Once Upon a Hogwarts-Chapter Nine
By Lily in a Pond
Disclaimer: I just found the announcement on J.K. Rowling's website about running out of paper. Haha, that was pretty funny! Now see, if I were her, I would type it all up on a computer. Ooh, see? I just said if. That should pretty much mean that I'm not Jo. But if you're still curious, I'll have you know that I'm an American, living in the state of computer chips! Also, chocolate chips too….
--
It was a bright, sunny day at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardly. The birds were chirping, rose petals were fluttering in the refreshingly cool breeze, and Fang was thumping his tail lazily to the haunting melody a lonesome fourth year violinist was playing from his tower window.
Inside, the halls were deserted, as classes had started. Charms and Tranfiguration were well underway, Arithmancy was making more charts, and the dungeons echoed with Professor Slughorn's booming voice and rumbling laughter.
The classroom on the second floor north corridor was suspiciously quiet, for this was the NEWT History of Magic classroom, a common nap spot for the students of Hogwarts.
Well, most of them.
"Ouch!" Orla Quirke said quietly. Reaching down on the floor where a balled-up note lay, she continued rubbing her neck. Orla shot a nasty look at Theodore Nott, who was sitting two desks away and pretending to look quite innocent.
The note read,
To all LTEA members, don't forget about the meeting tonight in the Ravenclaw Common Room. The password is 'Shakespeare'. Pass this note around to all LTEA members.
P.S- Quirke, don't forget to write everything down at the meeting. DO NOT FORGET.
P.P.S- Brocklehurst, Blaise wants to talk with you after dinner in the Charms classroom. No idca why he would want to talk to you of all people, but he looked pretty serious.
P.P.P.S- This meeting includes Potter and Weasley; however much you two want to back out now, you CAN'T! Mwahahaha! Remember that paper you signed? Well, it's charmed! And I saw what Gtanger did to that Marietta girl; this is going to be worse!
P.P.P.P.S- Nice work, Macmillan. We need more people like you joining our cause.
Orla giggled, remembering what had happened a few days ago at Hogsmeade, and surreptitiously passed the note to the nearest LTEA member in her History of Magic class, Ernie Macmillan himself.
She saw Ernie laugh quietly at the note and – Orla took a double take – patted himself on the back.
Orla raised her eyebrows, but then shrugged. If Ernie could remember random phrases from Shakespeare's plays, then he had a right to do stranger things than pat himself on the back.
In the space of five minutes, the note had flew around the classroom and reached each member of the LTEA. Now, it was back in Theo's pocket, ready to be passed around in Transfiguration, his next class.
But as Theo would soon find out, this would be a harder feat to accomplish.
--
Professor Jocular, the seventh years' NEWT Tranfigurations teacher (and rumored to be McGonagall's illegitimate love child with Dumbledore) snatched up a note that was about to be passed from Ron Weasley to Justin Finch-Fletchey.
"Oho! What is this? A secret love note?"
The class laughed, but Theo slapped his forehead. How could you pass a note incorrectly? he mentally yelled at Ron.
"Weasley, I knew you spent an unusual amount of time alone with Potter, but I never thought it would finally come to this!" Jocular chortled as he unfolded the note. "Hmm, let's see...ooh, meeting tonight...in the Ravenclaw Common Room!" Professor Jocular was evidently excited; color was coming into his normally pale face.
Jocular rubbed his hands together eagerly. "Alright, now for the fun part. Which one of you fruity little jokers wrote it?"
Theo sat rigidly in his seat and contemplated blaming Blaise, but decided against it. The guilty party is always the first to deny it, he thought, remembering something he had heard in his fifth year from some Gryffindor.
Professor Jocular didn't look very surprised at the lack of reaction from his class. "Eh, how predictable. I didn't really think any of you even had half a ball to just admit it to my face. I'm not sexist or anything," he added quickly to the girls in the class. "Well, if no one admits to it, then I suppose I'll just have to go to Ravenclaw Tower tonight and enter the room!" he declared, crushing the note and tossing it into a nearby rubbish bin.
Theo made a strangled sound in his throat and instantly turned that into a cough.
"Are you alright, Mr. Nott?" Professor Jocular asked, his sharp brown eyes peering into Theo's.
"Yes, yes, hem, hem, I'm alright," Theo said, shooting a murderous look towards Ron. Jocular's eyes bored into Theo's for another moment, then he smirked and looked away.
"Well then, we'll get back to our lesson," Professor Jocular said and with a flourish, pulled out a large, complicated chart filled with animals.
"Animagi!" Hermione Granger whispered behind Theo. "That's what we're doing today, aren't we Professor?"
"Absolutely right, Miss Granger! Yes, today we'll be starting some basic skills to becoming an Animagus. Now, this is a required part of class, but afterwards, if you still want to continue studying to be an Animagus, you can inform me of that and I shall give you permission to look in the Restricted Section for books about this."
Professor Jocular clapped his hands. "Instructions are on the board, you may start now."
"This is so exciting!" Theo heard Hermione squeal behind him. "I can't wait to become a fully registered Animagus!"
Theo leaned towards Draco. "Three guesses on what Morag's going to be," he whispered snidely and they snickered quietly at the boy who was currently brandishing his wand and waving his arms around.
"Poor Morag. He really has to live up to his family's Transfiguration expectations," Blaise sighed, leaning over to their table. Then his face brightened. "Hey, those two rhyme!"
"Alright, Emily Dickinson," Theo sighed. "Now would you please bugger off, I'm trying to make myself an Animagus here!"
"Sure, sure," Blaise rolled his eyes. "An Animagus with less than half a ball..."
In the back left corner of the classroom, Harry, Ron, and Hermione were huddled together around their table, Ron looking very worried. Hermione was looking murderous.
"Passing notes?" she screeched quietly. "Honestly! Out of all the things you could've done during Transfigurations class, you chose to pass a note! And this is NEWT Transfigurations, too! When you could be learning so much, you instead play. Play! Is that what you think classes are for? Having fun?"
"No - " Ron started, but Hermione jabbed her finger in his chest.
"Do not interrupt me, Ronald! I cannot deal with you and your childish tactics any longer! Seven years of putting up with this, SEVEN YEARS, and it all culminates with a NOTE. After class, you should really reflect on what you've done, and think of some ways to grow up!" Hermione stood up quickly she knocked her chair over.
"W-Where are you going?" Harry stuttered, looking very apprehensive of the throbbing vein that was threatening to pop out of Hermione's neck. Hermione glared at him, and he immediately withered, the brief moment of reckless bravery vaporized.
"I am going to sit with other people actually who take this class because they like it and seriously want to learn. Goodbye and good riddance!" Hermione flounced off with a huff and sat down to the nearest person sitting alone, who just so happened to be Morag MacDougal, the Big Bad Slytherin Bird.
Only now he was just Morag MacDougal, the Bewildered.
Ron got over his shock and opened his textbook, looking bewildered himself. "Man, must be a rough day for Hermione...first she actually drifted off to sleep in History of Magic, then she is supposedly shamed by my note-passing, and now, she's sitting next to MacDougal."
Harry blinked at him. "Wait. So Hermione's tirade didn't have ANY effect on you?"
Ron laughed. "No, it was just a load of bull." He chuckled again at Harry's affronted expression. "Look, after you hear the same, long, angry speech for seven years, SEVEN YEARS," he imitated, "you kind of know that it doesn't really mean anything. She's probably just going through some girly problems right now. But no worrries, Hermione will be back with us at lunch," he said confidently.
--
Ron's prediction, unfortunately, did not come close to true as Hermione sashayed away from him the moment she stepped into the Great Hall. Instead of sitting down with the rest of the Gryffindors, she scooped up a plate of food and headed towards the library.
Ron was fuming when Harry and Ginny entered the Great Hall.
"I cannot believe the nerve of that woman! So I pass one ickle note during class! So what! Getting caught was a stupid thing to do, I'll concede to that, but to go and ignore me like that is just unacceptable!" he ranted, unaware that Harry and weren't very interest. "She says I'm being childish all the time, but what about her - giving me this kind of treatment is pretty damn childish, too!"
"Well, none of this would've happened if you'd passed along that note properly, Ron," Ginny sighed. "Come on, how hard is it to pass one teeny note?"
Ron glared at Harry. "Great, now she knows too."
Harry shrugged. "She was bound to find out sooner or later. Anyway, how are you going to fix this up with Hermione?"
Ron exhaled, smoke coming out from his nostrils and ears. "Easy, I'm not going to. I've have enough of stupid arguments. Eventually she's going to realize that ignoring me is a dumb thing to do, she'll start talking to me as though nothing happened, and then all will be good and jolly and frickin-fantastic." He got up heavily. "I'm going up to the dorms, I need to do some good thinking and maybe smash a few windows."
As he left, Harry and Ginny exchanged worried looks.
--
"I think Venus is actually strongest at this point - look, see the concentric circle pattern here in the cycle."
"No, Venus should always be strongest when interlined with Mars. When you see the real view and not just some poster's view of the sky, you can see that the angle of depresion formed by the two planets and Polaris is 65 1/2 degrees, which proves my theory."
"...your theory is dumb - SHIT."
Blaise Zabini walked into the door to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom.
He groaned on the floor. Not only was that one of the most embarassing things he had ever done in his life, he could also feel his rather large lunch of lamb chops and garlic fries coming up.
"Blaise?" Mandy Brocklehurst asked.
"Yes?" Blaise rasped, daring himself to open his eyes.
There was a moment of uncomfortable silence between them.
"Did you just walk into a door?"
"...um. Yeah."
Mandy hid her smile and helped Blaise up.
"Trust me, this isn't something that happens everyday," he grumbled, smoothing down his robes.
"I sure hope not," Mandy smiled. "You alright?"
"For sure! I'm a big guy! That didn't hurt me one bit!"
"...if you say so."
"Right then, let's go to class...and pretend nothing ever happened here."
Mandy shrugged. "It's not my secret to tell." Spotting her Ravenclaw friends already inside the classroom, she waved a goodbye to Blaise. "I've already changed the password, so I'll see you tonight."
Blaise smiled softly. "Yes...I will be seeing you tonight, Mandy."
"Who's the unlucky lady you're making goggly eyes at?" Draco smirked as he sat on Blaise's desk. He traced Blaise's line of vison. "Whoa, whoa, whoa! Mandy holy mother of pearl Brocklehurst? That's nice, I suppose."
Blaise pushed him off the desk. "Shove off, Draco."
Draco cocked an eyebrow at him. "That reminds me of something. I witnessed a very strange event two days ago in the Great Hall. It in volved you and a rather pretty blonde-haired girl...oh, hang on, that girl was Mandy Brocklehurst. What a coincidence, don't you think?"
Blaise's eyes bugged out.
"And I happened to overhear a very interesting conversation as well...one that concerns your developing relationship with the aforementioned girl. I must say, I do congratulate you on all that sneaking out you two did. It takes some guile to hide that from Slytherin, from me, for a pretty long time.
Draco and Blaise stared at each other.
"I need to have a private conversation with you later," Blaise sputtered out furiously.
Draco smirked. "No, actually, you don't need to. I know enough have an idea of what's going on."
As the door opened and their new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher swept in, Blaise quickly leaned towards Draco and whispered, "I know you can the biggest bastard at times, Draco, but just this once, don't open your mouth, alright, mate? It would not be a pretty affair if this got out."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Draco waved him off. "Besides, even if I told people, who'd actually believe it?"
Their new professor cleared his throat and glared at them. Draco and Blaise drew apart, and sat like perfect little angels, giving a perfectly angelic smile to him.
"My name is Professor de Vellofides. And yes, I am Italian, Miss Granger," he said, seeing Hermione's opened mouth and raised hand.
"What kind of a name is 'de Vellofides'?" Draco whispered to Blaise. Blaise shrugged.
"An Italian name, didn't he just say that?"
"Now, I trust you all have your schoolbooks?" He didn't wait for an answer. "Good. Today, we will reviewing the three Unforgivable Curses. Who can tell me one of them?"
Hermione's hand shot up, but this time around, so did others'.
"Yes, Miss Granger?"
"The Imperius Curse, Professor."
Professor de Vellofides smiled, but only his mouth. "Yes, that's correct. Now, I trust you all know what the Imperius Curse does, so I won't get into detail about this. Next!"
"The Cruciatus Curse," Susan Bones volunteered quietly, seeing that Neville's head was in his hands.
"Ah yes, the Cruciatus. The most cruel of the curses," Professor de Vellofides said, sighing. "Mr. Longbottom, I know this is a difficult subject for us to breach upon, but we must." He looked up. "And the last?"
"Avada Kedavra, the Killing Curse," Harry said quietly, looking down.
Professor de Vellofides leaned over on his desk and said, "I understand how these curses must have affected all of you in this room. It ties to your families, your friends, and even perhaps yourselves." He straightened up.
"We are in dark times now. Voldemort has power, and he is gaining more of it by the second. Though students, most of you are seventeen and are legally adults in our world. You may not want to accept it, but sooner or later, you'll be thrust onto the battlefield, whether you want it or not. It's time to grow up and become adults. Time to face danger in the eye. Time to make sacrifices for war. Time to lose...and gain."
"You aren't children anymore. You're expected to fight with the experienced and powerful, to assume responsibilities, to wound and kill."
Harry looked down at his hands as did Draco.
It's unfortunate that you are living in this time; you won't have a chance to actually relax and enjoy life like you should. Instead, you are supposed to be older than your years, fighting on the battlefield. I have tried to persuade the Ministry not to allow children and students to fight in the war, but they won't listen." Professor de Vellofides sighed and lowered his eyes. "This is your first lesson in Defense Against the Dark Arts. This harsh new world may at first be frightening, but you must never take the easy way out. Though every decision would be easier if you backed out, you can't. People are depending on you. You are now the new protection for the wizarding world."
All this time through Professor de Vellofides's monologue, nobody had said a thing. Then –
"You've seen it all, haven't you Professor?"
de Vellofides glanced in Harry's direction. "Yes, Mr. Potter, I've seen war. Too much of it. Now I never want to see it again." He straightened his robes. "But I think you've all gotten your daily dose of dark sayings. Homework - rip out the first twenty pages of your textbook; it's all rubbish written by someone who has the easy view from the sidelines. Skim through Chapter 1 for some basic defensive theory, lecture tomorrow. You can all talk for the remainder of class."
As he settled back into his chair, Harry came up to his desk.
"Professor? Can I ask you something?"
Professor de Vellofides looked up at him and smiled. "Yes, Mr. Potter?"
"The way you talked...it's just that...your opinions on war sound similiar to some people I know. It's like you've been fighting so many with lots of people I knew…..and – "
" – Yes, Harry, I knew your parents. A fine couple they were, too. Brilliant. In the first war, they fought so many battles, escaped Voldemort. They fought bravely, Harry, they fought bravely all the way to their deaths. Even when they died, they died like true heroes," de Vellofides replied, sighing again and rubbing his eyes.
Harry was silent, but his sparkling green eyes said enough.
"You can come see me anytime, Harry," de Vellofides smiled. "Anytime."
--
"Tangerine."
"Custard."
"Grapes."
"Powdered sugar."
"Brie cheese."
"Maybe...lime?...or perhaps...orange?...no, I suppose...lemon Jolly Ranchers!"
Draco stared at the Ravenclaw second year, wondering what the heck was a Jolly Rancher. Defense Against the Dark Arts had just ended and now he had a free period. Since Blaise, Theo, and Morag were all gone, taking Divination, Ancient Runes, and Muggle Studies (respectively), Draco had no one to talk to besides, Crabbe, Goyle, Millicent, Pansy, and Daphne. Daphne and Pansy were off doing their hair in their dorm, and the Three Stooges weren't very interesting, so Draco had headed off to Ravenclaw Tower. He already knew the password; Blaise had a tiny piece of paper with all the passwords on it.
Now he was testing the girls with the carrot. So far, he had no results.
"Hello, Malfoy. I see you're testing my carrot out on the Ravenclaws now," came the misty voice of Luna Lovegood.
"Yeah. Taste," Draco replied flatly. He didn't have any results and he was feeling the stuffiness of the stupid tower room. Yes, Draco Malfoy was deeply pissed.
"I taste...hmm, a rather sugary taste...possibly rock candy. Oh my," she said, surprised. "It's changed."
Draco's mouth fell open in shock. "It's changed?" he repeated. "What do you mean by that?"
"Well, I don't really believe that a person will only have one love their entire life. I'm not saying there is one definition of love, but I think the kind of love for you, Malfoy, is cultivated, it doesn't just come fully developed. It would make sense that the taste would change as you move on with life."
"...So if I tasted apple at first, that could possibly change in the future?"
"Of course."
Draco looked stumped. "So I could've taste different flavors at a certain time?"
"If you've really fallen in love with her. Say, do you know who the girl is?"
"Um, no, that's pretty much why I'm using your stupid carrot; if I knew who I loved, I wouldn't have this thing on me at all. Anyway, never mind. I'm sure who the girl is," he said confidently. "Now, I'm off to make a nice trip to the Hospital Wing."
"Goodbye, Malfoy," Luna said. "But keep an open mind. Sometimes, you don't need to make twists and turns around the solution. Who knows, maybe she's right in front of you, just waiting for her Prince Charming," she sighed dreamily.
Draco stared at her. "...Right. I'll keep that in mind."
--
Hermione was walking near the Ravenclaw Common Room, humming slightly. Professor Slughorn had asked her to deliver a message to Professor McGonagall.
The door to the Ravenclaw Common Room opened and out stepped……Draco Malfoy?
"What are you doing here, Malfoy?"
Draco stared at her for a bit, mentally debating whether he should ask her about the carrot. Hermione raised her eyebrows at his strange behavior and started walking away. Making a split-second decision, Draco caught up to her in two quick steps and said, "Hey, Granger, want to take a bite out of a very delicious and tempting carrot?" he asked.
Hermione turned around and looked at him suspiciously. "...Is it poisoned?"
"No, why would the carrot be poisoned? What do you take me for, some sort of evil wizard?"
Hermione raised her eyebrows again, but kept her mouth shut and took the carrot. "Malfoy, am I supposed to eat this?"
"...Yes, you are going to take a bit out of it and tell me what you taste. What else would it be for?"
Hermione turned pink (PERV ALERT!).
"All right, then," she said, still looking very doubious.
"So…what do you taste?" Draco asked in a bored tone. Potions was in five minutes and besides, he didn't really care what Granger tasted. He had to rush to the Hospital Wing to visit Daphne before classes started.
"I dunno. Tastes kind of like peach or – "
"Alright, alright, peach, you tasted peach. Moving on!" Draco stuffed the carrot back into his bag. "Excuse me, Granger, I need to get to the Hospital Wing."
Behind him, Hermione stood confused. "Or maybe it was apple," she said quietly, almost to herself. "Oh well, what difference does that make?"
Still pondering over Malfoy's strange actions, she set off for Potions.
--
A/N-Well, this should get interesting…….
My wonderful reviews!
Anticlownperson – I'm glad you liked Ernie's monologue, I absolutely LOVED writing it. It was so fun to borrow a few Shakespearean words and insert them in and give Draco a little hint to what he should do. But alas, for thy valiant dragon Draco cannot comprehend the utmost obvious! For that, he shall suffer in Hell. MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
KyootNShort – Well, I was planning to cut out some of the dialogue. I was thinking about cutting the getting-thrown-out-of-the-shop-and-landing-on-the-street part with Ernie, Justin, Susan, and Hannah, but I decided not to. And yes, I made up Ernie's speech by myself. Grabbed a few Olde English words from William Shakespeare and added it to the original speech. BTW, Ernie takes Muggle Studies, that's why he knows these words. And yes, that rhymes. I got one of Blaise's sentences in this chapter from you. "Hey, that rhymes!"
umm do u have2kno? – Thank you! And I should have specified more in the first chapter. I meant that "Time After Time" is sung by Cyndi Lauper.
pinkicing101 – Draco also is starting to think that Daphne isn't Cinderella after all. Some clues I planted in this chapter specify that Draco is actually spending more time with Hermione than Daphne!
dragoneyes5000 – I guess I didn't mention it after all. Oh well! Luna is a Seer. Okay! Now everyone knows! Theo's little outburst was very……..interesting to write. And the monologue scene. Well, that was just a plain bit of old fashioned stealing from Shakespeare!
White-Pink-Fluffy-Strawberriez – GO HUFFLEPUFFS!
dramioneshipper – Hi again! And Ernie was trying to give Draco a hint about the whole Cinderella situation, disguised as a Shakespearean speech. I won't start Kiss War II, so just single kiss, Marine!
Additional thanks to Setsuna-chan09, Hogwartsgurlie, and segreti della mezzanotte324!
7/11/08 - WOW. That was one hell of a writing vacation I had. This will hopefully be the last edit for this chapter.
- added in the introduction, lunch scene, and Ron-Hermione fight scene; changed some parts of the Luna and Draco scene
- rewrote the entire Transfigurations class and end scene
- added in more parts about Draco going to the Hospital Wing to see Daphne - when I first reread this, I was shocked that I had forgotten to put in more Draco/Daphne parts. I realized that even though he thinks they're the couple that's meant to be, they didn't have any romantic interactions, so I'm sorry if the former Draco/Daphne plot in the story seemed really unbelievable. I'm trying to fix the earlier chapters up and make it seem like Draco and Daphne at least kind of resemble a couple.
Bye for now!
-Lily in a Pond
Please review!