Susan Vitalis and the Orb of Flame

Rudy proved impressively knowledgeable about a wide array of creative methods to deter people. Or, at least, to strike back at them in a childish manner. He started out by showing them new uses for spells that they already knew. They practiced in an empty classroom near their dormitories after dinner.

"The key isn't always to learn new spells to do things, but to figure out how to use the spells you already have most effectively," he said. "Take, for instance, your usual first-year levitation spell. You can do a lot more with that than lift feathers, once you get the hang of it." Rudy demonstrated by levitating a large book.

Susan said, "Oh, so you could use it to drop things on their heads?"

"Or into inconvenient places?" Penny added.

"Exactly," Rudy said, grinning broadly as he let the book down.

They proceeded to levitate some sheets of paper to practice. Penny looked at her paper as it finally floated into the air and commented, "You know, if you did that right, I wonder if you could give someone papercuts that way..."

"Now you're thinking," Rudy said.

"But I guess it would take more than just levitation to do that," Penny said, frowning.

"You know, there's different words for levitating, summoning, moving an object," Rudy explained. "But when you think about it, they're all basically the same thing, in effect. You're still moving things, just moving them in different ways and different directions. Realizing that, you shouldn't have much trouble picking up the other spells that move things. It'll just take practice to get it to do what you want."

As Susan was practicing levitating a book, one of the teachers came in and saw them there. "What are you kids doing out of your dorms so late?" she asked.

Rudy replied smoothly, "I'm tutoring these first years with their Charms work, Mrs. Hawkins." Mrs. Betts taught Charms for the first and second year students, while Mrs. Hawkins taught it for the third and fourth years.

Mrs. Hawkins looked over to the book floating in the air in front of Susan, and said, "Ah, it's good that you're helping the younger students. Your diligence is commendable. Five points to Mevrasi. It's getting late and you should run along to your dorms now, though."

"Yes, Mrs. Hawkins," they said. Susan let the book down again and they gathered up their things and headed back to the Mevrasi common room. Once they were back there, they giggled over it a bit.

"See now," Rudy said. "That's what a good Mevrasi does. You just make them think you're doing something perfectly legitimate and innocent, and they'll let you do whatever you want."

They continued practicing with similar charms for the remainder of the week and that weekend. Although Susan and Penny had never been inattentive in class, it was almost tangible how much closer they listened to their teachers' lectures when considering what other applications they might put the spells and potions described toward. They were surprised to earn another ten points for Mevrasi without even trying or thinking about it.

That Saturday, Rudy was talking to them in the empty Charms classroom after lunch. "Now, you wanted to give that mean little Jami Tratch the pain of a thousand papercuts, hmm?" Rudy chuckled, and turned to Susan, "This spell is somewhat above your level right now, but you should be able to manage it with your natural aptitude for Charms, especially since it's only light objects. You can try it too if you like, Penny, but it may take a good deal of practice to manage it."

Penny nodded. Susan asked, "What is the spell?"

Rudy arranged a stack of paper in front of him and pointed at it with his wand, and intoned, "Mobilipapyrus!" As he did this, the papers didn't just levitate as they had with the spell that they had learned in class, but scattered as if blown by a sudden gust of wind. Rudy had more control over them than that, though, and with a flick of his wand, they turned around in midair and stacked themselves neatly on the table again.

Penny clapped her hands together, impressed. "Oh, very nice," she said.

"Your turn, Susan," Rudy said, stepped back and nodding to the pile of papers on the desk.

Susan licked her lips and brandished her wand toward the papers, and said, "Mobilipapyrus!" The sheets of paper scattered uncontrollably about the room, one of them flying up and covering her face. "Ack!" she cried, brushing at the paper to clear her vision.

Rudy chuckled. "Well, they did move. It'll take practice to learn to control just how and where they move, though."

The door opened and another Mevrasi boy poked his head in and looked around at the mess Susan had made. "Hey, Rudy, Leo wants you down in the common room."

Rudy looked over to the door and gave a nod. "Okay, tell him I'll be right there." The other boy left, and Rudy turned to the girls and said, "Keep up your practicing. Remember, practice doesn't make perfect. Practice makes better. There's no such thing as perfect." He winked and headed out the door.

Susan shrugged, and they continued to practice on their own for the rest of the afternoon, losing complete track of the time in the process and making quite the mess of the classroom. However, as amusing as it was to attack one another with flying sheets of paper, they did not yet have sufficient control to realize their goal of causing papercuts with it.

They didn't see Rudy at all the next day, and on Monday when they finally caught up to him at lunch, he told them, "Sorry, I can't help you with your Charms work this week. I have to play replacement Seeker on the House Quidditch team at the next game. Our regular Seeker is stuck in the hospital wing recovering from a nasty Potions accident."

So instead, they set about collecting some of the other first year Mevrasis to practice with them. While some of them would rather goof off instead, they did get three others in on it. The teachers were perfectly happy to let them use the empty classroom for practicing Charms, and didn't question just why they were practicing their Charms.

"Why are we moving paper around?" asked Tina Brightman, a small girl wearing Muggle braces.

Susan explained it away, saying, "It's good practice for moving bigger stuff. It should be really useful. Just imagine what you could do with it!"

They all assumed that she had simply found out about the spell by reading ahead. Although none of them were as good with it as Susan, they did slowly catch on, even though none of them could come close to making the papers neatly stack themselves like Rudy had. Susan and Penny continued to practice diligently the rest of the week, hoping that the team's regular Seeker would be able to come back after this game so that Rudy could teach them more fun spells. The others drifted on and off, some of them getting bored of it after a couple days and going to play around or do their actual homework instead.

The next Saturday, Susan and Penny went to see the Quidditch game. It was Mevrasi versus Venari, and students and visitors displayed colors and symbols in support of their favored teams. The two teams, the Mevrasis wearing yellow and the Venaris wearing red, circled around the field once before starting. Rudy waved to the Mevrasis in the stand from his broom, winking in the general direction of Susan and Penny.

The match started off, and Susan watched excitedly as the Quaffle bounced around between players. She had never been particularly good with flying herself with her training broom, but she had always liked watching Quidditch. In the corner of her eye, Rudy was hovering in the air on his broom, keeping an eye out for the Snitch.

Rudy narrowly avoided a fast-moving Bludger sent in his direction by one of the Venari Beaters. He managed to dodge it, however, and looked over attentively as the opposing Seeker darted off like lightning in a seemingly random direction, apparently having seen the Snitch. Rudy shot off after him, gaining on him rapidly. Susan was impressed at the speed of his broom, and wondered obliquely where a fourteen-year-old had gotten such a good broom, especially one who wasn't even a regular member of the Quidditch team. Perhaps he was borrowing it from the team's usual Seeker.

The Venari Seeker turned aside suddenly, and Rudy narrowly avoided crashing, making a tight circle around the announcement booth and sailing higher into the air. But Susan noticed when he'd passed close to the stands that something bright and orange had lit on the end of his broom. She stood up and cried out, "Rudy's broom's on fire!"

The fire spread quickly, and by the time Rudy noticed it, he was dangerously far above the ground. Mrs. Hawkins stood up in front of Susan and pointed her wand at the broom and started casting spells at it to try to extinguish the flame. "It's not working," Mrs. Hawkins said, frowning deeply. "This is a very powerful spell."

"It looks like Rudy Blake's broom is on fire," came the voice from the announcement booth, stating the obvious. "Oliver King has the Snitch! That's game to Venari, one-hundred and fifty points to forty."

Meanwhile, Rudy was falling from the air, his failing broomstick unable to hold him any longer. As he fell, it looked like his robes had caught fire from the burning broomstick as well. Teachers scrambled out onto the field to try to help him, but Susan saw him fall from the sky like a burning comet. Panic rose up in her unbidden. Would he be alright? What could have done such a thing, and more importantly, who?

The announcer said, "Please, everyone leave the stands in an orderly manner. The teachers will handle the situation. Don't go onto the field."

Susan craned her neck trying to get a good view of what was going on, worried about Rudy. She couldn't see where he had fallen, though, but the grass around that area had caught fire as well. Mrs. Hawkins went down to help while Mrs. Betts tried to herd the students back in the general direction of their dormitories.

Back in the Mevrasi common room, a couple of the teachers were trying to calm down the students. The Mevrasis were the ones most upset about it, since it was one of their own who was hurt. Eventually, the students were dispersed into doing homework or studying while they waited for dinner and bedtime. Susan and Penny nervously took seats at the desk underneath the portrait of Pajik Mevrasi, unable to even think about studying right now.

Penny sank down into her chair once things settled down a bit, and said quietly, "I hope he'll be alright..."

Mevrasi's image looked down at them and said, "Has one of my pupils been injured?"

Susan explained, "He was playing Quidditch, and his broom came close to the stands and the end of it caught fire. Mrs. Hawkins tried to put own the fire but couldn't. She said it was very powerful."

Mevrasi frowned deeply, looking thoughtful for a long moment. "Could someone have recovered the Orb of Flame, then?" he murmured, mostly to himself.

"What?" Susan said, looking up at him and raising an eyebrow.

Mevrasi shook his head. "No, don't worry yourself about it. It's probably just my own paranoia. I hope your friend is all right." He wouldn't give any further information on the matter.

---

When they went to dinner, they learned that Rudy was alive but had been badly burned by the flames. It had taken eight teachers to put out the fire before it spread too far, and there was still a large blackened spot on the Quidditch pitch. He would likely be stuck in the hospital wing for several weeks.

Unable to concentrate on studies or practicing their Charms, Susan spent that Sunday moping about the common room and trying to glean any information out of Pajik Mevrasi, but he just looked at her quietly and made faces at her. She eventually sighed and went to dig through her books to look for any reference to this Orb of Flame that he had mentioned. Skimming over her History of Magic book didn't turn up anything useful, however.

On Monday, she arrived early to her Defense Against the Dark Arts class, and the teacher wasn't present yet. However, Jami Tratch and hiss friends were already there as well, unfortunately.

"Did the blood traitor's boyfriend get hurt?" he said in a sickly annoying voice at her, poking her in the stomach annoyingly.

"Leave me alone," Susan said.

"Or what?" Jami asked with a smirk. He raised his wand and began, "Rict-"

"Mobilipapyrus!" Susan snapped, whipping her wand up and causing several sheets of paper to plaster themselves over his face and torso, effectively distracting him from the spell he was about to cast.

Jami stumbled back, clawing the papers loose from his face irritably. From the classroom door, Susan heard the sound of clapping, and she turned to see their teacher, Mr. Black, standing in the doorway and looking on approvingly. "An excellent example of the use of a movement charm as a defensive measure. Five points to Mevrasi." He waved his wand at Jami, and the papers pulled themselves off his body and neatly stacked themselves on the desk again. "And you should know better than to harass your fellow classmates, Jami. Five points from Venari."

Susan was very pleased at having earned points rather than lost them for some reason. Mr. Black went up to the front of the class and began a fairly dry lecture on simple jinxes and how to counter them. Jami was furious at Susan, however, and he sat nearby glaring at her at every opportunity, fuming quietly.

"You aren't going to get away with this," Jami whispered to her vehemently on the way out of class, poking her in the back. "You're going to regret messing with the House Venari."

Susan grimaced. She determined to get back to practicing her spells, and to figuring out uses for other ones against him. But there was also the question of the Orb of Flame that she wanted answered. It didn't seem like it would readily answer itself at the moment, however.

Over the next week, she set about working on her spells and delving through what books on magical artifacts she could find, often to the neglect of her actual, more boring homework like Herbology, which she had been supposed to write up an essay on the various uses of a plant which she couldn't actually remember now. Penny sighed and covered for her on that, but she was a little annoyed about it.

"There has to be something somewhere..." Susan said, sighing in frustration. "Maybe I should just ask a Glemarn or something."

The next weekend, they were allowed to go see Rudy, who was slowly recovering from the attack on him - and an attack it must surely be, Susan was convinced. There was no way something like that could have been a mere accident, but it didn't seem like the school was investigating it overmuch. Not, she mused darkly, that they were likely to share their findings with a pair of concerned first years.

"So, how are you two getting on with your studies?" asked Rudy. He was covered in bandages, and it made him look rather like a mummy.

"We're doing okay," Susan said. She lowered her voice. "Rudy, we heard something suspecting that it might have been something called the 'Orb of Flame' that did this to you. Have you ever heard of that? Do you know what that might be?"

Rudy thought for a long moment and said, "No, but for some reason I think I should. Venari's House symbol is a ball of fire. Maybe there's some connection? Where did you hear about it?"

"From the portrait of Pajik Mevrasi," Susan said.

Rudy grunted. "That portrait is like none other I've seen. Most seem real at first but after a while you realize they're just an echo of the person they're of, and they can't really do more than give advice or repeat things they said in life. But Mevrasi's portrait is different somehow. It's like there's more to it than usual. He actually seems to think and feel and know what he's talking about."

"You think he could tell us more about it?" Susan said. "But he wouldn't talk about it any more."

"He was being awfully stubborn," Penny added. "I wonder what he's hiding?"

"Visiting time is up, kids," said the healer as she approached from the doorway. "Scurry on now, Rudolph here needs his rest."

"Yes, Miss Maisha," they said reluctantly and headed out of the hospital wing.

As they left the hospital wing and headed back toward the Mevrasi common room again, however, they encountered Jami Tratch once again in the corridors, with two of his friends. He looked rather annoyed and when he saw them he decided to take it out on them, whipping out his wand at them without even a taunt.

Susan blocked his first attack, and said, "What are you-" and was cut off by needing to block another jinx. "Argh. Mobilipapyrus!"

A stack of papers pulled themselves out of a passing Glemarn's hands and hurled themselves like small racing brooms toward the attacking Venaris, slashing at them like swords and causing a number of tiny papercuts over their hands and faces before landing in a disorderly pile on the floor. Jami screamed aloud and uttered some foul words before making a beeline back toward his own dormitory. The Glemarn girl looked fairly surprised and bent over to gather up her homework again.

"Sorry about the mess," Susan said to her once Jami was out of earshot. She grinned to herself a bit more and trotted back to the Mevrasi common room in high spirits.

"You did it!" Penny said excitedly. "You got the spell to cause papercuts!"

Susan was so pleased with herself that she actually did her Herbology homework herself.