p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"It was the last day before Harry and the remaining Weasley children went to King's Cross. Fred and George went back to their joke shop at Diagon Alley while Bill and Charlie went back to their respective jobs and Percy was busy gathering his belongings to move back into the Weasley household. Percy decided to make amends with his family prior to the war once he realised the path he was taking was not going to help change the way things were./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"At some point during the summer, Hermione decided to visit and stay at the Weasleys' household to be closer to Ron. It was an open secret that the two were in love, but never made any moves to make it official. She had changed over the past two years. She was slightly taller; almost the same height as Harry and her hair was straighter while her teeth were straighter after having them repaired magically. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Ron and Hermione bickered over the potential benefits, if any were to be found, of Harry's Occlumency lessons as they all walked into King's Cross./spanspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Malgun Gothic'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-language: KO;" While the two boarded the train to make their way to the prefects cabin, Harry and Ginny searched for Luna Lovegood and Neville Longbottom. When they found them, Luna looked up from her magazine –which was upside down- she motioned for them to sit. She offered some homemade treats as they all caught up with each other. Neville managed to misplace his toad once but the train ride was relatively peaceful until Draco and his friends went through their cabin. "Well, look, all of you have gotten even more weird over the summer. When will we get some normal people around here?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Malgun Gothic'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-language: KO;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Malgun Gothic'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-language: KO;"Harry rolled his eyes at the comment but knew there was no real venom behind it. After the war, Draco's parents were sent to Azkaban and everyone knew that any children who had relatives with ties to the Death Eaters were still coming to terms with what happened during the war. It was a slow, awkward and painful process. The verbal sparring between rival houses, for the most part, was for show. Ginny harrumphed in annoyance, "So we're weird. Everyone has some weirdness to them. Get lost, Draco"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Malgun Gothic'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-language: KO;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Malgun Gothic'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-language: KO;"Draco shrugged and scoffed, "I just came by to tell everyone that we're arriving in Hogwarts in five minutes. For some reason, the idiots down at the prefects' cabin decided upon using rock, paper and scissors to decide which house tells which cabins we're arriving. Unfortunately for me, I got stuck with the last group of cabins." /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Malgun Gothic'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-language: KO;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Malgun Gothic'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-language: KO;"Ginny shooed him away after he and Harry verbally sparred for a while. As he left, he muttered darkly about unfair the game was. As they arrived, the thestrals stretched their wings in preparation to take the students to the castle. In the Great Hall, Minerva was readying the Sorting Hat as the students filed in to take their seats. When the students were all seated, the Sorting Hat began to sing./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"'Many, many years ago,/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"In which I may have lost count,/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"When Hogwarts was still young,/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"There were 4 sorcerers, so noble,/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Who were united together, by one common goal/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"They wanted to educate young people,/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"To pass along their gifts./span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Then Gryffindor so stout and honest,/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Took students who were brave,/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"While Ravenclaw with intelligence and cleverness,/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Took students with ready and alert minds,/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Hufflepuff so kind hearted and loyal,/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Took just hard workers and plain folks too,/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"So Syltherin with cunning and ambitions,/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Took pure blooded sorcerers with great ambition in./span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Several years in great harmony,/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"And soon then there was discord,/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Amongst these close friends./span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"The pillars of our school were crumbling,/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Our school seemed to be at its end./span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"The unity was in disorder,/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Never to be the same again,/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"But now in these recent years the unity is once again strong./span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Now I don't worry that much anymore,/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Whether the Sorting is all wrong./span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Now place me on your head,/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"And I will tell you where to go,/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"To a house full of bravery or intelligence too,/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Or plain folk as you might be too,/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Cunning and sly you might be,/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"That's were you might go,/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"I'm the Sorting Hat and I'll sort you,/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"And that is what I must do!'/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"After the hat had sung, it sorted the first years into their houses and Dumbledore stood up to make his yearly speech. "Welcome back everyone to Hogwarts. I have some announcements to make. There will be two changes in the staff this year. Due to the fact that each year we have teachers come and go for one particular position in the teaching staff that is, Defence against the Dark Arts."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Ron muttered to Harry and Hermione, "Hope it's someone good this time."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Dumbledore had paused for a brief moment allowing this to sink in, and then he continued. "We have another change in teaching staff also, that subject is Potions."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Everyone started to whisper both in confusion and excitement. Professor Dumbledore's eyes twinkled as he looked at the students and staff alike. He motioned to a young woman to come join him. She was slightly shorter than him, had dark auburn hair and blue-green eyes. Smiling, he nodded to signal for her to take the floor. "My name is Alice Dumbledore. I am no Potions Master by any means, but I do hope I can do Professor Snape proud as job as your potions professor this year. He is a very knowledgeable man and for him to have accepted me as his replacement is a big honour."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"The Great Hall erupted in another bout of confused and excited whispers. Professor Dumbledore's eyes twinkled again and held up his hand to signal that he was going to speak again. When the whispers finally died down, he nodded and motioned for Severus to come to join him. "I understand your confusion but there is a very good reason for the change in staff. Severus and I have discussed that my daughter would be an excellent replacement for the post of potions professor since Professor Snape and I have decided to impart some of his knowledge of the Defence against Dark Arts to the students. I understand that there may be some unease with this decision but our current Defense against Dark Arts curriculum is in need of revamping since over the pasts few years it has not been as satisfactory as the staff would like."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Everyone was in shocked silence. Professor Dumbledore's gaze rested on the students before him, and to Harry, that calm gaze was actually quite unnerving. The students were quite shocked especially the Gryffindor table. Ron was cursing under his breath while Hermione seemed quite satisfied with change in staff. While Harry understood why it had to happen, it still didn't make him feel any more at ease./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"There was a lot of whispering and muttering as Snape walked into the Great Hall with a very distinct sneer on his face. He looked at the Gryffindor table, then the Slytherin's and harrumphed as he took his seat. When the chatter died down, Dumbledore smiled and acknowledged Severus. He made the usual yearly announcements and everyone began their dinner./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"As soon as the feast was finished, the students sang the school song. After that, the Head-Boys and Girls stayed behind with the first years and prefects to get their respective passwords and to guide the first years back to the dormitories. This year's password for Gryffindor was 'Dragon Faeries'./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Harry and Ron stayed up a little bit late to talk about things such as what they would do for the first Hogsmeade visit and such. The next morning, Harry got up extra early; he dressed, arranged his books for his classes, and went down for breakfast. The head of houses, head girls, boys and prefects finished their first meeting of the year and Harry sat at the table waiting for his friends. Professor McGonagall passed by him and gave him his timetable for his Occlumency lessons. Hermione peered over his shoulder and pointed to Friday's schedule, "Your first Occlumency lesson is this Friday when we get off school in the afternoon."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Ron also peered over and exclaimed, "That's not fair!"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Hermione continued to speak as if she didn't hear Ron, "First, we have Transfiguration, then I have Arithmancy, which means you have Divination, then we have Potions."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Ron looked absolutely pleased when Hermione mentioned Potions. Hermione made him snap back to reality by saying dryly, "C'mon let's get our stuff and go to Transfiguration. We don't want to be late."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Professor McGonagall gave them a lecture about their NEWTs and proceeded with the lesson. They were working on transfiguring a box into a book. Hermione, as usual had perfected the spell while others, their boxes turned into the cover of the book. "Five points to Gryffindor, Miss Granger for satisfactory results. The rest of you, practice your spell for tomorrow. It had better be satisfactory tomorrow, Neville."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Hermione dashed off to Arithmancy while Harry and Ron were heading to the Northern Tower. Ron said, "Well Harry, at least Trelawney doesn't predict your death anymore."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Harry grunted and shrugged his shoulders, "Next to Binns, I would sleep through her class."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"They had reached the tower early so they sat there waiting for the rest of the class, and waited for Sybil to open the trap door. When the door opened, they heard her usual misty voice, "Welcome everyone to the advanced Divination class, my inner eye tells me that a pair will find love, though they are just adversaries right now!"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Parvati and Lavender whispered to each other with excitement while the others just laughed it off or rolled their eyes at Professor Trelawney. Ron scoffed as he shook his head, "Yeah, like anyone wants to be friends after being enemies."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"They were reviewing numerology, doing name numbers. Parvati and Lavender were giggling and they moved on to dousing for yes and no answers. It was only noon and they already received lots of homework so far. They all trudged on to have Double Potions with the Slytherins. Alice was waiting in the room reading some obscure wizarding magazine. When the students walked in, she smiled and clapped her hands as she motioned towards the blackboard. "Today we will be making something fun, since it's your first day back here. You're in for a treat! I will assign to the girls to make love potions and the boys will make the antidote. The recipe is in your textbooks right before chapter 1. "/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"It was no surprise that the girls were trying to contain their excitement while the boys were grumbling about how stupid the whole thing was. As the lesson progressed, Alice was giving pointers to the students and to everyone's surprise, Neville's cauldron didn't melt! Alice peered carefully at his cauldron, "You Longbottom?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Neville stuttered nervously as everyone watched the exchange unfold. "Yes Professor. I...am."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Alice said, "Ten points to Gryffindor! I don't know why your Potions Master thinks that you can't make a single potion, you made this antidote perfectly! Everyone hand in your potions so I can mark them. I put a charm on the doorway, if any of you try to sneak the potion out of the classroom you will get caught. Also, it's against school rules to brew or posses this outside of class. If any professors catch this potion on you, it's an immediate suspension for two weeks with fifty points docked from your house. It's your choice to decide whether you want that punishment or not."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"As the Gryffindors were leaving the classroom, they applauded Neville. Dean Thomas beamed proudly, "Wow, you didn't melt your cauldron! I guess it was Snape that always scared you out of your wits, and that's probably why you couldn't make a damned thing."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"When dinner rolled around, Severus approached their table and sneered, "I heard that Neville made a potion properly. Miss Granger came down to my office to remind me that I swore if Neville made a potion properly before you lot graduated from here, I would award Gryffindor 25 points. I award you your points."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Everyone cheered and said, "Thanks Hermione!"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Professor Snape scowled as he left to join the rest of the staff, "10 points for making noise."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"The week passed quickly and Friday came. The Gryffindor trio ran to their DADA class. Much to their surprise, they were early. Snape saw them and dryly said, "I see you three are early. You three separate. Potter, sit in the front. Not there. In front of my desk. Granger, sit in the back. Weasley, sit in the middle. Ah, I see the rest of Gryffindor has arrived. Neville sit next to Potter. Weasley, go back one seat. Good. As I see all of you have made it to the NEWT class. I will have an assistant to help me with everything and that will be Potter. Take out your quills and start writing an essay about why taking Defence Against Dark Arts is so important. It is to be 4 feet. Hand it in Monday with no excuses otherwise it will be a point for every late essay. Five for every late day until the end of next week."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"As soon as they were done their DADA class, Professor Snape called Harry to come up to his desk. "Potter, get your things and meet me in the Room of Requirement. Be there by 1:30 sharp. Don't be late."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"At some point during the summer, Hermione decided to visit and stay at the Weasleys' household to be closer to Ron. It was an open secret that the two were in love, but never made any moves to make it official. She had changed over the past two years. She was slightly taller; almost the same height as Harry and her hair was straighter while her teeth were straighter after having them repaired magically. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Ron and Hermione bickered over the potential benefits, if any were to be found, of Harry's Occlumency lessons as they all walked into King's Cross./spanspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Malgun Gothic'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-language: KO;" While the two boarded the train to make their way to the prefects cabin, Harry and Ginny searched for Luna Lovegood and Neville Longbottom. When they found them, Luna looked up from her magazine –which was upside down- she motioned for them to sit. She offered some homemade treats as they all caught up with each other. Neville managed to misplace his toad once but the train ride was relatively peaceful until Draco and his friends went through their cabin. "Well, look, all of you have gotten even more weird over the summer. When will we get some normal people around here?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Malgun Gothic'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-language: KO;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Malgun Gothic'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-language: KO;"Harry rolled his eyes at the comment but knew there was no real venom behind it. After the war, Draco's parents were sent to Azkaban and everyone knew that any children who had relatives with ties to the Death Eaters were still coming to terms with what happened during the war. It was a slow, awkward and painful process. The verbal sparring between rival houses, for the most part, was for show. Ginny harrumphed in annoyance, "So we're weird. Everyone has some weirdness to them. Get lost, Draco"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Malgun Gothic'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-language: KO;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Malgun Gothic'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-language: KO;"Draco shrugged and scoffed, "I just came by to tell everyone that we're arriving in Hogwarts in five minutes. For some reason, the idiots down at the prefects' cabin decided upon using rock, paper and scissors to decide which house tells which cabins we're arriving. Unfortunately for me, I got stuck with the last group of cabins." /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Malgun Gothic'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-language: KO;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Malgun Gothic'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-language: KO;"Ginny shooed him away after he and Harry verbally sparred for a while. As he left, he muttered darkly about unfair the game was. As they arrived, the thestrals stretched their wings in preparation to take the students to the castle. In the Great Hall, Minerva was readying the Sorting Hat as the students filed in to take their seats. When the students were all seated, the Sorting Hat began to sing./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"'Many, many years ago,/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"In which I may have lost count,/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"When Hogwarts was still young,/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"There were 4 sorcerers, so noble,/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Who were united together, by one common goal/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"They wanted to educate young people,/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"To pass along their gifts./span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Then Gryffindor so stout and honest,/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Took students who were brave,/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"While Ravenclaw with intelligence and cleverness,/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Took students with ready and alert minds,/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Hufflepuff so kind hearted and loyal,/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Took just hard workers and plain folks too,/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"So Syltherin with cunning and ambitions,/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Took pure blooded sorcerers with great ambition in./span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Several years in great harmony,/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"And soon then there was discord,/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Amongst these close friends./span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"The pillars of our school were crumbling,/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Our school seemed to be at its end./span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"The unity was in disorder,/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Never to be the same again,/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"But now in these recent years the unity is once again strong./span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Now I don't worry that much anymore,/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Whether the Sorting is all wrong./span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Now place me on your head,/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"And I will tell you where to go,/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"To a house full of bravery or intelligence too,/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Or plain folk as you might be too,/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Cunning and sly you might be,/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"That's were you might go,/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"I'm the Sorting Hat and I'll sort you,/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"And that is what I must do!'/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"After the hat had sung, it sorted the first years into their houses and Dumbledore stood up to make his yearly speech. "Welcome back everyone to Hogwarts. I have some announcements to make. There will be two changes in the staff this year. Due to the fact that each year we have teachers come and go for one particular position in the teaching staff that is, Defence against the Dark Arts."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Ron muttered to Harry and Hermione, "Hope it's someone good this time."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Dumbledore had paused for a brief moment allowing this to sink in, and then he continued. "We have another change in teaching staff also, that subject is Potions."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Everyone started to whisper both in confusion and excitement. Professor Dumbledore's eyes twinkled as he looked at the students and staff alike. He motioned to a young woman to come join him. She was slightly shorter than him, had dark auburn hair and blue-green eyes. Smiling, he nodded to signal for her to take the floor. "My name is Alice Dumbledore. I am no Potions Master by any means, but I do hope I can do Professor Snape proud as job as your potions professor this year. He is a very knowledgeable man and for him to have accepted me as his replacement is a big honour."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"The Great Hall erupted in another bout of confused and excited whispers. Professor Dumbledore's eyes twinkled again and held up his hand to signal that he was going to speak again. When the whispers finally died down, he nodded and motioned for Severus to come to join him. "I understand your confusion but there is a very good reason for the change in staff. Severus and I have discussed that my daughter would be an excellent replacement for the post of potions professor since Professor Snape and I have decided to impart some of his knowledge of the Defence against Dark Arts to the students. I understand that there may be some unease with this decision but our current Defense against Dark Arts curriculum is in need of revamping since over the pasts few years it has not been as satisfactory as the staff would like."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Everyone was in shocked silence. Professor Dumbledore's gaze rested on the students before him, and to Harry, that calm gaze was actually quite unnerving. The students were quite shocked especially the Gryffindor table. Ron was cursing under his breath while Hermione seemed quite satisfied with change in staff. While Harry understood why it had to happen, it still didn't make him feel any more at ease./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"There was a lot of whispering and muttering as Snape walked into the Great Hall with a very distinct sneer on his face. He looked at the Gryffindor table, then the Slytherin's and harrumphed as he took his seat. When the chatter died down, Dumbledore smiled and acknowledged Severus. He made the usual yearly announcements and everyone began their dinner./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"As soon as the feast was finished, the students sang the school song. After that, the Head-Boys and Girls stayed behind with the first years and prefects to get their respective passwords and to guide the first years back to the dormitories. This year's password for Gryffindor was 'Dragon Faeries'./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Harry and Ron stayed up a little bit late to talk about things such as what they would do for the first Hogsmeade visit and such. The next morning, Harry got up extra early; he dressed, arranged his books for his classes, and went down for breakfast. The head of houses, head girls, boys and prefects finished their first meeting of the year and Harry sat at the table waiting for his friends. Professor McGonagall passed by him and gave him his timetable for his Occlumency lessons. Hermione peered over his shoulder and pointed to Friday's schedule, "Your first Occlumency lesson is this Friday when we get off school in the afternoon."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Ron also peered over and exclaimed, "That's not fair!"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Hermione continued to speak as if she didn't hear Ron, "First, we have Transfiguration, then I have Arithmancy, which means you have Divination, then we have Potions."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Ron looked absolutely pleased when Hermione mentioned Potions. Hermione made him snap back to reality by saying dryly, "C'mon let's get our stuff and go to Transfiguration. We don't want to be late."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Professor McGonagall gave them a lecture about their NEWTs and proceeded with the lesson. They were working on transfiguring a box into a book. Hermione, as usual had perfected the spell while others, their boxes turned into the cover of the book. "Five points to Gryffindor, Miss Granger for satisfactory results. The rest of you, practice your spell for tomorrow. It had better be satisfactory tomorrow, Neville."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Hermione dashed off to Arithmancy while Harry and Ron were heading to the Northern Tower. Ron said, "Well Harry, at least Trelawney doesn't predict your death anymore."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Harry grunted and shrugged his shoulders, "Next to Binns, I would sleep through her class."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"They had reached the tower early so they sat there waiting for the rest of the class, and waited for Sybil to open the trap door. When the door opened, they heard her usual misty voice, "Welcome everyone to the advanced Divination class, my inner eye tells me that a pair will find love, though they are just adversaries right now!"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Parvati and Lavender whispered to each other with excitement while the others just laughed it off or rolled their eyes at Professor Trelawney. Ron scoffed as he shook his head, "Yeah, like anyone wants to be friends after being enemies."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"They were reviewing numerology, doing name numbers. Parvati and Lavender were giggling and they moved on to dousing for yes and no answers. It was only noon and they already received lots of homework so far. They all trudged on to have Double Potions with the Slytherins. Alice was waiting in the room reading some obscure wizarding magazine. When the students walked in, she smiled and clapped her hands as she motioned towards the blackboard. "Today we will be making something fun, since it's your first day back here. You're in for a treat! I will assign to the girls to make love potions and the boys will make the antidote. The recipe is in your textbooks right before chapter 1. "/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"It was no surprise that the girls were trying to contain their excitement while the boys were grumbling about how stupid the whole thing was. As the lesson progressed, Alice was giving pointers to the students and to everyone's surprise, Neville's cauldron didn't melt! Alice peered carefully at his cauldron, "You Longbottom?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Neville stuttered nervously as everyone watched the exchange unfold. "Yes Professor. I...am."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Alice said, "Ten points to Gryffindor! I don't know why your Potions Master thinks that you can't make a single potion, you made this antidote perfectly! Everyone hand in your potions so I can mark them. I put a charm on the doorway, if any of you try to sneak the potion out of the classroom you will get caught. Also, it's against school rules to brew or posses this outside of class. If any professors catch this potion on you, it's an immediate suspension for two weeks with fifty points docked from your house. It's your choice to decide whether you want that punishment or not."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"As the Gryffindors were leaving the classroom, they applauded Neville. Dean Thomas beamed proudly, "Wow, you didn't melt your cauldron! I guess it was Snape that always scared you out of your wits, and that's probably why you couldn't make a damned thing."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"When dinner rolled around, Severus approached their table and sneered, "I heard that Neville made a potion properly. Miss Granger came down to my office to remind me that I swore if Neville made a potion properly before you lot graduated from here, I would award Gryffindor 25 points. I award you your points."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Everyone cheered and said, "Thanks Hermione!"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Professor Snape scowled as he left to join the rest of the staff, "10 points for making noise."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"The week passed quickly and Friday came. The Gryffindor trio ran to their DADA class. Much to their surprise, they were early. Snape saw them and dryly said, "I see you three are early. You three separate. Potter, sit in the front. Not there. In front of my desk. Granger, sit in the back. Weasley, sit in the middle. Ah, I see the rest of Gryffindor has arrived. Neville sit next to Potter. Weasley, go back one seat. Good. As I see all of you have made it to the NEWT class. I will have an assistant to help me with everything and that will be Potter. Take out your quills and start writing an essay about why taking Defence Against Dark Arts is so important. It is to be 4 feet. Hand it in Monday with no excuses otherwise it will be a point for every late essay. Five for every late day until the end of next week."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Century Gothic',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"As soon as they were done their DADA class, Professor Snape called Harry to come up to his desk. "Potter, get your things and meet me in the Room of Requirement. Be there by 1:30 sharp. Don't be late."/span/p