Chapter 5- Defence Against the Dark Arts

Harry woke up late the next morning to his dormitory empty, and a note pinned to his four-poster curtains.

Harry, [it read]

Went down for breakfast. Meet us in the Great Hall when you wake up.

Ron

He dressed quickly and ran to the Great Hall, where he found Hermione, Ron, and Alison finisihing off their breakfast. "About bloody time!" Ron said as he saw Harry dash in.

"Here's some toast," said Hermione, handing Harry a slice of toast.

"Though you don't deserve it, sleepyhead!" Alison said, through a mouthful of bacon.

"Yeah, yeah. Oh, thanks Hermione! What's first lesson?" Harry asked.

"Defence Against the Dark Arts. Better not be late!"

"Oh, yeah."

They finished their breakfast in silence, and then they headed down to their Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom. There was already a small queue of students near the door.

Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Alison got in line behind the other Gryffindors. It seemed like ages to Harry till Professor Fletcher came. He unlocked the door, without a word, and beckoned to the students to enter. As they all found their places and took out their books, he calmly seated himself behind his desk and waited. A few minutes later, there was silence. The old Professor still hadn't got up from his desk. He was surveying his students with an air of amusement.

"What's his problem?" Ron whispered to Harry.

"Dunno, I think he's lost it."

Just then, the Professor stood up and said in a hoarse voice: "Curses." The whole class was staring open-mouthed at the old man. A few were shaking in silent laughter. Alison snorted, and immediately pretended to have a coughing fit.

"Is that all he has to say?" she whispered to Hermione.

"Shh! I might miss something!" Hermione snapped back.

Professor Fletcher repeated: "Curses." The room was so quiet, Harry could feel the silence reverberating off the walls. Then, as though he had snapped out of a trance, Professor Fletcher's face softened into a smile and he seemed to become a different person altogether. "This term, we will be learning more about curses and how to block them. I believe you know quite a bit about curses and jinxes, your last teacher taught you well." He paused, looked around the silent room with relish, and continued. "However, due to recent events, you must learn even more advanced means of protecting yourselves. Now that Voldemort…" He stopped abruptly, as many students let out gasps and muttered among themselves. "I find it very stupid to call Voldemort You-Know-Who, so I always call him by name. Now where was I? Oh, yes… now that Voldemort has risen again, the need for constant vigilance has never been urgent. Therefore, I will do my best to educate you in the best methods of self-defence, should you ever be in any need to defend yourselves." The whole class was quiet, hanging on to his every word.

"Turn to page 572 of your books. Today we will be learning the Paraclitus Curse. It will paralyze anyone who is hit by it temporarily. I hope you have all brought your wands with you, as you will be trying it out later on in the lesson." And so, the lesson began. Harry had to admit that it was quite interesting, and that Professor Fletcher was a very good Professor. Ron didn't think so, though.

"Stupid Para-thingy Curse!" he said furiously, as he munched on his roast potatoes during dinner, "My back will never be the same again!"

"I think his lesson was marvellous," said Hermione.

"Typical. You always think lessons are marvellous," Ron said, as he reached for his goblet of pumpkin juice.

"Shut up!"

"Shut up yourself, Hermione!"

"Ooh, I'll get you Ron! See if I don't!" Harry choked on his own pumpkin juice. Seeing Ron and Hermione arguing was very funny indeed. Next to him, Alison snorted into her tomato soup.

"Honestly, I believe you two will actually kill each other someday!" she said pulling Hermione away from Ron. The other Gryffindors weren't really interested. The sight of Ron and Hermione fighting was a very common one.

"Err, we had better get going if we plan to get to Divination in time," Harry said cautiously, to try and change the subject. He could almost see daggers flying between Ron and Hermione's eyes.

"Yeah Hermione! It's time for Arithmancy… I really want to get to my first lesson!" Alison said, a bit unconvincingly, as she pulled Hermione away from the table. "Bye Harry, Ron!" she added, smiling weakly.

Divination was boring, as usual. Professor Trelawney predicted Harry's death thirteen times during the lesson, but even though that put her in a decidedly good mood, it didn't stop her from giving them a lot of homework. Seamus and Ron cursed all the way to the common room, and there they found Hermione and Alison warming their hands by the crackling fire.
"Hello, Harry! Hello Ron," Hermione said. Harry noticed that she said the word 'Ron' with something like distaste.

"Err, hi Hermione… Shouldn't you be doing your homework?" Harry asked.

"Oh, Professor Vector didn't give us any!" Alison said brightly, picking up her copy of 'The Fellowship of the Ring' and opening it. "Oh, by the way Hermione, I'm on the last chapter of this book. You'll have it very soon." She buried herself in the book.

"I don't feel like doing my homework right now Harry, let's do it tomorrow, eh?" said Ron.

"Yeah. I'm dead tired. Let's go dump our books in the dormitory. Keep us a place Hermione!" he called, as he and Ron went up the spiral staircase.

By the time that they had gone down to the common room, Alison's chair was empty. "Where is she?" Harry asked Hermione.

"She's gone to our dormitory to give Mae something to eat."

"Oh," At that moment, Alison came clattering down the stairs.

"Sorry I took long, Mae was positively famished!" she said picking up her book again. "How was Divination?"

"Boring, as usual," Ron said, "Professor Trelawny said that Harry was going to have very bad luck this week."

"Yeah, she said I was going to die young about twenty times."

"What a dingbat. Thank God I don't take Divination- load of rubbish, if you ask me… No offence, of course!"

"None taken. We think it's a cartload of dung too." Harry said, helping himself to a Chocolate Frog from the box of sweets Hermione was passing round. Fred and George were passing several brightly-coloured sweets round too- several Gryffindors were growing horns or claws.

"They work!" the twins were saying in glee, amidst all the screams and yells.

"Stupid of them really, to take sweets from Fred and George," said Ron matter-of-factly.

"Are they going to be okay?" said Alison, who had never really seen the twins' pranks.

"Yeah, the spells always wear off after a while. They want to open a joke shop, you know… Hey, watch it, Fred!" Fred had elbowed Ron out of the way and come to Alison with a tray full of innocent-looking toffees.

"Want a toffee, Alison?"

"Sure, I'll have one… when I feel like turning into a rhino, that is! You're not going to fool me, Fred. I'm not that stupid!"

"Damn. Have you been telling her not to accept sweet form us, Ron? Thanks a lot, idiot. Now we can't try out our sweets on her!"

"Ha, thank God he told me, Fred!"

"Yeah, yeah," Fred said as he sloped off to offer more sweets to a group of unsuspecting first-years.

* * * * *

The rest of the week passed very quickly. Harry and his friends settled down comfortably into the Hogwarts routine. Harry enjoyed every second of it. To him, Hogwarts was home. There was no other place in the world that he loved so much, and he quickly forgot life at the Dursleys'. The only thing that Harry didn't really like about this year was being a Prefect. He hated having to remove points from other students' houses, but he couldn't really not do his duty. He was seriously considering resigning and giving his badge to Professor McGonagall. Somehow, Harry felt that he didn't deserve the badge. However, his doubts on being a Prefect was cast aside a couple of weeks after the start of term, as he climbed through the portrait hole one evening, to find a large group of Gryffindors crowding excitedly round the notice-board.

"What's the matter?" he asked Alison, who was trying to fight her way out of the crowd of chattering Gryffindors after having seen the notice.

"Quidditch," she said, jabbing her thumb towards the excited group, "They're having trials and Madam Hooch's electing team captain tomorrow. You'd better go see for yourself… Though I guess you'd have a hard time actually getting to the notice," she added, her eyebrows raised.

Harry got up quickly and half-ran to the to join the crowd, pushing his way through it, until he finally managed to locate a rather crumpled piece of parchment, on which was printed in red and gold ink:

QUIDDITCH TRIALS FOR A CHASER AND A KEEPER WILL BE HELD ON THURSDAY AT 5.00. ANYONE INTERESTED IN JOINING SHOULD BRING HIS/HER BROOMSTICK TO THE QUIDDITCH PITCH. THE GRYFINDOR TEAM CAPTAIN WILL BE ELECTED TOMORROW BY MADAM HOOCH AT 5.30 ON THE QUIDDITCH PITCH. PLEASE BE PUNCTUAL.

Having read the notice four times over and learnt it off by heart, Harry fought his way out of the dwindling crowd of Gryffindors, to the couch where Alison was sitting, chatting animatedly to Ron and Hermione, who had joined her. "…I hope I'll get on the team… I was a Chaser at Beauxbatons, but the teams there were total rubbish- no sense of direction at all! I hardly expect to shine here- I saw the Ravenclaw team practising on the quidditch pitch yesterday and they were absolutely brilliant! Oh, hi Harry," Alison grinned, as she moved over for Harry to sit down, "Did you read the notice?"

"Yeah. I wonder who the captain will be- Katie Bell, probably. Who's trying out for the team?"

"I am," said Alison.

"Me too," said Ron.

"Hermione?"

"No. I like quidditch, but it'll interfere with my studies." Ron snorted, and immediately turned it into a hacking cough.