Chapter Three
A Test
The next morning was as quiet as the previous evening had been and breakfast was a somber occasion all around. Seamus in particular seemed to be having a difficult time coping with Dean's absence and just moved his eggs around on his plate to give them the appearance of being eaten. Ginny too was just picking at her food.
"You should eat you know." Luna said, sliding into the bench next to Ginny and swiping a piece of cold bacon from her plate, "Builds your strength and all."
But Ginny didn't feel much like eating, a problem Neville did not seem to share when he joined them moments later looking much more well rested then Ginny would have liked.
"Morning all." He yawned, reaching for a piece of toast and feeling around for the jam, which Luna handed to him, "Thanks Luna. Bloody weird isn't it? I mean, the dorms being so quiet and all. Just me and Seamus in my room now."
"Yes, well I suspect the Muggleborn Registration legislation has forced many muggleborns into hiding." Luna said, eyeing Ginny's remaining bacon strip.
"Yeah, still weird though." Neville agreed, pouring himself some juice.
Just then the shadow of one Minerva McGonagall swept across their table, causing Neville to pause in his inhalation of every solitary bit of food insight.
"Here are your schedules," she said briskly handing Ginny and Neville both a sheet of paper with their classes and times printed on it, "Miss. Lovegood, Professor Flitwick has yours. Each of you will find that you have an interview time," her nostrils flared at the phrase, "scheduled for sometime during the day. The Professors Carrow would like me to remind you all to be prompt." And without another word, and dutifully ignoring the fugitive looks Ginny was sending her, she turned on her heal and headed back towards the staff table.
'What have you got first?" Neville asked, as Luna hurried back to her own table to retrieve her schedule.
"Muggle Studies, 10' o clock." She answered, glancing down at the scrap of paper before her, "Taught by Alecto Carrow, by the looks of it."
"Oh, have you got Muggle studies first as well?" Luna asked, returning to their table with her schedule in her hand.
"Yes, can't imagine its going to be pleasant, can you?"
"Oh no," Luna said quite cheerfully, "I'm sure its going to be perfectly dreadful. What about you Neville, what have you got?"
"Interview." He replied shortly, anger creeping into his tone.
'I wonder what they'll ask?" Luna mused, chancing a glance up at the head table.
"Probably a load of rubbish about your family tree," Ginny snorted, "they're probably trying to sort out who's going to be trouble."
'Bet the Slytherins will pass no problem." Neville muttered darkly, casting a withering glare at the Slytherin's table, all of the occupants of which seemed quite pleased with themselves and were chatting amiably amongst each other.
"Wonder where Malfoy is?" Ginny asked noting their pale adversaries absence.
'He's a full time Death Eater now, isn't he?" Neville said, "What's a death eater need school for?"
'I suppose your right." Ginny said, though a twinge of inexplicable nervous energy shot down her spine.
Luna's sudden gasp pulled her from her retrieve, "It's almost ten o'clock, we're going to be late!"
The two girls hurried to collect they're things and raced off together down the hall. It was unusual, Ginny mused, for Luna to concern herself with anything as mundane as when a class started. But perhaps the present climate was enough to penetrate even Luna's shield of foggy lunacy.
They arrived to class a mere two minutes behind schedule, but found that they class had already been seated.
"Ah!" Alecto Carrow sneered from the front of the classroom, so nice of you to join us ladies!"
Ginny and Luna stepped into the classroom, each taking in the giant family trees and volumes with titles such as Muggles, the Plight of the Wizarding World and The Greatest Wizarding Family's of Britain-a History that had replaced the diagrams of plugs and charts of the muggle population's growth since the 15th centaury.
"And who might you two be?" Carrow asked, brandishing a class list and looking expectantly at them.
"My name is Luna Lovegood." Luna answered in her typically serene voice, not seeming at all perturbed by the death eater glaring malevolently at her a few feet away.
"So then you must be the Weasley girl." Carrow sneered, her eyes flicking to Ginny's mane of fire red hair, "Yes I should have guessed as much. Twenty points from Gryffindor and Ravenclaw for tardiness. Sit down you silly girls." She snapped at a smiling Luna and a shaking Ginny, who obeyed and sat in the two empty seats near the back of the class (the latter quite reluctantly).
"Now," she smiled at the rest of the class, (revealing two missing teeth amongst a set of rotting yellow ones), I have decided to begin our year together with a little test, one of my own invention, which will allow me to evaluate your aptitude for this subject." She flashed the class again with what she must have thought was a winning, gentle smile, which only succeeded in making Wendell McKesson (who was, to his great dismay, misfortunate enough to have a seat in the front row) practically vault over the desk behind him in his haste to put a little space between him and the woman before him.
She waved her wand and a volume thick appeared on the desk before each student to general sighs of dismay.
'You may begin."
Ginny suppressed a sigh and flipped to the first page of the booklet, and picking up her quill, her eyes finding question one, a short answer, and preparing to write;
Muggle Studies Aptitude Test - Level 6
Short Answer: What, in your opinion, has been the greatest travesty imposed on wizardkind by they're so called "non magical brethren"?
Ginny inhaled sharply, her head snapping up to examine the faces of her classmates. Luna hadn't even opened her booklet, but was instead staring dreamily out the window, muttering something about Wingedlily pulp fairies under her breath, twirling her wand between her fingers absent mindedly as she did so. Others in the class looked just as disgusted as Ginny and had begun to flip through their pamphlets, as though searching for a proper question. Still, there were some that, after a momentary look of shock at their papers, and a nervous glance at the desk where Professor Carrow was sitting, began to write.
Ginny chanced a glance at question two and was unable to contain her snort of repulsion.
In your own words describe the many problems facing the wizarding world today because of the infestation of lesser beings (muggles).
"Something the matter Miss. Weasley?" Ginny glanced up to see the flabby face of Alecto Carrow leering over her in what the latter obviously thought an intimidating manner.
"Not at all Professor Carrow," Ginny answered brightly, in her most sarcastically sweet voice, "I was just looking over the wonderful exam that you have compiled for us."
"And why have you not begun?" Carrow replied in an equally sweet voice, though Ginny could hear the threat behind her words.
"Oh," Ginny laughed, and the sound seemed to echo about the room. Many of her classmates had abandoned they're papers and were now staring at her and Carrow with wide eyes, even Luna had abandoned her day dream and was now looking at Ginny, a small smile playing on her lips, "I won't be filling this out."
"And why ever not?" Carrow hissed, all sweetness gone from her tone. Ginny noticed how her hand inched closer to her pocket.
"Because Professor that would be saying that I believe it." Ginny said as innocently as she could muster, "And I don't, because frankly, Professor, this is the biggest pile of shit I've ever had the misfortunate of seeing on paper."
Carrow seemed to be using all of her strength not to leap across the desk and strangle her, at feat at which she was doing surprisingly well until Luna Lovegood began to laugh.
It wasn't a loud laugh, just the quiet chuckling that Luna was so known for. But Alecto Carrow's face darkened with each giggle out of her mouth.
"DETENTION!" she shrieked, reaching for her wand, "DETENTION AND 100 POINTS FROM GRYFINDOR! You little bitches are going to see exactly what happens when-"
But exactly what they were going to see, Ginny and Luna never discovered, for at that precise moment, the classroom door flew open, framing the imposing silhouette of Severus Snape.
"What on earth is going on in here?" he asked, his black eyes taking in the terrified faces of the class at large before focusing in on Carrow brandishing her wand in a defiant Ginny Weasley's face.
"Snape!" Carrow cried, immediately stuffing her wand back in her pocket, "It's the Weasley girl, causing trouble, just as you suspected she would."
"Ah…yes." Snape said his eyes glinting evilly as they traveled over Ginny, "Yes. Why don't you let me take care of her Alecto, and you can get back to your lesson."
"Take this one too." Alecto said, walking over to Luna and wrenching her from her seat.
"Very well." Snap said, and, indicating that the girls should follow him, turned on his heal and left, Ginny and Luna trailing in his wake. And as the door to the classroom swung shut, Ginny had a sneaking suspicion that she had failed that test.
OK, that's ch. 3 done. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE REVIEW!