Chapter 13
NEWTs fell upon them like, as Victor said, teasing Ulrich, a fold on the wolves, which got him amicably poked by his friend. It was vaguely appropriate since Ulrich, along with Miles, was taking Ancient Runes and claimed to have been dreaming in Assyro-Babylonian.
He and Miles moaned much about the exam; and Victor was secretly disappointed that he had not sat it using what he had picked up as he went along, since it appeared that one long question was translating Herpo the Foul's transliteration of Parseltongue, that a Parselmouth like Victor as one of the blooded would find easy. Studying cuneiform and dreaming in Assyro-Babylonian had done some good however as Ulrich said, though whoever had translated a Convolvumort speech into cuneiform had to have a warped sense of humour.
oOoOo
The same two boys were joined by Victor and Elsie for Arithmancy; and Victor was glad that they were to get a stiff exam out of the way early. The standard questions involving ideal times and orientations to break curses and the numbers of wizards involved was fairly straightforward. There were other questions on Waffling logic, what muggles called Boolean Algebra, with examples to unravel; and the final long question. Hitherto for a number of years it had been introduced by the ominous word 'Explain'; no less ominous was the word 'Where?'
It was a calculation involving terms of pi and i3 used in a tough integral of apportation. It required the use of spherical trigonometry as well as solving the integral; at least a comment at the bottom mentioned that the starting point was Hogwarts school. Victor, who was also taking Geomancy, thought it a nice question; and Miles, who was also taking Geomancy looked less stressed than the other two. It was on the eastern side of India, and Victor was fairly certain it was in Calcutta.
They compared notes after.
"I don't KNOW any place names in India!" said Elsie "So I just put on the top right hand side."
"It's about the limit of my knowledge too" said Miles "And I know there's a city there but I couldn't remember if it was Calcutta or Benares so I just put 'that big city in the north east of India."
"I got to India" said Ulrich "That was a pig of a question!"
oOoOo
Potions came next. And this was the draught of living death. All of them except Helga and Miles were taking this; and as they had all had the advantage of having been taught from Severus' notes not the standard, they all consequently crushed his sopophorous beans with the back of their knives. Not all remembered the clockwise stir every seven counterclockwise; not all of them cared to scrawl notes in their text books, which was to say all the girls except, surprisingly, meek Lily who took it very seriously. Elsie just remembered which was like Elsie. They mostly managed a pretty shade of lilac, some of them with a paler and better colour than others.
The written exam covered standard questions on Golapott; and a large section showing the Malfoy lines of a number of potions as displayed by Scarpin's revellaspell which the candidates had to identify as well as saying what, if anything, was wrong with them. Not all the potions had something wrong with them, and indeed the elixir to induce euphoria had Severus' improvement of the addition of peppermint, and Victor thought nobody had any excuse to make a mess of THAT. One of the others was a failed batch of Felix Felicis and Victor absently noted the dangers inherent in taking that; there was nothing amiss with the amortentia. The strengthening solution had skimped on Re'em blood and would not be totally efficacious; and the Wiggenweld potion had no unicorn horn but indeed some kind of dentition which was as close as Victor could come. It was in fact as close as any could come – including, had he known it, Lydia Snape in Hogwarts – being Narwhal horn which was a modified tooth.
oOoOo
Victor, Lily, Leticia, Elsie, Gaius and the Tugwood twins were all taking Charms; this was the one subject at which the twins might be really said to shine. Victor felt he was 'good enough' but would never shine; so he had made sure he at least knew the theory backwards, because in real life he could always fall back on chanting.
The theory presented three longish essays; one on barrier charms, one on memory charms and one on the Fidelius Charm. The Imperturbable Charm, locking spells, repelling charms and invisibility charms as well as the use of an age line, anti-apparation charms, Colloportus, the door binding charm, and indeed the fidelius charm itself might be considered to be covered in the first essay; though as there as a separate essay on the last, Victor only mentioned it in passing to prove he followed the theory. Memory charms should really be called forgetting charms as they covered confundment and the obliviate charm to persuade – for the most part – muggles that nothing was untoward or that it was not important to think about anything strange or to rationalise it. Victor was a fan of making muggles rationalise things rather than fully altering their memories; as he wrote, the strong willed COULD overcome, even partially, the mere alteration of memory whereas giving a different interpretation to a memory was more subtle and thus more effective as less likely to provoke a strong willed individual to, metaphorically speaking, scratch a mental itch.
The Fidelius Charm was also one he knew well as the blood group used it extensively and with some twists he did NOT write about; indeed he only scarcely understood the extension of the spell into feyspace though of course he understood the reasoning behind it.
A few short questions finished the written paper; and that afternoon was the practical.
This was challenging. The candidates were each given half a dozen matching chocolate frog cards and had to perform the Protean Charm on them, so that changing the statistics given on one altered those of the others simultaneously wherever they were. Victor had no doubt that the Tugwood twins would make a display of virtuosity with their cards and stuck himself to pedestrian, but accurate, work.
In point of fact the Tugwood twins, independently and without conferring, made the wizard on their cards into Severus and accorded him outrageously high honours.
He had managed, after all, with aid from their parents, to placate both of them.
oOoOo
Transfigurations was another one Victor was taking, with Ulrich, Helga, Lily, Elsie and Gaius. Like Charms there were three tough essay questions and a short question section; the long questions were 'Cite the exceptions to Gamp's law of Elemental Conjuration and choose one to illustrate further with reasons for it being an exception'; 'Discuss Waffling's laws of Assimilative Correlation and cite at least four examples, no more than two of each to be covered by the two types of Assimilative Correlation'; and 'discuss the dangers inherent in human transfiguration with reference too to animagi'. Victor picked 'information' as one of his exceptions, explaining that whilst one might conjure a page of written matter that one knew intimately, the exception referred to the conjuration of NEW information since one could not conjure what one did not fully understand, as covered in Gamp's theorem of the basis of conjuration, one of the old wizard's early steps on the way to the formulation of his laws. Victor had read a dogeared biography of Gamp he had come upon in the library and had reckoned that old Gamp had been rather like Severus without having been kept as young or had his theories challenged as much as Severus through having died a bachelor and not having had much to do with children.
It may be said that Victor managed to wander into post NEWT reveries over Assimilative Correlation, having been used to discuss such things with Jade and Severus and Krait for fun. He knew the textbook answer to the third question but also noted that a transfigurationist with any sense took account of the human brain and isolated it from the remainder of the transfiguration whether an animagus himself or just changing another. He mentioned the dangers of cross-connecting wrongly the radically different physiology of different species and the possibility of losing parts, as might happen with any cross species switch, but was always considered more tragic in the case of humans, though in the case of first years the loss of any of the speech mechanisms was an advantage and the loss of the brain scarcely noticeable as it was a portion rarely used. He made a few serious notes on top of that piece of snidery; it kind of behoved him to add some kind of Snapism, after all.
The short questions posed no problems.
The afternoon again saw the practical; with a standard conjuration of something living and the changing of a fiddle into a cat.
Victor decided to enliven the examination room with the production of a flight of humming birds and topped that off with a trailing vine of bright flowers for them to feed on for the short time they would exist before they dissipated back into the energy from which they had come.
He turned his fiddle into a handsome Maine Coone – just because he did not think anyone else had ever used that species and he had read up cat books before the exam – which as he was thinking about American music mewed to the tune of 'Mood Indigo' or as Victor hastily said, 'Mewed Indigo'. The examiner gave him a funny look, but the transfiguration was otherwise perfect and Victor planned to present the cat to Silvina as a more musical moggy than most.
In the DADA classroom, the ceiling was still intermittently dropping pretty flowers which disconcerted the examiner almost as much as the jellied dark creatures that had been left on the invigilation desk with a note that the lower school donated them and wished the examiner luck with the dark creatures that were the upper sixth. This meant Victor, Ulrich, Helga, Elsie and Gaius.
The Bee Marauders were the limit sometimes, thought Victor!
. The written covered protection spells and recognition of cursed items; and, as might be supposed in this anniversary year, the use of compulsions like the Imperious Curse and beyond, as used by Voldemort. Victor knew a lot about compulsions and curses and wrote with deep knowledge about how such things might be embedded into text and curse the victim all unaware; he cited the book that had cursed Walter as an example and also Tom Riddle's diary. He mentioned too the curse on House Elves set up by the Highfey; and wandered into delayed action compulsions to be enacted under the arising of certain circumstances. Like most of the blood group who hung around with Marauders he had an advanced understanding of the Dark Arts; besides, it was another topic Jade had been wont to discuss and Severus was extremely knowledgeable. As a top grade curse breaker he had need to be; and Victor wrote too that in order to be a successful curse breaker one had to look beyond the obvious and the crude into the many headed mutability of the truly twisted.
There was a bonus question about Horcruces; and nobody had any excuse for not knowing in rudiment at least what such was after the Celebration and its display. Victor postulated that though one had already severed a part of one's soul to make the thing, the actual embedding of that soul fragment into a horcrux made the severance more irreversible; since true repentance could go a long way to mend a damaged soul. Repentance when that soul fragment was tied to an object was futile without the maker having destroyed his own horcrux first.
It was an interesting speculation that had Tofty thinking when he came to mark the paper.
The practical was the standard duel.
Victor had no trouble stopping the unforgivable curses – none of the class did – and absently countered them while he jigged to add to his chanted curse that turned the examiner into an orchid just because it was a pretty thing, and kind of limited the actions rather as he explained later; and besides there was a kind of symmetry with the ceiling's offerings.
Victor was like that sometimes.
Elsie, Ulrich, Helga and Gaius stuck to the tried and tested method of levicorpus, the full body bind, expelliarmus and their choice of a nuisance level spell; the bat bogey hex for Elsie, the tickling charm for Helga, langlock for Ulrich and the slug vomiting curse for Gaius.
Such things were standard enough for the duelling club and the MSHG after all.
And for bonus marks all of them managed very competent Corporeal Patronuses; and Victor pointed out that all of those who were taking the exam had too been part of the defence against the dementors when Prince Peak had been attacked back at the Triwizard and knew the spell to laugh them to death as well. With luck that might give bonus marks to all of them; and indeed the examiner conferred with Professor Erich Von Strang over this.
oOoOo
Miles was the only one taking Comparative Magic; and being the only student had managed to catch up OWL studies and NEWT as well; as he had considered taking it to OWL only, had he not progressed so well. Doing five years work effectively in one year and some holiday reading he never was expecting a high mark; and was delighted with his luck to get a long question on the significance of naming in different cultures, that also came into a lot of general discussion in the post-NEWT groups.
And he and Victor were the only ones doing Geomancy.
They had both had a great deal of fun with David Fraser taking them around Austria and Switzerland and navigating by eatery, which as David said was Sirius Black's tried and tested way of making sure young people remembered their way about.
The written involved questions on the likely order of destinations by Knight Bus, filling in ley lines on a map with key nodal shift points and plotting the arrival of five different portkeys into one field so that there were no accidental combinations of more than one group of users with another whilst not taking up too much time.
Victor worked out carefully staggered times with an additional charm on the portkey to be repellent as soon as it had arrived, to ensure that each group wished to move away quickly from it so no other group ended up in the same place. Miles admitted afterwards, being in the same situation of having to catch up as in Comparative Magic, that he had plotted landing points at a distance from each other as the easiest way to do it.
The exam was English; so for the practical they were taken to England to collect a canary from Norwich, a dragon statuette carved in sea coal from Llanstephan, a book from Reading and a kazoo from Cirencester.
oOoOo
Helga came out of the herbology exam – being the only one entered – declaring that if she had her way, flesh eating trees should have classifications like beasts and the Monkey Hugger needed almost as many as Snargaluffs and Dementors.
She told Victor who would understand and appreciate the comment that it was the sort of plant that Hagrid would like as a pet if it only could get up and walk. The tree had sweet smelling fruit that attracted small primates which it then enfolded and digested when they climbed the tree; fortunately it was not AS attractive to human primates since small Ismenia Snape had already been reprimanded for sneaking in to the greenhouse to see it. The test was to harvest as many fruit as possible, which would explode if they hit the ground; so it was a question of simultaneous cutting and hovering charms.
Helga managed six; and to her chagrin discovered that once the exam was over, Valerie Burdock had permitted Ismenia back to have a competition, and whilst one could not resent one's Herbology professor collecting ten, that small Ismenia managed as many was just a trifle lowering.
Repotting Mimbulus mimbletonia without getting covered in stinksap was a comparative doddle, said Helga and the written was a breeze.
The up side was that they had the fruit of the Monkey Hugger for tea, with wild alpine strawberries – the first and second being sent to gather them – and ice cream.
oOoOo
There were two taking History, Ulrich and Leticia and Ulrich declared it a very nice paper indeed; he found the hardest part was to pick four out of the eight suggested essay questions as they were all, he declared, quite lovely questions, even if not all relevant to European History, the reason why he had chosen 'Discuss the worldwide decision to hide magic' and 'Cover the rise of Gellert Grindelwald and discuss the reasons for his initial success with reference to the psyche of his chosen followers' among others. Leticia said she had not chosen that one because she was not sure who Gellert Grindelwald was and she thought that he was called Gerhardt and he hadn't been successful at all because the schools kept beating him. As Percy Weasley had always despaired of getting Leticia to understand any more history than anything that related personally to her, nobody was surprised that she found it hard going. Leticia had thought that History would be a soft option and would besides have the opportunity to make eyes at a pure blood wizard – Percy – and had been disappointed on both counts. Percy had been mightily relieved to have Ulrich in his class too! And Leticia was still at a loss to understand why Professor Weasley had actually gone and married a colourless little thing like Harmony Bloom who was not even from a known family; and after all, if he had got her in the family way, even if one could see why he would want to, why he could not just slip her a potion to deal with the problem she did not see.
Fortunately for her own safety, Leticia never voiced such thoughts; those who knew Harmony better would have jinxed the silly Villeneuve girl into a ball.
The other supposed soft option was Divination which was being taken by the Tugwood twins.
They were skilled enough at interpreting dreams and signs and if they managed only half hearted attempts to read the future in the crystal ball and cards it was no less than was usual.
oOoOo
Victor was the only one taking chanting; something he took very seriously for curse breaking. He had to design three long chants for specific purposes – to enable a wearer of a cursed item of clothing to remove it; to neutralise the spread of a cursed wound; and to remove the curse from a piece of jewellery. There were short questions too on theory and on the choices of language or poetry form for a number of suggested chants.
The practical involved neutralising a horcrux. Draco had discovered that Buckley Cooper had read about Voldemort and had tried to emulate him with the production of one horcrux at least; it was not that efficiently made but still worth while getting rid of. And Lucius had asked to use it as there was only one candidate that year, Victor at Prince Peak; his contemporaries in Hogwarts having already gained their NEWT in their OWL year. If he could do it, all well and good; if not, well the traditional methods might be applied. But just in case one did not have the sword of Gryffindor or a basilisk tooth to hand it was worth trying alternative methods.
"I didn't know they could be neutralised by chanting sir" said Victor, a trifle disconcerted.
"It IS a little out of the ordinary; credit will be given for effort since it's a bit beyond NEWT level really" said Lucius.
The horcrux was a Galleon; rather clever really since few people would even remark it, let alone try to get rid of it. Victor considered. The best way to destroy it was to destroy the form of the galleon; and therefore melting it seemed the best solution.
"Am I supposed to remove the enchantment or destroy it as a horcrux?" he asked concerned.
"Do whatever seems best" said Lucius.
Victor nodded; and started chanting. The gold started to steam slightly; and it screamed, the steam turning into an insubstantial figure and heading for Victor. Victor absently flicked out his patronus to wrestle with the steam monster and continued chanting. The screams became stickier and thicker as the galleon started to slump into molten gold; and stopped as trickles ran off the edge. Victor sank to his knees.
"Oh good, it is possible; well done my boy!" said Lucius. Victor stared.
"Are you saying you didn't know if I could do it or not?" he demanded.
"Well it seemed a shame to waste a chance to give you good marks if you could pull it off" said Lucius "Any chanter trained by a Snape is likely to be post NEWT in ability so I figured if anyone could, you could. It beats borrowing Gryffindor's sword."
"Mr Malfoy" said Victor with great restraint "You ARE a piece of work!"
Lucius grinned, clapped him on the shoulder and agreed cheerfully.
How could you remain cross with him?
oOoOo
Enchanting was the province of Gaius; who did not feel able to take chanting instead. He said it was a good enough exam and seemed to perform with sufficient aplomb to be able to reasonably able to expect the level of mark he wanted.
The last NEWT exam to be taken was Care of Magical Beasts.
The reason this was last was because after the written the practical was a reprise of the NEWT that David Fraser had himself taken; collecting murtlaps on the seashore and hoping to avoid being bitten by luck-draining mackled malaclaws. Ellen Tugwood, the sole candidate was a shrewd enough girl when not upset about her sister; and had also heard of David's own experiences. David gave advice on any of the several possible NEWT level tests, such as collecting Re'em blood or physicking a sick hippogriff or collecting dung from the nest of a female dragon busy clutching. Ellen used David's expedient of spraying water from her wand to discourage the malaclaws and managed to get five murtlaps before frightening off the rest.
oOoOo
The NEWT students sat back to enjoy themselves for the rest of the term while the OWL students shuffled uneasily; and into the Great Hall as they dined burst Seagh Snape who had a young girl by the arm whom he deposited on Krait.
"I'd appreciate the loan o' sich folk as can handle dark creatures, for I've a muckle trouble wi' the wild hunt on ma tail" he said with a significant lapse into the Scots idiom in his emotion.
"Explain" said Severus leaping up "Marauders close up, Bee Marauders take care of this girl because you're too young where the fey are concerned."
"And some of us, as goblins, their natural prey he means" said Yrdl quietly to her sisters.
The Blood Group and sundry other MSHG luminaries repaired to the castle walls as Seagh spoke, using a sonorous spell to carry to all.
"I'd been poking around in Russia looking for music; and this group of fey who I thought a little dodgy said they had a new song to show me. So I went along and the song they had was to hold immobile and drain the life force of the victim. Which in this case was a pubescent virgin as the kind of person as has just about the most life force there is. These Russian fey have less substance as a whole than British fey; on a small island, there's more commingling of species. The Russian fey can go from one century to the next without seeing a human. This is why they want the life force for those of you who do not know. The bad news however is that they said they had bought her from some humans because she was some kind of defective; so I had little choice. I grabbed her, elf-apparated because I hoped it might confuse them a little and THEN got into fey space. If they're any good they'll be ten minutes behind me; if they're inept it'll take longer. And I never hid where I come from I'm afraid; but I just hared back home. I thought they'd come here anyway if they DID lose the trail, so you'd have no warning even if I hightailed it to Hogwarts instead."
"You did quite right son" said Severus "No, Rory, don't bother to break out Kalashnikovs; they don't touch the more insubstantial fey, we shall have to use the electricity spell to disrupt them."
"I did nip alongside some power lines – painful for me but I reckon the more so for them" grinned Seagh "I used the Interlaken rail network."
"He's a braw resourceful wee laddie" said Victor in a cod Scots accent. Seagh cuffed him.
The examiners had come out too.
"Ah, fey; nice of you to lay on entertainment" said Lucius.
"Ye've a funny way o' definin' entertainment ye cad of a Malfoy sumpf" said Seagh, sourly.
"And how happy would you be if I lost my air of boyish insouciance?" laughed Lucius.
"Oh aye, the world would be a poorer place" said Seagh, unable to resist grinning back. "Now, Lucius, will you tell the examiners that battle is no place for amateurs or shall I?"
"Perhaps I'd better" said Lucius "You don't go into social situations as much as I do so they're used to me being rude to them."
"Beg pardon" said the examiner who had tested those for DADA "But I for one have worked for aurors; took the training, but could not quite pass. And if these young people are to be fighting dark creatures the way the youth of Hogwarts did, then there is no reason this should not form all or part of their exam, those that have it and er, maybe a top up viva voce for the year below. There are precedents."
"There are indeed; and an excellent suggestion, Eleazer" said Lucius. Eleazer Bones looked relieved; if anyone was going to make difficulties it would be Lucius. Lucius went on "Madam Trewkettle however will NOT be capable of dealing with the fey; Tarquin, Sevvy, Richard, you're not supposed to be here either, take Madam Trewkettle and Mr er….. to safety" he waved a hand at the one who thought he was trendy and might well have been when the word was still current.
oOoOo
The fey seemed to be taking their time so Seagh filled in a few more details.
"From what I understand, these fey had made a pact with a group that I think is a Russian branch of Odessa; apparently they bargained for the children of blood traitors and mudbloods and the like who had been executed in return for turning up as much under the control of their officers as the fey ever are."
"We probably will have to counterstrike against these fey then" said Severus grimly "If only to deny them to the enemy. How many children were there? We shall have to give THEM sanctuary."
Seagh gave a short, ugly laugh.
"Oh none!" he said "Why do you think they want the blood and substance of humans? They need the strength to breed and they need the substance more than they need human brood mares to breed on else they won't have enough connection with this world to reproduce. They can breed after the fashion of dementors – which they most nearly resemble – but it costs them without life force or human emotion to feed on. This is blood magic of the darkest, my children, and a far cry from what you have read in Dad's book."
"Sev, Seagh, does this mean we can herd them with patronuses and laugh them to death too?" asked AHHa.
"Should work; can't hurt" said Severus laconically "The laughing spell worked to upset the Scots fey. Lucius? You're the expert on the fey."
"I've never known any as insubstantial as Seagh describes" admitted Lucius "They can put on substance of a kind, Seagh?"
"Aye; enough to touch and be touched; but not enough to reproduce without extra; and not enough to be significantly affected by physical weapons other than magical goblin steel swords" said Seagh "Because it's like firing into the wind."
"So physical effect spells are also less effective?" asked Albert Jorkins.
"Yes" said Seagh.
"But if they can use music, presumably they can also be affected by it?" said Silvina.
"I LIKE the way my sister thinks" said Seagh "Great idea, our kid; anyone who can play accio up your flutes, fiddles and so on; we'll use that fey-attuned dance that you used against Spass – where IS Spass by the way? He'd be a great help against fey."
"Spass is here! Ready to irritate!" said Spass happily.
"Right; go with Madam Burdock to the greenhouses and collect snargaluff pods; tossing them at the little blighters ought to be entertaining for you and us both" said Seagh. Spass brightened.
"I LIKE this" he said.
Valerie blinked. The idea of using Snargaluff as weapons she had seen before on the triwizard; why had she not thought of it? She hurried off with Spass in tow, absently jinxing him for pinching her backside. Poltergeists were rather a mixed blessing!
It was almost another half an hour before the jeering, hooting, roiling rabble burst untidily out of fey space and Severus had been able to pass around the ointment to see through glamour to all his cohorts. There were around fifty of the disparate, ragged, noisy fey, flying around in an almost hypnotic whirl.
"Not as hard looking as the ones in Scotland" remarked Ron "Bludger practice time I think!"
Hermione sighed.
"Sometimes I don't think men EVER grow up" she murmured to Krait.
"We had this conversation before and decided that they don't" said Krait cheerfully. "Don't knock it; far better for them to enjoy themselves than to decide they're bored with the whole process and leave it all to us."
"There is that" admitted Hermione.
oOoOo
"GIVE US THE GIRL BACK AND THE THIEF OR WE WILL TAKE THEM AND THE OTHER CHILDREN HERE!" shouted the fey leader.
"Then you'd better get yourself some kind of army to fight for them" said Severus calmly, using a Sonorous spell rather than shout.
"WE HAVE OUR ARMY! YOU CANNOT STAND BEFORE US!" cried the fey.
"Beg pardon? Are they then invisible? I see only a raggedy arsed rabble of inadequates; the children will scarce work up a sweat defeating you" yawned Severus.
A beautiful female came forward and opened her mouth to sing; and some of the boys swayed forward before she even started, notably Julian and Randolph.
"The Russian equivalent of the Lannan Sidhe more than pure veela" murmured Severus. "Krait; veela song"
Krait began a song of her own that was half song half chant; and which strengthened the blood bond of those in the blood group and drew forth gasps of adoration of the other males.
They would do anything for her. Dione absently dropped a muffliatus spell centred on the fey beauty and Krait wound up her song with flourish.
The Fey whooped and hollered and came roiling towards the defenders, shouting
"See how scared they are; they do nothing against us! Is this your surrender?"
And the defenders waited with military discipline; all eyes now on Severus to give the command. All knew what they were to do; and waited to do it until the time was right.