Outside

Walking out of the back gate, the boys were greeted by a tall tree, its branches spaced out from each other and hosting a separate cluster of leaves, guarded by four Pukwudgies blending their camouflaged silhouettes almost perfectly into its bark as they eyed the students coming in and out of the castle.

"Finally, we can see the snakewood. It's supposed to hide Salazar Slytherin's wand under its roots." Nathaniel looked at the ground under the tree with greed as they passed by, which earned him a hostile glare from the guarding Pukwudgie and a commotion among Bowtruckles clinging to the trunk.

"It's much more useful growing wildly, leaves have great healing properties. Famously only the headmaster is allowed to gather them, and only less than a dozen at a time, otherwise the tree will start flipping out on him and wither the rest of its leaves." Bryce revealed. The class passed the neatly pruned lawn surrounding the main Ilvermorny building into a mishmash of small cottages interspersed with greenhouses, residences of some teachers preferring life outside the stone castle they already inhabited for seven years or more.

"How beautiful!" Luca couldn't contain the emotion as a group of rainbow-coloured tiny fairies crossed flying above the main path containing the majority of students and occasional Pukwudgie coming and going. The rest of his class also stopped to admire the spectacle, the fairies sprinkled silver sparks from their glowing noticeably even in bright daylight wings, wore simple dresses, and held woven baskets giggling among themselves.

"What a pity they can't communicate, the magical world classifies them as insects. Laying fifty eggs at a time and emerging from a cocoon kind of makes it impossible to argue despite the appearance." Winnetou sighed sadly for no rights being granted to such human-like creatures. Gazing above and to the sides in hope of spotting more fairies, they eventually reached the place of their lesson, one wall and a roof overhead containing only a table and some scattered rockery strewn about in piles. The female teacher explained that the Identification class is complimentary to the Crafting class, introducing the various ores, timber, herbs, and parts of magical creatures to prepare students for their usage, and will branch in the next year into Herbology and Care for Magical Creatures. The students listened to the teacher describing and passing around the ores that surrounding stones turned out to be and had a similar homework as in the Crafting class, next lesson announced to go visit the greenhouses instead of this landfill.

Going back, Luca paid attention to the scenery. Outside the main path, everything seemed maintained to perfection, ponds, and streams flowed merrily among flower patches and trees not found in the no-maj world, frogs, cats, and fish poking their heads out of the water played on their banks, looking carefully you could see many creatures he learned about in the 'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them'. Flobberworms, Knarls, Gnomes, Jackalopes, and other small non-threatening animals strolled around guarded by patrolling Pukwudgies and teaching staff or students on a break mingling with each other.

"It's lunchtime, wanna go around here first?" Luca proposed getting an affirmative response from his new friends. The boys strayed into the entwined pathways, eventually reaching the border of the gardens area. They could spy on Pukwudgies' treehouses peeking from behind the branches in the dense forest spanning miles, where anything from slightly dangerous to absolutely deadly dwelled in an ecosystem regulated by designated keepers and intelligent creatures allowed in the school, like a well-known pack of Unicorns, Horned Serpents, and a primary nest of a pair of Thunderbirds lured there after great pains from a collective effort of Thunderbird house graduate students.

Returned to the dining hall to grab some food, the boys went for a very ordinary-sounding lesson: History of the World. Bryce immediately upon seeing the spirited teacher speedwalking around his desk while looking dreamily upwards, stopped and blocked the entrance for the rest of the students staying in a trance with his mouth open until someone pushed him forward.

"What's wrong?" confused Luca asked.

"You don't know who that is?" Bryce looked at him in dismay. "That's the author of almost all currently used and verified history textbooks and manuscripts, he wrote a detailed history of forty-six countries, all continents, history of magical creatures fighting with humans, basically whatever you can possibly want to read about history - he wrote in the last three decades." Bryce said with reverence, his eyes shining as he met his and the entire Horned Serpent's house idol and current leader.

"Lucky strikes again, we ave' some brill professors." chipped in impressed Tolkien, students of Horned Serpent all gushing out at how great their dean racing against himself at this moment, William Dieterich, a middle-aged balding man wearing a shirt and sweater instead of usual robes is. As the class sat down, he snapped himself out of the thinking mode and sized up his new class with a serious and stern expression behind his thin-framed glasses.

"Real history is exciting, beyond breathtaking, it's a shame that ignorant no-maj can't hear about it because of some stupid laws, and wizards like you that are free to learn the truth, don't care to read it." regretful look for history to be swept under a rug briefly appeared on his face. "At least for the hours that I teach you, nothing exceeds past in importance, not present, not future. What matters are pure, cold facts, passed on by generations of chroniclers, often risking their lives reporting truth to their descendants, dug out literally from under the ground in many cases, from enclosed, enchanted basements those records had to be kept in order to not bring doom upon the writer's entire bloodline." as Professor stated his opening remarks, the class listened with bated breaths from his first word to the last of their present-day lecture.

Dieterich talked about what he considered the prime event shaping Europe and the world every single day since it happened: the time when the first Pope St. Peter killed a pure vampire entrenched in Rome, the meticulous plan to separate him from his thralls, the ensuing turmoil when humanity fought back against the enslavement of high-level policy-makers from the extraordinary world, and how Peter somehow gained access to what is widely considered a 'light dimension' for him and his followers, giving birth to Church since then battling in the dark.

It was confirmed that he held the Key to the Kingdom of Heaven, an artifact of unknown purpose and shape, subsequently lost or hidden from sight with no further information surfacing ever again. Professor Dietrich speculated it to be of no material existence, like a ghost or clump of magic passed on to future Popes by the core ritual of Christianity, or an idea manifested by believers.

"That's all for today, next we will talk about the accidental liberation of wizards as the dark forces that loved nothing more than hold sacrifices and eat babies with magic power were occupied fighting Rome." Professor Dietrich dismissed the class not assigning any homework, knowing that interested people will dive deeper while forcing those not is pointless.

"I may even visit a library, this dude knows how to teach!" Nathaniel exclaimed amazed by Mr. Dietrich managing to make him have a brief whim to read history books. Luca knew the content of the lesson having read a lot of his books, yet was still equally convinced to visit the library after dinner.

Last of eight compulsory lessons required in the first year's schedule led them outside again, this time through a side exit leading to an oval stadium surrounded by white square towers climbing sharply to the sky with elevated seating positions joined by dainty bridges up there.

"Battle quidditch, here we come!" Nathaniel exclaimed bouncing forward on the lawn inside enchanted to act as a trampoline to ensure safety if a student falls.

"Junior years can only play that shoddy 'classic' version Europe loves so much." Winnetou informed him with contempt for the bland rendition of the game loved by Old Continent wizards.

"Why, we can cast an attack spell already?!" exclaimed Nathaniel attempting a flip forward to the Asian witch waiting for the class among sixty prepared on the ground broomstick.

"Do you think it's so easy to play battle quidditch, dodging and casting spells while flying fifty miles per hour with only one hand on the broom, keeping track of quaffle, holding back the pain and distraction from permitted curses?" the teacher looked at him with ridicule. "Stop bouncing, everyone moves to have a broom on the side of their dominant hand." she commanded putting a stop to excited or worried whispers among the students.

Luca went aside looking curiously at the old-looking wooden broom with thin bristles held together by two rings either painted indistinguishable from gold or simply made of gold. His sensibility questioned the possible comfort of sitting on such a device, despite knowing it to be the first choice of wizards for leisure and trips, even toddlers were allowed to fly on mini-brooms in some less responsible families.

"Put out your hand like that and concentrate on ordering the broom with simple word of 'Come!', if it doesn't work in your mind, you can say it out loud." the short-haired teacher demonstrated, lifting her arm to which her broom flew up and stayed perfectly still in the air. Luca did as told, yet only the first letter of the word had time to form as all sixty-one brooms around came alive and darted from where they were resting a split second before hitting his body repeatedly with considerable force, tripping over multiple children in the process. After eating sixty unjust punches, Luca was left bewildered squatting down, trying to protect his head in his arms.

"Alrighty then..." groaned battered Luca as the sticks lay back down around him, making a small impromptu wall.

"You bastard, that's the latest model! Are you fine my dear?" the teacher made her way to pick up her broom, massaging over it and kissing the pole to lessen the presumed hurt lovingly. Speechless, the class had to wait for her outburst of emotion to end for further instructions. After everyone came to pick up their brooms gazing at Luca's head growing visible bumps, she said for him to skip this step and hold the broom between his legs tightly with two hands, then treat it as a wand and channel magic into it. Practice makes it possible to regulate ascending and descending as well as force of thrust, steering depends on the manual operation of body balance. First learning to control gentle levitation with minimal power, as she demonstrated.

Despite the boy having a bad premonition, Luca did as told. Pouring his untamed magic into it, the broom started flying without delay, to an exclamation of his classmates, picking up speed as the grass flew under Luca's feet. Thanks to his strength and balance, he clung to it for dear life without accident, until his pounding heart calmed down as he realized that it wasn't too bad of an experience, his buttocks felt like resting on an invisible airbag, and his face and eyes seemed largely unaffected by the airflow.

Now free to look around, he flew outside the stadium long ago and kept subconsciously climbing higher and higher to avoid obstacles. Looking forward to the dark-green forest, the school's misty barrier on his left, and the gardens on the right, he attempted to go back towards the castle. Turning smoothly, Luca witnessed the white-red behemoth in all its picturesque glory. Four tall towers and the middle dome centered between them made it symmetrical, lower main body and proud towers added a sense of aspiration to it if you knew that they were where students sleep and live. Luca finally felt proud of being a part of something bigger, of being a wizard officially coming from Ilvermorny.

That is until he spotted by the corner of his eyes a sun glint on the scope of a sniper rifle some Pukwudgie on the school's walls aimed at him, and a pissed-off teacher chasing far away below him. Fearing the immediate confiscation of his newfound toy and being mistaken for a clay pigeon, Luca lowered his flight to go back to the stadium.

"How to stooooop!?" he screamed whizzing past the shocked teacher from Luca's perspective flying extremely slow. He started circling her repeating the question until she came to her senses.

"Jump down on the grass, don't worry about it!" she screamed pointing behind and down in the approximate direction of the class. Luca did as told, pushing the broom away in mid-air, he dived legs-first into the gummy surface. Bouncing up ten meters high, he earned the cheers and whistles of young wizards observing him. Panting Luca steadied himself and sat down exhausted on the lawn observing where his broom went as the teacher hung in the sky beside him.

"Do you have any idea how fast you were?!" she seemed excited, looking at Luca's rickety figure.

"Pretty fast?" he said unsure.

"Around one hundred miles per hour! How did you do it? The limit of those old brooms is fifty with a strong tailwind!" she stepped down and started feeling Luca's biceps and pectoral muscles as if that could bring an answer, the boy had to hit her naughty paws for her to stop. The lesson continued somehow with better students going on slow laps around the arena, Luca made to try flying with swapped brooms. It turned out that all of them perform twice as well in his hands. To counteract her incessant pestering after allotted hours, he had to say that Professor Fontaine expected his presence and run out of there.

Getting out of the empty stadium, he went to get dinner as already full Miranda came up and asked angrily who beat him. Hearing the truth of self-flagellation by summoning the brooms, she laughed for a good minute and went to share the joke with her friends in the common room. Another utterly draining day after him, Luca came back to his bed grateful for the soft, fragrant bedsheets.