'Forever.'

5

"Oh, are you sure you're able to come to lessons, Draco?" Pansy asked.

"Yes, it hurts awfully, but I have to be brave about it ," he answered, grimacing as he said it as if it hurt him to talk.

Malfoy sat down on a table in front of us. He had a cast on and was enjoying himself as people asked to sign his cast and know what had happened.

Luckily, before Malfoy could be any more annoying, Professor Lupin walked in. I looked at him and he did not have the usual lesson planning sheets that the teachers usually had on them.

"You can put your books away. You will only require your wand this lesson."

I happily put away my books. I had flipped through them before and I did not fancy reading them for the entire lesson.

"Good. Now, please follow me."

Malfoy groaned loudly and got up slowly, wincing every now and then. Professor Lupin did not seem to notice, or maybe he did but just chose to ignore it, and began to lead us somewhere.

"Where do you reckon we're going?" I muttered.

"I don't know but it is quite exciting ," Daphne answered.

Professor Lupin appeared to be bringing us to the staff room. Peeves was floating in front of us all, blocking the entrance to it. He began to taunt Professor Lupin, who I was watching closely for his reaction.

"Pay attention closely to the spell I am about to use ," he said calmly, taking his wand out at Peeves, "Waddiwasi!"

The piece of gum Peeves had put in the door hole shot out quickly straight at him. Peeves cursed at Lupin as he quickly left.

"Cool, sir!" Dean said.

Professor Lupin smiled as he opened the door. We all entered to see Snape sitting on a chair, twirling his wand in his hand. He did not look disturbed by the huge huddle of students that had entered the staffroom, but simply smiled coldly.

"Hello Professor Snape ," Professor Lupin said cheerfully, "I thought I would let my third years' try to defeat the Boggart in that cupboard. I hope you don't mind us being here."

"Certainly not," Professor Snape answered briskly, "I shall leave you to it then. Although I must warn you, Professor, that Longbottom here is beyond any of our help we can provide. I would suggest you do not try too hard where he is concerned."

I looked at Neville quickly. He had gone a bit pale and looked very embarrassed. I had never liked Snape, but it was at that moment when I knew I disliked him.

"On the contrary, I was rather hoping Neville could help me out on a demonstration later in the lesson ," Professor Lupin said.

Poor Neville looked even more scared at this, muttering something under his own breath. Snape scoffed and left the room immediately. But I wasn't paying attention to Snape. I watched as Neville's gaze moved away from the hem of his robe that he was picking at and onto an old wardrobe. It looked completely normal, just a boring old wardrobe that was probably used to hang coats or something. That was, if it wasn't shaking violently right now.

By now, most people had noticed and I noticed a couple people closer to the front back away slightly. We had all been trained to do magic and protect ourselves, but how in Merlin were we meant to protect ourselves against a weird wardrobe?

"Don't worry, that's just a boggart ," Professor Lupin explained calmly, "Boggarts like dark, enclosed spaces. Wardrobes, the gap beneath beds, the cupboards under sinks—I've even met one that had lodged itself in a grandfather clock. This one moved in yesterday afternoon, and I asked the headmaster if the staff would leave it to give my third years some practice.

I looked over at Daphne and Mary, who both looked pretty confused, but excited nonetheless.

"Now, does anyone know what a boggart is?" Professor Lupin continued.

A girl near the front, Hermione, shot her hand up. She was said to be the smartest girl in the entire year.

"It's a shape-shifter, professor ," she said, "It takes the shape of whatever it thinks will frighten us the most."

Professor Lupin nodded approvingly and gave Hermione a smile. I turned to Daphne, who had a weird look on her face. 

"So the boggart sitting in the darkness within has not yet assumed a form. He does not yet know what will frighten the person on the other side of the door. Nobody knows what a boggart looks like when he is alone, but when I let him out, he will immediately become whatever each of us most fears."

"This means," said Professor Lupin, "that we have a huge advantage over the boggart before we begin. Have you spotted it, Harry?"

"Er - because there are so many of us, it won't know what shape it should be?" Harry said awkwardly.

I heard Malfoy scoff loudly behind me. Like, quite literally. He was right behind me.

"Such wise words from the Chosen One," he said, before lowering his voice a little, "Of course Lupin gave him the easiest answer."

Even though I agreed slightly with this statement, I could barely hear anything over Malfoy's stupid voice, so I stepped back slightly and trod on his feet. Hard.

My lips twitched when I heard a sudden yelp behind me and some cursing. Served him right.

"-tried to frighten two people at once and turned himself into half a slug. Not remotely frightening."

Who said that half a slug isn't scary? That might just be the most repulsing thing I've heard of.

"The charm that repels a boggart is simple, yet it requires force of mind. You see, the thing that really finishes a boggart is laughter. What you need to do is force it to assume a shape that you find amusing. We will practice without wands first. After me, please... riddikulus!"

"Riddikulus!" everyone said together.

"This class is ridiculous," Malfoy said. I tried to hold back my laugh, because I wasn't about to boost his ego by letting him know his joke was actually funny. Instead, I resorted in turning around to glare at him.

"Well, I know what my boggart would be," Malfoy snickered to his two minions, "Have you seen anything more hideous than that?"

He pointed at me rudely. I resisted the urge to grab his finger and break it. Considering I was in the staff room of Hogwarts, not the best idea.

"That is, if it didn't turn out to be a 'not dangerous' Hippogriff ," I retorted, before mimicking him, "It's killed meh! It's killed meh!"

I turned around in satisfaction as I saw Malfoy's smile fade to anger. That boy needed humbling.

Hi guys! Hope you enjoyed everything so far! Just wanted to let you know updates may be slow since I'm very busy with school. I've also lost a bit motivation and grown out of Harry Potter a little bit. I still love the fandom, but I've read lots of other genres and styles over this period of time and honestly just want to try more things! Would you guys like me to write something that's less of a fanfiction and more of an original work?