0 Magnum Mysterium
20 December, 1968:
"Across the pond, NASA is in the final stages of preparing the Apollo 8 mission with astronauts Borman, Lovell and Anders to begin the first manned Moon voyage tomorrow and now for the latest reports out of Parliament inWestminster, London…"
Impatiently, Eileen turns off the radio and looks at her son who's reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at the kitchen table. "Bring in the laundry from the shed's lines, it's going to storm later tonight and you'll want an extra warm blanket for your bed come morning."
She goes back to scrubbing a particularly stubborn spot of grease on a frying pan. The leftover sausages willbe part of their breakfast tomorrow. Tobias didn't show up this evening—he doubtless went down to the pub tonight since it's a payday Friday and good riddance to bad husbands.
Severus sighs dramatically. "Yes mum," he says, sounding tragically put upon, but he sets down his book and slips on his peacoat, which is a bit short on him. He takes Mum's wand from her apron pocket as she continues to scrub.
Hegoes out the kitchen door into the moonless back garden andflicks on the torch. It emits a feeble yellow light that is barely enough to allow him to distinguish the brick path from the few remaining kale plants, dead flowerheads and the vegetable patches with their browning snakelike dead vines.
After a few minutes' walk, he pushes his way into the shed and flicks on the overhead light. He takes the step stool from its place by the southfacing window, stands on it and unclips the sheets and blanket that have been drying in the unnaturally warm space. The wooden clothespins go in an old large tin can on the potting table. He folds the bedclothes and puts them into the basket by the door and puts the stool away.
"Finite incantatum," he says and swishes and flicks his Mum's wand, ending her heating spell. He wishes he could use Lumos to get back to the house; he really doesn't want to end up with the basket's contents toppled on the ground, his body entangled and scratched by the blackberry brambles when he trips over a protruding brick because the torch's batteries are nearly dead.
It's the new moon tonight, so it's very dark. Mum says no spells day or night outside in the garden,that would be ill-advised- a nosy neighbor could be looking out a top floor window and see what she should not see: magic at work in the world.
There's a muffled thump at the shed door that makes him jump. Is Da home already?Silently, wand in hand, he cracks open the door and looks out into the night. A movement at his feet makes him jump back, pointing the wand defensively before he realizes it's a just a very bedraggled looking short-eared owl.
He crouches down to see if it is injured and it half-heartedly pecks in his direction and hops into the shed before extending a leg with a letter attached to it. Cautiously he unties the missive, which is addressed to Eileen Prince, Spinner's Lane, Cokeworth, England. The bird blinks wearily at him and puts its head under its wing, leaning up against the shed's wall.
"I'll be right back with some water and meat," he promises the bird, and takes off at trot for the house, ignoring the uneven spots in the path in his skids into the kitchen, slamming the door behind him.
"Mum! Mum! You've got a letter by owl post and it's really really tired and out in the shed!"
His Mum looks up from the grey dishwater and soap scum in the sink and blinks. She glances at the envelope, smiles a rare mere flicker of a smile and, to Severus' intense disappointment, stuffs it in a pocket for later reading.
"I see…well, give me my wand back and let's not keep my letter carrier waiting for an early Boxing Day benefice." He hands her the wand and she goes to the junk drawer in the china cabinet by the ice box. She digs out a blown fuse, a length of twine and a paper sack that's been folded flat for reuse.
"Take this bowl of water and this old dish towel, Severus."
He does as he's told even though he's consumed with curiosity about Who Magical might have sent Mum a letter. He's never seen a real post owl before up close, just the moving pictures in Mum's storybooks.
Mum makes sure the shed door is firmly shut and the blackout curtain pulled across the window before she turns on the light and transforms the fuse into a dead but still warm mouse, the twine into a live vole over which she mutters a petrifying charm and the paper sack into a box with pine chips and dead grass shavings.
She has Severus put the dish of water next to the two rodents and enlarges the dishtowel into a blanket sized pile of cloth. She applies a localized warming charm to the makeshift nest in the corner while the owl bestirs itself and hoots gratefully before bolting down the mouse like a man throwing back a shot. It trundles like a geriatric goblin over to the dishtowel to settle down.
"Take all the time you need to recover,Hrattvaeng. I thank you and I appreciate your finding me. I'll have a reply for your mistress tomorrow. Severus will bring you more food and water in the morning, slepp vel."
The owl hunkers down a bit more and is out faster than the shed light. Mum picks up the laundry basket Severus forgot and hefts it ontoone hip. She pulls the shed door shut and for good measure puts an overnightconfundus spell on the handle so the owl won't be accidentally disturbed.
"Did you tell it to sleep well in German or Dutch?" he asks when they're back inside the kitchen.
"Icelandic and Hrattvaeng is a female owl, they're a bit larger than the males of that species."
"She came all the way from Iceland with a letter for you?"
"Anna has shown her how to hitch rides on ships bound for Scotland or Ireland so she doesn't needlessly exhaust herself going the whole distance in one leg. Or on two wings, I guess you might say."
"Who's Anna, mum?"
"Ah, that's a good story for solstice tomorrow. Here's your blanket, my Prince," Mum says, and piles the coverlet into his arms and plops Roald Dahl's book on top. He goes upstairs, trailing a woolen corner snakelike behind him. It's just barely gone seven o'clock, but she knows damn well he'll stay up reading his book in his bedroom until at least half-eight while she reads her precious letter and then finishesThe Daughter of Timein her favorite fireside wingback armchair.
Severus is careful to make sure his bedside lamp is turned off before his father can be expected home once the pub stops serving drinks. Hedoesn't want a thrashing for disobeying his Mum, or whatever other excuse Da would manufacture if he saw Severus' light on and wanted to wallop him.
Faithful friends who are dear to us
December 20, 1968 7:15 pm
16 December, 1968
Eileen, dear friend,
I'm going to be in Konungsgurtha -York, I should say, as of the end of December and hoped we might get together there to catch up on our lives in person. A collector in my subject area died recently and I'm one of four book and manuscript dealers in Northern European runes they invited to come over to England sort through his library and make purchase offers on his very extensive collection on Ancient Nordic scripts. Can you tell how much this opportunity makes this book dealer salivate in anticipation?!
Why not take a short holiday –if you can get away from that simian Muggle hubby of yours, that is. Surely you can sweet talk him into making his own meals for a few days? If he says no, how about a nice petrificalis followed by confunduset tempus obscuram with obliviate as a chaser?
I know, I know, your British Ministry is a lot stricter than we are about such things.
Can you get the money to get your train tickets north? I can cover your other expenses.
If you want to bring your boy (it sounds like he takes after his mother with his brains and I would love to meet him) I'm sure we can find something to interest him for a few days. There are several books I'll bring for his late Christmas gift, some things for you, and there are some magical sites to visit here as well. I am sending this to you on Jane Austen's birthday with my Sólstöður/Yule greetings and my best wishes for a wonderful new year to you and young Severus.
(A thousand death shrouds on he-whom-you-married, may trolls devour his abusive hands and feet, may harpies squabble over his intestines while he yet breathes, may salamanders burn his hair and snack on his scalp skin like a bag of crisps. Too bad I stunk at the cursing part of my school's curriculum or you'd have been a very young widow years ago and your laws be damned. But I digress.)
If you are able to come, send a letter by return owl and if not, send me a letter anyway. If you can't join me, I'll send your gifts in January to you the usual way.
I will meet you two under the schedule board in the main train station on the 30th December at noon unless I hear otherwise.
Liberty, Amity and Livres toujours,
your friend Anna
Suthergata St.
Reykjavik, Iceland
In the Bleak Midwinter
December 21, 1968 3:42 a.m.
He wakes up the middle of the long night, happy for the extra blanket around his end of his nose is cold and he breathes into his cupped hands to warm it, wishing he hadn't inherited his Da's huge beak. There's an eerie tapping of ice pellets against his window. The fingernails of malevolent dead souls or banshees might make such a noise, he bets. The panes rattle a bit in the wind.
It's a very good night to be inside where it's warm, to curl up like an owl in a nest and hunker down while the storm blows around the sagging gutters of their roof. He hopes Hrattvaeng will let him pet her tomorrow, so he can see how soft her feathers are. He checked his almanac before he went to sleep. She travelled almost 1800 kilometers, if she came from somewhere near Reykjavik.
To put himself back to sleep, he thinks about all the words that begin with I that he can come up with. He knows his habit of listing things will put him to sleep long before he gets too far in the alphabet.
There are a lot of ice-related ones. Icicles, Ice dams, Ice floes, ice cream, Ireland,island (ile in French) andIceland with its fire salamanders, volcanoes and geysers and ancient language.I is for the pronoun for oneself. I was for idiot, imbecile, ignoramus and ill-advised and illness and influenza, which had carried off his Da's mother in the 1920s.
There is Iris the Greek rainbow goddess and iris the flower and the iris of an eye. Add an H at the end and it became Irish. Mum says you have to pay attention to details, a mispronounced word can totally change an incantation like the difference between using an herb's flower versus its roots can completely change a potion, causing a cauldron to explode. He finds homonyms interesting now that he's having spelling tests at school. He's very good at spelling.
There's inn like "no room at the inn" for Mary and Joseph and in as a place, "born in a manger." They talked about Christmas at school last week and how different people around the world celebrate Christmas. His teacher ignored his question when he asked what about people who weren't Christian, like Jews and Celts and Roman soldiers who worshipped Mithras before Jesus lived, did they celebrate the returning of the light at wintertime?
Sometimes he likes to ask questions that he knows will unsettle his teachers. Mostly, he keeps quiet except when called upon, so he doesn't have to write lines for being impertinent. Another I word. He might be an impertinent brat to his Da, but when he's grown, he wants to be thought of as intelligent and intense and…impressive. On that note, he rolls over, pulls the bedclothes up to his ears and drifts off to sleep again.
Joy shall be yours in the morning
December 21, 1968, 8:44 a.m.
The tea kettle's whistle wakes him. It's not a school day, they have off for over a week for Christmas hols so he's allowed to have a bit of a he opens his eyes, he looksfor a while at the greying slanted ceiling and traces the plaster cracks to the far reaches of the room, until he braces himself for the cold air he'll encounter, stretches, shoves his socked feet into slippers and heads for the loo. Teeth brushed and bladder emptied, he quickly changes from his pajamas and out of the woolen but shabby sleep-socks. Mum knit them over a year ago so they've stretched out some.
He shivers and throws on an undershirt and pants and, heedless of clashing colors, puts on a maroon polo neck, brushes his fine limp hair, and then layers on his favorite pullover. It's an acid green that he likes to think of as venom green. It's getting a bit short in the arms and tight in the torso and Mum's not sure if it will hold another extension spell without unravelling.
He suspects a pullover in an obnoxiouscolour like mustardy yellow that makes his skin look more sicklythan usual, or worse, one that's red, may be among his Christmas gifts. He doesn't like red. It attracts attention and makes it hard for him to escape the bullies' notice in the schoolyard or classroom. A pair of trousers, newer wool socks and beaten up shoes that were his "good shoes" a year back complete his day's ensemble.
He heads downstairs and politely bids Da good morning, quietly so he doesn't make a hungover Tobias wince and lash out. Severus sits at the table with his head down, hair in his eyes and doesn't say anything except "thanks Mum" when she slides a fried egg and last night's sausage and a bit of potato mash onto his plate and brings him his tea, milk with two sugars.
Tobias is downing a second mug of builders tea, dark as his eyes and temper. He gnaws absent mindedly on a piece of buttered toast as he reads about the threatened labour strikes in Northern Ireland. He turns the pages, flicking them like an irritable cat twitches its tail before it pounces and scratches.
After a half-hour's seething at the Cokeworth Chronicle's prose and editorialsTobias tells Eileen not to keep lunch for him, he'll get something at the workingman's club where he'll be shooting snooker and talking with the lads.
Eileen looks at him and says, "Yes, Toby. May your long-odds horses win and your gold flow." Her hand twitches in her apron pocket where she keeps her looks at her oddly, shakes his head like he's confused and then, as an afterthought, he says, "Here's the household money for the fortnight, along with a bit extra I got as a holiday bonus," and stomps off. The house's very walls seem to sigh once he's gone.
Severus looks up at his mum, shaking his hair out of his face. "What did you do to him? And why did you give him a Goblin farewell?"
His mum lets out a short bark of a laugh and puts the pound notes in her apron pocket. "I had some Felix Felicis left, saved for an opportune moment- he got it in his tea and I had some in my tea. The bets he thinks I don't know about him making should bring in enough extra money to sweeten his temper when he finds out you and I have gone to York for a few days after Christmas without him."
"We're taking a trip?Just us?Truly?" He wants to act grownup, but he can't help but bounce in his chair.
His only trip away from Cokeworth had been when he was four and Tobias had a great-uncle die. They attended the funeral, but unfortunately several family members were mentioned in the will, so Tobias' portion was only enough to fix some roof leaks that were beyond the help of discreet Reparos and to cover a few small household repairs.
"Yes, my Prince. Now go feed Hrattvaeng, and I'll tell you our travel plans and about my friend Anna." Eileen doesn't bother with doing the clean up the long way by hand—a few quick household charms and the dishes are clean and dry and floated to the cabinet, the table surface is cleaned of crumbs and the floor mopped.
Severus takes the potato peelings scraps out to the compost pile. He goes out to the shed with a bowl containing another transfigured bit of string turned into a large mouse and a large mug of water for Hrattvaeng's water bowl.
She looks a lot less disheveled by the light of day, so she's been up long enough to preen her feathers into better shape and her eyes are far more alert. She hoots softly at him as he carefully sets down her breakfast.
"Here you go, Hrattvaeng," he says, trying to recall and imitate his mother's pronunciation. "Mum's got another mouse for you and I've got fresh water. You sleppvell?"
He crouches down and rearranges the sleep-flattened clothso it's more circular and owl bobs her head and eats the mouse in very few swallows. She then hops over to where he's crouched and puts her head under his hand. Very carefully he trails his long fingers over her head, back and wings. She does feel soft, but some of her feathers feel springy, too. Her talons are long and look wickedly sharp.
"You must be a terribly strong flier, I looked up how far it was between Coventry and Iceland and you've come a really long way. That must be one important letter," Severus tells the owl. The bird nods again and dismissively turns her back on him and returns to her temporary nest for another nap, so he leaves her to it.
December 21, 1968 late morning
Eileen writes a quick note in reply, that she and Severus will be in York to meet Anna in the station.
She makes two cups of tea for herself and Severus and tells him about the day in Paris she met a salamander familiar and his mistress. She'd been intrigued by the offerings at a Monmartrestreet fair bookstall, some years after World War II had ended.
"It was a heady time to be in Paris, my Prince. There were suddenly no rations on fabric and Dior took advantage of it, fitted bodices with very long and full skirts. Paris was full of lively people trying to shake off the sorrows of war by buying things, going to clubs. And of course a woman in a dazzling dress needs a tempting perfume as well, non? I was an apprentice at Caron, the company that made Or et Noir," she began, blowing on the surface of her tea.
"I couldn't afford all the furs and diamonds, but I could buy books. The salamander I encountered, Oriflamme, was the familiar of Anna Sigurdardottir, the booth's owner. We struck up a conversation about books, runes in Icelandic magic and French perfume and we agreed to meet for coffee at the nearby Wizard café, Le Griffon D'Or. I had a few acquaintances in school, but some had died, some had gotten busy with a career or married and no one wanted to associate with the sister of a defeated dark wizard. Anna didn't know or care about Hogwarts and house rivalries. It was such a relief to just talk with another witch my age, another foreigner making her home in Paris."
Most of the time the salamander had curled up happily, napping in the embers of a small charcoal brazier that heated the stall, but it had condescended to sit in Eileen's hand for a snack. It was almost too hot to hold, even with an Asbestos skin charm in place.
It consumed the bit of amber Eileen had offered it from her necklace of chunky yellow beads. A fragrant resinous smell from its satisfied burp, (accompanied by a wisp of smoke and a few sparks) had lingered on her fingers for days, even after she'd washed her hands several times.
Mum showed him the small flame like scar its flickering whip-like tail had left on her forefinger as it dove back into the flames after its nuncheon. Mum said Anna told her thatOriflamme liked her – it only burned her a little because it was very partial to Baltic amber.
"Will I get to see Oriflamme, Mum?"
"Salamanders have to stay in fire most of the time, so I expect Anna will leave him home. There's a magma seam not far from her farmhouse just outside a small town north of Reyjavik. She's promised to show us around magical York and there's a concert of lessons and carols at the Cathedral we'll go to," she replies.
"Music like Da's music?" he asks, scowling. He didn't like rock music much. Folk was tolerable. BBC's classical offerings he mostly ignored. They usually listened to the Queen's Christmas address, though.
"Much older music than that, it's almost magical, you'll see what I mean when you hear it."
That afternoon when it's dim with twilight, he takes Mum's letter of reply to Anna out to the shed and carefully ties it around Hrattvaeng's leg. He opens the shed door, she looks at him and hoots.
"Goodbye, girl, örugg ferð" said Severus, and ushers her outside. With a few hops and flaps of her wings she takes off, a shrinking speck heading into the grey north. He watches her until she disappears and then dumps the litter box in near the compost pile, picks up the empty bowls and cloth and brings them inside.
Notes:
O Magnum Mysterium: watch?v=yCBh-R_ng9A
In the Bleak Midwinter: watch?v=U0aL9rKJPr4
"Faithful friends who are dear to us"- from Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. Judy Garland's version makes you realize how sad the lyrics really are: watch?v=yudgy30Dd68
"Joy shall be yours in the morning" from Carol of the by Kenneth Grahame fromWind in the Willows. The poem has been set to many different tunes and covered by different people—Bella Hardy does a nice version found in itunes.
Hrattvaeng- Icelandic- Fast wing
Sleppvell-Sleep well
Konungsgurtha-old Norse name for York
Sólstöður-Solstice
Suthergata - naturally a book dealer would want to live near the National Library!
örugg ferð-safe trip