Year Two - Chapter Ten

October, with its deadly curse set for Halloween, arrived. The roosters were nearly all dead, wild animals believed to be the culprits, and Hagrid on a warpath to get the foxes, or the magical mystical monsters of the Forbidden Forest, to stop attacking his roosters. He didn't have that many, just three or four, but they were all left to their own devises around the coops near the kitchens and the gamekeeper's hut.

Fang, having been left as a guard, had found absolutely nothing since he was just the dumbest doggo-wooffo ever and wouldn't bark as long as you gave him head rubs.

"Headmaster," I said gingerly as I took a sherbet lemon, having cracked the password for the second year in the end. "Do you think pronunciation is really that big of a deal for spells?"

Dumbledore looked at me through his glasses, sipping on a cup of tea and taking his time to answer me. "I do not think it's a matter of pronunciation, but of intent, Mister Umbrus. Magic is a wondrous thing, and different nations use different means to achieve it. At its core, wonder and beauty are perhaps the one thing that makes them all the same."

I mulled over the thought while suckling on the sherbet lemon. "But then aren't curses and hexes wonderful things too by that definition?"

Dumbledore's lips twitched in a slight smile. "Then I suppose that I should correct my previous statement, Mister Umbrus. Magic, naturally, should be about wonder and beauty. Greed for more, lust for power, it corrupts the beautiful and generous thing that magic is into something twisted and dark. Differences of habit and language are nothing at all if our hearts are open, and our aims identical."

"Headmaster," I said, "If that's the case, then why does my pronunciation suck so much it affects my transfiguration?"

"Because you think with your brain and not with your heart, Mister Umbrus. It is an admirable trait, a sign of a great wizard, but not of a happy one, unfortunately," Dumbledore's smile was still there, but strangely tight. "The eyes of a child are filled with the wonders of magic, not the practicality of the spells. Some outgrow their physical age, others never do," he sighed, settling himself a bit better on his armchair.

"I'm sorry Headmaster," I said awkwardly, "But I'd rather think with my brain than with my heart. The latter seems the foolish way of going to one's death."

Dumbledore chuckled, "Perhaps," he acquiesced. "In moderation, everything is sweet, Mister Umbrus. Though it can sometimes be so sweet, we lose track of ourselves until it is too late." He gestured for the sherbet lemon, and one floated into his hands. "Take this delicious sweet for example. I'd eat dozens of them if I did not check myself. They would taste nice, and be refreshing. However, the lemon would eventually become cloyingly sweet, and then I would be repulsed by it if I kept eating. Moderation, Mister Umbrus..." his eye sparkled briefly, "It is not something you are unfamiliar with, are you?"

I gave a hesitant shrug. "Sometimes our desires are too much even for ourselves, we think we want something, but then it turns out we didn't really want it to begin with, but it's too late to turn back the clock," I sighed as I swallowed the remains of the sherbet lemon. "The regrets pile up, don't they, Headmaster? The older we get, the more regrets we accrue."

Dumbledore's eyes moved away from my face, and they stared at the window, which gave into a breathtaking view of the Forbidden Forest's treetops. "Is that what you see in my eyes, Mister Umbrus? Regret?"

I quietly looked towards the window too. "Yes," I said. "The resignation of the warrior whose blade is growing rusted, and yet must fight, for if he doesn't...then no one else will."

"What sorrowful vision you have of me, Mister Umbrus," Dumbledore chuckled, shaking his head ever so slightly. "It is true that evil can never really be eradicated," his eyes glinted with the haze of memories, perhaps some being recalled, "However, that simply means that it is important that we keep on fighting, again and again, in order to keep it at bay."

I smiled at Dumbledore's words, "You know, Headmaster, you really should have become Prime Minister."

"That, Mister Umbrus, is something I will never regret. Too much paperwork," he laughed as he said that, and I laughed in turn. "Though I do wonder what this year's thief of Hogwarts will steal to achieve the same result as last year," he added, offhandedly.

"Ah, Headmaster, that would be telling, if I knew," I answered nonchalantly. "Perhaps nothing, since it was never about stealing something, but challenging oneself against incredible odds."

The Headmaster bowed his head ever so slightly, "Of course," he added. "Then, I suppose it is time I bid you good Sunday afternoon, Mister Umbrus. You would be better served spending time with your peers, and enjoying a good cup of chocolate."

I nodded, and made to leave, "Headmaster," I said as I was halfway out of the room, "if the Founders really wanted the houses to stand together, why bother splitting them apart?"

The Headmaster mulled over the thought for a while, and then bitterly smiled, "I think, Mister Umbrus, that they wished to compromise with Salazar Slytherin's desire not to teach everyone. He was their friend, and they did not want to lose him."

"Ah, I see," I answered in turn, "It didn't help them keep him, did it?"

"I'm afraid it did not," the Headmaster sighed, and bid me farewell just as I waved him goodbye.

My steps through the hallways of Hogwarts brought me past unfamiliar faces, all the way up to the sixth floor. I waited until I was reasonably sure no one else would swing by, ad then stepped inside the Room of Requirements once more.

"Depulso!" I all but snarled as soon as the door behind me closed, the old bludger half a foot away from my face. He tumbled back, and I ran to the other end of the room. Apparently, I had the thing summoned, but I couldn't get it to disappear. Thus, my practicing had taken a sudden spike for the deadly.

Indeed, as Dumbledore had said, all things were to be taken in moderation.

My incredibly terrified reflexes aside, I couldn't wait for the dueling club.

Maybe Snape would give me points if I challenged and defeated Gilderoy Lockhart?

The bludger missed my head by a few centimeters, and my thoughts snapped back to the present moment. I couldn't distract myself; not until I got down the spell to stop the Bludger from making paste of my bones.

"Depulso!" I chanted once more, keeping the thing at bay. "Depulso!" I was getting good at it. "Depulso!" now if only I could keep my calm and read through the damn book on Bludgers...

Still, the smile on my face remained.

Gilderoy Lockhart would meet a terrible end at the year's end-CRUNCH.

Notice to self. No daydreaming with live wizard-seeking ammunition. NEVER AGAIN.