Chapter 23 - Abracadabra
July 6th, 1992 (Monday)
Location: Granger's House - Heathgate, Hampstead
Meissa glance at Daphne, getting a slight shrug from the other girl.
"Dad, I -," Hermione looks back and forth between the house and her father. "The house-?"
"The house is still there, Mr. Granger," Meissa continues when Hermione hesitated to say any more.
"What-?"
Daphne nudges the raven haired girl's shoulder as she leans in to whisper, "Does this have to do with your runes?" She gets a wordless shrug from the other girl.
"So, you girls can see the house still?" Jean asks as she straightens her clothes, shutting the door to the car.
"Yes," Hermione confesses awkwardly. "I don't know what's happening through…" She glances over at Meissa who has a suspiciously blank look on her face. "Uh, give me a moment." She grabs Meissa by the hand and tug her off to the side for a bit of privacy.
"Fess up."
"What?"
"Don't act innocent."
"It's no act."
"The runes - what are they supposed to do?"
"Um…"
"Meissa!"
She puts up her hands in a placating motion. "Easy, easy - they're keyed to you. You decide what happens and I guess some part of you barred them from the house because I can't think of any other reason why the house would be hidden."
Hermione groans as she drags her hands down her face.
"Why would you do this?"
"This is Meissa we're talking about," Daphne chimes in, finally joining the conversation.
"Oi."
"You know it's true."
"Meissa," Hermione narrows her eyes at her friend the longer this was dragged out.
"Look - there's not a business out there that will ward the house of a non-magical couple," Meissa starts to explain carefully. "I should have asked, I know and I apologize - but…"
Hermione sighs as she rubs the bridge of her nose. "Okay, how do we fix this? Because I get what you were trying to do but it doesn't serve us any good when said 'non-magical couple' can't even see their own home."
"Er… trial and error?" Meissa suggests, quickly dodging out of the way when Hermione swats at her for the comment.
"That's not helpful!"
"It's the best I can do right now!" Meissa defends. "I don't know where everything went wrong."
"You said it's keyed to Hermione," Daphne interrupts before Hermione could swat at the brunette again. "What did you mean by that?"
"She's - well, I made it so that she decides who is welcomed and who isn't?"
"You did or you didn't."
"At this point I don't even know." Meissa gestures to the house. "This wasn't supposed to happen."
"Oh my god, Meissa-."
"Girls," Jean interrupts, having somehow manage to sneak up on them during their 'talk'. "Deep breaths, please."
Hermione lets a low groan escape before she did as her mum bid, the tension visibly exiting her body as she did so. Meissa frowned grumpily, mentally reviewing the rune arrays to discover what went wrong - if anything did go wrong. She's confident that the current issue is actually not the runes but something connected to the Gryffindor.
"Now," Jean resumes once the trio's tension has gone down just a bit, "what seems to be the problem?"
"It's my fault," Meissa confesses, "I had a few sketches left out and… it seems that the latent magic has reacted to them." She steadfastly ignores the side eye she gets from her fellow Slytherin.
"Latent magic?"
"There's magic everywhere," Hermione starts softly, giving Meissa a somewhat exasperated look - even if it somewhat looks fond. It would seem like Meissa will eventually be out of the doghouse - so to speak.
"We use our core magic," Daphne adds, "for everything. But, like what Hermione said, there's magic everywhere. Latent magic isn't a branch that can be easily used but -," the blonde looks at Meissa who was looking at something in her pocket notebook, "it seems one of Meissa's sketches did this."
"How do you propose we fix this?"
"Um," Hermione stalls as she tries to come up with a decent answer.
"Working on it," Meissa muttered distractedly before she grabs the Gryffindor's hand. "Excuse us!"
Without further ado she pulls the other girl onto the property - causing them to disappear from the Grangers' point of view.
"Pardon us - we'll try and fix this as soon as possible," the blonde nods her head slightly before she steps onto the property, disappearing just like the others.
Jean turns to her frazzled husband, wrapping an arm around him as she tries to comfort him.
~MJB~
Meissa was leaning against one of the shelves as Hermione stares at the rune circle burned into the ceiling.
"How…"
"I think you and I both how," Daphne remarks as she maintains eye contact with the raven haired girl. "Question is, how did you manage to do this without getting an owl from the Improper Use of Magic…"
Meissa twists around the ring on her finger before sighing.
She didn't think she'd have to tell so soon - but, it'd benefit them to know… right?
"Right now, for the duration of our time here, this property is exempt from the Improper Use's monitoring," she admits as she withdraws her wand.
Hermione immediately looks at her. She points a finger at Meissa, has every intention of saying something, but pauses as she remembers that right now she has two stressed out parents who would very much like to enter their very own.
"We'll get back to that later," she promises sternly - a slight chill went down Meissa's spine at this.
"Great," Meissa grins as she points her wand to the rune circle. "Now, go stand underneath that."
"Should I be worried?"
"Hermione, I'm actually offended," she glares at the Gryffindor.
"To be fair, you did basically lock out Hermione's parents."
"Oi."
"Don't you 'oi' her," Hermione huffs as she did as she was bidden.
"I'm telling you, the wards are keyed to you," Meissa rolls her eyes as she opens the notebook to the appropriate page. "Right so… Suscito," she intones carefully as she twirls her wand in a tight circle. The runes light up in a soft white glow - there's a slight welcoming sensation from the circle. "Qui receperunt revelare." This time she did a slight diagonal slash motion. Three after-images appeared and the group ends up staring at mirage like reflections of themselves. (1) (2)
"Uh…?" Hermione looks between the mirages and Meissa, confused and slightly concerned about what this could mean.
Meissa squints at her notes, muttering to herself as she deciphers her own writing.
"What does this mean?" Daphne asks softly when the silence stretched on long enough.
Meissa gestures to the mirages, "According to my notes… this should represent those accepted into the wards…"
"Should."
Meissa gives them the stink eye at the dubious tone. "I know I messed up but," she gestures between the two of them as she scowls at them, "that's not helping at all."
"Sorry."
She huffs at them as she returns to her notes, flipping through the notebook for the inspiration of the ward scheme. In the first few pages she has a brief summary of the ward scheme she based her rune circles on - all of which came from the book on wards she brought along.
"I still stand by what I said earlier," Meissa remarks as she skims through the notes. "We're probably already accepted because, when I did the initial set up, you had subconsciously already acknowledged that we were here on the property."
"My parents are literally at the driveway - I know they're there but they still don't see the house - I haven't heard them enter the house yet," Hermione starts headedly, "Do you have any other suggestions besides that?!" Meissa lowers the book slowly as she gives the irritated Gryffindor a deadpan look.
Daphne bit her lip as she did her best to stifle her laughter at them.
"How about we try what Meissa suggested?" the blonde finally suggests when the urge to laugh calms enough for her to speak uninterrupted.
Hermione groans as she pinches the bridge of her nose. "How?" she finally asks, her shoulders slumping slightly.
"Try welcoming them into the house?" Daphne suggests helpfully.
"They can't see the house."
"Then try mentally welcoming them into the house?" Meissa tries, ducking behind her notebook when she gets a look promising retribution later on. She then excuses herself from the cellar to go and check on the Grangers - mostly to get away from Hermione's immediate line of sight to let her cooldown just a little.
She makes a quick exit to the driveway, finding the Grangers standing in the driveway, not quite staring at her but looking in the general direction of the house. The second she stepped past the fence their gazes immediately locked onto her.
"No progress still?" Jean asks gently, offering her a slight smile.
"We've hit a snag," she smiles sheepishly, her hands shoved into the pockets of her trousers. "Right now it depends on 'Mione but… she's all fired up about how this all happened."
"Ah, and I suppose it's making things more difficult?" Jean asks with a knowing look.
Meissa shrugs as she rocks back and forth on her feet. "It's a process."
~MJB~
Notes:
1) Suscito - Awaken
2) Qui receperunt revelare - to reveal those who gladly received this