Chapter 8: Finding out a secret
"Does Mr. Mason get some sort of sick, twisted pleasure out of giving us all these quizzes?" I wondered to Sam as we both slumped in our seats at our usual lunch table, another session of English class (or Literature as it was known here) gone by. Two months in, and we'd already had six different quizzes!
It was enough to make a grown man weep. Which I had been, before reincarnation. As such, as a middle schooler, I felt the work the teacher was heaping onto us was ridiculous, and Sam agreed, his head bobbing up and down as he ate his tuna fish sandwich.
"It's pretty bad," he muttered, mouth full of fish and bread. "Mr. Mason's got a bit of a nightmare rep around Woolingsby. At least we don't have him again next year."
"That's a relief," I declared with a sigh. I then sat up, eager to change the subject. "So, have you read the latest Dragons of Pern book?"
Before Sam could respond, an aluminum can bounced off the back of his head, and he flinched. I turned my gaze to the side, and glared at the offender. Unperturbed, a student a year older than me stared back with a smirk, daring me to do something about it.
"You sure you don't want me to do anything?" I asked Sam, and he nodded meekly.
"He only shares Tuesday and Thursday lunches with us, I can deal with it if it's just twice a week," Sam replied.
"Having to put up with it even once a week is too much, in my opinion," I griped.
"Look, don't make a big deal out of it," Sam pleaded, and I grunted but gave him a nod.
"Fine. I don't get why Miller is such a butthead to you," I said, carefully keeping my language squeaky clean. Couldn't go firing off F-bombs around brits, after all. Or swear words in general.
Though my confusion about why the 9th year student Donny Miller kept bothering Sam continued to bug me. One day he'd tell me what the backstory to this was. One day.
But, for now, I'd stick with Sam and keep being his friend. Not like the childish bullying antics Miller liked to use could convince me to stop.
"Oh, by the way, did you still want to come over to my house this weekend to watch the game?" Sam asked, voice becoming eager. By 'game,' he meant the football game being televised on Sunday. And by football, he meant the proper version, not the American one.
"Of course I'm coming over!" I assured him. I might not enjoy the sport as much as Sam did, but that was okay. I liked hanging out with him, even if it was just in the background of something else.
Plus, Sam had a pretty big TV, at least for this era, so when I'd gone over before, we got to watch cartoons and other stuff on it, which was neat. As for his family, the Parsons, they were big football fans. They also always invited me over for dinner whenever I was over, and I wouldn't say no to a free meal. As far as families went, Sam's was great. His parents were neat, and his sister was nice, if shy. They were always nice to me whenever I came over, apparently really happy I'd befriended Sam.
Not to mention I didn't have any plans for potion making over the weekend. My experimentation with brewing potions was going smoothly, but slowly. I could only do so much with the ingredients and equipment I could afford, and experiments could be costly.
I'd also hit something of a wall. I'd proven to myself that I could brew potions as a Squib, at least by following a recipe and using magical catalysts. If I wanted to mass produce potions, however, I'd need to make tests using cheaper ingredients. Or at least, ones I could procure from the Muggle side of the world in bulk. As such, until I could figure out a way to do my experiments with cheap, non-magical stuff, I'd decided to take a step back and focus instead on something else; runes.
'I understand why it was only available to 3rd Years at Hogwarts,' I thought to myself as I went to my next class. I went over some of my notes on the topic (hidden in my math book) to refresh myself.
Runes were, at their basis, symbols that had a certain meaning assigned to them, like pictographs. Hieroglyphs are one such example, although the Norse runic system known as Elder Furthank are just as well-known. Anyways, regardless of the culture, words and symbols have always had power, and this carried over into the runes themselves. I didn't know if runes had innate magical properties naturally, or if it was due to some kind of 'faith' system where runes worked simply because people believed they worked, but for the moment that query was purely academic.
'I'm going about this all wrong,' I thought to myself as I read over some older notes in English class. 'Runecraft will probably be the easiest form of magic I'll be able to use, since I can use modern tools to carve them with a precision other Runecrafters cannot obtain by hand, but before I can do any of that, I need to figure out how to set up the proper runic sequences.'
Intent seemed to matter when carving them, but not by much since I'd already confirmed I could have someone else make the runes for me and still have them activate properly when magic was applied.
No, the real problem with learning runes was the same problem with learning a new language: grammar. Combining runes into something I could use was tricky because of this. One fire rune plus another fire rune could make either a bigger flame, or a hotter one of a small size. It all depended on how you set up the sequence, which was basically like writing a sentence. There were rules about what rune had to go where, which rune could go first in a sequence, what runes could be used with other runes (you couldn't mix Elder Furthank with Japanese Kanji or Egyptian Hieroglyphs, for instance, but you could mix Sumerian Cuneiform with Elder Furthank, curiously enough), and so much more. It made my head spin!
Eventually, the bell rang, signaling the end of lessons for the day, and I put my stuff away – magical and mundane alike. I met Sam outside of the classroom, and we walked out of the building and down the street together.
We lived fairly close to each other, with Sam's house being in Dawshire Grove, a nice little suburban neighborhood. In fact, it was actually closer to Privet Drive than I was, which was an interesting thing to discover.
Unfortunately, we didn't manage to get as far from the school as we'd wanted, because Donny Miller and his goons caught up to his less than a block from the building. The fact he lived in Dawshire Grove as well as Sam meant we had to be discreet and quick on our feet to avoid running into him when school let out.
"Hey, lookie! It's Sammy!" the bully sneered. "Where you going with your boyfriend? Off to do girly things?"
"We're off to plow your mother," I shot back, irritation at my Rune studies bleeding over into my attitude towards the jackass.
Sam turned to gawk at me, his jaw on the ground, same as Donny and his squad, though Don's face was turning bright red as he processed the insult.
"Whu-what did you just say?!" Donny snarled, stepping forward with clenched fists.
"You heard me," I replied, rolling my eyes at the childish antics of the wannabe thug. "Now why don't you just run along, meat-for-brains."
"Oh, yeah? And what if I don't?" he demanded. "What if I decide to beat the shit out of you and your girlfriend?"
"Well, then, I'll just have to enjoy you getting yanked aside by one of the teachers, or perhaps a parent or some other adult," I said, gesturing towards the school parking lot which was still full of students being picked up. "You make one move towards me, and I start screaming. And what do you think people will say or do when they see you, an older, bigger, and dumber boy beating up someone smaller and younger than you?"
Donny froze, and turned his head to look over his shoulder. Even he wasn't stupid enough to try and do something to me with that threat looming, and he decided to leave it be for now.
"This isn't over," he growled at me, and I rolled my eyes as he stalked off.
"How cliché," I sighed, grateful my gamble had paid off. I then turned to Sam, curious about something he'd said.
"Sam, why'd did he call you my girlfriend?" I inquired. A strange thought popped into my head, and I stared at him.
"Wait a second… are… you… are you a girl?" I asked, confused. Sam blushed and looked at the ground, unwilling to make eye contact with me.
"That's… how did I not notice?" I wondered, more to myself than anything else. I looked back, even using Occlumency to help sort my memories, but nothing really popped up or stood out. I did eventually find a couple memories of Sam using the bathroom at school, and he (or was it she?) had used the men's bathroom at the time.
"I am a guy!" Sam finally sputtered out. "It's just… sometimes, I feel like, well…"
"Oh? Oh. OH!" I realized with a start. "Oh, so… huh, I guess that makes sense," I said, rubbing my chin. "Then, that incident Donny mentioned…"
I trailed off, waiting for him to finish my sentence and explain what had happened. He noticed, and after a minute, told me the story.
"I tried on one of my mom's dresses one time. As a goof. A dare!" Sam admitted. "But it was… nice, I guess? I liked it."
"And so you took a liking to dresses and 'girly things?'" I said, mimicking Donny Miller's nasally voice. Sam chuckled at the impression, but nodded.
"He caught me doing it one time. I'd been wearing my hair longer at the time, so I'd tried doing something with it, but all I did was put on some hair ties and scrunchies." Sam sighed morosely at that. "Donny made fun of me, and never stopped."
"What an asshole," I muttered, and Sam gasped at the language I'd used.
"So, that's the story. Are we… are we still friends?" Sam asked, and I looked at him like he was being stupid.
"Obviously," I said. "As if I'd ditched you for something like that. So, you like pretty things and girl stuff? So what? There are worse things to be into, like being a fan of that 'American Football' garbage."
At that, Sam laughed some more, although I could tell there were some tears in his eyes. They were tears of happiness, however, and he gave me a hug. I returned it.
Maybe, if I'd been a regular kid, I'd have been weirded out. But I was from a more enlightened time, and also, I just didn't care. Sam was Sam, regardless of how he liked to dress.
As we separated, I gave him a grin dripping with sneakiness. "Wanna prank Donny?" I asked. "Maybe give him a wedgie or something later?"
"Maybe," Sam said with a snicker.
"Okay. Just let me know when you want me to do something to him as payback. Nobody messes with my best friend and gets away with it," I vowed, and Sam beamed.
"Cool!" he said happily, before frowning.
"Just, uh, just don't swear around my parents or sister, okay?"
"Can do," I said with a lazy salute. "So, what do you want to do today?"
&&&&&
Author's Note: Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! Here's an early chapter for you to enjoy!