Up to the second floor Evergreen went. Link had asked him what he was doing, and he told him about Professor Graves' invitation to his office after breakfast. Link had expressed some distaste toward such a plan of action as he laid it out in simple terms that "that guy gives me the creeps." However, due to his loyalty to Evergreen, he volunteered to tag along because the boy couldn't trust the wild, gray wizard any further than he could throw him. It wasn't a completely irrational feeling. Evergreen thought that Professor Graves was a lot like the classic 'mad scientist' character in old movies he liked to watch with Dad. So, Professor Graves probably went well, but intentions are difficult to sustain when one isn't completely in their right mind.

Evergreen and Link entered the classroom. It was dark, as no classes would be held until the next day. The classroom itself was a series of terraces whereupon the desks and chairs were laid. In the center of the terraces was a walkway that went from the classroom's front door to a large landing that had a small, yet ornate desk to the left and a small, spiral staircase to the right that led to a landing that had a wooden door within the railing. The boys passed between the terraces and headed up the spiral stairs. Evergreen reached out and hesitated at first, then he knocked on the door.

"Come in." they heard from within.

When Evergreen pulled on the doorknob, they were both greeted with the exact kind of office that Evergreen was expecting from Professor Graves. There were piles of parchment from floor to ceiling on all sides. There were wrappers on the floor of sweets that Evergreen recognized and there was a single Pukwudgie off in the corner drinking out of a large bottle, hiccupping ever so often. Smack dab in the middle of all the mayhem was Professor Graves. The spotty light in his office really emphasized his skeletal appearance.

"It's good to see that you weren't held up by the tremors. We've had a few of them here since the spring." he grumbled to the book in front of him.

"Excuse me?" Evergreen asked, approaching the wizard.

"Nothing, I'm sure." Professor Graves replied, closing his book.

So, there had been other earthquakes since that spring? Could it have anything to do with the impostor? Who's to say?

"Mr. Quandary," he began, standing up, as if just noticing the 12-year-olds in the room. "As you know, you have been invited to participate in the annual Ilvermorny Transfiguration Tournament. Because your fellows will be between the ages of 16-18, so you need to be extra prepared."

The wild wizard returned to his table and took two large volumes therefrom. One was A Guide to Advanced Transfiguration by Nadine Switch the other was a smaller volume called HELP! I've Been Changed into a Newt, and Other Like Problems by Garrick Ishtar. Evergreen laughed at the smaller volume, despite himself. The normal wildness in Professor Graves' eyes had ignited at that.

"It may be a funny title, but it's no laughing matter if you get transfigured by someone else with no apparent way out."

"Well, thank you sir." Evergreen managed.

"Just do well come spring." Professor Graves replied, turning away from them.

The young wizards took this as a cue to take their leave. The pukwudgie in the corner belched loudly as they left. This was quite startling to Evergreen, and he nearly jumped out of his skin. Link just laughed at his friend's expense.

They quickly made their way out of the dark classroom and to the second-floor landing. They flew down the stairs and passed through a long hallway. At the end of the hallway was the large, circular room where Evergreen had saved Diva from being attacked by another student the previous year. That other student was a vicious racist, apparently, so Evergreen lost no sleep when he discovered the boy had been expelled. Just because someone's birth circumstances were different than someone else's doesn't give anyone the right to hate them or try to hurt them in any way. One would be surprised the sorts of things they could learn if they just sit down, shut up, and listen. Something like racism is learned, so it can be unlearned too, through proper compassionate conditioning and communication through such a channel.

As they made their way to a back door, Link asked Evergreen why so many of the portraits that hung in that wing of the castle were giving him the evil eye. Evergreen looked around and noticed it for the first time. He then let out a laugh and told Link that he had cast a stunning spell in that very room that hit its mark, but rebounded on the walls, knocking all the portraits off-kilter, and some of them even off the wall. There was no property damage, so he failed to see what the issue was.

Before they saw the club fair, they surely heard it. It was a raucous event filled with excited energy and various magics. Evergreen wasn't sure, but he could have sworn that it was bigger and bolder this year. He looked out into the corner and saw the theater club booth. The comedy and tragedy masks were singing brightly, and a chain of sparks was trailing out of the top of Professor Park's wand. Her green and silver robes looking dramatic against the summer colors all around her. She was the sort who walked to the beat of her own drum. Evergreen really respected that about Link and about her. That utter and unbreakable confidence was enough to make either one of them quite admirable.

Not too far from Professor Park's booth was a music booth with Professor Highmore. A variety of instruments were all floating above her head all playing some kind of jazz style piece that Evergreen didn't recognize. He had a flashback to that previous year when he went up to Seattle with Dad.

Some kind of primal instinct then seized upon Evergreen, and he reached out to touch the drum closest to himself. The blue body of the snare drum temptingly glinted in the afternoon sunlight as his pink fingers inched toward it… At the moment Evergreen's fingertips bushed the snare drum's body, a deafening crack rang out through the air. All was still as a frozen lake, and then a really strange thing happened. Beams of light – hundreds of thousands of beams of light – began swirling around the pillar of instruments. No two beams were the exact same color, or even the same texture or design, for that matter.

Evergreen had always known there was magic in music, even before he received his letter to Ilvermorny and Seta came into his life. This was certainly a club that he would also join.

"Good day, Professor Highmore!" Evergreen called.

"Oh Mr. Quandary. Good to see you." She responded, the band still going above her head.

"Do you mind if I do a few bars?" he asked.

"Do you have your instrument?"

"Do I ever!?"

He then unsheathed his wand and started playing a small melody with a blue note with the charm runes on his wand. It made a small purple cloud appear above his head that pulsed every time he tapped the ice rune, Isaz which happened to be that blue note. The symbol represented suspension and incompleteness, so was it any wonder the musical power that such a thing held? Evergreen wasn't surprised as he had fiddled with the ice rune a time or two before. It was especially helpful with movement charms, like levitation that he learned in class and the summoning charm he learned in the med wing of the school that previous spring.

Professor Highmore laughed at the melody that Evergreen played. She didn't laugh very often or even ever raise her voice, so Evergreen considered it a win. He grinned and looked over at Link who also had a small smile on his face. When Evergreen saw his friend's face, he was briefly distracted and his cloud dispersed, putting a thick mist over himself and his friend. They then spent a few moments waving their arms around wildly to Professor Highmore's amusement and eventually, the mist faded away.

They continued on and saw two booths for different dance clubs. Evergreen recognized hip-hop dance moves with the Moonwalkers. Only, their moves involved levitation and short teleportation. Apparition? It was so cool. Evergreen knew that he would never be able to be involved with something like that, but he knew that he would love to go to any of their performances. Dance Grimoire was similar, only it was traditional ballroom style instead. That was probably a little more Evergreen's speed. The grace that the traditional dancers moved with was quite amazing. He felt like with his absolute trainwreck of klutziness, that would be a godsend for him to join.

They walked a bit through the courtyard and Evergreen saw Beatrice standing up in front of the Foodies club booth. It smelled great, but Evergreen wasn't sure what they had made, so they of course made the decision to find out what they had. It was mostly baked goods with a few other things as well. Evergreen grabbed a mini muffin that was entirely filled with strawberry jam. He thought he was full from breakfast, but it turned out that he still had some space left.

"Aren't you the sort who feeds himself fuller than a fox in the hen house?" Beatrice asked, as Evergreen reached for an oatmeal chocolate cookie.

"I am," He replied, "currently feeding myself fuller."

"You're an ornery kid, Evergreen." She said with a grin.

"You don't know the half of it." Interjected Link. "You should see him with his dad."

"Evergreen Quandary in his natural habitat? I can't think of a more horrific thing." She countered, with a wicked glint in her eye.

Okay, now they were ganging up on Evergreen. That's nice. Well, it's probably just as well considering how he and Andie typically handled Link. It was perfectly fine. Evergreen could take it. In fact, it was kind of funny and refreshing to see a pleasant back-and-forth going on between the Wampus girl and the Thunderbird legacy where there was only animosity before. She actually ended up joining them in checking out other clubs.

They had an ASPEW club, or American Society for the Promotion of Elvish Welfare. The original SPEW was founded in England just a few months or so before Evergreen was born. It was meant to try and better the lives of elves. That sounded good to Evergreen. Someone should look out for the little guy, after all. They also saw WITCH which was the Wizard Initiative To Cooperate as Humans. It was the sort of club that informed No-Maj born kids about various things in the wizarding world and informed magical born kids about various things in the No-Maj world. Why more people couldn't join it sooner, Evergreen didn't know. All sixth graders should be able to join it straightaway, in his opinion.

There was the Transfiguration club, a debate club, and a book club. All quite interesting, of course, but the one that made them stop in their tracks was the Dueling Club. The booth was actually a 10-foot-long stage with a small table beneath it. There were two young wizards who were sending spells and jinxes back and forth up on that stage and it was an amazing light show. The older one was about six foot two inches and had blond hair and strong, Slavic features, while the younger one had shaggy dark hair and olive skin. Evergreen felt like he recognized the blond one from somewhere, he just couldn't put his finger on it. The older students looked evenly matched, by what Evergreen could see. Maybe one out of every 10 spells was nonverbal, which according to the headmaster, was impressive.

The black-haired kid kept casting a variety of knockback jinxes and stinging jinxes which both all but exploded on contact. Usually, the blond kid managed to throw up a shield spell before casting something offensive himself. At some point, Evergreen realized that the bigger kid was just toying with his opponent. They weren't evenly matched at all. He was just tiring out the black-haired kid. It worked, because eventually, he was caught off guard and the blond kid not only disarmed his opponent but hit him with a blasting curse right square in the chest. Evergreen thought that it was poor sportsmanship to raise your wand against the unarmed.

Before he could think about anything, he leapt upon the stage and got between the blond boy and the black-haired boy as the blond boy raised his wand again.

"Expelliarmus!" Evergreen hollered, lightly touching the power rune Uruz on his wand handle.

The wand of the blond boy flew out of his hand and was caught by a nearby professor that Evergreen didn't recognize. He was quite old and was wearing a tunic that looked almost leathery. Evergreen sheathed his wand and stood up straight, staring the blond boy down.

"Mr. Flax," the old professor began in a voice that was hardly above a mutter, "In the future, understand that when your opponent loses their wand the duel is over. It seems this young man understands that well enough. For this reason, you'll be serving a detention with me for the next two weekends during dueling club."

Flax? Any relation to Denyen Flax? The piece of trash that assaulted Diva last year? Probably. With that kind of sportsmanship, kicking a guy when he's down?

"Maleficum," Flax replied. "That's not fair!"

"This is the start of your fifth year, Mr. Flax. You should know by now proper respect, but if not, I will have it forced upon you." He tossed Flax his wand back. "It's Professor Maleficum. I will see you in my office at two PM this Friday and next."

With a swish of his dark robe that was sticking out from beneath his leather tunic, Professor Maleficum disappeared in the crowd. Evergreen helped the dark-haired student to his feet while getting a death glare from Flax. Evergreen's eyes never left the older boy.

"I don't know who the hell you think you are," Flax began. "but I will get you. No one crosses me."

Evergreen didn't know how to respond to that, so he just leapt off the stage and returned to Link and Beatrice.

"It don't matter who he is," Beatrice quipped, "only that you're lower than a snake's belly in a wagon rut."

"What?" Flax replied.

"I said you're worth as much as a hill of beans."

"What?" he repeated.

"You think the sun comes up just to hear you crow."

"Are you insulting me?"

"Not worth it… We'll let you simmer on this for now."

Beatrice grabbed both Evergreen and Link by the arm and led them away from that area. Evergreen was laughing the whole way. Grandpa was from the south, so he knew enough to be able to tell that Beatrice just called Flax worthless and full of hot air. Evergreen didn't typically hold ill will toward others, but he thought her words were pretty spot on. Anyone who is that reactive needs to get a taste of their own medicine, after all.

They ended up stopping in front of an odd booth. It had a large sign that said Fantastic Cryptids and Where to Find Them. This was intriguing. Evergreen once read a book that was about a brother and a sister chasing after cryptid creatures, so he knew that cryptids were animals believed by some to exist somewhere in the wild, but whose presence is disputed or unsubstantiated by the greater scientific community. No-Maj scientists would refer to all magical creatures as cryptids. Sasquatches, elves, fairies, ghouls, they were all considered cryptids. So, what on earth was considered a cryptid by the magical community? Because he didn't want to proclaim his No-Maj ignorance for the world to hear, he decided not to approach them to ask them questions about such things.

Overall, it was a wonderful afternoon and Evergreen became increasingly excited about being able to eventually join the clubs. He and Link spent their time at lunch just talking amongst themselves about which clubs they'd like to be a part of when their time came. Diva, Andie, and Glade were nearby and even though they were having their own side conversation, they joined into the boys' conversation in a few places. Both Andie and Diva expressed interest in the WITCH, No-Maj cooperation club just like Evergreen. It was no surprise.

That night, as Evergreen and his friends started winding down, there was an interesting conversation going on between Evergreen, Link, and the Summerhills. The boys were more excited about seventh grade than sixth grade, because now, they kind of knew what to expect. Link voiced his excitement especially for the Transfiguration Tournament which at that point was just a reason for worry for Evergreen. Despite it all though, Evergreen was able to drift right off to sleep. He was, after all, at his second home. A place that helped him feel closer to Mom. Like Beatrice said as well, this was the year for answers and for planning for what was coming.