Chapter 6: A Cloud in Trousers
Now it would be at this point in a film or television series that music would begin to play and we would watch for several minutes as Quentin Frozenwater and his cold companions trained and grew stronger. Sadly, I'm not sure how to write a montage so you're just going to have to read the long version.
Mayakovski led the class down a long corridor into a large atrium. The sign on the door stated that they were in the 'Gallery of Wonder' and Quentin could see why. A box sat on a small table in the corner of the room.
"Don't look in the box" growled Mayakovski. Quentin and Janet sauntered over to it. Inside the box they found a larger box. Quentin looked away but Janet wasn't quick enough and her eyes began to bleed. Mayakovski sighed before healing her eyes with a slight knee gesture. The class followed him onwards.
On the next table they found a pamphlet which proved the existence of God with absolute certainty and next to it sat another pamphlet which disproved the existence of God with equally absolute certainty. The table after that definitely existed, even when not observed and the following table was demonstrating what happens when an unstoppable force hits an immovable table. Josh was trying to say something funny but couldn't due to his acoustic vocal cords.
"Why are there so many tables?" asked Thomas McKillable a classmate whose magical discipline meant that there would be literally no consequence to his death.
"You really don't want to know" said Mayakovski. His eyes gleamed dangerously.
"I think I do, actually" replied Thomas.
Mayakovski shrugged. "DIE-KIA" he bellowed. Thomas made a sound like cheap furniture collapsing under its own weight before folding in on himself and transforming into a table.
"Who just died?" said Alice who hadn't been paying attention.
"Is that piano playing itself?" asked Quentin who was still observing the various magical impossibilities that surrounded them.
"Shut up and follow me!" spat Mayakovski, leading the members of the class who hadn't been tablefied. They followed him across the room, doing their best to ignore the object set in perpetual motion and a statue made out of jealousy. There was even a TV showing a funny episode of The Big Bang Theory. Eventually though the room came to an end. Mayakovski led the students into a classroom and sat them all down.
"Right then" he grunted "You all seem to be under the impression that magic is great".
"It is pretty great if you ask me!" piped up Quentin.
"And yet no one did." Replied Mayakovski.
Everyone laughed except Josh who emitted a noise which sounded like D minor. "The point is, magic is hard work and at the end of the day it can do everything but fill the void within you." Mayakovski resumed, turning Josh's vocal cords back to normal with a particularly aggressive tongue gesture. "This is why for your first lesson, you will be hammering a nail into this wooden block. Without using your hands."
Blocks and nails appeared from thin air whilst the student's hands were tied behind their backs thanks to another of Mayakovski's inattentive gestures. Elliot shrugged before headbutting the nail at full force, dying instantly.
"You were meant to use magic, you fundamental bastard" sighed Mayakovski, resurrecting him with a bored rib motion.
The task was hard and gruelling, especially since nobody but Quentin Packedfullofelectrolyteswater knew how to perform the required spell and he wasn't going to tell them since he wanted to maintain his position as the clever character. Eventually though they all managed it (except Nevil but he's just destined to fail).
"Well done, performed to task of a single mundane hammer. NOW DO IT AGAIN!"
This was how Quentin's first three months at Hogwarts Antarctica passed. Mayakovski, having removed his power of speech because 'It pissed him off' set them all increasingly gruelling and boring tasks to accomplish and they sluggishly worked their way through them all the while subject to the professor's explanations as to why he hated humans. Eventually though it came to the fourth and final month.
"Right then maggots" growled Mayakovski. "Today you will be learning the properly advanced stuff. Transformation and the like." They were set the task of turning themselves into foxes. Needless to say, Quentin found the task thoroughly interesting. When they were all suitably vulpine, Mayakovski deleted the floor beneath them which sent them plummeting into the arctic snow.
"This next task requires you to turn back into humans and scale the castle wall." Declared Mayakovski, floating above them effortlessly.
"What did he say?" asked Janet.
"I think he said: 'Have a massive fox orgy'" replied Quentin Opportunewater. "Hey Alice, your discipline is Phosphomancy right?"
"Yeah, I can manipulate photons" said Alice sounding confused.
"Doesn't that make you a flesh-light?" said Quentin, clearly immensely proud of himself. Everyone else on the other hand awkwardly stared at their paws.
"You guys are no fun" said Quentin as he mounted Alice.
High above the snow drifts Mayakovski gazed at the students with genuine horror. "What the hell are you doing!?" he gasped, forgetting to sound angry in light of this new development. "No, seriously guys that's disgusting." The rutting foxes ignored him. "Alright I've had more than enough of this". He gnashed his teeth magically. "Go home".
Quentin Furrywater woke up in the physical clubhouse. Next to him lay Alice, sleeping peacefully. Quentin smiled peacefully to disguise the fact that he found her completely repulsive when she wasn't a fox.