"I'll project in tonight and check up on you," Prue murmured in Angelica's ear before disappearing.
Chris shrugged. "We can celebrate Samhain tomorrow. My Aunt Phoebe usually does; she's busy taking my cousins out trick-or-treating on the thirty-first."
"Tomorrow, then," Angelica smiled.
.
Prue was there when Angelica walked up to her dorm room.
"Hey, kiddo."
Angelica grinned. "Prue!" she squealed, running over to the woman. Prue laughed, catching the girl in a hug.
"Are you alright?" she asked, smoothing down Angelica's hair - it had become loose during the whole troll debacle. "Sorry I had to leave."
"It's alright," Angelica shrugged. "It would have been hard to explain if you'd stayed." She smiled sheepishly. "Sorry I was freaking out so much. I didn't mean to scare you."
Prue shook her head. "Hey. That's no problem. I'm here to protect you, so don't apologise."
Angelica smiled at that.
"So, tell me what your classes have been like."
.
Classes were cancelled the next day, to give the teachers time to fix the Charm's classroom and the sinks that the troll had destroyed. Student's were talking all morning about what must have happened, and wondering how the troll had gotten from the dungeons to the Charms corridor so quickly without being noticed. Of course, it was found out that Angelica, Hermione and Chris had been in the thick of it, so the three of them spent most of the morning hiding in the library.
They made short work of what was left of their homework, with Hermione's help. Neither Chris nor Angelica had any delusions that they worked hard enough on their essays to get an A+, but Angelica personally thought she had a good chance after Hermione pointed a few things out. After that they talked for a while, and somehow the conversation turned to why the school taught Potions but not Alchemy, which made Hermione straighten up and hurriedly declare she needed to check if a book she'd hoped to check out was available yet.
Angelica just spent most of her time trying to keep up with how fast Hermione was talking. Shrugging, she turned to Chris. "So, what are we doing tonight?" she asked. "You said your family always holds a dumb supper*, but figured you wanted to go to the Feast this year instead. Do you want to have it since there isn't one tonight?"
Chris shook his head. "Nah. I'm happy with what we have already. Small supper as part of the ritual, and leaving a candle lit after. Why, were you thinking of doing something else?"
"No," Angelica shook her head. "I was thinking of maybe doing a séance, but I don't have anyone I'd actually want to talk to - I never met my parents, and don't really know anything about them, either. Honestly, if I saw them, I'd probably start shouting."
Chris nodded. "Okay."
Hat was what Angelica liked about him. He didn't ask uncomfortable questions, like 'Why would you yell at your dead Mum and Dad?'
The rest of the day was rather uneventful. Chris got bored and dragged Angelica and Hermione into making a witch bottle with him. Hermione, ever curious, demanded an explanation of what a witch bottle was before agreeing to help.
"A witch bottle," Chris said, "is a jar or bottle that's supposed to protect the maker - for us, makers - from evil. It's has sharp things like bent nails and glass in it to deflect bad luck. You tie a red ribbon around the top to bring protection. When the jar's half filled, you either, um," Chris' cheeks grew faintly pink, "pee in it -" Hermione looked horrified "- or spit in it and add vinegar. Then you bury it."
Hermione looked faintly ill at the thought. "Have you ever made one before?"
Chris nodded. "Yeah, my Aunt Paige convinced us to bury them around the Manor last year." Seeing that Hermione still looked ready to hurl, he went on, "But seriously, you just have to spit in it."
It took a lot more convincing, but soon Hermione was somewhat happily running around the castle with them, looking for pointy things to fill the jar with. They were able to scavenge the bathroom at lunch, and added sharp pieces of porcelain, some wood from the broken stalls, and what remained of some of the broken mirrors. Hermione still wasn't to happy to spit in it, but as Angelica pointed out - it wasn't like they were spitting on each other or anything. After that, Chris grabbed some vinegar from the table at lunch, and off the trio went to bury their witch bottle.
"Oh!" Hermione said stopping short as they passed the Whomping Willow - a terrible tree that liked to attack students when they came too close. All first years had been warned well away from it. "We forgot the ribbon!"
Angelica put a hand on her friend's shoulder. "It's fine, Hermione," she said, "I've got it in my pocket, we just forgot to put it on. Besides, if nothing else we could have found some ink and drawn it on."
Hermione looked scandalized at the idea of doing it 'wrong,' but as they had the ribbon and were going to use it, didn't say anything.
"Ooh!" Angelica yelled, "Let's bury it over there!" She took off running toward an outcropping of rocks a few yards away.
The three made short work of burying the jar after Hermione suggested the use of a Blasting Charm, and the sky was just turning pink when they headed in. Hermione let out a great yawn that made Angelica's eyes water. "Well I'm heading to bed," the Gryffindor girl said matter-of-factly. "Goodnight all."
"'Night!" Chris and Angelica chorused.
The rest of the evening for the two of them was spent raiding the dinner tables in the Great Hall for Vegetables, bread, and apple cider. The latter was annoyingly difficult to find - it seemed only the Hufflepuffs liked it, and Angelica had to run out of the Hall to keep them from making her put it back.
Sometimes it was nice to be speedy.
Soon the two witches were in one of the many towers around Hogwarts, and setting out their food on the altar - they'd already set it up yesterday morning, so aside from a few things like straightening knocked over candles, everything was already good to go.
"Ready?" Chris asked, standing up to look at everything. They'd used a low, round table Angelica had found in one of the storage room around the school, and Chris smiled when he saw it - it reminded him of the one his family had upstairs in the attic. The back of the table, the side below the window, was split into two sides - Chris' and Angelica's. On the right, Chris had set up pictures of his family. One was of his Aunt Prue as a little girl, the other was of his Grams and Grandpa Allen, and the last was his mom's mom, his Granma. He also had set up a small seashell that had been his pet Hermit crab's before it died.
Angelica had up a drawing she'd made when she was seven. The paper was old and ripped up at the edges, but the heavy black crayon was easy to read. The words, 'MY FAMILY' were drawn in tall letters at the top of a small family tree and a picture of three stick figures. A man and a woman held hands on the left, and a girl stood alone on the right. Chris frowned, noticing that Angelica had written 'Mummy' and 'Daddy' instead of her parents' names. He didn't know much about his friend's relatives, but he didn't like them very much from what he had found out.
The rest of the altar was rather simple. They used the black and white candles that they'd used at the Equinox, and the same wooden god and goddess figurines. There were few other things, meant to represent their ancestors in general, like a triquetra for Chris, and a small Gryffindor pennant Angelica had bought from an older student that had made something of a school store to make money. At the front of the table were three small golden plates, take from the great hall - they were supposed to be used to hold teacups, but neither Chris nor Angelica really cared enough to use different plates. Saucers, technically. There were normal sized plates, one either side of the altar, holding the food that they'd be serving. There was one goblet
"Ready," Angelica said softly, with a small nod. Chris helped her up, and they lit the tealights set out in front of the god and goddess figurines - six white candles, for the loved ones they were remembering. When they was done, they walked around the altar, with Chris speaking, as the eldest of the two of them,
"This is the night when the gateway between
our world and the spirit world is thinnest.
Tonight is a night to call out those who came before us.
Tonight we honour our of our ancestors, we call to you,
and we welcome you to join us for this night.
We know you watch over us always,
protecting us and guiding us,
and tonight we thank you.
We invite you to join us and share our meal."
Again, as the eldest, when they sat down again, Chris served food to first to the ancestor's plate, them himself, and then Angelica. Each dish was served, and when they were done, Chris and Angelica began to tell each other stories that he knew about his family. Well, Chris told stories. Angelica listened and spoke about stories she'd made up about her parents when she was younger, and a few stories she'd overheard her Aunt Petunia tell her Cousin Dudley about their grandfather Evans.
"My Grams didn't like men for a long time," Chris said. "When my brother Wyatt was born, she didn't even want to attend his Wiccaning. My Grandpa Allen died when my Granma Patty was four, and Grams wanted her to have a dad. So, she got married." He laughed. "Three more times. She was engaged six. After the last time she hexed her engagement ring, the one she always had her suitors give her, so that she'd turn into some sort of Suzie Homemaker when she put it on."
Angelica stared in shock. "But - why? Why'd she do that?"
Chris snorted. "She wanted a reminder of how she felt whenever she got married. It worked, because she stayed single after that. My Aunt Phoebe went nuts when she put it on . . . "
Angelica nearly choked on her squash. From what he'd said about his Aunt Phoebe, she was the least Homemaker-like of his family. "Oh, dear . . . When I was little, on Christmas Eve, my Aunt left my bedroom door unlocked by accident, Well, I snuck out and stood outside my cousin's door. He was really interested in World War Two back then, and demanded she tell him a story about it. Well, she did, about my grandfather, Harry. He was a fighter pilot, and . . . "
They ran out of food for a while before they ran out of stories. When the last of the food was gone from their plates, they cleared theirs away, leaving the ancestors' plate. Chris poured some cider into the goblet and took it in his hands, saying, "I am Christopher, son of Piper, daughter of Patricia, daughter of Penelope, daughter of Priscilla, daughter of Phillip, daughter of Pollyanna, daughter of Cassandra, daughter of Prudence, daughter of Melinda, daughter of Charlotte." He took a sip from the goblet and passed it to Angelica.
She stared for a moment at him as she took it, shocked that he new so many of his ancestors by names, before saying, a little quieter than he had, "I am Angelic, daughter of Lily, daughter of Violet and Harold." She took her own sip from the goblet. Once she had, Angelica placed it in front of the ancestors' plate and said,
"This is the cup of remembrance.
We remember all of you.
You are dead but never forgotten,
and you live on within us."
The two eleven year olds were quiet for a while, thinking about family. In Chris' case, he was thinking about how much he valued it, and Angelica was thinking about how much she wished she had one. A real family, that liked her. After some time had passed, the two stood up together and left the altar. The candles stayed lit, left to burn out on their own, and the plate and goblet stayed as well. They would be picked up in the morning. Angelica grabbed a short, fat candle from the floor and set it in the window. "Hand me the matches, Chris?"
The older boy nodded. "Sure," he said, pulling them from his pocket and setting them on the window sill. Angelica put her candle beside them and grabbed one. Once the candle had been lit, she smiled, saying a small prayer Chris couldn't quite catch. He did, however, notice when she gave him a tight hug before pulling him out of the room.
As he lit a candle of his own in the dorm room window that night, Chris couldn't help but wonder if girls were always so . . . Not understandable. Why'd she hug him? Angelica never hugged him, not unless she was crying.
Girls were weird.
.
AN/AR: A dumb supper is a dinner where you don't speak. It's held in honour of the dead, and a place is set for the deceased with a candle lit for each person you're honouring. A note's written for the dead and burned in their candle . . . Yes, I'm really dumbing it down, but that's the really basic gist of it.
Credit for the Samhain ritual goes to Patti Wigington at Pagan/Wiccan About. Smile, I included the entire thing this time!
The lighting the candle the window thing is something I do. It's supposed to guide any wandering spirits throughout the night. : )
Hope you liked it - Merc.