C065 - Beaches, Witches & Runes

Sunday, I greatly enjoyed Ron and Michael getting chased out of the lake by the kraken after they tried to copy my feat of 'enchanting' a bunch of witches as they sunbathed with snacks while watching me come out of the water all wet with some magical plant I found every half an hour or so.

Sadly, the kraken being active once more stopped me from investigating the stone slab again.

I actually tried swimming near the slab because of my impatience and the huge many-limbed water monster thought I wanted to play as it dragged me around the water and threw me into the air a few times. The moment I broke through the water and did stunts midair, I was thankfully no longer screaming because I was forced to rapidly gulp air.

It was fun when I noticed that the kraken actually moderated its strength to keep me intact, but I still would never want to repeat it because of the panic I felt when my bubblehead charm broke when it started pushing me to the surface.

Fleur, who used the charm in the second task of the Triwizard Tournament in canon to save her sister, did not complete the task since it was not a very safe method of diving. It was why I never got anywhere close to the grindylow if they were grouping up or the mermen because I knew the charm would not hold in a prolonged fight.

I could look into enchanting an item to filter the air out of the water like gills? Just have Patrick steal some highly advanced biology books that deal with the complexities of the acquatic respitory organ and spend a few weeks drawing out the main points? Maybe look into how cell walls only allow for water to pass through a permeable membrane and replicate that feat with oxygen - osmosis it was called if I remembered correctly - and let the magic figure out the nitty-gritty? Eventually, I'd get results as I would fiddle with the Old Norse runes in my mind from my dreams with Heimdall. It sounded like a doable project.

But then I remembered everything I planned for the year and decided to just continue using the bubblehead charm while minding the kraken some more. I was fast and strong enough to fight off a few grindylows. I knew a propelling charm to quickly flee, and my lung capacity was quite respectable thanks to my training.

I could get away from most things, I figured.

"I would say it was starting to get old, but somehow it doesn't," Isobel idly commented as I came out of the water and swept my wet hair back.

She wasn't very shy about the appreciative looks she was giving my form, and I would never say it out loud, but those looks they gave me also wouldn't get old. Even if more and more discontent boys started gossiping behind my back. They did it so openly, eventually the Weasley twins joined as they made up a rumor of me being part mermen who was secretly bonding with a mermaid princess under water to forge an alliance between the land dwellers and the water folk.

It would have been funny, but House Slytherin wouldn't be the house of the narrow-minded and the blood purists if that rumor didn't become something vicious in their mouths as they portrayed me as a half-blood with creature blood running through my veins.

I only heard about that rumor this Sunday, and I could not roll my eyes harder. There were many magical beings that could cross-bread with wizards and witches, and it wasn't hard to figure out that mermen and mermaids were not among those beings. And even if they were, those few merfolk I saw already did not look very appealing.

"Got another plant for Professor Sprout?" Mandy asked as she looked at my chest instead of the bucket I had transfigured for another Purple Blood Coral I found.

Its 'juice' could be used in a particularly effective blood replenishing potion, and I'd bet good money for them if Snape was on speaking terms with me. He would most certainly buy the corals. Sprout had told him about me finding three of them yesterday, and Snape only lost interest in obtaining the plant when the herbology professor revealed that he would have to buy them from me, not her.

I still hoped I could just use them myself as I learned how to brew such a potion with Madam Pomfrey if she ever came back to me about the tutoring I had asked about. If I couldn't, I'd sell them to St Mungo's.

"Yep, another one of those corals. Actually had to kill a grindylow to get it, though," I revealed with a shudder as I put down the bucket and got out a towel.

It was starting to get a little windy, and while still nice outside, summer was beginning to end - that much was more and more apparent each day.

"Well. You have no business looking like that after you got back into the water after the kraken actually started throwing you around," Padma argued with a gloating smile. Though, she quickly looked back down at her book.

"It looked really fun. Can you teach me how to swim sometime next week?" Luna asked with an innocent smile.

"Uh, yeah. Sure, I can do that," I agreed with the towel hanging over my shoulders. "I can look up how to make some floating aids to get you used to the movements. I think that's how muggles teach kids..."

"Thanks," Luna said with a wide smile as she looked completely unbothered by me talking about kids getting taught that way.

"Anybody else joining me next week?" I asked as I looked around.

Curiously, two hands went up, and not one of them was from Ravenclaw.

Instead, it was Natalie Rosier and Tracey Davis from Slytherin. Natalie also looked like she wanted Isodora Selwyn to join, same with Tracey and Daphne Greengrass - but both girls simply ignored their friends sitting next to them.

"I've no clue about swimwear, but Professor Babbling does. When I asked her earlier, she seemed quite keen to share some fashion tips for the beach so you'll have to wait on teaching me until my orders arrive by owl post. Isodora, Tracey, and Daphne got their orders in, too," Natalie argued with a wide grin.

"Ah, that reminds me. Professor Babbling actually asked for you," Luna suddenly revealed while perking up from her notebook. "Uh, that was a few hours ago, though. I think I was supposed to tell you when you came back up the first time around."

I leveled an unimpressed stare at the young witch and started to wonder... was she bullied because she was so mischievous and not because she was different? Ugh, I knew it wasn't like that, but it seemed being Luna's friend came with a cost. Nothing she did was out of malice, I believed, and maybe she was just testing limits since she never had real friends before outside of Ginny Weasley, who in Luna's words tolerated her at best.

That was a little different from canon where the two young witches were indeed friends. A little more than acquaintances and a little less than actually good friends originally because they grew up in the same town and were the same age. But Luna did indeed have some chaotic prank energy going for her now that she was accepted among her peers - even if it was technically my peers.

"You know, I think she told me something similar," Natalie suddenly pointed out as she tapped her pursed lips in deep thought. She turned to Isodora and asked, "You were with me when we browsed her fashion magazine. Why didn't you remind me?"

Isodora rolled her eyes and countered, "You promised to tell him. How is that my obligation to remind you of a promise?"

With a shrug and a sigh, I put on a shirt, transfigured two stones into sandals, left those girls to bicker and walked over to Professor Babbling who was actively sunbathing like a muggle would - one-piece swimsuit, an airy wrap-around skirt, sunglasses and a wide, floating, and almost translucent parasol above her completed her look as she soaked up the sun in style. Well, the floating parasol would have clued in most people that it wasn't a scene in the muggle side of the world.

"Professor? I heard you wanted to speak with me?"

"Ah, Talion. Sit, sit," Babbling offered as she pointed next to her.

While she was lying on a transfigured lounger, she waved to... a pile of rocks.

With a sigh, I transfigured the stones into a uniform mass and put the variant 'Spongify' charm that Flitwick taught us on it as I sat down facing her.

"Always a pleasure watching you use your wand. But that isn't the one you use in class, no?"

I looked at the kelpie wand in my hand and shook my head. It actually wasn't a crime to carry a second wand, only a little frowned upon, so I did it openly.

"It's something I found here in the school. The wand core has a great affinity with water, so the wand works perfectly while diving," I offered in explanation while telling the truth but not offering the full truth.

"A prepared man is a proper man. It's a very good virtue to keep," the professor praised, and I could only give her an awkward smile as I waited for why she called me over.

When she simply continued looking at me, I eventually couldn't take it anymore and asked, "Professor?"

"Ah, sorry. The sun is making me a little ditzy, I fear. You've done us witches a great service by starting these little outings here in the sun while summer has not yet ended. I know I've been enjoying some more time in the fresh air, and I'm sure the following you've gathered would agree," the ancient runes professor pointed out with a pleased smile.

"Okay?"

"Now. I hear Filius mention that you might be leaving us if push came to shove, and I wanted to make sure that you stay here at Hogwarts," Babbling explained, though I still didn't know what she was getting at.

"And you care about it, why?" I asked a little more bluntly than I wanted.

Babbling, now that I had Eagle Vision and could be sure, was not working against me. Since I first looked at her with it, she had been green in my vision - an ally. My fear that she had been a spy sent to me by the headmaster seemed to be untrue. She was merely excited about me being the first muggle-raised student she would introduce to the magical world when she took me to Diagon Alley a little over a year ago.

And it seemed, that was a big part of the reason why she was talking to me as the blonde witch said with a sigh, "I would never again be excited to introduce a muggleborn or someone raised in the muggle-side of the world if the first one I ever did introduce would leave the school. You don't know because you don't take your electives yet, but I'm actually quite excited to get to teach you."

"What if I didn't take Ancient Runes? I'm a member of the Survival Club, so I'm sure to take Care of Magical Creatures. That's one of the two I'll have to take," I pointed out.

The adult woman almost looked like she was ready to pout as she argued, "You'd do that to me? After I went through all the trouble to sort you out that day in Diagon Alley?"

"Well... if we discount Professor Flitwick taking me under his wing... it kind of went downhill for me pretty fast after I joined the magical world..."

Realising that what I said wasn't very fair, I held up my hand before Professor Babbling could retort and apologized, saying, "Sorry. You are not to blame for that, I know. And yeah, I'll take runes for sure. I think my affinity for Old Norse should pretty much be without equal among students."

That seemed to placate the witch rather quickly as her frown turned into a wide smile. She took out her own wand and transfigured the rocky beach into fine sand next to the lounger she was sitting on. With one of her dainty fingers stretched out, the blonde bombshell leaned down and started drawing runes into the sands... and I was suddenly glad that none of the younger witches who joined me at the lake was wearing a swimsuit before I could get a handle on what happened to me after I saw the white expanse of Professor Babbling's bosom when she bent over.

It seemed that the blonde witch didn't know the full range of motion that was legal for her to do in the presence of a young wizard, and I was glad for the towel I still had with me that hid the reaction I got. My puberty addled brain took a lot of convincing to look down into the sand, and I quickly figured out what she was doing as she finished drawing two pairs of runes.

To think that I made fun of horny wizards who didn't know how to buy a playboy or something.

'Damn you, hormones.'

"Explain those runes to me, and I might believe you," Babbling ordered with a small grin as she looked back up.

"Hagalaz, the rune of destruction. You wrote it next to Pethro, the rune of change. Combined, the two take on the meaning of rebirth and renewal. Next to the pair is Berkano, the rune of companionship and allies. You wrote it together with Ansuz, the rune of vision. Combined, they could mean countless things ranging from reunification all the way to divining the truth," I explained with no hesitation.

'The norse', or rather, the Isu figured out an alphabet of words that was vastly more complicated than English. But same with spells where words gained meaning, the Isu, to my understanding, came pretty close to figuring out the rules and laws of this world. Thankfully, I learned from someone whose father, Odin, seemed to be the one who refined the alphabet that seemed to be handed down from 'gods' even older than the Isu I was familiar with. And while I only heard words once in my dreams when Heimdall explained the Pieces of Eden to me, I was still very familiar with 'Old Norse'.

"Nicely done. But that could have come from a book. Tell me what all four mean when used together," Babbling challenged with a wide grin.

I didn't need to think much because I already knew the answer and simply said, "Origin."

That seemed to surprise the woman as her eyebrows seemed to disappear into the fringes of her hair. Eventually, she almost squealed as she gained an even brighter smile and exclaimed, "Marvelous! You truly do get it!"

"Why'd you think I didn't get that from a book or maybe my mum's notes?"

"You didn't recall that. You just knew. Trust me, I know these things," Babbling waved away as she put away her sunglasses to get a better look at me.

"And you didn't know before I answered that last question?" I asked incredulously.

"A woman's intuition is never wrong. You'll do good to learn that early if you want to live a happy married life later on," the professor patiently explained.

"Uh, okay..."

"Now that we established that you're a prodigy in runes just as much as you are in seemingly everything else, let's talk about this curious find that was recently published about a Swedish cavern..."

-----

As much as I enjoyed talking about runes and looking at pretty women, the hours long discussion with Professor Babbling about Old Norse runes was exhausting.

Sitting at the dinner table, my head was drooping a little as I ate the burger in front of me without much gusto.

"You look unhappy," Penelope pointed out when she sat down next to me.

"Tired. Just a little tired," I countered with a forced smile.

Looking down at my plate, she argued, "You have the elves whip up something so magic looking and still not perk up seeing it? Must have been a rough day?"

"Professor Babbling can be a little overwhelming," I said as if it explained everything, and Penelope gave me a knowing smile full of sympathy.

"You showed that you're knowledgeable about runes?"

"Old Norse, yes."

"Poor boy," she cooed and patted my head.

"Ah, yes. Please continue," I said as I leaned into her hand to the surprise of both her and most of the girls watching us like hawks.

It seemed that I gained quite a few admirers, not that any of them liked me for me. They just thought I looked nice without clothes on. Nothing wrong with that, but it wouldn't be how I chose a new girlfriend.

But Penelope being allowed to touch me and me seemingly enjoying it... that seemed to ruffle a few feathers. And it looked like she noticed as she gently pinched my ear and scolded, "Stop using me as a shield for all these thirsty witches, you rogue."

"I've seen you at the beach this morning. Don't pretend like you're not one of theee~"

I couldn't finish my sentence because the gentle pinching of my ear turned into a full-on twist.

At least I was suddenly awake enough to finish my tasty meal.