Ok, I know, I'm uploading two chappies in the same evening, but no one's going to object, right? This one's a little longer than my usual ones, but it's relatively packed with stuff! Almost like a hot pocket. only it's not hot and you can't eat it! Ok, enough of that.

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Chapter 5 - Classes

After Muggle Studies, Katie had her first Defense Against the Dark Arts class with the new teacher, Professor Lupin. She and Alicia happily joined Angelina at a table in the class and waited expectantly. Moments later the shabbily dressed Lupin arrived in the class. He seemed rather young, but as though he'd been through a lot. Smiling warmly, he began the class.

"Good morning, students, my name is Professor Remus Lupin, and I will be teaching your Defense Against the Dark Arts class for this year. As you are sixth years, I'm afraid I don't know what you all have been taught by your former teachers. So, to start the class off, you will be taking a short test on what you've been learning. Here you are, you may begin."

The test was simple and easy to complete, and after they'd been passed back to Lupin, he explained that they would start with a bit of information on dragons. After dictating information, the professor pulled out a model of a dragon, a Norweigan Ridgeback to be specific, and explained, "When I release this model, it will fly at one of you. All you have to do is answer the question I ask you, and it will fly to another person. Understand?"

"Yes," the class chimed, and Lupin released the model. It blew a tiny streak of fire and headed for Alicia.

"Alicia, which other dragon does the Ridgeback resemble?"

"A Hungarian Horntail!" Alicia said quickly, dodging the fire breath, and the dragon immediately turned to face Katie.

"Does it have tail spikes?"

"No!"

If flew to another student. "What does it normally eat?"

"Large land mammals!" Quickly the dragon turned to face one of the Hufflepuffs.

"What color are the eggs?"

"Uh. Ack!" The Hufflepuff had waited too late, and the dragon had run straight into him. Instead of blowing fire or attacking, the model popped, drenching the boy in water. The entire class erupted in laughter.

"Ok, ok, settle down now. The eggs are black, by the way," Lupin informed. "Now, how about a Hebridean Black?"

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"That was a great class, wasn't it?" Alicia asked as they headed down to the Great Hall for lunch. "Lupin's one of the best DADA teachers we've ever had, I'd say."

"THE best, you mean," Angelina said with a nod. "I bet he fought dragons as a younger wizard, and that's how he knows so much about them."

"You know Percy's older brother, Bill, the one who's got all those scars from fighting dragons and such? We'll have to ask him whether or not he knew a Remus Lupin," Katie suggested.

"Oh, I bet he does. Maybe the two were old dragon-fighting friends," Lina said.

"Maybe Lupin was Bill's mentor!" Alicia exclaimed. By this time they'd reached the Great Hall and had seated themselves with Fred and George. Katie looked around for Oliver and found him chatting with Percy, or rather, falling asleep while Percy talked endlessly.

Katie didn't eat lunch. There was no way she was going to eat lunch. But how was she going to skip lunch for the next school year without her friends noticing? 'Well, ok, they'll notice. But perhaps I'll be able to just dismiss it and they'll get used to it. Anyway, I'll eat breakfast and dinner...'

Casually she scooted a little closer to Fred and George and listened to their conversation.

"...Dunno how to get the money, though, that's the problem," George was saying to Fred.

"We'll just have to sell more, I suppose," Fred said. He looked up at Katie and closed his mouth. "Something you need?"

"Oh, no, I was just-"

"Eavesdropping?" George supplied, cocking his eyebrow.

"Em, sorry then," Katie muttered and turned back to her empty plate. An idea struck her, and she pulled out her DADA book and started on her homework.

"Bloody hell, Katie, why in everything holy are you doing homework for a class that just ended?" Angelina asked, completely flabbergasted.

"Just thought I'd get a head start is all," Katie supplied lamely.

Alicia reached over to feel her forehead. "Are you coming down with something, hun?"

Katie laughed. "Actually, no," she said, but closed and put away the book anyway. "Excited about the Quidditch season?"

"You tried that on Oliver this morning. Think up something new," Lina said, returning to her lunch. "Why aren't you eating anything?"

"I was never really hungry at lunch," Katie said with a shrug. "Guess it just doesn't excite me anymore."

"As I recall, you never did eat much during lunch."

"No, I guess not."

"Well then, what's next on the schedule?" Alicia asked after taking a huge gulp of pumpkin juice.

Katie sighed. "Potions. I'd hoped to wait at least a day before seeing Snape again."

Fred laughed. "George and I haven't got him until tomorrow, thank Merlin."

"Yeah, we still haven't finished cooking up ways to sabotage the class," George said, leaning in conspiratorially.

"Don't get him too worked up," Katie warned. "Wouldn't want his disgustingly greasy hair to turn a shiny gray, would we?"

"No, I don't suppose we would... Eh well, he'll have to deal with it!" Fred said, and he and George headed out of the Great Hall.

"Come on, I suppose we should get to Potions," Alicia said, gathering her bag and standing up. Katie nodded and followed her friend down to the dungeons. They were there in plenty of time to get a good seat in the back and get out their things, but Katie saw with some annoyance that they'd been paired with Slytherin for the class.

"Good day students," Snape said as he entered. "I see we've got Slytherin and. Gryffindor." He looked unpleased. "Well, we'll have to deal with that then. Take out parchment and pen and be ready to write."

Katie was busy measuring out her bat's blood when the greasy-haired teacher approached her table with a frown.

"You're behind, Bell, you should be well past bat's blood by now," he said.

"I noticed Weaver hasn't even gotten to the blood yet, sir," Katie replied, gesturing to a Slytherin boy.

"Weaver's potion is none of your business," Snape said, not noticing Weaver snickering and adding the wrong amount of the wrong ingredient to his potion.

"I don't understand why you don't reprimand the Slytherins for being behind, but you're always on the Gryffindors for it," Katie replied calmly.

"When you're the professor, you can take as many points from whatever house you want," Snape spat, "For now, I am the professor, and I think I'll take ten points from Gryffindor for your mouth."

"Stupid, slimy git," Katie muttered as the professor walked away. "Should be sent to Azkaban with the dementors for all his prejudice."

"I'll see you tonight in detention, Bell," Snape called and no doubt watched with pleasure as Katie scowled.

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"I can't believe he gave you detention, and on the first day back!" Leesh whispered in their next class, History of Hogwarts.

"I can't believe he heard me, I didn't know I was talking so loudly," Katie admitted. A frown had permanently attached itself to her face since Snape had assigned her detention. She'd had more detentions with that man than with all of the other teachers combined, including Professor McGonagall. Not only that, but Mum and Dave had warned her that if Katie got any more detentions, they'd owl Dumbledore and tell him to take her off the Quidditch team. Hopefully they'd let one slip.

After eating lightly at dinner, Katie excused herself, saying that she wanted to go serve her detention quickly. She knocked on Snape's office and could almost hear him smile as he called, "Come in, Bell."

"Good evening, Professor Snape," she said with a forced smile. He smiled back.

"Good evening. Since our class together, I've been trying to think of some form of detention that you haven't yet had with me, and just moments ago I realized one. Tonight you will spend the next two hours tutoring one of my students on a subject of their choosing. Flint!"

'No. Please, please, let this be a dream. Let me have passed out or something. DON'T give me two hours alone with Flint,' Katie prayed silently. She pinched herself, but couldn't wake as Flint arrived with his malicious smile.

"I think I'll go enjoy my dinner now," Snape said, rising. "I'll be back in two hours."

"Well, isn't this a pleasant surprise," Flint said when Snape had gone. He settled himself in the seat next to Katie before continuing. "Snape came up to me and asked me if I'd like to have you tutor me for the evening, and I couldn't pass up the offer to have you to myself for a few hours, so I agreed. Isn't it wonderful?"

"Not at all," Katie snapped, moving her seat away from the huge Slytherin. "Let's get this done with. What do you want to be tutored in?"

"How about sex?" Flint asked, reaching out to pull Katie closer. She scooted out of his grasp, disgusted. Flint smiled. "I forgot, that would be me tutoring you, wouldn't it? Then I'll have to settle for Divination then... for now."

Katie kept her distance as she rambled on about Divination. She hated the class, and usually slept through it, but she knew enough to always have a topic if Flint tried to come on to her. But, as her talking slowed and she glanced at her watch, she realized there was still fifteen minutes to go before this detention ended.

"And then, eh, Frederick the Devine saw into the future, and... professed that a g-g-great flood would wipe out the world..."

"I'd say that already happened, didn't it?" Marcus interrupted.

"What?"

"A great flood. As I recall, the Bible's got something about that in it."

"How do you know that?"

Flint shrugged, but halfway through the motion reached and pulled Katie's chair close to him. "Now that we've finished with that topic, what's say we get on to another?" he asked breathily. Katie spat in his eyes and jumped back. His hand shot out and grabbed the front of her robes, jerking her forward as he landed a hard punch on her cheek. It was a pain worse than she'd ever felt, but Katie forced back the tears. She wouldn't, couldn't let Flint see her cry.

"I warned Oliver he wouldn't be able to protect you forever," Flint whispered as he stood up. Katie did as well and stepped towards the door.

"S-S-S-Snape'll be back any minute," Katie sputtered quickly. "He'll. he'll expel you if you try anything."

"Rubbish," Flint said lightly, placing his hand on her chest and pushing so that she stumbled back into the wall. He held is hand there, fingers splayed, watching with a smirk as Katie struggled against him.

"A little low, even for you, to just pin a woman against a wall and watch her," Katie spat after a moment. "A real wizard uses his wand at least, but everyone knows you'll never be a real wizard."

She winced, expecting another slap, but only heard Flint laugh deeply. "Next time I'll use my wand then, eh?" He moved even closer and Katie bit her lip hard to force back the tears. This was disgusting. More than disgusting. How could he do this?

Suddenly both of them heard footsteps coming closer. Flint sighed and ground his teeth. "Next time, Bell, there will be no interruptions," he growled, and stomped out of the classroom.

Katie stood against the wall and watched Professor Snape return. He didn't seem to notice her swelled cheek, caused by Flint's hard punch, only muttered that she was dismissed. Without a word Katie left the dungeons and headed back to the Gryffindor common room.

"How was detention?" Alicia asked almost cheerfully as Katie entered.

"Peachy," Katie murmured, looking down at the ground so Leesh wouldn't see her swelling cheek.

"...Something wrong?"

"Not a thing. I'm tired. Goodnight." Despite the other girl's protests, Katie headed straight up to her dormitory and into the bathroom, closing and locking the door. She stared into the mirror at her cheek, which was starting to turn into an ugly, dark blue bruise and was swelling to the size of an orange. She didn't know any spells to make the bruise go away, but she did know one to remove the swelling, so she pointed her wand at her face and muttered the incantation. She could feel her cheek almost deflate, and finally crawled into bed, closed her eyes and fell asleep.

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It was dark when Katie woke up the next morning, and she wasn't surprised. She'd probably fallen asleep at eight the night before, which was hours earlier than normal. Quietly, so as not to wake her sleeping friends, she dressed and headed down to the common room.

Hermione Granger sat alone in a corner, working on homework. Katie shook her head at the girl. The second day and already a little third year had to worry about so much homework. Realizing she hadn't finished her own homework, Katie retrieved her bag from where she'd dropped it by the entrance the night before and settled onto a couch, opening a book and beginning her work.

Maybe an hour later, only a little while after sunrise, Katie felt someone sit down next to her and looked up to find Oliver peering over her shoulder.

"Morning, Oliver."

"Morning. What're you working on?"

"Muggle Studies," Katie replied, sticking her tongue out to show her disgust. "We're learning about televisions."

"Katie, what the bloody hell happened to you?"

"What?" Katie looked up to find Oliver staring at the deep bruise on her cheek. 'Stupid,' Katie silently chided. 'You stopped the swelling and ignored the bruise!' "Oh, that's just. Screw it. Oliver, I promise I'll tell you later if you back me up when I tell everyone that we were practicing Quidditch this morning and I was stupid and got hit with the Quaffle really hard. Ok?"

Oliver frowned, his lovely eyes so sad that Katie almost spilled every one of her secrets to him then and there. But before she could he replied. "Ok, I guess. Since we're up so early, you wanna go practice?"

"Sure," Katie said, ready to change the subject. She hurried back up to her dormitory, grabbed her broom, and met Oliver on the Quidditch pitch.

"Ready?" he asked, tossing the Quaffly to her and rising off the ground.

Katie smirked. "You poor keeper, now you're going to get your ass kicked by a girl a year younger than you!"

"Oh, you won't be the one doing the ass-kicking, I can promise you that!" Oliver replied with a laugh, taking his place in front of the three hoops. "Who's the one being scouted by professional Quidditch teams?"

Katie nearly dropped the Quaffle. "You're not serious!"

"Hell yeah!" Oliver said, grinning from ear to ear.

"When are they going to tell you if you got on the team or not?"

"Probably a little after our second game. Ooh, that was a good one! Too bad I caught it," Oliver laughingly sneered, tossing the Quaffle back to Katie.

"That was just a warm-up. Ready for the real ass-kicking?"

Oliver stuck his tongue out and set himself into position. "Not at all, but I'm sure you are."

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Aww, they're flirting! Don't forget to review the chappie before this one! Next chapter I'll probably jump up to October, Quidditch season. I'll probably get to Halloween and the first Hogsmeade trip, but no Sirius just yet.

R/R or I'll order a thousand dead snails and have them delivered to your house! That's disgusting.