• October 14th, 7:45 PM •
[Cassius White/Black]
Cassius dragged himself back toward the common room, feeling a sense of disconnection between his body and mind. He felt out of sync. His body was in tip-top shape—energetic and ready for another physical training session. His mind, though? He felt exhausted, and just really, really spent. Like thinking was an effort he'd rather not have to make.
He knew the reason for this, of course. He and pretty much everyone in Hogwarts had been feeling like this.
'And that's not even the worst part', he thought, sighing as he passed yet another sarcastic group of talking paintings.
"Look at him. You'd think he was working in a field all day without any help."
"I know. We fought wars, and even we didn't have that miserable expression."
"And they have Hogwarts healing them. They eat three to four times a day. Some even more. What else could they need?"
"You don't have to remind me. The best food I've ever eaten was in these halls…"
"Of course it is! Our house elves are professional cooks."
"Absolutely. Did you know they still have some recipes from Helga Hufflepuff herself?"
"Truly?"
"Of course…"
Cassius ignored them until they drifted from the topic. It was something he'd noticed a little too late, but was a helpful thing to know—talking paintings have the attention span of a teaspoon. If you ignored them, they'd just move on without even noticing. Every time. It was amazing.
'Not that it's easy', he admitted to himself. It was so hard to stop a retort from coming out of his mouth sometimes, but he'd learned the hard way, through repeatedly escalating nonsensical arguments, that this was exactly what they were looking for.
They were bored out of their minds. And if by some miracle you won? Well, that was a one-way ticket to having to deal with Peeves's pranks and whiny, moody paintings.
So yes, ignoring them was probably the smart thing to do. Even if he wanted to point out that none of them had ever experienced what he was feeling right now… but they'd just call him a crybaby brat or something.
He wasn't. He really believed he wasn't. Not because his ego was inflated, but because the training regime was designed to make one feel that way. And it alternated, too. One week for mind exhaustion, another for magic, and the following for body.
It was supposed to get them used to varying degrees of situations and teach them how to deal with it.
Not that I can see how this would ever be helpful, he thought, a slow, dry chuckle leaving his lips as he turned left—
And stopped dead in his tracks.
There was a student sleeping on the floor. Or at least he thought the guy was sleeping, especially since he knew that with all the new enchantments, death inside these halls was a very hard thing to achieve…
Cassius let out a soft groan as he nudged the leg of the guy sleeping in the middle of the corridor. He didn't know who this was. The bloke was sleeping face down on the cold hard floor and wasn't wearing his house robe. All he wore was a tracksuit and trainers—something Professor Dumbledore had provided for everyone in school.
"Ugh… five more minutes," the guy groaned.
Cassius nudged him once more, then just shook his head and decided to continue his walk. He didn't have the energy to deal with that.
'The flesh is willing but the spirit is weak', he thought, snorting at how stupid that sounded. He could think of something that neither his spirit nor his flesh was ever weak enough to do, but…
'Ah, who gives a fuck'. He shook his head.
It took him three more minutes of walking and two more of standing on the shifting stairs, waiting for them to return to the correct course because someone thought it would be funny to cast a confusion spell on them.
They hadn't been back to normal since this afternoon.
'Damn you, George Weasley.'
After finally arriving in his common room, he walked toward the corner underneath the stairs, where a small armchair was set up. He threw himself down on it and just relaxed.
Not physically—he still felt like he could run a marathon, which he probably could after all the training—but mentally. Sitting down allowed him to stay calm, and that helped free a little space for his brain to squeeze a few more cells together to try and reconcile what was happening.
It was a confusing feeling, to be mentally spent yet physically ready to party.
"Cassius! There you are."
He lifted his head to see who was calling for him. Neville Longbottom walked toward him—one of the few people around Hogwarts who seemed to blossom thanks to the intense physical training.
"What is it, Neville?" He asked, his voice coming out all lazy and drawn out. He sounded more drunk than tired.
"I wanted to ask if your ranking has changed. Did you not receive a notification?"
"What notification?" He focused on Neville, raising his left eyebrow as he summoned his Archive screen.
Bloody hell, he muttered to himself as he saw the number on the notification tab.
Neville walked away for some reason as he saw him move his fingers and click on the screen, but Cassius didn't pay much attention to that. He was more focused on the announcements and notifications he'd missed.
I might need to adjust the notification settings again. Seems I missed something important…
Clicking on the first icon, a new screen popped up. He read it and dismissed it right after.
[Last Clarification for the Ranking System Qualification]
-The ranking system is a sub-system of the Archive that uses the data collected by the Archive to evaluate and assign ranks to every user…
After dismissing the pop-up, he focused on the actual notification.
[Archive Ranking Overview]
He scrolled through all the notes assuring people that the ranking was impartial and that no one could influence it, etc., and just wanted to see if there was anything different this time.
There wasn't. Literally, the only change was a more detailed explanation of how the ranks were determined and more clarification about the significance of the letters, colors, and signs.
"There's nothing new here…" he muttered, his hand moving to tap the (X) button to close the page, but he flinched when he heard Neville's voice coming from next to him.
"I know. Did you read Professor Dumbledore's note? The one where he says that's the last explanation he'll ever post, and that if one still can't understand it after that, then they probably shouldn't be allowed to hold a wand?"
He turned his head to the right, and there he was. Neville, sitting on an armchair of his own.
'So that's why he walked away earlier'… He nodded to himself, understanding the situation.
"Well, he's not wrong." He did his part and continued the conversation like nothing had happened.
"I know. What's so complicated about the ranking system? The Archive is constantly scanning the user and the environment around them, collecting data that are used for various things. One of them is knowing your rank." Neville said, pretty much reciting what he'd read from memory.
"Well, yeah, you say that, but I can see how it would confuse old people." Cassius said casually, giving his opinion. "I mean, when most people see their ranks as the lowest one, no matter what color it is or what sign it has next to it, they'll wonder why…"
"Hmm, I guess," Neville hummed. "But couldn't they just train? Like we moved from red and orange (E-) to being mostly green (E) since we started training, right?"
Cassius shook his head. Neville was kind and slightly naïve. Very talented in combat—he won almost all the first-years' non-magic combat sessions—but he still saw the world from that hopeful, almost kid-like, innocent outlook.
He didn't seem to realize that the only reason they were cutting through training so fast was because of how much effort Professor Dumbledore had made to turn Hogwarts into the ultimate teaching and training cheat.
Cassius knew that the ranks probably mirrored those used in DxD—or at least he thought so. Dumbledore knew about the merger and the beings there, so he'd probably made a rough estimate based on the information he'd given him, with (E) being low class and up from there.
The plus and minus signs were very clear too. Just how solid was your magic, knowledge, physical strength, experience, etc., compared to others of the same rank. This database was ever-expanding, so the ranks were still a little shaky at the moment.
"—Cassius! Cassius!" Neville shook his shoulder slightly, bringing him back to the present.
"Sorry about that. I kind of zoned out," he murmured apologetically, making the guy chuckle and wave him off.
"Eh, don't worry about it. We're all exhausted. It's just that everyone has a different way to deal with it."
"So true." He agreed. "So what else is new?"
"Well, the Archive access levels were explained in an announcement too. But that pretty much depends on a few things: how strong the mind is, how much magic one has, the level of knowledge and mastery one has, and inclination."
"Inclination?" Cassius inquired, tilting his head slightly in confusion.
"Yeah, there was even a funny note from Professor Dumbledore at the end of the explanation that said something like—" Neville paused, rubbing his head. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure it said something like: 'And before you start asking how the Archive determines someone's inclination… no. No, no, no—it was like this —And please refrain from any inane inquiries about how the Archive would know your inclination, as it is a magical construct that's constantly recording everything about you—so it's safe to assume it knows.'"
Cassius blinked, opening his tired eyes fully and looked at his friend. "Really?"
"Yeah… It's funny because it's kind of true, and it just called anyone who will ask that stupid."
"Okay, I can see how that's funny." Cassius conceded. He was sure only Dumbledore could call everyone stupid and get away with it. Still, he made a note to himself to check that later too.
"So do you want to go and play Exploding snap?" Neville asked, looking expectantly at him.
The only reply he received was a deadpan expression, making him chuckle and rub the back of his head.
"Okay, fair. I'll go look for the twins, then. Everyone else is either already sleeping or just sitting and staring at the ceiling." Neville said and stood up, walking away.
Sigh.
'I'm just going to sleep', he decided. So what if he woke up again in the middle of the night? He could just do another training session to exhaust himself again…
'This week is going to suck.'
X_
A/N: first side story that I used to explain some of the mechanics of the system and stuff. There will be one or two more before we continue with the rest of the story.
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