Chapter 8: Day one
After finishing breakfast, Tonks and I headed for the charms room as I coached her through the basics of 'hair-weaving'. She seemed to grasp the concept quickly, being half-blood, her father is a muggleborn, she has a view on the word not shared by most purebloods. She was quick to begin weaving coarse fabrics as we entered Flitwick's classroom.
I was trying to turn my fingernails into metal as Flitwick entered the room. We are joined by the Hufflepuff first-years.
"Good morning class!" He called out, clearly excited for the new year.
He quickly called through the register. Everyone is present.
"Welcome, welcome to your very first lesson here at Hogwarts! Charms!" He spoke quickly with his hands moving a lot.
"Now, Charms cover many areas of magic. It can be anything from keeping your glasses from fogging up," Drawing a nervous laugh from a few students. "To mending a broken bone. So, I hope some of you have opened a textbook over the summer. "His eyes moving across the Ravenclaws and settling on me briefly."For today we start with one of the most basics; The levitation Charm!" This started a brief wave of hushed chattering.
"As for many of you this is the first time to attempt any magic, so do not be disheartened if you cannot do it! House points are for effort, not always for just doing the work. The incantation is 'Wingardium Leviosa', The spelling is on page ten of the Standard book of Spell. The wand movement is a simple swish followed quickly by a flick. Wands away whilst we practice the incantation please!" A clattering of wands hitting desks resounded around the room. Followed by a drawling 'wingardium leviosa'.
"Excellent! Combining the correct wand movement with this incantation causes an object to levitate, like so; Wingardium leviosa!" As he spoke his waved his wand which caused feathers to fly out from behind the desk and move to the students. Each feather has a small disk of magic beneath it, mage sight was worth the hassle to learn.
The class began chanting, trying to float their feathers, to no avail. I had a feeling this would be more tricky than transfiguration, picturing objects to transfigure in my head is as easy as metamorphing for me, but charms will probably take some practice to get right.
A quick scan of page ten reveals that the swish and flick are very important, mostly to get used to the habit of spell casting. This charm appears to be taught as the first charm for everyone at Hogwarts.
Pulling out my wand I decide to take an idea from my good pal Gellert. I have to want the feather to float. I blink on my mage sight, maybe if I can duplicate just one tendril like Flitwick's, this might just work. How hard can it be to float a feather when I can turn into a dragon-man?
A slight wave of my wand causes the tip to glow with magic, not seen by the naked eye, the tendril is a bit unyielding, but with some coercion it slowly pours from my wand. I figure a push from underneath would get the desired effect, but it might fall off the tendril. The other students seem to be flooding magic from their wands in vain attempts to make the feather hover.
The tendril slowly wraps around the non-bristled part of the feather and tightens, almost like a small hand. A short flick upwards causes the feather to move upwards, different to Flitwick's charm as it's clearly being held up by one point, rather than riding the wave of magic. I almost drop it when I hear cheering beside me.
"Excellent! Five points to Ravenclaw!" Flitwick squeaks out.
"Thank You, Sir" I say politely.
"Very good, very good, However" He turned back to me. "Can you cast the correct charm, Mr. Jackson?" He said with a smile
Grinning, I looked back at my vertical feather and smirked. I'm not sure if I could cast his levitation charm in all honesty, so I draw out another tendril to grasp the other side of the feather and lift it up to be level with the other. I throw a grin at Flitwick.
"Ah! Very good! Take another five points." He says, although looking at me with calculating eyes. Almost as if he could see what I actually did. He spun round as another feather rose limply into the air across the room.
"Take ten points for Hufflepuff, Ms. Abbott!" before heading to struggling students.
Looking at Hannah's levitation charm was enlightening. It seems the proper was to do it is to raise platform of force beneath it. It is supposed to be a pushing charm, not a pulling … whatever I had done. Hannah had made a patchy looking oval shape, and now a few more students had their feather rolling along the desks, whether it was magic or simply an open window, they were excited.
Beside me Tonks had a pretty solid rectangle shape an older student might have told her, or perhaps her parents, to imagine a square pushing the feather up. Solid advice, but I had much more control with the tendrils.
I relayed this advice to the boy on the table next to me, He looked at me strangely, but he nailed the spell a few minutes later.
The lesson continued on as a few more people started being able to keep the feather airborne. It was the first lesson, so it wasn't like everyone would get it. Focus started to slip as lunch approached as people were, understandably so, excited about our first flying lesson, which would be after Herbology this afternoon. Flitwick addressed the class.
"To get you into the habit of homework," This drew a groan out of the students "I expect 4 inches on the common uses of the levitation charm ready for next week. Dismissed."
Scraping noises bounced off the walls as chairs were pushed back as the class began to shuffle from the room.
The corridors already had students in all heading towards the great hall for lunch.
"Zack!" I hear from behind me.
Harry and Ron wade through the crowd towards Tonks and I as we make our way to lunch.
"We just had transfiguration with McGonagall. Changing matches into needles is harder than it sounds." Harry explains. "I got mine to go silver, still looked like a match though."
"Mine got a bit pointy on one end" Ron says. "I'm not even sure what a match is"
"Purebloods" I sigh.
After a quick laugh at Ron's expense we arrive in the great hall just in time for lunch time post.
An owl almost smacks a box into my head as a take my seat at the Ravenclaw table. I see a few mid-day copies of the Daily Prophet come down.
The food served at lunch is, quite logically, lunch foods. Sandwiches, piles of crisps and bowls of fruit.
"Tonks" I say to my bench mate. "Watch this" With a wink I throw a grape straight up in the air, when it gets to about 10 feet above the table, Freya catches it before landing on the table in front of me. Tonks proceeds to lavish praise unto Freya.
A loud bang erupts from the Slytherin table as a large canary wearing green trimmed robes starts chirping loudly, much to the halls joy.
"Weasley!" I hear a shout from the teachers table, I can almost hear frown.
Snape strides over to the large canary and draws his wand. I see Percy looking particularly happy.
"Finite!"
The canary squawks again before turning into a fifth-year prefect, Markus Flint, as Snape rounds on Fred and George who look completely shocked. This also causes Percy's smile to drop. Clearly he didn't think about who would take the blame.
"Detention with me tonight" He sneers
"But it wasn't" Twin two began
"Us this time!" The other countered
Snape stares at them for a few moments. I strikes me that he is probably rooting through their memories at this point. The thought has just occurred to me that if Snape or Dumbledore decide to have a root around in my head, I couldn't stop them.
"Detention revoked" He poke quietly. Causing the twins to sag in relief. Percy's arrogant mask snapped back on.
"I wonder if a beak would be useful" I muse aloud.
Stretching my lips out into a small beak felt a bit uncomfortable I must admit. I can't really think of a use for it, so I pull it back in. Tonks takes on a duck bill. I grin before eating some more fruit.
A group of sixth or seventh year girls enter the hall. Hogwarts robes are a curse to mankind. I wonder if I could get Dumbledore to consider the Beauxbatons uniform.
"Excited for flying lessons, Tonksie?" I ask playfully, knowing her balance is as bad as mine.
"Urgh" She puts her forehead on the table. "Don't remind me." She grumbles.
"I'm sure it will be fine" I say, patting her shoulder. "Maybe We could give it a go without the brooms."
Her head shoots up, eyes wide. "You mean ... wings?" I can see the excitement dancing in her eyes.
"Oh yes, Tonksie" I grin.
"I wish you'd stop calling me that" She scowls.
"Would you prefer Nym-?" I stop as I find myself at the business end of a red-haired Tonks' wand.
"Tonksie's fine." I smirk as she says this.
Not seeing Professor Sprout at the heads table, I stand up.
"Better be getting to Herbology." I pull on her sleeve.
"But – but food!" She whines.
"You can eat the plants." I say placatingly
After dragging a sulking Tonks to the greenhouses, We each get handed a set of earmuffs and some thick woolen gloves. I decide to scale my hands instead. Professor Sprout looks at my 'gloves' oddly.
"Good afternoon class." She began, drawing out a 'Goodafternoon' from the students. "Please keep your gloves on during this greenhouse or you will not be returning. Today we will be learning about the mandrake root plants. Can anyone give me some properties of the plant itself?"
She calls on me when I raise my hand. "They're loud." I say with a grin, causing a few people to laugh. "A fully grown mandrake root can kill someone with it's cry, but a baby one would only knock you out, hence these earmuffs I would imagine"
"Good, good. Ten points to Ravenclaw" I nod my acceptance.
"We have a baby mandrake for each pair of students, We will be re-potting them into the larger pots. Earmuffs on please." She secured her own. "Grasp the leaves firmly, give it a good tug to lift the mandrake out of the pot." She pulled up a small shrivelled radish-baby. "Place it into the larger pot and put some more soil on top to sedate the mandrake again."
The odd plant became silent again once it was buried under the soil.
"Now, give it a go yourself. Remember," She pointed to her head. "Earmuffs on."
I give Tonks a shrug before pulling a fat mandrake from our pot. It immediately starts screaming at me. I think giving it a good smack would shut it up, but I op for covering its mouth with me hand.
"Don't just stare, Tonksie. Get the pot ready." I instruct her. Her mouth snaps shut as she puts some soil in the larger pot.
The mandrake starts biting my fingers at this point.
"Uh, Professor." She walks over to us. "This one has teeth. Should it have teeth?"
"Not to worry Mr..." She looks at me expectantly.
"Jackson"
"Mr. Jackson. This one appears to be a bit older than the rest. They grow teeth as they get older."
I pull the finger into my hand as the mandrake had no intention of letting me have it back. I dumped it into the pot as Tonks poured soil onto it's head.
"Plants shouldn't have teeth Tonks. It ain't right I tell ya" She nodded in agreement as the rest of the class re-pot their radish babies.
Professor Sprout spoke up again.
"All mandrakes re-potted? Yes? Good." She took her earmuffs off.
"I want 5 inches on a use for mandrakes. Baby or adult, no matter. Dismissed."
She calls my name as we head for the door.
"If you don't mind me asking, Mr. Jackson, Could you tell me where you got gloves as strong as those? They don't appear to hamper your ability to flex your fingers, and any glove that can stop mandrake teeth are special."
Gloves?
"Oh, These aren't gloves" I waggle my fingers, changing them back into pale hands. "I can grow scales, quite a handy skill, as you've noticed."
She nodded slightly, looking pale as I left.
I caught up with Tonks just outside the castle, heading down to the Quidditch pitch.
"Time to show off our exquisite balance Tonksie." Eliciting a groan from her.
A/N; I'm not sure if "placatingly" is even a word, but i might use it instead of "soothingly" is future
I'll try and keep the chapters at about this length
