Chapter 6
The weather broke on the way back from Innsbruck; and the school team got fairly drowned in a downpour on the way to their own rack railway and the cable car.
That the cable car emerged above the rain into brilliant sunshine almost added insult to injury; but as Victor said, at least they were so high up that they were above a lot of the weather which extended their quidditch season; and in case anyone hadn't noticed how soon the old folk of the Innsbruck team started blowing with exertion, the high mountain air did wonders for their lungs too as well as their morning runs.
"Pollyanna!" said Fred without rancour.
oOoOo
Weather did start to reach even the peak after that and the morning run became dancing in the Hall instead or a riotous game of shipwrecks, with thoughtful muffliatus spells for those who did NOT go for the early rising of the MSHG. The first had joined as a body, even Evadne Horrocks; who was not about to cut off her nose to spite her face. She was what Birgitta described as 'a little middle aged' but she cared for the rights of others passionately enough and had the sense to realise that informal training helped, and to listen to the theory behind the fitness. The boys looked upon it as their chance to help Conrad more; and as the boy relaxed, he could indeed perform better when wand work was a part of games not in a more stressful formal environment like lessons. And as part of a game of shipwrecks involved two opposing teams turning the safe havens into something like aggressive rocking horses or jelly, one had to be on the ball to cancel the spells!
oOoOo
In the bad weather the usual collection crazes started to occupy the minds of various people, with the swapping of chocolate frog cards, quidditch cards and the new dark creatures cards from the Liquorice Bat company given away with jellied dark creatures. It was AHHa who came up with the idea of animating jellied redcaps – lime and strawberry – in a war against cola-flavoured dementors. The tables got very sticky and the game was disrupted when Stripey, the school leopard jumped on the table and routed all forces with her rough tongue, purring louder, so AHHa claimed, than the chatter of machine guns.
It was only Stripey; so they sighed and did her ears and her soft tummy when she rolled over for it. Stripey more or less looked on Flo Visick as one of her favourite people so they called on Flo to lure her off to the kitchen to eat more suitable food than sweeties when doing her tummy got too arduous.
Flo left her own collection for Stripey's needs; Jade had created the leopard as her offering for the transfiguration NEWT and Flo, as self-imposed fag had taken helping to care for the big cat seriously. Her collection was not swappable anyway; Flo was busy cataloguing all the dryads and their trees she could find, and finding out all she could about their trees. This had started by taking an interest in the school dryad Fagia, and her beech tree; and Jade had mentioned in passing that a dryad going under then name Sylvia Birch attended the Rowan House annexe to Hogwarts as a day pupil, that led to Flo looking her up in Kensington Park one holiday; and it had grown from there. There were several dryads around the school and Flo had badgered indulgent prefects to walk out that way to meet, photograph, and talk to more. Flo felt protective towards dryads; they had very few if any rights in law, largely because no-one was sure whether to classify them as plants or beasts. Flo maintained that they were beings; and as they needed a being to breed with to make a new generation that proved it. As Dryads tended to keep themselves to themselves even more than centaurs, the need to battle for their rights collectively had not really arisen in light of other, more pressing needs; but certainly Flo had been told she was a good kid when discussing the subject once with Madam Granger, who was well known as an elf rights activist.
Flo's brother Fred had the more conventional sort of collection of flying quidditch figures and quidditch cards; and he and George Ingate were working on designing a game whereby you used quidditch cards to pick a dream team and enchanted non specific figures to be operated according to the stats of your team, and let them play it out. It was a complex piece of enchanting, and Severus, passing by, had suggested that both take enchanting seriously and also look into the goblin metalworking classes that would be starting in a couple of years to make goblin silver figures that would be mutable, suggesting they study an OWL alongside their NEWTs. He did not voice his thought that such ingenuity had to be something to do with the juxtaposition of such names as Fred with George.
The boys thought this an interesting idea and thanked him for his interest.
The first, on the whole, had harmless hobbies; it may have been a surprise that Germaine Oglethorpe did not collect quidditch cards or figures but little bottles – a side trip to Vienna had filled her with delight – but it was harmless enough. Fulke Blackwood liked clocks and clockwork; and was perhaps another candidate for metalwork. Solange, hardly surprising for a French girl, loved fashion and kept scrapbooks of fashion models from magazines. Evadne Horrocks collected photographs of famous wizards – a little more personal than the famous wizard cards – and had delightedly snapped all the famous witches and wizards who taught her, and went on to write careful biographies beside them in her scrapbook. Conrad Grailsquest had the most unusual hobby; muggle sleight of hand conjuring tricks, because he was skilled enough, he explained, to actually fool inquisitive and insensitive relatives into thinking he could manifest magic. Siegfried was addicted to chess, and had a number of old chess boards that had come to light in his castle, that he had exclaimed over in horror at the way they had aged, and done what he could to restore them with help from Severus. Werner Wasner, who also took an interest in Fulke's clockwork having metalworking in his background, was trying to interest people in hurley – they were permitted five-a-side softball hurley in the great hall – and Georgi Metlaev, whose other great love besides quidditch was theatre, suggested getting up a play. The others of the first thought it a great idea as a way to spend free time so long as it wasn't going to be highbrow, so they all sat down to write a play.
They decided to fictionalise the usurping of Miss Cackle's by Gerhardt and mangled the truth with enthusiasm for dramatic impact, having Gerhart being Cackle under polyjuice potion and the girls in thrall rescued by Severus Snape with a flitgun full of mandragora. There was a final battle and the storm wizards disguised as witches were revealed and routed.
The boys had great fun romping in drag as 'witches' pulling off their wigs quickly when squirted with 'mandragora' with Conrad starring as the chief villain Gerhardt because he could actually get a mask and wig off with aplomb and whilst apparently just shielding his face from the spray. Fulke was voted as typecast as Professor Snape and Werner got out his paintbox to produce some realistic looking scars as actually jinxing him was considered just a little extreme. The girls had to mill around a lot as pupils, having borrowed old uniforms out of the museum.
"Try to look like a crowd" said Georgi to the five girls.
The other four boys were wicked wizards, including Georgi who was also producer, prompt and in charge of the curtain.
They performed for the rest of the school and Georgi said severely to the laughing staff,
"It is, please, not supposed to be a farce, but a drama of the most shocking and frightening."
The staff tried hard to control their mirth after that.
"I don't think it'll make Broadway" Krait murmured to Severus as the final curtain fell – and then fell further as it became dislodged – "But it was damned funny!"
The rest of the school always enjoyed the efforts of any who had the industry to put on any performance and clapped with enthusiasm for effort if not necessarily for great art.
oOoOo
Werner had an ally in Seagh Snape over hurley; and softball games became regular occurrences, though Seagh was away rather a lot.
He had enjoyed himself visiting Teague O'Toole and meeting his fey relatives; this was a seelie band run by a chieftess who admitted that the fey were going to have to make more compromises with humans if they wanted to survive. Her lowfey were excited to hear about the chant that had freed them too of compulsion – not that many had ever felt disloyal, and nor had any left – and Seagh had felt quite easy about making diplomatic overtures and suggesting the possibility of places for fey children in Prince Peak school.
He had NOT succumbed to the blandishments of the chieftess who thought a handsome, tall half human like Seagh who seemed to be even more able than Teague – who had impressed her enough – would make a good father for her offspring.
"Dangerous lady Chieftess Deirbhile"* said Seagh to Teague.
"Sure, and isn't she as full av sex as an egg is av meat and as safe as making out in a pit full av vipers" said Teague in his own idiom.
Seagh DID extract quite a lot about fey music from his stay however, even if he did have the knowledge – and willpower, aided by the bloodgroup – to resist her drowsy and erotic songs to leave him overcome with mental lassitude without taking away the ability to perform. Seagh just LOVED the look of frustrated chagrin as he continued taking notes throughout the performance and so he reported back.
"You're a bad man, our Seagh" laughed Krait.
He bowed floridly.
"One does one's caddish best, little mother" he said.
"You've been reading the Sparhawk books again" said Krait.
"They're entertaining" said Seagh. "Anyway, you hold us all together and settle our squabbles as gently forcibly as Sephrenia. And isn't dad our own Precentor Martial like Vanion?"
Krait laughed.
"Nutter" she said.
oOoOo
And then Halloween was on them; and the competition this year for the holiday weekend was to produce puppets of appropriate images and creatures.
The first combined – again at Georgi's suggestion and with the artistic direction of Werner and technical expertise of Conrad and Fulke – to produce a set of shadow puppets thrown into relief by a lumos spell behind a screen for a short play wherein a hag captured and ate children in a colourful house – cellophane from sweeties in cut out windows was very effective – until a werewolf came and ate her. The werewolf was handled by Conrad who managed to manipulate several disparate body parts to change them a bit at a time and it was most effective. The first won a big box of chocolates for that effort!
Lucy Ingate recalled Jade and friends having made Basil the Basilisk out of socks and decided to reprise that idea with Sylvana; though their renditions of songs of the cool crested basilisk with shades were perhaps more attendant with giggles than anything else as they begged the school not to step on his blue suede tail. The rest of the second bowed to Sarah Elliot's artistic ability and made beautiful puppets with jack-o-lantern heads and exquisitely sewn clothing – courtesy of Zöe Gesler and Beta Kalinka – which danced to the music of the 'firegang' from labyrinth.
The muggle marauders came up with puppets on strings dressed as sturmzauberern; save that as they swooped on their brooms their sombre black Odessa robes rode up to reveal pink lacy bloomers.
The First Peak Marauders produced werewolves in a cup; two puppets hid inside the cone that was the cup, each on sticks so they could pop up first one then the other.
And Irmi and friends combined to make felt glove puppets of Convolvumort, Tuurd the Troll, Leaky the House elf and selected characters like Hairy Pimple, Professor Glumblebum, Professor Spurious Snake, Red Ferrety and Hermetica Grudgeblood. They had great fun putting on a battle between the forces of good and evil, with – since THEY were in the know – Professor Spurious Snake calling Convolvumort 'Master' and jinxing him whilst supposedly aiming at Hairy Pimple and apologising with a wild toss of maniacally wild hair.
It was a most excellent evening!
The feast was not to be despised either; and as others went to bed, the Bee Marauders, Angelica and Sebastian were tapped lightly on the shoulder and motioned to hold back.
And they were taken to the secret room; and another party ensued with a blooding. And Sebastian grinned at Irmi, and then was kissing her fiercely; and Angelica suddenly understood why it was these people were so close. Because now she was too; and closer to her brothers than ever.
And Hette and Vava were determined not to fall asleep afterwards even if Tarquin and Ismenia did.
They woke up next morning in their own beds whence they had been carried.
Of all the newly blooded, perhaps the most awed was Crow.
As Engelram Langstaffe he had behaved badly; had failed to understand so many things because of the snobbery of his family, lurking on the edges of society and desperate to try to rise; and consequently acting in an embarrassingly arrogant manner to seem of more consequence than they were. Crow had got his parents behaving with a little more courtesy towards their house elf since mentioning that Malfoys and the like considered it uncultured not to be polite to servants; and hoped that their social ambitions would be satisfied that he had powerful friends to the extent that one day he could break the news that he also had goblin and half goblin friends. The behaviour of the goblin boy Vilm the previous year and his rudeness to Madam Devlin and the two half goblin girls had made him so ashamed that once he had behaved almost as badly; indeed he had gone to the head to ask if he might talk to the boy rather than have him expelled to see if he could not explain. And Severus had explained – kindly and sadly – that the boy could not be reached by anyone as things stood. Crow had been shocked to be compared to Voldemort; it had been a starting point. But Vilm was unprepared to change his thinking for anyone. Severus had put a kindly hand on Crow's shoulder and thanked him for his concern; and begged him never to discard such compassion.
"But I cannot allow you, as one of my charges, to be opened to the sort of insult this boy throws around to those who er, encourage miscegenation" he said. "There's none so blind as those who WILL not see. You were ignorant only; he is more than ignorant; he is pig-ignorant, and wallows joyously in his own brand of wilful ignorance."
Crow had often wondered what had become of Vilm and if he had regretted his stupid behaviour. More likely, he told himself cynically, he is spreading stories of abominations and the wicked disregard for decent folk at that school. A shame; and one must hope it did not cause trouble in the future. Still, their own year's Arbrek had a father who was a pillar of the goblin community; and Henik, the poor goblin boy Arbrek's father was sponsoring in Vilm's stead, was a good kid.
And he, Crow HAD listened and learned; and now he was part of the forces against prejudice and evil wizards and a part of the coolest organisation ever and how wonderful was that! And Severus had said that his and BaHH's and Batty's and the Breuer girls' desire to kick against authority and question every edict before complying was a healthy thing to have, and that they would be responsible for helping to see that the Ruling Council in England and the new government in Germany did not backslide into the pusillanimous and vacillating mental flatulence of the previous Ministry-run government.
Crow loved Severus' turns of phrase – at least when they were not directed at him! Madam Burke for potions this year was by way of a rest cure, though that did NOT mean he should slack, just because her bawlings out were less wordy and entertaining.
She HAD forgiven them for playing cricket in the potions dungeon with a horned toad as a ball and the massive stirrer from the big cauldron as a bat; because she was mad on cricket herself. She merely set them an impot of a brief essay discussing the more outlandish terms used in cricket.
Even muggles not interested in the game apparently found some of the terms bizarre; but then, what other game could boast a fielding position of 'silly mid off'?
Madam Malfoy increased the blood group by another one a week or so later by producing Cornelius Albus Ronald; and teased Professor Ron that his name had been added for the baby's tuft of red hair.
Ron grinned.
He had also just been told by Percy that he was to be an uncle again; Harmony was pregnant and blooming happily. Ron was happy to be the father of just the two, Penelope and Sirius Harry; but he had been glad to share out the labour pains for Krait with the others. And if Krait wanted a long family, well she was the one who had to go through the whole messy business. Ron did not think he could survive the stress of Hermione having any more and was glad she too was content to stop at one of each!
His mum was pleased she had managed two babies anyway; and she would be pleased with Percy and Harmony as Harmony wanted a long family like her sister-in-law Ginny. And this first one was to be named Fabian if it was a boy or Fabiola if it was a girl after one of Molly's brothers who had been killed against Voldemort first time round, and that had really pleased Molly when Harmony sent her an owl with the news.
There had been two more infant additions to the blood group recently.
Lynx had produced her second baby just after term started, another girl; to be named Felice Ariel, and Lynx explaining that Ariel was Hebrew for lion before anyone could say it wasn't in the cat theme of names they were using for their daughters. Ron did not really care what outlandish naming system people picked so long as their kids grew up happy.
And Sephara had presented Neville with a son, whom they were naming Frank Harry. So they had one of each too.
The one to worry about was Senagra, who was expecting in February or March because she was petite, even as goblins went; but then, Romulus was slight and the Blood Group would see them through. It had been a revelation to see the faces of the new ones though as Krait went into labour!
Yrdl had been through it before and had explained; and told them that they might stand aside from it. And staunch little warriors that they were they had hung in there!
Cornelius was, as Krait explained to the school, named after an ancestor of hers, Cornelius Slytherin; who was the last of his line since the last to bear the name was his daughter.
Charlotte had made a second portrait of Cornelius to hang in Severus' office; and his namesake had been duly introduced before he was shown to the school.
The hard faced heir of Slytherin had become quite soft and moved.
Phineas Nigellus had made snide comments about Krait breeding like a brood mare of course; and James Potter had called him names and Severus had to ban them from invading each other's frames for fisticuffs of an unseemly nature as Krait was quite capable of holding her own with Phineas Nigellus.
"Quite" said Krait "He can't help being jealous that he never had the equipment to make babies and that his own wife never actually noticed that he was making them on her because he was so boring she dozed off in the middle of his best efforts."
Phineas Nigellus spluttered.
oOoOo
The Yule Ball was to be the next excitement for the upper forms, though of no interest whatsoever to the junior school or third years.
This meant that the First Peak Marauders and their class were obliged to go; and they quickly sorted themselves out. Julian invited Silvina because she could be trusted not to lose rhythm; Albert and Granville claimed that twins should go with twins, and invited Sandalla and Svetlana; which left AHHa moaning that the twins had stolen an unfair march in getting the only female marauders and promptly invited Rose Hubble AND Hanna-Leena Tommila.
As Fred took his sister's friend Vya and Flo went with Fred's friend George, that left only Sara Barbary and Kate Grant. Who were promptly asked by the Lowther twins as being more sensible than any of the girls in their year. Rory and Randolph shrugged and tossed for which would invite Muriel and which would ask Prudence, who were not TOO bad, Muriel at least belonging to the MSHG. There were still more girls than boys in the upper forms.
Victor considered asking Irmi as his deputy but it was really a no brainer that she would be going with Sebastian; and Victor wished them well. He invited Emily Grant on the principle that she was head of games and rather inclined to scare most boys. Helga would go with Ulrich; though Victor knew she was writing darling-I-miss-you letters to Stoyan Krumm who was in the upper sixth at Hogwarts. Even as Darryl was writing to Mimi in similar vein but probably more imaginatively and with greater literary competence. Darryl asked Victor's advice.
"I dance well enough; anyone you think would enjoy the ball for being asked?"
"Lily Smethley" said Victor.
Darryl nodded and invited the shy prefect.
Gaius Paddock invited Elsie Blackwood; two intellectuals would find more to talk about than having four left feet between them. That exhausted the list of boys of the upper sixth and left only two more in the lower. And Adrian Petrescu and Yukya Kalinka were NOT about to be caught by the Tugwood twins. Adrian hastily asked Elsie Willis, the swot of the upper sixth and Yukya picked Evangeline Chaunter, the last girl of his own year, who was not about to make a fuss about dancing with an elf. Milos Milic, the last male of the fifth hastily asked Leneli Accola, who could go on a bit but was at least a member of the MSHG and was settling – finally – to the fact that nobody turned a hair about her being half goblin, except a boy who got expelled for it.
As males outnumbered females in the post NEWT classes, they were to hold themselves in readiness to dance with any bereft looking female as a willing sacrifice for their education, as Severus put it.
"Ah'm no' dancin' wi' the Tugwoods for a' the education in the worrrld" said Seagh "Ah've had ma fill o' darrk crreatures."
Severus cuffed him.
"You'll do as I tell you" he said.
"Yes father" said Seagh, in resignation.
"Oh we'll dance with the Tugwoods" said Nils "We're used to daft girls. And we'll dance with the others too of course."
"Thanks" said Severus. "One hopes they MIGHT be starting to grow out of it; we shall see when I run Amortentia next term."
Seagh got cuffed again for falling to his knees to murmur a curse breaking prayer of little value but great popularity in the Voldemort years.
Of more moment to Conrad Grailsquest than any silly ball was the moment when, in Madam Parnassus' charms class he absently managed to make his eggcup perform a perfectly adequate cartwheel because he was busy dwelling upon how well the shadow puppets had gone and was considering if he had the skill to make puppets do cartwheels on the ends of their sticks.
Dione kissed him on the cheek in enthusiasm and he flushed but grinned all across his face.
"I don't even want to know what mischief you were planning that enabled that" Dione said "But I wish it every success!"
Conrad grinned.
"I was only thinking about puppets" he said.
"Conrad, if you'd like to cut puppets and use locomotor charms to move them, I'm happy for you to make that a project to hone your skills" said Dione.
Conrad brightened.
"May I? THANK you Madam Parnassus!"
"And what's more you can practice colour changing on cellophane that you use as part of your puppets" added Dione. "To add to your effect."
Conrad beamed. That was an excellent idea!
Dione was delighted. He may never get far with charms – but at least he had proved to himself, which was the most important hurdle, that he could perform magic. And with belief in himself that ought to make him perform better in classes that required magical ability, though it was doubtful he would improve much in Arithmancy where magical skill was immaterial. And yet…. And yet, if he had a belief in himself, a better self image, he might yet pick up in all things. She had done so after all!
oOoOo
The rest of the first felt it a shame to waste Conrad's developing talents and pass up a possible jape; and having told Evadne to dry up and not be a poor prune for saying that playing jokes was not nice, set to in the intention of working out if they could produce some kind of Brockenbow apparition by projecting puppet shadows. With some practice, they determined that they could put a mass lumos charm on a quaffle and use it to project shadows onto drawn curtains.
The wild hunt – with more imagination than accuracy – was cut out with much giggling, and the first proceeded to sneak out onto the battlements to scare the sixth in their studies.
As there were those of the sixth who knew something of the wild hunt, having heard stories from Seagh, the deception caused all the mayhem the conspirators might have hoped and curtains and windows were flung open and lights dowsed to give defending prefects a bit more chance not to be night blind. This was the point at which the first let fly with banshee wails played on comb and paper – which idea Birgitta had got out of the Dimsie books – and like the original made the more uncanny by the odd ghostly whimper which was Solange giggling into her instrument.
They hared back inside and were found to be looking innocent when Victor and Irmi came to check on the smallest.
So innocent did they look that several knuts dropped.
"My office, first thing" said Victor to the boys; and relayed the same order to the girls via Irmi.
oOoOo
"We didn't bring Evadne because she refused to be in on it" explained Germaine as the girls trooped in.
It was a squeeze.
"Did you care to explain?" asked Victor.
"Well, Crabbe, it was because we wanted to celebrate Conrad finding his magic" said Siegfried "And we thought that it might scare younger people for real so we fixed on doing it to you older people."
"Well I like your sense of common sense over that decision anyway" said Victor "With a few delicate kiddies in the school it might have led to some nasty nightmares rather that the collective shout 'oh DAMN the fey' which was our general reaction. How did you make the noises? Had you kidnapped Celestina Warbeck or something?"
They giggled.
"Comb and paper" said Birgitta "Hilary and co do it in 'Dimsie'. I bet Madam Burke would have known, which is why we didn't try to spook the staff."
"The trouble some of the staff have had with the fey you might have stopped lethal spells first and been called on for explanations after" said Victor "Most of them went to Hogwarts you know, or have taught there; and after they killed Voldemort they had some trouble with the wild hunt. Stole our Seagh from them as it happens; he's adopted by Professor Snape by blood ritual to keep him safe from them. Still, no harm done; but you know I can't actually let it pass. I was tempted to set you 'Tam Lin' as a single long rep, but with small people out of their beds in the middle of a cold night I think it'd be more salutary for you to report to the potion dungeon after school and brew a dose of pepperup potion each as a prophylactic against possible pestilence as a result of your perfidy" he was particularly pleased with this Snapish burst of alliteration and smiled at them in what Fulke described as 'quite fiendish glee'.
The first accepted it with due philosophy; they had fully anticipated being caught at some point and had been quite surprised to actually get back to bed safely. Besides, it was not a terribly long potion to brew and was – to their minds – a less arduous impot than copying out long poems.
Victor then went to ask permission to use the dungeon as a Head Boy's detention, and told Severus the whole off the record. Severus laughed.
"Well that's a very appropriate detention; and I have to say of an originality worthy of David Fraser in his time!" he chuckled.
"Well greater praise you cannot give" said Victor, flushing "I recall being very respectful of David Fraser when I was a weevil and a wart. I – I guess I wish I'd gone off the rails then and done something that brought him or you down on me back then so I'd not have lost a year and not got in worse trouble later – and maybe have found out about Walter being cursed earlier. Only I respected him and you too much to misbehave" he added honestly.
Severus sighed.
"I have always maintained that your problems were in part at least my fault for not seeing more" he said. "And by having to leave for the poor little mutts here. At least you ARE back on track – more than back on track – and able to look out for the same. As for Walter, frankly I doubt as a wart you'd have been able to tell us any more than that he was a spoiled brat and the favourite; and we've come across families who hold one child a favourite before. It was being in school that revealed his extraordinary deficiencies. And I'm hearing from Lilith that he's hooked up with the youngest group of would-be marauders too."
Victor beamed.
"Yes, isn't that wonderful news?" he said "He's friends with Seth Dumbledore and a wild selection including – of all people – Chrysogon Rufus, who's not such a spoiled baby as one might have thought. They managed by HIS experiences to find out that another first year, Niobe Cooper, was under the influence of a monster-child curse; in a dolly. Seems the Cooper kids have a really nasty uncle and he wanted to disrupt the family."
Severus nodded; he had heard the same from other sources.
"And that, really, is what being marauders is about" he said "Fighting evil in any way they can; and by having a wide range of stories and experiences to share that they can draw parallels from. If Walter is a Marauder you won't ever have to worry about him again."
"No; and that's so much a relief to the mind" said Victor. "And I kind of pity our parents; by smothering him and pushing me away they've lost both of us because Walter spoke to me about how they wanted to just FORGET all the bad things that happened, not let him talk about it; and I don't think even now they fully understand the excesses of his bad behaviour poor brat. And he'll now be able to look to Marauders first, so he doesn't have to turn to his parents because we'll be more your children then theirs, Sev; and whilst we get to be the winners out of that, I can't help feeling sorry for them that they've so alienated both their children."
Severus sighed.
"I am the gainer in having you as a foster son – and if Walter feels that way too, so be it" he said. "But you are right; and may I say how impressed I am by your compassion that you CAN pity them for their stupidity. Perhaps in time they will come to realise that even their favourite draws back from them; and will want to learn why. Take that cynical look off your face, my boy; I have to TRY to hope for a general reduction in wilful imbecility in the human race."
Victor grinned. How like Severus to make a back-handed comment like that!
It may be said that the first did not much enjoy, but neither did they really detest their detention; and swallowed their doses of Pepperup potion dutifully; and Conrad was so delighted with his return of ability that even he managed a reasonable potion that was only faintly muddy and was, as Victor determined with his wand, at least largely likely to be efficacious!
* pronounced Djairveela [meaning daughter-poet]