Harry Potter was wandering the halls of Hogwarts. The reason for this was that his best friends were fighting again. This time they were fighting over him. Wait that didn't sound right Harry thought, it made it sound like they were fighting over who got to date him. Harry didn't swing that way, not that there was anything wrong with that, but given how out of date the wizarding world was it probably wasn't a good idea to explore options in that direction.
So his best friends were fighting about him, yes that sounded ok. The reason for this was that Harry had received a Firebolt for Christmas, the terribly expensive broom had no card attached which meant they didn't know who had sent it, and with the mass murderer Sirius Black on the loose and supposedly after him, Hermione had found the whole thing suspicious and had reported it their Head of House, Professor McGonagall, who had confiscated the broom until it could be checked for curses.
Ron was upset with Hermione because Professor McGonagall had mentioned that they might strip the broom before it could be returned. This meant that he had been the owner of the best broom in the world for a few short hours and now might never see it again. To Ron this was nothing short of criminal. The way he was acting you would not be mistaken in believing that it was his broom that had been confiscated.
Harry agreed with Hermione that it was suspicious that the broom had no card or other sort of message. But he was upset that she had told McGonagall without telling him that she was doing so first.
So in summary Ron was pissed at Hermione and not talking to her. Hermione was not taking this well and was cooped up in the library. And Harry was wandering the corridors the Hogwarts because he wanted some time to himself.
From an unused classroom up ahead he heard the sound of a pair girls sobbing. Stopping to investigate he poked his head in the door to see the Patil twins holding onto one another, not exactly crying but tearing up a lot.
Deciding to see if there was anything he could do to help he called out "Girls, is there anything I can help you with?"
"No, Harry, not really." Came the reply from Parvati (he could tell by the ties).
"We got a letter this morning saying that our father has only about 8 months left to live and so will be dead before the start of the next school year." Continued Padma.
"So, Harry, there's nothing you can do to make things better, but we could use a shoulder to cry on." Parvati added, moving away from her sister and patting the bit of bench between them.
Harry sat down between the twins, who then scooted up next to him, moving his arms out of the way in the process. Wrapping his arms around them as he had seen people do when comforting others he realized that the shirts worn by the girls were a little on the thin side and this made him feel uncomfortably aware that they were very pretty girls.
Some time later the twins stopped crying and lifted their heads up off of Harry's shoulders. "Feeling better now?" he asked.
"Yes, thanks." Came the reply from Parvati "We knew that it had been coming for a while but to read that he's actually going to die hit us hard."
"Known for a while?" inquired Harry "Can I ask what you mean by that or is it to personal?"
"No, not at all." Responded Padma "Father was hit by a Dark curse in the last war, it wasn't enough to kill him but he was hurt badly enough that he had to leave the Auror Corps. Since then it's only been a matter of time until he died. In a way it's sort of a relief, father's suffering will be over soon, but it did come as a shock and we will still miss him."
"Enough of this depressing talk, sis. Harry, what are you doing here?" Asked Parvati.
"Hermione and Ron are fighting again. I got a Firebolt for Christmas without a card or anything. Hermione told Professor McGonagall thinking it might be from Sirius Black and McGonagall agreed and confiscated it to check. Ron lost it and Hermione retreated into the library. I just wanted some space, I mean I agree with Hermione but she shouldn't have gone behind my back."
"I'll talk to her about that next time I see her. She's a wonderful friend and roommate but she tends to think she knows what's best for everyone." Replied Parvati.
"Now we should start on our homework sis, we don't want to have any outstanding when we go home tomorrow." Padma giving instructions.
"You're going home tomorrow?" Asked Harry.
"Yes, or trying to. With daddy as sick as he is we really didn't want to go home for such a short time but with this news we want to a least spend one night, just in case." Answered Parvati.
"Enough chatting, on with your homework." More instructions from Padma.
With that the girls got up and sat down at a table, pulling out their books, parchment, quills and inkwells.
"I should go" said Harry
"Oh, why?" asked Padma
"Well I don't have any homework to do and I'd just be disturbing you two if I stayed" he responded.
"Then why don't you go get yours and come back?" inquired Padma.
"When I said I didn't have any, I meant that I didn't have any at all. I've learnt that if I get it done early then Hermione can't bug me about doing it. Ron hasn't figured this out yet and keeps bugging me to stop, I think the amount of work he gets done has actually dropped since I figured this out." explained Harry.
"Ooh, good boy Harry." Came from Parvati
"I was sort of surprised that Padma hadn't finished her homework yet." Harry said.
"Oh that's simple, whenever we have a bit of homework that will span a decent break or we've got a lot of time to do it we try to save it for when we can get together. We don't get much time to spend as sisters and this is a good way to get it with drawing too much attention." Answered Padma.
"You know, Harry, with your new attitude and the trouble that seems to follow you I'm surprised that you didn't take Arithmancy and Ancient Runes." Continued Padma.
"Well, when we were picking subjects we didn't get any sort of advice on what to pick." He said before being interrupted by Padma
"I know it's horrible." She interjected
"So in the end I picked the same subjects as Ron, figuring that if I was rubbish at them at least I wouldn't be alone in that." He finished
"That's just silly, Harry," returned Padma. "Let's see now you're taking Divination and Care of Magical Creatures right?" she queried.
"Yes," he replied. "Not that they are really any good, I wish had have had more information on the subjects before I chose. Changing them wouldn't be bad either."
Padma continued her interrogation. "Actually you can change them, but we'll get to that in a bit, after we figure out what subjects you should be taking. Okay then, let's start with Care. Care deals solely with Magical Creatures, things you won't have encountered before now but Ron will have at least heard about, especially with him having a Dragon Handler for a brother. Now does that sound like the two of you are on an even footing?"
"No." Was the sole boy's response.
"It's also only useful if your going to be doing something related to animals, but I doubt that's going to be of much use against the He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and given some of the rumors Parv has told me about, you've encountered him a couple of times since you started coming to Hogwarts." She added.
Padma now entered lecture mode, something Harry had seen from Hermione from time to time. "Now, as for Divination, the word, as applied to magic, these days refers to spells that find out any sort of information and these days is divided into four parts. Now Trelawney only teaches stuff that falls under the classical definition, that of seeing into the future, which if you lack the gift of Foresight you can't use at all, so the entire subject is a worthless if you don't have the gift."
This last earned her a growled from Parvati.
"As far as I can tell Trelawney actually has some sort of gift in that regard, but given all the fortune telling stuff she teaches it's probably not all that useful." Padma said in an attempt to placate her sister.
Continuing her lecture Padma said. "Now the other areas of Divination are: The actual art or act of divining which is used to find things in or associated with the Earth, like water, minerals or ley-lines; Scrying or seeing things from afar, if you have a good enough magic link to a person or to an object you can see it, I'm actually surprised that the Ministry hasn't used it to find Sirius Black yet; finally there is the nebulous grouping of spells that inform us of information, these are normally covered by Charms class and include things like Point Me, which points to the North, medical diagnosis charms and various detection spells. The ability to scry may actually be useful, we should see if there are any books on it in the library."
Having finished her lecture she paused for a moment before continuing. "Now, having established that your current subject are poorly suited to helping you out, we must figure out which ones are. First there is Muggle Studies, given that you are Muggle raised and that the subject doesn't actually teach anything useful that's out. One on Wizarding Customs might be useful, but it's not taught, and the PureBloods wonder why those of us raised as or by muggles don't follow 'tradition', we don't bloody know it."
Harry was intrigued by this last, it sounded as if she had been raised in such a way.
Padma was entering lecture mode again by continuing her tirade. "Next up is Ancient Runes, comparable to a foreign language course at any muggle school. Now nobody actually speaks Runes, they're just alphabets really and nobody speaks the languages associated with them any more, but many an old tome is written in Runes. Runes are also used in enchanting and warding, you carve the Runes into stones to anchor long term, powerful wards, or into the object being enchanted."
At this point Harry realized that like Hermione, Padma didn't run out of steam easily. "The final subject is Arithmancy. The name is a portmanteau of Arithmos, an ancient Greek word meaning numbers which also gives it's name to Arithmetic, the most basic form of Mathematics and Manteia, which is another ancient Greek word this time meaning Divination."
With this last Harry rolled his eyes, it looked like Parvati was expecting this. "Harry, outside of what you have been taught Divination is actually somewhat respected given it's known limitations. The -mancy suffix however uses an older meaning to looking for answers and these days is used as a generic term to demote a field of magical study. Arithmancy is therefore magical mathematics and is used in Spell Creation and designing Ward schemes and enchantment schematics, but because for most PureBloods Hogwarts is their first foray into education it often has to teach them basic math, the situation with Ron in Care would be reversed here, you've already studied the material while he hasn't."
Padma finally took a breath before continuing. "Having eliminated the subjects that are of no use in your ongoing adventures, Harry, and keeping in mind that you must take at least two electives it is clear that you should be taking Ancient Runes and Arithmancy. The ability to read tomes of ancient knowledge which could contain important information can not be over looked nor can the ability to create Wards and Enchant objects. Arithmancy could eventually grant you the ability to create new spells, Wards and Enchantments, potentially even something that could stop the unstoppable Killing Curse."
At this point Harry simply had to ask a question. "Stop the unstoppable Killing Curse, how could that even be possible?"
"Well you've already done it once, Harry, your scar. Nobody may know how or why but it may be possible to learn." The Ravenclaw supplied.
"Ok," said Harry. "You've told me that I can switch subjects but not how. You've also told me which subjects you think I should switch to but unlike Hermione you've told me WHY, Padma. So I think I'm going to take your advice and switch, but how do I do it?"
"That's actually really simple, Harry, we just have to get you caught up with the other students in the class. There's this complicated bit with getting permission to start doing the catch up but if we present the Arithmancy stuff to Professor McGonagall as a fait accompli, it should be easier for you to transfer into both subjects" she supplied.
"Now," she said continued after the short conversation. "Arithmancy should be easy, most of it you have already covered in your muggle schooling, and I still have blank copies of all the worksheets Professor Vector has handed out, I'll make extra copies for you and that will have you up to date with most of the classwork. Other then that there's only a single essay, four to six hundred words or one to one and a half pages of muggle A4 paper ruled at 8mm, two pages tops, on numbers that have special magical meanings. I'll lend you my textbook when we leave, the first chapter should have enough information for you to do the paper."
"Muggle paper? Word counts?" Harry had to ask, every essay he had done at Hogwarts was on parchment and measured in inches.
Seeing a chance to impart more knowledge to her impromptu pupil, a trait she shared with Hermione but went about it in a much nicer manner, Padma resumed talking. "Professor Vector has a muggle Degree in Mathematics and it influences how she teaches. Using ruled paper makes things so much neater, especially when doing calculations. A word count and fixed sized lines means that people can tell roughly how much work has been done and prevents people from writing big so they don't have to do as much, or even worse from her perspective, those that write small like Hermione and she has to read twice as much. Hermione was devastated when that essay got a P, Professor Vector only read the first two pages and as they didn't cover everything she couldn't give the essay a higher mark. Another thing is the stationary, you'll need muggle pencils, a sharpener, a rubber and ballpoint pens. Thankfully Malfoy, when he heard that he would have "to use all that muggle stuff" to do the class, decided he didn't want to do the class after all."
Harry was astounded. "Hermione failed an essay? By doing too much work? I'll have to remember that next time she bugs me to do extra work. And that thing about writing big to get an essay done faster? I'll have to use that against Snape, if he's going to be a half-arsed teacher I can be a half-arsed student."
This statement had caused Padma's eyes to go wide before she cried out in joy. "That's brilliant Harry, some of us in Ravenclaw have been trying for years to find some way to make Snape actually teach the class and this could be our chance, the onus will be on him to prove that we didn't follow his instructions."
Now she started planning out loud. "Once people start looking at what's going on in his class, we can bring up stuff like his lack of real instruction and lack of even basic safety precautions, never mind poor Neville still being in the standard class. We may even be able to include some of the other grade conscious students, except Hermione she respects teachers too much. We won't be able to set it up in time for this year, but maybe the summer homework will do."
Returning to the previous subject, "Ancient Runes will take longer for you to catch up in, unlike Arithmancy we can't hope to have it done by the time the holidays are over, but next year's another matter. Here take this," she handed him her Arithmancy text, "And start reading with an eye towards that paper. Now these," and she handed him two sheets of parchment. "Are owl order forms for Flourish and Blotts and The Muggle Way, and small store in Diagon Alley that sells muggle products for those that prefer muggle made. This," a third piece of parchment, "Is a list of what you'll need."
Harry thought that she had stopped talking but he was wrong for she started up again. "Harry, just one thing, don't tell Hermione about this OK? I think it would be best to surprise her with it first day back."
Harry had to agree with her, it would be good to surprise Hermione with this.
Harry took this opportunity to ask some of the questions that had been piling up. "They way you talked about Muggle Studies earlier, were the two of you muggle raised or something? And what was that about Neville still being in the standard class?"
"The first is harder, Harry, so I'll answer it last. Neville shouldn't be taking classes with the rest of us due to how often his cauldrons explode, he should be taught in separate so the rest of us can't be hurt, really, there should be some sort of separation so that if one group makes a mistake it doesn't get the rest of us, remember in second year how Goyle's Swelling Solution exploded and showered the whole class?" Harry remember it all to well, seeing as how he was the one to drop the firework into Goyle's cauldron.
"As to if we muggle raised, the answer is yes and no. Our parents are magical but chose to raise us sort of muggle. Our home was warded, but lightly, anti-fire, -Apparition and warning wards where the big ones, so unlike Horwarts, electricity would still work, so we had TV and telephone growing up, you need some pretty impressive wards to stop electricity, the main problem stopping people like the Weasley's getting their house put onto the electricity grid is that muggles can't find it. With a spell cast over us to stop us from telling about the Magical World we could even go to muggle schools." Padma supplied.
Seeing that Padma had finished talking Parvati decided put in her own opinion. "And I for one am thankful that we did, look at some of the PureBloods and how badly prepared for school they are, Ron doesn't know how to do his work, poor Neville doesn't know how to make friends and Draco and his gang, Purest of PureBlood's, are a bunch of anti-social loners."
And with that they all finally stopped talking and the girls started on their homework and Harry started reading the book Padma had given him.
Thanks to Tommy King his beta'ing, lucindas43302 and Matt Harris for some minor nitpiks and all the folks at the Caer Azkaban and Seel'vor fan fiction Yahoo groups for all the help I can't keep track of