dean Thomas shook with silent laughter from the side of the classroom. I shook my head when Hermione, who had been hanging on to Lockhart's every word, jumped with a start at his next comment.
"Only Hermione Granger knew my secret ambition is to rid the world of evil and market my own range of hair-care potions. How good, yes indeed." He quickly ruffled through the rest of Hermione's exam, appearing quite pleased with what he was reading the whole time. "How very good! Full marks! And who just might be Ms. Hermione granger." He exclaimed, sounding far too excited. Hermione, mouth agape, raised her trembling hand, all the while gazing into his eyes.
Lockhart suddenly noticed the small hand raised timidly in the front row and ran forward to clasp it, giving Hermione's hand a mighty shake. "Excellent," he roared, "yes, quite. Ten points to Gryffindor, or more specifically to this brilliant Ms. Granger."
He flashed his annoyingly blinding smile at Hermione before backing up, puffing out his chest, and straightening his robes. "Now, to business," He proclaimed, hands on hips and gaze fixated far above any of our heads, before scuttering behind his desk and lifting a large, covered cage onto it.
"I believe it is my job to forewarn you," he pronounced, deepening his voice and sweeping one arm out in front of him, "After all, it is my job to prepare you to face all the darkest, evilest creatures known to wizard kind. Many of you will face your deepest fear in this room, in fact, many of you might face it today."
Oh, please. Professor Lockhart doesn't even know that harmony is not a gift, and I'm supposed to believe he has the wits to go out and capture some beastly creature and sedate it to lay in a cage under his desk all day. It's probably just a cat. However, it appeared my fellow students did not share my deductions. In front of me, Hermione was clutching onto Laura's shoulder while Laura anxiously held her wand out defensively. Next to them, Neville was cowering down in his seat, robe hood overhead, and across the room Seamus and Dean had stopped laughing and had both pushed their seats back, as to be farther away from the front of the room. Meanwhile, Harry was leaning forward, a mix of anxiety and curiosity displayed on his face, and even Ron was pail as parchment. I rolled my eyes as Lockhart continued on, in a dramatic whisper.
"I must insist you do not scream. It might," the rest of the class jumped a bit as Lockhart whipped off the cover, "provoke them!"
Whipping about the cage was a multitude of eight-inch-high, electric blue Cornish Pixies, better than a cat, I guess. They pushed between the bars of the cag, arguing with each other in high, shreek-ish voices, and contorting their small pointed faces into odd expressions, seemingly taunting the students in the first row. Even Laura couldn't control herself and lowered her wand with a snort of laughter which soon rippled throughout the entire class, all except Hermione, who looked as if someone had just stolen her lollipop.
Lockhart frowned momentarily before puffing his chest back up and turning to face Seamus who was laughing the loudest of all.
"Yes," Lockhart spit out, looking at him quite pointedly.
"But they're - they're not – dangerous, are they?"
Lockhart scoffed at Seamus's reaction, "I wouldn't be so sure," Lockhart relied smugly, slowly reaching a hand towards the cage door. "Cornish Pixies can be quite tricky. Especially when they're freshly caught." And with that he quickly flipped the latch on the cage open before jumping away. The shining blue crowd of pixies took no time in descending on the class. Two of them rocketed straight down, grabbing Neville by the ears and lifting him in the air before dropping him on the chandelier and moving onto more exciting mischief. All around the classroom, chaos was unfolding, and half of the students were cowering under their desks. Pixies were everywhere, touching everything in sight. They flew through windows leaving behind piles of shattered glass which other pixies greedily scooped up, for the pleasure of pegging them at students. They smashed ink bottles, threw around books, ripped paper, slashed pictures off walls and turned over waste baskets. Meanwhile, Lockhart stood at the front of the room, taunting us and not doing a single thing to help.
"Come on then! They're just pixies," he laughed. "Round them up!" He ordered, however, everyone ignored him, and instead tried to avoid becoming a human decoration like Neville.
Lockhart sighed with false disappointment before rolling up his sleeves and proclaiming, "Well, if I must – Peskipiski Pesternomi!" He stared around expectantly as absolutely nothing happened before two pixies flew up to him, seized his wand, and threw it out a window. Lockhart nervously smiled at the pixies who took one look at him and then dived at his hair. He let out a childish screech before diving underneath his desk, narrowly avoiding Neville's face first dive towards the floor as the chandelier finally gave way.
When the bell rang there was a mad dash towards the door. Laura, Hermione, Ron, Harry, and I were unfortunately behind the others, Hermione and Laura stopping to help Neville and bring him to the hospital wing, and Harry and I working to pry a stunned Ron from the floor where he lay with a smashed ink bottle cracked on his forehead and oozing down his face. Just as we reached the door, and our ticket to freedom, Lockhart sprang out from behind his desk.
"I see you six are in good shape. You can nip the rest of the pixies back into the cage then. Yeah? Bye!" He exclaimed quickly pushing past us and slamming the door in our faces.
"Can you believe him?" Ron roared, slapping away a stray pixie who had come down to bite him on the ear.
Laura sighed, pulling over a chair for Neville to sit in, seeing as his nose seemed to have broken from the impact with the floor. "Let's just get out of here as fast as we can," she remarked, retrieving the cage from under one of the back desks.
"Yes," Hermione agreed firmly, "He was just trying to give us hands on experience." She proclaimed, taking out her wand to stun the pixies with Stupefy and Potrificus Totalis.
"Hands on?" Harry scoffed, grabbing a pixie, who had been doing a sort of jig around his head, with his bare hands.
"He didn't have a clue what he was doing," I agreed, scoping Hermione's stunned pixies off the floor.
"Rubbish," said Hermione. "You've read his books – look at all those amazing things he's done-"
"He says he's done," Ron muttered, whipping bits of pottery and ink from his face.
I pointed my wand at Ron, I couldn't agree with him more, "Scorgify."