November is the last month of autumn. And literally from its first day, the weather began to hint not-so-subtly that winter was coming soon, while no one had really seen autumn properly. In short, high humidity promised to persist until the bitter end, until the first frost, until the first wet snow. Following the weather, the coniferous trees of the Forbidden Forest began to darken, the surface of the Black Lake grew dim, reminding everyone that it got its name for a reason. Although, in my opinion, "Steel Lake" would suit it better—that's the shade it takes on, reflecting the overcast sky.
But despite such weather changes, it seems to me that no one really noticed them, gradually, step by step, plunging into the pre-ball bustle. It would seem that there were still almost two months until this undoubtedly rare and significant event for many, but apparently, such a long forced wait for the ball only egged the students on, albeit gradually.
During the first week of November, I realized that very, very many had not only not invited anyone yet, but hadn't even chosen whom they wanted to invite. Is this strange? Not at all, if you think about it, because there are schoolchildren all around. For many, banal shyness alone is enough for a hundred people. In general, me, Cedric, and a couple of other students who had already bothered to invite girls to the ball and receive consent can currently be considered a rare species, an exception to the rule.
Girls began to gather in small groups more often, and walked around the castle or its surroundings in these same groups, began discussing boys behind their backs more often, giggling more often, glancing at this or that guy. Previously, when all these girls' groups mainly gathered for meals in the Great Hall, during free periods between classes, or in the common rooms, they were still among the boys one way or another. Now, when these groups of girls became small but extremely numerous independent "units," reducing their communication with boys so they could gossip about them behind their backs, it started to seem that there were too many girls at Hogwarts in general. Just an overabundance of some kind!
I was saved from all this direct or indirect attention by the fact that I had already invited Miss Delacour to the ball, and she, in turn, had consented. My persona seemed to fall out of the zone of heightened attention from the girls, although, on the other hand, it attracted even more attention, but detached, evaluative, I would say. The reason, of course, is all the same—Fleur's consent to go to the ball with me.
Studies went on as usual.
The teachers gradually but inexorably increased the study load, and perhaps only Professor Flitwick did not succumb to these trends, keeping the load level slightly higher than before, but not increasing it further.
The schedule of my life underwent slight changes, and mainly this happened due to the agreement with Miss Delacour to periodically, on Fridays, practice dancing in the hall organized for this purpose. It is worth noting, by the way, that McGonagall managed to drive about two dozen Gryffindors there, and even gave a lecture on this subject, and the guys from other houses who were practicing dancing that day became unwilling witnesses to this short speech.
"The Yule Ball, let it be known to you," McGonagall broadcasted sternly, having brought her charges of various ages and turned off the music, causing everyone to pay attention to her, "has been held since the very founding of the Triwizard Tournament."
Naturally, at the sight of McGonagall, everyone triggered a sort of reflex—stand up straight, listen carefully, don't interrupt. Even I sinned with this, paying tribute to the composure of this woman, who laid practically her entire life in every sense on the altar of educating future generations of wizards.
"As you already know, on the night before Christmas, we, together with the guests, will gather in the Great Hall, where we will have fun as befits well-bred people."
Noticing that the others were also listening to her, the professor swept everyone present with a stern gaze, in which sparks of enthusiasm could be read.
"As representatives of the host school, you are obliged not to lose face. To show yourself from the very best side. And what do I see?" McGonagall turned rather sharply to her charges crowding at the entrance, and the number of charges gradually increased—latecomers were catching up. "Entering the hall, organized with such difficulty for you, your rehearsals and training, once again I do not find a single student of my house here."
McGonagall turned to Neville and Ginny.
"This does not apply to you, Mr. Longbottom and Miss Weasley," and turned back to the other Gryffindors, while students from other houses actively "warmed their ears." "It is completely and absolutely forbidden to ignore preparation for the ball, because the Yule Ball is, of course, first and foremost, dancing."
The Gryffindors, some of whom, apparently, only at that moment realized the full depth of the pit they had been dreaming of lately, began to quietly resent. Quietly, but there were many of them, so in the end it turned out loud. Generally, the collective image of a Gryffindor was a sort of mischievous and dashing guy or girl who acts first and thinks later, and generally suffers from hyperactivity. This doesn't mean they are all like that, but, so to speak, the average temperature across the hospital tells us exactly this.
Three seconds—exactly that long the students with scarlet and gold ties resented, before falling silent almost synchronously.
"Discipline," Fleur expressed her opinion, standing next to me.
"Only in the presence of McGonagall, Snape, and Dumbledore."
McGonagall quickly swept her gaze over the silenced Gryffindors, looked over the others too, after which she spoke in an important voice.
"Graduates of Hogwarts in general, and the House of Godric Gryffindor in particular, have enjoyed the respect of wizards all over the world for ten centuries now. And I will not allow you to tarnish this name in just one evening by behaving like ill-bred, dim-witted boors."
It was with this speech from Professor McGonagall that the pilgrimage of Gryffindors to the ballroom began, as we christened this room organized purely for training purposes. And by the way, one cannot fail to note the fact that Gryffindors, on the one hand, are quite active and reckless, but when the question touched upon interaction with the opposite sex, and not in the form of training in magic, Quidditch, or joint pranks-gatherings, but in a dance, that's where all the recklessness and bravery ended. Not for everyone, but, again, for the majority. It was amusing.
. . .
By mid-November, even a little later, towards the twentieth, I completely finished developing the spider system and the information receiver artifact. Calculating everything, redoing and recreating it in the form of charms—was only half the battle. It turned out to be much harder simply to calibrate the charms. Oh, the first attempt to receive information from a spider—that was enchanting! It's even good that I did this in a separate room and there were simply no witnesses to it.
Here's the thing. The spider transmitted a quite full-fledged visual picture using two synchronized eyes, which simulated binocular vision and allowed sensing volume, depth, and distance. Sound was transmitted along with it. Great? Undoubtedly. But when I picked up the communication artifact, the spider, blast it, following the program, climbed onto the ceiling. And transmitted an inverted image and sound to me. I simply fell to the floor. Why?
It's simple, but at the same time, I completely ignored, didn't take into account one important factor. Vision takes a tangible part in the work of the vestibular apparatus. The absence of a couple of mechanisms in the magical spider eyes, for example, the rotation of the eyeball, contributed to a banal conflict of visual information from the spider with sensations from the vestibular apparatus of myself, as well as my vision. As a result, I instantly got lost in space and fell.
I calibrated this system for a whole week from the beginning of November. The second aspect of forced calibration is working with two and a large number of spiders at once. Here the charms themselves came to my aid, applied both to the spider eyes and the essence of the Protean Charms. Of course, brain resources and Elven meditation were also involved, but as a result of work for a little over a week, I got a quite adequately working mechanism. Its essence is simple.
Spiders do not constantly broadcast information, but only at a certain level of "excitation" of magical receptor analogs. For example, when people pass in the field of view, or when sounds appear that stand out from the general noise. At the same time, the spider doesn't brazenly pour data into my brain through the artifact, but sort of "knocks" on the consciousness, demonstrating only part of the information, and my brain interprets the extremely scant information in the background, turning it into images, and thereby I can understand whether I want to see or hear this or not.
It worked with two spiders. It worked with a dozen. At twenty, I felt like a schizophrenic—a bad sign, I must note. Had to modify the receiving artifact system. Now my consciousness didn't process the entire data stream, albeit scant, but "defeating" brain resources by quantity—the receiving artifact did this. And no, a magical analog of artificial intelligence didn't appear in it. It simply didn't transmit data until the signal from the spider became strong enough. Then the artifact transmitted into consciousness the same extremely curtailed signal, informative enough for the brain to interpret the information in the form of associations, giving an understanding of what was happening, but not a picture or sound, and then I decided whether I would watch or not.
Actually, all this dance with curtailed and full-fledged signals was not without reason. Full-fledged image and sound is quite a large load. Experimentally, I found out that the brain can simultaneously process full-fledged data from six spiders, but already at such a quantity I got somewhat lost... Well, that is, contact with reality disappeared, let's say. And the curtailed stream reduced the load colossally, by an order of magnitude, and although I didn't receive a picture in my brain, it worked like some knowledge, spontaneous thoughts in my head, and Elven meditation and calibration of consciousness allowed me to calmly distinguish my own thoughts, images generated by my own brain and consciousness, from information from spiders.
The artifact itself eventually took the form of a simple metal ring. There was a thought to make a simple stud earring, but in local realities, such decoration was in no way associated with a man, although both the Elf shard memory and the Dwarf one contained one simple postulate—a wizard is in his right to wear the paraphernalia and accessories he needs as is convenient for him, even up his ass, true, such a thing, of course, is too radical.
The first spider was sent to the corridor of the third floor. Don't know why, but it seemed to me not the most popular place, but passable enough to work out the system. Another one—to one of the nooks popular for discussing confidential information. Three spiders—to three terribly secret classrooms, which are almost impossible to get to, and judging by the information overheard last year, it's also hard to find anyone there with charms. In general, it could be interesting. And two spiders each for the "secret" corridors nearby, not far from the house common rooms. These spiders were configured somewhat differently, and transmitted associative images of students passing by, as well as images of what they were doing.
Otherwise, no changes occurred in life. I continued to live according to the schedule, communicate with the guys, go to my little tree every day, which soon promised to finally give "fruits" for fabric, true, I don't know yet what kind of fruits these will be. Cedric handed over the Galleons from the twins for selling the warming pendants. The only time Daphne and I could interact more or less normally, without annoying those dissatisfied with the very fact of our communication, was additional Potions lessons. By the way, Professor Snape began to load us on them in approximately the same proportions as in regular classes. Now we brewed almost two potions simultaneously, but still found a moment or two to exchange a couple of phrases.
In general, life went on, the bustle in the castle grew, and against its background, almost any other activity was completely lost. The Dueling Club was a bastion of peace and tranquility, paradoxically enough. I think this is due to the fact that mostly calm and balanced people gathered here, and the hyperactive ones adopted the atmosphere of the majority—peace, regularity, practice, duels, spell practice, and short but important lectures by either Flitwick or Snape. The latter, to everyone's regret, rarely delighted us with lectures related to spells—he has a specific approach to magical dueling and combat, very... injury-prone. I think he simply doesn't want students to cripple themselves in the manner of Moody simply because of their youthful intemperance, and knowledge of complex and truly dangerous spells does not contribute to safety in any way.
---------------
Give me Powerstones if you like the story.
If you want to read 60+ advanced chapters, you can do so on my Patreon.
Patreon(.)com/TheRedSpell