Sunshine and Schedules
There wasn't enough time in the day.
Harry wanted to hang out with Pansy, turn in his homework on time, keep up on practicing spells for Professor Quirrell, and investigate the problem with magic that apparently wasn't just him. He wanted to sleep in the evening, wanted to study in the evening, wanted to sit in a quiet corner with Pansy in the evening, wanted to stay up late into the night with Draco and the other aspiring Quidditch players.
He simply couldn't have everything.
The later he stayed up, the harder it was to wake in the morning and the less productive he was. He couldn't ignore the Quidditch guys and blow off the chance to talk to them. Their relationship was fragile enough as it was, if he stopped making an effort to spend time with them they'd probably forget he existed and he'd be right back to where he was at the start of the year. Alone, but for Pansy.
Each week, his homework grew less and less well-considered. He did less research, made more guesses, and his grades subsequently began to decline. He pushed himself to get through it all anyway, though the combination of late nights and early mornings began to wear on him.
Pansy seemed as tired as he. Sometimes she didn't come down for an hour or more after Harry had begun, and without her his progress always seemed slow and uninspired. Of course, half the time her presence was more a distraction than a help, but the good days made up for it. Together, they could get through it. Mostly.
They hardly had time for their game anymore, and it was too cold outside anyway. Harry's constant jittery energy didn't abate, but he found it less desirable to run up and down stairs and along corridors than his looping track outside. Between that and his increasing state of exhaustion, his mood deteriorated rapidly.
Potions started early on Friday morning, not that 'early' mattered much to Harry. He would already be awake regardless.
This particular Friday, it was one of those incredibly uncomfortable classes where the Gryffindor side and Slytherin side of the room spent more time glaring at each other than paying attention to their potions.
Harry was quite good at ignoring people, but Pansy just couldn't let a chance at an insult by. While her forgetfulness potion turned precisely the wrong shade of orange, she and Ron Weasley hissed insults at each other any time Professor Snape's back was turned. Harry easily recognized the intense personal hatred brewing between them.
The only upside Harry could see was Professor Snape's presence; every time he caught Weasley, Gryffindor lost points by the dozen.
Harry sprinkled crushed mistletoe berries into his cauldron, carefully stirring them in before they could clump together, and sighed. Usually Potions was a chance to de-stress at the end of the week. With only a Charms class in the morning and afternoon's Magical Theory with Hufflepuff to go yet, he usually could hold an even temper the whole day after.
But on this particular day, Weasley seemed unwilling to let it go, and Harry's inclination to ignore him was quickly giving way to an intense desire to hex the boy's stupid face just to get some peace and quiet. The more points Snape docked Gryffindor the more venomous the insults Weasley hissed across the room behind his back. Hermione, always trying to play the good little student, kept motioning the redhead to calm down, and he continued to ignore her.
Though most of the class had solidified behind their perceived champions - Weasley for Gryffindor, Pansy for Slytherin - and was more or less silently egging them both on, Harry had something else distracting him from his potion.
The strange incantation Weasley had attempted on the train kept running through Harry's mind, renewed each time he heard the redhead's voice. Sunshine daisies butter mellow, turn this stupid fat rat yellow, should have been a terrible incantation, but Harry had tweaked the pronunciation and emphasis mentally to the point where it flowed properly. From there, though, he had no idea of the other aspects of spellcrafting. Magical Theory was too vague, and though Astronomy was a good fill-in until he could start Arithmancy in third year, he really wanted to crack this one before then.
He couldn't have said why, but every time he heard Ron and Pansy yelling at each other, he just really wanted to make this one pointless spell work properly.
He muttered it under his breath in time with his stirring, checking the rhythm, checking the flow.
"That's probably what your mother says," Pansy shouted scathingly across, Harry wasn't sure in reply to what. He motioned for her not to forget her mistletoe. The narrow window of proper timing was nearing its end.
"At least I have a mother," Weasley snapped. "From your manners you never—"
"Mr. Weasley!" Snape stepped forward, to Harry's relief, looking quite through putting up with nonsense. "If you cannot pay attention in class, at least refrain from disrupting everyone else. Five points from Gryffindor, and if you speak out of turn again I shall add another detention to those you've already accumulated."
Ron mumbled something under his breath, but at least the room fell relatively silent.
The glares from both sides of the room seemed nearly enough to ignite the air. Draco occasionally gave quietly scathing remarks about the relative quality of his and Weasley's potions, which he only got away with by virtue of being among the few students who actually payed attention to the subject.
The moment class was over, Harry grabbed Pansy's arm and hurried her toward the Charms corridor before she could get them into another scuffle. Gryffindor headed the opposite direction, down to the greenhouses.
Flitwick had them practicing a series of more complicated wand movements, using lumaneo to leave glowing lines in the air which they had to compare to the guide. Swish-tap, sharp and brisk. Hold up the guide, adjust the swish to be shallower. Nox the light, swish-tap, check again.
Pansy got it ten minutes before the lesson closed, matching her movement almost perfectly to the example parchment. Harry wondered irritably if the universe was taunting him. With nearly every other subject he could feel the flow of how magic fit, even if he couldn't always see why, but wand motions - which were essential for Charms - just stubbornly resisted his attempts to understand.
Nox, swish-tap, check. Again. Again, again.
He was relieved when class was over. After lunch they had a free period, and he really needed to get to the library to start on his homework.
Unfortunately, Harry had forgotten one essential fact about the library. Namely, that Gryffindors also had a free period Friday afternoon, and that any free period you could bet that Hermione Granger would be in the library.
Pansy Parkinson and Hermione Granger did not mix well.
Harry managed to find a book that mentioned animal-safe transfigurations and one that included colour changing charms, but from the sounds of raised voices in the direction of the study tables his stay would be considerably shorter than he'd hoped.
He took another look around the shelves in hopes of finding something closer to what he wanted. Before he located anything the increasingly loud argument was punctuated by the librarian's harsh voice, and he knew Pansy was being forcibly removed from the premises.
"I'd like to take these out, please," Harry said, carrying the books to Madam Pince's desk. She tapped the stack with her wand, transferred the titles to the scroll pinned to the wall behind her.
"Name?"
"Harry Potter," he said, and another tap of her wand filled in his name and the date and time.
"Thank you."
She only grunted in acknowledgment.
Pansy was waiting for him in the hall, pacing and fuming in her usual rage after an encounter with the Gryffindors. "And I'm the one they throw out?! Of all the stuck up—"
She took a deliberate breath when she saw Harry, glared at him as he hurriedly stuffed the books into his bag.
Pansy grabbed his hand. "Come on, we still have time before Theory."
The sixth-floor corridor, generally only used to travel toward the Gryffindor or Ravenclaw towers, had become a covert gathering place ever since Pansy had spread the news that the invisible floor now showed the dragon training area.
It wasn't perfect, it had been moved to the right general area by the castle's unpredictable shifting and wasn't directly over the dragon's large grassy courtyard. Instead, the floor looked down on a view half an empty classroom on the first floor and half the dragon courtyard on the third floor. If you went to the classroom side and laid down, you could get a decent angle on the dragon itself.
Scales shimmering a grey-green so dark it almost looked black, the dragon was sleeping at present, its chest rising and falling, occasionally snorting fire onto the scorched ground.
Two Ravenclaws lay on their stomachs, noteparchment spread around them, atop a blanket, and several younger Slytherins were crouched by the far wall, watching the dragon and giggling or gasping each time it puffed fire. Several Gryffindors were playing exploding snap, not paying much attention to the dragon at all.
"No more than a year, I'd reckon," muttered the nearer Ravenclaw, a blond boy who looked to be in his fourth year. He made a notation on his parchment.
"Females are larger and more aggressive, though," the second said. His brown hair was tied back and he appeared older, perhaps fifth or sixth year.
Harry nodded toward the Gryffindors. "I thought you didn't tell any of them about it?"
Pansy gave him her usual blank stare that meant she thought he was being dumb. "And you think none of the students I told have friends or relatives in other houses?"
"Oh, good point." Harry leaned down to look at the dragon more closely. "It's asleep."
"Really? I wouldn't have guessed."
Harry laughed.
"I wonder if anyone in our year has a camera," Pansy mused. "It'll be a shame when the room moves again."
"Yes," Harry said slowly. "It would be."
"What are you thinking?" Pansy asked, turning to him. "You sound like you're thinking something incredibly clever and probably wrong."
"Something you said, about the castle moving to fit what people wanted. Everyone wanted a way to see the dragon, but they couldn't get in the third floor because Filch is watching and it's off limits. So the castle moved this classroom over it, and a bunch of other stuff shifted around and that's why the Defence classroom ended up moving too."
"Then why can't it give us a proper view?" Pansy asked. "Some magic castle, can't even show a dragon right."
Harry shrugged. "It's just a thought."
"Ah, here they come," said the ponytail Ravenclaw boy. "I wish we could hear too."
The door to the hall had opened, though Harry couldn't see from his angle, and a group of Care of Magical Creatures students were filing into the courtyard below. They were accompanied by Silvanis Kettleburn, the Creatures teacher, and his assistant Hagrid.
"I can't imagine the fortune they must have spent to get a permit for this," the blond Ravenclaw said. "Raising a dragon isn't something just anyone can do."
Below, the dragon shifted and turned its head to watch the students along the side of the room. There was a shimmer to the air, defencive barriers between them and the dragon, but the thought of staring into that huge, fire-breathing face was still enough to make Harry shiver.
Professor Kettleburn was talking now, gesturing with his wand. Glowing lines appeared in the air, pointing out or highlighting certain parts of the dragon. At one point he stepped through the shielding and conjured a large cut of meat well above the dragon's head. The dragon eagerly leaped up, flapping its wings to gain altitude, and Hagrid took up the lecture, pointing with his pink umbrella as Kettleburn kept the dragon moving in the air.
Some students in the room below were taking notes, a few sketching, but most just stared in awe.
"First time this group was up here," the blond Ravenclaw noted. "They were doing knarls down in the back paddock first month."
"Does that mean you're done with the dragon?" his friend asked.
"No, we have two weeks still to the unit."
They watched the remainder of the class, Professor Kettleburn eventually coaxed the dragon to come heavily back down to the ground. It stretched, gouging great furrows into the already uneven ground.
"Norwegian Ridgeback for sure," one of the Ravenclaws said. "That close up of the wings was enough to cinch it."
"Well, I told you," the older boy mumbled. "And it is female, though still too young to be obvious."
"Did you see that?" Pansy asked suddenly, grabbing Harry's arm and pointing. Her voice fell to a whisper. "It looks like a doorhandle."
"What?" Harry asked.
"No, there, right where she was scraping the ground. See? And next to it, there, like a latch-catch on a bolt."
Harry squinted, but even with his glasses couldn't pick out what she was pointing to. "I just see a lot of torn-up ground, Pansy."
"No, under the ground. Do you think the dragon has a treasure room?"
Harry shook his head. "If there is a door-catch, it wouldn't be the dragon's. They don't make things, do they?"
Pansy shook her head. "I guess you're right."
"It's probably just something the castle decided to shift there," Harry reasoned. "Like a floor pretending to be a wall, or something."
The class below started to wrap up, and Harry nudged Pansy. "We really should go now," he said.
Pansy nodded, allowed herself to be pulled away.
Harry still felt a vague sense of dissatisfaction as he and Pansy headed to room 434 on the sixth floor for Magical Theory, their last class of the week. He couldn't wait for the weekend, when he could finally catch up on everything he'd been putting off, but he knew that it wouldn't be enough. Come Monday, he'd fall behind again, and the whole cycle would start over. He hated the idea of parceling out his time in fractions, but at this rate he very well may end up needing to follow one of Pansy's charts if he wanted to survive the year.
But, meanwhile, he pretended not to be on the brink of exhaustion and hoped he could actually pay attention. While not his favourite class, Magical Theory tended to be pretty high up on the practical value scale at least 40% of the time.
The class was a recent addition to the Hogwarts curriculum, if grumbling fifth-years were to be believed. The general consensus claimed it as a sort of stop-gap measure to fill the holes in magical education caused by the constantly revolving string of increasingly inept Defence teachers and, some muttered, the abysmal teaching of Professor Binns. Magical Theory covered a lot of the same ground as other classes but in a way that managed to fit alongside without excessive overlap.
It seemed especially relevant to Harry, who had not grown up with magic in the same way Pansy and other purebloods had. While she often complained that they weren't learning anything new at all, Harry found the subject quite interesting and valuable.
Professor Clarity Haddeley was what could only be described as a matronly woman. Neither overly heavy or especially thin, of average height and determinedly cheerful, she taught what could easily have been the most boring class had she not brought an enthusiastic sort of liveliness to the topic.
Their early lessons had explained that magic was not a part of physical reality, existing on its own behind the rest. A wizard was born with an innate duality, their soul inherently attuned to the hidden spectrum of magic. The power that they drew upon was limited only by the strength with which they could channel it through themselves and the speed of regaining it.
Spells generally had to follow certain patterns, but not always, and it often worked differently than the wizard expected when the spell actually worked at all. Yet other occasions, even with a seemingly crazy or completely inaccurate incantation, it worked exactly as anticipated.
A large portion of Magical Theory class was spent exploring just how much wizards didn't understand about magic. They had collectively learned a few things that weren't correct, ruled out certain possibilities, but to the average wizard or witch magic itself was just as mysterious despite their spells and studies as it would be to a muggle.
Most of the history they learned in this class was directly related to magical discoveries, such as how the Theory of Locational Magic was disproven in 1522 by Ares Sellvor traveling to the New World and still able to cast European wand magic, or the fiasco of 1719 when a French cult rediscovered the formulas of Aztec blood rituals.
And then the actual theory of magic, which made less sense the more the class went on. Understanding magic was a bit like trying to learn American English: there were rules and then dozens of exceptions to the rules, incantations and rituals that were borrowed from any number of other cultures, spells in mangled Latin or Greek, others in plain English. Some spells required a fourth component, written words, some substituted writing for wandwork or required no incantations at all.
Harry got the distinct feeling that all the connections and instinctive understanding he'd reached so far was just the very superficial surface of magic's true depths.
The parallels between movement and incantation flow and the stars and the wizard's state of mind were undeniable. But Harry began to get the impression that they all matched because of a similar base cause, not because of any conscious intent in wizards. They matched the pattern because the pattern was there, and magic flowed easiest when everything matched.
Magical Theory class only took place twice a week, once focused on bookwork and the other for practical applications. The homework was lighter and easier than most other classes, which led to it becoming a bit of a favourite among the first years. Though older students complained about the additional work requirements and spoke darkly about the heavier homework requirements it would reach at fourth and fifth years, for the new students that was so far away in the future it wasn't worth worrying about for a long time yet.
They covered the basics of dueling, counter-charms and the value of measuring your strength. These overlapped with Professor Quirrell's lessons a bit, but to Harry the reinforcement was welcome. The Theory curriculum apparently varied each year to fill whatever gaps appeared, and Quirrell's particular weakness was in practical Defence. While his class taught most of the important concepts quite adequately, his demonstrations were widely considered worthless.
As a result, this particular day Professor Haddeley set the students to practice dodging spells. The desks and chairs had been vanished somewhere, leaving the large classroom floor empty. She split the students into four sections, two each of Hufflepuffs and Slytherins, and set them to shooting basic coloured sparks at the other set of students from their own house.
The stated aim was to learn to move while casting, and how to evade incoming spells, but it turned into more of a chaotic free-for-all. The classroom wasn't large enough for enough dodging space, people got tangled up and fell over, some students couldn't manage the spell at all, and overall it was much more frustrating than helpful.
They reset three times, but never quite managed anything so structured as proper dodging. A few students simply took to diving forward to the ground when anyone looked about to aim at them, while others didn't even try to dodge and instead gleefully attacked with spell after spell.
"I see we'll have to try a different approach next week," Professor Haddeley said, smiling as she dismissed them. "Remember, six inches on the value of intent, due Wednesday. Have a lovely weekend."
"We can't keep doing this," Pansy mumbled, rubbing her eyes.
"You don't want to do homework together anymore?" Harry reluctantly set down his quill and turned his full attention to Pansy.
Pansy shook her head. "That's not what I mean. I mean, I'm not getting enough sleep, and you're always up already by the time I get down here."
"I've always gotten up early."
"But until recently, you also went to bed long before any reasonable person would want to. Now, you stay up later than I do!"
Harry shrugged. "So?"
"What did you just write there?"
Harry adjusted his glasses and peered at the page. "And so we must say that there is a big connection between when the spell is cast and how widely the effect is spread," he read.
Pansy put her hands up in a wide, 'see' gesture. "What does that even mean?"
"Er. . ." Harry skimmed through the paragraph leading to his conclusion. "I was trying to explain the connection between casting more quickly and the narrower focus of the spell. But I see what you mean. I guess I'm not at my best these days."
"Because you're not getting enough sleep." She yawned, and he immediately did the same.
He could see his own weariness reflected around her eyes, but he waved it off. "I have to do homework. I have to eat meals. I have to attend classes. I'm not going to stop hanging out with you, and I'm not going to stop talking with the guys in the evening. Sleep just isn't my highest priority right now. I can sleep on the weekends."
And Professor Quirrell wanted him to spend more time practicing his advanced spellset. Harry liked magic, even if getting the wand movements correct remained frustratingly difficult, but he simply didn't have time to do everything.
"I think we need to write out a schedule," Pansy said, already fishing for more parchment. "We can assign each day of the week certain activities, and that way nothing gets lost, but we don't work ourselves to death."
Harry smiled despite himself. Pansy did love her charts and lists. "I don't think we need to worry so much about it right now."
"But we do! If we wait too long, we'll end up like my sister at the end of last year! She almost died she was so exhausted."
"Didn't you say Primma was taking her OWLs last year? Our exams won't be anywhere near that difficult."
"It's the same principle. Besides, look at me! I'm going to get wrinkles before I'm eighteen if I keep getting up this early."
Harry wasn't sure that was how it worked, but he wasn't in any position to argue with her about the subject. "Alright, make the schedules if it'll make you feel better. But I'm not going to start sleeping in. I can't. I always wake up early whether I want to or not."
"That complicates things. Of course you don't have a sleepstone or anything."
"Sleepstone?"
"To make sure you sleep until it's time to get up, and wake up at the right time. They're not really rare, but pretty uncommon. Not everyone has one. I suppose they're a bit expensive, if you don't have the right connections."
"Like an expensive alarm clock for wizards."
"What's an alarm clock?"
"A muggle thing to make sure you wake up in the morning. But they usually get angry at it and turn it off several times before actually getting up."
Pansy made that 'hmmm' sound she usually did when Harry mentioned something ordinary about muggle life which didn't translate perfectly to her own and continued writing.
Several revisions later, they arrived at their plan for the remainder of the school year. Monday after charms and Friday after lunch were assigned to doing homework. Tuesday morning, when they had a free period, Pansy would sleep in while Harry practiced his advanced spells. Wednesday afternoon Harry and Pansy would hang out, play their game, talk, and finish any homework due before Friday that they hadn't finished on Monday.
"The only problem is that I'm still going to wake up early, and I still want to—"
"Hang out with the Quidditch gang, yes yes." Pansy sighed. "There's nothing we can do about that, except for you to develop sufficient self-control to actually walk away and go sleep in the evening. If you can't sleep in and insist on staying up late, nothing here will help."
It was hard to remember exactly what they talked about for so long every evening. He usually was so tired by then that he lost most of his inhibitions against attracting attention and joined in the conversations with reckless abandon.
"I like it," he said quietly. "It's better than anything I ever. . ." He trailed off awkwardly, not wanting to insult Pansy - what they had was different again and valuable to him in a whole different way.
She snorted and flipped her hair dismissively. "Boys."
"I can't help it."
"True," said Pansy. "That's why you need me."
Author's Note: This chapter is brought to you thanks to the unwavering support of The Bull of Slytherin, who has been gently encouraging me to stop neglecting this project all year, and whose patience and persistence are entirely uplifting to my shriveled writer soul. :)
I cannot promise regular updates, but I do have a lot of half-written scenes for this story which could in theory be touched up and expanded to post given the motivation to do so. Life remains hectic and crazy, but I genuinely love my fics and do not want to neglect them forever. We'll see how it goes.
Thanks for reading!