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CHAPTER FOUR: Dreams, Breakfast and Theory
In the night, Harry dreams that he hears a voice in his ear, whispering, "Lord, Master, awaken to the dawn so I may be fed."
"Nnn, gway, nymas," Harry mumbles with his face pressed in the pillow. This means, "No. Go away. I'm not your master."
Even this strange, vaguely uncomfortable dream is better than that of which he has been dreaming since Voldemort's death. A cold comfort, but a comfort nonetheless; and he falls back asleep without contemplating the dream in any more depth than that.
He is woken by Terry less than half an hour later. "It's almost seven thirty," Terry explains apologetically, although Harry isn't sure for what he's apologizing. "Classes start at quarter after eight this year; they told us before bed last night."
"Thanks," Harry mumbles. When Terry has left, Harry groans and crawls to the foot of the bed, groggy-eyed. He digs a muggle t-shirt, jeans, a piece of rope and one of his robes out of his trunk without getting off of the bed. It is harder to get into a trunk while leaning upside down over the lid than it is to just get up and walk around to the front, but Harry hasn't slept enough and he doesn't think of it.
After his shower in the bathroom across the hall, Harry is very careful to tie the rope (his make-shift belt) and the laces on the robe-front very tightly. His ragged muggle clothing embarrasses him, and Malfoy has enough to taunt him with already. He could choose to wear only pants and a long shirt underneath his robes, as many of the wizard-raised students do, but that feels too revealing.
He has yet to see anyone but Terry. The common room, also, lacks students or Aurors. It is so quiet that Harry feels as if he should tiptoe.
In the Great Hall, there are eight piles of paper on each table. Puzzled, Harry walks over to the Slytherin table and looks down at the first pile of paper. The top piece is a schedule with 'Slytherin First Year' written on it. This is a strange way of going about things; usually the Head of House hands out the schedules. Harry heads down to the other end of the table. There is only one schedule left here, so he must be the last eighth year to come down.
Unlike the first year schedule, his name is written across the top. Today, Monday, he has Magical Theory at 8:15, Transfiguration at 10:00, lunch at 11:30, Potions at 12:45, Herbology at 2:30, and free time after 4:00. It's his busiest day all week. On no other day does he have more than three classes, and he even has all of Friday off.
A scratching sound distracts him from the schedule, and he discovers that Terry, back from wherever he'd gone, has pushed a plate of food to him. "Eat," Terry orders. "It's almost time for class, and Theory is all the way on the fifth floor."
"Thanks," Harry says, taking the food and beginning to eat.
"They've done a new scheduling pattern this year," Terry says, sitting. "We all- the eighth years, I mean- have the same schedule. Well, at least for the classes we take. I mean, if you take Potions, you're in with all the others taking Potions; and if you don't take Potions then you have free time."
Harry nods without speaking. Swallowing his mouthful, he asks, "Which classroom?"
"Number five-eighty-two; I think I know where it is, if you want me to show you," Terry offers uncertainly, not looking entirely sure that he does know where it is.
"No, I know where it is. It's near the statue of Gregory the Smarmy. We can walk together, though, if you want." Harry, finished eating, looks around the hall and discovers that it is nearly empty. He is briefly grateful for the years when he had to eat as much as possible before Dudley stole his plate. He stands. "Do you think we need to get our books first?"
"No, Nigellus said we don't need them today. You were asleep when he was talking," he adds, unnecessarily. "Besides, we don't have any books for Theory yet."
"Alright. Ready to go?"
Surprisingly, they reach the Theory several minutes before the bell rang. They are the last to arrive. It takes a few seconds for anyone to notice he's arrived, and then the talk dies out as people nudge each other and point at him. To Harry's relief, Hermione beams when she sees him. "Harry!" she cries, "Thank goodness! Come here and sit." She orders, sounding quite like Mrs. Weasley. "You worried us," she says, when Harry is standing by her. "You didn't come back last night, but Ron made me god to bed at midnight; and then you weren't at breakfast, and finally we gave up because we needed to come to class- we need to be good influences on the younger student and all because we're prefects again- and what happened? What spell was on you?"
While she says this, Ron grins at Harry, as if to say, 'there she goes again, but what can we do?' Harry finds himself smiling for the first time that day. Even though he's in Slytherin, they still like him.
The bell rings, and Harry quickly sits at the desk next to Hermione. Almost immediately, the blue-eyed teacher- the one who reminds Harry of McGonagall- strides into the classroom. She waves her wand at the blackboard, creating the words, 'Professor Alyssum: Theory of Magic'. Alyssum spins around to face the classroom and briskly says, "Welcome to Magical Theory. You should have begun this class in your first year and at least five years of it, preferably seven. As it is, you have one year. You will not be able to pass a N.E.W.T., and it will be a miracle if you learn enough to create your own spells.
"However, I will attempt to teach you enough to give you a basis on which to base any future studies in the subject or any other advanced subject that you wish to undertake. We will study types of magic, the differences in abilities of different magical creatures, the phenomenon of muggleborn and squibs, the nature of magic, the laws of magic, why the spells we use work, how the spells we use work, and perhaps the very basics of spell design. If we move quickly enough in this overview, we will study more.
"Today we will discuss-" she waves her wand at the board, "-accidental magic. To quote a well know Magical Theorist, Rowling: 'Before they have received training, very young witches and wizards are prone to unstable surges of power, often accidentally producing effects that they may have to train for a few years to be able to reproduce deliberately. Their magical ability is bottled up for weeks at a time and then, when made angry or frightened, it simply explodes out of them, sometimes... causing at least as much inconvenience to themselves as others.' This is, of course, a simplified description of the matter. We'll cover it in much more detail later on. It will do to begin, however.
"Can everyone tell me how many accidents they had?" Several people raise their hands, and Alyssum points to Anthony Goldstein. "You?"
"Two, Professor."
"And what happened?"
"Once I fell out of a tree and floated down, and then I could do that whenever I wanted. My mum took my favorite toy away from me when I was little, I called it back once. She took it away again and I couldn't repeat that."
"Good; those are both great examples. Next: has anyone in this classroom had three or more accidents?"
Harry, Hermione, Malfoy, and Hannah Abbott raise their hands.
"Wonderful! How about four?"
Now Harry is the only one with his hand raised. With a detached feeling of surprise, he realizes that maybe his accidental magic is, even here, as abnormal as his aunt and uncle had always thought.
"Can you tell us about your accidental magic, Mr. Potter? All of the times, if you please."
"Um... It happened more often when I was littler, and I can't really remember most of those," he says apologetically, but she nods encouragement. "Well, I shrunk a sweater to puppet-sized, and my hair grew back overnight, and... my teacher's hair turned blue, um, and... the glass to a snake exhibit vanished, and third year I blew up my Aunt Marge like a balloon- although the ministry thought that was on purpose- and... umm... that sort of thing. Those were the biggest ones, I think, or at least of what I can remember." The students are staring at him (again). This way of magic, their eyes tell him, is not normal.
"That's five, Mr. Potter." Alyssum says slowly. "Are you saying you've had more than that?"
He shrugs. "They've all been little things, though, other than those."
"Such as?"
"Lights flickering, glass breaking, bruises healing overnight, doors unlocking. Not feeling hungry when I ought to." He shrugs again, hoping to pass this off as nothing.
Professor Alyssum watches him thoughtfully for a moment, and he feels a bit like he is standing before Dumbledore- those eyes! "Who here can tell me the average number of times a witch or wizard will experience accidental magic?" she asks.
No one raises their hand; not even Hermione, surprisingly.
"No one? Come on, then, it's five points to the house of the one who answers."
Neville looks at Harry enquiringly, and gestures at himself- should I go? Harry nods. Neville hesitantly raises his hand, and says, "Two?"
"Good guess. Five points to Gryffindor, Mr...?"
"Longbottom, Ma'am."
"Yes. The actual number is one to three, occasionally four if the wizard is powerful and has an unusual number of life-and-death situations. I'm not counting repeat instances; when you have a case of accidental magic and are able to repeat the feat wandlessly. Those end by the time you reach school age, just like all of your other accidental magic.
"There have only been five recorded cases of accidental magic during the school years: Circe, who was part Veela, could cast memory charms without a wand; Narcissus Malfoy, who was thought to be a squib and hence not educated, had his first and only magical outburst at the age of twelve; Salazar Slytherin, who was not entirely human; Abraham Sol, who was Muggleborn and, like Narcissus, non-magical until age eleven, had one case of accidental magic; and Tom Riddle, who had perfect control of his magic until school began, after which point he had one case of accidental magic.
"There have been eleven recorded cases of five accidents or more. Tom Riddle and Salazar Slytherin are the only ones in both groups; most of the others had mostly cases of things like 'lights flickering', as Mr. Potter put it. The rest of the group was made up of semi-humans.
"In addition to those exceptions, there were the Fair Folk, but there hasn't been one of them for a long time- we'll cover that later. There are also non-human beings, which we'll also cover later.
"There are seventeen of you in this class, right?" Alyssum waves her wand at the board, and a list of sixteen names appears. "For homework, you will each study one of the exceptional cases of accidental magic. I want nine inches by Wednesday; who they were, what their lives were like, what their magic did, how their magic was unusual. All the information that you need is in those books over there," she says, gesturing at the bookshelves along the wall to her left. "You have the rest of the period to work on it. Mr. Potter, we'll discuss an alternate assignment for you.
"Who wants Abraham Sol?"
When all of the students but Harry had chosen, she called him up to her desk. "Were you telling the truth?" she asks without preamble.
"I don't lie," Harry snaps, clenching his scarred hand at his side.
She nods. "Good. I didn't really think you were, by the way. Now, I'm sorry for the inconvenience, but there is a law at the ministry that anyone who has school-aged accidental magic or more than four uses of it must be reported to the ministry." Seeing Harry's discomfort, she adds, "Don't worry, it isn't illegal or in any way punishable. It isn't like the werewolf register, or even strictly regulated like the Animagus register. It's mostly for census reasons, really."
She waits for a moment, likely to see if he'll ask for more information. When he doesn't, she pushes on. "Basically, I want a list and descriptions of all your uses of accidental magic, dates where possible, and descriptions of the situation surrounding each use. This must be signed by you with a promise that you are telling the truth. Lying on the paper- and I'm not suggesting that you would- will cause you immense pain and be easily recognizable by the ministry worker who handles it. Can you do that by Wednesday?"
Harry nods. "I think so. I only have two classes tomorrow."
"Ah, lucky boy; I have every period. Alright, you can get to work on that." She stands and heads over to some other students, saying, "And why am I not seeing working happening over here?"
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To Harry's great pleasure, he is finished the list by the end of the class. It reads:
'?-1991: Various small magic, such as lights flickering, bruises healing overnight, winds appearing from nowhere, and glass (especially wine glasses) breaking.
'?-1985: Something with fire, I can't remember.
'Winter 1986: My aunt cut my hair all off except for my bangs because she was tired of it growing back too fast. I was very embarrassed, so it grew back by morning.
'Fall 1987: My teacher was picking on one of the kids and I was so mad at her for making them cry and be embarrassed. So then her hair turned blue and everyone laughed at her.
'Fall 1998: A bully and his gang were chasing me at school and I jumped aside to hide behind the garbage cans and the next thing I knew I was up on the roof with no idea of how I got there, and the bullies were confused because one minute I was there and the next I was gone.
'Winter 1989: My aunt tried to make me wear a really ugly sweater with bobbles on it, and she was trying to shove it over my head while I was trying to keep it off, and it started getting smaller and smaller until it wouldn't have fit a hand puppet. And that was a lot smaller, because the sweater had used to be my cousin's and he's really really fat.
'June 23, 1991: On my cousin's birthday we went to the zoo and I apologized to one of the snakes because my cousin was being awful to it. Then it was nodding and shaking its head and using its head to point to the sign while I talked to it. Then my cousin came over and yelled and pushed me over and smushed his face up against the glass. I was really angry and then the glass vanished and he fell into the tank, and the snake got free and said 'thanks, amigo', or something like that.
'August 1993: Glass breaking and lights flickering.
'August 1993: My aunt Marge, who isn't really my aunt, was saying horrible stuff about my parents and I was angry. So then she took a deep breath to keep ranting, but she just kept getting bigger and bigger as she breathed in, and bigger and bigger until she was blown up like a balloon. Then she blew out through the window and up into the air. And it was an accident, but the ministry thought I did it on purpose.
'I here do swear that all things stated on this paper are true, including the bit about my cousin being really fat.
'Harry Potter'
He gives it to Professor Alyssum at the end of the period. She scans it, does a double take on the last line, coughs, skims the parchment again, and looks up at him with stern eyes. "Before, you mentioned not getting hungry and unlocking doors. Why aren't they written?"
There is a pretty quill on the desk, which Harry picks up and studies. Coincidentally, this allows him to avoid meeting her gaze. "Oh, um... I forgot; about the door unlocking thing, I mean."
"Mm. Yes, of course. Well, I'd like you to add a line saying something along the lines of, 'I have not willfully omitted anything, although I may have forgotten'."
Harry quickly adds 'not feeling hungry when I should' to the '?-1991' section and 'door unlocking' to the '1993' section, and then scribbles Alyssum's suggestion at the bottom, in very small letters between 'really fat' and his name.
She looks it over one more time, smiles, and sends him on his way.
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