'Scratch. scratch scratch.....'
'Aaaaand done'
Tonks placed her quill in her bottle of ink as she finished the written test. Rolling the parchment filled with supposed answers up, she turned her head around only to notice the others it's still working on their own papers. She lifted her head up ignoring the massive swinging pendulum and looked at the giant time piece hung in the center of the hall only to see she had half an hour remaining till the test came to an end.
'I got to go meet that blighter at 6:30' she wondered why remembering the past few weeks.
Richard Cloverfield was a strange kid. No, strange man she corrected herself, recalling the revelation about his age. Honestly, she did not believe the many things he spoke about at a regular basis. How could she? Other worlds out there, demons gods and angels. None of them were believable. However, she did believe in his power over magic.
She had been sceptical about his methods at first when he mentioned his theories. The whole story about the source of magic being the soul, and how wizards were basically reality warpers sounded like a bunch of dragon dung. However after seeing the strange magic he seemed to use without a wand, she had come to believe it slowly with time. She had personally seen Richard manifesting swords, enchanting them, enhancing them as well as using whatever those blue patterns were, and identify things easily without ever reading about them once. And she was also almost sure, that she had seen him once glowing in red while being covered in coat of flame. But currently she was doing her best to convince herself that it had been an illusion.
Of course, when she had seen the abilities, Tonks had asked Richard to teach her as well. And surprisingly enough he had agreed to it. She was then once more surprised to find out and feel the things called magic circuits. She herself had three circuits. Richard dubbed them as mimic, transmute, and template, based on their abilities.
Glancing around to make sure no one was watching, Tonks discreetly tried to change one of her fingers into a tiger claw in sheer boredom, only to have her entire forearm expand and transform, toppling the ink bottle on one of her excess parchment. Heads turned at her direction for a moment, forcing her to hide her arm from view on instinct.
Feeling embarrassed under the gazes, she quicky whipped out her wand and muttered 'scorgiufy'. But contrary to her expectations, only a part of the spilled ink cleaned up. Tonks frowned as she remembered Richard's warnings. The more she leaned towards the path of using magic circuits, the worse her ability to cast spells became. However, considering, that the proficiency in spells can be re attained with a little practice, Tonks felt that the trade-off was worth it. She was never good at complex spells anyway. That was where her mother's expertise lied.
Using the spell a couple more times she was finally able to clean up her desk. Thinking back honestly, Tonks was surprised that Richard had actually taught anything to her.
From what she had noticed during their brief time together, Richard did not seem to care about anything rather than himself. She has seen how Richard treated the other classmates as well as the housemates of the Gryffindor, which begged the question, why he had even cared to explain anything to her? but quickly reprimanded herself for thinking like that. She was awesome, that must've been it.
He was smart, that much she understood seeing him create spells from scratch before using them flawlessly. He had even created a spell that allowed him to fly unaided. A spell she wanted to learn so so vastly much. He was capable, head strong, cold. And he always carried himself with a demeanour that demanded respect without asking. However something about him just didn't seem right to her.
She never felt as if she was conversing with a younger. If anything, she felt as if she was talking to professor Snape's estranged brother. The aloofness, arrogance, pride and strict nature that made her, along with everyone else loathe Snape was exactly what made her fear Richard.
"Times up. Place your quills down." The examiner exclaimed and soon wrestling and clattering noises filled the exam hall. Stationary was put away, and the examiner collected the parchments with a flick of her wand. Standing up from her seat, she twisted around a few times, streaching her hands and turning her neck from side to side, hoping to rid her stiff body. She had promised Richard to meet him after school.
Picking up her invisibility cloak, another thing she had received from Richard, she draped it over her body as she went out of the crowd before walking in a specific direction.
'what was it again?'
Tonks tried to remember the exact rendezvous point as she walked out her common room. The sun seemed just setting, and notes of music and birds chirping made the atmosphere more serene.
' oh yes'! she remembered suddenly. ' he wanted me to come to the abandoned classroom in third floor corridor'.