Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes and Whatnot

The next day, Harry told the three of us about the task Dumbledore assigned him to retrieve a memory from Professor Slughorn. However, he told Hermione and I separately because she still wouldn’t go near Ron.

In Potions that day, I barely understood anything Professor Slughorn or Hermione was saying. How is it she can memorize entire definitions word for word like that? Anyways, we were supposed to be brewing our own antidotes for a potion we’d been assigned. Mine wasn’t too, too tricky. I hadn’t exactly finished the whole thing by the end of class, though. Frankly, it didn’t seem as if anybody had. When Slughorn came around to our table, though, and got to Harry’s station, Harry whipped out a shriveled stone-like thing.

“You’ve got nerve, boy!” Slughorn boomed with laughter. “Oh, you’re like your mother…Well, I can’t fault you…A bezoar would certainly act as an antidote to all these potions!”

Hermione looked livid, “And you thought of a bezoar all by yourself, did you, Harry?”

Slughorn paid no attention to her, though, he just continued to rave about Harry’s nerve. It was quite annoying and, to be honest, the whole ‘Potions Prince’ thing had gotten annoying as well. I hadn’t cared at the beginning, and I hadn’t really taken any interest despite Hermione always harping on it, but Harry had hardly done any work on his own this year, and now I was just annoyed.

However, despite Harry’s ‘nerve,’ he still had not been able to retrieve the memory Dumbledore wanted.

The days passed and soon it was February. It was during one of these bleak, drizzly Saturdays that we had our first Apparition lesson. We all arrived in the Great Hall, which had been emptied. The Heads of Houses all stood at the front of the room along with a frail, little man.

“Good morning,” said Mystery Wizard, “My name is Wilkie Twycross and I shall be your Ministry Apparition instructor for the next twelve weeks. I hope to be able to prepare you for your Apparition Tests in this time”

Funny name…Wilkie. He told us that we wouldn’t be able to Apparate anywhere else in the castle, the enchantment had only been lifted on the Great Hall for an hour. Wooden hoops appeared in front of all of us.

“The three important things to remember when Apparating are the three D’s!” said Wilkie. “Destination, Determination, Deliberation!”

“Step one: Fix your mind firmly upon the desired destination. In this case, the interior of your hoop. Kindly concentrate upon that destination now.”

I looked at my hoop. Alright, destination, inside hoop. Great.

“Step two: focus your determination to occupy the visualized space! Let your yearning to enter it flood from your mind to every particle of your body!”

My yearning? Frankly, I had no yearning to end up inside that hoop, but whatever. I glanced around to see many people gazing into their hoops, some were staring so hard their faces had turned pink.

“Step three, and only when I give the command…Turn on the spot, feel your way into nothingness, moving with deliberation! On my command, now…one – “

What already?

“ - two – “

Okay then.

“ – THREE!”

I closed my eyes and concentrated, turning…Nothing. I looked around to see nobody had had any luck, we were all just staggering around like a bunch of drunk fools.

“Never mind, never mind,” said Wilkie, sounding as if he hadn’t expected anything better. “Adjust your hoops, please, and back to your original positions”

The second try was not any better. Nor was the third. On the fourth, I felt some sort of pull and it freaked me out, so I lost my ‘determination,’ opened my eyes and didn’t go anywhere.

There was a terrible screech of pain, and we all looked around, alarmed to see Susan Bones from Hufflepuff standing in her hoop with one leg five feet back where she had started. The Heads of Houses all congregated around, there was a puff of smoke, and they moved to reveal her sobbing, but now with both legs intact.

“Splinching, or the separation of random body parts,” said Wilkie, “occurs when the mind is insufficiently determined. You must concentrate continuously upon your destination, and move, without haste, but with deliberation…thus”

And he twirled in a swish of robes, vanishing and reappearing at the other end of the Hall. He made us continue, but by the end of the hour, Susan’s splinching was the only interesting thing that had happened.