Charms had been an ordeal in itself.
Harry was rather confused. When motioning for Juliet to sit with himself and Ron, she shook her head and looked away, pretending not to be interested in sitting with her new friends. It was only then that he had noticed Professor Flitwick was standing over Juliet on a stack of books, his hand defensively on his wand.
It was as if the professor would not allow Juliet to sit anywhere else, which was in fact entirely correct. One of the unmentioned conditions to Juliet's incarceration at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was that she was to sit at the very front of every classroom, so that each professor could keep an eye on her, as she was in possession over her wand during class hours.
However, the problem was that every time Juliet raised her wand in order to follow along with the lesson, Professor Flitwick would cast a Confundus charm, causing it to malfunction in her own hands. No one seemed to notice, and everyone just thought she was just daft.
After the most frustrating lesson she had ever had in her life, Juliet sat quietly in her seat and waited for all the other students to file out of the classroom. Harry had tried to approach her, but was shooed away by the professor.
"Away with you, don't make me write you up for being tardy to your next class," he grumbled, stopping Harry from even interacting with Juliet.
"But professor, I was just—" Harry started, trying to bypass the small wizard. Juliet didn't even look at Harry, fixating her gaze on the adjacent wall.
Professor Flitwick personally escorted Juliet to her next class, as was regulation in her case. The more she acted out, the more regulations and restrictions would be put on her. And unfortunately for her, the teachers had a free reign over what she could and could not do. Even a single toe out of line would mean serious repercussions. Especially in the case of Professor Flitwick, who she had bitten upon her capture and awakening in Dumbledore's office during her first night at Hogwarts. He was glad to pass her on to Professor Moody, who took her by the collar of her cloak and forcibly sat her down in the first chair, not even giving her the opportunity to look at other students.
"Alastor Moody," he announced, scribbling his name on the chalkboard at the front of the classroom. He had everyone mortified, except Juliet, who looked bored. "Ex-auror…Ministry of Malcontent…and your new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher." He tossed aside his chalk, leaning heavily into Juliet's desk. She was unamused by his display.
Juliet had known Alastor Moody since she was a girl, although not in the sense that she had him over for Christmas supper. More so in the sense that he had been hunting for her hide since the day she was born into this retched world. He had been the reason for her inevitable capture, and the reason that she sat in this classroom today, breathing in the stench of his manky old coat and moldy musk. Any time that Juliet had been scared in her life, it was because of Alastor Moody. So she sat quietly for once, unmoving.
"I am here because Dumbledore asked me to, end of story—goodbye, the end!" Moody sneered, his glass eye watching Juliet carefully. She thought about spitting at him, but held her tongue. It occurred to her that if she was so afraid of Moody, then the other students must be terrified.
"When it comes to the Dark Arts," he continued. "I believe in a practical approach. But first, which of you can tell me how many unforgivable curses there are?" He took up his chalk again and began writing furiously on the board.
Juliet groaned inwardly. She knew exactly what he was doing—he was making an example of her.
She had been raised by one Death Eater after another, all with a greater affinity for teaching her dark magic than the last. By the time she could hold a wand, growing a daisy out of the ground was no different than torturing someone.
Hermione spoke up, a squeak in her voice as she explained that these curses were unforgivable. Moody agreed, stating that the use of any one of these curses would land you a one-way ticket to Azkaban. That is, if you were any normal witch or wizard. The only person to have mastered and performed all three curses by school age was sitting in the front row of that very room, her hands tucked neatly into themselves.
She had been nine years old at the time, and Alastor Moody had hunted her and her keeper down to a caravan they had been staying with in the south of Spain, near the Mediterranean. Juliet, her arms no bigger than the wand they held onto, had tortured him with the Cruciatus curse for close to an hour before his re-enforcements arrived, causing her and her keeper to flee by broom over the sea and towards Morocco, where they would lie in hiding for nearly two years after that. Lucky for them, Morocco was a bustling hub for dark magic at the time.
Her poor mother was somewhere rolling over in the shallow ditch she was buried in.
By the time she was done day dreaming, Juliet had come back to reality only to find the entire class silent, and Professor Moody asking if anyone could give him the final unforgivable curse. No one dare even move.
The dark wizard catcher leaned in close to Juliet's face, breathing heavily on her skin.
"Perhaps Miss d'Aragon here could give me the final, end-all curse," he said in a low tone. "You're rather familiar with it, aren't you, my dear?"
Her teeth ground against themselves almost instantaneously.
"Get the fuck out of my face, Alastor," she spat, unhappy with the fact that he was trying to take the piss out of her. He shrugged, moving on past her, taking his little creature with him before coming to the desk of Hermione, who had been so nice to Juliet the night before.
"I suppose you, then, Miss Granger?"
Hermione shook her head, nearly in tears.
Juliet stood up from her seat, taking the wand from its place in her robe. "Leave her alone!" She insisted, but her plea fell on deaf ears and the wave of a hand that forced her to keep back.
"Avada Kadavra."
The creature died there, on the top of Hermione's book.
"The killing curse," Moody announced, almost solemnly. "Only one person is known to have survived it…and he's sitting in this room…" Hobbling away from the dead creature and the very teary-eyed Hermione, Professor Moody made his way over to Harry, looking down at the boy in his seat.
Juliet's eyes darted between Harry and Hermione as she pieced together what was being said.
"Harry… Harry…Potter," she thought, remembering the name. "The boy who lived." But for the life of her, Juliet was unable to place where or why she had heard it. As a young girl, the scattered remnants of Death Eaters that raised her hadn't exactly bothered to inform her of every little detail, seeing that she was being hunted from Beijing to Buenos Aires.
"Miss d'Aragon, take your seat. I'll be having a word with you. The rest of you, you're dismissed," Announced professor Moody with the lazy wave of an arm, too busy with taking a swig from his now famed hip flask.
As the class gathered themselves and left quietly, Harry and Juliet maintained eye contact. He somehow asked her if she was going to be okay, and she responded that he shouldn't worry about her, but to just keep an eye out for Hermione. Once the class filed out, Professor Moody was no longer Professor Moody, but Alastor to Juliet.
"That was right fowl of you doing that to her," she spat angrily. "You've become an even harder sod since the last time you and I tangoed, Alastor."
"Oh, really? Do you think I should have taken mercy on Miss Granger, Miss d'Aragon?" He suggested, slamming his large hands down in her desk, causing her to jump. "Do you think that your father, the Dark Lord, would have taken mercy on a filthy mud-blood like Miss Granger?"
No longer in the care of Death Eaters, Juliet was free to speak as she willed.
"There is nothing wrong with being muggle born. A witch is a witch and a wizard is a wizard."
Moody actually laughed.
"That is easy for you to say, isn't it, you pure-blooded little tripe. I suppose you get that idea from your mother's side. No wonder her remains are rotting in a shallow ditch somewhere."
"That's a lie," Juliet hissed. "My mother isn't dead because of her beliefs. My mother is dead because Albus Dumbledore put her in the ground."
Moody was impressed.
"Oh, so the fairy princess Miss Juliet d'Aragon knows the whole truth, does she? You know that before you were born, your whore of a mother got on her knees and begged for your safety from Dumbledore, and he turned her away. And when you finally squeezed your way out of her up tight little cunt, she took off with you back to France, cowering in your family's little castle while you sucked on her teet, too afraid to face the commitment she had made to the Dark Lord."
Juliet stood up, her face centimeters from Moody's.
"Don't talk about my mother like that, you washed up hack," she hissed, pressing her wand against his throat. "One more word, and you and I both know that I have more magic in one finger than you have in your whole being. Because might I remind you, I am His daughter. And as His daughter, there will come a day when I am as great as He is."
"An empty threat, Miss d'Aragon," Moody sneered, brushing aside her wand. "You are but a baby of fourteen, and any magic you have is yet to be unleashed. Now, away with you!" He waved her out of his classroom, and she was glad to go. Gathering her books and tossing them in her bag haphazardly, Juliet walked briskly out of the door at the back of the room, thinking only of how she was going to end the life of Alastor Moody.
Until she bumped into Harry, who had been waiting for her outside of the classroom.
"What's the matter with you?!" She questioned as she briskly continued to walk past him, referring to the fact that he had been waiting for her. "Here to escort me to the Great Hall?"
"Uh, no. I was just…. Are you alright?" He did his best to keep up with her, but it seemed that she was being fueled by pure rage.
"I'm fantastic."
"What did Professor Moody say to you?"
Juliet ignored his question. She had had enough of people at this school questioning her.
"Where are your friends? Go bother one of them instead."
Harry grabbed her by the wrist, stopping her mid-motion. Juliet had really had enough of people grabbing her.
"Will you just hold on for one moment," he pleaded. "You seem to really get into it with professors. Is there something that makes you different than everyone else here?"
And there it was, the question that she had been waiting for, but that no one had asked yet because they were all too scared of how mental she was. She wrenched herself from his grasp. "Wouldn't you like to know?"
"Well…yeah. I mean, we are friends…. Tell you what, why don't you just come hang out in the Great Hall with me, Ron and Hermione? We were going to watch the older students put their names in the Goblet of Fire. It'll be fun."
Harry put his hand out to her in a gentle gestured, hoping that she would take it and they could walk together.
He was so gentle.
So kind.
Juliet began to feel dizzy at the thought of someone being so kind to her. So dizzy, that she found herself reaching her hand out to his, and then taking it. He smiled at her with closed lips, and they walked.
The Great Hall was full of students just hanging out, fooling around, and clapping for those brave enough to put their names in the Goblet of Fire. With each name dropped in, the fire would burn brighter in a fantastic display of heat.
Harry and Ron watched more closely, standing with other Gryffindors and chatting about who they think would be chosen, laughing at Fred and George's antic of trying to put their own names in the cup after drinking an aging potion. Juliet sat with Hermione on the nearby bench, who was skimming a book placed neatly on her lap.
"I don't get it," Juliet said to Hermione, genuine confusion in her voice. "Why do people act dim witted like that?"
Juliet, who had been taught only survival skills and Dark Arts her entire life, had been left without the idea of what it was like to not take life too seriously. Something that the Weasley Twins were well-versed in.
Hermione laughed, prepared to answer the question when the room went near silent.
Through the double doors came a posse of Durmstrang students, lead by none other than the heavy weight Victor Krum, and followed in tow by their Headmaster, Igor Karkaroff. Juliet slumped down in her seat, taking the sleeve of her robe and using it to shield herself from the nose down. There were some people that she would rather not be seen by.
Krum approached the cup, and without another breath, flicked the parchment with his name into the fire. He met eyes with Hermione, who blushed, before promptly taking leave just as quickly as he enetered. Juliet was the only one to see this, and gave Hermione a little shove on the shoulder.
"The tall one that looks like a boulder, he fancies you," she whispered.
"What?!" Hermione choked, not believing what had just been said to her. "How would you know something like that."
"I just know these things. I'm rather…gifted…at being able to read people upon first glance."
The two giggled together, marking the first time that Juliet felt like a real teenage witch.
Much to her dismay, the feeling would not last very long.
Hello all, so I'm not exactly following the time line of the books, but that's because I have a lot I want to write and I'm giving myself very little space to do just that. This chapter was a bit short and uneventful, but at least you got some background on Juliet, and ahhhhh Harry and Juliet are holding haaaaaannnndddsssss.
More to come! Please let me know what you think? Or don't? That's cool too.