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booksmarts and broomsticks
act i , a lovelorn lockaby
chapter four , snape the feminist

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➖ JACKIE O'HARE ➖
september 1991

       DRIA RUBBED HER temples with a groan in attempt to soothe a developing headache, when she and Tess walked down to breakfast, a few days later.

       She wasn't too surprised at how easy she'd found settling back into the groove of things at Hogwarts, especially considering she'd not particularly settled herself at home that summer. And from the little contact she'd made with her brother and sister, she'd gathered that they had also.

       When the two girls entered the Great Hall, Dria couldn't help but wince at the sudden increase in volume. It was approaching the end of breakfast, and so the Hall was full to the brim with students, waiting for the clock to tick over to 9am so they could leave for their first lesson.

       Amidst the loud chatter and clinking of cutlery, Tess had somehow managed to spot Jackie and Penny sat at the Hufflepuff table in idle conversation with their bags placed on the bench next to them, saving seats for the other girls.

       "Morning sunshine!" Tess greeted with a wide smile, as she slid in the seat next to Jackie, and Dria stumbled into space beside Penny.

       "Good sleep?" The Ravenclaw asked with a humoured smile at the tired expression on the face of the blonde beside her, who was reaching forward to pluck a couple of pieces of cold toast from the middle of the table.

       "Like a baby." Tess grinned, as she poured herself a glass of pumpkin juice, all the while the Lockaby on opposite side of the table stared at her with no sign of humour in her eyes.

       "Dria?" Penny asked, cocking her head slightly as she poured the blonde a cup of strong coffee.

       "Well, Tess' sleep apnea decided to make a vicious comeback last night, so no." She said through gritted teeth, before sending Penny a grateful nod and taking a large gulp of the bitter liquid.

       "It's a disease, Dria!"

       "I don't care, you sound like a mountain troll!" She retorted, reaching up to massage her temples once more to try and keep the ever creeping headache at bay.

       "I'm moving out the dormitory." The Robbins girl threatened half-heartedly before sipping her juice.

        "Halle-fucking-lujah!"

       "Shut up and eat your toast."

       Penny and Jackie spared their two friends humoured smiles at their antics. While they got on like a house on fire, the second they disagreed on something it was hell on Earth - however, their disgruntlement never lasted long due to finding too much humour in the reaction of the other.

       "Bet you're excited for today, aren't you, Dria?" Jackie put in, closing the Daily Prophet that she held in her grasp.

       "What's today?" Tess asked with a mouthful of toast.

       "First Potions lesson of the year."

       "Oh, bugger."

       "It's not that bad." Dria dismissed her friend's reaction with a roll of her eyes, and a small smile on her lips at the thought of continuing her favourite subject for another year.

       "You only think that because of the fact that, for some unknown and bizarre reason, Snape actually likes you!" Tess retorted, while Dria munched her way through her jam-coated toast.

       "It's because I listen instead of swapping notes, Tess." Dria chuckled, as she wiped away stray crumbs from around her mouth, shaking her head at her friend.

       "I listen, and he doesn't like me." Jackie cut in with a shrug, in attempt to invalidate Dria's explanation.

       "Jackie, last year, you literally threw up on his shoes." Penny reminded the Hufflepuff girl, whose lips only curved into a smile at the memory, and began to chuckle.

       "Yeah, that was funny."

       Within the next ten minutes, signalled by the sound of sharp chime of the school bell, students of all houses and years began to clamber from their seats and make their way out of the Hall.

        The four girls followed suit after practically shoving what was left of their breakfast down their throats and donning their bags - and in Dria's case, downing the remains of her coffee like a shot before joining the bustling students exiting the Hall, with her friends at her side.

       Their journey to the dungeons for their Potions lesson took a little longer than anticipated due to the first years milling about with panicked looks upon their faces. But with a few harsh expletives from Jackie, the group found themselves well on their way, with the two Gryffindor laughing at the Hufflepuff's antics while the Ravenclaw shook her head in mortification.

       They were glad to see that upon their arrival, the other fifth years Potions students were only just passing through the doorway, enabling the four girls to join the back of the queue as though they hadn't been late at all.

       While Dria didn't dislike Professor Snape as much as everyone else in the school seemed to, she still had no intention of getting on his bad side on the first day.

        "I think it appropriate to remind you that next June you will be sitting a important examination, during which you will prove how much you have learned about the composition and use of magical potions." The drawling tone of their Professor spoke out as the class entered the dingy classroom one by one, and found their seats at the workbenches that lined the length of the room.

       Due to being on the lowest most floor of the castle, there was very little light within the room with the exception of the flickering lamps that hung around its perimeter, that lit the room in a dull, warm glow. It was also much colder than the rest of the castle and a slight tone of sulphur hung in the musky air, that was a little cloudy with the vapours steaming from the cauldron at the front desk where their professor stood.

        Professor Snape was a tall man with sallow skin, a large hooked nose and an expression that made it look like he was permanently disgusted with something or other - which he probably was in all honesty.

       "Today we will be mixing a potion that often comes up at Ordinary Wizarding Level: The Draught of Peace, a potion to calm anxiety and soothe agitation." He announced, as he surveyed his fifth-year class, his words inviting them to turn to the designated page in the textbooks. "Be warned: if you are too heavy-handed with the ingredients you will put the drinker into a heavy and sometimes irreversible sleep, so you will need to pay close attention to what you are doing."

       "Nice." Jackie smirked from her seat beside Dria at the thought of slipping a few people a bit so perfect potion.

       "Jackie!" Dria hissed under his breath in response, as Snape continued to explain his lesson plan to the class.

      "Do you know how many people I'd love to throw into an irreversible sleep?" Jackie asked the girl next to her with a devilish grin, as the sound of chairs scraping against the stone floor signified the class had snapped into action.

       "Far too many, I'm sure." Dria chuckled with a light grin on her lips, as she pushed her own chair away and focused herself on the equipment list for the potion. "Can you go and get a pestle and mortar?"

       "Accio!"

       Looking up from her textbook, Dria shot Jackie a look of amusement just as a mortar and pestle zoomed across the room over to their workbench - nearly taking out several Ravenclaws in its path. Still sat on her chair, Jackie shot Dria a smug smile, resting her head in her hands.

       "Fair enough." The blonde sighed, looking back to her ingredients, with a soft smile.

       "Oi, O'Hare!"

       Despite the call being directed at Jackie, Dria still found herself craning her neck to see who the caller was, however her face twisted in disgust when she recognised it to be Marcus Flint, a troll-faced Slytherin.

       "Nice hair." The boy drawled with a sickly smirk, earning a filthy grimace from Jackie before she ever so elegantly flipped him off.

       However, the Hufflepuff blatantly misjudged the timing of her gesture as Professor Snape hovered by their workbench.

       "Miss O'Hare!" He snapped, at which Dria threw her head in her book while Jackie spared the professor a devilish grin. "Five points from Hufflepuff."

       "My apologies, Professor Snape." Jackie said, suddenly adopting a very pragmatic manner as she turned to face him. "But you see Flint was objectifying me and I, as the devout feminist that I am, had to put him in his place."

       By this point, most of the class had turned their attention in the direction of the Hufflepuff making her case to the unimpressed professor.

       "I'm sure a teacher of your standing would approve of my intentions in standing up to such misogyny."

       In the end, Professor Snape let out a tired sigh and turned away from Jackie to face Flint, with a bored expression on his face.

       "Five points from Slytherin, Mr Flint."

       "What?"

       Dria couldn't mask her laughter at the incident, knowing full well that Snape had put the discussion to an end so as to stop Jackie from talking his ear off.

        "An eye for an eye, Flinty." The Irish girl winked, before turning back around to face Dria. "Huh, who'd have thought Snape was a feminist?"

       But Dria's attention had floated elsewhere in the brief interlude, and now had subconsciously transfixed itself on a figure that sat across the room, still laughing with some other fifth year boys about Snape's point-taking. A small smile crossed her lips as she saw his hazel eyes glint with humour.

       "Dria, are you even listening to me?"

       At the sound of Jackie's voice, Dria's gaze snapped back to her textbook and began scanning the instructions rapidly, in attempt to convince Jackie of her focus.

       1. Add powdered moonstone until the
       potion turns green.
       2. Stir until the potion turns blue.

       "So, the powdered moonstone-"

       "Dria!"

        Jackie's irritated call caught Dria's attention, and the blonde girl looked on her with slight alarm as she met her brown eyes that were filled with slight sympathy as the Irish girl nodded in the direction of Wood.

       "Look, you just to need to learn to strike up a conversation with him, like I do." Jackie said in a hushed voice, in a tone a lot more gentler than she usually used.

       Dria gave a tired huff at her friend's suggestion before picking up from wand from the side of the workbench, and lighting the flames for her cauldron.

       "Incendio." She muttered, causing a flash of fire to catch beneath the pot, before she turned back to her friend and spoke in the same hushed voice. "What am I supposed to say, Jackie? I can't talk about Quidditch, I know nothing about it."

       "Well, here in lies the problem, my naïve little friend." Jackie shook her head with a light chortle, earning a deflated sigh from the blonde beside her.

       "Pass me the powdered moonstone, Jackie."

***

       "YOU SHOULD HAVE seen it, Dria!" Maisie told her sister, excitedly, as the three siblings gathered in the library with Penny beside them.

       The two fifth years had been trying to finish their essays from that morning's Potions lesson on the properties of moonstones, when the twins had barged in - much to the distaste of Madam Pince - begging Dria to help them with their assignment for Transfiguration, and though she hadn't transfigured a mouse to a snuffbox in a long while, their sister eventually agreed.

       However, Dria had made the mistake of asking them how they'd been finding their first lessons at the school and now any thought of Transfiguration had escaped them, as they were too transfixed on retelling the events of their latest Flying lesson.

       "It was mental!" Michael added with a grin, as he reminisced on the events.

       "Shh!"

       Their excitement was cut short by the harsh sound of shushing from Madam Pince, who Dria offered an apologetic nod to before turning to her siblings with a look of warning.

       They had been telling Dria and Penny of how after Neville Longbottom had fallen off his broomstick and dropped his Remembrall, Draco Malfoy - a Slytherin student in their year - had flown off with it, but soon after Harry Potter had donned a broomstick and flown after him to retrieve it.

       While Dria's perceived the event to be fairly mundane, she could understand why her siblings found it so interesting. And part of her rejoiced at the fact that a Slytherin had been thwarted in their exploits, for that was also an added bonus.

      "He's never even ridden a broom before!" Maisie added with a light sigh, her cheeks going a light shade of pink as she continued to talk.

       But before she could so much as feign amusement for her sister's sake, her attention was caught by a black-haired figure approaching them in a jog.

       Once Tess had regained her breathing, she peered up at the group of four who looked on her expectantly, wondering just why she had entered the library at such a pace.

       "You look out of breath." Dria remarked, earning a light sneer from Tess as she straightened up.

       "You'll never guess what I just heard-"

       But before she could relay the information, another sound of clattering feet caught their attention and Jackie soon appeared at Tess' side with a maniacal glint in her eyes as she practically screamed at her friends.

       "Oh my God, you'll never guess who the new Gryffindor Seeker is!"

       "Shh!"

       Sparing Madam Pince a large wave and earning a shape scowl in response, Jackie soon pulled a chair up towards the group as Tess frowned on her for stealing her thunder.

       "It's Harry Potter!"

       "What?!" Dria asked, incredulously, eyebrows furrowing at the news.

       "I told you he was good, Dria." Michael smirked, seemingly unsurprised by the news as he sunk into his chair.

       "Not that good." Dria scoffed, setting down her quill to turn fully and look at Tess and Jackie. "I thought he'd barely ridden a broom."

      "Apparently, he's a natural." Tess cut in before Jackie could, her hand leaning against the back of the Hufflepuff's chair.

      "What about the tryouts?" Dria asked, her eyebrows still furrowing as her pragmatic brain tried to work out the logistics of the arrangement. "I thought they were happening this weekend."

       "Cancelled." Jackie answered her, her smirking ever growing.

       "Apparently McGonagall was adamant." Tess added with an astounded expression as she crossed her arms across her front.

       "Well, that boy's certainly becoming popular, isn't he?" Dria chuckled, at last beginning to stomach the news as she watched Jackie arise from her seat and stroll to look out of the window.

       At Jackie's quick departure form the chair, Tess quickly sank into it with a content smirk, happy to have spread any amount of gossip for the day.

       "Well, speak of the devil."

       "What is it?" Dria questioned, without any particular interest as she turned back around to write her essay.

       "You'll like the look of this, Dria."

        Casting a look at the window, Dria wasn't too sure whether the excited look on Jackie's face scared her and intrigued her. Nonetheless with furrowed brows of confusion, Dria set down her quill and moved towards the window to stand next to Jackie.

       With a final smirk from Jackie, Dria allowed her gaze to travel out of the window and down towards the training grounds which lay beyond its panes. A smile slowly found its way to her lips as she realised that Jackie had been right when she had suggested Dria would like the look of what was out there. Two figures stood out in the vastness of the green grounds with a large open trunk on the floor between them. Wide smiles covered their faces as they tossed a large and rather hollow-looking ball between them.

       Dria's heart warmed as she recognised the taller figure to be Oliver Wood and the smaller to be Harry Potter, realising that the Quidditch Captain must have taken it upon himself to teach the game to the young boy - which, by the looks of it, he was doing in very patient and encouraging way as the two shared a few smiles between themselves.

       "Now, you can fantasise about him teaching your children how to play Quidditch-"

       "Piss off, Jackie." Dria cut her off, with a roll of her eyes as she tried to suppress the smile that the sight had brought to her lips.

       "Look," The Hufflepuff began, attracting the blonde's attention as she leaned against the window frame. "I've been thinking and I've come up with a master plan."

       "I've never been more terrified by a statement."

       Jackie rolled at her eyes at the slight panic within Dria's incredulous gaze, before hopping up on the windowsill to state her case.

       "Tess has already declared that this is the year that Wood will notice you," She began with a nod at the dark haired Gryffindor behind them, currently in conversation with the younger Lockabys. "But I plan to make that dream a reality."

       Dria's gaze did not change as she continued to look on her Hufflepuff friend, who sat with a proud smirk upon her lips as she crossed her legs over one another.

       "Think of me as your fairy godmother."

       Narrowing her eyes in slight suspicion at Jackie's so called 'master plan', Dria pursed her lips in thought before giving in to the grinning Irish girl before her.

       "Okay, explain it to me then, fairy godmother."

       Jackie's face lit up when the permission was granted to her, as she straighten up and cleared her throat, before mimicking a drumroll.

       "I'm going to teach you Quidditch!"

       "Jackie ..."

       "Let me finish!" The Hufflepuff cut her friend off with a humoured look of warning, understanding the girl's clear apprehension. "You won't have to even touch a broom, I am going selflessly go out of my way and use my own time-"

       "I get it, Jackie."

       "I'm going to teach you every thing I know about the game," Jackie said, with a determined look glinting in her hazel eyes, "And then we'll see what you have to say to Wood."

        Despite not hating Jackie's plan - which actually took her by surprise - Dria still furrowed her eyebrows in apprehension, some part of her was frightened by the prospect of actually taking action towards making Wood notice her. 

       "I don't know, Jackie."

       "You want him to notice you, don't you?"

       "Yes, but-"

       "But nothing!" The Hufflepuff cried, unable to mask the excited smile on her face as she dismissed her friend's concerns. "You'll finally be able to strike up a conversation about something and a beautiful relationship will bloom, I'm certain of it."

       Dria felt her lips tug into a small smile at Jackie's words, any apprehension she formerly had slowly beginning to slip away at the thought of actually engaging in a conversation with the Gryffindor Keeper.

       "And we currently have no other plan."

       That was also a fair point, Dria thought as she let out a light hearted chuckle at her Irish friend, a small smirk of determination creeping onto her lips; the first step of their plan was in motion.

       "Alright, Jackie O'Hare." Dria nodded, earning one of Jackie's shit-eating grins in response as she realised her friend was leading to acceptance. "Teach me Quidditch."

𝖙𝖗𝖎𝖓𝖆 𝖘𝖕𝖊𝖆𝖐𝖘!
and so the games
have begun, my
babies are a-plotting

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