Marik
"I am hopeful that everyone here remembers our lesson on Monday about magical traces. If you do not I would suggest that you look over page seven-hundred-and-thirty-two again and refresh your memory quickly. Miss Bulstrode, remind me what you learned in charms from Professor Flitwick about enchantments," McGonagall lectured to the class.
"Uhh. . . uhh. . ." Millicent Bulstrode started to stammer out.
"My slice of carrot cake at tomorrow's closing feast says she gets it wrong," Harry whispered.
"You can't bet food in a bet dealing with Bulstrode. I'm pretty sure that is sacrilegious or racist or something," he replied, snickering a little as they watched his fellow Slytherin house-mate struggle.
"Uhh. . ." Millicent continued to stutter but no actual words came.
"Miss Bulstrode I would suggest that you try and pay a little more attention in all of your classes and a little less time chatting with your peers. Must I remind everyone here that end of year projects are due tomorrow. Mr. Potter, I hope that you can provide me with a better answer." McGonagall turned to face Harry.
"Haha," Marik whispered to Harry as he watched the gears in his friends head scrambling to come up with the answer.
"Yes professor. In our lesson on enchantments Professor Flitwick told us that an enchantment is a spell or ritual that imbues a piece or pieces of magic into an object. What the pieces of magic are and what the enchantment does depends on the spell or ritual," Harry replied. Marik snickered again as he watched Harry switch to his polite yes-mam attitude.
"Thank you Mr. Potter. Now, when an object is enchanted it leaves behind a magical trace just like a normal spell does. So just as some of you were able to detect what spells had been cast on an object you should also be able to detect which enhancements have been used on an object. However, what about if you don't want someone to be able to detect magic on an object. . ." McGonagall started to lecture again.
"I thought about betting two pots of ink against you on that question," he whispered to Harry as McGonagall turned around.
"Like I would miss a question in transfiguration. That's your job," Harry replied, a smug smirk on his face.
"You're dead to me," he added, turning his chin back to McGonagall.
"Let's say that your family has a magical safe at home that they have enchanted to repel unlocking spells. Any schooled witch or wizard would be able to find the safe in the house just by searching for traces of magic. However, with transfiguration magic you can transfigure even traces of magic to make them harder to detect, or resemble something else.
"Another example of this is with animagi. In the Great War there were a few aurors used by the ministry as spies against the enemies. The animagi aurors would transfigure themselves into their animagus forms as a way to get closer to the enemy without being detected. A few of them were caught though. How you ask, well this is because the enemy was able to detect magic in the animals they saw.
"Once this was realised by a few of the aurors they began transfiguring their traces into something different to make it harder to detect. Arnold Hibigiby is one of the more well known cases of this. Arnold's animagus form was a skunk. So he used transfiguration magic to turn the magical traces of his transformation into an awful scent. The enemies were so distracted by the smell that he was never detected or caught.
"While you may only find yourself needing to cast a spell like this once in a . . ." McGonagall continued to lecture.
"Could you do that with yours yet?" he whispered to Harry.
"I took a note of it but I doubt I'm anywhere near being able to do something like that with my animagus yet," Harry whispered back.
"How long did you and 'Mione end up practicing that yesterday by the way? She looked like she had been up pretty late at breakfast this morning," he asked Harry.
"For five hours at least. It's my toughest presentation so we wanted to make sure I had it down pact. Hermione said I wasn't selling the performance well enough soe she made me practice that too."
"Damn, I bet she was probably up in her room all night working on her own projects then if it took that long. No wonder she looked tired."
"You know how she is around this time of the year. I doubt that she has gotten more than three hours of sleep each night these past few weeks. Where were you and Alina last night by the way? We thought for sure you both were coming to the lab."
"We were in the library all freaking afternoon. I found one date that was wrong in her essay on the Lumos duo spell and ghouls and she started having a panic attack. It took me an hour to get her to calm down and stop crying and after that she wouldn't let us leave until we double checked everything. If Madam Pince hadn't forced us out of the library Alina would have probably tried to keep me there all night."
"Well did she at least finish it?"
"Pretty much yeah. She was going to go over the actual presentation part of it when she got back to her room so I imagine she had a late night too." Knowing Alina and how much she was freaking out about all of her end of year projects he would have been honestly surprised if she had even tried to go to bed last night.
"Well how about you? What all do you have left?" Harry asked him as McGonagall took some points away from Gryffindor because Ron Weasley had been sleeping in the back of class. Marik laughed a little as the red haired boy's face somehow managed to get redder than his hair.
"I'm pretty much good on all my projects. After last year I knew I better have them all done earlier this year if I wanted to have anytime to help everyone else. I'm just going to practice my charms and spell creation project a few more times when we get to the lab," he answered.
"That will be all for today. Good luck on adding the last few touches to your projects. I and the rest of your professors hope that you will not let us down with them. Dismissed," McGonagall announced to the room and at once everyone rose in a hurry to pack their bags and get back to wherever they were either starting or finishing up their end of year projects.
"Do you need to stop by your room to get anything or are we good to go?" Harry asked him as they packed up their things.
"I'm good to go if you are," he replied, putting his notes into his bag.
"Harry I hope that you plan on spending sometime today making sure your transfiguration project is perfect," Professor McGonagall said to Harry as she made her way over to their table.
"Yes professor that's actually what we were just about to go do," Harry replied, noticeably nervous.
"And Mr. Ose while I do appreciate you helping Harry with his project you also know that I expect whatever your project is to give him a run for his money. I'm all for friends helping friends out but you both should still be aiming for first in all of your classes," McGonagall added, turning her attention to him.
"No worries there professor, I know animagus magic will be tough to be beat but I think I will give Harry a good run for his money this year," Marik replied, honestly confident that he really would give Harry a decent run this year.
"I'm happy to hear that Mr. Ose. Now, off you to go," McGonagall said, shooing them out of the classroom.
"This place looks like a ghost town today," Harry commented as they made their way out into the castle halls and headed towards the dungeons.
"Yeah, it does, everyone has probably already locked themselves in their common rooms or practice rooms by this point," he replied, his voice echoing off the empty hallway's walls.
"Speaking of common rooms did you hear what the Weasley twins did yesterday yet?" Harry asked him as they turned a corner and headed down a stairwell.
"No I didn't yet, what'd they do?" he asked.
"So I only saw the tail end of things but apparently they made some sort of ink and quill that turned every word you wrote to say something insulting about one of the professors after thirty minutes. From what I saw they had replaced over fifteen Gryffindor first year quills and ink with them. When I walked in all of the first years were practically crying from panic attacks as everything they had written over the past thirty minutes for their end of year projects had turned into useless insults that would more likely get them expelled than a good mark haha," Harry explained, laughing the entire time.
"I would have killed them if that had been me! What did some of the insults say?" he asked curiously.
"I took one of the quills ad tried it out before I went to bed. Let's just say there was a lot of stuff about the color and design of Snape's underwear and a lot of stuff about the size of Trelawney's glasses in comparison to her breast," Harry answered, again laughing the entire time.
"Yeah, I would have definitely killed them if that had been me," Marik replied, joining in on the laughter as they arrived to their potion's lab door.
"About damn time you two showed up!" Alina shouted at them as they opened the door and entered. The room was covered in cauldrons, papers, books, quills, and ink bottles. It looked like someone had come in and cast a deprimo spell it was so chaotic.
"Sorry that some of us had class today!" Harry argued as he grabbed the seat next to Hermione. Marik made his way around the large table to grab the one next to Alina.
"Excuses excuses!" Alina argued back. Her nose was hovering over her cauldron as she stirred it vigorously.
"We ready to get started?" he asked everyone as he started to unpack his bag. He had to push a huge pile of Alina's papers off the desk to make just a little space for his stuff.
"Well Alina did one more edit of my acromantula essay this morning and we just added the last few ingredients to her foreverlight potion so I think for the most part we are all good to go," Hermione replied. The bags under her eyes looked even deeper and darker today. The poor girl looked like she could use a good nap.
"Alright well who wants to start?" Harry asked them all.
"Me please! I'm going first tomorrow anyways so," Alina replied quickly. The bags under her eyes weren't as bad as Hermione's were but Alina had ink all over her hands which meant that she had probably been writing all night and all morning long. She even had a smudge of ink on the side of her nose that she had apparently not noticed yet.
He grabbed a towel from one of the drawers under the table and soaked the tip of end under the sink. "Alina look at me," he ordered, bringing his hands and towel up to her face to wipe the smudge off her nose.
"Oh. . . Thanks," Alina replied as she looked at the smudge on the towel that had come off her nose. She did her usual blush that she did so often that he loved as his hands left her face.
"Alright Alina go ahead," Harry said.
"Right. Okay so we knocked out my spell creation, herbology, history of magic, and charms yesterday so today I just want you all to help with my transfiguration and dark arts. Hermione already checked my report on my potion and its quality so that's one done too," Alina explained.
"Okay, well let's start with dark arts first," he told her.
"Okay, well who wants to take a quick look at the report while I go over the presentation?" Alina asked their group.
"I'll do the report," Harry replied and took the paper from Alina.
"Alright well I'm going to keep the presentation short and sweet so I'm not just repeating everything that is in the paper," Alina started to explain.
"What are you going to start it with?" Hermione asked.
"That's actually where I'm having the most trouble. Do you think I should mention and demonstrate the spell incantation and wand movements? Or do you think I should just focus more on the report side of things?" Alina asked them.
"You should do it like this." Marik stood up and made his way over to the open part of the potions lab and took out his wand. "For my dark arts project I did an examination and report on the lumos duo spell and ghouls," he started to pace around as he started his example and right when he announced the name of the spell he cast it into the room so that the focused beam of wandlight emerged from his wand as he walked.
"Yeah, I like that. So that way you are demonstrating to Kingsley that you have a mastery of the spell itself along with all of the information pertaining to it," Hermione added to Alina.
"Okay, thanks Marik, I like that way too. I was going to do fifteen seconds on the history of the spell and its effects on ghouls after that. I have a large section of my report on its uses for charging crystal balls as well, do you think I should dedicate more time to that or more time the analytical data of the spell?" Alina asked them.
"Analytics for sure. Again you want to show them that you understand the spell inside and outm" Harry answered.
"I agree," he added.
"Same," Hermione agreed with them.
"Analytics it is then. Alright well then I guess I'm good to go. Tell me how this looks and sounds," Alina said as she stood up from the table and made her way over to the empty side of the potions lab to do a mock-run of her presentation for them to look at.
Over the next three minutes Alina did a run through of her dark arts project for them. He, Hermione, and Harry all watched on from their spots at the table, observing Alina and taking notes on any improvements that she could make to her presentation.
"So what did you think? Please be honest with me," Alina asked them.
"It was certainly very well done, so don't stress about it too much. One pointer I would add would be to make sure near the end when you are talking about the spectrum of the beam that you emphasize the input levels of power a little more. You made them seem like more of a side note than being as important to the spell as they are," Harry was the first to answer.
"I was going to say the same thing as Harry did. Other than that it was perfect," Hermione answered.
"Marik?" Alina asked him.
"I agree it was well done. One thing I would say in regards to selling the presentation a little bit better would be to make sure you keep moving when you demonstrate spell. You stopped, casted the spell, then kept moving.
"It's just like in dueling. If your opponent has to stop to cast a spell you can make the assumption that they probably aren't a master of that spell. Kingsley will make that same observation. Casting spells on the run or whilst moving is a little tougher, so make sure you are moving as you talk and casting."
"Thanks Marik!" Alina replied, one side of her lips curved upwards with a smile.
"Alright do your transfiguration one now and then we will switch," Hermione said.
"Okay, so my transfiguration one McGonagall looked over on Wednesday and said that the report section looked good, so all I need to practice again is the presentation part," Alina explained.
"Let's see what you got then," he said, anxious to see if she had made any changes to the presentation since the last time they had practiced it.
Just like before Alina started to do her presentation in front of them as they looked on for any changes or mistakes to fix. Alina's transfiguration project was a fairly simple one to present. Most of the hard part for it was actually just learning the magic and writing the report. Alina had taken an idea from Harry's mom for her project.
Back when Harry's mother had been at Hogwarts she had used transfiguration magic to get a goldfish into a flower whenever there was sunlight touching the bowl. Alina's project also used a flower but she had used transfiguration magic to make the flower's petals change color depending on her mood. The magic itself was pretty difficult but Alina proved as she presented for them that she had gotten the spell down.
"Okay, so first note, give McGonagall the flower earlier. She needs to be able to look it at while you present more. The way you just did it only gave her a brief moment to look at it," Hermione was the first to speak as Alina finished.
"And make sure you are a little more confident with the presentation. The flower was purple the entire time. If she looks at your report she will see that purple is the color of nervousness. The flower should turn colors in the presentation to show it works but you should just do happy and confident colors ya know?" Harry added.
"Thanks guys. And I will try to be more confident. This is just my first ever time presenting end of year projects. You guys had to be nervous last year right?" Alina asked them.
"Of course we were nervous. But as soon as our presentations started we let that go. We knew we were good, we just had to prove it to everyone," he replied. He had been extremely nervous the night before his first presentations, but as soon as he had walked into the Great Hall he had been as confident as anyone.
"Well I hope my stuff is good enough to prove to everyone that I'm good," Alina said.
"It will be, we promise. My turn!" Hermione replied and stood up to start her last project run through. "Okay, so take a look at my potions paper one more time for me please. I am ready and done with everything but it at the moment. This one needs to be perfect too. I can't afford to mess up on this one, especially since Dumbledore is a creator of the method I brewed my Draught of peace with," Hermione explained.
Marik pushed his chair over to where Harry was sitting at the table and looked over his shoulder at Hermione's report. He gave the report a quick one-over and then watched Hermione give her speech.
Hermione had once again, at least to Marik, proved that she was the top dog when it came to potions. Her draught of peace was not only an even more difficult potion to brew than the animarevealo potion she had brewed last year, but Hermione had used a lot of her ministry grant money to buy dragon's blood to use on the potion. By using dragon's blood in the brewing process the potion's difficulty increased by forty-one percent, which basically meant that the fact that Hermione had managed to somehow get a ninety-seven percent accuracy rating on her potion guaranteed her an 'M' as long as her report looked good.
"Once again, I think it looks fine Hermione. Snape said it did too already," Harry replied with a smile.
"I agree. Your presentation is fine too," he replied. Hermione's report was flawless. The odds of finding an error in a Hermione paper were about as good as finding Snape in pink robes.
"You sure?" Hermione asked them with a skeptical look.
"We are sure," they replied in unison, both of them rolling their eyes.
"Okay, well if you say so. Guess I'm done then," Hermione replied, an accomplished smile appearing on her face.
"Go ahead Harry," Marik said.
"Alright. Well I am not practicing my animagus transfiguration project today since I need to save all the energy I can for it tomorrow. My way-viewer I think is good too. Hermione you did check the math on the moon chart interface section of my notes again this morning right?" Harry asked Hermione as he looked over his projects' check list.
"Yeah, I did. Alina helped me with it too. All the math checked out and the font choice you chose looked good as well," Hermione answered.
"Alright then I guess all I want to go over one more time is my charms project. Who wants to be my guinea pig this time?" Harry asked them.
"I'll do it. You're using me for your presentation anyways so might as well practice on me now," Marik replied and moved over to the other side of the room where he and Marik could practice.
"Sounds good. Here," Harry said as he handed Marik a whiteboard and a marker. "If everyone doesn't mind I want to do the presentation part too with the spells. I made a few tweaks yesterday I wanna see how they play out."
"Yeah, go ahead," Alina replied before anyone and Harry started his charms presentation.
". . .So with that in mind, no pun intended let's test the spells out. For this section of my presentation I will need the help of my good friend Marik and also the help of Professor Flitwick," Harry said, and Hermione and Alina clapped as Marik pretended to bow to the stands. "Really?" Harry asked them with a roll of his eyes as Marik sat back down on his stool and the girls stopped clapping.
"For the first demonstration Professor Flitwick I would like you to write a list of five spells. The spells can be any spell you want. They can even be ones we have not learned in class. I want you to give Marik that list of spells. Marik I want you to write the five spells on your whiteboard and show everyone in the stands what spells Professor Flitwick chose.
"I will be blindfolded the entire this is taking place. When the names of the spells have all been written and the crowd has seen them I will start," Harry continued. Harry blindfolded himself and Hermione and Alina wrote a list of five spells that then gave to Marik. Marik copied the spells onto his white paper and showed the board to the imaginary crowd.
"Okay, I will now dive into Marik's mind and read the spells of the whiteboard through the memories Marik created as he wrote them down. Legilimens!" Harry shouted out the spell and immediately Marik could feel Harry inside his head. The feeling was uncomfortable, like you had a slight ache behind your eyes or an itch you couldn't scratch.
Hello cutie. Marik heard a whispered voice that sounded like Harry say inside his head.
I will kill you. He focused on the thought, trying to make it clear that Harry needed to speed it up and stop joking around.
"Alright I have located the memory and found the spells that Marik wrote on his board. The spells on his board are Harry is cute, Harry is stupid, Harry forgot to wear deodorant today, Harry is lame, and last but not least Harry's fly is unzipped," Harry announced into the room. Marik, Alina, and Hermione all burst out into laughter.
"Bravo!" They all shouted in unison.
"Very funny guys! Next time you better write what he actually gives you though!" Harry shouted, rolling his eyes at them again.
"I did write what they gave me! And that's impressive as hell man. If you were able to get all of that then tomorrow will be a breeze. It won't be enough to beat me, but it will still be good," Marik replied with a cocky smirk.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, thanks for helping me,"Harry said, grabbing his seat back at the table.
"Thanks for not frying my brain while you were in there," Marik replied as he went to is bag to grab his notes.
"All right Marik finish us off. I'm starting to get hungry," Alina said.
"You are always hungry," Hermione replied.
"So!" Alina argued, sticking out her tongue.
"Well I just wanna do two things so I will make them quick. Hermione," he said and made his way over to the open side of the room with Hermione, who would be assisting him with his presentations tomorrow.
"Okay, I am just gonna wing the presentation part for these but I want your opinions on at least how I should do the actual spell casting part," he explained.
"Which spell do you want to start with?" Hermione asked him.
"Let's do dark arts first. So I my idea with it is to demonstrate the spell in two different methods. One offensive and one defensive. So I want you first Hermione to try and cast a stupefy at me. The first one I'm going to stop you from getting the spell off. After I do that I want you to cast another one at me, that time I'm going to just block the spell," he explained to her.
"Ready?" she asked him, her wand raised.
"Go," he ordered.
"Stupe. . ." Hermione started to shout the spell out.
"Umbrosio!" He cast his shadow magic spell before she could finish. As quick as lighting a shadowy, black, smoky figure shot up from the ground behind Hermione. One arm grabbed Hermione's wrist before she could finish the wand movement, the figure's other arm wrapped itself around Hermione's mouth, not letting her finish the incantation. After a brief moment he cut the spell off and the figure dissipated into Hermione's shadow.
"Stupefy!" Hermione shouted out as soon as she was free.
"Umbrosio!" he shouted out his spell again. Another figure emerged, but this time out of his shadow. The figure stepped in front of him and took the full brunt of Hermione's spell. Smoke and dark energy erupted into the room but Marik was unharmed by Hermione's spell. It worked.
"Still spooks me every time," Hermione said with a shiver as they finished.
"Looked badass as hell to me! I think that Hermione should use incarcerous instead of stupefy though. The ropes will look more dramatic than one beam of magic will," Alina gave her opinion.
"I didn't think of that. That's a good idea. Yeah, Hermione do incarcerous tomorrow instead. Everything else though we will keep the same," he replied, looking over his notes one last time.
"So is that everything?" Harry asked them.
"Everyone has their potions in a flask ready to present?" Hermione asked.
"Yes!" they all replied in unison.
"All presentation papers are tidy and ready to give to the professors?" he asked them all.
"Yes!" they replied in unison.
"Everyone knows how they want to present everything?" Alina asked them as they all checked another box off their checklist.
"Yes!" they all again replied in unison.
"Harry has his fly finally zipped up?" Hermione asked.
"No!" He and Alina shouted in unison as Harry once again rolled his eyes. Hermione burst into tired giggles.
"Hahaha you all are so funny," Harry groaned out painfully.
"Let's go freaking eat now!" Alina shouted out in excitement as she jumped up off her stool.
"I agree with that suggestion," he added, stretching some kinks out as he stood up from his stool too.
"Alright let's go. Then everyone needs to head to their rooms to get some sleep for tomorrow!" Hermione ordered, sounding like his mother.
"Yes mother," Harry replied before he could.
"I'm so hungry I could eat a hippogriff. I wish Hogwarts had a class on magical foods. I would for sure get an 'M' in that!" Alina said as they extinguished the candles in their potions lab and headed towards the Great Hall, laughing all the way.
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