Hogwarts is My Home (A Harry Potter Fanfiction), Part 4/7

Chapter 10

Our professors have been giving us a huge amount of homework, they say we have to start preparing for our O.W.L.s. Even Professor Binns is teaching us about goblin rebellions for half the year, there's so much to cover. He opens and closes every lesson with the importance of the O.W.L.s. I've heard it all before.

McGonagall is making us turn hedgehogs into pincushions, which is near impossible for me. I think the hedgehog looks a bit fluffier, and it has a pink tint. It's still adorable, though. Moody keeps making us practice throwing off the Imperius Curse. I can fight it, but in the end he always wins. At least he hasn't made me kiss Draco or anything. Not that I would be complaining. I don't think. Snape keeps making us research every kind of antidote that there is. And, of course, we can't use the internet because 1) electronics go haywire at Hogwarts and 2) Hogwarts has no wifi. Flitwick makes us read a lot more about Summoning Charms.

Even Hagrid is making us do more work. He proposes an idea to us one day during class. It's that we should come down to see the skrewts in the evenings to study their behavior.

"I will not," Draco says. "I see enough of those foul things during lessons, thanks." It's true, I don't like them much either.

"Yeh'll do wha' yer told," Hagrid growls, "or I'll be takin' a leaf outta Professor Moody's book. . . . I hear yeh made a good ferret, Malfoy." The Gryffindors roar with laughter. Draco flushes and doesn't say anything back.

When we go back to the castle, we can't get in due to the large crowd of students. I look for someone I know.

"Nigel!" I say, spotting him. "What's going on?"

"The Triwizard Tournament, look!" he says. Draco, being the tallest out of all of us, stands on tiptoe and reads the flyer aloud.

"The delegations from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will be arriving at 6 o'clock on Friday the 30th of October. Lessons will end half an hour early. Students will return their bags and books to their dormitories and assemble in front of the castle to greet our guests before the Welcoming Feast."

"Brilliant, Transfiguration is then. Half an hour less of McGonagall!" I exclaim.

For the rest of the week, no one can talk about anything but the Triwizard Tournament. I think it's going to be really exciting! I don't know of anyone that's going to enter except for Cedric Diggory. The tournament will probably consist of dangerous tasks for the champions to do, what else? I think meeting the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang students will be interesting.

The castle seems to be undergoing an extra-thorough cleaning. Several grimy portraits have been scrubbed, much to the displeasure of their subjects, who sit huddled in their frames muttering darkly and wincing as they feel their raw pink faces. The suits of armor are suddenly gleaming and moving without squeaking, and Argus Filch, the caretaker, is behaving so ferociously to any students who forget to wipe their shoes that he terrifies a pair of first-year girls into hysterics.

The staff is also very uptight. Snape is picking on all the Slytherins.

"If you disgrace Slytherin house, you will be very sorry," Snape tells us one day during Potions.

When we go to breakfast on Halloween, we find the Great Hall had been decorated overnight. There are silk banners in front of each table: a gold lion with a red background for Gryffindor, a bronze eagle with a blue background for Ravenclaw, a black badger with a yellow background for Hufflepuff, and a silver snake with a green background for Slytherin. No snakes. Bad snakes. At the High Table is a banner with the coat of arms of Hogwarts: a lion, eagle, badger, and snake wrapped around a giant H, with our motto DRACO DORMIENS NUNQUAM TITILLANDOS, which translates to never tickle a sleeping dragon. Best motto ever.