I Solemnly Swear That I Am Up To No Good

[alt_sally_anne]

Neville and Pansy, did Madam Pomfrey know how to fix it?

Did she ask where you'd learned the spell?

Comments

[alt_pansy]

I've already told you, of course, but in case other people want to know, I am not blue any more. I'm sure it will come as a great disappointment to Lee, but he'll have to manage somehow. And Nev, it's okay, I wasn't hurt and it wasn't forever, and lesson learned about those footnotes. It did work really brilliantly before the whole scale thing, which is actually sort of ace. Maybe we could stick to having you read bits of it out loud to us for now? And try actual things out when we know a little more about what we're doing?

When we said it was for Transfig she sort of raised her eyebrow like she didn't figure it was that at all, and then we said that we were practicing for duelling club and she nodded and said "Well, that makes a good deal more sense," but she didn't ask where we learned it from.

[alt_lee]

Aww. I was really looking forward to seeing how that blue went with Slytherin green at breakfast.

[alt_sally_anne]

You wouldn't be laughing if we had to come up with an explanation to the rest of the Slytherins that didn't involve any of the rest of you.

You know Draco's convinced that Neville's clumsiness is all an act and he's secretly ... you know, I don't even know what he thinks Neville is SECRETLY doing but he's really suspicious any time he so much as sneezes.

[alt_pansy]

If you think I would so much as mention Nev and experimental spells in the same sentence around Draco, you're mad, and I ought to hang up my Slytherin robes right now and march over to Hufflepuff to see if they'll take me.

[alt_sally_anne]

HA you would never.

I was talking to the Gryffindors who thought this whole thing was hilarious (because it wasn't happening to any of them!)

[alt_neville]

One thing's for sure: I'll take care to read any footnotes all the way through next time. And I'm glad that you're willing to give me another chance in the future.

And three cheers for Madam Pomfrey. She really can fix just about everything.

[alt_sally_anne]

Do you suppose the book made it a footnote on purpose to teach junior aurors some sort of lesson? About READING THINGS THE WHOLE WAY THROUGH, I mean.

(Beats cruciation. Which I think's what they do nowadays when a trainee auror makes a mistake. The good part of THAT is, it's Lana Sandoval they're doing it to.)

[alt_ron]

Leave it to you to think it's something like that.

(But, yeah. Ha! Sandoval has a bunch of that coming to her, I'd say.)

[alt_sally_anne]

If I were writing a textbook for aurors I'd certainly try to teach them that sort of lesson. Maybe the textbook was written by a Slytherin. Or a Ravenclaw, actually, I could see that too.

[alt_pansy]

Well, I don't want to end up back there again any time soon because of a book we're definitely not supposed to have, yeah?

So we'll have to be extra careful about everything to do with it. Like not doing some of the things in front of other people unless we absolutely have to because it's a matter of life or death so people don't know we know how to do them, and not doing it to show off.

But I know that there's some books that circulate around our House that have all sorts of other things we aren't supposed to know, and so it's not like we're the first ones to do it.

Speaking of which, I might see if I can get my hands on that one sometime. You know, just so we can sort out what all is out there.

[alt_sally_anne]

Yeah, though the stuff people pass around is mostly offensive spells rather than defensive ones. 'The best defense is a good offense' and all that. (Which is only really true if you're talking about the Cardinal Curses, since they can't be blocked. Anything else, if you're good enough with defensive spells they can cast jinxes at you till their wand arm falls off from exhaustion.)

This one was really brilliant up until the part where it wasn't.

[alt_ron]

Ooooh! Y'know what? It could be awesomely wizard to use that armour spell and the petrificus as one of our strategies! I mean, we were thinking of it as a defence, right? But it could totally be offensive!!

I mean, if we timed it right, we could petrificus-armour-petrificus, and then even if someone tried finite to help our opponent, it wouldn't stop the scaling and that would pretty much put that foe out of the fight! (Hard to use your wand while your hand's scaling up, innit, Fisheye?)

[alt_sally_anne]

Well, I see a couple of problems with that.

1. It's a hard spell to cast in a hurry.
2. There are things that keep the scaling from happening and if that happened, we've just given them a fantastic defense spell for free that will keep OUR spells from working on them.
3. THEY WOULD WANT TO KNOW WHERE WE LEARNED IT and I don't think we'd better say 'oh, Neville has these books that used to belong to his parents back when they were aurors instead of dangerous enemies of the Protectorate!'

[alt_ron]

1. Well, if we work on it, we'll get so we could do it straight off.
2. But if we do the spells together like we did last night and not anything that would stop it happening, then it'd work. That's why we're working it out in advance, right? I mean, that's what all this if for, right?
3. We'll tell them the twins made it up, innit?

You always see problems with everything.

[alt_pansy]

3. If the twins actually find it somewhere other than a crazy dangerous book that we can't admit we've seen or heard from, I can see how we might have a really great excuse. But only then.

Sally-Anne's 2. has a point too.

I think we ought to try and sort out how to not scale up and use it on ourselves.

[alt_ron]

Girls.

Always taking all the fun out of everything. And making exciting stuff seem just like homework.

[alt_ron]

Wizard!

Doooo ittt!!!!

[alt_pansy]

I just might see if we can borrow it. It depends on who's reading it and whether they owe me a favour. Sally-Anne might be able to get it as she's in Dark Arts right now, too.

[alt_sally_anne]

Wait, which book are we talking about here?

[alt_pansy]

I heard Baddock talking about it like it was something sort of secret but not really. Like he was winking while talking, you know? I think Greg's already had his hands on it at least once, and maybe Teddy too. I don't know what it's called, though.

[alt_ron]

Um.

Are you sure it's a defence book they were looking at?



Only, it sounds like it could be something else.

[alt_pansy]

Hah.

Boys.

No, it wasn't one of those books. Teds and Greg wanted it for dark arts.

[alt_sally_anne]

Oh. I think I know the one you mean.

Ron, if you want a look I think Finnigan has his own copy. It's called 'Macht' which is a German word that means power, I guess, but it's in English, don't worry.

Not that you'd want to ask him for it, but if he leaves it lying out you might have a look. It doesn't look at ALL interesting on the outside, though.