Chapter 10

It was Sunday and I had absolutely no responsibilities. No looming duels, no extracurricular lessons to give, no classes of my own, nothing. It was the first time I could have said that since I arrived at Hogwarts. I planned to spend the majority of the day training and performing a bit of experimentation with potions. As it turned out, there were a few potions of fairly low complexity in the Craftsman's Tradition and I had everything I required for brewing in my dorm in my expanded trunk.

The Gilded Bronze-bound book was bound shut with a locked clasp, though thankfully, my Grandfather had deigned to leave me the key. Unlocking it for the first time since I had first returned from Sicily after being cut out of the succession to my Mother's Barony, I perused the pages for an interesting potion that was within my capabilities to brew.

I found one right away, the Potion of Gytrash Speed was, apparently one of a number of regional, speed-enhancing potions that were not commonly taught in Many Schools for various reasons, either because their main active ingredient was no longer feasible to purchase or for other, political, reasons. Fortunately, Gytrash Whiskers, while a controlled potion ingredient, were completely legal in Britain, just expensive. Naturally, I had a stock of them in my trunk.

Once I had my cauldron set up, using one of the traveling Cauldron stoves meant for potion-crafting on the go, I began going through the steps the Craftsman's Tradition said were required for the potion. Chopping three Gytrash Whiskers up and adding them to the pot on high heat, stirring four times clockwise, grinding up four fairy wings with my mortar and pestle and adding them to the pot while taking it down to medium heat, then stirring four times clockwise, then shredding two dittany leaves and adding them after taking the cauldron off the heat before stirring eight times counter-clockwise. Then I had to let the potion steep for an hour.

With the potion steeping, I began to look through the Azarinth Healer's Treatise. True, there was healing magic, herbology, and biology in here, but there were other things in here as well, a unique form of apparition, ways to use magic to enhance the body, spells for regeneration, potions for toughening skin, making muscles more dense, hyperoxygenating the blood, and more. Mind you, it all came at a cost, the manipulation of magic itself to alter the body came with a mortality rate that most Aurors would look at and say no thank you. However, there was a way to prevent such things from happening. The last few pages of the book contained a recipe for something called the Bluemoon Grass Elixir which would, once drunk, ensure that the lifespan-shortening effects of such magic would not affect the imbiber.

All told, the Azarinth Healer's Treatise was so much more than what I had thought initially. Effectively, it was the physical counterpart to the Mind Magic of Zorian's Notes. Just perusing the contents for fifteen minutes was enough to make me realize that even if the Principia Arcana was a complete bust, the Azarinth Healer's Treatise, Zorian's Notes, and the Craftsman's Tradition would be enough, through dedicated study and hard work, to make me more than a match for any Wizard alive. I would need time to study and practice for that to be the case, however.

Right now, I settled for trying out one of the simplest spells in the Azarinth Healer's Treatise, one of the ones that did not involve channeling raw magic to transform the body. Episkey was, all things considered, a rather minor spell, capable of healing smaller injuries. Cuts, burns, bruises, that sort of thing. Episkey wouldn't mend your stomach shut if you were disemboweled by a Goblin Blade or regrow limbs like any of the more powerful healing spells could do, but if you were cut by the Cutting Charm? Or burned by an Incendio? Episkey could heal those. It was just unfortunate that to practice, I had to be injured.

After forty-five minutes of bashing my head against the stone wall of my dorm room in a progressively harder fashion before trying to heal my bruised, cut, or concussed forehead, I figured I finally had Episkey down well enough to consider it functional. A good thing too, because my alarm clock chimed, signaling that my Potion of Gytrash Speed was done. Abandoning any further attempts to refine Episkey, I headed over to my cauldron and looked inside.

Inside was a milky, almost translucent, liquid shot through with bright, ethereal, blue whorls of color. That was, apparently, what the potion was supposed to look like. I began bottling it all up for testing, before cleaning everything up, both my potion set and the wall that I'd been literally banging my head against, with Scourgify. Once that was done, I sat down to begin my mental training for the day.

Six hours passed with me training my Occlumency, Leglimency, and the Dead Moment. I had put remote viewing on the back burner for now, since I could already use it to peer into Draco's Dorm Room to see if he was attempting some plot or other, which was really the only reason I cared to learn it to begin with. I could come back to it once I had the Dead Moment to a decent level. After spending two hours training each of those, my stomach chose that particular moment to inform me that it required food by growling loudly. I managed to quiet it with the strategic application of a sausage roll that I'd had saved from a prior dinner. Still, it probably wasn't healthy to stay cooped up in my dorm room all day.

I showered, changed, and headed out with my pack of tarot cards to see if anyone fancied a game of Tarocco. Responses were mixed. Most of Malfoy's group just told me to piss off. It seemed that while they weren't going out of their way to harass my friends and I, they also weren't being friendly. It was looking like there would be a round two with them next year. Tracey and Daphne were out doing. . .something or other, it wasn't exactly clear what they were doing, only that it involved some sort of secret girl talk thing that I wasn't allowed to know about. Millie was eager to learn the game, but that was it.

"Well, you can't play the game with two players, you need at least three." I sighed.

"We could head out to the quad and try and find a third?" Suggested Millie.

"That seems like a solid idea, though given how much everyone seems to hate Slytherin, I'm not sure how well it will work." I pointed out.

"Who knows? I'm sure Susan, Hermione, and Terry have at least put in a good word for us with Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw." Shrugged Millie.

"I guess. At the very least there aren't any better ideas." I agreed.

"Cracking, let's get on with it then!" Exclaimed Millie.

Together, we left the Slytherin Dungeon and headed for the Quad to try and find a third player. It took some doing, as the Gryffindors that seemed to want to hog the Quad today all seemed standoffish and ready to fight at the drop of a hat. It wasn't until we made our way out to the Training Grounds that we found a third, Terry Boot had been practicing a bit of extracurricular spellwork with another Ravenclaw. A blonde-haired guy who I'd seen around a few times, normally when talking to Terry. They'd just finished up a bit of practice spellwork when Millie and I showed up.

"Hey, Terry!" I called out.

"Blaise! Millie! What brings you two out to the training grounds?" Questioned Terry as he sat down on the plinth of a nearby statue depicting a Dugbog standing on its hind legs as if begging for treats.

"We were looking for a third for Tarocco, care to play?" I queried.

"Sure, I just finished up here." Nodded Terry.

"Who's your friend, Terry?" Asked Millie.

"Right, Blaise Zabini, Millie Bullstrode, this is Anthony Goldstien. He's probably the best with charms in our year in Ravenclaw, well unless you count Hermione, but she's more of a freak once-in-a-lifetime academic machine than a flesh and blood Witch." Introduced Terry.

"Harsh, but you're not wrong there. Hermione keeps pace with me in classes, and I use the sight to cheat." I admitted.

"Don't let Hermione hear you say that." Cautioned the Blonde, Anthony Goldstein.

"I'm fairly sure she already knows and is just saving her outburst for an opportune moment to catch him in the act." Chuckled Millie.

"Good luck, unless she can sneak into my Dorm Room at night she's got no chance." I snorted.

"Right, well, it's good to meet you two. Terry won't stop going on about his friends in other houses, but I hadn't met any of you lot in Slytherin till now. I was starting to think you were imaginary." Grinned Anthony.

"Oi!" Protested Terry.

"What? With the reputation their house has? Who wouldn't think Slytherins being willing to be friendly was some sort of elaborate daydream?" Prodded Anthony.

"We're not all Malfoy." I huffed.

"Or Professor Snape." Added Millie, hastily.

"Right, well it's nice to meet you two, but it's four in the afternoon and I have to get the homework assignment for Defense done before class. I've been putting it off because Quirell is rubbish as a teacher, but I've been informed by a certain Academic Machine that no Ravenclaw First-Year is going to ignore homework on her watch." Drawled Anthony.

"Same time next week?" Questioned Terry.

"Sure." Nodded Anthony.

"Bye!" Chirped Mille.

I waved bye as well, but my focus was directed at Terry. He and Anthony had been doing some sort of extracurricular studying and I knew it wasn't classwork. I had to know what it was, just in case he was planning to hit me with it at Dueling Club this week. Unfortunately, when I asked him, my worst fears were confirmed.

"You'll find out at Dueling Club on Tuesday." Grinned Terry.

"Brilliant, can't wait." I deadpanned.

"To be fair, would you tell Terry what you were going to throw at him on Tuesday?" Pointed out Millie.

"Maybe, if it was a friendly duel between friends. I thought that's what we were doing at Dueling Club." I huffed.

"Sure. But it's also a good way to test ourselves. There's a lot out there we could run into, after all. They never caught Fenrir Greyback after the last War for instance, to say nothing of all the non-notorious magical beasts, dark wizards, and the like." Shrugged Terry.

"I suppose. Still seems a bit like making work out of something that's supposed to be fun." I sighed.

"Oh don't pout. It makes your face look like to just swallowed a lemon!" Giggled Millie.

"I am not, pouting!" I sputtered.

"You sort of are, Mate." Insisted Terry.

"I refuse to respond to that." I grumbled, before taking my deck out of my robe pocket and shuffling it.

The next ninety minutes went by in a blur of trick-taking, scoring, and trumps. I still had the advantage over Terry who'd played only once before, and Millie, who never had played before, but Millie somehow managed an insane draw of more trumps than I'd ever seen in a game before. She almost managed to get ahead of me in the score at several points using those. As the game stretched into the forty-five-minute mark, and she still managed to keep pace with her lucky streak, I was starting to legitimately wonder if she'd drunk Felix Felicis before meeting up with me. Ultimately, however, not even Millie's freakish stroke of luck could keep up with my superior knowledge of the game. It was close for a stretch but I blew past her at the sixty-minute mark and maintained my lead through a decent grasp of the game and a bit of strategy.

By the time we finished, though, it was half past five and the sun was setting behind the mountains. The three of us headed back to our dorms to freshen up before dinner. I took a quick shower, changed, and spent the rest of my free time until dinner perusing the Principia Arcana. This was a book that contained no spells, potions, or enchantments, but rather a lot of theory along with several helpful hints and training suggestions, though the only ones I could use at the moment were the notes on spell modification.

Apparently, modifying spells was easier if you understood the underlying theory behind the spell and all charms came in three different theoretical forms, physical, mental, and enchantment. Furthermore, the lower level a spell was, the easier it was to modify. The example that the book laid out was that of the Sonorous Charm. You could easily modify the Sonorous Charm to produce a thunderclap of noise that could deafen an opponent or reproduce various people's voices. It was, apparently easy enough that even twelve-year-olds could do it if they could follow the theory behind the charm. Others, such as the Shield Charm required a far greater knowledge of the theory and magical capacity, to the point where only a handful of instances of modified shield charms were recorded.

I could think of one instance of a modified Shield Charm that spoke to how difficult that sort of modification was. Grindelwald's Protego Diabolica was supposed to be a standard Shield Charm that had been modified with Dark Magic. It was never able to be reverse-engineered, even by the Unspeakables, if the rumors were true. That lent credence to the fact that certain spells required a lot of theoretical knowledge and mystic power to modify to any great degree.

Going back to the Sonorous Charm, however, if it was that easy to modify, I had to wonder if it might not be possible to do something no one else had done with it. Sure some people were known to modify it to create Auditory Illusions or Bursts of Deafening Sound, but had anyone ever looked into the potential to destabilize someone's equilibrium with Infrasound? Or cause a sense of dread in someone using the same? Did Wizards even realize what Infrasound was? They did seem to be stuck in the Victorian Era in a lot of places, after all.

Those were thoughts for later, however. I had to learn the Sonorous Charm first, not to mention my reading of some of the theory had eaten up my free time substantially. I put the Principia Arcana back into my trunk with the other books, locked it, locked my dorm room, and headed down to dinner in the great hall. I was stopped by Professor Snape as I made my way out of the Common Room.

"Mister Zabini, I'm afraid the Headmaster would like a word with you before dinner regarding your accelerated courseload." Intoned Snape.

"Ah. Am I in trouble, Professor?" I queried.

"The Headmaster is merely curious. I believe that your case has intrigued him somewhat. The Headmaster knew the last student who was this advanced personally." Informed Professor Snape.

"This would be Hieronymous Trankmann? The Bavarian Exchange Student you mentioned?" I asked.

"Indeed. He has his reasons for asking after anyone else attempting to follow in the footsteps of the program Trankmann was a part of. Follow me and don't dawdle." Ordered Professor Snape.

Professor Snape began walking and with that, I had no real choice but to follow him. He led me through a series of corridors and up two flights of stairs, one of them moving, before he stopped in front of a statue. It was an ugly thing as if an artist who worked in paint rather than statuary had been told to make a statue of a griffin using parts of the animals from all four House Emblems. The thing was crudely made and had the head of an eagle, the body of a lion, the claws of a badger, and the tail of a snake.

"Curly Wurly." Offered Professor Snape.

As if on cue, the large, ugly, Griffin Statue slid aside revealing a spiral staircase leading up. I ventured a look up the stairwell and realized that the length of the stairs was indeterminable from the bottom, probably some form of spatial enchantment on the stairwell. That was neat, but I didn't have time to gawk.

"Don't keep the Headmaster waiting, Mister Zabini." Insisted Professor Snape.

That was as good a dismissal as any. I started climbing the staircase and just hoped that it wouldn't be too many stairs. Fortunately, it seemed that the Castle was taking pity on me, or maybe the stairwell was just designed this way. At any rate, I'd only gone up a few flights when I seemed to reach the top. A landing with a doorway carved of Elderwood in a style much more reminiscent of something I would have expected to see at the time of Hogwarts' founding. Urnes-style, ribbon-like, carvings of a wizened man bound within the gnarled roots of a tree, asleep and unmoving. I could make out various runes etched into the intricate carvings, but they were Anglo-Saxon Futhorc and not actually anything magical.

Aside from the door, there was a window in the wall that showed the outside, along with a single suit of armor that was probably able to move like the ones downstairs, but only as a security measure. Certainly, the sword it held seemed sharp enough, even if it didn't seem to be matched with the armor itself. Looking out the window, I spotted that we were, somehow, at the very top of the main keep of Hogwarts Castle, even despite the fact that the seventh floor was the topmost floor that was reachable by the students and that was a floor below the topmost floor. I definitely hadn't climbed far enough or long enough to reach this level. The door opened behind me as I was staring out the window.

"Space and Time enchantments then. Not just space." I mused.

"Indeed. Though forgive me for interrupting your view, but we have much to discuss and not much time to do so if we are to partake of the evening's meal within the great hall." Came a Wizened Voice from behind me.

I turned and beheld the sight of Albus Dumbledore of the multiple names and titles standing in the doorway. His robes weren't any more fashion-conscious than when I'd first seen him, being a horrifically dated brown and orange ensemble that should have been thrown out when the seventies ended. To make matters worse, he tucked his long, white, beard into his belt. If I didn't realize this sort of thing was how he played dumb to the various antagonists that showed up throughout Harry's first four years at Hogwarts, I would have thought him senile.

"Of course, Headmaster, lead on." I nodded.

"Right this way, my boy." Smiled Dumbledore, a twinkle in his eye, before turning and heading into his office.

I followed and passed through an entrance area where a number of silvery mystical gadgets lay stacked in rows on various shelves. Each of them variously ticked, whirred, chimed, or occasionally puffed out steam. They were all enchanted in some way, but the runes anchoring the enchantments were as varied as they were archaic. I saw Sumerian Cuneiform, Egyptian Hieroglyphs, Chinese Seal Script, and even a few I recognized as being Oscan or Etruscan. There was seemingly no rhyme or reason to what runes anchored which enchantments on which device.

Rather than attempting to make sense of something I clearly wasn't capable of making sense of, I continued on toward Dumbledore's desk. It was a Brobdingnagian thing of carved oak with clawed feet. The desk was situated in an alcove with a nearby fireplace that was flanked by bookshelves that were overstuffed with various magical tomes and treatises. Behind the desk, a portrait of a snoozing, white-bearded, Wizard in a fur-trimmed Wizard's hat and blue and gold brocaded robes was hung. To one side of the desk, the Sorting Hat stood on a small shelf, to the other, a Phoenix whose feathers had lost their vibrant red and were beginning to fall out sat on a perch looking somewhat constipated.

"Is your Phoenix all right, Headmaster?" I questioned.

"Fawkes will be fine. His burning day is coming up next year. That is something that Phoenixes undergo every twenty-five years in their natural cycle. By this time next year, Fawkes will be, or will be about to be, reborn as a younger version of himself. However, he has never looked quite so constipated a year out from such an event." Insisted Dumbledore.

"It's probably my presence. I have the opposite of a way with Magical Creatures, Headmaster." I sighed.

"Yes, I had heard about the Owl Incident earlier in the week. I would offer you remedial lessons with Professor Kettleburn, but Silvanus is retiring soon and we ought to be more considerate than to heap extra work on him, eh?" Mused Dumbledore.

"I suppose so, Professor. So, I was told you wanted to speak to me about the accelerated courseload I applied for?" I queried.

"Indeed I did, my boy. You must understand such things are not normally done in so many subjects at once. Not for a First Year such as yourself. Normally, transfer students from other schools are the ones who apply for such things. At most, we'll see a First Year who had received advanced tutoring in a single subject apply. Even transfer students tend to only apply for accelerated studies on two subjects. You have been told of the last Student to apply, I assume?" Began Dumbledore.

"Hieronymous Trankmann in eighteen-sixty-three right? The Bavarian?" I asked.

"Indeed. Hieronymous Trankmann. I knew him personally, you understand. He was a few years behind me at Hogwarts, sorted into Gryffindor like I was. I was the Head Boy for Gryffindor when he transferred in from the Bavarian Thaumaturgical Academy in his third year. He was smart, driven, and not afraid to speak his mind about various topics when he felt there were better ways to do things. Do you know what happened to him?" Questioned Dumbledore.

"No, Sir, I don't." I responded.

"He returned to Greater Bavaria and became an agent of the Zauberkönig, Rupert the Fourth, just in time to be horrifically killed during the Necromancer's War. His accelerated courseload gave him false confidence and I don't wish the same thing to happen to any of my students." Answered Dumbledore.

"Headmaster, may I be frank with you?" I hedged.

"Of course, my boy, but I insist on still being Albus." Grinned Dumbledore.

I couldn't help it, that joke was too stupid not to grin as well. I cracked a grin at that, which seemed to put Dumbledore more at ease for some reason. Stupid jokes and humor aside, however, I had several concerns about not being allowed the accelerated courseload, not least of which the fact that I could become collateral damage in a war between Voldemort and Harry at some point in the near future, not that I was going to tell Dumbledore that. Instead, I'd use one of my other, less alarming concerns.

"Anyway, the point is that I'm extremely bored in my classes. I think I spent more time aiding my classmates in the last week than actually doing any work myself. I need the accelerated courseload to be able to learn things instead of spending all my time helping my friends learn things." I admitted.

"There is that to consider, yes, but there is also the fact that you would be placed in separate courses away from those very same friends." Pointed out Dumbledore.

"I mean, it isn't like I won't see them outside of classes, you know. I do actually make an effort to be social. If they're falling behind, I can always form a study group to help them out." I shrugged.

"I suppose you do have a point on that. Very well, starting tomorrow you will have a new schedule with Mister Gamp from the Ministry's Department of Magical Education. He has already agreed to serve as your tutor should I approve of the accelerated coursload. Monday afternoon Defense, Tuesday Evening Charms, and Friday Morning Potions. He is fully qualified at the NEWT Level for each of those classes." Pronounced Dumbledore.

"Brilliant! Thank you, Headmaster!" I grinned.

"Don't thank me yet. Mister Gamp gained his qualifications in a different era, back when strictness was the rule rather than the exception. You'll likely need to work hard to show him that you are indeed deserving of his accelerated courseload." Nodded Dumbledore, a twinkle in his eye.

"I'll be ready, Headmaster." I intoned.

"I'm certain you will, my boy. Now, ordinarily, I would offer you a Sherbert Lemon or some other sweet, however, tonight, I think it may be best if you headed down to dinner without one. We wouldn't want to spoil your appetite, would we?" Queried Dumbledore.

"No, Headmaster." I confirmed.

"Then I think you'd best head off." Dismissed Dumbledore.

And with that, I headed down the staircase, making my way to the Great Hall to grab dinner before it was too late. Thankfully, the space-time enchantments on the Staircase spat me out of an alcove that definitely hadn't been the one I'd entered through. For one thing, it was a lot closer to the Great Hall. As I sat down at the Slytherin Table and spotted both Daphne and Tracey for the first time today, I nodded at them in greeting before tucking into a pot pie.

"Where were you?" Asked Daphne.

"The Headmaster wanted to see me about my application for an accelerated courseload. Where were you two all day?" I retorted.

Daphne didn't respond, merely looking away with a sour look on her face and grumbling something about redcaps south of the Border that I could barely parse. Instead of pursuing that line of questioning, I instead focused on demolishing my pot pie and grabbing an extra helping of peas and mashed potatoes to boot. It wasn't until I was already in bed and drifting off to sleep that I put together that Daphne had been using a euphemism to describe getting her period earlier.

And with that image stuck in my mind, I finally drifted off to sleep, nightmares of Period-causing Redcaps running through my mind. . .

XXXX

Albus Dumbledore had learned a few things from his conversation with Mister Zabini. The first and most promising was that he did actually care for his friends as more than potential future followers. His Occlumency Shields may be impressive, especially for his age, but there was no faking the genuine enthusiasm that showed on his face when he spoke about them.

The other main thing that Albus had learned from his brief conversation with Young Blaise was far less promising. Blaise was quite good at omitting things, though Albus supposed that growing up with a mother such as Felicia Zabini must have taught him to do so by necessity. However, Albus had been at this for a long time and it would take a far more experienced bluffer than Blaise Zabini to fool him. No, Albus Dumbledore knew when the reasons he was given for certain things were not the whole reason.

Oh, he hadn't been outright lied to, but lying by omission had its own sort of tells that Albus had picked up on. When Blaise had said that he was worried about his education he had been telling the truth, but there was something else, some other reason that Blaise wished to take the accelerated courseload. That in and of itself wasn't suspicious. What made that suspicious was that Blaise hadn't told Albus what that reason was.

It indicated a lack of trust, a knowledge of things that he didn't believe Albus would understand, or possibly both. Albus had seen that combination before, in both Gellert and Tom Riddle, though from his interaction with Blaise, Albus did not believe the Boy to be treading those same, dark, paths just yet. He would still bear watching, however.

Besides, he hadn't been lying when he had told Young Blaise about the fate of poor Hieronymous Trankmann. He had gained a certain level of confidence from his academic achievements that had translated to a fatal overconfidence during the Necromancer's War. He didn't wish that fate to befall Young Blaise any more than he wished for him to become the next Gellert or Voldemort.

No, he would still be keeping an eye on the boy during his sessions with Magnus Gamp. Magnus' was Albus' current bet on which of Griselda's People were currently under the sway of the Dark Lord specifically because Voldemort had enjoyed using skilled wizards' preconceived biases to twist them to his service. Magnus, having come of age at the same time as Tom Riddle, had a number of those biases to use as levers, simply from being a product of an earlier time.

Yes, Albus would be watching those tutoring sessions very carefully. If Albus knew Tom, he couldn't resist using one pawn to set up another, especially as Young Blaise already appeared so talented. If Tom's Spirit reached out to Magnus Gamp to attempt to corrupt Young Blaise down the path Albus already feared he may be treading, then Albus would know.

And he would intervene accordingly. . .

XXXX

AN: All right, here's the end of the First Week of Hogwarts. Blaise finally dips his toe into books other than Zorian's Notes, we get another scene with Dumbledore, and we get a bit of social interaction to boot. There's also a bit of stuff that will tie into other things later. That Elderwood Door to the Headmaster's Office is more important to the History of Hogwarts and Hogsmeade as a whole than you guys probably realize, for instance.

Aside from that, Dumbledore is still looking in the wrong direction for Voldemort's Pawn. This is, in large part, thanks to Quirell appearing completely pathetic on a day-to-day competency basis. Voldemort would rather execute an incompetent subordinate than allow such mediocrity to taint his ranks. He did it all the time back during the First War. This is, in large part, obfuscation on Quirell's part. Every bit as much as Dumbledore's apparent senility is on his part. The bumbling, nervous, Muggle Studies Professor who only took the Defense Post from a lack of other candidates seems harmless, after all.

At any rate, the next chapter is going to condense Monday and Tuesday of week two together. Then we'll have a bit of a time-skippy chapter until the first week of October, where a few things will happen in the same week.

Stay tuned. . .