Chapter 5: Sunday morning
"Harry." Prod. Prod. "Harry!"
I blink and wave my arms around. "Dobby?" I whisper. "Why are we whispering?"
"It's 6AM. I just finished cleaning the chapel." He loads the beer cans into a small bag.
I swing my legs over the edge of the sofa and stretch my arms out, my neck cracks back into place from the night on the sofa. "I'm going to grab a shower." I say quietly, heading off for the shower block.
The cool water rushes over my body, suitably waking me up. A little trick I learned is that when I completely pull all my hair into my body and push new hair out, it's always clean. I can't do anything more than change my hair, but it's a hell of a lot more than everyone else. A metamorph Dumbledore called it. I creep into my dorm room and quickly put on my armour and head back down to the common room.
"Ready?" Dobby says, looking through the book I'd been reading. I lean down so Dobby can reach my neck. We found out the hard way that touching my armour isn't enough, or rather the armour's protections are too strong. We land outside a small doorway.
The chapel isn't very big, as Dobby said, four pews and an altar. I sit down in the front row. The session is symbolic. Even when I was in a church for a service and other Paladins came in, they didn't do anything. There have been times that my faith has wavered, I started to think that there was no heavenly father, how could there be after what I was subjected to. Dobby saw me through that period. He said that Paladins were like the swords they carried, forged in the light of God. What Gawain put me through was the 'tempering' process. I came out stronger.
"I think that's enough reflection." I say, walking to the alter. There is a small stone basin on the altar. Dobby hands me the flask of water, I empty it into the basin. "How does this work again?" Dobby shrugs his tiny shoulders.
"Damned if I know." He says.
"When in doubt look to the cross." I pull the rosary from my neck and wave it around the water.
Holy water, if made correctly, can banish a lot of demons or at least hurt the bigger ones. The first Tristan once herded a giant demon onto the hallowed ground of the Church by throwing buckets of holy water at it, pretty hardcore stuff.
The water in the basin begins to swirl around, following the rosary until I break the surface, causing the water to glow yellow until I pull the rosary out.
"Did it work?" Dobby stands on his tiptoes to look inside the basin.
"Lancelot blessed water." I wave my hand over the surface. "That probably hasn't been done in a few generations." Dobby waves his hand and the water flows back into the metal flask. "Imagine if the lake was filled with holy water. Those soul suckers wouldn't have stood a chance." I laugh. There is a glass panel on the sides of the flask so I can easily check how much I have left. "Breakfast?" Dobby takes us back to my dorm room, removes my armour and pops us to just round the corner of the banquet hall. Disorientating is an understatement.
"I asked them to cook something with fish for you." Dobby says as we walk to through the big doors. Excluding the greasy professor and the hot one at the far right side of the teacher's table, Dobby and I are the only ones here.
"No ale for breakfast." I pout after taking a sip of the sweet juice.
"Sometimes I wonder if you know what century we're in." Dobby laughs, skewering a small sardine. "Ale for breakfast." He mutters and shakes his head, his ears flaps around. "Noticed that professor?" He asks.
"Yeah." I nod. "Double D at least." He groans. It wounds weird with his squeaky voice.
"Not her. The man." He nudges me.
I look at the man. He is staring at me, it's quite unnerving really. "Do I have something on my face?" I whisper to Dobby.
"Just that unsightly scar." He jokes.
"Damn creep." I mutter, turning back to my breakfast. "Maybe wizards can turn this juice into something stronger."
"Good luck with that." Hermione says, seeming to appear from nowhere. "Seamus has been trying since the first day." She sits down opposite me and looks along the table of food. "Where did you get that from? Is it a foreign dish?"
"Dobby coerced the house-elves that work here into making it for me." I push the plate towards her. "Are you usually up this early?" She nods.
"I go for a run in the mornings, Sunday is my day off." She drinks the sweet juice with no apparent disgust. "Did you spar with Neville last night?" I nod.
"They're pretty good, a bit different to what I'm used to." Flashes of the big demonic cats flicker through my mind. "It was fun, running might be easier." Hermione scoffs. "What's up with that professor? He's been staring at me since we sat down." Hermione looks round.
"That's Professor Snape. He teaches potions and he's head of Slytherin." She looks back at me. "The green house."
"Ah." I shudder as I take another gulp of the sweet juice. The Cribbitch champion comes into the hall with a posse of his own schools students. "Looks like he's been out for a run." Hermione smiles.
"He's not as good on his feet as he is on a broom." She continues to read her book.
"You outran the sportsman?" She doesn't say anything, but her smile tells me everything. "Brilliant." I laugh.
Dobby nudges me with his elbow, I look down and he nods at Hermione's book. A tome would be more accurate. The current page, excluding the text, depicts a heavily armoured knight, more precisely a Paladin.
"Reading up on our history?" I ask. She hums. "I was taught this stuff since before I could read, feel free to ask me anything."
"Better not, he'll give you the pro-Lancelot version." Dobby says. I scowl at him.
"Is it all real?" She asks, looking up from her book. "Some sort of divine magical power?"
"Well it certainly wasn't the shape of the metal that drove away a hundred dementors from the prisoner." I smirk.
"Why did you save him?" She asks.
"I stop evil things. The exhausted man being chased by a demon-wolf and the soul suckers was not in a fit state to do anything, let alone be evil. Even if he was evil, having your soul torn out and destroyed is too quick, no justice in it. If I'd been in better shape after the encounter I might've stuck around to watch him be arrested." I explain.
"But he wasn't evil." Dobby adds, breaking off a chunk of the bread.
"They gave me nightmares for the entire summer too." I tell her. "They seem to really like messing with me." More student begin to arrive, pointing at either myself and Dobby, or the Viktor fellow. "Oh, that reminds me." I pull out my wand. "I learnt a magical spell."
"You don't have to call them magical spells every time." Hermione says, looking up from her book. "Spells, by definition alone, are magical."
"So yeah, magical spell." I point my wand at my sweet juice cup, causing it to float in the air. "Look at that magic." I say, putting my wand on the table and clapping.
"Shouldn't I have stopped after you put your wand down?" She regards the cup closely. "You didn't even say the words."
"Psh." I wave my hand. "I was tired and intoxicated, how was I supposed to remember random Latin words?"
"For starters they aren't random ones, they generally have something to do with the spell." She pushes the cup back down to the table. "You learnt how to wordlessly and almost wandlessly levitate something in one night? Whilst drunk?"
"Intoxicated." I amend. "If I was drunk the whole castle would have felt it, I'm sure." Dobby laughs into his sweet juice. "What is this stuff anyway?" I ask, giving the goblet a tentative sniff.
"Pumpkin juice." Hermione says as if talking to a child.
"It's awful." I say, pulling out my hip flask. "Add a little special juice to it." I pour a small amount into the goblet and stow the flask again. "A little swirl." I spin the liquid around. "This is how wizards make potions, right?"
"Something like that." Hermione giggles. I take a sip of the juice.
"Dobby."
"Yes?"
"That was the flask of holy water, wasn't it?"
"Yes."
I cough once as my eyes start to water.
"No good?" Hermione asks.
"No bueno." I take another sip. Just as bad the first. The cup drains itself. "Note to self, store the holy water flask elsewhere." I pick out the real flask as take a mouthful, swirling it around my mouth to clear the taste.
"More alcohol?" Hermione asks.
"Earl Grey." I pat the pocket. She opens her mouth before closing it again and looks back at her book.
"Hey mate." I hear Ron's voice say. Hermione tenses slightly. "Didn't see you come in last night. When'dya get up?"
"I fell asleep in the common room and it's a Sunday." I tell him. He heads down the table to join his friends. I watch the other students for a while idly wondering what the tasks will be like. Suddenly most of the students turn to face one way.
"Bonjour." Fleur says with a sigh, sitting beside Hermione.
"Long night?" I ask.
"Long morning." She says, scowling at the other students.
"What's the deal with that by the way?" I ask, genuinely curious. "No offence, I mistook you for an angel at first, but it's not normal for everyone to stare at beautiful girls."
"When he says angel, he means angel." Dobby confirms.
"I'm flattered." Fleur laughs. "Do you know what a veela is?" Tumble weed rolls through my head. "We give off, what most people refer to as, an allure. Men tend to lose their minds when in close proximity."
"Ah!" Something clicks in my head. "The Church calls you demons, wow, they were really wrong about that one." I laugh and drink the sweet juice by mistake. "Why does this damn thing refill?" I push the goblet away. "They referred to almost everything as demons." I explain.
"So you're not going to spear me or anything?" She laughs.
"Oh, I can spear you if you want." I smirk and stroke the top of her hand.
"I'm out of here." Dobby says. "Green house look like they're about to kill me."
"Not you too." Hermione mumbles upon hearing 'green house'.
"Oh, grab that last bottle from my bag." I ask Dobby before he leaves.
"I thought you finished that one." He clicks his fingers and the bottle appears in his hand. "Maybe two or three cups worth." He hands me the bottle and pops away.
"'57 red Bordeaux." I pour the wine into a goblet. "Don't let me fool you, I know nothing more than what's on the label." I take a sip of the wine. "Feel free to have a glass. Keep an eye on McGonagall though."
"So you just drink expensive wines?" Fleur asks after pouring herself a gobletful.
"Basically." I nod. "It could be made a hundred years ago or three weeks. I get them as gifts sometimes. I think it makes me look classy." I drain my goblet. "So, What do you do on Sundays?"
"I'm going to read this book." Hermione says in English. The whole conversation was spoken in French after Fleur sat down.
"I think I'm going to explore the castle." I pick my wand up from underneath my plate and stow it in my pocket.
"I'm coming with you." Fleur quickly says, eager to get away from the savages.
A/N: Pretending to be classy is almost classy. Enjoy.