Hello there!
Next chapter for Cruel Angel Thesis.
Enjoy.
The following morning Harry, Alex, Ron and Neville catch up with a irritated looking Claire and Hermione halfway across the common room as they all headed towards breakfast.
"What's the matter?" Harry said upon seeing how his girlfriend looked, "You look absolutely..."
"Oh for heavens sake." Hermione suddenly said.
"I wouldn't say I am that good looking, but thank you." Claire said dryly as he followed the direction she was looking in, finding her staring at the common-room noticeboard, where a large new sign had been put up.
Gallons of Galleons!
Pocket money failing to keep pace with your outgoings?
Like to earn a little extra gold?
Contact Fred and George Weasley, Gryffindor common room.
For simple, part-time, virtually painless jobs.
(We regret that all work is undertaken at applicant's own risk.)
"They are the limit." Hermione said grimly, taking down the sign which Fred and George had pinned up over a poster giving the date of the first Hogsmeade weekend, which was to be in October, "We'll have to talk to them, Alex."
Alex looked positively confused, "Why?"
"Because we're prefects!" Hermione said, as they climbed out through the portrait hole, "It's up to us to stop this kind of thing!"
"Wait I am a prefect?" Alex said surprised, "Unicorn tits, that's awesome."
"So what's up, Claire?" Harry said, as they walked down a flight of stairs lined with portraits of old witches and wizards, all of whom ignored them, being engrossed in their own conversation, "You look really angry about something."
"Have you met Claire? She always looks angry." Alex said, "Or at least she always looks angry at me."
"Parvati thinks she is lying about You-Know-Who." Hermione said, when Claire did not respond.
"Oh does she now..." Harry said adopting a very cold tone, "Seamus thought so too, I told him off."
"Thanks, Harry." Claire said in a low voice as the two slowly snaked their hand into the others.
"It's nothing." Harry said, "No one talks about my girl like that." as their eyes locked.
They had reached the foot of the marble staircase. A line of fourth-year Ravenclaws was crossing the Entrance Hall; they caught sight of them and hurried to form a tighter group, as though frightened that stragglers might be attacked by them.
They followed the Ravenclaws into the Great Hall, all looking instinctively at the staff table as they entered. Professor Grubbly-Plank was chatting to Professor Sinistra, the Astronomy teacher, and Hagrid was once again conspicuous only by his absence.
"Dumbledore didn't even mention how long that Grubbly-Plank woman's staying." Harry said, as they made their way across to the Gryffindor table.
"Maybe he didn't want to draw attention to Hagrid not being here." Neville said.
"Draw attention to it?" Ron said half-laughing, "How could we not notice?"
Before Claire could answer, Angelina came marching up to Harry.
"Hi, Angelina."
"Hi, good summer?" she said briskly, and without waiting for an answer, "Listen, I've been made Gryffindor Quidditch Captain."
"Nice one." Harry said grinning at her; he suspected Angelina's pep talks might not be as long-winded as Wood's had been, which could only be an improvement.
"Yeah, well, we need a new Keeper now Wood's left. Tryouts are on Friday at five o'clock and I want the whole team there, all right? Then we can see how the new person will fit in."
"Okay." Harry said.
Angelina smiled at him and departed.
"I'd forgotten Wood had left. I'm gonna miss him." Alex said as he sat down beside Ron and pulled a plate of toast towards him, "I suppose that will make quite a difference to the team. He was a good Keeper."
"Still, it won't hurt to have some new blood, will it?" Ron said.
With a whoosh and a clatter, hundreds of owls came soaring in through the upper windows. They descended all over the Hall, bringing letters and packages to their owners and showering the breakfast tables with droplets of water; it was clearly raining hard outside.
Hermione, however, had to move her orange juice aside quickly to make way for a large damp barn owl bearing a sodden Daily Prophet in its beak.
"What are you still getting that for?" Claire said irritably, thinking of Parvati as Hermione placed a Knut in the leather pouch on the owl's leg and it took off again.
"It's best to know what the enemy is saying." Hermione said darkly, and she unfurled the newspaper and disappeared behind it, not emerging until Harry, Alex, Ron and Neville had finished eating, and Claire was still going.
"Nothing." she said simply, rolling up the newspaper and laying it down by her plate, "Nothing about you or Dumbledore or anything."
Professor McGonagall was now moving along the table handing out timetables.
"Look at today!" Ron groaned, "History of Magic, double Potions, Divination and double Defense Against the Dark Arts... Binns, Snape, Trelawney and that Umbridge woman all in one day! I wish Fred and George'd hurry up and get those Skiving Snackboxes sorted..."
"Careful Ron." Fred said, arriving with George and squeezing on to the bench beside Harry, "There are Hogwarts prefects around."
"Look what we've got today." Ron said grumpily, shoving his timetable under Fred's nose, "That's the worst Monday I've ever seen."
"Fair point, little brother." Fred said, scanning the column, "You can have a bit of Nosebleed Nougat cheap if you like."
"Why's it cheap?" Ron said suspiciously.
"Because you'll keep bleeding till you shrivel up." George said, helping himself to a kipper, "We haven't got an antidote yet."
"Do we want to know how you know that?" Claire said, munching on some toast.
"Yeah." Ron said moodily, pocketing his timetable, "I think I'll take the lessons."
"And speaking of your Skiving Snackboxes." Hermione said, eyeing Fred and George beadily, "You can't advertise for testers on the Gryffindor noticeboard."
"Says who?" George said, looking astonished.
"I think Hermione just did." Alex said, earning a chuckle from the twins and a glare from her friend.
"You'll be singing a different tune soon enough, Hermione." Fred said, thickly buttering a crumpet, "You're starting your fifth year, you'll be begging us for a Snackbox before long."
"And why would starting fifth year mean I want a Skiving Snackbox?" Hermione asked.
"Fifth year's OWL year." Claire said plainly.
"Lady Claire is right. You've got your exams coming up, haven't you?" Fred said with satisfaction, "They'll be keeping your noses so hard to that grindstone they'll be rubbed raw."
"Half our year had minor breakdowns coming up to OWLs." George said happily, "Tears and tantrums... Patricia Stimpson kept coming over faint..."
"Kenneth Towler came out in boils, do you remember?", Fred said reminiscently.
"Wasn't that because you put Bulbadox powder in his pyjama's or something?" Neville said.
"Oh yeah, I'd forgotten... Hard to keep track sometimes, isn't it?" Fred said grinning, "Anyway, it's a nightmare of a year, the fifth, if you care about exam results, anyway. George and I managed to keep our peckers up somehow."
"Yeah..." Ron said, "You got, what was it, three OWL's each?"
"Ayup." Fred said unconcernedly, "But we feel our futures lie outside the world of academic achievement."
"We seriously debated whether we were going to bother coming back for our seventh year." George said brightly, "Now that we've got..." he broke off at a warning look from Claire, who knew George had been about to mention the Triwizard winnings she had given them.
"...Now that we've got our OWL's." George said hastily, "I mean, do we really need NEWT's? But we didn't think Mum could take us leaving school early not on top of Percy turning out to be the world's biggest prat."
"We're not going to waste our last year here, though.", Fred said, looking affectionately around at the Great Hall, "We're going to use it to do a bit of market research, find out exactly what the average Hogwarts student requires from a joke shop, carefully evaluate the results of our research, then produce products to fit the demand."
"But where are you going to get the gold to start a joke shop?" Hermione asked skeptically, "You're going to need all the ingredients and materials, and premises too, I suppose..."
"To borrow a catchphrase of a wise young lady." George said before he and Fred finished at the same time, "Magic!"
Claire let out a chuckle as Fred gave her a knowing wink. "Come on George, if we get there early we might be able to sell a few Extendable Ears before Herbology."
"Does that mean they've already got some gold to start a joke shop?" Neville said as the Weasley twins walked away, each carrying a stack of toast.
"You know, I've been wondering about that." Ron said, his brow furrowed, "They bought me a new set of dress robes this summer and I couldn't understand where they got the Galleons..."
"Magic." Claire said before they change the subject of their conversation.
"Do you reckon it's true this year's going to be really tough?" Hermione said, "Because of the exams?"
"Oh, yeah. OWLs are really important, affect the jobs you can apply for and everything." Alex said, "We get career advice, too, later tis year, so you can choose what NEWTs you want to do next year."
This was much to the surprise of Harry, Claire, Ron, Neville and Hermione, "I read it in a book."
"Do you know what you want to do after Hogwarts?" Harry asked as they left the Great Hall shortly afterwards and set off towards their History of Magic classroom.
"Not really... Except..." Ron said slowly, he looked slightly sheepish, and only after they urged him on he added in an off-hand voice, "Well, it'd be cool to be an Auror."
"Yeah, it would." Harry said.
"I agree, but they're the elite, you've got to be really good." Ron said, before turning to their remaining friends, "What about you?"
"I don't know." Hermione said, "I think I'd like to do something really worthwhile."
"An Auror work is worthwhile!" Harry and Ron said at the same time.
"Yes, it is, but it's not the only worthwhile thing." Hermione said thoughtfully, "What about you Neville?"
"I... Auror sound cool... My mum and dad would like it if I followed in their footsteps." Neville said, "But I would like to become a teacher." he smiled himself when the rest laughed a little.
"I think you would be a great teacher, Neville. As long as you don't teach Potions." Claire said, "I don't know yet what I want to do, Auror sound cool, being a teacher sound fun too."
"Not sure what I'm gonna be doing." Alex said with a shrug, "All I know is that I'm not planning on a career in Magical Law. The scariest woman I know works at that department."
History of Magic was the most boring subject ever devised by wizardkind. Professor Binns, their ghost teacher, had a wheezy, droning voice that was almost guaranteed to cause severe drowsiness within ten minutes, five in warm weather. He never varied the form of their lessons, but lectured them without pausing while they took notes, or rather, gazed sleepily into space, or in Alex's case, actually slept through the class.
Only Hermione seems to be able to resist the soporific power of Binns's voice.
Today, they suffered an hour and a half's droning on the subject of giant wars. Claire heard just enough within the first ten minutes to appreciate dimly that in another teacher's hands this subject might have been mildly interesting, but then her brain disengaged, and she spent the remaining hour and twenty minutes playing hangman on a corner of her parchment with Harry, Ron and Neville while Alex rested, while Hermione shot them filthy looks out of the corner of her eye.
"How would it be." she asked them coldly, as they left the classroom for break, "If I refused to lend you my notes this year?"
"We fail our OWL." Ron said, "Or we beg Claire to save us. So if that is something you want on your conscience, Hermione..."
"Well, you'd deserve it." she snapped, "You don't even try to listen to him, do you?"
"Lay off them, Hermione. They try but you must have nearly superhuman concentration to stay awake while that voice drones on." Claire said, rubbing a hand through her hair, "Your just more cleverer than they are and have a better concentration than me."
"Ain't that nice?" Alex said with a smirk, "You have finally beaten Claire at something!"
"Oh, don't give me that rubbish." Hermione said, but she looked slightly mollified as she led the way out into the damp courtyard.
A fine misty drizzle was falling, so that the people standing in huddles around the edges of the yard looked blurred at the edges. Harry, Claire, Alex, Ron, Neville and Hermione chose a secluded corner under a heavily dripping balcony, turning up the collars of their uniforms against the chilly September air and talking about what Snape was likely to set them in the first lesson of the year.
They had got as far as agreeing that it was likely to be something extremely difficult, just to catch them off guard after a two-month holiday, when they joined the queue lining up outside Snape's classroom door.
The ominous sound of Snape's dungeon door creaking open and they walked to their usual table at the back.
"Settle down." Snape said coldly, shutting the door behind him.
There was no real need for the call to order; the moment the class had heard the door close, quiet had fallen and all fidgeting stopped. Snape's mere presence was usually enough to ensure a class's silence.
"Before we begin today's lesson." Snape said, sweeping over to his desk and staring around at them all, "I think it appropriate to remind you that next June you will be sitting an important examination, during which you will prove how much you have learned about the composition and use of magical potions. As slow learning as some of this class are, I expect each and everyone of you to scrape an 'Acceptable' in your OWL at the very least."
"After this year, of course, many of you will cease studying with me." Snape went on, "I take only the very best into my NEWT Potions class, which means that some of us will certainly be saying goodbye."
His eyes rested on Harry and his lip curled. "But we have another year to go before that happy moment of farewell. So, whether or not you are intending to attempt NEWT, I advise all of you to concentrate your efforts upon maintaining the high pass level I have come to expect from my OWL students." Snape said softly, "Today we will be mixing a potion that often comes up at Ordinary Wizarding Level: the Draught of Peace, a potion to calm anxiety and soothe agitation. Be warned: if you are too heavy-handed with the ingredients you will put the drinker into a heavy and sometimes irreversible sleep, so you will need to pay close attention to what you are doing."
Just as Harry, Claire, Alex, Ron, Neville and Hermione had predicted, Snape could hardly have set them a more difficult, fiddly potion. The ingredients had to be added to the cauldron in precisely the right order and quantities; the mixture had to be stirred exactly the right number of times, firstly in clockwise, then in anti-clockwise directions; the heat of the flames on which it was simmering had to be lowered to exactly the right level for a specific number of minutes before the final ingredient was added.
"A light silver vapor should now be rising from your potion." Snape called, with ten minutes left to go.
Claire got a grin, a light silver vapor began to rise from her potion. She looked around, Ron's cauldron was spitting green sparks, Neville was issuing copious amounts of dark grey steam. The surface of Harry's, Hermione's and Alex's potion, however, was a shimmering mist of silver vapor, and as Snape swept by he looked down his hooked nose at it without comment, which meant he could find nothing to criticize.
The group arrived in the Great Hall, the ceiling had turned an even murkier grey during the morning. Rain was lashing the high windows.
"That could have gone so bad... Thanks for the help, Alex." Harry said, during potion he had pointed out that he had not added syrup of hellebore, just before he was about to proceeded straight to the fourth line of the instructions after allowing his potion to simmer for seven minutes.
After Potions, Divination was Harry's least favorite class, which was due mainly to Professor Trelawney's habit of predicting his premature death every few lessons.
The one good thing to be said for this lesson was that it was not a double period.
"I never remember my dreams..." Ron said as he, Harry, Alex and Neville climb down the ladder, "What about you?"
"I had this nightmare involving a pair of giant scissors wearing my grandmother's best hat.", Neville said.
"You must remember one of them." Alex said, before turning to Harry, "What about you?"
Harry quickly took his gaze from Alex, he was not going to share his dreams with anyone. He didn't want to share his nightmares about the dark hallway, and he definitely didn't need to tell Alex he had dreams about Claire wearing her Gryffindor uniform tie, and not much else.
"W-Well, I dreamed I was playing Quidditch the other night...", Harry quickly made up before a blush could creep on his face, but he wasn't sure Alex believed him, "What do you think that means?"
"Probably that you're going to be eaten by a giant marshmallow-man or some shit." Alex said dully, remembering that Professor Trelawney set them the task of keeping a dream diary for a month as homework.
"Do you realize how much homework we've got already? Binns set us a foot-and-a-half-long essay on giant wars, Snape wants a foot on the use of moonstones, and now we've got a month's dream diary from Trelawney! Fred and George weren't wrong about OWL year, were they? That Umbridge woman had better not give us any..." Neville complained just as they entered Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom where they found Professor Umbridge already seated at the teachers desk, wearing the fluffy pink cardigan of the night before and the black velvet bow on top of her head.
The class was quiet as it entered the room; Professor Umbridge was, as yet, an unknown quantity and nobody knew how strict a disciplinarian she was likely to be.
"Well, good afternoon!" she said, when finally the whole class had sat down.
A few people mumbled "good afternoon" in reply.
"Tut, tut." Professor Umbridge said, "That won't do, now, will it? I should like you, please, to reply 'Good afternoon, Professor Umbridge'. One more time, please. Good afternoon, class!"
"Good afternoon, Professor Umbridge." they chanted back at her.
"There, now." Professor Umbridge said sweetly, "That wasn't too difficult, was it? Wands away and quills out, please."
Many of the class exchanged gloomy looks; the order 'wands away' had never yet been followed by a lesson they had found interesting.
Claire shoved her wand back inside her bag and pulled out quill, ink and parchment. Professor Umbridge opened her handbag, extracted her own wand, which was an unusually short one, and tapped the blackboard sharply with it; words appeared on the board at once:
Defense Against the Dark Arts
A Return to Basic Principles
"Well now, your teaching in this subject has been rather disrupted and fragmented, hasn't it? The constant changing of teachers, many of whom do not seem to have followed any Ministry-approved curriculum, has unfortunately resulted in your being far below the standard we would expect to see in your OWL year.", Professor Umbridge stated, turning to face the class with her hands clasped neatly in front of her, "You will be pleased to know, however, that these problems are now to be rectified. We will be following a carefully structured, theory-centered, Ministry-approved course of defensive magic this year. Copy down the following, please."
She rapped the blackboard again; the first message vanished and was replaced by the 'Course Aims'.
1. Understanding the principles underlying defensive magic.
2. Learning to recognize situations in which defensive magic can legally be used.
3. Placing the use of defensive magic in a context for practical use.
For a couple of minutes the room was full of the sound of scratching quills on parchment. When everyone had copied down Professor Umbridge's three course aims she asked, "Has everybody got a copy of Defensive Magical Theory by Wilbert Slinkhard?"
There was a dull murmur of assent throughout the class.
"I think we'll try that again." Professor Umbridge said, "When I ask you a question, I should like you to reply, 'Yes, Professor Umbridge', or 'No, Professor Umbridge'. So: has everyone got a copy of Defensive Magical Theory by Wilbert Slinkhard?"
"Yes, Professor Umbridge." rang through the room.
"Unfortunately I do..." Alex muttered softly, looking rather irritated.
"Good." Professor Umbridge said, "I should like you to turn to page five and read 'Chapter One, Basics for Beginners'. There will be no need to talk."
Professor Umbridge left the blackboard and settled herself in the chair behind the teacher's desk, observing them all closely with those pouchy toad's eyes. Claire turned to page five of her copy of Defensive Magical Theory and started to read.
It was desperately dull, quite as bad as listening to Professor Binns. She had soon read the same line half a dozen times without taking in more than the first few words.
Next to her, Harry was looking just as bored as she was, Ron was absent-mindedly turning his quill over and over in his fingers, pretending to read, Neville staring at the same spot on the page, but they were surprised when they saw that neither Alex nor Hermione had opened their copy of Defensive Magical Theory.
Alex staring fixedly at Professor Umbridge as Hermione had her hand in the air, Professor Umbridge was looking resolutely in another direction, she looked in another direction when Alex also raised his hand.
After several more minutes had passed, however, Claire was not the only one watching Alex and Hermione. The chapter they had been instructed to read was so tedious that more and more people were choosing to watch the mute attempt to catch Professor Umbridge's eye rather than struggle on with 'Basics for Beginners'.
When more than half the class were staring rather than at their books, Professor Umbridge seemed to decide that she could ignore the situation no longer.
"Did you want to ask something about the chapter, dear?" she asked Hermione, as though she had only just noticed her.
"Not about the chapter, no." Hermione said.
"Well, we're reading just now." Professor Umbridge said, showing her small pointed teeth, "If you have other queries we can deal with them at the end of class."
"I have a query about your course aims." Alex said and Professor Umbridge raised her eyebrows.
"Well, Mr. Kent, I think the course aims are perfectly clear if you read them through carefully." Professor Umbridge said in a voice of determined sweetness.
"Well, I don't." Alex said bluntly, "There's nothing written up there about using defensive spells."
There was a short silence in which many members of the class turned their heads to frown at the three course aims still written on the blackboard.
"Using defensive spells?" Professor Umbridge repeated with a little laugh, "Why, I can't imagine any situation arising in my classroom that would require you to use a defensive spell. You surely aren't expecting to be attacked during class?"
"We're not going to use magic?" Ron exclaimed loudly.
"Students raise their hands when they wish to speak in my class, Mr?..."
"Weasley." Ron said, thrusting his hand into the air.
Professor Umbridge, smiling still more widely, turned her back on him. Harry, Claire, Alex, Neville and Hermione immediately raised their hands too. Professor Umbridge's pouchy eyes lingered on Claire for a moment before she addressed Hermione.
"Yes, Miss Granger? You wanted to ask something else?"
"Yes, surely the whole point of Defense Against the Dark Arts is to practice defensive spells?", Hermione asked.
"Are you a Ministry-trained educational expert, Miss Granger?" Professor Umbridge asked, in her falsely sweet voice, Hermione was about to say no, but she was interrupted, "Well then, I'm afraid you are not qualified to decide what the 'whole point' of any class is. Wizards much older and cleverer than you have devised our new program of study. You will be learning about defensive spells in a secure, risk-free way..."
"What use is that?" Claire said, "If we're going to be attacked, it won't be in a..."
"Hand, Miss Kent!" Professor Umbridge sang.
Claire thrust her fist in the air and Professor Umbridge promptly turned away from her, but now several other people had their hands up, too.
"Well, it's like Claire said, isn't it?" Dean said after raising his hand, "If we're going to be attacked, it won't be risk free."
"I repeat." Professor Umbridge said, smiling in a very irritating fashion at Dean, "Do you expect to be attacked during my classes?"
"No, but..."
Professor Umbridge talked over him, "I do not wish to criticize the way things have been run in this school." she said, an unconvincing smile stretching her wide mouth, "But you have been exposed to some very irresponsible wizards in this class, very irresponsible indeed, not to mention..." she gave a nasty little laugh, "Extremely dangerous half-breeds."
"If you mean Professor Lupin." Alex said hotly, "He was the best we ever had!"
"Hand, Mr. Kent! As I was saying you have been introduced to spells that have been complex, inappropriate to your age group and potentially lethal. You have been frightened into believing that you are likely to meet Dark attacks every other day."
"No we haven't." Claire said sternly.
"Your hand is not up, Miss Kent!"
Claire put up her hand, but Umbridge turned away from her. "It is my understanding that my predecessor not only performed illegal curses in front of you, he actually performed them on you."
"Okay he turned out to be a maniac." Alex said, "Yet he was still not the worst Defense teacher we ever had."
"Your hand is not up, Mr. Kent!" Professor Umbridge said, "Now, it is the view of the Ministry that a theoretical knowledge will be more than sufficient to get you through your examination, which, after all, is what school is all about. And your name is?" she added, staring at Parvati, whose hand had just shot up.
"Parvati Patil, and isn't there a practical bit in our Defense Against the Dark Arts OWL? Aren't we supposed to show that we can actually do the counter-curses and things?"
"As long as you have studied the theory hard enough, there is no reason why you should not be able to perform the spells under carefully controlled examination conditions." Professor Umbridge said dismissively.
"Without ever practicing them beforehand?" Parvati said incredulously, "Are you telling us that the first time we'll get to do the spells will be during our exam?"
"I repeat, as long as you have studied the theory hard enough..."
"And what good's theory going to be in the real world?" Claire said, raising her hand in the air, Professor Umbridge looked up.
"This is school, Miss Kent." she said softly, "Not the real world."
"Isn't school supposed to prepare us?" Harry said raising his fist, "For what's waiting for us out there?"
"There is nothing waiting out there, Mr. Potter." Professor Umbridge inquired in a horribly honeyed voice, "Who do you imagine wants to attack children like yourselves?"
"Let's think..." Claire said in a mock thoughtful voice, "Maybe... I don't know, what was his name again... Likes wearing black and hides behind a mask? The same man who the Daily Prophet claims was responsible for the incidents during the Triwizard tournament? Oh yeah, Sephylon!"
Professor Umbridge did not flinch. She was staring at Claire with a grimly satisfied expression on her face.
"And twenty points from Gryffindor."
The classroom was silent and still. Everyone was staring at either Umbridge or Claire.
"Now, let me make a few things quite plain.", Professor Umbridge stood up and leaned towards them, her stubby-fingered hands splayed on her desk, "You have been told that a certain Dark wizard has returned from the dead, you have been informed that a certain Dark wizard is at large once again. This is a lie when in fact..."
"It is NOT a lie!" Claire shouted.
"Detention, Miss Kent!" Professor Umbridge said triumphantly, "Tomorrow evening. Five o'clock. My office."
"Do you think I am actually going to take detention from such a sorry excuse of a teacher? Even Lockhart was better than you.", Claire said standing up, swinging her bag over her shoulder and left the classroom, slamming the door behind her with excessive force.
That's the chapter.
Many thanks to everyone who reads, favorite, follows or reviews this chapter.
See you beauties next time. Mischief Managed.