Scriptōris Adnotatio:
So, yeah. I got bored, and my squirrelly little brain needs a break from Colossus now and again, so here you go. It's a list of drabble/scene/character sketch things because I was too lazy to actually write a cohesive story—and, besides, they look cool. :D
The title, the A/N headings, and the list's numbers are all in Latin, to tie in to the spells and because I'm a total Latin nerd who likes to show off. :D (The flat thingies above some of the vowels are long marks or macrons. They are a pain to remember and even more of a pain to type, but they are the reason that Latin is much, much easier to pronounce than English, so I like 'em anyway.)
A note on formatting: because I was feeling hipster, none of the dialogue is in quotes. (I've been reading too many short stories; several very good ones, like Tim O'Brian's "The Things They Carried", don't have normal dialogue.) Instead, it's italicized, though otherwise it is punctuated and capitalized normally. This means that things in the dialogue that usually ARE italicized—i.e., vocally emphasized words, spells, and snippets of foreign language—are in plain font, and, just as if there really WERE double quotes, things quoted in the dialogue have single quotes around them. Thoughts are not italicized, either. In the exposition, some italics are the result of emphasis, but some are quotes that would normally have quotation marks around them. I advise the careful use of context clues to determine the difference. Hopefully y'all won't get TOO confused...
In regards to chronology, this is set an indeterminate amount of time after the Second Wizarding War, by the way—probably in the modern day. Most of the list isn't really in time order, though the second and first two parts of the third can be assumed to be first, and the final seven are more or less after all the others and ARE in order. :)
Oh, yeah, the rating's because 1) a bit of Deryn's cursing actually is real, offensive words, 2) snogging, and 3) because both the parent series are basically rated T anyway. Really, it's not that bad. Also, excessive pronoun usage ahoy... plus the majority of this was written from the hours of 11 p.m. to 2 a.m. two consecutive nights, so some of it might be slightly, er, sleep-deprived. :3
DISCLAIMER: I am not J.K. Rowling or Scott Westerfeld, nor am I both of them at the same time (now THAT would be a good author), so none of this belongs to me, regrettably. It has promise, really it does...
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[ūnus] She is a witch.
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This subject is up for debate, actually, or has been. Not the magical part—the Sharps are one of Britain's oldest and proudest Wizarding families, even if he does hear whispers of blood traitor because her mother is a Muggle—but the female part. He's heard tell of an elaborate prank last school year that involved her older brother Jaspert, a Gender-Switching Jinx, a fictional cousin named Dylan, quite a few Memory Charms, and the headmaster's amused acquiescence. Apparently they had all of the professors and the majority of the student body going till Christmas break.
Dead easy, it was, fooling everybody. Just had to be careful to avoid cold water—it reverses the jinx.
She's now somewhat of a legend among the student body, the likes of which Hogwarts hasn't seen since the Weasley twins, and will stay that way for years to come. It's no less that she deserves.
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[duo] She's nice to complete strangers.
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She walks up to him on the Hogwarts Express, his first day there and only his fifth in Britain. Hullo, are you new?
Yes, he replies. How did you tell? He takes in the short hair, the Scottish accent, the easy grin.
You look the same way I did my first day. Shell-shocked. You a transfer? A Muggle-born?
Yes, he says again, although that isn't the answer she wants.
Well then, reckon you need a guide. She smiles. Picked a sodding awful time to come, didn't you? Fifth year. Don't you know about the O.W.L.s?
I am prepared, he says. I will study.
She's been kind ever since, though he's far from a stranger.
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[trēs] She's the best Gryffindor he's ever met...
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She's got it all—the courage, the bravery, the fiery blaze of a soul implicit in the House colors, the willingness to reach out that so few of her Housemates possess.
As the Sorting Hat rests on his head, the titters of the students who've noticed he isn't a first year dying down, it says, Hmm. Tricky.
Am I? he asks.
It sighs. No doubt your family would want you to go to Slytherin—family connections, training for the future, all that. You could learn something from Hufflepuff, from their warmth. And you could learn more than something from Ravenclaw, as you have all your life. But I think Gryffindor holds something you need to find.
When he tells her about it, about its indecision, she laughs. When I was Sorted, she says, it said, 'I'd be mad not to put you in Gryffindor.'
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...but she could have been in Hufflepuff,
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She helps first years with their books, teachers with cleaning chalkboards, him with anything he's ever needed.
You're wanting a friend, she says, so I'll be one, and she helps him carry him his trunk up the stairs and into the boys' dormitory, explaining all the while about the house-elf laundry service and when breakfast is and if you need anything, you ask for me, you hear?
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or Ravenclaw,
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All of the Sharps have been in it, she says, my da and Jaspert included. But I'm different.
He's glad she broke tradition; who else would tell him how owl post works, or sit with him at lunch even when he's just back from double Herbology and has Stinksap all over him, or tell the Head of House, No sir, it was me, sir, not Alek, or write him notes over their Protean-Charmed parchment when he gets detention anyway?
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or even Slytherin.
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Sometimes, she says, I just want to pound that arrogant bum-rag into dust, and she proceeds to exact an elaborately cunning revenge on unsuspecting Fitzroy involving illegally brewed love potion and the Beauxbatons exchange student that would do any Slytherin proud.
And she has an ambition, a beautiful one: Alek, I want to fly.
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[quattuor] She's much better than he is at classes.
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He's always thought he is intelligent, a good wizard—he's had only the best of tutors—but she puts them all to shame, and the professors smile and say, Well done, Miss Sharp, ten points to Gryffindor, and she grins unabashedly.
By nature, envy has always been one of Alek's sins, and he looks at her and thinks, I want to be like that, but somehow he can't find it in him to be jealous.
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[quīnque] She's good at Transfiguration and Charms.
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Accio, she says, and the missing quill zooms into her hand, or Silencio, and the raven stops mid-croak.
The sock he calls remains stubbornly un-Summoned, and his bird remains derisively noisy, but she takes the time to explain to him and, once he stops thinking about it—you think too bloody much, you daftie! Don't think, just do!—it happens for him, too.
Or the cat turns into a kettle and back again without so much as a stray whisker, and he wonders what she sees that allows her to bend the world like that, to change something to another something it's not.
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[sex] Her work in Defense Against the Dark Arts is exemplary, but he can beat her in a duel two times out of three.
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Stupefy! she says, and the concentrated anger contorts her face, and as the scorch mark appears on the opposite wall, he thinks, I would not want to be on the other end of that.
But when they duel with jets of harmless light and the age-old formalities, finally there is something he can teach her. And it's even more fun when they borrow a few swords—blunted, of course—from the suits of armor and he shows her what six years of fencing lessons have taught him.
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[septem] She sleeps through History of Magic.
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Deryn, he hisses, elbowing her. Deryn, this is important. Deryn, this is interesting.
Nothing you can learn in a musty old classroom that you can't from experience, she mutters, pillowing her head on her arm.
He likes the battles, the dates, the names, but she thinks they're dead, not worth the bother, and sometimes, when he thinks about his own family, what their centuries of history have brought them, he wonders if she may be right.
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[octō] She loves the stars.
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She knows every constellation by heart, and while Alek thinks getting up every Wednesday at midnight for Astronomy is a bother, she's always wide awake and happy to spend hours peering up through a tiny telescope at the endless sky.
It is almost curfew and she's missing, but he finds her there, on her back at the top of the Astronomy Tower, looking up into infinity.
It's late, he says. You need to sleep.
Just a moment, Da, she murmurs, still staring up at the sky as if she looks hard enough, she can catch the past and pull it back to her, finally fix her mistakes.
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[novem] She laughs at Divination.
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Tea leaves, she says, amused. Sparkling glass balls. What can they tell you about the future?
Plenty, he retorts. I grant you that the textbook is mostly rubbish, but prophecies are real. Providence is real.
Providence! she scoffs, looking up from her parchment. There's no such thing!
Explain why the future is predictable, then, he ripostes smugly, sure in his answer.
Explain why tragedies happen. Why do people die, if there's providence? Where's the mercy of God then?
He falls silent. Sorry, he says, hearing the bitterness in her voice.
He can't very well tell her that he believes in providence because he looks up every morning and the result of it smiles at him across the Gryffindor table.
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[decem] Herbology interests her, but she'll spend hours with the magical creatures.
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Even the Venomous Tentacula seems to like her, and it grabs everybody.
She spends hours, though, with Professor Barlow, talking about habitats and ranges and the genetics of magical breeding, and he is jealous until she hauls him with her on a special-credit project, watching the professor's batch of eggs. He's always been twitchy around creatures, even owls and, God help him, toads—tales of Lethifolds and kappas, dragons and dementors still haunt his dreams now and again—but he agrees, however reluctantly, and he feels the gratification along with her as the sticky, big-eyed creature crawls out of its shell.
The headmaster allows him to keep it in his dorm and carry it to classes—the professor is a prominent fabricator of magical species, and she insists that it must stay with him for her experiment to be carried out correctly—and there's something soothing and wise in its serene gaze and something comforting in its (seemingly) meaningless babble.
(A seventh-year Ravenclaw, a friend of hers, names it Bovril for him. He half suspects she fancied Deryn, and Deryn acts a bit oddly around her for a while, but nothing comes of it, and he finds himself strangely relieved.)
Bovril is the first step, but when she coaxes a unicorn foal close enough for him to stroke its velvety gold nose and stare into its liquid trusting eyes, he truly begins to understand her love for beasties.
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[ūndecim] Potions she does not excel at, and she despises it with a fiery passion.
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It's just like cooking, he says, although he himself has never cooked. Follow the recipe and add the ingredients.
Cooking! she cries, throwing her hands in the air and scattering tar-like drops of potion haphazardly. Cooking is for womenfolk, stuck in the kitchen!
Well—you're a woman, he says, flushing slightly. Although perhaps she didn't entirely need the Gender-Switching Jinx last year to pass as a boy, he is becoming more and more aware that, even under her robes, her body is slim but in no way boyish.
She snorts. Not that kind. Last time Ma tried to make me cook something, I set the barking pan on fire.
And her prediction comes true a few weeks later when, with a deafening bang and an impressive shower of sparks, her Draught of Peace explodes. She has to go to the hospital wing to get her singed-off eyebrows grown back and can't stop giggling the whole way there, even though the Potions professor took twenty points off of Gryffindor and more than that from her grade.
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[duodēcim] She hates to study unless the subject catches her fancy, despite his protests.
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I don't understand this rubbish, she complains, throwing down her quill and glaring at a half-completed essay on Vanishing. I can do the charm; why can't they sodding leave it at that? Why do I have to understand why I can do it?
Because the theory is important, he sighs, pulling her paper towards him and scribbling a quick conclusion. There. You happy?
Brilliant! Thanks! She taps the page with her wand (chestnut, thirteen inches, phoenix feather, he imagines Master Ollivander's creaky old voice saying, a strong wand for a strong witch), and his handwriting morphs into hers, a little charm of her own she perfected months ago. She laughs loudly enough for the librarian to glare at her.
Or they're sitting in the common room one spring afternoon, he with his nose in a book, copying Ancient Runes notes, and she staring dreamily through the window at the perfect sky outside.
Alek, she says. Alek, let's go mess with the giant squid.
I'm busy, he snaps, and instantly regrets it as hurt flashed across her face. Don't you have homework to do?
No, she says, challenging, I'm done.
Well, we can't all be as perfect as you, he retorts. It's true: he studies, works hard, but she excels without effort.
No, that we can't, she says with lazy, calculated arrogance, and they both laugh, the argument forgotten.
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[trēdecim] She picks up German remarkably quickly.
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Oi, she says suddenly, one day in the common room, can you teach me your language?
Ja, he says, looking up from his book. Guten Tag, Fräulein Sharp.
She repeats the words back to him, substituting his name for her own, and he laughs.
Nein, nein, Dummkopf, I am 'Herr', not 'Fräulein'. I am not a 'miss'.
She frowns. Dummkopf? she asks.
Stupid-head, literally, he says after a moment's thought. But I suppose you would say 'idiot', or 'ninny', maybe, in your slang.
Well, then, she says cheerfully, if I'm such a Dummkopf, then I don't think I can remember two forms of address. Maybe I ought to be 'Herr Sharp', hmm?
From then on, he calls her Mr. Sharp and she calls him a Dummkopf, but within a couple of months, even with everything else going on, she can conduct a reasonably fluent conversation, and she's already started on his German books.
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[quattuordecim] She can knot a tie faster than any girl ought to.
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Here, she says, pulling his tight with a practiced motion, there you go. All neat and tidy.
Where'd you learn to do that? he asks, their noses almost touching.
She pauses and then backs away. My da taught me, she says finally, slowly, and I've had lots of practice.
He does not ask about it, or the intricate knots she distractedly ties in spare bits of Summoned twine, again.
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[quīndecim] She swears like a sailor.
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It's all peculiar Scots words—Barking spiders! Blisters! Bum-rag! Clart!—but it's rather refreshingly un-ladylike nevertheless.
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[sēdecim] She's arrogant, but in a self-deprecating, swaggering sort of way.
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It's the sort of ironically-aware, inflated ego that one would normally expect from an overconfident teenage boy, but somehow she makes her recklessness work without offending anybody. He knows not to take her seriously when she brags.
Besides, a lack of false modesty in someone so talented is a nice change of pace, and she never fishes for compliments. Often, she is honest about herself in a way most people aren't.
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[septendecim] She's the star of the Gryffindor Quidditch team.
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She's the Seeker, of course, and even though he'd never even seen a Quidditch match before he came to Hogwarts—he'd heard of it, of course, knew the rules, but in isolation attending sports games was difficult—he can tell she's very, very good. She's at home in the sky, loves it there more than anything else, and in nearly all her free time she's out on the pitch, practicing with her teammates or just flying alone, turning loop-de-loops and corkscrews for what looks like the sheer rush of it. This means he spends quite a lot of time in the stands even when she doesn't have a game, cheering her on or just watching her swoop nimbly around like she was born in the air.
My da played professionally, and for Scotland the year we were third in the World Cup, she explains. I've been up on a broomstick ever since I was wee. I've always loved to fly. I'm going to follow in his footsteps one day. Jaspert plays for the Montrose Magpies now, the sod, but I'm loads better than he ever was. Her determination is ironclad despite the plethora of scars she shows and (slightly exaggerated, no doubt) stories she tells, all accumulated from this rather dangerous sport.
There is something enjoyable in watching his friend trounce the other Houses in games, too. She's the Gryffindors' hero.
She tries to teach him too, of course, and he's touched that she would share what seems almost a— a religious pursuit with him. He doesn't have nearly her head for heights or her near-telekinetic mastery of her broom; he gets queasy if he looks down, and occasionally his broomstick bucks him like a wayward horse, or he overcorrects and it flips, dangling him off of it. He doesn't have nearly her grip strength, either, and takes more than one fall. But she assures him he'll get better with time and practice—you're better than some people ever get already, she tells him—and meantime it is enjoyable, taking flights around the grounds with her, or feeling just an edge of that flying rush as he pulls into a shallow dive, or just listening as she talks midair, trying to learn all he can.
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[duodēvīgintī] She's terrifically popular.
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It's not in the traditional girlish way, the lip-gloss-and-gossip way. And it's not as if she has a horde of friends (although she has some, of course; her best before Alek arrived seems to be another Gryffindor fifth year named Eugene Newkirk)—it's more that, laying the whole Quidditch-hero issue aside, everybody just likes her, a testament to her natural charisma. She is easy with people, and she can talk to anybody about anything—friends, relatives, classes, Quidditch, even the weather, it doesn't matter what. She can make anything sound meaningful, like a connection, no matter how trivial, and people love her for that, for that and her dry humor and her legendary pranks. Everybody in the fifth year—and, he suspects, many in the years above and below as well—has heard of Deryn Sharp.
At first, he thinks he envies her social ease, her gift for saying the right thing. Then—and this confuses him—he comes to the slow realization that it is not her he envies, but the people she lavishes her attention on, rather irrationally so. He is thrown into a tailspin until she says, with that gift she has, her voice laden with raw sincerity, You're my best friend, Alek, I don't want you to ever think differently, and the nasty, oozing ache of jealousy in his chest is banished by the spreading warmth her reassurance radiates.
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[ūndēvīgintī] She sees things that he can't.
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They are walking in the Forbidden Forest one day—her idea, not his, although he has come to enjoy the guilty rush of rule-breaking—when she gasps, softly.
What are those? Her voice is fearful, something that he has never before heard, and so he whips around to scan where her eyes were fixed.
What are what, Deryn? he asks, slightly irritated, thinking that this is all a joke—soon she'll grin and laugh at him for being so gullible. There's nothing there.
The— the horses! she sputters. The skeletal ones— black— bat wings— they look— they look dead— don't wind me up, Alek, they're right there!
I can't see anything, he says gently. He's heard of exam stress making people hallucinate, or maybe the shadows and her own fears are playing tricks on her eyes. I don't think—
They're there! she insists, her voice rising almost to hysteria. You must be joking, Alek—the massive, black, plainly-visible Inferi horses! Unless— She cuts herself off suddenly, her eyes widening, and refuses to reveal what is obviously an epiphany, even when he presses her.
Later, he asks Professor Barlow about skeletal black horses that only some people can see, making it sound as if it is something he came across in his reading and was mildly curious about. She smiles grimly.
Thestrals, she says. Carnivores, though they don't often attack humans. We have a herd here—they pull the 'horseless' carriages. They can only be seen by someone who's seen death.
Do you mean—
Yes, the professor says softly. Yes, you have to watch someone die to see them. It is a terrible price.
He is left with a feeling of terror—that he was meters from those beasts and knew nothing—and a gnawing curiosity: who has Deryn seen die? And why hasn't she told him about it?
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[vīgintī] She has secrets,
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My da... she says. He waits. For what, he isn't entirely sure (her stories about her father are many and varied and have morals and meanings ranging from You shouldn't try to count the stars, because you'll never catch infinity to And that's why you should never step on a slug), but certainly not for what he hears.
He's dead. He's two years dead. Broom crash.
But you talk about him—
In past tense. Only in past tense. She turns her head, looks directly into his eyes. It was my fault.
She says, He haunts me.
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and she can keep his, too.
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He tells her everything, all of it, 'Hohenberg' isn't my actual name, it's really von Hapsburg, my parents are dead, my granduncle killed them because my mother's blood wasn't pure and almost started the Third Wizarding War, I grew up with tutors because my family wants to deny I'm a wizard, I'm here in hiding—
and waits for her to turn away, for the rumors to spread through the school, even though she's sworn herself into silence.
She looks at him, processing, no doubt, that her friend is heir to one of the oldest Wizarding dynasties on the Continent. Then she puts an arm around him, brushes a strand of hair off his damp cheeks, says, Shhh, it's all right, poor laddie, I won't tell.
A month later, when he's heard not a whisper of his identity, he knows he can trust her with anything, don't mix with halfbloods be damned.
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[vīgintī ūnus] She's terrible to have rows with.
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I love you! she screams, finally, fed up with the waiting. God only knows why.
He stares at her in incomprehension. But— Halfbloods as friends? Not a problem. Halfbloods as girlfriends? He'll be laughed out of the family, never mind that most of them want him dead anyway.
I trusted you! he says. I thought that we could be— but you're just a liar!
She punches him then, in the stomach. They both cry.
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[vīgintī duo] Her Patronus is beautiful.
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The key to this, says the Defense professor, is to imagine the happiest thing you can. It is not your magical skill—although this is typically regarded as N.E.W.T.-level magic—but your strength of will. I've known third-years with corporeal Patronuses. But still—don't be discouraged if you can't just yet.
She looks across at him, her face cold. He does not want to imagine what her happy thought is. Expecto Patronem!
It bursts fully formed out of her wand, a hawk—no, an eagle, noblest of birds, like the one that has decorated his family crest for six centuries. It fits her like a hand in a well-tailored glove, a missing piece in a puzzle, a wand in its wizard's hand, a heart with its soulmate. Momentarily, he can do nothing but gaze at it in awe.
Oh, well done, Miss Sharp! cries the professor, applauding. She looks at him again, a challenge in her eyes: Beat that.
So he does, or tries, but someone, somewhere, is mocking him, because his is a mirror of hers, down to each feather, exactly the same.
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[vīgintī trēs] So is she.
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He watches through the Omnioculars as she speeds near the ground, nearer and nearer, the other Seeker up to the bristles of her broom, and makes a great snatch at the air.
A moment later she tumbles from the sky, her broom crashing with her as finally even her skill gives way, but she looks up, triumphant, and gives a cry of victory when anyone else would be screaming in pain, the Snitch clutched tightly in her bloody fist. She is a goddess of war, of defiance.
He is down on the pitch almost before the referee, and it is he who half-carries her in front of a mob of cheering Gryffindors, to the hospital wing because she cannot walk by herself.
He stays there, too, by her side and allowing her to clutch his hand against the pain, as the Quidditch Cup victory celebration rages in the common room above.
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[vīgintī quattuor] She makes the world feel right-side up again.
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He is confused, dizzy, the earth and sky spinning in blurry circles around him. What— what happened?
You hit your head, says his best friend. You're—oh, God, Alek, you came out here in this storm to get me and the Whomping Willow got you but good. You're bleeding.
He realizes, vaguely, that they're in another tree, where his broom must have spun after the Willow hit him. His forehead is warm and wet, and his body is cold and wet, except where she's pressed against him, holding him upright. Did I save you? he manages.
Aye, you did. Got right in the way like a proper Dummkopf and took the blow for me. He hopes the affection he hears in her voice is not the product of the confusion in his throbbing head.
Like a proper gentleman, you mean, he mumbles. His eyes begin to close. I'm sleepy.
No! Don't bloody go to sleep on me! This time, he is sure, the worry cannot be imagined, unless of course he is hallucinating this whole incident. Keep talking! If you go to sleep... you might not wake up again.
Talk about what? The world is getting dimmer, more distant, as he begins to float out of her grip.
Alek!
Her kiss is an anchor, pinning him in place, the only solid thing in a world of mist, more powerful and desperate even than the storm.
Fire magic has not a hope of matching its heat, and suddenly he is not cold or sleepy at all as he kisses her back.
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[vīgintī quīnque] She is the love of his life,
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O.W.L.s are over, finally. He thinks he did better than he had a right to and knows it is because she stayed up with him, studying hour by hour, right by his side.
His guardian's voice echoes in his ears, a begrudging, snarling promise because he pleaded shamelessly: If you do well on your examinations, you can stay. But they will find you, eventually... unless you sever ties.
Sitting here near the top of the very tree he crashed into, with her by his side, he no longer can bring himself to care about the Austrian Wizarding government. It is what he was born to do... but now it seems much farther than half a continent away. Why did his parents die for it?
I will not forget you, he promises them silently. And maybe this is what his father would want for him, after all: not vengeance or hatred, but happiness.
He, too, loved a girl whose blood was not pure.
Deryn, he says, and he tells her yes, because she already knows the decision he has (had, now) to make.
It is all worth it, the look in her eyes, and her thanks is very enthusiastic indeed. They almost fall out of the tree.
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and he is not
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(By seventh year, they are that couple, the reason why you knock before entering a classroom or a bathroom, and why you never, ever open a broom cupboard unless you really have to.)
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going
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(Two years later, the officiator is saying, I declare you bonded for life, and the shower of silver falls, a different kind of Unbreakable Vow.)
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to let her
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(Sophie is born two years after that, and within a year she is zooming around on her toy broomstick like a professional, giggling like mad as her mother chases her and he looks on in amusement.)
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go.
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(—till death do us part.)
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Nota Bene:
A Protean Charm, when cast on two or more objects, makes them mimic each other; if one changes, the other does, too. If two pieces of parchment have this cast on them, the words written on one will appear on the other. It's a N.E.W.T.-level spell, but hey—Hermione did it fifth year. ;)
According to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, the definitions of "envy" and "jealousy" are, respectively, "the feeling of wanting to be like someone else" and "1) an unhappy or angry feeling of wanting to have what someone else has; 2) such a feeling caused by the belief that someone you love likes or is liked by someone else". So yes, the distinction is subtle, but it's there.
From Master Ollivander's compilation of notes on the various wand woods: "The wand of chestnut is attracted to witches and wizards who are skilled tamers of magical beasts, those who possess great gifts in Herbology, and those who are natural fliers." And I couldn't resist THAT, now could I?
The Montrose Magpies are a team in the British and Irish Quidditch League, out of Montrose, Scotland. Since Glasgow doesn't have a team of its own, I had to improvise. :)
"I declare you bonded for life" is a phrase directly quoted from Bill and Fleur's wedding, but as Deryn is a half-blood, I should think she would be familiar with Muggle wedding vows too. ;)
And that's that! Drop me a review if you liked it, or if you hated it, or if it confused you, or if you think it could be improved somehow... anyway, if it put any thought at all into your head, REVIEW!