Worthy Of Magic

Part 21 - The Power of a Voice

Thirteenth October Nineteen ninety-three – Hogwarts Library

Mediocrity will never understand excellence. Words Daphne's father had said to her one day when he was working on case. Observing Harry research, she was reminded of those words.

He was beyond anyone's understanding. A seventh year had walked past them in the restricted section and a short glance at Harry's notes had made her gasp.

Harry had glared poisonously at her when she peeked into his diary. She had squeaked and hurried away. Daphne found it amusing Harry's glare could scare even seventeen year old's. She hurried after the seventh year Hufflepuff and cornered her to get an understanding of what Harry was researching. It all looked like complicated squiggles to her.

Runes that amplify runic structures, she was told. A NEWT level project. And the seventh year had also said she didn't even recognise half the structures in his notes. Ancient rune students were given predetermined runic structures with the task to explain them in exams. What Harry was doing was making his own. The seventh year was amazed and said she couldn't wait to tell Professor Babbling.

Alarm bells went off in Daphne's head. Harry was hers! "Confundo!"

The seventh year never saw it coming.

"Absolutely," Daphne laughed. "He's just begun opening the rune books and would love to take up the elective!"

"Huh? I thought?"

"That's right," Daphne continued with a big bright trust me smile. "I'll be sure to ask him to talk with Professor Babbling."

"Oh. Ok. See you.... ....?"

"It's Greengrass. Daphne Greengrass."

The seventh year suddenly realised she talking to a third year. She frowned, then smiled awkwardly. "Well see you around kid."

Daphne scowled at the girl's back when she left. "Kid? Bitch didn't even realise I confounded her." She didn't recognize the girl and that meant she was insignificant.

When she returned to their table, Harry was gone.

"Crap," Daphne muttered. Her dad might have said understanding excellence was impossible unless you were there at that level. What Daphne felt he failed to mention was excellence was also accompanied by the jerk syndrome in collaboration with the psycho gene.

She sat down at the table with a sigh and opened her own notes. She had assignments to submit and day by day, time was becoming a luxury she couldn't afford. Not with her plans. Not with her dreams.

.

.

.

Harry hadn't left to escape from Daphne. He had simply gone down to the forest to experiment. Nobody was there to stop him going from to the forest at night. The one time Filch had caught him, Harry got the opportunity to try out his runic version of the memory charm. He had held Filch in place with the void and wrapped it around his mouth when he started screaming for help. Then he used a pen to draw the rune structure on the man's forehead and then pushed the void through, activating it.

Filch had passed out immediately and Harry wasn't quite sure if he was successful. Yes, the man forgot him but Harry wasn't sure how much memory he had erased. There was no change in his behaviour. He was surly and annoying as ever.

Harry put it out of his mind. He had greater things to focus on.

The main doors had a charm to alert the gamekeeper if they opened after curfew and Harry could see the magic in it. Instead he walked along the corridor parallel to it and stopped at the second window. He pulled at the latch instead of pushing to open it. Stone grated against stone as a part of the wall began to rotate giving him a way out close to the forest.