The Stand

Quidditch Tryouts

A old, frail bird swooped down from the sky, heading for the Gryffindor table with a smoking red letter. It stopped right in front of one Ron Weasley. Fred and George, seeing this, starting laughing "Even we haven't gotten a howler yet!"

Afraid, Ron opened the letter, preparing for the worst. "RONALD WEASLEY" the howler screamed "HOW DARE YOU DO THIS! HOW DARE YOU ACT SO IMMATURE! WHEN YOU RETURN YOU ARE GROUNDED! YOU GOT YOUR FATHER PUT ON PROBATION AND RUINED YOUR SISTER'S SORTING! WE ARE SO ASHAMED!"

With that, the letter burnt in Ron's hand and the next part of his humiliation began: the laughter. The entire hall, including his house, began laughing at Ron except for Ginny who was a bit embarrassed herself.

Gilderoy Lockhart was slowly moving up Harry's enemy list.

It started when he and Rishi met this Gryffindor first-year named Colin Creevy while heading to DADA. Creevy, who was a muggleborn, asked for a picture with Harry. Harry said no. Creevy asked again. Harry said no. Creevy asked one more time. Before Harry said no, Lockhart came in and volunteered to take a picture with him. Harry then said no and left with Rishi. At the moment, Harry was under the impression that this meeting would be the low point of the day. Then he had Defense.

Lockhart gave them a quiz. All the questions were about himself. To Harry, it was the dumbest quiz ever. Hermione was feverishly answering every question. Rishi, who swore never to read the books and only bought with the plan to sell them as soon as he could, was goofing off on the quiz. Harry decided to answer all the questions which actually were relevant and not answering those which were stupid.

Afterwards, Lockhart began admonishing them for not knowing information such as his favorite color and how many times he was in Witch Weekly. He then revealed a cage of pixies which were for a practical demonstration. He released them while Harry watched, happy that they were actually doing something useful.

Lockhart, instead of demonstrating, chose to release all the pixies at once who began terrorizing the classroom. Lockhart, when he saw this, ran away. The Ravenclaws and Slytherins, who had DADA together, decided to leave the room and let Lockhart handle it. It wasn't exactly their problem. Hermione wanted to stay but when she heard that they might be late, agreed to come. But not before getting some revenge on their afriad professor.

Draco, Harry, Rishi, Daphne and Draco's friend Blaise froze each of the pixies in place while all the students left. When everyone was out, they let the pixies move again and wreck havoc on the classroom.

The coming weeks proved 2 things. That Lockhart was consistent with his inability to teach and that Colin was consistent.

Lockhart had decided on teaching the students using his books. He would act out scenes from his book, frequently having Harry help him in acting them out. DADA was starting to become less popular than History of Magic. The one bright spot was when Rishi broke Lockhart.

FLASHBACK

"Professor" Rishi raised his hand "I have a question pertaining to the books."

"Ah" Lockhart replied "Is it about my fight with the Yeti. Because let me assure you that..."

"It's not" Rishi cut him off "I looked at Travels with Trolls and it said that you fought the troll on 3/20. Is that correct?"

"Yes, that's true. I don't see what..."

"In Break With a Banshee, you say that you also fight the banshee on 3/20 of the same year. And they are in completely different locations. How is this possible, sir?" Rishi asked with mock-politeness that Lockhart didn't seem to pick up.