My apologies for late posting. My elderly white cat had a fatal heart attack over night and I'm rather at sixes and sevens.
Chapter 14
Candace held tight to the goblin's hand on one side and to her sister Phyllis' on the other, surveying the huge castle and its big frozen lake.
"Her yer are kiddo, Hogwarts School fer witches and wizards" said the Goblin "I'll teke yer up t'the headmaster, and he'll see you all right."
"Thank you; you're awfully kind" said Candace "Coming all this way with us."
"Well, stand t'reason, can't leave little kids on their own to come here" said the goblin. He led them through the big entrance door past curious children in robes over ordinary looking school uniform and to a curious statue of a beast Candace didn't recognise.
"Gawd, wonder what it is at the moment… peppermint?" asked the Goblin.
"No" said the statue.
"Gi's a bleedin' clue mate, the head's going to want ter see these kids"
"The clue is, if you don't know you don't go up" said the statue
"And a lot of feckin' good you are" said the goblin in disgust.
One of the schoolchildren ran over.
"Chocolate frog" she said.
"Ta" said the goblin as the air-wafting tube opened and he hustled the little girls in. "Always sweeties, they say; guessin' which one, ar, that's the crunch."
"It's a good job that girl knew" said Candace gravely.
"See it's like this, Perfessor" said the Goblin "My name's Jorg by the way; and this little'un asked if I knew the way to Hogwarts school account of how I look like a magical creature. Well, she got knowledge to see me so strikes me she'd be coming to you of right, so I says I'll bring her and her sister; this being in Loughborough you understand and a powerful way from the castle if you're only a scrap what don't know about the Knight Bus; so I brung them."
"And a kind man you are too!" said Dumbledore effusively "Are you busy or will you stay to lunch with us at the staff table as a guest?"
"Cor, well I ain't that busy that I'd turn THAT down" said Jorg. "Wait downstairs, shall I?"
"I'll have an elf show you to the staffroom where you can get a cup of tea or coffee and be comfortable" said Dumbledore. "And then child you can tell me your name and why you are here."
"I'm Candace" said Candace "And you came to see my big brother Seth; and offered him a place at your school."
"Ah yes" said Dumbledore "Your parents were strongly against the idea; called me Satan, which was rather hurtful."
Candace nodded.
"They told Seth that he had been entered by the Devil if he was a witch and reminded him that the Bible says that you should not suffer a witch to live; and so he should know what to do to cleanse himself and lift the blight from the family. So he h-hanged himself" she said. Dumbledore gave a gasp of horror and she went on "And as I can see g-goblins Mr Jorg said they are I was scared and I don't want to kill myself! So I brought Phyllie and ran away. I – I can pay him back for the fare, I took money only he says wizard money is different."
"Oh we shan't let Jorg be out of pocket" said Dumbledore "I'm going to see he gets recognition for this; he didn't have to come all the way with you, he could have just put you on the bus."
"He said he has little girls my age" said Candace.
"Well you'll get to meet them when they and you are both old enough to enter the school properly" said Dumbledore. "Fortunately we have an orphanage here where you can stay in the meantime. Did you leave any note?"
Candace shook her head.
"I thought that was a bad idea" she said "I thought mummy and daddy loved us; if they loved us, why would they make Seth kill himself?"
Dumbledore sighed.
"I really don't know" he said putting an arm round each.
Both howled and he cuddled them, not far from tears himself.
With the two little girls installed into the orphanage Dumbledore got back to duties feeling aged and sick. Perhaps he was getting too old; two bad things in so short a time!
Lilith apparated directly into his office.
"Lilith my dear! What can I do for you?" he tried to make the effort. Not another emergency surely?
"You can sit down, Albus, while I make you tea" said the little girl firmly "And then you can tell me all about it; you're looking quite grey."
Dumbledore sighed. He felt quite grey.
"I suppose you'll manage to find out all about it anyway; your sources are impeccable I'm sure" he said; and proceeded to tell her, as she scrambled onto his lap and put her arms around him.
"I should have realised they meant the boy harm; I didn't pick up on it! And on top of failing with Amos Leroy, I'm wondering if it's not time for me to stand down as head" he sighed heavily.
"Well that's a lot of silly nonsense and not what I'd expect from my wonderful headmaster!" said Lilith briskly "Leroy was untameable; came to us too late, I guess. I blame the parents. Well, and the aunt" she added "Which comes to the same thing. And if this boy was quoted at from the Bible I bet it was some ultra fundamentalist family and the whole ritual shit blocked out your normally exceptional powers of half legilamency and half guessology because no REASONABLE person could expect people to make away with their own child – which is effectively what they've done! I mean, you might guess the weirder would beat him cruelly to drive out the devil like they did to mummy in the orphanage but s'not a think anyone'd think of, is it?"
"Do you really think so?"
"Course I do! I'm certain! And I say, you have the chance to save his sisters and I think we ought to fit up the parents for their murder 'cos they HAVE murdered this Seth morally speaking, haven't they?"
"They have" said Dumbledore "You mean have them blamed by the muggle police?"
"Erzackly" said Lilith "It'll be a nice little piece of transfiguration to make simulacrums of their bodies but I can make like it's their DNA because of the power of twenty-three – I say, Professor I've found a load about it that we need to sit on 'cos it means if you use it right you could drop a death spell on just goblins or just elves or just Snapes who walk through the enchanted zone because of its tie to DNA – what makes people be people and defines all their characteristics familial and so on – because it's the magicalest number ever and I need to tell Professor Vector that I'm not going to release all my findings 'cos I need to put that in the book of wickedness in the marauding room and only there" Lilith came up for air.
"Indeed! Well I don't like suppressing information but if it can do all you say – and I don't disbelieve you, my dear – then I can quite concur with that decision!" said Dumbledore. "And if you can use it to make these wicked parents not track down their other children to hurt them….alas that it is too late for Seth and I never managed to help him!"
"I bet they scared him half silly with being punished in the afterlife too" said Lilith shrewdly "Chances are poor little scrote's a ghost. There's a precedent and it still isn't illegal. We can get blood of his parents and his bones and dad'll brew up a potion and I – I should think us weevils will muck in to sacrifice some flesh for him to draw him out of the cauldron 'cos he should have been one of us" she said "It- it's only pain."
"No, my child; I will draw him from the cauldron. I left him to die; unwittingly but even so it is my responsibility. I will draw him forth and he will then be another son for me."
Lilith grinned.
"I dunno that Lydia can make him entirely yours; I 'spect he'd used to being as black as the ace of spades – I saw his sisters – and wouldn't like to get blue eyes and fair skin all of a sudden."
"Oh he'll be my kin in blood shared" said Dumbledore "Perceval was at risk of being found by Odessa; that was why Lydia changed HIS familial traits."
"Be easier another time using the power of twenty-three" said Lilith. "Why even Lycidice could surely manage if someone else wrote the chant for her! Well maybe not" she amended "But it'd be child's play. Are you feeling happier, Albus?"
"I – yes somewhat. I don't want to retire I just wondered if I'd made too many errors of judgement."
"Oy! Less of that!" said Lilith.
"The child is remarkably pert" said the portrait of Phineas Nigellus.
"Not as pert as someone who sulks so much at daddy he waggles his bottom out of his portrait like a street walker" said Lilith "I'm a child so being childish is reasonable; it isn't for grown ups."
"She has a point, Phineas" said Dumbledore.
Phineas Nigellus sniffed, much offended!
Somehow that helped Dumbledore's mood!
"Daddy would urge you not to retire" said Lilith "You've turned around so many people; like him and loads of others, and made a good atmosphere for people like David Fraser to work on people like Lionel and for Mimi to steal Darryl and I think you're the bestest and to want to quit just because you're not Merlin, The Chosen One and Paracelsus all rolled into one with extra bells and whistles on is downright silly. You might have missed a clue; you might have made a mistake. But I betcha no-one else would have realised it either!"
"Thank you my dear; I do hope you are right" said Dumbledore.
"It's a distressingly bad habit of mine to be right and likely to spoil me too daddy says" said Lilith "And if you like I can go snoop in fey space and see if he IS a ghost."
"Well my dear, if you feel confident using that remarkable means of travel I think that would be very useful" said Dumbledore "But I should like you to go with someone else; one of your sisters perhaps."
Lilith nodded.
"All right; I'll see if Mimi will. And me an' the other marauders will see about setting up the dead bodies. I need to do some research of muggle news; they've had some horrid murders of children for supposed magical ritual; not real stuff but it won't be quite as much of a surprise to muggle police if I make like it's similar. Some muggles are gruesomely primitive. Still, when you see some of the bully-boys in Obscura Alley it kinds makes you realise muggles aren't the only ones" she added pulling a face. "And the Goyles are distinctly sub-human – rather like my not-so illustrious Gaunt ancestors!"
The juvenile ghost was sobbing gently and Lilith emerged from feyspace with Lydia, thinking that Mimi might be too much for the boy just yet.
He gasped.
"Witchcraft!" he said "Get- get thee behind me satan!"
"Oh don't talk such bull" said Lilith "We're just as good Christians as you actually we're better Christians than you 'cos we believe God is a God of love not unnatural intolerances like your rotten parents that made you kill yourself."
"But the Bible says, you shall not suffer a witch to live.." began Seth.
"You don't read very well, do you?" said Lilith "It ACTUALLY says, 'he that lieth with a beast is surely a witch and you shall not etcetera. It's a word that was picked to put the frighteners into primitive desert sheepherders to stop them shagging sheep. It spoils the meat for one thing and might cause diseases same as syphilis which comes from llamas."
"Lilith where do you pick up all this?" Lydia was faintly horrified "And how do you know about sheep shagging at your age?"
"I read muggle newspapers" said Lilith. "Look here, Seth, you're a ghost; only wizards get to be ghosts, well and witches too. But because you died of wickedness we might be able to put you back in your body and then you could be a proper wizard and go to Hogwarts and find out all about the odd things that happen and how to control them."
"But I'll burn in Hell!"
"Stuff and nonsense!" said Lydia "When you die properly you'll go through the veil and be with other dead people where hate doesn't exist any more; meantime if you stay as a ghost you'll just be lonely and miserable, never able to grow up or move on. If you want to die properly we can help with that instead but don't you WANT to explore the God-given talent of your magic and use it to help people? If you don't want to develop it and abrogate responsibility you're like the man who Jesus told, 'give away all your wealth and follow me' who couldn't do it because he wanted to hang onto the irrelevancies of life."
"I – at least I'm near my parents!"
"Yeah? And I bet they try to get you exorcised if they can see you" said Lilith. "Acksherly, judging by the bell, Book and candle on the table they're planning on trying."
Seth cried more.
Lydia sighed, did the complex transfiguration and put an arm around him.
"Come back to Hogwarts Castle with us at least" she said "And take time to take stock; your sisters are there, they fled to safety afraid your parents would kill them for being able to see magical things."
"NO! Surely they wouldn't?" cried Seth.
"Well you know better than me about them I suppose" said Lydia "But they've pushed you into doing the deed for them haven't they, so they don't get had up by the fuzz?"
He stared; and cried again.
"Crumbs he's as bad as Myrtle ever was!" said Lilith.
"He HAS got good cause" said Lydia "Come on Sobbing Seth; I'll give you directions and we'll meet you there; unless you want to get exorcised. I'm told by other ghosts it's remarkably painful."
"Seth, I am so sorry I have caused this!" said Dumbledore "I've met parents that were disbelieving, those that were frightened, those that thought it freaky; but never any that would make their own child kill himself! I left them – and you – to get used to the idea, because some people reject the offer initially then change their minds when they've had the chance to ponder. I – it never occurred to me that something so terrible would happen; or I would have privately offered you the chance to come away with me, or if you too hated the idea I should have made you all forget I had ever been there. It's what one generally does if the whole knowledge of our world frightens people the offer is made to. Can you forgive me?"
"I – well, yes sir; you didn't know" said Seth "Oh please, you've got such kind eyes, I don't think Satan would have KIND eyes, would he?"
"I'm generally accounted a man who fights for good" said Dumbledore "I've never been called Satan before."
"Professor Dumbledore is just about one of the kindest people in the world" said Lilith "And calling him Satan is most awfully rude and unkind! People who call names are bullies; so just you stop bullying Professor Dumbledore, you!"
"He does not mean it for rudeness, Lilith" said Dumbledore "He wants to know what made his parents call me so; and that is because of fear. Fear of the unknown; fear of something not covered in their rather narrow God-view. What people do not understand, they fear; what they fear, they fight. Sometimes they nail people to trees because they fear them. Seth has been taught imperfectly and incompletely in the way his parents follow. Not all people believe in God as you do Seth; we have a very secular schooling because we do not intrude on the personal beliefs of our pupils. You would not have organised religion here! But if you want permission to go to the kirk in the nearest village, that can be arranged easily enough and you will not be stopped!"
"Och and they're awfu' austere bodies for a' that" murmured Lilith. Lydia clipped her across the back of the head with two fingers.
"We can help you come to terms with the idea of being a wizard" said Lydia "And I think you should come and be a comfort to your sisters; they're very much upset. Then we can start to work out the most auspicious time to put you back together. I do HOPE you weren't cremated; it makes life harder."
"I – I think I was" said Seth.
"Meh, we'll come up with something" said Lilith "Even Fishface managed it with a bit of his dead father's bone; we'll have ashes and I 'spect he's got ancestors; piece o' piss!"
The ceremony would certainly be a significant one; and moreover Dumbledore was not happy to have anyone but Severus run it, and spoke to him with a direct mental link.
"I'm not wholly sanguine about the result" said Severus dubiously "We had so much going for us with Myrtle; willing parents, the whole blood group; specific counters to her means of death. This child is a suicide; even though it wasn't exactly his idea. We need the support of the sister, freely given; and some of her blood if she'll give it: and I'm not sure you'll pull it off yet if he isn't blooded in. Is he blood group material?"
"I really am not sure, Severus; he's one mixed up lad at the moment. He doesn't want to be dead; he's scared to be alive. The only thing he gets animated about is the care of his sisters."
"Then if you'll take my advice, Albus, you'll delay the ceremony. Prepare everything; the ashes of his body, bones of his ancestors if you can get them; the blood of his parents; and let the kid interact with the weevils he should have been with and get to be friends with the youngest marauders. Then by the long holidays you can see if he's ready to be put back together. I'll sort out a number of dates based on his birth date and death date and then when he's ready we can take the next convenient one – Odessa permitting – to put him together. And if by then he's ready to be blooded you should know. Let Lilith loose on him."
"She already has been; he hasn't recovered yet" said Dumbledore "You rather know when you've been Lilithed; she bullied me into not resigning because I got rather upset over this."
"So I should think! Albus, you are the best thing that ever happened to so many kids at Hogwarts; you're the only father I've ever had, and I shouldn't think I'm the only one. Horace isn't exactly fatherly. Now dry up and stop spouting such drivel about retiring; I expect Lilith said it in more or less as many words too."
Dumbledore managed a laugh.
"Something like that!" he said.
Lilith was busy explaining to Seth that until or unless he made up his mind to be alive he'd better stay in Myrtle's loo out of the way of the other ghosts because they'd thrown a jealous hissy fit about Myrtle, who was a little girl ghost, being put back into her body.
Seth got a bit hung up on resurrection and Lilith talked very fast about it being entirely different because it was kind of a high level cure because he hadn't died properly because if he had his soul would have gone beyond the veil instead of hanging around betwixt and between.
"And either you ought to die properly or live properly" said Lilith "Because being a ghost is the cowardly way out and most people that choose it aren't really happy. I'll get the Bloody Baron – Sir Edward – to talk to you; he won't kick up a palaver. He's thinking about going beyond the veil anyhow, so if you want to finish dying he might well take you and if you want to finish living he'll back you up."
"I'm NOT a coward! If I was a coward I should have run away instead of going through with hanging myself!" said Seth.
"Well all right; but not making up your mind now you have time to think and less people in your ear would be a bit cowardly if you left it too many years" said Lilith "If you ask me, if you're not a coward you are a nijit because you ought to of run away and told the fuzz your parents wanted you to kill yourself and protected your sisters; I bet you end up in Gryffindor House, too much self-sacrificing beef-witted courage and nobility oozing out of any pore to have any common sense; but then boys don't have a whole lot of common sense to start off with. I have brothers so I know" she added.
"You're the rudest girl I ever knew!"
"Well, someone has to tell it like it is; Professor Dumbledore suffers from an excess of fine feeling and guilt that he didn't spy on your parents' thoughts AND he's a Gyff himself which means he has an excess of nobility so it has to be me. I'm a Slytherin so I'm supposed to be coldly pragmatic. I'm trying to help you, you know; though as I don't know you well enough to know if I'm going to like you or not it's mostly for the sake of helping Albus Dumbledore's fit of Gryffish conscience. And if you start crying again I'm going; you're a big boy of eleven and far too old to meep like a moppet Phyllis' age. Dry up do! If you're so troubled by religious fervour why don't you PRAY for goodness sake? It's what God's there for! Honestly!"
Seth was faintly offended but also filled with guilt that the thought had not occurred to him.
And Lilith dragged her set into Myrtle's loo to do homework and get to know Seth in case he joined them at school either as a ghost or as a weevil.
That the rest of the first were not displeased to be rid of Lilith from the common room or a prep classroom has to be mentioned; Lilith had inherited her mother's tendency to argue out loud with text books.
The other Striped Marauders just threw cushions at her as she told her Geomancy text book loudly that it had to be joking and what about direct nodal transfer?
"Direct nodal transfer is what big people talk about you baboon" said Sextus. "Ley line sliding is the fastest form of transport – at the level we're going to use yet. Put a sock in it and just write the ruddy essay according to what Padfoot wants, and directly transfer your nodes on your own time."
"I don't know how!" said Lilith.
"Hallelujah, then if there's something you don't know you can have the fun of learning like the rest of us" said Gennar.
Lilith brightened.
"There is that!" she said.
"I say, is that how you came to find me?" said Seth "This ley line sliding?"
"No; but we could have done if I hadn't had another means at my disposal" said Lilith "It's sort of a long story."
"Well, I'm not exactly going anywhere, am I?" said Seth.
"Well maybe not, you poor prune, but if I take time out to tell you the only place I'm going is deten with an impot for shirking" said Lilith, rolled her eyes and added as he looked confused "Detention; with an imposition of lines for failing to do my work adequately. Didn't you READ any school story books? Even Jennings?"
"Hey, nothing wrong with Jennings" said Gennar.
"I haven't read any school stories" said Seth.
"Never mind Seth mate; nor have I" said Kazrael
"Nor me" said Jayashree.
"I only read the Cassie books right before I got to come to school" said Venus.
"well when we finish our prep I'll see about starting you on some of the whys and wherefores" said Lilith. "Throw me the atlas Sec"
Sextus threw her the atlas with force and accuracy and Lilith fell over catching it, giggling.
"Why not accio it?" said Gennar.
"Because mummy caught me using accio in the hols and though I hadn't bothered with a wand she thought it was good discipline for me to use my little hands and feet and not do it the lazy way in case some warped old moo from the ministry caught me doing magic out of school" said Lilith.
"Aren't people allowed to do magic out of school?" asked Seth.
"Not until we're adults – seventeen. It's tied to the wand though; they can tell where a wand is, so if you can cast wandless you're home and dry because if no wand is in the vicinity of unauthorised magic it's assumed to be juveniles under the age of wand use, who do magic spontaneously and are exempt from the rules not being supposed to be hard enough to do any damage, especially without a wand. A wand is a focus; like using a magnifying glass held in the sun to set a piece of paper alight" Lilith explained. "I'm technically under age to use a wand and I'll be elderly by the time I'm allowed to, or rather I'll feel elderly 'cos I came up early to stop me climbing the walls in boredom at home and interfering with Daddy's NEWT students – that's wizarding 'A' levels. He's a headmaster in another school. So I've decided I'm going to take an OWL in every subject there is and a NEWT in every subject there is and then see where I'm at. I'm taking three OWLs this year."
"She's a genius; get used to it Seth" said Sextus "The rest of us have had to. It's a pain at times and we never actually tell her we're proud of her but when it gets too much we hit her with cushions and tickle her."
"Do you mind that she's rude?" asked Seth.
"We call it 'blunt and forthright' so we feel better about it" said Sextus "Isn't that right, half-pint?"
Lilith stuck out a forked tongue.
Seth cried out in horror.
"It's all right" said Venus "She's a snake animagus; can change into a snake. Only she can do the partial change when she's feeling particularly ornery."
"Lilith is a demon's name" said Seth.
"Yeah, very apt" said Gennar
"There's a carving on some cathedral or other with this Lilith demon with a snaky tail and mum was pretty certain I would be a snake animagus so she thought it would be appropriate; and there was a special person in dad's life, who's dead, called Lily and it's partly to honour her" said Lilith serenely. "Your name means 'a substitute' because Seth was the spare after Cain murdered Abel; not a name to give as a first born. Still it could mean you're due a substitute body so there's that to consider. And Candace has a name that isn't even a name because it's a title; the queen of Ethiopia was The Candace" –she pronounced it can-da-chay in the correct manner – "not NAMED it. It's like calling her Regina or more commonly Queenie. And Phyllis means 'leafy' so you'd expect her to be a dryad; or good at herbology."
"How do you know all this?" asked Seth.
"Oh names are most awfully important" said Lilith "Especially if you use Finnish naming magic; teamed with elder futhark runes it's tremendously powerful to know the meaning of a name as well as –I SAY!" she yelled "Merlin's beard in stripes of purple under hair-raising potion!"
"What?" said Sextus mildly.
They were all used to Lilith.
"His name – Seth – Substitute – naming magic; it wasn't in such general use for Myrtle when they put her back together, it'll make it easier, we can carve appropriate runes, Hebrew I should think, on the cauldron as the potion's brewing and make an appropriate chant; piece o' piss! He reduces to seven by the bog standard Pythagorean numerology and it gets a nawful lot more complex if we try to do it in Hebrew but in at least two systems he reduces to two so there's something in that to work on for timing and things with dates to add to runes and stuff."
"Naming magic isn't exactly in GENERAL use nowadays" said Sextus answering her earlier comment.
"Well it is in our lot" said Lilith "I can't help it if most of the wizarding world are sad little gits a zillion years behind us."
"She said a lot of wizards are a bit conservative and don't like new things" giggled Venus.
"Only it isn't new 'cos wizards were using it centuries ago only in the silly centuries it all got forgotten about" said Lilith. "We are just rediscovering old techniques and having the courage to mix and match with stuff from other places. Mind, I'd be most awfully chary about using some other people's other traditions; I sure do NOT want to involve the spirit or high sidhe commonly known as Dr Samedi; I'd be scared of getting the Ghede side."
"I've heard about that – my parents are really against Voodoo" said Seth.
"Yeah, well I'm a little against something that relies on owing favours to rather dodgy beings of indeterminate origin" said Lilith "Or that needs zombies to do stuff; yuk! We've looked at it in Comparative Magic and it makes Stripes' tail twitch."
"He has NEVER been teaching us in tiger form!" said Jayashree.
"No; but can't you just FEEL him tense enough that his tail would twitch if he was wearing it?" said Lilith.
"Oh. Yes I suppose so" said Jayashree.
"However many forms to people have?" asked Seth.
"Oh most people don't; being an animagus is quite rare, but our group has quite a lot" said Lilith "Padfoot – Professor Black – is a dog. Jayashree here is a tiger; she and Professor Khan are different but not enough to let it upset you yet."
"Do you have nicknames for all your teachers?" asked Seth.
"Only the ones we like; and those who have a special relationship with the group and you'll probably find more about that when we tell you history but I wish everyone would shut up, I'm having trouble calculating seven factorial" said Gennar.
"Five thousand and forty, you prune; same as the number of feet in a wizarding mile. Obviously" said Lilith.
"Oh is THAT why a wizarding mile is different to a muggle mile!" said Gennar.
"Well OBVIOUSLY" said Lilith.
Gennar threw a cushion at her.
Seth was glad to be with this quarrelsome but obviously very close group; his family's religion had been rather a matter of teasing at his own primary school, and he had been rather a lonely little boy. Feeling different and wondering why sometimes his fingers lit with flames had not helped.
He was starting to feel almost a sense of belonging; and to warm to the idea of actually living and being with these children!