From a Cradle to a Grave

Chapter 10

Hope's Pov

The next morning, I grab my class schedule, and head down into the Great Hall. I sit in my usual seat next to Malfoy and Pansy, with Blaise and Daphne sitting across from us.

Crabbe and Goyle sit a few spots away from us. I stare at them curiously. During the three years that I've known them, I don't think I've ever once seen them talk.

Only after making sure that Harry, Hermione, and any of my siblings aren't around, do I engage in a lengthy conversation with my Slytherin friends.

'Friends' might be an inadequate word. I'm not particularly fond of any of them, apart from Draco, whom I only like because I get to annoy him for hours on end.

"I heard that the Mikaelson woman stole the position of Defense teacher from right underneath Alastor Moody's nose," Adrian Pucey, a sixth year student, tells us.

"Moody? As in Mad-Eye Moody?" I say in disbelief.

"Who?" Daphne frowns.

"The lunatic ex-Auror, you dimwitted troll," Pansy says.

"Thank god Dumbledore didn't hire that crazy bloke. I heard Mad-Eye incinerated a street cat because he thought it was trying to attack him," Blaise says.

"Who's to say the Mikaelson witch is any better?" Millicent Bullstrode, a girl in my year whom I'm not at all fond of, says, as she squeezes her way into our part of the table.

"Get lost, Bullstrode," I snap.

Millicent's face grows red, and she quickly runs off elsewhere.

I'm not exactly proud of it, but I'd say that I'm one of the most popular girls in my year, especially out of the Slytherins. People tend to forget that I'm one of the Weasleys, because I'm so different from them. 

In other words, I can be quite... Unfriendly, sometimes. I don't know why I'm like this, but I have to keep reminding myself to tone down my Slytherin meanness whenever I'm with Harry, Ron, or Hermione.

The Slytherins have Defense Against the Dark Arts for our first class of the new school year, along with the Gryffindors. I make my way up to our usual classroom with Draco, Pansy, Daphne, and Blaise, then hang back a little to enter the classroom with my Gryffindor friends.

"Hope," Hermione greets me.

The two of us sit down at the desk behind Harry and Ron, and wait for class to begin. Ignoring the disgusted looks that Pansy shoots me for sitting with Hermione, I pretend to be interested in the long class chart that Hermione has drawn up.

"It'll help us use our time wisely. Our schoolwork's bound to become more difficult now that we're nearing our fifth year," she eagerly states.

Professor Freya Mikaelson walks into the room, and everyone falls silent immediately. A teacher's first impression on her students can affect how they view her for the rest of the year. And, considering the rumours that surround Professor Mikaelson's family, she'll have to be a hell of a good teacher if she doesn't want to be called a 'dark witch' by all the students behind her back.

Professor Mikaelson clears her throat, and looks around the classroom. Her eyes immediately find mine, and they bore into me in a strange way. 

Again, I can't help but feel that she looks incredibly familiar... A strange kind of connection seems to exist between the two of us.

"Defense Against the Dark Arts," Professor Mikaelson claps her hands together. "Um," she stares at her copy of The Essential Defense Against the Dark Arts. She takes it in her hand unfamiliarly, as if it's the first time that she's ever laid eyes on this book.