"Can I sit in here?" Neville Longbottom asked, poking his dark-haired head into the compartment.
"Of course, Neville," Hermione offered, but then tried to figure out where he would sit. Lavender had met them shortly after they got on the train, while Padma had gone to sit with her Ravenclaw friends, leaving the Gryffindor girls on one side of the compartment and Harry, Dean, and Seamus on the other. Honestly, they might not even be able to comfortably fit six of them in there in a couple more years.
"It's alright, I'm gonna sit wi' Ron anyway," Seamus said. "I see 'im out there. Looks like Malfoy's makin' another attempt at a donnybrook wi' his da."
Neville sighed, "Yeah. He and Draco both stopped me on the way in. Wanted to make fun of me for not being on the Market trip."
"They weren't invited, you just couldn't make it," Parvati assured him. "We'd have gladly traded."
"Help me move me trunk an' ye can have this seat," Seamus offered, and the boys managed to get their trunks swapped, Seamus heading out to flag down the Weasleys.
"Sorry I couldn't make it," Neville apologized as he sat down. "Gran heard the Warriors Three would be there and refused to go. And she didn't trust me without her."
"She doesn't like the Warriors Three?" Dean asked.
"One of them broke her heart," Lavender said. "Or at least, that's what the stories say."
"Wait, is one of them your granddad?" Harry checked.
Neville shook his head. "It was when she was much younger. She met my grandfather after."
Hermione worked it out and suggested, "Lifespan difference?"
He nodded, "Vanir live a long time, but not nearly as long as Aesir."
"What about Hogun the Grim?" Dean checked, remembering the Vanir member of the group.
Lavender answered, "Some one-time only boon from an adventure extended his life. And even then, he'll die way before his friends do. Probably why he's so depressed all the time."
"Obviously Vanir and Midgardians can breed," Harry said, gesturing at himself. "What about Aesir?"
"Oh, I know!" Hermione interjected before Neville or Lavender could answer. "They can, but the child's lifespan is much closer to a Vanir than an Aesir. So they don't do it very often. Probably for the same reason they wouldn't stay with Neville's grandmother?" That got nods, but then she realized, "But isn't Frigga from Vanaheim? And probably a lot of the other Asgardian royals?"
"Odinforce, maybe?" Lavender guessed. "Has to be some benefits to being married to a king who's basically a god." She thought about it for a second and admitted, "But, it's still weird to think of your gran as a beautiful shieldmaiden, even if it was decades ago." Neville looked down, embarrassed, but everyone else was curious, not having met Mrs. Longbottom yet. "She's… imposing more than beautiful. Wears a stuffed vulture on her hat."
"I saw that when we came back for the summer!" Dean realized. "I thought there was some weird bird alien in the crowd."
"No. That's just Jimothy," Neville sighed. "She says he was a very good familiar to her when he was alive."
"Anyway, so, Parv says that you nearly got stopped getting onto the train," Lavender changed the subject. "The elf again?"
"An elf?" Neville asked, not having heard about any of this.
Harry sighed and resigned himself to telling the story of the elf assassin again, knowing he'd just have to recount it for Ron and Seamus later. "But after, this, I want to explain D&D so we can all get our stories straight. And we might actually want to play for real. There's a new edition and everything!"
They had all more or less understood the rules and made characters by the time they reached the Hogsmeade station. The ride had been pretty laid-back. Malfoy had swung by at one point looking like he was going to try to start something, and decided he didn't like the odds with six people in the compartment against him and his two bodyguards.
The welcome feast turned out to be a lot less stressful once you weren't the one getting sorted, though Ron complained about having to wait to eat until all the new first-years had taken their turn with the Helm of Sorting. Gryffindor got both Ginny Weasley and the boy that Hermione had been trying to shield Harry from in London, Colin Creevey.
"You're Harry Potts! Can I get your picture?" the boy with short, mouse-brown hair asked, shoving in to sit close to Harry and his friends. He gestured at the large camera hanging around his neck, "I got an old SLR that doesn't have any electronics, so it should work here!"
"Aren't you Midgardborn, so how do you even already know about…" Harry began to ask, then his brain caught up with his ears, "Wait, you said Potts."
The boy nodded enthusiastically, "Right. You're Pepper Potts' nephew. I've seen you with her in the background of Stark Industries press events! My dad's going to be so excited!"
"Your dad?" Harry asked, adrift in the conversation. And if he was lost, all of his friends were particularly confused. Those that had met Tony at least had an idea what Stark Industries was, but nobody could figure out what Colin's connection was.
"Mark Creevey. He's co-inventor of the Don't Forget the Milk task management app! We have a new version that works on Starkphones!" the boy explained.
Harry's eyes widened as he realized that an eleven-year-old was basically trying to network with him about a smartphone application. He explained, "I don't really get my picture taken if I can help it. You know, the whole wizard thing. Don't want that out there. But…" and he hesitated to offer since he had talked to the boy for thirty seconds, already found him very annoying, and couldn't imagine how annoyed Tony would be meeting his father, "...if we're all in London again this Christmas, you might be able to meet Tony? He was around last year, and some of these guys met him."
Colin took in the nods from Dean, Hermione, Seamus, and Parvati and his face broke into a wide grin. "That. Would. Be. Awesome!" he almost yelled, and managed to wriggle in a way that shoved Seamus and got him sitting a little closer to Harry, and began to explain, "Also, I'm into photography, obviously, usually digital but you know how it is here, so I'm learning to use an analog…"
After half the dinner of Colin trying to aggressively befriend him, Harry was thrilled when the Weasley twins moved down, picked the boy up, and moved him bodily down to to the other end of the table. Somehow, they made it look playful instead of mean, as Oliver Wood, head of the house quidditch team, slid into the vacated spot. "Got a broom?" the burly Scot asked, without preamble.
"Made by Mr. Nimbus," Harry nodded.
"He meks good brooms," Wood approved. "I'm no' actually allowed t'say ye've got th' spot 'til tryouts, but we're goin' t'do some post-summer warmups Sunday mornin', first thin'. We'd like ye tae come. Sound good?"
"I think I can make that," Harry agreed. "But I need to see what the workload is like this year before I can fully commit."
"Ye'll adapt. Second year's easy," Wood waved off. He noticed Ron working up his courage to speak and added, "Ye n'all, Weasley, alreit? Yer brothers say ye prefer keeper, so thir's not really a spot, but we'll try ye for alternate, if I'm out. Sound good?" The redhead nodded gratefully and so Wood said, "Anywan else, tryouts next week, but we've got a pretty good team other'n seeker, so dinnae get yer hopes up. Seeya." He got up and headed back up the table to sit with his friends again.
Pretty soon, the food was being cleared away and Headmaster Dumbledore made his usual yearly speech. This year there was not a deadly corridor announced, just the usual rules about fighting, pranks, and the forest. He closed with, "And I'm pleased to introduce our defense seminar instructor for the year, though I'm certain he needs no introduction, as the Warriors Three are renowned far and wide. Please greet Fandral the Dashing." He then gestured to the beaming blond man who they'd met at the pub.
"Professor the Dashing is fine," he said, then corrected, "I kid. I kid. You may all simply call me Fandral. But that's as short as you go. I'm 'Fandy' to my mother and no one else!" He gave a winning smile, the light almost twinkling off of his teeth. "I look forward to seeing you all in class."
Harry thought he spotted dreamy looks and swoons across most of the female students, no few of the male students, and even a few of the professors. He joked with Dean, "Maybe last year's teacher would have gotten the same reaction if she'd ditched the fake warts."
Dean smirked, "We still just have your word on that. Nobody else saw her without the disguise. Careful you don't get hung up on green women."
"Captain Kirk complex," Hermione added, tuning in on the conversation as they started to stand to head back to their dorms. "Only I was reading about the effects of media representation on formative human sexuality, and the number of fetishes we're in danger of developing right now is truly amazing…"
The dimensional jet lag was a little easier to get used to their second year of it, but all the kids still crashed hard as soon as they got to their dorms and confirmed all of their belongings had been delivered.
Schedules arriving at breakfast, they learned that Mondays were fairly light for them as second-years, with just Rector McGonagall and Professor Binns' classes in the morning and flying as an optional class in the afternoon. Mostly, they were encouraged to nap or get a jump on homework, since they had cosmology in the evening.
"We should see if we can get Binns to tell us about elves," Hermione suggested.
"Worth a try," Harry agreed. "Hard to get that ghost off his lesson plan, though."
She tried nonetheless, asking the centuries-old ghost, "Professor, can you tell us anything about elves? Are there any that go to other worlds. Maybe as assassins?"
"Ah!" that seemed to get the ghost's attention, and he suggested, "Mistress Grant, yes?"
"Granger, sir."
"Granger, yes. For thousands of years the elves of which you are speaking have been legend, rumor, and conspiracy: the Dahvee. The name means 'those who would welcome the curse" in Shiväisith, the tongue of the dark elves." He walked heedlessly through his teaching lectern (which was mostly an affectation anyway) to pace through the aisles of the class in his normal instructional manner. "Whom amongst thee can tell me what they already know about elves?"
"They live on Alfheim and hardly ever leave," Draco scoffed. Hermione was worried that this was the other class they shared with the Slytherins, and didn't want Draco knowing about the assassin.
"Those are the light elves, yes, Master Appleleaf," Binns agreed.
"Malfoy, sir," Draco corrected.
"Same basic meaning," the ghost waved off. "But, yes, those are the elves of Alfheim that sided with Asgard in the conflict with their own kind. Some five thousand Vanaheim years ago it was, in the time of King Bor. They resettled from Svartalfheim and were altered through Asgardian medicine to survive outside of the strange environment of their homeworld. The original elves of Svartalfheim believed that they had originated from Ginnungagap, the void between worlds and the space that existed before the creation of the universe.
"This be, of course, nonsense, but they believed these concepts as their native religion. They were a racewide death cult, committed to the extermination of all other life in the universe in an attempt to render all matter back into void." Binns paused and shuddered, "I have seen it with my own dead eyes—Ginnungagap. Above such a yawning void of impossibility floats Niflheim, as does Asgard itself. You would fall eternally, the rules of matter ceasing, unless you were summoned free by someone with power to rival Odin himself. Death and imprisonment on Niflheim be greatly preferable."
"So why did the elves want to go there. And who are the Dahvee?" Hermione pulled the professor back from his tangent.
"The dark elves believed that they would rule over Ginnungagap once all other life had ceased. They did seem to have greater control over existing in the void than others, through some magic or technology," Binns admitted. "So invested were they in this mission that they would give no peace or quarter, so King Bor was forced into wiping out the entire race. Each elf was committed to eternal war, save for the relative few that became the light elves." He paused for effect then added, "But it be nearly impossible to truly destroy an entire race, even should their morale be harder than the iron they eschewed.
"Some few of them survived and went to ground, it is believed, and they spent thousands of years in a secret campaign against the other Nine Realms. No longer able to threaten nations, they serve as mercenaries and assassins, seeking to distribute death and accumulate funds against some eventual resurgence. Or the tale is such. Since conspiring with remnant forces of one of the foremost enemies of Asgard remains a crime across the Realms, there is little verifiable knowledge of these ideas."
With the pronouncement about hiring assassins and doing crimes, all eight Gryffindor students glared balefully at Draco. The boy rolled his eyes, but didn't deny or protest the accusations.
"Well!" Binns clapped his hands together soundlessly and stated, "With that lovely introduction, we move on to this year's topic: events of the reign of King Bor of Asgard."
They had their first defense class with Fandral first thing on Tuesday morning. Harry was pretty sure he was never going to get used to calling it Tyr's Day. Tyr barely even seemed that important in Asgardian history to justify his own day. They'd asked Percy Weasley about it at one point, and he'd suggested that it might have been a deliberate snub against Loki, the only member of the royal family without a day named after him.
Presumably that was the kind of question Fandral might be able to answer, as close as he was with the rulers of Asgard. They dutifully filed into the classroom he'd chosen, and there were murmurs of approval at all the gleaming steel and polished wood melee weapons mounted in racks around the room, available in sizes useful for training from first-year to seventh. The man himself lounged across the corner of a large oak desk pushed back to leave a clear space in the front of the room. There were no desks for the students, only chairs. Clearly this was meant to be a class for watching and doing, but not for excessive note-taking.
Once they'd all sat down, joined by the Hufflepuffs they shared defense classes with, Fandral said, "Is that everyone? Excellent. For those that missed my introduction, I'm Fandral the Dashing, and you can simply call me Fandral. This year we'll be teaching you how to fight with weapons. I know that magical types tend to rely on spells, but there are many places and times in this cosmos where cold steel beats finger-waving. I myself fought a particularly dastardly magician a few years ago, who thought that his witchcraft would avail him against my valorous blade. You see, we were checking a tomb that the locals told us was haunted by a necromancer, and…"
He was a very good speaker, and the class was hanging on his story, which he got through in twenty minutes of class time. Some of the boys were starting to look longingly at the practice weapons by the end, but the girls seemed rapt at attention, particularly when the handsome Asgardian moved to demonstrate something he'd done.
"...and I hear there's still a bit of a stubborn stain where the man fell, forever etched into the stone of the tomb, as an example to others that would use their gifts for evil. Anyway, look at me rambling on! Before we can proceed, I need a brief idea of where we're starting from. I assume it might be from nothing, but I understand you at least have some unarmed training from the last year? Let's start with Harry. What kind of weapons training do you have?"
"Just the training from last year," Harry told him, not really expecting that noting his extensive experience with how melee weapons were rendered in various fighting and action games would count. "We did some work with knives." The rest of the class nodded at that.
"Knives are the go-to weapon for many magicians," Fandral agreed, in a way that made them seem somehow unfair. "Crown Prince Loki himself favors them. And, I admit, they're an excellent backup weapon in tight quarters or a grapple. But the reach and force of a full-sized weapon will win against them in any fight without such limitations. Well, unless you decide to master illusion magic like the prince, who prefers to down our foes from surprise." Again, it was clear that he found that manner of fighting completely distasteful. "Okay, next?"
Most of the rest of the class had the same answer as Harry, until Fandral got to Dean, who explained, "I've been doing karate—Midgardian unarmed martial arts—since I was little. And we've done a bit of practice with various weapons. Mostly staff, but some with various shorter sticks. I wanted to learn nunchaku—two short sticks on a rope or chain—but they're illegal in my city."
"A fine list of weapons at your age," Fandral allowed. "I think I know the tools of which you speak. If I'm not mistaken, that art was invented by oppressed Midgardian peasants, who had to fight with whatever farm implements were available. You'll find similar traditions on many worlds. It's perhaps with no little irony that such simple weapons are illegal in cities where tools used by the upper classes remain in common use. I'd wager a simple woodcutting axe remains perfectly legal, yes? And yet far more deadly."
Dean nodded, "Yeah, they even have fire axes on the wall in a lot of buildings, you know, in case you need to chop down a door or something during a fire."
"Hah! A 'fire axe' means something far different in Nine Realms parlance, with the threat of running into the denizens of Muspelheim around any given corner. The last time I faced a minion of Surtr, he was wielding such an axe…"
That story only took about five minutes.
"Now, what about you, miss?" he eventually finished up and called on Hermione.
"The same as everyone else," she started, but then added, "well, except that I took a stage combat seminar with my mum last year, so I've wielded a rapier a bit."
"Ah, yes, stage combat! You remind me a bit of the Lady Sif, one of our frequent companions on our adventures. Why, I remember one time when one of the actresses of Asgard was trying to follow us around on an adventure and get a proper understanding of Sif's mannerisms and fighting style for enhanced authenticity. We'd hoped to keep the lass to the less truly dangerous adventures, perhaps show her a few feast halls and run off a handful of bandits, but we happened upon a village that was in dire need due to raids of näcken from the nearby lake…"
The stories continued, and he'd gotten only through about three-quarters of the students before the bell sounded to move them onto their next period class.
"Well, we'll pick this up next time," Fandral waved them all away.
"I thought we'd get to do some fighting," Harry complained as they were walking to another session of their class with Binns.
"Surely next time," Hermione assured him. "It's a process. He has so much to tell us and so little time." She still had a dreamy look in her eye from being compared to Sif.
"Pay attention, Granger!" Draco shouted, rushing past them on the way to the classroom and slapping the books she was carrying out of her hands. His bodyguards and Pansy Parkinson laughed as the four Slytherins rushed ahead of them and into the room.
"What?!" she asked, confused and incensed, as she stooped down to pick up her books with her friends' help.
Parvati sighed, "They've discovered sitcom bullying this year. I heard they did it to several people yesterday, including some of our first-years. One of them was your sister, Ron."
"He is your nemesis," Harry suggested, putting the last book back on Hermione's stack with a nod of thanks from her. "You going to get him back?"
Ron gave a sly smile and said, "Yeah. If the Slytherins want to battle, they'll see that Gryffindor does not back down!"
Hermione sighed, because she'd hoped that Draco would just get bored with the dumb behavior in a few days, and said, "Maybe we should have gotten on to dueling in Fandral's class so you boys would have gotten this out of your systems…"