Hogwarts Forum (Challenges and Assignments)
Assignment #10 - Gardening: Seasons
Task #1 - Spring: Write about someone/something coming to life, literally or figuratively.
They say that when Azkaban sank, it turned silver.
Scorpius crept through the halls. His bare feet made no noise on the tiles. His clothes were soaked down to the last seam, waterlogged and heavy. Each splattering droplet echoed like a scream in a cave. He wove through a forest of marble pillars, keeping an eye on the high windows, where the shadows shifted with comfortable languidness. He didn't mind that languidness, that darkness. The sea was all around them, pressing in with bruised colours. The moment the windows turned grey with the foul stench of Dementors; that was when he needed to worry.
They say that when Azkaban sank, it sank so far it would never again see the light of day.
Statues pockmarked the great, hollow space. But none of them were for him. None of them shone when he slunk past them; none of them gleamed with that teacup-gold glaze through the cracks, art brought to life, healing in motion.
They say that when Azkaban sank, all hope drowned with it.
"I know you're in here," Scorpius whispered. "I know there's one here for me. But where…?"
He lifted his wand. It was pale, made of knotwood, and it looked ghostly in his quivering hands. But his hold was firm and steady. He knew the incantation, and he knew the wand motions. Schools all across the world still taught what couldn't be achieved without great sacrifice, without great risk. He knew precisely what to do, and so he did it.
They say that when Azkaban sank, the Dementors sank with it.
"Expecto Patronum."
A hush fell over the halls. Once a place of dismal cells and grief and despair, it was now a glistening, gleaming cavern beneath the sea. It worked itself into the rock and coral. Nothing came from his wand, no wisp of silver light, the way all the books said it should. But that didn't mean it didn't work. The hush grew and grew, no longer the silence of the seabed, but the quiet work of magic that didn't quite work.
Far inside the halls, deep in the waterlogged shadows, something cracked.
They say that when Azkaban sank, the Dementors followed it down, hungry for drowned souls, hungry for death, and found only the barest hint of hope left behind.
Scorpius went racing through the dark. The soft hush still blanketed the halls; once a prison, it was now a museum of calcified hope. The stories had no answer for why the prison sank, or what drove it down into the seabed, or why the Dementors fled the world, seeking to guard something so lost and dark. But the stories soon learned, when the light fled too.
He remembered the stories. He remembered the lessons imparted on him by tired, grim teachers.
"We used to have protectors, something to keep us safe from creatures that would consume our soul," the teachers said. "But now the creatures lurk in the sea, and our only hope of keeping them at bay lurks down there with it. They went down in the water to keep humanity from ever keeping them at bay again. They used to guard our prisoners, but now they guard their own demise."
They say that when the Dementors sank, the sea turned stormy and greedy.
He skidded to a halt in front of the statue, led there by some strange tug of magic nesting deep in his chest. This was the one, he thought. This was his. Something howled outside, and he knew he was right. The statue was larger than life, a solid hunk of heavy black stone. It towered over him. It seemed solid and immoveable, something to stare at and never touch, something barely even dead, on account of never breathing, never moving. But when he looked closer, he saw seams in the stone. The creases grew, the cracks widened, and dust trembled, falling from narrow lines. Not lines of gleaming gold, like glazed teacups, but tendrils of pure, shining silver.
"Found you," Scorpius whispered, and laughed.
They say that when Azkaban sank, the sea swallowed up every unworthy witch or wizard.
At the first hint of laughter, the statue exploded into being. It came to life under his tearful stare. Wings of charcoal stone burst into motion, thrumming in a ceaseless wave of silver. Dust cascaded through the air, chased away with each powerful surge of bright, wild, moonlit wings. Scorpius stared up at the hummingbird, wide-eyed and awed, and lifted his wand as high as he could.
The hummingbird tilted downward, and dove.
The wand of knotwood swallowed it up. Scorpius cried out, powerful magic shooting through his veins, through his skin, humming underneath him. He was a livewire, a chorus of emotion. He'd never felt so warm, so light, so … happy.
"Oh," he said, staring blankly at his wand. "That's what it is, isn't it? It's not hope. It's happiness. That's what we've been missing."
He tucked the wand close to his chest and wept, but they weren't tears of sadness. Such a thing wasn't possible. Not here, not with his new shadow pressed against his heart.
They say that when Azkaban sank, it took all the happy memories in the world with it. And only the warmest heart could bring them back.
"Expecto Patronum," Scorpius whispered again, but this time, the spell worked. The silver statue burst forth, brought to life again with just a word or two, just a whisper, just a thimble of hope.
It hovered near his left ear, a hummingbird fashioned from silver vapour. All the stories of hopeful shadows said they were hard to describe. They clung. They shifted. They had a different name, once. Soul-Spells. Protectors. Patronus.
"A hummingbird," Scorpius said, voice hushed. "I wasn't sure… I was afraid it was going to be something awful. I was afraid I might not make it here in the first place. I nearly didn't, you know."
At the timid uncertainty in his voice, something shifted. Not the hummingbird, not something within the magic, or even within the halls, but outside of them. The murky windows blackened suddenly; a dark, seeping fear pressed against the glass, rippling almost like a ragged cloak. Scorpius swallowed, gripping his wand so tightly it left an imprint in his palm. The hummingbird would keep him safe. But it would also make him shine. And down in the deepest, blackest part of the sea, even the barest hint of light drew unfriendly eyes.
They say that when Azkaban sank, the sea swallowed up every unworthy Witch or Wizard. They say that some of them made it through the doors. But they don't say whether or not they made it out again.
"Come on," Scorpius said, creeping back through the halls. "It's a long way home. But I think we have everything we need to bring some light back into the world."
The windows blackened one by one, shadows trailing after the faintest speck of glowing, silver light.
[Word Count: 1170]