.o0O0o.
Being him, naturally he wasn't one of those poor unfortunates who flopped about making one mistake after another for the entirety of their lives, always failing to see where the true fault lied – he was far too special and talented for that. No, for someone as humbly honest and honestly humble as him it was all too easy to see the root causes of his ever-increasingly-rare failures, and since he'd taken the time to examine it, the reason for his slightly-less-than-stellar success at teaching those young children yesterday was now pretty obvious.
How could he have possibly thought they'd be anywhere near as talented as he was at their age? They hadn't been because they couldn't have been, and couldn't have been because they weren't him. As obvious as the oversight was now, in his joyous zeal to begin imparting his greatness to them he'd forgotten it. He'd certainly have to tone things down for the tykes if pixies were beyond their grasp – that and keep reminding himself everyone was not as amazing as him.
Approaching the teachers' entrance near the Great Hall's high table he paused for a moment to make sure his mauve robe was straight and orderly while his matching pointed hat was set off to one side just enough to give him the appearance of a young lad, lively enough to dash off on an exciting adventure at a moment's notice but still stylish enough to do so with a jaunty step. Yes, his first attempt at teaching might not have gone quite as well as he'd hoped, but there were many more opportunities ahead and putting on a fresh face full of confidence was just the thing you needed when you wanted to smooth things over and begin again.
'But really, there wouldn't be nearly as much need to smooth anything if it weren't for that girl,' Gilderoy thought as a lingering bit of yesterday's tizzy clung to him like a cloak. 'Her attachment to the cursed child, Potter, might've gotten her picture in Witch Weekly a while ago but it takes more than that to become as famous as me. We'll see what the detention I gave her does to dampen her attention-seeking ways.'
Taking a calming breath to cast away such clingy negativity and regain his perfect public poise, Gilderoy Lockhart entered the Great Hall determined to once again showcase what made him the most world-renowned adventurer Hogwarts had ever seen. Wednesday's youthful breakfast babble balmed his soul, for they were obviously eager to see their fresh new professor rather than the old frowny-faced fuddy-duddies of faded glory. The disapproving, and obviously jealous, turned down nature of McGonagall's mouth had him cast his gaze across the teeming mass of youngsters to smile, wave, and point familiarly to whatever admirers happened to be looking this way as he made his way to his seat at the table.
"There is plenty to be learned, even from a bad teacher," the thoroughly disgraced and disgracefully dressed Dumbledore said to the equally embarrassing tartan-clad woman beside him as he passed them by. "What not to do, how not to be – though I do hope everyone might learn from the experience."
"My concern is solely for them, and I'll be telling them today to proceed as planned, whether we have your permission or not," the combative woman said, eager to jab another wound in the ancient man's hide.
"Oh, I wouldn't dream of interfering. It might be just the thing to…"
The daft old codger's whispery voice faded away to nothingness before Gilderoy reached his own seat and whatever he was going on about was already out of his head as he tucked in to a full English breakfast. When he saw the pathetic excuse for a start-of-term feast the other night he thought Dumbledore might deprive them of all the accustomed luxuries, but so far only the students had suffered.
'As daft as the man may be,' Gilderoy thought with the smirk he felt never touching his lips, 'he's still canny enough to keep the important people happy.'
A greasy shadow to one side caught his attention and he instantly went on a charm offensive.
"Nice way to start the day, wouldn't you say, Professor Snape?" he asked with his award winning smile while wiggling one of his greasy early morning sausages under the man's equally greasy early morning nose. "I've often said, 'Breakfast truly is the most important meal of the day,' and this is a breakfast of champions. Wouldn't you agree?"
Today might not be the day for it but the other man's cold, dead-eyed stare would have to melt sooner or later. After all, there was only so long such a lanky-haired man could stand to look at his magnificence without wanting to partake in it himself. Yes, if his own considerable personal charms didn't win out then it was only a matter of time before the other man broke down and begged to know what hair care products he used so he might improve his own dismal appearance.
"I would have thought you'd be joining the headmaster in a helping of crow this morning," the snide-and-not-at-all-personable man said instead as he finished his own meal.
"Crow? Why would we be eating crow?" Gilderoy asked curiously, wondering how he'd even do that with all the feathers involved, not to mention the flapping.
"It'd seem a welcome change from having your foot in your mouth," Snape said pointedly before slapping down a wad of folded paper on his beans and eggs. "For your press clippings," the man added before taking off like an overgrown bat.
'Really, the nerve of that man!' he thought as he pried the newsprint off his breakfast. 'Jealousy is one thing but rudeness too? He's clearly annoyed at being too near my good looks since it'd only make his dour, sickly appearance all the more apparent but it's not my fault he's unattractive.'
Dabbing away the beans and broken egg yolks with Snape's discarded napkin revealed a rather unflattering picture he didn't recall sitting for. The setting was familiar: the notable desk featured amongst a mountain of books clearly said it was Flourish & Blotts but he had never looked so mopey in his life – well, at least not where the public could see. The bean juice did make him look very tan though, which just went to show he'd be handsome no matter where in the world he was born, so it wasn't that bad of a photo when it came down to it.
Unfolding the paper as he returned to his breakfast, Gilderoy found his meal once again rudely interrupted. 'Lockhart's Lecture Letdown,' the paper proclaimed above his irritated appearance, and things didn't get any better from there.
'In normal times the parents of school-aged children up and down the country would have been glad to learn a world-renowned adventurer and author of no less than nine best-selling books had been appointed to the coveted Defense Against the Dark Arts position at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry – but these are not normal times. With the very public disgrace of Albus Dumbledore, new concerns are being voiced calling not only his competency as Headmaster into question but the competency of those he's appointed.
'Gilderoy Lockhart, the latest person to join the Hogwarts staff, is famed for adventure books staring himself – but questions soon arose about his qualifications when, at a book signing this summer, he was resoundingly defeated by a single elderly warlock cleverly twisting Lockhart's own pinky finger behind his back!'
'But he attacked out of nowhere!' Gilderoy thought defensively. 'And what did they expect me to do, have a duel to the death in the middle of a bookshop? Honestly, do use your common sense!'
'Then, in what was described by bystanders as "a petulant hissy fit,"' the article went on to say, 'Mr. Lockhart was unable to give any satisfactory answers as to how he accomplished the great feats he's documented in his books and stubbornly refused to demonstrate the magical prowess he's repeatedly claimed to possess.'
Gilderoy felt himself fume at the maliciousness.
'It was a dignified huff!' he huffed to himself, a full-blown tizzy not far in the offing, which would only serve to ruin his entire day.
'And if this instance weren't enough,' the Skeeter woman went on to write, 'students themselves are now voicing their concerns – just one day into the new school year.'
'They would never,' the impeccably professional, supremely over-qualified, and overwhelmingly well regarded professor rebutted. 'Everyone adores me.'
'In what was supposed to be an innocuous Second Year class, where students might be expected to endure a lecture about the dangers they could one day face in the wider world, Lockhart instead took the opportunity to first lull them into a stupor before unleashing a flurry of angry Cornish Pixies upon the unsuspecting students! Lockhart himself was reportedly disarmed by the very same pixies in the chaos and fled the class just moments after the students themselves, while at least one student had to be escorted to the hospital wing for their injuries.'
'They're devilishly tricky little blighters,' Gilderoy huffed as he skipped down a bit and tried to keep his face from getting the splotchy look it got whenever he was well and truly in a tizzy. 'It's not my fault they didn't know how to handle them. Their parents shouldn't have had stupid children!'
'"Of course he's incompetent," one elder gentleman who'd seen the bookstore incident replied when asked about the disturbing reports. "You have to have sense to be competent, and that man doesn't have the sense Merlin gave a goat."'
"Merlin gave a– what?" an incredulous Lockhart wondered aloud. "What sort of feather-brained ninny said that?"
He skipped down further rather than have to read any more of that nonsense.
'Dewey, Cheatem & Howe Publishing–'
'Now they're going after my books?!' Gilderoy thought aghast.
'–declined to answer any questions concerning Mr. Lockhart's supposed qualifications, though their representative, Mr. Cheatem, did go on record to say, "I always thought professors could assign as many books as they wanted. We're publishers, not fact-checkers. How are we supposed to know if what the man says is true?"'
Lockhart reeled as if struck. They might've had their disagreements after the bookshop thing but this was ridiculous! Didn't these people care more than ten years of his life was being torn to bits? Did all the money they'd made together mean nothing to them?!
Something about what he said caught in his curly golden locks and he had to look at it again.
'"I always thought professors could assign as many books as they wanted," he'd said. There's something to that,' Gilderoy thought. It was hard for him to place it though because the only one to ever berate his books like that was the blasted–
With an exaggerated calmness, he acted as if he had just finished eating, dabbing the corners of his mouth as he scanned the Gryffindor table. There he saw her eagerly maligning him by reading the Daily Prophet to that cursed child Potter and the red-haired other one. She must have sensed the tizzy rolling off him in waves for she glanced in his direction, saw him, and smiled vindictively.
'That's it!' he fumed, standing in all his defiant strength, feeling once again the authoritarian magic wrap around him like armor. 'If the girl wants to declare war on me, then it's war she gets,' he decreed before turning to march off and write his rebuttal. 'She's not going to get the last word on this, not by a long shot.'
.o0O0o.
"Well, that was quick," her boyfriend said with an ominous look, pausing his Thursday morning breakfast long enough to see if her nemesis was near as she unfolded the Daily Prophet for easier reading. Harry had been expecting something bad to happen and hoped it'd take him longer to do it, given the rumors he hadn't shown up to his first class yesterday at all, but Hermione had known better. Their so-called professor was far too vain not to try and scratch the eyes out of anyone who insulted him, especially when the whole country could read it themselves.
'Lockhart Dismisses Mounting Criticism,' the headline read above what appeared to be a stock photo of the man in which the smarmy braggart held up one of his books with his own smiling face on it, no doubt done to get his photo in the paper twice at the same time.
Across from them Ron looked on benignly, not offering any thoughts on the matter.
It'd been close to a day and a half since their squabble near the kitchens and things with him had undergone a change. It was nice to think their friend was as interested as she was in keeping their not-fighting streak going, but Hermione hoped she hadn't made him feel unwelcome around them. All she was trying to do, she realized now, was carve out a space where she and Harry could be together as a couple, but not have it be hostile to them having other friends.
She didn't know if she'd succeeded in the second part.
"How bad is it?" Harry asked as he absentmindedly nibbled on a bacon sandwich.
"It's too early to tell," Hermione replied, only a bit put off by what she was reading. "I would've thought it'd get a bigger reaction from him," she said critically, "but it instead he's trying to play it off like there's nothing to see."
"How big of a reaction were you looking for?" her boyfriend asked, almost looking like she was in danger of setting a teacher on fire again.
"An explosion would've been nice," she replied, choosing to take his wariness of potential fallout from this as a measure of her bravery rather than as worry over her recklessness. "If it'd been bad enough the newspaper could've done the rest themselves and used his childish temperament as another reason he shouldn't be here. They can't really do it when he's just trying to frame things in the best light he can."
Harry leaned in for a better look.
"Does that say Dumbledore?" he asked.
"Yes, Lockhart's claiming he'd already discussed 'his unique style of teaching' with Dumbledore before he was hired," Hermione replied, going back to quote the passage. "He claims Dumbledore was fascinated by his proposed use of his novels as background reading while the 'real' teaching's done through class discussions and demonstrations. The pixies were supposed to show 'the seriousness of any threat in a fun and light-hearted way.'"
"That doesn't sound very convincing," Harry said critically.
"It doesn't," she agreed, "mainly because he's either forgotten how badly Dumbledore's name has been run through the mud lately or he's hoping to use whatever shreds of reputation are left to bolster his own, though I honestly don't know if it'd be better or worse if what he's saying is true. Besides, it sounds to me like a polished version of the rationalizations he invented in class the other day. I suppose the only person to say for sure is Dumbledore himself, and who knows if they let him use owls anymore with his house-arrest."
Suddenly Hermione felt her face flush with anger.
"Listen to this," she hissed. "The only complaint was lodged by Miss Hermione Granger, and she left before the pixies were even shown," Hermione read aloud. "She had a rather public hissy fit when she failed the summer reading quiz with a zero. Apparently she considers herself a bit of a brain but doesn't seem smart enough to grasp the unconventional, let alone put forth the effort to actually do the assignments."
The three of them sat in silence and she could feel the boys bracing for an explosion.
After a moment Ron spoke.
"Well, that's him dead," the ginger-haired boy said with a shrug, Lockhart's fiery death being taken as a given; the joke actually managing to lessen her ire a bit.
"You're not coming to Defense Against the Dark Arts today, are you?" her boyfriend stated as fact more than he asked.
"Of course not," she replied, shoving the Prophet into her backpack as everyone around them rose to go to their first class of the day.
"Then what are you going to do?" Harry asked, though Hermione knew it wasn't her studies he was worried about.
"I'll think of something," she said determinedly, though in truth she had to wonder if there was even another move for her to make. Fortunately, something posted at the door to their first class did most of the work for her.
.o0O0o.
'Protect Your Grades From the Lockhart Laughingstock!' the vibrant flier warned. 'Join the new Defense Study Group today!' Minerva's temple throbbed from the clashing colors of it while the laughingstock himself only made it worse.
"What were you thinking, authorizing a Defense group like this?" a petulant Gilderoy asked in an attempt to scold her, seeming to forget – again – that she'd been the brilliant teacher and he the lackwit child. When he first took up residence in the castle she knew he'd be a trial to deal with but she was beginning to see she'd greatly underestimated him.
"I was thinking they'd be a good deal more subtle about it," she replied, staring hawkishly up at the man who refused to sit. "Recent events must have prompted them to take more direct action."
"This completely undermines me as a teacher!" he said with a huff.
"No more than your actions have already done," Minerva said brusquely.
"M–my actions?" the puffed up popinjay bewilderingly exclaimed, completely lost as to how this was his fault.
"Yes, Gilderoy, you," she said pointedly, prepared by what she'd heard in the halls and Prophet to have the argument she should've had with Professor Dumbledore before the man was ever hired. "You were handed a golden opportunity to mold the minds of future generations, to teach them things which could someday save their lives, but instead you decided to make as much money as you could by forcing every student to buy your useless books."
"They're not useless. They're meant to be entertaining, which they are," the splotchy-faced man protested testily. "And besides, I can't even touch the money with everyone in such a snit."
"Then you did the wrong thing for nothing," Minerva reiterated, secretly delighting in the little irony. "And when a student rightfully complained, you not only singled her out in class, you did it again in front of the entire country!"
"Well, she did it first!" the man-child deflected. "Who's she to say what I can and can't do?"
"She's one of hundreds of students whose families are paying a lot of money for them to be here. She's supposed to take her education seriously," the Deputy Headmistress reminded him. "She has every right to demand the best education possible – the same as all the other students," she pressed, thrusting the eye-wrenching flier back towards him.
"Don't you see what the Prophet will do when this gets to them?" Lockhart asked, snatching the flier back and waving it around like a bloody wound. "It'll be impossible to repair the damage this'll do to my reputation. You've got to put a stop to this!"
McGonagall stood.
"Your reputation is not my concern," Minerva said with finality, "their education is. You're an adult – moreover, a professor – you shouldn't be engaging in this juvenile behavior. You're supposed to provide the education our students deserve, not embarrass the school with your inability to do so. If they want to band together to make up for your shortcomings, that's all well and good."
"But they haven't given my way of teaching a chance," the blond-haired idiot complained as if there really was a method to his madness. "It's revolutionary, honestly! Professor Dumbledore–"
"–Never heard anything about this 'revolutionary' new way of teaching," she cut in to say. "If you're going to lie and use him as an excuse, don't try it when we're free to ask him about it."
Much of the splotchy red color drained from Lockhart's face at that but it didn't take the liar too long to recover.
"Yes, well," he stammered before dismissing the issue with a wave. "He would have if I'd told him about it. It's not my fault he never asked."
A moment of silence descended as the man either experienced a rare bit of shame or finally decided staying quiet was the only thing he could do that wouldn't make things worse.
"Take a seat," she said finally, feeling like she was having to deal with a particularly troublesome student. He must've been feeling a bit of the same because for the first time since he arrived at Hogwarts the man actually seemed to listen and sat. "In all honesty, Gilderoy," Minerva began again wearily, choosing to remain standing as she massaged the pounding from her temple, "I think it'd be in everyone's best interests if you were to resign."
"Resign?" the poor, deluded man echoed in response, failing to see his only logical way out.
"The Headmaster's sure to accept," she stated, determined to make sure he did, even if she had to go to the Board of Governors and force the issue and get him out of his teaching contract. "It's early enough in the year the other professors and I can cover your classes until a replacement is found."
'There must be someone in the Auror Office we could reach out to,' Minerva thought to herself. 'I'd even take a former troublemaker like Robards; at least he earned his position.'
"Hogwarts would say we're sorry to see you go, and otherwise stay silent on the issue," the Deputy Headmistress continued since he seemed to need things spelled out for him. "Any press inquiries would be referred to you for comment, and you'd be free to say whatever you want. Tell them the stodgy old professors didn't understand you, or the students never gave you a chance – take your pick – but leaving today may be the only way to salvage what reputation you have left."
"Are you mad?" Gilderoy asked, bouncing back up from his seat. "Do use your common sense! I can't leave. If I left, people would think all those slanders they're printing are true and I'd run off. You tell me how I'd ever sell another book after that."
"Then tell them you left so you can defend yourself full time," Minerva brutally bludgered back in response. "Your books and reputation are the only things you care about so it shouldn't be a hard lie to sell."
"Well, if I'm such a liar and bad teacher, what does it make you?" he said in a huff. "I didn't come to you begging for a job, Hogwarts came begging to hire me, so how does trying to muscle me out now make you look better and not worse? Honestly, do you want to make us both look bad?"
"Hogwarts was founded over a thousand years ago," she said in a lecturing tone. "In its time it's bound to have made quite a number of mistakes – many of them quite recently. So however those mistakes come to light, Hogwarts will look no better or worse than it deserves."
"So the girl just gets away with it?" Gilderoy exclaimed, as if an unpunished critic was the most unjust injustice imaginable. "You say they're here for education," the man said, presumably starting off on something new, though Merlin knew where it was going. "That means they're supposed to be studying – and in class – not skipping them like she did today because she doesn't like the teacher. If anything deserves more Detentions, that does."
The mundane truth behind Gilderoy Lockhart was almost a depressing thing to see. He wasn't the same thin-skinned boy she once thought he was, it was worse; he was still the bawling child he was when he was born. He wasn't going to leave gracefully any more than Dumbledore was going to fire him, but the infant couldn't bring himself to stop whinging without getting something he could claim as a prize.
"Students should be in their classes, yes," Minerva said diplomatically, "but I heard tell you specifically told Miss Granger not to return until she was ready to apologize, and we can't very well punish the girl for obeying, can we?"
Lockhart didn't say anything but still looked like his missing lolly hadn't been returned.
"And you needn't hold your breath waiting for an apology," she continued. "The girl's far too stubborn for it–," 'especially when she's right,' McGonagall added to herself, "–and need I point out the fact she's winning?"
The splotchy red color began entering the man's ears and face again so she knew it was time to give him something to call a victory, even if what he got was nothing he wanted.
"Still, we can't have her skipping class or the act may spread to other students," the Deputy Headmistress said to moderate the problem. "I'll inform Miss Granger she's to return to class next week or face consequences for her absence – but you'll have to accept her back, without apology," she hastened to add before the man looked too triumphant.
"And please," Minerva added hoping for some semblance of peace within their halls, "don't give the fight any more attention. Don't talk to her, don't fight with her, and don't call on her in class – just ignore her and let it fade away. We expect our students to be children, Gilderoy," she said in closing, shooting a look over her glasses. "We expect more from professors."
Lockhart gave her a smug grin and nodded, tapping the side of his nose knowingly.
"Have no worries, Professor," the self-anointed golden boy said as his grin broke into a wide smile. "I know just how to deal with children."
.o0O0o.
'How am I supposed to deal with these children?' Gilderoy fumed as he ate his Friday morning breakfast and scowled at the Diabolical Duo in the distance.
It'd been the longest week of his life, and it'd only been two days! He just couldn't understand it. The press had always been so glowingly positive towards him but now no matter what he did the stories about him went from bad to worse. As much as he'd wanted her to stamp down on them, perhaps it was lucky McGonagall did a fat load of nothing rather than turning against him too and writing her own withering critique of him to send to the Prophet… at least he didn't think she'd done that.
'No matter how ready she says she is to see the Hogwarts reputation tarnished, no one runs off to tarnish it themselves. With as bad as those kids like to pretend I am, I'm sure it'd make the front page,' he thought sourly. 'Resign indeed. Ha!' he scoffed. 'These people are lucky to have a star like me in their midst. It's not my fault they can't understand my brilliance.'
And as bad as things had been yesterday morning, they'd only worsened that afternoon when the Witch Weekly arrived. It was like rubbing salt in the wound to see his most fawning publication swing their spotlight to someone else and gush over their newest darling, but did it have to be that girl? It made him feel like less than half a man to have his limelight stolen but he couldn't say it didn't cast things in a new light.
Gilderoy had thought he'd been fighting an unnamed girl, a little Second Year nobody cared about; he hadn't seen the truth – how could he?
'They're twelve years old,' he stewed to himself as he thought on his predicament. 'Who becomes part of a celebrity couple when they're twelve years old?!' The answer was an annoying: 'Hermione Granger, that's who.'
After the embarrassment at Flourish & Blotts weeks ago Gilderoy knew he'd misunderestimated that cursed child, Potter, but now he knew he'd misunderestimated Hermione Granger most of all. He thought she was some fan girl clutching his arm, and it turned out she was the brains behind the operation – or if not the brains then the broom handle steering the… ship? He didn't know what the flappy thing at the back of ships were called ('The shippy-whippy?' he wondered) but it didn't really matter – that was her.
'It's not Harry who's trying to usurp my stardom, it's her,' the preeminently astute adventurer now pinpointed accurately. 'You don't become part of a celebrity couple at twelve by accident or without a plan for how to use it,' Gilderoy mused as he pieced it all together. 'She knows no single celebrity – even one as famous and beloved as I am – can fight with a celebrity couple without the couple's stardom shining brighter than before and she's wielding that boy like a bludger, using him to ruin the lives of whoever comes near her just to feed her thirst for stardom… but could she really have done it alone?'
The girl wasn't as bright or talented as he was, that was a given, so it'd take more than her to get this whole plan started, and from what he'd seen of the Potter boy he was too busy being led around by the nose to be actively involved in choosing their targets, which really only left one other person. Gilderoy slyly continued to eat his meal while trying to sneak a glimpse of Dumbledore out of the corner of his eye. The man was eating far too little, far too slowly for it to be natural; was he trying to avoid suspicion? He had to wonder…
Witch Weekly was saying he wasn't the real Ida Beeman anymore, instead going with some brainy bookworm bag-woman named Bagshot, but it was just the kind of thing the real Ida Beeman would've done if the real Ida Beeman was Dumbledore. After all, the man's slide in reputation had all started when his romance novel writing came to light, so it only made sense for him to get a close personal friend to step forward and take credit for the books in an effort to repair his reputation, especially now all five books of the Boy-Who-Lived Series are back on top of Witch Weekly's "Must Read List," displacing his own books from their well-earned position.
Yes, the Potter–Granger celebrity power couple had to be the brain-child of Albus 'the real Ida Beeman' Dumbledore – it really couldn't be any other way. It benefited the man the most and he could've had it in place well before those two ever entered the school.
'He could've Imperiused the girl at a young age, or raised her himself to always do what he said. He could be slipping her secret messages somehow, or even be keeping her dosed with some kind of loyalty potion only he had knowledge of,' Gilderoy thought, running down every which way the old man could be going about this. 'There's always the old love potion angle, I suppose, and you can't discount a family connection too,' he surmised, leaving no stone unturned.
'The girl's young enough to be his great-granddaughter and even though everyone knows he's supposed to be that 'other way' when it comes to bedroom things,' he reflected, 'it could be a cover he came up with to hide the truth. I've never seen him in the Style section,' he thought, racking his brain to come up with something, 'not in that way anyway. In all those years he'd been wearing flashy robes I don't think there's been one shot of him walking about with anyone at all, let alone someone who could be that 'other way' with him.'
It seemed a pretty compelling piece of evidence to Gilderoy but he couldn't discount Witch Weekly might have decided not to print it even if it happened. Those 'other way' people were best left to themselves and unthought of after all. And besides, if there was anyone some 'other way' person like Dumbledore would've hit on it'd be himself, and the old man certainly hadn't done any of that… that is, unless the big gold desk he gave him was his way to–
The soft cries of owls and a whirling mass of movement overhead thankfully stopped the line of thought as the daily mail arrived. Only a few of them dropped copies of what appeared to be the Daily Prophet up and down the house tables, for which he was thankful, though Gilderoy couldn't miss the one being delivered to the infinitely drab and mundanely brown-haired Miss Granger.
'No doubt she just squealed her heart out when she saw the flier and ran immediately to owl it to them,' he grumped, wishing the blasted flier hadn't called him out by name so he could've sent it to them himself, claiming the students were demanding even more of his time than Hogwarts set out for them in class – but no, whoever did it hadn't done him any such favors. Likewise, he'd also thought about sending the Prophet a response to whatever Miss Granger could've made out of it, but it would've been just like Dumbledore to have her not send it to them just so he'd end up doing it himself. That'd only tell them there was something unflattering happening in the castle and end up spreading the bad press throughout next week.
'Oh, no you don't, Albus 'Ida Beeman' Dumbledore. I'm far too clever and talented for that,' Gilderoy thought as he picked up his knife and fork again. 'I sat down and did absolutely nothing. I bet you didn't see that move coming, did you?'
He'd just speared a mish-mash of egg, sausage, and toast when the indistinct student babble drew his attention once again. Several were looking up at a whole line of owls that were quickly circling lower, overburdened with bulging burlap bags. Circling the Great Hall again, they were all coming his way.
'Merlin's beard,' Gilderoy thought wondrously. 'What are those, ten-pound bags?'
Just as he was getting concerned about where they'd all land, the first owl pulled up and loosed its payload, the heavy bag smacking into his chest, knocking the breath from him and sending him reeling backwards. Arms wheeling, he crashed to the floor, his legs sprawling in the air, as bag after bag came thundering down to hit all around where he'd been sitting and scattering his food and dishes everywhere while everyone around him dashed for cover. Waves of laughter rolled over them when it was over as Gilderoy got to his feet and set his chair to rights.
"Well, that was exciting, wasn't it?" he asked with flyaway hair over a sparkling smile, as if the whole thing had been planned. "Not to worry, there's no harm done," Gilderoy continued with a dismissive wave and a wink, hoping to use the attention to win back his audience. "It looks like my fan mail's become too much for them to hold and they've sent it along – though there's got to be a better way than this, am I right?"
A gratifying bout of laughter followed as the tumbled plates and ruined food began cleaning themselves off the floor. Eager not to lose another opportunity to ingratiate himself with the crowd, Gilderoy whipped out his wand and gestured to all the activity, hoping to make it look like he was doing all the work. Oh yes, he was just a jolly, nice man who's easily able to take care of anything that comes his way; he certainly wasn't the scoundrel the Daily Prophet's making him out to be.
As he was stacking the small burlap bags in Professor Snape's empty chair both the students and the remaining professors eventually rose to start the day, leaving him there to enjoy a rare free period from teaching. It was impossible to miss Miss Granger looking decidedly too happy for his liking but he wasn't about to give her the satisfaction of looking in any way put out about whatever the Prophet he hadn't read yet could've said this morning.
As soon as the Little Shrew, the Cursed Child, and the Real Ida Beeman were all out of the room though he dropped what he was doing and hurried back to his chair to see what the girl was so happy about. It didn't take long to find it since for once he seemed to be getting his wall-to-wall press coverage again… though he would've hoped it could've at least been positive. The Prophet was still on about his supposed bad teaching and made the Defense Study Group's flier infuriatingly prominent.
Didn't these people know how all great men doing great things always had a tiny number of vocal detractors? It was obvious these news people were only interested in instigating fights so they could sell papers, not in discovering the truth. What did it matter if there was a Defense group nobody was going to join? Who cared what they thought about what he'd put on the summer reading quiz or how they'd gotten it from somewhere? What did it matter to him? He was still the revolutionarily new and fabulously dressed professor at Hogwarts and nothing they could say could change it.
'Just look at all the fan mail I got today,' he wanted to tell them. 'If that doesn't say I'm still beloved then nothing will.'
Gilderoy wanted nothing more than to spend the next hour reading all the praise the mound of mail were sure to heap upon him, but… with the way his luck was going… what if they didn't do that? What if they did something else? He knew he was loved by his fans in a way no newspaper could ever dampen but he couldn't discount the possibility that – however remote and unlikely it may be – someone might've sent him a Howler.
He didn't know if he was in a state to handle a Howler, not after all this. And besides, there were still a few students scattered about in the Great Hall with him and no one was going to be so engrossed in their studies as to miss a Howler going off anywhere near them. No, no, he simply couldn't take the risk; no matter how infantile the Prophet was it had to be better than the alternative.
Turning the page to one of the boring internal sections showed him one of the often-skipped letters from the editor, though in truth it did nothing to soothe his pride. What did this Barnabus Cuffe know about 'qualities unbefitting a Hogwarts professor,' and why should anyone listen to his opinion – because he ran a paper?
'Any idiot can run a paper or magazine,' Gilderoy thought as he settled down to sulk. 'The Quibbler is enough proof of that. The Ministry of Magic doesn't investigate things just because some ruddy newspaper man thinks too much of himself, and it wouldn't matter if they did. They wouldn't find anything,' he tried to think confidently.
He started to feel a niggling sense of doubt take root in his stomach though when he saw the tiny scrap in the corner of one page about his publishers considering legal action if there was proof of him breaking his contract due to fraud and would no longer be holding his fan mail for him but sending it on directly. Gilderoy also had to stop himself from ruining his perfect set of fingernails when he discovered a thumb had absentmindedly made it to his mouth. Biting his nails had been an old habit from his school days he'd worked hard break himself of, he wasn't about to pick it up again out of fear of being caught.
Though he hated to admit it, he was in a bit of a sticky wicket. Should he respond to all the new attacks against him? Would it matter if he did? Was there even a faintest chance the Prophet would print it without horribly twisting it in unflattering ways? With the Prophet's editor coming out against him, Gilderoy couldn't see how he could possibly hope for that, which meant sending anything in response would only serve to spread the bad press into next week, even if nothing else went wrong in the meantime.
'I've got to do something to fix things,' he thought, giving the entirety of his exceptional mind to the problem at hand. 'But how am I supposed to do it when the press is against me and anything I do could draw more attention to things they really shouldn't be looking into?'
It was madness, Gilderoy was sure; a puzzle with no solution, like those woven Chinese tube thingies you put a finger of each hand in only to not be able to get them out again. He was sure he could persuade everyone what they'd heard in the Prophet was grossly overblown if he could talk to them directly, but it was the one thing he couldn't do when he was stuck at Hogwarts and forced to go through the Prophet in order to do anything.
'Well, I'm not really forced to go through them,' he grudgingly admitted to himself. 'I suppose I could always do it in replies to my fan mail… but that takes a lot of work. It's so much easier just to send out a signed photo instead, then the only real work involved is addressing the response.
'And besides,' Gilderoy mentally whined again as he forced the paper shut, 'what's the point of having the Prophet around if they're not going to print what I want? They really should be far more accommodating to celebrities over twelve.'
There had to be a better way – and there was – only he didn't want to think about it because it led right back to what McGonagall had suggested yesterday. If he found a dignified way to quit, the pressure to get him removed would be gone, and he could spend the next few weeks assuring everyone there was nothing to see before they found anything incriminating. As nice as it'd be to be away from the meddlesome girl though he couldn't leave since he'd just taken a stand against being bullied into leaving.
'I bet that was Dumbledore's plan too, the crafty old codger,' he thought, stitching together the conspiracy. 'He lured me in with a captive audience and the prospect of being known throughout the world as the mentor who taught Harry Potter, only then, when he lulled me into a sense of comfort, did he spring his trap. His cronies assaulted on my reputation, both within Hogwarts and without, while he got McGonagall to present the best move I could make in a way I'd be sure to refuse, so I'd then have to go back on my refusal and beg him to let me leave in disgrace.
'Yes, it's easy to see now. No doubt he arranged his own public disgrace too, just to make sure I didn't see this coming,' Gilderoy surmised as he expanded the web of the old man's scheme. 'With someone as long-lived and well-connected as Dumbledore, he'd have the connections to carry out this elaborate fraud, but why?' he asked himself as he carefully probed for the reasons behind things.
–And then it occurred to him.
'That's it!' he mentally cried in triumph. 'Faking his own public disgrace makes it impossible for me to tell anyone the truth about his schemes! Oh, it's fiendishly brilliant! It all makes sense! After he gets me to run away with my tail between my legs, he'll send the signal to his little friends to drop all this nonsense about him while they ratchet up the attacks on me even more.
'The world is full of fools,' Gilderoy knew from experience, 'and if a man like Dumbledore had wanted to, he could get them to believe McGonagall had been teaching here eight years before she was born. What did it matter if it didn't make sense?!'
"Well I'm not playing that game!" the Greatest Gilderoy of This or Any Age cried as he vaulted to his feet, stashed the Prophet under his arm, and marched out of the Great Hall with his head held high.
He knew what he was going to do now, he was going to show them all just how spectacular a teacher he was – both here at Hogwarts and then around the world – but in his own way. And while he was at it he'd show Little Miss Witch Weekly precisely how much of a nobody she was and how thoroughly unspecial it made her, which also made her completely wrong about everything she ever thought. And what made it even better was the fact McGonagall and the rest wouldn't be able to say a word against him.
He was still a professor, after all.
.o0O0o.
Harry had never liked being the center of attention, but that was before; now it was even worse. Gilderoy Lockhart might have started ducking out of sight every time he and Hermione came down a corridor but girls were almost everywhere now, and all of them took special note of him – or rather, of him and Hermione. It was like they were walking under a spotlight you couldn't get away from. It made him want to hide under a rock – though he'd settle for a broom closet, the kitchens, or a cupboard under the stairs.
Hermione wouldn't let him do it though; and she's right, him hiding would only give the gawkers something else to talk about behind his back. She was of the opinion that while it was silly of them to be interested, all the attention came with being a celebrity and he should either ignore it or, better yet, try to find the humor in it. He didn't have much luck with either, at least until Colin Creevey kept popping up.
If the girls were almost everywhere, Colin was omnipresent. He appeared to have memorized his entire schedule and nothing seemed to give him a bigger thrill than to say, "All right, Harry?" six or seven times a day and hear, "Hello, Colin," back, no matter how surprised Harry sounded when he said it. Hermione quickly started whispering, "Hey, Doctor Jones," every time it happened, which, while being funny, led him to try to out-Colin Colin and call out to him first.
Yesterday evening, when the giggles and staring reached a new high, Hermione managed to pry a copy of the recently-arrived Witch Weekly out of Lavender and Parvati's hands long enough to find out what all the fuss was about. Looking at it, it was hard for him to know where to rank it in the week's weirdness. It was odd enough for him to have to get used to having a girlfriend, much less one who actually seemed to like being with him despite the public attention, but to have it reflected back at them like a fun house mirror might've been the worst thing he's been through since Dobby showed up in his bedroom.
Harry knew he didn't know what the heck he was doing when it came to being a boyfriend, but couldn't they just allow him to mess this up on his own? And if he accidentally managed to do it right somehow, couldn't they let him enjoy it without showing it to everyone? Harry didn't think it too much for him to ask, and thankfully he wasn't alone in that.
"Are you sure you didn't tell anyone?" his girlfriend asked as he looked down at the tabloid.
'It's Official!' the front cover announced over a picture of the two of them hugging on Platform 9 & 3/4. 'Harry's First Love! Exclusive Date Details Inside!'
He didn't know what to say to that. He certainly liked Hermione, he liked her very much. He liked spending time with her, he worried for her with all this Lockhart stuff going on, and he'd like to get to know her even better than he already did but… love? For it to be called love it had to be a lot bigger than that, didn't it?
"Of course I didn't," Ron replied, seemingly irritated with Hermione for the first time in days. "Who'd I tell? And why accuse me?"
"I'm not accusing you, Ron, and I'm not mad if you did, I'm simply asking you," Hermione said calmly, seemingly immune to any attempt to raise the issue to the level of a fight. "There was only the three of us down there that night and you left before things changed."
"What?" the redhead asked curiously as Harry reopened the magazine to check their date coverage again.
"The article says Harry and I had a candlelight dinner, and we didn't," his girlfriend explained.
"Yes you did," Ron but in to correct her. "I saw it."
"You saw it set up that way, and then you left so we could be alone – which was very nice of you," Hermione said diplomatically, though Harry still felt a bit of a heel at excluding his best mate from something that didn't really feel much like what he thought a date was supposed to feel like, though they never actually said it was officially a date. "The house elves changed it to be more like a picnic when you were gone, and since Harry and I never said anything and you're the only one who knew…"
"Alright," he admitted finally, his ears coloring in embarrassment. "I may've told Seamus. And Dean," Ron added as an afterthought. "And Neville was there too – but they wouldn't have told anyone, much less Witch Weekly."
"Well they heard from somewhere," Harry added, putting the magazine aside and feeling more than a little embarrassed himself.
"And I think I know where," his girlfriend said cryptically.
That left him with the obvious question, "Where?"
"From the same girls who asked about us the first night we were back," Hermione said darkly, "Lavender and Parvati."
"Well, it's not like we were keeping anything a secret," Harry pointed out, hoping to snuff out his girlfriend's 'set them on fire' response.
"True," the fire-starter reluctantly agreed.
Something about the way she said that made him wonder where all the hostility was coming from. Was Hermione just a fiery person by nature or was something else bothering her? They hadn't talked about the potion mishap since the hospital wing, so he supposed that could be it, but she'd been a stickler for things last year too, even going so far as threatening to turn him and Ron into Professor McGonagall when they snuck out of the dorms to take up Draco's dueling challenge. So as it was, Harry couldn't really say for sure either way and didn't know how to ask.
"Still," she continued, picking up the magazine to return it to the girls in question. "I wouldn't say anything around Lavender you wouldn't want to see in print."
Ron snickered at that when she left.
"Lockhart would say the same about her," he said with an amused grin.
As funny as it was, Ron was right; Hermione had turned herself into Lockhart's worst enemy by running to the press with her thoughts on everything he was doing wrong, and Harry was surprised by how well it was working. The fluorescent red and blue fliers for Percy's Defense Study Group could be found at every classroom and bathroom in the entire castle, and the more people talked about what could happen there the less likely it seemed Percy would've had anything to do with something so rebellious. Ron was quick to point out Percy's girlfriend, Penelope, could be having a good influence on him.
If today's class was anything to go by, the disastrous episode with the pixies must have persuaded Professor Lockhart not to bring any more live creatures to class. And perhaps in an effort to combat the bad press coming out about him, he instead read long passages from his books to them, teasing the best ones were still to come. It was the first time Harry had honestly wished he'd been studying in the library, whether Hermione was there with him or not.
This change in tactic didn't save him from Hermione though because all it took was one quick Dobby delivery and the next morning they were looking at Percy's flier on the front page of the Prophet – followed immediately by Gilderoy Lockhart being dive-bombed by a flock of angry owls.
"Did you make them do that?" an impressed Ron asked Hermione as everyone laughed at their pathetic professor as he picked himself up off the floor.
"I wish I had," she replied with a toothy grin, only to then roll her eyes when Lockhart made some lame attempt to save face in front of everyone.
The Prophet though turned out to be everything Hermione had wanted and more. According to her, they were taking Percy's Defense flier for precisely what it was, evidence of widespread student discontent and a sure sign of Lockhart's fraudulent status. Lockhart's publishers seemed poised to turn against him too, and the Prophet's editor was even calling on the Ministry of Magic to investigate.
Somehow, his girlfriend had managed to rile up the whole wizarding world, again, though this time he was pretty sure there wouldn't be fire-breathing dragons and a banking scare to go with it. Either way, it was a very happy Hermione who left the Great Hall that day, which Harry took as a welcome change of pace. The happiness was rather short-lived however because no amount of joy could survive two seconds in Snape's Potions class, even at the best of times.
They just arrived to claim their spots in the gloomy dungeon classroom when Draco Malfoy and the Slytherins muscled their way through to do the same. Harry took it as a sign of just how worried he'd been about Hermione because until they'd shown up, he had almost forgotten Malfoy even existed. He wasn't the only one with a renewed membership in the 'I Hate Draco Club' though because as soon as they had pushed their way through Pansy split off from the rest of her house and headed their way.
Draco made a move to stop her only to get a look promising more than a slap if he did.
The rebelling Slytherin took a spot between Ron and Neville, threw down her books harder than she needed to, and set up her cauldron in a fuming silence before looking up to face them.
"What?" Pansy bluntly asked, daring them to speak against her.
Neville backed away slightly but there was really no time to say anything before Snape swept in to silence everyone. The sallow skinned man barely made it to his desk before the silence was broken by one of his own.
"Professor, Pansy's sitting over there with Potter," Draco eagerly interjected, hoping to draw the man's attention right to him.
Snape's cavernous black eyes swept towards him as planned, and seemed to look through him, as Malfoy's sneer said more than his words did about why he was lying. Pansy hadn't been invited, nor was she sitting with him; she was two whole spots away, beyond Hermione and Ron. Draco just couldn't stand the fact she hated his guts now and wanted someone to force her to do what he said – which of course Snape would do.
Snape briefly looked to Pansy before turning his attention to Malfoy himself.
"I fail to see how Miss Parkinson is any of your concern," the loathsome man said instead.
"Sir?" the blond-haired git replied, just as lost as the rest of them.
"If she wants to take life into her own hands by partnering with Longbottom, it's her decision to make," Snape said in his customarily condescending tone, which made the option sound more like a command. "You should mind your own affairs. Your father was quite disappointed to learn your grades were even lower than I first expected."
Malfoy's face burned from the rare rebuke but otherwise stayed silent.
"Now, let's see how much you retained from last year," their professor said to them all before flicking his wand at the blackboard, revealing what he took to be a page number. "Begin. You have until the end of class."
Hermione had her books out in an instant, but Harry looked to Ron. With him and Hermione paired up on one side and Pansy and Neville forced together on the other, it left him without a partner. Seeing the predicament, Ron picked up his cauldron and waddled his way over to Seamus and Dean, nudging Neville over to make room. Being so far away from Hermione might lessen his chances to get the potion done in time but he couldn't miss the fact it also put him on the far side of the four people Snape was likely to focus on most.
Harry looked to see what Snape had to say of the move, only to find him already grading papers and not even looking at them at all. Hermione got his attention and nodded to his ingredients with a look saying the potion's not going to brew itself. She did shoot a glance at Snape too though, and while she didn't seem to know what was going on either, she clearly thought it could've been worse.
.o0O0o.
There were some big downsides of being friends with Colin she hadn't been expecting. When it'd been just her and Luna they'd been a tight-together group, and it's not how things were with Colin at all. With Colin being so eager to learn everything about everything, it also made him want to be friends with everyone he met, which meant it couldn't be a tight-together group of three because he was always dragging someone else into it, and Luna was just happy to find anyone new to talk to that she went along with it.
Things were even worse though because Harry was in the mix too. Colin was just some silly fan, he wasn't someone Harry had ever spent a lot of time with, and he'd stayed at her house for a whole month – so it had to put her above Colin in the ranks of people Harry knew – but you wouldn't know it from the way they behaved. Colin was saying hi to Harry every chance he got, but instead of getting annoyed some fan was "creeping him out," Harry was saying hi to him back – and even saying it to him first, like they were actual friends or something!
She just couldn't believe it. Life was so unfair.
Ginny was going to be stuck as the Ron of their group, she just knew it, but if anyone was supposed to be the Harry it was her. Luna said she'd had to ask to be a Gryffindor, which meant she was supposed to be a Ravenclaw really, so that made her the smart one, or "the Hermione" of the group. Ginny knew for sure she was the special, sneaky, and adventurous one, which obviously made her "the Harry," while Colin would then be the odd one who didn't know anything, otherwise known as "the Ron."
She had pieced it all together and it all made perfect sense, only now it wasn't working because of Colin. With Colin pulling anyone around him into the group, even if it was just for a class, it made him "the one everyone likes," which made him "the Harry" instead of her. And worse, her not liking it was turning her into "the Ron" – and she wasn't supposed to be the Ron! If things kept on this way, Luna and Colin would have their picture in the Prophet and Witch Weekly by this time next year, and be all lovey-dovey and stuff, while she'd be stuck hanging around them because she didn't have any other friends.
Tom had agreed with her, of course, that it wasn't right, which helped a bit, but she could really only talk to him just before bed. Ginny had hoped she would've been able to write to him more often – like during class – only she didn't want to get caught with him and everyone get the wrong idea. Luna knew about him, sure, but what about everyone else? They'd all make fun of her for having a friend in a book and the professors would think it was Dark and destroy it – and Tom wasn't like that at all.
Thinking about Tom made her want to make sure he was safe, so she reached into her book bag to make sure Tom's diary was still there. It felt good to have him close, especially during all this new stuff. And even if she wasn't writing to him right now, it was starting to feel weird to be away from him for too long. Ginny knew she wouldn't want to be left alone in this big castle if it were her, so she figured it must be that. It just wasn't something you did to a friend.
"Watson, Hope?" their little professor's high pitched voice squeaked out as he neared the end of calling role and the newest girl Colin had pulled into the group raised her hand from her spot two down from hers, on the far side of Colin and Luna.
"Oh!" Professor Flitwick cried happily before looking up to smile at her at the end of the row, the only person left to be called. "That makes you Miss Weasley. Splendid."
Almost every teacher had been doing that, already knowing who she was because her hair said it for her. Only Professor Lockhart had been different. He'd actually seemed nice, and not like people were whispering about him at all. And he'd even given her extra points for having a quill charmed to look like one of his.
"I don't suppose I could get you to pass these out for me?" he asked the student nearest him, passing the boy a large box of fluffy white feathers as he stood. "One feather for every two students, if you please."
The boy went around the room giving out feathers as the tiny Professor Flitwick took his time to explain what today's lesson was all about. Ginny listened but she'd already heard about this spell, and even told Tom about it before. The levitating spell had been what Harry had used on the troll last year to stop it from doing the world a favor and smashing Hermione Granger into bits, only their professor must've thought they'd do better at it because Ron said they hadn't started on it until closer to Halloween.
She practiced her swishes and flicks with everyone else, but was none too happy about having to share a feather with Colin. She would've much rather shared with Luna, but she was on Colin's other side and stuck with the Ravenclaw girl. When everyone got bored just waving their wands about they were finally told the magic words they needed: Wingardium Leviosa, and cautioned to always remember to say them clearly.
"Never forget the tale of old Wizard Baruffio," their little professor said ominously, "who said 's' instead of 'f' and found himself on the floor with a buffalo on his chest."
Ginny wasn't the only one who looked around nervously at that.
"Off you go then," he said with a mischievous look, which made her wonder if it was a joke. His smile wasn't quite like the twins got when they were pulling a prank on someone, so it was hard to tell for sure. As she sat wondering Luna's feather floated up in the air, but it wasn't Luna pointing their wand at it.
"Oh, well done! Five points to Ravenclaw, Miss Watson," Professor Flitwick cried cheerfully, only to get distracted again immediately when another girl's hat was flung across the room. "Careful now! Watch where you're aiming–"
"Did you see that?! I wish I had my camera," an excited Colin whispered, too eager to even try it for himself yet. "Have you ever seen anything like it?" he asked before turning to the girl beside Luna. "How'd you do it?"
"It's really easy if you've practiced," the blonde girl, Hope, said as the feather lowered itself back to the desk in front of her. "My sister Beth's in third year. She lets me copy her notes when she gets home for the summer," she smiled. "She says we're not supposed to do magic at home since we're muggleborns, but the lady who came with the letter said they bend the rules if you haven't come to school yet."
Ginny scowled and refused to listen to any more, the feather in front of her refusing to budge an inch. That Hope girl was nothing but a stinky little cheat. No one had ever let her use notes or encouraged her to study, not except Tom, so why does she get to be special and get house points for it? It wasn't fair.
After a while Ginny gave up and let Colin have a turn. While he was wasting his time trying, she took out Tom's diary to tell him what'd happened, hoping it'd look like she was taking notes – which apparently everyone was supposed to do about everything. Tom wrote back saying he was sure she'd show them who was best in time but it couldn't come soon enough for her.
After class was over she was able to put some distance between her and Luna and Colin by going to the bathroom. The bathroom itself wasn't a cheerful place – it looked like nobody'd been there in centuries even though she could hear crying come from the far cubical. It didn't really matter though since it served its purpose of letting Colin go off with one of his new-made friends while she and Luna were occupied, so she felt very relieved.
Their schedules said they had Herbology next, which she knew had something to do with gardening. Luna skipped beside her as they left the castle, wondering if they'd have gurdyroots and dirigible plums there. Ginny didn't know but as long as they didn't have a bunch of gnomes running around it was sure to be better than they had at the Burrow.
The sun was high and hot as they saw some other first years in the distance and made to follow them. The day had a kind of steamy feel to it, like a summer day after it rained, so she hoped they wouldn't be in the sun too long. The last thing she needed was to be a sunburnt red-headed Weasley on top of everything else.
The more they walked the hotter it seemed to get.
Ginny reached into her book bag to take comfort in Tom's presence, but she felt like her head was swimming.
She stopped, but the whole world kept moving.
It was spinning sideways…
"Are you alright?" someone asked from nearby.
He didn't answer them for he was marveling in the fact that he was looking down at a pair of hands for the first time in a long, long time. It had worked. The hands were small, thin and delicate, a little girl's hands, but they'd do for now. He wouldn't have long, and there was so much to do.
"I'm fine," Tom lied in his little girl's voice, sparing only a glance at the blonde as he took in his surroundings.
They were at Hogwarts and the girl had to be this Luna girl Ginny was always prattling on about. Figuring out where he was, Tom dismissed the girl and started walking towards a suspicious hovel on the grounds. He didn't get very far before he found the fool girl skipping along beside him.
"You should be in class," he told her.
"So should you," Luna said dreamily, seemingly intent to ignore his desire to be alone. "Are we going on an adventure?"
"No," an annoyed Tom said, refusing to spend what little time he had arguing with a little girl. "I need to see about something."
Putting one determined foot in front of the next, they got to the hovel quickly. Crudely made of stone and wood, it didn't look anything like the chicken coops he was expecting. In fact, it didn't look anything like what he remembered from the last time he was here. He decided to look around the side and back before taking a look inside.
There was a dirty brown tarp draped over something in the back and a stone pen on the far side. Looking over the low stone walls of the pen didn't show him what he was looking for, but he did see movement in what he thought were windows.
'Don't tell me someone's actually living here,' he thought scornfully.
Before he could take another step the hovel's back door banged open and a large hairy man charged out carrying a crossbow a big black dog following along behind him.
"You get away from–!" the monstrous man thundered before stopping himself when all he saw was a pair of young girls. "Oh," the giant said with a bit of surprise as he put the crossbow away. "Where'd you two come from?"
It was something about the eyes and voice that did it, but once he saw it he knew he was right.
"You're Rubeus Hagrid, aren't you?" Tom asked, wondering what the boy was still doing here.
"Aye, tha's me," the man smiled, though Tom couldn't help noticing he wasn't nearly as happy as he let on. "Keeper 'o Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts. Now you know who I am, how 'bout you tell me why you're pokin' 'round my house?"
"I thought I heard a rooster," Tom had Ginny's body say, feeling his hold on her starting to slip by the second.
"No roosters here," Rubeus said, looking at him oddly as the dog sniffed at Luna. "Used ta be, a'fore you was born, but they's on the other side of the castle now."
Satisfied with that, Tom bid a hasty retreat.
Ginny felt woozy for a moment, like she was going to sick up.
"I've heard of you," she heard Luna tell someone. "Daddy says you have the only domesticated thestrals in Britain."
"The only herd of them anyway," a man said, making Ginny forget her stomach for a moment.
'How'd we get here?' she wondered as she took in where they were. 'Did Luna bring us here?'
Looking up at the enormously large man with a big scraggly beard and little beetle eyes was a little scary at first, but then she remembered what her brothers told her. This had to be Hagrid – and he was even bigger than she'd thought!
"An' who're you?" Hagrid asked Luna with a smile.
"Luna Lovegood," her friend replied, scratching behind some dog's ears as its tongue lolled out.
"Ah. An' I know who you are, o' course," the happy giant turned to her to say. "I recon'ize Weasley hair anywhere. Makes you Ginny then, eh?"
"Er– Yes," Ginny replied, momentarily confused by a professory person calling her by her first name.
"Knew yer brother Charlie when he was here," the big burly man Charlie had always called a harmless teddy bear said. "He enjoyin' Romania? The dragons 're not bein' mean to him, are they?"
"No," she replied, before catching how it only worked for one of his questions. "He likes it," she added to correct herself. "We saw him over the summer."
"Yer have ta tell me all about it," Hagrid smiled, gesturing inside. "Didn't think Firs' Years were off yet.
Suddenly Ginny remembered.
"We're going to be late for class!"
Running back, she didn't know how late they were going to be, how they were going to find their class, or how they were going to slip in unnoticed. Their professor was going to hate them. This was the worst thing that could possibly happen.
.o0O0o.
Friday, September 4th, 1992 was destined to be looked back on as a truly momentous day for all wizarding kind. It would be a beacon of hope during Dark times like a shining city on a hill, and serve as an example for others to follow in years to come. Though her work was just beginning, it would be her lasting legacy as Chief Warlock, for it was the day their old, decadent, Dumbledorean past began to be swept away and Order reimposed on Wizarding Britain.
She smiled as she looked out over the crowded chamber, imagining how relieved they'd all soon be to live in a world free of false public faces. Today was the day when their oppression by the minority would end and civilized folk would rise up to voice the moral disdain they've had to bottle up for decades. The Wizengamot would say, with one clear voice, deviance and debauchery was not to be tolerated, and the full might of the Ministry would be brought to bear to eradicate these abominable acts.
Her moral clarity had never been clearer than it was today, and Dolores could feel the aura of her righteousness radiate around her. Her fingers caressed the tiny wooden gavel that was her symbol of power; sleek and smooth, yet hard and unyielding, it suited her perfectly. She looked down to see the bristly mustache of her head clerk, Mr. Carter, bob up and down as he nodded all was in readiness.
For years she'd toiled away thanklessly under one morally compromised man after another, never knowing, until the job was finally hers, that this great destiny was what she'd wanted all along – and now she was Chief Warlock and the Wizengamot was hers to control! She'd finally have Order and the degenerates of society – such as Dumbledore and his loathsome ilk – would be pushed down to their proper place like the subhuman creatures they are. Once they were in their properly despised place it was only a matter of time until they begged Saint Mungo's to find a way to rid them of their unnatural perversions.
Dolores nodded to her clerk before rapping her gavel in quick succession.
"The Wizengamot is now in session," the fuddy-duddy clerk intoned from two levels below her.
Though his voice was a little too weak for proper intoning, the change from what Dumbledore had always done cut through the crowd's conversation nonetheless. Dolores put aside thoughts of replacing the man for one who cold properly carry the full might of her words as a concern for later for there were already reporters from the Wizarding Wireless and Daily Prophet looking down on their betters from the public observation gallery ready to spread her words faster than Carter ever could.
"Chief Warlock, Dolores Jane Umbridge, presiding," he finished, signifying her cue to rise and address her Wizengamot for the first time.
In robes of pink and royal blue she stood above them, the exalted pinnacle of everything this country should strive to be, and she raised her hands to silence the already hushed assembly. When the silence was complete, she spoke.
.o0O0o.
AN: And now the Dreame warning, saved for posterity:
I'm sorry to get your hopes up but this is post is not a chapter and will be deleted prior to my next update. Please do stay though because I think it's important. Don't worry, I'm not dying or anything; it's not like that. Anyway, I was planning to address this in my next update (and will have a section in it to keep this for posterity) but now feel it'd be best to get this out now lest anyone be tempted by it.
You see, there's a company called Dreame that's been approaching fanfiction writers, both here and elsewhere, and offering them money in exchange for their stories. This, I believe, is not only a scam but an existential threat to the fanfiction community as a whole. How? Because the fanfiction community has grown and become mainstream by being a collection of fans writing fan works for fellow fans – which is a perfectly legal and innocuous thing, though certain authors had to be dragged into seeing it as acceptable.
As innocuous as it is though, everything changes as soon as money is added to the equation. After all, if there's money to be had – especially money not going to the original author of a series said fans are writing fanfiction about – then who's to say what those authors are going to do about it? How long will it be before laws change, communities are wiped out, and corporations are allowed to dictate what fandoms are allowed to do?
It may sound hyperbolic but I've already seen it happen once, and I'm not even 40 yet. I was around for the Wild West days of the internet, when no one knew anyone's names and people were free to copy and swap music files with everyone around the world (much like we did with cassette tapes before that). Then came the fall of Napster, everyone looking over their shoulder lest Big Brother crack down on you, and iTunes and various other implements of corporate power moved in to "civilize" this Wild West of ours.
And just as it took over the music-trading community, now they're after fanfiction. This is what I said to it:
––––––––––re: Dreame––––––––––
Dear author,
This is Aura, an editor from Dreame, a newly established platform originated from FicFun.
You can learn more about us and our platform by visiting the website or download Dreame App on Apple store or Google Play.
I am writing this email to ask whether you are interested in displaying your book "Sympathetic Properties" on Dreame.
If you are interested in, could you pls show me your email?
We could discuss more details about the offer via email.
My email address is [redacted]
Please feel free to contact me for anything you want to know
I am looking forward to hearing from you!
Thanks in advance
Aura
––––––––––From Me––––––––––
After finding this:
authorchristopherdschmitz dot wordpress dot com /2018/10/10/things-to-know-about-dreame-publishers-also-known-as-ficfun-and-stary-ltd/
–I not only won't be having anything to do with you, I'll be publicly warning my readers about you in my story's next update.
––––––––––From "Aura"––––––––––
i don't understand what do you mean?
––––––––––From Me––––––––––
If I could find out within a minute that people (many of whom have already signed up with you) think your practices are shadowy and unsavory, I don't want to have anything to do with you. Moreover, with a reputation as bad as yours, you shouldn't have any problem finding out what people think of you. So you go on and do that and have a nice day.
––––––––––From "Aura"––––––––––
As an editor, I respect your any decision,
but this is defamation without any proof,
the author wrote harangue to slander dreame just for remuneration he was unsatisfied,
you choose to believe in him, not 1000 signed authors on dreame, you can go now
thanks
––––––––––From Me––––––––––
Oh, I can go now? You came to me, I didn't go crawling to you. I gave you a far more polite dismissal than you deserved after I explained my decision, not once, but twice. And you could have left things alone but instead you chose to try and demean me and guilt trip me for believing people who're accurately showing how their attempts to get specifics about how Dreame actually works is met with nothing but deflections. This shows everything I need to know about the character of your company and you as a human being.
You're nothing but a lowlife literary cyber-scammer, coming to free sites like FFN, wattpad, and others hoping to use many fanfiction writers' closet desire for fame to trick them into betraying the love they have for their fandom by having them sign over exclusive rights to their works for a pittance and promises of more, without ever showing them how that 'more' will be generated. They just have to trust you – you, who're trying to privatize fan works and put them behind your app's pay wall.
Fan works should always be free and readily available to anyone who's interested; it's a commitment we've had from the beginning and it's what made us strong. As long as we're community of fans who're writing for fellow fans out of the love we have for the source material, we don't need the money for the enjoyment we get in return is limitless. If we allow money-grubbing privateers like you to gobble up our stories and charge our readers to see them then what are we? We're certainly not a community, and once that goes everything that makes writing fanfiction worthwhile goes with it.
And now, dear scammer, you will go, 'cause you're now blocked.
––––––––––––––––––––
Sympathetic Properties will always be here for free because I'm writing it for the enjoyment I get from seeing all of your enjoyment of it, and in return for all the entertainment fan works have given me in the past. We shouldn't have to pay to go through some iFanfic app to get what should be free, but the only defense we really have from this is each other. If we allow these scammers and business interests to get us to side with them out of greed, we'll tear ourselves apart and become easy prey for anyone else who comes along. I know the promise of money can change how people think (goodness knows I could use more of it) but I hope you all feel the same way I do and help spread the word that fanfiction should remain free.
Edit: In response to a Guest review, yes, you can share this by whatever means you have the ability to.
As always, thanks for reading.