On Sunday morning, Gryffindor Fifth Years Fay Dunbar and Alice Way were sitting in the library with Hufflepuff Fourth Years Lynn Way and Kimberly Green doing the last bit of their homework. It was one of the only ways Lynn and Alice could spend time together and the siblings were very close, so they took every chance they got.
"So, Aidan has been telling me about this… movie," Fay pronounced carefully, "he wants to see. I believe it was called The King of Lions."
"It's Lion King," Lynn corrected her friend.
"Yes, this one. I do not know what it is, so how can I show it to him?"
"You know, given how little most purebloods know about the muggle world, I am regularly surprised our world is still secret. If Britain is any indicator for the world as whole the Oblivators must really be overworked", Kimberly as the only muggleborn in the group mused.
"It is not like the muggleborns know a lot of our world either!" Fay defended herself.
"Yes, but they have the excuse of not knowing about magic," Alice took Kimberly's side. "You purebloods are simply ignorant."
"Am not! Others like Malfoy or my grandparents? Sure. But I do my best. I simply have no one to teach me properly."
"Well, what if we started something like our own version of the DA?" Lynn proposed.
"What do you mean?" Kimberly wondered.
"My idea is: let's reduce the hate between the groups. Introduce muggleborns to the magical society but do the same for purebloods and the muggle world."
"Like any of the 'Dark' students - who would need it the most - would join," Alice dismissed the idea.
Lynn shrugged, "So start with watching Disney movies. Do The Tales of Beedle the Bard before moving on to other stuff. Do Doctor Who. Pop culture, basically."
"That's a great idea!" Kimberly agreed. "By doing this you'd do history, traditions, fashion and so much more."
By now everyone was more or less enthusiastic about the idea, but everyone for it.
"But wouldn't we need a teacher?" Fay mentioned her concerns. "I mean, Potter did not have one, but for this to work it would need to be official."
"We'd need a room with technology too.." Alice added.
"So," Lynn shrugged, "Muggle Studies teacher, Professor Burbage or something like this I believe, and Room of Requirement. There. Problem solved."
"Anyone against the idea?" Kimberly question, looking at her friends who nodded, "Then let's start organizing!"
"Hello Joseph," Laureen Gregson greeted her colleague Joseph Ackerly from her place at the other side of the cafeteria of St. Mungo's when he entered the room.
"Hey Reenie," he grinned while leaning back to avoid her slap, "Any interesting incidents?"
"Nah, just a broom crash and two people messed up some potions - a Swelling Solution and a Confusing Concoction respectively. How are things going in Bugs and Diseases?"
"Dreadful. Not only we've got a case of dragon pox and some poor woman has Scrofungulus, but some moron experimented with different bugs to create a new one and got bitten by it," Joseph threw his hands up in frustration while the person next to Laureen (Joseph thought it might be Helbert Spleen) stood up and left to return to work, "Dunno what he was expecting in the first place, honestly. What was he thinking?"
"No idea," Laureen shook her head, returning her attention to the Daily Prophet. After a minute or two with the only sounds from their table being chewing and the turning of pages, Laureen suddenly exclaimed "What's this?"
"What?" Joseph questioned, taking a sip from his pumpkin juice while Laureen decided to read out what she was talking about.
Hogwarts Student's Club Request Help
By Margaret Perks
Imagine my surprise when my youngest sister owled me three days ago and requested that I bring my utensils to our meeting on her monthly Hogsmeade weekend. Knowing she as a Slytherin is not one to fool around, I brought my quills and parchment, as well as a camera along and rented one of the secluded rooms from Madame Rosmerta, telling her to lead my sister in the room.
It did not take long for Sally-Anne to arrive. She was however not alone. The boy who accompanied her was no one else than Harry Potter!
As we all know Harry Potter is not one to seek publicity, or at least not through interviews (this meeting being in fact Mr. Potter's first voluntary one), so I understandably questioned his intentions.
I will have to disappoint many reporters out there when I tell you that the first thing Mr. Potter did was to offer me a contract for exclusive rights, as - and these are his words here - I showed him wizarding journalism can be taken seriously.
After that was done with however, Mr. Potter got to what he called 'the real business'. You may have heard of the so-called Dumbledore's Army, a club founded by Mr. Potter, a muggleborn named Hermione Granger and Mr. Ronald Weasley to teach their classmates - even upper years - Defense after Madam Umbridge's lessons proved to be 'a waste of time'.
One might think that they would stop now that they have a competent Professor again, but this is not Mr. Potter's intention.
"While teaching the DA I noticed that many of the students seemed ill prepared for the future - especially given the unavoidable conflict with Voldemort, which I personally have no doubt will turn into a full out war. This must be corrected, but to me it does not look like anyone is actually doing anything for it. I am however only a fifteen-year-old boy, no matter what some people claim. I am sure I cannot possibly know everything we need to know. This is why I turn to the adults to help. To the healers and aurors. To the wandmakers and spellcrafters and anyone else out there whose profession exists. It does not necessarily have to be closely connected to the war, but there are chances one of the students here at Hogwarts will be interested in it and come up with a way for it to be useful. Please come here and tell us about our opportunities. We need to know if we want to survive.
And even more, we need all jobs and I know plenty of students who have no real idea what they want to do with their lives. I beg you, come here, introduce your job."
Now, I don't know about you, but I know I am already considering it.
"And I must say, so am I," Laureen concluded.
"Boy's got a point," Joseph agreed. "Didn't the Order of the Phoenix just request help from us, like, last week? Way too small number of people out there fighting know their healing. And we've seen where that got us last war!"
"You're right," Laureen agreed. "Some of the McKinnons might've been saved if there had been something like a field healer."
"I'm going whether management agrees or not," Joseph decided. "If they don't then I'll just do it privately on a free day. They can't stop me. The young folks need help. And it's time for us to get off our asses and do something about it. I'm not gonna let my son die when I can do something about it!" he finished enthusiastically.
Professor Severus Snape was in his potion lab, adding Knotgrass to the (as of right now experimental in his mind) potion meant to cure Longbottom's parents.
It was indeed a complex potion that Granger, Weasley and the fool (the Longbottom one) had invented. In fact, due to the combined complexity and lack of skill from two out of the three participants, Severus Snape did not trust the potion per se.
It was not that the thought the Potter brat (only it turned out he was not as much of one as it seemed) would lie to his friends like that. No, that boy had a loyalty to his friends that was even greater than Lily's, as proven by the fact Weasley (the youngest male one) was still in his circle of friends after the 'disaster' prior to the Triwizard Tournament.
It was more that, well, esteemed Masters and Mistresses had tried for decades - some even say centuries - to find a cure and now these three had found one?
Absurd, that's what it was. He was seriously tempted to outright refuse, but something Severus Snape could not identify made him try anyway.
After all, it could not be worse than Longbottom's average work.
The voice in his mind that reminded him of Lily however made him question why these boys did not show any talent in his classes, should they prove to have it.
Then it (the voice-that-was-not-Lily) went even further to remind him of Longbottom's boggart.
Severus paused, for the first time realizing something.
He was the boy's worst fear. Prior to this point he has only focused on the humiliation the boy and Lupin had caused him.
Of course the boy messed up! If Tobias Snape where watching over Severus' shoulder he might mess up too!
Severus had become something he hated with passion. A bully.
He promised himself, his mother and Lily that he would change something. This could not continue.
He would no longer be thought of in words Severus connected with James Potter and his merry band of fools.
"Alastor! Hello," Molly greeted the man as he entered the door. "I'm afraid everyone else is out and about, should you be looking for anyone. But Sirius, Remus and Arthur at least should be back soon."
"Then I'll wait," Moody grunted, sitting down at the kitchen table.
After a minute or two of content silence, Molly finally found courage to tell the man what she had been thinking about the past few days.
"Alastor, do you think you could train me? I know that I am not very good with a lot of spells and I know that this is not very good during these times, so I intend to change that. I need to be able to protect my family."
Mad-Eye turned around to face her and looked directly in her eyes.
"Are you going to listen to everything I tell you? Will you not shy away from thing that scare you? Are you prepared to leave your comfort zone? Because I can promise you there will be blood, there will be sweat and there will be tears. But there won't be quitting. I'm not going to avoid anything shy of the Killing Curse. Death Eaters won't even do that, so why should I? If you are still convinced, then yes. If not, well."
During his speech several emotions crossed Molly's face. Shock, fear, horror.
What stuck however was determination.
"Sign me up. I need to protect my family."
Later that day, when Molly told her husband about her new plan, Arthur asked Moody if he could join them. After giving him a very similar speech, Mad-Eye agreed.
On Wednesday evening during one of these lessons Sirius, Kingsley, Remus and Tonks were sitting in the kitchen, each minding their own business when a white blur appeared out of nowhere and swooped down in front of Sirius. It turned out to be Hedwig, but it wasn't Harry's handwriting on the letter attached to her leg. Which he of course mentioned out loud, so everyone scanned the letter and Sirius only touched it after all four charms had been negative (for anything from spells over jinxes to being doused in potions). He read the letter out loud.
Dear Mr. Black and anyone else potentially listening,
my name is Margaret Perks and I feel the need to add my condolences concerning your wrongful imprisonment and I offer my most sincere apology for any inaccurate article I may have written.
This is actually a major part of the reason I am writing to you. I have little doubt you have noticed my recent articles, as they were indeed rather hard to ignore as my sister Anastasia informs me.
Knowing (hopefully soon to be ex) Minister Fudge, I am certain that my employment with the Daily Prophet will not last much longer.
When I mentioned this to young Mister Potter during our interview last Sunday, he happened to give me the most interesting idea (which he in turn admitted to have gotten from a Miss Megan Jones):
Apparently muggles have this most interesting concept called 'free press'. This means the government has no right to dictate anything concerning journalism. After extensive research I found out that this law too exists in our world (due to the relatively muggle-friendly Ministry in 1921), but the Ministry owns a controlling interest of the Prophet which is why they can happily ignore this without even bothering to repeal the law.
This is why I propose to found a new newspaper which would only print the truth and will attempt to present all sides of an issue so that the general public can actually make up their own minds instead of having their opinions dictated by the Ministry.
I am sure you wonder why I am writing you with this idea. The truth is, I am in need of financial backing, as I am sure you know the Perks family is not precisely a rich one. One reporter alone cannot make a newspaper. I need to be able to afford printing costs as well as salaries for editors, reporters, photographers and most likely several more thing that I am missing right now.
While I intend to give businesses an option to rent advertising space in later issues to take care about most of the costs we would not earn by selling, not one would be interested before the newspaper even exists. Especially, as I plan for the first edition to be delivered to all magical households (including those of squibs and non-humans) for free.
Thus I am in the need of help and from what I heard about you, you might be interested in helping my idea to succeed.
Hoping to hear from you soon
Margaret Perks, current reporter for the Daily Prophet
"This is undoubtly an interesting idea…" Remus mused.
"That it certainly is," Kingsley agreed. "You going to help her?"
"Kingsley," Sirius deadpanned. "Why the hell should I not ? This is what the Magical World needs!"
"He's right," Tonks pointed at her cousin for good measure, "This, more connection to the muggle world and more acceptance for non-humans and voilá! Both Lord V and the Ministry loose a lot of power. Where do I sign?"
Laurence Selwyn was eagerly anticipating his first lesson from Professor Lupin. While sure, he was a werewolf, almost all of his older housemates in Slytherin and Liliana's in Ravenclaw only had good things to say about him, so he had to be at the very least decent. And after Madam Umbridge both twins were ready to accept almost everyone.
Naturally this meant he was driving his roommates crazy with his excitement as apparently, it was improper for purebloods to show excitement. As in not at all. Which was something the entire Selwyn family (or his branch at least) disagreed with. They could show their emotions in front of their friends, inside of their homes (Hogwarts totally counted as home. After all they would spend the majority of the next seven years here).
When it was finally time for their first lesson (unfortunately they shared the class with Hufflepuff. Not that Laurence minded the badgers, but he did enjoy spending time with his twin), Laurence and his friend Fabian Brocklehurst were there early to get good seats, providing they were allowed to choose again (which they were).
Slowly the others arrived, always in groups of two, three or occasionally four, the other students arrived, but Professor Lupin was nowhere to be seen.
That is until the precise second the bell signaling the start of the class stopped ringing. With the best timing Laurence had seen in quite some time (which was saying something), their Professor entered the room from his quarters.
"Good morning, class," he didn't give them any time to respond, though some did anyway, "as you did not have any proper instructions before, the first thing we need to do is to get you all to the same level, as I'm sure some of you have heard of other spells, jinxes and charms than others. This year we will mostly focus on defensive spells and some harmless creatures, as you do not have enough knowledge of the magical theory to do much else." Professor Lupin looked through the class to check that everyone got his point. "The most important thing you need to know about proper Defense against the Dark Arts is that there is no such thing as an useless spell. Same goes for jinxes, curses and even potions. Who can tell me why?"
Laurence hesitatingly raised his hand after thinking about the question for a few seconds. He was one of handful of students to do so.
"Mr. Selwyn?"
"Well," he answered, "I suppose spells and potions for healing are never a bad thing to know or have available… and something like a blasting spell might block the way of someone hunting you."
"Miss Zeller?"
"You could distract someone long enough for you to flee or for help to arrive," the black Hufflepuff mused.
"Exactly! Take five points for both Slytherin and Hufflepuff. It's just as Mr. Selwyn and Miss Zeller said. You do not need to know offensive spells to fight someone. Block, Bewilder and be creative. Who can give me an example how you can achive this using spells, charms or potions you have already learned? Yes, Miss Nott?"
"If you use the Levitation charm to move something big in front of your opponent."
"Precisely. Mr. Schmied?"
"When you take the Wideye potion before the start of a fight you might not get tired as easily," the Hufflepuff had a thick German accent as he spoke.
"Good! Again, five points for Slytherin and Hufflepuff."
Infrequent updates due to school, but reviews will get me to write quicker.
~Marvelgeek42