Time passed. Remarkable powers of observation on my part, wouldn't you say?
And yet, for all the irony in that thought, I couldn't see the situation any other way.
On the one hand, this year had been utterly calm and measured, everything proceeding according to its usual course, with nothing foreshadowing trouble — trouble which, incidentally, never came. Every professor gave their all to the education of Hogwarts' students. The Muggle Studies professor taught us, without any particular passion but with real knowledge, to understand the Muggle world — not through its subjects and objects, but through its ideas and concepts, which led some students to remark with surprise that there was no need to dress up in any old nonsense as camouflage; it was enough to use styles and ideas that were perfectly comprehensible and familiar, simply discarding whatever else was inappropriate or unwelcome. As an example of exactly such clothing, she'd cited the style of former Minister Fudge — three-piece suit, overcoat, bowler hat. Thoroughly magical, and yet just as thoroughly Muggle, a touch old-fashioned perhaps, but stylish all the same.
I'd had to join our house Quidditch team's training sessions for the sake
Professor Hunt showed no mercy to the sixth and seventh years, staging grand battles out in the open air, on the edge of the forest, in the groves, by the castle walls. Specifically at sixth-year level, our trio — myself, Malfoy, and Daphne — pushed ourselves to the point of genuine overexertion. Yes, even I wasn't exempt, since I'd grown used to operating either at minimum effort for a passing "Outstanding," ridiculous as that sounds, or at maximum in my Plague Doctor persona or in other genuinely dire situations. The trouble was simple — complete the task without "under-delivering," without "over-delivering," and, on top of that, without driving everyone else to despair, to the point of wanting to hurl their wands aside and retreat to a monastery, given the gulf in strength and ability between us. Turned out to be difficult. Very difficult.
The funniest part, though also somewhat concerning, was that Professor Hunt often didn't bother reining in her emotions, letting a rather aggressive, slightly unhinged look creep into her eyes, as though she wanted to torment all of us to within an inch of our lives — all thanks to the endless failures of the rest of the group, not our trio. Understandable enough, though, given that, from her slips of the tongue and various other nuances, I understood perfectly well who was hiding behind this particular persona, and her reputation was rather specific.
But however Professor Hunt felt about the rest of us, in truth it was only Malfoy who really caught it. Poor Draco she drove mercilessly, and, what struck me as significant, she made a point of drawing attention to the weaknesses and shortcomings of everyone around him. And regarding only two people could she offer poor Draco no advice whatsoever.
"You'll never manage to bear Granger, under any circumstances, Dracusik," was one of her remarks, when, for educational purposes, she caught poor Malfoy off guard in one of the corridors. "He'll eat you alive and not even choke on it."
"Aun— gh—"
A quick, whispered Crucio — near-nonverbal — cut Malfoy's words short.
"Shut it! How is it that you, heir Malfoy, son of the Blacks, can be so pathetic?! Losing to some Mudblood at absolutely everything?!"
My spiders were, after all, ideal little spies, so I knew everything happening in the castle, including this sort of extracurricular tutoring poor Malfoy was receiving, flinching at every sound that had no business occurring in whatever setting he happened to be in.
"He… He wants to be a Healer…" Malfoy occasionally managed to force out. "Why oppose him…?"
"Wants to be a healer now, tomorrow it'll be a fighter," Hunt pronounced. "You never know how it'll turn out. And even as a mere healer, he's already capable of a great deal. And you?! Merlin saw fit to give me a nephew! Spent your whole youth playing tag with that shit-Potter!"
Well, the lad caught it, but I didn't feel too sorry for him, since however unhinged this particular woman might be, both in her methods and her general conduct, that didn't make the grain of truth in her words any less true.
Daphne's and my projects — various runic workings, preparations for Samhain, and simply working on the house model — continued along their course and were ready by the thirty-first of October. Well, except for the house — that project has no real end point; we'll need to actually start building the house at some point, or else it'll never truly conclude.
We'd spun off part of the runic project turning the thousand-year-old basilisk's skeleton into a "suit" for the phoenix into a separate project — a rather unique bone golem with artificial consciousness, based on any animated object built on portrait technology. Everything there was straightforward enough, except for one thing. What exactly? Obedience. But that only applied to the "official" project we'd be handing in to Snape and Babbling — the personal project differs somewhat and carries no such requirements.
The technology of animated portraits with imprinted personalities is fairly old, thoroughly tested by time and so forth, but that doesn't do away with the quirks of character inherent in a portrait's personality imprint. Put simply, its will, unlike its capabilities, is entirely unconstrained. If you were to stick such an unconstrained imprint into a golem, or any other autonomous material structure capable of free movement and interaction with the world, who knows what it might get up to. That's precisely why we'd had to build a separate runic circuit, combined with charms, that would restrict the imprint's freedom of action without restricting its freedom of will. A special runic project, requiring access to the Restricted Section for it, the whole business.
There were nuances, though. And they had nothing to do with magic. Daphne had found out, or guessed, that I could easily have managed this project entirely on my own, and that I only needed it as an excuse for access to the Restricted Section. I worked this out right before our trip to Hogsmeade on the thirty-first of October. The consequences? None whatsoever. She'd clearly worked out that I'd set aside half the work for her sake, for her own sake, her own development, and, more importantly, hadn't touched her portion at all, trusting her with it entirely. It even seemed to me that recognising this trust had somehow spurred an even greater attachment to me on her part, or something along those lines.
As for the rest of school life at Hogwarts… Everything just as steady and stable as before. But there were nuances, one way or another.
The secret duelling club, reopened under Professor Flitwick, had undergone certain changes. The obvious one first — fewer people. Fewer students, fewer newcomers. The old-timers had graduated, the new ones weren't coming, though those tasked with recruiting them were putting real effort into the club's traditionally secretive advertising. The club itself had grown rather dreary too. The most frequent duellists were Malfoy and me. Everyone else sat about quietly, discussing this or that, drinking tea, occasionally practising against dummies and raiding the bookshelves.
Once, some haughty girl from Slytherin challenged Daphne to a duel — it turned into a complete fiasco for the girl. From the very start of the duel, Daphne simply formed a defensive runic circle beneath her feet through sheer force of will, against which the unknown seventh-year's spells shattered harmlessly, and then conjured an attacking circle in the air, simply pelting her opponent with a storm of transfigured ice icicles. Daphne didn't even break a sweat.
All told, remarkable stability and steadiness in everything. But there were nuances.
As Hermione had said, and as I myself had considered highly probable, various forms of bullying against Muggle-borns had grown more frequent. Not as vicious as that first time. Pressure and mockery, petty spells cast on the sly, like something out of the first-years. First-years, incidentally, remained reliably "outside all the school's rubbish" — no one bothered them except other first-years, that much never changed.
It hadn't come to any serious bodily harm requiring me to intervene, but there were hints that such a thing might well happen. The main hint was the administration's and the professors' inaction. They hadn't been particularly involved before, either, but now they seemed to go positively blind the moment the trouble wasn't in their own house — and there I'd called it exactly right.
Meanwhile, Potter and Hermione were gathering their little "vive la révolution" club, laying it on as thick as they possibly could. Though, for the especially impressionable, nothing needed laying on at all — dark times, war, and ruin had already come to Hogwarts, as far as they were concerned. Precisely where in Hogwarts, still unclear, but they were certainly stoking it, Merlin help them! The Prophet, wretched little rag that it was, was pouring on fuel of its own too, painting a vivid picture of just how hard life would be for Muggle-borns. Did no one at the Ministry, or on the Dark Lord's "team," see the need to do something about that particular newspaper?
In short, it seemed I'd have to find some way of solving this problem, or at least lay the groundwork, come up with something, and hand the finished result over to these Gryffindor-brained activists.
But none of that mattered right now. Samhain — that was what mattered. And that very "night" was drawing inexorably closer — evident from the smell of pumpkin wafting through the castle since first thing in the morning. Honestly, Hagrid! Barely any time had passed since he'd come back, and this farmer-cum-livestock-keeper had already grown enough pumpkins and other such things to keep the castle supplied for the foreseeable eternity.
Stepping out into the house common room that morning, I couldn't help but notice certain changes to the place's usual cosiness. A little sliver of Halloween had arrived, practically for the first time in my whole time here. Small, neat decorations in that style had appeared — carved pumpkins with magical fire flickering inside, various little trinkets. Not many, but the effort was plain enough.
"Hm…" I stood by the exit from the boys' wing, taking in the whole scene, as well as the students already gathered, busy at their tasks. "And what's all this, and why wasn't I involved?"
"Oh, morning, Hector," Hannah appeared at my side at once, pinning up her fair hair with a clip as she walked. Her robe sleeves were dusty — clearly she'd been setting things on the upper shelves, where dust always tends to gather. "We decided to do a bit of decorating for the holiday."
"No hope from Snape, then?" I smirked.
"No," Hannah smiled. "There are a fair few doubts on that front. Headmaster Snape isn't exactly the sort who inspires festive thoughts at a glance."
"Then again, he always makes an excellent Halloween 'accessory.' Very atmospheric."
"That he does," Hannah smiled again.
"So why wasn't I asked to help? And why do you need magic for this?" I gave a slight flick of my hand, clearing the dust from her sleeves. "There, that's better."
"Indeed it is. And you, I notice, haven't trained today?"
"Mm, no," I shook my head, and we headed out of the common room together, breakfast starting soon. "I needed to prepare for Samhain."
"Ah, more magical undertakings and experiments?"
"In a manner of speaking. Double-checking everything that could be double-checked, and just getting ready generally. Today's bound to be a complicated sort of day."
"Well, it is Hogwarts," Hannah nodded politely as I held the common room door open, letting her go first. "As far as I can remember, something's always happened on the thirty-first of October."
The castle's corridors stood empty right up to the staircases, and only there did crowds of students go rushing back and forth, most of them looking rather pleased about the upcoming holiday, though here and there small clusters of scowling students gave off an acrid air of discontent and affected superiority.
Naturally, with our common room down in the dungeons, running into the Slytherins was unavoidable.
"Morning, all," I nodded to them with a faint smile, looking them over. "The full contingent, I see? Malfoy, Parkinson."
The prefects led this whole procession, the rest of the students giving them a wide berth, stepping aside out of the way.
"Abbott," Malfoy replied, greeting Hannah first, since she happened to be closer. "Granger. What's surprised you?"
We fell into step together, at the head of the whole group.
"Just that you all seem to be the only ones who've decided to move to meals as one group. The other houses have simply split into little clusters."
"Not worried that small clusters of small badgers might get themselves into trouble, Granger?"
"Do try a plainer expression, Malfoy," my smile stayed the same, though I gave my gaze a touch more edge, a touch more hunger. "And should I even bother worrying about my own?"
"Who knows," Malfoy seemed a little affected, though only slightly, unlike some of the other older students walking nearby.
"Splendid," I smiled. "Just splendid."
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