See, this didn't take too long to be posted now did it?
I hope to post more soon, but school will be starting again… let's face it. You'll get more because I'll procrastinate on school.
Until then!
I shrugged, "It's just how Cenek is to me. He's actually nice and helps me not fall flat on my face."
Jaelah stuck her tongue out at me, "I'm nice. I don't shove you over."
Bailey smiled a little, "He likes you a lot, Vespera. He's been silent ever since Nova died. We couldn't get a word out of him. When Hayley was lost, he was a total goner. Even when they were here, he only treated them as friends. No kissing on foreheads or anything. He likes you, I've spent 3 years with him, and he likes you."
I shrugged, "It is what it is. We've all just been through a lot is all."
"Anyways, how are you a witch? What's happened with your legs? Now that I know you're a witch, I'm not thinking 'Well I wish I could heal her with my spells,' which I couldn't do before, but why haven't you been healed?"
I chuckled at Bailey as I began to move towards our room. "I had an unfortunate accident, and for some reason magic wouldn't heal it. I was in a wheelchair for a while, but I've moved up to braces. It's not too bad."
Bailey nodded, but frowned, "How are you going to make it through the exercise trainings? Or the battle sessions? Your braces automatically slow you down. You'll be at a high disadvantage."
I shrugged, "I'll find a way through it somehow."
With that I went into my bed and went to sleep. I was done with the conversing thing with them for the night.
The next morning, I awoke to find Morganthe staring at me. "You move a lot in your sleep, but you don't make any noise. Do you have a silencing spell over your bed?"
I shrugged, "Potentially. I can't disrupt everyone's sleep, now can I?" I went and took extra time to put on both of my braces, after having put on stockings.
She looked at me strangely, "One day you're going to talk. They all talk at some point, and when you do, your story will be an interesting one." She shrugged, "Breakfast starts at 7, classes at 8. It's 6 now and Jaelah won't wake up."
I nodded, "Jaelah isn't a morning person."
I slid a skirt on and received funny looks from Morganthe, "You're wearing a skirt?"
"Yes? I almost always do?"
"You have exercise courses today. If you wear a skirt the boys will look up at you."
I shrugged, "Let them try," I pulled at a pair of leggings I had on, "They'll only see these. I've learned that boys are stupid like that."
She nodded, "You are wise." She then turned away and left the room.
Bailey suddenly shot up, "Thank goodness. Morganthe is great, but she's kinda creepy. I usually don't get ready until she's gone."
I pulled off my night shirt, and slid on a black fitted t-shirt. I braided my hair back, into a short braid, then slid my shoes on. I then stood up fully and jerked Jaelah's blankets off of her.
"No, it's too cold!" Jaelah mumbled as she started rummaging for her blankets.
"Come on Jae, it's time for breakfast and classes. Don't make me send Erikk in here without you having gotten ready."
She shot up, Ryan flying across the room from sleeping above her head. "You wouldn't dare!"
"I would, now get up. I'm leaving," I went and picked Ryan up from near the door and sat him down on the bed again.
Bailey chuckled as I grabbed my bag and slowly walked out of the room. I opened the door and saw people walking by with a funny look on their face, I turned my head to the right and there Cenek was. "Good morning, Vespera. I figured you could use the company. I remember how Bailey and Jaelah get up and the answer is, they don't."
"Thanks, Cenek, I appreciate it." I took his arm and we went to the dining hall.
He took me to a table that was empty, apparently people didn't enjoy waking up this early. Cenek took notice of my glancing around, "Don't fret. Soon people will start waking up earlier as they have to be put into the kitchen. Few people are excited to see what classes they'll be having."
As the words came out of his mouth, a plate of food appeared in front of me, with pancakes, bacon, and eggs on it. Then a pile of letters also appeared. Cenek handed me one letter, and he opened the other.
"Wow, Stein sure doesn't give you a break, do they?" I commented when seeing my mostly full schedule. The only breaks I had were when I had lunch, and a brief hour study break, the rest of the time I was running from 8 until, assumingly 4. I glanced over to Cenek's schedule, and saw it was blank. "Why don't you have anything in your schedule?"
He shrugged, "By time you're a seventh year, you know what you're doing with your life. You'll probably survive. There are so few of us, that they don't give us a schedule, we write in our classes when we want to take them, assuming they are offered in that time, and register to help with the younger classes, then submit the schedule, and we do what we want." He then plucked my schedule from my hand and smiled, before starting to jot down things on his paper.
I glanced at his half-filled schedule, "Your entire afternoon is the same as mine, why did you do that?"
He smiled, "Because it's better than getting stuck with the other houses. Anyways, let's face it, no offense, but if I get to work with you it'll push me closer to my newest life goal of helping those who need it the most."
I rolled my eyes, "Sure, Cenek." I tapped my wand, it was 7:45. "I suppose I should go off to Herbology? Okay so I know it's all cool that there is herbology here, but why is herbology required? It's silly."
Cenek chuckled, "Watch it, Vespera. Herbology, well it studies deadly plants. You'll be touching some pretty nasty things in there. I hope you're prepared."
I shrugged, "We will see."
Jaelah came bursting through the doors, snake in bag and Bailey behind her. They both grabbed fruit, then turned around, "Hi Vespera!" they said at the same time, pausing in their rush.
"Hi, you two," I said as I stood up. "Nice of you to finally join us." A piece of paper with their names appeared on the table, "We have herbology. Let's go before you make us late." With that I smiled at Cenek, and we followed Bailey toward the back door, into an open field.
"Everyone gather around!" The professor was going about placing empty pots at each of our tables. "Does everyone have their gloves? If you do not want to face a most terrible death, please put on your gloves now."
"Eesh, this isn't already sounding dreadful, is it?" Jaelah whispered to me.
"You. English girl. No smarting off to me. I doubt you've learned anything you need to know about herbology in your other school, so you better take plenty of notes," the professor turned her back, and Jaelah rolled her eyes. "No rolling your eyes. One more fault and you'll be packing your bags."
Jaelah sighed and pulled out her notebook, and the professor began. "For those who are new," she glared toward Jaelah and myself, "I am Professor Page" I will be teaching you about the poisons of the wizarding world, as well as their proper usage for your next course, baking or cooking." She pointed her wand at the blank air, and a white board appeared. "Today we will be discussing Giftkuchen." The word appeared on the board, along with a picture. Honestly, it was a rather strange thing to look at, because it looked like a venus fly trap, something that I had seen plenty of in the muggle learning world. "It's uses include healing properties to any physical ailment for pure blood witches or wizards. In addition, it's venom is used as a lethal poison for any creature who is not a pure blood witch or wizard."
I gulped, it would likely be lethal to me, and if I accidentally touched it I would be dead, and shown as a fraud for being a witch. "The best part of it for a witch or wizard, or even those who are being poisoned by it, the venom it produces tastes like cake. However, the side effect, besides death in those cases, is it will make the taker have diarrhea for the next two hours, but what's that to being physically damaged for weeks."
Jaelah had written all the notes, and even started to doodle a picture of it. Sometimes that girl never ceased to amaze me with her skills.
"For the next half hour, I expect you each to come back with a Giftkuchen properly planted into your pot. Off with you."
I looked up and saw a grin in the professor's eyes toward Jaelah and me, as though she wanted us to fail. I focused in on her thoughts, and saw how one would properly plant one, and where the majority of them were located. I put on my gloves, picked up my pot, and my shovel, whispering to Jaelah, "Do what I do."
Jaelah nodded, and we walked off, I could feel the delight from Professor Page. We had shovels, every student had a shovel, and yet one wouldn't use a shovel to get one out.
I went to the far side of the embankment, and knelt to the ground, "We need the dirt from here, it's wet enough that the plant won't immediately start to die upon extraction."
Jaelah grinned, "You read her mind, didn't you?"
I shrugged, "I may have read the textbook, if anyone asks."
We potted soil, then went a little further in, Jaelah squealed, "Look there it is."
We approached it, and the picture did the thing justice, except it was very active. "Take your shovel, and toss it. It's not required."
"Why did you make me carry it over here then?"
"So, we would look like we were going to fail like most of the class will," Jaelah nodded as we approached the plant. I pulled out my wand, "It'll burn with fire, but sleep with smoke."
Jaelah held out her arm, "Let me, I'm better at fire spells and you know it." I waved her along, and she created a smoke fog, which made the plants go droopy.
"Reach right underneath the top level, it has shallow roots, but with a shovel they could get hit and ruined." We did this, and then Jaelah planted the two sleeping plants, covering them with the soil from where we had pulled them from, all so I wouldn't have to get on the ground.
"It looks dead."
"Yes, but it's just asleep, let's get it back before it wakes up."
We approached the makeshift classroom, and no one was back at their spots yet, even with the timer having only five minutes left. "Ah the first two to give up their task and come back as failures. Should have expected no less from you British girls." She hadn't turned to face us yet, but went on with talking, "You will be the first to know that the only way to re-plant it is without using a shovel. You must create a haze of -"
"Smoke." Jaelah cut her off, "Then grab it from underneath lightly without using the shovel, putting it into a moist pot of soil."
I smiled at Jaelah, knowing she needed the redemption from earlier. The professor turned around at that point and saw us both with our Giftkuchen. We then sat them on the table as they began to stir again, snipping at each other as they had been doing before.
"Impressive, maybe I was wrong to judge so quickly. Welcome to Stein Zauberei ladies."
We grinned at each other, as the other students came in with obviously dead plants, or nothing at all, and past the time limit. We listened to the rest of the lecture, as we had to know how to use them in cooking, before we then went off to our next class.
When we reached the next class I groaned, we would once again be standing. It was cooking, but standing for so long hurt too much, I had been hoping we would at least get to sit a little.
"Hello class, I hope you are all prepared for today's lesson. Come along, pots on the stove. Pull out your textbooks! We will be cooking spaghetti, both a poison version, and a clean version. To begin, a clean version. Turn to page 164, and begin cooking!"
Jaelah and I frowned, we weren't prepared for this. However, I was more prepared than Jaelah because of my muggle upbringing. I grabbed my pot and put water in it, along with salt and oil and started the stove top. I stood back and watched the pot, then went to grab noodles and a jar of Ragu.
Meanwhile, Jaelah was staring at her book and was measuring water to the exact drop, and hadn't even gotten anything else into her pot yet.
"Jaelah, you're never going to finish in time if you don't start your pot boiling."
"I'm going, but this is like potions, right? If I'm not exact it might blow up!"
I shook my head and started her stove top, "Put salt and the oil looking stuff in it. It's boiling water Jaelah, not potions."
"Why do I need to know this, this is literally why I have house elves."
"Maybe because if the world keeps changing as it is, House elves will be freed and you won't have them?" I retorted back to her.
"What kind of nonsense are you talking about? We will always have house elves."
I rolled my eyes and drained most of the spaghetti. I then put some butter, the ragu, and the bit of starchy water together. I then put the pasta on two plates, and put the sauce on top, of course garnishing with parmesan cheese.
Meanwhile, Jaelah was carefully pouring her spaghetti out, not keeping any of the water. She then put cold water over top of the hot pasta. I shook my head, there was no saving that girl and cooking.
The professor came over and tasted the pasta (of course), and nodded, "Quite good Miss Salazar, are you a muggleborn per chance?"
I shook my head, "Sorry I'm not. My mother was delusional and tried to make me live the first several years of my life in the way of a muggle, to get the full experience of living I suppose. I cooked a lot."
"Very nice. Miss Phantomhive, I'm going to have to recommend you for remedial cooking. You are very obviously behind our students. You will be given your new schedule tomorrow."
Jaelah frowned and glanced at me, raising an eyebrow. I nodded and she grinned. I would help her out, because we had to stick together.
Next, we used the poisonous herb, which you threw in while the water was boiling, and essentially did the same thing. This time the professor did not go and try it out, likely because she wasn't interested in dying if someone did something wrong.
We left the course, and I looked at the schedule. "We already have a break? But we haven't been given any assignments yet?"
Jaelah grinned, "That means goof off time. Laters Vespera." She took off running, where to I didn't ask.
I went and grabbed my textbooks, and began reading the ones on attack and speed, what we would be having lessons in this afternoon. Finally, the hour had passed, and Jaelah came out of nowhere again.
"It says we have a lecture, Jaelah. I wonder what it's about?"
She shrugged, "I don't know, it's not like I'll be staying in there for very long. Not good enough for cooking? Maybe they should write their textbooks more detailed! Ugh, it's not fair at all."
Erikk came up behind us and picked Jaelah up from behind, spun her around, then kissed her cheek, "Hello Beautiful."
"Ew get a room you two," I smiled at them. Jaelah was radiant now, from her five second ago rant about the class.
"Oh, all-knowing tree boy, what can you tell us about this lecture thing?" Jaelah asked.
"The upperclassmen that are assigned to your group, or a professor if no student signed up for it, teach you stuff about whatever that day's practicum will be about. Today it will be a professor, because they haven't had a meeting with the students yet, but you'll know if a student is going to teach you or not. I'm off for cooking now, you two shouldn't be late to lecture, get a seat near the front, you aren't usually called if you sit in the front," with that Erikk ran away from us, headed the direction we just came from.
Jaelah and I went into the lecture hall and sat down towards the front middle, but not the very front desk, because everyone else was sitting closer to the back. "Your boyfriend didn't trick us into being the ones that are called on, did he?"
Jaelah shrugged as the professor walked in. "Hello students, if you can tell because you have me here, you will be having a student teach you for this lecture. It will be an older Smaragd student." The professor was Headmistress Knolle.
"For now, I give you your first day assignment. You are to read the first chapter of your attack and speed book, then write a three-page summary on each chapter. Due at tomorrow's lecture. You may begin at any time, class is dismissed."
Jaelah grinned, "I love short classes. I'll just do this during tomorrow's study hour."
"You go procrastinate silly creature. I'll be working on the summary. I'll see you at lunch okay?"
She nodded, and I went off to the library. I sat in the far back corner and began to write my summary. I was alone in my little corner, but that was how things should be. Being alone, no one else will get hurt once trouble finds me.
As it was nearing lunch time I packed my books away, shoving the attack summary in the book, and laying the unwritten speed summary paper back with the other paper.
If all we would do is cook and write summaries, this school was going to get boring very quickly.
