Chapter Five

The Weasley Twins.

A more wretched hive of scum and villainy I would never find.

I had to be cautious. Obi-Wan Kenobi would have spoken the truth, for I had no choice but to retreat. What was a first year student going to do when pelted with dung bombs and jinxes that made one's nose run? I literally stumbled on my own copious mucus as I made my way down the stairs to the infirmary, much to my embarrassment and the general laughter of the students nearby.

The Weasley Twins were merciful enough not to pursue me, but that was where their mercy ended.

The kind nurse managed to get it all off. My annoyance, on the other hand, grew tenfold. Sure, they were kids. Sure, they had pranked me with the same ease they would prank someone else. The only thing that annoyed me was that I hadn't been ready for them. Where was the cool, professional response of sending silent, motionless magic their way to set off the dung bombs in their hands? Were was the cool Wise-Smart-Edgy-Chosen of the Fae-kind of stuff that made everything appear peachy and rosy-tinted?

It was nowhere to be found, and I had to go down more than six flights of stairs with dung in my hair and dripping mucus everywhere.

Still, this was merely a setback. A setback I would resolve by the next day, if things worked properly. The Ravenclaws had the Wednesday mornings free, and I'd be using it to finish my list, get a talk with Dumbledore ongoing and perhaps solve the most dangerous of all problems of this year at Hogwarts, and of the next ones.

Since the Weasley twins were roaming the hallways, and since I had little hope of actually defeating them, I had no choice but to learn by myself the skills needed to face them off. First, I needed some form of deflecting spell, and then something to send them flying. Yes, those were two essential spells in the arsenal of any would-be Merlin, but as things were, turning theory into practice proved to be quite different from what I had hoped.

Thankfully, I remembered where the Room of Requirements rested. It was one of the few tidbits I remembered vividly from the books. In front of a tapestry of dancing trolls, I'd need to walk in front of the opposite wall thrice wishing desperately for a place to study, and train. The Room of Requirements would provide it; and now that I thought about it, I could also shatter the knees of one of Malfoy's dark future-plans by destroying the broken cabinet in the room of lost objects. In order to do that, though, I'd need a spell that destroyed furniture.

The Diadem rested in the room too, but it being a Horcrux, I wouldn't be touching it with a ten foot pole.

There were people who would grab a pair of gloves and shove the Horcrux right down Dumbledore's throat, but I had time. I had an entire year, and perhaps even more, before it became necessary to do such things. Thus, I could plan a bit on the longer term.

The Room of Requirement presented me with a room that held a chair, a desk, and a straw mannequin in the distance. On the desk were a set of materials, ranging from needles to buttons. Clearly, those were for transfiguration practice. There were some books on a set of shelves by the wall, but they all looked like the kind the students had lost through the ages.

There were some old editions, but nothing peculiarly out of place. A cauldron in a corner, a hour-glass nearby, and a strange clock ticking away on the wall by the door.

"Thank you," I said. Though the room didn't answer me, nor did it give off any hint of being pleased, I still thanked the room for giving me an oasis to myself.

Thus, I stepped inside, locked the door behind him, and then proceeded to scream.

I screamed and yelled and roared. I shrieked so high I reckoned I would have made the glass shatter if it hadn't been magical glass. I swung my hands against the mannequin, punching it repeatedly and slamming my head against its straw chest more than once.

It smelled faintly of hay, and I barely noticed it as I bit down on my knuckles and turned away, taking deep breathes.

"We are in the Harry Potter world!" I snarled, roaring it to the heavens. "Logic does not work! Wizards lack common sense! Babies bounce off streets!" I took a few deeper breaths, shaking my head and rolling my neck. I grabbed hold of my wand, pulling it out of my holster. "Now, in the privacy of this room," I glared at the straw mannequin, who had no fault of his own. "Let us get the party started," I spoke, and I spoke as if it was a threat, a promise, and a curse all bound as one.

By the time I stepped out of there, I was as sweaty as I could possibly ever be, but also had a glow to myself. It was the glow of satisfaction. I had a skip to my step, a grin on my face, and was quite happy with the results achieved.

The Flipendo wasn't that hard of a spell to learn. The wand movement were a bit jerky at first, but by the time I got used to it, and without the peer pressure of other wizards breathing down on my neck, I actually managed to work it out by myself. It felt odd to say it, but I couldn't help but feel the judgment of the fellow students around me as some kind of oppressive sentiment.

It wasn't that I was afraid of failing, but I couldn't help remove from my head the thought that I shouldn't fit in with them. I was someone who could naturally fit in with pretty much anyone, but wizards? Wizards would curse you with slug-vomiting curses without a second thought, and that was dangerous. I mean, I wasn't going to go all gung-ho about it, but everyone in school was carrying a gun that could transform into a bazooka, a flower bouquet and a box of chocolates.

By the end of the first year, every single wizard knew the Incendio charm and while wizards could survive with relative ease third degree burns, it was like giving kids access to a flamethrower, and that seemed kind of a big issue in my humble opinion. Sure, the Aurors would arrive in a matter of seconds and solve the issue with apparition and whatnot, and the damage could theoretically be reversed.

This, too, was common wizard sense: even if you break something and burn down a house, if you repair everything and obliviate everyone, the crime never happened. Well, it did for the wizardry world, and there was Azkaban or I hoped lighter sentences for them, but the muggles would literally go through the trauma of a burning house, and then get that trauma removed.

It had to make for quite some interesting nightmares.

Dinner was a quiet affair on my part. I arrived just in time, barely managing to squeeze through a group returning from the library, and thus avoiding to answer the door's riddle for the third day in a row. As long as I left and returned together with a group, I'd never have to suffer through a riddle.

Was this what the sorting hat meant with me being a snake rather than a raven? I was seeking the easy route rather than the right and witty one, but at the same time, I did seek out knowledge rather than power. At least, I was doing that for now.

And didn't that open up an all new can of worms...

What the hell was I going to do later? Like, for Christmas vacation? And what about Summer? Was I an orphan? Judging by how not a single family member had seen me off, it could but mean I was an orphan of some sort. Was I going to live in a bleak and gray orphanage during the summer months?

I couldn't help but shudder while thinking instead at the worst possibility ever; namely, that I had literally popped out of nowhere, and would need to find a place to stay, and money to survive until the start of a new year, and to get the funds needed for next year's books. I would need memory altering charms.

Wait. No, I didn't need memory altering charms. I just needed to speak with the Deputy-Headmistress about my situation. I'd blame amnesia after smelling some fumes during potion hours, or perhaps after making another matchstick explode. Either things would work fine, or maybe I'd blame it on the Weasley Twins.

Yes, that was a better solution to memory altering some innocent people into taking me into their family like some kind of human cuckoo bird.

Everything could wait, though, for dinner was sacred and so too was a good night's rest.

The next morning saw us begin bright and early with a Charms lesson...

...and finish off with a thundering explosion during double potions.