Holidays are synonymous with "boredom."
Of course, this is purely my subjective opinion. I remember in my past life, in my youth, in the time of naivety, spontaneity, and childish disregard for many things, I craved holidays like a weary traveler in the desert craves water. Why? To sit at an old computer and build Egyptian cities... Or to run aimlessly around the yard and the neighborhood. Remembering those sweet moments, you realize how much adult life and consciousness take away from you. When walking through a well-groomed grove you see the path to the goal, but you don't see the trees, the play of light and shadow, you don't smell the aromas... There are many such examples. One could "zone out" on the hustle and bustle of insects, or day after day look after some sprout. Or generally, climb some tree, hide there, and catch an adrenaline rush completely incomprehensible to an adult from the fact that rare passers-by walking along the path do not see you, and you are all like a predator... It's good when childhood is moderately carefree.
Such thoughts surfaced in my mind not once or twice when I tried to put aside "adult" affairs and no less "adult" worldview, priorities, and so on. Why? To enjoy the not yet melted snow, the views of the snow-covered forest and castle, the chill of the wind, the needles of snowflakes pricking the skin.
But I rarely indulged in such reflections during the holidays.
On the third day after the ball, December twenty-eighth, I finally managed to stir up my housemates mired in idleness, and we again began to devote some time to training in charms and spells, as well as doing homework. Holidays are holidays, of course, but we were assigned quite a lot, it needs to be done, and there isn't much time left until the start of the new term—this very argument had a proper effect on the guys, and we started spending time in unused classrooms again.
During these few days, I "walked" around the castle a couple of times with Romanova, and practiced magic with her in the Dueling Club. On our last visit there, even Daphne came with Pansy—they sat at a table near the bookcases, pretended to be studying something terribly complicated, but now and then shot glances in our direction. I think I'll need to talk to Daphne soon, otherwise she might decide just out of spite to start communicating with some Nott, just to show me... I don't know what exactly, but we are teenagers—some inconsistency of decisions and illogicality of actions are almost the essence of this age.
On December thirty-first, a package with an order arrived. Several shops and trade associations collect ingredients to order, but the most democratic prices are only at Mulpepper's Apothecary. True, you can only order from ten items on the list and more there. By the way, there were rumors that as recently as three or four years ago, a small establishment appeared on the market of ingredients and potions. Only they were quickly driven out of business—no undercutting prices, and so blatantly—almost a two-fold difference! And why did I remember this?
In general, at breakfast on the thirty-first, several owls flew in—they dropped packages and letters to addressees and flew back. So a package was dropped to me too—ingredients. I didn't have time to open and check everything against the list, as I noticed Snape walking along our table. He saw the package, stopped, assessed the contents, and looked at me.
"Mr. Granger. I hope I don't need to say that in this school ingredients are stored in strictly designated places."
"I know, sir."
"I expect you this evening with the ingredients."
Snape went on about his business, and the guys looked at me with sympathy.
"He's a meanie," Hannah frowned feignedly. "Doesn't give any peace. And surely instantly memorized the contents of the package to the milligram."
"Well," leaning my elbow on the table, I began to sedately cut sausages into small circles, just to occupy my hands. "He can be understood. A negligent student can easily kill himself with his experiments with potions. Or cripple himself so that you can't un-spell him back."
"You speak like some old man," Justin smirked and attacked the oatmeal with redoubled enthusiasm, surprising those who knew him even a little.
"What can you do?" I shrugged, smiling, and pricked one sausage round on a fork. "Because it is so."
After breakfast, the guys and I went to the library and gnawed at the granite of science hard until lunch. Well, not exactly "hard"—measuredly, consistently, with feeling, sense, arrangement. And after lunch I went to the Dueling Club.
This time there were quite a lot of students here who were members of this wonderful club, the existence of which is a kind of "open secret"—everyone who needs to knows perfectly well about it.
Romanova wasn't here, but Malfoy was, trying to humanly master a whip from a wand. Turns out mediocre, and any distracting factor still breaks concentration, forcing the whip to perform strange and sometimes dangerous somersaults. Well, I won't help him, although one can indulge vanity, which I am not devoid of, and just watch.
"Granger?"
Turning to the voice, I saw a senior student in Slytherin uniform. He looked a little arrogant and insolent, but on the whole, did not stand out from other hereditary mages with a claim to aristocracy.
"Yes."
"I heard that you are one of the best in our club."
"I didn't say that."
"Nevertheless," the senior student nodded. "Shall we have a practice duel?"
My fifth point signals trouble waiting for me. At least this Slytherin, like several other students from this house, counted on exactly such an outcome. However, as one cartoon character used to say: "Are they waiting for me, these 'troubles'? Well, how can I not go there? They are waiting...".
"Alright."
As always, a practice duel begins with agreeing on nuances with Professor Flitwick. We quickly got the "go-ahead," went out onto the platform, and the professor activated the protection. Countdown, and the first rays of spells are already flying.
Sluggish checking of each other, probing with simple spells and charms, and here we began to accelerate the pace. One colored clot after another rushed between us, either hitting the protection and being absorbed, or reflecting in a random direction or into the opponent. At one point, the Slytherin began to lose ground. It seemed that fighting back and attacking was difficult for him. I pressed, speeding up the pace, but concentrated precisely on the opponent's actions and the magic around.
Here I intricately transfigure water under the Slytherin's feet into long needles and force them to fly at the guy. He took advantage of exactly this situation, putting up, as if with difficulty, a cunning shield that reversed the transfiguration and evaporated the water. And at that very moment, as if on his last breath, he sends a rather fast Stupefy at me, and following it—something strange, clearly from curses. One can say that this muddy gray clot hid behind the deliberately bright Stupefy, like Potter's. Eyes are really powerless here.
My brain worked quickly—since after Stupefy, it means usual variants of Protego are powerless and will definitely let the clot through. Simply I would have done so myself. But am I a wizard or a slave to algorithms?
Stretching out a hand with a wand towards the double spell, I set up Protego Reflecto, intending to reflect the Stupefy back at the Slytherin. At the same time, I immediately began to draw a spiral with my wand, releasing my magic through it with a volitional message "capture, pull in, redirect," along with a clear visualization of a kind of wormhole, whose entry and exit points, as well as the bend, obey my wand.
The Stupefy reflected and flew back at the Slytherin. As soon as the clot of the unknown curse almost touched my wand, I began to pull my hand back, continuing to quickly draw a spiral with the wand. Visually it might seem that an almost invisible funnel was created around my wand, into which the clot fell, and which follows my wand. Pulling my hand back and leading it in an arc, I sent the clot back.
From the dissipated steam, the Slytherin's face appeared for a second. Such a face happens when you tell a funny joke and wait for the reaction of those around. Only almost immediately a Stupefy flew into this face, and then, into the body torn from the ground, that spell unknown to me hit. Hit the arm. Still in flight, the arm twisted in several places, a terrible crunch and crack rang out.
"A-a-a..." wailed the guy who collapsed on the floor and rolled onto his side. "Bitch..."
The spectacle, I must say, is not for the faint of heart. Many jumped up from their seats, wanting to see the details, or vice versa, not to see, to turn away.
Flitwick removed the protection in an instant and appeared next to the victim, as did I. The professor stopped the blood with movements of his wand—it flowed abundantly from many open wounds with protruding bone fragments.
"Professor..."
"Don't interfere," Flitwick snarled.
Nodding, I stepped back a couple of steps. Some guys hurried to come closer, but not closely—kept a distance of several meters from the professor working with the whining victim. A wave of the wand, and the bones quickly began to fall into place. But a crunch rang out again.
"A-a-a!!!" the guy wailed again.
"Dark Magic..." the professor exhaled, stopping the blood again—only that worked.
"Well there," Nott, standing next to Draco, spoke up. Spoke loudly, for everyone. "Now a Muggle-born will use obviously deadly Dark Magic on purebloods. Where is this school going."
"Tell me about it," Draco agreed with him no less loudly. "I will definitely write to my father about this."
Flitwick lifted the guy into the air with charms and hurried, I assume, to the hospital wing.
"Oh, how is it so, how is it so," Draco lamented when Flitwick left, and the others began to actively but quietly discuss what they had seen, remaining standing here. "And where would all sorts of Mudbloods know Dark Magic from? Can't imagine..."
Turning to Malfoy, and simultaneously noticing that some students still saw exactly what happened, I decided to express my position too.
"Should not discredit yourself even more as a wizard, Malfoy," I smiled, putting the wand into the holster on my forearm. "For those who have eyes, it was obvious that I only reflected this spell, and was not its author."
"Well-well," Malfoy smirked, and Nott echoed his actions. "It seems to me that you just got conceited if you decided to use something like that. Prepare to go on the carpet to the Headmaster."
"Is that so?"
The others began to listen to us more carefully, because any skirmish is an event at Hogwarts!
"I, for example," taking a step forward, I approached Malfoy. "Can accurately name each of those present who saw the trick of the double spell. There are, by the way, slightly more than a third—the rest just weren't looking. So tell me, Malfoy, what is your choice?"
"What choice, to Mordred?" my blond interlocutor chuckled.
"To insist on your point of view, incorrect, by the way, showing yourself as not the best wizard? Or to admit that in a specific situation you were wrong?"
"I have no need to choose anything. My words can be confirmed by Nott, Crabbe, and Goyle," Malfoy nodded behind his back, where, actually, these guys were hanging out.
"Regrettable," I nodded, accepting such a position. "So, after all, being an incompetent wizard is less terrible for you than a mistaken wizard. But, in any case, I must thank you."
"Really?" he drawled. "Wonder for what?"
"In your desire to somehow compete with me, you either elevate me to your level or descend to mine," I nodded again, smiling. "I think I'm not the only one interested in which answer is correct."
Not waiting for a reaction, I left the hall, and even managed to do it before the slightly angered, but surprisingly composed Malfoy came up with at least some answer.
I wonder who instructed this senior student to use such magic? Because the fact that this is not his personal initiative is obvious. Our weight categories are too different to, for a start, at least just challenge me to a practice duel. These Slytherins with their desire to be a magical analogue of the usual aristocracy have too many different conventions and quirks.
Leaving the Dueling Club, I wandered aimlessly around Hogwarts for some time, processing in my mind the known information on local maleficism. Very scarce information, since there is too little information about such things in general access in the library. Or maybe I just haven't found the necessary books yet. Just as spells differ from charms, shifting accents from wand movements and verbal formulas in the latter towards visualization of the work process in a spell, visualization of an arithmantic formula and so on, so maleficism differs from all this, taking the accent into emotions, negativity, and the desire to cause the necessary harm to the opponent. In my opinion, maleficism is much closer to the reference, in my opinion, sorcery for the owner of neutral internal energy—pure imagination, will, and instead of control, there is a swinging of the energy flow by emotions.
And... I have nothing more to say about the local school of maleficism. Well, except that some nasty little things absolutely do not want to enter into proper contact with Protego. True, I read somewhere about specific protective charms against Dark Magic in general, and against curses in particular, but there is something stationary, and is something like an amplifier either for Protego, or for some dense material substance—a wall, for example. Repello Inimicum, Salvio Hexia. Only I don't know anything except the names.
And yet I will have to, one way or another, get to the materials on this discipline. Means need to achieve access to the Restricted Section. Maybe it's worth visiting the Headmaster once again? Perhaps he already has some idea about me, allowing to permit or forbid? Well, so that I don't flounder in uncertainty.
Thinking about such things, and just recalling what I read in my mind, drawing some conclusions and planning the next spells and charms for self-study, I didn't notice how dinner time came.
Sitting at the house table, having a hearty dinner over a conversation about various trifles with classmates, I looked at the teachers' table—Flitwick sat in his place and did not look displeased. Glancing at the Slytherin table, didn't see that senior student—getting treated, probably, still. And rightly so. Although it would be interesting for me to watch the process of removing such an interesting curse. Yes, undoubtedly, I can do it myself due to my "features" and understanding of how magic works in principle, but this is—my joker. I want to get an understanding of the process and knowledge of precisely the local school, to study precisely local magic. And they don't let me into the Restricted Section... Cheapskates.
At the end of dinner, I hurried to the dungeons—Snape said to appear.
Naturally, I had to appear in our standard classroom for additional classes. For once, the professor was not sitting at his table, checking parchments with students' written work with displeasure and a bit of hopelessness—Snape stood calmly, held a book in his hands, read.
At the desk, as always, sat a serious Daphne, and around... A heap of ingredients, cauldrons, burners, and other tools. It felt like not two students were to work, but a brigade of potion makers.
Snape closed the book with one sharp movement, and it loudly clapped its pages.
"Finally," turning around and throwing up the hems of his robe, the professor walked around his table and sat in the armchair. "Ingredients on my table, Mr. Granger."
"And hello to you," I nodded, taking the backpack off my shoulder and taking out a heavy package from there.
Putting it down, proceeded to my place next to Greengrass, whose black hair seems to become better and better all the time, healthier, brighter—this catches the eye, as does the healthy skin tone, even.
"Daphne."
"Hector."
"What a twist," Snape arched one eyebrow in surprise. "Will have to go to the Forbidden Forest. Do not exclude that something very large and valuable as an ingredient died there."
Silence.
"Professor," I spoke, looking at the large amount of equipment. "Vague doubts torment me that all this is not without reason."
"Your doubts, Mr. Granger, are not groundless. Headmaster Dumbledore expressed his concern about the absence of apprentices with me for many years. You, perhaps, do not yet know that a concerned Headmaster is an extremely unpredictable Headmaster."
The professor waved his wand, and two heavy books landed on our table. Absolutely identical.
"It is like him, by right of Headmaster, to provide me with an apprentice at his discretion. And it is not a fact that I will not want to kill this apprentice in the very first seconds of training, losing my mental balance. And my mental balance is dear to me. Your task for today is to show what kind of potion makers you are. Everyone works separately. Bookmarks on the necessary pages. I sincerely hope that you can prove yourselves, and believe me—you do not want to let me down."
"Yes, Professor," Daphne and I nodded and opened the books at the first bookmark.
The first stage of preparation is ingredients. Quite simple. Can devote a little time to conversation.
"Daphne."
"Yes?"
"Are you going to ignore me for long?"
"Did such a thing happen?"
"To some extent."
"It seemed to you," she smiled. "How, by the way, are your walks with Romanova?"
"Productive," I smiled back. "I think we have something to learn from each other."
"Oh, I don't doubt it. Probably doing stupid things just like that."
"No stupid things, Daphne. Only productive exchange of experience. Speaking of stupid things. Rumor has it that on the last day of the holidays they will allow visiting Hogsmeade. Still, many stayed in the castle this Christmas."
"I also heard something like that."
"Will you go?"
"With you?"
"Of course."
Daphne smiled.
"Afraid this might result in some stupidity."
"Your fears... are not groundless."
Smiling at each other, we continued preparing ingredients already in silence—entered the working mode. And considering the number of cauldrons—did it not in vain. Snape, contrary to his usual behavior in additional classes, got up from the table and began to "flutter" like a kite over us, now and then trying to interfere.
"Professor..."
"Yes, Mr. Granger?"
"Do you know how much you are capable of distracting with such things?"
"Of course."
"To stop this, as I understood, you do not intend."
"Correct," Snape approached Daphne, closely watching her work. "The quality of a potion maker's work should not depend on the number of factors distracting him."
So the process went—five hours of continuous, exhausting work with potions, cauldrons, ingredients... This affected even me, and Daphne looked like a doll at the end of the work—moved sparingly, automatically holding posture, face, and manner of movement. She and the professor went to the Slytherin common room, and I—to mine. Snape promised to announce the results tomorrow-day after tomorrow-sometime. Well, the last day of this year turned out to be at least strange. Wonder if the parents of the students have already gathered in their interest companies to discuss the "reports" of their offspring about the past ball? Even if such an event is not new for many, it is one thing when everything is under the supervision of parents, and another—no less official, but completely different, childish, without supervision and instruction.
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