Spells and Visions; A Harry Potter story

Chapter 3: Slugs

Then the lessons started. First we had Herbology, which was taught by professor Sprout. It was quite interesting, because we had to learn to deal with magical or dangerous plants. Like Mandrakes. They were basically screaming plants who had powers to return cursed or transfigured creatures back to their original states, but their screams could be deafening or even fatal. Very helpful. That's why we had to put on earmuffs that shut out sound completely. I really would want to have a pair of these things to study in silence without Hermione next to me whispering to herself. That was just 'her form of studying', but it was getting annoying.

After Herbology we had Defense against the Dark Arts, by none other than Gilderoy Lockhart. He annoyed me already. We sat down and waited for class to begin.
"Me," Lockhart said. "Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Third class, Honorary Member of the First Class Defense League and five times winner of Witch Weekly's Most-Charming-Smile award. But I don't talk about that. I didn't get rid of the Bandon Banshee by smiling at her!" He waited, with a big smile planted on his face, probably for us to laugh. I just stared in disgust. I liked my mother's sweet smile more than his'. He than handed us a test of 54 questions about himself. After the torment of trying to answer those questions we got to the actual lesson. Lockhart put his hand on a cage, and for the first time after seeing Lockhart, I was interested in something.

"I must ask you not to scream," he almost whispered. "It might provoke them."
He lifted the cover and I was disappointed again.
"Yes, freshly caught Cornish pixies," Lockhart said. They were blue and had pointed faces. They made little sounds and tried to escape from the cage.
"Let's see what you make of them," Lockhart said. He opened the cage and the pixies flew instantly out of it. They tore our books and papers and sprayed ink everywhere. They also smashed windows and two of them even lifted Neville in the air. I finally got up and grabbed Neville by his leg. It was not really working.
Lockhart tried a spell to get them back in the cage, but the pixies grabbed his wand and threw it out of the window. Very effective. I took out my wand with my remaining hand and yelled: "Flipendo!" at the pixies that held Neville. They flew to the other side of the room and bounced back into the cage. Neville fell half on top of me.
"Thanks," he groaned.
"No problem," I said, rubbing my head. Seeing that Flipendo was the only working spell, I ran to the cage.
"Neville, hold this," I said to my brother. He nodded and held the cage steadily.
I went to the other side of the class, and started shooting Flipendo at the pixies. Neville helped by turning the cage the right way every time. Then the bell went and the class left, including Lockhart. Only Neville, Hermione, Harry, Ron and me were left.

"It's working!" I said to them. "Come on!" Hermione and Harry helped me shoot spells at the pixies, because Ron's wand was broken because of the flying car incident and worked not really effectively. Surprisingly, we got them all after a short time. Neville then quickly closed the cage. I sighed and sat down.
"I get the feeling Lockhart didn't really know what he was doing," I said.
"Nonsense," Hermione said. "Look at all the amazing things he's done in his books." I rolled my eyes.

~

Thinking Harry was done with Quidditch practice for the day, Hermione, Ron and I thought we could go and hang out. We entered the Quidditch pitch, but Harry wasn't done, apparently. The Gryffindor team stood across from the Slytherin team.
"What's going on? Ron asked. "Why aren't you playing? And what's he doing here?" He meant Draco Malfoy. He smirked.
"I'm the new Slytherin Seeker. Everyone has just been admiring the new brooms my father has bought for the team." I looked. It were Nimbus Two Thousand and One's. The newest of the newest.
"At least no one had to buy their way in," Hermione said, narrowing her eyes.
"No one asked your opinion, filthy Mudblood," Malfoy said vile. Hemione wasn't exactly my best friend, but calling someone a Mudblood was one of the worst things you could say in the Wizarding World.
Fred and George were stopped by the leader of the Slytherin team, Marcus Flint, from attacking Malfoy, and Ron raised his wand, shouting: "Eat slugs!" at Malfoy. But his wand was only taped together, and still didn't work properly. The spell bounced back and Ron flew a second through the air.
Hermione ran straight to him to ask if he was alright. But Ron couldn't speak. Instead, when he opened his mouth, he vomited big, slimy, slugs.
Trying not to make a face, I helped him to get up. In the meantime, the Slytherin team was almost dying from laughter, and I had to admit, if this had happened to Malfoy, I'd have laughed too.

Colin, a Gryffindor first year with a camera, who had been following 'the famous Harry Potter', came after us.
"What happened to him? Is he ill?"
More slugs came out of Ron's mouth, and Colin looked absolutely fascinated.
"Can you hold him still, Harry?" he asked, lifting his camera.
"Get out of the way, Colin!" Harry said angrily. While Ron threw up more slugs, we helped him to Hagrid's house. We were almost there, when Lockhart came out of Hagrid's cabin. We hid behind bushes, not wanting to talk to the Professor. When he was out of sight, we hurried to the house. Hagrid let us in, and gave Ron a basin to throw his slugs in.

"Better out than in," he said.
"There's not much to do exept wait for it to stop," Hermione said.
"Who was he tryin ter curse?" Hagrid asked.
"Malfoy," I said. "He called Hermione a Mudblood."
"No he didn't!" Hagrid gasped.
"He did," Hermione said. "But I don't know what it means."
Ron tried to explain, but he started vomiting slugs again, so I took over, since Harry didn't know what it meant either.
"Mudblood is a really foul name to call someone that is Muggleborn. You know, who has non-magical parents. Some wizards think that they are better than others, like the Malfoy's, just because they're pure-blood. But in my opinion, it doesn't make a difference. I am not entirely pure-blood either, and I am not perfect. Ron and Harry are pure-bloods, but Malfoy always finds a way to insult them too. "
"It's a disgusting thing to call someone," Ron said, between more slugs. "It means common blood, or dirty blood. It's mad. Most wizards are half-blood nowadays anyway. If we hadn't married Muggles we would've died out."
I agreed.

We talked some more, and the slugs coming out of Ron's mouth started to lessen. When we were back in the school, professor McGonagall held Ron and Harry back. Hermione and I waited at a distance. I heard them talk about their detention tonight. For flying the car, apparently. Ron had to clean in the trophy room with Filch, and Harry had to answer fan mail with Lockhart. I could swear I heard him groan all the way from here. When McGonagall was done, Harry and Ron both looked bad.

~

The next day they told us what had happened. Harry said he had heard a voice when he was signing papers with Lockhart. An ice-cold voice.
"Well, there is no doubt something is going to happen again this year," I sighed.
"Yeah," Ron said. "You haven't had any visions yet, by any chance?"
"No." I shook my head. It wasn't until now that I had given thought to my visions from last year. They had left me alone in the summer holiday, but I did want to know if something was going to happen this year.