Introductory to Infiltration [First years]

Ah, Brage thoroughly enjoyed walking along the hallways of Durmstrang Institute again. The day was warmer than the previous one, the grades displayin 6 degrees celsius. Perfect. He had to smile to himself as he walked the familiar pathway to his designated classroom. He had made sure everything was ready and set up, and had taken the time to mark up the classroom with where the students would be able to walk.

He reached the classroom and shut the door behind him as he entered. The footprints imprinted on the floor with a simple tracking spell shone a silvery white. Brage had hung up a sign on the door outside, telling the students to follow the trail. He gave no reason as to why, and he was not going to speak as they walked to their designated spots.

Following the trail himself, Brage walked up to his desk, and sorted through some papers. His desk was the only one in the room. Otherwise, the room was an oval shaped one, with large space and quite a few objects hung around on the walls, some defensive artefacts, some offensive. From the roof, in mid-air, hung a probety probe and a secrecy sensor. A foe glass was positioned to the left of Brage's desk. On his desk, he had a few different artifacts as well. He had placed the two pieces of a two-way mirror on it, and a staring glass eye was positioned on a short pole. A Dark Curio lay right next to the two-way mirror. Next to the Foe Glass, a dark cloak floated in the air.

But the object that Brage was much more than excited to tell the students about, was positioned in the middle of the room. He was plenty sure none of the students would know what it was, as there was no book who had any details that were available for children. It didn't look like much. It was a long, white pole, adorned with golden patterns of what would first look like branches and petals, but on closer inspection would show to be snowflakes and wind. It was beautiful, but one could not imagine it being as dangerous as it was. Brage had therefore made the trail go a good few feet around it.

Once the students walked around, they would then go to the left if they were Folkvang, and the right if they were Breidablikk. Brage walked around his desk and leaned against it, opening the door slightly, just so people knew it was time to join the class.

Symona had waken up early. Mostly because that is her normal self but also because she wanted to be first in class. She had already read the whole subject book - it was pretty interesting! So she wanted to make a good impression on the teacher. She hoped that he or she was the type which asked questions if they know or not the answer of something they will learn. In Bulgaria they never did that and she hated that! Sadly, all she could do was hope...

Symona quickly dressed up in warm clothes - this country seemed to be pretty cold. Good thing her mum had a tendency to make her into someone who lives in, let's say the North side of Canada. So she had pretty warm clothes. Although the girl normally can resist cold much, unlike hotness, so she didn't need to dress into the most warm things.

The girl quickly walked down, ignoring the other students out. For now she hadn't really talked with her room mates or anyone from the school really. Well, except Oddmund on the boat to Durmstrang. He made her lose her cat... But overall he wasn't that bad - an idiot but not mean or something. Besides him she hadn't meet with anyone - not hat she cared. The girl was perfect for eleven years being alone, she could be alone even more! Than she walked inside. "Good Morning, professor" she greeted. And looked around. This guy had a lot of stuff! What was the pole in the middle though? She hadn't read anywhere for such a thing... Shrugging, she turned to the right where her house should be positioned.

Carmen had waken up early because it was time to go lessons. Usually she could sleep a longer. She did take a cold shower before she got dressed. She needed to wake up for lesson and cold shower did it for her. She brushed her hair and she was ready to go to her first lesson in this year. She have read a bit to advanced from every magical book what she had.

Few minutes later she began to walk towards the Infiltration classroom. She really wasn't sure what they will do exactly in that classroom but these lessons were good and useful ones. She did find the right classroom after many minutes shearching. She wasn't yet very familiar with this ship. She walked into the classroom. She saw there one girl she didn't know yet and the professor.

"Hello, professor," she said there and then followed to that trail what was therw to that strange object. She couldn't tell at all what it was. She had never seen it in her books at all. She wanted to ask what it was right now but she knows that she will get know when others have arrived too, so she didn't ask.

She did turn right and stood next to girl who she didn't know. Seemed like they were in same house but haven't met yet. "Hey," she said there now with a small smile. She wanted to make a few friends in this school, even if here wasn't yet that many students yet. "I'm Carmen," she introduced herseld just by first name, okay actually nicknames since she barely used her full first name Carmenita.

Oddmund's first days at Durmstrang weren't that much of a success: he got lost in the castle several times and even almost missed a dinner once because of that. At first Oddmund was thinking about leaving the dormitory about half an hour earlier just not to be late for his class, but his breakfast took too long, and he had no time for wandering through the corridors. He asked some of his housemates, hoping that someone would know where the Infiltration classroom is, but one boy apparently gave him wrong directions. It wasn't clear for Oddmund whether he did that on purpose of not, but the fat boy remembered the face of that Breidablikk student just in case. Maybe Oddmund could repay him with some other wrong directions, who knew?

But since Oddmund didn't want to run and eventually get sweaty, he decided to embrace his fate and just try to find Infiltration classroom without any running and much asking. Yes, he could be late for his class, but at least he would be late with some kind of dignity. Like, "I'm so cool that I don't care" style. Despite Oddmund's chances to get to his class in time were pretty slim, he got lucky and founds the classroom straight away. Karma.

Nodding to the Professor, Oddmund entered and looked around. He saw his pirate expert friend Symona and some other girl and immediately approached them. "Hi," he sad to both of the Breidablikks quietly, being not sure whether it was allowed to talk in the classroom or not. If Infiltration was about being sneaky and all that ninja-like stuff, and Symona was a real pirate expert indeed, she could become a ninja-pirate! When this occurred to Oddmund, he immediately became proud of his friendship with Symona, the incredible ninja-pirate girl. Because ninja-pirates were obviously the best.

Someone talked to her. Who dared talk to her? Okay, okay, this was overreacting. Symona turned to examine the girl. Blonde hair. Looking that she was from her house, it seemed that the foolish stereotype for blondes didn't apply to her. Good! That way she was more evidence of Symona ' s unexisting theory that blondes in fact were not stupid and mindless! That of course, made her think of the stupid Bulgarian jokes about them. She always hated those jokes. Than again, she hated most jokes anyways. Although those with word play were nice! But most people didn't understand those sadly...

Than, after her train of thoughts, she remembered to introduce herself. Happily only five seconds should have went by because she pretty much thought last. "Nice to meet you! I'm Symona! Where are you from? Your name seems to be more English, yet most English people go to some other school." She said. The girl had read about all the schools and such. Hogwarts only took people from Britain. Beauxbatons from France, Italy, German and the others around them. And the rest went to Durmstrang. Symona liked that she was in the more darker school from all...

Just than someone else entered. Turning, she looked who it was. Oh great. Oddmund. They had met on the ship to here. He lost her cat. They searched throughout the whole ship for it. Overall, much fun. But the girl had to admit, he wasn't that bad! After all, he was in this house! He also, besides being an idiot, he was a nice fellow. But she wouldn't allow him to learn that. "Hello, Oddmund." She said, not putting much emotion in her sentence. Than she decided to joke slightly. "Searching for any cats lately?" She said with a small smirk.

Carmen looked at that other girl a smiled. Her name yeah wasn't very likely for girl or lerson who should go here but she didn't mind it. She knew jokes about blonde girls and how dump they were in them. Carmen was quite opposite to them. She was smart girl and she didn't try to hide it most of times.

"My father is from French actually and my mother from Icelandic. But I was born in Norway," she said there now with a weak smile. "Where you are from, if you wanna answer of course," she asked there now basically. She didn't wanna push girl to talk if she didn't want to. She smiled when one boy entered into classroom too. She greeted him with smile and vawe.

"Oh, hi. I'm Carmen," she introduced herself to thay boy too. It was nice to onow your housemates. She did get that Symoma knew here. When she speak she did get know boys name too. Their names were quite unique for her. She had never them before for sure but she didn't say it out loud for sure. "So you are Oddmund?" She asked from boy to be sure if she jeatd Symona right.

Oddmund nodded, when the blonde girl mentioned his name. "Nice to meet you, Carmen," he greeted the girl before answering Symona's question. It would be just rude to ignore her introduction, and Oddmund tried to avoid being rude (without much of a success, usually). "Well, yes," he replied to his best pirate and soon-to-be-ninja friend. "I kinda search for a cat to have as a pet as well. I'm not sure if my parents allow it, I'm going to talk to them on Christmas. I'm searching for some good excuses to have a cat at the moment."

It would be great if he had a cat as well, Oddmund though. His and Symona's cats could also become friends, and together they could be like two cool friendteams, a human one and a cat one. Because in cats' world mysteries had to be solved and crimes had to be punished as well as in humans' one, and adventures like these usually required some teamwork. But to be a good human friendteam, Oddmund and Symona had to learn Infiltration basics first (and later all the advanced ninja-like things), so Oddmund was excited about the class. He turned his head to look at the teacher, waiting for him to share some ancient Japanese knowledge.

Brage looked up as the first student entered the room. She looked perplexed by what she saw. A good sign. At least she didn't seem completely overwhelmed. Which could be a good thing, and a bad one at the same time. He watched her with friendly eyes as she walked the trail he had put out and stood on the right. Brage gave her a nod. "Good morning, indeed," he greeted back before the second girl entered the room and greeted him. She stood next to the first student and a third student walked in. The first guy. Maybe also the first Folkvang student? But alas no. As Brage nodded to him as well, it was only a couple of minutes until the lesson would begin. He let them chitchat amongst themselves and looked at the door, wondering if there'd be more students.

As the time ran out, Brage pushed himself off the desk and waved his wand, making the door shut. He also enchanted the door so that anyone who interrupted his class would get quite the surprise. "I see there are only Breidablikk students here. That is a pleasant surprise," he said with a nod of acknowledgement. Usually it was the students of Folkvang who showed up for this sort of a lesson, but Brage was not sure if the students would stay with him either. It was quite possible that they'd leave the class once they realized just what they were in for. And also, many of the booklearned did very well when it came to infiltration, as it wasn't as much about brute force as other subjects might demand.

He looked at the young students for a second, studying them a bit. One was quite tiny, the other almost as tiny, and one on the other side of the scale. Size didn't much matter in infiltration either, but the smallest ones did find it easier to remain hidden. But the art of disguise was knowing how to blend in. "As this is one of your very first lessons of this year, I'd like to know your names, why you chose this subject and what you know about Infiltration," Brage started, keeping his tone light. He was usually soft on the first years, but as the years progressed they soon came to see him from a different side. "Who would like to go first? No need to postpone it, we will get through all of you in no time," he added, his less patient side hoping none of them were particularly shy.

Symona listened to her and nodded. "Interesting." She said. Her friend back at home always told her that she says interesting too much. Sometimes the girl would do it on purpose just to mess with her. It was fun, really. And now it might as well turned into a habit of Symona ' s to say interesting. Of course, originally she said it because her mind usually was thinking of more nice stuff than cats and painting - like new - found planets and things about aliens or a new book that came out. Just than she noticed that Carmen had asked her a question. "Me? I'm from Bulgaria. A pretty cool country filled with idiots all around. But overall it's nice." She shrugged. It wasn't a lie. A whole load of people were mindless there. Just some other people were pretty cool. Though most of them were over their thirties so it didn't really help.

Symona was half surprised that Oddmund didn't get the joke and actually answered. She would tell him but... He had a chance of becoming her friend. And it wouldn't be that friendly to say that. Right? Well, it was such for it. She nodded politely. Because being polite was important. When you aren't being such to air - heads, that is. To them it is useless to be such. "Well, it would be nice if you get a cat! Hopefully we won't have to search a whole ship, well, now a castle, for them! Because searching for one cat was enough..." she said and smirked slightly. The girl looked towards the other side of the room. "Seems like Folvang don't think that lessons should be joined. Good thing I'm not there..." she said.

Just then the teacher had began to talk. She listened and held back a chuckle when he noticed also about the lack of the other house. Not hard to see, really. Unbelievable, they didn't even bother to show up. When he said for them to introduce themselves, firstly the girl didn't want to go up first. But after a second thought, she changed her mind. "I'll go first!" She said and took a step forward. "I'm born under the name Symona Angelova. I chose this subject because it seemed pretty interesting plus I believe, or hope at least, that I could learn something helpful. What I know is basically what is written in the subject books. I wasn't rises up to know about magic so all I know from it is what I read during the summer." She explained, keeping her voice calm and face straight. It hurt slightly to talk about living without magical knowledge. She hated her father for what happened. But the past is the past. She stepped back to allow the next student to talk.

"Well, I think I should search the whole Fabelveien to get one," Oddmund replied in a bad attempt to make a joke. "But I think there is a special shop there, and it's much easier to locate a house than to catch a cat." He closed his eyes, imagining a whole house full of cats for sale. "I also need to think about color and gender. And I better do it now, just to spare my time in the shop. I think a tabby gray cat would be great for me!"

And then the professor finally spoke. He didn't speak in a mysterious tone as Oddmund expected, but Durmstrang in general was very different from Oddmund's expectations. It was, to put it simple, ordinary. People were teaching and learning (especially learning) magic like it wasn't the best and most magnificent thing in the world, but a routine. His mother adored magic, because she knew how miserable life was without it sometimes (although some other times muggle technology was just as amazing). If only other witches and wizards understood it!

It was pretty sad that Oddmund had to postpone his cat conversation, because the lesson began. Although he could ask Symona for some advice later after class, she definitely had more experience with cats and probably knew some useful things. As for now, his friend volunteered to be the first. Oddmud would like to do it as well, but they couldn't be the first ones together, and since Symona had already claimed the place, he had to be the second or the third. "I go the next then," he told the professor. "My name is Oddmund Hansen, and I chose the subjects because you often need to be sneaky in your daily life. I know pretty much about Infiltration already: to be invisible one needs to wear black clothes and maybe use some magic. When discovered, one needs to use smoke to cover the retreat."

Now everyone was supposed to be amazed. Oddmund's answer was not just "I read about it", it was a detailed explanation of the core principles of Infiltration. His goal, however, was not to impress the teacher, who was he after all, a suck-up, a teacher's pet? No. His goal was to impress Symona. His friend sometimes looked like she didn't completely trust Oddmund's ideas and maybe even considered him a bit incompetent. But this time it was Oddmund who got everything right. So ha.

Carmen listened her housmates to speak and nodded her head. She wasn't sure what to say there so she decided to keep.quiet there now for awhile. She was glad when professor started with lesson finally. She looked at him now and listened carefully what he said there now.

She listened also her fellow housemates to speak. Soon it was her turn to talk then. She did take at deep breath first. She wasn't shy or anything but talking about herself wasn't always that easy for girl. She also wasn't excatly sure why she had taken this lesson. So she had to come up with answer now.

"I'm Carmen Gonzales. I did choose to take this lesson because I hope to learn here some useful for myself. Also this lesson sounded interesting when I did read about it from a book in summer," she said there now so good as she could now. She hoped it was good enough for professor. Actually in documents you may see Carmenita Gonzales but girl herself didn't use that name already long time actually. She liked to be called Carmen.

She hoped that professor understands it. Since everyone know her more likely as Carmen than Carmenita. She doesn't like that name for some reason. It sounds ao weird name for her. She isn't sure why her parents did put to her even. She wondered now what will happen next in this lesson now.

Brage gave a nod of acknowledgement as the petite girl took a step forward and introduced herself as Symona Angelova. As she went on, he easily figured she was a very smart person who read a whole lot of books, especially if she'd only had the previous summer to get known with magic. It wasn't unheard of that halfbloods were raised by only their muggle parent, so Brage was familiar with the situation. However, most people came to the school not knowing anything when they'd been raised by that. Only a select few took their time to buy books and read them to get known with the society. The boy was up next, and he seemed to be a pretty confident kid. Brage had to smile at his idea of what Infiltration was all about. Sure, he wasn't completely wrong, there was just much more to it. Puffs of smoke did, however, work very well as a diversion to get out of trouble. And the last girl seemed to be very interested in learning how to fend for herself. That was always a good sign. All in all, Brage was pretty pleased with the students he'd gotten for the lesson.

Brage looked at the three of them. "I am Brage Ødegaard, and will -obviously- be your infiltrarion professor during your time here at Durmstrang. Now, when it comes to Infiltration, it is not a very highly spoken of subject outside of the Durmstrang alumni. A great deal of schools believe this subject is a propaganda in breeding soldiers against other magical societies. Of course, this is a complete lie. Infiltration is being taught at Durmstrang so that students will know what is in the real world and will be able to see through it, because they know what' happening," Brage explained, "What you will learn in this class is going unseen and how to spot the unseen. You will be taught to see traps and spells that will enhance your five senses." He walked past the students and followed his own trail before stopping by the pole.

He turned his back on it and looked to the students. "I'm going to guess that neither of you know what this is," he stated, giving them a questioning look, but didn't wait for an answer. "This is one of the most useful, yet dangerous objects you will learn about here in my class. You will learn to use it without it posing as a danger to yourselves. But for now, I just want you all to study it. The name of the object is Gríðarvölr, and in Norse mythology, this staff was used to kill a giant by the name of Geirröd. Now, come over here to where I am standing, but make sure to keep on the trail." He waited for them to walk over, and then looked back to the staff. He pointed to the inscriptions. "Now, what do you see there? Don't worry, this question has no wrong or right answer," he said encouragingly.

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