Chapter 87 - Fun in Winter I (Patreon)

Time passed. Felix attended class, did his homework, studied hard, practiced Stravolux, and participated in various Dragon house activities. The five members of the coven, with Hazel occasionally tagging along, explored Camelot. Classes moved on. Combat class taught them the basic shield skill, while Divination moved from scrying to sensor spells. Mind magic started the basics of mental organization and improvement magic, while Theory continued to lurch around from concept to idea. Felix was sure that it’d all one day make perfect sense, but for now it continued to elude him. Natural World did physics during the autumn quarter, and chemistry was up next, after the winter break. Charms had introduced the idea of a doggerel verse, making up a one-time long chant to try and create a spell. Felix was worse at those than normal charms. Vivian and Felix tried to sell his beauty supplies, but it went poorly for weeks. Until one day, everything sold out in the space of an hour, and Felix left with two dozen orders placed for his winter vacation.

“Weird.” Felix said.

“Someone got excited, told the other girls, and boom, we were open for business!” Vivian said. “High five! Success!”

Felix high-fived her.

“I’m not sure I want to do cosmetics again.” He said. “Trying to sell all of that was stressful. Candy bars are much easier, and I get a lot more for what I sell.”

“Bah.” Vivian said. “You’re thinking precent margin, not gross margin. You get 4, sometimes 9 denarii on a candy bar sale. You get 50 to 100 on a tube of lipstick. One tube is like 10 candy bars. And you’ve got existing buyers lined up. Just stock a few extra of the popular items for when they run out.”

Felix was still thinking about it as he returned Erik’s initial investment back, along with the agreed-upon extra. He was still thinking about it as they prepared for midterms. And he was still thinking about it when fliers appeared in every common room, explaining the details for this year’s Yule Ball.

“Sooo…” Sora asked one day, during their usual study session. She was idly playing with Felix’s hair, while Vivian shot her the stink-eye. “Are you going to the ball this year?”

“Me?” Felix barked a sharp laugh, trying to hide how he felt about the whole thing. “Heck no. I’ve got no clothes, I don’t dance, and I want to do well on my studies. I’m going to be busy in the mundane world for weeks, I need the time to get my homework done before meeting back up with my mom.”

Vivian turned an expectant gaze to Erik. He sighed.

“Alexandria, my lady, my beautiful fiancee, would you deign to attend the annual Camelot Yule Ball with me this year?”

“Four out of five.” Vivian quickly rated. Alexandria kicked her under the table.

“Yes.” She said, then turned the page in her textbook. “Now, what did Professor Mistvale mean by…”

===============

Felix had a routine, and the miracle of Dragon house had managed to instill enough self-discipline that he went to bed at the right time, every evening. It also meant that he woke up just a minute or two before his alarm went off.

Exam day. 

‘Only’ midterms for some of his classes. 

He showered, dressed, and was standing in formation as Leona strode in.

“I know half of you have exams today, so we’re keeping the workouts light and fun. Fall in, and let’s go!” 

The entire house entered the polymorphic room, where a simple jogging track had been set up. Felix started jogging next to Chris and Beatrix, his usual workout partners.

“Midterms, eh? You ready?” Chris asked.

“Mau. Your question implies a lack of faith, not only in Sutter, but in us. We’ve been tutoring him the entire year, we all know he’s more than ready for his midterm exams.” Beatrix said.

“Yeah, but that has nothing to do with day-of nerves!” Chris protested.

“Oh my god, will the two of you just kiss already?” Felix asked, exasperated. He was nervous about the Combat class midterm. It was a tournament, which meant his luck was finally going to run out.

The class had continued their games, where everyone ran around inside the maze, effectively playing magical tag. Whenever Hazel was on their team - which was whenever she felt like being able to attend class - they were able to effortlessly slip around the other teams. When she wasn’t, they weren’t quite as successful, but Felix had somehow, through sheer luck, managed to never get tagged with the flop stop spell. He was starting to come round to the idea that, maybe, his core was a little lucky.

Or it was just life. He had managed to cut himself on the sword tree’s leaves, after all, and Dragon house’s daily exercise resulted in him being extremely fit. Growing a little earlier plus extra fitness could easily let him dominate over his fellow classmates… in dodging, at least, even if his casting was still terrible.

If he was able to cast well, Felix would’ve been able to hope he could, maybe, win the class tournament. As it was, his power had barely increased, and his magic was nearly as sluggish as ever. The idea of hurrying up and doing the rituals of power as quickly as possible, like Alexandria wanted, was appealing. 

He was far less concerned with his Natural World midterm. He wasn’t quite so arrogant as to think he could score a perfect unicorn on it - everyone could make mistakes - but he knew the material forwards and backwards, even with the punishing pace the class set.

Either way, Felix’s remark about ‘just kiss’ hit a sore spot on his two tutors.

“We’re attending the Yule Ball together, if you must know.” Beatrix said haughtily.

“I know, I was there.” Felix griped. 

Chris tried to lightly shove Felix. Except, he was still blindfolded, they were running, and he slightly misjudged his strength and the distance. Felix went down hard, feeling a crack and a sharp pain. The runner behind them jumped over Felix, and skidded to a halt. The three of them all started talking quickly, all asking the same thing.

“You okay?”“That looked bad.”

“Shit dude! I’m sorry! This all sounds like bad shit’s happening, do I need to call someone or run somewhere. Fu-dge this ritual. I’m going to step back now.”

Felix sobbed in pain. It hurt. It hurt so badly. 

He tried to power through it.

“I’m - I’m fine.” He said snottily, tears running down his face. He tried to push himself back up, and his arm completely gave out on him.

“You are not fine.” Beatrix declared. “Up you go, we’re going straight to the hospital wing.”

Felix wanted to protest, saw his arm bent at an unnatural angle, and nearly passed out.

“Oh. Okay. Right. Yeah, we should get on that.” He said.

===========

“How did this happen?” Healer Elaine demanded. She was already running her wand up and down it, muttering spells and flicking away diagnostic results.

Beatrix and the other member of Dragon house both started talking at the same time. Elaine held up a hand, silencing them. 

“I was asking Sutter, not the two of you.” She said. “You brought him here, excellent work. Now shoo, you’ve got class.” She flicked her wand in their direction, not casting any spell but clearly herding them away. Beatrix and the other member of Dragon house - the one who’d jumped over him - turned and left.

“Get better!” Beatrix called over her shoulder.

“This is going to sound completely crazy… but early morning exercise.” Felix said, fully expecting to be disbelieved. Kid comes in with a broken arm and an excuse just shy of ‘tripped down the stairs’? That was absolutely a formula for ‘I was in a fight/getting bullied but I’m trying to cover it up.’

“Mmmmm. That does match what I’m seeing here, and it is the right time of day for your morning routine. Haven’t seen one of you in here for one of these in ages. Tell whoever’s organizing it ‘good job’ from me. Alright, some minor bad luck for you, no quick spell to fix it. Yes, there is a spell, no it’s not getting used. I’m prescribing you some potions. Need to check if one of the 7th years brewed them properly. Drink them all up, in order, and if you’re good and there’s no complications, you’ll be out of here by lunch. If - and that’s a big if, he’s a good cookie and even better brewer - if there’s a problem, I’ll handle it personally.”

“Lunch!?” Felix bolted upright, hissing in pain as he jolted his arm. “I can’t stay here until lunch! I’ve got midterms.”

Elaine looked at him sternly, with her hands on her hips. Suddenly, Felix was all too aware that she was a witch, and quite scary. Also, he had to wonder how much the potions cost. He wouldn’t be billed for them… he was pretty sure. Healthcare in the states was ruinous. If the healing here was truly free, that would be huge. If he ever got sick or hurt on his breaks, he could just wait until he could limp back to Camelot and get fixed up, as opposed to hurling himself and his mom into the depths of bankruptcy.

Which brought him back to the price of the potions. They might be cheap - students with a questionable brew? That was a formula for a cheap product. At the same time, they were learning at the most expensive, posh school in the country. There could be phoenix feet and unicorn farts as ingredients, as far as he knew.

“Not anymore, you don’t. You’re staying here until I’m sure there are no complications. What midterms are you missing?” She asked.

“Combat class.” Felix moaned, already feeling sick to his stomach. He was going to miss a midterm! What was that going to do to his grade? Was he going to fail out? Oh god, he would owe so much money! It-

“That’s with… Professor Cold?” She said. “You’ll be fine, don’t worry your head about it.”

Elaine summoned a sheet of paper, wrote down a note, then flicked her wand a few times at it. The paper folded up into an origami owl, hooted, then flew off down the wing and out the door.

“There, that’s all set.” She said. “You’ll need to retake the exam, but between me and you, he’s mostly looking for some reflexes, and the ability to cast a spell or two. Don’t fret, you’ll be fine.”

Felix’s worry was still etched all over his face, but he drank the potions given to him anyway. It was part of the unwritten price of Dragon house. Unicorn house needed patients to practice their art on, Dragon house tended to produce the most injuries. It was a bit of a love-hate relationship.

He dutifully drank down the potions, and pulled a face.

“Why does medicine have to taste terrible?” He complained.

To his surprise, Elaine sat down next to his bed.

“There’s a bunch of different reasons.” She started to lecture. “First off, preparation. Simply making the medicine is likely to result in a bad taste, just because of what goes into it. Some can be masked, some can’t. The second part? Don’t want anyone to enjoy being at the hospital. Don’t want someone breaking an arm just to taste the potion. Don’t want children to like medicine and ask for it, and possibly malinger to get it. That is why medicine tastes terrible. Any other questions?”

Felix blinked at the utter tirade, and could only think of one thing.

“Do you have a pen and paper? I want to take some notes.”