The summary has been updated with dialogue from Chapter Two.
I don't own the Harry Potter series or Pokémon.
Chapter Seven: Classes… Start!
Dinner had passed without much fanfare, and Moon returned to her room as soon as she could to get more studying done. She hadn't really enjoyed the evening—dinner had reminded her too much of her first international league meeting, with her being the youngest at the table—but there were a few things that she had learned during the meal.
Professor McGonagall was strict, but relatively fair overall.
Professor Sprout was far more lenient, but a bit more biased.
Professor Flitwick was cheery, but witty.
Professor Snape was both strict and biased.
The first three had short conversations with her about what subjects she thought were interesting, or how she was liking Hogwarts so far. Snape had not said a word, but she suspected he was listening to everything. She had kept track of his reactions to her words; he didn't give much away, but there was a spark of interest when she said she was looking forward to Defence.
Rotom had woken her up early the next morning, and she ordered the ghost to stay in the bag and be quiet for the time being. She couldn't risk having the poltergeist wreaking havoc during her first classes. Rotom wasn't entirely pleased, but still agreed in the end.
"It'zzz not like I'm missing anything," the spirit muttered during breakfast. Moon glanced around the table to see if any of the professors had overheard. Everyone had been too engrossed in their own conversations to notice.
"Given the general attitude towards ghosts here, you could be confiscated if someone found you," she whispered later on as she made her way to the dungeons. "I can't lose you."
"I didn't know you had such strong feelingzzz."
"I didn't mean it like that, genius," she huffed.
When she first stepped into the Potions classroom, her heart stilled for a moment.
This place is creepier than the abandoned market.
It was off-putting, with the damp air, jars of preserved ingredients (some of which were eyeballs and organs—gross), and distinct greenish light. However, another part of her thought it was sort of cool. She set up her work station, basing the layout on the textbook, and opened a blank notebook. She looked at the quill-and-ink set with irritation; it was illogical to use quills when pens were so available.
The dungeon doors opened loudly, and she almost pulled a muscle turning her head so fast. Professor Snape was striding into the room with his cloak trailing behind him. It might have been more intimidating if she was younger and less cynical.
He stood in front of the table her cauldron was resting at. His dark eyes showed a weird mix of disdain and approval.
"A bit eager to get started, are we?" he said, and Moon couldn't help but notice the slow drawl in his voice.
"I figured being prepared for any type of lesson is reasonable," she replied. The scorn receded, and Snape took a step back.
"Fair enough. Today's lesson, however, is theoretical. You will have to curb your… enthusiasm."
The lesson was nearly an hour's worth of note-taking and responding to questions. Moon got the sense that Snape was trying to trip her up, but she managed to respond to the questions correctly. It wasn't exactly dull, and she figured that she had gotten Snape's approval (at least temporarily), but she hoped her next lesson would be a bit more exciting.
Herbology was a tad more interesting. Professor Sprout had her working with the plants immediately, and alternated between giving directions and making conversation.
Transfiguration started out with a bang, as McGonagall transformed from a cat into a human. Moon was impressed, but her spirits were lowered when they simply went over the vastly complicated theory and she was, yet again, kept from using her wand.
And then there was Charms.
Flitwick was quite amiable and more than willing to let her rattle off questions about the work that went into Charms, and how it differed from Transfiguration. He even let her try some minor spells that lit up her wand and extinguished it. It was something incredibly simple—nothing more complicated than pressing a button on a flashlight—but the joy was overwhelming.
She was a witch.
It was one thing to be told that she had magical abilities, and another thing to actually use them. She saw her abilities when she first held her wand, but it was involuntary and didn't have the same effect. Knowing she could control her magical powers gave her a thrill comparable to being chosen by Rowlet.
After dinner, she alternated between reading about her next classes (History of Magic, Astronomy, and a one-time flying lesson) and retrying the wand-lighting charm. Rotom was flipping through her other textbooks.
"Seemzzz like people don't like dragons here," the pokédex remarked.
"Really?" Moon asked, looking away from the section on the failure of the Werewolf Code of Conduct. Rotom levitated the book over to her, holding it open on a page with a depiction of a dragon. The text underneath it stated it was a Common Welsh Green, although the sketch was done entirely in regular ink and lacked any distinctive colour.
"Well, it does seem to be larger than any Salamence or Kommo-o you could find," she reasoned. "And if they're claiming it's untrainable… well, I bet someone must have tried to tame one at some point."
"Still, labelling it as 'highly dangerous' isn't exactly helpful," Rotom buzzed. Moon had to agree; deciding that a living creature was dangerous and therefore never allowing anyone to even attempt to tame it or treat it in a more humane manner was rather silly.
Of course, maybe the warning was there to keep children from trying to pet random dragons. Many pokédex entries had warnings about approaching certain pokémon for the same reason.
She passed Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them back to Rotom and continued her own reading. Goblin rebellions and historical figures were nowhere near as exciting as dragons, but memorizing facts and dates wasn't hard work.
It was several hours later, when she was reading a book on Astronomy, that her eyes started to slide shut. Moon closed the textbook and set it beside her bed. After changing, she blew out the candles that she had lit when the sun went down. She slipped beneath the blankets and fell asleep, thoughts of stars and wars still dancing through her head.
History of Magic the next day was as boring as listening to reports of berry sales, and Moon only planned to attend the classes to catch up on other homework until the school year started. The teacher—a ghost named Binns—hardly recognized that she was there and would probably not mind if she got some work done. Astronomy was scheduled at night, and so Moon did more research while waiting for her flying lesson.
Now, Moon was no stranger to flying. She had taken many trips across Alola on Charizard. She had gone on jets and hot-air balloons. May had even given her a ride on Latios once. She was perfectly fine with the idea of flying in general. She had no fear of heights.
The idea of being supported by a broomstick, however, was ridiculous.
Moon stared at the battered piece of wood with trepidation. How could something so old and tiny possibly keep her in the air?
"Stand on the left side of the broomstick," Madam Hooch instructed. "Hold your hand over the broomstick, and say 'up'."
She did as instructed, but the broom only rolled around on the grass.
"It usually takes a few tries," Madam Hooch said. "You have to mean it. Be confident; you're given an order, not asking for permission."
After making the broom jump a few inches, Moon's third attempt was successful. The broomstick flew upwards, knocking her palm back. She yelped in surprise and almost forgot to actually grasp the broom. Madam Hooch spent roughly a minute correcting her grip and explaining the importance of proper posture and technique before she was actually allowed to mount the broom.
"I want you to hover for a moment, and then tilt your broom forward to land," the teacher instructed. Moon cautiously kicked off the ground. The broom wobbled, her stomach flipped, but she did manage to hover. She tilted the front of the broom towards the ground and landed gently. Her legs were shaking.
"Very good. Now, I want you to try moving forward…"
Flying, it seemed, was not going to be Moon's strong point. She could manage flying, but the combination of the ancient broomstick and her own nervousness towards the activity meant that the lesson would be her only time flying, unless she absolutely had to get on another broomstick.
Her legs were still shaking when she made it back to her room. She collapsed on the bed and didn't move for several minutes. Rotom floated around her nervously, prodding her head in an attempt to get a reaction.
"Come on," Rotom whirred, "it couldn't have been that bad."
"It's a deathtrap. A literal deathtrap."
"You're being dramatic."
"I wrestle with a dragon for fun and I own several deadly beasts that the IP wanted eliminated or contained. When I say deathtrap, I mean deathtrap."
"You once claimed you needed you're leg amputated after stubbing your toe, so excuzzze me if I don't believe you."
Her groan was muffled by the blanket. "I'm never doing that again. Not unless it's a life or death situation."
"You have plenty of those," Rotom remarked cheerfully.
She studied until dinner, and was pulled away to her Astronomy lesson immediately afterwards. As much as she enjoyed staring at the night sky, having to learn the names of all the constellations and the dates to view them wasn't the most riveting activity.
Her next few days were more fruitful. She had Defence Against the Dark Arts, and she noticed that Professor Snape seemed more passionate about the subject than Potions. She figured that his actual subject was Potions, as that was the subject she learned on the first day, and none of the other professors taught more than one class. She thought, perhaps, the previous teacher retired at the end of the year, and no replacement had been found yet.
Along with the regular classes she was taking, she was also introduced to several electives. Muggle Studies, while humourous, was rather flawed and not very useful for her. Arithmancy and Ancient Runes were fascinating, if rather complex subjects.
Moon was, however, captivated by the last two electives: Care of Magical Creatures and Divination.
The former came naturally to her. After caring for her pokémon for so long, the creatures Hagrid had brought for lessons weren't that complicated or fearsome. It was almost relaxing, having something so familiar while being surrounded by things so foreign and unknown.
Divination, on the other hand, was just plain fascinating in theory. The idea that she could see into the future and interpret the events was astounding. The fact that Professor Trelawney—with her bug-eye glasses, gossamer shawls, and pessimistic predictions—was so zealous about the subject that Moon couldn't help but be dragged into it as well. Trelawney also claimed Moon had a gift for the subject, although whether that was a genuine compliment or merely a statement about her enthusiasm, she couldn't tell.
Days passed by along with more tutoring sessions, and Moon continued to improve her skills. She had, sadly, decided to drop Arithmancy and Ancient Runes officially, although both professors were willing to assist her with her own personal studies of the subjects. Transfiguration was getting better, and she had managed to accomplish the main points of first and second year work. Potions wasn't her strongest field, but she managed to do decently if she followed the instructions down to the letter. Herbology was excellent, and she had introduced Professor Sprout to some of the unique berries she had been carrying around. She now had several plants started in the greenhouse on the professor's request. Charms was her best class so far, and she had managed to perform the Freezing Charm without any difficulty.
The start of the school year was less than a week away when Dumbledore requested her to visit his office. Moon found herself seated with a large cup of tea in the messy workplace after she had finished tending to the salamanders Hagrid was keeping.
"How have classes been, Miss Blakesley?" Dumbledore asked, taking a sip of tea from his own mug.
"They've been great so far," she replied. Moon knew that she wasn't there for small talk. If Dumbledore wanted to know how well she had been doing in classes, he would have had the professors report to him rather than ask her personally.
"And your thoughts of Hogwarts so far?" he inquired.
"It's interesting. I've never been in a place where the stairs move. Or where poltergeists throw bread at you for fun."
"I take that you've encountered Peeves, then," the old wizard chuckled. "He is a rather mischievous spirit, although his sense of humour is rather odd."
Moon thought Peeves was hilarious. After the initial encounter, Peeves had started targeting the staff members instead. Moon always smiled in response, or complimented his work when the victim was out of hearing range. The spirit had calmed down gradually ever since, although the war with Filch was still strong.
"How do you feel about the arrival of the other students?"
Moon tilted her head. "Fine, I suppose."
She hadn't given it much thought at all, actually.
"Very well then," Dumbledore said, and Moon got the feeling that he knew what she was thinking. "Now, there's something I wish to discuss with you, regarding the upcoming year.
"As you may or may not know, all students in third year and above are allowed to visit the village of Hogsmeade on certain weekends, with the permission of their parents. Due to your unique circumstances, the permission form can't be completed in the usual manner."
He took another sip of tea. "The majority of the staff—myself included—will be visiting Hogsmeade this Saturday. If you wish to have a trial-period of sorts, to see if you're responsible enough to leave without written permission from a guardian, you're free to join us. You'll be allowed to explore the village without a guide. If, of course, you somehow manage to get yourself in trouble, this privilege will be revoked."
The last part was said with a grin and a distinct twinkle in his eye, and Moon wasn't sure if Dumbledore was joking or if he was hiding something.
"I… think I'll try it out," she said slowly. She had been wanting to get outside the school grounds for a while. She was never able to stay in one place for very long, and she was starting to grow bored.
"If you're certain, then," Dumbledore said. "Be ready to leave at eleven o'clock on Saturday morning. We will be gathering near the main doors."
She finished her tea, and the rest of the week passed by as usual. The teachers were talking about a prison break that happened earlier in the month. Moon could recite the story of Sirius Black's escape from Azkaban, considering the amount of times she had heard it. Everyone had gotten more and more nervous as time passed, however, and the tension had seeped into lessons as well. Snape snapped the most out of all of them, although that was possibly due to the fact that Dumbledore had found a full-time DADA professor. There had been talk of another incident involving a student that had run away from his house, but that had only been brought up once. The kid had found his way to Diagon Alley and had stayed at the Leaky Cauldron ever since.
By Friday night, Moon was tired of classes and was ready for a relaxing day off, and she prayed that the peace she had been blessed with would hold for one more day.
Originally this chapter was split into two, but I felt like they were similar enough to merge into one. Hope everyone enjoyed this chapter. Next chapter will be the 'trial' Hogsmeade visit (guess how that'll turn out), and the one after that is where the PoA storyline comes into play.
Moon will not be officially sorted into any house. For those that are curious, she would be in Ravenclaw, although she has (what I would call) Slytherin and Gryffindor tendencies.
Thanks for the feedback! Especially Guest reviewer for your advice and compliment. It means a lot. On another note, I was calculating the word count of the chapters I have already written, and some of them do get pretty long (for my standards anyway). So, hooray for that.
Review?