Nothing good ever lasts, no to mention vacations. Far too soon, was a wave of noisy, noisier than usual, vagabonds, also known as students walking up the hill, back to the castle. The following week after Christmas had gone past so soon, I thought it must have been a mistake at first. But with a small, depressed sigh, I came to terms with it.
The vacation had been nice, although due to far laxer supervision compared to the orphanage, the library had started conquering new time slots from my daily schedule. So far, had my Hermit ways gone, that I only ate breakfast at the Great Hall. Lunch was an easy meal to skip, but a new conquest, Dinner, had been made with the help of my information network, the library. There was a small section, two shelves, near my new reading place, that could be named as a cooking section. Could, because as a matter of fact, the library only had a single nominal section, the restricted section.
No other official sections existed, but that did not mean that the books had not been ordered. After reading at least a thousand books, a drop in the bucket compared to what was left to read, but a respectable book count, I concluded that the books were not randomly placed. They were sorted primarily by topics, but with also through similarities, so that the most prevalent subjects were sorted in a gradient compared to other shelves. This placing resulted in a continuous experience, where the closer a book was to another, the more their subject matter was correlated by one metric or the other.
What I had found was a small hill of cooking, in the subject space of books. A hill, with purely cookbooks in the highest peak, but most were combinations, slopes with varying degrees of relevance to cooking, from biographies of famous cooks to exotic journals of culinary adventures and cultures.
The cooking section was well taken care of with no dust in sight and well cleaned books and floors. That was a surprise as I hadn’t seen anyone, near the section. After a few days of full-time reading, something had changed, as small little dwarves, probably house-elves, had started appearing in my sights. Fetching and returning books with a brisk pace. I knew what house-elves were thanks to the vast amounts of history books I had first gone through from Goblin rebellions, to house-elf uprisings, so I was not totally unaware. I was, however, unknowing of the fact, that Hogwarts had house-elves.
“Excuse me, are you a house-elf?” Better be polite and make sure, than to make myself an ass.
An already squeamish house-elf practically jumped in the air, after I spoke to it.
“Dear, sir. Yes, yes, Fenny is a proud house-elf, kind sir!” Squeamish, but brave, she responded after the initial jump with a far braver front, and was looking at me straight in the eyes, other than the quick bows before and after her say.
“Cough… At ease. My name is Paige.” There definitely existed a weird power dynamic here…
“Hello, young sir Paige. My name is Fenny, Fenny the house-elf!” She answered bubbly, and with so much kindness and positivity that I nearly fell over as a being of darkness exposed to the blazing hot sun. An intensity as if in just that moment she had been named and was celebrating that name with all her being. I wasn’t ready for that intensity. Please be quiet. Please.
After a small inquiry, I came to learn that house-elves were the silent helpers, keeping the day-to-day life running in the Hogwarts. They would clean everything from floors to clothes. On top of that, they were the cooks of Hogwarts, they created all the food with a feverish passion in their own little kingdom, the kitchen. In fact, that was why Fenny was here. The house-elves were, according to Fenny’s proud admission, the only ones who used this section of the library. Mainly to find new recipes to try on.
And just like that, I had obtained the means to further optimization of my library schedule. With a similar fiery passion in my eyes, it was Fenny’s turn to be afraid, as I eagerly asked for the location of the kitchen.
I learned that the kitchen is located just below the Great Hall, and it can be accessed by tickling a pear in the lower floor hallway and stepping through the painting.
What an interesting secret! I wonder if there are other such secret pathways as well. Not that I would ever find the time to go looking for them, I have enough books on my plate already.
Nevertheless, with the encouragement from books and support from the kitchen staff, I managed to reorder my schedule so that I was reading all for all the library’s opening hours. I had tried a single time to read in secret by hiding between the shelves after the closing time, but Madam Pince had emerged from the darkness like a reaper coming to retrieve my soul. Unlike a reaper, she did not technically kill me, but she killed my spirit and will to live with a small, temporary one day ban to the library.
After standing behind the entrance with red eyes, and a haunted look for a well over two hours, she let me in, with the promise that I would never try the same trick again. Needless to say, I had fathomed the gravity of my actions, and would never try the same again.
To prove my reformed self, for a few days, I brought her some of the candy I had gotten from wizard crackers in the Christmas. My initial plan had been to bargain with sweet-toothed fairy roommate Oscar, to swap for a more meaningful thing. However, the relationship and consideration of Madam Pince were in far higher importance, compared to hustling and swindling Oscar.
The plan had been a success, in that the librarian had accepted my offerings and was clearly warming up to me, with an exasperated sigh. A significant improvement from the previous cold humph. Slow and steady wins the race, the librarian can’t ban me at this pace. I would worm into her good graces like a homeless rat. Hmm, might not be the best metaphor…
Nonetheless, my schedule had been fully optimized with maximum conventional library time used. So, it was with heavy steps and a sad heart, that I watched my too happy roommates returning with their stupid grins in their faces. Far too happy to appreciate these trying times, and realize what we had lost.
At least the semester started right where the previous left off. There was no repetition, but an immediate continuity of the teaching, like race car service, the race continued before one even realized the car’s wheels had changed.
Especially memorable was the astronomy class in the freezing cold January, after a week or so of snowstorms. An astronomy class on top of the astronomy tower that had been conquered by a few feet thick snow with snowbanks taller than me. I had come, utterly prepared, in full battle gear, wearing my oversized robes, to combat the cold. Prepared for combat, which never came. As with an elegant flick of Professor Moonfeld’s wand, the snow started slowly rolling and shuffling off the tower, like it had just lost all friction, and was flowing like water dripping off the tower.
She inspected the tower with an expressionless face, that would have been hard to read, if not for a satisfied twinkle in her blue gray eyes. Eyes, which changed to gold near the center, and that gold center positively shone when she expressed interest. Professor Moonfeld, also known as Elena Moonfeld, was an elderly professor with long gray hair freely flowing in the wind. Only when she was looking through her telescope, would she tie her hair in a ponytail with a bobble so old it could have been from the 19th century. She herself was an old lady, patient beyond belief, but it also seemed she didn’t have enough energy to intercept the most energetic students. Like an old tortoise, she was moving at her own pace, and similar to the tortoise, she was kind enough to help students. Not by giving rides on top of her back, but by readily giving students advice on whatever the subject.
The astronomy classes had been fun. Not thanks to the class content, however. Most of the Hufflepuffs in the class were more or less playing with their telescopes, pointing them in every way apart from the sky. For Hufflepuffs, the astronomy class was like a weekly outing. But not just an ordinary outing, but a special nighttime outing. As for the Ravenclaws, most of them were speeding up the targets through the sky like possessed, to marker them in their memos as fast as they could. Their telescopes swinging with such speed that a few times an unfortunate Hufflepuff had been an unfortunate sacrifice who got dropped to the ground in the way of star map progress.
I was not like all the other Ravenclaws. I was special!
More specifically, I was the only Ravenclaw in the sea of Hufflepuffs who had homework to complete the star map notes that were an assignment in the class. I held no responsibility for my actions, as with all my heart, I blame the numerous distracting constellations I found that were familiar from the books. The night sky was like a book if you knew what to look for. Except, instead of needing to carry it with you, it would follow you through your life, bidding you farewell in the morning and always welcoming you back at night. Patiently and constantly describing the same stories from century to century.
No, that was a misconception. The night sky wasn’t constant. It was always, everywhere, changing. The changes, however, were so miniscule in scale, usually observable in only strongly localized regions, as changes in state from explosive, fabulous, and extremely rare supernovas, to much more common stars fading out and stars igniting. For timescales of human lifetime, everything seemed, constant, as for the distant stars, we were only a fraction of a millisecond in their lives. And what a curious life a star had: Formation of gas clouds until density is high enough, and finally the birth of a star, an ignition. Then for billions of years, that star would shine, nearly constant but sometimes feeling irritated and ejecting some of its entrails outwards, like a teenager in a bad mood venting his feelings. And finally, when it had burned all its life, when the burning flame inside it was waning. Then, the gravity would take its privileges of size, and compress it back to where it belonged. That compression was the final judgement for stars, whether the star would accept its fate and face into oblivion as a dwarf star, a shell, and a shadow of its former self, or whether the star would fight, to tooth and nail, fight the unavoidable destiny to die. Fight with all its might, to prove its own existence, with a resulting explosion so vast and massive it would engulf surrounding stars, and vaporizing even faraway planets. A super explosion brighter than a million stars, a supernova, proof of existence that lasted for just a moment, but an immutable proof. The wave of the explosion transporting the ashes of the dead star to far away places, only to be used on planets, or be reborn anew in other stars.
But that’s not what we did in the classes. For now, we had only been collecting star maps, collecting the positions of the constellations, and stars in respect to each other, and even more importantly how they were positioned at night sky, and at what times. As the seasons changes, it was easy to notice how the night sky rotated and moved. This rotational effect was caused by the orbit of the earth rotating around the sun. By now, the rotation has nearly achieved half circle rotation, and each time we come to the tower, there are new constellations to be seen, all the while others fall under the horizon only to come back up sometime in the summer.
Although we haven’t gotten to the periodicity, and cyclicity of the observed orbits in the classes. From the books I have read that periodicity is the most important aspect of astronomy. Especially when many period maximums superimpose, they will have an enchanted effect in some form of magic. One of the most familiar examples of these are the equinoxes. The gifts of astronomy, when feasts and celebrations are arranged, partly for the tradition and partly for the ritualistic value of perfectly balanced solar flux affecting the magic. There are numerous rituals and magics which require a specific balance in the environmental magic and the cheapest way, especially for large-scale magics, is finding when that happens with the help of astronomy.
Some go as far as to predict the future with the help of star movement, centaurs being one of the most known examples of this school of thought, although I find It hard to find the causation between the magic field caused by the movement of the celestial movement and the happenings on the Earth. However, a notable correlation can be observed from the history books with the number of conflicts and the alignment of Mars and Mercury with Earth. So, there might be an irritating cause in some of the magic flux effects.
Since most of my astronomy classes I was similarly sidetracked, the assignments were usually sidelined. This led to me working on the Saturday nights, when the astronomy tower had open hours, to finally complete the class assignments. Luckily, at this time the library was already closed, so I didn’t lose any of my precious reading time. Otherwise, I would have steeled my mind, to rid myself of the distractions and complete the assignments in the class. Astronomy was interesting, for sure, but it sure wasn’t even a tenth as interesting as reading library books!
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
As weeks went by and the school settled into its normalcy, I came across a new problem. It started with an innocuous request, and benign plead from Oscar for helping with his charm homework, as he had been in the Hospital wing due to being cursed at by a few Slytherins. By the way, I was only surprised at how long it had taken for him to get cursed, taking into account how often he would get into meaningless conversations with strangers with an I-am-better-than-thou attitude.
I digress. To conserve our working relationship, I helpfully told him what topics I considered were required in the assignment. Obviously, when talking about the incantation and wand movements of the softening charm, the weight must be on the first syllable, but the intonation of the last syllable has a surprisingly strong effect on the type of softening of the target. Moreover, the orientation of the last wand flick in reference to the target object has a substantial effect on the duration of the spell casting on the target. My own thoughts were that this was caused by the same complications in the spell formation, which was supported by the small noise and color effects for a non-aligned cast.
However, after my well-meaning answer, more and more people came to ask for help. And to be fair, they all, more or less, had valid reasons. It seems that they had thought I would like to help all in need. Well, they were mistaken. I only helped because if I didn’t, it would be a hassle. This was quite the conundrum, as I didn’t have the slightest of desire to help any of the sorry bums. More importantly, I didn’t want to spend all my time helping others. Time, which I would much rather spend reading books. It also wasn’t in my interest to be known as some unapproachable, arrogant, and selfish person. Selfishness, would easily be remembered, and could cause trouble later on. The goal would be that I would not be asked because I could not help.
So, after the fifth request for help, I set forth my plan of inadequacy, where I would write my homework at the earliest, the morning it was due. This was possible with the help of my trusted writing charm, and my cold heart. After the first rejection, with nothing to show other than an empty parchment, the plan worked perfectly. The bums learned with lightning speed and scattered like rats in the night after they learned of that I had fallen behind on my homework. After all, why ask someone who cannot possible know the answer. With complete success of the plan, I had once again thrived against the challenges of society and preserved the peace in the library.
Speaking of the library, something had changed. But everything was still exactly the same. I don’t know how to describe it, other than every book felt like more. More detail, more feeling, and even more text. But at the same time, everything was still absolutely the same. Same length, same amount of time approximately per book, and the same vivid landscapes conveyed by the text. Had something changed, or had I changed? I definitely knew more, but I didn’t know that much more. Nearly everything was still new, topics, experiences, and point of views. I hadn’t noticed any sudden changes or experiences, epiphanies with strange clarity. No, everything had remained the same. And still, as I write that, I know something is changing.
These were the type of thoughts I had when I was lying in the bed at night, waiting to fall asleep. Usually, going through all the different and interesting books I had read in the day, but sometimes, rarely, I had some introspection. Introspection into how my life was going, if I had achieved my goals, and changes I could make to better reach those. And it was in one of these introspection moments, when I realized, I had a far better memory than before. Specifically, better memory of the books I read. I remember how the first time in the local library I had read the Grimm’s tales numerous times, enamored by the tales and trying to experience them again and again, write and scribe the stories into my soul, to never forget them. Of course, with an unsuccessful result, but not for the lack of trying. As I read more books, the more we became closer. The more I had of the book, after the book was already finished. And at this time, as I think of the books I’ve read, thousands and thousands of books come into my mind. I can picture a hundred times more books than the number of faces. Faces, each corresponding to as uninteresting personality as they are foolish, whereas books, each more unique than the other. Some full of effort, effort to present the best of them with thousands of thoughts and rewrites under a single sentence. Some, with a nonparallel brilliance written in a single moment to last for eternity. Some mediocre, but even that mediocrity was a crystallization of regular issues. Not earth-shattering, grand conclusions, but small, numerous, ordinary conclusions that changed the world with their numbers.
Books, I could remember well. Better than before. As for everything else… well, didn’t notice any difference. Otherwise, I was just as average from my cognitive abilities as I had always been. Some of my bad memory might be due to my lack of desire to use it for things I deemed to be of no importance. One of these, was the names of my housemates, which I had definitely heard a few times. But after forgetting them, I found it hard to find motivation to learn them. I believe our relationship was already quite good, with a cordial greeting at the breakfast table, and few words to my partner in the classes. I found the relationships to be at a sufficient level.
And I didn’t change my mid even after I was cursed as I was walking to the common room from the library one February evening. The experience had been painful, for sure, but not overly so. I had just passed a crooked back witch statue on the second floor, when I remember a blinding pain and crumbling to the floor, with a sound of laughter ringing in my ears. Late in the evening I had woken up in the Hospital wing, where I was awoken by Madam Pomfrey, the school’s matron, who helped by get back to speed. I had been found by a passing prefect, unconscious and lying on the floor. Madam Pomfrey told me that I had experienced a major concussion due to blunt force magic trauma, which could be fully healed due to its magical nature. Additionally, I had been jinxed with some kind of ear jinx, that had changed my ears green and grown to nearly a foot tall. Luckily, the spelling had been quite harmless, and with a few wand waves from the matron and a single potion, I was feeling as good as new. I was required to stay the night in the Hospital wing, just in case, but the whole episode did not really affect my library time, so I considered myself lucky, and my life returned to its normal tracks. From what I gathered, going into the hospital wing was a part of a student’s life, and mainly due to extracurricular activities. In fact, that night I was in the hospital wing, three other students were also admitted in, two in a similar situation to mine, but a sixth year Hufflepuff student had a more serious case and needed to stay for a week in the Hospital wing.
I had tried my best to stay out of the conflicts and curses, by staying out of other’s ways. The fact that I was a first year also helped, but it seems bad luck can always hit, even when all seems well. The most cause for concern was my stuff, my bag filled with the five books limited by the library card. The bag, which was already an old bad from the orphanage, was a little roughed up, but with a few emergency spells from Pomfrey, it would still function. Luckily, the books had escaped unscathed, which I learned was not, in fact, due to luck, but due to furious and comprehensive spelling from the librarian, Madam Pince, which would identify the persons who harmed her books. Every few years, another person would be banned from the library from one to three years, which, especially for the upper years, was an academical suicide. For that reason, nobody wanted to cause any harm to the books, and even the ancient library books remained in a good condition in this school full of surprise battles and explosive ambushes.
After my Hospital episode, I secluded myself even more, keeping my distance from everybody, especially in the evenings, to avoid any further such events. I realized I had been lucky, that I escaped with no lost library time, and I doubted I would always be as lucky. However, as my lifestyle was already quite secluded, there weren’t any significant changes in my schedule. I could have invested more time in self-defense, but considering the miniscule returns from the defense against the dark arts classes, I would much rather spend my time reading books, than spend that time to cast a spell faster, a knock back jinx, so weak that it felt like moderately strong wind. Additionally, considering, that I was not sent to the Hospital wing in the following weeks, the event was probably just bad luck, and not intentional targeting. If I found out otherwise, I might reconsider my options. But for now, I let the event pass, and continued with my normal books filled library life.
Late February, the land filled with snow, and sparkling with sunlight reflecting from the snow crystals, creating a blinding sight, from the windows inside the castle. In the charm's lesson, we had one of the few purely practical charm lessons Flitwick provides. These practical lessons are purely from a single spell, we have already learned. The practice for the wand lighting charm had been a dark changing obstacle course that we had to go through.
This time, the subjects were locking charm and unlocking charm. They might seem polar opposites, but they were by their essence the two sides of the same coin. Both heavily linked to each other. The Locking charm was designed as a lock of intent to keep an opening locked. But like a lock, it had been designed to be unlocked by a special key. A key which was the unlocking charm. By design, all locking charms should be unlockable by the unlocking charm, but that was only the surface. Since the spell cast is not necessarily the spell that was designed. Flitwick told us that a sufficiently knowledgeable wizard or witch can change the locking mechanism of the locking charm, and prevent a talentless wizard from accessing inside. However, similar to the locking charm, the unlocking charm can also be changed.
The locking and unlocking charms are one of the few popular charms that have an implicit declaration based on the knowledge of the caster. The spell allows locking constructs based on the knowledge of the caster. For example, a locking charm from an average student could be solved by at least 95% of the witches and wizards in Britain, but only a handful of people in England could open one spelled by a safe designer.
Some of the lessons we had spent going through different structures of locking, and unlocking to introduce us into the topic, but that was all, an introduction. The books I read, provided a different perspective and magnitude on the possible locks and the ways of unlocking from different color coded puzzles to sound-based locks, not to mention the numerous different unlocking methods from vibrations, to overfills.
“Come now, everyone. Time is running, you should be too.” Professor Flitwick was rushing the last of the Hufflepuffs into a practice room, a few rooms from the usual charms room. A practice room so big it must have been enchanted, as the dimensions were even greater than the Great Hall. The room was empty, but had lines going in perpendicular directions in every ten feet, making the room look like a giant lattice, a fractal formed from ten feet wide cubes.
“Everyone, find your own square.” Flitwick was gesturing for us to go into our own squares in the lattice, and after a minute, everyone had settled in with some excitement seeping in the air.
“The practice will be a little different this time, with a competition for your knowledge of the locking and unlocking charms. This will be your chance to show your peers your brilliance and test yourself.” And with a single sentence, he had destroyed my expectations for this class. A competition with this pack of wolves. I checked some of my housemate's expressions, only to find them full of concentration, eyes blazing with flames of desire. Like starved wolves who had just seen a prey after starving for two weeks.
“When the time starts, you’ll find lockable objects and locked objects in front of you, with ever-growing frequency. This is a friendly competition to raise your spirits, so try your best to be as fast as possible. The winner will, of course, be handsomely rewarded.” Flitwick smiled, a handsome but somehow a wicked smile, that had my sighing in my heart. Why must you always raise my housemates’ competitive spirits?
And with a signal from him, and a small festive bang, the competition started. In front of me, and everywhere around me, in front of other students, appeared boxes of different kinds, some old, some new, but all of them open. After a small pause and the first voice of colloportus the room was reverting with the incantation, marking the true beginning of the race.
The competition worked by conjuring an object open or locked one after the other, the second conjuration was done 30 seconds after the first, but every conjuration would have a second less waiting time, forcing us, the students, into a time crunch. If the student had not spelled its previous target as a new one came in, he/she would be disqualified.
What started as a relaxing time at the start, was beginning to stress me out. I still had time left in the middle, maybe ten seconds or less, but the existence of that terrifying pressing deadline was a constant pressure in my mind. With each diminishing break time, I took deep breaths to get myself to calm down and not panic. It wasn’t that serious after all.
Alohamora, I spelled with a wand flick, sighing with relief as the small box opened, shone briefly with the green light of success, and promptly disappeared. I looked briefly at my surroundings to see how my classmates were doing, only to be interrupted by a small pop and an open box, demanding my attention. After gathering my concentration again for the locking charm, I spelled, this time again with a success. And reaffirmed, that most of my classmates had already been disqualified, but a few still going strong. Before I could think more, another pop interrupted my, reminding me of my impending doom if I don’t do anything.
After a few rounds of increasingly desperate and hectic spelling, my head was starting to hurt from the fast pace it was required. Thoughts shambled by concentrating on different spells every turn. I was heaving, not from physical exertion, but due to holding my breath in my hastened gathering of concentration for the spelling. I was spent, and was actively disliking this now. So, with a conscious decision, I stopped trying. I stopped myself from even trying to spell it. It wasn’t worth it for the feeling of confusion I was already feeling. I was already satisfied with myself. At least I tried.
And after a second or two, my target turned red and vanished with a similar pop, except this time no new object came to replace it, and I was left to check my surroundings. My surroundings, which were quiet, with faces turned my way and pop absent silence filling the air. A silence that was broken by Flitwick’s voice.
“Congratulations to Mr. Reed, what an insightful performance full of effort. 20 points for Ravenclaw!” And with those magic words, Flitwick broke the eternal silence, with Hufflepuffs going back to their shenanigans, and chatter returned to the class. However, the Ravenclaw faces, faces of envy and jealousy, still clear in my mind. And I could still read the same emotions in their faces. More subdued, better hidden, but still, there. Like a serpent under the water, waiting for its opportunity to strike.
…What a bother.