nightseer

When I Grow Up



The videos describing the various weapons of choice were stupid. Squall spent most of the four hours doodling next to his notes.

The lectures on weapon safety were boring and repetitive. After the first six SeeDs came in with a personal list of horror stories, Squall spent the rest of that day wishing he had Seifer’s talent of sleeping with his eyes open.

The demonstrations were beautiful. The SeeDs Squall and his classmates were watching from the Training Center's observation room were some of the best in their fields, and it showed with every swing, shot, throw, slice, and punch. Squall stared at the video monitors in awe for all of three seconds before he snapped out of it and focused on each screen in turn, analyzing the weapons used and the damage they were doing.

The nunchaku and whip were immediately stricken from his mental list. Except for one woman’s weapon, every nunchaku was simply a blunt weapon, no blades to be found anywhere. Blunt weapons, in Squall’s opinion, belonged on coroner reports and in mystery novels. Whips were something Squall associated with the history of slavery Matron had lectured on during lessons. Every swing and slice the man did brought to mind the thin strips of blood and screams he had imagined, and the idea of using one made his stomach churn. Any kills he made as a SeeD were going to be clean and quick, not slow torture.

Guns were the next set of weapons to be crossed off. The shotguns were doing a good amount of damage, but gun specialists were also trained in assassination. Squall had no intention of becoming a cold blooded murderer. Killer, soldier, living weapon: yes; murderer: no. He wanted to fight, give his opponent a chance to survive, not take a life from a distance. He didn’t want that distance to separate him from what he was going to become.

The slingshots and boomerangs were interesting and Squall wanted to know how they worked, but they were also limiting. They worked best against less intelligent monsters, not humans who could predict their actions and certainly not against the older monsters with years of experience—the screen on the far right showed that clear enough when a young woman with the giant boomerang had to be rescued after an old T-Rexaur snapped her weapon in two with its tail. Squall turned his attention to the next screen.

The hand to hand fighters were brilliant, literally poetry in motion. They were working in teams of two or three, or assisting other fighters, some doing major damage, others small glancing hits to draw the monster’s attention so another fighter could deliver the killing blow. Squall considered the idea for a few minutes, before deciding to sign up for an extra hand to hand class beyond the basic course everyone was required to take. He didn’t want it to be his main weapon, but he wanted to be able to hold his own in a fist fight.

Choosing a sword was a possibility, but he already knew how to use one. Matron had started fencing lessons after Seifer had seen ‘A Sorceress’s Knight’ and begged to learn how to use a sword, and the SeeDs who came to pick up new cadets had always been willing to give a quick lesson. He was far from perfect, but he knew too much for it to be a challenge and he wanted a challenge. A challenge would help him stop thinking about the others so much and worrying if Harry was okay away from everything he knew.

Squall scanned the screens, looking for a particular weapon. He frowned when he got to the end. Where was it?

“Instructor Xanaxay?”

The woman looked up from writing down another cadet’s choice. “What is it, Leonhart?”

“Where’s the gunblade?” Squall asked, still looking from screen to screen incase he had missed it.

Xanaxay moved to stand beside him, her eyes scanning the television screens. She frowned at them and checked her clipboard. “Allic, isn’t Mark in there?”

“He was sent out last night,” the other instructor replied.

“Sorry, Leonhart, he’s the only gunblade specialist we have on active duty. I still have the video of last year’s demonstration in the classroom if you’d like to watch it again,” she offered half-heartedly. Squall shook his head, and as she moved back to her post by the door, Xanaxay added, “You should choose something else. A gunblade is one of the more difficult weapons to master, and you’re starting later than most.”

That made up Squall’s mind; he was choosing the gunblade. He didn’t know if he could trust the opinions of the SeeDs who had spoken to his class, but Instructor Xanaxay was always honest, sometimes brutally honest. If she said the weapon was difficult, it was. There was also the added challenge of it being similar enough to a sword to help him with some of the basics, but different enough that he would need to learn a whole new set of skills. He hoped, at any rate, there would be plenty of new things he would need to learn. If the only thing he had to relearn was how to grip his blade, he was switching to hand to hand.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Harry slowly walked through the library, his hands stuffed in his robe pockets to avoid the temptation to touch the books as he scanned the titles. He was here to decide what field of sorcery he wanted to specialize in, but with Madam Pince watching his every move it wasn’t worth the scolding to touch the books. It didn’t matter that she had carefully inspected his hands and pockets for chocolate and other sticky substances and ordered Rabbit to stay outside before she let Harry in. All she saw was a child too young to be a student and just from the Great Hall. In her eyes, he was a tiny messy thing and should not be touching her precious books.

Even with the dragon guarding the books, Harry thought the library was the best place in Hogwarts. It was a nice change from the Weasley twins, who dragged him along on their pranks, and their older brother Charlie, who thought Rabbit was “absolutely brilliant” and kept taking Harry and Rabbit down to the Gamekeeper’s hut so Hagrid could examine her. Here there was no Dumbledore or McGonagall constantly asking him how he was adjusting to the school, or Madam Pomfrey asking him to come to the infirmary to give him one more check up so she could try another remedy or spell to fix what his “beastly family” had done to his knee, or other teachers asking him what he had decided to focus his training on and maybe he should take another look at their subject. The complete lack of Snape and Filch, who both hated Rabbit and Harry with a passion, made the library a wonderfully quiet, peaceful place.

Harry cast what he thought was a discreet glance back at Madam Pince. Her head was down as she went through the checkout records, making a list of some sort. Taking his chance, Harry did an odd limp-dash up the staircase to the second level where the sorcery books were kept and quickly hid behind one of the shelves.

Magic back home was clear cut, divided into two separate categories: para-magic and sorcery. Para-magic came from the planet, sorcery was passed on from wielder to wielder, and both types focused on healing and fighting, although sorcery could be used for other purposes.

This reality’s magic was confusing, muddled, and divided into so many separate categories and types it made Harry’s head spin. And a person’s status as a sorcerer or sorceress wasn’t based on whether they had magic or not, but how much magic they had and the line that divided a witch from a sorceress and a wizard from a sorcerer was blurry. Harry didn’t understand how it was measured, but he did know he was barely considered a sorcerer according to this world’s standards—just powerful enough to learn weaker sorcery, but too powerful to master the basics of wizardry without serious effort.

According to Dumbledore, his power would increase somewhat by the time he was eleven and continue to grow until roughly around his seventeenth birthday or something like that. Harry had quit listening after Dumbledore told him he had to choose a specialty now, and tuned in again just in time for the old man hear the old man start pushing him towards becoming a Battle Mage.

Harry didn’t want to become a Battle Mage. Fighting was Squall’s thing, not his. While Squall had been practicing with his sword, Harry had studied with Matron. He had learned a few attack spells, loads of healing and defensive spells, and the few anti-monster wards Matron had developed over the years, and the wards had been the most fascinating. All the twists and turns and traps and puzzles…

Harry sighed, tracing his fingers over the books now that Madam Pince couldn’t see him. He smiled at the books as he scanned the titles, looking for something that could help him decide what to study for the next nine years. For some reason, most likely Quistis and her naptime stories, books relaxed him.

He didn’t know if it was possible for him to specialize in wards. He didn’t even know if his magic could be shaped into wards and bindings here, but that was what Harry wanted to do. He didn’t want to become a doctor or whatever the term here was, and he didn’t want to become a fighter, either. He wanted to study and create difficult versions of the puzzling traps Matron had taught him. He wanted to able to protect and defend without being on the front lines.

If Harry was a little older, he might have realized his desire not to fight could be traced back to Matron’s constant teachings to never put himself in a situation he had to use magic to get out of, to never let his magic become only weapon. As it was, all he saw was his love of puzzles.

Harry wasn’t stupid. He knew the wards he had made under Matron’s guidance would kill if broached by what they were meant to defend against. He also knew any wards he made could do the same, but it wasn’t the same as slicing open another person or a monster and seeing all that blood come rushing out.

His fingers landed on a thick book with raised lettering, one not as dusty as the others. Harry turned his head and stared at the title, not quite believing his luck. He kept staring at it, his eyes focused on the title.

The Protections of Hogwarts

Harry eagerly pulled it off the shelf and sat down on the floor to read. Matron had once told him protections was an old term for wards. He hoped it was the same here. If it was, he could find the name for what he wanted to do and finally get the old man to leave him alone.

When Charlie found him three hours later, Harry was pouting at a large stack of books. He would have to train as a Battle Mage after all, if a somewhat specialized one. They were the only ones who had any decent training in wards.