By the second week of January, the witch outside the reading room had learned all four of their names and developed particular opinions about Fred.
“Feet,” she said as he passed her portrait.
Fred stopped, returned to the mat, and wiped his shoes.
“And the other one.”
George, halfway through the doorway behind him, looked down at his own perfectly respectable shoes before complying.
Adrian waited until they had finished, then followed Cedric into the room with their books beneath his arm.
The place was warmer now that they had permission to use the fire, although the window still admitted a draught.
Cedric had claimed the chair nearest it anyway, preferring the light, while George usually sat where he could see the corridor.
Adrian opened the notebook he had received for Christmas.
The first few pages remained reasonably tidy, but the latest map had already acquired two corrections and an arrow directing the reader somewhere else.
“You’ve put the cabinet on the wrong side,” Cedric said, leaning over.
“That’s the other cabinet.”
“There isn’t another one.”
Adrian slid the loose page beneath it out of the way.
Cedric studied the second drawing, then reached for his pencil.
“Oh.
Owen’s one.”
Across the table, Fred had tilted his chair back while reading their account of the corridor near History of Magic.
He stretched for George’s essay without putting the front legs down, and the chair slipped beneath him.
Cedric’s wand came up.
“Wingardium Leviosa!”
The chair jerked upright, carrying Fred with it before stopping sharply enough to bounce him clear of the seat.
He landed back on it with a startled shout and grabbed the table.
“Put it down!”
Cedric lowered the chair at once.
George rescued the ink bottle, then stepped back as Fred planted both feet on the floor.
For a moment, they all looked at him.
Fred looked back.
“You might have warned me.”
“You were falling,” Cedric said, still holding his wand.
George turned away, shoulders shaking.
Adrian laughed, and the sight of Fred bouncing out of his seat brought back the airbag prank from Neighbors.
He remembered the guy sitting down in an office, completely unsuspecting, before the airbag hidden beneath his chair went off and launched him into the air.
Then somebody else sat in another rigged chair by accident and got sent flying too, which had made Adrian laugh even harder when he watched it.
Looking at Fred now, he could picture that same startled expression on Avery’s face.
The airbag had looked brutal, though.
If they could manage the surprise with magic and bring him down gently afterward, that would be worth figuring out.
He remembered laughing at it.
He also remembered how little he would have wanted to be the person in the chair.
Fred stood and inspected the legs.
“I’m having another one.”
Adrian rested a hand on the chair back before he could move it.
“Hold on.”
Fred glanced at his hand.
Adrian looked from the seat to Cedric’s wand, trying to picture the same abrupt surprise followed by a much gentler descent.
“What if we could make it do that when somebody sat down?”
George stopped laughing.
Cedric lowered his wand very slowly.
“On purpose?”
“Just the person.
The chair stays put.” Adrian pulled a blank sheet toward him.
“And we bring them down easy.
Nobody hits the floor.”
Fred abandoned his search for another chair and came round the table.
“How far up?”
“That’s what you want to know?” Cedric asked.
Fred looked at the ceiling.
“Well, there’s a limit.”
They spent the remainder of the afternoon arguing over a drawing.
George sketched the chair, Adrian added a figure above it, and Fred kept moving the proposed landing farther away until Cedric took the quill from him.
“They’ve got to come down somewhere clear.”
“They will if we put it in the right place.”
“What if someone walks past?”
Fred opened his mouth, then looked back at the drawing.
George pulled the parchment closer and drew a wide circle round the chair.
“We’ll need more room.”
Adrian had expected the idea to appeal to them, but watching it take shape was better than simply remembering the joke.
An ordinary seat, a perfectly ordinary moment, and then somebody who had been feeling very pleased with himself suddenly above everyone else’s heads.
Avery would hate it.
So would the older boys who liked standing close enough to make people step aside.
Adrian tapped the descending figure.
“This is the part we have to get right.
We can make it look ridiculous without throwing somebody into a wall.”
Cedric studied the drawing, then turned back to the reference book they had been using for their homework.
“There might be something about cushioning in here.”
Fred immediately leaned over his shoulder.
George watched them for a moment before adding a question beside the chair.
“We haven’t worked out how it knows somebody’s sat down, either.”
The quill prank had responded to movement, but a chair moved for all sorts of reasons.
People dragged them, leaned on them, dropped bags on them.
Adrian imagined triggering the whole thing while carrying it into place and reluctantly admitted that would be a problem.
By supper, they had filled most of the page with questions.
Cedric took the book with him.
Fred took the drawing.
Neither mentioned the essay they had originally come to finish.
Finding a description of a cushioning charm proved considerably easier than casting one.
Their first practice object was a small cushion Eleanor lent them after Adrian asked whether there were any spare ones in the common room.
She made him promise to return it, then watched him tuck it beneath his arm.
“Should I ask?”
“We’re practicing Charms.”
“That wasn’t quite what I meant.” Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
Cedric held up the library book before Adrian could elaborate, and Eleanor let them go with a warning about scorch marks.
There were no scorch marks.
There was also very little cushioning.
Over the next few evenings, they took turns working from the book while someone else dropped a wooden spool onto the cushion.
Most attempts ended with an ordinary bounce, although Fred once managed to send it rolling beneath a cabinet.
George crawled after it and emerged with the spool, a broken button, and a low opinion of the room’s housekeeping.
Adrian found the failures particularly irritating because he understood what the spell ought to do.
The idea sat close to the magic that came easily to him, but knowing that an effect belonged within reach did not seem to persuade his wand to produce it.
He tried imagining the cushion becoming softer.
Then deeper.
Then capable of accepting the spool’s weight without pushing back.
The spool bounced off and struck Fred’s knuckles.
Fred looked at him.
“Improving.”
Adrian lowered his wand and rubbed his forehead.
Cedric, who had been reading the explanation again, turned the book toward him and pointed at a sentence they had all skimmed past.
“It says the charm acts above the surface as well.”
Adrian bent over the page.
George retrieved the spool before Fred could throw it back.
Saturday morning took Adrian away from the cushion and out into cold, wet air that made his fingers ache through his gloves.
Kettleburn had him help prepare the Bowtruckles’ food before they carried it to the tree.
Adrian brought his notebook in a pocket beneath his coat, where it would stay dry, and the magnifying glass Edmund had given him at Christmas.
The nearest Bowtruckle watched them approach, its narrow fingers resting against the bark.
Adrian greeted it and set the dish where he had placed it during their previous visit.
The creature replied sharply.
He recognised the phrase.
This time, with the dish between them and one long finger pointing past it, the last part finally made sense.
“On the dry side?” he asked in its language.
The Bowtruckle repeated one of the sounds, correcting him, and moved farther round the trunk.
Adrian picked up the dish and followed just enough to place it within reach.
The creature climbed down, inspected the food, and began taking woodlice.
He looked toward Kettleburn.
“It wanted me to move the dish.
I think that’s what it was telling me before Christmas.”
The professor examined the roots where Adrian had first put it.
Beneath a layer of leaves, water had collected in a shallow hollow.
“That would account for it.”
Adrian crouched a little farther away and took out his notebook.
He recorded the phrase while he could still remember the correction, then added where he had been standing and what the Bowtruckle had pointed toward.
Kettleburn waited until he finished.
“Next week, you can feed this group while I check the other side.
Call me over if there’s any difficulty.”
Adrian looked up quickly.
“Okay.
Yeah, I can do that.”
“I expect you can.” The professor handed him the lid.
“Provided you remember they’re entitled to change their minds about you.”
Adrian glanced back at the Bowtruckle, now occupied with the food.
Being understood had apparently done nothing to make him interesting.
He found that reassuring.
On the walk back, he asked about the places the creatures chose during bad weather, and Kettleburn had him stop beside a second tree to compare the shelter beneath its branches.
By the time they reached the hut, Adrian had filled another page and forgotten about the cushion for nearly two hours.
Then Kettleburn pointed toward the wheelbarrow Adrian had left outside.
“That goes in the shed before you leave.”
Adrian put the notebook away and took the handles.
Late January brought more rain and a castle full of students who had run out of patience with staying indoors.
Adrian was returning from the library with Owen when they found Beatrice outside an unused classroom.
An older Slytherin boy stood beside the doorway, one hand braced against the frame above her shoulder.
Adrian recognised him before the boy looked round.
He had been outside Transfiguration.
For a moment, Adrian became sharply aware of the space between them, the books in his own arms, and the older boy’s free hand.
“Move, Rook,” Beatrice said.
Rook glanced at Owen, then at Adrian.
“So this is who you’re meeting.”
Owen continued forward until he stood beside Beatrice.
“We’ve been waiting.”
Adrian stayed a pace behind him.
There was room for Beatrice to come out if Rook moved his arm, and he kept his attention there rather than on the boy’s face.
After another moment, Rook stepped aside.
“Just having a word.”
Beatrice walked past without acknowledging him.
Owen went with her, and Adrian followed, keeping his books held securely against his chest.
Rook said something behind them about knowing where their loyalties belonged.
Nobody turned.
At the next staircase, Owen stopped.
“Has he been doing that often?”
Beatrice shifted her book beneath her arm.
“He’s taken an interest in the tokens.
Apparently I ought to be showing them to him before putting them in the chest.”
Adrian frowned.
“Can he even take them from you once you’ve collected them?”
“That isn’t the point.” She looked down the corridor they had left, then back at him.
“He doesn’t like me helping you find yours.”
Owen’s mouth tightened.
For a few seconds, the sound of people moving on the stairs filled the silence.
“We can meet you somewhere else,” Adrian offered.
Beatrice shook her head at once.
She started up the stairs, leaving them to follow.
Adrian let the conversation turn to the cabinet Owen wanted to check, but his thoughts kept returning to Rook’s arm across the doorway.
The boy had been careful to do just little enough.
That bothered Adrian almost as much as the words.
The cushioning charm began working three days later.
Adrian had stopped looking at the cushion.
Instead, he watched the spool in Fred’s hand and pictured its fall slowing before it reached the fabric.
The distinction felt small until the magic responded, settling into place with an ease he had been chasing all week.
Fred dropped the spool.
It fell normally at first, then slowed just above the cushion and came gently to rest.
He immediately picked it up again.
“Wait,” Cedric said, rising from his chair.
Fred let go.
The spool settled a second time.
George leaned over the table, inspecting the space above the cushion as though something ought to be visible there.
Adrian grinned and tried not to lose his concentration.
Cedric came round beside him.
“What did you change?”
“I was thinking about the wrong thing.” Adrian kept his wand steady while George lifted the spool.
“I kept trying to make the cushion softer.
This time I focused on slowing that down.”
Cedric looked at the spool, then back at the open book.
For Adrian, the explanation was only part of it.
The spell had finally met something familiar in his magic, much as Float had, and once he recognised the feeling he could hold it without nearly as much effort.
He wanted to write that down.
First, he ended the charm and started again.
It worked.
Cedric tried next.
His first attempt softened the impact but didn’t stop the bounce; his second brought the spool down almost as gently as Adrian’s.
George began recording the differences while Fred searched their bags for something heavier.
“Not the ink,” all three said.
Fred withdrew his hand.
They used a closed pencil case.
The charm lasted a little under five minutes, and none of them could yet explain why one attempt held longer than another.
Adrian copied the observations carefully, leaving a separate space for his own thoughts.
At the bottom of the page, George wrote the next problem.
Works while already in place.
What makes it start?
Cedric tapped the line with his quill.
“We leave this part working before anything goes up.”
Adrian nodded.
“Definitely.”
Fred had begun drawing the chair again.
Their first attempt to combine the two effects took place on the last Saturday of January.
The volunteer was a rolled blanket tied with Fred’s scarf.
George placed it on the chair and adjusted the knot while Cedric checked the cushioning charm over the padded area beside it.
They had moved the table against the wall and cleared the surrounding floor, giving themselves considerably more space than the sketch had suggested they would need.
Adrian stood beside the chair with his wand ready.
They were still doing everything themselves.
No hidden enchantment, no trigger, no unsuspecting person sitting down.
Just a lift, a release, and somewhere soft to come down.
Fred stepped away from the blanket.
“Go on.”
“Float.”
The roll rose from the seat faster than Adrian intended.
He slowed it before it reached head height, moved it clear of the chair, and released it above the cushions.
It dropped.
Then the cushioning caught it, easing the descent until it settled sideways with one loose end spilling across the floor.
Fred turned to George with a grin.
George was already kneeling to inspect where it had landed.
Adrian lowered his wand, pleased despite the uneven lift.
“The chair part still needs work.”
“So does the position,” Cedric said.
He moved one of the cushions farther out.
“It turned when you let go.”
They marked the landing point and tried again.
The second attempt rose more smoothly, though it looked less like the sudden launch Adrian remembered and more like someone being politely removed from their seat.
Fred demonstrated the difference with both hands until George told him they understood.
Adrian could already imagine the finished effect.
Someone sitting down, expecting the world to carry on as usual.
A brief, startled ascent.
Then the slow return, with far too much time to notice everyone watching.
He looked at the blanket and started laughing.
Fred joined him without asking why.
From the corridor came the scrape of the portrait witch’s chair.
“Must you make that racket?”
George reached for the blanket.
“Last one.”
“You said that before.”
Fred glanced toward the door, then at his brother.
George put the blanket down.
They tidied the room and returned the chairs to the table before leaving.
Adrian carried the cushion beneath his arm, still thinking about how to make the whole thing happen without four boys standing nearby with their wands out.
At the table, Cedric reached back for his book and paused beside Fred’s chair.
He examined the seat before picking it up.
Adrian noticed.
So did George.
Cedric looked between them, then lifted his chin.
“The leg’s still loose.”
Fred laughed all the way to the stairs.