Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter…unfortunately…

Chapter 7

We were the last ones to make it to our Defense Against the Dark Arts class after lunch and Harry and I sat in the back next to Ron and Hermione.

"Hello class," Lockhart said as he entered the room, a large smile planted on his face. "As you all know, I am Gideroy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defense League,, and five-time winner of Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile Award."

I rolled my eyes when I saw some of the girls around the class looking at him with a dreamy expression on their faces. This was pathetic.

"I see that you all have my complete set of books," he said. "I thought that we might take a little quiz on them, just to see what you all know!"

The whole class groaned, except for Hermione who I assumed had read each one of the books over the summer.

The quiz went like this…

1. What is Gilderoy Lockhart's favorite color? Any color that makes him look like a buffoon.

2. What is Gilderoy Lockhart's secret ambition? To look like an absolute fool at all times, even though it isn't much of a secret…

3. What, in your opinion, is Gilderoy Lockhart's greatest achievement to date? Gaining fans on lies.

After the quiz was over, knowing that I wasn't going to pass, we all turned them in. Hardly anyone got the answers right.

"I am very disappointed…" he said looking through the papers. "Only Hermione Granger received a 100."

Hermione looked thrilled when he awarded her with 10 points. Then he walked behind his desk and pulled up a large cage that was covered with a cloth.

"Moving on," Lockhart said, looking around at the class. "I want you to prepare yourselves…what you're about to see may frighten you all. Just remain calm and remember that I am here to protect you."

At this point, the majority of the class was trying to figure out what our teacher was hiding in the cage. Then he pulled the cloth off of the cage dramatically and I heard a few people laugh.

"This is a joke, right?" I said to Harry.

"This is not a joke, Miss Potter, these are very dangerous creatures!" Lockhart said with a serious expression on his face.

"Cornish pixies?" Seamus asked him. "They aren't dangerous!"

"Are you sure about that?" he asked Seamus. "Let's see how you handle them then!"

Suddenly, he opened up the latch to the cage and the blue pixies scattered around the room. People went crazy as the pixies flew around the room and tormented several students. Two of them flew over to Neville and picked him up off the ground.

"HELP!" Neville screamed as the pixies left him on the chandelier.

"Oh, they're only pixies!" Lockhart said, laughing at us.

"THEN DO SOMETHING!" I yelled at him as I began swatting at the pixies with one of his books.

Lockhart said some spell, which had no effect at all on the pixies who threw the teacher's wand across the room.

Then, without warning, the chandelier that held Neville gave way and he began to fall from the ceiling.

"Impedimenta!" I yelled pointing my wand at Neville, slowing down the fall a little bit.

Neville landed softly on the ground just as the bell rang for the end of class.

"Thanks!" Neville said as he stood up and ran out of the class just like everyone else did.

Harry, Ron, Hermione, and I stayed back for a few moments.

"Well…" Lockhart said as he ran into his office. "I believe that you all can handle the rest!"

He slammed the door behind himself, escaping the pixies that he couldn't fight.

"YOU'RE PATHETIC!" I yelled after him.

"Emily!" Hermione said. "Don't speak to a teacher that way!"

"She's right!" Ron said as he swatted some more pixies out of his way.

"He just wants to give us some experience!" she said. "He's a genius, haven't you read his books?"

"You actually believe that stuff?" I asked her as I shoved some pixies back into her cage. "I thought that you were supposed to be the smart one!"

The next day Harry had Quidditch practice, so I had to try to avoid Lockhart all by myself. Ron, Hermione, and I decided that we would watch Harry practice once they got started, but we all knew that it wouldn't be for a little while because Oliver always had to give them some long speech before practice.

Ron and Hermione were doing homework on a bench in a nearby corridor as I walked along the hallways as I usually did when I was bored. Unfortunately, I ran into someone that I didn't want to see.

"Why hello, Emily!" Lockhart said cheerfully. "Looking for someway to gain fame again, are we?"

"I swear if you don't leave me alone, I'm going to-" I began.

"No need for threats Emily!" Lockhart smiled. "I understand that you would feel threatened someone as famous as me, but you must learn to accept that some people are better than others."

"Here we go again…" I muttered.

"I know that it is difficult to speak to a wizard that is just so much more powerful than yourself, but it's okay! You're still young!"

I rolled my eyes as he continued.

"In order to become famous, you must do extraordinary things!" Lockhart went on. "Do you think that I just became famous over night? No, I had to fight with werewolves and trolls-"

"Excuse me, Gilderoy," a familiar voice came up behind me. "I need to borrow Miss Potter at the moment. I'm sure that you may continue your…fascinating tale at a later time…"

I turned around and saw Professor Snape glaring at the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher.

"Of course, Severus," Lockhart smiled. "I need to continue with my fan mail anyway!"

When Lockhart turned around, I saw Snape roll his eyes in that direction. After the cheerful teacher had left the area, I turned to Snape.

"What is it that you need?" I asked him, unsure of what he wanted.

Snape looked at me, looking as though he had forgotten that I was there.

"Oh…" he said. "It wasn't anything actually, I just can't stand that man…"

I laughed and said, "You and me both."

"What is he teaching you anyway?" he asked. "How to fight off frizz?"

"It wouldn't shock me," I smiled. "That seems to be all he's capable of doing. He tried to teach us about fighting off pixies and he couldn't even do it himself, he just ran off."

"Pixies?" Snape muttered.

"Yeah, he tried to make them out to be some kind of terrifying creature or something."

"I'm sure that they are the most terrifying creature that he's laid his eyes on…"

"So, you don't believe his books either?"

Snape rolled his eyes and shook his head.

Ron and Hermione ran around the corner and started to say something, but then saw Snape standing there. The teacher glanced at them and then back to me.

"I shall see the three of you in class," he muttered as he walked off.

Ron and Hermione waited until Snape was out of view and then they turned to me.

"What was that about?" Ron asked.

"I ran into Lockhart again," I said, rolling my eyes. "Snape got him to go away."

Ron looked at me funny, but then Hermione spoke up.

"I think that Harry is about to start his practice," she told me.

We all began to walk to the Quidditch field and into the stands. Then we noticed that the field had more than one team on it.

"What's going on?" I asked Hermione and Ron.

"Slytherin," Ron said.

On the field, the two teams glared at each other, apparently in disagreement with something that was going on.

"Why aren't you playing?" Ron asked Harry when we crossed the field.

Then we saw someone on the field that we hadn't before. Draco Malfoy stood in front of us, dressed in the Slytherin team's uniform.

"What are you doing here?" I asked him.

"I'm the new Seeker, Emily," Draco said, trying to sound impressive.

"How much did that cost?" I sneered.

Draco shot me a look and then I noticed the brooms that everyone on that team was holding. They looked new.

"Jealous?" Draco said, noticing all of us looking at the brooms. "My father bought them for the whole team, maybe the Gryffindor team could do the same - oh, wait! No you can't because none of you have any money."

"At least no one on our team had to buy their way in," Hermione cut in. "We actually have the talent."

"Shut up, you filthy little Mudblood," Draco spat.

I had no idea what that word meant, but apparently it was a huge insult. The entire Gryffindor team began shouting at Draco. Fred and George even went to fight him, but were held back by some of the others.

"You'll pay for that, Malfoy!" Ron yelled and pointed his wand at Draco.

Then I heard a huge bang and the next thing that I knew, Ron was laying on his back looking like he was in pain. Whatever spell he had been trying to put on Draco had backfired because of his broken wand.

"Ron!" Hermione said, running over to him. "Are you okay?"

All of the Gryffindors ran over to Ron and tried to help him up. Then he began to vomit out slugs and we all dropped him. The entire Slytherin team burst out into laughter as they watched Ron vomit more slugs out.

We went to help him up again, but when I grabbed his arm, he puked out a few more slugs that landed right on me. I dropped his arm and back away, looking down at the slugs that were all over my shirt.

"EW!" I yelled and I heard Draco laughing at me.

I picked up two of the slugs and threw it directly at Draco and it smacked right into his face, wiping the grin right off his face. He jumped around trying to get the slimy creatures off of himself, screaming in the process. Fred and George busted out laughing.

"Think that's funny, do you?" Malfoy said. "Wait until my father hears about this!"

Fred picked up a slug from the ground and threw it Draco's face, causing the entire Gryffindor to laugh. After a few seconds, all of the slugs were being thrown at the Slytherin team. They attempted to dodge them as they ran off the field, getting hit in the back with slugs.

Once they were gone, we turned our attention back to Ron.

"I guess we should get him to Hagrid's," Harry said as a few more slugs came out of Ron's mouth.

Harry, Hermione, and I picked him up off the ground and began to walk him towards Hagrid's hut. It took a little while to cross the grounds, but when we managed to make it there after several minutes.

"I was wonderin' when you'd visit me!" Hagrid smiled at us when he saw us at the door.

We helped Ron into the house and set him down in a chair and handed him a large bucket.

"What happened to you?" Hagrid asked as Ron puked some more slugs.

"He was trying to jinx Malfoy," Harry explained. "His wand's broken, so the spell backfired."

"Why would ya do that?" Hagrid asked.

"He called Hermione something, I'm not really sure what it meant though," I told him.

"He called her a Mudblood, Hagrid!" Ron said, barfing out some more slugs.

Hagrid looked furious, just as everyone else had.

"He didn't!" Hagrid yelled.

"What does it mean?" Hermione asked.

"It's an awful name for a Muggle-born," Hagrid said to Hermione. "Some wizards out there think that they are better than everyone else because they are pure-blood, which means that all of their family are witches and wizards."

"Not that being pure-blood even makes you a better wizards," Ron said. "Look at Neville Longbottom! He can hardly do any magic!"

"Don't be mean!" I said, even though I knew that it was true.

"I don't blame ya fer cursin' him, Ron," Hagrid said. "It's probably a good thing that yer wand backfired though, his father coulda gotten ya in a lot of trouble."

We sat around for a little while until Ron had finished puking up slugs. Then we went back to the castle, just after Hagrid showed us the enormous pumpkins that he had planted for Halloween. Apparently he had used some kind of spell to make them bigger, even though he wasn't supposed to use magic. Hagrid was expelled from Hogwarts for some unknown reason and wasn't supposed to use magic afterwards.

Right after we made it into the castle, we were all stopped my Professor McGonagall who told us that we would have to start our detention that night.

"Mr. Weasley, you will be polishing silver in the trophy room," McGonagall told him. "And the two of you will be helping Professor Lockhart answer his fan mail."

"Oh no…" Harry groaned.

"Professor, can I please do something else," I begged.

"No, you may not!" she said. "He requested both of you in his office and that is where you will both be!"

It was going to be a long night...

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