The Quidditch match was fairly interesting. The Gryffindors had decided to play a containment game — focusing as much as possible on defending their hoops — and I understood their reasoning, because Ron is far from the best Keeper, for one reason and one reason alone. Shake his composure, and he'll let in even a Quaffle flying straight into his hands.
Their tactic worked at first, but we had anticipated the possibility and pressed hard, and our Seeker spent less time actually looking for the Snitch than distracting Potter, buying us time. We did break through the Gryffindor defence a couple of times, after which their thirst for adventure got the better of them and they launched into attack — because it was absolutely vital that they look impressive, which meant outplaying me at Keeper. Excellent target. And after that we began to score more frequently. But Potter doesn't earn his keep for nothing, and he's better than our Seeker. We had spent too much time in the early going grinding through their defence, and the result was a loss by ten points.
Were we upset about the defeat? Not remotely — everyone had shown what they could do, had a proper game, and the point difference was negligible. There were a few passing thoughts along the lines of "if only we'd been a bit sharper," but they didn't linger long enough to take root. So all was well.
That Saturday evening brought another extra Potions session with Snape. It began as usual — the professor checking homework while Daphne and I briskly prepared ingredients, of which there were quite a number — and each of us had two cauldrons to manage. Nothing out of the ordinary. Our combined skill was more than sufficient not only to avoid distraction or error, but to keep up a running conversation throughout.
"By the way, Professor," I said, seizing a moment when both cauldrons needed to steep and I could let my attention drift, without losing control entirely.
"Yes, Mr Granger?" Snape didn't lift his eyes from the parchment on the desk in front of him.
"Do you think we might try brewing Felix Felicis?"
The professor pushed the parchment aside and fixed me with a steady look, one eyebrow arching in surprise, then shifting his gaze to Daphne, who was no less surprised by the question.
"Liquid Luck cannot simply be 'tried,'" Snape said quietly, without any trace of irritation. "That potion is either brewed correctly or it isn't. The only acceptable standard is perfection — the first and the last."
"Even so, Professor. I'd like to hear your opinion on the matter."
"I take it what you're actually asking is whether you're ready to attempt it?"
"Yes."
"Well then..." Snape exhaled, laced his fingers together, and rested them on the desk. "You may try. It's possible you'll merely lose your head — though certain species of animal manage perfectly well without one, which does offer some hope for select members of the human race."
"Very... encouraging."
"Encouraging you is not part of my remit," Snape said, the smirk reaching only his eyes. "My remit is to teach you to brew and to assess your own capabilities with clear eyes."
"Objectively speaking, though. We have already studied every nuance that brewing this potion might require. We know how to match cauldron structure, volume, and material to the expected interactions between different ingredients. We know what to do in any given situation. And given how many deliberately incorrect steps you've introduced into recipes over the years, to train our speed of thought and our practical instincts—"
"Do you have the ingredients?"
"I do." I reached for my bag on the neighbouring table and produced the sets I had purchased in France. "Here."
Snape took the small boxes and set them aside on his desk.
"I will check the quality of the ingredients and prepare everything myself, to minimise the chance of failure."
"That means—" Daphne looked at the professor with unmistakable surprise. A strand of hair had escaped from the tight knot at the back of her neck and, oddly enough, only emphasised the expression on her face. Daphne never brews with her hair loose. Ideally, in fact, one should dress like a surgeon for Potions — or better still, wear a hazmat suit. Pity that one's nose and sense of smell play an indispensable role in the process.
"It means, Miss Greengrass," Snape said, turning his gaze to her, "that I will be giving you this unique opportunity. Your task is to obtain from the library Jean-Baptiste Gilbert's work Felix Felicis: Luck a Step from Death. Obtain it, study it thoroughly, and rehearse every nuance it describes. There are over a hundred of them, and that is the predictable minimum for a recipe optimally adjusted to your current set of ingredients."
"Understood, Professor," we both nodded.
"Don't neglect your cauldrons."
After the session I walked Daphne back to her common room, as I always did — not that it was any great distance.
"I hadn't expected to attempt Liquid Luck quite so... soon."
"Are you upset?" I asked — though from the look on her face, and the fact that she showed no inclination to release my hand, I could read her mood perfectly well.
"Oh, not at all. I'm very pleased, actually. A little nervous, perhaps. We'll go to the library tomorrow."
"I'm entirely in favour."
Somehow, instead of stopping at the common room entrance, we carried on past it, back past the main tower, and fell into aimless wandering through the castle. The little spiders helped chart a safe route, well clear of professors and the Aurors who had still not been withdrawn from the castle. The incident with that unfortunate individual had never come to light — it had been taken for granted that he had fallen honourably in the line of duty. A completely irrelevant piece of information.
Out of idle restlessness and a faint sense of mischief — combined with the fact that neither of us was willing to let go of the other's hand — we made our way by back routes up to the Astronomy Tower. Once you find yourself there, Merlin himself practically obliges you to step outside, stand under the night sky, and simply exist for a moment.
Only when we stepped out and looked up, we were met with impenetrable darkness — a thick, unbroken ceiling of cloud.
"Unlucky," Daphne said, with a faint sigh of disappointment.
Recalling a couple of weather charms, I drew my wand, pointed it at the sky, and put some generosity into it with the storm energy that had fully settled in me not long ago. Strictly speaking, it wasn't necessary — you can clear clouds without that particular influx. But it would have required genuine effort, which I had absolutely no desire to expend. It would have killed the faint romantic atmosphere in my head.
Without any dramatic effect, the clouds simply thinned and vanished. McGonagall performs this charm fairly often on weeknights when the weather is unsuitable for Astronomy practice. She just happens not to like it — it genuinely drains a witch or wizard.
"You know," Daphne said, smiling up at the stars, "I don't like Astronomy."
"Why not? It's a useful subject."
"You're impossibly pragmatic when it comes to knowledge," she said, glancing at me with quiet warmth for a moment. "Knowing and understanding what stars actually are tends to blunt..."
She paused, clearly searching for the right word. I looked up at the sky. There would never come a day when I stopped finding joy in a night sky somewhere as remote as the grounds of Hogwarts. A remarkable view — more stars than you can take in without a faint dizziness, and the constellations you know from city skies are simply nowhere to be found. Not one. There are just too many stars.
"The sense of magic?" I finished.
"Yes. And, as they say, you feel the full weight of your own — ha — greatness."
"There's another way to look at it."
"Such as?"
"Well — the proportion of chemical elements that make up the universe is exactly the same as the proportion that makes up us. So we are, invariably, a part of everything around us."
Daphne was quiet for a moment, thinking, taking in the sky.
"But that perspective," she said at last, "has its own flaw. The sense of one's own uniqueness disappears even more completely."
"Everything has its other side."
We left the tower soon after, making our way back by the roundabout paths — past Snape, who was the duty professor that night, and past the Aurors, who moved through the castle like silent, undetectable shadows.
. . . . . .
The Great Hall on a Sunday morning was always a riot of students in casual clothes, which on that day replaced school uniform. There were always a few who preferred to observe the dress code regardless, but they were in the minority.
A hurried breakfast in the company of our year group was livened up by the scant news that Susan passed along in strictest confidence.
"My aunt wrote," Susan said, leaning slightly over the table and keeping her voice low, "that something suspicious is going on."
"That much is obvious," Ernie said with a smirk, and was immediately elbowed by Hannah sitting beside him.
"Go on," Hannah said, satisfied that the physical intervention had produced the desired effect, and smiled at Susan.
"Right. You all know that certain magical creatures — especially the sentient and semi-sentient ones — are monitored by the regulation department?"
"Rather poorly monitored, I'd note," Ernie said, unable to help himself, though this time he had the foresight to shift sideways — Hannah's elbow just barely missed his ribs.
"Well, yes, that's fair," Susan nodded. "But the monitors always send in reports on movements, migrations, general situation and so forth. Apparently Mr Diggory noticed something odd in the reports and flagged it to the D.M.L. A couple of them seemed to contradict each other. They investigated quickly, and it turned out the monitors were under a powerful Imperius."
"Have they finally worked out how to detect Imperius?" Zacharias asked, surprised.
"Unfortunately, no," Susan turned towards him, her long red plait falling over her shoulder. "It was too strong an Imperius... Well, obvious, really. You can see it in the eyes, the behaviour. It becomes—"
"Like a puppet. I know," Zacharias said, with a nod of understanding, and returned to his half-eaten porridge.
"Yes. So — all of them under Imperius, churning out reports saying everything's fine. Except the creatures are nowhere to be found. Some of them are rather... unfriendly, putting it mildly. The giants, for instance, have managed to disappear entirely from their territory in the north, and no one saw a thing."
"That could be dangerous," Hannah said, frowning. "You-Know-Who used all manner of creatures last time, promising them — well, whatever they wanted, he promised it."
So something was genuinely coming, and coming soon — that was the thought circling in my head.
After breakfast, Daphne intercepted me at the exit from the Great Hall, and we set off purposefully towards the library. I called this out to the twins as they shot past, so they wouldn't waste time looking for me once they had their lists and ideas ready.
Stepping into the library, I was appalled — the place was packed. Madam Pince, for her part, was deriving no pleasure whatsoever from the influx.
"Strange," Daphne said, holding my hand — apparently her new habit. Or perhaps a method of drawing gradually, inexorably closer on a permanent basis. "It's not usually like this on a Sunday..."
She gestured meaningfully at all of it, and we hurried out of the doorway and further inside — a fresh wave of students was pressing in from behind.
"Indeed."
We approached Madam Pince and smiled as pleasantly as we possibly could.
"Good morning, Madam Pince," Daphne greeted her first.
"A highly debatable assertion, young people."
"Could you tell us where we might find Jean-Baptiste Gilbert's work Felix Felicis: Luck a Step from Death?"
"And on what grounds should I hand you an instruction manual for such an extravagant method of ending one's life? A most inelegant one, incidentally," said Madam Pince, adjusting her glasses and fixing us with a stern look.
"Inelegant?" The librarian's perspective on this intrigued me.
"Explosions, shockwaves, decomposing vapours, internal organs mixed with intestinal matter scattered across the room—" she enumerated in a level tone, but seeing that this produced no negative reaction from us whatsoever — only agreeable nods — she exhaled. "Very well. Professor Snape warned me about this."
Madam Pince reached beneath her desk and produced, a moment later, a rather thick book that was at least a hundred years old, and handed it to us.
"If I find that you have treated this copy with anything less than proper respect, you will have only yourselves to blame. This book is for in-library reading."
"Thank you," we said simultaneously, and made our way deeper into the library, threading past rows of tables entirely occupied by students.
"It seems," I couldn't help but observe, "that it's beginning to dawn on people that exams are coming."
"It does rather," Daphne said, wearing the faint public smile, and cast a quick glance around as we picked our way towards a free table by the window in the very last row. "There have never been end-of-year exams before, and here we are again."
We settled at the table, directly in the still-sharp rays of the morning sun, and began working through the book, occasionally noting important points in our exercise books. The particular atmosphere of a library reigned around us — nothing but the rustle of pages and a chorus of quills, pencils, and pens scratching against parchment filling the space, rendering Madam Pince marginally less miserable. Only marginally — her gaze had at least stopped actively striking people down. A figure of speech, yes, but those she chose to target never quite saw it that way.
After some two hours of concentrated work — the number of students around us had not diminished, and in fact had grown, as the older years who normally slept through this hour or idled it away began drifting in. The library was large, though, and could accommodate the entire school at once without particular difficulty. On which note — glancing at Daphne, who was sitting almost right beside me, I said quietly:
"Has it ever struck you that the library might be under an Undetectable Extension Charm?"
Daphne stopped writing and considered this for a brief moment, looking around appraisingly. Then considered it again.
"It very well might be..."
The conversation might have continued, but the twins appeared at our table — moving quickly, though impeccably quietly.
"Morning," they said in unison.
"May we?" Fred thought to check, seeing I wasn't alone.
I considered it. I had already shown Daphne the phoenix, so gradually extending the degree of trust on my end seemed reasonable — and I'd find out in time whether she'd extend the same in return.
"Yes, of course," I said, with a smile.
The twins promptly dropped into the seats across from us, glanced at Daphne — who gave them courteous attention — registered my expression of complete readiness to listen, shrugged, and laid a privacy charm complex across our table. That produced a flicker of genuine interest from Daphne — she set down her writing things and settled in for a conversation.
"Right then." The twins placed a thick sheaf of bound papers on the table — an assortment of parchment, exercise-book pages, and loose sheets folded to size.
Fred had clearly elected to lead the negotiations.
"We've prepared everything — all the ideas, thoughts, proposals. And the contract, in two copies."
George glanced furtively around and produced the tip of a Blood Quill from his bag — not something the professors approved of at Hogwarts, and firmly on the Banned List. Presumably to prevent students from binding each other ten times over with vague and unenforceable obligations.
"Not wasting any time, are you," I said, smiling.
A flick of my wand, and I Transfigured a scrap of paper into a small cloth pouch, placed an Undetectable Extension Charm on it, fixed the configuration in my mind with a couple of formulae, and held the pouch next to my bag, drawing the Galleons out in a thin stream until the right amount had collected.
"Fred—"
"Yes, George?"
"Do you ever get the feeling, standing next to our friend Hector here, that we're the Muggle-borns?"
"You know, George, it does occur to me occasionally."
I set the pouch on the table and picked up the sheaf — a thick bundle of mismatched notes, drafts and sketches, all relating either to artefact concepts or to sales, marketing, and distribution schemes. The contract, on inspection, was drafted with precision and clarity. Whatever anyone might say about the twins, they were categorically not fools.
"Everything's in order," I said, smiling. "Shall we sign?"
"Obviously!"
We added our signatures quickly using the Blood Quill — a genuine one; I could feel it clearly — took our respective copies, and tucked them into bags and satchels.
"You have no idea how much you've helped us out," George said, grinning. "We could practically skip the exams at this point—"
"Come on, lads," I said, shaking my head with a smirk. "Don't upset Mrs Weasley. Sit those exams. I'm quite certain you could get top marks in a great many subjects without breaking a sweat. Not for yourselves — for her."
The twins clearly wanted to laugh it off, but seeing no humour in my expression, they exchanged a glance.
"We'll—"
"Think about it. We definitely will," Fred finished for both of them. "See you, Hector."
They made a swift exit, trailing the disapproving gaze of Madam Pince behind them.
"Will you tell me?" Daphne asked, watching me with curiosity and evident readiness to listen. Which was pleasant.
"Nothing particularly remarkable. You know the twins want to open their joke shop?"
"Only the deaf and blind don't know that. Honestly, they've already got nearly everything they need."
"Except the physical premises."
"That's true," she nodded.
"So I gave them the missing sum. With a condition, naturally. They'll sell my products in their shop and handle the clients. I should say upfront — artefacts. I've had a hobby since third year, you could call it."
"Hmm... Those artefacts that warm things, and the other small bits and pieces?"
"Those ones."
Daphne smiled.
"And how many more secrets do you have."
"As you can see, the number is gradually decreasing. I hadn't planned to tell anyone until after Hogwarts, but circumstances change."
"They do."
A faint thoughtfulness crossed Daphne's face, and then we returned to the book. Meanwhile, at the edge of my mind, a thoroughly dwarven thought was taking shape — seasoned with the newly accessible possibilities of storm energy, and more specifically one of its expressions: lightning. That thought, working in concert with the rest, was dredging up images from the memories of a past life — films, mostly — and the result was an increasingly irresistible desire to forge the finest hammer in all the worlds. Just for the mischief of it, the spectacle, the sheer absurdity. I'd be the local God of Hammers. Why not? It seemed likely that in the coming weeks I would have no free time whatsoever.
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