Eagle Eyes: The Quest for Rowena
By Raquel
Prologue
Until 1878, it was standard practice among wizard kind to sent wrongdoers back in time to languish in the Dark Ages until they died. Which, due to the fact that they were sent to the Dark Ages, was invariably several hundred years before their sentencing. In fact, they then died before they were born, causing several people many headaches as they tried to plot the lifelines of their ancestors. It was a rather interesting case that involved a man becoming his own great-grandfather that finally got the practice abolished.
The wrongdoers were brought back from the Dark Ages (causing more headaches as they abruptly became several hundred years older) and either released or put in a temporary prison. Azkaban opened in 1893, a new prison for a new century, and by 1900, almost everyone had forgotten about the old practices.
Except for one man.
His name was Waldo Tribune, and he was certifiably mad. He was also one of the most indispensable members of the Department of Mysteries because he was the only living human being that could see into the future and the past. (This was widely accepted as the reason for his madness) Waldo was tall and thin and crooked, with bright white hair and a cast in his right eye that made it point perpetually upwards. It was unsettling to talk to him; to stand there and wonder what Waldo's eye was looking at. At the exact same time, you had to try to piece together what Waldo was talking about, because he talked alternately in a giggling whisper and a maniac shout that drew the attention of people standing a football field's length away. For these reasons, people went out of their way to avoid him, sometimes several hundred miles out of their way.
It was sometime in late February when Waldo hit on something big. Hugely big. In fact, it was so hugely impressively big that he left his office to let the Minister of Magic know about it. Unfortunately, once he left his office, he immediately forgot what on earth he had left it for and wandered around trying to remember why he was holding an umbrella without a handle and a map of southwestern Colombia.
It took him quite a long time to remember why-almost ninety-five years. By this time one of the janitors had found him lurking in a corner drawing plans for a better espresso maker on dirty tiles ripped from the women's bathroom. Waldo's office had not been cleaned once in his absence, and once he'd been re-locked inside by the janitor, he spent three weeks scraping the dust from all his plans into the umbrella. Then he went on to tweezing the mold out of the carpet, and.
Well, to tell the truth, it was February the next year when Waldo remembered why he'd left his office ninety-six years before. This time, due to an uncharacteristic amount of insight, he sent an owl to the Minister of Magic instead of trying to find him himself.
It took a month for the reply, which was because Waldo had written in ancient Sumerian. But he did get a reply.
YOU STUPID WANKER, the note read. WHY DIDN"T YOU TELL US THIS SOONER?
In reply Waldo sent the espresso plans and the map of Colombia. Three weeks later he was relived of his duties and sent to the Incurable ward at St. Mungos, finally filling the bed that had been reserved for him for most of his long life. Fudge, however, was screwing himself up to begin preparations for the largest full-scale manhunt since Sirius Black.
Not that he felt the public needed to know anything about it. No sense in worrying the public now, when it was so close to reelection time.
Chapter 1: Dudley's Black Eye
The rather depressing and completely uneventful July that followed the rather exciting and action-packed end of term Harry had had sent him in to a sort of stupor. Most of his energy went into staring blankly out of the window or at his wall by turns, though twice a week he sent letters to Mad- Eye Moody, who was as good as his word and after not hearing from Harry for a week had Apparated into the Dursley's living room. The chaos that that had caused still brought a smile to Harry's face, albeit a weak one.
In fact, the most interesting thing that had happened that July was playing itself out downstairs, though Harry didn't know it until Uncle Vernon's voice echoed up through the heating vents, loud and raspy with rage. It was motivation enough for Harry to get off his bed and creep over to his door to see if what was happening had anything to do with him-though he had sent a letter to Moody less than a day before.
"-hope you gave better than you got, Dudley," Uncle Vernon was growling from the living room. "Can't count on another boxing title with this."
"He snuck up on me," whined Dudley. "I could have beaten him to a pulp in a fair fight."
"What kind of world is it where nice boys get picked on?" Aunt Petunia moaned. Harry, though shut inside his room, could see his boney aunt wringing her hands together. "That eye looks dreadful, Diddy-kins." Harry pushed his door open a crack, his curiosity getting the better of him. So Dudley had found a decent opponent at last. Harry would have paid quite a few Galleons to see Dudley get exactly what he deserved.
At the base of the stairs, Harry paused, caught between horror and laughter.
Dudley's eye was completely swollen shut, and was the sort of sickly purplish-black of old liver with a rich variety of orange and green-purple shadows that played down his fat cheek and up past his eyebrow. This meaty effect was increased by the fact that Dudley's face had quite a lot of flesh on it, and by the large bloody steak that Aunt Petunia was flapping at him. He did not see Harry because his cousin was on his blind side, but Harry knew that it wouldn't be long. He quickly snuck out the front door, knowing that if Dudley saw him, he would be pressed into servitude.
He set off to the play park, hoping that the primary school children wouldn't be there, and at the same time knowing that if they were they would run as soon as they saw him. The thought depressed him thoroughly.
I'm quite nice, or at least I think I am, Harry thought. Not that the neighbors are really to blame, they only really know what they're told.
The playground was mostly empty. A few seven-year-olds played a spirited game of football in the field just beyond the monkey bars, and a girl with long wavy blonde hair sat on the only swing that wasn't broken, her back to Harry. She was so very thin and staring so very vaguely into the distance that Harry called out before he could stop himself: "Luna?"
The girl looked up. It was most definitely not Luna Lovegood. This girl didn't have the same bulging eyes or the bemused expression that most commonly decorated Luna's remote features. She did have very long blonde hair, but her face was covered in much the same colors as Dudley. In fact, one of her lips was still bleeding, leaving a small dark stain on the gray collar of her blazer. Her eyes pinned Harry on the spot: pale blue eyes with black rims, eyes like the flat smooth ice that forms on still water.
"My name isn't Luna," she said, wincing as her face moved. "And if you're one of the bastards who beat me up, have the decency to wait until I can move before you come back for a second round."
"It was you who put that black eye on Dudley?" Harry gasped. The girl nodded, her lip bleeding into the stiff white collar above her gray blazer. Grimacing, she blotted it with her sleeve.
Her eyes rounded with recognition. "You must be the Potter boy," she muttered around her sleeve. "Well, I could still kick you around, even if you are a criminal." Examining the blood on her sleeve, she glared at him. "That blonde monkey is your cousin? Guess criminal tendencies run in your family." She kicked at the gravel under the swings with a pair of dirty old trainers that clashed violently with the neat gray uniform of Stonewall High.
"I was supposed to go to Stonewall High," Harry said conversationally.
"Yea, I've heard. What happened to you? Beat the snot out of Dudley?" she snorted with laughter at the unlikelihood of this ever happening.
Harry leaned against the swing set and watched the football players. "I blew up my aunt."
The girl nearly fell off the swing. Her head snapped around, sending her long blonde hair flying. "You-blew up your aunt?" Her mouth fell open, then she closed it. "Yea right, you probably robbed a corner store or something." She began examining her face with thin fingers. "If you blew up your aunt it would have been in the papers."
"It took a bit of hushing up, yea. But I've got millions of dollars in stolen goods, so it was a snap," Harry said dryly. The girl glared at him again, one of her hands tenderly examining a rising black eye. "Don't be an ass. Of course I'm not a criminal."
"If you aren't a criminal, then why aren't you here half the year?"
"Private school."
"Hey, my dad works for your uncle and he is a bloody tightwad. How did you weasel enough money for private school out of him?" the girl demanded then winced as the splits below her eyebrows broke open. "Bloody hell." She leaned forward to stop the blood running into her eyes, her long hair hanging over her puffy and discolored face.
"Are you going to be all right?" Harry asked automatically.
"Yea, I guess. I've had worse." She tenderly blotted the splits, her face irritated behind the bruises. "Of course, that was in a fair fight." She twirled the swing around, winding up the chain until she was a foot higher off the ground. "You've got good manners for a hopeless criminal," she said as the swing unwound. "Better manners than your bloody cousin, anyway."
"Should I take offense at that?"
She laughed as the swing finished unwinding. "I guess you should. I would. He looks a bit porcine if you ask me."
"So why did you hit him?" Harry asked after a pause.
The girl made a rude noise. "'S none of your damned business. Let's just say he ran out of boys to hit." She glanced up at Harry. Her eyes, though bruised and quite puffy, were an amazing shade of blue. "That's an interesting scar."
They talked for quite awhile, about nearly everything. While comparing childhoods, Harry learned that her name was Pallas Leander and she lived on number 14 Magnolia Crescent. She was three years younger than he was, and hated Stonewall High with a passion. Harry couldn't talk as much as she could: there were several hundred wizarding laws to which he would have to answer if he said anything about what he actually did for most of the year. Pallas, however, didn't seem to notice his silence.
"What about you? What do you do now, besides serve time?"
At least he thought she hadn't noticed. "Not much. Private school isn't much different than Stonewall High."
"Better uniforms, probably. I feel like someone's dirty rags in this."
"A bit better, yeah." Pallas shot another piercing look in his direction, but didn't continue probing. She unwound again, her skinny legs flying out as she spun. "Actually, I thought you were one of my friends from school."
"Luna?" Pallas replied. "Yes, that did seem an odd way to greet a perfect stranger." The swing stopped turning and she swayed back and forth, shaking her head to clear it. "God, that's dizzy."
There was a dull thud as the soccer ball the younger children were playing with sailed over the monkey bars and landed near Harry's feet. Automatically he picked it up to throw it to the dark-haired girl who had come trotting after it. As he straightened, however, the girl looked at him with wide eyes and stopped moving towards him. Pallas watched with mild interest.
Harry threw the ball towards the little girl, accepting with a sinking heart that she'd probably been warned to stay away from 'that Potter boy'. It hit her in the stomach, and, more out of surprise than the force of the throw, she toppled off her feet and burst into tears. Guiltily Harry started towards her, but the girl scrambled away.
"Oh, don't be stupid," Pallas snapped at her. "He's not going to hurt you." The girl grabbed the ball and ran away. "Soft little idiot."
Harry sighed and sat down on the mulch that surrounded the swings. "It's nothing. I'm used to it."
Pallas snorted. "If you are, then you must be more messed up than I thought." When Harry looked up indignantly, she elaborated, "No one should be used to that kind of fear."
"I didn't say I enjoyed it!"
"I didn't say you did." Pallas glared right back at him, her bruises darkening with anger.
"Well I guess I'm too used to people whispering about me and having stupid misconceptions about what I'm like! Sorry!" Harry snapped, throwing a woodchip at the play set. It shattered enjoyably. "I mean, do I want to be famous? No!"
Pallas didn't say anything for a good minute or so, but then she turned to Harry with an odd look on her face. "Do me a favor, Harry," she said, sounding perfectly friendly. "Take a tight hold on your ears, and give them a good tug."
"Why?"
"Because maybe that will get your head out of your ass!" She got up off the swing and stalked away, her long hair blowing around her gray jacket. Harry snorted and leaned back against the swing set. He was rather glad she had left. It saved him from having to think up a reply to her extraordinary statement.
With a groan, he heaved himself to his feet and slouched back to Privet Drive, dreading the reception he was bound to receive.
Author's Note: Well, it lives. That's all I have to say, because I hate these end-of-story things anyhow. Chapter two is currently in editing and may or may not make it up on the site in two or three days. Review, if you don't mind.
By Raquel
Prologue
Until 1878, it was standard practice among wizard kind to sent wrongdoers back in time to languish in the Dark Ages until they died. Which, due to the fact that they were sent to the Dark Ages, was invariably several hundred years before their sentencing. In fact, they then died before they were born, causing several people many headaches as they tried to plot the lifelines of their ancestors. It was a rather interesting case that involved a man becoming his own great-grandfather that finally got the practice abolished.
The wrongdoers were brought back from the Dark Ages (causing more headaches as they abruptly became several hundred years older) and either released or put in a temporary prison. Azkaban opened in 1893, a new prison for a new century, and by 1900, almost everyone had forgotten about the old practices.
Except for one man.
His name was Waldo Tribune, and he was certifiably mad. He was also one of the most indispensable members of the Department of Mysteries because he was the only living human being that could see into the future and the past. (This was widely accepted as the reason for his madness) Waldo was tall and thin and crooked, with bright white hair and a cast in his right eye that made it point perpetually upwards. It was unsettling to talk to him; to stand there and wonder what Waldo's eye was looking at. At the exact same time, you had to try to piece together what Waldo was talking about, because he talked alternately in a giggling whisper and a maniac shout that drew the attention of people standing a football field's length away. For these reasons, people went out of their way to avoid him, sometimes several hundred miles out of their way.
It was sometime in late February when Waldo hit on something big. Hugely big. In fact, it was so hugely impressively big that he left his office to let the Minister of Magic know about it. Unfortunately, once he left his office, he immediately forgot what on earth he had left it for and wandered around trying to remember why he was holding an umbrella without a handle and a map of southwestern Colombia.
It took him quite a long time to remember why-almost ninety-five years. By this time one of the janitors had found him lurking in a corner drawing plans for a better espresso maker on dirty tiles ripped from the women's bathroom. Waldo's office had not been cleaned once in his absence, and once he'd been re-locked inside by the janitor, he spent three weeks scraping the dust from all his plans into the umbrella. Then he went on to tweezing the mold out of the carpet, and.
Well, to tell the truth, it was February the next year when Waldo remembered why he'd left his office ninety-six years before. This time, due to an uncharacteristic amount of insight, he sent an owl to the Minister of Magic instead of trying to find him himself.
It took a month for the reply, which was because Waldo had written in ancient Sumerian. But he did get a reply.
YOU STUPID WANKER, the note read. WHY DIDN"T YOU TELL US THIS SOONER?
In reply Waldo sent the espresso plans and the map of Colombia. Three weeks later he was relived of his duties and sent to the Incurable ward at St. Mungos, finally filling the bed that had been reserved for him for most of his long life. Fudge, however, was screwing himself up to begin preparations for the largest full-scale manhunt since Sirius Black.
Not that he felt the public needed to know anything about it. No sense in worrying the public now, when it was so close to reelection time.
Chapter 1: Dudley's Black Eye
The rather depressing and completely uneventful July that followed the rather exciting and action-packed end of term Harry had had sent him in to a sort of stupor. Most of his energy went into staring blankly out of the window or at his wall by turns, though twice a week he sent letters to Mad- Eye Moody, who was as good as his word and after not hearing from Harry for a week had Apparated into the Dursley's living room. The chaos that that had caused still brought a smile to Harry's face, albeit a weak one.
In fact, the most interesting thing that had happened that July was playing itself out downstairs, though Harry didn't know it until Uncle Vernon's voice echoed up through the heating vents, loud and raspy with rage. It was motivation enough for Harry to get off his bed and creep over to his door to see if what was happening had anything to do with him-though he had sent a letter to Moody less than a day before.
"-hope you gave better than you got, Dudley," Uncle Vernon was growling from the living room. "Can't count on another boxing title with this."
"He snuck up on me," whined Dudley. "I could have beaten him to a pulp in a fair fight."
"What kind of world is it where nice boys get picked on?" Aunt Petunia moaned. Harry, though shut inside his room, could see his boney aunt wringing her hands together. "That eye looks dreadful, Diddy-kins." Harry pushed his door open a crack, his curiosity getting the better of him. So Dudley had found a decent opponent at last. Harry would have paid quite a few Galleons to see Dudley get exactly what he deserved.
At the base of the stairs, Harry paused, caught between horror and laughter.
Dudley's eye was completely swollen shut, and was the sort of sickly purplish-black of old liver with a rich variety of orange and green-purple shadows that played down his fat cheek and up past his eyebrow. This meaty effect was increased by the fact that Dudley's face had quite a lot of flesh on it, and by the large bloody steak that Aunt Petunia was flapping at him. He did not see Harry because his cousin was on his blind side, but Harry knew that it wouldn't be long. He quickly snuck out the front door, knowing that if Dudley saw him, he would be pressed into servitude.
He set off to the play park, hoping that the primary school children wouldn't be there, and at the same time knowing that if they were they would run as soon as they saw him. The thought depressed him thoroughly.
I'm quite nice, or at least I think I am, Harry thought. Not that the neighbors are really to blame, they only really know what they're told.
The playground was mostly empty. A few seven-year-olds played a spirited game of football in the field just beyond the monkey bars, and a girl with long wavy blonde hair sat on the only swing that wasn't broken, her back to Harry. She was so very thin and staring so very vaguely into the distance that Harry called out before he could stop himself: "Luna?"
The girl looked up. It was most definitely not Luna Lovegood. This girl didn't have the same bulging eyes or the bemused expression that most commonly decorated Luna's remote features. She did have very long blonde hair, but her face was covered in much the same colors as Dudley. In fact, one of her lips was still bleeding, leaving a small dark stain on the gray collar of her blazer. Her eyes pinned Harry on the spot: pale blue eyes with black rims, eyes like the flat smooth ice that forms on still water.
"My name isn't Luna," she said, wincing as her face moved. "And if you're one of the bastards who beat me up, have the decency to wait until I can move before you come back for a second round."
"It was you who put that black eye on Dudley?" Harry gasped. The girl nodded, her lip bleeding into the stiff white collar above her gray blazer. Grimacing, she blotted it with her sleeve.
Her eyes rounded with recognition. "You must be the Potter boy," she muttered around her sleeve. "Well, I could still kick you around, even if you are a criminal." Examining the blood on her sleeve, she glared at him. "That blonde monkey is your cousin? Guess criminal tendencies run in your family." She kicked at the gravel under the swings with a pair of dirty old trainers that clashed violently with the neat gray uniform of Stonewall High.
"I was supposed to go to Stonewall High," Harry said conversationally.
"Yea, I've heard. What happened to you? Beat the snot out of Dudley?" she snorted with laughter at the unlikelihood of this ever happening.
Harry leaned against the swing set and watched the football players. "I blew up my aunt."
The girl nearly fell off the swing. Her head snapped around, sending her long blonde hair flying. "You-blew up your aunt?" Her mouth fell open, then she closed it. "Yea right, you probably robbed a corner store or something." She began examining her face with thin fingers. "If you blew up your aunt it would have been in the papers."
"It took a bit of hushing up, yea. But I've got millions of dollars in stolen goods, so it was a snap," Harry said dryly. The girl glared at him again, one of her hands tenderly examining a rising black eye. "Don't be an ass. Of course I'm not a criminal."
"If you aren't a criminal, then why aren't you here half the year?"
"Private school."
"Hey, my dad works for your uncle and he is a bloody tightwad. How did you weasel enough money for private school out of him?" the girl demanded then winced as the splits below her eyebrows broke open. "Bloody hell." She leaned forward to stop the blood running into her eyes, her long hair hanging over her puffy and discolored face.
"Are you going to be all right?" Harry asked automatically.
"Yea, I guess. I've had worse." She tenderly blotted the splits, her face irritated behind the bruises. "Of course, that was in a fair fight." She twirled the swing around, winding up the chain until she was a foot higher off the ground. "You've got good manners for a hopeless criminal," she said as the swing unwound. "Better manners than your bloody cousin, anyway."
"Should I take offense at that?"
She laughed as the swing finished unwinding. "I guess you should. I would. He looks a bit porcine if you ask me."
"So why did you hit him?" Harry asked after a pause.
The girl made a rude noise. "'S none of your damned business. Let's just say he ran out of boys to hit." She glanced up at Harry. Her eyes, though bruised and quite puffy, were an amazing shade of blue. "That's an interesting scar."
They talked for quite awhile, about nearly everything. While comparing childhoods, Harry learned that her name was Pallas Leander and she lived on number 14 Magnolia Crescent. She was three years younger than he was, and hated Stonewall High with a passion. Harry couldn't talk as much as she could: there were several hundred wizarding laws to which he would have to answer if he said anything about what he actually did for most of the year. Pallas, however, didn't seem to notice his silence.
"What about you? What do you do now, besides serve time?"
At least he thought she hadn't noticed. "Not much. Private school isn't much different than Stonewall High."
"Better uniforms, probably. I feel like someone's dirty rags in this."
"A bit better, yeah." Pallas shot another piercing look in his direction, but didn't continue probing. She unwound again, her skinny legs flying out as she spun. "Actually, I thought you were one of my friends from school."
"Luna?" Pallas replied. "Yes, that did seem an odd way to greet a perfect stranger." The swing stopped turning and she swayed back and forth, shaking her head to clear it. "God, that's dizzy."
There was a dull thud as the soccer ball the younger children were playing with sailed over the monkey bars and landed near Harry's feet. Automatically he picked it up to throw it to the dark-haired girl who had come trotting after it. As he straightened, however, the girl looked at him with wide eyes and stopped moving towards him. Pallas watched with mild interest.
Harry threw the ball towards the little girl, accepting with a sinking heart that she'd probably been warned to stay away from 'that Potter boy'. It hit her in the stomach, and, more out of surprise than the force of the throw, she toppled off her feet and burst into tears. Guiltily Harry started towards her, but the girl scrambled away.
"Oh, don't be stupid," Pallas snapped at her. "He's not going to hurt you." The girl grabbed the ball and ran away. "Soft little idiot."
Harry sighed and sat down on the mulch that surrounded the swings. "It's nothing. I'm used to it."
Pallas snorted. "If you are, then you must be more messed up than I thought." When Harry looked up indignantly, she elaborated, "No one should be used to that kind of fear."
"I didn't say I enjoyed it!"
"I didn't say you did." Pallas glared right back at him, her bruises darkening with anger.
"Well I guess I'm too used to people whispering about me and having stupid misconceptions about what I'm like! Sorry!" Harry snapped, throwing a woodchip at the play set. It shattered enjoyably. "I mean, do I want to be famous? No!"
Pallas didn't say anything for a good minute or so, but then she turned to Harry with an odd look on her face. "Do me a favor, Harry," she said, sounding perfectly friendly. "Take a tight hold on your ears, and give them a good tug."
"Why?"
"Because maybe that will get your head out of your ass!" She got up off the swing and stalked away, her long hair blowing around her gray jacket. Harry snorted and leaned back against the swing set. He was rather glad she had left. It saved him from having to think up a reply to her extraordinary statement.
With a groan, he heaved himself to his feet and slouched back to Privet Drive, dreading the reception he was bound to receive.
Author's Note: Well, it lives. That's all I have to say, because I hate these end-of-story things anyhow. Chapter two is currently in editing and may or may not make it up on the site in two or three days. Review, if you don't mind.