Thankfully, James only managed to threaten Iris into two more "family outings" until the week was up, and break finally ended. By the end of it, Iris's furious, boiling rage from the platform was back, and she could barely stop herself from breaking into James's room and choking him every time he looked at her with those smug eyes and that half-patronizing, half-pitying expression.
Needless to say, when Iris got to Platform 9¾, she almost tripped over her green and silver scarf she bolted away from the Potters so fast. She rushed through the compartments of the train, trying to find that familiar shapes of her friends through the compartment windows, almost running tripping up several other students with her dragging trunk. At least she got on well with Cassie. The little sweetie even promised to write her over the semester!
Finally, after five minutes, she found her friends in one of the last compartments of the train, wrapped around each other on one of the benches.
Practically hurling the door open, Iris barely managed to hear their surprised and happy greetings before she threw herself into Blaise's arms, holding on for dear life.
"Oh Morgana, I'm so happy to see all of you! Blaise, Dante, I'm so sorry, I was really looking forward to spending the break with you, but James, that absolute bastard, decided to kidnap me straight off the platform! Do you know he threatened to cane me unless I went out with his wretched family on these disgustingly wholesome bonding activities? Mother Magic, I was a week away from shoving a knife into his ribs, jail or no! I swear–"
"Iris," Dante said, chuckling, "I think you're going to choke Blaise if you don't stop squeezing."
With a small "eep!", Iris shot back into the opposite bench, letting go of a flushing Blaise, and causing the rest of the sixsome to break out in laughter, their auras radiating amusement and happiness and their reunion.
Merlin, it was just so nice to be talking to actual people again, instead of human-shaped furniture! It was like she had lost one of her senses for the whole break, and now it was finally returned to her. Iris felt her shoulders unconsciously relax, as a subtle tension she didn't even know was present evaporated.
Taking a few deep breaths, Iris composed herself, and began to speak in a much calmer tone.
"Ok, sorry about that. But ugh, I was just so frustrated! James is an absolute cunt, and Miriam is actually somehow worse. Every day, before she would let me out of my room, I had to listen to her lecture me on piety and sin and whatever flavor of shit from her mud-book she had. Merlin, I swear if I have to hear the phrase 'temptations of Satan' one more time, I'm going to sacrifice Miriam to Mother Magic next on Imbloc instead of pine-wood."
"Iris…" Dante said, frowning, "you shouldn't joke about that kind of thing, you never know who could be listenin–"
"Wait" Draco cut in, "did you say "let you out of your room"?
The whole compartment went silent at that, their auras projecting a growing anger.
"Uh… yeah." Iris said, blushing despite herself at their show of protectiveness. "James and Miriam kept me in my room from six at night to seven in the morning with some sort of advanced locking spell."
Iris's flustered thankfulness slowly gave way to rage as she remembered James and Miriam's treatment of her over the holidays: "they kept trying to take me on these family outings, like the last twelve years never fucking happened! Then, when I told them to go fuck themselves, James threatened to c-cane me if I didn't go! I fucking hate him!"
Iris felt the others' love and concern wrap around her like a warm blanket, or a milder form of Blaise's allure. Slowly, she began to calm, and tried to focus on anything about her break other than the blinding rage that the elder Potters evoked in her.
"Actually…" she said, biting her lip—wow, she'd never heard Blaise cough before, was she sick?—"Cassie wasn't all that bad. She was the only one who believed me about my childhood, at least. We had this talk in the library, and she actually seemed kind of receptive to our views."
Dante shot her a skeptical look: "Iris, didn't you already try this whole 'conversion' routine with your Gryffindor mudblood?"
"Yeah," Iris said, frowning, "but I still feel like I have to try, you know? She's currently the only blood relation I'll consider acknowledging, I owe it to her to show her some true Magic. Also, less seriously, it would be such a coup to steal her out from under James and Miriam's noses!"
Settling in as the compartment laughed, Iris thought to herself that this was where she truly belonged.
Iris had a problem, a big one: Blaise was ignoring her. And the worst part was, Iris didn't know why.
She thought it might have been a fluke on the train, but no, Blaise was making a conscious, conspicuous effort to avoid flirting, teasing, or even talking to her, let alone being in the same room alone.
After she finally admitted to herself that she was attracted to girls in general, and very attracted to Blaise in particular, Iris's time around her best friend was wonderful and dreadful in equal parts. It was wonderful because she could finally allow herself to feel all the love and affection she had towards Blaise, and feel it reciprocated, but dreadful because Blaise's flirting took on a whole new dimension, riling Iris up more than it ever had.
When Iris had a chance to more closely examine Blaise's aura, she could detect faint notes of confusion and nervousness mixed with some other unidentifiable emotion, spiking whenever she glanced in Iris's direction. Strangely enough, whenever the rest of the sixsome saw Blaise attempting to clandestinely look at Iris, they radiated amusement, which confused Iris even further.
It would be one thing if Blaise had finally realized how Iris felt about her—and Iris was so glad it wasn't—but Blaise's shock and confusion had been directed inward, at herself, rather than at Iris. And even if it wasn't, that still wouldn't explain the rest of them. It felt like there was some joke that Iris wasn't in on, and it was causing her best friend in the world to almost completely cut off communication.
Was she… was she regretting their friendship? Iris didn't really think it felt like she was, but what other explanation could there be! She had talked to Dante, and he just told her to "give Blaise time, she's working some things out".
Iris didn't like that answer, not one bit, but she didn't know what else to do. So she (wo)manned up, put on a happy face, and tried her best to not feel hurt when Blaise pulled away from anything but the most bland of conversations.
"Good morning class!"
He wheeled out a whiteboard as the class greeted him, with the title "Translating Mathematics into Spellcasting"
The room began to eagerly whisper.
"Congratulations, class" he said in a dry tone, "today is the day in which we begin to learn the true theory of Arithmancy, and the theoretical basis which links it to spell development."
The whispers only got more pronounced after that announcement. Even Iris was feeling excited: they were going to learn how to create their own spells!
"However," he said with a sharp glare, "I would like to remind you that any practicing of spell development without supervision is not only highly dangerous, but grounds for a possible expulsion. I repeat: do not attempt to actually harness these theories, you are not ready."
The class had quieted.
"Well, now that we've gotten that out in the open, let's continue! Who can tell me why we've been studying and memorizing the formulas for various magical effects for the last semester? Ms. Granger?"
"Thank you, sir! Well, in order to actually apply the theories of arithmancy to aid in our spellcasting, we'll need to first know how to read and understand the formulas for spells! We've mainly been working on simple spells in our other classes, but by the end of the year, we're going to need to understand the theories and formulas in order to cast some of the more complicated spells. Oh, I'm so excited!"
"Indeed, Ms. Granger, I'd imagine you are. As Ms. Granger said, in order to understand anything about the spells you cast, or cast anything beyond the simplest of spells, you will need to develop the skills to read and understand spell formulas."
"However, that is merely one of two components when it comes to casting spells. This is the other."
"The difference" he said, walking over to the blackboard, "between formulas and spells is the same as the difference between words and ideas: one is a symbol representing a thing, and the other is that thing."
"Now, I'm sure the majority of you have figured that little bit out by now, studying the formulas as we have been, but that doesn't actually tell you how exactly to translate formulas to the magical constructs they represent."
"Can anyone tell me what this is?" he said, pointing to a strange-looking diagram on the board.
"How about… Potter."
"Slytherin Potter that is, not you Mr. Potter."
"Um… I'm not too sure professor."
"Oh really?" he said, quirking an eyebrow as Iris looked down with a blush.
"Pity, I've heard many things about your skills from other professors. Shame that they don't carry over to my subject."
Iris's mouth turned downward, turning into a full-on scowl when she realized Blaise was glaring at the teacher, but studiously avoiding drawing Iris's attention. What was going on with her?
"Can anyone tell me what this drawing here is a diagram of?"
"Yes, Mr. Ackerman?"
"Is it the mouth, sir?"
"Very good, Ackerman! Ten points to Gryffindor!"
The Professor moved back to the board, and began to label various small parts of the diagram.
"Now, the question remains: how can we translate formulas into spells? And what does the mouth have to do with it?"
"The genius of Arithmancy, my pupils, lies chiefly on a single discovery made by Bacon in his seminal treatise. He discovered that in order for unshaped magic to take on the shape of a spell's formula, one only had to 'coerce' using a focus."
The professor waved his wand, causing a glowing silver line to shoot out.
"Imagine this represents your magic."
The professor twisted his wand to the right, and the glowing line bent.
"This is what I mean by coercion. Using a magically-charged focus to poke, prod, and twist magic into assuming the correct seven-dimensional forms. We may only have room to 'prod' in our three spatial dimensions, but through the channeling of magic, we can actually use those three-dimensional movement to manipulate seven-dimensional shapes."
He motioned for several students to lower their hands. "Now, at long last, let's cover what this diagram of the mouth has to do with the subject. Can anyone tell me the two chief components of casting any spell?"
Most of the class raised their hands.
"Ah, Mr. Potter!"
"Yes sir, uh… wand movements and incantations."
"Yes, truly brilliant answer! Take fifteen points to Gryffindor!"
"That is correct class, the two chief components of a spell are the wand movements and the incantation. Knowing that, I believe it is quite obvious what the two 'prodding' tools of the modern magical system are."
"This", he said, slapping the whiteboard, "the human mouth. When magic is channeled through the body, it has the remarkable ability to use its moving parts to poke, prod, and manipulate magic into various forms, all using different movements of its parts. In other words… well, words."
"The second tool, of course, if your wand. It is a long, think stick, designed for maximum flexibility in the types of manipulation you may perform."
"So," he said, "how is it that we perform this manipulation? As Ms. Granger stated earlier, generations of Arithmancers have spent their lives making detailed equations to model the movements of the mouth in three dimensions, in every possible position, for every possible syllable. What she did not mention, however, is that arithmancers have created similar spell corpora for the equations of any and all wand movements."
"I believe many of you are beginning to see where this is going. In order to develop the incantation for a spell, the creator looks at the various parts of the formula for the spell, and attempts to match any elements up to a mouth-equation with a similar value. Then, in order to develop the wand movements, they will match any remaining sections of the spell to the various wand-movement equations. Yes, Ms. Granger?"
"Sir, why do we use the mouth movement equations, and then the wand movement equations. Is it just tradition, or is there a legitimate reason?"
"Excellent question Ms. Granger, take ten points for Gryffindor! You are indeed correct, there is no theoretical basis for the creation of incantations before wand movements, it's merely the method we will be using in this class."
"For professional arithmancers, the primacy of the incantation or the wand movement almost entirely depends on what the arithmancer desires the final form of the spell to be. Do they want the majority of the equation bound in the incantation, or the majority bound in the movement? This is called the 'word-heavy' vs. 'movement-heavy' distinction, and is one of the chief considerations used when creating spells."
"For example, most designers of charms spells prefer word-heavy spells, while arithmancers of transfiguration prefer their spells to be movement-heavy. Battle magics are often seen as a compromise between the two, with neither the wand movements or incantations being distinguishably long or short. Yes, Ms. Granger?"
"Professor, I don't understand, if precise incantations and wand movements are such important parts of spells, how can most professors perform their spells without them? I don't think I've ever seen a professor perform a spell with a full incantation and wand movement outside a practical demonstration for classes."
"Ah yes, I've been waiting for a month for someone to ask me that question. Thank you Ms. Granger, you've just lost me a bet with Professor Sprout."
Hermione flushed as the class chuckled. Iris turned towards Blaise to smirk, but saw the girl turned almost completely away from her. For once, her mood in Arithmancy had nothing to do with the Professor favoring the children from Nic families. Well, alright, it still had a lot to do with that, but Blaise being weird definitely wasn't helping!
She wasn't hurt, she wasn't.
The Professor continued: "But to answer your question, your Professors, myself included, are all capable of two skills called 'point casting' and 'silent casting'. Point casting is the decrease, or in some cases complete elimination of wand movements from a spell, and silent casting, as you could imagine, is the same process for the incantation."
"However, I assume that many of you in this classroom were already aware of that, and are in fact curious on how point and silent casting are even possible. Perhaps you even want to perform them yourselves. Am I correct?"
The majority of the Gryffindors nodded.
"Well then, I do hate to ruin your hopes, but I doubt that a single one of you would be able to point or silent cast until your fourth year, at least. Both skills require a deep understanding of the equations and constructs of the spell you wish to cast, but more than that, they require a refined control over your magic."
"For you see class, point and silent casting use a wizard or witch's own magic to poke and prod the magical construct of a spell, which, I assure all of you, is far, far more difficult than poking and prodding with wand and tongue. It takes a great amount of willpower, and a fine control of one's inner energies, which all of you lack."
"Most adult witches and wizards are only able to cast a few spells completely silently and without motions, and those are usually the simple, common spells they use almost every day. Fir the other spells, they may reduce the wand movements and incantations, but never entirely eliminate them."
He briefly glanced at Danny. "However, exceptionally powerful and talented wizards are able to cast almost every spell in the repertoire completely silently and motionlessly. In fact, the silent and motionless casting of battle spells is absolutely essential if one wishes to move past the lower tiers of dueling competence."
"Now," he said, once again taking his chalk to the board, "who would like to tell me the proper incantation for the basic cleaning charm?"
For Iris, the rest of the class passed by in a blur, with no really new or challenging information presented.
I LIIIIIVVVVEEEEEEE!
I've been going through some really really bad mental health stuff this past year and a half, so I'm sorry I just suddenly stopped writing. But with the quarantine, I've decided to pick up this story again!
So much has changed in terms of my fanfic preferences, I don't even know where to start! First of all, I've actually started reading stuff from SpaceBattles and its sister sites, which HOLY SHIT is like a treasure trove of literally everything I love in fanfiction. I started on this chapter's fanfic recommendation, the 3 million+ word Young Justice fanfic With This Ring by Mr. Zoat, which is my new "best fanfiction of all time", displacing the Black Queen series. It has everything I love in a fanfiction, especially a superhero fanfiction: magic, technology, philosophy, religion, and an absolutely banging series of arcs.
The premise is that a DC comics fan is thrown into the S1 Young Justice Universe with an orange power ring. For non-comic fans, imagine a Green Lantern ring, but it's powered by greed instead of willpower, and has driven all of its users insane. And the MC still manages to slowly become one of the greatest living heroes, deriving a complete and coherent moral philosophy entirely based around avarice.
I can't overstate how absolutely bloody fantastic this fanfic is, it blows anything I've read previously out of the water by miles. The only fic I've read that can think to compete is the ASoIaF/GoT fic Purple Days by Baurus, and that's because it's 800k+ of some of the best-written prose I've seen outside prize-winning novels.
You read that right by the way, three million words. It's sixteen times longer than Deathly Hallows, only half-over, and craziest of all updates every single day.
Also! I've decided to start doing music recs as well as fanfic recs.
Title comes from the poem "Shi Nite Fusamu" by Saigyō Hōshi : "Dead, I'll lie forever / beneath a blanket / of cold moss / remembering what is learned / only from dew and dark stone" I think that accurately captures Iris's mood as this chapter progresses. This is one of the weaker titles (for one of the weaker chapters), not gonna lie. I have a doozy coming up though, don't you worry!
Music Rec: I've been listening to a lot of 100 gecs recently, they are absolutely incredible. The best way I could describe them is "weird twitter nightcore rap". For people who are unsure about that, I'd recommend "Ringtone" and "Stupid Horse" as their most accessible songs. If you like it, check out "Bloodstains" along with the rest of the album those two come from.