Monday morning I woke to a flurry of activity in my quarters. I groaned at the noise. Who was waking me this early? Mondays were usually spent with the mages, and our first meeting didn't usually convene until well after breakfast and sometimes lunch. I'd become a later riser over the years. Sometimes my duties meant that I fell asleep with the sunrise. Could Peter have an early morning meeting with the castle guard, and I had missed it? I placed my hand on his side of the bed. It was cold. He must have been up for some time. For a change nothing hurt when I woke. My hands sometimes hurt like hell in the morning, especially after a long day of magic use.
I opened my eyes. When did I get bed curtains? I tried to wandless seperate open them, and my magic fizzled. What was that about? Then I realized where I was.
I opened my bed curtains and grabbed my wand off my bedside table. I'd secreted Jadis' away in one of my trunks. I braced for pain as I went to sit up. The cordial had healed my leg for the most part, but it sometimes had a habit of stiffening up during the night. I was mildly shocked when I put pressure on it without being in pain. I dug through clothes, found none that I recognized. Grabbed a shirt, a pair of trousers, and my underthings. I hurried into a shower. After showering with sharp smelling school soap, and drying with a spell, and dressed hurriedly. Everything was itchy, and I mean everything.
Peter was still asleep. He'd spelled his bed curtains shut. I broke the spell with a flick. I leaned into the bed and shook him awake.
He woke with a start.
"I'm up, what's wrong? The giants?" He said. I shook my head.
"We've got classes." I told him. For a moment confusion crossed his face. Then he nodded. He showered and dressed and we made our way down to the great hall for breakfast.
Out of long habit. I fixed our cups of tea while he fixed our toast. Two sugars and a squeeze of lemon for him. Three lumps of sugar and a splash of cream for me. There wasn't cream available, and I wondered about that. Then I remembered rationing. I settled for a splash of watery looking milk. I handed him his tea as he handed me my toast and eggs.
There wasn't butter either, apparently.
Reg and Min were giving us odd looks.
"What?" I said. Why were they staring at us?
I took a bite of toast. It looked odd. Then I realized what was wrong with it. It wasn't the thick brown bread I usually had. This toast was white, and tasted dry. I washed it down with a sip of cooled tea. This was still bitter. I added another lump of sugar, and it still tasted to bitter. I settled for a glass of water.
"I for one, do not want to go to History of Magic." Reg said. He had a book open on magizoology.
"Hmm?" I asked.
"History of Magic, our first class?" Reg said, as if I was particularly slow.
"Oh, of course." I replied. I noticed Peter hadn't eaten much of his breakfast either.
"Hey, Reg, do you happen to have a copy of your timetable on you, I seemed to have forgotten mine in my room?" I asked. He gave me another odd looked, but produced it.
I gemino'd a copy with a wave of my wand and returned it to him. I'd find mine later that night.
History of magic was our first class. We departed the great hall. Reg and Min took a left, and we went right.
"Where are you going?" Minnie asked.
"To History of Magic?"
"Did you discover a shortcut? It's this way." Peter and I exchanged looks, his gave a small shrug, we followed them.
I had utterly forgotten how absolutely droll history of magic was. I dozed through the class. Minnie had to elbow me awake twice. Our next class was Potions. Slughorn asked for our homework. I froze. Homework? Fuck, homework!
"Sir, I beg your forgiveness, I must have lost it." I said. Slughorn frowned.
"Well, Mr. Riddle, but I must beg your forgiveness, for you will receive a T for that." Slughorn said. Peter had forgotten his to. The potion he gave us was trivial. I could brew a sleeping draught in my sleep. His directions were bad though. He told us to dice the valerian root. I took my mortar and pestle out and muddled them. He walked through the classroom.
"Mr. Riddle, what are you doing?"
"Preparing my valerian root." I said, concentrating on making a paste.
"The directions explicitly tell you to slice the root."
"The directions are wrong." I replied.
"Mr. Riddle, I assure you, they are not."
"Mr. Slughorn, I assure you, they are. The entire point of dicing the valerian root is to extract the juices from the root. By muddling them, you release the juices much more efficient. Don't you read your higher year textbooks?"
"That will be quite enough." He said.
"I agree, I believe this class, and root is quite muddled."
"Detention, for two weeks, and twenty points from Gryffindor."
"If I can leave class early, can we make it three?" I asked.
I'm pretty sure I was going to give him an aneurysm. I didn't care.
"Go!" He barked. I left the dungeons, and wandered up to the tower. I found my timetable and discovered the runes class that took up my tuesday mornings. Then I searched through my trunk. I found my homework completed, shoved to the very bottom. I shook my head.
I wandered into the Great Hall and slumped down to the Gryffindor table. A young girl in blue and gold waved at me, and I waved back. Who was she? I realized she might have been a first year I was tutoring before. Well, that would be ending. I had already taught nearly three squadrons of mages, and two other wizards. I would not be teaching another.
Reg, Min and Peter soon sat down. Reg and Minnie quickly fixed themselves plates. I found nothing appetizing.
"Mate, what was that?" Reg asked me.
"What do you mean?"
"You told off a teacher!" Minnie said.
"Your point is?" I asked.
"That he's an authority figure, and you should respect him!" She said.
"Minnie, I mean you all due respect, but if I refuse to answer to him, why should I hold myself accountable to you?" She looked flabbergasted for a moment, and then she burst into tears. I left the great hall and wandered. We had hours to go until our last class. I decided to go for a run. I placed warming charms on myself, stripped out of my school robes, and went to the lake. It should have been cathartic, but I was quickly out of breath. Then I slipped on an icy patch and fell on my ass.
By the time I'd dried myself off, and walked back to the castle, it was nearly time for transfiguration. This class was actually interesting. I hadn't paid much attention to transfiguration in my years of studying. I'd played to my strengths, runes, arithmancy, and charms.
Transfiguration was a breath of fresh air, and I threw myself into it. After Transfiguration, the rest of our day was free.
I grabbed Peter after dinner and dragged him to the seventh floor corridor and then into the room of requirement, and ordered an archery range, complete with an eclectic selection of bows.
"What is this place?" He asked.
"It's something I stumbled onto as a firstie. As far I can tell, the room turns into whatever you want." I said, grabbed a bow and strung it. I tested the draw, it was difficult to pull back. Unstrung it and put it away. I chose a smaller bow and tested the draw weight on that.
Then I notched an arrow and let fly. Hmm, off a by a bit. I had to aim higher. Peter soon joined me. That was when the door opened. Peter instantly had his bow dropped and his wand drawn. I wasn't far behind him.
"We've been looking everywhere for you two." She said. She ambled over to the archery range, and expertly began stringing it.
"Minerva, you know archery?" I said.
"Of course I know archery you daft git, I'm scottish."
"Would you two mind telling what the bloody hell is wrong with you two?" Reg said, a look of haughty arrogance that would make Peter's "king" face look downright agreeable.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"I mean, that Peter, who is usually nice to all and sundry, has barely said two words to anyone since coming back. Tom, you may be an ass, but you've certainly never spoke back to a teacher. You definitely wouldn't be an ass to Min unless you had an absolutely stellar reason. Now, unless we get an explanation, we're going to Merrythought."
I looked at Peter, quirked an eyebrow. He gave a slight nod of his head.
"That's another thing! You two are bloody telepathic or something now!" Reg said. We instantly launched into a series of privacy spells, and unlocked the door.
"Where did you lot learn all that?" He practically yelled.
"We'll tell you, but we need you swear vows that you won't tell anyone what we tell you, unless you swear a Vow. Unless both of swear one."
Reg went white.
"You mean an unbreakable vow?" He asked.
"Min, what do you think?" He asked her.
"I think you've both gone daft, but if it helps us get to the bottom of all this, then fine." She said, and they swore vows. Then we told them a sanitized version of the story. We left out my razing of Narrow Haven, and how we used the Unforgivables so often, but other than that, they got the truth.
"So, you five where there for how long?" Reg said.
"Nearly fifteen years." Peter said solemnly.
"And you came back as children?" Min asked, I nodded.
"You two aren't pulling our legs?" She said.
In reply, I did a bit of wandless magic. It took two tries, my wandless magic was still acting a little funny, but I used an Utgarde Prismatic Spray, and Peter demonstrated a spell or two as well.
"Bloody buggering shit." Reg said.
"Language!"
"Min, we should tell them."
"Reg!"
"They've been through their own adventure. They should know. But we want our own vow in return."
Peter and I hesitantly agreed.
"Min came over to my house during the holidays. There's this weird mirror in a room in our attic. We got sucked into it."
"Like a portal?" I asked.
"Yeah." He nodded.
"Well, anyways. Min and I got sucked into this portal, and we met these two other kids. Jane and Rupert. They were brother and sister. They told us we were in Fillory."
"Wait, like the books?" Peter asked, and Min nodded.
" Well, they were on a quest to find this great army of sharks. Something about this woman who could stop time or something, and somehow the sharks would stop her. Anyhow, the four of us, we boarded a ship that was crewed with talking otters. These otters took us to a place called the secret sea. We sailed for weeks to get there. Except, it wasn't secret. There was this army of dolphins who really hated the sharks. We helped save the sharks and they repaid the Chatwins, that's Jane and Rupert, by helping stop the women. Then the four of us went our separate ways. Min and I came out of the mirror, and since the mirror was just a mirror. We thought we'd imagined it. You know, 'cuz no time had passed. I'd gotten a wicked sunburn, and that was gone, and we were still in our play clothes." Reg said.
"It was like a dream." Min said.
"Or a dream of a dream?" I asked, and she nodded. We were all quiet after that.
"Mate, while don't know everything you've been through. We can guess. Leaving Fillory and coming back to Earth. Well, it was like the color went out of everything."
"Like you were living in a dream, and you wake up, and then want to go back to sleep, but you can't because the dream is gone?" I asked, Reg nodded sadly.
"Does everything taste different to you?" Peter asked quietly. Reg and Min both nodded.
"I never realized how bland food could be. Our pudding for christmas was awful." Min said.
"We've been having that problem too." Peter said.
"So, on our way back to the castle yesterday, that was?"
"We grew up there." Peter said simply. It was enough for Reg and Min.
"So, Peter, your brother and sisters went with you?" Reg asked.
"I honestly thought muggles couldn't go. I mean, Rupert and Jane both knew a couple of bits of magic."
"They aren't muggles." I said.
"Su is easily one of the best battle mages I've ever seen. I should know. I trained all the ones we had. Lu, is a healer. Bloody good at it too. She's a deft hand at curses when she gets her dander up. Ed, well, Ed knows more about shields and wards than I do, and that's saying something."
"How did they learn magic, do they have wands?" Reg asked.
"We made a wand for Lucy, Su and Ed don't need one."
"Wait, wandless. They know wandless magic? That's supposed to be bloody difficult. My sister is always going on about circumstances. I took a peek at her books, those finger movements look painful."
"They bloody well are." I said.
Minerva suddenly checked the time with the tempus spell, it was almost ten o'clock.
"It's almost curfew. We should be getting back to the tower." She said. The three of us reluctantly nodded, left the room and headed back up to Gryffindor's dorms.
Tuesday morning came. I had to set an alarm charm to get to Runes Class on Time. I flew through the corridors and arrived shortly after Babbling's study hours began.
"Sorry, I'm a bit late." I said, almost panting. I need to regain some of my physique back quickly. This body wasn't pudgy or anything, but I was used to being able, to do anything really, for long periods of time without running out of breath.
"Oh, it's fine Tom." I bristled at the lack of respect, and almost corrected her with my proper title, and realized that she wasn't being discourteous, I didn't have a proper title anymore.
"How were you holidays?" She asked.
"They were fine. How were yours?" I replied.
"They were great. For your assignment this week, now that you've mastered Freyja's Aett, we're moving on to another section. Heimdall's Aett. I understand your probably not quite back into the swing of things quite yet. Christmas has a habit of distracting most of my students. So, for this assignment, I'm going to have use list just five of those runes. I want you to tell me three meanings for each of them. It's a quick assignment to get you back into things." She said. I nodded, having long since mastered the futhark. It was the basis for all the rune based enchantments I'd used in Narnia.
I chose Algiz, Hagalaz, and Eihwaz. As I was writing the runes, I had a small flashback to teaching my own images about them. It was during the construction of the watchtowers.
The day was bright and sunny, summer had come. Narrow Haven had put us all on the defensive. This was my second class of mages I had taught. The second class to begin teaching students of their own.
"Now, Algiz is a simple rune, but powerful." I'd said.
"It's primarily used for protection. We're going to be carving this rune in the base of the watchtowers. But we're also going to be carving the arithmetic formula for the three enchantments that will be the cornerstone for Cair Paravel's wards. Can someone tell me how Algiz reacts with Protego Maxima." A giant minotaur raised his hand.
"Yes, Calminos?"
"Algiz is a shield rune. Protego Maxima is the strongest shield we have. Algiz would, when carved with the correct intent, bolster the strength of it." Calminos said. I nodded happily.
"Very good." I said. Calminos was quiet. Despite his fearsome appearance, he was one of the quietest, gentlest beings I knew. He didn't like to speak in public. For him to answer a question in a setting that wasn't one on one spoke of his conviction about his answer.
"You're correct. But it will also interact with another spell in the shield trio. Can someone tell me which spell that is?" I said.
I shook my head, clearing my mind of my reverie. I finished my assignment, turned it in and left the classroom.
We had potions later in the day. Then a Astronomy practical. I'd done some thinking the night before. Over lunch, I had a small conference with Reg and Min, and Peter.
"Meet me on the seventh floor corridor." I told the three of them. Peter shot me an inquisitive look. I gave him a you'll see look.
We hurried through lunch, and they followed me to the room of requirement. I paced back and forth thrice. A door appeared. Inside the room there was a range of training dummies. The stone floor and motifs on the walls definitely had a feel of the training room of our castle.
"What's this?" Min asked.
"I'm going to train you." I said.
"What?"
"Wanded and Wandless spells. Magic to shield yourself from harm and do great harm against your enemies. To call upon force and flame. You need to learn how to defend yourself. The world is at war."
"They're too young!" Peter said.
"They're our age." I said simply.
"You know what I mean." Peter replied.
"Well, we were their age when we fought her." I said simply. He nodded reluctantly. We began the training session.
The remainder of tuesday and wednesday passed uneventfully. It was thursday when we had a break from the monotony in Defense Against the Dark Arts.
"Welcome back to Defense Against the Dark Arts." Professor Merrythought said.
"Today will be a bit of a break from our other lessons. I understand that this is your first class in this subject since we returning. So we'll have a mock duel instead of our usual class. The last one standing, or not disarmed wins. Everyone stand." Merrythought said. She waved her wand, and the chairs and desks went to each side of the room.
"Now, please restrict yourself to shields, disarms and stunners. Begin."
Peter and I shared looks, and went on the attack. We alternated between shielding and stunning. In two minutes, the entirety of the class was down. Then we shared another look.
"Four paces, Riddle." He said.
"At your command my liege." I said in a snide tone. This was an old game. We stepped back four paces, bowed, and attacked. I unleashed a flurry of stunners and reductos. He blocked them, summoned a desk from behind me and would have slammed it into my back had I not rolled out of the way. I banished the desk at him, snapped off my own reductor and brought my own shield back up just as quickly. A half dozen spectral daggers peppered my protego. I countered with a summoned, banished desk that he vanished. I hit him with a diffindo, glancing his shoulder, and drawing first blood. He sent out an expelliarmus I deflected, and unleashed an incendio. He blocked it, and sent a spear of ice I shattered.
"Enough!" Professor Merrythought said. There was a look of shock on her face. I looked around the room. Well then, that wasn't according to plan.
"Sorry, Professor. We got a bit carried away." Peter said sheepishly.
"I see this. Twenty points to gryffindor to each of you for your exhibition. But, I'm taking ten of those points away for putting your classmates in harm's way." Peter set his mouth in a firm line, but nodded.
"Now, help me revive your classmates." She said. We did so, and she sent us off to our potions class.
The days followed in a blur. We trained Reg and Min. They were coming along. Both showed promise, but it would be a long time until they were up to the standards I had. Winter broke, and spring followed. We signed up for our electives and soon it was May.
Peter cornered me one day.
"So, what are your plans for the summer?" He asked.
"I'm going to a meeting at Gringotts, then I'm going to wander around Muggle London.
"You're going Wools?" He asked.
"Well, I don't have anywhere else to be." I said.
"Yes, you do. You're coming home with me," He said simply.
"Your mums okay with it?" I asked.
"Yes. She is. She'll be at work quite a bit. I told her you were more than happy to pay for your own food. I'm sure you can magic up a rations card." He said. I nodded.
"I do have to go to Gringotts though. I've got plans, and a deposit to make." I said.
"Of course." He replied. We hurried off to herbology.
Soon, the school year ended, and we departed to London.
