Wit of the Raven
Chapter Nine
On Saturday afternoon, rumors ran rampant through the ranks of the first years like a bird on the wind. Everyone knew that there was going to be a challenge, but what could it be? Harry's group, which had decided to take Fred and George up on their offer to join the Vikings, decided to ask the twins for advice.
After explaining what they wanted, Fred and George looked at each of them, and after a silent exchange, grinned. "Good call, asking us for help, kids," Fred commended. "The first is always Herbology, although it's unsure what kind of a task it will be. I remember that last year, for the first challenge, we had to uproot mandrakes, and later on, there was one where you had to get through a modified devil's snare in order to reach a key, and one at the end of the year that was puzzles in conjunction with the regular challenge, which I think was Identification. I'm not sure."
With that advice, Harry decided to bring all of his possessions, excluding clothes, along with him in his trunk, shrunken and lightened. After gathering the materials, he met with Daphne, Hannah and Neville in the great hall, as they had agreed, in order to wait for the proctor of the challenge to make the announcement of what it would be.
Since the proctor wasn't scheduled to make the announcement until about half an hour later, at eight o'clock, Harry decided to take an inventory of what everyone else had brought, and upon hearing what they had done, he was glad that he had brought everything. Neville had a grand total of one wand and three dungbombs, for slowing down competing groups, while Daphne had only her wand, and Hannah had a pen, a knife, some paper for drawing circles, a magical light, and her wand. Harry refrained from asking them to collect more equipment, since he didn't want them to risk being late, and possibly miss what the proctor had to say.
Five minutes before the proctor arrived, Neville mentioned something that Harry hadn't considered. "Action by consensus will simply slow down the mission. We should have a leader."
Daphne nodded, and before anyone else could say anything, blurted out, "Yeah, and it should be Harry."
Harry said nothing, slightly afraid of messing up, but also slightly proud of being considered leader material. He knew leaders were great. Neville seconded the motion, giving Harry a look that brought to his mind the words 'Je te souviens'. Hannah shrugged, and Harry nodded. "Okay, I'll do it," he announced.
Daphne smirked at him. "You didn't have a choice, anyways," she laughed, while he rolled his eyes.
A few minutes later, as the hall completely filled up with wide eyed first years, eager for their first challenge at Hogwarts, Professor Sprout appeared abruptly on the stage that had been put there temporarily, and after casting the voice enhancing charm on herself, cleared her throat to attract attention to her. "Attention, first years," she called. "Your task is to go to the F. Forest, collect a cutting from a giant ash tree, as well as a kilogram of dirt from the forest floor, and a sprig of bloodwort." With a smile, she commanded, "Go!" and the race was on.
Harry gestured for them to follow him outside, and after seeing Granger awkwardly perform the Connect: Movement spell on her shoes, and the boy from the Portkey at Diagon Alley strap on a pair of boots, he had an idea. He enlarged his Windstaff, but then had to consider means of transportation for the rest of them, seeing as they hadn't gotten to actual flying in magical transportation class. Suddenly, he remembered what they had been doing in charms all week had ultimately led up to. Excitedly, he picked a blade of grass, and after enlarging it to the size of a sheet, asked Neville if he had any drying charms. Neville responded by drying out the sheet of grass, which had turned more rigid than flexible. Daphne, getting the idea, added a full stillness hex, as Harry had intended. Harry flashed her a quick smile, which she returned, and Neville glared at, before Harry asked Neville to perform the Connect: Movement charm on his Windstaff and the sheet of grass. He did so, after thinking for a few seconds, and then Harry mounted the Windstaff, and instructed Neville, Daphne, and Hannah to get on the grass.
"Ugh, this is really hard on my ass," Neville complained. Harry sighed, and opened up his trunk, looking for something to cushion his passengers' asses.
A blanket caught his eye, and he pulled it out of his miniature trunk, before enlarging it to its former size. He motioned for the three to get off of the grass, and lay the blanket on it before casting a sticking charm. After thinking for a second, he whispered, "Rot," turning the tip of his shrunken staff red, and then drew a rune on the blanket, convincing the air surrounding the blanket that the blanket was in a position of significantly less pressure. Turning his staff back to its normal brown, he motioned for the other kids to step on. They did so, marveling at the increased level of comfort. He smiled, and mounted his windstaff, about to start flying, when Hannah voiced her complaint, reminding him of his obligation.
"Won't it break?" Hannah worried.
"Nah," Harry replied nonchalantly. "The variant on the stillness hex that Daphne used on it was used by the Norse so that they could ski down mountains on their enemies' spinal cords. It'll hold." Looking her in the eye, he smiled. "The question is," he began ominously, "If you can." After quickly teaching everyone the sticking charm that Granger had used to climb the walls, he sped off towards the forest. Passing Granger on the way out, he heard her scream something, but what it was got lost in the wind.
A few minutes later, they arrived, and Harry instructed Neville and Daphne to let go of their charms. The grass promptly fell to pieces, and Hannah shivered. "Hannah, can you quickly conduct a search for bloodwort and ash?" Hannah nodded, and after quickly flipping through Harry's copy of Magical Herbs and Fungi, she located 'ash', and set up a search for within fifty meters, looking for the distinctive eihwaz rune hidden in the bark. Within two minutes, it located a tree, and Hannah and Harry went over to the tree to collect four cuttings.
Borrowing Hannah's knife, he was about to just randomly cut off bits of the tree, when he felt, in the tree, the right place to take a cutting. Excitedly, he realized that that must be part of his bloodline, and carefully, he followed his instincts. With smooth, calm motions, he lopped off bits of the tree that he could tell wouldn't be harmful to the tree, and put the four cuttings into his pocket.
Returning to where Neville and Daphne were waiting, Harry was happily surprised to see that they had already fashioned containers for the dirt, using a dead tree, a burning spell, and a cleaning spell, and he placed a cutting inside each of the containers.
Hannah repeated the feat of finding the plant with the bloodwort, but couldn't find it in the low light. Harry had an idea, and used his optomancy, partially suppressing his cones, and partially activating his rods in order to enable his eyes to find a patch of it. Harry was about to pick the bloodwort, when he had a bad feeling about it, and decided to put on a pair of dragon-hide gloves first. He carefully grabbed it at the bottom, and pulled it out of the ground, roots and all. Harry did the same for three other herbs, and quickly walked with Hannah back to the waiting pair, and deposited the bloodwort in the containers.
"You probably shouldn't touch this with your hands." After making sure that the bloodwort was secure in the wooden pots, he shook the excess dirt off of his gloves, and smiled at the group. "Okay, we're good. Who wants to make the sheet? Neville?" Harry asked, happy with his success.
Neville bit his lip, and began reluctantly, "Well, no offense Harry, but Daphne and I have been talking . . . and we think that it we're more likely to preserve our lives if we just walk back, instead of taking your crazy stiff blanket idea." Hannah nodded, and looked apologetically at Harry.
Harry shrugged, not really hurt, although slightly disappointed by their lack of drive to succeed, especially Daphne's, given her house. "Okay, your loss." The three of them started walking back, and he flipped through his standard for a spell that would keep liquid from sloshing out of your glass, ideal for transporting coffee without a lid. He found it, and after casting it, and testing out his lid by shaking the container heartily, and seeing that none of the dirt fell out, he shrunk the container, put it in his pocket, and flew back to the castle.
Dismounting right outside of the doors, his expression was serene, while his heart was beating quickly. He dispelled the shrinking charm on his container, and walking over to Professor Sprout, handed her the bloodwort, cutting of the ash tree, and dirt. "The Potter gene strikes again," she muttered. Looking Harry in the eye, she asked, "Would you mind taking off your gloves so that I can see your fingers?" He took off his gloves, sliding them into his pocket, and showed the professor his small hands, front and back. After a few seconds of observation, she nodded, and smiled.
"Well, you get one point for finishing, two points for coming in first in your house, two points for coming in first overall, a half point for keeping the root structure intact for the bloodwort, one point for not hurting your hands, and a half point for taking a good part of a tree, so as not to damage it. Seven points overall." Pensively, she asked Harry, "How many merit points do you have now, Potter?"
Thinking for a second, he waited for a second before nodding. "Twenty three and a half, ma'am."
"Holy shit!" she blurted out before blushing, and coughing nervously. "I mean, good work, Potter. But, ah, it's not too good to just hoard all of your points, since they disappear at the end of the year."
Harry's eyebrows rose, and he asked, "Can I buy insurance that my points will come back to me next year?"
She nodded reluctantly, and said, "Ten points."
"And that my benefits will stay with me?" he asked.
"Another ten points," she said grudgingly. "You should really be spending them on things like a room for yourself," she admonished Harry.
"No thank you," he said with respect, "I kind of like the too-close . . ."
Whatever Harry had intended to say was cut off, as Granger rushed in, panting, and still dispelling the Connect: Movement charm on her shoes. "I've won, professor!" she panted, exhilarated, her short hair spiked up, like she had just gone flying.
"Well, a close second place, at least," Sprout let her down gently.
Surprised, Granger looked to where Sprout was point, at Harry, and her face grew red with anger. "F–" remembering that Sprout was there, she quickly changed her wording. "Screw you, Potter!" she hissed.
"Well, there's a spot of enmity," Sprout commented.
"Love you too, Granger," Harry joyfully announced.
Sneering at Harry, she dug bloodwort out of her pocket with scabbed over fingers, and cuttings and dirt out of her other pocket. The bloodwort had been hacked off right before the roots, and the Harry could tell from a meter away that the cutting was too long, and might have damaged the tree. Sprout lifted an eyebrow, and sighed. "Well, you get one point for finishing, and two points for finishing first in your house, ah, Granger, yes?" After Granger nodded, she continued, "You can also go and see the resident healer, because you weren't supposed to touch the bloodwort with your fingers."
She quickly snuck a glance at Harry's fingers, which he happily wiggled for her, before she bit back a growl, and said, "Yes, Professor. Thank you."
As she walked towards the Healer, who she had seen before for her burns, and for her near Burnout, Harry followed her, teasing her. "Hmm, maybe you should do a little research before you pick your herbs, next time, Granger."
"Fuck you, Potter," she muttered, speeding up.
Harry changed his speed to match hers, and smiled. "And it's such a pity that you only got second place. There were a few more points in there for you if you had only paid a little better attention in Herbology, Granger. I just guess that some people are . . . you know, naturally gifted," he insinuated, "And some of us are . . . not."
She glared at him again, and sped up some more. "Yeah, right, Potter," she grumbled. "I looked you guys up. You've probably known what bloodwort was and the common potions it was involved in making since the age of three. I'm a muggleborn, for your information, and I've only known about Magic since June. That means that I've had only three months to study all of this shit, so you can shut your fucking mouth, right now, you Pureblood sissy fucktard. Besides, you're a Potter, and everyone knows that they've had fucking crazy green thumbs since fucking 600 BCE."
"Maybe, maybe not," Harry muttered, deciding to avoid the topic of his relatives. Pity could be useful, but he had a feeling that Granger didn't have much of it to give. He remained silent until Pomfrey had ordered Granger onto one of the beds in the room, and had begun to spread out a restorative paste onto the affected parts of Granger's skin. "How many points do you have?" he asked nonchalantly.
She gave a quick grin, followed by a grimace, and a quick intake of breath, as Healer Pomfrey hit a rough spot. "Sorry dear," she soothed.
"Yeah, suck it up, Granger," Harry whispered in her ear.
She glared at him, and sticking her chin up in the air, crowed, "This makes it eight points."
Harry blinked a few times, before laughing a bit. "I mean, before you subtract for stuff that you've used for points."
She looked at him in confusion. "Well, after I've subtracted that stuff, I'm at five." Putting her good hand, her left, in front of her, she counted off, "Hospital expenses for the rest of the year, two points, and a shower for myself, one point,"
"Now don't go touching bloodwort again. Jesus knows why Dumbledore keeps that stuff on the outskirts of the F. Forest. It's plenty dangerous already," she complained, finishing off smearing the ointment on Granger's fingers.
"Thanks," she muttered ungratefully. Looking at Harry, she asked, "How many do you have, Mr. Hotshot?" Then she whipped her head towards the Healer, and confusedly asked, "And I thought that you guys had different Gods than us."
The healer looked at Harry, who smiled demurely, and made a half bow. "Well, I think my friend told me that Jesus is the current god of healing, but, you first, Madame Pomfrey."
She smiled a bit at Harry, "Why, you little charmer. It's good to find someone with good manners at this school, what with all of the kids thinking that they're smarter than you."
He swelled with pride as she pointedly looked at Granger. It was good not to antagonize people in positions of power. He knew it.
"Anyways, Miss, Jesus is the only God of Healing we have right now, no matter how crappy he is at it." She closed her eyes and sighed as she wrapped a bandage around Granger's fingers.
"How is he bad at doing it?" Granger asked, clearly intrigued.
Pomfrey cast a spell on the bandage, turning it invisible, and started drawing some runes on Granger's fingertips. "Well," she explained, her speech broken up into little bits because of the intricacy of the task at hand, "He's not, ugh, you know, twist that finger a bit? Thanks, a very skilled healer himself. Old Asclepius could bring the back the dead, he was so good, but Jesus? Eh, a few miracles here and there, completely regenerated a few limbs. Nothing a– you have to let me see the palm of your hand, it needs some bogus runes for the Arithmancy to work out– a starfish couldn't do. See, Asclepius was a regular human, his healing power twice squared by his mother's sacrifice, you see, and then Yahweh, who had some personal interest in Jesus, arranged to have Asclepius kidnaped. None of the Gods of Death were all that happy with him anyways, so it was pretty easy to convince them to help Yahweh, the primary God of Fear, to cage Asclepius. He's still somewhere, just caged, waiting to get back at Jesus, the Usurper. But for now . . . he's all we've got, so we invoke his name, despite his feebleness."
Granger and Harry had remained silent through her explanation, excluding a few murmurs of pain from Granger, but at the end of it, Granger piped up. "Powers twice squared? I've never heard of that," she said, much more courteous now that she knew that the healer had something to offer her.
"That's because you can't do it anymore," she said over her shoulder as she walked back to the back of the infirmary. "Hold up one second," she said, "I need to get a pensieve to remember the right memories for this operation."
"Wow," Granger stage-whispered in delight. "Only the really complicated spells need emotions, right? Like the Cruciatus?"
When she came back, the healer gave Granger a peculiar look. "I find it disturbing that the Cruciatus is the first powerful spell that comes to your mind." Harry giggled a bit, and Granger turned red.
"What does the Cruciatus do, Healer?" Harry asked.
"The most indescribable pain, Mr. Potter," she whispered, making him strain his hearing in order to hear it, "Like a thousand needles stabbing you all over your body, a million times a second, that simply increases in pain the more you get used to it. Except–" She paused for a second, and spooning silver from the bowl into her head, she began speaking again. "Except . . . not at all. Like a combination of brands and freezing ice, hammering against your skin. And a zapping feeling, but . . . as I said, it's indescribable."
"Was this cast on you, Healer?" Harry asked quietly.
She nodded. "You need to endure it for ten seconds before you can be authorized for actually doing surgery, and dealing out pain to other people." Pulling out her wand, she moved it in a complicated set of subtle flicks with counter flicks behind it, ending with the wand on Granger's temple, and the word, "Praetexe".
"Holy shit," Granger murmured, awestruck, staring at her hand, where the runes had disappeared into the skin.
"That was magnificent, Healer," Harry breathed. "What did that do?"
Healer Pomfrey bit her lip, and shrugged. "Maybe nothing. Mr. Potter, can you do me a favor and grab a hold of your foul mouthed friend's hand?"
"We're not friends," Granger grumbled, letting Harry take her hand.
"Can you feel the bandages anymore, Harry?" Harry felt all around Granger's hand, which had become rigid the instant he touched it.
"No professor, it seems completely normal and warm to me," he replied, letting go of her hand.
"Excellent!" she exclaimed. "And can you dump some water on her hand? Here," she conjured a glass of water, and was about to hand it to Harry, when Granger grabbed it out of her hand.
"I can do it just fine, thank you very much," she said snootily.
Madame Pomfrey rolled her eyes, and watched as Granger poured water over her hand, and it gushed right off of an invisible force a quarter of an inch away from her hand. "Wicked," Harry breathed, and Granger seemed to be impressed in spite of herself.
"Test it again, Mr. Potter?" she commanded.
He nodded, and took her hand, once again feeling only her skin. "Nothing but skin, Professor," he declared.
"Excellent. Now, what were we talking about?" she asked, washing her hands, and ignoring the small green man, who rushed in from the corner and with a flick of the wrist and sharp cutting motion with his fingers, cleaned the water off of the floor, and seemed to disappear into thin air again.
"Ah . . . what was that?" Granger asked, astounded.
"Muggleborn?" the Healer asked. "You're usually much more polite than this. It's usually the pretentious purebloods I have to worry about. What's the world coming to?" she asked, looking into the air.
Granger pursed her lips, and as Healer Pomfrey continued, Harry smiled. "A house elf, for your information. Very useful."
"The school will lend you the service of House elves for a point a month, Granger," Harry offered helpfully.
"I guess that makes me at four points when I get back to my room then, Potter," she whispered. "Amazing."
Madam Pomfrey slapped her on the back, and she jumped off the bed, after giving the Healer a brief thanks. "It's not problem," she responded, happily. "By the way, you were wondering about twice squared powers?" she asked.
Harry nodded eagerly, and took Granger's spot on the bed. Granger scowled, and motioned for him to shove over, which he did quickly, letting her have a seat. "Ah, story time!" the healer sarcastically proclaimed, clapping her hands together with a fake smile stretched all over her face.
Again, Granger struggled to keep herself from giving the healer a full out sneer, while Harry laughed out loud. "Come, come, Healer Pomfrey!" he chanted excitedly, "Tell us a story!"
She smiled at Harry, and rolled her shoulders while she spoke. "Well, one of the old Gods of Magic, perhaps Hecate, Thoth, or Agwu– probably Agwu, I'm guessing, he always liked specificity, made a rule that in exchange for any and all ability to do other forms of magic, you could pump up one thread of magic. It was to be used by crappy witches or wizards, in order for them to become relatively useful and productive witches or wizards, even if it was only in one school. This went on fairly nicely for, say, a few hundred years, until someone figured out a loophole in this. There was a woman, who loved her son very much. Well–"she squinted one eye, and looked towards the ceiling with the other. "I suppose you need a little background information."
Sighing, she began speaking again. "Well, records say that the more of your magic you gave up, the stronger you would be– for example, one guy gave up all magic except for the lifting spell that you now call leviosa. His was, of course, much longer and in Aramaic. Before, he had been extremely weak, incapable of lifting anything larger than a smallish cow, but afterwards, he could lift a house. In comparison, a similarly weak fellow, who gave up everything except for transfiguration, couldn't even manage anything more complicated than human to stone. Now, listen carefully. An extremely powerful, but sickly woman, had a very strong healer as a son. The woman had taught him all that she knew, but it was difficult for her, because she needed to keep as much of her magic on herself to prevent her from dying. One day, this young man was in a contest with another man, who had a bloodline in healing, to see who was the best healer. There was some great prize at stake, I believe it was the loser's head, and so–"
Here, Granger rudely interrupted her, and asked eagerly, "And this young healer is Asclepius?" she asked.
The healer looked Granger, before rolling her eyes. "Yes, of course he's Asclepius." Shaking her head, she continued, "Anyways, so Asclepius is going to lose his head against this inferior healer with a bloodline, and his mother has an epiphany. Her son is all that she has in the world, and since she never had a daughter, he was carrying her bloodline, too. So, she thinks about what she can do to help him. Initially, she thinks of giving him a bloodline, since neither she nor his father had a bloodline, but realizing that he was of the wrong sex, she looked and looked for a ritual. Eventually, she found this, and even though she was a very powerful witch, she decided to perform it. In exchange for all of her powers except the ability to perform this spell, she powered up the ability to perform the spell, within a specific time frame, and then performed the spell again."
"Ah, Healer?" Harry said, trying to politely acquire her attention.
"Yes?" she serenely questioned back.
"How would that ritual be of any use anymore if she didn't have any magic?" he asked quietly, understanding from the tone of her voice while she told the story that this was one of the great tales of the Magic world, and that he should show it its due reverence.
"Well, we'll come to that, won't we?" she said, seeming mildly irritated. "Quiet, Mr. Potter, this is almost finished." He nodded quickly, and she began again. "So after Asclepius' mother had finished this ritual, feeling her life slipping away because the magics that she had long cast on herself to keep her alive were failing, she called Asclepius into the room, and he held her in his arms as she sacrificed her life instead of her magic in the ritual, granting him preternatural– or, well, more preternatural than usual, magical powers of healing."
There was silence, as if in reverence, so profound that not even Granger could make a catty remark. Harry briefly wondered if there was a magic surrounding even naming the gods, but dismissed it as fallacy. After a few moments, Granger couldn't take it any longer. "And then what happened?" she begged. "Did he win the contest?"
"Yes, of course he won," Healer Pomfrey responded, in a slightly hushed tone, clearly still feeling, like Granger and Harry, the awe of the tale, even though she had known it for a long time. "He found a cure for old age, and raised the Judge's wife from the dead. He's now the only known mortal to also be considered a God."
As Granger and Harry parted, walking away from the Hospital wing slowly, Harry was struck by the intense level of sympathy that he felt for Asclepius, at having been jailed simply for being too good at his art. As he drifted to sleep, with significantly more space in his dorm, from many of the Ravenclaws finally having accumulated enough points to move to either an individual room, or one with fewer occupants, he considered how ironic it was that he, a lowly mortal, was feeling pity for a God.
Over the next few days, Harry took Nectarus' words to heart, and in addition to his other side projects, like the Bonsai tree, optomancy, and Granger, he began to regularly exhaust his supply of magic, which was fairly simple with his overly draining staff. One of the first things that he did with his core analyzer was test how much of his energy it took to cast the simplest spells he knew, and he was quite distressed to see that even a simple Tor or Lumos used up around a tenth of all of his magic, and that spells that he hadn't practiced before could drive the percentage up to a fifth. He hadn't been able to notice it before, because magical cores slowly regenerated through the waking hours, and very quickly while one was sleeping, but in retrospect, he realized that he had been in danger of burnout on nearly every one of his days at Hogwarts.
In fact, he barely ever had to perform more than one or two spells after a full day of magic in order to get himself very close to being out of magic, fulfilling his Magic homework from Professor Nectarus. He took to practicing looping spells, at first peculiar combinations, like Tor and Jak, creating bizarre dancing figures of steam, and after a few days, of similar variety. He borrowed a book called, "The Light Side of the Moone" which documented practically all of the spells for illuminating things that had ever existed, and set about to trying different combinations of light spells, in order to give himself a light show while he was practicing.
After a great deal of experimenting, Harry also came to realize that he didn't find the use of optomancy at all as draining as using regular spells, and that after he had actually performed it, it didn't actually require any additional magic for him to keep his eyes in the form that he had adjusted them to. Harry learned to automatically suppress the activation of cones when he used his light spells, especially since he usually overpowered them to one degree or another, causing his eyes to hurt. When he wasn't practicing on expanding his magical core, he practiced optomancy, mostly making sure that he didn't forget his technique on stretching his lens, and better understanding the cones and rods of his eyes. His latest venture in optomancy was that he had begun to figure out how to use the various melanocytes in his eyes, to go through melanogenesis. He had figured out how to get a neat kind of purplish colour, but was finding it exceedingly difficult to extract melanin from his eyes. At this point in time, it seemed like the only thing that worked very effectively was forcibly pushing the melanin out of his eyes, and then blinking until the tears cleared it out of his eyes. It was, understandably, excruciatingly painful.
After a week of intense studying in the OR, as well as practice in optomancy, and strengthening his magic, he was exhausted when the time for the next challenge came, but simultaneously exhilarated. He had found that he had developed a mental block on studying theory while not in the OR, and that he needed to sleep almost ten hours a day to be up to full snuff, while he had formerly only had to sleep seven hours. He could attribute one hour to the OR, as he had started sleeping eight hours after he had started using the OR, and then had moved to ten hours after he began to make sure that he was nearly magically exhausted every night.
On the rare occasions when he was magically exhausted, had used his hour of studying, and finished his homework early, Harry would go exploring the castle, in order to familiarize himself with it. While walking the corridors, he would often be sidetracked by portraits, who were only too happy to advise Harry on the more interesting places to see in Hogwarts, and some of the secret passages around Hogwarts. Most notably, in his opinion, was an elevator that would take him from any floor of R. Tower to any other floor if he could recite the White Rabbit's first line in Alice's Adventures in Wonder Land, and the still life that when tickled on its pear, shivered before opening the way to the kitchen, which Harry would stop by if he needed a snack. In the week after the first challenge, he managed to search the entire top two floors of Ravenclaw Tower.
Harry continued to meet with the group of four, which was often boring, as Hannah would invariably explain something interesting, but far too simplistic for Daphne and Neville to take a full half hour to figure out, which they always would, Daphne trying as hard as she could to be as far away from the kind of Hunter that Harry knew she was, and Neville flustered by being around his crush. After Hannah had given copies of the code needed to perform the find command on a book, in order to find a specific amount of text, Harry figured out the procedure in around ten minutes, and spent the rest of the time memorizing the code and trying to figure out how it all fit together. It was difficult to determine where one command began and the next ended, especially since he had long since realized that a single command could have three or four different kinds of script in it simultaneously.
It was further strained as Daphne would teach a single piece of combat magic that she had often learned only the night before, sometimes begging Harry for help finding one, so that he didn't learn anything, and could only silently sigh in frustration as Daphne became progressively more nervous about Neville discovering her true profession, leading her to be completely inept as a teacher for Neville and Hannah, only worsening as Neville complimented her profusely at the end of each of her lessons. Neville's lessons were also boring, since he didn't seem to have learned anything beyond the grade one material, which Harry was already marginally familiar with, and didn't have any advice for strengthening Harry's water spells. More and more, the entire group thing seemed like a waste of time.
The Vikings had only approached Harry once, again through Fred and George, and only to say that their first meeting would be on September the 30th, and that he wasn't to bring his group along, since they hadn't proved themselves worthy yet for the ladder.
A week of aggravating experiences with the rest of his group passed, in which the group had bonded without him through playing loads of football and frisbee while he was exploring the halls of Hogwarts, and studying his ass off. He was quite glad, that after hearing that the challenge was on magical creatures, that all of them excluding Harry opted not to attend the challenge, fearing that since none of them had any prior experience in handling the animals that they would be hurt. Harry had only sighed, and decided that he had nothing to lose by participating, suspecting that it couldn't possibly be all that difficult if it was for first years exclusively.
When he got to the place of the challenge, he was moderately dismayed to see that Hagrid, the proctor for the challenge, demanded that they remove all of the items they had taken in with them for the challenge except for writing utensils, their copies of the Monster Book of Monsters, which Kettleburn had distributed at their first class, a pad of paper, and if they had them, their potion kits.
Harry looked around the room, and was surprised to see that the pattern for his group seemed to have held for the rest of the year too, after he only counted fifty heads. He noted that the Patil twins were absent, as was Terry Boot, but that Granger was urgently flipping through the monster book of monsters. He opted not to talk to her, deciding that there was time for that after they had finished the task, and instead practiced refining his optomancy while waiting for Hagrid to speak. Without a hand mirror, he was unfortunately reduced to practicing his farseeing and near sight, since he couldn't be sure that he was generating the right kind of melanin, or anything at all.
At precisely eight o'clock, Hagrid cleared his throat, calling, "Good evening, kids!"
They chorused back half-heartedly, "Good evening," and Hagrid smiled.
"It's just wonderful to see such enthusiasm here!" he exclaimed sarcastically. There were a few laughs, and his smile widened. "I'm sure you remember me from the boat ride over?" He asked. There was a cacophony of yeses in response, and he nodded. "Good, so introductions won't be necessary. Now, a fairy will tap you on the shoulder," he began, conjuring a horde of fairies, "before guiding you to your room, where you will be asked to identify the item on the floor." Taking a deep breath, he continued, "There are refreshments in the back. You will return with the item or items on the floor, and an answer to what it is." He closed his eyes for a few seconds, before opening his eyes again, and whispering, "Go."
A fairy landed on Harry's shoulder, before flying off, in the direction of a hallway. Harry followed the fairy, which was absolutely silent, to the door, where it stopped and seemed to be listening for something. Harry took advantage of the momentary lapse in the challenge to study the fairy. It appeared to be around four inches in length, and had iridescent wings, like that of a dragonfly. While Harry was examining the fairy, it began to keen, which Harry took as the cue to open the door.
On the floor of the small room, there were two small rectangular boxes, completely white, and on the back wall, there were refreshments, somewhat comically, milk and cookies.
Harry carefully approached the boxes, not bothering to look behind him as the door slowly closed, and tenderly reached towards the one on the right. He was relatively surprised when his hands went through the box for a few centimeters before being pricked by something sharp. It felt like quills, and judging by the size, he whispered to himself, "A Hedgehog?"
He quickly got out his wand, and cast the standard vocation dispelling charm on the box, and was unsurprised to see two wary hedgehogs staring at him from where the boxes had been before. They both rushed around the room awkwardly, since it appeared that he had accidentally dispelled the charms keeping them still, as well. He quickly cast the body bind spell that he had helped Daphne find a few nights before on the two hedgehogs, before getting out his monster book of monsters, pen and paper.
He quickly wrote out the Find command that Hannah had shown him, wrote 'Hedghog' in the input space, and wet it with a spell in order to attach it to the Monster Book of Monsters. He then stroked the spine of the book, and activated the command by forcing a little bit of magic through his fingertips, much as he had through his eyes to force the melanin out. He had tried to memorize the activation procedure, but it had had far too many Cyrillic and Hebrew characters for him to even begin to find a mnemonic for it.
The book quickly flipped through all of the pages, going from resting on the back to resting on the front. The rite had failed. Harry sighed, and looked at his procedure, and seeing that everything seemed correct, looked at his input. He rolled his eyes, realizing that he had misspelled Hedgehog, and corrected the spelling before giving the slip its activation energy again. This time, it flipped open easily to the page on Knarls. He read,
Knarls. See figure K-10.
Harry looked at K-10, and decided that it indeed looked quite remarkably like a hedgehog.
For the vision impaired, it looks like a Hedgehog. It's not. Hedgehogs like food, Knarls are vicious about food. That's how you differentiate between the two. You offer a hedgehog food, it'll be your friend for three hours. You offer a Knarl food, it'll try to kill you.
Harry smirked at the refreshment table. "Mr. Hagrid, you sure are a crafty bastard." Harry took four cookies, and after dipping them in milk, walked over to the first frozen hedgehog, to whom he offered two of the cookies. He amiably took them, and after he had finished them, Harry put him in another body bind, before charming the tip of his wand green and marking his quills.
Harry went over to the other animal, and crouched in front of it, rocking back and forth on his haunches as he flipped the animal two cookies, before dispelling the body bind. The animal took one look at the cookies, and gave a peculiar cross between a hiss and a growl before charging Harry.
Surprised, even though he had partially expected it, he began to fall on his ass, and the Knarl began to lope up his body, climbing onto his foot and quickly beginning its long journey to, presumably, his head. It was as though something large and scaly erupted into life in Harry's stomach, clawing at his insides: Hot blood seemed to flood his brain, so that all thought was extinguished, replaced by a savage urge to fight. As the Knarl clambered over his knee, he flung it into the air, rolled over onto his front, looked over his shoulder, and connected a beautiful kick with his heel on the underside of the vengeful albeit bewildered Knarl, flinging it across the room. It bounced off the wall and as it was recovering its senses, Harry threw a vicious Petrificus Totalus at it, a ghoulish crimson hue rather than the more familiar weak and semi-opaque pink. Its arms and legs immediately were strapped to its sides, and it let out a nearly metallic clank as it banged heavily, and not-so-gently to the floor.
Harry's elevated rate of breathing began to slow, and he took deep breaths as a horrible headache set in. He was terribly angry at himself for losing his temper so badly– it was almost as if he had had no power over himself, unable to do anything other than fight the poor creature as hard as he could. "Complete overkill," he murmured to himself as he picked up the suddenly petrous Knarl. There was no need to colour it red, he was sure that he could tell from its heft that it was the angry one.
Picking up the other Hedgehog, he swiftly walked back to where Granger was already presenting her Hedgehog and Knarl to Hagrid, who was check its species with a neat penlight that displayed much relevant information, from typical size to gestation period. While waiting in line behind Granger, the exhaustion of casting the powerful body bind caught up to him, and he sank to one knee. Granger raised an eyebrow, and Harry sighed, as he tried to get up, but couldn't.
"A hand, please?" he asked. She sneered, and obligingly held out a hand, which he grasped thankfully, and used to lever himself up.
"Good god you're light," she muttered.
"Gods," Hagrid corrected jokingly. Granger shot a sidelong glare at him, and he chuckled. "Full points, Miss Granger!" he announced happily. "Plus four for first in house and first in year, makes seven. Good show." He turned to Harry, and gestured for him to hand over his animals. Granger hung back, presumably waiting for Harry.
Harry did so, and explained, "The green one is the hedgehog, the heavy one is the Knarl."
Hagrid rotated the animal in hands, muttering, and checking it over with the penlight. Harry instantly saw that he had been correct in his identification, and felt a purr of satisfaction in the back of his mind. Suddenly, while inspecting the Knarl, Hagrid clicked his tongue. "What's this?" he asked, pointing towards a series of broken quills. Harry instantly recognized it as the spot where the Knarl had hit the wall, and sighed.
"The Knarl got a bit feisty after I gave it some cookies, Professor," Harry explained. "I had to subdue it a little roughly."
Hagrid nodded, grimly, and dropped the Knarl on the table, making the sound of rock on wood. "This is a class one Petrifaction job, ah, Mr. . ." he asked, fishing for a name.
Harry knew that he knew Harry's surname, from the incident in front of the castle, but figuring that he wanted to keep it a secret, decided to play along. "Potter, Professor Hagrid."
The enormous man smiled, "Ah, yes. Relative of James Potter? Extremely talented boy, although I wish he had paid a little more attention to his studies than his miscellaneous research. Great sense of sartorial values, too," he gave as an afterthought.
"Hmm," Harry grunted. He somehow couldn't bring himself to care. He chalked it up to the complete and utter exhaustion, and didn't think anymore on the subject.
"Well, you don't get the half point for not damaging the hedgehog," Granger silently and awkwardly punched a fist into the air, behind Hagrid, and he continued, "But, although I'm sure that your friend will be disappointed . . ."
"We're not friends," Granger muttered.
Hagrid continued, "You do get a point for your Class 1 Petrifaction, Mr. Potter, so you end up with five and a half points," Harry smirked triumphantly over Hagrid's shoulder, and Granger just glared. Hagrid chuckled a bit more, and asked curiously, "What spell did you use to induce the Petrifaction, Mr. Potter?"
"Just an overpowered Petrificus Totalus, sir, I panicked when the Knarl attacked," he responded quickly. He had his ideas as to whether or not it was actually panic, but said nothing.
Hagrid nodded. "That should do it. The spell was initially made to induce Petrifaction, but was thrown aside when it was realized that the amount of extra energy needed for Petrifaction could be more easily and efficiently used in a naturally more powerful spell, like Petrificus, which is ironically a significantly more difficult spell to perform at a basic level than the 'Totalus'" he said, using air quotes to emphasize the meaning.
"Oh, that reminds me!" Harry exclaimed, "You teach illusions, right? Why are you proctoring the Magical Creatures challenge?"
Hagrid shrugged. "I like 'em, and one of the other illusions teachers is covering the illusions challenge for this week."
Harry nodded. "That sounds fair," he replied.
Hagrid shrugged again, and turned his attention to the next girl, who was triumphantly holding two squirming hedgehogs. Granger snorted, and nodded towards the piles of stuff by the door.
Harry gave her a quick nod, and they walked over to their items. Harry stuffed his trunk into his pocket, as did Granger. Seeing him glance at it in askance, she admitted, "I took a leaf out of your book." Harry smiled, and she glared again.
"What were we talking about last week?" he asked her, breaking the uncomfortable silence.
"How much better I am than you in terms of points," she gloated. "What's your grand total now, excluding expenses? I've got twenty two," she bragged, her eyes twinkling.
"Oh really?" Harry exclaimed in feigned surprise. "Well I guess it sucks for me that I only have eleven and a half," he replied, giving a half-truth. He started walking back to R. Tower, not really in the mood for converting Granger to his cause, whatever his cause might be, but she stopped him in his tracks with a rough hand on his shoulder.
"Come on, Potter," she hissed. "I know you have more than that. Three from the boat, presumably seven from the last contest, five and a half here, and that's already more than fifteen. I don't want to know what you have after expenditures."
"Will you promise not to argue for an hour if I tell you?" Harry was compelled to ask.
"If it's impressive enough, then yes," she agreed.
Harry shrugged. "Thirty two," he informed her, before changing his path to go to the Library. Looking back over his shoulder, he saw her lips parted slightly in astonishment, eyes wide. "Come on, we're going to the library, and you can't argue for an hour."
She quickly followed him, completely silent. The room was slightly less full than usual, since many of the kids were still competing in challenges, and Harry grabbed an isolated table, where they could talk quietly. Granger sat across the table from him, and Harry smiled benevolently at her.
After another fifteen seconds of silence, Granger ferociously whispered, "So you figured out Magic class?"
Harry nodded. "The first week of school. There was a rune in the bottom right hand corner for silence and stoicism. Do you have Nectarus?"
Granger flushed, and nodded. "Uh, well, I didn't see that, I just didn't feel like moving to read my book, and suddenly, he was right in front of me. We discussed magic, and he gave me the assignment." She sighed. "So . . . have you done the assignment yet?" she asked.
"Yeah, I handed it in as soon as he assigned it. I'd been forced to write it before, after I got EME over the summer."
"EME?" she asked.
"Uh, clinical term for burnout," he replied, trying to forget Snape's admonition not to say burnout.
"Wait, you're bullshitting me," she began to reply, warily.
"No I'm not," he retorted.
"Yes you are!" she hissed back.
"No arguing," he reminded softly. She shut up, and he looked through his trunk for paper, which he pulled out, before showing it to her.
"Wait, that's three pages, not one," she began, after seeing the O.
"Yes, well, my taskmaster over the summer was slightly harder than this one," he said, cutting her off.
She sighed, and asked resignedly, "So how many points did you get?" she asked.
"Ten."
"Ten!" she exclaimed. "I got fucking four! How do you get off with ten?" she asked angrily.
"Sh, this is a library," Harry whispered angrily. "And you're dangerously close to arguing with me," he warned.
"I'm not arguing with you," she said heatedly.
"You're arguing with me."
"I'm not bloody arguing with you!" she forced out between gritted teeth.
"You are right now, Granger," he pointed out. She shut up again.
After around a minute of angry silence, he leaned forward in your chair. "So, were you always a bitch?" he asked conversationally.
"Shut the fuck up, Potter," she spat back at him.
"Is that a yes?" he inquired politely.
She paused for a second, before shaking her head once.
Harry raised his eyebrows. "Any chance for a story on how you became one then?"
She smirked. "It's a dreadful tale of misanthropy and human trafficking–believe me, you don't want to know."
Harry smiled considerately. "Really?" he asked.
Replacing her smile with a neutral expression, she shook her head. "Fuck no, Potter. You think I've got some angst-filled story?"
"Well, I was hoping, but I suppose that beggars can't be choosers. Any chance you'll give me a straight answer?" Harry asked hopefully.
"Look, I agreed not to argue, not to tell the truth, dickwad," she muttered, resting her chin on her fist.
AN: Okay, I was going to continue, but couldn't think of anything to do with it. Thanks for the beta work, you know who you are, and I still need more people to bounce ideas off of.
By the way, if Hermione seemed out of character considering the past chapter, then please tell me, and please cite specific examples. It is extremely aggravating to me when people write things like,
"I've read about "magical exhaustion" or "magical depletion" long before this story, however, I'm not sure if it's such a big deal to "claim." A good story overall rather than a particular story point should be the goal! Also, the surname "Potter" does not derive from pots, plants, and herbology. Its derives from masonry. Good luck!"
Which isn't a flame really, but is dead wrong with the masonry bit. Potter is referring to the occupation of working with earthen clay vessels. I know that it's not to do with herbology, but I didn't feel like having Harry be a master of the pottery wheel, thank you. As well-- yes, magical exhaustion is used in most serious works of fantasy, so that not everyone is omnipotent. It functions as a limiter. I am not claiming that I invented it anymore than I am claiming that I invented Harry Potter. I have no idea where this comment goes from there.
If you're not going to sign in when you write your review, then at least please write your email. I reply to every review longer than two words.
Note: The chapter's title is from the song by Pete Seeger.