AN (23 November): Again I'm fairly behind with the schedule. Still, three weeks isn't all that much time either so I guess it's ok. I really don't know when next chapter will be ready so check my profile. Everyone confused about the magical classification I use is invited to check in my profile to see my companion fic especialy written for the purpose of helping you.
Anyway, some of you guys may think that this is a filler chapter, I don't agree but I'll admit that it's not earth-shattering either. Keep in mind that the real deal starts with fifteen. Many thanks to all my reviewers and to Hineko for the betawork.
Harry Potter isn't mine. I don't even take credit for what isn't from the books as I can't possibly remember everything I went through on this site in the last three years.
AN (16 January): Fixed some mistakes. Credit for that goes to Oz (the nice reviewer).
Few things in the world surpass the bliss of sleep for me. Mostly, it's just above magic and just under food on my personal bliss list. Really. As I said earlier, I am a bit of an insomniac and therefore, each second I can get without having conscious thoughts running through my mind is a wonderful, and thrice blessed, second. So what would that make someone who would willfully and cruelly strip me of something so pure and precious to me? And for no other reason than that they could to boot? Without any provocation whatsoever? That would make them the Devil incarnate, D for short , that's what! "Urg! Damn it!" I hate my life. Screw my life, I hate the world!
It would be so much better if there weren't people in it…
"What did I ever do to you?" She raises an eyebrow. It's kind of sad to see that pretty much everybody sucks less at it than Assistant. "Do you want me to give you the exhaustive list by chronological order or by the increasing gravity of the offenses? There's quite a lot of it, so if I don't put some order I'll end forgetting about half your crimes. Of course, that way we would have a decent chance of finishing before class starts…" Considering it's Saturday morning (or is it? I certainly don't feel like we are past midnight yet and the fucking dungeons don't have windows…) I think it's safe to say she is exaggerating, but I can't help but feel a little proud of myself.
I quash the feeling quickly.
I'm clearly not in an adequate tactical position to gloat about how infuriating I can be right now. Let sleeping dragons feel lonely and all that rubbish. "Okay. What did my leg ever do to you then?" My leg that she is still holding by the way. My leg that she grabbed and used to pull me out of my wonderful bed. God I hate her! Of course, I know why she went for the leg. There's only one possible reason for it. "It represented your body in unwarded territory, so it was apprehended in the hope it would bring you down with it." Right again. And in one try too… My wards are basically on my bed proper so as not to prevent people from walking around it or House elves from cleaning under it. Which, by the way, means that I clean my sheets by myself (which is annoying but not nearly as much as being killed tends to be). The weakness she exploited is that if some part of my body is out of the bed, it's not protected. The bed is pretty spacious, but even so it happens from time to time since I'm not a vampire or anything. Still, even if it seldom causes problems and most people wouldn't bother with striking at my limbs when they think they can enter my sanctum, it's obviously something I need to fix.
That reminds me, just how did she know about that? Last time I checked she couldn't cast detection charms for that!
"B! You better not be responsible for this or there will be hell to pay!" No answer. Of course not. If I were guilty I would have scrammed long ago as well. I sigh and turn back to D. "Are you going to tell me what you want or do you just intend to keep holding my foot in a sensual way? You do realize that feet are considered an erogenous area for over 65 percent of human beings?" So okay, maybe that wasn't a very good thing to say in this situation but was it a reason to break one of my toes? Ok, maybe twist would be more accurate but it hurt, damn it! My (completely manly) scream woke up little D and the others (obviously not B since the coward is probably hiding in a very dignified manner, as is proper for backstabbing Slytherin purebloods). "You really have a thing for pain, don't you?" I give her a glare. "Well, we obviously are meant for each other then since you look like you enjoy inflicting it so much yourself!"
Why did I answer? Is it some pathological need to have the last word?
Never mind that. She looks like she is ready to really break something and I don't feel like cooperating. The weird healer is still on the bad list after all. I barely stop myself from animating something to take her off of me and instead I use my other leg to unbalance her some and make her fall on her ass. Of course, she doesn't have the decency of falling normally. She manages to both rip part of my pajama's bottom and knock my study-desk over. Runic projects are all over the place… great, just great. It'll take hours to organize them back the way they were, and they weren't all that much organized in the first place… "I'll put an end to you!" I sigh. It's appalling just how often I do that nowadays. "Look, you are the one who barged here at bloody eleven in the morning, a Saturday! And you were the one who started to attempt to maim me without a clear motive other than me annoying you. So calm the fuck down or God help me I'll calm you. Even if I need to draw a stasis array on your skin to do it."
She looks positively rebellious but she doesn't tempt fate. Which is good. I don't actually know any stasis array for living beings and I don't think that anything lesser would work on her.
Not like she has got time to say anything to be honest, as we are rudely interrupted by the average guy that sleeps here too. "Would you both just shut up? I don't care for your lovers' spats! Just let me sleep you morons!" That's one angry lad… I'll take some pamphlets on anger management for him at the same time I go looking for the hygienic tips for Filth and the foaming guy. Well, at least he wasn't growling so he is still thinking clearly enough not to break the house's rules… Anyway. I'm about to say something about D's obsession with me not actually making her my girlfriend when little D jumps on the chance to make use of his annoying voice. "Really Greengrass! Has your line fallen so low for you to go for Potter of all the boys here?" All the boys here? Is the little shit comparing me to himself? To his goons?
I guess that B is somewhere near my league but the rest is clearly offensive.
"Oh! Look at that! Are those ugly sculptures meant to express your undying love Potter?" What is he talking about? I turn my head enough to see what he is doing. "Here Greengrass. Catch your present!" Wha- son of a bitch! I barely have enough time to throw myself on D before the runic sphere can go right through her. Instead it destroys the floor and showers us all with rock-shrapnel. Once I am certain that the idiot isn't going to do it again I start to feel my fear lessen and my anger grow. Before I know it, the fucker's clothes are strangling him quite thoroughly and a couple of bed sheets are pinning him against a wall. Fuck acting stupid and unskilled! I'm going to cower the little shit into hysteria if that's what it takes to make him stop with this nonsense. I try to take calming gulps of air.
It doesn't work. It looks more like I am hyperventilating (which I most likely am).
"You know… I always knew you were a moron. Since the very first time we met I could tell that you were barely capable of conscious thought. But I didn't quite realize how bad it was. I thought that at least you were somewhere above the level of the smelly twins that follow you around, but you just proved me wrong. At least I never saw either of them mess with magical objects without knowing what they did. Point of fact is that I never saw them do anything without someone's approval or order. They are like tools. With an IQ of 0.1 or something like that. But you are beyond lack of cleverness. Where they don't have something positive, you are past that by having plenty of something negative. Sheer stupidity. Why else on earth would you throw a piece of runic magic you know nothing about? You aren't a muggleborn, you know what a runic array looks like!"
I finally manage to calm down enough to allow him to breathe again.
I can tell that the message sunk in. He is so afraid that he can't seem to even talk anymore. Well, that and he is kind of recuperating from a near suffocation… Anyway, I need to relax a little. This is partially my fault after all. I did create the orb and the wards on my desk were clearly inappropriate. I should have made it impossible for people to knock the desk over like that instead of just making it so that only I could take objects from it. Clearly, today isn't a good day for my ward schemes… two glaring flaws revealed in ten minutes isn't a good score. Not in the least.
Well, at least now I know that this final version of my work with the orbs does exactly what it's supposed to do…
It's something I've been tinkering with for a while but that took the lead now that I finished the work on the Map and that I'm likely to confront unpleasant things in the Tournament. The base concept is the very opposite of the grounding array I told you about earlier. Instead of nullifying forces that act on an object, it amplifies the forces acting on it. Of course you can't do just that. For one, if I did that to an object with a factor of ten, I wouldn't even be able to lift it. And there is the small problem of the smallest force I applied to it ripping it from my hand with a chunk of meat trailing along. So I came up with one that would amplify forces applied to the object, but only when not in contact with someone's body. And make it unbreakable, of course. That way you throw it and then it begins to speed up. It still didn't work, though. Gravity, friction and pressure were all tenfold too so it was impossible to aim.
But just this night I came up with something very clever.
A force-direction changing part to the array. I got the idea from a gravity inversion spell I read about, you see? With it, the bothersome forces that would otherwise oppose the flight actually speed the travel by being directed the same way the main force is. I didn't apply it to all forces of course or the thing would never stop until it hit a live being of considerable mass, but I applied it to every force that would otherwise affect its course. Friction is still there and so is the reaction from the things it hits, but gravity, pressure, magnetic fields and such I turned into fuel for it. I'm really glad that the little ponce barely tried to launch it (or that he was too weak to throw it faster more likely) or D would be dead.
Which reminds me that I'm still on her… Hehe… oops?
I quickly get up and start acting as if nothing happened. I focus on the vermin pinned to the wall for now. "As you are not the only one at fault here, I will not end your life just yet. I am going to release you. And you will do your very best to never give me a good reason to change my mind, do we understand each other? Now out of my sight!" I drop him unceremoniously on the ground and he doesn't take long to vanish. I look at D while she gets up. "I can see that Blaise's lessons aren't completely wasted on you." I don't completely manage to suppress my pout. "That was raw talent coupled with my observations about your own style. B said that we'll get to threats in a month or so…" She's almost smiling. Which tells just how good a job I am doing at hiding my scowl. "You do realize that being about as sharp as your average wooden spoon, Draco will try and claim vengeance eventually? He'll probably involve his father too…"
She's cute when she worries about me.
"Oh yeah… Maybe he could have been forgiving if I had only killed his master and being responsible for him almost going to jail, but mocking his son? That's the last straw!" Of course, who knows how the head of an ancient and most stupid pureblood line thinks? Maybe it is a worse offense in his mind. But I'm pretty sure he already wants to kill me as it is and that tends to only happen once, so… it's not like I plan to give him more than one try either. That's what Vernon always said to Dudley, if you are going to try and do something you shouldn't be doing then do it right and make sure you don't get caught. That and, if freaks were meant to be then we would have more of them around. Sometimes I wonder about all those little pearls of wisdom that I missed by running away from number four.
Funnily, the last one applies to politicians as well…
Anyway, maybe I should eat something right about now. Mini-apple-pies, here I come! D rolls her eyes. Hard to tell about what with her. "So, before someone rudely tried to kill you… weren't you trying to tell me why in God's name you tried to separate me from one of the appendages I use to walk around?" She huffs. "That was for your sexist comment of yesterday. Your prefect friend came over to tell Blaise about it at breakfast, though I could tell from her glances that she really intended for me to find out." Is this some kind of conspiracy? First B and now T? Huh, technically it would be first T and then B, but whatever. Well, you just wait for it! A couple of altered patterns and we'll see if they feel like it would be enjoyable to keep playing!
One of the reasons I accept D's presence so well is, I think, her own tolerance for maniacal laughter.
"Come on, I'll escort you to breakfast to earn your forgiveness then." Though I must admit that she is being more of an escort for me than me for her since I know for a fact that I am on some people's hit list, including the very castle I'm in. D is quite chatty today… we mostly talk about the tournament and about runic arrays but she even comments some about her life and her family. "…and that's why Astoria never drinks tea anymore." I'm pretty sure that her whole line fits in the insane category of purebloods now, but that's what I thought in the first place so I'm not too surprised. "And the moral of this story would be… what? Never ask a goblin what he would like to have?"
She doesn't have time to answer however, since we are accosted by a seventh year from our house.
"Hey Potter! You are good with runes I hear?" I restrain the snort his euphemism deserves. "Yeah? What about it?" He gives me a calculating look but eventually goes on. "I need help fixing an array I came up with for my trunk. People have been complaining about it." Well, I do have a lot of things to do, but you never know what will fan your inspiration, so I guess I'll take a look at least. Not for free though. "Well, Mr…" I pause. "Patterson." A short nod. "…Mr. Patterson, I'm pretty sure that I could fix it, but why would I bother?" Patterson frowns, but probably just out of habit. He's too old not to know how things work in Slytherin. "What would you ask in return?" Wow! The guy must be pretty desperate to give that kind of answer. It's almost the equivalent of signing a blank check.
Luckily for him, I don't plan on filling it with zeros.
I cast a small privacy charm. It's very easy to break, but not so easy to do without the caster noticing. "I've recently realized that the Malfoy heir won't leave me alone unless he has better things to focus on. I would like you to bully him from time to time… let's say once a week. It would give him other things to worry about and I'm sure that you could get some enjoyment from it." An examination of my words would give the impression that I made a request, but we both know that I am almost giving him a freebie. Little D's father won't like it of course, but he'll never interfere with the inner workings of the house because, quite simply, it would ruin his family's image to do so. The Hogwarts' years are considered political training for the Slytherins and people just don't mess with the system.
It's really too bad that it'll only last a single year…
Oh well, I'm sure that I'll have collected some other debt by the time next year comes. At last, he nods. "Well then, what are you waiting for? The scheme to wither from decay? What array did you use?" The guy is lucky we are just near a large supply of food because I would already be thinking about something else in normal circumstances. It reminds me of that old-… but maybe just sitting in front of the food isn't quite enough. I quickly take a piece of toast. "What? Now?" My incredulous look seems to do it because he eventually searches for a quill and a spare sheet of parchment and starts to draw. "Here. I think that's pretty much it." With just one glance I can tell that there are minor errors in what he is showing me. With a second glance I understand why the guy needs me. He owns the crazy trunk in the seventh year dorm that tries to burn everything when disturbed.
I sigh. Man, this array is a mess.
And not just because he obviously couldn't remember the finest details of his work either. I know his kind; he probably works with the book open all the time. No talent whatsoever… But as I said, that isn't the true problem here. The first big, big mistake he did with this ward was that the base of the work is a magic-detection monitoring array. My guess is that he wanted to avoid the issue of people firing spells at it from afar, but as the idiot's keying mechanism is locked and can't be altered, anything but what he keyed when he activated the array that is highly magical will set the thing on.
I start voicing my thoughts in the hopes of teaching D a little something or another as I tackle the problem.
The veteran Slytherin doesn't look pleased but I really don't get why. Isn't he having a tutoring session with the great Harry Potter for free? Surely, being called a moron is a small price to pay for that. All the more when it's actually true. Anyway, his answer to the problem is really bad, because on one hand he can't even buy a new magical item without being molested by his own trunk and on the other hand, if an intruder approaches the bloody thing while he is near, well… the sparks won't discriminate against either. But that isn't even the real problem either. The problem is the ward area. If it were tiny, then all I said until now wouldn't be too bad. A minor inconvenience at worst. But the area is huge, like I discovered that day I was taking a look.
It takes some time to see it in the middle of all the useless bits but I finally find the cause of the distortion of the area perimeter.
That idiot actually linked various parts of his array to a magic-siphoning rune. That, my friends, is the real deal-breaker here. I doubt that Patterson even knows what it is. If I'd have to guess I'd say that he copied the whole section of a more advanced work without understanding it. If we keep my flow of water and cavities metaphor, then instead of carving the ground and letting the water that is magic flow upon the cavities and have gravity fill them, he added a vacuum suction device at the bottom of his work. He clearly didn't need it, either. Arrays hardly need that much magic to work, much less in a place like Hogwarts. Point of fact is that the guy is damn lucky that he isn't a little smarter. The result of a siphoning rune for such a low consumption array is way too much magic being drawn, way too much water for such a small space. If the guy had been competent enough not to do something so badly grounded that it's fluctuating with the limitation part of the array, the magic wouldn't have had anywhere to go and would have blown off his face in the end.
He pales when I tell him so. Seriously, why don't purebloods realize that messing half-assed with runes can't be good for anyone's health?
"Well, at least it won't be too hard to fix since you copied your base from Madrigan's dueling platform. There won't be any troubles isolating it from the flow." It's good that I'm familiar with Madrigan's work or it would have been harder to come to that conclusion, and so we can start draining the trunk dry. Why would anyone think that a ward supposed to prevent the usage of magic inside of a sword dueling platform could or should be adapted to a trunk is anyone's guess. I'm pretty sure that God couldn't answer that one… "The other good news is that you weren't dumb enough to apply your array on an enchanted trunk, so we won't even have to worry about the trunk exploding because we didn't leave enough magic to sustain the expansion charms on it. It'll be as good as it was before you decided to mess with it." The bad news is, of course, that he came up with a defense system that would have been dealt with in five minutes tops if his limitation ward had been what he intended it to be.
But hey, we already knew he was stupid, right?
"Do you want me to fix it? You just need to draw a power drain and then disable the siphoning rune. It'll be trickier if I am the one to do it because the drain would need to circle the detection ward and it's huge… we would need to work outdoors." Thankfully, Patterson doesn't look like he wants to appear like any more of a moron. I really don't feel like spending half a day on something so stupid. "No, it's fine. If it works then I'll start my part of the deal in one or two days." I give him a nod. "Feel free to ask for help again. Oh, and I would start working on it right away, with the door locket. You never know when a random disturbance is going to come up…" He doesn't get it but D becomes suspicious right away. Once the guy has left she takes a firm hold of my arm.
At least she isn't trying to break it like with my foot earlier.
"What are you up to Potter? I don't want to be part of the collateral damage of any disturbances that might happen!" I give her a grin. "Well, I probably could cast a liquid repellent charm on you, but you'd be very suspicious then…" She growls. Poor dear! And she was doing such a fine job at redeeming herself too! "Tell me what is going on!" I shake my head sadly. "I'm sorry, but that would make a snitch of me… and we all know that I'm more of the bludger type…" She looks like she's ready to argue but she doesn't get the time. My notice-me-not charms fade to reveal something like twenty ugly containers scattered across the hall. Magically expanded containers since all the green paint would have filled the room otherwise. Of course, they don't stay intact for long. They explode rather quickly like the well-timed bombs that they are.
Hilarious! Most would have stopped here, but I promised something grand so that's what the twins will get.
The head table managed to shield themselves (mostly Dumbles, Lockhart and the monster of Frankenstein's work) as did a good chunk of the upper years, and it would be really unfair if I left it at that. I clean my glasses idly. It's a good thing that the paint is just as harmless as water. I think that it'll be the last time they don't check for notice-me-not charms in the hall so I'm glad I put everything I had into this prank. Dumbledore is about to start an amused speech when the second part activates. It went like "Yes, yes! Another wonderful show of magical skill, howev-." When the runes I put on the ground the other day start to work. Those are derived from the inverted gravity charm as well. Basically, it's an array that is timed to invert gravity, but only for liquids and in a gradual fashion.
Which means it's raining green paint up.
It's a lot harder to dodge or shield, but a few of the professors do manage a liquid-repellent charm in time. The visual effect of the paint hitting the enchanted sky is priceless in my opinion, though few are paying attention to it. Which means that nobody saw that there is a giant W-shaped spot on the ceiling that is paint-free yet. Oh well, they'll notice eventually, I wager. It takes some time, but finally, the last drop leaves the ground and reaches its little friends. Now comes the really hard part. I start animating parts of the paint and giving it shapes. I manage all right since there's nothing alive in paint. Frogs, rabbits, cats, dogs, pigs… everything I can think of is dropping from the sky like some new and improved kind of Egyptian plague. In the end, I get impatient and start to pick bigger shapes to use up the material already.
The young dragon took a lot out of me, but it's worth it when I make it land on Dumble's head.
The agglomerates of animated paint are jumping and running everywhere, following random patterns I came up with that will most likely sully the whole castle very quickly. Still, it could have been so much better… I sigh. If those were sentient,though… Or even if they just could make noise! Well, maybe I'll take a look some other time… Seems like D managed to recover from the shock my awesome prank gave her. "You are insane Potter! This is madness!" I swat carelessly at the hamster that tries to jump on my back, getting more paint on my already very green hand. "Is that so? Well, you know what they say… the only way to have an idea of just how crazy you are is to look around and see the people you hang out with…" And let's admit it; by these standards we are all completely mad here. I keep the casual conversation as I leave the hall with D following. "You know, the trickiest part was actually to get some of the paint to stay on the clothes after it hits and still be harmless in the eyes, mouth or nose… did you know that it isn't even possible to drown in that stuff? I have no idea where the twins found it."
She just shakes her head and keeps following bemused. If I can shut her up then I'm clearly making progress! Next time we'll aim for her pain thing…