The Art of New Beginnings

Chapter Eight: The New Inquisition?

In no time at all, Defence Against the Dark Arts had become most people's favourite class. Nobody, not even Nott and his gang, could deny that Remus was the best teacher that they'd ever had, not that the others that went before him really set the bar high.

His next few lessons were just as interesting as the first, though much less mentally scarring. After Boggarts they studied Red Caps, nasty little goblin-like creatures that lurked wherever there had been bloodshed, in the dungeons of castles and the potholes of deserted battlefields, waiting to bludgeon those who had got lost. From Red Caps they moved on to Kappas, creepy water-dwellers that looked like scaly monkeys, with webbed hands itching to strangle unwitting waders in their ponds.

Erica only wished that she was happier about Divination. She was beginning to grow to dread the hours she spent in Trelawney's stifling tower room, deciphering lop-sided shapes and symbols, trying to ignore the way her enormous eyes filled with tears every time she looked at her. She couldn't like Trelawney, even though she was treated with respect bordering on reverence by many of the class. Parvarti Patil and Lavender Brown had taken to haunting her tower room at lunchtimes, and always returned with annoyingly superior looks on their faces, as though they knew things the others didn't. They had also started using hushed voices whenever they grew knew to her or Harry, as though they were on their deathbeds.

Unfortunately, nobody really liked Care of Magical Creatures, which, after the action-packed first class, had become extremely dull. Hagrid seemed to have lost his confidence. They were now spending lesson after lesson learning how to look after Flobberworms, which had to be some of the most boring creatures in existence.

"Why would anyone bother looking after them?" She often heard Ron complain as they poked shredded lettuce down the Flobberworms' slimy throats.

Her talk with Severus hadn't made her feel any better about anything, either. He had avoided all of her questions about the way he had behaved during Remus' first lesson, distracting her with Potions and questions about her Boggart, so in the end she achieved nothing and learnt, once again, nothing.

At the start of October, however, nearly the whole of the student body had become occupied with something else, which, unfortunately for Erica, also included Fred. The Quidditch season was approaching, and Oliver Wood, the captain of the Gryffindor team, was hammering them solid with practice, meaning Erica barely ever got to see Fred anymore, especially because of both of their heavy workloads due to Fred being in his OWL year and Erica's subject choices.

There were seven people on a Quidditch team: three Chasers, whose job it was to score goals by putting the Quaffle (a red, football-sized ball) through one of the fifty-foot-high hoops at each end of the pitch; two Beaters, who were equipped with heavy bats to repel the Bludgers (two heavy black balls which zoomed around trying to attack the players); a Keeper, who defended the goalposts, and the Seeker, who had the hardest job of all, that of catching the Golden Snitch, a tiny, winged, walnut-sized ball, whose capture ended the game and earned the Seeker's team an extra one-hundred and fifty points.

Erica only knew this because of her friends, many of which were on their House Quidditch Teams, Draco, Adrian and Harry playing for Slytherin as Chasers and the Seeker respectively, whilst Fred and George played Beaters on the Gryffindor team and Jeremy played as a Chaser on the Ravenclaw team. It was sort of impossible to not learn the rules with all of that going on.

Erica was returning to the common room one evening after an hour alone with Fred in the library doing homework- one of the few times they actually got to see each other recently- when she found the room buzzing excitedly.

"What's going on?" She asked as she collapsed down next to Draco by the fire, slinging her bag to the side with a sigh of relief. It hurt to lug her books around with her all the time, and she could have sworn she had marks on her shoulders where the straps had dug in.