'Well some of the members weren't convinced that I was going to be any good in a duel,' Neville explained, not looking up. 'They weren't rude or anything, they just needed some convincing.'
'So Neville challenged Terry Boot to a duel. He broke right through his shield as if it wasn't there,' Katie cut in.
'Everyone did what I suggested after that.' Neville grinned, a touch of pride present on his face.
'It was very impressive,' Katie assured him. 'Boot was so sure his shield would deflect it, but Neville's spell went right through.' She sighed happily. 'The look on his face just before it hit him.'
'Through the shield,' Harry looked up from his essay in surprise, 'you've improved.'
'The focus exercises helped a lot. Thank you, Harry,' Neville replied, smiling his gratitude. Harry felt a little better about convincing him to learn it after that. He'd been caught up in his plan for Snape, allowing Neville's desire to challenge himself to convince him too easily into doing something he regretted. The potions master he had no sympathy for, but he should have never been so cruel as to Neville.
'I'm glad they helped,' Harry answered, realising that he hadn't said anything for over a minute in reply. 'Now, about Callisto?'
'I wrote a whole paragraph about its naming, and how old it is compared to other satellites,' Neville told him. 'Try and use lots of long words to stretch things out, Ron repeated the word the twice every time he needed it to make it longer. He claims that nobody ever notices.'
'Has anyone?' Harry asked, amused.
'Hermione noticed straight away. She made him rewrite it last night before you came back from detention.'
'That's a shame,' Harry decided, brushing crumbs of his essay. 'I would have quite like to see what Professor Sinistra did.'
'She gets very strict when anyone disrespects her subject,' Katie agreed. 'I heard that at the end of our OWL year she collected all the punching telescopes that Fred and George made, mixed them in with the others, and then gave them a detention separating them for all the disruption they caused.'
'I think that was just a rumour,' Neville pointed out.
'Maybe,' Katie shrugged, 'it's still a good story though.' She took another bite out of her sandwich as she turned to Harry, scattering a few more crumbs across his essay.
'Sorry,' she apologised, as Harry brushed them off again. 'Speaking of stories, are you really wearing pieces of plastic in your eyes? Hermione was telling everyone that that must be what you'd done if you weren't wearing glasses anymore.'
'They're called contact lenses,' Harry explained mildly, grinning at Neville's horrified expression. 'It's like wearing really small glasses on your eye.'
'That's kind of weird,' Katie decided, 'but you do look better without them, nobody will mistake you for Myrtle's descendant now.'
'Thanks,' Harry replied dryly.
'You two should probably go,' she pointed out, as the Great Hall began to empty in time for lessons. 'You don't want to be late and then get caught writing an essay for Sinistra by McGonagall.'
Harry rather reluctantly tucked his essay back into his bag and got up. There was less than an inch until he'd reached the requirement and he'd been starting to hope he'd have it done before Transfiguration. Neville swung himself out from the bench and they departed with a wave to Katie, who twisted to wave back and knocked her drink over, covering what had been Neville's seat in orange juice.
'Narrow miss that,' Harry remarked, as they left hall and headed towards the Middle Courtyard.
'She has a thing for forgetting where she's put her drink, doesn't she,' Neville agreed. 'Normally I'm the clumsy one.'
'You still are, Nev,' Harry reminded him. 'Last time we had potions you nearly knocked over out cauldron and melted a desk, Katie just hates goblets.'
They weren't quite late to the lesson, but McGonagall and the first half of the class had already arrived before them. It suited Harry just fine, since it gave him an excuse to sit at the back of the class where it would be harder for the professor to spot him writing his essay.
As McGonagall began to explain the Doubling Charm Harry quietly continued writing about Ganymede, swearing profusely under his breath when he ran out of things to say a few lines from the target length.
'Run out of ideas?' Neville whispered, craning his head across to look.
'I feel like I'm trying to explain what's in the teacup to Trelawney. It's painful,' Harry complained.
'It's probably a grim,' Neville smiled. 'Astronomy isn't so bad, though, the only things Trelawney ever predicted successfully were Hermione leaving her class and me breaking her teacup.' And Pettigrew's escape, Harry remembered, carefully using his wand to cut a thin sliver off the bottom of the parchment his essay was written on. It should be enough to make it look as long as the others.
'My Gran's friend, Griselda Marchbanks, is on the Wizengamot and head of the examinations board,' Neville began, murmuring underneath McGonagall's explanation. Harry was half-listening. 'I heard her tell Gran that the Divination OWL exam is her least favourite because the students just make stuff up and they have to pretend it's right because there's no real way of checking. She said the only real prophecies are in some mysterious department of the Ministry.'
That caught his attention immediately.
A mysterious department, or a Department of Mysteries? 'What department?' Harry asked, sliding his essay away out of sight as McGonagall began to hand out bottle caps of Ogden's Whiskey to practise on. His still smelt faintly of alcohol.
'The Department of Mysteries,' Neville answered. 'It's supposed to have loads of weird bits of magic nobody can explain in it, but only the Unspeakables are allowed down there because of how dangerous things are.'
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