Marik
The Great Hall was as silent if not more so than it had been over the holiday break. The entire first year class was seated in the bleachers that had been conjured to the sides of the Hall, much the same as they had been during the dueling tournament. The only sounds that could be heard were from the nervous students going through their notes at the last minute. He wasn't nervous though. He had been ready and prepared for this day for a while now.
Looking to his side both Hermione and Harry had the same confident looks on their faces. Harry had his usual confident smirk put on and Hermione had that scary look that she got whenever she was focused. The new long scar on her neck only made the normally scary look even scarier.
The three of them knew while they were sitting there waiting for the presentation ceremony to start that there projects were all going to be the best ones that were presented today for their year. They weren't cocky, well maybe they were a little, but they knew there was no way anyone else in the school had worked as hard or as much as they had this year. They had earned the results they were about to get.
Even with the three of them taking some time off from their work and studies throughout the year to kill a troll, visit the restricted section a few times, and have Hermione become a legend, there was no doubt in Marik's mind that they would have the best projects in their year. They had all come into the year with similar goals in mind today those goals would be reached.
A few more late students made their way into the Hall as they all sat there. Marik looked back to his two friends.
Harry was sitting right up against Hermione's side like usual. Harry might have been oblivious to what he was doing but ever since Hermione's run-in with Draco he had barely left her side. And the times he was by her side he was literally connected to her side. That day had affected him and changed him a little, almost as much as it had changed Hermione.
That poor Draco kid. Marik thought to himself with a sad smile. Marik had never really known the Malfoy boy that well. They were both in Slytherin so he had come into contact with him a few times but altogether he had never really noticed him that much. After Harry had found Hermione by the forbidden forest and brought her to the hospital wing Snape had got word that three of his house students had attacked Hermione and were still unconscious out in the forbidden forest.
Everyone in Hogwarts and even the Slytherins knew that Snape was extremely biased against anyone who wasn't in Slytherin and heavily favored his own house. Except on that day they learned that Snape favored promising potion students more than he even favored his own house. Marik had thought it was impossible for Snape to actually like a student, but Snape had made it very clear that day that he liked Hermione. After coming to the hospital wing for a few seconds to see the damage inflicted on Hermione Snape had quickly turned and headed out to the forest, after that everything else Marik had heard was rumors.
The most believable rumor that coincided with Hermione's side of the story was that Draco and his friends had been burned and stunned by extremely high powered magic so bad that they were immediately rushed off to the magical hospital St. Mungo's and would not be returning to school because of it. The only other story that was semi believable was that Snape had turned the three boys into jelly worms that he used for Hermione's bone healing potion; although Hermione didn't seem to like that theory.
Hermione had recovered quickly during her stay at the hospital wing. The bone in her arm was fixed and reconnected within two days and her cracked rib healed within a week. All of the scratches but one went away within the same day she started drinking her wound repair medicine.
Hermione had received a long cut stretching from the top of her neck to her collarbone during the fight. Hermione had charmed the scar on her neck to remain though. She said that she wanted a reminder of the day. Marik thought it honestly made her look like quite the badass.
At Hogwarts even the professors spread gossip, so within a few days everyone knew everything that happened and Hermione had quickly become a legend. She had even managed to make a third year boy cry by just looking at him when he said the word mudblood too loud in the Great Hall. Needless to say nobody messed with Hermione after that.
Hermione went back to her normal self quick enough after the whole ordeal outside of being much more vocal and passionate about blood status. Harry on the other hand had been noticeably different ever since.
He and Harry had been walking together when Harry said he had a feeling something was wrong. After that Harry had bolted away from Marik and through the castle. Somehow Harry had found Hermione on the edge of the forest. It was lucky that he did too, much longer out there and Hermione's outcome may not have been a good one.
Honestly if Marik had not restrained Harry next to Hermione's bed in the hospital wing there is no telling what Harry would have done if he got Malfoy and his friends first, but from the look on Harry's face Marik had some ideas.
Marik loved Hermione. She was his best friend and his first ever true friend. She had been the first person in this world his age that he met and because of that she was one of the most important things in this world to him. Before Harry there was Hermione, and before Hermione there was loneliness.
So of course obviously he had been affected by the attack on Hermione too. He had wanted to go give Malfoy what he deserved too. It broke his heart to see Hermione beaten and broken and he had cried for the first time in a very long time. As much as he was hurting though he knew Harry was hurting more. Marik loved Hermione, but Harry was in love with Hermione. Even if Harry denied it, Marik knew this was how it was.
Harry's bright world grew a little darker that day. Never in the short time that he had been friends with Harry had Marik ever seen Harry that distraught and torn. For the first week after the attack Harry was beyond jumpy, and was ready to hex anyone that even looked at Hermione. By the end of the week Harry had been so exhausted from the lack of sleep from worrying that Marik had to force Harry with the help of Hermione to spend a night in the hospital wing under some powerful sleeping draught.
Since that night Harry's mood had gotten a little better and he was no longer jumping at every little sound. However he was still much more obviously protective over Hermione, not that Hermione seemed to mind much.
A loud thud sounded throughout the Hall waking him from his thoughts as Hogwarts' caretaker, Filch, closed the large doors of the Great Hall and all of the students' heads turned to look at the Headmaster, waiting for the presentations to begin. Headmaster Dumbledore stood up from the teacher's table after a few awkward moments of silence and cleared his throat.
"Congratulations on making it to the end! You only have a little further left to go before your first years will officially be over. I hope you all have not wasted the time you have been given and your professors and I hope to be impressed with all of your projects." Dumbledore started.
Way to ease the butterflies in everyone's stomach. Marik thought to himself facetiously.
"You will be called to the center of the Hall by last name at random so that it is fair to all of the students in your year. When your name is called you will hand in the written portions of your presentations to the professor of each course that you are presenting a project on so that we know you are not copying any other projects that you might see while you are waiting.
"You will present the projects in the following order: transfiguration, charms, dark arts, potions, herbology, history of magic, and then your elective course. If you have combined projects for multiple courses you must specify so before you present. All students not presenting will remain absolutely silent while presentations are taking place or you may be subject to failure in all of your courses.
"When the last student has finished presenting you will exit the Hall and go to your rooms until it is time for the Express to take you home. Your marks will mailed to you over the summer. The special recognition ceremony for the top students will be held on opening day of your second year. Now…" Dumbledore paused briefly. "First up is Blaise Zabini!"
Poor kid has to go first. Marik thought to himself as the first student's name was called. The student Marik knew to be another Slytherin made his way to center of the Hall after dropping off his papers at the teacher's table. Overall none of his presentations were that impressive. The best thing he did was cast a spell combo that was not even as good as the one Hermione had used in their second month during the dueling tournament.
"So do we finally get to see the super-secret project you have been working on for forever today? Or were the rumors of you not actually working on anything true?" Harry whispered to him as the next student was called up.
"Shh! You are going to get us expelled if you don't shut up Harry!" Hermione angrily whispered at Harry.
Marik winked at Harry and mouthed out that his project was going to blow minds. Harry just rolled his eyes and put back on his usual smug smirk.
The next student was some Hufflepuff boy who although did not do anything too impressive did end up being quite funny as he failed to cast the spell he had created about fifty times.
Marik looked down to his reports on the spell he had created. He had been successful enough with his magic creations to know he wouldn't have the same results as the Hufflepuff boy.
"Daphne Black!" the Headmaster announced the next name.
Marik's head perked up from his notes to get a good look at Daphne in the center of the Hall. He could see Harry, Hermione, and the rest of the students doing the same thing. The three of them agreed that if anyone was a threat in their year to beat them in a class it was Daphne.
As much as he disliked Daphne she had proved to be a very gifted witch. She by far had been Harry and his biggest competition in all of their classes together. Outside of her polyjuice potion though, Daphne had kept a pretty tight lid on all of her projects, so Marik was very curious to see what she was going to present.
For her transfiguration presentation Daphne managed to turn a teacup into a rabbit, the rabbit into a balloon, the balloon into a bird, and then transfigure the bird back into a much nicer teacup right as it landed in front of McGonagall. You had to give her credit for giving a good show. Presentation did factor into the grading after all. As good as it may have been Marik knew Harry was for sure going to win their year in transfiguration so he was much more interested to see Daphne's charms and Dark arts project.
For her charms project Daphne performed a spell combo of almost every major spell they had learned that year on a large watermelon. First she summoned the fruit, levitated it, cut it, mended it, set it on fire, put the fire out and then she ended it by charming the fruit to dance it's way to a waste bin she had set down a few feet away. Although all of the spells were ones they learned in class, the ability to form a continuous spell chain of that many spells without breaking the flow of magic once was very impressive and would certainly earn her a good score.
The rest of Daphne's presentations were equally as good as her first ones where, although besides the polyjuice potion nothing seemed to be any better than any of his or his friends' projects. The polyjuice potion would definitely beat his and Harry's potions project without a doubt, but the rest of the presentations he was confident they still had in the bag. Daphne finished her presentations with her astronomy project and walked back to where she had been sitting looking smug. He was excited to see her reaction to their projects. Hopefully they would wipe that smug look off her face.
The next few students were all pretty unimpressive. The most impressive presentation so far that day ended up coming from a boy named Neville who had at first looked like he might fail out of the school. The Neville boy had messed up and failed to perform every one of his projects up until his herbology presentation. However when it came for that presentation he pulled out what looked like a walking stick that he had enchanted and blown everyone's minds.
From there Neville laid eight flower pots spread out across the Hall. He then planted a different seed in each one and proceeded to tap his stick on the ground a few times. Each of the seeds immediately sprouted and grew into a large beautiful blooming flower. Marik was very impressed with the magic, especially since he had no clue what had actually just happened. Madame Sprout had even given the boy a standing ovation for the presentation. Guess that meant herbology was out of the question, not that he really cared about that one.
"Hermione Granger!" Dumbledore announced his friend's name after the Neville boy sat down. Marik turned to look at Hermione, trying to gauge how nervous she was. Without hesitation Hermione confidently stood up and made her way up to the teacher's table to turn in her papers.
Hermione performed each one of her presentations flawlessly. She drew oohs and ahhs after each one and the reactions only seemed to get better following each presentation. Marik had seen her perform and practice all of her presentations countless times before. He knew she had them all down to a science and would no doubt execute them all perfectly. Her first few presentations were great and all but he was most excited to see how everyone reacted to her potions one.
"For my potions presentation I need the assistance of my friend Harry," Hermione announced to the teachers as the time to present her potions project came up.
Snape nodded and all of the teachers looked on curiously as Harry made his way down from the stands to meet Hermione in the center of the Hall.
"For my project I brewed the animarevealo potion." Hermione paused like they had practiced for dramatic effect. Many of the teachers seemed to be shocked at Hermione's words and the few students who knew what the potion was were also in shock. Marik grinned at their reactions.
Marik took a quick glance at Daphne across the Hall. The smug smirk was removed and her normal ice-queen face had been put back on. That made him happy.
"As you can see from this accuracy test I have managed to brew the potion with a 99% accuracy rating." Hermione handed the test sheet to Snape. "As well the potion was brewed through the more complex ingredient list that requires the use of unicorn hair and unicorn blood. I will now show its effectiveness. Harry please." Hermione directed Harry towards the potion.
Harry drank the potion and immediately his hands turned into paws just as they had done during their first test in the potions lab. Snape, surprisingly, immediately stood up and gave a round of applause. Hermione's head of house Professor Flitwick and even the Headmaster joined him shortly. Marik never in a hundred years would have imagined Snape giving someone a standing ovation.
"Great job Hermione," Marik whispered to himself as he watched the Hall clap for Hermione.
Hermione finished the rest of her projects and she had proven to the rest of the students left that she was now the person to beat. Marik gave her a congratulatory hug when she made her way back to her seat with Harry. Her face looked a little more relaxed now, although knowing her she was probably thinking a mile a minute still about everything that had just happened.
A few more students' names were called out until the Headmaster announced Harry's name. All eyes immediately focused on Harry, just as they always did when any attention was brought to him. Marik had also seen all of Harry's presentations before and had helped him practice a few of them multiple times. The first presentation Harry would give would probably be the best presentation out of the entire day, Marik had to admit.
Transfiguration magic was hard, and being able to transfigure even a hand into your animagus form as a first year was unheard of. Harry walked up though and performed the transfiguration spell to make his hand change into a paw and stay that way without any troubles though, making it look like a walk in the park. Professor McGonagall and even the Headmaster, who Marik knew had been the old transfiguration professor at Hogwarts, stood up following Harry's first presentation and gave him a standing ovation. Even the entire student section joined in on the applause.
The rest of Harry's presentations were just as good as Hermione's presentations were. Although they had some ideas of who would probably win what class going into today Marik was honestly unsure which one of his friends' history of magic projects were better. Harry had done a hell of a job selling his presentation to the professors.
Harry's galactic way-viewer received a big reaction from the astronomy professor and his performance while demonstrating it had blown Daphne's astronomy project out of the water. Harry was a natural at presenting in front of the crowd it seemed. Marik knew his charm's project was better than Harry's project, but Harry had even been so good at presenting his charms project that it actually made Marik a little nervous. The nervousness went away though fairly quickly after he reassured himself of how good his project was a few times.
"Marik Ose," Dumbledore announced his name next as soon as Harry had sat down.
"Gulp," was the sound that came out when he heard his name.
Okay Marik be yourself you can do this. Reassuring himself one more time, he got up and made his way to the teacher's table to drop off his papers. His transfiguration project was first. He made his way to the center of the stage and raised his wand, allowing him a few more calming breaths before he began.
"Aguamenti!" He cast his first spell and water shot out of his wand towards the ceiling. "Transmorgo!" He cast the second spell and imagined the blue pearl he had practiced transfiguring thousands of times. The water ball turned into a large solid blue pearl that began falling to the ground. Right as it hit the ground he cast his next spell. "Avifors." The pearl resembled a cracked egg as it shattered on the ground and out of the pearl a few of the cracked pieces transfigured into birds made out of steam and flew off towards the ceiling of the Hall.
Whew. He thought to himself as he finished his first presentation with a bow.
He had made it through his first project with no issues. Although the presentation was not as impressive as Harry's and probably Hermione's too, his project utilized transfiguring from different states of matter, which they had barely covered that year. He hoped that it would be enough to earn him some credit. McGonagall seemed to like it enough as she gave him a round of applause, although she remained seated. With transfiguration over now it was time for the good stuff.
"My charm's project will be split between both my dark arts project and my spell creation project, both of which required the use of charms to complete." He paused for dramatic effect like they had practiced.
It seemed to work a little as all of the professors were hunched forward looking on with interest. Marik started taking off his school robes that were over his jeans and undershirt to get ready for his next presentation.
"Mr. Ose this is highly inappropriate and is surely not the time for jokes like this!" Professor McGonagall shouted as he took his robe off.
"Shh!" a student from the stands said towards the professor. Marik turned to see that it had been Hermione shhing the head of Gryffindor house.
Bold move Hermione. He thought as he watched his friend give him a smile. Hermione and Harry both gave him a thumbs up when they made eye contact and Marik flashed them a smile before continuing. McGonagall was still glaring but thankfully had shushed.
"For my dark arts project and charms project I decided to create a magical artifact that would help in the defense against the dark arts." Marik reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out his shrunken robes. "Engorgio." He cast the spell on the robes and they grew to their original size. He put the robes on and made sure that he did not move an inch.
"The materials used to weave a set of magical robes can have a great effect in the defense of spells, as well as adding benefits to the casting of offensive spells. For these robes, which I weaved myself, I used a mixture of Norwegian sheep's wool, unicorn hair, and thestral tail hair. The use of these three materials together provides a regenerative effect, a light magical shield, and the capability to store magic in the fibers. Plus. . ." He ran across the Hall, a smug grin plastered on his face as he waited for everyone's' reactions.
The reaction was just what he was hoping for. As he ran the robes fluttered around him and behind him like smoke in the wind. He had produced the exact effect he had been looking for and the result looked even more badass than he had hoped. He could hear a large number of students reacting in the stands after seeing the effect. That only helped to make his grin grow.
"All of the attributes in these robes required not only the advanced use of charms which are listed in my paper, but also provide a good bonus to my overall defense to the dark arts." Marik finished the presentation with a bow.
He couldn't help but feel a little nervous as he looked at the professors, waiting for their reaction. Thankfully after a few seconds Professor Kingsley, Flitwick, and surprisingly McGonagall all gave him a standing ovation.
Whew. He thought again to himself, allowing himself a brief moment to take it all in.
His potions project he presented much like the students before him had by just providing the accuracy report and the potion to Professor Snape. After Hermione and Daphne's potions he didn't expect much of a reaction from Snape.
The same could be said for history of magic presentation which was really just an extensive paper of research that he had written on the history of magical robes.
"I chose not to do a final project in herbology so for my final project I will present the second half of my charms presentation along with my spell creation presentation." He paused again for a few seconds. "For this presentation I will need the assistance of my friend Hermione Granger," he announced to the Hall. As planned, Hermione made her way down to the center of the Hall where he was standing.
"Headmaster Dumbledore, if you would please be kind enough to turn off all the lights in the Hall and draw the curtains," Marik said to the Headmaster.
With just a flick of his hand all of the candles above him went out and the curtains on the large windows drew themselves. It was pitch black. Quickly he lit the large candle that he had summoned and handed it to Hermione who lifted the candle above her head. He could have done this with the candles lit and windows open but doing it this way made the shadows more obvious and the effect better.
"I ask everyone in the Hall to look at my shadow as I walk around Hermione. As you can see it is acting as a normal shadow should and following me wherever I go. Umbrosio." He cast the spell he created.
"However now…" He made the shadow of himself start walking away from where he was standing. Marik heard a few oohs in the audience and even a few quiet screams as his shadow walked around the Hall.
"Not only have I created a spell that can manipulate shadows but I have also created a type of magic that allows for the dimensional manipulation of shadows. Hermione, I wanted to thank you for assisting me, would you be so kind to shake my hand." Marik paused again as Hermione stuck her hand out.
He focused on moving his magic. The spell continued to work itself and a long black shadowy hand reached from the floor up out of the ground towards Hermione and shook her hand. Marik heard a few more gasps emit throughout the Hall as Hermione shook his shadow's hand.
"How about a hug?" he asked Hermione who went to one knee and extended both her arms out. This time a second arm reached out from the shadow to join the first and they both wrapped themselves around Hermione giving her a shadowy hug.
"Thank you Hermione. That is my final project, I am done. Thank you." He turned and said to the Headmaster, ending with another bow.
The Headmaster returned all of the former lights to the Hall and before Marik's eyes adjusted he could see that every professor besides the divination professor had rose to their feet to give him an ovation. He couldn't help but smile as he watched, allowing himself to feel proud of all of his hard work.
"Great job Marik," Hermione whispered beside him. "The super-secret project was worth the wait." She continued with a smile on her face before giving him a congratulatory hug.
"Thanks Hermione, it means a lot," he replied as the two of them made their way back to their seats in the stands.
When they got back he was met by another congratulatory hug from Harry, who seemed to have been impressed enough with his performances.
He was finally finished! Everything had gone just as perfect as when he had practiced it. Even better, he had received a standing ovation from almost all the professors. He couldn't help the smile that came across his face the more he thought about his presentations. Who would've thought at the beginning of the year that he and his friends would be doing anything like what they were doing now. He certainly would never have been able to imagine it.
The rest of the students that were left continued to present their projects one after another over the next hour. Altogether as the three of them left the Great Hall at the conclusion of the presentations and made their way back to their respective dorms to finish packing they were all confident in their presentations getting top marks.
The Slytherin common room and dorms were a chaotic mess of upper year students freaking out and first year students in tears over their presentations. Marik left them all and made a straight line to his room, wanting some well-deserved rest. Marik had already finished packing the day before so he spent the next few hours just lying on his bed replaying the presentations over in his head.
Finally the clock tower bell rang throughout the school, signaling that the school year was officially over and that all of the students were to head to the Express. Marik bolted out of the Slytherin common room to the main hall as quick as he could to meet up with his friends. After Harry and Hermione found him in the hall they made their way to the Hogwarts Express. Pushing their way through they found the first empty compartment they could and quickly locked the door so no one else would bother them.
"Can you believe we are already done with our first year? It feels like it has been just a few days since we were riding with McGonagall to Diagon Alley and learning that this world existed Marik," Hermione said to him and he nodded back in agreement. "And can you believe how long it's been since we met you already Harry and planned our trip to the forbidden forest?"
"It's pretty crazy huh?" Harry answered.
"I'm already ready for next year," Marik said seriously.
"Yeah me too. I'm going to go crazy cooped up in my house alone all summer," Harry added.
"I will make sure to write the both of you and help keep you sane. And Harry we should both try and go to Marik's dueling championship this summer too. Isn't it in France? It should be easy for me to make it if it is since I will already be there," Hermione asked him.
"Yeah, definitely," Harry quickly added.
"Yeah, it's in Paris. . . Although now that you mention it I probably should have told my parents that I will have to go to France this summer," Marik replied. He had completely forgotten to tell his parents about the tournament in all the chaos of the year.
"MARIK OSE!" Hermione shouted at him. "You better write Harry and I more than you wrote your parents or I will make sure your second year is hell!" Hermione threatened. Her threats had become a lot scarier with the addition of the scar. He fully believed she was not lying.
"I will I will don't worry. How else will I know what books I should be reading?" Marik added.
"You better!" Hermione said.
"So speaking of reading, I was reading earlier about. . ." Hermione started.
"Oh merlin here we go," Marik joked.
"Get ready for this," Harry added.
"Oh would you two. . ." The three of them burst out into laughter.
They all joked and talked amongst each other for the entire train ride. Each of them promised to keep up with their work over summer and write as often as they could. Hermione had even bought them both a goodbye goodie bag filled with an assortment of candies. Marik couldn't help but smile as he popped a vanilla-flavored jelly bean into his mouth.
A year ago his world was bleak and bland filled only with loneliness and no magic at all. Today though his world was filled with color, magic, and best of all friends. His life had gotten so much better since he had left for Hogwarts. Better than anything he could have ever imagined in his previous life and time before he had learned he was a wizard.
He had discovered so much that was amazing, and even more that was magical. He discovered how amazing the world of magic was and how amazing learning magic could be. Everything about his new world had been amazing. His best mate Harry was amazing. His best friend Hermione was amazing. And magic… All of the magic in this world was truly amazing.
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