Their new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher HAD turned out to be Lockhart - or rather, Professor Lockhart, as they were to now call him. However, Draco wasn't really sure he understood the term 'teacher'. He had handed them a list of 54 questions, and not one of them were about DADA. They were all about Lockhart himself. For example:
1. What is Gilderoy Lockhart's favourite colour?
2. What is Gilderoy Lockhart's secret ambition?
3. When is Gilderoy Lockhart's birthday, and what would his ideal gift be?
Draco and Blaise just started at one another, open mouthed, then shook their heads as they got on with answering the almost impossible, and quite ridiculous questions. Half an hour later, the quiz papers were taken back in and the class sat in near silence as he sat there and checked them over. As usual Granger got all the answers right, earning Gryffindor another ten points. The class didn't exactly end well either, what with Lockhart producing a cage full of electric-blue, little Cornish pixies. Madness and mayhem ensued, with most of the class running for the door with their bags, and screaming.
"Why has Dumbledore given us a teacher who doesn't know his wand from his -"
"Ahem," coughed Draco, warning Blaise not to carry on with that sentence, considering Snape was walking towards them.
"I dunno," grinned Daphne, "he was probably just nervous. His first week and all."
"Are you kidding me?" Theodore nearly shouted, mouth agape. "He had no idea what he was doing."
Two days later, it was the weekend.
"Malfoy, wake up," a voice hissed.
"Huh, wassgoinon?" Draco jumped up bleary eyed. Marcus Flint, the Slytherin Quidditch captain was stood over him, grinning.
"First day of the Quidditch season. We need to train, come on," Marcus said. "Time to try out those new brooms."
"But haven't the Gryffindors booked the pitch this morning?" Draco asked.
"Yep, but I'm on my way to get Snape to write us a letter saying we need it," grinned Marcus, leaving the second year dorm room.
After breakfast, Orla and Daphne were sat in the stands down by the pitch. A couple of the Gryfindors were there already, including the Colin Creevy kid who had asked Potter for a signed photo the other day. What was he doing? They watched as the Slytherin team walked onto the pitch, grinning as Oliver Wood, the Gryffindor captain started to get annoyed. The two girls looked at each other, eyebrows raised, then headed over to the crowd of players, as did Weasley and Granger.
"Flint!" Wood shouted. "What do you think you are doing? We booked the pitch especially for this morning so we cou...." He was red in the red and spitting his words out.
"Calm down," interrupted Marcus, lazily. "We have this note from Professor Snape." He handed Wood a little scroll of parchment. His eyes widen as he read it, gaping at Marcus. Finally he opened his mouth and spluttered.
"'Need to train our new seeker'. You have a new seeker?"
"That's right," grinned Draco, stepping out of the crowd.
"Malfoy?" gasped Potter.
"That's right," grinned Marcus, "and that's not all that's new this year." Orla burst out laughing at the gobsmacked looks on the Gryffindors faces.
"But those are Nimbus 2001s," cried Weasley.
"A gift, from Draco's father," smirked Marcus. "The very latest model of course. Much better than those old Cleansweeps," he smiled nastily at Weasley's twin brothers, beaters for Gryffindor, who were both clutching Cleansweep Fives. "Practically sweeps the floor with them."
"At least no-one on the Gryffindor team had to buy their way in," said Granger, "they got in on pure talent." Orla stepped up to her, slowly.
"No-one asked your opinion, you filthy little mudblood," she spat. The Gryffindor team gasped in horror, while the Slytherins smirked.
"You'll pay for that one, Rowle," cried Weasley, lifting his wand, which was held together by Spellotape, and pointed it at her angrily. A large flash of green light shot out from it, not forwards, but backwards, and into Weasley himself. He flew backwards and landed on the grass behind him. Nobody knew what to say or do. They all just stood there watching him for a moment or two. Slowly, he sat up, got up on to his hands and knees and started gagging. As he did so, a large slug slipped out of his mouth, followed by more, even larger ones. At this point, Draco was on the floor, paralysed with laughter, tears were streaming down Orla's face and Marcus couldn't breath because they were all laughing so much. Potter and Granger ran off with Weasley, still throwing up the slugs, which meant the Gryffindor team couldn't practise and had to relinquish the pitch over to the Slytherins.
"Let's go sit down," grinned Orla, when they all finally calmed down, and linked her arm through Daphne's, making their way back to the stands to watch the team practice. They sat with Blaise and Theodore, with their feet up on the backs of the seats in front of them, watching the team train Draco up as seeker. He looked so tiny compared to the rest of them all, but that gave him the advantage as seeker. The first game of the season was in the first week of November, and was Slytherin v Gryffindor, which meant the team had even more of a reason to get Draco trained up to his best as soon as possible. They were going to get Gryffindor back for taking the House Cup at the end of last year, the cup that should rightfully have been theirs.
