September 1994
It had never taken so much effort to pack up her things to leave a place she was staying before. Liz wasn't used to having so much...stuff. Or a house, for that matter.
She'd already done the normal sorting through all of her clothes she did every once in a while, to check for things that were falling apart too much to still use or were getting too small — when the latter happened, it was mostly things getting too tight around the hips, because Liz wasn't getting taller or anything, and her arse didn't have scars all over it to stop it from growing how it wanted. (Her arse did have scars all over it, obviously, but they weren't deep enough to affect anything.) She and Hermione had done a back-to-school clothes shopping trip a couple weeks ago — after the World Cup, but before the political situation had deteriorated quite so far, so thankfully they hadn't needed to drag Sirius along — so she'd needed to sort her clothes before that. She had a surprising amount of clothes now, since she'd needed to buy robes or dresses for one event or another over the last year, it'd taken a while to get through it all.
With the few dresses she'd gotten over the summer, she hadn't actually needed to get much this time, rather less than Hermione had — especially since her school and quidditch uniforms still fit fine, and she was used to having less stuff than Hermione, so needed fewer outfits to begin with. In their stop at a muggle store, she did get underwear and socks and things, and picked a couple cotton legging...things, on Hermione's recommendation. She'd noticed Liz preferred to wear skirts and stuff, even when it might not be super convenient for weather-related reasons, keep warm, you know. Which wasn't a bad idea, she'd just never thought of it. Wandering around while Hermione was looking at things, Liz had bumped across a bunch of...fashion scarf things — the same basic shape but made out of a flimsy, silky cloth, and really colourful, just for the look of it, you know — so she grabbed a few of those, because why not. In the magical leg of the shopping trip, at Malkin's Liz mostly just stood around bored, and at the next-door shop that sold leather stuff, shoes and the like, she ended up getting a pair of gloves — not made for warmth, just smooth delicate calfskin (the same stuff they made parchment out of, but processed differently), also just for the look of it.
Since needing to for her first visit to the Wizengamot, Liz had discovered she kind of liked wearing gloves. Not only for quidditch practice or whatever, when she had an actual reason to, but just in general. She didn't know why, just one of those things.
But, unlike literally every other time she'd ever done this in her life, she also had other belongings to sort through. For what felt like forever (despite knowing it was only a few years), Liz had always had to take all her things with her — whenever she moved from one place to another (like back and forth from school), literally everything she owned went in her trunk. But now she had a house, where she could keep things she didn't need in the short term. Some of her books and the potions ingredients she wouldn't use any time soon in particular, those could stay here, while she went to Hogwarts.
It'd taken her far longer to do that than it really should have. She'd been sitting on the floor in her room and sorting through her books and... She didn't know. Obviously she didn't need the books from, like, first and second year, or the Ciardha Monroe novels, or random other books she'd picked up over the year because she thought they looked neat but had already read — and had taken notes on, which she would be taking with — but it was unreasonably difficult to decide, yes, this one was staying here, and set it aside. The reason why was obvious, she thought: she'd never had a place she could put things and expect they would stay there, that nobody would mess with them, literally ever. Her dorm room at school, she guessed, but even that Severus and the seventh-year prefects could get into whenever they wanted. They didn't — there were inspections every once in a while, when there was an incident, but Liz's room had never been searched (except at the end of every year, to confirm she hadn't left anything) — but that wasn't really the point. It was hard to shake the feeling that, the things she left here, she'd never see them again, but that was ridiculous — it was her bloody house, the wards were excellent, they'd be here when she got back. Whenever that would be, winter break, maybe? It made the deciding whether she needed to take something with much harder, because she'd keep thinking, mm, no, I might want to read this one again eventually, and she had to remind herself that she would be able to read it again whenever she wanted, she wasn't getting rid of it, it'd be right here on her bookshelf in her bedroom for whenever she wanted it, honestly...
(Liz seriously hated her brain sometimes.)
The potions ingredients were much easier to figure out — they used the school's supplies in class, so obviously she didn't have to worry about that, and there were only so many potions she made in her own time, anything not used in any of those formulas could stay here. That had been done a few days ago now, Severus had come by to put a preservation ward over her brand new brewing station so they wouldn't go bad over the year. The preservation ward meant she couldn't actually use the thing, so she'd barely had any chances to — the people she'd contracted had finished it up a couple days after their return from the World Cup — but it wasn't like she'd had any brewing left to do before the end of the summer anyway.
There was some more junk she'd accumulated in her trunk over the years, that she either threw out or stashed away here or there, in the process of sorting through everything entirely emptying the trunk for probably the first time since she'd gotten it. After a few quick cleaning charms — it wasn't super filthy, but some of the compartments had, like, broken quills or ink stains or little bits of dirt or crumbs or whatever, enough that going over the whole thing was worth it — and then repacked everything she was bringing with, unsurprised to find it was rather emptier than it'd been the last time she'd packed up back in June. The books in particular made a big difference, and she hadn't bothered packing her pretty fancy formal robes, or the white boots that went with them, those took up a lot of space too. (There was a protective bag the robes went in, to prevent them from getting damaged in transit, and that could puff up a bit, it was a pain.) Little bits taken out here and there, more efficiently re-packed, and there were multiple whole compartments she wasn't using at all anymore. She was glad she'd gotten this thing, but the expanded space was probably a little much when she wasn't using it to carry literally everything she owned...
Liz, with Hermione's help, had gone over the whole house, making sure everything would be fine while she was gone. Besides just general straightening up, there hadn't been a whole lot to do. The tiny little kitchen area upstairs had been emptied out; the potion in the pensieve had been drained into some spare bottles, carefully packed away into her trunk, along with a collection of memories she'd decided to take with her, the cabinet the rest were put in magically sealed; everything perishable in the kitchen had been moved into the pantry in the basement, where the preservation spells would stop anything from spoiling — there was still meat and dairy and stuff in there that they hadn't used, but Severus had confirmed the enchantments on the pantry would stop anything from going bad, they didn't have to worry about that. (The cream at Godric's Hollow hadn't gone off after a dozen years, the pantry would be fine for a few months.) The curtains had been drawn all the way over the windows — probably unnecessary, since you'd practically have to be in the garden to see through the windows anyway — as soon as they left Nilanse would call in a few of her relatives to sweep through and put stasis spells over the whole house, so it wouldn't get all dusty or whatever. (She was told she wouldn't disturb the spells too much if she stopped by briefly to pick up a book or something, but the longer she poked around the quicker the spells would unravel.) While she was at school, Cediny would go over the house once a month or so, to make sure no demons had turned up, which Liz appreciated — she'd rather not be surprised with a boggart when she came home, thanks. (Especially since she still suspected it would show her Vernon.)
Just yesterday, she'd poked around the garden a little, before calling over Honish — Cediny had integrated the house's wards into the family magics at some point, so the other elves could actually hear her here now, she didn't need Nilanse to pass along messages for her — and telling him not to put too much effort into the place while she was gone. Especially since they'd be coming into winter soon, and everything would be dying anyway. Yes, sure, he could make sure everything was waking up the way it was supposed to when spring came, but he didn't need to bother with pruning shite or weeding or anything — she wanted it to look wild, remember. She had the feeling Honish still thought that was very weird, different from the aesthetics he was used to from the greenhouses and gardens back at Clyde Rock, but he kept the thought to himself. He asked if there was anything else she wanted to put along the trellises he'd gotten up, several of the free-standing fence-looking things scattered here and there — he hadn't done all the work himself, he'd gotten one of his cousins from one of the other Potter properties to help (Liz hadn't met any of the elves from the other properties yet, but Cediny said the head of the family typically left them to their own devices anyway) — but no, just the grapes he'd originally suggested would be fine. She planned to maybe play around making her own spiced wine, you know. But yeah, take it easy, don't stress over the place, seriously.
(It was honestly ridiculous how difficult it was to get Honish to not do too much work in the garden — Liz hated that kind of work, which was why she'd set it up the way she had in the first place, she didn't get it...)
After their showers this morning, Liz and Hermione had tossed their towels into the laundry — while the elves were here later they'd be washed and stuck in the linen closet — packed up all their bathroom things, and swept over both bathrooms with cleaning and drying charms. (Liz had had to teach Hermione the right cleaning charm, because Charms class was fucking useless for the everyday things.) That probably hadn't been necessary, since the stasis spells would stop mould or whatever from growing, and the elves would probably catch it themselves anyway, but it just seemed like the thing to do. One more check over the whole house, to make sure they weren't forgetting anything, and...that was it? She thought? She couldn't think of anything, anyway...
She'd never had a bloody house before, so for all she knew there could be something glaringly obvious she'd completely forgotten about. She was sure the elves would take care of it, but still, she was, just, vaguely nervous...
It was getting later into the morning now, and Liz was starting to get hungry — they were getting breakfast/lunch on the way, so she hadn't bothered having anything more than a couple of Tisme's biscuits with her coffee. (Special savoury biscuits she'd started making after Nilanse told her Liz didn't like sweet things, dense and chewy, with nuts and flakes of dark chocolate, and made with bloody bacon grease, of all things. Hermione didn't even finish the only one she'd tried, but Liz and Nilanse both thought they were great.) They were out in the front garden, sitting on their trunks on the path between the gate and the front door. Hermione's trunk was new, a multi-compartment expanded one somewhat less over-the-top than Liz's — an early birthday present from Liz, since she'd complained about her parents not letting her get one back before first year, and also convenient for getting all of her things to school — the brand new varnish gleaming in the sunlight. It was a nice day, warm by Irish standards, the sky speckled with clouds but not so densely it wasn't still pretty sunny, a steady mild breeze keeping the sun from warming them up too much. So, basically what it was always like up here on days it wasn't raining — cooler than London this time of year, but not by that much, and less sunlight was probably better for her skin anyway, she burned so bloody easily. To pass the time until Severus turned up, which should be any minute now, they were practising the Patronus Charm. Because why not.
Hermione had gotten to the point of making this formless silvery mist pretty much right away — much better than Liz's early attempts, she'd hardly managed even that much before her breakthrough after Godric's Hollow — but she hadn't gotten the thing to properly resolve yet. The lack of progress was making her rather frustrated, which was completely ridiculous — even managing that much was absurd for someone who hadn't even started fourth year yet. This wasn't something they taught until NEWT-level Defence (well, Charms, because the Defence Professor was often useless), and even then, Liz had heard from Flitwick (who was normally the one to teach it to people, because Defence Professors) that most of them only got this far. A proper, corporeal patronus was rather rare, especially to be able to do it on command at any moment. Even just this mist stuff would be some protection, from a dementor or a vampire or whatever, at least enough to run away. Really, there was no reason to be so silly about it.
Which didn't mean Liz wasn't still going to try to help, of course. She watched Hermione make another attempt, grimacing slightly at the frigid tingle of light magic on the air — Hermione's face screwed up in concentration and her wand hand shaking a little with effort, she managed a pretty sizeable cloud of mist this time, but again it stayed diffuse. After several seconds, Hermione broke the spell off with a sigh. "You're thinking too much," Liz said. "It's not like the arithmantic spells we've mostly been learning in Charms, where the intent is visualising what you want to happen and whatever. The feeling isn't part of the intent, it is the intent, you shouldn't be thinking about anything else."
Hermione gave her a somewhat exasperated look. "You realise, of course, that expecting me to stop thinking is completely unreasonable."
She shrugged. "Yeah, I know. I'm just saying, I've been watching your head as you do it, and I think that's the problem."
After grumbling to herself for a moment — Hermione suspected she just wasn't good at polarised charms, but she didn't want to admit that out loud — she settled in for another attempt. Liz sidled closer to her mind, watching. Not close enough to touch, that would just be distracting, but enough to pick up the echoes clearer. Which was quite unpleasant once Hermione actually started casting the spell, since light magic kind of hurt, but. Again, Hermione only managed the mist — plenty of it, and Liz was close enough to clearly feel the magic she was channelling, more than enough for the spell to resolve properly. (Hermione wasn't quite as strong a mage as Liz was, but she was still more powerful than average, as far as Liz could tell.) Yeah, no doubt about it, it was definitely an intent problem.
Once Hermione gave up, Liz said, "Maybe you should work on occlumency instead. I mean, not deflecting an intrusion, but more advanced stuff. I think that might help."
"What do you mean?" she asked, frowning a little, confusion sparking in the air around her, sharp and prickly from this close.
"Occlumency isn't just keeping people out, you know, it's also manipulating your own mind. Like, I was just thinking, I don't know if the way I do polarised charms is normal, it might actually be a mind mage thing."
"How do you do it, then?"
"Um..." Well, that was sort of hard to describe, actually — English wasn't really designed to talk about this sort of stuff. "I guess, I think of a memory of the feeling I'm going for, and kind of...put myself into it? You know, kind of like when I'm reading someone's mind, and look into a specific memory, except I'm doing it to myself. And then I take the feeling from that, and push more power into it, making it bigger, and then I add that to the magic going into the spell. If that makes sense."
By the way Hermione was frowning at her, it definitely didn't. "What do you mean, take the feeling from it?"
Liz gave her a helpless shrug. "I don't know. Like, kind of like pulling dough apart, you know, I take a piece of it and separate it from the rest, and then use just the piece for whatever. Except, the way feelings seem to me is like... You know, if the thoughts someone is having, and all the memories and knowledge connected to them, are like all the things in a soup, then the feelings are the steam rising from it — and I gather that together, and... Actually, I guess it's more like distillation, but we haven't done any of that in potions yet..."
Amusement tickling at her, Hermione's lips were twitching with a crooked sort of smile. "Of course you go immediately for culinary metaphors — you're so domestic sometimes."
Instead of trying to figure out what the hell she was supposed to say to that — she realised Hermione didn't mean that like it was a bad thing, but Liz was still rather embarrassed, for some reason — she just rolled her eyes. "Anyway, the adding power to it part isn't something you can do — that's a mind mage thing, the same thing I do to stretch out to other people's minds, you know. But I think all that does is make the spell ridiculously overpowered, it should still work without it." Liz just did it every time to be certain the spell would work correctly, and if she was going to be casting something it might as well be ridiculously overpowered — if she were the type of pretentious bastard who had a personal motto, it might be go big or go home. (And hey, she actually had one of those now.) Casting a patronus physically hurt, which, going a little easier with it might make that less bad, at least, but fuck it. "The rest of it is a normal occlumency thing, I think, you should be able to do that. So, maybe if you practise that first, it'll make the patronus easier."
"I thought you said you were terrible at occlumency."
"I'm terrible at keeping people out. In order to do that, I have to stop pushing magic into my mind — the first step to reaching out to someone else's, it's complicated — and I literally have no fucking clue how to turn that off. I think I broke something important when I was a little kid. It's fine," Liz added, picking up the flash of something sharp in Hermione's head, "I'm not hurting myself or anything, it's just a little frustrating sometimes. And I'm basically shouting in the face of any other mind mages around, seriously, looking at my own memories in the pensieve my mind is so fucking loud, it's ridiculous. I don't know how Severus can stand it, honestly, it would give me a headache dealing with it all the time. That's why the mind-shielding amulet messed me up, you know, the magic I was pushing out saturating the internal space, which is bad for complicated magic theory reasons, I don't know." Well, she did know — saturating the internal space basically made the whole thing part of her mind, so the amulet being removed was like having a big chunk of her mind just torn away, which was not good for you — but that was weird and complicated and didn't really matter. "But occlumency is also just manipulating your own mind, and mind mages are intuitively good at that — it's no different from messing with someone else's, really. So."
"...Right." Hermione's mind was thoughtfully shifting, tingling with faint concern — from what Liz could tell, putting together things she'd observed in the past with what Liz had just said about her ridiculously noisy mind, and whether that was something she needed to worry about. It was, sort of, since it made her more vulnerable to demons and various mind-altering magics, but not that much worse than a normal person, so it wasn't a serious problem she needed an immediate solution for or anything. Liz thought Hermione came to the conclusion that she didn't know enough to come to a conclusion, tucked the thought away to get back to later. "So. Occlumency, work on directing the emotion more efficiently."
"Yeah, I think that might help. If you need a more advanced book on it, I can see if there's one I can borrow from Severus for you." Liz would normally be reluctant lending someone books she'd borrowed from Severus, since he probably wouldn't be happy if anything happened to them, but she didn't have to worry about Hermione mistreating a book. "You also might try thinking of something or someone who want to keep safe instead."
Frowning, Hermione asked, "How does that work? I thought you said the charm used feelings of safety, not...whatever the proper word for that would be. Protectiveness, maybe?"
Liz shrugged. "After Severus told me about it, he lent me a book that was way more useful than the ones I found in the library — still didn't manage the charm for months, but. 'Expecto patronum', you know, I await a protector, but there's no reason you can't be that protector you're awaiting. Prewett, the author, said that some people have an easier time doing it that way. I didn't mention it earlier because he said it was the most useful for warrior types, you know — protecting other people is basically their job, so it's really easy for them to work up that feeling — but it's worth trying." According to Prewett, people who used that method tended to have oddly variable patroni, since the form it took would be influenced by their impression of the person/place/whatever they were thinking of and their relationship with them, which sounded kind of neat to Liz. She'd cast it plenty of times by now, and hers was always a bird, a sort of falcon-looking thing — but then, she didn't have a whole lot of memories to pull from, so she didn't know whether that meant anything.
She'd actually tried Prewett's idea, using that incident with Lavender and Parvati stealing Hermione's underwear, but it hadn't worked. She'd been more angry than anything, so.
The suggestion had Hermione turning quiet and thoughtful for a long moment, staring off at nothing and chewing the inside of her lip, her wand tapping idly against her thigh. Hermione was hardly the sort of person Prewett had had in mind, but Liz thought she actually had a shot. She was hardly the fighting type, but she was... Well, she was kind of the sort of person Vernon would accuse of being a pinko hippie commie or whatever, what with being very conscious of racism and sexism and poverty and stuff. (Which was silly, since it wasn't like only communists cared about those things, but according to Vernon interracial marriage was literally communism, so.) Not to say he'd be entirely wrong, she was definitely familiar with a lot of leftist stuff — she'd already read some of the same books Tamsyn had recommended to Liz — but Liz didn't think she was really a committed communist or anything...though apparently her grandmother actually was a member of some capital-C Communist party in France, whatever. But that wasn't the point, the point was she often got all huffy and defensive when she thought someone was being unfair about something, and had extreme disdain for some of the racist attitudes common in magical Britain (and muggle Britain, for that matter) — Liz thought it was possible channelling that sort of thing into a patronus might actually work.
After a while thinking, Hermione made another attempt, again producing a cloud of silvery mist, the magical chill intense enough Liz felt like it'd suddenly dropped ten degrees. The cloud wasn't quite as diffuse this time as before, though, the edge denser and uneven, beginning to clench inward before loosening again — ooh, she was close, come on, come on...
The mist abruptly dispersed into nothing, Hermione distracted by the clanking of the gate opening — Liz had already known Severus was there, she'd felt his mind the instant he apparated in. "That was close that time, Hermione, you almost had it."
"Yes, very impressive," Severus agreed. Coming to a stop a few feet away from them, he gave Hermione one of his trademark raised eyebrows. "Ten points to Gryffindor, Miss Granger."
"Oh, um..." Hermione wasn't sure how to respond, because she was only mostly sure he was joking. Which was very silly, honestly, he'd done the eyebrow thing and everything...
There was a flickering of amusement in his head, but Severus kept it entirely off his face. "Are you two ready to go?"
They quick shrunk their trunks, slipping them into their bags. Liz half-expected Severus to check over the house quick, to make sure nothing was amiss, but he turned right around and went back out the gate, holding it open to close behind them. Once they were all out on the street, Severus held both hands out low at his sides — Hermione sidled up to take one, but while Liz did step close to his side she didn't take his hand, Severus instead gently setting it on her shoulder. Severus's mind immediately flared louder against hers, but he was doing a good job keeping himself to himself, the feel of it smooth and cool and quiet. "Ready?"
Closing her eyes, Liz concentrated, taking in a long, slow breath. "Ready."
As Severus had promised, he'd started teaching her apparation, though as eventful as things had been lately they'd only had time for a few lessons. Not that she minded, honestly — it turned out apparation was way easier than people made it out to be. Or, maybe this was like how Liz was instinctively good at charms (apparation was basically a charm), and could even do some wandless magic (which was supposedly the hard part of apparation), her particular skillset just happened to lean this way. Whatever, despite being something people weren't supposed to learn until, like sixth year, it wasn't actually that complicated.
The thing they were going to do now, Liz doing the magic but Severus steering her, was even something they'd done several times already, she'd figured it out in literally their first lesson. Severus had given her some arithmancy on how apparation worked, which she only sort of understood, and the function for the power required was actually very simple: it increased linearly with the mass displaced, and that was literally it. The problem normal people had with side-alonging was the difficulty of wandlessly focussing that much more magic than usual — especially since it was much easier to cast spells on yourself than another person, meaning side-alonging a second person of identical mass could easily take four or five times as much energy instead of only double — but Severus was a pretty powerful mage, and unusually good with wandless magic, so he could probably do both of them without any trouble if he had to. But Liz doing the magic for herself meant he only needed to channel the magic for himself and Hermione — and because it took more magic to cast magic on another person, Liz doing herself reduced the total energy required way more than you'd think.
(Arithmancy was bloody weird sometimes.)
The more complicated part was the mental strain it took to cast the magic properly — which was apparently also a thing that could be modelled with arithmancy, but all of that was new to Liz, not something they'd done in class yet. That function included things, like, the person's awareness of their own body, any magics acting on or embedded within them, their familiarity with the destination and the specificity of their intended landing spot, the magical environment and even atmospheric composition of their destination (though the latter had a very small effect, it was still measurable), and all kinds of things, it was a bloody mess. This one was where people generally started having issues — if they weren't paying much attention to what they were doing, or weren't super familiar with where they were going, it would take more energy to power through the vagueness (as Liz understood it), which could push the power required over the energy they were channelling without them realising it. That was how splinching happened, basically. Most of these things stayed the same if you were side-alonging someone, except for the awareness of the mass you were apparating — obviously, people tended to be more conscious of their own bodies than other people's, that uncertainty driving up the power requirements way more than you might expect.
Apparently, the Ministry strongly recommended that people only ever side-along another person — the warning explicitly mentions one's own children — in emergency situations, that people instead use the floo whenever reasonably possible. The extra power requirements that came with it were often just too much for the average mage to handle safely. People did still do it all the time, it wasn't illegal, but it was relatively rare. Severus, of course, wasn't a normal person — he could side-along both Liz and Hermione simultaneously if he needed to, but Liz might as well get the practice.
(The healers in the Death Eaters had been specifically trained to side-along multiple people at once, in order to better evacuate the injured after or even during a battle, which Liz guessed was a thing she knew now.)
Liz didn't have any problems with the power side, but the mental effort was more of an issue — apparently the magical objects she was always carrying, the dark magic lingering in her scars, that she was always channelling magic into her mind, and that she was a mind mage and a seer all made it so it would take more effort than usual, which was seriously bloody irritating. (Though intuition due to being a seer might streamline some of the knowledge- and awareness-related factors, Severus wasn't sure how much of a difference that would make.) Since most of the major variables in the function were multiplied against each other, getting one as close to zero as possible limited the effects of the others. Severus had, annoyingly perceptively, pointed out that she was likely going to have trouble with the awareness of your own body part, so they'd started with the familiarity and specificity of her destination, by just apparating to a spot she could clearly see. It'd taken several tries to get the spell to resolve properly — thankfully not splinching herself, it just hadn't worked at all — but eventually she'd gotten it, pulled it off several times before that day's lesson was over. The next step would be to move up to apparating to places she knew very well, like maybe popping around inside the house, but she'd been told not to try it without him present, in case she splinched herself, and then they would gradually ramp up with less and less familiar destinations and less and less specific landing spots until she was comfortable doing it just in general.
Severus was very clear that that could easily take years — a lot of adult mages weren't fully confident with apparation — and he'd made her promise she wouldn't try apparating on her own until he signed off on it. And he'd very consciously worded it in a way without any loopholes, like she'd found with the instantly learning French thing. From the sound of it, that'd probably end up being around the time she could legally apparate anyway, and splinching herself sounded unpleasant, and this way meant she'd have way more practice by then than she would without the lessons, so she hadn't minded agreeing, it was fine.
The trick to what they were about to do now, was that Severus providing the destination reduced those variables to literally zero, which cancelled out that whole part of the function, leaving just the strain of focussing the spell. Severus's casting burden was still affected by the destination stuff (as well as his awareness of her and all kinds of other things), but they didn't effect Liz's spellcasting at all — she meant, even the effects of her own self-awareness (or lack thereof) was cancelled out, it was mathematically the easiest apparation possible. It was really very easy to do, and much less uncomfortable than full side-alonging. It'd quickly become Liz's favourite means of magical travel, hands-down.
The apparation itself wasn't difficult. Normally, when Severus was properly side-alonging her somewhere, they'd be holding hands through it, but when she was doing the magic and he was just steering he had a hand light on her shoulder instead. For some reason, she wasn't sure why it was different — something about not disrupting the spell envelope? Whatever, not important. Liz pushed magic out, like casting a wandless spell, but not with any particular intent, just saturating the air immediately around herself. And not just letting it float away either, holding it tight, like an invisible bubble of crackling, ticklish magic close against her skin.
"Three. Two. One." Shortly after he said one, there was a sudden burst of cool tingly dark magic immediately from Liz's right, immediately clenching and twisting — Severus had much more experience with this, it didn't take him nearly as long to set it up as Liz needed. Liz followed only a split second behind him, grabbing at the magic around her, yanking it in, and down...
Apparation was one of those weird theoretical magic things that could be very difficult to describe in plain English — like space-expansion, or the Hogwarts floorplan, it didn't really make sense in the familiar, comfortable three-dimensional space people were used to operating in. Interestingly, mages have been doing this kind of magic forever, but hadn't been able to come up with the maths to describe it (and, through playing with the maths, come up with new, even trippier shite to try) until pretty recently, importing new maths from the muggle side. It was really confusing shite, with like extra space dimensions, which Hermione said was kind of similar to what little she'd heard about quantum physics (she was not an expert on the topic), and shite like numbers having multiple parts to them, like... Okay, you had the normal number, but then you had a thing added to it that was a multiple of some coefficient that was a special kind of number (and sometimes a third or a fourth part), but that by itself was one weird two-dimensional number? which was apparently a thing? This one Hermione apparently was an expert on (because she was a nerd like that), muggles had that too, and even called them imaginary numbers the same as mages did (because muggle mathematicians had come up with them in the first place). Hermione tried to explain the idea with square roots of negative numbers, which didn't make any bloody sense — didn't squaring a number make it positive, as a rule? — and she'd drawn a bunch of circles and triangles and shite, but numbers weren't triangles, Hermione, they were just numbers, it'd made absolutely no sense whatsoever.
Yeah, there were reasons Liz didn't understand the arithmancy for apparation, it was way over her head.
The basic idea was, like, you know how the three dimensions were all perpendicular to each other — you've got one straight line, then add a perpendicular line and you've got two dimensions, then add a second one and you've got three, basic stuff. Well, now add a fourth line, that's perpendicular to the other three, which is definitely something that's possible in real life and not just weird esoteric maths...except, this fourth line wasn't actually straight, the function describing it was a parabola, meaning it was curved...but still perpendicular to the other three? somehow? Liz didn't get it, but Hermione said that was also how muggle spacetime worked — in fact, when Liz had shown Hermione the maths she'd gotten the feeling they were even the same exact equations (but only the feeling, because she wasn't an expert) — so whatever. Except, then there was another line perpendicular to the other four, which was described with an even more complex function, despite still being perpendicular, which continued to be confusing, and then another one after that, with even more confusing maths with it, and so on and so on, it was complete fucking nonsense.
Liz was pretty sure you had to invent weird two- and three- and four-dimensional numbers to get the maths to work out, because that just wasn't how anything worked, it was ridiculous. She would say it was all just completely made up, and didn't describe anything that actually existed in the real world...except space-expansion and apparation and the like worked. So.
Anyway, when people were taught to do apparation, they were normally told to kind of turn on their heel when they did it — it was easier to cast wandless magic if you had some physical motion, to help you focus, but the rotation also made it easier to get the magic to work right...somehow. Something to do with the magical field's rotation interacting with one of those weird non-linear-but-totally-perpendicular-to-these-other-linear-lines dimensional things in just the right way, she didn't know exactly. Spinning wasn't necessary, it just made it easier for beginners trying to get the magic to work, but Liz had enough control of her magic to put a little twist on it without needing to physically move. To Liz, it felt like clenching the magic she was holding around her in, and down, and kind of...through...something? Like, into itself, almost...inside-out-ways. Because inside-out was a direction you could go, apparently, if you were doing magic. It made sense as a thing to make her magic do, just kind of feeling it out, despite the fact that finding the words to describe it was completely fucking impossible, because apparently moving inside-out-ways was something magic could just do.
And once the magic started working, Liz was moving inside-out-ways — that was mostly just uncomfortable. Less uncomfortable than being side-alonged, but still uncomfortable. The feeling of being squeezed was still there, not just like something pressing in from all sides but, like, she always got the weird feeling that she was changing shape somehow. She didn't know, there was a point in the middle where she just felt wrong, like those moments she got sometimes when her body didn't feel quite real (like it was just an alien, vaguely gross puppet she was piloting around), but different from that, just, the wrong shape, all squished and...she didn't know, exactly. It didn't last very long, just an instant of oh what's happening fuck fuck before she went back to normal and it was over. Severus claimed he didn't notice that himself, but apparation did involve a translation across dimensions at weird angles, all those trippy maths, so she wasn't imagining it, her body was technically changing shape through it — in fact, it was something psychometric Seers had described before, lucky her, she guessed. That was happening with side-alonging too, just doing it herself didn't have all the nauseating twisting to it, so she hadn't noticed before. Also, while being side-alonged she was completely blind and deaf, but doing it herself, while being squeezed and pulled through space at imaginary angles, she could still see and hear, but it didn't make any sense at all, smeared and distorted, her ears popping and shapes splitting in dizzying, colourful fractals.
But it only lasted for a blink, and Liz's boots were clunking against concrete, a warm breeze tugging at her scarf. With all the unpleasant twisting and shite being side-alonged came with, Hermione took a minute or two bent over, her hands shaking propped up on her knees, trying not to sick up, but Liz's head stopped spinning after a single deep breath.
Apparation was some trippy shite, but at least it was better than the floo.
(Liz was still toying with a theory that magical transportation being uncomfortable was necessary, like a sacrifice made in exchange for bending the rules the universe normally worked by, but she didn't know enough about ritual magic to articulate it.)
Anyway, a short walk, and Severus had brought them to a restaurant, cafe sort of thing — the very same one he'd brought her to when he'd tracked her down after first year, she thought. They had a perfectly ordinary breakfast, spent talking about the new changes at Hogwarts — some of the more obviously magical stuff carefully edited or talked around, to avoid confusing the muggles around — and then when they were done walked off to King's Cross. It took a good fifteen, twenty minutes, but they weren't in a rush, and Hermione would really prefer to not have to apparate again, so.
Liz had kind of forgotten where the barrier was — she'd only gone through it four times total, and it'd been over a year since the last time — but Hermione felt like she knew where she was going, led them straight there without any hesitation. They still had a good half hour at least before the train left, but that was late enough that it was getting pretty busy on the platform, more people bustling around than she was entirely comfortable with — the weight of their minds not so heavy as it was in some areas of the rest of the station, but still unpleasant. Severus wished them luck in their first few weeks of classes (Liz's first routine meeting with him probably wouldn't be for a while), reminded Liz that he could come find him at any time if he needed anything, before heading straight for the hole in the wards and disappearing again.
Amusingly, he got a bunch of weird looks on the way, people taken aback by Severus Snape wearing muggle clothes. He wasn't even trying to keep up his scary Death Eater persona anymore, since he wouldn't be able to go back to spying anyway — some people can be very silly about him just being a normal person.
Liz and Hermione ducked into the bathrooms on the platform to change into their robes quick — they were rather less cramped than the bathrooms on the train, so. Hermione asked if she wanted to see if they could find Daphne (and Tracey), but...not really? Especially with how everyone was running around like idiots, she'd rather just find an empty compartment and get out of the way. The train was magical enough that even the thin walls of the compartments mostly blocked her mind magic, so. If some of their friends came and found them, fine, but Liz didn't want to have to spend any longer pushing their way through the crowded hallway than absolutely necessary.
The train was noticeably bigger than it had been before — in previous years, the train had stretched along the whole platform, but now it extended past the wall on one side, at least a few cars too long to fit on the platform. But, since everyone first filled the cars they could get to from the platform (obviously), it was really easy to find an empty compartment just by going toward the back. They weren't the only ones to get the same idea, there were plenty of upper-years back here, avoiding the chaos of the younger students and their parents getting them settled in and saying their goodbyes. Some of their friends did track them down pretty quickly, first Sophie but not Sally-Anne — her younger brother was starting this year, she was still toward the front with her family — Susan and Hannah, Daphne and Tracey, Lily, and then Sally-Anne showed up along with Justin, Megan, and Wayne, Neville and Lisa and Tony...
Too many bloody people. Interestingly, it seemed the compartment was actively expanding as new people came in — Liz was pretty sure it hadn't used to do that — but with the mostly magic-tight walls, having too many people crammed in here made it very noisy, it was quickly giving Liz a headache. She left to find another compartment, Daphne and Tracey and surprisingly Susan and Hannah coming along with her. Padma ended up joining them after the train had already started moving, but six people was fine, she guessed.
She hadn't had the same moment from last year, when she'd just very much not wanted to go back to school and hated absolutely everything, but dealing with so many people was just so fucking exhausting...
፠
It didn't take long to become obvious that things at Hogwarts had changed — even the Great Hall looked different.
All the decorations were the same, the tables made out of the same material with the same fancy-looking dishes and goblets set out in even rows, the ceiling still overtaken with that neat enchantment displaying the sky overhead. (Beginning to get into the evening, sunset was still some hours off, the patches of clouds overhead brightly lit up on their west-facing sides.) The Hall was rectangular, noticeably longer than it was wide, four absurdly extended tables stretching down the whole length; an elevated platform at the opposite end from the doors held a smaller table, perpendicular to the others, where the professors sat. This meant the students sitting near the doors were actually pretty far away from the professors' table, but enchantments in the Hall made sure everyone heard the Headmaster when he was giving a speech or making announcements or whatever, so it hardly mattered.
But, when Liz thought about it, there were issues with keeping the same layout they'd had before. The previous first year class had had eighty students, and the incoming first-years numbered about a hundred twenty. When Liz started, the years averaged around forty each, so the extra students worked out to the equivalent of three more whole years — the student population would now be about three-halves of what it'd been in Liz's first year. So the tables, and the Hall they sat in, would have to be half again as long as they'd been originally. That was doable at Hogwarts — they'd already been noticeably longer last year — but at this point it was just getting ridiculous, you'd hardly even be able to see the staff table from down there.
And the staff table would also have to be longer, since there were a bunch more professors now, which meant the Hall would also have to be made wider too. It was a mess, basically.
It looked like the new Headmaster had decided to be a bit more creative with it. The raised platform at the end was gone, the student tables running through where it'd been. Instead, the platform had been moved to one of the side walls, the table atop it noticeably longer than before, filled with the old professors and also a bunch of unfamiliar faces. Instead of four absurdly long tables, there were a bunch of still long but much smaller ones. They were still arranged in the same direction — running lengthwise through the Hall, now parallel to the relocated staff table — but there were now twenty-four tables, arranged in four columns of six rows each. By the banners hanging overhead — and even the embroidered tablecloths, which were new — closest to the doors were six tables for Ravenclaw, six tables for Hufflepuff, six tables for Slytherin, and finally six tables for Gryffindor. The houses weren't arranged the same way anymore either — before, starting from the left-hand side from the doors, they'd gone Slytherin, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, Gryffindor. She wondered what was up with that.
By the time Liz (still with Daphne, Tracey, Susan, Hannah, and Padma) got here, the Hall was already over half full — the platform at the Hogsmeade station wasn't any longer than the one in London, so they'd had to wait for the front of the train to empty first — and she noticed immediately that the two rows of tables closest to the staff were being left mostly empty, presumably for the new first-years. They started across on the right side of the Hall, opposite from the staff table, Padma splitting off from their group immediately, and then Susan and Hannah soon later. There was an extra table between the Hufflepuff and Slytherin sections Liz hadn't seen at first, set perpendicular to the rest, various adults she didn't recognise seated there — some of them were in the blue and black Hit Wizard uniform, Liz assumed they were the task force here getting rid of the giant man-eating spiders. Thankfully, there were some seats in the very back row of the Slytherin tables, so Liz could sit with her back to the wall. They didn't say anything about it, but she suspected Dorea and Millie and Draco had saved some seats, which was nice of them.
Liz gasped as she sat down, blinking — it was quiet. Not perfectly quiet, of course, she could still feel plenty of minds around her, but...less than she'd expected, enough of a difference the relief was immediately noticeable. What was that?
"Liz?" Daphne asked, bumping her knee. "Is something wrong?"
"No, it's... They must have put some kind of ward on the table, it's much quieter in here. It's kind of great, actually." Even the minds at her table, which must be inside of the wards, were softer than she'd expect, like, like the air they had to pass through to get to her was thicker than it should be. Liz reached across the table — toward the Monroe sisters, easy-going enough she thought they wouldn't mind if they noticed her — and it did work just fine, but it took rather more effort than it should. Some kind of dampening charm, or something? Whatever was causing this, it was wonderful, Liz loved it. She expected even this would be too much on really bad days, but still, looked like eating in the Great Hall would be much less of a trial this year.
There were a few odd looks on faces around her, glancing at each other, flickers in their heads. It often didn't occur to people how fucking miserable being a mind mage could be sometimes — her closer friends knew, of course, but she wasn't surprised if Draco's clique hadn't quite put it together. Daphne, Dorea, and Tracey knew enough to get it, though, all smiles and a couple bland oh that's nice sort of comments. And yes it was nice, she wondered whose idea this had been...
Liz noticed there were designs stitched into the new tablecloth. Long strings of knotwork done in silver, matching the Slytherin green of the cloth, but every couple feet there was a more complicated image. It was heavily stylised, but Liz could still tell what it was supposed to be: a tree, underneath it a snake curled up sleeping around a flowering plant of some kind. She asked, according to Alex Ingham (passed over from the adjacent table) that was an absolutely ancient Slytherin thing — like, dating to before the Founding of the Wizengamot. (Now that someone point it out, the snake-around-a-flower thing was very familiar, she must have seen it around the castle before.) It presumably had some old religious meaning, though nobody had any clue what anymore, it was just remembered as a symbol of the family now. Okay, then. She kind of wondered what was on the other tables.
It wasn't very long after they settled in that the man at the centre of the staff table stood up, arms raised for their attention — there was a bit more chatter, some motion as the people in the seats with their backs to him turned around, before the Hall finally quieted down. The new Headmaster Gamp was a rather ordinary-looking man, by magical standards, shorter and broader than Dumbledore — in that he wasn't a stupid tall, stupid thin bastard, pretty average — his grey-streaked brownish hair let grow long, as was the fashion on the magical side, but tied back out of the way, facial hair neatly trimmed instead of spilling all over the place. He was dressed mostly in black — a neutral colour at Hogwarts, not suggesting any of the houses, matching the students' robes — in what Liz recognised as sort of professional dress, long-sleeved shirt and trousers in thick linen, though in a more formal style, with a long jacket of a thicker, heavier-looking fabric worn over the rest, covered in colourful embroidery. That looked like...yeah, the jacket had green snakes and red lions and blue birds and yellow badgers stitched into it all hyper-stylised and thick with knotwork, Hogwarts-themed and very Celtic-looking, okay then.
Once it was reasonably quiet in here, Gamp spoke, his voice carried through the Hall by some enchantment. "Good evening, everyone, and welcome to a new term at Hogwarts. There are an intimidating number of introductions and announcements we must get to, but it would be best to save those until after we Sort our new students — so let's get that out of the way first." Gamp sharply clapped his hands once, the sound unexpectedly loud. "Mistress Rose, if you would."
Liz blinked at the name — did he mean Ros, the chief elf at Hogwarts? She'd never spoken to her, but Liz had seen Ros a couple times in the kitchens. She understood Ros's position at Hogwarts was like Cediny's with the Potter elves. There was a crackle of magic, and when it cleared snacks had been teleported onto the tables. Nothing really big, pretzels and crackers and little bits of cheese and sausage and the like, pitchers of drinks. Just to tide them through the Sorting and the announcements afterward, she guessed — there were over a hundred of them, so not a bad idea, she guessed.
The first-years were led into the room in a long double row, walking along the Hall between the front student tables and the staff platform until they reached the middle, where McGonagall conjured a spindly little stool. Liz was a little surprised McGonagall was still doing the Sorting job, since Severus had said she wasn't actually the Deputy Headmistress anymore — Gamp must have let her keep doing it, for whatever reason. There were so bloody many new first-years that, even when the front of the pack was standing there near the middle of the Hall, the tail end of the pack was still somewhere out the doors, ridiculous.
So, of course, the Sorting took fucking forever. But of course it would — assume an average of about a minute for each student (which felt about right), and a hundred twenty students meant it would take two hours. She thought they were maybe going a little faster than that, but still, fucking ridiculous, there had to be a more efficient way to do this. It didn't take very long before it was rather noisier in the hall than it normally was during the Sorting, people turning to have muttered conversations as they waited, occasionally breaking to clap whenever they heard their own house called. Liz had cast a sound-dampening paling around herself, since the clapping started getting to her pretty quick, later expanded it so she could actually hear it when the people she was sitting with tried to talk to her. She could barely hear McGonagall through the paling, but she did catch familiar names now and then — just noble families she remembered, or else younger siblings and cousins of people she knew. And the names went on and on, and on, for fuck's sake...
After what felt like ages, Liz surreptitiously cast a time charm — and was surprised to find out it wasn't even six yet. That simply wasn't possible. Maybe the train had gotten them here faster this time? Supposedly the trip to London and back for breaks was noticeably shorter than the ones at the beginning and end of the year, they might have adjusted the speed to give them more time to do the Sorting. Since they had snacks out and everything, and the professors weren't trying to stop them from talking, even card games going on here and there, it wasn't that bad, just bloody tedious.
Liz didn't know exactly how the class size was determined, some complicated maths involving the number of muggleborns — Hogwarts was required by treaty to take all the muggleborns in the country, but their own policy kept them below a certain fraction of the class, how many magical-raised kids were allowed over their share set relative to a few other factors, including the birthrate in a few noble families and villages picked as indices, it was ridiculous. The baby boom after the war and the increase in the muggleborn population (due to a larger number of squibs being forced out of magical society in recent generations and the Death Eaters no longer murdering muggleborns as toddlers) had both contributed to the class size getting bumped up, and it was going to keep increasing for the next several years, before finally levelling off around two hundred. (Which might be much closer to the historical student population, but it was five times the size of Liz's class.) Though, Severus said as part of the reforms at the school, they were actually changing how the class size worked, expanding Hogwarts as part of the big education programme the Wizengamot was working up...which meant the class size would end up being even bigger than the current maths said it should be. They were definitely going to have to do something about the Sorting, this was quickly going to become very impractical. It already sucked with these new first-years, and there were only going to be more of them next year, and the year after that, and the year after that...
Finally, after what had to be a couple hours — the light against the clouds overhead had turned noticeably orangeish, which meant it had to be well after seven — they finally ran out of new first-years. After shuffling off the last of them, McGonagall rolled up her absurdly long list of names, vanished the stool with a casual flick, then moved toward her seat...along the way setting the Sorting Hat on the back of the Headmaster's chair. That was a new one, normally the Hat was put away somewhere after the Sorting was done, McGonagall returning a couple minutes later. This did make more sense, when Liz thought about it — the Hat had seemed properly conscious to her, when she'd felt it at her own Sorting, it must get terribly bored being stuck in the Headmaster's office all the time.
It wasn't until after the whole thing was done that Liz realised they'd skipped the Hat's song this time. She wondered what was up with that.
Gamp waited until McGonagall was in her seat again before standing up, the noise made by the crowd of excitable children gradually tapering off. "Well. That was something of a trial, wasn't it?" There was a little bit of awkward muttering and laughter, Gamp smiling through it for a moment before starting up again. "Welcome to Hogwarts, our new students, and welcome back to the rest. I am your Headmaster, Hector Gamp — it's my first year here too," he said, leaning a little in toward the younger kids at the front tables, "so this is exciting for all of us.
"Instead of leaving things to linger unsaid, I think it is better to come out and say them. So, here it is: this is an awkward time here at Hogwarts. This institution has stood for over a thousand years, and our country has changed much over that time — and Hogwarts has changed with it, time and again. But those moments of transition, when reforms must be made to bring this the eldest of our country's academies more in line with the times, these are always uncomfortable. There is always a period of adjustment, as the staff and students both get used to some new policy or staffing and curriculum changes, or we find a new reform, mm, doesn't quite work as well as we thought it would, and we have to try something new, and then adjust to that, and so on and so on. Things are going to feel a bit unsteady here, likely for some years, and there is little we can do about that but try to muddle through and make the best of it. To try to make Hogwarts itself the best it can possibly be, for you our students, yes, but for the class coming in after you, and after them, and down and down through the generations — for another thousand years, perhaps.
"And that is on top of the awkwardness that always comes with a new Headmaster — when the Board approached me to help guide Hogwarts through this transition, I was deeply honoured. I myself am a graduate of this ancient academy of ours. Hufflepuff," he added, nodding at the banner overhead to his right, "class of Oh-Seven. After starting a family and acquiring a Charms Mastery, I moved into work as a tutor alongside my own academic projects. In time, a few difficult incidents with people who'd hired me to teach their children led me deeper into the politics of our guild, until I stopped tutoring entirely and instead focussed on work on behalf of the guild — I have been a member of the Guidance Council of the United Company of Scriveners and Preceptors for other thirty years now. For the muggleborns among you who may not be aware, it's similar to a teachers' union. My duty for much of my life was to help teachers all over the country better do their job, and represent them when they got in a dispute with their employer — including your professors here at Hogwarts, I believe they're all members. My role there was not so different from what is to be my role here, when you think about it.
"That out of the way, allow me to hopefully put your minds at ease somewhat. Albus Dumbledore left a terribly intimidating seat to fill," he said glancing back at the tall, gilded chair behind him. "My appointment as Headmaster is not an imposition from some outside group, coming in and forcing their will on Hogwarts. I was chosen by the Board of Governors, the same Board that chose Dumbledore back in the Fifties. For all his faults, all his mistakes, it is undeniable that Dumbledore is a great man. I am not here as part of some zealous effort to erase my predecessor's legacy at this school. There will be changes at Hogwarts over the years to come, yes, but this is not to be done out of malice. I love Hogwarts, as do so many of her graduates, and I am truly humbled that the Board have entrusted me with its future. I wish for nothing more but to help to make Hogwarts the best it can possibly be, for you here now, and for the new students to come after you. To hopefully ensure that, a thousand years from now, Hogwarts is still as grand and venerable an institution as it has been for so long.
"But that is enough from me!" he chirped, punctuating it with a sharp clap of his hands. "You are not here tonight to listen to the endless blathering of old men, I know. Unfortunately, there is some blathering I have yet to do. As you can see here, there are many new faces among the staff — this is one area in which the Board have already made changes here. I'm sure you'll get to know each other better over the course of the year, but I think it best to get a few introductions out of the way quick." Pushing up one of his thick sleeves, Gamp glanced at a watch on his wrist. "Oh dear, it is getting on. Let's make it very quick, shall we?"
He started with introducing the new Deputy Headmaster, an unexpectedly young bloke named Ernest Abbott (a relative of Hannah's?). He was one of Gamp's people from the guild, Severus had said he probably would be, but when he'd said that Liz had expected someone closer to Gamp's age — Abbott had graduated from Hogwarts in the 70s, only a few years older than Severus. Gamp explained what the point of the Deputy position was supposed to be, acting as a neutral party in disputes between the houses, being a more casual, less intimidating person than the Headmaster for students to approach if they needed to. Which made one of the Heads of House also being Deputy Headmaster very inappropriate, an obvious conflict of interest. He took a moment to make clear that McGonagall had been given the choice of being Head of Gryffindor and teaching Transfiguration — because the Deputy Headmaster also wasn't supposed to teach, too distracting from their other duties — or continuing on as Deputy, and she'd chosen to give up the Deputy position. (Trying to reassure the Gryffindors that Abbott hadn't usurped McGonagall or something, Liz guessed, the same thing he'd done with Dumbledore a moment ago.) Abbott would be leading a writing workshop, both helping muggleborns write with a quill and ink and going over how to properly write an essay, but that was the only teaching he would do. His door was always open, come to him with any issues, especially with the big changes at the school, blah blah.
And then he introduced the four Heads of House for the new kids, a little explanation of how the whole house system thing worked. He included a bit about the dorm supervisors that Severus had mentioned, adults to keep an eye on all the kids and make sure they're all doing okay and getting along and whatever — currently there would be one for the girls and one for the boys in each dorm, for a total of eight, though they'd likely bring in more as the student population continued to grow. And then he started going through the professors, describing how the duties of old ones have changed and introducing the new ones.
He started with McGonagall, head of the Transfiguration Department, who would be teaching only fifth-years and above, and here were the new junior professors, say hello everyone. And then Severus, same deal, named his new subordinates; also, the Potions Department might bring in apprentices to help oversee brewing sessions sometimes, particularly during exams, to make sure there weren't any accidents. (Severus had changed into robes, but in a deep blue instead of the usual black — still all dark and dramatic, of course, and he still had the Saturday morning cartoon villain goatee, but Liz wasn't the only one to notice the change.) And then Sprout, she would be primarily focussing on Hufflepuff and maintaining the greenhouses, though she might pop in to help out in one class or another now and then — so they had all new Herbology Professors, say hello, blah blah. Flitwick had taken the same deal as Severus and McGonagall, and also had new junior professors.
And then Gamp continued through the other departments one by one, starting with the other mandatory subjects. The head of the Defence Department this year would be the Auror Alastor Moody, a heavily scarred man with scattered grey hair and a very fake-looking prosthetic eye — he was here primarily to audit the course and investigate rumours of a curse on the position, at Dumbledore's request made before his firing, they'd see him now and then but he wouldn't have a regular teaching schedule, leaving that to the new 'junior' professors. They had extra Cambrian Professors, with Smethwyck still in charge, but the class was being fleshed out with more literature stuff in the later years, which sounded interesting; they were also looking into expanding Smethwyck's thing into a whole language department, adding Gaelic and French and maybe more, but they were still in the planning stages. Binns had been sacked, the announcement met by actual cheers from the students...which then diminished a moment later as people realised that meant they'd have to go to History now. It turned out Binns hadn't been following the curriculum for a while — the Department of Education had made adjustments over the years that Binns, being a ghost, had failed to take into account in his routine — so things would be kind of messy as they tried to catch everyone up. Astronomy was also complicated, since it wasn't really practical to have whole-year classes anymore — also, it was going to be downgraded to an elective in the near future, but they were still working out the details.
Runes would be replacing Astronomy as a core subject — Liz knew that was something Babbling had been badgering the Board about ever since being hired, to match how schools in other countries did it, so good for her. They weren't ready to do that yet though, so it would be remaining an elective for now, though Gamp did recommend the new second-years sign up for it when it came time for that, and the third-years would have a week or two to decide to switch in if they wanted. Trelawney had been demoted, Divination primarily taught by a new professor — Gamp said the adjusted course would involve a lot more practical scrying and stuff, which, good, should have been that way in the first place — though Trelawney had been kept on in a diminished capacity specifically to help people with the Sight refine their talents. (Liz was sceptical of her ability to do that, but whatever.) And of course Hagrid was gone — Gamp tactfully failed to mention that that was because he'd started a fucking acromantula colony in the Forest, and was currently in Azkaban for it — so Care had a new professor, with an assistant to help manage the animals. (Gamp mentioned there was also a new groundskeeper, obviously, but he wasn't in the room at the moment.) Vector and Burbage were still in charge of Arithmancy and Muggle Studies, though they both had a second professor to back them up — less because they needed the help right now, just laying the groundwork for when they would.
Gamp also introduced Pomfrey — there would be trainee healers coming in and out of the Hospital Wing now — Pince, and Hooch. When he got to Filch, Gamp explained what his actual job was supposed to be: he worked with the elves to keep everything clean and orderly, yes, but it turned out he was a master painter, certified by the artists' guild in conservation. That is, his real job that the Board was paying him for was to maintain all the statues and paintings and shite, to keep them in good condition and make touch-ups and repairs when necessary. Liz had been aware of that — picked up with mind magic, but that he'd been tasked with fixing up the Fat Lady's portrait after Sirius slashed the hell out of it should have made it obvious — but apparently that was a news to most of the other students, a lot of surprised muttering going on. Given all the priceless art scattered all over the castle, of course they would need someone like that around, seemed obvious to Liz — this place was practically a bloody museum, honestly. The part that surprised Liz was that Gamp actually mentioned Norris (cat-shaped as usual, dozing in Filch's lap), but then, since the Chamber of Secrets incident it was common knowledge that she was a person, so, only polite.
And that was all the introductions now, right? Yes, good, that'd taken fucking forever. Except, apparently they weren't done. After pointing out the Hit Wizards at the middle table, here to deal with the acromantula colony, yes yes, it turned out there was even more to get to. "There are a number of old traditions here at Hogwarts that have gone out of style over the generations — as part of the changes here, the Board and I have decided to restart some of them. One of these, for the feasts at the beginning and the end of the school year, and also on the holidays, it was once expected for the Headmaster to invite representatives of the people living in the Valley around us to attend. This is one tradition I have decided to bring back. And so, here at the guest table we have Master Deverill, the Mayor of Hogsmeade, with his family — everyone give a warm welcome to Master Deverill."
Liz hadn't realised Hogsmeade even had a mayor — as she understood it, there technically wasn't any local government in magical Britain, though some towns and villages had organised themselves just to make it easier to get what they needed from the Ministry. So, the Mayor of Hogsmeade wasn't an official, legal position, just someone the locals had picked to represent them to the proper government. (Though, Liz honestly wasn't sure whether the distinction mattered.) A middle-aged man stood from the table to wave back at the crowd, perfectly ordinary-looking, though he'd clearly dressed up for the occasion, in one of those old-fashioned but super-colourful suits the more professional commoners often wore. His family had apparently done the same, a similarly-aged woman (presumably his wife) and adult-looking children all in similar suits or robes.
"But the residents of the Village aren't the only people we share the Valley with." Suddenly, Gamp walked through the table, just, went right on through like there was no resistance at all, the table parting around him before resettling again. That was neat. As he walked, surprised mutters breaking out around the Hall, he called, "Are we ready, Glawcyn?"
...Was that a name? Who the hell named their kid raindrop?
Liz got her answer when someone walked through the door — apparently a nymph would name their kid raindrop. It could be difficult to tell how old a mage was to begin with, but it was even more difficult for nymphs, their features slightly different, enough to seem vaguely alien, their hair defaulting to a pure snowy white. This Glawcyn bloke had peculiar greenish-brownish skin — he was a forest nymph, then, Liz had seen plenty of them around at the Greenwood — wearing pretty ordinary-looking robes in a muted tan colour, though decorated with strings of beads, glinting green and blue and red as they shifted in the light. Body long and slender, he had an odd sort of smooth, drifting gait, almost seeming to float across the floor more than walk, despite the long knobbly staff in one hand clunking against the tile with every step. There was a lot of chatter and hissing from the crowd, which was fair — Liz had no idea when a nymph had last set foot in Hogwarts, but it'd probably been at least a century.
In fact, the hiring decision was...odd enough that Liz really had to wonder about how it'd happened. She didn't know what the make-up of the Board was like, but she did know that Gamp was a light-leaning family — they didn't tend to have a very high opinion of nymphs, just in general. Maybe Gamp himself felt differently, and had twisted their arms? Or, maybe, they were just trying to... You didn't have to think other peoples were just as good as yours to admit they existed, and maybe the Board thought it was a good idea to have a nymph around for educational purposes. Especially since they hadn't put one in a teaching position — the groundskeeper mostly, well, kept the grounds, watched over the plants and waters and stuff, and also had a semi-diplomatic role dealing with the nonhuman people out in the Forbidden Forest. Even the racists would say that was a job nymphs were suited to, it fit with the stereotypes about them just fine. Maybe the whole point was sort of low-key telling all the little noble kids, yes, nymphs exist, there are plenty of them in this country, this is what they look like, it's fine to have them around — as long as they're doing servants' work, they're certainly not equals, but they have their uses. The school was full of the nobility, they would be ruling the country in time, but they couldn't properly do that if they didn't know shite about the people living here, and nymphs were a surprisingly large fraction of the population. Made sense to her.
Liz was maybe being a bit uncharitable, but as far as she was concerned, the people in charge of this country had done absolutely nothing to earn the benefit of the doubt from her. This seemed very much like something the more 'reasonable' racists would think was a great idea. Especially since the previous groundskeeper had been a half-giant charity case — clearly they didn't mind having people who wouldn't normally be accepted in polite society doing the job. Given what had ended up happening with Hagrid, they were lucky the Board hadn't banned nonhumans from Hogwarts entirely, out of 'safety' concerns.
Raising his voice a little over the noise, Gamp said, "Glawcyn of the Greenwood will be our new groundskeeper starting this year. I'm uncertain how often you'll see him in the castle, but I know you will all make him feel welcome here." Yeah, Liz doubted that, honestly.
"He's from the Greenwood? Did you know about this?" she asked Daphne.
"Oh yes, the Board approached us over the summer. They sought to a hire a nymph, specifically — we were all quite pleased to be asked." It mostly wasn't showing on her face, but the soft warmth in her mind, Daphne was pleased about the whole thing, thought that it was a good sign for the direction the country was headed.
...Liz didn't want to tell her it was probably for implicitly racist reasons. And she wasn't the only one who thought so — she caught the same thought from Dorea across the table, and Tracey thought Daphne's optimism was kind of adorable. Not to mention, Daphne couldn't feel the low-key hostility bubbling in the air around their heads. So.
Glawcyn reached Gamp, in the middle of the Hall between the guest and staff tables, they had a brief muttered conversation, before Glawcyn took a step back and to the side. He pounded the end of his staff against the tile, the sound reverberating surprisingly loud throughout the hall, boom, boom, boom — and there was a crackle of magic each time, almost like... Was that a staff in the sense of the magical instrument, like the precursors to wands? Nobody really used them anymore, since enchanting had advanced to a point wands were much easier to make than they used to be (and also staves could be a bit awkward to wield), but it sure seemed like Glawcyn had cast a charm of some kind with it. Huh.
Liz had kind of been wondering what Gamp had meant by the other people they shared the Valley with, and once again she got the answer when someone walked through the doors — though, she actually heard them before she saw them. A heavy, sharp clack-clack, clack-clack, the same sound coming from multiple sources in a steady rhythm. Liz had seen enough pegasi at the Refuge to identify the noise as horse hooves before the centaurs came into sight. Of course, Liz had never seen a centaur in real life before, just in drawings in books — her first impression was that they were bloody big.
Horses were large animals, so that shouldn't really be a surprise, but it hadn't quite registered that the human half would need to be proportionately big relative to the horse half. Just, human-looking torso and arms and head, but noticeably scaled up, thick and, just, big, they were big. They weren't wearing shirts — because obviously, why would they — so it was really obvious too, the muscles in their chests and arms, just, fucking huge. Not proportionately, much, just, they were big in general, was all.
As they got deeper into the Hall — the chatter from the students getting noisier, shocked that there were centaurs, in Hogwarts — it became clearer that, while they did look human-ish, the proportions weren't quite right. Their ears were too long and pointed, almost like elves or goblins, though not as dramatically — sort of like Flitwick, she guessed. Their faces were long and angular, block jaws and heavy brows, their arms noticeably long for their bodies...though, definitely not if she was comparing against their whole bodies, head to tail, she guessed. The human-shaped parts weren't hairless, as she'd kind of expected, instead covered in a very thin layer of fur, enough you could still make out their skin tone through it — the lead centaur's was a faintly reddish-brown, the hair at the top of his head, tied out of his face to tumble in long curls down his back, instead a solid black. The fur grew gradually thicker below the ribs, transitioning into the horse-body, which was just, you know, pretty normal horse-looking. There were four of them, three men and a woman, coming in different colours, the lead centaur and one of the men behind reddish-brownish, the woman a darker brown, the other man a lighter, almost blond sort of colour, the horse-body with darker reddish patches here and there over his back.
They were wearing clothes, though they were pretty minimal — the woman had a sort of shawl thing wrapped across her shoulders and around her chest, all four of them a long cloth draped over their backs, almost looked like a skirt sort of thing? She noticed they particularly covered the back end, probably to stop them from flapping their pricks in people's faces. (She had to wonder if that was a thing they always did, or if it were just out of respect for human sensibilities — they did have fur, but also it was cold in Scotland.) The cloth was plain-looking, but colourful, clearly embroidered by hand. All four of them, even the woman, were armed with bows and quivers strapped over their backs, the men taking up the rear also had axes hung from their 'waists' — none of them were in their hands, though, clearly not meant to be threatening, no different in principle from a mage wearing a visible wand holster.
Distracted by the bloody huge centaurs, Liz hadn't noticed the people walking with them at first. There were also four of them — if she had to guess, both groups had sent their leadership, plus two escorts for protection — one in the lead a middle-aged man, walking with an intricately carved staff. He was rather underdressed, covered with little else but a heavy fur cloak, embroidered along the edges with beadwork. (She couldn't tell from this angle, but she thought he might be wearing a loincloth sort of thing under that, and nothing else.) The other three were wolves. Like, literal, actual wolves. They must be wilderfolk. It was common knowledge that there were wolves in the Forest, sometimes there was howling audible even from up in the castle — Liz had heard rumours they were werewolves, but that was ridiculous, everyone with half a brain knew they were wilderfolk. She'd known they were out there, she'd just never heard of them coming up to the castle before.
It hadn't occurred to her just how big wolves were, either. She'd thought just, you know, like dogs. Her first thought when it came to dogs was still bulldogs, and those were kind of big animals — way bigger than a cat, anyway. But then she'd met Sirius, and he was far bigger than Marge's bulldogs in dog form. (It'd made her nervous, honestly, which was ridiculous, Sirius was actually less dangerous as a dog, but whatever.) But these seemed even bigger than Sirius. Their heads — which also seemed disproportionately big, long jaws and big eyes and huge fluffy ears — had to be nearly chest-level on Liz, the bigger ones were definitely longer nose to tail than Liz was tall. She wouldn't be surprised if all three of them weighed more than she did — though it was hard to say for sure, because they were also really fluffy things, she had no idea what proportion of their size was just fur.
The wolves came in different colours too, the one walking alongside the man almost solid black, one in the rear a patchy mix of black and a pale silvery colour — looked very much like the man's long shaggy hair, which seemed odd on a human-shaped person, she assumed his fur while wolf-shaped would look similar — the last a bright golden yellow, patches of orange along top and white underneath. Was that even a colour wolves came in? Liz wasn't an expert, and it wasn't like wilderfolk were normal wolves anyway. It was a neat colour, very eye-catching, she was just saying...
Distracted looking over their guests, Liz completely missed whatever conversation they had — Gamp welcoming them to Hogwarts, and blah blah, she wasn't really paying attention. It didn't help that a lot of the minds around her very noisy at the moment, even with her reach limited just to her table. A lot of people didn't like nonhumans much, she already knew about that. Some people, especially in the dark, tended to be more open to wilderfolk — they were at least half-human, after all — but the same tolerance often wasn't extended to centaurs. Even people who were cool with nonhumans tended not to approve of the population here in Hogsmeade — centaurs weren't native to Britain, after all, these ones had been relocated here at some point. Liz wasn't sure why that'd happened, exactly? She thought they were refugees a previous Headmaster had given sanctuary, for whatever reason, but the details had never been explained.
She did remember that Gamp introduced the lead centaur as Magorian and the human-shaped wolf as Silvermoon, explained they were leaders among their people sent to represent them here. Everyone give them a warm welcome to Hogwarts, blah blah — Glawcyn and most of the staff, plus a good chunk of Hufflepuff and a few scattered people in Slytherin and Gryffindor, started clapping right away, though it took a while for the rest of the crowd to follow. Liz noticed some people didn't move at all, sitting there with their arms stubbornly crossed, glaring at Gamp or the centaurs.
Gamp apparently noticed their reception was somewhat lacking. While the centaurs and wilderfolk went to find their seats — or, not really, since only Silvermoon could properly use a chair — he 'announced' that Hogwarts would be hosting the Triwizard Tournament this year. (Liz thought 'announced' because she was certain literally everyone already knew that.) Delegations from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang would be staying in the Valley for most of the year, from October to June. He hoped they would be just as welcoming toward their foreign guests for the duration — said with a hint on his voice that he wasn't exactly pleased with their guests' reception just now, and hoped they'd do a rather better job when Beauxbatons and Durmstrang showed up.
Yeah, if Liz were Gamp, she wouldn't hold her breath.
(Though if Liz had needed a sign things at Hogwarts were going to be different from now on, she guessed she'd just gotten one.)
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After the overly-long Sorting and introductions and everything, the rest of the Welcoming Feast ended up being mostly normal. The same food as always, people blabbing off about shite that happened over the summer and gossip and whatever, Liz mostly just trying not to look obviously bored. They didn't even start that much later than usual — the timing of the train's arrival had definitely been adjusted, by at least an hour or two. There was a lot of talk about the new professors, passing around whatever people knew about them. With how insular magical society could be, most of them were known to at least someone, a relative of a relative of whoever or gossip passed through the grapevine, whatever. Most of it was boring shite Liz didn't really care about, honestly.
Supposedly, the new Deputy Headmaster wasn't a close relative of Hannah's — he was from the Noble House of Abbott, who the Common House of Abbott (Hannah's family) were vassals of, which was just unnecessarily confusing.
Daphne claimed Moody's prosthetic was something she called the "Odin-Eye," which... Did she mean that literally, like an eye belonging to the god Odin? Liz vaguely remembered there was a story involving Odin plucking out an eye or whatever, but...Liz was pretty sure gods weren't real? Even if there might be some weird, magic higher consciousness...thing, which was plausible but Liz hadn't seen any real evidence for, that wasn't the same thing as, like, a real physical thing, that might have eyes. When Liz asked, Daphne claimed it was something called an Artefact — she heard the capital letter in Daphne's tone — which was a term for something actually created by a literal god? apparently?
Some of the other purebloods around got kind of shifty while Daphne was talking about it, uncomfortable. But, uncomfortable in a getting too close to something we don't talk about way, not a this bitch is mad way. So, um. Liz definitely got the feeling the magic-raised kids thought Artefacts were real — which didn't necessarily mean anything, could just be something they'd grown up with. Purebloods believed in a lot of weird shite. Still, bloody weird.
The Feast was a little different than normal, and not just because there were way more people in here than in Liz's first couple years, or how the Hall had been rearranged. There was a faint tension in the air Liz caught now and then, especially when the conversations around approached anywhere near politics, or current events — which wasn't so much of a surprise, she guessed, the country was kind of a mess at the moment. And there were their guests, of course, people kept shooting glances at the centaurs and wilderfolk. Some people with explicitly racist thoughts in their heads, yes, but a lot of people were just curious. At one point, Liz saw a couple Hufflepuffs come up to talk to the centaurs, one of the wolves wandering around paused by the Gryffindor first-years to get mobbed with pets, tongue lolling in happiness and the kids giggling.
(Dorea noticed the same thing, and was a little weirded out by it. Liz thought that was silly — they might be a person, but they were also a wolf, and dogs liked being petted, so. Like Norris did sometimes, you know, no reason to be so stuck up about it...)
A couple of the wolves — not Silvermoon and the one Liz assumed was probably his wife or something, but the other two — spent a lot of the time wandering around the Hall, sniffing or pawing at this or that, seemingly exploring. One of them, the golden one, was a bit more adventurous about it. The silvery one edged somewhat away from the student tables, but the golden one would trot right up to them, accepting pats, nosing at people's shoes, tipping up with their paws on the edge of the table to look over the platters of food. At one point, they snatched something off the table, a couple of the students yelling in surprise as they darted away, yipping in amusement.
...Liz wasn't sure how she knew that was amusement, especially since she couldn't feel them through the wards around the table. Seer thing, maybe.
One time, the golden wolf passed nearby, between Liz's table and the wall behind her. Out of curiosity, Liz leaned a little back, over the bench, crossing the edge of the wards. She reached out at the wolf's mind as they– she passed — definitely a person, as dense and complex as any human (Liz would never confuse wilderfolk for animals), but like Norris shifting and colourful, more—
The mind shifted, the soft scattering of sparks — a little nervous, but bright and curious — abruptly transforming into a bed of knives, pressing in tight against her, hot and angry. The wolf had paused, turned toward Liz, glaring with sharp yellowish-orangish eyes, big damn pointed teeth bared, a low growl grinding in her throat. Oops? Liz hadn't expected a bloody wolf would be able to feel her there...
"Oh shite, sorry, I didn't, um." She honestly had no idea whether the wolf even understood English. "Here." Liz turned around long enough only to grab a slice of ham off of a nearby platter, held it out to the offended wolf. "Sorry about that. I didn't mean anything by it, I was just curious."
The wolf had already stopped growling a second ago, at the bit about just being curious the intensity of her glare diminishing somewhat. She hesitated for a couple seconds, before reaching out to pluck the ham out of Liz's hand — careful not to nick her fingers at all, she must have done that on purpose. It only took a couple chomps to devour the slice of ham entirely, because fucking hell wolves were big in person. The wolf sidled a little closer, reaching to lick the grease off Liz's fingers, her head blaring loud against Liz's at the contact. The anger from before was gone, a shade of what Liz was pretty sure was... Was that an apology, maybe?
Liz caught a very brief flash of memory, of the wolf fighting acromantulae with some of her relatives. She didn't get many details of the fight, but she did get some implicit stuff associated with it. The wolf girl was probably only a couple years older than her — which Liz thought might be kind of old for a normal wolf, but wilderfolk had human-typical lifespans, so she was basically a teenager — and was apparently a very gifted mage by their people's standards (because they could do magic while wolf-shaped?), so she'd gotten pulled into the fighting younger than she might have otherwise. Trying to explain why she'd immediately reacted to Liz as a potential threat, maybe — she was basically a child soldier, if Liz was following this right, so it wasn't a surprise if she was a little jumpy. Honestly, Liz understood perfectly, and she didn't even have the excuse of having grown up in what was basically a war. Liz wasn't sure how much of that thought the wolf caught, but she let out a little huff, nosed at Liz's robes for a second (Liz holding in the urge to smack her head away), before trotting off again, resuming her exploration of the Hall like nothing had happened.
...All right, then. Liz calmly cleaned the dog spit from her hand with a charm, and turned back to her dinner, ignoring the looks she was getting from the people around her.
Even with their earlier arrival, the super-long Sorting and the many announcements and introductions meant the Welcoming Feast went rather longer than normal, the sky overhead fallen into full dark. Liz was pretty sure some of the younger kids were literally falling asleep at the table. Eventually Gamp stood again and, with a reminder that tomorrow would be an off day before the start of classes on Monday, keep an eye on the noticeboards in their dorms, they were finally sent off to bed. Or, to their dorms, anyway — if this year was like any of the others, there would still be beginning-of-the-year stuff they had to do down in Slytherin. Everyone stood up to get moving pretty much all at once — except for the first-years, anyway, staying behind with the prefects — the crowd dense enough that Liz waited a few moments for the Hall to clear out a little. As eager as everyone was to get the fuck to bed, it didn't take very long.
The common room down in Slytherin looked mostly the same, aesthetically, though there were some differences. It was larger, for one — especially obvious because the hearths along the side walls had seemingly been left in the same places, most of the walls around them cut out and the room extended past them to allow more seating space, the hearths standing in the open like especially wide pillars. Things had definitely been rearranged, the pillars dotted across the space in different places, altering the pattern made by the patches of light and streaks of shadow, the layout of the furniture completely unrecognisable. There was an empty space in the middle of the room that had been cleared of furniture, revealing a large, finely-detailed rug displaying the Slytherin coat-of-arms (Slytherin as in the Most Ancient House, not the much-simplified snake thing used at Hogwarts). That was new.
Like usual, the whole bloody house were packing themselves into the common room — Severus would do his normal beginning-of-term announcements, the first-years would all introduce themselves, and then they'd get to go to bed. The weight of all the minds in the room was a bit much, but it wasn't too much — especially since nobody was paying her special attention, just gossiping with each other as they waited — so Liz could tolerate this for that long. Liz, Daphne, Tracey, Dorea, Millie, and also Draco and his hangers-on for some reason, managed to find themselves a nice out of the way spot, still in view of the open space in the middle (which Liz assumed was where Severus and the first-years would be), but still with enough open seats for all of them. Some second-years had been approaching the same spot at the same time, but as they saw Liz and everyone showing up they turned around and went somewhere else without comment.
...It belatedly occurred to Liz that they were fourth-years, and therefore had some seniority in Slytherin now — and their group happened to include Liz, Dorea, and Draco, who were 'important' people, so also vaguely intimidating. The kind of people that you would turn around and find somewhere else without protest when they took your seats. Huh.
Thanks to the delay waiting for the Hall to empty out, it wasn't long after they settled in that the first-years showed up. They were quickly shuffled through the older students toward the open spot in the middle, the crowd beginning to quiet along the way — presumably Severus wouldn't be very far behind them. Watching them pass by — not directly in front of them, the corridor they were moving through some metres away, but they still had an uninterrupted view — Tracey let out a whispered curse. "They're so damn little, bloody weird."
She frowned at Tracey for a second, before turning back to the new first-years. It was hard to tell from here, but she didn't think they were that much shorter than her. In fact, she thought some of them might be taller than Liz, which was very irritating. Tracey wasn't particularly short — she'd only been slightly taller than Liz in first year, but the difference had already become way more obvious by second year, and now she was pretty average — so they might seem small to her, but...
(Liz was so fucking sick of being tiny.)
Luckily, she didn't have very long to simmer in her frustration before Severus showed up, the low chatter filling the room cutting off almost immediately at his appearance. Unaffected by the dozens of eyes on him in heavy near-silence, he walked at a casual pace through the room, making for the open patch in the middle — there was a file folded under one arm, which was curious, Liz didn't remember him bringing papers with him any previous year. Coming to a stop in the open patch, once again projecting his voice through the whole room in that subtle way he had that was definitely wandless magic, he started, "Good evening, everyone. As you may recall from the Headmaster's introduction before the Feast, I am Severus Snape, Head of Slytherin and Master of Potions here at Hogwarts. There are a few matters of business we must attend to before the end of the night. However, I realise you would all rather be in bed right about now, so we shall endeavour to get through them as quickly as humanly possible. First-years, if you could introduce yourselves to the rest of the house — to make this simpler, start on this end and move across."
Severus had maybe been slightly too broad, saying "introduce yourselves" instead of just telling them to state their names, since most of the new first-years also included a couple brief comments about themselves. Nothing particularly interesting, you know, just the kind of things people said in these situations, Liz remembered none of it afterward. She was counting them in her head, marking the seconds until they were done here, and they had thirty-two new Slytherins. The new class was slightly less than a hundred twenty, she thought, which meant Slytherin had actually gotten just over a quarter of them, for some reason. The only notable thing she'd picked up in the introductions was that at least two of the new Slytherin first-years were muggleborns — there could be more, Liz didn't have all the magical family names bloody memorised, but two of them explicitly said in their introductions that they hadn't known about magic before. They weren't the only muggleborns in Slytherin — now second-year Rhees was, and Liz would argue she should count herself — but still, interesting. If it were only two, that was still low relative to the other houses, she was just saying.
If Severus was at all annoyed with the introductions taking longer than necessary, he didn't show it, blankly nodding as the last first-year finished up and they could finally move on. "In addition to our new Headmaster's speech at the beginning of the Feast, there are a few matters I would like to address. The 'Forbidden' regions in the Valley are not so called in concern for student safety, but because those lands are guaranteed to the centaurs by treaty, a treaty which Hogwarts is a signatory to. In most cases, if you are discovered the centaurs will simply turn you around and set you on your way, but crossing the border without permission is a violation of the treaty, and should be kept to an absolute minimum. Also, as the Headmaster mentioned earlier, the Ministry is currently in the process of exterminating an acromantula colony deep in the Forest. In their desperation, the acromantulae often strike out beyond their previous territory, attempting to retaliate or escape into the surrounding lands — at present, the Forest is, for all practical purposes, an active warzone. If you insist on needlessly endangering yourself bumbling around like an incomparable imbecile, you will be sent home until the colony is dealt with.
"I am not exaggerating. Pleas that doing so will unfairly set back your education will be ignored. Do not test me on this.
"As to the reforms being made here at Hogwarts, it may interest you to know that Headmaster Gamp has thus far been acting in cooperation with and with the full confidence of the majority of senior staff. All of us were already familiar with him, from his work in the guild, and while he perhaps isn't who I would have nominated if given the choice, none of us doubt he is a suitable pick for the position."
From somewhere in the crowd, someone called, "Who cares, he's not Dumb-as-a-door!" There was a bit of snickering and muttering at that — several people even outright cheered, whistling and clapping, though it wasn't picked up and quieted down pretty quickly. Dumbledore wasn't very popular in Slytherin, to put it mildly. Some of it was politics, of course, but it wasn't really a secret that he'd been biassed toward Gryffindor, and disfavoured Slytherin (and Ravenclaw, less so). In fact, Liz wouldn't be surprised if Gamp making a point about Dumbledore being a great man and his legacy or whatever had made some of the Slytherins a little leery of him...which might be why Severus was doing this at all, come to think of it — he was a perceptive bastard like that.
Severus didn't do anything about the interruption — after all, he hadn't been happy with how Dumbledore had run the school either — just waited still and silent for the common room to quiet again, and then continued like nothing had happened. "The new programme here was formulated by the Board, often incorporating suggestions from the Department of Education and relevant guilds — myself and the rest of the senior staff were included in these discussions, at every point in the process. These reforms are being done in consultation with us, and while I am not entirely satisfied with the present framework, it is undoubtedly a great improvement. There will be mishaps as the programme is implemented, as is always the case in such projects — you will find a dropbox in the library where you may submit any concerns or complaints you may have for review.
"To accommodate the growing student population, it was necessary to hire more staff. Professor Vitale and Professor Rosier were hired by the Board on my recommendation, after a thorough selection and interview process conducted by myself, independently — they have my full confidence." That was a very high compliment from Severus, which most of Slytherin surely realised by now. Liz was still disappointed Severus wouldn't be teaching her Potions class anymore, but someone he'd picked himself would be fine, she guessed. "The addition of junior professors and the accompanying decrease in my class hours will result in having far more available time myself than in previous years. Some of this will be absorbed by routine meetings with the first-years, but even so, my office hours will be significantly broadened. Also, I will be personally supervising open lab hours more frequently, and I may finally agree to sponsor an alchemy club, should there be sufficient interest."
Liz had no doubt there would be sufficient interest. Clubs needed a staff member to run them if they wanted to be official, get a proper meeting room and a budget for supplies and stuff, and Slytherin and Ravenclaw students have been trying to get Snape to agree to do it for ages — he'd always refused, because he just too damn busy. If that did end up happening, she'd definitely have to check it out, especially since some basic alchemy would be on the Competency exams for Transfiguration. She'd been studying it a little herself, of course, but having someone around who actually knew what he was doing couldn't hurt.
This time, the crowd of Slytherins didn't quiet down on their own, Severus had to raise his voice a little to speak over them. "Changes to the house rules have also needed to be made. Professor Sinistra will be more deeply integrated into the internal workings of Slytherin going forward. It would be appropriate to approach her as a deputy head of house: her role will be similar to mine, in that she will have the authority to veto decisions of the Prefects' Council, and act independently without their sanction when necessary, though she will of course limit any such intervention to a minimum. As the official Head of Slytherin, I reserve the right to overrule any action she takes, if necessary — feel free to approach me, or pass a message along through one of the prefects if I am unavailable, should any concerns arise.
"Our new fifth-year prefects are Sadhbh Monroe and Laurus Lestrange," he said, nodding at them in turn — both at the front with the first-years, Sabhbh sitting perched on the arm of a chair, Lestrange leaning against the back of a sofa. Lestrange was kind of an odd pick — he didn't stand out much, Liz hardly ever even remembered he existed — but at least Severus hadn't gone with Rowle, the bastard. "In addition, as mentioned earlier by the Headmaster, the Board has elected to hire supervisors for the dorms. They are to be young adults, preferably recent Slytherin graduates, who will be tasked with managing domestic and interpersonal issues within the dorms, helping new students adjust, organising social get-togethers and study groups, and so forth. They will each have their own rooms in the first-years' circles, though I'm certain they will also make themselves available to any of you should you need assistance at odd hours of the night.
"On the girls' side, we have Deirdre NicCormaic," Severus said, nodding toward one of the sofas in the middle. A vaguely familiar dark-haired woman, wearing a long dress in black and Slytherin green, stood up, giving the room a cheerful wave. Wait a second, Deirdre NicCormaic, wasn't that— "Some of you may recall Deirdre was a seventh-year prefect during the year of Ninety-One to Ninety-Two, stepping in for the Head Girl of that year." Right, it was the same Deirdre — honestly, Liz mostly knew her these days for the developing scandal around her and Emily Scrimgeour living together and annoying their fiancés' families, even as semi-isolated from noble circles as she was she still overheard gossip about it now and then. "On the boys' side, we have Eirian Smethwyck, himself a former prefect, from the class of Ninety-Three." Smethwyck was also vaguely familiar, like Deirdre he stood up to wave and...
Wait a second, wasn't "Eirian" a girl's name? Whatever.
"Within the house rules, the supervisors may act as advocates on behalf of students, or suggest intervention in the manner of an additional set of prefects. They may speak freely in House Meetings, also as additional prefects, though they are not considered members of the Prefects' Council — they do not have a vote in any decision, and cannot take disciplinary action without the affirmation of the Council, Sinistra, or myself. They haven't any authority of their own inside the house, their role primarily a social one. The house rules have already been amended to reflect the presence of the supervisors and Sinistra's increased involvement, if you wish to review the formal text you may find it in the Handbooks in the library.
"I believe that is everything I wished to address with the whole of Slytherin tonight. All of you," looking out from the central circle over the older students, "should be familiar with what is expected of you by now — if for any reason you have questions about the house rules, do consult the Handbooks in the library. First-years, prefects, and supervisors, remain behind; the rest of you, clear the room."
Slytherin quickly began to scatter, dozens of different conversations bursting into existence as people started heading off. There were people splitting off toward the sides, heading down toward the library or the duelling hall or whatever else, but well over half were streaming straight for the stairs down to their rooms. As thick of the crowd was, Liz waited for one minute, two, before following after them — the stairs weren't super wide, she didn't feel like getting constantly jostled on her way down. Going in a little spiral, they passed one level, marked with a barred beta inside a circle, and then a second one, marked with a gamma...
"We're looking for delta, right? It goes a bee gee dee?" Because of course the Greek alphabet had to be in a slightly different order, it wouldn't be needlessly confusing otherwise.
Pansy was thinking uncharitable thoughts about Liz not having fucking Ancient Greek numerals memorised, but Daphne just nodded. "Yes, four is delta — this should be us right here."
The little circle with all their dorm rooms and the bathroom, a couple halls leading off who knew where, was exactly the same as always, the only change that the big gamma design in the tile floor from last year had been replaced with a delta. Without a word to the other girls, Liz walked over to her room, plucking the sign off the wall nearby — the same quartered red and white shield that was in the Potter thing, the other three from previous years were tucked under her desk at home right now — and stepped inside. "Luceat."
The lights burst on, harsh and bright, Liz grimaced. "Alterētur lucernās...um...shite." How did it go again? Alter lights, that... Ah! "Alterētur lucernās, quā dīminuat candōrem." The lights immediately dimmed somewhat, that was it, good. And the other one was... "Alterētur lucernās, quā ignicolōrēs sint." And more of an orange-ish colour, less glare, much better. "Imprime lucernās," should make them default to this level next time she turned them on, and that should do it for now — she'd likely adjust the temperature and stuff later, but that could wait.
The room was the same as always, though rather barren-looking, her trunk still shut at the foot of her bed. Last year, all of her things had already been unpacked when she got here, but that was because she'd been in hospital for the first few days and Nilanse had decided to take care of it for her. Not that she minded having to do it herself, of course, she was just saying, it made the room look weirdly empty. Liz quick unpacked some of her clothes and books and such, not all of it, just the things she was likely to need tomorrow — well, she wasn't likely to need books at all tomorrow, but she'd need something to do when she inevitably got bored.
Setting the books down on the desk, she let out a little huff when she spotted a sheet of parchment with all the enchantment keys listed. She should have known this was here, she hadn't needed to flail at Latin like an idiot. It was probably better to try to remember them without the help, but still...
Liz quick headed to the bathroom, passing by Tracey and Millie at the sinks, muttering about some musician as Millie plaited her hair for bed. (Liz honestly couldn't place who they were talking about at all, she didn't pay attention to the mages' music and celebrity stuff at all.) As she went by, Pansy slunk past in the opposite direction, her head simmering with a morose sort of jealousy, which was very silly. If she wanted to be friends with Millie again, literally all she had to do was apologise for being a racist bitch about Millie's grandfather, that she'd learned her lesson and didn't think wilderfolk were subhuman savages anymore — which would be a lie, but Millie wasn't a mind mage or a Seer and probably wouldn't be able to tell — but of course she was too bloody stubborn to actually do that. Whatever, not Liz's business.
By the time Liz got out of the toilet, the three of them were all gone. But she wasn't alone in the bathroom either — Daphne was at one of the sinks now, running her fingers through her hair. Liz had seen her at this before, there was some kind of...potion or oil or something that she put in her hair before bed, to stop it from getting all tangled up or whatever. Personally, Liz never bothered with that kind of thing...but then, as huge and messy as Liz's hair was, it never really got tangles at all? Like, if Liz ran a brush through her hair, it would catch on something now and then, sometimes, but for the most part it just went smoothly on through. It was bloody weird, but she'd already known her hair was magic, so.
(She abruptly remembered, when she was really little, getting yelled at (with all the usual insults) because her hairbrush didn't get any hairs caught in it even after weeks of use, so Petunia had assumed she wasn't using it at all — she'd completely forgotten about that...)
Liz sidled up to a sink to wash her hands; Daphne smiled at her through the mirror, but didn't say anything. Once she was done, she didn't reach for a towel to dry her hands, instead taking a slow breath in and out, focussing, watching but not really seeing the water dripping from her fingertips into the sink. Then she forced out a pulse of magic with a flick of her wrists, the water still clinging to her hands misting off of her and down into the sink — ha, perfect! She checked to confirm, touching her hands to her arm and her cheek, and yep, dry. The first several attempts at this trick hadn't gone quite right, but it was working much better now...
"Oh!" Daphne's mind flickering with surprise and something Liz couldn't put a word to, bright and warm and squirmy, she glanced that way to find Daphne grinning at her. "You've been working on your wandless magic, then?"
"Sure, I've been playing around with a few tricks, when I don't have anything better to do. That was actually a banishing charm — proper drying charms are kind of complicated, and take more power than you might think, but just moving things is easy." To prove the point, she summoned one of the other girls' lotion bottles to her hand, moving fast enough the glass made a light smacking sound against her palm. Despite the fact that it was supposedly a fourth-year charm, Liz had learned it reading ahead ages ago, and casting it wandlessly was dead easy — all she had to do was want something, imagine it in her hand and throw enough power at it, and boom, done. While gently levitating the bottle back to its place, Liz said, "I've been playing around with more weird exploitation of spell effects, pushing a banishing charm out of every surface of my hands is an example. Trying to do things you can't easily do with wanded charms, you know — there's no point in learning to do wandless magic if you just do the exact same shite you can do with a wand anyway."
"That's really very creative, Liz. I so rarely see people experiment with wandless magic like this."
Liz shrugged — it really wasn't that different from what a lot of kids did with 'accidental' magic. People did normally stop once they got a wand and could do 'proper' magic, but it wasn't like it was a super unique talent or anything.
(If a literal five-year-old could do it, it wasn't special.)
The conversation, for lack of a better word, petered out there. Daphne was still all smiling at her, continuing to run whatever that stuff was through her hair, apparently didn't have any better idea of what to say than Liz did. (Though she seemed a whole lot less awkward about it, because Liz would freely admit she was terrible with social shite.) Not like there really was anything else to say, and it had been a pretty long, exhausting day, so Liz was just going to... "Um, good night."
She started to turn to leave, but before she got very far, Daphne grabbed her wrist — the unexpected touch had Liz tense for a second, but Daphne's mind flooding against her an instant later, warm and soft, washed the stupid brain moment away before it could hardly begin. Before Liz could ask what was wrong, or even respond at all, Daphne was stepping closer, leaning over her, and then she was kissing her, her mind flooding through Liz's scattering away any other thought.
Oh. Okay, then.
A couple seconds later, Daphne pulled away again, brightly smiling down at her. "Good night, Liz." Letting go of Liz's hand, she stepped back, gently disentangled Liz's mind from hers with a subtle twist of occlumency.
Liz was left blinking at her, scrambling to...something, anyway. The overwhelming pressure of Daphne's mind getting that close to hers was really disorienting, that was all. "Er. Good night." Oh wait, shite, she'd already said that...
Liz fled the room before she could embarrass herself any further, Daphne's amusement and affection warm as the sun on her back. It wasn't until Liz got out into the circle that she realised Daphne had just kissed her in public. Sort of public, anyway. That was supposed to be...not a secret, she guessed, but. Oh well, everyone had already been back in their rooms anyway, Daphne must have waited until they were alone, no harm done.
Laying in bed a couple minutes later, staring up at the shadowy ceiling, Liz thought... Well. The return to school last year had been miserable — even before the dementor attack, she remembered she hadn't wanted to go back to school. Pretty intensely, sitting in the compartment before anyone had turned up and, just, hating everything, because she had to put up with all this shite again and she couldn't do anything about it. Maybe if she'd been on her own she might have had a moment like that again, but with Hermione distracting her she hadn't had the opportunity to wallow in bad thoughts, so. And, as awful as being packed onto the train was, and the ridiculously long Sorting and announcements and whatever, it hadn't been so bad this time.
In fact, sitting here thinking about it, she thought that might be a good sign? She couldn't help feeling faintly optimistic about this year. Which was a bloody odd experience for her, honestly, she never expected things to go well. As complicated and annoying as the political situation in the country was now, they were relatively isolated at Hogwarts, and she could always just ignore people if they were being a pain, and she had the duelling club to look forward to — no quidditch, but she might not even pick that back up in fifth year, give her more time to study for the Competency exams — and the Triwizard Tournament was going to be interesting if nothing else, and Daphne, and she wasn't starting off the year feeling miserable for no reason, and...
Yeah. Yeah, she had a good feeling about this year. That it would be less miserable than the previous ones, anyway — it'd have to be really fucking good to convince her it wouldn't still be worth transferring overseas. It was impossible to tell if her vague good feeling was just her being in a random good mood, or if it were a Seer thing, but she guessed she'd find out. Colour her optimistic, for perhaps the first time in her life, which continued to be bloody weird.
(Liz also couldn't help the thought that she was just fooling herself, everything always went to shite when she least expected it, but she ignored that as well as she could. She was allowed to be in a good mood for once, damn it, her own stupid brain could go to hell.)
[according to Vernon interracial marriage was literally communism] — Remember, everyone, race mixing is communism. (I can't do links on FFN, do a Google image search for "race mixing is communism" and the picture I'm thinking of is the first result.)
[Glawcyn ... Who the hell named their kid raindrop?] — This isn't a perfect translation, but Liz isn't a fluent speaker, so is kind of guessing.
[Liz definitely got the feeling the magic-raised kids thought Artefacts were real — which didn't necessarily mean anything... Purebloods believed in a lot of weird shite.] — Yeah, hard to say, isn't it? Definitely don't consider that invisibility cloak in your trunk that also makes you undetectable to wards and revealing charms, I'm sure that's not in any way relevant.
(By the way, yes, Moody's eye is an Artefact. This is why, in canon, Moody!Barty could see through what should be OP invisibility: the best way to beat god-tier magic is with other god-tier magic.)
The enchantment keys Liz uses playing with the lights aren't necessarily meant to be 100% grammatical — in fact, it's often better if they're not, so people are less likely to trigger them by accident.
To be clear, a lot of the traditions Gamp is referring to went out of fashion long before Dumbledore became Headmaster. Inviting the locals for major feasts, for example, isn't something they've done regularly since well before Dumbledore was even born. Dumbledore would probably think inviting the centaurs and wilderfolk over in particular is a great idea, but the political reality he was dealing with toward the beginning of his tenure was very different from the present day, so even if it occurred to him it wouldn't have been feasible. And it likely wouldn't have occurred to him — as inspiration for how Hogwarts should be, Dumbledore drew from his own time as a student, but Gamp is reaching rather further back into the school's history. The occasional publication about the archaeological project still ongoing in Gaunt's old headquarters, and the increasing nationalist sentiment in the country at the moment, likely have something to do with the Board being more amenable to that kind of thing.
Right, finally at Hogwarts, woo, that was a thing. A very long thing, because I am a wordy bitch, to whom brevity is an offensively alien concept. Kind of shocked that I wrote this in only, like, five days? I cheated a little, since the apparation ramble was originally written for a cut scene, but still. The arrival of the Beauxbatons/Durmstrang delegations is the 11th point on my outline, but I don't think it'll be that many chapters — I did say in the previous author's note I was going to do mostly single-scene chapters going forward (if monstrous scenes, because this is still me), but some of the points are pretty small, and can be fused with a neighbouring one pretty easily. In fact, I just merged two pairs of them, so it's the 9th point now. We'll see how it goes.
This chapter has also put this fic officially over a million words — the wordcount on FFN includes some formatting tags, and also the author's notes, the one on AO3 is more accurate — which is, just, fucking ridiculous. I have problems, and I'm pretty sure they've become terminal.
That's enough, bye now.