Chapter 35: Que Sera, Sera

"Honestly, Chandler, it's not fair! Detention with Professor Lipskit until the Christmas holiday?" Dara whined. "I've heard he might actually be worse than that Umbridge lady who was here when Potter was here."

"I don't know. My cousin was here when Umbridge was here; he told me about that pen." It was maybe the first time that Zach had ever heard Chandler do anything other than wholeheartedly agree with Dara.

"Yeah, and they say the Weasleys released a swamp here too." Dara rolled her eyes.

"But, Dara, there is a swamp. It's by Professor Lipskit's office." Chandler grimaced as if not wanting to get in any further trouble by arguing with Dara.

"Yes, but do you really think that the Weasley twins created it right before they dropped out of school? Everything is either 'the Weasley twins did this' or 'Harry Potter did that.'"

"Um …" Chandler muttered intelligently.

"What I'm saying is, things get exaggerated." Dara's tone sharpened as a small knot of students came around the corner. "Especially by people who want attention. Like pretending to pass out just because they want out of a cupboard they shut themselves in. I bet asthma isn't even really a thing. I've never heard of it or heard of anyone with it."

With that, Zach knew that Miri had to be in that group of students.

"Are you still whining, Dara?" Haley asked, putting an arm around Miri's shoulders and steering her toward the Great Hall.

"If someone lied to get you in trouble, wouldn't you still be upset about it?" Dara sneered.

"Whatever, Dara."

"I bet Miranda doesn't even have a brother. All that tripe about Henry this, Henry that, it's probably just lies like the asthma thing: it gets her attention. It makes people forgive her bad grades and the fact that she doesn't brush her hair every morning." Dara's hazel eyes sparked in the candlelight, looking almost a feral gold. Even Chandler was looking at her like she'd crossed some sort of invisible line, edging slightly away from her.

"What did you say?" Miri whispered.

"Henry is a lie. That's what I said."

Dara's robes began to ripple and then strain. She seemed to be getting taller as well; it was only after Zach saw her socks against the shoulder of Penny's robes that Zach realized she was floating.

"Merlin's bloomers, Zach, grab her!" Juliette yelled as they pushed their way forward in the crowd of younger students who were looking at Dara in shocked awe – and for a few students, it might have been noted, delight. Zach made a grab for the first-year's ankle, only to have her jerked out of his grasp. It didn't take a genius to figure out who was responsible for that, not with the cackling hee-hee-hee accompanying it and the sound of bells, like on a particularly obnoxious hat.

"Peeves, put that student down!" Zach called.

"Don't!" Miri's voice cracked, and in fact she brandished her wand, a swishy length of larch, and cried out, "Wingardium Leviosa!"

Peeves crowed and batted Dara across the room like a beach ball.

"Get me down!" Dara wailed.

"What's going on here?" Professor Zanetti called, cutting through the din.

"She blew Dara up like a beach ball!" Chandler pointed an accusatory finger at Miri.

"She said my brother was a lie, Professor!" Miri's voice was so crazed and cracked, and even the look of terrified horror on Dara's face couldn't make Zach feel entirely sorry for the floating firstie. "That I made him up, made him—him—him." She stopped in the middle of the sentence, sobbing as Peeves grabbed ahold of Dara's ankle and dragged her along, singing "Que Sera, Sera" as he did a one-handed backstroke through the air.

"Oh, Merlin." The blonde professor put a hand on Miri's shaking shoulders. "Peeves, if you don't bring me that student, right now, I'll go get Lipskit."

"Awww. Boo." The poltergeist pouted, but dragged Dara down to where Zanetti could reach her. Grabbing the first-year's hand, she guided both of the girls from the hall toward the infirmary. "Zach, could you go get Professor Sprout?"

"Sure," Zach said as he turned to head toward her office.

"It honestly couldn't have happened to a nicer girl," Juliette muttered just before he got out of earshot. "All right, people, c'mon, move along. This is Hogwarts; six impossible things happen before breakfast."

Rowan took a deep breath and rubbed her eyes. Hours of scanning tiny, closely-written print in the library were starting to take their toll. How long until Christmas?

She told herself it made sense to be the one taking point on researching ways to help Blair. Jon's class load made it practically impossible for him to take on extra studying or research; Blair and Aubrey were both too busy with NEWTs; and Quill didn't have the patience for this kind of research. And while Candice was willing to help, that had been vetoed by everyone because she needed to concentrate on her OWLs.

Rowan was starting to regret that veto.

But how much help would even Candice be? Candice didn't think wizard.

Rowan knew that Blair could not be the first person born a witch to really be a wizard or vice versa. It just didn't make sense. There had to have been others – and there had to be some way to deal with this. As Aubrey had pointed out, you could use a potion to change yourself into another person, and some witches and wizards could transfigure themselves into entirely different species. Blair was one of them! Altering genitalia and secondary sex characteristics ought to be child's play in comparison.

But the difficulty with that hypothesis was finding the data to prove it. Aubrey, Blair, Jon – they'd never heard the word trans before until Rowan had said it, so witches and wizards had to have a different name for the phenomenon. The question was, what was it?

There wasn't even anyone Rowan could ask …

So she dove into the stacks, looking up appearance-altering spells and potions (which were all temporary) and advanced Transfiguration and even treatises on Metamorphmagi. None were particularly helpful. Nothing even hinted at the kind of information Rowan was seeking.

She wasn't looking for a needle in a haystack. She was looking for a needle in a shopping district somewhere abroad. She knew she had to find a fabric store – she just didn't know where it was. And she had a feeling that nobody spoke English, so she couldn't even ask anyone.

Rubbing her eyes again, Rowan glanced at her watch. She had not quite ten minutes before she was going to meet Zach and Spencer and teach them a few resuscitation spells she knew – in case that little brat Dara tried something else on Miri. Now that Miri had turned Dara into a floating beach ball in front of half the school, Rowan figured that they would need those spells more than they had before.

After all, Frida and Trish would have never let something like that rest.

She might as well pack up now. Her brain was hurting. So Rowan piled up the books, organized her notes, put the latter into her bag, and—

… Huh …

The Historie …

Rowan bit her lip and, guiltily, looked around. No one was watching her.

She dragged the book out of her bag and set it on the table. It certainly didn't look like much. Leather-bound and old but still in good condition, it didn't even have a title – just a strange sigil on the cover.

Frowning, wondering, Rowan slowly opened up the book.

She'd flipped through it as often as she dared since coming back from her grandmother's funeral. She'd looked up the Lincolnshire Compact; she'd read the account of the Gorloises in the First and Second Wizarding Wars. (Both war entries had been written in the same hand that had written the letter that came with the book. Rowan had decided that she wasn't going to think about that too much.) She'd even tried to read the account of Morgan's life, but that was all in ancient runes and Rowan hadn't been able to get the translation spell to work before she was interrupted.

There was, she knew, a magical table of contents. It was the only way to get anywhere in the book. Just opening up to a page at random showed a blank page.

So she could … perhaps …

If any family was likely to have someone whose sex was a little bit more complicated than "male" or "female" – surely it would be the Gorloises?

Surely they would have written about it?

But how?

Rowan frowned and whispered the first phrase that came to her head. "Gorlois w-wizard."

The page seemed to shift under her eyes …

One entry appeared. The name was entirely in runes.

Hand fumbling, Rowan tapped the book with her wand and murmured, "Interpretio."

Below the runes appeared the name of the article: "The Life of Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall."

"M-Merlin's bloody b-bathrobe," Rowan muttered. She rested her hand on her cheek and frowned at the book.

She was running into the same problem here that she had run into in the stacks. She didn't have the right words.

Closing her eyes, she tried to think of another way to phrase the question. "Gorlois w-witch who used to b-be a w-wizard."

The article on Gorlois of Cornwall vanished. And for a moment, there was nothing.

Then the page began to shimmer again.

A title appeared in runes. Rowan quickly translated it.

"The Life of Elaine Laudine Gorlois, born Elyan Caesar Lestrange, written by herself."

Jackpot!

"Rowan?"

Rowan jumped and almost yelped, slamming the book shut.

Zach and Spencer jumped back.

Oh … Merlin.

"H-h-hi," Rowan said, slipping the Historie into her bag and trying to smile. "S-s-sorry—I g-got s-startled."

"We could see that," Spencer replied, eyes narrowed.

"Everything all right, Rowan?" asked Zach, not even bothering to hide the faint worry.

"Oh, y-y-yeah." Rowan flashed a smile at the pair of them and hoped it looked genuine. "J-just concentrating – and I m-m-must have l-l-lost track of t-time – s-s-so – l-l-let me …"

"We can help," Spencer said, moving toward the books. "Are you checking any of these out?"

Rowan shook her head. And before she could blink, Spencer had grabbed one pile and Zach the other, leaving Rowan nothing …

Well, nothing but her always-full bag to carry, which was generally plenty.

"Th-thanks," Rowan replied. "So um—you have a s-s-study room?"

"Yeah, we found one that's empty," Zach said.

"All r-r-right." They went toward the door, stopping only to drop the books off on the carts for re-shelving. "S-s-so—we p-practiced on a d-dummy at St. M-M-Mungo's—but it's n-n-not a h-hard s-spell …"

They left the library still chatting, Rowan trying to focus her mind on the task at hand – and above all, trying not to concentrate too much on what she had just found.

Not until she was sure that whatever she had found would actually do her some good.

"You're even sure the little girl will see it?" Booker asked, nervously scuffing at some snow.

"I asked Zach, and he said she'd be coming back from detention," Ben told him.

"And how much trouble do you think this will land us in?" Cameron stretched and peered around the pillar that was providing them with shelter from the wind that cut through even the best warming spells.

"I'm hoping not much because there's nothing to clean up—nothing in this that's against the rules—and I'm pretty sure that a Disney lawyer isn't going to pop out of nowhere with litigation for it." Ben gave a half smile. "But only pretty sure."

Ringo threw his head back and laughed.

"There's Hagrid," Kenny said, morphing back into human form. "I hope you know I'm freezing my fluffy tail off here—and I'm a bloody snowshoe hare in my Animagus form."

"Don't worry, Ken, you have plenty of fluffy tail left." Ben smirked at the shorter boy who just pulled his orange parka a little closer to himself. "So the kid is with him?"

"Either that or he's charmed a supersized ball of yarn with legs and mittens to walk, which isn't entirely out of the realm of possibility."

"All right, show time."

"You said you'd always be with me, but you're not."

The voice rang out just as Hagrid and his ball of yarn crested into the courtyard – but by the way the smaller figure froze for a moment and looked around, Ben was guessing it was actually the kid.

It seemed like a simple thing to do. All it really was was moving lights. A giant connect-the-dots in the sky. The spells weren't hard, but the timing was precise. His spells had to line up exactly with Kenny's and Ringo's, and their spells had to match up exactly with the music.

A challenge, to be sure, but what was life without a few challenges?

As Ben was thinking about it, in the back corner of his mind, a young Simba was pouncing Mufasa in the sky. Hagrid paused and looked up too. The light had attracted other attention as well, students sticking their noses out into the cold and looking up, trying to decide if freezing was worth the light show.

If the group of students amassing despite the chill was as big as it seemed to be, he would guess it was.

"The past can hurt. But the way I see it, you can either run from it—or learn from it." Miranda's laughter cut through even sound as Simba – now grown – took the stick from Rafiki. Then there was Cinderella dancing with her pillow and her bird-and-mice friends. In picking vignettes, they'd tried to pick places where it was friends, family, the people who cared about you who picked you back up and dusted you off. It was far more important to remember that, Ben thought, than that to think that a dick or a nice rack could save you from yourself.

With wisps of fog, almost seeming like some giant in an invisibility cloak was leaving breath in the sky, lines of pastel neon connecting stars brightened to hold the whole thing together, each vignette set itself up, playing out a scene like those sketchy animation tests you sometimes saw in the "Making of" this or that feature.

The night after Ben Moore and his friends lit up the sky with … whatever that was, Vivianne made her way to a study lounge where she had planned to meet Zach after dinner.

She should have realized that he was highly unlikely to be alone.

"I just …" Vivianne recognized the voice: Miri, the girl who had been the cause and focus of so much trouble, and who had, apparently, been worrying Zach since the beginning of the year.

Because some instincts died only slowly, or not at all, Vivianne stopped outside the door and listened.

"I just want her to leave me alone, Zach. I mean – what Ben and his friends did was really nice – but Dara isn't going to stop just because of that." A pause. "Or because I blew her up like a balloon."

Vivianne put her hand in front of her mouth to keep from laughing out loud.

"You should ask Professor Sprout to let you switch into the other dorm," Zach counselled.

"… Do you think she'd let me? I mean, after …?" Miri's voice was very small, even smaller than usual.

Yes! thought Vivianne, because at this point, even Professor Yaxley would sign off on a move if a pair of Slytherin first-years were doing this – if only to save herself an infinite number of headaches.

"I really think she would, Miri," Zach answered. "Think about it like this: you're taking steps to solve the problem. Why wouldn't she support that?"

"… But what if the problem doesn't stop?"

Vivianne hesitated – but she knew how Zach would respond to this, didn't she? He would say something eminently sensible, something that would follow all the rules. Something about bringing it up to a prefect or a teacher and letting them handle it.

The trouble was, as Vivianne suspected Miri already knew, prefects and teachers could only do so much.

So she chose that moment to waltz into the room, saying blithely as she did so, "Then you give her a hexing she won't soon forget."

As Miri and Zach jumped to see her, Vivianne smirked at the pair of them and slid into the chair next to Zach's. "Hullo Zach," she kissed his cheek, "Miri."

Miri's eyes were very wide, and Zach looked faintly reproving. "Vivianne."

"What?" Vivianne asked, shrugging. "I'm sorry, but there are some people who don't respond well to reason, discipline, or authority. They speak a simple language, and if you want to get through to them, you need to speak that language. In fact …" Vivianne mused. "Your Dora—"

"Dara," Miri corrected.

Vivianne waved the correction off. "Whatever. Your Dara – she reminds me a bit of a girl in Slytherin in our year. Frida Rowle. Do you know her?"

Miri shook her head.

"Do yourself a favor, then, and keep it that way," Vivianne replied. "She—"

Vivianne stopped.

It was obvious – based on the previous day's light show – that Miri had some Muggle heritage, enough to understand what all of that was about. So Vivianne had thought to warn her that Frida's father had been a Death Eater and that Frida herself seemed to have thoughts in her father's mold. Except …

"And then—then, when he gets a chance to get out in the big breakout of '96, with his Death Eater father and all his friends—he threw his lot in with the Dark Lord!"

"Oh, yes, a Snatcher. Hauling terrified Muggle-borns up in front of the Registration Commission. Hunting down the only people brave enough to say the Dar—Tom Riddle's name. No, Josie, he never did anything bad at all."

Vivianne couldn't go on.

"Vivianne?" Zach asked. He put a hand on her shoulder – barely any pressure – but it was enough to bring her back into the present.

A glance into Zach's very blue and very concerned eyes also reminded Vivianne that she wasn't quite sure when the last time she had breathed was.

So she did so – in a gasp that was a bit too sharp for her taste, but there wasn't much she could do about that – and she shook her head. "Sor—sorry. Where was I?"

Zach bit his lip, and a sidelong glance at Miri proved her to be just as concerned. Vivianne swallowed – and remembered.

"Oh. Yes. Stay away from Frida." Her voice, as she spoke, grew stronger, and by the time she got to the end of the sentence, Vivianne was able to flip her hair over her shoulder with something like nonchalance. "She has no fondness for people with Muggle heritage. And she knows some … powerful hexes …"

"She's worse than Dara," Zach added, without a hint of hesitation or even regret.

Miri's eyes went wide.

"But as I was originally saying," Vivianne went on, "there are some people – like Frida – and possibly your Dara – that do not respond to reason. That only understand power and force. If you have more of it than they do – they will leave you alone. If not …" Vivianne shrugged and spun her wand between her fingers.

Zach was scowling – but then, why shouldn't he? Surely he remembered what Frida and Trish had done to Rowan last year. And now this Dara …

"So toss a few hexes her way – especially if they're technically a bit too complicated for someone your age – and that might get the message across in a way a slew of detentions could not compete with." Vivianne shrugged.

"Vivianne." Zach sighed.

"What?" Vivianne blinked at Zach in perfect innocence.

"You should not be offering to teach hexes to a first-year – especially not in front of a prefect."

"Ah, but I'm not offering to teach her hexes in front of a prefect; I'm offering to teach her hexes in front of my boyfriend."

"There's a difference?" Zach asked.

"Isn't there?" Vivianne replied. She rested her chin on her hand and batted her eyelashes at him. "After all, Zach, it's not like you'd blow me in to a teacher … would you?"

"I—" Zach began.

"And," Vivianne continued, "you know Juliette would have already done it, if she could figure out a way around the whole 'being a prefect' thing."

"… Probably, but—"

"Not to mention," and here Vivianne turned a particularly melting gaze on him, "you know that this is the least bad option you have, right? I mean, if I don't teach Miss Miri a few hexes, chances are excellent that Sybilla is going to be the one doing a few hexes – and we wouldn't want that, would we?"

"Oh, Merlin," Zach muttered, resting his head in his hands.

And Miri laughed.

Vivianne just winked at Miri, the wink of one female to another, the elder showing the younger how it was done – but Zach looked up.

His mouth opened.

His mouth shut again.

He smiled.

And Vivianne let the fluttering in her stomach slowly take over, to the point where she was almost surprised when Miri asked, "Would you? Really?"

Vivianne blinked – would she what? – but then she remembered. "Certainly, Miri."

"… Maybe," Miri said – she was picking at a loose thread on her skirt, not meeting Vivianne's gaze – "maybe over the Christmas holiday? I mean … if you're staying …"

"You're staying, Miri?" Zach asked, the concerned look coming back.

Miri merely shrugged. "I don't have much reason to go home. Besides, Dara will be gone, so I'll get a holiday either way."

She glanced at Vivianne. "So—would you? Maybe?"

Vivianne had her reply already set: a gracious refusal, predicated on the fact that she would hardly be staying at the school over Christmas, followed by an offer to start teaching her as soon as she got back, or even before they left.

Except …

"I don't have much reason to go home."

What reason did Vivianne have to go home? There was her mother – and perhaps the investigation – but …

She thought of the huge castle, echoing and empty, stuck there alone with Ettie while her mother went out with her friends or got plastered with Professor Yaxley …

Vivianne breathed in sharply enough that Zach shot a worried look at her.

She swallowed. "I—I haven't decided whether I'm going home or not," Vivianne replied, "but … if I do decide to stay, of course I'll teach you. And if I don't, we'll find another time."

Miri grinned. "Great. Thanks—thanks, Vivianne."

Zach groaned. "What next?" he muttered to his hands. "Come to the dark side, we have cookies?"

Miri burst out laughing at that, and Vivianne decided – even if she didn't understand why – that she would consent to being the butt of the joke just this once.

It felt good to hear that little girl laugh.