Adventures At Echowick
Disclaimer: I still own no rights to Harry Potter or anything related to the series, characters, or situations. I own only the original characters and elements of this story, from which I make no profit of any kind. Thank you.
Finals
The end of the school year always seemed to zoom by for Cari. The Academics vs. Arts Quidditch match had gone smoothly, no unexpected incidents. Cari even made a few – thankfully uncontested – calls. One week later, the final match of the season, Politics vs. Arts, took place. When Cari arrived at the broom shed, she was surprised to find Mr. Kreer waiting for her.
"Mr. Kreer! What are you doing here?" Cari asked, unable to keep the obvious question inside. Mr. Kreer liked playing Quidditch, but was vocally of the opinion that watching it was a waste of time.
He smiled under his lightening beard and said mysteriously, "Call it a hunch." He followed her inside the small, stone building, stopping her from picking up her broom. "If you'll give me just one moment, Miss Romana?"
Obligingly, Cari stood back, allowing the square, towering man room to get past her. Shockingly nimble in his movements, Mr. Kreer knelt, studying the broom from inches away. He muttered a few words that made the tip of his wand glow as though he had cast a lumos, but this light was a harsh, dazzling gold. The Survival Professor made several passes over the broom with the glowing wand, getting progressively closer to its surface each time. When he finally touched the wand to the broomstick, using only the slightest bit of pressure, there was a loud pop and the light turned a sickly gray. He nodded once and stood.
"What's going on, sir?"
"Your broomstick is jinxed." She furrowed her brows at him. "Professor Fleet and I had a feeling that something like this could happen, especially after the NAWT banned Kaine and Geikas from the last Quidditch game. It's a severe jinx. Not quite a curse, but it could still do something nasty if you were to have touched it. I can get rid of it, but there's no spell in existence that would let us trace who placed it or what it would have done."
Cari nodded. "Thank you for checking it for me. I never would have thought to look that closely."
"It wouldn't have mattered. Jinxes and curses placed on objects can be seen, but only with much difficulty and by someone who was carefully trained." Mr. Kreer had gone back to looking at the broom, experimentally flinging a spell or two at it as he spoke.
"You saw it," she couldn't help but point out.
He smiled absently, "That's completely different. I worked as a curse-breaker for several years when I was younger. Now, hush. This takes concentration if I'm going to do it right the first time." Cari opened her mouth and he raised an eyebrow at her. "You want me to do it right the first time."
She stood silently in the doorway of the broom shed until he had finished, the golden glow of his wand gradually growing brighter and brighter until Cari could hardly stand to keep her eyes open. When everything was peaceful and dark once more, Mr. Kreer stood, nodded to her, and moved as though to leave the building.
"Wait, Mr. Kreer! What do I say if anyone says anything to me about all of this?"
"Well, if they mention it to you first, it's probably a good reason to think that they placed it. You should probably avoid those people, then. And you can say anything you want, but if you want to confuse them, just ask what they're talking about. They'll either think they cast their jinx wrong or that you're the toughest kid who's ever come to Echowick. Now, you had better head out to the Pitch. Professor Gregory's probably been out there for half an hour now."
Thanking him once more, Cari went out. The game wasn't bad, though it was incredibly short. Cari didn't like Ravinger or Pitt, but she had to admit that the former was an excellent Captain and the pair were great Beaters. Obviously suffering from the lack of leadership, the Politics Team struggled to work together. Both of the Beaters were replacements, which also was less than ideal. One missing Beater would have been bad, but still salvageable. Two was beyond hope. They couldn't function as a team and hit the Bludgers back at their own teammates almost as often as they did the other team. The team was a mess, but it was a thankfully short game, with the Arts Seeker and Captain, Amethyst Fletcher, catching the Snitch relatively early.
By the same Saturday night, all of the scores had been calculated and the winner of the Echowick Trophy for Quidditch was announced. When Professor Fleet announced the Physical Team as the winners, Cari felt like she outcheered everyone else in the cafeteria. Traditionally, all of the members of a Quidditch team would walk to the front of the room to accept the trophy, which was always given to the youngest player.
However, when the Headmistress held the trophy out to Shadow, he shook his head and stepped aside. This started a movement and each of the players followed his example, leaving Niccolo Rossi to collect the trophy. His eyes were shining and he was smiling more brightly than Cari had ever seen before. It's been a rough year, but I think this moment might be worth it.
The next week kicked off the last week of April and finals were approaching at a frightening speed. The pressure started to pick up, especially for the second-years. More than once, Cari could hear her classmates complaining, "I cannot wait until next year! Can you imagine? We'll have two fewer finals to take. It'll feel like a vacation!" Cari couldn't help but agree with this. Trying to study for eight finals felt nearly as easy as she imagined swimming in bricks would be.
The horribly rushed, unprepared feeling didn't let up over the coming weeks. Instead, it increased to the point that, nearly daily, a student would run from the library crying, or vomit in the hallway. It would have been kind of funny if Cari didn't feel like she was going to do the same thing at any given moment.
Finally, she sat at her table in the library one morning, surrounded by books, when her stress levels began to rise. The pressure in her chest increased and Cari began to hyperventilate. As she took deep breaths, trying to slow her heart rate, a hand tapped her arm. Looking up, she saw Shadow's bright blue eyes filled with a joyous, secret laughter. He sat next to her, leaning close to whisper so he wouldn't disrupt the working students. "Hey, you look a little stressed out. Come with me." Cari looked questioningly at him, but he shook his head, pressing a finger to his lips as he beckoned her to follow behind him.
He led her to one of the outbuildings, checking to make sure that no one else saw what they were doing. When Cari stepped inside, she was completely… confused. There were just a bunch of their friends standing around inside a plain, white-painted room about the same size as her Broomsmith classroom. "Shadow, seriously? I have so much studying to be doing-"
"No, you don't. That's all we've been doing all year! Studying, working, learning, repeating. I decided that we all could use a break. So, I've spent the morning doing this."
"Uh, doing what?" Fletchmeister asked, censure in his voice. "Because I've been standing here for almost an hour and it still looks like an empty room to me." Cari was taken aback by the harsh tone in Fletchmeister's voice. The stress must be getting to him, too.
Shadow was undaunted, however, beaming brilliantly. "I'm so glad you asked, Fletch! In my Architecture classes-" a loud series of groans threatened to cover his next words, but he continued on anyway. "-the teachers have come up with a way to let us explore the great buildings of the world. See? Agito nec Duco!"
Everyone in the room gasped as images flickered up on each of the four walls, showing the inside of some building or another. Cari wasn't very interested in the building itself, but when the ceiling showed a towering staircase leading up for as far as she could see, the spell on the building fascinated her. After a moment, the floor even began to change, not only flickering to look like an old, uneven wooden floor, but moving to feel like one as well.
Shadow repeated the spell, this time causing the room to look like the Echowick cafeteria. It was an exact match, down to the very last detail. "Do you guys get the idea?" Shadow asked. "I know everyone has studying to do, so we'll make this quick. Everyone gets to choose where to take us, we'll stay there for five minutes, and switch to the next place. Who's first?"
Lydia volunteered, whispering in Shadow's ear before he cast them onto an island. Five blissful, sun and sand-filled minutes later, Toby transported them to one of the oldest libraries in the world for five minutes of peace and cool shade. Lionel took them to a nightclub, Kimber to a rainforest, Tessa to a movie theater, Eric to the top of a cliff, Chayton to a rock concert. Each place was a blast as they laughed, danced, sang, and explored.
During Willa's requested trip to a temple in India, Shadow pulled Cari off to the side. "Have you thought about where you want to go?"
"I thought about it, but… This is the only place I really want to be."
"Wow. That was kind of cheesy, don't you think?"
Cari couldn't fight back a smile. "Yeah, it was. Sorry. But I can't really think of any place I want to go and it's been a good day of destressing. I seriously think I'm good. Did you pick a place?"
He shook his head. "I just wanted to do something that would make all of us happy. Sounds like we have that. I can't think of a place that would make me happier." He leaned closer. "By the way, it doesn't sound cheesy when I say it."
She tipped her head to accede his point and said demurely, "Of course not. Thanks for proving your superiority, Mr. Shadow McAwesome."
He smiled, but there was no more time for conversation. Willa's time was up and Jael was determined to take them to some kind of a building filled with trampolines.
When the stress of finals had passed, the second-year students still had more tests to complete. Before they could drop the classes they wanted to for their third year, students had to take general exams for those classes to prove they at least had a certain level of mastery. With even more studying, Cari passed both of her chosen exams, though she was starting to feel like she had memorized the textbooks. It wasn't a good feeling.
Fortunately, classes were almost over. The second-years had to finish out the week of classes while the first-years took their finals, and then they were free. In her last Charms class, Professor Garbin was all too eager to sign Cari's Class Drop permission slip. He snatched the paper from her hand, scrawled his name across the bottom, and thrust it back at her. "If you never darken the door of my classroom again, Miss Romana, it would be fine with me."
"No joke. Glad it's over." Cari could only attribute her cavalierly blunt attitude to the end of the school year and the things the professor had put her through over the past year. Remembering those disagreements, she half-expected the professor to berate her for being flip, but he nodded fervently.
As soon as she gathered her books, he ushered her to the doorway and slammed the door shut behind her. Shadow, accompanying her on the chance that Garbin would try to get Cari in trouble, stared back at the entrance disapprovingly. "Well, that was rude. Where does he get off, pretending that you were the one to cause all of your problems?"
Cari shrugged. "Who gives a-" she cut off, clearing her throat as several other teachers passed them. "What I mean is: I don't care. I'm done with Charms, I've learned enough to function in the wizarding world, and I don't have to sit through any more classes taught by someone who hates me." This didn't sound quite true, and Cari gave a quick shake of her head as she corrected, "Well, by that particular someone who hates me. I'm sure there will be others."
"That's the spirit!" Shadow cheered, only slightly sarcastically. "Now, come on. Let's get to Fleet's class. Don't want to be late on the last day!"
The rest of the day was slow, leisurely, filled with a handful of students in each class who needed their slips signed. For the most part, the professors were understanding, though some – like Professor Perez – were prone to make jokes about being offended.
That night was the second-years' Astronomy class, Cari's second choice of class to drop. It wasn't that she minded the subject. In fact, the hours spent peacefully watching the night sky and listening to the soft hum of classical music were among the best times Cari had experienced at Echowick. More than once, she had debated whether dropping the easy subject was in her best interests, but had always come back to the same conclusions. For as easy as Astronomy was, Cari could not justify the time it took to learn something that would be pointless to her future career.
At the beginning of the last class of the year, there was a small period of time before the lesson started. Cari, unsure of how to bring up the topic without coming off as offensive, sidled up to Professor Ford awkwardly. She was silent, but Ford thankfully possessed greater social skills than the second-year.
"Good evening, Miss Romana. I hear that you have become quite the accomplished student this year." Cari looked at her questioningly and Professor Ford smiled. "A broomsmith-in-training and a student broom caretaker to boot. Have you ever flown beneath the stars on a clear night?" Cari shook her head mutely and Ford's odd golden eyes took on a faraway glow, reminding Cari of the jinx-searching light emitted from Mr. Kreer's wand in the broom shed. "You might try it some time. It is a wonder not to be missed."
"Thank you for the advice, Professor. I will definitely have to give that a try." Cari found herself unable to ask the woman to sign the slip of paper, especially when she was acting so strange, but the professor once again took charge of their short conversation.
"I believe you have a permission note for me?"
Cari passed it over gratefully, but couldn't help but ask, "How did you know?"
Smiling a secret half-smile, Professor Ford said, "My dear, after one teaches for as long as I have, one develops a keen sense of which students will drop the class. I knew you would be one to do so as soon as your first class ended." She signed the note with a flourish and handed it back to Cari. "Regardless, I have thoroughly enjoyed your presence in my classroom and wish you nothing but success in your studies and profession. Take care, Licaria Romana."
For someone who didn't think much of Astronomy, Cari certainly had a difficult time leaving the class on the final night.
On the next day, their first day of freedom, Cari was dragged from her room by a laughing Lydia and Tessa, who took her straight to the grounds in front of the outbuildings. "Okay, what is going on?"
"Your birthday party, of course!" Cari groaned playfully while they just laughed.
A small table was set up between two of the buildings. Lydia sighed, seeming suddenly irritated. Cari shot her a questioning look and she shook her head. "I wanted to have this on the Quidditch pitch, but it's closed off right now."
"Closed off? Why?" It was the first Cari had heard of this, unusual with all of her Quidditch connections.
Eric crossed his arms grumpily. "They're trying to keep the grass as nice as possible for graduation. I don't know why; the pitch is always completely destroyed after the ceremony. It's so stupid."
"Wow, Eric. How do you really feel?" Cari wanted to tell Willa that needling the boy probably wasn't a bright idea, but Chayton just laughed, slinging an arm around the taller boy's shoulders.
"Don't mind him. Eric's just in a bad mood because he got caught trying to sneak up there and was threatened with a detention."
Shaking off Chayton's arm, Eric snorted. "I only got caught because they warded the path up there. Plus, it wasn't my idea to go check. Lydia asked me to. This is what I get for being such a helpful and generous friend…"
The group turned to Lydia expectantly, but she just stared blankly back at them. After a moment, she smiled and shook her head. "Oh, right. Thank you, Eric, oh wonderful and brave friend of mine who is also strong and cheerful and willing to go the extra mile to help anyone who needs it and-"
"Okay, that's enough." Eric's voice was gruff, but he was obviously fighting a smile.
"Are you sure?" Lydia asked. "Because I can make up some more stuff."
"See, this is the bad thing about surprise parties," Cari interrupted. Lydia turned to her, obviously ready to defend the honor of surprise parties, but Cari went on before she had the chance. "There's a lesser-known secondary entrance to the Quidditch pitch, but you couldn't ask me about it. What a shame."
"What?!" Lydia cried. "Where is it? Don't look at all of this while you explain it. And you better show us where it is! My party would be perfect if it could be set up on the pitch!"
Faced with Lydia's frantic excitement, Cari gave in readily and told the group about the path behind Building 7. Lydia quickly assigned everyone an object or party favor to transport up to the pitch, made Cari promise not to look, and off they went.
Much as she hated to admit her roommate was right, Cari completely understood Lydia's insistence on the party being on the Quidditch pitch, as the party was Quidditch-themed. No, that wasn't exactly it. The party was more broom-themed than anything about the sport in particular. All kinds of trivia was read out with prizes as incentives as everyone stood around drinking cups of 'broom polish', which was a disconcerting black color but tasted like a light fruit juice with a hint of vanilla. Of course, Cari beat everyone in the trivia, but there were still some entertaining moments.
Before anyone had a chance to get bored, Cari grinned wickedly and asked, "You guys want to see something cool?" The answer was obviously 'yes', and in moments, Cari had disabled the wards and opened the broom shed, pulling out a broom. "Well, you know how you just say U-P if you want the broom to rise? Professor Gregory and I figured this out when we were goofing around before a match. Up!" The broom rose obediently, but Cari snatched her hand away at the last second. The broom continued to fly upward nearly a foot before falling gently back down onto the thick grass.
She turned to the group, but they didn't seem as entertained as she had been. "You see? That wasn't the best one I've ever done, but the more forcefully you say the word, the higher up the broom will go before it gives up and falls down. I'm still trying to beat the professor. He got a lift that must have been more than six feet!"
The mere hint of a challenge was enough to entice the group, who each wanted to see how far they could get the broom to rise. In the end, only Toby and Jael were left competing. Both had succeeded in making the broom rise nearly five feet in the air, but neither could make it go further. When the competition devolved into trash talk, Shadow cut the struggle short, grabbing the broom and returning it to the broom shed amid everyone's complaints.
"Shh! Someone's coming. Everyone go back down the trail to Building 7!" In the ensuing chaos of movement and Lydia reminding everyone to take stuff back with them, Shadow caught Cari's upper arm. "Romana, can you reset the wards on the broom shed? I don't know if they still have those security cameras, but I don't want to take the chance."
"I can put them back up, but it's going to take a minute."
"You get started on that while I go stand watch." Cari hesitated and Shadow rolled his eyes at her. "I'm not going to leave you, I promise. Come on, Romana, have a little faith!"
Cari took a deep breath and began rebuilding the wards, taking care to tuck in the ends of her patch job so that no one would recognize that the protections had been removed once. Just as she finished, Shadow sprinted up, grabbed her wrist, and dragged her just inside the treeline before a couple of figures burst onto the pitch. Taking care to avoid any dead leaves, they made their way back down to meet the others, where they laughed away the stress and went to hang out in one of the student lounges. Cari couldn't remember a better birthday.
The next day passed rapidly, mostly owing to the fact that someone had flooded the Potions classrooms. Covered in several feet of shockingly mild water, the stone of the dungeons had become the perfect place to sit and cool off, relaxing and chatting with other students. About an hour after the area became a hotspot, Professor Brunn had made an appearance, her quiet voice cutting through the racket of so many collected students.
"How dare you?" she asked simply, voice throbbing in betrayal. "These are my dungeons!"
The students began to look sheepishly abashed, pulling their feet from the water or retreating from the underground chambers entirely. Professor Brunn went on, "If anyone knows how to handle a situation like this, it would be me!" She plopped down on a ledge, the water reaching her waist, and made a flowing, upward gesture with her wand. "Ebullio aestus estus!" The water in front of her began to bubble merrily as steam rose from the surface. "Ahh…" the Potions professor sighed, relaxing further into the water. "It's a good thing all of my ingredients and chambers are warded, isn't it? If only you had invited me earlier."
A cheer went up around the room as people realized that their fun had not ended. Several of the older students begged to learn what they called 'The Hot Tub Charm', and Brunn taught it to them willingly enough. Soon, the entire dungeon had turned into one giant, heated, bubbling pool. Fleet had briefly come down the stairs and began to lecture the students about respecting property, but when she caught sight of Professor Brunn waving cheerily from across the room, the Headmistress had closed her mouth very tightly before turning and walked back up the stairs.
The next night was graduation night and the second-year group went in support of Niccolo, who had unofficially been adopted by them. The evening was warm without being hot, breezy without being windy, and somehow, there were fireflies but not mosquitos. Surrounded by friends, Cari thought briefly that the night would be perfect… except for one unwelcome addition: third-year Arsenia Aguilar seated confidently on Shadow's other side.
The ceremony began and the seventh-years walked in to the sound of the band playing. While the first speaker droned on, Cari and Lydia leaned together and began to whisper. "You have no idea how long I've been looking forward to this," Lydia confided softly.
"Are you serious? I think this school is losing a strong Quidditch captain and one of their best stude- I'm just messing with you. I've been waiting for this, too," Cari chuckled. "How long do you think she'll cry?"
"Oh, I don't even care about that. I want to see how hard she's going to cry. I'll guess that it won't be enough to wipe off all of her makeup, but enough to smudge it a good bit." Their giggles began to attract unwelcome attention, and the girls dropped the conversation.
During the ceremony, Cari and Lydia took turns sneaking looks over at Arsenia, but the girl seemed collected enough. They were patient, though. When Professor Fleet called, "Niccolo Rossi," they both risked glances at the same time, more than ready to see the girl thoroughly miserable, but they were shocked to find that she wasn't crying. In fact, she wasn't even watching the stage. Instead, she had wound both arms around Shadow's bicep and was whispering to him, an adoring look in her eyes.
Lydia made a disgusted sound. "Ugh. Now we're going to have to put up with her being around even more often! This is the worst day of my life."
"Yeah, I know," Cari agreed. She stared at Arsenia's perfectly-manicured hands clutching Shadow's arm. An uncomfortable feeling was building in the pit of her stomach, one made up of anger, jealousy, and a sense of being too late. She didn't like it, not one bit. Biting back the urge to march over and sit between them, Cari turned back to the stage, taking a deep breath in through her nose for strength.
Author's Note - First off, so sorry for the delay on this chapter! I'm back home visiting family and the day got away from me. In my defense, it's still Monday here. Secondly, thanks for reading! Please drop me a review if there's anything you particularly liked or hated. I hope you enjoyed and that I'll see you next Monday (hopefully on time)!