wand and shield

[occluminous]

The semester wears on. Bella studies and flies and reads through the library elves' recommendations and accommodates Sherlock's sleep schedule. (Artemis Burberry is actually tolerable enough on any subject but Sherlock, and is more than happy to avoid him on occasions when Bella is around to sleep over with Tony for a night.) She gets A's in everything except Transfiguration; she gets a B there, because she eventually compromised with the teacher on the subject of live animals. Bella will work with bugs, but she wants to be very good at bugs before she messes with mice. Some of the mistakes the other students have made with their rodent subjects made her want to throw up, however easily they were put right.

She explains this compromise to Feral, when the semester changes over. She's just in the next segment of each of the core curriculum courses - no electives till seventh grade, when the brooms course is over with - but they'll have all different teachers and schedules and classmates. (Feral is still in her Defense course, and now so are Sherlock and Tony; she has the twins in brooms and theory, too, and Feral in potions.) "Bugs are really stupid and they have really simple nervous systems. You could probably get a B like I did if you would work on bugs."

Comments

[alicornucopia]

"Miss Swan! Compose yourself at once!"

[occluminous]

"Or what? You just tried to do one of the worst things I can think of already! Without warning, without asking for a volunteer, you were just going to casually -" She emits a nonverbal sort of howl and clutches at her head.

[sparksflying]

"How about," Tony pipes up from behind Bella, "you don't ever do a 'demonstration' like this again, and I don't write my mom about not feeling safe in your class."

[alicornucopia]

"I've been doing this for second-semester sixth graders for nine years," says Mr. Phelps. "I am not an unsafe practitioner of the charm - none of you would have suffered more than a moment's disorientation similar in effect to inattention or drowsiness that children invariably experience in school anyway -"

[occluminous]

"The charm isn't safe because it's designed to do something bad!" shrieks Bella. "That's like saying the Killing Curse is safe because apart from being dead its victims suffer no side effects!"

[alicornucopia]

Mr. Phelps sighs and rubs his temple. "Perhaps one of Miss Swan's friends would like to take her out of the room to compose herself."

[sparksflying]

"Sure," says Tony, and she picks up paper and pen off her desk in a deliberately conspicuous way.

[occluminous]

Bella is still clutching at her head, near where her wands stick out from her bun. But she'll follow Tony out.

[alicornucopia]

"This does not constitute an excused absence; I expect you back and prepared to conduct yourselves appropriately in the next fifteen minutes," says Mr. Phelps.

[sparksflying]

"Uh-huh," says Tony. She's already writing the letter to her mom.

[occluminous]

Bella sits by the door to the classroom in the hall, breathing hard.

[sparksflying]

"You okay? I bet I can get him fired if you want," Tony offers.

[occluminous]

"That sounds fantastic. Let me double-check that impulse," mutters Bella, and she puts her notebook on her knees and starts scribbling, pausing occasionally to scrub a tear away from her face. "But he's been doing it for years, I don't know how your mom would do it."

[sparksflying]

"She's a rich pureblood mom. If she yells loud enough, the school will probably listen. Even though she married a Muggle."

[occluminous]

"Maybe. But that just implies that no one else has a rich pureblood parent who chose to yell about it." Bella pauses. "Or that Mr. Phelps has been Memory Charming extra people. But - apparently he can't do it to me - so - will you believe me if he tries to cover it up?" she asks dubiously.

[sparksflying]

"I'm sending this letter before I go back to class," says Tony. "And if I forget all about it afterward, Mom's going to raise some hell for sure."

[occluminous]

"That's a good idea."

Write write write.

"Yeah. I do want him fired. He's been doing this for nine years. He had plenty of time to have an attack of conscience."

[sparksflying]

"He thinks there's nothing wrong with it," says Tony. "But he's, you know, wrong. I'm gonna run and see if I can find Nike. You coming?"

[occluminous]

"Yes," says Bella.

[sparksflying]

Off she goes!

[occluminous]

Bella follows her, getting her tears under control.

[sparksflying]

"...Seriously though, are you okay?"

[occluminous]

"He didn't actually do it. But I could feel him trying. I - don't know how I stopped him. And it felt bad."

[sparksflying]

"Weren't you trying to learn how to do that kind of thing? Maybe it worked," says Tony.

[occluminous]

"I didn't even come up with anything good to try. Feral was going to test stuff for me because he didn't mind me trying to break through, but eventually we figured out he wasn't a good subject. I've been working on other stuff. And a little bit of made-up Occlumency practice, here and there, but it's supposed to be really hard to get to be a good Occlumens."