Academic Fallacy
Alexander Bay
Despite Quidditch, and working out, the next weeks passed with grueling monotony. In fact, those two were the highlights of his day. Especially because Maxwell had started joining him in the weight room to stay in shape. Normally, he and Amalia would have found some other extracurricular academic pursuit to amuse themselves with. In their fourth year, they had taken the time to learn things like the disillusionment charm and other spells quite a bit ahead of their curriculum. In their previous year, they had tried to become animagi while also developing a few other spells of their own, including doing a lot of work on that one Ill-fated one with Maxwell.
They had tried to become animagi and had admittedly failed.
By the time they had actually reached the practical part of their endeavor, they had been so swamped with schoolwork that they had not been able to go through with it. By the looks of it, this year would be worse. He sighed and leaned back against the wall of the corridor. The dimmed light of smoking torches drew flickering shadows, the light-play making actually seeing anything through the bloody contraption he was looking into a good deal harder.
Alexander had come here hoping to finish up his astronomy homework, finding himself quite alone for the first time in a while. There was always someone around, be it Amalia, Maxwell, his Quidditch team, or fellow sixth-years in their dormitory. There was always someone around.
"Ah, Mr Bay," a familiar voice greeted him. "You are out at a late hour. Catching up on some astronomy, are we?"
Alexander turned around to find Professor Dumbledore striding towards him at a leisurely pace.
"Yes, Professor," Alexander confirmed and stepped back from his telescope.
"I trust you have a permission slip to be out of bed at this late hour, as I do not recall you being on watch duty tonight?" Dumbledore asked.
"I, in fact, do," Alexander confirmed and pulled a scroll from his robe.
"I will take your word for it," Dumbledore said with a light smile and proceeded on his way, leaving Alexander quite alone. When he had written down his last set of measurements concerning Saturn's shift in Parallax to Mars, he packed his things up and began to make his way back towards the common room. As he did every evening, Maxwell was still in the common room. Dozens of students were sitting around, trying to catch up with their homework or prepare for impending texts. Most sat around in groups, though, as usual, his brother sat alone. Two textbooks lay open before him while he was writing an essay on a length of parchment, and he was scribbling in his usual neat script while glancing into an empty teacup.
"Tasseography," Alexander surmised after a quick glance, not regretting at all that he had dropped the subject the previous year. Divination could neither be mastered through studying nor through practice. At least that was the case, as far as he could tell. So either he simply lacked the aptitude for it, or the entire subject was a scam. Perhaps his assessment was driven by his ego, but he tended to favour the second option.
"You didn't have divination in Svalbard if I am not mistaken?" Alexander asked conversationally.
Apparently realising he was not getting rid of his older brother any time soon, Maxwell set aside his quill and leaned back in his chair. "No, and Professor Burns expects me to cram in the two previous years' worth of predictive theory in by the time the OWLs come around. Apparently, the secrets of the universe can be gleaned from tea leaves."
"Can they now?" Alexander asked, remembering how he and Amalia had pined over similar cups.
"Yes, you must tell me Alex," Maxwell began and offered him the cup to sea, where a blob of tea leaves had correlated at the bottom. "I could not tell you if this was supposed to be an apple, the moon, a star, or the sun if my life depended on it. What do you think?"
Alexander gave the blob an appraising look. "No clue, but at least it is at the very bottom of the cup and if I remember correctly, that means whatever it is won't happen for a long time."
Maxwell sighed deeply in a rare betrayal of frustration. "How did you ever manage to get your OWL in this?"
"Amalia and I just pulled stuff out of our arses. Professor Burns and the ministry lady taking the tests are old friends and love drama, so we gave them a good story. I predicted financial ruin for myself, and Amalia came up with that she'd be pregnant before leaving school. We both got Es, lost a few points on the theoretical exam though," Alexander explained, feeling rather pleased with the previous year's outcome of the exams. "Basically, everyone has been doing this."
Maxwell's eyes narrowed. "You aren't jesting, are you?" he asked.
"No, we've been making up our predictions since our third year," Alexander confirmed smugly. "I do not regret dropping Divination."
Maxwell paused, his expression thoughtful as he weighed the true value of the discipline against the effort he was expending. Alexander could almost see the gears turning in his head as he made a cold assessment of whether this discipline was actually worth more than the bare minimum. His brother looked down at the two thick books and his scroll with a seven-inch essay, and then exhaled deeply and set aside his quill. Alexander grinned, feeling slightly vindicated as he watched his brother come to the same conclusion he had.
For a few moments, he savoured the mental image of Maxwell, silently sieving in his own special brand of stoic frustration, not understanding how his classmates were quickly coming up with prediction after prediction, while he himself failed to make any sense of the vague omens despite bringing his entire, not inconsiderable intellect to bear on the problem. Maxwell, for all his talents, tended to assume that when he made no progress in any given subject or task, the error must be with him, the practitioner. He was also stubborn, which meant he would stick with a problem long after a more reasonable person would have given up.
"Why do they teach this?" Maxwell asked as the sheer pointlessness of the topic settling in.
"As far as I can tell, mainly because it has always been taught. I think the school board tried to axe Divination from the curriculum twenty years or so ago and add an optional French or German course instead, but gave up after the Prophet decided that this was the hill they wished to die on. Apparently, a signification portion of our esteemed society consults Tarot Cards for significant life decisions or something. Though now that I think about it, that would explain a few things," Alexander elaborated.
Maxwell did not comment, giving the cup another glance. "It's a wheel," he decided and made a quick approximate sketch of the blob shown.
"And that other thing could be a snake," Alexander offered helpfully. "See, two years of divination weren't lost on me."
"The implications most concerning. Grim tidings for me indeed," Maxwell agreed evenly and Alexander slapped his little brother on the shoulder, knocking his quill hand aside. The quill, having just touched the parchment, drew an unfortunate line across the otherwise neat script and diagrams.
Maxwell's next blink was suspiciously long and Alexander felt compelled to offer an obligatory "Oh bugger."
"Forget it. I have been on this for over a week. I don't believe I have ever wasted so much time in my life," Maxwell said and pulled out other scrolls and handed them to him. There were scrolls of parchment on which it became clear that his little brother had prosecuted the subject of divination with the same ruthless determination he did with everything that did not come naturally to him, but he still had to do. He had neatly and meticulously drawn up countless diagrams and spreadsheets, filled with possible interpretations of funny-shaped blobs of tea, and how they would correlate with other possible interpretations of funny-shaped blobs of tea.
"You need to start duelling again," Alexander said as he gazed at the absurd display of effort for a subject that simply did not deserve it. For a sweet moment, he imagined his brother sitting up in that tower, struggle.
"Or pastime. You used to play piano if I remember correctly..."
"Alexander, I haven't touched a piano in two years," his brother reminded him. "And I have not seen one here either."
"Where there is a wand, there is a way," Alexander pointed out helpfully. "If push comes to shove, we can always donate one of those Steinway & Sons models to the school..."
"I don't think that would be necessary. Besides, I would rather not ask father for a favour. Unlike with you, for me, every favour comes with a steep price."
"Ah, yeah. I forgot," Alexander admitted, mentally kicking himself. He did not like being so insensitive about such matters, even if he doubted that at that point Maxwell cared. As far as Alexander could tell, his little brother had given up on their father a long time ago, and preferred to instead take advantage of the relative independence parental apathy afforded him.