The Outcasts Of Hogwarts

Chapter 25 The Plan

Amaris stood on one of the willow tree's wide branches with her wand, which extended a beam of scarlet light, held out before her. Matt was a few paces in front of her, clinging to the trunk for dear life. He cradled one arm and let out a cry of anguish.

Amaris snickered.

"Hey stop breaking character," Matt scolded, "You're a Sith Lord and they certainly don't laugh!"

"Sorry," Amaris tried to regain her composure, "what was I supposed to say again?"

They'd moved on to a new topic in Muggle Studies, what the Professor had called Popping Culture, and apparently, it was something Matt had mastered. He took it upon himself to teach Amaris everything about Muggle stories and 'movies'. 

"You know how the pictures in the newspaper move, movies are like that." Matt had explained.

"But I thought Muggle pictures didn't move." Amaris had replied, completely confused.

"Well they don't really, it just looks like they do." He continued with animated gestures, "They take a lot of stationary pictures really quickly and when they show them just as quickly after one another, so it looks like their moving," 

"Huh," Amaris said, thinking the idea through, "I didn't know muggles could do something like that. I also didn't know that some muggles could fly." She examined the comic Matt had brought from his room, the cover showed a stationary photograph of a man in bright red and blue above a muggle city.

Matt had spent the next half an hour explaining how things were staged and messed with so that you got an end movie made-up of things that couldn't actually happen. Amaris had been intrigued and Matt had been more than happy to explain the complete plots to several muggle franchises, in all his animated enthusiasm. What had started out as saying quotes in impersonation of the character had resulted in acting out entire scenes. This had gotten a little loud for the library and after a stern telling off from the librarian, they had headed outside.

Amaris cleared her throat and raised her hand dramatically, the light from the wand spilling over her face. In the deepest voice she could manage, she declared, "No! I am your father!"

Matt let out a melodramatic "Nooooooo!", which had Amaris stifling laughter again.

"What are you doing?" A voice said below them.

They both looked down to find Steffan standing at the base of the tree. His hands were on his hips and he looked up at them with an expression that suggested he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to know.

"Homework," Matt said flatly. Steffan raised an eyebrow. "Sort of," Matt added.

"It's for muggle studies, we're reenacting," Amaris raised her arms dramatically, "The Greatest Scene in Movie History!" She dropped her arms and shrugged, "Apparently."

"Yes, we are," Matt enforced, resuming  his dramatic pose, "and you're interrupting." 

"Matt even made a spell for the props! Look!" Amaris sliced her wand through the air, causing the glowing beam of light to make a strange buzzing noise.

"Getting the sound right took ages," Matt said, jumping down to pick his own wand up from where he'd dropped it earlier as part of the scene. With a complicated twist of his wrist and a string of mumbled words, a beam of blue light zoomed out. It flickered for a moment then went out. "Huh,"

"Impressive," Steffan mused, "I've never seen a spell quite like that before," He took out his own wand and flawlessly repeated what Matt had just done, except an extra movement at the end in Matt's direction.

The Ravenclaw staggered back as his wand ignited again in blue, this time remaining a solid shaft of light. "Thanks," he mumbled. He took a breath and brightened again, "Well, now that there's three of us, we can do the final battle. I think you'll make an excellent Emperor, Steffan."