Harry waved his arm as water began dropping off him, leaving him dry as water began floating along. "Indeed. If I HAVE to be up at this hour, I would at least like to enjoy some orange juice. Or something."
Padma whispered into Harry's ear. He frowned. "What do you mean? I just can't leave the water on the floor, what if someone slipped?" She whispered some more. "Fine, I will send it off to the nearest bathroom."
As he waved his hand the water TOOK OFF. Even Harry was shocked at the speed the current of liquid flew down the hall. Hearing a distant "WHY!?" Harry quickly grabbed the two nearest arms and began guiding everyone in the other direction. "Pretty sure the fastest way to the Grand Hall is this way, let's mosy along, everyone keep together."
Exploring the castle was a fun but a bit repetitive. It did teach Harry how DANGEROUS the darn building is. Some stairs were actually FAKE, and standing on them threatened to drop you to your death. Many doors were fake, or required special handling to open (Or in one annoying case, close). Windows seemed to be placed randomly, and there was no guarantee that two windows side by side would be viewing the same side of the castle. In fact Harry had already found two windows that were looking straight up into the sky instead of out on the lawn.
The passages were fun to explore mostly, especially when Harry began practicing the dust removal spell. Apparently part of the spell defined what was to be removed (see: Dust), so changing it gave some fun results. In one room he had even managed to convert the spell into an "Ant removal spell", which was pretty lucky since the ants seemed to have built a fairly advanced society and Hermione was worried it was reaching the nuclear age without bothering about safety testing.
Neither Terry nor Padma knew what she was talking about, but it SOUNDED bad to everyone.
Harry also managed to meet (And tag) several of the ghosts and something called "Peeves", which apparently was a poltergeist formed from excess school child energy. It gave Harry enough of a grip to push them away... doubly awesome since it worked on Peeves as well.
Eventually the group bumped into Susan and Hannah near the library, and their wandering became something like a walk and greet. Harry filed each name away, trusting Wisdom to sort out all the details later.
Harry connected everyone in the library, although they were now spread out to various couches. No reason to be sore after mental work. Even as he followed Susan around in her mental Ministry, he wondered about how that Delta Duck was doing in deep, DEEP recon.
Harry entered the Charms Classroom, finding a spot near the middle towards the front. Each desk supported about three students, so Padma and Hermione got the end seats.
The room was an octagon, One side clear for students to enter, the opposite side set up with the teacher's desk, and the rest of the room filled with desks, focusing on the middle. It seemed like many of the classes were taught with two houses, mostly Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, Gryffindor and Slythern. Probably was how that major rivalry kept going, really.
Susan and Hannah snagged a desk with Terry nearby, since Puffs and Claws never really had issues like the other two houses. They also seemed to be checking out the room, enjoying the subtle shades of blue and rich browns.
Harry noticed that the glass windows had animated glass, each with a different House animal. THIS is what made magic wonderful to him, the fun stuff. Art for beauty's sake was one of the highlights of the magical world in Harry's opinion.
Thankfully the class settled down pretty quickly as Professor Flitwick climbed some books and stood at the font of the class. Filius grinned at all the children, ready to learn something he found amazing. "All right, quiet down everyone! I trust you had an adventure finding your way to the class, no?"
He chuckled at the various moans and complaints. Finding the class could sometimes teach you more than the class itself. "Settle, settle. Now, in future classes I want everyone to read the next chapter of your book before we start... but for this first one we are going to cover something easy, basic, and absolutely vital."
Each student copied the wand movements as he taught them. "Now these are the basic movements, but if you practice long enough you can make them smaller and smaller without losing the power of the motion. The most advanced duelists can cast their favorite spells without any movements at all, like so."
He pointed his wand at the roof, a silent and motionless stunning spell smashing into the surface... wow, this brought back good memories. He grinned at the wide eyes of his students. "Now, onto the basics, shall we? If we make enough progress, I may introduce you to one of my favorite fun spells, a color changing charm. Simple, doesn't last long, but entertaining!"
Harry was fascinated. He wasn't even casting anymore, just watching the magic from dozens of wands surrounding him. Hermione's orange power was being twisted, pulsed, stretched, dripped... each wand motion left residue in front of her before slowly fading away. Each time a new strand of magic touched it, the old pattern would last longer and draw power from the crossing of the two threads.
He reached out to stop her. "Hermione, just... go much slower."
She was about to say something cross when she saw how bright his eyes were... no not bright. Flat out glowing. There were even white threads drifting in the deep green. He was seeing something she couldn't. "Well... ok, Harry, but you need to show me this memory later so I can see what you see, alright?"
He gave her a grin as she began doing each movement slowly. This sort of explained wands to Harry, or at least why wizards would ever start using them in the first place... there was precision here. The power going into the wand was flaring, bouncing, matching Hermione's mood and heartbeat, but the output was smooth, extremely thin, and exactly precise.
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