Witchery
PROLOGUE
She was tall – that was the first thing everyone noticed. The second thing, were her eyes. Blazing blue with an inner light. A brightness, as though fevered. At once both icy cold and burning, alight with sheer malice and contempt. A lightning flash lit her face and the bright blue eyes glowed and glittered in the sudden silver light.
She stalked forward, forearms bare and robes billowing behind her in the wind as she stepped through the crowd, people scurrying in their haste to get away. A half smile curled her lips. She reached the center of the great rock and climbed easily with long decisive strides. At the top, she joined the group of gathering shapes in dark robes and turned to survey the battlefield.
Her hair flew about her face, the wind lifting and twisting it wildy. The oppressive, too-warm air flying about, whipping away the anguished cries and shouts of defiance in the darkness. Lightning forked across the sky followed almost immediately by an earsplitting crash of thunder. People cowered; fearful eyes turned toward the tall, gleeful woman before them.
She opened her arms and let her head fall back as though to embrace the storm itself as more lighting scribbled across the sky, briefly illuminating the cowering forms of her enemies. A fierce and terrible joy rose within her and she laughed aloud, the bubbling of sound heard even above the thunder. Magic crackled from her open fingertips and fizzed through her hair.
At once, lightning struck the ground once, twice – either side of the rock. There were startled shrieks and movement as people scrambled away in their panic. The Lady's followers however stood fast. Grim eyed, confident and still.
She laughed again. A thrilled, excited laugh that whipped around them with the wind. The eyes gleamed with victory. She alone had the power. She had won. She had won.
Iris, still numb, saw the scene before her in an almost detached manner. As though she were somewhere else just watching a movie with her parents again, something she hadn't done in so long. It was at that moment, as the Lady gazed triumphantly around the scene of destruction that it happened.
Their eyes met, then locked. Iris felt the jolt of recognition in the pit of her stomach at the same moment she saw those burning blue eyes recognize her. Something flashed in that gaze and was gone before Iris could get a read on it. She felt something now. Shock. Anger. Confusion. How could this be possible? How could it be her? Her mind tried to deny the evidence that was right in front of her eyes.
All these families, torn apart. All these kind and brave people dead. The fear and the pain, all this evil. All along it was her? Her mind boggled, trying to reconcile what she now knew with what she remembered. She felt cold and her heart was laden with dread.
The Lady, still staring into her eyes, beckoned her imperiously with a crooked finger. Without a moment to consider, to plan – Iris rose, blood and her own wind-whipped hair partially obscuring her vision and limped slowly forward to obey the summons.
Chapter 1 – An Unexpected Visitor
The sun glared out of a cloudless, infinitely blue sky over the landscape rippling with heat. There was no movement in the air and even the busy traffic of a bustling city was quieter and slower than normal. The beaches and public swimming pools however, were crowded even as the sun reaches its zenith.
The suburbs baked in the height of an Australian January, well-watered gardens wilting and the landscape was still and quiet. Even the birds were sheltering in the trees, reluctant to leave their sanctuaries. The ground was bone dry and heat danced above the roads. The footpaths were empty, curtains drawn against the sun as people spent the day indoors enjoying air conditioning and a quiet, lazy Sunday.
There was a loud pop in one unremarkable suburban street, and a man appeared out of thin air on the footpath. Glancing around, he briefly read the street sign, and checked the address on an envelope before returning it to his pocket. He adjusted the slant of his dusty hat and strode purposefully along the street, his footsteps unheard above the loud drone of air conditioning units and the occasional sprinkler.
He stopped for a moment, before a charming older house with immaculate lawns, considering as he gazed at the neat garden beds and tidy veranda. This, he knew, would take some careful handling. He took a deep breath and walked forward, stowing the wand he'd been holding in his hand and raising his hand to knock at the door.
It took but a moment for the knock to be answered by a large beefy man with neatly combed blonde hair. The big man's expression changed from mild curiosity to outright suspicion in an instant.
"Yes?" He demanded.
"G'day!" the visitor grinned cheerily. "You must be Dudley Dursley. My name is Rueben Daku. May I come in?"
Dudley Dursley glared as he took in the older man's odd appearance. The dusty akubra, the electric blue streak in his beard. The outdated cut of his shirt.
"What do you want? Are you collecting for charity?" the big man asked.
Before any answer could be given, a girl's voice came from the depths of the cool house behind him.
"Dad? Who is it?" a girl appeared at his side, and he tucked his arm protectively around the girl. The stranger smiled down at the child as she stared at his oddly coloured beard.
"You must be Iris Dursley. I am a teacher at a school for… well gifted kids. I would like to have a little chat about Iris' future education." Rueben Daku responded, looking back to Dudley. The big man's eyes narrowed.
"Gifted kids? What school are you on about?" he demanded.
"I am the Deputy Head of Nyambi School of Enchantment." He responded, drawing an envelope from his breast pocket, "Iris has been invited to attend."
Dudley Dursley's face paled and he stared at the strange man, mouth agape, unable to think of anything to say.
"Dad?" the young girl looked up at her father in puzzlement. "What's going on?"
"Why are you even here?" Dudley managed to choke out. "You mean there are more of you? One of those schools, here?"
"You bet!" Mr Daku responded cheerily, "One of the best in the world."
"But, not Iris. Not my daughter. She's not… she's not one of you!" he spluttered.
"I think," Mr Daku replied gently, "I had better come inside."
"You're from where?" Nadia Dursley asked, narrowing her eyes in suspicion. Her perfectly styled curls were swept back with two combs to keep them off her face and neck, which emphasised her elegant features. She sat bolt upright on the lounge beside her husband, perfectly poised with her hands clasped and ankles crossed. Nadia glared at the stranger sitting across from her.
"Nyambi School of Enchantment. I'm the Deputy Head and the Potions teacher as well." Reuben responded cheerfully, turning his head slightly to wink at the small boy squirming next to his mother.
"Why is your beard blue?" the boy wanted to know.
"Hush Taj." His mother admonished but rather than being offended, Reuben Daku looked quite pleased with the question and responded with enthusiasm.
"Keeps the Bunyips away." he answered "I also put vegemite behind me ears for drop-bears." he added. The blonde boy's eyes went wide whereas Nadia tsk'd in annoyance.
Dudley Dursley was slowly reading the letter that Reuben Daku had handed him, sitting the other side of his wife.
"You're telling me," he said slowly, "that my daughter will be a witch? How is that even possible? She can't be!"
"She most certainly is, Mr Dursley. Her name has been down to attend Nyambi since your family moved to this land. Magic often runs in families, I understand you have quite a famous wizard cousin, yourself?" Mr Daku asked.
Dudley gazed at his dark face for a moment, then nodded reluctantly. Iris' eyes widened and Nadia's eyes narrowed even further, penciled brows drawing together.
"Yes," Dudley responded slowly, "Harry Potter is my cousin. I think my Aunt, his mother was a witch but she died years ago. I never met her."
"There you go." Reuben responded, nodding. "If your cuz got his magic from your Auntie, she would have inherited it from somebody further back in the family tree. It crops up from time to time further down the generations. Isn't genetics wonderful?"
Dudley Dursley looked distinctly like 'wonderful' was a term he would definitely not consider for the situation.
"What? Dad! You never said there was magic in the family!" Iris cried in delight. "That's so cool! I knew there was something different about me!"
"This is the biggest load of rubbish I have ever heard." Nadia Dursley snapped, she stood up and glared down her long nose at Reuben. "There is no such thing as magic. I think you need to leave before I call the police and tell them a mad old tramp is refusing to leave my living room." She eyed his battered, dusty old hat, wild grey hair and ridiculously outdated clothing in distaste.
"Oh no, luv, you don't want me to leave, not yet." Reuben Daku twinkled up at her cheerily. He removed a slender piece of wood from his sleeve and Dudley immediately flinched away, throwing a protective arm across his daughter who looked startled. Nadia opened her mouth to retort but never had the chance to speak.
In a trice, he had said something softly none of them understood and flicked the piece of wood. The coffee table immediately vanished and, in its place, stood a cantankerous looking wombat which promptly defecated on the carpet and waddled off toward the kitchen.
Young Taj Dursley howled in laughter. Iris had a hand clapped to her mouth but couldn't stifle her delighted giggles. Dudley looked grim and his wife screeched shrilly.
"I'll just bet that weird things have happened around Iris since she was quite small. Strange, unexplained things that happened when she was scared, or upset?" Reuben asked, his deep brown eyes watching the Dursley's carefully. Dudley and a shocked Nadia exchanged a pointed look. Iris appeared to be thinking hard and Taj had already taken to his heels chasing the grunting wombat through the house.
"That was magic? What I did?" Iris asked, eyes wide and sparkling.
"What did you do?" Rueben asked her. She hesitated for a moment, glancing at her parents but Dudley nodded so she turned back to answer.
"When I was three I escaped the house and ran straight into the road in front of a car. I bounced off and ended up back on the footpath and I didn't even have a bruise. When I was five a loose dog chased me at the park and I somehow ended up on top of a big statue there and there was no way I could have climbed it by myself." she said.
"But... these were just..." Nadia protested weakly, sinking back down onto the sofa beside her husband. "Lucky coincidences. There are logical explanations for all of them. The car, it mustn't have actually touched her, she surely just tripped and tumbled back onto the footpath... the statue, she must have, oh I don't know, had a burst of adrenaline and..."
"Oh, and then last year one of the girls in school wouldn't stop teasing me about my hair and then at lunch time she wouldn't come out of the toilets at all. Mrs Masters had to go in and then they took her to hospital because all her hair fell out, all at once!" Iris interrupted her mother. "The doctors couldn't find a logical explanation for that."
"Yep," Rueben Daku nodded knowingly, "These are definitely classic examples of accidental underage magic."
Dudley looked warily at Reuben, as though judging what he was about to say against his opinion of just how dangerous he could become if provoked.
"What if we don't allow her to go? What if we don't want her to become a witch?" he asked. Iris began to protest but he shushed her with a raised hand. "What happens then, Mr Wizard?"
"I'm afraid that Iris won't become a witch, she is a witch. She was born a witch and there is no way around that. A person doesn't choose to become a witch or a wizard, they just are. Or, they are not. I understand you want to keep her safe but truthfully, the safest place for her to be is at Nyambi in her formative years."
"Why?" demanded Nadia, clasping her husband's hand tightly, "Why is she safer there than in her normal school with her friends and teachers she's grown up with?"
Taj could be heard giggling and squealing in the background. It was a mark of just how concerned his parents were that they paid no attention whatsoever to the bangs and crashing in the other parts of the house.
"A young witch or wizard's magic can burst out of them at times of stress or trouble. They can't control it. and the older they get, the stronger it gets. If Iris isn't taught to wield magic, it will wield her and believe me, that would be very bad. I didn't come here to scare you fullas, but you need to understand that an untrained witch or wizard can be dangerous to themselves and everyone around them. When the time comes, young Taj will also need to learn that control."
"No! Taj too?" Dudley gasped. "Are you telling me that both of them are magic?"
"Yes." Reuben responded simply. He reached for the glass that had Isla had set before him on the coffee table and picked it up from the carpet where it had fallen when he'd transfigured it, giving the Dursley family a moment to absorb this information. With his wand tucked under his arm, he waved a finger in a complicated motion and the spilled water vanished from the carpet as though it had never been there at all. Iris goggled at him.
"No. No, no no!" Dudley stood up. "This is not happening! This can't be happening!" he began to pace. "You have no idea, what my family went through when I was a kid..."
"What your family went through?" Rueben squared his shoulders, carefully tightening his grip on his wand.
"We had to leave our home. We had to pack up and leave because of that bad one, Lord Whatshisname." Dudley shot back. "We had to go into hiding for a year! It took a huge toll on my father, he was never the same. I swear the stress contributed to the heart attack. Mum has been so different and defeated since losing Dad. We keep asking her to move here with us, to get away from it all but she won't leave their house again." the words spilled out of Dudley.
"You have no idea. It was terrifying, that year. Dad couldn't go to work, I couldn't finish school. None of us could even tell our family or friends where we were. We were so isolated in this strange house with this crazy old man and his talking mirrors and horrible little creatures scuttling around the gardens. There wasn't a lot of news and most of it was bad. There was a werewolf, a werewolf for goodness sake! It smashed through the back door and tore up half the house trying to get at us! And the dementy-things..." Dudley shuddered. Nadia's face was white and Iris just looked from one of her parents to the other.
"I've seen Harry since, you know." Dudley continued, "He and his wife visited a couple of times when Iris was small, before we left the UK. I'm glad he's happy but magic is so dangerous! Who knows what other crazy terrorists you people have in your world. You want me to expose my little girl to that? My son?"
"Your world has terrorists too." Rueben answered carefully. "This city has seen murders, and muggings, burglaries and so on. It is not so different. Your kids are a part of this world, they have been since they were born. Don't you think they would be safer if they can be taught to defend themselves? To control the power they have inside?"
Dudley closed his eyes and took a deep, steadying breath. Rueben waited, giving him the chance to consider his words.
"Where is this school? I would like to see it before I can consider sending my daughter there." Dudley said firmly.
"Oh it's a long way from here, and it's strongly warded. Part of the protections of the school means that unless your kids are formally attending, you will not be able to find it or enter the grounds. We take security very seriously." Reuben replied. "The school is a boarding school. The kids are required to stay on site and come home during the holidays."
"Wow." Iris breathed. She struggled with a mouth full of questions, unable to decide what to ask first. "What kinds of stuff will I learn?" she blurted out.
"So many things. Transfiguration, Potion brewing, wand control, defensive magic, flying..."
"Flying!" Iris interrupted, eyes alight.
"Now see here," Dudley began, "You're expecting me to just send my child off to a random bunch of strangers, to a school nobody has ever heard of in a place I can't get to just like that?"
"No, not just like that." Rueben soothed, "We have an orientation day soon, in town at a wizarding location that you can access with me escorting you. There you will be able to meet some of the staff, ask questions and find out more about the school. There is also the option to hire a home tutor if you prefer to school your children here.".
The Durlsey's considered this. Clearly the idea of having Iris and Taj remain at home for their schooling was a much more appealing to them. Dudley was pale, worried.
"Dad," Iris began. "I want to go. I want to go to the school, not stay here with a tutor. I want to make friends with other kids like me."
Dudley looked at his daughter, taking in her pleading expression. Nadia looked troubled and conflicted.
As he so often did with his visits to the children of non magical folk to deliver their acceptance letters and bring awareness of the magical world for the first time, Reuben felt a pang of sympathy for the parents. Even now, knowing some of Dudley's history of how he and his parents had treated his famous cousin as a child, he felt for them. This was never easy news to believe let alone come to terms with for non magical parents.
"We will think about it." Dudley replied gruffly, glancing at the letter again. "When is the orientation?"
"Orientation is on January 27th and the school term begins on the 1st of February." Rueben responded promptly. "I expect to see you in London Court at 9am, and I'll show you through to Rocky Road, which you'll only be able to find with my guidance. You and the other muggo families..."
"Muggo?" Iris asked, unable to stop herself asking the question.
"Non magic people." Rueben informed her. "You and the other muggo families will be escorted through to the Muggo Relations Office for the orientation. The details are at the bottom of your letter."
There was a sudden squeal of laughter from Taj as he scrambled after the wombat which was trotting back into the living room, grunting in irritation. Reuben flicked his wand once again and suddenly the creature had turned back into their coffee table. Another flick and the wombat poo vanished from the carpet. The Dursley's stared, eyes boggling. Nadia gingerly prodded the coffee table with a foot. It didn't move.
"I will leave you with your letter," Rueben leapt to his feet with a grin. "I still have a couple more families to visit today. I will see you all on January the 27th!" he gave a sweeping bow, jammed his hat back on his head and then... Iris still wasn't sure she had seen what she thought she saw. Rueben Daku had spun on the spot and vanished with a loud pop.
There was an amazed silence for a long moment.
"Iris, take your brother to the playroom please." Nadia Dursley told her daughter with steel in her voice. "Your father and I need to talk." Dudley shrank back in the sofa at her tone. Iris didn't stop to argue, she grabbed her brother's hand and the pair of them scurried down the hall to their playroom. Iris shut the door carefully, leaving it open just a crack and the two children crouched, ears to the gap to listen intently.
The hissed and low-voiced argument went on for some time. From what Iris could tell, it seemed her mother was furious that her father had never told her that the Potter family – their cousins - were wizards, never told her about that world.
Iris thought hard, trying to remember long-ago visits from cousin Harry and his family. Taj hadn't even been born then, he wouldn't even remember them. Iris recalled that Harry had black hair and wore glasses, and his wife Ginny had beautiful red hair. She remembered they were very kind and brought the best lollies when they visited. She remembered their eldest boy James, her second cousin and how he always had the greatest ideas for games. His brother Albus (which Iris always thought was an unusual name) was a lot quieter. If she strained her brain, she thought she remembered Ginny had been pregnant last time she saw them.
But no magic. She couldn't recall a single thing that even hinted at them being witches or wizards, and she couldn't remember anything much about what they talked about. She didn't remember them talking much at all, to be honest. Not with her parents at least.
"Fine!" Her mother's voice raised a little and broke Iris out of her reverie. "Fine. Lets go to this orientation and see what they say. If the kids have to be taught magic for their own safety, they'll have to be taught. But I am not sending my daughter off to some random school with a bunch of weirdos where who knows what could happen to her! We need to meet the teachers at the very least before making any decisions."
Iris grinned in delight. She was going to be taught to do real life magic!