Chapter 129: Paltry Tricks and Party Tricks
"Miss Greengrass, Mr. Potter!" exclaimed Dumbledore, ceasing the waterworks he was performing with his wand. "Care to join our little competition? We're holding a little contest to see who has the best party trick."
"No thank you, sir," said Harry. "I wanted to learn more about the Fidelius Charm."
"Really now," said Professor Dumbledore, his piercing eyes looking straight into Harry's. "What brought this on, all of a sudden?"
Upon reading Harry's mind, Dumbledore was a little startled by the amount of venom he had accumulated towards Sirius Black, despite never having met the man. Harry had recently learned of his godfather's involvement in his parents' deaths, but just as his hatred had started to abate, his friend Oleandra had been senselessly tortured by the man, reviving the flames of hatred.
And it was then that Dumbledore realized another thing. Oleandra had convinced Harry to ask him a question on her behalf, apparently thinking this would yield better results than if she asked him the question directly. If Oleandra knew about Legilimency, then she ought to have known that her cover would be blown, seeing as no ordinary child of Harry's age knew aught about Occlumency.
This either meant that Oleandra was playing an immensely complicated game of I know that you know that I know, or much more likely, she had no idea that these branches of magic existed! And as the saying goes, if you've got nothing to hide, then you've got nothing to fear… But Oleandra hadn't been blocking his attempts at reading her mind on purpose; it was merely a side effect of her magic! Maybe she wasn't up to something sinister after all.
"Do you also want to know, Miss Greengrass?" said Professor Dumbledore, peering at her over his crescent moon glasses. "What for?"
"Something important to me has been hidden from me," said Oleandra truthfully. "I wanted to know if there was a way to lift the charm other than having its caster reveal to me the secret."
"Something important?" probed Dumbledore with interest.
"Yes," said Oleandra. "A memory of mine. I need to remember it, obviously."
Now that was interesting, Dumbledore thought to himself. The Fidelius Charm was usually used to conceal places by hiding the secret of its address in one's soul, but that wasn't its only application. Still, secrets were usually secret for a reason. There was one last test Dumbledore wanted to try on Oleandra before making a definite judgment about her.
"Well, I suppose I could simply tell you," Dumbledore said, smiling. "But where would the fun be in that? The Fidelius Charm is a powerful charm known by few and mostly used by the forces of good. If everyone knew how to break it, then that would be quite the disaster, wouldn't it? I need to know if you're worthy. …By the way, I'd use the most complicated Charm I knew if I were in your shoes, Miss Greengrass."
"What would we have to do?" Harry asked. Oleandra wouldn't help him unless Dumbledore gave her a straight answer!
"Why, win our little competition, of course!" Dumbledore exclaimed. "We each perform some party trick magic and grade each other's performance out of ten. To make it fair, both of your scores will be added together. How about it?"
That didn't sound fair to Oleandra at all. They were all teachers, how were they supposed to compete with people who knew every spell in existence?
"I guess we have no choice," Oleandra said, looking at Harry. "We accept."
Everyone participating would get a vote: Harry, Oleandra, Dumbledore, McGonagall, Snape, Sprout, and Flitwick. Snape didn't want to play the game and stood up to leave, but Dumbledore promptly sat him back down. As for Filch, he didn't have any magic, so he could only watch. Seven participants, which meant the score would be out of sixty.
Dumbledore restarted his little water show. First, he conjured a sphere of water the size of an exercise ball. Waving his wand, he made the ball change into progressively more complicated shapes, as well as all sorts of colours. A yellow doughnut; a green cube; a purple model of an atom, complete with electrons; a woman walking her red dog... Towards the end, he turned the water into a cloud above their heads, which then started snowing. How thematically appropriate!
"I'm starting to think he doesn't want us to win," Harry whispered to Oleandra.
She nodded back. It was also probably a bad idea to give everyone a zero to get a better score by comparison; this was supposed to be a test of their character, after all.
"Nine!" said Harry
"Nine as well," said Oleandra.
"You children have no idea how difficult it is to do what Albus did," scoffed Professor McGonagall. "Ten."
"Six," said Professor Snape lazily. "You've spilled some water on me."
"Seven," said Professor Sprout. "You sabotaged my plant themed trick with your snow!"
"Ten!" squeaked Professor Flitwick. "Amazing wandwork, as always!"
"If I'm not mistaken, that adds up to fifty-one," said Professor Dumbledore.
The next one to go was Professor McGonagall. After thinking for a moment, she drew her wand and pointed towards the ground, where the snow from Dumbledore's trick had ended up. The snow began rolling by itself into balls, which then assembled into snowmen. The snowmen then started a snowball fight! It was quite an amusing sight, watching them dig into themselves for more ammunition. This performance earned Professor McGonagall a score of fifty.
Next was Professor Snape; he pulled a few phials filled with coloured liquids out from his breast pocket and mixed them together in his glass. Fireworks began shooting out of it, which earned him a forty-three. This score was mostly due to Harry awarding him a one!
Next up was Professor Sprout. Before anything else, she got rid of the snow littering the ground, much to the janitor, Filch's, relief. What happened next pleased him less, though. She threw a packet of seeds on the ground and waved her wand; all of a sudden, the Great Hall was filled with the smell of spring as flowers grew everywhere. This earned her a score of forty-seven.
The final teacher to present their trick was Professor Flitwick. His was the most impressive, in Oleandra's opinion. He conjured hundreds of crystal glasses with a wave of his wand, and with a flick, he filled them all with different amounts of water. He then created a magical wind that blew over his glasses, creating a beautiful and soothing melody. This earned him an amazing fifty-nine points; just one point short of a full score!
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