LEGACY OF SALTRIAN

by CreatorZorah

Chapter 6

Barnabas the Barmy, the fool, who got that genial idea to teach trolls to dance. That was what the tapestry, Elisabeth was looking at, depicted. She was walking past the entrance to the Room of Requirement thinking about the Room of Hidden Things. Sometimes people were doing such stupid things that she had to wonder if they and monkeys were as different as humans believed.

She sighed and entered the Room of Hidden Things. It took her a few minutes to find the Rowena Ravenclaw's Diadem and destroy it with a perfectly controlled Fiendfyre. One Horcrux less to worry about. But the remaining two were the most difficult to destroy. Somehow she had to get access to the Lestrange family vault at Gringotts. That meant that she had to bribe goblins, break into the bank or break some Lestrange out of the Azkaban.

Another Goblin rebellion was the last thing she wanted, so a break in was out of question. She could attempt to bribe some goblins, but she doubted that it would work. Besides the attempt would make them suspicious. Therefore she would break out a Lestrange. Unless Bellatrix was a lesbian, or at least bisexual, she wouldn't be affected by Elisabeth's innate charms. Hopefully Rodolphus wasn't gay then.

Breaking out someone out of the Azkaban wasn't a difficult thing for her. If Voldemort could do it, she would do it easily. She had a beautiful collection of souls to share and being a succubus Elisabeth wouldn't be affected by dementors. These creatures wouldn't even consider to refuse her, they were way too eager to consume souls.

The second one was even more difficult. There was no spell that could safely extract the piece of Voldemort's soul from the scar. However, she could use her ability to suck the piece out. She would have to kiss him on his lips and quite passionately though. That would be very awkward. Besides Elisabeth knew there was a chance she would eat him.

She could minimize the risk by consuming enough life force and souls to completely satisfy her hunger before that. Elisabeth had theorized that a Killing Curse would do the same thing and there were other options too, but kissing him was the safest option of all. That could wait though. Firstly, she had to make him trust her.

Now, however, it was the time to go to the class. She walked through the hallways to the classroom and entered it a minute too late. The second years were already in there waiting for her. As a succubus it was a pleasure to feel the students casting amorous glances at her. Mostly males, but a few females too. It was very easy for her to maintain order in the classroom.

"Good morning, everyone," she said taking her time to look at the students.

Everyone looked the same as she remembered, except Malfoy. His hair wasn't brushed, the eyes were red, probably, of crying. Elisabeth felt almost bad about killing Lucius, but she knew that the Death Eater didn't deserve to live. During the First War he had killed lots of innocents and just a few weeks ago he had tried to kill Ginny and endanger other students by giving her the diary. No, the bastard had to die.

"As you most likely know my name is Elisabeth Saltrian and for the next six years I'll be your Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. Today we'll handle the organizational matters, but before we start, I'd like to ask if anyone has any questions."

Of course, there were questions. The students were mostly interested in who she was and where she was from. Elisabeth had nothing against satisfying their curiosity. She didn't tell the details, but she explained that she was older than she looked, had fought in the Global Wizarding War and had taught at the Durmstrang.

"Right then," she said after a few minutes. "What do you think is the most important thing about Defence?"

Elisabeth almost rolled her eyes when she saw Hermione's hand shooting in the air. The girl seemed to be very eager to answer. Had she really looked like this?

"What do you think, Miss Granger?" Elisabeth wasn't sure if Hermione had told anyone about her new name and she didn't want to make the choice for her.

"I believe it's knowledge."

"It is important indeed. Mr. Nott?"

"Power."

"Of course it is important," Elisabeth agreed. "But nothing is more important than teamwork. Without a reliable partner to watch one's back, even the most powerful and knowledgeable one will be defeated. However the life is unpredictable and you may find yourself in the situation where you're forced to work along with people you know little about, or worse, with people you prefer to stay away from."

Elisabeth enlarged two urns, she had prepared for the lesson, and placed them onto the table before her. Inside were small numbered balls. One for each student in the classroom.

"I want each of you to take one ball from the urns," she continued. "Gryffindors from the right urn, Slytherins from the left one. Then you return back to your seats."

The students did what she had asked and returned back to their seats, utterly confused about the whole thing, In the muggle world the students would just get random balls. In the wizarding world there were no coincidences. Numbers had power.

"The two students who got the balls with the number one, please stand up," Elisabeth said and looked at the pair, writing the names on the parchment before her. "Parvati Patil and Draco Malfoy. Don't try to cheat, I'm watching. Number two. Ronald Weasley and Pansy Parkinson."

Elisabeth wondered if that would ever work. "The three students with the number three. Dean Thomas, Theodore Nott and Millicent Bullstrode. Number four. Lavender Brown and Gregory Goyle. Number five. Hermione Granger and Blaise Zabini."

Not a bad pair for Hermione. "Number six. Harry Potter and Daphne Greengrass." Elisabeth looked at Harry, then at Daphne. A smile crept up on her face.

"Number seven," Elisabeth called. "Neville Longbottom and Tracey Davis. Number eight. Seamus Finnigan and Vincent Crabbe."

Elisabeth wrote down the last two names and looked up at the students who were now even more confused.

"You will earn grades and House Points as a team, you will write essays as a team and you will learn spells as a team. You will success as a team or you will fail as a team. However, don't even think that you may slack off and let your partner do all the work. If you're unable to answer my question, despite your team's assignment graded with an Outstanding, the team receives a Troll. From now on and till the fifth year your teams won't change, but your teams will work together on various assignments."

"But I don't want to be in the team with Parkinson!" Ron yelled.

"As if I want to do anything with you, Weasel!" Pansy shouted back.

"Silence! Ten points from both of you," Elisabeth interrupted the bickerings that were about to explode. "You will have to put aside your House rivalries and preferences. As I said, life is unpredictable and to protect yourself you have to learn to work with people you don't like. Yes, Miss Granger?"

"But what if the partner won't do anything and the team fails because of him?" Hermione asked.

"You have to talk to your partner, persuading him to do something useful. In extreme cases I'll be forced to dissolve non-functioning teams, but the student won't like the consequences. I'll do everything to expel the student from Hogwarts. Miss Davis?"

"Does that mean earning House Points in this class is useless?" the red-haired girl asked.

"Of course not. Don't forget about Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws," Elisabeth answered. "Does anyone have other questions?" She waited for the answers, then said, "Good. By the end of the term the best team will receive a valuable gift from me."

"Furthermore," she continued. "I've got a few announcements to make. Starting the next week there'll be a Dueling Club. It's an optional part of the Defence Against the Dark Arts and will be graded as such if you choose to participate. If you do, you have to participate as a team. Your prefects will receive detailed information about the club, don't hesitate to ask them."

"That aside I'm sponsoring new extra-curricular classes approved by the Ministry. The classes aren't related to the Defence Against the Dark Arts per se, but taking them will help you to avoid dangerous situations. The Study of Magical Cultures will focus mostly on the cultures of various Magical Beings and Beasts which include humans, goblins, merfolk, centaurs, vampires, veelas, elves and others. The second class is the Wizarding Geography. You will be able to learn about foreign countries and politics. Both are two-years subjects. I advise every muggle-born student to take these classes. Does anyone have any questions?"

Harry Potter was standing at the entrance to the library uncertain if he really had to go further. From his experience he knew that it was foolish to expect something good from Slytherins. Yet he was in the same 'team' with a Slytherin girl now and the said girl had told him to meet her in the library. He had wanted to argue, but she had ignored him. The problem was he couldn't ignore Greengrass, because they had to do the assignment together. Both of them had to be able to present the assignment in the classroom.

He walked to the table where the familiar blond girl was reading some book. He sat down at the table across her and looked at her waiting patiently for her to notice him. Not because he was arrogant like many believed, but out of his shyness. He wasn't sure how to talk to her, he hadn't had experience of starting a conversation, especially with beautiful girls like Greengrass.

"How long do you plan to sit there like a statue?" the girl asked without taking her eyes of the book. "How about saying 'hello' or 'good evening'?"

Harry blushed. "You look like you're doing something extremely important, didn't want to disturb you."

She looked at him with her grey narrowed eyes. "Great. Just like I thought you wouldn't consider our assignment important enough. You know, I'm not happy about this whole matter, but I won't allow you to drag me down with you. I swear, if you're going to slack off, I'll curse you into the next year."

Harry wondered if he said something wrong, or this outburst was just a girl thing. "I didn't even consider slacking off. And I do believe that our assignment is important."

The girl huffed, glaring at him. "Then it wasn't a sarcasm, was it?"

Harry furrowed his brow. "I'm not sure what you're talking about."

She sighed. "Forget it... It was foolish of me to think that you're capable of sarcasm. Just take a book from the list and start reading. If you find something interesting, please, tell me, otherwise just take notes."

Harry looked at the large heap of books and asked, "Which one?"

She shrugged. "Does it matter? We have to go through all of them anyway."

"Er... all of them?" he muttered. The heap was even larger than a Hermione's usual one.

"We have to search all these books through to find useful information for our assignment. And don't forget to take notes. You didn't forget to bring parchment and quills, right?"

"Y-yes," Harry said.

"Good," she said, her attention was already back on the book. "I propose we do the potions and transfiguration together to avoid wasting time. This DADA assignment is very interesting, but time-consuming."

"Do you really have to be rude?"

The girl raised her head and looked at him with surprise. "Rude? It's you who didn't even consider greeting me."

"Alright, alright, I'm sorry for not greeting you. It won't happen again."

"You're making fun of me, aren't you?"

"I'm not!" Harry hissed. "Why do you always search for hidden meanings? I'm just telling you that I'm sorry."

Greengrass glared at him for a few seconds and then sighed. "I'm a bit paranoid, forgive me. Let's stop wasting our time then."

"Sure," Harry said.

"What are you waiting for then?"