Agents of Discord

by KittyrinnAiko

Chapter 85: Charms Class

“We have got to get Ron a new wand,” Aurora whispered to Aerie as they made their way towards the main hall.

“Driving you to distraction is it?” Aerie whispered.

“Next time use your own bloody hair,” Aurora hissed back.

“Aerie… sorry about pulling your earphones off,” Hermione offered approaching.

“It’s alright. Seems you did more damage to yourself.”

“Why is it though? Why didn’t you faint?”

“Telling you that baby Mandrakes sounds like my Aunt Petunia probably isn’t going to work, I imagine.”

“It’s Akkadian biology combined with our magic,” Aurora offered. “We both projected a magical barrier around ourselves the moment those things started screeching. Part of that accidental magic the Ministry wants stamping out of us.”

“Ah… did you know about that before you bought the headphones, That you didn’t really need hearing protection?” Lavender asked accusingly.

“Well…” Aerie replied sheepishly. “We still need ear protection, it just makes us more resilient.”

“We thought it’d be fun to be able to talk to each other,” Aurora admitted.

“And you didn’t tell me?” Lavender protested.

“They are expensive,” Aerie pointed out. “And that moment without still gave me a headache.”

“Would any headset work?” Hermione asked.

“Unfortunately the headset has to be shielded or the electronics won’t work. That’s why we paid out the big money. Although, pretty much anything would be better than those earmuffs.”

“Come on, let’s get lunch.”

"Can't really argue with that. I think I'll send a letter to my parents asking them to get me some industrial headphones."

Defense Against the Dark Arts followed lunch. If there was ever a class that Aerie dreaded, it was being anywhere with Lockhart. Everyone filled into the class, much improved from the previous year, and yet. Standing at the head of the class was the man himself. Which is more or less expected of a teacher, it’s just that behind and slightly to Lockhart’s right, the left side of the front of the classroom was hung a life-size painting of the man. Both the man and the painting were doing identical poses. Oh no, just standing there would never be enough, the man just had to vogue.

Lockhart waited for everyone to be seated, cleared his throat, dramatically, reached down to the closest desk, Neville’s, and held up the book. Travels with Trolls. Lockhart’s mug was plastered to the book giving everyone the treat of seeing Lockhart not once, not twice, but three times in succession.

“That’s me,” Lockhart announced triumphantly. “Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Force League, and five-time winner of Witch Weekly’s Most-Charming Smile Award. A trifle I assure you. After all, I didn’t get rid of the Bonbon Banshee by Smiling at her.” He punctuated his statement with his signature smile and wink. “Bet none of you can beat that.”

“Order of the Phoenix, Order of Merlin, first class, and honorary member of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Or at least I would if my name had been Harry,” Aerie replied with a cheeky smile.

“I see… You are not a teacher though. I am. I am your new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Now, I see you’ve all bought a complete set of my books…”

“It was required for the course,” Aerie quipped.

“So that you could learn from my experiences. I trust you did read them. What say we start with a little quiz? Nothing to worry about, just want to see how well you’ve read my books… how much you’ve taken in…”

He passed out test pamphlets, announced that they had thirty minutes, and set them to it.

Aerie let out a soft sigh and proceeded to fill in the answers. Favorite color, lilac, secret ambition, marry the Queen of England, ideal birthday gift, harmony between magical and nonmagical people, and a bottle of Ogden’s Special Reserve Old Firewhisky. For his greatest achievement, Aerie put down becoming a Hogwarts teacher. In truth it was as if he’d not actually achieved any of the things in his books and putting down hoodwinked the entirety of Wizarding England might be a bit too much, just yet.

Test over he collected the papers, went to the desk, and graded them. Aerie had most of the questions right. He got up and looked at Aerie. “Miss Potter, the Queen of England?”

“Hogwarts's Gazette, your seventh year,” Aerie replied.

“Ah… well I’ve changed my mind. I can do that you know,” he replied while thinking to himself, so, she’s that kind of fan. The idea that Aerie wanted people to look at his school records never crossed his mind. He turned his attention to the class. “A few of you remembered that my favorite color is Lilac. I say so in Year with the Yeti. And a few of you need to read Wanderings with Werewolves more carefully. I clearly stated in Chapter Twelve that my ideal birthday gift would be harmony between magic and nonmagical people. Miss Potter seems to know about my secret desire to get my hands on a bottle of Ogden’s Special Reserve Old Firewhisky.” He gave the class a wink. Ron had a look of utter befuddlement on his face, and Seamus and Dean Thomas were desperately holding back laughter.

“Hermione,” Lockhart stated and looked about. Hermione straightened out and had a look of rapt attention on her face. “Only Miss Granger knew of my secret ambition to rid the world of evil and market my own range of hair-care potions. Good girl. Full marks for Miss Granger. Miss Granger?”

Hermione raised a trembling hand.

“Excellent! Quite Excellent! Take ten points for Gryffindor. And now, on to business…” He reached down and lifted up a covered cage. “It is my job to arm you with the knowledge necessary to defend yourselves from the foulest creatures known to wizardkind. Behold!” Off went the cover.

“Cornish pixies?” Seamus Finnigan blurted out on sighting the small blue humanoid creatures that looked a great deal like a cross between a smurf and a fairy.

“Freshly caught,” Lockhart proclaimed.

“Well, they’re not very dangerous now are they?”

“Dangerous? Well, maybe not so much one at a time,” Lockhart said while wagging a finger at him. His hand went to the door of the cage. “..but let’s see how you handle two dozen of the little pests.”

To everyone’s horror, he removed the lock. A moment later the door sprung open and the room filled with pixies. Ron and the boys tried hitting them with the various jinxes they knew, with some success, save for Ron who could only get splutters and sparks from his wand and resorted to swatting them with a book. Most of the girls made a hasty retreat while blasting anything that came near.

“You’re on your own!” Lavender shouted as she closed the door.

Aurora and Hermione joined the boy’s efforts, and Aerie just sat there.

“I’ll, I’ll just leave you to catch them,” Lockhart announced and then fled out the back door. He’d attempted to cast a spell, Peskipiksie Pesternomi, but it had failed. That is to say, absolutely nothing happened followed by the pixies taking his wand.

“Aerie, don’t just sit there?!” Ron scolded. Neville was hanging from the chandelier by this time.

“Aerie?!” Hermione shouted momentarily after freezing one. She quickly froze another one, and only on looking back at Aerie did she notice that any pixies that dared get close to her would spark and drop to the floor like she was a human-shaped bug zapper. (Be a cool trick, no? LOL)

“No good talking to her,” Aurora offered. “She’s electrified the air around herself.”

“She’s what?”

“Let go of my hair!” Aurora shouted followed by the room erupting in fire.

“Aurora, calm, it’s alright…” Aerie spun in her seat, sped to Aurora, and had her in a hug. The fire diminished and vanished.

“Was that me?”

“Ya, you kind of uncorked, so to speak.”

“I didn’t hurt anyone?”

“Just pixies. Your focus was on the pixies. I was just a little worried you might lose control.” Indeed every pixie in the room was presently plastered against walls, the ceiling, rafters, the floor, furniture, and pretty much anything beyond where they’d been a moment before opposite of Aurora.

“And my wits,” Ron offered as pixies that weren’t supported by anything began dropping to the floor. “What was that?”

“Kind of looked like phoenix fire,” Aerie offered. And no, it wasn’t Aurora’s normal blaze. “Hermione?”

“I… um, wow.”

“Can someone get me down from here?” Neville called as the door burst open. It was Dumbledore with a wand in hand.

“What just happened in here?” He asked, looked about, put his wand away, and slowly entered. Those who’d fled were out in the hall. “Pixies?”

“Just a little overcharge,” Aerie offered.

“Sorry sir,” Aurora replied. “My fault. Showed up in the wards I gather?”

“Wow, every last pixie is out cold,” Ron offered.

“Our new DADA teacher thought it’d be a good idea to let loose a squadron of pixies,” Aerie offered. “We’re the only ones who hadn’t run for it.”

“I’m so sorry,” Aurora pleaded.

“Quite alright. This kind of excitement I can live with.”

“A little help,” Neville pleaded.

“Professor Lockhart just wanted to give us some hands-on experience,” Hermione stated, possibly hoping it was true.

“Hand’s on?” Ron blurted out. “He didn’t have a clue what he was doing… I’m sorry Professor Dumbledore, but that’s what it looked like to me.”

“Professor?” Hermione almost pleaded.

“I’m sure he’d a good reason to set a…” Dumbledore offered

“Squadron,” Aerie offered. “That cage up front was stuffed full of pixies. Just look around, they are all over the place.”

“I see, I see, and which way did Professor Lockhart go?”

“Back door,” Aurora, Ron, and Seamus said at once, followed by pointing at each other while saying “jinx.”

“Well then, I’ll leave you to clean up, and I’m going to talk to him about not setting things loose. By the looks of things even confident wizards would need all day to deal with that lot.”

“Hey, so how was your first day?” Aerie asked Isolde as she sat down in a nearby chair. The two were in the first-year girl’s room by themselves. Outside the sun was setting and dinner was soon.

“It occurred to me that Draco was a pig-headed idiot.” Isolde presently had several books opened on her desk.

“Kind of harsh. Just out of curiosity…”

“Why have I come to that conclusion? Simple, I paid attention in class. After all, I need to get good grades if I want to go to Eques Academy. No free rides for me. No daddy to fall back on to give me everything I want. I also want to be able to help my friends. Draco already knew everything, or at least he thought he did. Never paid attention in class, and always did as little as he could get away with. It's no wonder Draco was getting such abysmal marks… no wonder Professor Dumbledore wanted me to start year one all over again.
“Do you think he knows?”

“Given that there are four Akkadian girls in Hogwarts, a rarity I’m to understand, all good friends, he’s not going to be able to just point a finger at you and say, that must be her.”

“Isolde!” Louise called as she rushed into the room. “Come on, everyone is waiting for you. Let’s go get something to eat.”

“Alright, be right there,” Isolde called back, a bright smile forming on her face.

“That smile will definitely throw him off the mark,” Aerie whispered, got up, and followed the two younger girls downstairs.

Aerie spent the next few days avoiding Lockhart given the inappropriate request he’d made concerning Luna Moon. Colin Creevey proved another matter as the boy had an uncanny knack for popping up whenever they were going to and from classes. “All right, Aerie,” Colin would chirp. It got old really fast forcing Aerie to start taking different routes. Generally, this meant going the long way around but it had the added benefit of saving her from both Colin and Lockhart.

“Professor, any chance there is a loner Ron can use?” Aerie asked in Charms. Ron’s wand had just flown out of his hand and hit Professor Flitwick right between the eyes.

“Well, I…” a large welt had formed on his forehead. “I’ll um, see what we can come up with.- Oh my?” The welt was growing into a single-spiraled horn.

“Aurora, maybe you can do something about that?” Aerie asked.

“Aurora?” Hermione asked as a beautiful golden unicorn horn formed on the professor’s head.

“Aerie?” Aurora asked softly.

“It’s your magic,” Aerie whispered into Aurora's ear. “Maybe you can draw it out of him?”

“I suppose I can give it a shot,” Aurora said softly. She got up from her place, went up to the professor, and reached out. She hesitated but a moment, and then touched the tip of the horn.

Instantly the horn transformed into shimmering light and funneled up to Aurora to blend with her own aura. A glow that vanished a moment later.

“Well, that seems to have fixed that,” Professor Flitwick said with a smile.

“It was your hair,” Ron stated, a touch of awe in his tone. He’d seen the hair and saw that it had been a golden red and not silver as would have been normal for a unicorn.

“Ron, there is no way your wand could possibly have one of her hairs in it,” Hermione corrected harshly.

“Now, Miss Granger…” Flitwick began but wasn’t sure what he should say. Aurora on the other hand, or hoof, pitched forward in the direction of the class, transformed, adjusted her wings, and walked over to Hermione.

“Oh, yes, of course. Absolutely no way it could possibly be one of my hairs.” Her tone dripped with sarcasm.

“Aurora?” Aerie protested. Well, it wasn’t like people didn’t already know. It’s just that, her N-sid ring wasn’t on.

“What?!”

“You forgot to put your ring on this morning.”

“Oh.”

“I think it would be prudent to keep Miss Aurora’s full transformation to ourselves,” Professor Flitwick offered even as Hermione's eyes rolled back in her head followed by her slumping to the floor. Lavender rushed over, and then promptly hugged Aurora.

“Lavender?” Aurora prompted.

“How often do I get a chance to hug a beautiful and adorable winged unicorn?”

“What about Hermione?”

“What about her?”

“You weren’t going to try to help her?”

“Her mind is undoubtedly rebooting. She’ll be fine in a moment or two.”

“Mmm… Oh, Ron, I found your wand,” Hermione announced as though that’s what she’d been about in the first place. She froze about halfway up on sighting the golden pony looking at her, head tilted off to the left.

“You going to be alright?”

“Ah… Aurora?” Hermione clumsily lifted herself into her seat. “Hang on, why does everyone look like you all knew?”

“I only just figured it out,” Ron offered.

“Guessed it some time ago,” Seamus offered. “Aerie and Aurora were worried about Riddle finding out about the princess thing. Which had me wondering. Sure Aurora could transform into a pegasus, but then Riddle and Quirrell were hunting unicorns, so why keep it a secret? And then it hit me, Mrs Silverwood has a winged unicorn transformation, and she’s a bonafide princess, recognized as such by the government. What if that’s what marked an Akkadian Princess? Makes sense really. And the trick rings were to hide the horns.”

“Splendid work of deduction, Mr Finnigan,” Flitwick offered. “And good of you to keep it quiet. In fact, I suspect the girls would like to keep it quiet even now.”

“Thank you, Professor,” Aurora offered and then transformed back to her human self.

"My biggest concern right now seems to be Lockhart," Aerie quipped in a dry tone.

“Afraid I can't deny that he's an unhealthy interest" Flitwic confirmed, and then focused on Hermione. "Miss Granger, it seems to me that you might have figured it out on your own if you’d spent a little more time asking questions instead of giving answers. It was indeed one of her hairs. Like those with Veela heritage, Miss Summers has more than enough magical energy imbued in her that her hair proved a good match for Mr Weasley’s wand.”

“Oh.” The look on Hermione’s face was priceless. It had never occurred to her that a fellow human might be magical enough that their hair could be used in a wand. And when she recalled Aerie stating that Aurora was the most powerful witch in their class she repeated that “oh” only softer as though she’d had an epiphany. Could Aurora even be considered human anymore? Perhaps a different kind of human? Were witches and wizards a different kind of human? No, but that can’t be right. That way of thinking seemed far too much the sort of thing the Pure-Blood families might preach. Hermione had much to think on to include, just how powerful was Aurora?

Comments

[Theresa hall]

Looks like she is finally learning that she doesn't know everything and that she just can't easily answer every question that comes up. And she should pay more attention to the world around her instead paying attention to books all the time.

[midnight arrow]

great chapter

[harts fire]

yep Lockhart is proving to be the Gett that he is.
awesome chapter.

[harts fire]

11827411
or a simple way to say this is
book smart common seance stupid.
she will make a vary good collage teacher.

[KittyrinnAiko]

11827617
Hermione is desperate for validation. She gets that by being the most studious in class. So much so that she forgets that she doesn't know everything and that her books aren't always going to have all the answers. She also forgets to be polite because she is so desperate to be right. Book smarts? I've met lots of people who were book smart. They'd often present themselves as experts on whatever it was they'd been reading. Often to the point of annoyance. Lack of common sense? Yes, she's lacking. Without her drive and lack of common sense the books would have been missing a bunch of details. That lack of common sense is what drove her to drag Harry and Ron down into "protecting" the Philosopher's stone. The irony is that if they hadn't gone after it, Voldemort would still have failed.

Now the fun bit. If Voldemort hadn't have learned how powerful Lily's protection was he would never have used Harry's blood to regenerate his body.

There is a really intriguing theory that suggests that Voldemort couldn't outright kill Harry so long as he had some of Harry's blood. So in the long term, even though Hermione's actions were brash and lacking in common sense, she actually did what needed to be done for Harry to survive his final encounter with Voldemort.

Harry's kind of lacking too. Imagine how fast the Chamber of secrets would have wrapped up if he'd have taken Ron's warning about the book seriously. Use an old rag to pick it up, toss it in the bin to get burned with the rubbish... and I'm sure the house elves burned everything... no more book, no more attacks. He wouldn't have learned anything about Riddle or nearly killed by giant spiders, and Dobby wouldn't have been set free.

[harts fire]

11827955
i do love how you word things.
you are a true artiest of the word.

you always point out all of the details i know and yet have never thought of or looked at quite in that light.

thank you for this.

[alexme7cer]

Thanks for the chapter