Pawn of Darkness

Phoenix awoke with the dawn, her wand rattling because she had set an alarm in it. Since none of the other girls were awake, she dressed herself by magic as she had done at the Manor in the mornings. Not really wanting to walk to the Great Hall, she tried to Apparate down. Nothing happened, maybe she was in some sort of blocked zone. That would be why Riddle had told her to get to the village before she Apparated. Drat, she'd have to walk.

She walked slowly into the common room, where Hermione was already sitting, a huge book in her hands.

"Oh, hello," Hermione called, "Just reading up on more magical creatures. I'm on house-elves now."

"Come off it, Hermione," Ron told her, as he came down the stairs, "I thought you got over house-elves two years ago."

Phoenix heard them start to argue as she walked out of the portrait hole. Did they live to squabble?

In the Great Hall, stacks of eggs, hotcakes, toast, rolls, waffles, and more were sitting out. Only Tam Pendleton was at the Gryffindor table, she slid into a seat next to him.

"Hi, Phoenix," he said, "You're an early riser too, I see."

"Yeah, I am. What's that?" She pointed to the paper in Tam's hand.

"Course schedule, they're over there."

"Accio schedule!" She cried, and the paper zoomed into her hands. A small teacher sitting on a stack of cushions applauded.

"Very nice!" a tiny teacher cried, it was Professor Flitwick, if she remembered Ron, Harry, and Hermione's list, "And you're only a first year!"

"Um, thanks," she told him, as Tam goggled.

"Sheesh," Tam said, "Where'd you get to be so good?"

"Nowhere, just picked it up," she fibbed. Now she read the schedule. Today she had Charms first, so she would probably have tiny Flitwick questioning her more. Defense Against the Dark Arts came after lunch.

Chris was entering the hall now. "I woke up as I heard you leave, whatcha talkin' about?"

Phoenix glared at Tam, telling him silently not to talk, "Nothing," she said.

"Oh." Chris picked up a schedule. "Charms first, hmmm, can't be too bad. Transfiguration tomorrow... I've heard that's a real work loader."

"Come on, it can't be that bad," Tam said. "The worst that can happen to you is to have someone change you into an ant, I'd guess. And then have nobody find you for ages and ages. Urggg, Astronomy with Slytherin. I think Herbology with Ravenclaw will be fine, but Slytherins are pains."

"Seriously? Maybe they'll all be too tired to be pains though, Friday night at midnight isn't the best time for anyone." Phoenix laughed at her joke, her friends joined in.

When the Hall was filling up with students, Chris poked her and whispered, "Hey, isn't that Dumbledore? I've heard all about him. He's really a great Dark Arts Defenseman."

Phoenix groaned. Flitwick was talking excitedly to Dumbledore, and pointing at her. She wished she'd never Summoned the paper, now somebody might get suspicious. She tried to change the subject. "What are Dark Arts? Magic is magic, right?"

"No!" Chris said, "There's a really evil wizard, my dad's an Auror and he's always talking about him. His name is Voldemort, but everyone here calls him You-Know-Who 'cause they're afraid of him. Before we were born, he was really powerful, then he tried to kill Harry Potter - have you seen him here yet? - and something happened and he almost died. Then there wasn't any real Dark Magic for a while.

"But two years ago, somehow he came back, and he's started gaining supporters again. So many wizards and witches have died... Muggles too, the Dark Lord doesn't care who he kills. Some of the kids here have Auror parents that died, and some had families that were killed while they were at school." She looked sad and mournful, as though she would be glad of a chance to get off the subject. Luckily, one came.

"Drat!" Tam had gotten egg on his robes. "Anybody know any cleaning charms?"

Phoenix turned her back on the staff table and muttered a quick spell to clean the mess, careful to hide it from the staff table. "Thanks," Tam told her.

"Be a little more careful, Tam," Chris said, feigning a disapproving tone, but she spoiled it by grinning broadly.

* * * * *

Phoenix stared at the board as Professor Flitwick showed the class basic charms. Making bubbles come out of their wands. She had already read how to do this, and when Flitwick told the class to try, she tried doing it without the wand - making the bubbles spring from her fingers instead - as everyone else tried their hardest. What would be more interesting, she thought. She stopped her stream of bubbles and pointed her wand at Professor Flitwick. Moments later, a huge bubble had formed under Flitwick, and he started to rise up into the air.

The class started to laugh, but Flitwick knew some sort of counter-charm. The bubble stopped growing and rolled so that the tiny professor was gently deposited on the ground. "Well," he squeaked, "I guess that was an accident, please do not aim your wand toward any of your class-mates, and please, don't point your wands toward me anymore."

* * * * *

Lunch was a simple affair of sandwiches, after which came Defense Against the Dark Arts. Harry, Ron, and Hermione had thought highly of Black, so she was curious about him. Her book in hand, she walked with Kara to the class. But Kara wasn't so sure about Black.

"Did you know he was in Azkaban? People thought he helped kill the Potters, those are Harry Potter's parents, so he went to jail. In my sister's fifth year he escaped and got here. People thought he was trying to kill Harry. But he got cleared last year, around April, when a bunch of You-Know-Who's supporters were caught. One of them was the man Black was accused of killing, so he got off. He was on the run for a while."

Whatever had happened in April for Kara didn't matter much compared to her memories of April. Riddle had been in such a bad mood then that he had been blasting furniture apart. He had used the Crutacius Curse on Phoenix so often that she went to bed with the aches.

Black was in the room when she and Kara entered, but nobody else. "Hello," he said, "Have a good first morning?"

The two girls nodded.

"Good then. Wait until us teachers start piling your work on, I hope you're still happy then."

Kara laughed. Phoenix could tell she felt better about Black then ever.

"What are your teaching us, Professor?" Phoenix asked Black.

"Defense against the things Voldemort is using against us after a while, all though we'll start with the basics. Hope you never meet up with them, but we'll tell you he best ways to try things." Kara cringed at Black's use of You-Know-Who's name. "Would you be Phoenix Argent?" Phoenix nodded. "Heard about your Summoning Charm. That's fourth-year level stuff, Flitwick was so excited he almost fell off his seat. Mind you, he's normally toppling off his stack of books."

If the rumor had spread, she'd better be careful about what she did, she didn't want anyone getting suspicious about her talents. But what did first years know?

The bell rang and Phoenix took a seat in the middle of the room, her roommates clustered around her as they came in. Black remained silent until they had all entered.

"My name is Sirius Black - and if you choose to mistrust me after what you were told all your lives, feel free to do so, I won't hold it against you in your grades.

"The important thing in this class is for you to learn how to defend yourselves against Voldemort's terrors. Dementors, the Unforgiveable Curses, and other things. But that actually comes later, now I'm supposed to teach you about basic hexes, how to use them to stop an enemy, and counter-jinxes. If you find a particularly unpleasant curse, bring it up to me, there's someone I'd love to try them on." At first, Phoenix thought he meant her, but then realized it had to be Snape, the teacher he had been glaring at.

"So pull out your books, and look up ten curses and counter-curses. At the end of class, bring up your lists on how to use them and we'll set you into pairs. You will curse your partner and use the counter-spell. Later your partner will do likewise."

Phoenix pretended to open her book, but ignored it and wrote down some of her favorite hexes and jinxes. Lead Feet, Jelly Legs, De-Boning - not the Crutatius and it's fellows, she hated those. She didn't notice Professor Black standing beside her.

"Are those in the book?" he asked her, "I really don't remember them."

"Oh! They're in a-a book my dad has. I looked through it and memorized them." She hoped her fib sounded natural enough. Black shrugged and passed on.

She sat and thought of more curses until they were split into partners, Aly was with Phoenix. Aly went first. The Leg-Locker. Phoenix sighed. She could shake this off with her eyes closed, without her wand, and with her arms behind her back, but she waited for Aly to use the counter-curse.

* * * * *

The rest of classes were uneventful until Friday. Snape was as nasty as Harry said. He picked on the Gryffindors to the point where Tam had broken and thrown a jar of tarantula juice at him. (Which resulted in Tam getting a detention and losing Gryffindor twenty points). Herbology was new to Phoenix, but she did well. The same went for her other subjects, until Transfiguration.

They were turning matches into needles. Apparently, this was traditional. Every teacher did it. It was so simple, Phoenix thought any first year should be able to do it in a snap, so she prodded it with her wand. There was a perfect tapestry needle. Phoenix closed her eyes and started to think - how could she get Potter to come with her?

"Miss Argent!" Phoenix spun around, it was the teacher, Professor McGonagall. "You've done it! First person all week!"

Phoenix smiled weakly. Perfect, she told herself, another thing you've just made a point about.

Fortunately, Chris had just sprouted pine needles in her ears, and Professor McGonagall scurried away to the laughter of the class.