Standard disclaimer applies.
Hey, sorry it took a while but I've been busy and ill and all sorts has been going on including the contract on my house being exchanged! YAY! Anyway, I'm a day late, I was hoping to get this written and posted yesterday but it never happened. Anyway, I'm sorry that the first prat of this chapter is about things in general. When I first wrote this chapter I spent a little time on the whole 'basilisk venom in hairbrush thing' then got rid of it so you'll have to wait to find out what happens. It isn't that exciting. Anyway, enough of my jabbering. Enjoy!
Chapter 9 – Year 3 Winter Term
Upon Danny's arrival at home he suffered through a very long, and very repeated, lecture on how dangerous what he did was but at the end of every lecture came praise. After the major ego deflation Danny promptly had it re-inflated with statements such as 'it must have been terrible for you', 'you were so brave' and 'just how powerful are you'. The summer holidays were used this time as a completely magic free break. Even Madeline refrained from using her magic though she did so under heavy protest. Like the summer holidays previously, the spare time flew by and before long Danny was back at Hogwarts and Harry went back out to France with Madeline.
In between Harry's 'things' or 'fits' as they could be called Harry studied magic with Madeline, her mother Aurora, her brothers fiancée Genevieve and her brother Xavier who taught him in between his own training. Harry learned basic medi-magic from Xavier and could now heal broken bones and internal wounds with both magic spells and potions depending on what he wanted to learn. Genevieve taught Harry herbology and divination since those were her favourite subjects.
Pierre, Madeline's fiancée also taught Harry when he came over for weekends and evening meals. Harry would learn a different spell every time Pierre visited though whilst Harry learnt them he couldn't always perform them. Pierre, since he was a trained Auror he taught Harry more defence and attack spells than Madeline taught Harry.
When Julienne came home from school in half term and end of term holidays Harry learned magic to change his appearance both spells that created an illusion and actual spells to change what he looked like. His favourite of these spells was the French charm to lengthen his hair and clear his already clear skin. When Julienne told Harry he was getting really girlie Harry just shrugged it off and blamed it on the fact that he'd been around Madeline, Genevieve and Julienne too much and that he was still a boy despite his long, elbow length hair.
Harry's magic strengthened beyond belief over the first few months back in France. Since the summer holidays any spells he used often needed toning down magic wise. His hair lengthening spells were so powerful that unless Harry dulled down the magic used then his hair would be sweeping the floor. Harry's summoning spells had not just one pillow but five pillows flying towards him and his banishing spells managed to send one of the tables in the mock classroom through the window as well as the pillow on the table. No-one could figure out what caused this magical booster but Philip, Madeline's father, seemed to know something.
Danny, at Hogwarts, was having a quiet year for once. Nothing had happened, except being warned that a certain Sirius Black was on the loose and after Danny. The now thirteen year old just shrugged this off though, after all Sirius Black couldn't be worse than Voldemort and Hogwarts was still the safest place to be. By the time Christmas came around though Danny was a little uncertain as to how safe he was. Sirius Black had nearly killed Ron after all and had terrified the Fat Lady. Deciding to go home for the Christmas holidays Danny and Harry spent most of their time learning more magic in France which seemed to have become the Dursleys second favourite place in the world, second only of course to their family home.
Since Danny was particularly bad at potions they all spent most of the time in the potions labs. Harry whizzed his way through the potions they were creating though he had an insufferable habit, insufferable only to Danny that he hummed when he made his potion. Danny did everything as correctly as he could though his potion never seemed to turn out right though, he had to admit that he found it a lot easier to read the instructions when they were as clearly labelled as the book in front of him was. Since Snape generally had the class work from the board and Danny's eyesight wasn't brilliant he tended to miss out certain parts though reading out of a book where the writing didn't mould together was a lot easier for him. Dudley, who had insisted on helping and making a potion, required Madeline to be right there next to him all the time because he didn't know the first thing about potion making. Dudley had just managed to explode his potion for the third time in the last hour when the door slammed open very loudly making the occupants of the room turn to stare at the doorway in surprise.
There in the doorway stood a tall woman, standing about 5foot 11inches, with long black hair that fell all the way to her waist in a long thick black braid. She had a nose with a slight hook but it wasn't so severe that you'd notice it. Her black eyebrows were perfectly symmetrical and neatly done. She had very, very dark eyes though. Danny observed they were probably black again. The woman wore a black skirt with dainty black high heels and a black top making her pale skin stand out. However, the open robe she wore was a pale pink.
"Vat iz all zis banging in 'ere!" The woman complained with a scowl. Danny immediately wanted to recoil and Dudley stuttered for a while reminding Danny painfully of Neville Longbottom in his classes. Madeline was about to answer the woman when a small teenager with long black hair ran up to the woman and hugged her.
"Sidonie! I've missed you!" Harry said as he hugged the woman. She, Sidonie, immediately relaxed and her scowl softened. Hugging him tightly Sidonie then released him and ran her fingers experimentally through his long, silky black hair.
"Bonjour Harry." Sidonie said with a gentle smile. Whilst Sidonie had in fact been raised in France with French as a first language she was also a brilliant English speaker and always managed to pronounce words precisely with only a little bit of her French heritage showing through. However, when she was angry she tended to revert to very French accented English words as Harry well knew. "I hope you are well."
"Very well Sidonie! Danny, Dudley and I were just practising our potions." Sidonie raised a perfect eyebrow questioningly.
"Really. So where is this Danny and Dudley? They are your brothers are they not?" Harry nodded and took the woman's hand pulling her towards the other boys. Grinning at each of his brothers Harry introduced them.
"Sidonie, this is Danny Potter and Dudley." He said pointing to each respectively. "Danny, Dudley, this is Sidonie Snape. She teaches me Potions."
"Très bien! I've been hoping to meet you both for a long time. Harry speaks so highly of you!" The woman said smiling at each of the boys. When her eyes landed on the smoking caldron in front of Dudley however her expression darkened and she scanned Dudley with her now narrowed eyes. "Why is your caldron smoking Dudley?"
"Because I didn't make it right?"
"Indeed." Danny was painfully reminded of his potions professor at Hogwarts. "But what did you do wrong?"
"I don't know…" Dudley looked down at his feet so he missed the angry expression that crossed over Sidonie's face. Luckily for Dudley Madeline quickly interrupted.
"He's a muggle Sidonie and this was his very first time in front of a caldron. I haven't let him do this before but today he insisted so he could spend time with Danny and Harry." Sidonie immediately relaxed and her stance became friendly again as a smile broke out on her face.
"A muggle managed to make this? Well, you've done rather well for someone with no magic." Dudley's head snapped up sharply in amazement. Sidonie didn't notice though as she had walked forwards and was leaning over the potion and potions book with her arm wrapped around Dudley's shoulder. "Ah! I see, you added the seeds before the weed. If you'd done the weeds first then they would have cushioned the seeds and stopped the explosion from when the potion touched them. Come, I'll help you this time Dudley and we shall get it right!"
Madeline quickly got out of the way since Sidonie had immediately got a look on her face that showed she was a woman on a mission and shouldn't be interrupted from this job. Harry gave Danny a grin before bouncing back to his caldron and Danny just watched in amazement as Sidonie got Dudley a new caldron and they painfully slowly started to re-prepare the ingredients.
"Best get back to your potion Danny." Madeline scolded. "Eef you leave it for much longer it will become useless."
"Oh right!" Danny jumped and continued with his potion. Three hours later Harry left the room with Madeline and Sidonie, Dudley and Danny left the room after they'd finished the potions they were making. They'd done a lot that day though. Danny had successfully made five potions and Dudley, with Sidonie's help had made three. Both boys learnt a lot with Sidonie there. Madeline had been great, they had nothing against her teaching, but it was obvious that Sidoine was much better at potions that the other French girl/woman. Danny and Dudley learnt a lot about the different properties each ingredient had and why certain ingredients had to be used in order to prevent explosions or the wrong reactions. It was wonderful and Danny found that potions weren't so bad…when you didn't have the Hogwarts potions master as a teacher. There was a problem with Sidonie though. Danny could finally see where Harry got that annoying habit of humming while he worked. Sidonie hummed and sang softly in between instructions to Dudley. Dudley found it embarrassing but Danny found it annoying. The only good thing about it was that Sidonie and Harry both had nice singing voices.
"You know, I've never liked potions." Danny admitted as Sidonie lead them down the corridor to find Madeline and Harry. Sidonie turned to him in shock,
"Really? Why not? You seemed to enjoy them just then."
"Well, normally I have a horrible teacher. He doesn't like me at all and always takes points off my house for the smallest of things. That and we don't work from the books, we work from the black boards and I have real trouble reading what's written there. All the words seem to just mould together and even if I copy them down I miss out instructions because I can't read what's written there."
"Oh dear, that's not good. Who's your teacher? Maybe I know him?" Sidonie offered with the sincerest of expressions on her face. Danny gave her a weak smile.
"Professor Snape." Sidonie's expression went from sincere to outrage.
"Professor Severus Snape at Hogwarts School of Witch craft and Wizardry perhaps?" Danny nodded weakly afraid of the anger in the woman's eyes. "Vell, I shall be 'having vords vith my brozer! When do you have to catch the train back to 'Ogvarts?" She said reverting back to her French accent in her anger.
"January third." Sidonie nodded and steared the boys away again.
"I shall be taking you straight to Hogwarts so I can have words with my…brother."
Okay. I need two decisions to be made by you if that's okay. Basically, it has been suggested that Dudley has magic. He's already ridden a broom and has made potions with Sidonie but I need to know whether you think he should get a wand and study spells and such. If the answer's yes then should he go to Hogwarts as well. I'll leave this up to you because it works for meeither way.
The second thing is that in the next few chapters (either the one coming up or the one after) I'll tell you about Harry's 'illness'. Now the thing with the illness is that it's not dangerous hence Harry can go to Hogwarts. What I want you to decide is whether Harry should go to Hogwarts at the end of the holidays for the rest of 3rd year or whether he should wait until 4th year to go. Either way it works for me but I hadn't decided when he should go.
Please write a review and give your answers. (Technically I asked three things when I meant to ast two but hey, you'll get over it.) Thank you!
Gemloux