Chapter 5 - En Route
Suitcases for the Crete Trip members began to appear the day before their scheduled leaving. Most all were packed by mothers, accompanied by notes to take care of themselves and to behave (Mrs. Weasley's stating that if any of her brood cause an international incident, she and their father will disown them - none of the Weasleys seemed to take the threat seriously).
"Mr. Malfoy," Britomartis began. "Why do you need seven steamer trunks for a two week trip?"
"Clothes, of course," Draco answered as snootily as he could, remembering not to call her 'stupid woman' again (the last time ended in him having to wash the entire House's laundry).
"Shorts and t-shirts should not have to take up seven trunks."
"Shorts and t-shirts? What sort of low-class sot do you think I am?"
Elizabeth raised her hand and waved it around wildly.
"Shut up!" Draco snarled at her. He turned back to the House Mother. "I am not wearing tourist clothes."
"It gets quite hot on the island," Britomartis pointed out. "Wearing dark colors and lots of layers would give you heat stroke. I don't mind you collapsing from it, but then you wouldn't get any research done. It's for your own comfort if you decide to be cool or not."
Elizabeth leaned over the couch arm, grinning nastily at Draco, only a year younger than herself. "You're going to dress up like one of those pretentious yachters, aren't you? White trousers, navy blazer, white shirt slightly open at the neck to show off a navy and white ascot - "
"WHO TOLD YOU?!"
"Ponce!" Elizabeth cried.
"Children," Britomartis warned.
Elizabeth sat up, her blue-streaked blonde hair falling in her eyes. "I was only guessing. Geez, would you be able to dress yourself without Crabs and Gargoyle to help you?"
"Kiss a Quintaped, Humphries!"
"Bend over, Malfoy!"
"CHILDREN!"
Elizabeth and Draco glared at each other. Britomartis rubbed her temples - both her girls were going to be butting heads with the boys on this trip, she could feel it.
* * *
Everyone passed their exams. (Except Marcus Flint, Seventh Year, Slytherin's Quidditch Captain and team Chaser; Britomartis wanted to pull him from the team, but Snape talked her out of it - rumors abounded of how THAT came about.)
Prefect commander Glynis Ryper graduated with high honors, prompting a huge Slytherin House party resulting in nobody in the entire dorm building to get any sleep, several hangovers (although none remembered what they drank nor whom supplied it), and Oliver Wood from Gryffindor hanging upsidedown from one of the hoops on the Quidditch pitch (he had no idea who had hung him up there, either).
Everyone boarded Hogwarts' Express the following morning - students hugging, saying good-bye, promising to owl messages - while Rubeus Hagrid looked after them to make sure they got on board.
"Sure you don't need me along, Martis?" Hagrid asked.
Britomartis grinned, smoothing a wrinkle out of her turquoise sundress, then stroked Snookie-poo's sleeping form as she snoozed around Britomartis' shoulders. "I'm quite sure, Hagrid. You don't need to bring home any more exotic pets."
The large hairy man blushed. "How did you know that's what I was thinking about?"
Ron leaned close to Harry, "Because it's more reliable than buying them off of strangers at pubs."
Harry giggled and climbed up on the train, Ron following, both in t-shirts and jean shorts, looking like any other pair of pre-teen boys.
Hermione pulled Ginny in with her, both wearing skirts and blouses. "Professor Vox told me a lot about her culture, so I better tell you before we get there - some of it is REALLY strange."
George and Fred slung their satchels over their backs and got on the train, both of them in Bermuda shorts and Hawaiian-print tourist shirts. Both were singing some 1960's surfing song they had picked up somewhere.
Glynis and Oliver were arguing - she in capris and tank top and he in jeans and t-shirt - as they walked to a back car. "And what would you know about the drama club? You're a jock!"
"But I know good acting when I see it, Ryper," he answered in his thick Scottish accent. "I thought your performance in 'Anthony and Cleopatra' was a comedy."
"You've been hit in the head with a bludger too many times! And the bludger's dented from it, too!"
Draco - clad in the 'pretentious yachter' outfit described earlier - was being followed by Elizabeth (dressed in jeans and a tank top) who was imitating his walk, sneer, and body language all in an exaggerated fashion.
"Stay away from me, Humphries."
"No, I like bugging you too much."
"Mudblood freak - get me a drink."
"Get it your own damn self, inbred squib."
Severus Snape was actually relieved Britomartis had packed everyone's wands together. Humphries and Malfoy were getting dangerously close to hexing each other. It would not do for Slytherins to hex each other when there were Gryffindors around ...
He glanced down at his own clothing - his black buttoned up suit - and was glad for his own preparation. Quite honestly, he had never traveled to the Mediterranean but Britomartis' warnings about the heat had him scrambling to create a potion from lizard blood, elephant ears (the plant, not the beast), and several extracts of odd and varied things, resulting in a cooling salve he could wear under his clothes and not be bothered by the heat (there were commercial products, but they were both pricey and less effective). Fortunately, it allowed him to wear clothing to cover up the Dark Mark. Unfortunately, it smelled like night-blooming jasmine, which was not quite his scent of choice.
"All aboard!" the conductor called.
He made his way to the cars, helping Britomartis up the steps.
"Thank you, darling," she replied, offering her hand back down to him. "We're on our way."
"I reserved first class," he reminded her. "A bit of privacy from the students."
She nodded, slightly distracted. "That's nice, Severus."
He followed her down the walkway, bypassing student cabins. "That's out of character for you."
"What do you mean?"
"Upon such a comment, you would make at least one innuendo of my reasoning behind such actions. Martis, are you feeling well?"
"Sure," she replied, releasing a brilliant smile. "Just traveling jitters is all." She entered their cabin, looking around to see his black potions bag, her carry-on bag, and the box of student wands stowed already. Sitting down, she added, "All right, I'm nervous about going back home."
He settled next to her in the seat. Snookie-poo slithered down her arm and made her way over to the other cabin seat to settle in for a snooze. The train began to move, lurching out of the station. "We don't have to go, Martis. We can take the children to Germany - "
"No!" she yelped, then pulled him close in a hug. "No," she repeated more calmly. "I need this. I've ran for almost six years. I can't run any more. I have to show my children and husband that I did not forget them, even in death. I still love them, I still adore them, they have to know that. I need this."
Severus said nothing, just holding her as the countryside swept by their window.
* * *
Elizabeth Humphries and Glynis Ryper shared a cabin and assorted gossip about the members of their field trip party.
"Has George hit on you yet?" Glynis asked as she broke open a package of shortbread. "Or Fred? Or George and Fred?"
"No," Elizabeth answered as she shook her head. "I think I'm too young for them to notice."
Glynis handed her a shortbread cookie. "I had to beat off Fred with my carry-on. Fifteen-year-old boys should be locked away until they're thirty."
"Professor Vox calls them 'Frick and Frack'."
Glynis flicked her short black hair back. "They're pains, that's what they are. Although their sister Ginny is a sweetie, a little shy though."
"That Hermione Granger is the pain," Elizabeth corrected her. "Little Miss Know-It-All. I know I'm going to have my boot up her butt sometime during the trip."
The older girl laughed. "Just remember the House Mother's advice - don't get caught."
Elizabeth kicked her feet against her benchseat. "Have you read the orientation packet?"
"Nope. I was too busy studying for finals." She sat up. "We probably should get a crash course from Professor Vox about it."
"You mean go nag her?"
"Why not? She likes us kids too much to tell us to bugger off."
Elizabeth followed Glynis out of their cabin, making their way through several cars toward the first class areas.
Oliver Wood poked his head out of a cabin. "And what are you two pretty snakes up to?"
Elizabeth flushed, feeling her ears get hot. She had always thought Oliver was gorgeous and frequently wanted to cheer for him at Quidditch matches, but she could due to being in different Houses.
Glynis rolled her hazel eyes. "Shut your hole, Wood."
"We're going to ask Professor Vox about Crete," the younger girl answered.
"Ah, didn't study your orientation packet, either." He slipped out of his cabin and grinned. "Me, neither, so let's all do it together."
"Great," Glynis sighed as they continued on another few cars. "What a threesome we make."
She halted then her eyes bugged out as she gazed through the glass windows of their chaperones' cabin.
"What is it?" Elizabeth asked as she and Oliver crowded around her to see. "Eep!"
"My God!" Oliver exclaimed. "He's devouring her face!"
Glynis swatted him. "They're kissing, you idiot!"
"But that's Snape!" he objected.
She pushed the two back down the hallway. "So? Just shut up and pretend you never saw it!"
"I wish I never DID see it!" he added. "Gah, give me a Memory Charm, please!"
"I think it's sweet," Elizabeth sighed.
"I'd think the same if it wasn't Snape involved in it!" Oliver shuddered. "Did he really need to examine her tonsils like that? Ugh!"
Glynis - a former secret member of the Professor Snape Estrogen Brigade - shoved him. "Just shut up, jock. Maybe we can ask Granger for her packet - she probably has notes on hers explaining everything further."
"Yeah, think about the trip - not the fact that our chaperones need chaperones themselves."
"You have a dirty mind, Wood."
"And you don't have a sense of humor, either."
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "Will you two stop it? You act worse than First-Years!"
* * *
Several pre-teens and teenagers pushing trolley-carts appeared from one of the supports between Platforms Nine and Ten at a London train station. Leading the way was a woman in a turquoise sundress, black sunglasses, ash blonde bob, and a snake wrapped around her shoulders. Immediately following the group was a man in an elegant black suit and long black hair falling in his face.
"Over to Platform Two, students!" the woman called. "Our train for South Hampton leaves in fifteen minutes!"
The redheaded children raced their trolleys, zipping past a conductor. The conductor spun around, surveying the group who appeared to be ten children between the ages of eleven and eighteen, lead by the woman with a snake, and a few cages amid their belongings holding animals.
The conductor stopped the dark man who was obviously part of the group. "Hold on, what are you all up to?"
Severus Snape sneered. "What does it look like? We're taking these wretched little students on a field trip."
"With all those animals?"
"The ones pushing the trolleys or the ones in the cages?"
"Uh ... "
Snape stared down at the little man until the conductor flinched and moved away. Twirling around, Snape caught up with his students and Britomartis, muttering about the Muggle world.
At last, they boarded their train and left London, heading down to the shipyards.
"Not as classy as the Express," Ron commented as he looked around the car and rows upon rows of seats. "Probably can't buy any Botts Beans on board, either."
"Have mine," Ginny said as she twisted around in her seat in front of him and handed her box over. "I'm still trying to get that liver taste out of my mouth."
Ron looked into the box. "Hey, you ate all the grass ones."
"I actually like those."
Hermione's head appeared over her seatback. "Do any of you have any idea of how to behave in the Muggle world?"
"Yes," Draco answered. "Ignore them and they will go away. Like I wish you would."
Ron's face fell into a mask of confusion while Harry acknowledged his own experience. Ginny stared at her. "I noticed the Muggle world is full of people who don't smile."
"That's because my parents are probably checking their teeth," Hermione sighed.
"Huh?"
"Nevermind. The trick is to be inconspicuous." She gazed at Draco in his rich yachter outfit. "As much as possible."
"Is there a spell for that?" Ron asked.
"No, you have to rely on your two brain cells and try not to stick out."
Ron crossed his eyes and mimicked her, "'You have to rely on your two brain cells and try not to stick out'."
Hermione gave him a pointed look and slid back down in her seat. Ginny remained over hers. "What are you going to do your papers on?"
Ron sucked down a jellybean, then made a face. "Well, I want to see what they have. I'm mostly interested to see what kind of food they have. I might do my report on how they serve their foods - if they have something like house elves or whatever to do it." He turned. "How about you, Harry?"
Harry shrugged. "I don't know yet. I'm interested in everything she mentioned, so I might just take notes on everything the first week, then research the second week. How about you, Ginny?"
Ginny dimpled, her freckled face blushing a little. "I'm kinda interested in the beasts of the island. I'm sick of Charlie talking about dragons all the time. I want to see a flying horse!"
"Rubbish," Draco proclaimed.
"I really wonder how you got on this trip, Malfoy," Ron commented. "You can't stand Vox's course and you wet yourself when the hill started talking."
"I did not wet myself!"
"Then you spilled a lot of tea down your trousers. Shouldn't carry around invisible tea-sets." Ron inhaled another jellybean. "Why are you here bugging us, anyway?"
From behind Ron, Harry, and Draco's seat, Elizabeth's head appeared. "Oh, you didn't hear? Draco's Mommy and Daddy are going to be out-of-town for a couple of weeks and they couldn't find a babysitter for him who could change his diapers - "
"Shut up, Humphries!"
"Sit on it, Malfoy!"
"Children!" Professor Vox's voice called.
"Sorry, ma'am!" they called back.
Elizabeth smiled sweetly. "Anyway, I for one cannot wait to sail. I've never been anywhere except Great Britain." She disappeared again.
Ron shrugged. "Rumania's kinda depressing, although the dragon reservations are cool."
Draco opened up a muscle car magazine he found in the seat pocket in front of him and flipped a few pages. "Whoa. I didn't know there were spells to make them that big."
George and Fred - behind Draco's seat - appeared and Ron and Harry leaned over to look.
"Wicked ... " the Weasley boys commented.
Harry blushed bright red while Ginny blushed as well and slipped back down to her seat.
"Look at that car's engine! Must be six hundred cc's!"
Ginny sat up and angrily walloped her nearest sibling.
"What?!"
* * *
The sail did not last as long as the train rides. The group had just settled down on the ship when it sailed a few miles out to the channel, then dipped under the ocean to suddenly appear once again off the coast of Crete in the Mediterranean Sea.
The island was large, hilly and rocky but covered with sage green grasses. Pure white buildings and walkways lined the hillsides, appearing to almost float in the dark blue and purple dusky sky behind them, their walls brilliant in the last rays of the setting sun.
"Look at it, children," Britomartis said softly. "The island where the myths of the Minotaur originated for the Greek world. Where the Great Mother ruled with the Wisdom of the Serpent and the Labrys of Transformation." Her mouth was in a neutral line, likely out of exhaustion from the trip. "There is no need to hide magic here, so you can fly your brooms around the island. The Muggles of the island are seekers into the magic arts of my culture, UN military people who don't notice anything, and probably the only society on Earth in which mundane and magic meet at the twain. There are only two main wizard families on the island - I'm descended from both. The rest that practice magics are in relation to the Earth magics."
Britomartis became silent. She felt Severus' hand on her back. "Yes?"
"You've been getting more and more depressed on this trip, now you're on the verge of tears, Martis," he whispered against the back of her neck.
"I'll be well. I just need to do a few things when we get in."
Suitcases for the Crete Trip members began to appear the day before their scheduled leaving. Most all were packed by mothers, accompanied by notes to take care of themselves and to behave (Mrs. Weasley's stating that if any of her brood cause an international incident, she and their father will disown them - none of the Weasleys seemed to take the threat seriously).
"Mr. Malfoy," Britomartis began. "Why do you need seven steamer trunks for a two week trip?"
"Clothes, of course," Draco answered as snootily as he could, remembering not to call her 'stupid woman' again (the last time ended in him having to wash the entire House's laundry).
"Shorts and t-shirts should not have to take up seven trunks."
"Shorts and t-shirts? What sort of low-class sot do you think I am?"
Elizabeth raised her hand and waved it around wildly.
"Shut up!" Draco snarled at her. He turned back to the House Mother. "I am not wearing tourist clothes."
"It gets quite hot on the island," Britomartis pointed out. "Wearing dark colors and lots of layers would give you heat stroke. I don't mind you collapsing from it, but then you wouldn't get any research done. It's for your own comfort if you decide to be cool or not."
Elizabeth leaned over the couch arm, grinning nastily at Draco, only a year younger than herself. "You're going to dress up like one of those pretentious yachters, aren't you? White trousers, navy blazer, white shirt slightly open at the neck to show off a navy and white ascot - "
"WHO TOLD YOU?!"
"Ponce!" Elizabeth cried.
"Children," Britomartis warned.
Elizabeth sat up, her blue-streaked blonde hair falling in her eyes. "I was only guessing. Geez, would you be able to dress yourself without Crabs and Gargoyle to help you?"
"Kiss a Quintaped, Humphries!"
"Bend over, Malfoy!"
"CHILDREN!"
Elizabeth and Draco glared at each other. Britomartis rubbed her temples - both her girls were going to be butting heads with the boys on this trip, she could feel it.
* * *
Everyone passed their exams. (Except Marcus Flint, Seventh Year, Slytherin's Quidditch Captain and team Chaser; Britomartis wanted to pull him from the team, but Snape talked her out of it - rumors abounded of how THAT came about.)
Prefect commander Glynis Ryper graduated with high honors, prompting a huge Slytherin House party resulting in nobody in the entire dorm building to get any sleep, several hangovers (although none remembered what they drank nor whom supplied it), and Oliver Wood from Gryffindor hanging upsidedown from one of the hoops on the Quidditch pitch (he had no idea who had hung him up there, either).
Everyone boarded Hogwarts' Express the following morning - students hugging, saying good-bye, promising to owl messages - while Rubeus Hagrid looked after them to make sure they got on board.
"Sure you don't need me along, Martis?" Hagrid asked.
Britomartis grinned, smoothing a wrinkle out of her turquoise sundress, then stroked Snookie-poo's sleeping form as she snoozed around Britomartis' shoulders. "I'm quite sure, Hagrid. You don't need to bring home any more exotic pets."
The large hairy man blushed. "How did you know that's what I was thinking about?"
Ron leaned close to Harry, "Because it's more reliable than buying them off of strangers at pubs."
Harry giggled and climbed up on the train, Ron following, both in t-shirts and jean shorts, looking like any other pair of pre-teen boys.
Hermione pulled Ginny in with her, both wearing skirts and blouses. "Professor Vox told me a lot about her culture, so I better tell you before we get there - some of it is REALLY strange."
George and Fred slung their satchels over their backs and got on the train, both of them in Bermuda shorts and Hawaiian-print tourist shirts. Both were singing some 1960's surfing song they had picked up somewhere.
Glynis and Oliver were arguing - she in capris and tank top and he in jeans and t-shirt - as they walked to a back car. "And what would you know about the drama club? You're a jock!"
"But I know good acting when I see it, Ryper," he answered in his thick Scottish accent. "I thought your performance in 'Anthony and Cleopatra' was a comedy."
"You've been hit in the head with a bludger too many times! And the bludger's dented from it, too!"
Draco - clad in the 'pretentious yachter' outfit described earlier - was being followed by Elizabeth (dressed in jeans and a tank top) who was imitating his walk, sneer, and body language all in an exaggerated fashion.
"Stay away from me, Humphries."
"No, I like bugging you too much."
"Mudblood freak - get me a drink."
"Get it your own damn self, inbred squib."
Severus Snape was actually relieved Britomartis had packed everyone's wands together. Humphries and Malfoy were getting dangerously close to hexing each other. It would not do for Slytherins to hex each other when there were Gryffindors around ...
He glanced down at his own clothing - his black buttoned up suit - and was glad for his own preparation. Quite honestly, he had never traveled to the Mediterranean but Britomartis' warnings about the heat had him scrambling to create a potion from lizard blood, elephant ears (the plant, not the beast), and several extracts of odd and varied things, resulting in a cooling salve he could wear under his clothes and not be bothered by the heat (there were commercial products, but they were both pricey and less effective). Fortunately, it allowed him to wear clothing to cover up the Dark Mark. Unfortunately, it smelled like night-blooming jasmine, which was not quite his scent of choice.
"All aboard!" the conductor called.
He made his way to the cars, helping Britomartis up the steps.
"Thank you, darling," she replied, offering her hand back down to him. "We're on our way."
"I reserved first class," he reminded her. "A bit of privacy from the students."
She nodded, slightly distracted. "That's nice, Severus."
He followed her down the walkway, bypassing student cabins. "That's out of character for you."
"What do you mean?"
"Upon such a comment, you would make at least one innuendo of my reasoning behind such actions. Martis, are you feeling well?"
"Sure," she replied, releasing a brilliant smile. "Just traveling jitters is all." She entered their cabin, looking around to see his black potions bag, her carry-on bag, and the box of student wands stowed already. Sitting down, she added, "All right, I'm nervous about going back home."
He settled next to her in the seat. Snookie-poo slithered down her arm and made her way over to the other cabin seat to settle in for a snooze. The train began to move, lurching out of the station. "We don't have to go, Martis. We can take the children to Germany - "
"No!" she yelped, then pulled him close in a hug. "No," she repeated more calmly. "I need this. I've ran for almost six years. I can't run any more. I have to show my children and husband that I did not forget them, even in death. I still love them, I still adore them, they have to know that. I need this."
Severus said nothing, just holding her as the countryside swept by their window.
* * *
Elizabeth Humphries and Glynis Ryper shared a cabin and assorted gossip about the members of their field trip party.
"Has George hit on you yet?" Glynis asked as she broke open a package of shortbread. "Or Fred? Or George and Fred?"
"No," Elizabeth answered as she shook her head. "I think I'm too young for them to notice."
Glynis handed her a shortbread cookie. "I had to beat off Fred with my carry-on. Fifteen-year-old boys should be locked away until they're thirty."
"Professor Vox calls them 'Frick and Frack'."
Glynis flicked her short black hair back. "They're pains, that's what they are. Although their sister Ginny is a sweetie, a little shy though."
"That Hermione Granger is the pain," Elizabeth corrected her. "Little Miss Know-It-All. I know I'm going to have my boot up her butt sometime during the trip."
The older girl laughed. "Just remember the House Mother's advice - don't get caught."
Elizabeth kicked her feet against her benchseat. "Have you read the orientation packet?"
"Nope. I was too busy studying for finals." She sat up. "We probably should get a crash course from Professor Vox about it."
"You mean go nag her?"
"Why not? She likes us kids too much to tell us to bugger off."
Elizabeth followed Glynis out of their cabin, making their way through several cars toward the first class areas.
Oliver Wood poked his head out of a cabin. "And what are you two pretty snakes up to?"
Elizabeth flushed, feeling her ears get hot. She had always thought Oliver was gorgeous and frequently wanted to cheer for him at Quidditch matches, but she could due to being in different Houses.
Glynis rolled her hazel eyes. "Shut your hole, Wood."
"We're going to ask Professor Vox about Crete," the younger girl answered.
"Ah, didn't study your orientation packet, either." He slipped out of his cabin and grinned. "Me, neither, so let's all do it together."
"Great," Glynis sighed as they continued on another few cars. "What a threesome we make."
She halted then her eyes bugged out as she gazed through the glass windows of their chaperones' cabin.
"What is it?" Elizabeth asked as she and Oliver crowded around her to see. "Eep!"
"My God!" Oliver exclaimed. "He's devouring her face!"
Glynis swatted him. "They're kissing, you idiot!"
"But that's Snape!" he objected.
She pushed the two back down the hallway. "So? Just shut up and pretend you never saw it!"
"I wish I never DID see it!" he added. "Gah, give me a Memory Charm, please!"
"I think it's sweet," Elizabeth sighed.
"I'd think the same if it wasn't Snape involved in it!" Oliver shuddered. "Did he really need to examine her tonsils like that? Ugh!"
Glynis - a former secret member of the Professor Snape Estrogen Brigade - shoved him. "Just shut up, jock. Maybe we can ask Granger for her packet - she probably has notes on hers explaining everything further."
"Yeah, think about the trip - not the fact that our chaperones need chaperones themselves."
"You have a dirty mind, Wood."
"And you don't have a sense of humor, either."
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "Will you two stop it? You act worse than First-Years!"
* * *
Several pre-teens and teenagers pushing trolley-carts appeared from one of the supports between Platforms Nine and Ten at a London train station. Leading the way was a woman in a turquoise sundress, black sunglasses, ash blonde bob, and a snake wrapped around her shoulders. Immediately following the group was a man in an elegant black suit and long black hair falling in his face.
"Over to Platform Two, students!" the woman called. "Our train for South Hampton leaves in fifteen minutes!"
The redheaded children raced their trolleys, zipping past a conductor. The conductor spun around, surveying the group who appeared to be ten children between the ages of eleven and eighteen, lead by the woman with a snake, and a few cages amid their belongings holding animals.
The conductor stopped the dark man who was obviously part of the group. "Hold on, what are you all up to?"
Severus Snape sneered. "What does it look like? We're taking these wretched little students on a field trip."
"With all those animals?"
"The ones pushing the trolleys or the ones in the cages?"
"Uh ... "
Snape stared down at the little man until the conductor flinched and moved away. Twirling around, Snape caught up with his students and Britomartis, muttering about the Muggle world.
At last, they boarded their train and left London, heading down to the shipyards.
"Not as classy as the Express," Ron commented as he looked around the car and rows upon rows of seats. "Probably can't buy any Botts Beans on board, either."
"Have mine," Ginny said as she twisted around in her seat in front of him and handed her box over. "I'm still trying to get that liver taste out of my mouth."
Ron looked into the box. "Hey, you ate all the grass ones."
"I actually like those."
Hermione's head appeared over her seatback. "Do any of you have any idea of how to behave in the Muggle world?"
"Yes," Draco answered. "Ignore them and they will go away. Like I wish you would."
Ron's face fell into a mask of confusion while Harry acknowledged his own experience. Ginny stared at her. "I noticed the Muggle world is full of people who don't smile."
"That's because my parents are probably checking their teeth," Hermione sighed.
"Huh?"
"Nevermind. The trick is to be inconspicuous." She gazed at Draco in his rich yachter outfit. "As much as possible."
"Is there a spell for that?" Ron asked.
"No, you have to rely on your two brain cells and try not to stick out."
Ron crossed his eyes and mimicked her, "'You have to rely on your two brain cells and try not to stick out'."
Hermione gave him a pointed look and slid back down in her seat. Ginny remained over hers. "What are you going to do your papers on?"
Ron sucked down a jellybean, then made a face. "Well, I want to see what they have. I'm mostly interested to see what kind of food they have. I might do my report on how they serve their foods - if they have something like house elves or whatever to do it." He turned. "How about you, Harry?"
Harry shrugged. "I don't know yet. I'm interested in everything she mentioned, so I might just take notes on everything the first week, then research the second week. How about you, Ginny?"
Ginny dimpled, her freckled face blushing a little. "I'm kinda interested in the beasts of the island. I'm sick of Charlie talking about dragons all the time. I want to see a flying horse!"
"Rubbish," Draco proclaimed.
"I really wonder how you got on this trip, Malfoy," Ron commented. "You can't stand Vox's course and you wet yourself when the hill started talking."
"I did not wet myself!"
"Then you spilled a lot of tea down your trousers. Shouldn't carry around invisible tea-sets." Ron inhaled another jellybean. "Why are you here bugging us, anyway?"
From behind Ron, Harry, and Draco's seat, Elizabeth's head appeared. "Oh, you didn't hear? Draco's Mommy and Daddy are going to be out-of-town for a couple of weeks and they couldn't find a babysitter for him who could change his diapers - "
"Shut up, Humphries!"
"Sit on it, Malfoy!"
"Children!" Professor Vox's voice called.
"Sorry, ma'am!" they called back.
Elizabeth smiled sweetly. "Anyway, I for one cannot wait to sail. I've never been anywhere except Great Britain." She disappeared again.
Ron shrugged. "Rumania's kinda depressing, although the dragon reservations are cool."
Draco opened up a muscle car magazine he found in the seat pocket in front of him and flipped a few pages. "Whoa. I didn't know there were spells to make them that big."
George and Fred - behind Draco's seat - appeared and Ron and Harry leaned over to look.
"Wicked ... " the Weasley boys commented.
Harry blushed bright red while Ginny blushed as well and slipped back down to her seat.
"Look at that car's engine! Must be six hundred cc's!"
Ginny sat up and angrily walloped her nearest sibling.
"What?!"
* * *
The sail did not last as long as the train rides. The group had just settled down on the ship when it sailed a few miles out to the channel, then dipped under the ocean to suddenly appear once again off the coast of Crete in the Mediterranean Sea.
The island was large, hilly and rocky but covered with sage green grasses. Pure white buildings and walkways lined the hillsides, appearing to almost float in the dark blue and purple dusky sky behind them, their walls brilliant in the last rays of the setting sun.
"Look at it, children," Britomartis said softly. "The island where the myths of the Minotaur originated for the Greek world. Where the Great Mother ruled with the Wisdom of the Serpent and the Labrys of Transformation." Her mouth was in a neutral line, likely out of exhaustion from the trip. "There is no need to hide magic here, so you can fly your brooms around the island. The Muggles of the island are seekers into the magic arts of my culture, UN military people who don't notice anything, and probably the only society on Earth in which mundane and magic meet at the twain. There are only two main wizard families on the island - I'm descended from both. The rest that practice magics are in relation to the Earth magics."
Britomartis became silent. She felt Severus' hand on her back. "Yes?"
"You've been getting more and more depressed on this trip, now you're on the verge of tears, Martis," he whispered against the back of her neck.
"I'll be well. I just need to do a few things when we get in."