Things Will Never Be the Same Again

“Draco Malfoy, what are you doing?” A much more menacing voice came from behind Draco. Professor Snape, the dark haired man with the black eyes, glided over and put a hand on Draco’s wand to lower it. I wondered if he knew how thankful I was to see him.
“She was messing around down here; I wanted to find out what she was up to, Sir.” I had never seen Draco act so behaved. He kept all signs of his usual sneering completely out of his tone as he spoke to Professor Snape.
He looked at me to see if I was going to argue with his side of the story. I didn’t know if I should or not, I mean, it all depended on whether Professor Snape was going to trust Draco over me. It did seem pretty suspicious that I was down here if it was another houses territory.

“Well, do you have anything to say for yourself?” Professor Snape turned to me
“I honestly didn’t know I wasn’t meant to be here, I’m new and I was just taking a walk. I’m sorry,” I answered in a confident voice, after all, I was telling the truth.
“Fine,” He replied instantly “10 points from Ravenclaw. Do not let me catch you down here again without permission.” I nodded solemnly and turned around to head for the stairs.

I wondered where I should go, I still had half an hour left of lunch and I was determined not to go back to the Great Hall and face my house now that I’d just lost everyone points. I felt terrible, I started climbing up the staircases heading nowhere in particular but deciding up would help me get the furthest away from Draco Malfoy.

“Hey new kid!” A voice yelled from a flight of stairs below me, I continued on to the next flight fighting my curiosity to turn and find the culprit. I already knew my mood wasn’t exactly great right now.
“Jess, c’mon! Slow down,” The voice called again, this time much closer to me.
“Oh hey George!” I tried to smile as he caught up to me on the staircase.
“Why are you in such a hurry, uh, where are you off to anyway?” He asked, looking around for the reason why I was traveling in the direction I was. The corridors around us were completely empty, I guess everyone was still eating lunch.
“Anywhere away from that loser Draco Malfoy seems like a good place to be.” I shrugged sitting down on the steps. George copied me.

“Malfoy?” He rolled his eyes “What’d he do?”
“He’s just so rude!” I exploded. George’s eyes opened wide in shock, if I hadn’t been so angry I would have laughed at his surprised face. “He’s been calling me the worst names all morning and he just lost me points because he made up this ridiculous lie to Professor Snape about how I was being all suspicious around by his houses common room. Like I even know where the other common rooms are, like I even care!” I frowned looking down at my hands to avoid George’s pitied expression.
“I know, he can be a foul little git sometimes,” He sighed putting his arm around my shoulder.
“Sometimes?” I looked up at him; his face seemed a bit pinker than usual.
“OK, always.” He laughed, I even managed to smile too. I was starting to forget about Malfoy as my mind strayed to the arm that was still dangling over my shoulder.

“So, uh, how come you wanted to see me?” I asked innocently.
“What?” He asked, completely thrown off by my question.
“Well yesterday, on the train, Harry told me you were looking for me” I tried not to smile as he started to turn a deeper shade of pink.
“Harry told you that?” He questioned, taking his arm back.
“Well, yeah, I think he might have said something about making sure I got on the train ok?”
“Oh yeah, yeah that’s it. Mum wanted me to make sure you were all OK!” He nodded furiously, looking like he was trying to convince himself more than me. I couldn’t get the smile off my face.
“Well, I’ve got to go, I need to go find Harry apparently,” He said returning my smile. “See you later!”
“Ok, bye!” I waved and watched as he retraced his steps back down towards the Great Hall.

It seemed like a good time to head for my next class which was transfiguration; it was on the same floor I had been halfway to, I knew that would make me earlier than everyone else. I walked in and noticed Professor McGonagall already at the front of the class sorting out something contained in a large box.

“Good afternoon Miss Taylor, you are rather early for class,” McGonagall spoke in a surprised voice. I glanced at my watch and realized I still had 15 minutes of lunch time left. I shrugged and walked to the front of the class to take a seat. I figured Draco would find it more difficult to torment me while I was right by the teacher. “Well, I must admit I was a bit worried about the progress you would make this year considering you are starting in your fifth year,” She paused, I glanced up at her expression, it looked like she was searching for the right words to use. “But I’ve spoken to Professor Flitwick and he tells me you made quite good progress this morning in his class.” She walked over to stand in front of my desk.
“Apparently you were the first to master the freezing charm, is that correct?”
“Uh, I think so. It didn’t take the others much longer to get it though.” I could feel my cheeks glowing. If only she knew that it was all luck. I mean, I hadn’t been able to master the counter charm after all.
“Well, as long as you are able to keep up in this class I am not worried about what the others do. I suggest you take out your text book and look up vanishment.” I did exactly as she said and started reading through it.

Apparently it was one of the more difficult forms of transfiguration which didn’t help a lot with my optimism.
I was halfway through the chapter when people started arriving for the lesson.
“Jess, where have you been? You must be starving; you hardly ate anything for lunch!” Cho exclaimed as her and Marietta sat down on the same bench I was at.
“I just needed some space.” I shrugged and noticed the first few Slytherins slowly filling up their side of the class from the back first. I hoped they would all be able to fit at the back of the room so I wouldn’t have to see them at all.

“Are they getting to you?” Marietta leaned around from the other side of Cho and asked.
“No more than anyone else I don’t think” I sighed and looked around. A blonde girl with a flat looking face shoved past Luna, nearly knocking her to the ground. I thought that it had been an accident for sure until I saw her smiling broadly as she took her seat.
“Who’s that?” I asked disgusted by the girls behaviour.
“Pansy Parkinson, resembles a pug dog don’t you think?” Marietta asked, snorting with laughter.
“Nah, pugs are much better looking” I said, grinning as the girl named Pansy shot me a disapproving stare. I waved back at her with the biggest smile I could manage.

“Good Afternoon everyone!” Professor McGonagall stood from behind her desk and made her way to the front of the class. I think she had noticed the rising hostility in the room. “As I am sure you are all aware, this is a very important year for you all. I sincerely hope you will all take it very seriously, because since this is your O.W.L year the workload as well as the level of difficulty for each subject is almost doubled. I cannot stress enough how your grades at the end of the year will impact your future.” I glanced at Cho and Marietta and was relieved to see that they too were looking rather distressed by McGonagall’s speech.
“This being said, today we will start on a new kind of transfiguration which is immensely more difficult than anything we have attempted in previous years, I’ll ask you all to turn to page 82 in your text books”

“Vanishing!” Cho gasped as she found the right page.
“What’s wrong?”
“McGonagall wasn’t kidding when she said the level of difficulty was going to double” She frowned looking at the book in front of her. “Vanishment is meant to be really hard to master” She looked at me with a fearful expression.
“Cho come on, you are great at transfiguration, and last year you were second in our year!” Marietta reassured her.
“Oh, who was first?” I asked just out of curiosity.
“Hermione Granger,” Cho said simply.
“Of course she was!” Marietta rolled her eyes. It looked as though they were both a little jealous.

“Well now if you will all look this way” Professor McGonagall was standing behind her desk and had placed a snail in front of her. “Vanishment is, of course, the art of causing something to vanish. Casting something into non-being, it is most probably the hardest transfiguration you will be tested on in your end of year O.W.L. Now the difficulty with vanishment corresponds to the object you are trying to vanish. That is why today we will be starting with snails,” She said with a twitch of disgust, pointing to the small snail on her desk. “Invertebrates are the easiest to vanish. Now I want you to all practice the incantation Evanesco and do as I do.” She turned back to her snail swished her wand and in a clear voice said “Evanesco” to my surprise the snail completely disappeared.
“Now come collect a snail and try it yourself”

Everyone promptly left their seats and headed to the front of the room to collect their snail, soon the entire room was filled with the murmurings of the incantation, sighs of frustration and squeals from the Slytherin side of the room as Malfoy took to making his own fun. I glanced around just in time to see him drop his snail into Pansy Parkinson’s bag.
I didn’t know whether to glare at him or smile.
“Evanesco… Evanesco… EVANESCO!” Next to me Cho was getting quite worked up while trying to vanish her snail. I caught Marietta’s eye and we exchanged grins.

After half an hour there were only a few people who had managed to pull of the spell completely. Luna and Cho were among them so they were able to walk around and help those of us who were a bit more challenged.

“Jess you’re moving your wand too much,” Cho scolded me as I tried to make my snail disappear for what felt like the hundredth time.
“I DID IT!” Marietta suddenly shrieked from beside us. “Look Cho, look!” Sure enough Marietta’s snail has disappeared, but not completely. Its shell remained on the table in front of us.
“Oh well done, you even managed to keep its shell,” Luna said dreamily from behind us.
“Um, yeah, but most of it has gone,” said Marietta looking very pleased, obviously proud she was advancing in the subject.
“Most of it is not good enough Miss Edgecombe,” McGonagall spoke as she swept up to our bench. “Well done Luna, Cho, I’m glad some us are focused today.” She glanced at me, saw my snail sitting plainly on the table, sighed, and walked off to the next table to stop Malfoy from spinning a snail on its shell.

“Evanesco,” I mumbled again, feeling like I’d disappointed Professor McGonagall. My snail stayed exactly where it was. “Evanesco!” I tried again feeling a bit agitated as the snail started to slowly wonder off, making a bid for freedom and at the rate I was progressing I knew it had a very big chance of succeeding too. “EVANESCO!” I yelled, thinking with all my might how I wanted the thing to just disappear. I took a deep breath ready to try again but was stopped with my mouth half open by Cho and Luna who were clapping. My snail was nowhere to be seen, not even a shell!

“You did it Jess,” Cho beamed.
“Oh I did!” I grinned, swelling with joy at the accomplishment.
“You didn’t leave behind its shell though,” Said Luna in a hazy voice, I laughed. I grabbed Luna by the wrists and started swinging her around with me in the middle of the room, she started laughing with me.
“Girls, that’s quite enough! What on earth are you doing?” McGonagall snapped as she strode over to our table.
“Professor, we vanished our snails!” I exclaimed beaming up at her. She didn’t seem to share my enthusiasm at this news.
“Well I should hope so. That is no excuse, however, to act so ridiculously in my class room”
I was quite thankful to see most people had left the room entirely, it seemed like the lesson was over.
“Next time I catch you acting so childishly I will remove points from your house and give you a detention, understood?” She asked in that stern tone of hers, I was feeling deflated about her reaction until she glanced back to the table where my snail had been. Her lips twitched into a faint smile for a mere second.
“Now, off you go”

“I suppose the Professor isn’t a fan of dancing then,” Luna said in her high, singsong voice as we left the room and headed for the staircase.
“Nah, didn’t you see her smile? She just had to act all teacher like cause it’s her job” I grinned. Marietta and Cho looked at me like I should have been the one being vanished.
“So who is ready for some great home work time?” I asked as we reached the stair cases.
“Oh sorry Jess, we all have another class.” Cho smiled apologetically. “Luna and I have Muggle Studies and Marietta and Padma have Divination”
“That’s ok,” I smiled, “I’ll probably get heaps more done alone anyway,” I lied, I knew my homework would be terrible, I hadn’t even understood the work we had been given.
So I marched up the staircases toward the Ravenclaw common room in a bit of a daze thinking about what I was going to use to perform the freezing charm on and was quite alarmed when I realized I had reached the door with the golden knocker so soon.

I knocked softly on the door and waited for the riddle. The beak swiftly opened and a musical voice said, “If you have it, you want to share it. If you share it, you don’t have it. What is it?”
“Money?” I guessed hopefully. The door remained shut. I was starting to really dislike the person who had invented a door that asked riddles. “Ok, ok food?” The door remained well and truly shut.
“Well, that’s a terrible guess,” A voice said from behind me. I spun around to discover the culprit.