Wit of the Raven
Chapter 5
Harry lugged his trunk down the stairs and out the door at five o'clock in the evening, smiling nervously at the attractive concierge, who after he asked, pointed him in the direction of the front door. He murmured his thanks, and hurried out the door, looking around Diagon Alley desperately for the portkeys that were taking him and his classmates to Platform Nine and Three Quarters.
Harry had overslept a little bit this morning, kept asleep by the long battery of tests that Snape had put him through the day before, with some kind of physical examination, and also by a wonderful dream, which was already fading from his memory. He knew not to mention it to anyone. He tried to recall it, but all he could remember was the fleeting image of pale skin and wonderful eyes. He supposed it was enough.
He had gone exploring Diagon Alley with Snape, and so was relatively familiar with it, and noticed that there seemed to be a peculiar pattern of people moving towards Gambol and Japes, so he decided to go with the flow, and hope that it led to the portkeys. It turned out that luck was on his side, and within moments, he was standing in a large crowd of mothers, fathers, and children. He felt a twinge of regret that he didn't have a mother or father, but felt a little better when he noticed how uncomfortable all of the other kids looked.
He felt a tap on his shoulder, and after he whirled around, was met by a grinning face. "Hogwarts too? Well I suppose you'd have to be." He nudged past a few people who were between Harry and himself, and extended his hand. "Terry Boot. And you?"
Harry grinned, and shook Terry's hand. "Harry Potter. Are you a first year too?" He knew to be courteous and kind.
Terry nodded, happily, before looking thoughtful. "Potter . . . I feel like I've heard the name before . . . is the Potter line enchanters?" Terry asked.
"Nope, we used to be herbologists, recently we've been Hunters." Snape had explained to Harry that although in Britain, the government employed ones were called aurors, the universal term was Hunter.
Terry's eyes gleamed, and he breathed, "Wicked. . . . I've always wanted to meet a hunter. I've heard they're all bloody insane." Seeming to belatedly remember who he was talking to, he added, "Not that your parents are. Don't suppose you could introduce me to your dad?"
Harry shook his head ruefully. "He's dead. You'd have to be a necromancer."
Terry, shocked, took a step back, treading on someone's foot. "Oh shit. I'm really sorry, Harry. . . ."
Harry shook his head again, smiling a little. "It's okay, you couldn't have known. Besides, I can't remember. I just know what other people have told me." He cocked his head to the side, and asked Terry, "So what are Boots? Enchanters?"
Terry nodded happily, seeming to forget his earlier faux pas, and launched into an explanation. "Boots have always been Enchanters. Always. The first recorded Boot enchanted a boot that could go a league in one step– maybe you've heard of it?" Terry asked, hopefully.
Harry nodded, albeit a little unsurely. "Um . . . seven league boots?"
Terry nodded back, happily. "His son made that improvement. That's like eighteen generations back or–" Suddenly, Terry was cut off by the sound of a klaxon.
Soon after, they were surrounded by a peculiar sound, that seemed to be coming from all around them. "All who are traveling to Platform Nine and Three Quarters, please grab hold of a portkey. No more than ninety-five to a portkey, please. Thank you, and have a nice day."
Harry heard a peculiar mechanical sound, and saw what had seemed like spheres earlier, extending ten arms, parallel to the ground. The crowd made way as the arms grew to a length of around seven meters, before they surged in again, all trying to grab a place on one of the arms. He looked around for Terry for a little while, before deciding that Terry must've gone off with his family. He managed to wrap his arm around the middle of an arm, and was rather surprised when around a minute later, he felt the peculiar sensation of being squeezed inside of the arm, through where he was touching it, and then seconds later, back out. This time, when he came out, he was in the middle of an ancient train station, standing near the humongous red train that seemed to be the centerpiece of the beautiful room.
Harry groaned as he hefted his trunk, which Snape had conjured and enlarged for him the day before. Snape had informed him that it would disappear within three days of conjuration, and that he'd have to obtain a trunk for himself by the end of the year, somehow, or else carry all of his stuff in his hands. He knew he should do it early. He'd decided to look to see if there was any way to lighten the weight of the trunk, as it was killing his hands, before he struck himself on the forehead. Obviously, the levitation charm would do the trick. "Trunksardium Leviosa," he whispered, raising the tip of his wand minutely, and thinking of how wonderful it felt to jump, to be light as air, to not be restrained by gravity, and the trunk, jumped up after a long moment. Harry gave it a smug look, and sitting on it, maneuvered it and himself towards one of the entrances to the train, flying carpet style.
As he approached the entrance, he waited patiently on his trunk for the large group of red heads to finish passing through. He heard snippets of the conversation, and grinned, closing his eyes to hear better.
" . . . something on your nose, Charlie, you don't want to look bad for your lady friends, do you, Char-. . . "
" . . . no Mrs. Norris won't notice if we dye her blue. Cats are predatory, so their eyes face forward. And I think they might be color-blind, too."
"Right, right, zebras don't change their stripes. Have you been working on your magic . . ."
" . . . . mum, I have to go, there's a . . . meeting . . . the new . . . "
" . . . so many times . . . burnout over a summer . . . I wanted . . . quidditch . . ."
As their voices faded out, Harry opened his eyes, only to be faced with a small girl around the same size as him, with freckles, peering intently at his face, her face around eight centimeters away. She closed her eyes, and he was struck by the most peculiar sensation of need, and he reached his hand out, slowly, to touch to her face, as if controlled by an outside force. Abruptly, she opened her eyes, and shrieked at the sight of his hand coming towards her face. At the sight of her eyes, he jerked his hand back, and with his other hand, jerked the trunk backwards. He turned his trunk around, took one last glance at her fearful eyes, and ignoring the peculiar glances he was getting from the surround populace, zoomed above the crowd to near the top of the station, to find a less crowded entrance.
He found his entrance at the front of the train, and floated in, on his trunk. He moved down the corridor, and opened the first door on his right, labeled, "Professor Randy Orthop," to be confronted with four pairs of steely eyes, staring right at him. He murmured his apologies, and quickly removed himself from the room, and looked for a compartment with open seats. Harry had to look through five more nearly identical compartments, with four inhabitants with icy eyes, before he found an empty one, labeled, "Nathaniel Uben Biggs". He quickly got off his trunk, walked inside, and dropped the charm on his trunk, panting slightly. He hadn't lifted anything heavier than a lamp while practicing with Snape, and wasn't too surprised that lifting so much had taken its toll. Opening the trunk, he pulled out Miranda Goshawk's book, levitated his trunk onto the trunk rack, and began leafing through it for interesting charm.
He was rather surprised when he saw a pair of identical, somewhat attractive girls walked casually in, balancing each of their trunks on a finger. They smiled slightly when they saw him the one on the right first, and then the one on the left, before they both tossed their trunks up onto the racks, as if they weighed nothing, which they probably did, before casting "Finite" simultaneously on their trunks. They turned, and curtsied slightly, before cheerily informing Potter, "We're Patil twins."
"Parvati Patil," one began.
"And Padma Patil," the other finished.
He responded, "Harry Potter," and they nodded too, before taking the seats across from him, and beginning to chatter excitedly.
Several minutes later, a boy walked in, panting and dragging his trunk behind him. The boy looked up, saw Harry, nodded, and began to try to lift his trunk up to the trunk rack. Harry cast the levitation charm for him, and surprised the boy slightly when the trunk moved by itself onto the rack. He whirled around, saw Harry's wand, and nodded again, in thanks.
"Would've done it myself, but Longbottoms prefer water. That's all I've learned since my birthday." His nodded again, and stated, "Neville Longbottom."
Harry nodded back, "Harry Potter."
Neville's eyes widened, and he sat down next to Harry quickly, and intensely whispered in his ear, "Je te souviens."
Harry turned to Neville's intense gaze, and arching an eyebrow, whispered back, "What?"
Neville, taken aback, whispered again, this time a little louder, "Je te souviens."
"Um, yeah, I don't speak French," Harry replied, a little nervously. He knew to be courageous, but he couldn't feel it, in truth.
This time, Neville, really taken aback, inquired loudly, "You don't know? Well, it's bastardized French, because je me souviens de toi just doesn't have the same ring, but. . . ."
Harry slowly shook his head, and Neville's eyes seemed to widen until they took up around an equal amount of space on his face as his forehead. Seeing the Patil twins as if for the first time, who were now looking at the two of them, slightly interested, he shook his head, and told Harry, "I'll tell you later, in private." He looked at the twins again, did a double take, and muttered, "Good god, Patil twins."
Harry, understandably confused, asked, "What?"
They smirked, and Padma responded, "I'm surprised you haven't heard of us, Potter. Patils are always twins, and are always even twins. I was born second, and will be the potions mistress, and Parvati was born first, and will be the enchantress."
"Even twins? And what if you don't want to be a potions mistress?" Harry asked.
"Ugh, you really don't know anything. Even twins are twins that have equal magical force. And I do want to be an enchantress. The blood assures it," Parvati answered. "What have the Potters been doing since you were born? I'm surprised you even got into Hogwarts. . . . Unless you're a muggleborn Potter, which I suppose is possible . . . " she pondered.
Harry opened his mouth to answer, but Neville got there before him. "Mr. Potter is head of House Potter, and acting head of House Evans. Apologize for maligning the dead," he said angrily, standing up and drawing his wand.
"No, Neville, it's okay, I don't mind–" Harry tried to soothe the irate Longbottom, who shook his head, and kept on pointing his wand.
"House Potter and House Longbottom are allied. Didn't I tell you?" He dropped his voice again, and breathed, "Je te souviens."
The twins, eyes wide, apologized quickly. "We didn't realize, Potter. Our apologies," Padma whispered.
Harry, kind of freaked out, shook his head quickly, muttering that it wasn't needed, and Neville sat down and put away his wand, satisfied. "Er, I'm so ignorant about, say, why you'd be an enchantress, why Neville wanted you to apologize, and stuff like that because I've been raised by muggles all my life."
Neville hissed, and turned abruptly to Harry, clearly horrified. "What? How could they be assured that you got into Hogwarts?"
"Hmm? I assume that my parents signed me up for it," Harry replied calmly.
Padma, perhaps more horrified than Neville now, hissed too, quickly drawing air into her mouth between pursed lips. "No, Harry, Hogwarts is highly selective. It's considered the best wizarding school in Britain for a reason. There are Wizarding colleges for after your seven years in regular school. They last for four years, and teach the same things that Hogwarts does in its last two years. You wouldn't have been able to get into Hogwarts if you weren't brilliant. It's not uncommon for parents to spend thousands of galleons on one child to assure that that one child will get into Hogwarts. And it's even tougher to get in if you're muggleborn, because Hogwarts doesn't want to spend time explaining Wizarding customs to you. You have to be able to pick it up on your own. You might've noticed someone who you didn't recognize around you a few days before you received your letter?"
Harry thought back, and not remembering anyone like that, shook his head slowly. "Oh, right, the professor mentioned something about Hogwarts not accepting idiots, I think," Harry said slowly, as if measuring every word. Parvati copied her sister's hiss, and angrily began to move her hands, looking intensely at Padma, who began to make the same spasmodic hand signals.
"And this is part of why you should fear the Patil twins," Neville breathed to Harry, "They practically have a twin-link, without the nasty side effect of all of the magic leaning to one or the other. That's called Linked Twins. It's as if they're conjoined twins, joined through magic. These are Even Twins, which are far more common. Except that they're raised to be thicker than thieves, and they have those bloody hand signals. And that's only the beginning. There was a man who made it his life goal to figure out how to understand the sign language, and after years of studying pensieve memories of people who had interacted with Patil twins, he managed to decipher it. But when he tried to tell someone else the secret, he found that he was incapable of doing so. The language itself has a bloody modified fidelius."
"Pensieve? Fidelius?" Harry asked, feeling increasingly bewildered.
"A pensieve lets you view other people's memories. Fidelius is an ancient charm that prevents you from telling anyone else the location of something, unless you're the secret keeper," Neville informed Harry, still glancing every few seconds at the twins, as if they were serial killers and he and Harry were in horrible danger of dying a gruesome death.
"And what's the other reason why I should fear the Patil twins?" Harry wondered.
"There are two. The first is that potions and enchantments are a wicked mix. Imagine a poison that smells like mangos, a draught of living death, enchanted to resemble an apple?" Neville shivered, before continuing. "And the second is that when they're adults, they're bloody hot until the day they die. Great uncle Algie tells me that that's the worst of their abilities."
Harry jerked back, surprised, and a little amused. "What? Oh dear, I've fallen in love with a woman. Whatever am I to do?"
"Don't be absurd, Potter. Love is the most dangerous emotion, didn't the muggles tell you that?" Neville responded, angrily.
Harry laughed again, this time loudly, and a little incredulously. "You're the one who's being absurd. The muggles teach that love is to be valued. It's viable in an evolutionary respect in that it cuts down on the amount of abuse suffered, which in turn creates stronger humans, and humans that have a strong family base to fall back on in case they get knocked down. It's viable in an emotional respect in that it's a wonderful feeling. The only downside the pain caused by a betrayal of that love."
Neville was openly staring now, his mouth slightly agape. "I . . . I was sure that muggles taught the dangers of love. The wizarding manual was published by muggles. Have you ever read Romeo and Juliet? By William Shakespeare?"
"Of course," Harry replied. "A pretty corny play, but. . . ."
Harry was abruptly cut off by Neville, who said quietly, "Of course it's corny. It's an instructional production designed to make small children fear love."
"What? No, Romeo and Juliet promotes love. It's about love even with bad blood between families. It's considered one of the great romances by the overly literate," Harry replied.
Neville snorted at Harry's label, but quickly sobered again. "Whatever. In the wizarding world, abuse is idiotic, because often it will stunt a child's magical growth, causing dishonor for the family. Choosing a spouse because of love was long ago abandoned, in exchange for choosing a spouse who would genetically be a good match. The wizards who chose love over genetic superiority died out a long time ago. There are ways that love can easily be manufactured. Infatuation, and lust, by looks, or genuine love, by potions and ensnarements of the senses. This line has all of these covered. Their foremost weapon is love. When these Patils leave Hogwarts, they will assume another name, other than Patil, and ensnare another magically powerful sucker, to give the Patils ever stronger children." Neville leaned closer to Harry, and whispered as quietly as he could, "Keep your friends close, your enemies closer, and place a twenty four hour watch on those that you love."
Listening to Neville's explanation, the laughter in Harry's eyes died, and was replaced by an shock. Suddenly, Harry felt significantly more trepidation about entering the wizarding world. "Oh shit," Harry breathed.
Neville laughed a bit, before visibly shaking himself, and changing the subject. "I don't like talking about love. Instead, let's talk about magic." Neville grinned, and took out his wand again. "Here, I'll show you the spell my grandmother spent hours drilling me in. Longbottoms are allowed to get trained in other magic only after they've mastered this spell, completely and utterly. He extended his right arm to its fullest extent, and with the look of one who had years of experience at what he did, he expertly twirled his wand so that the tip went around in a perfect circle, and exclaimed loudly, "Tor." Immediately, a large ball of water appeared in the air, and began to morph into different masks, at first ones reminiscent of those utilized in the Greek tragedies, and then later into ones identical to those used by the Samurai in order to scare his opponents. Neville, panting a little, wiped a drop of sweat away from his face, and proudly cast "Finite," on his ball, which disappeared. "The obscuring water. The simplest water spell, but I don't think that just anyone could cast it with the skill of a Longbottom," he boasted. "We're practically trained from birth to use that one."
Harry grinned, congratulated Neville briefly, and then cast it himself, surprising Neville rather badly. Harry's masks had none of the detail of Neville's, but they were a passable imitation, and seemed good enough to earn a, "Damn you to the seventh, Potter. Way to steal my thunder." He raised an eyebrow, and asked, "Who taught you how to do that, if you were raised by muggles?"
Harry's smile turned into a grimace, and he silently dispelled the balls, again surprising Neville. "A professor from Hogwarts gave me a basic introduction. I stopped living with my relatives on my birthday."
Neville felt as if an ice cube had slipped down his back, and shivered. "Well, it couldn't have been so bad, if you learned how to silently cast, and how to use the obscuring water spell so well. And besides, you'll be able to visit the muggles- I mean, your relatives, over vacation."
Harry's eyes seemed to become sharper, and the grimace became a full fledged frown. "I don't believe that you comprehend my words," Harry said, slowly, "I stopped living with my relatives after mybirthday."
Neville, whose goose bumps seemed to have exploded into goose mounds, felt his eyes grow wide, and he nodded quickly, realizing that he'd touched a nerve of a wizard who was probably more powerful than him, and remembered Uncle Algie's warning about touching the nerves of wizards and witches more powerful than you, which his grandmother had termed succinct. Don't. Remembering how entirely sincere his Uncle had been, he froze, like a deer in the headlights.
Harry, realizing that Neville was a little terrified, and that the Patil twins were now staring, warmed his icy anger a bit, and calmly continued. "It was decided that they were unfit guardians, and a new guardian has been chosen for me."
"Who?" One of the Patil twins asked. Harry realized that a mnemonic would be that they hadn't switched positions, so the one on the left would be. . . .
"That's rather private, Parvati," he returned, feeling rather smug.
She simply nodded, and nodded to Padma, who began to speak. "As Parvati and I don't specialize in flashy spellwork like you two, we don't have anything of note to show." She mock pouted, but Neville, who seemed to have recovered, gave them a suspicious look.
"Maybe you could slip a Nott that love potion you've been working on, and give a Goyle a dose of your ensnarement," he sneered, trying to forget his fear of an ally, just a few seconds ago.
Parvati pretended to be hurt, but Harry could see her eyes sparkle. He suspected that Neville saw it too, from the way that Harry could tell that he tensed up, out of the corner of his eye. Padma, after a few seconds, couldn't keep her hurt expression, and simply began to giggle a bit. Parvati, mock glaring at her, said condescendingly, "For your information, Mr. Longbottom, the first enchantment I learned wasn't for making a bloke love me forever and ever." She smiled a little, before she, too succumbed to giggling. "It was extremely amusing to cast the enchantment on Dad. Or at least after we took it off. If you could've seen the expression on Dad's face after he realized that he'd been lusting after a couple of ten year olds for twenty minutes!"
Harry shivered, pretty disgusted, even though Snape had told already informed him that to Wizards, incest wasn't considered taboo, at all, although behaviors that would probably weaken the bloodline invariably were, so often, if it was between a brother and sister, the brother would purge himself as much as possible of his mother's genes, and the sister of her father's, and if it was a Electra complex, then the daughter would purge herself of her father's genes, and if you had an Oedipal complex. . . . Harry forcefully shook himself, to rid himself of the disturbing image, but he could still hear Snape's voice, frankly lecturing Harry on the general rules of wizard kind, which seemed to center mostly around getting more powerful children, not so peculiar in the traditionally magical power driven society that was the world of magic.
If you had a child who was exhibiting surprisingly high amounts of magical power for your family, you would do nearly whatever you could to get that child married to someone in a traditionally powerful family, to make an anomaly the norm. Snape had remarked that it was a regrettable system that was driving the lower classes closer and closer to muggles, but was admittedly making the powerful ever more powerful, quickening the evolution of the race of humans at the expense of many. Snape hadn't mentioned the dearth of love, though. Harry supposed that he thought that Harry had picked up that love wasn't exactly a popular emotion among witches and wizards, or like Neville, had assumed that Harry was sufficiently cautioned against love by muggles. Harry shivered again, as he recalled Neville's fervent warning, and imagined Neville's mother warning him to look both ways as he crossed the street, not run with scissors, and avoid love at any and all costs.
Harry snapped back to the conversation at hand, and realized that Neville was staring with anger at Padma, who was gazing back with an amused look in her eyes, and Harry was suddenly really sad that he had missed the conversation. Neville, with anger in his eyes, turned to Harry, and visibly tried to compose himself, before speaking. "On another topic, Harry, which house do you think you'll get into?"
Harry blinked, and stared with a look of confusion in his eyes, before he realized what Neville was referring to. "Er, well the professor had figured it was a toss-up between any of them. And, well, at my old school, I was always considered intelligent, but from what you've said about Hogwarts, I suppose I'm just another bloke here." Harry shook his head, ruefully. "So I guess Ravenclaw's out of the question. I'm not exactly the bravest guy, I don't really need to prove myself, and I've never had enough friends to be very loyal." Harry smiled a kind of sad smile, and looked Neville in the eye. "I guess it is a toss-up."
Neville frowned a bit at Harry's statement, but quickly brightened, as he moved to talk about himself. "I'm a Gryffindor, for sure. Longbottoms have leaned Gryffindor since Hogwarts was founded, most hunters do, you know, like the Potters post-Grindelwald, and loads of people say I'm nearly exactly like my dad when he was my age, and he was Gryffindor, through and through."
Harry, his interest piqued, decided to let Neville change the subject, and asked, "Who does your dad hunt for now?"
Neville set his jaw, and as if repeating something by rote, said, "My parents were both tortured to insanity shortly after the Dark Lord fell, because they opposed him. They haven't gotten better since."
Harry, his turn to be horrified, murmured his deepest apologies as sincerely as he could, but Neville shrugged them off., with a small smile. "I never got to know them, and I grew up in a good home. Besides, there's a possibility that some new treatment will come out, and they'll get better." Neville almost seemed to sigh, before catching himself. "Relatively, I shouldn't be complaining. You're much worse off than I, Harry."
Harry scrunched his face up, before putting his hands between his knees, and looking down at them, reflectively. "It doesn't seem right to compare loss."
Parvati groaned, and put her head in her hands. "Your lives are so bloody depressing, you're practically making me sorry that no one close to me has died. Stop it. On the other hand, it looks like I'm going to be in Gryffindor, and Padma's going to be in Ravenclaw. So you better watch out, Longbottom. You're gonna be dead meat," she sneered.
"What are you talking about? Dead meat? Why?" Harry asked, puzzled.
"Er, once a week, on either Friday or Saturday, Saturday I think," Neville began.
"Yup, Saturday," Padma jumped in.
Neville continued, totally ignoring Padma, really aggravating Harry, that he'd zoned out for a few seconds. "The four houses get together and have a kind of competition, within the grade. It allows Hogwarts to be a kind of meritocracy. Living conditions aren't bad, per se, but they're Spartan, and the better you do in school, and the more of these competitions you win, the better they get. So, for example, at first it's a typical dorm system, with twenty five kids in a dorm, and you all share a few showers. However, keep a good average for a month, and you get a merit point. You trade in merit points for amenities. So, for example, a shower by yourself is one merit point, a bathroom is another one. A bedroom by yourself is three points, a bedroom with one other person is two, and one with just four people is one for each person. The competitions give you a challenge, and then ask you to compete with other people. For example, my uncle told me that a common challenge in his time was to give a rare, possibly complicated, spell, explain vaguely how to use it, and then ask you to use it to complete a task. Like, say, they tell you the incantation for the obscuring water, the wand movement, and then ask for you to lure a kneazle to a specific location. Another time, they might give you a potions list for a potion, and ask you to make it. Anyway, all of the competitions, except for the last one each month, are worth one merit point. The last one gives you an objective, and asks you to complete it however possible, and it's worth three. Er, right, and each house only lets the first person done win. The rest of the house just kind of wallows in shame for a week. So often, four people, one from each house, will band together, and help each other with the competitions. The quartet will often form a closely knit group, and often become study partners. Er, Harry, if you're not in Gryffindor, I'd be really glad to be on your team."
Harry, kind of overwhelmed by the deluge of information, took a few seconds to realize that Neville was looking for some kind of response to his declaration, and nodded his head absently. "Same to you, Neville."
After that, Padma and Parvati began using their sign language again, to Neville's dismay, who started staring at their hands, as if afraid that they'd suddenly explode, and Harry returned to his book, although not really looking very hard, now. His brain was more than thoroughly occupied with the many things he had learned in the past half hour or so.
The train eventually stopped, around a half hour later, and everyone filed out of the compartment, Neville still sneaking suspicious glances at the Patils, who flounced off with a quick hand signal backwards, which caused Neville to bristle even more, not knowing what it meant. He cursed softly, and gestured for Harry to follow him towards where the practically robotic conductors were pointing. Harry could barely see him in the thick fog, and grabbed his arm to stay with him.
Harry abruptly remembered his levitation charm, and tugged on his arm for Neville to wait while he cast it. He immediately afterwards jumped onto his trunk, and abruptly moved forward blindly, only to bump into a gigantic man, at least seven feet tall, in a neat three piece suit. He smiled down at Harry, and gently moved the trunk out of the way with one of his hands, pointing along with the conductors, albeit moving with the crowd, too. "Come along, first years." He boomed, "You're headed towards the boats. Just jump in, there are stabilizing charms galore." He jogged ahead of the group, and quickly made it to the now visible pier. "Right, three to a boat, don't be shy, step right up, kids."
Harry attempted to maneuver himself onto Neville and some girl's boat with his trunk, when the giant man spotted him. "Hey, you. With the black hair. On the trunk. You weren't supposed to take that with you, you know." He flicked his wand twice, first forward, and then back, and Harry fell off his trunk and into his boat, which his trunk followed up by abruptly flying back off to the carriage. "There you go." He looked around, and seeing that all of the boats had been filled, stepped very calmly off of the pier and onto the water. He walked on the water, his enormous strides quickly taking him from the front boat, to around the middle of them. "Listen up, first years!" he yelled. There was complete silence. "Wands out!" All wands were taken out. "This is a mainly water spell, with a slight travel component, so if you know how to swim, think about how it feels to swim. If you don't, then just do what you can with a basic understanding of water and running. The incantation is "Fazzy". Yeah, it's sounds silly, so laugh it up," he said, to the sound of laughter. He grinned, before continuing. "But it works well enough for propelling the boat forward. The wand movement is a kind of j shape in the water- those of you familiar with kayaking will recognize it as the j-stroke." He waved his wand in the air, and muttered a terse syllable, before a wonderful three dimensional picture of a wand moving in the shape of a 'j' appeared before their eyes. "Er, yeah, like this. Go on, try it kids."
Harry grimaced, realizing that he would be at a disadvantage here, without knowing how to swim, but followed the directions, trying to remember simultaneously the wonderful mindlessness of running, and the cleansing properties of water. When he felt like he had the feeling right, he cast the spell on the left side of the boat, adding his charm to Neville's and the girl's, propelling the boat sharply forward, and veering off to the right. He muttered an obscenity, and Neville yelled forward, over the spray of the water, "Not so bloody hard, Potter. And switch to the other side."
Harry nodded, and quickly complied, reapplying the charm and again causing it to veer in the opposite direction, which was still rather irritating, although very fast. Harry growled, and yelled to Neville and the nameless girl to switch to the same side, to counterbalance Harry's spell. They did, and within a minute, they had crossed the gargantuan lake. Several moments later, the large man ran by them, slightly out of breath. "Great job, you guys. A merit point for you all."
Neville grinned, and held out his hand, palm up, to Harry. Harry stared at it for a second, panting from the exertion of a new spell, trying to figure out what Neville wanted him to do, before Neville grew frustrated groaned. "Don't tell me you've never given someone five before, Harry. C'mon." Harry flushed at his social ignorance, and lightly tapped Neville's hand, before rushing out of the boat, and looking for the other boats, to hide his flush. He couldn't see all of the boats, and so he nervously began casting the spells that Snape had had him learn, so that it seemed nearly like a complex light show. He knew what he was supposed to do.
As he lost himself in the colorful magic he was rather surprised to feel a gigantic hand ruffling his hair, and a surprisingly quiet whisper in his ear, "Je te souviens."
Harry stood there, stunned for a second, before abruptly turning around, ready to question the man, but he was gone, to the head of the group. "Go on, up to the castle, first years," the man stated.
Harry made a face, before quickly charming his sneakers, and beginning to float towards the door. Suddenly, he heard the giant say, "Finite Incantatem" and he was unceremoniously dropped to the ground. He glared around, trying to figure out where he was, before sighing and deciding to just walk there. He jogged ahead, up to the giant front doors, and then slumped over, pretty tired after both the magical exertion and the jog.
Several seconds later, he was rather surprised by the same heavy hand, ruffling his hair again. "Can't have you be using magic for everything, you know. Your muscles will atrophy," he chastened. Harry spun around, again not noticing the tall man sneak up on him.
"Who are you, sir?" Harry wondered out loud.
"I'm Rubeus Hagrid. Professor Hagrid to you. I teach third and fourth year illusions, so if you decide you like that kind of charm . . ." Professor Hagrid winked at him, before quickly casting a muttered charm on himself. Instantly, the professor was replaced by a petite blond woman, around one and two thirds meters tall, in a flowing green dress. Except it "You'll be able to learn charms like this in my class, if you want," Hagrid began. wasn't Hagrid's voice anymore, but the voice of a young woman.
Harry's eyes went wide, and he breathed, "Wicked."
"But it's only an illusion," the professor reminded him. "Here, wave your hand over my head."
Harry complied, and was rather surprised to feel a warm body under his hand, and to see the woman's breast move when he did it. "I'm sorry kid, I don't think we're far enough in our relationship yet, for you to be touching me there," Professor Hagrid joked. Harry turned pink, and looked away. Professor Hagrid, still chuckling, reversed the spell, and was suddenly looming over Harry again. "See, it's not as useful as transfiguration, which really gets the job done, but it's much simpler, and much easier on your magic reserves. 'Waste not, want not'," he quoted, "Is my mantra, so glamours of all sorts are my forte. Come on, it seems like the rest has caught up." He turned to face the gathering crowd, most of whom were panting, and raised his voice again. "Is that everyone?" he asked.
One of the kids who was panting hardest, raised his hand, and after the professor nodded at him, responded, "There are some who couldn't get the spell to work, they're still stranded back at the water . . . thing." he panted, clearly too worn out to think coherently.
"Lake?" someone prompted, jeeringly.
"Yes, thank you. Lake," he blandly responded, amidst half-hearted laughter.
The professor ignored it, and simply created a dove, which Harry couldn't tell was real or illusionary, and sent it off back towards the lake. He addressed the group again, saying, "Right. You bright kids have passed the pop quiz with flying colors. Of course, you all have to be kiddie geniuses to attend, so I suppose you're just the guys and gals who woke up on the right side of the bed this morning. You guys all get a merit point, which you can trade for an easier life at Hogwarts. And the first boat gets two, because you guys are clearly so superior."
Neville pumped his fist in the air, and whooped unembarrassedly, to the amusement of his peers, who laughed. Harry grinned, but settled for a purely mental victory dance.
"I won't explain the entire merit system to you guys right now, your house mates can fill you in, but for now, know that the reason that you'll want to trade in these points are because conditions aren't so–"
"Holy shit! A bridge!" a student interrupted. This was followed by a little bit of laughter, but only a little, because most of them were in fact distracted by what was, in fact, a gigantic, semi-translucent bridge, reaching from back at the lake up to near the front of the castle, that seemed to be forming out of mid air.
Professor Hagrid, irritated at being interrupted, rolled his eyes, and chastened the child. "Kid, however apt your statement was, please refrain from that language in a public forum. And don't interrupt me. Hypothetically, if I trusted you as far as I could throw you, I'd probably trust you a quarter mile." This too was followed by laughter, considerably more than before, and the student flushed, abashed. "Anyways, as I was saying, the living conditions aren't exactly fit for a king, although if you trade in your points, they can become similar to those fit for a king. There will be little contests through which you get more merit points, and you will be rewarded merit points for not messing up too badly in school, and for saving the world and what not. Er . . . note. Saving the world will get you loads more points than doing your homework, because we feel that given a choice between doing your charms essay and subduing a dark wizard bent on the apocalypse, you should probably choose subduing a dark wizard. Alright . . . er . . . oh, right," he remembered, "Everyone tuck your shirts in, make yourselves look presentable. The other years will judge you by how ruffled you look by this little test, so you're aiming for the epitome of nonchalance."
Harry heard a muttered charm from next to him, and was about to ask about it, when Hagrid continued, "Hm . . . I think I've covered the basics, and just in time. Here come the failures. Go on, point and laugh, kids."
The students did, and the professor let them continue for a little while, before silencing them. "Now that everyone's here, let's go." Professor Hagrid took hold of the two knobs, and motioned for the children to move, before heaving the doors open with a grunt.
The first thing that Harry noticed was the blinding light, a great change from the pitch black darkness of the foggy night. After his eyes had grown accustom to the light, the next thing he saw was that the room seemed rather familiar, as he had seen it on his first visit to the castle. Harry suddenly realized that it seemed almost like another lifetime, even though it had only been a month ago. He could barely imagine a life where people couldn't levitate other people with their minds anymore.
The room looked familiar, but it wasn't precisely the same. For one, it seemed much larger, and for two, there were tons of small, four-person tables, most of which were occupied by four people, typically two boys and two girls, who seemed to trust each other completely, although there were around one in seven that were bereft of people. There was also a table off to the left side of the hall that had roughly twenty people seated there, none of which seemed to have the comradeship that the foursomes shared. There was also a table off to the right side of the hall that was completely empty. Some of the people looked at Harry's fellow first years with mild interest, although most of them simply continued to converse with their . . . table-mates, for lack of a better word.
"Is that all of the first years?" the tall headmaster inquired. Harry wondered briefly how he could be so easily heard over the din of the room, but realized seconds after his initial thought that it must've been magic. He briefly wondered what couldn't be done with magic, before going back to examining the room and listening to the conversation.
"Yes, Headmaster Dumbledore," the giant easily said, respect tinging his reply.
The headmaster nodded in reply, and stood up, before screaming, "Quiet!" as loud as he could, which happened to be very loud, as his voice was still under that voice enhancing charm. Instantly, there was silence, as pretty much everyone in the room quickly stuck their fingers in their ears. Satisfied that there was silence, Headmaster Dumbledore smiled broadly, and began. "We'll start with the sorting, and then move onto changes in rules and the food."
The already seated kids watched with mostly bored expressions, although a few of them watched with interest. When Harry followed their gazes, they typically seemed to be aimed towards people who seemed to be family members, although he felt rather self-conscious with the knowledge that many of the kids out there were staring anxiously at him, probably more "Je te souviens-ers." Harry concentrated kind of vaguely on the singing hat, which was relatively normal after talking to mirrors who were fashion experts and paintings with the magical equivalent of a PhD. Realizing that everyone had to try on the hat for several seconds, Harry thought of something to amuse himself with, as well as something to distract himself from the stares. He knew what he had to do. His last assignment from Snape, which was actually more of a long-term suggestion than a real assignment. Harry specifically recalled the rather memorable line of, "If you're not a sodding idiot, you'll work on this." Optomancy, or more commonly, eye-fuckers. The art had fallen out of already uncommon use after a group of optomancers had begun using their optomancy to figure out which woman to rape on the grounds of how attractive she was, by seeing through walls to how she looked when she was showering. After the hunters had figured out what they were doing and disseminated the information to the general populace, the name, "eye-fuckers" had caught on, and with the capture and imprisonment of the last eye-fucker, people began to not bother learning it, deeming it fairly embarrassing, and tricky to learn, magical art.
Optomancy was never a very common art because it required extensive training to simply learn how to change your eyes into a form of binoculars, which could much more easily be done with the genuine article. Few people could learn to alter their eyes skillfully enough to pass to the next part, which involved seeing the unseen, and through solid objects, and months, if not years, could be wasted. However, as Harry had been unconsciously using optomancy for years, Snape reasoned that the rest would come simply, and had shown Harry how to use his spectacles to help himself train, by forcing them to remain on one setting, and forcing his eyes to accommodate the new setting.
Harry pulled the glasses out of his pocket and donned them. Instantly, he began to get a headache, but by simply concentrating on being able to see again, his headache quickly subsided, and his vision returned to normal. He wondered if it was even quicker than it had been yesterday, and supposed that it probably had been, before grinning. Professor Snape really was a genius.
Harry took off the glasses, and repeated the exercise, although this time it was getting his eyes back to normal, instead of letting him see farther. Around halfway through it, he realized that the intimidating lady with the grey hair was calling his name, as if irritated, and someone was punching his arm. He jerked forward, his eyesight still not back to normal, and somewhat unsteadily made it towards the hat, unused to the suddenly great distance from the ground. After several seconds of wretched walking, he did his best to focus his eyes on the hat, and then closed his eyes, in order to control the dizziness he was beginning to feel, simply concentrating on walking in a straight line.
When they noticed this, some of the kids started to jeer and laugh, although all of the jeers seemed to be extraordinarily short-lived, Harry noted. He opened his eyes, realizing that he wasn't walking straight towards the hat and stool anymore, and readjusted his walking, deciding to not close his eyes for the remaining twenty or so meters. He surprised himself when after six strides, he closed what he had thought were twenty meters, and in fact stepped over the stool. Harry thought that the grey haired woman scowled a little as she handed him the hat with as much pomp as he supposed one could have when handing over a hat. Again misjudging, with his newly lost depth perception, he reached directly towards her forearm by accident, and had to run his hand along her arm in order to prevent himself from another hat-grabbing related mishap, causing her scowl to deepen. Harry closed his eyes, sat on the stool, and as cooly as he could, after stumbling all the way from the entrance to the middle of the hall, donned the hat.
Instantly, it was as if he had been transported into complete darkness, so dark that he couldn't see his hands as he waved them in front of his eyes. It was chilling, and absolute, and Harry briefly wondered why no one had screamed yet. He speculated that perhaps the darkness had prevented sound too, and experimentally mumbled, "Darkness, weird." Hearing himself quite clearly, he realized that it was probably some kind of bizarre side effect that only cursed him, of wearing the hat, pulled his wand out of his front pocket, and cast, "Finite Incantatem."
The darkness didn't go away, and he cursed under his breath. "No dice," he heard, echoing eerily from all around him. Harry's eyes widened, but he did nothing more than clutch his wand a little more, realizing how powerless he was in the situation. Suddenly, the darkness was gone, and the familiar, albeit blurry, hall was there again. "Ravenclaw!" a voice from somewhere above Harry's head rang out. The echoing voice came again, and simply laughed, long and hard.
Harry quickly took off the hat, and the laughing stopped. He returned the hat to the lady without standing up, and took a minute to adjust his eyesight back to normal. Harry was rather close to normal when the woman tapped him on the shoulder, and with harsh scowl, commanded, "Mr. Potter! To the first year table, this instant!"
Harry nodded and complied, this time moving easily, surprising the woman greatly, so much that she stuttered a little as she called out the next name.
Harry walked over to the first year table, not even truly acknowledging that he had been placed in a house, just puzzling over the hat's trial. He reached the first year's table, and finding a seat next to Neville, sat down heavily, mumbling, "That was bloody neurotic."
Neville turned to face Harry, and nodded heartily. "I started flailing around, and screaming at the hat, and it gave me Gryffindor, house of the brave. Weird logic."
Harry cocked his head to the side, and expressed his own experience. "I just used a bunch of different spells. It probably decided that I could keep a level head in a crisis. The screaming and the flailing of limbs could be considered, 'raging against the darkness', as a coward might've simply shrunk into a ball. Perhaps a Hufflepuff would've simply kept at it with a light charm, and a Slytherin would've figured that everyone had the same experience, and worked to make himself look the best."
Neville nodded slowly, and murmured that Harry was probably right. "After all, you're one of the smart ones, eh?" he joked, elbowing Harry. "Congrats." He began to look a little nervous, and sat on his hands unconsciously. "So . . . er . . . wanna work together in the contest dealies?" he asked, hopefully.
Harry nodded yes, to Neville's relief, before asking Neville, "I don't suppose that you saw where the girl who was in our boat went? She seemed to grasp that spell even quicker than the 'great watery Longbottom'," he said, ribbing Neville.
Neville scowled, elbowed Harry, and jerked his head to his and Harry's left. "Another Gryffindor. I was thinking that maybe she could join us, but I suppose she's going to be an enemy."
Harry smiled, and said, "Yeah, I was considering her as a candidate for team Potter/Longbottom." Harry's grin turned smug, and he speculated, "I suppose that great minds think alike, eh?"
Neville smiled, and was about to respond when Dumbledore's voice rang out again, "I'll cut to the chase. New stuff is on the board, don't go into the cordoned off corridor unless you've got a death wish, and chow down. Thank you."
There was an extremely short lived round of applause, directly followed by people 'chowing down', readily and loudly. Harry and Neville didn't speak much, although they decided to eat together again tomorrow, in order to determine a time slot in which their group could meet.
At the end of dinner, Harry was led by the prefects up several flights of stairs to what the prefects called, "Wing Ravenclaw," and then into a gigantic room that was called, quite simply, "Main Dorms," or as Penelope, one of the prefects, joked, "The Living Quarters that Kind of Really Suck." They were divided up by gender, with the boys sent to the right side of the hall, and the girls sent to the left side. From there, the male prefects showed Harry and his fifty or so other classmates the shared showers, shared bathrooms, and laundry room.
Ravenclaw's head boy, one Peter Davies, advised Harry and the first years to use their first few merit points on getting out of the shared showers and getting house elves to do the laundry and garbage. "After you've got house elves cleaning up after you, you wonder how you ever did without it," he said, "And besides, if Hogwarts' elves doesn't give them enough labor, they start killing themselves and no one wants that to happen." There was a sort of shocked silence from Harry and the muggleborns, and the prefects and head boy took that as their cue to leave.
After the shock wore off, the boys briefly fought over who would get the cot with the 'best location'. Harry decided against it, and headed straight for the back of the hall, along with a few other boys, the most timid of the lot. He knew it didn't matter. He sat down on his bed, and started taking off his shirt, when his trunk materialized next to his bed. Harry raised an eyebrow, and opened his suitcase to unpack into the tiny dresser next to his bed. He knew that he should do it early. In the end, he couldn't fit in all of his khakis, and opted to keep two pairs of them in his trunk, alongside his books and other materials.
Harry quietly passed his classmates, who were still fighting and now resorting to the few spells they knew, and took a shower, before returning to his bed, where he lay in bed for around an hour, before he finally went to bed. He knew that it was the right thing to do. He managed to get to sleep an hour later, blocking out the din of the rest of the room, in order to be fit for his first day at school. He knew.
A/N: Ugh, finally. I actually wrote more than half of this right after I posted the last chapter, so it's kind of sad that this took so long. However, school ends soon, so updates should be quicker, instead of once a month.
Edit: Thanks to nonjon, an awesome writer, and an awesome reviewer, for pointing out the mistake in this chapter. Neville cannot physically lean towards himself. Also, thanks to Fojio, who later pointed out that Souvenir is a reflexive verb. Thank you.
Edit the Second: Thanks to Traveller, who pointed out that dollars are not used in the UK, much less in magical UK.
Okay. Readers, please read this. This isn't some stupid ploy to make reviewers review more, (although that's a pretty good idea) I'm seriously interested in who can figure this out first. This story has a plot that actually takes over JKR's, and makes hers a sub-plot of sorts. But... you have to figure out what has happened first. When you do that, I will change the title of my story to better suit it, (this is an old title that doesn't fit at all, and I actually have a title planned out) and make a big revelation that makes the plot obvious.
HINT "I dunno. It's Witch to me."