Double update today, just because it's you all for the reviews and comments! I hope you understand how much all these reviews mean to me. They're like my fuel to keep going, my motivation to keep writing because I know that there are people out there who actually read this. So for this chapter, there is a little time skip, as we miss late September and all of October to get to November. Enjoy!
November
I awoke to the sun, shining in my face. I shuffled out of bed and grabbed my staff, disguised as a wand courtesy of Tooth. I stepped out of my room and into the hallway. Then I descended the stairs, taking them two at a time.
I found Merida sitting with Hiccup in the common room, talking over some papers. I was planning on just going straight to class, but Hiccup beckoned me over. Looking over my shoulder, not expecting anyone to be standing behind me, I walked over and sat across from Merida.
"What are you guys doing?" I asked them.
"Nothing really." Hiccup replied. "Merida was just asking me to translate this old scroll she found in her castle."
"You have a castle?" I asked her, awed.
"Yeah." Hiccup said for her. "It's this giant stone castle in the middle of these rolling hills. Soon it'll be Merida's when she becomes the queen of-"
Merida had reached over and placed a hand on Hiccups mouth, silencing him. She grabbed him and pulled him into a headlock, while he glared at her. Suddenly, Rapunzel walked through the doorway to find the three of us, sitting on a couch with Hiccup in a headlock.
"Did Hiccup mock Merida again?" She asked, as though this were perfectly normal.
"Nmph." Came the muffled reply from Hiccup.
"Did he call her the Your Highness, or the Queen of Scotland?"
"Nmph." Hiccup repeated.
Merida finally released him and Hiccup shook his head, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.
"You didn't have to attack me you know." He said, miffed. "Seriously."
I laughed at their antics.
"We better hurry or we're going to be late." Rapunzel said.
I stood beside Rapunzel while Hiccup continued arguing with Merida.
"So, what do we have first?" I asked her.
"Gryffindor and Ravenclaw have Transfiguration with Prof. Toothiana. Then, after lunch we have flying lessons and then potions in the afternoon."
We stood there for a few more minutes, waiting for Hiccup and Merida to stop bickering. Once the fighting finally stopped, we walked together to Transfiguration, only a few minutes early.
When we walked into the classroom, all I could think of was how bright it was in here. As usual, the huge windows were open, allowing streams of light inside, and several torches lit the stone walls, giving them a majestic feel to the room. I spotted Tooth who was flitting in circles around her desk, waving her wand at random things and moving them to different places, as though searching for something.
"Hello Professor Toothiana." Rapunzel said cheerfully.
"Oh, hello there. Come sit down." She paused and looked over her shoulder. "Uh, Hiccup, could I talk to you for a moment."
I frowned. Why would Tooth need to talk to Hiccup? Was something wrong?
Hiccup gave a small frown. "Sure." He walked over to her office, a golden room filled with shining boxes.
I watched them carefully as they walked over, into her office. As soon as the door closed, Merida turned to me.
"What are they talking about?" She asked.
"I don't know..." I said. Again, I became suspicious of Hiccup. While at Hogwarts, I was supposed to be scoping out possible suspects of the prophecy, as per North's orders. Over the past month, I've only found a few suspects and none of them were certain. One of them being Hiccup. The only thing that held me back from reporting him was he was too darn nice to be malevolent. Hiccup was my friend, and I didn't want to be suspicious of him, but I couldn't help it. North had set it in my head that someone here was the subject of the old Norse scroll Manny had given the Guardians, and for some reason my gut kept telling me it was Hiccup.
"What if something's wrong?" Rapunzel asked.
"I'm sure they'll be fine, Punzie." Merida assured her. "Hiccup's probably giving her tips on how to properly cast a bewitching spell." Merida muttered, sorting out her things onto her desk.
Students began streaming in, red, gold, silver and blue colours filling the room. Eventually, all the seats were filled, all but two. One beside Merida, and the other behind Tooth's desk.
Suddenly, the door to Tooth's office opened and Hiccup walked out, looking slightly less enthusiastic than when he entered. People in the seats behind us whispered.
Hiccup slid into his seat beside Merida and she whispered to him as Tooth sat down behind her desk. I could hear Hiccup mumble an "I'll tell you later" before Tooth began explaining today's lesson.
We were going to be transforming a book into a quill. Tooth demonstrated hers on a large dictionary, turning it into a turquoise quill that matched her robes. She gave us the incantation and told us to try it out on our own.
I tried waving my wand and muttering the spell. I made sure to pronounce the odd words properly, but all I ever achieved was a small picture book sprouting some white feathers.
I looked over to Rapunzel and Merida, who seemed to be having just as much success as I was. At least Rapunzel was making progress. Her book had become much slimmer, and had several feathers sticking out of the pages. I looked past Merida to see Hiccup, who was sitting in his seat, writing something down with a plain brown stick of charcoal, a crude pencil of sorts. I looked down to his desk in front of him and saw a brilliant peacock feather that shone a thousand different colours in the sunshine. That wasn't the only thing it was doing, it was writing something down all on it's own.
My jaw dropped as the quill continued writing odd characters down on a page, once in a while stopping, and turning towards Hiccup, as if asking him permission to write something. Hiccup, the odd time would only nod and mutter something to the quill, as if telling it what to write.
I nudged Rapunzel and pointed to Hiccup's quill.
"Do you see that! It's Hiccup's book-quill. It's moving on it's own!" I whispered.
Rapunzel looked up from her feathery book to glance at Hiccup. She sighed.
"He does this every time." She frowned down at her book as though asking it why it couldn't write for her.
"Does what?" I asked.
"Finishes early and then enchants things to write his homework for him. That's why he has so much free time." She cast another disapproving glance at her book and then turned to face me. "He's always creating new things to do for fun. Once, in charms he finished early and designed a whole new pulley system for the midnight bell in the tower. It's like his mind just doesn't stop working."
"That's amazing." I said.
A few minutes later
"Alright class, turn in your finished projects please." Tooth said. I sighed. The best I had done to my book was turn it into a frost covered novel with scattered feathers laying haphazardly inside. I noticed Hiccup, handing his in and saw it momentarily change colour's. I thought back to what Rapunzel said earlier, how he was always doing something, as though his mind was always working. I wondered how good a wizard you would have to be to do something like that. I wondered how powerful a wizard you would have to be to do that.
"What do we have next?" I asked Rapunzel.
"Flying lessons." She said. She didn't sound very happy about it.
"Hey, cheer up." I told her. "It's gonna be fun."
"Okay class, today we are going to be playing a game of mock up quidditch."
Half of the class groaned while a quiet 'yes' could be heard from Merida.
"Everybody mount your brooms!" Prof. Volanti called. The professor blew his whistle and everybody mounted their brooms.
I kicked off hard. I suddenly, shot into the air and looked down below me. I was a good 20 feet or so in the air. It reminded me of spreading snow days, and over the past few months, I had found that flying came easier than I had thought.
I looked down and saw Hiccup staring up at me, a hand shielding the sun from his eyes. He gave a big grin and a thumbs up. I grinned back at him.
"Haddock!" The Prof. Volanti called. "Come over here for a second."
I saw Hiccup give a short nod and then walk over to the professor, who's normally hard face, softened slightly. I couldn't make out what they were saying, but I knew that Hiccup obviously hated it. The professor reached out a hand and patted Hiccup on the back awkwardly.
Hiccup walked over to the stands, picked something up and walked off the pitch hurriedly. Whatever the teacher had told him, he obviously hadn't liked. I watched as Merida flew after him. She landed and they talked for a moment, before Merida returned to the pitch.
I frowned and watched as Hiccup kept walking, far past the school grounds, into the forbidden forest.
