Marik
The Great Hall was packed to the brim with students by the time Marik arrived for breakfast. Throughout the week when classes were in session there were hardly ever more than a hundred students at most in the Hall at breakfast time. However, on the weekends it was as if everyone in the castle could be found inside the large Hall. It took Marik a few seconds of searching to find an open spot in the crowded Slytherin table and as soon as he found his seat he dove straight into the nearby bread bowl and his book.
At the moment Marik was reading a rather interesting book on beginner's dueling that Professor Quirrell had loaned him. From the mold growing on some of the pages the book was no doubt many years older than Marik was, though the material certainly had not lost its value over time. His bookmark was placed in the book's section on defensive spells, where he had been reading up on shield spells for his and Quirrell's next private lesson.
Out of all of Marik professors, Quirrell had quickly become Marik's favorite, though that was probably due mainly to the fact that out of all of his Professors, Quirrell had been the only one to give him extra help outside of class. Inside of class Quirrell was a stuttering nervous wreck who appeared more likely to run away from anything dark arts related than to defend himself against it. However, when it was just the two of them working together out of class Quirrell was an entirely different person who certainly knew what he was talking about.
In the first two weeks of classes he and Quirrell had only had four private lessons together, but in those four lessons alone he had learned more magic and progressed his skills more than in the rest of his classes combined. Quirrell might go easy on his students in class, but during their private lessons Quirrell was anything but easy. Quirrell had Marik practicing spells that first years weren't even expected to know or learn. Even outside of their lessons the dark arts professor had Marik researching spells, jinxes, and charms on top of the rest of his class work and threatened to stop their private lessons if Marik showed up to their lessons slacking on his research.
A little extra work was no big deal though and in fact Marik welcomed the extra workload, especially when it meant he got to learn amazing magic that the rest of his classmates were not getting to learn. Only two weeks of classes had come and passed so far in the year, so Marik was by no means an expert at being a wizard or anything, but he did feel like he already was not only caught up with most of his classmates but also, with the help from Quirrell, was now ahead of many of them.
Coming into the year he had expected to be miles behind all of the magical born students in his classes but it seemed that most had either never been allowed to practice magic or never made the effort to try before coming to Hogwarts. It seemed that whether it was a school for magic or just a normal grade school there were always those students who tried hard and those who didn't. Marik was thankful he was one of the few who tried.
The first few days of classes had been rough, and Marik had averaged at most three or four hours of sleep each night. While the classes themselves were not that difficult, the amount of research and extra practice needed for each class was very demanding and time consuming. Marik had quickly become an almost permanent resident at the library since the first day of classes, only really leaving for classes, sleep, and to make the occasional trip to an empty practice room to practice some spells. Even though the work was hard, and certainly stressful, Marik was still in heaven here at Hogwarts, and wouldn't trade the work he was doing for anything.
Marik's favorite thing about the classes at Hogwarts, outside of learning all of the incredible breath-taking magic, was the fact that there was almost no homework. The educational style of Hogwarts was all about pushing yourself, doing the work on your own, and best of all, competition. In almost every school Marik had attended growing no matter where he lived, teachers always gave out homework, which was always just really busy-work. At Hogwarts though, outside of an occasional essay, the teacher's allowed you the time outside of classes to do what you pleased with the expectation that you use the free time wisely. While many of the students in his year, especially his house, chose to waste that free time Marik made sure he was taking full advantage of every minute he had.
When it came to anything school related Marik had never been the type of student who needed any extra motivation to try and excel or get ahead. He had always had the natural drive and desire to be the top of his class. That drive and desire to be the top in his class here at Hogwarts had been pushed even higher.
Everything at Hogwarts seemed to be based around competition. There was the House Cup, where students could earn points for their house by succeeding in their classes or doing good deeds for the school. There was the magical sport of Quidditch where each house would face off against the others throughout the year to win the Quidditch Cup. And even better than both of those, at least to Marik who could care less about Quidditch, were the yearly student/class rankings.
During the first day of classes a professor had gone over with all of the students how grading worked at Hogwarts. At the end of the year your grade and student/class ranking would be decided based on three things: a few exams and papers, your ability/performance demonstrated in the subject, and your end of year project for the class. The papers and exams were nothing new; Marik had always had papers and exams in all of his other schools. However the ability/performance portion of the grade and the end of year project were two things that were new to him.
The ability portion of the grade was fairly straightforward, though it did seem like there were many variables that went into it. For example in a subject like charms your ability/performance part of the grade depended mainly on how good you were at spellcasting and performing the spells learnt in class. However in classes like the dark arts it depended on many different things; like how much you answered and discussed in class, your knowledge of spells learned, knowledge of dark creatures, figures, and objects of the dark arts, and how well you were able to cast every spell that was learnt in class.
The ability/performance portion of your final grade was something every professor was grading you on every class of the year. So that meant if you wanted high grades in your classes that you had to bring your best to class every day, and therefore had to put in the work out of class every night.
The end of year project was a lot more simpler to understand than the rest of the grading sections but a lot more stressful to think about. At the end of the school year every student in the classroom would present a project for every single class they took that year. The end of year projects for each class make up the largest portion of your overall grade for each class. Which means that a majority of your grades in each class all come down to one single thing at the end of the year, which also means that the majority of your year will be spent stressing over that one said thing.
If that wasn't bad enough, when it is time to present your projects they have to be presented in front of not only all the other students in your year, but also every teacher at Hogwarts. So if you messed up, there was no escaping the humiliation that was sure to follow.
The good thing about the projects though was that they could literally be done on anything you wanted, as long as they pertained to the subject in some way and you had the entire year to work on them. So that meant you had a ton of time and freedom in designing a project and the possibilities for what you could do were endless. However that also meant that deciding on what to do each project on was nearly impossible.
At the end of the year the professors would tally up and combine your grades on your essays and exams, your ability/performance grade, and your grade given on your end of year project to form your overall grade for the course. There are seven possible grades you can get in each class and go from best to worst in the following order: 'M', 'O', 'E', 'A', 'P', 'D', and 'T'.
The 'M' grade, also known as Master ranking, is given to only to the student with the highest grade in the class. The 'O' grade, also known as Outstanding ranking, is given to the next top three students in the class. The 'E' grade, also known as Exceeds Expectations ranking, is given to the next top five students after those assigned the 'O' grade.
The 'A' grade, also known as Acceptable ranking, is given to the following top twenty students after the 'E' grade. The 'P' grade, also known as Poor ranking is given to the next ten students after the 'A' grade. The 'D' grade, also known as Dreadful ranking is given to the remainder of the students in the class and means that you have failed the course and must retake it the following year.
As bad as that grade sounds there is still one grade worse than the 'D' grade, and that is the 'T' grade. The 'T' grade, also known as Troll ranking, means that you were the lowest ranked student in that class. A student who receives a 'T' grade in a course not only is humiliated by knowing they are the worst in the class, but also is banned from ever taking that class again at Hogwarts. If a student somehow manages to receive two 'T' grades in their time at Hogwarts they are immediately kicked out of the school.
If you are lucky enough to not get kicked out of the school at the end of the year every student, in every year level, is awarded a class rank by the professors based off of their final grades in their classes. As well each student is also assigned an overall year rank which is based off of all of your class rankings. This is where the competition of Hogwarts's educational style truly kicks in.
The number one ranked student in every course, outside of being named the best in your year for that course, also receives a number of things. The student has a chance to receive money from the ministry, depending on their end of year project, to continue research or practice on the project's topic. As well the student will automatically award their house with 150 points at the start of the next school year.
If that wasn't motivation enough at the start of every school year there was a special recognition ceremony where the students who achieved the top ranks in each class were recognized, and according to a few rumors sometimes even given gifts from the professors. The student who is given the rank of number one overall for each year also receives an automatic cash award from the Ministry of Magic and their name put on a plaque in the trophy case in the school along with all of the other rewards they may have earned.
When it came to sports Marik had never been a competitive person. When it came to school though Marik was as competitive as they come, and that competitive nature added with the competitive educational style of the school made one thing very clear to him, there was no way Marik was not trying to be the number one ranked student in his year.
From day one, as soon as he had learned of the ranking system in the school his already motivated work ethic had been kicked into an even higher gear. That was why even when the rest of the Slytherins sitting around him were goofing around he had a book open and was studying hard.
It was hard to read inside the crowded and conversation filled Great Hall and the constant laughing and bickering between his housemates around him only made his progress through his book slower. As he finished the section on the protego spell and allowed himself a short break from the book to grab another piece of bread it seemed the current debate among the Slytherins around him was whether or not it was true that their Headmaster Albus Dumbledore was a mudblood or not. Why the Headmaster's blood status mattered or was that intriguing to them Marik had no idea. Marik stuck his nose back into his book as to avoid being dragged into their pointless debate.
After a few more pages and another piece of bread the Great Hall's noise level increased as hundreds of chirping owls and birds flew in through the open windows. The student's at all of the house tables struck new conversations up as a scrap of mail dropped from above in front of them. Marik closed his book and waited patiently for the usual Hogwarts brown barn owl to drop his copy of the Daily Prophet.
Marik had opened up a subscription to the wizarding paper on his third day of classes. Outside of Hogwarts Marik had zero information of the world of magic and the paper was his one looking glass to the outside world. Though most of the stuff written in the paper was something uninteresting like who had been promoted to what position at the Ministry of Magic, occasionally there was an article that helped him discover some new facets about the world of magic.
Yesterday's article in particular had been an interesting interview with a famous spell creator named Esorin Hazard and Marik was hoping for another interesting article in today's paper. About two minutes into the mail drop Marik spotted the usual brown barn owl which flew directly towards him and dropped a copy of the paper directly on his now empty plate. Marik fed the owl a small piece of bread before it flew off before he unfolded the paper and took a look at the headline on the front page.
GRINGOTTS BREAK-IN
Late last night there was a break-in at Gringotts, widely believed to be the work of dark wizards or witches. Gringotts goblins today insisted that nothing had been taken. The vault in question had been emptied a few weeks back. "But we're not telling you what was in there, so keep your noses out if you know what's good for you," said a Gringotts spokesgoblin this morning.
This has been the first ever recorded break-in at Gringotts in which no culprit was captured or killed. In the previous three break-ins at Gringotts two culprits were killed by traps placed on the vaults and the third culprit was trapped inside the vault they were robbing for sixty-three years. Gringotts now need to readdress their security system. Goblin security specialists or combing the land for a better breed of security dragon to replace the now deemed useless existing ones. They are even going as far as examining muggle security systems.
Gringotts needs to get another security system in place before any more breaches occur. Wizards, witches all over the country are scratching their heads wondering how safe their money is in the so-called safest wizard bank. Head goblins are urging the wizarding community for calm.
The main article of the paper wasn't that interesting to Marik unfortunately. He knew for a fact that there was hardly any money to steal inside of the vault his family had gotten set up for them by Dumbledore. Outside of another small article on a new found usage for gnome hair in the common sleeping potion, the rest of the paper unfortunately wasn't that informative or interesting either.
Having stuffed himself with as much bread as he could possibly eat and being disappointed from the lack of interesting news in the Daily Prophet Marik collected his book and got up from the Slytherin table. With a free day from classes Marik had planned to spend his entire Saturday practicing a good number of the spells he had been reading up on throughout the week. Quirrell had told him that they would be learning basic dueling in their next session and had given him a long list of spells they would be using in said duel, so Marik had plenty of work he needed to practice before their next private session.
Marik left the Great Hall and made his way quickly through the busy castle up towards the third floor. Most of the third floor rooms were assigned to be practice rooms for spellcasting and were normally packed with students of all years casting incredible looking spells. Thankfully there were a good hundred rooms scattered across the third floor and finding an empty one usually didn't take too long. After a short two minutes of looking Marik found the first empty one and put his stuff on the desk inside.
He had never seen a wizarding duel much less been in one before. From his research though he figured he now at least had a decent grasp on the concept of dueling and what might take place. Wizarding duels were a lot like the old Wild West duels from movies. One on one combat that usually ended with a clear victor who had been either smarter or quicker than their opponent. In wizarding duels it appeared that speed, spellcasting ability, spell knowledge, and tactics were all factors, and the possibilities of what could happen in a duel seemingly endless.
The list of spells Quirrell had made for him was also seemingly endless. There were all sorts of spells on the list stretching from simple spells he had already learned in charms class to spells that descriptions were longer than some of the books he had seen in the library. It was tough to decide on a good starting point but eventually he settled on starting with defensive shield spells; figuring they were fresh on his mind and would no doubt be useful in a duel.
Marik flipped open the book he had just been reading in the Great Hall to the bookmarked section on shield spells and skimmed through the chapter until he arrived at the protego spell and looked over its information one more time.
Protego:
The shield charm, protego, is used to create a magical barrier to deflect physical entities and spells, in order to protect a certain person or area. Conjurations may sometimes rebound directly off it back towards the caster or in other cases, may ricochet off in other directions or dissipate as soon as they hit the shield. Advanced users of the charm will be able to aim the direction of the reflected spell wherever they please.
The proper incantation of the spell is pro-TAY-goh. The spell's correct wand movements should begin at twelve o'clock and travel directly to six o'clock in one quick solid motion. The light of the spell can be invisible, however the caster will always be able to see a glimmer in the area in which the shield is present.
The spell seemed simple enough, at least in comparison to a majority of the other spells on the list and seemed like a good one to warm up with. After he felt like he had a good grasp on the wand movements and incantation he took his wand out from his bag and made his way to the center of the room and raised his wand into the air in front of him.
His lessons with Quirrell were the first thing that came to mind as he closed his eyes and concentrated. In Marik's first two days of spellcasting he had struggled miserably to consistently get off spells successfully. However, after just the first lesson with Quirrell he was now able to much more consistently get his spells off accurately.
Professor Flitwick and the beginner spell books all professed how incantation and wand movements were everything you needed to get a spell off. Quirrell also stressed this point but stressed that emotion and intent were just as important in spellcasting. Quirrell explained to him that spellcasting wasn't creating magical energy out of thin air. That just as it applied everywhere else in the universe energy could not be created nor destroyed with magic either.
Casting spells required the caster to take magical energy from their body to power spells. How this power came out depended on the imagination, emotions, incantations, and intentions of the caster. To drive his point home Quirrell had shown off some incredible wandless and wordless magic creating a roaring fire at the center of their practice room and changing its size and shape as he held the spell, making the point that just by him imagining what he wanted his spell to do and fueling it with emotion were enough to cast and command spells.
After that lecture Marik had practiced the rest of the lesson with Quirrell on the expelliarmus spell. At first Marik's spell had come out as a little more than a thin ball of scarlet light, but by the end of their lesson and with the help of Quirrell's advice Marik was casting a full beam of powerful scarlet energy across the room. He had even managed to control the motion of his spell in the air by the end of the lesson.
With Quirrell's lessons in mind he focused his mind on the protego spell. In his mind he imagined a shield, the Hylian shield from Zelda being the first one that came to mind. With a shield in mind he looked for an emotion that would fuel his spell. Thinking that shields were used to defend you against someone or something Marik tried to think of something he had needed to defend himself against. For once Dudley Dursley came in handy. Marik imagined his old fat school bully's fist coming at him and readied himself to cast the spell.
"Protego!" he shouted the spell incantation out into the room, making sure to maintain his concentration throughout the entire wand movement. Much to his surprise and delight on his first cast a medium-sized shield formed a few inches in front of him. The shield resembled almost an exact size, shape, and color to the Hylian shield he had been imagining. For seconds he tried to maintain the shield, concentrating on feeding his magic into the shield but after a few seconds his excitement at successfully casting the spell on his first try took over and broke his concentration.
"How did you do that?" a voice behind him asked, causing him to jump in fright and turn around instinctively with his wand raised. He lowered his wand as he found the source of the voice and couldn't help the large smile that sprouted on his face.
The voice belonged to the only witch his age that he actually knew, Hermione Granger. He had not seen Hermione since their first day at Hogwarts during the Sorting ceremony, much to his disappointment, and after the first week of not running into her he had assumed that she had no interest in finding him or being found by him.
Hermione had been sorted into Ravenclaw, and because of that the two of them did not share any classes together, which ruined all of their plans of sitting together in class and studying together that they had made on the Express ride. Marik had argued back and forth with the Sorting Hat to put him into Ravenclaw so that he could be close to Hermione and make sure he had a friend here at Hogwarts. The Hat was relentless with its counter-arguments though and argued that Slytherin is the house for you and all you seek many times before sorting him into Slytherin.
Since the sorting Marik had looked for Hermione whenever he went to the library, during meals at the Great Hall, and each time he looked for a practice room but the school was just too crowded and big and he never could find her. That had been the biggest negative of Hogwarts. Just like in his prior schooling career Marik was still friendless.
He had tried to be friends with Hermione, and honestly felt like she wanted to be his friend as much he wanted to be hers. However, the two week absence of her presence dampened what he felt Hermione probably thought of him.
Outside of Hermione, Marik had no one else he would even consider a friend at Hogwarts, well maybe the brown barn owl that brought him his paper every morning. He had looked for potential friends inside of the Slytherin house but after having the dumbest conversation of his life on the subjects of muffins versus cupcakes with a boy named Goyle and a slightly concerning conversation with a boy named Draco, Marik had quickly given up on the idea of finding a friend in Slytherin. In the end he had quickly given up his search for finding friends at Hogwarts altogether, deciding that he was always just meant to be a loner.
"You okay?" Hermione asked him, waving her hand in front of his face. Realizing that he had been staring while lost in thought he tried to bring himself out of his daze.
"Hey Hermione! You scared the hell out of me," he replied, lowering his wand and giving her a welcomed smile.
"Sorry, I just saw you in here and had to barge in. I haven't seen you in forever! I was starting to think you had left the school or something," Hermione said, a large smile sprouting on her face.
"It has been forever, and honestly I was thinking the same thing. I was worried you were trying to avoid me or something," he added, hoping she didn't reply saying she had in fact been avoiding him.
"I have been looking for you since the first day of classes. I even asked a Slytherin girl named Millicent to give you a letter to meet me in the library a few days ago. Apparently she thought I said Mark instead of Marik though and I had to spend a rather awkward half-hour with a second year boy," Hermione said, looking embarrassed upon thinking of the incident.
"That is kind of funny," he started, laughing a little at the story. "Well how have you been? It's good to see you!"
"It was very embarrassing! And it's good to see you too, Marik. I've been, okay I guess. I've been struggling a lot more than I expected too in some of my classes, but I'm hanging in there. How about you?" she asked him. He noticed a bit of emotion behind Hermione's words as she mentioned struggling in classes and he could tell she was annoyed and frustrated at that.
"I'm doing okay too. I was struggling with a lot of my classes too the first week of classes, but things have started to pick up this week."
"I can see that from that shield spell you just cast. How did you do that by the way? The spell's description says it's supposed to produce an invisible barrier in front of the caster, but yours was colored and shaped like a real shield. I've practiced that spell for two days and barely made more than a wisp of magic come out," Hermione asked him, again looking annoyed.
"I bet you got more than a wisp. And actually that was my first time casting the spell so I'm not too sure about the specifics," he started to explain.
"That was your first time? Ughh I am terrible at spellcasting!" Hermione groaned, looking visibly upset.
"Stop it Hermione, I guarantee you are not terrible at spellcasting. Cast the spell and let's see, maybe you are just overthinking it. That's what I was doing a lot of the first week of classes," he told her, hoping she would stop looking so upset.
"Fine, just watch," Hermione told him as she reached into her pocket and pulled out her wand. "Protego." Hermione said the incantation perfectly and made a flawless wand movement. Marik waved his hand around in air where her shield should have been but felt nothing as his hand moved through the air. "See? I'm no good," Hermione said, looking ready to cry.
"Stop saying that! What were you thinking of?"
"What do you mean? I was thinking of the spell, the incantation, and the wand movements. I was doing exactly what Professor Flitwick taught us to do in class."
"What emotions and images were you putting behind the spell though?" he asked her, thinking of the lessons Quirrell had given him.
"Huh? You lost me," Hermione asked him, and again she looked annoyed that she was not following the conversation.
"Let me try to explain to you the way Quirrell explained it to me. You know in muggle school we learned about the laws of the universe right?" he asked and received a nod from Hermione.
"Well the law of conservation of energy says that energy can neither be created nor destroyed right? The same applies with spellcasting. Casting spells requires the caster to take magical energy from their body to power their spells. How this power comes out depends on the imagination, emotions, incantations, and intentions of the person casting the spell.
"So for example when I casted my shield I had a few things in my mind. I had a visualization of the shield I wanted to cast in my head as well as the visualization of something I wanted to defend myself against. As I cast the spell I kept those visualizations in mind and mentally told my spell that I wanted to not get hit. And voilà, I was able to conjure a decent sized shield of what I imagined," Marik tried to explain, attempting to channel his best Quirrell, minus the stuttering the entire time.
"I don't remember Professor Quirrell saying that in any of our classes," Hermione replied.
"He didn't say it in a class, he told me that in our first private lesson when I was struggling to get the expelliarmus spell down consistently," Marik answered her.
"Professor Quirrell is giving you private lessons? I asked almost every one of the professors if they would give me private lessons and they all said they wouldn't give extra lessons to first years. I guess it was just me they won't give extra lessons to though," Hermione said, looking sad as her eyes trailed down to her feet.
"Besides Quirrell they all told me the same thing. So trust me it isn't just you. And if you want I can ask Quirrell if you could join us in our lessons," Marik said, hoping that might cheer Hermione up.
"Would you? Oh my gosh Marik, you are amazing!" Hermione shouted and sprinted the small gap between them to give him a warm hug. After regaining his balance from the sudden impact Marik couldn't help the feeling of warmth that overcame him as she hugged him.
"Yeah, I will tomorrow in our next lesson. You just have to promise me you won't tell anyone that Quirrell is giving me or you private lessons though. Quirrell told me that he didn't want all the other students coming to him asking for extra lessons and I wasn't exactly supposed to tell you I was either," he told her, remembering a little too late that Quirrell had told him to keep their lessons a secret.
"I promise I won't tell anyone. And if it is going to get you in trouble then you don't have to ask him," Hermione replied.
"Of course I will ask him, don't worry. Now try the spell again. This time imagine a shield that maybe you saw in a movie or on television. And imagine at the same time that I am trying to punch you. Keep both those images in mind as you cast the spell."
"Okay, okay," Hermione said, and closed her eyes in concentration for a few seconds before she raised her wand again. "Protego!" Hermione shouted out the spell incantation again and immediately this time the effect was much more instantaneous. A foot in front of Hermione a large silver shield, resembling that of a medieval knight's shield, appeared in front of Hermione.
"See, you are a good spellcaster," he said, giving her a warm smile. Hermione seemed to glow as she finished the spell. A large smile was immediately on her face and the sad girl that had been present moments earlier was now replaced with someone who looked like a kid in a candy store.
"I did it!" Hermione shouted out in excitement. "That looked exactly like I imagined it!" Hermione added.
"Good job then. Hey if you have some free time I have a whole list of spells that I have to learn by tomorrow. I was planning on practicing them in here all day. If you want you're welcome to join me? I'm sure practicing them together we can get through them all twice as fast," he asked her, hopeful that she would accept his offer to practice together. Learning magic was fun, but the idea of learning magic with someone else sounded much more fun.
"Are you sure? I don't want to intrude."
"Of course I'm sure. I've spent every minute here over the past two weeks practicing alone. I would love to have you here practicing with me," he replied honestly, earning a sincere looking smile from Hermione.
"Well let's get started then!" Hermione responded, sounding even happier than she had sounded after casting her shield spell. "Let's see your shield spell again. See if you can make it bigger this time," Hermione said and he gladly accepted her challenge.
For the next nine hours the two of them got lost in the list of spells Quirrell had made for him. They took turns casting and commenting on each other's spells and made great progress on the list. Having Hermione there with him did in fact make learning spells so much easier, quicker, and fun. They managed to get through half of Quirrell's list and had almost every spell they had practiced down to where they could cast it consistently. They were both having so much fun and making such good progress that by the time either one of them looked at a watch it was already almost dinner time, and if it wasn't for a loud growl from his stomach the two of them probably could have kept going for another nine hours.
"Well I guess we should head down to the Great Hall, I didn't realize we missed lunch," Hermione said, looking down at her watch.
"Yeah, I guess we should," he said and started packing his notes and books away. "What are you doing tomorrow by the way? I was going to head to the library in the morning for a bit and was going to come back here to knock out the rest of the spells on that list before my lesson with Quirrell. I'd be happy if you joined me again," he asked her; hopeful that seeing her was not just a one-time thing.
"I would love to join you again! If you are sure I'm not intruding of course," Hermione said, sounding excited as the two of them left the practice room.
"You are more than welcome to intrude anytime you want Hermione. Today was the best day I have had at Hogwarts so far and I really like having you around," he told her, hoping he wasn't being too forward or weird.
"It was honestly the best day I've had since opening day too. I hope we can hang out more in the future," Hermione replied, another large welcoming smile on her face.
"We will for sure. No more two week gaps between seeing each other," he told her, returning the smile.
"No more two week gaps," Hermione added. "I might join you in the library in the morning too. I was planning on going there anyways tomorrow morning. Do you know any good books on rare herbology plants? I was going to try and do some extra research in herbology tomorrow and wanted to veer off from the books I've already finished," Hermione asked him as they made their way down to the second floor of the castle and waited for the staircases to change.
"Honestly herbology is the one subject I haven't read that far ahead in. I can help you look tomorrow though," he replied.
"That would be great! What were you planning on doing in the library tomorrow?" she asked him.
"Potions work. I messed up my last brew of forgetfulness potion in class by misreading the ingredient list. I just want to review most of the potions we will be brewing this year and try to make sure it doesn't happen again. Snape hates when Slytherins embarrass him in class," he answered, shaking a little as he remembered being scorned by Snape.
"I can help you with that. Potions is surprisingly one of the classes I have actually been doing well in. I brewed a ninety-eight percent accurate forgetfulness potion in class too," Hermione said, looking proud.
"Dang, a ninety-eight? The highest I have brewed so far is a ninety-one and that was just due to luck," he added, impressed at Hermione's brewing ability.
"I doubt it was luck. From all the conversations we have had so far it certainly seems that you know what you are doing. And thanks again, Marik, for helping me today. It meant a lot to me," Hermione said to him, sounding sincere as they arrived at the once again crowded and packed Great Hall.
"Well thank you. And don't mention it. Hey do you mind if I grab a seat with you at the Ravenclaw table? The Slytherin table is boring and I want to catch up with you some more," he asked her, again hoping he wasn't being too forward.
"Is that even allowed?" Hermione asked him, looking unsure at the answer.
"I have no clue," he said, laughing a little.
"Well I guess we can find out. I'm more than okay with you sitting with me as long as you don't get in trouble for it," Hermione answered, and he followed her through the Great Hall to an open section in the Ravenclaw table. A few students looked at him as they saw a Slytherin sitting at the Ravenclaw table but all in all no teacher came screaming at him for sitting at a different table.
"The Hall looks even more packed now than it did this morning," he said as they sat down.
"Yeah, it does. I wonder if there is an announcement or something. Have you heard anything?" Hermione asked him.
"I haven't heard anything, but I would say you are right. Look, Dumbledore is making his way over to the podium," he replied, pointing at the Headmaster who had just entered the Hall through a door behind the teacher's table. As the Headmaster made his way up to the podium the Ravenclaw table along with the rest of the Great Hall burst into quiet whispers, all of them trying to guess at what the Headmaster was about to announce.
"Silence please," Dumbledore said and paused until the chatter in the Hall died down. "I do not wish to keep you from your dinner, especially on your weekend so I will try and make this quick. I am pleased to announce that on the second week of October Hogwarts will be having a dueling tournament." Loud excited whispers immediately resonated throughout the Hall at the Headmaster's announcement. He and Hermione both locked eyes at the announcement too and were ready to join the rest of the Hall in excited whispers before the Headmaster continued.
"Each year level will have their own individual tournament which means that all years will be participating. Third years and above will have the option to decide if they would like to participate or not due to your much busier schedules. All first and second years are required to participate.
"I will provide more information to you all on the day of the tournament and feel free to ask your Heads' of Houses for more information in the meantime. There will be one winner from each year and I would like to stress how big of an opportunity this tournament is to show your professors and classmates your abilities. Now, dig in!" the Headmaster announced with a grin and the Hall erupted into chatter.
"A dueling tournament. . ." Marik whispered more to himself than to anyone in particular as he tried to imagine what a dueling tournament would be like.
"Big of an opportunity. . ." Hermione whispered beside him, seemingly continuing his train of thought.
"Headmaster, professors, and all the students will be watching. . ." Marik added again.
"And we only have a month to prepare. . ." Hermione continued his train of thought again.
"You want to go back to the practice room and practice some more?" Marik asked her, not able to hide the obvious trace of nervousness in his voice. Only slowly just now really realizing what Dumbledore had announced.
"Yes please!" Hermione quickly replied, sounding just as nervous.
In a rush the two grabbed their bags from the floor along with a handful of rolls from the table before bolting out of the Great Hall back towards the practice room they had just left minutes earlier. Although they didn't have a lot of information to go on they had exactly a month to prepare for a dueling tournament - a tournament that gave them the chance to show the professors, Headmaster, and students their magical abilities. Marik could not waste the chance to show that he was the best first year at Hogwarts, which meant preparing for the tournament would be difficult. Thankfully though, it seemed that he would not have to go through it alone.
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