Chapter 8
The term continued towards Christmas but as the temperature outside began to fall the tensions inside began to heat up with the first Quidditch game of the season approaching. Gryffindor against Slytherin, or as those within the castle naively saw it good against evil. The quidditch cup had been in the Slytherin trophy cabinet far too long in most people's opinion. Gryffindor had come closest in recent years, it was agreed they had the best keeper, chasers and beater duo but they had been struggling to find a talented seeker in recent years. Slytherin had the best brooms but weren't always blessed with the most talent, they were however, willing to do whatever was needed to win whether it is within the rules or not. The sheer ruthlessness and drive to win meant that in matches in which they were outclassed they aimed to draw the game out and win by forcing opposition players out the game.
Harry and Archer had both made it onto their house quidditch teams, how they achieved this was vastly different. Harry being the honourable, hardworking student and attended try outs, waited for his turn then outflew the opposition and was rewarded for his natural talent with the seeker spot. Archer had walked up to the Slytherin house captain and introduced himself as the new beater. Marcus Flint told Archer the try out times, Archer looked him in the eye and said "I don't do auditions." Before inviting Flint to watch a casual game between him and some friends. Flint showed up out of curiosity, so did some of the prospective beaters from Slytherin. Archer used it as an opportunity to show off his pin-point accuracy by firing bludgers into the stand, breaking the arms of several potential beaters. Flint loved the ruthlessness.
The usual pre-match hexing in the corridors was strange, Harry due to his friendship with Archer was safe so could watch. He'd tried to curb Archer's tendencies to upset the Weasley twins. Since the beginning of term when he'd called them amateurs they had yet to pull off a successful practical joke against Slytherin's not called Malfoy, in fact some of the attempts had backfired on them with quite amusing results. Neville was improving rapidly in classes and had joined the boys in their casual strength and conditioning as a result he'd started to lose the baby-fat on his checks.
Archer and Harry had continued the tutoring and Neville had helped with the Herbology. In another one of the sessions they'd found an empty classroom. It was Archer's turn to teach after Harry had given lots of transfiguration help the other day. Archer was sitting across from Neville with an empty box on the desk in front of him with Harry reading on a windowsill. "Neville, this is something that I doubt you'll use much but it's kind of cool. Okay I want you ignore any implications this would have on your classes since it goes against what you're taught a little bit." Archer said.
"But if goes against classes doesn't that mean it's wrong?" Neville asked.
"Not really, just different. Okay let me explain what I'm going to teach you, I call it unstructured spells. Remember how much intent effects your spell?"
"Yeah?" Neville asked curious.
"Well what use do incantations or wand motions have?"
"I'd never thought about it, don't you need them for a spell?"
"This is quite hard to explain, think of magic as something capable of learning. The more someone casts a spell with a certain incantation and wand motion the more magic associates the effect with the casting. Still with me?" Archer explained.
"err, I guess. So how does this matter?"
"Okay so this means when you cast a spell with a given wand motion and incantation you don't always have to focus on the intent too much if the spell is old enough or has been cast enough. This is how people can learn from books with minimum description. Magic can fill in the blanks. The more you focus on intent the easier it is."
"Makes sense but what are you trying to teach me?"
"So if a spell can be tied to and effect over time it must have started somewhere right? Now think, I want you to consider the number of ways to move a box from this table to the windowsill. "Firstly you could use a summoning charm and then walk over and put it. Secondly you could summon it then banish it to the windowsill, alternatively you could use locomotion charm to float it over. Another way could be to levitate it then banish it. If you focus it enough, you could miss use a levitation charm as a locomotion charm. You could animate it so it walks itself there or even transfigure it into an animal and let its walk or fly there. "Archer said.
Neville thought about it, "So Wizards have too many spells for the same thing?"
"I can list about twenty different cutting spells and another ten blasting charms. But what I'm saying is spells can be varied by intent to expand its original use. Now what I want you to do is use your wand to stick the box to the end of your wand pick it up and banish it to Harry."
Neville nodded, "What spells should I use?"
Archer just smirked at him. "That the point Nev, use nothing but intent and feel." Harry called from the other side of the room.
Neville stood up and walked to the box, he took out his precious new wand and focused hard on sticking the box to the wand. He touched the wand to the box and tried to lift it. Nothing happened.
"Well good first effort?" Harry asked with a kind smile.
"Shove off you pratt" Neville joked.
"As stupid as this sounds you need to relax and feel for your magic, connect it to your wand and then focus." Harry hinted.
Neville had no idea how to start so he did what seemed to be the only option. He shut his eyes and felt around in his mind.
"You have to relax and find your magic, feel it hum with power." Archer added.
Neville felt around in his head but stopped and started to focus on his breathing and calm down, he then relaxed and felt for power. He was able to feel a humming power urging to be unleashed. The smile that crossed his face let the other two know he'd succeeded.
"Now picture what you want to do with the box while feeling the power flow." Harry
Neville touched his wand to the box and shut his eyes focusing. He raised his wand and the box came with it. He opened his eyes.
"I did it!" He called as the box fell back onto the table.
"You did, then you lost focus. Try again." Neville tried again and was able to focus on holding the box in the end of his wand. "Now send it to Harry."
Neville pushed his wand forwards and the box promptly fell on the desk again.
"What? That wasn't meant to happen." Neville whined.
"You stopped focusing on holding the box up while you tried to push it to Harry."
"How do I do both?"
"A, practice, b, feel don't think. When you have to think about something it takes time and more focus so it's hard to keep doing what you're already doing. You can also put conditions on your intent but that's really hard."
"Conditions?"
"Okay think of some spells that you can cast and they do their job until a certain condition. An example would be the shrinking charms that can be cancelled when you tap your wand on the object. So you could say hold the box until you banish it."
Neville nodded and tried again this time the box made it towards Harry but it fell to the ground between them.
"What this time?"
"I think you focused on pushing It in Harry's direction right?" Neville nodded "Did you remember to consider the elevation?" Neville looked confused so Archer continued "It seemed you banished it towards Harry direction, no to Harry himself?"
"Why would that matter?"
"That's kind of what I'm trying to teach you, magic is fussy and detail orientated. Wand motions and incantations are shortcuts that fill in the details for us. We can use large amounts of intent and visualisation to be more creative with conventional spells. We can use these unstructured spells for very specialised situations. Now you can practice more but I fancy going down to the kitchens."
The next morning the battle lines were drawn. For the first time since the opening feast the boys were eating separately. While best of friends and all of them thinking the house rivalry is a bit of a joke somethings like sport transcend friendship. Oliver Wood the Gryffindor team captain lead the team out of the hall early so they could get down to the pitch first. The Slytherin team walked out of the hall not long after.
Sitting in the stand Neville was revelling in the atmosphere. He wished the best to both his friends but really wanted Gryffindor to win the game. He sat back and listened to the Weasley twins' friend Lee Jordan begin to introduce the teams.
"Ladies, Gentleman and Snapes,"
"Jordan." came the warning from McGonagall over the loudspeaker.
"As I was saying, it is my honour today to introduce you to the teams for the first game of the season. I give you the Gryffindor team, Keeper and team captain Oliver Wood, I give you three delightful ladies as chasers, we have Johnson, Spinnet and Bell. The Gryffindor beaters are once again the magnificent Weasley twins. The team's newest addition is the seeker, the one the only the very special HARRY POTTER." As Lee Jordan was announcing this red and gold blurs shot out into the stadium. "Their opponents today are the Slytherin team, controversial reigning champions. Their line-up is led by captain Flint, his fellow chasers are Montague and Warrington. The beaters today are Pittman and Bole. In the role of keeper is Bletchley and Terence Higgs is returning at seeker today as previous seeker Draco Malfoy picked a fight with a hippogriff, needless it is to say he lost. Some interesting points to see in today's match will be the interactions between Pittman and Potter, best friends off the pitch what will we see on it? Higgs returning to the line-up must be welcome for Slytherin, ever since Malfoy bought his way on last year Slytherin has relied on a superior chaser set up."
"Jordan less personal opinions please." McGonagall sighed.
"Sorry Professor, anyway the captains shake hands and madam Hooch stands ready to release the balls." Jordan's commentary resumed. "AAND we're off. The quaffle is claimed by Johnson, hell of a girl she is."
The game went on with Slytherin building a lead. At first the Gryffindor chaser trio's skills were clear and they flew off to a 60-10 lead however Archer took out Spinnet's wrist when the Weasley twins were working together to fend of Harry from Bole and the other buldger. After that Archer was able to unseat Wood and the Slytherin chasers were free to drag the team back into the game. The score was 210-80 in favour of Slytherin when Harry went into one of his signature dives. After Archer setting up the Slytherin's to win the match through the quaffle the Weasley twins were focusing on defending Harry this kept him safe in his dive, Bole's bludger was redirected at Higgs by one of the twins, Lee Jordan couldn't identify which. Higgs pulled out of the dive to stay on his broom leading to a regulation catch by Harry. As he pulled up the entire stadium minus the green and sliver section erupted. In the time Harry had taken to catch the snitch Flint had scored another goal leaving a final score of 230-220 for Gryffindor. He took a deep sigh of relief knowing that if the snitch had got away there was no way back with no keeper and only two chasers still playing. Once again he had to question who decided bludgers should be solid iron.
There were no hard feelings after the match after a day of Archer sulking. They did however decide that Harry and Neville should avoid the Slytherin table for a few weeks. With a month left of term the boys were starting to chat about Christmas plans. Christmas was a strange time for the Potter-Black clan, Archer normal spent it with his muggle family. Although they had given him up for adoption many years ago they still liked to know how he was doing. McGonagall went to join her few remaining relatives so Harry was left with Sirius, not that he minded time alone with his godfather but it was abnormally quiet. For most family's it was time to be together for Harry it was the time his family split apart albeit temporarily. To go with other depressing thoughts Archer had announced he was feeding the Cerberus and training it after reading they can be highly loyal pets and are great guard dogs. He seemed to think if it became a friend it would let him pass. Harry hoped that not only would this work but he would be allowed to pass too, if only to stop Archer doing something equally dumb in the next room.
