A bunch of this chapter is recap information, sorry. It is fun and there's quite a bit of foreshadowing.
Author's Note: I created an album for Harry's Tarot reading. The link is Bit (doot) ly (slash) 3DQUEOq
Slideshow
Before going to sleep, Harry told the story of the day to Lyra, as well as gave her the stuffed animal that he had won. She had already been brainstorming ideas for her day out with Brandt and asked Harry to use Hermes to send her letter. The top choice on the list was to have a shopping day with Parvati and Lavender so she could also get her ears pierced with her gift certificate.
Harry also interrupted Daria and Meli's study time to ask the Romani girl about his fortune-telling incident.
"Was she a real seer?" Meli responded curiously.
"An auror we were with said she wasn't," Harry told her. "But it genuinely felt like the fortune was real."
"She couldn't have put any magic into the reading though," Meli responded.
Harry's eyes widened, "But I did, she told me to 'put my energy into the cards,' and I did."
"And you picked the cards too?" Harry nodded. "Then you essentially did fortune yourself, the woman just interpreted it. Do you remember what cards were in your reading?"
Harry pulled out the polaroid and the deck he had bought, then took the eleven cards off the top of the deck and arranged them like they were in the photo.
"Something that I always liked to do when I helped my mother with her readings was to use the pictures on the tarot cards to help in the interpretation. Sometimes more than just the basic meanings of the cards gives foresight into your fortune and can help guide you. Not everything is completely correct, and sometimes you need to really search for the proper meaning."
She pointed to the first card, "This is The World, and I'm sure she explained to you the meaning of it being inverted, but if you look at the whole picture, you need to try and see how it represents you. The four animals in the corner may represent different things in your life, and the four elements as well. The Lion for the constellation Leo and fire. The bull for the constellation Taurus and earth. The Eagle for the constellation Scorpio and air. The man's face for the constellation Aquarius and water. I know your birthday is at the end of July, so the bull might represent you. Or you might be represented another way. There is also the snake eating its tail, representing the beginning and the end, in constant motion. Everything has a meaning and a reason why it was drawn for your fortune, you just need to figure out what they are."
There was a ton of information to go through, so he pleaded, "Can you look at it with me quickly?"
She gave a quick look to Daria as if asking for permission, then they both closed up their books and gathered around Harry's tarot cards.
"Daria can help me with ideas for the interpretation, but it's just an interpretation. You need to find the meaning in your life for it to be accurate. We're just helping you with the ideas on what it might be. Ok?"
Harry nodded.
"So let's quickly go through it. In the second position is the Ten of Wands, representing a burden on you. The man in the picture is not showing his face to us and is holding the ten poles in a very awkward fashion. There also appears to be a farm with a house that he is walking towards. What could those mean?"
"I like to grow things," Harry tried to guess from the farm on the horizon.
"You might need to organize your burden," Daria tried to supply.
"You might need to hide your face for some reason," Meli said. "It could be all of these things or none of them. They are all different ways to look at things, none of them need to be correct."
"I guess I do have a lot of burdens to organize," Harry said, already trying to organize his thoughts.
"For your hidden self," Meli told him, "you have the Three of Wands."
"They look like staves to me," Daria interrupted.
"They could be staves to Harry," Meli said. "Two spots ahead is The Magician, which is the conscious influence on the situation. If you look closely, he's also the same character in the Three of Wands. They are the only two figures in the deck that have the same circlet around their head."
"So I'm The Magician, and I need three staves?" Harry asked.
"Maybe?" Meli shrugged. "The picture has you holding only one staff. The placement might be important too. Two staves to one side, one of which is yours, one to the side. Do you know two other people with staves?"
Yes, yes he did know two other people with staves. There was him and his sister, and then also The Giver. The Giver was undoubtedly an element of his 'Hidden' self.
"I can see you found a connection," Meli smiled. "The next card is the recent past. Dealing with the past and the future is always tricky because calling something immediate, recent, or distant is objective. The recent past could be fifty years ago if you're looking at the period of a thousand years. Or it could be ten minutes ago. Your recent past is The Tower card; a great upheaval or disaster."
"I just started at Hogwarts," Harry supplied.
"It probably is something bigger," Meli said firmly. "I see on the card a tower exploding after being hit by a bolt of lightning and a man and woman falling, probably to their deaths. Explain that however you'd like. We already covered The Magician for the next position, he represents all the suits of the tarot deck but doesn't come in contact with any on this card. He is holding a candle, and has a symbol representing infinity over his head."
"It's the wand movement for a preservation charm," Harry told them. "To keep your potions from spoiling."
"How do you know that?" Daria asked.
"I learned it over the break," he told her.
"Can you teach us?"
"I can try, I'll grab something I made in the potions club when we're done here."
"Cool," Meli said and looked back at his card array. "So the next one is very important, it is the future. It is supposed to be the near future and something that you should examine in great detail. However, the near future could be anywhere from tomorrow to the next few years depending on the time scale you're looking at. You have the Five of Cups, signifying loss, regret, or bereavement. The picture shows a man in black near a bridge and flowing water. He's looking at three cups fallen over, but two cups remain standing out of his line of sight. Does a man in black mean anything to you?"
Harry thought about it, and said, "I have detention with Professor Snape tomorrow."
"What did you do?" Daria asked.
"When I was being questioned for what happened to Crabbe, I admitted to hurting him last term. I had been defending myself, but I lied about it when it happened."
"He's just making people brew potions over and over in weird cauldrons now," Meli said. "It's not so bad, I had detention with him last week. I tracked mud into the castle and Filch gave it to me, but then Snape just said I would serve it with him instead." She looked back at the cards, "I'm not sure what Snape's detention has to do with whatever your goal is, so it might be something else."
"If bereavement is what the card symbolizes, maybe you should ask a ghost," Daria told him. "I figure they'd know the most about grieving after death, as they did die once, and it's regret about something that made them stay here instead of moving on."
"We don't have a house ghost though," Harry said. "Though, I guess I can talk to any of them."
Meli looked at the cards again, "So the next one we have is how you see yourself; the Ten of Cups. You see yourself as being at peace with your family, who bring you joy. I wouldn't know how to interpret that, because I know nothing about your family, other than Lyra. Symbols here are two adults, two children, and a rainbow. Do any of those mean anything to you?"
Harry shook his head, so she continued, "This is one that you'll probably agree with. People see you as Justice; one that upholds the law and brings punishment on those who need it. Do you agree with that?" Her eyes were raised as if she were trying to get some sort of secret confirmation from him.
"I agree somewhat to that idea," Harry told her.
"Two more spots to go," Daria informed them, looking at the next cards.
"OK, Seven of Swords for your hopes and fears. Oh, and I forgot, since this one, and the last one are adjacent to the future card, they can also contain hints of that too. This card represents your fear of betrayal and deception. It's very reasonable to fear and I bet most people have it. However, you should be on the lookout for it as it will guide you to your goal. The card shows someone, maybe you, maybe someone else, with seven swords, but only carrying five. Swords represent knowledge, but they are still swords and should be considered as something dangerous."
Taking a deep breath she got to the last one, "How did you get two cards here?"
"They were stuck together. The fortune-teller told me they represent two outcomes but couldn't tell me if I'm going to get both, one, or neither."
"That's right, so the first one you get is Death," Meli said with note finality.
"Ooooo, death," Daria said in a spooky voice.
"It means transition, right?" Harry asked.
"Or change, or transformation," Meli continued. "So when you complete your task, it will bring about some kind of change. However, death could very well be a part of that change. However, you can see that Death is carrying a flag similar to the symbol of the Pentacles, representing Property or Achievement. Be wary of what might change in your life in terms of property and achievement."
Daria picked up The Moon card that was under Death, "Oooh, these are connected, do you see it?" she asked Harry.
Harry looked closely at the two cards. In the background of Death, there were two towers on a hill. Those same two towers were prominent in The Moon card.
"The towers!" Harry said happily.
"That is interesting," Meli told him. "These aren't the same as the towers on The Tower card, it is something different. Also, Death and The Moon are the only cards in the deck where these two towers can be seen. I have a feeling that change from the Death card will come before the confusion, release of fear, and unhappiness that stems from The Moon in reverse. On the Death card, the towers are in the distance, but in The Moon, they are close."
"And the pictures?" Harry asked. There are two dogs underneath the moon… and a lobster? I have no idea what's going on there."
"You'll understand it when it comes," Meli told him. "You'll probably get glimpses as it happens, and understand it better and quicker than you would otherwise."
Harry just sat there for a moment looking at the cards, then gathered them all together and put them back in the box. He thanked both girls, then ran off to grab a potion and teach them the preservation charm.
After breakfast the next day, Harry reported to the dungeons for detention. There was a line of other students already waiting there for Snape to arrive. All the other students were just muttering and complaining about whatever led them to waste their Sunday as far out of the sun as could be. There was a perfectly clear sky today and most of the school was outside playing in the snow.
After nearly twenty minutes of waiting, Professor Snape swept down the hallway towards them, bringing a draft along with him to the already cold lower floor. He pushed open the door dramatically, and commanded the group, "Inside… Now."
The students shuffled inside as quickly as they could, lining up along the wall inside. There were cauldrons set up all around the room in a large circle, with one in the middle on a raised platform that could fit two adults comfortably inside it.
"For those who haven't been to my new and improved detentions before, listen closely. For those who have been here before, listen closely as you obviously repeated your past mistakes to be here again…" he briefly made eye contact with quite a few students present. "You will find a cauldron with a potion recipe next to it that you have covered in class before. I don't care how well you did on it, if you did horrible that's even better.
"You will then put on all the safety equipment at the station including the gloves, the coat, and the boots. When you are ready, raise your hand and I will cast the Bubble Head Charm on you. Then you will prepare your ingredients, and start brewing. When you finish your potion, make a tally that you completed it, and then do it again. Repeat this process until I tell you to stop.
"If your cauldron explodes, or melts, or turns into some kind of animal, raise your hand and I will help you clean up. You will then record the step you were on, what made your cauldron malfunction, the number printed on the side of your cauldron, and then scrub it out and put it in the closet with other ones you have ruined. You will repeat this again, and again, and again until I need to leave. I am unaware when I will need to leave today, so you might be here until dinner or for just an hour. We'll see what happens…" The students all just stared at him, speechless.
"Go," he commanded.
All the students ran to the desks around the room to check which one they wanted to work on, but Harry was stopped right away.
"Not you, Mr. Potter," Snape said, drawing looks from the other students. "You get the big one in the middle. You will be brewing fifty batches at a time of the Wiggenweld Potion."
"Fifty?" one student exclaimed, then ran off to hide from Snape's glare.
Harry had been expecting to get some kind of lecture from Severus or need to tell the true story of what happened that day last term or be interrogated for the attack on Vincent. This would be much better. He changed his shoes to the thick dragonhide boots that went up to his thighs, then the gloves and jacket of the same material. Once he was all buttoned up, he raised his hand and Professor Snape came by and conjured a large bubble over his head that seemed to slip under the collar of the jacket he was wearing and extended over his wild mane of hair.
Stepping up onto the platform with the cauldron, he looked inside and saw a thick stirring rod as tall as he was. Giving a big sigh, he started to collect the huge quantities of ingredients that he would need to prepare to brew fifty batches of the potion he brewed so perfectly on his midterm exam.
Nearly two hours later he finished the first batch of fifty. There had been quite a few explosions and bottoms melting out from the other students. However, the only issue Harry was having was that he was sweating like no workout he had done before. Moving the giant stirring rod around was one part of his exhaustion, it weighed a lot, and just pushing it through the potion over and over required both hands and quite a bit of strength. Then there was infusing his magic into it as he stirred. The stirring was working his body while the infusion was working his magic. He raised his hand and called over Professor Snape.
"I'm done with the first fifty," he informed the professor.
Snape climbed up on the platform and examined his results. Taking out a crystal ladle, he examined a scoop out of the bowl. Harry swore he saw a small smile from the man before he returned the scoop to the cauldron. Down on the side of the cauldron, there was a small spigot. Snape crouched down next to it with a medium-sized beaker and twisted the knob, with all of the contents slowly draining into the container. It was a bit surprising at first that all of it was going into the small container, but that shock went away quickly as he remembered that magic existed to make things bigger on the inside. When it had drained, Snape called for an elf, who took away the beaker.
Then he vanished the remaining residue inside and looked back at Harry, "Do it again." Then he walked off, leaving Harry to groan and start preparing the ingredients again.
It took a little longer for this batch, but when he finished, Snape repeated the process to drain the cauldron, then told him, "Go to lunch, come back when you're done."
Harry was exhausted but didn't want to complain, because he wasn't getting punished for what Snape probably knew he did, whether that was the attack last term, or the one last week, he wasn't sure. So he just went to the Great Hall, stuffed his face with food for thirty minutes, and came back to do the giant potion again.
The third time, however, as he was carefully adding all the lionfish spines to the potion, there was a loud creaking noise and the cauldron split on the far side, and all of the contents started to spill out. Most of the other students started to jump away in panic, but the potion was contained in an invisible cube surrounding the platform that Harry was standing on, the liquid splashing against the sides.
Snape was grading papers by his desk, and stood up casually, walked over to the invisible cube, and vanished all of the potion inside. Then with a quick twist of his wand, the empty cauldron with a crack in it was levitated towards the area where students were supposed to shower if they got hazardous potions on them.
"Record where your potion failed, and then clean it out," Snape told Harry.
While Harry was completely inside the cauldron scrubbing it out and trying to avoid the cracked metal, there was a loud knock at the door to the classroom, which caused many of the students to stop, and Harry to stick his head out and look. Snape opened the door to reveal Brandt on the other side, pulling a small trunk.
Snape turned back to the detention students and said, "Back to work," then looked at Harry, "everyone."
Harry ducked back inside to keep scrubbing, while Brandt and Snape went into his office. The professor came back out right after and started dismissing students. Harry wasn't allowed to leave until his cauldron was clean and then Snape told him to leave while the cauldron was levitated into the storage room.
Just as Harry was leaving the classroom, he heard Brandt saying, "Ok! We're off to The Nest!" Then the door to the classroom closed and locked behind him.
At around nine at night, the fireplace in Snape's office roared back to life, with the Professor and Brandt tumbling out of it. They both nearly rolled onto the floor and just lay there for nearly a minute.
"Please tell me you have a sobering potion in here somewhere," Brandt groaned.
"I do not make it a habit of drinking to excess, particularly on a school night," Severus responded, as he slowly sat up, bracing himself with his hands.
"We have an hour to sober up before the others get here, can you just ask an elf to find one for you?"
Snape groaned a bit and called, "Tweak?" An elf wearing Slytherin colors popped in. "Please find us two sobering potions. Raid one of the older Slytherins that keep them around and replace them with a promissory note for a minor favor from me."
"Yes sir," the elf nodded and popped away.
Turning back to Brandt, "I'm never doing that again."
"Yes, you will, though we'll probably go to a different pub next time."
Tweak popped back in with two small potions and handed them off. A sobering potion felt like pouring hot sauce up your nose and slapping yourself with a fish, followed by your blood freezing and blue steam coming out of your sweat glands. It did as it was advertised, and both men were back on their feet in a minute.
When they were sitting and relaxing, Severus said, "I still can't believe you have an alliance with Mad-Eye. Even if it is to protect the kids, it just feels unnatural."
"It's not like we're going out drinking and I'm trying to hook him up with quidditch fangirls, or something."
"You're still a Black, and he's still Mad-Eye though."
"Well, maybe I'll try to poison him here and there, and he can stun me and threaten to put me in Azkaban every other week then." Brandt pulled out a flask, but Snape stopped him from drinking.
"Wait at least an hour after a sobering potion or your hangover will be even worse," Snape warned Brandt.
So the two of them drank water for the next hour until there was a knock on the door. Snape opened it to reveal Minerva McGonagall, Alastor Moody, Tristan Nevitt, and Nymphadora Tonks. He gestured them inside.
"So is this everyone in Harry and Lyra's secret club?" Tonks asked, looking around.
McGonagall replied, "There's also Newt and Tina Scamander, a man named Nestor Balindong, and Albus Dumbledore… but not that much for the Headmaster."
Tonks sat down at a desk, and looked around, "Quite a few detentions served here, though I still think most of them weren't my fault."
Snape walked over to her and stared at her, "Are we sure she can be trusted?" He continued to stare, then spun around and walked away as his cloak billowed behind him.
Tonks was trying her best to not be scared by the terrifying Professor Snape. And as she was looking at him, she remembered her conversation with Lyra about how he just liked to look scary.
"Hey!" she called after him. "Your cloak just billowed in the dungeon. There's no wind here…" she stared at him intensely. "I got it, you put an updraft enchantment on your shoes! It activates when you scuff your heel!"
Pulling off her boots, she pulled out her wand and scribbled several runes into the heels, then cast a spell on them and slipped them back on. She then proceeded to strut around the classroom as her auror jacket fluttered along with bursts of wind that came from her boots every time she intentionally hit the corners on the stone floor.
"That's how he does it?" Tristan said with his mouth ajar.
Snape looked a bit put out after his trick had been outed, so he just said, "Well it's not because I'm a vampire, if that's what you thought."
"I know you're not a vampire, Sir," Tristan said with a guilty face. "If you were, then the garlic bomb my friends and I put in the Great Hall in my fifth year would have done something."
"We never caught who was responsible for that, Mr. Nevitt," Minerva told him. "I just hope your sister doesn't do anything similar when she starts next year, or I'll add the detention you should have served to hers."
"I'm sure she'll be better behaved than I was, Professor." He smiled.
"So are we going to start this?" Alastor asked. He turned his wand to Tonks and cast, "Incarcerous!" Ropes shot out of his wand and tied his trainee up into a mummy of coiled ropes, then unrolled a parchment to hold in front of her. "Here is the oath you'll need to swear to join our club."
"Pretty standard," Tonks said as she read it. "Can you untie me so I can swear it?"
"Untie yourself," Moody told her.
"Fine," she rolled her eyes and shrunk herself to the size of a child, then inched her way out of the loose ropes, then grew again once she was out. Drawing her wand, she swore not to discuss Harry and Lyra's secrets that she would learn in this room tonight, to anyone who wasn't present or spoken of earlier.
"So, how are we doing this?" Minerva asked.
"I figure we just need to tell her about the trial and see how much she can piece together," Tristan suggested.
"That works," Alastor said. Turning to his trainee, he grew serious. "Sit down Nymphadora."
Fun time seemed to be over, so she sat down without argument or annoyance at her name being used.
"You read the transcripts for the trial of Lucius Malfoy, right?" he asked her.
"My parents tucked me into bed with my favorite stuffed rabbit and read it to me like a bedtime story," she responded with a smile.
"Well, the part where I brought in the muggle to testify," Alastor told her, "that man was Harry Potter's uncle."
The cabal watched the realization of what happened wash over Nymphadora Tonks's face. There was shock, and anger, and sadness, and confusion.
"But how?" she asked. "What happened after? When you found out, where did he go from there?"
"We didn't find out," Minerva told her, with sadness in her voice. "We didn't find out until Harry Potter turned eleven years old."
"His letter…" Tonks trailed off. "Where was it addressed to? Wait… How did nobody know? Who was supposed to be watching him?"
"That's a different conversation," Snape told her. "The quick version is that Harry and Lyra were sold to slavers and at some point during their transport, there was a magical accident which sank the container ship they were on, and they washed up on an island in the Philippines."
"An island with demiguises," Tonks surmised.
"Exactly," Brandt said. "They had almost no human contact with anyone at all until they were found the summer before Lyra was supposed to start Hogwarts."
Tonks turned to Tristan, "That's where you were. I knew you were on a manhunt, but not who or where. You got your golden wand for finding Harry."
"And Lyra," he added. "The island is incredibly magical," he stroked his hair and momentarily revealed the scar there.
"Wait, who are the stylists who did your hair if there are no people there?"
"Hoohoos, giant fire-throwing hoohoos. They make Dumbledore's phoenix look like a kitten."
"And who is their tutor? The one who gave them their knives?"
"A Duwende," Snape answered. "Something like a dwarf, but taller, more creepy, and a parselmouth."
"They have knives? At school?" McGonagall asked.
"Long story," Brandt told her. "They won't be carrying them without training."
"A parselmouth?"
"Yes," Minerva told Tonks, who was just getting beaten into the ground with shocks, "He speaks regularly with a fifty-five-foot long snake that helps protect the island."
"With the help of the hoohoos and a twenty-foot tall deer made of white light," Brandt stacked another shock on her. "It looks like a Patronus charm, except for a few spots of pure darkness."
"That doesn't sound too bad," Tonks commented.
"The deer nearly killed an entire team of professional warders," Minerva told the young auror.
"The hoohoos nearly killed me," Tristan said, lifting his fringe to show the burn scar along the side of his head.
"It almost got me too," Brandt added. "I also saw the snake devour a seven-foot shark in a single bite."
"Not to mention the cobras and the other snakes," Severus added.
"The scary tree," Alastor added.
"You call it 'the scary tree' too?" Brandt asked.
"The crocodiles," Minerva said.
"What crocodiles?" Brandt asked.
"Oh, just a footnote I guess in the murderous menagerie," she responded. "During the rainy summer months, if the island floods, they get saltwater crocodiles invading the island."
"Then there's the pig with horns, that was never seen again," Brandt mentioned.
"We don't know about that one," Snape said curiously.
"Probably a boar, but Nestor says that there are no pigs on the island. Harry says he gored it with his staff when it tried to attack Lyra."
"Huh," Alastor mumbled. "Oh and then there's the dead mystery monster. I wonder what that could have been. Harry said it was worse than the rest."
"Ok, Ok!" Tonks said, "The island is terrifying. It's a miracle they survived there for a couple of years."
"Not a couple," Snape said grimly. "Around five years."
"This explains a lot," Tonks said, trying to connect things in her head. "So they lived completely alone with a few demiguises and a dwarf?"
"More than a few," Tristan told her. "There were over fifty when we were there last."
"And he's not a dwarf," Brandt added. "He's my height, and his name… is The Giver," he added with a mysterious tone.
"What does he give?" Tonks asked.
All the others looked at each other for the answer, but no one seemed to have it. There were many shrugs as they all traded glances.
"Ok, enough recap," Alastor said, breaking the silence. "I'm here for one main reason. I want to see the pictures."
"Be right back," Brandt jumped up and headed into Severus's office, and returned with the trunk. From inside he pulled out many stacks of photos, then conjured a large white sheet on the wall. "What does everyone want to see first?"
There was a large disagreement on what to show, but Minerva won the first round by just saying, "Let's see the family."
Brandt fished out some photos from the first stack, and said, "A bit of a backstory first. We arrived by boat with the Scamanders, and as soon as the kids got onto the beach, the demis came out to greet them. This first picture is the reaction of Mr. and Mrs. Scamander to what happened."
Brandt muttered two incantations under his breath, then threw the photo like a frisbee at the sheet on the wall. Just before it hit, it expanded to cover nearly the entire wall and stuck there. It had both Newt and Tina standing, and smiling into the distance, then suddenly their eyes widened almost comically and their jaws dropped, hanging as far out as possible as they were left speechless as they observed what was happening.
Brandt summoned back the photo on the wall and threw the next one up, which showed Harry, Lyra, and Whispers running up the beach, then the horde of demiguises exploded from the treeline and rushed over them. Brandt summoned the photo back and repeated the process for fifteen more photos which showed the giant silver monkeys wrestling playing with the three returning residents.
"That's a lot of demiguises," Tonks said in disbelief.
"Watch this," Brandt threw one more photo up to show a staring contest between two demiguises, one he identified as Digger, and the other as Dougal, Newt's companion. "Dougal there is around eighty years old. Digger we estimated is close to thirty but is nearly three times as large. Dougal is barely bigger than Whispers, who is only five."
"Show us the hoohoos now," Alastor demanded.
"So the backstory on this is that when we got the news about Lucius Malfoy, Lyra went into hiding with the hoohoos. Harry and I went to try to get her to come back, and I almost got roasted. I managed to apparate to the beach and take this photo." He put up the picture of the swirling flame on the top of the mountain where he had been standing. "This is the same thing that Nestor got hit by, I'm assuming."
"I only saw it coming at my face, then I woke up in the hospital," he told them.
"That's pretty much what it looked like, but I could feel the heat too," Snape told the others.
"One of the most powerful non-dragon flames I've ever seen," Alastor added.
"So, after that, I had to go back to get my broom," Brandt continued, "and Harry got an idea for how to cheer up Lyra, but didn't tell me about it, just told me to wait till nightfall with my camera. This is what happened."
The next series was photos of Lyra descending the mountain on her broom, a trail of flaming hair behind her, and followed by around twenty burning hoohoos, lighting up the sky. The series of animated photos showed her flight down to the water, but they had to be changed every few seconds, which got a bit annoying.
"Ok, stop for a moment," Minerva said. "Nitwit!" she called, and an elf in Gryffindor colors appeared before her. "Please bring us the Hogwarts pensieve."
"Mister Dumbles doesn't likes peoples usings it," the elf said.
"I am the Deputy Headmistress. Bring me the pensieve," she ordered. The elf bowed and popped away.
"That will make things a lot easier," Brandt nodded. "And I might be able to show you the snake eating the shark. Nestor discovered it doesn't move on film. Like the animation charm doesn't affect it."
"My eye can't see it either," Alastor added.
That was interesting, Brandt thought. If Harry or Lyra can figure out a way to duplicate that effect as he did with other animal abilities, he couldn't even put into words what could be done with that…
Nitwit popped back in holding the large basin, "Mister Dumbles hopes yous returns it promptly." Then he vanished and the basin just stayed floating where he had held it.
Brandt put his wand to his temple and focused intently on the memory, as Minerva tapped a series of runes on the bowl which expanded it so they would all have a spot around the edge. Brandt flicked the memory into the basin, then pulled out several more memories and put them in as well, stirring the contents with his wand until they were looking up at the mountain top from the beach.
"Everyone ready?" he asked, then plunged his face into the memory, with everyone else following suit.
It would have been a strange sight if anyone walked into the room at that moment. Two teachers, three aurors, and Brandt standing around a large stone bowl with their faces in the water, arms limp at their sides. They stood like that for nearly an hour and a half before they all stood up almost simultaneously. Minerva, Severus, and Alastor joined Brandt to start looking through all the other photos.
"I almost hope Malfoy isn't back in prison by summer," Tonks said. "That way we'll be assigned to guard Lyra out there."
"I'll be there on vacation," Tristan smiled. "Last time I was there, I was just getting stunned and beaten up every day. No time for the girls and the beaches."
"Sounds like my life now," Tonks frowned.
"Being on a tropical island won't change that," he told her. "It will just be a nicer environment to be in while your bones heal. The summer has buckets of rain too."
"Still, it would be an adventure, and I'd rather get stunned out there than in dreary old England," she said happily.
"That it was, that it was," he smiled back. "So I heard you got Moody's challenge coin?"
Tonks fished it out and showed it off, "I got a week off from Moody and a pick of assignments."
"Which challenge did you beat?"
"Sigil Spotting," she said proudly. "I got them all, and one more that he didn't realize he made from a reflection."
"I don't know that one, he didn't do it with me."
"I bet he just makes up tests on the spot and runs with them," Tonks told him. "What was your hardest one?"
"He called it 'The Bell Guard.' I had to be on the lookout for anything that could be rung like a bell and put a shield on it before he hit it with a stinging hex."
"That sounds diabolical," Tonks shivered. "I just had to spot markers he would put up for a second. He wouldn't even tell me when the game had begun, though as soon as the last one ended, the next one could start at any time. He'd ask me for the count at random times and everyone I missed was a stinging hex."
"I think that's worse than mine," Tristan said. "I just shielded his hexes. Did he say you couldn't shield or something?"
Tonks just stood there with her mouth open for a few seconds, then said, "No, he didn't. I just thought I'd have to accept it as punishment."
Tristan laughed, "There are no rules with Moody unless he gives you a direct order. Even then, there's probably some wiggle room."
"I know what I'm asking Director Bones for my assignment. I'm getting put with you all week, and you're going to tell me everything you know about that crazy old man."
"I'm already working with Remmy Argent on a case, I don't think you'll get it."
Tonks held up the blue challenge coin and repeated slowly, "My… pick… of… assignments." Then added happily, "I'll see you tomorrow!" Then went over and joined the others looking through the photos Brandt had brought.