𝐕𝐈𝐕𝐀𝐂𝐈𝐎𝐔𝐒 - the wizarding world

IV. NOSTALGIA IS A BITCH

IV. NOSTALGIA IS A BITCH
_________

Excitement and fear for the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor spread quickly across Hogwarts, as it turned out Professor Moody was teaching the same lesson to all years, from third and above.

Weekend came quickly, and the weather had worsened steadily as time moved further into September with clouds blocking the warm sun, and rain being a daily occurrence.

But weekend also meant that the sixth years could finally take the sixteen-week apparition course offered by the Ministry. It cost twelve galleons, but Ivy had been saving up all the money she made working in her dad's gift shop, and had rounded op a whopping thirty-one galleons, which left her nineteen to boot.

Ivy, however Gryffindor-ish she was, hadn't yet the courage to write her dad. And she could not, for the life of her, get a grip on why. But, she suspected that her subconscious was somehow telling her that her apparent likeliness to Harry Potter's mother, was no coincidence.

Ivy wanted to write him, to tell him about her first classes and how she'd made friends with two mischievous twins, and also promise him she would not get expelled again, still she could make no promises on detention.

Ivy was conflicted, at a cross-roads. If she did write, she'd ask about Lily Potter, but if she didn't, she would have no one to talk to about the thoughts swirling inside her mind. Ivy had made friends; Fred and George, and the boy on the Hogwarts' Express, yet she still hadn't spoken to Cedric since then. But she had only known the boys for a few weeks, and they seemed always so occupied with their humongous family, that Ivy didn't want to bother them.

The girls in her dorm, Angelina and Katie, were depressed most days since their other roommate wasn't there, and they couldn't play quidditch, since the arena was closed. Ivy could write Henri, but writing wasn't the same as talking and laughing with him.

Ivy decided to simply wait, wait until her brain came up with a solution. And that solution came on an ordinary Saturday. Not much ordinary, since the apparition class was at eleven in the morning.

Fred, George, Angelina, Katie, Ivy, and the whole Gryffindor sixth year gang, made their way in a horde of red and gold to the Great Hall, where students from all houses were already waiting.

To Ivy's delight, she spotted a certain golden haired Hufflepuff boy chatting with a gang of other Hufflepuffs. Shaking away her fear of badgers, Ivy smiled a toothy grin and approached them.

Cedric spotted her immediately and waved. "Ivy!" he exclaimed and nodded goodbye to his friends.

"Hey, Cedric. Been awhile," Ivy greeted.

"Oi, when you beat a guy in wizard's chess, he tends to be sore for a day or two," he said.

"We'll just have to work on your strategic skills, then. There's a reason you're not in Ravenclaw."

Cedric was about to reply, no doubt with a jab at Ivy's mediocre skills in chess, when the large door to the Hall opened wide and in walked a tall man.

He was slender, almost to a bony level, and his skin was sickly pale, on his head grew a miserable few wisps of cream-coloured hair he had tried to comb over. His cheeks were wrinkly and hanging, and his eyes were a dull mix of greyish blue and muddy green. His dark blue cloak billowed behind him as he took to the raised platform at the end of the Hall.

"Welcome, students!" he said, his frail voice barely carrying across the hall. "My name is Wilkie Twycross, I'm the apparition instructor at the Ministry of Magic, and your teacher for the coming sixteen weeks."