Most of the Hogwarts students and staff were talking about the hottest topic right now.
Medea's recent classes.
It was a big enough topic that people had been distracted enough even from Kunou's extended family.
There had been owls flying in and out of Hogwarts for the past couple days. Though, that wasn't to say all of them were only because of Medea's class.
There was still correspondence between families with regard to Kunou's identity.
A Dark Wizard that defeated Grindelwald is now making another appearance through a 'family member'? That was enough that many of the noble families in the country were taking notice, even if they were sitting back and watching for now.
But for Kunou, she barely even paid attention to it.
In fact, most kids didn't even utter a word about it near her. They were too used to playing their little games that Kunou was almost completely unaware of what was going on.
"Kunou!"
"Luna!"
The two young girls excitedly ran at each other for a hug as they met in front of their next class. It had been a whole day since they saw each other from their last class.
The other Slytherin and Ravenclaw students just stared at them silently as they entered the classroom.
"Kunou, do you want the latest issue of the Quibbler? My dad gave me an extra copy."
"Sure!" Kunou smiled happily.
"It's been very busy for Daddy with everything happening. Miss Medea's class had been very popular, and even those fake newspapers like The Daily Prophet are running stories."
"What are they saying about Aunt Medea?" Kunou tilted her head.
"Oh, you know how those places are, making up so many weird things to sell their papers. They're calling her a dark witch or some other such nonsense. You can never believe what stories they'll make up next." Luna shook her head. "Daddy says they don't have journalistic integrity."
"They sound dumb."
"Yup!" Luna giggled. "They're not even covering the infiltration of the Department of Mysteries by Muggles!"
Kunou took the newspaper and looked it over.
She did in fact like reading it; it was full of fun stories. On the front page, it was talking about how Muggles had been secretly infiltrating the Department of Mysteries and had finally taken full control of it, with the government being none the wiser.
"Do you want to go pick mushrooms in the forest with me after classes today?" Luna asked.
Kunou's ears pressed down as she pouted and grumbled. "I still have detention.
"It wasn't smart to run away from Headmaster Dumbledore."
"I thought I could get away." She admitted.
"Daddy says that all the ghosts and portraits report right to him, so if you want to be sneaky, you have to take that into account."
Kunou and Luna took their seats, the last ones to come in right before the period started.
Professor Lockhart enthusiastically greeted them all. " "Good morning, class! I'm sure you're excited to know that I graded your tests, and some of you passed."
He gave all his classes the same 'test' at the start of the year, all based on him and his books.
"Miss Lovegood, my favorite color is not 'the tears of my fans that I harvest to keep my youthful appearance.'" He looked at her dryly. "And Miss Schweinorg, my greatest achievement to date is not 'tricking people into liking me.'"
"What? I thought I got that one right!" Kunou protested.
"No." He deadpanned, slapping the failed test on her desk. "But we shall move on; we have a full year, so there is plenty of time to fix your education!"
He moved towards his desk, where he had something hidden by a tarp over it. But every so often it rocked with a metallic ringing to it.
"This is going to be our first hands-on class." The professor clapped his hands and gave his signature smile. "Everyone has been so excited for my fellow teacher's class recently. And being a peer to the beautiful Medea, well, I told myself. Gilderoy Lockhart, you must rise to the occasion as well! I can't be falling behind my fellow teacher, can I?" He proclaimed. "So, I've decided you all will get to experience the same lesson as the second years since they enjoyed it so much and it was such a rousing success!"
To emphasize the point, he walked over and pulled the tarp off the hidden object. It was an iron cage with a bunch of tiny little fairies inside.
"Of course, I can't just repeat it exactly, so I procured this little specimen." He said proudly. "Can anyone tell me what this little creature is?"
"Oh, me, professor!" Luna shot her hand up.
"Yes, Miss Lovegood?"
"It's a Clabbert!" She stated.
"Five points to Ravenclaw." The professor snapped his fingers. "A Clabbert! Quite the looker, isn't she?" The professor leaned on the cage. "Looks to be a mix between a frog and a monkey. But make no mistake, the Ministry labels them as an XX danger level magical creature. Though mostly harmless and even domesticable, they're unlikely to attack someone unprovoked. They do get ornery when hunting prey—small birds usually—or during mating season."
One boy raised his hand. "Professor, my family has a tree full of Clabberts on our farm. Why should we care about them in a Defense Against the Dark Arts class?"
"My dear boy." The professor waved his finger. "You should never underestimate a magical creature just because of their low danger rating. Any magical creature can be dangerous, and it's my job to prepare you for such a situation." With that he flicked open the cage with a wave of his wand.
The creature slowly crawled out, carrying it with the dexterity of a monkey but some of the mannerisms of a frog as it looked around curiously but held onto the outside of the cage.
Due to his words, the students were a bit skittish, slowly pulling back as the creature took a few steps out.
"The Clabbert is good at sensing danger, which is why many wizards and witches have domesticated them in the past. They're quite good at alerting if a Muggle is nearby." The professor informed them. "And of course, you all know, in my book Voyages with Vampires, I used a Clabbert to survive a sneak attack by a dreadfully voracious vampire before defeating it."
"Can I pet it?" Kunou raised her hand.
"Miss Schweinorg, you must be most careful even when handling low-danger-level creatures." The professor continued. "Even fully domesticated, they may retain a wisp of animalistic tendencies."
As he said that, he took out a box from under his desk and tipped it over.
It was full of what looked like little toy birds.
They all sprang to life and began to fly around, eliciting a surprised noise from many of the students as the room became chaotic with all the birds now flying around.
"Your assignment is to return the Clabbert to its cage without hurting it. Good luck!" He ducked behind his desk.
It didn't seem so difficult at first, but the Clabbert's eyes darted all around, then true chaos broke loose as it jumped across the room, landing on one boy's head, using it to kick off, and trying to grab one of the birds to stuff in its mouth.
The boy, from the force of the leap, was knocked out of his chair and slid across the classroom floor.
"It's on my head!" A girl screamed as it landed on her head and pulled her hair to steady itself, letting out a croak mixed with a screech as it continued to bounce around the room.
Not to mention, the various small birds didn't hold much intelligence when they were animated through magic; they were hitting everything and anything, most of which were the kids themselves.
There were screams of panic and a few crying, with plenty of them ducking under their own desks.
Kunou, however, just started laughing excitedly, clapping as the classroom descended into chaos.
For her, this was a normal day at school.
If her fellow Youkai hadn't set something on fire and tried to escape from the classroom, then it was a boring day.
Things only really calmed down once Raikou started helping manage the children.
Professor Lockhart made a rather simple mistake in deciding to use a similar method of teaching as he did with the second years.
That is the fact that the first years hadn't learned any proper spells yet.
They had learned the wand lightning charm, the unlocking charm, and the levitation charm.
None of which were particularly useful in this circumstance.
Useful, of course, meant useful in regard to the 'assignment' they were given.
"Wingardium Leviosa! Wingardium Leviosa! Wingardium Leviosa!" Kunou had taken out her wand and started casting the levitation charm on anything and everything in the room.
Desks began to float up, chairs, furniture, and a student or two that got caught in the proverbial crosshairs.
Completely unrelated to her, a desk had been pushed out the window, breaking the glass and tumbling several stories to the ground.
She would, of course, deny any responsibility, even if it was her that cast the spell.
"Miss Schweinorg! You're supposed to be capturing the Clabbert and putting it back into the cage!" Professor Lockhart shouted over the various cries and screams amidst the chaos of the classroom as he peeked over his desk.
"This is the only spell I know!" Kunou shouted back, levitating many more things into the air with every breath.
Professor Lockhart blinked, finding it hard to rebuke her at that moment of enlightenment, realizing he may have miscalculated somewhere.
"Kunou! We can't let the Clabbert catch one of those birds! It'll try to eat it; those birds are made of wood, and it'll give the Clabbert a bad tummy ache!" Luna crawled over to Kunou's desk as a globe hit the ground near her, having been flung across the room in the chaotic mess.
"Oh no!" Kunou stopped in her tracks, wide-eyed. "We have to save it!"
"Don't worry, I know what to do!" Luna said proudly. "Daddy said that Clabberts have a really good sense of danger, so we just have to let it know that the birds are dangerous!"
"How do we do that?" Kunou smacked a flying book out of the air that nearly hit her, tossed by the Clabbert as it was jumping around after the birds.
"Don't worry, my daddy taught me a few spells early before coming to Hogwarts; one of them is perfect for this!" Luna said proudly, holding her wand up, pointing at the fake birds flying around. "Incendio"
A stream of fire shot out of her wand and collided with a couple of the birds.
The fake birds were now flying around on fire.
"Wow, Luna! That's really smart!" Kunou praised her.
Luna began to set all the birds on fire.
An unfortunate consequence was that everything they collided with also caught fire or burned.
No one stopped to question if first years learning the Fire-Starting Charm was a good idea.
[Line break]
Kunou and Luna sat happily in their chairs.
Across from them was Headmaster Dumbledore.
On his left was Professor Lockhart.
Lockhart's hair was…slightly burned.
Dumbledore had a pensive expression. "Miss Schweinorg, Miss Lovegood." He held his fingers up to his mouth with his elbows pressed against the desk. "I don't want to jump to any conclusions—"
"My hair, Dumbledore!"
"Quite." Dumbledore ignored Professor Lockhart's near-tearful cry. "Now, as I was saying,. I didn't want to jump to any conclusions. However, the reports I received from credible sources…" He gestured to the professor at his side. "Are rather…explicit. Dare I ask, why did you burn down your classroom?"
"Daddy says that in order to establish a fair and just society, the proletariat must rise up and burn the establishment to the ground." Luna answered.
"Is that so?" Dumbledore's expression remained unflinching. "And if I send Mr. Lovegood a letter, do you think he would support your actions, Miss Lovegood?"
"...please don't tell Daddy." Luna pouted.
"It was me; I did it!" Kunou stood up on her chair, declaring loudly.
Dumbledore looked at her, nonplussed. "Miss Schweinorg, everyone in the classroom saw what happened. Professor Lockhart here also saw what happened. Besides, I don't believe you would have learned the Incendio spell just yet; it's taught later in the year—"
"Fox Fire!" Kunou threw a ball of fire, and it whizzed past Dumbledore's head.
"My hair!"
Dumbledore barely looked back as he held his wand over his shoulder, snuffing out the flames. "I stand corrected, and surprised, also mildly curious. That was most certainly not Incendio. But the facts still remain, Miss Schweinorg."
"Kunou, it's alright; you don't have to protect me." Luna puffed up her chest. "Because this isn't even the real Dumbledore!" Luna exclaimed as Kunou gasped.
"And what makes you say that, Miss Lovegood?"
"Woman's intuition!"
"I'm afraid that your intuition is wrong in this particular circumstance, Miss Lovegood."
"Oh yeah, then where's your familiar!?"
Dumbledore blinked. "That is most certainly a good question. Miss Schweinorg, if I may be so blunt as to ask. Why did your father appear in my office and take Fawkes with him without so much as a word?"
"Daddy was here?" Kunou perked up.
"For a very brief moment." Dumbledore stated. "But I digress. Fawkes is probably fine. It wouldn't be the first time he disappeared for long periods. Now, you were going to explain why you believed it was a good idea to set the classroom on fire. And I hope that it's a very good reason for both your sakes."
"We had to save the Clabbert!" Kunou blurted out.
Dumbledore raised an eyebrow. "Save the Clabbert? Was a Clabbert in danger? And how did burning the classroom save it, Miss Schweinorg?"
"Because the teacher tricked it into thinking wooden birds were real birds, and it was trying to eat them." She explained.
Dumbledore blinked, then looked at Professor Lockhart, who had more of his hair burned away at this point. "Professor Lockhart. Did you attempt to feed a Clabbert wooden bird as a meal?"
"That's most certainly false, Dumbledore." He stood up, brushing himself off. "It was merely a lesson to express the danger of even the most domesticated of magical beasts."
"He let out the Clabbert in the room and then released the birds so it would try to eat them." Luna blacked up Kunou. "If the fake birds were on fire, it wouldn't get a tummy ache from trying to eat them."
Kunou nodded along as if it all made sense.
Dumbledore looked back at Lockhart. "Gilderoy?"
"Their assignment was to capture the Clabbert without harming it and return it to its cage. The birds were merely to excite the creature to make it difficult to capture and somewhat erratic, Dumbledore."
He looked back at the two children, pausing for several moments. "Professor Lockhart." He carried the last syllable of his name for a moment as if he was having difficulty finding the words. "I recall that Minerva gave you a stern reprimand for releasing a group of Cornish Pixies on the second-year classes."
"And this was entirely different." Lockhart defended. "A Clabbert is significantly more docile, and even in its excitement, it didn't aim to prank or play or even harm."
"A thought, Professor Lockhart. How exactly did you expect a group of first-years, who presumably only learn one or two basic spells, to capture a rampaging Clabbert and safely direct it back into its cage?" Dumbledore asked.
"Well….." He swallowed. "You see…it was a learning moment; you…um, can't always be prepared…."
Dumbledore held his hand up. "Miss Lovegood, Miss Schweinorg. A week of detention for both of you. You had good intentions, but you need to think through your actions in the future. However, ten points to each of your houses for your willingness to defend a mistreated animal." He said with a warm tone. Now, can you please go tell the next in line to come into my office? Professor Lockhart will be out shortly after I have a few words with him."
Luna and Kunou quickly got up and ran down the stairs of his office and out the door.
There were other people waiting.
In fact, Professor McGonagall had set up chairs outside the headmaster's office for the line of troublemakers. She saw the two older Weasley twins, Malfoy, and even a Gryffindor boy who looked like he just had a bomb go off in his face.
But none of them was the 'next in line' to be scolded by the headmaster.
"Auntie Medea, Headmaster Dumbledore said that it's your turn next." Kunou looked at her.
Medea pursed her lips as she huffed and went inside.
[Line Break]
A/N
If you want to read 10 chapters ahead or support me, visit my p.a.t.r.e.o.n.c.o.m / astoryforone
I also have a boosty if you can't use the above under the same name.