The Slytherin Prince

³⁶| Anticipation and Training

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The Slytherin Prince

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"Thoughts"

Letter

"~Parseltongue~"

":Deathtongue:"

~~~ August 7, 1990 ~~~

~~~ Third Person's POV ~~~

After getting back to Black castle from the visit with Rita Skeeter, life was absolutely amazing and wonderful, for Hadrian that is. For the Malfoy, Longbottom and Bones heirs, however, things were not so cheerful.

It seems people underestimated Hadrian when they heard him say that he was better than people years above him. They were corrected pretty quickly when they saw him throw himself into his studies and other lessons.

After the adults found a routine to ensure that they could continue with their normal work and commitments while still tutoring the heirs in all the areas that Hadrian deemed necessary, they started with their lessons.

Every morning at six in the morning Hadrian commanded all the Heirs to meet him in the Black Gardens for their morning run and exercises after which they would go back to their manors to shower and meet once again for breakfast. Then the true training begins.

~~~ Hadrian's POV ~~~

Remus started teaching us the basics of Defensive magic and Charms and made them read the entire first-year textbooks for both subjects in one sitting and then after ensuring everyone had memorised the theory(other than me as I had an Eidetic memory), he explained all the questions they had regarding the theory and then got them started on the practical soon after.

It was pretty interesting, all the wand movements, spells and theory combining when they performed the magic and made their understanding of the topics complete.

Aunt Minnie followed a similar principle and got us to read the entire textbook and then cleared our doubts. And no one has to be as smart as me to figure out where Remus got his teaching methods from as it was common knowledge that Aunt Minnie was his teacher as well. After our theory knowledge was deemed acceptable after vigorous quizzing she got us started on the practical side which Neville found a little difficult but after explanations and encouragement, he was just as good as the rest of us.

Uncle Lucius made us study a lot of theory on the subject of  Dark Arts, but deemed us too young to start practical but made us perfect our theoretical knowledge. For Potions he made us memorise the most basic potions' ingredients and the steps to make them. He then quizzed us and helped where it was needed.

Aunt Cissa became the epitome of Pureblood grace during the etiquette training under the watchful eyes of Walburga Black. She taught the history of the different levels of Pureblood House like 'Noble', 'Ancient', and 'Noble and Most Ancient', she also taught how the different Houses attained each embellishing title and how it improved their standing in the Pureblood social circles.

She taught them who bows to who and how to bow to different ranks if you are under them, and my being the highest rank in the Magical World didn't have to bow to anyone but only nod, but I still had to learn them, according to Aunt Cissa, even if I didn't have to use them.

Aunt Cissa and Aunt Andro collaborated in some aspects of their lesson to better teach us about the events in Wizarding history and how they led to the creation of certain laws and how they were meant to help.

Aunt Andro went through the most basic charters and bills that have been passed in recent times and the oldest charters and bills that acts as the foundation to our society. She elaborated on the laws that she felt would be most useful to us in our quest to dethrone the 'oh so great' Dumble-duck and also made us think on the spot by making up certain situations and asking us to argue our way out of trouble finding different loopholes in the laws. Draco and I were especially good at that and Susan and Neville caught up to us in no time.

Aunt Amelia also helped in certain aspects by showing us Pensieve memories from the Wizengamot archives, of various cases and explained how the certain person got out without getting charges pressed what could have been done to ensure they didn't escape and vice versa.

She also made us memorise the first year Herbology textbook and after testing our theoretical knowledge took us to the Bones Manor to show us the greenhouses there to test us on our practical knowledge and help us improve. Neville was the best out of all of us, with his love of Herbology making him outshine even me in the subject.

Astronomy was the easiest for all of us as it was just plain old memorisation and knowing how to identify different planets and constellations.

But these lessons alone took almost three weeks and by the time we were all done with the first year syllabus, it was almost time for the next Wizengamot gathering. But us children weren't the only ones that were busy these past weeks. I ensured that the adult when not tutoring us were working on the different things that had to be done and different people that had to be manoeuvred differently.

Aunt Amelia had been busy digging up evidence for Sirius, to prove there was no trial, for him to have been found guilty and sent to Azkaban. Uncle Lucius, on the other hand, had gotten to use his silver tongue a lot and manipulate all of the Pureblood faction to support him to let Sirius have a trial in front of the Wizengamot.

Nana Walburga, Aunt Minnie and Nana Augusta had teamed up and spent their time gaining supporters in their social circles and built up their reputation to what it once was in their youth, and in Aunt Minnie's case, who had not really been involved in politics, started to build up her support base alongside Nana Augusta - which wasn't too difficult having taught multiple decades worth of generations.

Soon enough the day of the Wizengamot was almost there, and the whole family was gathered at the Black castle for our nightly family dinner.