Ducks & Ducking work.

Prominent Wizarding world members divorce! A saucy affair or innocent affection!

Lord Malfoy has announced his decision to divorce his wife due to a loss of love between the two.

Was this decided by both sides, or did one have an affair? This reporter feels she must mention that Lord Peverell and the soon-to-be Ex-Lady Malfoy were seen kissing at their new year's party! Could this be the reason such a perfect marriage has fallen apart? We here at the Daily prophet wish both parties better luck next time.

More theories are on pages 4-6.

Rita Skeeter

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January 10th, 1994

Harry was talking to Oliver Wood about the Dementor incident, his broom had been broken, and they needed solutions.

"I got a Firebolt! It came anonymously, though, so Hermione gave it to McGonagall! She didn't even ask me! It probably wasn't even Sirius Black. Why would he give me a broom? I got gifts from loads of people." Harry said, still angry with Hermione over the whole incident.

"Damn! You on a Firebolt would have guaranteed our victory in the Quidditch cup. I'll ask McGonagall about getting it back to you as soon as possible. With the Dementors gone, you should be fine, but just in case, you might want to find a solution for the future." Wood cursed, walking off while muttering to himself.

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January 11th, 1994

Everyone had returned the night before, so the great hall was once again full as everyone began breakfast. Quite a lot of the Great Hall was chatting about the latest article by Rita Skeeter. The Slytherin table was the exception, either out of respect or fear for Lord Malfoy.

Daphne sat with her group of friends, telling them about her holiday.

"He gave me twenty-three presents! I have more things than I know what to do with. I have silver phoenix feather earrings, expensive perfumes, some amazing dresses that I didn't know existed and lots of beautiful ancient-looking jewellery! It's not fair." She said with a scowl.

Both Blaise and Tracey lifted their eyebrows at that last declaration.

"Not fair!" Tracey crowed before putting on her best Daphne impression, "Oh woe is me, who hath been given so many amazing presents I am at a loss!"

Daphne poked her friend in the stomach in annoyance before explaining,

"That's not the problem! I only got him a simple locket, with a promise to be nicer to him. I feel so outclassed."

As she sulked, Blaise and Tracey shared a look before laughing; only Daphne Greengrass would find a problem with being wooed so outlandishly.

Seeing that her friends had no intention of stopping laughing, she stood up and left.

Ares watched all this with a happy smile, subconsciously touching the locket she had given him next to the time turner and the ageing amulet.

Turning back to Felix and Anastasia, he told them of his latest plan to get Granger and Weasley in trouble.

Since arriving in 1993, Ares had been having great fun messing with the two traitors. Sadly he had let a lot of time pass without incident while dealing with Sirius, but now that he had a prank book from his godfather, he would be sure to put it to good use.

Looking over the golden trio, he decided to try something simple.

"Ducklifors" was cast twice, and suddenly Harry was no longer sitting with his friends; there were ducks instead.

The duck with abnormally large teeth started quacking angrily as she pecked Harry in an attempt to make him change them back.

The other duck just kept eating.

Duckmione started changing colours randomly as she flapped about, making an incredible racket which eventually drew Professor McGonagall over.

After changing Granger and Weasley back, much to the disappointment of Slytherin, Ravenclaw and even some of Gryffindor, she looked around angrily before settling her eyes on Fred and George Weasley.

"You two! To my office this instance, human transfiguration is not something to joke about! Fifty points from Gryffindor!" She was clearly not happy as she stalked her way back to her office to await the twins, who themselves were positively furious.

"It wasn't us!" They shouted, throwing up their arms at the same time.

Ironically Human transfiguration was taught at the NEWT level, and because Fred and George were in the fifth year, they shouldn't be able to do it anyway.

Obviously, Minerva was too used to the twins being the culprits.

Ares reckoned he would try the leek jinx on the ginger and bucktooth third years next. It annoyed him how quickly teachers at Hogwarts liked jumping to conclusions.

Finished with his breakfast, he saw that he had double Transfiguration next,

He should have waited to pull the prank because now he would have an angry teacher for two lessons.

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Transfiguration Classroom

Professor McGonagall strode between the desks as she watched her fourth-year students attempt Cross-Species Switches with slight amusement.

She was still annoyed about breakfast, but she believed the twins when they offered to take veritaserum to prove they were innocent.

Obviously, that meant it was probably Malfoy or another Slytherin. Nevertheless, she had taken great satisfaction in rewarding the points and more to make up for the false accusation.

The class attempted to turn a mouse into a toad, and the results were fascinating.

Ms Barnes and her fellow housemates, Ms Belmont, Mr Balsall and Mr Bhatt, were all doing admirably, as expected. They were, after all, Gryffindors.

To her amazement Mr Peverell, Ms Carter and Mr Cowley seemed to have accomplished the task.

"Incredible! this was meant to take you weeks! Please demonstrate it for the class." She was very suspicious.

Ms Carter came forward first and, with a few flicks of her wand, had done a reasonable job of turning the mouse into a toad, albeit slightly white toad.

Professor McGonagall turned it back before gesturing for the next person to come forward.

Mr Cowley did the same, with a few more flicks to direct his magic, and the mouse turned into a toad again.

"Impressive, although you could both do with a little more work. You next, Mr Peverell." She congratulated before transfiguring the toad back into a mouse.

Ares strode forward, and with a simple half-hearted flick of his wand, the mouse was turned into a very convincing toad.

Minerva almost let her jaw drop; it had taken her years before she could do cross-species switches so easily.

It became pretty clear who had taught the other two how to do it.

"Perhaps, Mr Peverell, you could enlighten us on how you performed so well?" She asked curiously.

"No."

"What!"

"No, thank you, Professor; I am not in the mood to do your job for you."

Minerva raised her eyebrows at that. No student had ever said no in a class before.

"Mr Peverell, let me rephrase that. Tell us how you did that." Her voice gained a hard edge.

He looked into her eyes and replied,

"No."

"Detention, Mr Peverell. You will come by tomorrow night."

"No."

"Mr Peverell, you WILL come tomorrow, or I will deduct one hundred points from Slytherin. Is that clear?"

"Fine. I'll be going now, then."

With that, he left and was soon followed by the rest of his housemates.

Minerva was annoyed but, more importantly, confused.

The boy was obviously a prodigy but had been hiding it for the last term; come to think of it, he had never struggled with anything she had set him or the class. She would need to speak to Albus about what to do.