Happy holidays everybody!

Chapter 11 - Getting Back into the Swing of Things

Hermione follows through with waking me up before we arrive at the station. After making sure we look normal, we leave the train with the tail end of the crowd. "First years! First years over here!' I hear Hagrid shout, I give Hermione's arm a squeeze as well as another place and head over to the first years.

Hagrid nods at me as I line up and after a few stragglers arrive, we mount the boats. I hop into the one Hagrid is using as he guides us across the lake. With my new height, I have to duck the vines with Hagrid unlike before where the man only gave the warning to himself.

I catch sight of the castle in the waning light and it looks magnificent. The magic in the stonework makes it almost glow in the low light. The lights flickering around in the windows give it a mysterious aura to it as we approach. I have to smile at seeing my home again.

The boat line continues to the docks under the school. I hop out before Hagrid so I am not capsized into the water when the giant gets out of the boat. The children slowly join us until everyone is here and Hagrid knocks on the door. After a tick, McGonagall opens the door and lets us in.

The woman escorts us through the familiar halls,to me, of the castle until we arrive at the great hall. "Stay here and smarten up. I will return in a bit for the sorting." On these words, McGonagall leaves. I look myself over and find everything is in place and proper, just as it should be. My hair is tightly bond in the wrap all the way to my thighs and my ears are under my bandana tightly. The tail is down my pants, but it will not be found. Impressions are everything and the lord of a house must look their best even if they have to hide themselves.

Wait… No. That's not right. The lord must look proper as they are and being insecure about themselves is a weakness I will not allow myself to show. I hid it in the desert because of child-like fear that was tampered with the knowledge that everyone I came in contact with had a weapon to end my life and instincts to do such for someone different.

I pull off my bandana gently to avoid yanking any of my hair out as I can finally let my ears free if being judged a little. This is the world of magic, stupid shit is the norm. I mean, I killed a sixty foot deadly, thousand year old snake with a sword that came from a talking hat delivered by a Gandalf-looking man's phoenix, under a magical moving castle, trying to save a girl from the spirit of a long dead man who killed himself by magical backfire a decade before.

I pull my tail out to let it be free as the children start to back away from me in fear. Understandable, but it is child fear, not grown soldier fear. Why would I hide here? They have law and order. The worst is a little bullying, but I've killed hundreds if not thousands of people with my own hands, that doesn't bother me.

Making my back straighter, I hold my head high and wait at parade rest Arcade made me stay at when he was instructing me in combat. Perfectly balanced and disciplined. A strong front to impress the "Dumb fuck mouth breathers that try to say we're weak," or soldiers that sometimes come by our place. The ghosts come by talking about how disrespectful Peeves has been and hope that he leaves. Ah Peeves, that guy was a right asshole that I would love to shoot full of holes. He has framed me so many time for his own pranks back when I came here. Hell, he's a dead man so I might just do that for the hell of it, blow off a little steam and all.

They suddenly halt and act surprised about see the new students. They check us over, lingering on me, but ignores my additions as the frair and nearly headless man grin."Hello young ones!" The frair greets the fresh wizard and witches, "I hope to see you in my house!" They give a bow and leave through the walls to bother the great hall. As they fade into the walls, McGonagall comes back and leads us into the room. The woman only glances at my now open additions before leading us in.

The nostalgia I feel standing with the first years is impressive. I barely contain my grin as the firsties whisper about what they will be sorted by, having already forgotten about me in their excitement. I think one even thinks that we will have to fight a dragon! At least it's not a troll, there is a dragon in the motto of the school for that rumor to make a little sense. The wonders of being a child.

McGonagall comes out with the stool in one hand and the hat in the other. The woman sets it down and stands beside it. It belts out the standard unity song that it always does which no one takes to heart and finishes with a bow. I clap with the students because the hat always amuses me.

The elderly witch pulls out a scroll with the first year names on it and begins to call out names. B's comes and goes and soon all the new students are in their houses being congratulated and the rest of the students are staring at me. I am so happy I have gotten over being stared at in second year, but the looks annoy me as being looked at in the waste is never a good thing. Now, she just has to call me Black and not Potter then all should be good!

McGonagall puts her list away. "We have a special student coming to us this year! She never finished her education and will be put in fourth year with her age group. Black, Violet." My name causes in uproar from the purebloods as they all recognize my family name. Draco is the most vocal, but I ignore him. It would seem being the missing head of the Black house is a big deal. Most of them comment on me being a dog-fucker and half-breed which pisses me off, even if I don't show it.

I sit down on the stool and the hat is placed on my head, this time not covering my eyes. "Hm... Greetings Mr. Potter and Milord Phil." I feel Phil do a happy dance on my tattooed arm. I'm not entirely sure how, but I just know he is dancing under my skin. I smirk down at the marking as the hat continues. "It would seem you really should have been in Slytherin, my word! Taking over as the ruler of an empire as an independent faction. Sad to see you never got to enjoy it. That is a shame."

I mumble low so that McGonagall couldn't understand me, "Thank you sir. I just hope that lovably dumb robot continues to filter some money into the followers like I wanted." The hat chuckles as it brings the robot front and center into my vision. It must be looking up what I was meaning and just showed me what it's looking through.

"Yes well. I can see that while you would do well in Slytherin, there is nothing there for you anymore. You'd eat the young ones alive with the way you are now. Your loyalty is not suited for the Hufflepuffs, you keep your trust too close to yourself and while you have a great mind, I do not believe your brand of genius would let the Ravenclaws keep their sanity. So, I guess with your hopelessly reckless nature and dangerous strong mindset to help, you will once more do well in... GRYFFENDOR!" The hat shouts loudly.

The house seems divided on what to do. The muggleborns cheer along with some of the half-bloods, but the purebloods seems to not like the fact a Black will be in their mix. I smile at them and hand the hat back to McGonagall.

I walk over to the house and sit next to Hermione who is rubbing her neck. Under my questioning look, she mutters, "Peeves made McGonagall slip and my neck was her support." A spike of rage floods through my body at the poltergeist for causing my friend harm, but I crush it before I start to growl. It will not do good if I act like an animal the first time they see me.

When the uproar from my sorting ends, Dumbledore takes the stage. Right as he begins to talk, there is a thundering crash from the hall's doors and in walks a broken man. I do have to respect him though. To survive the injuries and still keep going takes some guts. I see a missing leg, some fingers gone, many laceration and blunt-force scarring as well as a nearly missing nose. Damn. "Ah, welcome Moody! Students, this will be your defense against the dark art's teacher this year, Professor Moody!" A few others and I give the man a round of applause as he goes to sit down.

"As I was saying," Dumbledore says, smiling that weird smiling of his. "We are going to have the honor of hosting a very exciting event over the coming months, an event that has not been held for over a century!"

I tap Hermione on the arm and lean in close to her ear. "100 pounds on Harry Potter getting involved in some way." Hermione grins and nods. The girl knows that trouble follows me like a bad case of rad poisoning. Maybe not in that metaphor, but in something more modern or... something that makes sense here.

"It is my great pleasure to inform you that the tri-wizard tournament will be taking place at Hogwarts this year!" A roar of voices sound as every student "whispers" to their neighbor about the news.

Over the roar, we all here the twins cry out as one, "You're joking!" Everyone laughs at this and settles down.

"I am not joking, Mr. Weasley," he says with humor in his voice. Dumbledore then falls into rambling about another joke he heard about earlier in his years. McGonagall got him back on track with a loud clearing of the throat. "Ah yes... The Triwizard Tournament was first established some seven hundred years ago as a friendly competition between the three largest European schools of wizardry: Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang. A champion was selected to represent each school, and the three champions competed in three magical tasks. The schools took it in turns to host the tournament once every five years, and it was generally agreed to be a most excellent way of establishing ties between young witches and wizards of different nationalities, well until, that is, the death toll mounted so high that the tournament was discontinued."

Even at the thought that people have died enough to discontinue a tournament in a time period where human life was not that well valued, the students still get excited and start chattering about how they are going to try to enter the contest. Dumbledore goes on to tell us about the age line which destroys the hopes of all but the oldest people. I wonder if I can still enter or my body's age is what counts?

I might just try it for the adventure. No, not for the adventure. I'll be entering that contest just to get fame for my house to show we aren't just old money. Sitting on my ass for the past month has been boring. The only thing that remotely got me to feel anything other than boredom is when I had my first monthly. That was an experience that will take some getting use to. Thank Phil and his siblings that I am a medic and had to give the talk to some young orphans under the orders of Arcade or I would have absolutely no idea what to do.

As everyone talks, the food appears in a flash. I quickly grab some chicken and vegetables. Most of which I haven't had in years. I begin to eat as quick and polite as I can, not sparing anytime for anything else. This is the most food I've had in a long time. I kept myself to two meal a day for the past while, most of which was just enough to continue my training with results. The bar had some good food, but only a fresh kill can even begin to compete against Hogwart's food.

Hermione chuckles next to me as I devour the broccoli and lettuce. I smirk into my food and continue to eat until I am full. Hermione finally decides to speak when she sees I'm done. "Hungry much Vee?"

I have to blush a bit at my manners and nod. "I haven't had any greens or unmutated meat for a long time. Tom really only cooked beef products back in the Leaky cauldron, so I didn't have much variety as a brahmin steak tastes close to the same as a cow steak."

Hermione laughs a little as she eats at her own pace. "They didn't have any chickens or lettuce where you were?"

"Nah. I was mostly in a desert and all the animals were mutated. They either were bigger than horses or had something like two heads. The bees and wasps are about the size of my torso in general, so think what a bear would be like." Hermione almost chokes on her food when she hears this. "Yeah. Yao Guai are scary bastards I tell you what," I laugh as I finger my toothy necklace. It was a pain to drill the holes in, but the Sorrows helped me with it seeing as I was a hunter of a monster or something to them. They just plain hated Yao Guai.

I lean back with my goblet of pumpkin juice in my hand. This stuff has nothing on regular sodas, but it is something refreshing, so I don't mind too much. The lack of radiation in every sip is a bonus though. The feast goes by fast as everyone eats their fill and talk about the tri-wizard tournament. I mention aloud to Hermione, "I'm going to try for the tournament thing."

The bushy-haired girl just stares at me before I continue. "I need something to do and sitting around all day is not something I plan to do. Sure I am going to continue exercising and practicing my crafts, but I need some danger in my life to keep me on my toes. The fame will also make a new name for my house that I want it to have."

"Why?" Hermione asks me.

"Meh. When you actively fight in two war and guard a castle from bi-weekly sieges, normal life just becomes boring, you know? I wonder what they are going to do with it? I'm sure it will be much safer than the previous ones though."

Hermione and I discuss the tournament until the end of dinner. Dumbledore dismisses us and we head up to the dorm. I follow close to Hermione as we head up so I can find what the password is as well as where I am going to sleep. The prefect leading us says, "Bangledash," to the fat lady and she opens her door to the common room.

We enter and I follow Hermione to the fourth floor of their tower. My feet hesitantly takes a step onto the girl's staircase, half hoping for it to reject me, but it acts like any other stairs and I broodingly walk up behind Hermione, eager to get to bed.

We find the fourth year's dorm room and each pick a bed. I take the one furthest from the door and by the window so I can watch the night sky. I pull my trunk out of my bag and place it down at the foot of my bed before enlarging it with a wave of my hand. It really only needs a dollop of magic to touch it to come back to size.

Yawning, I dump my satchel into the trunk with a cloaking spell over it so no one takes it. I stripe and toss my clothes in one of the hampers the elves have out before hopping into bed. I absently burrow under the covers before falling asleep.

I am awoken by the girls as they come in from the common room a few minutes later, but when I hear them all go to sleep, I follow their example and do the same once again.

The next morning, I wake up so much more refreshed then I usually am. Stretching, I reach into my bag and pull out one of my uniforms before putting the them over my shoulder. I go to the bathroom to do my morning rituals before putting the clothes on for the day, sans the cloak. As my hair dries further from the water, I bind my feet as I always do.

Yawning, I wrap my arm in the bandage for my hair loosely so I don't lose it before grabbing my satchel. The girls are all still asleep as it is about six in the morning on a Sunday. An ungodly time where only the most diehard people get up at. I'm sadly one of them to my eternal shame.

I head downstairs and sit on the couch, pulling out one of my third year books. I avoided reading them during the summer so I had something to do at school. The books are about as long as one of the smaller medical texts each, so with classes in between, it will take about five weeks a book to imprint the data of the book in my mind if I do other things. Two if I spend all my time working on the books which I just can't do nor do I really want to.

I lazily read through my charm book using focus and after an hour in accelerated time, I let the magic go and relax against the couch to rest up my reserves. At this point, my hair is dry enough to start wrapping, so I do so.

After a few minutes, I see the twins come down to the common room whispering and probably scheming something against the Slytherin. I am mostly done with my hair, so I just nod at them when they look over at me as I tightly wrap my hair.

The pair stare at me, specifically my ears. "I could make an eyes are here joke, but I don't think it would work on you two," I comment as I finish off my hair with a tight knot. The twins jump in surprise causing me to chuckle at the gingers.

The twins just rub the back of their head in embarrassment and sit down on a couch to the left of me. "So..." "You're the new" "Head of the" "Black house." "How do you" "Like that gig?" The two say, switching off with each other in segments.

I shrug with a toothy grin, "I don't know, didn't even go by Black until I found out I was the new head. Haven't done too much other than settle my house's voting with my solicitor and talk with a disowned member of the family. How do you like being the resident pranksters of a school?"

The twins grin as one and begin their talking pattern anew, "It is great!" "Except when an upstart," "Fails and the teachers," "Blame us for their," "Horrid disasters." "Insulting I tell you." "So, why didn't you finish," "Your education when you're so," "Hot and fit?" "I was going for young my brother." One of the twins finish, I think it is Fred.

"Well thank you... George for the complement. I didn't finish school due to joining a medical corps for impoverished states. That ate up a a few years of my life so far, seeing as I am about fifteen... I last touched magical education when I was ten... so yeah, been five years. Going to be hell playing catch up, I tell you what," I laugh at the end to show it doesn't bother me so much. I can catch up on my power and skill with wandless magic alone.

The twins turn and lean in close. They conspire among themselves for a few seconds before nodding as one. The pair turned back to me with devilish grins on their faces. "Hmm. We could," "Tutor you for a price." "The price being," "One date with each of us." "Or both if you want."

I chuckle at the offer before shaking my head. Outside I find it amusing, inside, it feels like I am smacked across the cheek, then receive a follow up punch into my chest. No one ever asked me out as a guy, but not even the first day of school has gone by and I now have had two invitations, be it with the twins, but still.

Hiding the turmoil, I tell the boys in an amused voice, "I'll be fine and I'm into girls, sorry boys." They slouch with an exaggerated look of loss on their face. "Thanks for the offer and I guess I'll see you guys around." With a yawn, I get up off the couch and head down to the lake for my daily exercises. It was thanks to the twins that I remember I still need to work out my body, so I may be a little too over dressed for exercising, but it is easy to fix.

I pull my shirt off, having left my sweater in the bag as I exit the school, leaving me in my white tank top that I always wear under my clothing when I don't wear my armor. I have a few sport bras in my bag, so I need to change into that before I begin. The dress shirt find's its place on my shoulder as I stride across the cool ground to the water edge under the sunset. The water a deep orange from the sun's reflection.

I set my shirt onto the ground with my robe before going into the treeline for a quick change before beginning to do my basic stances for whatever style of combat Arcade taught me. I think it had something to do with the Enclave or something if I caught his muttering right. It's definitely military mixed with something because most of the training was centered around killing someone in the most brutal and quickest fashion possible.

The focus for the style is to hit hard in vital areas and keep hitting them until they don't move. Be it using your elbow, knee, leg, fist or just some baseball bat, there is a form for everything to make room to end a man's life. Grappling to break a neck, break a limb, or just plain break a man is a subcategory of the offensive section I know.

On the defensive side, it seems to take heavy influence from Judo and grappling forms to keep people with knives, swords and any other close quarter weapon from being used effectively. As Arcade put it in his educated words, "This puts a bitch down before they put you down in a manner that makes fiends cringe."

As I go through the forms, I think, 'I'm going to have to go learn some more modern martial arts. Man, that is going to be a pain to multitask with a job.' I am not just going to mooch off my inheritance like I did last summer. That was just to catch up on what I missed in my departure from this reality. A special case that, unless Phil or his siblings gets bored, I will not be repeating. I guess I could get a job at the hospital with my aunt to help more people out. Though with the wizarding regard on my medicine, that may not be the best idea and I'd end up yelling at more people than I would be helping if I try to use my method of healing.

I spend the next hour of training thinking over my job choice, my body going through the motions as I strike the air with powerful hits, my mind elsewhere. When the school's breakfast bell goes off to tell students to get up, I have come to the conclusion that I'll work as a courier in the alley to bring in some money. I wonder what I can do and where?

At the sound of the bell for breakfast to start, I finish the heavy knee strike forms before slowing to a stop, letting my fatigue hit me in on big burst that I will need to battle for the next few hours. I might just take a nap in some of my classes. Since I have to make up a year, my free time will probably be used to work with the third years and their courses. I really need to get started on the third year books so I can catch up to my fourth year peers. Well... not peers since I'm four years older than them, but they don't know that.

I give a few coughs trying to catch my breath as I toss on my dress shirt with my robe on my shoulder. The shirt is open to show my undershirt so I can go back up to shower without having to fully undress again. I stare longingly at the water. That is something else I miss as a female. Casual nudity to clean is frowned upon for females. Before, I could have just stripped to my boxers and took a quick dunk, now that would be seen as indecent. Going without hot water for so long was a nightmare now that I think back, one that I easily bore, but a nightmare all the same. Even though I find that I just love showering now that I'm back, I still liked the convenience of just washing up in a lake quickly had offered me.

With a jaw-cracking yawn, I make it back inside and begin my journey up to my dorm. Each step hurts me slightly as my swollen muscles protest their use after a hard workout. 'Why does the dorm have to be in a tower?' I find myself griping as I wait for the stairs to align with the right staircase. As the stairs finally align, I hear a gaggle of students coming towards me as I make my way up the death traps waiting to happen. I guess the kids just woke up and got ready. I make it to the top and see the Gryffindor troops down the hall.

I give them a wave as I approach to be polite. The jerks don't even return it, some of them even glare at me. Assholes. I'm use to those hateful looks as well from... a lot of people actually and easily let the look pass out of my mind. The other younger children however, seem more focused my ears and tail than me as a person. The first years must never have seen a half-breed of anything before. To be fair, I haven't either yet, so I don't blame any of the children.

Ignoring the big ones as they are ignoring me, I pass the group and continue onto the tower. In ten minutes, I am ready for the day once more. My year mates were not even up, so I didn't have to see another woman's naked body as I try to keep my thoughts off my own, so that is a plus for my day. Since my body is still use to the fall of the Mojave desert nights, not the late summer mornings of England, I don't button up my shirt and leave my undershirt open with my robe in my bag. My stomach also takes the time to remind me that I am hungry, so I hurry down to the grand hall to throw together something in the twenty minutes left for breakfast.

I arrive in the grand hall with ten minutes to spare as the stairs refused, absolutely refused, to let me cross to the bottom floor. Sometimes this castle pisses me off more than being shot at. At least then, I can shoot back and most likely kill what was causing my frustration. I can't kill a castle with just a rifle! I'd need at least a nuclear bomb and I am not touching one of those with a thousand mile long pole.

I enter the hall with long strides as I walk over to the Gryffindor table to sit with my friend. I can hear not so quiet whisperings from all over the hall as I take my seat next to Hermione. I load up my plate with food and quickly begin to make up the lack of calories I have in my body.

Hermione is studying for the first day of class next to me like she always does. Once my food is gone, I pull out my own book that was the reason I was so tired yesterday and start focusing on it. I come out of the warped perception with a tap on my shoulder. Blinking the strain out of my eyes, I look behind me to see McGonagall standing over me with a piece of paper in hand.

I take the offered slip and check it out as McGonagall moves on. "Holy shit," I curse quietly as I read over my schedule. Thank the gods and Phil that I have an obscene amount of magic our I would be suffering magical exhaustion by the end of the month. Hermione hears my little curse and leans over to see why.

"Oh Christ," The bushy-haired girl exclaims as she looks over my schedule. "My third year didn't look that hectic and I had to use a time machine to go to them all!" Hermione whispers as she reads over my schedule. That is a story I will want to hear later.

Monday:
Double Potions (third)
Double CoMC
lunch
Double charms (Third)
Double Divination (Third)

Tuesday:

Double charms
Double CoMC (Third)
lunch
Herbology (Third)/Transfiguration
Double Divination
Astronomy (Third)

Wednesday:
Defense (Third)/Transfiguration
Double history of Magic
lunch
Double Herbology (third)
Double Potions

Thursday:
Double Defense (Third)
Double Herbology
lunch
Transfiguration/charms (Third)
Double Charms
Astronomy

Friday:
Double History of Magic (third)
Double Defense
lunch
Double Transfiguration (Third)

I groan as I pack up my book and pull out my potion text. "Might as well get going to potions now. Cya later Hermione and you are telling me about the time machine." The fifteen year old gives me a sympathetic look along with a nod as I leave the hall to reach potions so that I can study my fourth year book more to at least understand a little of the concepts. While Snape wants the students to just brew potions and do essays about them, he makes the students study their text outside of class to know the reasons behind everything so they do not mess anything up.

I place myself in the back of the class, being among the first ones in the class. I open my textbook and start to focus on it. I flip through the book as fast as I can read the dry text. For an hour in the outside world, seeing as it was only seven when I left the hall and class starts at eight, I power through the first five of the one hundred chapters in the book.

I come out of the book and notice little red splotches on my desk. "Dammit," I mumble, tired from the reading as I recognize it to be my blood. Focusing for an hour does a number on my eyes. I take out a cloth and press it tightly against my eyes as I shut the book.

I hear Snape burst in the room like the Batman and take his place in the front. I make sure not to remove the cloth as I let my eye finish their bleeding. I hear Snape's opening speech which I ignore in favor of thinking how long it too for my eyes to bleed. Judging from the amount of blood on the desk and the lack of on my book, I can last fifty minutes with no problem, but after that it gets iffy. The only issue is the lack of magic in my body to help along the reading.

"Ms. Black! Eye's front and detention for ignoring the teacher!" Snape sneers

"My eyes are bleeding, give me a moment," I call out blandly as I continue to press the cloth against my eyes while keeping my head down to let the blood flow out. Thanks to the magical nature of the injury as well as past experience with this, I know that the bleeding will stop soon and the residue magic in my eyes will fix up the blood vessels in about five hours unless I give it some magic to feed off of in about a hour. "I'm listening, so just continue on."

I hear the man come closer, "Have you already hurt yourself, you dunderhead?! I haven't even started the class!" I feel a hand grab my hair and pull up. The pools of blood on my cheekbones finally have an exit and they flood out, staining both my white shirts.

I grab the offending hand and give it a sharp twist, not enough to break, but enough for him to let go. "Touch me again like that and I will retaliate harshly," I growl as I press the bloody cloth back over my left eye as I glare him down with my right. "I was doing something so I could memorize the third year book and I overdid it. I'm fine," I explain as I let go of the man's hand.

The greasy-haired teacher sniffs at me and walks back to the front of the room, "Detention again, Black. Turn to page seven in your text books for the recipe for the Fool's curse." I switch my eye patch as I follow the instruction and quickly read over the page. It is a recipe and what the potion is for.

I am able to sort the info in my head quickly, but I know it is only partial and will fade with time until I can only vaguely recall it in about a month. Occlumency is not the answer to memorization as the book thinks it is. The memory is just clearer longer and while it is never forgotten, the finer or even the basic details are lost with age. While you never forget, you never can quite remember fully either.

I go over to the closet after everyone has gotten their ingredients and since I have no partner as no one wants to sit with the Blood-Traitor or the Snake hidden in the Pride, I think I will be alone for the next while until I get in a class with Hermione or make more friends.

Once I have all the ingredients, I pour in the distilled water into my cauldron as I light the fire under it with a wave of my hand. The recipe calls for magical fire and that means a fire spell or use of magical tinder. I cut up and grind the ingredients to the specifications that the book has, making sure to follow the directions to a T. After making stimpacks out of wild ingredients for a year or two, doing this potion is simple as making one of the healing powders the Dead Horses use.

The potion is on the right track and my eyes have finally stopped bleeding, so I can use more than one hand to do everything. I grind up the dry key monkey fingers in my mortal and as I go to dump the powder in the cauldron, I see an object heading to my brew.

My free hand lashes out and I catch the thing before it falls into my potion. When I open my palm, I see it to be a little bomb with a fuse on top that is right down to the nub. The bastards just tossed a cherry bomb at my cauldron. "Shit!" I cry as I try to toss the little bomb away, but it goes off in my hand, scorching my palm and fingers down to the muscles. The charge was small, but the proximity that it was to my hand made sure that the size didn't matter. "Ah, you little fucking bastards!" I scream as I press my bleeding hand against my shirt. It burns! I forgot how much this class tested my patience for violence! "Fuck this!"

I pick up my cauldron and place it on the table off the fire before I grab my bag with my good hand. I pull it over my shoulder and then reach in. I draw out some healing powder and pull the pouch open with my teeth. Taking a deep breath, I clench my teeth as I pour the powder onto the wound.

The minor poison clouds my vision for a moment as I hiss out slurs in Parselmouth through my teeth for relief of the pain if only mentally. A small sizzling sounds across the room from my hand which is clawed up as the medicine burns through the damaged skin and helps new skin start regrowing. By the time the pain subsides, there is a deep red skinless portion of my hand, but the muscle is good to go. Like if a hand-wide blister was ripped off my palm.

I let out another curse in English as I let my hand relax and toss the pouch into my bag. I wipe the sweat off my brow as I look up to glare at the class. They are all staring at my hand and some of both sections are snickering behind their hands as if I can't see them. "I hope a Deathclaw tears off your fucking legs," I growl at the class as I pick myself up off my chair and leave the classroom. The nurse probably has something that can help along this.

"Five more detentions and forty points for leaving class Ms. Black," I hear a smug Snape call back as I'm a few feet down the hall. Probably one of his Slytherin did that if he is this smug about it. I find myself pulling out Maria from my bag and pointing it at the class door for a second in rage. After I take a deep breath, I control my temper and put the weapon away before I do something I might regret. Good thing I was down the hall when I did that or things would not be going my way for a bit.

I rub my face rapidly with my good hand to help ground my rage and then continue my way to get my hand checked out. 'Why does this bastard hate me so much? I mean, he hated me for being Harry potter, but I'm an entirely different gender and species now. Why does he despise me arguably more now than when I was Potter?'

I make it to the nurse fine and enter the room. I see Pomfrey sitting at her desk doing paperwork. The woman looks up at my entrance and sighs. "You students can't last one day, can you?" I grin at her as I walk over. "What's the problem miss... Black?"

"Yeah, in potions... This... I sorry... This little fucker tossed a cherry bomb at my brew and I unfortunately caught it." I show her my hand. "Didn't drop it in time and it took most of my skin with it. I was able to stop the bleeding with some medicine I keep on me, but magic is always welcome."

The woman takes my hand and tuts over it as she pulls me over to a cabinet. "I should punish you for using such unbecoming language, but seeing the extent of the injury, I'll wave it. Now, all you need is a little skin growing potion and you should be fit to go back to class."

"Actually... Could I stay here and study? I need a bit of time to cool off before I can go back there or I might... let my temper flare up. Just until the end of Potions? I... Um... I'm a horribly violent person due to my past and I don't want to hurt any children if I decide beating the shit out of Snape is the right course of action at the time."

Pomfrey rubs her head as she looks down at her desk. "I can't do that miss Black. Now hold still." The woman spread a pink paste over my hand and after a burning sensation, the paste sinks into my hand, revealing fresh pink skin.

I shrug at the fresh skin. "Useful," I note as I flex my hand. I give the nurse a wave as I exit and call back, "I'll be in the library if you send someone after me." I draw out my third year potion book and start reading. It's been half an hour since the beginning of class, so I am okay to focus for fifteen minutes segments and have my eyes still heal. Hell, the magic speeds along the process.

I read another five pages by the time I enter the library and take a seat in the corner without looking up. After fifteen minutes or an hour in my time, I surface from my study to see no one trying to get me. Seeing as the teacher doesn't care that I'm skipping, I just continue to read for the next hour to pass the time until next period.