Chapter 14
Back in the great hall the Bee Marauders were obeying by forming a bodyguard around the young girl; who was about the age, they thought, of the First Peak Marauders. She looked ill and drained; and her clothes, once fine, were torn and dirty.
Those of the fourth who were less enthusiastic warriors also came to help; and Vya, being a native Russian speaker, spoke quietly to the girl, telling her that they meant her no harm; and transferred the knowledge of the English language to her.
"Tell us who you are and how you came to be with the fey" said Vya.
The girl looked doubtfully on Vya using a tone that was effectively an order.
"Don't even start to think racist thoughts about our Vya" said Flo "We have free elves here; and goblins and we make no difference. Any more than we make difference for muggleborn."
"I am sorry; I have never seen a free elf before" said the girl. "Oh, what will become of our family elves? Those awful fey said they would enslave them because they would be of my blood when they finished the ritual!"
"Yeah, well, they didn't finish the ritual, did they?" said Fred "If you call them they can come here and the Headmaster will protect them; and if they want to stay slaves they can and if they want to be free, you can free them. And I say, if you think of others when you're scared and hurt you're all right!"
"What's your name?" said Flo "I'm Flo; my brother Fred, Vya here, BaHH, Batty, Yrdl, Crow, Hette and Vava, and Hanna-Leena and Sara."
"I'm Yelizaveta Koldunova" said the girl "And – and so much has happened!"
"Tell us if you want; if you do not wish to talk we force no confidences" said Hanna.
"Thank you. I will tell you; until a week ago I lived happily with my parents and the elves and our wonderful horses; then these men in black burst in and killed mummy and called daddy a blood traitor; and tied me up and – and him too; and they made me watch while they – they cast the cruciatus curse on him to make him admit he was a blood traitor. He was pure blood you see; mummy was muggle born" she sobbed. Various hands patted her or embraced her. Yelizaveta gulped and went on "And then they were going to do the same to me after they killed daddy; and all those awful creatures turned up and told them that they had promised; and the leader said I was not a child and the fey said I was a perfect age for their ritual and that I counted. So they gave me up to them. What please is to happen?"
"I should think" said Flo "That our people will kill the fey who pursue you; and maybe any left behind; and all these Odessa people. It does not bring your parents back but it stops them doing it to other people. And you will come to school with us. Fred, I should think we ought to go out and fetch and carry; and we can tell this to Professor Snape too because he might find the information useful."
Fred nodded; he usually did what his sister suggested.
She was good at knowing what ought to be done.
oOoOo
When Flo and Fred got to the battlements it was to find Severus, his face filled with concentration just about to drop his hand.
And then several things happened at once.
The fey were casting spells and the defenders were mostly throwing up shield charms without resorting to the use of incantation, though a few wands twitched; and several of the adults had woven the diffusion grid in case the killing curse was used. And then they came close enough to make it easy, close enough that they had less room to manoeuvre. Severus dropped his raised hand
The Patronuses of the fourth years shot out; in which endeavour Fred and Flo joined quickly. The flutes, fiddles and pipes of all who played began that bizarre dance music that so affected Spass, who had for himself a muffliatus spell of protection turned inward by Dione. Spass flew out to throw snargaluff pods; Ron enchanted rocks as bludgers, which at least inconvenienced the fey even if they were too insubstantial to be really hurt by them; and as they were herded into a mass by dance and avoiding missiles and patronuses the most able let fly with Irmi's electrical charge spell. And they did not hold back.
The fey dropped like flies in the electrocuting lights in food shops. Some actually flew apart; some fell twitching feebly; some just disappeared.
It was over eerily quickly.
"Was that the most of them?" asked Severus of Seagh.
"I'd say so, yes" said Seagh.
"Well in that case, you can take the upper sixth, those who want to go; as they've finished; and the lower sixth; Ron has no exam students so he can go, and Viktor, and mop up any that are left" said Severus "And find out all you can about these creeps who made so infamous a pact with them."
"It was Odessa!" cried Flo "And please, you need to check if they've in any way bound Yelizaveta's elves because the fey said they would!"
"On it young Flo" said Seagh "I had kind of come to the conclusion it was Odessa myself; but if they identified themselves to the girl – Yelizaveta? What a monicker! – then that is confirmation. All right, volunteers to me, no I'm NOT taking fourth years just because you have no exams either have a little sense! How do I explain to parents that I borrowed their offspring to do war and got them damaged or lost?"
"I'm your sister; I don't count" said Silvina.
"Oh yes you do our kid" said Seagh "You're top musician of fey tunes while I'm out of the castle because I'm taking Godfrey who also has no exam students and Volodya too to be my main men and musical and chanting back up. Tough luck."
Silvina had not really expected anything else but she felt that she had to try.
And Mr Bones was taking the names of those who had been working against the fey with a view to excusing them the practical component of the DADA exam; having marked all those taking part at an 'O' grade for the practical component for their demeanour of steadfastness and fast protection spells against such jinxes as the fey threw. This would hold over to the next year for the fourth and lower sixth; but he would see that whoever was the examiner, that they were credited duly.
In fact Bones was rather startled and taken aback to find that a lot of able witches and wizards were in fact the fourth year, which was a large year!
Seagh's volunteers contained all the post NEWT students, all the remaining lower sixth including Elsie and Yukya who were not taking DADA to NEWT, Ulrich, Victor, Gaius, Helga and Elsie Willis from the upper sixth. There was no way he could jam them all into feyspace without a few more who knew what they were doing; blood group or no, Ron could NOT get the idea of fey space and only Darryl had really taken to it; which was not surprising since Mimi used it as often as she used elf style apparation to visit him. They linked hands and apparated instead. The blooded consisted of Seagh, Ron, Volodya, Viktor, Victor, Darryl, Angelica, Sebastian and Irmi. Those not blooded were Nils, Crys, Miles, Alison, Ulrich, Helga, Gaius, Elsie Willis, Elsie Blackwood, Emily, Evangeline, Yukya and Adrian. That meant that the strongest could apparate two non-blooded out by elf style apparation if need be. It was an acceptable risk.
As it happened, few were left in the Russian rath; a few elderly or sick fey and such low fey as were despised too totally to take on a raiding party. Some were house elves freed by line death or as punishment.
Seagh made full use of his fey blood and demanded that by right of conquest they now belonged to him and ordered them to visit England; where they might join the fey community on Lucius' lands or return to serve him personally.
This pleased some of them mightily; a rheumy old elf and a couple, a sick looking female elf and a scared looking blue-green entity who seemed to cling to each other for support as much as for affection and they pledged themselves to Seagh. The rest would come under the seelie laws Lucius imposed on his fey community.
Seagh legilimensed one of the elderly fey who was fading irrevocably out of the world entirely; and found he was still counted an advisor and knew much.
And time to deal with Odessa in its most local form after term was over so the bloodgroup might close up.
He sent all but Victor, Darryl and Angelica back.
The four of them would do some reconnaissance because Victor and Angelica had been learning about feyspace; and Seagh intended to get them up to speed in a hurry.
It did not take long; seeing more use of feyspace and having some rapid arithmantic explanations and aid from Seagh and Darryl soon had Victor and Angelica confident that they could get in and out of feyspace without help; and they went off to find the headquarters of this branch of Odessa.
This branch had perhaps more excuse than many for disliking muggles; in the heart of the Ukraine, they had seen the devastation caused by the meltdown of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor. It was enough to make anyone resent muggles; and Seagh intended recommending to Severus that they spy on this facility fairly constantly and see if there were not those who might be subverted, rather than having to kill them all. He intended using legilimensy on Yelizaveta – the child could jolly well answer to Veta – to yank those who had tortured her father and been ready to torture her into feyspace to kill; because they went beyond what was reasonable for those who had perceived cause to hate and fear muggles. And if they were jumpy it would too mean the whole lot were less likely to be a pain.
Then they might start to educate them perhaps.
Seagh nodded and signalled to the others that they might as well go home; they had nothing more to do here for the time being.
oOoOo
And during the few days that the four were away, it was business as usual back at the school; and for nine of them that meant OWLs.
First was Potions.
This was at least a subject they were all well drilled in even though Randolph often drew fire from Severus for what the exasperated potions master called too much artistic licence in a brewing that would never be likely to get any other kind of licence for proficiency. Randolph had worked hard – Severus HAD put himself out to keep him in school after all – to maintain an A average which was better then wavering between P and D with the occasional T.
To their surprise and not a little dismay the cauldrons were already full of something.
It was the halfway stage of something; they were required to complete. The ingredients were all laid out; that and the appearance told them what it was; it was the strengthening solution that had been maturing over the weekend. And now was the tricky part, where the ingredients must be added with the right timing between them, and the number of stirs imperative. The Strengthening Solution was a most unforgiving potion and Randolph groaned inwardly. His last strengthening potion had made, so Severus claimed, a strong man weak at the knees. Leneli and Peter Lowther shared his dismay. Clementine, Muriel and Prudence were quite good at potioneering at least, Muriel being something quite special; Milos was not bad, and Rory and Fred actually shone. Which, as Severus said, went to prove that some Weasleys could; even second-hand Weasleys like the Lowthers, even though it was a shame all the talent had concentrated in one twin.
Well, what could not be cured must be endured and the potioneers set to with more or less enthusiasm. The Muggle Marauders were all dedicated arithmancers though Randolph and Rory found that easier than either twin; and Randolph applied arithmantic calculations ruthlessly. Randolph was just pleased that his did not smell too much like burning rubber by the time he had finished. Absently he drew a cauldron on a scrap of gash paper and made the steam look like it was supposed to, added a drawing of a muscle man, and concentrated.
The solution actually cleared slightly and Randolph heaved a sigh of relief.
Thank goodness for art! For him it worked the way a chant might help to improve the work of someone skilled in that field; and it had saved him a few times already! It was not REALLY cheating; since he had no intention of taking Potions to NEWT! If he used the skill ever it would be for some practical purpose and then any means to achieve a result was fair.
He left the dungeon feeling not too unhappy with the result; if he could do a good theory paper he should pass. And that was what he really wanted!
Leneli did not look too unhappy; she was a methodical worker and with such complex potions that could improve the apparent skill of the potioneer.
Fred, Muriel and Rory were chatting happily about how well it had done, so Pete and Randolph thoughtfully jinxed their two fellow marauders and threatened Muriel with being turned into one of her own nifflers.
Knowing that they did not mean it, Muriel giggled.
The written was somewhat less nerve wracking.
There were questions on Golapott's first two laws; and the Malfoy lines of a number of potions had been printed and the candidates required to suggest antidotes. The long question was 'name a potion to duplicate one transfiguration, one charm and one other spell of your choice and explain in what respect they may surpass spells covering the same effect'.
They were not required to write up the methodology so the four marauders each chose Jade's duplication of Circe's potion to turn people into pigs as she had written about in 'Transactions of the Learned Society of Potioneers' for their transfigurational potion secure in the knowledge that almost everyone else would have picked Polyjuice Potion. Everyone in the class, unsurprisingly, cited the Purple Potion Poisoning Jape as a means to effect a colour change to imitate a charm and mentioned that a potion might have extending potion added to it or be made an everlasting elixir. Muriel pointed out that externally applied hair colour potions were far superior to charms as they could be washed out with an antidote or subtly added to with different shades and could be applied to only selected parts of the hair or fur.
Some of her nifflers had interesting fur colour, which did not seem to bother them in the least and at least made spotting them easier when they escaped on a quest to gather shiny things.
Randolph and Pete exchanged a high five after the exam; they both thought they now had a good chance of scraping a pass; which was as much not to let Severus down as for their academic record!
oOoOo
Next was transfigurations. Krait was wont to say that this class had no real dunces because neither did any of them shine. Muriel was one of the better ones, as was Rory; and with a lot of theory and hard work Krait had ruthlessly drilled them to hover around an 'O' grade on a good day with the wind behind them as she put it. The other Marauders had some instinct from being of the blood group; but on the whole the attainments could at best be described, said Krait, as turgidly solid.
The written exam at least, thought the marauders, was quite nice, as it covered the sort of things that came up in the MSHG. The long essay was on inanimatus conjuratus which they wandered into the occasional foray into NEWT level over; as indeed they did by recalling, in the question on cross-species switches, the term 'Assimilative Correlation' which people like Jade and Seagh threw around rather freely. They defined switching spells, vanishing spells, Animagi and such; and Muriel was well poked for remarking brightly afterwards that she had quoted Emeric Switch.
The practical would be more challenging.
It was of fairly standard form, conjuring a handkerchief, switching bottles of liquid – or for the talented the contents of the bottles – turning guinea pigs into guinea fowls, vanishing dirt from a bucket and turning a death watch beetle into a watch. For the watch and the handkerchief, as always, bonus marks were given for complexity.
Peter almost lost the plot with his beetle when he turned it into a muggle digital clock, and retrieved himself a little by the hasty explanation that the muggle device had buttons on it that had been in his mind as an assimilative correlation of beetles.
Rory managed a rather lopsided monogram on his handkerchief and Muriel had lace on hers. Prudence's guinea fowl still had fur, and Milos managed to turn his dirt into cockroaches and could not really explain how this had come about. Only Muriel switched the contents of the bottles; Rory stuck to the safer method of switching bottles and hoped to make up marks with a rather nice watch that chimed the hour with an enamelled face after the fashion of Faberge. Muriel's was of chased silver with flowers painted on the face.
The rest stuck to very plain timepieces. It was at least, they agreed, an improvement on turning tortoises into boxes or dormice into teapots.
oOoOo
Charms followed. The written consisted of brief essays on water-affecting charms, locomotor charms and cheering charms; and again nobody had any real trouble with the theory. Muriel hoped to get a pass on her theory as she had difficulty with charms; another reason she preferred potions.
It was considered a decent paper.
The practical was another standard test, making an eggcup cartwheel, changing the size of a dinner plate, stilling dancing teacups, turning a rat blue, and lifting a goblet of water with extra marks for anyone who cold demonstrate the control to pour from it.
The one who so demonstrated this level of control was Leneli who shone in this class and was all that prevented Dione from considering the lot of them as turgid as Krait did. Randolph pulled out all the stops here too; he knew he had done quite well in the written and forced himself to concentrate on pouring his water, and on making the eggcup's motion smooth; and on stacking his teacups. Such little things added to the overall mark and Randolph felt he had the chance of a good mark. He was quite good at charms even if Leneli surpassed him. He told himself firmly that, after all, most of the spells they used in DADA were no more or less than charms after all!
oOoOo
And DADA came next, and for those who had taken on the fey, the practical was waived, since the main components were resisting jinxes and dealing with a boggart. And as Mr Bones said, they had resisted jinxes beyond the scope of the exam and such implacable zeal was not going to have much trouble with a boggart. Only Clementine, Muriel and Prudence needed a practical; because they had been there in a support role.
The written covered definitions of dark creatures and dark arts; and questions on specific dark creatures and curses. The werewolf had been left out for the first time; but there were enough other dark creatures to cover. Erich was conscientious about making sure his class was knowledgeable; and besides he had the ally this year of the jellied dark creature sweeties that heightened awareness no end. It did not add to Clementine's mark that she wrote absently that dementors were coca-cola flavoured reflecting their repellent nature.
oOoOo
Most of the class were taking Care of Domestic Beasts; except Muriel who was keen on animals and was taking both exams, having talked very fast to David Fraser.
The Care of Domestic Beasts started with the practical, which involved the early stages of the training of a white hound such as were bred to hunt nogtails; and currying a rather splendid Granian flying horse.
The examiner was taken aback to find a younger girl chatting to her horse; this was Veta. However, as the examiners had been there when Veta arrived she was gentle and sympathetic with the bereaved little girl and did not send her away as the horse seemed quite happy.
Randolph really enjoyed currying the horse; he had enjoyed teaching the puppy to find a scent too. He liked animals, though he was glad he was to have nothing to do with the larger and more scary ones like dragons. Dragons were beautiful – at a safe distance – but the flying horses were exquisite. He loved drawing them; and seeing how much poor bereft little Yelizaveta loved them too he determined to paint her pictures of them to help her feel at home. He would place soothing magic too into the paints to help her.
The viva voce covered the needs for disillusionment or surgery on kneazles and crups after describing their distinctive features; then it was the written. The written demanded a list of the different types of magical dog with their characteristics and uses in the wizarding world; and likewise of flying horses. They none of them thought they had done too badly; Randolph again felt he had done rather well. Pete manfully avoided writing a diatribe against crups; his twin succumbed to the temptation. Fred wrote that crups had no discernable use unless it was for muggle coursing in which case all owners of crups should be considered highly suspect persons. Their mum had been growled at by the crup belonging to a witch who lived across the park from them who had been most put out when the twins had threatened her with the ministry and she had made certain ill natured and ill considered remarks about mudbloods. Fred had smiled sweetly and told her that their uncle Arthur – that was Mr Arthur Weasley to her – would know how to deal with her; and promptly DID report her. And Fred was still sore about the incident. Pete just wanted to get a good mark if he could; he knew he was less academic than his twin but that was no excuse not to work hard. After all, even if they accepted the offer to play second string beaters for the Chuddleigh cannons when they left school – an offer made after their match against the Luxemburg team – they would still want good NEWTs since no sports career lasted forever, as their mother had pointed out. And Pete figured that if Gorbrin Malfoy-Tobak DID manage to popularise Quiddpolo, now it had been shown on Wizarding Wireless Vision, then someone who had both played quidditch and who knew about magical horses might get a good job as chief team groom. And the game had a good chance of getting off the ground – literally – now that muggle flying vehicles were being used for transport, so more matches of all kinds could be played. Pete was actually rather fascinated by quidpolo; he and his twin had played a few games in the long holiday when Severus carted all four Muggle Marauders over to Malfoy Manor to make appropriate connections. And he could play THAT once he was too old for professional class Quidditch.
It may be said that Rory had little interest in magical animals and merely hoped to scrape a pass; more because he liked Professor Fraser than out of care for his exam portfolio.
oOoOo
Muriel took her other care of beasts exam straight afterwards.
This involved a written paper largely on dragons and snakes; listing and commenting on the major features of the same. Muriel found it quite interesting; she had some thoughts of going to work in Belsornia, on the dragon reserve there. The practical involved cleaning a firecrab and feeding a hippogriff. Muriel had fed a griffon; feeding a hippogriff was child's play.
oOoOo
The last compulsory exam for Prince Peak was Herbology.
This was Rory's favourite class; he loved gardening and was enchanted by the weird and wonderful plants of the wizarding world, not in the least bit put off by the more extravagantly dangerous ones. In fact he often helped Valerie Burdock with the school snargaluff just because.
On the whole, Val considered them a moderately knowledgeable and talented year; admittedly this was by comparison with the children of the free school, but none of them were real duffers even if only Rory truly shone. The majority of the class could be relied on to get an E grade; and it was highly unlikely that any would fail.
The written covered the differences between flitterbloom and devil's snare, the right types of fertilisers to use, and the types of trees used for wand woods and their preferred locations. The whole group knew most about beech trees because of Fagia, the resident dryad; and went out to grab some bonus points for knowing that beech trees must be planted only with beech trees because of their light-blocking tendencies.
The practical was along standard lines, repotting a fanged geranium and gathering bubotuber pus. The marauders sang to their fanged geraniums to keep them happy, Muriel confunded hers, and Milos fell back on the Fraser method of growling at his. Prudence and Clementine had to have their boils seen to afterwards from the bubotuber pus.
oOoOo
Next it would be the electives.
Peter, Fred and Rory were taking Ancient Runes. Randolph had been run out of the class with much French invective for embellishing the hieroglyphs absently; though he had at least picked up enough to animate Egyptian hieroglyphs to sing an extremely free translation of their meaning and to complain about being illogical as a relief of his feelings; which when Hercule Maxime found out he asked if he might have the singing hieroglyphs and invited Randolph back into his class, with an apology for intemperate language. Hercule Maxime was easy going and rarely stayed irritated for long. Randolph had thanked him; but declined. Pictograms somehow offended his artistic nature for being neither one thing nor another.
The long exam consisted of a passage in Ogham and one in Ancient Greek as well as a hieroglyph passage to translate; and some short questions on the significance of several disparate short passages within the context of their backgrounds. Rory really enjoyed himself; he was also taking Comparative Magic and drew far too many comparisons and wrote too much. Fred stuck closer to the point – having read enough of his friend's Comparative Magic text books to add inferences of his own without losing sight of the main gist. Peter answered those questions well enough too but complained gloomily that he had lost the plot translating hieroglyphs and had got as far as being on boats on the river and the boats had flown away.
"You are a prune" said his brother amicably "It was the account of a duck hunt; it was the ducks doing the flying."
Pete struck his forehead crying 'DOH!' in what for muggles was a time honoured manner.
They then let off steam by animating Homer Simpson going on a duck hunt and speaking in hieroglyphs.
oOoOo
Rory and Randolph really enjoyed their Arithmancy exam.
The paper covered the best times to break given curses; and the best timing for named engaged couples to marry, given their birthdates as well as their names. With fictitious witches with names like 'Septima Hebdomad', reference to the figure seven was made twice; that Rory and Randolph both groaned over as an awful pun and proceeded to work in bases other than ten . Fred and Pete picked up on the 'Septima' without having remembered that hebdomad meant a set of seven, made significant by Madam Wenlock's researches, the twins were, after all, studying Arithmancy purely because it was significant to all other forms of magic and did not enjoy the subject. Of the other exemplars a witch named Hendeka Legges was a reference to the number eleven; those who had studied any Ancient Runes had no difficulty recognising the Greek word for eleven, and the muggleborn boys all managed a chuckle over the use of the bingo term of legs-eleven for the surname and so they all got the use of bases in THAT one..
Rory and Randolph managed to write out the first fifteen terms of the Wenlock series without trouble though the twins struggled; as too they had trouble working out the simultaneous equation showing where two ley lines met. In all however, even the twins thought that they had passed and Rory and Randolph, comparing notes, felt that they had probably actually done rather well. As Madam Granger was always happy to hold post mortems on exams they talked to her too and left her beaming.
The twins were just so glad to get it over and declared that no amount of post mortems would raise their grade so stuff the ruddy thing.
oOoOo
The twins and Rory were taking chanting; Randolph was artistic but had no sense of rhythm or timing at all, which exasperated Fred no end – their top chanter – since Randolph was such a fine arithmancer and should have no difficulty at all – said Fred – in just COUNTING.
Randolph had shrugged because though he could manage the theory well enough – and might even scrape a pass on that – he felt it hypocrisy to take an exam in which he could not manage the practical applications. He might at least, as he said, help with the design of chants for the others and would help them best otherwise by promising NOT to chant to help them out in an emergency. After all his brand of magic worked better by designing magically active patterns to effect a change which worked in the same way as chanting in that one built up layers of magic. Randolph wanted to learn tattooing because he was convinced one might lay in a shield charm in a ritually tattooed pattern for example; and it was a more layered and less crude process than the laying down of morsemorde on the arms of deatheaters by Voldemort.
He spoke to Lucius about this idea while the others were doing their written exam; and Lucius showed him his own left arm for the boy to study, as well as having Severus to hand of course as Lucius said.
"And I shall talk to Charlotte too and Erica" said Lucius "I don't think Charlotte has ever tried it, but I recall hearing Erica on the subject of magic patterns. I wish you will come and spend the long holidays with us at Malfoy Manor and discuss it with her; she'll be teaching art in magic when she leaves school NEXT year; if you and she can bash out a syllabus you might at least take an OWL before you leave school. Callum could join us too; he's a good artist but his skills are limited to moving pictures and divination. Erica has no interest in chanting either; but I think that she might benefit with the theory if you are finding some of it helps you with your pattern defining. She's been looking into the Mandelbrot sets and Julia sets."
"Crumbs, what a good idea!" said Randolph "Only possible to understand with computers that can manage that level of iteration – sorry sir, shutting up about muggle technology" he added hastily as Lucius looked wild eyed. Lucius laughed.
"I'm more au fait with the concept than a lot of wizards but there IS a lot of powerful stuff to be gleaned from muggle knowledge" he said. "And you who are muggle born are, in my opinion, possibly the future of some important research. Can you come to stay? I don't want to interrupt your holidays too much, obviously…."
"Sir, if Erica is happy to spend the time, I can come for the whole holiday" said Randolph "My parents don't really want me that much; and they're uneasy about my magic. They'd be quite happy to be told that I'm off on an art trip and wouldn't even ask any details."
"Some parents just don't deserve children" said Lucius "Then you must consider yourself to always have a second home in Malfoy Manor; and that is a partly selfish desire to watch new subjects growing and taking shape, and sponsoring them for the good of all our society. I LOVE new things!" he grinned.
Put like that, Randolph would feel no qualms about coming to Malfoy Manor whenever he needed a haven.
Meanwhile the other three marauders were wrestling with a definition of chanting, and for the design of various short chants to cover given situations. There were questions on poem forms and an essay on how a poetic form might affect a chant. This was one reason for sticking assiduously to all that Arithmancy. They had covered poetry quite ruthlessly under Severus who knew the value of picking the right KIND of poetry as well as just one with an arithmantically significant amount of syllablery. They escaped thankfully, damning elegiac poetry to perdition.
The practical was an hour long chant after ten minutes preparation to define an exclusion line preventing the incursion of iguanas. This was no big surprise – at least, what creature was to be excluded was never certain except that it was unlikely to be anything ever likely to actually be found in the great hall. The three boys arranged themselves carefully at hundred and twenty degree angles from each other and proceeded to chant. Fred absently added clapped counterpoint; his Arithmancy may not be that hot but right was right and he had a lot of good instincts where chanting was concerned. Rather like Draco, thought Lucius, whose theory was not as hot as some but who could pull a good chant out of the bag on the fly.
Fred rather fancied following up a career in quidditch as a match curse breaker, checking for pre-match shenanigans and dealing with the results of any over enthusiastic altercations. And for that matter, setting up barrier zones to prevent Bumphing, the hitting of bludgers towards the crowd.
They were all fairly satisfied however and glad to rest!