Chapter 23

There were no diviners in this year and nor was anyone likely to brave Professor Snape's scorn of taking it as a soft option even if Miss Gimlet had not felt emboldened by his attitude to institute a 'no timewasters' policy. The art of Enchanting had however been better subscribed to by this class and more were taking it than were not; BaHH found it easier to use the ritual tying of charms than casting charms by wand, and he was joined by Batty, Yrdl – who saw it as an adjunct to metalwork – Roseli, Blaise, Emil and Antti. This was not one of Antti's best classes but he was a solid 'E' student because he had to focus on a part at a time and Professor Beckard made sure to keep his nose to the grindstone and his wits in focus. Byron did this by speaking Finnish to the boy if Antti was concentrating and insisting on talking in a parody of Seagh's broad Scots if he was not. It got the point across. And Antti HAD been working better over the last year generally anyway.

The practical involved enchanting the candidate's choice of a musical instrument to play, a needle to sew or a pen to perform some appropriate action. Marks were given on complexity of the charm; the music was looked to be contrapuntal, the needle to perform complex embroidery and the pen to undertake some subtle task like write to dictation. .

The class having demonstrated ably the year before that they had less idea of music than a farting goat – which description they had overheard Severus use of their efforts in enchanting the hall ceiling bosses to sing grand opera – the first option was rejected out of hand. As enchanting a musical instrument had been a regular and standard practical until Sylvia Hubble had complained some years before the presentation of alternatives had been just for this purpose. As all the girls were from the European continent they had been brought up sewing and all chose the needle to enchant, producing a variety of embroideries, Yrdl's being the most complex as she insisted on her needle producing needle lace, which included a complex little enchantment to vanish such threads as were to be drawn in the drawn thread work. The boys enchanted the quill to write one thing or another; Blaise and Emil made it write to dictation, Antti made it scan and copy notes in a legible fashion, something he badly needed as his notes were almost always virtually illegible; and BaHH enchanted his to write permission notes in Professor Snape's handwriting.

The written covered wand woods and broom woods and a question where they had to link a list of quills to the appropriate enchantments to prefer those specific feather types. It went well enough.

oOoOo

Five were taking Geomancy, BaHH, who had chosen to pursue Arithmancy with grim determination for this among other marauding reasons; Crow; Roseli; Emil; and Antti. None would set the world afire save Antti, for whom this was one of his best subjects, and went well with his Arithmancy which was his other top subject. They all, in the written exam, assiduously drew in the principle ley lines of England – it was an English exam after all – wrote a brief essay on unplottability and answered questions on the various common ways to travel.

Each was then taken, with a broomstick, to a location from whence they must find their way home to the school as fast as possible. Antti was back well in advance of everyone else, pleased and flushed with success to be the best at something for a change. And BaHH and Crow were the first to congratulate him.

oOoOo

Prince Peak did not look likely to be noted for its herbologists.

Only Arbrek and Antti were taking this exam; and if Severus might have wished that more took it voluntarily to OWL he sighed and told Valerie Burdock not to take it to heart because at least it meant that the ones choosing the subject were CHOOSING the subject not falling back on what was, at least at lower levels, a relatively soft option. As both boys were solid 'E' students Valerie had to agree; though she had not known it was taken as a soft option at Hogwarts until Severus enlightened her, and that as Madam Sprout would accept any pass grade was taken to NEWT by the foolish who had not checked out how lethal some of the NEWT level plants actually were. Valerie was glad that this custom did not pertain to Prince Peak! And she resolved not to permit any but 'E' grade students to go on to NEWT at that, unless they had very good reason and could plead well.

The practical involved the usual repotting of a fanged geranium and gathering bubotubers and pruning shrivelfig. Antti and Arbrek both avoided being bitten by their fanged geranium by talking soothingly to it – Valerie's preferred method – and neither of them acquired any pustules.

The written required the listing of self-motile plants; and both boys got extra marks, had they known it, for citing bumbleweed, which Lydia had told Valerie about, being similar in appearance to the tumbleweed with which muggles were familiar, which used some wind assist to travel between termite mounds where it fed on the grubs after sending down tendrils into the mound. Valerie had promptly taught this plant that was new to her; it had only been discovered some five years ago and had not made it to the textbooks yet.

There were also some general questions on the care of various plants and the proper use of fertiliser. The boys wrote assiduously and were fairly confident that they had done well.

oOoOo

History was the province of Reinulf and both Villeneuve twins; as Emil said, with a probable dark wizard for a cousin they wanted to avoid repeating history by knowing every last nuance of it.

On due consideration they were actually entered for the ZP not the OWL as European history was more relevant to all of them. This offered a similar double paper, with a long essay question and a paper of short questions; the latter of which could be chosen from 'the French sphere' 'the German sphere' or 'eastern Europe'. The long essay was chosen from three. Cecilia chose 'compare the traditions of the Goths and the Franks and estimate how much the synthesis of cultures has influenced modern wizarding society'; Reinulf chose 'consider the importance of the forests such as the Black Forest and the Teutenbergerwald in the control and exclusion of muggles from wizarding zones since the statute of secrecy' and Emil chose 'Chart the factors that permitted the rise to prominence of Gellert Grindelwald'.

They thought them an interesting set of questions and Percy petitioned Severus to stick with ZP as well as ZH for its greater range of timespan as well as covering European history.

oOoOo

Only Roseli was taking muggle studies because if she could not make a living painting it would give her a guaranteed job in the Swiss ministry where there would be nobody else with such a qualification. Roseli was toying with taking the study to NEWT to train ministry officials in how to deal with muggles; so she might keep her art as a hobby and for pocket money rather than have to paint for a living and feel that it became a chore. The task was to choose four titles to write out of six essay questions and Roseli chose 'those muggles who want to know should be assessed and given limited access to our world; discuss'; 'explain why a computer is as necessary to a muggle as a wand is to a wizard'; 'the priorities of an average muggle family have many parallels with those of a wizarding family; discuss'; and 'discuss why muggles must be considered on a global scale rather than parochially'. She quite enjoyed herself, and cited the situation of Sarah and her mother, a muggle who could see magical beings and who had almost been trapped into painting an efreet to give it substance and a tool; who had every need to know about a world she could see yet not manipulate; because it was important to her.

oOoOo

Metalwork came last; and with the four in the fifth, Batty, Yrdl, Roseli and Cecilia were the five from the lower sixth, the Visick twins, the Jorkins twins and George Ingate. The exam had been revised from its first inception; now only one masterpiece was made during the year preceding the exam, but the entrants were required to perform a longer practical, not merely tempering a partially completed knife and setting a self sharpening charm on it, but demonstrating that they had understood the principles of the coefficient of magical expansion by making a simple expanding tool or key from prepared metal, and enchanting metal that was being forged to be ready for such a charm. The class considered this in a way more testing and in a way less stressful because they did not have to be so imaginative as before. They had laboured on their masterpieces and had produced a reasonable selection of items.

Flo, who was toying with being a healer, had called on Silvina to help by explaining music to her a bit to make a music box that played a pain soothing tune, for use she suggested with teething babies or to help those in pain to relax enough to go to sleep naturally without potions or an actually sleeping tune. Fred, who was musical enough without wanting to study for an exam, had come up with a pipe that could play two different healing tunes because they were embedded in the actual metal of the pipe and only a gentle blow after stroking the name of the tune embossed on the pipe required to set it going. He had drawn heavily on his OWL in enchanting for this rather than purely on metalwork, which would lose him some marks, as he had not used the specific metal charming principles so much as adding an enchantment to a crafted item. However it was otherwise a fairly sophisticated piece of kit.

George had made a self-fitting snaffle that would change in shape and size to be comfortable in the mouth of any horse and give it the ability to pass the horse's feelings along the narrow flexible rein that went with it, that was of woven goblin silver. Albert and Granville, who both wanted to be aurors, had made kit that would be useful to them in such a field; Albert had made bracers of holding that would immobilise anyone wearing them; and Granville had made a goblin silver mirror that screamed 'liar!' when anyone facing it told lies.

In the fifth Batty had made a goblin silver bird that always found the book you wanted by whispering its title to the artefact; Yrdl had considered the fact that the Russians were knot mad and made a version of the attachment on Harry's penknife that would undo any knot that would work on magically and ritually tied knots in case it came in handy. Roseli, being fixated on her art, made a bottle for water that continually refreshed the water so it was always clean; and the bottle also shrank on command to be packed away in her watercolour box. And Cecilia, who also planned to be an auror, made a necklace that shouted if anyone was behind her with drawn wand.

They wrote assiduously in the written exam about the history of smithing, and on techniques like smelting, tempering and annealing and drew up charts for the proper times to introduce enchantments in various common artefacts, and noted the patterns of beating to tie in an enchantment when hammering the metal. They also drew the internal workings of a simple clock and wrote about the proper manufacture of springs. All agreed it had been stiff but none felt they had done at all badly.

And then the exams were over!

oOoOo

The last excitement of term was a visit to Hogwarts for a quiddpolo match; and as Severus said cheerfully this was the first and probably last chance so small a school had of beating Hogwarts at any sport save perhaps where individual effort was involved, like the Triwizard. And that, said Severus, might be worth looking at to introduce harder tasks for the first task or two which were to be helped out by a team of two or three chosen by the champion to demonstrate if the school champions could work in a team; and if they had the wholehearted support of their fellows.

"Too late for this time" said George laconically "Besides, there's the extra teams playing; really we need to see how that goes."

"Agreed" said Severus.

The school team was an amalgamation of the senior and junior teams; George was not about to jeopardise the chance of a win by taking pupils teamed on age which had been as convenient a way as any to divide up teams for practice at home. Consequently he was playing Marius Schreiber as seeker; Marius and George's little brother Paul were much on a par, but Paul would have many more years at school to play seeker, and this was a way for Marius to meet people as well as to have a chance to play another school. George placed himself on the team and Cecilia from the senior team, and agonised over the other four positions. Pru Buffer was a very good player on the scratch third; but there were four or five excellent players among the juniors. He spoke to Pru and asked if she wanted to play.

"Oh, if you need me I'll play; I'd say there were better kids though" said Pru "Oh, you mean do I mind if you pass me over for younger ones?"

"Yes" said George.

"George, I don't mind" said Pru "I'm as happy to play if you need me or not if you don't; or be reserve if that helps."

George brightened.

"Well if you'd be reserve that would be good" he said.

He drafted Viridian D'Aubert, Cerellia – now Malfoy not Yaxley – Sarah Elliot and Johanna Schiff onto the team. The four younger ones were used to working together. Paul was as good as them; but George decided not to pick his brother on grounds of age because Viridian was good enough to be reserve seeker, and for that matter so was Cerellia. Cerellia had said that her new stepbrother was not that interested in riding, so there would be no torn loyalties there; though the likelihood there would be at least one with the surname Malfoy on the Hogwarts team. Well, that was the way it was; and hopefully a good cousinly friendly rivalry.

He was glad they were to be the visitors; the heat in the mountains would not be fair on the horses. And they were to go a day or two before the match to give their steeds the chance to rest and give the team the chance to meet the children of Hogwarts.

oOoOo

The Prince Peak team were met by Bella Black Khanum, the head girl, whose hair was dramatically red and black striped.

"This here is our captain of quiddpolo, Drusillina Hallow" said Bella "One of the girls Auntie Connie stole from Prince Peak when it was Cackle's; she's a marauder natch."

"No surprises there" said George "Our Marauders on the team are Viridian D'Aubert and Johanna Schiff as I expect you already know. I'm captain; this is my team" and he introduced them.

"One Malfoy and a spare Snape ward to balance two Malfoys for us" said Drusillina cheerfully. "Penny Malfoy here is our seeker and her cousin Damian succeeds his brother. Damian is known as Faunus and he deserves it; he wants to tame aggressive animals and his girlfriend, known as Flora, wants to tame aggressive plants and I wish she'd start with the ones she owns in our common room."

"Put a sock in it Lina" said Damian lazily.

"You're a Gryff; you don't have to avoid the mating habits of spinynastius attackyoulotsicus or whatever the monster is called" said Drusillina calmly. "She's a cousin of your Malfoy, being a Yaxley with Malfoy complications and she doesn't fly; we don't trust her not to start growing experimental plants in the horse's mane."

"Oy" said the pretty blonde girl.

"Get ON with it Lina!" said Bella.

"Right… the others are mostly harmless; Genevieve Harris; Faustina Bobbin; Bryony Urquhart and Paris Bullivant" said Drusillina "A bit of a cross-age mish-mash; I'm the only one left of our last year team because they have all left us for higher things" she said in a sepulchral voice.

"Three of them to train as aurors if I recall correctly; exalted persons" said George. "No reserve?"

"The rest of the least worst draw straws if one of us drops dead" said Drusillina "Or we let Lilith Snape off the leash and wonder what mayhem she can cause on a horse. She's a great keeper on a broom but what a flying horse would think of circus antics I don't know."

"Lumme yes; broomsurfing is one thing but horse surfing? The mind boggles!" said George.

They stabled their horses under the care of Hogwarts' chief groom Arkott; and settled down to explore the big castle. It was almost intimidating for those not used to it; George of course had grown up in Hogwarts, and Paul remembered it slightly; the rest had never been there. Sarah was used, as a diplomat's daughter, to palaces and diplomatic premises of all sizes and ages; and Johanna Schiff lived during the holidays at Schloss Adler which was very nearly as large. Beauxbatons was a larger school than Prince Peak so Viridian had some idea what to expect. The rest were a trifle intimidated; and the sheer numbers of the children were a shock too. Pru appreciated how very isolated her mother must have felt!

oOoOo

"You're keeping a close eye on one of your team – the Harris girl" Johanna remarked to Drusillina, presuming on the relationship as a fellow marauder.

"Yes; it's a bit prophylactic" said Drusillina "She's been a little dippy in her youth; inclined to show off and encourage boys to chase her. She seems to have settled down and she IS in the fifth now but I'm just a little concerned that posturing on a horse might go to her head. She looks good on horseback and it doesn't take even as few brains as she has to realise it. Pass the word to your chaps not to be impressed by her beauty would you? We're trying to break her of being too fond of her effect on males because she isn't a ruddy veela and doesn't know how to handle it."

"Will do" said Johanna; and proceeded to be blunt to Marius, Viridian and George.

"Ah, I know the type" said Marius "And thank you for the timely warning; I had noticed she was a pretty girl and I fear she saw me noticing."

"And we have had enough of that type at Beauxbatons for me not to recognise it" said Viridian "Thank you for the confirmation."

"And I'm far too Flo'd to be seduced to the dark side" said George cheerfully.

oOoOo

They had a jolly day at Hogwarts; term was winding down and the lessons were mostly quizzes and fun activities based loosely on the lessons involved. Each of the team took part in the lessons of their age group and raised an eyebrow or two to find that they were well ahead academically of most of their Hogwarts counterparts – save Lilith Snape and her set in the fourth who left Cerellia, Sarah, Viridian and Jo determined to work harder as they were obviously behind the high fliers! Jo and Viridian as marauders intended taking THAT news back to their own group of Marauders! The rest of the class seemed fairly pedestrian however; and Jo opined to Viridian that it was merely a case of Lilith lifting her own crew's standards. As Lilith's closest crony, an untidy dark haired boy with inky fingers, admitted to having taken five OWLs this year, a year early this seemed quite likely. Pru and Marius were glad to be well up with any but the Marauders in the Upper Sixth – though Bella admitted cheerfully that they were most unacademic as Marauders went – and George found himself surpassed only by three girls in his year. Cecilia picked out the marauders in her year by their determined academic standard and was glad to be close to being on a par with them, and well ahead of the rest of the year. She took a brief interest in a boy called Bibaculus Wilkes who was a self confessed poet and knowledgeable about poetry; and it may be said that Cecilia's own enthusiasm fired Bibaculus to new heights and he went to see Tony Queach who taught chanting and asked if he might take chanting further even if he had a poor grade as he had never considered before his eyes were opened just how much he should have concentrated on the subject. Cecilia spent the rest of the stay trying to tactfully avoid Bibaculus who was rather fond of himself and wanted to declaim his own poetry to her. As a matter of fact, Cecilia was not even free of him on returning to Prince Peak when an owl brought from him 'sonnet to Cecilia flying on a horse'.

oOoOo

The game however was soon on; and it was quickly apparent that the Prince Peak team were more used to playing as a team and that Hogwarts had a bit of a scratch team. It was a friendly however, and not to be taken too seriously; but when Penny Malfoy caught the snitch and manfully defended it from Marius' tackle by dropping and recatching her lacrosse net it was only for pride, because the visitors had outscored the hosts by more than fifteen goals and the catching of the snitch could only deny a more disparate score.

The players all shook hands.

"When you've had a bit more chance to practice together you should be fairly formidable" said George "We lose a couple this year; how about you?"

"Only me" said Drusillina. "Yes, they could be a decent team next year; and the match has been good for us to show us our weaknesses. Played, everyone; both teams. When you've seen to your mounts we should have a decent spread laid on."

It was.

Nobody could beat a Hogwarts feast; and the elves were on their mettle to show off to Severus Snape that his castle elves were not as good as the ones he had left behind to found his own school.

Severus reflected that his elves actually produced healthier food but did not comment; and congratulated the serving elves on the spread. It was well to be polite after all!

"Enjoying being head, David?" he asked.

"Very much, Severus" said David.

"And are YOU enjoying being head with all the alarums in Europe, Severus?" asked Minerva.

"Very much" said Severus "Keeps us on our toes. Besides I have the opportunity to be snidely contemptuous at them."

Minerva laughed.

"HOW like you, Severus!" she said.

oOoOo

The team were soon back in the castle for another end of year moonlit feast; and this time it was the turn of the Lowther twins to make a speech thanking Severus and the staff for their years of schooling.

"And from now on you've got academic ones so you should be happy enough to only obliteeriate the Sons of Zwilnik a little bit" quipped Fred "Without delivering a four hour lecture before you wipe them out as intolerable torture….thanks Sev, I needed that" as Severus made a gesture and Fred received a Gibbsing from two invisible fingers.

"And some of us are looking forward to being teachers – which with the horrible example of pupils like you Lowthers is not looking so attractive!" laughed Pru.

"Oh you won't meet anyone worse than us!" grinned Peter.

"Well THAT's true" Severus growled but he was smiling.

These Muggle Marauders might not be the most academic kids he had ever taught but they had loyalty and determination and love.

He was going to miss them.

And then they had the fireworks and ended the evening with a dance; and another year was over.

"And it's been a busy one" he said to Krait. "I seem to have been in a rush always to get something done."

"Yes; Russian here and Russian there" said Krait.

He considered Gibbsing her too; and decided to kiss her instead. It had the advantage of muffling any more awful puns.

finis

A/N there are two more completed and a half written one but I'm taking Christmas off. I have some publishing in the real world to get on with as well, and then you can find out what happened at Durmstrang and at Beauxbatons and how much Darryl shook them up. Still working on Jade's school. I also have ideas for the next year [Triwizard] which will be one long book covering all the schools and a few short stories surrounding some of the characters.