In general, the parents who had stayed with their offspring seemed happy enough, and Tevye was confident that the boating trip on the Lake, followed by lunch at the Three Broomsticks would keep them happily occupied, and out of the way for the business of the day.
The students seemed contented enough, though he noticed with interest that two of the girls seemed subdued, and one, the blonde with the pronounced Scotts accent, had a large bruise on her cheek. Had there been an altercation in the dorm?
After breakfast, and with the parents safely out of the way, he called the students together.
“Alright, today we get down to the real business of the Dowsing Summer School. We will be doing two exercises today, the first to see if we can hone your sensitivity, and the second to see if you can manage to deal with complicated patterns of divination.” He paused and watched the faces of his four students, and decided that even the girls with the dark rings under their eyes were talking everything in.
“Right then. Part one. We’re actually going to be doing some work outside of the school grounds, so make sure you have everything you are going to want with you before we set out. Dowsing sticks, quills and parchment or notebooks for note taking.”
If they took notes they would be more likely to understand their own reactions to underground stimuli. At least that was his thinking. And with any luck he could chat to the most successful dowsers over tea and find out what they had discovered about themselves. Because Merlin knew, he had no idea how it all worked!
“All set? Then follow me.”
With the four chatting quietly he led the way out through the Gate and along the path to Hogsmeade. A few hundred yards beyond the school’s boundary was a piece of scrubland with a mixture of overgrown grass and shrubbery. Between them the grounds man, Hagrid, and Professor Sprout had managed to lay a number of magical and metallic trails for the dowsers to track, and returned the plot to its original state. Even knowing what had been done in the weeks of preparation, Canches couldn’t see a trace of their work.
“Right, listen up, everybody! In front of you is a plot of land with various clues hidden in it. These consist of a number of chains, laid out underground. Some of the chains are quite large, and some are very fine indeed. Your task is to find as many of the markers as you can, and trace their length. Now you may come across a chain at the end, or in the middle. I want you to mark the whole length of the chain, so be certain you test all around the point you first feel the pull. Before we begin, however, Professor Flitwick is going to show you a rather fun variation of the Aguamente spell, which will allow you to spray a line of colored paint where you have found the chain. As you are each from one of the houses, you will learn how to make your house color. If you feel like it, you can teach each other how to make the other colors.”
That, of course would mean that these four had the wherewithal to put graffiti all over the school, but with any luck they would know that they would be bound to get caught, as they would be the only ones who knew the spell.
Until they taught the other students.
Ten minutes later the four were happily spraying strips of red, yellow, blue and green marker on the grass.
“Alright, if you are ready, let’s begin. I can tell you there are no markers over there under the trees, or on the other side of the dilapidated barbwire fence. Otherwise, they could be anywhere. Oh, as an incentive, I’ve asked Madam Rosemerta to bring up a load of Butterbeer in an hour, so let’s see how many we can find by then.”





