Winter had decided to be very generous very fast and gave us a couple blizzards, resulting in nobody going outside the castle for a week. Magical windows that let us look at Henway from the air were almost solid white, and the balconies had quickly filled up, the archways to them sealed off with snow.
With the blizzard came a drop in temperature inside the castle. Enchantments made sure it was always somewhat comfortable at the very least. While everyone else had their heated winter uniforms keeping them from being bothered, I had my cold resistance, keeping me from being bothered by it, a secret I decided to keep from Noir so she could get frustrated and puzzled (it worked).
Meals were served a bit warmer than usual, and Barb didn't want to come out of her tube as much, so I brought the warm food to her, dropping warm morsels in so she could enjoy it too. It didn't take long for the fourth years I was sitting with to get in on it and have fun feeding her the same way as well.
Potions class was a bit duller than usual. Professor Scarab still made cookies for everyone, but she was affected by the cold, and more often than not sat in her rocking chair with a thick blanket over her. She also tended to doze off, and referred us more to our books than actually teaching. She even slept through a whole class, and we did nothing productive that day.
No-maj studies was focused mostly on how no-majes dealt with intense snowstorms, especially as it related to transportation. Professor Smith also went on a tangent about man-made global warming, and how there were advocates out there claiming that it was the reason for increased snowfall and cold temperatures. He even sarcastically asked for someone to bring about 50 degrees of global warming to our area so the snow could melt and we could all get outside for a bit.
Spells class focused on enchanting objects, similar to the illusions from before, but this time on things that weren't meant to be worn. All of us got different objects; mine was an old lantern. No wick, no fuel, just the lantern. "There's so much that can be done." I decided to try to put two different light enchantments on it, controlled by a knob on the base. A bright white light when turned one way and a fire-like glow the other way. The bright light was easy, but getting a fire one going was tricky.
Flight class was, surprisingly, not cancelled. Professor Samuels had us fly around inside to get us started on tight corridors. Class was also extended, lasting two hours and going right up to supper, giving us lots of time to practice, crash, and cause mayhem in the narrower halls.
Finally, the weekend came, and Principal Mercia made an announcement at breakfast on Saturday. "Ladies and gentlemen, students and staff alike, we will have mandatory fun this weekend. The snow has stopped falling, and we have about six feet of the stuff outside. It's still really cold, so you will all get some extra winter clothes now." With a flourish of her wand, gloves, scarves, and earmuffs appeared in the air above us before shooting down in front of everyone.
As soon as the tables were clear of clothes, breakfast was served, and it was warm. As I ate, I tried the clothes on. The earmuffs weren't the old, overhead fluffball type, but rather a thin, collapsable kind that wrapped around the back of my head. Once it was on, a warmth enchantment activated and it felt nice. It also didn't hamper my hearing at all, likely because of magic.
The scarf had a similar effect, and wasn't obstructive at all. The gloves, also enchanted for warmth, were thin enough that they didn't hinder my hands at all. "This is nice. Thank goodness I had my uniforms reenchanted. Cold resistance can only go so far, after all." I had forced myself to ask Professor Lovebreed to fix the removed warmth charms on my uniforms, and she was happy to help. She also hadn't noticed any signs of me being bothered by the cold, mostly because I wasn't. Still, it was nice to have warm uniforms again.
Once breakfast was over, I found my friends outside the hall. "So, what are we going to do outside?"
"How about a snowball fight?" Lily suggested.
I jumped at her unexpected presence. "When did you?"
"Well, you've helped me a lot with no-maj studies, and I kind of want to pay you back for it. A snowball fight with you sounds perfect, doesn't it?"
"You can help us build a fort too!" Jack said, apparently excited by the idea of a snowball fight. "Weiss, you can use some of that ice stuff in your sword to reinforce the fort as well."
"Ice stuff?"
I held my sword up so Lily could see the hilt. "I've got elemental crystals in here. They're pretty sweet." I still had no idea what the gravity Dust did. "I haven't had much practice with them, though. I have no idea how I'd make a wall."
"Let's go try it, then." All five of us, fully equipped for the weather, left to find the way outside. Eventually, we found an exit and flew out to the front of the school grounds.
It turned out that combining Dust on the blade with Wingardium Leviosa allowed me to precisely control where the ice went, though only so far as the Dust would last. With that discovery, it was pretty easy to make inch thick ice walls, while my friends (a group that started to include Lily) moved snow around to cover the ice. After an hour, we had a fort made. It was a simple square one, but with reinforced walls, I was confident that it could stand up to a whole barrage of snowballs.
"Oh come on!" Lily shouted from the front of the fort.
Laura went over to her. "What's going - oh come on!"
Jack joined them. "What's - Weiss, we need a roof!"
Phoebe and I quickly got to work. As I made the frame for the roof, she put snow from outside the fort on top of it. In a minute, we had a roof. Once we were done, I looked out and saw a three story tall snow fort. "That's pretty cool. They even have a waterless moat."
"Let's sabotage it," Lily suggested. "I wonder who's in there?"
"Aww, look at Snowflake's little hut! And she needed help from a fourth year and her friends to build it too!" Noir's taunt elicited a familiar batch of laughter from the fort. "We built this on our own! Just us first year Scientia Girls! It's even got ice in the walls and floors! Just try and break through!"
I narrowed my eyes in Noir's general direction. "I take back every nice thing I said about that fort. Let's destroy it." I took another look at the three story tall fort. "How are we going to do this, though?"
"Hmm. . . Let's drop a bunch of hot chocolate on it from above," Laura suggested. "If that doesn't work, it'll at least look worse."
"I say we make a bunch of snowballs, fly in there, and hit them with a surprise attack," Phoebe said.
"What if we make a giant rabbit out of ice, hide in it, and jump out when they take it in?" Jack asked. "I saw something similar in a movie once."
"Shut up, Jack," I and the other girls said at the same time.
I looked back outside and saw my roommates building a bridge over the moat. While I was snickering at the fact that they forgot about that, I noticed that it was a straight shot from our fort to theirs. "Lily, can you do anything?"
"Hmm. . . I think I can. The conical shield breaking hex should do it, even at a low level. . . Low level?"
As Lily lost herself in thought at the doorway, I saw a barrage of snowballs get launched from Noir's fort. Before they hit, I pulled Lily out of the opening. A few would have hit her if she'd stayed still, but most of them hit the fort with surprising force. In spite of that, the fort stood strong. "What are you thinking?"
"What if we go under the snow? They wouldn't be able to see us down there."
"Laura, Phoebe, we'll provide cover fire," Jack ordered. "You two launch, I'll make the snowballs. Weiss, Lily, you two go down and do whatever you're thinking of."
"Here's some starting snow." Lily lifted a bunch of snow out of the ground and stacked it up next to the opening. She jumped down into the hole and landed on the dead grass and frozen ground. "Weiss, I'll dig out the tunnel, you line it with ice so it doesn't collapse."
I looked at the ice Dust crystal after I jumped in. It was rather grayed out, but looked like it would have enough power for the task at hand. "So what are you thinking?"
"Gurren Lagann!" A two foot wide spinning cone made of magic formed at the tip of Lily's wand, and with a simple thrust forward, she sent it into the snowbank. The hole it made was a perfect circle and the tunnel was perfectly straight. Her part done, I activated the appropriate Dust and started lining the tunnel with ice to support the structure.
Lily crawled in first and I followed, her wand lighting the way. The further in we went, the more ice I put out. One shot of the stuff actually went a long way, but we had to come to a stop when the tunnel ended. "Now what?"
"We're actually pretty close to their fort. If my aim was good, we should come out under their bridge, and we can clear out the snow under them."
"Ah, I get it. But how will we keep them from seeing us?"
"I don't know. We can figure it out when we get there." Lily cut the light and used Wingardium Leviosa to push the snow aside, and I continued icing the tunnel over. It didn't take long for light to sneak in, and we broke through. We came out under their bridge, and we could hear snowballs flying.
I followed Lily to the far side of the bridge and followed her through the moat, clinging to the wall. Nobody from above noticed us, and we went towards the rear. Before we got around to the back, I voiced an idea. "What if we storm the place and take it over?"
"We'd be outnumbered six to one, and I don't like those odds. Do you have fire?"
"Yeah. What are you thinking?"
I followed her directions and was soon using fire slashes on the snow at the back of the fort. The flames were hot enough to melt a foot of snow with each horizontal slash through the middle. With a bit of smart planning, we got the snow underneath to a point where one strategically placed slash would make the whole thing fall backwards.
"Get out here, Snowflake!" Noir shouted at my fort. "You can't hide behind your friends forever!"
"Now!" At Lily's whispered shout, I activated the fire Dust again and sent the strategic slash through the remaining snow, crippling its supporting snow. It didn't take long for it to start tilting back, and I didn't need any orders to start running in the opposite direction. We made a diving jump into the tunnel, and the bridge fell behind us, collapsing the tunnel entrance.
We slid down the tunnel, thanks to its incline, and appeared at the pit Lily had made. A ramp had been made and we climbed out easily enough. "That was awesome!" Jack exclaimed. "Are you sure you're not from Callidus?"
"No, I was sorted into Scientia. That being said, the cleverness of Callidus doesn't go far without the intelligence of Scientia. Likewise, the intelligence of Scientia can be expanded by the cleverness of Callidus."
"What about Virtus?" Phoebe asked.
"And Perseverantia?" Laura followed up.
"It's a similar situation with those two. Courage and persistence go hand in hand as well, though it's a bit tighter of a connection than intelligence and cleverness. Standing up to anything requires persistence to back it up, and persistence isn't much without the courage to keep standing your ground."
"So Callidus and Scientia are more about the mind while Virtus and Perseverantia are more about action?" Jack asked. It was a good observation.
"Eh, more or less. How about we go get some hot chocolate?"
The school's entrance was cleared out, and sitting in front of the door was a table with refreshments. Between the door and the table sat Professor Naut and Harry the groundskeeper. The sight of the two large, muscular wizards sitting behind a table, looking like they were selling hot chocolate and s'mores (complete with a tip jar), was rather silly. Not helping with laughter prevention were the periscopes they had nearby.
"That was an interesting fight, everyone," Professor Naut said as he started pulling s'mores out of a tabletop stone oven and setting each one on a paper plate and Harry started pouring out mugs of hot chocolate. "How did you do it? Surely, none of you put any enchantments in your snowballs?"
"Pride cometh before a fall," Lily said before taking her s'more and hot chocolate.
"A bit of sabotage," I said as I took my warm refreshments.
"Teamwork," Jack added.
"Some trust," Laura continued.
"Helping a friend," Phoebe finished off. The rest of us looked at her and she did a double take at us. "What? It's true."
"Sounds like a good reason to me," Harry added with a smile. "Friends are important, and helping a friend is always good, isn't it?"
"Depends on the goal," Professor Naut pointed out before turning back to us. "Really, though, how did you do it?"
"I hafe fire," I said around a mouthful of s'more.
"We took out the snow under the back of their fort," Lily supplied. "I wonder if they're okay?"
"Let me put some ice on that wound, Miss Sue," Dr. Ocsid said to his one patient, who was mostly buried in the snow with only her head and wounded right forearm visible. The rest of the girls, by some miracle, had come out of their fallen castle with no injuries at all.
"I'm fine, Doctor," was all Mary could say before her forearm was buried in a pile of snow.
"I know you will be." With a bit of magic, the doctor solidified some of the snow on the ground and on the snowpile Mary's forearm was in, then laid back, pulled out the most recently published magical medical journal, and started reading it. "Just relax and you'll be fine."
Mary's quiet whining could be heard from inches away, but not much further.
"I saw Dr. Ocsid head over there," Harry offered. "They'll be fine."
"I hope so. It is Dr. Ocsid, after all."
"Is there something he did at some point?" Jack asked.
Professor Naut leaned over the table and answered. "There was a girl who was taken to his office after an accident in herbology. Poor witch had taken a nasty gash on her body, straight from her collarbone to her navel, and it was very deep. Even split her ribcage open. She was barely clingin' to life, and he sets her on a wide operating table, big enough for two of her, and lines it with pillows. Then he sets up this guillotine with a mirror blade right over her, head to toe, and finishes the cut."
"He killed her?" Phoebe asked, aghast at the event.
"Nah. Both girls walked out, perfectly healthy and very confused."
"But there was only one girl?"
"And then there were two. I don't know how he does what he does, but I feel sorry for any legilimens who tries to read his mind. That guy could be a perfect occlumens and not even know it." I pretended to understand what those words meant as I sipped some hot chocolate.
"When was that?" Lily asked.
"About ten years ago. Those two quickly adapted to the twin thing, and were constantly on the same wavelength, no matter where they were. It was spooky."
"Snowflake!" Noir angrily shouted as she and most of the rest of my roommates appeared. "You destroyed our castle! I just know it! How did you do it?"
"How are you walking on the snow with heels?" Lily asked.
"A number of enchantments. Now tell me how you did it, Snowflake."
I came up with a quick lie. "I made the ice in the back of your fort heavier, so it fell backwards."
"When did you find the time to learn Gravitas? That's beyond our year!"
"I learned part of it just now. Research time." I topped off my hot chocolate, picked up a fresh s'more, and gave Noir a dismissive wave as I went back inside. Thankfully, neither she nor any of the other girls followed me. Nobody else followed me either, so I was free to go to the library.
After checking out a scroll with details on Gravitas, I went into an open study and practice room to read about and practice the spell. As I did the research, Barb came out and wrapped around my head. It turned out Noir didn't know everything about the spell, since it couldn't affect only one section of an object. It would have made her whole fort sink into the snow instead of tipping back.
The motion for the spell could be performed one of three ways. Two of them had an inward spiral, but went in different ways after that. An upward flick would make the target lighter, while a downward flick would make it heavier. The third way was an outward spiral and a horizontal flick, to cancel its effects.
My practice was done on a wooden cube, and it took a while for me to get the spell down. The weight of the sword made the spiral part of the casting motions a bit tricky, but I eventually made the block too heavy for me to pick up. After I successfully cancelled the change, I went the other way, and the block was soon floating like a balloon.
Barb flew off and went back into her tube as I worked at getting the cube back down. When I did, it landed on my nose, causing me to drop the sword and reflexively clutch my face. After a few seconds, I took my hands off and saw no blood on them. My nose felt fine as well. "Thank goodness for my aura thing."
I spent more time practicing Gravitas until I was able to confidently and easily cast all three forms of it, with the cube falling onto my face two more times in the process. I also noticed that it had an effect on Wingardium Leviosa, just like picking it up by hand, though it was much more subtle.
After returning the scroll, it was time for supper. According to Principal Mercia, not enough fun had been had, so Sunday would also be a mandatory fun day. Nobody complained.