Damaged Raven

chapter 15

"Ah, thank you Professor Flitwick" Lockhart said as he stood up and picked up his wand, he walked with that annoying smile "thank you for demonstrating but I think it was rather obvious what you were doing and all too easy to stop you if I had wanted to"

"Well why don't we do it again and you can stop me this time?" Flitwick suggested with a small yet challenging time

"W...well, maybe later, we don't have much time as of the moment" Lockhart said before turning to the students "now pair up and begin practising"

"Where are you going?" Harry said as he grabbed Delphi who tried to walk away

"W...well I was hoping to practise with someone else" Delphi admitted

"Why?" Harry asked with a knowing look

"Well, other than the fact that I don't fancy getting blasted across the room, I think it'd be good for you to interact with other people."

"I talk to you, Shadow, Fay and two Slytherin girls, how is that not enough?"

"Just try Harry" Delphi sighed

"Fine" Harry sighed back before he slapped her on the back of the head and walked off

"And stop hitting me" She called after him

"No" He said absently without looking at her, his focus was on trying to find someone to partner with, Delphi had partnered up with Fay while Daphne and Tracy partnered up together, the Slytherin's were too scared to even look at him and he was soon going to find himself without a partner. Damn social interactions.

"Don't have a partner yet" A familiar voice said

"Not of yet Granger" Harry bit back a groan

"You can partner with me then"

"If I must" Harry sighed as he turned to face Granger who looked quite confident, he and Granger took out their wands "alright, you go first then"

"Fine" She said with a small smile "expelliarmus" A smaller beam than Flitwick's flew out her wand and hit Harry's hand, causing the wand to drop out of his hand "Not bad if I do say so myself"

"Meh" Harry shrugged as he picked up his wand

"What do you mean meh?!" Hermione demanded

"Could be better, it was alright, that type of stuff" Harry answered as he returned to his position

"I'd like to see you do better" Hermione said in a challenging voice

"Careful what you wish for" Harry said before sending the spell at Hermione, non-verbally, the spell hit her and she went flying backwards as her wand went flying out of her hand. And into Harry's hand, he looks up to realise that he had accidently sent Granger right into Millicent Bulstrode, Millicent looked at him, almost pleading for permission.

Harry, being the responsible and kind person that he was, nodded and conjured a chair for himself to sit in. No sooner than the second before his bum had landed on the chair, Bulstrode and Granger began fighting. Well...it was more Millicent pulling Granger into a head lock and trying to rip out her hair. This had somehow sparked the other Gryffindor's and Slytherin's to fight with each other, Harry saw Ron and Draco get in a few good hits on each other.

Harry barely noticed when Delphi appeared by his side with Tracy and Daphne behind her.

"Huh" Delphi let out a long sigh "next time I'll be your damn partner"

"If it leads to chaos like this then you are bloody forgiven" Harry grinned as he watched

Harry bit his tongue to stop the string of swear words he wanted to unleash, it was Valentines day, not a day that Harry really cared for. But someone, someone with an annoying smile and more make up than all the seventh years, decided that it would be fun to dress up the castle and just generally make everything pick. Harry barely liked the castle as it is but now Lockhart had made it worse somehow.

The prat had also hired some little dwarfs to sing out songs for people. A few people had been thoroughly embarrassed by the songs, boys and girls alike. One even tried to approach Harry at lunch.

"Oi" The dwarf called as he walked towards Harry " 'Arry Potter'"

Harry just ignored him and walked off, he had no interest in listening to people or dwarfs sing. Especially with voices as horrible as their own, it was bad enough that he had to endure Delphi. He also wondered who had sent him a valentines card, he knew it wasn't Delphi, Fay, Tracy or Daphne. He remembered threatening to burn their hair off if they did and they seemed to like their hair so that crossed them off the list. He briefly wondered if Fleur had sent one for him, but he doubted that she even liked him like that. Even if she did, which he doubted, she always sends all of her letters with Shadow and she doesn't even know that Lockhart set this up. In fact she doesn't even know Lockhart.

'Lucky girl' He thought with a lot of jealousy

Now that he thought about it, it was probably the youngest Weasley. He knew she was one of the many fan girls who were beginning to realise that he was no story book hero. If he had to guess, this was probably a last ditch effort to see if it works.

"Oi! Stop!" The dwarf chased after him and Harry's limited patience was running out "Potter! I said stop you little brat! Stop right now or..."

The dwarf got his wish when Harry did stop, his foot slammed on the ground and a curtain of wind rose up around him. He slowly turned around and eyed the dwarf with a deadly stare, his green eyes blazing with his hair swaying in the rather violent wind around him. If this was an anime then the background would've turned red and jagged lines would appear around him.

"Do...you...need something?" Harry asked in a deadly voice that sent shivers up the spines of any nearby Slytherin's, the dwarf suddenly looked very scared and realised that it was perhaps not the best idea

"W...well...I...you have a valentine" The dwarf stuttered as he took a few steps back

"Do you happen to have a death wish to go along with that valentine?" Harry's voice was unnervingly calm

"N...no, not really"

"Then turn around, walk away and move to our next customer because if you approach me again then I will rip your heart out and feed it to my raven before I go around and kill your dwarf brethren and use their bodies for rituals and spell experimentation. Do we have an understanding?"

Harry never got his answer as the dwarf ran off, though he guessed that the answer was yes. His attention was then brought to the sound of clapping, he turned to see Fay, Tracy, Daphne and Delphi clapping at him.

"Nicely done" Daphne said "very terrifying"

"Yeah well..." Harry was about to respond when Shadow flew towards him and handed him a letter "thanks boy" Harry said as he opened the envelope and read it.

"What is it?" Delphi asked

"Fleur is wishing me a happy valentines day" Harry answered as he read over the card

"Oh, that's so adorable!" Delphi squealed "Is that why you didn't want any cards? Reserving yourself for Fleur?"

"Shadow attack" Harry commanded and Shadow launched at Delphi and began pecking her head while Harry took out some parchment and wrote his reply. Once Shadow was done assaulting Delphi, Harry handed it to him and he took off.

A little while later, in Beuaxbaton academy a girl cried into her pillow with joy as she read the response that Harry had given her.