"...and then it fell asleep! Right in his arms! Of course, at that point all the other ones wanted to be held, so by the end of class Neville was cradling an upwards of twenty mandrakes. Meanwhile, mine bit me."
Harry laughs, then pauses as he remembers just who it is they're talking about. "Neville," he says slowly.
Neville starts and looks up at him, a guilty expression on his face.
"Neville." Harry repeats.
Neville looks even guiltier.
"Neville," Harry sighs exasperatedly.
"Fine! I'll take it back. You people are n-no fun," Neville grumbles.
"Oh no." Hermione says, realization dawning on her face. "Please tell me you didn't sneak a mandrake out of the greenhouse."
Neville smiles sheepishly. "Don't suppose you want t-to hold it?"
"You've had it with you this whole time? Their cries are literally fatal."
"Aw, it's j-just a baby, Hermione. It can't kill any-anyone yet. It just… maims a lit-little, is all."
"Dear god," Harry whispers. "He's like a sequel to Hagrid."
Hermione bursts into laughter and Neville rolls his eyes before jogging away, hopefully in the direction of the greenhouses.
"Think he'll get back in time?" Hermione asks nervously, casting a tempus. The Gryffindors are waiting just outside of the Defense class, waiting for class to start.
"I still think we should ditch," Harry grumbles.
"It's the first class, Harry. Maybe he's a phenomenal teacher!"
"Remus saw the course list, laughed so hard he cried, and then wrote three letters to the school's board of governors. That is a terrible sign."
Hermione purses her lips, but remains resolute. Harry can see this isn't a battle he's going to win.
Harry suddenly gets the feeling that he's being watched. He turns around slowly, only to lock eyes with a mousy-haired first year. The boy has a muggle camera and is staring at Harry with a starstruck expression. Harry immediately gets a bad feeling about this.
"Hello! Harry, right? I'm Colin. Colin Creevey," the boy says, sticking a hand out. Harry reaches forward and shakes it, feeling wrong-footed. Colin goes red-faced but soldiers on. "I'm a Gryffindor, too! Do you- do you think I could get a picture?" The boy asks, lifting his camera up.
"A picture." Harry says flatly. Hermione groans quietly in dismay besides him.
"So I can prove I've met you," Colin explains, undeterred.
Harry watches in horror as the kid works himself into more and more of a frenzy; finishing his spiel on the boy-who-lived, magic, and photography with a big gasp of air and a plea for Hermione to take a picture of them together. Then, to top it all off, he asks if Harry can sign it.
"You're giving out signed photos?" Malfoy crows delightedly, appearing out of nowhere. Harry can feel his face flushing bright red. "Everyone line up! Harry Potter is giving out signed photos!"
"No, I'm not!" Harry protests angrily, clenching his fists and grabbing his magic. "Shut up, Malfoy!"
Would it really have been so difficult to just ignore each other? Why does Malfoy insist on antagonizing Harry? It's so exhausting.
"You're just jealous," Colin interrupts.
Crabbe and Goyle turn their heads to look at the slight boy simultaneously. Harry withholds a groan. Colin is much too small to be making enemies like this.
Fortunately, Malfoy just laughs. "Of what? Some ugly scar? Big deal."
Harry puts his hand over his satchel to keep Merlin from coming out of it, in case she's awake and listening. Harry opens his mouth to respond, when suddenly a turquoise-clad Lockhart appears.
"What's all this?" The man asks with a smile, looking the scene over. They've gathered quite the crowd, Harry realizes, which is just great. "Who's giving out signed photos- ah," Lockhart says, gaze falling on Harry. "Needn't have asked."
Lockhart throws an arm around Harry and Harry genuinely thinks that it may only be due to the exhaustive nature of the healing lesson from this morning that keeps the Professor's hair fire-free.
Harry shoots a desperate glance at Hermione, who returns it with a look he reads as "what do you want me to do about this?"
"Here," Lockhart says excitedly, "we'll do a double portrait and both sign it!"
Harry, frozen next to the man and burning with humiliation, watches as a smirking Malfoy and his entourage slips away. Colin takes his photo and runs off, the warning bell having just rung. Harry hopes he blinked.
Lockhart turns to face Harry with a serious expression on his face, hand still on Harry's shoulder. "Word to the wise, Harry," the man starts, oblivious to Harry's attempts to will both the Professor and himself out of existence. "Signed photos are all well and good, but don't go so far so fast! It tends to come off as big-headed."
Harry raises his eyebrows incredulously.
"Don't worry! You'll get there someday," Lockhart chordles, giving Harry's shoulder a pat. "Now, I do believe it's time for class." With that, the man gives Harry one last solemn nod before turning and heading into his classroom.
Neville comes running up, huffing. He looks at Harry's furious red-faced expression, then over to Hermione's grimace and stops. "What did I miss?" Neville asks.
"Let's just get going," Harry mutters, storming into the Defense classroom after the smarmy peacock of a professor.
Twenty minutes later and Harry is ready to write Remus to ask him the best place to hide a body on the grounds of Hogwarts because between Harry and his friends there is no way Lockhart is going to make it out of this year alive.
"What's happening?" A sleepy Merlin hisses, pushing her nose out of the satchel.
"The professor is just quizzing us on himself," Harry hisses, pushing her gently back into the satchel. Something tells him that Lockhart won't respond very well to a six foot long snake with glowing red eyes. "I'll tell you more about it later."
"Alright!" Lockhart cries, clapping his hands together in excitement. "Twenty minutes are up. Please pass your quizzes up to the front. I'll grade them real quick. In the meanwhile," Lockhart grins, winking, "feel free to discuss the assigned readings."
Harry hears some of the students up in the front tittering, and struggles not to roll his eyes.
"Hermione," Harry whispers out of the corner of his mouth, glaring at the man.
"Hmm?" Hermione asks, looking up from her book.
"Now's our chance. Let's just take Neville and get out of here. Please." Harry isn't above begging.
"No! We'd get in so much trouble," Hermione hisses. "Besides," she adds, blushing deeply. "It's not like he's bad to look at."
"Hermione! What?"
Hermione shoots him a red-faced apologetic look. Harry turns to Neville desperately.
"Back me up here!"
Neville opens his mouth to hopefully do just that when-
"Alrighty! I must say, I am most disappointed in the apparent reading comprehension skills of our youth today," Lockhart says, shaking his head. "The only student to get full points is… Miss Hermione Granger? Miss Granger, where are you?"
Hermione raises a hand hesitantly, looking like she wants nothing more than for the ground to swallow her up. Harry narrows his eyes at his classmates that are glaring at Hermione with unbridled jealousy. Hermione definitely deserves to be made fun of for this, but not by anyone who actually means it.
"Very good," Lockhart says, flashing a shiny white grin in Hermione's direction.
She's too busy hiding her face behind her hair to see it, which Harry thinks is a good thing: she'd've probably gone blind.
"Take ten points for Gryffindor! Moving on," Lockhart says, wandering over to his desk at the front of the classroom. He leans down and lifts a covered cage up to the desk.
Harry is too busy trying to catch a glimpse of whatever it is that's under that cover to pay attention to what the man is saying now. "Hey Merlin," he hisses, losing his patience. She pokes a nose out of Harry's satchel. "Can you smell the magic of whatever it is under that blanket?" Merlin's tongue flicks, and she shakes her head.
"Maybe if I was closer," she says.
"Alright. Thanks anyways."
Harry whips his head back up as he hears Seamus let out a snort. It looks like he's missed the unveiling of the creature- rather, creatures. They look like a mix between bright blue dragonflies and really shrill aliens. Fairies, maybe?
"C-cornish pixies," Neville whispers, catching Harry's confused staring.
Harry nods his thanks to Neville despite the fact that that had cleared up practically nothing for him.
"Right then," Lockhart says. "Let's see what you make of them!"
With that, he unlocks the cage door and swings it wide open. Neville immediately grabs his things and ducks under his desk. Harry and Hermione exchange a glance, and follow suit.
"What are cornish pixies?" Harry asks over the sounds of buzzing, shrieking, and shattering glass.
"They're mostly nuisances," Neville says. "They like causing chaos."
A desk clatters loudly onto the ground from where a group of the pixies had been trying to carry it off. The pixies let out a round of high-pitched cheers before scattering again.
"I'd gathered," Harry says flatly.
The bell rings and there's a mad dash for the door. Unfortunately due to having to clamber out from under their respective desks; Harry, Neville, and Hermione are the last ones out.
Or, they would have been if Lockhart hadn't said, "well, I'll ask you three to just nip them back into their cage. Ta!" Before rushing out the door.
Both Hermione and Neville turn to Harry, who sighs. "We could just leave them out?" He asks hopefully. "It's not like he doesn't deserve it."
Hermione purses her lips and Harry sighs again.
"Fine," he mutters, taking a moment to grab ahold of his magic. Harry thinks for a moment, then waves his wand and freezes the pixies midair. It's lucky that that's the charm Flitwick had decided to open second year curriculum with.
"You could have left us some," Hermione huffs.
"I could unfreeze a couple?" Harry suggests.
"No!" Hermione and Neville cry at the same time.
It takes an extra minute or two for them to grab the pixies and lock them all away. Not seeing a reason to leave the pixies to thaw, Harry unfreezes them with another wave, and the three leave the angrily buzzing pixies and the Defense classroom without a second glance.
"It's just. Every s-single question, H-Hermione?" Neville says after a moment.
Hermione sniffs imperiously. "I did the reading, so I remembered the material. Is that such a crime?"
"You actually got through the reading? You have it bad, Hermione," Harry says in awe.
Hermione turns bright red. "Whatever," she mutters.
The three make their way to the Library to meet up with the Slytherins. Harry waits until everyone has gathered and Blaise has cast his moderately-effective privacy charm (Harry's tried to cast one but it tends to block sounds all together) before launching into a disgusted retelling of what had happened with Lockhart.
"And just so we're clear," Theo starts.
"We can't kill him," Harry sighs. "Yet. Once he gives us a good enough reason, he's free game."
"Humiliating you is a pretty good reason," Theo grumbles.
Harry levels a stern glare at his friend and Theo reluctantly backs down.
"At least he's nice to look at," Ron muses.
"See? Ron gets it!" Hermione says.
"Ron," Harry says, affronted.
Ron's ears go pink. "What? It's true. And his household charms do work really very well."
"Mrs. Weasley has swayed you to the side of evil," Harry bemoans.
Hermione rolls her eyes and Ron's ears go a shade darker.
"I could try and set him up with my mum," Blaise suggests.
Theo looks up from his book, nodding eagerly.
"We just agreed we aren't killing him." Daphne points out.
"Y-yet," Neville reminds her.
Harry shoots him a grateful smile. It seems as though after hearing what happened before class, Neville is almost as livid at the man as Theo is.
"We all know he's a fraud, right?" Daphne says suddenly.
"Um. Yes?" Harry says. He'd thought that had been obvious.
"Really? Surely someone has fact-checked him," Hermione says, sounding a bit put-out.
"People say they have, but that just can't be true. Besides, half the stuff he says he does in his books is impossible." Daphne says.
"To be fair, you could say that about half the stuff Harry does too," Blaise points out.
Harry rolls his eyes.
"Oh come on, that is so different," Ron protests. "Besides, from the sound of it he couldn't even take down a couple of pixies. No way he's taken on three trolls at once."
Hermione looks at Ron, betrayed. Ron shrugs. "Like I said: nice to look at, good household charms. That's about all the guys got going for him."
Harry watches with a fond smile on his face as his friends dissolve into bickering. He misses Remus, but it's really good to be back at Hogwarts.