Disclaimer: Harry Potter is property of JK Rowling. The Dresden Files are property of Jim Butcher. Original story concept and books 1 and 2 belong to Silently Watches. For the events of those books, see his story A Deal with a Devil available on at s/11188292/1/Deal-with-a-Devil
Chapter 14: First Christmas
Other than their dawn and dusk ritual, the most exciting thing to happen outside class was the near-universal grumbling over the lack of a Hogsmeade weekend. There had been some muttering about being permitted to visit the magical shopping district in Pwllheli, but the sign-up sheets had never manifested. The logistics of keeping the carriages hidden simply weren't feasible. Sally-Anne remained secretive regarding her goblin silver, insisting that it would be ready 'when it was ready'.
The last day of term found Harry in the library, poring over a bevy of books on the relationship between Christianity and wizards.
"So we had quite a good relationship with them up until the reformation…" Harry mumbled, thoughtfully. "Hogwarts stood openly for nearly five hundred years before the witch hunts really got going."
"Hogwarts apparently also taught Merlin," Lash reminded him, "despite not being founded until six hundred years after the time of Arthur. Either someone has been breaking the sixth law or the histories are so revisionist as to be utterly useless."
"Well. Given the essay on the witch hunts…" he sighed. "It's not looking good," He pushed the last book away with a sigh.
"Archbishop Chad of York," Lili said, sitting up. She was looking at another book on the other side of the table. "He was a wizard. He was ordered to step down, but commended for his work. And something about that name…" she frowned.
"Heaven forbid the queen give you the information we need directly," Harry agreed. "But you found something helpful?"
"Mhm," Lili nodded. "He apparently did something… scattered Holy Water in the halls of the King to cast out the devil. It doesn't sound like the ritual the queen described, but..."
"But there was no single king of England when Chad was archbishop," Lash mused and Harry repeated. "Perhaps… alright. Let's focus our research on Chad for now."
"Harry?" Tracey's voice came from the next stack over. "Sal asked me to find you."
"I'm here," He called back softly, and started closing the books. He glanced up to give her a smile as she came round the corner.
"Don't ever stop, do you?" She smirked at him. "If you aren't skimming books for Herself, you're researching hard yourself. Although I have to wonder why."
"Why what?" He asked.
"Why you read things the slow way," She perched on the edge of the table while he finished clearing away.
"Oh," He chuckled. "I already showed them all to Lash. But it's better for my learning if I go over them myself as well. There's also the fact that I sometimes make intuitive leaps she misses… although not as often as the other way round."
"Huh. I guess that makes sense," She nodded.
"Besides, there's always the chance something might go wrong. If something happened to her, or if we ran into something that could block me from hearing her voice…" he grimaced at the idea that anything could have that power, but Mallt had done it.
"Now there's a sobering thought," Tracey agreed quietly. "Well. Sally-Anne said it was important. Shall we?" She offered him her arm as he banished the books back to their shelves.
"We shall," He took her arm. Lili joined them a moment later, diving into the front of Tracey's robe to make herself comfortable.
"They're not a shelf, you know." was the grumbled response, to which Lili did not reply.
Sally-Anne was sitting perched on the edge of her workstation in the Luthier's. Tracey had set up her own next to it, although she had yet to do more than use it as a place to do her schoolwork. The blonde muggleborn was fidgeting nervously with her hands, although she gave the Slytherins a hopeful smile as they filed in.
"So, um," Sally-Anne started, then bit her lip. The others waited for her to get her thoughts in order. "I'm going home with Susan tomorrow. Madam Bones is hosting a big Yule ball for the department, and it'll be a chance to see Hannah again and stuff, so…" She trailed off, shyly, before picking up a triangular copper plate from the table. It was about an inch on each side and had a fifteen inch gold chain hanging from each point. "I thought it would be good if we had some way to contact each other… while I'm away. In case the storm comes."
"Alright?" Harry tilted his head curiously. "That's a good idea, although I'll be ghosting over to pick you up anyway."
"And what if it's in the middle of the night and she has to get dressed?" Tracey pointed out with a grin.
"Oh," Harry blushed. "So, uh, what have you made us?"
"It's a rune plate," Sally-Anne explained. Then she cracked it into three parts and handed them one each. "Three parts of a whole thing retain their connection," She touched her piece with her right hand, "Cynhesu," She murmured, and all three pieces of metal warmed up.
"That's useful," Harry nodded. "Good idea. We'll wear them round our necks," He smiled at her. She nodded back, then bit her lip.
"I also… I wanted to give you your christmas presents now so I can watch you open them…" She admitted, picking up a couple of small, wrapped boxes, "and because I didn't want to do the final infusion on Lac's gift without someone to spot me." She held them out.
"You got me something?" Lili asked, popping her head out of Tracey's collar to look at her, wide-eyed. "Noo, I can't be indebted to a mortal!" She tore at her hair.
"In exchange for this gift, I charge you to use it in my defence," Sally-Anne stammered, indicating the flat box still on the table. The little fey considered that for a moment, before nodding and pulling herself free. Harry and Tracey took their presents, and Lili knelt over hers.
"Here," Harry dug in his bag of holding for a moment, passing the wrapped gift to Sally-Anne. "I was going to give it to you before you left tomorrow, but if we're doing this now…"
"Th-thanks…" She took the gift.
"Bah… here," Tracey picked up something from her workstation. "Didn't know I'd be making so many friends and owl post down here is iffy as hell, so sorry if it's not great."
"You got me something," Sally-Anne whispered. "That's more than I could have expected."
"Yeah, well, I'm not a jeweller like you or a sculptor like Harry, so…" She shrugged, self-consciously. "You first?"
"A-alright," Sally-Anne nodded, and opened Tracey's present. Inside was a thumb-sized hunk of polished blue lace agate.
"It promotes calmness and healing…" Tracey mumbled, fidgeting slightly. "If you meditate with it. I thought… it might help since you can't get muggle meds any more… ack!"
Sally-Anne had thrown her arms around the Slytherin brunette and was hugging her tightly.
"It's beautiful. I can work it into a necklace and use it for cleansing rituals and all sorts of things. Thank you," She said, and kissed her on the cheek, leaving her pink-cheeked.
"Ah… r-right. Harry, yours can wait for Christmas proper, right?" Tracey eyed the sole boy in their group.
"Absolutely," He agreed with a grin. "Your turn," He nodded to her present from Sally-Anne.
Tracey carefully removed the spellotaped paper to reveal a box of the sort ink bottles usually came in. She blinked, and looked at Sally-Anne.
"Inside," She giggled, sheepishly. Tracey nodded and opened the box to reveal a silver ring on a bed of cotton wool, clearly too small for her finger. "It's an attunement ring for your wand. I used the goblin silver. It should recognise the attunement charm's intent as a source of strength, so we can move it from you to the ring this afternoon and you can start working on evocation foci over the holiday."
"That's… wow. So that's why you borrowed my wand…" she murmured. She took the ring out of the box and slid it down her ash wand until it fitted neatly against the base. "A perfect fit. Thank you."
"You're welcome," Sally-Anne smiled. "Harry?"
"I'm opening it," He smiled, and suited action to words, revealing another ink bottle box. Inside was a silver charm in the shape of a shield, with a jump ring near the top. He took it out and gave Sally-Anne a curious smile.
"It's for your shield bracelet," She said. "I, um, stole some malaclaw venom from Professor Snape… and mixed it with some essence of inversion and soaked the charm in it…"
"So it should make me lucky?" He asked.
"Well… that was the plan, but… goblin silver doesn't really do nice," Sally-Anne fidgeted slightly. "And neither does malaclaw venom… Budge says he tried to use it in his first draft of Felix Felicis, but the potion turned out to be too poisonous…" She trailed off, then shook her head. "A-anyway. Will and intent. It should hit whoever tries to curse you with a bit of bad luck."
"That is just as useful," He said, and gave her a careful hug. "Thank you."
She hugged him back, just as carefully.
"Alright. Just yours left," She smiled at Lili, letting go.
"We can guess what it is…" Tracey grinned.
Lili nodded, and opened the flat package to reveal the sword blade Sally-Anne had forged and now mounted.
"The hilt is ashwood and gold," She explained quietly. "The pommel stone is crystallised dragon blood, and I wrapped the tang in a hair from Kenzie's mane soaked in the residue from making the stone. I wanted to use a phoenix tail feather, but I couldn't get hold of one."
"... Those bits of wood you gave me," Lili frowned. "That etching project… you sneak," She looked up at Sally-Anne, admiringly. "What do they do?"
"They attune a wand to your magic," Sally-Anne replied, softly. "Between Ollivander's attunement spell, the ash wood and the dragon's heartblood, that sword should cut through just about anything you want it to… and nothing you don't. Which is very important for what I want to do next."
"You said you wanted us there when you cast the last spell for the gifts…" Harry frowned a bit. "Sal, what are you going to do?"
"First, Lac, you should feed it some of your blood so it knows you," Sally-Anne told the little fey, who nodded and cut her thumb with the sword. "And now defeat me. Rictumsempra," She tossed a tickling charm at Lili, who yelped in alarm and threw herself off the table, out of the way. "Tittilando!" A tickling hex, faster than the charm if less powerful, followed the first spell. Lili spiralled around it, beating her wings invisibly before flicking her new sword out to slice into Sally-Anne's thumb, making her flinch and drop her wand. "Ow!"
"Try that again," Lili scowled, "And you'll discover you're no longer protected by my oath to Harry!"
"I'd say that's fair," She agreed with a grimace, and pressed the wound closed gently with her other hand. It was about an inch long and relatively deep. "Caeo," She muttered, focussing. "Caeo y briw."
"Mind telling us what that was all about?" Tracey asked, frowning.
"Goblin silver only recognises its crafter as its true owner," Sally-Anne replied. "But dragon wands can be won in battle. Now the sword recognises Lac as its owner... " She bent to pick up her wand. "And I can infuse it."
"What are you going to infuse it with?" Harry asked. "A sword that size isn't going to do a lot of damage to anything no matter how hard you swing it."
"Dark magic," Sally-Anne replied. "Put the sword on the table. I really don't want to catch you on the edge of this," She held her wand up in front of her and closed her eyes. Lili put the sword down on the workstation and backed away, flying up to sit on Tracey's shoulder. Harry stood behind Sally-Anne and put his hand on her shoulder gently in support, and Tracey joined him a moment later.
"He hated me," Sally-Anne whispered. "He thought I was a plague on the world. That my parents were animals. That everything valuable in me was stolen and the rest should be destroyed. He took my family from me and his punishment was a week in Azkaban and a hundred galleon fine," She began to tremble as she built up her rage and fear. "I won't stand for it any more. I'll be strong. I'll destroy anyone who threatens me or my friends. Aura Caedeo!" She jerked her wand through a long-tailed Q pattern as she brought it to bear on the sword, green light leaping from the end of her larch wand and grounding itself in the goblin silver sword, which drank up the violent magic thirstily.
A rushing sound filled Harry's ears as everything moved slowly. There was something fascinatingly, hauntingly familiar about the whine of the dark magic as it flashed across the space. His eyes tracked the singing scythe of green light as it flew from her wand to the sword as everything started to go dark around the edges. Very distantly, he thought, perhaps, someone was calling his name.
It was pretty, in a way, he thought. The green light. A shade lighter than his eyes.
"-ry? Harry!" Lash's voice broke through the moment, and he realised he'd let go of Sally-Anne's shoulder as though to try and catch the green flash. "Can you hear me, Harry?"
"H-harry? Are you ok?" Sally-Anne was asking, worry naked on her face. It was echoed on Tracey's for a moment, before the dark-haired girl closed off her feelings again.
"Stupid boy…" Tracey muttered, pulling a hankie out of her pocket and wiping Harry's face with it. "It wasn't the same curse," she told him, firmly, helping him over to the cushion pile. "It looked similar, but it wasn't the same." Despite her insistence, her voice was shaking slightly as she turned her back on a confused and concerned Sally-Anne.
"I-I'm sorry," Sally-Anne whispered. "What… what did I do..?"
"That curse," Tracey snapped back at her with a glare. "It looked like the Killing Curse. In front of-" She stopped as words failed her.
"I'm fine," Harry whispered, his voice finally permitting him to use it. "It- it's just a spell. I don't even remember it. Dark Magic's just… it wouldn't be different if she used a severing charm instead of a cutting curse."
"It's different," Tracey said, quietly, sitting next to him and curling one knee up to her chest. "Diffindo is used for all sorts of things and was invented for cutting fabric. You just twitch your wand and say the words and it happens. Dark Magic, the killing curse, that... cutting air curse... they," her voice broke, "they're not like that."
"You have to mean it," Sally-Anne bit her lip. "Th… they're like evocation, only with a wand. But they're hard to block, and… and always effective. So I thought… it- if I fed it to Lac's sword," she reached out towards Harry, then dropped her hand when he flinched away.
"Give me control," Lash said. "And rest, child."
Harry needed no further encouragement, closing his eyes and retreating into his mind.
"Oh shit," Tracey muttered when she saw the emerald eyes opening on Harry's forehead.
"I'll deal with you in a minute," Lash told Sally-Anne, coldly. The muggleborn flinched, her face crumpling as she sat down and wrapped her arms around her stomach. Lash looked at Tracey, then pulled the startled half-blood into a hug with none of Harry's usual hesitance. "One casting does not mean she is like them," She whispered, for Tracey's ears only. "And you will teach her not to go down that route."
"What..?" Tracey asked, her voice strangled, but she knew exactly what their teacher was saying. Her eyes burned at the thought of Sally-Anne, her face cold and her laugh high, surrounded by greasy light and screams, though no tears fell.
Tracey Davis had run out of tears long ago.