Author's Note: 1) Sorry for the delay in posting, Real Life's interference. 2) I'm still without a beta reader, so I need to apologize again for the many mistakes. 3) What a difference! I was covering a year per chapter, now I expended four chapters in less than 2 days, and I'll need to keep this slow pace until things settle to routine at Hogwarts. 4) I would really like to make this story entertaining for those of you with enough patience to follow me. So, if you could let me a note about what you liked or disliked in it, it would help a lot to better fulfil your expectations. Thank you for reading!
Chapter 13 – A busy day
After all that theory, it was the moment for the children to search for what to do in practice. Luna took the opportunity to get out unnoticed. She had two missions to accomplish alone, as Liz, not being magical, and Paul, too much in evidence, wouldn't be able to help.
While Luna discretely exited, the children quickly reached the conclusion that there was not much to expect from the adults that controls Hogwarts. If the requests of the Boy-Who-Lived didn't make any effect, it was sure they wouldn't find any more success. But, nevertheless, they would try and make pressure as they could for the requests they feel as more important.
Unfortunately, without their timetables in hand, the planning of their extra study sessions was delayed. Anyway, the meeting was productive. Both muggleborns and those raised in the magical world agreed it was necessary to know the other world better, and soon each child of muggle origin had another of magical origin assigned to be her tutor and help them understand the new environment better, and vice-versa, each child of magical origin had one of muggle origin to help them.
After this step was concluded, Paul put out an interesting request. That each one of them put down on paper (or parchment) their Dream Life for when they finished Hogwarts' education: what they would want to do, how they would like to be living, what they aim to achieve in each phase of their lives. Paul defended this experiment citing four benefits: it was a way to better known themselves; to quickly learn about their peers, to easily find kindred spirits and would help the group to find ways to help each of them as individuals to reach their goals. Furthermore, it would be interesting to see how these dreams would change according as they evolve and grow up. His idea was prompted accepted and all of them promised to repeat the experiment every first day of class each year until they graduate.
-o0o-
While most of the children were talking excitedly about what to do with their time at Hogwarts, one in special was feeling extremely harmed and offended by the events. Draco Malfoy had dreamed to come to Hogwarts and quickly starting to make his fame in Slytherin house. With some luck, he even expected to befriend the Boy-Who-Lived and use the boy's fame to make his own grow fast. He found he would need to wait two years to enter Slytherin, most of the children simply ignores his natural superiority and claims for leadership and worst of all, he will have to compete with the blood-traitor Weasley and the mudblood Zurkhof for the leadership in their year. And his godfather, naturally his bigger ally in school, was sent to the Hospital wing after losing a mental fight against a muggle girl who is not even in school. Definitely not the glorious first day of school he dreamed about!
After a quick skirmish with Weasley and his group of maladjusted boys, interrupted before the harsh words escalated into physical aggression by professor Vector, he went to the owlery with the few sensible children he had meet to send a letter to his father, who needs to know about all the atrocities happening at the school. Sure his important father would do something to change this unacceptable situation.
-o0o-
Luna decided to start with the simpler of her two missions. In the first floor she found the History of Magic class empty and, after blocking the door to avoid interruptions, went to work.
Reaching the wall opposite the door, she concentrated in the space filled by six of the blocks of stone who composed the wall. In that space the girl used her magic power to slowly change the Fine Structure Constant so that the electrons in each atom started to orbit the nucleons progressive closely. After two minutes, the six blocks three feet wide had collapsed to the size of a grain of sand, leaving enough space so that she could easily enter the adjacent room and examine the strange gem that the Headmaster had decided to keep there.
-o0o-
Ron was having a great start at Hogwarts. Classes cancelled for the day, had just told Malfoy what he thought about his family avoiding detention or being hurt by his big friends, had made friendships with some boys which had the right priorities and let the bookworms behind to explore the castle with his new friends, searching for fun and food. What more could he want? Better than this, only if the Boy-Who-Lived had come to Hogwarts and joined their group, so they could really teach that Malfoy boy a good lesson!
Now, he and his friends were in a mission! They needed to find the easier paths to the most important places in the school: the Dining Hall, their Common Rooms, the Kitchens and the Quiditch court. Also, they would keep an eye open for any other fun places they could find. In a castle that big, they were certain to find lots of fun places.
-o0o-
Meanwhile, in the Hall of Justice… I mean, in the Teachers' Room, Minerva McGonagall received the visit of professor Vector to discuss the new students' timetables.
"I had everything ready in terms of the four traditional houses" explained Minerva, "Maybe we could use it to short our work. We could consider all the boys as pertaining to one of the houses, and distribute the girls between the other three. What you think, Septima?"
"Sorry, Minerva, but I think it is a terrible idea to keep all boys together. Just coming here I already had to separate two groups of boys who were ready to start a fight. Weasley and Malfoy already have their followers and were anxious to preserve the rivalry between the factions."
"By Merlin, it seems miss Abbott's idea will bring no results!"
"Calm down, Minerva. These are two small groups, and we couldn't hope such ancient and powerful rivalry to disappear instantly. I assure you that most of the new students are behaving quite well and peacefully making friends within themselves. When I left their common room, they were organizing a debate about the importance of education and their expectations about Hogwarts. If we create four groups with the same male/female ratio, we can separate Weasley and Malfoy's groups so they share the minimum of classes together. This could help to minimize future conflicts."
"Really? First year students discussing such matters?" asked Minerva, clearly surprised, but suddenly she went serious. "The articles in The Critical Thinker, I bet it was what they would discuss! We really could profit from implementing some of the changes they suggested, it could do good for the school, but all of that at once would be simply too much! Albus took days to recovery from the fright he suffered at seeing the type of school Harry Potter demand to attend."
"I will talk with them before diner to ensure that nothing unpleasant happens. Poor Pomona definitely could be saved from hearing another comment about cutting the importance of Herbology in the curriculum, and I'm afraid for the child who dare confront Severus face-to-face about what was published on him and his classes."
"I don't know if we would have Potions classes this first week, Septima. Pomfrey is not much confident in such a fast recover. Whatever happened between Severus, little Zurkhof and his sister was something much more serious than what I thought at first. Albus, after talking with Pomfrey, left to Saint Mungos in search of an old friend to help in Severus' case. I got the distinct impression that Albus was more disturbed by the incident than he was willing to show, and his concern was quite showing!"
"Minerva, I know a little about the Mind Arts, even if I was far from being a specialist. An eleven years old boy must not even feel Severus' attack. That a muggle girl has some ability in the area is something never seen before. That she was able to not only perceive the attack against her brother, being connected to his mind even hundreds of miles away, and still wins against the attacker in his own game, an adult well-trained in the Mind Arts, this is more than impressive, is hardly believable. If I hadn't being there to see it, I would be finding it difficult to believe."
"This girl, do you think she could have other powers or… gifts?"
"It is already amazing she has the powers she exhibited. What are you thinking about precisely, Minerva?"
"Well, I visited the Zurkhof family to invite little Paul to Hogwarts, and I noticed some… strange things. Nothing I could describe in detail, but the house and the family, they were normal in a sense but… at the same time, they gave me a strange sensation, like what I saw was only a façade, as if some secrets were being kept hidden, something out of place, I don't know. Would it be possible that the same circumstances that gave this girl her peculiar mental powers could also have made her a seer?"
"As far as I know, there is no correlation between the two abilities. Even more, from all the confirmed seers, it was established that the seers find more difficulties in mastering the Mind Arts than the common wizard or witch, not the opposite. Even so, I would like if you could tell me more about your visit to the Zurkhofs. The boy let me very curious, not only because of the incident with Severus. I don't know if you have noted, but for a boy of muggle origin, he made friends with a bunch of selected magical people, don't you think? Longbottom, Greengrass, Bones and Abbott are some of the oldest and more important pureblood families of our society, and the only muggleborn in their group, the Granger girl, I remember you citing her as the most promising of them."
-o0o-
Luna wasted few time to confirm that the gem hidden in the room was indeed the famous Philosopher's stone of the alchemist Flamel. Leaving behind two sensors to keep an eye on the stone, and had extracted a small splinter of it so her mother and Beth could start their researches of the precious stone, she quickly exited the secret room, returned the classroom to its initial conditions and started her long way up to the seventh floor.
Finding the room of hidden objects was easy, she only needed to follow the precise instructions that Beth had obtained from Voldemort. What was hard was to believe how much more than a place to hide things that room really was!
At first, the room was exactly how Beth had described it: an immense place with all kind of scattered things in any way on all sides. In resume, a total mess! The first thought in the girl's mind was that it would take weeks to find something in such a large and full place. It was at this point that Luna's desire for order and organization brought the first surprise to her.
Having found in its current controller's mind Luna's desire to see all the objects in the room organized by kind, the room, as it was programmed to do, and to the surprise of the little girl, started to do just that. At her left, Luna saw piles and piles of books being formed as each one of them travelled thru the air to occupy its new position. At her far left, piles of clothes and accessories. At her right, potions and potions' ingredients in all kinds of vials and bottles. Another area was receiving toys and games; another one, furniture. Other areas were used for weapons and war-related items; paintings and sculptures; gems and jewellery; and so on.
But that was just the start of surprises for little Luna. Curious about the real capacities of the marvellous room, the girl desired to have an instruction manual explaining all the features of the room. And, as soon as she desire that, there it was, on a stool in front of her, ready to be read, the 'Rowena Ravenclaw's Wonder Room User's Guide'.
-o0o-
Soon after lunch, Septima called the first-year students back to their common room, in which they were followed by Minerva. After everybody entered the room, the two teachers asked Weasley, Malfoy and Zurkhof to take position in different places of the room, as they would be the heads of three of the four groups they wanted to create. When the two teachers started looking for the fourth head, Luna and Daphne anticipated putting a shy and embarrassed Neville in place, positioning themselves behind the boy to give him their support.
The two teachers were surprised by the choice, but as the students were already positioning themselves behind the four heads, they let it that way.
Draco was no fool and immediately became angry with Zurkhof. Not only the mudblood had received the distinction to be one of the leaders, dividing the honour with the three purebloods, but he was also a friend of Neville, which gave him influence on another group of students.
By his side, Ron Weasley was also angry, but for a different reason. His group was the smaller, with only him and his friends Seamus Finnegan, Dean Thomas and Zacharias Smith. At least, before he could complain, the teachers intervened changing students from place until all groups had approximately the same quantity of children.
After that, Minerva made an attribution of colours to each group whose meaning was clear to everybody: Weasley get red, Malfoy get green, Zurkhof the blue and Longbottom the yellow. Most students shared visible sad expressions of 'old habits are hard to die'. It seems that, even with the official selection of houses being delayed, they were just being 'unofficially' sorted.
Finally, Minerva used her wand to produce timetables for each group, distributing them to each child to be followed from the next day on.
-o0o-
After the two adults left, Ron and his friends took control of the games room, while Malfoy and his friends took the best seats near the main fireplace. Paul led the others to the small classroom and protected it against interruptions and eavesdroppers.
With their timetables in hand, soon they were deciding how much time they would set for homework, extra studies and free time. These extra studies caused some conflict at first. Some people, like Hermione Granger and Anthony Goldstein, wanted to include a lot of extra study while others, like Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil, while recognizing the importance of doing more than the expected minimum, hadn't the same disposition to so much extra studies. Also, they had to discuss about what they would study, and how this content would be divided in separated disciplines.
At last they agreed to start with five general studies: Magical World, under responsibility of Susan Bones and Daphne Greengrass; Muggle World, under supervision of Hermione Granger and Kimberly Bishop; History of Muggle Technology, by the Zurkhofs; Basic History of Science and Ideas, under care of Luna and Paul; and History of Magic, headed by Anthony Goldstein and Blaise Zabini, who knew a lot about the topic. Quite different from the Hogwarts classes on History of Magic, who concentrated in the political history and the war and battles among magical beings, the extra classes on History of Magic would focus on in the inventions and discoveries of the magical world, be it in potions, rituals, spells, enchantments or the way in which the practice of magic had changed along the time and in different societies.
Those extra studies were the minimum the students would have to follow if they want to be members of the 'special group of studies', but they could use their free time to go beyond if they so wish, and Hermione soon was leading a small group who was discussing what more could they do, while most of them chose to explore the castle, write home or work in their 'post-Hogwarts dreams' as suggested by Paul.
Luna took this little pause in joint activities and her telepathic link with the Zurkhofs to update them about her discoveries. That a real Philosopher's Stone was kept in the school at their reach just received a brief comment was a good measure of how much Rowena's Wonder Room had amazed the three children. To know that the room was used only to hide objects was such an absurd, like acquire a desktop computer to use it just as a table clock!
And what an immense computer that room was! It was the realization of Paul's dream of a computer controlled by thought and able to implement the amazing 'Virtual Reality' he had read so many times in science fiction and computer magazines, and created by a witch a thousand years go to boot! And Luna had tested the room in several ways, always successfully, even when she asked for a dozen foot-height mini-Snapes that she chases around the room kicking their behinds! The two Zurkhofs burst into laughter just seeing the scene Luna broadcast to them!
But Luna soon returned to what was important, and summarized the results of her missions: the Philosopher's stone under surveillance, a small splinter being examined by Beth and Selena; the tiara delivered home so that another horcrux was destroyed; an immense collection of books, including lots of centuries' old manuscripts, also delivered home to be added to their always growing library; a great lot of rare potions and potions' ingredients acquired for research; a fortune in antiquities and jewellery to be sorted out later; and a very special room that would be extremely useful as teaching and training facility and secret base for their special meetings. Adding to this the great success of the study group, involving most of their peers, it was really a very profitable day for the three of them.
The only inconvenient point came from Liz's report on what she saw in Snape's mind. The mixture of obsession and lust that the man nourished for Paul's biological mother, and that the man confused as love, made the children feel sickened. The hate Snape felt against James Potter, and by extension, his son Harry, was sick and insane. To know that Snape was the one to hear the prophecy and informed Voldemort about it, starting the process which killed Paul's parents, was disgusting, but there was more.
What really shocked the children was to discover how the man deceived himself imagining his time at Hogwarts as a redemptive effort of his part in favour of the children, making them stronger and more apt to live in the real world out there. He simply was unable to recognize that hatred and bitterness he let dominate his life was escaping and finding satisfaction in tormenting children who were nothing learning anything other than bad habits, unfounded hostility and suffering. And that all of this could happen without his superiors at Hogwarts taking steps to stop it was a bad signal about the way the school was controlled. To take out such monster from his position of power and contact with children acquired a much higher priority in the mind of the three junior conspirators. That man's soul was judged too much damaged to be redeemed.
-o0o-
Albus Dumbledore was worried. What had started as a group of rebellious children challenging the authority of those responsible for their new school was taking the form of something much bigger and sinister.
The headmaster of Hogwarts was surprised last night at seeing the selection of the new students delayed. He wasn't sure yet of the merit of this decision, as he doubt such a simple measure could make much difference in the rivalry between the houses, but he was willing to try.
To find that the children involved in that change had created a group protected by a vow of secrecy let the old teacher somewhat disturbed, but not that much. After all, children usually distrust adults, and to imagine themselves as part of a secret society, with plans and ideas to hide and all that sense of mystery, typical of juvenile literature, was something too tempting for the fertile imagination and desire for adventures typical of their age.
The great wizard only started to be really worried after the collapse of his potions' teacher. Albus knew quiet well the proficiency of Severus in the Mind Arts, have been his main tutor. That a little muggle girl could be able to defeat him in such a match was terrifying. That she wasn't even present in the same room, using a mind connection with his brother, was unbelievable. It was too much power in the hands of a child, and he must investigate it as soon as possible, and put it under control so that it couldn't do even bigger harm.
That was the reason why, as soon as he talked to his old friend, healer Healthman, and convinced him to take care of Severus, Albus decided to visit the Zurkhofs and analyse the girl who so easily had put his Potions Master out of combat.
It wasn't difficult to find the house. Dumbledore had enough experience in dealing with the muggle world. The problem was that nobody was there.
Against his natural inclination, Albus decided to enter the house anyway, anxious to discover anything he could about that family. The door opened with the simplest of the spells. The first impression the old wizard get from the place was that of a normal muggle house which had just been cleaned before their occupants went out for some errand. But the quantity of mail accumulated near the door told him a different history, of at least two months of nobody being there.
With his wand still in hand, Dumbledore started a search for traces of magic being executed in that environment. What he found was much more than what he would expected in the most magical of the homes. Strange rune-like patterns were activated and glowing in the floor, walls, ceiling and on the surface of the furniture. They were something Albus had never seen before, resembling rune clusters, but forming not a group of distinct runes, but an unique design like the mandalas of the Hindus, and much more geometric and precise than any system of Runes he had studied. Traces of high complex magic shone tenuously across the space, showing that a fabulous amount of high-level magic had been used there for years. That definitively wasn't a common muggle house, not even a magical common house, but a place where a true master, or several, had been dealing with things far beyond the reach of normal wizards and witches. The only comforting news was that there was no sign of black magic anywhere, but everything else he discovered there were mysteries to add to his already growing pile of questions about the Zurkhofs.
-o0o-
While Dumbledore investigated the Zurkhofs, the subscribers of The Critical Thinker were reading with interest about the delayed sorting of the new students and the mental attack of a Hogwarts' teacher against one of the children.
The Mind Arts weren't so well-known and hated as Black Magic, Necromancy and the Unforgivable Hexes. They usually were considered part of a third group, together with Sex Magic, Rituals, and all magic associated with blood or soul, that wizards and witches simply ignored just to avoid entering the endless debates about if they are acceptable or not, or if they should be prohibited and banned or not.
That a Hogwarts' teacher knew the Art and so easily and lightly made use of it against an undefended new student would cause a public commotion that soon would, at least, start an investigation on the matter. Hogwarts soon would feel such commotion.
-o0o-
"Daphne, do you have a minute, please?" asked Paul coming close of his friend that already filled a yard of parchment with her dreams for her life after Hogwarts.
"Sure, Paul. What can I do for you?"
"I wrote to your sisters and cousin, telling them about our first day here, as I promised, and I was thinking to send them now."
"Oh, I also wrote them, we can send them together. Tracy, did you wrote too?" Daphne asked her cousin.
"Yes, here it is. Are you two going to the owlery? I didn't find where it is" asked Tracy.
"Well, if Daphne doesn't mind, I could read from her mind the location of Rachel's room and open a portal to there, letting the letters in some easy-to-find place. It would be much faster than making an owl fly all the way there" explained Paul.
"Really? If I concentrate in my sister's bedroom, can you open a portal there? Wow, that means we can visit them too, doesn't it? And they can come here visit us, right?" asked an excited Daphne.
"Well… yes, we can visit them, or they can visit us, but we need to be careful about it. We don't want to alert the staff for this possibility, or the people out of our group" said Paul.
After some fast talk, the three went to the room for practice of magic, which was empty, and Paul opened a Portal to Daphne's bedroom, so that she and Tracy could visit the Greengrass' home for an hour. Paul promised to reopen the portal by that time and asked them to not be late.
-o0o-
As soon as he returned to Hogwarts, Dumbledore called Minerva to this office. She immediately reported that the first-year students already had their timetables and that healer Healthman forecast a total recuperation for Severus, but somewhat long, probably a week or two before he could return to his duties.
By his side, Albus reported to his friend about his visit to the Zurkhofs and what he had found there, as well as his need to know more about them and their activities.
"I just talked with Alastor. He agreed to investigate the whereabouts of the Zurkhofs and any involvement they could have with the magical world. But this will take some time" explained Albus. "About the Zurkhof we have here at the school, I thought to ask for the help of the youngest Weasley to collect some information for us. What do you think, Minerva?"
"Ron Weasley? Sure he is the easiest of the new students to approach, but I must alert you, Albus, he is far from being as intelligent and diligent as his older brothers, and is possible he had already been vocal in showing his displeasure with Zurkhof. I know he had refused the invitation to be part of Zurkhof's study group. Ronald chooses to spend his time playing with his new friends and exploring the castle. It can be hard for him to gain any useful information, unless…"
"Yes, Minerva? Some idea?" encouraged Albus at seeing his deputy lost in thought.
"Percival Weasley, his brother. He became a prefect this year, and had a little incident with Zurkhof's group in the Express. Maybe we could talk with both of them, putting Percival in charge to guide his young brother about how to proceed. This way we could obtain better results."
"Excellent!" exclaimed Albus. "Minerva, could you please take care of these arrangements to me? You certainly saw the article in The Critical Thinker about the incident this morning. I need to go to the Ministry to calm down the mood there before someone try to interfere with our internal business."
Professor McGonagall let it clear with her expression that she wasn't pleased with the mission the headmaster just confided to her, but she knew it was a waste of time to complain. Anyway, she decided to attack another delicate point.
"Albus, do you really think it is wise to keep Severus as a teacher? The amount of claims against him, and all that this new magazine has exposed, and the pressure of the parents… Maybe we could limit him to the upper years and put someone more malleable to teach the younger years…"
"Minerva, we already discussed this matter so many times" sighed the headmaster. "Severus need to be in a strong position in Hogwarts for when Voldemort returns. Only so he would be able to reassume his position as a spy for our side, and this will be essential for us."
"I don't know, Albus, I sincerely don't know if the benefits outweigh the years of bad teaching and all the biased…"
"Let's at least wait until young Severus is recovered before we continue this topic. It is possible that many things had changed until there" concluded Dumbledore, putting a final point on that topic, to the disappointment of McGonagall.
-o0o-
Daphne and Tracy returned happy from their visit home, but with a request.
"Paul, mum wants to make a special lunch on Sunday to know this group we made. By what she told us, the idea came from dad, so, be ready to answer a lot of questions and pass thru a rigorous evaluation" commented Daphne.
"And don't even think in not going. Aunty Helen mentioned the invitation in front of Rachel, and you'll break the little girl's heart if you deny her time with her hero! She doesn't talk about anything else the rest of our time there!" finished Tracy.
"We need to inform mum how many people to expect as soon as possible. Would you like to invite your mum? Maybe Luna's parents as well? That way you will not be the only target for dad's questions" Daphne said with a mischievous smile.
"Ah… well… I'll talk with the people and let you know, okay?" Paul asked somewhat worried with the future meeting with Daphne's parents. He decided for now to change to a more pleasurable topic: "And what about Rachel? How is she?"
Daphne smile before answering: "Telling and retelling her yesterday's adventure to each and every painting in the house, and I assure you they are many, with lots of praise to the super-hero that made it all possible. At least at home, Paul Zurkhof is now more famous than Harry Potter!"
To the happiness of the two girls, Paul reddens a lot hearing the comment, and got all embarrassed. To flight from all the teasing, he changed topics again: "Well, it is time to start our meeting. We would want to finish before diner, isn't?"