Beautiful sunny weather delighted Hogwarts students at the very end of November. This surprising and pleasant combination of coolness and even the cold of late autumn, coupled with the morning warm sun—simply magnificent. The smells of the forest had long been transformed, changing the aromas of summer to those light notes inherent only to autumn, and one begins to notice these notes precisely in such weather. A true connoisseur of such weather would only lack deciduous trees with their variety of autumn colours.
But it wasn't the weather that was so important on this autumn day, but the Quidditch match between the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw House teams. The stands were full of students again on this day off at the end of November, the twenty-seventh. Students, and rare guests both from the Ministry or the Board of Governors, and in the person of some students' parents.
"Unexpected, yes," the blond Slytherin known to everyone as Draco "Filthy Slug" Malfoy stood in the stands with his constant companions—the large guys Crabbe and Goyle.
"What is it?" Nott asked him with a smile, perhaps the most decent-looking Slytherin guy in the year.
"Just look who crawled out of the library," Malfoy smirked, nodding towards Daphne Greengrass standing in the stands among Slytherin girls.
"Draco, take it easy," Nott advised the blond with a feigned smirk. "Don't create a conflict out of the blue."
"Tsk, she's communicating with that Mudblood."
Crabbe and Goyle nodded in time, putting masks of seriousness and disapproval on their faces. This only amused Nott, but he was in no hurry to speak out or show his attitude to what was happening. It had long seemed to the guy that the House simply lets Malfoy get away with everything—his dad will buy him out of anything if something happens, and the House can always expose Malfoy in a light unfavorable to the rest. But everyone forgot how vicious permissiveness is.
"And she's doing the right thing."
"What?" Malfoy stared at Nott in surprise.
"Tell me, have I ever lied to you?"
"Don't recall."
"I'll say this, Draco. Hector Granger is a talented guy. Many are glad that the Head of House stopped your senseless attacks on him."
"It's not fitting for a pureblood young lady to hobnob with a Mudblood."
"She's not going to marry him, and a competent wizard is always useful."
"Useful… Tsk…" Malfoy hissed somewhere to the side, adjusting his short haircut of ash hair. "What use is he? No pedigree, no money, no influence. Now, my father…"
Theo just shook his head dejectedly, and Draco with his bouncers went to occupy a more advantageous place to watch the match.
Meanwhile, both teams took the field and, literally a moment later, flew into the sky on brooms, expecting the referee to put the balls into play.
A whistle sounded, the balls flew into the sky, and all students met Hector's interception of the Quaffle with excitement and loud encouraging shouts—a lightning-fast flying black-haired young man on a broom of a somewhat unusual shape.
Nott didn't expect anything particularly interesting from the game, and generally, he wasn't a Quidditch fan, like quite a large number of students. But, like many children and teenagers, he succumbed to such mass moods. So looking at all this fan bacchanalia, Nott tried to figure out who to root for, since there was already a desire: for the Ravens, for the Badgers, for some specific player.
"…And Hector Granger opens the score, performing an incredible maneuver!!!" Lee Jordan's voice rang out across the field.
About half of the fans immediately rejoiced, and the other half began to support Ravenclaw more actively.
Involuntarily, Nott noted that Daphne Greengrass, his classmate whose behavior causes Malfoy's displeasure, steals glances at this new Puff. If someone more dangerous were in Malfoy's place, and instead of Greengrass—a girl from a simpler family, then surely a scandal would break out in a couple of weeks, and the culprit would never be found. But… Draco is Draco. Everyone knows that as long as he doesn't cross the line, let him do what he wants, and the rest will calmly do what they should—communicate in the House, make comrades, and maybe even friends.
"…Ravenclaw team equalized the score!!!"
"Hooray!!!"
But it is still interesting, why does Daphne communicate with Hector? A real mystery! And Nott doesn't like mysteries—often in them, the meaning of everything is distorted beyond recognition. Why, why does a girl like Daphne, with such a family and connections, need an ordinary Muggle-born? Even if quite capable…
Nott rubbed the back of his head, which suffered from that stupid incident at the beginning of the school year. Merlin possessed him to go for a walk with Malfoy and these meatballs of his. Everyone said, like: "Malfoy goes for a walk—so let him go. Don't go with him. The fool will find trouble, and you'll get caught in the crossfire for company." But no matter how talented Granger is, there is no sense in him for the Greengrasses. Indeed, for any family even slightly adhering to the idea of Blood Purity. Even the Weasleys wouldn't covet him, despite his reputation.
"Hufflepuff breaks ahead again, thanks to a lightning-fast attack by Granger! The score becomes sixty to fifty in favor of the canary House!!!"
"Mr. Jordan!!!"
"I meant, in favor of the proud students of the great House of the no less great Helga, Professor!"
Suddenly Nott thought—girls started behaving somewhat strangely towards boys this year. Somehow… Can't express in words. Trying to please, perhaps? Oh! And could it be that Daphne just liked Hector?
"Nah," Nott said aloud, waving it off. "That's nonsense."
Or maybe he has some secret?
However, Nott got bored thinking about this quite quickly, as well as watching the match, in which the Seekers—Diggory and Chang—eventually became the centers of attention. Why? Oh, just the other team members played tactics, and this is not particularly spectacular, nothing is clear, everyone flies Mordred knows where, doing Merlin knows what, and you want to send everything to Morgana. Hector scores a goal, the Ravenclaw Keeper puts the Quaffle into play, it quickly ends up on the Hufflepuff half of the field, and Hector doesn't have time to intercept—no matter how fast the guy is, he can't be everywhere. And Ravenclaw Chasers are also not bad and throw good balls into the badger hoops.
When the score began to approach a hundred in favor of Hufflepuff, it turned out that the badgers increased the gap by forty points and are no longer going "neck and neck" with the ravens. The game became more and more active, and fans risked breaking their necks, following the sharply changing situation.
"…Amazingly tactical and tactically thought-out game!" commentator Jordan admired to the whole field.
"I agree with you, Mr. Jordan," McGonagall confirmed, occupying the place of the second commentator as always. "The tactics of both teams are very good and allow realizing both their strengths and covering weaknesses. As we see, Hufflepuff is increasing the advantage."
"Yes, yes, Professor! Here is the Ravenclaw team Captain taking a ten-minute timeout. The gap is already sixty points. What do you think?"
"It seems to me that the Ravenclaw team is not prepared for too long competitions when one has to give one hundred percent. In this, apparently, is the clear advantage for the Hufflepuff team. You can see that they do not show visible signs of fatigue, unlike their opponents…"
Nott didn't listen to the commentators much anymore, and when the teams took off on brooms again, he completely became a typical fan.
. . . . .
The victory over the Ravenclaw team was a surprise for me, frankly speaking. Cedric flirted too much with the Ravenclaw Seeker girl, and the teams were generally equal, but we were a tiny bit more equal. Cho Chang coped perfectly with ignoring Cedric—this worried me if the question was about winning. Without exhausting ourselves to zero, the team and I gradually increased the gap, receiving true pleasure from a fairly polite game. But the cunning Chinese girl could turn out to be more attentive and faster than Cedric at any moment and catch the Snitch. It didn't work out in the end, which we were glad about.
In general, the second half of November turned out to be extremely quiet and calm. At one of the magic training sessions with classmates, Justin produced a Corporeal Patronus, pleasing everyone, literally. His translucent light blue gopher rushing around like crazy instilled joy, kindness, and trust in the soul. True, Zacharias became even more despondent—of our pureblood half of the third year of Hufflepuff, he turned out to be the most vulnerable. It sounds, of course, not very good, but here everything depends on the point of view—Hannah and Susan didn't care at all about such superiority, but the guy was a little hurt.
My bow in the pot grew slowly, and not a single person could have suspicions regarding a small single-trunk deciduous tree, because only at the very last stage of readiness, all branches, leaves, and so on, will twist together around the trunk, forming the bow itself, forming the handle and limbs.
After the game with Ravenclaw, people began to smile at me and nod in greeting even more often, especially, strangely enough, guys from the Ravenclaw House. Well, smile and nod as much as their rather reserved nature allows. Cedric gave the order to "kick back," and we will return to training in January, after the Christmas holidays. The reason for this is simple—along with December came cold rains, regularly watering us day after day. Of course, we could train—a little charm, my pendants, bought by almost everyone in the school, and in principle, it's not cold anymore and quite dry. But such weather causes some moral discomfort, and Dementors in the Forbidden Forest interfered with enjoying flights and training.
Classes with Daphne at Professor Snape's gained momentum. If my memory serves me right, soon our ingredients for the first and second years, and even for the first lessons of the third, should run out. What can you do—the harmful black-haired villain gives no respite, forcing us to brew potions and setting such time frames and conditions that I don't even know how to characterize all this.
The only thing that has so far remained unattended is checking the influence of different types of energy on the effect of local spells. As I thought, Fire energy is easily accessible—even the flame of the same fireplace. However, I do not presume to predict the effect of this energy on the same Incendio, which summons a stream of fire, which means you can't experiment in the common room. A plus, or rather a minus, is the weak ability of the body of local wizards to accumulate energy. This is explainable because nature follows the path of least resistance, which means people, wizards or not, do not have a predisposition to an ability useless from nature's point of view.
In general, until mid-December, just learning went on in the school, and the weather only exacerbated the gloom. From morning till evening students walked gloomy, and only in the evening in the common room, in the warmth from fireplaces, the comfort of sofas and armchairs, over favorite games, books, magazines, or in the process of caring for plants in pots standing here and there, students thawed out. Laughter, lively communication, smiles, and calm comfort sounded in overflows—this pleased me, invariably sitting in my already own armchair, in the circle of classmates, over homework or just conversations about nothing.
When December passed its first half, the sky cleared, the frost became truly wintry, and one morning the first hoarfrost could be seen in the window, which did not melt until dawn. This became a kind of trigger for several events at once. Students started talking about the upcoming mid-year exams, and about Christmas. Specifically—about the Christmas holidays.
"What do you plan to do for the holidays?" Justin asked me at breakfast on this wonderful, "first-snow" day, December 16th.
"Go to my parents, of course."
"Hmm… well, right, correct. Somehow I didn't think…" Justin continued to actively eat fried sausages.
"Guys," I shifted my gaze to the guys on the other side of the table. "And how do exams go?"
"Huh? For the half-year?" Hannah decided to answer. "Trifles. Just small tests. Only for Potions, Transfiguration, and Charms will there be practice. By the way…"
Hannah smiled somehow slyly.
"Charms exam is today."
"Oh…" I made a shocked face but quickly smiled back. "Here, I think, I'm pretty well-versed."
"You have to pass all basic subjects for the past two years?" Ernie reminded.
"Yes," I nodded. "Think I'll ask Professor Flitwick to take the exam from me today if there is an opportunity. After lunch is my 'window'."
"Logical, try it."
Of course, that's what I did as soon as the double Charms lesson ended.
"Professor," I approached Flitwick immediately after the lesson. "Can I pass theory and practice for the first two years to you after lunch?"
"Hmm. Why not, Mr. Granger. I have detention at this time anyway."
I expressed surprise with my face, but, it seems, was misunderstood.
"Don't worry," the tiny professor smiled soothingly at me. "There will be very few kids there, and you will have nothing to be shy about. And given your successes, I don't think you have any reason to be shy in principle."
"I understand, Professor," I nodded and went to lunch.
Having eaten heartily, I returned to the Ravenclaw tower, to the Charms and Spells auditorium. So far only the Professor was here—he sat, like a student, in the first row of this amphitheater, writing something enthusiastically, and next to him lay various things having no connection with each other. But what attracted my attention most of all—a pineapple.
"Professor."
"Oh, come in, come in," he smiled, putting his notes aside. "Don't be surprised, Mr. Granger. You see, there is nowhere else to sit."
"Indeed," I smiled, standing opposite the Professor. "Survey? Theory? Straight to practice?"
"They say you have as good a memory as your sister?"
"Don't know about her memory, but mine is very good."
"Then, let me ask you randomly on chapters from textbooks…"
Only three questions sounded, and three answers in the form of verbatim quoting convinced the Professor of the senselessness of further questioning on theory. At that moment the door to the auditorium opened, and three of my classmates entered: Greengrass, Goldstein, and Boot.
"Come in, sit down," Flitwick pointed them to seats next to him with a smile. "Prepare your assignments."
The guys quickly sat down and took out a fairly large number of written parchments and ordinary notebook sheets.
"So, Mr. Granger. Here is a pineapple for you," the Professor pushed this miracle, seemingly inappropriate here. "Ouch, prickly, sneak. Make this pineapple tap dance."
Taking the wand out of the holster, I made a perfect wave and pronounced the formula—the pineapple immediately began to dance, and the Professor clapped his hands joyfully.
"And now," the Professor put a piece of fabric with markings in the form of an abstract little man in front of me. "Demonstrate the Severing Charm, cutting out this amusing little man."
Again I made a clear and correct pass with the wand, imagining the necessary image in my head.
"Diffindo…"
A barely visible clot instantly broke from the tip of the wand, flew into the fabric, and at the same moment everyone could hear the characteristic sound inherent in cutting fabric.
"Wonderful. Wonderful, Mr. Granger," the happy Professor clapped again. "Wonderful movements, pronunciation, and their combination. As is the result."
Now the Professor pushed a crumpled piece of paper to me so that I would apply Incendio. Again I performed everything perfectly, and the paper quickly burned. The Professor got rid of smoke and ash with a wave of the wand. And in this format, Flitwick asked me for various charms and spells for the first two years, and I successfully performed them one by one, perfectly following the instructions, and just a little—intuition. The Professor was simply happy, frankly speaking. But, as I have noticed more than once, he will be quite happy with generally any wand magic, movements, words, and the like.
"Here is a small list of questions for you, Mr. Granger. Briefly, in your own words, please. And I will work with the others for now."
Receiving a sheet from the Professor that looked more like a test, in which the questions were quite accurately formulated, I sat on the other side of Flitwick, took out a sheet, inkwell, and quill, and began to write the answer briefly, while the Professor evaluates and discusses the work of three other students.
While I wrote the answers, Flitwick dealt quite promptly with students first of his House, unequivocally making it clear that he would convey the full depth of their delusions to them in the evening in the common room, and then began to analyze Daphne's rather thin work.
When I finished my business, the discussion of Daphne's work was coming to an end.
"I know about your attitude to wand magic in general, and to my subject in particular," Flitwick said, looking at Daphne's rather thin work relative to the others. "But if you want to graduate from Hogwarts with honors, you will have to overcome yourself and approach the study of my subject more thoroughly. For this, I can only give Exceeds Expectations."
Daphne looked at the Professor with a puppy-dog gaze.
"I'm afraid it won't work," Flitwick smiled. "The style of work itself is good and even likable to me: short, clear, and to the point. But you missed several important points that cannot be understood without a thoughtful study of theory and practice."
"I understand, Professor. Exceeds Expectations?"
"Eh…" Flitwick sighed. "Let's do this—I'll give Outstanding, but in return, you promise to treat wand magic in general, and my subject in particular, with great diligence. At least for the time of study at Hogwarts."
"But…" Daphne clearly wanted to be indignant at the unequal deal.
"But you can come home for the holidays with an 'EE'," Flitwick smiled slyly. "I remember your parents have a rather amusing allergy to anything below 'O'."
Daphne thought, her right eye twitched slightly, and here she is already nodding in agreement.
"Good. I can promise to treat wand magic more responsibly in the future."
"No, no, Miss Greengrass," the tiny professor shook his head cheerfully. "I have communicated too much with our equally cunning and respectable Headmaster to fall for such tricks."
"Eh… I promise to treat wand magic more responsibly at least until the end of my studies at Hogwarts," features of slight dissatisfaction and childish resentment at the failed trick appeared on the girl's face.
"That's excellent!" the Professor rejoiced, turning to me. "And how are you doing?"
Instead of an answer, I handed him the sheet. Flitwick ran his eyes over the short and clear answers in a moment.
"Excellent…"
The door to the auditorium opened, and four students entered, but from the fourth year.
"Wow, how timely we finished!" the Professor rejoiced again. "Mr. Granger. Congratulations on passing the exams for past years with Outstanding."
"Thank you."
"Miss Greengrass, you, I assume, already understood that your grade is no lower?"
"Yes, Professor."
"That's good. You may go. And you," Flitwick looked at the students standing in the doorway, "come in, don't be shy. I hope your works will receive grades no lower."
Daphne and I quickly packed our things and left the auditorium. Literally a couple of meters later, Daphne was met by Parkinson and a Slytherin girl unknown to me, seemingly from the fourth or fifth year. They quite briskly, and with faces full of emotions, ended up nearby, but this lasted exactly until they recognized, actually, me in me.
"Daphne, how is it…" Pansy began, but immediately became serious, and partially feigned displeasure appeared on her face. "Granger."
"How am I? Not bad," I smiled openly. "Passed Charms for past years with an 'O'."
The girl unfamiliar to me coped quite well with not smiling at least a little. Pansy rolled her eyes, crossing her arms over her chest.
"And how do you tolerate his presence, Daphne?" asked Parkinson. "No respect."
"And reacts to teasing not as you want," I continued to smile. "Yes, Parkinson? And maybe introduce us?"
With my gaze, I pointed to the unknown girl with chestnut hair gathered in a tight ponytail at the back of her head.
"I won't introduce," Pansy turned up her nose.
We quickly merged into the stream of students heading to the Great Hall, or somewhere on their business.
"Since indecent representatives of decent society refuse to fulfill the appropriate rules of decency…"
"Daphne…" Parkinson implored. "He liquefies my brain! And anyway! On Sunday we go to Hogsmeade. Let's plan already, how to say…"
"By the way, Greengrass," the pause in Pansy's words allowed me to insert a couple of phrases. "Going to Hogsmeade?"
"Granger!" Parkinson flared up. "Have some shame!"
"Why?"
"Um… Everyone does it, so there!"
It wasn't long to wander through the corridors to the Great Hall.
"Better tell me, Granger," Daphne finally spoke. "Why did you do all those charms so perfectly? They could be performed much more carelessly."
"Could have," I nodded, simultaneously waving my hand in response to a greeting from someone from our House. "But it would be complete disrespect to a wizard who devoted most of his life to honing mastery in Charms and Spells. Mastery, as an art. To perform something in front of Flitwick 'half-heartedly', while having the opportunity to perform perfectly—is like spitting in the face."
"Hmm. Amusing point of view…"
We just entered the Great Hall.
"Oh, okay, enough," Pansy pulled Daphne by the hand towards their House table, and the unknown girl followed them.
"Eh, youth," I shook my head with a smile, looking around the Great Hall, and headed for the Hufflepuff table.
The remaining days until Saturday, like the exams, passed easily, in routine mode. True, Snape refused to accept the exam for past years on Thursday, moving it to Saturday evening—to the time of our extracurricular classes.
Madam Sprout gave me Herbology just like that, saying: "Good boy, study hard, play Quidditch, never failed in my classes." Approximately the same picture was with other subjects, and I generally received Transfiguration almost at the beginning of the year.
As a result, I spent almost all of Saturday practically alone in the library, reading educational literature mixed with various old magazines and newspapers—I did not stop collecting general information on the wizarding families of England. Closer to dinner, I checked how the bow-tree growing in the pot was doing, but my participation was no longer particularly required there either. I wanted to spend the rest of the time until dinner just sitting in the common room and talking with classmates anticipating the upcoming holidays. That's exactly what I was doing when Cedric found me and called me aside.
"Your work was approved and paid for," under anti-eavesdropping charms and slight misdirection, Cedric smiled and took the bag off his shoulder. "Do you have somewhere to put it?"
I carry my triangle backpack with me, and therefore I just nodded, also taking it off my shoulder and opening it. This time there were really a lot of gold coins.
"One thousand six hundred yours," the smile did not leave Cedric's face.
"Not bad."
"Well, the expedition saved even more. Asians rip off money for their developments, earning on our laziness without embarrassment."
"That's understandable. Generally a sin not to earn on someone else's laziness."
"Correct. If the twins have interesting ideas, should I ask?"
"Useful and interesting, not for the sake of pranks."
"Of course."
After the transfer of money, we could go to dinner, which we did with the whole House. And after dinner, I went down to the dungeons to Snape's office. The door, as always, was open, the Professor himself sat at his desk, but this time not only Daphne was here, but also someone from the lower years of Gryffindor. Two boys with silent indignation scrubbed cauldrons in the far corner of the class.
"Come in, Mr. Granger, don't stand in the doorway like the navel of the Earth."
It seems someone annoyed the Professor a little, and therefore without unnecessary remarks and phrases, I took a seat next to Greengrass. There were absurdly many cups with ingredients on our table. I would even say, a great many. And three cauldrons.
"Greengrass works according to her program. And you, Mr. Granger," Snape waved his wand, sending a sheet through the air to my table. "First answer these questions. In writing. As short and precise as possible."
Without delaying a second, I proceeded to answer the questions, to the sound of ingredients being prepared by Daphne and the scraping of metal brushes against cauldrons.
Half an hour—that's how much time it took me to answer twenty-five questions composed so that there was no connection between them, which did not allow thinking sequentially answering them.
"Long," Snape was unhappy with the speed of my work, but being angry at something or someone, he is unhappy with basically everything. "Potions. The list is on the board, recipes, I dare hope, in your head. Proceed."
Crush, cut, tear, squeeze, boil, stir. Remove from heat, put on fire, and let cool in the second cauldron, stir, and already in the first need to remove again, tap with a wand… If there is a correct recipe, following it is not difficult. But if there are two cauldrons, time frames are limited, and each potion has different timings—difficult. However, while I doubt slightly, brains think, and hands do.
"I am forced to give you an 'Outstanding', Mr. Granger…"
Snape was displeased. Well, nothing new. However, one cannot take away from him the fact that he takes potions and their quality seriously, no matter how he treats the one who brewed these potions. I heard Potter was indignant, and Weasley supported him, that Snape allegedly lowers their grades because they are Gryffindors. I think they receive exactly the grades for which they do the work.
"As well as you, Miss Greengrass. It seems this year you will finally be able to please your parents with a good half-year certification."
We left Snape's office in clearly high spirits.
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