A Stick Like No Other

Whilst they were silently walking to their flying lesson, George leaned over and asked, "since I mentioned her, how is Hermione getting on? I see her in potion class and sometimes in the Library, but we never talk. Now that I think about it, we haven't spoken for nearly two months."

Any joy that Neville had gained from having his confidence lifted was seemingly smashed after hearing George's question. His relaxed smile was replaced with a frown as his face turned sickly pale.

"She's doing well, she always knows the answer to every question, just like in potion class, but I guess you already know that", Neville said whilst awkwardly scratching the back of his head and avoiding George's line of sight.

"I meant outside of class, it's pretty much common knowledge that Hermione is good at everything. I know she can be a little... stuck up sometimes, but you do still talk to her, right?", George insisted.

This added pressure from George made Neville look like he wanted to crawl away into a hole and never come out.

Neville eventually formulated a sentence, "since I made friends with Harry, Ron, Dean and Seamus, I don't talk to her anymore."

George stopped walking which consequently made Neville stop as well.

He looked at Neville seriously, "I'm not blind Neville, I can tell that you're feeling bad about something and it's definitely got something to do with Hermione. Even though I don't see her often, I've heard people talking about her and none of it sounds good, that includes Ron as well. I thought that, because we were friends, you would tell me what is going on with her. If you've done something to upset her or to annoy her then…"

"I wouldn't, never. It's just Ron, he says stupid things sometimes. He didn't mean to upset her, none of us did", Neville finally relented under the pressure.

George quirked an eyebrow, "and what exactly did Ron say to Hermione?"

From that point onwards, Neville was completely open about what had happened during and after the Charms class and George couldn't be happier to hear it. Hermione had annoyed Ron and embarrassed him in class, after class he said mean things about her that she overheard. George did not doubt that Hermione was currently in the girl's bathroom sobbing to herself, exactly where he wanted her to be.

George didn't seem to be the only one who was happy after hearing this news, Neville appeared quite relieved after finishing his story.

George gave Neville a light push, "stop beating yourself up, you did the right thing in the end and that's all that matters. Next time, remember what I told you a few weeks ago on the Quidditch pitch. You decide what is right and wrong, not your friends. If Ron does something you don't like in the future, tell him. Who knows, standing up to him might just make Ron realise how wrong he was. I would expect you to do the same for me if I ever stepped out of line, that's what friends are for."

A weak smile returned to Neville's face, but it didn't appear to be genuine.

Neville asked timidly, "do you think Hermione is going to be ok, after what Ron said to her?"

George shrugged his shoulders, "by the way you described it, I imagine she's quite upset. I guess we'll have an idea of what state she's in when we see her in the flying lesson. But don't worry about it, I'll talk with her so you don't have to. We'll give it a few days for the strong emotions to die down and I'll arrange for Ron to apologise to her, whether he likes it or not. Then everything will be back to normal, okay?"

Neville nodded weakly, "okay."

"Alrighty then, we seriously better get a move on or we will be late for class…", George checked his watch and grimaced, "actually, we better hope that Professor Hooch is late again because the lesson should have already begun."

It didn't take long before both George and Neville started sprinting toward their lesson. In an incredible bout of luck, they managed to arrive at class five minutes late without getting caught. Hooch arrived ten minutes after them complaining that there had been some hiccups with the Halloween feast operations which were apparently caused by Quirrell's absence. It seemed that Quirrell had been a little distracted and forgot to relay the Hogwarts staff's orders to the house elves.

The flying lesson went on like normal except with one distinct difference, Hermione was absent. That was something only George and Neville seemed to have noticed as the others were far too distracted flying through the hoops Hooch had levitated into the air. Harry was still competing with Draco, and Ron and his friends were keeping Crabbe and Goyle occupied. The cousins looked equally as miserable as Theodore as they did the bare minimum in class.

George wasn't having a great time on his broom either. It was something that he simply couldn't get accustomed to no matter how hard he concentrated. He wasn't a bad flyer, far from it, George was probably in the top five in the class excluding Harry and Draco who had a bit of an advantage. His problem lay with a compatibility issue, his body wasn't agreeing with the broom. Although this was merely an unfounded theory, George believed that his body was aware he was flying but not under his own steam.

Regardless of what was causing George's discomfort, he was just happy that the flying lessons were only once every two weeks. The class ended early because the wind was starting to pick up and George now had the entire afternoon to himself before the Halloween feast. He already had everything he needed for tonight, but it wouldn't hurt for him to check that everything was in order.

Therefore, George made his way up to the second-floor girl's bathroom. He entered the bathroom after making sure there was no one inside, even Myrtle wasn't present. George called out her name a few times but received no reply. He gave up on her and began pulling out all the notes relevant to this evening. He also got out the boombox knowing that, when Myrtle eventually decided to turn up, she would want some music playing.

Since she wasn't here, George flicked through the pile of cassettes and picked one he had been eyeing up for a while. Myrtle was set in her ways and didn't like anything a bit too wild, this limited a lot of George's choices. He pulled out the brand new Nirvana cassette which came out at the end of September, it had arrived by Owl with his letters from home. The cassette was a gift from Amanda to show the family was still thinking about him.

George put in the cassette and pressed play, then he hear 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' belting out of the speakers. This was the sort of music he needed to quell the demons in his head. Whilst the first song was playing, George reached down into the deepest corner of his enchanted sack and felt around until he found a massive metal safe.

He put in the code, which was Ellie's date of birth, and opened the large metal door. His hand was immediately greeted with a gust of hot pressurised air escaping the safe. The safe originally had a lot of money inside from various countries as well as his identification papers, but all that had been taken out and put to one side at the start of October. Now there was only one thing inside the safe and it was eagerly calling out for him to retrieve it.

George ignored the heat and reached inside to grab a long glass-like rod that was hot enough to boil water. He could feel the blisters almost instantaneously forming on his palm. He channelled his magic into the rod and it cooled down quickly until it was no warmer than the blood rushing through his body. Then he pulled the rod out of the sack and gazed upon it to check if anything had changed from the day before.

What he saw was an orange-tinted crystal cylinder, roughly an inch in diameter and fifteen inches long, with a roaring fire compressed inside. A few hairline cracks were forming on the surface of the crystal as if it was about to burst from the pressure within. This cylinder was the pinnacle of his achievements over the past month. There was nothing that had taken more president in his mind.

George had spent the last week of September determining his greatest offensive weapon, it had to be something potent enough to rival powerful wizards and beasts alike. He needed something unique to him so he had the advantage of surprise, that way he could make up for his lack of experience. The only prominent thing that came to his mind was the incident at the end of the first day at Hogwarts.

Over a month ago, he'd been tasked by Dumbledore to perform some wandless magic. Being exhausted and under a great deal of stress from the many observers, George ended up failing his demonstration and almost lost complete control. He'd been attempting to produce a large ball of fire, roughly the size of a beach ball, and instead ended up producing a partially-sentient sun nearly the size of himself.

The ball of fire had grown so large, George didn't possess the magical ability to snuff it out. In the end, he used his residual energy to condense the flame until it solidified into a crystal ball the size of a marble. At the time, he attempted to prevent the volatile flame from combusting and the solidification had been an accident.

There were cases of fire magic mimicking solid objects such as the Fiendfyre curse, which created nearly-uncontrollable monsters out of the fire, but that wasn't true solidification. What George did was fundamentally change the state of matter. Turning fire into a crystal was like changing visible light into water, it just didn't make sense even in the wizarding world. And to top it off, he'd somehow given an inanimate flame a sense of self and the ability to sustain itself.

George had a clear recollection of Dumbledore attempting to destroy the marble with his magic and struggling for a second. This meant his solidified fire had the potential to rival the likes of Dumbledore and Voldemort by extension. Provided George continued to practise and refine his technique, he might even be able to match his patron's strength.

The fire wasn't all sunshine and rainbows, this new revolutionary magic wasn't without its faults. Just like his transformations, the power and strength only came after a brief but highly exhaustive struggle. If George was to be hit with a stunning spell whilst he was creating one of these marbles, he didn't doubt that he would instantly lose control and be incinerated. He needed to find a better method to harness his newfound power.

A few weeks ago, George had been merely fishing around for information Myrtle might have regarding ancient wizards with astonishing power. The whole conversation had been a shot in the dark and it had ended how he had anticipated. Myrtle had no recollection of any stories regarding wizards with dragon bloodlines. One Important thing she did mention was a story related to the famous Slytherin student Merlin, more importantly, his muggle companion Arthur.

It turned out that a lot of the stories about Merlin and Arthur in the muggle world were surprisingly similar to the stories in the Wizarding world. According to Myrtle, Merlin was known for his unparalleled ability to bewitch objects. The legend states that Merlin had made Arthur a flaming Sword of holy light to help defeat the evil Morgana. Apparently, this is what wizards considered the origin of Excalibur and there were rumours the legendary sword was in one of the vaults at Gringotts.

George didn't care much for the story of Merlin or the sword he may have made, but hearing Myrtle describe that legendary flaming sword made him wonder. He estimated the flaming marble he'd made in front of Dumbledore would have probably lasted half a dozen hours before it exploded naturally. He felt pretty confident that with the use of his wand and a clear head, he could easily double if not triple that lifespan.

Then George had the eureka moment. He had the potential to indefinitely sustain the solidified fire provided he kept restoring Its degradation once every twelve hours. He could also add additions and manipulate its shape Into a more practical form, such as a weapon. It was on that day that project Excalibur 2.0 was born, George was going to make his very own sentient flaming sword.

Unfortunately, theoretical concepts don't always translate to real life. Hence why George was currently holding a short orange shiny stick and not a flaming broadsword. He wasn't wrong about the sustainability since early tests showed that he was easily capable of maintaining solidified fire for more than twelve hours. Now that a month of practice had gone by, he felt confident that his fire rod could last a whole day before exploding.

The downsides were the time it took to increase the mass of the rod, it was like the world's slowest form of welding. To put it in perspective, George had one of his best days yesterday adding to his fire rod and all he contributed was slightly over an inch in its length. He estimated it would take him at least three months to make something that would even somewhat resemble a sword.

Even if he had that amount of time, the rod would have long since exploded due to another problem that started to occur recently. George noticed after the first week, the rod would start to heat up by itself during the twelve-hour break interval. From what he could surmise, the sentience was automatically waking up out of its dormant state and undoing his work. It seemed that with every addition he made, the intelligence would get smarter and harder to restrain.

George had initially been keeping it in an unoccupied corner of his enchanted sack, but after two weeks of increasing its size, he ended up clearing out the safe and placing it inside. The hairline cracks along the crystal surface had been a recent edition he'd noticed three days prior which served as the final red flag. It was far from being the epic sword he'd dreamed of, but what George had in his hand was still undoubtedly an incredibly dangerous weapon.

He could control the stored energy at will to rapidly heat any part of the stick whilst he wielded it. There was probably nothing on the planet it couldn't melt through with enough time. The fact that it was a glowing red stick that could melt through anything resulted in George giving it a new nickname since Excalibur Mark 2 seemed a little too optimistic. He was the proud owner of Darth Vader's Letter Opener, soon to be feared by all trolls worldwide.

Since George had a few hours to himself, he intended on making some final refinements so that it had the best output during his fight later this evening. He couldn't afford to have it explode on him before he made the first swing. Otherwise, his and the troll's entrails would be redecorating the girl's bathroom. Provided that the fight goes according to plan, George would take the stick to the Shrieking Shack and throw it as far as he could down the canyon beside the house and wait for it to explode in a day or so.