"Professor Sprout?"
Pomona jumps and whirls around as someone calls her name while she's tending to a venomous tentacular in greenhouse 7. The person who startled her quickly pulls her away from the plant.
"My apologies, I didn't realise you would startle."
Dusting herself off, Professor Sprout notes, "You have me at a disadvantage Madam."
"Ah, we haven't met. Sorry about that, I'm known as Morgana Danann, I believe that my son is part of your house this year?"
"Madam Danann! How did you get in here?"
"Why, I walked, and please call me Morgana."
"But I have the greenhouse warded against anyone but a select list of people."
"Ah, perhaps I could offer you a repast, as well as showing you how I walked here. Be warned it is disorientating for those who don't know how to walk the path."
The professor frowns, "Celtic magic?"
"Indeed, and I do have things to discuss about your charges, and I fear a greenhouse is not that conducive to that sort of conversation."
"This is what Miss Greengrass is learning isn't it?"
"It is indeed."
Pomona Sprout thinks for a moment, "I think I probably should, go with you that is."
Morgana smiles, "Take my hand and don't let go."
Pomona was only confused for a moment as she was pulled into the mist, as sure enough it was indeed walking. A few minutes later they exit into a misty glade with Morgana's round house in the centre. Beyond the house she can see poppies growing amongst mounds with weird stunted trees growing from them.
"Morgana, what sort of trees are those?"
As Morgana looks over to where Pomona is looking a complicated expression crosses her face, "Those are not trees, they are a constant reminder that violence isn't always the answer, however sometimes it's the only recourse you have." Pomona turns to stare at the field until the mist comes in to cover the scene, "Come, my ward is practicing around the back."
Confused, Pomona follows Morgana around the back, where she sees a girl fighting against a goblin in her birthday suit, "Why isn't she wearing any clothes!?"
Marianne looks up at the exclamation and gets a tap on the head for the distraction, "If you must look around make space."
Marianne nods, and lowers her sword conceding the defeat, "I think I did better than last time."
The goblin shakes her head, "Nay child, I was holding back more. However you did well considering your injuries and magical exhaustion. My Queen."
Morgana inclines her head, "Warrior, your instruction has been appreciated."
"She is young enough to learn and she doesn't have too many bad habits."
"I will not offer you insult by allowing her to show you the weapons she trained with." Morgana waves her hand and Marianne is cleaned and dressed in Celtic clothing, "Come child, this concerns you as well."
Marianne bows from her hips and keeps her eyes up, "Yes my Queen."
Once they have left the training area, Morgana ruffles Marianne's hair, "How are you feeling?"
Marianne tips her head back, "I feel great. I don't know why you're not letting me explore the mist."
"Your magic is still healing the injuries that you sustained. You know this, you also know that if you push your magic too hard, you could deplete it completely and become mundane again."
Pomona startles, "Become mundane again?"
Morgana nods, "Indeed, it can also happen to young children born with magic if they are naturally weak. It's one of the reason my family allowed their followers to live in their domains occasionally."
"I must confess, I'm confused as I seem to be missing some critical information."
Morgana looks at her eyes searchingly for a moment, "My apologies, I forget who does and doesn't know about the old forms. Come, be welcome in my home as a guest."
The three of them make their way to the fire pit and sit on the piled skins around it.
"Would you prefer I start with the meaning of my name, or the reason I came to see you?"
Pomona answers promptly, "The reason for the meeting."
"Sensible. I received this letter from the students in your first year." She hands over a letter with a bunch of signatures on the bottom, "This led me to enquire how I could home school 11 students, and the mundane law says I can't. This bit is important for you Marianne; What I was able to do is set up a free school, where I am the sole permanent teacher."
Pomona scans the letter, "I'm not sure why you needed to talk to me for this."
"I would like your help to add a 1 hour class to their day, and either permission for myself to come to your school, or for them to come to me. It doesn't matter when that class is, just as long as it's scheduled."
"What would be the purpose of these lessons?"
"Legally, I need to teach two physical education classes every week. The other classes will be for them to get help with any of the self-study they're doing."
Marianne looks confused, "I don't understand why you said it involves me?"
"You're currently enrolled in a school. However, if you want to be part of this school, that's also possible."
"Oooh. Wait, you mean I get to choose?"
Morgana nods, "Yes. You'll still need to go to your old school until Christmas either way, as I won't get the official paperwork back before then."
Marianne slumps, "Can I just home school with you?"
"I wish I could, however there is too much for my magic to change to do that, as it involved peoples memories as well as paperwork. I know there are others who do not feel that way, but for me and I hope in the future for you as well, memories are a sacred thing as they define who we are as much as our souls do."
Pomona nods, "I could name more than a few witches and wizards that should learn the same lesson. As for your proposal, I will need to discuss this with the Deputy Headmistress, as it's not something I can decide on my own. What about monetary costs?"
"There should be none for the school. I will need to send letters to the parents for their signatures for the holiday classes."
"Holiday classes?"
"Yes, some of the subject have practical components that require special facilities to perform. Nothing complicated, but I don't think I'd want to have them in a magical school with the likes of the Weasley Twins around."
"You've heard about them?"
Morgana nods, "I have, and I think that their antics are on the wrong side of the bullying line."
"Oh? How so?"
"From what Harry has written, they tend to be targeted rather than general. Indiscriminate, as in it's not done to people who have consented by being in a rivalry with them. Finally, I am surmising that they are often retaliatory too."
Marianne frowns, "What sort of pranks would you approve of then?"
Surprised Pomona asks, "How did you know they were pranks?"
Marianne laughs, "I talk to Harry occasionally. I think my favourite one was when they made someone called Malfoy's hair turn into a Griffin for an hour and proclaim how good the Gryffindor house is."
Morgana nods, "While that sounds funny as an observer, it sounds humiliating for Malfoy. Did Harry say if the twins were pranked back?"
Marianne shakes her head, "Not that I know of, I think they just got points taken off and a detention."
"Which means that Malfoy suffered public humiliation and they suffered private punishment. How do you think you'd feel if they did that at your school?"
"I'd feel really bad about it. The name calling is bad enough as it is. Oh, it's the same thing isn't it."
Pomona nods, "I'm afraid it is, fortunately my badgers are usually spared their attentions. But that is because our house has a reputation of retaliating on mass."
Marianne asks, "What would make that a good prank?"
Morgana looks at Pomona, "Would you like to take this one Professor?"
Pomona stares at the smoke hole for a second, "To start with, not targeting a first year with only a couple of months of schooling under his belt. Secondly, targeting the whole house, year, or class. Finally, having an avoidable trigger. I remember when Harry's parents were in the school, his father and his friends charmed all of the suits of armour in the school to waltz anyone that came within arms reach of them. This was both funny and showed a magnificent grasp of magic. Equally, they often crossed the line into bullying, especially in their younger years. Come to think of it, James starting to date Lily is when the shift from bullying pranks to clever and funny pranks happened."
Morgana looks a little surprised at that story, "I wasn't aware that they were so famous in school. Harry and I haven't been able to find out anything about his birth parents beyond what's written in the books about the end of the war."
Pomona nods, "I think most of the teachers have their stories about James and his friends. Though for most of us Lily didn't really stand out until her 5th year when she started dating James. Though I seem to remember Professors Flitwick and Slughorn both singing her praises in staff meetings before that."
"I know it's an open secret who Harry is, would you be able to tell Harry some of your stories of them?"
Pomona shakes her head, "Not during the school year, as we're required to keep a level of distance between us and our students. Both to avoid the appearance of favouritism and also as a measure of professionalism. However, I would be happy to arrange time during the summer break to reminisce about those years."
Intelligently Marianne says "Uh?"
Morgana smiles at her, "What don't you understand?"
"Why you can't just be friendly."
"It's due to the perception of fairness. It's very easy for other people to see an increased amount of time being spent with a student as that student getting special treatment. Especially if they're not a troublemaker or doing badly in school. This would be especially true for Harry, who is a celebrity in his birth name." She turns back to Pomona, "Thank you for explaining why."
Pomona shakes her head, "It's not a problem. I'm just glad I'm not Professor McGonagall, sharing both the Deputy Headmistress and Head of Gryffindor roles. She is often forced to treat her own house less favourably than the other heads simply because of her position as Deputy and accusations of favouritism that have been levelled in the past. It doesn't help that the headmaster isn't so circumspect in his support for the house."
With a sudden bout of insight, Marianne declares, "I'm glad that Harry isn't in Gryffindor then. If he was then I bet nobody would believe he wasn't getting special treatment."
Morgana nods, "Indeed, it's half of the reason why he's hidden his scar since he learnt how. The other half is that he was fed up with the pity everyone gave him when they saw it. Along with the endless questions about how he got it and why it hadn't healed."
Marianne nods, "Well, I'd rather have you as my teacher than go to the school my father sent me to. Can I go now?"
Morgana shakes her head in amusement, "Yes you can go, no more practice or running into the mist though."
"Aww, but I like fighting her, she always teaches me something new."
"If you have that much energy, I'll lift the mist from my domain and you can explore that. I trust you to be responsible around the weapons though, as they are all grave markers."
Marianne hurries out before Morgana can change her mind. Once she's left, Pomona looks at Morgana the way she would a student she's expecting an explanation from. Morgana, on the other hand, summons a red bulb of garlic to her hand before tossing it to Pomona.
"Catch, it's an apology for startling you in your greenhouse. It's called fire garlic, and we used to use it to keep food hot for days. Eaten raw it would be like being burned with a pitch torch, however if you boil it in salted water for 10 minutes it merely tastes spicy."
Pomona looks down at a new magical plant that she's never heard of before. Well, obviously not new, as Morgana said that she used to use it. Holding the bulb up to the light she turns it around to examine it, "You can't buy my co-operation with brand new plants."
Morgana laughs, "I wouldn't dream of trying. One question, would you mind it if Marianne visits your common room to do her homework with friends. Once she's learnt to enter the mist that is."
"Um, sure. What does this need to grow, and is it dangerous to handle while growing?"
"For the most part you can treat it like normal garlic, though the soil will get dryer than you'd expect from other garlic. That should only affect the area that the bulb grows in, not the lower soil where the roots grow. Though you'd really want to talk to Airmed about the cultivation aspects. I'd suggest Fódla, but she planted an apple tree in her domain, and I doubt you'd be able to leave without either eating one of the apples or fighting your way out. Frankly, I don't think you'd survive fighting, and you probably wouldn't want to survive the apple, even though you would."
"Um, apple?"
"Thousands of years ago my family made an apple tree that gives anyone that eats it an adults magic. However, because the body gets that level of magic over the course of a couple of hours it never learns to produce enough on its own. So they became dependant on the apples for their lives, thus when the supply starts to run out, so does their life. This applies to those born with magic too, though they do gain more magic than they were born with. Like most shortcuts to power, it has severe drawbacks."
With that the conversation is derailed onto Celtic history and gardening until Pomona's wand buzzes to let her know her next class is in 5 minutes.
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Harry looks up as Susan nervously says, "Harry?"
"Yes?"
"Erm, there was one other thing in my aunt's letter. Do you remember your mother telling Daphne that she couldn't learn from you?"
"I do, you then asked my mother if you could learn Celtic magic from me."
"Um, I thought that I was just demonstrating the correct way to ask. However, my aunt has asked me why I haven't taken up the opportunity yet."
Harry watches patiently as Susan sorts through her thoughts, "Um, is it ok to give my spot to someone else?"
Harry laughs good naturedly, "Susan, what would be the reaction if you said that about learning alchemy from Nicholas Flamel's apprentice?"
Susan's eyes widen, "I would never… That is it would be…"
"Exactly, now I don't mind. But you have to be the one to explain your decision to both your aunt and my mum. Who incidentally is over 2,000 years old."
"You can't be serious. Actually, this is you so you probably are."
"I don't joke about my family. I would assume that the same is true for most of the people that attend this school."
"But 2,000 years, it sounds unbelievable."
"How so? Because it doesn't happen with Roman magic?"
"I, don't know. I guess it… I don't know how to explain it."
Harry smiles, "Let me try. You've grown up knowing one set of expectations based on the stories you heard as a child and the way the adults around you have behaved. My mother being 2,000 years old is challenging those truths."
"Um, yes. So, can I start learning from you please?"
"Sure, the first lesson is about desire. Let's go and find Daphne and she can confirm that my instructions aren't just pulling your leg because you kept me waiting."
It doesn't take long to find Daphne and run through the same explanation Harry gave Daphne. When he's finished, Susan looks at both of them incredulously.
"Seriously? I have to really want to go somewhere to go somewhere?"
Daphne nods, "I didn't understand it either, but it's true. When you're starting out your desire is far more important than anything else. It's still the part that I hate about learning this as occlumency stops you from feeling emotions strongly enough to navigate anywhere. It's why I… needed help at the beginning of the year."
"Is that going to happen to me?"
Harry shakes his head, "Unless you keep your occlumency going all the time, then no, you'll be fine."
"Ok, so when do we start?"
Daphne smiles, "I could do with some decompression time, so now is as good a time as any."
"Harry smiles, sure. Oh, while I remember. This pendant signifies that you're my student, please don't take it off or let anyone else have it."
Susan just looks confused, so Daphne adds, "Think of it like an apprenticeship crest, however you don't need to show it at all times, just wear it. I have mine here."
Susan nods and ties it around her neck.
"Ok, when you're ready take my hand and don't forget what I said."
Susan and Daphne take his hands, and he slips them into the mist. Just before he lets go of Susan's hand he exclaims, "Oh, I forgot to let Professor Sprout know that I was starting my training early. Susan, don't forget that if you don't make it out of the mist, you'll be doomed to wander it forever."
