Here I am yet again, with more of Shannon's story about her...hangonaminute! If u didn't know
about this, you wouldn't be here! Anyways, thanks for the reviews, and in order to get more, I
will offer this cookie (::) to you if you review. Now go head and read! Flame all you want, my
feet are bloomin' freezing, our heatings broke.
Oh yeah, and 'sozz' is the word my friends and I sometimes use for 'sorry'. Just to clear
up any possible confusion there.
Harry Potter and the Crystal of Dreams.
The next day dawned grey and stormy and complete with driving rain and gale-force winds,
the total opposite of the sunny and cheerful weather the day before. It was, of course, the
typical moody weather that everyone asscoiates with England.
Hermione was even relucant to forsake the warmth of her bed for the start of classes,
but she eventually managed to crawl out and into the bathroom to get washed and changed. By the
time she came out, the other three were only just waking up. She strode mercilessly over to
Shannon's bed and pulled aside the heavy drapes. Shannon groaned and pulled her pillows over her
head as light struck her face. Tiah stretched, yawned, and darted off the bed as Hermione shook
her friend roughly.
"C'mon Shannon, it's time to get up!"
"No. Leave me. Sleepy." came the muffled reply.
Hermione sighed and went over to the dressing table, ready to battle her bushy tresses.
"Fine! You'll miss classes!"
"Don't care." Shannon yawned.
"You'll miss breakfast!"
Shannon instantly sat bolt upright and chucked her pillows aside. "I'm up!"
Hermione watched, in between shock and laughter, as Shannon jumped out of bed, grabbed
her clothes, and tripped over her trunk, falling flat on her face. Unpertubed, she pulled herself
up and ran into the bathroom. When she emerged, she looked a world away from the wild-haired,
sleepy-eyed figure she had been upon waking.
By eight o'clock, the girls were walking into the Great Hall. Shannon stared in amazement
at the ceiling of the Great Hall, which she hadn't really noticed the night before.
"Wow," she said. "What did they do to the roof?"
"Charmed it." Hermione answered, looking up at the swirling grey clouds. "It's bewitched
to look like the sky outside, it says in Hogwarts, A History."
"Aw, damn. Couldn't it look like the sky in...Barbados, or something? That would be more
cheerful."
Hermione laughed as they joined the boys at the table. "Yeah, I guess it would."
There was a rally of 'hi's and 'hey's as the girls helped themselves to food. Class
timetables were passed up the table, and Shannon asked them about each class in between
mouthfulls of pancakes and syrup.
"Today, there is...hey, what's Potions like?" she said suddenly, twisting her fork. Ron
dropped his spoon with a clatter and a splash (it landed in his glass of pumpkin juice) as he
grabbed his timetable, stared at it, and groaned loudly, attracting weird glances from a passing
group of Hufflepuffs. He swore noisily as well, earning a disapproving look from Hermione.
"I don't believe it! Potions on our first day! How evil is that?" he moaned.
"When?" asked Harry, a sinking feeling in his stomach.
"After lunch." Shannon replied. "Um, sozz guys, but what's up with Potions? I like it."
Ron stared at her like she had just changed into a hippogriff. Shannon raised her
eyebrows at him, then switched her look to Harry, who decided to ease her confusion.
"The teacher's a complete biased git. He favours people in his house, he hates just about
everyone, and he gives out even more detentions than the caretaker." Harry thought for a moment.
"Oh yeah, and he's head of Slytherin."
"I coulda guessed his house just from the description." Shannon replied. Her expression
grew thoughtful as she looked over Harry's shoulder. "Is it that slimy guy approaching you after
hearing what you said?"
Harry, Ron and Hermione started simultaneously and turned quickly to see...nothing.
Shannon giggled loudly.
"Geez, you guys are so easy!" she exclaimed in between laughter.
Hermione turned back to her breakfast with a slightly disapproving look. "That's not
funny Shannon."
Shannon looked down at her now empty plate with a mock-sadness expression. "Aw, nobody
'preciates my jokes no more!" She paused, then added, "Now is the time for you to ammend that."
Harry caught on. "Of course we appreciate your jokes Shannon. Without them, our moods
would be worse than Filch's on a terrible day."
She looked at him and smiled sweetly, giving him a gracious nod. "Thank you Harry. I
appreciate that you appreciate my jokes, even if I don't understand your replies."
The bell for start of class rang at that moment, and Hermione jumped to her feet
immediately. "Come on," she said urgently, "We have Herbology to get to."She left among the
first wave of students departing, followed by a curious Shannon, an already bored Ron, and a
silently laughing Harry.
The weather as they crossed the grounds to Greenhouse Four calmed them down, and they
joined their fellow pupils in the room in a state that suggested they had been dunked into the
lake and held there for several minutes. Hermione used a simple drying charm on them that she
had learnt from The Standard book of Spells Grade Five on the train yesterday, and they looked
no different than they had been in the castle. A few more attempted the spell, most without
success-Susan Bones managed to turn her hair luminous blue and Hermione had to change it back
for her. Eventually Professor Sprout arrived, shaking out a magical umbrella that had shielded
her from the rain, and they took their seats as she went to the front of the classroom.
"Now, this year you have your O.W.L.s coming up, and for the exam you'll need to have a
fairly extensive knowledge of carnivorous plants." She paused to let Seamus Finnegan groan and
bang his head on the desk. She gestured to the plant next to her. It was at least five foot tall
as sat in a vast stone pot. Harry thought it looked like an inflated, writhing venus fly trap
with a yellow-spotted red flower and huge pearly fangs. Its mouth was bound tightly with
magical ropes so that it couldn't bite, but it was drooling with the thought of food. What it
ate, Harry didn't like to consider.
Sprout asked, "Can anyone tell me the name of this plant and its main features please?"
Three hands went up in the air-Hermione's, Neville's, and Shannon's. Sprout raised her
eyebrows and said, "Miss Parks?"
The trio lowered their hands and Shannon spoke up. "It's a Tentacruela Dedruba and it
comes from the Amazonian rainforest. Its bright colours let it hide between other vivid magical
plants. It eats all sorts of fairly small creatures, but it especially likes human children, like
my sister. Its teeth are so sharp it can cut through solid iron immediately, although that one's
just a baby and so it can't just yet."
"Very good!" Sprout ammended, smiling widely. "Five points to Gryffindor!"
She continued to explain how dangerous plants like this could be when fully grown and how
best to tackle them. Harry leaned over to Shannon.
"What did you mean about your sister?" he muttered. She smiled slightly.
"Two years back at Venzone, they had an open day and Hannah sorta wandered off into the
Herbology department, in with the dangerous plants. We had a Tentacruela Dedruba almost full-
grown, only she was two and didn't know the dangers." She sighed. "Luckily my friend
Dario was passing with his family and he managed to stop her getting eaten. I dunno what I woulda
done if she got killed."
"Well now," Sprout said. "Get into groups of six and take a plant each."
"Huh?" Shannon asked, eyebrows raised. "What did I miss?"
"The instruction that now we've got to try and tackle one of these things in groups."
Hermione said, disapproving that Shannon hadn't been paying attention to the talk. She gestured
to the side of the room. "Let's go."
It was then that Harry noticed several identical plants at various intervals around the
sides of the room. Some were struggling against their bonds, a few were sulking, and the rest
were avoiding the shears that apprehensive students were trying to use the prune them. The one
Hermione pointed out was smaller and quieter than the rest. They pulled on dragonshide protective
gloves and made their way over, joined shortly by Justin Finch-Fletchley and Hannah Abbot.
The plant may have been smaller, but it was definately no less fierce. It took Harry all
of his Quidditch-borne reflexes to dodge with the plant and hack off any dead greenery on it. By
the time class was over, so was the rain, and they trudged back up to the castle, aching and
complaining about their charges. Ron came up with some very interesting tortures for the violent
weeds (aided, of course, by Shannon) until Hermione reprimanded him.
The next lesson was Charms, in which tiny Professor Flitwick was teaching them health
charms. After a quick lunch of shepherd's pie, they had to face their awful fate.
Potions.
Being some of the first in due to Hermione hurrying them, they managed to cram onto a
back table. Snape, who was arranging bottles of slimy pickled newt's tails on his desk, didn't
look up and no snide remarks were made as Pansy Parkinson and her group of Slytherin girls
wobbled past at that moment. Pansy whispered something to Blaise Zabini behind her hand, staring
straight at Hermione, and they cracked up with vicious giggles. Hermione's cheeks turned dark red
but she fixed her eyes solidly back on them at said nothing as they passed.
Eventually, the rest of the Slytherins and Gryffindors arrived. Snape glared at them all
and began to call the register. Just as he had done at Harry's name five years ago, he paused
slightly before Shannon's and gave a twisted smirk.
"Shannon Parks." he called, voice full of disdain automatically earned by all those who
weren't Slytherin pupils. She raised her hand in reply. He fixed her with a cold stare as he
said, "I expect your work to be impecable. Spending five years at some foreign school is no
excuse for tardiness."
Shannon smiled at him as she put her hand down. "I'll try my best, sir."
Snape's gaze darkend and he sneered at her. "A point from Gryffindor for your insolence,
Parks, let that be a warning." Shannon raised her eyebrows but stayed silent as Snape turned back
to the role call.
Eventually, when everyone had been checked off on Snape's list, he stood silently,
sneering at the fifth years.
"Every year, I reach new levels of amazement at your stupidity." he hissed. "Never, in
all my years as a Hogwarts porfessor, have I witnessed such a bunch of dunderheads blundering on
blindly through my classes." It was obvious to everyone that he was just speaking to every
Gryffindor. Suddenly, he turned on Harry, as Harry had known he would.
"Potter!" he growled. "Recite to me the ingredients of a Sommeil Sleeping potion in the
exact order they would be added!"
Mentally insulting his hated teacher in as many lucrative and colourful ways that his
mind could think of, he replied truthfully through gritted teeth, "I don't know the answer."
Malfoy sniggered from his place on the other side of the room, his cronies chuckling
dumbly in obedience. An unpleasant smile twisted on Snape's thin lips as he said, "So, the
Great Harry Potter decided that he was too famous to study this holiday! It's the same story
every year. Ten points from Gryffindor. Parks! Answer my question!"
Shannon's eyes widened slightly and she bit her lip in hurried thought. Snape fixed his
hollow black eyes on her, ignoring Hermione's waving hand in the air. After a moment's pause, she
answered, voice echoing in the stony room, "I can't tell you the order that they're
added in, but I know that the ingredients are powdered runespoor fangs, essence of belladonna,
lionfish bile, diced horklump, and Welsh Green dragon scales."
The nasty, leering smirk returned as Snape said, "You answered incorrectly. A further
three points from Gryffindor, and I suggest you too work harder. Now copy these notes."
In the scrambling for parchment and quills to reproduce copies of the complicated notes
and diagrams Snape weas putting up on the blackboard, Hermione turned to Shannon.
"You got all the ingredients right!" she exclaimed, her emotions something akin to
surprise. Shannon really didn't seem the type to study extremely hard.
"Yeah," she answered, somewhat ruefully. "Just the last two mixed up. Dad made me study
really hard in the holidays just to make sure I wouldn't be behind. I think he got obessive about
it, constantly testing me on my knowledge and all that, so I probably know enough to take my
N.E.W.T.s at the moment."
The rest of that lesson was spent in monotonous silence, copying the theory of sleeping
potions from the blackboard, with Snape striding past the benches and making plenty of snide
remarks. By the time the bell eventually rang, and the class poured thankfully out, another twenty
points had been removed from the Gryffindor total (five from Seamus for coughing, five from
Lavender for not having her hat straight, and ten from Neville for misspelling 'Horklump'.) Of
course, Slytherin gained twice what Gryffindor lost for the most pointless of reasons.
However, the class that everyone (or the boys at least) had been eagerly awaiting was
Defense Against the Dark Arts. It took place first thing on Thursday morning, and the quartet sat
in the front middle desks (on Ron's request). As soon as the bell rang, Fleur Delacour swept into
the room, white blond hair and sky-blue robes sweeping elegantly behind her. She placed the pile
of books in her arms onto the desk and surveyed the silent Ravenclaws and Gryffindors with a
smile.
"It ez good to see you all again," she told them in her heavy French accent. After the
register, she told them to turn to chapter one in their textbooks for their first lesson. Shannon
glanced at Ron, then looked at Hermione, whispering, "Is she a Veela? And what does she mean
'again'?"
Hermione nodded, also looking at Ron. "Yes, partly. It's a long story, I'll explain
after class."
"Thiz year, I shall be teaching you of ze dark objects. They shall be appearing on your
tests at ze end of ze summer terms, and so you must study hard. These dark objects can control
a person's actionz, thoughts, or even their emotionz." Pointing a long finger at the page of the
open textbook on her desk, she added, "Take a look at zis picture 'ere. Thiz iz ze first thing we
shall learn about."
Harry looked at the picture that Fleur had indicated. It was of a 3D pentagonal gem, the
sides of which were completely transparent and seemed to sparkle and glimmer in the light shining
from an unknown source. The magic of the picture caused a white mist to rise slowly in within the
prism before sinking back into oblivion. The caption underneath read, "Cristal de Reves".
"Thiz iz ze Crystal of Dreams, oreeginating from France thousands of years ago, thus
giving it a French name. Dark wizards and weetchez have used zis crystal to store ze dreams of
zeir enemies so zat zey can interpret the thoughtz and emotions of zat person. Zey also can send
ze most horrendous nightmares so zat zeir enemy slowly turns insane from nightly torment. It
meanz zat ze dark wizard or weetch does not need to approach zis person to defeat them, making et
one of ze most dangerous dark aids."
Shannon muttered, "I'll check the gem on the next pendant I buy very carefully." Hermione
smiled.
The white mist rose within the prism walls of the picture of the crystal in Shannon's
book, before fading gradually into nothing.
*****
Okies, sozz about leaving it like that, but I can't think of anything else. Oh yeah, and
sorry about the delay in getting this up, fourth chapter soon, I swear!
Thank you to Anon, my ninth reviewer! (grins cheekily) Although I admit Shannon is
probably quite Mary-Sue esque as of yet, that is all set to change! My first fic, please be nice
to me.
Review now, or face my excellency at the Unforgivable curses!
about this, you wouldn't be here! Anyways, thanks for the reviews, and in order to get more, I
will offer this cookie (::) to you if you review. Now go head and read! Flame all you want, my
feet are bloomin' freezing, our heatings broke.
Oh yeah, and 'sozz' is the word my friends and I sometimes use for 'sorry'. Just to clear
up any possible confusion there.
Harry Potter and the Crystal of Dreams.
The next day dawned grey and stormy and complete with driving rain and gale-force winds,
the total opposite of the sunny and cheerful weather the day before. It was, of course, the
typical moody weather that everyone asscoiates with England.
Hermione was even relucant to forsake the warmth of her bed for the start of classes,
but she eventually managed to crawl out and into the bathroom to get washed and changed. By the
time she came out, the other three were only just waking up. She strode mercilessly over to
Shannon's bed and pulled aside the heavy drapes. Shannon groaned and pulled her pillows over her
head as light struck her face. Tiah stretched, yawned, and darted off the bed as Hermione shook
her friend roughly.
"C'mon Shannon, it's time to get up!"
"No. Leave me. Sleepy." came the muffled reply.
Hermione sighed and went over to the dressing table, ready to battle her bushy tresses.
"Fine! You'll miss classes!"
"Don't care." Shannon yawned.
"You'll miss breakfast!"
Shannon instantly sat bolt upright and chucked her pillows aside. "I'm up!"
Hermione watched, in between shock and laughter, as Shannon jumped out of bed, grabbed
her clothes, and tripped over her trunk, falling flat on her face. Unpertubed, she pulled herself
up and ran into the bathroom. When she emerged, she looked a world away from the wild-haired,
sleepy-eyed figure she had been upon waking.
By eight o'clock, the girls were walking into the Great Hall. Shannon stared in amazement
at the ceiling of the Great Hall, which she hadn't really noticed the night before.
"Wow," she said. "What did they do to the roof?"
"Charmed it." Hermione answered, looking up at the swirling grey clouds. "It's bewitched
to look like the sky outside, it says in Hogwarts, A History."
"Aw, damn. Couldn't it look like the sky in...Barbados, or something? That would be more
cheerful."
Hermione laughed as they joined the boys at the table. "Yeah, I guess it would."
There was a rally of 'hi's and 'hey's as the girls helped themselves to food. Class
timetables were passed up the table, and Shannon asked them about each class in between
mouthfulls of pancakes and syrup.
"Today, there is...hey, what's Potions like?" she said suddenly, twisting her fork. Ron
dropped his spoon with a clatter and a splash (it landed in his glass of pumpkin juice) as he
grabbed his timetable, stared at it, and groaned loudly, attracting weird glances from a passing
group of Hufflepuffs. He swore noisily as well, earning a disapproving look from Hermione.
"I don't believe it! Potions on our first day! How evil is that?" he moaned.
"When?" asked Harry, a sinking feeling in his stomach.
"After lunch." Shannon replied. "Um, sozz guys, but what's up with Potions? I like it."
Ron stared at her like she had just changed into a hippogriff. Shannon raised her
eyebrows at him, then switched her look to Harry, who decided to ease her confusion.
"The teacher's a complete biased git. He favours people in his house, he hates just about
everyone, and he gives out even more detentions than the caretaker." Harry thought for a moment.
"Oh yeah, and he's head of Slytherin."
"I coulda guessed his house just from the description." Shannon replied. Her expression
grew thoughtful as she looked over Harry's shoulder. "Is it that slimy guy approaching you after
hearing what you said?"
Harry, Ron and Hermione started simultaneously and turned quickly to see...nothing.
Shannon giggled loudly.
"Geez, you guys are so easy!" she exclaimed in between laughter.
Hermione turned back to her breakfast with a slightly disapproving look. "That's not
funny Shannon."
Shannon looked down at her now empty plate with a mock-sadness expression. "Aw, nobody
'preciates my jokes no more!" She paused, then added, "Now is the time for you to ammend that."
Harry caught on. "Of course we appreciate your jokes Shannon. Without them, our moods
would be worse than Filch's on a terrible day."
She looked at him and smiled sweetly, giving him a gracious nod. "Thank you Harry. I
appreciate that you appreciate my jokes, even if I don't understand your replies."
The bell for start of class rang at that moment, and Hermione jumped to her feet
immediately. "Come on," she said urgently, "We have Herbology to get to."She left among the
first wave of students departing, followed by a curious Shannon, an already bored Ron, and a
silently laughing Harry.
The weather as they crossed the grounds to Greenhouse Four calmed them down, and they
joined their fellow pupils in the room in a state that suggested they had been dunked into the
lake and held there for several minutes. Hermione used a simple drying charm on them that she
had learnt from The Standard book of Spells Grade Five on the train yesterday, and they looked
no different than they had been in the castle. A few more attempted the spell, most without
success-Susan Bones managed to turn her hair luminous blue and Hermione had to change it back
for her. Eventually Professor Sprout arrived, shaking out a magical umbrella that had shielded
her from the rain, and they took their seats as she went to the front of the classroom.
"Now, this year you have your O.W.L.s coming up, and for the exam you'll need to have a
fairly extensive knowledge of carnivorous plants." She paused to let Seamus Finnegan groan and
bang his head on the desk. She gestured to the plant next to her. It was at least five foot tall
as sat in a vast stone pot. Harry thought it looked like an inflated, writhing venus fly trap
with a yellow-spotted red flower and huge pearly fangs. Its mouth was bound tightly with
magical ropes so that it couldn't bite, but it was drooling with the thought of food. What it
ate, Harry didn't like to consider.
Sprout asked, "Can anyone tell me the name of this plant and its main features please?"
Three hands went up in the air-Hermione's, Neville's, and Shannon's. Sprout raised her
eyebrows and said, "Miss Parks?"
The trio lowered their hands and Shannon spoke up. "It's a Tentacruela Dedruba and it
comes from the Amazonian rainforest. Its bright colours let it hide between other vivid magical
plants. It eats all sorts of fairly small creatures, but it especially likes human children, like
my sister. Its teeth are so sharp it can cut through solid iron immediately, although that one's
just a baby and so it can't just yet."
"Very good!" Sprout ammended, smiling widely. "Five points to Gryffindor!"
She continued to explain how dangerous plants like this could be when fully grown and how
best to tackle them. Harry leaned over to Shannon.
"What did you mean about your sister?" he muttered. She smiled slightly.
"Two years back at Venzone, they had an open day and Hannah sorta wandered off into the
Herbology department, in with the dangerous plants. We had a Tentacruela Dedruba almost full-
grown, only she was two and didn't know the dangers." She sighed. "Luckily my friend
Dario was passing with his family and he managed to stop her getting eaten. I dunno what I woulda
done if she got killed."
"Well now," Sprout said. "Get into groups of six and take a plant each."
"Huh?" Shannon asked, eyebrows raised. "What did I miss?"
"The instruction that now we've got to try and tackle one of these things in groups."
Hermione said, disapproving that Shannon hadn't been paying attention to the talk. She gestured
to the side of the room. "Let's go."
It was then that Harry noticed several identical plants at various intervals around the
sides of the room. Some were struggling against their bonds, a few were sulking, and the rest
were avoiding the shears that apprehensive students were trying to use the prune them. The one
Hermione pointed out was smaller and quieter than the rest. They pulled on dragonshide protective
gloves and made their way over, joined shortly by Justin Finch-Fletchley and Hannah Abbot.
The plant may have been smaller, but it was definately no less fierce. It took Harry all
of his Quidditch-borne reflexes to dodge with the plant and hack off any dead greenery on it. By
the time class was over, so was the rain, and they trudged back up to the castle, aching and
complaining about their charges. Ron came up with some very interesting tortures for the violent
weeds (aided, of course, by Shannon) until Hermione reprimanded him.
The next lesson was Charms, in which tiny Professor Flitwick was teaching them health
charms. After a quick lunch of shepherd's pie, they had to face their awful fate.
Potions.
Being some of the first in due to Hermione hurrying them, they managed to cram onto a
back table. Snape, who was arranging bottles of slimy pickled newt's tails on his desk, didn't
look up and no snide remarks were made as Pansy Parkinson and her group of Slytherin girls
wobbled past at that moment. Pansy whispered something to Blaise Zabini behind her hand, staring
straight at Hermione, and they cracked up with vicious giggles. Hermione's cheeks turned dark red
but she fixed her eyes solidly back on them at said nothing as they passed.
Eventually, the rest of the Slytherins and Gryffindors arrived. Snape glared at them all
and began to call the register. Just as he had done at Harry's name five years ago, he paused
slightly before Shannon's and gave a twisted smirk.
"Shannon Parks." he called, voice full of disdain automatically earned by all those who
weren't Slytherin pupils. She raised her hand in reply. He fixed her with a cold stare as he
said, "I expect your work to be impecable. Spending five years at some foreign school is no
excuse for tardiness."
Shannon smiled at him as she put her hand down. "I'll try my best, sir."
Snape's gaze darkend and he sneered at her. "A point from Gryffindor for your insolence,
Parks, let that be a warning." Shannon raised her eyebrows but stayed silent as Snape turned back
to the role call.
Eventually, when everyone had been checked off on Snape's list, he stood silently,
sneering at the fifth years.
"Every year, I reach new levels of amazement at your stupidity." he hissed. "Never, in
all my years as a Hogwarts porfessor, have I witnessed such a bunch of dunderheads blundering on
blindly through my classes." It was obvious to everyone that he was just speaking to every
Gryffindor. Suddenly, he turned on Harry, as Harry had known he would.
"Potter!" he growled. "Recite to me the ingredients of a Sommeil Sleeping potion in the
exact order they would be added!"
Mentally insulting his hated teacher in as many lucrative and colourful ways that his
mind could think of, he replied truthfully through gritted teeth, "I don't know the answer."
Malfoy sniggered from his place on the other side of the room, his cronies chuckling
dumbly in obedience. An unpleasant smile twisted on Snape's thin lips as he said, "So, the
Great Harry Potter decided that he was too famous to study this holiday! It's the same story
every year. Ten points from Gryffindor. Parks! Answer my question!"
Shannon's eyes widened slightly and she bit her lip in hurried thought. Snape fixed his
hollow black eyes on her, ignoring Hermione's waving hand in the air. After a moment's pause, she
answered, voice echoing in the stony room, "I can't tell you the order that they're
added in, but I know that the ingredients are powdered runespoor fangs, essence of belladonna,
lionfish bile, diced horklump, and Welsh Green dragon scales."
The nasty, leering smirk returned as Snape said, "You answered incorrectly. A further
three points from Gryffindor, and I suggest you too work harder. Now copy these notes."
In the scrambling for parchment and quills to reproduce copies of the complicated notes
and diagrams Snape weas putting up on the blackboard, Hermione turned to Shannon.
"You got all the ingredients right!" she exclaimed, her emotions something akin to
surprise. Shannon really didn't seem the type to study extremely hard.
"Yeah," she answered, somewhat ruefully. "Just the last two mixed up. Dad made me study
really hard in the holidays just to make sure I wouldn't be behind. I think he got obessive about
it, constantly testing me on my knowledge and all that, so I probably know enough to take my
N.E.W.T.s at the moment."
The rest of that lesson was spent in monotonous silence, copying the theory of sleeping
potions from the blackboard, with Snape striding past the benches and making plenty of snide
remarks. By the time the bell eventually rang, and the class poured thankfully out, another twenty
points had been removed from the Gryffindor total (five from Seamus for coughing, five from
Lavender for not having her hat straight, and ten from Neville for misspelling 'Horklump'.) Of
course, Slytherin gained twice what Gryffindor lost for the most pointless of reasons.
However, the class that everyone (or the boys at least) had been eagerly awaiting was
Defense Against the Dark Arts. It took place first thing on Thursday morning, and the quartet sat
in the front middle desks (on Ron's request). As soon as the bell rang, Fleur Delacour swept into
the room, white blond hair and sky-blue robes sweeping elegantly behind her. She placed the pile
of books in her arms onto the desk and surveyed the silent Ravenclaws and Gryffindors with a
smile.
"It ez good to see you all again," she told them in her heavy French accent. After the
register, she told them to turn to chapter one in their textbooks for their first lesson. Shannon
glanced at Ron, then looked at Hermione, whispering, "Is she a Veela? And what does she mean
'again'?"
Hermione nodded, also looking at Ron. "Yes, partly. It's a long story, I'll explain
after class."
"Thiz year, I shall be teaching you of ze dark objects. They shall be appearing on your
tests at ze end of ze summer terms, and so you must study hard. These dark objects can control
a person's actionz, thoughts, or even their emotionz." Pointing a long finger at the page of the
open textbook on her desk, she added, "Take a look at zis picture 'ere. Thiz iz ze first thing we
shall learn about."
Harry looked at the picture that Fleur had indicated. It was of a 3D pentagonal gem, the
sides of which were completely transparent and seemed to sparkle and glimmer in the light shining
from an unknown source. The magic of the picture caused a white mist to rise slowly in within the
prism before sinking back into oblivion. The caption underneath read, "Cristal de Reves".
"Thiz iz ze Crystal of Dreams, oreeginating from France thousands of years ago, thus
giving it a French name. Dark wizards and weetchez have used zis crystal to store ze dreams of
zeir enemies so zat zey can interpret the thoughtz and emotions of zat person. Zey also can send
ze most horrendous nightmares so zat zeir enemy slowly turns insane from nightly torment. It
meanz zat ze dark wizard or weetch does not need to approach zis person to defeat them, making et
one of ze most dangerous dark aids."
Shannon muttered, "I'll check the gem on the next pendant I buy very carefully." Hermione
smiled.
The white mist rose within the prism walls of the picture of the crystal in Shannon's
book, before fading gradually into nothing.
*****
Okies, sozz about leaving it like that, but I can't think of anything else. Oh yeah, and
sorry about the delay in getting this up, fourth chapter soon, I swear!
Thank you to Anon, my ninth reviewer! (grins cheekily) Although I admit Shannon is
probably quite Mary-Sue esque as of yet, that is all set to change! My first fic, please be nice
to me.
Review now, or face my excellency at the Unforgivable curses!