A good mood is when it's not bad. Obvious, isn't it?
The shard memory contained echoes of several different balls and other similar events, but none of them left positive emotions or impressions in the end. That's why, the morning after the ball, I felt great, and my mood was good—because nothing bad happened, although it could have.
Waking up elated, I, however banal it may sound, rushed to do physical training, and if someone had met me, they would have been slightly surprised by the faint smile on my face. Still, no matter what you think of yourself, such a simple and understandable thing as kissing a girl under the moon—is always inspiring, whether you are old or young.
Having exercised in the usual mode, run up and down the stairs in the Main Tower, "danced" Elven gymnastics, simultaneously deciding on the thought that I need to complicate training with mock spears and swords purely for weight, balance, and motor skills, I returned to the empty common room, took a shower, changed into casual clothes—understand that this is not quick—and leaving the common room again, found no one there. Naturally, this seemed strange to me, but I didn't immediately realize that the reason was simple—the morning after the ball. Shrugging, I left the common room and literally a few meters later entered the classroom converted into a lounge.
There weren't many people here, five people, one of whom was Romanova, still sleeping on the sofa and covered with a blanket. The rest of the guys were from our house, fifth year, and they simply fell asleep on conjured mattresses around some homemade board showing a three-dimensional illusion of one of the humorous scenes at the ball—there were such. It seems they were just showing each other who saw what, and then they just passed out.
Waking the girl up, I took her to the kitchen, where the house-elves happily fed her, gave her a drink, and only after that, transfigured a thick cloak under which she could hide her ball gown and walked her to the ship.
Everyone was sleeping! That is, the morning is no longer early, breakfast time, but I didn't meet a single awake wizard on the way to the ship and back. The result? Correct—I went to the Owlery to place an order for various ingredients for additional Potions classes. Just didn't find anything else to do before breakfast.
Coming down from the Owlery and reaching the Great Hall, I could state one obvious thing—magic in everyday life is simply priceless! The hall looked absolutely ordinary, standard, and there was only one large decorated Christmas tree and decorations in the form of mistletoe and ivy remained on the walls and under the ceiling. Not only was there not a single trace of the ball—there was no trace of preparation for Christmas.
In the end, only teachers and about a third of students from the third year came to breakfast. Well, and a couple of older ones—the rest were happily sleeping off the party.
Sitting at the table, sipping juice from a glass and looking at the rare students around, I pondered further plans, but first I had to suppress unnecessary thoughts about girls and kisses.
So, what do we have? The ball is over, showed myself, looked at others. Somewhere in February, on the twenty-fourth, if no one confused anything, the second task of the Tournament will take place. Means, need to find out how Cedric is doing with solving the mystery of the screaming egg, and if needed—help. But he is either still sleeping or wandering somewhere and finding him is not easy. Which means need to attend to another important task—studying books. For example, those given for Christmas.
With such thoughts, I threw my backpack over my shoulder, with which I rarely part, and with a clear conscience left the Great Hall, heading to the library—the most convenient place for reading. On the way, I came across rare students—sleepy, they lazily moved towards the Great Hall, because on an empty stomach you don't even want to be lazy.
At one of the turns, Potter, hurrying somewhere, literally jumped out at me, adjusting his black denim-type fabric jacket on the go.
"Careful," I reproached Potter.
"Uh-huh..." he nodded automatically, and a moment later realized who exactly. "Granger!"
The guy was somewhat angry and, it seems, specifically at me.
"Yes?"
"You broke Ron's jaw!" Potter leaned forward, trying to look threatening, but with his height it wasn't working yet. When he learns magic, his skills and knowledge become appropriate, then one can be afraid even despite the height.
"He brought Hermione to tears," I answered seriously.
"But..."
"Was I wrong?" I interrupted Potter.
"Yes!" he shouted importantly, attracting the attention of the few students walking by. Before they were walking, and now with pleasure slowed down, because any skirmish and conflict at Hogwarts requires the attention of everyone, interested and not so much.
"In what?"
"Didn't have to break his jaw. That's too much."
"The twins didn't look disagreeable."
"So what?"
"You can challenge to a duel if this doesn't suit you," I shrugged. "Or Ron can challenge when he gets out of the hospital wing. Or you can, like Slytherins, ambush around the corner."
Shrugging, I decided to bypass Potter, but he blocked my way.
"Duel," he threw with a challenge.
Stopping, I looked at the extremely seriously tuned Potter, brought my hand to my face and rubbed my temples.
"I assume there is no talk of any duel rules and wizard etiquette?"
"What?"
"That. I say, not a duel, but just a magic fight one on one will turn out."
"Why not a duel? Don't dodge, Granger. Or scared?"
Oh, Potter knows how to goad an opponent? Albeit unprofessionally, but that's already something.
"If you just want to try to beat me up with magic, stupidly waving a magic wand, then you can start right now, while the teachers went about their business and won't appear here."
"I'll do just that..." Potter took out his wand and began to retreat back.
I did exactly the same, and the students, a dozen students from different houses and, mainly, younger ones, immediately accelerated themselves, moving apart and giving us a corridor. I noticed a familiar face among them.
"Mr. Longbottom," I smiled at the young, plump, but rapidly stretching classmate from Gryffindor. "Even if not a duel, but give, be so kind, a countdown."
"Um..." Neville was embarrassed, but was able to quickly pull himself together. "This is a bad idea. Ready?"
Longbottom looked at us and, waiting for a nod, began the countdown:
"Three..."
Potter stood in a classic dueling pose, holding his wand in front of him like a sword. Were they shown such a thing? Seems I heard that in the second year the administration tried to make a full-fledged, general dueling club for everyone, but suffered a fiasco.
"Two..."
Quickly nodding, I just stood sideways, holding the wand relaxed and pointing it at the floor between us—for me it is convenient.
"One... Fight."
Potter lunged forward, waved his wand, began to say: "Stupefy," and I wondered at the striking difference in skills between those who study in the Dueling Club, and those who wander idly around the school looking for adventure. All these thoughts flashed through my head while Potter was casting.
Even at the very first stage of the swing, at the first sound "Stu...", I moved the tip of the wand up, creating Protego Reflecto.
Potter blasted from the heart—powerfully, brightly, but not quickly. The clot of Stupefy hit exactly the flashed film of protection and reflected back into Harry, knocking him off his feet so that these very feet came off the floor. Not wasting extra seconds, with sparse movements sent Tarantallegra, Tickling Charm and Incarcerous at the guy. Funny picture turned out—Potter bound hand and foot tried to dance lying on the floor, writhing and bursting with laughter—the wand was lying nearby, as it is practically impossible to hold it in hands, resisting the influence of these spells.
"Perhaps," I summarized, bringing the wand to my mouth, as if it were the barrel of a pistol and blowing off non-existent smoke. "Phew, this is the end, Mr. Potter."
The guys around chuckled and even Neville smiled at such a safe end to the magical fight.
"What is happening here?" Snape seemed to materialize out of thin air.
At least others might think so, but I felt his rapid approach, and my wand was already in the holster. Students instantly portrayed extreme busyness, scattering to the sides, and only Neville remained, sideways moving to Potter laughing on the floor, and clearly pondering how to help a comrade.
"Professor," I nodded. "Mr. Potter wanted to show his skills in wielding Stupefy, but... Something went wrong."
"I see that 'something went wrong'," Snape dismissively waved his wand towards Potter, completely dispelling all effects.
Harry hurried to pick up his wand from the floor and stand up, possibly even preparing to speak out in my address, but immediately ran into Snape's displeased look.
"Minus ten points to Gryffindor, Potter, for magic in the corridor and instigating a fight."
"But Professor..."
"Silence, Potter," Snape raised his voice slightly. "I am more than sure that you are the instigator of this disgrace, which means you answer for it."
"I didn't attack..."
"Stop lying, Potter. Go, before I took off more points or assigned detention. Cauldrons won't clean themselves."
Displeased Potter hastened to retreat along with Neville encouraging his comrade. Snape sharply turned on the spot, looking at me.
"You, Mr. Granger, must get pleasure provoking dim-witted idiots into rash acts, don't you?"
"Either that, or he along with someone else would have come up with some nasty trick, the result of which would be unpredictable," I nodded. "And so—a safe resolution of the crisis at the moment. Words were unlikely to solve anything."
"Hmm..." Snape looked thoughtful. "So be it. This time I won't take points. Dare to hope that you excel so much in duels, combat and sorcery not to beat up the wretched and poor. Next time try not to bring the matter to magic."
Snape turned around and swiftly headed about his business, and the hems of his black cloak effectively fluttered behind his back. Exhaling, I continued my way to the library.
The abode of knowledge on this wonderful day was empty, not counting Madam Pince at her workplace. She looked at me with slight surprise, almost unreadable on her face, adjusted her glasses and nodded.
"Mr. Granger. Even holidays are not able to keep you away from the library?"
"Truly so, Madam Pince," with a weak smile I gave a slight bow of the head. "This is a wonderful place for calm and solitary reading."
"If only everyone had your understanding of what the library serves. Come in."
Actually, permission was not required for anyone, but nevertheless, I thanked the librarian and headed to the reading room—today I don't need books from the shelves, have my own.
Settling more comfortably, took out copies of books from Daphne from the backpack and, anticipating something interesting, began to read.
With every page I understood that the selection of material on basic, initial chimeraology—is an extremely interesting thing. Only one thing confused me—I lacked basic knowledge in other disciplines. Not only purely magical, no. The problem was somewhat broader and deeper. The fact is that to understand the basics of chimeraology, one needs to possess quite advanced knowledge in anatomy, physiology, Care in general, and magizoology in particular. I have no problems with ordinary anatomy and physiology, even if some things still have to be either recalled through books, or studied in the same way, only these ordinary disciplines differ from magical ones very, very much. Every nuance, every tissue, their structure, processes in them and so on and so forth, in magical disciplines are considered not only strictly from the usual point of view, but also from the magical one. Here not only chemistry is involved, and this science is also known to wizards, but considered unnecessary in school education, like some others. Magical concepts, theories, rules, calculations, arithmantic formulas and, again, theorems, runic complexes are used... In the end, as I understood, understanding of a human wizard is also needed not just as a human, but as a magical animal, and here is what causes mixed feelings—from the point of view of Potions, interaction of tissues and organs as ingredients...
In general, I can memorize all this, yes. Can figure out a lot myself, not a fool after all, but this will already be something else, most likely completely wrong. The fact is that magic in the form existing here, and in shard memories, works on the same principle as science—invented a bunch of systems, models, and other things for themselves, and describe the world with their help. There is nothing bad in this, but such an approach links the system of knowledge and ideas together. Yes, I can figure something out myself using my knowledge and my understanding of certain processes, only their description will differ from the local one, which means using it as a foundation for understanding more complex disciplines is already problematic or even dangerous—one can distort everything so much that the consequences of practical application of knowledge with such a base can turn out not just unpredictable, but fatal.
What does this mean? Continue to storm the library, gnawing into the granite of science in depth and breadth.
For three hours I studied the selection from Daphne, but often stumbled over unknown terms, things or concepts, which immediately attracted my attention, because of which I did not master even a third of this improvised book. During this time, not a single student had the thought to go to the library, but judging by the quick steps from the corridor, this is temporary.
Ron Weasley literally flew into the library. Alive, healthy, in a scarlet handmade sweater, and initials embroidered in large gold letters clearly said that this is exactly his personal sweater. Ron nodded to Madam Pince, quickly looked around the hall and purposefully and importantly headed towards me.
"You," the redhead restrained the volume of his voice, but his face said that he very, very much doesn't want to restrain himself. "You broke my jaw!"
"You brought Hermione to tears..."
A feeling of déjà vu amused me greatly, and judging by the even more angry Ron, this was reflected on my face.
"You..." he slapped his palms on the table quite loudly, leaning on them and trying to loom over me, which turned out quite successfully—I'm sitting after all. "You beat Harry!"
"He wanted to beat me for you."
"Why I oughta..." Ron drew his wand.
Naturally, I was ready for such a thing—the redhead is much more hot-tempered and unrestrained even for his hyperactive family. Holding the wand under the table, I cast Silencio on the guy.
Ron waved his wand, opening his mouth without a single sound and clearly shouting something. Nothing happened. He didn't understand how so, and waved his wand harder, and judging by his face, no longer pronouncing the spell, but shouting it. Without sound, of course.
I glanced towards the entrance to the library—Madam Pince decided not to disturb us, and generally, seems to have gone somewhere deep into her archives. Waving the wand, which I still held under the table, put Ron to sleep and, with Leviosa, seated him at the table. Folded his hands in front of him, put his head on them, that's it—a sleeping student in the library, is that strange?
But despite this wonderful picture, I do not intend to remain in such aggressively sleeping company. Packing up things and checking that Ron is not going to wake up in the near future, I wanted to go to the Great Hall, because it's not that much time until lunch. However, a crazy thought came to mind. Waving the wand, transfigured a small poster with a semi-naked woman of beautiful forms out of thin air. Like from a photo shoot for Playboy, no other way. Fixed the transfiguration and put the poster under the sleeping Ron's hands. Now that's it.
On the way to the Great Hall, I met many more students than in the morning—woke up by lunch. Everyone lively and with great interest discussed the past ball, girls continued to walk in small groups and giggle at the sight of guys, in general—nothing particularly changed.
I came to lunch one of the first, but lunch as such hadn't started yet—students were just gathering, and the teachers' table was empty. Here Hermione entered the hall. Her hair was in the usual form, no super-neat styling, slightly wavy hairstyles—usual fluffiness for her. Seeing me, she immediately headed to the Hufflepuff table.
"Hector," my sister quickly sat opposite. "Why did you break Ron's jaw?"
"I also cursed Potter."
"Hector!" Hermione inhaled air for indignation, but just exhaled. "Okay, with Ron I can still understand. But what for Harry?"
"He came to lay down the law for me beating Ron."
"And?"
"And challenged to a duel."
"What absurdity."
"Not my fault," I spread my hands to the sides, noting that with every second there were more and more students in the Hall. "True, not at all according to rules and etiquette."
"Etiquette?"
"Well yeah," I nodded in response to Hermione's interested look. "When challenging to a duel there are rules, etiquette, all sorts of things like that. Without this, a duel can simply be refused, but I didn't do that."
"Why? You could have not participated in this egregious violation of rules."
"Little sister, what stupidity?" my smile did not please her at all, because I hinted that she is stupid. "If I refused under such a pretext, it would be equivalent to: 'Harry, you fool, know nothing, don't know rules, get lost'. Would that be good?"
"Well he would..." my sister thought for a second, and then waved her hand. "Who am I kidding. Like that you won't lure him to books."
"Exactly. But he would have been notably offended. And so I agreed to a magical brawl, and Potter beat himself with his own reflected spell. That's all. Quits."
"Okay. I understood. By the way, about house-elves..."
"Yes-yes?" I even leaned forward, smiling. "Something interesting?"
"Not yet, but there are sketches for a project. Will you help during the week with calculations?"
"You need my help?"
"Not sure," Hermione was embarrassed by such. "They say you work very well with runes. I asked Viktor if he had ideas for such? Well, he suggested... And everything is too incomprehensible there. Alone I will work on this too long."
"Okay... Let's do Tuesday?"
"Why Tuesday?"
"Mione, even if it's holidays now, for me it's just a reason to study harder."
Hermione nodded understandingly, and approval of my words literally shone in her eyes.
"Schedule, all that."
"I understood. On Tuesday."
There was less and less space at our house table, and Hermione noticed this.
"Okay, won't disturb."
She quickly stood up and just as quickly went to the Gryffindor table.
"What were you talking about?" Justin immediately sat closer.
I didn't have time to start answering, as teachers, foreign guests, all this brotherhood began to enter the hall. Seeing that almost everyone had already gathered, Dumbledore clapped his hands, and food immediately appeared on the tables.
"About how I broke Ron's jaw, and then beat Potter."
"Ah, heard about it," Justin nodded, and we began to put food on our plates. "Rumors, true, speak of your incredible cruelty to Potter, and how he fought desperately, sparing neither those around nor the walls of Hogwarts."
"Nothing unusual. He defeated himself, and I added a little dancing and tickling."
"Hmm... Ah, got it. Not bad."
At this the conversation died down, and the guys began to eat everything they could reach with ecstasy—no reason to skip breakfast.
Glancing at the Slytherin table, found Daphne with my eyes. She sat next to Pansy, discussing something, and both of them smiled somehow treacherously. Pansy noticed my gaze, quietly nudged Daphne with her elbow. They both looked at me, nodded meagerly, and that was it.
After lunch I went to the Dueling Club, but no one was there. At all. Such a scenario saddened me a little, but the mannequins didn't go anywhere—why not practice various spells here? For example, Baubillious.
The fact is that mannequins magically simulate an ordinary wizard. Yes, they remain ordinary mannequins, but the impact of spells, their strength and effects, manifest on them as they would manifest on a wizard. And Baubillious—is not a simple spell. It is not used in duels and combat due to absurdly low damage and impact. Despite the fact that it is lightning, it hits inanimate objects quite well, and animate ones absurdly poorly.
Pointing the wand at the mannequin, briefly waved it, creating a yellow flash of lightning. The mannequin didn't care. At all. Concentrating, sent storm energy into the wand and created lightning again, but this time it was bluish. A moment, a flash, the mannequin didn't sway, but the wooden head cracked, part flew apart in scorched smoking splinters, and the black gouge at the point of impact smoked actively and was even ready to catch fire. Yeah... Can't use such in a duel—will kill to hell. But in combat you can—lightning is instant, and its magical nature completely neutralizes the effect of electricity following the path of least resistance. Where pointed—there it will strike, even if there are plasma cords or iron rods on the way.
Tormenting the mannequin for another half an hour, I didn't wait for anyone, leaving the club premises.
Literally walking a few meters, met Daphne and Pansy walking arm in arm through the dungeons of the castle. To the common room, probably.
"Daphne," I nodded to the brunette, remembering our transition to a closer manner of communication, and shifting my gaze to Pansy, nodded to her too. "Parkinson."
"Hector..."
"Granger."
And walked past with important faces. From such I even remembered a picture on the Internet, from a past life, where a little man in a simple contour drawing raised such a hand in the air, there was misunderstanding on his face, and in the drawn cloud was a replica: "But I...".
They turned the corner, and to my sharp hearing came: "Hee-hee-hee." So girlishly treacherous that I decided for myself: "Okay. This game can be played by two teams." Need to find Romanova—will walk with her. On the one hand, this will not cause questions, because everyone who needs to knows that we duel, and topics for discussion can be simply a mass. On the other hand, this will cause the necessary response from these snakes. True, the consequences may be worse, but if such a trifle is enough for Daphne to commit rash acts—so be it.
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