The first day of classes started badly for Mina. To begin with she had potions with Professor Snape, whose class she could never do well in, though she never seemed to have trouble making potions on her own (Mina had experimented with love potions and their antidotes during her free time the year before.)
Then there was care of magical creatures. As it was an elective it was the first class that she didn't take with her house but with the other students from her year that had elected to take it. She hadn't counted on Rubeus Hagrid being the teacher though. She knew Hagrid by his reputation for liking dangerous moonsters and was intimidated by his size.
Hagrid led the students to the edge of the forbidden forest and presented to them Buckbeack the Hippogriff. Had Hagrid had better communication skills she may have been fascinated by the part horse-part eagle, but his explanation of how to approach them had her and the rest of the class (though she heard muttering coming from three Slytherins the whole time) backing up when he asked for volunteers, leaving poor Harry to try to get Buckbeak to bow to him.
All of the worries of the class were put to rest when Buckbeak flew Harry around the castle grounds. The entire class took turns interacting with Buckbeak and Hagrid's other Hippogriffs. Mina was petting the beak of one named Chocobo and deciding that she very much liked Hippogriffs when she heard the scream.
She turned to see a Slytherin writhing on the ground while Hagrid was trying to control Buckbeak. The boy was screaming that he had been killed while the Hippogriff was quickly calmed down. It apparently was only upset with the Slytherin. Hagrid picked up the boy and rushed off to the hospital wing, ending the lesson and leaving the students to discuss what had just happened.
The Slytherins blamed Hagrid, but another group, led by Harry and his friends, blamed the boy, Malfoy. Apparently Malfoy had called Buckbeak a "great ugly brute" and the creature was insulted. Mina remembered that Malfoy was part of the group that had been muttering instead of listening to Hagrid explain that Hippogriffs were easily insulted, but she probably would have sided with Harry regardless.
Later she had divination with Professor Trelawney. They attempted to read tea leaves. Mina's leaves mostly seemed to formed curved shapes her partner thought were bananas. But Mina was pretty sure, though she didn't know why, that they were crescent moons. One shape that they both agreed on was a bird, though her partner thought it a pigeon and Mina an eagle. They called the braniac Hermione Granger over to resolve that dispute, but Hermione said that it looked like a falcon to her and they all dismissed the shape as meaningless. After all, what enemies could Mina have at age thirteen? It was equally funny when Hermione interrupted Professor Trelawney's observation that Harry's falcon meant that he had a deadly enemy to say that "everybody knows that," though when Trelawney made her prediction about the grim in Harry's cup the mood of the class grew well, grim.
The next day Mina had transfiguration, which was its usual difficult self, charms, which she quite enjoyed, and history of magic, the most boring class ever. Professor McGonagall told them that she knew of the prediction of Harry's death the previous day and told all in the class who had been there not to worry, that Professor Trelawney did that every year.
As she always did during history of magic, Mina wrote the topic of the day down so she could research it the weekend before the next test and proceeded to spend the rest of the class absentmindedly doodling. The first thing she noticed after starting was Hannah tapping her shoulder to tell her that class was over.
"Wow, Mina. Did you take drawing lessons over the summer?"
Mina looked at the paper she had been doodling on. "Did I do that?" She had no skill for drawing and usually just made stick figures. This time she had made a portrait, and a very good one at that. It was of a woman with long wavy hair that could have been any color but blonde given the dark ink Mina had been using. Her face was a mask of hate and she looked positively evil.
"That's creepy Mina."
"No kidding." That awful feeling in the pit of her stomach returned.
This was the same woman Mina had killed in her vision./
Other than the beginning of Quidditch practice the rest of Mina's first week was largely uneventful. Mina had made the Hufflepuff team the year before and had been one of only two good players on the team of seven. The other had been her fellow chaser Cedric Diggory, now in his sixth year. This year Cedric had been made the team captain and changed his position to seeker, as that position required a great flyer more than any other, though Mina would probably have been fine in that position as well. Diggory had set himself the task of rebuilding the team from scratch and Mina was confident that Hufflepuff would be a serious contender for the Quidditch Cup for the first time in many years.
The most major event of Mina's first week of classes, however, happened on Friday during her first defense against the dark arts class. Professor Lupin had acquired Boggarts for all of his third year classes after using one successfully during his first class with the Gryffindors. Boggarts lived in enclosed dark spaces like closets and assumed the form of whatever the nearest person feared most.
After asking certain basic questions and awarding a good number of house points to Hufflepuff Professor Lupin told the students to think of the thing they feared most and imagine something funny happening to it, as laughter was a boggart's greatest weakness. He then let them face the boggart.
The boggart first became a clown whose red nose exploded with a cry of "riddikulus!" giving Mina the idea of turning the gun a mugger once used to kill her father when she was small into a water gun.
There was a large dog that was chased by a small cat, a sixth year who was a known bully that got a large wedgie, a snake that tied itself into a knot, a giant rat that wore a Mickey Mouse hat, a vampire who wore sunglasses, a troll with a chalkboard full of advanced mathematical problems, and the Slytherin ghost, the Bloody Baron, wearing a silly multicolored sombrero.
Finally the boggart reached Mina, and she prepared to face her father's murderer. But it was not a punk with a gun that faced Mina, but a dark, cloaked figure with rotting hands that floated above the ground. There were a number of shouts and cries as the dementor advanced on Mina. The classroom grew cold and the sound of the scary wind began.
Mina dropped her wand and her vision blurred. She saw a young blonde girl with a hairstyle that made it look as though she were wearing meatballs on her head, saw the fear in her eyes, saw the blade poke out from behind the girl's chest, killing her instantly…
Saw Professor Lupin standing in front of her. The boggart had changed into a silver sphere. 'The moon?' Mina thought. Professor Lupin shouted "riddikulus!" and the sphere received a hole, deflating like a balloon. Professor Lupin yelled "ha!" and the boggart evaporated, defeated.
Mina looked at her hands, which had been holding her off the floor. So she hadn't fainted this time after all. Professor Lupin gave five points to everyone who fought the boggart, ordered the class dismissed, and asked Mina to remain behind.
After the class had left Professor Lupin took Mina to his office where he had more chocolate to help her recover. She ate eagerly, but as she regained her strength she became more embarrassed at not being able to handle the boggart like the rest of her class and her face reddened.
Professor Lupin noticed. "You have nothing to be ashamed about, Mina."
"Then why couldn't I fight off the boggart?"
"The boggart can replicate the effects dementors have on people, though it is not powerful enough to truly equal a dementor."
"Is that why I didn't faint this time?"
"Yes. Mina, I'm actually more impressed with you than with the rest of the class who fought the boggart. To fear the dementors is to fear fear itself, the sign of a wise person."
"I didn't expect it to be a dementor."
"So you are more mature than you realize. What did you expect the boggart to become?
"The man who killed my father."
Realization dawned on Professor Lupin's face. "Ah. So that is why the dementors have such an effect on you."
"Why?" Mina demanded.
"People with horrible events in their pasts are far more vulnerable to dementors. That is why Harry Potter is also affected by them. So you experienced your father's murder when you encountered the dementor and the boggart."
"No,sir I…" Mina stopped. She hadn't meant to tell that much to her teacher, but it was too late. "I don't know what I'm seeing."
"What do you mean?"
"I'm seeing things that never happened. Dead bodies everywhere. I saw one person who I've never seen in my life die today. This person's hairstyle, no one has a hairstyle like that. She doesn't exist…and yet I feel like I've lost the most important thing in my life."
Professor Lupin looked troubled. Whatever was happening to Mina was clearly not normal, even for a dementor attack. He decided that it required special attention.
"How about if I teach you to fight off dementors?"
Mina perked up. "That would be great! Can we do that next lesson?"
"No. The spell required is too advanced for a third year class. Many full-grown wizards cannot do it. It'll have to be just us in a one on one class on say, Mondays at seven?"
"Okay, but what makes this spell so hard?"
"First of all, it requires an intense amount of concentration on a single, happy thought-"
"And dementors make it almost impossible not to dwell on the worst things that happen to you. It's a lot like fighting a boggart. Happy thoughts. Funny Thoughts. Just harder."
"Exactly. Ten points to Hufflepuff for that observation. And it's an extremely powerful spell beyond needing a happy thought. Well, I'll see you at seven on Monday."
"I'll be there, professor." Mina got up to leave, but first asked "Professor Lupin, can I ask why you're afraid of the moon?"
Lupin looked startled, then laughed. "That's a personal matter, though I'm impressed that you noticed. Now run along before you miss all of lunch."/
That night Mina sat in front of the window, looking at the tiny sliver of the moon in the sky. The moment she saw the moon boggart she knew.
That was where her visions had taken place.