Detention
Lupin had, at their first meeting, taught Meissa a couple of basal rules about spells, and, taught her about four basic spells, Lumos, Protego, Leviosa, and Stupefy, with promises of more info in the future. At least for now Meissa had the skill enough to manage a small light at the end of her wand, which, among other things she found useful while reading the books she borrowed from the library late into the night. She was presently reading a book about Magical structures. The author, Helen Biggsby, was heavily biased towards referencing Hogwarts and talking about how wonderful a structure it is, even in places where it seemed irrelevant, even still it was a good read. The Hogwarts section of the book was, rather unsurprisingly, the most interesting part. It mentioned places such as the Chamber of Secrets, the Vault of Fears, and the Hall of Slytherins. Her visits to the library were not always without annoyance though as a blonde boy often accompanied her there, without her liking.
In week three however Malfoy had only bothered Meissa in the library once and she was starting to feel somewhat at peace between the dusty shelves. The day after she thought she was safe though she found herself stuck in a double potions class and for whatever reason she was squished between Crabbe and Malfoy. By the second half of the class Crabbe at fallen asleep on one of her arms, trapping it and slowly killing it as she could hardly feel her fingers anymore. Malfoy in the meantime was talking to Goyle about how annoying Harry was, it wasn’t very nice but Meissa was hardy paying attention, her eyes were still fixed to the board where Professor Snape had written a long description of a potion, a poison no less and the job of the class was discover what the potion was and come up with a suitable antidote for it. Meissa was using her remaining hand to flip through the pages of her potions book though the words barely registered, she wondered if it was a real potion or some sort of trick.
“Watch this,” said Malfoy, tapping Crabbe on his back. He snorted loudly as he awoke and looked up at Malfoy who was holding his wand under the table. Meissa extracted her arm and shook it vigorously, as pins and needles dug their way to the bone. Malfoy turned to them, smirk on his face, and waved his wand causing a small jet of purple light to rocket towards Harry who seemed not to notice. Malfoy’s aim was slightly off though and instead of hitting Harry, it found its way to the surface of his cauldron and bounced directly back. Meissa hardly had time to think before she noticed it was heading for her. POOF! It exploded into a small cloud of purple glitter all over her.
Meissa coughed and realised all eyes in the classroom were on her.
Snape was then standing directly in front of her.
“Miss Black,” he said scathingly.
“Professor, I didn’t cast it, I think Draco was trying to hit Harry Potter with it,” she started.
“I think you should take responsibility for your actions, Miss Black, lest you follow in the footsteps of your uncle,” he said.
“Professor, honestly, this is ridiculous, I was the one who got hit—”
“Silence, you shouldn’t have been trying to do your makeup in my classroom,”
“Makeup? What’re you on about, Draco shot it and it bounced to me and—”
“Detention, Miss Black, this evening, you won’t be able to escape this,” he said, lip curling up into a mean smile.
Meissa, still covered in purple glitter stared in awe at the stupidity of what just happened. She sent a fierce scowl towards Malfoy who seemed split between wanting to laugh and being scared at what she would do to him if he did. Crabbe on the other hand was not hiding his chuckle, even though a large amount of the glitter had found its way into his robes as well.
Half of her lunch was spent cleaning all of the glitter up and so she only had time for a slice of pot pie and some juice before they went to Lupin’s class. There, luckily, she could practice what she was good at, which today was protego, one of the spells Lupin had been teaching her in the evenings. Some of the students seemed decent with it already but Meissa quickly realised that she was, in this case, top of the class. The spells sent her way by her practice partner, Neville Longbottom, were all quickly deflected by her. After class was finished she went up to Lupin.
“I saw you with the shield charm, you nearly knocked Mr. Longbottom over,” he said. “Maybe we should start working on leviosa tonight, I think for now you have protego mastered.”
“Well, actually, Professor, I can’t make it tonight, see Professor Snape’s given me detention, it was not even anything I did, Draco Malfoy had tried shooting a spell and so yea.”
“Oh, I understand, well I hope you aren’t getting into too much trouble. I’ll see you in class on Monday, Meissa,” he said, smiling.
“Don’t I have class with you tomorrow?” she asked, eyebrow slightly raised.
“Oh, yes yes, said Lupin, I’d forgotten,” he said. Meissa was still confused, as she left.
Daphne and the other Slytherin girls had been talking to her progressively less since term started, but now at dinner they were completely ignoring her. Only Pansy said hi to her as she sat down and dug into the vegetable casserole awaiting her.
She soon found her way back onto the dungeon stairs though instead of heading towards the Slytherin dormitories as usual she turned towards Snape’s office, in an even colder and damper part of the dungeons than the normal cold dampness that hung around all of it.
When she opened the door she found him waiting for her in a rather small and strange room. Shelves on the walls contained jars with tinctures and floating animals and in one a small handwritten note. Snape watched her eyes linger on it and loudly cleared his throat. He gestured to a cardboard box sitting on the table betwixt them with large amounts of tape holding it together, a rare site in a magical school. She sat down at the rickety stool provided and opened it up. A flurry of dust was released into the air and Meissa fought the urge to sneeze.
“Please pay attention Miss Black,” said Snape, watching her holding the sneeze. “These are detailed records of wrongdoings by students, much like your own wrongdoing. I would like them to be copied over where the ink is fading on many of them, you will see I provided a quill and new cards, you may recognise some names their I assume,” he then sat down and began reading his own book.
It was rather laborious, especially as punishment for something she didn’t do. She soon noticed what Snape had eluded too however. She saw Sirius Black pop up more than a few times as she went through the cards, occasionally accompanied by Remus Lupin and James Potter. In fact his less then appropriate behaviour seemed so linked to James Potter one could only assume they were best friends at school, and no doubt friends with Lupin as well. Meissa soon realised there was no clock in the office and started rewriting the torn and faded cards more slowly, occasionally adding tiny doodles in the corners, hoping Snape wouldn’t notice as she drew a tiny depiction of the Astronomy tower on a card discussing a jinx Sirius cast on an unsuspecting passerby causing his legs to lock together.
“That should be enough for tonight, I hope you don’t find yourself in here again,” he said.
“Yes professor thank you,” she said. Quickly hiding the graffitied card, stretching as she stood up, she would sleep well tonight.
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Harry’s first weeks had been quite nice. Besides the dementors haunting the grounds and the murderer trying to kill him that is. Quidditch practice had been going especially well with Wood trying to teach them a new trick to spin 180 on their brooms with ‘ease and stability’ as he put it.
At the last practice however on Saturday they played until the sun was well set and the drizzling throughout the practice left them soaking wet and tired. It was while in this destitute state that Harry noticed a cold presence above him while doing some final practice turns on his broom, it wasn’t just cold though, it was sad. The water dripping from his uniform started freezing. His hands froze themselves to the handle. He felt lightheaded, he saw a black dog outside the quidditch pitch through the rain and mist, watching as he fell and his vision turned blank. The next thing he knew he was waking up in the hospital wing. Ron was sitting on the bedside eating a chocolate frog which had no doubt been left for him by a well-wisher.
“Mate, you’re up, we’ve been worried, you were out all day,” said Ron.
“Oh.” Said Harry, sitting up and rubbing his elbow where pain seemed to be emanating. “What happened, I thought I was at Quidditch practice,” he said.
“Well yea, you were, only there was a Dementor there, Dumbledore’s furious, somehow it got all the way to the Quidditch pitch.” Ron replied.
“That’s just fantastic,” Harry thought, clearly there was something wrong with him, why else would Dementors do so much to him and relatively little to everyone else. Fred and George and Katie bell weren’t laying besides him in the hospital wing. Harry convinced Madam Pomfrey to let him out Monday morning despite his elbow still hurting from the fall, at least Fred had been able to rescue his broom after he had fallen and it had taken minimal damage.
Potions on Monday meant enduring not very quietly whispered discussion about Harry’s fall from Malfoy to an audience of Pansy, Crabbe, and Goyle. He attempted to block out what they were saying as he concocted the arduous potion Snape had tasked them with.
After charms and lunch he arrived at Defence Against the Dark Arts, which, though an inherently interesting class to Harry, had been poorly taught by the previous two teachers was being somewhat re-discovered for its interest by Harry as taught by Lupin. The day was spent casting and deflecting a hex and counter hex which caused intense stomach pain. Somehow Neville was hit twice with the spell and had to excuse himself to the facilities.
Afterwards Harry stood in the corner as Lupin tidied his desk.
“Ah, Harry, you’re still here,” said Lupin happily.
“Yes Professor, I was wondering if you could help me with something,” he replied.
“Of course Harry, how can I help you,”
“Well you may have heard I fell from my broom the other day at practice,” said Harry.
“I’m afraid I’ve never been much of a Quidditch expert,” said Lupin, “I would have asked your father if he was here though,” Lupin laughed a bit.
“Well, it wasn’t my flying that was the problem, you see there was a dementor there, on the quidditch pitch,” he said.
“I see,” said Lupin, “There are some counter’s to dementors,”
“Is there anyway you could teach me them, I feel like the Dementor’s hurt me especially,” he said.
“Hurt you especially?” asked Lupin.
“Well noone else on the pitch that day fell off their brooms,” replied Harry, almost embarrassed.
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of Harry,” said Lupin, now smiling at him. “Dementors effect you more because you have demons in your past, true pain and suffering, terrible things have been done to you and the dementors feed on terrible things. This evening, 7;50, come to my office, I can teach you some basics of Dementor protection,”
“Thank you Professor,”
Evening came quicker than he thought it would. Ron was lounged across one of the couches in the common room. Harry was spinning his wand and watching Crookshanks playing.
“It’s a bit boring with it being so cold and wet outside,” said Ron. Levitating a peice of paper above him with his wand.
“It wouldn’t be boring if you would do your own homework,” said Hermione. “With the homework I have this semester I won’t be able to help you,”
“Homework is the most boring thing you could do, loads more boring than doing nothing” replied Ron, “By the way, noone asked you to take extra classes Hermione,”
Harry, tired of bickering noticed that it was 7:30 and thought it was as good a time as any to goto Lupin’s office. As he rushed out he could still hear arguing.
He got there with 15 minutes still left. At the door he could here spells being cast and the sound of a yelp from a student. Harry sat patiently on a bench outside and waited the remaining time. At 7:45 the door opened and Meissa Black walked out. She gave Harry a rather irritated look and went down the corridor without saying a word. On first meeting her Meissa seemed relatively nice but each day that passed Harry seemed to like her less, she was rather stuck up he thought.
“Harry is that you?” called Lupin from inside.
Harry gathered himself up and entered.