Wit of the Raven

Chapter Seven

As the trio arrived at the first greenhouse, they first thing that they noticed was the slightly mildewy smell that came from being perpetually damp. "Ugh, it stinks," Neville muttered. Hannah nodded too, although Harry didn't mind it too much. His cupboard had been close enough to the basement, which flooded regularly with English weather, that it had perpetually smelled pretty much like this. Suddenly, from behind a tree popped out a white haired and wrinkly witch, with a mischievous smile.

"Well, smite me. If you aren't Alice's very image. Did she ever marry that dodgy bloke Frank?"

Neville pursed his lips, barely refraining from all-out glaring. "Yes," he said through clenched teeth, "He's my father."

"Pity what happened to them. You know, I used to be friends with your grandmother, before she started wearing that atrocious hat," the woman continued.

Neville bit his lip. Harry guessed that it was to prevent a sneer from appearing on his face. He replied, "She's still hoping that the eye of Ra will burn Lestrange with fire and brimstone." He breathed in slightly, and with a forced smile, finished, "It is a sort of horrible hat, though."

"Sort of? I hadn't seen its like since Grindelwald bound a live one to his hat in his madder years of life. After being a Dark Lord, that is. A bit of luck that Dumbledore hit him with the memory eraser, though." She turned to Hannah, and scowled a bit. "And you must be Nicholas' daughter. He was never a fan of Herbology. I think his low point was when he arranged to turn Greenhouse 3's glass back into sand, even though he was well out of the program by then."

Hannah looked slightly nervous, and laughed sort of half-heartedly, slightly disturbed by her sudden turn back from benevolent teacher.

The woman turned her eyes towards Harry. "Ah yes, and the spawn of Lily and James Potter. James was always a Transfiguration and Combat enthusiast, which was a pity, since he was a Potter, but Lily reached out into Potion making, and so, was of course forced to take some Herbology classes. Although I never personally had her as a student, my colleagues were exceptionally proud of the diligence with which she handled some of the more complex plants. Such a pity what happened to them."

"Yes," Harry breathed, a sharp feeling of loss suddenly penetrating him. "I would have loved to have known her." It was slightly peculiar, since after having grown up without parents, it seemed peculiar to feel the loss, but the loss felt right, it felt comfortable, and he accepted it.

The elderly woman stuck out her hands, one to Harry and one to Hannah, followed by one to Neville. "I'm Professor Pomona Sprout. You have a class here?"

"Yes ma'am," Neville answered. "I'm Neville Longbottom, this is Hannah Abbot, and Harry Potter. We have you next period."

"Well, just make yourselves comfortable, I still have to finish caring for a few plants in Greenhouse 4." In less than a second, she sprinted off, just a blur.

"What the hell?" Hannah muttered.

Neville was rather dumbfounded as well, and stroked his chin. "No idea. Didn't know humans could move that fast."

Harry smirked, and offered, "Magic?"

Neville frowned contemplatively for a second, before nodding, slowly. "Most likely." Turning to Hannah, he asked, "Are there any gods that might support rituals like that?"

Not quite understanding the conversation, Harry was silent, but eavesdropped, realized that he might be able to glean some more information about wizarding culture from this.

Hannah glanced at something to the right, biting her lower lip. "Ugh, this was one of the searches I made over the summer, too, so I should know this. Um . . . most of the Greek pantheon have body enhancing rituals, and judging by her profession, might be Demeter or Persephone. Although I think that Persephone's ritual has to do with regulating your body temperature, I don't remember Demeter's."

"Mmm, and Longbottoms have always stuck to the gods of water, and none of them that I can think of will do that– but we agree that it was probably a ritual?" Neville asked.

"Yeah. But it's pretty hardcore that a teacher has performed a–"

Harry interrupted them, scowling. "What's a ritual?"

Neville looked at him, eyes wide, before striking his forehead, a look of realization on his face. "Oh, right, new to magic and everything. I keep on forgetting!" He shook his head woefully. "Well, you know how there are gods, right?"

Harry nodded. "Yeah, like Zeus and Minerva. But they're just myths, right?" he asked.

Hannah shook her head slowly. "No one actually knows where they came from. Or, well, if someone does know, then they're not telling. They just started appearing some time, very long ago."

"There are varying theories, like that they're incredibly ancient vampires, but new information is leading us to believe that some gods have been along for longer than vampires, even!" Neville exclaimed. "People have suggested that they're just really powerful humans, and others have suggested that they're from other planets. However, we do know that no one knows where Merlin came from, and he became a god. Of magic, the primary, even before Thoth, who had reigned for who knows how many millennia. Us Brits are rather proud of that," Neville ended with satisfaction.

"But how does that relate to rituals?" Harry asked.

"Um, well, we think that Gods can change the universe, just a little, and not all that often. It seems like they only do it once very two millennia or so. For example, Jesus made this really neat cup that will instantly produce more wine, in an effort to end thirst. He's top god of healing, by the way, ever since Asclepias disappeared. However, back in the day, especially in Greece," abruptly, Hannah interrupted him.

"Wasn't it in Rome? Didn't Zeus just make the spear thrower with the lightning bolts?" she asked.

"Zeus was anomalous, since he was kind of the last of the Greek gods to become known. It was really in vogue to make rituals, and I think that all of the other Greek gods did. Poseidon has this neat one that lets to actually walk on water for brief amounts of time. Longbottoms traditionally like that one, since some of our spells can make an area pretty wet." As an example, he cast a spell that caused water to shoot out of his wand. He directed the water towards the plants for a second, before dispelling the charm. "So you can see why it would be nice to be able to walk on water. However, rituals often require difficult to obtain materials, like hen's breath or fish's toes, so it's unusual to see a teacher go through the trouble to go through with one even though she's not going to be doing very strenuous work."

"Especially since it didn't look like one that would be related to her work. Why would an herbology professor need that kind of speed?" Hannah wondered out loud.

Neville shrugged. "Very sensitive plants?" He rolled his eyes, and muttered, "Although why anyone would ever go through all of that trouble for some stupid plants, I don't really know."

Harry elbowed him playfully. "You're in front of a Potter, Longbottom. Don't knock the flora."

Neville rolled his eyes. "I doubt you keep up your lawn, much less your Whomping Willows, Potter," Neville joked.

Harry smiled serenely. While he Snape was tutoring him, he had started cultivating a bonsai Dream Orange Tree. Deciding to change the subject away from himself, he asked, "What do you think we'll do in this class?"

Hannah looked at him suspiciously, but said nothing, letting him go off topic. "Well, as the kind professor said," Hannah said, "Neither of my parents really had all that great an aptitude for Herbology, so they really didn't tell me anything that might let me be prepared. All I really know is that most herbs need water, soil, air, and sunlight to grow, with photosynthesis."

Harry smirked, feeling his headache go away. "Oh, I know that," he boasted. "Photosynthesis is the process of making glucose, from Photo, light, and synthesis which describes the chemical process." Harry knitted his eyebrows in confusion. "Although it's not technically synthesis, since it's not all converging into just one thing. Six water molecules combine with six carbon dioxide molecules, and form one glucose molecule as well as six oxygen molecules."

Hannah let her neck muscles fall slack, as she looked up at Harry in disbelief, her bangs falling in front of her eyes. "Did you just learn that in preparation for Herbology?" she asked in wonder.

Harry smiled, and shook his head. "Nah, got that before I learned about the wizarding world."

Neville looked at Hannah, and speculated, "Well, you do have to be more intelligent if you don't know about the magical world already."

Hannah was about to reply, but Harry beat her to it. "Yeah, I guess I'm just a genius, pure and simple, eh?" He said, laughing. It was a good answer, even though he could cut down on the bragging a little bit. Very confident. Confidence was great. He knew it.

Hannah laughed a little, and rolled her eyes. Neville laughed too, and looked out the window. After a few seconds of awkward silence, he muttered, "Look."

Harry did, taking the opportunity to practice his optomancy, quickly stretching his lens. Out the window, he saw several kids coming towards the greenhouse. Stretching his lens a little more, and straining his already strained eyesight, he recognized Dock's oval face. "Yeah, it's our class," he said, before returning his eyes to their previous position. His eyes burned, and he blinked quickly in an effort to relieve the pain. Hannah looked at him oddly, but didn't say anything.

After the rest of the kids had filed into the room, Sprout popped up again, and quickly began the lesson. Her full name was Pomona Sprout, she had taught at Hogwarts for seventy years. Harry started at that figure, before remembering that Snape had said that Wizards and Witches typically had longer life spans than the average muggle, maybe twice their longevity. As she spoke more about herself and gave a handout about course expectations, Harry tried to judge her age. Snape had explained that Wizards and Witches stopped aging the same way at around age 18. Taking another glance at his teacher, Harry estimated her age to be around 55, doubled it, and subtracted 20, as another nice, round number. His eyes grew wide as he realized that taking that into account, she was around ninety, and had been teaching at Hogwarts since she had stopped aging the same way.He idly speculated that she must've been a Hogwarts alumnus herself to have acquired what he now realized was such a prestigious position at such a young age– at around 20, most Herbologists would be getting ready to start a five or six year internship with a more experienced Herbologist, after finishing wizarding college. Hogwarts would be the only school that would allow her to gain her position at that age. Perhaps that was the reason for her having undertaken such a ritual.

He was jolted out of his thoughts as Sprout called out, "Mr. Potter?", clearly having moved onto class.

"I don't know, Professor," he calmly replied, although on the inside, he was in turmoil. He knew that he should be making good first impressions.

Neville very slowly beat his forehead against his palm, as the rest of the class tittered. "We're doing an icebreaker, Potter," he bit out between clenched teeth. "Your name and favorite food."

Harry flushed, and still very calm, stated, "Harry Potter, biscuits." There were some more titters, and he had a kind of half-hearted headache, accompanied by the feeling that he should've chosen something different. He scowled, and bit his lip. What would have been better? This had the benefit of being true, and it was probably the food that he'd be most comfortable making for himself. His headache went away, and he concentrated on Sprout.

"Well, that's pretty much all that I had planned out for today. I want all of you to look up two spells in your Standard, though, the one for watering plants and the dirt repellant. Better write it down, Greengrass, or you won't remember it."

Harry thought for a second, wondering what Standard was, before realizing that it was probably the Standard Book of Spells, and whispered it to Neville as he slowly raised his hand in confusion. He nodded in agreement, and put down his hand again. An attractive girl popped the question, and Sprout gave the answer that Harry had expected, along with a quick explanation of te setup of the book. It was actually several very brief books with the rudimentary charms from a variety of subjects– it would be insane to think that children could memorize five hundred spells for just one year, there were really around fifty spells for each subject, which explained to Harry why he hadn't heard of the Vodou spells before. He internally reprimanded himself, and nodded at Sprout's suggestion to use the pop-out illustrations.

"Holy shit," Neville whispered to Harry excitedly.

Harry quickly took his attention away from the professor, who was dismissing the class, and towards Neville, who was staring somewhere else. "What?" he hissed back.

"Look at that girl! She's beautiful!"

Harry looked, and decided that yes, the girl was indeed beautiful, the girl who had asked about the Standard. "So? You told me to fear beauty, that it could be simulated with Potions."

Neville rolled his eyes. "Don't worry, didn't you hear her last name? Greengrass? They're like Potters, I'm fine."

Harry's eyes lit up when he heard the word Potters. "How so? Herbologists?"

Neville gave him a funny look. "No, Hunters. Why Herbolog– oh, right, Potters used to be Herbologists, way back when. Anyways, the Greengrasses have been Huntresses for hundreds of years, and you Hunt with Combat Magic, not with love potions and a pretty face, Potter. Come on, she can join."

"Join?" Harry asked, taken aback. "But we already have two Hunters," he murmured, "Shouldn't we branch out?"

Neville smiled and shook his head, clearly pleased with himself. "Nah, we can have one intel and three combat types– my uncle Algie said that 5 combats and two intels is pretty standard procedure, a 2:5 ratio. 1:3 is only seven hundredths off from that. Besides, us Combats are typically more versatile. Depending upon the challenges, a more specifically based person could be a hindrance. Good?"

Harry reluctantly nodded, and Neville walked over to Hannah, who shrugged, before gesturing for Harry to follow him over to where Greengrass was located, bending over a flower, apparently to smell it. Harry scowled, remembering having seen it before, probably in A Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi, although unsure of what exactly it was. Neville came a little closer, and noticing him approach, Greengrass straightened up.

"Hey," Neville breathed, clearly somewhat flustered by how attracted he was to her. Harry supposed that she was very beautiful, yes, but didn't feel any sort of attraction toward her at all. "I'm Neville Longbottom, and I'm making a quartet in preparation for the Hogwarts challenges. We already have Potter, who's great, and Abbot, who's a haxor. You want in? Three Hunters and a researcher would make a great team."

She smiled politely, adorably tilting her head to one side. Ignoring Neville, she moved her right hand towards Harry's, and he shook it firmly. "Daphne Greengrass," she murmured.

"Great." He replied, alluding to Neville's introduction. She laughed lightly, and Neville sent Harry an edgy look. He ignored it, in favor of the plant that she was clutching in her left hand. It had a sturdy stem with opposite heart-shaped, gray-purple leaves. The flowers were white and occurred in several clusters toward the tip of the stems. He resolved to look it up in his book.

Daphne, still ignoring Neville, asked Harry, "Why me?"

Harry replied somewhat monotonously, still slightly wary of her, marking off notes on his fingers. "Well, first off, we wanted two boys and two girls, we already have Neville, myself, and Hannah, who's a girl. Second of all, we wanted a clean sweep of the houses, so that we wouldn't have any two people who were competing between themselves for the win. Third of all, we wanted someone in our core class, and fourth of all, you're beautiful."

At the last, she gave the light laugh again, and Neville's cheeks turned red. Turning back to a slightly red Neville, she gave him a smile. "I'm in. You make quick work."

Neville let out a small sigh of relief, and smiling, said, "Well, now that we're four, let's get lunch– I'm starving."

The four of them made their way back to the great hall, and although Harry felt fairly at ease, and Hannah seemed to be lost in thought, he could clearly see that Neville was relatively agitated, and that Daphne was enjoying his agitation, perhaps to hide her own discomfort with the arrangement. He tried to look at it from her perspective, and decided it was probably more than a little weird to be approached by someone simply for your name, although Neville had done the same thing to him. In retrospect, he probably should've felt a little more offended, although at the time, he was just happy to have a friend in the school. It was a good way of thinking about it.

They arrived at the great hall, and sat down at one of the small four person tables. Harry tried to make polite conversation with Daphne, since Neville seemed to be feeling too shy to start anything himself, and was surprised to hear that Daphne had hated their Charms teacher.

"She's just too forceful," Daphne complained, ripping her ham sandwich into small pieces, before eating the bite-size pieces.

Harry thought back to the class, and couldn't really see what she meant. "Well, I see what you mean," he lied, "But she pretty clearly knows what she's talking about. Those Vodou spells that we covered weren't touched by the Standard, and I have to say that the vanishing boat exercise was really neat."

Daphne shrugged, Neville looked at his lap, and Hannah bit her lip, still engrossed in thought. Harry sighed inwardly, and whispered to Neville, "Have fun. I'm gone."

Neville abruptly raised his eyes again, wide-eyed in fright, but Harry ignored him, in favor of asking Hannah to go with him to find the Code. She smirked, "I was just thinking about that," she murmured, before letting herself be led to the head table, where the teachers were seated.

Harry looked around for a second, before seeing Snape arguing heatedly with a huge black woman, with the head of Gryffindor House looking on with amusement. "No, you stupid broad," Snape hissed, "Moonstone is quite clearly turned mostly ineffective by growing moss over it, it was shown in those papers from a few years ago. Don't you remember that bruise concealing paste didn't disappear when exposed to sunlight!"

She countered, "That was only type A moonstone. Type B moonstone turned perfectly cl–"

"Type B moonstone also creates a bruise concealing potion that conceals the bruises by moving them to your lower back and then concealing them, and badly! It's a completely moot point!" He interrupted angrily.

"Not in the least! You just need to add orange peel as a reagent, you know just as well as I that the citric acid–" She replied back triumphantly.

"Yes, yes, that concentration of citric acid will make the potion static, but–" Noticing Harry for the first time, he nodded shortly at Hannah in acknowledgment, before asking Harry, "Could you please explain to Professor Johnson exactly why you can't just add in orange peel and make everything wonderful? We looked at this just last week, it was one of our examples for why you have to do research on every material before you make substitutions."

Harry bit his lip before nodding slowly. "Well, you can't use oranges or any of their parts in most healing potions, because dark faeries are attracted to pain, oranges, black, extreme cold, strong shadows, and magic. Three are included there."

The woman sneered at Snape, "Using kids to fight your battles, Snape?"

"Answer the question, Professor Johnson. It'll be so much more crushing when a student proves you wrong." Snape smirked.

She grimaced, before growling out, "All you need to ward away pain faeries is a stronger acid than citric, maybe something with hydrochloric or sulfuric acid will suffice."

"But if you have that much acid in a paste, then it'll burn away some of the skin," he replied calmly, his fingers twitching behind his back. Be calm, be calm, he felt being whispered to him soothingly. He forced his fingers to still, and slowly brought them to his sides. He barely managed to keep from smiling at his good work. He knew that he was making progress.

The professor's eyes stared forward blankly, as she thought it over in her mind. "Fuck," she muttered darkly.

"Language," Snape reprimanded smugly. "You're supposed to be a role model here, Professor Johnson." Turning to Harry, he gave him a small smirk, before asking, "Is there something that you need, Mr. Potter?"

"Do you know from who I could obtain a copy of the Code, Professor?" Harry asked.

Snape let out a low, "Hmm," before slowly nodding his head. "I believe so, Mr. Potter." He concentrated for a second, before pulling a small box out of his sleeve, and handing it to Harry, who grabbed, with a thankful smile on his face. "Now, typically I'd require a merit point for that, but for your advanced Potions knowledge for a first year–" at this, Johnson cursed again, and Snape's smirk grew a little bit, and he continued blithely, "I think you've earned this."

Harry thanked him profusely, before handing the Code to Hannah and walking back to the table. He heard Mcgonagall softly exclaim to Snape, "You're good. Very good, Severus," and could practically feel his accompanying smirk.

She examined it for a second, before exclaiming. Harry turned to her and raised an eyebrow questioningly. She replied, "That professor gave you a really nice copy of the code! It has a built-in developer and evolutionary steel doors!"

"In layman's terms, please," Harry asked as they neared closer to the table.

"Well, you can make your own sites and programs, without making any more circles, that's the developer, and the metal doors are like burning firewalls that keep creepy dudes out. You get it?"

"I think," he replied slowly.

She smiled, and ended, "Well, the long and short of it is that it's better than something you're usually going to give away."

As they got to the table, Harry felt a tug in his mind, and he absentmindedly pulled out the chair for Hannah, as he said, "Well, I did help him show up that teacher, whoever she is. I hope that she doesn't become my teacher. That would be uncomfortable."

"I'm sure she was impressed, Harry, not aggravated," Hannah reassured him. He made a noncommital noise. "I know I was impressed," she continued, "How did you know that professor anyways?"

Neville, looking very uncomfortable, forced his way into their conversation. "Who? What happened?"

"Professor Snape was the professor who checked up on me every day after my birthday. He taught me everything I know. And for your other questions, Neville, I needed to get a copy of the Code from him." Turning back to Hannah, he asked, "When do you think it'll be ready for usage?"

"After this free. And I can install the OR I told you about, if you want."

Daphne had been leaning coolly back in her chair, but at this, she leaned forward abruptly. "You play ORs?" she asked quickly, her eyes lighting up.

"Um, yeah," Hannah replied, clearly not expecting the outburst.

"Britannica?"

"Yeah..."

"What level?"

"Just 27. I stopped after Time Warp came out."

"Oh, I play both."

Neville laughed, silently and somewhat hysterically, and whispered into Harry's ear, "I spent five minutes making up this bullshit about how much I love flowers, just to learn that she only has an interest in them for their utility, and now it turns out that we had a common interest in my favorite pastime. Bollocks."

As Harry laughed at Neville's depression, the two girls' excitement crescendoed at finding another expert at their favorite thing in life, before dying down slowly as they ran out of things to exclaim about. "Well, anyways," Hannah finished, "I happen to have keys for the beta-test version of The Ones Who Lived."

This sparked some more excitement as Daphne's eyes lit up again, this time with an unholy gleam, as she pummeled Hannah with questions, and Hannah replied to the best of her ability. "I'm a bit of a closet OR freak, you see," she explained, "And The Ones Who Lived seems like a perfect mix of plot, user interaction, and caps on people playing for too long. No longer than four hours, which is one hour in the real world, and a post-apocalyptic storyline. It's going to be amazing, I tell you."

Glad that Daphne was finished, Hannah quite happily gave her one of the keys, and Daphne scurried off to install it on her circle. Similarly, Hannah ran off in order to complete Harry's circle, leaving Neville and Harry alone. "Still happy with your decision?" Harry asked Neville snidely.

He held his head in his hands, and shook his head 'no'. "Well, it's too late now," Harry reprimanded him. "Just be more careful next time. Can you explain the je te souviens thing now?"

Neville sat straight up again, and nodded sharply. "Come on, Harry, I'll find us some unused classroom. I think I saw one near the great hall."

Neville had indeed seen an unused classroom near the great hall, and after they reached it, he motioned for Harry to sit down, before pulling over a chair and seating himself a few feet away. "You know how your parents died?" he asked abruptly.

"Yeah, Voldemort killed them," Harry replied quickly.

"And you know how Voldemort tried to kill you, but couldn't?" Neville asked. Harry nodded slowly, and Neville continued, "That's the secret. Voldemort had a cult following that might have targeted you if they knew, and people might want to study a child who could survive the killing curse. Besides–" Neville laughed a little, sheepishly, and looked off to the side. "Who you are– what you are, someone who can survive certain death at a young age, is legendary. People like Merlin do that. His jugular vein was allegedly torn through by a white dragon, and although all accounts say that he bled more gallons of blood than he could possibly have in his body as an infant, his wound sealed up, and he was fine with an hour. He later used the same dragon to receive prophecies from Dagda." He stood up again, and started to pace. "Ausar did it too. He showed signs of extremely strong magic at the age of around one, and his brother Set jealously hacked him into fourteen pieces. He went into a sort of suspended animation, and was later reassembled by his sister Auset, at which point in time his pieces autonomicallyfused back together and he regained consciousness as a two year old. His first words after coming back were 'No no no no no.' Weird much?"

Harry sat there, slightly stunned. He briefly wondered why Snape hadn't told him this, but decided that he probably hadn't had a reason to. "Fuck," he whispered, staring at the back of his hand, still trying to comprehend everything that Neville had said. He bit his lip, and considered his words, before asking, "So who knows? And why?"

Neville took a pensive look. "Well, there was an Order, that fought Voldemort. It was mostly hunters who did it in their free time. My parents were part of that, and were later tortured into insanity by Voldemort's closest followers, so that's how I–"

"Holy shit!" Harry muttered.

Neville nodded, before continuing, "So probably, people who were in the Order, or who personally lost a family member to Voldemort know. My grandmother didn't become informed until after Voldemort disappeared, so she only has one contact in the Order, Mrs. Bones. People who were in the Order quietly became allied with House Potter, which means all sorts of great stuff for you, I'll explain that later, and will say 'Je te souviens', which is a mangling of French for 'I remember'. Apparently, some drunk bastard knew a little French, and suggested it on the grounds that it had class, no one had the heart to correct him, and it stuck." Neville sighed. "Pity, really." Seeing that Harry had nothing to say, he began to describe alliances. "Well, You're known by your House, or Clan, which is a patri- or matrilineal family. Your father was a Potter, and therefore you're a Potter. If you had had a sister, she would have been an Evans." He sat down again, and absentmindedly twiddled his fingers a little, before he started talking again. "Since my House, the house of my father and grandfather, is Longbottom, we are honor bound to protect you under any circumstances, and aid you in any and all financial endeavors. You are typically required to do the same for us, but since you're still not old enough to make that kind of a decision, it's a one way alliance, and could, hypothetically, be broken off at any time. Usually, in a full alliance, that happens when a Clan changes so that its fundamental beliefs are completely counter to that of the allied House. The most important thing about alliances though, is the protecting part. If the heir to an allied House dies when an ally could have been protecting him or her, especially when it's the only heir, when it's a remarkable heir, or if there isn't a current Head of the House, then so much dishonor falls on the allied house that it's not even funny."

Harry bit his lip in thought again. "So . . . why would so many people be willing to ally themselves with House Potter? Where's the benefit?" he asked.

Neville grinned, slightly ferally, showing nearly all of his teeth. "There have been many books written about another theoretical death defying boy. One of the most popular was a children's book designed to introduce the basic premise to small children. It was called 'The Boy Who Lived' and featured a boy who could transmute nitrogen gas into gold with a flick of the wrist. Who wouldn't want to be allied to you, even for just the possibility."

Harry nodded, in agreement, before lifting himself up so that he sat up straight in chair again. He hadn't even realized that he had been slowly falling backwards off his seat. He felt a small twinge in his head, almost as if a reminder not to be slovenly. "Is this going to have any kind of impact on my life in general at Hogwarts?" Harry asked, shaking his head to clear it.

Neville looked to the right as he thought. After around ten seconds, he shrugged his shoulders. "You'll probably be invited to a few more parties, although since we're Firsties, we shouldn't really expect to be going to any parties. After your next birthday, you'll start getting your mail as heir of your House, and you'll be required to attend a lot of weddings and funerals. At this point in time, no, I don't think so." Neville smiled a little, a real smile, his first one since the beginning of the conversation, and snorted. "Unless the Headmaster is the head of the Order too, in which case you probably can't be expelled."

Harry laughed too, and after Neville ascertained that Harry didn't have any more questions, the two of them went their separate ways, Neville to the lake, and Harry to his room, in order to spend the rest of his free period productively.

When he got back to his dorm, the first thing he did was get out his copy of 1000 Herbs, and look up the flower that Daphne had been clutching in her hand. It was lupusnip, a cross between Aconite and Catnip, and was an ingredient in most potions for entrancing wolves, or werewolves. He stared blankly at the definition, before cursing softly. It all made sense now. She was at Hogwarts to learn how to hunt werewolves, and similar creatures– maybe vampires too. The beauty, the lupusnip– He thrust his hand against his forehead repeatedly. "Damnit Neville, there's more than one way of hunting." Harry shook his head, and muttered, "Neville, you poor sod, you should've gone with Dock."

He lay in his bed for a few minutes, trying to decide what to do, and ended up deciding that he should let Neville figure it out by himself. He was probably too infatuated with her to believe it, anyways, Harry figured. "Fucking preteens," he whispered to himself.

Sitting up, he decided to do his homework. He re-familiarized himself with the spells that they were required to know for Herbology, and skimmed over most of the section that was assigned for history homework, before his headache got quite bad, and he had the presence of mind to cast the time spell. He realized that he had only ten minutes to get to his next class, which was on the sixth floor of a different tower, and sprinted to his class, ending up only three minutes late for class, and panting hard. He dragged himself in, and grabbed an empty seat next to Neville.

Although the class was titled Combat Magic, the class itself was mostly an overview of what they were going to do over the year, followed by a brief lecture about playing to your strengths in a duel. The teacher was a man built like a football player, who had informed the class that he was a former Auror, a kind of government hired hunter, and that if anyone messed around in his class, then he or she might find a horse's head in his or her bed. Harry had laughed at this, but stopped when he realized that the Auror wasn't even smiling, and that he was the only person in the class who was laughing.

Harry felt a headache building up, once again, and resolved to pay more attention to facial cues. He was quite happy to feel his headache recede again, and was in positively chipper spirits when they ran off to magical transportation.

When they arrived, discussing the pros and cons of the various modes of transportation offered, they noticed a frazzled twenty-something man, apparently a TA, being coached by a hard-faced woman.

The woman ran off inside, and the man sighed, watching the children play around on the fields. At around 2:37, through the energetic use of a voice enhancing charm, "Sonorous", Harry muttered under his breath, and an enormous amount of wheedling and yelling, he managed to herd them towards the edge of the field, where he began calling roll. When he was around half way through the hundreds of kids, the hard-faced woman stalked back out, and rolling her eyes, took the list of names away from him. She whipped out her wand, and cast a spell on herself, causing five copies of herself to step out of her body. Using the voice enhancing charm, she commanded the crowd, "By last name, A through F in front of me, G through K my neighbor, L through P the middle woman, Q through U the next, and V through Z the last woman. Hurry it up!" She finished abruptly.

Harry and Neville walked over to the middle woman, where Neville was called fifth. After an enormous number of M names, Harry's name was half called out, but the word was ended before she finished the last syllable. "This is idiotic," could clearly be heard, muttered through the lesser voice enhancing charm before, "Mr. Potter, come here, and I'll correct your schedule."

Neville gave him an odd look, and Harry returned it, before walking up to the woman.

"Get out your schedule," she said through the voice enhancing charm, before wincing, and dispelling it. "Get out your schedule," she repeated. He did so somewhat reluctantly, and she was about to tap his schedule with her wand, before she looked him in the eye again, and asked, "You are related to James Potter, right?" Harry nodded slowly, and she turned her attention back to his schedule, tapping it and changing it to '2:35-3:20–Windstaff(OS)Hooch'. "Imagine sending a Potter to choose his transportation . . . ridiculous," she said under her breath. Handing him back his schedule, she looked him in the eye, and said, "You have the rest of the period off, but you're going to have to meet back in the Great Hall at 3:20, for your extracurricular activities." She cast the voice enhancing charm on her voice again, and called the next name, clearly dismissing him.

Harry went back to where Neville was standing, and at his quizzical look, shrugged his shoulders. "I have the rest of the period off, I'm going to do some exploring. I'll meet you back in the Great Hall." After an affirmative nod from Neville, he jogged back to the castle, where he began to wander around aimlessly.

After around five minutes of mindless walking, he ran into a ghost, who he asked where the library was. The ghost thought for a second, before replying in all seriousness that it could be gotten to from anywhere in Hogwarts simply by touching your fingers to the wall and saying, "El Bibliothéque". Somewhat skeptically, Harry touched the wall, and whispered the words. Within seconds, he was whisked away through his fingers by the same mechanism that had taken him to platform nine and three quarters.

He appeared again, and was quite startled by the enormous array of books that instantly appeared before him. A few meters away, Snape suddenly came into existence. This being a relatively common occurrence for Harry, since he had done this several times while staying at the Cauldron, Harry simply nodded hello.

Snape nodded back, and asked, "Don't you have class right now?"

Harry shrugged. "Well, it was choosing your form of magical transportation, and the teacher kicked me out," he replied.

Snape cocked an eyebrow for a second, before nodding slowly in understanding, and cursing under his breath. "Of course," he murmured, "All Potters are bonded to a windstaff tree when they're born. Your staff was shipped to Hogwarts the moment you got accepted." He shook his head. "I should've told you, Mr. Potter, my apologies."

Harry, interested by this revelation, informed the Snape that it was fine, and asked, "Do you know where I could find it?"

Snape nodded, and twisted his right hand quickly, in the hand signal that Snape had taught Harry for use in Diagon Alley. He had told Harry that he wouldn't let him leave the room without a firm understanding of the hand signals, and as a result, Harry instantly recognized it as the command to follow, and did so without question.

Snape led Harry out two gigantic doors from the library, and then through a short corridor, which spat the two of them out in the Great Hall. The two of them continued out to the fields, where Snape walked to an enormous stone building. They walked in, and followed the signs that read, "Student Equipment" until they found an enormous room, the size of a gymnasium, and looked through the P section until they located the Potters' windstaffs. There were then twelve in there, and it took a little time for Harry to find the one that felt right to him.

Turning it over, Harry nodded. There it was, his name, etched in golden letters across the slightly wider back, 'Harry James Potter'. As he gripped it, he felt something twitch within him. It was indescribable for Harry, although if he had had a wider range of experiences, he would have described it as meeting a very old friend again, after a long time away. It was wondrous.

He fought the urge to hug it to his chest, and simply looked up in question to Snape, who gave him a terse smile. "That greatly resembles your father's Windstaff. We were in the same Magical Transportation class for much of our time at Hogwarts." He began to leave the room, motioning for Harry to take the staff, and Harry quickly followed him, with a little trouble because of the size and shape of the staff, through several doors that eventually led to the 'Faculty Equipment Room'. Snape summoned his own staff to him, which was significantly larger, and made of black oak. Instead of walking back out the door as Harry had expected, Snape kept on walking through the room, until he reached a gigantic window. Whispering a password, the glass disappeared, and as the wind whipped around Harry, he suddenly became aware that they were on the third floor. Snape straddled his Windstaff, and Harry quickly imitated him.

Over the wind, Snape shouted to Harry, "The charm is Vol, the motion is kicking off with your dominant foot. Lean forward to accelerate, push the tip down for down, up for up, lean backwards to decelerate, lean left and right for those directions, and jump off for an instant brake. You and your Windstaff will keep moving forward, so it's not really a brake, or advisable unless you're extremely hardy. Ready? You go first."

Seeing that Snape was waiting for him, Harry quietly said, "Vol," and was rather surprised when the Windstaff generated a cushioning charm for his bottom, and lifted his feet slightly off the ground. He leaned forward slightly, and was pleased to see that it worked obediently. He let out a short sigh, before deciding that Snape was undoubtedly watching, to make sure that he wouldn't fall, and his body forward, out into the wind. He was quite surprised when he felt another cushion generate itself, this time behind his back, and as he felt himself jerk forward at an incredible rate, quickly reaching over the forest.

Harry managed to lean back enough so that he wasn't going any faster than he would be going at a walk on the ground, and as Snape quickly caught to him, slowly tried to turn himself around, so that he could maneuver himself towards the castle, in order to get to the Great Hall. He pulled his wand out of his pocket, and spoke the time spell. It told him a quarter after three, and he cursed softly, before accelerating to a running pace, still afraid to go at the intense pace of before. After a few seconds of trailing Harry, Snape pulled up next to him. "You'll spend the first year of Windstaffs learning how to maneuver them. However, the next few years, if you choose to keep looking at them, will be about casting spells with them."

Harry perked up at that, saying, "I hadn't realized that you could cast spells with things other than wands," finding that it was more difficult than it seemed to concentrate on maintaining a steady pace as well as keeping up a conversation.

Snape replied, "Mmm," pensively, and thought for a few seconds, before informing Harry, "Wands are magically natured, but Windstaffs are natured with gaseous fluids, and more specifically, the lightest gaseous fluids. If you were to take a picture of a Windstaff's hypothetical soul–it's like taking the derivative of a number, although I suppose you have no idea what that is–it would be the least dense gas in existence. It would approach zero density. Because of that, you could cast myriad levitation charms, lightening charms, or transfigurations into less dense materials, but even ice to water–impossible. Water to ice, easy. Anything that works with magic and something for long enough becomes similarly natured. The Vikings' boats became riddled with water natured magic, and it became necessary to use a dead man's boat as his pyre, in order to prevent their enemies from getting their hands on them."

Harry nodded quickly, and asked, "Then why did they die out, if they had such powerful foci?"

Harry couldn't see it, as he was too busy avoiding turning or speeding up his Windstaff, but he could practically feel Snape's malicious grin. "It's never a good idea to rape all of your enemies' wives, and then leave them alive. If you're in such a position, chances are that you're pretty powerful magically, and by raping them, you're giving your enemies strong children in the next generation. Also, some of the stronger boats sometimes objected to being torched, and there is very little that is more deadly than a dragon of water and wood. It also eventually became the Vikings against the world, as nearly everyone converted to Christianity, and they were eventually overrun by the Christian Norse."

Harry gave a "Hmm," and bent the nose of the windstaff forward, slowly approaching the ground. Snape followed him, and used a shrinking charm on his winstaff until it was roughly the size of a collapsible umbrella, and slid it into his sleeve. Harry did the same, but put it in his pocket.

"Professor Snape," he said, "I have to go to the extra-curricular thing now, but could you show me later how to do a few of those charms while airborne?"

He nodded, and thought for a second, before deciding, "Bother me on Saturday, in the afternoon. We can get you a little more familiar with flying, and maybe you can test out of this course."

Harry's eyes lit up at this–an opportunity to test out meant more of an opportunity to explore different areas of magic, and he nodded in agreement, before waving goodbye to Snape and jogging into the castle.

Harry quietly entered the Great Hall, apparently in the middle of Dumbledore's speech. From what he could pick up from the rest of it, he had discussed the various activities that one could join. A few that he alluded to were some kind of equestrian club, a club centered around a game called gobstones, and quidditch club, which Harry gathered was a popular Wizarding sport. He ended his speech with a reminder to all students that they had to contact one of the leaders of the club that they wanted to join, and that it was possible to join some of the extra classes, but only for the first two weeks, and that a signed note from a parent or guardian was necessary, along with the money for it.

Harry had initially perked up at the words "Extra Classes", but sighed at the words "Parent or Guardian". He bit his lip, wishing that he could take the courses. Perhaps he could sign for them himself, since in a way he was his own guardian. Harry resolved to ask Snape about it later, and began to make his way out of the hall along with a hundred and fifty other chattering students, trying to find his friends among the crowd.

Suddenly, he heard the headmaster call his name. "Could Harry Potter please stay after?" his rumbled over the chatter. He heard someone laugh, and looking to his right, Harry saw that it was Neville. He rolled his eyes, and turned back towards, the middle, and Dumbledore.

Surprisingly, it was much easier going back towards the podium that had been temporarily erected in the Great Hall for Dumbledore to stand on, than out towards R. Tower, and within two minutes, he was standing next to the headmaster. "You wanted me to stay, sir?" Harry asked respectfully. He felt a slight pride in himself for being so polite, and listened attentively to what the headmaster said, growing happier and happier with each passing word.

"Mr. Potter, thank you for seeing me. Your . . . belated," Dumbledore awkwardly began. Harry suppressed a wince. ". . .Parents arranged for you to take whatever courses you wished if they died. Mr. Potter was a relatively prominent hunter, who quite obviously opposed a terrorist cell when you were born, so they made provisions for you to be educated in the case of their untimely demise. Their fears obviously came to pass, and you can do whatever you wish, by way of extra courses. They signed all of the necessary forms, and have set up a special vault for paying for them. Your father asked me to make sure that you took Experimental Herbology and some kind of hunting course, such as Dueling, or Criminal Psych, and your mother requested general Healing and Healing Potions. You can drop these courses at any time after you've taken at least one of the classes. It is advised that you examine the other courses offered as well, in order to suit your own interests. Your healing class is at four o'clock sharp. Your extra courses schedule will be delivered to you tomorrow morning. Are there any courses that you know that you want to take now?"

Harry, nearly glowing with excitement at the thought of the courses–of course he would be taking Healing and Healing Potions–asked the headmaster, "How can I find out what courses I can take?"

The headmaster frowned, confused for a second, before he nodded in recognition, and pulled a gigantic heap of papers from his sleeve. After looking at them for a second, he wordlessly pushed the papers together, until the hundreds of papers looked like one. He then handed the piece of paper to Harry, and instructed him to touch the section that interested him.

With a little closer inspection, Harry noticed that the paper was a table of contents, and looked up in order to ask Dumbledore's opinion on which area to do things in, when he realized that the headmaster was already walking away. Harry checked the time–it was 3:35, and hurried off to find his group before 4 o'clock.

Harry found them at ten before four, sitting on the front steps to the Great Hall, looking at the lake. Even though they had only known each other for a short time, he felt that there was a comfortable silence, and he was sad that he had to break it. "Hey," he said quietly, sitting down.

Neville jumped up, and turned his head towards Harry, muttering nervously, "Bloody hell, don't do that."

Hannah coolly cracked her neck, and tilted her head toward Harry's. "I have your circle, Potter." She fumbled around in her sleeve, before pulling out a small piece of paper, which she quickly enlarged by tapping it twice with her wand. "Don't worry, it's sturdier than it looks." Placing it on the ground, she motioned for Harry to step onto it. He did so, and instantly, a translucent tile, a tenth of a square meter large, appeared at waist level, two thirds of a meter away from his body. Hannah instructed Harry to place his hand on the tile, and he did so, resisting the urge to remove his hand after the tile pricked his finger, drawing a bit of blood.

After a few seconds, another larger translucent tile appeared, littered with smaller tiles that read things like 'Games', 'Deleted', and 'Music'. "Okay Harry," Hannah said, smiling. "Press games with your hand if you want to get to the beta. It's called, very originally, 'Greek Letters for B.'" Harry was about to touch it, before he remembered his class. He reluctantly stepped off of the paper again, and shrunk it, putting it into his pocket. "Sorry, my parents apparently signed me up for some classes before they died. I have to go to Healing right now."

Neville laughed shortly. "Isn't it funny that you were called out twice today? You must be a pretty important guy, Potter," Neville needled Harry.

Harry sighed, and walked towards the castle, as Daphne asked Neville about what had happened to them during flying. Harry found a ghost who helpfully pointed him towards Hogwarts' healing wing, which was near the Great Hall for easy access. Harry didn't recognize any of the other four kids in the class, which went similarly to how the Charms class had gone, with the Healer showing them a basic accelerated healing charm for bruises on an owl that had run into a window by accident, and then explaining the theory to them. Most of healing seemed to depend upon knowing what it was that was healed, and they spent the rest of the hour examining the chemical make up and properties of blood. After class, Harry asked the Healer, one Hr. Trenchgoat, if he could give him the names of a few books to read to accelerate his learning, and Trenchgoat was only too happy to oblige.

Harry looked them up in Hogwarts' Library, which was organized according to the MARC21 Classification, and was slightly dismayed to find that they were all rather dry textbooks, but checked them out of the library anyways, deciding that if he ever ran out of other reading material, then he could default to them.

After Harry got back to his dorm, he immediately started doing his homework, which he spent two and a half hours on. Directly following that, he alternated between looking over the course catalogue and a book on Wizarding traditions until ten o'clock, at which point in time he changed into his pyjamas and went straight to sleep, dreaming dreams of dueling feet and freckles on palest skin

I've noticed that a lot of people have marked this under story alert. In my opinion, story alert is a kind of silly addition of ffn. If I write a sequel to this, which I intend to do, you won't have any idea, unless you have me on AUTHOR ALERT. I have zero story alerts, but 918 author alerts. Mimic me.

Edit: Thank you Draeconin for knowing that Britain actually uses the MARC21 method and notifying me about it, despite disliking my story.

This chapter might seem weird and bad because the last five pages I forced out with the help of NaNoWriMo, and I'm just generally exhausted from sleep deprivation. It's also unedited. (Not that any of my chapters are edited...) Speaking of which, if you want to beta, I'll email you a copy, but chances are that you won't get the chapters any quicker than anyone else.

Edit: Urk. Two people told me that ice was less dense than water, and yet I still hadn't changed it. Well, I had changed it on my private copy of the story, but not on FFN, which is where it really matters. My apologies, and many thanks to the anonymous reviewer "Tungsten" and the other one, whose name escapes me at the moment.