Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling owns everything, except for two OCs.


FFF

2. – Lessons

Many people turned around and stared at Kya as she walked through the corridors together with her friends, on her way to her first lesson. The reason for this was that she had insisted on not wearing her school uniform. Her regular clothes weren't markedly different from the uniform in colour and shape though, so Hermione hadn't been able to understand why she would do such a thing on her first day. Kya had patiently explained that she was making a statement.

What had surprised everyone, was that most teachers had ignored it. They seemed to be willing to make exceptions for the unusual newcomer.

Their first lesson was charms. Professor Flitwick beamed at Kya when she entered the classroom and sat down.

"Good day to you all," he said to the class, after they had all been seated. "Good day and welcome to another year of charms. We have some very interesting things to study this year. I hope you haven't forgotten what we learnt last term." He knew they all had.

"But we are going to start with something fun, as a warm-up!" he continued. "This is a new spell, and it's a bit tricky, so watch out! I want you to repeat after me; Novo Colori!"

"Novo Colori!" the class repeated dutifully.

"This is a spell to make a part of you change colour."

The class snickered.

"For example," said professor Flitwick, "Novo Colori!"

He twirled his wand and pointed it at his beard. Instantly it changed from its usual white, into a sickly green colour. The class applauded.

"Now we're going to practice the wrist movement for a few minutes before we try the spell. Remember, one wrong flick can do unpleasant things to your anatomy." He looked pointedly at Neville.

The professor called the class to order again after half an hour.

"Right, now that you've got the movement fairly well, we are going to practice the spell on each other. All divide into pairs…

"Good… now, this charm is trickier than it might appear at first, because you have to concentrate hard on the colour you want. We'll practice with colouring each other's hair, because it's not so risky. Try to picture the colour, say the incantation and then twirl your wand. And don't point it at each other's eyes!"

They all had a lot of fun, and there were only a few misfortunes. Harry accidentally turned Ron's ears purple, but he could have done a lot worse. Neville had conjured up huge, green blotches all over Dean's and Seamus' faces, and Flitwick was having trouble removing them. Parvati and Lavender looked like they had used the spell for years. Hermione and Kya made the perfect team, and at the end of the lesson they had succeeded in turning each other's hair into the most obscure colour tones imaginable. When they exited the class, Hermione's hair was titian red and Kya's was azure.


Before lunch, they had an hour of potions. Harry was dreading it more than usual this year, for obvious reasons. As they waited outside the classroom, the Slytherins arrived.

Malfoy immediately strolled over to Harry, Ron and Hermione, but his insult got stuck on its way to his mouth when he spotted Kya.

He hesitated for a moment too long. Snape was making his way down the corridor, and they all had to line up outside the door. As usual, Snape let the line of Slytherins in first.

The lesson started out normally. Snape bullied Neville, made fun of Harry and ignored the other Gryffindors.

However, fifteen minutes before class was over, Kya had had enough of it.

Ron had chopped up his slugs a bit too roughly, and so the Muddling potion didn't simmer properly. It wasn't a bad mistake and the potion would probably work anyway, but Snape was a bit more annoyed than usual that day. He told Ron off about it in front of the entire class, eloquently ending the lecture with,

"Even Longbottom could do it!"

This was the last straw for Kya, who stood up abruptly.

"Shut up!" she said.

The whole class gasped.

"What?" said Snape.

"I said, shut up. I can't believe your attitude! You've been bullying us all class, ignoring every single mistake they made." she nodded to the Slytherins. "And Ron's mistake wasn't even serious. I know, because I've made Muddling potions for years. It'll hardly make the potion any less potent. So why are you going on about it?"

"Kya, sit down!" Hermione hissed, but Kya wasn't listening.

Snape seemed to recover his poise.

"If you had made this potion before, Morris," he sneered, "you should know that it is not the potion itself, but the powder left in the bottom of the cauldron after the liquid has evaporated, that will be used, as I clearly said in the beginning of class. How powdery do you think it will be, with big chunks of slug in it?"

"Well, the chunks you're talking about aren't even a quarter of a square inch big, and if they're such a problem he could easily pluck them out of the cauldron after the potion has evaporated."

"That is not the point, Morris," said Snape, coldly. "And if I say that Weasley's potion is defective, then it is defective."

Ron's face was beetroot red by then, and he looked about ready to drown himself in his "defective" potion.

"Please, Kya," said Hermione, desperately.

"It was an honest mistake," Kya said. "With your supervision, anyone could have done a lot worse! You know, it's thanks to you every kid in this school seems to hate potions!"

The Gryffindors left the classroom, all looking despondent. Ron and Kya had each been given detention, and what few points the class had gained during charms were gone. Even so, nobody gave Kya a hard time about it. They were rather impressed by her daring actually, although a little bit frightened too.