Cael got ambushed by Hermione Granger on a Wednesday in the library, although she would no doubt have preferred “initiated a conversation.” By then she had been not-looking-at-Cael for almost four weeks, and her not-looks had developed to the point where they really needed to start looking, and Cael, who was sitting in his usual place with his notebook open on the table and three reference books opened, had — deliberately, as it happened — been making that as hard on her as possible.
Making it harder was actually more fun.
And he had been unfolding his notebook pages to make the tables he had started building more visible to the table next to his.
He had been turning the pages at an infuriatingly slow rate of speed.
It was, in effect, his own ambush response.
Cael wanted to be ambushed.
Hermione was sitting at the table next to his — which she always did, with three of her books fanned out on it and a stack of notes written in an impeccable hand on immaculately tidy sheets of parchment.
He had long since observed, and not particularly cared about explaining to himself why, that Hermione’s handwriting tended to be blacker than other people’s ink.
Cael thought it must have to do with some personality trait, maybe something related to how neat and tidy and orderly her mind was.
Today, however, Hermione had violated one of her cardinal rules.
She had started with only one book, but even that one she had been reading very slowly.
She had not flipped a page in almost ten minutes.
Her expression when looking at her notes was that of someone who knew that her own ideas weren’t quite adequate.
Cael stood and walked three rows of tables over to the stacks.
It took him a minute, which he thought about deliberately prolonging for dramatic purposes, and when he came back, the notebook still open on the table behind him, Hermione was sitting there.
At his table.
She wasn’t sitting at his table.
He could see that immediately because she was standing next to it, with her hands folded in front of her in a way that suggested she was holding each one hostage in order to prevent her fingers from doing something inappropriate.
His notebook was in front of her and he could see that she had been reading it.
She had managed three pages.
She looked up.
“This is –” she started.
“Hermione,” “I – yes?” “Sit down.” She sat down.
She sat there, with her hands folded in her lap, for a few moments before giving in to the need to hold on to her book.
He watched her read.
He had noticed, he realized, that this was enjoyable.
She was an extremely organized reader.
She tracked her progress with a finger.
She said something aloud every time she saw a certain kind of phrase.
He could see her *recognizing* – recognizing the underlying structure of the table, recognizing that she could group the various inversions into certain categories, and recognizing, with a sudden sharp look of understanding, that no single spell in the whole lot broke his principle.
She looked up.
“This is every spell you’ve cast that has inverted.” “Yes.” “Consistently.” “That’s right.
I’ve made some note of a couple that aren’t clear to me, but haven’t inverted in exactly the way that should happen.
I have question marks beside them.” “They’re — ” she turned a page.
She tried to continue.
“They’re *in tables*?” “Yes.” “With predictions?” “Yes.
I have predictions for each inversion – I predict the inversion will happen at twice the intensity of the initial cast.” “So far you’ve been right?” “Twenty-seven times out of twenty-seven so far.
Once I figured out the principle, the predictions became relatively trivial.” She looked away from his notebook at him himself, now.
Not at the notebook.
At him.
The principle is *doubling the power for inversion*.” “It is indeed.” “Across *all* of them.” “As far as I’ve tested.
I haven’t tested everything, but I’m not going to.
There are some spells I’m not going to cast – certainly not with that much power.
But so far, all twenty-seven cast spells have inverted consistently.
Inversion, pure and simple.
None of the partial inversions.
None of the malfunctions.” She flipped another page.
This page held his categorization efforts; he had, in the past couple of evenings since he had arrived at Hogwarts, been rearranging the entries from a chronological list into a set of logical categories.
Offensive inversions were defensive inversions, defensive inversions were offensive, utility inversions were utility in a new configuration.
He had also started drawing diagrams, showing how the categories were flipping as well.
She traced an arrow very carefully, as if concerned that she might smudge his careful penmanship.
“Cael,” “Yes.” “There’s a text in the fourteenth century on this.” “On what?” “On *that*.
In the fourteenth century they described this process as the polar inversion of magic.
It was a theory, a rather extreme theory.
It was abandoned when no one was able to prove its validity through examples.
But – I think the exact quote from a wizard named Pelham in the sixteen-seventies said something like – well, let me get this straight – he said something like this – ” and her eyes wandered to somewhere beyond his shoulder, where they went whenever she was trying to remember precisely where something was filed, ” *The doctrine of polarity has been preserved by us in the scholarly tradition in the absence of any object capable of undergoing inversion*.
That’s a third mark question in the History of Magic essay, from last year.” “That could be rhetorical.” “It isn’t though, is it?” “No.” She very carefully closed the notebook and put her hands flat on top of it as if preventing it from escaping.
“Cael.” “Yes?” “I’m going to go find this fourteenth century text, and I’m going to read the entire fourteenth century to you.
And then I’m going to write a paper.
The paper is going to have our names on it.
You can’t argue with me, Cael – you’re going to help me empirically, and I’m going to write most of it, and it’ll have your name on it.
We’ll need a faculty member’s signature to turn it in.
It won’t be hard to convince Flitwick – in fact I’m *certain* I can convince Flitwick – and we should probably run it by Snape as well, because Snape should see a completed paper, not one that’s still a draft, and –” She paused, apparently realizing she was speaking nonstop, at a breakneck speed, for over a minute.
“I’m running ahead,” “You are.” “That happens.” “I’ve noticed.” “Is that – ” she folded her hands, ” – okay with you?
About the paper?” “Yes.” “I didn’t think you wanted to think about it.” “I have thought about it for three weeks.
Just not with you.” She stared at him for one brief second – in that same expression of naked vulnerability he had once seen on Neville’s face while Cael was trying his best to reverse-comfort him – before gathering herself and unfolding the next sheet of parchment off her pile.
Out of her bag she pulled out a second quill and handed it over the table to him like a person handing a weapon to a fellow combatant.
“All right,” businesslike.
“We need – I need your thoughts and observations.
Everything you’ve noticed about the structure so far.
Exceptions, categories, prediction principles.
I’m going to need a complete structure from you.
No worries about wording – I’ll take care of the prose, as soon as I get a chance to read the fourteenth century.
By Sunday I need a draft.” “Sunday.” “I work quickly.” “I know.” “You haven’t seen me work quickly yet.” “I know that as well.” She gave him, briefly, a smile that was very unlike the one she gave Harry and Ron – which was warm and bossy and sisterly.
This one was different, somehow.
This one was *colleague*.
Cael suddenly felt, rather ironically and perhaps even appropriately, like a new recruit being welcomed to a structure with load-bearing walls.
“All right,” “Write.” He wrote.