Seven Drops and Asphodel Blooms
Summary: When Harry blows up his aunt during the summer, Dumbledore is much quicker to react. Snape finds him far before the Minister does, but his plan of dropping him off with a lecture and half a dozen additional summer assignments doesn't work out.
In which Harry spends the summer at Spinner's End.
Chapter 27
They made the most out of the Easter holidays with their new friends. They worked through their mountain of holiday assignments much quicker than usual—not because Cedric, Fleur or Viktor did any of the work for them, but because it was a huge motivation to know that once they were finished, they'd move onto much more entertaining things.
Cedric (who must have missed Quidditch as much as Harry did) suggested they go flying, now that the weather was improving. Viktor agreed easily, as did Ron, so the only ones unenthusiastic about the idea were Hermione (who'd never had much talent for flying) and Fleur.
When asked, she shocked all of them by explaining that Quidditch was not as popular in France as it was in England.
"We do not have Quidditch games at Beauxbatons at all." She ignored the horrified expressions of the passionate Quidditch players. "If you want to learn to fly, you have to do it somewhere else. Not at school."
"You've never flown?" Harry didn't know if he should be horrified or sorry for her.
"That's okay," Cedric said, though he, too, looked like he couldn't fathom the idea. "We can teach you, if you want. We can ask Madam Hooch to borrow one of the school brooms."
Fleur didn't look any more excited than before. "Oh well... If you insist."
Though Fleur was quite talented in most areas of magic, a skilled flier she was not. They spent half an hour teaching her how not to fall off of a broom, and another trying to explain to her how Quidditch worked. To her credit, she did try her best. Unfortunately, the language barrier was against her.
"No, no," she interrupted, waving her hands energetically. "Which one was that one? The quaffle?" She pronounced the word carefully, but it still came out sounding nothing like the real thing.
"It's the one you score with," Cedric repeated.
"So you make the points with it. And the one in the box? The snitch?"
"We're not going to use that one. But in a real game, that's the one the seeker has to catch."
Fleur scowled. "Why are there three types of ball? It is so complicated!"
After a few tentative rounds that didn't amount to much more than passing the quaffle back and forth, Ron mustered up the courage to ask Viktor to show them some of his Quidditch moves. Although he didn't answer immediately (Harry had a brief thought that maybe it was insulting to ask a professional Quidditch player for a demonstration), he eventually jerked his head and obliged.
"Just wait till Ginny and the twins hear about this," Ron whispered to him, his ears a deep red color. They always looked that way when he was flustered, embarrassed or very excited.
"They'll murder you for not inviting them," Harry murmured back, matching Ron's enormous grin.
Viktor looked much more comfortable on a broomstick than he did with his feet touching the ground. He moved so effortlessly in the air, Harry was half convinced he wouldn't need a broom to fly at all.
But since neither Fleur nor Hermione liked flying, they cut their impromptu training session short.
"Fleur and I have been talking," Hermione greeted them once they were all safely back on the ground.
Since Fleur had done her best to learn their game, Hermione said, it would only be fair if they returned the favor. Nobody felt like heading back to the castle on such a nice day, so they all easily agreed.
Instead of Quidditch, students at Beauxbatons played a game called 'Le jeu rugissant'.
"Le jeu means the game," Hermione translated. "But I don't know the other word..."
"Rugissant. It is... Hmm... The sound a lion makes?"
"Growl," Cedric suggested. "Or roar?"
"The second one," Fleur decided.
"The Roaring Game? Really?" Ron frowned. "What part of it makes it a roaring game?"
"I have not thought about it." Fleur brought one finger to her lips as she thought. "Perhaps because of the sound stone makes as it glides over the ice."
Ron looked dubious. Still, he muttered, "Sure. Let's go with that."
"You all need to cast charms to warm yourselves," Fleur said in a tone that suggested she was quite used to giving orders. "Then we will freeze part of the lake."
"What are the charms for?" Cedric asked. "It's not that cold. We didn't need any in the air."
"You will see."
Viktor needed some convincing, but even he caved and cast one at Fleur's insistence.
Next, they helped to freeze a corner of the lake. Harry wondered if they were going to be doing some magical form of ice skating—it would definitely suit Fleur—and thought he'd guessed correctly when Fleur conjured up a pair of ice skates for herself.
"You can use a Gliding charm as well," she said, strapping in her feet. "But this is much more fun."
"Thanks." Cedric watched her glide over the ice as if it was as natural to her as breathing. "I think I'll stick with the charm."
Viktor decided to do the same, and the trio—not willing to be the only ones to embarrass themselves—followed suit and cast one on their shoes.
"The goal," Fleur said once each of them had managed to glide a few rounds without falling, "is to touch this target," she waved her wand and conjured a brightly colored goal on the ice, "with the... with this."
Another wave and a muttered spell, and a chunk of ice turned into a bulky sort of disk. Fleur uttered a Repelling charm and the disk shot smoothly across the ice.
Fleur had some trouble explaining the rules to them in English, but eventually they got the gist of it.
Skaters (Harry was tempted to call them chasers, like in Quidditch) scored points by moving the disk across the ice. Keepers (they decided to keep the Quidditch term) kept the disk away from their respective goals. The midline (they argued a good ten minutes about what else to call it) manipulated the playing field by melting and refreezing the ice to trip up their opponents and support their own players.
The trio, Cedric, and Viktor quickly realized that although the word 'midline' made it sound like the lamest position in the game, it wasn't.
"Is this right?" Hermione quickly approached the target that was guarded by Cedric. She cast Repelling charms whenever the disk lost momentum.
"Yes," Fleur called back, "it is right."
"That's kind of simple, isn't it?"
Harry, who was guarding the other target, was too late to shout out a warning. Fleur caught up with Hermione and cast a spell at the patch of ice at her feet.
Hermione had enough time to call out, "Wait—" before she plunged into the lake and emerged sputtering out a mouthful of water.
Fleur, they quickly realized, was a passionate midline player. And she was utterly ruthless. By the end of the first game they were all dripping with water and grateful for the charms they'd cast on their clothes, since without them they'd surely be shivering.
"What have we ever done to her?" Ron coughed out a mouthful of lake water and plucked an alga out of his hair before taking Harry's hand to climb back onto the ice.
"We've been complaining about how we couldn't play Quidditch." Harry shrugged. "She must have missed skating, too."
"That's not our fault," Ron grumbled. Even so, he squared his shoulders, drew his wand and dutifully took up his role as one of the skaters.
The game was fun once they got the hang of it, though they all went for involuntary swims far more often than they'd like. They had to conjure new disks several times as the ones they were using kept tanking into the water.
They all played each position at least once, though they were soon too tired to keep going.
They rounded off their day by going diving after their lost disks. Cedric showed them how to cast a Bubble charm, but both Fleur and Viktor could hold their breaths for so long that they didn't need to cast one to dive to the (still fairly shallow) bottom of the lake and retrieve an armful of disks.
"This was fun." Fleur was positively beaming on their way back to the castle. "Thank you for playing with me."
"Thank you for teaching us." Cedric returned the smile easily. "I'd like to do it again before classes start up."
"Me too," Harry agreed.
Ron and Hermione quickly joined in, and even Viktor gave a curt nod.
"Is it cool if I invite a few friends next time?" Cedric asked. "That way we'll have enough players for a proper game."
"The more the merrier," Fleur said, looking pleased when she managed to say the phrase without stumbling over the words.
Since the trio had been hanging out with the champions regularly, people took notice. Classmates sometimes asked if Viktor was as cool in person as he was on the Quidditch pitch, and for a few weeks after the Yule Ball, people would approach them (especially Ron) and ask how in the world they'd managed to score a dance with Fleur.
But while the students stopped caring about their friendship after a while, not everybody did.
"You remember the conversation we had about Karkaroff," Snape asked him during one of their private lessons, "do you not?"
"Is this about Viktor?" Harry flicked away the charred remains of the hippogriff feather he'd tried casting a spell with. "Hagrid already warned me."
"Your casting is still unbalanced. You cannot put too much strain on the feather at once, or it will not support the spell." Snape passed Harry a griffin feather. As both creatures were related, they'd found that their feathers had similar potential for spellcasting. "Has he?"
"Told me all about how he might just be befriending us because Karkaroff wants him to spy on us." Harry took the feather, but didn't try casting yet. He didn't have the focus to chat and concentrate at the same time. "But that's not what he's doing."
Snape added a handful of morning glory stems to his cauldron. By now, he trusted Harry enough to keep brewing while Harry practiced. "You are quite certain of that?"
"Viktor can't stand him. He goes out of his way to avoid the guy. Besides, he never asks us any questions about the castle, or Dumbledore, or my scar or whatever you're thinking of. So unless Karkaroff is really interested in what kind of sport they play in France..."
"There might just be hope for the boy yet." Snape rummaged through the ingredients he'd laid out, a mild frown creasing his brows.
"Are you missing something?" Harry asked.
"The chimera scales are off-color. Likely the creature they were taken from was unhealthy."
"Oh." Harry lay his griffin feather aside. "So you can't use them?"
"It could reduce the potency or cause additional side-effects."
Harry grimaced. He definitely didn't want Remus to have to deal with a faulty Wolfsbane potion. "Do we have more in storage?"
"Not in the castle. Though there ought to be more at the house." Snape hesitated.
Harry knew that the potion was in a fragile phase where Snape would be loath to let it out of his sight. "I can get it," he offered. "The password's still the same, right?"
They'd used the fireplace connecting Snape's office and Spinner's End during the summer—and even a few times during the school year—so often, he knew the codes to operate it by heart.
Snape didn't seem thrilled at the prospect. But as the alternative was to leave Harry in charge of the Wolfsbane, he chose the lesser evil. "Do not touch anything else in the study."
Harry resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "I won't."
"Make sure not to mistake—"
"The chimera scales with the dragon ones. I know."
Sirius' warning was a lot more blunt than Snape's, delivered by owl post after Harry made the mistake of mentioning the champions in a letter. He, like Snape, told him to be wary of Karkaroff and to keep in mind that though Viktor seemed like a decent person, it didn't mean that Karkaroff might not be using him to get information on Harry.
Harry was annoyed until Sirius mentioned that before he'd bargained his way out, Karkaroff had served time alongside him in Azkaban. Sirius had a good reason to be cautious, but Harry still found it odd that for once he and Snape were seeing eye to eye on something.
And as though both of them hadn't been plenty already, Mad-Eye threw in his two cents after Defense class one afternoon.
"Good thing, having allies in lots of places," he grumbled. "More resources to spend. More places you can go to for advice."
He limped closer to give Harry a stern look. "Most importantly, much higher likelihood of being stabbed in the back."
"Thanks," Harry said, trying to sound genuine, "I'll, uh. I'll keep it in mind."
Harry still couldn't cast a proper Lumos without his wand, but he stopped lighting his feathers on fire. As he hadn't blown one up in several weeks now, Snape reluctantly agreed to let him practice on his own—as long as it was only simple spells, and as long as he didn't instantly blow through a month's worth of potion ingredients at once.
He started carrying feathers in his bag, though he was careful who he used them in front of. Ron and Hermione were thrilled to finally see a demonstration, but although they shared a lot with the champions, this was something Harry kept among himself and his two best friends.
"You guys do realize that by practicing all the same spells, we're pretty much defeating the purpose of the tournament." Cedric flicked his wand, and one of their practice pillows flung itself to the other end of the classroom.
Fleur made a beckoning gesture with hers, and it soared towards her in a graceful arch. "It is the same as with the egg," she said, sending it flying towards Viktor. "What did you call it? 'Keeping things fair', no?"
Viktor flung the pillow away from himself with a harsh twist of his wand, forcing Ron to catch it with a startled, "Immobulus!"
They'd moved onto practicing non-verbal magic in an unused classroom, though the trio had much less success with it than the champions. Viktor and Fleur—who were both in their final year of school—both had plenty of practice, while Cedric (now in his sixth year) was currently being taught in class. Even Hermione was struggling, which pretty much meant that it was hopeless for Ron and Harry.
"Same chance for all," said Viktor, which pretty much settled the matter.
The only spell they'd all reliably managed to cast non-verbally so far was Levicorpus—which Snape had already told him didn't count.
"Let's do something else for a bit," Ron muttered. He, like Harry, didn't have any luck making even simple spells work for him without saying the incantations out-loud. There was probably a reason why they wouldn't officially start learning them for at least two more years.
"Do we have to?" Hermione sounded disappointed. "I think I've almost got the hang of it."
But Harry was starting to feel as frustrated as Ron, so he said, "Let's learn something new, and before we wrap up we can give the non-verbal spells another go. Okay?"
"Oh, okay..."
"Did Mad-Eye show you anything useful yet?" Harry asked.
According to Ron, Mad-Eye had started off his tutoring lessons with long rants about vigilance, a healthy base-line of suspicion towards one's peers and the consequences of trusting the wrong people. By which he seemed to mean everybody.
Ron's eyes lit up. "He showed me this really cool jinx," he said. "It sort of stops your senses from working—or at least it makes you think it does. You're not actually blind or deaf or anything, but it feels like you are. It's easy to shake off once you know what to expect, but as long as you're caught off-guard and panicking, you're stuck."
Cedric tossed his last pillow onto a pile with the others. "I've never heard of a spell like that."
Ron shrugged. "He said it's not really something you learn at school."
"What's the incantation?" Hermione asked.
"Hold on, I'll show you." Ron looked at Harry, hesitating. "Uh... Is it okay if I...?"
"Sure," Harry said, even though he wasn't exactly thrilled after the way Ron had described it. "Go ahead."
Ron shifted on his feet like all the attention was making him nervous. Still, he rolled up his sleeves, raised his wand and said, "Exoculo!"
It was like being immersed in a pitch-black lake. Harry couldn't see or hear anything; it was like all the light and sound had been sucked out of the room. Worse, it felt like all the air had gone with it. Harry could breathe, but moving his hand felt like it was gliding through a resistance-less void.
As soon as he realized this, his breath stuttered in his throat. Harry tried to tell himself that this was supposed to happen, and that Ron had told him it would, but it didn't work. His heartbeat sped up. He took a step back, and though it didn't feel like anything was there, he must have stumbled over something—next thing he knew, Harry was losing his balance.
Everything—light and sound and sensation—flooded back. Harry gasped for air. Hermione crouched beside him, holding his shoulder in a painful grip. Harry realized she must have caught him.
"Are you okay?" Cedric was standing much closer than before. Next to him, Fleur stared down at him with a concerned crease between her brows.
"Damn," Harry muttered, blinking rapidly to get used to seeing colors again.
"Sorry, mate." Ron sounded guilty. "Should've told you it was pretty intense..."
Harry took a few tries to get his voice to work. "Mad-Eye used this on you?"
"I told you, it's pretty easy to shake off once you're used to it."
"Are you sure it's okay for us to learn something like this?" Hermione slowly rose to her feet.
"I mean, it's not a spell I'd use daily," Ron shrugged. "But it's still useful, isn't it?"
"I guess..." Hermione hesitated. "It's just... Don't you think it's kind of—"
"Moody taught it to me," Ron cut her off. "It's fine."
"I'm just saying. He's not exactly the most, well... sensible person, is he? Maybe not everything he shows you is exactly... I mean—"
"I'm not forcing you to learn it," Ron snapped.
Cedric shifted on his feet uncomfortably while Fleur drew her brows into a frown, but Harry thought he knew why Ron was feeling defensive. He'd been so excited to be able to show them a spell for once, he couldn't handle having it criticized.
Even though he thought that Hermione had a point, Harry said, "It would be pretty useful to know if things get serious. Right?"
"I would not like to cast it," Fleur chimed in. "But it would be good to know how to... how did you say? 'Shake it off'."
With that, most of the tension in the room dispersed. They took turns casting and being subjected to the spell—even Hermione, who despite her concerns would rather chew off her own foot than waste an opportunity to learn something new. It wasn't as bad the second time, knowing what to expect. And, just like Ron had said, after only a few more attempts it was almost second nature to shrug off the crippling effects of the spell and carry on like nothing had happened.
After they'd all had their share of practice nobody really felt like doing more non-verbal magic. Instead, they agreed to head to the lake for a game of rugi before nightfall. ("I told you, it is called rugissant.")
Before Harry could exit the classroom, Krum held him back while the others went ahead.
"We learn curses like this," he said quietly. "From Karkaroff."
Harry felt a chill travel up his spine. He remembered something Malfoy had once mentioned: that his father had almost sent him to Durmstrang because it had different views on the Dark Arts.
"Mad-Eye's not like that," he said, sounding way more confident than he felt. "He just wants us to be able to defend ourselves. Else he wouldn't have shown Ron how to resist it, right?"
Krum gave a nondescript grunt and followed the others down the hallway.
A/N:
Harry, young, naive: I guess magic ice skating could be fun…
Fleur, passionate magical hockey/midline-player: These little kids are going down
xxx
Somebody, at some point: How are you friends with those uber-popular champions?
Harry and Co: What, like it's hard?
xxx
Huge thanks to my wonderful betas To Mockingbird, Igornerd, flyingcat, fishbake, Gasmeros and ethirielalways!
~Gwen