Sorry for the long wait. Holidays kept me busy. Enjoy!
Perhaps she should have dropped the conversation when Sadie revealed that Pure Magic snapped her wand, especially when Sadie said no more, but Birdie's thirst for knowledge in all aspects of life forced her mouth open.
"So, why did Pure Magic snap it? Were you captured? Did you escape from them?"
"Curiosity killed the Ravenclaw . . ." Sadie said in a rather hummed voice.
"I thought it killed the cat," Birdie said with a roll of her eyes.
Agrippa perked up at that, her mouth dropping open as she stared wide eyed at Birdie.
"Not you, Agrippa." Birdie smiled at her as she scratched under the cat's chin, earning a loud purr. Birdie went back to scanning the walls for any hidden pockets, and her wand began flickering with a yellow light at its tip over a small section of stone.
"I think I've got something," Birdie said.
"Start tapping then," Sadie replied as she kept scanning the other side of the wall, alternating between using her hand and the staff. She leaned the staff against a side wall in order to use her hands to check out lower compartments.
Birdie stared closely at the wall, scratching at some worn sections on the rock, tracing lighter markings from one end to the other. Some of the marks were larger than the others, and the stone was more worn in those same areas. She matched her fist against one of the larger lighter areas. Thinking carefully, she knocked twice in one spot, moved to the next worn area, knocked once, then once more in the last lighter section of the rock.
Nothing happened.
Frowning, she tried again. Three raps. Two raps. One rap.
The stone grinded and growled as it moved upward, revealing a small cubbyhole.
"I did it!" Birdie announced proudly, throwing a grin at Sadie.
Sadie's mouth dropped as she turned and stared at Birdie. She quickly recovered, however, and her face turned into a sneer as she scoffed, "Beginner's luck."
"Was not," Birdie argued. "If you look at the stone close enough, you can see where the stone has been struck the hardest, which means someone probably used more taps in that one section, and the other marks here are lighter, indicating—"
"What did you find?" Sadie interrupted, her arms crossing across her chest.
"Oh." Birdie looked inside the cubbyhole. She held up the items. "Chocolate digestives and a couple potions."
Sadie lunged forward and snatched the potions from Birdie, uncorking the vials and smelling the contents. Birdie gave her a strange look.
"I didn't realize potions were a hot commodity," she said. "What are they? Healing draughts?"
"Dreamless sleep," Sadie said. "Based on the coloring and the smell, though you should know that by now."
"I wasn't really looking at the potions so much as the digestives," Birdie admitted.
"Potions can be just as helpful to survival as food can be," Sadie said as she dropped the vials into an inner robe pocket.
"Careful with those," Birdie couldn't help but say. "They can cause an addiction."
"Yeah? And where's the steady supply coming from?"
Birdie ignored Sadie in favor of opening the biscuits and pulling one out. She hadn't had digestives in a long time, and she savored the first bite, the chocolate melting in her mouth. As she chewed, she realized the cookie left a stale aftertaste in her mouth, but she ate the rest of it hungrily. Sadie stepped closer and peered into the cubby, a slight look of disappointment crossing her face when she saw nothing else inside it, but her eyes quickly turned to Birdie.
"Did you even test that to make sure they weren't poisoned?" she asked.
"Why would I need to do that? They weren't even opened."
"That doesn't mean they were safe. What did I say about blind trust?"
"Oh, come on! They're just a little stale. No one's tampered with them. Want one?" Birdie held out the box to Sadie, grabbing a second biscuit for herself and biting into it. She waited for Sadie to either take one or walk away—she was sure the other girl would do one of the two.
Instead, Sadie merely quirked a brow, then raised a hand. For a second, Birdie thought she might strike her, but then the emerald staff came flying into Sadie's grasp, the quick motion startling Birdie. Sadie made no comment on her reaction though as she swung the staff behind her, sticking it to her back with a charm.
"You've got water in your bag," Sadie said in a matter-of-fact tone.
Birdie didn't need any further persuasion to swing her bag around and pull out a couple bottles of water. She realized in that moment that Sadie had been right—her supplies would not last her long, especially if she was going to be sharing. She handed a bottle to Sadie, who took a long swing from it before shoving it into an inner robe pocket. Birdie slowly drank hers, savoring water in her mouth for a moment before swallowing. She wondered if Sadie shrunk the items she put into her robe pockets or if she had wizard space sewn in to the robe she wore under her cloak.
Birdie put her water bottle back into her bag and zipped it up, slinging the noticeable weight over her shoulder. Maybe she should consider wizard space and ditch the bag after all. But she didn't have the material to stitch on to her robe or the corresponding spells that went along with it. And how on earth had Sadie accomplished turning her robe into whatever it was without a wand?
Once again, thoughts of how Sadie lost her wand crossed Birdie's mind, as well as how Sadie managed to teach herself wandless and wordless magic. However, she had a feeling she wasn't going to get very far with questioning the other girl.
"I suppose one stale biscuit won't kill me," Sadie said, holding her hand out toward Birdie.
Grabbing a couple cookies and handing them to Sadie, Birdie also pulled out two tomatoes from the lunch pack and offered one to Sadie, who accepted one without question. The girls finished their breakfast in silence in the pantry, polishing off the tomatoes and eating half the package of digestives before Birdie stuffed it into her bag. Halfway through her bottled water, Birdie felt a pressing urge hit her suddenly.
"So," Birdie began, "where might one be able to use a lavatory around here?"
Sadie threw an annoyed look at Birdie.
After packing up and closing bags, Sadie glanced out the pantry, looking both ways before slipping out the door, leading the way once more. Birdie stayed at Sadie's heels while Agrippa trotted next to both girls, her tail held high and fluffed out.
"There are seventeen bathrooms in Hogwarts," Sadie said, "not including the common room bathrooms and showers in each of the houses, or the ones in the professors' quarters. The prefects' bathroom on the fifth floor has a special password in order to enter, and unless you were given that lovely assignment this year, we have no way in."
"No." Birdie shook her head. "I turned it down."
"Care to share why?" Sadie asked, sparing a quick glance back at Birdie with a quirked brow.
"I needed to pay extra attention to my studies this year, or at least, I was going to. Fifth year is a very important year, you know. We would have had the OWLS to pass, and I didn't want the extra responsibilities being a prefect would entail."
"Then that leaves out the prefects' bathroom," Sadie started up as she began climbing the stairs. "You'd do well to stay clear of any east sided bathrooms in Hogwarts. Luckily for us, the floor set ups are about the same, so it's mostly the boys' bathrooms that are east sided. However, the dungeon's restrooms are off limits—way too close to Pure Magic territory. The ground floor restroom is too risky. Pure Magic still searches for stragglers now and then, and with its proximity to the Great Hall, it's too easy to be lured into a trap if you head that way."
"So, dungeons and ground floor are no goes. Got it. And what's wrong with the east sided bathrooms?"
"East side in general. Just stay away from it and you won't need to find out."
Once again, Birdie's curiosity wanted to push for more information, but the sudden fear that something horrible lived on the east side encouraged her to keep her mouth shut and trust Sadie's words. They arrived at the first floor once more, and Sadie proceeded with caution down the hall.
"Second floor bathroom is also off limits. That's Myrtle's territory, and I'm sure you know, she's as dramatic and loud as she can possibly be, and we don't need the attention she's sure to bring."
"Got it. So far, the east side, the dungeons, the ground floor, and Myrtle's bathroom are all bad choices to be. Anywhere else?"
"Oh, I could go on," Sadie said, throwing a look over her shoulder at Birdie. "But that'll do for now."
They came up to the restrooms, and Birdie nearly rushed in. She vaguely felt the feeling of snake like vines constricting around her right arm before she was yanked back to Sadie's side.
"Ow!" she complained, then stared mesmerized as vines curled up in an intricate design on the top end of Sadie's staff before growing still once more.
"You'd think I'd've taught you something about caution by now," Sadie said. She stepped forward slowly, tapping the floor in front of her with the bottom end of her staff. "I'll go in first. You follow."
"We have got to talk about your staff one of these days," Birdie said, rubbing her arm where the vines had latched on her. She was sure bruises were forming at that moment. Agrippa mewed up at her before following Sadie. Birdie pulled her wand out then followed her cat and Sadie.
Inside looked completely normal, and Sadie was already exiting a stall to wash her hands.
"One of these days," Sadie said as she checked two soap dispensers before finding one with some soap inside, "I will learn the bodily fluid elimination spell and no longer have need for bathroom breaks."
"Did you seriously keep me outside so you could get to a stall first?" Birdie asked, crossing her arms.
"Come on," Sadie smirked, "even the most desperate won't booby trap a bathroom. It could backfire on yourself, you know. Seems to be a common courtesy in the school, hunter or straggler alike."
Sadie finished washing her hands and flicked her wrists, wordlessly casting a drying charm that instantly dried her hands.
"Besides," Sadie said, hopping up on the sink counter to sit and wait for Birdie. "If you're really paranoid, you could always go the old-fashioned wizard way. As long as you're good at vanishing charms."
Birdie made a disgusted face before she moved further into the bathroom and searched for a clean stall with toilet paper in the dispenser.
Agrippa purred as she finished burying her business in one of the self-cleaning litterboxes in a corner of the bathroom before trotting out of it and wiping her paws on a mat.
"Traitor!" Birdie growled at her cat before slipping inside a stall and closing the door.
Birdie briefly wondered about the bodily fluid elimination charm, and if there might be a book that discussed how to perform it, but she remembered Professor Flitwick saying something about the spell being easy to screw up for beginners, and it resulted in fluid-filled organs being accidentally eliminated from the body, such as the bladder, intestines, or in worse cases, even the heart. Birdie decided she'd rather not learn that kind of spell anytime soon if she didn't have to. If she could just find Sanctuary as soon as possible, it wouldn't even be a problem.
Finishing up in the stall, Birdie exited and washed her hands, casting a drying charm herself, though it only half dried her hands and she finished drying them off by wiping them on her robe. Feeling a bit brisk, Birdie reached into her bag and pulled out her Ravenclaw themed hoodie and threw it on, setting her bag down for a second. Something flickered in the corner of her eye, and she gasped as she turned around and stared up at the corner of the angled ceiling.
"What?" Sadie asked from where she was cleaning her staff with warm water from the faucet, dipping her hand under the water then dumping it over the top of her staff, the vines curled around the top squirming under the warmth. "Did you see your reflection? I'm afraid genetics can't be helped."
"Someone's in here," Birdie whispered.
That grabbed Sadie's attention as she turned in the direction Birdie was in, her staff raised and pointed at the ceiling. She signaled Birdie to step back as she stalked over in the direction of the corner, standing in front of Birdie. She paused, and scanned the walls and stalls, moving her staff as she did.
Agrippa ran to Birdie's heels and growled at the ceiling; her fur bristled.
"What do you think?" Birdie whispered again as she pulled out her own wand and threw her bag back on her shoulder. "Another student? A . . . dark creature?"
Jerking her head at Birdie to get moving, the two started backing out of the bathroom slowly. Sadie kept her eyes on the ceiling. There was nothing there.
As they exited the bathroom, however, a dark shadow suddenly moved across the ceiling in the hall before dropping down in front of the girls. Birdie raised her wand and pointed it directly at the stranger while Sadie narrowed her eyes but didn't move.
"Friend," the stranger in the blue and bronze cloak said as he held up his hands and his bronze wand. "I promise."
In slow, steady movements, he lowered the hood of his cloak.
"Devlin!" Birdie cried, running forward, and throwing her arms around her fellow Ravenclaw. He returned the hug, spinning Birdie around. "I can't believe you're alive! It's been months since you left."
"I know!" Devlin said as he set Birdie down. His long, untamed curly hair fell in his face as he smiled at his friend. "And look at you? I can't believe you left the common room—I thought you'd never leave the safety of the House."
"I had to." Birdie looked down at her feet. "It was breached."
"That's too bad." Devlin's eyes strayed to Sadie, who was leaning into her staff with an unamused expression. Devlin swallowed dryly as he noted the colors of her cloak. "Err, who's your friend?"
"That's Sadie," Birdie said as she sheathed her wand in its holder strapped to her arm. "She's helped me since I left."
"More like saved your arse," Sadie snapped.
"Could I talk to you?" Devlin asked Birdie. "Alone?"
Birdie frowned, then looked back at Sadie and nodded. Sadie rolled her eyes.
"That's okay," Sadie said as she turned to go back into the bathroom. "I haven't had a chance to fix up my make-up in months."
It was Birdie's turn to roll her eyes.
"Don't mind her," Birdie said. "She means well . . . usually."
"She's a Slytherin," Devlin said.
"So?"
"You shouldn't trust a Slytherin, Birdie. They all work for Pure Magic. Not one ounce of good in any of them."
"That's a bit unfair, don't you think?" Birdie rested her hands on her hips. "They can't all be bad students. Besides, she saved my life. That has to count for something."
"Maybe, but I still don't like it. What are you doing with her anyway? You two going somewhere?"
"Right now, we're just trying to survive, I guess. We're looking for Sanctuary."
"Hey, me too! Maybe I could join you guys. I know a few things about Hogwarts myself. Learned some new skills and all; I could be a real asset to the team, you know."
"That would be great! Between you and Sadie, we could find Sanctuary in no time. By the way, how were you climbing around on the ceiling?"
"Sticky charm," Devlin said, demonstrating by putting his hands together and pulling them apart, albeit with great difficulty. "I always keep it fresh so I can get around Spiderman style. It's come in real handy on many occasions."
"See? And that's why you were put in Ravenclaw. You should have never doubted the hat."
"Yeah, I guess not." Devlin glanced at the bathroom entrance before hugging himself slightly. "Hey, you wouldn't happen to have an apple or something in that bag of yours, would you? Damn, I haven't eaten in a couple days—food is getting harder to come by, you know."
"Oh, trust me, I'm realizing it." Birdie pulled her bag around and opened it, setting it on the floor so she could dig through it. Devlin kneeled next to her. "I have a couple tomatoes still, and maybe if you eat some cookies, you might feel a little better. Here."
Birdie held a tomato and a couple cookies out to Devlin.
"Thanks," he said, reaching for the food.
Then, he grabbed Birdie's bag and ran.
"Hey!" Birdie shouted. She dropped the food and ran down the hall after Devlin. Agrippa growled and chased after him as well. "What are you doing? Give me back my bag!"
"Sorry, Birdie," Devlin called back to her as he slapped a hand on the wall and propelled himself forward, unsticking himself at the last minute to send himself flying ahead a couple yards and gaining distance. "I hate to do this to you. You were a real good friend."
"Devlin, I'm not joking. Give me my bag."
"Neither am I," Devlin said as he turned a corner. "There's a new rhythm in Hogwarts, Birdie. If you can't keep up with the beat, you're going to fall out of tempo."
Birdie turned the corner, only to trip over a fallen knight, stumbling and crashing to the floor, the noise reverberating off the walls. Agrippa purred worriedly as she bumped her head against Birdie's throbbing one. Looking up, she could see Devlin smirked at her from the ceiling right above her while colorful stars danced around him.
"And you're going to fall hard," Devlin said before crawling along the ceiling away from Birdie.
Birdie tried to push the feeling of hurt and betrayal that burned her eyes and clenched at her heart as she pushed herself up. She looked up in time to see Sadie jump in the air with her staff flying straight for Devlin.
The vines on the staff jumped alive and wrapped around Devlin's waist, yanking him off the ceiling and sending him crashing to the ground as Sadie landed on her feet. The vines released Devlin and Sadie spun the staff around, revealing the long blade at the other end of the staff, and she pointed it directly at the groaning teen still lying on the ground.
"Give her the bag," Sadie demanded.
"Nice stick," Devlin grunted out.
"You like it? I can get you two real acquainted." Sadie drove her blade forward more, the tip touching the hairs on Devlin's chin.
"No need for that," Birdie panted as she ran forward and caught up with them. "I just want my bag back."
"You heard her," Sadie said, keeping her blade leveled on Devlin.
Devlin sighed as he sat up. He glared at Sadie, then at Birdie, before he finally lifted the bag and held it up for Birdie to take. Birdie smiled in relief and stepped forward to take it when several masked individuals jumped out of various hiding places, their wands drawn and trained on Sadie, Devlin, and Birdie.
The individuals closed in on the three, tightening their circle around them. Each face mask had a painted face of one of the four founders of Hogwarts on it. Their wands varied in color and size, as did the height of each intruder, and Birdie figured they were former students of Hogwarts. She moved in closer to Sadie, who had spun her staff around to face the masked students, giving Devlin the chance to stand up with Birdie's bag still in his grasp. Agrippa snarled at Birdie's heels.
"You three," one of the masked students said, "you will come with us."
"Over my dead body," Sadie said, tightening her hold on her staff.
Devlin had slowly been backing away toward a small gap in between two masked individuals before he finally shouldered past them and ran.
"Hey!" Birdie shouted, moving to run after him only to be stopped by two wands thrusted at her chest by two students.
"After him!" The student who had spoken first demanded. Two of the other masked individuals ran in Devlin's direction. The lead student spoke again. "I insist that you come with us. We wish to help you."
"Right," Sadie said as she pulled out her orange glasses from a robe pocket and put them on. She tapped the other end of her staff on the ground twice while saying, "Fumo lacrima."
A strange white gas began to steam out of the end of her staff.
With a large swoop of her staff, the gas spread quickly and filled the air around the students, hitting them in the face, sneaking through the eye peepholes of their masks. There were lots of groans and crying out, and Birdie quickly understood why.
The smoke also hit her face, and her eyes burned instantly. She yelped and threw her hands over her eyes, wanting to rip them out as they itched and stung. She could hear Agrippa yowling. A hand grabbed her upper arm and yanked her down a hall, and she struggled to keep up with the running pace. After what felt like an eternity of excruciating pain and blind running, she finally felt herself yanked sideways, probably into some room.
She was pushed down into a seat, then a hand grabbed her hair and yanked her head back. She felt a sticky substance rubbed over her eyes before fingers forced each eye to open. When the sticky liquid seeped into her cornea, she felt immediate relief from the inflammation, and she rubbed her eyes in relief.
Sadie tilted her chin up, gazing into her eyes briefly before she turned away and kneeled on the ground in front of Agrippa, who kept pawing at her eyes and trying to open them. As she reached for the kneazle, Agrippa grumbled irritably and swatted at Sadie, scratching the back of the girl's hand.
Sadie hissed and yanked her hand back.
"Damn cat," Sadie growled. She quickly scruffed Agrippa by the nape of her neck and lifted her up slightly. Agrippa growled and hissed as she struggled against Sadie, swinging herself around. Sadie dipped her hand into a container with the burn relief solution. "I'm trying to help you."
"Serves you right," Birdie said as she watched the struggle in between long blinks for her achy eyes. "What kind of spell was that?"
"I don't want to hear it from you," Sadie said. She managed to slather a generous amount of the potion over Agrippa's eyes, then let the kneazle go to handle herself. Sadie glared at Birdie as she shoved the container in a pocket. "What have I told you about blind trust?"
"He was a good friend!" Birdie defended, glaring back. But her glare fell almost instantly. "Or at least, he was."
"Hogwarts has changed many people," Sadie said. "This is not the same castle you entered six months ago. Thought you knew that."
"All this talk about trust, maybe I shouldn't be trusting you!"
"Now you're learning something!"
Birdie turned her head away angrily, though she could feel any heat of frustration and rage seeping out of her. She was never the rageful or even slightly angry type. Those feeling exhausted her more than anything else, leaving her feeling mostly annoyed or even sad. She was silent for several seconds, thinking back to what had just occurred in the hallway.
"Who were those other students?" Birdie asked.
Sadie applied a healing salve to the small scratches on her hand then put the lid back on her container and shoved it in an inner robe pocket. She shrugged her shoulders.
"A group of survivors, most likely. There's a couple of them who work together to stay hidden."
There was silence for a moment while Sadie sheathed her blade once more. She rested her staff against the wall behind Birdie, who rubbed her eyes once more.
"I can't believe he took my bag," Birdie said sadly.
"I told you that bag would prove to be an inconvenience. You're better off without it. Though now we have no food or water thanks to your open trust."
"I don't care about that. My heirlooms! The kneazle figurine, the pendant! They've been in the family for six hundred years. They were all I had left from my parents. I don't even know what's become of them." Birdie pulled her knees up to her chest and buried her face against them, wrapping her arms around herself securely.
"Oh, come on. We don't have time for tears over something so small in the grand scheme of things."
"Easy for you to say." Birdie narrowed her eyes at Sadie through welling tears, a spark of anger igniting in her chest. "I bet your Slytherin parents are doing quite well right now, probably enjoying this mass chaos and pureblood supremacy—"
"My parents are dead," Sadie snapped.
Birdie gasped, her hands flying to cover her mouth. Sadie looked ready to spit fire, but a strange hurt flashed across her eyes, and Birdie felt a tear escape her own eyes.
"Dear Merlin," Birdie said softly, "I'm so sorry. That was completely wrong . . . I don't know what came over me."
"Anger?" Sadie suggested in an even tone, her face returning to her usual always annoyed expression. "Sadness, even. Just to name a couple." Sadie sat down in a chair across from Birdie, swinging her legs over the arm. "I get it. I do. But you shouldn't make assumptions of others based on the superficial facts you know."
"I'm sorry."
"I know."
"How . . ." Birdie blinked her eyes tightly at some lingering pain before eyeing Sadie. "How did you find out? About your parents, I mean."
"I have my sources."
Birdie waited a moment for Sadie to say more, but when nothing came, she sighed and looked down at Agrippa, who was grooming her face now, looking much more relaxed.
"Do you have anyone left?"
"No. It was just my parents and me. Now it's just me."
"I'm sorry." Birdie felt her heart ache for the loss of Sadie's parents and for the loss of her family's heirlooms.
"Don't be." Sadie said.
"I wish I could know what became of mine."
"If I could help you find out, I would."
Birdie smiled at Sadie, but Sadie was staring at the ceiling, watching another candle slowly sink from the high ceiling of the classroom as its levitation charm faded away more and more by the hour.