CHAPTER 31: SPARE THE ROD
After a quick demonstration with the bludger, Sparhawk learned that having a bat would be a very bad idea for a boy his size and retired sullenly to the common room. His friends were all over him. "Well, how did it go?" asked Neville, seeing as Sparhawk was no more forthcoming than usual.
"I couldn't be a beater." he replied sullenly.
"Why not?" asked Warrick indignantly. Being a muggleborn, he knew as much about quidditch as Sparhawk had known a couple of days ago.
"Well, that's no surprise." said Neville, "Beaters have to be, well, a bit bigger."
Warrick stared at them in confusion, so Neville chose that moment to give him a brief rundown on quidditch mechanics. Wizards, Sparhawk noticed, seemed rather fond of the game.
"...so you see, if Sparhawk tries to whack a ball that big, going that fast, he'll get knocked out of his broom himself."
"Oh. Newton's third law or something like that then"
Now it was the other three boys' turn to be confused. Warrick graced them all with a quick introduction to Newton. "Fascinating," said Sparhawk.
"So, you're seeker then?" asked the usually quiet Cullinan.
"They're going to see if Professor Sprout can bend the rules a little for me."
"Actually, I don't think they're going to have to bend the rules at all. The rules only say that first-years are not allowed to have their own brooms. It doesn't say anything about first years not being allowed to play quidditch." observed Cullinan.
"Well, we're done then!" groaned Neville, "Have you seen the school brooms?"
"Maybe that's what they're going to ask Professor Sprout about." mused Sparhawk.
"Could be. Although it's a rather stupid rule isn't it?" said Warrick.
Sparhawk nodded. "I wouldn't actually need to keep my own broom. I could just as easily have one of the older years or the teachers hold onto it and lend it to me for matches."
Neville gaped. "Why's nobody done it, then?"
Sparhawk shrugged. "People often tend to miss the obvious". He then kneeled down by his bed and brought out the empty box he had salvaged from the quidditch supplies closet. Apparently, it had been used to hold a snitch. Very funny. Opening it, he began stuffing it with the grass he had stuffed in his pockets.
His friends watched him in fascination until Warrick, ever inquisitive, piped up with the inevitable question. "What're you doing Sparhawk?"
"It's grass taken from the quidditch pitch. I'm putting it in this box."
"We can see that, Sparhawk."
Sparhawk inwardly sighed. He'd reached the point of no return. Aphrael better thank him for this.
"It's an altar."
The other boys just goggled. "A what, now?"
By dinner time, Aphrael had no new converts, although his friends were looking at Sparhawk real funny. But all hope was not lost, he surmised, for he'd told the boys that the reason he'd flown so well was because he'd prayed to Aphrael, his Goddess, and she'd sent favourable winds to guide him along. Maybe someone who wanted some help flying would approach him. Or mayhaps even the quidditch team.
And approach him someone did. But to his great surprise, it was Hermione, clever little Hermione with her beliefs, who came to him looking rather embarrassed. Warrick scooted over to make some space for her and she settled in. Glancing around rather furtively, she leaned in and asked in a stage whisper, "Can you teach me to fly better?"
Fly, meet web.
Sparhawk pretended to think a bit before answering. "I can, " he said finally, and Hermione's face lit up, "but you'll have to pray to Aphrael."
"What now?"
"Oh, it's Sparhawk's God. Well, Goddess. And it seems she can make you fly really well. At least that's what Sparhawk told me." piped up Warrick from the other side.
Hermione seemed like she wanted to protest this ridiculousness and rightly so, but the desire to learn to be a better flier, to avoid a repeat of today turned out to be the stronger impulse, and she grudgingly acquiesced.
"Well, if you say so," she said hesitantly.
Sparhawk could see she wasn't entirely sold on the idea and decided to break out the fruits of his experience. "I read it in a book," he said, "That the Goddess Aphrael loves flying, and anyone who prays to her before flying will be blessed with a pleasant flight. I said my prayers before flying class. And look at me now."
"You read it in a book?"
He nodded. "Yes. The author was Abernary Dumbledore."
"Dumbledore?!"
"Not the headmaster. I think someone related to him maybe. So there has to be some validity to it."
Hermione seemed more accepting of the idea than before. "Maybe it's ancient magic of some sort..."
Sparhawk was mentally congratulating himself. One more added to the fold. Before he could really get himself pumped up for some sermonizing, because that was the next logical step, he was interrupted by an obnoxious, high-pitched voice. Well, that was unfair. Most children had high-pitched voices.
"Well, if it isn't the mudblood and her friends"
Sparhawk did not need to turn to figure out who it was. Hermione for her part did need to turn to figure out who it was because Malfoy had been all but forgotten. "Oh, it's you." she said, frowning.
"Go away, Malfoy." said Warrick, jumping to Hermione's defense.
"Well, if it isn't the mudblood and his friends" retorted Malfoy. Warrick coloured. Cullinan was clenching his fists and Neville was looking absolutely terrified.
Sparhawk, sadly, understood some of this posing and the hesitancy of people to actually get into conflict with this spoiled brat. It was because his father was supposed to be some kind of big shot. And the boy just wouldn't shut up about it. He hoped the boy would go away and let him have his dinner in peace.
Unfortunately, Malfoy persisted in his insulting of Sparhawk's friends which was currently climbing up to insulting their parents. Near him, Hermione looked like she was about to cry and Warrick looked like he was going to jump on Malfoy. Out of the corner of his eye, he spied Cedric getting up to give the Malfoy brat a piece of his mind.
"I've got to wonder if you've got beaver blood in you with those front teeth, Granger!" Malfoy sang out. His cronies sniggered. Hermione suppressed a sob. Alright. The little shit had gone far enough. Sparhawk decided to teach him a lesson the only way he knew how.
Cedric entered his orbit and Sparhawk reached out to swipe his quidditch gloves from his belt. Turning, he slapped Malfoy full on the face with the impromptu gauntlet, bringing tears to the other boy's eyes. He dropped the glove in front of him. Malfoy stared.
"Pick it up." Sparhawk said in his deadly quiet voice.
Now news of Sparhawk being something of a violent chap had spread a bit along the grapevine, so Malfoy's hesitancy was somewhat understandable.
"Pick it up, Malfoy" he repeated, "You need some sense beaten into you"
Now, Malfoy's father was an influential man. A big shot of some sort. If he took this insult lying down, it probably wouldn't look good for the old man. Or so Malfoy must have thought as he decided to ignore all his screaming instincts and picked up the glove nonetheless.
"Oh. Father!" Aphrael sighed as he stood in the cold air of a Scottish morning, his friends pumping him with impromptu tips for dueling, "Do you really have to go around beating up children?"
"I'm just doing what his father should have done."
"His mother?"
"What?"
"Never mind Sparhawk"
"I'm going to give the brat a good hiding."
"You're a barbarian, father!" The Goddess exclaimed hotly.
"Let me put it this way. Are you going to sit around and let some jumped up upstart make your only other follower cry?"
"Well, when you put it like that…"
"Besides, I'll be teaching him to love others, one of the core tenets of your religion. In short, I'm going to be a model high priest"
Sparhawk eyed the little brat and his two cronies as they marched imperiously up to the duelling ring his friends had taken the liberty to draw up on the grounds. Neville had been surprisingly knowledgeable in these affairs, something he would not have expected of the timid boy. "A regular part of pureblood upbringing" Cullinan had supplied. His father was a muggle while his mother had been a pureblood, so he tended to view the contrasts.
Hermione hesitantly tugged at his sleeve. "Sparhawk" she began waveringly, " It's really nice of you to stand up for me, but I really think you shouldn't be fighting." Oh, how quickly the new convert was learning.
"Let's call it disciplining Hermione. And while you're at it, why don't you ask Aphrael to make me win?"
"Eh?"
"You know, pray a bit?"
"I…guess I could. Would that help any?"
"Oh, just watch"
Draco whipped his wand up and with much waving screamed "Jellus Tiba!" Sparhawk merely stepped aside, the movements having plainly shown him where the spell was going. He reached into his robes and withdrew his hat. With a gentle murmur of the transfiguration spell, the hat glowed and elongated and narrowed, until it was a hat no longer, but a long twisted cord resembling a whip. Malfoy's face went white, and he screamed, "No physical contact! Those are the rules!"
Sparhawk ignored him and focused on the whip once more. The boy seemed to be deathly afraid of it and Sparhawk was not a needlessly cruel man. In the meantime, Malfoy shot another hex at him which was also effortlessly sidestepped. The whip changed forms once more and now it was a cane. Perfect. A smile nearly graced Sparhawk's lips. Spare the rod and spoil the child, as Vanion had once said. And here was a child who had truly been spoiled.
Malfoy screamed in impotent fury and raised his wand. Sparhawk did not mind him much and simply dodged Malfoy's spell. He pointed at his cane and spoke the words of the levitation spell and the rod lifted into the air. "Oh, I'm not going to touch you, little boy," Sparhawk said and waved his wand.
Ten minutes and one very sore bottom later, a crying Malfoy was escorted off the grounds by a furious Professor Snape, who had promised Sparhawk the most horrid consequences possible for his act. Sparhawk was not overly concerned. He had won fair and square in a duel, and last he'd checked with his consultants, who happened to be one eleven-year-old boy, those things were legal. Okay, maybe he was somewhat concerned.
Mc Gonagall watched him with a disapproving eye, not saying anything and simply letting her stare convey her disapproval. Alright, maybe he'd been a bit excessive. But he'd screamed for Malfoy to yield and the little brat had screamed never and he'd taken it literally. Sighing, he picked up his cane and chanted the transfiguration spell once more and it glowed and popped back into being a hat. Mc Gonagall's eyes widened. "You should be ashamed of your actions young man," she said, her tone not quite right, "But ten points to Gryffindor for a wonderful transfiguration!"
A/N: Aaaaand there we go. Now before accusations about corporal punishment are made (for some reason, I kept thinking of it as capital punishment), I just want to remind people that Sparhawk belonged to a medieval setting and even in the books, he was suggested to have freely resorted to his belt. Not excessively, but you get the drift. Me, I don't like the belt and the imagery it conjures. I've been caned a few times at school myself and it's kinda fun when it's a group caning (really, any punishment you got as a group was fun, be it kneeling in the sun or the ruler or whatever) so I went with that. As for what the whip implies, I don't like to think that Malfoy senior whips his son. More that the Malfoy manor has torture chambers and Draco, being of somewhat a delicate constitution, loathes the stuff he saw lying around there.
Sorry for the short chapter. As always, read and review.
