Author's note:
Thanks to everyone who has taken time out from their 'New Year' to read and review. A couple of things:
Vert: Do I invent words? Yes, occasionally, but not often. The only one I can think of off-hand is 'anagramatically', which crops up in a later chapter. 'Tosh' in this chapter is slang for 'rubbish'. I like playing with words; language is a living thing. Sorry - if you thought the last bit was crazy, I'm afraid it gets worse…
Silverthreads: As with the 'Ladybird/bug' comment, the reference to 'sick bay' Vs 'hospital wing' intrigued me. I have checked in the dictionary and it says that sick bay is 'an area, as on a ship, used as an infirmary', which I take to mean that it can be used in places other than on board ship. I'm fairly sure that a lot of people would use the term interchangeably, and indeed, 'hospital wing' sounds (to me) more formal and a less natural thing to say. The fact of Britain's seafaring past means that a great deal of nautical terminology has passed directly into everyday parlance - this could be one such example. (I came across one the other day - I think it was 'at the end of my tether' – but don't quote me on that - which I had always assumed was to do with horses and ropes, but they say is about ships' anchor chains…) Or maybe I am so steeped in Star Trek lore (well, I used to be!) that I can longer distinguish between land and sea/space terms. But JKR uses 'hospital wing' (I'll have to check if she ever says 'sick bay' in the UK version. How, short of re-reading canon?) so I must defer to her authority. Thanks fora thought-provokingcomment.
Now onto Chapter 8.
What can I say? I am a sad soul who even checked the times of the Winter Solstice in 1996! Apologies in advance if I have blasphemed in my Druidic ceremony! (If you haven't read Repercussions, you need to know that Luna, in addition to her Celtic sympathies, is still obsessed by Sweden, after her holiday there the previous summer.)
DECK THE HALLS
By Bellegeste
CHAPTER 8:LUNA'S SOLUTION
Friday 20th December
"Hey, I've got a message for you, from Luna." Harry stuck his head into the Greenhouse. "Phew! Mind if I leave this open? It's steaming in here. Humid. Rank. It's worse than Ron's armpit."
Neville peered through the luxuriant foliage.
"Yes, we'vedeveloped a bit of a rainforest situation. Some of the tropical hardwoods are getting proper lush. What did she want? Why couldn't she come and tell me herself?"
Hermione popped out from beneath the staging, where she was lining up rows of small beakers containing an array of disinfectant solutions, weed-killers, tar-oil wash, methylated spirits, liquid Aspirin and anything else she could think of which might have an effect - any effect. There was a wand poking out of each beaker.
"Oh, come off it, Neville, why do you think? She doesn't want to risk bumping into Snape. Haven't you noticed how she avoids him these days?"
Yesterday Neville would have sympathised with Luna wholeheartedly; today he considered her precautions somewhat excessive.
"So, what did our resident Celtic crack-pot say?" Hermione asked, without much interest. "Last time I saw her, she was moping about like some prophetess of doom, telling everyone that 'Ragnarok is nigh!'"
"Ragnarok?" Neville and Harry were equally lost.
"Oh, it's some kind of Nordic Apocalypse. You know, Swedish 'End of the World' stuff. Utter rubbish. Anyway, what was it this time? No, don't tell me. Let me guess - we're to have a lovely group hug and then dance round the wands in the moonlight, wearing lots of beads, praying to Cerridwen and then singing extracts from old Norse 'creation' sagas… She's a fraud, Harry - she can't even decide which cult to get sucked in by!"
Harry laughed. Yeah, Luna was a nut - ooh, bad pun under the circumstances, he told himself - but at least her barmy schemes might give Neville something else to think about. Something other than the fact that the whole school was waiting, trunks packed, for a train that they would not be allowed to catch - and blaming him.
"That's it, more or less. She said we should wait until Saturday and then get all this wood together and have a bonfire."
"Not such a bad idea." Neville wasn't really paying attention. He had snipped off the tip of a wand and was rotating it in a flame. A delicious smell of roast chestnuts permeated the greenhouse, making them feel hungry again, even though it wasn't that long since breakfast. Hermione, always suspicious where Luna was concerned, had been studying Harry.
"You're covering for her! I don't know why you bother. What else did she say? I suppose this innocent bonfire of hers involves some kind of Yuletide ritual sacrifice. Human, was it? Is she volunteering? I wish she would."
Sweating uncomfortably, hot and embarrassed, Harry began to peel off his jumper.
"You're so mean about Luna. OK, so she did mention something about symbolic logs and making some kind of 'offering' and a 'celebration of cosmic fertility'…"
"Told you!" Hermione felt vindicated. Luna was a self-deceiving, dotty Druid, but Harry couldn't see it…
Neville didn't understand the 'down' that Hermione had on Luna, or why Harry defended her. All he knew was that whenever Luna's name was mentioned, the two of them ended up niggling. He tried to distract them.
"Why not today? This afternoon? What's so special about Saturday?" he asked. "Oh, hello, Sir. How's Professor Sprout? Is she conscious? Can I go and see her?"
Snape entered the Greenhouse, his face grey and drawn, hollow-eyed. He sat down and rested his elbows on the staging, dropping his head into his hands, rubbing his temples. The three regarded him anxiously. After an all-night vigil by Sprout's bedside, waiting for her to wake up, he looked about as wrecked as Neville had been yesterday.
"Are you alright, Sir?" Hermione spoke for them all.
"What? Yes. Fine." He sat up, sighing, pulling himself together. "So, Longbottom, any progress? No? Miss Granger? No? I should have thought the solution would have been obvious to the school's empirico-rationalist egg-head. But apparently not…"
Hermione swallowed back the tart retort that sprang to her lips. It caught in her throat, leaving the sour taste of curdled pride in her mouth. Did he have to be so mean?
"About Professor Sprout…?"
"The damn woman's brain is addled!" Snape said wearily. "She is conscious but hideously incoherent. Gabbling absurd nursery rhymes and rambling about Christmas carols! 'Hark! Hark! The dogs do bark!' That is understandable in the circumstances, but as for the rest… 'Ding dong bell, pussy's in the well!'; 'The holly and the ivy…' Pah! I ask you! We've used the Mandrake potion, Runespoor egg albumen, even Truth Serum, and what do we get? 'Pussy's in the bloody well'!"
Yes, but who put her in? thought Hermione
This was a blow. They had been counting on getting information from Professor Sprout. Her files had confirmed Neville's diagnosis, that one of his study samples had indeed been a devolutionary virus, but nowhere - nowhere - was there any indication of how to cure it. Neville was getting desperate.
"Right!" He snuffed out his flame and slammed his notebook shut. "Right. I'm going to visit Professor Sprout, and then… Then I'm going to talk to Luna," he declared defiantly. "Um, that is, unless anyone has any better ideas?" He anticipated objections, but the others were too surprised or simply too tired to protest. Even Snape. The Potions master spoke in a voice dulled with fatigue.
"If you are speaking to the Lovegood girl, you should be aware, Longbottom, that tomorrow is Saturday 21st December, the Winter Solstice."
x x x
"Evil Len!"
Professor Sprout, sitting up in bed, buttressed by pillows, seemed pleased to see him, though it was difficult to tell. She smiled weakly at Neville and patted the side of the bed for him to sit down.
"Hello, Professor, how are you?"
"He made foxy elm!" she told him urgently, "Flayom!" Her eyes, still bloodshot and sore from the dirt, scraped to meet the boy's, searching, pleading for understanding. A familiar twist of anguish tightened in Neville's chest. Oh, not another one. Not her too.
"Professor, do you know what's happened? Do you get what I'm saying?" he asked gently. Her shoulders sagged and he could see her struggling for the words,
"Curious lid, yob."
"Can you tell me your name, Professor?"
"Rot! Pus!" she exclaimed in exasperation.
Madame Pomfrey poked her head round the screen.
"She's severely traumatised, Neville. It must have been a terrible ordeal. Don't get her over-excited. She needs to rest."
Sadly, the boy stood up to leave, but the Professor clutched at his arm,
"Not dog, evil Len."
The plea stung his heart.
Conducting a non-existent orchestra, Sprout waved her arm at the ward, an all-embracing gesture, and with the look of someone at their wits' end, she began to sing:
"Ring-a-ring o' roses,
A pocket full of posies…
Atishoo, atishoo… we all fall down!"
She leaned her head towards at Neville, nodding encouragingly, made impatient, flapping movements with her hands; she wanted to communicate something - but he didn't know what. The frustration wrung him, squeezing out shrugs of apologetic uselessness. He'd had enough practice; he should be able to make more headway than this.
"Look, I'm right sorry, Professor; I'm trying, but I still don't understand," he told her plainly. He didn't want to humour her, to patronise. "Maybe it's best if I do the talking."
So he told her everything he knew. About the adulterated potions, the malfunctioning wands, the fruitless search for an antidote. She listened intently, shaking her head, tutting in dismay. At the mention of Malfoy, she snatched at Neville's hand, shaking it frantically.
"He made foxy elm! Lost ices!" she shouted.
The matron reappeared, a glass of purple, effervescent liquid in her hand.
"Time to go now, Neville. Here, Pomona, drink this. There… That's it. That's better…" she soothed the agitated woman.
As Neville walked slowly away, the sound of singing followed him down the ward.
"The holly and the ivy…"
x x x
Saturday 21st December
"I cannot believe we're doing this," Hermione muttered for the fourth, or possibly fortieth, time. "That we're actually listening to that bead-brained hippy…"
Picking their steps carefully in the gloom, she and Harry paced all the way round the unlit bonfire. It was huge. It had taken the able-bodied students the best part of the night to drag the forest of felled timber out of the castle building and into the courtyard. They could have done with Hagrid to help them. Or working wands. Now, in the muted, greyscale dawn, the collected logs and branches had been dumped in an enormous heap, it's unmoving, dark mass slumped on the ground like a dead giant awaiting cremation.
"I just can't believe…" Hermione began again.
"Look, it's weird, yes, but Dumbledore's sanctioned it, OK?" Harry pointed out tersely. He wasn't too happy about Luna's plan either.
"Only because he hasn't any choice. What's the alternative? Wait and see? Wait for this thing to get better by itself? It might kill us all first - or at least destroy Hogwarts. Or do we hang on in the hopes that Sprout's going to make a miraculous recovery? It could take years! Look at Neville's parents!"
Harry had no answer. Nobody had any answers. They were clutching at straws, at logs… He didn't want to be reminded about the Longbottoms, tortured to madness. How many Crucio's had they suffered before they cracked? How many Crucio's had his father endured in his lifetime? It was all a little too close to home…
"Nev said they finally found her wand," Harry said conversationally, changing the subject.
"Whose? Sprout's? Where was it?"
"In her Welly." They both smiled. Yeah, that'd be right - Sprout and her proverbial thigh-high Wellingtons!
"And?"
"Mulberry - Nev knew that anyway. But, get this - with a Fwooper feather core."
"Oh hell, that's not good, is it?" Just hearing that bird's song could drive a person insane. "Poor old Sprout. It's all so unfair!" Hermione's expression was militant. "Why isn't the Ministry doing anything to help us? Hey? Do you know we're not even allowed to send owls any more - in case of infection? You'd think the combined powers of the Ministry would be able to come up with something. They're useless! Fudge is fine, so he doesn't give a damn about the rest of us! They're probably on a skeleton staff because of the holiday, and they've shoved it in someone's In-Tray until January. Nice to know we're only important enough to count as 'Pending', isn't it?"
She kicked at a pile of leaves in frustration.
"The Ministry's scared shitless. An epidemic would bring wizardry to its knees," said Harry. Hermione snorted in disgust.
"Prophylactic measures are all very well. But while they're out there protecting themselves, we're sitting ducks in here. If Voldemort ever managed to penetrate the Castle wards, we'd be defenceless."
It was a chilling thought. And they were cold enough already. There was a stiff breeze blowing up off the lake, bringing clouds of icy mist which dampened their spirits even further.
"We'd better go in. Dumbledore told us all to stay in the Hall," said Hermione, without conviction. She and Harry exchanged a conspiratorial glance. Without speaking they made their way towards the cloisters to hide…
x x x
"How much longer?" whispered Harry.
"Soon. Luna was very specific about the time. 'When the sunlight strikes the Altar'." Hermione quoted.
"What Altar? What sunlight? There's no bloody sun!"
If it hadn't all been so serious, Hermione would have been revelling at the prospect of seeing Luna publicly debunked. It went against the grain to want her to succeed.
"I think she means that flat rock on the far side of the fountain. The one where you and Ron play Gobstones. You won't be able to see it now, idiot - the bonfire's right on top of it."
"That's an altar?"
"Shhh!"
A solemn procession was emerging from the Castle. Professor Dumbledore was in the lead, followed by Luna, Neville, Snape and any remaining staff who had not yet succumbed to the stress of being wand-less in a school full of angry, anarchic adolescents. Lupin, shambling and looking rather ill, brought up the rear. Full moon in a couple of days, Hermione remembered.
The group approached the bonfire and spaced themselves around it in a wide circle. Dumbledore stepped forward and raised his hand. Presumably this would be some arcane ritual salutation. Then, much to his mortification, Harry realised that he was being beckoned.
"If you intend to spy on our proceedings, Harry, perhaps you should stand where you have an uninterrupted view," suggested the Headmaster mildly, too concerned with the coming ceremony to reprimand the boy. "You too, Miss Granger."
Together they sidled out and joined Neville. Harry could see Snape mentally adding this latest infraction to the long list of faux pas which they would be 'discussing' over the holidays.
Now Luna stepped in from the circle . She was holding a lighted taper.
"What!" exclaimed Hermione in the whispered equivalent of a shriek. "They're letting her do it? Can't Dumbledore? He must have loads more experience than that nit-wit. What does she know?"
"Shush, Hermione. Let her be." Neville chided her. "This is Earth Magic we're dealing with here. If Luna says she's in tune with her Spirit Guides, we've got to believe her. It's an intuitive thing."
"Huh. And she hasn't even got a bone through her nose!" Hermione's scepticism couldn't resist a swipe.
x x x
The mist was thinning. As they stood, huddled in their anxieties, a winter dawn was breaking. On the Eastern horizon, the first, pearly rays of sunrise shimmered. The Castle walls, back-lit, were black and featureless, the clock-tower a stark silhouette against the morning glow.
And then a beam of sunlight pierced the tower. Deflected through the high rose-window, a single shaft of light shone down, focussed directly into the heart of the waiting pyre.
Luna lifted her taper and plunged it into the fire. The flames began to curl.
"It is the time of Alban Arthan - the Winter solstice," she proclaimed, in a voice resonant with earthy mysticism. "All about us is Darkness. This is the time of Death and Rebirth. Our Goddess, our Soul, our Sun - do not abandon us! We offer you our Love, our Light!"
Beginning with Professor Dumbledore, Luna moved round the circle, giving each of them a lighted, white candle and placing in the palm of their right hand a small, white Mistletoe berry. Then she picked up two leafy branches and, with slow, deliberate steps, began to pace around the burning fire, stopping every so often to bring the stems together with a crack of wood on wood.
"What's she doing?" whispered Harry. Neville looked irritated at the interruption.
"She has to go round the fire twelve times, once for each month of the year. This is the enactment of the Battle of the Yule Kings: she's got the Oak in one hand and the Holly in the other. They have to fight for dominion. At the Winter Solstice the Oak always wins - it ushers in a new season of growth, development and healing. Or so she says. She knows these things."
They watched her in silence. The heat of the fire reddened their cheeks. At last she came to a halt and hurled one of the branches - the defeated Holly, Harry assumed - into the fire. It flared and crackled. Then she faced Neville.
"Ready?" He gave an apprehensive nod and, in turn, nodded to Snape. The Potions master came forward carrying a massive cauldron. Where the hell had that come from, Harry wondered. He supposed Snape must have had it with him when he arrived, but Harry hadn't noticed. Together Neville and Snape balanced the cauldron on the blazing logs. It looked very heavy.
"What's in it?" Harry hissed when Neville returned, hot and panting with exertion.
"The wands, Harry. Now, shut up and watch." Neville was tense, worried. Luna, arms aloft, her candle held to the northern skies, intoned to the heavens:
"Source of Life, source of Birth,
O Sun, we salute thee!
Darkness to Light…
Death to Life…
O Atom-seed of light,
You come to us from realms of Inspiration…
You are incarnated
In the womb of the night…
You are born of the Earth Mother…
Birth and resurrection,
Healing and reincarnation…
Renew us in the cycle of your everlasting Light!"
Luna had gathered an armful of leaves. She began to throw them into the cauldron one by one, calling out their names as she did so:
"Cedar! Myrrh! Bay Laurel! Pine!..."
"Where does she get all this tosh? What's going on?"
"For Merlin's sake, Harry! They've all got special healing properties. Let her get on with it. Now, shut up!" Sweat that had nothing to do with the heat of the fire was beading on Neville's brow.
"Juniper! Ash! Ivy! Holly! Mistletoe!..."
A dense, green and ochre smoke was pouring out of the cauldron, billowing over the rim like a lava-flow. Then Luna was holding up a short stick, one end in each hand. There was something Harry recognised about that stick…
"That's my Wand! She's got my bloody wand! NO!" he yelled as Luna brought the wand down and snapped it over her knee like a twig. She tossed both halves into the smouldering cauldron. Harry was beside himself.
"She's broken my fucking wand! That was the only wand in the whole place that still worked and she's broken it! Is she insane?"
"Shhh, Harry. Watch." Hermione, who had been staring, utterly mesmerised by the entire ritual in spite of herself, put a hand on his arm. "Look!"
The enormous bonfire was crumbling to ash before their eyes. Tree trunks that should have taken hours to burn were disappearing into smuts and then nothingness. The piled up logs and boughs and branches were vanishing into the very ground. The Earth was taking back her children…
The cauldron was left on its tripod feet, standing alone in the courtyard, on a square of smooth, unblemished stone.
x x x
The circle of onlookers closed-in on the cauldron, not daring to look inside. What would they find? Charcoal? Nothing?
"Shall I do the honours, Miss Lovegood?"
Luna stared unblinkingly back at the kindly Headmaster, too stunned to reply.
Peering over the blackened rim, Professor Dumbledore reached into the cauldron and rummaged, eventually retrieving a smooth, undamaged Walnut wand.
"Aha! Well now, shall we see if it works? Er, let me think… I'm rather out of practice! How about 'Reddewandi!'?"
The wands shot out of the cauldron like Porcupine quills, flying into the air and then skimming away to find their respective owners. Harry felt a length of Holly (eleven inches, supple) slide into his hand…
End of Chapter.
Now, as you will have guessed, Professor Sprout is speaking in anagrams, and I'd love to translate them for you, but that would be a give-away. (Somebody will work them out later - who do you think? Not Crabbe and Goyle, that's for sure!)
Next chapter: THE MESSENGER. (And it's not the Angel Gabriel…)