"What happened to Travers?" The older years whispered as everyone made their ways to Breakfast.
"Didn't you hear?" Another said. "Charlotte Travers cursed that Potter girl with a hair loss spell last night, Potter's cat took it instead. Travers screamed like a Banshee when she looked in the mirror this morning. Woke all of the Ravenclaw Tower up and refused to leave the dorm until Flitwick got Madam Pomfrey in there. Travers still doesn't have hair, it'll take ages for it to grow back."
"This is why I don't deal with the younger years, especially her year," The other said. "I'll deal with the First and Third years but not hers, not after last year with Quirrell and her."
"At least she prevented You-Know-Who from coming back. I really don't want to deal with a war, my mum said the last one was bad enough."
Rebekah quickly walked past the small group of older students and rushed into the hall, taking her seat. She placed Wanderings With Werewolves on the table, opening it as she piled food onto her slightly larger than normal plate. She piled more food than normal; Eggs in a basket, french toast, a small piece of monkey bread, a sugar waffle, and a small array of berries and a single banana.
"You're hungry," Pansy said and eyed Rebekah's plate.
She shrugged and dug in, hiding her mouth with a hand. "Yeah."
Breakfast was quiet for the second year Slytherins. Rebekah had Pansy to her left, then Daphne, Nott and Goyle. Draco sat across from her with Blaise, Davis, Bulstrode and Crabbe. Rebekah and Draco sat closest to the year above, and Goyle and Crabbe sat next to the year below.
"Hey," The third year nudged Rebekah, gaining her attention and they nodded towards the Ravenclaw table. "What you do to get Travers pissed at you?"
"Nothing," Rebekah said. "I think she aimed a hair loss curse at me. Emperor took it and he lost all of his hair. She got what was coming for her for trying to hurt us."
The third year, Rebekah recognised her as Rachel Zimmer from last year's feast, snorted and shrugged her shoulders in laughter. "Good. She's a Sixth year, I think. She believes she's Merlin's gift to us, tries to force some of my year to do her work."
"Mail!" Someone shouted as they saw the first flock of birds come in.
Rebekah was too enticed by her book to realise that Corvus flew straight for her, he only stopped and daintily sat on a bronze milk jug in front of her. He jutted his foot to Draco, who took the package off and gave the bird a treat before Rebekah looked up and gave Corvus a good ruffle of the feathers. He flew away with a soft caw and Draco opened his package.
"Mum sent some of her baking!" He said as the fresh smell of cinnamon and vanilla wafted from the package. The group hummed in anticipation as he handed out the treats to everyone and they ate them, savouring the delicious flavour. He opened a letter and read it, then said, "Oh, Rebekah. My mum says that your idea of putting cinnamon and vanilla made the kitchen smell so good and she loves how the pastries came out. She also made muffins with sugary lemons. Damn, they sound good."
He handed her a beautiful golden muffin and she peeled the wrapper off before eating a piece. She moaned a little, it tasted so good, almost like the ones from her favourite London bakery. It would need a bit of white chocolate to make it perfect but it was close.
"It is good," She said behind a hand, finishing it quickly. "Mm. Snape's handing out the time tables."
The new Slytherins looked in awe as Rebekah took her with a simple "Thanks," because when one of them tried to do the same, Snape gave them the evil eye until they said it properly. They shivered for a moment but eventually shook the glare off. They also looked on in jealousy with open jaws as they watched the Second year Slytherins eat their mouth-watering treats.
"Should I assume that you will be trying out for Quidditch again, Miss Potter?" Snape said after he handed out all of the schedules to Slytherin House.
"Yes, sir," Rebekah said and took her gaze away from the parchment. "Though, I'll have to improve my Transfiguration and History of Magic grades I think."
"Yes…. See to it that you receive the right grades for your efforts," Snape said and continued back to his seat at the High Table.
"Do you know where Flint is?"
"There's about twenty-five Seventh years and a lot of them would be sleeping in, so about ten seats in from the doors," Zimmer mumbled. "Yeah, he's probably next to one of the Seventh years."
"Thanks," Rebekah said, getting out of her seat and gesturing for Draco. "Come with me. I want to know when the Quidditch trials are on and I don't want to go alone."
"Uh, fine,"
Marcus Flint sat at the table, looking like he just rolled out of bed but Rebekah wouldn't be surprised if that was the case. He grumbled as his friends talked but he stuffed his mouth with food. It reminded her of Dudley when he was starved of food because the primary school couldn't feed him enough. He was stuffing his face with each mouthful and he was still able to close it fully.
"Oi, Marcus. There's some kids that want ya," The boy next to Flint said and nudged him in the side.
He stopped eating and looked at them. "Oh, what'cha want?"
"When are the Quidditch trials?"
One of the boys snorted and looked her up and down. "Are you sure you want to do that? You're a bit short, ain'tcha?"
"Leave her alone," Flint snapped at the blond Sixth year. "Tomorrow at five. Are you trying out for Chaser?"
"Yeah," Rebekah said. "I'd do Seeker but Draco's trying out for it."
"Yeah, is he? We'll see tomorrow who's better out of you two. Your father sent me a letter a few minutes ago. We'll see what position you get, Malfoy," Flint turned away and glared at the blond who snickered. "See ya tomorrow, Potter."
Rebekah nodded her acknowledgement and turned swiftly, going back to her seat. She wanted to finish the last chapter of Wanderings With Werewolves before classes began. It was quite interesting when it gave the facts. It rambled on about how great Lockhart was and his hair, and how his previous achievements influenced his newer ones.
The Second year Slytherins had History of Magic with the Ravenclaws for the first two lessons of being back. Professor Binns began to introduce the first half of the curriculum. The Medieval Assembly of European Wizards lecture was an hour and thirty-two minutes without pause. Most of the students dozed off as Binns continued to speak, Rebekah could barely keep her eyes open and she yawned with a covered hand, placing her wand on the table.
She found out during the summer that if she wanted, her wand could act as a recording device. So Rebekah placed her left wrist with the bracelet on the desk and leaned to take a quick nap, willing her Magic into the shrunken wand to record the rest of the lesson.
"Ah, Miss Potter," Professor Binns said just before she left, waving her over.
"Yes?"
"Hello. When I give out homework, can you write yours on parchment? I don't mind you doing school work and notes on your Muggle parchment but I would greatly prefer if everyone's homeworks were done on Wizarding parchment."
"Yeah, sure," Rebekah said and shrugged. "But I'm not changing my writing utensils. Quills, ink and I don't mix very well."
"Ah, of course," He said, his Ghost form floated in the air and dipped every so often. "Use your Muggle quills. I don't mind but just don't write in those coloured inks. I've seen some students beginning to write in pink, purple and even green. Nasty to read."
"Of course, sir. Thank you," Rebekah hurried to find her friends.
The next lesson came to Transfiguration, and all the Slytherins were relieved, even if McGonagall was the teacher. The stern professor gave everyone a single beetle and told them to turn it into a button. It shouldn't have been hard but even Granger had some difficulty with the squirming beetles.
Rebekah held hers in her hand, letting it scurry around until she was able to turn it into a bright blue button. It took several, long tries but she did it after taking her time and centring herself and her Magic. She imagined that the shiny blue beetle suddenly turned into a nice button, she said the words and flicked her wand hand.
McGonagal had no idea how Goyle had turned his beetle into a blueberry.
"Mr Goyle, it won't taste like a blueberry," McGonagall tried to warn him but he still quickly picked it up before eating it. He grimaced at the taste and made her sigh deeply. "Because you only changed its physical form…. Alright, that is enough for today. Please write a short essay on how changing a physical form will not change the actual composition of the object transfigured. Hand it in next lesson."
McGonagall threatened to make it a whole foot if they didn't stop mumbling, that made them shut up. After leaving the classroom and her hearing range, they grumbled about getting homework on the first day. Rebekah quickly jotted down her homework on a single piece of parchment that was only half a dozen inches long. She still refused to use a quill and none of her teachers would protest because she still wrote on parchment.
Rebekah had been successful in missing him every time he came calling her name today, but she wouldn't be able to do that in his lesson. She needed to get a good grade in that class, else Snape wouldn't allow her to join the Quidditch team.
She dreaded Lockhart's lesson.
They had thirty minutes to finish a long quiz about Gilderoy Lockhart. Somehow, Rebekah didn't know how at all, she got half marks on the quiz while most of the class barely got a single one. It was understandable, no one cared enough about Lockhart and his own ambitions to care enough to memorise them needlessly. Well, Granger with her fascination with the egoistic man, got full marks and several House points for it.
Rebekah wouldn't really class Cornish Pixies as the foulest creatures Lockhart could have shown them. They were only classed as XXX in the classification of creatures, any competent Wizard could cope with Pixies. Gilderoy Lockhart was not a competent Wizard because as soon as the Pixies were let out, he jumped far back to protect himself.
The Pixies were not even a foot tall with bright blue skin and long, pointed ears. Their voices were so high, Rebekah couldn't understand a word said. It was almost above a Human's hearing range. For being so small, they were very strong as they hauled Longbottom up into the air with his ears.
They were fast creatures that loved making a mess, evident by their chaotic behaviour. They shot through the window, grabbed ink bottles and splashed onto the desks. Ripped the parchment from books, tore the papers and flung the picture of a smiling Lockhart from the walls. Two of them began going through everyone's bags, they twiddled through each book and quill, tearing and bending some of the feathers.
One got too close to Rebekah's stuff, she quickly grabbed it by the ears and gave it a harsh glare as it froze and frowned. "Not my things."
It tried to nod and smiled after being let go, flying off to Lockhart's desk and rummaging through his comb drawer. He had a lot of combs. The Pixie kept throwing each comb out of the drawer, snapping some of the teeth as it tested the strength.
Lockhart tried to get the students to round them up, he twirled his wand as he shouted, "PESKIPIKSI PESTERNOMI!" but one of the Pixies took his wand, gave it a long lick and chucked it out of the window with a shrill laugh.
The once pretty chandelier gave into Longbottom's weight and crashed down onto the ground. It splintered as he stood up as the bell rang. Everyone sighed in the classroom, this stupid lesson was over and they could leave. They rushed to the door to get out.
"Well, I'll ask you to put every one of these little creatures in the cage," Lockhart said and quickly disappeared into the office without looking back.
"Stupid man," Rebekah said, then cupped her hand around her mouth. "All of you, cage now or I'll put an iron horseshoe around each of your necks!"
That made the Pixies freeze in their mess-making, they piled the pros and cons and quickly decided to go back to their cage. Pixies were closely related to Fairies and thus the Fae Folk, and they absolutely detested Cold Iron because it could burn them. They also hated lemons, limes, oranges and any other citrus fruits, and salt.
They calmly sat in the cage and sulked, not very happy but not too unamused as Lockhart came back out and grimaced at them. He suggested that Rebekah go and give them back to Professor Kettleburn, he was the one to give him the creatures.
Pixies might have been classed as XXX but if you were Lockhart, they were XXXXXXX.