The Secrets of The Sighted (Golden Trio Era) {3}

Snape's Petty Digs

The foursome were sat together at breakfast, and Mikayla could see that Harry was anxious as she could feel the aftershocks of his bouncing leg on the bench as she tried to focus on plating her breakfast. Ron had already dug in, whenever there's food involved Ron moves as lightning speed and almost unhinges his jaw stuffing it with food. Mikayla can look at Ron in the morning during breakfast as the sight usually makes her lose her appetite and she really needs maximum energy for her N.E.W.T Transfigurations lesson first thing.

Harry however has a free period first thing before Defence Against the Dark Arts and was determined to spend it trying to get into the Room of Requirement. Hermione was rather ostentatiously showing no interest in his whispered plans for forcing entry into the room, which was clearly irritating Harry, because he hoped that she might be a lot of help since she too had a few lesson. "Look," he whispered while leaning forward and putting a hand on the Daily Prophet, which she had just removed from a post owl, to stop her from opening it and vanishing behind it. "I haven't forgotten about Slughorn, but I haven't got a clue how to get that memory off him, and until I get a brain wave why shouldn't I find out what Malfoy's doing?"

"Mikayla and I have already told you, you need to persuade Slughorn, it's not a question of tricking him or bewitching him, or Dumbledore could have done it in a second. Instead of messing around outside the Room of Requirement-" Hermione jerked the Prophet out from under Harry's hand and unfolded it to look at the front page, "you should go and find Slughorn and start pleasing to his better nature." Harry looked at Mikayla for some help, she smiled at him softly and started to butter her toast. "Look you're not going to just get some lucky brain wave that tells you how to manipulate Slughorn into giving away a memory he wants to forget, you need to do some ground work, figure out what's the easiest way to get something out of him and that requires work actively to achieve your goal."

Mikayla paused to take a bite of her toast and chewed it quickly so that she could continue, "but I don't think you should completely abandon your quest on what Malfoy is up to. I mean he's put a lot of effort in making sure that no one catches onto what he's doing, I mean Polyjuice, having signals of when to come out or not, keeping secrets from his friends, and making sure the rest of the school is otherwise occupied. No one does all that unless they're doing something that they really shouldn't be." Mikayla stops to take another bite, while Harry nods his head completely agreeing with Mikayla's views on the situation so far.

"That evasive behaviour could lead to something dangerous happening and I don't want risk brushing it off to Malfoy valuing his privacy. But you need to tackle one quest at a time and I think getting Slughorn should be a priority but to continue watching Malfoy from a distance, yeah?" Harry sighed but overall agreed with Mikayla and knew that she only had his best interest in heart, which she did whilst also trying to look out for Draco. "Anyone we know?" Ron asked Hermione after a few beats of silence as she had dived into reading the newspaper. "Yes!" Hermione answered which causing both Harry and Ron to gag on their breakfast and Mikayla to almost choke on hers resulting in a coughing fit and Harry slapping her back.

"But it's alright, he's not dead- it's Mundungus, he's been arrested and sent to Azkaban! Something to do with impersonating an Inferius during an attempted burglary, and someone called Octavius Pepper has vanished. Oh, and how horrible, a nine-year-old boy has been arrested for trying to kill his grandparents, they think he was under the Imperius Curse." The group finished their breakfast in silence, when the bell rang, Mikayla immediately got to her feet, rushed out her goodbyes and dashed off to her lesson linking up with Brian at the doors of the Great Hall. Hermione set off immediately for Ancient Runes, Ron for the common room, where he still had to finish his conclusion on Snape's dementor essay, and Harry for the corridor on the seventh floor and the stretch of wall opposite the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy teaching trolls to do ballet.

Mikayla arrived to her second class of the day five minutes late, but before Snape even attempted to take away points from her, Mikayla apologised for her tardiness and handed Snape over a note from McGonagall explaining that she went over time during her lesson. "Very well, Miss Black, hurry to your seat now." Mikayla did as she was instructed plopping down in her seat next to Hermione. Harry scoffed from in front of her, and Hermione explained that Harry was only a few seconds late and lost ten house points. "Miss Black, take out your essay on Dementors so that I can add it to my pile." Snape gestured to the pile of parchment on his desk, Mikayla silently took out her DADA book, parchment and essay, knowing if she made any noise Snape would take away points for disrupting the class.

"Now before I was interrupted..." Snape sent an unneeded glare on Mikayla direction, "I believe Mr Potter was about to tell us the difference between Inferius and ghosts." Mikayla schooled her expression not to show her confusion as she didn't see the link between Inferius and Dementors. "Seamus asked him because of Mundungus." Hermione whispered to Mikayla as Harry stated that ghosts were transparent. "Oh, very good," Snape interrupted Harry before he could finish the physical comparisons, his lip curling. "Yes, it in easy to see that nearly six years of magical education have not been wasted on you, Potter. 'Ghosts are transparent!'" Snape mocked him with a condescending tone.

Pansy Parkinson let out a high-pitched giggle and several others were smirking at Snape's little jab at Harry. However, Harry took a deep breath and continued calmly, even though Mikayla could see that his insides were boiling to snap at Snape. "Yeah, ghosts are transparent, but Inferi are dead bodies, aren't they? So they'd be solid-" Snape once again cut off Harry, "yes, a five-year-old could have told us as much," Snape sneered and Mikayla refrained from rolling her eyes at Snape's childish behaviour. Snape then goes on to explain that an Inferius is a corpse that has been reanimated by a Dark wizard's spells. It is not alive, and acts as a puppet to do the wizard's bidding. Where a ghost is the imprint of a departed soul left upon the earth, "and of course, as Potter so wisely tells us, transparent."

"Well, what Harry said is the most useful if we're trying to tell them apart!" Ron argued against Snape, who was clearly trying to belittle Harry once again. "When we come face-to-face with one down a dark alley, we're going to be having a look to see if its solid, aren't we, we're not going to be asking, 'Excuse me, are you the imprint of a departed soul?'" There was a ripple of laughter, instantly quelled by the look Snape gave the class. "Another ten points from Gryffindor," Snape snapped disgusted that someone would speak out of turn. "I would expect nothing more sophisticated from you, Ronald Weasley, the boy so solid he cannot Apparate half an inch across a room."

Mikayla was sick of Snape insulting her friends and instantly raised her hand, "yes, Miss Black?" Snape called on her the second he saw her hand, clearly hoping that she would say something so that he could remove even more House points. "Sir, what I think Ron was trying to say is that the question you asked Harry wasn't quite clear. You never vocalised that you wanted to know how the different species are created, rather that their physicality. And I'm sure if you were more specific, Harry would've been able to distinguish between the pair quite easily. Thus the fault is rather your question over Harry's answer as you always tell us to focus on the physical description of creatures over the history behind them."

Mikayla made sure that she didn't allow the smug smile that wanted to be planted on her face appear. Instead her expression was a mix of indifference and respect, so that Snape couldn't argue against her. "Very well, Miss Black. I shall award Mr Potter five points for his stating the physical difference between Inferius and Ghosts." The room was stunned into silence as no one expected Snape to calmly accept Mikayla's correction of his teaching, and Mikayla unknowingly gained some respect from her classmates for outsmarting Snape. "Now open your books to page two hundred and thirteen," Snape instructed as he took a seat at his desk, "and read the first two paragraphs on the Cruciatus Curse."

The rest of the lesson flew by uneventfully, while the class read Snape graded their essays on Dementors. It seemed that Snape's dig at Ron about his Apparition skills or lack their of was still tormenting the redhead as he was rather subdued from the rest of the class. Mikayla took notes about what she read about the Cruciatus Curse, whilst also adding in the information he learned whilst helping Alice and Frank about the long term effects that it can cause. When the bell rang, Hermione and Mikayla ditched the boys to go to their Arithmancy class.