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Wit of the Raven
Chapter 11
Harry was growing increasingly exasperated with his team. It wasn't completely the other members' faults, it was partially just differences in mentality and priorities. Besides, any interaction between him and Daphne was still awkward, even almost a week after their "duel". He wondered idly what it must have been like, growing up to be the kind of person whose most familiar dance is more of a seduction than a dance. After some thought, he decided that considering his past, it could have been preferable.
It was a sort of chilling thought, knowing that for a part of his life, he had led a worse life than being trained to kill people after seducing them into relaxation, although he took comfort in the knowledge that he was past that stage in his life. In fact, it seemed sort of distant, like it was from someone else's life. Harry reassured himself with the thought that it wasn't very pleasant anyway, and he was well rid of it, and thought no more of the other life.
The morning was chilly and fog-ridden, and Harry didn't feel like doing much of anything. For his mandatory "Hunter Class", he had signed up for Criminal Psychology, since, contrary to Neville's belief, he wasn't all that interested in being a hunter, as it would probably shorten his life expectancy. He figured that he could still learn a little bit about psychology, which might come in handy in any walk of life. He had been considering Healing as a career–he loved the class, mostly because the teacher had a few spectacularly funny moments, and because he was quite good at it. Of course, he knew that it was a little early to be considering career paths, but Snape had told him that it was never too early to collect marketable skills.
Speaking of Snape, the flying sessions had been going marvelously, and he'd been able to test out of the flying course. Harry still wasn't brilliant at it, but he knew enough that he was fairly comfortable going in excess of forty kilometers per hour. Recently, Snape had been explaining to him the way that a windstaff was put together, which was actually a fairly interesting process.
"There are trees that are ideal for windstaffs, and there are trees that are not. Consider the willow, and the way it moves in the wind," Snape had told him as they examined their staves in the middle of the field, as groups of exuberant children zoomed over them, chatting about the opposite sex and the test the period before.
Harry had closed his eyes, and imagined the long, heavily burdened branches of the willow, and the way that the leaves drooped, or didn't droop, and the long swaying motions as they simply flowed with the wind. He inhaled, exhaled, and nodded. "They would just go smoothly," he answered calmly.
Snape had nodded. "Willow is a perfect wood for a windstaff. Alternately, say, Oak, is the completely wrong disposition." He had explained the way that there were other specifications for the wood, like that it had to be infested with Bowtruckles, since there wasn't any better way of finding wood that had sufficient magical properties, unless it had a wood sprite in it, in which case it was better left alone. There, Harry had kept quiet.
Harry had finished his Criminal Psych reading, and his Experimental Herbology homework, which was a paragraph on an important experimental Herbologist and the advances in technique he or she had given the field, earlier that day, and he was planning on doing the rest of the homework with his team, his quartet, the group that he was immensely dissatisfied with.
With a sigh, he turned to the booklets that Dumbledore had given him and Granger. Speaking of Granger, he hadn't seen her since they had gotten in their argument after their collection of their "prizes." What on Earth had prompted Dumbledore to give them the useless things?
Harry considered whether or not to try the book again at that second. He had planned on shoving his reading time down to that night, so that he could go to sleep afterward, instead of walking around restlessly, but didn't really feel like wasting his time in it with this book again, or starting it early. Harry sighed at the lost time, but placed his hand on the page where it instructed him to again. This time, he was a mite surprised as within a blink, he was suddenly in a different room, and no longer seated on his soft bed, but on the hardwood floor, confronted by a stocky fifth or sixth year with a red and yellow tie, and long, black robes. He had short black hair, and a mostly nondescript, thin face, except for a spot of acne on his left cheek, and a mole by his left eye.
"Eh, they changed the style of dress again?" the boy asked, amused, tugging on his earlobe.
Harry scrambled back a few steps, before standing up. Within a few seconds, he had put two and two together, and yawned and cracked his knuckles. "You're the book, yes?" he asked politely, stretching out his slightly cramped neck.
The boy snorted, moving his roaming finger to his neck, which he scratched awkwardly. "Not exactly, but close enough," he said with a grin. "I'm technically the summer project of the bloke who had this face, back in the 1700's–dunno what year, he didn't bother to give me a clock at the time." He moved his fingers down to his chest, which he scratched with great abandon. Harry stared in question, and he sighed. "Thought it would be a laugh to constantly make me itchy all over, but it's really annoying. Changes location every twenty seconds, too."
"Ah," Harry said eloquently. "My apologies."
"Not your fault," the boy replied with a smile, extending his right hand, the one that wasn't itching incessantly. "You can call me Charms."
"'lo, Charms, I'm Harry," Harry replied easily, taking the proffered hand.
"Hello Harry," Charms said politely. "Now, what year are you in?" he wondered out loud.
"First year, just finished my first month," he informed Charms quickly.
"Christ," Charms swore. "At least the other girl was a third year–well, I suppose I'll be giving you a crash course in Charms theory, too. This is the summoning charm." Quickly, he drew his wand, and cast, "Accio!" while making small twitches with his fingers and waving it forward and to the left, before a quick tug back. "Here, I've stopped the spell. Take this bag of sand, and toss it in the air. It sticks to magic, and since this book isn't actually anywhere, we have an unlimited supply of it. Look."
With Charms practically still, Harry took the bag, and holding it by the bottom, shook it out into the open, where it floated in a ball. He cursed, and blew it in the direction of where Charms was pointing. The view was breathtaking. The sand clung to invisible strands of magic, making up a matrix, roughly a one meter by one meter square. It was like a cobweb, suspended in midair. "Wicked," Harry breathed.
"Go on, touch it," Charms urged. Hesitantly, Harry touched the matrix, and was surprised to feel absolutely nothing, except for the sand, which clung to his skin until he shook it off.
"That's really badass," Harry muttered, once again passing his hand through it.
Charms chuckled. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Er," Harry stuttered, before collecting himself. "It's cool, groovy, in a masculine and generally aggressive way."
Charms retorted with a snicker, before he loosed the spell. Harry watched excitedly as the sand flowed into his pocket, and removed his wand. Once again, Charms stopped it, and Harry blew more sand onto it. The matrix had bent to accommodate his wand, and at Charms' instruction, he could feel the now solid matrix. "As soon as it bends, it becomes tangible, so I bent it slightly before I put it into your pocket. Come over, I'll show you what I did."
For the next hour, Charms explained the process of building the matrix using the right numbers, and exploiting different units of measure to use the right lengths regardless of what you were trying to enfold in the summoning charm. He also showed Harry ways of neatly folding the matrix, and methods for folding the matrix tighter, or not so tight, in order to be discrete, or not, with the summoning charm. "There are also ways of transporting fluids, but they're a little difficult, and you should probably ask your charms professor about them, maybe when you're a little older."
Harry had a little bit of time with a few of the wand movements, which were a little trickier than he was used to, although he had come across a few of them in some of his research for healing class. He supposed that it used a little of the same theory, and made a mental note to ask Snape about more theoretical readings.
After a couple of hours of time with Charms, Charms declared him ready for the real world. "You have a pretty decent control of the charm in here. However, have you noticed that you've been casting for hours without any fatigue?" Harry realized that he was right, and felt a headache coming on. He'd need to be more observant in the future, he decided. "That's because basically everything is infinite in this world, in the book, as it were. Back in your world, you'll probably have to scramble to grasp this much magic, let alone do it this easily. I doubt you'll be able to cast it more than four times in a row, considering how young you are."
Harry nodded, and blinked. In a second, Charms was right in front of him. "Surprise," he whispered, before flicking Harry's forehead back. With another blink, Harry was back in his world, his hand on the book's page. Flipping through the pages again, they were pretty helpful, just notes of review. With a glance at the time, Harry cursed, realizing that he had missed nearly all of lunch, and that the book wasn't at all as time efficient as using the OR was. He sighed disappointedly, before slinging the book on the bed and rushing out the door. After all, he knew that it was important to get three meals a day, despite not always getting them with the Dursleys. In fact, perhaps he knew it because of not always getting them with the Dursleys that he knew it, he considered.
As he ran down, students streamed up, chattering like shrill dolphins, waves and waves of them, apparently returning from lunch. With a sigh, he made to return to his room, figuring that lunch was already past, before remembering the advice of the portrait of Circe the Hogmother to take snacks in the kitchen. With a smirk, he ran past the hordes of people, and up a flight of stairs in Hufflepuff, and forced his way through more people, and across the hall, before coming to the still life.
Casually, he tickled the pear with his pinky, and the painting and a portion of the wall slid open, revealing multitudinous elves, and a few kids, who Harry thought he recognized from the Vikings meeting. His eye caught on one of them, and he asked with surprise, "Madame Chang?"
She gave a small laugh, and glanced at her laddermates. "What is this, three for five? I think Therapists F and G made a good choice."
"Siddown, Potter!" another commanded, conjuring a chair.
With a small smile, he sat down, not flicking an eyelash as a plate and silverware appeared in front of him. Against the aluminum table, the cutlery made bizarre shadows, creating neat shapes on the walls, much like the walls were walls of an aquarium and the shadows were strange kinds of fish. "Is this your gathering place?" he asked calmly, serving chips and salad.
"It's quieter than in the Great Hall, and you don't need to search through the tables to find your friends. It's kind of funny, but no one else has thought of going to the kitchens at dinnertime, instead of for questionably legit midnight snacks," the boy who had conjured the table answered. "By the way, my name is Corey Livar, I'm a member of The Plunderers, the Hufflepuff of the team. You're the Ravenclaw, right?"
Harry nodded, having tucked in already, as heknew it wasn't polite to talk while his mouth was full. When he was done chewing, he asked, "So, what kinds of pranks did you guys do for your initiations?"
The members grinned at each other, and waxed poetic about their "outstanding achievements in the field" as Harry ate quietly, and eventually, finished their meals and left, leaving him to finish his in silence and solitude, the elves bustling around noiselessly, giving him the uncomfortable feeling that he was trapped in a silent movie.
With a "thank you" to the elves, he was off, to thank the Hogmother for telling him where the kitchen was, and to generally pay her a visit. He knew that it was important to be eternally polite.
It took Harry roughly half an hour to get to her portrait at the top of Ravenclaw, not including the time he took to actually find the portrait, and he got completely exhausted while doing it. He stopped at the 6th floor's bathroom to get some water, and made a mental note to get into better shape.
He was greeted with a warm smile and a joking admonition. "What did you get all worn from, Mr. Potter?" the Hogmother asked.
"Just walked up twenty flights of stairs," he panted, heavily.
She giggled, and Harry suppressed a glare. He was grateful to her, he reminded himself. "You should have taken the shortcut, Harry. Didn't anyone tell you about it? The one from any floor on Ravenclaw to any other floor?"
He sighed irritably as he sank to the floor, too aggravated and exhausted to stand any longer. "Damn," he muttered angrily. "Stupid, stupid–I should have remembered that bloody password, bloody flaming hell!"
Again, she giggled, but this time Harry didn't feel any anger. He figured that it was better to be relaxed, and besides, it was probably sort of funny from a third person's perspective.
He yawned, and stood up again, shakily, leaning against the wall. "Thanks for reminding me about that, Hogmother, and thank you for telling me about the kitchen–it came to great use today."
"Anytime, Mr. Potter," she replied with a smile. "Not much else to do around here."
Harry took out his wand, before thinking better of it. "I don't really feel like expending any magical energy right now," he told the Hogmother, "So I don't suppose that you know what time it is right now?"
She shook her head no. "Sorry, Mr. Potter."
He nodded with understanding, and drew his wand and checked the time. It was roughly an hour before he was supposed to meet with the rest of his team. He had the shortcut now, so he didn't need to hurry as much as before, but it would still take time to gather the necessary materials for his planned lecture.
He waved goodbye to the Hogmother, and enunciated the password. With a pop, the door to the elevator materialized out of the wall, and he zipped down to the bottom floor of R. Tower. From there, he walked down to the dungeons, where he knew Snape worked.
When he found him, he was bent over a bunch of papers. Harry could practically feel the aggravation oozing off of the papers. Where one of the boys had signed his name, it looked like he had instead made vertical and horizontal scratches, the nib of his quill gouging out sections of the paper.
"Professor," he interrupted with a smile.
Snape looked up, a look of mild irritation on his face, which quickly morphed into a smirk as he saw who it was. "Ah, my partner in crime, the little Mr. Potter," he breathed with amusement.
Harry felt vaguely like something was going over his head, but paid it no mind. "Could I borrow some crushed rat skin?"
"After your display with my . . . colleague," he replied, eyes already returning to his papers, "you could take anything. It's over there, third shelf down, well labeled," he informed Harry, giving a no-look point worthy of the Great One.
Harry walked over to where he pointed, and, standing tiptoe, found the skin and pulled it down. He piled several grams of it into a small beaker, and put an imperturbable cap on it, before pocketing it.
He thanked Snape, and made to leave, before Snape told him, "There's a knife that's designed for only taking a single drop of blood on the table, it'll be safer than trying to avoid a vessel on your body.
Harry started. "How did you know I was trying to make a cut closing potion?" he demanded, more than slightly surprised.
"It's the only exciting potion that has crushed rat skin. Unless you need to prepare a solution for melting off someone's foreskin?" he asked, lifting his head from his paper as Harry retrieved the knife.
Harry shook his head no, while eyeing the peculiarly shaped knife. "Looks sort of like a cross between scissors and a lighter," he commented.
"That's basically what it is," Snape told him brusquely, going onto his next paper. "Hold it to your skin, click the button, there's a slightly numbing sensation and the scissors remove exactly one drop of blood. At least, that's how it's advertised. A drop of blood is variable, but take it from me that it doesn't take too much. Even for a person your size, it shouldn't be a problem."
Harry glared at the top of Snape's head, before schooling his expression, feeling a headache coming on. He thanked Snape again, and made to leave.
As he was approaching the door, Snape once again called out to him. "And keep up on your Potions reading," he ordered. "Your little display of knowledge gave me the little extra push to climb to the top of Hogwarts' Potions hierarchy. If we keep on going like this, I'll be Minister of Magic in no time," he remarked, deadpan. Harry laughed, and finally left, to meet up with his team.
By the he got there, they had all already assembled. "You're late, Potter," Neville mocked with a smile, his arm on the table behind Daphne's back.
Harry smiled at Neville. "Sorry Neville," he said happily, not looking at Daphne, "I needed to get some supplies for what I have planned for today, it's actually pretty cool."
"Better than that stupid Jak spell, yes, Potter?" Neville asked with a smirk.
Harry shot a look at Daphne, and cursed that he hadn't been looking at her earlier. This would have been a great gauge of how she was feeling at the time. She wasn't looking at him, and she seemed a little stiff, but he couldn't tell if she was that way previously for the life of him. He looked back at Hannah, who was defending the spell admirably.
"Well, it was really bloody hard, but it's a good taste of more advanced magic, right?" She stood, to make a playful shove at Harry. "Variable spells like Jak and Tor are all second level stuff at Hogwarts, at least third year outside of it, the nurse told me. Jak a little harder than Tor, since we're much more familiar with water than we are with fire, but it's good experience to be working a little harder than required in school."
Neville snorted. "Come off it," he moaned, "we're at bloody Hogwarts! We're already working way harder than required at school."
Harry ignored him, and set up his cauldron. "Take out your cauldrons, mates," he said excitedly, masking his analysis of Daphne's movements with a smile. It was really too bad that this felt more like hostile territory than a relaxed meeting of friends. "Change the film on the outside of the cauldron to two millimeters of Argent, base of regular water, make sure it's not heavy, or with low oxygen content. Actually, high oxygen content is best, to be honest."
Neville whispered something to Daphne, while the two of them got out their cauldrons, and Harry focused on her lips, to try to figure out what she said back if she whispered too. She did, and Harry noticed specifically the v shape, teeth raking lips, and the uncomfortable-looking shape that was either r or l. He suspected greatly that she had said "Silver", and mentally, he cursed Neville. Probably, he had asked what Argent was. They had already covered the periodic table in class, and the way that wizards had gradually switched from the previous list to the more simple periodic table and the muggle symbols. Hadn't he wondered why gold was Au, and lead was Pb of all things? Had he absolutely no intellectual curiosity?
Harry hid his aggravation in measuring out grams of crushed rat skin, telling the group, "Right, make it 250 milliliters of water, and dump this in after you bring it to a boil. The book recommends 380 Kelvin," he said, handing out the crushed rat skin. "Then set your timers for five minutes, at which point you'll put in point zero one kilograms of kelp." He bet that Granger would know, although he was unsure of why his thoughts had led him to her. "Then, start stirring clockwise, and don't stop for another two minutes."
Harry's was the first to boil, since he had started his slightly before the others, although he had some complications with dumping the crushed rat skin in, as it was sticking to his beaker, and Neville was the first to make it to the stage with the Kelp, and start stirring.
"Good job, Neville," he said, feeling, like he managed to hide his annoyance fairly well. "Now, after you finish stirring, take this," he ordered, holding up the tool that Snape had leant him, "put the tip next to your hand, over the cauldron, and click the button, before continuing to stir for another three minutes, counterclockwise this time."
Neville followed the orders, although there was a sort of frenzied time when they were all trying to get the bloodletting done as quickly as possible, in order not to mess up the delicate solution by boiling too much of the water away. Harry wasn't altogether too worried, because it was a pretty robust potion, but it was probably better to be closer to the prescription in the book that not.
A few minutes later, each of them had a fairly watery potion, with a green cloud floating in it. "Groovy," Neville commented. "What does it do?"
In explanation, Harry showed Neville the small cut that he had gotten on his right hand from giving his blood to the potion, and took a sip of the potion with his other hand. It had a salty taste, with a sort of uncomfortable texture–the rat skin hadn't fully dissolved, and he forced himself not to think of it. Before their eyes, the slit in Harry skin had closed, until it wasn't visible in the least.
"Wow," Hannah said, surprised, as the other three of them tried it as well.
Harry smiled. "Happy now?" he said with mock irritation, a smile on his face, to show them that he was just kidding. He wasn't, but he figured it would be better for the cohesion of the group if he kept up the pretense.
"Wicked, Harry, just wicked," Neville enthused as his cut disappeared. "What's the maximum it'll heal?"
"Nothing deep, and nothing much bigger than this. It's typically used for scrapes, paper cuts, or other kinds of small cuts, not contusions, although it has fallen out of use, despite the ease of creation because crushed rat skin isn't a common ingredient, and there are tastier versions that are mass-marketed," Harry lectured happily. He had been slightly unsure about whether or not they would be happy with a potion, since it wasn't as flashy as Neville typically liked his spells, although they seemed decently interested.
For the rest of the meeting, Daphne showed them a spell that Harry had already known, a variant on Lumos that was used for inducing temporary blindness in opponents. Neville had a fairly interesting water spell that was used for gathering rain into a vessel, which was useful because there were several rituals and potions that required freshly gathered rain water. Unfortunately, it was purely theoretical, as none of them knew any spells to make it rain inside of the room. Hannah was about to show her spell, when Neville checked the time.
"We should probably go down for the challenge," he said, jumping off of his desk.
Hannah asked, "Isn't it History?" At Harry's nod, she waved her hand at the two of them. "I'm rubbish at History, you guys can go without me."
"Me too," Daphne begged off, giving a quick nod before fleeing the room.
Neville looked Harry in the eye. "You're staying, right, Harry?"
Harry nodded. "Let's go," he advised.
The two of them walked down to the Great Hall, and for the second time that day, Harry was impeded on the staircase by upperclassmen streaming up the tower. The two of them just barely got down in time to hear the teacher, one of the other first year history teachers, explaining the Challenge to the group.
"Today is what we call a standard identify and search. Nothing special, just find the portrait or statue of a famous person, and talk to him or her." With a flick of her wand, a book appeared in front of each of the contestants. "This is a school-owned book, so don't take it with you. We will hunt you down," she remarked seriously. "It's made so that you can organize it's contents by characteristic, but not by name, so that you need to find the person in another book before you can search him or her up in this book."
"Goddammit," Neville muttered, getting up to leave. "I'm not going to waste my time with this."
"Wait. Neville, we have the find command that Hannah taught us, we can just use that to–"
"I already have plenty of amenities. I'd rather spend my time with Daphne. Peace, Harry." With a wave, he left, alongside quite a few others.
As the crowd thinned, he noticed Granger, her hair had grown noticeably longer than when they had first met. He knew that he liked girls with hair longer than that.
"You're looking for the portrait of the Hogmother. She is on campus. Begin."
There was a frenzy of noise as teams chattered among themselves, and Harry just sat there, unable to move, he was so surprised. After a few moments, he shook his head, and stood up, realizing that he couldn't just sit still when he was surprised.
"Longbottom!" he yelled, running towards Gryffindor tower. He spotted Neville, by the door, and shouted his name again. Neville waved him off, disappearing down a corridor, and Harry stopped, cursing vehemently. This could have been a very easy seven or so points for Neville.
Harry turned around, and started walking towards Ravenclaw, before he noted that Granger was determinedly flipping through pages. He walked over to her, and tapped her on the shoulder. "I can show you where she is," he whispered in her ear.
She glanced up at him with distrust. "Yeah, right," she muttered.
"Look, the Gryffindor member of my team isn't here, so I have no problem with you getting the extra points for first in Gryffindor. I'll of course get first place, but this will land you at least a couple extra free ones," he explained. "I've already seen the Hogmother, and I know a shortcut."
She glanced at her book, back at Harry, and then slammed it shut. "Fine," she told him, "but if you're lying I will rend you from the base of your skull to your anus. Do you understand?"
Harry smirked. "Good to see that you haven't lost your edge, Granger," he said, motioning for her to come with him.
The two of them walked over to Ravenclaw Tower, where Harry knew that he could use his shortcut. As they reached the corridor that marked the beginning of R. Tower, Harry glanced over his shoulder, and noted two people of an unknown house trailing them.
"Granger," he began softly, "There are two people following us, both girls. Can you immobilize them?"
She was silent for a few minutes, before answering in a similar low voice, "Yes, but why?"
"After I reveal the shortcut, anyone can use it, and I don't trust them not to attack us. I'm going to go to the shortcut, and then I need you to prevent them from following us. Do you know any binding kinds of charms?" he asked calmly, as they walked.
"Yes, the standard petrifying," she replied with a small bit of a boasting tone.
Harry grinned, and ordered, "Do it, now!"
"Now?" she asked, surprised.
"Yes, goddamnit!" he said, irritably, as the two following stopped in their tracks, confused.
Hermione drew her wand, and as the two of them fumbled for theirs, she cast, "Petrificus Totalus! Petrificus Totalus! Petrificus Totalus! Petrificus Totalus!"
She only managed to hit one of them, but after seeing what the spell did to her friend, the other ran in fright, towing her friend behind her.
"Jesus, is that allowed in the rules?" she asked, for the first time Harry had seen her slightly hesitant.
"They didn't say we couldn't," alleged Harry. "Come on, we're there." To the wall, he whispered, "Oh dear, oh dear, I shall be too late," and the wall opened up, to reveal a small broom cupboard-like space.
Harry walked in, and gestured for Hermione to follow. "Oh no you don't," she said nastily, back to her old self. "That isn't a secret passage, it doesn't go anywhere. You were just trying to get me alone with you so that you could molest me, or rape me!" she accused.
Harry grinned, and rolled his eyes. "I'm not going to rape you, Granger, we're eleven years old, and–"
"I'm twelve," she muttered back, slightly petulantly.
"We're preteens," he amended, "and neither of us has gone through puberty yet, so–"
"I've already had my first period," she interrupted again.
"If I wanted to rape someone, I wouldn't touch you because you're completely flat."
"I'm not bloody flat!" she defended herself.
"Yes you are, Granger," he admonished softly, gesturing for her to come in. "You're flat as a washboard."
She hunched down, and squeezed into the room without complaint, sneaking glances that were a cross between surprised and irritated at Harry. He couldn't bring himself to coolly analyze their meaning, and he pushed the button to the ninth floor moodily. He felt the sensation that signaled that they were rising, and heard the whirring of the air running past them, and licked his lips, feeling his wand in his pocket as they slowed down again, his ears feeling funny. He swallowed, and walked out of the door, right before Granger did. As she left the room, she straightened up and stretched her arms high above her head, and in a fluid motion, Harry drew his wand, and petrified her. She was looking slightly stone-like, but was warm to the touch, so Harry walked over to the Hogmother, and greeted her.
"You should've asked me for the time now, Harry!" she said excitedly. "Good job on finding me so fast, I don't know if anyone has finished an identify and find so quickly on me ever before!"
"Really," Harry asked, impressed despite himself, and feeling his anger fading. It felt good that his work was paying off.
"Really," she assured him with a giggle. "Although I've only had two other find and identify's, that I can remember, so perhaps others have had quicker ones. Good work all the same, Mr. Potter."
He smiled, and walked back over to Granger, where she stood, hands stretched in the air. He stood in front of her, poised to end the spell, before it occurred to him that it might be easier to do it wandlessly, and less powerfully. Considering that he didn't want Granger to know he could do wandless magic, and smiling slightly at the irony, that his simpler version of performing spells was the one he needed to hide, he decided to walk behind her, and ended the spell quietly. "Finite Incantatem," he cast, feeling a slight drain as the blood in his fingers emptied their magic. There was a slight tingling in his fingers that traveled up his wrist as he could almost feel the new magic struggling against the magic his wand had wrought, and he licked his lips, concentrating on keeping his fingers in place, until Granger moved again.
"Sorry about that," he told her, "I've had a long day, and I didn't want to make it any longer."
Without turning around, she swung her arm wildly behind her, at around the height of her head, completely missing Harry. With a growl, she turned around, moving her hand to pull out her wand, until she eyed the wand lolling in his left hand. After a few seconds of careful deliberation, she slowly met his eyes again. "Next time you have a bad day," she said, looking serious. "Don't use that spell on me. I had an itch, and it was extremely fucking uncomfortable. If you do, I will fucking rend you from the base of your skull to your anus."
"We'll see," Harry remarked, pursing his lips, before turning to the wall, and whispering, "Oh dear, oh dear, I shall be too late," again. "See you, Granger," he said, walking into the elevator. He suspected greatly that he would not have a happy time studying tonight.
A/N: This is shorter than usual because I was initially going to have this be the first half of a chapter, but decided that I would cut it in half, and half two slightly shorter than usual chapters. At least, this one is shorter than usual. So . . . for people who I told the title of the this chapter would be X, and discovered it wasn't, it should be the title of the following chapter. Speaking of the following chapter . . . I actually wrote this chapter in probably a little under seven hours (not exactly non-stop work), not including revisions. I recently discovered that if I actually write, I can . . . well, write. Hopefully, the next one will be out sooner.
Thanks go out to . . . Traveller, Taure, OdinMage, IP82 (anyone else notice he has a dirty little finger in every dirty little pie in London?), and CharmsCharles.