The Wizarding War
DISCLAIMER: THE SONG LYRICS DO NOT BELONG TO ME ONLY ONES YOU HAVEN'T HEARD OF DO. J.K ROWLINGS CHARACTERS DON'T BELONG TO ME EITHER BUT MY OCS DO.
Chapter 1
'Those tears begin to fall
As you lose your faith in yourself
So believe in the light in your eyes
The good in your heart
Then you shall conjure darkness
With the help of light itself'
Harry and Ron made their way down to the Great Hall and heard loud talking behind them. Harry soon felt a hand on his shoulder and jumped then whirled around wand out to face whoever it was attacking him. He felt incredibly stupid when he looked into the eyes of his best friend Hermione.
"Watch where you're pointing that thing Harry," Hermione exclaimed thoroughly annoyed.
"Uh, I thought you were attacking me," Harry said sounding not only pathetic, but stupid too.
"Quite clearly you did Harry. I want you to meet someone. She's a new Gryffindor and her name's Rogue," Hermione said simply indicating the girl next to her. Harry and Ron both turned to face Rogue, the new girl and both their mouths dropped open. She had long ginger hair and emerald green eyes, just like Harry's. She had pale skin and freckles across her nose.
"Quit staring at me or I'll make sure you don't sit for a week," Rogue threatened clenching her fists.
With this, Harry and Ron both shut their mouths. Ron looked at Harry indicating that quite possibly he could say something that wouldn't put them both in trouble.
"Um, you're new here then?" Harry said stupidly.
He could've hit himself! Of course she was new at Hogwarts. He'd never seen her before had he? No. Why did he have to make such an idiot of himself in front of pretty girls? Because they're pretty, a stupid voice said in the back of his head. Harry then looked over at Ron desperately, anything to end this humiliation!
"Yeah," Rogue said raising her eyes, "obviously. What, cat got your tongue? Why is it that boys immediately clam up around me?"
Hermione whispered something in Rogue's ear. Rogue gave her a funny look then went bright red. Hermione giggled then pulled her past Harry and Ron and went into the Great Hall.
"That was interesting," Ron said finally after the two had left.
"Yeah," Harry agreed, "I feel ridiculous."
"I think she's a Veela," Ron stated, "only Fleur's managed to make me speechless before. She has to be a Veela."
Harry shrugged and walked with Ron into the Great Hall after the girls. There, they sat down with the rest of the Sixth Years and next to a new boy, another exchange student who looked extremely bored and was playing with his knife and fork. Harry looked across the High Table and remembered he'd forgotten to look for the new Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor. There sat a new teacher. Another woman. Harry hoped this woman would not be like Umbridge had been in their previous year. She long dirty blonde hair, ripple like eyes that start with grey in the middle and branch out to green. Even as she was sitting, Harry could see that she was very attractive.
Soon after breakfast and mail they received their timetables for the day. Harry looked over the things he had for the day. Double Defence Against the Dark Arts, Transfiguration, Charms and Double Potions. He had the worst subject in the last part of the day. Astonishing really how they managed to do that sort've thing all the time. He sighed, well; at least Defence Against the Dark Arts should be good this year. No Umbridge was a bonus.
"Well, that settles it, my days bloody adventurous," Harry said turning it round to try and see if he had anything interesting at all.
"Hmm, mine's the same as yours, not adventurous at all," Ron said agreeing and taping his timetable to his schoolbag.
"Who's got Dark Arts first?" Harry heard the new boy ask.
Harry took a closer look at the boy. He couldn't quite place where he'd seen him before. He had spiky black hair and emerald green eyes. It was becoming something of a commonality amongst the students now. Three people with the exact same eye colour were indeed unusual, but it was possible. At least, Harry thought it was.
"Me and Ron do," Harry told him, "Have I seen you before? You look vaguely familiar for some reason."
"No, no of course not," The boy said rather quickly, "my name's Gabriel Shepard's actually. I come from another school in Europe. Greece I think."
"Ha, well, I think you're somewhere in Scotland now," Harry told Gabriel jokingly, "Hmm, looks like we have the same first class. Let's see if this teacher is any good. It's amazing Dumbledore found anyone after our record of Defence Against the Dark Arts teachers."
"What happened to them?" Gabriel asked curiously, "I'd heard a rumour about it of course but then again, what with things the way they are, you can never tell if they're true or not."
The boys had begun making their way towards their first class. Harry immediately began explaining about Quirell, Lockhart, Lupin, Moody and Umbridge all in a row. The fact that Lupin was the only decent teacher they'd had so far really stood out to Gabriel. To Harry, having a new student around really made things easier for him. He wasn't the only one that didn't know everything about the school. The boys entered the Dark Arts classroom to find it in a very different style to how it had been for the previous five years. Like Moody, this new woman had several dark magic detectors, but what made her unique was the fact that she seemed relaxed. She didn't have everything organised like most of the other teachers, but displays of dark magic creatures on the walls. Books for miles around them of every title imaginable, in fact, she had a lot of books that had been in the room of requirement the previous year on her bookshelves.
"Welcome to my classroom," The woman said as the students from all the different houses filed through the doors, "My name is Professor Liliana Soprano. This year we will be doing some revision work of your previous years, and then moving onto Weaponry. You will also be learning about Curses, Wandless Magic and more Defensive spells."
Harry watched as she wrote down what the Course Outline on the board not bothering to use a spell to do it for her. Gabriel was restlessly doodling on his piece of parchment while Ron was leaning over his shoulder commenting on the drawings every so often. Professor Soprano soon finished writing it and told the students to copy down the course outline. Harry looked around and spotted Hermione sitting not far away with Rogue. The two girls seemed to be getting along but what Harry didn't quite get was the fact that Hermione wasn't sitting with him and Ron as she usually did. Ron who had gotten bored of hassling Gabriel had decided to do his work after all. Harry decided to observe the other members of the class. Surprisingly, Lavender and Parvati weren't in the class. Actually, that wasn't much of a surprise. Neville was in the classroom sitting near the front with Seamus. Malfoy was also there with Crabbe and Goyle making paper darts for some reason. Hannah Abbott and a few of her friends were in the class along with some Ravenclaw's Harry didn't know. At the back of the class was Cinnabar actually working—she was accompanied by most of the Slytherin girls that Harry didn't like. Strange really. Harry finally settled into writing down the course outline when the teacher decided it was time to do some revision.
"Okay class, on the board I have the beginning of a brainstorm. I want you to tell me what you have already done over the past few years and work around what you should have learnt or already have learnt over the past five years," Professor Soprano told the class with a smile, "Yes Mr . . ."
"Malfoy, Professor," Malfoy said smugly, "we've already done this stuff so why do we need to go back over it?"
"Because it should reinforce what you have already learnt over the past few years. According to Professor Dumbledore, you have had a patchwork learning done by several different teachers not nearly covering what you were supposed to learn," Professor Soprano replied calmly, "Yes Miss . . ."
"Granger, Professor," Hermione said from the other side of the classroom, "we've already learnt the Unforgivable Curses, Werewolves, Red Caps, and many different magical creatures."
"Right, so, you've covered Curses then, that I suppose is good," Professor Soprano said cheerfully, "right now. I think we can learn some background information on dark magic creatures."
She waved her wand at the board and the theory appeared there. The class groaned and got out their quills and began to write down everything that had been put there. So much for an interesting class, Harry thought to himself. After some time, Defence Against the Dark Arts ended. Thankfully, Harry didn't come out with a sore arm being that he'd had so much practice at this writing thing with Professor Umbridge the previous year. At least so far he had managed not to get a detention.
Harry, Ron and Gabriel later on in the day were walking back to the Common Room after they had finished their final lesson of the day. Gabriel was telling Harry and Ron about his old school and the thousands of mistakes his Potions Teacher usually made. Gabriel was just finishing a really funny story about how the teacher mixed up some Potions and exploded the whole classroom so the lesson had to be taken outside. Hermione showed up without Rogue and introduced herself to Gabriel who looked surprised and shook her hand all the same.
"So, this year I'm hoping we get to learn some good stuff," Hermione told them calmly, "and I'm surprised you didn't choose to pick up Arithmancy like I did."
"Well, Muggle Studies seems to be the way to go. I mean, think about it honestly, to be an Auror you need a good idea on what wizards think of Muggles, you need Charms, Herbiology, Potions, Defence Against the Dark Arts, Transfiguration and then there's two other subjects your allowed to pick yourself. So Ron and I decided we were going to do Muggle Studies because that was easy, and Care of Magical Creatures because Hagrid's teaching it," Harry explained firmly.
Hermione rolled her eyes and threw her arms in the air. Of all the things…. No, but boys would be boys. They naturally did whatever they chose to do. She then noticed Rogue approaching and pointed it out to Harry and Ron.
"Gidday," Rogue said greeting them simply.
Harry and Ron just stared at her and then at one another. What had she just said?
"I said hello," Rogue told them grumpily, "don't you two speak outside your own secret boy language or something?"
"Hi," Ron and Harry chorused deciding they'd better speak up before she clobbered them.
"So what's up then?" Harry asked Rogue.
"The ceiling what else?" Rogue replied then turned to Hermione, "let's get away from these dimwits. I've got something I want to show you in the library."
"Dimwits?" Ron echoed, "Now wait just a second…"
Before Ron could finish his sentence, Rogue and Hermione were off chatting loudly down the hallway about some really amusing thing that had happened in Arithmancy. Harry looked over at Ron surprised because Hermione didn't really have any friends that were her own age and were also female. Not that it counted against her, it just made her a really good friend. The girl also didn't usually ditch them over some stranger she had only met for five minutes.
"I think Rogue has a very low opinion of us," Harry said finally after Rogue was out of earshot.
"Duh, what gave that away?" Gabriel asked turning to Harry and winking.
"Well first off, she keeps insulting us, so that's strike one. Strike two is she's always ignoring our presence altogether if its possible," Harry concluded.
"Strike three?" Gabriel asked as Neville approached them and tripped over something on the floor.
"Strike three she thinks we're all stupid," Ron guessed looking over at Neville, "although…"
"Don't even say it, don't even say it," Neville said picking himself up, "at the moment I'm feeling stupid. I was actually going to the library."
"Library? But that's where Rogue and Hermione are going," Harry announced.
"Really? Rogue's kind of good looking isn't she?" Neville asked smiling.
"Neville she's way out of your league," Ron told him, "and mine. Quite frankly, I think she hates being in Gryffindor."
"What are you little boys doing out her on your own?" a voice cooed from the other end of the hallway.
Harry, Ron, Gabriel and Neville turned to see Cinnabar with a group of Slytherin's. The one's Harry could identify were Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, Pansy and Blaise. There were about five more of them and all big and tough looking. Each one wore a snarl on their face that said that they quite clearly meant business.
"None of your business," Harry retorted, "this is a public place after all."
"Public Property. Wowie, like I care," Cinnabar snorted, "Crabbe, Goyle, show em what we've got."
Crabbe and Goyle both cracked their muscles in anticipation for a big fight. They advanced on Harry and Ron while Gabriel snuck into the crowd of Slytherin's. Harry looked questioningly at Gabriel who just shook his head as if to say 'don't tell'. Harry decided to keep his mouth shut and told Ron and Neville to do the same. Whatever Gabriel was planning, it had to be good. Harry took out his wand and spotted Ron and Neville doing the same.
"Stupefy!" Shouted Harry pointing his wand at Crabbe hoping he was stupid enough not to dodge the red light.
To Harry's absolute amazement, Crabbe avoided the red light. Now, his surprise came because he didn't think Crabbe was intelligent enough to dodge anything that came flying at him in any direction. Gabriel then acted. He muttered a curse that somehow rebounded around Cinnabar and her new gang landing all of them face first on the ground. They weren't hurt or injured in any way just paralyzed and unable to move. Nothing at all to do with the Dark Arts, Harry was sure of it. Harry looked surprised at Gabriel who just shrugged.
"Trick I learnt at my old school," Gabriel said grinning, "we'll be long gone by the time they wake up. It'll only last about ten minutes so none of the teachers should find them."
"Bloody brilliant," Ron announced thwacking Gabriel hard on the back.
Gabriel grinned automatically and just gave a small nod. Harry also showed his gratitude and yelled at Neville to hurry up if he was coming with them because they were going to see Hagrid at his house. As they were walking Harry turned around to see if Neville was following him, apparently he wasn't so therefore Harry decided he had gone off somewhere on his own. Besides, their workload wasn't that big at the moment, and they needed to use their free period to talk with Hagrid and see if anything was bothering him. Then it was all work for the rest of the day.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: In case you're wondering, in the next chapter I am SO not going to do anything to do with Hagrid's Hutt. I know most of you have probably already read the Half Blood Prince by now which I found VERY good. This story was something I created before the sixth book came out and it's going to have absolutely nothing to do with the original plot line, although I might use something in amongst the book later on in the chapters. I'm definitely working on the idea of not killing anyone off. I might though, it could be interesting.