Chapter 10A: Losing Heart
Daylight filtered through the slats of the aluminum siding, casting long bands of yellow across the shadowed floor of the churchyard shed. Dillon ran his tongue along the insides of his teeth to chase away the stale metallic taste that lingered from yesterday's snack. It hadn't filled him completely, but it had been enough.
Scooting over to the darkest corner of the shed, he peered through the slats and saw no one except his rabbits nibbling on the grass under the shade of a tree. He sat up straighter, his eyes darting around the shed for the rest of them. Three furry lumps huddled together on top of an overturned wheelbarrow. Dillon pressed inside his mind and breathed with them, moving through their restful dreams of dense thickets and lush forest foliage. In a few hours they'd be fully recovered and ready for travel.
Dillon sensed his other rabbits around the corner of the shed, and found their presence immediately comforting. He leaned back against the sacks of manure and tried to relax.
The anticipation of finally reaching his ultimate destination excited him more than anything in his life. Dillon picked up his mother's journal, full of maps and squiggles that he'd only recently begun to understand, and tucked it behind his head as a pillow. She had been so weak the last time he'd seen her. So pale. Her smile had been a dim reflection as the light faded from her eyes.
He took everything his mother had given him, until he'd taken too much - and then it was too late. Dillon had tried to make her drink, like she had done for him. When she'd refused the thick, dark sludge, even when he'd put it in a glass for her, Dillon had taken it for himself.
"My boy," she'd whispered and closed her eyes.
He loved his mother for what she gave him, but he hated what she had taken away. There had been a father, Dillon recalled, a real family, once. That was before the blood and death… and the blood... and then the running far, far away from everything. It didn't matter how far they went, there was always more blood. It was why no other wizards would understand. "Don't tell. Never tell," his mother had told him. "They will hunt you down and hurt you."
Dark hiding places had become his home. He'd held on to the last letter his mother had written to the wise old wizard at Hogwarts... until the parchment yellowed and flaked away. She'd written so many that he didn't see the harm in keeping just one. Night after night, she would send those letters about him, and then they would wait, he and his mother, for a reply that never came. If the wise old wizard was the only one who could help him, why didn't he ever write back?
Dillon grabbed the journal and leafed through the brittle pages. "I'm going to make it," he said to the hanging rakes and shovels. "I really, truly am. And then I'll never have to be alone again."
His mother's heart was still beating when he left, promising her that he would never take so much from anyone ever again. Only a little bit to stave off the cravings, and only when he needed it, just as she'd taught him. Dillon glanced over at the sleeping rabbits. It was best fresh, and they were so sweet.
He had a new friend now, waiting for him at the castle. Dillon reached out farther in his mind to the little white rabbit that he'd given to Wren.
As Dillon saw through the little white rabbit's eyes, he spotted the door to her dormitory. He wondered where everyone was, and reached out to her, expecting to slip easily into her mind like before, but all he got was a view of the table legs from the rabbit hutch. Bunny hunched over and scratched at a belly itch with his hindquarters. Dillon tried to make the leap into Wren's mind again, but Bunny shook his head.
She called him "Bunny". And then, quite unexpectedly, Bunny blinked, and the dormitory room was gone.
Dillon let out a cry of frustration. The startled rabbits on the overturned wheelbarrow looked wide-eyed at him as he banged his fists into the manure bag.
He wanted Wren back! She had been so sweet and she had strong magicks. She couldn't leave him, not when he was so close!
He shut his eyes and reached out to the grey rabbit that he had sent away with the boy. It had never befriended the boy like the little white rabbit had bonded with Wren.
Dillon felt the creature respond with a great desire to fulfill his wishes. He grinned and thought hard about Wren, until the grey rabbit understood.
"Find her. Get her back for me."
In Monday's Advanced Charms lesson, Wren was wedged between Rose's "Ravenclaw this and Ravenclaw that" and Callie's "I think he looked at me". They'd jabbered nonstop since breakfast and Wren considered running off to the toilets to stuff paper in her ears.
Elbowing a space between her boy-crazy friends, Wren flipped open her Advanced Charms textbook and fished her wand out of her bag. She'd meant to practice while Bunny sunned himself in a patch of clover. But she was so afraid of failure that she'd spent the entire hour tapping her wand like a nervous tick against a tree.
Rose turned to Wren suddenly, almost knocking her off her stool. "Hey, I have an idea! We should go out to the Quidditch pitch and take some practice shots with your camera this afternoon!"
Wren's wand hummed in her hand, stronger than it had since she'd gotten back to Hogwarts. "Maybe." When no one was looking, she flicked her wand towards the small bowl on the floor and squealed triumphantly as sparks flew on the first try. It wasn't the stream of water that the professor wanted, but it was something.
When she'd fallen into her bed and snuggled up to Bunny, the blissful haze never came. Neither did the headaches when she went down to breakfast.
Everything felt more real than it had before. She could hear the rhythmic swishing of her friend's wands on either side of her. The room echoed with low murmurs and soft giggles and the occasional melodic hiss as someone hit their mark with a spray of water into the metal bowls.
Rose paused to sigh longingly. "I was talking to the captain of the Ravenclaw team over the weekend. We thought you could start with them first. Ian Sloan said…"
Ian Sloan... Wren's brain frizzed, remembering how just the thought of having a boyfriend had been exciting and new. It must have been why she'd put up with his excessive arrogance, until that one miserable kiss had killed the whole thing. Worst waste of time, ever.
Rose was likely only interested in watching last year's waste of time fly around on a broom... Something clicked in Wren's brain. Wait a minute. Rose had been the one calling him the worst names of all: Gillyweed tongue... Harpie breath...
She tugged on Rose's sleeve. "You can't possibly be interested in Ian Sloan. Don't you remember last year?"
Rose put down her wand and looked at Wren with a straight face. "Took you long enough. Welcome back, Wren."
"I was only gone a day."
"More like the whole summer. This is the first time in forever that you've gotten out of your head to join us."
Callie agreed. "We thought that if you didn't react to Sloan, we'd have to drag you off to Madame Pomfrey for a head check."
Wren squinted at Rose. "Does that mean you're not into Ian?"
Rose half-grinned. "I might be. Does it bother you?"
"No." Wren twitched as Rose's eyebrows went up. "Yes," she corrected herself. "Only because he's such a troll. The worst thing about him was how nasty he got when I said it was over. No one needs to go through that."
Callie nudged Wren and winked. "She'd have better luck with Malfoy than him."
"I don't want to get lucky with Malfoy!" Rose retorted, and then immediately turned beet red. "Shut up!" She buried her face behind her Charms text, and for the next few minutes, Wren concentrated on their assignment without interruptions. Almost.
"Yes, she does." Callie whispered, startling Wren just as a jet of water finally sputtered out of her wand, missing the bowl she was aiming for.
"What the..." Ian turned around, robe dripping from Wren's mistake. "Oh, it's you. Try to watch where you're pointing that thing." He turned back around, shaking his head.
Wren was partially mortified, partially mad at Ian for dismissing her like she was nothing. She was a good witch. A good student. She should be decent at Charms like Callie and Rose, not making her ex-boyfriend's robe all wet.
Why was all of this so impossible?
Professor Ackerly held up a hand to regroup the class that had degenerated into shrieks and giggles. "It doesn't matter which bowl you put it in, but the water must land in the bowl. If I see anyone else aiming their wand at another student, it will be an instant detention!"
Wren gave up on her water stream and let her eyes wander to the table across the room. She watched Albus bounce his water stream from his own bowl to Scorpius' and then back again. How could anyone gain that much control over a spell so quickly?
"What about you, Wren? What do you look for in a man?" Rose's words cut through her observation like a knife, but Wren kept her eyes glued to her subject, hoping she'd glean some secret that Albus wasn't sharing with the rest of the class.
"Great aim," Wren murmured, watching the fluid wand work. She suddenly wished she had her camera. "He could probably do it wandless and wordless if he tried."
Callie looked where Wren was staring and giggled. "Shirtless too!"
Rose made a face. "He's got enough attention as it is, and eww, that's my cousin!"
"He's not Wren's cousin." Callie stuck out her tongue.
Wren's concentration finally broke. "You two are impossible."
As Professor Ackerly circled around the room making observations, she tried going back to her wand work, but her eyes wandered back to Albus and his incredible technique.
She thought back to her birthday and Albus at the robes shop, all pinned up in brown tissue paper. They hadn't really talked then, but now she wished they had. She'd finally gotten around to reading his letters from the summer. She'd laughed at his repeated invitations to come over for his mum's toffee pudding. As the summer wore on, his suggestions had gotten more and more bizarre - underwater macramé, tree-hopping, meeting for lunch in London and going to a museum he'd never been to... at least Wren thought he was still joking about that last one. It would have been fun to hang out with Albus. The past year, his time had been taken up with other pursuits, each one more annoying than the last.
Giggling drifted from the back of the room. "Ugh!" Rose said with disgust. "I wish those leeches would just leave him alone. The last thing Albus needs or wants is another stupid girlfriend!"
"He said that?" Wren blurted out before she had the sense to control her mouth.
"No, but just look at him," Rose said.
Albus, concentrating. One of the girls tried to get his attention and he actually cringed.
"Too nice to tell them to bugger off," she concluded.
Wren shook herself, trying to clear her head. This was all Callie's fault, she concluded, as Callie gave Wren a wink and giggled again.
Stop that. Stop it stop it stop it.
"Stop!" the professor called. "Wands down."
Everyone shuffled back into their seats as the scores for the day's efforts began floating down to each desk . [g1] Wren's eyes widened. She hadn't realized that they would be graded today.
Professor Ackerly made some general announcement about their upcoming assessment. "Think of this as a practice test. And furthermore, House Points will be assigned to the top achievers of the day."
"Albus Potter received the highest mark." He paused for the audible groan from the class to die down. "Followed closely by Scorpius Malfoy and Rose Weasley."
"Third?" Rose muffled her shriek behind her hands.
Wren's evaluation appeared in front of her and all she could do was stare at all the red marks. It was her first mark lower than an E on anything. She buried her face in her hands. How was she going to explain this to her parents? To her dad?
Rose was livid. "I can't believe they both outscored me!" as Ackerly announced "Double points for Slytherin."
Callie patted Rose on the back. "You were only one point behind Malfoy. You shouldn't be too hard on yourself."
Rose sulked at her table while they gathered their books. "He's so pompous!"
"Rose," Wren said, waving her hand by Rose's ear, "Do you have time later today?"
"I can't believe it! One lousy point! I studied!"
"Maybe Scorpius does it better," Wren offered.
Rose turned on her. "Better than me?"
"Well," Wren began, frantically reaching for something to say that would soothe her irate friend, "you're usually brilliant at Charms, which is why I need your help."
"My help?" Rose's face was a keen scarlet by now. "Why don't you go and ask them for help, if you're so desperate!"
The red-tempered girl stomped out of the room as Wren sucked in air, blinking back her desperation.
Rose wasn't usually so… like that. Rose was her best friend (she'd claimed many times), wasn't she?
There was Callie, Wren thought, as her other friend gathered up her books and ran after Rose. But last time Wren had doubled with her on an assignment, she'd had the concentration of a Pygmy Puff.
What if practice didn't make it better?
Was it even possible for a witch to suddenly turn into a Squib?
Wren sucked on her lower lip and gathered up her things.
She wasn't going to cry.
A/N: Hello again! Thanks for reading my story! I'm trying something different from now on, breaking my chapters up a bit. The files are getting a bit longer, and with ffdotnet's format, it might be a bit too cumbersome to read all on the same page. Chapter 10 will be in two installments of less than 3k words each. Please let me know if this feels better on the eyes.
I guess this means that I'll have more chapters and more frequent postings, and twice as many chapter titles to think up with the word "heart" in them. That should be fun! I apologize in advance for any bad puns I come up with.
Again, a big thank you to CambAngst, patronus charm and ladybirdflying for their tireless beta eyes! Also, thanks to FredMischiefmanagedGeorge for your questions! I love hearing your thoughts and predictions, so please leave me a little note when you get the chance. I'll always respond to reviews!
Revised June 2016