Chapter 4: - The Year's First Lessons
The next day however, Snape intercepted the Japanese transfer students on their way down to the Great Hall, "How dare you bring those dangerous creatures to Hogwarts!" He shouted, waving his hand towards the windows where the group could clearly see four of the five dragons chasing each other around, with Kuriboh and the Spellcasters watching, Blue Eyes was no where in sight, but it was probably around somewhere.
Yami had to wonder why Snape hadn't challenged Joey about the monsters last night. Snape growled as he looked out the window, he thought he'd been seeing things last night, but here in the morning daylight he could see the beasts clearly and he wasn't happy about them. Rebecca bounced down the stairs.
"Guys have you seen my Emerald Dragon?"
"One of those beasts are yours?" Snape snapped at her, Rebecca eeped and hid behind Yugi, "Do you have any idea how dangerous those things could be?" Snape had heard about the exploding fuzzball on the train, and wanted to know whose it was, so he could yell at them. "Dragons are not supposed be inside the grounds, they are dangerous and deadly creatures, not pets!"
"Is there a problem Severus?" Joey looked over to the stairs, where Professor Dumbledore was descending slowly.
"No problem Headmaster…"
"Amazing creatures, these dragons, aren't they?" Dumbledore said, "And so well tamed. I think they'll do a good job as guardians of the grounds, don't you think so, Severus?"
Snape opened and shut his mouth, looking oddly like a goldfish. "Guardians..?"
"Yes, well after last years events, I thought the school needed and bit more protection."
"But dragons, Sir?"
"I can assure you that they are very tame and will not attack anyone unless someone attacks a student first, I spoke to them myself."
"You spoke to them…" Snape looked at Professor Dumbledore as if he'd gone mad.
"Yes, all five of them proved most talkative, and so did our other guests."
The gang went pale, what had their monsters revealed, Dumbledore hadn't known everything about the items, only a few things, could their monsters have told Dumbledore everything?
"The other beasts? The fuzzball and the two 'Spellcasters' The fuzzball exploded and caused damage to the train!"
"I'm sorry about that sirs," Yugi said, stepping forward, "Kuriboh explodes on contact with the enemy, since he thought I was in danger, he tried to protect me."
"And the demon?" Yami knew immediately who he was talking about.
"Dark Necrofear." Yami said out loud. Snape stared at him and Yami shrugged.
"I believe it belongs to one of your students, Severus, after all it came on the train with a group of them." Dumbledore said, "And it has given his word that he will not endanger any Hogwarts student." Yami snorted, he didn't trust Bakura as far as he could throw him and he was going to treat the tomb-robber's monster the same way.
Snape noticed Yami's disbelief, "I doubt a demon will pay attention to promises."
"And I doubt Mr Malfoy want to be expelled." Dumbledore replied, "Yes, Severus, I am aware of the adoption of a new son into the Malfoy family. And Mr Bakura Malfoy will not want to be expelled." The group were distracted by shouting coming from the great hall, "Ah, I see someone has received a Howler." Dumbledore said, distracted by the noise.
"Howler?" Kari whispered to Ombre who shrugged in confusion. "You lot can go, should go, otherwise you'll have no breakfast."
They ran into the great hall, where a red envelope was… shouting at Ron? "Grandpa told me about those," Yugi said quietly, "It's called a Howler, it shouts the message it was supposed to give, normally used by angry parents to shout at a child from a far distance."
Professor McGonagall handed them their timetables as they ate quickly and quietly, the talking in the Great Hall slowly coming back as more people recovered from the shock of the Howler, Ron looked annoyed while Hermione was looking smug. Probably one of her I-told-you-so moods. Yugi looked at their timetable and saw they had double Herbology with the Hufflepuffs next, Ryou waved and Yugi smiled at him, Ryou had arrived in Diagon Alley a couple of days after them, having been away with his parents over the summer holidays.
The group got up and went to class, closely followed by Harry, Ron and Hermione. Yugi hung back to talk to Ryou about the summer, reaching the classroom as Professor Sprout bustled in. They rushed over to the group, which were stood around a table, in Greenhouse three, but were disturbed from their talking by Professor Lockheart. "Harry!" He called, "I've just been wanting a word! If you don't mind Professor Sprout…" Professor Sprout looked like she did mind and so did Harry, as he was escorted out of the greenhouse.
Joey looked at the others, "What do you think that was about?"
"Yesterday probably." Ron said thoughtfully.
"The car." Ombre laughed, "How could you hit a tree that hits back?"
"I told you, it was a Womping Willow, it hit the car back when he crashed into it." Ron growled, embarrassed at his driving. "At least I didn't throw up."
"Who threw up?"
"Me." Joey said ruefully, which caused the group to laugh as Harry rejoined their numbers.
"We'll be re-potting Mandrakes today. Now, who can tell me the properties of the Mandrake?" To no-one's surprise both Hermione and Kari's hands shot up. Kari smiled at Hermione and let her speak.
"Mandrake, or Mandragora, is a powerful restorive," Hermione said, sounding as though she'd swallowed the text book. "It is used to return people who have been transfigured or cursed, to their original state."
"Excellent, ten points to Gryffindor." Said the Professor, "The mandrake forms an essential part of most antidotes. It is also, however, dangerous. Who can tell me why?"
Again the two girl's hands shot up, Hermione narrowly missed Harry's glasses, this time Hermione conceded the floor to Kari, "The cry of the mandrake is fatal to anyone who hears it."
"Precisely, take another ten points to your house." Said the Professor, feeling as if Kari and Hermione were dancing around each other, trying to work out how much each other knew. "Now the mandrakes we have here are very young. Everyone take a pair of earmuffs…" She passed around a box of earmuffs, and Kari was last to take a pair, ending up with an embarrassing pink and fluffy pair. "When I tell you to put them on, make sure your ears are completely covered, when it is safe for you to take them off I will give you all a thumbs up. Right, earmuffs on."
The group snapped their earmuffs on over their ears. Kari was happy to see Professor Sprout put a fluffy pink pair over her own ears, before she rolled up her sleeves and grasped a tuffy plant firmly and pulled hard. Kari gasped, both audibly and mentally, "That is the ugliest baby I've ever seen."
'You're right.' Ombre replied.
Instead of roots, a small muddy and extremely ugly baby popped out of the earth. The leaves were growing right out of his head. He had pale green mottled green skin, and was clearly bawling at the top of his lungs.
Neville Longbottom fainted, and was caught by Joey before he hit the ground.
Professor Sprout took a large plant pot from under the table and plunged the mandrake into it, burying him in dark, damp compost until only tufted leaves were visible. Professor Sprout took her own earmuffs off and then gave them the thumbs up. "Looks like Longbottom forgot his earmuffs."
"No Professor, he just fainted." Joey replied, having managed to take his earmuffs off with one hand.
"Well put him down and grab a plant pot and start re-potting." Joey nodded and propped Neville up against a wall and went back over to the group of tables the group had practically taken over. Harry, Ron and Hermione talked to a Hufflepuff they knew by sight for a short while before they had to put on their earmuffs and get to work. Ryou worked with Joey and two friends from his own house, having found it easier to make friends since his yami had gotten a separate body.
They all dashed off afterwards for a wash, then headed for Professor McGonagall's Transfiguration class, "Miss Ironhide," Both Ombre and Kari stood up, "I mean Miss Kari Ironhide, can you please come with me, the rest of you get on with transfiguring your beetles into buttons."
'What have you done?' Ombre asked her hikari.
"Nothing."
'What does she want to see you about?'
"You'll see." Kari slammed the link shut and Ombre growled.
"What's wrong?" Joey asked, watching Harry and Ron have trouble with Ron's broken wand.
"She won't tell me." Ombre growled, poking her beetle with her wand and making it run off the table, Kari came back into the room, writing something on her timetable as she did so, the Professor followed her back into the classroom and provided Ombre and Ron, who'd squashed his bug with his elbow, with new beetles.
Ombre snatched Kari's timetable off of her, there was an extra transfiguration class at the end of each day, giving her lessons right up until tea time. "Why are you getting extra transfiguration classes?"
"Because." Kari said aggravatingly.
"But you're not failing this class; in fact you're doing better then Hermione." Ombre stated, "If you need extra lessons in anything it would be potions." Kari sighed and opened her end of the mind link.
"I'm going to be studying the more advanced transfiguration spells, and it's going to include the training to become an animagus. But I'm not supposed to tell anyone. She caught me reading up on the animagus spells in the Forbidden Section of the library last yeary. She said, 'I don't want to lose a valuable student just because they want to try something without training, hoping for sheer dumb luck.'"
'Fine, but you better not rope the rest of us into extra lessons.'
"I won't." Kari promised.
"Problems?" Joey asked, poking his beetle and managing to turn it into a beetle.
"No." Kari shook her head, the conversation was disturbed by Ron's wand letting off a volley of bangs like a firecracker.
Ron's temper wasn't improved when Hermione showed off a handful of buttons she'd made in transfiguration. "What have we got next?" Joey asked as they ate.
"Defence Against the Dark Arts." Hermione and Kari said immediately.
"Why?" Ron demanded, as he seized Hermione's timetable, "Have you outlined all of Lockheart's lessons with little hearts?" Hermione snatched her timetable back, blushing. Joey grabbed Kari's DADA book as she pulled it out of her bag.
"Mrs Kari Lockheart?" He asked, disgusted. Kari growled and punched Joey, snatching back her book in the process.
"I am old enough to get married you know, I'm nearly the same age as Professor Lockheart."
"He's at least 28! Almost ten years older then you!" Yugi said, a little too loudly, "He might even be even older, he wears a wig!"
"How do you know?" Kari snapped. Yugi squeaked and hid behind Yami. Yami sighed.
"We saw him chasing it when Kaiba's Blue Eyes took off near him and blew his wig off."
"I don't believe you." Hermione said, turning her attention to the door as Harry and Lockheart entered, Harry looked extremely harassed.
Lockheart introduced himself then gave out test papers to see how much of the books they had read. Yami looked at the questions in disgust.
What is Gilderoy Lockheart's favourite colour?
What is Gilderoy Lockheart's secret ambition?
And it continued in that stream for 54 questions. Yugi and Yami looked at each other and Joey rolled his eyes, while Kari and Hermione answered the questions quickly and easily.
Half an hour later, Lockheart collected in the papers and rifled through them in front of the class. "Tutt tutt, only one person answered all the questions correctly, Miss Hermione Granger?" Hermione stood up, "Ten points to Gryffindor!" Hermione smiled, "And Miss Kari Ironhide?" Kari stood up, "You had all bar three right, take another five points for Gryffindor."
Kari grinned, "Now be warned!" He started talking, Joey was interested inspit of himself as Lockheart was talking like he had something dangerous in the cage by his desk. "I must ask you not to scream, it might provoke them!" Lockheart whipped the cover off. "Yes!" He said dramatically, "Freshly caught Cornish pixies!"
Joey snorted, Red Eyes could have eaten a few of those for desert. Lockheart looked at him oddly, "Yes?"
"Sir, I'm sorry to tell you this, but my dragon's scarier then those things." Joey said, trying to keep a straight face.
"Really? Then you won't mind if I open the cage." Lockheart said cheerily and opened the door.
It was chaos, the pixies shot in every direction like bullets, Yami wasn't sure for a couple of seconds if someone hadn't used Multiply on the pixies as they'd exited the cage. "Come on now, round them up, round them up! They're only pixies…" Lockheart shouted. He drew his wand out from his sleeve, "Peskipeksi Pesernomi!"
The spell had no effect and the pixies seized Lockheart's wand and threw it out the window, at which point Joey burst out laughing, and Lockheart had to dive under the table to avoid getting hit by the falling chandelier, Lockheart didn't hear a crash and looked over the desk to where Kari's forehead was glowing with the millennium symbol and the chandelier was floating in midair. "Move!" She grunted, and he did quickly, letting her drop the chandelier onto the desk which broke. She toppled backwards and was caught by Ombre, as Lockheart dashed out of the room.
"I'll just let you deal with them then!" He said, Ombre looked around and saw the group were the last ones there.
"The Orb doesn't work on them." Kari whispered exhaustion thick in her voice, the symbol's glow died down.
"Can you believe him?" roared Ron, as one of the remaining pixies bit his ear.
"He just wants us to get some hands on experience." Said Hermione, pulling out her wand, "Immobulus!" She called, freezing the pixies in mid air and stuffing them back in their cages.
"Hand's on?" Harry said, grabbing a couple of pixies, "Hermione, he didn't know what he was doing."
"Rubbish," said Hermione, who supported Kari while Ombre grabbed the last of the pixies by climbing on the fallen chandelier, "You've read his books, look at the amazing things he's done."
"He says he's done!" Ron muttered.
Yami had to wonder why Snape hadn't challenged Joey about the monsters last night. Snape growled as he looked out the window, he thought he'd been seeing things last night, but here in the morning daylight he could see the beasts clearly and he wasn't happy about them. Rebecca bounced down the stairs.
"Guys have you seen my Emerald Dragon?"
"One of those beasts are yours?" Snape snapped at her, Rebecca eeped and hid behind Yugi, "Do you have any idea how dangerous those things could be?" Snape had heard about the exploding fuzzball on the train, and wanted to know whose it was, so he could yell at them. "Dragons are not supposed be inside the grounds, they are dangerous and deadly creatures, not pets!"
"Is there a problem Severus?" Joey looked over to the stairs, where Professor Dumbledore was descending slowly.
"No problem Headmaster…"
"Amazing creatures, these dragons, aren't they?" Dumbledore said, "And so well tamed. I think they'll do a good job as guardians of the grounds, don't you think so, Severus?"
Snape opened and shut his mouth, looking oddly like a goldfish. "Guardians..?"
"Yes, well after last years events, I thought the school needed and bit more protection."
"But dragons, Sir?"
"I can assure you that they are very tame and will not attack anyone unless someone attacks a student first, I spoke to them myself."
"You spoke to them…" Snape looked at Professor Dumbledore as if he'd gone mad.
"Yes, all five of them proved most talkative, and so did our other guests."
The gang went pale, what had their monsters revealed, Dumbledore hadn't known everything about the items, only a few things, could their monsters have told Dumbledore everything?
"The other beasts? The fuzzball and the two 'Spellcasters' The fuzzball exploded and caused damage to the train!"
"I'm sorry about that sirs," Yugi said, stepping forward, "Kuriboh explodes on contact with the enemy, since he thought I was in danger, he tried to protect me."
"And the demon?" Yami knew immediately who he was talking about.
"Dark Necrofear." Yami said out loud. Snape stared at him and Yami shrugged.
"I believe it belongs to one of your students, Severus, after all it came on the train with a group of them." Dumbledore said, "And it has given his word that he will not endanger any Hogwarts student." Yami snorted, he didn't trust Bakura as far as he could throw him and he was going to treat the tomb-robber's monster the same way.
Snape noticed Yami's disbelief, "I doubt a demon will pay attention to promises."
"And I doubt Mr Malfoy want to be expelled." Dumbledore replied, "Yes, Severus, I am aware of the adoption of a new son into the Malfoy family. And Mr Bakura Malfoy will not want to be expelled." The group were distracted by shouting coming from the great hall, "Ah, I see someone has received a Howler." Dumbledore said, distracted by the noise.
"Howler?" Kari whispered to Ombre who shrugged in confusion. "You lot can go, should go, otherwise you'll have no breakfast."
They ran into the great hall, where a red envelope was… shouting at Ron? "Grandpa told me about those," Yugi said quietly, "It's called a Howler, it shouts the message it was supposed to give, normally used by angry parents to shout at a child from a far distance."
Professor McGonagall handed them their timetables as they ate quickly and quietly, the talking in the Great Hall slowly coming back as more people recovered from the shock of the Howler, Ron looked annoyed while Hermione was looking smug. Probably one of her I-told-you-so moods. Yugi looked at their timetable and saw they had double Herbology with the Hufflepuffs next, Ryou waved and Yugi smiled at him, Ryou had arrived in Diagon Alley a couple of days after them, having been away with his parents over the summer holidays.
The group got up and went to class, closely followed by Harry, Ron and Hermione. Yugi hung back to talk to Ryou about the summer, reaching the classroom as Professor Sprout bustled in. They rushed over to the group, which were stood around a table, in Greenhouse three, but were disturbed from their talking by Professor Lockheart. "Harry!" He called, "I've just been wanting a word! If you don't mind Professor Sprout…" Professor Sprout looked like she did mind and so did Harry, as he was escorted out of the greenhouse.
Joey looked at the others, "What do you think that was about?"
"Yesterday probably." Ron said thoughtfully.
"The car." Ombre laughed, "How could you hit a tree that hits back?"
"I told you, it was a Womping Willow, it hit the car back when he crashed into it." Ron growled, embarrassed at his driving. "At least I didn't throw up."
"Who threw up?"
"Me." Joey said ruefully, which caused the group to laugh as Harry rejoined their numbers.
"We'll be re-potting Mandrakes today. Now, who can tell me the properties of the Mandrake?" To no-one's surprise both Hermione and Kari's hands shot up. Kari smiled at Hermione and let her speak.
"Mandrake, or Mandragora, is a powerful restorive," Hermione said, sounding as though she'd swallowed the text book. "It is used to return people who have been transfigured or cursed, to their original state."
"Excellent, ten points to Gryffindor." Said the Professor, "The mandrake forms an essential part of most antidotes. It is also, however, dangerous. Who can tell me why?"
Again the two girl's hands shot up, Hermione narrowly missed Harry's glasses, this time Hermione conceded the floor to Kari, "The cry of the mandrake is fatal to anyone who hears it."
"Precisely, take another ten points to your house." Said the Professor, feeling as if Kari and Hermione were dancing around each other, trying to work out how much each other knew. "Now the mandrakes we have here are very young. Everyone take a pair of earmuffs…" She passed around a box of earmuffs, and Kari was last to take a pair, ending up with an embarrassing pink and fluffy pair. "When I tell you to put them on, make sure your ears are completely covered, when it is safe for you to take them off I will give you all a thumbs up. Right, earmuffs on."
The group snapped their earmuffs on over their ears. Kari was happy to see Professor Sprout put a fluffy pink pair over her own ears, before she rolled up her sleeves and grasped a tuffy plant firmly and pulled hard. Kari gasped, both audibly and mentally, "That is the ugliest baby I've ever seen."
'You're right.' Ombre replied.
Instead of roots, a small muddy and extremely ugly baby popped out of the earth. The leaves were growing right out of his head. He had pale green mottled green skin, and was clearly bawling at the top of his lungs.
Neville Longbottom fainted, and was caught by Joey before he hit the ground.
Professor Sprout took a large plant pot from under the table and plunged the mandrake into it, burying him in dark, damp compost until only tufted leaves were visible. Professor Sprout took her own earmuffs off and then gave them the thumbs up. "Looks like Longbottom forgot his earmuffs."
"No Professor, he just fainted." Joey replied, having managed to take his earmuffs off with one hand.
"Well put him down and grab a plant pot and start re-potting." Joey nodded and propped Neville up against a wall and went back over to the group of tables the group had practically taken over. Harry, Ron and Hermione talked to a Hufflepuff they knew by sight for a short while before they had to put on their earmuffs and get to work. Ryou worked with Joey and two friends from his own house, having found it easier to make friends since his yami had gotten a separate body.
They all dashed off afterwards for a wash, then headed for Professor McGonagall's Transfiguration class, "Miss Ironhide," Both Ombre and Kari stood up, "I mean Miss Kari Ironhide, can you please come with me, the rest of you get on with transfiguring your beetles into buttons."
'What have you done?' Ombre asked her hikari.
"Nothing."
'What does she want to see you about?'
"You'll see." Kari slammed the link shut and Ombre growled.
"What's wrong?" Joey asked, watching Harry and Ron have trouble with Ron's broken wand.
"She won't tell me." Ombre growled, poking her beetle with her wand and making it run off the table, Kari came back into the room, writing something on her timetable as she did so, the Professor followed her back into the classroom and provided Ombre and Ron, who'd squashed his bug with his elbow, with new beetles.
Ombre snatched Kari's timetable off of her, there was an extra transfiguration class at the end of each day, giving her lessons right up until tea time. "Why are you getting extra transfiguration classes?"
"Because." Kari said aggravatingly.
"But you're not failing this class; in fact you're doing better then Hermione." Ombre stated, "If you need extra lessons in anything it would be potions." Kari sighed and opened her end of the mind link.
"I'm going to be studying the more advanced transfiguration spells, and it's going to include the training to become an animagus. But I'm not supposed to tell anyone. She caught me reading up on the animagus spells in the Forbidden Section of the library last yeary. She said, 'I don't want to lose a valuable student just because they want to try something without training, hoping for sheer dumb luck.'"
'Fine, but you better not rope the rest of us into extra lessons.'
"I won't." Kari promised.
"Problems?" Joey asked, poking his beetle and managing to turn it into a beetle.
"No." Kari shook her head, the conversation was disturbed by Ron's wand letting off a volley of bangs like a firecracker.
Ron's temper wasn't improved when Hermione showed off a handful of buttons she'd made in transfiguration. "What have we got next?" Joey asked as they ate.
"Defence Against the Dark Arts." Hermione and Kari said immediately.
"Why?" Ron demanded, as he seized Hermione's timetable, "Have you outlined all of Lockheart's lessons with little hearts?" Hermione snatched her timetable back, blushing. Joey grabbed Kari's DADA book as she pulled it out of her bag.
"Mrs Kari Lockheart?" He asked, disgusted. Kari growled and punched Joey, snatching back her book in the process.
"I am old enough to get married you know, I'm nearly the same age as Professor Lockheart."
"He's at least 28! Almost ten years older then you!" Yugi said, a little too loudly, "He might even be even older, he wears a wig!"
"How do you know?" Kari snapped. Yugi squeaked and hid behind Yami. Yami sighed.
"We saw him chasing it when Kaiba's Blue Eyes took off near him and blew his wig off."
"I don't believe you." Hermione said, turning her attention to the door as Harry and Lockheart entered, Harry looked extremely harassed.
Lockheart introduced himself then gave out test papers to see how much of the books they had read. Yami looked at the questions in disgust.
What is Gilderoy Lockheart's favourite colour?
What is Gilderoy Lockheart's secret ambition?
And it continued in that stream for 54 questions. Yugi and Yami looked at each other and Joey rolled his eyes, while Kari and Hermione answered the questions quickly and easily.
Half an hour later, Lockheart collected in the papers and rifled through them in front of the class. "Tutt tutt, only one person answered all the questions correctly, Miss Hermione Granger?" Hermione stood up, "Ten points to Gryffindor!" Hermione smiled, "And Miss Kari Ironhide?" Kari stood up, "You had all bar three right, take another five points for Gryffindor."
Kari grinned, "Now be warned!" He started talking, Joey was interested inspit of himself as Lockheart was talking like he had something dangerous in the cage by his desk. "I must ask you not to scream, it might provoke them!" Lockheart whipped the cover off. "Yes!" He said dramatically, "Freshly caught Cornish pixies!"
Joey snorted, Red Eyes could have eaten a few of those for desert. Lockheart looked at him oddly, "Yes?"
"Sir, I'm sorry to tell you this, but my dragon's scarier then those things." Joey said, trying to keep a straight face.
"Really? Then you won't mind if I open the cage." Lockheart said cheerily and opened the door.
It was chaos, the pixies shot in every direction like bullets, Yami wasn't sure for a couple of seconds if someone hadn't used Multiply on the pixies as they'd exited the cage. "Come on now, round them up, round them up! They're only pixies…" Lockheart shouted. He drew his wand out from his sleeve, "Peskipeksi Pesernomi!"
The spell had no effect and the pixies seized Lockheart's wand and threw it out the window, at which point Joey burst out laughing, and Lockheart had to dive under the table to avoid getting hit by the falling chandelier, Lockheart didn't hear a crash and looked over the desk to where Kari's forehead was glowing with the millennium symbol and the chandelier was floating in midair. "Move!" She grunted, and he did quickly, letting her drop the chandelier onto the desk which broke. She toppled backwards and was caught by Ombre, as Lockheart dashed out of the room.
"I'll just let you deal with them then!" He said, Ombre looked around and saw the group were the last ones there.
"The Orb doesn't work on them." Kari whispered exhaustion thick in her voice, the symbol's glow died down.
"Can you believe him?" roared Ron, as one of the remaining pixies bit his ear.
"He just wants us to get some hands on experience." Said Hermione, pulling out her wand, "Immobulus!" She called, freezing the pixies in mid air and stuffing them back in their cages.
"Hand's on?" Harry said, grabbing a couple of pixies, "Hermione, he didn't know what he was doing."
"Rubbish," said Hermione, who supported Kari while Ombre grabbed the last of the pixies by climbing on the fallen chandelier, "You've read his books, look at the amazing things he's done."
"He says he's done!" Ron muttered.