Chapter 11

Before they knew where they were, Halloween was upon them; and the body of the school given two newspapers, a reel of muggle masking tape, string and permission to use any colour changing charms and minor personal jinxes but no other spells to make themselves costumes. It had been a competition run at Prince Peak and Jade thought it an excellent one to test the ingenuity. If the best they could come up with was a cape made of newspaper and the use of densaugeo to grow the teeth to be vampires it was still something that they must think about; and to try to aim at the eye teeth. She took Magda to the Munich children's gymkhana meeting; and on consideration took Rainer too as he would enjoy watching.

Naturally his eyes strayed wistfully to the small children on flying ponies; especially the small boy his own age with the almost glowing white neatly built pony, that was in many ways lither than many of the other ponies.

"That's a Pegasus pony or Pegasan; smaller than most flying horses and so counting as a pony for its size class" said Jade "And by description the young man riding him is Falk Kesselring, brother of our own Ritter."

Hearing his name and his older half brother's the youth turned and looked enquiringly. Jade smiled.

"Yes I am taking your name in vain" she said "Name's Nefrita Von Strang und Luytens; your brother may have mentioned me."

The child's eyes widened and he clicked his heels punctiliously.

"But of course! And you try a most brave experiment that he aids with of educating goblins and the muggleborn; he writes that it goes well. You have then pupils competing?" He tried not to sound surprised.

"One pupil; Magda here. This is my adopted son Rainer who's the same age as you; I expect he'll be competing in the future, so no doubt you'll see a lot of each other" said Jade "We haven't chosen a pony for him yet. Do you find that the Pegasans are sturdy enough in the German climate?"

"Sleipnir is a little delicate; but I take good care of him" said Falk.

"I would let the smaller pupils ride a pony of mine so I shouldn't want a pony that was delicate" said Rainer, almost pugnaciously.

"That's my good generous boy" said Jade "Obviously we will supervise closely to see that none spoil his mouth. I'm rather inclined to the Steppe Pony myself; or a half breed with non flying ponies. They may be less good as breeding stock but there IS a hybrid vigor."

"Papa reckons a steppe pony crossed with a Przewalski's horse is about as sturdy as you can get" volunteered Falk "Sleipnir belonged to a boy who was ill treating him so of course papa went out of his way to get him to sell. He's very good at dressage and obstacles but a little temperamental over point-to-point. I love him very much" he added defiantly.

"Of course; and the more because you have rescued him" said Jade "Two of our mounts at school were rescued from a hire cab; your cousin Albricht er…. Threatened the owner until he sold."

Falk beamed.

"Good for cousin Albricht! I say, I do look forward to meeting properly, Rainer; but I have to go, we're being called to line up."

Rainer shook the gloved hand thrust out to him.

"He doesn't seem as stuck up as he looks" he volunteered.

"Well I doubt Professor Kesselring would permit a small brother of his to be stuck up" said Jade "I'm glad he acquired the Pegasan in dubious circumstances though, not just for show. I'm inclined to agree with his papa's views though; what do you think?"

Rainer considered.

"I would like, please, if I am to have a pony a clever one that can recognise my whistle and come for it."

Jade nodded.

"I should think a steppe pony cross would do the job" she said. "There goes Falk; let's see him do his stuff!"

The Pegasan was a pretty pony that made all the dressage movements perfectly with more grace than some of the frankly dumpy ponies performing with, some of them, little riders whose chubby legs stuck out sideways and might be almost more a comedy turn than a performance of grace and elegance. Jade had never had much interest in children's gymkhanas; but at just fifteen it was a good way for Magda to start.

As her age class was last it also meant that Magda had a chance to watch the other children and see the sort of things that were expected, and what earned marks and what did not. Jade thought, looking at the opposition, that the girl actually stood a chance of scoring fairly well; since she did a lot more than sit on the back of Hermes and let him get on with it as one girl quite plainly did with her experienced horse; nor did she cram him as one of the boys did; nor was he nervy and inclined to shy as did the mount of another competitor. Jade saw her into the competitor's enclosure with the last minute advice,

"If uncertain, take Hermes' advice; he's done it before!" to which Magda managed a shy grin.

oOoOo

Hermes was quite plainly enjoying himself and showed off outrageously in the dressage.

"Did you train him yourself, young lady?" asked a judge.

"No sir; he trained me" said Magda. The judge hid a smile as those who could hear her laughed. Magda added "He was trained by Herr Lucius Malfoy in England but I've been keeping up his training and if I don't remember it in the right order he nips gently so I have no excuse for not performing up to his standard."

"An excellent horse; and may I say a good young rider that has been well trained by her mount" said the judge. He pinned a red ribbon on Hermes' bridle; and Magda gasped and beamed! She and Hermes had taken second at the dressage, beaten only by an expensive looking girl with a showy pegasan she was only just small enough for still.

Next was the obstacle course; which Hermes lost at the last minute by trying to show off with fancy wing work, and consequently fluffed the last obstacle and lost time points.

They came in third; which had been better than Jade had expected. Hermes looked years younger for it.

"Well old boy, Lucius was a bit quick at putting YOU out to grass!" laughed Jade, petting the handsome Granian's nose.

"It was well ridden" the condescending girl with the Pegasan said to Magda "You are new to the circuit; you are perhaps English?"

"No; I am German" said Magda "I have only recently taken up riding since I am now at school to take ZP's. Hermes is one of the school horses."

"What? That's hard to believe that Lucius Malfoy would sell one of his horses to ANY school; he's dreadfully picky" said the girl.

"But then" said Jade gently "As I, his niece, am the one who runs the school with my husband, am the effective owner, this makes a difference."

The girl stared, having taken Jade for a child by her height and so not having looked closely.

"His niece? I don't believe I've met you" she said.

"And you aren't free of Malfoy Manor or you would have done" said Jade "Also you are not at Durmstrang where I have taught for a year before opening my own school."

"I have a tutor; I don't need to go away to school" said the girl with a toss of her head "And that makes you Nefrita Von Strang who wastes time on goblins and lowborns; well I'm sorry now to have talked to whatever THAT is" she said.

Jade smiled genially.

"SHE is a very good rider; and on the adult circuit you just gave her every reason to improve enough to make you look very silly, you nasty little blood snob" she said "You need a good spanking; pity you didn't go to Durmstrang, you might have had a few corners knocked off you. And the both of you better get ready for the final parade."

Jade was angry; but not to the extent that she forgot the harsh penalties for an adult to jinx or harm a minor. Such strictures did NOT however apply to their mounts; and though it was a mild discomfort to put the Pegasan to, Jade cast a spell that would do no lasting harm; then with due consideration let fly with another.

The Pegasan flew around the circuit and stopped to bow before the judges with its simpering rider utterly unaware that her pony was both extremely flatulent and that the flatulence was fluorescing. It would wear off too before she WAS aware of it more than likely; Jade had not made the horse too windy. It would have been unfair to the poor thing.

It cheered Magda up no end; as did being reminded that she had beaten the other girl – just – in the obstacle race.

oOoOo

Back in school, costumes were being turned out with more or less facility.

The third were celebrating that they had two new members, Grelleg and Ervig having been deemed to have worked hard enough for a remove at the same time as the new members of the second – which also meant that the second would have only eleven members in it until Bric earned HIS remove and so be less unwieldy – and decided to come as a giant. Reiner and Herman were both built – in Jade's idiom – like brick shithouses – and Jurgen was slight; so they balanced Ervig and Grelleg on the shoulders of the two beefy boys and Jurgen held by the two goblins, covered in a raggedy tunic of newspaper and a wild hairdo of torn newspaper charmed black. The tunic was a moss green.

The costume was simple; practising moving inside it took all day.

The obvious costumes were hags and vampires; which attracted the uninspired. Cnebbic used rolled paper for horns and came as an erumpant, together with horrid noises such that he fondly believed an erumpant to make; Renate persuaded Valerie to come with her as sun and moon with a lot of paper folding; and Liesel Bredel proved she had a classical education in her muggle school by coming as Hecate, with a cunningly constructed chiton made with pleated paper. Shizue made a paper beak and tightly rolled claws for her feet to be a tengu; and Ktell, Gunnar and Kole got together in paper drag to be the Norns.

In the first, Ulvik suggested half laughing that Mava should be Circe and he, Lurtz and Klemens should be her swine; and as Mava thought this a jolly good idea they decided to implement it, asking Liesel advice about Greek costume. Liesel was happy to help; it was nice to be able to tell people born of the wizarding world something. Fortunately Lurtz knew how to fold a cup out of a square of tree bark that worked equally well with newspaper to make a pig's snout each that they tied on with string; and caps with ears of paper attached. They rolled paper very tight and curled for tails and used masking tape to wrap themselves in paper that was charmed pink. With paper and time left over, Ulvik came up with the idea of making four more paper cups each turned black to be little trotters; but they gave up on making Circe a paper cauldron.

It was a little difficult to guess what either Viva or Didi were supposed to be so covered with tape and messy were their respective creations.

Torschik and his twin Saxburra had got together to be a tree – with Saxburra sitting on her twin's shoulders and fastened in once up there – with Emilia in a short tunic made of newspaper leaves cut out and applied to a paper under tunic and charmed each one to a different shade of green to be their dryad. They had cut two complete newspapers into leaves and coloured them in four separate groups to get the colour variation and used half on the tunic and half on the tree, attached to a hat with rolled paper branches worn by Saxburra. Manfred, assuring everyone that this was such a kid's game it would be easy to be original was one of the vampires; and Abert had used paper folding as a base for papier-mâché to give himself a pumpkin head as Jack o' lanterns, with raggedy newspaper clothing like a scarecrow.

There were to be no prizes this year; all the children were from depressed backgrounds and giving prizes might be unfair to those not encouraged before to think for themselves. There WERE toffees all round as well as toffee apples and snapdragon to bob for, and apples in a tub and other silly but enjoyable party games. Teaching these children to have a good time was part of the curriculum after all.

And after a holiday filled with silly games they would return to their work with a renewed vigour.

oOoOo

Using games as part of lessons also worked well; and the ancient runes and geomancy games were almost ready for publication.

Bertel decided to ring the in his first year runes class and played 'I packed my bag and in it I put….' In Ancient Greek; by making them write up on the board each of them what had been put in the bag; then after reading it out erasing it for the memory game to proceed around the class. He varied direction of course for fairness; including starting in the middle and moving in an approximate spiral about the room.

It taught no end of vocabulary, even if there were some strange things packed in the bag, like a cauldron, a spear and a tree alongside more conventional things like a pair of dice, a wand, a Phrygian hat and a pair of sandals. And what the owl might have thought of being packed in a bag was anyone's guess as he told the staffroom later.

"Probably have considered it a hoot" said Leo; and got poked by sundry other blooded.

Jade grinned.

"Don't make the same mistake Hercule Maxime made when he let us do an extempore acting of the assassination of Caesar in Latin and I drew Caesar; and smart arse here happens to know that actually the old boy did NOT say 'et tu Brute?' as Shakespeare will have it; because cultured Romans spoke Greek and what he actually said was 'kai su teknon?', you too, my child? so I completely confused the rest of the class by being accurate not traditional in my dying gasp."

"Well you would" said Traudl "And QUITE aware you were sabotaging everyone else. Probably overacting like mad too."

"Right's right though" said Jade.

"It's what makes her the excellent chanter she is" said Wulf "That insistence on detail."

oOoOo

The castle was now fairly isolated by storms and snow; and quidditch was abandoned until such odd fine day might permit it. Instead the children were to be taught dancing, which was met with dubious looks.

"Dancing is good healthful exercise as will keep you all fit to study better" said Jade "Otherwise when you get let out in spring the lot of you will look like you've been doing a spell in Nurmengard, all pasty and flabby because they don't actually treat their prisoners very well any more than Azkaban does. At least nobody is expecting you to go to a Yule Ball as is the case in Durmstrang, Prince Peak, Hogwarts and Beauxbatons; though if you SHOULD end up going to such I wager you'd not like to feel like a total prune for not knowing what to do! And before the question how that might happen gets asked, I shall answer it – if we happen to be engaged in a triwizard competiton when all the contenders get to attend the Yule Ball of the host school AND a celebration ball afterwards too and jolly tedious it is, I can tell you, having to do the polite to people you want to jinx into a ball. But that's only my take on it."

"I rather enjoyed it when I was one of the contenders from Hogwarts" said Mortimer mildly. "I got to meet my wife there."

Anett, now very visibly pregnant, blushed prettily.

"I too enjoyed it" she said "And I also enjoyed the aftermath where Professor Von Strang had not entirely contained her instincts to jinx and otherwise irritate some of the less savoury elements. The joy of Heinrich Nachtigall's floating fundament is a thing to savour."

"Dirigible fart curse" said Jade "And that diminutive fag of his declaring fatuously and quite unnecessarily as he dragged the horrid fellow into the hall on a string that Herr Nachtigall was floating…..delicious! and thoroughly reprehensible" she added. "But you see, being able to dance has its moments; and I wager Professor Bane is glad that his Guardian drilled him ruthlessly."

"Indeed I am" said Mortimer. "It also came in handy for the footwork necessary for Hogwarts' pupils tendency to treat duelling as a body contact sport; and it can help with broom surfing for increasing the balance and again footwork, and I HAVE seen a neat waltz step performed to outmanoeuvre a tackle in hurley. Which was, of course, Gorbrin Malfoy, who in common with all Malfoys has to be a showman" he added.

"He and Draco reckon it's also useful for swordplay" said Jade. "So I don't want to hear any crap about dancing being sissy; since my cousins Draco and Gorbrin both take it very seriously. We shall be learning three types of dancing; formal ballroom – just in case – human country dancing and goblin country dancing. As I understand it there are very few differences in the two latter but I think it would be interesting to compare and contrast. We'll have teachers from country communities in to teach us. The Headmaster and I will teach you ballroom dancing with help from such as the other staff who did NOT have two left feet at school. Nobody expects you to be good at this; just to have fun and take good exercise. When you're proficient enough at dancing you shall learn martial arts; unarmed fighting techniques. The ECC has been studying some of these already; we'll teach you enough to deal with any unpleasant situation – for example how to escape, you girls, from a man who's got too fresh; and for all of you how to get away from, say, a muggle who wants to know what this 'funny business' is that is our art – without hurting him or using wand so you cannot be accused of muggle baiting. We shall also spend some leisure time running six-a-side softball hurley games. You are all required for your health to join in one hour and a half session once a week; otherwise you may please yourselves as with quidditch and outdoor games. Now this wet Saturday evening we're going to play shipwrecks; which means we have two chasers, who are Biirta and Cnebbic because they're the first two I laid eyes on; and the rest of you have to get about the hall escaping them without putting your feet to the floor; and we're about to move the tables around and get some judicious kit in to help you out. Have fun; try not to injure yourselves!"

The new regimen of exercise was more fun than the school had expected; and if the pupils were expected to behave as little gentlemen and ladies for ballroom dancing, ham acting as part of that was permitted as part of the fun. Ulvik studied assiduously and talked his marauders into doing so too; since if they DID get a crack at a Triwizard it was worth while not being shown up as uncultured in front of Durmstrang pupils. Besides, his mum and dad were part of the social elite in England; it really behoved him not to show them up.

Rather like being able to ride adequately; even if he never really took to it.

Ulvik, as it happened, found himself a fairly good dancer and enjoyed it more than he might have expected; and he was much in demand, for ballroom dancing quite took off as a sport for the girls, except Mava and Elva but only he, Torschik and Manfred were any good or in any way interested! Emilia was really very good, and Jade promised that if they could find her a partner to match she should do competition when she was a little older if she wished.

It was another way to gain employment for one of their children; plenty of families hired dancing teachers to prepare their family jewels for Yule balls.

The partner she found was Gunnar Heuvermund who was remarkably light on his feet for a farm boy; and though his school work was a priority all work and no play made any jack a dull boy and Gunnar was willing to give Emilia a decent partner.

As Magda was also a fair dancer as well as a fine horsewoman Jade had every hope of making her a respectable marriage, which was more likely to make her happy than having to carve a career for herself. Biirta would enjoy the challenge and be ready to fight her corner against those who despised her for being an orphanage brat; it would hurt lovely, gentle Magda.

And actually Jade had some unattached males in mind; Ritter for one, who took his riding seriously; his cousin Albricht, her law consultant; and for that matter her factor, Ruprecht Schutzmann. They might escort the girls and partner them when Jade brought them out after they had finished their schooling; as they would still be effectively her wards. Biirta would enjoy the parties with the sort of malicious glee any Malfoy would; and if Gorbrin and Meliandra were not joined at the hip, Jade might have considered Biirta as a suitable mate for her cousin.

The craze for dancing did not catch on as powerfully in the upper school as it did in the first, however; though Shizue liked to watch. Ballroom dancing was big in Japan but Shizue had, as she confessed, two left feet and it irritated her sense of perfection such that she preferred to see something well done than to do it badly herself. Jade set her to choreographing dances for Gunnar and Emilia instead; which pleased Shizue mightily.

It may also be said that those who took to dancing tended to be those that Helmut Hastläufer did NOT want to strangle; because they had at least a sense of rhythm that made them adequate chanters if not perhaps very musical; and Helmut told Grelleg that he should stick to chanting and leave music to those who did not try to turn 'Für Elise' into a route march. Grelleg was not displeased. Jade had wanted all her pupils to have a basic musical education alongside their chanting to pick out those who had any musical ability, whether only enough to train as part of their chanting, or enough to build a career upon. Similarly she had art materials available in the common rooms for any to use; but again none had any particular talent though many did like to draw for their own amusement; so it was well worth while having it available for personal development purposes.

It was in some ways odd, and yet rather pleasant, as Jade said, not to have all the trials and tribulations of young people agitating over who to take to the ball; and at least that meant this half of the term was not to be swamped in such silliness and the chances of getting them all to concentrate was a lot higher. They were unlikely too to have any of the usual bad weather japes; though in a way Jade regretted that for it displayed a woeful lack of frivolity and creative naughtiness. She was quite relieved when the marauders used a clever chant to disrupt a waltz with polka music issuing from the feet; and set them the impot of copying out the correct placement of the feet from Victor Sylvester's useful little book.

It meant more copies too to pass around new dancers which would be helpful.

Ulvic, being imaginative, spent some of his detention time carving up a couple of school bungies – a somewhat unorthodox use of erasers – to be solid [male] and empty [female] feet to print the impot; and Jade had to applaud his lateral thinking and asked him to do a few more so she could make more instruction sheets.

Ulvik grinned happily.

This led to a new bad weather craze; with pocket money being spent on bungies to carve into flowers and birds and patterns with which to decorate notebooks; and Jade bought bungies and craft knives and distributed them freely telling them not to make too much of a mess, and that included bleeding on things. She had to show them how to sharpen the muggle knives by breaking off each section of blade to get an new sharp point; and the goblins in particular were torn between admiration at such ingenuity and shock at the profligacy.

With Yule approaching, one of the things Jade suggested was that the children make Christmas gifts for their families and friends; and ran a sewing class – with Elva paid scrupulously as her helper – and helped the children make little bags or simple garments or pin cushions; and they paid for their materials with the extra chores Yuletide brought. Boys paid similarly for exercise books to cut in half that would form two notebooks and thus two gifts, covered neatly – or in some cases otherwise – with paper printed with bungie, or potato prints. For the parents of most of those who had parents the real gift was that their children were to be getting an education; but any child from a loving home likes to give presents to their parents.

Those who felt less creative took the suggestion that Jade made of gathering goose quills from the village – and checking if they were left-handed or right handed as it DID matter and she would always be happy to tell them – and use their new found skills with charms in colouring them; solid colour for those less adept, and the more advanced students might try colour gradations. This was only Reiner Kurtz, Grelleg gan Schenik – who wanted this gift for Jaromir Frolik, his sponsor – and Gunnar Heuvormund. Anyone else who took up this idea stuck to plain colour quills. Some of the colours were quite exotic; but that was the whole point. They had the skill to MAKE something quite exotic.

Naturally it was Ulvik who came up with the idea of cutting a stencil and charming the piece of quill you could see through it. By which means, and with a lot of patience, he managed to make a mock peacock feather for Wulf and was hiding it with excitement. He had printed a music stave notebook with bungie musical notes for Rainer; and printed scribbling pads for the three little ones. And he had swallowed pride to ask Elva to help him to sew a pen case for Jade, helping her with carved bungies in return to print items for her family. And as his friends had quills as prizes for the competition to help Viva, he laboriously blanket stitched round pen wipers for each of them.

There were end of term exams; the staff wanted to know exactly how far on their pupils were, and whether any of the accelerated students in particular were likely to need an extra year's study. They had covered in their excess time and few subjects much of what might be expected for half way through the third year, for not hanging about on the earlier learning processes; and some were further ahead in some subjects. That would show up in essay questions.

As some had been functionally illiterate when they started, and had needed to have reading and writing taught to them by magic, never the most efficient way, in the same way as it was not the best way to learn a foreign language without further study, they were doing well to write coherent essays.

And Jade reminded those who would find themselves at school for an extra year past their chronological age that there were those pupils in other schools who had been held down for one reason or another, usually illness; like a child called Walter at Hogwarts who had been so badly cursed before he got to school that he spent almost two years recovering; and that though he could probably get his remove back to his own age was so happy with the friends he had made that he was not that bothered; and was in fact looking upon it as an opportunity to taste some of the childhood the curse had robbed him of.

"Stupid unobservant parents before you ask" added Jade "Being rich does not necessarily go with being clever; alas, too often the reverse. But it shows that those of you who are below your age are not unknown in any school. And then there are people like me who decided I could do the rest of the fourth year work and the first term of fifth year over a Yule holiday to be with my friends. Well I got a good crop of OWLs so I managed it; and my kid sister is up two years before her age because she's clever enough to make a flaming pest of herself until the old folk capitulated. Age is a relative thing. Some kids are ready and able too to go away to boarding school at nine years old – Lilith being a case in point – others are homesick still at sixteen. You can't make hard and fast rules. You'll get your results before the holidays because we're going to work as hard as you have all been doing to be sure and not leave you on tenter hooks. Meanwhile, you may spend the last few days at a relaxed level, decorating the hall and making sweeties to take home with you."

It was a gift from the school to families that the last day was spent uproariously in the making of sweeties; and bagging them up into little net bags for every junior member of every family. Every orphan in the orphanage would also have a bag of sweeties; they would not be left out. And if some of the sweeties were a little stickier than usual or lopsided, having them made by the school children would probably more than make up for that.

oOoOo

And then at supper, which was to be a feast, Wulf rose to make announcements about the exams.

"Everyone is keeping up with the standard they have set themselves" he said "Bric gan Sarric, you have earned your remove into the second; Safraxa gan Beric and Liesel Briedel will commence classes in other studies than the five basics after Yule to suit you to join the third year fully after the end of the academic year. I'm sure other members of the third will let you read their notes. You will be studying care of beasts, herbology, history and enchantment in addition to the five subjects you are working on, in which you are entirely caught up with the third and will have those lessons with them from now on. The other subjects will give you a taster and at half term you may choose which, if any, you wish to pursue to ZP level. Martina Balzar, you're a year younger than the rest of the accelerator class, you will move with Safraxa and Liesel for administrative purposes with extra remedial classes to help you to the level of ZAP not this coming examination year but the next. If you then wish to take ZPs building on that the staff are ready to advise. Everyone has done very well; now enjoy your end of term feast, because first thing tomorrow you'll be back home and we shall be sending someone to collect each group on the second of January. Have a good holiday; and remember we shall be taking in your wands before you go home to make sure nobody goads anyone into something silly."

Ulvik started a cheer for his dad and the staff; and then they fell to on the sumptuous Christmas fare.

And every child with siblings would also be taking home a Christmas box of extra food according to the size of their family; because it was a way of helping in the community by helping feed a few families a bit more.

It would be queer, reflected Ulvik, to have eleven full days without work; and yet he would be doing something because he would be helping with his blood bond with the big ritual chant to free house elves all across Europe.

And that was a scary level of ritual too; and he knew that mum and dad were just a little nervous about the whole affair. And he would get to meet blood siblings from all over; and feel others; and meet the scary and impressive figure that was his adoptive grandfather, Severus Snape.

And when all the children had been seen home, or taken back to the orphanage temporarily, the greater number of the staff apparated smoothly with Wulf, Jade and their children to Prince Peak school, where one might look down on the clouds from the sharp summit of a mountain in bright sunshine! And Severus Snape and his three wives – one of them seeming half elven! – were there to embrace and greet new grandchildren and to be treated by Ralph to a big hug and a demand to be thrown up.

And there were aunts and uncles – many much younger than him – and the famous Lilith who grinned and asked whether they'd be rivals in a Triwizard someday; and everyone was talking at once and it was wonderful.

He was one who was to be staying in the castle, feeding power; while older youths helped in one respect or another; and Lilith had talked her way into being one of the chanters and a primary chanter too – whatever that meant – for being so good.

It was scary; but OH! It was wonderful too!