It's not moving...
The last weekend before the term was over most students were frantically studying for the mid-term exams next week. While there was a lot of material to cover, Harry and Lyra thought they had everything covered. Lyra was making sure to spend some extra time on her Transfiguration and Charms practical lessons to make sure she didn't make anything explode during the tests.
Auror Jameson showed up on Saturday briefly to have Lyra read for him and declare that she could continue independently. He also finally introduced himself properly to them as he wanted their relationship to this point to be professional. Quinn Jameson was his name, and his son Quinn Jameson Jr. would be starting Hogwarts in two years. Lyra gave him a big hug and promised to look out for him when he came. Harry shook the man's hand and made the promise as well.
Next came their weekly Black tutoring. Arcturus, Brandt, and Augustus showed up for the dueling portion. Harry and Lyra hadn't been doing as much of the fighting practice as they would have liked and had to admit to Augustus that they hadn't taken his suggestion of inviting other prefects to their dueling room for extra practice.
"Well, you do have a lot to do with your schoolwork but I still think it would be something to help you out in the next term," Augustus commented. "Well, let's see how the two of you have improved. Lyra, you're first, hop into the ring and hit me with everything you've got."
Lyra jumped in and drew her wand. Augustus fired off a spell at the obelisk outside the platform to activate the dueling wards and then cast a few flame-freezing charms on himself before motioning to Lyra to start.
Lyra had been practicing a bit on controlling her fire, so she was going to try to make this interesting. She started by drawing her staff and tapping it on the ground then stashing it back in her pouch as it would hinder her movement a bit. From where she tapped it, the orange light of her warming charm spread out across the floor. The moment she saw Augustus look down at it, she let loose a stream of fire from her wand with an "Incendio!"
The flame looked like it was going to miss but in the last few feet, it curved back toward her opponent and splashed against his side. Augustus raised an eyebrow and smiled, drawing his own wand. He fired two lazy yellow paintballs towards Lyra which she ducked underneath and lobbed an arc of fire in the air that had the championship dueler take just a step to the side to avoid. However, it didn't end there. Instead of dissipating on the stone floor, it continued to burn like a little campfire about three feet high on top of the orange glow of the warming charm.
Lyra repeated this process a few times until the platform was littered with small pillars of flame. She had so far avoided all of their tutor's paint spells but he was making them faster and she was running low on magic.
Harry was watching from up in the seats with Augustus and Brandt. Both of them were looking on with incredible interest.
"Harry, explain to me what she's doing right now," Arcturus told him.
"Well, we discovered last week that Lyra's fire spells feed on and empower the warming spell she casts, so the more fires she has going on top of the orange floor, the hotter all the fires and the warming charm become. The heat doesn't affect her more than she wants it to though, for whatever reason. Watch Augustus's shoes."
Brandt and Arcturus watched closely as it looked like the flame-freezing spells on his shoes were slowly wearing off. When his shoes started to smoke, he looked startled at his feet and recast the charm. As he dodged another arc of fire, he looked around and realized he was running out of places to dodge, so he cast a huge watermarking spell on the platform. The flame-freezing charm was probably keeping him from realizing how hot the floor was and the water from his wand turned to steam instantly, though instead of stopping, he kept the water flowing until the entire arena was covered in thick steam and contained within the dueling wards so nothing could be seen at all.
Then, all of a sudden, there was a blue light and all the steam inside the wards froze into a solid cube. The fires and the orange floor disappeared as soon as the flash occurred. As the flash subsided, they could see the frozen cube like it was made of crystal - on one side Lyra was standing there with her wand outstretched and on the other was Augustus with his wand pointing upwards towards the middle of the arena. Then he started to move, swimming through the solid ice like he was underwater until he reached Lyra, then pulled her towards the edge while he fired a spell through the ice to deactivate the wards. As they shut off, the two of them reached the side of the giant ice cube and he pushed Lyra's head out of the ice where she gasped for air.
Sticking his own head out the side he said, "Well, that was fun, wasn't it?"
Lyra took a few more breaths, before saying, "It's really cold but that was fun. Can you melt it?"
"Can you?" he challenged her.
Lyra struggled a bit, but could only move her neck that was sticking out from the side of the cube, as the rest of her was still immobile within the ice. Then she closed her eyes and concentrated. Slowly but surely, everyone could see bubbles forming around the base of her hair braid. Eventually, it turned red and the water started to melt until she had melted a small pocket on the side of the cube and was able to stand up and jump off the platform, soaking wet with her hair on fire. Shivering a bit, she extinguished her hair and used her wand to place a warming charm on herself.
Augustus swam through the solid ice to the top of the cube, pulled himself out, then jumped off the edge and did a flip in the air before landing next to Lyra.
He turned back to the giant ice cube that was still on the platform and said to Lyra, "You'll eventually want to learn this spell, I'd bet. Incendio Solem!" he incanted.
A blast of fire shot out from his wand and coalesced into a huge sphere of burning flame above the ice cube. Fire raged from the sphere like a miniature sun and the ice started melting. They all watched as it eventually melted the entire cube, the water falling into the pit around the platform and evaporating everything that remained on top.
With a quick swish of his wand, the ball of fire vanished and he turned back to Lyra. "That is a powerful fire spell, don't cast it at a living thing that you don't intend to destroy… unless you're in a professional dueling tournament, as anyone who is there should be expected to know how to defend themselves."
Lyra understood how serious he was being, then she quickly looked at Harry with her eyebrows raised. He immediately realized what she was thinking and gave her a small nod back.
"It looks like the two of you are already plotting a murder," Arcturus said darkly. "Please inform me before you plan on killing someone so I can at least help you dispose of the body."
"It's not a person," Lyra said with a bit of shock at being discovered.
"Don't worry," Harry said, "If we decide to use it on a person, we will make sure to tell you first, just like the confrontation with Draco." Everyone stared at the children to try to figure out what they were plotting.
"Well, let's see about you now Harry," Arcturus motioned for him to head to the platform with Augustus.
The two of them squared off on opposite sides. Harry smiled a bit as he was waiting for a signal to start. He too had been working on something in the past week that he wanted to show off.
As soon as Augustus activated the wards and beckoned him to start, Harry whipped out his wand and threw two quick bolts of magic toward his tutor. Augustus dodged one and swatted the other away with his wand, then fired three paint spells back at Harry which were also dodged. Harry continued to shoot small bolts of magic while stepping to the sides to avoid incoming paint spells. After he had cast around a dozen bolts, he cast two more, though these traveled much slower. Then before they could be intercepted he cast three faster ones aimed at Augustus's head, torso, and feet. The man just created a full-body shield to intercept them all.
"That was interesting, how about this?" he called out and then conjured a plume of flame towards Harry.
Harry sent two more slow-moving bolts at the man before bringing up his shield. He kept it moving constantly like he was stirring a potion until he was able to move far enough to the side to fire a few more bolts to impact at the same time as the slow bolts he shot off before. Augustus kept his flame moving toward Harry and dodged the two slower-moving spells, one of the faster bolts, and knocked away two more with his bare hand.
Harry tried not to be surprised and ducked under the fire coming towards him rolling to the other side and calling out his own fire spell, "Incendio!"
A much smaller flame shot toward Augustus and targeted his wand to force him to cut off his fire spell which he did to cast a shield in front of him. Harry took advantage of that opening to cast ten incredibly slow bolts of magic from all over his side of the platform which started to inch toward Augustus.
Watching the bolts move towards him, he quirked an eyebrow and called out a spell, "Fulmen Stabilius!"
He didn't need to use the incantation but Harry would be at a severe disadvantage if he didn't warn him what he was casting. They had covered some basic incantations for elemental spells the previous week, this one was a weak electrical spell, like an overcharged static shock.
Knowing what was coming, Harry brought up his shield and intercepted the small bolt of lightning, countering it dead center on his shield until the flow of electricity stopped. From there, Harry kept moving to avoid the paint spells coming towards him and took a few extra seconds to cast more powerful bolts of magic toward his tutor, while the slow-moving spells continued to inch closer.
Augustus was able to easily step around the sluggish bolts of magic while continuing to intercept the faster ones that Harry sent toward him. Just as he was about to cast a water spell toward the boy, he had to abandon that idea to shield himself against an incoming plume of fire. As he waited behind the shield for Harry to exhaust himself or move on to another spell, he felt three spells hit him in the back like solid punches to his kidneys causing him to drop his shield and roll out of the way of the fire.
"HALT!" he called out and Harry lowered his wand. "What the bloody hell was that?"
Up in the stands, Brandt called out, "He got you! I've never seen such a basic spell do that. Those slow bolts just bounced off the dueling wards and a couple of them hit you from behind." Augustus looked around to see the remaining seven bolts had bounced off the wards and were still moving slowly around the platform.
Harry smiled, "When I figured out I could slow the bolts down when I was practicing last week, I found that if they are extra slow, they don't dissipate when they hit something, they just bounce off. I thought since they were so slow, you'd think they were just a distraction."
Augustus looked impressed, "You're right, I did think they were a distraction. Try not to use this technique on anyone other than the people in this room until you're in an actual tournament or a real fight when you might need the element of surprise. If it could surprise me, it would almost certainly do the same to anyone else. I will not underestimate you next time."
Harry grinned but realized the next time would be a whole lot harder.
"Now, your homework assignment for the next time I see the two of you after your winter break: I want you to practice every spell you have learned this term as many times as possible every day. Even if you're casting the match to needle transfiguration on driftwood or a scouring charm on the ocean, do them as often as you possibly can. Before we leave the dueling arena, I want both of you to use the scouring charm on the entire seating area. This isn't a punishment, I just want to watch your technique."
Harry and Lyra both groaned a bit and set off cleaning all the seats surrounding the dueling platform. Occasionally Augustus gave them a hint on pronunciation or how to pull a little more power out of the charm. When they finished the full lap around he had them both cast it one more time on an already clean spot.
"Can you both tell me what was different about that last casting than the very first time you used the charm?"
"It was easier?" Lyra asked though they were both exhausted from all the magic they had been using.
"Yes, it probably was easier. However, what I saw was that you had instinctively minimized the wand movement for the spell. The wand movement and incantation for spells are instructing your magic on how to act, after enough training you can get rid of the instructions. I want both of you to try the spell again without any wand movement."
Both children pointed their wands at the ground again and incanted, "Scourgify!" without any wand movement.
They both got just a tiny squirt of soapy water came out before disappearing.
"Good, you both need to keep practicing as often as you can. Eventually, you'll be able to point-cast any spell you know after performing it with the proper wand movement enough times. After that, perform it enough times as a point cast and you'll be able to do it without the incantation. Though when you start to do it without the incantation, you may have to add back in the wand movement before you can point-cast AND perform the spell silently. After that, you may eventually learn to cast spells without your wand at all. Though that is on a whole other level."
To demonstrate, he made a cupping motion with his hand and conjured a ball of fire. Holding it up above his head, it grew to be about five feet in diameter before he tossed it back onto the dueling platform where it exploded and dissipated. Harry and Lyra stared at the display in awe.
"Your wand is just a focus, all the magic you perform comes from inside you. Do you have any questions before we finish up?"
Lyra asked, "Can you show us what a real duel is like? Everyone asks me if I've ever seen you 'really really duel.'"
Augustus looked up to Arcturus, "My Lord, would you care to help demonstrate?"
Arcturus seemed to think for a moment before turning to Brandt, "Please go bring Mr. or Mrs. Scamander down here, I want to make sure that these wards can hold up to a duel on a professional level. In the meantime, Harry and Lyra can do another lap of cleaning all the seating of the arena."
Brandt ran off while Harry and Lyra jumped to start the cleaning, knowing it would probably exhaust them to perform that many spells again. However, the promise of seeing such a high-level duel was proper motivation.
When they had almost finished cleaning all the seats, again, Brandt returned with both of the Scamanders.
"So you want to do a full-scale duel for the kids?" Newt asked.
"Only if the wards can handle it," Arcturus replied.
"I can dial them up a few notches, though as long as you aren't going to sever any limbs, I'd like to invite the rest of the house to watch. I think it might scare them into taking the proper precautions for their duels in the future. Mr. Diggory has mentioned to me that students in other houses are practicing unsupervised duels."
"I can agree on those terms, I don't think we were planning on severing any limbs before but just to be safe, how about we agree upon a duel until first blood so as not to scare the children too much," Arcturus smiled a bit, his teeth turning almost silver as he did so, which caused Newt to do a double-take, though they were normal when he looked again.
Augustus pulled a miniaturized trunk out of his pocket and expanded it into a full-sized wardrobe, then stepped inside. Tina looked interested in watching the exhibition herself and left to summon the rest of the house. Luckily, it was right before lunch and all of the other students were in the common room or the study hall. They all came wandering in just as Augustus Stevens stepped out of his wardrobe in his flashy, color-changing dueling robes with his hair in a mohawk and six braids down the back with small bells at the tips.
"Everyone settle down and take a seat," Tina informed them as they started chattering at the sight of Augustus Stevens in his dueling robes. "We are going to watch a quick exhibition duel between Augustus Stevens, World Cup Dueling Champion, and Lord Arcturus Phineas Black."
The entire group of students ran over to where Harry, Lyra, and Brandt were already seated. Everyone was silent… except Luna, who remarked, "The seats in here are really clean," which caused Harry and Lyra to giggle.
Arcturus stepped onto the platform with Augustus and took a silver flask from his pocket and drank a large swig from it, then tossed it up to Brandt who caught it and put it in his pocket. Newt pulled out his wand and shot a white beam of light at the obelisk but as it connected, he twisted his wand and four pillars rose from the corners of the pit around the dueling area. On the top of each pillar was a large green crystal. When each pillar was twenty feet above the platform, they emitted a very light green beam towards the center of the ceiling and the normally transparent dueling wards came to life, this time with a very slight green tinge to them and the columns themselves turned completely transparent for full visibility of the arena.
Both men took up their positions at the edges of the platform. Tina stood to the side and informed them, "The duel will end at first blood or a knockout. There will be a five-second countdown, when you hear the gong, you may begin."
She conjured a large golden disc that lay flat, slightly above the floor where she was standing. She also conjured a set of five rings and a metal ball. Levitating the rings into place above the gong, she held the ball above them and dropped it.
The ball hit the first ring emitting a *Ding!* and the ring vanished, causing it to fall to the next one. The ball proceeded to hit the next four rings in the same manner.
*Ding*
*Ding*
*Ding*
*Ding*
And then fell the rest of the way *GONG*
Both men drew their wands, but Arcturus also flung out his empty hand and a plume of green smoke flew out, coalescing into a skull that flew towards Augustus, screaming as it went. Augustus darted to the side and performed a sideways cartwheel, on one hand, dodging the skull with the bells in his hair ringing as he went. The screaming skull hit the wards in front of the students and exploded in a large puff of green smoke. While upside down, before he finished the cartwheel, he conjured a flock of birds made of lighting that swarmed towards his opponent from multiple angles. Arcturus countered by conjuring a net with his wand and banishing it toward the birds, capturing all of them and vanishing right after.
Arcturus wasn't done though, right as the net started to vanish, he made a clawing motion in the air with his free hand and four ribbons of deep crimson cutting spells flew toward Augustus. He performed a remarkable jump, spinning while turning himself horizontally, and passing between two of the four cutting spells. As he landed, he pointed his wand and two fingers of his offhand like a gun into the floor of the arena causing jagged spikes to erupt out of the ground from where he was in two lines towards Arcturus.
The Lord Black cast some kind of explosion spell which destroyed the spikes before they could reach him. From there, both duelists cast a flurry of spells to transfigure the bits of rubble into a whole menagerie of animals. Harry could recognize lions, tigers, wolves, and bears but there were others he wasn't sure about. Some of them were the correct size as their real-life counterparts, but others were the size of teacups. All of the animals engaged in their own combat as both competitors fired enormous arcs of lighting at each other, connecting in the middle. The lighting frayed and splintered all over the arena with the transfigured animals exploding when they were hit. Both duelists used their free hands to conjure an iron post near them to siphon off some of the residual energy. Finally, after nearly twenty seconds, Augustus swung his wand to the side causing both bolts to crash into the dueling wards so much that it shook the room.
There was dust everywhere and the flash from the impact momentarily blinded everyone present. When their vision cleared up again, no one could see either competitor inside.
Lyra whispered to the assembled students, "They're both disillusioned." Everyone started to peer around the arena to see if they could find any trace of movement.
From one corner of the platform, a giant serpent made of water rose up and seemed to strike at nothing except it hit a shield and caused Arcturus to lose his camouflage. As the watery monster battered away at his shield, he conjured four screaming skulls with his free hand towards the other side of the platform, one of them impacted Augustus, removing his disillusionment and tossing him in the air. The mist from the skull seemed to get sucked into his body for a moment before it was pushed back out and disappeared.
The water serpent collapsed as he turned visible in mid-air, he cast several cushioning charms around him and fell into a soft spot, bouncing to his feet and conjuring more of the lightning birds, though he also threw a few firebirds into the mix this time that were more like hummingbirds than the lightning eagles. Arcturus conjured a huge wall of water and sent it forwards, crashing into every bird in its path.
The two of them exchanged another connecting lighting spell, though this time the bolts were red before Augustus let out a yelp and dived out of the way from his opponent's lightning as everyone heard the *GONG* ring out, marking the end of the duel.
"What just happened?" Megan asked loudly.
Augustus reached down to his ankle which had a large bleeding cut on it and picked up a praying mantis made of stone that was on the ground next to him. "When did you do this?" he asked Arcturus.
"When we were transfiguring all the animals, I made that little guy and gave him some heavy elemental resistances and a mission to sneak over and give you a minor flesh wound."
Recovering from his shock, Cedric started to clap. Everyone joined in and gave the two combatants a standing ovation and cheers.
When the clapping died down, Newt walked forward, "I hope all of you enjoyed yourselves. I want all of you to take precautions when you engage in practice duels. Even the smallest bug can cause significant damage. I don't want to hear about any of you throwing around screaming skulls or crimson lightning either." A few students laughed and Newt deactivated the wards.
Augustus jogged up to where he left his wardrobe and entered while Arcturus had his flask returned to him and took a long drink from it before putting it back in his robes.
Tina started to herd the students out of the room, "Well, we are a bit late for lunch now, so let's head on over."
As the Scamanders marched over to the hall as a group, all they were talking about was the duel they had just witnessed. A few students also heading to the Great Hall overheard and pulled members of the house away from the main group to get the full story and all the details. By the time everyone arrived at the great hall, the duel was being retold by Cedric at the Hufflepuff table and by Neville at the Gryffindor table. Not being used to being the center of attention, Megan and Su went to back him up but kept him going as the storyteller, only adding small details when he seemed to be overwhelmed.
Hearing what was going on, there was a mad rush for other students to pile into the Scamander table and hear about it from the remaining students. Not wanting to be in the middle of all of that, Harry and Lyra ducked out and ran over to the Slytherin table and squeezed between Blaise, Tracy, and Daphne knowing that people wouldn't go crazy among the snakes like they would in other places.
Once everyone seemed to be settled down at the places they were hearing the story being retold, Gemma leaned down the table towards Harry and Lyra, "You know, just because we won't yell about it like the Gryffindorks, you're still going to need to tell us about the duel in exchange for sitting here."
Lyra was about to start talking when Harry stopped her and replied, "I think the story is worth more than just a one-time seat at lunch. I might want something more than that."
Blaise chuckled a bit as Gemma replied, "So you're more snake-like than you appear, Mr. Potter. What else would you like other than the honor of sitting here?"
"Well, Mr. Stevens isn't going to be available to help us much with our dueling in the spring but we still need a prefect to supervise us in the dueling room, so we thought you might be able to do that Gemma."
Getting to tutor the Boy-Who-Lived, having an in with the heiress of House Black, plus using the new Scamander dueling room, yeah that was a pretty good deal for hearing a story that she and the other Slytherins could just move to another table to hear about anyways. Gemma pretended to think about it for a moment before agreeing.
Harry started the story by giving a brief overview of Lyra's practice duel with Stevens, mentioning that she made his shoes smoke before he ended the duel by freezing the entire platform in a cube of ice. Then he moved on to his mock duel giving small details about exchanging some blows with him and defending against some fire and lightning before Stevens stopped the duel to ask a question about an attack Harry performed.
"What spell did you do that he would have needed to ask a question about?" Blaise asked.
"That wasn't part of our agreement," Harry said firmly. "That's not something you could get from another student. After that, Lyra asked if he could show us what a real duel was like as we both keep getting asked if we have ever seen Stevens 'really really duel.'' He asked Lord Black if he wanted to be a part of the demonstration and Mr. Scamander brought the whole house in to see it and he raised the wards in the room to withstand a professional-level duel."
"You guys have professional dueling wards?" a seventh-year Slytherin near the end of the table asked.
"We didn't know there was a difference," Lyra joined in, "I'm not sure exactly how Mr. Scamander activated them, but they were green." There were murmurs of interest around the table.
Harry and Lyra then proceeded to talk about the spells in the duel. The Slytherins were particularly interested in hearing about the wandless magic - the screaming skulls and the spikes of earth that Stevens had used. Harry and Lyra took turns answering questions as they ate until they had both eaten and retold the story at least two times each.
When Harry and Lyra were about to get up, Daphne pulled Harry back down, "You know that when Gemma is working with you that the three of us are going to be joining you, right?"
Harry was about to agree but Lyra stopped him, "Not necessarily, I'm sure Gemma would be happy to do it without the three of you. I think a moderate-level favor from each of you would suffice as payment."
Harry smiled and pressed a wrapped sweet into Lyra's hand under the table.
"No blood, no betrayal, and nothing over ten galleons worth," Daphne responded.
"Thirty," Lyra countered.
"Twenty," Daphne tried to haggle.
Lyra's hair began to smoke, "Thirty," she said firmly.
Daphne's eyes widened at the sight along with Blaise and Tracey, "Fine, thirty."
The smoke drifted away and Lyra smiled, "Great!"
She jumped up and pulled Harry along with her. When they got out of hearing range, "What can you buy with thirty galleons? That's like three or four wands, right?"
Harry laughed, "You didn't know how much you were asking for?"
Lyra looked a little bashful, "I just wanted to see if she would go higher, Brandt is always saying to bargain for everything."
Harry tossed her another sweet and they headed back to the common room.
Arriving back in the common room, Brandt was there drinking mango juice with Whispers. Harry and Lyra approached the table to tell them about their negotiations at lunchtime but were interrupted by Whispers.
The not-so-little Hidden jumped on the table, holding his glass of juice, and said, "IIII liiike maaangoo joooce!"
"Good job Whispers!" Harry hugged the Hidden. "Mango juice is good!"
"Goooood jooooce!" he yelled back in his growling voice and spilled a little from his glass as he waved it around.
Brandt had stopped being shocked every time Whispers spoke but was still amazed as he watched the exchange. Whispers didn't seem to want to talk with him, only conversing with Harry, Lyra, and some of the other children. He spoke in soft screeches and chirps with Dougal whenever he was around, occasionally using gestures as well.
Harry and Lyra then told Brandt about sitting at the Slytherin table during lunch and the exchanges they made with Gemma and with Blaise, Daphne, and Tracey.
"Well the latter deal was excellent, but Harry, Gemma will get more from working with you than what she gave in exchange, much much more," Brandt commented.
"I know, but now she'll feel indebted to us, right? And we can always get another prefect to help and make another deal, and then she'll be more motivated to find a way to come back, right?"
Brandt had been following Harry and Lyra's exchange of sweets for when they did something well, so he pulled a chocolate frog package out of his pocket and passed it to Harry with a smile and a nod.
"OK, for the afternoon, we're going to go over table manners and basic fashion. You're going to be at a proper wizard party, so I have a wardrobe and table settings set up in an empty dorm. Let's go there now."
Harry and Lyra followed Brandt into one of the empty dorms to find a small table with two table settings on it. There were three plates with a bowl on top in front of the chair. To the left of the plates were three forks of different sizes and a white napkin. To the right were three knives, three spoons, and a tiny fork. There were seven cups - five were glass with stems, and two looked like they were for tea, but one was smaller than the other. There was also another set of forks and spoons above the plate perpendicular to the other utensils and finally a smaller plate with a knife with no edge directly above the forks. It looked incredibly complicated.
Brandt spent the next two hours explaining to them the order in which to use their utensils, how to tell the difference between a white and red wine glass, a demitasse and teacup, and the proper way to use a seafood fork. For showing them how to use the seafood fork, he conjured lobsters, crabs, and clams but explained that they weren't real. Food could not be conjured, as it needed to have been alive at one point to be eaten safely, what he had conjured were only examples for educational purposes and could not be eaten.
When they were finished with the explanations and demonstrations, they were both given a book with all the instructions and told to study them over the next week. The room with the place settings would stay in place and Brandt conjured a box of shellfish and added permanence charms on them so they would last over a week. They weren't real food so they wouldn't spoil without refrigeration.
Brandt then moved them onto the two large wardrobes in the corner and discussed color matching and fashion with them. They were already overwhelmed with the place-setting lesson so most of the lesson went in one ear and out the other. The one part that Harry paid more attention to was when he spoke about using what you were wearing to make a statement.
"Did either of you notice how Greg and his father dressed for Dumbledore's birthday?" he asked.
"They wore dragon skin, right?" Lyra answered.
"Correct, wearing magical animal skin is a message that is normally meant as a statement that you should not be challenged or that you are ready for anyone to challenge you. In a formal party setting, it is the former but the latter in an informal one."
"Can any animal skin be made into clothing?" Harry asked.
"Do you have something that can be used?" Harry nodded. "Would you like to get it?"
Harry ran back to his dorm and dug through his trunk until he found the shrunken trunk with all the gifts they received from the Hidden before leaving the island. He expanded it to full size and started to dig through it, coming across the snakeskin bag that the Usurper and The Giver had given them at the party on the beach during his birthday. Hesitantly, he poked the bag with his finger. When nothing happened, he poked it with his staff, still nothing, so he put it to the side and pulled out a plastic box. Inside this box was a large amount of the Usurper shed they had collected. He admired the shed, running his fingers across the large outlines of the scales before closing it up and taking it back to the room with Lyra and Brandt.
"How much of this would you need to make a vest?" Harry asked.
Brandt looked into the box, "This is the same as the skin on your staff?" Harry nodded, "It's a magical snake, right? Do you know if it has any magical resistances?" Harry shook his head. "What do you know about this snake?"
"Other snakes are instinctively afraid of it, and it makes a weird sound when it is angry," Harry informed Brandt.
"And the Hidden can't predict its movements," Lyra added.
"Interesting, very interesting," Brandt examined the shed and pulled out about ten feet of it from the box. "I don't think you will need any more than this to make a vest for yourself. Lyra, would you like something made from this too?"
"It doesn't feel right to have it near the feathers in my hair, or I would have it on my staff as well," she replied.
"That makes sense," Brandt mumbled. "Very often, the residual magic in the parts of magical animals conflict with each other when worn giving the wearer an unpleasant feeling. Some are compatible, but it would be very hard to predict with such an unknown entity. Will you be able to show me this creature on the island?"
Lyra turned to Harry and signed [No Speak Snake][To Brandt][Sign to The Giver][The Giver Speak Snake][To Usurper]
Alastor and Severus had warned them not to reveal to too many people that Harry could speak to snakes, and other than them, only Minerva, Nestor, Tristan, Newt, and Tina knew Harry's secret. That already seemed like too many, so they were trying to keep it quiet.
Harry nodded and turned back to Brandt, "Yes but if we tell you to back away, you will need to do so quickly."
Brandt knew that magical serpents could be just as deadly as some dragons and were normally much smarter too, so he agreed to their warning.
"Also, you'll need to pick out something to wear for the party. For the winter season, many people choose to wear red, green, or white. Though as I told you before, black never goes out of style. The wardrobe here has two sets of handles, the higher ones will open to men's clothing while the lower ones to women's clothing. Everything is for your sizes, and I left some special socks in there for both of you, though depending on Lyra's footwear, she might not need them."
Both children's smiles lit up at the mention of the socks. Harry had shown Lyra the Hidden that Brandt had put on his at the last party.
"That last thing that you have to think about before the end of the term are gifts for your friends and the other people you have met that you think should receive them. I have a list of my own of all the people I think you should be sending gifts to, and we will compare them next weekend when we go shopping."
Brandt said his goodbyes for the day and left. The moment he was gone, Harry and Lyra dug into the wardrobe to look at the socks he had left for them.
Author's Note: I know that I said the dueling wards can only be deactivated from the outside, but I'm going to touch on how Augustus managed to do it at a later time.
I had just been watching the trailer for Masters of the Universe: Revelation and based Arcturus's screaming green skulls on the ones that Skeletor used in the trailer. Thinking further on it, they could also be compared to the Death Coil spell of the Warlocks in Warcraft.