A Hogwarts Legend: Round Two [2]

Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine- "FUCKER! THAT SPELL DOESN'T EVEN EXIST!"

Professor McGonagall's classes are always hard work, but today is especially difficult.

Everything I learnt last year seems to have gone from my mind.

Poof!

We're meant to be turning a beetle into a button, and I manage after a couple of tries. All Harry is doing is giving his beetle a lot of exercise. Both May and El are struggling too.

But Ron is having far worse problems. He's patched up his wand with some Spellotape, but it seems to be beyond repair. It keeps crackling and sparking at odd moments, and every time Ron tries to transfigure his beetle it engulfs him in thick grey smoke which smells of rotten eggs.

I'm relieved to hear the lunch bell.  My brain can't do anymore work. Everyone files out of the classroom except me Harry and Ron, who is whacking his wand furiously on the desk.

"Stupid ... useless ... thing ..."

"Write home for another one," I suggest, as the wand lets off a volley of bangs like a firecracker.

"Oh yeah, and get another Howler back," says Ron, stuffing the now hissing wand into his bag. "It's your own fault your wand got snapped -"

We go down to lunch, where Hermione, Maya and Elinor have already started eating. Ron's mood is not improved by Hermione showing us the handful of perfect coat buttons she produced in Tranfiguration.

"What've we got this afternoon?" says Harry, hastily changing the subject.

"Defence Against the Dark Arts," says Hermione at once.

"Why," demands Maya, seizing her timetable, "have you outlined all Lockhart's lessons in little hearts?"

El and I exchange horrified looks as Hermione snatched the timetable back, flushing furiously.

"How can she like him?" El hisses, gaping.

"I don't know but she is going to give us so much shit when we mess around in his classes."

We finish lunch and go outside (ew) into the overcast courtyard. Hermione sits down on a stone step and buries her nose in Voyages with Vampires again. Maya and Elinor sit down next to her, reading over her shoulder and every so often, scoffing and giggling.

Harry, Ron and I stand talking about Quidditch for several minutes before I feel the hairs on the back of my neck tingle and I look around. A few feet from us, a very small mousey-haired boy is staring at us, transfixed.

Well, I say us, I mean Harry.

He's clutching what looks like an ordinary Muggle camera, and when he notices me staring at him, he goes bright red.

"Um, Harry?" I nudge him and point at the boy, who has just stepped towards us.

"All right, Harry? I'm - I'm Colin Creevey," the kid says breathlessly. "I'm in Gryffindor, too. D'you think - would it be all right if - can I have a picture?" he says, raising the camera hopefully.

Awh, he's a fanboy! Cute!

"A picture?" Harry repeats blankly.

"That's what he said," Maya mutters, looking up.

"So I can prove I've met you," says Colin eagerly, edging further forward. "I know all about you, Harry. Everyone's told me. About how you survived when You Know Who tried to kill you and how he disappeared and everything and how you've still got a lightening scar on your forehead and a boy in my dormitory said if I develop the film in the right potion, the picture'll move." Colin draws a great shuddering breath of excitement and says, "It's brilliant here, isn't it? I never knew all the odd stuff I could do was magic till I got the letter from Hogwarts. My dad's a milkman, he couldn't believe it either. So I'm taking loads of pictures to send home to him. And it'd be really good if I had one of you -" he looks imploringly at Harry, "- maybe your friend could take it and I could stand next to you? And then, could you sign it?"