I woke up on the morning of the second day of term in high spirits. The reason was simple enough — mere moments before waking, it had struck me! I knew what to do with the skeleton.
"Absolutely brilliant..." I muttered to myself, going through my usual morning exercises with weighted blades. "Absolutely brilliant... And absurd."
Once everyone had woken up, the classic Housemaster's — or rather, House prefect's — bustle from yesterday resumed, or rather simply carried on: another batch of papers from the Head of House, handing out forms to whoever needed to fill them in or read through them, cheering up poor Zacharias, already suffering under the burdens of team captaincy since early morning. Though, credit where it's due, the lad handles it all remarkably quickly — by our long-established habit, neither he nor any of our fellow year-mates ever puts things off, so Zacharias didn't just tolerate dealing with team matters, he threw himself into it diligently and briskly.
"You'll need to, Hector," he intercepted me practically right at the exit, just as the first-years were getting ready to follow me and Hannah to the Great Hall, "get the tryout schedule approved by the Head of House."
"Already drawn it up?"
"Wouldn't be asking otherwise, would I," he handed me a piece of parchment, filled in for practically the whole term, clear, detailed, and easy to follow.
"Good," I folded the parchment and tucked it into an inner pocket of my robes. "In that case, I think we can announce tryouts in two weeks' time. We'll be recruiting, by the way, for the whole squad plus younger reserves. Keep the next generation coming up."
"That'll pile more onto our training sessions... Though, if you were to whip up some sort of helpful gadgets..."
"For free, naturally?" I smirked.
"Why not?" Zacharias shrugged, smiling. "Of course, if I were Goldstein, you'd probably end up paying me for the advertising of your inventions."
"Hm... True enough, actually. Though I doubt he'd have much luck talking me into agreeing to that. Fine. I'll think of something."
"Come on, then," Hannah nodded towards the first-years, already eager for breakfast, "you two can hash it out on the way."
We arrived at the Great Hall among the first, prefects and their charges considered. Right behind us came the Slytherins and Ravenclaws, with the snakes turning up practically as an entire House all at once, making quite a show of their newfound unity.
No sooner had the contented first-years been seated at the table, alongside other older students, than owls carrying letters started swooping into the Hall. Parcels from home, periodicals, or people's various purchases. An important-looking owl, though clearly a bit unhinged, much like its owners, brought me a letter from the twins. The contents were simple enough: sales were going well, demand too, and did I have any overwhelming urge to send them a couple more batches of assorted merchandise, and perhaps drop by for tea to discuss a custom order. Timing wasn't critical, though sooner would be better than the second coming. I wrote back saying I'd stop by on the weekend and bring along a couple of batches of merchandise to sell.
"Everyone," Susan, who received both letters from her aunt and newspapers, decided to share some fresh news with us. "There's something here."
While Zacharias was busy sulking over fate having dropped an owl feather into his porridge, we settled in to listen, meanwhile helping ourselves to various breakfast dishes — assemble-your-own-table, as it were. A rather rare occurrence, mind you, at breakfast — usually the house-elves serve already-assembled portions.
"...won't make it any worse," Zacharias derailed our resolve to listen to Susan, and now we found ourselves watching him simply ignore the feather that had landed in his porridge, tossing it aside and tucking in regardless. "What?"
"Out of everything on the table, why on earth did you go for the porridge?" Ernie voiced the question on everyone's mind.
"Felt like it. What's the news, then?"
"My aunt writes that yesterday some wizards attacked some other wizards..."
"Bit lacking in specifics, that," Hannah remarked. "Unclear."
Susan nodded in agreement, but smiled with a touch of guilt.
"No deaths, and no real witnesses either. Judging by the Mark in the sky — well, you can guess."
"Or the bodies were carried off," I added.
"Why would they be?" Zacharias didn't follow, looking up from his porridge.
"Obviously," I began slicing my fried sausage. "Say, for instance, someone's a Death Eater. He gets killed in a skirmish. His own side takes the body, or destroys it, so the DMLE, the Auror Office, or anyone else can't identify him and start pressuring his family. Because the family can lead you to others as well. But that's beside the point. Anything else?"
"Yes," Susan nodded, glancing briefly back at her aunt's letter. "They're sending Aurors to guard Hogsmeade."
"Hm... And what about the Ministry in general? If I'm reading the situation right, key posts, from the Dark Lord's point of view, are gradually being filled by, presumably, his own people — isn't that so?"
"Frightening as it is to agree, yes," nodded a thoughtful Ernie, no less thoughtfully dissecting his fried eggs, simply tearing into them with his fork. "But the Death Eaters remain outside the law, same as You-Know-Who. So it's hardly surprising there are clashes with the DMLE."
"Erm..." Susan looked confused, "but nobody said the clash was with the DMLE. Just with another group of wizards. A large group, judging by the damage and how long the fighting went on. That's what my aunt says, anyway. She'd know better than me."
Ugh, no doubt Dumbledore's up to something with his little team. The old man's certainly given himself free rein with his fake death.
The topic wasn't the most pleasant, so it died out on its own, drifting into speculation about what to expect from today's lessons. Though, really, what was there to speculate? Transfiguration, Charms, and Herbology, two periods each? Hardly likely to be anything new.
After breakfast, I walked the first-years to their lessons and made my way to the Transfiguration classroom. The doors were open; those who wanted to had already gone in, while others still stood outside, by the corridor windows, chatting or showing off some spell or other.
I went into the classroom and, walking between the rows to the front desks, sat down at one alongside Daphne.
"Morning. Heard the news?" she whispered quietly, already touching my hand in that traditional little gesture of hers.
"Morning to you too. About the skirmish?" my eyes found McGonagall, who currently preferred to sit in cat form on her desk.
"Yes."
"Heard it. Got any actual information?"
"Not sure, really..."
Daphne clearly meant to go on, but Malfoy turned round to face us, sitting up front at the same desk as Crabbe.
"One oughtn't spread information outside the common room, Greengrass," his familiar smirk appeared on his face — at last — though rather more restrained and deliberate this time. "As for me, I'll say it."
"So it's fine for you, then, is it?" Daphne couldn't resist the jab. "Weren't you always the one fighting for leadership? Because people won't take it well when they find out."
I already knew about the mysterious excitement in their common room that morning, seeing as I keep an eye on plenty of interesting spots throughout Hogwarts. I also knew about Nott's attempts to cobble together his own faction within the House. Not very successfully. He'd mostly managed to gather up a bunch of failures just like himself — aggressive failures, though.
"I couldn't care less anymore," Malfoy even gave his nose a slight upward tilt. "And if anyone doesn't like it, they can say so on the duelling floor."
"Hm," Crabbe grunted, his massive, pudgy frame twitching slightly.
"Something wrong?" Draco glanced at his companion.
"Everything's fine with me," the other replied, still staring at the board covered in transfiguration diagrams and formulas.
"Excellent. Anyway, a few failures — no need to point fingers..." Malfoy tried searching the room with his eyes for Nott, but only grimaced. "Ah, right, he's too thick to keep up with advanced Transfiguration. Anyway, these failures received messages from home. Given their well-known position, as you know, along with this uplifting news, expect some sort of confused stunt from them. So keep your guard up."
"Nott's trying to make a play for leadership?" I clarified.
The rest of our year-mates began filing into the classroom, plenty of them, actually. So only some hadn't managed the pass mark for advanced courses, then? Not bad. Not many from my year could really boast any particular aptitude for Transfiguration, after all.
"Nott?" Malfoy pulled a face. "He's about as much a leader as dung is a wand. Who wants a leader who shudders at the mere word 'Granger'?"
"What is even going on?" I feigned outrage. "Enough of moulding me into whatever without my say. First you're all praising me, then hating me, then trembling in fear. Is there anyone at all who simply doesn't care I exist?"
"Your own fault," Draco shrugged, turning back to the board at the sound of the cat transforming back into McGonagall. "The strong are always noticed."
"Good morning, students," the professor spoke, sweeping everyone with a stern, sharp glance and adjusting her neat spectacles. "I'm sure I won't be the first to say it, but let me congratulate you on passing your OWLs and achieving at least the pass mark required to attend advanced Transfiguration. To begin with, let's go over the aims and syllabus for this year."
The professor swiftly drew her wand and, with an elegant but economical flick, made white text appear on one of the boards.
"Mr Longbottom," the professor looked sternly at Neville. "I am pleasantly surprised by your exam results, and glad to see you here among the others. But kindly fetch the textbook for my subject, not for Charms, and take down the topics."
"Oh... Yes, sorry, Professor."
McGonagall shook her head furtively.
"The first thing we'll begin with, and which will continue throughout the entire advanced Transfiguration course, is non-verbal magic."
McGonagall might drill discipline into her students, but even so, they couldn't quite hold back their disappointed sighs.
"...bloody Morgana's tyrant of a transfiguring witch..."
"If something doesn't sit well with you, Mr Weasley," McGonagall immediately turned her eyes on the author of that rather loud remark, whispered though it was, "you know where the door is. Minus one point from Gryffindor."
Say what you will, but nobody can take away her peculiar, if rather idiosyncratic, sense of justice — a bit lopsided, people say, adjusted here and there by her own personal sympathies, but still closer to some ideal than most others', far more selfish or self-centred by comparison. So they say, anyway. Though I have a feeling McGonagall's going to end up docking a fair few points from her own House — the Gryffindors have surely already sensed, or simply fantasised, some newfound freedom from Snape's tyranny as Head of Slytherin, and no doubt they're hoping that, as Headmaster now, he won't have the time to go stalking the corridors day and night, docking points over nothing.
"Let's continue. Yes, non-verbal Transfiguration is likewise part of the mandatory syllabus. And so as not to leave you under any illusions regarding your other subjects, I can inform you — quite happily, I might add — that absolutely any wand magic at N.E.W.T. level requires the ability to cast silently. So I'm pleased to say you'll be practising non-verbal magic in every subject where it's even remotely possible. As for the rest..."
The professor flicked her wand once more, bringing up a bit more text.
"This term, we'll be studying, in depth, cascading transfiguration spells, cyclical transfiguration, and retransfiguration. The second term will be devoted to the study of human transfiguration."
That announcement stirred up some enthusiasm, though a quiet, measured sort, expressed through fleeting whispers and smiles, or the occasional flicker of confusion.
"But first, at the end-of-term exams for the first half of the year, each of you will sit a challenging interim examination. Before any of you may proceed to human transfiguration, self-transfiguration included, every student must demonstrate at least an 'Exceeds Expectations' grasp of retransfiguration techniques. Yes, Mr Goldstein?"
"Retransfiguration?"
"A group of transfiguration techniques required for restoring the original form, or fully undoing the effect of a transfiguration."
"But wouldn't an ordinary Finite suffice?"
"That is precisely why, in my classes, pointing one's wand at a person has been strictly forbidden since first year. Any self-respecting wizard is perfectly capable of undoing the transfiguration of an ordinary object, or a wholly non-magical creature, with a simple Finite. However, the transfiguration of a living, magical being — and a wizard undoubtedly counts among that number — is a far more stable process. In most cases, Finite simply no longer works."
"What about restoring the object, then?" Padma asked.
McGonagall looked disapprovingly at the Ravenclaw prefect, who had raised her hand, and, seeing this, the professor merely regarded her with even greater reproach, along with the faintest doubt as to the young woman's intellectual capacities.
"As you ought to be aware, Miss Patil, the product of transfiguration is a magical object, barring certain methods used in permanent transfiguration. And a magical object is virtually impossible to restore using Reparo or other purely restorative charms, mending spells. It is precisely in such cases — when a transfigured object is damaged and needs restoring specifically as its transfigured form, rather than its original object — that retransfiguration techniques are applied."
After this introduction came the classic rote memorisation and explanation of material, McGonagall-style — dry and academic. Even I noted that the very first lecture was absolutely packed with material to note down, key points that needed recording, and so on. So packed, in fact, that even I found myself pondering the best way to take notes, and eventually simply focused entirely on that task — I'm sure it wasn't easy for the others to keep up at such a pace.
I can't say for certain, but one of my memory shards had a similar experience of taking lecture notes. Yes, that lecturer, whose image is absent from my memory, as is practically everything else connected to it, used to rattle through material at breakneck speed and without pauses, and whether the student managed to keep up or not was no longer any concern of his.
After Transfiguration, and having quickly escorted the first-years to their next classroom, it was time for Charms. Flitwick confirmed many people's fears — non-verbal magic would be taught across every subject. And he added that this year, besides that same non-verbal magic, we'd be studying far more complex charms, one group of which goes by the rather elegant name "fractal." Though he didn't give an example, and now I found myself curious what exactly that was. I suppose I'll look into it at the library, once I get the chance. And, incidentally, would Dumbledore's authorisation for the Restricted Section still hold? After all, Snape's the Headmaster now.
The one subject, perhaps, whose essence hadn't changed one bit with our move up to sixth year was Herbology. What used to involve digging about in plants, tending them, gathering ingredients where there was a point to it, and so on, remained exactly the same now. Here, it seems, nobody's come up with anything beyond simply broadening one's horizons and developing an ever more varied set of skills for tending to ever more demanding or cunningly-constructed plants, over all these years.
After a fairly calm day of lessons, and having sorted out all the administrative matters, I met up with Daphne, and we went for a walk together around the castle, our stroll ending, after dinner, with a visit to the library. Odd, is it? Well, to some degree, since the couples at school who are actually in some sort of relationship would probably prefer an entirely different sort of place, but both Daphne and I are simply waiting for the Hogsmeade trip for that sort of thing.
The library, at the very start of the school year, is never exactly popular — and this year was no exception. A dozen students, maybe a bit more — that was the entirety of what we found in this abode of knowledge, not counting the ever-present librarian, Madam Pince. Having grabbed a book to get at least part of today's Transfiguration homework done, we took one of the tables closer to the wall, in the main reading room.
"You know," I said, just as we were about to start reading, "I did actually work out what to do with the skeleton."
"Oh? I take it you're planning to share, and even better, you've already worked out how I might help?"
"Exactly. Remember my little bird?"
"As if I could forget."
"You know they're only half-material."
"Only if your little bird works the same way as the phoenixes everyone's more... familiar with," Daphne smiled and, leaning into my shoulder, rested her head there, flicking a page of the book back and forth.
"Close enough. Anyway, I decided against turning the skeleton into a pile of trinkets — those can be replicated easily enough regardless, unique material or not."
"Then I'm honestly struggling to guess."
"A golem for the phoenix."
A couple of seconds of silence, and then Daphne raised her blue eyes to meet mine, in which I could read a mixture of bewilderment and vague guesses that struck her as thoroughly absurd.
"Wait. If I'm understanding you correctly, you essentially want to turn the skeleton into some sort of enormous... a skeletal vessel, controlled by the phoenix?"
"More or less. Cover the skeleton in countless runic chains and other charms, add a bit more, flesh, so to speak, so it doesn't move on bare magic alone. Add powerful focusing, offensive, and defensive circuits, set up a vessel for the phoenix as an entity, and..."
As I spoke, Daphne's enthusiasm visibly grew by the second.
"I want in!" she smiled, bright and open. "I want to be part of this. Let's work out a more detailed concept, quickly..."
"What about Transfiguration, though..."
"To hell with Transfiguration. I'll sort it out with Millie in the common room. This is far more important."
Daphne swiftly produced a pile of parchment and other writing supplies, a notepad, an exercise book — in short, she'd come prepared.
"Right, let's think this through..."
And so began a proper little brainstorming session of our own, rudely interrupted twenty minutes later by the appearance of Professor Slughorn.
"Ah, Mr Granger, Miss Greengrass!" he spoke quietly, but with evident delight, immediately glancing furtively about in search of Madam Pince.
Having satisfied himself that the threat in the librarian's form was nowhere in sight, he patted his stomach with a smile.
"I was actually looking for the two of you," the professor finished his thought.
"Professor?"
"You know, this Friday I'm hosting a little dinner. Quite a small gathering, a cosy little chat — a few rising stars among the students getting together. I was hoping the two of you might join us. Though, I would have liked to invite your sister too, Mr Granger, but I haven't managed to run into her just yet. You'd do me the honour of your presence."
Daphne and I exchanged a furtive glance, and for a moment it seemed to me that we understood each other perfectly, without a word said.
"I imagine that would make for a rather fine end to the week and the working days, Professor," I nodded.
"I couldn't agree more with that sentiment. We'll be there, Professor," Daphne added.
"Splendid! I shall look forward to seeing you both. And now..." the professor glanced furtively about once more. "I'd best take my leave of this fine establishment. I fear Madam Pince hasn't quite forgotten one little mishap of mine with some books. Have a good evening, both of you."
The professor made a swift exit.
"Whatever's he after, do you think?" I shared my musing aloud with Daphne.
"Slughorn's well known for liking to gather promising young talents around him," she explained quietly, sketching out a possible framework for a runic chain with her quill. "My parents, when they found out at the end of summer that he'd be our Head of House and teacher, recommended keeping on good terms with him. He has extensive connections that could prove useful. You know, honestly, plenty of Slytherins secretly dream of an invitation to one of Slughorn's little gatherings. It's no guarantee of some phenomenal rise to success, of course, but it's a decent brick to lay in the foundation."
"And if I'd said no?"
"I'd have said no too. I'm with you on this. And I've been quite certain for a while now that you don't need any patrons at all. If you ever do, you'll simply invent yourself one."
"What about your own personal ambitions, though? Slytherin, and all that. You don't get in there without them."
Daphne smiled, stopped sketching on the parchment, and looked at me, and I found myself once again marvelling at the surprisingly many-layered web of cause and effect running through our relationship.
"Let's not waste any time."
We went back to working together on ideas, preliminary calculations, and templates. A shame there isn't much time to spend like this after dinner. Or in any other way, for that matter — didn't much matter which. Though I was curious, all the same, about what these little gatherings of Slughorn's were really like. No, I'd heard about the supposed prestige of the "Slug Club" — a dubious name, though what can one do, given the professor's surname? Still, it was interesting to wonder who exactly Slughorn saw potential in. I suppose Friday would make that clear.
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