The sorting was relatively uneventful, Ginny was sorted into Gryffindor, and after half an hour so was Luna. Evidently she had chosen to argue the hat into the ground because she had friends here.
Ellie was 99% sure it was more related to her and Az being related to her "Crumple-Horned Snorcack", aka Balthazar, more than anything else, but it was still a happy thought that the younger girl thought of them as friends. Yes Ellie was kind of a fan of making friends, if you were deprived of those for most of your life, so would you.
Then there was Collin Creevey, a Muggle-born who had joined Gryffindor and had his own camera. He was also insanely enthusiastic which was bit troublesome but Ellie found it kinda adorable. He had a lot of questions too, including about Eliatropes and their dragon relatives which he had heard of over the usual channels. And as usual, Ellie was all too happy to answer questions regarding her people.
A lot of first-years were listening to these explanations while the feast went underway, many throwing questions in as she went along. The fact that it all matched what the Quibbler said, to the amazement of many around them, was probably why so many others also listened.
"Yeah, we did an Interview with Luna and her dad during my twelfth Birthday actually, and made sure they keep to what we said and didn't add anything." Explained Ellie, a real little problem she had learned about with the Quibbler was the odd penchant for rumor spreading that the private newspaper often did. It made it a whole lot funnier to read and wasn't anywhere near the smear-campaign most articles in the Daily Prophet liked to be, particularly anything written by Rita Skeeter.
Ellie promised herself she would NEVER give an interview to that woman.
Anyway, this announcement instantly led to a whole lot of interest in the Quibbler, or at least that particular article of it. Ellie obviously couldn't get into too much detail during conversation, especially while eating, but the Quibbler had a whole lot of info due to the interview.
"So Potter, I hope you're enjoying the fruits of your destruction of proper magical society by forcing us to accept a Muggle and two subhuman creatures onto the Wizengarmot, because that won't last very long." And naturally, someone had to ruin it as Draco Malfoy had walked over, to sneer at Ellie.
"Junior League Terrorist says what?" Asked Ellie, turning around to him.
"What?" Was the confused response of Draco Malfoy, up until he caught on to what she just made him do. "Y- What in the hell Potter?! Are you seriously still claiming my father is a Death Eater? He wasn't among the victims of those phony trials you caused!" Exclaimed Malfoy angrily as Ellie glared at him.
"Tell yourself that all you want, I know he paid off the investigators, one of a few who could. He'll get his comeuppance, sooner or later. There is only so far money can carry you Malfoy." Stated Ellie darkly. Sure, usually she wouldn't threaten someone, but in the time she had spent observing Lucius Malfoy, who had been present at a few hearings she had been at due to lawsuits, she had grown to despise the effeminate nobleman.
Malfoy growled, but backed off, between the glares he was getting from the rest of Gryffindor and said Gryffindors now including a literal dragon, he had nothing to gain from fighting Ellie, or at least that was her interpretation. She couldn't read minds after all. "Geez, talk about fighting words Ellie." Spoke up Angelina Johnson, one of Gryffindor's three Chasers with a huge grin on her face.
"I guess so, just really sick of his attitude." Stated Ellie as she turned back to the food, deciding to ignore any further murmurs by the Slytherin table.
"Well I'm glad to see you return to Britain Ellie, with everything that was going on I was kind of scared you would jump off of Hogwarts." Admitted Oliver Wood, the Quidditch Team Captain for Gryffindor House.
"I may have disagreements with Professor Dumbledore, and maybe I want to punch him just a little bit for putting me at the Dursleys separated from my sister, but I have friends here. Besides, I still want to wipe Slytherin face with the Quidditch pitch to get that stain off of it they call a smile." Stated Ellie with a grin and Oliver just looked giddy at that. "Also, you won't believe what Sirius got Az and me, its gonna blow your socks off." She added while Fred and George grinned at one another, they naturally knew already about that.
"Just remember not to start worshiping us or our bio-mom, we don't want to start a cult. Yet." Added Az, to giggles from Hermione, Ginny and Ellie.
This naturally left the rest of the Gryffindor Team confused but also anticipating the coming surprise.
~~o~~O~~o~~O~~o~~O~~o~~O~~o~~O~~o~~
Up on the Teacher's Table, Albus Dumbledore surveyed the students, both the new ones and the old.
/Well, I reap what I sow, should've listened to Minerva when she told me there is no way miss Azkalagora would grow up to be a normal dragon. I just hope they understand why I couldn't put Ellie with a family protected by Blood Wards AND place her sister with her. At least, eventually./ Thought the old man with a sigh. Just another bullet point on his long list of decisions in his life which he grew to regret.
"Albus, I have been informed that Lucius has… donated a set of six Nimbus 2001 to the Slytherin Quidditch Team, and his son has his own too and I have been requested to assign him as Seeker." Reported Snape at that point and Dumbledore rolled his eyes, naturally the young Malfoy had wanted to enter the Quidditch circuit, just to take on miss Potter.
He would call it a juvenile crush, but there was too much animosity for that to be. "Well, I cannot exactly tell you not to. It is your house after all." Stated Albus, saying no would, after all, mean showing favoritism, he was a Gryffindor in his day after all, but he couldn't afford that as a Headmaster.
"Actually, I have some interesting news of my own." Spoke up Minerva from the other side, still eyeing Lockhart suspiciously but otherwise ignoring the fraud. "Sirius has evidently bought the twins, that is Ellie and Az, their own Nimbus 2001 brooms, and Ellie plans to donate her Nimbus 2000 for use by the Gryffindor Team with Az wishing to try out and if she fails, to allow the team to use her own Nimbus 2001 instead." Explained the woman and Albus couldn't help a chuckle.
"Well, now that is how you get some more brooms in circulation by proper means." Spoke up Filius, also laughing to himself. The head of Ravenclaw obviously liking to play Neutral most of the time and he wasn't too bothered with Quidditch.
"Oh, I believe I should give them some pointers then!" Spoke up Lockhart and Albus couldn't help but smirk, just a bit because of what he was about to say.
"I am sorry Gilderoy, but didn't the twins get a Restraining Order against you? You can't interact with them outside your capacity as their teacher for Defense Against the Dark Arts and any other activities related to this. In fact, you have to remain at a distance of 10 meters from miss Potter outside of class." Stated Dumbledore and the man flinched, the pleasant tone as much a warning as anything as Pomona on the other side of the table nearly snorted her butter beer out of her nose with her laughter, assisted by Poppy.
Maybe the year was starting… complicated, but if nothing else it certainly was entertaining.
~~o~~O~~o~~O~~o~~O~~o~~O~~o~~O~~o~~
When the Desserts vanished from the tables, the Headmaster stood up, same as the last year.
"So, now that we are all well fed, let us move on to the announcements. First of all, I want to inform all of our first-year students and remind our returnees, that the Forest on the school premises, as its name "The Forbidden Forest" implies, is very much off-limits to all students if not supervised for a class." Began the old man and Ellie exchanged a glance with Hermione and Neville. Exceptions include detention for being out of bed past-curfew, to help the groundskeeper find the killer of unicorns of all things.
"Next, the third floor corridor which was off-limits last year, is once again free to be accessed by all students." Continued Dumbledore and curious glances from firsties were met with snickers by other students. "Quidditch try-outs will begin next week for all students of second year and above who wish to join their house teams." Continued Dumbledore, to which Ellie and Az smiled at one another.
"Last, but not least, our new Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor, welcome with me Professor Gilderoy Lockhart!" Announced Dumbledore and while many cheered, especially girls, Ellie just politely clapped while Az didn't even do that, both of them shooting glares at the man who clearly wanted to give some sort of speech but luckily, the headmaster didn't let him.
"So, still got beef with Lockhart?" Asked Angelina, noticing the twins and their reaction to the announcement before they all got up to leave for the dorms.
"Nope, glory-hounds like him need to be put down." Grumbled Ellie, crossing her arms as they were led by one of the Prefects along the corridor, not the weird route they took last year as first year students but a more direct one. They soon arrived at the portrait of the Fat Lady, cleared her throat, or at least pretended to given she was a portrait, not a living person.
"Password?" She asked, in the most fake-condescending voice she could. Yeah, she had that habit.
"Wattlebird." Answered Alician Burnett, a female fifth year student who had been appointed as the newest female Prefect and who had led the rest of the house here. Percy had been leading the first-year students himself like he did the previous year.
"Correct." Answered the Fat Lady, swinging open to allow the students in and Ellie breathed a sigh of relief upon entering the familiar common room of Gryffindor Tower. For all her grievances with the headmaster, Gryffindor Tower was still a home, no matter what. Would probably stay so for the rest of her school time.
Maybe second to Grimmauld Place once that place was aired out enough to be lived in. She wondered if Sirius could've been desperate enough to camp there if he had escaped prison and been on the run. Luckily that never happened, the man had suffered enough in the hellhole.
"Second years, your dorm is the same as it was last year, the previous seventh year dormroom will be occupied by this year's first years." Informed another prefect, Agnus McCorneigh from Northern Ireland as far as Ellie knew. She didn't know the seventh year that well if she was honest.
That being said, the girls of Gryffindor, as lopsided as the number had been in their gender's favor the previous year without the inclusion of Az, headed up the female wing's staircase and Ellie jumped through a portal right onto the bed assigned to her with her trunk at its foot.
"What in the- how did you do that?" Asked Lavender Brown, one of Ellie's classmates as well as one of the now seven girls in Gryffindor's current second year.
"Haven't you heard the sensation that is sweeping the nation?" Asked Ellie humorously, getting a blank look from the other girl.
"No, I've been on vacation with my family the entirety of our summer vacation, why?" Asked Lavender, which was… a bit surprising, Ellie was pretty sure just about every news outlet in the magical world couldn't help but unhinge their jaws to vomit out articles about what had been going on over the summer regarding her.
"I'm an alien from another dimension. I mean, Professor Dumbledore wasn't joking when he said Az is my literal twin sister, I hatched from the same egg as her." Stated Ellie, remembering she needed to change clothes so she got to her trunk to open it up and get inside.
"Hold on, I thought she's just using something like Metamorphmagus abilities to look like that. What are you guys then if you're aliens?" Asked Lavender, and got her answer as Az literally changed into her natural form, which was a quadrupedal, rather slim dragoness still with her red hair but none of the anthropomorphia her more common hybrid form had.
"A Eliatropian Dragon, one of seven that can exist at any given time. Youngest too if we're going by order of egg laying." Stated Az while Ellie stopped to give her own two cents.
"And I'm an Eliatrope, yes we look like humans, yes that hat thing is kind of instinctual. No I won't take it off in front of anyone except MAYBE someone I want to marry for life. I think that is how it works, right Az?" Asked Ellie, not entirely sure how this cultural norm actually worked.
"Close enough, Eliatropes "Mate" for life as it is, though usually that entails other Eliatropes and thus both sides having a really long lifespan. Sadly we're the only members of our people in this dimension." Stated Az, laying down on her own bed, folding her wings and curling her tail around herself while Ellie went inside her walk-in trunk to change into her sleep wear.
"But there are dragons here." Pointed out Parvati Patil, a girl of Indian descent (as in India, not native American), which Ellie was still able to hear within the confines of her trunk.
She could also sense the snort from Az. "I'm not the same "Kind" of dragon as those, I share much of my morphology with them but we do not share a common ancestor nor am I of the same species as them. I know for a fact who my biological parents are, actually. They got booted out of their universe into this one by some upstarts and then had the two of us before leaving our Dofus, our egg, in the care of our adoptive parents, meaning the Potters." Stated Az and Ellie come out, having changed out of sight.
"And your biological parents are… a dragon and someone with a fetish for big hats?" Asked Lavender, sounding kind of dubious.
"Partially correct, our father is the primordial of Stasis, The Great Dragon, and our Mother is the Primordial Great Goddess of Wakfu, Eliatrope. Yes our parents are gods. No you haven't heard of them, because they're from another universe. Yes we are sure about this. No I am not kidding. No the only human DNA either of us has is what was integrated by a Blood Adoption Ritual." Stated Ellie, rattling off the list of answers to questions she knew were coming, because she had been asked all of them before over the course of the summer.
"Okay… this comes up a lot?" Asked Lavender, a bit weirded out as Ellie actually decided to climb into bed to Az, easily fitting in the space formed by the limbs of her sister.
"Yup, 48 times in the trial where we sued the whole Ministry of Magic in general and Professor Dumbledore in particular, another 89 times in the next, 28 times the third and we've been hounded by the Daily Prophet the last week before school started where they asked us 528 different times the same set of questions." Stated Ellie, then sighed contently as she found herself a good position.
"Okay, am I the only one who thinks the image of the smallest of our classmates snuggling up to a dragon the size of a large dog to sleep, is kinda cute?" Asked Sally-Anne Perks, another member of the Gryffindor second year girls, as Ellie decided to tune them out, wasn't like there was a conversation of note still going so she set about going to sleep.
~~o~~O~~o~~O~~o~~O~~o~~O~~o~~O~~o~~
Morning come for the second years as early as usual, namely because of Hermione.
Ellie would've personally preferred to stay asleep for a bit longer, to keep listening to the old lessons from her older brother Qilby back before he betrayed their people. The older Eliatrope was nothing if not a savant which was kind of the point for his eidetic memory carrying across reincarnations.
Alas, this fine Tuesday left her no choice as usual so as Hermione insisted, she extracted herself from the sweet embrace of her sister's wings and tail, said sister returning to her human form, before going into her trunk to get dressed while Az kept watch over the lid.
Soon after they headed for breakfast with the boys, and all but the seventh year students who had gotten out of bed even earlier than them, who had been likewise woken up by Hermione. Ellie was pretty sure her brunette friend was gonna join the Hogwarts Staff at some point in the future. Either as a teacher, the new librarian, or as the Gryffindor Alarm Clock.
It was a testament to Hermione's personality that Ellie considered the last one the most likely outcome.
At breakfast everything went as usual and quite well, with everyone mingling among their house, as unhealthy as this isolationism was, and topics ranged as usual from Quidditch to classes, with Ellie being on the receiving end of questions about the latter from First-Years.
But then the schedules were handed out.
"FUCK!" Cursed Ellie, her blood pressure rising almost immediately.
"What's the matter Ellie? You look like we're about to get lessons from You-Know-Who." Asked Parvati, eyeing the younger Eliatrope.
"I'd take that over the Try-Hard, DADA first class of Thursday, today in other words. No god-damn grace period before I have to stay in the same damn room as Gilderoy-fucking-Lockhart." Growled Ellie, glaring at the schedule like it had personally offended her.
"Oh come on, I know you don't like his personality but all his books were confirmed as being based on real events." Protested Parvati, though she sounded half-hearted.
"I've read the books, Parvati, and he claims in "Wandering with Werewolves" that he "Cured" the Wadamingo Werewolf. That is impossible. The spell he supposedly used can't cure Lycanthropy, all it does is revert the target from a transformed state. For Werewolves this means they revert to being human, but that only lasts until the next full moon. Unlesss he goes back every month, that man is still cursed to turn into a feral beast every month with no control over his own body while the villagers are in danger due to this." Stated Ellie darkly, all too aware of what the problem with his claims was.
Naturally the British Ministry of Magic wasn't all that concerned with possible follow-ups if they hear you "Defeated" a Werewolf, that was good enough for them. Bigotry and all that. Especially since it wasn't affecting the top 1% of them, and was in another country in general.
"Question, if you dislike him so much, why did you only get a restraining order and not get him fired?" Asked Hermione as the second years began to get up so they could head for their first class of the year.
"We wanted to, but not even Gravehook was able to put together something that could get him fired from the position. Evidently grabbing a young girl without consent to try and make headlines isn't enough to lose your teaching permit in this country." Stated Az with a snort, which released smoke with some embers. Ellie's sister was still incensed by that.
"Just lets get this over with. Hopefully he at least won't be worse than the last-" Ellie stopped as they reached the classroom and entered. "I'm already starting to miss the Garlick." Muttered Ellie, her left eye twitching. The walls of the classroom were covered in various images of Gilderoy Lockhart, and while the sitting arrangement was largely the same as in a normal Muggle classroom, there was a whole lot more space at the teacher's desk.
"Why are you saying that?" Asked Hermione, looking around at the classroom.
"Because I would prefer to be able to look at anything other than this guy's face." Grumbled Ellie in response, glaring at the portraits who just smiled back at her as if she wasn't ready to blast them off the walls with extreme prejudice.
The students, still filing into the classroom, found their own desks one by one with Ellie and Az sitting by one another as Ellie took out one book she had forced Lockhart to add to the list and then also provide himself: The Art of Duelling, by Matilda Banestrike. The witch was a famous combat Witch and veteran Auror from the United States who served in the war against Grindlewald. Her book was instructional and usually used for self-study unlike those story books of Lockhart.
Gravehook was able to point out that none of the books he had them buy were actually designed for teaching, they were biographies at best. While he could argue that he could "Teach" through them, they were by no means appropriate for that. So he had been forced to buy copies of this book for every student in Hogwarts that year with another 100 to spare, from his own pocket, to be handed out to all students.
An hour later, Ellie wished the man would have taken the lesson seriously enough not to pull some retarded stunt. First he had given them a three pages long, with 54 questions. And they weren't related to the subject at hand because this was Defense Against the Dark Arts, not "Gilderoy Lockhart Studies" though given his ego, that was probably what he thought it should be. To be more precise, the questions were about stuff from his autobiography of all things.
The questions had included nonsense like his favorite color, and his ideal birthday present. Ellie's answers included "Fuck if I know" and "Actually knowing what the hell he is doing" for these specific questions. He had ignored it even though she made sure to sign the paper and giving him a dirty look. He had then released Cornish Pixies into the classroom, little sprites with a violent streak that puts Dragons to Shame and a drive to cause mischief to put Peeves to shame.
Ellie, Az, Ron and especially Hermione, who already knew the right spell to freeze the little pests, were left to solve the issue as Lockhart, after trying to cast a spell which sounded suspiciously similar to the made-up color-changing spell Fred and George told Ron before his first year at Hogwarts about, only for the Pixies to grab his wand and throw it out of the window.
Neville tried helping too but his attempt to cast Flippendo against them didn't work and he was left hanging on the ceiling fan for his troubles. Luckily Az can fly so getting him down wasn't an issue after they caged all the Pixies again. Hermione's opinion of Lockhart though? It had fallen heavily, even her instinctive respect for authority wasn't able to cushion his fall from grace.
The class had ended after that with the "Professor" having fled into his office while leaving the students to clean up his mess. Ellie made a mental note to talk to the headmaster next chance she had, to avoid ripping the school a new one.
Again.
She liked the school, she was just getting more and more aware of how fucked up the headmaster was.
The class after was Charms, which was a whole lot better. The first class of the school year started them on learning the Skurge Spell, which could clean materials like Ectoplasm off. On request by the professor, Ellie even demonstrated her Portal Magic to provide a source of Wakfu against which he tested the spell, though it failed to remove the portal or disrupt it.
Ellie had to explain what it was afterward as it wasn't Ectoplasm or regular magic, so she had to go into detail on what she knew which wasn't exactly a scientific publication's worth. The rest of the period was spent with them practicing the charm with the help of Sir Nicholas, aka, Nearly Headless Nick who provided the Ectoplasm stains.
The third class of the day was Herbology, which was… interesting. Specifically because they were led to a new greenhouse, Greenhouse #3 which housed more dangerous plants. The first lesson was to take care of infantile Mandrake plants and how to repot them. Ellie, as usual, had a bit of difficulty due to her earmuffs needing to go under her hat but she ultimately figured it out.
Biggest highlight, aside from Draco getting bitten by his, was Neville unfortunately not putting his earmuffs on properly. Luckily unlike adults, these Mandrake roots couldn't kill you with their screaming.
Last on the list of Thursday classes was Transfiguration which started them off on the spell for Beetle-to-button Transfiguration. Like most spells they learned here this was an exercise more than a proper spell for use as Ellie had learned when she had spent some time reading up on the subject, which had shocked Hermione to hear she had done over the summer. To be fair, with her Hogwarts equipment available to her, she had the time between lessons from Az.
When the class finally ended, Ellie hung back. "Professor McGonnagal? I wanted to talk to you." Stated Ellie, giving Az a look and her sister nodded, moving on with the others.
"What do you need miss Potter?" Asked the professor calmly, not unkindly but professional as Ellie knew her to act normally.
"Earlier today Professor Lockhart spent the first period neglecting our studies." Stated Ellie and the woman visibly flinched at that statement, then frowned.
"What do you mean? What did Gilderoy do?" Asked the woman. There was a distinct… caution in her voice, probably because she knew how Ellie had reacted in the past to the man.
"First he had us fill out a test on his Biography, but it was exclusively questions about his personal information as given in that book. Nothing even remotely related to the class beyond him being the teacher. Then, he released a swarm of Cornish Pixies and failed to so much as put up a fight against them before fleeing following them stealing his wand. He left Hermione, Ron, Az and myself to clean it up after Neville was hung on his robes from the ceiling." Stated Ellie and the woman's jaw tightened as irritation filled her eyes.
"Gilderoy you- Miss Potter, what exactly do you wish to do? I assume you're not hoping to contact your Lawyer with my fireplace? Because that would be rather… alarming." She stated, clearly wanting to avoid ANOTHER lawsuit. Which was smarter than half the people which were still appealing decisions made.
"No, I want to talk with the Headmaster, he is the closest we have at this school for an HR Department as far as I can tell and unless he wants our education to continue suffering harder under this buffoon than it did under the professor literally possessed by Wizard Hitler, we need an intervention." Stated Ellie and McGonnagal winced at that.
"Very well, as you have no more classes today I can take you to the headmaster's office. And no, we don't have a Human Resources Department, that is true." Stated the woman and Ellie followed her out.
Making note of what she needed to petition for next.
~~o~~O~~o~~O~~o~~O~~o~~O~~o~~O~~o~~
Minerva McGonnagal had served as the teacher of Transfiguration at Hogwarts for many years.
She had also seen as many teachers enter and leave the position of Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, on top of her seven years at this school as a student. It had to say a lot that Gilderoy Lockhart, in one class period, had seemingly managed to break the record for the worst fuck-ups of all time among these teachers, which normally counted multiple.
Ellie was untrained in the art of Occlumency, her mind was an open book to be read and Minerva had been able to tell she was reporting nothing but facts while telling her why she needed to speak with the headmaster. The girl, at the very least, had a certain fondness of their school, for that reason she didn't want to cause too many lawsuits if she could avoid it, at least if it could hurt the school itself, the only lawsuit so far which she had filed relating directly to the school had been not for some form of revenge but for concerns of her education.
If Minerva was honest? She had to applaud the girl, she had a good rapport with Gravehook, Satan's Lawyer. People with that sort of power in the justice department would more than likely turn to abuse it against people they didn't like. Yet Ellie never even hinted at, from what Minerva had known, actually retaliating against Severus Snape, who had been less than stellar to her.
Hell, Minerva could remember, having attended the twin's only second birthday together, first in Ellie's memory, how she had been a bit disappointed that Snape hadn't attended. The girl had outright stated that she had wanted to talk to the man outside of school, maybe make amends or build bridges. Elizabeth Potter wasn't petty, she wasn't out to take her frustrations out on other people, no matter how trigger-happy she could be with lawsuits.
Ellie Potter wasn't firing Killing Curses with her lawsuits, her lawsuits were Muggle laser-guided missiles. They were designed to make positive changes and Minerva had seen them. Most of all with regards to Sirius Black and the Weasley Family, not to mention taking out so many bad influences in the Wizengarmot.
Sure, her targets had included Albus Dumbledore, but that was in a capacity within the limits of the law. The twins, together, wanted to see justice and they had seen to it being delivered on a silver platter to them. And right now? Professor Dumbledore's little plan to get Lockhart exposed as a fraud by way of exposure to Elizabeth Potter, someone who had shown a strong tendency to uncover things others wanted to hide, had about 50 lasers pointed at it, with twice their number in ballistic missiles prepped for launch.
"So, where is the headmaster's office anyway? This place doesn't have a single sign for where everything is but students are just meant to know where to go." Asked Ellie conversationally as they moved through the hallways of the castle.
"Due to the enchantments of the castle, signs tend to be inaccurate after a small while. Not to mention many hidden passages have gone forgotten over the years." Stated Minerva, not seeing any harm in telling the otherworldly student about this.
"Sounds like an intentional design flaw to me. And pretty bad administrative work if any way to stop that has been lost." Stated Ellie and Minerva, silently, agreed with the red-haired girl.
"I agree, we had our ups and downs in management over the past 1000 years, especially with many of the founders taking their secrets with them." Explained Minerva, finally reaching the Gargoyle marking the stairway and stopping, causing Ellie to do so too, the girl looking around, as if expecting a portrait.
"Lemon Drops." She stated, and the next second the Griffon statue jumped off its pedestal, walked to the side, and the staircase rose into view.
"Let me guess, the guy Gryffindor was named after had this one?" Asked Ellie, and Minerva couldn't help a chuckle.
"Yes, by all accounts, the current Headmaster's Office was the personal Office of Goddric Gryffindor." She confirmed, before directing her charge to head up first, which she did with a shrug, starting to ascend where Minerva followed her soon after.
Up at the top, Minerva found the student waiting for her, then, rather than approach the door, she made a portal, throwing another to the door where it slid through, and jumped through the portal. The audible expletives from the inside showed yes, Albus hadn't been paying attention to the detection wards at the bottom, and as usual, would've reacted to those at the door to detect who was coming in.
Stepping through the door herself she found Ellie Potter standing with crossed arms, glaring at the headmaster as he was gathering himself. "So, Professor Dumbledore, miss Potter wanted to speak to you about Gilderoy." Stated Minerva, on this issue standing with her student rather than the headmaster, which she could tell, the girl noticed, making her smile a bit before turning back to the headmaster.
"What would be the issue miss Potter?" Asked Albus, he tried sounding jovial but it was obvious from his tone that he felt already resigned in this conversation.
"I won't push around the bush, I want that idiot fired, because he has broken the conditions of the lawsuit within minutes of his class starting." Stated Ellie and Minerva flinched at her wording. She had been quite serious about not pushing around the bush it seemed.
"What do you mean?" Asked Albus, sounding a bit alarmed, to be fair that was a good reason to be, because the last lawsuit against the hiring of the man had barely been avoided from firing him and ruining the plan of the headmaster.
"First he had us fill a test, not on the subject of the class, but about himself using information of his Autobiography, as if anyone should give a rat's ass about him." Stated Ellie and Minerva still flinched at the mention of that atrocious misconduct. "And then, seemingly just to try and pretend the class wasn't him just trying to promote his own fame, he released a swarm of Cornish Pixies. Which he lost control of within a minute of releasing them and leaving students to try and deal with it after he was disarmed immediately." Stated Ellie with a scowl, her words dripping with her disdain for the man and what he was doing. Literally ruining the education of the students. Minerva couldn't be prouder of her charge at this point given what her motivation was.
"Miss Potter, I understand your misgivings but-" Albus however seemed to want to keep up the charade and keep it from the girl, and Minerva couldn't let him ruin his relationship with the girl even further.
"Albus, please stop this charade already, we both know miss Potter won't be satisfied with a vague "I have my Reasons" or some other excuse." Stated Minerva, surprising the man and Ellie visibly looked to her also surprised that she would actually interrupt the man. "Just be honest with her, it isn't like miss Potter is likely to just let it go in the first place, this after all, involves harm for her education more than anything." Stated Minerva further and the girl smiled, recognizing what Minerva was doing, siding with her and trying to make the headmaster be honest for once.
Albus for his part appeared to be staring her down for several seconds, then sighed as he sagged back into his chair, clearly seeing his defeat in this argument. "Very well, miss Potter? I will tell you why I have hired Professor Lockhart in spite of his… less than stellar objectives." Stated the headmaster and Ellie scowled, clearly not agreeing that any reason could be sufficient for him to keep this man. Minerva was starting to agree.
"Better be damn good, because all I see so far is you harpooning the education of us students." Stated Ellie darkly, her disdain for Lockhart already oozing off and there was an edge of distrust which was pretty damning for the Professor.
Albus sighed loudly seeing this, looking the girl straight in the eye. "I know you won't like to hear this, but for the Greater Good, small sacrifices such as this are necessary." He stated and the scowl only grew while Minerva felt like Albus kind of lost the argument with that statement.
"What greater good? What does hiring an obvious fraud accomplish?" Asked Ellie, Crossing her arms in a clear display of defiance to his words and Minerva flinched just a bit. Usually people didn't question him when he tried pulling that card, usually his reputation made others take him by his word.
Minerva McGonnagal knew why Ellie didn't, last time she did it had been regarding the best place for her to stay being the Dursley Household. A claim which was proven wrong on several counts. There was also, as she had been told during the party, that he had claimed not to know anything about who she had seen in the mirror, one of which had been Azkalagora.
A claim proven to be an outright lie by him so… Yeah, Minerva understood why her trust in the man was completely gone at this point so him trying to pull a "Take my Word" sort of argument didn't work on her. He didn't have the trust values from her to make her take his word. No longer anyway.
"Elizabeth, I am sure you have your… suspicions on how he managed to lay claim to the accomplishments he is famous for." Stated Albus, clearly seeing what Minerva had been seeing already.
"Yeah, so? I already checked that the ICM tried to verify and there were several people who claim he did it. Doesn't mean he didn't have some means of taking credit from others." Stated Ellie and Minerva had to give her credit, the girl had enough common sense to check that first.
"Correct, my hiring him here was in the hopes he would sooner or later slip up. Or alternatively, that we would find evidence against him while keeping him here, where he can't just flee, until then." Stated Albus and the girl scowled at that.
"Great, so it is another Philosopher's Stone situation isn't it? You put us at risk to accomplish some over complicated plan. Well, you can shelve it because Sirius already got an investigation running which will clear it up." Stated Ellie, and both professors stopped at that, hearing this was news to them.
"Sirius is investigating? How?" Asked Albus, looking conflicted over his old student doing something behind his back, seemingly on behest of his goddaughter.
"Simple, tracking down the one magical creature he claimed to have "Vanquished" in one of those books, one who wouldn't be asked by anyone investigating his claims. The Wagga Wagga Werewolf. Sirius and Remus went to Australia to track the guy down and while I haven't heard back from them yet, I'm 99% certain it wasn't mister Twinkletoes." Huffed the girl and Minerva had to hold back a laugh, realizing how simple this solution was.
"Miss Potter, was this your idea?" She asked, quite amused by the idea and quite impressed.
"Well, yeah? Sirius was honestly convinced there was no way we could prove the guy was lying because all the people in the places his books take place at claim he did them. But I'm pretty sure he, like you headmaster, can see the Forbidden Forest for all the trees. I mean, I've read up on how Werewolves are treated. Why is anyone surprised that many go absolutely bonkers? Treat them like monsters, and sooner or later they will retaliate as such." Stated Ellie, her irritation palpable at this point as she shook her head.
"Anyway, I don't know why you thought it necessary to bring him here, but he's more of a danger to us students than his predecessor, and that one was possessed by the biggest Domestic Terrorist Cult Leader the UK has ever seen." Stated Ellie and Minerva couldn't argue with her there, given what he did in that first class…
"I am afraid that even if you are correct and this could indeed reveal the truth, we don't have any such evidence right now and if I was to fire him he would certainly run away and hide." Stated Albus and Minerva gave him a sharp look. He was genuinely trying to justify this?
"Except he broke the conditions of the Lawsuit. He was meant to teach us properly using the books that were added to the curriculum. He didn't do that, he didn't even do a lesson, he just gave a fucking pop-quiz about himself and then released Pixies on us." Stated Ellie and Minerva had to restrain the urge to laugh as she realized what the girl said.
The stipulations of that lawsuit were that if Lockhart couldn't be trusted with actually teaching his subject, he would be penalized. A penalty to be agreed on between the headmaster and the student body representative in the Class-Action Lawsuit in question, which was in this case Ellie.
"Yet we have the issue of him possibly running if he was fired. At which point we can't hold him accountable anymore." Stated Albus, a clear challenge to Ellie's proposed methods and defense of his own.
"If you want to keep up this stupid plan, then how about a compromise? Move him to an advisory role and have the actual teacher be someone else. Madam Hooch has barely any work to do outside Quidditch games so she could easily fill in if she wants to." Suggested Ellie and by this point, Minerva was contemplating awarding her points for ingenuity because yeah, Rolanda often complained about for the most part just sitting around all year long.
"I can't persuade you otherwise?" Asked Albus, clinging to the believe that his plan was best to be followed, not a new one made by someone else.
"No you can't, it is either this, or I contact mister Gravehook and file another lawsuit, this time against you specifically for failing to enforce the judgement." Stated Ellie, then turned to the nearby window, chancing a glance at Fawkes for a moment, then made a portal and jumped through. The flashes of blue light outside indicating she was going by portal outside.
"Well Albus, I believe you just lost an argument with a 12 years old." Stated Minerva as the elderly man sighed in resignation, his head hitting his hardwood desk as he did so.
~~o~~O~~o~~O~~o~~O~~o~~O~~o~~O~~o~~
Ellie smiled to herself as it was announced the following day, that Gilderoy Lockhart had been, due to recent events, demoted to adviser for Defense Against the Dark Arts with Madam Hooch now taking over as primary teacher of said subject.
While this left some people protesting, the vast majority of the students, or at least all those who had endured his class, were left cheering to the horror of the blonde author.
Friday's classes were Charms, History of Magic and then Potions last. At Charms the lessons continued as the previous day, with Professor Flitwick having quite a spring to his step as evidently he was quite happy for Madam Hooch. Kind of a promotion after all since she had become an active magic teacher rather than being restricted to a few lessons a year and supervising a total of six Quidditch games per year.
History of Magic on the other hand was literally an afternoon nap. Ellie wasn't sure how Hermione kept awake through it but Professor Binns was one professor she wouldn't mind getting rid of, but sadly he was a Ghost, bound to the castle. Until she figured out how to send him to do an exorcism she couldn't exactly do that.
As for Potions, they started out with revisions of the previous year but, strangely, Snape seemed to take it easy. Ellie wasn't sure if it was the threat of her sicking her lawyer on him or hearing how she was treated actually, but she hoped it was a good sign. She REALLY didn't want to start something with the man. Az had told her about what she had overheard their adoptive parents talking about, especially in regards to Severus Snape.
James Potter having been a bully who had basically pushed Severus Snape into the arms of the Death Eaters was a hard pill to swallow, but all it did was reinforce her wish to try and straighten out any issues with the man. She had hoped he would have taken her invitation, but sadly she hadn't been able to talk to him during her birthday the way she had wanted to.
He was still extremely demanding with incredibly high standards, and wasn't exactly thrilled about teaching a bunch of kids. How did she know that? She wasn't entirely sure, maybe it was her ability to sense Wakfu, maybe it was just intuition, or maybe she was paying more attention to him. However, his writing instructions on the board and demanding they follow that was one good sign to see how the man would rather be anywhere else at that moment.
As for the classwork, she had been paired with Neville and actually managed to avoid any disasters. The potion, Boils Curing Potion, wasn't perfect, but on the other hand last year Neville managed to melt his cauldron with a reverse version of the potion so… yeah, it was a great improvement.
"Geez, Snape was feeling nice today wasn't he?" Asked Ron as they left the classroom, Dean had lost 5 points for Gryffindor and that was all, which was an all-time-low for points lost under Severus Snape.
"Yeah, maybe it is a good sign. We got rid of Lockhart as primary Professor, Professor Snape was feeling merciful, hell, maybe this year there won't be an incident involving Fart Lord Moldyshorts like last year." Proclaimed Ellie, her hands clasped behind her head as she walked.
"Merlin's beard, you gonna use that nickname to his face next time?" Asked Ron in disbelieve as the small group of Gryffindors moved to the Great Hall, the Slytherins having left at some point.
"Yeah, why not? Isn't like he deserves dignity." Responded Ellie, imagining for a moment his face when he heard her call him that. She was going to enjoy that.
"Vindictive, I like it." Stated Lavender with a big grin of her own as the group rounded a corner and Ellie stopped, hearing a voice.
"Enemies, Enemies in the Castle. Hunt, Kill, Maim!" She stopped after hearing this weird voice, her Wakfu Vision snapping on but she couldn't make out anything, the Castle's saturation with magic blinding her ability to see through the walls and there was nobody within eyesight, not even a ghost.
"Ellie? Everything alright?" Asked Az, Ellie blinking out of Wakfu Vision as she was addressed.
"Y- yeah, I thought I heard a voice." Stated Ellie, perturbed by this.
"A voice? I didn't hear anything." Stated Az confused, which concerned Ellie a bit because normally her sister had the better hearing.
"It sounded kind of… hissy, I don't know. I'm not sure where it come from but it said some strange stuff. But I guess it may have been my imagination, that Dungeon isn't exactly ventilated." Stated Ellie and Az nodded before they rejoined their classmates who were near the door to the Great Hall.
Ellie would later curse herself for dismissing this incident.
~~o~~O~~o~~O~~o~~O~~o~~O~~o~~O~~o~~
In terms of story, this chapter is 7903 words long.
And we're finally back to the events seen in canon. As you may notice I don't bother writing out everything, where things don't change, particularly due to nothing that has happened affecting these events like classes, which you may assume to happen as per canon.
And a major shift happens here: Madam Hooch takes over as Professor for DADA with Lockhart being reduced to what is basically a ceremonial role more than anything and only to keep him occupied and tied down to the school.
Another thing is that Dumbledore doesn't enjoy Ellie's trust and loyalty the way his counterpart in canon does with Harry. Ellie has seen how far he is willing to go for his idea of "The Greater Good" and isn't a fan of that. No, she isn't dark, or even Grey, but she isn't a doormat who will just follow instructions without thinking.
Another shift is Ellie's perspective in relation to Snape. Remember that she was a victim of bullying for most of her life so far so the idea of James Potter the Bully would disturb her and give her sympathy for Snape's later actions toward her. Not to mention the rather skewed perspective he would've had for her due to perceptions of how "The Girl-who-Lived" would have grown up.
Speaking of, Snape's perspective has also shifted because Ellie's mistreatment by the Dursleys is now much more public than it was for Harry, where he may not have been privy to it or may not have factored in as much. However, with Ellie being neither the biological child of James Potter and her clearly trying to make amends, as stated with her wanting to invite him to her birthday, he has started to try and figure out how he will act around her from there.
