Hope - George Potter

16 - Defense Against the Dark Arts

George got seated next to Henry in the last row, as far away as possible from Ada Green.

"Thank you so much for standing up for me," George said to him. Henry looked at him strangely. "It's no big deal. I only told her what she needed to be told."

Their teacher had started talking, so they turned their attention to the front. He was quite young; didn't look much older than the seventh years. He was probably around twenty-five years old. It was apparently quite easy to become a teacher in the wizarding world, as he looked like he had still been at school a couple of years ago.

He spread his arms in a welcoming gesture. "Hello. I'm Ben Buckles, your Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. This is my first year of teaching, so this is all new to me as well." He seemed slightly nervous. This was his first day after all. "I went to Castelobruxo, a wizarding school in South America but I have many relatives in Great Britain, so I decided to move here." He cleared his throat. "Now that I have introduced myself, I want you to do the same to get to know you. Just tell us something about yourself. What's your name? Where do you come from? What do you like to do in your free time? That sort of stuff. You can start," he said, ponting to Beatrice Barbeaux, the Slytherin girl in the first row. George was curious as he had only really talked to Henry so far.

"My name is Beatrice Barbeaux," the girl said in an arrogant tone. She stressed her last name as though it made her special. "I am a pureblood - obviously," she laughed, "and my parents moved from Marseille to London when I was young, as my father got a very good job at the ministry. We still spend most of our holidays in France where my extended family lives." She didn't say anything about her hobbies and George wondered what sort of hobbies children in the wizarding world had. So far, he had the impression that they all played Quidditch and that was basically it. But there had to be other things.

Next up was a small girl who was sitting next to Beatrice. "Hi, I'm Andromeda Greengrass. I am a pureblood and live on the countryside in Wales with my parents and my two younger sisters Daphne and Astoria. I love riding on my hippogriff in my free time."

"She has her own hippogriff?!" Henry whispered, "that's so cool!" George wanted to ask him what exactly a hippogriff was, but he decided to postpone that question and just wrote the word down on his parchment, as the next person had started talking and he didn't want to miss anything.

"I'm Percival Goyle." Again, this arrogant stressing of the last name. Having the right last name seemed to be important in the wizarding world. "In my free time I like to play the paramboke." What was a paramboke? Some kind of magical instrument? "I'm a pureblood and I have a little brother, Gregory, and a little sister named Selina. She's only three years old." Why did they all find it so important to mention their blood status? George didn't even know what his blood status was. What different kinds were there? Obviously there were the purebloods, but what about the others? And what blood status did George have? Was he a pureblood as well or was he something else? He had been raised by muggles after all.

The next one was Ada. She seemed to be a bit nervous at first, which George found surprising, but soon enough, there was that arrogant expression again. "I'm Ada Green and I live in Ireland." She stopped talking. Was that it? No mention about how much of a pureblood she was? No stressing of her last name? Strange.

Marietta Edgecombe liked reading, but that was apparently everything she did. The more she talked, the more boring she became in George's eyes. She took herself so serious that she just didn't seem to be able to stop talking. George had never heard anyone talk about how boring they were for such a long time. It was a talent, really. George looked over to Henry who imitated snoring. He seemed to be just as bored as George. They looked at each other and snickered.

"Hi. I'm Cho Chang," the next girl introduced herself, "I live in London with my parents. My mother went to Hogwarts and my father to Mahoutokoro, the wizarding school in Japan." George wrote down Mahoutokoro on his parchment. Another thing he wanted to look up later. "I like reading and playing Quidditch."

Slowly but surely it was starting to get boring. Why did everyone like either playing Quidditch or reading? Was there nothing else to do in the wizarding world?

Abraxas and Druella Fawley liked playing Quidditch and reading, respectively. Surprise, surprise! Next up was Merlin Rookwood. He liked to play bucklehom, whatever that was. Maybe it was some kind of sport in the wizarding world.

Bellatrix Stowel, a Ravenclaw in George's year, was a muggleborn and liked to do karate, rowing and playing the clarinet. Most of the other pupils looked at her completely astounded. They probably had no idea what those words meant and were surprised that she did so much in her free time. Yes, those were the perks of living in the muggle world: you definitely had more activities to choose from.

Rosabelle Ollivander, another girl in Ravenclaw, was sure to mention she was a pureblood and that she came from the ancient family Ollivander. She had lived in Norway until two years ago and had actually wanted to go to school there, to Durmstrang Institute, but since she now lived in Great Britain, she went to Hogwarts instead. She liked to ... read. Wow, what an exciting activity.

It was nearly George's turn, but first Henry had to introduce himself. "I'm Henry Shacklebolt and I live in Godric's Hollow." Why did everyone seem to know where Godric's Hollow was when George had never heard about it? Was it a wizarding city or village? "I have an older brother and an older sister, but they left Hogwarts already. I like drawing and playing Quidditch."

George was nervous. What would he say? Should he say anything about his aunt and uncle or should he just do it like Ada and not reveal anything about his life at home? The others looked at him curiously. They all probably wanted to get some insight into Harry Potter's life. They were surely not that interested to hear anything about George Potter.

"Hi, I'm George Potter. I live near London at my aunt's and uncle's house, who are muggles. I have a younger brother as you all probably know. At school, I like maths and french. I love playing the piano, but I never got any lessons, so I'm still pretty bad at it." Did he do anything else? Not really. He didn't have all too much leisure time, and there wasn't much he could do in that small room in the cellar.

"What is a piano?" Henry asked him confusedly.

"It's a muggle instrument. There are piano keys that you can press and when you do that, there comes a sound out of the instrument." How do you explain a piano to a person who has never seen or heard it before? Henry looked just as confused as before, if not even more, after George's explanation. "Maybe I can show it to you sometime, but I don't think this school has any pianos standing around," I added.

Their teacher had started talking again, "Well, you sound like quite an interesting class. The teachers already talked about some of you in the staff room. Now we should probably get started with the lesson. Defense Against the Dark Arts will teach you, as the name already says, how to defend yourself against dark magic."

"That's so strange. At muggle school nobody would even think about offering a class for defense and even less about making it a compulsory class. The wizarding world is weird," George whispered to Henry.

"Well, the wizarding world is probably a lot more dangerous than the muggle world."

They didn't do much more in their first defense lesson. Professor Buckles only told them what they would generally be learning in their first year. When they were walking out of the classroom, he told George to stay behind.

George and Henry exchanged a wary glance before Henry left with the others. Professor Buckles turned to George and said in a friendly tone, "You said you liked to play the piano but never got any lessons." George nodded. "I could teach you if you want to. I learned to play it quite early on. My mother was a pianist and she taught me. I would just have to ask Professor Dumbledore if there is a piano here at school."

"That would be great! Thank you so much!" George said happily. "But I have to warn you: I didn't joke when I said I was bad at it."

"Everyone is bad at something when they haven't even really started doing it. You just have to really try in order to improve."