Submitted for Round 4 of The International Wizarding School Championship.
School: Durmstrang
Year:
Theme: GrindelwaldWon!AU
Main prompt: Snowing [Weather]
Optional prompts: None.
Word count: 1,502
Author's Note: A late entry. But one that still wouldn't have been if it hadn't been for my friend Tee, who helped me overcome my fears and blocks. Thank you.
Something Wicked This Way Looms
Snow drifts and twirls down, down to the polished, worn cobblestone street that cuts across the quiet medieval-like European town. Twilight was an hour off still but the light was already dimmed to match the time where shadows and darkness ruled.
Two lone figures huddled together, their joint warmth helping to keep the bitter cold that occupies the snow back for a while longer. Their destination was only a few hundred feet away.
A small herbal shop that prepares mixtures of herbal cures to whoever was in need of such medicine and had silver they were willing to part with for their cure.
A shop where the first story was where these two women lived and where a thin layer of snow had already begun to blanket the roof.
"Not too far now, Grandmama." the youngest of the pair observed after noticing the slight shiver and waver in her great grandmother's steps. The snow did not make the rounded cobblestones any easier to trespass and she knew what a fall could mean for her Grandmama.
Nevertheless, Grandmama batted the offered hand of her ward away.
"I am not a hopeless old woman, Isabella. Not yet anyway."
"I know, Grandmama." Isabella thinned her lips but respectfully kept from voicing her opinion that anyone past a hundred was old.
Finally, just as the snow picked up its speed to where it was angrily dancing betwixt and between them like a mad ballet group, they arrived home.
A cry of welcome greeted them from Grandmama's pet phoenix, Alistair, as they hurriedly crossed the back threshold and into the warmed backroom of the shop. The fire they had set before their journey into the woods to fetch more ingredients to ease Alistair's molting and obvious anxiety was still crackling tirelessly away in the grated hearth. The red flames lapping and spewing heat out into the modest room. Various herbs hung from the rafters by string, each labeled by Isabella's own hand. Star charts and illustrations of different palms for purposes of palmistry adorned the walls. Crystal balls twinkle and reflect the warm yellow of the fire back from their station ontop the cabinet of potions and elixirs she had brewed under her Grandmama's guidance even though Isabella wasn't magical like her great grandmother this was her school room in the arts and ways of the Romani, of her people.
"Brew Alistair's elixir," Grandmama commanded as she handed over the basket filled with the six ingredients needed to brew the combination calming and reviving potion Grandmama had created just for her late husband's companion nearly eighty years previously. "while I see to these berries and nuts."
Isabella nodded as Grandmama climbed the stairs to their kitchen. She already knew that the heavy basket on Grandmama's arm held thrice the amount of any ordinary basket. (Another perk of magic she would never be able to use like her Grandmama could.) Jellies and baked fruit and nut bread would be a celebrated treat with the harsh weather predicted to stay with them for the next eight days.
And, with the gathering storm of the approaching announcement that had promised to, "change the course of all our lives and brighten our future" according to the press. Interestingly enough Grandmama had grown extremely cautious and wary of this announcement. While Isabella did not know what to think or feel—albeit she too had felt that this was something more ominous than beneficial.
The next hour flew by as both women saw to their own tasks, neither knowing the full impact the announcement carried till the next morning when Isabella had suffered through the snow to acquire the morning paper from the train station's newsstand, a block over.
Its screaming headlines caught Isabella by surprise.
Magic is Real!
Wizards, witches, and other mythical creatures living among us and have been for years!
The veil of secrecy has been rent asunder this morning as Gellert Grindelwald revealed his wizardry and that other magical persons have been living with us in secret for centuries.
"We are humans just as you yet better." Grindelwald declared as he gave his speech in the League of Nations yesterday. "Together we can stop death and poverty; hunger and infirmity. Together we can guarantee the complete abolishment of war that we all crave. That another generation may never be lost again."
Isabella couldn't believe her eyes as she continued reading the account of this Grindelwald. She paled when she read the ending paragraph.
The League of Nations has issued plans to all nations and how to take a census of their citizens to help determine each nation's next action concerning this grand revelation.
This did not bode well. Not one bit.
"We have never claimed our magical status one way or another. When the census man comes, do as I do and not volunteer anything he does not ask for."
"Yes, Grandmama." Isabella readily replied. A week had passed since the world was forced to face the reality that magic was not merely elements of fairy tales or parts of old myths from ancient civilizations long pass but a living ability that countless persons had been hiding.
"I fear for us, Isabella. For you. I remember when Napoléon and his men marched through town. I was but a small child, but I remember it well. They left with such vigor and promise. Victory was clear and true, or so they thought." Grandmama petted Alistair as she turned to the window and the white carpet of snow that buried the land around them. The occasional snowflake still floating down from the grey clouds above. "It was cold like this. No, colder. It snowed for what seemed like an eternity, but we still had it better than those poor men."
Isabella stepped closer to Grandmama. She had never heard this story before, and she wanted to know what happened even though she feared that it would be a sorrowful one she had to know.
"They come back defeated. They were like animated corpses. Where smiles once were shallow and skeletal features had captured them. If they were lucky, only fingers and toes were lost. Most were not lucky."
"That's terrible Grandmama."
"It is a fate I plan to avoid for us but only if we can keep to our shadows. Neither declaring one side or another."
The ringing of the shop's bell alerted Isabella, and she hurriedly left the back room to find not a customer but Nathan, a distant cousin who worked for the government.
"Nathan, how are you? What brings you all this way in weather like this?"
Surprisingly Nathan ignored her questions and quickly took hold of her by her shoulders. "Isabella, has anyone come by taking the census?"
"No. It should not be for a few days yet."
Relief flooded Nathan's eyes. He wasn't too late. "Where's Mama Cleo?"
"In the back-"
"I am here." Grandmama corrected as she walked through the beaded curtain divider to join them. "What troubling news have you brought us, Nathan."
"It's not safe for you here like this. They have a potion, one that can make you answer truthfully to whatever they ask of you, and they are giving it to everyone suspect of being a witch or wizard. And, that isn't the worse of it. I heard that they plan to gather up all the magicals and expel them out of the country."
Isabella gasped while Grandmama hummed, she had feared as much. She had long seen it in her crystals.
"What do we do?"
Nathan sighed and straightened his shoulders. "Marry me, Isabella. They are not interviewing government workers or their immediate family. I can protect you and Mama Cleo but only if we marry right away. Today."
Isabella was speechless. She had never considered Nathan as a husband nor had she seen him as a lover, even if they were fifth cousins and could legally and morally be so. She just had not.
She closed her eyes. If it meant staying in her land and protecting Grandmama, then she would do it.
"Yes, I shall marry you." the words were heavy and binding. Had she done right?
"What about our shop?"
Nathan smiled. "That's easy Mama Cleo. I make enough to keep us without it. We will sell it-"
"No," both Grandmama and Isabella promptly replied.
"We are needed here. Our remedies are needed by too many people to forgo it."
"Then I'll move in here with you," Nathan hesitantly offered.
Having no magic himself the old store had always felt eerie to him. He had never pictured himself living within its walls but for Isabella's sake, he would. He had always loved her. He would do anything for her, even this.
"It is settled then. Now off to the magistrate with you two. Time is of the essence."
As Nathan helped Isabella put on her coat, she couldn't help but wonder why both her great grandmother and cousin seemed joyed about the marriage. It was one out of necessity, not love, was that something to be cheerful about? She did not think so.
Then again, with the ever-threatening political and social storm looming over them all, perhaps even a marriage of convenience was something to celebrate. To cherish.
The End
Disclaimer: Gellert Grindelwald and the Wizarding World isn't mine. I'm just playing with the universe.
(Edited to include disclaimer.)