Chapter 5

Finally, finally, after that long hour was over, Madam Pomfrey let me go back to classes. Consulting my schedule, I found that I was supposed to be in Defense Against the Dark Arts with the famous Professor Potter. To be honest, I was a little nervous. After all, he was in almost all of my school books, and now I was meeting him! After a few wrong turns, I found the right corridor and, taking a deep breath, walked in the classroom.

Professor Potter was in the middle of saying something to the whole class, which was gathered around his desk. But when I walked in, every head turned my way, which was highly embarrassing. Rose caught my eye and smiled.

"Hello, are you Allie Lancaster?" asked Professor Potter.

"Yes, sir," I said. My voice sounded very high pitched.

"Well, it's nice to meet you, Miss Lancaster," he said. He seemed to sense my discomfort. "If you'll just put your books away and join us right here, I'll continue our lesson." I quickly threw my satchel down next to the bag that I recognized as Rose's and hurried to the front of the room. I noticed that a lot of the students were staring openly at Professor Potter in awe, and I quickly checked to make sure I wasn't doing the same.

"Now, who can help catch Miss Lancaster up on what we've been discussing?" A few hands went up. "Yes, Mr. Scamander?"

A boy who looked about my age with curly, dirty blonde hair and rather dreamy looking blue eyes said, "We were talking about the Conjunctivitus Curse." I noticed that a boy who looked like he might be his twin sat at his right.

"Good, Lysander. Now, can someone else tell me what the Conjunctivitus Curse does?" I saw Rose's hand shoot up into the air. "Yes, Ro- Miss Weasley?"

Rose smiled, apparently thinking how strange it was for her uncle to call her by her last name. "The Conjunctivitus Curse, when aimed correctly, causes great pain to the eyes. It can be used to incapacitate an animal or wizard, and it is one of the few curses that will effectively hurt a dragon." She and Professor Potter both smiled at some kind of inside joke.

"Excellent. Five points for Gryffindor." As this class was all Gryffindor, no one seemed to care that the professor was slightly biased to his niece. "Now, I'm going to demonstrate. Who wants to volunteer to be my subject?" Everyone visibly leaned back. "Only joking. Merlin, Andrew, don't look at me like that! I have a practice dummy." The class sighed with relief. Professor Potter walked over to a closet in the back of his room and wheeled out a mannequin-ish thing with realistic, blinking eyes. He pulled out his wand. "Conjunctivitus!" The mannequin began to scream in agony, its cloth hands moving to rub its eyes. Professor Potter lowered his wand, and the mannequin went back to normal. "Now, everyone go back to your seats and you can have a go at it. Each of you will have a dummy to practice on. All you have to do is concentrate very hard, say Conjunctivitus, and jab and twist your wand, like this." He demonstrated. "Keep a firm grip and be very careful with your aim; I don't want to send anyone to the Hospital Wing this class. Remember, this is really advanced stuff for third year, so don't worry if you don't get it right away. I just thought it would be fun to try something a little challenging on our first day." All the students trooped back to their desks. Professor Potter then muttered something that I guessed was a Banishing Charm. The closet door opened and a dozen mannequins wheeled themselves out, each one stopping at a desk. "You may work with partners."

Rose and I sat down. "Are you alright?" asked Rose. "I'm so sorry; I didn't know the curse would hit you!"

"I'm fine," I assured her, grinning. "At least I got a lot of candy out of it. And I got to miss Potions."

Obviously satisfied, Rose pulled out her wand, said very clearly, "Conjunctivitus!", and jabbed her wand at the mannequin.

There was a puff of smoke, and as it dispersed, we saw that the mannequin's eyes had vanished. "Oops," she mumbled, blushing. "Um, Unc- Professor?" He looked up from the student he was helping across the room. "I think we may need a new dummy. Or at least more eyes." He smiled, pointed his wand at the mannequin, and new eyes appeared on it, blinking rapidly. "Thanks!"

"My turn," I said. I tried to concentrate on the mannequin's eyes, imagining a million needles shooting out of my wand and stabbing them. "Conjunctivitus!" I jabbed my wand. The mannequin immediately started rubbing its eyes, but it didn't appear to be in pain. Just annoyed.

"Almost," said Rose encouragingly. I smiled. It was nice to know that I wasn't, as I had feared that I was going to be, the worst in the class. In fact, it appeared that Rose's mine were the best results as of then in the class. Lysander Lovegood and his twin seemed to have managed to set their mannequin on fire, while Roxanne and her partner's hadn't done anything, much like most of the others in the room. In my peripheral vision, I saw Professor Potter headed our way.

"Very good, Miss Lancaster! You too, Ro- Miss- Oh, what the heck, Rose." Rose and I smiled.

"Professor?" I said.

"Miss Lancaster?"

"D'you think you could show me and Rose what we're doing wrong?" Rose nodded.

"Sure," he said, kneeling down so that we were all on the same level. "Let's see it."

"You first, Rose," I said.

She pulled the mannequin in front of her and said, "Conjunctivitus!", pointing her wand neatly. The eyes disappeared again.

"That was very good, Rose. I think your only problem was your concentration. If you concentrate just a little bit harder, you'll have it down."

Rose screwed up her face in concentration. "Conjunctivitus!" This time, the mannequin immediately started screaming and rubbing its eyes. Rose lowered her wand.

"Great!" said Professor Potter, silencing the mannequin. "Your turn, Allie."

"Conjunctivitus!" I poked my wand at the mannequin as hard as I could, imagining the needles again. But this time, the mannequin didn't even rub its eyes; it just started blinking faster.

"I think your problem is what you're concentrating on. What are you thinking of when you perform the curse?" I told him about the needles. "Well, that's a good idea, but we need it to be more painful than needles." He laughed at the expression on my face. "Don't be afraid to be violent, Allie. Think of the person you detest most in the world, and imagine what you would like to do to their eyes."

I saw a brief but vivid mental picture of Scorpius with hot knives being swiped across his eyes, then felt a twinge of guilt. "Ready?" I nodded.

"Conjunctivitus!" The mannequin gave a shrill cry and clapped its hands over its eyes.

"Great job!" said Professor Potter. "Knew you two could do it."

By the end of class, Rose, Lysander's twin (I later learned that his name was Lorcan) and I were the only ones who had successfully performed the curse. Our homework was simply to practice the curse ("NOT on other students!" said Professor Potter as a few boys raised their wands at each other with mischievous grins.) He then gave Rose, Lorcan, and I each five points for Gryffindor and sent us, high-fiving each other, to our next class, which happened to be History of Magic, possibly the most boring class ever.

Professor Binns, a ghost who had been teaching, according to Rose, since before Professor Potter had come to school, could make even interesting topics sound dull. The whole class was spent taking notes on the famous Dark wizard Grindelwald. I was still getting used to writing with a quill and managed to splatter ink all over my notes. Fortunately for me, Rose noticed and taught me a charm to siphon away the excess ink.

In our last class of the day, Herbology with the Ravenclaws, I met Professor Longbottom, Clarice's dad. We were learning about a plant called Mimbulus Mimbletonia. It looked a lot like a cactus, except it was grey, lumpy, and had no splinters. According to Professor Longbottom, the big one that he was showing as an example in the front of the greenhouse was his own, and he had had it since his fifth year. Most of the students looked awed, but Clarice looked rather bored, as if she had heard this story many times before. I figured I wouldn't be too happy if my dad was my teacher either.

During dinner, which was my first incident-free meal at Hogwarts, (well, not entirely. Hugo managed to spill hot gravy on James. The resounding whack as James's hand met the back of Hugo's head echoed all over the Great Hall, although Hugo seemed to be fine.) Professor McGonagall stood up and made an announcement.

"Attention, students." The hall immediately fell silent. "As many of you know, this year Hogwarts will be hosting an annual exchange student program. We will have students from the Durmstrang Institute and Beauxbatons Academy residing here, and for the first time, we will also be hosting students from an American school, Rolaires Academy. The Durmstrang students have already arrived, as most of you have probably noticed, and Beauxbatons and Rolaires are on their way. I know that you will treat them all with greatest respect."

As soon as she finished, the hall erupted with excited chatter and the scraping of fork against plate.

Later that night in the Common Room, Rose and I sat by the fire, doing our homework. James and Hugo were playing a game of wizard's chess ("This set was my dad's," Hugo had told us proudly) as Lily watched interestedly. While the three of them were distracted by James's bishop, which was busy clubbing its way through a line of pawns, I quickly told Rose about Malfoy's note.

"What?" she said loudly. James, Hugo, and Lily stared. "Um, I've just realized. Our um, History of Magic essay has to be, er, six inches. I thought we had to do seven." They all rolled their eyes. Apparently this was a normal Rose thing. "Let me see it!" she whispered.

I pulled it out of my pocket. "Alright, but you can't keep on screaming! I don't want everyone to know." She nodded, snatched the parchment out of my hands, and opened it.

"I can't believe it," she said, rereading it. "It really was Malfoy. This is his handwriting; I was his Potions partner today. Wow, this is really unlike him. Maybe… no, even he wouldn't stoop that low… after all, he's just met you… Allie, this is the first time you've met him, right?"

"Yes, but what does it matter? And what are you even going on about? Honestly, I don't see why you're not in Ravenclaw."

Rose rolled her eyes. "Because the Sorting Hat put me in Gryffindor, you prat. Well, anyways, I was just thinking maybe he's trying to soften you up so he can do something to you again… but like I said, I don't think he would go so low. Besides, he hasn't got the brains for it. Well, he has, but I don't think he would do that. I don't trust him, though. My dad said our families have been enemies for centuries. Stupid pureblood maniacs."

"Oh," I said, not quite sure what to say. "Well, maybe he had to. Like for punishment."

"No, he got detention. We all did. Well, except you, of course."

"Oh, Merlin, Rose! I'm so sorry you got detention because of me!"

She smiled. "Nah, it's alright. It's with Hagrid, and he won't make us do anything too bad. We probably just have to go with him the Forbidden Forest and feed some unicorns or whatever."

"Well, I'm still sorry."

"It really isn't that bad. Oh my gosh, Allie. It's really too bad that you missed Potions today. There's a really hot exchange student from Durmstrang in that class, and he was right across from me. Merlin, you have to see him tomorrow. Dimitri, I think his name is. Allie, this guy is seriously good looking." I laughed. She was infatuated with a guy who, as far as I could tell, she hadn't even said one word to yet.

"Wonder if there'll be any cute guys from Rolaires," I mused, remembering McGonagall's announcement at dinner.

"Betcha there will," said Rose. "Maybe one of them can teach me to do an American accent; I've always wanted to learn."

Before I could tell her that that was the most absurd thing she'd said tonight, James jumped up, punched the air, and shouted, "YES!"

Hugo frowned. "'S not fair," he said. "You always win."

James grinned, his dark hair falling messily over his happy eyes. "Sorry, little cuz. You're just gonna have to work on your strategy before you can defeat JAMES POTTER!" Lily rolled her eyes and got up, straightening her skirt. Obviously she had heard this spiel before. "Yes, I seem to have inherited my uncle's talent for wizard's chess. Rose, Allie, did you see that move my bishop made? It was absolutely brilliant! All of Hugo's pawns just went crashing down…"

"Okay James, we get it. You beat a first year at chess. Excellent work. I'm going to bed now. Goodnight. Allie, you coming?" Rose turned towards me.

"Yeah, just let me grab my books. 'Night Lily, 'night James, 'night Hugo."

All together, they said, "G'night." Smiling, I shoved my books into my satchel and headed for the girls' dormitories.