Chapter 288 - 288
The new week of schooling at Hogwarts, sixth year, began with routine — who'd have thought?!
A whole week still lay ahead of dealing with the first-years, finishing off the club-activity forms that were either incomplete or had suddenly turned out to be filled in incorrectly — this, you'd think, was an obvious front of work, right? Headmaster Snape had decided that most clubs and other school organisations were registered insufficiently correctly, on the old-style forms, when there were new-style forms available with as many as three important changes! A crest, a border, and an extra field for the signature of higher authority — previously the Headmaster's signature hadn't been required, only that of the deputy, the Head of House, and the club leader.
In short, Snape was eyeing everyone insolently at breakfast — we'd already been notified of the changes — and seemed to be saying with his look: "You've made some rubbish, do it again."
"Has he," Hannah, sitting next to me at breakfast, grumbled quietly, indignant, "got nothing better to obsess over than these forms? They're only needed so the Head of House and Deputy Headmaster know what clubs exist and what rooms are allotted to them. They could be handwritten! Argh, blast it…"
"Don't fret. I'm sure this is just the first step on his newfound path of evil. What do you need to keep children from misbehaving? Right — bury them under so much nonsense they can't stand up straight. I think right now it's a trial of the theory on the more resilient and responsible ones."
"Ugh, sly Snape."
Suddenly black smoke formed around my hand, quickly turning into a glove hovering in the air. One deft conjuror's move on its part, and the glove was already holding a letter. Well, fine, there's no magic in the letter itself, all the magic's in the glove — transfiguration navigated by name-based magical coordinates. Clever spellwork, I ought to think of something unusual too, tied to a wizard's finesse rather than brute force. Though, I think this isn't the first time I've wanted to "think about" that.
The letter, or rather the note, without even an envelope, could only boast two phrases: "Granger, Malfoy, Greengrass — I'll be waiting before the first lesson at the BM classroom door. HH." Hm, looks like the time has finally come for us to find out what that strange woman has cooked up.
"What an entertaining letter…" Hannah couldn't help but notice such an extravagant delivery, as well as its disappearance along with the glove once read. "Pretty magic."
"Transfiguration, navigation by name-magic, oriented to appear at eye level, a couple of additional charms and a pair of runes woven into the spell."
"Pff, you're murdering all the beauty of magic with your analysis," Hannah smirked, tucking a strand of blonde hair behind her ear. "Wonder-killer."
"Whatever I am, that's what I am."
After breakfast and a quick escort of the little ones to their lesson, I found myself, no less quickly, at the doors of the new DADA classroom… that is, Battle Magic. The doors were open, so I peered inside. Daphne and Draco were already there, as was the professor, who, upon seeing me, simply nodded towards the spot beside the two of them, standing almost directly across from her.
"Quicker," she added, folding her arms beneath her chest. "Right, then…"
Surveying us with a stern look, flecked with not-especially-hidden madness, though far more sane than Moody's — must get around to healing that cripple, I did promise — the professor continued her thought.
"Your year, maybe not entirely, but a fair few of you have gone a bit mad wanting combat action against the Dark Lord and his fighters. So, seeing as I've decided to run a light demonstration for everyone, you lot will get a taste too. Want it grown-up style — you'll get grown-up style."
Malfoy was pale and watching the professor like a rabbit watching a boa constrictor, struggling to keep his nerves in check.
"Listen to the combat task. The lesson will be outdoors, near the Care of Magical Creatures paddocks. Your group's task is to arrange an effective, lightning-fast ambush against everyone else I bring along, incapacitating or rendering them combat-ineffective as quickly as possible, but without going overboard. Medical and other support will be provided by Professor Flitwick and Madam Pomfrey. Uniform — combat gear. What does that mean? Malfoy?"
"Clothing that allows freedom of movement and is fully warded against at least basic and intermediate-level Transfiguration."
"Well done, if your group fails you'll scrub one fewer cauldron. Additional gear — combat robes and a Death Eater-style mask, so none of that brainless flock of sheep ends up in the hospital wing in clean pants."
"Harsh…" I smirked.
"There was no order to 'make noise,' Granger. Uniform," the professor lazily flicked a wand that had appeared from who-knows-where, and three black robes and white, unsettling masks materialised on the table, though not quite like the actual Death Eaters'. "The masks are slightly different, but you'd have to look closely. Best not to thoughtlessly don the trappings of some faction while not belonging to it."
Daphne raised her hand.
"Yes, Greengrass?"
"What if we can't find fully warded sets worthy of being called combat gear?"
"Not my concern. The task's been set, the task must be carried out. Even that parody of law-enforcement types called the Auror Office doesn't provide full kit. If an employee decides to say to hell with safety and wears something unwarded, that's entirely their problem when some tie round their neck turns into a cigar-guillotine."
I have to admit, an outcome like that really is plausible. All sorts of minor everyday transfigurations, charms and spells can be excellently applied in combat, but personally I prefer to strike an opponent with something meant specifically for "striking," outclassing an opponent not through clever application but in quality, speed of spellcasting, and reading the situation. Simply put, almost as soon as I'd sorted through the memories of the shards, I understood one thing — I would not be a weakling, neither by accident nor by choice, which means that if I ever have to fight someone in earnest, they won't be weaklings either. At a certain level of skill and personal power, mages' battles don't allow for petty sly tricks — a strong wizard simply overwhelms them. For instance, even now, if I wanted to, I'd simply ignore ordinary charms cast at me, most of them at least, and simply "crush" clever traps like a Glisseo underfoot with magic and aura, the same way I once deflected the younger Nott's Cruciatus with a bare hand.
Of course, one could pick at my thoughts and conclusions, since I do make various artefacts, defensive and offensive, for personal use, including in combat, not to mention arrowheads tipped with Fiendfyre. However, there are a couple of factors that break this criticism. First — the dwarf shard, along with plain logic, quite plainly characterises artefacts of that sort as a product of a high level of knowledge and skill in magic. Second — that same dwarf shard, that same logic, characterises them as a product of personal power, and moreover a specialised tool, prepared in advance and requiring not just skill in creation but skill in use as well. Third — this isn't a petty trick, it's absolute superiority.
I raised my hand.
"Granger?" the professor responded at once.
"Is the use, or the very presence, of artefacts and enchanted items permissible?"
"More than permissible, encouraged even," she nodded, smirking, continuing to twirl her wand in the air by her head. "Combat and armed confrontation is far from being some noble sport with a pile of rules. This isn't war, of course, so limits on deaths and severe student injuries are obvious, but means — that's another matter. Artefacts and other odds and ends are part of a wizard's kit, including a combat wizard's. And that combat wizard will use them to carry out the assigned task. Any more questions?"
The professor surveyed us again, intently, and having received no further questions, nodded and gave her final send-off.
"Time to prepare for the mission — until the start of the Battle Magic lesson. Sort out tactics and roles within your trio yourselves, but if you fail the task you've set yourselves — cauldrons await. Slughorn, with his soft approach, manages to clutter up the dirty-cauldron cupboard at a phenomenal rate — there'll be plenty of work to go round. Take your gear, dismissed!"
Throughout the professor's entire speech, it seemed she was putting in considerable effort not to let fly a couple of dozen unusually bold words, possibly bordering on profanity, and quite possibly outright obscene, keeping her tone as polite as she could manage. Hm, definitely a woman not used to working with children, if she's ever been used to it at all — this looked far more like a habit of handing out valuable orders and punishing offenders.
Grabbing the items we'd been given, the three of us hurried off out of the classroom, but not far — a minute's walk, and we ducked into an empty, evidently unused classroom, bare and vacant, where only a large chandelier of black metal counted as any sort of interior element. Well, the layers of dust could count as decor too, which I gathered into a pile with one careless wave of the hand and annihilated with a Tergeo.
"Right then, gentlemen, what's the plan?" I began our impromptu council, but seeing Daphne lost in thought and Malfoy still pale, I transfigured a round table, three chairs and a coat rack with hangers for the gear out of thin air. "Come on, get a move on, we've got thinking to do."
"What about lessons?" Daphne decided not to waste time, took a hanger off the rack and quickly set the robe on it, pinning the mask to it as well.
Draco followed her example a second later, snapping to as though coming out of a trance.
"The first two weeks are free-attendance, so we can skip it. Just need to notify the teachers."
"That's a lot of running about to warn people," Draco grumbled calmly.
"I spotted a certain combination of spells earlier, let me work it out in my head…" straining my brain to the max, I quickly worked out an analogue of the message-delivery method the professor had used. "Hm, think it's ready. Let's see…"
Drawing my wand, I traced a small but intricate flourish, murmuring the calculated key-phrase quietly, and blue smoke appeared before Daphne, quickly turning into a glove, which, with a conjuror's flourish, pulled a note out of thin air.
"You…" while Daphne, smirking, took the note and began reading it — just a test text — Draco's indignation grew more genuine. "You… Don't you dare tell me you just replicated an unfamiliar spell after working it out in a couple of seconds."
"Fine, I won't say it. But you do remember that in magic the foundation is imagination and intent? Everything else just eases the process, since magic run purely on bare intent, will and imagination demands far too unattainable a level of control and skill in releasing vast amounts of power."
"Yeah, yeah, sure… So who's got what lessons?"
Quickly gathering the needed information, I cast one spell after another, sending the teachers warning of our forced absence. Half a minute later the same gloves appeared before me, giving a thumbs-up before vanishing again into blue smoke — I'd tweaked the spell slightly, though it's anyone's guess whether the original didn't do the same thing, notifying the caster of a successful delivery.
"Right then, gentlemen, let's sit down and reason it out, work up a tactic. First, let's establish what each of us actually is, as a wizard. I'm Hector the Almighty, I think everyone already knows that."
"Pff…" Malfoy leaned back in his chair, arms folded across his chest. "Don't flatter yourself. Being especially successful at a few disciplines doesn't make you almighty."
"Fine, then. Let me run through the arsenal. So as not to go too far outside the school curriculum and the books available in the library, and so as not to kill everyone there stone dead… And if we're staging an ambush with a surprise attack, preferably without theatrics — that's inefficient… There's about a dozen area-effect spells and simple curses in the arsenal, higher Transfiguration, mass cascading Transfiguration across objects up to sixty in three stages, or across an area in four… While saying this, I've already realised I can see a use for a five-point trap covering an area, based on runes and Fumos, with a Heimer's Mirror effect and tagging a Hunter's Mark on anyone caught in the trap, or the whole area. And I can enchant our masks to display the marks. I could also just douse the area with a diffuse Somnus. Point-target spells for a mass action are utter nonsense."
"Are you not showing off a bit, hm?" Draco was somewhat shocked. "Area-effect work isn't the same as chucking Stupefys around, or deflecting or casting simple Dark curses."
"Don't worry, Malfoy," Daphne looked at him with a barely readable emotion called "mockery." "I've seen what Hector can do when he wants to. And even then, I get the feeling I haven't seen anywhere near everything."
"Fine, let's say that's how it is," Malfoy conceded. "My home education focused mainly on quickly suppressing single targets, speed and indoor combat tactics. Though defensive shield combinations — linked, multiple, distributed, any variant based on Protego and spatial distortion — those came especially easily to me. I'm also excellent at deflecting hexes, mental attacks and other clouding of the mind. So Heimer's Mirror wouldn't work on me. At least, I'd cancel the effect within a second."
"So why were you drilled in something you're not particularly progressing at?" I asked, surprised now myself.
"That's the standard thing," Daphne glanced at me, meanwhile pulling her little notebook and a quill-pen out of her bag, clearly planning to take notes.
"Correct," Malfoy agreed. "My relatives decided it wouldn't do for a pure-blood wizard to lose to a Muggle-born at the traditionally pure-blood pastime called duelling."
"Oh, is that because of me?"
Malfoy grimaced, but I saw no particular hostility aimed at me specifically — more at the situation as a whole.
"Don't flatter yourself."
Daphne was jotting notes down quickly, but paused, feeling our gaze on her.
"I think… If there are Hunter's Marks displayed through the masks," Daphne tapped a finger on the table, returning her gaze to the notebook, "then I could produce a massed barrage against targets with pinpoint spells."
"Oh really," I smiled. "Care to explain the gist?"
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