4. light strengthens, and the room takes shape
Life and magic, hand in hand, their fragile flourishings.
Sixteen mi below the iron and silicon, halogen-green surface of Capital City, called Garden of the New Worlds, is true terra nullius; a little sand, some ice, fossils of rivers predating human artifice, the airy bubble of terra-forming. Dead stone reaching down and down, crystalised fingers of lava, a cold rough boulder of a planet orbiting its mostly un-singular star.
Asleep, deaf and blind, without even the murmuring, delicate heartbeat of protozoan dreams, Osiris awaited the miracle touch.
All chronicles of creation begin with a segregation: light torn out of darkness, the parting of earth and sky. The closure of a consummation.
Its fruit is genesis.
The boy and girl…
Like twins with their own private language, graceful and solemn as academics one instant, laughing like unintelligible small children the next, their English interlaced with foreign phrases that sound like Chinese. Inseparable as twins, too.
Hermione does not know what they are: muggle, wizard, or perhaps something else entirely.
There is genius here; she is familiar with that. But there is also a prickling sensation, frustratingly new and unexplainable, a warmth spreading through her body like a merry fire after a night in the frozen cold. Everything seems to thaw between their voices and their presence.
When she finally summons the courage to speak to them - Who are you? Where am I? How did I come to be here? – only belatedly aware of her barrage of questions, the boy (a young man, really) stares open-mouthed, stunned and horrified. His sister is merely intrigued, her brown eyes large as saucers.
"I'm River. This is Simon, wo gege. Fuqin bought you at auction two weeks ago. This is our library, Simon's and mine. You used to be in the dining room but muqin said she couldn't eat with your watching. Have you always been able to talk?"
"Why, I…"
Hermione stops. After a moment's thought she is forced to admit:
"No, River. Actually, I have not talked for some time." Asking a quick blessing from Merlin under her breath, Hermione gives caution up to the wind (pictorially speaking, as the sea breeze in her canvas has started to stir again, bringing with it the long absent smell of salt and linseed oil) and begins to tell them about what she is, the world she left behind, and why.
Afterwards, River turns to her still startled brother with a look of triumph.
"The 'third eye', wo'de pigou. I told you there was a logical explanation."
"River here," Simon explains to Hermione with what was either a touch of apology or embarrassment, "can read people's minds."
"I see," says Hermione.
A painting holds the commitments of the once-living person it depicts, however the world outside may alter. Alasdair Gage, centuries ago, aware of this, chose Hermione the campaigner for werewolf rights, Hermione the British Ambassador to the Transylvanian wizarding community, and most especially, Hermione the Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, to cross the galaxies with his small expedition.
Now, as she looks over the two restless, eager teenagers, the background of the room comes into focus, acquiring detail and rich, exotic colour, almost like a painting itself – revealing an array of odd-shaped illuminated screens and dark bookshelves, but no wands, or any other charmed objects.
There is magic here, Alasdair. It is weak, so weak, the magic of a world just bringing itself out of inertness and chaos, but I have found it.
It is clear to Hermione what has to be done.