A/N: Most characters and the main plot belongs to J.K Rowling.
Harry woke up the next day rather early, which was his plan. During the holidays, he had decided that he would go running around the lake every day to stay fit. He had put on a bit more muscle since the year before. Now, he didn't look anything like what he looked like before receiving his letter, he was a changed man, well boy, but that's just a little detail.
He cast a quick 'Tempus', and it told him that it was 6.30 in the morning. He decided that that was early enough, and it should be plenty enough to run around the lake without an issue. Hopping out of bed, he put on a pair of shorts and a Nottingham Forest top, something for which he was extremely grateful, as they were quite high quality. Of course, he could buy better, but he didn't need to, besides, he had already put on a few enchantments to make it extremely comfortable, and it also had a cooling charm on it.
Once he walked out the doors onto the school grounds, he immediately felt a blissful rush of air on his face, something which reminded him of flying. This year, he had decided that he would play Quidditch, he did after all have the Firebolt prototype, and it wouldn't do to let that go to waste. He had used it some while the summer, and discovered that it was extremely easy to control, it was very fast, and it was quite comfortable, compared to Neville's broom, which was a Shooting Star, it was like putting up a little fire up against a big wave of water, it had no chance. Of course, the Shooting star was one of the cheapest brooms on the market, so you couldn't expect much from it really. Neville's Gran had bought him it went he was seven, just to see if he was able to fly. The end result, is that he can't.
Harry began his run, and it felt good. While at Longbottom Manor, he hadn't really done much physical activity except a bit of flying. Neville claimed that he hadn't seen someone fly as well as Harry, and his Gran said something similar, although she did begin comparing him to other people who flew well. In the end, he was rather chuffed with the comparisons, only a few had beaten him in her opinion, and those who had, were much older than him, and had much more experience.
Harry came back into the Ravenclaw common room after his run, drenched in sweat, so he headed of into the shower, and seen as he still had a little while before the rest of his dorm awoke, he had a rather long shower. When he came out, he felt refreshed. By that time, his classmates were beginning to stir. Harry made his way down into the common room once again, and this time, Hermione was there waiting for him.
"Morning Hermione, sleep well ?" he asked her. She didn't seem to have noticed him before, as she was clearly confused as to who was taking to her when she first heard his voice. She normally recognized it, only this time she was away too engrossed in her books to pay the slightest attention to begin with.
"Good morning g Harry, I slept well, thank you. How about you ?" She replied after closing her book, and dropping it in her bag.
"It was fine, I woke up early and decided to go for a run, Sirius would never forgive me if I let go of all the training we did while the holidays."
Hermione then mumbled something which Harry didn't quite get, but ended up abandoning trying to find out when she wouldn't relent. "Anyway, want to head down to breakfast, or are you just going to mumble even more stuff ?" Harry asked after a few minutes of trying. Hermione, being the most mature of the group, decided to prove that by pulling her tongue at him, and walking out the door to Ravenclaw tower. Harry was surprised that Hermione actually knew how to act her age, and just stood there for a few seconds, before Hermione turned around, and sent him a glare which managed to make him move quicker than he remembered in a long time.
Together, they made their way down to the Great Hall in relative silence, and sat down at their table. Shortly after, Professor Flitwick came by, and gave them their timetable. They seemed to have more lesson periods this year, but they no longer had flying lessons.
As it was Wednesday, Harry looked at the lessons he would be having. His mood immediately went for a dive when he saw the lesson he had after lunch: DADA. He was so disappointed the night before when he had seen Lockhart at the teacher's table, Harry was hoping that he was just there to try and gain even more fame among the students, but then came Dumbledore's speech, and he announced the man's new position. Most boys groaned at this. Harry, Neville and Daphne all shared looks which clearly said 'Oh great, another year when we aren't going to learn much', whereas Hermione and Tracey both had looks which barely contained their excitement at the prospect of the ponce teaching them defence.
Harry didn't believe him to be anything spectacular, he was sure there was no way that he could have done everything he claims to have done. Harry had grown accustomed to sensing people's magic, well, magic in general, during the holidays, and when Lockhart had come near him, Harry didn't sense a great deal of power coming from him. He decided to stop glaring at the piece of parchment, as it wouldn't be a good idea to set it on fire on the first day.
He slowly finished his meal, with an eager Hermione looking at him. She seemed to be very impatient to get the year started. Harry was also happy that classes would resume, but he wasn't anywhere near Hermione's level of anticipation. He knew that he would miss Sirius and Remus, but he would be going home at Christmas, so at least he could see them then.
As soon as he finished, Hermione stood up impatiently, and began heading towards the doors to the Entrance Hall, and making her way to Ravenclaw tower to get her books, Harry not far behind, but he seemed to be losing ground as Hermione was just about running to the tower. It wasn't because they were going to be late, they were actually pretty early, she was just so excited for some reason.
Once they reached the common room, they both went their separate ways, and collected their stuff. Harry, deciding he couldn't be bothered to have to change the books he carried around with him every day, put a featherweight charm and expansion charm on the inside of his bag. He could only expand it a little because he had only ever gone over the theory, and never actually practised it, so he would have to try it more, so that he could make it bottomless if the need ever arose. He put all his books inside, and made his way back down, where he found Hermione waiting for him, looking at her watch as if he had been in there for hours.
"Took you long enough !" She said, as he reached the bottom of the stairs.
"Sorry, but I don't really see what's the rush about, I know you're excited about DADA, but that's not until this afternoon, and rushing to class isn't going to make it go any quicker" Harry said to his overly excited friend.
"Yes, well I want to get to the other classes too, I can't use magic much outside of school like some people, because I have to be careful of the muggles not seeing me, remember ?" she replied with a huff. Harry let out a little chuckle at this, and together, they made their way down to the Charms classroom.
It was now lunchtime, and Harry had never seen Hermione eat so quickly. "Calm down Hermione, there's no point in killing yourself just to get to a lesson" Hermione had been too excited for Harry's liking, it seemed like she was on fire, and was trying to turn it off by using all her energy.
"I'm not going to kill myself, I just really want to get started on defence with a better teacher than Quirell. Of course, Dumbledore was very good last year, but he was the Transfiguration teacher before, and I'm sure Lockhart will be able to show us many interesting things, especially considering everything in his books."
"Do you actually think that he pulled all that off, Hermione ? I mean look at him," he began, pointing towards the Head table, "all he actually does, is concentrate on showing off his pearly whites, and besides, look at the fourth years, they don't seem too happy with him."
Sure enough, when Hermione looked towards some of the fourth years, she noticed a lot of either disappointed looks, or annoyed looks which were being sent to the teacher.
"I'm sure they just messed it up for them, so he decided not to teach them something as a punishment." Hermione replied uncertainly, she didn't quite believe it herself. She knew there must have been a reason behind all the looks he was receiving, but she noticed that he seemed to be taking it more like admiration, something which Hermione could clearly tell it wasn't.
Harry just rolled his eyes at this, and shook his head. "Still fawning over Lockhart Hermione ?" Came a voice from behind. The two friends turned around, and noticed Neville was the one who had spoken. Hermione didn't dignify him with an answer, instead she just sent home a glare, and returned to her nearly finished lunch.
"She might be, but I pointed out to her the looks on the fourth years, and she didn't seem entirely confident any more."
"Well at least it's a little bit of progress, it wouldn't do to have her drooling after him" Neville said. Hermione sent him yet another glare, just to make sure the message had gone through his head.
"Anyways, come on Harry, it's time for our lesson" Hermione said trying to hide her excitement from her voice, but failing miserably.
Harry let out a groan, and Neville just laughed. Together, Harry and Hermione left for the DADA classroom, where the rest of the class was waiting. The boys seemed much less enthusiastic about the whole thing, whereas the girl were all whispering excitedly. Harry went with the rest of the boys, where he joined them in their silent contemplation of their entire lives. Hermione joined the girls, and was also whispering along with them, something that surprised Harry, because Hermione never really joined into the girls' conversations.
A couple of minutes after they reached the door, it opened, and revealed the teacher, who was dressed in extravagant robes, some that could be compared to Dumbledore. His hair was the complete opposite of Snape's, his was clean and wavy, compared to Snape's greasy hair. He came out of the door with a huge smile displayed on his face, a smile that made all the boys cringe, and gave the girls butterflies. He seemed to stand there for an eternity, just smiling down at his students, but it only lasted a few seconds. Harry hoped that his classes weren't going to be like that, or else he wouldn't be staying awake for many of them, not that he would anyways, he was sure that he wouldn't be learning anything new, he had gone over a lot of stuff over the holidays with Sirius and Remus, even Dumbledore had taught him a few handy spells.
"Good afternoon class, I'm Professor Lockhart, but of course, you already knew that" he said with a smile, the last part looking at all the blissful looks on all of the girls' faces. He then motioned for them all to enter the classroom. Harry sat down at the furthest point from the teacher's desk as possible, and was quickly joined by Michael Corner. All the girls sat on the front row, Hermione just in front of the teacher's desk along with Padma Patil.
"Now, let's begin. Here is a quiz to see how well you read the books assigned to you. I expect most of you to get at least 90% correct." Lockhart said, as he went around the classroom, giving out a test to each student. A huge smile was displayed on his face from the very beginning, and only grew wider when he appeared at Harry's table, only for it to falter at the look on his face, he looked bored, and completely uninterested in anything the man had to say. He had hoped to use the boy to help booster the sales of his books and grow even more famous. He made sure to regain his smile, making sure to display his pearly white teeth for everybody to see. "Very well, you may begin" he announced excitedly.
Harry looked at the parchment, and was surprised at the complete lack of questions revolving around any sort of defence, it was more of a quiz about Lockhart himself. Harry was tempted to reply to each question with a snide remark about the teacher, but refrained from doing so, and decided to draw. He looked towards the boys, and noticed half of them were sleeping, and the other half were either staring of into the distance, or drawing on their test. Next, he looked towards the girls, and noticed that half of them actually wore disappointed looks on their faces, one of them being Hermione, while the other half of them were scribbling down excitedly. Hermione looked at him, and he gave her a smirk that clearly said, 'I told you so'. Being the most mature of the group, she decided to pull her tongue at him, which in turn, made Harry laugh. The teacher looked up at this, and put down one of his own pictures which he was looking at. "Given the laughing, I take it you have all finished your tests" He got up from his chair behind his desk, and gathered up all of the tests. Once he reached his desk once again, he went over all of them, and was extremely disappointed with them, and it showed on his face. "Well, I must say, I am rather disappointed with the lack of studying on most of your part, a few of you, however, did exceedingly well." He finished with a big smile.
At that point, the bell decided to go off. "Ah, time flies when one is having fun, doesn't it. Class dismissed." He said with a slight chuckle. Most of the class as soon as they were dismissed, a few of the boys even ran out of the door. The teacher hadn't even noticed, because he had gone back to looking at his own portrait. Once Harry and Hermione were out of earshot, Hermione started ranting and raving about how useless the class was. They made their way to Transfiguration, and Professor McGonagall could tell which lesson they had just had, going solely on the looks on the faces of the majority of them. She didn't approve of the Headmaster's choice in teacher, but he had explained that he hadn't found anybody else for the job. She had suggested that e do it himself again, but he had countered her proposal by saying that he wouldn't be able to manage both his duties as Headmaster, and the added ones of being a teacher. She had to agree, that that would be a lot for one person to handle, especially considering that he was also Chief Warlock, and Supreme Mugwump.
She allowed all of the students to enter, and began her lesson.
It was now an hour before dinner, and Harry, Hermione, Neville, Tracey and Daphne had met up in the library, to see how each of their days had gone. Harry, Neville and Hermione were already there, and as soon as Daphne and Tracey walked in, Tracey walked up to the table, and immediately asked Hermione the question which had been on her tongue all day. "So, how great is he ?" she asked excitedly. However, her excitement didn't last long, seeing the look on her friend's face, and the disgusted looks on both boys' faces.
"It was a huge disappointment, that's what it was. He gave us a test to find out if we had read his books, but none of the questions had anything to do with the defence part of the books, they were all personal questions, like 'What is Gilderoy Lockhart's favourite colour ?', I mean really, we aren't here to know the life of a teacher, we're here to learn about defence" she said with a huff, something she had been doing quite often since their DADA class. Tracey had a look of utter shock, whereas Daphne tried to make one similar, but failed miserably.
They then went on to tell each other about their days, and then proceeded to go to dinner. They still received a few odd looks, and even a few glares, for their choice of friends, especially with Neville being a Griffindor. They paid them no mind, and just acted as if nothing had happened.
A/N: Thank you for reading, we reached over 100k words in the last chapter, and I hadn't even noticed. Thank you for all the support you've given on it, it really helps. I know I said that I would be making longer chapters, but I haven't really had much time to write, so I thought that you might like an update anyway.
Replies:
Harry still has his scar because it never disappeared fully, it still remains on his head, but it's not as noticeable as before.
You asked why is it that I put the infirmary on the fourth floor, whereas it's apparently on the second, well, I looked up on internet to see which floor it's on, and it said that it was on the fourth, so maybe internet was wrong, but I'm not going to change it now.