Hidden Wings - Part I

Professor Lockhart's dueling club

The news of Colin's petrification travelled like wildfire.

Students were ordered to move around at least in groups of three.

Erica got very quiet and often joined Jessamine, Harry, Ron and Hermione. She and Ginny got along very well, and Jessamine felt guilty for not spending much time with the young Gryffindor.
They formed an interesting group, even more so when Luna and Neville joined them.
Together, they felt safer since it was less likely to be attacked in a group of eight.

Jessamine had served her month's detention at Hagrid's and had discovered that she loved to assist him. So she had asked Hagrid to let her help him in the evenings.

Hagrid had been delighted and had firstly swept her up in a bear hug.

He showed her how to navigate in the Forbidden Forest and which creatures lived where, and what to expect when she would encounter them.

One of her favorite places was the glade where the unicorns loved to graze. Jessamine also often spent time with the centaurs, although some remained suspicious of her.

However, the centaurs loved Esma, she really helped to break the ice.

One evening, Jessamine saw a note hanging out in front of the Great Hall. It was a dueling club, set up by Professor Lockhart and Professor Snape.
Jessamine signed her name on the list, excited to see something else besides Harry having to play scenes out of Professor Lockhart's books.
Her friends signed too, except Erica and Ginny, who were too young.

On the first day of the dueling club, Professor Snape and Professor Lockhart had set up a stage in the Great Hall, around which the students gathered.

"Hello!", Professor Lockhart said enthusiastically and walked up onto the stage, waving his cloak theatrically.
"Welcome to the first session of my dueling club, I'm excited to see so many faces."

He waved at Professor Snape to join him on stage, who did so with a scowl on his face.

"My assistant, Professor Snape, and I will demonstrate a spell today, the Expelliarmus spell. It is a spell to disarm your opponent, very useful indeed. It certainly came in handy when I was facing the Witch of Norway."

He laughed, although no one joined it.
Clearing his throat, Professor Lockhart turned to Professor Snape, a boastful smile on his face.

He and Professor Snape took a certain stance, before walking away from each other and turning around.

Faster than anyone could have anticipated, a red light shot out of Professor Snape's wand and hit Professor Lockhart straight in the chest.
The blonde wized was catapulted backwards a few meters before landing onto the ground with a thud, his wand clattering down next to him.

Esma snickered into Jessamine's ear.

"Very good", Professor Lockhart laughed awkwardly and jumped up, brushing dust off his colorful robes.
"Of course, I let Professor Snape disarm me since the point was to demonstrate the spell."

Professor Snape raised an eyebrow.

"Now, everyone pair up", Professor Lockhart instructed, "and take the stance you have seen me and Professor Snape do."

Jesamine looked around unsurely, before pairing up with Hermione.

"You might want to leave my shoulder", Jessamine whispered to Esma, who chirped as an answer and fluttered off to land on a sculpture on the wall.

Hermione got the hang of the spell very quickly, flicking her wand and disarming Jessamine.

Jessamine, since there were many people around, used her wand, which didn't go very well.
Instead of disarming Hermione, the spell kept catapulting her own wand out of her hand.

"Are you a squib too?", Draco laughed haughtily into her ear, and easily disarmed Blaise Zabini.

Jessamine ignored him and kept on trying, even though she and Hermione knew it was hopeless.

Professor Lockhart winked at her secretively as he passed by and said: "Maybe it will work later, right Ms. Lince?"

Jessamine nodded with a tight smile, gripping her want more firmly. She just wanted to smack him.

Professor Snape passed around the students too, commenting (rather harshly) on Neville's wand work and
(as always) scorning at Harry. When he passed Jessamine and Hermione, he sneered: "Poor wand work, Ms. Lince", before continuing his route.
He sure had no trouble keeping up the pretense.

"Now", Professor Lockheart raised his cheerful voice, "we need a pair to demonstrate the spell."

He looked at Harry.

"Mr. Weasley, Mr. Potter", he said brightly.

"Mr. Weasley's wand does damage faster than one can prevent it", Professor Snape drawled and Ron's ears turned red.

"However, I suggest Mr. Potter and Mr. Malfoy."

That can't go well, Jessamine thought as she watched Draco and Harry walk up the stage.

Neither of them was sticking to the disarming spell.

Harry's feet couldn't stop dancing due to Draco's jinx and Draco couldn't stop laughing because of Harry's tickling charm.
But when Draco cast the Serpensortia spell, that took it to another level.

A large snake shot out of his wand, slithering across the stage while hissing furiously.
At some point, it recoiled around itself and started leaning towards Justin Finch-Fletchley.
The Hufflepuff leaned back nervously, as did everyone around him.

Suddenly, Harry started to hiss at the snake. It sounded like he was speaking in sone kind of snake language, and Jessamine realized with a shock, he was speaking Parsel.

'What do you mean I was hissing?", Harry said and scrunched up his face in a confused way.
"I was just yelling at it to get away from Justin."

"No mate", said Ron in a calming tone and put a hand on Harry's shoulder.
"You were hissing and all that, it looked like you were setting the snake up against Justin."

Harry went pale.

"You spoke Parsel, Harry", Jessamine added quietly and traded a worried look with Hermione.

"Jessamine and I have been looking in the library for snake-like creatures", Hermione explained and Ron sighed defeatedly at the word library.

"You mean because nobody else heard the voice?", Harry asked and pushed up his glasses.

The girls nodded.

"But none we found can petrifiy, so we're kind of stuck", Jessamine sighed.

"How do we know it's a creature?", Ron asked abruptly, "couldn't it be somebody who speaks Parsel?"

Everyone fell silent.

"Great", said Harry bitterly, "doesn't that make me the number one suspect?"

"Don't worry, Harry", Jessamine tried to comfort him.
"Just stick with us and you'll have a fool-proof alibi if somebody gets petrified again."