Chapter 15: In Which Many Children Do Nasty Things

I do not own Harry Potter. Let's go.

Parvati and Padma were humming a song in two-part harmony, and this was a decidedly bad thing. The whole school knew this, of course – or at least, the portion of the school that paid any sort of attention to the gossip cycle did – but then agai, they weren't about to warn their oppressors of the danger that was quietly weaving daisy chains on the hill outside the forest, and so those who had to pass the twins did so calmly and quietly, at least on the outside.

And then there was Lavender Brown, who feared a man once, and decided it was bogus.

"Pav! Paddy! Whatcha doing?"

Padma, who was doing something painfully intricate with not just daisies, but leaves, grass, and sewing needles, said nothing. Parvati, for her part, beamed, and held up a long string of flowers. "Daisy chains! Wanna join in? We got new patterns!"

"Ooh, that's a pretty one," Lavender cooed, crouching and holding the end up to eye level. "Six strand weave, very nice."

A traditional daisy chain, of course, had nothing to do with weaving and everything to do with bifurgcated stems, but then again, traditional daisies didn't have ten-inch stems, nor did they self-replenish when picked. Never let it be said that Parvati Patil was brainless – she simply had a sense of priorities quite apart from the more studious teenager, that manifested in intricate butterflies, somehow finding hypoallergenic, decently priced foundation that came in colours other than paper, and flower patterns capable of holding half the average male's body weight. In any case, there was a reason Cormac McLaggen twitched like a fluffy little bunny rabbit whenever either Patil walked by, and it involved the centre tower's highest window.

"I got the pattern over there," Parvati told her friend, as her fingers deftly twisted another three flowers into the chain. "There's four, six and ten – do you think we could fishtail a daisy chain? Huh… anyway, if you want to help, we're aiming for fifteen lots of twelve feet by teatime."

"What about the ivy?" Lavender asked, and Padma glanced up briefly.

"Don't worry about it, that's mine. I wanted to try out a different pattern – knot theory and all, you know?"

Lavender did know, because it was the only thing all three girls mutually understood in full. Knowing exactly what was going on with your braids (and your damn bed hair) took a great deal of effort, after all – although she doubted that had been Padma's initial motivation. Still, sibling bonding was always a good thing. "Oh, okay!" she smiled, and she plopped down next to them, started picking flowers, and was soon enough humming a third part to the twins' melody.

Hogwarts feared for its life.

"Hermione," Ron pleaded, "You've been in here for thirty-two hours."

"I took a nap, Ronald," Hermione muttered, even as her head slipped off her hand and nearly bashed into the table. "I've nearly got it."

"You said that in the morning! It's afternoon teatime! Please, Hermione, just come out and – and eat something! Go to the bathroom! I dunno!" Ron exclaimed. "I know you pretend you don't need to do either of those things, but I grew up with Ginny! I know Fred was lying when he said girls don't need to go!"

Hermione huffed air through her nose. "Ronald, I've nearly completed this array of runes! I'll come out after, I promise, okay?"

Ron sighed, and sank into a chair next to her. "If you're not done in an hour, I swear I'm going to drag you out myself."

Hermione glanced up for a moment, peeping over Runes for Ruination before her eyes flicked back down to the pages. "You don't have to sit here."

"Yeah, I do. Besides, Luna and Neville are trying to breed murder carrots."

"That sounds nice," Hermione said vaguely, scribbling notes on the parchment next to her.

Ron frowned, and held out his hand a foot away from his own eyes, squinting at the bite marks along his fingers. "It's… really not."

"Harry, get the parchment and ink!" Ginny called out. "We're getting a message!"

"Right," Harry sighed. "Right, where – Hedwig, where's the ink?"

Hedwig, who could not talk, hooted blandly and kicked a small ink bottle off the nearest shelf and straight onto Harry's head, where it dripped through his hair.

"Wow. Thanks, Hed. Feeling the love, here."

Pigwidgeon trilled a cheerful melody, and Hedwig made a curious 'snek' noise that might have been laughter, but also might just have been a sneeze. Or a singular hiccough. Owl noises could be difficult to identify, especially when the bird in question was chewing on a stray rat.

Harry grumbled. "Right. Ink, ink – here. Gin, coin?"

"Got it. Right, first message. Ah – Dear Harry and co. Is it past our morals…"

Harry scratched it down. "Copy. What else?"

"I'm waiting for the reply – here it is. …to use barbed wire in conflict?"

Harry stared at her. "What?"

"Dear Harry and co. Is it past our morals to use barbed wire in conflict?"

"The hell?!"

"Copy that," Ginny snorted, poking the coin.

"Wait – no – Ginny, I didn't mean send it!"

"Too late," Ginny told him smugly, and Harry wondered whether, as a fugitive of the law, it would be appropriate to dye his best friend's sister's hair green in her sleep. Probably, if he was honest, and he said so. Ginny just blew a raspberry at him.

"Oh my," Dumbledore commented, and Mrs Weasley looked up from where she was sitting at the kitchen table, knitting a scarf.

"What is it? Did something happen?"

"Our – er – youth branch – appears to be considering using barbed wire as a weapon," Dumbledore replied, turning over the coin on his palm.

"What's barbed wire?" Mrs Weasley asked.

Dumbledore considered the question for a moment. "It's a muggle invention. They – ah, a reply – oh dear."

Dumbledore wasn't doing anything to calm Mrs Weasley's anxiety. In the slightest. "Albus? Oh, please tell me they aren't doing anything foolish…"

"Well, no, it doesn't seem so, although one of the children appears rather surprised… ah. Miss Granger appears to be giving them instructions."

Mrs Weasley considered this for a moment, decided that was probably best for everyone, and went back to her scarf.

"Okay," Ron said slowly, as Hermione finished spelling out the last of fifteen exceedingly nasty spells to apply to weapons of war. "But have you considered overlaying the shield thing and the horse thing instead of using the cup thing and the strength thing?"

Hermione looked up at him, ink on her nose, and blinked. "What would that do?"

"I dunno, I just think last time Dad said stuff about random chance and power, he glowed in the dark for a week and Mom had to hand a cookbook over to the Unspeakables because it was making the chickens grow extra legs."

"Your chickens… what was he doing?" Hermione asked incredulously.

"I dunno. He bought a lump of metal off a shifty muggle and next thing I know stuff starts lighting up. Dad wouldn't let us into the shed for the next month, and then Bode came by trying to replicate it with runes and nearly obliterated the gnome-holes. I remember Mum making Dad scrub those two runes off the shed wall."

Hermione stared at him for a moment, then firmly marked down four runes on her parchment. "Ron," she said slowly, "I think I nearly created a bomb."

"Is that bad?"

"It depends," Hermione informed him. "How mutated, exactly, were the chickens?"

"I dunno," Ron admitted, "I was pretty small. But I'm pretty sure one of them got all lumpy – and another grew an extra head and started glowing like Dad."

"What happened to them?"

"I'm pretty sure Bode took them. Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure that's when Dad's hair started falling out… what are you doing?"

Hermione had started scribbling furiously, ink splashing slightly as she noted down runes and numbers. "Just let me finish these notes, Ron, and then I'll eat."

"Uh. Okay, then."

Neville sat up properly from where he had been bent over, planting a particularly stubborn carrot into the soil surrounding the castle's keep. Apparently, being raised in the dungeons all their life made vegetables very much susceptible to curiosity surrounding bright things like the sun. For now, though, he had more pressing concerns. "Hey, Luna?"

"Yes, Neville?" Luna asked cheerfully, turning around with an armful of chirping plant cuttings.

"Did you feel a chill just then?"

Luna tilted her head and thought for a moment. "No. I felt… a warm feeling. Very nice and soft. Maybe it was a Pootling Pinwing. They feel different to different people, you know."

"…what do they do, exactly?" Neville asked.

"Oh, they fly from shoulder to shoulder and tell us what they've seen. They get very excited sometimes. They used to like the Patils' daisy chains, you know? They would come and talk to me all the time."

"I see," Neville said, and decided he was going to avoid Hermione for the next fourteen hours. There were only two people in the castle who could possibly make him feel like someone was dancing on his grave, and one was currently tickling the onions.

"Beware the flowers!" Trelawney shrieked. "Beware the flowers that snare and blind the unseeing!"

The ministry official pointed to her. "This is exactly what I mean! She's been telling us to beware the flowers for three days now!"

"We can't find another Divination teacher," his counterpart grumbled. "And if we drop Divination we lose our rating with the ICW."

"What about the horse?!" the official wailed.

"The – oh, the centaur? He's being… difficult."

"Mars is bright tonight," Ronan noted.

"Mars has been bright for multiple years now," Magorian agreed restlessly. "Our world may yet been thrown into disarray."

"Ceres raises her head once more," Bane said slowly. "This bodes poorly. We are not well armed tonight."

"Wha's See-reez?" one of the young foals asked, looking up through the canopy at the night sky above as he nibbled on a piece of fruit. "Izzit like Mars?"

"In part, my child," Magorian told him. "Mars is bringer of battle. Ceres is bringer of life."

Before the child could ask any more questions, though, there was the sound of hooves and a familiar face entered the clearing.

"You were told to leave and not return!" Bane roared, jumping to his feet.

"Peace, Bane." Firenze held up his hands. "I bring news from the castle. I do not wish for our people to be… unduly harmed."

"You should have thought about that before you left the forest," Magorian grumbled, pawing the ground and clenching his fists restlessly, but Ronan shook his head.

"Not in front of the children! Firenze, what makes you so bold to return? Speak wisely, our patience grows thin."

"Ceres awakens and rises," Firenze said simply.

"And?" Ronan asked sharply.

"She does so not for us. The foals of the castle grow closer to nature; even the witch has predicted it, though few believe it. The forest is safe, for now, but Ceres will smile upon those who call for her. Meanwhile, the humans grow away – I fear you shall be drawn into this conflict, soon."

"We will tolerate no interference," Magorian told him coldly.

Firenze surveyed them for a moment, before nodding. "Good."

"How do I look?" Lavender asked cheerfully.

"Wonderful," Ernie said briskly. "Function?"

"Perfect," Padma told him calmly, the crown of flowers on her head mid-way through strangling an unfortunate frog via its long, trailing stems.

"They are rather vicious," Susan noted, as the intricate chain in her own hands wrapped around a rat, interwoven needles splaying out to gain better purchase on the prisoner within.

"Very much so," Dennis agreed, dangling seven feet above the ground. "Can – uh – can someone let me down, now?"

As Terry Boot started coaxing the daisy chain into letting the younger Creevey go, the door to the room slid open and a shuffling body wandered in, closely followed by the sudden appearance of two small children, directly in front and as if they had simply manifested out of the air.

"We may have pushed Pansy Parkinson into the Chamber," Hettie informed them breathlessly. "Just maybe."

The room stared at them for a moment.

"I'll deny everything in court," Lycoris told them bluntly. "It was Pemberton."

"I thought his name was Alfred?"

"He didn't have a surname. I gave him one."

There was a brief, slightly awkward silence, and then Parvati grinned. "Well, I guess we haven't tested out the organic thorns yet, have we?"

Dear Minister,

It's Pootling Pinwing breeding season, did you know? I do so love this time of the year, Pinwings are so sweet, when you tame them properly. I wish I could send you some columbine, it attracts them so very well, especially on colder days, strung up among the cherry trees. I particularly like purple – purple is the colour of royalty, you know, I suppose that's why they flock so. I will miss them – do tell me if you find any, won't you?

I do hope you're keeping the Heliopaths locked away. It would be terrible if they were to harm the populace – they just aren't ready for that much fire. I've always preferred the Wibbling Vorpents, because you can kick them very hard. I do that every day. Sometimes the Pinwings keep them away for me, too, which is just too kind of them.

Grandpa's Fried Phoenix shop is doing well, I hope? I haven't had a letter in a while. He hasn't been set on fire, has he? He was going to branch out to catching dark phoenixes too, but they can be rather tricky. I did wonder if he should be selling popsicles instead. I suppose completely obliterating all he catches is out of the question. Regeneration is a given – so freezing sounds perfect. Besides, popsicles shine so brightly in the light.

Best Wishes,

Luna Lovegood

Cornelius Fudge stared at the letter in front of him, and wordlessly handed it over to the Aurors to read. He didn't know what it meant, but he had no wish to be infected with the crazies. His head was already spinning, and he didn't need that right now, not when the damn owls were perched on the rafters glaring down at him with fireworks attached to their feet.

On the inside of the wax seal, the overlaid runes for power, the cup, and purging sat innocently.

Notes on Luna-Speak:
Pootling Pinwing: Carriers of the emotion and spirit of invention, often malicious or at the boundaries of acceptable knowledge. Can manifest as a shiver down your spine, or excitement, either intuitively or upon finding something out. Also can be used via metonymy to refer to invention in general.
Flower Language: Apart from the famous asphodel line, there's a myriad of things that can be said in the flower language. I've referenced columbine twice and cherry trees once - columbine can mean folly, but also resolution to win in purple specifically and anxiety in red specifically, while cherry can mean education, or deception and perfidy in white specifically. In Japanese tradition, they also mean gentleness or transience, while in China, they mean femininity.
Heliopaths: Reporters.
Wibbling Vorpents: Attackers.
Phoenixes: Order Recruits.

Hopefully, with these notes, you can figure out what the rest of Luna's letter means.

(And yes, the Department of Mysteries is entirely incompetent at nuclear science. No, Hermione isn't going to nuke the Ministry. It's all in Luna's third paragraph.)