Chapter 19
Despite it being a Sunday, and despite the student body taking this opportunity to find cosy little hollows to congregate in, the seventh floor, as promised, is empty. End to end it is a hundred-foot corridor, with brackets of blue flame winking along the walls and moonlight dripping in through the mullioned windows. The second I ascend the final stair I feel a powerful charm wash over me. Static crackles in my mind. My vision flickers, fades, then jumpstarts again.
I turn to Daph.
"What was that?"
She herself seems to have undergone the same struggle. She shakes her head twice to clear the cobwebs.
"Modified Notice me not." She is unsettled. Her eyes scour the corridor in frantic search for its source. "It is for the entire floor."
"The spell let us through though." I drift to the centre, past hushed portraits and inanimate suits of armour. I let the sense of the charm encroach me. I bask in it, I breathe it in.
"It's too strong to counter," I note. The better you are at magic, the better you get at sensing magic, and the sense here, despite being soothing, is all encompassing. This spell could swallow me whole if it wanted— eradicate every thought from my mind except to get away and stay away. "No student could've done this."
"Dumbledore," Daph murmurs.
I can only grimace at the irony. The man is dying, yet he's almost brought me to my knees through an overpowered Notice me Not.
"How nice," I say. "He's reserved the corridor for us."
I spin around and address her.
"D'you think Longbottom gave him a list of names?"
"I did not."
They emerge from the shadows on the far side. Longbottom, Weasley and Granger. A week has done nothing to dampen Weasley's animosity, and Granger is bursting at the seams to launch into an excited sermon on the phenomenon we are experiencing. Longbottom, however, is grinning.
"It lets you through if you already know there's a class up here," he explains. "But only if you don't want to hurt us."
"Bad choice then. I am always tempted to hurt you." I squint at the chandelier affixed overhead. Its phosphorescent gleam imprints itself upon my eyelids. "Still, this makes sense. I did wonder how you'd hide this entire thing from Umbridge."
Granger is an immediate bustle of activity, all explanatory arm movements and extreme earnestness.
"We wanted to use a coin and a protean charm, and I wanted to enchant a parchment on which we would put down the names of everyone who joins, only I'd have added a jinx, you know, to stop anyone from tattling us out to Umbridge, but then Neville said—"
"Breathe, Hermione."
Granger flushes. The corners of Longbottom's lips curve up. His expression as he stares at Granger is tender and fond. He has a good understanding of comic timing, it seems.
I decide that I like him.
Daph though is staring at Granger as if she's grown a second head. I don't blame her— the enchanted parchment idea sounds devious. I did not know Granger had it in her.
"Let's go in," Weasley grumbles. He's slouched over. He's doing his utmost to look as unfriendly as he can. As if we are heralds to some foul contagion.
"Sure," I agree. "I take it you've told everyone where we're meeting?"
"Yeah." Longbottom pulls out two galleons and throws them at me. "These are yours."
They spin through the air and nestle into my outstretched palm.
I examine them.
"I thought Granger said—"
"I only said no to half her ideas," Longbottom says. "The Protean charm's good, very good. She's borrowed it from the dark mark, d'you know? Hermione's brilliant like that."
He straightens and crosses his arms.
"But the parchment? What we're doing here is about trust, Harry. We can't just turn on each other because we are afraid. No one who comes to these classes will betray us. I trust everyone here. I trust you."
He nods to me.
"I trust you too, Greengrass."
He nods to her.
"I trust Tracey—"
There's no accompanying nod. He looks around, bewildered.
"Blimey, where's Tracey?"
"She got misplaced," I reply. "Someone will find her and adopt her, and she'll tag along with them. That's how it goes with Trace. She's acquaintances with everyone."
"Right."
I turn away, but Longbottom leaves his friends behind and sidles up to me. He lowers his voice to a whisper as we head for the door.
"I was just surprised. Aren't you guys together? I mean—er—in that way."
He gives me a significant glance.
I stare back at him blankly.
"Er, she said so in runes . . ."
He seems uncomfortable. As if he's second guessing himself.
"Then yes," I say.
He recovers some of his poise.
"Shouldn't you be worried? She's told me how things are in your house. With Voldemort back, they'll target her if they get the chance."
I am touched. Trace was right about him— Longbottom really does care about the people he considers his friends, regardless of house loyalties.
"She can take care of herself," I assure him. From the corner of my eye, I watch Granger ensnare Daph in conversation. Daph has an internal struggle, but her pureblooded propriety wins out, so she bows her head and endures.
"Oh, okay." Longbottom does not sound convinced.
"Trust me, Trace is amazing." I shepherd him to one side, then pace three times in front of the door. I did this yesterday— I know what form I want the room to take.
"All she needs," I say afterwards, "is a little more confidence. Everything else is already here."
I place a hand over my heart.
"Nice of you to ask, though."
I pull the door open. I gesture towards the room.
"Come on in, Longbottom. You might want to see this before the classes start."
"Neville," he replies, staying put.
"What?"
"All my friends call me Neville." He glares at me, as if daring me to contradict him.
"Neville." I try the name. It sounds foreign on my tongue, but I suppose it is no worse than Longbottom.
"Neville," I repeat. "All right, I can work with that."
The way he grins, you'd think I've offered him the world. And to my surprise, I find myself responding to his joy with a reluctant smile of my own.
The room has taken the form of a dozen, evenly spaced, circular fighting pits. The pits are each thirty feet in length and twenty in width. There's a podium opposite the entrance — it is from this that I am supposed to preach.
Longbottom ambles away, impressed. He circles the room, going from pit to pit. He drops into one and reaches for his wand. The same clumsy stance, the same appalling lack of finesse. But he pivots and shadow boxes, producing with each twist and flick a rudimentary hex or jinx.
I leave him to it. I leave Daph to Granger as well, though her scrunched expression of profound agony tugs at my heartstrings. It is Weasley I walk towards— Weasley, who is still sullen. He has hidden himself in one corner. He sits at the rim of a pit and kicks at the inlaid gravel moodily.
Wariness lines his expression when he sees me approach.
"Weasley." I drop down next to him so we are seated side by side.
"What d'you want?"
"To mend things," I say.
I have quite clearly caught him off guard. I have no idea what verbal volley or what jostle in rhetoric he was expecting, but I made a promise and I intend to keep it. I have decided to be on my best behaviour.
"I don't like you," Ronald Weasley growls.
"That's okay. Not many people do."
"I'm with Bones. You're in it for yourself."
"Aren't we all?"
"No." The hostility has intensified. "Neville's my best mate. I'd die for him."
I nod along.
"Good. Then I shall teach you the best I can, so you die heroically."
A vein pulses in his neck.
"You're not funny, Potter."
"It hurts, Weasley. Here, right here."
I point to my heart.
He side-eyes the finger, sees the crest on my robes, then gnashes his teeth and looks away.
That's the issue, then.
"Do you think all Slytherins are inherently evil?" I inquire.
He stares straight ahead.
"Never met a good 'un."
"Me neither," I confide. "Have you ever tried looking, though?"
He shoots up to his feet.
"Whatever you're trying to do is not working on me," he says gruffly. "I'll have my eye on you. If I don't like what I see, I'll go straight to Dumbledore."
"You do that. But honestly, I have nothing to hide. So in the meantime, how about a truce?"
A guarded look.
"Truce?"
"You ignore me, Weasley, and I ignore you. We're both okay with that. But if you're fond of your friends, then try the best you can in my classes."
He glares at me.
"Why are you telling me this? No one else here likes you either."
"Isn't it obvious?" I quirk an eyebrow. "Neville's close to you, so it might fall on you to protect him someday."
Ronald Weasley has no answer to that.
I stand up.
"Try, Weasley. Try your best. That is all."
I extend my hand.
"Truce?" I repeat.
He leaves me hanging.
"Yeah, a'right," he grunts, turning away. He goes to Granger. Daph might have her miraculous rescue after all.
My hand remains suspended midair for another second. I tuck it back into my pocket, hoping no one else spotted that. Awkward. Bloody awkward.
Daph is all too happy to switch places with Weasley. She has the thousand-yard stare of a traumatised war veteran.
"What was that about?" She mumbles.
"Playing nice." I sigh. "The things we do for love."
We make meaningless small talk, watching students enter in twos and threes. I watch them pool together, I watch them converse. The trickle starts to slow; almost all of them are here, yet there is one notable absentee.
As if in answer to this, the door bursts open and Trace jogs in, sweating. She's quite clearly sprinted the entire length of the corridor. She shies away from Bones, who has settled into the pit adjacent the doorway, looks around in a frenzy, spots us, waves like a loon, then jogs over, grinning ear to ear.
"I'm late, I know." She launches herself at me, giving me a bear hug. "Sorry, sorry!"
"What held you up?" I ask, returning the hug with equal enthusiasm.
"Kids." Trace burrows her head against my chest. We stay that way for a few seconds; then she extricates herself from my embrace. Thus freed, she does the same for Daph.
"There's these two kids," Trace says afterwards, her face glowing. "They're really lonely and I sorta became their friend by accident. We play gobstones together so I had to walk them back to the dungeons. I'm really sorry, guys!"
I am tickled. Daph is not.
"Kids," she says blankly. "What kids?"
"Slytherins," Trace explains. "Our house."
She prods at her tie to emphasise her point.
"Do we know them?" I ask.
"'Course you do. Clarke and Rosaline Burton. Bro and sis."
Trace takes it for granted that everyone has heard of all her acquaintances.
"Never heard of them," I announce.
"They got sorted this year!" Trace cries indignantly.
"Nope, still doesn't ring a bell."
"You must've been sleeping through the sorting then. You remember, right, Daph? Small kiddos, 'bout this tall." Trace horizontally places her palm against her waist.
"No, I do not," is the cautious response. "Half-bloods?"
"Muggleborns."
"Oh." Distaste flashes across Daph's features. Her interest in the conversation dies.
"You must not pick up strays, Tracey," she says.
"What d'you mean? They're good kids!"
"I'm sure they are." I pat her shoulder, directing her attention to me. I walk on eggshells every time this blood purity nonsense comes up. "But how did they end up in Slytherin?"
Trace lapses into thoughtful silence.
"I never asked, you know."
"The hat does not discriminate," Daph murmurs.
"No, only people do," I say out of the corner of my mouth. I am careful to keep my voice low. It is meant for Daph's ears alone. I give her a pointed stare.
She has the good grace to look apologetic.
Trace has missed our interplay. She is humming obliviously.
Neville meanwhile is doing a meet and greet. He goes from person to person, nodding in solidarity, smiling, exchanging earnest words, inquiring after their ruddy health, and all the other nonsense I presume politicians are supposed to be good at. The door opens and closes one final time, and the Weasley twins slip in. They're all here now.
Neville goes up to the podium.
"We're here to learn." And there's the stout battle cry, the voice to command armies. "For the next four hours I want you all to pay attention."
He indicates that I come up, then surrenders the podium.
My throat, I find, is suddenly parched. I think this is a good time to mention that I have little experience in public speaking.
I go up anyway, reaching into my cloak as I do. I fish out my dog-eared dossier.
I place it on the lectern and clear my throat. In the past I have faced illustrious duellists backed by supportive crowds, and I promise you those crowds had nothing on the hostility I can feel emanating from this lot. There you are in the zone, and you can tune out the audience; here, there's not even a fig leaf to hide behind.
A part of what makes this so hard is that I'm emotionally invested in this project now. My reputation is on the line. I don't want to be Snape— I don't want to be Umbridge— I want my technical lessons to be a foundation they can rely on for the rest of their lives, regardless of what they think about me as a person. My pride as a professional will allow for nothing less.
Sadly, I am my own biggest enemy. I did not account for my mediocrity as a public speaker.
I attempt to speak. Hoarse death rattles that vaguely resemble human speech bubble up from my throat. I plod on. I gamely cobble together a few stilted sentences and try introducing course aims, but they're not interested in all this: first they want to know how often do I intend to conduct these classes?
Every single night, I say.
This kicks off a furore.
"We've got quidditch practice thrice a week!" This from the Gryffindor captain.
"Listen, Jameson—" I begin.
"It's Angelina Johnson."
A biting rebuke. Already there are outraged whispers rippling through— he doesn't even know our names. True, quite true. This is supplemented with other cries, equally insistent but no less demented: we have OWLs, we have NEWTs, we have charms club, we have Gobstones.
It is Neville Longbottom who comes to my rescue. He pleads for silence. In that quiet, self-assured way of his, he talks about how Harry Potter must have his reasons (and other wishy-washy mumbo jumbo, stuffed to the brim with cheap rhetorical gimmicks). Miraculously, it works. The crowd, which was only a second ago willing to re-enact an assassination plot from the Roman senate, is pacified. The planned coup d'etat is temporarily postponed. In the midst of all this, I rather feel like a damsel in distress, and discover that I hate this feeling.
What follows is an attempt at retaking control.
"Thirty seconds in the pit with me, Johnson. If you survive that, I'll cut classes down to once a week. How about it?"
She is smart enough to not take me up on this offer. She does not look happy, though.
That was the stick.
Now for the carrot.
"You—all of you— have your entire lives in front of you, unless someone cuts it short."
I lean in.
"From everything I've read about the first war, the Death Eaters ought to be taken seriously. So forget the Quidditch cup and cooperate with me for a year."
I rake my gaze from face to face.
"If you do everything I ask of you, then you'll be proud someday of the person you see in the mirror."
The response for this falls well short of the rousing ovation I was expecting. It is tepid and lukewarm; I am treated to a whole host of eye rolls and timorous mumbles. They do not trust me just yet.
But trust is a slow process, and I can work with this.
What follows is a chaotic blur. My time teaching Trace was amazing, because she was a cooperative student who made things easy for me, so I mistakenly thought of myself to be an excellent teacher. I am not. Instead, I am monotonous and mechanical. I drone on incessantly. I make verbal offerings into the void. I ask questions about what spells they know, only to discover that there is little consistency to be found. My youngest students are all third years. Dennis Creevey has brought along a couple of his friends, and their combined offensive knowledge is one hex and one jinx.
Their combined defensive knowledge is non-existent.
There are other complications. As I split them into pairs and ask them to mock-duel, I realise how big a disparity there is in terms of raw talent and relative skill. For example, I would have lost that bet to Angelina Johnson. She's agile; her hand-eye coordination is top tier. Her spell repertoire, however, is extremely poor. She's also one of the best students in this class. Sue Bones, similarly, is head and shoulders above the rest.
Then there are the ones with potential. Dean Thomas has exceptional footwork and, if given time, could mature into an ace duellist; Marietta Edgecombe, if given a few helpful nudges, could be the perfect swiss knife; George Weasley, I think, would do brilliantly if introduced to the dark arts, assuming he does not lose himself in them; Granger is great at everything, reflexes aside, and has the most talent out of this lot; Goldstein shows excellent defensive abilities, and in an ideal world could be trained as a sponge to soak up pressure; Ron Weasley, despite giving off every appearance of being a lout, has a surprisingly big heart, and is willing to take quite the beating if he has to. That can take you very far in life.
Those are my diamonds in the rough. My islands of raw talent.
Then there's the sea of shit.
Don't get me wrong, a lot of these students are middle of the road— Fred Weasley, Alicia Spinnet, Cho Chang, Padma Patil, Ernie Macmillan, Hannah Abott, just to name a few. But I am constrained by time, and I am constrained in the sense that I can offer none of them individual instruction. Turning Trace into a good duellist was the product of patience and hard labour, yes; but the most important factor was that I could devote all my attention to her.
My attention here is split twenty-five separate ways.
So halfway through this farce, I determine that the entirety of my technical understanding is for nought. I wanted to teach them basic spell chains today (disarmer— stunner— impediment jinx). This is impossible when two thirds of the class does not know the stunner and half of those two thirds know none of the three spells.
Upon this realisation, the first thing at the tip of my tongue is a torrent of abuse. The second is profanity. The third, the fourth and the fifth are sentences equally cancerous to the ear. The sixth and the seventh are unflattering thoughts too, but better phrased. I swallow my voice though, and settle for the eighth, because Trace is staring at me with puppy dog eyes.
"You're all . . . a work in progress," I lie through my teeth.
Neville Longbottom is ever the optimist.
"Yes, guys, that's what we like to hear, let's go!" He hollers. He hunches over and claps furiously, presumably to rouse his coterie's mummified spirits.
I am tempted to choke him with his necktie. I resist the urge.
"Weasley, Granger, Daphne." I direct them to a subset of the crowd. "You teach those students Expelliarmus."
"Tracey, Johnson, Bones." I point towards another subset. "Teach them Stupefy."
"Longbottom, Thomas, Goldstein, Edgecombe— you're with me."
I let my voice creep up an octave. I try adding some steel to it.
"Those are the class roles for now," I say. "By next Sunday I want everyone to know Expelliarmus, Impedimenta and Stupefy."
Ambitious but doable, especially over seven sessions.
They shuffle about with great reluctance and get into their respective groups.
"What's he getting paid for, then?" I hear Weasley grumble to Granger. An excellent question, if I do say so myself. Granger disagrees. She's quick to defend me, prattling away about the benefits of delegation.
Yeah, it's that. It is definitely that. Let's pretend 'delegation' is why I broke this class up. It has nothing to do with me getting completely overwhelmed, I swear.
I fob off Goldstein to Neville and take on Thomas and Edgecombe. Thomas is tall and dark skinned, and has the brightest smile in the room; he justifies my faith in him within the first five minutes. They both know Impedimenta and Expelliarmus, but their form is jerky and amateurish. I ask them to pay close attention as I demonstrate these two spells, and after I do so a couple of times, I ask them to follow along. Thomas mimics my stance and nails the spells on his first attempt. He picks out microscopic details; he makes unconscious elbow adjustments. It is the sort of intuitive understanding that separates the amateur from the professional. You either have it or you don't.
Thomas has it.
Edgecombe does not.
She is sallow and anemic, with jaundiced eyes hidden under a mop of messy brown. She's frightened, and she's defined by that fright, that fatal fright which nips so many promising careers in the bud. Her eyes bulge and her breath bursts forth in a nervous exclamation every time she adjusts her feet or thrusts her wand forward. The figure she cuts somehow, even as she bumbles through her routine and fumbles everything, is not comic, but immeasurably tragic.
A lesser duellist would see nothing but a waste of time. She's clumsy; she tries too hard; she is too eager to be validated, since she side-eyes me after every spell. Did I do well? She seems to beg. Tell me, tell me please, that I did well.
A lost cause for most. But not for me, because half an hour ago I saw her accidentally pull off a spell chain. There were four jinxes, the third and fourth of which don't chain together, as the requisite wrist movement is not supposed to be humanly possible. So there's something unnatural about her wrist— some genetic defect, perhaps. I intend to exploit that. After all, the hardest combinations to stop are the ones you never see coming, because conventional wisdom tells you that they should not exist.
"Not like that," I tell her. "You're too taut. Looser, please. Drop that elbow a little, bend a little at the knees, extend your lead foot just so—there you go! Now try again."
And like a rubber band she snaps right back into her bad habits the second I finish giving her this advice.
"No, you're doing it all wrong. The foot, damn it, it's supposed to be at a right angle and you keep drawing it back into— no, no! Here, let me." I drop into a crouch. I clutch her ankle. I gently twist it, so the toes point inward. Then I rise and grab the elbow and make the adjustment for her . . . but when I step away the foot is once more pointed forwards and she wields her elbow like a club.
"I'm sorry," she whimpers, covering her ears when I growl at her. "You're making me nervous. Please, let me try on my own. I can do this!"
She cannot. Half an hour I waste on this, this utterly hopeless back and forth, and at the end of that half hour I am able to bully her into a somewhat orthodox stance, even if her movements are the furthest thing from fluid.
Then I call Dean Thomas back (I had sent him away, first to practice by himself, then to join Goldstein and Neville in whatever they were doing). After he returns, I take them step by step through the stunner. I spend almost half the remaining time showing them the wand movements and walking them through the theory. Then I ask them to practice it.
It takes Thomas four tries. By the fourth he is able to produce a pale streak of red. I tell him to practice alone, then switch over to Edgecombe.
She and I go at it again. And again. And again. There's no progress. At first I encourage her, but as she goes from subpar to putrid, my patience wanes. It frays, then comes completely undone. I grow irritable; I cannot understand why she's so bad at this, when I've explained it all so well, when I've given it my best shot. I've put my heart and soul into making her understand, but it's like beating my head against a brick wall. I keep getting angrier and angrier, she keeps retreating further and further into a shell, till I'm foaming at the mouth and till her wand arm is trembling under the strain of being kept up for so long.
"For the love of— no, no! Gods, you're useless! You are getting worse with every try. Now you're mixing up the wand movements. It is not rocket-science, there are two wand movements in Stupefy. Look, like this! And then this! Bloody hell, how are you this bad, Marietta?"
She bursts into tears. Curfew sounds in tandem with her wrenching sobs, and the curtain comes down on the single most depressing piece of clownery in my entire life.
I stay slumped at the bottom of the gravel pit as the students file out. Marietta Edgecombe is the first to flee. Dean Thomas gives me a consolatory grin before he follows her out. I seem to have won at least one admirer tonight, for all the good that it has done me.
Not everyone leaves immediately though. Angelina Johnson towers over me, her arms crossed.
"It is not about the Quidditch cup," she says, sticking her chin out.
From the bottom of the pit I squint at her.
"Huh?" I sound dumb. I look dumb. I feel dumb. I am dumb, Jesus Christ, for having agreed to put myself through this ordeal.
"Set aside Quidditch for a year, remember?"
"Yeah, I said that," I admit. I haul myself up and feel very sorry for myself. Sorry for every single thing I've said or done. In the space of four hours, the powers that be have taught me humility. "Look, I didn't mean to insult you, Johnson—"
"I wasn't insulted." Her gaze is stern, but her tone is even. "I want to be a pro."
In this fog of self-abasement, a floating lantern of meaning. I grasp at it with the desperation of a drowning man.
"Oh." I ascend the pit. "You can't afford to lose a year, then."
"You know how it works." She nods. "There are hundreds of Chasers in the market every season. Less than twenty make the cut. If I graduate, and if I don't get a trial immediately, I don't have a career in Quidditch."
"If Voldemort takes over Britain, there might not be a quidditch league anymore," I point out.
She does not flinch at the name. It is a day for surprises.
"I agree," she replies.
I blink in confusion. Agreement is the last thing I expected.
"Sorry?" I prod tentatively.
"I kept quiet because you made sense. The war is more important."
There's a sliver of pain in her voice as she says it.
"I have good grades. If I don't get picked, there are other things I could do. But if someone dies because I'm too stubborn, it'll haunt me forever."
"That's very noble of you, Johnson." I mean every word.
As I dumbly continue to gape at her, though, I am seized by a sudden flash of madness. Trace, Daph, and even Neville would lie to spare my feelings, but Johnson would not, not when she's giving up so much on a personal level to make these classes work.
"How bad was I?" I ask.
If she's aware of just how much power her answer has over me, she gives no indication of it.
"I've had worse teachers," she replies. "I don't know about your personal sessions, but the time before that was okay. You know your stuff. You just don't know how to get it across."
That is . . . a generous interpretation of the unmitigated disaster which unfolded in this room. But beggars can't be choosers, so I am happy for it anyway.
"You'll show up tomorrow, won't you?" she asks doubtfully.
"I don't run," I reply. "And I don't hide behind excuses. For better or worse."
"Good." A hint of a smile. "Then Neville chose well. See you around, Potter."
I sleep in fitful spurts. I wake with a skull splitting headache. I am listless in my classes, and as morning turns into afternoon I stop attending classes altogether. I take refuge in the library, brooding in silence, nursing my headache, making and re-making my lesson plans. Adjustments are made to my dossier— I strike out sections, I reshuffle the material. My initial assessment was correct— a lot of this is too complex. Given the lofty objectives of this class (training up an army to fight the Death Eaters, apparently), it does nothing to ease my frustration.
I miss lunch. Daph comes looking for me at around two thirty in the afternoon, and I am such a bundle of joy, all waspishness and snark, that she storms off in a huff.
Ten minutes after this episode, the guilt of it gnaws away at me, so I snap my dossier shut and make my way to our hideout, to apologise. But it's not Daph I find there— it is Trace.
She's hard at work. Even my intrusion does nothing to break her concentration. There's a muggle notebook on her table. She uses a ballpoint pen to write in it. She's on page fifty-two of Elphias Doge's "A Beginner's Guide to Aramaic". The document Alex sent me, the one by Emeric the Evil, has been folded carefully. It lies untouched next to the notebook.
I gather her into my arms, then kiss her on the forehead. After that I pull up a chair for myself.
"Are you still hung up on that?" I gesture to Emeric's manuscript.
"I'm having fun." Trace shows me her notebook.
It is all unintelligible squiggles.
"Good." My desire to tell her about my struggle wanes. She's in a good mood, and I am loath to ruin it. I try thinking of a change in topic, but other than my behaviour with Daph, which I do not wish to mention, nothing comes to mind.
Trace fills the silence with her crooning as I ponder this.
"Yesterday was fun too," she says suddenly.
"Yeah, I suppose." I brush it off and try playing it cool, though I do not think she buys it.
So I divert her attention.
"How did your session go, Trace?"
"Great!" She's thrilled. From the airy uplift in her tone, she's been dying to tell me about it. "Bones took Ernie, Katie and Hannah. Angelina took Fred, George and Alicia, so it was just me, Justin and Cho. They're really nice!"
"You mean Finch Fletchley? Nice is not the word I'd use to describe him."
"Eh, he's just a lil' rough around the edges, that's all. But once you get to know him he's ok. He loves his mum, d'you know?"
I find myself taken off guard by the random trivia.
". . . What?"
"It's true," Trace says. "He's always talking about her. So I asked what she does, and she's a barrister. In the muggle world! It's the family business. Justin was going to be one too, before his Hogwarts letter. He wanted to go to Eton— just think, Harry, you could've been roommates with him!"
My headache worsens. Even hypothetically sharing a dorm with Finch Fletchley is at the bottom of my list of preferences. But then again, it is a better prospect than sharing a dorm with Draco Malfoy.
"What about Chang?" I enquire.
"Cho's sweet. I liked her right away. I said to her, 'I fought your da' in Milan— and her eyes got all big and she was like, wow, did you really?'" Trace scratches her head. "She wasn't saying it to be polite or anything, she really didn't know I fought him. I don't think she likes her da', Harry."
"She dislikes duelling," I say. "That's all I know."
"She dislikes her da' as well," Trace insists. "Justin asked some questions 'bout him, but she clammed up and looked proper uncomfortable. I— um— I made sure after that to never bring him up again."
"I see." I lean back in my chair and give her the gimlet eye. "Did you only swap stories, or did you actually teach them anything?"
I swear I can see question marks float in the air above Tracey's head.
"You said Stupefy, right? I taught 'em Stupefy."
I almost have a heart attack.
"What, the entire thing?"
"No, 'course not. I spoke about theory, then asked 'em to try it. They struggled for a bit, so I told 'em calm down and said it took me two weeks to learn that spell. I said they were so much better at it than me already."
She curls her fingers into a fist. Determination creeps into her voice.
"They'll have it down by Wednesday," she promises.
"Two weeks?" I am aghast. "Two weeks? Trace, it took you two hours to learn Stupefy."
She giggles.
"Yeah, silly. But I had you teaching me". Her smile is angelic. "I'm not that good a teacher, you know."
"You lied to them." I did not know she could do that.
Trace shrugs.
"The truth would've made 'em sad."
And in the midst of all this I have a revelation about teaching technique. You know how it is— you can be told about something a million times, but that lightbulb in the head does not go off until you experience it for yourself. At which point you wonder how you could've missed something so obvious.
It would've killed their confidence, is what Tracey means. And except for natural talent, the single most important thing when it comes to turning intent into reality is confidence.
Once you have the spell mechanics down, you have to believe you can do it. You have to embrace that as your truth, even if it is utter delusion. That personal truth has to be your armour against all self doubt. And if you are a person who is constantly beset by self doubt, then even the smallest unkindness can set you off.
I tried being kind, as Trace had begged of me, but I was kind by my standards, not hers. My reservoir of kindness ran dry too early. Once I lost my patience, I was brutal with Marietta; I snidely and repeatedly implied that she was a lazy good for nothing.
I was supposed to be in her corner, yet I let her down.
She's not a poor student.
I am a poor teacher.
And in being a poor teacher, I have lost this student forever. For this one person I have ruined forever the joys of magic, closed forever the pearly gates of wisdom. I have, through my own insensitivity, forever smudged away the promise of everything they could've been.
What follows is a spasm of self-loathing.
Regardless of that, I am grateful for the life-lesson Trace has imparted to me, because she's not just a better teacher than I am, but also a far better human being.
"You're precious, Trace," I swear. "I don't know what I'd do without you."
There's the cupped heart again, and the unassuming grin.
"Eh, we'll always be together."
She waves her notebook around.
"Now can I get back to this," she asks, "or is there anything else?"
No, nothing else.
I go back to my corner in the library. Respect, I write, at the top of my dossier. I underscore it twice, with the manic earnestness of Archimedes racing through the streets in the buff. Respect for the subject, respect for the person, respect as a way to reach the soul. Forget that you are a duellist and remember first and foremost that you are a human being. What sets you apart from the rest is your hubris, not your talent.
I write it over and over, so I don't forget. I fill entire pages with it. I swear to myself that I will be patient, I will be tolerant, I will be just; I swear that I will do whatever I have to, to ensure that no one else drops this class due to me. In the creeping fatigue that accompanies the onset of dusk, I do not so much care about technical perfection as about recovering the joy which goes hand in hand with learning a new skill, a joy which I have lost somewhere along the road.
The skill in question, of course, being teaching. I shall be a proper teacher, I write, not for Tracey's sake but for mine, because to do anything less would be an admittance of failure.
And I never fail. I only ever have temporary setbacks.
When I go back into the room of requirement, I silently bemoan the loss of Marietta Edgecombe. This bleeding piece of earth, I want to say, to my captive audience, serves as the metaphoric burial ground for the luckless student whose talent only I saw.
So when Marietta shows up to class, ten minutes late, there is no one more surprised than I am.
"I'm sorry," she mumbles. "I had a Charms assignment."
She's almost grey in the porous light. She trembles as she says these words, and it is clear to me that she's lying.
But the lie does not matter. Nothing does, except that she had the courage to return to this class.
"Dean." I turn to him.
"Train with Neville again?" He sighs. He does not try hiding his disappointment.
"For a while," I reply. I have a burst of inspiration. "In fact, duel him. You and Goldstein together, against Neville. Ask Goldstein to cover you— tell him to focus on defending."
Dean Thomas grimaces.
"I'd rather work with you," he says. "I don't like Goldstein."
"No better time to settle your differences then," I reply. And with that, I shoo him away. It pains me to do so— Dean, as I've said, is gifted. He's the sort of guy who, if he'd started duelling at the same age as I did, would probably break into the top fifty by the end of his schooling. Regardless of how modest that sounds, that is in reality a freakish level of talent, second only to my own.
But someone of that calibre does not need instruction. Not truly. I could hide behind the safety of coaching him, perhaps even let it massage my bruised ego, but in the end nothing of note would be accomplished.
Marietta cowers when I invite her into the pit. I conjure a chair and make myself comfortable, then ask her to start practicing.
I stay silent as she goes through the motions— I note every mistake but do nothing to rectify them. I see her glance at me every five seconds, and every time she does this, I give her an encouraging nod.
It is slow going. There's not much improvement in that first hour. She does not confuse wand movements anymore, but she is no closer to producing the spell either.
"I could've had anyone," I say.
She cringes so badly that she drops her wand. It skitters against the gravel and rolls to my feet. I pick it up. I hold it out to her.
"Dear Merlin, you startled me." Her shoulders slump. "Don't judge me, Potter. I didn't mean to—"
"It's all right."
She accepts the wand back with great reluctance.
I conjure another chair.
"Sit," I say.
She shies away from even the kindness in my tone.
"What?"
"I want to talk to you," I elaborate. "Get to know you better."
Carefully enunciated incantations float all around us. Everyone else is working their arses off, yet here I am, practically inviting her to a tea party. It is no wonder that she stares at me as if I have grown a second head.
She sinks into the chair, all aquiver.
"How's everything at home?" I ask her. This, I must confess, is an attempt to borrow from Tracey's playbook.
It comes out as derivative and uninspired.
". . . what?"
"At home," I repeat, pretending she's hard of hearing. "Parents all okay?"
"Er, yes?" She sounds as lost as I feel, and every bit as uncomfortable.
"Good," I say, "that's good."
I cross my arms. I smile at her like an axe murderer. I hope this will inspire confidence and further revelations.
It does not.
"What do they do?" I prod.
"Mum's in the ministry. Dad works at construction."
"Does he build buildings?" I ask. And then, in the same breath: "All right, you know what? This isn't working. Trace makes it sound like the easiest thing in the world, I swear . . ."
I sigh.
"Look, I'll be upfront," I say. "I feel bad about how I treated you."
"I was very poor," she replies. She is skittish; she says it instinctively, as if she's been telling people this her entire life.
"Which brings us back to my original point," I say. "When I was selecting whom to train for the week, I could've had anyone."
"You still could." She withdraws further into herself. "Cho's good. You could take her and send me to Davis."
"Do you not get it?" I ask. "I chose you. I did so because I saw something in you, something that none of the others have."
The wariness in her expression does not wane.
"What's that?" She mumbles.
"A special talent."
And, at her disbelieving look:
"Talent, as a duellist would judge it," I clarify. "You don't have to believe me now— and that's okay— but I want you to know that you could be great, which is the only reason I was so angry yesterday. I am sorry for that, by the way. I conducted myself disgracefully."
I lower my voice. I wave my arm at the pits surrounding us.
"Before we are done, I mean for everyone here to be competent. I intend for them to hold their own against the average Hogwarts graduate."
I lean forward.
"But you're special," I say solemnly. "You, Marietta Edgecombe, are going to be my masterpiece."
Endnotes
Well, well, look what the cat dragged in (me, it's me).
That aside, I am quite stressed in real life, and my mental health for the three weeks following my last update was wonky, to the point I did not return to writing at all until about the 30th of September. So I can no longer promise to update at the same speed as I once did. What I can promise, however, is that this work will get done, no matter how long it takes me. If I disappear for a few months, it is more likely that I am pre-writing for this work, than that I'm not writing at all. I say this because some of the upcoming chapters are going to be very difficult to write and will require multiple drafts. I can't really do that if I try updating every week, or even every fortnight.
Anyway, that's it from me, guys. Take care and see you next time!