A/N: Sorry about making you wait for so long. I was going to post this on Monday, but alerts were down. I'm pretty sure they're back up now, so here we go. This chapter has little to no exposition (I'm sure some of you are celebrating wildly right now), and delves slightly deeper into the plot. There were parts of it that were extremely difficult to write, such as the Daphne scene at the end, so I'd like to hear your comments, whether you're going to completely drop the story, etcetera. Many thanks to the people at AFC, who helped me to get off my ass and finally complete this chapter. It's probably my longest as of yet, so you can kind of take that as a consolation prize for the long wait. I hope I'm not too rusty.
Anyway, here we go.
Wit of the Raven
Chapter Ten
A brown owl swooped by Harry's table, laying a small envelope at Harry's place, narrowly avoiding his cereal. It immediately flew back up, and circled the hall, before swooping by Harry's table again, laying another small envelope in front of him. Once more, it went through the process, dropping a third envelope in front of him. A third time, it left his table, and circled the room, but this time, it left the room, heading towards the library, or infirmary.
Harry glanced at the three envelopes, and after noting that they all had his name, pocketed them and decided to follow the owl. Judging by the behavioral patterns it had followed previously, he bet that it still had at least one letter to deliver, and he suspected that it would be interesting to see who he was grouped with.
Harry briefly signaled to his group that he was leaving, but Hannah, who was working on a new command for her circle for more efficiently doing her Spanish homework was the only person who noticed, and absentmindedly waved back. Neville had gotten over his shyness in front of Daphne, and was doing his damnable best to figure out how to flirt with her. He still hadn't realized that she knew what he was trying, and was playing 'hard-to-get' masterfully, although she had occasionally slipped up at some of his more awkward and forward flirts. Harry only wished that she worked as hard at finding new spells, or thinking of innovative ways of using her old spells as she did with pulling the wool over Neville's eyes, stories of which she gleefully regaled Harry with, of his many unsuccessful and crass flirts.
Harry jogged after the bird, which was making its way towards the library. It stopped short at the doors to the library, and settled on the perch outside of the library, as owls, and birds in general, weren't allowed in the library at all. Harry leaned on the wall, before sliding down, jarring his butt slightly as it hit the ground. He took the letters out of his pocket, and opened the first one. It read:
Dear Mr. Potter,
Please be at my office before the 1st of October. There are aspects of your reward for coming in first place in your challenge on Saturday, the 8th of September that have yet to be awarded.
Sincerely,
Headmaster Dumbledore
Harry smirked, and after quickly opening the other letters, he determined that they all said the same thing, albeit with different dates of the month. It figured that she would be in the library during dinner. It had been a couple of weeks since his last real conversation with her, back when they had gone to the Hospital Wing, and he found himself feeling glad to have the opportunity to chat with her again.
Harry walked in, and upon finding Granger, sat right next to her. Intentionally dropping his voice an octave, he gruffly muttered, "Hey."
Without looking up from her book, she whispered back fiercely, "You're not sitting in the right place."
"Wot?" he asked back, his voice still affected.
She traced an awkward rectangle in the table with her finger, still engrossed in her book. "The first person will sit at one corner of the table," she said, indicating roughly where her initial rectangle had started, "and then the second person will sit at the corner opposite from the first person, and the third person will sit across from the second person, and the fourth person will sit across from the first person, and the fifth person will sit directly in between the second and the fourth, and the sixth will sit across from the fifth person, and then the rest will fill in in such a way such that no two people are sitting right next to each other." All of this, she illustrated quite ably while still reading through her book, which Harry noted was on Transfiguration, coincidentally the last subject in which he had trounced her.
"And you're not even supposed to touch a table where there's another person already reading, unless there are no other free ones, and the table is the most empty of all of them. As it's dinner, around half of the tables are free. Go to one of those."
"Wot?" he asked again, barely keeping the laughter out of his artificially lowered voice.
She finally looked up from her book, her eyes filled with anger. "These are the implicit rules of Hogwarts Library. I believe that they are something like those attributed to using a uri–" processing Harry's grinning face, she stopped, opting instead to simply glare at him.
"Wot?" he asked again, his voice back to normal.
"Fuck you, Potter," she muttered. "What do you want?" she asked, all in one breath.
"There's an owl outside with your name on it, Granger," he replied, still controlling his mirth.
"I somehow don't see you training killer owls in your free time, Potter," she hissed angrily. "And keep your voice down. It's a fucking library."
Harry pursed his lips, for the first time since entering the library, losing his smile, concentrating on rectifying his mistake. He hadn't made one for a long time, and the headache was especially painful this time. However, he understood the need to control himself through the pain, and calmly whispered, "My apologies. The headmaster would like to see all of the students who finished in first place about winning the challenge."
Granger gave him a calculating glare, before looking around. She proceeded to pull out her wand, and after muttering a charm, drew her wand's tip across the page number at the top of the page. She closed the book, and Harry idly wondered if he should ask her about the spell, before deciding to do it later, after they had left the library. Granger scanned the book out through the checkout, and scowled at Harry.
"You'd think that they could have a more efficient checkout that would just tell when you left the library, and just checkout the book for you," she muttered to Harry, dropping her book into her backpack.
He thought for a second, before giving a gallic shrug. "I'm sure it's a civil liberties thing. The next step would be tracking the books, and ultimately tracking you. Not sure you really want Big Brother over your shoulder all the time."
Granger glared into the air as she thought about that. "Yeah, I see your point, although I truly think that Hogwarts library could keep a handle on exactly how far they steal your human rights. Maybe put identification devices on cloaks?"
"That would allow fairly simple identity theft, and make it easier to track you. Speaking of tracking, here's your owl."
Granger gave the owl a glare, and wrenched the letter out of its claws, before turning her attention back to Harry. "You win this time, Potter." The owl gave a disgruntled hoot, and flapped its wings frenetically, dropping a feather on Granger, before running off.
"It wasn't an argument, my dear Granger. Go on, open it up, let's see," he retorted cheerfully.
She gave him a condescending look, before tearing it open. It read nearly the same as Harry's, although it had a different date on it. She put it back into the envelope, and stuffed it into her backpack, before heading back into the library.
Surprised, Harry felt his headache coming back. There shouldn't have been any situations in which he was surprised. He'd have to analyze better next time. "Hey, Granger, where are you going?" he yelled, wincing at his own loudness as it reverberated through his aching head.
"Didn't you read the letter?" she shouted over her shoulder, heading into the library again. "Before October first, it's nearly a week away."
Harry sprinted to catch up to her, before she got back into the library, grabbing her arm. "Wait!" he commanded.
She immediately shook him off her arm, before turning. "Why?" she whispered, aware of her proximity to the library. "I can just do it later."
"Come on, we should go now, make a good impression, be prompt, show a united front," he pleaded quietly. "Besides, if he gives us something, don't you want to be able to use it as soon as possible?"
She looked at him, and sneered for a second, before getting a speculative look in her eye. "Okay, but you have to agree to a trade of information."
He looked at her with a guarded expression, unsure of whether or not it was worth it anymore, his continuing headache reminding him of the importance of analyzation. What kind of information had he accidentally revealed? Had she heard about anything that he could do, that made him weird? "What do you want?" he replied softly.
"Something that will give me a step ahead in the game, Potter. We're not all wizardborn, taught this from birth like you are. Give me something that will bring me closer to you," she said triumphantly. "What do you want?"
"The book where you found the page number spell," he replied, pulling her shoulder so that she was facing away from the library.
She nodded contentedly. "Promise?"
"Amen," he agreed. As they walked, he felt around in his pocket for his shrunken books, and pulled them out, glad that he had been reading through them earlier that day. He snapped his fingers, pushing a little magic out of them, and was disappointed to see nothing happen. Granger snorted, and he tried again, snapping his fingers harder, and pushing a little more magic out of them. The middle book enlarged, and he tossed it carelessly to Granger.
She grabbed it out of the air, and growled softly, before rolling her eyes. "Showoff," she accused, before turning the book over and looking at the cover. "Purebloods Are Better For Mudbloods?" she asked.
"It doesn't teach any actual magic, but it's a pretty comprehensive resource on pureblood customs. It's written by a pretty smart guy, who explains Pureblood supremacy pretty nicely, what parts of it he agrees with, what parts of it he disagrees with, and a lot of Pureblood customs," Harry explained calmly, as they strode toward the Headmaster's office.
"What's a Mudblood? And do you know where we're going?" she asked, calming down again.
"Mudblood is a nasty slur on muggleborns, like you, or people who have "muggle blood" in them. And I've been to the headmaster's office before."
Granger smirked. "Why, isn't perfect Potter just the perfect little troublemaker."
Deciding that he didn't really want to talk about exactly why he had gone to the headmaster's office, he raised his eyebrows suggestively. "Is that how you refer to me in your mind, Granger? Perfect? Well, I'm rather flattered, but I'm not sure that I can return the . . . "
She flushed, and looked straight ahead, murderously throwing the book into her bag. "Oh shut it, Potter," she hissed back at him. He smirked, and waited for her to calm down again. After she was calm, she asked in only a mildly irritated tone, "How bad a racial slur is mudblood?"
"Pretty bad," Harry replied immediately.
"N-word bad?" Granger asked, curious. "Or cracker bad?"
"N-word bad, definitely," Harry assured her.
She pursed her lips, and walked more quickly down the hall. "So the author is a racist asshole?" she asked angrily.
"Yup," Harry agreed.
"Are you a racist asshole?" she asked, becoming increasingly angry again, and lengthening her stride. Once again, Harry cursed his short stature, and began to jog to keep up.
"Nope," he declared happily. "Come on, we're almost there," he announced, panting slightly. They took a left from the corridor they were on, to the staircase leading to the Headmaster's office, and sprinted up it, two at a time in an informal race. At the top of the stairs, they both took a moment to slow their breathing, and to try to appear natural, smoothing out the wrinkles in their shirts, before knocking at the door.
The door slowly creaked open in response to their knock, and Harry strode in, closely followed by Granger. "Who is it?" the headmaster called out, not raising his head from the multitudinous papers on his desk.
"Harry Potter and Hermione–" Harry started off, before being interrupted by Granger.
"And Hermione Granger," she said, with a glare at Harry.
He raised his eyebrows toward her, before continuing, "We're here because of the letter you sent, summoning us to your office, since we finished first in challenges."
Finally, the headmaster looked up at them, a neutral look on his face. "Hmm, that was quick. The owl couldn't have gone out more than an hour ago. You both get half a point for punctuality." He turned around in his swivel chair, and rummaged around in what sounded like a file cabinet. "And why did you two come together? Are you part of the same team?" he called out, still facing away from them.
Granger abruptly turned to face Harry, to give him a sneer, but Harry ignored her, and answered the headmaster, "Well, since we're the winners, we figured that it would be nice to show a united front."
He gave a noncommittal grunt, before calling out again, "Why stop at two, then? Why not bring all of you?" He had a vaguely confused air about him, and Harry was reminded vaguely of something in the past, of someone else's confusion at a lack of knowledge. It was a peculiar, hazy memory, almost as if from another's life.
Granger gave Harry another glare, before Harry replied, "Well, we're all of the winners in our year."
He looked over his shoulder at them, and gave them appraising looks. "I'm sorry," he started, smiling disarmingly, "What're your names again?"
"Granger," she replied instantly.
Harry didn't say anything for a few seconds, but after seeing that Dumbledore was seriously asking for his name, even after having two meetings with him, he quickly replied, "Potter."
The headmaster nodded thoughtfully, before diving back into searching through his filing cabinet, plunging the other two inhabitants of the room into an uncomfortable silence. A minute later, he turned around, a veritable mountain of pamphlets in his hands. "What were the themes for the challenge of the first week, again?" he asked.
"Herbology, sir," Harry stated with an air of amusement. "I won that one."
"Er, a standard extraction/retrieval deal?" he queried, looking intently into Harry's eyes.
"Yes sir." he told him.
"Full points?" he asked, nearly before Harry could squeeze out 'sir'.
"Yes sir." he replied, mimicking Dumbledore's quick response time.
"Hmm . . ." he grumbled, levitating four or five thin books into the air with a flick of his wrist. He looked over them briefly, before pulling out a burgundy book, and tossing it carelessly to Harry.
"Second week?" he asked, tossing the rest of the Herbology books over his shoulder.
Harry watched the books rearrange themselves in his filing cabinet while Granger tersely responded "That was me", "Creatures", "Yes", and "Yes", to his questions.
The headmaster once more pulled out a thin book, and tossed it toward Granger, who caught it smoothly with one hand.
"Third week?"
"I won that one, it was Charms."
"Let me guess, standard Learn/Cast?"
"Yes sir. Full points with two point extra credit for a slightly more advanced and controllable form of the spell."
The professor's eyes glinted peculiarly, somehow reminding Harry of a wolf., once again, despite the fact that he had a wide and friendly smile on his face. "Oh, really? Do tell."
"Er, well, I looped Jak and the faux fireworks spell, and the proctor was very pleased by the different shapes I managed to produce."
By now, Harry was nearly certain that Dumbledore was very intrigued, although his grin got a little confused on the way to his lips. He focused his sight around Dumbledore's eyes, and tried to figure out through which of his many wrinkles he managed to convey so much emotion. "Looping, oh? Did you think of using Jill?"
"Jill?" Harry asked, curious. Snape hadn't mentioned a spell called Jill to him.
"Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water," Granger muttered under her breath.
"Exactly. Sort of a misleading rhyme, since they're completely unsuited for that task, but a decent mnemonic. Here, the goal is solidification, incantation is Jill, wand movement is– well, the typical wand movement is a triangle, preferably starting from the top, equilaterally, but the more formal movement is a hexagon, divided into six equilateral triangles, like–well, just look."
He beckoned the two of them toward his desk, and on the back of a sheet of paper, traced out a hexagon, using a blue pen. The tip of the pen made small scritch-scratching noises, giving Harry the impression that it was a fountain pen. After finishing tracing out a slightly lopsided hexagon, he traced radii from a corner to the center, back to another corner, to the center, to another corner, and so on, until Harry could see exactly what he meant. "It's a pain, but makes it much easier to cast the spell. You try it." He drew several quick circles on the table with his wand, and in each of the circles, a pool of water formed.
Harry nodded, before concentrating. When water formed, it became a solid, and solids were usually smaller than water. Water was an anomaly, because ice had a crystalline structure, which through its greater order, forced water to expand. Imagining a lattice in his head, he realized, "It forces order, doesn't it, headmaster. That's why you chose water."
"Good, Potter. And what is order?"
Harry was slightly confused by the question, and simply blurted out, "It's when everything is where it's supposed to be, it's when there's calm in the room, it's . . ."
Dumbledore's eyes looked disappointedly at Harry, and he trailed off into silence. "Rather, what isn't order?"
"Disorder, chaos," Harry responded instantly.
"Good. The word I was specifically thinking of was entropy. And how does entropy relate to the universe as a whole?" he asked.
Harry was silent, and Granger, who Harry had forgotten was even there, piped up, "The entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium."
"Very good, Ms. Granger. So you understand the difficulty of the spell," Dumbledore informed them. Still focusing on his eyes, Harry felt a smirk reach them, almost imperceptibly.
"Muggle upbringing is good for something, eh, Potter?" she almost-whispered to Harry. Harry saw an edge of surprise in Dumbledore's eyes, and an almost imperceptible momentary raise of the eyebrows, before they settled into their previous position.
Harry said nothing, opting instead to try the spell. He pulled his eyes out of their telescopic view, and focused them on the water, and on his wand. He quickly traced through the spell, thinking of the peace within that comes after great struggle, and was about to mutter the spell, when he moved his wand in the wrong direction. He grimaced, and heard, as if from far away, the voice of the Headmaster saying, "Start over, Mr. Potter." Granger, noticing that he was trying it, decided to get out her wand too.
With a triumphant whisper of "Jill," he was filled with the inner calmness that he had been thinking of, and the water swiftly and smoothly formed a short tower within the circle.
Dumbledore made a funny snorting noise with his throat, his eyes showing a very slight level of amusement. "On to the next challenge, methinks," he announced, his voice betraying nothing.
"Er, Headmaster," Granger started, tracing through the spell for her third time. "I can't get the water to do anything at all, could you give me a pointer as to what I'm doing wrong?"
Harry briefly brushed his fingers across the water that Granger was working on, before she swatted his arm away. He smirked, surreptitiously feeling a water that neither he nor Granger had worked on. Comparing the two, Granger's water was significantly colder.
Harry thought that Dumbledore's gaze grew slightly colder, although he had some measure of doubt–they could have grown more amused as well. Without his lens stretched out, he couldn't figure out if the regular wrinkles had appeared in his face that signaled when he was amused. Dumbledore lightly told her, still looking at Harry, "I'm not your tutor, Miss Kramer. You're allowed to work on the spell on your own time." Harry thought that Granger nearly bristled in anger, but was impressed at how well she maintained her temper, considering her usual temperament.
Her one quiet retort was, "It's Granger, sir. Hermione Granger."
Dumbledore nodded vaguely in acknowledgment before he turned his head to face towards Harry again. "And can I safely assume that you won the fourth week's challenge?" he asked Harry kindly. Out of the corner of his eye, Harry noticed Granger tremble, and wished that he had seen the exact emotions that had crossed her face–he had a feeling it would be difficult to predict her actions in the near future. She pulled out her book and began to leaf through it angrily, giving Harry the general gist of her feelings by how violently she was turning the pages. He gave a brief nod.
"It was shaping, yes?" Dumbledore asked, pushing the majority of the thin books off of his desk.
"Yes sir," Harry told him, "wood. Full points."
"Shaping, shaping . . . well, I guess this is close enough." After benevolently handing Harry a newer looking book, although still quite slim, the old wizard abruptly gave them a brief military salute, presumably dismissing them.
Harry sent a questioning look at Granger, who sent a glare back, before stomping out of the room as quietly as possible. Harry quickly followed, trading in the chuckles that he wanted to release for a small smile on his lips. She continued to progress forward with some amount of speed, and Harry, with his significantly shorter stature, was forced to jog to keep up. "Hey, Granger," he panted, after nearly a minute of walking.
"What," she seethed.
Harry smirked through his labored breaths, wishing that he hadn't let his muscles atrophy as far as they had. "Could you either slow down, or help me with my books? I mean, you got off easy, with only one book–these books are really, you know, weighing me down, since I have so many of them," he teased, barely able to keep the laughter out of his words.
"Oh, sod you, sod that old fucker, and sod your stupid fucking books," she muttered, pulling her book out of her pocket. "I skimmed through them, they're worth less than the shit that comes out of your ass."
"Opposed to the other kind of shit?" Harry asked innocently. Granger gave him a basilisk stare, and Harry laughed, before asking, "How so?"
"They're fucking pamphlets for shitty fucking wand goddamn movements that I already . . ."
This time, Harry did laugh. "Shitty fucking?" he interrupted jovially. "Sounds like a sick kind of scatological fetish to me, Granger. Maybe you should be seeing a therapist?"
"Fuck you," she hissed menacingly, before pulling the book out of her pocket and throwing it as hard as she could at him, hitting his squarely in the forehead, and forcing him to drop the books that he was carrying as his hands leapt up instinctively. As Harry stopped to pick them up, she picked up her pace, out of the Great Hall. He noticed that she hadn't taken the book with her, and decided to take it himself.
"Her loss," he whispered, inwardly cursing as he felt a headache coming on. He quickly rationalized that he'd of course return it if she ever wanted it, and that by picking it up for her and holding it in safekeeping, he was actually doing her a favor, and the headache reluctantly receded.
Harry sat down on the steps, stuffing the books in his enlarged pockets before casting Tempus. He had around an hour before his group had planned on meeting, so he walked back to the dormitories to take the opportunity to do his daily "hour" of reading in the OR. He was pretty happy with his space–they had just finished their first marking period, and many of the Ravenclaws had gotten merit points for finishing with O grades, and had moved out of the dormitory, so now he had considerably more space, and he had pushed a few of the beds together for greater comfort. Harry brought his new acquisitions into the OR, wondering idly if any of them would explain how he could fuse together two mattresses, and looked through the titles. They were pretty brief and to the point. Out of "Non-specific Summoning Charm", "Switching Charms", "Kappas", and "Properties of Stinksap".
Harry had had a pretty easy time with charms so far, stinksap didn't sound all that appealing, and from what he had read about Kappas, they were a little dangerous for a first year to be handling, so it was an easy decision to go with one of the charms books. Summoning sounded fairly interesting, so he opened the book to the first page. Surprisingly, it had neither the typical list of other books by the author, nor a publisher's page, and started with the title page. Curious, he turned the page, which was mostly blank space, although along the top it was written, "Put your hand palm down on the paper, and wait five seconds." Rather excited, he put his hand on the sheet, spreading his fingers as wide as they could go, wondering whether or not other students had had to scrunch their fingers together, and counting in his head. After he got to fifteen, he lifted his hand, feeling rather foolish.
Harry glanced through the book, but they were mostly tips on the summoning charm, and not actually explaining how to do the initial casting, or even the incantation. He irritably pulled himself out of the OR, before dumping the useless books on his bed, and pulling out the book on staffs that Ollivander had given him. Angrily, he tore through the preface, before alighting on the first chapter, one that told a magnificent story of the building of the first staff. 170 pages through, he was rudely kicked out of the Other Reality, but he had gotten through to the end of the story, and it was a magnificent one.
A proud Egyptian mage, millenia ago, rides his camel into the East. He has heard tales of a town ravaged by monstrous beasts that descend from the sky, and rip up the last of the remaining forest in the south of Canaan, presumably for their nests. The soil erodes further and further without the trees' roots too hold it together, and the wizards' spells are for the long-term–the trees will be long lived, but it's for naught if they're already gone. He approaches the den of the beast–it's a dragon, thirty feet high and five feet wide at it haunches. He has heard tales of them, but not of how to kill them. He notices that the underbelly is soft, and could be damaged, and returns to the oasis to gather materials. He comes across a partially uprooted balsa tree, bowtruckles awkwardly surrounding it, dying. He approaches, and tears off a long branch. A wood sprite, pale white, rushes out of it, and into another tree.
He makes armor out of the skins of antelope found around the mountain, and carves strong runes of protection, augmented by his blood, into the armor. He comes across the dragon, and faces it head on, running into its midst with his makeshift spear, ready to carve into the underbelly. The dragon slashes three times with its claws, and each time, the magic armor protects him. Finally, the dragon rears up, intending to crush him mightily, but the mage takes the opportunity to skewer the dragon. His branch runs through its liver, through its diaphragm and a great deal of lung, and punctures the heart as the dragon comes down. Blood runs through the porous balsa, and the dragon dies, violently. The soul of the dragon, constantly inundated by magic, and well aware of the world, feels two distinct possible futures, a warm, blood-ridden place, and a cold, harsh nothing. In a split second it enters the staff, and the dragon's body crashes down on the man's. Because of his armor, he lives, but he feels the runes failing under the immense weight. He reaches for his expensive imported sandalwood wand, but cannot, the monster's mass pinning his arm, he remembers that the staff is made of wandwood, and breathes out the clunky levitation charm of the pre-Romans. He feels the dragon's weight pulling quickly off of him, the charm responding much quicker and more smoothly than with his usual wand, and stands, pushing intestines out of his face, moving the dragon a few feet to the side. He drops the spell, the monster falls with a reverberating crash, and he happily walks back to the village, glad that his life is safe, leaning as if it were a walking stick on his make-shift spear, drenched in blood.
Harry gradually shook himself out of his reverie, and wondered if maybe he should take a closer look at the book on Kappas, before realizing that he should have been meeting with his group five minutes ago. He sprinted to the pre-arranged meeting place, and was slightly disappointed to see them relaxing, instead of having started without him. They didn't notice him as he stepped in through the door, and he cleared his throat to get their attention. Neville smiled, and turned around from the desks he and Daphne were sitting on. Harry spared a glance towards Hannah. She was reading from a player's manual to an Other Reality that Harry remembered her mentioning.
Neville indicated for Harry to come over to where the three of them were, and smirked at Daphne, addressing Harry. "We were just discussing the worst pickup lines ever, Potter."
After a few seconds of silence, Harry realized that a response was expected, and eloquently replied, "Oh?"
Neville snorted, before poking Daphne. "Ooh, I just remembered one." He scooted his desk over so that it was right next to Daphne's, and asked her, "If you were a pirate, would you have your parrot on this shoulder," he said, placing his hand on the shoulder closest to him, "or would you have it on this shoulder," he asked, resting his hand comfortably on her other shoulder. They both laughed, and Harry noticed with some degree of annoyance that Neville's hand didn't move from its place, and rolled his eyes.
"Come on ladies," he instructed, drawing a single short laugh from Neville, "We have work to do. Daphne, you start," he commanded. Hannah put her book away in her pocket, and looked intently at Daphne, who awkwardly pulled a wand out of her pocket.
"Er, okay. This spell is Protego, and it creates a small shield around a wand that will reflect most low-level curses, and is best used when you're hiding your main body behind something, but need to be casting curses when putting your wand in, uh, danger." Harry irritably noticed that she was using nearly the exact same words that he had used to teach her the spell when she had come to him yesterday, distraught because she couldn't find a suitable charm. He grimaced, and focused his eyes on her lips, deciding that trying to figure out how to read lips was probably a useful talent for an optomancer like he aspired to be. It was fairly easy since he could hear her, and he wondered if there was a way of preventing himself from hearing her without actually silencing her.
The other two practiced the shield, but Harry decided not to show them his. He had tried the spell by itself, and it had grown far too big, and dissipated in front of his eyes, a great deal of magic wasted for no real gain. He could get it to work by using Jak, but that required a great deal of finesse that he didn't really feel like using, still restless from his time stationary in the Other Reality. Instead, he helped Daphne aid Neville and Hannah in figuring out the shield. Hannah finished it first, and after Daphne threw a few disarming hexes into the shield, after which they dissipated, she went back to her reading. It took Neville a good deal more effort, since it took the three of them several minutes to realize that he was holding too far up on his wand.
After Neville's shield had been pronounced good by Daphne, Harry slid off of his desk again, and addressed his audience. "I'm going to teach the three of you a neat fire spell called Jak. It has two ways of functioning–it can create a cool image in the air, and it can make people dance."
Neville asked, "There's a spell called Tarantallegra. Is that any different?"
Harry nodded. "I've read about that spell." He held up four fingers, and pushed down a finger with every point. "First of all, that spell only affects the feet. Second of all, that spell builds on this one, so you won't be able to perform that one correctly without knowledge of this one. Third of all, you don't need to know how to dance for that one to function, and last of all, this spell is much easier to execute, and requires little to no knowledge of magical theory. Any other questions?"
There were none, and Harry set about showing them the wand movements, and explaining how the Jak was to be pronounced, hard, with an almost popping sound. None of the three had any real success for the first two minutes, and Neville simply gave up, telling Harry that probably his family's familiarity with water prevented him from learning. Harry had a feeling that Neville was just looking for an excuse to give up so that he didn't need to feel like an idiot anymore, but said nothing.
Reflecting upon his initial difficulty with the spell, he ordered, "Stop." The two girls did, looking at him quizzically. "What are you thinking about right now?" he asked.
They looked at each other, and shrugged. "Nothing much," Daphne answered. "Jak. Why it's a popular name. Jack and the Beanstalk, jumping jacks, jacks, just stuff." Harry looked at Hannah, who replied that she was thinking pretty much about similar things.
Harry grimaced. "Well, think about dancing, and about fire, and not about Jack. That's not the important part of the spell. The important part is the product."
Daphne snorted, stowing her wand in her back pocket. "Right, because negative vibes are preventing me from casting this stupid spell."
Harry narrowed her eyes, giving her a calculating look, before turning to Hannah. "And you?" he asked, not revealing any of his aggravation in his face.
In answer, she tried again. Harry and Hannah kept on trying the spell, while Neville and Daphne talked quietly. After thirty seconds of not getting the spell, her pronunciation becoming worse, her wand movements become sloppy, Harry decided that he would have to resort to drastic measures. "Stop," he ordered her again. He moved so that he was standing behind her, and whispered into her ear, "Collect yourself. Your movements were getting sloppy, departing from the original. You forgot to put a pop in your incantation." Harry saw her nod, and smiled. "Have you finished collecting yourself?" he asked quietly.
"Yes," she whispered back.
"Close your eyes. Just imagine what I describe." He took a deep breath, and began, the words seeming to rush together. "You're in a room, no one else is in it, you're all by yourself, the walls are mostly orange, but there are streaks of blue and red in there. You begin to dance. You're dancing, everything's warm, you're on fire, you are fire, and you're dancing, you flicker, you curve, and–" he stopped his improvisational speech, and asked, "You know the tango, yes?" She shook her head no, and he finished abruptly, "Well too bad. One, two, three, cast." His countdown was staccato, and the last word was forte. She cast.
"Jak!" she spelled. Harry saw a marvelous orange ball of fire erupt out of her wand, heard Daphne and Neville exhale quick gasps, and mischievously cast his own, intent on repeating the trick that Snape had pulled on him. She actually led him on a merry chase, surprisingly skilled at maneuvering the ball, putting on a good show for the two onlookers despite her lack of training, although he finally caught up after a few minutes, and was about to consume her Jak when she visibly shuddered, the ball disappeared, and she dropped to her knees.
Harry raced around so that he was facing her again, and asked her, panicking slightly, "What's wrong?"
Tears began to seep out of her eyes, and she panted heavily. "I . . ." she licked her lips, tears still coming out of her eyes. "I don't know . . . " she muttered. She moved her right arm from its place, dangling on the floor, to a few inches above where it was, before returning it to its place. "I'm exhausted, although it's a sort of . . . bizarre," she yawned, "sort of exhaustion. I sort of feel fine, and I'm sort of too lazy to go anywhere" She reached her arm up again, this time managing to wipe the tears from her eyes. "I don't even know why I'm crying," she said quietly.
Harry pulled a silver object, with a small clear screen and two short rods protruding from one side, from out of his pocket, and poked the two rods into the back of her neck. The screen lit up, and gave a red-orange color. Harry cursed, and motioned for Daphne to come over.
Harry kneeled down next to Hannah. "Come on, Hannah, you're nearly magically exhausted. I'm sorry. I must have unintentionally–" he began, before realizing that he shouldn't make excuses. He knew that. "I must have pushed you too hard," he tried again, "and I apologize."
Hannah smiled at him through tear filled eyes, and put an arm around Harry's shoulder. "That's alright. It was fun, and isn't that what we're here for?" Harry was a little bit shocked, but masked it by simply smiling.
Daphne came over, Hannah slid her other arm over Daphne's shoulder, and the four of them walked down to the Hospital. Harry gave a small smile when she nodded towards him when she was able to pay for the Hospital's services in merit points instead of currency, but he remained otherwise silent and unresponsive for the rest of the trip. What was he there for?
Four hours later, after a fun albeit brief bout of Frisbee, Harry was trying to figure out the least amount of magic necessary to slightly levitate a slice of paper, when it occurred to him that he should check the time. A quick tempus later, he determined that he was a few minutes late for his first meeting with The Vikings, and he ran up R. Tower to the pre-decided meeting place. Two minutes later, he was frantically pacing back and forth on the seventh floor in front of the portrait of Barnabas the Barmy, wondering where the hell the supposed meeting room was. Turning on his heel, he gave one final glare at the blank wall, when he realized that there actually was a door there.
Quickly, half afraid that it would disappear again, he rushed in, still panting from his run up the stairs. The first thing that he noticed was many people, sitting in chairs in a circle. The door slammed shut again, and an Asian girl, a little older than him, turned in her seat, and smirked, looking to Harry's left. He looked where she was looking, and saw a gun-like device set up, aimed straight at him. The great scaly beast erupted in his stomach again, and he let loose a guttural growl as he jumped straight toward the apparatus as it let loose a strong gush of water. He very barely managed to stay on his feet, fighting it the entire way, the beast in his stomach roaring approval through the rushing blood and water that resounded in his ears.
Within a few seconds, the water slowed to a drip, and Harry got to the mechanism, before punching it straight on. His knuckles bleeding, his heart still beating quickly, and its pieces on the floor, he panted, bending over and resting his hands right above his knees, and there was a sudden and absolute silence in the room. Abruptly, the Asian girl started laughing.
"He's good," she stated happily. "I don't even know if that kind of a response is covered in psychology books. No flinching, no dodging, no indignant sputtering, there wasn't even the given pause for deciding fight or flight. That was just . . ." she got up out of her chair, which sunk into the floor as she crossed it. Harry noticed that the water was sort of surreally disappearing as it touched the floor, and stood up straighter as she extended her hand. "I'm impressed, Harry Potter. I am Madame Cho Chang, and alongside Messieurs Fred Graham and George Fergo, we make up Therapists."
She turned to the rest of the group, which numbered roughly twenty, in comfortable and large chairs in a slew of different colors, and addressed them, "Vikings. We, Therapists, nominate Harry Potter to become Monsieur Harry Potter."
A beautiful but nondescript and average girl with thinly rimmed glasses slowly uncurled from her forest green chair to come to a standard sitting position. "For whom, Messieurs of Therapists?"
The girl, presumably Cho Chang pointed at Harry, who was wringing water from his drenched shirt. "Harry Potter will become the first of the Pillagers, Madame Miranda Biggerstaff of The Marauders."
"Duly noted, Madame Cho Chang of Therapists," Miranda replied calmly. "He shall be moved to the For Review section." She looked gravely around the room, before curling up in her chair again. She yawned, and asked, "Does anyone have any shit that they need to address, or any books to turn in? I just want to review this dude and bugger off to bed. I'm bloody exhausted."
Either Fred or George raised a single digit into the air, and agreed, "Seconded."
No one said anything, and Cho sat down in the black chair that materialized out of the floor. Miranda gestured for Harry to go to the middle of the group, where a small wooden platform protruded from the ground, clashing with the maroon carpet. He stood on it, and looked expectantly at Miranda.
"Full name, including middle?" she asked, as if by rote.
"Harry James Potter," he responded, slightly distracted, still squeezing water out of his shirt.
"Is Harry a nickname?"
"No ma'am," he answered politely.
"That's madam to you, little boy," she sneered, pointing her pencil at him and jotting something down on her clipboard.
"Yes madam," he replied again.
"House and standing?" she asked.
"Ravenclaw, first year, Madam," he shot back after a moment's thought.
She groaned, and massaged her temple with her eraser. "No, you dullard, House Potter, just say fucking House Potter."
"Not quite, Mira," the blond boy sitting to her right corrected. "Houses Potter and Evans are both currently under his control."
"Is this true?" she asked Harry, peering at him over her glasses. Harry noticed that they were a slightly startlingly clear shade of blue, and nodded slowly. Her eyes dropped back to the clipboard, and he saw her make several quick hand motions over it.
She looked around, and asked, "Is there anyone here who's enemies with either House Potter or House Evans?"
"House Evans is only in its second generation and has no enemies as of yet, Mira," the boy piped up again.
She gave him a frosty stare, and he smiled disarmingly back at her. She sighed, and raised her eyebrows. He gave another nod, quicker this time. She sighed again, and asked, "Well then, is there anyone here who's enemies with House Potter?"
Seven or so people raised their hands, a cluster of people surrounding Mira, and four other people scattered through the group. Mira sighed. "Serious or well established feuds only, no slights, people."
Six of the seven put their hands down, although Harry was pretty sure that one of the three surrounding Mira tapped her on the shoulder, to which she nodded back impatiently. One of the hands stayed up, before falling as Mira groaned.
A girl with thick black hair tied back into a bun, maybe four years older than Harry, raised her sunglasses so that they were sitting on her forehead. "Sorry Mira, me again," she said, not sounding at all apologetic.
"Fucking Snapes," she muttered. "Okay, is there any way that we can avoid all of the ritual bullshit?" she asked, clearly frustrated.
"Potter, are your relatives still in the UK?" the black haired girl asked quickly.
"Yes, but six feet under," he responded promptly, hands once again at his sides.
"We're good," she informed Miranda.
Half of her face curled into a grin, and she nodded. "Excellent. Past awards and services from the school?"
One of the Weasleys stood and walked over to where Harry was standing. "I can cover this, Mira." He slapped Harry's back, and proudly announced, "He got out of Magic Class on the first day, for one." He bent over to Harry's ear, and whispered, "You won any of the Games so far?"
"Yeah," Harry whispered back.
"And he's won a Game. More than Fred or I could boast last year. He's in," he stated decisively.
Miranda tapped her pencil on her leg, speculatively. "You appear to have hit nose gold this time, gents,"she congratulated grudgingly.
"He's not an ass nugget," Fred remarked, sounding highly satisfied.
"Truth. One more question, Potter. Why did Fred and George approach you?"
"Not sure, Madam. Frisbee, I suspect," he replied earnestly.
"Hmm. Good enough. All in favor of membership?" she asked.
Slightly over half of the people raised their hands, and slowly more and more people raised their hands, until everyone was raising their hand except for Miranda and Harry.
Miranda grunted and shrugged. "You're in on a trial basis for now, Potter," she informed him casually, once more uncurling from her seat. "Meeting adjourned. Therapists, debrief the new kid."
"Sure thing, Mira," Fred told her pleasantly as the rest of the kids ambled out of the room. A maroon chair, matching the deep carpet slowly popped out of the floor. "Sit down, Monsieur Potter," he ordered Harry.
Harry sat down, and listened intently to Cho, who had draped a leg over the arm of one of her chairs. "You will go out in search of other members for your group, which is the Pillagers. Also, have you already obtained the book from winning the Game?"
Harry gave a single, short nod. "Yes, but the books are short and not very helpful."
She shook her head no. "You have to put your hand on one of the pages, it should be noted on the book–just do it tonight before you go to bed. You won't be disappointed," she paused for a second, as if collecting her thoughts. "I don't suppose you had the foresight to ask who the other winners were?" she asked hopefully.
"The only other winner was a girl named Hermione Granger, she's a muggleborn Gryffindor," he told them nonchalantly.
Fred's eyebrows raised impressively in response to this statement. "She won three contests? Her first month?"
Harry shook his head. "No, I won three contests my first month."
George gaped for a second, before joining Fred in smiling widely. "You're definitely not an assnugget, Monsieur Potter."
He nodded in thanks, before inquiring, "But why do you need to know the other winners?"
Cho shrugged. "From what we've heard from my buddies about your teammates, they aren't up to snuff. You might end up having to change teams if you want to stay in the ladder. It's going to be very uncomfortable to be in a ladder if the rest of your team isn't. Besides, have they even figured out the first Magic Class yet?"
Harry shook his head, and considering disappointments, he scratched his head sheepishly. "By the way, sorry about breaking your water gun thing. I'm not sure what came over me."
Cho grinned. "Nah, it's fine. It was made out of transfigured parts, and you can't really help if you have a really kick ass trait of blood, can you?"
Harry grabbed his left arm with his right arm, forcing himself to look at Cho no matter how awkward he felt. He knew that he mustn't be a weenie. "Actually, the Potter bloodline runs with Herbology, so I really have no idea what that was."
George snorted. "Maybe it's a new one? Either way, it was very cool. Anyway, you're on a trial basis until you do something to shake up the school a little bit. Be creative. We'll look forward to it."
Harry nodded slowly, ideas running through his head. The four of them stood up, and walked out the door. As they were walking down the stairs, Harry asked, "By the way, why are there only three of you?"
"Number four moved to the Big Apple across the pond, kid," Cho informed him. "We're shopping around, but we still haven't found anyone with the right disposition in our year."
Harry looked at her quizzically. "Disposition? I can't imagine that it's that difficult to find someone who would mind to mix things up at Hogwarts."
Fred groaned. "Shit, we forgot to explain everything. We'll talk another time, Harry, but long story short, an old tradition is that different rungs have different dispositions." Without another word, the three of them walked off, presumably to their rooms.
Harry bit his lip, before opting to go to dinner. It was a little earlier than usual, but he didn't really feel like studying or practicing magic. When he arrived at the Great Hall, he was pleasantly surprised to see his group, sans Hannah already there, chatting amongst themselves. He ambled over to their table, wondering what they had been doing after he had left them.
"Neville," he began, sitting down next to him.
Neville, laughing from one of Daphne's comments, turned to Harry in surprise. "Oh, hey. What?" he asked casually.
Harry shrugged. "Nothing, just wondering what you guys have been doing."
Neville smiled, and nodded at Harry. "Right. Well, we kept on playing frisbee after you got too tired–" he paused before pretending to cough over his utterance of, "midget." After Daphne's giggles had ceased, and he was sure that Harry was still smiling placidly, he continued, "Then we played some exploding snap, and then . . . we came down here, right Daphne?" She nodded happily.
"What Neville is leaving out, however, is that I soundly kicked his arse at exploding snap. What have you been doing, Harry?" she asked, soft glee punctuating her voice.
Harry shrugged, before grabbing a good deal of food, and putting it on his plate. After his plate was heavily laden with food, he answered, "Well, I worked on a few different spells, studied a little, and got some homework done." Harry sighed, before snappishly adding, "I wish I could say that we were all pretty productive, although it appears that, well, we weren't." He rushed this sentence out, before jabbing a potato and stuffing it in his mouth, as if to prevent himself from saying anymore.
Neville immediately stopped smiling, and turned fully towards Harry. "Come on, Harry," he cajoled. "We're at Hogwarts, we're not just here to kick ass and learn stuff, we're also here to have fun. These are going to be the best years of our lives, might as well kick back, relax and have fun, especially while our homework loads aren't that heavy. Chill out a bit."
Harry looked expectantly at Daphne, who quickly nodded. "Yeah," she added helpfully.
Harry swallowed his food, looked back down at his plate, and vigorously attacked his meal. An awkward and near silent half hour passed, interrupted only briefly by Daphne's light hearted teasing of Neville for farting loudly. Neville soon stalked off grumpily, at least slightly put off by Harry's obvious aggravation.
Daphne made to follow Neville, but Harry, still chewing some particularly chewing beef motioned for her to stay. She did, albeit with clear trepidation. Harry finished his meal, and stood up, motioning for her follow him. The two of them walked to where they usually met for their group meetings, and Harry sat on a desk in the room. She imitated him, and sat there, waiting.
After a few seconds, Harry bluntly began, "I'm disappointed." Daphne said nothing, simply looking off to the side, while Harry continued, "In you. I figured that you'd pick up the slack in the group, work your ass off now that you've failed your family and I've given you a second chance," Daphne winced, "but I was clearly wrong. What will it take for you to go on and fucking grow a pair?" Harry asked, rhetorically and assertively.
Daphne stayed quiet as Harry kept his tirade going. "I go off for a few hours, study my ass off, find a neat new spell that you're probably going to use for your contribution to this group, and what do you do? You go and goof off with Neville fucking Longbottom. Do you have any excuse for your unreasonable behavior?"
Daphne looked defiantly back into Harry's eyes. "I don't need an excuse to bond with a teammate," she informed him challengingly.
"I beg to differ," he sneered, losing every pretense of remaining calm, and feeling a headache coming on, "if that bonding is going to get in the way of your helpfulness to the group. Did you even check up on Hannah, who's hospitalized, while you were playing with Neville's emotions?"
She visibly flinched, before standing up, and leaning forward aggressively. "That's a bullshit accusation. Did you go to check up on Hannah, while you were solitarily studying? Just because you're an uptight bitch doesn't mean that the rest of us have . . ." she stopped, before letting her frown slowly turn into a smirk. "Oh, I understand now," she remarked slowly, with a superior tone, rolling back onto her heels.
"What?" Harry asked, irritably.
"You're jealous of Neville, aren't you, Harry, you just want me," she told Harry smugly, whispering out the word 'me' breathily.
Harry's anger disappeared, leaving only his headache, and curiosity. Was she right? Was that the real reason for his being irked? He examined her closely, paying close attention to the feelings that he experienced while his eyes raked her body. She licked her lips nervously, seeming to lose steam, before looking away from him awkwardly and blushing.
Harry shook his head. "No, I don't have a crush on you, Daphne. I just want you to pull your weight in the group."
She met his eyes again, her face still flushed red. "Well, maybe you should pull your weight in the group, Potter," she countered angrily. "If it weren't for me, you wouldn't give any good spells at all to the team. At least through me, worthwhile hunting spells are given. What the hell is Jak, that shit isn't useful for anyone."
Harry narrowed his eyes, before his frown, too, turned into a smirk, and he pulled out his wand, jumping off of his desk. "How about we have a duel, right here, right now, where the only spell I use is Jak, and you use your entire repertoire of spells. Sound good?"
She thought for a second, before nodding determinedly. "Fine, Potter, I'll give you the opportunity to lose to me," she laughed, backing away from him, and brandishing her own wand. She turned sideways, feet two feet apart, before, asking, "What do we actually do here?"
Harry shrugged, glancing around the room. "I think that we count to three, bow, then fight until one of us has control, or submits."
Daphne nodded, and started the count, "One," before Harry joined her on, "two." Her voice was shaking a bit on "Three," but she bowed with her back straight, eyes staring at Harry while he bowed toward her as well.
Without further ado, Harry dove under one of the desks. Undaunted by Daphne's mocking laugh following his action, he quickly tossed his wand from his dominant, right hand to his left, and whispered, "Jak, Jak." A small red ball appeared above his hand, and gradually grew out into a thin red line as he looped the spell around itself, snaking it across the floor, and around to Daphne's feet, although he restrained from letting it touch her. He watched her feet moving across the floor to the other side of the room, figuring that she thought that he'd be unable to physically or magically overpower her all the way across the room, and let the red line follow her unobtrusively. Once she was all the way across the room, and it was obvious from the set of her feet that she had taken her initial dueling stance again, he leapt up from under the desk, and let the red line sink first into his hand, and then into her leg.
Confused at the sudden warmth, and change in her stance to match Harry's, she muttered, "What the fuck . . ." and screamed as she realized that she had completely lost control of her movements, and was making seemingly random small steps to the right, left and in circles.
Harry laughed, making the same small steps in various directions. "This is as close to disco as I know, and you should have researched Jak before insulting it, Daphne. There's a form of the spell that forces someone else to perform a dance that the caster knows, and although I'm not knowledgeable enough to cast that one, I can quite easily manipulate the spell to make it so that your dance mimics my dance perfectly." Harry clenched made a fist with his right hand near his left thigh, and flung it open when his arm was fully extended again, his hand in the air above and to the right of his head. On Harry, the motion was simply a bad imitation of John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever, but on Daphne, the actions was flinging her wand to the corner of the room, and she cursed up a storm.
"Bugger you, Potter. I'm gonna fucking stab you, you cuntrag," she cursed, eyes wild.
Harry chortled cruelly again, and told her snidely, "It turns out that can force someone else's movements with Jak. But once that person is defenseless, it can be used to simply . . ." Harry paused, before giving her a significant grin, while still doing Travolta's trademark move from Saturday Night Live, "humiliate your opponent." With a small twist of his wand, Harry dropped the initial Jak, leaving only the one on Daphne. She quickly grew silent, and looked at Harry, eyes slightly glazed over, walking towards him steadily, feet going one foot directly placed in front of the other. Harry looked at her, eyebrows raised, not recognizing the dance, although that wasn't saying much, considering his limited knowledge of dance, and feeling safe considering that she wasn't heading for her wand.
A few feet away from Harry, she tilted her head to the right, letting her long black hair fall over her face, and she raised her left hand slowly, to his cheek, which she held for a long second. Harry was beginning to regret his decision not to move back, feeling more than a little hot and bothered, opting not to drop the spell only because of her close proximity and much greater size.
She took a step back, and began to slowly unbutton the lowest button on her shirt. Harry cleared his throat awkwardly, completely nonplused by her action. She tossed her head back, and Harry clearly saw a burning red face, with small rivulets of tears coursing down it.
Harry took a step back, and pursed his lips, before dropping the spell. Instantly, she slumped to the ground, and began sobbing. Harry closed his eyes, sighed, and walked out toward the door. Right before leaving, he turned back, and quietly told her, "I'm going to visit Hannah."
Daphne responded only with sobbing harder, and he walked out, muting her cries to his ears by closing the door behind him. He leaned on the wall, resting his forehead on the cool stone, before composing himself, and walking towards the hospital.
Sitting next to a sleeping Hannah, reading about Ancient Runes, he realized that he hadn't had a headache since their one-sided "duel" had begun. He missed it in an odd way, and wondered why, as he painstakingly traced the rune for safety into Hannah's bed. It was most puzzling.
(Fin.)
Oi, by the way, I started a forum for the story on my profile page, but haven't posted anything in it because I was unsure of whether or not anyone wanted to discuss it, or whether there was enough to discuss. So . . . someone will probably have to start a new topic if he/she is interested. I'd love to hear your opinions, and if there are any plot holes, loose strings (I'm not Murakami, I'm not brave enough to leave you hanging for forever), grammar mistakes, or anything. I'll either change it, or somehow alter future chapters to clear it up. You could also discuss the plot, or what you've seen of it so far.
The title of the chapter is a song by the Beatles, which I picked because I really like it, and because I felt like it fit. I was going to do "Do You Realize" by the FL but decided that it would be anachronistic.
Edit: Thanks to quabaq for pointing out that F&G have different last names.