Chương 20: ITW,H - Chapter 20 - Wednesday

(Word count: 2, 625) That night, the three of them, Harry, Fred, and George, brainstormed and planned their prank against Sirius. The first thing was what they wanted to do. Sirius's prank was a social one, so they went down that avenue. Harry's first thought was something that would glue Sirius and Remus together, but he dismissed it. He didn't want to be the one to drag Remus into the crossfire. Then, when Harry told them Sirius's womanizing ways, Fred suggested they give him bad breath.

Horrible, rancid breath, so any time he tried to make moves on someone, she would smell his bad breath and run. They would just add in something so Sirius can't smell it himself. The problem was how to trick him into falling victim to the prank. Harry couldn't just send the man a cursed letter. Sirius would be expecting a retaliation and would be casting identifying spells on every one of them. Harry would have to enlist the help of his house elf.

They would make a powder and mix it into a bag of tea leaves, and Tripsy would then use that to make Sirius's tea in the mornings. The best thing is, because houselfs are the ones to man things in the kitchen, it wouldn't be suspect. Though Harry would be sending a lot of snacks or something gotten from Hogsmeade as diversions. Hopefully, Sirius would spend the next week or two unable to get laid. That would show him.

He would just have to remember to tell Tripsy to use a different bag of tea leaves if Remus wanted a cup. It was a great learning experience, seeing Fred and George work. Most of their items, all of their candies, required potions, which was one of Harry's weakest subjects. Seeing the twins design and brew a new potion like this was incredible. He would definitely be investing in their shop in the future. When morning came around, the dosed tea leaves were ready, complete in a sealed bag.

They had actually used the usual brand of tea Sirius always gets back at Grimmauld place. They had Tripsy bring it when he called her. When Tripsy was called, she was more than happy to go along with the prank saying how it's just like when James and Sirius were in school, even chuckling in glee at the thought of helping them. With that out of the way, and a pepper up potion to stay awake for the day's classes, Harry quietly left the Weasley's dorm room and went down to the common room.

It was already around the time Hermione woke up. Sure enough, she was down in the common rooms. She was in the loveseat reading from the History textbook. Probably reading ahead for today's History class.

"Good morning, Hermione," Harry yawned.

"Good morning, Harry!" Hermione said.

"Let's head down for breakfast?"

"Sure!" She put her textbook in her bag and followed after him. Down at breakfast, Hermione had her healthy food choices again, and he loaded up another waffle sandwich. Hedwig came swooping in to check on him. She nibbled at his hand affectionately, so he gave her some bits of bacon and sausage.

"Wait here a bit for me, yeah? I've got some letters for you to deliver," Harry said softly. Morning breakfast with Hermione was quickly becoming his "handle correspondence" time. As Hermione cut another bite of pancake and fruit, she asked, "Have you already read today's reading for History class?"

"Yes, I've already read the entire chapter, during study hall yesterday when I was done with the essays. Speaking of the essays, we never had an opportunity to trade papers. Do you want to do that during today's study hall?"

"Oh! Yes, I forgot. Let's do that," Hermione agreed. Letters were sent back to everyone: a brief thank you written by a dicta-quill for some of the strangers he didn't know, and a handwritten response to Ginny, Luna, Dora, Sirius and Remus. The letters to them were mostly the same, telling them of how he got enrolled into Divination right away, and how Professor Flitwick is now teaching him dueling.

Sirius was a "well played" letter and how he should have expected something, alluding nothing to what he planned to do in return. He did warn Remus to be careful of the tea the next week or two. They had study hall again this morning and, as planned, he traded his own papers with Hermione's to review. He gave corrections and suggestions where needed, but it was surprisingly few. Even at only 11 years old, Hermione wrote very well.

There weren't a lot of things he could suggest to improve them, it was mostly just typos. He handed her papers back, and decided he needed to sleep. So after showing Professor Vector, who was watching over them at the time, that he was done with all of his homework at the moment, he just napped until Defense. They had astronomy tonight, so he couldn't just try and power through the day without sleep. After study hall, Ron elbowed him awake, it was time for Defense.

It was the class their entire year was looking forward to the most. Harry wasn't. He knew it was going to be agonizing, having to listen to Quirrell fake a stutter the entire class. When they all entered the Defense room, Quirrell was there, awkwardly wringing his hands as he waited for everyone to be seated. The defense room was a standard enough looking classroom, with rows of tables facing a front desk in the back of the room.

Behind the professor's desk was a small curved staircase leading to the professor's office and private quarters. Hanging from the ceiling was a large skeleton of a Hebridean Black dragon, which spanned the entire ceiling. The entire room smelled like garlic. Harry made sure to sit somewhere in the back, as far away from Quirrelmort as he could. Ron sat next to him, but Hermione wanted to sit up front closer to the teacher. When they had all seated, Quirrell greeted them.

"G-g-g-good e-evening, class! I h-h-hope y-you've had a good w-week so far!" Don't actual stutters only occur in the beginning when they start talking? Harry could have sworn he read something about that in his previous life.

'Sweet Magic, kill me now!' Harry groaned inside. He had to listen to an entire year of this?

'Can I just kill him sooner? I can do that, right?' He brought up his Quest panel to see. [Year 1 Quests: Fate Quests: Youngest Seeker, Troll in the Dungeon, Golden Trio, Norbert the Dragon, Something in the Woods, Philosopher's Stone, Friends With the Snakes Magic Quests: Room of Requirement, Save the Unicorns!, Philosopher's Stone, Magical Tutor (Repeatable) This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. Death Quests: Philosopher's Stone Overall Quests: Fate: Fulfill the Prophecy, The Snake Nagini Magic: Ravenclaw's Diadem, Slytherin's Locket, Hufflepuff's Cup, Find Excalibur! Death: Horcruxes, Ghosts of Hogwarts Completed Quests: Fate: N/A Magic: N/A Death: N/A] Checking through the descriptions of the quests, the ones that would be affected if he chose to off Quirrell right now would be: Fate's Troll in the Dungeon, Something in the Woods, and Philosopher's Stone quests, and Magic's Save the Unicorns quest.

All of Fate's options had either a "prevent the incident" or "ignore" option that may be automatically accepted if he just kills Quirrell now. Magic's quest to save the unicorns only had one objective, prevent all of the unicorns from being killed by Quirrell. It didn't matter how or when, it was the same reward. It was Fate's quests that were more complicated. Each scenario in the books or movies that happened, had multiple choices.

Usually, it was the "going along with canon" option that had the best rewards - Fate likely wanted to entice him to stay as close to her preferred story as possible - so he would have to go over each one and consider if it was worth it or not. As he looked over his options, Quirrell was giving a bit of a self-introduction, where he told the story of how he had defeated a zombie somewhere in Arabia or something.

When Seamus asked him about the Zombie, Quirrell gave a squeak and changed the topic to the weather there at the time. Harry was pulled out of his contemplation when Quirrell finally began the lesson.

"T-t-today, w-we'll be learning y-your f-f-f-first o-offensive s-s-s-spell. T-t-t-the w-white sparks charm: Baubillious! In the f-f-following w-w-weeks, we will b-b-be looking at i-i-its related s-s-spells, Vermillious, Verdimillious, a-and Azullious. T-t-t-these spells a-a-are s-s-s-simple b-but e-effective a-a-against a w-w-wide a-a-a-assortment of c-c-creatures," Quirrell stuttered out. Vermillious was the red sparks, Verdimillious was the green sparks, and Azullious was the blue sparks spell.

They were mostly the same, with the exception of Verdimillious, which had the added effect of revealing certain types of dark magic. They weren't very powerful, unless the spell modifiers like Maxima, Duo, or Tria were added to them. As such, they were often used for the underage dueling circuit. Just damaging enough to leave a burn and show that they were hit, but there wasn't any real risk of losing an arm or something.

In a DADA type of setting, they were mostly used to ward off different creatures, or used as a signal flare in the sky. Which, admittedly, is why it was a good spell to teach first years. If a wizard wanted to actually kill the creature with these spells, again, they would have to add those modifiers to make it more powerful. Quirrell spent the rest of the class talking about the uses of Baubillious, and how it was best used against the more nocturnal creatures.

They weren't allowed to try actually casting the spell yet. That was for next time. Between now and then, they had to write an essay about the spell, and when it was appropriate to use it. In the afternoon, there was Transfiguration class. It wasn't anything special, just continuing practicing Acutifors, turning matches into needles. Seeing as he's already done it, Harry ended up falling asleep in class. He woke up to a disapproving glare from Professor McGonagall.

"Have you had a nice nap, Mr. Potter?" Harry straightened up, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

"I'm sorry, Professor, I stayed up too late last night and the lack of sleep seems to have caught up to me. It won't happen again."

"If you're struggling this much, perhaps you should head down to Madam Pompfrey?"

"No need, Professor. I'll manage."

"Very well, then. Nonetheless, this will be 5 points from Gryffindor. Don't let this happen again."

"Yes, Professor." After class ended, Professor McGonagall called him over.

"Mr. Potter, I couldn't help but notice you already knew this material. How far ahead are you in your studies?" She asked.

"I'm currently studying 4th year material." She raised an eyebrow.

"Oh? And you practiced all of this in the month you've had your wand?"

"I used my mother's wand, Professor. It works for me just as well as my own wand, so I've used that for the last few years to practice."

"That's quite impressive, Mr. Potter. I see that my class won't be much of a challenge for you then. Still, in your studies, should you have any questions, you are free to come to me any time for help."

"Thank you, Professor McGonagall. I'll be sure to come to you with any questions I may have." ~ ITW, H ~ One of the misconceptions Harry had about Hogwarts, gained from watching the canon golden trio sneaking around at night, was that once curfew hit, no one besides prefects and teachers should be out in the halls, and if a student was out of bed, they were usually up to no good. That wasn't the case. The astronomy class exists! Every night, one of the years would have to go all the way up to the astronomy tower.

That night, it was the first years' turn. The entire first year got up after curfew at 10 and was escorted up to the tower to astronomy class. To get to the classroom, they had to climb all of the stairs, wrap around a long hallway, which passed the Headmaster's office and the hall that held the RoR, then, there was a ladder that took us to the top of the tower. The astronomy classroom was in two parts.

The lower room was indoors, meant for lectures, and the roof, which is for the practical portion of the class, observing the night sky. Aurora Sinistra, the professor of astronomy, wasn't shown very often in the books and movies. She was an older woman, but one of the youngest among the professors. She had darker skin, with features that looked to be either Egyptian or Indian. She had a stern face, and watched silently as the students filed in from the hatch.

In the back of the room was a storage closet that held all of the student's telescopes that they had brought for the school list. Harry's own telescope was still with him, since he carried his luggage everywhere, but he imagined that the houselves had brought all of the student's telescopes here on the very first night. Otherwise, it would have been too much of a hassle for students to try and climb that ladder and haul up their telescopes at the same time.

"Before you get seated, go and find your telescope. You'll need it for tonight's lecture. Your telescopes are in the back storage closet. First year's telescopes are right by the door to your left as you go in," Professor Sinistra spoke in a monotone voice that lacked any emotion, even boredom. This was a fun teacher to have in the middle of the night. I'm sure no one will be falling asleep to her lectures. Once everyone had found their telescopes and sat down, Sinistra took roll and began the class.

"Welcome to astronomy, where we study the night skies and learn of the mysteries of the universe. As this is your first class with me, tonight's lecture will be on the tools of the trade. You will learn how to operate your telescopes to focus it on exactly what you want, as well as how to use your astrolabes to mark down precisely the coordinates of the object you're studying." For the next hour, she lectured them on what all of the dials do on their tools, then we went up to the roof.

"I have several objects in the night sky I want all of you to find. Find them, and use your tools to mark down their coordinates in the night sky. Next week, we will be discussing the main features of the night sky, and how it changes over the course of the year, and how to read it. This week's homework will be to do your reading to prepare for it." Harry tried to go partner up with Hermione, because he knew they would be able to knock out the assignment quickly, but Ron got the jump on him.

"Hey, mate! Let's do this together, yeah?" Hermione ended up getting teamed up with Lavender and Parvati. So, together with Ron, Harry went through the list of objects Professor Sinistra wanted them to find. The first was the moon, then the North Star, then several different stars in different constellations. They had to look for the constellation, which Sinistra had drawn out what it looked like on the page. By the time they were done, it was past midnight, and Harry was exhausted.

He probably shouldn't have stayed up all night just to prank Sirius, but he felt it was worth it.