Chapter 9 The Manual


This chapter and the next are actually the reason why the story is named The Wizard's Manual – other than the fact that only people who read Young Wizards could know why I would be talking about a manual for wizardry, and everyone would be curious.


Dawna was staying at Hogwarts over Christmas. No one wanted to give her transportation all the way back to America. She said she would attempt a transatlantic crossing on a broomstick, but it might take too long. Jennifer was staying as well to keep her company. We were both sure that Dawna would actually appreciate company, despite her behavior. Tom and Steven weren't leaving either, so I wasn't too nervous about anything happening in the Forbidden Forest when Evan, Leianna, and I were gone. They would take care of it.

I really had no choice about going home. My parents weren't entirely over their protective-ness yet. They wanted to see that I was safe and unhexed. (Of course, I hadn't entirely escaped bad spells over the term, but they didn't have to know that. It isn't important.)

My baby brother, Kyle, greeted me with, "Who's 'at?" and, once my Dad told him, "Fae? Th' wizaw'?"

"Yes, I'm a wizard," I said. "He's talking more now. I've missed a lot."

That was the other reason I had to come home. I didn't want my brother to have forgotten me by summer. I also wanted to make sure he knew what wizardry was. I could see Mum and Dad never telling him. They had given Kyle "Truth" as a middle name. I hoped they were finally learning the value of that name.

"Mummy say I not wizaw', and she i' happy."

"You're not a wizard yet, but you might be. We'll just see." I didn't want him thinking that just because I was a wizard meant he would be or is already one, but I didn't want to rule out the possibility, either.

"Why Mummy no happy 'bout it?"

"Because people get hurt as wizards," I said. I picked him up then and carried him to our car. It was a long drive home. I told my parents most of what had happened in Hogwarts, leaving out Halloween. We hadn't told anyone about Quickbeam, and I hoped no one would tell them about the Lethifolds.

Kyle had questions all the way home and longer. I answered him as well as I could, but I think he knew I didn't tell everything. What can you tell a two-year-old about death? Or fear? Or fighting?

The last member of our family greeted me that evening. It was the cat that lived with us. She had a litter of kittens, to my surprise. She wouldn't let me close.

"Only a wizard's cat would have kittens in the winter," I commented to her.

She spat at me. "Humans are silly," she said in disgust.

"Do you like the kittens?" Mum asked. "You can have one when they are old enough."

"I don't think that a kitten would do well with a wizard at Hogwarts," I said. "Some cats become wizards themselves."

"Cats?" she asked in surprise.

"Maybe we shouldn't talk about that around them," I said, pointing to the cats. "The mother can understand some English, and she gets insulted easily."

"How much else don't you tell me?" My mother crossed her arms.

I decided that wasn't a good question to answer and changed the subject.


Dawna sent me a baby fern for Christmas.

She also sent me the newest copy of Hogwarts: a History. But it was the fern that made me laugh. Although it was cut, I had a feeling it wouldn't die even if I didn't put it in water. It was that sort of fern.

Evan gave me a copy of A Wizard Abroad. It is the fourth book in the series, Young Wizards, historical fiction about manual-trained wizards, not that anyone but a wizard would consider it historical fiction. He knew I had read the first three already. His rabbit sent me a magical photograph (the moving kind) of itself. I felt very guilty that I had forgotten to send it anything.

Christmas was a relief from the craziness of Hogwarts. I was very glad that some of the world was still sane. I didn't even have any dreams I remembered during the whole vacation. It was almost too normal. But still, I was glad to get back to Hogwarts. Who doesn't like a wizarding job? The Forbidden Forest was certainly promising one, and I was looking forward to it. I hadn't had an assignment since July. I only wondered what it would be like to work with other people for a change.


"What happened while I was gone?" were my first words to Dawna and Evan.

"Not much," Evan replied.

"Ryan Daymon," Dawna groaned.

"He stayed?"

"Aye."

"Stop that!"

"Dawna, really," said Evan. "That's getting really old."

"Now I know why Mum doesn't want me to have a noticeable accent," I muttered. "What did Daymon do?"

"The usual. Being his annoying, hating self. What does he have against us?" Evan complained. "We haven't done anything to him. At least, not yet. If he keeps this up, we will."

"We haven't?" I asked. "What about Dawna turning into a half-cat?"

"What? Oh, you mean before Halloween?" He looked upset. He muttered, "She couldn't help that."

I gave him a stern look, trying to convince him to tell me what he meant.

"Harry Potter came for Christmas. Nothing happened," Dawna told me. "Daymon didn't even tease me about my name. No lethifolds."

"That's a relief," I said. "I would want to be there if there were. To help."


I can't believe that awful woman took Dumbledore's place as Headmaster. I was halfway through Harry's fifth year at Hogwarts.

"Do you get a feeling Evan's hiding something?" Dawna asked. Evan was in the boy's dormitory.

"Actually, I get a feeling you're hiding something. Many somethings, probably," I replied.

For a moment, I thought she was going to stop speaking to me again. But then she pulled herself together. "Haven't you been getting strange dreams here?"

"You mean like fighting Voldemort with a lightsaber?"

She was quiet for a moment. Then, she said, "You're lucky I can't think up a sarcastic comment for that one. But, yes, I would say that counted as a weird dream."

"Your point is?"

"Well, did you ever get these dreams before?"

"Um, not of Voldemort, but lightsaber dreams, and Jedi dreams, and Harry Potter dreams. And, uh, fighting some nameless force of evil which killed everyone but me, well not actually killed, but somehow kept from fighting, while I faced him with a lightsaber and a wand, and that was two years ago –"

Dawna threw a quill at me. I pretended to protect myself with the fern she had given me. "You're hopeless," she declared.

"I'll tell you what's strange," I said. "That every time I try to read about Harry Potter in my manual, someone interrupts me."

"Fine, Fae. But there's something really weird about this place."

"Aye, the mysterious Forbidden Forest, Quickbeam who can't remember anything, a professor with a long family history tracing back to Aragorn, not to mention us…"

"You forgot the werewolf girl that says 'poke,'" she reminded me. "Our children are never going to believe us when we tell these stories."

"I pity any children of yours."

"Fae!" She chased me upstairs.

I was reading about the fight in the Ministry of Magic when one of Daymon's friends came up the stairs (it was a boy; they had lifted the spell that keeps boys out of the girls' dormitory after the near disaster at Halloween) and asked me for help in Herbology, which I am good at. Even though I didn't like him very much, I helped him. I never can seem to refuse people who need help.

That night, I dreamed of a conspiracy to keep me from reading my manual. Dawna was right about strange dreams.


I was reading my manual in peace for a change. I was sitting outside in a quiet corner where no one would find or accidentally disturb me, I hoped. I was reading about the end of Harry's sixth year. I knew my manual didn't have as many details as J. K. Rowling's books would, but at least I didn't have to wait years and years. I wanted to know now. It seemed very important.

"Fae! We've been looking for you," called Steven.

"Go away," I replied. "I'm never alone. Can't I be alone for once?"

"The trees are upset," Leianna whispered.

I put the book down. "About what?"

"We don't know," Steven said. I could tell he was worried. "They just feel… frightened."

"Have you talked to them?"

"No. We just know." Leianna's voice was higher than usual. She was nervous.

Evan appeared. "Something's wrong in the Forest."

"We know," Steven said.

"Something's wrong right here." I told them about my latest dream. "I keep having weird dreams, and Dawna has noticed the same thing."

"Me, too," said Leianna. Steven agreed.

"I always have strange dreams," Evan muttered.

"Maybe there's something we're not supposed to know about Harry Potter and Voldemort."

Leianna shivered at the name. I felt cold, too. Evan looked sick. We were silent for a moment.

"Let's not say that. Maybe he's coming back or something." Steven warned.

"He can't." I explained about horcruxes. "If he's gone now, then he's dead. Harry had to have destroyed all of him to defeat him. There can't be anything left of him anymore."

"Maybe Harry never finished," Evan suggested.

"Impossible," said Leianna.

"I want to know!" I almost shouted. I said, softer, "I want to know the rest of the story."

"Okay, okay. You can read, if you think it'll help," said Steven. "But I think it's just that something very evil is around, and speaking of evil makes it stronger, or something like that. Not that Voldemort himself is around."

Steven left to talk to Tom and Dawna. Leianna started to read her own manual about something. Evan stared into space with his chin in his hands.

I moved on to the story of the seventh year after a few tears for the end of the sixth. I read for a long time.

A loud cawing sound interrupted me. I looked up to see a large crow perched on a gargoyle above my head. It dove towards me the moment it saw me looking. I jerked backwards out of instinct, but it wasn't aiming at me. Its talons caught my book and tried to pull it away. I held on tightly. I heard a tearing sound, and the next few pages in the manual were gone.

I looked at my two friends. "I told you there was a conspiracy to keep me from reading this."

Evan stood up. "We're going to find those pages."

"What?" Leianna asked. "You're crazy. How do you expect to find something a crow stole before it's torn up?"

"Because it won't be torn up," he said seriously. "Crows don't eat paper."

"What did it take it for, then?" Dawna was suddenly standing next to me with Steven and Tom.

"Because… because… I don't know. But I've been studying wizardry and everything else, and I think something's going on and we're supposed to be the ones to deal with it."

"Could you possibly be more vague?" Dawna asked sarcastically.

"It's not my fault!" Evan complained. "If I knew more, I'd tell you more."

I had found a tracing spell in my manual (Which is ironic, because it was for finding a lost manual, and if I had really lost it, how would I find the spell?) and started working it.

The swamp was my only answer. "It says that the lost pages are in the swamp."

Where is the swamp? I asked it.

Florida.

I told the others what the manual had said.

"I knew the crow was strange," said Leianna. "It must belong to a wizard, or be one, to get all the way to Florida so quickly!"

"Why?" Dawna asked. "It doesn't make any sense. What's so important about these pages?"

"It's the last pages of the story of Harry Potter's school years," I said. "And more. About five sheets."

"Where are we going, exactly?" Steven asked. "The swamp in Florida? There are lots of swamps in Florida. We need an exact location."

"The Everglades, of course," said Dawna. "It does say the swamp, not a swamp."

"The what?" I looked at the others. No one showed any recognition.

"The Everglades. It's a national park. The biggest marshland park in America. You've never heard of it?" She actually seemed surprised.

"Of course not. We're from the other side of the Atlantic, if you've forgotten," Tom said, giving Dawna a taste of her own rudeness.

"The Everglades is huge, though. Can you find out if any part of it has had wizard activity recently?" Dawna continued. She was being reasonable for a change.

I looked it up in my manual. "Aye. Here's a place. Let's go about… here." I showed Steven.

"We can't take Evan and Dawna. We don't know their Names," Leianna reminded me.

I was relieved that Evan and Dawna realized they were out of their depth and didn't even say that of course we knew their names. It saved us the trouble of explaining that Names had to describe every part of a being or else they might not arrive as the same person they were when they had left.

"I think we can get the manuals to tell us that. We need Dawna. She knows Florida. And Jedi and shapeshifters can be helpful sometimes," Steven said.

"Leianna and I will do the spell if you write it," Tom said. "We know how to work together pretty well by now."

We agreed. Steven had gotten his manual to find Dawna and Evan's Names for us. The written part of the spell was almost finished.

"Uh-oh." I suddenly thought of something. "We can't Apparate on Hogwarts grounds."

"This isn't the same kind of magic as is going on around here," Steven assured me. "We're a different sort of wizard, so we should be able to do this."

"You had better be right," I said. (He wasn't – there will probably always be a circle of blackened stone where we did our spell – but we didn't find that out until months later.) We finished the written spell. A group of fifth-year students passed by, talking about their upcoming OWLs. We were silent until they passed. Then we all stepped into the large circle where the spell was written. "It can be a little hard the first time," I warned Evan and Dawna. "It shouldn't be too bad since we aren't leaving Earth, but it's all right if you're afraid."

Dawna said something rude.

Tom started the spoken spell. Leianna joined in. I could hardly believe this would all happen without me saying the words. But now I felt the familiar feeling of everything around us leaning in to listen and realized that for the first time, I was being carried along with someone else's magic. I was putting all my trust into someone else.

I must be growing up.

Then the spell began to work. We were yanked along by some irresistible force. It didn't last long – after all, it was only a few thousand miles.

Dawna was clinging on to my arm with a death grip by the time we landed. Tom started to make some snide remark about her scoffing at the thought of being afraid of the spell and ending up clinging on to me like a five-year-old.

"Shut up," I interrupted him. "And Dawna, if I end up with bruises all over my arm, it's your fault."

She smiled a little as she looked around, hardly noticing that we were ankle-deep in water. "I've always wanted to see the Everglades."


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