Chapter II:

Sparks

By the time the third class rolled around on her first day, Ren was ready for a change. Charms and Transfiguration had gone horribly because she had managed to lose ten whole points from Ravenclaw for absolutely no reason at all. Professor Dibbet, the Transfiguration teacher, had even given her a detention! She sulked out of the classroom and headed down the hallway packed with different students, all the while for her new friend. It wasn't hard to find Rose; all she had to do was look for the flaming red hair. A darker, black-haired head (belonging to arguably the most popular first year Albus Potter) always accompanied this bright hair color. Ren weaved and bobbed her way through the crowd to catch up with the pair. That was a skill she had learned at her old school.

"—and I wanted to, but Professor Dibbet didn't let me transfigure anything more advanced. He wouldn't even let me try to revert the needle back into a matchstick!" Rose was babbling on about some injustice that had just happened in Transfiguration.

"I know, Rose, I was there," Albus replied. She'd done this rant after the first class today as well.

"Oh, hi Ren! How was your meeting?" She took notice of Ren, falling in step with the pair of cousins. Albus kept walking as if he didn't notice she was there.

"Professor Dibbet doesn't like me," she mumbled, "He gave me a detention."

"WHAT?!" Rose stopped in shock. Ren and Albus kept walking for a few feet until they realized she was behind them. They met eyes for only a moment, then Albus quickly ran back to rescue Rose from the oncoming crowd and the trio kept moving towards their next class. Ren refused to speak more on the subject, much to Rose's bantering. She eventually dropped the subject with a "we'll talk about this later."

The Ravenclaws crowded into the classroom. The desks were arranged around the walls, leaving the majority of floor space empty in the center of the room. The students milled around. The teacher, Professor Xavier, wasn't in the classroom yet, so they just stood around talking. Rose and Albus continued their debate of the unfairness of Transfiguration teachers when a tall figure materialized on the top step at the front of the room.

"Drop your bags at a desk and pull out your wand," the man boomed.

There was a flurry of movement to accommodate his directions. Once everyone was standing in the middle again, this time with their wands at their sides, the man spoke again.

"I am going to dispense with the pleasantries you hear in every other class," he said as he moved slowly down the steps, "because you are Ravenclaws and have no doubt read your schedules thoroughly, interrogating older students about the instructors you will have. Some of you," he looked at Albus, then another student, "will have 'inside information,'" he made air quotes to his words, "from your siblings."

The class was silent. He talked so captivatingly, the entire room was mesmerized. He was now on the floor with them, moving slowly towards the center.

"I am a charismatic teacher with unorthodox ways of teaching you how to defend yourselves. You will adapt to these ways in class or I will tutor you privately during study periods. It is your choice. With that said, I am not a distant teacher. You are always welcome to come speak with me about any problem you might have, regardless of the fact that I am not your head of house. I welcome you." He smiled at the group around him. "Now, partner up!"

They hurried to find partners. Ren dreaded these kinds of moments. At her old school, she had always been the smallest, the least noticed. Nobody ever realized she needed a partner. Rose had obviously paired up with Albus; and the other girls from her dormitory had found partners as well. Typical of what it had been like in PE back home, the teams had formed long before she could orient herself to the task at hand.

Ren stood alone in the midst of paired students. She swallowed hard to keep the lump in her throat down. Unbidden tears sprang to her eyes. She didn't want this new place to be like middle school.

A soft hand fell on her shoulder. She turned around instantly, a smile already on her face, hope in her heart. It faded a little when she saw who it was. Professor Xavier was standing above her with a kind smile on his face.

"Odd number, eh?" She nodded. "Don't worry. You get the best partner!" He mock whispered to her, loud enough so the nearest pair happened to look jealously at her.

"Lucky," the girl mouthed.

"Okay everyone, let's get started! Stand a few feet away from your partner and get into a defensive stance. Then, I want you to try and pull any magic you have and make sparks appear at the end of your wand. I am not—" he held up a finger to the four hands raised, including Rose's, "—going to tell you what to do because I want you to figure it out on your own. This will be difficult, so try your best. You should know, though, that I don't expect to see anything at first. Begin!"

Ren watched as Professor Xavier walked around the room, correcting others' stances and adjusting grips on their wands. She waited patiently for him to come back to her to watch. Once he had made a round, he clapped his hands in expectation.

"Okay, you can start now. Try to do it." He smiled encouragingly.

Ren took a stance and closed her eyes. She tried to focus on a bit of energy that she could draw on, but she couldn't pinpoint any one place. It was all moving too fast. She felt like a beehive with a plugged hole. She decided to just take a little bit of whatever she could grab and push it out her wand. She opened them, looking at Professor Xavier for permission to continue. He nodded. She pushed the energy she had selected toward her right hand, and she watched with amazement as very, very bright sparks easily appeared on her fingertips. They trailed off, skittering and rotating down her wand. She watched as they amassed on the tip of her wand, growing brighter and hotter. She pushed again to try and get them off the tip. All it did was make more sparks leave her fingers. The wand was becoming too hot to hold. It buzzed with energy. The light blinded her.

She dropped it, cradling her hand in pain.

Then she realized what she had dropped.

The mass of light and energy that had been on the tip of Ren's wand quickly departed once the tip made contact with the floor. The floor responded to this new addition by promptly setting itself on fire right where the light had been.

No one noticed, at first. Ren simply stared at it, and Professor Xavier did too. Then the fire began to spread, and he started waving his wand and muttering incantations to try and put it out. It didn't really help. Others started to notice the fire now and were moving out of the classroom. By now, half of the class was engulfed in hot, bright flames. Professor Xavier shouted and a great deal of water flowed from his wand onto the flames. They subsided until a few more incantation extinguished them altogether.

Everyone was shocked and still. The classroom was filled with the smell of burning wood and the ashen light coming from the windows. Professor Xavier immediately turned to the class and demanded that they get back to work. Once they had reluctantly resumed, he walked around the class again, commenting on their progress.

Ren was afraid to think that this class might go the same as the others. Would he take away points? Give her detention for nearly burning up the classroom? Was this something she could be expelled for?

He returned to her, kneeled, and looked her straight in the eye. "What's your name, little one?"

Little one. Ha. "I-I'm Ren."

"Ren, that was…quite extraordinary. I've never had a student produce that many sparks, let alone how many you did. But…"

"But what? Did I do something wrong? I'm sorry, I didn't know what I was doing, it just happened, I didn't mean to start a fire…" she choked up.

He chuckled, and her fears subsided. "Not exactly. I'm always expecting an explosion in this class, though not quite that controlled."

"Am I in trouble?"

He shook his head. "No. Why would I put you in trouble when you did exactly as I instructed?"

"I didn't do exactly as you said. You said just make sparks, not a fire!"

"You're wrong there. I didn't say just make sparks, I just said make sparks. The difference is the latter is open to interpretation. Let's make a deal, all right?" She nodded. "You want to know about what happened, and so do I." She nodded again. "If you watch the others for the rest of class without causing another disturbance, I'll meet with you during your first study period and discuss today's class. Sound good?"

"Yeah," she said meekly. She went to the desk and watched her classmates attempt to produce the sparks. Arietty Van Gorder's face was blue because she was holding her breath to try to make sparks. Simone Lester was almost in tears, and Bianca Fenton wasn't even trying. The only one who seemed to not be remotely freaking out was Rose; and even she wasn't producing any sparks.

The boys weren't doing much better. Albus had tried a few times and gave up; Lazarus Orr looked like he was constipated, much to the amusement of a stout boy named Clive Pierce and towering Logan Dedrick. Klaus Newton worked with Scorpius Malfoy. Both apparently tried their best but it wasn't producing anything.

The bell rang and the eleven Ravenclaws filed out of the classroom, lamenting and gossiping about the class. Rose immediately started speculating on the source of the fire.

"It had to be a test; teachers always do those sorts of things to trick you. I bet it wasn't even a student!"

"How'd you figure that, Rose?" Logan came and shoved himself between Rose and Ren, leaving her jogging to keep up with his long legs.

"How inconsiderate," she mumbled. She stumbled and fell behind; Logan never looked back once. Only the back of a black-haired head seemed to move slightly.

But that could have been Ren's imagination.