Snapshots and Thundersnow
Chapter 7: Convergence

It'd taken Theo a little over a week to decide what to do with his focus crystal. Camella wore hers on a ring, but Theo had learned from an old Nott family heirloom that he hated wearing rings. (That had been an amusing argument, ending with his father admitting he wanted Theo to wear it so he wouldn't have to.) Azar's was set into the tip of his wand, probably more trouble than it was worth right now. Winters wore his on a chain around his neck, which seemed like a good idea, until Theo actually put the crystal on a chain and discovered he hated necklaces too.

He'd wandered out of the dormitory a bit late the next day, the chain looped around his belt so the crystal hung at his side. Convenient, not at all uncomfortable, and with the added benefit of keeping the other Slytherins even further away from him, after seeing what it could do.

Malfoy, after all, had been very interested in the crystal. "Nott, what in the world is that?"

"Nothing."

"Yeah right, let me see—YAARGH!" Malfoy had reached down and grabbed the crystal, which turned out to be a big mistake. Theo read later that focus crystals didn't like being touched by anyone but their proper owner, hence Malfoy had gotten himself a pretty good zap.

Theo managed to apologize and get out of the common room before bursting out in laughter. Served the nosy git right.

Of course, walking around with a magical crystal hanging from one's belt was a good way to attract quite a lot of questions, most of them from people he didn't dislike as much as Malfoy. It eventually got back to the Slytherin sixth-years that Theo was a Shock Mage, and the fact that he hadn't told them earned him much grief. What had they expected? He only even tolerated one of them.

For his part, Blaise thought it was fantastic. "But aren't Elementalists really rare?"

"Azar says Hogwarts usually gets one a year."

"I'd count that as really rare." Blaise looked at the crystal, but showed no interest whatsoever in touching it. "Have you learned any spells yet?"

Theo resigned himself to getting no peace until he answered Blaise's questions—though a pureblood who'd grown up fully immersed in the wizarding world, his natural curiosity made him sound like a Muggle-born first year at times. Not that there's anything wrong with Muggle-born first years, when they leave me alone. "Just one."

"Can I see?"

Theo snorted. "I can't go firing lightning bolts around the common room, Blaise."

"I know that." Blaise looked mildly indignant. "I'm not stupid."

"True enough." Theo considered the situation. He'd taken to practicing his shock spells outside during his free time, where it was rare for people to notice the odd lightning flashes in the middle of the day. "Tell you what. You've got Arithmancy today when I've got Elementalism, so meet me at the front doors after class, and I'll show you."

Blaise nodded, and both dashed off to their lessons.

Colin was leaning against a tree, his eyes closed, Snap chewing on his ear again. "If Snape weren't so scary," he commented absently to Dennis, "I'd ask him if there's a bad-taste potion that would get this silly dormouse to leave my ear alone."

"Ask Dad to send you some spoiled milk," Dennis suggested lazily.

Colin opened one eye and glanced at his brother—he was definitely half asleep. "I'm not going around with spoiled milk on my ear!"

Dennis shrugged.

Their first extra Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson had been an experience, to say the least. Winters had been impressed by their Impediment Jinx and figured the Stunning Spell was the logical next step, which both Creeveys agreed with wholeheartedly, having never quite gotten the hang of it before the DA was cancelled.

Of course, they had to practice the spell on each other, since Winters was the only one of the three who could perform the counterspell. Each sported a few bruises from missing the pillows they were supposed to be falling on top of, and each considered them a badge of honor. Colin was actually very proud of his stupefy spell, and while Dennis was struggling, Winters had been clearly impressed that a third-year could perform the spell at all.

"Hey Dennis."

"Hmm."

"Does Professor Winters seem... familiar to you?"

"Uh-uh. You're 'magining things."

That was certainly a possibility. Colin considered it for a bit, then turned to say something else, but Dennis was sound asleep.

He removed Snap from his shoulder. "You really need to leave my ear alone, you know."

Snap blinked at him. An instant later, with a terrified squeak, he jumped from Colin's hand, ran down his leg, and raced off through the grass.

Colin looked up to see an owl swooping towards the school. "Snap, come back, that's just the post!" he yelled, racing after his pet. The trail of waving grass was all he had to follow. "Snap!"

He sprinted into the forest long before realizing just where his dormouse had led him. The pet in question had stopped a ways in, presumably deciding that with trees around it was safe. Colin scooped him up. "Snap, you silly thing." He flinched. "We're not supposed to be in here, come on, let's—" He stopped dead. Something was watching them... he turned.

Staring at him from between two trees was a silvery beast with large blue eyes and—Colin gaped—a long, spiraling horn protruding from its forehead. He'd never seen a unicorn so close before (Professor Grubbly-Plank hadn't let the boys get too near during lessons), but there it was...

He reached for his camera, hanging around his neck as always. "Hello," he whispered nervously. "Would it be all right if I... took your picture?"

The unicorn cocked its head as though it understood him, took a step forward. Colin moved slightly closer as well.

A twig snapped beneath his foot and the unicorn bolted. Shoot! Throwing caution to the wind he ran after it, intent on getting his picture, not minding that this was the Forbidden Forest and it was getting close to dark. "Hey wait! I didn't mean to frighten you!"

Bad idea Colin, bad, bad idea.

But it was a unicorn!

Still a bad idea. If you're going to protect your dad you should start by staying alive.

I'll be fine. Harry's gone in here lots of times, he always comes out!

You're not Harry.

Yeah, but I know loads more magic than he did when he came and talked to that acro-whatsis!

His mental argument with himself was ended by a sudden chill, one he'd only felt once before. He pulled to a dead stop. "No way..." Snap dove into his pocket and shivered as Colin took out his wand. "Where..." The chill was coming from his right.

It wasn't dark enough to render the hooded thing invisible. It was moving slowly towards him... he focused on everything he'd learned in the DA last year. Happy thoughts. Happy thoughts. I'm going to get out of here, and protect Dad and Dennis... "Expecto Patronum!"

A silvery squiggle shot from his wand and drove the dementor back a few paces. That was it. "Uh oh."

"It's pretty basic really. The book says there's all kinds of ways to change how far it goes, how much energy there is, even how many bolts it makes, but I haven't really gotten that far."

Blaise nodded, his expression one of total fascination. From anyone else Theo would've considered this show of interest hopelessly fake. "So let's see!"

"Right."

Theo concentrated. Focus. He reached down and touched the focus crystal, felt the slight shock. Lightning. Energy. He wanted lightning, wanted it to strike, to flash into the crystal and through his wand, to strike out into the endless sky... he thought he had it, tiny sparks were dancing within him. Concentrate. He was not a wizard, not a human, merely a conductor of electricity...

He pointed his wand straight up, where he wouldn't hit anything. How embarrassing would it be if he couldn't pull off the spell? No. He would. He touched the crystal again with his other hand and felt a much greater shock.

"Fulguris!"

Blaise's jaw dropping was his first indication that it'd worked, it took a few more moments for him to register the bolt of electricity that had just shot up into the sky. He touched the crystal again and it had returned to its normal state. "It takes awhile," he commented lightly, "to get into the proper mindset. Azar says it'll be at least a month before I can cast anything quickly."

Having never encountered an Elementalist before, unless you counted Professor Winters, Blaise was quite eager to see more and made Theo cast the Thunderbolt Spell several more times. He didn't mind, it was good practice, but...

"It's getting dark, you know."

Blaise hesitated and looked around. The sky was indeed getting darker. "It'll almost be time to eat then... we should go back in."

My point exactly. Theo turned to follow when a flash of light caught his eye. He blinked—just afterimages of his lightning spell—no, there it was again. "Actually... why don't you go on? Save me a seat, I'll be there in a few minutes."

"Sure," the other Slytherin agreed easily. He was used to being Theo's chief seat-finder and didn't give it a second thought anymore. (Besides, it gave Theo more incentive to check his homework when he was stuck.)

Theo hardly registered his classmate's departure. Something about that silvery light was familiar, and he didn't think it was a good kind of familiar. Another flash. Where was it coming from?

The forest.

It abruptly dawned on Theo that the silver light might be... "Oh, damn." He turned towards the castle, ready to go find a teacher and tell them what he'd seen. Hopefully he'd be fast enough... but what if he wasn't?

Then he did something stupid. Wand at the ready, he turned back around and charged down the hill towards the forest. The rapidly dwindling light didn't concern him, the forest being off-limits did not concern him, and most of all, the fact that he might be right about what he saw, and the danger that suggested, did not concern him.

He would much later reflect on the fact that it was a move worthy of a Gryffindor, and wonder if that was a good or bad sign.

He seemed to cover the distance far more quickly than should've been possible, but the silver light was becoming less frequent. Bad. He raced in the direction it had come from and soon enough heard a voice. "Ex... ex... expecto patronum!" A weak flare of silver.

Theo braced himself. His father had insisted he learn the Patronus Charm before his third year, but he'd never actually needed to perform it with a real dementor around. Hopefully it would be too focused on its victim to start on him... besides, the dementors wouldn't attack the son of a Death Eater...

I'm a Shock Mage, not a Death Eater.

"Expecto Patronum!" Something small and silver burst out of his wand, bounding through the forest, presumably homing in on the dementor it was meant to repel. Theo caught up with the Patronus about fifteen seconds later—just in time to catch sight of a dementor gliding away.

The silver rabbit stared at him for a moment, looking very pleased with itself, before vanishing and plunging the forest into darkness.

"Lumos."

Colin's wand tip lit up at the same moment as his rescuer's, blinding him momentarily. "Thanks," he offered sheepishly. "I—"

He shut up, because his voice had stopped working as he recognized the other boy's face—freckled and snub-nosed and reminding Colin a little bit of a rabbit, now that he thought about it. It was the Slytherin from the train, the one who'd asked about Dennis' Patronus! But what in the world was a Slytherin doing, running around saving people from dementors...

For his part, the stringy sixth-year looked just as surprised as Colin felt. "Come on," he said finally, gesturing for Colin to follow, "we really ought to get back up to the castle..."

"Yeah." He found his voice again. They proceeded out of the forest in silence, but silence just wasn't something Colin would stand for. "Uh... I'm Colin Creevey, who're you?"

"Theodore Nott." He smiled, though he was obviously uncomfortable. There was something odd, a Slytherin smiling that didn't seem to be leading up to something unpleasant. "Just call me Theo, if you don't mind, though..."

Colin nearly choked. A Slytherin had just asked him to use his first name. "Uh. Sure" Now that he thought about it, if his last name was Nott he'd probably try to get people not to use it too.

"What were you doing in the forest, anyway? Not that there ought to be dementors in there either..."

"I was chasing my pet." He held up Snap for Theo to see. "He saw an owl and ran off." He decided it was best not to mention the unicorn, not to a Slytherin, he could see where that would go. Aww, the widdle Gryffindor saw a unicorn...

He shook his head. Theo seemed a decent sort.

Dennis was waiting at the front doors. "Colin, I woke up and you were gone, and I looked everywhere, and—" He trailed off, looking at Theo. "Who's that?"

When it became clear Theo wasn't going to answer the question himself (indeed, if anything he looked more uncomfortable) Colin took over. "Theo, this is my brother Dennis. Dennis, this is Theo—he just saved me from a dementor!"

No doubt about it, Theo looked distinctly uncomfortable now. "Actually Colin," he mumbled finally, "can you... keep that quiet?"

It seemed like a strange request, but how could he refuse? "Sure." It would later occur to him that the other Slytherins probably wouldn't take too kindly to one of their own saving a Muggle-born Gryffindor. "Well anyway... thanks again Theo... I'll see you!" He and Dennis ran to the Great Hall, leaving Theo staring after them with a slight grin on his face.

I'll see you!

"If you're lucky," Theo mumbled, watching the Creevey brothers disappear around a corner. But he had a strange feeling...

He looked back outside. "Gonna storm." That wasn't what was bothering him. Did I really just go charging into the Forbidden Forest to save someone from a dementor? What am I, a Gryffindor? Gryffindors weren't that bad, he supposed, they just had a talent for getting themselves killed heroically which he'd rather not pick up...

No, he knew what was bothering him. He was pretty sure he would see Colin again.