Black Spirit • harry potter (AU)

t w e n t y • the bouncing ferret

The stormy weather had persevered overnight, but thankfully the Slytherin common room was isolated to the dungeons and the storm hadn't interrupted my sleep.

At breakfast that morning, several people were discussing magical methods of ageing themselves, loudest of all were the Weasley twins and Lee Jordan, who I had chosen to sit next to that day. I didn't bother with commenting or talking them out of it, since I knew they were going to try anyway.

Snape found me and Fiona at the Gryffindor table, "Hello, Miss Black, Miss Rowle," He said, his monotonous voice carrying across the hall, "Delighted as I am to see that you have friends, I would rather not have to search all the four tables for you two to give you your timetables," He hissed. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. This sentence would've seemed completely normal, even polite of Snape to say, if it wasn't for the glare he was sending the Gryffindors who sat with us. He clearly wasn't fond of two Slytherins mingling with rowdy Gryffindors. He didn't say anything else, tapped two pieces of parchment with his wand and handed us our timetables, before walking off.

"I am so glad to see him again." Fiona said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. I laughed, "Yeah, I seem to suddenly have a burning desire to get him flowers." I replied, causing George to spit out his pumpkin juice from laughter.

My timetable for that day was not as bad as Harry and Ron's, who had Herbology, Care of Magical Creatures and double Divination. My timetable had Potions, Care of Magical Creatures and double Ancient Runes.

Post arrived soon after, neither me or Harry got any mail. The two people who wrote to me most often, were my mother and father, and since they were on the run somewhere I didn't know, I wasn't really expecting daily updates. Draco's eagle owl landed on his shoulder, bringing him what looked like a large range of sweets and cakes from home.

Me and Fiona headed off to potions soon after, where we saw Snape again, his sneer permanently on his face and hair greasy as ever, and began brewing the potion he had set for that lesson.

After Care of Magical Creatures, where we had been introduced to Blast-Ended Skrewts, which looked like large shell-less lobsters; horribly pale and slimy looking with legs sticking out in odd places, I headed up to lunch with the rest of the Slytherins, who were still discussing Hagrid's incompetence. I had learned not to argue with my classmates about this, even though I very much liked Hagrid, I knew whatever I said they would still dislike him. Draco was loudest of all as he droned on and on about how we should just stamp on the Skrewts, causing me to retort back, "just because they're not very pretty, doesn't mean they're not useful. Dragon blood is amazingly magical, but you wouldn't want one as a pet, would you?"

Malfoy looked away at this and shut up, making no more comments about the beasts. I couldn't help but agree with him though, the Skrewts were truly disgusting and didn't seem to be very useful at all.

After lunch, I headed up to Ancient Runes. It wasn't my favourite lesson, but I was quite good at Runes. I could not wait for the first Transfiguration lesson though.

<><><>

I caught up with Harry and Ron, who had just finished a Divination lesson. Ron complained loudly about having to do a detailed analysis on how the planetary alignment would effect him over the next month, Hermione joining us in the Entrance hall, which was packed with students waiting to enter the Great Hall for dinner.

"Weasley, hey Weasley!" A loud voice rang out behind us. All four of us turned, even though I knew what was coming, "What?" said Ron, glaring at Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle.

"Your dad's in the paper, Weasley," Malfoy said, loudly enough so that everyone in the packed space looked curiously at the commotion. He was holding today's Daily Prophet, smiling evilly at Ron, "Listen to this, further mistakes at the Ministry of Magic, it seems as though the Ministry of Magic's troubles are not yet at an end, writes Rita Skeeter, special correspondent. Recently under fire for its poor crowd control yet still unable to account for the disappearance of one of its witches, the Ministry was plunged into fresh embarrassment yesterday by the antics of Arnold Weasley of the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts office." Malfoy said, looking up from the newspaper, "Imagine them not even getting his name right, Weasley, it's almost as if he's a complete non-entity, isn't it?" Several people, mostly Slytherins, laughed at this.