Saturday 10th December
Rose was a little late to breakfast—she'd had to leave the castle again last night—somehow sleeping through her alarm charm set for seven each morning.
The girls were already there when she arrived, which had to be a first, as Tessie never managed to get up before noon on the weekends.
"Why didn't you wake me?" Rose asked as she sat down, a little frustrated that she'd have to rush her routine. The game started at ten, and Rose wanted to do at least an hour warm up before mounting her broom in the icy weather. She hated to admit it, but she'd always been a stickler for routine, used to her mother's micro-managed schedules.
"You looked so peaceful." Tessie shrugged, already preparing a plate of bacon and eggs for Rose.
There was a derisive snort from the space beside Rose,
"If you think dribbling all over the pillow is 'peaceful'." Georgette drawled from her usual place beside Magda, in such a familiar and casual tone that Rose's heart leapt a little.
She hadn't even noticed the girl as she'd sat down, so used to seeing her there that she'd forgotten their temporary feud.
"Feeling alright about the game?" Rose asked carefully, dipping her toe in the metaphorical waters.
Georgette shrugged, "Well Selwyn's out ill, so they're using their bench Seeker—little scrawny third year. I've seen him fly—should be a piece of cake."
It was as though Georgette had short-term memory loss, acting as though she'd never even been angry at Rose. In fairness, this behaviour wasn't unusual—Georgette hated to acknowledge when she'd fucked up, substituting an apology with flat-out ignoring her own behaviour.
But she must've caught Rose's creased brow, as her face slipped into something a little more shameful.
"We good?" she asked quickly—a little apprehensively—and Rose recognized how uncomfortable Georgette really felt—not practiced at apologies—and her attempt to disguise it.
"Yeah," Rose lifted a fist over the table, "We're good."
Georgette bumped the offered fist, before returning to her bacon, and the previous topic of discussion,
"Selwyn's talent on pitch is the only thing that carries the Ravenclaw team. Their Chasers are so textbook its predictable. That's why I've always tried to foster on-pitch creativity in our team. You can't rely on plan alone, it's all—" Georgette launched into a long Quidditch spiel, and Magda shot Rose small smile from behind her glass of orange juice. Even Tessie nudged her thigh to thigh under the table, a little reassurance and reminder that Georgette always came around.
Admittedly, both girls were right.
Georgette was right too, in her offhand prediction of the game. Without their star Seeker, the Ravenclaws had given up before the game had even started. Rose got three goals past the unenthusiastic Keeper before Georgette caught the Snitch, only fifteen minutes in. Ravenclaw's replacement Seeker had been at the other side of the pitch—mistaking a glint off a spectator's watch for the elusive gold ball.
Georgette's mood soared from there, including, at the post-match celebration in the Gryffindor Tower. It was hard to decline as a cheery Georgette shoved Butterbeer after Butterbeer into Rose's empty hands, and Rose found herself pleasantly fuzzy with the warming effects of the drink. Luckily, however, she'd still been sober enough to vanish the contents of Georgette's stomach when the girl evacuated them behind an armchair. Despite that display, she still managed to find a seventh-year boy to snog somewhere around one am, until Rose firmly detached them and frog-marched her protesting friend to bed.
While Georgette didn't seem happy at the time, she gratefully accepting a glass of water and pain potion when she woke at midday on Sunday.
Monday 12th December
"Have you started your Christmas shopping yet?"
Al's concentration shifted a little from his attempt at the Protean Charm. Two pieces of parchment lay before him; one bearing the words 'Albus Severus Potter' in his tiny handwriting, the other blank. The second was meant to copy the first, but he wasn't having much luck. Rose's pieces of parchment were, however, identical, both scrawled with the same 'I'm Rose and Albus smells' right down to the flick of her messy 'l's.
Albus' wand arm drooped a little, "Not yet. But I'm sure as hell not getting Lily another Pygmy Puff. She downright murdered the last one."
"How?" Rose asked, not-so-obviously shifting her successfully charmed parchment away from Albus, as though not to rub it in. Albus refrained from sighing.
"She overfed it." He said bitterly. He'd tried to lecture Lily on proper care of animals, but she'd just kept stuffing pumpkin seeds into the thing—'he must be hungry, he's still eating them!'—until they'd found him feet up in the cage a few months later, his fur a sickly shade of green.
Albus tried the charm again, making the motion with his wand and muttering the charm. Nothing happened. He found himself quietly looking forward to next period—he never felt like a Squib in Care of Magical Creatures.
"You've got to imagine they're already connected in a way, and you're just strengthening the link. As though the writing is supposed to be on both papers, and you're just correcting it." Rose suggested, her face falsely optimistic.
Albus chewed the inside of his cheek, pretending as though his blank parchment already had his tiny script loping over it, proclaiming his weighty name across it. Not only carrying the weight of his father's expectations, the eye of the wizarding world, but the names of two men who died for causes Albus hadn't had to consider once. Brilliant, heroic, highly academic, effortlessly talented men.
And Albus couldn't even work a simple Protean Charm.
He concentrated, his brow furrowed and Rose's advice at the front of his mind, and waved his wand. A few letters, in his writing, appeared in faint ink on the paper.
A S s er
"That's about right." Albus snorted, and Rose practically tripped over herself to reassure him.
"I'm sure it just takes practice." She interjected quickly, no doubt noting the dejected look on his face, "You'll get it in no time."
Rose had hugged him goodbye before they'd parted, and Albus found his spirits brightening when as he left the stuffiness of the castle behind. As he approached the field behind Hagrid's hut, Albus gratefully inhaled the slight hint of dirt in the air, just detectable under layers of snow. It was funny how his best subjects—Herbology, Care of Magical Creatures—smelled so earthy and raw, as if something about it increased his brain flow. Maybe he ought to bring a jar of dirt into Charms, he could give it a quick sniff if he was struggling with something.
"Mornin' Al." Hagrid was already outside, wearing what looked suspiciously like pink oven mitts. Albus was the first to arrive.
"Morning, Hagrid." Albus knew he ought to use the official title for his professor, but Hagrid was far too familiar, "Been baking again?" Albus didn't think Hagrid's baking was that bad, if one soaked it in milk for a few hours before consumption.
"Actually, we're doin' fire salamanders today. They've got a nasty bit o' scale rot that needs treatin', thought it was fit well wi' the exam 'n all."
"Is there a question on scale rot?" Albus feigned innocently. He had been placed in Slytherin for a reason—who was he to ignore Hagrid's obvious soft spot for him, especially when the man was practically asking him to exploit it?
"I didn' say nuthin'." Hagrid winked conspiratorially, as though his hint needed exaggerating.
Albus winked back—despite his occasional student favouritism, Hagrid was still one of the most kind-hearted teachers at Hogwarts.
When the rest of the class arrived, Hagrid handed each of them a pair of thick leather gloves—elbow length—that smelt faintly of smoke.
He then led the—admittedly small—group to his back garden, where a log of fire roared under, what Albus presumed, was a temperature stasis charm. The snow within half a metre of the log had melted, revealing the frozen ground hibernating beneath it. It was instinctual to approach the fire, and let it ward off the chill of the pre-Christmas air.
"….we'll start by tryin' ta tempt them out of the log and into your 'ands wi' food, but if they're not bein' too keen you can summon 'em. Remember, they need ta be fed pepper while they're out of the log, or they'll cool and die. You can only keep 'em out for a few minutes, so keep ya time. And don't drop 'em in the snow—they'll turn ta' steam quicker than you can say 'fiyah'. The chilli powder, which you'll be rubbin' on their scale rot, is in crates over there—" Hagrid nodded in a direction behind the group, "—so ge' goin'!"
Albus prepared the food first, helping himself to a generous amount of pepper—balancing it in a heaped pile of the flat of his palm, trying to entice the salamander from the log, into his grip. The trick was to make his offering more bountiful than anything they were offered inside the log—their usual diet consisting of little fried wood critters and bits of toasted marshmallow lost to the flames.
The crux of it was: animals were basic, and plants too. All they wanted was their fundamental needs met, and their lives were centered around fueling those needs; food, water, shelter, reproduction.
Al didn't find it difficult to put himself in the most basic mindset, looking at each situation with a logical mindset. For a salamander, whose habitat and 'safety zone' was the fiery log, the danger lay in leaping onto a hand, which could be potentially lethal. But if the offering of resources—food for example—outstripped the risk, then what was the animal to do?
Al was the first—and the only—to encourage a salamander into his hand without magical coercion. He watched patiently as it scuttled to the edge of the flames, most likely catching the scent of a wicked treat not far from its spot. Albus' hand was practically in the fire—closer than his peers dared to get—hoping the glove would protect him long enough.
But it didn't take long, the salamander deciding the leap was worth it, cautiously creeping up Al's fingers, freezing whenever it detected a microscopic twitch in Al's hand. It was a fascinating little creature, the entire surface of its skin like molten lava, glowing and shifting as heat radiated visibly off it. Occasionally a little lick of flame poked out from its mouth, forked, pulling tiny flecks of pepper into its mouth. Once the creature seemed calm enough, happily munching on the pepper, Al finally pulled away from the log, his face sweaty from the close proximity to the burning log.
There were some parts of its skin, around the shoulders and neck, that were darkened, as though the lava had hardened to rock. These were the places that Albus applied the powder, careful not to irritate these places more than necessary. Animals felt pain as a warning, and would flee from whatever caused it. Even though the gloves were cumbersome, Al managed it, two minutes before time. He was beginning to feel the heat of the salamander through his gloves, as though the temperature of its little body were slowly increasing, threatening to burn him.
As he helped the salamander back into the log—the sweat on his face breaking out again—he felt a familiar swell of pride, knowing an animal was faring better due to his careful intervention.
"Not just plants, then?" A voice asked, and Al tried not to jump, instead stumbling a little from where he'd knelt by the fire.
He turned, awkwardly rocking into a standing position, pleasantly surprised to see Arataki behind him, rugged up in a woolen coat and other winter accessories. But there was a sheen of sweat across his forehead too, snow-crusted gloves off in one hand.
"I—uh. Yeah." Albus went to scratch the side of his neck—a gesture he did when nervous—but forgot about his leather gloves, not noticing he'd rubbed black soot on the line of his throat until his hand pulled away. "Crap." He muttered under his breath, tugging the glove off to fumble for his wand.
But Arataki was already raising his, watching the spot carefully as he muttered a cleaning spell. Albus felt the tickle of the magic, which caused Albus' skin to break out in a shiver of goosebumps. By the way Arataki was still watching Albus' throat, Al guessed he'd noticed.
A silence fell between the two, loud enough to drown out the surrounding chatter of Al's classmates, to the point where Al could almost pretend they weren't there.
But Arataki cleared his throat, "I actually came to talk to Hagrid about—" then his eyes lit a little, an idea brightening them, "I don't suppose… would you be free to help me on Wednesday night?"
Al inhaled so sharply that he almost choked on his own saliva, "With—uh—with what?"
A little smile lit Arataki's face, one corner of his mouth twisting up so slyly that it made Albus' chest ache,
"I think it would be more fun if it were a secret." He winked, "Meet here at ten pm Wednesday?"
It hurt to think, "Yes. I think—" don't be too eager, Albus! "I think I can manage that."
Arataki's little smirk grew to a grin, turning the pain in Albus' chest from ache to cardiac arrest,
"Fantastic! Wear shoes you can get dirty."
And then he was gone, making his way around tiny clusters of students towards Hagrid. Albus was left alone with his sweaty palms and weak knees, the tingles across the surface of his neck now unrelenting.
A/N: Thank you again for all the lovely reviews!