Thursday morning began with correspondence.
No, of course, I conducted all my scheduled physical training, simultaneously still pondering the pros and cons of starting to train with some kind of staff, as it provides quite a good load, especially if you enchant such sports equipment a bit.
The correspondence arrived, as always, during breakfast. I personally am not subscribed to anything at the moment, and all the news can be learned without it—just ask one of the guys for an already-read Prophet or something. But this time during breakfast, I didn't even have to ask.
"Ha!" Ernie exclaimed, having read the latest issue of the Daily Prophet and handing it to me behind Justin's back. "Here, Hector, read this. Second page."
"Hmm? Let's have it."
Putting aside the almost-finished oatmeal with which I "weigh down" everything else, I picked up the newspaper and opened it to the indicated article. Oh, so it turns out Hermione and I are enterprising and pushy Muggle-borns, distinguished by talent and beauty, hunting the Tournament champions? There are even magical photos of me dancing with Fleur, and Hermione sitting with Krum in the library. Well, the fact that Hermione met Krum in the library—although it would be more correct to say that that's basically the only place they can intersect on a regular basis—is not surprising at all.
So, the question is—what do I think about this?
To start with, the media, and especially Rita Skeeter, tends to twist everything, which means taking information exactly as presented is stupid. But if Hermione and Viktor found some common interests and are moving towards "dating," what do I think about that? Krum, of course, is homely, but girls have chased worse. More importantly, he either managed to become satiated with female attention in all its manifestations, since he runs from ladies like fire, or he's looking for someone whose brain doesn't short-circuit when someone says: "Viktor Krum." Or maybe for him it's just a challenge—to conquer a girl who isn't a fangirl? That's also possible, since it's easy with fangirls...
"Hmm," Hannah also read the article and is now looking at me, smiling slyly and sipping juice. "What do you think?"
"Well, about me—nonsense. About Hermione—either also nonsense, or not."
"And how do you feel about such a thing?"
"I don't," I shrugged, causing misunderstanding among those around who were listening to the conversation one way or another, because what an interesting topic! "Hermione is very stubborn, and in making decisions—very independent. Krum doesn't look like a womanizer, and I'm not a mother hen. If he hurts her—I'll send him to Bulgaria in a matchbox. Otherwise—let them be."
"An unusual position, it seems to me. If I were dating someone," Hannah mused aloud, "my relatives would shake the soul out of my boyfriend, and nag me to death with instructions and moralizing."
"Hermione isn't stupid, she's capable of figuring it out herself. And if I start pestering her with such questions even in a mild form, she'll take everything with hostility and there's a high probability she'll do everything out of spite just to be contrary."
"Hmm... That is possible."
Meanwhile, my attention was drawn to the commotion at the Gryffindor table. The source of this commotion was in close proximity to Potter and Ron Weasley, or rather—Hermione was indignant that the article was complete rubbish. She was indignant quietly, but very actively, and my hearing allowed me to isolate specifics, and my vision—my sister's reddened ears.
After breakfast, a normal school day began, distinguished by absolutely nothing special. Except that in the evening, after dinner, I went to my personal unused classroom and tried to create the first scout spider.
The spider itself looked ordinary, and I didn't focus on trifles. The eyes were a more interesting topic. The enchantment was done according to a slightly modified scheme of the charm cascade studied under Moody's guidance. The changes concerned purely the form and nothing else. Bypassing the size restrictions of the enchanted object wasn't difficult for me personally simply due to excellent energy control, so no problems there. The eyes must accurately capture visual information and transmit it to the abdomen—it was the abdomen that was entered into the charms as the object of information reception. The spider's head itself was enchanted to receive vibrations and transmit them also to the abdomen, fortunately, there were as many as several variants of charms for picking up sound information in the books. The abdomen was enchanted with Protean Charms, linked to a test device and transmitting all collected information to it—a simple cube. The cube itself was enchanted with the second modification of Moody's Eye, only in this variation it collected not visual information, but information transmitted via Protean Charms—modifying it wasn't difficult, but long, and the calculations were voluminous.
The first test was successful—the spider ran, following the embedded program, transmitted data to the cube, and I, holding the cube to my temple, received visual and sound information from it. Among other things, I could slightly influence where the spider ran. Slightly, because this turned out to be an undocumented function, and the spider itself has its own behavioral matrix. In general, the experiment was deemed successful, the spider went on a journey through the castle, and I thought about how to assemble this entire complex of charms into one system, which I will place in a removable nozzle for the hammer and be able to forge spiders in batches, rather than suffering over one for an hour. And I'll need to check the work of several spiders through one artifact later—will I be able to choose data transmission "channels," or will everything pour into my head in one array? If the latter, I'll need to invent filters and limiters, because Smetwyck asked not to overload the brain, and such a data stream loads it quite significantly. Not heavily, no, but a couple of dozen spiders will be quite capable of bringing my brains to a boiling point, it seems to me. Maybe that's not the case.
Thus passed Thursday, and Friday passed in roughly the same vein, except for another dance lesson in the Lions' Ballroom, as the students ironically nicknamed it. What's the irony? The fact that McGonagall organized it for her guys. Of course, she by no means forbade and even encouraged attendance by other students—the Gryffindor Head of House herself, as it turned out, treats dancing with great trepidation and responsibility and even smiles much brighter. Even when she praises her charges, she doesn't smile so brightly. But the irony is that there are barely any Gryffindors there. And the most amazing thing is that a regular visitor to this place is Neville Longbottom—an extremely modest boy who loves peace and plants. But look at him, he goes, learns to dance with Ginny Weasley, and both are learning. And... That's it, no more Gryffindors in the Gryffindor ballroom.
They say McGonagall managed to drive her own on the topic of dancing for a couple of days, the entire house at once and successfully. But they waved their hand at this matter and abandoned dancing under various pretexts. McGonagall got offended, and now zealously helps other students master various waltzes if those students need help. And she knows how, and knows how excellently, completely destroying the image of a robot teacher formed in minds.
Well, and on Saturday, immediately after breakfast, I went to the library, which is becoming more and more popular every day. Of course, this isn't enough yet for at least someone to always be in sight, but the quiet sounds of life, the constant rustling of pages—all this gradually fills the abode of knowledge.
However, peace is only a dream for us, as they say. An hour and a half—that's exactly how long I could productively memorize and ponder new knowledge and books, expanding and deepening knowledge of subjects as much as possible.
In general, I was sitting on a bench at one of the tables that can often be found between rows of bookcases. Sitting, reading, bothering no one.
"Hi," Hermione walked towards me quite briskly.
No less briskly she sat on the bench next to me and placed a small book in front of herself, apparently for variety.
"Hi. How are you?" I immediately went on the offensive, but couldn't knock her off her thought, judging by the look, and then asked the second question. "Dating Krum?"
"What? No!" she was indignant quietly, but with complete seriousness. "You don't believe the tales of that lying reporter, do you? And if you do, then what's written about you is true, and you're dating Fleur?"
"No, I'm not."
"See," Hermione nodded. "And how does this reporter photograph everything? Where does she hide? How does she penetrate Hogwarts? I heard she annoyed the champions so much that Dumbledore, and the other Heads, extremely insistently asked her not to appear in the castle and on the adjacent territory. Except for the days of the tasks, of course."
"Useful information. Means either she has her reliable sources, or she is... Well, I don't know, an Animagus, for example. Turns into some small crap, and scurries unnoticed around the castle."
"You think the castle's protection... Although..." Hermione looked around, but saw no one. "Pettigrew went unrecognized for many years."
"Exactly. So what happened, Herm? Need help with lessons?"
One couldn't help but enjoy the picture "Hermione in Shock," her mouth even opened silently, immediately closing.
"Are you mocking me? Want to throw me off balance? Well, it won't work. Skeeter beat you to it. But I'm not here for that."
"Listening carefully."
"I studied the house-elf question."
"And what conclusions visited your head?"
"To Mordred with freedom," she nodded importantly, causing a couple of unruly curls to escape her hairstyle, but they were immediately corrected. "We need to fight cruel treatment."
"Already not bad," I smiled. "And do you know why house-elves punish themselves? Or consider it right to receive physical punishment?"
"It's described very vaguely, little information. But I didn't find any other."
"It seems to me," I thought for a second, drawing conclusions from what I read and my own understanding of magic, "they serve for the sake of magic. When a house-elf does a poor job, or doesn't do it at all, the master punishes him, or the house-elf punishes himself."
"I know that anyway," Hermione nodded, looking at me either with impatience or condemnation, or maybe both.
"Punishing themselves, so to speak, house-elves receive light injuries, and magical powers are spent on their healing. That is, translating into ordinary language, the master's magic for them is a salary. Punishment is a fine. Many fines—small salary. Small salary—bad life. Bad life—incentive to work better."
"I hadn't considered it from that angle. But what to do?" simply a wild desire to help those who don't need help was readable in my sister's gaze.
However, if you think about it, the situation really can be tried to change, and it won't be bad for anyone.
"Develop a system of fines without physical punishment and ostentatious neglect. A spell, ritual, potion—anything."
Hermione nodded.
"Just keep in mind that such an attitude, quite justified, by the way, surely has long become routine and correct in the wizards' worldview. Of course, I'm sure not everyone practices such things, but nevertheless. Plus, it's a clear psychological method of dominance and demonstrating one's superiority to oneself."
"Superiority? What kind of superiority is there?" Hermione was about to be indignant, but stopped herself in time—Madam Pince does not slumber.
"They conjure without a wand and are capable of very serious, large-scale manipulations. While among us with a wand, some wizards aren't capable of half of what house-elves can do. Consider also that house-elves cast their powerful spells and charms in conditions of the strictest economy of magic. They, essentially, for the sake of their own survival must be experts in the field of... Um... How to say... Pushing the efficiency of their sorcery to the limit."
"Are you saying wizards treat them like that out of envy?"
"And fear. And something else. It's complicated and I have not the slightest desire to dissect this issue thoroughly."
"But you'll support me in this matter? I'm thinking of creating a society or something..."
"Knowing the local society, I hasten to upset you—as long as you are just a Muggle-born witch, a Hogwarts student, everyone will care about all your reformist initiatives from a high bell tower."
"That's wrong... Everyone should have a voice."
"But this isn't a democracy. Here... I find it difficult to say what type of social system is here. Estates, castes, I don't understand this. But definitely not a democracy, and with the help of the majority here you can only organize revolutions, and all sorts of riots. And the strongest wizard with his allies, associates, and like-minded people will win in the end. My point is—develop a system that will allow replacing punishments for house-elves without losing the meaning. Become a cool witch, a few connections, a few friends, all that stuff, and you'll already become a more or less weighty personality. Then launch your projects. Well, that's my opinion."
"I'll take it into account. And think over your words properly."
Hermione shifted her gaze to the book lying open in front of me.
"Arithmancy? I'm pretty good at it. Need help?"
"You know, sure."
Hermione immediately perked up, ready to help. Well, and I quickly sketched various formulas in the notebook that I needed to merge into one complex—due to these formulas, Moody's charm cascade will be combined with eavesdropping charms and Protean Charms.
"Wow... It won't be simple."
"If it were simple, I would have done it already," I smiled. "Let's figure it out..."
And we figured it out. Dragged on almost until evening, but coped with the task. Hermione looked hellishly tired, but no less pleased both with herself and my gratitude. Once again I am convinced that she often just wants to be useful and to be praised. Praised completely.
Well, and after dinner, by tradition, I went to additional Potions classes. Was there anything new there? No. Snape still suffered over illiterate, in his opinion, essays, Daphne and I brewed various potions, and a trio of penalized second-years from Gryffindor and Ravenclaw scrubbed cauldrons at the end of the classroom. Judging by their faces, the cauldrons were terrible, and also these guys didn't understand how one could voluntarily go to additional classes with Snape. Because of this misunderstanding, the guys, by the end of their labor duty, came to the conclusion that Snape forces us to brew various potions and poisons for him so he can poison students, rats, and insects.
The potions were hellishly complex, so Daphne and I almost didn't communicate, only a couple of times allowing ourselves to talk about abstract topics and agree on tomorrow's trip to Hogsmeade. And here's what's interesting—the longer I interact with Daphne, the more often she shows emotions in a larger spectrum and stronger than usual. Frowns more severely, smiles a bit brighter, or makes snide remarks. True, in the end, she seems to pull herself up and quickly hides behind a mask. No longer formal and detached, but for more trusted people, I'd say. And I wonder, what is she like when completely without masks?
On the way back to the house common room, I tried to more or less make a plan for the trip to Hogsmeade. After all, even if the village is big, it copes without problems with the flow of frenzied students in all their diversity, so much so that you might not meet a familiar face all day, but... But still, yes. Need some more or less adequate route. And there are guests too. Although, it seems to me, they drag themselves there off schedule at every opportunity—they don't have their own McGonagall and Snape, who are capable of making even a stone ashamed of its actions. And on Monday—Halloween already. Wonder what the ritual part of this holiday will look like, according to the version of ancient-ancient times?
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