𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐢𝐜

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER NINE

- Finger Pointing & Wand Waving -

Fi tapped an off-beat song against her desk as she waited for the hour to change.

Her classroom sat empty, patient, ready to be filled with students either eager for knowledge or just bored enough to drag themselves to class. The faint strains of Quirrell's muddled stuttering was audible through the wall separating their two classes, and Fi wrinkled her nose at the memory of having to sit next to to the man this morning and make polite conversation. Snape had ignored her.

She poked her wand laying on the desk's surface and was relieved it didn't belch sparks. Fi wouldn't wield it in a class full of children, but it was best if they saw it, if they associated the occasional accidental use of her magic to the tangible presence of a wand in the room. Besides, her first class would be comprised of first years, and they were not nearly as difficult to fool as knowledgeable adults.

Quirrell's class ended soon enough. The scuffs of chair legs being dragged on the floor sounded, followed by the dulled murmur of voices escaping into the halls. Fi straightened in her seat and blanked her expression, hoping for something mildly stern but approachable, a face worthy of a professor rather than a curious hedge witch. Several minutes passed before her students began to enter, poking in hesitant heads before they spotted their professor sitting at her desk and went in search of their own. Fi counted roughly twenty eleven year-olds, dressed with red or green accents on their new robes, sidling into opposing sections along the room's aisle.

Puck shrieked in her adjoined office and many of the children startled, paling.

Jumpy little things.

Grinning, Fi rose. "Sorry. That would be my Augurey saying hello, as it were. Welcome to Magical Theory. I will be your instructor, Professor Dullahan."

A general rumble of greetings was returned to her.

"Yes, well, I should probably take attendance." Fi plucked the scroll she had been provided by Minerva off the desk and unfurled it, clearing her throat. "Lavender Brown?"

"Present."

"Millicent Bulstrode?"

"Present."

"Vincent Crabbe?"

Fi received a grunt in answer.

"Tracey Davis?"

"Here."

"Seamus Finnigan?"

"I'm here."

"Gregory Goyle?"

Another grunt.

"Hermione Granger?"

A bushy-haired Gryffindor in the front row straightened. "Present, Professor."

"Daphne Greengrass?"

"Present."

"Neville Longbottom?"

A plump boy by the girl named Hermione spoke. "P-Present."