Black Lake at mid-afternoon in late November was the proper kind of deserted.
It was too cold outside for the casual stragglers; Quidditch practice had been moved to the opposite side of the castle; Hagrid was somewhere deep in the Forest where nobody asked him to go anymore, so far as Cael knew.
The shore Cael had chosen was a flat area of small grey stones; there was a low rock for Neville to perch on and observe him, and space on all three sides except the one that bordered on the lake, which had seemed to Cael the key to the whole enterprise.
Tossing things into the lake was, obviously, easier than attempting to toss them *through* the wall of the equipment shed, as he had attempted last week and paid for with four extra hours in Filch’s service.
Those four hours had been exacted with a certain dour satisfaction, by the look of things.
Cael was, Filch suspected, turning out to be his personal challenge boy, as it were; the first Hogwarts boy he had found in all his years at Hogwarts who *didn’t* try and wrangle the hours, showed up promptly, and scrubbed when ordered to do so.
He had started putting better tasks in for him.
Last Tuesday he had been polishing trophies; the Tuesday before that, he had polished the suits of armour.
On the trophies, Filch hadn’t spoken at all; everything he had said had been about the trophies, and Cael had taken that as high praise indeed.
Today’s project was reversed Accio.
He had a set of items arranged on a patch of flat rocks.
A river-stone; a wooden practice block; a feather.
And three apples, which he had marked with chalk for difference; the third had no mark because he intended it specifically for today.
He carried with him for the purposes of the lesson a measuring tape and a long sharp piece of slate Neville had procured from the Astronomy Tower.
The slate, chalk-ruler into columns for trajectory, lay on the low rock beside him while Neville watched with a quill and ink bottle and borrowed cloak Hermione had absolutely insisted on because *Cael, it’s November, I am not having him stand around on beaches in robes.* Hermione herself was still in the library.
Hermione had made herself scarce, somehow; Hermione spent her Saturdays in the library.
She had told him, slightly irritably because she was forced to choose between two good options, *report back.* He had been here since shortly after lunch.
The first eleven attempts had been, as might be expected, somewhat varied in outcome.
The river-stone, on the first attempt, had sailed twenty feet past the shore before skipping twice and sinking in the water.
The wooden practice block, on the second attempt, had flown directly through a shrub.
He had apologized to the shrub; while strictly speaking it wasn’t Sprout’s property, Cael had formed a bad habit of apologizing for any damage to the flora in general.
The feather, on attempt three, had proved relatively successful: it flew ten feet past the shore in the right direction, and landed slowly spiraling into the lake.
The rest of the attempts had been, slowly, a calibration process.
By the eleventh attempt, the wooden practice block had landed only eight feet from shore, representing a considerable improvement over the initial attempt by the width of a tree.
He was, he had thought, learning something.
He picked up the first apple.
“First apple,” he said over his shoulder.
“Chalked.
Target five feet.” “Five feet,” Neville agreed quietly, lowering his quill.
Cael cast the spell.
The apple flew from his hand in the way fruit did not generally fly: it left in a straight line at a flat trajectory, nearly parallel to the water, and *humbled* faintly against the wind.
It flew beyond the shore; it flew, further, three feet of lake.
Then six feet.
Then nine.
It sailed a further three feet, hitting the water at an angle such that it skipped once and sunk.
There was a silence.
Neville cleared his throat.
“Five feet.” “That is, yes.” “That was…” “I noted that.” “Twelve feet?
Thirteen?” “Twelve and a half, give or take.” Neville began to write.
He was clearly suppressing laughter, in a peculiar and specific way that involved pressing his lips tightly together and staring very hard at the slate.
He was learning to conceal it.
He was not, yet, very skilled.
“It’s improved,” Neville commented.
“Cael,” “What?” “The apple.” “It flew a farther distance past the target than the wooden practice block.” “Cael,” “Yes?” “By only a little farther.” “The apple is a smaller object with poor aerodynamic properties.” “That’s…” “Yes.” Cael picked up the second apple.
“Second apple.
Five feet.
Target three feet.” “Three feet.” This time he put more intensity into the attempt.
He had a feel for how far, exactly, it needed to be cast now.
The apple flew in a more moderate fashion, arcing across the lake in a graceful curve.
It reached the shore two feet farther forward; it splashed into the water at a greater slope, floated a few inches, and then sank in the usual disappointing way of apples.
Neville stood up abruptly.
“That’s…
That’s really better.” “I see,” “It went much farther,” “Not really,” “How about twelve feet?” “That was more like twelve and a half,” “And that first attempt…
that was twelve and a half,” “Yes.” “The…
Cael.” “Yes?” “You threw the first apple twelve and a half feet.” “Yes?” “And that wooden practice block…
well, you know.
But this one was farther.” “No.” “Yes it was.” “I don’t think so.” Neville was still sitting on the rock, but he had stopped writing on the slate.
He stared at him with an odd look on his face that wasn’t quite pride and wasn’t quite amusement; it was, perhaps, something that he was not yet equipped to name, and Neville had never been good at naming what he couldn’t name.
“Cael,” “Yes?” “Last week, you put that wooden practice block through two walls of the equipment shed.” “Yes?” “This week, you managed to throw the apple…” “Two feet from me.” “That’s much farther.” Cael didn’t know how to reply to that.
He had been watching the calibration as a process of everyday work; Neville, who had been sitting in on it each Saturday since he started, was seeing the gradual improvement of the whole process, and it seemed considerably more evident to him than it did to Cael, who was standing right in the middle of the curve.
“It’s improving.” This was, Cael knew, entirely true; Neville had seen him work hard on the problem.
“For the last week.” Cael still did not know how to answer; he simply nodded, in assent and agreement.
“Well…” Neville stood, stretching his arms, and began to walk slowly back towards the castle.
Cael followed him.
“Tea?” Neville asked, glancing sideways as if this were an unusual request.
“Tea.” Neville nodded in agreement.
He climbed the stairs, leading to the castle; he paused as the sky turned pink at four o’clock in the evening and the water behind him turned to the color of a coin.
Cael knew, suddenly and firmly, that the second attempt at throwing the apple, which had succeeded in throwing it two feet farther than he intended, had been the best he had done at Hogwarts to date.
He did not tell Neville this.
He did not need to; by the sound of his footsteps, Neville was already humming.
Neville wrote on the slate, carefully: *Attempt fourteen.
Apple.
Two feet from caster.
Controlled* *Witnessed by N.L.* That was the first non-Cael entry on the project.
Cael saw it, and had a feeling in the back of his mind he would prefer not to examine just then.
“That’s good.” “Tea?” “Tea,” Neville agreed.
They walked up to the castle; the sky turned the color of pink and the water behind them the color of a coin; Neville was already humming the quiet happy tune of a good day.
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