Chapter summary: Alex/Harry deals with the first week of his second year.
Alex woke up the next morning, showered, brushed his teeth, got dressed, and went downstairs to breakfast. Beth and Hermione were already there, the former looking over her schedule as she ate and the latter reading Wanderings with Werewolves. Alex made a face at the book, since he knew everything there was to know about werewolves from Remus and therefore had spotted a few inconsistencies in it.
"Good morning, Alex," said Beth cheerfully, looking up from her schedule. "Here's your timetable." She handed him a sheet of parchment with his name on it.
"Good morning, and thanks, Beth," Alex replied. "Good morning, Hermione." Hermione didn't even look up from her book as she responded, but he ignored that. He sat down, grabbed some toast and jam, and filled his bowl with some oatmeal. As he started eating, he looked through his timetable. Herbology was first, which would make Neville happy. After that was Transfiguration, with Defense Against Dark Arts in the afternoon, and Alex groaned at the thought of having to face Lockhart.
Ron and Neville showed up at this point. After bidding the girls 'good morning', they grabbed some food and looked through their timetables. A few minutes later, Jonas and Ginny stopped by the Gryffindor table and said hello before continuing to the Ravenclaw table. Both had slight frowns on their faces, which Alex found strange. Luna also stopped to say hello, with Adam and Leah looking very upset about something behind her.
When the Ravenclaw quintet had all sat down, Alex looked over at the Ravenclaw table. He was startled to see the other first-years giving Luna rather nasty looks or smirking unpleasantly. All right, she might not exactly fit most people's definition of normal, but she was a nice person and an extremely loyal friend. It didn't matter to him or anyone else he was close to if Luna believed everything her father printed in The Quibbler and had been acting a bit stranger since her mother's unfortunate death two years ago.
"What's going on with the Ravenclaws?" asked Neville. "Some of them are giving Luna nasty looks, and her friends are glaring back at them."
"I don't know," answered Alex. "Maybe they're having difficultly adjusting to Luna's uniqueness?"
"I'll ask Jonas about it later," said Beth with a slight frown. "I hope-"
She broke off as Leah jumped to her feet and snapped, "Shut tha' mouth, Agatha Bollings! I thought we told thee earlier t' leave Luna alone!"
"And we told you to stop calling her 'Loony'!" added Ginny angrily. "Luna's a perfectly nice girl and a great friend!"
"Oh dear," said Hermione softly. "I take it that the other first-year Ravenclaws aren't accepting of Luna's oddness and are teasing her."
Alex flinched, recalling Hermione mentioning once that she had been teased back when she had been in primary school.
Professor McGonagall and Professor Flitwick appeared to ask what was going on. "We weren't doing anything," said Agatha at once. "They just yelled at me for no-"
"'Nowt o' th' sort!" interrupted Adam angrily, speaking in the same Yorkshire accent as his twin. "'Tis th' other first-years! They're makin' fun o' Luna an' callin' her names." He paused to take a deep breath, and in a calmer tone without the accent, continued, "I guess Luna Lovegood might come across as a bit weird and her father's magazine isn't taken seriously by most people. But she's nice and a wonderful friend and doesn't deserve to be made fun of."
"There will be no teasing of other students, Miss Bolling," said Professor Flitwick sternly. "I will not have it in my house. Is that clear, everyone? Now, I want Miss Lovegood to be left alone if you cannot accept her differences and be her friend. And while it is admirable that you wish to stand up for a friend, I would like no more outbursts during mealtimes, Mr. and Miss Rosenberg. You too, Miss Weasley. If this happens again, I will be forced to take points away or assign detentions."
Leah and Adam sat down, glaring at Agatha and another boy that Alex remembered from the Sorting as being named Barry Carson. Vera got up from her seat, a frown on her face, and walked over to Agatha. The Gryffindor quintet couldn't hear what was being said, but it looked like the first-year was getting a further lecture. Fred, George, Lee, and Ivan started having a whispered conversation of their own as well, shooting devious looks at the Ravenclaw table.
"What are they up to?" hissed Hermione.
Ron and Neville shrugged in reply, but Beth responded, "I think I know. When the other Slytherins were bothering Ivan because of being a Roma, Fred and George found out and started pranking them in order to get back at them. After a dozen or so pranks and a couple of detentions from Professor Snape, the other Slytherins stopped and just ignored Ivan instead. Since certain Ravenclaws are making fun of Luna, those four are probably plotting a few pranks as revenge. It'd serve those close-minded idiots right, and none of the pranks would be anything truly harmful."
Hermione looked disapproving, but didn't say anything, for she knew she couldn't talk the four out of it, and anyway, a part of her did feel that the Ravenclaws that weren't Luna's friends should get some payback for making fun of her. She simply sighed and resumed eating her breakfast.
After breakfast, the first-year Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs headed for Herbology, where Professor Sprout informed them that they would be in Greenhouse Three today. This caught their interest right away, since they had only been in Greenhouse One before, which didn't have all the interesting or more dangerous plants that Greenhouse Three did. Once inside, they were told that they would be repotting with mandrakes. Neville and Hermione answered the two questions that Professor Sprout asked, winning ten points each for Gryffindor. Since the mandrakes were currently only babies, their cry would not kill like the mature ones, but it would knock you out for a few hours, so you still had to wear earmuffs when repotting them.
The class was told to split up into groups of four to work. Beth and Hermione went off to work with Parvati and Lavender, while Alex, Ron, and Neville were joined by a Hufflepuff who introduced himself as Justin Finch-Fletchey. He congratulated them on stopping Quirrell last school term, and went on to comment that Lockhart was amazing, based on the stuff he had done in his books. Justin added that his name had been down for Eton, (which meant he was Muggleborn), but was happier to be at Hogwarts instead. "Mother was a bit disappointed, of course," he said, "but after I made her read Lockhart's books she decided that having a wizard in the family would be useful."
Ron nodded, while Neville whispered, "What's Eton?"
"It's a Muggle public school* for boys," Alex whispered back. "A really good one. If you attend, you're usually either from a rich family or got an academic scholarship."
There was no more talk after that, for they all had to put on the earmuffs and start repotting the mandrakes. It wasn't as easy as Professor Sprout made it look, and Neville was the only one that had little difficulty, since Herbology was his forte, after all. Alex made faces all throughout the repotting, wishing that he had his friend's skill.
When class ended, everyone went back inside to quickly wash up and then headed for their next class. The Gryffindors had Transfiguration and the lesson was on turning beetles into buttons. Hermione and Beth were able to turn their beetles into buttons very quickly, and by the time class ended, had produced a handful of perfect coat buttons each. After numerous tries, Alex managed to turn his beetle into a button, but it was the same color as the beetle. Neville had managed to produce something that was like a button, except it was still shaped like a beetle. As for Ron, he was able to turn his beetle into a button, except that it still had antennae.
After Transfiguration was lunch. Hermione read another one of Lockhart's books as she ate, which Alex found rather pointless. He had flipped through them once, and put them down in disgust. The books came across more like stories than actual nonfiction, for one thing, and didn't go into any detail about any of the spells that Lockhart had supposedly used to fight ghouls and vampires and other dark creatures or beings. Unfortunately, Hermione didn't take the same view that he did, and only conceded that Wanderings with Werewolves might have some errors, because of Remus being a werewolf.
Defense Against Dark Arts did not turn out to be a good class. When the whole class was seated, Lockhart cleared his throat loudly and silence fell. He reached forward, picked up Neville's copy of Travels with Trolls, and held it up to show his own, winking portrait on the front.
"Me," he said, pointing at it and winking as well. "Gilderoy 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 but I don't talk about that. I didn't get rid of the Bandon Banshee by smiling at her!"
He waited for them to laugh; a few people smiled weakly. "I see you've all bought a complete set of my books — well done. I thought we'd start today with a little quiz. Nothing to worry about — just to check how well you've read them, how much you've taken in —"
When he had handed out the test papers he returned to the front of the class and said, "You have thirty minutes — start —now!"
Alex looked down at his paper and read:
1. What is Gilderoy Lockhart's favorite color?
2. What is Gilderoy Lockhart's secret ambition?
3. What, in your opinion, is Gilderoy Lockhart's greatest achievement to date?
On and on it went, over three sides of paper, right down to:
54. When is Gilderoy Lockhart's birthday, and what would his ideal gift be?
Is he serious? Alex thought in utter disgust. He picked up his quill, wrote down "To really do all the stuff in his books and have it all be completely accurate," for question two and 'Being able to walk and breathe at the same time," for question three. The rest of the questions he left blank, except for the last one, which he wrote, "What does all this useless information about yourself have to do with Defense?"
Half an hour later, Lockhart collected the papers and rifled through them in front of the class. "Tut, tut — hardly any of you remembered that my favorite color is lilac. I say so in Year with the Yeti. And a few of you need to read Wanderings with Werewolves more carefully — I clearly state in chapter twelve that my ideal birthday gift would be harmony between all magic and non-magic peoples — though I wouldn't say no to a large bottle of Ogden's Old Firewhisky!"
He gave them another roguish wink. Ron was now staring at Lockhart with an expression of disbelief on his face; Seamus Finnigan and Dean Thomas, who were sitting in front, were shaking with silent laughter. Hermione, on the other hand, was listening to Lockhart with rapt attention and gave a start when he mentioned her name.
"… but Miss Hermione Granger knew my secret ambition is to rid the world of evil and market my own range of hair-care potions — good girl! In fact" — he flipped her paper over — "full marks! Where is Miss Hermione Granger?"
Hermione raised a trembling hand.
"Excellent!" beamed Lockhart. "Quite excellent! Take ten points for Gryffindor! And so — to business —"
He bent down behind his desk and lifted a large, covered cage onto it.
"Now — be warned! It is my job to arm you against the foulest creatures known to wizardkind! You may find yourselves facing your worst fears in this room. Know only that no harm can befall you whilst I am here. All I ask is that you remain calm."
In spite of himself, Alex leaned around his pile of books for a better look at the cage. Lockhart placed a hand on the cover. Dean and Seamus had stopped laughing now. Neville was cowering in his front row seat.
"I must ask you not to scream," said Lockhart in a low voice. "It might provoke them."
As the whole class held its breath, Lockhart whipped off the cover. "Yes," he said dramatically. "Freshly caught Cornish pixies."
Seamus Finnigan couldn't control himself. He let out a snort of laughter that even Lockhart couldn't mistake for a scream of terror.
"Yes?" He smiled at Seamus.
"Well, they're not — they're not very —dangerous, are they?" Seamus choked.
"Don't be so sure!" said Lockhart, waggling a finger annoyingly at Seamus. "Devilish tricky little blighters they can be!"
The pixies were electric blue and about eight inches high, with pointed faces and voices so shrill it was like listening to a lot of budgies arguing. The moment the cover had been removed, they had started jabbering and rocketing around, rattling the bars and making bizarre faces at the people nearest them.
"Right, then," Lockhart said loudly. "Let's see what you make of them!" And he opened the cage.
It was pandemonium. The pixies shot in every direction like rockets. Two of them seized Neville by the ears and lifted him into the air. Several shot straight through the window, showering the back row with broken glass. The rest proceeded to wreck the classroom more effectively than a rampaging rhino. They grabbed ink bottles and sprayed the class with them, shredded books and papers, tore pictures from the walls, up-ended the waste basket, grabbed bags and books and threw them out of the smashed window; within minutes, half the class was sheltering under desks and Neville was swinging from the iron chandelier in the ceiling.
"Come on now — round them up, round them up, they're only pixies," Lockhart shouted. He rolled up his sleeves, brandished his wand, and bellowed, "Peskipiksi Pesternomi!"
It had absolutely no effect; one of the pixies seized his wand and threw it out of the window, too. Lockhart gulped and dived under his own desk, narrowly avoiding being squashed by Neville, who was gently levitated down by Beth, frowning deep in concentration.
The bell rang and there was a mad rush toward the exit. In the relative calm that followed, Lockhart straightened up, caught sight of the Gryffindor quintet, who were almost at the door, and said, "Well, I'll ask you five to just nip the rest of them back into their cage." He swept past them and shut the door quickly behind him.
"Can you believe him?" roared Ron as one of the remaining pixies bit him painfully on the ear.
"He just wants to give us some hands-on experience," said Hermione, immobilizing two pixies at once with a clever Freezing Charm and stuffing them back into their cage.
"Hands on?" said Alex, who was trying to grab a pixie dancing out of reach with its tongue out. "Hermione, he didn't have a clue what he was doing —"
"Rubbish," said Hermione. "You've read his books — look at all those amazing things he's done —"
"He says he's done," Ron muttered.
"But-" protested Hermione.
"If there are errors in Wanderings with Werewolves, then there probably errors in his other books as well," pointed out Beth, doing a mass Freezing Charm on all the pixies.
As they proceeded to stuff all the frozen pixies back into the cage, Neville added, "Hermione, what does knowing Lockhart's favorite color and ideal birthday gift and all that other stuff about him have to do with Defense Against Dark Arts?"
Hermione opened her mouth to reply, then shut it as she realized that she had no good answer. When they were done with the pixies and left the classroom, she had a thoughtful look on her face.
* I am using the British meaning of 'public school', which in America would be known as a 'private school'. In Britain, public schools were called that since they were open to the public as long as you could pay the fees or obtained a scholarship.