A new home (Part 2 Of The Leonora Grace Series)

Chapter 8

A/N Hello everyone, this is amazing fanart I found on tumblr. Their blog is https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/myselfsquared. Check it out, they have amazing art!

Nate, Draco and I sat in the back of the class when other students started trickling in. Professor Lockhart came in last, smiling far too brightly.

He reached forward, passing Neville's desk and grabbed his copy of Travels with Trolls. 'Me.' He said, pointing at it and winking as well. "Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defense League, and five-time winner of Witch Weekly's Most Charming-Smile Award - but I don't talk about that. I didn't get rid of the Bandon Banshee by smiling at her!"

He waited for people to laugh, but only a few smiled weakly.

'Right.' He clasped his hands together. 'I thought we'd start with some hands-on experience.' He reached behind his desk and lifted a large, covered cage on it. 'Be warned, it is my job to defend you and teach yourselves to defend yourselves from these foul little creatures.'

I leaned a little bit closer, this lesson might get interesting after all. After the entire class stopped talking, Lockhart dramatically lifted the cover from the cage. 'Yes.' He said. 'Freshly caught Cornish Pixies.'

Seamus and Dean started snickering so hard that they couldn't contain themselves, thus attracting Lockhart's attention.

'Yes?' He asked.

'Well.' Dean giggled. 'They're not very dangerous, are they?'

"Don't be so sure!" said Lockhart, waggling a finger annoyingly at them. "Devilish tricky little blighters they can be!"

The pixies weren't very big, they could sit on the palm of your hand. They were electric blue and flew around in the cage, rattling the bars.

'Let's see what you make of 'em.' Lockhart said, as he quickly opened the cage.

It became a pandemonium. They flew out of the cage, grabbing books and ripping them apart. Knocking over ink bottles and snapping quills.

I threw my books in my bag before they could reach us and dove under my table, it didn't take long for Nate and Draco to follow my example. From a distance, we could hear Lockhart try some no-nothing spell before diving under his own desk.

'Well.' Nate laughed at the chaos that had ensued. 'I'd say this is a pretty good lesson after all.'

'Sure, but I'd like to be able to go to lunch after this.' Draco grumbled.

'Break up your big brain, then.' I suggested. 'Is there a spell against these little assholes?' I whacked one away with one of my books.

'I think a freezing charm should work out.' Draco whipped out his wand and said 'Immobulus!' at a small group. They stopped flying and dropped to the ground.

At the other side of the room, Hermione had thought of the same thing and started freezing pixies around her. After a while, our groups had gotten rid of half of them.

The bell rang. A mad rush started to run to the door. Lockhart was right behind them. 'Well, if you six would just put them back in their cage, that would be just lovely.' He quickly counted us and said, just before he left. 'Twenty points to Gryffindor and ten to Slytherin. Goodbye!'

'Can you believe that prick!?' Draco froze another small group of pixies, but not before ducking as another group flew over.

'He just wants to give us some hands-on experience,' said Hermione.

'Hermione, he barely knew what he was doing.' Nate said.

'Rubbish," said Hermione. 'You've read his books - look at all those amazing things he's done -'