Two reviews? Better than one, i guess... Anyway, another filler chapter, in here because we ran out of other ideas and we wanted to have fun with Malfoy-Muahahaha!!!!!!!! Oh, and Sirius got himself into another interesting little...issue. So anywho...
Have we not already drilled this into your heads?!?!? WE ARE NOT J.K. ROWLING!! Therefore, WE DON'T OWN ANY OF THIS!!!!!!!!!!!! Well, except for Heather. Onto chapter 20!
Chapter 20
Conversations with Jarveys
"…And then she said that, just because he was a centaur, doesn't mean that he was better than everyone else. I personally think that both of them should just give up and let us play Quidditch."
"Why did you take Divination in the first place, Ron?" Hermione questioned, obviously annoyed.
"I don't know. I guess I just couldn't find anything else I wanted to take, and this way I can just make everything up anyway." The three of them were walking to Charms class, when Sam came bounding out of nowhere and skidded to a stop in front of them. However, he was only about the size of a squirrel.
"What happened?!" Harry shrieked, startling everyone in the hallway. However, as he couldn't very well transform in plain sight, Sirius only started emitting loud barks. They would have been rather impressive if he was his full size, but since he was only three inches tall, they were more squeaks than anything else, and caused Ron to start laughing uncontrollably.
"Well, at least your travel-size now," Ron gasped between laughs. The bell rang, signaling the start of Charms.
"You're right Ron," Hermione commented, stuffing Sirius into her bag, "he is travel-size." They sprinted into the room and took their seats, Hermione setting her bag down rather carefully. Flitwick didn't seem to notice they were late, however, and jumped right into the lesson.
"Alright class, let's begin. Today we will be working on the Protean Charm. Can anyone tell me what that does?" Every D.A. member, which was about all of the class, raised their hand. "Well, Hermione, could you please tell us about this Charm?"
"It's a complex charm that causes whatever happens to one object happen to other objects."
"That's correct, ten points to Gryffindor. Now, to correctly perform this charm, you must spin your wand around in a counter-clockwise motion, point it to the floor, then whip it up back at the object wish to charm, and say, 'proteano'. We will be practicing on parchment; each person will get three sheets. Begin."
By the end of class, Hermione had three essays on her sheets of parchment, covering various jinxes. All Harry managed to do was rip all three of his pieces, but Ron thought that he could pass that off as his prowess at the Protean Charm. They had a break after Charms so they raced over to the Room of Requirement, where Hermione let Sirius out of her book bag.
"Okay Sirius, explain!" Harry demanded. He transformed and whined, in a rather high and squeaky voice,
"Professor Windling had them practicing the Reductor Curse, and one kid pronounced it wrong and set the Shrinking Charm on me!! Change me back!! Please!!!" Harry and Ron looked at Hermione, who was trying very hard not to laugh, and failing miserably. "What?!"
"It's just, well, it's just very humorous to see you six inches tall," she chuckled, attempting to keep a straight face.
"Can you just change me back already?!"
"Sure, just let me get-"
"Shh, someone's coming!!" Ron hissed. The other three listened (although Sirius wasn't a very big help) and heard footsteps coming towards them.
"Potter's going to pay for landing my father in jail," Malfoy spat, as the footsteps got nearer.
"Do you think they know about this room?" Hermione whispered.
"I don't know, but I don't particularly want to stay here and find out," Harry replied, looking around the room for a suitable hiding place. An invisibility cloak was hanging conveniently on a hook near them, and Harry grabbed it, threw it over the four of them, and they waited. Malfoy and undoubtedly Crabbe and Goyle seemed to be pacing back and forth. Ron and Hermione threw a worried look at Harry, who shrugged back. Their suspicions turned to fear as they heard Malfoy say,
"Hey, I've never seen this door before." He opened it and the three of them stepped into the room. Malfoy looked around at the room, thankfully got bored with it, and left, Crabbe and Goyle slouching along behind him.
"That was really too close for comfort," Ron muttered, stepping out from under the cloak.
"Can you please change me back now?"
"Oh, right." Hermione grabbed her wand and cried, "Engorgio!" Sirius returned to his normal size and was so happy that he hugged Hermione.
"Thank you thank you thank you!!"
"You're welcome."
"But we have a problem," Harry pointed out. "Malfoy knows about this room now."
"That's true, but we could always think about a back door when we open it," Ron suggested.
"Or I could lead you into a broom closet."
"And everyone in the hallway would know that Sirius Black was talking to students in a broom closet in Hogwarts," Hermione reminded him.
"Oh yeah."
"Just lay low for awhile. By the way, is Professor Windling still feeding you dog food?" Harry asked.
"Nope. Hagrid managed to convince her. Sadly, she doesn't seem to eat chicken very much."
"Speaking of Hagrid, we ought to get going or we'll be late for Care of Magical Creatures," Hermione chided them.
"Just as long as Hagrid doesn't come up with some new animal for us to take care of," Harry muttered.
"Yeah," laughed Ron, "maybe he'll cross a bicorn with a chimaera and call it a two-horned fire hazard." The rest of them laughed (though Sirius was a bit confused) and Harry, Ron, and Hermione went down to Care of Magical creatures.
"Today I got a special treat fer yeh. Jus' follow me, down 'ere now, tha's it."
"I wonder what it is this time…" Ron muttered as they followed Hagrid to the paddock behind his cabin. In the far corner of the paddock stood an animal that looked like a giant ferret.
"Alrigh', now what yeh got 'ere is a jarvey. This'un here's a male, found 'im rummaging around me pumpkin patch. Yeh can come closer, he don't bite. Now, jarveys, they can talk, yeh see. But they never have anything too nice ter say." The jarvey lifted its head and cackled in a scratchy voice.
"It's nothing more than an overgrown rat," Malfoy sneered.
"And you're nothing more than a donkey on too legs," it spat back at him. Malfoy staggered backwards, apparently not used to being insulted by an animal.
"Told yeh they don't say nothing nice," Hagrid was fighting back laughter as he watched this argument unfold. Malfoy, with a sudden burst of confidence, stepped over the fence into the paddock to continue his argument with the jarvey.
"Oh yeah? Well, I've seen more intelligent centipedes than you!"
"I bet, you overgrown gnome!"
"What are you saying to me?! If you knew who my father was, you'd think twice before insulting me."
"I knows who your father is, little boy." Malfoy grew silent and pulled out his wand and shouted the first spell that came to his head:
"CRUCIO!" The entire class gasped at the use of an unforgivable curse by a student.
The jarvey quickly jumped out of the way. "Is that the best you can do? I've seen better spells from a rat." Malfoy screamed in rage and ran up to the castle, Crabbe and Goyle following.
"Well, I guess we know wha' 'e'll be when 'e grows up."
Yes, i know it was boring. It WILL get better, these are just filler chapters because we can't move directly into Halloween...But of course, you don't know what will happen on Halloween until you read it...That's where everything starts to get exciting...But it's also in chapter 24...So review, or you'll never get to see the exciting part! Less than 3 reviews, no chapter. Kapeesh?
