Movie Fridays
To all of the Gryffindor's dismay their Wednesday defense against the dark arts class had been canceled because of a Streeler problem in the forbidden forest. In fact all of the classes for that period had been canceled so that the teachers could help Hagrid settle down the Streeler.
The week continued like normal when they all found themselves in their Friday transfiguration class. "Mr. Potter would you please pay attention! Your OWLS are this year and you can't afford to get low scores," snapped Professor McGonagall.
Harry turned his attention to the class, "Sorry professor."
"This year we will be working on some details to your work. Some of these very small tricks are needed for a higher level of transfiguration that you will reach by next year. Your first task is to fix your mistakes," McGonagall walked around pairing up the class and giving them some sort of pig, checker board, sponge creature. "You will work together to turn this back into a needle. Begin."
Harry turned to his partner who happened to be Icicle. "Do you have any idea at all on how to fix this mess?'
Icicle shook her head, "I don't have a clue."
Harry and Icicle sat in front of their pathetic looking creature, "I'm hungry, when is this over so we can go eat." moaned Icicle.
"Class is out if 15 minutes."
McGonagall walked by and clucked disapprovingly, "Miss Vera, Mr. Potter I suggest that you get started because no one is allowed to leave until they have turned their mistake into a needle."
These few words seemed to motivate both of them, "Let's think this through, common sense would tell us that no where in this world is there a book that will tell us the spell to change a pig/checker board/sponge into a needle. So there has to be a simple way that we are over looking." mumbled Icicle as she paced around.
Harry looked up and saw that everyone else was having just as hard of a time. Hermione looked very angry that she didn't know the answer while Ron was panicking at the fact that he may miss lunch.
That is when and idea hit Harry, "Icicle what if we broke everything down. Changed our mutated thing one part at a time and then take the whole object and transfigure it into a needle."
Icicle stopped pacing and pondered this for a while breaking into a smile all of a sudden, "I think that may work."
Whipping out her wand she started flicking it around so that she would warm up her wrist, "Here goes nothing……porcus."
With a flash of pink light the checker board part of the freakish thing was gone. "One part down two more to go," said Icicle as she picked and positioned her self to do the spell again, "Porcus."
The room filled with squeals as a plain old pig started to run around the room. Harry dove and caught the pig before it could escape, "Icicle quick finish off the spell."
"Well at least hold him still unless you want to be a needle too! Acus!"
Harry closed his eyes as a beam of silver light headed towards him. With a thud Harry landed in the floor where he had pinned the pig. Getting off the ground and brushing himself off he spotted the needle. "Here you go Professor." said Harry as he handed her the needle.
"Yes we can go to lunch now," exclaimed Icicle as she danced around the room.
"10 points to Gryffindor for Miss Vera's and Mr. Potter's fine display of common sense and team work. Class, there will be task that don't have an exact spell to get from point A to point B. Being able to problem solve is the next level of thinking that you all need to reach. You all have become great at running to the library to check up the answer that I think everyone has become a little too dependent on books. I got my point across so you all may head to lunch."
Down in the Great Hall lunch was being served when the 5th year's walked in. Sitting down in a chair they started munching away at the sandwiches and other foods. Hermione sat poking at her food while she pouted. "Give it a break Hermione. The point of the assignment was to stump us." said Ron.
Harry spoke up, "Plus cheer up, we have our first Defense class next. Those always at least prove to be interesting."
The rest of lunch was spent discussing events in the upcoming year such as when the next Hogsmeade trip is and who will win the house cup this year. Lunch came to an end and everyone eventually headed out of the great hall to catch his or her next class. When Harry, Ron, Hermione and Icicle finally got to class there were only a few seats left in the front so they were forced to sit in the front.
"It's nice that I finally get to meet my 5th year Gryffindors, I am so sorry about Wednesday. Well I have decided that I am going to spend this class telling you about me and trying to learn some things about you. I am Arabella Figg, retired aurtor. I am around the age of your headmaster and believe it or not one of my first students that I taught to be an aurtor was Astlor Moody. After the downfall of Voldemort I retired and Dumbledore assigned me to the special mission of watching over Harry Potter and making sure that he doesn't get into too much trouble." Professor Figg smiled at Harry when she mentioned this, "Miss Brown right?" asked professor Figg as she looked at Lavender who nodded, "Why don't' you tell me a little about yourself."
Student after student shared their life with the class until the only four in the class that was left was Hermione, Ron, Harry and Icicle. Hermione took a breath and faced Professor Figg, "My name is Hermione Granger and a Gryffindor prefect this year. I was born and raised a muggle but my parents obviously still let me come to school even though I am their only child. I enjoy reading and just being around my friends."
It was Ron's turn to speak and he looked like he was going to be sick, public speaking was obviously not his thing, "I'm Ronald Weasley, Ron for short. I have five older brothers and one younger sister. I guess I like quidditch, chess and I agree with Hermione about hanging out with you friends."
Ugg thought Harry, what in the world am I going to tell her I'm Harry Potter and I have no family because my parents were murdered right before I took down the dark lord? "Er… obviously I am Harry Potter and I don't have a family for reasons that you all know. There really isn't much to me, I like quidditch and basically living day to day because I kind of want to graduate alive."
Icicle smirked at Harry as she stood up, "I am Icicle Mariana Vera and I can basically say my life sucks just like good old Harry over here. I am a pure blood raised by muggles in America because of conditions beyond my control. I had a mom, dad and an older brother that loved me as there own daughter. In fact I didn't know they weren't my biological parents. A few months ago Voldemort murdered my family leaving me under the guardianship of Headmaster Dumbledore. I like dancing, playing my violin, and meeting new people."
The class was silent. She sure can be blunt
"Thank you Icicle." said Professor Figg breaking the silance, "With the last few minutes of class I want to start you on your first unit in the class. As you all should know we are all on the brink of a huge and most likely costly war. You are all at and age where you will have to make an important choice, the choice of what side you will fight for. To help you with this I want you to find quotes in all sorts of books. These quotes should define you as a person that you are and or want to be. Make sure to state you morals because that is the first step in finding out where you belong and what quotes to use. This is the first part of a project that you will all present at the end of the year. I want to see that you have made some progress in a month. More details will come at a later date, class dismissed.
The students started to file out of the classroom when reality finally hit Ron, "Yes and assignment that doesn't require an essay!"
"Forget the assignment! Today is Friday and that means I have my Friday point class and that we get to sleep in tomorrow," Icicle glanced at her watch, "Oh how time flies, I gota go. See you later tonight."
"Is she always this wired?" asked Ron as he watched Icicle prance down the hallway.
"I hope she isn't always this wired, I'll never get any sleep if she is." replied Hermione as she gazed down the hallway.
The trio reached the common room and was greeted by Buddy and Crookshanks. Actually is was more like Buddy ran around the room in a few hundred times in a hyper frenzy while Crookshanks gracefully walked up and jumped into Hermione's arm's. "I heard that animals usually act like their owner but this is ridiculous," said Hermione as she watched Buddy continue running.
Hermione sat down and started pampering Crookshanks while Ron and Harry took their stuff into their doom. While up there Harry changed for quidditch and grabbed his broom. Looking at his watch he saw that he still had a lot of time before practice started but since he was anxious to get outside and flying he decided to head out early. As he passed Ron and Hermione he waved good bye and eventually reached the front door. Jumping on his broom Harry felt the familiar sensation of the wind beating across his face and the sun shinning down. For a while Harry just flew around inspecting the area. There were some third year Ravenclaws over by the lake and some 7th year Hufflepuffs by the garden but he also saw Dumbledore waiting at the gates of the school for something. A few minutes later Harry looked back and saw that Icicle had appeared and was receiving a hug. He watched as the two walk across the field while chatting about something when Icicle looked up and saw Harry. She smiled and waved at him and made Dumbledore turn around to say hi. "Have fun practicing!" yelled Icicle as she disappeared into the castle.
Harry continues flying around and watching students come and go when he spotted George, Fred, Katie, Angelina, and Alicia heading towards the quidditch pitch. Harry landed and walked up to meet them. After a brief session of catching up, the team sat down on the ground to get down to business. "So what needs to be done," asked Katie Bell.
"Well we have to set a date for team tryouts because we are short a keeper and next year only good old Harry will still be here," replied George," and in case anyone hasn't noticed, we also need to pick a new captain so does anyone have a nomination?"
"I nominate Harry Potter on account that he is the only one that is going to be next year. It is kind of pointless for one of us to take the position for only one year." said Alicia.
No, no no I don't have a clue on how to run a team! Thought Harry.
Kate seemed to pick up the panic on Harry's face, "Well no offense Harry but being seeker you really didn't see how Wood ran us. How about Angelina is the official captain this year since her dad is the captain of a professional team. She should know how to run practice because of her dad and then she can teach Harry how to take over the job for next year."
Fred jumped up, "Best idea yet, how about it Angelina and Harry?"
Angelina and Harry looked at each other and smiled, "We are going to crush every one this year aren't we Harry?"
"There is no doubt in my mind."
"Then that settles it," said Fred, "The new captain of the Gryffindor quidditch team is Angelina."
"As my first act as captain, I say that tryouts for the team are going to be a week from Saturday. That is if I can get it cleared by McGonagall." said Angelina.
* * * *
The team practiced until the sun sat and McGonagall came out and told them to eat dinner before it was over. After dinner Harry headed up to the common room to find Ron and Hermione and tell them about practice. When he got up there he was met with a sight, Icicle was levitating a TV into the middle of the common room. She sat it down and Harry watched as she started to fiddle with it. Harry walked over to where is friends were sitting. "Hey Harry, how was practice?" asked Ron.
"Great, you are looking at the Gryffindor team captain for next year." beamed Harry.
"Wow congratulations, but why next year and not this year?" replied Hermione.
Harry continued to tell them about practice and how the team had come to the decisions that they did. A while later Harry looked up and saw that the television was no huge and apparently hooked up, to what he didn't know. "What is Icicle up to?"
Hermione looked up and smiled," She said that she was bored and then went up to her room and brought down her television to entertain everyone."
"She has a television in your dorm?" asked Harry.
"Yes she does, she has a lot of interesting stuff in our dorm like a computer and a wardrobe that is bigger then all of the girls in the room combined. Luckily she has a one of those five lock trunks."
"What is a fellyvision?" asked Ron.
Before Hermione could go into detail explaining to Ron what a television was Icicle bounded down the stares from the girls dorms with a video in her hand. "I have decided that Friday nights are way too boring because we can't do anything. So I declared every Friday a movie night so that we have something to do. Tonight we are going to watch Star Wars because it is a great movie and I think that the uncultured purebloods might actually under stand it. I will be taking suggestions so come and talk to me before next Friday so I can get the movie on time. Sit back and enjoy!"
With that they lights died down and the movie started with the words, "A long time ago in a galaxy far, away……….." This is one tradition that I could get use to.
* * * *
