GleeWarts Year 1; Chapter 4
Title: GleeWarts
Pairing: Santana Lopez/Brittany S. Pierce
Rating: PG for the beginning and eventually M
Summary: So, this is my story of what would happen if the Glee characters had been born into the Hogwarts setting. There will be a cameo from a Harry Potter character throughout, whether or not there will be any other HP characters is still tbd.
A/N: Sorry for the delay. No excuses, just sorry. Moment of awe for J.K. Rowling. I just realized while writing this chapter that it would be necessary for me to figure out Santana and Brittany's timetables in order to have something to refer to and so I wouldn't contradict myself later. Talk about a pain in the ass. Like huge, huge pain in the ass. And to think that is just one of the minute aspects that she had to bang out in order to weave all those little details so effortlessly throughout her stories...serious awe. And the thought of me having to do that for all seven years is giving me a headache, lol. Anyways, hope y'all enjoy!
Previous Chapter
1.4
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The next time the door of the Potions classroom opened, it wasn’t with a scratching sound, but with a loud bang that made all the students jump up, alert in their seats. Santana swallowed hard as she turned to find a rather tall woman with short blonde hair storming into the room, her robes billowing out from around her, making the track suit beneath it visible to all. Santana fought to not raise an eyebrow. Nobody ever said Sue Sylvester was known for her fashion sense.
“I didn’t know we could wear our pajamas to class,” Brittany whispered.
“I don’t think those are pajamas,” Santana replied, immediately straightening up as Professor Sylvester reached the front of the class and turned to face them in a dramatic fashion, black robes spinning about flamboyantly.
Professor Sylvester’s hard eyes narrowed as they scanned over the room of first years. Every now and then her gaze would pause on a particular student as she muttered something incomprehensible from where Santana sat at the back of the room. The look on her face, however, was more than enough to let Santana know that the professor was uttering her displeasure with what sat before her. When the professor’s eyes paused on her own face, Santana froze, taking in a deep breath as her jaw tightened, forcing herself to stare right back. She knew it was all about respect with the older woman. Not brown-nosing, not fear, respect.
When Professor Sylvester’s eyes moved on without her mouth murmuring a snide comment, Santana felt all the air that she had been holding leave her lungs in a whoosh. She was so relieved that when Professor Sylvester’s eyes landed on Brittany and the small girl beside her decided to wave and smile brightly in reply, causing a rather confused expression to fall over the professor’s countenance, Santana had to quickly cover her mouth to keep a giggle from escaping. Professor Sylvester’s gaze moved on, once again without saying anything, pausing a few more time over a few select students, none of which she seemed entirely too thrilled about having in her class.
“Pathetic!” Professor Sylvester barked, loud enough for the entire class to hear this time. She turned around with a flourish, her hand snatching at a piece of chalk. Words quickly began to be written across the blackboard in a scrawling handwriting, and as Santana took them in, her eyes widened-it was a potions recipe. She hadn’t realized that they would begin brewing on the first day of class.
When Professor Sylvester’s hand came to a stop, the recipe now complete, she turned back around and eyed the students coldly one last time, “You have two hours to complete the potion…though by the looks of you all, it will be an accomplishment if you manage to merely finish reading the recipe by the end of that time.” With a roll of her eyes, she made her way to the chair behind the dark wooden desk that sat at the front of the class.
The no-nonsense professor had just taken a magazine out of a drawer of her desk when Brittany’s hand shot into the air.
“Brittany, I don’t think-“ Santana began, but it was too late. Professor Sylvester had already seen her.
“Is there a problem, Blondie? Because I am not one of those types of professors that will sit here and help you with your…special needs. I am sorry if you cannot read, but this is the format-“
“I can read,” Brittany cut her off.
“Dios mio,” Santana’s head lowered.
“I was just wondering what your name was,” Brittany informed.
The entire class sat, staring at Professor Sylvester with wide eyes, too scared to turn their incredulous looks around to the poor girl in the back of the class that would surely be running from the room in a fit of tears at any moment.
“Normally teachers introduce themselves in the first class of the year,” she continued, clearly nonplussed by the heightened atmosphere of the room.
“My…my name? You want to know my name?” Professor Sylvester choked out in surprise. “What is your name, child?”
“Brittany S. Pierce,” Brittany smiled. “Not to be confused with Britney Spears.”
Professor Sylvester nodded, as if that was all the explanation she needed.
Santana’s eyes darted around confusedly, wondering if she was the only one that had no idea what was happening.
“Well, Brittany S. Pierce, not to be confused with Britney Spears, my name is Professor Sue Sylvester. I will be your Potions instructor for the next seven years. I have been teaching here for far, far longer than you have been alive. Probably even longer than most of your parents have been alive-hard to believe I am only 29, I know. I know how to brew potions that can bring you back to life and ones that can kill you, ones that can turn you into the ugliest troll and ones that can cause all the little boys on the block to be swooning after you. I do not like slackers, and I have been known to use my lesser-favored students as test subjects for the poorly brewed potions of their classmates. Is there anything else you would like to know?” Professor Sylvester’s eyebrows rose. But even with the apparent sarcasm of the last question, there was the tiniest bit of patience lacing her words that had Santana’s head spinning. This was not the professor she had been told about.
“No, that was a very good introduction,” Brittany nodded with a smile. “It is nice to meet you.”
Professor Sylvester’s eyebrows scrunched together, and Santana felt a slight since of relief at the fact that she wasn’t the only one lost. The professor picked her magazine back up and began to leisurely flip through the pages. The class took this as their cue to begin their work.
“How did you not…I told you it was…what just happened?” Santana finally managed to get out as she reached for the lionfish spines to begin crushing. “How do you not know who Professor Sylvester is?”
“Well, I know now, silly. She just introduced herself,” Brittany replied.
Santana reached out to stop her from adding two handfuls of spines to her own mortar, “Just four.”
“Does it really matter if I add a few more than necessary? Won’t it give it a bit more flavor?” Brittany asked genuinely.
Santana’s eyes widened, “First off, it is a herbicide potion, meaning it is meant to kill plants, meaning it is not meant to be eaten by humans, so the flavor really doesn’t matter. Second, yes, it really does matter if you add a few more than necessary. It matters if you add one-hundredth of one more than necessary. Potion making is a very exact science.”
“Why would we want to kill the plants, though?” Brittany’s bottom lip had jutted out into a pout.
“Not all plants are good, Brittany.”
“You mean like weeds?”
“I was thinking more along the lines of that stupid Whomping Willow out on the grounds, but, yea, like weeds,” Santana waved off the topic. “But what I meant before was, how did you not know who Professor Sylvester was before her introduction?”
“I’m not from here, Santana,” Brittany pointed out.
“I know that, anybody with a pair of ears knows that, but everybody in the world knows who Professor Sylvester is.”
“Well, apparently not everybody,” Brittany frowned.
Santana’s shoulders dropped, “Sorry, Brittany, I didn’t mean it as a bad thing, you just…confuse me.”
Brittany shrugged, her smile returning, “It’s okay. I find lots of things confusing: recipes, for one…and that’s when I’m making stuff that I actually am allowed to eat.”
Santana chuckled, “Well, fortunately, I happen to know a thing or two about potions. My mother is an expert.”
“Looks like I picked the right seat, then,” Brittany’s face lit up.
“Lucky you,” Santana nodded.
Brittany scoffed, “Lucky you.”
Santana had to cover her mouth with her arm to keep the laughter that was bubbling up her throat from bursting out of her mouth. “Come on; let’s finish crushing because it has to brew a good hour and a half.”
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“Perfect,” Santana smirked as she looked at the finished potion in her cauldron. It was a dark green, bordering on black, and smelled horrid. She poured a tiny sample into a vial and put a stopper on top. “Okay, so you remember the plan?” Santana turned to Brittany and the dark green potion in her cauldron.
“Yep, you go turn yours in. I wait five minutes and then go turn mine in, so as to not let Professor Sylvester know you helped me out too much. Then I meet you outside the classroom where Operation: Tie a Tie will begin.”
“Yes,” Santana smiled before standing up, off of her stool. “See you in five minutes.”
She made her way to the front of the room where there was already a small collection of vials on Professor Sylvester’s desk. The fact that none of them were as dark of a green as her own made Santana’s smirk reappear.
“Poor excuse for a Potion,” Professor Sylvester commanded with a sigh, holding her hand out to take the vial without even looking up from her magazine: the latest copy of Quidditch Weekly, the front cover of which showed off the newest recruit of Puddlemere United-a heavy-set beater from Bournemouth-flexing in his shiny, new navy-blue robes. Santana resisted the urge to snort. Puddlemere was nothing more than a bunch of pansies. A member of Puddlemere wouldn’t last a day at practice with the Falmouth Falcons, and she wasn’t just saying that because her father had been recruited by the falcons. He had eventually turned them down in favor of going on to study medicine, of course, but they still held a special place in the family’s heart.
Professor Sylvester’s hand bobbed up and down carefully, as if weighing the vial in her hand. She looked up from her magazine, an expression of pleasant surprise forming on her face as she took in Santana’s completed potion.
“Hm,” she rolled the vial around in her hand. “Not bad. Good coloring. Not quite as thick as it needs be, but overall, loads better than the dribble that has been turned in thus far,” she motioned to the other vials on her desk, one of which glowed a neon yellow.
The professor looked up and took Santana in, her eyes narrowing slightly, “Lopez, right?”
Santana nodded.
“I remember you from the sorting. When I heard your name and saw your eyes, I just knew…you are Andrés Lopez’s daughter, aren’t you?”
“Yes ma’am,” Santana stood as tall as she could. She bit back the urge to correct the professor for not using her father's proper title.
“I remember your father very well: an excellent keeper, he led Slytherin to the title three years in a row.”
“Yes ma’am,” Santana beamed proudly.
“And he turned out to be quite the doctor, I hear.”
“He is world-renowned,” Santana nodded.
“He did well in my class, but…Potions did not come naturally to him. He had to work hard for it…”
Santana could hear the questions forming in the professor’s mind as she examined the potion once more.
“Who is your mother?”
“Lady Lop-“ Santana quickly shook her head. “Sorry, I mean, Evelyn Black.”
“Ahh, yes, I see that now,” Professor Sylvester’s eyes roamed her face. “Now she…she was one of my best students. Potions definitely came naturally to her. Sharp too, very sharp. A girl that knew exactly what she wanted and wasn’t afraid to go after it. Wish I had more like her. Quite a bit younger than your dad, though, if I remember correctly?”
“Yes ma’am,” Santana squirmed. “My dad waited until he was finished with his schooling before he even began to think of looking for a wife. And seeing as he went to both a school for healers in the magical world and a school for medicine in the Muggle one, he was a bit older than most when he finally settled down.”
“Nothing wrong with being career oriented,” Professor Sylvester nodded as she placed the vial in her hand down on her desk with the others. “Well, Lopez, based on your pedigree, I am expecting a lot from you. Let’s hope you live up to it all.”
“I will,” Santana replied.
“We’ll see,” Professor Sylvester replied, her eyes moving from Santana’s to just over the young girl’s shoulders. “And as for your friend back there, a Miss Pierce, well, while I don’t understand the entire sentiment behind it, I hear it is hard to turn down someone asking for help when they look as much as a lost puppy as she does, but perhaps it would be best if you didn’t make it so obvious from now on.”
“I offered,” Santana blurted out before she could stop herself. Her tan complexion paled. “I-I mean, she did not ask me for help, I offered it.”
“Well, the sentiment remains. Keep her from killing herself, by all means, please, but as for doing all of the work for her? I would hate to have to flunk someone with as much potential as you for cheating…”
Santana swallowed loudly, “Yes ma’am.”
“You may go now. It is the first lecture of the term, and you all have already given me a migraine.”
Santana nodded and quickly gathered her belongings before leaving the room. She allowed herself to collapse against the wall while she gave herself time to catch her head. Her pedigree seems to have put her at an advantage when it comes to Professor Sylvester, but the elder woman made it perfectly clear how easy it would be for Santana to lose that advantage.
“As much potential as you,” Santana repeated with a smile.
The next time the door beside her opened, it was to reveal a petite blonde skipping out of the classroom. Brittany skipped right past Santana before stopping and turning around to face her.
“Well?” she raised an inquisitive eyebrow. “Aren’t you coming? Operation: Tie a Tie is ready to comment.”
Santana shook her head with a soft smile before scrambling to catch up, “What did Professor Sylvester say to you?”
“I don’t really know,” Brittany shrugged as she fished the tiny kitten out of her shirt. “I was too busy trying not to laugh because Tubbington was tickling my belly.”
“Why Tubbington, anyway?”
“I didn’t want the other cats to tease him for being different, so I gave him the most British sounding name I could think of.”
“You should have just given him a title.”
“He’s a cat Santana, not a book,” Brittany rolled her eyes.
“No,” Santana giggled. “Like you know…a title…like my father is Lord Lopez, like that.”
Brittany’s eyes widened.
“What?”
“Your dad is the Lord?”
“Well, he is a lord, but I guess if you ask my mother, than he is the lord, yes-“
“But that would make you…” Brittany’s eyes were now impossibly wide as she dropped to her knees. “Jesus?”
Santana smiled, chuckling softly as she reached out and helped Brittany off the ground, “I forget how different some things are back across the pond. I didn’t mean that Lord, I meant, like a…well, you know…have you ever heard of a duke or a count or even a knight?”
“Well, yeah, everybody’s heard of knights.”
“Okay, well, a knight is actually a ranking. There are several rankings all the way from a knight to a king, and each ranking comes with a title, which is how the person is addressed. With me so far?”
“I think so,” Brittany nodded slowly, her eyes locked on Santana’s face as she spoke, her forehead slightly scrunched in concentration.
“Okay, for each ranking there are two titles: the long formal one, and the informal one. The long formal one usually includes the person’s ranking. For instance, my father is Earl Lopez in a formal setting, but in conversation, you can refer to him as Lord Lopez. Quinn’s father is the Viscount Fabray, or less formally: Lord Fabray.”
“Are all the informal titles Lord?”
“Yeah, unless you get up to the royal family or down to barons and knights.”
“Hm…” Brittany raised the kitten in front of her face thoughtfully. “Lord Tubbington…I like that. What do you think?”
“It’ll give him something to grow into,” she nodded, her head tilting as she watched Brittany push up the sleeves of her robes that were clearly too long for her. Her eyes moved to the floor where she noticed the bottom of her robes trailing on the ground. “Is that what your parents did for you? Buy your robes a size too big in the hopes that you would grow into them? Because those look brand new, so they can’t be hand me downs.”
“These aren’t my robes,” Brittany reached down with her free hand turned back and forth on the balls of her feet, causing the robes to spin about playfully. “My robes are at the bottom of the lake, remember? These are your robes.”
“I never got them back from you, did I?”
“Nope. I was going to just put them in my bag in case I ran into you today, but then I realized I didn’t have any to wear, so…but here you go,” Brittany placed her book bag on the floor and began to shrug off the robes.
“Wait, no, you don’t have to do that,” Santana quickly reached out to stop her. “Why don’t you hang on to them until your parents can send you some new ones?”
“I don’t know how long that will be,” Brittany admitted, picking back up her bag. “There aren’t any shops that sell wizard robes in Arizona, at least none that I’ve ever seen.”
“Well, then your mom can order them. I’m sure Madam Malkin’s has a catalogue we can send her.”
“How long will that take?” Brittany asked her as they started walking again. “Cause I wrote my parents the day my flight landed and I arrived in Diagon Alley which was like almost two weeks ago, and I haven’t heard back from them yet.”
Santana glanced to her side to find Brittany’s normally vibrant eyes downcast, “I don’t know for certain. I haven’t ever written to someone across an ocean before. I am sure you will hear back from them soon, though.”
Brittany nodded, and Santana faced forward once more as she replayed Brittany’s words in her head. The small girl had arrived in Diagon Alley by herself. She’d had to travel to a new country all alone. Either her parents were completely incompetent, or…“I am sure Second-Hand Robes also has a catalogue if money is an iss-actually,” Santana shook her head, “No, no second-hand robes for you. That would completely go against the whole purpose of looking your best and Operation: Tie a Tie. You can just keep mine. Quinn has quite the hand for stitching-something I have never had the patience for no matter how many times my mother insisted on giving me lessons-so, I will just have her hem them up for you.”
“You think she would do that for me?” Brittany asked, the doubt clearly evident in her voice.
“Quinn’s not as bad as she seems,” Santana shook her head. “You just have to know how to deal with her. Now, come on, we had better get started on Operation: Tie a Tie before we are late to our next lessons. Herbology, if I remember correctly. Although, one would think it would make more sense for Herbology to be before Potions, but apparently whoever made the timetables must have been an incompetent man…what?” she questioned at Brittany frowning as she looked at her hand.
Santana reached over to take Brittany’s hand where she found a schedule scribbled out on the back of it.
“I have flying next,” Brittany pointed out.
“Oh,” Santana dropped her hand, her eyes falling to the blonde’s crimson and gold tie once more. “Right. You are in Gryffindor. I keep forgetting.”
“Stupid sorting hat,” Brittany mumbled as they made their way out of the dungeons.
The first week of school went by in a flurry of new teachers and misdirection-it appeared that no matter how many times her mother had gone over the layout of the school, nothing could prepare her for moving staircases and disappearing doors-so Santana found herself glad to be able to stretch out beneath a large tree outside, able to catch her head for the first time since the term had started and enjoy her favorite pastime: people watching. Currently, she was watching a pair of Gryffindor upperclassmen walking hand in hand. The girl was wearing far too much makeup for both her age and current outing of choice, but on closer inspection, Santana realized the makeup was to cover up a patch of pimples expanding over her forehead. She was gripping onto the boys hand tightly. The boy, on the other hand, was strolling about as if he owned the world, smirking as he passed a group of his friends and winking when he passed a group of girls.
Santana rolled her eyes. She could see it now: they would be married in five years, and miserable in six. The boy would be sleeping around on the side while the girl would have plastic surgery after plastic surgery to try and keep her husband’s eye from wondering. They would fit in perfectly with the couples her parents tended to hang out with.
“See?” Quinn asked as she stretched out beside her, opening up the novel she carried in her hand. “Are you not glad that you did your Astronomy homework yesterday like I suggested? Now we have all weekend to relax.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Santana waved her off before placing an arm over her eyes to block out the stray rays of sunshine that were managing to weave their way through the leaves of the tree. “I’m just glad that Professor Holiday got too distracted with making smores when that lout Hudson set his match on fire instead of turning it into a needle to give out homework this week.”
Quinn’s mouth twitched between a smile and a frown.
“Hey,” a breezy voice greeted.
Santana opened one eye to watch as Brittany fell to the ground beside her in one fluid motion. Santana smiled and moved her arm from over her eyes to behind her head to use as a pillow.
“Are we bird watching?” Brittany asked, her gaze up to the tree above them.
“Just enjoying the weather while it is still nice,” Santana replied. She glanced over to Brittany’s empty hands. “You didn’t bring your books? I thought you needed help with your History of Magic homework?”
The day before in their afternoon Potions class, Brittany had entered the room with a pout as she tossed her book bag down on the ground. It turned out when the History of Magic Professor, a very old, very wrinkly woman by the name of Nancy Bletheim, had given them a quiz at the beginning of class, like she had during Slytherin’s lecture, to attain an estimate of what the students already knew, Professor Bletheim was none too pleased when she got back Brittany’s paper. Apparently for the question of who was the current Minister of Magic, Brittany had replied with ‘Pope Benedict XVI’, and when the Professor asked if this was meant to be some sort of joke, Brittany in turn said that he was the only priest she knew of. This led to the Gryffindor first years being assigned with an essay two feet in length on the history of the position of minister of magic.
“Well, I went down to eat breakfast, and when I got back to the portrait, the password had been changed, and nobody would tell me the new one. I think word got out about what happened, and now unless I can find a way into the dorms to get my book, I won’t be able to do the assignment which will only make the professor even more upset.”
“Hold up,” Santana sat up, allowing herself to better view the girl beside her. Her short shorts were nearly covered by the loose fitting tshirt that's bright colors caused her lightly sunkissed skin to glow. Her hair was pulled back in two braids, all levels of blonde from white to tawny interwoven together. Santana resisted the urge to run a hand through her own plainly black hair, knowing it had taken her too long that morning to get it to cooperate to be messing it up now. “They locked you out of your dorm?”
“Out of the whole house, actually,” Brittany replied, one eye squinted against the sunlight, the other a bright aquamarine rivaling the gemstone in the necklace her father had given her grandma for her sixtieth birthday-and coincidentally the day that Santana was born. It was a story her grandmother loved to tell, and a necklace Santana had never seen the aging woman without.
“That’s so…that’s so…” Santana growled before quickly standing up and pulling Brittany to her feet with her. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?”
“We are going to the Gryffindor Common Room so that I can give your peers a piece of my mind.”
“How are you going to get into the Common Room?” Quinn asked, looking at the pair of them curiously over her book.
“Well…” Santana began, but trailed off as looked over to Brittany and remember that she did not have the password. Brittany gave an apologetic look, and Santana felt her anger rising hotly through her veins. “I am going to go over there and demand they let us in. I am Lady Santana Lopez and-“
“And you are a First Year Slytherin,” Quinn shook her head as she put her book down and sat up straight. “They are never going to let you in there.”
“I will make them.”
“You are a puny little first year, Santana--"
Santana bristled at that.
"--They are not going to be scared of you. This is not like our other school. Over here, you may be granted respect, but it is only because of your title. Fear, however? No way.”
“That’s because they don’t know me, yet.”
“Exactly! These kids do not know you like our other classmates did, and until your reputation has a chance to catch on, you will remain nothing but a wimpy little first year with a rich daddy to them.”
“And how is my reputation supposed to catch on?”
“Just be yourself,” Quinn waved at her, relaxing behind her book once more. “After the lake incident, and your unfortunately perfect performance in Potions this week, and Defence Against The Dark Arts where you went off on a spiel about the Unforgivable Curses-“
Santana smirked at this. During the first DADA lesson of the term, which they shared with Ravenclaw, Professor Henri St. Pierre began by asking the class why they thought it was important to take such a class. The consensus seemed to be to “protect us from bad spells and creatures”. When prompted to expand, the class began to list off things such as the Blasting Curse or Petrificus Totalus or Merpeople. It was at the mention of the Tongue-Tying Curse that Santana had snorted loudly in laughter.
“Oh, please, an infant can protect itself from the Tongue-Tying Curse,” Santana managed through her laughter. “And Merpeople? Really? You really think that the Four Founders deemed this class important enough to make it mandatory for First Through Fifth Years because they were afraid that we would someday be overrun by Merpeople? I thought Ravenclaws were supposed to be smart.”
The classroom of Ravenclaw and Slytherin stared back at her in a mixture of awe and nerves.
“He is talking about the Unforgivable Curses,” Santana rolled her eyes in exasperation.
“Um, actually, no, I wasn’t talking…” Professor St. Pierre eyed her warily. “How do you even…What do you know about the curses?”
“I know that there is a reason that they are called Unforgivable,” Santana shrugged as nonchalantly as she could. Truth be told, she knew a lot about the curses, but that never stopped the chills from forming down her spine at the mere mention of them. “And I know that the use of one is enough to earn you a one way ticket to Azkaban.”
“Everyone knows that,” a Slytherin boy with short black hair replied before turning back to face the front.
Santana bristled, feeling a challenge in his words, “I know that there are three of them: The Cruciatus Curse, The Imperius Curse, and the Killing Curse. The first of which inflicts the most excruciating pain imaginable upon its victim. It is often used as a form of torture for dark wizards, and if used for a long enough period of time, it can cause serious, permanent damage on the victim’s brain. The next one, the Imperius Curse places the victim under the control of the wizard casting the spell. Doesn’t sound too bad, right? But think of all the things you could be made to do: rob a bank, hurt someone, kill your own family. Often when people are caught in the wrong, they claim to be under this curse as a means of getting out of punishment. And then finally, the Killing Curse. That one is pretty self-explanatory, but-“
“That’s enough!” Professor St. Pierre slammed his hand onto his desk.
Santana felt a smirk forming as she realized the nerves in her classmates eyes had been replaced with fear as they stared back at her, mouths hanging open.
“All you need to do is show a little patience. Just keep on being your lovely self,” Quinn continued with a wry smile, “and allow time for the talk to become associated with your actual being before you go seeking out fights with upperclassmen that know how to perform a hell of a lot more magic than you.”
“Who said anything about magic?” Santana crossed her arms. “I was planning on using my fists.”
Quinn giggled, “Just give it a little more time, and upperclassmen will be quivering in fear at the mere thought of you, just like you like it.”
Santana nodded, her shoulders sagging in defeat. She looked to Brittany who was drawing what appeared to be a rainbow in the dirt on the ground with the toe of her shoe, her nose scrunched in thought.
Brittany looked up, catching Santana watching, “Do you think they are going to be mad at me long? I mean, my answers seemed to really upset Professor Bletheim, so it really is my fault that we have so much homework. Maybe I should bring them flowers or something? That’s what my dad does when he says something to my mom that leaves him sleeping on the couch for a few nights.”
“What? Brittany, no, you do not need to apologize,” Santana replied firmly, holding Brittany’s gaze to make sure she was listening. “It is not your fault that they call people by different titles in America. We have Ministers, you have Presidents. The other Gryffindors, they are the ones who are in the wrong for doing this. I am pretty sure there are rules against it. Plus, my mom says that you should never be the first one to back down from a fight because it only shows weakness. Are you weak?”
Brittany shook her head, her eyes never wavering as she matched Santana’s intense gaze, “No, I mean, I broke my arm when I was eight while going around a really tight turn, and I didn’t even cry. I still have the sticker from the doctor to prove it. It doesn’t smell anymore when you scratch it, but it does have a really cute batch of grapes with smiley faces on it. But-“
“No buts,” Santana shook her head. “They are wrong, and you are right.”
Brittany’s face lit up at this declaration, a wide smile forming before fading just as quickly. “But I need to get my book for the assignment. I don’t want to start off on the wrong foot…again.”
Santana nodded at this. It was true, if Brittany did not turn in the assignment that had only been assigned because of her, then it would just serve to further anger the professor and further put Brittany in her house’s bad graces. But, unfortunately, she had to admit Quinn was right as well, she couldn’t just march up to a Gryffindor prefect and demand they give Brittany the password; they would laugh in her face, and if word of that got around, her kindling reputation would be completely extinguished.
“Come on,” Santana motioned for Brittany to follow her.
“Where are you going?" Quinn asked apprehensively.
“To Slytherin’s Common Room. I already promised Brittany that I would help her with the homework, so we might as well just use my book for the time being. We will find some Gryffindor First Year to corner afterwards and scare into giving Brittany the password.”
Somewhere in the middle of that statement, Quinn had scrambled to her feet in a very unQuinn-like fashion, and was currently dusting herself off and tucking her book under her arm.
Santana raised an eyebrow in teasing question.
“What? Santana Lopez voluntarily gives up her Saturday to work on an assignment that isn’t even hers? This I have to see.”
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Whether word of Santana’s outburst in class really had been getting around or whether it was the weekend and everybody was out of uniform, Brittany included, or perhaps a little bit of both, but nobody even looked twice when the Gryffindor entered the Slytherin Common Room with Santana and Quinn. Santana showed Brittany to a small, round table off in the corner, telling her to have a seat while she went up to her room to gather her things. She came back down the stairs, her hands loaded down with her History of Magic book, parchment, quills, and ink. She passed a group of first year boys on her way towards the black wooden table where Quinn and Brittany sat, awaiting her return. Brittany’s eyes were moving around the room, curiously taking everything in, while Quinn had gone back to reading her novel.
“No, she’s not a Slytherin,” the soft voice of a young boy insisted. “She isn’t in any of our classes.”
“You sure? I think I’ve seen her in potions,” another replied.
“We take Potions with Gryffindor, you moron. The girl must belong in Gryffindor.”
“Why would a Gryffindor be in our Common Room?” a new voice questioned.
“I don’t know,” the first boy answered, his voice set. “But I’m fixing to find out and kick her back to where she belongs.”
At this, Santana turned back to the group of First Year boys she had just passed, “Is there a problem here, los niñitos?”
“Yea, there is,” the first boy, who Santana recognized as the ginger kid named Rick, replied. “Your little friend there isn’t a Slytherin.”
“She isn’t?” Santana questioned innocently as she glanced back at Brittany over her shoulder. The Gryffindor's bright colors stood in stark contrast to all of her surroundings.
“You know she isn’t. She doesn’t belong here.”
“Yea,” the boy next to him, Azimio seconded.
“Really? Because I think it looks like she belongs just fine,” Santana shrugged.
“Either you ask her to leave, or we will make her,” Rick stepped towards her.
Santana laughed at his attempt to look menacing before dropping her voice, “Listen here, you stupid little boys, you step within twenty feet of my friend over there, and I will make sure you don’t live long enough to hear that high-pitched prissy voice of yours drop, entiendes?”
“Y-You don’t scare me,” Rick replied, though the hesitance in his voice stated otherwise.
“Oh really?” Santana placed her things on a nearby shelf and pulled out her wand, running a finger down the length of it. “Were you in Defense Against the Dark Arts the other day, Little Richard?”
“Yea…”
“Well, then you know that I didn’t get to finish my lesson on the Unforgivable Curses,” Santana reminded. “You see, I never even got to teach everyone the proper incantations. Now, for the Cruciatis Curse, you have to raise your wand like so,” Santana demonstrated, holding her wand up, aimed right in between the red head’s eyes. “Then you wave it like this and recite the word, Cruc-“
“Wait!” Rick squeaked, his entire body visibly shaking in front of Santana’s wand. “Wait, please, I get it. I won’t do it.”
“Won’t do what?” Santana demanded, her wand still at the ready.
“I won’t mess with your friend.”
“And…” she prompted.
“And I won’t alert her not being a Slytherin to anyone else. She…she’s welcome here anytime,” Rick promised.
“Good,” Santana smirked as she lowered her wand. “Have a good day, children.”
She replaced her wand and gathered back up her things before turning and making her way over to the table where her friends sat waiting.
“Keep that up, and your reputation will catch on even faster than I predicted,” Quinn chuckled from behind her book.
“All in a day’s work,” Santana shrugged as she spread out all of her belonging on the table. “Ready to get to work?”
Brittany nodded eagerly, her smile wide and her eyes determined.
Next Chapter
Pairing: Santana Lopez/Brittany S. Pierce
Rating: PG for the beginning and eventually M
Summary: So, this is my story of what would happen if the Glee characters had been born into the Hogwarts setting. There will be a cameo from a Harry Potter character throughout, whether or not there will be any other HP characters is still tbd.
A/N: Sorry for the delay. No excuses, just sorry. Moment of awe for J.K. Rowling. I just realized while writing this chapter that it would be necessary for me to figure out Santana and Brittany's timetables in order to have something to refer to and so I wouldn't contradict myself later. Talk about a pain in the ass. Like huge, huge pain in the ass. And to think that is just one of the minute aspects that she had to bang out in order to weave all those little details so effortlessly throughout her stories...serious awe. And the thought of me having to do that for all seven years is giving me a headache, lol. Anyways, hope y'all enjoy!
Previous Chapter
1.4
++++++++
The next time the door of the Potions classroom opened, it wasn’t with a scratching sound, but with a loud bang that made all the students jump up, alert in their seats. Santana swallowed hard as she turned to find a rather tall woman with short blonde hair storming into the room, her robes billowing out from around her, making the track suit beneath it visible to all. Santana fought to not raise an eyebrow. Nobody ever said Sue Sylvester was known for her fashion sense.
“I didn’t know we could wear our pajamas to class,” Brittany whispered.
“I don’t think those are pajamas,” Santana replied, immediately straightening up as Professor Sylvester reached the front of the class and turned to face them in a dramatic fashion, black robes spinning about flamboyantly.
Professor Sylvester’s hard eyes narrowed as they scanned over the room of first years. Every now and then her gaze would pause on a particular student as she muttered something incomprehensible from where Santana sat at the back of the room. The look on her face, however, was more than enough to let Santana know that the professor was uttering her displeasure with what sat before her. When the professor’s eyes paused on her own face, Santana froze, taking in a deep breath as her jaw tightened, forcing herself to stare right back. She knew it was all about respect with the older woman. Not brown-nosing, not fear, respect.
When Professor Sylvester’s eyes moved on without her mouth murmuring a snide comment, Santana felt all the air that she had been holding leave her lungs in a whoosh. She was so relieved that when Professor Sylvester’s eyes landed on Brittany and the small girl beside her decided to wave and smile brightly in reply, causing a rather confused expression to fall over the professor’s countenance, Santana had to quickly cover her mouth to keep a giggle from escaping. Professor Sylvester’s gaze moved on, once again without saying anything, pausing a few more time over a few select students, none of which she seemed entirely too thrilled about having in her class.
“Pathetic!” Professor Sylvester barked, loud enough for the entire class to hear this time. She turned around with a flourish, her hand snatching at a piece of chalk. Words quickly began to be written across the blackboard in a scrawling handwriting, and as Santana took them in, her eyes widened-it was a potions recipe. She hadn’t realized that they would begin brewing on the first day of class.
When Professor Sylvester’s hand came to a stop, the recipe now complete, she turned back around and eyed the students coldly one last time, “You have two hours to complete the potion…though by the looks of you all, it will be an accomplishment if you manage to merely finish reading the recipe by the end of that time.” With a roll of her eyes, she made her way to the chair behind the dark wooden desk that sat at the front of the class.
The no-nonsense professor had just taken a magazine out of a drawer of her desk when Brittany’s hand shot into the air.
“Brittany, I don’t think-“ Santana began, but it was too late. Professor Sylvester had already seen her.
“Is there a problem, Blondie? Because I am not one of those types of professors that will sit here and help you with your…special needs. I am sorry if you cannot read, but this is the format-“
“I can read,” Brittany cut her off.
“Dios mio,” Santana’s head lowered.
“I was just wondering what your name was,” Brittany informed.
The entire class sat, staring at Professor Sylvester with wide eyes, too scared to turn their incredulous looks around to the poor girl in the back of the class that would surely be running from the room in a fit of tears at any moment.
“Normally teachers introduce themselves in the first class of the year,” she continued, clearly nonplussed by the heightened atmosphere of the room.
“My…my name? You want to know my name?” Professor Sylvester choked out in surprise. “What is your name, child?”
“Brittany S. Pierce,” Brittany smiled. “Not to be confused with Britney Spears.”
Professor Sylvester nodded, as if that was all the explanation she needed.
Santana’s eyes darted around confusedly, wondering if she was the only one that had no idea what was happening.
“Well, Brittany S. Pierce, not to be confused with Britney Spears, my name is Professor Sue Sylvester. I will be your Potions instructor for the next seven years. I have been teaching here for far, far longer than you have been alive. Probably even longer than most of your parents have been alive-hard to believe I am only 29, I know. I know how to brew potions that can bring you back to life and ones that can kill you, ones that can turn you into the ugliest troll and ones that can cause all the little boys on the block to be swooning after you. I do not like slackers, and I have been known to use my lesser-favored students as test subjects for the poorly brewed potions of their classmates. Is there anything else you would like to know?” Professor Sylvester’s eyebrows rose. But even with the apparent sarcasm of the last question, there was the tiniest bit of patience lacing her words that had Santana’s head spinning. This was not the professor she had been told about.
“No, that was a very good introduction,” Brittany nodded with a smile. “It is nice to meet you.”
Professor Sylvester’s eyebrows scrunched together, and Santana felt a slight since of relief at the fact that she wasn’t the only one lost. The professor picked her magazine back up and began to leisurely flip through the pages. The class took this as their cue to begin their work.
“How did you not…I told you it was…what just happened?” Santana finally managed to get out as she reached for the lionfish spines to begin crushing. “How do you not know who Professor Sylvester is?”
“Well, I know now, silly. She just introduced herself,” Brittany replied.
Santana reached out to stop her from adding two handfuls of spines to her own mortar, “Just four.”
“Does it really matter if I add a few more than necessary? Won’t it give it a bit more flavor?” Brittany asked genuinely.
Santana’s eyes widened, “First off, it is a herbicide potion, meaning it is meant to kill plants, meaning it is not meant to be eaten by humans, so the flavor really doesn’t matter. Second, yes, it really does matter if you add a few more than necessary. It matters if you add one-hundredth of one more than necessary. Potion making is a very exact science.”
“Why would we want to kill the plants, though?” Brittany’s bottom lip had jutted out into a pout.
“Not all plants are good, Brittany.”
“You mean like weeds?”
“I was thinking more along the lines of that stupid Whomping Willow out on the grounds, but, yea, like weeds,” Santana waved off the topic. “But what I meant before was, how did you not know who Professor Sylvester was before her introduction?”
“I’m not from here, Santana,” Brittany pointed out.
“I know that, anybody with a pair of ears knows that, but everybody in the world knows who Professor Sylvester is.”
“Well, apparently not everybody,” Brittany frowned.
Santana’s shoulders dropped, “Sorry, Brittany, I didn’t mean it as a bad thing, you just…confuse me.”
Brittany shrugged, her smile returning, “It’s okay. I find lots of things confusing: recipes, for one…and that’s when I’m making stuff that I actually am allowed to eat.”
Santana chuckled, “Well, fortunately, I happen to know a thing or two about potions. My mother is an expert.”
“Looks like I picked the right seat, then,” Brittany’s face lit up.
“Lucky you,” Santana nodded.
Brittany scoffed, “Lucky you.”
Santana had to cover her mouth with her arm to keep the laughter that was bubbling up her throat from bursting out of her mouth. “Come on; let’s finish crushing because it has to brew a good hour and a half.”
++++++++++
“Perfect,” Santana smirked as she looked at the finished potion in her cauldron. It was a dark green, bordering on black, and smelled horrid. She poured a tiny sample into a vial and put a stopper on top. “Okay, so you remember the plan?” Santana turned to Brittany and the dark green potion in her cauldron.
“Yep, you go turn yours in. I wait five minutes and then go turn mine in, so as to not let Professor Sylvester know you helped me out too much. Then I meet you outside the classroom where Operation: Tie a Tie will begin.”
“Yes,” Santana smiled before standing up, off of her stool. “See you in five minutes.”
She made her way to the front of the room where there was already a small collection of vials on Professor Sylvester’s desk. The fact that none of them were as dark of a green as her own made Santana’s smirk reappear.
“Poor excuse for a Potion,” Professor Sylvester commanded with a sigh, holding her hand out to take the vial without even looking up from her magazine: the latest copy of Quidditch Weekly, the front cover of which showed off the newest recruit of Puddlemere United-a heavy-set beater from Bournemouth-flexing in his shiny, new navy-blue robes. Santana resisted the urge to snort. Puddlemere was nothing more than a bunch of pansies. A member of Puddlemere wouldn’t last a day at practice with the Falmouth Falcons, and she wasn’t just saying that because her father had been recruited by the falcons. He had eventually turned them down in favor of going on to study medicine, of course, but they still held a special place in the family’s heart.
Professor Sylvester’s hand bobbed up and down carefully, as if weighing the vial in her hand. She looked up from her magazine, an expression of pleasant surprise forming on her face as she took in Santana’s completed potion.
“Hm,” she rolled the vial around in her hand. “Not bad. Good coloring. Not quite as thick as it needs be, but overall, loads better than the dribble that has been turned in thus far,” she motioned to the other vials on her desk, one of which glowed a neon yellow.
The professor looked up and took Santana in, her eyes narrowing slightly, “Lopez, right?”
Santana nodded.
“I remember you from the sorting. When I heard your name and saw your eyes, I just knew…you are Andrés Lopez’s daughter, aren’t you?”
“Yes ma’am,” Santana stood as tall as she could. She bit back the urge to correct the professor for not using her father's proper title.
“I remember your father very well: an excellent keeper, he led Slytherin to the title three years in a row.”
“Yes ma’am,” Santana beamed proudly.
“And he turned out to be quite the doctor, I hear.”
“He is world-renowned,” Santana nodded.
“He did well in my class, but…Potions did not come naturally to him. He had to work hard for it…”
Santana could hear the questions forming in the professor’s mind as she examined the potion once more.
“Who is your mother?”
“Lady Lop-“ Santana quickly shook her head. “Sorry, I mean, Evelyn Black.”
“Ahh, yes, I see that now,” Professor Sylvester’s eyes roamed her face. “Now she…she was one of my best students. Potions definitely came naturally to her. Sharp too, very sharp. A girl that knew exactly what she wanted and wasn’t afraid to go after it. Wish I had more like her. Quite a bit younger than your dad, though, if I remember correctly?”
“Yes ma’am,” Santana squirmed. “My dad waited until he was finished with his schooling before he even began to think of looking for a wife. And seeing as he went to both a school for healers in the magical world and a school for medicine in the Muggle one, he was a bit older than most when he finally settled down.”
“Nothing wrong with being career oriented,” Professor Sylvester nodded as she placed the vial in her hand down on her desk with the others. “Well, Lopez, based on your pedigree, I am expecting a lot from you. Let’s hope you live up to it all.”
“I will,” Santana replied.
“We’ll see,” Professor Sylvester replied, her eyes moving from Santana’s to just over the young girl’s shoulders. “And as for your friend back there, a Miss Pierce, well, while I don’t understand the entire sentiment behind it, I hear it is hard to turn down someone asking for help when they look as much as a lost puppy as she does, but perhaps it would be best if you didn’t make it so obvious from now on.”
“I offered,” Santana blurted out before she could stop herself. Her tan complexion paled. “I-I mean, she did not ask me for help, I offered it.”
“Well, the sentiment remains. Keep her from killing herself, by all means, please, but as for doing all of the work for her? I would hate to have to flunk someone with as much potential as you for cheating…”
Santana swallowed loudly, “Yes ma’am.”
“You may go now. It is the first lecture of the term, and you all have already given me a migraine.”
Santana nodded and quickly gathered her belongings before leaving the room. She allowed herself to collapse against the wall while she gave herself time to catch her head. Her pedigree seems to have put her at an advantage when it comes to Professor Sylvester, but the elder woman made it perfectly clear how easy it would be for Santana to lose that advantage.
“As much potential as you,” Santana repeated with a smile.
The next time the door beside her opened, it was to reveal a petite blonde skipping out of the classroom. Brittany skipped right past Santana before stopping and turning around to face her.
“Well?” she raised an inquisitive eyebrow. “Aren’t you coming? Operation: Tie a Tie is ready to comment.”
Santana shook her head with a soft smile before scrambling to catch up, “What did Professor Sylvester say to you?”
“I don’t really know,” Brittany shrugged as she fished the tiny kitten out of her shirt. “I was too busy trying not to laugh because Tubbington was tickling my belly.”
“Why Tubbington, anyway?”
“I didn’t want the other cats to tease him for being different, so I gave him the most British sounding name I could think of.”
“You should have just given him a title.”
“He’s a cat Santana, not a book,” Brittany rolled her eyes.
“No,” Santana giggled. “Like you know…a title…like my father is Lord Lopez, like that.”
Brittany’s eyes widened.
“What?”
“Your dad is the Lord?”
“Well, he is a lord, but I guess if you ask my mother, than he is the lord, yes-“
“But that would make you…” Brittany’s eyes were now impossibly wide as she dropped to her knees. “Jesus?”
Santana smiled, chuckling softly as she reached out and helped Brittany off the ground, “I forget how different some things are back across the pond. I didn’t mean that Lord, I meant, like a…well, you know…have you ever heard of a duke or a count or even a knight?”
“Well, yeah, everybody’s heard of knights.”
“Okay, well, a knight is actually a ranking. There are several rankings all the way from a knight to a king, and each ranking comes with a title, which is how the person is addressed. With me so far?”
“I think so,” Brittany nodded slowly, her eyes locked on Santana’s face as she spoke, her forehead slightly scrunched in concentration.
“Okay, for each ranking there are two titles: the long formal one, and the informal one. The long formal one usually includes the person’s ranking. For instance, my father is Earl Lopez in a formal setting, but in conversation, you can refer to him as Lord Lopez. Quinn’s father is the Viscount Fabray, or less formally: Lord Fabray.”
“Are all the informal titles Lord?”
“Yeah, unless you get up to the royal family or down to barons and knights.”
“Hm…” Brittany raised the kitten in front of her face thoughtfully. “Lord Tubbington…I like that. What do you think?”
“It’ll give him something to grow into,” she nodded, her head tilting as she watched Brittany push up the sleeves of her robes that were clearly too long for her. Her eyes moved to the floor where she noticed the bottom of her robes trailing on the ground. “Is that what your parents did for you? Buy your robes a size too big in the hopes that you would grow into them? Because those look brand new, so they can’t be hand me downs.”
“These aren’t my robes,” Brittany reached down with her free hand turned back and forth on the balls of her feet, causing the robes to spin about playfully. “My robes are at the bottom of the lake, remember? These are your robes.”
“I never got them back from you, did I?”
“Nope. I was going to just put them in my bag in case I ran into you today, but then I realized I didn’t have any to wear, so…but here you go,” Brittany placed her book bag on the floor and began to shrug off the robes.
“Wait, no, you don’t have to do that,” Santana quickly reached out to stop her. “Why don’t you hang on to them until your parents can send you some new ones?”
“I don’t know how long that will be,” Brittany admitted, picking back up her bag. “There aren’t any shops that sell wizard robes in Arizona, at least none that I’ve ever seen.”
“Well, then your mom can order them. I’m sure Madam Malkin’s has a catalogue we can send her.”
“How long will that take?” Brittany asked her as they started walking again. “Cause I wrote my parents the day my flight landed and I arrived in Diagon Alley which was like almost two weeks ago, and I haven’t heard back from them yet.”
Santana glanced to her side to find Brittany’s normally vibrant eyes downcast, “I don’t know for certain. I haven’t ever written to someone across an ocean before. I am sure you will hear back from them soon, though.”
Brittany nodded, and Santana faced forward once more as she replayed Brittany’s words in her head. The small girl had arrived in Diagon Alley by herself. She’d had to travel to a new country all alone. Either her parents were completely incompetent, or…“I am sure Second-Hand Robes also has a catalogue if money is an iss-actually,” Santana shook her head, “No, no second-hand robes for you. That would completely go against the whole purpose of looking your best and Operation: Tie a Tie. You can just keep mine. Quinn has quite the hand for stitching-something I have never had the patience for no matter how many times my mother insisted on giving me lessons-so, I will just have her hem them up for you.”
“You think she would do that for me?” Brittany asked, the doubt clearly evident in her voice.
“Quinn’s not as bad as she seems,” Santana shook her head. “You just have to know how to deal with her. Now, come on, we had better get started on Operation: Tie a Tie before we are late to our next lessons. Herbology, if I remember correctly. Although, one would think it would make more sense for Herbology to be before Potions, but apparently whoever made the timetables must have been an incompetent man…what?” she questioned at Brittany frowning as she looked at her hand.
Santana reached over to take Brittany’s hand where she found a schedule scribbled out on the back of it.
“I have flying next,” Brittany pointed out.
“Oh,” Santana dropped her hand, her eyes falling to the blonde’s crimson and gold tie once more. “Right. You are in Gryffindor. I keep forgetting.”
“Stupid sorting hat,” Brittany mumbled as they made their way out of the dungeons.
The first week of school went by in a flurry of new teachers and misdirection-it appeared that no matter how many times her mother had gone over the layout of the school, nothing could prepare her for moving staircases and disappearing doors-so Santana found herself glad to be able to stretch out beneath a large tree outside, able to catch her head for the first time since the term had started and enjoy her favorite pastime: people watching. Currently, she was watching a pair of Gryffindor upperclassmen walking hand in hand. The girl was wearing far too much makeup for both her age and current outing of choice, but on closer inspection, Santana realized the makeup was to cover up a patch of pimples expanding over her forehead. She was gripping onto the boys hand tightly. The boy, on the other hand, was strolling about as if he owned the world, smirking as he passed a group of his friends and winking when he passed a group of girls.
Santana rolled her eyes. She could see it now: they would be married in five years, and miserable in six. The boy would be sleeping around on the side while the girl would have plastic surgery after plastic surgery to try and keep her husband’s eye from wondering. They would fit in perfectly with the couples her parents tended to hang out with.
“See?” Quinn asked as she stretched out beside her, opening up the novel she carried in her hand. “Are you not glad that you did your Astronomy homework yesterday like I suggested? Now we have all weekend to relax.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Santana waved her off before placing an arm over her eyes to block out the stray rays of sunshine that were managing to weave their way through the leaves of the tree. “I’m just glad that Professor Holiday got too distracted with making smores when that lout Hudson set his match on fire instead of turning it into a needle to give out homework this week.”
Quinn’s mouth twitched between a smile and a frown.
“Hey,” a breezy voice greeted.
Santana opened one eye to watch as Brittany fell to the ground beside her in one fluid motion. Santana smiled and moved her arm from over her eyes to behind her head to use as a pillow.
“Are we bird watching?” Brittany asked, her gaze up to the tree above them.
“Just enjoying the weather while it is still nice,” Santana replied. She glanced over to Brittany’s empty hands. “You didn’t bring your books? I thought you needed help with your History of Magic homework?”
The day before in their afternoon Potions class, Brittany had entered the room with a pout as she tossed her book bag down on the ground. It turned out when the History of Magic Professor, a very old, very wrinkly woman by the name of Nancy Bletheim, had given them a quiz at the beginning of class, like she had during Slytherin’s lecture, to attain an estimate of what the students already knew, Professor Bletheim was none too pleased when she got back Brittany’s paper. Apparently for the question of who was the current Minister of Magic, Brittany had replied with ‘Pope Benedict XVI’, and when the Professor asked if this was meant to be some sort of joke, Brittany in turn said that he was the only priest she knew of. This led to the Gryffindor first years being assigned with an essay two feet in length on the history of the position of minister of magic.
“Well, I went down to eat breakfast, and when I got back to the portrait, the password had been changed, and nobody would tell me the new one. I think word got out about what happened, and now unless I can find a way into the dorms to get my book, I won’t be able to do the assignment which will only make the professor even more upset.”
“Hold up,” Santana sat up, allowing herself to better view the girl beside her. Her short shorts were nearly covered by the loose fitting tshirt that's bright colors caused her lightly sunkissed skin to glow. Her hair was pulled back in two braids, all levels of blonde from white to tawny interwoven together. Santana resisted the urge to run a hand through her own plainly black hair, knowing it had taken her too long that morning to get it to cooperate to be messing it up now. “They locked you out of your dorm?”
“Out of the whole house, actually,” Brittany replied, one eye squinted against the sunlight, the other a bright aquamarine rivaling the gemstone in the necklace her father had given her grandma for her sixtieth birthday-and coincidentally the day that Santana was born. It was a story her grandmother loved to tell, and a necklace Santana had never seen the aging woman without.
“That’s so…that’s so…” Santana growled before quickly standing up and pulling Brittany to her feet with her. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?”
“We are going to the Gryffindor Common Room so that I can give your peers a piece of my mind.”
“How are you going to get into the Common Room?” Quinn asked, looking at the pair of them curiously over her book.
“Well…” Santana began, but trailed off as looked over to Brittany and remember that she did not have the password. Brittany gave an apologetic look, and Santana felt her anger rising hotly through her veins. “I am going to go over there and demand they let us in. I am Lady Santana Lopez and-“
“And you are a First Year Slytherin,” Quinn shook her head as she put her book down and sat up straight. “They are never going to let you in there.”
“I will make them.”
“You are a puny little first year, Santana--"
Santana bristled at that.
"--They are not going to be scared of you. This is not like our other school. Over here, you may be granted respect, but it is only because of your title. Fear, however? No way.”
“That’s because they don’t know me, yet.”
“Exactly! These kids do not know you like our other classmates did, and until your reputation has a chance to catch on, you will remain nothing but a wimpy little first year with a rich daddy to them.”
“And how is my reputation supposed to catch on?”
“Just be yourself,” Quinn waved at her, relaxing behind her book once more. “After the lake incident, and your unfortunately perfect performance in Potions this week, and Defence Against The Dark Arts where you went off on a spiel about the Unforgivable Curses-“
Santana smirked at this. During the first DADA lesson of the term, which they shared with Ravenclaw, Professor Henri St. Pierre began by asking the class why they thought it was important to take such a class. The consensus seemed to be to “protect us from bad spells and creatures”. When prompted to expand, the class began to list off things such as the Blasting Curse or Petrificus Totalus or Merpeople. It was at the mention of the Tongue-Tying Curse that Santana had snorted loudly in laughter.
“Oh, please, an infant can protect itself from the Tongue-Tying Curse,” Santana managed through her laughter. “And Merpeople? Really? You really think that the Four Founders deemed this class important enough to make it mandatory for First Through Fifth Years because they were afraid that we would someday be overrun by Merpeople? I thought Ravenclaws were supposed to be smart.”
The classroom of Ravenclaw and Slytherin stared back at her in a mixture of awe and nerves.
“He is talking about the Unforgivable Curses,” Santana rolled her eyes in exasperation.
“Um, actually, no, I wasn’t talking…” Professor St. Pierre eyed her warily. “How do you even…What do you know about the curses?”
“I know that there is a reason that they are called Unforgivable,” Santana shrugged as nonchalantly as she could. Truth be told, she knew a lot about the curses, but that never stopped the chills from forming down her spine at the mere mention of them. “And I know that the use of one is enough to earn you a one way ticket to Azkaban.”
“Everyone knows that,” a Slytherin boy with short black hair replied before turning back to face the front.
Santana bristled, feeling a challenge in his words, “I know that there are three of them: The Cruciatus Curse, The Imperius Curse, and the Killing Curse. The first of which inflicts the most excruciating pain imaginable upon its victim. It is often used as a form of torture for dark wizards, and if used for a long enough period of time, it can cause serious, permanent damage on the victim’s brain. The next one, the Imperius Curse places the victim under the control of the wizard casting the spell. Doesn’t sound too bad, right? But think of all the things you could be made to do: rob a bank, hurt someone, kill your own family. Often when people are caught in the wrong, they claim to be under this curse as a means of getting out of punishment. And then finally, the Killing Curse. That one is pretty self-explanatory, but-“
“That’s enough!” Professor St. Pierre slammed his hand onto his desk.
Santana felt a smirk forming as she realized the nerves in her classmates eyes had been replaced with fear as they stared back at her, mouths hanging open.
“All you need to do is show a little patience. Just keep on being your lovely self,” Quinn continued with a wry smile, “and allow time for the talk to become associated with your actual being before you go seeking out fights with upperclassmen that know how to perform a hell of a lot more magic than you.”
“Who said anything about magic?” Santana crossed her arms. “I was planning on using my fists.”
Quinn giggled, “Just give it a little more time, and upperclassmen will be quivering in fear at the mere thought of you, just like you like it.”
Santana nodded, her shoulders sagging in defeat. She looked to Brittany who was drawing what appeared to be a rainbow in the dirt on the ground with the toe of her shoe, her nose scrunched in thought.
Brittany looked up, catching Santana watching, “Do you think they are going to be mad at me long? I mean, my answers seemed to really upset Professor Bletheim, so it really is my fault that we have so much homework. Maybe I should bring them flowers or something? That’s what my dad does when he says something to my mom that leaves him sleeping on the couch for a few nights.”
“What? Brittany, no, you do not need to apologize,” Santana replied firmly, holding Brittany’s gaze to make sure she was listening. “It is not your fault that they call people by different titles in America. We have Ministers, you have Presidents. The other Gryffindors, they are the ones who are in the wrong for doing this. I am pretty sure there are rules against it. Plus, my mom says that you should never be the first one to back down from a fight because it only shows weakness. Are you weak?”
Brittany shook her head, her eyes never wavering as she matched Santana’s intense gaze, “No, I mean, I broke my arm when I was eight while going around a really tight turn, and I didn’t even cry. I still have the sticker from the doctor to prove it. It doesn’t smell anymore when you scratch it, but it does have a really cute batch of grapes with smiley faces on it. But-“
“No buts,” Santana shook her head. “They are wrong, and you are right.”
Brittany’s face lit up at this declaration, a wide smile forming before fading just as quickly. “But I need to get my book for the assignment. I don’t want to start off on the wrong foot…again.”
Santana nodded at this. It was true, if Brittany did not turn in the assignment that had only been assigned because of her, then it would just serve to further anger the professor and further put Brittany in her house’s bad graces. But, unfortunately, she had to admit Quinn was right as well, she couldn’t just march up to a Gryffindor prefect and demand they give Brittany the password; they would laugh in her face, and if word of that got around, her kindling reputation would be completely extinguished.
“Come on,” Santana motioned for Brittany to follow her.
“Where are you going?" Quinn asked apprehensively.
“To Slytherin’s Common Room. I already promised Brittany that I would help her with the homework, so we might as well just use my book for the time being. We will find some Gryffindor First Year to corner afterwards and scare into giving Brittany the password.”
Somewhere in the middle of that statement, Quinn had scrambled to her feet in a very unQuinn-like fashion, and was currently dusting herself off and tucking her book under her arm.
Santana raised an eyebrow in teasing question.
“What? Santana Lopez voluntarily gives up her Saturday to work on an assignment that isn’t even hers? This I have to see.”
+++++++
Whether word of Santana’s outburst in class really had been getting around or whether it was the weekend and everybody was out of uniform, Brittany included, or perhaps a little bit of both, but nobody even looked twice when the Gryffindor entered the Slytherin Common Room with Santana and Quinn. Santana showed Brittany to a small, round table off in the corner, telling her to have a seat while she went up to her room to gather her things. She came back down the stairs, her hands loaded down with her History of Magic book, parchment, quills, and ink. She passed a group of first year boys on her way towards the black wooden table where Quinn and Brittany sat, awaiting her return. Brittany’s eyes were moving around the room, curiously taking everything in, while Quinn had gone back to reading her novel.
“No, she’s not a Slytherin,” the soft voice of a young boy insisted. “She isn’t in any of our classes.”
“You sure? I think I’ve seen her in potions,” another replied.
“We take Potions with Gryffindor, you moron. The girl must belong in Gryffindor.”
“Why would a Gryffindor be in our Common Room?” a new voice questioned.
“I don’t know,” the first boy answered, his voice set. “But I’m fixing to find out and kick her back to where she belongs.”
At this, Santana turned back to the group of First Year boys she had just passed, “Is there a problem here, los niñitos?”
“Yea, there is,” the first boy, who Santana recognized as the ginger kid named Rick, replied. “Your little friend there isn’t a Slytherin.”
“She isn’t?” Santana questioned innocently as she glanced back at Brittany over her shoulder. The Gryffindor's bright colors stood in stark contrast to all of her surroundings.
“You know she isn’t. She doesn’t belong here.”
“Yea,” the boy next to him, Azimio seconded.
“Really? Because I think it looks like she belongs just fine,” Santana shrugged.
“Either you ask her to leave, or we will make her,” Rick stepped towards her.
Santana laughed at his attempt to look menacing before dropping her voice, “Listen here, you stupid little boys, you step within twenty feet of my friend over there, and I will make sure you don’t live long enough to hear that high-pitched prissy voice of yours drop, entiendes?”
“Y-You don’t scare me,” Rick replied, though the hesitance in his voice stated otherwise.
“Oh really?” Santana placed her things on a nearby shelf and pulled out her wand, running a finger down the length of it. “Were you in Defense Against the Dark Arts the other day, Little Richard?”
“Yea…”
“Well, then you know that I didn’t get to finish my lesson on the Unforgivable Curses,” Santana reminded. “You see, I never even got to teach everyone the proper incantations. Now, for the Cruciatis Curse, you have to raise your wand like so,” Santana demonstrated, holding her wand up, aimed right in between the red head’s eyes. “Then you wave it like this and recite the word, Cruc-“
“Wait!” Rick squeaked, his entire body visibly shaking in front of Santana’s wand. “Wait, please, I get it. I won’t do it.”
“Won’t do what?” Santana demanded, her wand still at the ready.
“I won’t mess with your friend.”
“And…” she prompted.
“And I won’t alert her not being a Slytherin to anyone else. She…she’s welcome here anytime,” Rick promised.
“Good,” Santana smirked as she lowered her wand. “Have a good day, children.”
She replaced her wand and gathered back up her things before turning and making her way over to the table where her friends sat waiting.
“Keep that up, and your reputation will catch on even faster than I predicted,” Quinn chuckled from behind her book.
“All in a day’s work,” Santana shrugged as she spread out all of her belonging on the table. “Ready to get to work?”
Brittany nodded eagerly, her smile wide and her eyes determined.
Next Chapter