Dating Habits of Wizarding College Students
Chapter 01 - New Friends
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I own no portion of the Harry
Potter world, including Severus Snape.
All characters and characterizations from the world are property of JK
Rowling. Dianthus
and other original characters are solely of my imagination, however.
I welcome comments and reviews,
including harsh criticisms and flames. I
may delete them after a time, to reduce my personal embarrassment, but rest
assured that I will read them and take any appropriate statements to heart.
I cannot emphasize enough that you
must read Dianthus Stories in order
for this tale to make any sense at all.
In fact, you’ll note that this is actually part III – parts I and II are
both contained in Dianthus Stories,
so go read that one first.
Also, smut begins in Chapter Seven,
if that’s what you’re looking for. That’s
perfectly fine with mean san style=\'mso-spacerun:yes\'> But I say again
you may be a bit confused when you get there if you don’t slog through the
chapters leading up to it.
*****
Part Three –
Dating Habits of
Students, First Edition
Chapter One – New
Friends
Dianthus
was far behind, and it was only the first class session.
that damned first letter to Snape, and the much more pleasant diversion of
Snape himself, had led her astray, and now she was paying the price.
through her books sooner. She’d only had
one week to review them after Snape left, and it showed.
instructor lectured nonstop and almost without taking a breath.
Taking notes was a
welcome distraction from actually looking at her new instructor.
in his face that come from a great number of years devoted to drinking heavily,
undoubtedly pu bre breath from the cigars he always seemed to be chewing on,
and watery eyes that roamed over her body as she spoke, rather than paying
attention to what she might be saying.
His name was Toady, which she thought was fitting.
“I’m not sure you
need to be taking Introduction to Herbs, my dear Dianthus,” he said during
their first roll call. “I’ve read your
recipe in Potions magazine – quite
impressive, especially from one as young,” and here his eyes began the
wandering that she quickly grew to despise, “and as attractive as yourself.”
“Introduction to
Herbs is required for my coursework, Professor Toady,” she said stonily.
refer to her by her first name.
“Yes, and that’s
quite lucky fo,” h,” he leered, rolling the cigar between his teeth before
going on to the next name in his list.
gaze reluctantly left her breasts. He
left her feeling as if he’d coated her with the same grease he applied
copiously to his thinning grey hair.
Although she tried
to forget the incident as he lectured them, she did wonder briefly how her
recipe had made it into a magazine in the first place.
contact with Professor Toady the better, she didn’t ask to see a copy of
it.
owl to him.
At the end of the
period, a tiny girl with spiked black hair approached her.
the girl said. She was dressed in Muggle
clothes, but her tee shirt boldly proclaimed normal\'>WITCHES DO IT ON BROOMSTICKS.
“And you’re…
the roll call ended.
“Call me Reese,” “Oh, when he was “Is he the
grimaced the girl. “I could kill my
parents the first day of each term.”
eye-fucking me?” Dianthus grunted.
nastiest bit of work you’ve ever seen, or what?”
hall together. “I thought I’d throw up
all over when he did it to me. But what
was he talking about?”
Dianthus
shrugged. “I made a potion and I guess
someone submitted it for publication.”
“And
“Well, it was fun
to work on,” said Dianthus vaguely. “I
had a lot of help from my old Potions instructors.”
“Where’d you go to
school?”
“Hogwarts.”
“Oh.
little anxiously at Dianthus, who looked curiously back at her.
Hogwarts.
“How was it at
Durmstrang?” Dianthus said, but before Reese could answer, they were
interrupted.
“Reese!” shouted a
boy. He had very long, very wavy auburn
hair that unfurled behind him as he ran flat out down the hall toward
them. He was well over six feet tall,
and his robes were stretched tight over his chest, which was bulging with
muscles. As he approached, Dianthus saw
that he had almond shaped brown eyes, full red lips, and high cheekbones.
peaches-and-cream. He could have been a
model from an advertisement in Witch
Weekly.
“Jon!” Reese
squealed. “Where have you been?
“I know,” the boy
panted. “But I had some trouble with my
schedule. Had to go to Admin and get it
straightened out. They had me in Advanced
Numerology and Intermediate Herbs.
“Well, that’s what
you get for letting your house elf fill out your course schedule,” said Reese
with a laugh. “But listen, this is
Dianthus. I just met her, she’s in our
class. But she was just telling me about
the recipe she created. It made it into
The boy turned to
Dianthus. “I’m Jon Godwin,” he said
amiably. He held out his hand, and
Dianthus shook it. “Reese and I went to
school together.”
“But he’s not my
boyfriend,” said Reese quickly.
Jon grinned.
“Hey,” said
Dianthus, “when’s your next class, both of you?
Do you have time to get a tea or something?
because it was so cold there?”
Jon and Reese both
thought a beer was a much better idea.
“Can you apparate?” Reese asked Dianthus.
this summer. Called Mo’s,
or something, wasn’t it, Jon?”
“Crowe’s,”
corrected Jon. “But yeah, it’s
good. Fifty different
brands of fire whiskey.”
Dianthus’ stomach
gave a queasy jump at the mention of fire whiskey.
them. “But sure, we can go to
Let’s disapparate to Gringott’s, and you can show me where the pub is
from there.”
So over a thick
and foamy pint of beer, which Dianthus found she didn’t really like, Jon and Reese
told her about Durmstrang, but they seemed just as interested in hearing about
Hogwarts as well.< sty style=\'mso-spacerun:yes\'>
Before she knew it, Dianthus had only ten minutes to get to her next
class – Poisons for Poets. “Hey, you
never told us about your recipe,” said Reese.
“I’ll tell you
Wednesday after we get away from Toady,” Dianthus promised.
going to have tea next time. I don’t
think I like the taste of beer much.”
“Well, that’s a
lager,” said Jon knowledgably. “Maybe you
should try a pilsner instead.”
“We’ll see,” said
Dianthus dubiously.
She hurried
through the door of her next classroom, and was surprised to see ce sce she
knew. It was Jeremy Kingfellow, the
pudgy Hufflepuff from her N.E.W.T. Potions class.
sit next to him. “I had no idea you
would be attending Bremmel!”
Jeremy had lost
some weight over the summer. He was by
no means as thin as Snape, but his face was no longer as round, and his body
had taken on an attractive definition.
He still wore thick glasses, though, and his curly black hair was
sticking up as it always had.
“I heard you
telling Professor Snape that you’d applied,” said Jeremy.
so I never said anything.”
“I understand,”
said Dianthus kindly. “He could be a
real asshole, couldn’t he?”
“You were the only
one of us he liked,” said Jeremy with a small smile.
he was in school, huh?”
“Maybe,” said
Dianthus slowly. She didn’t want to get
into the rumors, not here.
But Jeremy said,
“You know, I never thought any of those stories were true, Dianthus.
the Dark Arts. And you were just a
little kid, for Merlin’s sake.”
“Thanks, Jeremy,”
whispered Dianthus. The professor, a
short round woman with glasses thicker than Jeremy’s, had just stood from her
desk.
“I am Professor
Elantra,” said the woman in a squeaky voice that reminded Dianthus of little
Professor Flitwick. “Ttermterm we will
be discussing poisons. The class is
called Poisons for Poets because I want to impress upon you the beauty of what
these ingredients can do.”
Dianthus was
enraptured. Here was a woman after her
own heart. As Professor Elantra lectured
them on belladonna, Dianthus almost felt that she had met a kindred
spirit. Elantra seemed to think, like
Dianthus herself did, that items typically classified as poisons could be
extremely useful in other capacities.
“After all,” said
Elantra, at the end of her lecture, “Wizards have been studying potions for
thousands of years, and new ones are being developed all the time.
ingredients, and anything is possible.”
“Wow,” Dianthus
said in a hushed tone to Jeremy when the class was breaking up.
“I know – it’s a
little scary, if you ask me,” said Jeremy darkly.
“What are you
talking about?” laughed Dianthus, as they exited the room together.
“Well, I know you
like to tinker around with things, but I prefer to follow in the tried and true
paths of our ancestors,” said Jeremy, with such an earnest expression that
Dianthus almost laughed out loud. “I
mean, they must have know what they were doing, to get us this far,” continued
Jeremy.
“Yes, but like
Professor Elantra said, we haven’t tried every combination yet,” Dianthus
reminded him.
“If you say so,”
said Jeremy, but Dianthus could tell he didn’t believe a word of it.
They walked
together for a minute, and then Dianthus said, “What other classes do you have,
Jeremy? Will we have others
together? It’s so good to see a familiar
fac/p>
/p>
“Well, tomorrow I
have Introductory Herbs–“”
“What?
groaned. “With
Professor Toady?”
“Yes, that’s the
one.”
“Well, look out,”
said Dianthus with a scowl. “I hope you
don’t have too many girls in your class, otherwise you won’t learn much.
“Oh,” said Jeremy,
his face going pink. “And after that
I’ve got to take Remedial Arithmancy.”
His face reddened even more.
“Jeremy!”
“Don’t start,” he
said glumly. “I heard it from my mum all
summepan pan style=\'mso-spacerun:yes\'> She had kittens when I failed
the N.E.W.T.”
“I’m sorry,” said
Dianthus.
“It’s the only one
I failed, though,” said Jeremy, his expression brightening.
“Accounting?
“Well, I want to
take over my dad’s apothecary shop,” said Jeremy proudly.
as well as make potions and know ingredients and stuff.”
“That sounds
wonderful, that you already know what you’re going to do,” said Dianthus with a
sigh.
“
Well, I want to go
into research. Like you said, I like to
tinker. Don’t know where I’ll find a job
yet, though.”
“And right now I’m
headed for Intro Wizarding Psychology,” said Jeremy, pointing to a building
across the lawn from where they stood.
“My dad thinks it’s important, when you deal with the public.
“Oh,” said
Dianthus, disappointed. “So we don’t
have any other classes together this term.
I’m on my way to Plants of Great Britain.”
“Ooh, I heard
that’s really tough. My older sister
told me about it. She works for the
Ministry now, but she took that class a few years ago.”
“Thanks for the
head’s up,” said Dianthus grimly. “I’ll
see you on Wednesday, then?”
“See you then,”
said Jeremy, and he trotted off across the lawn.
Dianthus was
surprised to see Reese and Jon sitting together in the classroom.
said affably, when Dianthus sat next to him.
“This is
fantastic,” said Reese. “Now we can
study together for both! I’ll bet
Dianthus knows a lot about plants of
Britain
Dianthus
shrugged. “I know a bit.
with it some.”
“Perfect,” beamed
Reese. “Do you live close by?
nothing about the plants of
pretend we didn’t even exist. That’s why
Jon and I became such good friends.
There were only a few of us there from
“How’d you end up
going to Durmstrang, anyway? I thought
kids from here all went to Hogwarts?”
“My dad went to
Durmstrang, so he wanted me to go there,” said Reese.
“Same story,” said
Jon. “Our folks know each other, too.”
“Sounds cozy,”
“Jon’s not my
boyfriend,” repeated Reese.
Jon rolled his
eyes. “Reese is gay,” he said in an
undertone. “She’s a little touchy about
people thinking I’m her boyfriend.”
“Really?”
in meeting.”