It's been a 4 years since I last posted in this category. Not the most terrible update schedule in the world, I suppose. Still better than George R.R. Martin.
Morning of the first day, in what would be a very long series of
days, until the lightning storm came. There was no storm this dawn.
The first rays of light broke over the horizon.
Sparrow was
shaken awake by two sets of hands. She had been sleeping in the
middle this time, just in case someone had tried to get the drop on
her in the night. Not by her choice. Sparrow had insisted on being on
the outside, but the other two girls were not having it. And it gave
them better position to shake Sparrow awake together. Not that the
girl was normally a heavy sleeper – but then, anyone would sleep
heavy after what had happened last night, and Sparrow certainly felt
she had the right to it this morning.
"Mnnnnnh,"
said Sparrow.
"She
speaks!" said Jocasta. "She speaks at last!"
"Nnnnnnh.
Let me sleep."
"I am
afraid," said Jill, "that such a thing is out of the
question. Jocasta, if you would? Now hang on, that’s not what I
mean."
A shadow passed
over Sparrow’s closed eyelids. She opened one eye to discover
Jocasta’s face hovering over hers, long raven hair hanging down
like a curtain to either side, a wry smile as ever. Sparrow grunted.
"That’s a little bold. Were you going to ask me first?"
"Why do you
think I’m hesitating?" said Jocasta.
"Go on
then."
Jocasta got her
hands under Sparrow’s back and lifted her up to kiss her deeply,
her arms pressing Sparrow into a fierce embrace, and Sparrow
responded in kind to both –
But then Jocasta
was rearing back, dropping Sparrow back onto the mattress, making a
face. "Blech! Your mouth still tastes of mandrake leaves. I
should have waited a few days. Ugh. Pleh."
"Kinda looks
like you couldn’t stop yourself," giggled Sparrow. "But
oh, I am so insulted! I bet my lovely Jill won’t treat me so
rudely." She snuggled back under the covers and nuzzled her face
into the crook of Jill’s neck. "I bet I can sleep for a few
days here."
"Oh no you
won’t," said Jill. "Jocasta, if you would do what I
actually asked?"
Sparrow heard the
sound of someone rolling off the bed. Then, Jocasta shouting, "AAH!
IT’S GOT ME! HELP!"
Sparrow was out
of bed and on the floor in a second. Jocasta was under the bed, legs
kicking wildly. "Levicorpus," she said, and lifted Jocasta
away from whatever monster was – hang on a second.
Jocasta floated
up to the ceiling, holding a scroll and wearing a wide grin. "Now
you’re awake." She unrolled the scroll. "Read this. Wait,
wait. Point the wand at your heart, then read it."
Amato animo
animato animagus.
Unfortunately for
Jocasta, the point where the recitation took effect also broke the
Levicorpus spell, and she fell to the floor with a yelp.
"Sorry about
that," said Sparrow. "And…ahem. Did you hear the one
about the fly who never got married? She was always fly-by-night! HAW
HAW HAW!"
"That wasn’t
especially funny," said Jill.
"I don’t
care! I do not care!" Sparrow
stamped her foot. "I have spent an entire moon-month with
my mouth shut for speech, only ever being able to Send my thoughts in
total sincerity. Do you have any idea how exhausting that is? I am
sick of dramatic heartfelt moments. You do them! I’ve had
it! Now I want to tell jokes all the time. Did you hear about the man
from Nantucket?"
"Everyone
did," said Jocasta. "And I have the feeling that you’re
going to be pretty grouchy for the next few months, at least."
"Why."
Jill draped an
arm over Sparrow’s shoulder. "Because, my love, it’s going
to be like this every morning. We shake you awake at dawn, you recite
the chant. Until the lightning comes."
"Uuuuuuuugh."
"Could be a
month," said Jocasta. "Could be a year."
"Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh."
"You signed
up for this!"
"I
knoooowwwww."
"And then,"
said Jill, "When it is finally done, and you have to shake me
awake in the morning, you will understand how difficult it is, and I
will thus refrain from disintegrating you."
"I want
lightning nooooooowwww."
"Could we
find spells to change the weather?" said Jocasta.
Jill shrugged.
"There’s a fair few, but they’re tricky and always cause
problems later. Maybe it’s better to wait for the real thing and
you two can practice your defensive spells in the meantime."
"You’re
probably right," sighed Jocasta. "But, both of us? Sparrow
hardly needs the practice."
"Does she
not?" Jill rose from the bed, and went to stand at the window,
facing outward. "Does she not. I wonder."
"You look
like you have something to say," said Sparrow. "In a
melodramatic fashion, at that. What did I say about drama?"
"You said I
should handle it," said Jill. "I am handling it now."
She spun around, looking chipper. "Ah, but we have a meeting to
attend, yes? And the Headmistress will not tolerate any melodrama
that gets in the way of business. Perhaps you will be safe for the
next hour, my dear."
"From
Melodrama at least," said Jocasta. "Let us keep you safe
from the rest."
◊◊ MY
JOB.◊◊
"Ahem?"
said Jocasta.
"Oh!"
said Sparrow. "Force of habit. Sorry. Let's be on our way then."
…
Sparrow had woken
with a greater feeling of security than she’d ever had, to be with
the ones she loved, to be free of the mandrake leaf, to be moving
forward with everything – to have survived the trials of the
previous night. Yet now that she stood beside her Jill, before
McGonagall’s desk, and with her merry pirate – privateer
– crew standing with her, now that she began to
consider the full implications of last night’s events – she could
only draw closer to Jill, putting an arm around her waist and letting
Jill drape an arm over her to draw her close in turn. The resulting
warmth made up for the chill that threatened to seep into her soul.
The rest of her
friends had similar trepidation. Violet and Cormac were holding hands
tightly, standing shoulder-to-shoulder. Miranda stood straight and
proud, yet with a faraway look upon her face, not letting her gaze
linger on the desk. Jocasta was in the form of a little housefly once
more, perched on the back slope of Jill’s shoulder.
And above them,
Professor Clearwater had her arms resting on the balcony railing.
Headmistress
Minerva McGonagall sat at her desk, her face grim, her hands folded.
She glanced up at Professor Clearwater, and raised her eyebrows,
nodding her head toward the stairs. Clearwater let out a long sigh
and pushed herself slowly away from the railing.
McGonagall sat up
a little straighter. "I would like to make one thing perfectly
clear." Her words felt oddly un-echoing in the space, as if
speaking in a room covered all six sides in fabric. Sparrow noticed a
faint shimmer in the air far from the desk. Whatever the Headmistress
had to say, it merited a muffling charm even on top of her having
sent all the portraits out of the room. Sparrow braced herself for
grim doom.
McGonagall’s
expression softened. "Despite your obvious nervousness, none of
you are in trouble with me, to any greater extent than you have
already achieved. From the reports I received of the previous
evening, none of you made poor decisions in the midst of the crisis."
Jill let out a
long breath.
"We did
good?" said Cormac.
"You did
what I expect you could have," said McGonagall, "and more
than one might expect, if they did not know your academic
capabilities. Miss Jones, Miss Patil, brilliant casting, Mister
McKinnon, I’ve certainly never heard of someone summoning that many
objects at once. How did you manage it?"
"Walnut wand
with a core of magnets."
"Core of
what?" said Professor
Clearwater, as she approached the desk. "What the hell do you
mean, magnets?"
"You haven’t met Ivy yet," said McGonagall. "Her
eccentricity produces results I thought Mister McKinnon here could
learn from. Impressive work in such a short time...though not
perfect, judging by your own results?"
"What you get when you’re forcing a prototype to handle an
emergency," said Cormac. He shrugged. "Do I get points for
Hufflepuff anyway?"
"I
will grant thirty points to each of your houses," said
McGonagall. Her eyes flicked to Sparrow. "Though I will also
take five from Hufflepuff, Sparrow, for your rather reckless decision
to leave your wand far away from yourself for the entire evening –"
"Excuse our wands for being stubborn," said Jill. "Were
we supposed to only dance under them the entire night?"
"And the Fetching Stick brought them to us at the last second
anyway," said Sparrow. She hurriedly explained the nature of the
Fetching Stick, leading McGonagall to roll her eyes and then glance
at Cormac, who nodded.
"So we’re really not in trouble?" said Violet.
"With me?" said McGonagall. "Not for last night.
Jocasta, you can come out now, it’s alright. Show your face, girl."
Jocasta hopped off Jill’s shoulder and resolved into her human
form, still hiding behind Jill’s back for a moment, before at last
stepping into view. "There are some implications hidden in that
sentence," she said. "Who are we actually in trouble with?"
"The psychos who sent the howlers?" said Professor
Clearwater.
"To
be ‘in trouble’ with a group of terrorists implies that they have
any manner of moral and temporal authority," said McGonagall.
"These people...Cordelia, as I recall from your report you said
that you had spotted a group of people trying
to blow the train
bridge?"
"I
assume they were trying to cut us off,"
said Professor Clearwater. "But I’ve been thinking about it
more since I gave you my report. You can’t cut off a bunch of
Wizards by blowing a bridge, only
delay them, so unless that
whole thing was a distraction...I mean it did divert me long enough
to let the owls go by. Maybe that was the point. But who knew I would
be out there? Unless these unknown people have a diviner on hand…"
She frowned. "Or...someone knew the details of our security
plans."
"It was the train bridge," said McGonagall. "Someone
doesn’t want students getting here easily, or they don’t want us
to be able to evacuate quickly."
"As if we couldn’t repair a bridge with magic?" said
Jocasta. "That one sounds more a like a message."
"Still effective in the short term," said McGonagall. "And
the howler attack may well cause
many to demand we cut off the owl post, preventing any of the
students from directly contacting their parents. Meanwhile, if the
recent incapacitation of the people of Hogsmeade was, as I suspect,
another attack, we are deliberately cut off from other means of
contact, from quick resupply, and from train maintenance."
"What," said Jill, "are we under siege?"
McGonagall made no reply, but gave Professor Clearwater a significant
glance. The woman swept out of the room in a billow of long hair and
long sleeves.
"Sure hope we’re not going to need my services any time soon,"
said Sparrow.
"Cordelia may offer some clarity on that front," said
McGonagall. "Although, Miss Jones, I would suggest that you
figure out a way to teach others your shielding technique, instead of
assuming that everyone will have to rely on your services, as
if you were some manner of lone hero, as you have been doing for
the past three years. This is a school, is it not? I suggest you act
like it for once."
Sparrow raised her eyes in thought. "I suppose I’ve taken on
one volunteer teaching job already. Might as well throw another on
the pile of things to do."
"Headmistress," said Jill, "if it is true that we are
under siege, we will need your leadership. We were somewhat at loose
ends this past month while you were gone. Please tell me you’re not
going to head back down to London."
McGongall sighed. "I am...weighing my options, with that matter.
I went down there last month to alert the Ministry to an unsettling
story I heard from one student." She glanced at Jocasta, and
then turned her gaze to Sparrow. "And then, oh, what did I
stumble into but what had been implied from the horrifying story of a
different student."
Sparrow felt the blood drain from her face. "Wait, did you –"
"I was, in fact, forced to employ a Patronus."
All the children gasped. Sparrow began to tremble, leading Jill to
draw her closer, and for Jocasta to put her arm around Sparrow’s
waist, pressing close.
"Hang on," said Miranda, "if there are clearly
Lethifolds in London – why didn’t you tell us about it? That’s
information Sparrow deserves to know, at least. Why didn’t you send
an owl?"
"And pose a security threat to you and all your efforts?"
said McGonagall, scowling. "Owls are too easily intercepted. I
suppose I could have set up something else, but I was in a place
where I was being watched, anyway." She scowled. "I should
never have gone to the Ministry of Magic."
Sparrow
frowned. She’d heard from
Percival things might be risky to reveal to people there, but was the
whole place dangerous? Then again, she was leading her friends and
fellow students to oppose its authority,
and McGonagall was in on it.
"What...were you doing there?"
"Beating
my head against a damn wall," said McGonagall. "Trying to
get the head of the Department of Catastrophes to waive the
requirement of memory charms, so that we could employ patronuses
throughout London
without having to obliviate every poor blighter on a block. But
oh, no, we have to uphold the bloody Statute of Secrecy, don’t we.
We have to break everybody’s brain to stay hidden."
"Is...is there no other way?" said Jocasta. "Is there
no other means of disposing of those creatures?"
"None we know of in any book we have access to," said
Violet. "I checked, after Sparrow recounted her own encounter.
It would be the Forbidden Section that had any info, but even when
that part of the library was full, you couldn’t have expected even
a dark wizard to tangle with those things. Not a British one, at any
rate."
"I recommend fire," growled Jill, and the air about her
grew a degree warmer.
"So
what then?" said Miranda. "What exactly
will the ministry do about the matter?"
McGonagall’s fists were clenched, knuckles white. "They said
they would take care of the matter as they had been doing. I did see
two different patronuses, on different evenings. Which may well mean
that they’ve been obliviating people as they please."
McGonagall was saying something further, but Sparrow could not hear
her over the roaring in her ears. She could not pay attention to
anything, save for her gaze fixed on the desk in front of her, and
everything in her sight was tinted golden. For it could be anyone so
affected, it would be anyone, it would be her own parents, her
own neighbors, once again – or had it been, too many times for
anyone to know? Who could know? Who could claim to know anything, if
they could be hit with a memory charm at any old time? Voldemort had
not needed any of his dark curses, all he’d needed to use was
memory charms all over the place, that would have been enough –
A large hand landed on Robin’s shoulder, and she was shaken out of
her furious rumination, leaving the world to be tinted purple for a
couple seconds. She looked up at Jill’s fearful gaze, and
Jocasta’s. Both of them looked like they might have given
her warm hugs right then and there if it had not
been a formal meeting. And as for the remainder of her friends –
Miranda’s eyes glowed a bright blue, Violet’s eyes glowed a
fierce ultraviolet, and even Cormac’s eyes were a burning orange.
Cormac the stout-hearted, of all people! And yet even he had once had
his eyes glowing, the last time McGonagall had brought up this very
subject.
"I seem to have lost most of you," said McGonagall.
"Cormac, are you still in there?"
The glow in Violet’s eyes faded first, and she took Cormac’s
hand.
His faded back to normal in turn. He shook his head vigorously.
"Sorry, Headmistress, I did get lost in thought there." He
squeezed Violet’s hand. "What were you saying?"
"I was saying that there seem to be a lot of things coming apart
at once," said McGonagall. "Between the disaster with
Hogsmeade, last night’s terrorism, which seems to have been
designed to cut us off, the Ministry of Magic’s setup for a great
work of ham-fisted incompetence…and I received a report from
professors Longbottom and Fudge that you had discussed the possible
presence of dementors around the school grounds?"
All the children nodded.
"Possibly an effort to force us into foolish decisions through
greater despair," said McGonagall. "Goodness knows
dementors can be given basic instructions to follow...you all ought
to attempt to learn the Patronus as soon as you can. Your prospective
Animagus forms will protect yourselves but not others. In any case…"
She sighed. "With all that is happening, I fear that either the
Statute of Secrecy will fall in a few years, or our entire society
will implode. I hope that this impresses upon you the importance of
completing your accelerated course of study. I have no doubt of your
abilities to excel in your respective specialties, such that your
NEWTs really ought to be a breeze – but can you learn enough of the
general curriculum to be well-rounded? Will you pass the OWLs to my
satisfaction?"
"Should be alright," said Cormac. "We are a bunch of
nerds."
"Powerful nerds," said Sparrow.
"Dangerous nerds," said Jill.
"A keen mind is the most powerful and dangerous thing of all,"
said McGonagall, "especially for us Wizards –"
"Wit beyond measure is man’s greatest treasure,"
sang Cormac, as he nudged Violet.
McGonagall glared at him before continuing. "In the spirit of
applying and sharpening your wits, I am assigning some field work to
you all. I have been directing Professor Budge to investigate the
matter of Hogsmeade. When he is ready for you, you will be
accompanying him to the village to assist him in the recovery of its
people. He will speak with you about the specifics of what he needs
from each of you. If you have no further questions –"
"Wait," said Jocasta. "What about the matter of the
horcrux? What did you find out?"
"I am not permitted to comment on an ongoing criminal
investigation," said McGonagall.
Jocasta’s face went even paler, her arm around Sparrow slackening.
"I am sorry I cannot offer any further information," said
McGonagall. "But you have things to do anyway. Dismissed."
"Breakfast," said Cormac. "We might not have missed
it. Come on."
Jocasta swept past him, out of the office before anyone had got
halfway to the door.
⋄⋄ JO, ARE YOU ALRIGHT? ⋄⋄
• ONE DAY, WITH MY LOVED ONES AT MY SIDE, I MAY BE. OH FOR -- LOOK, I'LL MEET YOU AT BREAKFAST, I JUST NEED A MINUTE. •
††††† SEE YOU THERE, DEAR. †††††
As everyone else departed, Sparrow lingered, hesitating, considering
all the implications of their discussion. Things were indeed
beginning to get out of hand. Much of it may have been her own fault.
She had taken on that role, now, had she not? All willy-nilly? Or out
of desperation that anyone might understand.
A familiar hand took hers, and she looked up into Jill’s welcoming
eyes. She let herself be pulled along out the door.