Chapter 36: A Few Details
They apparated to the dungeon almost every day in the subsequent two fortnights. During free hours, Ravina spent more time than ever in the Obscurial's room, going through the past ten years, how it all came to be. He told her things he hadn't thought he would tell anyone: his mother's name, Mary Lou Barebone, and how she wasn't really his mother, but the only parent he had ever known. Where he used to live in New York, the Second Salem church. For the first few months at Ilvermorny, he had always been afraid they would find out all those things and send him back. No one but maybe Miss Ravina really knew what it was like there. However, the ruling of Professor Blygull seemed to give no intention of that, and Ravina swore that she would never use the information in any way that he didn't want. It felt good to trust somebody for once. If only he could bring himself to tell her the thing – what he had almost begun to tell Mr. Hodges at the trial but then been cut off. In hindsight, it was a relief. Some secrets he didn't even want to think about himself, much less share.
Fortunately, he didn't have to. The Obscurial's days were so incrusted with magic and parasite and emotion that he didn't have time to be lonely. With the professor in the dungeon he slowly learned how to 'let go' of his Obscurus and allow it to take him over. Even slower he learned how to bring it back in without help. As four weeks turned to three and then to two, Rocky felt confidence growing, much to his surprise. Perhaps a part of him had never really acknowledged that an Obscurial could master himself to the point of being fit for society. Yet even Professor Blygull couldn't deny as the school year rushed upon them that no mindless cloud of uncontrollable destruction was threatening the school now.
The air sometimes threatened a chill. High up on the mountain, summer's sun beat down very clearly most days, but recently Daniel or Rafael had been able to spot a cloud or two when they looked out of the window. The boy felt it too, since he was now allowed to go outside. Summers were short in the Massachusetts mountains.
A week or so before the school year's start, teachers and staff began to arrive. All the goldbricks, as the castle-stayers called them, who had been at home enjoying the break with their families, got enthusiastically filled in. The preparation week hadn't had this much excitement in living memory.
In waving wands and saying spells, the black, shapeless monster hadn't shown itself outside of the dungeon since Rocky and the Obscurial in the study room on Trial Day. That was the last thing that convinced Professor Blygull. She casually mentioned to Ravina in a hallway about the need to borrow some extra robes for the new student. Ravina was ecstatic. The Obscurial was nervous. He had never really been to school, much less a boarding school. And whatever he had learned to do, the Obscurus was not gone, and maybe never would be. He couldn't forget the conversation he had heard which had instigated the trial, about how Obscurials never lived past ten. That was how old he was; early for a wizard to be starting school. Maybe they had some intelligence, some inkling, that he might not even make it to the end of the year. But he couldn't go back, even if he wanted to. Forward was the only option. Back held only his family – the one who probably wanted to kill him. Forward was Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the real thing. If they could make it without a single death.
A/N: The end! Of this first part, anyway. I don't know how much I've mentioned it, but this story I split up into three parts. The first one's called Summer Trials, and you just finished it. The next part is where we actually get to see Credence attend the school of Ilvermorny, which is, I'm sure, what most people thought this would be when they clicked on it. Unfortunately, I haven't written it yet. I hope to be done by the fall, but not sure exactly when. Please stick around! I loved all the reviews and encouraging comments, they just warmed my heart.
I don't know if anyone picked up on this, but every chapter title is something Rocky has said. Also, I never use Credence's name in the narrative. Just some fun things I threw in there. Please review!