Cobra's bite

6

Marian sat in her office and was reading through a book Minerva had given her. It was almost time for lunch and the classes had just ended. Ten minutes before lunch would start.

Marian's head snapped up from the book and turned to look at the door when a knock was heard. She stood up before putting her bookmark between the pages of the book. She walked up to the door and opened it. There stood Hermione with an anxious look on her face.

"Hermione." Marian smiled. "Please come in." Hermione nodded and closed the door behind her. She sat down on the brown couch and set the book she was carrying on the cushion next to her. "Tea?"

"No thank you." Hermione shook her head.

"What happened?" Marian asked gently. "Did Ron say something stupid again?" It wouldn't have been the first time. Sometimes he doesn't really think about what he says.

"No. We were just in Defence Against the Dark Arts class. With Professor Moody as a teacher."

"Okay? Did he say or do something that made you upset?"

Hermione nodded her head slightly and lowered her head. "He teached us about the three Unforgivable Curses."

"Oh?" Marian furrowed her eyebrows. "But you're not in that part of the book yet?"

"Right." Hermione nodded. "But we didn't really... read about them." Marian nodded and listened silently. "He... he showed them to us. Using a spider."

"So he..."

Hermione squeezed her eyes shut tightly when the images flashed through her mind. "He used the Imperius curse on it and made it do things. With his wand he moved the spider around the room. Placing it on top of some of the students heads and then... then he almost made it drown itself. Then he used the Cruciatus curse on it and lastly..."

"He killed it." Marian finished.

"On my table." Hermione whispered.

"Oh 'mione. I'm so sorry you had to go through that. That any of you had to. That's definitely not the right way of teaching about those kinds of things. I will be speaking to someone about this."

"Thank you."

"Of course. If you see or hear someone being bothered by it, you can tell them to come to me and talk about it if they want to."

~

Marian was given the job to be in the Great Hall when the students were entering and placing their names in the goblet. She was making sure that everything was going smoothly and that no younger students tried to enter. She sat on a bench and watched how some Durmstrang students put their names in.

"Come on Cedric. Put it in!" A small group of Hufflepuff students walked in and pushed Cedric Diggory forward towards the goblet. The Hufflepuff boy smiled before growing serious when finally facing the blue flames. He took a breath in and dropped his name in. He went back to his friends and they started to celebrate together.

"Hahaa! Yeah!" Loud shouting was suddenly heard when Fred and George ran in the room with their long ginger hair bouncing around. Marian chuckled; she knew they were going to try and enter. They were so annoyed when they found out that they couldn't. They were only a few months away from being seventeen.

Students cheered and clapped their hands while they gave highfives to some of them.

"Well lads, we have done it!"

"It's not going to work." Hermione spoke up in a teasing voice which made Marian smirk.

"Oh yeah? And why is that Granger?" The twins lowered themselves on the bench on each side of the younger girl.