Chapter 18
Once the NEWTs were over it was time for the OWLs to start. The first exam was Art; which was the province this year of only Randolph; who was presenting his portrait of Draco Malfoy as his masterpiece. The examiner this year was to be an eminent Argentinian artist of English descent called Androbius Pingit since the NEWT was being taken by Erica Malfoy, whose mother was to be the usual examiner, and it was felt that as Mr Pingit had volunteered it was best that the same eye judge all the work. He was much taken by the portrait – he had visited the Malfoys when Charlotte was formulating the criteria for marking – and said so.
"You've a great future as a portraitist, young man" he said. "Now, if I may test you on mixing paints, and then perhaps a demonstration of your own choice of how you use art in magic…."
Randolph mixed paints with aplomb; he was no potioneer but this was different. And for his demonstration he used a variant of his pain reducing pattern that he had used for Clovis Gierek, and executed an endless knotwork pattern encompassing the pain reduction on a strip of paper he joined to make it endless – and absently transfigured into a single piece for better continuity – that could be worn on the head to get rid of a headache. Mr Pingit grimaced slightly, then banged his head hard against the wall in order to try it.
"It works!" he said happily.
"I sort of assumed you'd look at the Arithmancy of the patterning sir" said Randolph. Pingit gave a rueful smile.
"I confess I don't know enough about every field of magic to have that level of ability" he said "So the practical demonstration seemed more appropriate. Excuse; I will use medical transfiguration to dissipate the bruising" which he proceeded to do. He was a funny little man but Randolph liked him, having only met him briefly in Malfoy Manor and thought only that at least he was man enough to be prepared to admit that there was more in art to learn. And being Randolph he said so. Mr Pingit laughed.
"Ah, the so-clever great artists who have such great egos to cover up that they fear that others might have greater skill! They are fools. Even so it was in the muggle world when academicians sneered at impressionists; and maybe they had some right for some of the daubs; but the idea! The concept! New is always despised; until it becomes the norm. And this subject has so much to offer! I kiss my hands to you and Madam and Miss Malfoy; I, who feel a fraud examining one of the originators of the subject! I look forward to reading your written exam!"
The written paper had a choice of three essay questions out of five; they were 'Discuss the universally used symbol of the sun and the magical implications of the swastika'; 'compare the use of formalised Egyptian tomb paintings, Roman encaustic paintings and modern era oil paintings in accessing the souls of the dead'; 'discuss the protective charms contained within the kolams or rangoli of the Indian sub continent'; 'discuss how the increased understanding of perspective in the Renaissance led to a greater mobility for the subjects depicted'; and 'the medium of the pattern magic has an effect upon the designed use of the pattern; discuss'.
They were all interesting subjects; and Randolph picked first the question about the improved perspective of the Renaissance because it was relevant to his career as a portrait painter and he knew how limited a portrait might be if the painter was not careful with the background. Because it was relevant to his field too he picked the comparison between the different media and traditions, pointing out that there was a lot of assimilative correlation by convention within the representation and that it was partly down to the perceptions of the viewer as to whether the representation was good enough to access the person thus depicted; which was why paintings of any but the more modern eras could NOT readily be spoken to by modern wizards as they did not perceive a reality within them. His third essay was on the symbol of the sun and the swastika as one of those symbols, and he strayed into the use of it by Odessa's muggle branch in an attempt to invoke the idea of a single leader as the incarnation of the sun itself, an all-powerful figure and how even for muggles the very symbol could invoke strong feelings, positive or negative as it was essentially a runic sigil representing raw power. It may be said that all three of his answers not only strayed into NEWT level but essentially far beyond it. He enjoyed himself.
oOoOo
The potions practical was a return to a long neglected potion; the Draught of Peace. None of the class was dire at potions so nobody panicked; worst in the class were Rose, Sara and Yelisaveta, who were still solid pass students. AHHa, Julian, Granville, Sandalla, Svetlana and Silvina were the class stars and expected to get an 'O' grade'; and they brewed cheerfully, smiling in relief as the silvery vapour arising showed that they had done it properly. Rose Hubble had a darkish grey vapour but at least it had a pewtery sheen; Sara's and Yelisaveta's potions were a trifle sullen and their vapour looked a bit, as Sara said gloomily afterwards, like someone burning Voldemort's old socks.
The written involved questions on Golapott's first two laws and Flo was delighted that with the extra revision after the quiz she was able to cite them perfectly! There were also questions on a number of antidotes to be suggested; and on swelling and shrinking potions. The class felt it had gone as well as might be expected and perhaps better than some of them HAD expected! Severus permitted a brief post mortem and was able to reassure Sara, Yelisaveta and Rose that their theory should have bought them a pass even if their brew was a little er, unpalatable, as he put it.
oOoOo
Transfigurations followed, with questions on switching spells, human transfiguration, cross species switches – here the marauders absently mentioned assimilative correlation by various means – and the conjuration of inanimate objects. Silvina absently wrote about the necessity of using more energy to summon an object than just to produce energy directly which when the examiner glanced at her name on the top of the paper and found 'Snape' was no further surprise.
The practical was predictable; and all the class conjured handkerchiefs of more or less complexity – only George, Sara and Hanna-leena stuck to plain ones – with a variety of lace, coloured printing or embroidery, arms of quidditch teams, or in Silvina's case staves of music of a new humorous piece she composed while doing the conjuring called 'the nose honking song' to be played on cornet and kazoo, which she placed enough energy into to permanence so she might have a record of the music.
Permanency was decidedly post NEWT, never mind post OWL; but as Silvina said, there was no point losing a piece of music because the rest of the test blew it out of her head.
They switched bottles of coloured liquid, the best students switching contents only; vanished a pile of dirt; changed a guinea fowl into a guinea pig which Rose did using Finnish naming magic in German because, as she beamed, the word for Guinea Pig was such fun and so sweet in German, being Meerschweinchen and she didn't need assimilative correlation for so simple a species switch anyhow. The final test was to turn a box tortoise into a box; and if George, Sara and Hanna had rather plain boxes at least none of them had a tendency to wander off nor eat lettuce. Fred's box was a mahogany fold-out writing desk; Julian's a box for keeping music in with expanding pockets within and a brass inlaid clef on the outside; Albert's was ebony inlaid in a complex pattern of peonies with mother of pearl; Svetlana's was a loose interpretation of a box being Russian nesting dolls – remarkably sophisticated and only possible because Svetlana had not got a clue how many magical laws she came close to violating – and Silvina produced a harp box with delicate stringing of box wood and a knotwork pattern on the outside that was a charm to keep the strings in tune, as Silvina informed the examiner. She was no great artist but she had picked up some pattern magic from Randolph. The rest had boxes with some carving or inlay work on them. On the whole it was an impressive showing; and all the children insisted on turning their tortoise back to normal and feeding it as compensation for being inconvenienced; which led to the tortoise – since tortoises will eat while there is food there – exhibiting a perfect digestion and leaving the examiner a smelly offering by the time the Visick twins had gone last.
As Fred, who was still there, said brightly, that was what the vanishing spell was for after all.
oOoOo
For some reason the class was less able, as a whole, at charms, only Albert Jorkins and Vya excelling here. Kate was one of the better students here which pleased her; even if her sole idea of using charms was to use them with enchanting to enchant quidditch equipment. Sara, AHHa and George were about level with Kate as solid 'E' students.
And Granville, who was as poor as his twin Albert was good, was relieved that the quiz had stimulated his memory enough that he was able to write about locomotor charms and quote several incantations and write a brief essay on cheering charms without feeling that he was too out of his depth.
The class as a whole stilled their teacups one at a time in the practical, and only the more daring tried pouring from their levitated wineglass of water. Changing a rat yellow was standard enough not to cause any problems; and eggcups cartwheeled suitably, the training by Madam Parnassus using chocolate frogs being one that was rather more motivational than a lesson without reward of chocolate for industry. Dinner plates too reduced in size suitably; and the class was glad to be shut of the whole business.
oOoOo
Since a large number of the class had been involved in the fight against the fey when Seagh had rescued Yelisaveta, only Yelisaveta herself, Sara, Vya and Hanna-leena needed to take the practical as the rest were deemed to have taken a NEWT level practical. The four managed to deal with boggarts – Yelisaveta only with difficulty as hers was an Odessa officer – and resist jinxes with more or less success. Vya could produce a corporeal patronus; and Sara could manage something that was getting there.
The written was considered by the marauders to be a total gift, since there were four brief essays to be written on certain dark creatures; being the fey, vampires, Kappa and dementors.
AHHa wrote
"The fey per se are not dark creatures but are capricious in nature; there are those among them that are dark creatures, notably dementors and most of the great form spirits which are paradigmatic of the concept of demons and the study of them may legitimately be referred to as demonology." He wrote a NEWT level answer on Genii, Efreeti, demons and other demonic expressions of the fey and returned almost as much detail on the other dark creatures. It may be said that the other marauders wrote hardly any less. The short questions including defining dark creatures and suggesting counters to curses seemed easy enough to most of them and they left the exam room optimistically.
"LOTS nicer than charms" said Fred.
"Can you legitimately call the dark arts nice even in a relative sense?" asked Silvina "Just as a matter of pedantry to remind people that I AM a Snape now."
"How COULD we forget it?" grinned AHHa. "You know what he means, Silvery Snapeling."
Silvina grinned. She knew what he meant.
oOoOo
It was George, AHHa and Albert who excelled at care of domestic magical beasts. Julian and Sara shared Silvina's view that the prettier beasts were nice enough at a distance but that close too the smells were a little too realistic for the muse. Flo was in agreement too; but this was one class at least in which Yelisaveta shone.
The practical was to feed a hippogriff – which the class considered easy enough even if not all of them viewed it as the pleasure Veta did; to check the hooves of a flying horse; and check an owl for chizpurfles. Nobody had any real difficulties.
The written was a lot of questions requiring paragraph-length answers on the feeding of various beasts, from nifflers to griffons and encompassing various flying horses, hounds, owls and snakes in between; the rules on surgery or disillusionment of various beasts requiring licences; and how to deal with a number of minor ailments and pests that might infest a pet. It was considered not too bad even by the unenthusiastic.
oOoOo
The compulsory exams were now behind them; Herbology having been dropped from the compulsory study list once the original Cackle's girls were in the sixth and all children were getting a basic grounding in the first year taster courses. And Severus was also planning on dropping care of domestic beasts as a compulsory course too; unless anyone wished to fly in a quidpolo team when he would require them to study the subject. He considered making Arithmancy compulsory instead; but that too might be unwarranted cruelty to those who really suffered from the subject; it was made plain that Arithmancy was necessary for any higher study and those who were high fliers generally struggled on with the subject even if it was not something that came easily to them. Like Fred Visick and AHHa; and young Svetlana who thought that as Sandalla was not studying Arithmancy she ought to. Sandalla might regret not taking it if she wanted to take Geomancy further; she would require remedial lessons to keep up. That was a thought, Severus considered; having a class of Arithmancy for Geomancers and chanters as a non exam class for the sixth form just to get them through those portions of Arithmancy that became important in their subject without bothering to cover a whole Arithmancy OWL syllabus. He must have a word with Hermione about it. And perhaps an hour once a week too of Ancient Runes for chanters and those studying Comparative Magic.
oOoOo
Ancient Runes was the first elective exam; and there was a large class for it, because Severus had emphasised its use, like Arithmancy, if one wished to take certain subjects to high level. Nine of the sixteen were taking it, not merely the chanters; the Jorkins twins were keen to take metalwork to OWL and would be taking that exam, as would Fred, Flo and George, alongside their NEWTs in two years time. The use of runic inscriptions to increase the efficacy of crafted items did however fill them with ambition to have some idea of how to use runes!
Since Lucius had taken over as examiner for Ancient Runes the exam had either become more fiendish or more interesting depending on whose viewpoint you took. The old format was just to translate three passages from one of a selection of the runic languages the children had studied; the languages themselves had been taught by magical assimilation but the logograms must still be learned by hard work. Lucius preferred to set two shorter passages of translation and a long section of short questions giving a wider range of knowledge testing. Lucius considered it a better test; because if a child was weak on one language under the old system, that more or less blew the exam for them if they were unlucky to get the one language they struggled with. Generally the OWL syllabus covered Latin, Greek, Oghams, Hieroglyphs, Nordic and Saxon Runes and Cuneiform, as well as look at the notation of Herpo the Foul of Parseltongue. Picking three from that list did not cover how well the student had covered other languages on the syllabus.
Accordingly for this exam the students had to translate a rant in ancient Greek about the iniquities of the Egyptians; and a hieroglyph passage by some smooth penned diplomat suggesting how to deal with these hot-headed Greeks. Lucius had written both using original documents as source material to emphasise the amusement value of the two points of view of the same incident, the complaint of Greek sailors over having their captain flogged on the soles of his feet for picking up a cat to use as a ship's cat without realising it was considered a heinous sacrilege to the Egyptians.
The short questions dealt, some of them, with short translations of brief passages in other languages; questions on the significance of the N-rune to the Nordic people; and a question on the ambiguous nature of the infamous Latin message sent by Queen Isabella to the jailors of Edward the Second. Silvina certainly enjoyed this one, being interested in words in general; and the fact that generally Latin gives a clear enough meaning, whatever order the words are in, because of the endings to the words; but that the placement of the word 'Not' was crucial to the way the relatively uneducated jailors read the message, so that they definitely saw 'fear not to kill the king, it is good' rather than – as the queen was to argue that she had meant – 'Fear to kill the king, it is NOT good'.
Only Sandalla struggled with the exam; she studied Ancient Runes as an accompaniment to History, which was a crucial subject for someone who anticipated being a ruling princess one day.
Arithmancy was being taken by ten students; more than sometimes were to be found taking it in Hogwarts whose classes were at least twice as big as Prince Peak's. Severus was very pleased with the hard work of those who struggled and yet still persevered.
The usual questions on optimal marriage partners using numerology opened the exam; and a tricky little calculation followed, to calculate, given the variables, the amount of energy required to open a given portion of wizarding space. Most members of the MSHG considered the wizarding measure of energy, Man-Hours Running, the MHR, to be a little spurious; it designated the output of magical energy in comparison to how tired a man would be after running for an hour, which as the MSHG had debated more than once was really rather subjective, especially for those who ran daily to increase their stamina. Hermione, who also considered it a little spurious, had told her students just to look upon the ruddy measurement as an arbitrary one and never mind the original meaning or else think of it as Ministry Hours Running which as everyone knew was a bunch of idiots expending a lot of energy running around and getting nowhere. If was any comfort, Hermione said, it was about 750 Joules which was a muggle measurement with a lot more precision, the Joule being the amount of energy required to lift – by any means, muscular or otherwise – one kilogram one metre. And if she had her way there would be more standardisation between magical and muggle measurements save in such things that had magical significance like the magical mile.
There were grins over the Ministry Hours Running as the students fell to calculating the answer with varying degrees of precision– Flo solved it to four decimal places, and her twin rounded to the nearest half – and the students heaved a sigh of relief that the next question was merely a simple piece of Waffling Logic being no more than a reprise of the question posed by the caryatids of the last Triwizard, that 'if one of us always tells the truth and the other always lies, how do you determine the correct path to take' . Following that were a few questions on prime numbers including finding three prime numbers that summed to make the prime number 23; a question considered to have significance since Lilith Snape's research into the significance of 23, prime numbers attaining more significance since the teaching of goblin metalwork demonstrated the importance laid upon them by goblins. Fred declared the exam 'not too horrible' and Silvina and Flo declared that they had enjoyed it.
oOoOo
Comparative Magic was the province of Flo, AHHa, and Silvina. Silvina had no very high hopes of a good grade but she felt it went rather well with Ancient Runes which she took seriously as well as being a contextual study for music.
The form of the exam had become set that one picked one essay out of three offered and completed too a paper of short questions. The essay choices were 'Pick three types of shapeshifter and discuss them in context of their cultural setting'; 'Compare and contrast the use of music in three different cultures [percussion may be included]'; and 'reference three different magical traditions with comparisons of the importance of written and spoken word.'
Silvina almost cheered out loud. There were two essays she considered easy; especially the second on the list. She settled down to write too much about the musical traditions of the Irish who used bodhran and harp primarily for magical effects, as learned from the Seelie Court of fey; the use of the gong in Japan to control and exclude fey and other spirits; and the tradition of magical pipes and flutes of the Germanic people probably drawn from the fey of the region. She had to hurry a bit to complete all the short questions; but felt that on the whole she had surpassed herself and was hopeful of a better grade than the mere pass she had been hoping for.
oOoOo
Nobody was taking Divination this year; those who saw it as a soft option were mostly a matter of the past since the introduction of an entrance exam, and the increased expectations of even those who had, as this year had done, entered without an exam. This being so the next exam was Enchanting; the province of Fred, George and Granville.
There was a short essay question on why it was necessary to choose appropriate materials to which to tie an enchantment; Fred absently mentioned Assimilative Correlation by Association, but spoiled the effect by becoming a little fuzzy in his argument later in the essay. George wrote a tighter essay but without NEWT level references; and Granville woffled rather. There were questions on wand woods and cores; and one on why dedicated wands had no core. The answer to that of course was that a wand and its core combined focused the will of the owner and could thus perform any spell the caster knew; whereas a dedicated wand was enchanted to produce one effect only and might as well, argued Fred, be a dedicated screwdriver or glove or any other random object, the choice of a wand being purely traditional. With a few more questions on general enchantments the written was over.
The practical involved the enchantment of three common items; a fire-lighting wand, self-warming slippers and a self-inking pen. Granville's pen was prone to drop blots and his slippers were rather TOO warm for comfort; but otherwise they managed well enough.
oOoOo
Geomancy followed for Fred; it was the other Jorkins who was taking this, Albert; and too Sandalla. It was for Geomancy that Fred had persevered with Arithmancy, and felt it worth while.
The exam presented a map of Britain for the candidate to draw in the principal ley lines; and there were questions on the recognition of geomantic symbols, on unplottability, and on the expected advantages of travelling by ley line and the use of the four-point spell to find North and its variants to find the nearest ley line or node points.
The practical was a standard one; the candidates were taken, together with their brooms, to an unknown location from which they had to find their way back using ley lines to increase flying speed. Sandalla, who could feel ley lines, had an advantage here; the boys had to use the incantation point-me leyline to pick up a seven-fold speed increase.
oOoOo
Herbology was being taken by Granville, Silvina – for potioneering – Sara, Hanna and Vya.
Sara was bitten by her fanged geranium but managed to gather bubotubers without mishap; and none of them were more than minimally bruised by bouncing bulbs. The written consisted of a lot of short questions, to Sara's relief; she had not enjoyed Herbology as much as she had expected to when she signed up for it as an elective. In Sara's opinion you could pick up more marks on short questions by getting at least a half mark here and there on most of them for knowing something rather than having to stare at a sheet of paper to write an essay. Writing essays were NOT Sara's forte; and dropped her grades across the board accordingly. She would have been amazed to know that Silvina considered essays better than short questions because you could so easily pick up bonus marks for making a good point.
The questions covered listing self motile plants known to the candidates, brief discussions on the use and over use of fertiliser, the difference between devil's snare and flitterbloom, and pruning various woody plants. Sara felt she had done enough to pass; Silvina felt she had not disgraced herself; and Granville declared happily that it had been a lovely exam.
oOoOo
Sandalla, Svetlana and Hanna were the only ones taking History. For the two princesses it was more or less mandatory out of duty; Hanna was just interested.
The exam consisted of two papers, an essay paper from which one essay out of three was chosen; and a paper of short questions. The essay choices were 'discuss the relationship enjoyed between muggle alchemists and wizards before the statute of secrecy of 1692'; 'the twentieth century has been called the age of dictators; discuss'; and 'discuss how blood magic in the form of sacrifice in the ancient world tainted the view of blood magic in the modern world'. Svetlana raised an eyebrow at the last, considering it a near NEWT question; and chose the question on the age of dictators. Sandalla chose the question on blood magic and proceeded to return a NEWT level answer on it with much reference to Professor Snape's book 'Blood magic, love magic'. Hanna fell back on the question about dictators, which was largely about Grindelwald and Voldemort when all was said and done.
The short paper covered the whole period from antiquity to the modern era with paragraph answers required on such disparate subjects as the Roman suppression of local traditions to the use of muggles by Gellert Grindelwald.
oOoOO
None of the students were to be taking metalwork this year; Lydia had decreed that though some might have been able to catch up in the single year, her successor teacher Professor Chang might see about letting them enter in their lower sixth year instead of alongside their NEWTs to give an option of taking NEWT; but that she felt that they needed at least another year's preparation.
Muggle studies was the next exam therefore, and was only being taken by two candidates, the Zorn twins. As a muggle who had achieved magic only through the blood pact with her double and now twin, Sandalla, Svetlana excelled here; and Sandalla considered keeping up with what muggles knew, felt and wanted was important from an ambassadorial point of view. Svetlana was seriously considering taking the study to NEWT in order to teach in the magical country of Zorn.
The exam was one consisting of four shortish essays chosen from six titles suggested; the titles were 'muggles prefer not to know in order to avoid inferiority complexes; discuss'; 'the importance of electricity to muggles is equivalent to that of charms to wizards; discuss'; 'at the divergence of the muggle and magical worlds, science took the place of the mystical for muggles; discuss'; 'consider how tales of flying magical objects influenced the muggle drive to invent technological flying machines'; 'does the deep seated desire of some muggles to know influence their fiction?' and 'consider why muggles might have a drive to communicate constantly over increasing distances'.
Sandalla discarded the second and the final essays in the list; Svetlana discarded the first and third. Both wrote steadily and well; and Svetlana, bringing a muggle's views to the subject made some very cogent points, enjoying particularly the essay on muggle fiction, and hardly less enjoying writing about telegraph, telephone, wireless, television and the internet, and the prevalence of mobile phones; pointing out that technological gadgets that reached further and did more were the muggle equivalent in some respects to such gimmicks as self-stirring cauldrons; but that too muggles felt a need to control their environment and being able to communicate with large portions of it was a form of self determination, because they knew subconsciously that there was more out there than they could actually perceive or understand.
The final exam was another new one; Music in Magic. And for want of any other sufficiently qualified English musicians who had studied the subject who were NOT actually teaching, the Examinations Board had, with some qualms, picked the Broomstick Boys as examiners.
The entrants were Julian, Silvina and Sara; and Terence Goodchild, who planned to take the NEWT after the extra year he had been offered free by Severus to provide a music teacher in a new school.
The practical consisted of studying a chant and duplicating its effect with music or drumming; playing a tune of irresistible dance while the music continued; and playing a magical lullaby to send a baby to sleep. Crys and Nils borrowed David Snape, Jade Nuffield and Severein Schiff for the three candidates; and accepted sung lullabies as being as valid as played ones.
The candidates all performed well above the designated par.
The written exam contained a section that gave portions of melodies with the effect expected written by them with the instruction to add counterpoint to enhance the effect; another section with portions of scores asking what effect this tune would have; and a section of paragraph answers on such things as matching appropriate instruments to particular effects, enchanting instruments to play, the hypnotic qualities of the song or whistling of various fey creatures and the design of tunes to create magical patterns. It may be said that Silvina became rather arithmantic over this question.
The three declared it easier than they had feared and were told dryly by Godfrey that as they had been involved in helping to design NEWT level music it jolly well should have been.
And that was the exams over!
oOoOo
Ordinary lessons continued for the non exam students; and the metalwork students in the fifth elected to put in time on their two show pieces in the hopes of talking Professor Chang into letting them take their OWL next year. Lydia was fairly certain Ming would be flexible; and the group had worked hard enough to have probably scraped a pass if she had let them do more on their exam pieces, but she had felt it would be detrimental to their other exams as well as not giving a true overview of their abilities. She intended telling Ming that he could stray into some NEWT work with the group over the next year alongside bringing them up to speed for their OWL; and set the youngsters further reading for the holidays as an option if they cared to take it.
She thought it was an option they would all take.
oOoOo
The last event of term was a round Robin quiddpolo match between the first, second and third teams and a scratch staff team with Lydia as chaser, and Byron, Erich, Dimsie, Hermione, Viktor and Krait as her team. Few of the staff had ever ridden; Byron, Dimsie and Erich had all had lessons, Lydia loved riding, Krait had a natural Malfoy flair and Viktor was determined. The games were to be declared after an hour for the sake of the horses and would be played over two days; and it has to be said that the second team – named for courtesy to their elders and the third team only so named at the request of its members – creamed all opposition. It was good fun; and a grand way to celebrate an extra sport added to the school's repertoire.
oOoOo
And then term was drawing to an end; and there was to be the now traditional moonlight feast, after an afternoon's resting, as being more pleasant than the heat of midsummer under the harsh mountain sun.
Severus had asked the second years to cut fantastic shapes for shadow lanterns as shadow puppetry was very much a class hobby; and the results had been excellent. Birds and flowers and intricate patterns were thrown as shadows over the feast that was a traditional hog roast with the addition of local made bread and cheeses and goat's milk in abundance as an alternative to pumpkin juice and butterbeer. And Severus rose.
"It's been a good year; and one without any alarums to speak of so we should be glad of that; but we should also be aware that the children of Durmstrang HAVE had a few interruptions from dark wizards."
"It's their turn!" called out the Lowther twins. Severus gave a thin smile.
"It may very well be their turn, but we have to remember that dark wizardry is NOT fair and to maintain what an old friend of mine would call Constant Vigilance; let us not get complaisant. Though I may say the staff is unlikely to get too complaisant as we had a little matter of a fey attack in the Yule holidays; nothing to work up a sweat over."
"Weel yon's a touch o' litotes" murmured Seagh, who had arrived for the end of term and had his arm round Silvina.
"It was nothing to break into a sweat over" said Severus severely "Having expected it and prepared in advance. However, that's by the by; I hope that you have enjoyed a relatively peaceful year and that those of you who are leaving us will take fond memories of school with you. And that the rest of you have happy holidays and return refreshed in September."
There were cheers; and Irmi rose.
"Those of us who are leaving would like to say thank you, sir, to you and all the staff for giving us schooldays happy enough to give us a solid foundation for the rest of our lives" she said. "None of us will ever forget our time in Prince Peak; and most of us will, I'm sure, view the little problems caused by Odessa as merely a part of life's rich tapestry. Of the eight of us, the excellent time we have had has instilled a desire in at least half of us to teach, even if we may some of us take some time doing other things first, though I guess Emily's coaching is but another form of teaching. And Evangeline wishes to take a year teaching and then enter the ministry; so in a couple of years time the English ministry of education better start improving, Evvy, that's all I can say!"
Evangeline grinned and waved her glass of butterbeer self deprecatingly in the air. Irmi curtseyed; and the whole of the upper sixth rose as a body to bow and curtsey to Severus.
He cleared his throat, much moved.
"I certainly wish you all much success in whatever your chosen career may be" he said softly "Now before we get maudlin, let's give three cheers for the school and let the dancing commence!"
The school gave a rousing cheer; and danced with enthusiasm to the playing of the Broomstick Boys and the Goodchild brothers well into the early hours; and several juniors had to be put to bed in their clothes for falling asleep where they sat.
It had been a good year; and would have been a better one without an expulsion to mar it. But sometimes that too was just part of life's rich tapestry.
7