Tonks moves toward Alex's motorcycle. Ginny complains "Mummy! I might never get a chance to ride again. Mummy! Please!"
"It isn't up to me dear…" Molly responds.
Tonks looks at Ginny and back to Alex. Alex nods and raises an arm welcoming Ginny as Tonks walks toward the Ford. Cayleigh beats her to the front passenger seat. Ceirdwyn slides in behind the wheel. Tonks and Molly get in the back as Alex straps the helmet to Ginny's head.
Molly looks at the diminutive witch climbing on the bike behind Alex with worry. Ceirdwyn sees Molly and says "She's not stricken with an overabundance of caution, but she'll be careful with your daughter."
Ceirdwyn turns to Cayleigh and explains "When I tell you to, hit that button…" she points to it "…and we become invisible…but not until I tell you." Cayleigh nods grinning like the cat that ate the canary, concerning Ceirdwyn. "I mean it. We don't want to be invisible in traffic. I'll survive, but you're riding in the 'death seat."
Ceirdwyn looks annoyed as Alex roars passed. Molly gasps in horror as she sees Ginny has her small fists above her head in victory. Ceirdwyn sees it too and honks, when she sees Alex look at her mirror she motions downward. Alex notices Ginny is not holding on to her and grabs Ginny's left hand with her non-throttle hand and moves it to her waist.
The Ford Anglia moves back toward the highway. A truck pulls out of a side street right in front of Ceirdwyn. She pounds the brakes. "What?! Am I invisible? ..." She looks at Cayleigh to see her shaking with suppressed giggles. "We're invisible!" Then she looks at the rearview mirror and hits the throttle before they are rear-ended by a bus that can't see them. She knows that they cannot become visible in front of all of the muggle traffic so she depresses the clutch and shifts from second directly to overdrive and pushes the throttle to the floor. The Anglia vaults abruptly into the air safe from collision.
Cayleigh's jaw drops, she looks out the side window back at the rapidly receding ground. Tonks head moves rapidly trying to make sense of what has happened. Lying on her back in the climbing car, Molly struggles against the G forces to reach for Ceirdwyn thinking she may have gone mental. If she knew what was about to happen, she would have been sure of it.
Ceirdwyn drops the car out of gear. It no longer flies. It slides rear first downward before flipping to plummet front first toward the traffic far below. Cayleigh begins to scream. Ceirdwyn observes to Cayleigh "Your owner will be cushioned by landing on your body. I'll survive although Molly will crush me." Unnoticed by Ceirdwyn, the car's unusual angle of attack while climbing has caused the engine to starve for fuel.
"NOT funny!" Molly yells.
Looking casually out of the window, Ceirdwyn says "It looks like rain. Oh, look there are Alex and Ginny."
The road is looming closer.
"Have you gone mental?" Tonks yells.
Ceirdwyn hits the clutch and shifts into overdrive, but nothing happens. "Uh oh" She mutters.
"No! No 'uh oh." Tonks yells. Her hair turns white.
Ceirdwyn checks that she's in overdrive. Finding that the car is in its flying gear, she presses the throttle but is greeted with only increasing wind sounds and the gasps of her passengers staring in terror at the approaching ground.
Ceirdwyn turns off the ignition. "WHAT are you doing?" Cayleigh.
Fuel has now sloshed back toward the fuel pick up in the fuel tank. Ceirdwyn begins to try to start the engine.
At the Burrow, Molly's indicator on the family locator shifts from "IN TRANSIT" to "MORTAL PERIL"
Arthur does not see it. He is outside the house watching Kyra instructing Michelle. "Grip your sword like it was a small bird, like a wren… softly enough not to harm it, firmly enough that it doesn't fly away." Kyra checks Michelle's grip. "Better."
"Ever seen a sword fight in a movie?" Kyra asks and Michelle nods. "They spend a lot of time smacking each other's sword but keeping themselves out of reach. There is no point to that… You want to cut them while avoiding getting hit."
Arthur thinks how unique what he is watching is on many levels. He doubts any wizard has ever knowingly witnessed an elder Old One teaching a younger Old One. Suddenly it bursts into his mind that Michelle, presently young enough to be one of his children, may one day be thousands of years old like Kyra. But she is learning how to survive in her world right in front of him. It would be the equivalent of a muggle being present at a young wizards first class at Hogwarts…if that student's first class was defense against the dart arts…or perhaps the first lesson on how to move a wand. He is honored to bear witness…but also grateful that Molly isn't there to distract by mothering Michelle with a plate of oatmeal biscuits and a glass of butterbeer.
Kyra looks at where Michelle is gripping her sword. "I know there is a tendency to choke up on it, especially if you haven't built up the strength… But if your hand is tight against the cross guard, it will restrict your freedom of movement and moving that blade is life."
Alexa's diaphragm is growing tired, but she maintains breathing on her own because she does not like being petrified. Adam holds her and gently assists her breathing by lifting her torso with each inhale but allowing her to slump for each exhale.
Let me lie back." Alexa tells Adam. Adam gently reclines her. She continues to breathe on her own.
Adam's emotions whelm up. He pats Alexa's hand, stands, and steps to the window so nobody can see his face. As he blinks away his tears, he is shocked to see a huge creature in a petrified state being levitated out of the castle. He waves Jeanette over to the window.
"Good Lord, what is that?" He asks.
Jeanette follows Adam's gaze. "Mountain troll, Troglodytarum alpinum. Big one… over a ton of him."
"Those children…defeated THAT?" Adam asks nobody.
Grace joins them, staring in disbelief. "Je n'en reviens pas"
Jeanette nods in awe muttering. "Evidemment. It would take Gryffindors to fight something like that in their first year. They were just lucky."
Suddenly Adam is shocked when Alexa clings to his back as her knees buckle. Unseen, she has unsteadily taken two or three tiny steps to the window to see what everyone is looking at. With each step, the soles of her feet hurt because they have no born any weight for weeks. Adam seizes her and supports her while moving her to the window to see just as the troll's huge club is carried out by Hagrid. Adam picks her emaciated body up and cradles her in his arms.
As he does so Madam Poppy Pomfrey returns to the infirmary. "And just what do you think you are doing young muggle?!" Adam cringes.
Alexa turns her face to the stern witch. "I'm feeling the sun on my face."
Emboldened, Adam adds "Never underestimate the courage or determination of a young mortal…" He stops himself realizing that to Alexa 'mortal' is not a distinction.
"You put her back in her bed this instant." Poppy responds in a tone of command.
Adam puts Alexa back into her bed and gently puts the covers over her. Under Poppy's stern gaze. With a proper British 'harumph' Poppy returns to her office.
Alexa quietly asks "What did you mean by 'mortal?" Grace looks at Jeanette with concern followed by a quick, but subtle, cock of her head toward the door. To Jeanette's disappointment, they move out of earshot.
Ollivander works crafting a new wand, but he can't focus because the thought of just what Ferrarius might want crafted from wood steadfastly resists being banished. He knows his wands can be used for dueling of course, but those duels are extremely rarely to the death. Swords on the other hand… But few parts of a sword can be made of wood and why would a swordsmith need his help in making those? Perhaps Ferrarius needs something else made entirely, but what could it be? He said business…so whatever it is, it will be sold. Sold to whom? Wizards? Witches? Old Ones? Muggles?
Argus Filch sits in his windowless office fuming about the presence of not just one but now by two muggles. True, one of them is an Old One, but that is just a plain muggle. Even a squib outranks a muggle, no matter how old. Mrs. Norris rubs against his legs. "I would chain them by their wrists from the ceiling…" Filch says to himself, glancing longingly to the meticulously oiled chains which have waited so long for a new victim. He grits his teeth at the thought that Dumbledore will never allow him to hoist even that sickly muggle woman by her wrists. It just wasn't fair. Mrs. Filch jumps up on his desk and lays down on his list of today's student infractions and purrs.
Alex and the tiny witch clinging to her, roar down the highway headed for the Burrow.
Alex is singing Steppen Wolf's "Born to Be Wild." Ginny's head is bobbing to the song and eventually she begins to sing along. Ginny thinks the 'nature's child' part refers to her.
"Get your motor runnin'
Head out on the highway
Lookin' for adventure
And whatever comes our way
Yeah Darlin' go make it happen
Take the world in a love embrace
Fire all of your guns at once
And explode into space…
"Like a true nature's child
We were born, born to be wild
We can climb so high
I never wanna die…"
Harry, Ron, and Hermione huddle in discussion. Harry explains "Did you see Snape's injured leg? I think that he was bitten by one of that thing's heads."
"Perhaps." Hermione speculates.
"It must have been just a nip or his whole leg would have been gone." Ron observes.
Alex Raven yells back to Ginny "That knife you were given to look like a wand… Do you think your mother would let you keep it?"
"I don't know."
"I leant it to Ceirdwyn many years ago. I carried it in the Warsaw Ghetto. It is a V-42 stiletto…an American variant of the Sykes-Fairbairn. It was designed for the First Special Service Force which was a group made up of Canadian and American soldiers. The Hun called them the schwarze Teufel, but they were more famously called the Devil's Brigade. It is designed to kill people…it isn't good for working in the kitchen. If your mother will let you keep it, someday, I'll teach you how to use it…when Molly says it is all right. Until she does, that sheath will stay on its blade."
Ginny falls silent.
Alex starts singing Steppen Wolf's "Magic Carpet Ride."
"Well, you don't know what we can find
Why don't you come with me little girl
On a magic carpet ride
Well, you don't know what we can see
Why don't you tell your dreams to me
Fantasy will set you free
Close your eyes girl
Look inside girl
Let the sound take you away"