6

Defence Against the Dark Arts

Gabrielle Delacour was almost late for class again. She had overslept, and almost missed potions with Professor Slughorn this morning, and given that the potions classroom was just around the corner from the Slytherin Common Room, Slughorn had had a hard time believing her excuse that she'd gotten lost when she arrived late. Whilst she had actually gotten lost on the way to Defence Against the Dark Arts, she couldn't imagine Professor Malfoy being quite as accommodating as Slughorn, and breathed a sigh of relief as she managed to run and catch the tail end of the crowd that was filtering into the classroom.

"Take your seats," Malfoy's high, clear voice cut across the room like an icy knife, "Quickly now! We haven't got all day." The students rushed to their seats and began rummaging in their bags for quills and parchment and textbooks. Gabrielle pulled out her copy of The Essential Defence Against the Dark Arts, and opened to the first page. Her sister Fleur had charmed all of her textbooks to translate into French as she read them, and Gabrielle broke into a smile as the letters on the page rearranged themselves into neat golden swirls written in her native language. Professor Malfoy instructed them to turn to page thirteen, where they were going to revise the fire-making spell. After only a few lines of reading, Gabrielle realised that she had yet to learn the fire-making spell, Incendio, and just as she had on her first couple of weeks at Hogwarts, she would be playing catch-up to the rest of her class. In fact, Gabrielle had come to find that the only two things she excelled at compared to her classmates was flying, naturally, and Charms. Defence Against the Dark Arts wasn't her worst subject, but it had been a rather woolly class at Beauxbatons, and that meant Gabrielle was finding holes in her own knowledge and often found herself having to catch up instead of being able to keep up.

"The Incendio charm is a useful piece of elemental magic, simple to perform, but effective in many different ways," Professor Malfoy began, pacing back and forth across the front of her desk, "for example…" the Professor pointed her wand at the classrooms' empty fireplace and repeated the incantation, sending a small jet of orange flame into the fireplace, lighting a stack of logs on fire. "However, it has a multitude of uses outside of keeping warm and cooking food, for instance; if the Auror's were trying to catch a dark wizard escaping on a broomstick, they might light the tail of the broom on fire to stop the criminal from flying away. Incendio may also be used in duelling, to set an opponent's robes on fire, or perhaps to destroy unwanted objects, like copies of the Daily Prophet… or that note you just tried to pass to Sabrina under the table, Mr. Richardson!" The Professor turned to a boy in the third row, and with a flick of her wand had summoned the offending note to her desk and lit it on fire. "Five points from Gryffindor, for not paying attention." The Gryffindors in the class groaned, and glared daggers at the offending boy.

"Now," the Professor continued, and with a wave of her wand, summoned a large candle for each student, "I want each of you to practice the Incendio charm on the candles in front of you. Do be careful," Professor Malfoy said warningly, "the charm is quite tricky to get right. Practice reducing the power of Incendio so that only the wick of the candle catches fire." Gabrielle began to read through the passage of her textbook that taught her the proper way to cast Incendio, and was beginning to practice the wand movement when some of the students began to cry out, and Gabrielle turned to see that a girl on the back row had set her entire candle on fire, candlestick and all. Professor Malfoy walked calmly towards her desk, and snuffed out the flames with a simple flick of her wand. "Be less forceful," the Professor advised, "move your wand more delicately, and try holding it lightly between your fingers." Gabrielle tried to concentrate on the Professor's advice as she attempted the spell for the first time herself. Gabrielle gave her wand a delicate flick and pronounced the incantation as clearly as she could. Nothing happened. Gabrielle tried again, this time with a little more force in her voice. A small spark shot from her wand and sizzled on the corner of her desk, leaving a small scorch mark. The third time she tried, she succeeded in summoning a small burst of fire that melted away the side of her candle, but failed to light the wick. Looking around, Gabrielle could see that just over half the class had already managed to light the wicks of their candles, and were now gleefully observing all the others who were still to manage it. After four more attempts, Gabrielle was beginning to get frustrated, and on her final attempt she recited the incantation with so much venom that the burst of flame she produced knocked her candle flying, which sent the entire class ducking for cover as it flew overhead like a tiny comet, leaving a long trail of fire streaking out over the desks.

"A very good example of why it is important not to cast spells in anger," Professor Malfoy said coolly as she extinguished the candle in mid-air. "I think that will do for this morning, pack up your things and head for lunch." The entire class seemed to breathe a sigh of relief as they hurriedly crammed their textbooks into their bags and rushed towards the Great Hall. Gabrielle hung back, deliberately taking her time packing away her things. After the rest of the class had left, Gabrielle walked over to the Professor, who sat writing at her desk.

"Professor," Gabrielle said meekly. Professor Malfoy looked up from her desk, lowering her reading glasses.

"Gabrielle, I thought I told you head for lunch?"

"I'm sorry about the candle Professor," she began, unsure of where exactly she was going.

"Well, I must say, that was the first time I've seen that happen in my short time teaching, but the classroom is the place to make mistakes. You have enough power for the spell, you just need to learn to control it, and focus it."

"I seem to be so far behind the rest of the class."

"That's because you spend too much time inside your own head," the Professor replied bluntly. "Professor Flitwick sings your praises from dusk till dawn; he's never done talking about how good you are at Charms, compares you to some of the Fifth Years even. Obviously Beauxbatons has a very good charms teacher, but for other subjects, where you are admittedly a little behind, you seem to be in such a huge rush to catch up to your classmates that you end up forcing your spells and making mistakes. Try to take it easy, and not worry so much about catching up to the rest of the class. You'll get it eventually." The Professor handed Gabrielle her candle, and instructed her to practice on her own in the Common Room.

After giving her thanks, Gabrielle walked from the classroom and joined the Slytherin table in the Great Hall. Regina and Marcus were already sat in their usual spots. Gabrielle shuffled onto the end of the Quidditch teams bench, and began tucking into a Cornish Pasty, a kind of hard pastry filled with meat, vegetables, and potatoes that Gabrielle had taken a liking to during her last visit to the school. She had just begun to ask Regina about her classes when she heard the sound of almost a hundred owls screeching overhead. The mail had arrived. Gabrielle easily picked out her Eagle Owl, Elisé, who was up to her usual tricks, annoying all of the other birds by flying around and performing loops and barrel rolls. Eventually getting bored, Elisé swooped down and landed gently next to Gabrielle, dropping a small handful of letters in her lap. The first was a small letter from her manager at the Holyhead Harpies Youth Team, detailing their target scores for the last three games of the season, and the next was a letter from her parents, wishing her luck at her new school, and reminding her to write home every week. Gabrielle was just about finished reading a postcard from her friends at Beauxbatons when Julie, the Irish girl from the train, cried out across the table, causing Elisé to screech angrily and disappear into the rafters.

"Merlin's saggy left one! Have a look at this!" Students crowded around as the redhead spread a copy of the Daily Prophet over the table for everyone to see. The cover of the newspaper was dominated by a full-page photograph of Ginny Weasley, with the headline in enormous bold writing: GINEVRA WEASLEY UNDESIRABLE NO.1. Julie turned the page and the group read the article furiously.

The Department of Magical Law Enforcement is appealing for any information on the whereabouts of Ginevra Molly Weasley, who is wanted in connection with the suspected murder of Harry James Potter on the eve of July 27th of this year. Miss Weasley is considered by the DMLE to be highly dangerous, and should be not be approached under any circumstances. The Ministry of Magic is offering a 1,000 Galleon reward for any information that leads to the capture of Miss Weasley.

Yesterday evening, the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Gawain Robards, approached Miss Weasley in her family home to invite her to accompany him to the Ministry and co-operate with the Department's investigation into the suspected murder of Mr. Potter, but was instead viciously attacked by Miss Weasley who later fled the scene on a red Cleansweep Twelve racing broom. Whilst Mr. Robards sustained only minor injuries and is recovering at home with his family, Miss Weasley, commonly known as Ginny, continues to evade capture and remains a great threat to the safety of the wizarding community. It is now believed that Miss Weasley could be affiliated with the radical group known as the Wizard's United Liberation Front, and Minister for Magic, Kingsley Shacklebolt, has instructed the Auror Department to begin a mass capture of known members of the group.

"Well that's just complete nonsense!" Gabrielle spat, only realising that she had spoken in French after the growing group looked up at her with confused expressions. After repeating herself in English, the arguments started in earnest. Regina, thankfully, seemed to share Gabrielle's opinion that there was no way that Ginny would ever do anything to hurt Harry, and argued back strongly against anyone in the crowd who had chosen to believe the Prophet. Eventually, Professor Sprout came scurrying down to break up the ruckus and ordered everyone back to their seats, leaving Gabrielle to chew angrily on the last few mouthfuls of her pasty while the students whispered to themselves about the Prophet.

"I wonder," Marcus said, leaning to whisper in Gabrielle's ear, "did Gawain Robards mess up his Incendio charm too?" Gabrielle gave him a sharp elbow in the ribs as he continued to give her a good-natured teasing about her candle flying across the classroom. It put Gabrielle in a better mood as she headed to Herbology, but she could still hear students whispering about the article. She found it hard to believe that anyone could think Ginny would try and kill Harry, but her classmates continued to whisper about it over their Puffapods in the greenhouse.

The chatter hadn't died by the end of that afternoon either, as Gabrielle made her way into the Common Room after her last class of the day with Professor Sprout, the students all seemed to be huddled around the fire with a copy of the Daily Prophet spread over the coffee table. There were a lot of theories starting to fly around the castle, ranging from the Prophet's version of events being exactly true, to the crazy kind of theories, such as one Gabrielle had heard in Herbology that involved someone impersonating Ginny with Polyjuice potion and doing horrible things for the WULF while keeping the real Ginny locked away. The conversation only started to turn away from Ginny when dinner began to approach. Gabrielle was sitting at a quiet table at the back of the Common Room practicing the Incendio charm she'd struggled with earlier in the day when Regina plonked herself down in an adjacent armchair.

"Nervous?" she asked, twisting the ends of her long, dark hair into a tight ponytail.

"About what?" Gabrielle asked, trying to focus on the wick of her candle, and keeping a gentle grip on her wand.

"They're picking the Hogwarts Champions after dinner, everyone's talking about it over there." Regina had tried to make her voice sound flippant, but Gabrielle could hear a slight quiver in the older girls' voice.

"I'm not too interested," Gabrielle replied, "the Goblet will pick the older students, powerful witches and wizards. Maybe you should be nervous," Gabrielle teased, "I bet it picks you! You get picked for everything; Prefect, Head Girl, Team Captain, Neville's Assistant. May as well be a champion while you're at it, if you can squeeze it in to your timetable."

"It's not funny, Frenchie!" Regina said sourly, flicking her wand lazily at Gabrielle's candle and lighting the wick non-verbally, "this tournament is bad news, trust me. You were here for the TriWizard Tournament, I don't need to remind you about how that went." Gabrielle nodded solemnly, thinking back to her first time at Hogwarts all those years ago, watching her sister battle a dragon, being submerged in the Black Lake, and then seeing Cedric Diggory's body lying outside the maze after the Third Task.

"Who do you think will get picked?" Gabrielle asked.

"As much as I hate the idea, I hope I do get picked," Regina replied, "I can't stand the thought of anyone except a Sixth or Seventh Year getting picked. I mean, could you have taken on a dragon in Second Year?" Gabrielle shook her head, beginning to realise the seriousness of tonight's dinner. Every students name from Second Year to Seventh had been put into the Goblet of Fire, realistically, Gabrielle could get picked. Still, the Goblet of Fire picked the best students from each school, or in this case the best three from Hogwarts. Her sister Fleur had been Beauxbatons' best Charms student, and was in the top bracket for everything else bar Quidditch. Gabrielle was nowhere near as talented as her sister, or as Regina, or even as most of her class, if she was being honest. Unless they were going to have eight Quidditch tournaments in a row, Gabrielle was confident that the Goblet of Fire wasn't going to pick the transfer student who was struggling to light a candle.

Authors Notes

Hi everyone,

Again, I must apologise for the wait on this chapter. College is taking up big chunks of my time, but I'm going to try and write a chapter ahead in an attempt to keep the updates somewhat consistent. That being said, I hope you liked this chapter.

I was really pleased with the response to my last Authors note, and if we could aim to get 2-3 reviews per chapter, I'd be delighted! I'm keen to find out what you think of Narcissa Malfoy as a Professor, and who's name you think will come out of the Goblet of Fire. So, if you would be so kind and give me any feedback, maybe you could answer a couple of these questions for me:

1. Who do you think will be selected as a Hogwarts Champion?

2. Which Schools would you like to see in the Tournament?

3. Where will Ginny go next?

4. What other classes would you like to see in the upcoming chapters?

Thanks again for reading this chapter! I've also posted a poll on my profile, so if you guys wouldn't mind taking the time to vote, that would be awesome!

IronMan.