Sunday quickly passed by as I was in the Room of Requirement all day to review the materials this year. It's starting to get annoying why me and Whitlock’s memory is separate and I have to actively search for it, if only they merged, I wouldn't have to deal with this shit. Well, at least the muscle memory is still there…

Now it is Monday. The first class is Herbology, and the class is right at the crack of dawn. The Ravenclaw kids quickly scour to the Greenhouse, bringing their dragonhide gloves with them. It’s honestly quite nerve racking, seeing all these moving plants wriggling near me, makes me feel squirmish, but oh well.

“Hello Class.” Professor Sprout entered the room. “Today we’re going to learn about the uses of Bubotubers.”

She quickly dropped a pot of a strange plant that has this greenish bubble around its leaves. “Bubotubers. They will need squeezing, you will collect the pus from the leaves using your gloves. Now, who can tell me the uses of the Pus?”

A Ravenclaw girl raised her hand. “Yes, Miss Turpin?”

“It’s for treating acne right?” she said. “But it must be diluted first.”

Sprout nodded. “Correct, ten points for Ravenclaw.”

After that, the class just basically turned into a pimple squeezing class, as we have to squeeze the greenish liquid from those green bubbles on the plant.

—

The first class was easy, it was just like a normal biology lesson but with moving plants, I checked my time table and there were apparently no classes after this, so I decided to just stay in the library. I didn’t want to walk to the seventh floor as it is a hassle, it’s too far and often tiring, so I just stick with the books, drawing runes and doing math quietly inside the library.

I am now reading about the languages of runes, how languages can affect the use of magic. As they say, words are magic, and in this case, it’s literal. Study of Ancient Runes is quite intriguing, not only do I have to have some sort of skill in drawing and writing, it also reminds me of programming for some reason. The statements, variables, algorithms, all there, just on a more complex level and much more dense. With runes, I could probably compact hundreds of lines of codes into a single sentence, if I’m smart enough with it of course.

Did I mention that I was majoring in Computer Science before all this shit happened? Yep.

I’m bad at drawing though, and writing, so… yeah…

I quickly took a parchment and wrote a simple runic word that means light. 

ᛚᛁᚷᚺᛏ

I took out my wand, and tapped the rune on the parchment with it, and bam, it glowed, albeit really dim, probably because my writing is horrendous.

“Did you just?—” A voice suddenly spoke, I could recognize that voice right about now, it’s Granger…

I looked towards her and shot her a glare. “What?”

“You used magic in the library…” she said in a hushed voice as she sat down in front of me. “You’ll be banned if Madam Pince saw that.”

“I was just trying a rune.” I defended myself. “She’s not going to burn me unless I destroy one of her books.”

“A rune? Let me see.” she said, didn’t even ask permission, just straight up grabbed it from my hands, rude. “Your writing is horrendous as always. But I guess it works.”

“Of course it is.” I snatched it back from Granger, rolling it up to put in my bag. “I thought you had class right about now?”

“I have potions after Lunch, but I’m here for another reason.” she said, taking out a small box from her bag. She took something out of it… a pin… “Do you want to join?”

What? “Join what?”

She put the pin on the table and pushed it to me, making me see the writing on it. it’s … spew… the hell is that?

“What’s spew?” I questioned in confusion.

“It’s not spew…” she huffs. “It’s the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare.”

“Elfish?” I repeated. “You mean like… Tolkien Elvish or—”

“It’s house elfs.” she said, though she was surprised for a bit. “You know Tolkien?”

I scoffed. “Of course I know him…” I took the pin and examined it. “Why do you have to promote ‘Elfish Welfare’? I think they’re just fine in my opinion.”

“Fine?” she quietly shrieked. “They’re basically slaves!”

“Oh wow, as far as I know, they like it.” I shrugged, putting the pin on the table again.

“But it’s horrible! They don’t know what’s best for themselves.” she refuted.

“But house elves are parasitic right?” I said, quickly searching for a memory concerning house elves, turns out Whitlock has some house elves back at home… “They siphon magic from their master to keep living… Why would you want to free them? Or at least I’m assuming you want to do that…”

“Yeah but still…” She murmured, calming down. “Being slaves for generation… at least they should be treated nicely, not as literal slaves…”

I sighed. “Well, good luck with that, purebloods are notoriously stubborn if you haven’t noticed by now.”

“So you don’t want to join?”

“If you haven’t noticed Granger,” I said as I leaned on my chair again, fixing a comfortable position. “I’m not exactly a social butterfly, I’ll just be a burden to this… cause of yours…”

“Well I only have Harry and Ron for now… though the latter has a bit of a debatable position…”

“All the more reason not to join…” I murmured quietly. After that, she didn’t say anything to me again, she just opened her books, probably reading about the tournament again and completely ignored me.

Meanwhile I got back to what I was doing, reading runes. It's probably impossible to memorize all of this in such a short time… so I probably need to write it down in my personal book. I quickly took a small notebook and slowly wrote all of the letters of the runes on it, hell, might as well wrote about the spells that I remember so far in case I forgot about it, but once I’m used to it I could probably do it non-verbally, or just with my imagination… but it would probably take a moderate time to get to that level.

I was starting to be consumed by my studies when suddenly I could feel a tap in my shoulder. I first looked towards Granger in front of me and I saw that she has this calculating look while looking at the person behind me. I turned around, only to be greeted by a warm smile, Fleur’s smile.

“I see that you are studying diligently.” she nodded in approval. She sat beside me as she examined the stack of books in front of me. “Too diligently perhaps…”

“Hello to you too, Fleur.” I rolled my eyes. “What are you doing here?”

“Oh but I thought you said I could come at any time?” She raised her brow teasingly. “Is that a lie, or am I disturbing something?”

As she said that, she quickly turned to Granger, and shot her a smile. “My name is Fleur Delacour.” she introduced herself, offering her hand towards Granger.

Granger looked hesitant, but finally she forced a smile and shook her hand. “Hermione Granger…”

Granger then looked at me, confused at what was going on.

I just shrugged at her. “Well fine, you can stay, you don’t have any classes?”

“I am in my last year, it is mostly just reviewing materials.” she answered casually. “What about you? You are reading… last year’s books? What for?”

“A bit of relearning can’t hurt.” I said casually as I crossed my legs.

“I-I’m sorry… but what’s going on?” Granger suddenly asked, still confused. “You two seemed… close… And I never saw Whitlock like this…”

“Well, as I said yesterday Granger, I just met her 4 days ago.” I shrugged.

“Oh you didn’t tell her?” Fleur stated, making my neck snapped at her, please don’t Fleur…

“Tell what?” Granger said.

Fleur gave me a smug smile and turned to Granger. “I am Archie’s betrothed.”

After that, just silence. Granger looked at the both of us with a look of disbelief. “B-But you said that you only met her 4 days ago?” 

“That is also true.” Fleur nodded.

“Then how come?”

“Arranged marriage Granger.” I sighed. “Arranged marriage…”

“W-What? That kind of thing still exists?” she stuttered.

“No, not really, we’re just a special case.” I said casually, coming back to my book. “I don’t want to get into it… you can speculate all you want.”

“B-But…” She stammered again, looking at me and Fleur back and forth. She took a deep breath and calmed herself. “Well, then excuse me…”

She quickly packed up her books and bolted off from where I was sitting, and exited the library.

“Well great.” I murmured, I turned to Fleur, forgetting about Granger’s behavior already. “So, champion of the Beauxbatons, are you prepared for the next task?”

Fleur was still watching Granger walking away from the table in amusement as she turned to me. “What is there to prepare? I do not know the task yet.”

“And you will just wait until you know it?” I questioned rather amusingly, that’s stupid. “It’s not a joke Fleur, you can die in the tournament.”

“Worried about me Archibald?” She teased once again.

“I will have to marry Gabrielle if you die.” I said with a deadpan expression, making her turn serious.

“All right, fine, in the first task you are only allowed to bring your wand and protective clothing of your choosing.”

“Protective clothing?” I asked. “Then why not charm the clothing with extra things? Maybe write a couple of runes there.”

“Well the clothing is not ‘ere yet, we ‘aven’t finished making it.” she answered. “Although, can you help me practice spells?”

“What? I’ll be your target practice?” I scoffed.

“Non, I want to duel you.” she continued.

“I'm fourteen year old, and you are a seventeen year old Fleur.” I stated. “The gap is wide.”

“And you are a talented wizard.” Fleur refuted. “I’m sure you will do fine, I will go easy on you.”

I groaned a bit as she for some reason massaged my shoulder. The fuck is going on in this girl’s head. I turned around, only to see her smirking at me as she kept massaging my left shoulder.

I pushed her hand and sighed. “Fine. but we won’t do it in the dueling room.”

“What? Embarrassed of losing in front of everyone?” She teased.

“No, I don’t want any more heat, you asking me to duel is just baiting the other horny boys in Hogwarts.” I said while I stood up, putting the books to where it belonged. “We’re going upstairs, to the seventh floor.”

Fuck it, she’s not a Hogwarts student anyway.