Chapter 10: Marabovs

My association with Master Malfoy was never supposed to be a secret, but it spread through the halls of Hogwarts like a maggot. The fervent devotion to gossip in this school was revolting. I imagined even Draco was become bored with the questions his classmates poised upon him. I know Harry despaired of it. And Neville. Even Ron and Ginny, though Luna bore it with good taste. Odd taste but good nonetheless.

I had Care of Magical Creatures with her. Though the burly gamekeeper in charge of the class seemed a bit overwhelming and simple-minded, I found myself growing a fondness for the half-giant. His kindness reminded me of an old type of magic that I did not often dabble in, simple but mystic. That type of Light magic that descended from the highlands. Farmer magic. Healthy, steadfast and loyal.

But Hagrid had it sewn into his bones, the hearty (and often heady) innocence of unicorns and mooncalves.

However, my favorite teacher was Professor Flitwick. My schedule was not conclusive to my level of magic in the subject, but we arranged private sessions alternating between Transfiguration every other day. The gnomish man had a patience that exceeded him, and I enjoyed the way he smiled giddily at me when I managed a spell.

Transfiguration was more of a catch-up. I really did know all the spells. It was only a matter of practice. Transfiguration was a science that lacked the manner of art Charms required. I might have been slower in the latter, but I found it much more favorable.

However, in Defense Against the Dark Arts, Professor Snape had neither the patience nor the forgiveness of Flitwick and McGonagall. He thought I was an idiot. As proposed, I had visited the library and found my definition of Dark very different from the definition provided by the Ministry. They made magic such a legality. It was such a difficult class for me to understand. My confrontations with Professor Snape were often brutal, and once, I even threw my wand at him. Not one of my most clever moments, but the bedamned man was infuriating.

The professors had decided to let me sit in on Potions and Herbology for the first few weeks before allowing me to take the NEWTs. Perfectly understandable and completely unnecessary. I think I bore it with good grace. I didn't tell them to sod off. If Slughorn was a little miffed at my lack of participation in class that was his own fault.

I found myself helping Neville whenever the opportunity arose. The boy had an unnatural fear of Professor Snape that had ruined any chance of appreciating the fine art of potion brewing. Sure, he was annoying as Hades, but I couldn't see the dark man as being terrifying as say, the Grim Reaper. I think having Slughorn teach helped, but his aversion to Potions seemed transfixed on his ex-professor.

The kid was a whiz at herbology. Though potions were more my forte (needing the least amount of magical skill), herbology had always been an interest of mine. Professor Sprout had the grim pleasure of shushing our discussions whenever we gathered for her class. (Miss Bagshot would have backhanded me.) But we could never keep silent for long, and I think the professor was secretly pleased her favorite student had someone to talk to.

I seemed to have gathered myself a niche in Hogwarts. I found a Slytherin sixth year, Justin Elmsworthy, who I had met at the summer party, to discuss Potions with; Neville accompanied me in Herbology, and Luna was an ever-present ear. Draco was a comfort and a hindrance each morning, braiding my hair with a patience I'd never thought of him. I had never guessed how articulate his fingers were, weaving my hair into elaborate French braids that I assumed his mother had taught him.

In between silences, we discovered that we had a very similar taste in literature. The classics had been pounded into both us, and it was with great hesitation that he admitted he'd read Romeo and Juliet. The Nott boy had goaded him into it when he was in a particularly nasty snit with his father. He'd read the muggle novel (sparingly when he had neither of his parents' attentions) and found it surprisingly intelligent. For a muggle.

Enthused by the surprise, I brought Hamlet to him the next morning, presenting it before spreading my skirt on the ground before the bench.

"I think you'll like it better," I said and no more, wondering what he'd make of the tormented son.

Writing was not a suitable job in the wizarding world. I think living in magic stole a bit of our imagination and that we lacked a great deal of common sense. Wizards could write all the articles and journals and books on boorish custom and experiment and study that they wanted, but they had a terrible time of making good stories. Those that did, like Luna, were pushed to the edge of our society and deemed mad.

My relationship with Draco, while not the easiest thing to describe, was still not as difficult as my relationship with Harry Potter. Each time I saw him, the tension increased until I though I would burst of it. As much as I had slid into life at Hogwarts and with Draco, the same ease was not allotted me with Harry.

Frankly, out of everything new I was experiencing, he scared me the most.

o.O.o

I huffed. "I just don't get it." I lowered my wand, annoyed.

The sun shone out over the lake as Luna plopped down beside me. We had foregone the school uniform to sit out by the lake on the second Sunday of the school year. Both our shoes lay piled among the grass.

I sprawled, resting my head in her lap as she began to knead through the braid Draco had done up that morning. My stockings itched, and I rose up to remove them before resuming my lazy mumblings. Luna was silent, listening.

"I read through the library," I said, blocking the sun with one hand. "I understand the defense. Really, I do. It's just…" I trailed off. "I don't know. It just doesn't feel right."

Luna hummed, a far away gaze on her aquiline face as I continued.

"Miss Bagshot told me that Dark magic was a part of our core. She said it was just part of nature. That it couldn't be any stronger than the Light but it wasn't any weaker."

"Old magic," Luna agreed. Her strange face was unchanging, like porcelain. Her fingers continued to stroke.

"Yes, but…"

It was impossible to explain, this part of me that wanted to laugh at what these people called curse. Dark magic was ancient enchantment. It rooted and branched. It was impossible to defend against without succumbing and letting it pass through. Otherwise, it's like swimming against a current. You can only struggle so much before you learn to float. Or drown.

"You're thinking the wrong way," Luna said in her dreamy tone, patting me lightly on the forehead. Looking up at her, the sun was indistinguishable from her hair.

"I can't help it," I snapped. She took no offense, patting my forehead.

"Ready to try again?"

I huffed again but took to my feet. My strange, strange wand. It was probably Darker than any spell I could muster on school grounds. I wasn't sure I trusted it, though I still felt it dear to me.

I envisioned the spell I wanted, a simple protego, and closed my eyes. Maybe I was thinking about this the wrong way. I had been plucked up from total isolation and dropped in the middle of a society that I knew only from texts. I loosened my hold of the wand and focused only on a shield, nothing that had to named by Light and Dark or even defense. The magic came much more regularly.

"Protego."

I felt only a surge, passing through like a breath, but when I opened my eyes, I stood shocked beneath a dome that extended half the distance to the forest and was as tall as a pine.

Luna smiled approvingly, her wand tucked behind her ear. Slowly, I lowered my wand and watched as the crown fell, dissolving around me without even the hint of a pulse. So this was the evolution of magic.

"Better?" Luna asked.

I nodded, wondering why I felt wronged.

"I didn't expect it to be so large though," she hummed, touching the edge of the grass where my shield had stood. She stroked her finger along her cheek, as if painting a war mark.

"It's usually smaller?" I asked.

"Yes," she gave in that cryptic voice that told me she was thinking of something incredibly un-human. "You need to make it smaller."

I eyed her dubiously. "What are you thinking?"

"Right now? About daffodils in winter and why gnome rats like pudding."

I grinned, as she had meant me to. My wand tingled my palm, and I was entirely unsure of what it was reacting to.

"It was more concentrated too. Wasn't it?" I asked her.

Luna tilted her head. As if trying to see something vaguely abstract in a twisted picture.

"And, you think it can get bigger," I hedged from looking at her. "And the power levels in my core must be fantastically high to produce something like that on my first try." My jaw ticked. "Or fantastically erratic."

Which meant I was extremely powerful (which made me feel sick just thinking about) or extremely dangerous. Perhaps both.

A hand touched my arm. I looked into Luna's face. There was no caution, no worry or unease. Just the same Luna who had befriended me for the sole reason that I had given her a glass slipper.

"Miss Lovegood, may I have permission to call you Luna?"

She answered with a steady gaze. "Of course."

"Hey Luna?"

"Yes."

I opened and closed my mouth. We understood one another, Luna and I. She understood what I didn't say probably better than I did.

"Nothing."

She stared off over the lake. "Do you think the marabovs will blossom next spring?"

I sat down beside her, my hand touching hers. "I don't know. They're always so temperamental."

o.O.o

Snape was reading over the second year assignments. Absolute rubbish as usual. They knew nothing about disproportion and equivalency. Dumbledore should have made Arithmancy mandatory. He sipped his brandy as he scrawled another T onto a student's work, not even bothering to glance at the name.

Another scroll on his desk caught his attention. This scroll had been distracting him for a quarter of an hour. It just sat there, rolled to a perfect 36 inches with a magenta ribbon. Noted, it really wasn't the scroll that was annoying him but the scroll's blasted owner. Rosalind Potter had strolled in here 15 minutes ago, set it on his desk, and strolled back out, those damn curls bouncing behind her and not even hesitating long enough to let him insult her for intruding upon the privacy of his Sunday.

He couldn't stand her. He couldn't for the life of him understand her motives. The one bloody time he had upset her, she threw, THREW, her damn wand at him, and he couldn't remember what the bloody hell he'd said. She was a damn enigma. He had expected her to flock to Potter or at least oppose him like a good little spy. Why else would the old codger have sent her to the Malfoys? In all the time he had to break the life debt, Dumbledore had done nothing. Instead, he sent her to be groomed by Bathilda Bagshot. Bathilda Bagshot of all people! The crone was a despot. Minerva was almost as upset as Molly Weasley when she found out.

He took a sip of brandy. No, Rosalind Potter had many things to hide, yet… she didn't. She could just have easily played by Dumbledore's rules. It was only through her that they had found out about Bathilda. It certainly would have been easier for Dumbledore if she would have lied or even evaded the question completely.

Such a strange girl.

He absently rubbed the tattoo on his left arm, pressing the material of the cloth into the ink.

Everything about her was a mess. Her avoidance of Potter, her friendship with the Ravenclaw girl, and her entire view on magic.

And her eyes… There was something very… so… He growled, throwing his quill. The scroll was impressively despondent despite his glare, the same irksome offhandedness present in its mistress. Those eyes burned at him, made him want to claw them out. There was something missing in those eyes, something wrong, and it was the most irritating, annoying, damned bloody nuisance! Like an itch he couldn't reach, ten-fold!

Severus picked up the scroll. He cast the ribbon aside. It landed on the unmarked assignments, swirling neatly like a long maroon serpent. The handwriting was elegant. It suited Bathilda's legacy to school her student in the art of calligraphy, a practice now exercised only by the most stringent of Purebloods. It was always pleasant to see the flowing script of Draco Malfoy, Parkinson, Zabini and Elmsworthy. And here too, young Miss Rose Potter.

Dear Professor,

I am well aware that you told me to write an essay on the uses of the five elemental spells. Please excuse my boldness, but I find myself compelled to write another paper.

Upon practicing the protego spell, I have discovered something abnormal in the distribution of power in my magic. The concentration of energy in my shield is far too high, especially considering its size. I have mapped out the calculations on the density of my magic below as well as the respective area and perimeter of my spell.

There is also something you should know about my wand. I have a dementor bone wand and a thestral hair core. Without an elemental base, I should not be able to connect with so much power so easily. I have researched and calculated the findings on wandlore, though I was unable to find any wand with these bases, and my respective cores and have included it in this paper.

I have contacted my master and he has sent me to me. I will beg of you not to inform the Headmaster. If you require a reason, know that he has known me all my life. He has never seen fit to inform me of the discrepancies in my magic, and I must assume that he knows something to its reasoning that I do not.

Blessings be,

Rosalind Titian Potter

Snape skimmed the equations. She was right.

He understood the warning clearly. She didn't think this was natural. She believed that this had been done to her.

Severus cursed, his fingers pressing deep into the dark and gloomy ink that marked his pallid skin. Why would Dumbledore have made her into a bomb? If he meant to hinder her ability, then why was her magic so inflated? He would have to see it, but he imagined the friction in her magic must be highly over stimulated, building up in her core like a flooded dam. But how on earth had it lasted so long, blocked and unblocked? Surely, such turbulence…

He shook his head. He couldn't think about this all at once. He would have to read her paper. But he really didn't want to imagine that Dumbledore had been tampering with her core. Not only was it illegal, it was dangerous and completely amoral.

Was this entire war just monsters fighting monsters? And him, stuck in between.