Title: Quiangular
by: malcious lufoy
Rating: PG basically...well, there is some threats made...and a metion of a "venereal disease" and talk of flambee-ing a character...but you'll have to read and wait for that! (shameless plug to get you to read it). No, really, it's full of good ol' fashioned humor. Nothing insinuating, I promise!
Warnings: Ah, well, there is some slash in here, so if you can't stand it, then don't read it! And it's Snarry too...so if that just doesn't push your buttons, then you don't have to read it either!
Disclaimer: J.K. won't be offended if I took them away form her for a while, would she? sneaks off with candies Come here, little Snapey...it's ok to take candy from strangers, really! I won't do anything too terrible to you... (...and no, they are not mine...but they soon will be! Ahahaha! AhahaHA!)
"A Quiangle."
"A what?!" Harry spluttered orange juice all over the breakfast table.
Hermione looked dead serious as she stood above them, books in hand. "Seriously, Harry, if you're going to pass Arithmancy, you have to know what these things are. Weren't you paying attention in class? Professor Vector was talking about four dimensional shapes."
Ron looked over at them both, as he scoffed down his toast. "Harry was a bit preoccupied."
His friend nodded, remembering well that his sometime arch-nemesis had been launching pointy quills at him during class, and he'd turned around to hiss at Malfoy until Professor Vector looked disapprovingly at him for not paying attention. In fact, said arch-nemesis was smirking at him right now, in satisfaction of the latest victory.
The glaring contest between the two was interrupted by Hermione's sharp rap with a rolled piece of parchment on Harry's head. She was in her 'lecture stance', and both Ron and Harry reflexively reacted by tuning her out as a mild buzzing noise.
"Everyone knows what a quiangle is, it was a huge development in theoretical arithmancy a few years back, suggesting the possibility of alternate planes of reality, since a quiangle can only exist in four dimensional space. Alternate planes, suggested something that Master Arithmancians have wanted to know all along, the very mechanics of magic itself.
"Since we use quiangles in the more complicated magical equations, we may very well be able to use quiangular triangulations to access the magical plane itself. If it exists. Of course, this is all highly theoretical. I'd rather do something more substantial, but professor Vector wanted us to try something harder, this year."
"Hermione," Harry's face looked pained. "In all the years you've known me, did you really expect me to understand what you're saying? And if what I think you're saying is what I think you're saying, it doesn't really matter what a...a quiangle? is, so much as how can I do these problems with them in it." He said this while gesturing towards his Arithmancy book, and the horrible looking involuted problems that were in it.
"You're wrong, Harry, you do need to know what a quiangle is, in order to do the problems listed in the book. That's like trying to say, how likely Malfoy has nice hippie tree-huggers over for dinner, with out knowing who Malfoy is." Ron looked at him earnestly, while he said this.
Both Hermione and Harry dived under the table.
"What the hell are you doing?" Ron screeched, as they both wiggled and sat on his and various other people's feet.
"I'm sorry, but the end of the world can't be far away... I just want you to know that you've been a good friend, Ron, and that you've always been there for me." Harry's muffled voice drifted out from under the table.
Weasley poured some syrup onto his pancakes, while he calmly cut them and started on his breakfast. "Yeah, don't worry, if you die, I'll bury your body in a shallow hole." He said, benevolently.
"It's nice to know that you care," Harry said, as he took his regular place beside his friend. "Well, if it's important enough that you told me to learn it..."
"Ohhhoho....you listen to Ron, but not me, when he tells you to study. Let us bow down to the Revered One's wisdom in cramming five minutes before the Transfiguration exam, and the remarkable Zen of marking 'C' in all questions dealing with goblin rebellions in History of Magic quizzes."
"Hey, it works!" He protested.
Harry looked down at his Arithmancy book, trying to read in-between the dry, convoluted math-language that his instructions were written in. And, contrary to popular (or Professor Vector's) belief, reading it three times did not, in fact, make it any clearer. He'd never be able to understand what it said, not without an endless supply of Arithmancy dictionaries. He'd have to have someone explain it to him.
"Ok, so what is a quiangle?"
Ron and Hermione looked at each other, then back at Harry, and gave him a pitying look. "It's a four sided triangle."
"A what?!"
"A four sided triangle, Harry, It's a triangle with four sides. A square triangle, a quiangle. It only exists in the fourth dimension."
"But that's impossible! How could that possibly work? And...and how would something look like in the fourth dimension? How could you....?"
Hermione sighed. "I know exactly how you feel, Harry. I had the same problem. I had no clue, people kept telling me, explaining to me what a quiangle was...but I couldn't get it. Until, of course, one day Justin Finch-Fletchy told me.... he...well, just explained it in a way that made me understand." Here she blushed a little, looking over to the Hufflepuff table at the brown hairdo boy.
"Can you explain it to me?" Harry asked.
"Well...the thing is, you really have to know how a person thinks, in order to tell it to them in a way that they can understand...I could try, but to be honest to you, I don't know if I can show you what it is."
"There's no 'what it is' about it, Hermione, it's a four-sided triangle. That's all."
"Ron..."
"Ok ok...it's kinda hard to explain.."
"Did you ever explain it to someone?"
"Yeah...well, it was this sixth year Ravenclaw..." he trailed off, looking a little flustered. "She didn't get it at first, but once I went through the steps of drawing it..."
"All right, we'll both try to explain it to you, besides, the arithmancy set isn't due till a week from now. Plenty of time to get you to understand."
Ohhh how wrong she was.
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He went over it again.
"You see, it's not so much that there are four sides, as there are three sides and another one, that doesn't make an another angle." He pointed down at the book in front of them. He traced one dotted line from the graph across to where it intersected something that looked like a deformed rhombus.
"Of course, these pictures don't really make any sense until you know what a quiangle is." The red haired boy admitted.
Ron and Harry were sitting in the common room area, by the fireplace, as one spoke, and the other one tried not to bang his head into the wall, ceiling, table, sofa, chair, other random people around him, the mantle clock,velvet drapes, windows, or Crookshanks.
Everyone there gave Harry their sympathy, and then even more when they saw who was trying to illustrate it to him.
Hermoine sighed from the sofa, and got up to sit beside them. "Ron, just stop. Even I can see that your explanations make no sense."
"Oh, and I expect yours does?" He replied derisively.
"Of course. A quiangle is not so much a triangle, as it is a square that has three angles crossed with a triangle with four."
Harry just looked at her. For some reason, they seemed to think that speaking slowly and emphasis on key words made it easier to understand.
Ron shook his head. "That sooo doesn't make any sense. In fact, it made less sense then Malfoy kissing a muggle baby."
"You make less sense the Malfoy kissing a muggle baby." It degenerated from there to endless bickering.
"...doorknob could follow my instructions..."
"...what does kissing a muggle baby...?...and don't call Harry a doorknob!"
It was then that Harry groaned, no longer able to resist the temptation.
"Yeeooowww!" Crookshanks leaped into the air, as a messy, dark head rammed into his side. Ron and Hermione stopped snipping at each other, as they looked at their friend in concern. He looked harried, and frustrated, and tired. Five days of learning nebulous shapes and equations which he was never going to use (though for some reason, Professor Vector seemed to think it necessary in order to function in everyday society, and quite possibly the human respiratory system) was getting to him.
"God I'd love to kill whoever came up with this."
Hermione looked surprised. "Well, all you'd have to do would be to go to Sirius's house."
"Huh?" Came his witty rejoinder.
"You mean you don't know? Sirius was the one who came up with quiangles. He was quite the arithmancy student at Hogwarts."
"Sirius? Arithmancy? I always thought transfigurations..."
"Yes, well...he was top in transfigurations, but Professor Vector said that the only reason he didn't do so well in his class, was because he could only get the concept, but could never do calculations as well as he did in theory. Really, Harry, didn't you know he has a degree in Advanced Magical Arithmancical Nebulous Incoherent Non-Applicable Theory? "
Harry reeled under the long title of his godfather's master.
"You should probably go talk to him about it. He's the one who made it up. Maybe he can explain it to you." Ron told his friend, while trying to console Crookshanks,(who was now firmly stuck to his arm) with a chocolate frog.
"Sirius, arithmancy!"
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It was nighttime on a Saturday, and the common room was basically deserted, the curtains were closed, making the only light in the whole room come from he candle that Harry was holding in his hand. He didn't have to wait for long.
A loud sound came from the fireplace, as a roar of flames rushed out from inside that brick structure, leaving a man flopped down on the ashen hearth.
"Sirius, are you alright?" He asked his godfather, kneeling down by him as the other got up and brushed the ash off of his cloak.
"Goddamn Floo system....er, sorry about that. Well, Harry, here I am. Now, what did you want me to explain to you?"
But his godson just stood there, looking at Sirius, and tried to picture him in Arithmancy. No, tried to depict him as a master in Advanced Magical Arithmancical Nebulous Incoherent Non-Applicable Theory, muttering crazily to himself as he feverishly wrote out long, convoluted equations to plague children with for generations to come.
"You...arithmancy?"
Sirius sighed, as he led his godson to the sofa, sat down, and looked him in the face. "Yeah, well, what can I say? I could simply like arithmancy, or have been used in some vast governmental conspiracy in a high profile mind experiment involving infecting further children with my disease using subliminal messages." He shrugged. "Either way, as a result, I'm an arithmancy theorist."
Harry was more inclined to believe in the latter. "But... how...can you explain it to me? I mean, I have no idea what in blue blazes a quiangle is, and my set is due the day after tomorrow! No one could tell me exactly what it is..."
Sirius coughed, "Well...it's kinda hard to explain, Harry. You see, you can't really know what a quiangle is, until you know what it is."
"That helps..." Harry muttered to himself.
"It's like someone asking you to describe what..." He thought for a while, "what talking to a non-evil Oprah watching, flower arranging Lucius is like."
There he paused, while both he and Harry shuddered at the mental picture.
"You can't describe it, until you've experienced it. I remember when I first discovered it, the only person I could explain it to was Remus. I suppose being, er...." Here he paused a little, looking a bit flustered. "Friends....with him makes me understand him better. Which makes it easier to explain it to him.
"I suppose, the more someone knows about you, and understands you, the easier it will be for that person to explain it to you. I know that Mrs. Weasley explained it to Ron, and seeing as he's her son, she would know how to word it in a way that he knew what she as saying."
"Could you explain it to me? I mean, after all, you are my godfather."
"I could try...but I don't know if I could get through to you. My explanations can get a little obscure...if you really want my advice, go ask some of the other teachers to help explain it to you. Teachers have to deal with explaining things to children in different ways all the time, since everyone learns differently. They'll probably be able to help you more then I could."
"That's helpful..." Harry replied, but didn't sound to convinced. "There are tons of Professors at school, I wouldn't have time to go running around to ask them all. I can't ask Professor Vector...he just explains it like it does in the book, which might as well be gobbledegook for all it says."
"Thanks, Harry," Sirius said dryly. His godson thought about what he'd just said.
"You mean you wrote that involuted piece of cra- eative piece of work?" His voice slurred what he was going to say, with a quick cover up. Somehow he was torn between awe and pride for his godfather- and an indirect sort of accusation.
"Nice save." Sirius said dryly. Harry gave a weak chuckle. "It's ok, I know it's obscure...that's why I didn't think I could explain it very well." His godfather admitted. "Of course, I like using big words. They make me feel smarter, and impress other stupid people, too."
Here he paused in thought. "Well, if you're going to go ask for help...." Sirius trailed off, looking unsure.
"What? What is it?" He said, jumping at any chance he could get.
"Err...well, he does have a solid grasp in theoretics... and he did very well in Arithmancy..." Sirius choked on the last.
"Who?"
Sirius looked solemnly at the teenager before him. "Professor Snape."
"What!!?"
"Exactly."
"But...but..he'd never be able to help me..." Harry groaned, picturing it in his head, hearing the sarcastic voice. 'Mr.Potter, if possible, I would like to intern you to a museum, seeing that a person as dumb as yourself can be nothing other then a live Neanderthal.' "Either that or I'd never make it out alive..."
"He's very good at explaining things." Sirius prompted, trying to bolster his spirits. "And, loathe though I am to say this, he very nearly out-stripped anyone in our class in comprehension of the subject." He admitted.
Harry sighed. It was worth a try, besides, if asking Snape didn't work out, he could always ask some other teachers.
His voice was resigned when he spoke. "I suppose so. I'm glad you came. At least now I know that I still have a few options left before I hurl myself out the window."
"Why's that?"
"Because Hermione would be furious with me if she found out I'd failed Arithmancy. This way, It'll be a quick death." He said mournfully.
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"So, did Sirius help you any?" Ron asked the next morning.
"If by 'help', you mean 'thoroughly demolish any small flittering hope within me', then yeah, he did."
His friend looked startled. "It can't be that bad...didn't he explain it to you?"
"No, he said his explanations were obscure.." Harry said miserably, his head lowered as he watched an ant carry off some of his toast dispiritedly.
"So you got no help at all?" Ron's' voice incredulous, as he looked at his friend.
"No, he did help...he told me to ask some teachers.... one in specific..."
Hermione's eyes lighted with interest. "Who is it? I didn't know anyone else besides Professor Vector or him that would be able to help you. If Sirius mentioned it..."
Harry looked gloomily across his table to the staffs', watching as Snape's displeased Glare of Deadly Death (TM) was cocked and aimed at anyone within his range of sight. Ron had already got an inkling when his friend looked moodily across the room...
"Professor Snape."
"What!!" They cried in unison. It was now Ron's turn to splutter orange juice all over the table.
"He expects you to work with Snape, and not come out horribly mutilated, or one of you're limbs preserved in a jar on his desk?"
"Ron, be serious! He'd never do that to Harry..." Her voice quelled as Ron gave her a look. "Well... at least not with Dumbledore here."
Ron shook his head incredulously. "Sirius, asking Harry...Snape...same room!" He couldn't even come up with a sentence that would make sense with the two of them in it, without the words 'kill', or 'horrendous injury' in it. "It'd be impossible, Hermoine, absolutely impossible! It makes less sense then...then...Malfoy having Feng Shui as a hobby!"
"Malfoy...? Feng Shui?" Harry said weakly. This was all to much for him. He shook his head. "I'd...I'd better go to his office after breakfast to see if he'd help me..."
Hermione looked over at the staff table, where Dumbledore was speaking in a cheery voice, and Snape was wincing. "That's probably a good idea... go to him after morning coffee."
"With my luck...he'll probably just be more alert to things that irritate him, instead of being in a sleepy fog."
"I'd rather believe the former." Ron said comfortingly.
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END
Note: Sooo...that was chapter one! I hoped you enjoyed it! Up next is the ominous meeting between Harry and Snape. And, to tell the truth, I have al the other chapters done...all I need to do is upload them...heh heh heh...I am so evil! Just look at my name!
So, if you want to read the rest...you'll have to review, and spread the word of this fic to others! (please?) So, go forth, my pilgrims...progress, ho!