Saturday is a wonderful day off. The first Saturday of the new school year for a prefect is just — a day.
As always, once the routine training I no longer even think about was out of the way, I had to set aside at least an hour for the emergency clearing of various tasks, papers and the like, so as not to have to hunt for time to solve problems over the course of the day. At breakfast — marching the little ones about in formation. Over breakfast — relaxed chats with the students about life. Afterwards — bringing the first-years back to the common room.
"So then, your first Saturday, your first day off," I stood together with Hannah in front of the first-years, while a handful of students from other years, scattered about in corners and occupied with their own business, glanced over at me with curiosity, wondering if I'd say something interesting. "The rules at Hogwarts this year are especially strict. But you must already have picked up some impressions by now, must have formed some opinions of your own about everything around you. Who'd like to share?"
The little ones stood there, not quite grasping what I was saying or why, and a bit shy besides. Even Hannah's presence, a mere two steps away, didn't help matters.
"Go on, be brave. I don't bite."
"Well…" one of the girls began timidly, "why do we always have to go everywhere together? And only with the prefects?"
"I take it the answer 'Rules,' meaning you're required to move that way for two weeks, doesn't count?" I smiled, and the children nodded in agreement, a few smiling too. "It's so you get used to the castle and the main routes. There are a great many hidden passages, paths, corridors and so on here. It's easy to get lost if you don't know exactly where you're going. After the first two weeks, you'll be managing this on your own."
"So you mean we could get lost?" one of the boys asked. "Properly lost?"
"No, of course not. But you could easily find yourself spending a good many unpleasant hours in some unpleasant place. Until you're found."
"And what if we're not found?"
"At least, that hasn't happened yet," I paused for a moment, as if thinking it over.
Another boy raised his hand, and I nodded to him.
"When will we get to do proper magic? Because so far it's only in Transfiguration… and even that's not working."
"Usually people start around late October, early November."
"That long…" the boy's face fell, drawing quiet snickers from his year-mates.
"Professor Flitwick has you doing various hand exercises, and teaching you to pronounce complicated syllables, doesn't he?"
"Yes," the children nodded.
"That's very important. A beginner wizard needs to get used to controlling their thoughts, their will, their gestures, their words. Mistakes in that can be quite dangerous. Now, what do you suppose happens if a wizard gets a gesture or a word wrong?"
"Nothing," one of the boys said with great certainty — the one in ordinary Muggle trainers. "He just got it wrong, that's all."
"Magic is at once an exact science, and at the same time not remotely one. A mistake in a spell or a charm can either fizzle out entirely, in which case nothing happens, or it can still go off. What effect it has, though — that's an entirely different question. A great deal depends on what's going on in your head. For instance, I have a classmate in Gryffindor. His mistakes, even in the simplest spells, quite often end in an explosion of varying strength. So every little detail matters enormously. As does constant practice."
"Practice?" another girl spoke up. "That sounds like it's probably hard…"
"Any success is ninety-five percent diligence and practice, and only five percent talent. Of course, ideally, someday, you'll be able to work magic without any wand or words at all."
Turning my hand palm-up, I conjured a swarm of fiery butterflies, which began fluttering about. It wasn't only the little ones who were astonished — the older students were too.
"All magic," I said, watching the youngsters, thoroughly impressed by the flying fiery butterflies, "lives inside our heads. Precision of thought, strength of will. But you have to learn how to draw it out from there. Transfiguration trains the strength of the mind. Potion-making trains patience, attentiveness and diligence. Charms trains concentration and precision of mind, word and movement."
With an effort of will I dispersed the butterflies into the air, turning them into sparks, like from a campfire.
"And now, we're all going to head off together to one of the most important places in the castle, arguably. Not counting the kitchens. The library. Yes, yes, I know, hardly anyone enjoys spending time with a book, but believe me, you'll simply have to do it if you want to succeed. Even mischief requires knowledge — such is the world's cruel injustice."
Hannah and I led the first-years off towards the library, the children still asking various questions, which either Hannah or I answered concisely, but just as we were nearing the main tower, we ran into a similar procession — Draco and Pansy leading their own first-years off somewhere. Ah, the dungeons, home sweet home.
"Morning, colleagues," I smiled.
Since it was Saturday, the school dress code didn't apply — no lessons, it being mostly a day for clubs, independent study, the library and other necessary pursuits. Or detentions. Those do get assigned on ordinary days too, but the professors tend to try and "kill" Saturday specifically with them. In any case, the dress code wasn't mandatory, but I was in school uniform all the same, and I intended to keep it that way for the first two weeks. It seemed the right thing to do.
"Granger," Malfoy nodded, dressed head to toe in black, as had become his habit of late.
"Hello," Pansy smiled. "Busy already this morning?"
"Same to you."
Hannah nodded to them both. So there we stood, two groups facing each other. From the outside, it might have looked like all that was missing was a tumbleweed rolling between us and some western film score, but no, nothing of the sort.
"You're headed for the library, I take it," I said, surprising both the little Slytherins and their prefects. "Same as us. Let's go together."
There was no need to say it twice. Being the older ones, we walked ahead, with the first-years behind us. Hannah and Pansy, after a mere dozen metres of corridor, decided to drop back to the rear of the column, both to chat about girlish things and to keep an eye on the first-years.
"I've stopped bothering to be surprised," Malfoy sighed. "How do you know all this stuff?"
"You're smart enough. Work it out. If someone knows what's happening in various parts of the castle, what's being said there, what's being done there, that means…"
"Someone's reporting it to him," Draco answered at once.
We came out onto the staircases of the main tower and made our way slowly down them, under the gaze of the figures in the animated portraits. There weren't many other students about just now — everyone had already scattered across the castle after breakfast to pursue their own interests.
"Always keep a few options up your sleeve."
On the landing, a pair of Gryffindor first-years shot past us in a small whirlwind, and a little further down the corridor walked an insufferably self-important Ron, with Lavender Brown trailing at a distance behind him, all but stalking him. Malfoy and I actually paused on the landing, watching the two of them until they vanished into the corridor. The little ones were curious too, about what we were staring at, peering out from around us, but they couldn't make anything of it.
"Mm," Malfoy delivered his verdict on the matter concisely, and we carried on up to the next floor.
I didn't see anything criminal or unusual in it — the lad had got a swollen head from a girl's attention, while the girl, sickly sweet to begin with, had lost a fair bit of her critical thinking and good judgement in the flush of her fondness for him.
"Mr Granger," one of my first-years evidently couldn't restrain himself any longer and decided to ask something, though such an opening from a first-year was unusual. "What's the most powerful spell you know?"
Malfoy, like the Slytherins, heard the question too, and looked at me, doing his best Snape impression, adding:
"That's not usually the sort of thing one asks. It's rude."
"Never mind him," I waved a hand. "I don't make a secret of it, and today happens to be question-and-answer day. Besides, I'm sure you're curious too."
Turning for a moment to show I was now addressing the first-year, I spoke again:
"What exactly do you mean — a spell specifically, or a magical act in general?"
Our procession had finally reached the right floor, and we came out into the corridor.
"Um…" the boy hesitated. "A spell."
"Hm, in that case, I suppose, Fiendfyre, if that means anything to you."
"Are you mad?" Malfoy was genuinely startled. "And whoever taught you that is even madder, is he?"
"It's a perfectly ordinary spell," I shrugged.
Judging by the whispers, hardly anyone, even among the pure-bloods, knew about that spell, but one of the little Slytherins snorted with a touch of contempt, though he didn't voice his thought.
"Ordinary?" Malfoy kept on being astonished. "In what world is that ordinary?"
He didn't get an answer.
"Mm… and here people go on saying it's Slytherin that produces the dark wizards."
"It's not remotely Dark, actually. Complex, devilishly dangerous, extremely hard to control, quite capable of killing you — but not Dark. Do you know what its real danger is?"
"Do enlighten me, oh great Granger," Malfoy asked, dripping with sarcasm.
We walked on down the castle corridor, morning sunlight streaming through the windows, the occasional student passing us the other way, sometimes carrying books — we'd nearly reached the library.
"It affects the mind. It compels you to pour more and more magic into it. And the flame itself converts everything it can reach into magic, into fuel for itself, and all those wild quantities of magic remain bound to you. Well, you can imagine the sort of problems that creates for an untrained wizard."
"Hm, I follow," Malfoy nodded. "So why, in your opinion, does everyone consider it Dark, then?"
"Untrained weaklings can't activate it without drawing on elements of the Dark Arts — that's one. Like a great deal in the Dark Arts, the spell affects the mind, even if by a different mechanism — that's two. It's extremely complex and dangerous — three. And we've got a habit here of frightening everyone with terrifying 'dark magic,' Ministry regulations and decrees, that sort of thing."
"It's just crawling with weaklings and incompetents over there."
"Well, Malfoy, years of shuffling papers from one corner to another isn't exactly the way to develop one's skills."
"Doesn't it bother you that first-years can hear this?" Malfoy smirked, practically at the library doors now. "They might go and find it and try it themselves."
"I don't hide knowledge unless I'm obliged to hide it for one reason or another. I told them about the difficulties. The requirements to master that spell are beyond the reach of practically everyone finishing seventh year. If someone doesn't believe me, and out of pride or arrogance tries it anyway, and if it works, and they kill themselves and someone else along with them… well, fools get what fools deserve. If a person is his own worst enemy, there's nothing to be done about that."
"Harsh."
"Fair," we stopped at the library doors, and I turned to the little ones, and to the girls walking behind them, who'd been listening to us for some time now rather than chatting among themselves. "But there's one simple thing you all need to understand clearly."
Drawing my wand, I turned it over in my hands.
"Plenty of people will tell you: behold, the wand, the tool that lets us perform great wonders, vivid and dazzling, that lets us reach unimaginable heights in the magical arts. To build, to create, to heal terrible afflictions. To bring good into the world. But those same people always forget to mention that this very wand is a tool of destruction. Every conceivable and inconceivable horror you could imagine can be carried out with a wand."
The first-years fell into thought, though the Slytherins looked less thoughtful than proud — not all of them, mind.
"But the heart of the matter runs deeper still. It isn't the wand that's the weapon, or the medicine. The wizard himself is both weapon and medicine. Both creator and killer. The wand is merely the means. All magic lives not in the wand, but in our own heads. And the smarter, sharper, more disciplined that head is, the better, the higher-quality, the more powerful the magic will be. Knowledge…"
Putting my wand away, I nodded towards the doors behind me.
"Is in here. The professors provide the training. Everything else is up to you."
We went into the library. Madam Pince, as always, was behind the desk. Not all that many students from various years sat at the tables, but every one of them was quietly and calmly reading books or making notes, the soft scratch of quills or pens the only sound.
When we brought the first-years up to the desk, Madam Pince raised her eyes to us, plainly rather astonished by such an unusual pilgrimage to her domain of knowledge.
"First-years," I announced. "Meet Madam Pince — strict, but fair. She runs the library. If you need a book but don't know where to find it, she'll help you. The requirement is: keep quiet, keep order, and handle the books gently. Otherwise, retribution is inevitable."
"Mr Granger," the librarian turned her gaze on me. "Thank you for the assistance, of course, but do you mean to deprive me of the one remaining pleasure of introducing myself and giving the newcomers their instructions personally?"
"Who'd know better than you," I smiled, "that you'll have to repeat these instructions any number of times regardless. Besides, you'll give the tour of the domain of knowledge far better than I ever could."
"Well, well," Madam Pince said with a snort, and came out from behind the desk. "First-years — follow me. Listen carefully."
The first-years fell in behind the stern lady at once, as she recounted, in a quiet and severe voice, what was where and how everything was arranged. They soon vanished from sight, disappearing into what seemed like endless rows of bookcases.
"So," Pansy came up to us, while Hannah headed off towards Susan, who'd claimed one of the tables in the reading room. "You know Fiendfyre."
"I know a great many things."
Malfoy snorted, shoving his hands into his pockets — a new habit of his.
"Perhaps you know and use the Unforgivables as well?" he looked at me with something almost like a challenge, though he was doing his best to hide it.
"No," I waved the idea off. "I could use them, but I won't. I don't see the point. Besides, the magic that comes from casting them is vile — death and pain. Unpleasant, and bad for the mind. There are far more interesting, and simpler, alternatives. But you know…"
Leaning against the desk, I looked over at Pansy and Draco.
"An interesting thought occurred to me, as to why those spells are Unforgivable."
"Didn't Moody already tell us that, though?" Pansy smirked, folding her arms beneath her chest. "Or has your memory suddenly gone?"
"Brutal torture," Malfoy nodded, with what looked like genuine understanding of the concept. Had he tried it on himself, perhaps? "Inevitable death and forced submission of will. I'd think the reasons are obvious enough."
"I think it runs somewhat deeper than that. I am, after all, something of a researcher by nature. I haven't yet come across a single other spell, even among the Dark Arts, that binds victim and wizard together the moment it's cast, warping the magic itself, saturating it with death and suffering."
"You've drifted off into philosophy again," Malfoy said with a faint, dismissive grimace. "Let's at least go sit down at a table — we're standing in the middle of the aisle talking about Dark Magic."
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