Harry and Kellen took their seats for the first time this term. The Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom looked very different than the castle - instead of smooth stone walls and priceless art, it rather resembled a cave, complete with stalagmites and stalactites. It was also nearly as cold as a cave, but thankfully not nearly as dark as there were hundreds of magical candles illuminating the rather spartan-looking classroom.
Professor Tyndall Madigan was not a physically imposing man - he looked to be close to seventy years of age, and was a short, bony man, perhaps not much taller than five feet, four inches - maybe five. Unlike most professors, he wore his silvery-grey hair short and had no appreciable facial hair. His nose was rather small and button-like, and had a very pronounced cleft chin. His eyes were very, very dark brown - almost black, and unfailingly burned with a particular passion - a passion for teaching his craft to the next generation of witches and wizards.
"Good morning, students," the aged professor creaked in a distinct, high-pitched voice. "I trust you all have had a restful summer break?" He chuckled as several students groaned in response. "Don't worry, class... I promise I'll ease you into the new term. In fact, I have a bit of a gripe of my own... I can't believe MACUSA is forcefeeding you this... this... tripe that this so-called 'Professor' Gilderoy Lockhart has authored. I don't know if you had taken the time to actually read through the material..." Kellen grinned to himself in satisfaction, knowing that Professor Madigan had come to the same conclusion he did about the new texts.
Madigan shook his head in disbelief. "My wife finds his works fascinating, but they're hardly suitable as academic materials. I don't understand why we're following Hogwarts' lead... they don't actually lead in anything, and haven't in some time! Of the eleven established magical institutions of the known world, anonymous surveyors have gauged the quality of Hogwarts' curriculum to be second worst! It's a pity because it's such a tradition-rich school; but the British Ministry of Magic is utterly broken at this point."
He sighed. "I digress. I've decided to take matters into my own hands, and teach this course the way I see fit. It is my duty to adequately prepare you for your wizarding careers... if you graduate from Ilvermorny and still can't defend yourself against a wampus, let alone a dark wizard, then that's my failure - not yours!" He laughed bitterly at the thought. "If you look in the front corner of this room, you'll see a table with two stacks of textbooks - texts that I've personally authored. I would like each of you to grab a copy as we will be using that for the remainder of the term. Is everyone with me?"
The students replied affirmatively.
"Very good," murmured the professor. "Now, I will be taking attendance, so when I call your name, simply go to the table and retrieve a copy of the book, and that way I'll know you're present. There should be enough for everybody."
One by one, all the students stood up and went to the table up front to pick up a copy of Madigan's DADA book, "Hexes, Hags, and Hairy Beasts - And How to Effectively Combat Them".
"This looks like a real texbook," Kellen whispered in Harry's ear. Harry nodded in approval.
Madigan eyeballed the classroom. "Does everyone have a copy now? Great... now let's crack open those textbooks to page 12. We're going to kick off the term by learning about some rather fascinating creatures..."
When class ended, Harry and Kellen were both pleasantly surprised by the way the class had turned out. "I'm glad to see Professor Madigan hasn't sold himself out," Harry said.
"He's too good of an instructor... there's just no way that he'd jive with Lockhart's books. I didn't find anything of value in any of Lockhart's texts... which was mostly about how great he thinks he is," groaned Kellen. "I feel awful for Hermione and Daphne, they aren't as lucky."
"For sure," agreed Harry. "And we could have attended Hogwarts... think about that for a moment! If Hogwarts has gone downhill like Madigan says it has, I have no doubt my parents would have wanted me to go to Ilvermorny anyway."
"You ready for Herbology, Harry?" Kellen asked.
"Ready as I'll ever be," replied Harry, as the two boys made their way back to the main stairwell and to Herbology, which was in Greenhouse #1 this time.
Professor Frye taught Herbology, and she was also the Horned Serpent house head, not to mention Kellen's Quiz Bowl coach. She was a pleasant-looking woman of about forty, with chin-length chestnut brown hair and she wore thick Coke-bottle glasses. Her voice was somewhat scratchy-sounding, and she spoke with a decided Canadian accent.
She greeted her class boisterously. "Welcome back, second-years. Welcome to Herbology! We're going to start off with a very special assignment... we're going to repot mandrakes. Who here is familiar with the properties of the mandrake root - preferably someone besides Mister Grimseth for once?"
Kellen nudged Harry. "Go on, you know this," he whispered. "Remember - this was one of the Quiz Bowl questions from last year, I know I told you about this!"
Harry tentatively raised his hand and waited for Professor Frye to call on him. "Ahh, Mister Potter? What can you tell us about the mandrake root?"
"Erm... I believe it's used for a special potion that combats... uh... what was it again... petrification?"
"That's right, Mister Potter. Five points to the Horned Serpents. Well done indeed!" Kellen gave Harry a high-five.
"Way to get us on the board, man," Kellen whispered to Harry in gratitude.
Professor Frye continued her lecture. "Now, before we proceed, we must put on our protective gear. Coats, gloves, and earmuffs. And does anyone know why earmuffs are essential for repotting mandrakes? Again, I would be most appreciative if someone besides Mister Grimseth answers this." She mouthed "I'm sorry" to Kellen, and winked at him.
A Cuban-American student with shiny, sleek black hair put up in a low bun named Mariah Polanco put her hand up. A fellow second-year Horned Serpent, she was quiet and reserved, but definitely no slouch in the classroom. Professor Frye called on Mariah to answer. "Yes, Miss Polanco?"
"Mandrakes emit extremely loud and shrill sounds that can be fatal to unprotected ears," she explained. Kellen and Harry both smiled at Mariah and gave her a thumbs-up. She blushed slightly, and returned the smile.
"Well done, Miss Polanco," Professor Frye beamed. "Five points to the Horned Serpents. Now, to clarify, that is true for mature specimens. Saplings, such as these, aren't deadly per se, but their shrieks can still put you in a daze if you're not careful. Now, I'd like for everyone to slip on those earmuffs, and pull out the saplings thusly..." She waited for her students to don all their gear, then promptly yanked the sapling out of her pot, and all the students winced at the high-pitched whines it emitted.
She continued her instruction. "And put it back into the second pot like so, and cover it quickly with earth to keep it warm. Any questions? No? Well, let's get to it then!" She observed the students plucking the saplings from their original pots, and dozens of irritating squeals filled the greenhouse - if the mandrakes were any older, they'd have probably shattered the glass of the greenhouse.
After class was over, Professor Frye pulled Kellen aside for a moment.
"Mister Grimseth, I'd like to talk to you about this year's Quiz Bowl team," she said with a grin on her face.
"Yes, Professor?" replied Kellen, unsure of what his house head had in mind.
"I've discussed this with Professor Goode just before term started... we'd just like to extend an invitation to rejoin the team - no audition required. You have nothing further to prove to us; you've already proven how invaluable you were on last year's team. The fact that you've so thoroughly dominated the event is special in and of itself; but to do so as a first-year was nothing short of historic. I don't think there has been a student of your intellectual aptitude in several generations... I even spoke with Hogwarts' Professor McGonagall when she visited us last spring, and she was nothing short of awestruck when she witnessed you demonstrating your talents, and she's been teaching nearly as long as I've been alive!"
Kellen beamed. "I'd be honored to compete for the Horned Serpents again this term, Professor."
"Outstanding," replied Professor Frye. "Team meetings will start up next week - every Thursday at four thirty, in my classroom."
"Perfect," Kellen said with a nod. "Oh... I am interested in joining the Ilvermorny choir... whom do I speak with for that?"
"Choir tryouts are next Monday in the choir room immediately after dinner. Madam Winifred Gaines is the choir director," answered Professor Frye. "I didn't know you were musically-inclined, Mister Grimseth."
Kellen chuckled. "I have a bit of a flair for music, you could say... I'm a pretty fair guitarist, and I've been known to dabble with the piano."
Professor Frye raised an eyebrow. "So, would you want to join the choir as a singer, or an accompanist?"
Kellen shrugged. "Either, I suppose... I mean, if I had the choice, I'd like to accompany on guitar if they'll let me."
Professor Frye cocked her head slightly. "If memory serves, you have a free period before your lunch Mister Grimseth, and the choir room is free. Would you care to demonstrate your capabilities to me? I've known you a year already, young man, but you still find ways to surprise me..."
"It'd be my pleasure, Professor," chuckled Kellen. "Lead the way!"
Ten minutes later, Kellen had the Gibson Les Paul hooked up to the amplifier, and seated himself on the piano bench, using the piano to tune the guitar. Thankfully, none of the strings needed much tuning as it hadn't been used all summer.
"Any requests?" Kellen asked. "There's a pretty decent-sized catalogue in my noggin."
"Being as you're no maj-born, and me being a half-blood with mainly magical family members, I would have to imagine that we're probably not all that familiar with each other's musical backgrounds," replied Professor Frye in a kindly voice. "I'll just let you surprise me, how about that?"
"Fair enough," Kellen said with a big grin on his face. He then proceeded to play the famous Chuck Berry standard, Johnny B. Goode on the electric guitar, while singing along in a pitch-perfect low tenor.
"Wow, Kellen," Professor Frye gasped. "You're a sensational guitarist. How come you never told me about this earlier?"
Kellen shrugged. "I'm not rightly sure, Professor. I know you're busy with instructing and Quiz Bowl prepping and what-not, so I guess we kept missing each other." He smiled radiantly. "I did show Professor Goode last term, and she said I was a talented musician too."
"Neither Professor Goode nor myself are particularly musically inclined," chuckled Professor Frye. "You're very, very blessed to have a wonderful voice to go with your talent with the guitar. Few students can do either one as well as you; fewer still can do both."
"I've given Harry some guitar lessons over the past year, but you know, life gets in the way, so I gave him the book I used to learn the guitar myself and he's practiced on my old acoustic a fair bit over the summer. He's become a solid guitarist... but I think his real passion is oil painting. He's very, very good at painting realistic-looking landscapes."
"I'm glad Harry has found something that he truly enjoys... something to call his own," agreed Professor Frye. "And I'm so, so proud of him... he was in the bottom half of first-years last Thanksgiving. I know you had a fair bit to do with it, but he's really turned himself around and ended up in the top five of his year! I never thought he lacked aptitude, but his confidence certainly increased. He's not the meek boy that stepped off the train for the first time last year, that's for sure."
"Harry has come a long way... I did help him study initially, yes," Kellen said with a nod. "But there's a saying where I come from. 'Give me a fish and I'll eat for a day; teach me to fish and I'll eat for a lifetime.' I've taught him some study habits that have helped him tremendously, he's leaned on me less and less as the year went on. We still study a bit together, especially for exams and the like, but as far as regular classwork goes, he's quite independent. He's good enough to help others - I'd love for him to be able to pay it forward - even if it's showing a wide-eyed firstie the basics. And I have no doubt he will. That'll only further increase his confidence, as I firmly believe that teaching only reinforces what you've learned yourself."
Professor Frye smiled at Kellen. "I wholeheartedly agree, Kellen. Now, while you're still on that bench, would you care to demonstrate your abilities on the piano? You told me you have some skill..."
Without another word, Kellen played the Bill Withers classic, Lean on Me, and sang the lyrics in the same low tenor.
Professor Frye nodded in approval. "You really do have a beautiful voice... I may not be Madam Gaines, but she'd be mad not to let you join the choir. And you're a very good pianist, for what it's worth." She smirked at Kellen. "But I know the guitar is your passion, even my tone-deaf ears can tell that much."
Kellen chuckled. "For sure. My piano playing skills are a bit of an open secret... as is the fact that I actually enjoy playing the piano. And having a background in piano definitely helps when learning the guitar."
"That makes sense," agreed Professor Frye. "When did you start learning the guitar?"
"When I was nine," replied Kellen. "I took about three and a half years of piano lessons - I started shortly after I turned six. Mrs. Weber was my teacher - she was this sweet old lady of about sixty five, she taught piano for over forty years. She said that I was one of her most skilled students and she openly admitted that even with her experience, she wasn't fully able to harness my aptitude for music... she did what she could, but I'd have to go to a conservatory out of state if I wanted to be serious about a musical career. Anyway, when I was about nine - right out of the blue - she sat next to me on the bench with a really beaten-up acoustic guitar in her lap and asked me if I was interested in learning the guitar. Of course I said yes! As it turns out, she learned guitar as an adult and started teaching classical guitar perhaps twenty-five years ago... she just put that wooden device right in my lap, and gave me a 1964 silver quarter as a pick, and she taught me each string and how to tune them. She taught me some chords, and she gave me this thick book so I could sort of teach myself on the side. And for the next several months, she dedicated fifteen minutes of our scheduled piano lesson just for the guitar, which was so awesome. It didn't take me long at all to fall in love with the instrument... and it didn't take long for my skills on the guitar to exceed my skills on the piano. I swear, my hands were made to hold a guitar... when I have a guitar in my lap, or strapped over my shoulder, it's definitely one of my happy places."
"Thank you so much for sharing your gifts with me, Kellen," Professor Frye murmured. "I guarantee Madam Gaines will be most impressed... I have no doubt she'd invite you as an accompanist if that's what you'd prefer, but your voice is certainly choir-quality... maybe you could do both... I don't see why you couldn't."
"I have a friend who sings soprano in the choir - Chelsea Meservey," Kellen added. "I heard her sing last spring... that, and her pen pal, Daphne Greengrass, from Hogwarts. Those two have beautiful voices... I almost broke down and cried like a little girl after hearing them sing Schubert's Ave Maria. Then again, just about all of us in the choir room did."
"Oh yes, I almost forgot that Miss Meservey sings in our choir," Professor Frye said softly. "While she must have talent to be in the choir, it's definitely not unheard-of for first-year students to make the choir. In fact, from what I gather, around two to three firsties is the norm. It's not like quidditch or the quiz bowl where age and experience matter - joining the choir is a matter of, 'you either have it, or you don't'." She grinned at Kellen. "And you certainly have it, young man."
Her grin broadened. "Speaking of pen pals, have you been keeping up with yours over the summer? Miss Granger, right? She's apparently the brightest student of her year at Hogwarts, but the consensus is that even her accolades don't match yours... and in many cases, it's not even close. You're phenomenally gifted, and I'm so glad that put your gifts so such positive use... you're going to be a tremendous asset to the wizarding world one day... you're already a tremendous asset at Ilvermorny. Anyway, I know Miss Granger visited our institution last spring, along with Miss Greengrass and their Deputy Headmistress, Professor McGonagall. From what I gather, you two got along amazingly well. I had no reason to believe that you two wouldn't get along, but from my limited observation, the chemistry between you and Miss Granger easily exceeded my expectations. I think you have a friend for life in her... and perhaps more, when the time is right."
"I am very, very fond of her," Kellen admitted. "And I know she's very fond of me too... but it's hard enough to maintain a long-distance friendship. I love reading her letters, and we were lucky enough to speak to each other on the telephone a couple of times over the summer... and she even vacationed to the Twin Cities this summer with her parents... a brand-new no-maj shopping center called the Mall of America just opened up, not even a month ago... but I think she used that as an excuse - I think she wanted to see Harry and myself more than anything. We spent a couple of days together, you know, just as regular children... the only magic we need is friendship."
Professor Frye chuckled softly. "I'm sure she had a bit of an ulterior motive... and yes, friendship is an incredibly potent magic in and of itself. You need to do what you can to hang on to that special young lady, Kellen. There was a magic between you two on the dance floor that I can't rightly describe, but the seeds of something deeper than friendship may already have been planted... I would even go so far as to say that if you somehow convinced her to transfer to Ilvermorny next year... I can easily see the two of you dating by the end of next term."
A lightbulb illuminated in Kellen's already gleaming cranium. "I would love that more than anything... I think I'm already starting to fall for her a little bit, yet I'm not quite thirteen... and she turns thirteen in less than three weeks. But next year we'll both be fourteen, and I might be a little more emotionally mature by then... so that's definitely something to look forward to. As far as convincing her to transfer to Ilvermorny? I know that's easier said than done, but it would be a dream come true to have her as a classmate - or even better, as a housemate. I don't think she has a ton of attachments at Hogwarts - she has her best friend Daphne, and I think there's a couple of boys in her house that she's friends with, but I don't think she's so attached to them that she wouldn't consider transferring to Ilvermorny. On top of that, I already had my first DADA class with Professor Madigan, and he already gave us a spiel on why he distrusts Hogwarts, and the corrupt Ministry of Magic which oversees it... he was positively flabbergasted that the texts for his class were the same as the ones at Hogwarts, so he took the liberty of writing his own textbook and he issued them to us at the beginning of class!"
Kellen's brow started to sweat slightly, as he made his impassioned speech, but he wasn't done yet. "On top of that, Professor Madigan said that not all that long ago, all eleven major wizarding schools in the known world were clandestinely surveyed, and the results were quite shocking - Hogwarts finished second from the bottom of all schools surveyed in academic quality! I don't know where Ilvermorny placed, but I can say with a fair degree of confidence it's not eleventh! Hogwarts was one of the finest wizarding schools historically... I'm sure that Professor Dumbledore over there is not happy with the situation, but there's only so much he can do... he understands bureaucracy quite well, I'm sure... if he had more authority, I'm sure he'd do everything he could to restore his beloved institution's academic reputation, but he has to kowtow to the Ministry at the end of the day, much to his chagrin. And the students are suffering because of the Ministry's incompetence, greed... and I'll say it... paranoia. I'm glad that the wizarding families in the States don't have anywhere near the same amount pull as they do in the British Isles, because more than a couple of those families over there are aligned with the dark side, and I wouldn't be one bit surprised if their goal was to find a way to bring You-Know-Who back to power... if that should happen, and You-Know-Who effectively gains control of Hogwarts... students like Hermione would not be permitted to study magic, and those who are already students like her, would be tortured or forced into exile somewhere... And Daphne is a pureblood, but she's not a pureblood supremacist... she definitely empathizes with Hermione and I know that she'll do what she can to protect Hermione... I think both of them may want to consider transferring to Ilvermorny... it's much safer, and I think they'll find the curriculum a bit more stimulating..."
"Not many students see the bigger picture like you can, Kellen," Professor Frye responded softly. "With the exception of our seventh years and some of our sixth years, students are more concerned with adding the right amount of bezoars to a potion or ensuring their History homework is the necessary length... but you hit the nail on the head. I cannot promise that your friends will transfer, but I don't see why you couldn't try and subtly encourage them to do so. I wouldn't make the same impassioned speech that you just rattled off, but you can perhaps politely ask in your next letter and get their thoughts on the matter... if you need help formulating a diplomatic response, either Professor Goode or myself will gladly assist. And I know you're fond of them - particularly Miss Granger - but if they aren't interested, you'll just have to accept 'no' for an answer. But if they show any inkling of interest, please get with myself or Professor Goode. We'll get with Professor McGonagall and get her thoughts on the matter."
"I understand," Kellen sighed. "But I'm going to give it my best shot regardless. And thanks for hearing me out."
