The Boggart in the form of Snape attempted to commit something threatening toward Neville.
"Ri-riddikulus!" shouted the boy in panic, but nothing happened. "Riddikulus!"
The second attempt was slightly more confident, and this sufficed for the Boggart in the form of Snape to suddenly turn out dressed in a green skirt suit, a hat with a stuffed vulture, and with a pink lady's handbag on the crook of the elbow.
Students literally neighed, filling the space of the staff room with deafening laughter. Even some Slytherins did not restrain smirks. I could not help but notice the light, and literally oozing with poison smile of Daphne; the blue-eyed brunette with whom by Snape's will I will now have to work in Potions. Well, I'm not against it. Didn't notice myself how with the most real elven step, not even disturbing the air, however strange that sounds, I approached the girl.
"Having fun," I whispered quietly. Quietly, but loud enough for her to notice, put a mask of indifference on her face, and turn to me.
"Granger," she answered just as quietly.
"Greengrass."
At Lupin's command, Neville was replaced by Parvati Patil; now at least I will know the name of this Indian girl from Gryffindor who has a twin in Ravenclaw. The Boggart in the form of trans-Snape changed into a movie mummy, all wrapped in bandages. It stretched its hands forward and took a step toward Parvati, but the girl applied Riddikulus, and bandages on the mummy's legs unraveled, entangling the legs. The mummy fell with a crash on the floor, and its head rolled away.
"And what is the reason for your gloating?" I continued talking quietly and unnoticed by everyone with Daphne.
"I fear that the reason for my hypothetical gloating has not the slightest relation to you."
"Ah, so you will be silent?"
"Oh, I will speak," the girl turned up her nose slightly. "But that does not mean you will hear what you want."
"Riddikulus!" another shout of someone from the students transformed the Boggart into something funny, causing laughter from other guys.
"You clearly have some conflict," I continued the conversation.
"Unfounded assumption."
When the duration of your life exceeds a thousand years, you involuntarily meet a person who one way or another reminds you of another. So Daphne seems familiar to me. In fairness, it is worth noting that some other guys with whom I managed to communicate also cause a feeling of deja vu in me. Insignificant, in small details. Everything one way or another intertwines with something.
Glancing around and making sure that guys around pay attention only to the next form of the Boggart and what Lupin's victim will turn it into, I raised my left hand palm up, took the wand in the right, and with its help began to trace contours of constructs familiar to me, relying on intuition, and combining with the mastered base of transfiguration. These contours relate to the simplest and do not manifest themselves in the visible spectrum, therefore I did not fear attracting attention.
Slowly gathering air around and compressing it to such a state that light began to refract, distorting, I chose the obtained sphere as the object of transfiguration, set the formula, visualized the object, and decided to play a prank a little, adding constructs specialized for life energy.
"Here," with a light smile I held out a real icy, crystal clear rose to Daphne, who watched the manipulations in secret.
Daphne accepted the gift as her due, which could not help but amuse me.
"And what is this?"
"Beautiful, but cold, capable of pricking to blood at any awkward movement," I answered with a light smile. "But if one knows how to warm..."
I ran a finger over the petals of the transparent ice rose, and in the place of contact, they became blood red, as they should be. As soon as I removed my hand, the rose became icy again.
"It will bloom with bright colors."
"Subtle," Daphne noted with an incredibly poisonous, but by no means nasty, as it happens, smirk. "I approve."
"One can say she is alive. Plant in earth, it will freeze and sprout. Plant in ice, it will sprout and break, transforming into a bush."
"Amusing cascade transfiguration with addition of charms," Daphne stated her vision of the creation process.
"Granger," I heard Lupin's voice and turned in his direction.
Hermione took a step forward, but the professor, noticing this, put out a hand in a stopping gesture.
"Mr. Granger, I meant."
"Yes, Professor?"
"To the barrier," he pointed with his hand to the place where other students stood, applying the spell on the Boggart.
Some students, as memory suggests, in which observed experiments on taming this creature settled as background, came out very quickly and the Boggart did not have time to hide in the wardrobe. But it also happened that it had time, and the student approached the closed wardrobe in which this magical creature lurked. Precisely among such I should have ended up, only...
"I refuse."
Lupin looked at me with such an expression on his face, as if I literally crapped in his shoes. Such offense.
"Allow me, Mr. Granger," Lupin quickly pulled himself together and smiled kindly. "But, as a professor, I ask you to come out here and show your skills in fighting a Boggart."
"I refuse," I repeated just the same.
A light poke in the side from Anthony forced me to pay attention to the guy.
"Hey, what's with you? Come on out, cast, if anything—we'll cover," he spoke quietly.
Despite the noise of general disapproval in my direction, strangely enough, Lupin heard his words perfectly well.
"Your classmate is right, Mr. Granger. There is nothing terrible in meeting your strongest fear face to face. Especially since it will be in a much weakened form. And with the support of the rest of the guys, you will cope easily, I am sure."
"I refuse," I answered just the same, not embarrassed in the least by general condemnation; let them crack in half for all I care.
"Chickened out?" Malfoy inquired maliciously, sneaking up from somewhere on the side.
"Oh, Mr. Malfoy," I smiled joyfully at the blond who returned the color conceived by nature to his hair. "Just the time for you to show Slytherin bravery and courage, throw yourself onto the embrasure, demonstrating your fear to all ill-wishers. Demonstrating the most vulnerable spot, which can be hit so that only a name and unkind memory will remain of you. Why do you pale so, Mr. Malfoy, forward! Glory doesn't wait..."
"Mr. Granger!" Lupin spoke much more seriously. "If you do not come out here, I will be forced, to my regret, to take penalty points from your House."
"Don't lose points in vain, Hector," Anthony poked me in the side.
"Well then... Professor, I refuse to put my fear on display, not having the opportunity to receive a reward for such a thing."
"Reward? That is not quite what I expected to hear from a student from Hufflepuff."
Despite his words, Lupin started smiling again, which means he has a solution.
"Since you, Mr. Granger, are so afraid of your fear that you hesitate in indecision in the gallery, I offer you ten points if you successfully and on the first attempt defeat the Boggart."
For some reason, I expected something similar.
"How do you like that?"
For show, I hesitated on the spot, catching Daphne's poisonous smirk with peripheral vision. Secretly winking at her, I nodded to the professor and stepped forward under approving shouts of other students. Standing opposite the wardrobe and holding the wand in my hands, I focused. Even if I observed what was happening not very attentively, I made some conclusions about the Boggart.
"Ready?" asked Lupin.
"Undoubtedly, Professor."
He waved his hand, and the wardrobe door opened. A shapeless clot began to quickly crawl out of the blackness, starting to turn into something on the go. Did I start waiting? Of course not! Concentrating neutral magic and passing it through consciousness, in which I formed the contour of a banal, but no less destructive fireball, I literally in a fraction of a second formed this ball on the tip of the wand and hurled it into the wardrobe from which the Boggart had not yet fully emerged. A moment, and the immaterial entity instantly caught fire, as did the wardrobe, and following that an explosion rang out, the directed wave of which literally swept away the wardrobe and dissipated the Boggart, pelting the wall with smoking shards.
Dead silence reigned in the staff room.
"It seems," I looked at Lupin with a frightened gaze. "I defeated the Boggart."
"You destroyed it, Mr. Granger," the professor looked with light shock at the remains of the wardrobe continuing to smoke by the wall.
"Well, we didn't stipulate how exactly I must defeat it and with what consequences. Main thing is the result."
"Well, ten points to Hufflepuff for a crushing victory over the Boggart. But still... Why exactly like that?"
In the not particularly joyful hum of students, one could hear rare approving notes literally oozing with satisfaction; not every time something goes "boom" so loudly.
"I am from Hufflepuff," I shrugged. "Got so very, very scared that, well, hit it from shock. You know, they say there are two types of reaction to a threat."
"Fight or flight," the professor nodded with a smirk.
"Precisely, Professor. It seems I run poorly."
On this, the lesson came to an end due to the fact that the Boggart so inappropriately "kicked the bucket abruptly." And where do all sorts of phrases crawl out of my head? Can't reach them consciously.
The rest of the day passed without any excesses. At lunch, everyone already knew about the events in the DADA lesson. Alternatively gifted sincerely mocked that I, allegedly, got scared. More quick-witted ones chuckled at how deftly I tricked Lupin. A small part of the beautiful half of Slytherin looked somehow dangerously at me; a simple message was read in these glances: "Where are you climbing, Mudblood?!" What can I say? Scared a hedgehog with a naked butt; your prejudices do not compare with elven discrimination based on predisposition to magic!
A beautiful Saturday morning began with a warm-up and shower. To my joy, I noticed that the constant scalable load from the bracelet ceased to burden both the body and consciousness; adaptation is everything! Returning to the room and looking over the guys smacking pillows heartily, I didn't wake them; legal day off. But Cedric asked to come to the Quidditch pitch, which means I should hurry. Not that I wanted to communicate with the current prefect so strongly, but his support and help are obviously useful, which means one shouldn't neglect it.
Collecting dew from the grass near the castle walls with boots, I reached the large and slightly awkward stadium with a brisk step. Passing between the stands, I went out onto the field itself. Truly big, probably bigger than a football one. Instead of goals, towering stakes stuck out of the ground, three pieces on one side and the other. At the ends of the stakes were rings of different sizes and at different heights, but quite close to each other. On the grass of this stadium right now stood guys from our House in the amount of five people. In their hands, they held brooms, and another one lay nearby on the ground, next to a large oblong trunk.
"Hi, guys," I waved to them, approaching closer.
Cedric, as always, smiled and waved in return. The others smiled too, but not from joy, but from politeness. At least sincerely.
"Hi, Hector," Cedric beckoned me with a gesture. "Come on, straight into the deep end. Stand on the left side of the broom."
"Without prefaces?" I smiled in return, standing in the indicated place from a not the newest, but clearly well-maintained and pleasantly felt in magical terms broom.
"No words, books, or instructions will replace real practice. If anything, we'll back you up."
"You bet," nodded a senior unknown to me so far.
"Okay. What to do?"
"Stretch your right hand over the broom, direct thoughts at it and pronounce: 'Up!'."
"Alright..." I stretched my hand, directed thought and image, immediately commanding: "Up!"
The broom instantly jumped into my hand.
"Excellent, Hector! Simply excellent!" Cedric praised me, clapping on the shoulder. "Mount."
"Um..."
"I know about your worries. Won't crush anything; everything is thought out."
"Ha-ha-ha," the others laughed kindly, and I straddled the broom, throwing a leg over like on a bike.
"Excellent. Right hand on the handle in front, left wherever comfortable between the grip place of the right and the body."
Grabbed where comfortable.
"Not bad," the prefect nodded. "Now simply lightly push off the ground, thinking about how you will hover over the ground."
"Mental control?"
"Yes," several people from the five answered simultaneously, but Cedric continued explanations. "Usually they start training with hammering in basic movements and say that the broom is controlled precisely by them. But that is not so."
"Understood," I nodded. "Control is mental, and movements contribute to necessary thoughts in the head."
"Catching on immediately," a brown-haired guy approached me. "Malcolm Preece, sixth year. Not for nothing they say in the House that you are devilishly talented."
"Don't praise ahead of time," I smirked and shook Preece's hand. "Hector Granger."
"Less blabber, more flight," Cedric clapped me on the shoulder once again. "Come on."
Without thinking long, I pushed off the ground with my feet and hung in the air. Practically instantly getting used to sensations, I moved the broom back and forth mentally. It works; it flies. A bouquet of images literally blossomed in my head of how I sit in the dark cockpit of a void fighter, connect the neural interface, and the world around immediately blossoms, transforms, blossoming with lights of the battleship launch shaft. Ahead is only a small black spot with tiny dots of distant stars. The fighter is felt like one's own body. A signal from the dispatcher, and together with the electromagnetic catapult, I activate thrusters, flying out of the shaft to meet the cold void of space. Silent explosions blossom with bright dots; a battle is on. Only the hum of blood and heartbeats are heard; machinery works silently.
Memories let go, but I am already flying, pressed against the handle. Headwind hits my face. Banking, cobra, roll, dive; acceleration. Pulling out of the dive near the ground; excellent! The broom is controlled exactly like a void craft in space; it doesn't care about gravity! Thrusters, main engine, maneuvering ones, but everything with similar power; only suddenly revealed experience of a real ace who lived to old age and found peace in battle allowed me to maneuver incredibly precisely, deftly, and fast. This same experience allowed sensing surrounding space, wind currents, and other guys on brooms as if I myself am a part of this space. Although, that is how it is.
Having flown the basic set of exercises, I settled down and returned to the ground, braking the broom vertically and immediately jumping off it. It seems that pair of shards of people from the era of space expansion turned out not so useless. Yes, terrible consumers, no knowledge, but specialized skills of a lifetime occupation; divine!
"You, Morgana take me, are a natural!" the guys crowded around me with shock and smiles. "We didn't even have time to squeak, and you are already showing aerobatics figures?"
"You could have crashed," Cedric hid a smile as best he could and even shook his head.
"Looks like it," I smiled in return. "Flying is my forte."
"Yeah, sure. And transfiguration, yes?" the prefect stopped hiding the smile. "And let's, you know what? Malcolm, take the Quaffle."
"Yes?"
"Yes. And you, Herbert, stand at the goal."
"What have you thought up?" I asked the guys with clear suspicion.
"Check for Chaser!" Cedric clapped me on the shoulder, and by his look, I understood that I was caught.
Four hours; that is how much I spent in the sky on a broom in the end. They explained the rules of the Quidditch game to me, explained the essence of the role for suitability to which I am being checked. In the end, Malcolm and I performed roles of Chasers, passing the Quaffle, a special ball, and sending it into rings defended by Herbert Fleet, a fifth-year guy. Then two others joined too, trying to knock me and Malcolm off brooms with the help of Bludgers flying here and there; aggressive balls performing the role of a projectile.
Memory shards are like a movie. A movie about long lives of different sentients. They are full of events, pleasant and sorrowful. It would seem, having such experience behind, it is simply indecent to give in to childish excitement, fun, as well as allow oneself to be drawn into such an adventure as Quidditch. But precisely this experience allowed understanding one thing; everything has its time. And right now is the time for fun. Dodging at the very last moment, maneuvering madly, accelerating, intercepting the ball, and sending it to the target; it turned out so naturally, and judging by the guys' words, also incredibly cool, powerful, and fast, that pleasure from what was happening rolled in by itself, and I saw not a single reason to resist this.
Only right before lunch, tired and soaked through with sweat, we finally landed and marched to the castle.
"It seems we found a Chaser," Cedric nodded joyfully.
"Need one more," Malcolm nodded importantly and tiredly.
"Judging by how Hector flies," spoke Herbert, the Keeper, "then from the team generally only he and a Keeper are needed. I am not the best Keeper, but Mordred take me by the leg! He only got comfortable with the Quaffle and that's it; half an hour, and I can't catch a single ball! He'll rack up a difference of sixteen balls faster than the opponent's Seeker catches the Snitch!"
"What do you say?" Cedric looked at me.
"Agree, guy!" the others encouraged me aloud.
"Why not?"
"Hurray!!!"
Just like that, joyful, we reached the changing room, shower, and then the Great Hall, where other students were already having lunch with might and main. It seems life is becoming somewhat more interesting. Except perhaps the shards of the dwarf, whom I decided to call a gnome in thoughts for convenience, grumble offendedly in the depths of consciousness, if one can express it that way at all. Well, nothing, I am sure that soon a holiday will come to their street too.
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