a/n~ thank you so so so much for 1.2k reads on this book, i'm so shocked and i cannot thank you enough... i hope you enjoy this chapter <3
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chae's first week of term did not go how she expected, she'd only been there a week and she was already up to her neck in assignments. with little time to do them and quidditch practice, she felt as if the world was caving in on her.
it was now the second monday and chae had her first class which was defence against the dark arts, she hadn't liked umbridge's teaching one bit. they'd had three lessons with her last week and the class still weren't using any magic, and chaerin was going to find out why.
she pulled out her seat and sat at her desk, greeting sora briefly before she pulled out her quill and some parchment. the class filled quickly and she looked around to see that fred and george hadn't arrived, which was no surprise to her of course.
delores umbridge came walking in, her usual pink attire still hadn't changed and chae was beginning to feel sick of the colour pink. she swore she'd never see umbridge in a different colour.
"good morning class!" professor umbridge said.
"good morning professor umbridge" they all said rather boringly.
"today we will be looking at how to conjure defensive spells, please open your books to page 11" she said sweetly, a sickening smile on her face.
chae scoffed and opened her beginners book, sora stared at her cousin in alarm when she slammed the book open. chae had clearly woken up on the wrong side of the bed. she raised her hand and waited for umbridge to notice her.
"yes miss chang?"
"i was just wondering, will we be requiring our brains this lesson? you know, to actually use magic" chae said simply, umbridge laughed slightly at her.
"dear, why on earth would you need to use magic in my classroom?"
"i don't know, let me think, maybe because we go to a school that is supposed to teach us magic, that's the whole point" chae responded hotly, the entire class looking at her now. a lot of them agreeing with her.
sora raised her hand.
"yes miss song?"
"chae is right, how are we going to pass our exams if we can't even use magic?" said sora.
"your exam is theory, you will be able to learn how to use the magic through theory" said umbridge, causing chae to scoff.
lee jordan's hand shot into the air.
"i don't know if you've noticed, but there's a practical part in the exam, we can't pass if it's our first time using the spell" he said.
"you clearly can't teach defensive magic, so why are you even bothering to teach here?" chaerin said angrily, taking the class by surprise.
professor umbridge looked thoroughly surprised but composed herself quickly, she walked over to her desk and began to write something.
"the next time you question my authority in my own classroom miss chang, you will be in detention with me, i suggest you leave" professor umbridge handed the girl the piece of parchment.
chae rolled her eyes but packed her things away swiftly and headed towards the classroom door, she grabbed the handle and swung it open before abruptly slamming it shut behind her.
the girl's blood boiled as she thought about how angry the woman made her. her eyes flickered to the note and saw that she had been instructed to go to professor mcgonagall's office, great, now she had to tell her grandmother she was in trouble.
she trudged down the corridors of the castle slowly, not wanting to face her grandmother immediately. she eventually reached her office and raised her fist to knock on the door, she had knocked rather angrily without meaning to.
the door opened and out stepped professor mcgonagall, dressed in emerald green robes. the woman looks down at chae in confusion.
"why aren't you in class?" she asked promptly.
"i've been sent to your office" chae responded dully.
mcgonagall let out a sigh, moving aside so that chae could enter the room. she walked over to her desk and chae sat at a seat in front of it.
"what did you do?" she asked.
"i apparently questioned umbridge's authority"
mcgonagall gasped.
"you didn't? chaerin! she works for the ministry"
"i know but i'm just so angry at her, how are we supposed to pass our n.e.w.t's if we can't even use magic in her classroom!" chae ranted.
the young girl watched as her grandmother pulled out a small tartan biscuit tin, passing it towards her. it was a usual thing for mcgonagall to give out biscuits, if chae was ever upset she'd often have tea and biscuits in her grandmother's office with her.
"have a biscuit dear" she offered.
chae didn't hesitate and picked up a chocolate chip cookie, biting into it as her grandmother continued to lecture her.
"chaerin, please watch what you say around umbridge, she could cause us a great loss... i'm not mad at you, i understand your concern but you cannot yell at your teachers"
chae nodded her head, reaching forward for another biscuit and mcgonagall smiled gently at the petite girl. when the bell sounded, chae left the classroom and headed to lunch, where on her way she was pulled aside by harry.
"i need to talk to you" he said urgently.
chae sighed at the thought of missing another chicken salad, but went with harry nonetheless. the two of them sat by hagrid's hut, soaking in what would be nearly the last of the sun.
"what's on your mind potter?" chae questioned gently, staring at the boy.
without thinking, harry lifted his hand, showing chae the cut that had been carved by umbridge's quill. the girl's eyes widened and she let out a small gasp, her hand covering her mouth in shock.
"harry! what on earth happened?!" said chae.
"umbridge happened" he grumbled.
"she did that?! harry you have to report her, let me take you to mcgonagall please" chad begged.
but harry shook his head quickly.
"no chaerin, you must promise me that you won't tell anyone" he said.
chae hesitated but nodded her head, if that's what harry wanted then she had to respect that.
"at least give me your hand" she said softly.
harry looked at the girl in confusion, but placed his hand into her smaller one, harry couldn't help but notice that her hands were rather soft and delicate. his eyes widened a little when he saw chae pull out her wand, she pointed it at his cut.
"episkey" chae said gently.
the boy watched in shock as the cut on his hand healed, he'd never seen chae do magic like that before. harry knew fairly well that chaerin was one of the smarted young witches that had ever attended hogwarts, he'd found her name on many awards in the trophy room, but he was always rather surprised when he saw her do magic.
"thank you" he said shortly "there's something else i need to tell you, it's about percy"
chae listened intently, not uttering a word whilst harry was explaining the letter that percy had sent to ron. she couldn't believe the audacity that percy had, he was absolutely ridiculous.
"if anybody's unstable it's him, he's such a twat! you wait until i tell fred and george about this!" chae muttered angrily.
"hopefully they'll send him some nosebleed nougat and not give him the antidote" harry joked, causing chae to laugh.
"that sounds like something they'd do"
the silence lingered in the air for a moment, before harry spoke again.
"chaerin?"
the girl hummed in response.
"do - do you really like fred?" he asked quietly.
chae laughed gently.
"is it that obvious?" she asked.
"according to everyone else but him, it's very obvious" harry responded.
she nodded her head, not knowing how to respond to harry. it was true that she did like fred, but things were too stressful for her at the moment to even think about telling him how she felt. if anything, it was at the bottom of the list of things she had to do. chae felt it was best to wait things out, see how the events played out...