Chapter Four
The Sarcastian Crisis
By Queen Tessandry de Sanyochisei
The planet Parth, home of Dragons, Elves and the Sarcastian Empire, is much like Earth. It has about the same mass, orbit around the sun, land to water distribution and seasons. The tides are different because Parth has three moons; Eneles, Simetra and Otel.
The Dragons' continent, sprawling across what would be the northwestern part of the globe to us, is mountainous and rocky. The Elven continent, located on the equator to the east of the Dragons, is lush and forested.
The Sarcastian continent, a lake spotted continent north and east of the Elves, has the only truly visible civilization on the planet. Mountain ranges hem the north and south, coasts with sandy beaches on the west and east.
On the west coast, set a little to the north and east of the continental middle, is the capital city of Parthmet. The imperial residence, a castle with carved towers of ebony-colored stone, dominates in the eastern sector of the city.
This castle is where Empress Tessandrilene Wendracon de Sanyochisei would be at this time of year, were she not otherwise trapped in the Harry Potter world.
It had been three months since the empress had vanished without a trace. There'd been a small ripple of panic when she'd gone missing but now the interim government was in place and running smoothly. Tessandrilene's older cousin and most trusted advisor, Lord High Chancellor Aymery Wendracon, had been chosen by the Council of Lords to head the government until such a time when either the empress was found or the throne would be passed to the next in line.
Aymery was now weary. The investigation was winding down as all the leads lead to dead ends. The time had come to do what he dreaded; ask the elves.
The Sarcastian-Elven relationship was a bloody one. The most recent war had ended just a year ago with a non-aggression pact co-negotiated by the Imperial Regent, Dowager Empress Madia de Sanyochisei, and the empress.
The last thing that the Sarcastians needed now was for the Elves to take advantage of the weakness of their foe.
I have to word this carefully. I can't accuse them but I can't let them know we don't know where Tessa is… Aymery thinks, staring at the paper on the desk in front of him. He was sitting in Tessandrilene's study when a page knocked on the door.
"Enter." Aymery says, setting the paper to one side.
"Your Grace, the investigation's hit eight more dead ends. As of now, there are only a few nobles that they haven't investigated, your Grace included. The people are starting to accuse the Elves." The page says, bowing.
"Please remind them they should investigate me. After all, I am benefiting the most out of this situation." Aymery replies.
"Of course, your Grace." The page says, bowing again as Aymery dismissed him.
Aymery stands and stares out the study's window at the noonday sky. The ocean glittered brightly a fair distance from the palace.
Tessa, wherever you are, get back soon. I don't know if the pact will hold with you gone. Aymery thinks as he returns to the desk to resume writing the inquiry.
~*~^~*~Across the Solar System and a Dimension Away on Earth…~*~^~*~
November 17th~
"You did that on purpose!"
"It was an accident! I didn't see you!"
"Sure you didn't. My hat, you didn't."
"I didn't."
Tess sighs, setting her flatware down with a clatter. The last thing she wanted to do that day was break up one of the many verbal fracas that seemed to spring up between the Ravenclaws and Slytherins. This time it was Katelin Blackfrost, a First Year Ravenclaw, and Millicent Bulstrode, a Fifth Year Slytherin.
"Will you two STOP!?" she demands, donning her cloak of authority.
"She started it!" the two girls say at the same time.
"Will one of you tell me what happened?" Tess asks, trying to be sensible. It was hopeless though. The two girls had started arguing again.
"Stop this now!" Garret Avis says, sweeping over to the fight.
"Gary! She says I tripped her on purpose! I only stuck my foot into the isle so I could get up!" Katelin says, and runs to the Head Boy, the small Ravenclaw hiding behind him.
"That little –" Millicent starts, raising a finger accusingly.
"That's enough Miss Bulstrode." Garret snaps. Not even the most stubborn of souls would have disobeyed the tone he used on the errant Slytherin.
"Now. Did anyone hear if Kate apologized?" Garret asks the nearby Ravenclaws and Slytherins.
A general murmur of affirmative sweeps the students nearest. Tess's features slip easily into her practiced neutral expression.
"Miss Bulstrode, I see no reason for you to be upset. Kate apologized for tripping you. Just out of curiosity, do you know anyone who would apologize after purposely tripping you?"
Millicent threw Garret a short-lived look of rebellion before she strode off, frustrated.
Tess sighs heavily, her unbiased façade gone, "They're worse than the elves… The elves at least listened."
"Elves?" Garret asks, curiosity getting the better of him.
"Oh, it's nothing you'd know about. Just bad political situation…"
"You'll have to explain it to me." Garret says. "What's wrong?" he asks as a look of abject horror on her face.
"The elves!" she exclaims and careens out of the Great Hall towards Ravenclaw Tower.
Gods all! The Council of Lords mightn't have found my plans for an interim government and have Lord Quinton Camdron in charge while I'm gone! I have nothing against him but he's made it perfectly clear that he doesn't find me fit to rule.
Or worse! All I needed was to come back from this to find my kingdom in ruins! All it'd take is a false word from home or an Elven attack of opportunity and there goes what little political stability I'd managed to create!
Why'd that stupid Archer have to steal me away to Hogwarts right when things were so critical!? Damn him! If I'm one of the two who know him, I'm going to personally enjoy killing him! He'd just better hope that he's not from Parth, because then I can cause some real damage!
"Peregrine falcon." Tess snaps at the bookcase she'd pelted to. The bookcase swings outward to reveal the entrance to the Ravenclaw Common Room, a.k.a. the cool library.
The walls, what little that wasn't covered by bookcases, were a pretty indigo. The bookcases themselves had doors on them with different symbols representing the different topics. On the right were the school topics but on the left were the muggle books that'd been brought before and left. Most were romances but there weren't small numbers of science fiction and fantasy (that were very dusty, I might add).
"Anyone good at divination or scrying?!" Tess yells to the common room. The older students look at her like she wasn't supposed to ask about something so frilly as Divination.
However, a Prefect got up. "I'm a fair hand at scrying. Seventh year Shamanism reviewed it last week. Why? What's the matter?"
"Listen, I need to see what's happening at my home. I don't want to be surprised when this is over and I get back there."
"What? You think that war'll break out over three months?" someone jeered. Tess locates who'd said that; a Third year boy.
"Yes, that's exactly what I think! Parth isn't exactly the politically stable planet in the system; let alone Sarcastia, a stable country!" She snaps, setting the Third year firmly back in his place
Tess feels the panic returning its edge to her voice. I should've just gone to Venus.
"What d'you think, Ravenclaws?" the Prefect asks those around her.
"We don't have any lessons until three…" A Sixth year points out.
"We've finished our homework for Monday…" A Fourth year adds.
"Is that a yes?" the Prefect asks.
"Why not?" Was the consensus.
The panic ensued over how they (the group of Shamanism students that'd volunteered to perform the necessary magic) would scry as no Ravenclaw had even a small pocket mirror and there were no mirrors in the Tower bathrooms for some strange reason.
"Let's take over one of the public toilets. They all have mirrors."
"Which one?"
"How about the girls' one on the third floor?"
"What? The one by Professor Stonecast and Madam McCloud's office?"
"No, the one levitating four floors above Snape's office. Of course, that one."
"They are less likely to ask questions than Professors McGonagall and Jeminy by the second floor toilets."
"Let's go!"
"A Ravenclaw raid!" Some second year was getting carried away.
"You know… That toilet is really small. Maybe only Fourth years and up should go." Morwen Veliurn, the Head Girl, suggests sagely. She gives the greener students a glance then nods. "Yep. Only Fourth years and up should come."
There was a massed groan.
"C'mon Morwen! It'd be fun! And the first raid that Ravenclaw's been on since the Raiders themselves were here!"
"Tough! That's final!"
~*~^~*~^~*~^~*~^~*~
The battalion of Ravenclaws was firmly entrenched in the third floor girls' toilets. However, now there was a rush for other necessary supplies. Madam Rosa McCloud and Professor Violet Stonecast, on their way back to their offices, halt as they see the comings and goings in the girls' toilets and the students going in and out were not all girls.
"HOLD IT! Did everyone forget that I could just write the ingredients up?"
Tess's voice rises over the hubbub in the bathroom, silencing it for a moment, and then the noise rises again with demands for quill and parchment.
Rosa and Violet quickly duck into a long disused classroom as the boy that'd run off to get a quill and some parchment rushes past them.
Rosa quickly casts her own scrying window, focusing on the bathroom not ten feet away. Violet adds her own power to the scrying spell, making the window clear and stable.
"C'mon! Hand me the quill! Where's the parchment? Oh forget it! I'll just write on my hand."
It was all Violet and Rosa could do to slap up spells that would block sound coming from the room and close the door before they crack up laughing. When they'd finished, Rosa removes the spells, opens the door, and returns to watching the events in the toilets.
What was happening was one of the mirrors showed a very wavering picture zooming in on a jet-black palace with towering spires.
"Get back! Your breathing is making the picture destabilize!"
Out in the corridor:
"Rosa? Violet?" Professor Tradrin Fatespirit calls as he rounds the corner.
"Shhh!!!" the two teachers scold and drag him into the classroom to watch.
In the bathroom:
"What was that? Oh never mind." Tess asks then returns to watching the mirror. A black cat was pacing on what can only be called a throne.
"OH! Isis! Don't worry, kitty-baby. Mommy's gonna be home soon."
Out in the corridor:
"What's going on?" Tradrin demands, in complete confusion over why two teachers would be spying on the girls' bathroom, let alone drag him into it.
"Looks like Ravenclaw House has decided to take over a toilet and scry to one of the Author's homeworld."
Tradrin snorts, covering his laughter quickly.
In the bathroom:
"Shut up kid! Go to some other toilet!"
"But I –" A pitiful first year Hufflepuff whines from without the toilets.
"No buts! Go!"
"Hush Mandy!"
"Both of you hush!" Tess snaps at the two fourth years.
The mirror was now showing a woman with dark skin and contrasting white hair and pale-gold eyes staring out a window looking depressed.
"Mom." Tess breathes, raising a hand as if to touch her mother through the spell. Someone grabs her hand before she touches the mirror.
"Don't touch. It was bad enough with breathing on it, remember?"
"Right." Tess answers still looking longingly at her mother.
Out in the corridor:
"Tradrin? Where'd you go off to?" Professor McGonagall had made her way up to the third floor in search of the Shamanism professor.
"Hey… Hey, Minerva… Over here... Keep quiet." Rosa says quietly poking her head into the corridor.
Minerva makes her way into the classroom to see what the three teachers were doing in a deserted classroom.
In the bathroom:
"At least there aren't any craters, so the elves haven't attacked yet. Wait! Go up those stairs! It's to my study!" Tess exclaims as the image passes the familiar stairwell.
The picture turned to go up the stairs. The viewers soon found themselves looking in on a classic study. A young man in his twenties was pacing back and forth behind the large desk.
"Oh good! They found my plans for an interim government." Tess sighs in relief, sending a thankful prayer to the deities above.
Out in the corridor:
Three more faculty members had been dragged into the scry/spy session. A few had made up chairs to sit and watch the happenings. Currently, they were chuckling at the relief the young empress showed over something an adult should be worried over.
"She seems well-adjusted to her responsibilities." Rosa says to Violet and Tradrin.
"It's a shame that someone so young had to grow up so fast." Tradrin replies.
"I wonder how long she's lived with all that hanging over her head." Violet adds.
In the bathroom:
"What's that though? Who could he be writing… Oh no! Aymery! Not to the elves! Is there anyway to get sound on this thing?"
"Sorry Tess."
"Drat! Okay… Can we zoom in on that piece of paper on the desk? Yes!" Tess leans forward to get a better look at the letter her cousin was composing. She reads it, mumbling and nodding, under her breath.
She closes her eyes, nodding a final time.
"Thank you Aymes." Tess says with a sigh. Unfortunately, as with breathing on the mirror caused the image to waver, sighing on the mirror causes the image to completely dissipate. Tess falls forward and hits her head on the mirror.
In the 'Viewing Room':
The teacher nearest the door, Gaia Vector, quickly shuts it and slaps up the spell that would block sound coming from the room. The teachers then laugh, save Minerva who only had one of her rare smiles on, at the irony that'd just occurred.
When they'd finished rolling on the floor, Violet peeks out into the corridor only to see Medea Jeminy, Astronomy professor and Head of Ravenclaw House, seeming to tower over her like she was a student again.
"I suppose there'll be a viewing tonight in the teachers' lounge?" Medea asks but it was inching steadily towards a demand.
"Nine sound good?" Tradrin asks from behind Violet.
"I'll bring the popcorn!" the old Muggle Studies professor, Cathy Drahl, says sounding like a twenty-year-old.
"Sounds good." Medea says and turns around only to find herself blocked by a veritable wall of passing Ravenclaw students.
Tess went straight to find Venus and tell her what'd happened.
"You were right. You should've just come to me." Venus says, looking up from her game of Fifty-two Pick-up.
"That's not the point. I just wanted to let you know that you could do the same for the rest of us. Spare the faculty from having to deal with a lot of sudden House raids on the toilets." Tess replies.
"Oh… So you just want Ravenclaw to have had all the fun?" Venus accuses the not-much-younger empress.
"Fine. Do what you want. But Gryffindor is more likely to get into trouble for it." Tess states nonchalantly, starting to walk away.
"What? What d'you mean by that?!" Venus demands standing up.
"Just what I said. Gryffindor's more likely to get into trouble for a toilet raid. Ravenclaw apparently hasn't done anything of the sort since the Raiders were here and Gryffindor does stuff like that on a practically monthly basis." Tess explains.
"I guess you're right." Venus admits begrudgingly.
"That wasn't so hard to admit, now was it, V?" Tess teases the older Gryffindor.
"Shut up." Venus snaps. "Tell the others there'll be a scry session not next Saturday but the next Saturday. I have plans this weekend and next."
"Trying to demolish the school with the help of the twins and Serenity, are you?" Tess asks.
"I might." Venus says, neither admitting to nor denying her accusation.
"I'll go talk to the others. Surfer doesn't need it though. He doesn't have a planet that I know of." Tess grimaces. "I have the misfortune of knowing a lot about him."
"Oh?" Venus asks, implying something more.
"Not like that, you silly girl! Sheesh… You Gryffindors and your imaginations." Tess sighs.
"Ravenclaws aren't much better." Venus returns.
"Just play your game. I'm going." Tess snaps and stalks over to the Hufflepuff table to talk to Tawny and Chloe.
"Hey hun!" Venus calls after the retreating empress.
"What?" Tess asks, turning around.
"Happy Sweet Sixteen!"
If it were happy or sweet, I'd be home, and my country wouldn't be on the brink of war.
Authoress's Note and Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all original characters belong to J.K. Rowling. All others, save those listed hence, are mine! Ray Fira is property of Marie (rieb7@hotmail.com), Ariety Blythe and Chloe Frazier belong to Kel (Valentine715@aol.com), Venus McGonagall stars as herself (crystalvenusmcgonagall@yahoo.com), Tawny Miryton belongs to Meg (FunnyGurl895@aol.com), Liz Electra belongs to Liz (Lizard3100@aol.com), Circe Moss belongs to Circe (WatermelonSugar7@aol.com), Delia Phinium belongs to Pat (Trishd29@aol.com), Alex Bakare belongs to Lazymeoo7 (lazymeoo7@msn.com), Maia Rahmlal belongs to Natalia (TOONatalia@aol.com), Surfer Tsunamiya belongs to my brother, Pory (Porygon11@aol.com), Garret Avis belongs to GryffindorArcher (stararcher@yahoo.com), and Tess Wendracon belongs to me! More action and clues in Chapter Five. Tah-tah!
~Queen Tessandry de Sanyochisei~