Haunted by her second year and now with a murderer on the loose, Gwenevere Everill finds herself facing more battles that she does not think she can win.
Tormented by dementors and struggling under the impact of her new studies, will Gwen be able t...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Very quickly, Defense Against the Dark Arts became everyone's favourite subject. Keeping to his promise, Professor Lupin moved the class from studying Boggarts to Red Caps, goblin-like creatures that lurked wherever there had been bloodshed, ready to attack any lost, unsuspecting persons. From Red Caps they moved onto Kappas, creepy, water dwelling creatures with long, scaly, webbed hands lurking to drag people into watery depths. The more time Gwen spent in Professor Lupin's classes, the more she liked and trusted him. She couldn't help wondering, however, what it was that his Boggart had turned into. She had only seen it for a brief moment, but she was convinced that it was the moon. Lavender had mentioned that it looked more like a crystal ball, but Gwen knew what she had seen.
The only people that didn't like Professor Lupin were Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle.
'His robes look like what my old House Elf used to wear,' Malfoy sneered once in a Potions class, but nobody else cared what Professor Lupin wore. He was, by far, the best teacher they had ever had.
Potions classes continued to get worse and worse. The only thing that Gwen could look forward to in them was seeing Theo. Snape had clearly heard the news of what had happened in the Boggart class and was continuing to bully Neville, only worse than before.
Gwen couldn't bring herself to enjoy Divination, where Professor Trelawney spent every class eyeing Harry with teary eyes. Gwen couldn't help rolling her own eyes every time Trelawney looked at their table. Lavender Brown, Clara Culpeper and Parvati Patil, however, had become Professor Trelawney's best friends, it seemed, spending most of their lunches up in her classroom, descending every time with annoying, superior looks on their faces. Whenever they spoke to or about Harry, they would do so in hushed, gentle voices as though he were on his deathbed. Gwen could see how much Harry hated this, and she and Hermione had spent practically every night in their dorm rolling their eyes at each other whenever the three girls would begin discussing him.
Care of Magical Creatures had become quite boring too. Hagrid, having completely lost his confidence, spent lesson after lesson teaching them how to take care of Flobberworms.
'Who even would want one of these?' Ron said in one lesson, in a hushed voice. 'Their useless.' He stuffed some lettuce down his Flobberworm's slimy throat.
At the start of October, however, Gwen and Harry had something much more fun to think about. The new Quidditch season was beginning, and Oliver Wood, Keeper and Captain of the Gryffindor team, called a meeting one Thursday evening to discuss new tactics.
Oliver was a burly seventeen year old, now in his seventh and final year at Hogwarts. There was a kind of desperation in his voice as he addressed his six fellow teammates in the chilly changing rooms on the edge of the darkening Quidditch Pitch,
'This is our last chance-- my last chance-- to win the Quidditch cup,' he told them, pacing up and down in front of them. 'I'll be leaving at the end of this year. I'll never get another shot at it. Gryffindor haven't won for seven years now. OK, so we;ve had the worst luck in the world; injuries, then the tournament getting called off last year...' Oliver swallowed as though the memory still brought a lump to his throat. Gwen, her teeth chattering, shifted guiltily in her seat next to Katie Bell.
