Strawberry
Dessert Faerie
- Location
- Derbyshire, UK
- Pronouns
- She/Her
A Skirt's Not So Bad [Harry Potter]
- Thread starter Tekomandor
- Start date
Finagle007
[Verified Great Old One]
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Fics like this are a rarity, and a real treat to read. Looking forward to more!
- Location
- The great frozen north
Wait, is muggle bobbies knowing about Sirius Black a canon thing, or did someone in this timeline decide to get creative with making life hard for him?
Umm... animated icing sounds cute at first glance, and makes sense since wizard art tends to move around a lot. But then you'd be cutting through this moving thing with a knife, and eating it, and that idea feels a little weird.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Well, Muggles were apparently told he was a crazed murderer who'd escaped from prison, or something like that? I swear I remember that.
AXCN
Live to Read - (Shippers of many Ships)
Basilisk. the apostrophe is only added when it's a possessive (which it should not be in this case).
You've already been told of the spelling mistake but you should also move this sentence down as it's linked with the above paragraph.
A good chapter and the exciting beginning of PoA!
Krazyfan1
Worrying for the future.
- Location
- Australia
at least they weren't enchanted to talk as well
- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I've definitely soured on Harry Potter over the years for what are probably obvious reasons, so I really like the idea of reclaiming the story and characters like this. It's also just a really cute story and I love your Harry to bits. Nice work!
Finding a new trans Harry Potter story is a delight, and this one has been fun to read, except the chapters are at just the right length to make me want for more immediately. Tangentially, it feels like I can't come up with a new Harry Potter story idea (that I'll never write) without "also Harry is trans" creeping into the premise somewhere.
Hah, that reminds me of a scene in one of the Xanth books at a party that included cookies with animated smiley-face frosting, and the protagonist couldn't make himself eat them because the cookies kept making horrified expressions at the prospect.
This is the first fanfic I've read where Hagrid gets a new wand after being cleared.
- Location
- Here
Yeah, canon had Vernon seeing him on the news too.
Chocolate Frogs.
Speaking of works I've soured on over the years...
Year Three, Chapter Three
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Year Three, Chapter Three
Harry's time at the Burrow was as pleasant a time as she'd ever had over the summer. There were chores to do, yes, but everyone pitched in. Harry helped de-gnome gardens, chopped vegetables, and more. But there was always someone doing it with you and there was never much work with so many hands, she thought.
She lost quite a few games of wizard chess to Ron - most of the Weasleys refused to play him anymore, except for Percy - and everyone had great fun on her Nimbus. She even managed to coax Percy into giving it a try, and he'd had a huge grin when he landed.
Harry was sad, sometimes. She thought about what her life would have been like if her parents hadn't died - would they have had more kids? Would they have accepted who she was?
She still had nightmares about the chamber, remembering the pain Riddle's curse had inflicted on her. Remembered the basilisk's poison burning inside her, dragging herself over to the diary.
"I'm - I'm sorry for waking you, Ginny," Harry said, very early one morning. The moon was full overhead, and Harry put the wand she'd grabbed instinctively down. She was breathing hard, and her skin was covered in sweat.
"It's okay. I - I have nightmares about him too," Ginny said, sitting up. Her voice was quiet, and it felt as if they were not quite in the waking world. In the light of the moon, the two of them could say things they otherwise could not. It was a curious, illogical thing, but Harry knew it was true.
"I get... shakes sometimes. I remember his curse," Harry said, not looking at Ginny. This wasn't something she could admit - she couldn't admit to still being scared.
"Whenever I write something, I keep waiting for Riddle to write back," Ginny admitted. "But... he's gone, now. I could feel him all the time at the end, and now there's just... bits left over. Sometimes I get flashes of memories. They're - they're not what you'd expect You Know - what you'd expect Voldemort to remember," Ginny continued.
"What sorts of memories?" Harry asked.
"Mostly just him as a kid. He was a little monster, but he grew up in a pretty awful place. Sometimes I think he might have been a perfectly ordinary kid if he hadn't ended up there," Ginny said.
"Maybe... Dumbledore said I reminded him of Riddle as a kid," Harry admitted, her voice barely louder than a whisper.
"You did look similar, before you, you know. But I don't think Riddle would have bothered to save me down in the Chamber," Ginny said.
"That's what Dumbledore said," Harry said, and the two of them laughed a little before they went back to sleep. Harry had an idea, though.
That day, Harry went out into the garden and tried to feel that same sensation she'd always felt looking at snakes. She felt a little silly just standing in the garden and trying to hiss, but if she looked at the grass just right...
"Hello?" Harry hissed, and she grinned as a small grass snake slithered out to look at her. She'd never found snakes to be interesting conversationalists, but she was able to coax it onto her arm easily enough. She could tell now, how to just talk to one and how to command it. It was a sort of magic, a projection of will that was very different to any of the spells Harry had learnt at Hogwarts.
She went to find Ginny, who was playing (and losing to) Ron at wizard's chess outside.
"Blimey Harry, what's with the snake!?" Ron said.
"Just had a little idea. He's harmless," Harry said, and she saw Ginny staring at the snake.
"What?" Ginny hissed, and with her confirmation, Harry put the snake down and let it slither off back into the grass.
"Congratulations, Ginny. You're a parselmouth," Harry said.
"What - how?" Ginny asked.
"Probably something Riddle managed to leave behind," Harry said, quietly.
"Now there's two of you. I still say it's a bit freaky," Ron said.
"No argument here," Ginny said, and Harry nodded. She didn't mind the ability, but Voldemort leaving bits of his powers behind was a little freaky. Ginny was a little freaked out, but she did manage to prank the twins several times with it, so she was in good spirits.
Then Harry and Ron were on their way to Hermione's house for a few days. Harry was curious to see what her friend's house was like, and she wondered if it would be much like the Dursley's. The journey there was an adventure in and of itself - Harry helped take the trip on a muggle train, and then Hermione's parents picked them up at the train station.
"Ron! Harry!" Hermione shouted, waving them over. Harry had managed to coach Ron into not standing out quite so much, though she thought the wizard in the coat and suit was being a little obvious. Harry had spotted him quite early on, and almost gone for her wand until she realised where she'd seen him before - he was an auror. Clearly, Fudge was more concerned about this Sirus Black character than he'd admitted to her, Harry thought.
"Hermione. Nice to meet you, Mr and Mrs Granger," Harry said. Hermione's parents were a pair of ordinary-looking middle-aged people. They were slightly out of shape, Mrs Granger had a few grey hairs and Mr Granger was balding a little. But they smiled warmly at their daughter's excitement, and Harry thought that they were probably quite nice.
"Good to meet you two - Hermione talks about you both all the time. I must admit, we were a little worried when Dumbledore told us about that incident with the snake but you managed to get that resolved right quick," Mr Granger said, and Harry nodded awkwardly. Hermione looked like she was about to die of embarrassment.
The Granger's house was very different from the Burrow, but it was nothing like Number Four Privet Drive. The garden wasn't merely a flat plane of grass, but there were trees growing in it. There was none of the magazine photo glossiness that Petunia desperately maintained. This was a house, Harry thought, that people lived in.
Harry and Hermione took Ron on a whirlwind tour of the muggle world, showing him everything from a dumb blockbuster at the cinema to Indian food. Ron had looked a little sideways at the food at first but had loved it after his third bite.
While they were walking back from dinner, Harry saw something curious in the shadows of a deserted playground. Something with large yellow eyes was moving in the darkness, and Harry tried to look closer. Whatever it was, it was watching her. She looked a little closer, and thought it might be a very large dog -
"What're you looking at Harry?" Ron asked, and Harry turned to answer him.
"I dunno, I think there's a-" Harry said, but as she turned around whatever it had been was gone.
That night, the three of them returned to the Granger's house to find owls waiting for all of them. Each bore an official-looking Hogwarts crest, with a rather bulging envelope. The trio opened them eagerly and discovered else had been delivered with their usual Hogwarts letters.
All of the basilisk's corpse had been sold, and the proceeds divided up. Harry, having the equivalent of a few million pounds in her vault already, wasn't too concerned with getting the money, but she knew it would mean a lot for Ron and Ginny. As he read the letter, Ron's smile grew.
"That's... that's a lot of galleons. I don't think I've ever seen five hundred galleons in one place before," Ron said.
"Did you really earn nearly fifty thousand pounds from that whole debacle?" Mrs Granger said, reading over Hemione's shoulder.
"I can't use most of it until I'm seventeen, but this is enough to get a new wand easy. You're a legend for getting McGonagall to give us some too Harry," Ron said.
"Without you two, I wouldn't have known it was a basilisk," Harry said, shrugging.
Soon enough the Grangers, Weasleys, and Harry found themselves at Diagon Alley on the day before they were due to return to Hogwarts, and they quickly split up into smaller groups. Harry, Ginny, Ron, and Hermione went one way, the twins another, Percy met up with Penelope Clearwater, and the adults had lunch in the Leaky Cauldron.
"Now you behave yourself Ginny - listen to your brother. And that gold is for buying your new wands and books only, you two," Mrs Weasley said before they separated, but she smiled at them both.
Harry and Hermione watched Ron and Ginny get their new wands with some interest. Ron got his rather quickly - a handsome, long willow and unicorn hair wand. Ginny took much longer, but eventually, she found a yew and phoenix feather wand that suited her. She took it with a little trepidation, and Harry did think it looked a little fearsome.
Hermione was then dragged to go look longingly at the newest broom on the market. There was a small crowd outside of Quality Quidditch Supplies, and Harry, Ron, and Ginny eagerly joined them.
"This beauty can go zero to one fifty miles per hour in ten seconds flat! The thing's got a diamond-hard polish, so you can fly it as hard as you like and it'll keep going. Irish national team's just put in an order for seven for the world cup!" the proprietor shouted to the crowd, sounding just as excited as them. There was a little placard on display that said 'Price on Request' and Harry sighed.
That meant it was probably far too expensive for her to justify buying when she had a perfectly good Nimbus Two Thousand. She couldn't help but want to go in there and buy it, though. Maybe if she gave it an endorsement they'd give her a discount.
"Come on you three. We need to actually buy all of our books," Hermione said and dragged them into Flourish and Blotts. They all bought their textbooks, with Ron and Ginny being able to buy copies in decent condition with the money left over from their wands. Harry bought the usual new volume of the Standard Book of Spells, and the next transfiguration textbook in the series, before the new and unusual started.
This year, the defence professor had assigned a single, reasonably priced volume - The Essential Defence Against the Dark Arts.
"I'm feeling kinda good about the defence professor this year," Ron said, looking at the book.
"Just so long as I don't have to duel them again," Harry said. She picked up her arithmancy and divination books without trouble, but when the trio went to look for their care of magical creatures books they found a large cage instead of a display.
It seemed that the Monster Book of Monsters was a rather literal title. The books snarled at anyone who got too close and were sold bound in tight leather straps. Ginny laughed as the trio very carefully put their snarling copies in their cauldrons.
"I heard Kettleburn was a maniac, but those are something else," Ginny said.
Harry bought a few slim volumes - Beginner's Quidditch Arithmancy and Wizard Duelling: How Not to Die in addition to her schoolbooks, and then they were off to the Magical Menagerie.
"I still have some money left over from my birthday, and I've been thinking about getting an owl," Hermione said.
"Scabbers has been looking a little off," Ron said, looking at his rat. Harry thought he looked just like he always had. The four of them entered the shop, and whilst Harry bought some new owl treats, she and Ginny spent almost all their time in the shop talking to a striking magical cobra. It regaled them with stories neither of them thought were true, but it was interesting. At the sound of a yell, the two of them turned around.
A very small tiger, or a very large and very orange cat, was chasing Scabbers across the shop. The rat was running with a speed Harry had never seen him display, darting between cover.
"Scabbers!" Ron shouted. Harry took out her wand and froze both the cat and the rat with a whispered spell. She put her wand away after doing it, hoping no one had seen it. Ron rushed over to Scabbers, picked him up, and unfroze him.
"Thanks, mate," Ron said, nodding to Harry. "Let's go wait for Hermione outside - being around this many predators isn't good for Scabbers," Ron said, so they went outside to wait. A few minutes later, Hermione emerged - but not with an owl. The ugly, huge, and violently orange cat that had chased Scabbers was in her arms.
"What did you go and buy that brute for?" Ron asked, horrified.
"You're not a brute, Crookshanks. You're just underappreciated," Hermione said to the cat in a singsong voice.
Harry and Ginny looked at one another, and both decided that not saying anything was the wisest course of action. They stayed at the Leaky Cauldron that night, which was teeming with students and their families. It seemed to be far larger on the inside than the outward building could possibly be, and always just large enough.
The next day, after Percy had recovered his head boy badge from Fred and George, they were driven to the train station in fancy Ministry Cars, which seemed to be able to slide through traffic and fit a dozen people inside each. Harry blushed a little when she realised who they were for.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione checked compartment after compartment, but they were all full. Finally, they found one with only a single unusual occupant. An adult man, covered in a blanket, was sleeping in the corner.
"Blimey, who do you reckon that is?" Ron asked.
"Professor R.J. Lupin," Hermione said, and Harry joined Ron in looking at Hermione with surprise.
"How'd you know that," Ron asked.
"It's on his trunk, Ronald. Anyway, this looks about as empty as we're likely to get," Hermione said, and the three of them sat down in the compartment. They were quickly joined by Ginny Weasley and a very odd Ravenclaw by the name of Luna Lovegood. Then, the train gave off one last whistle and started to leave the station.
She was on her way to another year at Hogwarts, and Harry found herself sad, for the first time, that her summer holidays had come to an end.
Harry's time at the Burrow was as pleasant a time as she'd ever had over the summer. There were chores to do, yes, but everyone pitched in. Harry helped de-gnome gardens, chopped vegetables, and more. But there was always someone doing it with you and there was never much work with so many hands, she thought.
She lost quite a few games of wizard chess to Ron - most of the Weasleys refused to play him anymore, except for Percy - and everyone had great fun on her Nimbus. She even managed to coax Percy into giving it a try, and he'd had a huge grin when he landed.
Harry was sad, sometimes. She thought about what her life would have been like if her parents hadn't died - would they have had more kids? Would they have accepted who she was?
She still had nightmares about the chamber, remembering the pain Riddle's curse had inflicted on her. Remembered the basilisk's poison burning inside her, dragging herself over to the diary.
"I'm - I'm sorry for waking you, Ginny," Harry said, very early one morning. The moon was full overhead, and Harry put the wand she'd grabbed instinctively down. She was breathing hard, and her skin was covered in sweat.
"It's okay. I - I have nightmares about him too," Ginny said, sitting up. Her voice was quiet, and it felt as if they were not quite in the waking world. In the light of the moon, the two of them could say things they otherwise could not. It was a curious, illogical thing, but Harry knew it was true.
"I get... shakes sometimes. I remember his curse," Harry said, not looking at Ginny. This wasn't something she could admit - she couldn't admit to still being scared.
"Whenever I write something, I keep waiting for Riddle to write back," Ginny admitted. "But... he's gone, now. I could feel him all the time at the end, and now there's just... bits left over. Sometimes I get flashes of memories. They're - they're not what you'd expect You Know - what you'd expect Voldemort to remember," Ginny continued.
"What sorts of memories?" Harry asked.
"Mostly just him as a kid. He was a little monster, but he grew up in a pretty awful place. Sometimes I think he might have been a perfectly ordinary kid if he hadn't ended up there," Ginny said.
"Maybe... Dumbledore said I reminded him of Riddle as a kid," Harry admitted, her voice barely louder than a whisper.
"You did look similar, before you, you know. But I don't think Riddle would have bothered to save me down in the Chamber," Ginny said.
"That's what Dumbledore said," Harry said, and the two of them laughed a little before they went back to sleep. Harry had an idea, though.
That day, Harry went out into the garden and tried to feel that same sensation she'd always felt looking at snakes. She felt a little silly just standing in the garden and trying to hiss, but if she looked at the grass just right...
"Hello?" Harry hissed, and she grinned as a small grass snake slithered out to look at her. She'd never found snakes to be interesting conversationalists, but she was able to coax it onto her arm easily enough. She could tell now, how to just talk to one and how to command it. It was a sort of magic, a projection of will that was very different to any of the spells Harry had learnt at Hogwarts.
She went to find Ginny, who was playing (and losing to) Ron at wizard's chess outside.
"Blimey Harry, what's with the snake!?" Ron said.
"Just had a little idea. He's harmless," Harry said, and she saw Ginny staring at the snake.
"What?" Ginny hissed, and with her confirmation, Harry put the snake down and let it slither off back into the grass.
"Congratulations, Ginny. You're a parselmouth," Harry said.
"What - how?" Ginny asked.
"Probably something Riddle managed to leave behind," Harry said, quietly.
"Now there's two of you. I still say it's a bit freaky," Ron said.
"No argument here," Ginny said, and Harry nodded. She didn't mind the ability, but Voldemort leaving bits of his powers behind was a little freaky. Ginny was a little freaked out, but she did manage to prank the twins several times with it, so she was in good spirits.
Then Harry and Ron were on their way to Hermione's house for a few days. Harry was curious to see what her friend's house was like, and she wondered if it would be much like the Dursley's. The journey there was an adventure in and of itself - Harry helped take the trip on a muggle train, and then Hermione's parents picked them up at the train station.
"Ron! Harry!" Hermione shouted, waving them over. Harry had managed to coach Ron into not standing out quite so much, though she thought the wizard in the coat and suit was being a little obvious. Harry had spotted him quite early on, and almost gone for her wand until she realised where she'd seen him before - he was an auror. Clearly, Fudge was more concerned about this Sirus Black character than he'd admitted to her, Harry thought.
"Hermione. Nice to meet you, Mr and Mrs Granger," Harry said. Hermione's parents were a pair of ordinary-looking middle-aged people. They were slightly out of shape, Mrs Granger had a few grey hairs and Mr Granger was balding a little. But they smiled warmly at their daughter's excitement, and Harry thought that they were probably quite nice.
"Good to meet you two - Hermione talks about you both all the time. I must admit, we were a little worried when Dumbledore told us about that incident with the snake but you managed to get that resolved right quick," Mr Granger said, and Harry nodded awkwardly. Hermione looked like she was about to die of embarrassment.
The Granger's house was very different from the Burrow, but it was nothing like Number Four Privet Drive. The garden wasn't merely a flat plane of grass, but there were trees growing in it. There was none of the magazine photo glossiness that Petunia desperately maintained. This was a house, Harry thought, that people lived in.
Harry and Hermione took Ron on a whirlwind tour of the muggle world, showing him everything from a dumb blockbuster at the cinema to Indian food. Ron had looked a little sideways at the food at first but had loved it after his third bite.
While they were walking back from dinner, Harry saw something curious in the shadows of a deserted playground. Something with large yellow eyes was moving in the darkness, and Harry tried to look closer. Whatever it was, it was watching her. She looked a little closer, and thought it might be a very large dog -
"What're you looking at Harry?" Ron asked, and Harry turned to answer him.
"I dunno, I think there's a-" Harry said, but as she turned around whatever it had been was gone.
That night, the three of them returned to the Granger's house to find owls waiting for all of them. Each bore an official-looking Hogwarts crest, with a rather bulging envelope. The trio opened them eagerly and discovered else had been delivered with their usual Hogwarts letters.
All of the basilisk's corpse had been sold, and the proceeds divided up. Harry, having the equivalent of a few million pounds in her vault already, wasn't too concerned with getting the money, but she knew it would mean a lot for Ron and Ginny. As he read the letter, Ron's smile grew.
"That's... that's a lot of galleons. I don't think I've ever seen five hundred galleons in one place before," Ron said.
"Did you really earn nearly fifty thousand pounds from that whole debacle?" Mrs Granger said, reading over Hemione's shoulder.
"I can't use most of it until I'm seventeen, but this is enough to get a new wand easy. You're a legend for getting McGonagall to give us some too Harry," Ron said.
"Without you two, I wouldn't have known it was a basilisk," Harry said, shrugging.
Soon enough the Grangers, Weasleys, and Harry found themselves at Diagon Alley on the day before they were due to return to Hogwarts, and they quickly split up into smaller groups. Harry, Ginny, Ron, and Hermione went one way, the twins another, Percy met up with Penelope Clearwater, and the adults had lunch in the Leaky Cauldron.
"Now you behave yourself Ginny - listen to your brother. And that gold is for buying your new wands and books only, you two," Mrs Weasley said before they separated, but she smiled at them both.
Harry and Hermione watched Ron and Ginny get their new wands with some interest. Ron got his rather quickly - a handsome, long willow and unicorn hair wand. Ginny took much longer, but eventually, she found a yew and phoenix feather wand that suited her. She took it with a little trepidation, and Harry did think it looked a little fearsome.
Hermione was then dragged to go look longingly at the newest broom on the market. There was a small crowd outside of Quality Quidditch Supplies, and Harry, Ron, and Ginny eagerly joined them.
"This beauty can go zero to one fifty miles per hour in ten seconds flat! The thing's got a diamond-hard polish, so you can fly it as hard as you like and it'll keep going. Irish national team's just put in an order for seven for the world cup!" the proprietor shouted to the crowd, sounding just as excited as them. There was a little placard on display that said 'Price on Request' and Harry sighed.
That meant it was probably far too expensive for her to justify buying when she had a perfectly good Nimbus Two Thousand. She couldn't help but want to go in there and buy it, though. Maybe if she gave it an endorsement they'd give her a discount.
"Come on you three. We need to actually buy all of our books," Hermione said and dragged them into Flourish and Blotts. They all bought their textbooks, with Ron and Ginny being able to buy copies in decent condition with the money left over from their wands. Harry bought the usual new volume of the Standard Book of Spells, and the next transfiguration textbook in the series, before the new and unusual started.
This year, the defence professor had assigned a single, reasonably priced volume - The Essential Defence Against the Dark Arts.
"I'm feeling kinda good about the defence professor this year," Ron said, looking at the book.
"Just so long as I don't have to duel them again," Harry said. She picked up her arithmancy and divination books without trouble, but when the trio went to look for their care of magical creatures books they found a large cage instead of a display.
It seemed that the Monster Book of Monsters was a rather literal title. The books snarled at anyone who got too close and were sold bound in tight leather straps. Ginny laughed as the trio very carefully put their snarling copies in their cauldrons.
"I heard Kettleburn was a maniac, but those are something else," Ginny said.
Harry bought a few slim volumes - Beginner's Quidditch Arithmancy and Wizard Duelling: How Not to Die in addition to her schoolbooks, and then they were off to the Magical Menagerie.
"I still have some money left over from my birthday, and I've been thinking about getting an owl," Hermione said.
"Scabbers has been looking a little off," Ron said, looking at his rat. Harry thought he looked just like he always had. The four of them entered the shop, and whilst Harry bought some new owl treats, she and Ginny spent almost all their time in the shop talking to a striking magical cobra. It regaled them with stories neither of them thought were true, but it was interesting. At the sound of a yell, the two of them turned around.
A very small tiger, or a very large and very orange cat, was chasing Scabbers across the shop. The rat was running with a speed Harry had never seen him display, darting between cover.
"Scabbers!" Ron shouted. Harry took out her wand and froze both the cat and the rat with a whispered spell. She put her wand away after doing it, hoping no one had seen it. Ron rushed over to Scabbers, picked him up, and unfroze him.
"Thanks, mate," Ron said, nodding to Harry. "Let's go wait for Hermione outside - being around this many predators isn't good for Scabbers," Ron said, so they went outside to wait. A few minutes later, Hermione emerged - but not with an owl. The ugly, huge, and violently orange cat that had chased Scabbers was in her arms.
"What did you go and buy that brute for?" Ron asked, horrified.
"You're not a brute, Crookshanks. You're just underappreciated," Hermione said to the cat in a singsong voice.
Harry and Ginny looked at one another, and both decided that not saying anything was the wisest course of action. They stayed at the Leaky Cauldron that night, which was teeming with students and their families. It seemed to be far larger on the inside than the outward building could possibly be, and always just large enough.
The next day, after Percy had recovered his head boy badge from Fred and George, they were driven to the train station in fancy Ministry Cars, which seemed to be able to slide through traffic and fit a dozen people inside each. Harry blushed a little when she realised who they were for.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione checked compartment after compartment, but they were all full. Finally, they found one with only a single unusual occupant. An adult man, covered in a blanket, was sleeping in the corner.
"Blimey, who do you reckon that is?" Ron asked.
"Professor R.J. Lupin," Hermione said, and Harry joined Ron in looking at Hermione with surprise.
"How'd you know that," Ron asked.
"It's on his trunk, Ronald. Anyway, this looks about as empty as we're likely to get," Hermione said, and the three of them sat down in the compartment. They were quickly joined by Ginny Weasley and a very odd Ravenclaw by the name of Luna Lovegood. Then, the train gave off one last whistle and started to leave the station.
She was on her way to another year at Hogwarts, and Harry found herself sad, for the first time, that her summer holidays had come to an end.
Last edited:
Some typos:
Either that, or Hermione's parents are pretty violent people.
"picked"
Either that, or Hermione's parents are pretty violent people.
"put"
"they were all", "Finally"
UrsaTempest
Don't Panic!
Very lovely.
That imminent dementor attack, not so much.
That imminent dementor attack, not so much.
Year Three, Chapter Four
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Year Three, Chapter Four
A tinny whistling noise suddenly filled the compartment - Harry's pocket sneakoscope had started whistling. She pulled it from her robes and looked around. Scabbers had just darted into Ron's pocket, the ageing rat making little sounds of pain from the noise.
"I wonder what's making it go off?" Hermione said.
"Probably the Nargles," Luna said, not looking up from her upsidedown magazine.
"Well, about that. It's not exactly the most reliable thing in the world. Went off when I was buying the thing," Ron said.
"Put it away before you wake him up," Ginny said. Harry opened up her trunk and stuffed the sneakoscope into her robes. Latching it back shut, she was relieved to hear no whistling of any sort.
"Well, at least we know the whistle works," Harry said.
"So the Minister warned you about Black?" Ginny asked, returning to their previous conversation.
"Said he might be out to get me. I'm - well, I'm a little worried. But if even Voldemort didn't want to act in the castle without Dumbledore being gone, I think I should be fine," Harry said.
"Still, he managed to break out of Azkaban. No one's done that before," Ron said.
"You need to be careful this year, Harry. Black's not like Lockhart - he's not going to be outdueled by a kid," Hermione said.
"Well, Lord Voldemort lost a duel to a baby, you know. Anything can happen," Luna Lovegood said, in her strange singsong voice.
"I'll be careful, Hermione. I'm sure my friend from the Auror office will be back when we go to Hogsmeade, anyway," Harry said.
"I wish I could go to Hogsmeade this year," Ginny said.
"We'll bring you back loads of stuff from Honeydukes," Harry said, and Ginny grinned.
"Honestly, is the entire reason you three want to go just the sweet shop?" Hermione asked.
"Yep!" Answered all three of them at once.
"But it's such an interesting place. It's the largest all-magical settlement in the British Isles, and it has the most-" Hermione said.
"The most haunted building in Britain, yes we know," Harry said.
"I'm just so excited to see it! There's so much history, and I've read about it for so long," Hermione said. As Harry started to respond, the compartment door opened. Draco Malfoy, Pansy Parkinson, and Theodore Nott were standing there snickering.
"Look who it is - all the freaks have got a compartment together. There's Loony Lovegood, a pair of blood traitors, Potter the Perv and his pet mud-" Draco began, but Hermione interrupted him.
"What were you saying, Professor Lupin?" Hermione said, pretending like she and the sleeping teacher had been in the middle of a conversation. Draco couldn't see lupin's sleeping face from his position, and so his face went white when he heard the word 'professor'. He shut the door with surprising speed, and Harry could hear him running down the corridor.
"Nice one, Hermione," Ron said.
"It's a pity Malfoy isn't more creative - I've heard Loony Lovegood so often, I was hoping they'd get some new material this year," Luna said.
"Right," Harry said, giving the strange girl a confused look. Harry knew she was Ginny's friend, and she seemed alright, but she really was an odd one. Shaking her head, Harry took a bite out of her cauldron cake, only to look around confused as the train began to halt.
"We can't be there yet," Hermione said.
"I think there might something moving outside," Ginny said, craning her neck to look over the others out the window.
"We're over a bridge," Harry said quietly, sliding her wand out of her robes. She didn't know any good reasons for the Hogwarts Express to stop like this, especially over a bridge. Maybe she hadn't been nearly as worried about black as she should be.
Then the lights cut out. The entire train shook, as Harry felt the temperature drop rapidly. Her breath frosting in front of her, she cast a simple light charm. Soon everyone else bar the sleeping professor had their wands out.
"Should we go ask the -"
"Quiet, and turn out those lights" hissed a hoarse voice. The sleeping professor had woken up, and at his command Harry unlit her wand with a simple 'nox'. "Stay here, and stay-" Lupin began, but they never heard what else he was going to ask them to do. Something opened the compartment door, and Harry felt pain.
It was a creature of some kind, a hooded figure with a horrible, rotted hand clutching the door handle. It floated in the air, and the scent of sweets that had filled the compartment was utterly overpowered by the stench of rotten meat and salt water.
"Mummy!"
"No, Tom, I won't do it again. I won't!"
She felt her pain, her terror, and her desire to kill from the Chamber all at once. She was being tortured by Riddle, she was pointing her wand at his back and thinking how easy it would, she was running from the Basilisk all at the same time. It was a never-ending loop, an endless cacophony of emotion and memory.
She screamed. She screamed in fear, in terror, and in bloody-handed victory. She was in pain - she was afraid - she was a murderer. She felt as if her hair was short again, she felt as if she was had been forced back into being a boy because the potion had worn off. She felt the memory of the wrongness she felt after the polyjuice, and she was still feeling the memories of the chamber.
Harry felt like a fog began to cloud over everything as if everything got more distant -
Harry woke up on the floor in a tangle of limbs.
"Ginny? Harry? Luna? Wake up, please wake up," Ron pleaded, his voice desperate. Harry got herself up off the floor, her limbs weak and shaking. Flashes of the phantom pain from her memories shot through her, but they were just shadows of the real thing. She could deal with them if she had to.
"What happened?" Harry asked, her voice hoarse.
"First, eat some of this. It'll help," Lupin said, handing something to Harry. She ate it without really thinking about it, and Harry felt surprised that it was chocolate. Amazingly, she really did feel much better. Her breathing slowed, the sensation of unnatural cold faded away, and she felt her memories recede. Ginny and Luna came around just after Harry, and Lupin broke off a small piece of chocolate for them too.
"What happened?" Harry repeated.
"You, Luna, and Ginny just started screaming. It sounded like you were being tortured or something," Ron said.
"I - I remembered the chamber," Harry said quietly.
"I saw my mother die," Luna said, in such a matter of fact tone that it shocked Harry. She had clearly been crying, but she was busy patting Ginny's back and whispering to her.
Ginny wouldn't look them in the eye, and only Harry knew what she had likely remembered. Remembered running into her crying at the stairs to the astronomy tower.
"We'll be at Hogwarts in ten minutes. They're gone for now, but I need to have a word with the driver," Lupin said, and left the compartment.
"I - it'll be okay, Ginny. He's gone," Harry said. Ginny looked up, tears in her eyes, and nodded.
"Merlin, those things are awful. I just felt like I'd never be happy again, and that was bad enough but..." Ron said, trailing off. He didn't really seem to know what to say, so he just gave his sister a hug and told her it would be alright.
"What was that?" Harry asked.
"It was - it was a dementor, Harry. One of the guards of Azkaban prison," Hermione said.
As they were disembarking, Harry was surprised to see a fleet of carriages standing ready just beyond the station. She knew that everyone other than the First Years had to get to the castle by some method, but hadn't predicted the carriages - or their disturbing horses. The horses were almost skeletal, with scaled reptilian skin and bat-like wings.
"What are those?" Harry asked.
"The... carriage?" Hermione said, confused.
"No, the horses," Harry said, feeling very confused.
"Those are thestrals, Harry. Only those who've seen death can see them," Luna said, her voice cheerful.
Harry remembered Quirrel's screams as she grappled with him, her hands burning him. She remembered Riddle's terror as she stabbed the diary over and over again.
The carriage smelled mostly of dust and mould, but Harry was glad to be out of the rain at least. Nobody was very talkative on the journey to Hogwarts, still recovering from their experience with the dementor. When they exited the carriage, something unpleasant was waiting for them.
"Looks like the freaks didn't get their souls sucked out. Which one of you was screaming for mummy, and which one was just screaming like a little girl? That one was you, right Potter?" Malfoy said, to the laughter of his Slytherin cronies.
"It was Loony who was crying for her mummy. She's the only one with one that blew herself up!" Pansy Parkinson said and then cackled at her own joke.
"Shut your face, Parkinson," Ginny said, levelling her wand at her. She was shaking with fury, and it seemed almost like the tip of her wand was glowing.
"Or what, ickle Weasel-brat-" Parkinson began.
"Is there a problem here?" Lupin said in his hoarse voice as he got out of his carriage.
The Slytherins answered with a chorus of 'No, Professor' and rushed off. Professor McGonagall was waiting at the entrance to the castle, looking worried.
"Miss Potter, Miss Weasley, Miss Lovegood? If you'd come with me, please," she said, and Harry felt her stomach sink. She was sure she hadn't done anything wrong, so why was McGonagall taking them to her office. Why, Harry wondered, was Madam Pomfrey there.
"Professor Lupin owled ahead to inform us of what happened on the train," McGonagall said, as Madam Pomfrey started handing out bits of chocolate.
"We've already had some," Harry said, quietly.
"Good! A defence professor who knows his remedies as well as his curses. That's a pleasant surprise. What were they thinking, putting Demontors near a school..." Pomfrey said. Harry felt embarrassed at the idea of other people knowing about her collapsing. She didn't like to admit she was afraid of things publicly.
"Dumbledore told them this would happen. Plenty of our students are traumatised enough... Do they need to go to the Hospital Wing for the night Poppy?" McGonagall.
"I don't need to go to the hospital wing!" Harry said, flushed and embarrassed. She'd never live it down if Draco Malfoy heard she'd had to be taken to the Hospital Wing.
"No, they can go. Not much I can do for dementor exposure beyond chocolate. The feast with their friends will do more for them than anything I can," Pomfrey said.
Harry, Ginny, and Luna made their way back to the Great Hall, and they were fast enough to blend into the general arriving crowd. Hearing the chatter of the feast, seeing the Great Hall again, made Harry cheer up considerably. While she'd honestly enjoyed her holidays this year, Hogwarts still comforted her.
Harry and Ginny sat down near Ron and Hermione, and we were welcomed loudly by their housemates. Luna walked over to the Ravenclaw table, sat by herself, and tried not to catch anyone's gaze. Harry felt a sudden stab of pity for the odd girl, who had focused on helping Ginny despite suffering nearly as badly from the dementors. Harry remembered sitting like that at her primary school. There was nothing she could do about it now, though, and her attention was soon drawn by the start of Duimbnledore's remarks.
A tinny whistling noise suddenly filled the compartment - Harry's pocket sneakoscope had started whistling. She pulled it from her robes and looked around. Scabbers had just darted into Ron's pocket, the ageing rat making little sounds of pain from the noise.
"I wonder what's making it go off?" Hermione said.
"Probably the Nargles," Luna said, not looking up from her upsidedown magazine.
"Well, about that. It's not exactly the most reliable thing in the world. Went off when I was buying the thing," Ron said.
"Put it away before you wake him up," Ginny said. Harry opened up her trunk and stuffed the sneakoscope into her robes. Latching it back shut, she was relieved to hear no whistling of any sort.
"Well, at least we know the whistle works," Harry said.
"So the Minister warned you about Black?" Ginny asked, returning to their previous conversation.
"Said he might be out to get me. I'm - well, I'm a little worried. But if even Voldemort didn't want to act in the castle without Dumbledore being gone, I think I should be fine," Harry said.
"Still, he managed to break out of Azkaban. No one's done that before," Ron said.
"You need to be careful this year, Harry. Black's not like Lockhart - he's not going to be outdueled by a kid," Hermione said.
"Well, Lord Voldemort lost a duel to a baby, you know. Anything can happen," Luna Lovegood said, in her strange singsong voice.
"I'll be careful, Hermione. I'm sure my friend from the Auror office will be back when we go to Hogsmeade, anyway," Harry said.
"I wish I could go to Hogsmeade this year," Ginny said.
"We'll bring you back loads of stuff from Honeydukes," Harry said, and Ginny grinned.
"Honestly, is the entire reason you three want to go just the sweet shop?" Hermione asked.
"Yep!" Answered all three of them at once.
"But it's such an interesting place. It's the largest all-magical settlement in the British Isles, and it has the most-" Hermione said.
"The most haunted building in Britain, yes we know," Harry said.
"I'm just so excited to see it! There's so much history, and I've read about it for so long," Hermione said. As Harry started to respond, the compartment door opened. Draco Malfoy, Pansy Parkinson, and Theodore Nott were standing there snickering.
"Look who it is - all the freaks have got a compartment together. There's Loony Lovegood, a pair of blood traitors, Potter the Perv and his pet mud-" Draco began, but Hermione interrupted him.
"What were you saying, Professor Lupin?" Hermione said, pretending like she and the sleeping teacher had been in the middle of a conversation. Draco couldn't see lupin's sleeping face from his position, and so his face went white when he heard the word 'professor'. He shut the door with surprising speed, and Harry could hear him running down the corridor.
"Nice one, Hermione," Ron said.
"It's a pity Malfoy isn't more creative - I've heard Loony Lovegood so often, I was hoping they'd get some new material this year," Luna said.
"Right," Harry said, giving the strange girl a confused look. Harry knew she was Ginny's friend, and she seemed alright, but she really was an odd one. Shaking her head, Harry took a bite out of her cauldron cake, only to look around confused as the train began to halt.
"We can't be there yet," Hermione said.
"I think there might something moving outside," Ginny said, craning her neck to look over the others out the window.
"We're over a bridge," Harry said quietly, sliding her wand out of her robes. She didn't know any good reasons for the Hogwarts Express to stop like this, especially over a bridge. Maybe she hadn't been nearly as worried about black as she should be.
Then the lights cut out. The entire train shook, as Harry felt the temperature drop rapidly. Her breath frosting in front of her, she cast a simple light charm. Soon everyone else bar the sleeping professor had their wands out.
"Should we go ask the -"
"Quiet, and turn out those lights" hissed a hoarse voice. The sleeping professor had woken up, and at his command Harry unlit her wand with a simple 'nox'. "Stay here, and stay-" Lupin began, but they never heard what else he was going to ask them to do. Something opened the compartment door, and Harry felt pain.
It was a creature of some kind, a hooded figure with a horrible, rotted hand clutching the door handle. It floated in the air, and the scent of sweets that had filled the compartment was utterly overpowered by the stench of rotten meat and salt water.
"Mummy!"
"No, Tom, I won't do it again. I won't!"
She felt her pain, her terror, and her desire to kill from the Chamber all at once. She was being tortured by Riddle, she was pointing her wand at his back and thinking how easy it would, she was running from the Basilisk all at the same time. It was a never-ending loop, an endless cacophony of emotion and memory.
She screamed. She screamed in fear, in terror, and in bloody-handed victory. She was in pain - she was afraid - she was a murderer. She felt as if her hair was short again, she felt as if she was had been forced back into being a boy because the potion had worn off. She felt the memory of the wrongness she felt after the polyjuice, and she was still feeling the memories of the chamber.
Harry felt like a fog began to cloud over everything as if everything got more distant -
Harry woke up on the floor in a tangle of limbs.
"Ginny? Harry? Luna? Wake up, please wake up," Ron pleaded, his voice desperate. Harry got herself up off the floor, her limbs weak and shaking. Flashes of the phantom pain from her memories shot through her, but they were just shadows of the real thing. She could deal with them if she had to.
"What happened?" Harry asked, her voice hoarse.
"First, eat some of this. It'll help," Lupin said, handing something to Harry. She ate it without really thinking about it, and Harry felt surprised that it was chocolate. Amazingly, she really did feel much better. Her breathing slowed, the sensation of unnatural cold faded away, and she felt her memories recede. Ginny and Luna came around just after Harry, and Lupin broke off a small piece of chocolate for them too.
"What happened?" Harry repeated.
"You, Luna, and Ginny just started screaming. It sounded like you were being tortured or something," Ron said.
"I - I remembered the chamber," Harry said quietly.
"I saw my mother die," Luna said, in such a matter of fact tone that it shocked Harry. She had clearly been crying, but she was busy patting Ginny's back and whispering to her.
Ginny wouldn't look them in the eye, and only Harry knew what she had likely remembered. Remembered running into her crying at the stairs to the astronomy tower.
"We'll be at Hogwarts in ten minutes. They're gone for now, but I need to have a word with the driver," Lupin said, and left the compartment.
"I - it'll be okay, Ginny. He's gone," Harry said. Ginny looked up, tears in her eyes, and nodded.
"Merlin, those things are awful. I just felt like I'd never be happy again, and that was bad enough but..." Ron said, trailing off. He didn't really seem to know what to say, so he just gave his sister a hug and told her it would be alright.
"What was that?" Harry asked.
"It was - it was a dementor, Harry. One of the guards of Azkaban prison," Hermione said.
As they were disembarking, Harry was surprised to see a fleet of carriages standing ready just beyond the station. She knew that everyone other than the First Years had to get to the castle by some method, but hadn't predicted the carriages - or their disturbing horses. The horses were almost skeletal, with scaled reptilian skin and bat-like wings.
"What are those?" Harry asked.
"The... carriage?" Hermione said, confused.
"No, the horses," Harry said, feeling very confused.
"Those are thestrals, Harry. Only those who've seen death can see them," Luna said, her voice cheerful.
Harry remembered Quirrel's screams as she grappled with him, her hands burning him. She remembered Riddle's terror as she stabbed the diary over and over again.
The carriage smelled mostly of dust and mould, but Harry was glad to be out of the rain at least. Nobody was very talkative on the journey to Hogwarts, still recovering from their experience with the dementor. When they exited the carriage, something unpleasant was waiting for them.
"Looks like the freaks didn't get their souls sucked out. Which one of you was screaming for mummy, and which one was just screaming like a little girl? That one was you, right Potter?" Malfoy said, to the laughter of his Slytherin cronies.
"It was Loony who was crying for her mummy. She's the only one with one that blew herself up!" Pansy Parkinson said and then cackled at her own joke.
"Shut your face, Parkinson," Ginny said, levelling her wand at her. She was shaking with fury, and it seemed almost like the tip of her wand was glowing.
"Or what, ickle Weasel-brat-" Parkinson began.
"Is there a problem here?" Lupin said in his hoarse voice as he got out of his carriage.
The Slytherins answered with a chorus of 'No, Professor' and rushed off. Professor McGonagall was waiting at the entrance to the castle, looking worried.
"Miss Potter, Miss Weasley, Miss Lovegood? If you'd come with me, please," she said, and Harry felt her stomach sink. She was sure she hadn't done anything wrong, so why was McGonagall taking them to her office. Why, Harry wondered, was Madam Pomfrey there.
"Professor Lupin owled ahead to inform us of what happened on the train," McGonagall said, as Madam Pomfrey started handing out bits of chocolate.
"We've already had some," Harry said, quietly.
"Good! A defence professor who knows his remedies as well as his curses. That's a pleasant surprise. What were they thinking, putting Demontors near a school..." Pomfrey said. Harry felt embarrassed at the idea of other people knowing about her collapsing. She didn't like to admit she was afraid of things publicly.
"Dumbledore told them this would happen. Plenty of our students are traumatised enough... Do they need to go to the Hospital Wing for the night Poppy?" McGonagall.
"I don't need to go to the hospital wing!" Harry said, flushed and embarrassed. She'd never live it down if Draco Malfoy heard she'd had to be taken to the Hospital Wing.
"No, they can go. Not much I can do for dementor exposure beyond chocolate. The feast with their friends will do more for them than anything I can," Pomfrey said.
Harry, Ginny, and Luna made their way back to the Great Hall, and they were fast enough to blend into the general arriving crowd. Hearing the chatter of the feast, seeing the Great Hall again, made Harry cheer up considerably. While she'd honestly enjoyed her holidays this year, Hogwarts still comforted her.
Harry and Ginny sat down near Ron and Hermione, and we were welcomed loudly by their housemates. Luna walked over to the Ravenclaw table, sat by herself, and tried not to catch anyone's gaze. Harry felt a sudden stab of pity for the odd girl, who had focused on helping Ginny despite suffering nearly as badly from the dementors. Harry remembered sitting like that at her primary school. There was nothing she could do about it now, though, and her attention was soon drawn by the start of Duimbnledore's remarks.
Strawberry
Dessert Faerie
- Location
- Derbyshire, UK
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Oh, poor Luna. I hope she becomes better friends with them than in canon!
Sandy River DL
(Verified Destroyer Leader)
- Location
- Lake Michigan
- Pronouns
- Her/She
These fics are always hard to get into, but the second-hand euphoria is worth it. So totally watching.
Some typos:
"Dementor"
"Dementors"
"Dementor"
"Dementors", "Dumbledore's"
- Location
- Here
I can't wait to see more of your Lupin.
Year Three, Chapter Five
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Year Three, Chapter Five
"Welcome, welcome to another year at Hogwarts. Before you all enjoy the excellent feast and subsequently become far too full for rational thought, I have several announcements. Much as that state of contentedness is the right frame of mind for Mr Filch's new list of banned items, one of them is rather more serious," Dumbledore said, and rumours flew across the Great Hall. Harry had clapped for every Gryffindor sorted and mostly found herself wanting all the little first-years to hurry up.
"As you will all be aware after their search of the train, the Dementors of Azkaban have been assigned to the boundaries of the castle on Ministry business. I must warn you all - they are stationed at every entrance to the school grounds, and do not understand pleas or excuses. If any student was to leave the school without permission, there could be dire consequences. They are not fooled by tricks or disguises - or even invisibility cloaks," Dumbledore said, his tone level and serious. He seemed to look in Harry's direction for just a moment, then he moved on. She knew, of course, what that MInistry business was - and felt a little sick. She'd have rather taken her chances with Black than have Dementors around the school at all times.
"I would therefore ask all of you to avoid them and to give them no reason to harm you. I look to the prefects, and our new Head Boy and Girl, to make sure that no student runs afoul of the dementors," Dumbledore finished. The Great Hall was dead silent for a moment before a flurry of whispers broke out. It seemed every student in the hall was whispering at once, causing a bizarre sound of a thousand quiet voices. Dumbledore waited for just a moment, then as it became clear he wasn't done speaking the entire hall became dead quiet again. Nobody interrupted Dumbledore.
"Thank you. Now, as an antidote, let us have some happier announcements. Firstly, Professor Lupin has kindly consented to fill the post of Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor, on the condition that he be contracted for only a year at a time. Let us all wish him luck," Dumbledore said, to scattered applause. Harry, who had been regaled with tales from her friends of how Lupin drove off the Dementors with a burst of silver light, began to clap loudly.
"Reckon we might learn something for this one - oy, look at Snape," Ron said, and Harry turned to look at her potions professor. Snape was famous for wanting the supposedly jinxed post of Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor, but this was way more anger than Harry had seen from him at previous announcements. Snape could usually at least pretend to be civil to the new professor at the welcoming feast, but Harry thought he was struggling to refrain from throttling Lupin with his bare hands. Harry recognised the look - it was the one Snape saved for her alone. He must really, really hate Lupin, Harry thought.
"If Snape hates him that much, he can't be evil," she said.
"Unfortunately, I must announce the retirement of Professor Kettleburn, who wished to spend more time with his remaining limbs. I have the distinct pleasure, however, to announce that his replacement is none other than our own Rubeus Hagrid-" Dumbledore said, only to be drowned out by a tidal wave of applause. It seemed that almost every house (Slytherin, of course, excepted) had started to cheer and applaud. Harry got up and gave Hagrid a standing ovation. Even Hermione gave off a cheer.
Harry went to bed that night still smiling. She said hello to her roommates, made sure her wand was hidden somewhere easy to reach and went to bed. She drifted off to sleep thinking about how glad she was that her best friends would be in Care of Magical Creatures with her.
She woke up remembering the Dementors. She was just glad she didn't scream, but her hand shook as she lowered her wand. She'd dreamt that one was in the dorm, hovering over her bed, its hood slowly falling. What was she going to do to it with her wand anyway, she thought. Could she curse a Dementor?
Lupin had managed to drive one-off, she remembered. There was a way to fight them then, she realised. Almost without thinking about it, Harry got her shoes on, took her black notebook from its hiding place, and shrugged on her cloak. She'd almost left before she remembered the pass Dumbledore had written her. She hoped there was something magical about it - she didn't want anyone knowing what she was looking up this time.
Harry had woken up at around midnight and spent nearly two hours futile trying to find a way to fight Dementors in the restricted section. There were texts on bargaining with them, and Harry wanted no part of that, and even one book that hinted at creating them but nothing on fighting them.
She woke up on her first day back bleary-eyed and wishing she'd just had the courage to tell the librarian she had a pass.
"Where did you go last night, Harry?" Hermione asked as they walked down to the common room. Harry felt shame rush through her at the idea of anyone knowing what she was doing, but forced herself to breathe. Hermione already knew she'd passed out, Hermione wasn't going to laugh at her.
"The.. the restricted section. I wanted to look up how to fight Dementors," Harry whispered.
"Did you find anything?" Hermione said, curiosity overwhelming her desire to reprimand Harry for the rulebreaking.
"Nothing that made me feel any better," Harry said, and Hermione sighed.
"Well, Dumbledore said they're at the edge of the grounds. I'm sure the Ministry has them well under control," Hermione said. They met up with Ron, and walked down to breakfast.
"Pervy Potter's afraid of Dementors. Were you the one calling for mummy, Potter? Or did you just scream like a little girl?" Pansy Parkinson said, apparently finding herself astoundingly funny. Harry felt each barb from the girl who had, unwittingly, pushed her to transition. She really wished she'd done something more painful than stunning her for the hair.
Malfoy put up the hood of his robes and waggled his fingers towards her. Harry, fuming, gave him a very rude gesture in return.
"Ignore them, Harry. Everyone knows they'd wet themselves if they had to fight a giant snake," Ron said. Harry was pleasantly distracted by the idea of Draco Malfoy having to fight the Basilisk.
"The little git came stumbling into our compartment, anyway. Look right scared, he did," Fred said from across the table.
"We'll see how happy he is after the start of the Quidditch season. Reckon that should put a nice big puncture in that oversized ego of his," George said, passing Harry a dish of scrambled eggs.
"Yeah, you're right. I am looking forward to crushing Slytherin again," Harry said. She wasn't really feeling all that much better, though, and was glad when Hermione changed the subject.
"Ohhh, we're starting some new subjects today. Divination, Muggle Studies, and Care of Magical Creatures," Hermione said. Ron looked at his timetable, confused.
"Hermione, my schedule doesn't have Muggle Studies today," Ron said.
"Oh, we're in different classes I think," Hermione said, and Ron shrugged and went back to his sausage.
Divination was held on the top of one of the highest towers, and Harry was very glad that she was in uncommonly good shape for a Hogwarts student as they climbed what seemed like every stair in the castle of their way there. Ron and Hermione were panting and out of breath when they got there, but Harry was only breathing a little hard.
"Blimey mate, seems like I need to try out for the Quidditch team next year," Ron said.
"Or - pant - they could hold the lessons somewhere sensible," Hermione said.
The Divination classroom was quite unlike any of the other classrooms Harry had seen at Hogwarts. It was full of teacups, heavy curtains, and smelt of some strange perfume. The only light in the room was eerie red lights that seemed to pulse from a collection of crystals stuck into the wall at odd places. Instead of rows of desks, there were small circular tables with two chairs each arranged in a semicircle.
Everyone found their seats, and Harry felt her midnight excursion even more as the sickly smell threatened to give her a serious headache. Harry looked away for a moment, and then she saw Professor Trelawney had emerged. In the eerie red light, the Divination Professor cut a mysterious figure. She seemed wrapped in shawls and oddly cut robes, and Harry wondered how she could stand it in the heat of the room.
"Many of you will be arriving to my class with preconceptions of what I teach. You will think it is an easy 'O', that it is unreliable or not even magic at all. The muggleborn among you, or those raised in that world, will think that what I do is more cold reading and atmosphere than magic," Trelawney said, her voice reverberating oddly. Hermione looked at the Professor strangely.
"Of course, some of those are based in fact. I assign less homework than any other elective and must admit that my class lacks the... conventional academic difficulty of classes like Arithmancy or Ancient Runes. Many students who have not previously done well excel in my class - and yet plenty of star students struggle. I will freely admit to Divination being unreliable - and its greatest form, True Prophecy, comes at the will of fate and no other. Yet many of our lesser arts are just as reliable as Arithmantic Prognostications," Trelawney said, and Harry was taken aback. That was not what she'd been expecting.
"As to the charge of not being magic at all - well, that is a matter of debate. Divination channels a force outside of us to achieve things that should be impossible - to divine the future from tea leaves and crystal balls. What is that but magic? Just because the force you will learn to channel in this classroom is not the same one that allows you to turn a teacup into a badger doesn't make it not magic. Wizards and witches remain far more likely to be sensitive to the threads of fate than muggles, though one does not need to be able to do magic to have an inner eye capable of Divination," Trelawney continued, and now everyone was watching in rapt attention as Trelawney turned one of her teacups into a badger and back again.
"Well, that leaves only one last charge - that so-called 'seers' use cold reading and atmosphere instead of magic. And to that, all I can say is that many do. Which is why this class can be valuable even to those with the most closed of inner eyes - I will teach you to tell showmanship-" Trelawney said, waving her wand. The curtains flew open, the fires went out, and the headache-inducing scent was gone. "- from real divination. Now, let's brew some tea and get started, shall we?" Trelawney said.
She continued to lecture them as they brewed the tea, explaining how the reading of tea leaves was one of the least precise methods of divination - but one that nearly anyone who could do magic could use. Harry was sitting opposite Ron, and after a surprisingly nice cup of tea they traded cups and opened their books to the charts of tea leaves.
"Mate, I think you need to send in a complaint to destiny or something. You've got half a dozen bloody omens in one cup," Ron said. Harry was still looking between Ron's cup and her book. She thought that, perhaps, he might have a bird of some kind.
"I think you've got a bird maybe? Oh, it's got the little thing. Falcon - you've got a deadly enemy," Harry said.
"Just so long as we don't spend half a year believing it's Malfoy," Ron said.
"Mr Weasley, may I see that cup? You must have an exceptional inner eye, oh my. The falcon, the butterfly, the club... and the Grim. A dark omen, Miss Potter, a dark omen indeed. The Grim can mean only one thing - death. A most deathly power stalks your footsteps, Miss Potter," Trelawney said, her eyes wide. The class erupted into whispers, and then Trelawney moved on with surprising suddenness.
"Well, I can't say she's wrong Harry. You've got one of those bird things, a butterfly - hey, that's nice. Positive transformation. Maybe Madam Pomfrey will come up with something new for you. Then the club - that's for an attack. And, uh, there is a dog-looking bit but that's not in the book," Ron said, a little awkwardly. Hermione, meanwhile, was still consulting her table of tea leaves.
"Maybe I will end up duelling Lupin," Harry joked, a little disturbed still. The Grim wasn't listed in their chart of tea leaves, but Harry had seen it in the index. She flipped through the book and nearly dropped it in surprise when she saw the moving, full-colour drawing taking up the whole page. It looked exactly like the dog she'd seen in the playground near Privet Drive.
"Welcome, welcome to another year at Hogwarts. Before you all enjoy the excellent feast and subsequently become far too full for rational thought, I have several announcements. Much as that state of contentedness is the right frame of mind for Mr Filch's new list of banned items, one of them is rather more serious," Dumbledore said, and rumours flew across the Great Hall. Harry had clapped for every Gryffindor sorted and mostly found herself wanting all the little first-years to hurry up.
"As you will all be aware after their search of the train, the Dementors of Azkaban have been assigned to the boundaries of the castle on Ministry business. I must warn you all - they are stationed at every entrance to the school grounds, and do not understand pleas or excuses. If any student was to leave the school without permission, there could be dire consequences. They are not fooled by tricks or disguises - or even invisibility cloaks," Dumbledore said, his tone level and serious. He seemed to look in Harry's direction for just a moment, then he moved on. She knew, of course, what that MInistry business was - and felt a little sick. She'd have rather taken her chances with Black than have Dementors around the school at all times.
"I would therefore ask all of you to avoid them and to give them no reason to harm you. I look to the prefects, and our new Head Boy and Girl, to make sure that no student runs afoul of the dementors," Dumbledore finished. The Great Hall was dead silent for a moment before a flurry of whispers broke out. It seemed every student in the hall was whispering at once, causing a bizarre sound of a thousand quiet voices. Dumbledore waited for just a moment, then as it became clear he wasn't done speaking the entire hall became dead quiet again. Nobody interrupted Dumbledore.
"Thank you. Now, as an antidote, let us have some happier announcements. Firstly, Professor Lupin has kindly consented to fill the post of Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor, on the condition that he be contracted for only a year at a time. Let us all wish him luck," Dumbledore said, to scattered applause. Harry, who had been regaled with tales from her friends of how Lupin drove off the Dementors with a burst of silver light, began to clap loudly.
"Reckon we might learn something for this one - oy, look at Snape," Ron said, and Harry turned to look at her potions professor. Snape was famous for wanting the supposedly jinxed post of Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor, but this was way more anger than Harry had seen from him at previous announcements. Snape could usually at least pretend to be civil to the new professor at the welcoming feast, but Harry thought he was struggling to refrain from throttling Lupin with his bare hands. Harry recognised the look - it was the one Snape saved for her alone. He must really, really hate Lupin, Harry thought.
"If Snape hates him that much, he can't be evil," she said.
"Unfortunately, I must announce the retirement of Professor Kettleburn, who wished to spend more time with his remaining limbs. I have the distinct pleasure, however, to announce that his replacement is none other than our own Rubeus Hagrid-" Dumbledore said, only to be drowned out by a tidal wave of applause. It seemed that almost every house (Slytherin, of course, excepted) had started to cheer and applaud. Harry got up and gave Hagrid a standing ovation. Even Hermione gave off a cheer.
Harry went to bed that night still smiling. She said hello to her roommates, made sure her wand was hidden somewhere easy to reach and went to bed. She drifted off to sleep thinking about how glad she was that her best friends would be in Care of Magical Creatures with her.
She woke up remembering the Dementors. She was just glad she didn't scream, but her hand shook as she lowered her wand. She'd dreamt that one was in the dorm, hovering over her bed, its hood slowly falling. What was she going to do to it with her wand anyway, she thought. Could she curse a Dementor?
Lupin had managed to drive one-off, she remembered. There was a way to fight them then, she realised. Almost without thinking about it, Harry got her shoes on, took her black notebook from its hiding place, and shrugged on her cloak. She'd almost left before she remembered the pass Dumbledore had written her. She hoped there was something magical about it - she didn't want anyone knowing what she was looking up this time.
Harry had woken up at around midnight and spent nearly two hours futile trying to find a way to fight Dementors in the restricted section. There were texts on bargaining with them, and Harry wanted no part of that, and even one book that hinted at creating them but nothing on fighting them.
She woke up on her first day back bleary-eyed and wishing she'd just had the courage to tell the librarian she had a pass.
"Where did you go last night, Harry?" Hermione asked as they walked down to the common room. Harry felt shame rush through her at the idea of anyone knowing what she was doing, but forced herself to breathe. Hermione already knew she'd passed out, Hermione wasn't going to laugh at her.
"The.. the restricted section. I wanted to look up how to fight Dementors," Harry whispered.
"Did you find anything?" Hermione said, curiosity overwhelming her desire to reprimand Harry for the rulebreaking.
"Nothing that made me feel any better," Harry said, and Hermione sighed.
"Well, Dumbledore said they're at the edge of the grounds. I'm sure the Ministry has them well under control," Hermione said. They met up with Ron, and walked down to breakfast.
"Pervy Potter's afraid of Dementors. Were you the one calling for mummy, Potter? Or did you just scream like a little girl?" Pansy Parkinson said, apparently finding herself astoundingly funny. Harry felt each barb from the girl who had, unwittingly, pushed her to transition. She really wished she'd done something more painful than stunning her for the hair.
Malfoy put up the hood of his robes and waggled his fingers towards her. Harry, fuming, gave him a very rude gesture in return.
"Ignore them, Harry. Everyone knows they'd wet themselves if they had to fight a giant snake," Ron said. Harry was pleasantly distracted by the idea of Draco Malfoy having to fight the Basilisk.
"The little git came stumbling into our compartment, anyway. Look right scared, he did," Fred said from across the table.
"We'll see how happy he is after the start of the Quidditch season. Reckon that should put a nice big puncture in that oversized ego of his," George said, passing Harry a dish of scrambled eggs.
"Yeah, you're right. I am looking forward to crushing Slytherin again," Harry said. She wasn't really feeling all that much better, though, and was glad when Hermione changed the subject.
"Ohhh, we're starting some new subjects today. Divination, Muggle Studies, and Care of Magical Creatures," Hermione said. Ron looked at his timetable, confused.
"Hermione, my schedule doesn't have Muggle Studies today," Ron said.
"Oh, we're in different classes I think," Hermione said, and Ron shrugged and went back to his sausage.
Divination was held on the top of one of the highest towers, and Harry was very glad that she was in uncommonly good shape for a Hogwarts student as they climbed what seemed like every stair in the castle of their way there. Ron and Hermione were panting and out of breath when they got there, but Harry was only breathing a little hard.
"Blimey mate, seems like I need to try out for the Quidditch team next year," Ron said.
"Or - pant - they could hold the lessons somewhere sensible," Hermione said.
The Divination classroom was quite unlike any of the other classrooms Harry had seen at Hogwarts. It was full of teacups, heavy curtains, and smelt of some strange perfume. The only light in the room was eerie red lights that seemed to pulse from a collection of crystals stuck into the wall at odd places. Instead of rows of desks, there were small circular tables with two chairs each arranged in a semicircle.
Everyone found their seats, and Harry felt her midnight excursion even more as the sickly smell threatened to give her a serious headache. Harry looked away for a moment, and then she saw Professor Trelawney had emerged. In the eerie red light, the Divination Professor cut a mysterious figure. She seemed wrapped in shawls and oddly cut robes, and Harry wondered how she could stand it in the heat of the room.
"Many of you will be arriving to my class with preconceptions of what I teach. You will think it is an easy 'O', that it is unreliable or not even magic at all. The muggleborn among you, or those raised in that world, will think that what I do is more cold reading and atmosphere than magic," Trelawney said, her voice reverberating oddly. Hermione looked at the Professor strangely.
"Of course, some of those are based in fact. I assign less homework than any other elective and must admit that my class lacks the... conventional academic difficulty of classes like Arithmancy or Ancient Runes. Many students who have not previously done well excel in my class - and yet plenty of star students struggle. I will freely admit to Divination being unreliable - and its greatest form, True Prophecy, comes at the will of fate and no other. Yet many of our lesser arts are just as reliable as Arithmantic Prognostications," Trelawney said, and Harry was taken aback. That was not what she'd been expecting.
"As to the charge of not being magic at all - well, that is a matter of debate. Divination channels a force outside of us to achieve things that should be impossible - to divine the future from tea leaves and crystal balls. What is that but magic? Just because the force you will learn to channel in this classroom is not the same one that allows you to turn a teacup into a badger doesn't make it not magic. Wizards and witches remain far more likely to be sensitive to the threads of fate than muggles, though one does not need to be able to do magic to have an inner eye capable of Divination," Trelawney continued, and now everyone was watching in rapt attention as Trelawney turned one of her teacups into a badger and back again.
"Well, that leaves only one last charge - that so-called 'seers' use cold reading and atmosphere instead of magic. And to that, all I can say is that many do. Which is why this class can be valuable even to those with the most closed of inner eyes - I will teach you to tell showmanship-" Trelawney said, waving her wand. The curtains flew open, the fires went out, and the headache-inducing scent was gone. "- from real divination. Now, let's brew some tea and get started, shall we?" Trelawney said.
She continued to lecture them as they brewed the tea, explaining how the reading of tea leaves was one of the least precise methods of divination - but one that nearly anyone who could do magic could use. Harry was sitting opposite Ron, and after a surprisingly nice cup of tea they traded cups and opened their books to the charts of tea leaves.
"Mate, I think you need to send in a complaint to destiny or something. You've got half a dozen bloody omens in one cup," Ron said. Harry was still looking between Ron's cup and her book. She thought that, perhaps, he might have a bird of some kind.
"I think you've got a bird maybe? Oh, it's got the little thing. Falcon - you've got a deadly enemy," Harry said.
"Just so long as we don't spend half a year believing it's Malfoy," Ron said.
"Mr Weasley, may I see that cup? You must have an exceptional inner eye, oh my. The falcon, the butterfly, the club... and the Grim. A dark omen, Miss Potter, a dark omen indeed. The Grim can mean only one thing - death. A most deathly power stalks your footsteps, Miss Potter," Trelawney said, her eyes wide. The class erupted into whispers, and then Trelawney moved on with surprising suddenness.
"Well, I can't say she's wrong Harry. You've got one of those bird things, a butterfly - hey, that's nice. Positive transformation. Maybe Madam Pomfrey will come up with something new for you. Then the club - that's for an attack. And, uh, there is a dog-looking bit but that's not in the book," Ron said, a little awkwardly. Hermione, meanwhile, was still consulting her table of tea leaves.
"Maybe I will end up duelling Lupin," Harry joked, a little disturbed still. The Grim wasn't listed in their chart of tea leaves, but Harry had seen it in the index. She flipped through the book and nearly dropped it in surprise when she saw the moving, full-colour drawing taking up the whole page. It looked exactly like the dog she'd seen in the playground near Privet Drive.
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- Location
- ferreries
I too like it, especially because a lot of the things Trelawney predicts in the books actually do come true, even the ones where she comes across as a really unconvincing conwoman turn out correct more often than not, when she isn't making predictions of INMINENT DOOM for shock value at least. It makes her come across as an actual good seer with a cripling case of bad self-esteem in all honestly. In canon I mean.
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Strawberry
Dessert Faerie
- Location
- Derbyshire, UK
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Oooh, a Trelawney who also shows she knows what she's talking about, intriguing
- Pronouns
- They/Them
That's the weird thing. As said above, half the time what she's saying, while you're supposed to think it's made up bullshit, actually foreshadows the entire plot of the book she's in.
- Location
- ferreries
Hell, sometimes she foreshadows things from many books in the future. And yet the narrative always presents her as a phony seer except when she makes seance-type True Prophesies. It's all very weird.
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