Harry Dursley and the Philosopher's conundrum 10
The class was soon filled with people, all sitting down calmly at the very same seats of the last time. All except for Draco who, apparently, had ended up sitting elsewhere. So, right about then, Harry was sitting alone in the corner of the classroom.
He sighed, before starting to look through his charms book once more, quietly hoping…
Wait, was that a war spell right there…again?
His eyes narrowed for a moment, and he closed the book in front of him. The title of the book wasn't 'The standard book of spells' to begin with: it was 'Battle spells throughout the ages'.
He looked around frantically, before opening up his bag and sighing in relief: his book was there, tucked away safely. Harry was thus free to pursue the second part of the problem: where the hell had that book come from?
Carefully, he pried open the first pages with care, searching for some sort of footnote or scrawling that would help him identify the owner. At the first page, written with blotches of ink more than actual nouns, stood two words: Hel-Claw, which of course helped little: on one side he only had three letters, and on the other he only had four.
Maybe he should actually start reading the books instead of skimming over the pages, looking for the most complicated spell there was.
Looking at the book on war spells with a bit more of an eye it had become clearer that it just couldn't have been the same. For one thing, the book had a black leather cover and the title was golden. Secondly, it held far more pages than the old one.
Maybe he was still a bit dizzy after the night at the infirmary…but just as the professor began once more explaining the charm and its benefits, adding to it how it could be used to fly too…Harry raised an eyebrow.
It could be used to fly?
"And now, please practice among yourself." The door of the classroom opened then, revealing precisely the last person who had to enter: Lillian herself. She had probably run late for some sort of reason, and as she sheepishly murmured her excuse to the professor, she moved to the only free spot remaining. The one right next to him...it was official: the world hated him.
What was he supposed to say? 'Hello? How are you, cousin dearest? I'm so glad you earned points for blatant favoritism? Did killing you-know-who make you feel emotional turmoil? How the hell did you kill him to begin with?'
"Hi." He grumbled with a light nod. Perfect. There was always a need for grouchy persons in the world, and apparently he was going to fit the bill, at least in Lillian's eyes.
"Hey!" Lillian smiled back at him, showing off her entire dentition as she did so. "How's Hoggy Hogwarts treating you?" She asked, referring to what the talking hat had sung at the entrance ceremony.
"Good." He replied with a bit of hesitation, and monotone. It couldn't be that difficult to speak to a cousin, could it?
"Alright then." She quickly said, before moving to her task at hand of trying to levitate the feather.
Hers at least twitched, while Harry's simply remained dead…as dead as a plucked feather from a chicken could stay dead that is.
"You sure you're focalized?" Lillian whispered to him, raising an eyebrow. "I mean…convinced and all?"
"What?" He replied with a flustered expression, he didn't need someone's help to do it for the love of…he was going to make it! He had tried asking once, and it hadn't helped. Why would this be any different from before?
"Now, from what they told me, you need to focalize on the feather, believe it will float, and then use the spell with all the movements right…of course you must also have the intent on it or it won't float…really a lot of it." Just to prove her point, she whispered the charm one more time, earning a slightly floating feather that lifted maybe of a millimeter or two…far more than his 'dead' one at least.
Harry rolled his eyes, before slowly and deliberately eying the feather.
He could do this. Magic was real, magic was really real and everything attached. He could do magic, the feathers could lift with the charm; he could pretty damn much make the darn thing in front of him float if he willed it enough. So, once more, he moved his wand.
"Wingardium Leviosa." His face was as concentrated as he could make it, and finally, finally for the first time since the beginning of the lesson, the feather twitched a bit.
The others already had their feathers floating; some of the late ones had theirs on a level far more than twitching, yet it didn't matter to him.
The damn thing twitched.
He could do magic.
He could make magic work!
He was a bloody damn wizard who could make feathers twitch!
…what a wonderful potential.
Harry took a deep sigh, realizing only then that he had been smiling like he had just won the lottery.
"Thank you." He whispered back to Lillian, who apparently was a bit…asleep? Because the next moment she blinked twice, before shaking her head slowly.
"No problem at all cous…can I call you Harry?" she suddenly exclaimed, like she wanted to cover the previous words of her mouth and eying pretty badly her surroundings…where people were looking at her.
"Ehm…yes?" He replied with a nod.
"Good…I need to talk to you after the lesson alright?" At the question, he nodded once more, before returning to his feather. He had made the thing twitch!
He still couldn't believe it, but he had made the thing twitch and now, now was the time to make it soar through the air!
"Wingardium Leviosa." Of course, the feather merely twitched once more.
Lowering his head with a deep sigh, he began to muster his determination…it was going to be a hell of a long road.
By the time the charm lesson finished, his feather could do the twitching dance for a few seconds.
He had never thought it could be mentally exhausting and taxing to even go as far as make a feather twitch whereas it should have flown, but still…
As the class was emptying, the red haired boy that Harry had seen a lot of times hanging around Lillian literally pushed him aside to get to his cousin's proximity. Well, not actually 'pushed' as more of a: 'I'm a freight train; move or I'll end up knocking you down'. Harry knew the types since he had known quite a few in elementary school; they weren't evil per se, but they just didn't know tact.
"Ron! Can you get to the dining hall and hold on a seat for me please? I've got to speak with Harry for a moment."
"Oh, that's alright." And then, of course, he lingered for a bit before a death glare from Lillian sent him scampering on his way. Lillian then turned towards him, and whispered.
"He's a good guy…bit dull but nobody's perfect…anyway…you heard anything about me?" She asked him, making Harry blink for a moment.
"Concerning…what?"
She gave him a stare of death too, before sighing.
"Right, you grew up with muggles…makes this even easier then: I'm sort of the wizard's world heroine." She began, ending up with a big digression on what happened and who You-Know-Who was.
"Voldemort? He's called Voldemort? The magical Nazi is called Voldemort?" Harry asked to make sure. "At least 'Adolf Hitler' sounded menacing. Voldemort doesn't sound menacing…heck, Mortimer would be totally better."
"Yeah…anyway, please don't tell anyone about me if they ask alright? I've got little privacy as it is…" as she said that she rolled her eyes at the sight of some older year students pointing and murmuring probably about her a bit further away, "and I really liked talking to someone who didn't idolize me like 'the girl who lived' or such…so please?"
"Alright cousin…" He nodded back, before raising an eyebrow, "Now that I think about it, why not just avoid calling ourselves with 'cousin' to begin with? That way we can be acquaintances and nobody would find it strange and ask questions on my family."
"Yeah, let's do that then!" And with a bright cheerful smile, Lillian dashed off.
They could have gone to the dining hall and do transfiguration together, so why did she have to leave in a hurry? They could have at least walked together towards the hall…or maybe she just didn't want to be seen walking next to him? It kind of hurt to be ignored in such a way, but he shrugged it off: the girl had said she had enjoyed talking with him, hadn't she?
So, after heading off to lunch which, unluckily, could not be changed to his pleasure,
His steps were steady but slow, as by the time he got into Transfiguration, sitting down in the last row, the professor soon followed a few seconds later.
Minerva McGonagall was the Gryffindor's head of the house, and she looked every bit of the stern lady she could muster herself to be, if her words on 'expelling from the lesson' all those who made trouble were true. Her tone carried her truth at least, and he wasn't going to antagonize the woman if he could avoid it.
This time, matches appeared in front of them.
"Transfiguration is easier said than done," the woman began to explain.
Harry merely rolled his eyes: why he'd say the same thing about charms or anything concerning wand movements, because nothing was easy to him at the present where magical hocus pocus was involved.
"The easiest type is transfiguring matches to needles, and vice-versa. One must always keep straight in mind what he wants to obtain, and…" mathematical formulas filled the chalkboard few seconds later, and then they were left to try, with the professor walking through the classroom like a vulture ready to devour the corpses of the fools who displeased it.
Transfiguration was all about wand movement and intent, since no words were actually needed for it. He just had to picture a needle, in the place of his match.
Slowly he brought his mind to the same level of determination he had held when trying the Wingardium Leviosa. He could do this. He would do this. He was a wizard and he would succeed.
The tip of his wand tapped the match, and the next second…the match disappeared.
He blinked once, before slowly looking around. Did he perhaps push it down from the desk? He lowered his head beneath it, and when he brought it back up…
There was a book where first there had been the match.
His eyes narrowed: this was already the second time something of his fell down, distracting him and making him look around, and by the time he looked back up a book mysteriously appeared in its place.
This was starting to get annoying.
Did he have some sort of secret admirer going around?
This book was entitled 'Transfiguration for war: one hundred and one mutations to unleash upon thy enemies'.
He 'sacked' the book to begin with, and then began to ponder as a match rolled by on his desk, coming from absolutely nowhere.
Harry decided that this was all about magic, and nothing more.
So, taking a deep breath, he started once more: he'd get a needle in the place of a match before the end of the day, he was sure of it!
Of course…why did he keep putting up on his hope? The match remained as such all throughout the lesson, not even taking on a glimmer of metal. With a sigh, he actually pocketed the match. Maybe he could use it for lighting up his wand and trying the 'intimidation' approach on the piece of stick he carried around.
Great potential at a great effort…the effort was starting to become more and more of a sort of humiliation, daily and repeatedly, rather than some sort of well worked 'Rambo-like' evolution. Rambo just needed a bit of music and some stairs to climb…real life sucked.
He walked out of the classroom alone, as usual. He'd take his chance with the library now: he had that bit of a side project concerning the second world wide war after all.
As luck would have it, he had been perfectly and utterly right.
There had been, indeed, Nazi wizards. Their greatest supporter, their leader, had been a certain Grindelwald, defeated by Albus Dumbledore in 1945…and then the war had ended soon afterwards.
So the second world wide war had been fought between wizards, but who had actually started it this time around?
He scrunched his face deep in thought, as he began to peruse through the books like he was kind of possessed. What the hell was he doing in the library? He should have been going around exploring, like the other eleven years old, or maybe he should have gone and practice some more…yet this had caught his interest…because he could relate.
He had grown up among the 'muggles' and thus he was more keen on discovering the 'hidden' story of the world rather than study magic that didn't come easily at him. Everyone could move a wand around, but considering the low number of students in the library, only a few valued the history as well as he appeared to be doing.
Then there was the trouble with the old looking books somebody was trying to set him up with. What reason they could have eluded him, but he had yet to found any clue on it, except the fact that they kept on popping up.
He could swear there was at least another book within his bag by now, probably placed when he wasn't looking.
It was only through sheer luck that he managed to realize that time had indeed passed long enough for him to have to go to dinner. After dinner, he headed off towards his room and sat on his bed, lazily flipping open the pages of the book on transfiguration.
This one, instead of a blotched line of names, held a particular flourish of a signature. It was kind of difficult to decipher, but it did end with a small stylized snake that opened its fangs.
Looking into his book bag, he realized he hadn't been imagining things: there were more books.
Something, somewhere deep down, told him that as a 'school' this still wasn't the norm around. Something was up, and whatever it was, it apparently wanted him to be well instructed.
The books…he widened his eyes, before settling in a slight grin.
Now it was obvious! What an idiot he had been not to realize before! There was only one person who had ever gifted him a book: the potion professor! It had to be professor Snape, who knew his mother, and thus was trying to help him out by giving him books to read.
Taking a deep breath of relief, and shaking his head of all those stupid idiotical crap like 'prepare for a final battle' or 'fight in a war' or similar, he began to gingerly read the first few pages of the book entitled 'Curses from the dark ages to the dark enlightenment' and 'Potions for the rulers of darkness'…which appeared kind of shady, but the first few pages were nothing more than warnings and some general overlay.
Nothing strange in there, was it?
And Professor Snape was a professor after all, he wouldn't hand out prohibited books like they were candy, would he?
He had double potions the next day…he'd ask clarifications then.
Author's notes
Hints, hints. Of course I warned you at the first chapter that what happens and what one says are highly 'biased' on the pov.
Meaning that a distracted character will understand one thing and a keen one another.