Chapter 8: An Obscurial Came to Our Door
"Where can I find a book on Obscurials?"
The tired-looking librarian raised her eyes to Ravina as if to say, Why are you bothering my soul with your random questions? At her expectant face she blinked slowly, then took out her wand and flipped through a index about as large as a Webster's dictionary while speaking, "Hon, you don't have to be in such a hurry this late at night. Anything you ain't read can wait a few hours, I'm sure. It's not like there ain't two more months of summer."
"I need it now," Ravina insisted.
"If you say so," the librarian looked down at the page her index had landed on. "Let's see...Ob...Obliviation... Obscurial. Don't look like too much. Everything is down in the Restricted Section. We haven't taught about them to normal students since the incident of '95."
Ravina took the parchment containing the list of books the librarian handed her, "What was the incident of '95?"
"Look it up. It's probably in the yearbook. I'm sure you can find the way." As soon as she had said her piece, the librarian closed her eyes and fell back to her half-asleep position like a wind-up doll.
"Um, thank-you," The young woman sped-walked as fast as her pencil skirt would allow to the clamped shut, jaw-like shelves at the very darkest, most back part of the library. As if the words 'Restricted section' were not enough. She muttered the incantation to let herself in and stood, suddenly hesitant, before the shelves. They reached twenty feet easily, too many books for any mortal to read even if they spent their life trying. Not that she could see most of them. The high bookcases were locked tight together.
Ravina was almost about to be cowed – this is why I'm not a Horned Serpent, she remembered – and had taken two unconscious steps backward.
He needs me though.
That thought stopped her tracks.
He needed her to help him. No one had ever really needed her before. She had always been the needy, the youngest, the drifter of the family.
"Accio Dark Arts of Magical Maladies," she said, "Accio Magical Parasites and Who They Attack, Accio You Thought It was a Lethifold..."
The catacombs rumbled awake as first one and then another shelf broke away from the rest and books tumbled through the cracks.
"I hope there's a good reason for this emergency meeting, Professor Hodges."
"There is, I assure you." Rocky dryly observed the handful of professors as they finished filing into the room. "You all love dividing moral issues at 8 pm on a summer evening, don't you? I know I do. The kind that start arguments and then trials where – "
"Roger," The woman at the head of the table said. Rocky flinched. "I trust everyone here would like to know exactly what you're getting at?"
"Yes, Professor Blygull." He cleared his throat. "I trust everyone heard the commotion in the Entrance Hall about half an hour ago?" There were murmurs of assent and some quizzical looks. Rocky took a deep breath, "The facts are this: an Obscurial came to our door. I fought it with Dawson and Valadez and we barely came out with our lives."
This received a lot more than murmurs. The small room broke into a series of shouts and accusations.
"Obscurials don't exist anymore! Not in America!"
"This Defense Against the Dark Arts stuff is going to your head, Rocky."
"Do you have any proof that it was an Obscurial?"
Amid the protests and questions Rocky raised his hands for quiet. "I know the general belief is that they are extinct; actually that's more or less what I thought until half an hour ago. But an invisible tornado that can whither a patronus is not incredibly common in the wizarding world if any of you have not noticed, so I was forced to face the truth, however improbable. I have studied Defense Against the Dark Arts for a long time, and I have never met a creature that I could not overcome with spells or tactics, but this one had to go back into its host of its own accord. I took the boy to a guest room running the balcony. My daughter Ravina volunteered to look after him, though I'm not sure she understands the danger –"
"Danger, Roger?" Professor Blygull said. She was wrinkled and white-haired, but still claimed her seat with a queenly manner. "You gave an unstable, dangerous child a guest room at my school?"
"Believe me, it was necessary. I had to do something to prevent worse from happening."
"So what you're saying is that in my school, under my roof is a danger compared to an out of control Dark Wizard?"
"It is never as simple as that when it comes to this sort of thing," Rocky objected, "Obscurials do not control their Obscurus, it is true, or at least that is the general consensus. And the Obscurus is generally bent on destruction, but –"
"You still haven't given any actual evidence that it is an Obscurus." Professor Hodges faced the witch who had just spoken. She was young. Her brown hair was cut short, and it mirrored in color her eyes, which locked with the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher's in defiance.
He copied her gaze, "Any alternative theories, Ro?"
"One. It's hoggery. Everyone in this room knows you would do anything to make yourself the hero in any situation, even if it means making a problem bigger than it is."
"Laren –"
"I am a professor!"
"Right, Professor Ro. I was just going to ask, could you tell me the exact difference between an Obscurial and an Obscurus?"
The young woman's gaze never faltered, but her expression soured, like the question was a fruit that had gone over-ripe.
Rocky hid a smile, "The Obscurial is the host, Professor, and there's one staying two floors down, so I suggest you save your temerity for the Transfiguration students in September?"
"He can't stay here," Piped up one of the Divination teachers, Professor Luckey. "You not suggesting that, Rocky? The signs for the last month –"
"Completely out of the question," added Professor Deer, the other Divination teacher.
"I know what everyone is thinking, but what I was going to say is that I don't think there's much more we can do. We can't turn him out onto the streets. His Obscurus would run wild, maybe even exposing the Wizarding World in the process. We can't hand him over to MACUSA because they face the exact same problem we do, except on a larger, more legal scale. We can't send him back where he came from because that would just make the Obscurus problem worse – not that we even know where he lived, he won't talk to us."
"So you are suggesting he stay here?" Blygull confirmed.
"I'm saying," Rocky said quietly, "That we have no other choice."
The stony silence in the room seemed to wrap up everyone's feelings and release their disapproval into the air. Finally, Professor Blygull stood up, said that the meeting was over, and dismissed the other professors. Murmurs and grumblings summed up the night as they went out. Rocky could especially feel the eyes of Professor Ro on him as she left the meeting.
A/N: Now might be a good time to mention that I picture Rocky as George Peppard as he was in The A Team with the voice of Nicolas Cage. And if anyone can pick up on the Star Trek reference in the second part of the chapter, I will give them a shout out. The books that Ravina finds on Obscurials are not from the canon, I made them up, seeing as there aren't any books on Obscuruses that we know about (excluding Obscurus Books). Please review!
