It was Wednesday evening after dinner, and yet another detention, this time for some first years. Trevelyan and Ostrander, and rather than dangle them from their ankles in the rafters or put them through a drill, he had something more cerebral for them to do.

A set of four student desks were butted together at the front of the room, two facing the front, two facing the back, forming a square of desktop. The two facing the front of the room each bore a few sheets of parchment, and standard issue self-inking quills. At the top of one parchment read in the Professor's scratchy cursive hand Describe and Explain how Professor Storm Poses a Threat to the British Ministry and the other Describe the process of successful spellcasting. Compare and contrast your experiences to date with this method.

He was rather looking forward to reading the results.

At the two desks facing the rear of the room where the door was, were a small stack of newspapers, folded out to the letters pages one text book on the regulation of magical creatures and another entitled British Wizarding Law MMVIII that was the size of a brick and littered with bookmarks. Ignan was updating a lesson for the fifth years ahead of their OWL examinations on a recent debate that had rumbled through the Daily Prophet regarding the protection of Muggles against 'dark creatures', including werewolves. The spate of letters and articles had begun with the insinuation that a violent murder of a Muggle a few months ago had all the hallmarks of a werewolf attack.

Seated opposite Gwenna's essay, the Professor had seated himself - purposefully so he could make the first year sweat over her accusations. Violet was a bright girl, and he hoped writing and essay to explain her woes with magic thus far would help him keep up with her train of thought and consult with her other teachers on any potential patterns. She might be bright amongst Muggles, but at present she resembled Ambrose Pepper - minus the explosions.

"Sit down." The Professor pointed at each of the girls to their particular places. He straightened his tie and brushed his waistcoat as they rattled the chairs.
"You are here to serve a detention, which will be completed with an essay. You will not leave until I am satisfied you have answered the set questions." He fixed his cold eyes on one and then the other.
"Is this understood?"

The copper-haired Ravenclaw shuffled to her seat, resentment oozing out of her pores.  As she sat, her gaze brushed once over the top of the parchment on the desk the Professor had directed her to, and she frowned slightly.  When her eyes flicked to the parchment on the desk next to her, she blinked in surprise, distracted from her own troubles for a moment.  She'd caught some of Gwenna's bizarre notions second-hand, but involving a Professor seemed unwise, even for her.

Violet listened in dignified silence - not pouting, certainly...that would be immature and pointless - as Storm explained his instructions.

"Yes, Professor," she said.  You have apparently realized that I don't give a fig for the House Cup - which is in any case largely determined by Quidditch scores, of all things - and so taking points from Ravenclaw for my failures is unlikely to solve the problem, she added, silently. Though I fail to see how taking away the free time I'd otherwise be using to keep practicing is any more effective.  Do you honestly think this is an issue of discipline?  She continued not-pouting.

Gwenna heaved a sigh as she dragged her feet over to the arrangement of desks.  This was not the revenge that she had been thinking of when she had informed her fellow first years that Professor Storm was out to overthrow the Ministry.  The thought of all the horrible things that the evil Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor might do to her was terrifying, in a thrilling sort of way; she'd scared herself so badly that she couldn't sleep one night, after she and Noah had stayed up past midnight imagining all of the possible dark magic that Professor Storm probably knew.

But this... Gwenna eyed the piece of parchment in front of her suspiciously.  She had been expecting horrible dark curses and horrendous pain, evil magic that involved turning her organs inside out or enchantments to make her yank off her own fingernails.  This looked suspiciously like homework, which while torturous, was not terrifying in the least.  Write an essay?  When she'd just accused him of trying to kidnap Hogwarts students so that he could overthrow the government?

Well, she wouldn't stand for this.  Her hand immediately shot up into the air.

"Are you sure this is what you want us to do?" she asked the Professor suspiciously, squinting at him.  She never waited in class to be called on, so Gwenna saw no reason why she ought to start now, especially since she sincerely doubted the efficacy of these methods of education.  "I mean, aren't you going to torture us even a little?  Because I've got a bet for five sickles that I won't scream whatever you do to us, and I don't see how writing is going to help her," she said, jerking her head at Violet.  "I think she'd learn quicker if you threw spells at her or summat.  Maybe you could try to burn her head off with a fireball?"

Violet watched Gwenna with bemusement.  The girl wanted to be tortured?  So she could win a bet about how she tolerated it?  That was an excellent example of what she'd come to think of as 'Gryffindor Logic'.

Despite her dubious opinion of Gryffindors in general and Gwenna in particular, she found that the girl's stress on the word 'her' cut deep, and she couldn't entirely hide a wince.  Violet had become used to being viewed as an object of awe and curiosity (at least amongst Andi's friends, before).  But until she'd come to Hogwarts, she'd never been the target of other people's contempt.  And worse, it was deserved...she was supposed to be better than this.

Violet looked down at her paper to avoid meeting Gwenna's or the Professor's eyes.  Compare and contrast...  Violet spent every waking moment - and some of her dreams besides - practicing or reading, and she was barely keeping her head above water in the half of her classes that involved practical spellcasting.  Gwenna seemed to have undiagnosed ADHD, rarely paid attention in classes, and yet didn't appear to be struggling at all.  It was so frustrating it was a wonder Violet's hair didn't spontaneously catch fire - or Gwenna's - but one of the few benefits of her 'handicap' was that she'd never had any issues with Accidental Magic, before or after coming to Hogwarts.  It was one of the few things that made sense, too...it was hard for her to do magic deliberately, so it stood to reason she'd be less likely to produce it unconsciously.

The young Ravenclaw frowned.  Unconsciously...could 'proper spellcasting focus' just require some hidden assumption that magical families and typical muggleborns fostered, and my upbringing didn't?  The placebo tragedy made real?

Ostrander was quiet, she got down to business straight away and sounded a little resentful. Generally students were when they were given detention though. She wasn't a poor student by any stretch of the imagination, and her behaviour neither. Her landing in detention was purely down to unfortunate scores in practical which were rather stifling it all.

Trevelyan was not going to go quietly, however.

"Maybe I could." The Professor replied to Gwenna with a cold tone, "Maybe I could throw them at your head while she protects you as incentive? Think you might scream then?"

He tapped on the parchment in front of Gwenna.
"You have your essay title. Put your money where you mouth is there. This isn't for your amusement. Mine, perhaps."

Ignan had a feeling he wouldn't be getting much done with regards to werewolf policy, but he had not expected to unless the two of them did miraculously settle down.

"Ostrander," He addressed the Ravenclaw in his usual tone, dropping the sharpness from his address of Gwenna. "You'll notice I ask for a comparison of theory to your practical there."

He tapped the top of Gwenna's essay again with a finger, more firmly this time and shot her a pointed look at the difficult girl.

"I trust this is something you may have done in your study already, but as for an answer of the exact parts of the process that are the cause of your … relationship with spellcasting thus far, cannot be answered fully on paper, as Trevelyan has tried to suggest. However, it would help me if you would formalise your thinking onto parchment. We might save a little time and a few broken ribs, say."

The Professor looked from Violet to Gwenna again, and added,
"But we could always see if you could protect defenceless classmates if it came to it." 

Professor Storm was a delicious sort of terrifying.  There was always an edge about him, as if there remained a very slight possibility that he might one day get fed up with his respectable facade, cast off his mask, and torture a few students into madness before laughing maniacally and apparating away into a gust of smoke that was as dark as his merciless heart.  It made every one of his classes an adventure, since Gwenna never knew if this might be the time that she'd finally cross the line and make him snap.

Today's detention had promised to be all that and more -- except instead of torture, she was being ordered to write some dumb essay, and worst of all, would Professor Storm even dare to use dark magic on her when dumb Ostrander was here?  Gwenna scowled.  Not even the threat to throw fireballs at her head was enough to make her feel better.

"I wouldn't scream if I knew I was getting five sickles for it," she said daringly, but she picked up her quill anyway.  There was only so far she would push a professor, and besides, Ostrander would never be able to stop them if he did decide to throw fireballs at her.  And not screaming when her hair was on fire was going to be a challenge, even for five sickles.  Heaving a sigh, she eyed the prompt for her essay: Describe and explain how Professor Storm poses a threat to the British Ministry.

Professor Storm had gone back to chattering on at Ostrander, but the tapping finger made it clear that she had not been forgotten.  Scowling, Gwenna picked up her quill and began to write.  This...information...is....

"Maybe she's just bad at magic," she put in, adding a cursive CLASSIFIED with a flourish, and then underlining it three times.  Ostrander, with her big vocabulary that outshone even Gwenna's, had not won any points with the Gryffindor since the school year had started.  "Me dad said there's wizards who can't do any magic -- they're called Squibs," she added in a know-it-all sort of tone.  "I think me brother probably is one, he's not smart enough to be a wizard.  Maybe that's your problem too, Ostrander."

Violet glanced sharply at the Professor when he took Gwenna's suggestion and turned it sideways.  Despite his 'scary German guy' demeanor, she didn't think he would actually follow through with attacking either of them, though Hogwarts' Staff seemed to have a disturbing amount of discretion in how to conduct their classes, which included forms of corporal punishment, public humiliation, and of course the abdication of responsibility to the student's peers that was the natural result of subtracting House Points (which ostensibly would be meant to increase motivation based on guilt or shame, but in practice would eventually result in external motivation being applied - not necessarily gently - by Housemates) .  It seemed clear that Professors had rules about what they were and were not allowed to do, but of course those rules were not made available to students, so as to maintain the fear of...whatever...in them.

When the Professor elaborated briefly on his intentions for Violet's essay, she nodded.  Though again she wondered why it was necessary to happen in 'detention'...it's not as if Violet would have refused an extra assignment.  The Ravenclaw wondered whether there was more to this than the surface suggested.  Professor Storm had attended Durmstrang and thus had never been Sorted into a Hogwarts House, but he was not un-Slytherin-like in his behavior.

"Maybe she's just bad at magic"

Well, yes.  Point to Gryffindor for noting the painfully obvious, Violet thought darkly as she began to write.  Gwenna elaborated for a bit, and Violet's patience began to thin, though she tried to control her temper and simply correct errors in fact without making any ad hominem rejoinders...aloud, at least.

"One," Violet said quietly, not looking up from her paper where she continued to write words largely unrelated to those she spoke, "'Squibs' are children of at least one witch or wizard who are unable to perform magic.  I am 'muggle-born', and children unable to perform magic born to muggles are simply called - by the Wizarding community - 'muggles'."  She finished a sentence on her parchment, jabbing a period with unnecessary force as she firmly avoided rolling her eyes.  "Two, I am not unable to perform magic, merely unable - yet - to perform it reliably," she continued, trying not to grit her teeth.  "Three, while practical spellcasting talent does appear to require certain minimums of scholarship and diligence, in practice the former minimum seems to be rather low, and there is abundant evidence," more in some Houses than others, she interjected silently, "that natural intelligence - or lack thereof - is not a major factor."

Violet wondered idly what she would do if Professor Storm flicked some dangerous magic towards Gwenna.  Her feelings at the moment were irrelevant of course, she'd have to try to stop it - whether or not it was a test - but even if she actually knew the counter to a genuinely harmful spell, she couldn't count on casting it on the first try.  It'd probably be safer to just physically move her out of the way, the Ravenclaw thought, vividly imagining the scenario.  She felt only a little guilty about how appealing the thought was of having an entirely valid excuse to violently tackle the Gryffindor to the floor, and possibly tip a desk over on top of her...for her own protection, obviously.

Gwenna attempted to insinuate Violet was a squib. Professor Storm let the other girl put her classmate firmly in her place, and tried not to smirk too much as he leafed through the copy of British Wizarding Law.

He looked from Ostrander to Trevelyan,
"Five points to Ravenclaw," he uttered quietly, approving of the answer. Perhaps the first time, or only time, he would give out points in a detention.

"If you need an example of someone who cannot perform magic reliably that is almost certainly a correlation with intelligence, look no further than the fourth years, Trevelyan." He frowned down at her essay.

"Unlike Ostrander, I notice you have no evidence to back up your claims either. Your spouting is not classified, so pick up that quill and get on with it." He spoke firmly, adopting his most unimpressed expression.

"Ostrander, have you considered you may be over thinking your woes with wandwork? Your analysis is perfectly valid, but like music and art, magic is a less exact… science." The Professor paused before using the word, gaze sliding away momentarily as he considered the word he more associated with Professor Trishna.

When Professor Storm awarded her House points for her corrections to Gwenna, Violet looked up, startled.  The acknowledgement was unexpected at all, let alone in the current context.  Though she reminded herself that she'd already lost significantly more than five points for Ravenclaw due to repeated failures, then further reminded herself that she didn't care about House points anyway and the whole system was psychological manipulation of dubious educational value, and even further that it might have been meant as much as a slight against Gwenna as it was as a compliment to Violet.  Despite all these reminders, she couldn't help feeling a little good about it, and adjusted her respect of the Professor a notch upward.

The Ravenclaw continued to write busily, until the Professor addressed her again.  She couldn't help a slight frown at the word 'overthinking', which had been a sore point in disagreements with her parents on occasion.  Violet thought for a moment, trying to choose the right words, before she responded.

"In the useful sense of 'overthinking', which is to say, considering complex explanations before ruling out simple ones, I don't think so, but I'd certainly be interested to hear about any simple explanations I've overlooked.  As for 'art versus science', I think when people say that they're talking about subjective elements...the whole 'your technique is perfect, but your playing lacks soul' thing.  If you equate 'soul' to 'mental focus', then I might tend to agree.  But if you're suggesting that there are some subtle imperfections to my technique, I don't think that quite fits.  No one has been able to point to anything specific that I'm doing wrong, and if it were that subtle, shouldn't miscasts be happening far more than outright failures?  To extend the analogy, it's as if someone's bowing looked immaculate, but most of the time no sound came out of the violin at all, or they had perfect brush-strokes but usually the paint wouldn't stick to the canvas."

Violet's voice strained a bit as she spoke the last sentence - despite her scientific sensibilities being deeply offended by the often nonsensical nature of magic, spellcasting was full of power and wonder.  When it worked, it was an indescribable feeling...in a weird sense, it must have been how people felt in the beginning of the Enlightenment, when they were just awakening to the idea that they could gain a hitherto-unheard-of mastery of the world around them.  But the girl's keen sense of the wonder only made the pain sharper by contrast.  Though she'd seen 'Amadeus' on DVD - she liked Mozart - Violet hadn't really understood the deeper themes in the film until she'd come to Hogwarts and felt for herself the ache of being mediocre among the truly gifted.

"True, I follow your line of thought, certainly," the Professor agreed to Violet's hypothesis that her technique was sound, and that if something were wrong, she would have miscasting issues instead of non-productive issues.

"The theory and the technique is still only part of the parcel though. Incantations, angles and patterns of wandwaving, if exact will help control and direct our magic, but the fuel, the magic itself still comes from within ourselves, combining with the wand. You would find far more fascinating and reasoned papers on the subject referenced in journals."

He had put aside the magical law book and hand folded one hand over the other, still regarding Gwenna out of the corner of his eye.

"For some of the population, the magical potential is seen very late, families get distraught that they might have a squib in the family, for instance. At that young age, magic is untamed, it would continue to be like that if it were not for the tuition. But perhaps, and I theorise only, for I do not live in your head, nor you in mine, that your magical potential is perhaps stifled, or suppressed, or even just struggling to come to fruition."

Ostrander was giving him a sharp look that he anticipated meant she thought his opinion did not match up to her scientific views.

"Humour me a moment. No, not you," he added to Gwenna, and gestured for Violet to put down her quill and stand up, "demonstrate a simple charm to me, lumos say, don't think too hard about it, just try."

Violet looked a bit sceptical as the Professor spoke about the 'fuel' of magic, though her ears perked up a bit at the mention of journals.  For a moment she became excited about the prospect of reading an actual technical treatise on magic, not meant for even the lay public, let alone children.  But her cynical side kicked in, and reminded her that she'd yet to read anything that even hinted at the existence of rigorous, rational - at least by her standards - methods of experimentation in wizarding lore.[1]  So these 'journals' were likely to be the equivalent of muggle philosophers 'debating' the nature of consciousness.  Still, she made a note to try to test that theory at some point.

As Professor Storm went on, offering the theory, among others, that it might simply be a delay or other impairment in magical maturation, the Ravenclaw looked at him searchingly. 'In my head'...does that imply that he thinks that if he were in my head, it'd be obvious?  Meaning it should be obvious to me, since I'm definitely in my head?

Further, Violet had read frustratingly little convincing information about where magical strength actually came from...despite some strong - apparently political, somehow - opinions she'd read that it was pure heredity, that didn't seem to be borne out even anecdotally.  Though to be sure, it would take very careful experiments to separate the effects of any home-education on magical strength - maybe look at 'purebloods' raised by muggles somehow? - and the question of potential was open...many witches and wizards might never know the extent of their own strength if they never actually attempted very powerful magics...

"demonstrate a simple charm to me, lumos say, don't think too hard about it, just try."

I don't suppose he's read about Ironic Process Theory, or that it'd be worth trying to explain it if he hasn't, Violet thought dourly, but put down her quill and stood, withdrawing her wand.  There were Professors that were rather open to muggle ideas, but Storm seemed decidedly not among them.  'Don't think about elephants'...super helpful.  Ok...even though I know this doesn't work, let's try anyway...think about something else, try to calculate how many molecules are in Gwenna's body...six point oh-two times ten to the twenty-third moles per litre, if she was tucked into a ball she'd approximate a sphere twenty-four inches in diameter, multiply by the proportion of water to other molecules, then approximate the remaining density...am I distracted enough from thinking about my 60-some percent failure rate?...well, obviously not now...oh, whatever...intent to cast...expectation that the end of my wooden wand which supposedly has a unicorn hair in the middle of it, though I have no hard evidence of that whatsoever and in fact only anecdotal evidence from a very old man who claims sticks are sentient, will start to emit multiple frequencies of photons, but no heat...gesture, and...

"Lumos," she said.  Nothing happened.  The Ravenclaw carefully avoided looking at Gwenna's face.  Quelle surprise.  Anyway, he said 'demonstrate', so I suppose I should keep on until it works...  "Lumos.  Lumos.  Lumos."  Her irritation and embarrassment grew with each failure - though she still took care to keep her motions and pronunciation as identical as possible - until finally the tip of her wand sprang into a reasonably bright glow.  The girl shrugged unhappily.

1.	It had not yet occurred to Violet that such things might have been deliberately hidden from first-years, or children in general, given the obvious dangers of experimenting with new spells.

Professor Storm clearly didn't understand how classified things worked.  There were moments when Gwenna could almost imagine him as some awful movie villain, the sort who would hang her by her toes over a ginormous vat of boiling oil and demand to know where such a brave, intrepid adventurer had hidden the secret map to the lost Mayan treasure.  With the hint of his German accent and his cinematic scowls, he would have been a wonderful foil, but instead, here he was, wasting both his and her time by making her write essays instead of pulling out her toenails one by one or something.

Gwenna gave a loud huff, though it was hard not to look put off by the fact that Ostrander had just won five points for Ravenclaw in a detention.  How was that even fair?!  Everyone seemed to think that the other girl was so wonderful and smart and perfect at everything that Gwenna was glad that she was awful at magic.  With a scowl nearly deep enough to match Professor Storm's, she snatched up her quill and began writing.

Writing with a quill was normally far more fun than using a Muggle pen.  Today, Gwenna dragged the nub across the paper, letting it dig into the parchment in a fair approximation of the agony that she felt in her beleaguered soul.  Classified...means...you...shouldn't...  This was awful.  Who cared why Ostrander was bad at anything?  ...talk...about...things, ...not...even...under...  Professor Storm should be paying more attention to her and now he wasn't.  And she was stuck working on an essay, while Violet Ostrander got a private spellcasting lesson from probably the most evil man at Hogwarts.

Keeping her shoulders hunched, she tried to keep her attention on her own paper, but the chance to watch the other girl's failure at spellcasting proved far too tempting.  Gwenna finished crossing the second T on torture, and then risked both Professor Storm's ire and a quick glance up. 

"Oh, that only took you four tries," she interjected, watching the Lumos show with a sort of smug satisfaction.  "Have you been practicing, Ostrander?"

Maintaining as neutral an expression as he could, the Professor watched carefully as the young Ravenclaw attempted her casting. Everything appeared perfect,t he intonation, the precise wand movement, her stance, her grip… but was there hesitation, was she adding each of them up like a mathematical equation? Was she trusting the rules of arithmancy were always correct, that magic was entirely quantifiable?

Trevelyan got in with a snide remark and the silently, the Professor looked from one to the other and back again with a thought, his eyes narrowing just a little. The Gryffindor looked like she was waiting for him to berate her, bored.

"Know any hexes, Ostrander?" He asked smoothly, "My mistake, you do, but now might be the time to apply them practically."

He looked back to Gwenna.
"Do continue, if you feel safe enough…?" he dared her.

Perhaps the earlier offer to have him throw hexes at the Gryffindor and force Ostrander to deflect wouldn't quite suit… perhaps she could save him the bother…


End