For the first time in the long days and months of my active existence in this world, the restored habit of following a schedule and waking up early paid off. And the fact that yesterday, upon returning to the room after Astronomy class, I immersed myself in a magical restorative sleep—is beyond praise.
The reason for my joy is simple—morning flight practice with the House Quidditch team. Dawn had just begun, painting the sky over the hills in cold blue colours and the horizon in pink, and seven of us were already standing in the common room.
"So, lords and ladies," Cedric looked at everyone. "Let everyone introduce themselves so there are no misunderstandings and so on. I am Cedric Diggory, team Captain and Seeker."
"Herbert Fleet, fifth year, Keeper," a fair-haired brown-haired boy saluted fervently with a smirk using two fingers.
"Malcolm Preece," another player I already knew raised his hand in greeting. "Sixth year, Chaser."
"Tamsin Appleby, fifth year," a dark-haired girl with a short haircut smiled. "Also will be in the role of Chaser."
"Hector Granger," I nodded with a smile, "third year, Chaser."
"Anthony Rickett," a fairly large brown-haired boy nodded dryly, but with a smile in his eyes, and took a step forward. "Beater, as you already guessed."
"William Summerby…" a boy covered his mouth with his hand and yawned loudly. "Beater. A very sleepy Beater."
"Excellent," Cedric clapped his hands. "Let's hurry."
Cedric quickly led us away from the common room. The morning was very early, curfew had not ended, and the stone corridors of the castle were so dark that only the light of Lumos on the tips of our wands allowed us to discern the waking living portraits on the walls, or snatched knightly armor in niches from the darkness. At night, the castle looked completely different, and with it produced a completely different impression.
Without meeting a single teacher on our way, we went out into the castle hall without problems, and then left it altogether through the main entrance, through large and very high double doors. The concept of "Donjon" surfaced in my head, but it doesn't quite fit.
While we walked around the fountain of the inner courtyard, heading to the exit from the territory, I thought for the first time about what Hogwarts represents from the point of view of architecture, so to speak. Calculating everything I managed to learn about the school in my head, I came to a simple conclusion: Hogwarts is not a castle at all, but a monastery. This is a very important discovery, because due to the fact that I, like many, if not all, are used to calling Hogwarts a castle, the attitude towards it is the same. A monastery is a completely different story.
If you imagine the Great Hall as a Church at a Monastery, and the fairly large central courtyard, not the one we just left through, but another, surrounded by buildings, towers, and annexes, with two floors of spans, a fountain, gazebos, and benches, I passed by once… In general, this courtyard is a typical cloister. And such parallels are constantly encountered.
However, the main tower, in which the moving staircases are located and from which you can get to almost any part of the castle, can quite be called a donjon. One may not get into a central courtyard similar to a cloister at all when moving from one part of the castle to another, but in a monastery, you can bypass the cloister only by going around the monastery outside. The cloister is the center of monastery life, because it is there that everyone intersects with each other one way or another.
"What are you thinking about?" Cedric nudged me slightly in the shoulder on the rights of the senior.
"About the similarity of Hogwarts to a monastery."
"Oh, what thoughts!"
The others just laughed friendly while we moved to the Quidditch pitch, or rather, to a large annex with a separate exit towards the pitch. The sky was brightening before our eyes, but here, on the sinful earth, it was still quite dark.
"That's quite normal, the castle was built about a thousand years ago," Cedric turned around, looking at the school for a couple of moments, and Tamsin walking nearby clearly decided to contribute to the conversation, getting closer to us.
"In old books there are hints," she began to speak, "that the Inquisition is many more years old, and the war between us—is generally a made-up fact."
Such a statement could not help but cause attention, albeit small, especially since there was still a long walk across the field to the doors we needed. Making sure that some attention was attracted, Tamsin continued her story:
"I read a bunch of old wizard diaries, memoirs, from those antediluvian times when Hogwarts didn't even exist…"
"And where did you get them," Cedric shook his head, while the others listened as they walked.
"Relatives are fond of compiling history based on diaries. But that's not the point. In those times, as you know, the Statute wasn't even in the project. Wizards sometimes really lost their boundaries, or went crazy from experiments, or simply took revenge for a lousy life."
"Lousy life? For wizards?" Herbert smirked, tossing a broom from hand to hand.
"The romance of the Middle Ages exists only in novels," Tamsin shrugged. "In reality, it's diseases, dirt, crappy life, rampant illiteracy, slop on the head in cities, shit in every corner and even in nobles' castles. Considering that wizards lived among people, all this is not surprising."
We almost reached the doors of this annex, which is sort of not an annex, but a full-fledged building inside a building, something like that.
"In general, in those distant times, the church for the most part did not consider magic a creation of the devil, did not arrange persecutions, but treated it just like everything else—a creation of the Lord. There was even an explanation."
"Wonder which?" Cedric opened the double doors, and we entered a spacious corridor, even a hall, with a wooden floor and wooden wall trim.
Apparently, team locker rooms, team inventory, and just flight inventory for lessons are located here—there are five doors, and four of them have House crests. We headed to the one decorated with the carved Hufflepuff crest.
"Well, like, God created the earth, and generally, the whole world. He created people in his own image and likeness, and it would be surprising if we ourselves didn't have a 'spark of the creator', or something like that."
While Tamsin was telling the story, Cedric put his hand to the door, and it opened, letting us into a spacious locker room divided into two sides, male and female, if quite understandable signs clearly not provided by the builders are to be believed.
"Change, and into battle," Cedric waved his hand, as if giving the command to attack.
Boys to the right, girls to the left. The locker room space represented seven peculiar rooms separated by screens from each other, where there was a place to sit, a large and simple-looking wardrobe almost to the ceiling, and a door to the shower, and maybe also a toilet. Cedric nodded to me towards one such nook.
"Your uniform is there, a broom is one from the reserves for now. Maybe you'll decide to splurge and buy something sensible, but for now get used to the relatively new Cleansweep."
"And clothing sizes?"
"By eye, but it adjusts to size itself. Within reasonable limits."
We dispersed to the "cabins" and quickly began to change. Less than a minute passed when we again clearly heard the continuation of the story, while I dealt with the uniform, trousers, greaves, and other protection for arms, legs, and head.
"So wizards sometimes committed lawlessness that makes blood run cold," the muffled voice of the girl came. "Wizards in those times already had their own system of power, as well as punishment execution. Cooperation with the church to eradicate criminal elements was commonplace, as was the exchange of various information. And some orders collected books, knowledge, and so on, even if this knowledge was frankly sinful, god-awful, and generally, a complete mess. Then passed copies to wizards. And then schisms, fermentations, and other obscenities began in the church. The attitude towards wizards also fell under this comb, starting to change quickly and drastically."
Having changed, the guys and I went out into the vestibule of the locker room, waiting for the girl.
"And then… Dammit, fasten… And then everything went downhill, but Hogwarts was already built, wizards of all ages were trained, all that stuff. By the way…"
The girl came out to us, holding a broom in her hands.
"…Some architectural solutions of our school are borrowed directly from some abbeys, and the Great Hall with the central inner courtyard and a couple of adjoining structures are generally a slightly modified in width copy of Gloucester Cathedral, which was erected at about the same time. Of course, without religious themes, and the walls of the Great Hall have fewer decorations to highlight the beauty of the charms on the ceiling. But pay attention to the walls, no one notices them, and I've been admiring the work for five years."
"This is all very interesting," Cedric nodded. "And I would be happy if the ghost of Binns told this, and not about goblin rebellions. But did we gather to fly?"
"You bet," the guys nodded in agreement and smiled.
"Then forward!"
In a completely uncoordinated and uncollected crowd, we literally tumbled out of our locker room, then out of the building itself, immediately jumping on brooms and taking off. The feeling of complete immersion in the process of flight visited and captured me again, into the sensation of the air around, the sensation of the entire environment, as on a three-dimensional radar. Does magic realize what was hammered into the shard over decades of flight? Who knows, the probability is more than high, because an ordinary human organism simply does not have organs to realize all the sensory capabilities provided by the systems of a high-tech void fighter.
"Well, tag?" Cedric shouted over the roar of the wind in his ears.
"Yes!"
"Then catch!" Cedric took something out of the inner pockets of his uniform, immediately just throwing it into the air.
We flew after him, and this scattering of identical objects seemed to fall into our hands by itself, although this is not true—we caught them. Something like a glove with metal inserts on the back, but a glove for only two fingers—index and middle. Judging by the faces of the others, they understood the essence, but I didn't. Cedric noticed this and slowed down slightly, drawing level with me.
"Put it on, point with two fingers at a target within two meters. A beam appears, hold the connection for five seconds, the target turns from prey to hunter."
"Clear, simple enough."
We turned around Hogwarts in a wedge, flying across the almost completely brightened sky. Another couple of minutes, and the red dawn will be replaced by a full sunrise. As soon as I put on the glove, it blinked red, remaining dimly but visibly glowing.
"Oh, you're 'it'!" Cedric smirked and turned sharply to the side, as did everyone else.
"Got it," a nasty smirk crawled onto my face by itself.
Instantly immersing myself in the sensations of "feedback" with the broom, paying maximum attention to the sensory perception of everything around and myself with the broom in particular, I pressed myself sharply to the shaft, literally flattening out on it. A volitional message, a jerk to the side—flying was as simple as moving my own body. Just need more practice. Because here it is like with the same body—you sense, feel, control, but there is no base of reflexes to various stimuli, you have to think. Good thing I "think" quickly.
Thanks to sensitivity to the space around, I could not rely on vision at all. A clear and non-contradictory understanding that the broom seems to have a bunch of engines in all directions and planes, although thrust can be used simultaneously only in a third of the directions. Such an understanding, when striving to accelerate forward, allows using not only the direct "main engine," one acceleration vector, but also helping oneself with "maneuvering" ones, which themselves should give acceleration forward and sideways, up or down.
I don't think such a property of the broom is a big secret. Look, Cedric accelerated clearly faster than his Cleansweep can, and judging by the model number, it is the same as mine. And Cedric himself is by no means a flimsy boy. But it's one thing to know, and another—to overcome instincts and the concept of movement in space formed in the head. Our thinking limits us—the pilot shard fought with this too. No neural network, knowledge, and simulators will help become a cool pilot until you hammer new knowledge into yourself at the level of instincts.
Well, for now… Let's play "dogfight".
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