HP & all associated chars. belong, of course, to the wonderful JKR, and are merely borrowed by me for the purposes of this fanfic.
This is early fanfic work and all feedback is gratefully received.
Aspects of Magical Theory and practice are influenced by the fantastic articles on Red Hen.
1.
Hero jerks awake. Her breathing is fast and ragged, her bed sheets soaked through with sweat, the coppery tang of adrenalin hot and salty in her mouth, like blood. She lies still, allowing her breathing to slow, allowing the nightmare to fade.
At least, she thinks, ruefully, she never has to set an alarm. It is half past four. She knows this without glancing at any clock; the nightmare always ends at half past four.
Pushing herself up she swings her legs round, so that she is sitting on the edge of her bed, the room around her is dark still, but the waxing moon casts a faint silvery light through the thin curtains that cover the grimy latticed window, enough so that she can see the outlines of furniture, her desk with its stacks of books and notepads, the great big wardrobe that takes up so much space on the far side of the room, and the overflowing bookcases are all dark features in the grey room.
Standing, she strips her bed of its damp sheets and with fatalistic resignation begins another long day.
It is some hours later, whilst feeding the pigs, that Hero remembers that it is her birthday.
The thought stops her mid-feed for a moment until the big black Berkshire brings her back to a sense of her responsibilities with a shove from his wet nose. She empties the last feed bucket for him and then continues on to the chicken roosts to feed the hens and collect the eggs.
She is grateful, today, for the old worn but thick wind breaker, for a cold north-easterly is blowing strongly round the old stone outbuildings of the courtyard.
These aren't really stock buildings, though that is what they are now used for. The worn stone walls that are now the pig-pens, the hen house and the sheep fold once served the main building as stables, carriage house and servants quarters. That had been many years ago though, when Fayle Castle had been the great house of the neighbourhood, the manor house of a large and prosperous estate. Now, it was little more than a crumbling relic, a dilapidated reminder of better days long past.
It wasn't really a castle. Though it had more right to be called one that some others that bore the title. Once indeed the site had been occupied by a Norman fortress that had rudely replaced a Saxon long house, the fortress had in turn been replaced by subsequent structures, until now, centuries later, the building was so much a mish-mash of periods and styles that it was hard to know what to call it.
Hero frowned up at the sagging gutter as she walked back toward the Castle, was it her imagination or was there grass there again. She sighed. She had only been up to the roof two weeks ago to clear them, hadn't she, well maybe three weeks, not more than four certainly, and it had been a task that had taken all of one exhausting Saturday. She couldn't spare another.
Removing muddy boots and windbreaker she stepped into the great flagstoned kitchen, placing the eggs in the egg boxes ready to be put in the little 'farmshop' she kept stocked up with produce. This 'farmshop' was an old Gatelodge building by the main road to the village, and the income from the villagers who bought the produce and a little passing trade during in the tourist season helped supplement what they got for the pigs and sheep they reared, and the land they rented out to the local farmers.
The buzzer rang.
Hero quickly filled the toaster before dashing upstairs to the master bedroom. The castle was apply provided with staircases, but, conveniently, one of the old servants staircases led from just outside the vast kitchen to the main landing off which the principal bedroom suites were situated.
Appearing now, from a concealed door in the panelled hall, Hero approached the doorway opposite the door to her own room. She took a steadying breath and knocked politely and waited for permission to enter before opening the door and stepping inside.
The Old Man sat crumpled in his chair before the fire, his face thin and sallow, skin sagging, hair yellowing white and as thin and spare as gossamer, though his blue eyes, bright and piercing, still and held something of that lively spark that must once have inhabited him.
They didn't speak; they had no need of words. Hero set about her tasks, as quietly and efficiently as an one girl could. She built up the glowing remains of the fire, stripped the sheets from the bed and remade it with the speed of long practise. She emptied the commode and, once cleaned, moved the commode to within easy reach of the Old Man's armchair. All this and several other little considerations were done easily and without fuss or comment from either party.
Exiting with the sheets and nightclothes, Hero paused for an instant; an impulse of the moment encouraged her to speak, to mention the day, the 31st of October, her birthday. The urge was, however, quickly suppressed. What good would it do after all? None that she could see.
The laundry joined her own in the laundry room, and the machine was loaded and switched on before she set up a breakfast try for the Old Man. This done she carried it up the stairs and made sure, by waiting for a few moments as he began his meal, that he wanted nothing more from her.
Hero's uniform was hanging on the outside of her wardrobe, expectant. The jumper was too large for her, the elastic wasted; the colour faded through over washing and the school badge was the old one from the previous headmaster's regime. Nevertheless she was glad to have received it, and three others like it, from Mrs Mallow, their nearest neighbour, whose youngest child had moved up to the big school that September.
"You might as well take them, dear." The kind hearted lady had told her as she handed the bundle to Hero having flagged her down on her bicycle. "No use to my boys now and there's still plenty of ware left in them."
Hero had blushed hotly, but she had taken them, for all that her pride rebelled at the charity, and she had thanked Mrs Mallow very politely and taken her some of the fresh lavender that the lady always admired whenever she came up to the castle, which she did, now and then, always with a kind word and never without some cake or loaf that she just happened to have made.
If Hero could choose a mother, she would choose someone like Mrs Mallow.
Cold shower endured, uniform on, booted and coated, Hero left the Hall, grabbed her bike and began the long ride toward the village. The beginning section, down the long drive that connected the castle to the road, was by far the worst part of the journey, broken as it was by pot holes, gnarled roots and foot wide cracks and mired by overgrown shrubbery, fallen leaves and broken branches.
Once this was past however, the following three miles to the village were fairly easy going, there being only one steep hill, and a fairly good road surface.
The bike, like everything that belonged to the castle, had seen better days; it was an ancient machine, made sometime after the Second World War, of heavy durable iron and steel, it had just the one gear and absolutely no suspension.
The wind had picked up vehemence and seemed to take a vicious delight in attempting to blow her off the road at every chance. A mile in, the dark looming clouds opened. Hero, long suffering, peddled onwards. Jayden Edwards's father's gleaming black Land Rover showered her with mud as it sped by, Jayden leering at her from the back seat.
After passing a sign that thanked her for driving carefully, Hero rounded a bend in the road and beheld the principal part of the little market town that was Fayle. It consisted largely of the market square, with its wind worn buttercross, (where indeed a market was still held every Wednesday during the tourist season,) and the buildings that surrounded it. These being the parish church on one side of the square, the church aided school at its side, the town's two competing pubs, the Woolpack and the Fayle Arms, the local co-op, a handful of independent shops, including newsagent, chemist, and florist, and then along the east side, set a little back from the square itself was the practically new council funded building which housed the public library, the doctors surgery, and town council offices.
Hero placed her old bike into the bike rack and locked it with her chain and pad lock. Not that she imagined any thief would be like to steal it, unless they happened to be looking for museum pieces, however, she didn't put it past Jayden Edwards and his little 'gang' to take it and throw it in the river. In fact they had indeed done just that last summer. Luckily the weight and resilience of the bike meant it took little hurt from such an adventure. Still, Hero had had to wade in and drag the thing out, which she didn't fancy doing again anytime soon.
The school bell rang, and the class lines formed with almost choreographed precision. Hero scampered to join the line for Class 4, the combined year 5 and 6 class.
Miss Mills eyed Hero as she joined the back of the queue, but said nothing, after a cursory inspection of the lines; Miss Mills began to send them in, class by class. Class 4 were left till last and Miss Mills detained Hero with a look as they trooped through the door.
Hero stood silent under the teacher's scrutiny. Miss Mills was Class 2's teacher, a pleasant, blonde haired young woman, who like sparkly scarves and wore dangly earrings.
"You're covered in mud." Miss Mills told Hero in her blunt way with a frown at her splattered trousers.
Hero swallowed uncomfortably but remained silent. It was better, she knew from experience, not to speak unless responding to a direct question.
Miss Mills sighed, as if disappointed somehow. "Go and wash your face." Was all she said however, and Hero hurried off towards the toilets.
She was indeed liberally splattered with mud, from that black Land Rover, she even had a bloody gash on her hand where a stone had kicked up, she was grateful Miss Mills had missed that, she might have felt compelled to make a report. When teachers did that, things got… complicated.
Hero didn't hate school, despite idiots like Jayden and his ilk, and even despite being something of an outcast. Her love of learning outweighed these evils. Knowledge, she knew, was something special, something to be cherished and sort out.
The other parts of school, the play times, the group games, the cliques and politics of pre-adolescent life Hero could happily dispense with, but school was a package deal, and on balance Hero decided to take the good with the ill.
Mrs Greave's, Class 4's teacher, regarded Hero warily as she entered. Hero didn't exactly know why, but she seemed to upset adults in some way. Children too, come to that, but that was more explicable. Why the teachers, teaching assistants, and dinner ladies should all regard Hero as some sort of strange exotic animal they didn't quite understand was beyond her, but so it was, and after nearly seven years at the school, she didn't imagine it would change now.
Hero sat down at her desk, a group of two tables making a set of four. This table is known on Mrs Greaves's papers and planning as Hawk group, but is known differently in the playground, Geek Squad, being the most inoffensive.
These three children, Beth Thornwood, Ross Waltson and George Love, are the closest thing to friends that Hero has. They are friends through necessity rather than through any actual affection, they never associate outside of school, except for the occasional birthday, but in school, they shield one another as best as they can from their school fellows.
Mrs Greave's encourages the group towards independent work; the four of them are indeed so far ahead of the rest of their class that it is difficult for her to involve them in whole class activities.
School is a place of routine, and the days follow a regular pattern that Hero knows well. Assembly, followed by Active 8, followed by Maths, then a break before English, then comes lunch time, after which comes the afternoon session, which is given over to the other curriculum areas, science on Mondays, history or geography on Tuesdays, P.E on Wednesdays, R.E on Thursdays, and music on Fridays. It was Tuesday today.
Tuesday the 31st if October.
Hero found herself struck again as she neatly wrote the date on her notebook. Halloween. Her birthday.
There had been a time, before the Old Man took so ill, when he had bought her presents, and bought a cake. He had told her to make a wish as she blew out the candles and had clapped when she blew them all out in one go, but those days felt like they were a long time ago.
The table behind her, Sparrow Group, were deep in conversation together, chatting about Halloween, costumes and parties, and trick-or-treating.
No one on the Hawk table had mentioned it.
The day wore on, and the weather outside only worsens, by the time the final bell rings ending the school day Hero wasn't at all looking forward to the ride back home. Her heart sinks even further as she approaches her bike, still chained to the bike rack, its tyres slashed and deflated.
A burst of mocking laughter sounds behind her, her muscles tense and she closes her eyes, the cold rain running down her face like tears, but she doesn't turn. She knows who it was well enough, Jayden Edwards.
Hero opens the lock, took of the chain, and began the long walk down the street, pushing the heavy old bicycle without so much as a backwards glance.
This time the Black Land Rover kicked up a stone that caught her smartly on the head, Hero staggers and falls, the bike slides down into the drainage ditch at the side of the road. The world seems to swim out of focus for a moment, and a hand reaching tentatively to a spot just above her eye comes back red with blood.
The Land Rover has slid to a halt a dozen yards ahead and a tanned, designer jean wearing, older version of Jayden Edwards steps down from the high perch of the driving seat. Hero scrambles to her feet swiftly, too swiftly as it happens, since her balance deserts her and she falls gracelessly again to the mud.
The man appears looming over her like a wrathful demi-god. Hero can see Jayden with his nose pressed to the glass gleefully watching her discomfiture.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" the man demands. "Trying to get yourself killed?"
Hero merely blinks up at him, her head still reeling uncomfortably. Nausea threatens to engulf her, but she pushes it down unwilling to show further weakness in front of this man.
"Village idiot." He mutters disgusted at her dumb silence. He glances down at the bike in the ditch and a sneer crosses his face, despite this however, and with a doleful glance down at his expensive jeans, he slides down into the ditch and manages after a good deal of shoving, slipping and sliding, to haul the bike back onto the road.
Hero, having regained some of herself, thanks him with her usual proper politeness and would have continued on her way, except that the man stops her abruptly and demands to know who has slashed the bike's tyres.
"I didn't see, sir." Hero temporises for forms sake, telling the man that it was his own son who slashed the tyres didn't seem like the best idea right now.
Mr Edwards made several remarks on the state of moral decay prevalent in modern society, to which Hero returned polite non-committal remarks and would have moved on. But again the man stopped her, this time, by picking up her bike and without comment or ceremony thrust the machine into the Land Rover's boot. "Hop in." he tells her curtly. "I'll drive you home."
Since he didn't wait for an answer, Hero was left with little choice but to do as she was bid and climb into the plush, comfortable, and warm interior of the Land Rover.
Jayden's face was a picture to behold, he was evidently not at all pleased by the turn his little trick had taken. He was wise enough, however, to put on a false smile as his father addresses him.
"Thought I ought to rescue your little school friend, Jay." He tells his son. "Barcroft estate, is it?" He continues now addressing Hero.
Hero blushes hotly and Jayden had to hide a bark of laughter with a false cough, Barcroft was a rundown old council estate build on an old airfield a few miles away.
"Just up the road, sir. The Castle."
There was an awkward pause. "Right, okay, the castle." Jayden's father agrees and drives off with another shower of mud and stones.
The Land Rover bounced over the wreck of the drive with far less trouble then Hero's old bike, but Hero felt her stomach clench with shame as the old dilapidated building came into view. Its towers and turrets covered with ivory, its roof slate green with moss, windows greasy or broken or boarded over. Chickens pecking round in overgrown flowerbeds, sheep grazing in grass that was once wide formal lawns.
Hero could easily read the distain in the faces of both father and son. She slides out of the car and is followed by the father who lifts the bike from the Land Rover's ample boot. He could hardly meet Hero's eye. She thanks him again, very properly, and once again is detained. He had pulled something out of the boot, a bright yellow florescent vest with reflective patches. He pushes it at her impulsively.
"Take it." He practically demands as she opens her mouth to refuse the gift. "That way you'll be safer on that iron monstrosity." With that he climbs swiftly back into the Land Rover and speeds away down the drive.
For a long moment, Hero stands stunned on the wide space before the grand façade of the castle frontage. No one ever used the formal front entrance. In fact Hero couldn't remember the great oversized doors every being opened. Everyone went round, through the arched carriage way, to the courtyard and the back of the castle. For the first time in a long while Hero took a second to stand and look at the edifice. The old weather-beaten arms of her forbearers above the massive oaken twelve foot high door studded with wrought iron; the great windows, the stained glass, the worn statues, and the crumbling stonework.
With a shake of the head she walks round to the back. This was what the castle was to her, the pigs and the chickens, the sheep and the vegetables. That formal grandeur of the castle's front face was part of a life that had vanished before she had ever been born.
Hero would normally have changed before beginning her work with the animals, but considering how muddy she was already, there didn't seem to be much point.
By six o'clock, with the animals fed and watered, and the Old Man as comfortable as she could make him, Hero finally summoned the courage to look at her poor eviscerated bike. She had been avoiding it since she first saw the damage. Hero knew that Jayden Edwards had done it merely to be irritating, he, with his father's warm Land Rover, with his expensive mountain bike, his big new build house in the picturesque hamlet of Lorne, he didn't understand that in slashing Hero's tyres he had as good as crippled her.
She didn't cycle because she enjoyed it, she cycled because that was her only alternative to walking, and walking meant that she would have to set off an hour earlier. She ran a despairing hand through her hair, a search through the spare parts shed had revealed two old tires but only one inner tube, and one was as good as none, really.
Maybe though, just maybe, she could patch the other inner tube well enough to do until she could get into the hardware place tomorrow.
Hero was up to her arms in rubber, glue and chalk in a vain attempt to patch an inner tube that was more hole than rubber when a knock sounded at the door. Hero stood with a sigh and opened the door.
It was a stranger. That wasn't so unusual. Every now and then, land developers sent people round to talk to the Old Man about selling some of his land for housing projects, this was to no avail, he would never see them, but that didn't stop them trying. Other people came too, tradesmen, tinkers, and the like… this man, however, didn't seem to be any of these things, though Hero was hard put to say what he, in fact, was.
He was a tall man and slim, with a sculpted jaw and deep hooded grey eyes, but he was dressed oddly, in strangely miss-matched clothes that he looked ill-at-ease in. "Miss Hero Fayle?" the man asked regarding her slowly for a moment. His eyes taking in the fresh cut over her eye and the newly blossoming bruises. He didn't look impressed and his tone that suggested he'd quite like her not to be Hero Fayle.
Hero nodded, sorry to disappoint him. "Yes, I'm Hero."
"My name is Acer." The man tells her. "Professor Acer. I have come to speak to you and your family."