[Name] Aegeus Granger
[Age] 11 years
[Strength] 14
[Intelligence] 20
[Magic] 16
[Defense] 13
[Control] C
skills
(Ordinary Skills — collapsed, previously maxed)
Linguistics level 3 (12%)
Spells: Level 2 (30%) Charms: Level 2 (28%) Transfiguration: Level 2 (51%) Potions: Level 2 (30%) Astronomy: Level 6 (30%) Arithmancy: Level 8 (45%).
October turned cold fast. The trees went bare, the lake lost its last warmth, and mist hung in the courtyards longer each morning. School life found its own rhythm alongside it.
Lessons with Vance on Tuesday, dueling against a rotating handful of older students. And although he still loses when he gets paired with them, he is starting to land a hit or two before he falls on his back.
In Vance class, still, no one had managed to land a clean hit on him, and the more time passed, the more everyone started to feel like it was something unachievable.
As for Potions, Snape's deviations from Jigger had started to feel less like a puzzle, Aegeus was slowly starting to keep pace with his methods. Herbology and Charms were also progressing nicely.
After that, he mostly did solo drills in whatever room he could claim after classes, the seam in his combos shrinking a little more each week. And much to his disappointment, Derrick had gone completely quiet since the corridor. So he had no chance to test any of that in a real situation.
Rosalind had also begun keeping her own set of notes alongside Aegeus's— not copying his, he had checked, but running a study of her own, comparing Sprout's against the herbology text the same way he compared Snape's against Jigger's.
By the time the last of October gave way to the thirty-first, the castle had already begun putting up the Halloween decorations— carved pumpkins floating along the entrance hall ceiling, live bats looping through the rafters of the Great Hall, the House tables groaning under more food than Aegeus had ever seen on a single table.
He took his usual seat between Marcus and Rosalind, the Gryffindor table already loud with the chaos of several hundred students being grouped together in the same place.
"That," Marcus announced, gesturing grandly with a chicken leg before taking a massive bite, "is the best thing about living in the castle. End of discussion."
"No one is discussing anything with you."
"I felt like you were going to argue."
"I was only looking at the bats," Aegeus said, watching one loop low over the Ravenclaw table before peeling off toward the enchanted ceiling, where the ordinary night sky had been replaced with something darker and more theatrical— thick cloud, a fat orange moon, the occasional streak of comets. "They aren't real."
Marcus paused, fork halfway to his mouth. "Of course they aren't real; they're a decoration"
"No, I mean they don't have shadows."
Rosalind, who had been quietly working through a plate of roast potatoes with far more restraint than Marcus, glanced up at the ceiling and then back down. "He's right. Watch them when they are by the candlelight."
"Yeah? So what?" said Marcus, uncaring.
"It means they are neither a transfiguration nor a conjuration; I wonder what they are..." said Rosalind.
Later that night, long after the pumpkin pasties had been cleared from the Great Hall and the floating jack-o'-lanterns' flames had burned down to cold ash, Aegeus sat at his desk in the quiet Gryffindor dormitory, a fresh sheet of parchment unrolled before him.
It wasn't his first letter home since arriving in September— he made a point to write every week to keep his parents from worrying— but it was certainly going to be the heaviest parcel he'd sent yet.
Beside his inkwell sat a small, neatly wrapped parcel containing gifts he had managed to secure over the past month. For his parents and for Hermione, whose letters for the past month had arrived via owl with exhausting frequency, filled with endless, rapid-fire questions about magical theory, the library, and courses, he had prepared something far more specific.
He touched the leather-bound, blank notebook he had bought in Hogsmeade through an upperclassman, its pages charmed to stay clean regardless of how many times ink was blotted, along with a small brass bookmark shaped like a phoenix's feather.
Then he dipped his quill and began to write in his neat handwriting:
Dear Mum, Dad, and Hermione,
Happy Halloween. The school went all out for the feast tonight— floating pumpkins in the Great Hall, illusory bats flying through the castle, and enough food to feed a small army. Marcus nearly ate his weight in roast chicken, as usual.
I've enclosed an antique-style brass inkstand for Dad and some candied ginger for Mum. The inkstand has a magic that automatically seals the cap when left for too long, so it won't dry out.
For Hermione, I've sent a brass bookmark and ribbon markers. It can hold pages flat without damaging the spine while you take notes.
And to answer your seventeen questions from your last three letters:
No, the library does not use the Dewey Decimal System. It uses a method based on some Arithmancy logic, which is twice as complicated and far less logical. I'll explain it when I'm home for Christmas.
No, you cannot read my notebooks. And stop pestering Mum to let you stay up past nine to write to me; you can write in the morning after coming back from school.
My classes are going well. Potions remains demanding, but I'm keeping pace.
Don't worry about me. Eat the sweets before Dad finishes them all.
Love,
Aegeus
He folded the parchment, sealed it with red wax, and tied the letter tightly to the small parcel. Carrying it up to the Owlery in the crisp night air, he handed it off to his owl, Lyra, watching it launch into the dark sky toward London.
Hermione would probably have another twenty questions written down by the time Lyra landed on their breakfast table, but for now, the quiet of the castle called him back to sleep.
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TO BE CONTINUED
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