On Tuesday, they didn't have class until the afternoon, the whole morning free. They lingered a bit longer at the breakfast table than they really needed to, since they didn't have anywhere else to be. Draco came over to bother them at one point — the Slytherins also had the morning off — obviously still annoyed about Violet lying to him. Her stomach squirming, she just quietly poked at the bits of bread on her plate, letting the other Hufflepuffs take care of the talking for her.

Some of the Hufflepuffs and her Slytherin friends went outside after breakfast, since it was a nice day — and Violet had her art bag, since she did need to do a drawing this week. They ended up finding a spot down by the Lake, where Violet and Olivie and Sophie and Daphne and Blaise tried to help Millie and Lily and Tracey and Sally-Anne and Justin learn how to actually use their wands. By the time they decided it was time to go back up to the Castle, they had most of them casting some super basic light charms, and a couple of them even managed to transfigure blades of grass into passable sewing needles. That was pretty good! Super basic magic, yeah, but it was hard to learn things when you were just staring out. Also, making magic happen was fun!

Violet helped some, but she spent a lot of the time sketching the Castle up on the cliff. She did one big thing, kind of sloppy, getting the general position and shape of everything with smears of charcoal, on the next page sketching some of the finer details in pencil, labelled for where they were supposed to go. She made a few notes, specific things about colours and whatever, but most of it just the vibes, what one thing or another felt like. Later, she'd use all this as the base to make a proper drawing in, um...pastels, she'd use pastels. Ooh, redo it like it's sunset, like when they were coming in on the boats, um, the shadows would be going this way...

Eventually, they decided it was time to go back up for lunch — Blaise actually cast a time charm, woah, that was a pretty finicky spell! Their group split up in the Entrance Hall to go get their things for Charms class, and also Cambrian class, Violet swapping her art bag for her book bag. Sally-Anne mentioned that she'd gotten charcoal on her face, oops! She always got so messy when she was drawing or painting or whatever, she didn't know how that kept happening...

The door to the Charms classroom was already open when they got there...and Professor Flitwick was inside, which was kind of funny. She was pretty sure he'd still been at the staff table when they left the Great Hall? Whatever. Like the other classrooms so far, this one was split in half, but instead of desks facing the front there were rows of desks turned to face the aisle down the middle, which was a little odd? There was a teacher's desk across from the door, piled high with books and papers, two big blackboards to either side, turned to face the rows of desks. They had a mix of Hufflepuffs and Slytherins when they arrived, but they split up again, Hufflepuffs on one side and Slytherins on the other.

Violet pouted — did someone say they were supposed to do that, and she just missed it? like at lunch on Sunday when she had her noise amulet on? It was so silly, she didn't know why they split up like this every time.

Since they were all coming straight from lunch, they showed up at more or less the same time, Professor Flitwick beginning to call the roll once it looked like they were all here. Mum warned Violet about Professor Flitwick ahead of time, so she wouldn't accidentally be rude about it. He was part-goblin! Goblins were from fairyland, the same place as the Avalonians, but they moved here thousands of years ago. Since they came from an entirely different planet, normally goblins and humans couldn't have babies together, but there was a way you could do it, with special magic — Professor Flitwick had a grandparent who was a goblin, one of the ones who'd been kicked out of the goblin country for whatever reason (there were lots of them), so he was quarter-goblin. He was tiny, like, the same height as the first-years, and had slanted eyes and pointed ears like a goblin (his ears weren't as long, though), and also pointed teeth, but he didn't have the hard, leathery-looking, craggy skin of a goblin, his skin a bronzeish tone without the almost greenish tint to it that goblins had, and had big bushy eyebrows that also weren't really goblin-like. So, like, yeah, part-goblin, Violet could tell.

And he was super energetic! The prefects had said on Sunday that Professor Flitwick was everyone's favourite teacher, and she could already see why — even just calling the roll, he was all bouncy and cheerful, keeping it moving along.

He also remembered to call her Miss Violet Potter without any fuss, so, yeah, Violet thought she liked him too. He seemed fun!

Professor Flitwick started off the class by asking who had practised any wand magic before, nodding at the raised hands, and then moving straight into a lecture about the basics of how doing spells worked. Stuff about power and focus and intent, blah blah, all stuff Violet already knew — she took notes anyway, but still. While Professor Flitwick spoke, he charmed a piece of chalk to write out lists of things or sketch out diagrammes on one blackboard, at the same time an exact copy appearing on the other one so the other half of the classroom could see, that was neat!

The lecture was actually pretty long, significantly longer than the one Professor McGonagall gave — he even included an explanation of what a wand did, what it did to make magic easier, a little history of different foci mages used over the millennia — but it didn't really feel like it lasted very long? Flitwick talked really fast, all energetic and enthusiastic, slipping in silly little asides and the occasional joke, it really breezed past very quickly.

Eventually the lecture part was done, and they got to the actual doing magic part. Professor Flitwick just wanted them to make wand sparks, which was the most basic thing you could do with a wand — basically just push magic through your wand and the sparks will happen, it's the easiest possible thing. Most of the class managed it pretty quickly, thanks to getting practice before school or having learned how down by the Lake earlier, though a few of them were still having trouble with it. They didn't really have anything else to do today, so, while Professor Flitwick helped out the few people who didn't get it quickly, he just had them play around with getting the sparks to do different things, more colours or in different shapes, have fun with it!

Violet got that this was actually kind of a lesson — making the sparks do different things was practice for holding the intent to do proper spells later — but it was also just a silly game to play around with.

After a while, she figured out how to make her sparks go all glittery, which was super pretty!

Professor Flitwick called for them to stop eventually, and went back to talking about— Oh! He did actually explain that playing around with the sparks was practice for doing proper spells later! Did it as a thing like, Now, wasn't that easy? Charms are just like that, we'll get you lot doing magic in no time! After that, he assigned a reading from the textbook they were supposed to have done by next Tuesday, when there would be a quiz on it. There'd be a quiz after every reading, but it'd be a super short thing, would only take the first five to fifteen minutes of the class, just to check that everyone was paying attention and doing the work. And that was it, see you on Thursday!

Once again, Violet stalled in the room, telling her friends that she'd catch up. They weren't stupid, they noticed that Violet stayed behind to talk to the professor after a few different classes now — Hannah asked if it was about the Violet Black is Harry Potter stuff, which...sometimes? Except nobody had really been mean about it so far, but yeah, Violet just had stuff to talk to the professors about, it's fine.

(That was close enough to a true thing that her fairy magic let her say it.)

Before too much longer she and Professor Flitwick were the only people in the room. He was actually sitting on his desk — he'd spent a big part of his lecture standing on it, he was short enough that that was the best place for everyone to be able to see him — flipping through some of the papers there. Violet picked up her bag and started walking over to the desk, about the time she was getting there he said, "Miss Potter, excellent work today. That colour-changing sparkling you cast was quite pretty."

"Yeah! I was thinking of the g-glasswork on the, um. Thank you, sir." She didn't really need to go on a babble about exactly where she'd copied it from, even if it was super pretty. "My mum told you about my magic?"

"Ah, she did indeed! I wonder if you might humour me for a moment," Professor Flitwick said, voice going a little slower and unfocussed as he shuffled around the things piled all over his desk. It really was messy, Violet wondered what all this stuff was for. "Here we are! Has Cassiopeia taught you a basic summoning charm?"

"Yep." It was one of the basic, things you really need to know spells Mum taught her ages ago.

"You see this?" Professor Flitwick asked, holding up a paperweight. It was a ceramic figure of a wolf, curled up asleep, greyish-reddish fur puffing up in little tufts, like it was being tossed by the breeze. He let her get a good look at it...and then tossed it away, the thing bouncing off one of the tables and clattering to the floor. Violet felt herself wince — hopefully that thing was enchanted to keep itself together, because that could have chipped it. "Go ahead and summon that for me, please."

"...Okay?" Violet drew her wand — her apple wand, she just used whichever wand she grabbed the holster for first in the morning. Aiming in the general direction the wolf bounced away (she couldn't see it from here), with a little swirl and a flick toward herself, "Accio." She felt the spell take with a little tug, and the ceramic wolf came whizzing through the air toward her, she caught it with one arm against her chest.

"Ah ha, very good. Could you set that down on that book just there?" Violet did, sitting the wolf on the top of the stack of books at the corner of the desk — she turned it in place a little as she did, and it didn't look like it'd been chipped, good. Flitwick cast a couple spells at the wolf, but they didn't seem to do anything. Analysis spells, maybe? "All right. Now cast a colour-change charm for me, please."

"Um..."

"I realise the spell may not be reversible, Miss Potter — that is precisely what I mean to test. Don't mind the figurine, I chose it for this test specifically because it is not valuable to me."

...All right, then. After a second of thought, Violet tapped the wolf with her wand, and it changed colours in a blink. Now it was a bright orange, with some darker patches around the top of its head and down by its tail — Violet met a wilderfolk boy who looked like that once, she didn't even know wolves could be orange! Mum said wilderfolk could have funny fur colours sometimes, traits coming in from the human side of the family, which Violet guessed explained the blond cats she'd seen...

Professor Flitwick cast a few more charms at the wolf, before he broke off with a high, fluttery, tinkling giggle. His mouth pulled into a toothy grin, his eyes going sparkly, he squeaked, "And there we have it! Simply fascinating. I didn't disbelieve Cassiopeia, of course, but this is the sort of thing one truly must see with one's own eyes. If you ever stumble across Lily's notes for that ritual of hers, I would be most interested to take a look myself — profound magic such as that is known to have all manner of unexpected effects, but I don't believe I've ever heard of such a thing as this before."

And that was the second professor now who assumed her weird permanent magic was because of something Lily did that Hallowe'en. Violet guessed that was a more likely explanation than part of her soul being replaced with fairy magic, especially since people didn't know about the fairy healing in the first place, so. Like when Professor McGonagall asked-without-asking, Violet couldn't lie about it, but she could say, "I d- I d-d-d– I 'unno if we have those. They were in the house, I think." The house was still there, but it was kind of ruined from when Lily blew up the Dark Lord in it, so. Like half the roof was gone, Lily's notes might have just been rained on since...

"Pity. No matter. I understand you may be able to reverse your own spells?"

"Oh! Yeah, lemme do that qu-qu-qq-kkhhh—" Violet cut herself off with a pout, and just drew her wand again. She cast the anti-spell spell Mum taught her, thinking very specifically of undoing the colour-change — a sizzle of magic, and the wolf winked back to normal.

Professor Flitwick cast a couple more charms, and let out another giggle. He reached behind a stack of papers...and picked up a second wolf, identical to the first one. "And now I have two. Thank you for satisfying my curiosity, Miss Potter. I will keep your special circumstances in mind going forward. It may be somewhat difficult to avoid revealing the character of your magic without drawing attention to you. In the first couple years, you may simply remember to dispel your work every time — come up with some excuse to do with your lessons with Cassiopeia for any of your classmates who notice — but it will become more difficult to hide as we get into more advanced lessons.

"If you wish," he said, with a bouncing tone to his voice Violet didn't know how to read, "we may withdraw you from class entirely, and instead claim you are taking some manner of independent study. Related to your artistic endeavours, perhaps, I understand charmwork is involved in the process of creating animated paintings and the like. You will continue to do the readings and the written work on your own time, and I will try to find the time to coach you in some applications of charms tailored specifically to the unique character of your magic. I do have a rather full schedule, between teaching a core class and managing Ravenclaw and the various student clubs I'm involved with, so we will not be able to meet often, but I will try to make time for you, oh, perhaps every other week. How does that sound?"

Like rather too much work for him to do just for her, really — it made her feel a little warm and squirmy just thinking about it. "Um, thank you for the offer, Professor, but, but, c-c-can't I stay in c-cllass?"

"I'm afraid that may not be wise, no. I expect this private study of yours will have to begin after winter break of your third year. Around that time, we begin learning a class of mood- and mind-altering charms. Generally, those spells are practised with, and on, a partner — I suspect we may not wish to experiment with the effects of such spells when cast from your wand on your poor hapless classmates."

"...Oh." Yeah, um, Violet didn't even want to think about what would happen to spells that did things to people's minds if she cast them. She knew there were nightmare spells and stuff, like, like, that sounded bad, very very bad... "I, that, I, I, mm. Okay. Thank you, Prr-Professor."

"Of course, Miss Potter. I must admit, while it may take some extra work on my part to arrange, I am looking forward to it — I expect the charmwork you may prove to be capable of in a few years' time will be absolutely breathtaking. Now, unless you had any other concerns...?"

Violet left the Charms classroom in a very odd mood. It could have been worse, sure, Professor Flitwick seemed nice! She just didn't know what to think about how excited he seemed about teaching her special magic later. Not that she was worried he would, she didn't know, try to use her weird permanent fairy magic for bad things...though he did trick her into making him another wolf figurine — she guessed the first one he gave her must have been conjured? She knew that doing spells to change something about a conjured thing could often make it permanent. If she was careful, she could make it so her charm didn't do that, but she had to know it was conjured beforehand, and Professor Flitwick tricked her. She would be annoyed with him lying to her, but thinking about it, he hadn't? He'd said it wasn't valuable to him and, well, it was conjured, so obviously that was true, her fairy magic even would have let her get away with that one. She didn't think Professor Flitwick meant to do anything bad with her, he did seem nice, but...

The whole thing gave her a funny feeling, that was all.

The school's schedule in the evening was kind of funny, in that things overlapped. Dinner was on the tables from five to eight — people said it started at six, but that's when there would be announcements and stuff, and the time it started on Sundays or special holidays, but you could come and eat early — but fifth period didn't end until quarter after five, and sixth period didn't even start until half after. Sixth period ended at quarter to seven, so there was still time to come down and get food, and it would be cancelled on special holidays and stuff, but, that was why dinner was mostly emptier than lunch, since some people were away in a sixth period class until late.

And then seventh period started at seven, while dinner was still going on, but seventh period was weird. The other periods were all an hour and fifteen minutes long, but the seventh was technically three hours long, from seven all the way to ten — but nobody actually had class that whole time. There were classes, but most people didn't have seventh-period classes, most days. It was also the time of the day most clubs and stuff met, pick-up quidditch games, whatever.

All the first-years had Cambrian during seventh period, but they were at different times: the Slytherins and Gryffindors had it straight at seven, and the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws didn't have it until eight thirty. By the time class got it out, it would be, like, nine forty-five — that was late! They basically had to go straight to their dorms to make it back before curfew, and most of them were probably going to bed right away.

Violet had gotten used to her sleep schedule moving around sometimes, after so many times visiting the Starlighters or travelling to the other side of the world, but she thought some of the other kids were going to have problems with it. And that wasn't even getting into Astronomy tomorrow...

The Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws hung out in the library, doing homework and chatting, until it was time to go — Susan came with them, even though she already spoke Cambrian, so she didn't have to go to the class. (Violet used their group leaving the Great Hall together as a chance to sneak Susan a conjured biscuit without anyone noticing.) Padma was looking better, she thought? Um, the Ravenclaw Patil was supposed to be Padma, right? The Patils had both seemed kind of out of it ever since their first night here, but Padma didn't look quite so down anymore, and was actually talking and stuff now. Still seemed a bit slow, and distracted, but better, anyway.

...It was probably rude to ask in front of people, but Violet thought their bond broke. She remembered Mum explaining about bonded twins (and triplets and so on) before, and she was pretty sure the Patils had been bonded, and maybe being split up at the Sorting had been enough to break it. It didn't feel to her like that should be enough, but maybe they were already growing apart...and people did seem to think which house you were in was super important, so, who knows. Mum had talked like the bond being broken could be hard, so... They seemed like they were starting to do better, but maybe it would still be some time until Padma (and Parvati) stopped looking...kind of sad.

(She was worried what might happen if the triplets got split up when they started Hogwarts next year, but there wasn't anything she could do about that.)

On the way from the library to the Cambrian classroom (having left Susan with a goodnight hug), Violet slipped through the group over to Padma, looped her arm around hers. "Hello, Padma. Are, are, yih– are you okay?"

Padma was giving her a funny look, maybe confused. Violet and the Patils weren't really hugging friends, so, maybe this was too friendly? After a couple seconds, she said, "I'm fine."

Leaning in closer, she whispered, "You seem t-ired. Was it the bond?"

Her step hitched, like she almost tripped for a second, her arm twitching in Violet's a little. Eyes wide, she stared down at Violet for a few seconds. She glanced at the rest of the group, then leaned closer toward Violet, their heads even almost touching. "I don't... Yeah. It's hard."

Violet squeezed her arm. "I know, my mum ek-esp– told me a little. I d-d-don't know, about it, but I can listen, if you want. Or Susan! She won't be, be, weird about it, promise."

"Okay. Thanks, Violet."

"Sure! Um, did you forget anything important?" From what Mum said, memories would have gone in whichever brain, so, maybe there were things in the Parvati-brain that Padma couldn't get to anymore?

"...I forgot how to draw. I can still write, but it's hard. And, um..." Padma glanced around at the rest of the group, but they were mostly leaving them alone — Violet thought they realised she and Padma were having a private talk, and were keeping politely back. Her voice so quiet, Violet could barely hear it, she whispered, "I can't do my hair, or...tie my shoes."

Violet glanced down — it looked like Padma just stuck the laces into the sides, next to her ankles, and... Did she use a sticking charm, to get them to stay? There was maybe a glamour, to hide it, but those didn't work on her, so. "Oh, okay! Um, tomorrow morning, before Potions, we'll take some breakfast, and g-g-g..." She took a breath. "...go somewhere, alone, and do that. Okay?"

Padma nodded, let out a little sigh. "Okay. Thanks."

(At least if the triplets were broken up, Violet would have practice helping, with the only part she really could.)

Cambrian class sounded like it was going to be interesting! Violet never actually had language classes before — she mostly picked up Gaelic from the neighbours, the Gaelic class she'd had was the same as the kids who grew up with it — and Mum was going to make her learn French and probably Latin later, so it would be good practice, and also languages were just kind of neat? And Professor Smethwyck seemed nice! He was a bit older, and all smiling and warm and friendly, so. There was going to be a lot of talking in this class, which Violet was a little worried about for talking is hard reasons, but she'd get through it. Probably a little easier for her, and the Gaelic kids in the class, because the ways Cambrian seemed weird to English-speakers were mostly also things that Gaelic did, and some of the words that came up even in their first class seemed kind of similar, so, they had a little bit of a head start. Unless that got confusing later, getting words in the languages mixed up, but the feel of the languages were different enough, she didn't think it'd be too bad.

She just wished the class wasn't so late — it was a little hard to concentrate, her mind wandering, kept catching herself tapping her fingers on the desk and had to force herself to stop. It probably wasn't allowed to bring her embroidery to class...