Author's Note:
This book does not have a major plot formed, although I have some ideas, so it will mostly focus on the mechanics of magic and Hogwarts, and the lessons. It's more of a way of expanding JK's worldbuilding according to my headcanon.
Regarding technobabble, there will throughout the chapters of this be a lot of magical technobabble based entirely off of my own brain, so if any of it conflicts with what you've read/seen etc then that's because I'm making it up.
Regarding canon, this will be loosely canonical. The characters at the school, ages of the characters, some of the details of the war and post war period etc will be subject to change. I may use some ideas from other fanfictions but if I do I will try to remember to cite the story. If you notice a reference and I haven't said where it's from, do leave a review saying so. Anyway, that's it from me, so enjoy the next chapter!
CHAPTER 4 – RAVENCLAW
Jason followed the rest of his house, attaching himself to a small group of students who all seemed to know each other. Three of them looked the same and he realised with a start that they were triplets.
"Hey there, I'm Jason" He said, hoping that they would accept his introduction without hostility. The three of them, as well as the other boy they had been talking to turned with smiles, and he felt a wave of relief.
"Cygnus, Magnus and Circe" The tallest of the triplets (by around one inch) said, pointing to himself, his brother, and his sister in turn. The other boy stuck his hand out to shake.
"I'm Ogma, but nobody calls me that."
Jason laughed slightly, accepting the handshake.
"What do they call you then?" He replied.
The boy shrugged. "Whatever they want to I guess."
Jason opened his mouth to respond but they had reached the dorms and so he closed it again.
"Right then first years! Welcome to Ravenclaw house. The common room is just behind this statue of Rowena Ravenclaw, our founder. Unlike the other two houses, our common room is not hidden. Unlike Gryffindor, for which there is a password, and Hufflepuff, who I am told must master a drum sequence, we have a unique method of keeping non-Ravenclaws out. A riddle. This riddle is generated anew every time one attempts to enter, and, short of instruction by the Headmaster, Head of House, Head Boy or Girl, or a seventh year Prefect, the only way to enter is to answer satisfactorily. If you cannot figure it out, wait for an older student or a friend. Most of the teachers will give Ravenclaws a certain leeway when it comes to punctuality, so do not worry too much about being late, but I wouldn't use the excuse too often. We'll give you more information on the house and our traditions etcetera when when are through to the room."
The tall, tan girl speaking commanded an attention from those listening. Her hair was straight, short, and solidly black and her eyes shone with an unspoken intelligence that captivated Jason as he looked at them. He wondered if he would look that smart in his seventh year. She turned to the bust of Rowena Ravenclaw and spoke clearly.
"I wish to gain entrance to Ravenclaw House."
The statue raised a single eyebrow, and then spoke in a calm and quiet voice.
"Your riddle is thus. If it's information you seek, come and see me.
If it's pairs of letters you need, I have consecutively three."
Immediately, the prefect nodded with a smile.
"A nice easy one then. So, which one of you firsties wants to earn a few housepoints and show off?"
Everyone looked uneasy, although a few of the first years began to converse.
Jason racked his brain, desperately thinking of what it could possibly be. Eventually something clicked in his mind and he blurted what he believed to be the answer.
"A Bookkeeper!"
Everyone turned to look at him, and he felt the blush on his face. Ogma and the triplets looked at him with encouraging smiles, and after a nerve wracking second, the statue nodded.
"Nice one!" Ogma said, patting him on the back as the prefect led them through. When they had all entered, the Prefect, who Jason vaguely remembered giving her name as Rosa, quieted them and looked directly at him. He felt a slight twinge in his head but shook it off and waited for her to talk.
"Twenty points Mr Lewis for correctly answering the first riddle of the year. Those of you who didn't get it, I'd suggest some practise because they're only going to get harder."
Jason smiled and everyone looked at him happily. After a moment, a short, slightly overweight boy with shoulder length hair that was messier than Jason's bedroom after a particularly rowdy sleepover with Adrian came down the dorm stairs with a big leather book under his arm. He raised it above his head so that everybody could see and then coughed to draw attention to his words.
"This is the Ravenclaw Compendium. Started by Rowena Ravenclaw herself, and continued on by every Ravenclaw student since, this contains more magical knowledge than the entire Restricted Section. On each of your pillows, you will find a small blank book. That is your link to this. You must add your own knowledge to it, either in the form of a spell, potion, change to the process of something similar, perhaps a piece of historical or arcane trivia, or indeed anything related to magic or the wizarding world that you think is worth remembering, and after that you may access the other knowledge written by past students. More instructions are in the front cover, but I will go over the most important things to know. Firstly, you must rank all knowledge by year. From first to seventh, and then post-Hogwarts, you may only access knowledge of your own grade. The knowledge ranked at post-Hogwarts is only accessible by the Head Boy, Head Girl, Seventh year prefects, or someone with specific permission from the Head of House. I check the Compendium nightly, to ensure that nothing has been mislabelled, and to test anything that I think warrants it. If you come across a spell that you aren't certain about, DO NOT USE IT. We don't want a repeat of the Sectumsempra incident. One final thing is that the amount of and kind of knowledge that you have available is limited to how much you contribute. Most of it is available after only one small contribution, but some of the more special pieces of information are locked by requirements. If anyone does not contribute, they cannot access the Compendium. It's a simple rule that has kept Ravenclaws at the top of the academic tables since Hogwarts was created."
This piece of news generated a great amount of buzz within the first years, as they discussed what they were going to add. Jason resolved to immediately ask his mother how much wandlore he could enter into the book without revealing trade or family secrets. He knew he could input the process of the wand's choosing and the basic resonance charm, but beyond that he would have to be sure she was okay with it.
The next morning came not a moment too soon. He grabbed his Compendium link from where he had lain it in the evening, greeted Ogma, Magnus and Cygnus who he had been lucky enough to be placed in a room with, and reached for his quill. A quick look through of the instructions told him to write the genre of knowledge, be it healing, combat, arcane etc, the level, the kind of knowledge, like potion, spell, counter spell, innovation or whatever and the details, and then to tap his wand to the book and say 'submit'. Eagerly he scribbled "Genre- Wandlore, Level- 3rd Year, Kind- Spell, Details- In order to detect the basic resonance of a subject, simply tap the eyelids whilst they are closed and whisper "Yochi nōryoku". This incantation, meaning 'second sight' in Japanese, will allow you to see numbers floating around each person or wand you look at. WARNING: will take some time to adjust, and causes headaches if used for too long."
Satisfied with his description, he tapped his wand to the page and said "submit". The ink immediately faded, to be replaced with a list of genres. He chose one at random, combat, and watched as the ink reformed again into a list of kinds (clearly it skipped level, as he was only able to access one). He tapped on potion, interested to see what potions there were to assist in combat, and was met with only three entries. The first was a simple potion consisting of mostly placebo ingredients (from what he could tell with his basic knowledge of the first and second year textbooks) which would strengthen a user's connection to their magical core and make their spells pack a bit more of a punch. Beneath it was listed another potion, this time one that would increase spell resistance to that of a very young troll (it also had mention of a higher level potion that could give you adult troll level resistance) and beneath that was the final one. This potion was labelled simply as "Anhur's Wrath" and immediately piqued a curiosity in Jason that he had not felt in a while. He tapped it to reveal the rest of the knowledge and was astounded. The potion would cause all offensive spells which hit the drinker to contribute to their core. If they could withstand enough spells, they could build up enough magical power in their core to send a stunning spell that would cause unconsciousness for days instead of hours, and that was the least dangerous option. How that was a first year potion, Jason was not sure.
He continued to ponder Anhur's Wrath as he headed to breakfast, barely participating in the excited chatter of Ogma and the triplets. By the time he had reached the table, he had come to the conclusion that as it relied on the ability to absorb spell damage, an ability that most first years were not exactly well versed in, it was not too dangerous until they got older. It would be a nice help in the duelling club, and it could come in handy if he challenged Adrian to a mock duel at some point, but it would only become a real force when he had grown up a bit more.
"We get our schedules now don't we?" Ogma asked, leaning over Jason slightly to grab an apple. Jason nodded in the affirmative, noticing around the table that the breakfast choices from most people tended to linger at one of the extremes. Some of the students had very little food, simply a single espresso or small coffee (these were exclusively in front of older students) as well as some fruit, perhaps a slice of toast, whilst some others had plates that were as full as they could be, stacked to the rafters with a delight of different foods. Ogma himself simply had his apple, a glass of water and a small square of brown toast.
"Welp, it's a Thursday, so yeah, we'll have a lesson next probably."
Around the table was the normal insignificant chatter, although he did manage to catch one or two interesting snippets.
"-half of the newt scales were peeling off when I threw them in-"
"-advanced duelling classes, I got hit with four stunners before my defense charm wore off and I dropped like a fucking rock!"
"-no, no, I said you looked like you'd been hit with an ugliness jinx, not that you had been!"
He snapped back to reality when he realised that Ogma was talking to him.
"Oi, Jason! I said, what class are you most looking forward to?"
Jason shrugged.
"Charms, or Transfiguration, but Defense Against the Dark Arts could be good. I'm looking forward to Herbology as well, if only for Professor Longbottom. Imagine the stories he can tell!"
Ogma nodded excitedly, his happy reply cut off by the rising pitch of an argument between the triplets. Well, the triplets being Cygnus and Magnus. Circe was busy slicing her banana into perfectly sized slices and sprinkling them on a bowl of horrible looking brown cereal.
"I'm telling you, that Kennedy girl was a WAY better duellist than the guy! She beat him! Plus, he used a borderline dark curse! The conjunctivitis curse was designed for use on dragons, not on people!"
Magnus was shaking his head vehemently, gesturing wildly with his hands.
"She cheated, she cheated. Using a foreign spell in a regulation duel is cheating! Plus, her stance was rubbish and he clearly had more power. If she had stuck to simple spells like he did he would have her beat in a minute!"
Cygnus opened his mouth to disagree, reaching into his bag to get a copy of duelling regulations, but the argument ended quite abruptly when the two people being discussed walked over, each one conjuring themselves a small plastic chair to sit on.
"Couldn't help overhearing you discussing our duelling." The girl said.
"And we wanted to tell you that we appreciate the argument." The boy continued.
"But the result has been planned for weeks. We made 45 galleons from bets. But don't tell anyone."
Magnus and Cygnus looked surprised, their eyes bulging, as the two older students burst into laughter.
"Nah, we're kidding. But when we duel, we throw out all rules except from the no dark magic and no lethal spells ones. Even borderline dark stuff is fine. I mean, we've been duelling since we were old enough to own wands, and so we have sort of a feel for each other. If we put too many regulations in, we end up duelling to a standstill."
Most of the Ravenclaw first years were listening now, as the older years completely ignored the two people who in just a short conversation, Jason had realised were probably a permanent fixture in the head of house's office being disciplined.
They both stood up abruptly, vanishing their chairs again and walking away with grins even bigger than the ones they had worn after their duel. When they reached the Gryffindor table, Kennedy cast a glance back at Magnus and Cygnus and chuckled.
"Oh and by the way, your hair is bright blue."
The Ravenclaw table burst into laughter at the final word, as the second that the colour was spoken the two triplets' hair burst into a colourful mess.
Once the laughter had died down, the Magnus and Cyngus sat trying out every spell they knew to get their hair back to normal.
"Finite Incantatem?..nope."
"Revelio?...nah."
Eventually, the rest of the first years were pitching in, each throwing spells at the boys' heads. It seemed that no matter what was done, the hair only became more and more vibrant, until it was such a bright blue that it hurt to look at. One of the older students took pity on the boys and walked over.
"It's not a spell. It's not a potion either." and with that, he walked away.
Clearly, Ravenclaw was not a house in which your problems would be solved for you.