Tamblin Demosthene and the Empty Places

by Tlalcopan

The fifth Tamblin story. Rage and loss threaten the narrow ground, friendships and families are torn apart, and Tamblin is asked to break into a place where no one wants to go.

36. Chapter 36

Cascata kept giggling at the Saturday session. Susan eventually growled at her, wondering what she was so happy about.

"Oh, nothing," she said before lavishing one glorious look at Tamblin.

Putting aside some of his anger so as to accede to Dumbledore's request had left him with some unused attention and energy. He'd found that focusing these on Cascata was well rewarded. She'd been quite happy with their relationship this last week and looked it.

On top of that she seemed to be happy with how Quidditch was going, at least she said she was and Tamblin assumed it was true, as he had no practical knowledge of the game. Other than her aunt, Trelawney, being put on probation by Umbridge in her capacity as High Inquisitor, Cascata seemed to be relatively happy with her life of late.

Tamblin's life was perforce developing a routine. Weekdays were spent in classes. Weeknights he worked on homework for several hours and occasionally slipped out for a walk. Saturdays he spent what time he could with Cascata before the Saturday study session which inevitably lasted until dinner. Sundays he worked on the memory shield before spending several hours with Susan poring over years of History of Magic notes, and then went to see Professor McGonagall for the frustrating lessons on summoning a Patronus.

Those lessons weren't going well. Professor McGonagall's already brittle manner was rendered more strained by a task she didn't agree with, and even more so from the continuing failure to succeed. Tamblin had so far been incapable of producing anything more than a puff of silver colored smoke, a result that had caused Professor McGonagall to demand over and over to know what his happy thought was. Tamblin suspected that his gift was making it hard for him to be present enough to produce a difficult magic so rooted in one's mood. Tamblin gave it a month before flatly telling Professor McGonagall that it was no use, and that he would speak to Professor Dumbledore about the matter. Professor McGonagall must have assumed he was going to tell the headmaster that he would not be able to go, because she seemed visibly relieved and even thrust a bowl full of snaps into his hands for him to take a treat before leaving her office.