Tim woke up before any of his dormmates, energized in that way that only a five-hour-rest can. He pulled out his robes, which he noticed had changed colors since he had bought them. The hemming was all done in blue and bronze now, and a small eagle crest sat where a pocket had been before. Not only that, but many of his sweaters and ties had also changed colors. While Tim found all of this quite fascinating, he still opted to wear the unchanged elements, a plain cardigan and tie, because they reminded him of the clothing he wore back in Gotham. He slipped on his robe and left for the Great Hall.
On his way down, Tim was quite tempted to hop from staircase to staircase, but he was afraid of drawing too much attention to himself, so he waited like the other students, at the whims of the staircases' will.
There was coffee at the Ravenclaw table, which was really the only sustenance he needed, but the table was covered with other dishes, so Tim thought it would be a waste to let the food go bad. He sat down a couple feet away from the nearest Ravenclaws, trying to ride the fine line between acting too friendly too quickly and actively avoiding people.
Halfway through his second piece of toast, the room was flooded with a flurry of feathers and rain from above, and Tim watched as a veritable parliament of owls made deliveries to students and teachers alike. He was pleased to see that all of his daily subscriptions had managed to make it today: the Gotham Gazette, the Daily Planet, the Independent, and, finally, the Daily Prophet, all in various states of wetness. A small forest dead so that Tim could read up on the latest and greatest the world had to offer.
He started with the Daily Prophet, soaking in the news like the news had soaked up the rain. He was midway through the paper when Purdie sat down beside him and remarked, "Whoa, are you subscribed to three different newspapers?"
"Four," Tim corrected and slid the Daily Planet over to reveal the Gotham Gazette beneath it without looking away from his own reading.
"You think you're gonna have time to read all of those?"
"I'll read a couple at lunch." Tim took another swig of coffee.
"See, Purdie?" someone exclaimed, and Tim lowered his paper to see the frizzy-haired blonde from last night, Cordelia, sit down across from Purdie and start loading her plate with eggs and bacon. "It's not weird to be subscribed to Muggle newspapers!"
"I've said it once, and I'll say it again," Purdie replied through a mouthful of waffles. "It's a waste of time and paper to read about the newest Muggle tallphone—"
"Telephone," she corrected with a frown.
"That's what I said." He swallowed his food only to start wolfing down a second waffle. "Britain already has a perfectly good newspaper."
Cordelia let out an incredulous laugh. "The Daily Prophet? Are you kidding me? They have a total monopoly on the reporting business, you can't trust their word. Plus, Fudge basically runs the thing. They're pretty much the least reliable source of news these days."
"And yet you're still subscribed to them," Purdie pointed out, just as a brown owl swooped down and dropped off a soaked copy of the Daily Prophet.
"Just because they're unreliable doesn't mean I don't want to see what they have to say," she replied haughtily, skimming the front page before skipping to the middle of the issue. "They're also the only paper who reports on Quidditch other than—" Another owl swooped in. "—Seeker Weekly, thanks." She immediately ditched the Daily Prophet for this other publication.
Tim smiled at this friendly banter between the two of them. Obviously, they had had this argument before. He, meanwhile, was scanning the Daily Planet's stock tables, and, before he knew it, he had spread the page on the table in front of him, moving his plate and mug to the side, and was marking up the quotes with the ballpoint pen he always kept on hand for moments such as these, making notes on certain companies and how they were faring, most notably tech companies that rivaled WayneTech, just things he wanted to let Bruce know.
After about five minutes, Tim lost his train of thought and pulled his nose out of his work to find Cordelia and Purdie watching him with wide eyes.
"What are you doing?" asked Cordelia, cocking her head to try and read his annotations upside-down. "And what language are you writing in?"
"Oh." Tim glanced back down at his work and then back up at Cordelia. No need to lie about his job, that was a part of his cover, after all. "Uh, I'm writing notes to discuss with my employer. And I'm writing in English, but I'm using shorthand, which is why it looks like a bunch of scribbles."
"You have a job?" Purdie leaned back, looking impressed.
"Technically, I'm on sabbatical, but yes, I do. I work for Wayne Enterprises, a conglomerate headquartered in Gotham, New Jersey." He rattled all of this off the top of his head, having said it a thousand times before. "I'm the Chief Research Officer of WayneTech."
The two students stared at him as if he had started speaking Russian, which, while rare, did sometimes happen to Tim accidentally if he read too much Dostoyevsky at once. He laughed at their surprised faces. They looked just like Kon when Tim started to talk about budget cuts in his department.
"Basically, I design Muggle technology." Very basically. Not entirely accurate, but probably good enough for these two. They nodded, looking relieved to understand him.
Purdie took a swig of orange juice. "That's bloody impressive, that is. Ah, look—schedules!" Tim twisted around to see a rather small man in a disproportionately large, pointed hat tapping students on the back and handing them schedules, as it appeared that it would be a challenge for him to reach the table. When he saw Tim, his face lit up, and he scurried up to give him a handshake.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Drake-Wayne," he chittered, giving Tim an arm workout with the amount of force he put into each shake. "I'm Professor Flitwick, and I'm the Head of Ravenclaw House. I teach Charms here, and I very much look forward to seeing you in class." And before Tim had a chance to reply, Flitwick was off again, handing out more schedules further down the table.
He shrugged and looked down at his own timetable. Huh, what do you know? Double Charms first thing in the morning, followed by Study of Ancient Runes and a free period. Then lunch, another free period, and double Potions. Seemed simple enough.
"You're taking Ancient Runes?" Purdie looked over Tim's shoulder at his chart. "That's great! Cordelia and I both take Runes."
"And Arithmancy," Cordelia noted. "I take that."
"Yeah, I'm pretty good at math, so I thought it'd be a breeze."
Purdie frowned. "You do know that that's not what Arithmancy is, right?"
Tim shrugged. "I'm good with numbers. It's a class about numbers."
"Huh. You're a weird one, Tim."
"That I am," he agreed with a sip of his coffee.
Charms began with a minute-long introduction of Tim which was followed by a fifteen-minute-long tirade about the importance of the O.W.L. examinations (something about 'the future of generation of witches and wizards' and how 'one failed O.W.L might mean the difference between becoming an Auror and becoming a dragon dung mucker'). None of it meant much to Tim, who had no intention of continuing on to a wizarding career. If anything, he was aiming to get a college degree after all this and continue to graduate school.
Besides that, the class was nothing more than a review of Accio, the Summoning Charm. As Tim had predicted, his fellow Ravenclaws seemed very surprised that Tim was able to perform the spell so proficiently. Truth be told, he had spent a long time learning this charm, given its extreme usefulness in the real world. While he was still trying to successfully cast the spell non-verbally, he had no problem whispering a small "Accio!" and watching quills and books fly to his hand.
"I'll admit," Purdie started as he, Cordelia, and Tim walked to Ancient Runes, "I really thought you'd be more rusty on your charms, seeing as it's been years since you actually learned them, right?"
Tim nodded. "Yeah, I made sure to review over the summer so that I could jump right into O.W.L.-level classes."
"Yeah, but reviewing and actually doing spells are two different things," Cordelia noted.
"Well, even though I'm technically in fifth-year classes, I'm still nineteen, meaning I can legally use magic outside of school," Tim explained. And even if he hadn't been 'of age,' he would have found a way to practice anyways. Loopholes were a Bat's specialty.
Purdie glanced at Tim and did a double take. "Wait, you're nineteen? I thought you were, like, sixteen at the most!"
Doesn't everybody, Tim thought sarcastically. "Yep," he replied curtly.
"Well, that's convenient."
"Yep."
Tim deftly avoided the trick step on the staircase and made it to the classroom alongside the two of them with plenty of time to spare, which he dedicated to introducing himself to Professor Babbling, a lanky woman with a dark, elaborate hairdo and a pair of cat's-eye glasses who spoke to him very eloquently.
Her class, too, began with a speech about O.W.L.s featuring a cautionary tale about a student of hers who failed his O.W.L. and ended up working as a janitor for Madam Malkin's. Tim highly suspected that this story was made up, seeing as Babbling failed to give him a name when Tim asked and changed the subject when Tim asked about his age. The only thing that made this speech interesting was that this was a joint class with the Hufflepuffs, so Tim got to see Susan again and winked at her redheaded friend, who looked flustered by this bold move on Tim's part.
The rest of class was spent transliterating the beginning of an epic poem written in Elder Futhark runes but following the syntax and using the vocabulary of Middle Egyptian. It was painstaking work, but, for once, Tim's extensive knowledge of Ancient Egyptian was useful, save for the occasional error when he mixed up Middle Egyptian with Coptic. He was glad that Damian was not present to mock his language slip-ups.
As promised, Tim finished the rest of his news during his free periods and lunch and spent much of his extra time writing long letters to send back to Bruce. He really needed to find a way to get his electronics working if things with Wayne Enterprises were going to go smoothly. He knew it was possible—after all, there had been a small radio sitting on one of the bookshelves in the common room. Wizards didn't understand the concept of electricity, yet they used machines traditionally powered by electricity. So, what Tim needed to do was find a way to replace the electric portions of his devices and replace it with a different power source that would function in Hogwarts.
He spent even longer drawing up several charts and diagrams and a lot of tables that related to his queries so that, by the time Potions arrived, his mind was abuzz, and he was absolutely thrilled to take his first Potions class.
"Just…don't get your hopes up," Cordelia warned him solemnly on their way down. "Professor Snape is…well, he doesn't exactly have the most desirable of personalities." Thankfully, Tim had lots of experience working with all sorts of frustrating people (hell, he lived in the same house as a couple of them), so he was confident in his ability to stay in Snape's good graces.
This was another joint class with the Hufflepuffs, though, since Potions was a part of Hogwarts's core curriculum, it meant that he was looking at the entirety of the Hufflepuff fifth years. They gave him welcoming smiles but remained silent as they chose their seats. Snape must have been a commanding presence to have students who automatically silenced themselves upon entering his classroom. Tim took an empty table in the front, seeing as the rest of the class was fleeing to the back tables, and, before he knew it, Cordelia had come to sit with him alongside a familiar messy-haired girl.
"Aruna?" Tim whispered. It had come as a surprise to him that morning when he saw her in his Charms class, but he was still surprised by the fact that she had willingly chosen to work at his table.
Aruna made no verbal reply to this, only nodding with the barest hint of a smile.
A couple minutes later, Snape entered the room, and Tim finally understood what all the fuss was about. He certainly was imposing, with his dramatic black robes and perfect posture and facial expression of someone who had just swallowed a lemon wedge whole.
Thus began another O.W.L speech, this time with far more degrading language. It was clear that Snape had little faith in his students' ability to achieve more than the bare minimum.
Then, he tasked them with the brewing of a Draught of Peace, a complicated potion requiring constant attention if it was to be brewed correctly. Tim, though unfamiliar with the layout of this classroom, quickly learned his way around (with a little help from Cordelia and Aruna). He was certain Jason would be appalled at his subpar mincing of the valerian root, but the recipe was straightforward enough for Tim to handle. Most of it was adding an ingredient and waiting for the liquid's color to change.
Snape paced around the classroom, watching students work and offering rare tips for how to achieve better results. Sure, there were more than a few veiled insults pointed at particular students, but everyone seemed quite used to his critical eye. He was clearly a nasty person and a condescending teacher, but his instruction techniques produced results—a frustrating combination. It was hard for Tim to decide whether or not he really liked Snape at all.
"A light silver vapor should now be rising from your potion," he stated once it became clear that students were close to finishing their potions. Tim glanced down at his potion, off of which floated what he would consider 'a light silver vapor.' To his left, Cordelia's potion had achieved the same results, though she had finished nearly ten minutes before Tim. To his right, however, Aruna stood passively over her own potion, which was bubbling despite not being heated and had more of a bluish mist coming off of it. For some reason, she did not look bothered at all that her potion was obviously brewed incorrectly.
"Impressive, Mr. Drake," Snape commented when Tim brought his corked flagon up to his desk.
"Drake-Wayne," Tim corrected automatically but then followed with, "And thank you, Professor, you flatter me." Before Snape had time to get annoyed by Tim's earlier correction, the boy hurried out of the classroom.
The big news at dinner that evening was that the famous Harry Potter had gotten into a huge shouting match with the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Umbridge and had landed himself in detention on the first day of the semester. The Great Hall was abuzz with the topic, students talking loudly about how Harry was 'a crackpot like Professor Dumbledore' and 'probably just doing it for the attention.'
It was hard for Tim to sneak a glance at Harry, given that there was a table full of Hufflepuffs dividing the two, but Harry would have to have been deaf to not hear every word being spoken around him. And, unsurprisingly, about ten minutes into dinner, Harry and two other Gryffindors left the Great Hall.
"He's not lying," insisted one Ravenclaw whose wand was tucked behind her left ear, an impressive feat in Tim's eyes. "Harry did fight He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. You're all just ignoring the truth because it frightens you. I believe him."
An older Ravenclaw rolled his eyes. "Yeah, Luna, well, last I checked, you also believe that Ludo Bagman's a niffler cursed into becoming a human, so forgive me if I'm a little hesitant to take your word for it."
Luna narrowed her eyes. "The evidence is there, Eddie. Do you have some other explanation as to why he hoards all that money?"
"Yeah, because he's greedy. Last I checked, that wasn't a trait unique to nifflers."
Tim watched Purdie grab Eddie's shoulder forcefully. "Ed, give it a rest."
Eddie looked at Purdie like he had just slapped him. "You actually believe her? That You-Know-Who's back after fifteen years of being gone?"
Purdie took a deep breath through his nose. "No," he said firmly, "but I know that Cedric Diggory died last June, and that Harry must have been deeply affected by that. And I know that talking about Harry like he's not a human with emotions is wrong."
"So, you admit that he's loony."
Purdie paused and frowned at Eddie. "I admit that he's grieving, and everybody copes differently."
Eddie's response to that was to shrug Purdie's hand off of his shoulder and to shove a spoonful of mashed potatoes into his mouth.
Tim stayed up late again that night finishing homework and thinking about the conversation at dinner. The proof of Voldemort's return lay solely in the testimony given by Harry Potter, which was not solid evidence in Tim's opinion. However, there was no actual proof that Voldemort hadn't returned. People argued that it was odd for Voldemort to return so long after his death and that it wouldn't make sense in the grand scheme of things to come back so early. True, it would have been wiser for a lesser criminal to lay low until the original rebellion against him had aged significantly, but Voldemort wasn't some ordinary crook. As Tim understood it, Voldemort had been on the path to success when he first disappeared. It was entirely possible that he was confident in his ability to swiftly reconquer the world.
Tim would really need to talk to Harry face-to-face before coming to a conclusion on this. He knew that it was a huge mistake to not listen to the warnings of a single person merely because they are the only person giving the warning. Hell, he'd been that person before. Better that he should err on the side of caution and vigilance instead of dismissal and laziness.
First thing in the morning was Herbology, where Tim got his first taste of what Slytherin house was like. From what he discussed on the train with Susan and the Gryffindors, he was aware that, while there were plenty of decent Slytherins to be found, the ones in the fifth year were almost exclusively elitist scumbags and basically your typical bullies, that is, if bullies could hex you into submission. Tim always tried to approach things with an open mind but not an uninformed one, so he walked into the greenhouse ready to politely introduce himself and stay, at the very least, on neutral terms with the Slytherins.
The moment he entered, he could tell that someone was watching him. Call it a gut feeling from six years of professional vigilantism. It was a vast space, humid and buzzing with insects, which housed a variety of plants ranging from a small pot of rosemary to a trio of magenta flowers that were muzzled like rabid animals. At one of the far tables stood a group of Slytherins in discussion; one in particular, though, was focused only on Tim. Tim decided to rise to the challenge and stare back at the pale boy.
"You're the new transfer student," he called out in a commanding tone.
Behind him, Tim heard Terry mutter to someone beside him, "Real perceptive, that one."
In Tim's mind, there was no backing down. He strode confidently up to the group and held out a hand in greeting. "Tim Drake-Wayne, it's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr.…"
"Malfoy," the boy replied, taking up the handshake, much to Tim's relief. "Draco, son of Lucius Malfoy and Narcissa Black." He raised an eyebrow at Tim. "And what's your parentage?" Aha, this was the Draco Malfoy they were talking about on the train.
Right, Slytherins liked purebloods. "Jackson Drake and Janet Lynn." Hopefully, Draco didn't have a comprehensive list of American pureblood families, or else this was about to get really awkward really fast.
"And they're purebloods? Both of them?"
"They were," Tim lied.
Draco grinned, releasing the handshake first. "Well, that's a relief. Wasn't sure if I was talking to someone worth speaking to, you know?"
Tim could follow Draco's thought process like it was written out in front of him: pureblood + rich family = concerned with blood purity. Should he break the news to Draco that he wasn't, in fact, discriminatory towards ninety-nine percent of the world?
He made the quick decision that, while he wanted to stay in everyone's good graces, the majority of the people at this school were probably not purists, so, logically, he should pander to them. Though it wasn't really pandering, since Tim really did think that Draco was acting like a pretentious asshole. Tim should know, he'd been to one too many galas in his time to be able to recognize one within a few sentences.
Tim put on his politest smile and said, "If only I could say the same about you. Nice to meet you!" and spun around on his heel back to a clump of shocked Ravenclaws. Aruna held out a fist for a fist-bump, which Tim readily gave. He looked over his shoulder, eager to see how the Slytherins were reacting to his exit. What could he say? He enjoyed taking snobs down a peg. It was a guilty pleasure of his—a Wayne specialty, if he was being honest. The thing with secret identities was that he didn't have the freedom to punch people who weren't contributing to society during the daytime. That gave him limited options when he was, say, listening to a politician talk about how 'unemployed people should just get a job' or watching a teenage girl scream at a restaurant employee for not putting a lemon wedge on her glass.
Seeing Draco's expression was priceless; his eyebrows shot up, his mouth was opening and closing, trying to formulate some manner of coherent speech, and his cheeks were noticeably flushed on his pale skin.
Finally, he managed to sputter, "Y-you don't want to make an enemy of me, Drake."
"Drake-Wayne, and you're really just an annoyance right now more than anything." Tim was falling into Red Robin-banter territory, but he didn't particularly care right now.
"Merlin's beard," someone breathed behind him, and it took a significant amount of effort on Tim's part not to burst out laughing at that utterly ridiculous exclamation.
Confidence seemed to be returning to Draco, however. Not that Tim minded. "You're going to regret trying to make a fool out of me, Wayne."
"Again, Drake-Wayne, and I'm pretty sure you do that all on your own." It wasn't an original comeback, not by far, but Tim still enjoyed the effect it had on Draco.
The boy really seemed to need the last word, because, after a couple seconds, he replied, "Tonight, ten o'clock, the courtyard. We'll settle this there." Everyone in the room burst into excited chatter at this new development.
Tim snorted. Did this kid really expect him to get into a fight on his second day of school? He wasn't that suicidal.
He declined the offer with a polite, "No thank you."
The entire room went silent. What, did wizards not decline duels? Draco didn't even look embarrassed anymore, just straight-up shocked.
"If you wouldn't mind moving from the doorway, students," came a voice from far behind Tim, and the students automatically parted to let in the short witch in her little hat. Professor Sprout, he presumed.
She stopped in the middle of the several-feet-long gap between the Ravenclaws and the Slytherins. "What's this all about?" she asked, looking back and forth between both parties. "To your seats, everyone! No time to waste."
What followed was, unsurprisingly, a speech on the importance of O.W.L.s and potential jobs that required a Herbology O.W.L. All the while, various Slytherins were sending Tim nasty glares, which he met with faux-polite smiles and waves. At one point, Draco turned to him and whispered, "Coward," with a triumphant sneer on his face. The expression disappeared when Tim gave him a surprised look, pointed to himself, and mouthed, "Me?" as if this was news to him. Boy, did Tim enjoy messing with entitled rich kids—from one rich kid to another.
Needless to say, the trip to the Transfiguration classroom was filled with Tim's fellow Ravenclaws gushing about his little performance in the greenhouse. It genuinely made Tim happy, knowing that his stupid banter was inspiring others to stand up to Draco and his friends.
Unlike Draco, Tim was hoping to make a good impression on Harry Potter. He didn't particularly want to be on the other end of one of the boy's shouting matches, after all, and it would be much easier to coax information out of him if he thought Tim was trustworthy. The rumors about Slytherins were that they were jerks (which seemed accurate); on the other hand, the rumors about Harry painted him as either a tragic case or a nutcase but never as a pompous figure.
Open mind, Tim reminded himself as he entered the Transfiguration classroom. It was big and airy, like the Charms room, and there were multiple windows that could be used as entry-points if necessary. Not that he really believed anything that interesting would occur, but he had been trained by Jason to always be aware of the entry-points of a room—one of the few things Jason actually taught him instead of just laughing at Tim's mistakes. Great role model, that one.
Harry Potter was not hard to spot. Tim had only seen his face dozens upon dozens of times in Daily Prophet articles and wizarding magazines. The kid didn't exactly blend it, what with his pair of large circular glasses like Cordelia and his mop of untamed, black hair. He was sitting at a desk with two other Gryffindors, the same two that had been sticking around him at dinner last night, speaking in hushed tones as if they had something to hide.
Tim and Aruna took a seat behind their table, though Purdie and Cordelia, his only other 'friends,' seemed a little wary to sit with them, like they expected Harry to shout at them or something. Eventually, Purdie took the seat to Aruna's right and Cordelia went off to sit with Padma and Mandy Brocklehurst.
Transfiguration was taught by Professor McGonagall, the Deputy Headmistress who had greeted Tim when he had first arrived at Hogwarts. Tim watched her walk to her desk and stand in front of it, and he waited patiently for the 'O.W.L.s are important' speech that was certain to follow.
Three…two…one… "Undoubtedly, I am not the first teacher of yours to mention the importance of your O.W.L.s." Right on time. "I see no reason to tell you all what you already know; frankly, it feels like a waste of valuable class time. But know this: you cannot pass an O.W.L. without serious application, practice, and study. I see no reason why everybody in this class should not achieve an O.W.L. in Transfiguration as long as they put in the work." To Tim's right, a boy whimpered loudly. He glanced at the concerned Gryffindor who played nervously with the hems of his robes.
"Yes, you too, Longbottom," Professor McGonagall replied to that, and boy, was that an unfortunate surname. "There's nothing wrong with your work except lack of confidence." She turned to address the rest of the class once again. "So…today we are starting Vanishing Spells. These are easier than Conjuring Spells, which you would not usually attempt until N.E.W.T. level, but they are still among the most difficult magic you will be tested on in your O.W.L." Tim agreed with this assessment. He spent an entire week practicing Vanishing Spells over break, and he could count on one hand the number of times he had succeeded. However, that was all based solely on a textbook. Hopefully, he would pick up on it faster when he could watch other people's attempts.
Unfortunately, the other people in this class happened to be having the same, if not more, problems than Tim did with vanishing. Aruna had resorted to watching the snail crawl along the desk (though, honestly, Tim had no proof that she had even tried the spell), Purdie had several near-misses when he almost set the table ablaze, and the famous Harry Potter did not seem to have a particular aptitude towards Transfiguration.
It was ten minutes into class, and Tim had already made the decision that all was lost when he heard an excited squeal come from the table in front of him. He immediately looked up from his own work to see the frizzy brunette directly in front of him bouncing excitedly up and down in her chair and raising her hand in the air.
"Miss Granger?" McGonagall, who had been hovering in the back of the classroom, made a beeline for the girl's table.
Ah, Hermione Granger, the "smartest girl in the grade," Tim thought, and then he remembered that she was also the one who hung out with Harry Potter. She was one to keep an eye on, then.
"Professor, I did it! I vanished the snail!" The other students stopped what they were doing and looked up.
McGonagall's thin lips turned upwards into a smile. "Excellent, Miss Granger." She pointed her wand on the girl's desk, upon which another snail was summoned out of oblivion. "Show me what you've got."
"But she did vanish it!" argued the redhead to her right, looking concerned. "I swear, Professor, I saw her do it!"
"Now, now, Mr. Weasley, I wasn't suggesting otherwise. I just wanted to see Miss Granger's technique."
Tim did, too, so he leaned over a little so that he had a better view of the girl, her wand, and the snail.
Hermione cleared her throat and straightened up in her seat. "Evanesco," she said firmly, and Tim and the rest of the class watched as the unassuming mollusk disappeared into the void. Immediately, Tim started to analyze her movement and try to parse out the differences between his attempts and her own.
"Ten points to Gryffindor," McGonagall declared. "Very impressive, Miss Granger." Hermione beamed, positively glowing under the woman's praise. It made sense, given that McGonagall didn't seem like one to hand out compliments willy-nilly.
Ten minutes later, Tim was still stuck. Less than a minute ago, Cordelia had successfully managed to vanish her snail, but she was halfway across the classroom helping a fellow Ravenclaw. He watched as Hermione was attempting to do the same to the boys next to her, but with little progress.
"Harry, are you even listening to me?" Hermione hissed, placing her wand down frustratedly.
"Well, yeah, but it's still not working," Harry argued.
"You're putting less effort into it, Harry, it's like you don't even believe you can do it!"
"Would it surprise you if I said I didn't?"
And Tim had finally found his in. "Excuse me?" he asked, leaning over his desk and lightly tapping Hermione on the shoulder.
"Hm?" She and Harry both turned to him at the same time with similar looks of surprise on their faces. The redhead, from his spot to Harry's right, also turned around and pointed at Tim. Ron Weasley, perhaps?
"Hey, you're that new transfer student! Timothy, was it?" he said.
Tim nodded. "Just call me Tim."
"I'm Ron, and that's Harry, obviously," he responded, briefly gesturing to the boy beside him. "Say, you're American, right? You sound American."
"Yes," Tim answered, "but I was actually wondering if you (he turned his gaze to Hermione) could help me with the Vanishing Spell, seeing as you've already mastered it yourself."
Hermione blushed a little and twirled a finger through one of her curls. "W-well, I wouldn't say I've mastered it…"
"She basically has," Harry told him bluntly, and she looked at Harry, seemingly stuck between looking frustrated and flattered. Ron frowned at her; it looked like he wanted to keep talking to Tim.
"I feel like I'm really close," Tim admitted to Hermione. "And, truthfully, I managed to vanish a couple things while I was practicing over the summer, but those felt like flukes, and I couldn't recreate them when I tried."
"You're of age?" Ron asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Yeah, I'm nineteen," Tim told him, a little snappily, before returning to Hermione. "Anyways, think you could help me out?"
Hermione looked ecstatic. "Of course! By the way, I'm Hermione Granger." She gestured to his snail. "How about you show me what you've got?"
Tim nodded. "Sure." He flicked his wand at the snail and said, "Evanesco." The creature stopped for a second, then continued crawling along the desk at its own pace. He looked back up at Hermione expectantly.
"That was…really good, actually," she said. "The only thing I'd say was that your wand movement was a little off." She grabbed her own wand from the desk. "See, yours looked kind of like this—" She swung her wand in a small arc and then a small loop at the end. "—while the goal is to get it more like this—" She repeated the movement almost identically, but the swirl started a second earlier and was closer to the arc.
"She just did the same thing twice," Ron leaned over and whispered to Harry, who shrugged, looking just as confused as his friend.
"So, you're saying that I'm arcing it a little too long and a little too drastically," Tim concluded, holding up his own wand and practicing this new movement.
"Exactly!" Hermione said, nodding excitedly. "Yes, just like that."
Tim tried again, and on his second attempt, he watched triumphantly as the snail left this plane of existence, leaving a slimy path in its wake.
"That's incredible! You really catch on fast."
"Thanks." He glanced back down at his Transfiguration textbook. "I guess the picture in the book confused me."
Hermione nodded. "Yes, I do think Switch tends to overexaggerate his diagrams in order to emphasize the finer aspects of the movements."
"Huh. Guess I'll keep that in mind."
Tim could tell that someone was approaching him from behind, a theory which was proven when Hermione perked up and said, "Professor McGonagall, Tim managed to vanish his snail!"
"Did you now?" McGonagall looked down at Tim, who flashed her a smile. "It seems you're fitting in splendidly, Mister Drake-Wayne."
After class had ended, Tim hung around for a bit to see how much further he could get in with Hermione and, by extension, Harry.
"I'd have pegged you for a Ravenclaw, given your obvious academic prowess," Tim said as he packed away his textbook.
"Well, the Sorting Hat almost put me in Ravenclaw," she admitted, shifting from one foot to the other. "Anyways, it's really nice to meet you, Tim. I'd absolutely love to keep talking about Journeux's commentary on the usage of hexes in non-combative settings sometime."
"How about lunch?" Tim suggested, then paused. "Unless, of course, it's taboo to eat with students in other houses." He didn't want Hermione to be ostracized by her classmates (though if eating food with someone new was a friendship-breaker, Tim supposed that she'd be better off without those people), nor did he want to strain his blossoming relationship with the rest of the Ravenclaw house.
"Ah," Ron sighed, scratching the back of his head. "Well, actually, Hermione was gonna help Harry and I with our Potions essay, right?" He looked over hopefully at Hermione. Tim wondered if this was her first time hearing this. To Tim's surprise, she shot back a cold glare, his lips stretched thin. Beside Ron, Harry leaned his forehead into his hand like he was witnessing a car crash and needed to avert his gaze.
"Actually," she echoed his wording, "I think I'm going to go have lunch, Ron." She shrugged only half-apologetically at Harry, who returned the gesture with a frown on his face.
Turning back to Tim with a toss of her hair, she hefted her bookbag over her shoulder. "I'll meet you in the Great Hall, if that's okay." Tim gave her a thumbs up.
As he exited the classroom, he heard Ron whisper to Harry, "You don't think she's still mad about the hats, right?"
"—and it absolutely baffles me how Bagshot fails to address the Jewish wizarding numerology system as a basis for modern Arithmancy. If she's going to cite Flamel's findings concerning Egyptian numerology and not refute his claims about ancient wizards divining magical properties from myths about their deity, why would she leave out Jewish numerology?" Hermione pointed at Tim with her fork before spearing a potato and munching on it contemplatively.
"Well, her section on Pagan Arithmancy cites secondary sources almost exclusively," Tim responded, taking a sip of water between his words, "which led me to believe that she doesn't have a particularly strong background in Arithmancy. Thus, she's more likely to skip over some aspects. It could also be a result of her not having enough space to fully elaborate on the concepts of religious numerology in monotheistic peoples versus polytheistic peoples."
"But she doesn't even mention gematria. Wouldn't it have made more sense to briefly mention it, whether or not she believes that it is significant in modern Arithmancy, because it links back to the overarching theme of ancient religion being dependent on ancient wizardry?"
"True. It's also odd because in her later works like A History of Magic, she manages to condense so many important events into each section. I'd say that this is just an instance of her inexperience as a young writer, but the two books were written in such close chronological proximity that it seems too drastic a change."
"Precisely!" Hermione threw her hands in the air. "I haven't been able to talk with anyone about this, Tim, you're a life-saver."
"What about the other Ravenclaws?" he asked. "Aren't we supposed to be a house of intellectuals or something?"
Hermione sighed. "Tell that to them. It's nearly impossible to catch older students in another house outside of class, and all the ones my age seem not at all interested in wizarding history." They both looked down the table at the other Ravenclaws. As Ravenclaw had the least number of students, Tim and Hermione had opted to sit at the very end of their table nearest to the main doors.
"Don't get me wrong," she continued, "Cordelia Cotterill has probably read more historical books than I have, but she's not exactly the best conversationalist."
"Really?" Tim said, though he thought back to his conversations with the girl during which she would ramble and tend to ask leading questions, as if she already knew the answer.
"Yeah, she's not great at the back-and-forth, she's a little overpowering. But she has great points to make. I just think she might struggle socially. That's why she and Purdie and Aruna tend to hang out together—they've been friends since year one."
"Like you and Ron and Harry?" Tim guessed.
Hermione nodded. "Yeah, I guess we're kind of our own little trio."
"Did you all meet in your first year, too?"
"Yeah, Harry and Ron hit it off immediately, and, I dunno, I guess I just started hanging around with them one day." Tim was highly suspicious that Hermione wasn't telling the whole story (that last phrase was quite vague), but it wasn't too important, so he ignored it for now.
Hermione, however, looked to be having some suspicions of her own, and Tim instinctively began to wrack his brain for anything he had said in the past minute which could compromise his cover.
"Tell me, Tim," she said, setting down her fork. "What do you know about Harry?"
Sharp. It seemed she had caught on to his roundabout way of getting to know Harry. Best to keep up the act, though. "What?"
"Harry Potter. What do you know about him?"
"Uh…" Tim tried to act caught off-guard, like he hadn't been expecting this question (which he hadn't, so was it really an act?). "He's the 'Boy Who Lived.' He somehow managed to destroy You-Know-Who as an infant. And he recently participated in the Triwizard Tournament through some technicality. Last June, the other Hogwarts 'champion,' Cedric Diggory, died under mysterious circumstances during the final task of the tournament, and that's when Harry claimed that You-Know-Who murdered him and had returned from the dead." He looked back at Hermione. "Oh, and yesterday, he got into an argument with the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. Did I leave anything out?"
"No…" She frowned, leaning on one hand. "It's just…A lot of people are interested in Harry right now because of everything surrounding him, and I just want—"
"—to make sure I'm not just using you to get to Harry?" Tim suggested.
Hermione flinched. "Ah…" She bit her lip. "Well…"
"I admit, I'd love to talk to Harry about the whole You-Know-Who thing, seeing as the only information I have on the whole debacle comes from a historically untrustworthy newspaper publication," Tim told her as though that wasn't the only reason that he had made her acquaintance. Who knew, maybe Hermione would become a real friend in time (albeit one that was under the belief that he was a wizard and not, say, a highly-trained detective/vigilante)?
"However," he continued, "you're right to say that he's under a lot of scrutiny right now, and I'm not planning on jumping on that particular bandwagon." Lies, Tim's brain told him, and he was frustrated with the fact that, even now, his conscience wouldn't give him some brief reprieve. He found himself playing with his bracelet again, twiddling with one of its charms (the coffee beans one from Jason). It was a habit he had yet to break. "So, yes, Harry intrigues me, but I really just wanted to talk to you about wizarding books." Lies. "If I came off as fishing for information, I'm sorry."
Hermione, who had been sitting with her hands folded in front of her, unfolded them and stared at Tim like he was some sort of celebrity. Oh, wait…
"I—" she started, but then shook her head. "That was surprisingly honest of you."
Why did Tim feel like she had driven a spike into his stomach?
"Could…can we be friends, Tim?" she asked him. "Everything about Harry aside?"
"Of course," Tim grinned. Lies.
Things I love to create: descriptions of classes JKR forgot about, Luna's conspiracy theories, and fake intellectual conversations.
Also, I feel like we don't get a lot of insight into how people feel about Harry's claims past Seamus calling him crazy. I like to think that there's a wide variety of opinions among the students, from someone like Purdie feeling like Harry is confused but trying to be polite nonetheless to someone like Cordelia feeling a little scared of being around Harry at all but not acting openly antagonistic towards him. I don't think it's black and white.
Also also, Tim/Hermione is not a thing in this story. Their relationship is going to stay strictly platonic because I think they make great intellectual buddies and I like that as a non-romantic thing. Sorry to anyone who was hoping for some Tim/Hermione.