Chapter 42. Pixies

After lunch, it was already time for our first Defense Against the Dark Arts class. I was a little nervous considering my first year, taken a shine by Voldemort, and becoming a private student of his. However since many people knew Lockhart, I felt much better about him perhaps being controlled by the Dark Lord again. It was a much different room, paintings of Lockhart throughout his many years of defeating and killing creatures laid strewn all around. His smiling face, triumphantly standing over the corpse of a Werewolf he had just killed.

I sighed, taking a seat at the back of class, not wanting to speak with this teacher, he was everything I hated about history. Wizards killing creatures, and becoming famous for it, rather than learning of the creature and trying to appease or help it in some way. I frowned while looking at the stack of books made in his image, and clutched my chest, wondering how many of these creatures he had killed could have been helped instead.

Everyone else flooded into the class. Many of the girls I noticed were particularly excited for it, excluding Pansy sitting by my side. “All of these books of his are long and drawn out stories, rather than teachings of spells. At least we still have this.” She muttered, placing her spell book between our desks. I glanced down to see a few spells I already knew, but a few new ones as well. “This one seems useful at least.” I said, pointing at the Expelliarmus spell.

As we both continued to read the spell book, others took their seats, and the bell in the clocktower rang, indicating that class would begin. It wasn’t long until the door at the top of the stairs that lead to this room’s teacher’s office was slammed open. Pansy and I both jerked up to see Professor Lockhart standing with a large smile on his face, leaning against the banister of the stairs. “Let me introduce you to your new Defense Against The Dark Arts teacher!... Me.”

He smirked while slowly descending the stairs, continuing to announce himself as he spoke. However if I was being honest, most of what he spoke went in through one ear, and out the other. I already didn’t like him, and listening to his long list of accomplishments just bored me. However his gaze suddenly became serious, and I listened in again to hear what he was talking about. “It is my job to arm you against the foulest creatures known to wizard-kind…” I internally sighed again, knowing I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up for such a bloodthirsty teacher.

However once he removed the velvet cloth covering the quivering bird’s cage underneath, my interest spiked again. “Cornish Pixies!?” One of the Gryffindor students yelled with amusement, and I was almost prone to agree. Pixies, while documented annoying, were all together fairly easy to deal with. I stared at all of them flying and crawling all around their cage, each of them desperately trying to escape while their annoying buzzing voices sounded almost akin to Mandrakes earlier, my head was already starting to ache even at the back of class.

While I was massaging my temples, Professor Lockhart suddenly yelled. “Let’s see what you make of them! Hah!” And with that, the small swarm of blue pixies flew from their imprisonment, and quickly took over the classroom. “Woah!” “Oh my-!” “Get it off!!” Everyone quickly got up from their seats, some rushing for the door, while others took to their books, haphazardly swatting at the small creatures to keep them away. Chaos enveloped the class, with all of the screaming and yelling, combined with the Pixie’s already aggravating voice, it wasn’t doing good for my head.

I noticed Pansy, instead of running away or grabbing a book, she instead grabbed onto me, staying close while everyone else rushed around in fright. (Including Draco, who also left the class with some of his other Slytherin friends dragging him while they screamed and waved their arms in the air) With each person leaving the room, the more the Pixie’s started to come over to Pansy and I. They stayed distant earlier, most likely from Val’s low ringing he sometimes emitted, akin to my wand, but with less people to terrorize they slowly began zipping by closer and closer to us.

“Avis!” I announced, creating plenty of ravens from the tip of my wand. The raven’s quickly went to work, flying around me and swallowing any Pixie that got too close. Not to kill of course, they were too large for Ravens to eat normally, let alone conjured ones. No, ‘swallowing’ meant biting them on some part of their body, and rushing to the cage to be deposited, before dispersing themselves inside of the cage as well.

The Pixies began to understand my position as I kept an eye on Professor Lockhart, waiting for him to finally do something after we ‘learned our lesson’. I continued watching him wave his wand, but to my surprise nothing happened. “Well! I’ll just ask the 5 of you to just nip the rest back into their cage!” He quickly announced with a large smile before ducking into his office back on the 2nd floor. By this time the annoying voices of the Pixies, began aggravating me beyond my usual temperament. Perhaps it was due to my build up of magical power. I had taken my medicine to help with my migraines, but the annoying voices began forcing my anger out of me. Still wanting to not kill them, which I imagine Lockhart must do, since he was terrible on anything that wasn’t a Jinx from my assessment, I knew I would have to help.

I continued to deposit Pixie's back into their cage, but the moment one of my crows disappeared with one inside, they immediately flew back out. Leaving me in an endless loop of collection. Until one Pixie who escaped the cage, closed the door, and locked it with a wand they had stolen from someone. The irritation of their voices and my own headache began to build beyond to what I had ever felt before towards a magical creature.

Finally when one started to grasp at Pansy’s hair, his annoying buzzing right beside my ear, I finally snapped at them. “Enough!” I screamed, some deep growl of congestion still in the back of my throat. I watched as all the Pixies stared at me in silence as I massaged my temples, and cleared my throat. I could understand why one might just kill them, I couldn’t hear much of anything from them even with my wand trying to translate. They were just troublemakers that reveled in hurting others with not much else in their minds.

They must have instinctively felt my slight desire for their death, as they seemed to cower in fear of me. I sighed, while pointing at their cage with my wand. “Alohomora.” I muttered, opening it for them. I then looked back at them all, silently staring at each one individually, finally landing on the one that tried pulling out Pansy’s hair and buzzed in my ear. I motioned for it to come close, and it shivered in response, avoiding eye contact. It still obeyed and hovered near. Just as it did, I flicked its head, sending it spiraling in the air and landing on Pansy’s desk.

By this time the others hurried back inside of the cage, wanting some protection from me. I sighed, the pain in my head waning, and already feeling more at ease. I glanced at the shivering Pixie still on Pansy’s desk, glancing at me in fear. ‘I didn’t know they were so attuned to the thoughts of others… Useful for the future I suppose.’ I scoffed, actually learning something in this class, and waved away the Pixie. “Go on, you learned your lesson.”

As the last Pixie hurriedly entered the cage, Hermione, Ron, and Harry finally felt as if they could breathe. The sheer sight of Lucas’ eyes made them all stiff from fear. The unusual green hue was back in his gaze now, however only a few moments ago, they shone a bright yellow that seemed to freeze anything in fear that he so much as glanced at. “Bloody hell…” Ron muttered. “First Pixie’s going crazy, now Lucas? Maybe something bad is happening this year, Harry.” He continued to whisper, glancing at Harry’s uneasy expression. “It was Malfoy’s house elf, but maybe…” Harry muttered, silently wondering if the ‘grave danger’ Dobby was talking about was of Lucas.

Hermione frowned, torn between what she thought, and what she hoped. She hoped Lucas was a good Slytherin, one of the only good ones. However her more intellectual side screamed at her that he might be worse than other Slytherins. Only strange things happened around him, and his strange mannerisms. They all watched as Lucas, accompanied by Pansy, left the room while discussing class causally, as if nothing strange had even occurred.

“Can someone get me down now?” They all looked up to see Neville hanging from the ceiling, obviously pulled up when the Pixies were let loose. “Why is it always me?” He sighed.