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I woke up the next morning majorly tired and with a bump on my forehead, where Ally had viciously attacked me with a pillow, which Hermione had tragically forgotten, held her rather thick and heavy diary.
I pulled myself out of bed, pushing Alison off it in the process and dragged myself over to the bathroom. By the time I had showered and changed, Hermione was bouncing around gathering her school things, and Ally was still sleeping on the floor.
I grinned evilly, searching through my mind trying to remember one of the spells from the book Hermione had lent me. I whispered an incantation and a stream of icy water hosed down Ally. She awoke with a scream, leaping up from the floor. She took in her dripping appearance then looked up, seeing my wand still raised and pointed at her she glared fiercely. I tucked it back into my pocket and grinned innocently. "I would have thought you Ravenclaw's to be early risers, at least on school days, so much to learn and all that…"
I ducked as Ally shot a stream of water at me. I grabbed my bag and commando rolled to the door. I ducked outside and ran down the stairs, I threw my stuff onto a chair and tiptoed towards the portrait hole. I peaked outside. Snape was still standing outside the portrait hole; at the sound of it opening he turned towards it and stared at me menacingly. I shut it with a squeak. "Man he must be really mad!" I said to myself. I walked back and threw myself down onto the couch.
I lay there for a while dozing, when I was rudely awoken by a jet of freezing cold water. I rolled of the couch with a thump and a choking scream. I spat out the water and glared at Alison. She smiled sweetly at me, "Payback!"
I whined at her and shook my body, trying in vain to dry myself. Ally stood and laughed at my failed attempts, then stopped short as I pulled out my wand. Just then my entire body was flooded with warmth and suddenly I was dry. I stared at my wand in confusion, I hadn't done anything, and I didn't know how to do anything. I jumped slightly as I was hugged tightly from behind. It was Harry. "Thank you SO much!" he whispered in my ear. I grinned widely and shifted so I could hug him back.
He hugged Alison as well, and just released her as Ron trotted down the stairs. "Let's go to breakfast, I'm starved!" I glanced hesitantly towards the portrait hole, "slight problem," I said cheerfully to the group. "We," I gestured to Ally and I, "Can't get out, Snape's still waiting, I'm won't face him till I've had some breakfast!"
Ron grinned at me, "Still waiting, bloody hell, Harry mate can they use the cloak?" Harry nodded, but looked uncertainly towards Alison, "You can trust her," I said hurriedly. Ally smiled, "I'm trustworthy!" she boasted. Satisfied with this, Harry sprinted up the stairs and was soon back with his cloak under his robes. He went to pull it out, then froze; he looked at Alison, "Promise?" he asked, she nodded, "Promise."
Harry pulled the cloak out with a flourish and handed it to me, Ally and I oohed and ahhed over it. "Why is Snape waiting for you two outside anyway?" asked Harry. I looked up awkwardly, "Well, you see," I began, "We found the album as you know, and well we were running here to give it to you, when we crashed into Snape you see," "And he wanted to confiscate it from us," interrupted Ally, I nodded, "we weren't going to let that happen, so I snatched it and we ran, so you understand he's quite upset with us," I finished. Ally shook her head, "But no Melanie, you left out how exactly you snatched it from Snape." She teased, Harry looked curious, I ducked my head, "yes, well, there was no other way, so I bit him." Harry's jaw dropped, "you BIT Snape," he asked incredulously. "Uhuh," I said hurriedly, pulling the cloak over Alison, and me "Now lets go, i'm so hungry."
I pushed them towards the door; Harry was roaring with laughter. Hermione opened the portrait hole and stepped outside, ally and I followed, and then came Ron, and Harry who was still doubled over with laughter.
Snape strode towards us menacingly. "Granger, Weasly, Potter? What might you be finding so funny?" Harry swallowed his laughter, "Nothing sir," he replied, Snape searched their faces, then moved his gave to the air around them, Ally and I stepped back behind him and crept off towards the Great Hall. "Where are Robinson and Moon?" Snape demanded, "sir, they're still asleep, I couldn't wake them up," spoke up Hermione.
Snape stepped back, apparently believing their tale. Alison and I bit our hands to quiet our giggles, and hurried off towards the Great Hall for breakfast.
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"I can't believe he believed you!" I exclaimed joyfully, as I watched Harry stuff the cloak into the bottom of his bag. "Man he is gonna be so cranky today, thank god we don't have potions today." I looked at Hermione, "We don't, do we?" I asked uncertainly, "no, not until Thursday," she assured me. Ron and Harry left early to take the cloak back to the dormitories and get good seats for class.
I sighed in relief and returned my attention to eating.
Just as I was finishing breakfast, Hermione stood and started pulling me towards a side door, "Alright, let me finish my mouthful, we won't be late 'Mione! Geez!" I shoved a final forkful in my mouth and grabbed my bag as Hermione dragged me out of the hall, just as we left I saw Snape storming in through the main entrance. Hermione and I ran full pelt towards the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom, we slid through the door and sat on the seats right at the very front that Harry and Ron had saved for us. There were only about three others in the classroom; our fleeing from Snape had made us early.
"How long til class starts?" I asked, Ron glanced at his watch, "Should be about five minutes or so" he answered, I yawned, "Teach me something?" I implored to Hermione, she looked at me quizzically, "I don't want to not know anything, so can you teach me something defensively?"
Hermione pulled out a thick textbook from her bag, "ooh I have one of them!" I pulled it out and thumped it on the desk. "You can put those books away thanks, you shan't need them today." Interrupted a lively voice. I dropped my book into my bag and looked up. A young, happy looking woman was sitting on the desk, she had a smile that made me like her instantly.
Her eyes were a soft brown, and when I looked into them I was hit with another powerful dizzy feeling. I held my head and moaned. Images flashed in my brain. I heard crying. I saw bodies, splashes of blood, and bright flashes of light. I struggled to make the images disappear; make the crying go away. I shut my eyes tightly and shook my head as hard as I could. The dizzy feeling slowly faded away. I opened my eyes in relief and raised my read. Soft brown eyes were looking at me in concern. Hermione nudged me, "Are you alright Melanie?" she asked quietly.
"Yep, peachy," I answered cheerfully; all dizziness gone. The rest of the class clattered into the room at that moment and settled into their seats, looking curiously towards the front at the young woman who was greeting them with a large grin. "Hey everyone, I'm Arabella Figg, you can call me Professor Bella or Professor Arabella, we'll just leave the Figg out of this ok?" She walked over to a doorway on the right side of the room, "Now, if you all will kindly bring your wands and step into this room we can begin,"
We all shuffled into the next room, which had a black squishy mat covering the floor and four different coloured walls each one sparkly, one red, one green, one yellow and one blue. We formed a line across the room with Professor Bella standing in front of us.
She pulled out her wand. "Now, I've heard all about your past with Defence teachers, you've done well to get through so many; during my school years here we longed to get rid of our Defence teacher, but never managed to until third year and that's a story that I won't be telling anytime soon." Her eyes sparkled with remembrance. "I can't say I'll be staying all year, I will need to leave the school at least a few times during the year, but I assure you that I have secured the perfect substitute for those times." She walked up and down the line examining each of us. "Alright, let's try this, all of you raise you wands and repeat after me, Abstoncots." "Abstoncots," we repeated. A dazzling orange light then lighted the room; I looked around. Every single person in the room was emanating an orange mist around them.
"Good everybody! Well done." Congratulated Professor Bella, "Now, I need each of you to concentrate, that orangey glow surrounding you; that's a shield. You just created that. Now I'm going to try and break it. Don't worry I'll only use minor hexes, so don't worry about me hurting you. I want each of you to concentrate on keeping your shield strong. Concentrate on the strength only, we'll introduce retaliation spells later on."
She started at the left end of the line, shooting three different hexes at each person, shouting encouragement and instructions to each person. Sometimes she'd break through the persons' shield and had to reverse the effects of the hex, then she'd explain what they were doing wrong and try again until they succeeded.
When it came to my turn I held the shield strong on the first hex, but when the second hit, it almost broke, Professor Bella shouted at me, "Come on Melanie! Concentration is the game!" That bloody dizziness threatened to attack me then; I could hear voices beginning to chant in my head. Completely annoyed I shoved the feeling aside and summoned all my thoughts to strengthening the shield. To my delight the dizzy feeling left and my shield held against the third hex. "Good job!" Professor Bella approved before moving onto the next person.
When everybody had taken a turn she moved to the front of the room again, "Now, you all did good then, but your not always going to know when somebody's throwing a hex at you, duelling does not always come with a Ready Set GO! So next I want you all to continue concentrating on keeping your shield strong. I'm going to fire hexes randomly at everybody for the next 5 minutes, I won't stop even if I hit you, and we'll see who lasts. Ok? Shields up?" She started firing hexes at us in random order, slowly, members of the class fell; laughing uncontrollably, wobbling around the room and dancing continually. When Ron was finally hit, Hermione instantly performed the counter curse to release him from his dancing. "Hermione, brilliant thinking," praised Professor Bella, "But not part of this exercise." She then turned to me and fired six different hexes at me, one after the other. I concentrated and managed to deflect each one. I relaxed considerably when she fired another two at me from across the room. The shock of it broke my concentration and I fell to the ground laughing uncontrollably.
When the five minutes was up, Professor Bella called the handful of people who were still standing, to the front of the room and took their names. She then turned and cried "Finite Incantatem," and we were all released. We stood up and faced the front. Professor Bella smiled at us warmly, "That was good for your first try, I think we'll do this once every week, and since I cant have you lot sprouting shields all over the castle to practice, let's go back into the classroom and look at some concentration methods." We filed back into the other room, took our seats and pulled out our books. The rest of the lesson was spent reading about 'better ways to concentrate' and swapping different methods.
At the end of class she assigned us to choose and practice one method of concentration that would help us strengthen our shields. She then dismissed us and called me up to the front. Harry, Ron and Hermione hovered just outside the doorway.
Professor Bella glanced at them in amusement then waved them away; slightly abashed, they shuffled off slowly down the corridor, we looked at each other and laughed. "Now Melanie, you did very well today considering it's what? Only your second day of magic?" I nodded, "I did ok, nice piece of trickery at the end there though," I said cheerfully, she smiled, "caught you off guard there didn't I? Now I overheard you talking to Hermione just before class, you wanted her to teach you some defence stuff?" "You're not going to give me extra homework are you?" I asked worriedly. Professor Bella laughed, "well yes," she answered, pulling out a thick book and thumping it on her desk.
The title read 'Defence for crazy brunettes who don't pay attention' my eyes widened, Professor Bella smiled fondly at the book, "Don't worry, it's not directed at you, I understand that if you feel it's worth learning, you will pay attention," I nodded sheepishly, "This book, me and my friends made during my years here at Hogwarts for another friend, who, well couldn't concentrate on what we were learning in class," she laughed, "she was distracted by a boy?" I guessed, she nodded, "right you are, they were obsessed with each other, so in love, she said she felt dizzy when he was near." She sighed, "so we made this during sixth year, it has revision from most of the previous five years as well, I hope you'll find it useful, and trust that you'll look after it carefully."
I nodded solemnly, "of course I will," I promised, tucking the book into my bag. I stood up to go, "One other thing," continued Professor Bella, "At the start of the lesson, you seemed… a little out of it, are you alright?" I stared at the floor for a moment, "you… you've seen a lot of bad stuff haven't you?" I asked softly, Professor Bella started, "you've seen a lot of death, felt a lot of sadness, lots of pain." I looked into her eyes fearfully, "before, when I looked into your eyes, I, I saw it." She reached out and gripped my arm, "You saw into my memory?" she asked, "no!" I shook my head, "at least, I don't think so, but you were there, It's like im seeing somebody else's memories, cause you, you felt strong, I just felt scared."
Professor Bella released my arm and looked at me sympathetically, "this the first time something like that has happened?" she asked, "nope, yesterday, with Snape, and just before when we were practising our shields." Professor Bella frowned, "I didn't notice anything then," she said quizzically, I half smiled, "I'm trying to control it, when I feel that dizziness, I try to push it away, it's hard, but I'm getting better." Professor Bella looked horrified, "I don't think you should do that anymore," she said in a hard voice, "maybe letting them in, feeling the emotions will help you figure it all out, how to break through them."
My eyes flashed angrily, "I don't want to break through them, I want them to go away!" I snapped, my face flushing with anger, "I don't like feeling somebody else's feelings, seeing somebody else's past, I've got my own emotions, I don't want theirs." I stood up, intending to leave, "Melanie, please, listen to me," I held my head, the dizzy feeling threatening to flood my brain, I fought it, and glared up at the Professor, "let them in," she whispered, "let me help you,"
I grabbed my bag, and stormed over to the door, "no thanks sir, you've done enough, thanks for lending me the book," I said with as much cheerfulness as I could, I stepped out the door, then as I remembered I turned back and smiled apologetically, "sorry, I meant mam' not sir, and I meant it about the book, it'll help loads," I shut the door behind me and ran off down the corridor.
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