Ambition and Tidium
Alexander Bay
As they had during their OWL year, the teachers wasted no time diving feet-first into the school year. Alexander had only a very brief breakfast, due to him oversleeping a fair bit and then having to rush to catch up with his timetable. The morning had brought them no post, aside from their daily copy of the Prophet. Not that he had any time to actually read it.
Alexander's week began with a double period of charms. Almost out of habit, he claimed his old seat at the very back of the classroom next to Amalia. Fortunately, Ravenclaw and Slytherin shared most of their periods that year. Dumbledore's classroom was decorated generously. Pots with exotic plants and bookshelves occupied the otherwise dull stone walls. Spindly tables with an assortment of magical experiments and artifacts, likely whatever had caught their professor's interest at that time, filled up the remaining vacant space. Some were just still artifacts, though others were gently smoking or spinning. There was also an ornate golden gyroscope that caught the eye. It hadn't been there the previous year, and his curiosity didn't go far enough to further investigate.
Suddenly, the classroom door swung open and Albus Dumbledore strode in with his usual wide gait. With a flick of his wand, all the students' open spell books snapped shut. It was the kind of dramatic entrance Alexander had come to expect from his favourite Professor, and over the past few years, Alexander had grown distinctly suspicious that Dumbledore very much enjoyed making these theatrical appearances.
"There will be no need for books today," the professor announced mildly, turning to gaze at them with a bemused twinkle in his blue eyes, and sat on top of the desk.
"You can really put your books away," he assured them when the class hesitated.
Alexander exchanged a small grin with Amalia.
"Can anyone tell me what nonverbal spells are?" he asked evenly, addressing the class. As usual, he was met with a depressed silence. After a moment of hesitation, both he and Amalia raised their hands.
"Yes," Dumbledore nodded at them approvingly. "I imagine that after this summer, the two of you will be quite familiar with the concept. But the rest of you? No one? Does anyone care to at least hypothesise? Mr Tills, you perhaps?" he asked a gangly, short dark-haired Slytherin in the front row.
William Tills gulped, realising he had the unenviable position of being the centre of attention.
"You don't need to say the spells out loud?" he ventured hopefully.
"Precisely," Dumbledore confirmed.
"Now, why would someone desire to cast a spell without uttering an incantation out loud?" He inquired.
Again, he and Amalia raised their hands. After a few moments of hesitation, a few more students followed their example. Dumbledore nodded at them. "Alexander, Amalia, would one of you care to enlighten us?"
Amalia deferred to Alexander again with a slight smile, as if enjoying this shared moment of expertise between them.
"There could be several advantages to nonverbal casting," Alexander began. "First, it helps conceal the spell you are attempting to perform. Your opponent won't know what you're about to cast, making it difficult for them to defend or counter. Then it allows for more discreet spell-casting, particularly useful when uttering an incantation might betray your presence."
Dumbledore's eyes twinkled as he listened. "Excellent, Alexander. You have summed it up nicely, though do not count on the element of surprise. At the risk of delving a few steps further into Defence Against the Dark Arts, a skilled opponent will still be able to anticipate your spells to at least some extent. Now, while this is a very effective tool in a duel of any kind, it requires a greater understanding of the spell being cast, which makes it interesting for our class today. This year will be more demanding of you than any of your previous school years and if you wish to go pass your NEWTs, you will have to be comfortable in the application of non verbal magic."
Alexander made a mental note to ask his younger brother what Dumbledore meant concerning the anticipation of non-verbal spells.
Turning back to the class, Dumbledore continued, "Today, you'll have a chance to try your hand at this subtle art for the first time. Try to master it; nonverbal spell-casting will certainly be a part of your NEWTs. We will begin with a basic spell—one that you have already learned and should be well familiar with the Lumos spell. Now everyone, pull out your wands."
Once everyone had their wands out, Dumbledore rose from his seat. "Now recite the incantation clearly in your head. Do so silently. Do not let failure discourage you.
"Lumos," Alexander thought to himself and flicked his wand. To his mild disappointment, nothing happened.
He tried again, this time concentrating harder, with similar lacking results. He glanced over at Amalia, who, like him and the rest of the class, was uselessly flicking her wand.
"It looks so easy when Max does it," Amalia hissed under her breath.
Alexander chuckled, still remembering how his brother had cursed nonverbal spells during the winter break of his third year at Svalbard, where students were required to master the use of nonverbal spell-casting to progress into the fourth year and qualify for the advanced duelling program. Blessed with a sharp mind and both a disciplined and competitive disposition, it was a skill his brother seemed to have mastered in short order. He hadn't heard his brother cast a single spell out loud since.
A Slytherin at the desk in front of theirs was whispering the spell under her breath, still with little to show for her efforts. Accepting there was no way around mastering this skill apart from practice, he concentrated on the incantation as hard as he could and tried again. For the next quarter-hour, they kept on trying. Edward, a fellow sixth-year from Ravenclaw, was concentrating so hard that his face had turned a concerning shade of purple.
"Lumos," Alexander thought again, staring intently at his wand. To his mild surprise, the tip of his wand began to glow.
"Show-off," Amalia muttered under her breath.
"Very good, Mr Bay," Dumbledore declared, looking over at him and his glowing wand tip. "Ten points to Ravenclaw. Now, everyone, continue."
Much to her annoyance, Amalia was only the third in their class to cast a spell in complete silence.
By the time Dumbledore rose from his desk again, only a few other students had managed to cast their charm non-verbally.
"Very well, class," Dumbledore finally announced. "Until next class, I want you to read up on non-verbal spells, write a short essay summarising what you learn, and most importantly, practice, practice, and more practice. Now, you are all dismissed."
He and Amalia slung their bags over their shoulders and hurried out of the classroom ahead of the crowd, holding hands. "Next, we have DADA," she said after pulling their timetables from her robes and hurried toward their next classroom, trying to stay ahead of the crowd. "Leave it to Dumbledore to make us write an essay on an assignment that should only ever be practical," Amalia complained indignantly. She was, Alexander thought to himself, very cute when she pouted.
"I fear Dumbledore will not be the only one; you remember how they were last year...," Alexander reasoned, thinking to himself that they could count themselves lucky if Dumbledore's homework would be the worst they'd be getting that day, considering that of all the subjects they had, Charms was among the more practical-oriented classes.
"Hey, Bay!" a third-year from his house called as they headed down the maze of corridors. "Yes, Campbell?" Alexander replied, stopping to let his fellow Ravenclaw catch up.
"When are Quidditch tryouts?" he asked breathlessly.
Alexander shrugged. "I will post the dates for tryouts on the bulletin board later this week," he decided. "I need to talk to Professor Saint first, though, and see if I can reserve the pitch this weekend or maybe the next."
"If we don't reserve it first," Amalia replied with a grin. While they might be going out, their friendship ended where Quidditch began.
"Who are we kidding? Gryffindor probably already blocked every free slot from now until Christmas," he muttered, remembering how hard training had been to come by in the previous year. Despite the interruption, they managed to reach the classroom so early that the last class hadn't entirely departed yet. Seizing the opportunity, they secured two seats in the rear left corner of the room, strategically distanced from the teacher's desk to ensure the level of privacy that any discerning student would deem essential to a productive period. In fact, the only one already present aside from them was Professor Galatea Merrythought, preparing for her class. The air carried a distinct burnt note, and the walls displayed diagrams of wild beasts. Otherwise, the classroom was rarely void of the theme-oriented decorations that so many other teachers chose to set up.
After a few moments of awkward silence, the doors swung open again, and the rest of their classmates caught up with them and spilled into the classroom. The professor waited patiently until the class had quieted down.
"Welcome back for your sixth year," she finally announced, a small smile reaching her lips. "I am pleased that so many of you have progressed to the NEWT level and have chosen to stay with Defence Against The Dark Arts. Last year's NEWT course was a lot emptier. Now, I trust Professor Dumbledore has introduced you to the concept of a non-verbal spell. How many of you have made progress so far?"
Alexander, Amalia, and a small minority of other students also tentatively raised their hands.
"Very good! Don't be discouraged," Professor Merrythought declared to the rest of the students. "Non-verbal spell casting is a very advanced way to cast magic, but I am confident that most of you will make progress in quite short order."
He and Amalia exchanged a look, and she opened one roll of her parchment, inked her quill, and then began to scribble something quickly in her customary neat, narrow script. Then she pushed the parchment over to him.
"Do you think that quite so many from the other class will make as much progress?"
Alexander rolled his eyes. "Doubtful," he wrote back, without taking his eyes off Professor Merrythought, who had proceeded to explain the merits of non-verbal spell casting. Any class involving both Gryffindor and Hufflepuff was bound to be a slow affair.
For a moment, Alexander listened to their professor until he heard Amalia's quill scratching across the parchment again. Then, after a moment of hesitation, she pushed the parchment back over to him.
"Ms Malfoy," Professor Merrythought announced, her sharp voice cutting through the room like a samurai's sword through a watermelon. "While it warms my heart to find that you and Mr Bay are still going steady almost a year in, could you please pay attention? Unless you want me to read your little scribbling out loud for the class."
With a flourish, Amalia tossed her long blond curls over her shoulder, then she tore the parchment up from the table to hold it out to the teacher. "If you must, Professor, but I daresay the contents would make even a Howler blush."
A few of their fellow students snorted in laughter, but the professor only raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. "Ms Malfoy, all I ask is that you delay your private conversations until after the class."
"That is a fair request," he cut in before Amalia's sharp tongue could get them into detention on their first day back.
"It pleases me that you agree," the teacher replied. "So, shall we begin this year with a practical lesson? Why don't you split into groups of two? I know it's a big jump from Lumos, but I want you to try to disarm each other. I trust you are all still familiar with 'Expelliarmus'? Yes,...no? Because if you're not, your past five years here were an utter waste."
There were some nervous chuckles, but by now they had grown used to their teacher's dry humour.
"I will try not to ruin that pretty jawline of yours," Amalia promised with a grin.
"It is a disarming spell," he tried weakly, though Amalia's bemused smile took the wind from his concern.
With a swipe of her wand, Professor Merrythought cleared the tables and chairs to the back wall, and the formed pairs faced off on either side of the room, separated by roughly three feet. With that familiar spark of mischief in her eyes, Amalia dramatically whipped her hair around and dropped into a ready stance, with her wand hand arched back and up like a scorpion's sting, while the off-hand pointed loosely in his direction to counterbalance the pose. It was an aggressive stance, and one quite out of place for a classroom setting, in a clear imitation of France's underaged champion.
After spending the summer surrounded by some of the best duellists on the planet and watching Maxwell train for hours every single day, they were still, perhaps understandably, hyped up. Hiroshi Watanabe, that year's adult world champion, had even invited them to spar and seemed to have taken a keen interest in his little brother's career, engaging in a few off-the-record duels. Though enjoying themselves, neither Amalia nor himself had stood the slightest chance. Maxwell at least had held his own well enough, even if he had ended up losing all three rounds. Alexander had very much enjoyed seeing his brother getting defeated for once. Hanging out with his brother's crowd had been an all-round, enjoyable experience, even if he had never before spent quite so much time playing chess before.
"Now, no funny business. You are to cast only 'Expelliarmus,' non-verbally. If any of you are sent to the Hospital Wing, rest assured that points will be deducted and detentions will be given. Now, by the count of three, you may attempt to disarm your partner. One, two, three!"
Professor Merrythought had made a good-faith effort to impose order. He had to give her that. Some girl on his side of the class screamed "Expelliarmus!" at the very top of her lungs, followed by an ear-splitting crack, completely breaking Alexander's concentration. A jet of crimson light lanced across the room, completely missing its intended target, and struck the stack of desks and chairs piled up against the wall, setting them ablaze.
"Ms Irvin!" Professor Merrythought snapped, dousing the fire with a jet of water from her wand. "While your enthusiasm is commendable, did I not expressly say that you are to cast the spell non-verbally?"
"I got a bit excited," a Slytherin girl with brown hair replied, though not looking embarrassed in the slightest.
"Elsie, again?" the teacher asked. "Five points from Slytherin!"
He exchanged a look with Amalia, who only shrugged before returning her attention to the task at hand. Whatever grift her housemate was working this time, she wasn't in on it. "Class, back to work. Non-verbal, remember!"
The class returned to trying to cast the spell. "Expelliarmus!" Alexander thought, concentrating on the incantation as hard as he possibly could. Despite a well-meaning flick of his wand, Amalia's wand remained resolutely in her hand. Fortunately when Amalia tried next, she did so with no more success than he had. With both of them left with their wands in their possession, they continued trying. Despite the silence, Professor Merrythought tried to impose, a few of their class members resorted to trying to whisper the incantation.
As the minutes past, they flicked their wands again and again with their lips tightly pressed together. 'Expelliarmus' wasn't a very complicated spell. But it still felt as if he had regressed back to his first year, where even the simplest charm had proven a challenge. With every passing try, he could see Amalia grow more frustrated. Not only her, but the general mood in the class was taking a turn for the worse. So far, all spells that were being cast were obvious signs that they hadn't quite understood the non-verbal part of the assignment.
Not that he held it against them, even Alexander was growing frustrated and was forcing aside his own annoyance as he was quite sure that letting his temper getting the better of him would make it even harder.
"Expelliarmus!" he thought as hard as he could, taking care to be precise with the flick of his wand. To his surprise, a jet of crimson sparks blasted forth from his wand with a loud bang and crossed the distance. A heartbeat later, Amalia's wand was spinning through the air and clattered to the floor behind her.
Amalia gasped in surprise, but once she had gathered her wits, she retrieved her wand, grinning.
"Mr Bay, I trust you weren't whispering your spell?" Professor Merrythought asked, strolling over to them.
"No, Professor," he replied.
"In the case, well done. Ten points to Ravenclaw," she announced.
A few of his classmates, especially from the Slytherin portion of the class, rolled their eyes. He didn't care; their satisfaction with mediocrity said more about them than him.
Ignoring both praise and jealousy, he returned to his ready position facing Amalia. "Your turn," he only said, knowing that his success would only egg Amalia on to even greater efforts. Despite this, it took Amalia nearly until the end of the class for her to knock the wand from his hand.
Though it wasn't smooth sailing, Alexander managed to repeat the trick a few more times. At least Amalia had the satisfaction of joining the small group that successfully disarmed someone before the class ended. Still, he could tell that being shown up went against the grain for her.
So perhaps it was for the best that the next class would take them down into the dungeons, where esoteric vapours of, in his opinion, the most underestimated discipline filled the air. More importantly, reminding Amalia about their next class visibly brightened her mood.
This time they trailed the crowd, with no haste, and were easily the last to enter the classroom. It was as pleasant as a dungeon could be, with a lively purple fire crackling in a fireplace. Tables with the professor's private projects were placed alongside the walls. Some bubbled and belched colourful smoke, others simmered in crystal flasks over the magical burners. At the centre of the vaulted ceiling was a crystal sphere containing a litre of liquid light, bathing the chamber in its warm golden luminescence. The tables and workspaces were spotlessly clean, just like every other surface in the room.
Behind the desk, with her hands folded behind her head, sat Elliot Kinley, the potions professor who had switched over from the Ministry of Magic the previous year. What distinguished her from the rest of the staff was that she was a lot younger than her colleagues and she filled her robes out in all the right ways, drawing much interest from the male half of the student body.
"Welcome back from your summer break," the professor greeted them. "I trust you used your time off for something other than homework?"
Alexander let Amalia lead him through the class and towards the table at the front centre of the room. Once the class had settled down, Professor Kinley rose to her feet. "Welcome to your NEWT course. It looks like we will be a smaller group this year."
Then again, she was right. There were maybe half as many students in the NEWT potions course as there were in DADA. Then, while Professor Kinley was nice and easy on the eyes, she ran a demanding program and expected results. Results most students could not offer.
"Now, last year, I promised you we'd start this year off with a love potion," she announced, grinning at the surrounding crowd. "And I stand by that. Though I support this as an academic pursuit, I have to warn you. Abuse this potion, and you will very quickly find yourselves in Azkaban. I have personally served as an expert witness in front of the Wizengamot on two separate trials involving this specific potion back in my ministry days, so take my word on this." She shrewdly looked around their group and then grinned.
"Shall we get to it?" she asked, and grinned at them. With the flick of her wand, a piece of chalk rose from her table and began to write on the blackboard.
"Amortentia," the chalk wrote.
"Now, what can you tell me about Amortentia?" she asked the room.
Assuming his better half would know the answer, he waited so that Amalia's hand was the first to shoot up before following her example, and made sure he followed suit just a moment ahead of the rest of the class.
"Yes, Ms Malfoy," the professor asked brightly.
"Amortentia, as anyone with even the most basic grasp of Latin, can deduce, is a love potion. This specific concoction is famous for being one of the most potent love potions ever invented. Most potions of this specific area of effect are designed to simply enhance lust or arousal with a personalised touch, but Amortentia will do far more. Depending on the dosages, the level of effect can range from a powerful infatuation all the way to a psychotic degree of desire, well beyond the bounds of sanity."
"Couldn't have phrased it better myself," Professor Kinley said, clearly pleased with her pupil. "If you ever find yourself using this potion, regardless of my advice and your own better judgment, understand that this potion can and will backfire on you. There was this witch three years ago who used it on her Muggle neighbour's son, whom she fancied. She got cold feet halfway through, perhaps out of guilt. The young gentleman, already under psychological stress from his service in the Royal Marines, did not handle the rejection well and nearly ran her through with something called a bayonet, some Muggle pointy thing."
She glared at them as if every one of them was to make sure they had all got the message before turning to her blackboard, whereby now the piece of chalk had already written the recipe and had now proceeded to draw hearts. Kinley ended the chalk's escapades with another flick of her wand.
"This potion is tricky, so I want you to team up with a partner and get to work. All ingredients you don't have yourselves, you can find in the cupboard as usual."
"You set up the cauldron. I'll get the ingredients?" Amalia asked.
"Sounds good to me," Alexander replied.
As Amalia joined the small crowd forming at the cupboard, Alexander heaved the cauldron into its cradle and lit off the fire underneath with his wand. A few minutes later, Amalia returned with a small box full of the ingredients they would still need. "Italian," she murmured as she set the bottle down. "Could think of better uses for this."
"Late-night date on the Astronomy Tower?" he mused.
"This cheap rubbish?" Amalia whispered, her hand brushing against his waist. "You would dare take me on a date with this stuff? I would expect nothing less than a bottle from the château Mouton Rothschild. No, I would drink this before Care of Magical Creatures. Those periods would be far more enjoyable inebriated," she mused under her breath. "Pour three hundred millilitres of water into the cauldron," Amalia then ordered.
"Wait," she said, raising a hand. "I fear you might have heard me imply I want slightly less than a pint of water. I want precisely three hundred millilitres; use a measuring cup!"
"Yes, Amalia," he said patiently and got to work on the water, while Amalia did the same with the wine.
Then they poured the contents of both measuring cups into the cauldron. "Essence of Belladonna, fifty grams," he said and put on a show of being scrupulously careful with the measurements. As if still not quite willing to take his word on it, Amalia double-checked his work regardless and then set it aside to wait for the cauldron to boil. As she waited, she took a few branches of Lovage and cut them into small pieces on a wooden board with a razor before casting the cut herbs into the cauldron with a flourish of her blade, and then set a timer to let the brew simmer.
"Once everyone's brew is simmering, let me know," Professor Kinley ordered. "So, now that we have some time, I think it is time for a quick test to see how much you remember from last year. During the last stage of brewing the Potion for Dreamless Sleep, what should you remember?"
Alexander raised his hand, though once again, beaten to the punch by Amalia. Aside from them, not many. "Anyone aside from you two?" the professor asked, looking back and forth between the rest of the students. "I told you this just before your OWLs?"
Amalia's usual rosy cheeks had turned bright red from the strain of trying to raise her hand as high as anatomically possible.
"Fine, Amalia. You may answer before you have a stroke," Professor Kinley finally conceded after being met with another pointed silence. Alexander was quite sure most of his fellow students knew the answer and only didn't want to risk being wrong or simply didn't feel like humouring their teacher.
"You should remember to keep the lid on until the potion cools down. The vapours from the still-hot potion have been known to incapacitate everyone in the room in short order," Amalia explained smugly. "I recall St. Mungo's even ran this public awareness campaign a few years ago."
"They did," Professor Kinley confirmed dryly. "With remarkably little success."
After they let the concoction simmer for a while, and answered a few more questions, they cast the Essence of Belladonna into the potion and stirred it for a bit with a glass rod. It was all they would have time for, and their handiwork would have to wait on a shelf in a storage room until their next class, but at long last, it was time for their poorly named lunch break.
After a quick kiss on the cheek, Amalia retired to her own table. Alexander found Maxwell already there, staring down at some book while he ate. A few girls were loitering a few spaces off, shooting furtive glances at his younger brother and whispering among themselves, though lacking the courage to approach. It was just as well that he arrived when he did because it seemed a girl in her fifth year was gathering her courage to approach him. Just in time to impede her ambitions, Alexander slid onto the bench next to his younger brother.
"What are you reading?" Alexander asked and began to fill mashed potatoes onto his plate.
"The Wizard's Endgame," Maxwell replied, looking up from his literature somewhat reluctantly, "Someone recommended it to me over the summer, and I found it in the library between periods."
"Chess again?" Alexander asked, suddenly recognising the diagrams for what they were.
"Yes," Maxwell replied, and finally seemed to give up reading his book as a lost cause and closed it to grant Alexander the balance of attention.
"So, little brother. Have you made any friends?" Alexander asked lightly, not able to keep a teasing note from his voice. Pushing the few buttons his brother had had always been a favoured pastime of his.
Maxwell paused his chewing and looked over at him for a long moment before looking back down at his plate and swallowed heavily. "Hogwarts will take some getting used to," Maxwell admitted after a long moment of silence. "The teachers are watching me like hawks."
"You can't really hold it against them," Alexander reasoned. "I doubt letting you attend Hogwarts was a popular decision to begin with."
"Probably not," Maxwell admitted.
"Should the three of us meet in the library after classes?" Alexander then asked quietly as it occurred to him that these were conversations best held in private.
"That would be for the best. I have to get going, anyway."
They would not have to wait for too long. Only Herbology remained, and they would be free for the remainder of the day.
"Looks like Professor Alvarez didn't find any excuse to sneak nonverbal magic into this class," Amalia noted as they slung their bags over their shoulders and hurried out of the greenhouses. The sweltering and muggy climate inside had wreaked havoc upon her long, blond curls.
"Small mercies," Alexander agreed. To be frank, digging around in the dirt for plants that had nothing better to do than try to bite off your fingers the moment you didn't pay attention was hardly his idea of fun.
They found Maxwell already waiting for them in the library. For a few minutes, they searched the maze of bookshelves until they found Alexander's younger brother sitting at a table facing one of the lead glass windows, writing on a piece of parchment. The golden light of the evening sun flooded through the windows, bathing the large vaulted chamber in a colourful mosaic of light. "Hiding, Max?" Amalia asked and leaned against the side of one bookshelf with her arms crossed.
For a few more seconds, Maxwell's quill scratched across the parchment as he finished the sentence. Once he had set the quill down, he turned around to face them. "Something like that," he admitted. "I did not anticipate that quite so many people would know me."
"To be fair, chances are most of those who welcomed you back to England at St. Katherine Docks will be at Hogwarts right now. It took the Ministry nearly a century to stamp out enthusiasm for the sport and push Quidditch in its place. It is our age group that got excited when you started winning. Most of the older crowd were more concerned that duelling might have a comeback in England! It will pass..." Alexander reasoned.
"Forget past contests," Amalia said, sitting down in the chair next to Maxwell and pulling her own books and parchment out. "We have the Triwizard Tournament to worry about. Maxwell, I take it you are not eager to win another victory for queen and country?"
"That would hardly be wise. If the Department of Magical Games and Sports sees my name on the participant list of another international tournament this soon, I fear they will succumb to a collective aneurysm," Maxwell replied.
Alexander rolled his eyes and also claimed a seat. "This is mainly your fault. You kicked the hornet's nest on this one," he said and brandished an accusing finger at his brother. "You know that they were planning on pushing the celebrations in case of your victory. They were planning on giving you a hero's welcome, right until you chose to kill Vasilis. And I know, he started it," Alexander said when Maxwell raised an eyebrow. "But you just had to use that spell!"
Amalia hissed between her teeth. "Not here. The shelves have ears." Then she added in a far lower voice. "He is right, though. I know for a fact that some of Father's more unsavoury friends became quite interested in that little display of yours. They aren't buying the involuntary magic story you have been trying to sell."
"What is done is done," Maxwell said, and then pulled his own wand from his sleeve. He stared at it thoughtfully, his thumb brushing over the dark wood, before looking back up at them.