Summary: After Callisto Potter defeats Voldemort in the graveyard after the third task, Minister Fudge and Headmaster Dumbledore decide to create an exchange program with the Altair Institute of Magic, a school that caters to all types of magical beings, to "improve" relations with creatures. They just want the Girl-Who-Lived out of their hair. Like all things involving Callisto, everything goes sideways.
Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I don't seem to have acquired a massive amount of money recently, so I regret to inform you that I am not J. K. Rowling... Sadly. Ergh, back to being nearly broke~!
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Word Count:: 1,902
[September 9, 1994 :: Student Garden, Altair Institute of Magic]
Yesterday, when Marcus had mentioned to Susan that she, and the other Hogwarts students in the Shamanic Magic classes should probably just not bother wearing shoes, she didn't even bother mentioning it to anyone else. Of course, Luna had still shown up without shoes.
Blaise had laughed when he'd seen her.
He didn't notice how very few of the Altair students were wearing shoes, including Freyr, who seemed to be trying to make it a little easier on the Hogwarts students.
Then Hadriel Quiell had shown up, insulted and degraded the Hogwarts students, Freyr, and more than one non-fae students, and ordered them to take off their shoes. He had declared that if they were so self-important as to be so disconnected with the world around them, they had better leave his class (and better yet, the school).
So today, they had left their shoes in their rooms and trudged through the frigid air and damp grass to the garden that Quiell planned to teach them at.
Yesterday really hadn't been very informative. Quiell had spend half the time insulting nearly everyone who wasn't fae, and then describing all of the glorious ways you could use the magic, before declaring that "Oh, but only proper fae could do that."
Freyr had mentioned that the first lessons in any Altair class were meant to dissuade students from taking the class again before vanishing. Literally. He just… melted into the greenery.
That was yesterday.
Today had not gone well either.
Quiell had, however, shown them an example of ritual and renewal magic. That wasn't Susan's problem with it at all. Her problem came in when that ritual magic was of the kind do only properly affect fae-and to debilitate anyone who wasn't fae.
Quiell had instructed some of the students to set up a ritual while explaining the importance of each component, and when it was time to perform the ritual, he had a (fae) student from a higher class come and perform it. Quiell had referred to it as a 'ritual of the simplest kind of renewal magic,' one that he could have performed in his sleep.
Quiell did not mention that the ritual he chose was prejudiced against non-fae.
He also didn't help when nearly the entire non-fae portion of the class had collapsed in pain from the hostility of the ritual he chose.
…
Wait, why was Luna still standing?
…
[September 9, 1994 :: Jonathan Powell's Classroom, Altair Institute of Magic]
Callisto found it rather interesting that while Altair required students to take Charms, there was no requirement for anyone to take Transfiguration. She'd asked Sei the previous day, and he had just grinned and told her that "you'll find out tomorrow." Not the most comforting, she had to say.
Here she was, back in Powell's class.
"Undoubtedly, all of you have had some training in Transfiguration before now." Powell began, "However, I am not entirely sure what rules you have been taught before now. Various magical academies," Callisto noticed his eyes trail over the Hogwarts students, "like teaching how to transfigure objects or animals, but very rarely teach many of the rules surrounding the subject. This includes, of course, teaching rules that don't actually exist."
"What?" Hermione blurts out. Callisto can't help but sigh. Hermione had always thought that the majority of Hogwarts teachers were infallible. But really, after four full days of being proven wrong, that opinion still hadn't changed.
Powell's unimpressed stare seemed to mirror Callisto's own unimpressed thoughts.
"Many people are taught that magic follows the same laws as physics. Conservation of mass, energy, and whatnot. While it certainly does, for the most part, Transfiguration is one of those subjects that seems to be a particular exception to the rule." Powell continues, seeming to ignore Hermione's outburst.
"Fee-zicks?" Callisto hears Ron ask from behind her. Right, she thinks despondently, they won't even know what the most basic laws of physics are. Well. This will be interesting.
"Physics, Weasley." Powell corrects, turning to him with narrowed eyes. "I assume, at least, that our Hogwarts students know what the most basic laws of physics are."
Surprisingly, most of the Hogwarts students in the class had enough tact not to respond. They figured that they would just fill in each others knowledge later (something that was moderately effective and didn't get them harassed by mocking students). But not Ron.
"What's physics?"
Callisto sincerely hoped he got kicked out soon. The quicker he left, the less likely it was that he would end up very, very dead.
…
[Letter :: Callisto Potter-Black to Fred Weasley, George Weasley]
Dearest twins,
I request humbly and politely that you do something about your idiot brother Ronald.
Get your mother to withdraw him- send him a Howler telling him he has to go back to Hogwarts or something! This idiot is going to get himself murdered, or flayed, or tortured or something, and I know for certain there won't be ANYONE helping him out of it. Even Granger has tried to get away from him, and she's barely tactful enough to not get her own head cut off in class.
Off of that subject, dear twins, I got your letter.
Pranking the "filthy toad," Dumbledore style? Ingenious. Bravo!
Of course, I will send you a list of ideas that I think might be useful. Yes, I will actually put in an investment into WWW. I'll tell Sirius (who'll ask Remus) to formally fill out the paperwork and documents needed to both found a business and make me a primary investor in it.
I'll be sending you a book-don't think of it as a gift, think of it as an investment to further my company even further-that contains a lot of helpful beginner Stealth Magic tips. Most of them are just basic spells to change hair, eye or skin color. The real disguises work better with size and shape change, but you really need to be supervised to learn that. If I get good at it, maybe I'll teach you next summer.
Mischief Managed,
Callisto Potter
P.S. No. I'm not telling you who my 'little birdie' is. Find your own.
...
[September 9, 1994 :: Dueling Platforms, Altair Institute of Magic]
As every torture session started, the Hogwarts students ran three laps to the end of the row of dueling platforms and back, and then began stretching and doing other exercises. After three days of classes, most of them started on the laps before Warner even got there. The happier the incubus was the less likelihood of him taking it out on them. ("And," Blaise overheard Susan whispering to Hannah, "the prettier his smile is.")
Honestly, Blaise couldn't help but wonder, who's bright idea was it to make a sadistic incubus the teacher for a physical class.
Blaise certainly noticed how pretty the teacher was- handsome, he meant. His mother had always taught him the 'polite' terms to describe someone, (and wasn't that ironic, what with his mother calling her 'pets' adorable and pretty.)
Blaise would honestly enjoy the class more if every smile the incubus gave didn't seem so fakefakefake and downright threatening. It reminded him of his mother.
Oh, that wasn't a good thought.
("Move your feet into the beginner's position" Warner called from where he stalked through the sweating students, politely correcting those who weren't in the right position. "If I can easily push you over, you do an extra set of each exercise.")
Not a good thought, Blaise amended grimly, but the sadism matched.
The one good thing about the class was watching so many of the idiots embarass themselves. By idiots, Blaise meant the majority of the Hogwarts students. Of course, he would never call them that to their face… that would have been rude, and Blaise was anything but rude.
Usually.
(Warner hardly had to touch Malfoy's shoulder to have him slip from the rather easy stance and trip onto the ground. From his spot, Blaise hears Callisto cough something that sounds rather suspiciously like a laugh under her breath. That's the third Hogwarts student that Warner barely even had to touch to watch them fall over. Disappointing.)
It's not the first time this week that Blaise was glad for his mother's… hobbies. Or her obsessive need to teach him about it. Bless his mother, honestly.
…
[September 9, 1994 :: Chloelle Girard's Classroom]
Hannah absolutely adored her Medimagic classes. Sure, they weren't (at this point) very advanced, and she already knew a lot of the basics they were going over, but it was still wonderful to have practical experience.
She did disapprove of Assistant Healer Andronikos' methods, however, and she was slightly concerned for Callisto's wellbeing going on. All the teachers seemed to have it out for her in one way or another. At least, since it was a Medimagic class, they were learning how to undo all of that.
Wednesday, they had been taught how to seal uninfected and unpoisoned cuts. (Hence the cutting Azzie's arm open.) The spell they'd been taught, sarcio sana, was basically intended to seal the skin. Hannah figured that the 'sana' part meant that it could only have been used for healing, but of course Callisto went and proved her wrong today (Hannah really wasn't surprised, it seemed to be a habit of Azzie's to just prove any and everyone wrong… usually unintentionally.)
"Healer Andronikos?" Callisto had asked, "The spell we were taught yesterday-sarcio sana- if the wound had actually been infected or poisoned, would it have trapped the poison inside of my skin?"
Andronikos hadn't answered. He'd just grinned, teeth glinting sharply. Hannah remembers what Callisto had told her Wednesday after class, "Andronikos is a water daemon. They're supposed to be the nice ones-he's really not." It had left them both wondering why. Now she was even more curious, because that wasn't quite a pleasant smile. Why in Merlin's name had a somewhat passive water daemon become a violent, but experienced, healer?
…
Chloelle couldn't help but wonder what Andronikos was doing. The daemon had always been bitchy and rude to patients, but only ever if they had first treated him with disrespect. The blatant bias against the girl might have made sense, what with plenty of her other teachers eagerly pitting her against things there should have been no way for her to compete with, but Andronikos had never joined in before.
It made her wonder what the daemons had planned. Really, it made her wonder what everyone had planned. Silaes was possessive of his newfound Speaker, the Vampire triad-Aeldyn, Riveren, and Caracalla-all seemed… curious, for the first time, about one of the students. Alish had silently pushed the rules slightly (not broken them, of course, Altair teachers and administration would never break a rule… they'd just have them changed to suit their needs) to allow staff to essentially be prejudiced for and against the girl.
(That had only been after Caracalla had threatened to experiment on anyone who severely injured the girl. His reasoning? If anyone was going to do it, it would be him. Chloelle was fairly certain that reasoning was terrible.)
Honestly, though? Chloelle liked the girl.
Callisto Azalea Potter-Black was certainly a mystery, and one that Altair staff were particularly eager to solve and sway to their side.
Chloelle would just have to wait and figure out why later on.
…
Hehehhe…. Uhhhh
Hi
I exist still.
Sorry.
Yeah well okay so I finally updated its only been like… 8 months? I may have forgotten I wrote this. I still need to reread the whole thing to remind myself of what was happening. I do actually want to continue this story, though.
I also kind of want to obsessively rewrite it, but there's like oh I don't 63,486 words of story right now? I rewrote the first chapter though, and I added like 300 words. If I stay at about that amount, I'd have to obsessively rewrite like 70,000 words, basically over summer because I will have very little time once school starts up. Yeah, that's not going to happen. Maybe later.
I am planning to like actually figure out what I want to do with this story very soon and hopefully, it won't be 8 months before I update again.
Cheers.