Hello friends!
Here is the next chapter for Cruel Angel Thesis.
Enjoy.
Charles was sitting on the couch in his office, Fleur laying down as her feet rested in his lap. Two glasses stood on the nearby coffee table, a half drunken bottle of wine standing next to her. Her heels laid on the floor, as Charles massaged her feet and toes through her black opaque pantyhose. She kept moaning in pleasure as he massaged out her tension.
A loud knock rang from the door into his office. With a deep annoyed sigh, "It's always something." he muttered annoyed, "Come on in!" as disappointed Fleur got off his lap. The door opened and Professor McGonagall stepped in.
"Minerva, to what do I owe the pleasure?" Charles said.
"Your busy Charles?" McGonagall said before noticing Fleur and what was on the coffee table, "With miss Delacour?"
"I just Just helping a new college." Charles said with a cheeky grin, "Just making her feel welcome."
"Of course." the transfiguration professor said with a roll of her eyes, "I am looking for Kent."
"Which one?" Fleur said.
"If your looking for Alex... Try a broom closet. That's where he usually is around tis time of year." Charles said, "As for Claire... Who knows where she is?"
"Did something happen?" Fleur asked curiously.
"There was an incident during her Defense Against The Dark Arts class." Professor McGonagall said, her tone of voice sounding strange to Charles, "Kent, needs to be careful."
It was not brisk, crisp and stern; it was low and anxious and somehow much more human than usual.
"I understand." he said understanding, "I will talk with her about it tomorrow after class if not sooner."
"Hold on." Fleur said, "Your her head of House, why give that task to Charles?"
"While the students respect most of us professors, they respect and trust Charles Jeager." McGonagall said, "Especially the Gryffindor Six."
"That's what we call Harry, Claire, Alex, Ron, Neville and Hermione." he said and with a thankful nod, Professor McGonagall turned around and left the office. When the door was closed, Fleur let out a sigh.
The news about the shouting match against Umbridge had traveled exceptionally fast even by Hogwarts' standards. The funny thing was that none of the whisperers seemed to mind them overhearing what they were saying about Claire.
The girl herself was sitting on a stone bench at one of the balcony's overlooking the mountains surrounding Hogwarts.
"Ah, there you are."
She looked behind her to see Professor Jeager, a chess board under his arms. "I've been sent to see you." he said.
"Sent?" she said, "What do you mean, sent?"
"How about we play and talk." he said, moving one of his Pawn's.
"Fine." she said, using one of her own Pawns.
"Well?" Professor Jeager said as they continued to play, "Is it true?"
"Is what true?" Claire asked, rather more aggressively than she had intended, "Professor?" she added, in an attempt to sound more polite.
"Is it true that you shouted at Professor Umbridge?"
"Yes." she said.
"...Claire, you need to be careful. Misbehavior in Umbridge's class could cost you much more than house points and a detention." Jeager said concerned, "You know where she comes from, you must know to whom she is reporting."
A silence followed between the two as they continued to play their game.
"What I don't get." Claire said through clenched teeth, "Is why they all believed the story two months ago when Dumbledore told them..."
"The thing is, Claire." Jeager said grimly, "I'm not sure they did."
"What do you mean." Claire said.
"None of them saw what what happened in the maze. They just had Dumbledore's word for it that Voldemort had come back." Jeager said, "I know its the truth. It's just that before the truth could sink in, everyone went home for the summer, where they spent two months reading about how you're a nutcase and Dumbledore's going senile."
"We are not so different you and I. We both keep our pain inside, thinking we have to do it on our own." Jeager said gently as he check mated her king, "Like I told before, it doesn't have to be me, but if something is troubling you, my door is always open."
Rain pounded on the windowpanes of the Gryffindor Tower. The common room was almost empty; nearly everyone was still down at dinner.
Crookshanks uncoiled himself from an armchair and trotted to meet them, purring loudly, and when Harry, Claire, Alex, Ron, Neville and Hermione took their favorite chairs at the fireside he leap lightly on to Hermione's lap and curled up there like a furry ginger cushion.
"How can Dumbledore have let this happen?" Hermione cried suddenly, making Harry and Ron jump; Crookshanks leap off her, looking affronted. She pounded the arms of her chair in fury, so that bits of stuffing leaked out of the holes, "How can he let that terrible woman teach us? And in our OWL year, too!"
"Well, we've never had great Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers, have we? Except Lupin." Harry said, "You know what it's like, Hagrid told us, nobody wants the job; they say it's jinxed."
"Yeah, but to employ someone who's actually refusing to let us do magic. What's Dumbledore playing at?" Claire said, resting her head on her hand, "And she's trying to get people to spy for her."
They collected their schoolbags from a corner and returned to the chairs by the fire. People were coming back from dinner now, Claire kept her face averted from the portrait hole, but could still sense the stares she was attracting.
"Shall we do Snape's stuff first?" Ron said, dipping his quill into his ink, "The properties... of moonstone... and its uses... in potion-making..." he muttered, writing the words across the top of his parchment as he spoke them.
He underlined the title, then looked up expectantly at Claire and Hermione, "So, what are the properties of moonstone and its uses in potion-making?"
"I think Hermione would hurt me if I just tell you..." she said, but Hermione was not listening.
She was squinting over into the far corner of the room, where Fred, George and Lee were now sitting at the center of a knot of innocent-looking first-years, all of whom were chewing something that seemed to have come out of a large paper bag that Fred was holding.
"No, I'm sorry, they've gone too far." she said, standing up and looking positively furious, "Come on, Alex."
"Why?" Alex said, "What's wrong with handing out sweets."
"You know perfectly well that those are bits of Nosebleed Nougat or... or Puking Pastilles or..."
"Fainting Fancies?" Alex suggested quietly.
One by one, as though hit over the head with an invisible mallet, the first-years were slumping unconscious in their seats; some slid right on to the floor, others merely hung over the arms of their chairs, their tongues lolling out.
Most of the people watching were laughing; Hermione, however, squared her shoulders and marched directly over to where Fred and George now stood with clipboards, closely observing the unconscious first-years.
"That's enough!" Hermione said forcefully to Fred and George, both of whom looked up in mild surprise.
"Yeah, you're right." George said nodding, "This dosage looks strong enough, doesn't it?"
"I told you this morning, you can't test your rubbish on students!"
"We're paying them!" Fred said indignantly.
"I don't care, it could be dangerous!"
"Rubbish." Fred said.
"Calm down, Hermione, they're fine!" Lee said reassuringly as he walked from first-year to first-year, inserting purple sweets into their open mouths.
"Yeah, look, they're coming round now." George said.
A few of the first-years were indeed stirring. Several looked so shocked to find themselves lying on the floor, or dangling off their chairs, that Alex was sure Fred and George had not warned them what the sweets were going to do.
"Feel all right?" George asked kindly to a small dark-haired girl lying at his feet.
"I-I think so." she said shakily.
"Excellent." Fred said happily, but the next second Hermione had snatched both his clipboard and the paper bag of Fainting Fancies from his hands.
"It is NOT excellent!"
"What? What do you mean?" Alex said, "They're alive, aren't they?"
"Thank you!" Fred said.
"You can't do this!" Hermione said hotly, "What if you made one of them really ill?"
"We're not going to make them ill, we've already tested them all on ourselves, this is just to see if everyone reacts the same..."
"If you don't stop doing it, I'm going to..."
"Put us in detention?" Fred said, in an 'I'd-like-to-see-you-try-it' voice.
"Make us write lines?" George said, smirking.
Onlookers all over the room were laughing. Hermione drew herself up to her full height, which wasn't that high.
"Of course not." Alex said with a cheeky grin, "But I will write to your mother."
"You wouldn't." George said, horrified, taking a step back from her.
"Wouldn't I, George, wouldn't I?" Alex said with his arms crossed.
Fred and George looked thunderstruck, it was clear that as far as they were concerned, Alex's threat was way below the belt.
Taking Fred's clipboard and the bag of Fancies from Hermione and put them back into Fred's arms under the appreciative look of Hermione.
"Just don't do test in the common rooms, okay? Or at least not when Hermione is here." Alex whispered so only he and Fred could hear him, "Do that and I will look the other way." before he and Hermione walked back to their chairs by the fire.
"Thanks Alex." Hermione said a slight smile.
"Your welcome!" Alex said.
Hermione stared down at her blank piece of parchment for a few seconds, then said edgily, "Oh, it's no good, I can't concentrate now. I'm going to bed." she grabbed her bag and left.
The following day dawned just as leaden and rainy as the previous one. Hagrid was still absent from the staff table at breakfast.
"But on the plus side, no Snape today." Ron said bracingly.
"That's always a good thing." Neville added.
Double Charms was succeeded by double Transfiguration. Professor Flitwick and Professor McGonagall both spent the first fifteen minutes of their lessons lecturing the class on the importance of OWLs.
"What you must remember." Professor Flitwick said squeakily, perched as ever on a pile of books so that he could see over the top of his desk, "Is that these examinations may influence your futures for many years to come! If you have not already given serious thought to your careers, now is the time to do so. And in the meantime, I'm afraid, we shall be working harder than ever to ensure that you all do yourselves justice!"
They then spent over an hour revising Summoning Charms, which according to Professor Flitwick were bound to come up in their OWL, and he rounded off the lesson by setting them their largest ever amount of Charms homework.
It was the same, if not worse, in Transfiguration.
"You cannot pass an OWL." Professor McGonagall said grimly, "Without serious application, practice and study. I see no reason why everybody in this class should not achieve an OWL in Transfiguration as long as they put in the work."
Neville made a sad little disbelieving noise, "So... today we are starting Vanishing Spells. These are easier than Conjuring Spells, which you would not usually attempt until NEWT level, but they are still among the most difficult magic you will be tested on in your OWL."
She was quite right; By the end of a double period, neither Harry, Ron nor Neville had managed to vanish the snails on which they were practicing, though Ron said hopefully he thought his looked a bit paler. Claire, Alex and Hermione, on the other hand, successfully vanished their snails on the third attempt, earning them ten-point bonus for Gryffindor each from Professor McGonagall.
The three were the only ones not given homework; everybody else was told to practice the spell overnight, ready for a fresh attempt on their snails the following afternoon.
Now panicking slightly about the amount of homework they had to do, Harry, Ron and Neville spent their lunch hour in the library copying from Claire's notes on the uses of moonstones in potion-making out of sight from Hermione.
The day had become cool and breezy by the time they had Care of Magical Creatures in the afternoon, and as they walked down the sloping lawn towards Hagrid's cabin on the edge of the Forbidden Forest, they felt the occasional drop of rain on their faces.
Professor Grubbly-Plank stood waiting for the class some ten yards from Hagrid's front door, a long trestle table in front of her laden with twigs.
As the group reached her, a loud shout of laughter sounded behind them; turning, they saw Malfoy striding towards them, surrounded by his usual gang of Slytherin cronies. He had clearly just said something highly amusing, because Crabbe, Goyle, Parkinson and the rest continued to snigger heartily as they gathered around the trestle table and, judging by the way they all kept looking over at Claire, he was able to guess the subject of the joke without too much difficulty.
"Everyone here?" Professor Grubbly-Plank barked, once all the Slytherins and Gryffindors had arrived, "Let's crack on then. Who can tell me what these things are called?", she indicated the heap of twigs in front of her.
Hermione's hand shot into the air. Behind her back, Malfoy did a buck-toothed imitation of her jumping up and down in eagerness to answer a question. Parkinson gave a shriek of laughter that turned almost at once into a scream, as the twigs on the table leap into the air and revealed themselves to be what looked like tiny pixie-ish creatures made of wood, each with knobbly brown arms and legs, two twig-like fingers at the end of each hand and a funny flat, bark-like face in which a pair of beetle-brown eyes glittered.
"Oooooh!" Parvati and Lavender said.
"Kindly keep your voices down, girls!" Professor Grubbly-Plank said sharply, scattering a handful of what looked like brown rice among the stick-creatures, who immediately fell upon the food, "So anyone know the names of these creatures? Miss Granger?"
"Bowtruckles." Hermione said, "They're tree-guardians, usually live in wand-trees."
"Five points for Gryffindor." Professor Grubbly-Plank said, "Yes, these are Bowtruckles, and as Miss Granger rightly says, they generally live in trees whose wood is of wand quality. Anybody know what they eat?"
"Woodlice?" Claire said, which explained why what Harry had taken to be grains of brown rice were moving, "But fairy eggs if they can get them."
"Good gal, take another five points. So, whenever you need leaves or wood from a tree in which a Bowtruckle lodges, it is wise to have a gift of woodlice ready to distract or placate it. They may not look dangerous, but if angered they will try to gouge at human eyes with their fingers, which, as you can see, are very sharp and not at all desirable near the eyeballs. So if you'd like to gather closer, take a few woodlice and a Bowtruckle, I have enough here for one between three, you can study them more closely. I want a sketch from each of you with all body-parts labelled by the end of the lesson."
Claire and Alex were squatting on the grass some distance away and attempting to persuade a Bowtruckle to remain still long enough for them to draw it as Harry walked over to them, he pulled out parchment and quill, crouched down beside the others and related in a whisper what Malfoy had just said.
"Dumbledore would know if something had happened to Hagrid." Claire said, "It's just playing into Malfoy's hands to look worried; it tells him we don't know exactly what's going on. Here, hold the Bowtruckle for a moment, just so I can draw its face..."
"Yes." came Malfoy's clear drawl from the group nearest them, "Father was talking to the Minister just a couple of days ago, you know, and it sounds as though the Ministry's really determined to crack down on sub-standard teaching in this place. So even if that overgrown moron does show up again, he'll probably be sent packing straightaway."
"Draco, my dear." Alex said over his shoulder, "We know how great your papa is at licking Fudge's buttocks, we don't need a reminder every time we see each other! Tell us something interesting for once!"
"OUCH!"
Malfoy had gripped the Bowtruckle so hard that it had almost snapped, and it had just taken a great retaliatory swipe at his hand with its sharp fingers, leaving two long deep cuts there.
When the bell echoed distantly over the grounds, Alex rolled up his Bowtruckle picture and marched off to Herbology with a happy whistle.
"Alex, you shouldn't go antagonizing Malfoy." Hermione said, "Don't forget, he's a prefect now, he could make life difficult for..."
"I wasn't antagonizing Draco! I wouldn't dare to dream of it. I was just teasing." Alex said, Harry, Claire, Ron and Neville laughed, but Hermione frowned, "Besides, I take his authority as seriously as I do with Umbitch's."
Together, they traipsed across the vegetable patch. The sky still appeared unable to make up its mind whether it wanted to rain or not.
"I just wish Hagrid would hurry up and get back." Harry said in a low voice, as they reached the greenhouses, "And don't say that Grubbly-Plank woman's a better teacher!" he added threateningly.
"I wasn't going to." Hermione said calmly.
The door of the nearest greenhouse opened and some fourth-years spilled out of it, including Luna and Ginny.
"Hello favorite Weasley girl and Neville's Lulu!" Alex said with a wave.
"Hi." Ginny said brightly as she and Luna walked to them, many of their classmates turned curiously to watch.
Luna took a deep breath and then said, without so much as a preliminary hello, "I believe He Who Must Not Be Named is back and I believe you fought him and escaped from him."
"Great." Claire said awkwardly, "Thanks."
"Just you wait." Luna said supportive, "People used to believe there were no such things as the Blibbering Humdinger or the Crumple-Horned Snorkack!"
"Well, they were right, weren't they?" Hermione said impatiently, "There weren't any such things as the Blibbering Humdinger or the Crumple-Horned Snorkack."
Luna gave her a withering look and flounced away, Ginny following after her.
"Hey, you leave Luna alone!" Alex said defensively, "She's a precious little cinnamon roll!"
"Alex!" Ron said.
"Ron!" Alex yelled back.
"She's taken!" the red headed friend said.
"Oh, just because I'm nice to a girl, I want to get into her panties!? That's profiling!" Alex said, "I mean, it's true most of the time but not now! But I have half a mind to report you to Professor Dumbledore!"
Ernie had stepped up to them. "I want you to know, Kent." he said in a loud, carrying voice, "That it's not only weirdos who support you. I personally believe you one hundred percent. My family have always stood firm behind Dumbledore, and so do I."
"Er... Thanks very much, Ernie." Claire said, taken aback but pleased.
To nobody's surprise, Professor Sprout started their lesson by lecturing them about the importance of OWLs. Claire wished all the teachers would stop doing this.
Tired and smelling strongly of dragon dung, Professor Sprouts preferred type of fertilizer, the Gryffindors trooped back up to the castle an hour and a half later, none of them talking very much; it had been another long day. Instead of heading to the Gryffindor Tower to drop of their bags, they went straight for dinner.
They had barely reached the entrance of the Great Hall, however, when a loud voice yelled, "Hey, Alex!"
"Ah, Tracy." Alex said with a bright smile, "You kids go ahead, tis won't take long."
And indeed, Harry had just put lamb chops on to his plate and starting to eat when Alex was already back.
"What did you and Davis talk about?" Hermione said.
"Nothing important." Alex said, sitting down next to her, "So what did I miss?"
"As I was saying." Neville said, "We've got to write three essays, practice Vanishing Spells for McGonagall, work out a counter-charm for Flitwick, finish the Bowtruckle drawing and start that stupid dream diary for Trelawney?"
Ron moaned and for some reason glanced up at the ceiling, "And it looks like it's going to rain."
"...And that is bad why?" Alex said with a raised eyebrow, "Because that has feck all to do with homework."
"Nothing." Ron said at once, his ears reddening.
"Not entirely sure what you three are whining about. You probably do what you always do with your homework." Claire muttered as she chewed on her roasted chicken, "Copy mine."
"That'll have to do." Ron said, slamming the diary shut.
It was evening in the Gryffindor Common Room, Harry, Claire, Ron, Neville and Hermione was trying to make a dent in their pile of homework. Alex had left after dinner, muttering something about a plan with Tracy.
"I've said I dreamed I was buying a new pair of shoes." Ron explained, "She can't make anything weird out of that, can she?"
"Tis is Trelawney we are talking about." Claire said dryly, "She could read something bad in a plate of pudding."
It was then that the portret swung open and through the hole climbed a disheveled Alex, his tie loosely hanging around his neck.
"What did you do?" Claire said immediately as her cousin sat down.
"Your going to be proud of me, cousin." Alex said with a wicked and satisfied grin, leaning back with his arms propped up behind his head.
"What did you do?" Claire said alarmed.
"I took revenge on Parvati!" Alex said proudly.
"A third time, Alexander!" Claire said sternly, her tone having a great resemblance to Margaret, "What. Did. You. Do."
"I had sex with her!" he said simply as they gave him a look, "If you don't believe me, ask Tracy! She was part of the threesome!"
"Too much information." Claire said, rubbing the side of her head.
"H-How?" Ron said perplexed.
"Well you see Ron." Alex said, "When a boy and a girl love each other very much... Wait that's not true, sometimes love isn't part of the equation at all. I mean, I do have sort of feelings for Tracy, but more in a 'friends who happen to fuck' kind of way..."
"I know about the birds and the bees!" Ron said with his ears reddening, "How do you, do your Alex thing."
"No idea, it just comes natural to me." Alex said with a shrug, "Obviously I'm inventing and exploring a new field of magic. I'm a Pornomancer. Must explain why I hear 'Bow Chicka Wow Wow' every time I enter a room."
That's the chapter.
Many thanks to everyone who reads, favorite, follows or reviews this chapter.
See you beauties next time. Mischief Managed.