Chapter 24: Sayre Lucas
Alana rolled in her bed. She had been up since ten watching the clock on the nightstand whittle away the hours till two in the morning. She was, if possible, even more sick than before. She felt weak, she was shaking, her head was surely in two pieces, she felt like she had a knife in her stomach, and to top it all off, she couldn't barely breathe because of how much damn effort it took. She was in a worse condition that she had ever been and felt strongly that she should blame it on the drafty, musty, ancient castle she was in at the moment. Frankly it felt worse than the River Death, but then again she was sure her cousins would tell her she was over-reacting. Sayre would probably goes as far as to call her melodramatic.
Then it hit her.
Sayre!
Why she didn't realize it before she couldn't understand. She hadn't been sick for years but she had come close a couple times. The whole reason she never got sick: Potions. Potions for vitamins, potions for special nutrients that many foods lack. It was second nature to her to mix the potions into her wine at dinner because that's what she had been doing her entire life. That's what everyone in her family had done for as long as anyone could remember. So of course, when she moved to Whitehall she didn't have those potions anymore, which ultimately made her ill!
Dumb ass! She scolded herself, How on earth could you forget something so important! She pounded her head into her pillow a couple times, which proved to be a very stupid idea (She seemed very prone to those lately). Now how do I get a hold of him without those blithering idiots noticing?
Her thoughts were directed to the sleeping forms of Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil. She couldn't understand how one could concentrate all of their energy on boys and fortune telling. Lavender was more down to earth than Parvati but she still drilled on a very fine nerve of Alana's when she went on about some new boy crush or some secret she thought she unravelled in a bunch of tea leaves (which usually turned out wrong). But one can only hint at the real meaning of a lump of mush for so long until you just give up and leave them to their imaginations.
Groaning at the thought of moving, Alana grudgingly hauled herself out of bed and trod over to her desk to retrieve a piece of parchment and quill. She thought carefully about what to say to her cousin and how to tell him where to come without possibly letting someone know she was actually at Hogwarts. Unfortunately, the overheating of her brain made the codes she had developed with her close cousins fry up like bacon and she resorted to plain and very blunt wording.
Sayre,
I hope you get this as soon as I send it. I can't believe I was so stupid to forget something so important. I've gotten myself really sick, surprising, I know, but I managed it and let me tell you it's worse than rubella in my opinion. I was hoping maybe you could bring some of the potions over to Uncle Albus's school and some to ditch fevers and symptoms of the flu. Be a saint and bring a bunch or the recipe if you can. You can call for me when you get here but keep magic out of the question. They're wizards here and nothing more so I think they may be a bit suspicious if you do anything without a wand.
Thanks so much and send everyone my love,
Alana
Alana stared at the letter for a second before nodding her head a little and capping her ink. Being sick, she didn't trust her ability to apparate home to get something, which she would have done normally. With any luck, Sayre would be considerate for once instead of his usual personality, which wasn't sour by any means, just a little egotistical at times and closed-minded at others. He did have a pretty good sense of humour though and loved adventure so he was always a great person to be around, even if sometimes you had to give him a bit of a verbal whiplash the first time or two you meet him.
Without further hesitation, Alana sealed the letter with a spell only Sayre could break and touched the parchment with the tip of her finger. It glowed a brilliant pale gold and disappeared in an instant. Feeling even more drained than before, she shuffled back to bed and buried herself deep into the covers, now feeling abnormally cold.
Gods did she hate being sick.
xXx
"Somebody put out the sun..." Alana groaned early the next morning. All the windows in the dorm were wide open and bright sunlight was streaming in through every one of them. Hermione and Lavender were sitting on their respective beds and looking quite anxious. Something obviously wasn't right.
"What?" Alana sat up in bed, with a lot of effort I might add, and gave them each a look that said both 'You can tell me, I can take care of it' and 'What the hell are you waking me up for!'.
Hermione cleared her throat loudly and pointed to Alana's desk at the same time a deep and non-feminine voice rang out.
"Now now Lani, that's not how you usually wake up. I always thought you to be more of a morning person. It surprised me you were still in bed at nine o'clock with the windows shut and drapes drawn, and on not only the windows but the bed too."
Parvati, who had walked out of the bathroom at the same time the man started talking, had abruptly stopped drying her hair and let her jaw drop nearly to the floor.
"Shut your maw girly, it's not an attractive look." He spat venomously.
"Sayre! Just because your visiting doesn't mean you can talk to my friends so cruelly!" Alana shouted at the guy, "What is it with you and your anti-social attitude, huh? Gods I'm tired of making you act like a gentleman when you meet people! Why don't you take all your bitter comments and shove them up your arse!"
Sayre glowered at Alana for a second before drawing himself up to his full height of 6'4" and towered over her by a foot. His eyes, which from any angle looked completely onyx, bore straight into her violet ones and his black spiky hair bristled as he tried his best to look intimidating. Unfortunately for him, Alana did a much better job at it. She may have been smaller and rather pale considering the season while Sayre looked like some sort of Italian god with tan and nearly flawless, velvety skin, he still seemed to shrink under his cousin's intimidating glare.
"What I act like is none of your business." He sneered.
"Wanna bet on that?" She spat back. "I think a little fight could tell you who's the stronger one."
Now, the other three girls watching nearly burst out in laughter at her statement. Sayre was a very well built young man. Even though he was the same age as them, he had the muscles of a twenty year old athlete and the looks of a Greek god. It was outrageous to think Alana could possibly beat him in any sort of fight other than one of words. To Sayre, however, it seemed the idea of fighting her was one worse than death but he still tried his best to fight her stare. A minute passed before he tilted back his head and laughed so deeply it would sound sinister if he didn't look so amused.
"I'm so glad to see you!" He laughed and enveloped her in a bone-crushing hug, lifting her up off her feet and twirling her around the room.
"Sayre! Stop that! I'm sick, remember?" Alana screeched "You don't want me to get sick on your head do you?"
Sayre dropped her immediately and braced her shoulders with his strong arms like he was afraid she was going to faint at any second.
"I still don't know how you managed it Lani. You do look off, a little greenish too. You should go back to bed." He was checking her temperature with the back of his hand and tugging on her to move towards her bed.
"I would be fine if you would just give me the potion." She shot at him and sounding thoroughly annoyed. Before Sayre could answer, another voice rang out.
"Do you mind telling us how he got in here?" Hermione didn't look happy at the fact that there was a strange man in the girls dormitory and he had somehow gotten in while they were all sleeping.
"And how someone like you could be with someone like him?" Parvati said dumbfounded from the bathroom door. In her opinion, the man was gorgeous and had no reason to be with her new room mate. Alana was pretty and all but this guy was perfect.
"This is my cousin Sayre. Haven't I said anything about him? He's like the brother I never had." She locked arms with him proudly, "But then again, if I did have a brother, I wouldn't want him to be like this wanker."
"Hey!"
"Hey yourself. You know you're a bad influence on all the kids from Enova and younger."
"Well, you were the bad influence on me."
"But I do a better job at keeping that side of me under-wraps when I'm not with you and Teags or the twins." Alana grinned and patted his arm.
"You're cousins?" Parvati pressed
"Yeah, unfortunately."
"You still haven't told us how he got in here." Hermione said coolly, leave it to her to spoil the fun conversation.
"Oh, he uh, he..." Alana had to figure out something believable considering if you were a guy and you tried to get to the girl's dorms, you had a fun trip down a big stone slide.
"I flew in." Sayre said nonchalantly. "I couldn't get the front doors open so I figured it wouldn't be a big deal if I came in through a window."
"This is a girls only dorm you know." Lavender commented, being the usual Captain Obvious.
"Now I do. Guess it's just bonus points for me." He grinned wildly and earned a slap from Alana. "Ow! What was that for."
"For being a pervert." Alana scolded, albeit teasingly. She didn't really care, she just thought her friends might. "They aren't your type anyways. They still haven't been, what did you call it? Broken in? That sounds about right."
Sayre's eyes went as round as plates and his jaw dropped. Leave it to Alana to share such private information with girls he had just met. Not that it wasn't the truth, he just didn't want any acquaintances to know him like that.
"Alana! You don't go around telling people things like that! How would you like it if I went around telling other people the things you've told me?"
"I would be very careful if I were you Sayre Shannon, you tread very dangerous waters." Alana replied. She was teasing and being serious at the same time. Some things she told him were never meant to leave the room they were said in and not just for risk of embarrassment. More like for risk of her magic or freedom or, depending on how seriously others viewed it, her life.
"Oh, lighten up Lani." Sayre teased. "It was a rhetorical question. You know, the ones that people ask but don't really want answered?"
"I think you're the one who needs to lighten up. I'm not the kind of girl to hold secrets. What makes you think that anything you say to these girls is something they haven't heard before?"
"I bet I could shock them with a few things. You are quite interesting to outsiders and you know it."
"And what, pray tell, might these things be?" Alana asked as she tried hard to sound utterly nonchalant. Sayre wasn't used to mortals or wizards and didn't know what was off limits to spoken or written words. Anything he'd share would need to go through her first. She lowered herself onto her bed and stared at him expectantly.
"You pick the category: embarrassing habits, disastrous events, romance or miscellaneous?" Sayre bent himself down to his opponent's eyelevel and stared right back at her. Her expression didn't change at first. After a moment's staring, an almost maniacal grin slid onto her mouth, spreading from one side of her pale lips to the other and showing off her gleaming white teeth. Even from afar, a person could see the mischievous glint in her eyes and any that knew her would know to run as fast as you can in the other direction when this mask covered her face. Sayre was usually on her side of tricks so he wasn't so clued in and thought it meant he would only be in for an adventure. What. An. Idiot.
"I'll make you a deal Shanny." Alana said smoothly and confidently. "You hand over the things I asked you to bring and go into the common room while I shower and dress. It's still early enough that you shouldn't run into anyone, most students should be asleep or at breakfast. I'll come down with Hermione and we'll fetch Harry and Ron before we head down for something to eat. Then we, or more likely they, will give you a tour of the castle and grounds and I'll explain my new situation and how different this place is from home. After dinner, we can have a bit of fun with all the sixth years, your shock tactic game included, just so long as I get to do the same."
Sayre stared at her calculatingly for a moment or two. He knew fairly well how his cousin's mind worked and had a clue that her 'games' were going to be more than what she let them on to be. He was hesitant to answer her, knowing fun well that he would never get out of a deal he made with her without a little divine intervention. Slowly a grin that mirrored Alana's all to well graced his face and a twinkle of excitement shone in his eyes.
"Deal." He said, and stuck out his arm. Her maniacal grin grew to the point that it almost overtook her face and she grasped his larger hand with her pale and calloused one.
"Deal."
Off to the side, Parvati was grinning as madly as the Lucas cousins and leaned over to Lavender and whispered to her:
"Why do I have a feeling that tonight is going to be one of the better parties we've had since we came to school?"
xXx
"This is the common room." Hermione announced as she lead Sayre down the girls' dormitory steps. As Alana predicted, there was only one student downstairs, Ginny Weasley.
"Hullo Hermione." Ginny croaked groggily from the sofa near the fire. She was curled up into a ball and very obviously not awake yet judging on how her eyes were shut and she hadn't even glanced up at her friend when she came into the room. She had even gone to the extent to pull the hood of her tattered old sweatshirt over her ponytail and she had pulled her hands inside the sleeves to keep them warm. Coupled with her old and torn pyjama pants, she looked downright weary from the outside.
"Hi Gin." Hermione replied and turned her back to Sayre so she could point things out easier. "Those tables are where we do our homework, unless they're all full, then people spread out to the window seats and floor." She watched Sayre, expecting him to say something, but nothing came. In fact, he wasn't even listening. He was more distracted by the petite red-head on the couch. She rolled her eyes a little, and cleared her throat to get Ginny's attention.
"Hermione, you sound a little stuffed up, why don't you go talk to Madame Pomphrey..." Ginny had sat up to address her friend, but she stopped abruptly when she saw Sayre
"Gin, this is Sayre Lucas, Alana's cousin. Sayre, meet Ginny Weasley. She's Ron's younger sister." She added the last part on hoping that he would catch the meaning that Ron was, of course, a little overprotective of his sister. And rightly so, if you asked Hermione. She loved Ginny dearly, she was the sister she never had, but she was a bit of a harlot if you put it harshly. Hermione never asked the details of Ginny's month long relationships and frankly, she wasn't sure she wanted to know.
"Hello." Ginny said cautiously. People don't get many visitors at Hogwarts. In fact, the only time she ever knew of people visiting was at the Triwizard Tournament last year so she was a little unsettled by a non-student stopping by the common room.
"Ciao." Sayre replied softly and grinned, showing off his immaculately white teeth. The girl was very pretty and under other circumstances, he would have wasted no time in striking up a conversation, but he was here to help his cousin and considering he was among a bunch of non-Taestai, he wasn't comfortable saying or doing anything more than necessary.
Ginny gave him a calculating look. He was gorgeous, no doubt there, but there was something funny about him. He gave off a strange 'vibe' or 'aura' as she so often heard Professor Trelawney put it. Nothing as weird as what Alana did to everyone, but still something oddly unsettling.
"So, would it be too nosy if I asked what you're here for?" She asked curiously. She didn't really like the way he was looking at her, not that she minded be looked at by someone so beautiful, but he wasn't sitting right with her by any means.
"Um, Alana wanted a few things from home and I couldn't send them by post. They're kind of valuable. Keepsakes from her mum and da." He shrugged and continued to stare at her. Even though he didn't know her feelings towards him, he felt something peculiarly disquieting about her as well.
"Uh huh...Well, I'm headed down to breakfast Hermione. I'll see you down there?" Ginny said and she stood and pulled her hood away from her flaming red hair. She stretched her arms to the ceiling and rubbed her eyes as she padded her way slipper-footed out of the portrait hole and into the main castle.
At the same moment, Hermione could make out footsteps and the voices of her two best friends.
"...Just don't understand why something like that would happen. I'm not sure it's normal."
"Yeah, and what about in Fred and George's store. She got sick there too."
"Did Pomphrey say- Hey, watch where you're going!" Harry, in his carelessness, had walked right into Sayre, who had been leaning against the doorframe.
"If you didn't notice," Sayre responded in his baritone voice, "I wasn't moving, and you, quite clearly weren't looking in front of you." Harry glanced over his shoulder at the boy, meaning only to give him a look, but stopped when he didn't recognize him as a Hogwarts student, never mind even a Gryffindor.
"And who exactly are you?" Ron asked scathingly, before Harry could get it out. Sayre raised his eyebrows at the pair of them and crossed his arms in front of his chest.
"First of all, I don't like all the hostility you're sending my way." Sayre intoned with his strong Anglo-Irish accent. "And I'm Sayre Lucas." He extended his hand to the boys, hoping at least one of them would take it.
"Harry Potter." Harry awkwardly shook Sayre's hand since he wasn't used to so much formality between people his age. "Lucas? Are you one of Alana's cousins?"
"Yeah, unfortunately. I love the girl to death but being routed in the arena so many times gets boring." He smiled broadly before leaning in and whispering: "But with her being gone for so long without practice is going to bring down her record I think. I've gotten loads better at swordplay since she's left."
"I'm just so sure Sayre." Alana's voice rang out from the top of the girls staircase. "Maybe that'll be a part of our little party tonight, yeah?"
"Only if you're ready to finally get trounced."
"You wish." Alana laughed and walked up to him toe to toe. "Has it happened yet? I don't think so."
"But you've been out of practice for months. Don't tell me you could keep up with someone who's been practicing every other day since you left."
"Oh, we shall see Shanny. We shall see." With another mischievous grin, she turned on her heel, linked her arm in Hermione's, and paraded out the portrait hole.