Being Different Year 6
In Which Snape Gives a Rare Smile

Anne woke up and looked around her. Persephone and Lisa were slumped over each other Lisa’s bed, Padma and Mandy had fallen asleep reading the latest issue of Which Witch Weekly, Michael and Anthony had fallen asleep on the floor next to the chess board, Michael was using the chess board as a pillow and the pieces were strewn everywhere and Terry had fallen asleep leaning against Padma’s bed. The only person who was actually sleeping normally was Irwin who was lying next to her on her bed.

Anne had gone to bed at gone midnight, but clearly the others hadn’t bothered to go to bed at all and had just eventually dropped off.

She checked her watch and saw that it was already seven o’clock.

“Irwin,” she whispered nudging her boyfriend’s body lying on the bed next to her.

“Irwin,” she whispered nudging him again.

“What’s the matter,” he muttered.

“Its seven o’clock,” Anne told him.

“So,” he grumbled pulling the blankets on closer.

“So, it’s your favourite time of the day,” she told him going to go and get dressed.

“Merlin,” he muttered jumping out of bed, “you’re right!”

Anne and Irwin both got dressed at record speed and still got fifteen minutes of kissing in the Common Room before heading down for breakfast.

“Should we wake the others up?” suggested Anne before they left.

“Have you seen Terry first thing in the morning?” asked Irwin, “because it’s not a pretty sight.”

“I’ll just be a minute,” said Anne rushing back up to her dorm.

“Guys,” Anne called softly.

There was no answer.

“Wake up!” she called turning the light on.

“Good god in heaven,” muttered Anthony as the light blinded his eyes.

“What the hell is going on?” asked Mandy opening her eyes.

“It’s half past seven,” said Anne with her arms folded, “you guys need to get up and get down to breakfast to collect your new schedules.”

“Why couldn’t you have let us sleep for another half an hour,” groaned Michael as he lifted his head off of the chess board.

Anne left the room shaking her head and muttering to herself.

“You woke them up, didn’t you?” asked Irwin.

Anne nodded.

“And they were all in a foul mood?”

“It’s their fault for staying up so late,” said Anne as she and Irwin left leaving the others to get up at their own speed.

Anne and Irwin were halfway through their second round of toast before the others started to show up. Mandy’s hair which was usually immaculate was slightly tangled, Michael and Terry looked like they had slept in their uniforms, which Anne knew was exactly what they had done. All nine of them apart from Anne and Irwin looked exhausted.

“Why do you two always look so cheerful in the mornings?” mumbled Padma.

“Because we always have a proper night’s sleep,” said Irwin as he ate a slice of toast.

“Their pre-breakfast make out sessions might also help with their good moods,” smirked Anthony.

“You lot are just jealous,” said Irwin proudly.

Professor Flitwick went around the table and handed out the class schedules to the other year groups. Flitwick left the sixth years till last, he had a long list of what grades everyone had achieved and what subjects they wanted to take.

“Right well this shouldn’t be too difficult,” muttered Flitwick.

He went down the table and checked that everyone had the required grades for their chosen subjects.

“Right Miss Potter,” said Flitwick, “well there’s no problem with your grades clearly, are you sure you want to take quite so many subjects?”

“Umm well I enjoy all my subjects,” muttered Anne, “so I don’t really want to drop any, I am dropping care of magical creatures,” she pointed out.

“Eight NEWTs are a lot,” said Flitwick, “but I’m sure you’re more than capable.”

Flitwick signed Anne off for all her new classes and signed Irwin off for his straight afterwards.

Irwin headed straight off for Care of Magical Creatures and Anne went to her first period lesson of Divination. She checked her schedule quickly and saw that unlike Irwin, she wasn’t going to be getting any free periods all week, she supposed she would just have to work extra hard.

She reached the Divination classroom and found that other than her, there were only five people in her NEWT class; Lavender Brown and Padma’s twin Parvati Patil, that annoying Hufflepuff from the DA Zacharias Smith, Hannah Abbot and Astoria Greengrass.

Anne quickly sat down next to Hannah who was much better than the gossiping Lavender and Parvati or the annoying Zacharias.

“Hi Anne,” beamed Hannah, “you got cleared for all your subjects?”

“Yeah you?”

Hannah nodded enthusiastically.

“I’m taking Divination, Charms, Astronomy and Herbology.”

“Well I’m taking all of those and then Potions, Defence, History of Magic and Transfiguration.”

“Good luck with that,” said Hannah with her eyebrows raised slightly.

“Good morning class,” said Professor Trelawney as she glided into the room.

Zacharias lifted his head off of the desk where he had been dozing off.

“Congratulations an achieving the required grades to continue with my class,” said Trelawney, “I knew of course that you would.”

“The requirements weren’t exactly high,” muttered Zacharias.

“Today we are going to start studying the art of capnomancy, can anyone tell me what that is?”

Anne looked around the class and saw that her classmates were clueless.

She raised her hand slowly.

“Yes Dear?”

“Has it got something to do with smoke?” asked Anne.

Trelawney nodded enthusiastically.

“Can’t you try to tell the future by trying to read the smoke fumes?”

“That is correct dear,” nodded Trelawney.

Lavender and Parvati glared at her slightly, because she had known the answer and they hadn’t.

“Do you want to light the fire?” asked Hannah.

“No,” Anne stuttered, she was terrified of fire because she didn’t want to get burnt.

Whilst Hannah lit the fire safely, Anne found the right chapter in the textbook.

“Right,” she muttered, “capnomancy, so we have to watch the smoke fumes, and try and look for shapes in the smoke.”

Trelawney walked around the three desks as they interpreted the smoke fumes.

“All I can see is just smoke,” whispered Hannah trying not to be heard by Trelawney.

“Clear your mind and focus,” said Anne trying to look deep into the smoke.

“I think,” muttered Anne, “I can see a phoenix rising from the ashes.”

“Fascinating,” said Trelawney, “and do you know what that might mean?”

“Rebirth or reincarnation?” she offered.

“What an obvious question,” smirked Zacharias.

“Just because you can’t see anything,” pointed out Daphne.

Divination was followed by Defence Against the Dark Arts. This was one of the busiest NEWT classes and had twenty people in it.

Anne sat down next to Irwin at the front of the class, and then Snape gave his new opening speech.

After his opening speech, Snape told them to practise non-verbal magic in pairs.

“Have fun Irwin,” whispered Anthony leaning across the aisle to talk to him.

Anne had been able to do not only nonverbal but wandless magic since first year.

“You ready Annie?” asked Irwin as he got up.

Anne nodded at him as they both got their wands out.

“Go easy on me,” he said smiling nervously.

They stood a few metres apart and Anne looked at Irwin waiting for something to happen.

Irwin looked back at Anne and tried to disarm her, but nothing happened.

“I can’t do it Annie,” he grumbled after a few minutes.

“Clear your mind Irwin,” said Anne gently, “and think carefully about the spell you want to cast.”

Irwin grimaced for a moment and Anne’s wand starting to pull slightly towards Irwin.

“Keep trying,” she encouraged.

Anne’s wand flew out of her hand and eventually flew over to Irwin.

“Well done Irwin!” she exclaimed running across the room to give him a huge hug.

“Yes congratulations Mr. Scamander,” drawled Snape, “maybe Miss Potter will try defending herself next time?”

Anne blushed slightly as Irwin put her back down, she had not been trying to defend herself so that Irwin would actually be given half a chance.

“Miss Potter,” said Snape, “if you would care to show the class how it is done? This lot a clearly hopeless and need a demonstration,” he said indictaing the rest of the class.

This was the last thing in the world that Anne wanted to do, but as he was the teacher she could hardly argue.

The class went back to their seats and Snape and Anne stood at the front of the class with their wands out.

They stood opposite each other a few metres apart.

Snape made the first move and cast a quick tarantaleggra which Anne barley blocked. Then Anne aimed a rictumsempra at Snape which he also blocked.

After that Snape managed to disarm Anne and took her wand.

Accio wand, Anne thought in her head as she gestured for her wand to come back towards her.

Snape was so surprised at this display of wandless magic that he didn’t have time to block the flippendo jinx that Anne fired at him nonverbally.

There was a loud bang and Snape was thrown back a few metres before falling onto the floor.

The classes mouths were wide open, Anne had just duelled a teacher and won!

Professor Snape pulled himself off of the ground and dusted his robes off slightly.

He walked towards Anne and she flinched back slightly.

“Congratulations Miss Potter,” said Snape holding out his hand, was it possible that Snape was smiling at her?

“Miss Potter,” said Snape, “has just demonstrated on of the most useful pieces of wandless magic you can learn, summoning back her wand. Can anyone tell me why this is?”

Hermione put her hand in the air. Snape nodded towards her.

“It means that even if you have lost your wand the duel is not over,” said Hermione.

“Yes, five points to Gryfreplaceor and ten points to you too Miss Potter.”

“Thank you sir,” muttered Anne as she sat back down at her desk with great relief.

“Anne can I just remind you,” said Terry, “that you are fucking awesome!”

Michael was nodding in agreement and they were both trying not to laugh about how Anne had knocked over Professor Snape.

After lunch Anne and Irwin had their first History of Magic lesson of the year. History of Magic was just as empty as Divination had been. Apart from Irwin and Anne there was Justin, Lisa, Anthony and Susan Bones. To be quite honest, Anne was surprised that there were these many students in this class, Professor Binns bored most of his students to sleep.

After History of Magic Anne’s first day of NEWTs finally came to a close. She had a huge stack of homework to work her way through though, Trelawney had set a book for them to read by next lesson, and both Snape and Binns had asked for long essays.

Fortunatley it wasn’t Anne’s turn for Prefect duty that night so she managed to get both essays finished before eight o’clock when Michael and Terry turned the music on. At nine o’clock she headed up to her room to read the book for Trelawney.

By the time she finished reading it was already half past eleven at night. She tried to get some sleep but had another nightmare again.

She was sat in the Common Room and had just finished another long essay, Irwin was sat next to her trying to draw a diagram of a creature.

“Irwin,” said Anne looking up from her charms book.

“Yes?” he muttered looking up from his diagram.

Anne noticed that it wasn’t Irwin she was looking at though, those weren’t Irwin’s eyes, that wasn’t Irwin’s voice.

“Irwin?” asked Anne “whats happened to your eyes.”

Irwins red eyes smiled back at her.

“So you realised did you?” asked Irwin in Tom’s voice.

“What have you done with Irwin,” she stuttered.

“See for yourself,” smirked who looked like Irwin but was really Tom indicating out the window.

Anne walked over to the window nervously, and saw that Irwin was hanging on a rope outside the window, his body was so limp he looked more like a ragdoll than a person.

“Irwin!” she screamed.

“Anne, wake up for Merlin’s sake!” shouted Mandy throwing a pillow at her.

“Irwin?” she asked looking around the room panicking.

“Padma went to go get him,” said Persephone.

“Annie!” said Irwin running into the room in his pyjamas and dressing gown.

Irwin sat down on the bed next to Anne and brushed the stray hairs of her sweat covered face.

“What was it this time?” he asked concernedly as he lit the battery-operated candles on her bedside table.

“Tom,” she stuttered, “he killed you.”

“And just how did he try and kill me this time,” he almost laughed.

“He hung you from a rope outside the Common Room window,” she mumbled pulling at the end of one of her two plaits.

“Good to know,” said Irwin as he sat down next to her on the bed.

“I love how casually you just accept that Voldemort has killed you in her dreams,” said Lisa as she got back into bed.

“Shut up,” he muttered as he got into bed next to Anne.

“Come on Annie,” he whispered, “Tom’s not going to kill me or you, he’d have to get past Diana first.”

Diana was lying proudly in front of the dormitory door blocking entrance to anyone that she didn’t like, or someone she thought was up to something.

Anne eventually drifted back off to sleep snuggling in next to Irwin.