As soon as his former friends were

As soon as his former friends were out of sight, Harry ran up to Neville, who was still sitting on the floor and holding a hand over his bleeding nose.

"Merlin, Neville!" – he exclaimed, as he dropped onto his knees next to the mentioned blond – "Are you okay? Do you want me to take you to the Hospital Wing?" – Harry rambled anxiously as he looked at the other boy's clearly broken nose.

Neville gave him a pained smile and with a bit of help from Harry got onto his feet:

"No, it's just a broken nose, though it hurts like hell." – the blond gestures to the classroom – "Go to DADA, Harry. I'll manage in my own."

Potter wanted to protest, but then he decides that Neville knows what he's doing. Still he asks one more time just to be sure:

"Are you certain? This happened because of me, taking you to the hospital wind is the least I can do… "

The Longbottom heir gave Harry a stern glare, or as stern as one could manage with a broken nose:

"Yes, I'm sure. Just make sure to take notes for me."

Feeling appropriately chastised, the green eyed boy hurried to class, making it just before the professor. He looked around the room, noting that there were only two available seats. One between Ron and Hermione and one beside the Slytherin girl who was always running after Draco, Pansy, Harry recalled. As much as he didn't wish to sit with the unknown girl, not sure how she would react, he knew for sure that if he were to chance sitting with his ex-friends, he would definitely do something he would regret in the future, like punching Ron. Thus he made his way to the first row of desks and much to the surprise of everyone in the class settled next to the Slytherin girl who was also staring at him in bewilderment.


As Potter dropped into the seat next to her, Pansy Parkinson stared at him incredulously:

"Potter, you do realize your two sidekicks are on the other side of the room, right?" – she enquires haughtily.

Harry shifted a bit in his seat as he glanced at the girl beside him:

"True, however it was not you who just now gave Neville a bloody nose in the corridor, so excuse me if I think you're better company." – he said, glancing at the idiot and know-it-all who were also staring at him incredulously. His voice was soft, but with a hard edge to it.

Pansy blinked as she processed the information given to her:

"Oh? So then you finally saw that you dear Weasley is actually an uncouth idiot who prefers to deal with his problems with his fists?" – she queried as she studied the boy next to her.

Harry blinked at her, confusion marring his features. Even though he pretty much despised the boy for spying on him and now for bullying Neville, he couldn't understand why the Slytherin girl would say that:

"Huh? What do you mean by that?"

Parkinson rolled her eyes, as she twirled a strand of her black curls around her finger:

"Oh well, it's practically common knowledge. We, the pureblood children that is, almost grew up together. All our parents know each other and we spent quite a lot of time around each other. Even though the Weasleys are blood traitors, their mother kept coming over as well, bringing the children, mostly Ronald and then his sister, with her. And well, being a blood traitor's child, especially a poor one is really not that great an achievement…" – she paused as she glanced around the room to see if the professor arrived or not – "… I can't say any of us made it easy for them to fit in, but none of us actually went out of our way to make them feel unwelcome either. We were neutral you could say. We all had some classes together, to teach us the basics before we went to Hogwarts…"

Harry listened to Pansy with something akin to jealousy. At least half of his classmates knew each other before coming to Hogwarts, they didn't have to work as hard as the others to fit in.

"… The only kid I can name who never liked them was Draco, though you should ask him yourself if you want to know his reasons. One day after the tutor left, Ron simply attacked Draco out of the blue. There was no reason for it as far as I'm aware. The Patil twins, who were the closest to them tried to separate the two, Ron pushed them away so hard that Padma hit her head on the edge of a table. Draco backed away from Ron and went to help the girl, when Ron jumped him from behind. They kept at it until the parents arrived. Since that day the Weasleys became unwelcome among the pureblood families."

As Pansy became silent again, Harry could barely stop himself from freaking out. This was very far from anything he expected to hear. This sort of violence was unusual. Harry could understand that much even though he was just a 12 year old kid. Anything else he wanted to ask Pansy would have to wait though, since the professor finally arrived.

"Hello, my darling students!" – exclaimed the man. He was clad in golden robes and had blond hair. Both the robes and the hair seemed to glitter. Harry shuddered both at the professor's overly cheerful voice and his utterly ridiculous robes, which were even worse than Dumbledore's as unbelievable as that was.

"As you may already know, my name is Gilderoy Lockhart and this year I'll be your Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher." – he flashed them a smile which so white that it made Harry that it was somehow charmed. He glanced at Pansy and saw that the girl was similarly disgusted. This made him feel better and he turned his attention back to the man who was sure to become his worst nightmare.

"… I do hope that you've read the first book on the list, which is called 'The Magical Me', at least once by now. Thus I will now quiz you on the knowledge you've gathered from the book."

Harry made a disgusted face, which made Pansy snicker next to him. The boy looked at the three pages long test and had a feeling that this year's defence teacher was even worse than Quirrel.

With a disgusted sigh he begins filling out the test.

[1) When was Gilderoy Lockhart born?

- Em… sometime in the last century…

2) What is his favorite color?

- Most likely neon pink.

3) What was G.L.'s first book?

- 101 ways to become a pompous git.

4) What ways to get attention of the public to oneself are described in 'The Magical Me'?

- Run around in the nude, wear gold or neon pink robes; charm your smile to blind people around you; resemble a peacock; believe oneself to be the greatest thing since Merlin;

5) What is G.L.' biggest dream?

- to be forever known as the wizard with the worst fashion sense ever.]

And the questions went on and on, the next more ridiculous than the previous one. At the 30th question, which was 'Who is G.L.'s idol?', Harry had to actually spend a few minutes thinking, before scribbling down his answer 'Gwineth the Glamorous'. Obviously that wasn't all that interesting an answer, especially since the boy couldn't quite recall who that Gwineth was, but Harry was very close to being mentally exhausted, thus he couldn't care less about providing a humorous answer.


When the lesson was over, Harry hurried out of the classroom, eager to catch up with Pansy and grill the girl for some more information. Also, he thought, he would have to check up on Neville and see if his friend was up to taking the afternoon classes. His plans, however, were cut short when Ron and Hermione appeared in front of him, both with accusing frowns on their faces. Hermione was the first to speak:

"Harry, why didn't you sit with us? Didn't you notice that we saved you a place?"

"Yeah, mate, what's with sitting with those slimy snakes?" – came Ron's much less subtle and very much accusing voice.

Harry bristled at the tone of his ex-best mate, though the carrot top was not aware of the change of his status yet, and narrow his emerald green eyes:

"I don't see how it's any of your business where I choose to sit in class, Ron."

The Weasley blinked stupidly:

"But Slytherins! You know they're slimy, evil, disgusting scum! Why would you…"

The Potter heir interrupted the idiot before he went on a rant about the Slytherin house:

"I know no such thing. The only opinion about Slytherins that's often repeated is your own."

Hermione frowned at him, trying to figure out why he was behaving so differently from the boy they got to know last year. She studied his appearance and blinked a few times at the differences she noted:

"Those are very nice robes, " – she said and caused Harry to roll his eyes at the girl. Her words also drew Weasley's eyes to the said robes:

"What's with you dressing like a stuck up pureblood?" – the ginger head asked incredulously with a very evident streak of anger and jealousy in his voice.

Harry snorted at that and deftly walked around the two idiots:

"I really have no time for your nonsense, Ron. I need to go check up on Neville." – he bit out as he began his track to the Gryffindor tower, intent on not thinking about the unpleasant confrontation, though to be perfectly honest it could hardly be even called a real confrontation, more like a small spat.


When he entered his room in the Tower, he immediately spotted Neville. The other boy was lying on the bed and reading a book on Herbology, probably a much more difficult volume than their textbook. Harry was relieved to see that his friend's nose was back to normal. He went to lie down on his own bed:

"Well, it seems that my worry was indeed not really necessary." – he said – "I'm sorry if I seemed overbearing."

Longbottom gave Harry a small cheerful smile:

"It's okay. Actually it was rather refreshing to have someone worry about me that way. I mean Gran was always attentive, but she's always trying to mold me into a clone of Dad, so it's not exactly the same thing I think. SO, how's our new DADA professor?"

The mention of the golden haired menace made Harry grimace:

"You truly didn't miss anything important. Our teacher is Gilderoy Lockhart. And we spent the lesson filling out a three page quiz about his book 'The Magical Me