Sei: Summer Hols

[.magnarock.]

Ballyconneely

Sei looked up at the crowded row of houses in front of him, poky terraced apartments, three stories high and each a little more run down than it’s neighbour, sloping down a hill towards what looked to be a market.
“Um, kiddo, we live all the way down there… Sorry for stopping, these bags are heavy y’know? I shoulda sent them along with the car…” Raika laughed. “You two enjoying your disguises?”
Sei raised the streamlined eyebrows of the young woman that Raika’s polyjuice potion had transformed him into. Azúil was on his hip, after having accidentally drunken the spills of an old potion was now a drooling baby trying to scratch itself oddly. “Yes thank you.” He replied with a hint of bitterness.
“Heyy, I said I was sorry. I only had a couple that were ready to go, and I didn’t think you’d want to be a balding middle aged man, and we drank the teenage boys on the train. Nobody knows you here anyway. Sheesh.”
Sei mulled over the hectic action of the past few days. They had barely stopped for rest, Raika had seemed anxious to leave the house in England, and even less inclined to answer any questions about it. Simply saying: hey kid, we’re packing up here! Shippin’ out to Irleand.
He wondered what his friends would be doing over the summer holidays, if Kyli was still going to have them all over for a big summer party like last year, if Kik and her family would be done with customs and settled somewhere warm and sunny in Portugal. Did Cenizo go on holiday? If he did it would no doubt be some expensive resort for VIPs. He smiled at the thought of pasty Cenizo in a tropical paradise, perhaps he’ll get a tan. I’d love to see that XD. He already knew what Tobi was doing, going on a ‘cruise round Egypt o-m-g!’ He mimicked the super excited voice in his head and smiled at the way he had jumped up and down the moment he’d read the letter from his parents. He seemed really excited about going round the tombs and looking at all the ancient civilization though, I hadn’t realized he could be so… un-gossipy. Even if, at the moment he was in the worst of moods with him. He hoped Tobi would calm down over the holidays…
“Okay, so. I get that you don’t love me or anything, buddy, but you could at least say, yeah, that’s nice, or pay sommme sort of attention to me when I speak!!!”
“Huh-wah-what? Sorry…”
“Oh, don’t worry. I’m fine. Whatevhr.”
“No, I’m really interested,” Sei apologized, “please tell me about it.”
Raika burst into quiet hysterics.
“You really weren’t listening to me where you! I wasn’t –pahhahaaha- saying anything! Gotchaaaah. –fewww.” He sighed contentedly at the end of his laugh.
“Yeah, really funny.”
“Well, we’re’lmost there, so y’c’n sulk it out later. Stay close, this place gets bussssy!”
They pressed onward through a crowed marketplace, people calling out in the various dialects of Ireland.
“You getting any of what they’re saying, kid?”
Sei shook his head. “I haven’t spoken Irish for a long time.”
“Well, I’ll try to remember what was on the basic Irish test so you can get in…”
“Get in?” He questioned, not liking the way Raika vaguely answered him.
“Later, I’ll tell you when we get there.”
They turned down a street and then down another one a few houses down. They past a bakers shop, closed for the afternoon, and a bar with solely Irish signposts.
The pathway opened up as its thick rows of houses tapered off and wound away into the distance where one or two lonely houses sat half a mile away from anything else and each other.
“See that one with the walls that look kinda bluey and the roof that’s kinda crooked? That’s our house. I grew up there.”
“You grew up in that thing?” Sei did nothing to hide his disappointment. He’d been expecting the ex-suspect for a raging genocide to have grown up somewhere… a little more dramatic.
“Well that’s not very nice,” Raika retorted, having heard his thoughts. “-this place can be reaaally dramatic. Just wait till I show you a proper Galway storm! And you’ll just- whee, I can’t tell you about him yet.”
“Who’s him?”
Raika grinned broadly. “You’ll see, you’ll see. At least, I hope he’s still there. He was last time I checked…” He mumbled something indistinct to himself and they carried on walking.
“All right, I’m tired of this walking lark, and Azúil’s looking a bit hairy and is trying to bark at things.”
Raika pulled Sei off of the road and into the thick scrubs. He fastened the bags a little tighter to himself and held Sei by the wrist. “Here we go.” He said with a grin.
The world swirled darkly for a second and they vanished in a dim shadow.

[.magnarock.]

The other resident of No. 4. Clifden Way

Sei picked himself up from the dusty wooden floorboards he found himself on, Azúil snuffled in his ear with a wet nose and looked quite pleased that his limbs were back where they were supposed to be, instead of all sticking out to the side and hanging down. The clothes he had been dressed in where now ripped up in a small pile on the floor and a little damp, just in case they thought they could master him again.
Sei blinked groggily and looked around. “Argh!”
Raika had flung the curtains open and Sei felt his dilated pupils shrink painfully. The curtain opener turned around with a mischievous grin and opened the remaining curtains with a flick of his wrists.
“I think that’ll’ve done the ones upstairs too. But I’ll go check, just in case.”
He vanished with a glimmer of dark blobs. A thud came from the room above and the muffled sounds of: “OWOWOWowwwww!!! Shet!” The words which followed where either Irish, or English words Sei had never heard before.
Raika clomped about for a bit and then a door swung open a few feet away from where Azúil was sniffing, he made a hasty retreat to the back of Sei’s legs and Raika appeared from the doorway.
“Ok, so. Maybe I should’a cleared up before we came… It’ll only take a few minutes though. I’ve got a book of really good cleaning spells in my case somewhere.”
I’d never have guessed.. Sei thought to himself.
A large copper coloured horse poked its head in at a window which Raika had opened earlier.
“Banoffee!!! You’re still here!” Raika rushed into the next room and the sound of a door not openening could be heard. “Oh, buggery. Um, whats the word, -lo –lo… Alohomora.” A swooshing sound came from the room and then the whinny of a horse.
Sei went into the back room hesitantly. Raika was making baby talk at the horse and feeding it countless sweets from one of the numerous bowls scattered around the living room.
Banoffee, as Raika seemed to have called the giant of a horse, was quite merrily nuzzling his owner into a sofa with the force that might have killed anyone younger than Sei. All of a sudden the pair were heading straight for him, Raika beaming and saying: “This is Banoffee, my little pony. He’s cute isn’t he.”
“Y-y-yeah. Sei managed, Azúil was watching very quietly from under a sofa, hoping that the monster hadn’t seen him.
Raika beamed. “You can go pick any room you want upstairs. We’re gonna go for a ride.” With that, he swung up onto the horses back, somehow avoiding all of the furniture and the ceiling and within seconds they were gone, the loud thuds of Banoffee’s hooves echoing across the open moor.

[.magnarock.]

A Balanced Diet

Later that evening, with the sun dipping down below the hills and casting a golden reflection upon the lake a few miles away, Sei was reading a book Cenizo had lent him: it was all about Constantinople and the crusades, with a dashing young magical protagonist called Antonio who had found himself in the middle the plans of a corrupted monk who was going to steal some holy relics. It was quite good in all honesty.
Banoffee was happily chasing around outside with Azúil after having been quite humorously levitated in front of by Raika, who was determined the two would be friends.
The man himself was making some form of what Sei hoped was dinner. A strange gloop had just been going into the oven when he had come downstairs, and now Raika had produced a block of cheese from the fridge.
Sei raised his eyebrows from his seat on the bench next to the table.
“A good source of protein and calcium! Cheese is probably one of the best inventions in the world.”
Peering into the open fridge a few feet away, Sei saw five or six different assortments of cheese on a shelf, along with cakes of various description.
After a few more minutes, Sei had made a guess that pizza was on the menu tonight. Although it was also on the counters, and partially on the floor, on the baking trays, all over Raika’s trousers and on the top of the cooker sliding thickly downards.
By the time Antonio had broken into the monastery where the monk was hiding, a fantastic aroma was wafting from the oven which Raika had forgotten to clean up. An egg timer jangled a few seconds later and Raika hurtled down the stairs, the oven mits flying into his hands.
“Thank god! I’m so starving!”
Because you weren’t raiding the fridge every ten minutes(!)
“Silence you. Or you won’t get any.”
Sei opened his mouth to say something quick witted, but came up blank. He was quite hungry after all… Putting his book down on the bench next to him he almost drooled when the full wave of deliciousness and heat wafted out of the oven, Raika kicked it shut with a foot as he turned around to bring the pizza to the table.
“That’s enormous!” Then again, so are most things here He thought, catching a glimpse of Banoffee’s shadow going past the window.
“Well you’ll want some, I’ll want some, Banoffee’s a vegetarian… How much do you think Azúil’ll want?”
“Azu… Is a dog…” Sei said very slowly so Raika understood.
“Well that’s not a very nice thing to say. Azuzuzuzu. Here boy!”
Azúil came scrabbling madly round the corner, almost sliding into a clutter covered side table. Raika pulled a piece of the pizza away and held it in front of his nose, waving it enticingly.
“Comon yu widdle smooshie. Who wanza piece’a pizza. Om-nom-nom-nom-nom.”
He laughed as the dog gobbled down the slice he had been offered and set the tray down on the table before slicing up the rest. “I’ll take that as, whatever we don’t want.”
Putting half of the pizza on his own plate and the other half on Sei’s, he levitated the ketchup, brown sauce, barbeque sauce, curry sauce, soy sauce and mayonnaise over to the table and squirted a blob of each onto the remaining space on his plate.
Sei looked down at his own plate a little intimidated by the quantity of cheese and dough.
“It’s garlic and cinnamon and about four cheeses. Don’t worry, I used mild ones that won’t offset the cinnamon and cooked the garlic beforehand so it’s sweet instead of the sharp taste you get if you just give them a quick flash.” He folded over a large slice into a more manageable size before stuffing it into his mouth and chewing merrily.
Sei stared, where had all that gourmet gibberish come from? Cautiously, he picked up the brown sauce and squirted a little on his plate. After ascertaining that it wasn’t poisonous or otherwise weird tasting, Sei quickly devoured three more slices.
“You’ike’ih’?” Came a question from Raika’s full mouth.
“Y’sh,’svery’nysh.” Was Sei’s equally full mouthed reply.

Then came the pudding, Sei pulled a face, wondering whether Raika put leftovers in the fridge or just ate them; he himself was ready to burst right about now. Raika gave him a look. “You’ve got to be kidding right? You only had half a pizza! Do you not eat properly at Hogwarts?! Actually, that’s a dumb question. You couldn’t look more unhealthy.”
“Huh?” Sei looked a bit hurt.
“Well look at you! You’ve got big ol bags under your eyes, you look like you need a good sleep, and you were cold earlier on, that’s poor circulation and not enough insulation,” He patted his own stomach through his shirt “-and your face is so thin, it’s almost scary, well, then again your face is scary –haha- and you had a big spot on your cheek earlier on.”
Sei frowned angrily. “I’m allowed to be spotty! I'm a teenager!”
Raika raised his eyebrows. “You’re stroppy too, but seriously, it was like, woaaah!”
“Shut up!!!”
Raika laughed and mimicked his high voice. “Shat up! Y’couldn’t sound more English if y’tried!!!”
“Well I kind of am!” he replied indignantly.
Raika let that matter lie for now and changed the topic. “Well, that reminds me, you need to learn some Irish if you’re going to get into Véspeíre.”
“What!? Ves-where?”
“Ah, well. I was meaning to tell you. But I’ve decided to live in Ireland from now on. So you’re going to go there if you can. You’re going up for the entrance exam in a month or so. So I’ve got to get a move on and teach you what you need to know for that. I kept all of my old exams, so you’ll have something to check with… Most of the years I was pretty high up markwise.”
“But, I already go to Hogwarts!”
“Don’t worry, I wrote the head teacher a note and told her you’ve moved to Ireland, do you know how many people’d love to go to this school?”
“But I don’t want to! All my friends are at Hogwarts!”
“This’ll be really good for ya. Besides, I’ll let you see them if you behave.”
Sei pulled a flabbergasted face, eyes stinging slightly with tears threatening, this explained the ridiculous amounts of baggage Raika had brought. “But-“
“All righty! Now we’ve got that out of the way. Let’s have pudding, it’s my specialty. Cheesecake! I did vanilla bean and lemon syrup in case you didn’t like chocolate, and triple chocolate cocoa bean because I’m certain you do!” He grinned and levitated the large cheesecakes onto the table.
“We seem to be having a lot of sweet stuff today.”
“Really!? I was cutting down while I eased you in to your new balanced diet!”

[.magnarock.]

Gaeilge dó a amadáine - Irish for Eejits

“Dia duit, Seí”
“Gee a- arh, jit itch.”
“Umm, maybe we should try that again…”

----

“Diad-wit. Diaaar dwit.” Frowning at the wrong sounds, Sei looked at Raika for help.
“Ok, just mimic what I say… Di-”
“Ji”
“Ah-”
“Ah”
“du-”
“Ju”
“Itc”
“Itc”
“Perfect, that’s all there is to it.”
“Gee a- arh, jit itch.”
“Ok, we need to practise that one again…”

-------

“Dia duit. Cad é mar atá tú?”
“Dia duit... Cadjey mar arter too?” Sei mimicked, to no great effect.
“It’s definitely progress.” Raika smiled. “You just need to find something that’ll trigger off your memory for it all.”
“Ugh.”

-----------

“Dia duit... Cad jay m- -ar atár .. –tú ?” Sei garbled jerkily.
“Go maith, go raibh maith agat.” Raika returned with a smile. “Cad é mar atá tú ag cur isteach?”
“Ummm… wait, lemmie think. . . Tá mé… Ur… Oh, I give up.” He flumped onto a sofa, fed up with the incredibly slow process of learning a new language. Raika sat next to him, smiling patiently.
“Ok, lets go over it so you understand. You said, hello. How are you? Then I said?”
“I’m good.. How, are… how are things with you?”
“Correcto. See, you did know it. The reply is a kind of rhyme, which makes it easy to remember once you’ve got it.”
“Tá mé..?”
“Go-“
“Breá! Oh yeahh!”
“You see, simple. One more time now-“

----------------

“Dia duit. Cad é mar atá tú?” Sei’s attempt at an accent was markedly improved from the last time.
“Go maith, go raibh maith agat. Cad é mar atá tú ag cur isteach?” Still at a slow pace, but closer to a good speed of conversation came Raika’s grinning reply.
“Tá mé go breá.” He gestured with his hands as he recalled the words.
“C'ainm atá ort?”
“Is mise Seí. Cé tú féin?”
“Is mise Raika. Is as Ballyconneely mé.”
“Cá bhfuil tú i do chónaí?”
“Is mé- no. Is mise as Ballyconneely mé.”
“Fantaiseach, Seí! Well done! You’ll be fluent before you know it! Now that we’ve got the introduction bit sorted, I can start teaching you the answers to the test.”
“Don’t they change it?” He asked incredulously.
“They don’t let anyone keep the tests, so only a little bit really. Probably.”
“So… why do you know the answers.”
“Cause I… well, borrowed a test. For educational purposes.”
“Educational purposes?”
“Yeah, I’m educating you- so Druid do bhéal!”
“Haha! I know that one! That’s shut up! –wait. Oi! Don’t tell me to shut up!”
“Well when you come back from your first half term of school, you’ll be able to say much worse.”
“We get half term?” Sei asked excitedly.
“Well. Kinda. You get like. Sunday’s lessons on Saturday and they’re all a bit shorter. And then you get Saturday afternoon and all of Sunday free. It’s quite cool I reckon.”

[.magnarock.]

The Letter

“Faaaan-tai-seeee-aaaach!!! Fockin Fantastic!”
Sei jumped out of bed as Raika kicked open the door and burst into his room.
“Tú an inghlacth!!! You’re in! You’re in!”
Sei screamed in excitement.

Over the past few months he had been taken on a tour of the grounds, and seen some of the summer school lessons as well as the curriculum. The timetable was a little different, and some of the lessons were in Irish, but the teachers had such an indescribable charisma and power about them that it was no wonder the average grades were so high. Not to mention, Raika’s teaching had been so enthusiastic and fun that Sei had been completely swayed and had been tensely waiting for the letter for the past two days. He grasped the letter giddily and cast his eyes over it. It was in Irish.
“Ummmm. Dear Seí Àdaín Carters. Hey, what’s with the fada on my first name?”
“Well, if it didn’t have that, it’d sound like Seh, like, in the name Seth. But it doesn’t sound like that, it sounds like, Saye, like, similar-ish to the word ‘say’. So, if it didn’t have the fada, us Irish folk’d just call you Seh.”
“Oookay… I can’t read the rest of the letter though anyway… I can pick out about five words.”
“Well I’ll read it to you –ahem!-
Dear Seí-with-a-fada- Àdaín Carters,
Thank you for submitting your entry form to be considered for… I don’t think there’s really a word for it in English, umm. Student-cy- at Véspeíre acadamh modhanna éagsúla draíocht- that’s Véspeíre academy of magecraft and- all- err magics? Yeah, sounds about right. We are glad to accept you for enrolment for the coming year aca- I mean- academic year. –remember you have to enrol like this every year kiddo, some kids don’t make it if they don’t do well in their end of years’ ever noticed that ravenclaw is always bigger in the upper years?”
“Yeah! There was a new guy at the beginning of this year and he was Irish, well, I mean, ginger and had an accent.”
“That’s close enough haha- I’m kidding never say that again. On with the letter-
You have been placed in ho- Glíásta house, please report to the main office for registration on Monday the 1st of September and on Saturday the 6th of September for the new academic year speech. Find enclosed a map of the school, a copy of this Autumn term- fourth year student book- to help you introduce yourself, your confirmed courses timetable and a list of the equipment you will need for the coming year.
Yours sincerely, headmaster of Véspeíre -blablablah. Éibhear Boughn.

[.magnarock.]

[Seí has no more holiday!!! bwahahahahaha ]

[mely]

[what!!! omg!!!]

[.magnarock.]

[-giggles- this is the big secret! ]

[.magnarock.]

[i've decided to write more]
then sei woke up and found he was still in his old bed in england. "phew, it was all a dream."

Sei carefully set the letter down on his bed and looked into the envelope for the other pieces of paper.
First out was his choices list. There had been an enourmous list of the courses that were running and he had had a tricky time chosing between them.



He sighed, looks like potions was compulsory.

The next doccument was infinately more exciting, a yearbook of all the other students in his year. They weren't in alphabetical order though...
"Raika, I know that ainm is name and aois is age, but what does meitheal, cáilíocht and céimíocht mean?"
He smiled. "Well, Meitheal -if you have a look there are three things it can be- it means house, so you're in meitheal Glíásta, see." He said, pointing to the picture of Sei.
"Omigod! It's me! -lol. What do the others mean?"
"Well cáilíocht is the grade you're at."
"E? I'm failing?"
Raika laughed. "Nono, this isn't the normal grade thing, these are wizard grades, you do get them at Hog-"
"Oh, yeah. Right, ok. Lol, how stupid."
"And your céimíocht is your rank in the year. See, this guy here is 1st on this list because he's first, that means he's either the smartest, or has the richest parents."
"I see. So, I'm pretty dumb in my year then... but isn't an E exceeds expectations?"
"Yes, but you see, the first.. fourteen kids all get O's. Consider yourself lucky, they used to only accept O grade kids."
"Oh, ok."
Sei scanned the page, absorbing all of the faces, inventing personalities from their pictures.



"Hey, wait. This says fourth year student book. I'm in year three."
"Ah, right. Well, they dont do their O.W.L's in year two. Well. Err, oh this is confusing. Ok. Well. In the first two years they cover the same basic curriculum you guys do, but slowly they cut out the ones that wont be able to cope, bring in other ones who can do better, and make sure they are only going to be teaching students who're gonna give them good grades."
"How evil!"
Raika laughed a little dryly.
"Well, they do make some exceptions if your parents 'donate' a little bit extra on top of the base fees."
"There are fees? But Hogwarts is free."
"Hogwarts doesn't have a grade average of O at N.E.W.T level, does it."
"Oh."
"Well, anyway. In the third year, students take whatVéspeíre calls a life skills course. This takes the first term and they go stay at some outreach center learning to use magic in daily life, and to live in a muggle community."
"That sounds pretty fun."
"It is, I went on almost all of them when I was there."
Sei had fortunately read the newspaper article about Raika when he was declared innocent, and so this did not come as a surprise like almost everything else he had said this morning.
"So for the rest of the year they do nothing then?"
"No, I'm getting to that bit. When I was there they spent the next term teaching us about Social Health and how to not make babies and get diseases."
"Lol." Sei said, feeling a little awkward and glad he had missed that embarassing term.
"You may lol, but that's when the worst of it used to happen there."
Sei could have gawped, in fact, he did gawp. "Wha- in year three?!"
"Well, near the end of it, ruined a couple of peoples O.W.L's in my year." Raika said reflectively.
"b[zz]y hell."
"Don't worry, I'm sure you wont be getting up to any of that melarky, unless you like older girls." He sniggered at Sei's shocked face. "Aww, I'm just joking you."
"Good."
"So anyway, after that comes first aid and stuff. And then they spend the last term doing the first term of their O.W.L's as like, a tester, so they can see whether they want to do the subject."
"Well that sounds pretty smart. But doesn't it leave them a year behind people at Hogwarts?"
"Well, some people say it's better to do it the way Hogwarts does it because it gives the kids more time. But other people say it's better to give kids the kind of life experience that Véspeíre does."
He shrugged. "They're both valid points, and Véspeíre seems to work. They'd probably get the same marks if they didn't chop off the dumb kids."




Then was the map. [but because it totally spazzed up the page, alice decided to put a link to it]

img300.imageshack.us/img300/5802/mapofgroundswn1.jpg

[cenizobelle]

and i'm sure you've told me this, but i've forgotten . . . why do some people have more green jumpers than others?