Hey,
Here's the last chapter for today, hope you'll enjoy!
I have only History of Magic and Muggle Studies on Friday morning. The History class goes without trouble, I did my homework carefully and I answer every question the teacher asks, which annoys my classmates. In Muggle Studies I do the presentation about Muggle winter sports with Scorpius, Eva and Severus, and I think we do quite well. We even do a demonstration of the Slippering spell which results in five minutes of complete chaos in the room and in the death of a table before the teacher yells us to stop. We each make lose five points to our House (our innocent looks avoid us to lose more), but it was a hundred percent worth it.
I leave as soon as we're dismissed, avoiding Scopius' crew who would have gladly spent time with me. I need to find a way to speak with a House Elf. I start looking for the Kitchen. If I recall correctly, they're on the ground floor, hidden behind a still life painting. One only needs to tickle a pear to enter. I also think it's supposed to be close to Hufflepuff's Common Room. It sounds like a Naheulbeuk ritual "Only a one-legged dwarf dancing at full moon among the twelve statuettes wrapped in ham…". Anyway, I don't know where the Hufflepuff headquarters is, and it's still possible that the Kitchen changed place since the books got written… I lose a good hour roaming around the ground floor, attracting the suspicious look of Lewis, the janitor. He's an about sixty years old wizard and still has a keen eye. He doesn't look as nasty as Filch does in the books, but I still prefer to stop my unsuccessful search. I decide to go to the library to check in the "Hogwarts History" book if I can find more precise information on the whereabouts of the Kitchen.
Unfortunately, reading doesn't bring me any new information and I resolve to ask Arthur for information at noon. Until it's time for the meal, I quickly do my History of Magic homework before reading the History book again. Apparently, when the wizards discovered the internet thanks to the Muggle-borns they have, among other things, started reading fanfictions written about their world. They even created a special department at the Ministry of Magic to read them, in order to make sure that none of them threatens the Secret (in case some wizards were to start writing fics). It's also to learn from the Muggles. In fact, some of the fanfictions weren't interesting at all, or sometimes even almost blasphemous (there, the book doesn't give examples, but I can imagine that all the PWP, for instance, wasn't much enjoyed).On the other hand, some of them were shedding light on some embarrassing points, and were doing it rather well. The image of Dumbledore, Severus Snape or even the Minister of Magic himself had been put into perspective. A lot of flaws had been singled out by those Muggle authors that had read the Harry Potter books and written about it, even if they thought they were writing about an imaginary world. Then, the Ministry understood it had to change things, and fast, unless they wanted to see the people rise and do it by themselves. Because even if the Wizarding community had until then evolved slowly, they had finally been overtaken by the modern era like the Muggles were living it, where everything goes so fast. Following the example of Great-Britain, many other Great Wizarding Powers had started paying much more attention to the Muggle world and learning from it. The change was the fastest in Great-Britain, because the country was recovering from a daunting crisis.
While going downstairs for the meal, I think about all of this again. The book wasn't mentioning it much, but I suspect that this change wasn't to the taste of everyone, and it must have been too quick for a lot of people. Some of them probably have trouble adapting… In any case it explains a lot of what's going on in Hogwarts. Anyway… My curiosity being satisfied, I can go back to taking care of my priorities, namely, in the short term, finding the House Elf responsible for my dorm and getting confirmation he's responsible for my bed's migrations. The Great Hall is almost full when I reach it, and slip on a bench by the Slytherin table next to Arthur, who welcomes me with a slightly disproportionate enthusiasm. I know that I'm amazing, but still! Ewald doesn't talk much, he has Arithmancy at 1 pm and has to hurry to finish his meal, because apparently he has to walk to the other side of the castle. To access his classroom he needs to climb to the sixth floor in order to reach the staircase giving access to the room on the fourth floor where his classroom is. That's convenient, like that I'll be able to talk about the kitchen with Arthur without having the Slytherin listening.
After the meal is over and Ewald is gone, Arthur asks to go for a walk outside and I follow him. Once we're at peace I ask him if he knows where the Kitchen is, claiming it could be useful to organize a picnic for instance. Unfortunately I learn that even if the Kitchen is indeed close to the Hufflepuff Common Room, their access is forbidden to students. Apparently, after the HP books started to be popular among the Wizards, too many students started to go there all the time, preventing the Elves from doing their job correctly. A spell has been placed on the painting ever since, preventing the underage from opening it (it makes me laugh, by the way, access "forbidden to the underage"). That's just my luck… At my disappointed look, Arthur tries to comfort me by saying that we could simply take food from the meals if we want to have a picnic, or even order certain things, and I hide my frustration behind a smile. Ordering is not even that bad of an idea, to be honest. If I find a way to make some money I could buy myself a hammock for instance, and use it to sleep. There must be a way to tie it inside my tower.
The walk is enjoyable, actually, it feels good. We go in direction of the Forbidden Forest in silence, before turning to the lake. Arthur finally says:
"I'm happy to spend some time with you, we didn't really have the time for a talk since the start of classes. So, what do you think of Hogwarts?"
"It's nice…"
"That's all you have to say?"
"I liked the climbing session, I enjoy flying on my broom and the girls from my dorm are a pain in the ass. What about you?"
Arthur looks a bit disappointed by my answer, but doesn't insist. Instead he answers, in a serious tone, that Hogwarts became like his second home. He tells me that he's happy to have found good friends here, and that he wants to make the best out of this year before leaving the School. I don't follow on what he said and we finish our walk quietly.
In the evening, in despair, I try out my last backup plan, and ask the prefect how I could contact the House Elf responsible for my dorm. When he asks me why, I tell him that I'm simply curious. He answers that it's not possible, and that I can find plenty of information about House Elves in the library if I want. In case of problems, I'm supposed to talk to my Head of House. I make the effort of thanking him before climbing to my dorm again and preparing myself for the night. I ignore the kids around and miniaturize my bed again to go to my tower without them noticing. By luck, I did that early enough to avoid the curfew and I reach my goal easily.
I'm only starting to relax when I realize that I have Astronomy tonight. I hurriedly miniaturize my mattress and my bedsheet, so that I won't have to look for them in the Gryffindor tower again, and I start running in the corridors. Lucky that I'm already on the seventh floor. Another lucky point, I find Scorpius and co while looking for my way (well, I call it luck, but it's actually just the noise of an armor falling on the ground followed by a loud "Crap!" that indicates to me the way). We arrive about ten minutes late but the teacher, rather than withdrawing points from our Houses, makes us do ten push-ups each. Once it's done, we're allowed to stand back up and I'm able to examine him while he introduces himself to the class. He has an impressive physique, that you would rather expect on a rugbyman rather than on a teacher. He's almost two meters tall, broad-shouldered, and bald. He wears really short wizard robes and black jeans underneath. His wand is tidied in a belt holster which looks really handy. He introduces himself as Odin Urgalt, and his English, although perfectly understandable, has a Slavic accent. He then proceeds to explain that for this first class we should get familiar with the sky map, and fill in the empty spaces on those he'll give us. We also have to spot specific stars. He gestures to a set of telescopes all around the tower, and asks us to form pairs. I find myself with Eva and this time we go to our places in silence.
The class goes easily,and there's no real difficulty except for our tiredness. Until the teacher asks us to tidy and clean our spots, that is. He gives to each pair a rag and a potion to clean the magical lens from our incident occurs as he gets closer to the first pair to inspect their work before allowing them to leave. As he approaches our neighbors, the head of the telescope suddenly tilts towards his head. It's only thanks to impressive reflexes that he avoids the end of the telescope that almost hits his head as he retreats, stumbling, in our direction. He barely has the time to stammer "What did just..?" then I see from the corner of my eye our telescope starting a suspicious motion. I only have the time to drop on the floor before it does a complete turn, directly aiming for the teacher. Luckily, Eva was not on the way, but Urgalt was. He takes the end of the telescope in the chest, which sends him to say "hello" to the ground next to me. Nevertheless, he must be rather tough, because he manages to sit carefully, barely out of breath, wand in his hand. The telescope follows his motion by turning, even if it's too far away to hit the teacher since its foot is fixed to the ground. Urgalt casts an useless "Finite Incantatem on it". In despair, he ends up seeking shelter in the center of the tower, and we can distinctly see all the telescopes in a two-meter radius turning simultaneously to point at him.
Urgalt looks a bit lost until he notices the potion flask from Scorpius' group, still open in the Hufflepuff's hand. He tells my mate to bring it to him. My classmate obeys, looking a bit confused, but as soon as gets in a two-meter range from the teacher the potion rushes out of the opened vial and throws itself at the teacher's robes. He then moves straight from confusion to absolute rage and launches himself to the trapdoor (luckily out of the telescopes' range, since they keep on following his every move with an amazing synchronism) shouting:
"SIIIIIMOOOOOONN ! COME EAT YOUR FUCKING MAGNETISM POTION!"
We trade a confused look and stay put for a few minutes, waiting for… We don't know what. Then, since the teacher doesn't seem to be coming back I finally start walking towards the exit, soon followed by my classmates.
I manage to slip off fast enough for no one to see me take a small corridor to join my tower where I install my mattress again. Lying down, I laugh, remembering the moment when all the telescopes turned towards the teacher, like a zombie horde would do in front of a human. So this was a trick from the Potion teacher..? That would make sense, since I think Simon is his name and he might have brewed the potions for Astronomy… But why would he have done such a thing? In any case it was an excellent joke. I manage to fall asleep rather quickly while thinking about that, and sleep surprisingly well. There's no denying it, I sleep way better without all the assholes from my dorm.
The week-end is rather quiet. I spend some time with Ewald and Arthur that keep on teaching me how to play their card game. I also manage to go back to my dorm at the times where it's more or less empty every time I need to shower or to retrieve my mattress.I can't carry it all the time, it'd take too much energy from me to maintain the miniaturization, and even when it's miniaturized it's bulky. Well, my trunk has been dirtied, and I got insulted in the corridors, but it's nothing too bad so I keep quiet. One of my rules is to not answer physically if I'm not being attacked physically. And since I don't know who did it for my trunk… Those kids don't deserve me giving them importance.
On Saturday evening I keep my word and bring Eva, Scorpius, Albus and Severus to a discrete spot near the lake where I do a fire staff show for them. Before starting I apologize for not having music, because it's better with some. Scorpius tells me his headset can be used as a speaker, so he goes and gets it. Regarding the choice of the music I have to do with what he has. Nevertheless, the song I pick a bit randomly isn't bad, and my classmates are fascinated anyway. Moreover, despite our choice of a discrete spot, I notice when the fire goes out that two Gryffindor of third or fourth Year as well as an older Ravenclaw have joined us.
They seem to be impressed, especially by the fact that I do that without using magic, and ask me if I'll do it again. That gets me thinking and I tell them that I'll keep them updated if they give me their my way back to the castle I think about it, and tell myself I could do some little shows that would cost about two or three sickle. But for that I'd need music. That doesn't stop me for long because I negotiate with Scorpius and he agrees to let me use his headset against a special authorization for him and a person of his choice to come to my shows for free. That's a good thing done.
On Tuesday, I find myself again alone in the library with Ewald, and I talk to him again about the duel/fighting courses he promised me. He didn't forget about it. He adds a last line to his homework before quickly tidying his stuff. I do the same, and we leave the library together. I follow him from corridor to corridor until we find an empty classroom after two unsuccessful attempts (the first we find two Fourth Year kissing, the second three Ravenclaws in the process of building a weird tentacle-full sculpture). Once we made sure we're alone, he makes the tables and chairs tidy themselves at the back of the room with a spell before turning to me.
"Okay, so first, which fighting spells do you already know?"
"Not many. Well, I do know a lot by name: Expelliarmus, Stupefy, Reducto…"
"Hm. Reducto and Stupefy will be too complicated for you, would it be only because at your age you won't have enough magic power to make them efficient, but I can start teaching you Expelliarmus."
And, rather naturally, Ewald shows me the right gesture and pronunciation. I've never tried this spell before, since I've never had the opportunity to train with someone, but it's the basics. A fighter without a wand will be able to fight, but will still be way less dangerous. At first he lets me try as he stands in front of me without moving, and after about then attempts I'm starting to memorize the gesture. It helps to have spent five years learning spells. It made me familiar with those series of gestures and odd intonations (which has been a hussle when I was trying to learn on my own, from my book, without anyone to give me an example). Yes, it saves me quite some time to have someone correcting me as I cast the spells. When I manage to snatch his wand from his hand it doesn't go far enough for me to catch it. Ewald congratulates me nevertheless.
"Not bad! You're learning fast. You still have some work to do on your wrist motion, it will improve your aim. You also need to put more power in your spell, but that's a good start. Expelliarmus is an interesting spell, because your magic power is mostly used to add effects, but it already does a good job as it is, namely by disarming your opponent. Even if with the influence of the Muggle world the problem tends to be less obvious, most civilian wizards can't do much without their wands."
"When you're talking about civilians, is it in opposition to Aurors, or do you mean something broader than that?"
"It's in opposition to anyone with military training, or at least combat-oriented. The wide majority of those seriously training duelling also work on their physical capacities, but not in an offensive way. Duel remains a very traditional sport, and in an official duel only spells are allowed."
"Well that's dumb, what is the use of being super good with a wand if it's to be useless as soon as it's gone? Okay, we're wizards, but it'd be good not to be completely dependent!"
"It's a form of art. See that as a sport rather than a fighting method. If you want to learn how to fight, you can get some very useful skills from dueling, but you will also have to learn from the muggles for everything non-magic. For what combines both worlds you'll have to make your own research. Alternatively, you could follow the Auror's training. This also works."
"Mmh-yeah. And what about you? Do you only do dueling?"
"No. I appreciate dueling for how demanding it is and the discipline it requires, but besides that I also learnt what I could to be able to defend myself. It's important as well, even if the Wizarding Great-Britain is at peace. Well, anyway, since you managed to disarm me once, we will make it a bit harder. I still won't defend myself, but I'll start moving this time. Let's go!"
I try to outrun Ewald, but it's a lost cause. I'm not used to the spell yet, and I don't manage to cast it fast enough to react to his moves. If I try going faster I can't cast the spell anymore, because it's not in my muscular memory yet, and my wand motion isn't accurate enough. Therefore I focus on succeeding at casting myself before everything, but I don't manage to disarm Ewald again. Eventually, after fifteen minutes, he makes a signal for me to stop.
"That'll be enough for today. You did well focusing mostly on the spell. It needs to become automatic. Only after that will you be able to hit me."
"I see that. Can we do more training like this in the future?"
"If you want. Let's say we'll do the next one when you think you know the spell well enough to do it mindlessly. It'll allow us to make the exercise more interesting. I'll teach you how to dodge, so that we'll be able to do a little game of dodging and disarming. But for now I think it's time to eat."
"Sure."
I answer, with a smile, and we start walking towards the Great Hall.
We remain silent on the way, and I notice that I'm quite tired (not only because of the lack of sleep). I don't know if it's because I cast so many spells in such little time, or only because of the last fifteen minutes of the training. In any case it's interesting to observe. Arthur is already there when we enter, and he waves at us to join him at Ravenclaw's table. We eat quietly, and Arthur tells us about his morning. I don't speak much. Ewald mentions that we did some dueling and Arthur nods, slightly surprised. He confines himself telling us not to get hurt, and I assume dueling is not really his thing.
xxx
The rest of the week goes by without much problems, even if I have the feeling that less and less people appreciate me in class. I answer every time, right, but on the other hand people are so slow and I want to move on… It's a real relief not to sleep in my dorm anymore because every time I come across girls from my House and my Year it tends to get out of hand rather fast (lucky for me, the nastiest aren't in my group). The first spell is cast, I know there will be more. I don't do anything to calm things down. I don't provoke them, I've never pushed them, all I want is peace. But I won't bother groveling at their feet nor negotiating. It'd be a loss of time. They don't understand me. I won't let them believe I'm prostrating before them, or try to lay low. I did that before, and I don't give a shit. I'm not here to stay anyway, but as long as I'll be, I'll stand tall, and I won't look down.
I start thinking about asking my parents to send me a hammock, even if I'd rather have ordered it myself (mostly because I prefer to be independent and I don't want them asking me questions). I'm getting tired of having to retrieve my mattress in my dorm every day just to miniaturize it and bring it back to my tower.
Apart from this hassle, I'm happily following the squabble between the Astronomy and Potions teacher. It's very funny to watch them playing tricks on each other, often in plain sight for students to see. I lovingly keep the memory of the smashed potato missiles sent in the middle of dinner by Urgalt to Von Saxen in front of a Great Hall full of amazed students. That's when Arthur explained to me that both teachers studied together at Durmstrang and that their rivalry probably comes from that time. I keep on spending a lot of time with my Seven Year mates, by the way, even if I have trouble admitting it does me a lot of good. Finally smart people, who don't treat me like a kid and with whom I can relax a bit, even if I remain on my guard of course.
We progressively get used to meeting in a small room on the second floor, not very far away from secret stairs leading close to the Hufflepuff Common Room. Ewald secured a bit of our HQ with some spells, even if they're not very powerful it'd still take a very motivated person to be able to come in while we're here. We do another climbing session, and meet quite often at the library as well. Usually it's only Ewald and me, even if Arthur is a serious student as well. It's during one of those occurrences that the Slytherin asks me if I'm still willing to learn Occlumency. When I answer yes, he suggests meeting on Saturday evening after the meal at the HQ, where he'd give me the books. I agree, but make sure he won't mention this to Arthur, pretexting he could worry. The Slytherin looks at me thoughtfully, and a touch of worry crosses my mind. What does he deduce from what I tell him?
xxx
« Si je pouvais choisir un super pouvoir ? Voler. Enfin, contrôler les éléments serait super, devenir invisible ou me téléporter pourquoi pas, mais juste voler me suffirait. Ce serait génial. Peut-être parce que c'est l'idée que je me fais d'être libre, je ne sais pas. Mais j'imagine les sensations aussi, chuter pour m'arrêter au dernier moment, l'adrénaline, la beauté du ciel… J'aime le ciel tu sais ? J'aime qu'il soit toujours changeant, avec ses nuages. J'aime le vent aussi. Enfin voilà. Voler. »*
x
*"If I could pick a super-power? Flying. Well, controlling the elements would be great, becoming invisible or teleporting myself why not, but just flying would be enough for me. It'd be amazing. Maybe it's because it's the idea I have of being free, I don't know. But I imagine the sensations, too, falling then stopping at the last instant, the adrenaline, the beauty of the sky… I love the sky, you know? I love that it's always changing, with its clouds. I love the wind, too. Well anyway. My answer is flying."
-SMS sent by Aurore Berger to Quentin Lemage, 30.06.06-
That's it with today's new chapters!
I hope you enjoyed, what do you think of the teachers and classes so far?
If you enjoy my work, please let me know, it fuels my motivation to know people read my story (and that I'm not translating for nothing).
See you!