Capítulo 1087: 5
Chapter 5: Buck Up and Study
The next morning, Harry woke up in high spirits. After a quick shower, he went to the Common room to find Hermione waiting for him. "Let's go find Ron."
They found him – surprise, surprise – in the Great Hall, wolfing down his breakfast with abandon. Harry sat near him and took one of the last pancakes. Then looked at the food item and remembered a curious fact.
"Elves."
"Wha?" Ron mumbled before swallowing noisily. Hermione winced.
"I said 'Elves'. The food is prepared by house-elves."
"Of course it is, young Potter," Sir Nick said, floating nearby. "Here is the largest elven commune in Britain."
There was a loud crash from Hermione's direction. She looked at the remains of her plate in a mix of disgust and surprise.
"Hermione, are you okay?" Harry asked, pushing his own plate away.
"Sir Nicholas, about the house elves…" Hermione trailed off. The ghost looked at her.
"What is it, Miss Granger?"
"Are they paid?" she asked finally. Both Ron and Sir Nick snorted.
"Paid? Elves?" Nick snorted again. "What's next – days off? Pension and insurance? Don't be ridiculous, young miss."
Hermione's face could as well be carved from stone.
"Slavery … This food is the result of slavery?!" she stood up and Harry followed.
"Sir Nick, how do we get to the kitchens?" he asked. Ron looked at him and Hermione as if they were refusing some sort of absolute prize. To be fair, in his view we were probably doing precisely that,Harry thought wryly.
"Ah… to the left in the grand staircase, then down to the first underground level, corridor to the right, second painting to your left, tickle the pear," the ghost said slowly. Harry nodded to him and, grabbing Hermione's hand, told Ron:
"Take our schedules, will you? We will be in the kitchens."
He nodded dumbly and they left.
Following Nick's directions, Harry quickly found himself in the needed corridor.
"A pear on a painting ... Tickle the pear. But which one?" he asked, looking at the portraits nearby. Nearly all of them pictured food. Groaning, he proceeded to tickle all the pears he could see. Finally, a pear on the painting that depicted a large vase of fruits giggled and turned into a handle.
"This is undoubtedly number two in the top of unusual doors in this school," he shook his head and grabbed the handle. "The first being the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets"
Hermione snorted and he opened the door.
Immediately he was assaulted by an avalanche of sounds and smells, and stopped cold, nearly stunned by its intensity. Fortunately, after a moment the noise vanished. It reminded him of elementary school and how the kids there would do thunderous mayhem without the teacher in class, but the moment he returns, the class becomes silent as the grave.
Shaking off the memory, he entered fully and looked around.
I see small people.
Well, he saw elves, a damn lot of them. Sir Nick wasn't joking when he said that there was the largest community in Britain right in the castle. And all of them looked at Harry with their large, unblinking eyes, in complete silence.
It was creepy as hell.
Then in one motion that had him staggering, they jumped and ran to him as if he was in a B-movie about a House Elf Zombie Apocalypse, the only difference being that instead of "Brrraainns!" they were screaming lines like "How can I service the young Master?" or "Would yous like some tea?".Damn it, Harry thought, looking around at their eager faces and clutching his heart, they are certainly out to kill me.
But then Hermione intervened, bless her bushy hair. She started to ask the little buggers about the precise details of their work while her shell-shocked friend was calming himself and looking around.
Most of the kitchen was the right size for a human being, which seemed to him to be fairly impractical from a normal wizard's point of view. If you trust your servant, why not make his work easier? There were a few answers to that question, none of them very nice. The best and most probable answer was that no one thought of this. The wizard folk were very illogical, which was a traditional subject of Hermione's occasional rants. "Why use your brain when you have magic?" Harry personally thought that wizards had their own logic.
Nevertheless, Harry didn't particularly care what had been going through the heads of those who had built the kitchens. For his purposes the current circumstances were ideal. He turned to a dejected-looking Hermione and the horde of elves that looked at her with horror and complete confusion. When he listened to Hermione's words he nearly laughed. She wanted to free them! Well, it seemed a noble goal, but a difficult one seeing that the elves themselves didn't want that. Harry coughed, summoning their attention.
"Hermione, you should look up House-Elves in the library before charging off… but I didn't come here for this. Guys, I want to cook for myself."
The effect was rather comical. The little buggers tried their hardest to persuade him not to turn down their services, wailing about how their bad work dissuaded him from their food and promising to do better. Honestly, he couldn't put a word in – all of them at once were crying, begging and whatever else they thought about doing. In the background Hermione stood looking at him with pride as if he decided to do that because of her newest crusade for the rights of house elves. His experience with McGonagall's Elf helped him a great deal in the resulting argument. In the end the house elves gave up and showed him a place to cook in the corner where he won't be in the way. To his great surprise, Hermione stood right next to him with a mix of uncertainty and determination on her face.
"Uhm... Harry, do you know how to cook?" she asked. The boy lifted an eyebrow.
"Duh. You don't, I take it?"
She shrugged sheepishly.
"I didn't think it would be needed so early in my life, and so..." Harry nodded in understanding. "Can you teach me?"
Harry chuckled and nodded again. Then he turned towards the elves and shouted:
"Hey guys, where do you keep the eggs?"
Ten minutes later they sat at one of the tables that were in the kitchen, enjoying breakfast (a simple affair of fried eggs and some toast with pumpkin juice) and chatting about classes. The tables – five of them – greatly resembled the tables in the Great Hall. Harry's hypothesis was that somehow the tables were used to transport the food from kitchens during meals. Now, though, breakfast was over and they were clear.
"I wonder what Snape will take points for this year," Harry mused, wincing and biting into the lone remaining toast. "'Weasley, you are breathing in class! 5 points from Gryffindor!' Or, perhaps, 'Potter! You have dared to brew a potion that differs in colour from the medical grade example. 10 points for being a glory-seeking dimwit!'"
"'Buffoon and dunderhead'." Hermione added in an absent-minded tone. The boy goggled at her with shock while she stared at him with the same expression.
Hermione made a joke.
Hermione made a funny joke.
Hermione made a funny joke about a teacher.
What is wrong with this picture?!
Of course, this was exactly the moment when Ron entered the kitchen. Seeing his friends, he quickly walked over to them.
"Harry, Hermione, I have our timetables, and they suck! We better move, 'cause we have Potions with Slytherins in about twelve minutes!"
That drew their attention. They simultaneously grabbed the timetables Ron held in his hand and looked them through. Seeing a confirmation to Ron's words, Harry stood up and took off at full speed only hissing "Shit, shit, shit," timing it so that an expletive was uttered on every fourth stride. Ron and Hermione soon followed his example, bar the cursing part.
Approximately eleven minutes and forty seconds later they were standing near the door of Snape's domain. 'The Bat-cave', as Terry Boot dubbed it once.
Harry stood and held himself by the wall, catching his breath from the run. Ron fared a bit worse than him – having Oliver-The-Taskmaster as Quidditch captain tended to make you at least marginally fit. You wouldn't survive otherwise. Hermione was absolutely crashing down – she was a strong girl, having to drag her bag around the school (Harry carried it to the Common room from the library once. He still couldn't understand how in blazes she managed to do it all day), but she couldn't run well at all.
Malfoy stood opposite them, Crabbe and Goyle at his sides and Parkinson behind him. He glared at Harry, but didn't say anything.Interesting – maybe my little rant back on the train persuaded him to kindly leave me alone? If so, then Christmas has come early. If not … well, even a brief mercy of not suffering his presence is a present to cherish. Malfoy was all hot air and big words, yes, but that didn't deter him from being incredibly annoying.
After a couple of minutes of waiting, the door opened by itself. Shrugging in a resigned manner, Harry entered the class. Snape wasn't visible.
Glancing around to verify that the Potions professor hadn't just hidden in a corner to frighten unaware Gryffindors by jumping out with a scream, he walked to his usual seat and proceeded to take his things out of the bag. The other students followed.
In another minute, when everyone was seated, Snape smashed the door leading to his office open and walked into the class, glaring at the students, cape-a-billowing. Harry looked at him and noticed an obvious fact that somehow eluded him until this very moment.
Snape was a drama queen.
Not just a queen – a full-blown diva! If Harry had to guess the potions professor waited until everyone was seated to enter with the maximum epicness (was that a word? Ah well, it suited) possible.Seriously, look at that cape! Harry shook his head and tried his hardest to repress his smile, meeting limited success in this endeavour.
"All of you by now assuredly have learned the elementary skills needed for potion making. Some, however..." Snape looked at Harry and Neville pointedly. "...wouldn't be here if the exams weren't cancelled last year."
Slytherins snickered while Harry maintained a stony expression.
"Today, you will brew the Fire-Proof Concoction, used for the long-term thermal protection of wood. Without it we would have to replace a table in this classroom after every lesson with Longbottom present. Instructions are on the board. Begin!"
All-in-all, nothing had changed from last year. Snape stalked between the rows, sometimes making a cutting remark to a Gryffindor or giving quiet advice to a Slytherin. Of course, he vanished Harry's potion about five minutes away from the end of the lesson, citing it completely off the mark. Sure, it wasn't precisely lime green and was slightly darker and its vapours were fainter than needed, but it was satisfactory. Not that Snape cared about Harry's concoction's quality.
The boy in question exited the dungeons half-amused and half-annoyed. He absently noted that it was significantly better than what he felt after Potions last year. His new idea to view Snape's antics from the point 'what will the King of Drama show us this time?' did wonders to his Snape-tolerance levels.
He glanced at the timetable and shook his head.Mondays this year will be very difficult, what withDouble Potions, Transfiguration and Arithmancy. He glanced at Ron, who was walking beside him and just now ended a monologue about Snape and his bias. Hermione was mostly silent, only sometimes interrupting him with a traditional "Language, Ronald."
"Ron, listen what I just noticed..."
While they were walking to Transfiguration, Harry told his friends about his observations and subsequent decision to view professor Snape as, basically, a source of amusement. Of course, Hermione didn't particularly approve of him calling a member of staff 'a moody child in an adult's body', but even she admitted that this was better than taking offence at the professor's attitude and earning a detention.
When they entered the Transfiguration classroom Hermione remembered that she wanted to see for herself if Harry's boasts about his recently found prowess in Transfiguration held any amount of truth. Personally, she hoped that Harry wasn't just bragging, but she couldn't quite believe it without seeing it for herself.
After a couple of minutes of waiting, professor McGonagall finally showed up.
"Today, we begin the third year of Hogwarts Transfiguration course. The main subject of this year is Inanimate to Animate transformations. As usual, I will explain the basic theory that you need to know before we make the first steps. Let us begin."
The next half an hour was spent furiously writing down everything that professor McGonagall said. Periodically Hermione glanced at Harry, who sat there and just listened, only sometimes bothering to write down an especially crucial point.
"Harry!" she hissed. "Why aren't you writing?"
Immediately she started scribbling even faster, catching up with the professor's speech. Harry snorted.
"I hate pointless writing, and almost everything she says is either something that I know instinctively, or something she told me this summer, or plain common sense. If I hear anything new, I write it down."
She threw him an affronted look, but left him alone. He didhave a point.
Finally, McGonagall was done with her lecture. She flicked her wand at a box on her table, sending pincushions flying to each student's desks, briskly tasking them to transfigure their pincushions into a hedgehog till the end of the period.
Hermione took out her wand and practiced the needed incantation and movement. After she was sure that she got it perfectly, she looked at the pincushion and clearly pronounced the spell, swishing her wand in the taught elliptic pattern and visualizing the change. The pincushion grew legs, became grey and tried to escape. The girl frowned and tried again after cancelling the transfiguration. This time the hedgehog was almost complete – for some reason it was headless. Another try and it was perfect.
"Very well, miss Granger; ten points to Gryffindor!" the professor said from the front of the class as she moved to check on Dean Thomas' work. Hermione beamed and looked at her friends. Ron was glaring daggers at his pincushion, which had a couple of wiggling legs and was somehow red. Also, were those fins? Harry, however...
Harry was looking at his hedgehog serenely, twirling his wand in his fingers and periodically adding something to the poor animal – like turning its mouth into a crocodile's maw or growing it another pair of legs. And he did it all silently and with only a flick of his wrist.
"Harry, what are you doing?"
"Huh?" he waved his wand and the poor hedgehog's tail grew and became a snake, which immediately started to hiss at him. "Just messing around - I'm bored. Why you cheeky little... appendage…"
"How are you doing this? When did you finish the task?" Hermione watched his lazy manipulations with fascination – he was transfiguring the animal with such ease...
"As soon as it was given," he cancelled the transformations and gave her a mockingly insulted glare. Then he turned to the hedgehog, narrowed his eyes and after a dozen of quick spells turned what was once a poor, innocent pincushion into something distinctly Lovecraftian.
"Ahem," they turned to see professor McGonagall standing right behind them.
She looked at Harry sternly, and he shrank slightly under the glare.
"Mister Potter, it seems to me that you have already aced the practical side of this lesson. Having said that, I believe I told all of you in the first lesson in your first year that you do not mess with transfiguration."
Harry looked like he wanted to gulp.
"Do not play around in this classroom, Mr. Potter. Transfiguration is not a toy."
Harry nodded quickly, and professor McGonagall walked away to correct Parvati, who somehow managed to make the pincushion grow a rat's tail.
After the lesson ended, the trio started talking about the amount of homework McGonagall promised to unleash upon them. Hermione shortly ran off to make a study schedule, proclaiming that without it they were doomed.
When time came to go to Arithmancy she met Harry and Ron near the class and passed them the schedules. Harry took out his timetable and compared it to her work.
"Making the schedule wasn't that hard – it helped that we signed up for same courses and therefore still had identical timetables. Sure, I missed lunch, but it was worth it."
"Oh boy," Harry breathed. "Hermione, are you sure that we will have to dedicate so much time to it?" he asked in a tiny voice. She nodded.
"I looked at the coursework. The amount of theory that we will need to learn is staggering. Any less time for learning and we will not succeed," she said authoritatively. He sighed.
"This year is going to suck."
"Language!"
Arithmancy was every bit as brilliant as Hermione hoped and just as difficult as Ron dreaded. Professor Vector seemed to be a fair and stern teacher who loved her subject, not unlike professor McGonagall.
"Arithmancy is a key to all magic," she said in the beginning of the lesson. "Along with Ancient Runes, this course will help you to understand your magic much better than before."
Ron was wearing a resigned expression, obviously expecting a lot of homework on this subject and dreading it. Harry seemed slightly wary as well, but he definitely was interested. Hermione, on the other hand, was starry-eyed.
"This year, we will mostly research the complex rules of maths and the magical properties of different numbers, along with the basics of numerology. Next year we will learn the complex craft of statistical prediction and using Arithmancy as a tool to predict events. During your fifth year, we will begin researching spells using the skills you will have learned, analysing them and writing spell formulas of growing complexity and depth. Those of you who will take the NEWT level Arithmancy course will be taught spell creation – you will learn how to create magic that is absolutely and wholly yours! That is a goal that is worth pursuing by any self-respecting wizard or witch!"
Hermione glanced smugly at her friends. Ron was slightly calmer now, and Harry looked at professor Vector with rapt attention. The expression on his face was familiar to her – he wore it every time he saw a spell or a piece of theory that he deemed worth learning. It meant that he was going to do his hardest to study, and as one to know the strength of his willpower, she immediately knew that she would have to make some additional time for Arithmancy in their study schedule.
The lesson itself was an introductory one. Professor Vector explained the short version of why numbers could influence magic. The 'short' explanation occupied the whole lesson, and professor mentioned that the long version will be taught in the beginning of fifth year.
"Well, what do you think?" Hermione asked when the trio got out of the class. Ron winced and rubbed his neck with his left hand.
"Sure, what she said sounds awesome, but it will be just so much work… And to think that we could be at Divination instead," he trailed off. Harry lifted his eyebrow at him.
"It was brilliant!" he said firmly. "Personally, I don't think that wasting my time on Divination is better than working my arse off on Arithmancy…"
"Language."
"…What I think is that learning Arithmancy will be great!" he paused and frowned, remembering their next period. "Anyway, what do you think we will cover in Defence this year?"
"The Ministry guidelines say that we have Dark Creatures this year."
They entered the Common room and were immediately intercepted by Oliver Wood.
"Hey, Harry, we've got the trials Sunday morning," he said brightly.
"Hi Ollie. Trials? Why? Currently, we've got the best team in Hogwarts skill-wise, and don't forget our terrific teamwork – I don't think that any changes in status-quo would be beneficial." Harry noted and blinked.That sentence had far too many syllables.
"True, however, we need to look for potential. It can't hurt, can it?" Wood shrugged. Harry scratched his chin in thought.
"That makes sense. Very well, I'll be there."
"I'll go see the others, then. See you on the pitch!" with a jovial wave Wood departed. Immediately Hermione dragged the boys to the closest free table.
"Well, we best get started!"
"What, now? It's the first day of school, Hermione!" Ron whined. Harry didn't say anything, but his grimace clearly expressed his view on studying right now.
"And we already have a lot of homework!" she countered.
Ron sat down and started rummaging through his bag with a disgruntled expression. Harry sighed in a resigned tone and followed his example.
"Yeah. Do you think it is better to start with Arithmancy or Transfiguration?" he asked, looking though the study schedule.
"I say we do Potions first," was the suggestion. Harry looked up and nodded slowly.
"Get it out of the way, right? Good idea."
Tuesday that year was a day of relaxation, it seemed. Double Defence against the Dark Arts with Hufflepuffs and double Care for Magical creatures with Slytherins – both were mostly practical, which was a true blessing – Merlin knows Harry had more than his fair share of theory workload that year.
So it was with a spring in his steps that he approached the Defence classroom. It appeared that he trio was the first to arrive. Glancing to the left and right to confirm that Ron and Hermione were right behind him, he carefully opened the door and stepped inside, looking around.
In their first year, the walls there were plastered with pictures of different magical fauna and the classroom reeked of garlic, creating tremendous headaches. Quirrell's stuttering didn't help at all. Come to think of it, neither did Voldemort's presence.
In the second year the room had a second-degree Lockhart contamination. His damn portraits were all over the walls, smiling and waving at students. The teacher could also cause headaches, but he did not need a speech impediment or vegetable cologne. He managed it through sheer pompousness.
This year the classroom lacked any and all personal effects. The only thing that looked to be suspicious was the violently shaking drawer in the middle of the room. It either contained something that will be studied today, or professor Lupin managed to do something that required a level of stupidity that even Lockhart hadn't managed and locked himself inside without a wand.
"Hello-o!" Harry called just in case. No one answered.
"Why did you do that?" Hermione asked, looking at him as if he grew horns and started to dance the cancan while singing 'Ave Maria'.
"Why indeed, Mr. Potter?"
They whirled around. Professor Lupin stood just inside the doorway to his personal quarters, peering at their fidgeting forms in restrained amusement.
"Well frankly, sir, I did it just in case it was you who was locked in there," Harry nodded towards the rocking and jumping drawer. Lupin raised an eyebrow.
"And why, pray tell, would you suspect such a thing?"
"With Defence professors, you can never be sure about anything," was the deadpan answer. The Professor's eyebrow raised a bit more in response. "If a professor looks like he won't harm a fly," Harry continued explaining, "He's extremely dangerous. If he is an insufferable buffoon, he is the kind of fool that decides that jumping on a bottle labelled "Nitro-glycerine" is asmashing idea. Therefore, if I see shaking furniture in the Defence classroom, I will expect that something dangerous and/or strange happened and most likely it involves the teacher."
Lupin stared at him for a couple of seconds and then chuckled.
"Five points to Gryffindor for your commendable caution, Mr. Potter," he said after his laughter receded. "Now, while we wait for the rest of the class, take a seat."
Hermione looked like she didn't know whether to snort or swat Harry. In the end, she did both.
After the students finally got to the class, Lupin coughed awkwardly and after a quick roll-call started the lesson.
"Well, the subject of today's lesson is a creature called the boggart. Does anyone know what it is exactly? Yes, Miss Granger," he nodded to Hermione, who obviously had her hand in the air the moment Lupin asked his question.
"A boggart is a half-spiritual creature that can be found in abandoned dwellings, especially magical ones. No one knows how a boggart really looks like because when approached it takes form of a person's greatest fear as a defence mechanism."
"5 points to Gryffindor. All of that is true. Boggarts are really very shy creatures, very afraid of everything they see. So to protect themselves, they transform into something that is most likely to make the aggressor leave them well alone. However, a boggart can be repelled through negating this very defence and turning it around."
"What do you mean, sir?" Susan Bones asked.
"Laughter," Professor Lupin answered succinctly. "It is a boggart's greatest fear. Due to its nature, a boggart's appearance can be modified to be humorous. The incantation for this isRiddikulus.Repeat after me…"
"Riddikulus," the class mumbled.
"Good. Now, in this drawer…" he indicated the mentioned piece of furniture, which continually drew wary looks. "…is a boggart. You will face him one at a time, using the spellRiddikulus to morph the boggart into something funny. Now, form a line!"
A couple of minutes later it was Harry's turn to face the boggart that has so far nearly reduced Lavender to silent terror and shaking and made nearly everybody deathly pale. Oh well, it was worth seeing Snape in those ridiculous clothes. Harry almost couldn't believe that Lupin had actually pranked Snape (and yes, it was a deliberate prank – he clearly saw a mischievous smile on Lupin's face before he advised Neville on how best to counter the boggart). Harry walked to the stumbling Acromantula and waited for a moment. The boggart paused and looked at him. Then it vanished in a swirl of grey smoke. When it cleared, the boy sharply sucked a breath in.
A dementor.
Of course. Nothing and absolutely nothing spooks me just as much as the soul-eating demons. He couldn't even move his hand up to defend himself, all of his being paralyzed with overwhelming fear. Later he was told that it was only a couple of seconds before Lupin interfered, but to him, it felt like hours.
"Riddikulus!"
The aura of despair immediately vanished. The black cape of the dementor became eye-watering pink with silver stars and unicorns. A long lime-green beard appeared out of the cowl. The boggart stopped, confused. Harry shook his head and to his surprise found himself on his knees. When had I fallen? He looked at the creature and grimaced. Now that he thought about it, a Dumbledore-ish dementor was a rather amusing idea.
"Thank you, sir. It… overwhelmed me."
Lupin, who stood in a couple of meters from him and stared at the confused boggart, nodded and, after helping him to his feet, called:
"Next!"
Harry sat at the table in the kitchens with Ron and Hermione opposite to him. Ron decided to follow their example and eat downstairs so he had their company during dinner at least, but he firmly refused to cook for himself. The elves were visibly relieved and it looked like they hoped that Ron will persuade his friends to eat the food they have cooked like everybody else. Yeah, right. Harry didn't trust the little blighters and had already started looking up basic property protection and anti-theft charms so that they wouldn't touch his things and his mistrust wasn't likely to recede in the near future. And Hermione, while being of the opposite opinion about the house elves, took to cooking for herself with vigour that she usually had while studying.
"Well, it went well," Ron said, fortunately without any food in his mouth. "I mean, Professor Lupin is pretty good from what we've seen."
Harry nodded and swallowed the fried beef, looking through this week's edition of 'Magical Markets' that was brought to him this morning.
"I agree. However, we should be wary for now. We had only one lesson with him so far, and it is not the time to lay rest to my doubts yet."
"When did you become so paranoid, Harry?" Hermione asked in exasperated voice. He lifted his eyes at her and shrugged.
"It's not paranoia if they are really out to get you. It's just plain common sense."
"Be that as it may, you weren't that suspicious last year, before…" she paused suddenly and after a moment continued slowly. "…Before the Chamber."
Harry swallowed painfully and started coughing. Ron reached across the table and vigorously hit his back.
"Thanks, Ron. Well, being in the centre of a plot that could cost a lot of people their lives could do that to a person."
Hermione looked rather green at the rebuke, remembering how closely she came to death, but let the matter drop.
Care for the Magical Creatures was… well, it was just as they thought it would be. Hagrid, of course, chose a rather dangerous creature for the first lesson, and talked about it as if it was an angel. Harry could admit that when he took off his glasses, it did resemble an angel, but considering the fact that he was nearly blind without his spectacles, it didn't say much.
Of course, he ended up flying the beast. Not that he was complaining – it was different from riding the broom, but great nevertheless.
And naturally, Draco Malfoy decided that he, as a Malfoy, is supposed to inspire great obedience from all the living creatures. Fortunately, he wasn't stupid enough to continue approaching Buckbeak (the hippogriff) when the eagle-horse snarled at him.
The first lesson of Ancient Runes that they had the next day slightly resembled the introductory Arithmancy class. Professor Babbling was very passionate about her subject, if slightly odd. During the first half an hour she insulted the intelligence of her students by saying that only a few in each generation had a true gift in Runes, and it was highly unlikely that they had such a person in this class, proceeded to tell them that they would write their OWLs and receive at the very least Exceed Expectations nevertheless (or else) and finally proceeded to talk about what Ancient Runes were really about.
According to her, what mattered about the Runes was their application in practical magic. Any kind of spell cast by wand, she said, was not permanent. Most times spells would un-weave in a span of hours or days. And when you need a much longer 'lifespan', Babbling proclaimed, you use runes.
"The thing with languages," she lectured, "is that the longer the time they are spoken, the more power there is behind the words. The more passion is conveyed though a word, the more it empowers it. Why do you think we use Latin words as a foundation for incantations? This language hasn't changed in any major way for a rather long time. Of course, there is Egyptian; that makes for powerful magic, or Sanskrit, incantations in which are disturbingly powerful, but we mostly use Latin and Greek for the reason that we instinctively understand what they mean – approximately - and that empowers our spells, shortening the lead Egyptian has. Of course, it is only a simple rule of thumb and the full mechanism is much more complex, but for now this explanation will do. Now, runes: The rules with written language are both different and the same – the more emotion people put in the words they write, the more power the symbols they use gain. And this power accumulates by generations! By the prediction of the Runemaster Guild, the Latin Alphabet will be considered runic in approximately 30 years given how many languages use it with little variation and therefore how many people write in it, despite the fact that it uses combinations of symbols to create words instead of creating separate symbols for different concepts."
Around the middle of that monologue Harry had an idea that just didn't leave his mind.
"Professor Babbling, if I may ask?" seeing her nod, he continued. "The question is not, per se, about runes, but about a thing you mentioned. You said that Sanskrit incantations were extremely powerful."
"Yes, but in order to use them to their full potential you would need to learn Sanskrit," Babbling was staring at him rather pointedly.
Harry nodded and continued.
"There is a language that may very well be older than Sanskrit that I know of and am able to speak. I wondered if…"
"Parseltongue? Well, I'm afraid I cannot help you much with that. I've read somewhere that it makes for rather powerful magic, but further than that..." she trailed off.
"I'll have to look it up. If I have the gift, I might as well use it," Harry said, shrugging sheepishly as the others in class looked at him warily. It seemed that all of Hogwarts, in a unanimous and unspoken way, decided to conveniently forget that he was a Parselmouth after the whole mess with the Chamber was over.
"Now, what was I talking about? Ah, so, the introduction to Runes…"
After the lesson ended Hermione was positively giddy. She just couldn't stop gushing about it the whole way to the kitchens.
"And we will need Runes NEWT for so many jobs! Anything that has a relation to enchanting or wards is based on Runes. Oh, did you hear what she said about the things runes could do?"
"Yeah, she said about brooms being enchanted," Ron said, yawning. Poor guy didn't like the lecture during the second half of the lesson much, saying only that it was extremely difficult to understand. Harry found it tolerable – if only because of Babbling's manner of teaching. She would explain something for ten minutes only to go off to a completely unrelated tangent and start rambling about some sort of highly complex theory that he thought to be Master level stuff.
"Right… I'm so looking forward to learning it, and…"
"Hermione," Harry said slowly and tiredly. "That was a difficult and long lesson, and I've got a headache. Please. No more gushing."
She looked at him in worry, but didn't ramble anymore
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