Hi

There's a heatwave where I live at the moment and I am fed up with it. I would much rather have the stereotypical wet, British summer, not this prolonged hot spell.

~PureBloodSnake xx

Surprising Support

To say the sixth year Slytherins were nervous about their first week of tutoring sessions was an understatement. Although none would be able to see it without knowing them closely. Hermione was fortunate enough that she knew Caelum, and now Draco, well enough to be able to see the nervous fidgeting the two brothers were exhibiting the closer it got to the sixth year study session. Hermione was definitely going to it, she would never pass up an opportunity to revise for the exams next year. Hanging out with her best friend and his brother was a bonus. It took a little bit of convincing, but she was going to be joined by the rest of the Gryffindor sixth years in the Great Hall. Surprisingly, Ron was the most enthusiastic for the session. Hermione was suspicious of his sudden willingness to study. But she had to admit that his willingness was helpful in trying to get her fellow year mates to take this outreach of help from the Slytherins. Hermione was curious as to how this whole idea would play out, she knew the idea was to just study whatever and ask when you needed help or could offer help, but Hermione knew that everyone would be watching the Slytherins carefully for the duration of this first session. Mistrust of the Slytherins was at its all time highest, especially with the news that Voldemort was indeed back and a few Slytherin parents were sitting in Azkaban. Hermione herself would be under scrutiny for just being friends with the Malfoy twins, not that it would change anything on her part.

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The Saturday night of the first sixth year study session saw all the sixth year Slytherins sat together in the common room half an hour before they were meant to be in the Great Hall. It was supposed to be a strategic meeting, but it had become something of a therapy session to rid them of the nervous energy that they had tried to hide all week. When the time came to meet their fellow sixth years, they moved in a pack, despite the fact that it looked as if they didn't trust their fellow students. That was not the point of this exercise. Caelum, lead his friends along the corridors, feigning confidence. He knew more than anyone else what the mistrust of Slytherins was like and he was nervous on behalf of his friends and especially Draco. It was hard to keep the fact that this was to help Draco from his twin. Draco knew there was something Caelum was keeping from him, yet he was too worried about everything else to even begin to worry about something else. First, they had to survive this possible suicide.

Caelum could feel the anxiety building in Draco and knew that although his broker could feel his own nerves, he had to put up a brave façade.

Stop worrying. There was an authority to Caelum's tone that Draco hadn't expected, it shocked him out of his worried fretting. No one will do anything to anyone, they're all too curious about us extending the olive branch for anything to happen. There was a surety that Draco didn't want to be convinced by, he had to stay on his guard, for Caelum, for Estella and every other one of their friends.

Doesn't mean we can't be prepared. He retorted back with fearful determination coursing through his mind. What's the phrase, for peace you must be prepared for war? Draco could feel Caelum's scowl and annoyed disbelief and knew that was the wrong thing to say. Calum had worked hard to get the Slytherins to trust him enough to willingly put themselves under scrutiny and Draco did not want to take that victory away from his brother. Despite how many times he had seen it, Draco was still surprised by the leader his brother could be and how he didn't order people to follow him or fight for him, he inspired them to fight for themselves and for the betterment of the world around them. In those moments, Draco knew that Caelum would lead his side of the war to victory.

Don't be an idiot, we know who's the threat and it comes from within our own, none of the other students will do anything that we can't deal with. Caelum put a stern end to Draco's worryings. They had reached the Great Hall and both of them squared their shoulders and entered, the other sixth year Slytherins copying their movements. To everyone watching, the Slytherins look as if they don't have a care in the world.

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Ron doesn't know what to think, Hermione has repeatedly told him and the other Gryffindors that the Slytherins, especially the Malfoy twins, are trying to make nice with the other houses, but the way they entered the Great Hall showed everything but. There's something wrong with the way that the smaller of the twins relaxes and smiles at Hermione as soon as no one makes a move against them. The other Slytherins seem to follow his lead. Ron is even more perplexed by the way the Slytherins split up and move towards other students, mostly heading towards the Ravenclaws and a couple of the Hufflepuffs. Both Malfoys head towards the Gryffindors, the smaller one relaxed and uncaring whilst the taller one, Draco, Ron guesses, looks tense and wary. The sit on the bench next to Hermione and immediately she pulls out a planner and starts talking essays and research. Ron just lets her talk, watching how the twins respond to her usual Hermione-ness. Ron is surprised when Caelum leans back and allows Hermione to talk without interruption and Draco immediately copies Hermione and pulls out a planner of his own. This version of the twins is a lot more human than what Ron expected.

Without realising it Ron found himself caught up in a debate about their latest defence homework.

"Inferi definitely eat human flesh, it's basic zombie knowledge." Ron had completely forgotten that he was arguing with a Malfoy of all people.

"Zombies and inferi are not the same things. Inferi can be created anywhere there is a corpse and a wizard who knows the reanimation spell, zombies are naturally created and are from parts of Africa and Haiti." There was a confidence to Draco's voice that wasn't unkind, but still caused Ron to want to argue back.

"That still doesn't tell me whether they eat human flesh or not. If they do they're basically zombies! It's the basic definition of a zombie, undead and eats human flesh. If that applies to inferi, than they're zombies."

"Actually Ron, Draco's right." Hermione added her thoughts and Ron was surprised he had managed to get the twins round the right way, before being dismayed at the fact that Hermione was backing a Malfoy. "The definition of a zombie states that they are natural, so an inferius would not count as a zombie because it's created by wizards." Ron opened his mouth to argue when Caelum cut him off. All three of them turned to look at him as he added his thoughts to the debate for the first time.

"Actually that's not quite right either Hermione. The difference is all to do with intent, that's the basics of all magic, right?" He addressed Hermione but Ron could tell that Caelum knew a lot more on this subject than all three of them put together. Hermione nodded. "Well, a zombie has no intent behind it, like a niffler or any other magical creature, or even something as non-magical as a squirrel. Inferi have intent behind them like any spell. Think of them a little like an evil patronus. A patronus is intended to protect and shield, whereas an inferi is intended to attack and be feared, almost the opposite." There was a little bit of silence before Caelum curled in on himself a little. "If that makes any sense, it's the way I interpreted the books and yeah." He trailed off and Ron was stunned, it made almost perfect sense, a lot more than what he had gotten from the textbooks.

"Actually that's the best way to explain it." an unknown voice said across the hall, it seemed that quite a few people had been listening into their debate.

"Thanks Malfoy, I've struggled with putting that in my essay, I keep writing my way round in incomprehensible circles." A Ravenclaw Ron didn't know the name of spoke up and then hurriedly scrawled notes down. Caelum just smiled, his cheeks turning a pale shade of pink.

"That's it." Hermione whispered before she too was scribbling things down onto her parchment. Ron looked at the picture confused.

"Explain it to me again." He requested and dipped his quill into the ink as Caelum smiled and indulged him.

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"How was it?" Narcissa asked as her two boys found their way into her office for tea on Sunday afternoon. She took in their relaxed demeanors and figured that the study session went well, but she wanted to hear it from them.

"Not bad," Draco started and stopped when Caelum rolled his eyes. "Okay, pretty good." He conceded with a little smirk. "The Gryffindors are not as bad as I thought and everyone seemed pretty impressed with Caelum's explanation on the differences between inferi and zombies, he seemed to have nearly all our year listening to him." Narcissa was glad to hear the pride that decorated Draco's tone as he talked of Caelum's popularity.

"So I should expect the entire year to have decent and correct essays then?" She asked raising a perfectly sculpted eyebrow at her younger son.

"Maybe more than you originally expected, but a lot of people understand but have been struggling to explain the differences coherently. I just helped them along with that." Caelum had a soft blush running across his cheeks and Narcissa knew that he had done a lot more than that for quite a few of the other students.

"Well, we'll have to see when the essays are handed in over the next couple days, won't we? Now after this first inter-house tutoring session, will there be more?" As her question hovered in the office air, Narcissa saw Draco defer to Caelum, even though they both knew that Caelum didn't care for his own discomfort, just that he could help the others with theirs.

"I think we will. I'm expecting it to be a little different, because a few people asked if we could go through the core subjects as one large group because everyone is doing the same things in class. I think it'll be a good idea, because even the Gryffindors seem to want that." Caelum drifted off into thought. There was a lot of potential here, maybe he could get Newt Scamander to talk with the care of magical creatures students, maybe inspire them to actually try and see the creatures as more than just beasts.

Narcissa and Draco smiled indulgently as Caelum sipped his tea and nodded at appropriate times within their conversation without heeding any of the words.

"How are you doing studying natural magic, have you gotten any further than the basic theories?" Narcissa was interested in her son's studying of such a long forgotten magic, she only knew the basics so anything he found on top of that was learning for her too.

"Not too far, there's hardly anything on the subject." Narcissa noticed that Caelum's eyes lit up at the topic and Draco sat back with a smile. "Well there's actually quite a bit of information on the subject, but nothing concrete, and a lot of it contradicts itself. There's talk of connecting with magic in a way that hasn't been done since the time of Merlin and the High Priestesses, but there's also talk of using a wand and spells to connect without that magic, which contradicts the fact that this magic comes from the ground and not our magical core. I honestly think the only way to really find out anything concrete is to try out that magic myself, but there's little to no information on how to do that and a lot of books say for those untrained, it's very easy to get lost in that magic. So it'll have to be something that I do with supervision and when I have time." Narcissa regarded Caelum with an interested eye, the behaviour he was exhibiting, that she was becoming used to seeing, was the type of behaviour of Ravenclaws and she wondered how he wasn't sorted into that house with his obvious thirst for knowledge.

"Could that natural magic be the thing in Dumbledore's prophecy?" Draco asked with a lazy blink, proving to his mother and brother that he wasn't quite awake.

"Possibly." Narcissa murmured getting up and searching through the drawers of her desk for the notebook that Hermione had left behind.

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Dumbledore sat behind his desk, from what he had heard, the study session planned by the sixth year Slytherins had gone down a treat and it wouldn't be long before his chosen one would have the full support of his fellow students. Tom would not be finding any recruits from his school this time around. The students would all be loyal to him and Harry Potter.