The Arcane ScoRA and the Wand of MacArt by OliveOil_Med
Chapter Notes: Albus waits for Scorpius and Rose in the library for another Arcane ScoRA meeting, and is greeted once again by Maddox Dugan. But his friends don't appear to share Albus' high opinion of him.
ThanX Azhure and Caitlin!
Chapter 7
Craftsmanship and Techniques
Frantically, Albus scribbled the answers to his Charms homework as he sat at one of the desks in the school library. The Gryffindors and the Hufflepuffs had just started learning about combining levitation and movement spells in order to move objects through the air. Professor Branstone had moved past drilling them on the basic wand movements for their latest unit and onto situations for which the spells could be applied. Although, the class as a whole had yet to practice any of the spells in a practical sense.
In a situation in which you find yourself needing to cross a natural opening and the bridge appears too dangerous to cross, what are three spell options you would have to choose from? Please explain the advantages and disadvantages of each spell.
Albus quickly scribbled a few spells he could remember off the top of his head, and a few reasons behind each one that he didn’t bother to consult the book for. He still had twenty answers left to look up and less and less time to do it. He had to hurry; the Arcane ScoRA was going to be having yet another meeting in less than an hour. The third one this week, none of which had been conducted in the presence of Moaning Myrtle. Ever since the Doxy incident at the Quidditch match, Rose had slowly been working her way through the Magical Creatures section of the library and Scorpius had been making a point to listen to every piece of gossip that echoed through the Slytherin common room, for everything there was to be heard, would be heard in there, according to Scorpius. Albus would find himself following along with whatever he was needed for, but not to the near rabid degree that Rose was leading them on. Scorpius did not seem nearly as committed as her, but he had yet to say anything to quell the Weasley Ravenclaw.
Whether a desire to follow in the footsteps of their parents or a desire not to have the ordinary, boring school years that everyone seemed to want for them, whatever the Arcane ScoRA had started out to be, it certainly wasn’t that anymore.
“How goes it, Little Potter?”
Albus felt himself jump slightly out of habit, nearly falling backwards out of his chair, but relaxed when he didn’t see the dual forms of James and Fred. Instead, the growingly familiar Maddox Dugan looked down at him through the strands of longish dark hair with a slightly puzzled smile on his face. Not waiting for an invitation, he pulled out the chair next to Albus and took a seat.
“Wow, you are the jumpy one, aren’t you?” Maddox remarked, reclining sideways against the desk. “At any rate, though, how are you?”
The older student asked Albus these questions with a general interest. Also, he didn’t speak to Albus in the condescending tone that so many people used on children without even noticing.
“Alright.” Albus shut his schoolbook and set his wand on the cover.
“Alright?” Maddox questioned jokingly with a raised eyebrow. “Just alright? Or have I come across you on a day where you aren’t in the mood to talk?”
Even though Albus could tell that the older student was just joking around, not even teasing him, he still couldn’t help but feel guilty at the words. Maddox had been so nice to him ever since he had first arrived at Hogwarts: and he was friends with both James and Fred”it would have been so easy for him to follow their lead and tease Albus right along with them. But instead, he treated Albus with the same welcoming attitude he had given to all the other first-years, ignoring the fact that he already knew Albus’ older brother and most of his cousins and the easy prey he could have made.
“I’m sorry you couldn’t play Quidditch on Saturday,” Albus whispered apologetically.
Upon hearing this, instead of feeling sorry for himself, Maddox laughed. Yeah, I heard all about that fiasco. But leave it to James Potter to be able to maneuver his way through a Doxy swarm and still catch the Snitch. At least Gryffindor won in the end. That’s what really matters.”
Then, leaning in close, Maddox whispered, “Besides, you met Jocelyn Dale. Tell me that missing one game of Quidditch isn’t worth being able to call her a Blast-ended Skank to her face.”
At this, Albus, who normally wasn’t one to laugh at people behind their backs, couldn’t help but snicker. Jocelyn Dale was a horrible, horrible human being, who had more than likely never had a day of difficulty or tragedy in her life. She was the type of girl who deserved every word people said about her behind her back; possibly even more.
“What are you working on?” Maddox leaned over to peek at Albus’ composition book. “Charms homework? Does Professor Branstone still have you working on the wand movements, or has she actually started letting you use the spell yet?”
“Still working on the movements.” Albus grabbed his wand so he could illustrate. “Left flick, right flick, arch, and swish.”
Maddox nodded in an attentive manner, but Albus was beginning to notice that his eyes were resting on his wand and not the wielder of it.
“Nice wand,” he remarked with his hand out. “May I?”
This caught Albus somewhat by surprise. At Ollivander’s wand shop, he had received a very long lecture from Ollivander, whom his father had later told him was the nephew of the wandsmith who had sold him his wand, that his wand would be as much a part of him as his hands or his eyes. Later, his parents both made very sure to tell Albus that Ashford Ollivander was a man who seemed to garner entertainment from making new Hogwarts students anxious about their first wands so as to frighten them into taking better care of them so that he would not have to worry about making repairs later. Apparently Rose, his older cousins, and even Teddy had gotten the exact same talk.
Despite his parents stressing not to worry about his wand, saying they were built very durable, still he felt his pulse quicken as he pulled the wand from the pocket of his robes. Somewhat warily, Albus handed the rod over to the older student. Appearing to note his apprehension, Maddox took great care in receiving the wand, handling it carefully in his hands as he examined it.
“Cherry,” he noted. “Very good for Divination spells. The wielders of it tend to be very good at divining and have strong intuition.”
Albus regaled this telling with a healthy dose of disbelief. Him and Divination? It hardly seemed possible. Every single member of his family had made a point of telling him that Divination was a load of hogwash, Aunt Hermione in particular. James, Fred, Molly, and Lucy all took Divination, but this was hardly an indicator of its validity. James had remarked on more than one occasion that old Professor Trelawney’s growing senility made for one of the easiest grades in the school. All you really had to do in order to pass was think of a prediction to make five minutes before class and recite them in a dramatic voice.
But Maddox certainly did seem to speak in a way that suggested he knew what he was talking about.
“What’s the core?” Maddox asked.
“Unicorn hair.”
“Hmm,” Maddox hummed under his breath. “Unicorn wands normally only choose owners who are pure of heart. I guess that means I’m never going to have to worry about you turning me into a rat while I sleep then, right?”
Albus couldn’t help but smile at the joke. Though part of him felt a little disappointed that his wand would not be very suitable for turning James into a rat while she slept.
“Overall, a very good wand for defensive and healing magic,” Maddox finished, handing the wand back to Albus. “It fits you, like most wands fit their owners.”
Albus nodded, noting the observations with a slight shrug of his shoulders. But Maddox wasn’t quite done talking about wands just yet.
“What about that cousin of yours in Ravenclaw, Rose?” he asked. “Do you know what her wand is?”
“Birch,” Albus thought out loud as he tried to remember, “and…phoenix feather, I think.”
“Really?” Maddox remarked, eyebrow slightly raised. “I can understand her Sorting then. Birch wands usually only tend to belong to great thinkers and those of logical mind. And combining it with the phoenix feather also makes it a great wand for defensive and healing magic, just like yours. But it’s also excellent for cleansing and driving out spirits.”
Albus could hardly argue. This definitely sounded like a wand that would choose his cousin. The polite interest he had begun the conversation with was gone, now replaced by a genuine, more rabid interest in learning more that seemed much more characteristic of Rose Weasley than Albus Potter.
“Wicked,” Albus breathed. “My brother’s is Koa and dragon heartstring. What does that mean?”
Once again, a confident, knowing look appeared on Maddox Dugan’s face as he shared the information with the younger Gryffindor. “Koa wands are good for luck spells and charms. They usually choose those who possess an innate lucky streak. And dragon heartstrings are good cores for dueling and casting hexes. No doubt you’ve already experienced these things on the wrong end of that wand.”
“What about you?” Albus’ eyes shifted down to the wand poking out of Maddox’s robes. “What’s your wand made of?”
Without even looking down, he extracted the wand and held it up for Albus to see. It was polished and completely without nicks or scratches that he had seen on the wands of his older cousins. “Oak and dragon heartstring,” he answered with all the enthusiasm he spoke with towards wands distinctively absent. “But to be perfectly honest, I never felt like it truly fit me like it was supposed to. When I went to Ollivander’s, I barely got a reaction out of it. Of course, it was about the fiftieth wand I tried, so I suppose I was just fed up. Maybe one of these days I’ll go back and see if I can get a different one.
“One that suits me better,” he continued as he pulled the wand away and it disappeared back into his robes pocket. “You know, it might even be that I’ve just changed so much since my first year that my wand just doesn’t respond to me as well as it used to. It’s rare, but it does happen.”
Once the wand was gone, though, all of Maddox’s previous enthusiasm towards the subject of wands returned.
“And it might even be that it’s Ollivander’s technique itself that doesn’t suit me. There are a lot of different techniques for making wands,” he went on to explain. “In America, wands are custom made so they will only work for the person they were originally made for.”
“Whoa,” Albus remarked with a sense of awe. “You sure know a lot about wands. Do want to be a wandsmith?”
Maddox shook his head, casting his eyes down to the desktop as he trailed his fingers across the grain. “Doubtful,” he replied with a tone of resignation. “I don’t think Ollivander’s will close their business, and I don’t like the odds of trying to compete with Britain’s best wandmaker.”
“Albus,” a call came from behind him.
Albus and Maddox turned in unison to see a redheaded, black robe clad figure hunkered down with more books that most would think a child her age would be strong enough to hold. There was Rose, tapping her foot impatiently against the floor and shifting her eyes back and forth between the two boys as though waiting for an explanation. And Maddox seemed to be just a little but intimidated by the young girl staring him down.
“Oh, yes.” Albus suddenly remembered, as the only Weasley not in Gryffindor, that his cousin had never met Maddox. “Rose, this is Maddox Dugan. He’s a fourth-year in my house. Maddox, this is my cousin, Rose Weasley. She’s a first-year.”
Suddenly, recognition dawned as Maddox recalled the near-famous name from the Sorting Ceremony.
“Ah, so this is the notorious Ravenclaw Weasley,” Maddox remarked as he extended his hand towards the younger girl. “I have to say, the way your family talks about you being so different, I was almost expecting to see a third arm growing out of your forehead.”
Albus snickered behind his hand, but, as with most jokes poking fun at her, Rose did not laugh. She looked up at Maddox with a critical look almost never seen on someone as young as her. The young Ravenclaw looked down at his hand as though she expected to be shocked the moment she grabbed it.
“There’s nothing wrong with being intelligent and creative,” Rose answered back in the manner of someone extremely offended.
Maddox raised an eyebrow at the response Albus’ cousin gave him, but did not answer back with any snide remarks or anything else that might have further provoked Rose’s feelings of animosity. He simply kept his hand extended, waiting for the first-year girl in front of him to accept the gesture of friendship. Finally, Rose seemed to understand that Maddox was not going to be frightened away by her, so she begrudgingly extended her hand as well.
“Pleasure,” she muttered dryly as she accepted his hand. But as soon as she pulled it away, Albus could see her fingers twitch, as though she had a compulsive need to wash her hands now.
Suddenly shrugging it off, she shifted her gaze back to her cousin, as though she had never even spoken to Maddox.
“Albus, don’t forget,” Rose reminded him, “we have to meet Scorpius soon, to ‘study’.”
Albus stood, confused, for a moment before he finally remembered what his cousin was talking about. No doubt, having left Scorpius in some corner of the library all by himself, making sure that he knew that Albus was the reason why.
“I’ve…” Albus trailed as he began to follow his cousin, “got to go now.”
“Okay,” Maddox called after him as Albus walked away. “Don’t you get into too much trouble when I’m not watching you.”
Rose, not having waited for her cousin and the older Gryffindor to exchange farewells, was already well on her way out of the study area and about ready to duck behind the Herbology shelves. Desperate to keep up with her, Albus began a swift, stiff shuffle, all the while glancing over his shoulder for Madam Pince, whose advanced age had done nothing to hinder her abilities to track down misbehaving students.
“Rose,” Albus hissed under his breath as his cousin ducked into the stacks. “Rose, please wait!”
Whether an answer to his pleas or her own security they were not being followed, Rose finally slowed to a more comfortable pace. Then, turning towards her heavily-breathing cousin while still continuing ahead, she cast him with an apologetic look.
“I’m sorry, Albus,” she said, her tone then taking a sudden turn, “but maybe you should consider going outside more often.”
In between breaths, Albus glared at the redheaded girl. First it was James who would tease him about this kind of thing, then Lily was just starting to pick it up. Now he was getting the same from Rose, the one person in his family who should understand having a preference of brains over brawns. Alright, maybe for Albus to refer to himself as a brain was a stretch, but Rose was hardly in a position to argue, even if she was clearly more athletic than her cousin.
Suddenly, Rose stopped at the end of the bookshelves, as though she stood at the edge of a whitewater river. With a glace left, right, and then left again, she grabbed Albus by the sleeve of his robes and dragged him across the opening, as though she did not trust him to make it across on his own.
“So who was that Dugan boy you were talking to?” she asked him as they once again resumed a more comfortable pace.
“Maddox Dugan is a fourth-year Gryffindor,” Albus replied annoyed, believing Rose had not been listening when Maddox had said all this himself. “His father is the Head of your House.”
“Professor Dugan?” Rose said in a noncommittal tone. “It hardly seemed possible.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Rose began her answer with a long winded sigh, as though this were something she really did not want to get into. “Well, Professor Dugan talks with the Ravenclaws a lot about all kinds of things. He’s so well-read, and intelligent, and thoughtful.” Rose paused as her tone change from the praise of her teacher. “While his son…”
Albus raised an eyebrow at the answer his cousin gave. He began to speak, but his voice trailed off when he noticed his cousin’s expression. She kept her eyes on the ground, shifting back and forth, and bit at her bottom lip. This face was as easy for Albus to read as a sign posted on his cousin’s back would have been.
“Rose,” Albus asked, “what do you have against Maddox?”
“I don’t know.” Rose shrugged her shoulders as though she could offer no concrete evidence. “I’m finding I don’t care for most Gryffindor boys.”
Albus shook his head, casting his cousin with the exact same look his father would use on his mother whenever he ran out of things to say. “Rose Weasley, you are a true, blue Ravenclaw!”
Rose giggled under her breath. “Just don’t tell my dad.”
Hidden towards the back of the library, in between shelves, sat three students, as far away from the rest of the breathing bodies in the library as they could possibly be. The secrecy of their location was believed by Scorpius to be a necessity, him being the one whom had first staked it out.
In a circle of three (more like a triangle, really), they all sat together. Rose had been slowly working her way through a very large stack of books nearly towering over her head. Across from her, Scorpius sat with a quill and composition book in hand, taking notes on anything Rose deemed relevant. Occasionally, he would take a book from Rose’s stack and start reading himself, except as soon as he would set it down, Rose would take it back and start rereading it herself, as though she didn’t trust Scorpius to find the information himself.
Rose’s latest plan for attack was to study any and all strange incidents in wizarding history to see if anything like this had ever happened before. Earlier, when they had first all come together, Scorpius argued that the teacher probably already had all these books memorized, and if there was anything to know, the professors would have probably already realized it.
Then, Albus broke the silence, turning towards Scorpius so he could ask, “Scorpius, what’s your wand made out of?”
“Ash and dragon heartstring,” Scorpius answered over the cover of his book. “Why?”
“I was talking to a housemate about wands just now,” Albus explained. “You can give him any wood and core combination, and he can tell you exactly what kind of wizard will choose it.”
“How fascinating,” Scorpius remarked, going back to hiding behind his book cover, clearly not at all interested.
“Albus,” ordered an increasingly peeved Rose, “focus!”
The order was somewhat confusing, as Albus wasn’t quite sure what he was supposed to be doing, which was why he found himself so often interrupting his cousin’s concentration. He didn’t even know what he was supposed to be adding to this session. Rose and Scorpius seemed to have the research down, and would occasionally ask Albus to write something down, but for the most part, he simply sat idle, doing nothing but ‘impeding their progress’, as Rose put it.
Rose stopped thumbing through her book, Notable Creature Attacks, and pointed out something she though might be useful, a habit she had already repeated several times already.
“In 1893, in the United States, a creature called a Deer Woman was brought into the city of New Orleans where she killed several dozen people.”
Albus sat up diligently, waiting to be told whether or not to write something down.
“But, that was only the one creature…”
“…and the person behind it is more than likely dead.” Scorpius finished for her.
So that was a no. Albus sighed and leaned back again the shelves, hoping in the back of his mind that they were sturdy enough to support his weight without falling over like dominos.
“Maybe we should ask Maddox for help,” Albus suggested out of the blue.
The group as a whole said nothing. Rose because she could not believe Albus had suggested this after their talk on the way there, and Scorpius because he had no idea what his friend was talking about.
Scorpius was the first to break the silence. “Who is Maddox?”
“He’s some kid in Albus’ house,” Rose answered for him. “Pretentious bugger, if you ask me.”
“He is not pretentious! He knows a lot, about all kinds of things,” Albus explained in protest. “He could really help us.”
Ordinarily, Albus would be put off by his cousin’s slight know-it-all attitude, but he wasn’t going to indulge in it when he knew it was flat-out wrong. He knew Maddox a lot better than Rose did. He had been speaking to him ever since school started, and was certain he had a good idea of his character. Rose had known him for about an hour and already seemed to have her mind made up the moment she saw him. Maybe Professor Dugan shared some things with the Ravenclaws that he didn’t with the rest of the student body, but not all parents gloated about their children. And Maddox being in Gryffindor instead of his father’s house would surely have caused some tension.
“How do you know this kid won’t just go running for the closest teacher as soon as you ask him?” Scorpius asked, taking on the roles of devil’s advocate.
“Don’t you remember all the times our wonderful cousins have gone to our parents with things we have done because ‘it was for our own good’?”
Albus could not help backing up against the shelves just a little bit more. He knew his friends had not meant to be intimidating, but he never imagined them getting so defensive at a simple suggestion.
“Well, we’re an organization, let’s vote on it,” Scorpius suggested. “We’re all equal members of the Arcane ScoRA, we should all have an equal say in what happens with it.”
Rose did not skip a step in beginning the so-called election. “All in favor of letting this older Gryffindor in on the Arcane ScoRA?”
Nervously, Albus rose his hand, feeling even though it had already been decided against, he should at least stand by his principles.
“All opposed?”
Rose’s hand went up immediately, and Scorpius’ followed hers not soon after.
“Two to one vote for ney,” Scorpius announced the results in a somewhat formal fashion.
But at two against one, all the trust in Maddox the world had to offer wouldn’t be enough to undo the verdict. So, in a resigned sort of manner, Albus pulled a book from the tall stack beside his cousin and began paging through the picture-less tome, not really able to focus on any of the words.
And once he did, Scorpius and Rose went back to their own readings as though the whole scenario had never happened. A few moments after he did, Rose set her own book down and reached for one of the composition books that held Albus’ homework: History of Magic. With Albus noticing, but barely paying attention, she checked over the answers he had written.
“Albus, why would you write that?” Rose pointed to an answer in his homework. “You wrote down that Britain has a history of allowing wizarding refugees into the countries, but that has never happened in large numbers. Certainly not enough to be considered ‘having a history’.”
“Because I told him to,” Scorpius answered for Albus. “During the French Revolution, when people were having their heads chopped left and right, a group of people from Northern France called the Normandy Party were allowed entry into England. Everyone knows that!”
“No,” Rose argued. “Again, there was a small amount of people who came over, but it was hardly a party.”
“Yes, they did!” Scorpius snapped back. “My grandfather told me that the Malfoy family came to England with the Normandy Party.”
Albus watched as the two supposed friends tore at one another over their schoolwork. He had a hard time they would agree with another on not allowing someone into their organization if they couldn’t even agree on answers for schoolwork. Maybe he would ask Maddox himself…on his own time, of course.