Chapter 9

Without the distraction of quidditch even, Nedelya Grgica was feeling even more the lack of riding. Like a goodly number of her year, she was a useful little quidditch player, without being likely to ever play professionally, but she hoped one day to get a German Quiddpolo league going. In the meantime, and missing her horses, Nedelya harangued her friends into backing her in her hobby, and a notice in colour-changing ink appeared in the main hall. The notice invited anyone who was interested to a Halloween equestrian meet, every contestant to enchant their own steed. The Defending Marauders had to pool pocket money and ask the Musical Marauders to purchase prizes for them, as fourth years were permitted into the village and second years were not, but this was no problem. It was, as Sigismund said, what shops like Zusüss und Widerlich were for, selling sweeties as prizes.

Nedelya's main ally in her horsy endeavours was not actually one of the other Marauders of her year, but Valda Schutzstab, who was rather horsy herself, which she admitted to, now that she had opened up to the Marauders. With the aid of elf magic from Wennie, who was enthusiastic about helping the kind Marauders, who helped teach her lessons, they worked on setting up a course outside for low-flying 'horses'.

"It's more suited to a gymkhana for moppets of six, of course," said Nedelya, critically, surveying some of the obstacles, "but we have to assume very few people will manage much enchantment capable of carrying them over anything higher than about three metres, like a fat little pony."

"I'd doubt some people could even manage that," said Valda. "I'll be struggling, and I'm a lot more capable than Arluin Kuelin, who is the only one of our fellows likely to have a go."

"I'm hoping that the Musical Marauders will at least rise to the challenge," said Nedelya. "I'm sure Wennie will help you, and so will I. Can we legitimately compete?"

"Wennie will help Fraulein Valda!" squeaked Wennie, eagerly. She was not fond of horses herself; they were rather big, and she was tiny.

"Perhaps one of the big ones would referee it," said Valda, wistfully.

"We'll ask Frau Von Freyer; she grew up around horses," said Nedelya. "And… and Fraulein Nachtigall, and Herr Carcano."

"Do you think they'll do it?" asked Valda, doubtfully. Her experience of teachers, especially Cacilia Von Freyer, had not been good to date.

"Of course they will; they're all good sorts," said Nedelya, airily. "Oh, you're thinking how much you hacked off Professor Von Freyer by spouting back the rubbish your father taught you about potions being low, because he was too stupid to manage more than a grey sludge for anything, well, she knows you were labouring under some false assumptions, so she'll forgive."

"I hope so," said Valda. She hated Potions, but as a rather competent Arithmancer had heard the Marauders on the subject of the subtle arts, Arithmancy, Potions and Chanting, backed up with Runes, and was consequently working harder. Her attempts had been noticed, though not entirely in a good way by Volodya Potishev. Volodya despaired of getting the girl to understand how to hold any kind of rhythm in chanting, and when she had protested a ban from his class as chanting was a subtle art had softened. He told her that she might borrow the books on art in magic and use his period to study that as another subtle alternative as a teacher was coming in the following year to teach it as an elective and from scratch. Valda had been grateful, and the Musical Marauders had gladly let her use their books and notes. They were looking forward to the arrival of Herr Slugworthy, and had negotiated borrowing him in the long summer holidays to stay with the Von Freyers to make sure they started their ZP year well up to speed. Valda found herself fairly adept at art, and as Wennie found chanting embarrassing with her noticeable squeaky elf voice, her little friend was happy to join her in these studies. As Valda was currently without a parent, she was included in the invitation to stay with the Von Freyers, and was very grateful.

Cacilia, Katharina and Orlando were quite flattered to be asked to be judges, and ruled that if the originators of the course were to be allowed to compete, then anyone else competing must be permitted practice on the course too, to make it fair.

Nedelya and Valda were happy with this, and issued permission to play with their course in the run-up to the competition.

Sigismund and Lindhard had both discovered themselves to be rather good at riding whilst staying with Cacilia's parents, a revelation for boys who were not of the class who considered horses an essential. Accordingly, they intended to use their topiary horses from the maze, but they had no intent of showing these steeds off by practising in front of others. Instead they walked the course, and looked thoughtful.

The rule regarding the surrogate steeds was that they were to bear at least some resemblance to horses and brooms were not permitted as it was cheating to use something already enchanted professionally to fly.

"I say, if any of us younger ones want to try, we haven't learned enough enchanting yet," Klarisza Toth protested.

"I'm sure a Marauder could come up with a solution," said Nedelya, calmly. "Library work; or at least use a hovering charm for each jump."

A hovering charm was far too tame, and some at least of the first years retired to the library.

Ilarion was no horseman, but just for fun he thought he would compete, and went and talked long and hard to the feral desk on fowl's legs, which necessitated a little bit of carpentry to facilitate, and a promise to leave the enchantments in place if the desk permitted the said carpentry. The feral desk could see other possibilities with the modifications in place, and agreed. Ilarion then had the task of persuading Saxdred, the goblin handyman, to permit him to use tools and to get him some hinges.

Saxdred liked the Marauders, who were polite to him, and even called him 'sir', which was unbelievably flattering from junker class children, and he warned Jungherr Ilarion to be careful, but provided what was necessary. Ilarion was careful to sing a song of soothing as he performed surgery on the desk, as well as being careful not to hurt himself, and soon he and the desk were conspicuous by their absence as they went to practice.

It has to be said that most efforts in the junior school at least involved a version of the hobby horse, a pole with a horse-shaped head, and cloth wings. Felicks Knapp in the third enchanted his French horn, and having studied music in magic, planned to enhance its abilities by playing it as he rode it. It sported a cardboard horse's head on the first bend, and a tail at the horn opening, which should fly out as Felicks blew. It had not occurred to him, until Friedrich Steiner decided to make fun of him, that it might appear to be farting. Felicks shrugged.

"My musical horse farts more sense than you usually speak anyway, Steiner," he said. Felicks might not be a Marauder, but he was close friends with Zoltan Nagy, who was; and Friedrich, as always, found himself outclassed verbally.

oOo

Felicks very nearly wanted to murder his entire class during the next week, when so much went wrong that there were threats of collective detentions over Halloween. First was the potion debacle. It has been noted by generations of teachers that there are years who are absolute dunces at one particular subject; and in the case of the third, it was potions. The class were studying shrinking solutions, and though Felicks and a few others were getting on with it with reasonable aplomb, and were achieving some kind of green colour, even if not a bright acid green, the majority of the class had either attained the orange colour showing careless use of their rat spleens or leech juice, and the shrinking of Joelle Staub's cauldron to nothing and the sudden explosion of daisies growing on and around her caused her to cry out in consternation.

"Fraulein Staub, you appear to have chopped your daisy roots too coarsely and unevenly," said Cacilia crisply. "Draw a school cauldron and try again; don't cry, you are at least a model student and do your best most of the time, and never interfere in dangerous ingredients like your sister. I can't think why you've become a poorer student since she left."

"Because I am afraid you will hold it against me!" wailed Joelle.

"You are not your sister. I have nothing against you, unless you choose to give me something to hold against you. Dear me, you had better go to the hospital and lie down; drink this!" Cacilia poured a calming draft. By the way Joelle drank it obediently without making faces, Felicks had to assume it was not glumbumble juice. He returned to contemplation of his cauldron in time to stop it burning.

Herman Langstab, Felicks' friend, who was normally able enough with a cauldron, had let himself become too interested in how Professor Von Freyer handled the sister of the girl who had burned out the potions dungeon through a piece of naughtiness. There was a dull CRUMP! And his cauldron shrank in an implosion that took the desk with it, spilling Felicks' work and that of the other two boys working on that table.

"Well, that is the last straw," said Cacilia, who had previously been ticking off various people for carelessness. "The whole class except Herr Knapp, Fraulein Fernandez and Fraulein Brandt can repeat this lesson in one detention, and as this is the last lesson of the day you can clear up your own messes so the elves don't have to, and if you are late for kaffee and kuchen, so be it."

Liselotte Brandt glowed to be let off; she was poor at potions but with encouragement from Cacilia, whom she adored, she managed to return a pass mark most weeks. Cacilia had chanted to cure her bad squint and she would do anything for the Potions mistress.

The potions debacle was followed by a detention for the whole class over several poor charms essays on cheering charms, a subject on which the whole class had entirely missed the point. In fairness to Professor Panov, the point was missed through the inattentiveness of his class who were surreptitiously watching out of the window where a centaur that had wandered out of the forest was trying to argue with the stone golem named Gerhardt. Felicks himself acknowledged the fairness of that one as he had absently written that cheering charms included those that animated strange beings to cheer people up with their antics.

It was the transfigurations class that really set the staff on edge.

Professor Nagy was never famous for being patient.

The class were struggling with turning hedgehogs into pincushions and back, and Periklis Theodrakis had had his knuckles rapped by Attila for producing a pincushion squealing in pain from the pins, which Attila promptly restored, healed, and confunded to forget the terror whilst Periklis learned a lot of irritable Hungarian. Attila had no problem over causing brief pain and terror to any maleficent little boy – or girl if it arose – but he was very tender hearted about distress caused to animals. Most of the other pincushions were still wandering around, Herman's attempts at a patchwork pincushion left a patchwork turd on the desk, and Melior Gdylan with a squeal of horror managed to turn himself into a pincushion.

Attila sorted out the confusion in silence, sorted out all the hedgehogs, and sent the Fernandez twins to take them back to their pens, as they could be trusted not to cause them distress, and when those little girls were out of the room and the hedgehogs out of earshot, he proceeded to vent his feelings with a blistering verbal excoriation on the entire class.

"Last year," said Attila, as he wound up, "it was the fourth, who were almost held down a year. This year, it may be the third, because I have heard of dire homework from your charms classes and Arithmancy, and of a disaster in the potions dungeon, and now you make a farce of a simple animate to inanimate transfiguration, and if any of you were interested in the lesson on animagi, I can only hope your interest was purely academic, because the powers help you if you ever try to become animagi pincushions or the like! I am seriously considering asking to have this year banned holidays until you can perform like scholars of thirteen years old instead of like wandless moppets of three!"

The class variously squirmed or sobbed.

It was, reflected Attila, the Triwizard. They had permitted themselves to become too over-excited about it, and had been concentrating more on that, than on their classwork. It was hardly surprising; they had suffered the indignity of invasion by the Russian supremacists at first hand, and seeing their blatant bad behaviour on the Wizarding Wireless Vision had exercised the children's minds rather too much, the more in a year which did not have the disciplined ranks of Marauders to prevent them from losing the plot.

He added,

"Just because you do not have Marauders in this year to help you to deal with the over-excitement of the irregularities of the Triwizard is no excuse to let these damned Russians win by losing your education," he said. "I want to see you pull up your game because you do not have to be beaten by them."

This was a surprise to the class who did not expect their fiery Transfigurations Professor to end on a relatively gentle note, and there were murmurs of anger, as Attila hoped there might be, over being made to fail by the Russians.

Felicks breathed again. If his classmates did pull up their game, he would not lose the chance to fly his French Horn at Halloween.

oOo

Nedelya had asked Sofie for a weather prediction, and Sofie had spoken to other diviners, and they had turned up a slight chance of drizzle in the morning and dry for the afternoon for Halloween, between periods of greater rain; and that, said Nedelya in satisfaction would do well enough. One of the predictions was from Hamburg airport, collected by the muggle weather diviners that Zyrillis had kindly looked up on the muggle computer magic. Nedelya was well content.

Those participating in the gymkhana assembled with their steeds, and there were gasps of envy and admiration at Sigismund and Lindhard on their beautiful green topiary steeds.

"That's what I call swanky," said Xanthippe.

The fourth were the oldest year to be competing, as it happened, since there was no urge to make idiots of themselves in the upper school, for the horsy amongst them would soon be able to compete on the adult circuit; and the fifth were besides indifferent to horsiness. The Jade Fag Marauders did, however, volunteer themselves as stewards and to rescue anyone in difficulty. It was decided that Sigismund and Lindhard might as well be in a class on their own competing against each other, since their steeds were rather out of the class of anyone else's. They had named their steeds Hecate and Ceridwen, which seemed appropriate for Samhain steeds, and their performance really was almost an exhibition. It might be said that some of the younger ones who had not thought themselves horsy enough to compete were suddenly secretly enamoured of the idea of riding.

Agata was to receive letters from a selection of parents asking why a stable was not maintained as there were now educated goblins from whom to select grooms to run them in a perfectly genteel fashion.

The little ones were to go next, after the impatience to see the vegetative horses had been assuaged, before they got too impatient, as was common in all children's events. Klarizsa, Magda and Ivaylo had managed some kind of flying charm on their hobby horses. Klarizsa had learned something of riding at the Von Freyer estate, Magda rode at home, and Ivaylo was determined not to be left out. Their flying charms were well out of the league of those who relied on hovering charms, not having put in time in the library, and Ivaylo found himself well ahead of several horsy children.

Naturally this didn't suit the likes of Helmgar Nachteule, who declared loudly that that the rotten Hungarian and Bulgarian brats were cheating. He dared say nothing about Magda, whose older brother was in the sixth and who was a German of good blood.

Cacilia stared at Helmgar.

"In what respect are they cheating?" she asked.

"Please, Professor, they are using spells we haven't been taught yet," said Helmgar.

"Why then is that cheating? They have used their initiative to do library work, as you too could have done. Is it cheating to not be lazy?"

Helmgar scowled. In his book it was cheating for non Germans to outperform him but as he had been in trouble for saying so before he did not voice this opinion.

"Are they allowed to use magic we haven't been taught then? Nobody said so," he sounded injured.

"I don't suppose anyone thought it was necessary to explain that to get ahead, research usually helps," said Katarina Nachtigall, dryly.

"Very enterprising of them," rumbled Orlando Carcano.

Helmgar retired, temporarily squashed.

"You'll see if we ever meet on the real circuit, if they even let scum like you in," he hissed.

"Not interested personally," said Ivaylo. "I just wanted to show you what a prune you are."

"And we girls will take great delight in showing you it all over again on real horses," said Magda, draping an arm around Klarizsa's shoulders. Cacilia had promised the use of horses to any of Sigismund's family who wanted to compete in holiday meets!

Next were the second and third years together, as they had fielded less competitors; and Nedelya and Valda had high hopes. The 'steeds' were more variable in this section, from Felicks and his French horn to Ilarion and the feral desk, whose lid was now halved and hinged at each side, folding out to be wings, and a cardboard horse's head on the back of the desk, and Ilarion sat inside it. His riding position earned him immediate respect from most of the school, many of whom had been chased by the feral desk and some bitten by it. In addition to these rather individualistic efforts were Xanthos Theodrakis, who was not especially horsy, but he did believe in joining in, who may have been poor at transfigurations, but who was rather good at charms, and having commandeered the gymnasium pommel horse had a rather frisky steed. Valda was riding an old rocking horse that Wennie had unearthed, and with a lot of patterns painted on it had made it fly. Nedelya, who was one of Attila's prize pupils, had folded an origami horse and had used a combination of enlarging charms and transfiguration to give it more places to bend.

This was a competitive field, but unlike some of the first, it was only ever a race for the fun of it. None of the competitors minded if they were first or last, though all intended to do their best. It may be said that the feral desk did not entirely share this spirit of friendly rivalry, and Ilarion later said ruefully that they might have had a better chance of placing had not the desk spent more time trying to attack rivals than it did just racing. However, that was the way life went!

Nedelya won by a nose, which was considered fair enough, since it had been her idea, Felicks second and Valda, to her surprise, third, while the feral desk and the pommel horse fell to fighting. It made a change, as Nedelya said, to the riders trying to sabotage each other; she had never seen a horse fight before. However, a good time had been had by all, and all enchantments bar those on the desk, and the topiary, were removed, and the topiary was turned loose in the maze again, where it was confined by magic save by the use of certain code words; and the desk was left to its own devices, which consisted of dive-bombing Gerhardt with apples it had filled itself with by the expedient of running hard into an apple tree.

Life returned to normal bar the Halloween feast and party.

As there had been the excitement of a gymkhana, which most of the school had enjoyed watching, there had been no need to occupy the school for the afternoon, and so the feast was followed with ordinary party games, and nothing out of the way. And while the Gymkhana had been going on, the top chanters in the school had been quietly disabling the reflective ability of any mirrors, owing to a warning from Hogwarts school that had been confirmed by the school diviners and Eve managed to exploit the ability that had blossomed in her since blooding to croak,

"Behold, the necromancer comes to steal the souls of the living," which was considered as good a confirmation as any. And Agata recalled that the former Supremacist, now Kaddi the elf, had said something about serving a prince who was a necromancer, and went cold all over. Divination really was not a fuzzy study when it was applied ruthlessly with combined efforts rather than treating seers as individuals and letting them get on with it in isolation. Well, that was one lot of excitement over, that could have been too exciting; and now it was the run-up to the ball with those attendant sillinesses. But at least without some poor silly child under the control of a necromancer.

oOo

Zyrillis approached Elfleda rather diffidently.

"Will you come to the ball with me?" he asked.

Elfleda blushed.

"I'd like that a lot," she said.

"Elfleda…" Zyrillis paused, reddened, and then smiled wryly. Their blood sang together after all. "Will you be my girl?"

"Oh Zyrillis! I… I would like that," said Elfleda. "I do like you an awful lot."

"I think we need to learn more about each other," said Zyrillis. "I mean as people, not as Marauders. Not that I am, exactly."

"You are a supporter," said Elfleda. "Perhaps we can see each other in holidays?"

"I think it's a good idea," said Zyrillis. "It's going to be busy though, I've been having dreams about the place Lilith was sent to, and I think that Russian fellow is going to try it on with someone."

"You?" asked Elfleda, fearfully.

"No, I'd get it clearer," said Zyrillis. "It's a bit peripheral. I want to see if I can go into a trance again, like Zlatko put me into over the Russian attack."

"Well, if need be, I'm sure Zlatko would come to do it," said Elfleda.

Zyrillis brightened.

"Yes, he probably would," he said.

The rest of the sixth had to sort themselves out; Xanthe and Xanthippe, missing Zlatko, decided to take Vighard and Alexand, and sorted out Scholastica to go with Alexand's friend Adolph. The Lower Sixth blooded had no problems, Wencelada going with Axel; and Grishilde, no longer feeling so close to Zyrillis, went with Lothar Weisel. Eve made a face and asked Friedrich Eichhörnen as he was mostly harmless. There was a dearth of male marauders. In the fifth, Kjell was also outnumbered, though as Elfleda was sorted, Kjell decreed that he could manage both Leva and Sofie. And the girls firmly arranged for Antoinette Labellette to go with Arkadi Rasputin, who was close to the Marauders.

The fourth had the opposite problem amongst its Marauders; Bronislava Frolika was the only girl with six boys.

"We can draw lots for who gets Broni, I suppose," said Sigismund, a little jealously, as he looked on Bronislava as his girl.

Bronislava tossed her head.

"As if I'm a prize in some raffle? Thank you, no. I say we should run with the idea we had when we were snotty brats, and we animate suits of armour and take them. We know how to do piertotem locomotor now, and the Hogwarts version of substitutiary locomotion. We dress up six in drag and I take the corvus helmed one."

The boys brightened over this idea. Sigismund might have liked to dance with Bronislava, but he was happier that she should be nobody's partner than anyone else's, even though he would grin and bear it if necessary.

Sorted out, it may be said that the Musical Marauders did a lot of pointing and giggling at those who were less sorted, whilst surreptitiously teaching suits of armour how to dance. And if the enchantments were a little more competent than was strictly necessary, only Salvia Pippin was inconvenienced by a sashaying suit of armour which did a neat allemande right around her, and said 'excuse me' in a hollow voice.

Salvia murmured, 'not at all' and passed on, merely wondering vaguely what devilment the kids were up to.

Next to the likes of the Belle Marauders, who had been using piertotem locomotor or rather, its substitute, from a ridiculously early age, the Marauders at Durmstrang were relatively quiet and not too disruptive. It was all par for the course!