The classroom door opened, and Professor Flitwick stepped in.
"Had to run a bit late," the diminutive professor, in his usual tailcoat with robes over it, made his way briskly over to Professor Hunt. "Head of House business, you understand."
"Of course. Professor Flitwick has kindly agreed to help ensure everyone's safety while I assess your skills."
"Assess?" Potter got the question out before anyone else.
"Yes. I'll be personally testing each of your skill levels. One on one, with no witnesses. Aside from the professor here. That way, none of you will know beforehand who's actually capable of what."
The professor headed towards the door to the adjoining classroom, Flitwick trotting along behind her.
"By register," the professor waved a hand without so much as looking at us. "Abbott, with me."
Hannah followed the professors into the separate classroom, somewhat hesitantly, more from surprise than anything else, most likely.
"What do you think?" Daphne asked me at once.
Hermione, standing nearby alongside Lavender and Padma, edged quietly closer to us — no doubt hoping to listen in. The lads, the more combat-inclined ones especially, tended to stick mostly to their own company, while the girls, it seemed, had a taste for gossip and other tidbits of information. Most of the Slytherins, as ever, kept their distance, maintaining the illusion of their House's solidarity.
"Should be amusing," I answered, without much real interest in the subject.
"How much are you planning to hold back?"
"Within the bounds of the school curriculum, adjusted a touch for ability and a couple of tricks. No more than that."
"Why?" Hermione, having edged close enough by now, couldn't hold back her curiosity. "If you showed everything you're capable of, you could establish yourself rather well in the professors' eyes. Though, granted, I'm not particularly fond of Professor Hunt myself, but still."
"Well, Flitwick..."
"Professor Flitwick."
"...already has a rough idea of my level. And as for this lady... let's just say, if you can count to ten, count to seven around friends, five around everyone else. And three, around enemies. You know full well my position on this, Miona. I've no need whatsoever for professors' praise or their respect."
At that point, a thought surfaced in my head — Smethwyck had promised to arrange a bit of practical experience for me by the end of this week, quite possibly right here at Hogwarts itself, given that this is where a rather amusing, unpredictable, and endlessly varied array of injuries tends to occur. Non-lethal, nothing serious, but honestly, the sheer variety of methods young witches and wizards manage to dream up to inflict grievous bodily harm on themselves and each other is simply off the charts. Adults tend to manage it through carelessness or deliberate intent; here, it's pure foolishness doing the work. And foolishness, given the chance, can produce the most wonderfully creative results, a real feast for the eyes.
While I was mulling that over, Hannah had already emerged from the door of the adjoining classroom, a touch dishevelled and plainly rather bewildered.
"Next," she said.
"Who's next?" someone asked.
"Don't know your alphabet, do you?" the girl snapped, rather more sharply than intended, at no one in particular, before immediately apologising. "Sorry about that. Brown?"
Lavender set off towards the classroom door with considerable enthusiasm, all but skipping, practically radiating sugary, vanilla-scented girlish excitement.
"Well then?" I asked Hannah, once she'd come over to us.
"Brutal. The professor went easy at first, then started ramping up her attacks. Very quickly, too."
"Hm. I see."
Brown came out considerably faster, and instead of her neat, perfectly styled blonde curls, her head now looked like an explosion at a macaroni factory, complete with singe marks and other such inconveniences. The sight drew a few quiet snickers, particularly from some of the other girls, and that, by the looks of things, wounded her pride considerably more than anything else about the whole ordeal.
One by one, students disappeared into the adjoining classroom, invariably reappearing rather quickly, in one state of dishevelment or another, though without any actual injuries. Before long, my turn came round.
The adjoining classroom turned out to be simply an empty room. In the middle of it, by the tall windows, stood Professor Flitwick, busy setting up protective charms around the space and, evidently, keeping a close eye on the whole proceedings. By the far wall, opposite the entrance, Professor Hunt stood looking rather bored, twirling her wand idly through the air, gazing off into nothing in particular.
"Professor."
"Whenever you're ready..." she paid me no attention whatsoever, and quite deliberately so, at that.
My wand was in my hand at once. In a quick, smooth, elegant motion, I flicked it upward from below, sending my fastest Stupefy straight at the professor — fast enough that even Flitwick looked startled.
The professor's wand hand snapped up in an instant, and the extremely fast beam of my Stupefy erupted into a flash of light as it struck her Protego. Without pausing, I simply kept up a steady barrage of Stupefys, moving my wand smoothly, quickly, in small, tight motions, while advancing on her, step by step, closing the distance.
The professor spun her wand with practised ease, batting away my spells with flashes of Protego, a smirk creeping onto her face, something almost dance-like in her sparse, economical movements — had she caught my rhythm already? Charming, really — the elf shard had always enjoyed reading opponents that same way.
I shifted to other spells, beams and bursts of light becoming visible now, coloured, flying instantaneously. The professor moved from pure defence into counterattack, slipping something my way — the same Stupefys, and other loosely combat-oriented spells — in the gaps between her Protego casts.
Once I judged I'd closed the distance sufficiently, I hurled a Maxima Bombarda at the floor in front of the professor, tearing a spray of stone fragments up out of the ground — she shielded herself with a suitably strong Protego, readying a counterattack. A simple flick of the wand, a couple of formulas running through my head, and the fragments turned to water, splashing instantly into fine droplets that hung suspended in the air like rain. An instant later, the droplets became steel needles, streaking straight towards the professor. She managed to fire off a quick, if unsophisticated, curse at me in response.
A flick of my wand, and I raised a shield against dark magic. The professor saw that coming, just as she saw the hundreds of long needles bearing down on her. But she was looking only at me, smirking. Just as the needles were about to reach her, she turned briefly immaterial, on the verge of dissolving into rapidly darkening smoke — the needles passed clean through her, and the professor took an exceptionally wide step forward, becoming solid once more.
An instant later, the wand in her hand transformed, near-instantly, into an elongating whip that lashed out towards me — one of my own favourite spells for demonstrating superiority, as it happens. Not to be outdone, I did the very same thing, turning my own wand into an identical whip, continuing to close the gap between us.
The whips, quite independently of what either of us was doing, kept trying to coil round each other, forming some sort of point at the tip of the spell, though everything was deflected cleanly, every time. At the next moment of closing distance, I transfigured a stiletto into my hand, while the professor produced a dagger from somewhere. Yes, I could see her movements, their intent, could have avoided them entirely, but that would have been rather over the top, and, following my own principle, one ought to "count" only to three.
The professor's dagger came to rest against my liver, and mine against her chin. At the same moment, the tips of our whip-wands ended up hovering nearby too, ready to shield each other's point of attack. Professor Hunt bared her teeth in a predatory grin, while Flitwick kept everything under tight control, a whole battery of emergency-aid charms primed and ready at the tip of his wand, though none of them ever actually fired.
"Not bad," Professor Hunt smiled, predatory still, stepping back.
The whip in her hand turned back into a wand, and the dagger, with a deft flick between her fingers, simply vanished.
"Faced combat specialists before, have you."
"Yes," I dispelled the transfiguration and returned my own wand to its original form as well. "Durmstrang, specifically."
"Ha," the professor tilted her head up slightly. "They've got a fine combat school there, I know that much. Not like this school full of clerks-in-training. Amusing, that..."
The professor tilted her head a touch, beginning to twirl her wand between her fingers, allowing herself small gestures I hadn't seen from her before. But only for a moment.
"You weren't afraid, weren't hesitant. And you didn't show me everything."
"Neither did you."
"As if I'd be afraid of a student."
"I meant the 'showing everything' part."
"Naturally. Personal tricks are personal for a reason. You'll be in group 'Beta.' You're dismissed."
Flitwick, surprisingly enough, let out a relieved breath, wiping the sweat from his brow. Our entire exchange, in truth, hadn't taken more than about ten seconds. Yes, I could have shown considerably more, including some of my more unique abilities, but I saw no real point in doing so. Being just a touch better than everyone else, in other people's eyes, is quite enough for me — that's how I see it, at any rate.
Nodding to the professors, I left the classroom, heading back out to the others.
"Next."
"Who?"
"Isn't it rather obvious?" I glanced over towards Hermione.
My little sister nodded in understanding and headed off into the classroom, while I rejoined my own group.
"Well then?" Daphne asked at once. "You don't look particularly roughed up."
I found it rather amusing that Malfoy, standing with his own little group, was watching me with a fair degree of surprise. No, more than a fair degree, really.
"Not bad," I smiled. "The professor knows her way around a duel."
"But you didn't win?" Pansy had crept up on us by now, watching me with her head tilted slightly.
"I never intended to."
"But you could have?"
"Who knows..."
"So you could have, then."
Hermione came back out just as quickly as everyone else had, though she looked considerably less worse for wear than the rest. Right behind her came Daphne, emerging without a mark on her, no damage to her clothes or appearance whatsoever.
By the time most of the class had made it through this impromptu assessment, everyone had already started debating what exactly the "Alpha" group might entail. For some reason, nobody thought to ask about "Beta." I only found out the reason for that after the lesson, on the walk to the Great Hall. As it turned out, only three of us, out of the entire class, had been placed in "Beta" — myself, Daphne, and Draco. What that might actually mean, I hardly dare to guess, though I doubt it bodes anything particularly good.
After dinner, Daphne and I spent a little time working on our project, before heading off to change for the evening's dinner at Professor Slughorn's. Though "dinner," in this sense, was really more akin to a small reception for a select circle of guests — the emphasis clearly wasn't on the food itself. More likely, one should expect something along the lines of canapés, sweets, and the like, and had we been a touch older, wine and other alcoholic drinks would presumably have been on offer as well.
Back in the room I share with the lads, I retrieved Slughorn's present, suspended it beside me using levitation, and concealed it with magic. I changed into a dark navy three-piece suit, threw on a set of robes in the same shade, and made my way out into the common room dressed as such, drawing a fair bit of attention to myself.
"And where might you be off to, at this hour, if it's not a secret?" Hannah asked at once, seated at our usual table with the rest of the lads. As it happened, the others were all there too, along with plenty of others from the House, young and old alike.
"A little reception at Slughorn's," I smiled, walking past. "Try not to get too bored without me."
"Ooh, lucky you," Hannah nodded. "My parents always said, back in their day, gatherings like that were pretty much the only way to make your first real, independent connections with anyone of importance."
"Good to know."
"You're not going empty-handed, surely?"
"Of course not."
My route first took me to the Slytherin common room. There, by the entrance hidden in the wall, I hadn't waited even two minutes before Daphne appeared, right on schedule, in a long gown in the very same shade as my suit, paired with an elegant, fitted set of robes with narrow sleeves.
"You look wonderful," I said, immediately slipping an arm round her waist and kissing her before she could beat me to it.
"Mm... And you're quite the handsome one yourself — almost makes me jealous of myself."
"Ready to impress everyone who isn't impressed with you already?"
"Not entirely. Being too impressive tends to cause more trouble than it's worth."
"In that case," I offered her my arm, "shall we?"
I do wonder what Slughorn has in store to surprise us with, and just who exactly he's invited.
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