Seeing with the Heart
By Fancyspinner
Disclaimers: see prologue, I still don't own them.
For a good read: "The Problem with Purity" by pairings SS/HG, HP/DM Keeps one reading til all hours!
Chapter 5 part a:
The following morning, Ron wasn't looking forward to class. Study was not his strong point. He wanted to be doing useful things such as reviewing some of the journals and books they had. In his mind, Breakfast was too hurried of an event. It really needed to be enjoyed, but then again, so did every other meal according to his metabolism
Hermione had handed him all of her notes for all of her classes to take to Goyle. She had put them in a binder with little tabs denoting year and subject. Then, she had used different color ink to highlight certain ideas and she had written explanations to the side of her notes.
He had stared at her with a kind of fascination. The array of colors and side comments were hard for him to take in so he could not imagine how the Slytherin would deal with them. What in the world did she expect?
Was the Slytherin, someone who admitted learning was more than difficult, supposed to learn from reading the notes? It was crazy! He didn't argue with her. He just knew that would cause a huge disagreement and he was too tired and too much in need of her strong support to get her upset over notes of all things. They had been friends more than long enough for him to understand that knowledge was her refuge. The place she retreated when she needed to cope. In his own way, that was something he could understand.
"I'll just go drop these off, Hermione."
She gave him a beautiful smile and a quick hug.
"Trust me, Ron. It's not all that bad."
"I'd better run. I have charms first thing and in the afternoon, I have the theory portion of Astronomy."
He ran to the Hospital wing and first went to say hi to Neville who was sitting up and arguing with the Mediwitch.
"Look, I feel great!"
"You will stay right here. If I see no ill effects from what you have been through by tomorrow morning, I'll let you go. Now, enough arguing!"
"Yes madam Pomfrey."
"Hey Nev. I don't have much time but Greg Goyle he has a couple of books you might be able to help review. There are others but that's a start so you don't go bonkers. He's got some of the twins ink removal stuff."
"Ok."
Ron lightly punched Neville on the shoulder and went over to the Slytherins.
He realized Goyle, Greg, he corrected his mental voice, was sitting alone completely into whatever he was doing. It didn't take Ron more than a quick look to see that he was reading one of the journals.
# Wow! # When the guy got a mission he was completely focused.
"Hey," Ron called softly.
"Greg?" He tried again.
He tentatively reached out and lay a hand over one of the other boy's. It was currently running down the page.
kkkkk
Gregory Goyle had been woken by Vince really early in the morning.
"I'm heading back to the dorm, ok? I'LL come after classes."
"Sounds fine. I'll just start reading these." He started with the personal journal and from the moment he picked it up, he was drawn in. He even forgot to take notes.
Godrick's father gave me this journal. He says if we are going to invent spells then we should each keep one. I think Godrick's's mom likes me a little bit more because I manage to keep Godrick distracted. He wants to help but he's so enthusiastic and he forgets that not everything is as hardy as he.
We met the new herbalist and his family today. His daughter's name is Helga. She doesn't mind I talk to snakes either. Helga, Godrick and I were talking about how it might be a good idea to standardize magical education. It seems that the nonmagicals are so angry all the time when we can't fix something. I don't think we should go around fixing all of their problems but if someone's sick and we can help. That's a right thing to do. That's what GODRICK'S's dad says.
I saw my parents today. They didn't see me. They were with my younger brother and sister and they looked so happy. It is as if I never existed.
One of the things Godrick and I have come to realize is that intent or what you want to happen with a particular spell as the most important part of making it.
In our attempt to come up with a spell to fix broken objects we instead came up with a spell that makes things impervious damage. That wasn't quite what we wanted.
kkkkk
The touch on his arm almost made him cry out but it was too light to be someone trying to hurt him and not intimate enough to be Vince.
He slowly looked up from the leather bound journal towards the hand then up a tanned arm and into the face of Ronald Weasley. He couldn't help the slow smile.
"Hi, this is so interesting. Thank you for trusting me with it."
kkkkk
Ron stared that smile was really something.
"Oh good." He said quickly, allowing his own smile to bloom.
"I can't stay long but Hermione put this together for you. It's all her notes. I tried looking at them and they just confused me." He shrugged. "You can try them, or not. She's just trying to be helpful. It's like sometime's her only way to help is to study or help someone study. Mental, but that's Hermione! I suppose I wouldn't have her be any other way."
Greg laughed.
"I guess. I'll take a look at them. Great Merlin!" He had just noticed the huge book Ron drug out of his bag. "That's all her notes from the start of Hogwarts?"
"Yeah, mate! She wants to help you do well. There's too much stuff on the page for me and I can't concentrate on it all. It looks like gibberish but Harry, Nev, Ginny and Luna like it. To each their own and all that. I'd love to know what you think of them."
"I'll let you know. I'm going to read some more of the journal. I suggest we read the personal journals first and then the early years. Maybe you can bring your friends over with all of the books and we can try to put them in order before you divide them up."
"That's a great idea! I asked NEVILLE to sneak over here to help so he wouldn't lose his mind. He already had the let me out, argument with madam Pomfrey today and she wasn't hearing any of It.?
"Oh man! Can I relate to that? I'd love to be out of here. It's not like I haven't got worse at home and then been expected to just keep doing what needs doing."
Ron's world tilted just a bit more with those words.
"I see!" Even though he really didn't.
He couldn't even picture it. He didn't want to picture it. He watched those brown eyes go wide with realization and horror at what their owner had just given away.
kkkkk
Well, Greg thought. What a brilliant statement to have made. He fidgeted nervously. He thought quickly
"Well obviously I never made potions or anything."
Ron got up from where he'd perched and shook his head.
"You don't need to explain anything. If you ever want to talk, I'll listen but … we all have things we would rather not talk about. I guess it's kind of like with Harry. It's not a secret he doesn't have the best home life. Except, well Harry's family doesn't have magic. The point is, he never talks about it."
Greg watched as Ron looked around and spotted the clock on the wall.
"Oh Merlin, I'm so late!"
Greg grinned.
"Good luck!"
"I'll need it."
Greg watched long enough to see Ron leave and then picked up the journal to continue reading.
kkkkk
Neville waited for the coast to clear and then got up. If his friends needed him, then, by Merlin, he was going to help them. He moved over to the other partitioned area in the Wing.
"Hey, Goyle?"
"Yeah, Longbottom, isn't it? What do you need?"
"Well, Ron said I might be able to help you with something."
Greg held out a small book.
"Go ahead and try."
"The early Years?" Neville read aloud and flipped a few pages.
"Finding the space for what we hope to be a very large institution of learning is probably the easiest part of the endeavor."
He flipped to the end of the book and continued to read.
"Now that building is underway the four of us are contemplating warding. Salazar thinks that if we ward as we build it would give the structure additional magic. We all agree additional magic would be helpful. In addition to providing automatic protection from the nonmagicals it provides a more stable base for any Ward and Roon work we decide to do.
Godrick thinks the castle will develop a type of awareness and fears it will get tired of housing students. I think the caste may develop awareness but I do not think it will revolt. I think it will develop quirks and expand as needed among other things.
It is obvious at this point, that both sides have merit. I think we should ward as we go and then build in Roon protection and once the structure is complete ask the Goblins to ward for us.
Helga is just ignoring us and weaving together herbal magic to hide what is going on here. That is probably the most sensible thing to be doing. RC
They're acting like children, honestly as if we haven't learned that intent fuels all actions not just magic. Even as we help to build our school it is warding itself. I agree with Rowena and think we should certainly work with the goblins and use the ritual wardings as we build. HH"
Neville stared as the page turned itself and the book just kept growing pages. They seemed to just pop out of the back cover slowly rising until the book was cover to cover filled with unread pages.
"Great Merlin. Look." He held it out for the Slytherin to see.
"Oh my. I saw you flip to the end and it just added pages to itself. That's so wicked cool."
Neville laughingly agreed.
"I was taking notes as you were reading. maybe we should take turns reading to each other so that one of us can always be concentrating on just notes."
"That sounds good."
Neville went to sit next to the Slytherin and looked at him.
"Look, if we're going to be working together, you should call me Neville."
"You should call me Greg."
"So, how do we want to go about this?"
"Well, I was reading the personal journal of Salazar Slytherin and I figure that we should probably read all of the personal stuff first or at the least, familiarize ourselves with what is in the individual journals, That way we can understand the reasons why things happened or why certain things were done a certain way."
"That is a pretty brilliant idea, mate."
"I should confess that I've read a bit of the journal and I sort of forgot to take notes."
"That interesting?"
"Not interesting really. It's just, I don't know how to describe it. When I'm reading it, I can almost feel like I'm there."
"That's pretty amazing! how were these books found?"
"Apparently in the library somewhere."
"How many do we have to look through and why?"
"That, is a bit, confusing and complicated. You need to promise that you'll listen all the way through."
Once Neville had nodded, Greg told the entire story and by then a House Elf popped in with lunch for them. While the two boys ate in silence there was no discomfort for either of them just an almost restful quiet.
tbc: we check in with Ron and Co, and there's a meeting in the hospital wing.