Your student has already arrived, unless you PM me to arrange to arrive late (with consequences), thanks.

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10am, Friday morning


The desks were drawn back from the classroom floor on arrival for the third years that morning. There was just a trunk set out at the front before Professor Storm's desk. It occasionally rattled.

The Professor was stood behind it, long academic cloak slung over his classroom chair with his jacket, leaving just the shirt and waistcoat - another indication that the lesson would be practical. His white shirtsleeves were rolled up, his splinching scar on his left wrist faded for two years but still there.

"Definition of a boggart." He pointed his wand at a nearby third year to answer the question.

"Which spell does one use against it?" He asked another gruffly. Finding the correct answers eventually from the students he ordered them into a line and chivvied them back across the classroom towards the door they'd entered by.

"One after the other, cast, and then to the back of the line." He fetched forward the first student, and purposely stood a couple of feet behind them to one side before releasing the lid of the trunk.

A few years ago his boggart had been Azorma, Tapendra's mother and Ignan's former lover who was now imprisoned in Azkaban. He knew his boggart had changed, and he wasn't keen to see it or let it be seen by students. Best to let them see their own alone by keeping attention off him.

Up, up the boggart rose from the open trunk and the students edged backwards apart from the one at the front of the line who Professor Storm shoved forward unceremoniously with a flick of his wand. At once the boggart began to take shape...

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Have fun with this - it's a favourite lesson situation. Perhaps your student falters, perhaps it takes a couple of goes, perhaps someone else gets too close and the boggart tries to show theirs too.

Fridays didn’t let up for third years, especially Tim and his arithmancy classmates. They’d already worked through double potions, and had double herbology, transfiguration and history to finish their week. But before he could climb up to the sixth floor to lose himself in numbers, Tim and his classmates had to suffer Professor Storm. The old wizard picked on Tim’s older brother, so earned contempt from Tim. However, he knew not to pick a fight with the Deputy Headmaster - he was not against stringing people up by their ankles from the classroom rafters during detention.

At least this weekend was Hogsmeade, and he could go with his friends. He had a hankering for something sour from Honeydukes. However, it was also valentine’s weekend, so it would be full of snogging couples. Tim had thought through asking some of the girls in his class but bottled out each time. They were all lovely and the older boys were so much smoother in asking. He just felt awkward, and what was worse was that he’d woken with an angry red spot on his nose. Thank you teenage hormones. Even liberal application of the cream had not brought it down in Tim’s eyes and he was convinced he had a bright shiny red beacon on his nose. Life was cruel. He was going to end up with his cousin Eta (who would want to spend hours in the divination shop, as was her extreme obsession) or if he was lucky he might tag along with Isla.

Once Tim had deposited his bag and books to the side where the desks had been pushed out of the way, he joined the nervous gaggle of third years gathered before Professor Storm.

”Definition of a boggart.” He fired at Tim, who lurched to speak,
“A non being - shape shifter, Sir - becomes your worst fear.” He let out a breath in relief as the Professor turned to someone else for the next question and glanced sideways at Isla in relief. There was a scuffle amongst them as the order came to form a line. Tim, too busy staring at Isla found himself near the front. Someone or something shoved him.

His heart leapt and his stomach twisted into a tight fist at approaching the boggart.

“Oh god, please no, please no, not here, not - oh-.” Tim’s lips felt dry and he licked them, lifting his oak wand, breath shallow and quick. The boggart was taking shape so rapidly his mind seemed to be treacle. It was twisting into the shape of the most maniacal clown - a full adult version of the one he was petrified of as a small child - with glowing eyes and painted face and,

How did you make a clown funny?!!

“R- R- RIDDIKULUS!” Tim shrieked, his voice, going through transition had turned squeaky in that instance. The head of the boggart began to swell like a big balloon, “Riddikulus!” Tim squeaked again, desperate.

The balloon head went off like a let go balloon, the boggart clown flying round erratically as air expelled from its deflating head with the loudest fart sound Tim had heard (and living with Ambrose that was an achievement).

Isla had never liked Professor Storm. He was scary, he was mean, and he used the power of fear to control his classroom. It was not very nice of him, that was for sure. And, to make it worse-- it was Friday. Which meant that her focusing abilities were not exactly at their strongest, and they were never strong to begin with. Hogsmeade weekend was coming up, which meant that she was going to go to drink her weight in butterbeer before spending her allowance on sweets.

It didn't even cross her mind that Valentine's was coming up. Lovey couples never bothered her anyway; if they did, Isla was perfectly capable of ignoring them.

Isla was as prepared as she would ever be for a Defense lesson. She stayed close to Tim, who was one of her favorite people in her year. Isla thought that he was one of those people who knew they were smarter than everybody else, but didn't hold it against them. Sometimes, it felt like he was the only one in her year that she knew! She had a tendency to bother Alistair and his friends when they were having fun. Alistair could no longer tell her to "spend time with people your own size" now that she was taller than some of his friends.

She watched in a mixture of horror and awe as Tim, with the bravery of a Gryffindor, faced down his biggest fear. Clowns. He had every reason to fear them-- they were scary. As it was defeated, she clapped her hands and cheered Timothy on.

Since he had gone first, she felt more comfortable stepping forward, her awkward, lumpy wand in hand. Her turn now. She glanced at Timothy and gave him a quick smile before looking ahead.

The boggart began to transform into something most fowl.

With it's giant grey body and menacing beak, this goose was at least the size of Professor Storm himself! It flapped it's massive wings and let out a demonic honking noise.  It took a menacing step towards her. All Isla wanted to do was scream. Hand trembling, she pointed her wand at the beast. She didn't know what to imagine, she just wanted it to be small. Or gone.  "Ridiculous!" She exclaimed.

It didn't work. Time for her backup plan.

"Locomotor Wibbly!"[1] With a flash of orange light, the goose fell forward as its creepy, scaly legs wobbled uncontrollably. What Isla had forgotten, however... Was that geese can fly. Which was exactly what the creature was trying to do.

1.	The jelly legs jinx

Tim Pepper was first to face it, and Professor Storm found himself inwardly pleased he was the more capable brother for the thirtieth time that term. Still, he had weak knees, and a weaker wrist on approaching it.

“Wand up.” The Professor chided, trying to pay more attention to the student than the enormous clown forming from the boggart. The second squeak got it, and the clown let itself off like a leaky balloon, flopping around the classroom. The room erupted into juvenile laughter, mostly for the sound of passing wind the balloon boggart let off. Professor Storm swiftly dismissed Pepper and beckoned Isla Spectre into his place.

“Ridiculous!” Spectre squeaked, mispronouncing the spell as the English word instead. “Locomotor Wibbly!”

“Riddikulus, Spectre, quickly now!” Professor Storm barked, stepping back out of the way of a flailing grey goose wing.

Tim hadn’t anticipated that Isla’s boggart would be any sort of animal. He had been utterly convinced that she would be fearless in the face of any animal, including the nundu. Then again, he’d seen a photo their old Charms teacher, Professor Kirchlehner with Professor Storm and a nundu which had taken over a hundred wizards to bring down. Perhaps Isla would be scared of a nundu. Tim would be. But Isla’s boggart wasn’t one - it was a goose.

Tim roared with laughter at the wobbly legs, it was a good tactic to make the boggart funny. The orange legs looked more like worms now. The giant goose flapped its wings and honked like a giant car horn. Its beak snapped over their heads and its wings swept across the classroom floor, fanning the students waiting for a turn.

“Come on Isla!” Tim exclaimed, returning the favour of her cajoling and support from just before. Hopefully she’d try blowing it up or something - actually, perhaps not… they’d be getting boggart goose guts out their robes.

As the goose opened it's horrific maw to reveal that the beak was lined with teeth. Oh-- oh god, the tongue had ridges too! Students were scrambling out of the way of the wobbling beast. While they were laughing, she certainly wasn't. After all, she hadn't figured out how to make a goose funny yet. The jelly-legs jinx was a good attempt, but somehow it only added to the goose's scary factor.

She turned to protest Storm, "I'm not ridicu--" Oh. Oh. Her cheeks and ears flushed as she realized he had been correcting her. Quickly, Isla thought of something else that would be funny, besides wobbling legs. Kitten noises? Yes. A small mewing coming from a large goose would likely be hilarious. The panicked honking noise it was currently making was enough to give anybody with a healthy fear of geese cry. Tim's encouragement gave her the courage to try again.

"Rid-dikkulus!" Isla did her best to imitate the professor's accent. Maybe that would help.

She waited for the pathetic mewing.

It didn't come.

Instead, the noise that the boggart-goose made was only served to make matters worse. It was as if one of the cars that Tim's uncle owned became sentient and took over the underworld. The honking noise had taken a demonic turn. Riddikulus clearly wasn't working. It was time to pull out another spell from her arsenal. This one was one that Alistair absolutely hated.

"Rictusempra!"[1]. Surely, a goose being tickled was funny. Right?

The creature fell over and began to roll, wheezing and releasing croaky, hellish honks.

Isla was so done with this. Professor Storm was probably going to take a hundred points from Hufflepuff! She'd never be able to look him in the eye again. What kind of Spectre couldn't defeat a goose?!

1.	Tickling spell

Oh no! Isla’s turn wasn’t going to plan at all. Tim glanced between his friend to the goose, to their Professor and their howling classmates. He wasn’t sure if they were laughing at the goose or laughing at Isla now. How did you make a goose funny when you were scared of them? Tim had considered his boggart when his brother had faced it in the same classroom (it had been their father, disappointed, which Tim didn’t think was scary, but an inevitability that Ambrose really should be used to).

“I know!” Tim exclaimed, and grasped Isla’s shoulder, lifting his hand to hear ear to talk into it more easily over all the noise. “Turn it into an umbrella[1] with a goose head handle!” He suggested, hoping it made sense, “Quick, I’ll cast it with you, it’s Riddikulus.”

Leaning back, Tim dipped behind Isla so he wasn’t so obvious to Professor Storm, and readied his wand to cast at the same time as Isla.

1.	They're normally ducks, but there we go

Her chest tightened as she fought every impulse to run, run away and never see Professor Storm again. Surely, she could live in the Forbidden Forest, as long as there weren't geese. Centaurs could probably be nice as long as she informed them that they were probably superior in every single way. She'd read somewhere that Centaurs looked down on witches and wizards. They were also good at astronomy!

Right before she had made her final decision to disappear and never been seen again (even at the risk of never seeing sweets), Tim whispered an idea in her ear.

An umbrella. It was perfect. And not scary at all.

Isla raised her wand and imagined a goose-umbrella as hard as she could-- "Riddikulus!"

Success!

The boggart fell to the ground, now a reasonably-sized goose umbrella. She let out a laugh that was more out of relief than delight and turned to give Tim a big hug. "Thank you!" She exclaimed, not at all subtle about where she got hte idea from. Before releasing him from the hug, she planted a kiss on his temple. 

Success! Tim was so pleased for Isla. The umbrella was very silly, and continued to honk pitifully, but it was safe and not at all enormous and worrying. Tim punched the air with his hand and accepted Isla’s hug with a big smile.

And then the world just stopped for a second.

Tim stared at his classmate in surprise, blinking lots, blushing bright red. Isla - Isla Spectre had just kissed his face. Timothy felt like St George and the dragon sweeping the princess up and riding home, only he was a weedy teenage boy and Isla had just turned a boggart goose into an umbrella. She wasn’t a damsel in distress, just a badass Hufflepuff facing a demon waterfowl.

Isla was awesome, and lovely, and pretty, and a really good friend and bugger, did Tim have an almighty crush on her.

Amidst all of this, Professor Storm had shoved the next student forward, and there was a big looming vampire with a bat cape terrorising a Gryffindor, trying to chase them round the classroom. Tim scooted out of the way after Isla, still beetroot, and with a pop, the vampire turned into a little old lady with no teeth and a walking stick to a raft of sniggers.

“Do you think he’ll make us do it again?” Tim asked, flopping down at the back of the queue as an enormous brown spider filled the front of the classroom to multiple shrieks. “Eesh!” Tim exclaimed at the sight, “I wouldn’t want to share a shower with that!” The student approaching it shot away in floods of tears, berated by their unkind Professor. They bashed into a nearby desk which gave a strange squeak.

“Hang about,” Tim said, catching Isla’s arm “That desk squeaked.” He crouched down and peered under, coming face to face with his cousin, and Isla’s housemate, Eta, hiding. “Eta?"
“Shh I’m not here! Go away Tim!” His Hufflepuff cousin hissed. “Oh hey Isla. Wish I was just scared of a goose. You’re so brave.”
“You’ll be fine,” Tim offered in comfort, though it wasn’t much comfort. He had been pretty sure it was going to be a clown, he had more nightmares about them than anything.
“I won’t! I read it in the cards this morning. If I face that boggart everyone will laugh at me.” Eta moaned, hiding behind her hands in the shadows of the desks at the edge of the classroom. At the front a horse was tearing around Professor Storm’s desk, kicking and bucking. Their classmates had some odd fears.

“Pitiful!” Professor Storm spat after the retreating Hufflepuff from the big brown spider filling the front of the room. He’d deduct house points, only he didn’t want the boggart to try and take a form for him while it wasn’t distracted by a student. So he shoved another towards it, and let the Slytherin grapple with the illusion of a great gaping chasm in the floor of the classroom filled with jagged rocks.

With a flick of his wand he summoned his mark book and quickly noted down the names of those who had attempted, eyes narrowed. He was a student short….

The chasm in the floor suddenly filled with pink bubbles, like bubble gum had met a bouncy castle at a summer fete. The Professor didn’t perceive it as funny, but the giggles of the third years had become infectious the more times they attempted the boggart.
“Eta Pepper.” He called sharply, before shoving a Ravenclaw at the boggart. “Spectre!”

Tim's face was bright red for some reason-- Isla assumed that he was so in awe at her wandwork that his face turned red! Or maybe he was feeling embarrassed about being hugged by her. She hoped it wasn't the second one, because Tim was an awfully good hugger and a very dear friend. Friends deserved to be hugged.

Then, Tim noticed that a desk squeaked and she marveled at his keen hearing during all of this chaos. She tried to discreetly give Eta a sympathetic look. Even if she was weird and liked to give people ominous fortunes, Isla really was quite fond of her dormmate. And Professor Storm was terrifying. He was a man who had probably killed before. She didn't like to think about the fact that she would probably end up kind-of related to him in the future.

"Eta Pepper. Spectre!" Oh no, he was coming for them! What could she do to distract him from Eta? She would do anything, even if it meant detention. But not if it meant an early grave.

"I ONLY KISSED HIS CHEEK!" She said loudly, "We weren't making out, promise!" Sorry, Tim.

Spectre's peck on Pepper's face was punctuated by a sharp uptick in the giggles the day's lesson had already generated.  From somewhere towards the far end of the cluster of students, it was also met with a melodramatic, mocking, "thank the heavens Pepper saved the damsel from the dragon...goose."  Mairead turned towards a Gryffindor comrade and gestured him to hold out his arms.  With a flourish, she pressed the back of her hand against her forehead and swooned dramatically into the  arms of her housemate with an operatic sigh. 

By then, however, only the students nearest them had noticed as many had turned back to the serial morphing figure.  Still significantly shorter than most of her classmates, Mairead shuffled between the students to get a better view of her classmates' chosen poisons. 

So, that Hufflepuff's worst fears was spiders, eh?  That was useful information.  Mairead really ought to be taking notes; this was, perhaps, one of her most useful lessons to date. 

"I ONLY KISSED HIS CHEEK!  The students' attentions were suddenly split between the chasm in the middle of the room and the simpering damsel.    We weren't making out, promise!"

"What's Sir Lancelot waitin' for then?"  Mairead's piped up.  "Common, Pepper." 

Hell, Storm had noticed. Tim and Eta exchanged a look of horror as Tim stooped to peer at Eta under the desk. Their Professor picked on Isla to source where Eta had gone - they were housemates after all. Instead of replying with something reasonable, however, Isla shouted across the classroom.

“I ONLY KISSED HIS CHEEK!”
“What?!” Tim exclaimed from beside Isla, colour flushing his face so he resembled a beetroot.
“Ew what!?” Eta yelped from beneath the desk she was hiding.

“We weren’t making out, promise!”
“What’s Sir Lancelot waitin’ for then? Common, Pepper.”

“What - no - Merlin, he doesn’t mean me,” Tim replied to his Gryffindor classmate, gesturing with both hands between their professor and himself. “He doesn’t care if we made out - no offence Isla - he means Eta,” and without consciously realising, his hands gestured in the exact direction his cousin was hiding. “It was a nice kiss by the way,” he added to Isla in a lower volume, still beetroot, "I - I just didn’t expect it.”

“Eta Pepper!” The professor extended his wand at the desk Tim had gestured to without realising he was giving away his classmate’s location. It dragged away, leaving a sprawing Eta Pepper on the classroom floor, arms outstretched to try and grasp the desk leg as it rattled away from her.

“Up, before I am tempted to dock points,” the Deputy Headmaster snapped, “there is no cowardly hiding in this classroom. It is just a boggart, a reflection of your greatest fear.” Eta wasn’t entirely convinced this was much of a consolation point as she got to her feet and shuffled down the queue of classmates to the front before Professor Storm.

“P-Professor I don’t feel well.”
“Nonsense,”
“But Sir I read in the cards I-”

Her classmates had withdrawn enough for the boggart to turn its attention to the young Hufflepuff, and was now rapidly changing shape. It was growing in height, darkening. Before it, Eta stuttered and trembled in fright, her wand pointing at the floor. As it gained shape she reduced down into a crouch, hands over her face, afraid to look at it.

Professor Storm was about to dock points when the class of students behind broke out into a mix of laughter, gasps and murmurs. He looked back to the boggart and gave a slight start. He didn’t honestly look like that did he? Merlin, he looked like his father on a bad day. The Hufflepuff’s interpretation of him as a fear, was obviously him on the worst days.
“Look at it.” The Professor barked, but the Hufflepuff refused, shaking her head, eyes covered, “Pepper, if I’m your worst fear, you’re either the bravest here or you’ve lived a sheltered life. Open your eyes.”

When Eta resisted, given that there were effectively two of her boggart at the front it was not overly surprising, “O Fearghail! Show Pepper how it’s done.”

Oh Hufflepuffs.  Maybe the explanation was in the name.  Puff.  Sometimes, it seemed like something puffy had replaced a portion of their brains. 

Mairead elbowed her fellow Gryffindor as Eta Pepper was excavated from behind the desks.  "Ye'd think the cards would have told her about the boggart," Mairead murmured in her classmates ear before she, and many of the others, caught the sight of Pepper's boggart.  Mairead joined the ranks of the laughers, pointing at the boggart - or, at least, she hoped it was the boggart and monster and professor hadn't changed spots. 

"C'mon!" Mairead called towards the Hufflepuff.  Pepper couldn't stop now!  What could be better than a Storm boggart turned into something funny?  "Do it, Pepper!  We want t' see it in a skirt!" 

But, Professor Storm had given up hope that Pepper could handle the creature and had called Mairead to the front.  Luckily, unlike many of her students, this was not the first boggart Mairead had faced.  In fact, the Riddikulus spell had been the second spell she'd ever successfully cast with her wand.  Professor Mainwaring, their first DADA professor, had put Mairead up against one during a detention[1] after Mairead had skipped her first[2]Defense Against the Dark Arts class.  So, Mairead knew exactly what the boggart would turn into when she stepped to the front of the class and faced it.  And, she knew exactly what to subject it to.

The boggart version of Professor Storm's morphed into another man, nondescript this time, dressed in the neon yellow jacket of the Irish garda.  The boggart took a step forward and, much as it had over two years ago, the man's uniform shifted into a simple business suit with a Child Welfare and Protection Identification badge clipped to his pocket.  She faltered, momentarily, but emboldened by her first experience she stepped forward and flicked her wand at the man.  "Riddikulus!" she said clearly.  As before, an dirty snow ball came hurling from behind and struck the boggart in the back of the head.  The boggart stumbled and fell on its face.  When it got to it's feet, wet mud was dripping all down its front. 

1.	The Humility of Apologies is Almost Impossible - From September 3, 2008
2.	Introduction to DADA