Chapter 17: Chapter 17: Charming Housemates
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2 September 1991, Hogwarts
Afterwards, Harry and the rest of the Slytherins made their way to the charms classroom for their first lesson. Considering Professor Flitwick's reputation as a charms master and a former duelling champion, Harry was especially excited about this lesson.
Finding the Charms classroom was a lot more difficult than the Transfiguration one. Harry encountered his very first moving staircase on the way and ended up getting on the wrong one. Well, it wasn't the wrong one, it was the right staircase, but the wrong exit, somehow. Harry was still very confused about it. Whoever designed this castle had to be high, or something. Because no sane mind would think that this mess was a good way for children to move around. He had almost gotten lost – despite the map – but simply asked one of the portraits for directions, and they were happy to help.
By the end, Harry was able to get to class a couple of minutes early and sat down at the front of his class. He was later joined by Blaise who seemed oddly attached to him for some reason.
Oddly enough, Neville Longbottom and Ron Weasley arrived far later than even the other Gryffindor. Still, Professor Flitwick simply gave them a verbal warning and didn't really chastise them. Well, it was the first day of school, accidents are expected, really.
With everyone having calmed down, the professor jumped on a stack of books with a very impressive sense of balance and introduced himself, "Welcome to your first year of Charms. My name is Filius Flitwick, and I will be your Senior Charms professor for the next few years, which means that we will see each other for quite some time. As you well know, Charms is a core subject that is mandatory for you to have for the next five years. Everyone here will hopefully sit his OWLs in five years, after which you will decide if you wish to continue studying the subject further or not."
Professor Flitwick was short, about as tall as the average first year, which was probably because of his ancestry as a half-goblin. Hybrids of that nature were quite rare, especially because of the Goblin wars that ended barely a century ago. Even then, offspring of mixed races were rare, and Harry didn't want to think about the possible complications that might have happened.
The man looked jovial, and his smile lit the room. Immediately, the entire class was far more comfortable with the half-goblin than they were with Professor McGonagall. Flitwick looked more approachable by the rest of the children, at least compared to McGonagall, whose severe, no-nonsense attitude endeared her to Harry.
The class even burst into laughter when he almost fell down the stack of books he was standing on when he called Longbottom's name. Harry sighed in exasperation as the boy was preening when that happened. People really needed to stop enabling the boy, or he wouldn't amount to anything.
Although, the professor had given Harry an odd fond look when he said his name. Not that it would change anything, really.
After the roll call, Flitwick started lecturing, "The magical field of Charms, by definition, is imbuing a property to an object or a person. As you can imagine, it's a very large field that dabbles with duelling, enchantment, ward building and breaking, and so much more. You can see charms everywhere, and it is without a doubt the most currently used field of magic in the world. We will start today with the simplest charm that every single wizard and witch needs to learn, the wand lighting charm."
With a wave of his wand, the name of the spell appeared on the board, "The wand lighting spell, commonly known as Lumos because of its incantation, is a spell with no wand movement, that charms the end of your wand to light up. Usually, charming a wand in any way is very dangerous, but this charm was perfected in a way that doesn't truly interact with the magic of the wand after being cast. You will study the theory in more depth should you take arithmancy in your third year, but the spell is remarkably easy to cast, yet its theory is remarkably complicated as well."
Flitwick then flicked his wand while saying 'Lumos' and the tip of his wand illuminated itself.
The small professor then continued, "Another characteristic of the spell is the fact that its power output cannot change. You cannot blind someone by overpowering a Lumos charm, but variations of the charm where this restriction is removed can do some serious damage. Now, everyone, take out your wands and flick them while saying the incantation clearly, 'Lumos'."
In a single breath, the entirety of the class spoke the word Lumos loudly. Unexpectedly, a third of the class, including Harry, had the end of their wands light up with white light. Well, that was easier than Transfiguration, that's for sure. Harry's classmates were looking around with wonder, having cast a spell successfully, probably for the first time in their lives.
Although Harry didn't pay attention to their looks, and simply decided to listen for the spell's melody. It was surprisingly beautiful for such a simple spell. It felt more like classical music, in its restriction. But what was more remarkable was the fact that it didn't behave at all like transfiguration. There wasn't any of the chaos and order, just a melody but it wasn't the wand that played it. It sent a command with the energy and the object that played it. In a way, it was a fundamental difference between it and transfiguration. It was like the wand sent the energy and sheet music, but it was the charmed object itself that played the music. The main question was how charms react if the object itself was playing another melody – if it was already charmed.
Harry absentmindedly muttered, 'Nox!' to dispel the light and raised his hand. The Professor immediately called on him, "Professor, how does a charmed object behave if someone adds an additional charm to it?"
The half-goblin let out a proud grin at the question, "What a wonderful question, Mr Potter. It depends on the charm, really. Sometimes the strongest charm wins out, sometimes both chams cancel each other out, and sometimes they can even damage the object. However, there are techniques that can combine charms into layers, which is aptly named, Charm Layering. Alas, this is a far more advanced subject than this year. Take ten points to Slytherin for a very good question."
Harry nodded, satisfied with the Professor's answer. It must depend on the song, really. If the songs harmonize, it would be theoretically possible for the two melodies to be played at once as a single symphony. However, if they don't synchronize, they can either cancel each other out, or just the one with the stronger power source take over.
The Professor then continued to explain the properties of the extinguishing charm, Nox, which can actually cancel out most sources of light, at least if they have been charmed to glow. It doesn't really work on enchanted objects, since they usually have an independent power source powering the enchantment, nor would it work on something like sunlight since it's reapplied. But it is technically possible to extinguish the candle using the charm.
When the Professor started teaching variations of the charms to make the light have different colours, Harry started to hear the difference in each spell and slowly understand it.
Discreetly, by the end of the lesson, Harry had started to slowly modify the Lumos charm to have its colours change on a cycle and was prodding to see which part of its melody handled the power limiter, although to no avail. Spells just felt unstable whenever he changed things willy-nilly, and he chose not to cast any of them, remembering McGonagall's warnings.
Still, it was a fun class that ended too quickly in Harry's opinion, but they were finally done with the classes. It was looking like Monday was going to be Harry's favourite class. Charms and Transfiguration were fascinating. Harry looked down at his schedule and groaned in exasperation. He had most of the classes with the Gryffindors. Why the school tried to encourage this needless rivalry, Harry didn't know.
It was like whoever made that schedule wanted to make the Professors life miserable. Harry didn't miss the obvious glares Longbottom and Malfoy were sending at each other, that's not mentioning Ron Weasley even calling Harry a slimy snake when they hadn't even talked to each other yet.
Still, the Weasley had latched onto Longbottom like some kind of lackey, which wasn't really uncommon, since Malfoy had two of his own. Harry was oddly reminded of stories of gang wars, not schoolyard fights. The sight was so ridiculous it was almost funny.
Also, for some reason, Hermione Granger and Neville Longbottom wouldn't stop glaring at him. He never even talked to them ever before. Well, he did talk to Granger on the plane, but he was perfectly polite and helpful. Sure, the girl might be slightly jealous of Harry's skill with his magic, but the way she looked at him made him really uncomfortable.
Longbottom, on the other hand, was a mystery. They never interacted with one another, not that Harry particularly cared about a spoilt boy that was probably going to be hunted down by the not so dead Dark Lord that killed his parents.
Harry really wished that he won't be constantly glared at for most of his lessons. At least the theoretical lessons were with the Junior professors. It turned out that it was impractical to have a single professor be responsible for the classes of every single student in every single house. There are over two hundred pre-OWL students in the castle, which means that each teacher will have to give out and correct assignments for every single one of them. That's not mentioning the NEWT students and practical classes. So, each core class Professor can have up to three Junior professors that help them mark grades and give out non-critical lessons. Although OWL and NEWT students were handled entirely by the Senior professors to prepare for their exams. That meant that half of Harry's classes were taught by these Junior Professors, not that Harry have ever met them.
Curiously enough, the defence against the dark arts teachers was not given to junior professors. Harry heard a rumour from Blaise that the curse actually impacted the junior professors as well, which ended up with two dead teachers and a severely injured one. So, Dumbledore elected to only have a single Defense professor, 'because it was traditional'. It's not like Dumbledore could publicly say that he was worried that each year would end with a small massacre of defence professors.
Still, Harry removed all thoughts of defence curses. He had a date with the most wonderful place in Hogwarts. The most beautiful, that's for sure. He wanted to find the infamous Hogwarts Library. Harry went to the Great Hall to get some lunch and asked one of the seniors where the library was. After memorizing its supposed location on the first floor, Harry walked around asking paintings for directions until he found its doors. Harry drew the entrance on his map and with a deep breath, stepped through the open door.
The room was vast, with towering bookshelves stretching up to the ceiling and winding staircases leading to upper levels. The shelves were filled with books of all shapes and sizes, some old and tattered, others new and gleaming.
The room was dimly lit, with the only source of light coming from the flickering candles on the desks and the chandeliers hanging from the ceiling.
As Harry wandered through the shelves, he was amazed by the sheer volume of books that surrounded him. The covers of the books were diverse, some leather-bound with gold lettering, while others had brightly coloured covers with intricate designs.
Harry took a deep breath. The air was thick with the scent of old parchment and leather-bound books. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
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