Reflections - Mattheo Riddle

Defence Against the Dark Arts

"Well, I had one that I was playing Quidditch the other night," said Jasper, screwing up his face in an effort to remember. "What d'you reckon that means?"

"Probably that you're going to be eaten by a giant marshmallow or something," said Kirra, turning the pages of The Dream Oracle without interest, her mind solely on Alexandra Barnes who could possibly be related to her... she began to wonder if maybe she shouldn't hang out with her, keep her as far away from all of this a possible. 

It was very dull work looking up bits of dreams in the Oracle and Kirra was not cheered up when Professor Trelawney set them the task of keeping a dream diary for a month as homework. When the bell went, she and Jasper led the way back down the ladder, the others following after them, Jasper grumbling loudly.

"D'you realize how much homework we've got already? Binns set us a foot-and-a-half-long essay on giant wars, Snape wants a foot on the use of moonstones, and now we've got a month's dream diary from Trelawney! Merlin I feel like im drowning in this shit, they dont really expect us to do it all do they? That Umbridge woman had better not give us any. . . ."

When they entered the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom they found Professor Umbridge already seated at the teacher's desk, wearing the fluffy pink cardigan of the night before and the black velvet bow on top of her head. Kirra was again reminded forcibly of a large fly perched unwisely on top of an even larger toad.

The class was quiet as it entered the room; Professor Umbridge was, as yet, an unknown quantity and nobody knew yet how strict a disciplinarian she was likely to be. Mattheo tried to get the seat next to Kirra before Jasper could, shoving the poor boy out of the way as he did so. 

Jasper opened his mouth to argue but Theodore just rolled his eyes, grabbing his cousins sleeve and pulling him into the seat next to him, behind Kirra and Mattheo. "You didnt need to do that," Kirra said, shooting Jasper a 'sorry' look before glaring at Mattheo

Mattheo just shrugged, rolling his eyes, "He sat next to you in our last class, it's my turn now."

"You can't just shove him out of the way-" Kirra began to argue but the look on Mattheo's face showed that he couldnt care less. 

"Well, good afternoon!" Umbridge said when finally the whole class had sat down.

A few people mumbled "Good afternoon," in reply, Kirra however was too busy glaring at her boyfriend, and said boyfriend was too busy trying not to laugh at how cute she looked when she got mad. 

"Tut, tut," said Professor Umbridge. "That won't do, now, will it? I should like you, please, to reply 'Good afternoon, Professor Umbridge.' One more time, please. Good afternoon, class!"

"Good afternoon, Professor Umbridge," they chanted back at her.

"There, now," said Professor Umbridge sweetly. "That wasn't too difficult, was it? Wands away and quills out, please."

Many of the class exchanged gloomy looks; the order "wands away" had never yet been followed by a lesson they had found interesting. Kirra turned over her shoulder to give Theodore a questionable look, he shrugged his shoulder, placing his wand on the desk and then pulling his materials out. Kirra turned back to face the front, shoved her wand back inside her bag and pulled out quill, ink, and parchment. 

"Who starts a DADA class with no fucking wand," Mattheo scoffed under his breath, letting out an annoyed huff as he pulled his materials out of his bag and shoved his wand into his pocket. Professor Umbridge opened her handbag, extracted her own wand, which was an unusually short one, and tapped the blackboard sharply with it; words appeared on the board at once: