After Transfiguration, we had Charms with Slytherin, and I did my best to ignore Malfoy and his posse, lest I snapped and did something I would regret... doing openly.
The idiot managed to earn himself another day of detention and lost his house another 10 house points because he openly mocked my way of walking and my shaking hand in front of Flitwick - but that didn't even get a rise out of Draco.
Either he truly didn't care or him getting away with having a hand in my assault without punishment emboldened the Slytherin year leader. Instead, he looked at me with a promise for more pain, which Flitwick also saw and made me question whether or not Draco really was a Stupefy practice target.
Once Charms was over and I had another delightful lunch, I met up with Lavender to spend some quality time with her. Pomfrey hadn't allowed anyone to visit me for some reason she didn't bother to explain, so we had a lot of catching up to do.
"And Bernice Derrick is pregnant again. I heard it's her second child already," Lavender concluded as she finished telling me all she found about romances in Hogwarts.
Bernice Derrick, a Slytherin 7th year, was the fourth witch currently with child at Hogwarts. Coincidentally, three of these pregnant witches were from Slytherin, while the sole pregnant 6th year was a Hufflepuff halfblood witch who Lavender hadn't heard who the father was. Juicy gossip. Juicy gossip I hoped for her sake didn't involve sexual assault and memory charms like in some of the darker fanfics I knew about.
"So Derrick's fiance is really putting the screws to her to bust out children like Molly Weasley?" I quipped as I thought about the infamous beaters of the canon year Slytherin Quidditch team: Lucian Bole and Peregrine Derrick. Bernice was Peregrine's older sister, and the fiance, coincidentally, was Lucas Bole, Lucian's older brother.
'What a weird dynamic. But those family tree circles make anything possible...'
Lavender blushed heavily at the prospect of having so many children and what was needed to get it done, and it seemed my double entendre with the screws didn't help.
"I haven't heard any babies cry during meals in the Great Hall yet. Do the mothers send the children to live with someone else?"
Lavender shook her head, glad I changed the topic most likely and answered, "No. This is something only told to the girls, but there's a sort of nursery where you can leave your children during class. A whole host of house elves make sure the babies want for nothing."
"I mean, I wouldn't know, but shouldn't potential dads get this information, too? In case they want to see their babies or bond with them or something?"
Lavender gave me a condescending smirk and answered, "Yeah, likely story. Not even my daddy ever changed a diaper on me or my little sister."
"Really? It's just two spells, and you're done, though? But wait, you have a sister?"
"Yep, little Luci is five years old this year," Lavender said with a sweet smile. "My parents had me when they were 7th year students, and they waited a while to try for another."
"And witches are less likely to get pregnant than a muggle woman - or so the two books I read about the topic said. I personally think the archaic, stuck-up society we live in is simply not bold enough, and all these old-fashioned witches teach their daughters to be rigid and stiff."
Lavender blushed once more and argued back in mock outrage, "Didn't I snog you for a simple dare?"
I thought on that for a moment and shrugged, "You got me there. Then maybe there's a different reason for the low birthrate. Wizards teach their sons to shoot their load into a vanishing cabinet instead of their wives or something."
Lavender hit me on the shoulder for saying something so outlandishly outrageous and remained quiet for a while.
I watched her profile all the while and enjoyed the warm breeze from our shadowed position at the tree we were sitting under. She might not be looking at me, but she had my unbandaged hand in her grasp, trying all she could to calm down the slight spasms with gentle touches.
"I was really scared when I heard what happened the next day," Lavender whispered.
"I can imagine. Sorry you couldn't be there at my side when you wanted," I consoled but quickly learned that was the wrong thing to say.
"That's what you're sorry about??" She almost shouted into my ear as her head snapped back to me with tears threatening to spill from her eyes. "You are in so much pain still! And they could have killed you! And they weren't even brought to Azkaban for it! They-"
With a quick hug, I silenced her and wistfully thought how nice it felt to have someone care for you so much.
We stayed like that for a while longer before we did something more productive as I tutored her in Charms until dinner, getting some more charms practice in myself.
During my training with Flitwick, I officially signed up for his survival club that he would teach together with Kettleburn and Hagrid this year. I almost missed the deadline, too, because the notices went up when I was in the hospital wing.
With that, I was now getting personal tutoring by Flitwick and Sprout. I even attended a club on Sundays. And, I still had three lessons with the talking hat on Occlumency, and I was plotting my revenge while trying not to tip off two powerful wizards onto the fact that I knew about them.
My upcoming days were packed.
-----
Astronomy later on Tuesday had been fine. I liked watching the stars at night, but naming them and memorizing constellations and star signs so that I may calculate the perfect time to make a fertility potion or something along those lines wasn't my thing.
Wednesday had been a quiet day with only DADA and Transfiguration, but Potions on Thursday was something else.
I had missed the whole spiel Snape had prepared against Harry Potter, so I had gotten one of my own for some reason unknown to me.
Apparently, missing the first class despite getting attacked by students of his house, which we both knew to be true, was a surefire way to get into Snape's bad graces.
The fact that I seemed to have no affinity with potions wasn't helping either, I concluded after a double lesson with Hermione and Isobel as my potion's partners. We were an uneven number anyway, and my hands were no good for chopping up ingredients.
The two did most of the work as I reminded them of the timings of the recipe on the cure for boils potion and named the trivia I still had memorized from my mother's now destroyed notebook.
None of that had spared me from getting grilled on potions knowledge I had no way of knowing like Harry had last week. Sadly, he didn't ask the infamous questions from canon, so I couldn't even pretend to know what would happen if Greasewing Fireflies are added to occami venom. I wasn't even sure Greasewing Fireflies were a real thing.
The fact that Hermione hadn't raised her hand made me doubt that all the more.
"Snape is so unfair. Five points! He took five points from you for not helping out in making a potion when your hands are bandaged and shaking! And three more for not knowing the answers to those ridiculous questions!"
"Yeah! What even are Greasewing Fireflies?" Sue asked with anger written on her face, though she remained curious.
Nobody said anything until Padma calmly spoke up, "They are native to Myanmar and Thailand and they are used there as a cooking ingredient because of the luminous grease that makes every meal look like it's shining."
"You only know that because India is like a neighboring country! Who would know what happens when you add some winged serpent venom to some insects anyway," Kevin Entwhistle, Harry's potions partner and fellow Ravenclaw chimed in. He had seemingly warmed up to Harry a little but still mostly kept only to Anthony Goldstein and Terry Boot - the other two Ravenclaw boys.
-----
Friday saw me insulted by Lucius Malfoy once more during our evening class of Magical Etiquette, but I was in a good mood anyway because I had planned to get another lesson with the talking hat done. I needed to ramp up my power and I needed to play to my strength, namely my natural occlumency. It was my best bet.
"That state you fell into when you comprehended the Transfiguration book was something you got through your status as a Natural Occlumens. You know about braincells and their wiring, think of it as your magic making the connections for you because of occlumency," the magical hat explained once my tired form put it on my head after another training session with Flitwick.
"So you do know the talents of the wizard whose head you are on," I whispered in awe as my mind made another connection - something I had previously only suspected.
"I can. Want to know your natural affinities and the blessings you received through magic?"
I nodded hard enough to almost throw off the hat, yet it stayed silent for a whole while.
"1 training session as payment," the hat bargained.
"This isn't going to be like last time when you sold me occlumency lessons I didn't need?"
The hat scoffed and answered, "Of course it is. Your strengths are your own. Your talents will be revealed to someone as clever as you eventually. Don't make me out to be a villain here."
I thought for a moment and eventually replied, "Fair enough. I agree to your bargain."
Before the hat could answer, I interjected calmly, "You want me to have one less lesson because I was a more receptive student that you thought, right? I wouldn't need the fourth lesson?"
"Hehe, clever indeed," the hat chuckled. "Your eye ability does what you think it does, and it comes from your bloodline. I have seen this bloodline before, but never as concentrated as within you since Rowena and her daughters."
"I'm related to Rowena Ravenclaw?"
"No, I don't think you are. Well, faintly related, like all British magicals are to some degree. But this bloodline runs in many magicals, and I long since thought it predates the founders by several millenia. It is usually so thin, though, that hardly anyone ever receives something from it other than slightly higher talent. Your eye ability only awoke in Rowena in her later years, and it wasn't quite like yours either. I think your variant of the Natural Occlumency comes from this bloodline, too."
I nodded with a thoughtful look and immediately thought of those Norse gods in my dreams. They could be the origin of this bloodline since the Norse pantheon was known long before the founders were born, as far as I was aware.
And curiously, the hat didn't say anything about the dreams. As if that was finally a memory he couldn't read.
"In any case. This bloodline of yours comes with unlimited potential in combat magic thanks to enhanced reflexes and fast-acting magic. You seem to have great talent in warding and enchanting, too, and your brand of occlumency will make you a great student for Ancient Runes, as well."
"Fast-acting magic? What do you mean by that?" I inquired curiously.
"Magic is intangible. It resides within you and listens to your commands with enough training. Casting Lumos with a wand as a first year may not show you to be different from the rest, but in combat when you're shooting spells back and forth silently, fast-acting magic will give you untold benefits. From faster casting to faster projectile speed, you will have it all... in time."
"Oh, makes sense, I guess," I said as my thoughts trailed off once more.
"Other than that, your talents are a little higher in everything, but only jinxes and curses have a higher talent among the rest of the magical branches I'm familiar with."
"So combat magic. Charms and Transfiguration aren't among them?"
"You're thinking of your stellar performance in those two classes, right?"
I nodded once more.
"Heh, don't kid yourself, kid. Those were first year classes, and you went in with a massive advantage in both intent and knowledge. Without the needed training, you will be one among many in both disciplines," the hat argued with a derisive voice.
The training that followed was mentally draining as the hat printed more indepths knowledge on the branches of occlumency I had already learned from it as well as some more heavy assaults and tricky attempts to sneak past my mental defenses. Three hours of that, and my mind was just as tired as my body.
-----
Sunday, two days later, was the first time the survival club met right outside Hagrid's home. I was one of only two first years together with Neville, and there were only four witches in total among the fourteen members of the club. Curiously, Lara Croft from Ravenclaw, the beauty with the braided hair, was among those four witches, and together with me, we were the only two Ravenclaws here.
I had seen Lara during all my morning training, so I really shouldn't have been surprised by her attending the club. I had pecked her as an outdoors person to begin with.
I was, however, surprised by her bringing a bow and quiver, as well as a large sack slung over one shoulder. Just as I was surprised that she waited near me instead of those other guys from her school year.
"Welcome," Flitwick greeted as he walked over in loose-fitting battlerobes together with Hagrid and Professor Kettleburn.
"I'm glad to see fourteen of you taking this club seriously and signing up for it - especially since it is rare to have the upper years who quit after one year have much praise for this club. How anyone would think we aren't venturing into the Forbidden Forest at night during survival club is beyond me," Flitwick said with mirth.
Neville on the other side of the group visibly paled and I could only imagine he was regretting signing up to impress Sprout after she praised me for the idea of getting fresh herbs to tend to in her greenhouses straight from the forest.
"Now, as there are some first- and second-year students with us, we'll divide into two groups thus. Those who want to venture into the forest already go ahead with Hagrid. The first and second years will stay behind with everyone who has questions," Kettleburn ordered, and eight of fourteen students walked away Hagrid and his humongous hound.
I briefly lamented the fact that I couldn't give him my thanks like Ollivander had suggested after he gathered the Unicorn Tail hair for my wand core, but turned back towards the remaining two professors.
"Alright. Flitwick here will regal you first timers with some good spells first, then we'll dive into the do's and don't's of the outer ring of the forest."