After breakfast, the crew had elected to study
Ancient Runes for the morning. Or at least Jocasta and Jill had; the
two of them had been bewildered when Wren, Iphis and Sparrow had
begged leave to avoid the lesson. Sparrow had reason to wonder how much
Miranda herself might know, seemingly enmeshed with Wren and Iphis as
she was; but she was in her greenhouse, and not here to give Iphis
any cold stares.
So
two
students were left to handle the Ancient Runes on their own –
blissfully ignorant of their true nature – while three were left to
their own devices, two of them to retire to their workshop, one to
wander alone for a while. As Sparrow made her way down the
fifth-floor corridor, she began to feel what Wren might have been
feeling between themself
and Iphis, for Sparrow
had sundered herself from her dear loves without even daring to
explain why. All
she had been able to do was to Send them her reassurances, and
promise that someday,
they would know all.
As for her business at this moment – she was
not at all wandering, but had a clear place to go, and a certain
someone to talk to, about matters more urgent than they might seem.
She had made her polite request to the portrait of Sir Cadogan if he
could get the other portraits to ask McGonagall if she might be able to meet Sparrow in her office; now it was only
to stand gazing at the statue blocking the entrance to the
Headmistress’ office, and hope that the message had been received.
There
was the faint meow
of a cat, and Sparrow jumped and spun
around as the statue sprang aside. There stood Headmistress
Mcgonagall, towering over her. "Hang on," said Sparrow,
"did you just – was that your cat form or –"
"Wouldn’t you like to know," purred
McGonagall, a smirk on her lips. She swept past Sparrow to the
staircase, a faint purring sounding in the air.
Sparrow did her best to match McGonagall’s
pace up the staircase, which forced her to take the steps two at a
time. "What I’d like to know," said Sparrow, "is how
much of you is still human."
McGonagall paused, turning back to look down at
Sparrow with a weird light in her eye. "Enough."
"So if I turn into something –"
"I wonder if you have already seen the
effects with Miss Carrow," said McGonagall. "Be warned of
the disadvantages, depending upon your form. Goodness knows there are
so many scents in this place! I have to use a spell to turn off my
nose, sometimes." She turned back up the staircase.
"That’s how you always know who hasn’t washed their hands!" said Sparrow,
as she scampered up after McGonagall.
"It is a blessing and a curse," said
McGonagall.
The two of
them stepped into the main area of the Headmistress’ office, filled
as it was with the portraits of headmasters long gone by – still
not permitted to participate, though there were very many visitors
crowding the frames, as McGonagall threw up a shimmering muffling
charm. It seemed Sparrow’s
little request had got more
attention than she had expected.
As well as
some stern attention from McGonagall, as she whirled around. "Miss
Jones," said the headmistress, "while I admire your ability
to get people to aid you, I must
regretfully dock you a hundred and fifty house points for presuming
to order your own headmistress about."
Sparrow felt this was awfully unfair, she’d
tried to word her request as politely as possible – likely the
message had gotten garbled. Or maybe McGonagall’s nerves were
frayed. Likely both. Sparrow elected not to argue that particular
point. "Can house points go negative?"
McGonagall raised her eyebrows. "Erm. No."
"Well I think I already lost all of them
earlier this year," said Sparrow, "so, nothing left to lose
there, and I’m already in Super Detention, so short of you chucking me out the door,
which you don’t really want to do, the only thing I really have
left to lose is your respect and my dignity. And my life, I suppose,
but if I want to be a ghost –"
"Never
ask for such a thing,"
said McGonagall. "Now, I was headed to my office anyway, and I
have much to do, so I will not be tarrying. Make it snappy."
She moved around the desk to sit at her chair, shuffling through
papers.
Sparrow took a deep breath. "I was told by
Inigo Aguirre and his friends that communication
between here and the Pyrenees seems to be down. As well as
communication between any of the Wizarding governments – and I
asked Professor Budge about it, and he said he
would take care of it
himself, and he wouldn’t explain any further. I wondered if you
might be able to tell me anything."
McGonagall’s papers scrunched in her hands.
"Of course he would try to handle it all himself," she
muttered.
"It’s true then?"
McGonagall nodded slowly.
"Then should we –"
"Who is
we?" said McGonagall. "You
have your training to attend to, I’m not expanding
your mission parameters
beyond Hogwarts and Hogsmeade."
"But –"
"I need
you to be your very best before I can send you forth," said
McGonagall. "If some danger might daunt entire Wizarding
governments, what
chance do you stand untrained?
I will see if the Ministry is looking into the matter, and if not, I
will consider who I might send to investigate. Not that I am free to
go myself, what with this silent
quasi-siege
we have going. Which you and your crew are set to aid Professor Budge
in lifting, anyway, so I should think that is your top priority. Do
you understand?"
Sparrow nodded.
"Then you may go," said McGonagall,
"and attend to your business. Hop to it, you only have so many
weeks left."
Sparrow turned
and made to scamper out of
the office – but then she halted, and spun back around. "Why
not send a ghost?"
McGonagall looked up from where she had been
scratching away with a quill. "Excuse me?"
"Send a ghost to investigate across the
channel," said Sparrow. "They’ve got quite decent
resilience, I should think, and nothing better to do anyway."
"A ghost
might say otherwise,"said McGonagall. "Being so keen on
haunting a place, after all. A specific
place."
"Well there’s got to be thousands of
years worth of drowned
sailors –"
"Who
haunt ships, Miss
Jones, or islands. But you are on the right track. I will consider
the matter. Off you go."
Sparrow went.
…
Where she was
to go, she was not certain. If Jill and company were still discussing
the Ancient Runes, it would not be safe for Sparrow to return to the
library. If she were to go to the Room of Requirement, she might be
disturbing Wren and Iphis, and they were probably having furtive
discussions about the Runes anyhow, so that was right out.
She elected to make her way to the Owlery,
hoping she might be able to post her bloody letter this time.
Perhaps the earlier failure had been a fluke. She
still had the letter on her, not wanting to let it slip out of her
mind – here was an opportunity.
The Owlery
was not precisely deserted. There was one
owl that was perched where a student could reach, the rest of them
still high above. Or a taller student might reach, anyway – Sparrow
had to levitate herself with her shield charm before she could get to
it. She tied the letter to the indifferent barn owl’s leg, and
asked it to take the message to the Joneses of Willoughby Cresecent,
Hackney, London.
The owl blinked blearily at her. She’d picked
a terrible hour to ask. But it did not reject the letter. Sparrow had
to hope the owl would get moving in the evening. In the meantime, she
looked up at the owls resting high above, and said, "Come on
now, people have so many messages to their parents they want to send,
what’s got all of you snubbing us?"
To this the owls made no reply.
Sparrow was left to grumble and mutter as she
departed the owlery. She really ought to be asking ghosts to be
sending the messages, if the owls weren’t up to it. As she made her
way from the fourth floor to the third, she realized that she might
even actually ask for that.
The image of a figure made of flame flashed
into her mind. ††††† SPARROW DEAR, WE’VE CEASED TO
DISCUSS THE RUNES. WILL YOU COME BACK TO US? †††††
Sparrow startled. ⋄⋄OH! TERRIBLY SORRY,
I’LL JUST BE A MOMENT, I’VE GOT TO ASK SOMEONE SOMETHING. ⋄⋄
Except it turned out to be a longer moment, as
she was not certain how she might be able to call upon any particular
ghost – she was even in a spot where there weren’t any portraits
on the walls, and she couldn’t ask them to be her messengers twice
in one day anyway, could she? And what would it do to a ghost if she
were to do a direct Secret Sending, such as Jill had just done with
her – what was she to do then, just wait for a ghost to float
along?
She was just about to give up and continue down
the stairs when she caught sight of a ghostly figure floating towards
her. It was the friar – the Fat Friar, as most called him, although
those who were actually close to him, of which Sparrow never counted
herself one, knew him as Brother Ealdwine. He was not truly a friar, as he
had said – something about his order being much earlier than
friars, Sparrow hadn’t been paying full attention to that
bit.
Sparrow felt a twinge of guilt that she had
never really spoken to him after her first year, in spite of him
being the Hufflepuff ghost. She had always been too busy. So it was
that she did not feel up to looking Ealdwine in the eye, as he
approached. She cleared her throat. "Greetings, Brother. Fancy
running into you this morning."
Ealdwine chuckled. "You make it sound like
a coincidence! I’ve actually been meaning to contact you for quite
some time. Only, you and your friends have seemed so busy and so
serious that I did not wish to intrude, and I usually have my hands
full with the first-years anyhow."
Twice shy, it seemed it was. Sparrow bowed her
head. "My apologies. What did you mean to ask?"
"If I might offer you and your friends
whatever counsel I could," said Ealdwine. "You have all
seemed so troubled lately – I have even overheard you sounding
terribly worried about it! Well, you know my role, I try to comfort
the first-years, but I might take time to help you if you like."
Sparrow thought for a moment. As much as she
and her friends needed counsel, she knew that the nature of their
troubles might be beyond Ealdwine’s capabilities. He was quite good
at saying "bear up young lass, it will be alright", but
that wouldn’t be enough. Yet she didn’t want to brush the poor
fellow off. "I will consider it," she finally said.
The image of a seated green glowing figure
flashed into her mind. • SPARROW, ARE YOU DELAYED? •
⋄⋄JUST COMING. ⋄⋄ Sparrow turned to the
stairs. "I’m terribly sorry, Brother, I must get back to the
library now."
"Would you you like me to escort you?"
said Ealdwine.
"You could race me," said Sparrow.
She leapt off the side of the staircase and was soon far away from
Ealdwine’s exclamations of dismay.
…
The scene in the library that greeted her was
of a tense and wary peace. Jill and
Jocasta, on one side of a table, both looked rather sullen and
resigned; Iphis and Wren, on the other side of the table, were
holding hands tightly, looking defiant. Miranda, now here in the
library, was sitting at the head of the table, giving Iphis an
enigmatic look.
"Right then," said Sparrow, "what
have I come back to?"
"What we have agreed upon," said
Iphis, his tone icy. "That the true purpose and nature of the
Ancient Runes is something I will not reveal until the proper
time, lest we endanger our academics."
"Which only tells me that there’s
something suspicious about them," muttered Jill.
"My goodness," said Sparrow, feigning
calm. To what use she did not know – she had scampered away from
the subject just like Iphis and Wren, potentially tipping her hand.
"I’ll have my opinion of this for you in a minute, I just need
to go and check something in one of the stacks." She ducked into
the shelving, soon hiding herself in the shadows.
There she closed her eyes, and concentrated on
her thoughts of Iphis. In a moment, an image had taken shape in her
mind – a humanoid figure glowing bright white, before a sky of
dark clouds. ⋄⋄IFFY MY FRIEND, I THINK WE COCKED IT UP A BIT BY
SCARPERING. NOW THEY’RE ON TO US.⋄⋄
≠≠≠≠ IT’S ALL COMING APART TOO SOON,
ISN’T IT? I GOT CARELESS. ≠≠≠≠
⋄⋄ BEST WE CAN DO RIGHT NOW IS STOP BEING
SO COLD AND WARY ABOUT THE WHOLE THING. I’LL HANDLE THAT IN A
MOMENT, HANG ON. ⋄⋄
"Ahem," said a voice beside Sparrow.
She turned to see Friar Ealdwine’s head
sticking out of the shelving. She yelped, and jumped.
Ealdwine chuckled. "I’ve got some tricks
up my sleeve that you don’t, my friend."
"Sure." Sparrow brushed herself off,
re-composing her dignity like a cat licking itself after a fall.
"You’re still here to offer counsel, right?"
"If you will accept it," said
Ealdwine.
"Hang back just a moment," said
Sparrow, "I’ve got to talk to my friends about a delicate
matter." She made her way out of the stacks, leaving Ealdwine to
wait behind.
The scene at the table had not changed overmuch
– Sparrow had not been gone long. But now Jocasta and Miranda were
eyeing Iphis suspiciously. Jocasta’s wary eyes flicked to Sparrow.
"You were Sending something to Iffy."
"I was," said Sparrow, seating
herself in a businesslike manner. "And it was, as you know of
such Sendings, done in strict confidence. Not that any of us are all
that good at being covert, it seems, especially not with each other." She sighed. "I
apologize for the suspicion and confusion, my dears. As I said
before, all will be revealed in time."
Jill seemed mollified by these words, Jocasta
less so, and Iphis only looked even more wary. Wren was only looking
gloomy, as they laid their head on Iphis’ shoulder; Miranda
remained cool, though not cold. Sparrow gave Iphis an apologetic
look. "You’ve got chains wrapped about your heart, my friend.
Like the rest of us, I suppose,
only you’re adding more. Will you let them go?"
Iphis let out a long breath. "I can,"
he said, "eventually. After exams. If you could all please
refrain from asking me anything more about the runes until then."
"You have my word," said Jill.
"I can keep my mouth shut," said
Miranda.
"Let’s move on to a different topic,"
said Sparrow. "History of magic, anyone? We ought to be looking
into the late 1600s, that’s a critical time, I should think."
"I can go get the books," said
Jocasta, her voice suddenly chipper. There was a small thump
of air as she became a fly and zipped away.
Sparrow and Iphis exchanged glances. Iphis put
up his hands. "I am willing to take responsibility for this
morning’s tension," he said, "going all the way back to
my decision to look into the Ancient Runes. Never should have done
it."
"We all make mistakes," said Jill.
"Even
I
have," said Miranda.
"Oh please," said Iphis. "You?
I’ve never known you to make a mistake."
Sparrow and Miranda exchanged glances. "Never
known," murmured Miranda. "Well, I suppose there’s much
I haven’t yet said to you, have
I."
"Whatever it was," said Iphis, "in
my experience, you always know what you’re doing."
"What are you trying to do," said
Wren, "melt her frozen heart?"
"Do I deserve it?" said Miranda.
There was a small thump of air, as
Jocasta reappeared. Empty-handed. Glowering.
"Couldn’t find anything good?" said
Sparrow.
"There’s nothing on the late 1600s,"
growled Jocasta. "Nothing from 1650 to 1750, it’s just not
there."
Sparrow frowned. "You’d think the
history of magic wouldn’t want to skip an entire hundred years!
Especially since those were the years that the Statute of...oh, I might
know what happened. Can we go and check the catalog?"
The students all upstarted from the table,
moving to the front of the library, where the little drawers of the
card catalog were stacked high. The librarian seemed a bit startled
at their onrush, but directed them to a particular drawer without
delay.
Yanking it open, Sparrow flipped through the
cards, reading through the relevant titles. International
Negotiations of the Statute of Secrecy, 1683-1699. Wizard-Muggle
Relations, Late Seventeenth Century. Drawing the Curtain on
the Wizarding World.
There were many similar titles. "I didn’t
find a single one of these in the stacks," said Jocasta.
"Did someone check all of them out?"
said Wren.
"It is obvious what happened," said
Iphis, his fists clenched. "It’s the Ministry again. They take
our theory and they take our history, and all that’s left is the
things they tell us to do." His eyes glowed with a brilliant
ultraviolet. "I am changing my vote on
going down to London."
"Easy
there partner," said Wren, putting a hand on his shoulder.
"Don’t go kaboom yet. I’m right next to you, you’d get
brains all over me. Ah, nuts.
Can someone grab Miranda?" They
gestured to the girl standing
on their other side, whose
eyes were glowing icy blue. "I’ve only got so many hands
here."
Ice was the word, indeed, for the air began to grow colder. Sparrow
linked her arm with Miranda’s, hoping she could help to warm the
girl up, but she hissed as the cold began to seep into her own bones.
It was only when she was smothered by Jocasta and Jill wrapping their
arms around Miranda and Sparrow that the temperature began to
stabilize.
"I’m melting," said Miranda, as the glow faded from her
eyes.
"What a world," said Sparrow.
Soon enough the glow in Iphis’ eyes faded as well, and everyone let
out long breaths as they returned to their seats. "Sorry about
that," said Iphis, "it’s just...the very idea." He
slumped. "It’s hard enough being in here, knowing that the
place can be dismembered at any old time."
"I vaguely recall you saying you and Miranda wanted to go down
to London and sneak into the Ministry library anyway," said
Sparrow. "Why’d you vote against going then?"
"We didn’t have much of a real plan," said Miranda.
"Nothing precise. Just concepts. There’s no sense in going
down and just smashing things, or whatever it is you want to do. Do
you even have a plan?"
"I’ve got courage," said Sparrow.
"She’s definitely got a heart," said Wren.
"You’re gonna need brains," said Iphis.
Sparrow caught sight of Brother Ealdwine floating towards them.
"We’re gonna need to shut up about it right now."
"Greetings my young friends," said Ealdwine, as he came to
float before the crew. "My apologies for the intrusion, but I
could see two of you in obvious magical distress, and I wanted to ask
how you were faring now."
"It’s just a little case of glowing eyes," said Iphis.
"Nothing to worry about."
"Nothing to worry about!" said Ealdwine. "Nothing to
worry about, my word lad, the last time I saw anything like that was
when someone went off bang! And that was seven hundred years ago. Not
at all common, you can’t tell me it’s normal, and it is my
job to worry about the students, at least the first-years. Are you
absolutely certain you’re alright?"
Everyone shook their heads sadly. "It’s some rough stuff,"
said Sparrow. "But it’s all confidential."
"I have some experience with confessionals,"
said Ealdwine.
Sparrow bristled at the thought of relating the worst moments of her
life again. "That sounds like a heavy kind of counsel. Um –
you said seven hundred years ago. Do you remember all of your
thousand-odd years? Including, say, the late 1600s?"
"Well it does blur together a bit the
farther back I go," said Ealdwine. "I wouldn’t expect you
to be any different, if you went on that long, would I?"
"Then might I ask –"
"You might ask me on Monday," said
Ealdwine. "Tomorrow is the Lord’s day, and no business that
day, let me tell you! Oh, but I see you busying yourselves every
single day of the week, even on the Sabbath – it’s a terrible
sacrilege, I tell you."
Oh, yes, here was the other reason Sparrow had
begun to avoid Ealdwine’s advice. He had a certain perspective he was coming from. "Surely
we can’t waste a day, when our deadline of doom is approaching?"
"Or perhaps we could," said Jill.
"Have we taken a single day off, since early January?"
Everyone shook their heads.
"And now here you are about to go off
bang," said Ealdwine. "If I might venture to offer advice,
my friends, I would say you need a real sabbath. You need rest.
I always recommend a good night’s sleep to start with, and a full
meal, both of those do a great deal to put a poor soul right, but it
sounds to me like you’re going to need a bit more Rest And
Relaxation than that. So, I’d say you ought to be keeping the
Sabbath holy."
Sparrow herself would have said that she didn’t
feel the need to listen to advice coming from a religion she hadn’t
joined. But then, Ealdwine wasn’t exactly wrong, was he? She
shrugged. "Couldn’t hurt."
"It could,"
said Iphis.
"So could going off bang," said Jill.
"I certainly recommend avoiding burnout."
"Seconded," said Miranda.
"Thirded," said Jocasta.
Wren linked their arm with Iphis’, drawing
closer to him. "I’ll let you work me even harder the next day
if you like, alright?"
Jocasta’s eyes widened, her face taking on an
an expression that looked like she’d been handed the opportunity of
a lifetime. But before she could open her mouth to speak, Sparrow cut
her off. "Alright everyone, I think that’s it for our Library
work today, let’s adjourn and have ourselves a decent lunch, and
then maybe teatime. Come on then." She herded everyone out of
the room hurriedly, before any commentary from Jocasta could reach
Brother Ealdwine’s pious ears.
…
Jill had expressed her hope that they could
start their Sabbath right after lunch, but
Iphis had insisted they at least continue their transfiguration work
until the morrow. The compromise that Sparrow had come up with was
that they would end their studies early for the day, and retire to
their respective houses.
So it was, that in the golden light of the
waning day, in one of the bay windows of the Hufflepuff common room,
Sparrow and her beloved girls had taken their rest upon the window
seat, basking in the sunbeams, Sparrow laying across Jill and
Jocasta’s laps. It had not been a time of perfect silence, for, as
it was a Saturday, the common room was full of coming and going, and
there were those who took the opportunity to ask many questions.
There were many who didn’t quite understand what all was going on
with this supposed pirate crew.
Thus the afternoon was as much of a game of
deciding what was safe to reveal, as it was a time of rest. But in
those golden hours, it really felt like a game – quite unlike how
Sparrow had to keep the secret of the Ancient Runes. There was
nothing that might immediately blow up if anyone made a small slip.
Not immediately, at least.
For Sparrow, it was also a time of deciding how
much she wanted to actually ask the ghosts about anything. They might
have knowledge that even a book didn’t have – but
a book couldn’t blab to someone else that you had asked it
anything. A ghost might think nothing of it. It was an angle of
attack that could be even riskier than becoming an animagus –
something that might require any particular ghost to be in strict
confidence with her. Argus might be a good candidate, if she could
find him. Friar Ealdwine – there he was, speaking to some of the
first-years near the tea nook – might be a bit too gregarious.
But then, she could finally take his offer of
counsel, and get him on side, if she were willing to put up with
whatever pieties he offered. If she were willing to accept that his
advice might be not perfectly useful. If she thought that the
problems of her loved ones were even within his capacity to
understand.
And yet he had seen such trouble, once upon a
time, he had said.
She took Jill’s hand, and kissed it gently,
drawing merry laughter from the girl. Laughter that would not last,
not for any of their poor souls.
Perhaps it was foolish to refuse aid, however meager it might be.
…
Before they dreamt that evening, Sparrow had
begged leave to take a single night’s respite from her march
through the plains of hell. Jill had laughed, and kissed Sparrow atop
the head, saying that she had just been about to suggest it, being
Sabbath Even and all.
So in dreams, Sparrow only sat quietly with
Jocasta, gazing out over the dreamscape, chatting of all the small
things, trying to let worrisome thoughts pass away.