Well, I must admit that I am beginning to love this story a bit more then Syn. I've had the first pat of this chapter done for ages, but the second part was written recently, and all that jazz. My sister rented Chicago and now I can't get The Cell Block Tango out of my head. Anyways, without further ado, her is the third installment of Simony:
Chapter Three : The Night and Day Before
"I would have done it quicker if you had turned your aura down a few hundred notches." Simony smiled. "I would be honored if you joined me."
The Eldar sat down in Zev's chair. "Thank you, Ryoku – or is it now Simony?"
"You know me?" Simony questioned, racking her mind for any memory of this man in front of her. It wasn't hard to go through her catalogue of memories from her meditation, but she came up with nothing. Not one single reference. "Does that mean you knew my parents?"
"Yes, child, I knew Lily and James. Both intelligent and nice to have as friends, if I may say so myself." the Eldar laughed. "By the way, I'm Zafeth Lindenshield. I'm one of the oldest Eldars, and a close friend to the Potter family through the ages. I've been watching you, Prophecy-Child, for a long time now. I approve your choice in friends – Chris Firestone is a loyal boy and will follow you anywhere. Just don't abuse that, mind you."
"I wouldn't dare! He's my best friend, besides Zev." Simony almost cried in outrage. "And Zev doesn't really count; he's my brother, for crying out loud."
"Just had to get it out of the way — Vampires take care of their own, especially when most others won't." Zafeth shrugged, referring to the notorious history Vampires shared with many other humanoids. Most of it consisted of long and bloody wars, mass executions (who do you think the Aztecs used for a man in their rituals when they needed someone to survive a lot of pain?) and hostiles. "Now, I heard your brother has to go to Lazarin for a Potions Conference."
"Yeah, and I have to go too since there's no other family around." Simony said bitterly. Suddenly, she had an idea; "Unless you'd be willing to take care of me until Zev gets back?"
Zafeth laughed loudly. "Prophecy-Child, I'd love to, but to do that, you'd have to be a Vampire." It was pretty common knowledge, something that Simony had forgotten, that most clans couldn't stand young humans in their Mansions. It was something about them being too corruptible, but Simony personally thought this to be BS — some of the most strong-willed people she knew were under twenty.
"Ah," Simony offered ineloquently. "That would kinda ruin my day."
"Death gets that kind of reaction from most people." Zafeth grinned widely.
"Yeah…" Simony trailed off. The silence grew and the girl looked back at her half-way covered paper, examining it for a fault in the reasoning and spellwork diagrams. "Uh, did you have something you wanted to say, like a reason for your visit? Do you need a potion, or something?"
Zafeth seemed kind of relieved Simony chose to break the silence. It seemed that Immortals could become uneasy at another's company as well. "I need two pints of the Moonray Potion. We ran out of it at the Mansion, and the younger Vampires are starting to turn red."
"Vampires turn red when they're exposed to sun, or at least without the proper amount of Moonray?" Simony asked, truly curious, then yelled downstairs, "Zev! I got someone here to see you!"
"Coming!" Zev yelled back.
"Are you always like this?" Zafeth asked, amused.
"No, not always," Simony began. "Just about ninety-nine percent of the time," she added as Zev and Chris walked in. Zev sat down quickly when he saw his 'baby sister' conversing lightly with a three-thousand-year-old Vampire, and Chris bowed deeply, saying, "Eldar."
"I take it you're Zev and Chris." Zafeth gave the impression of an old — very old — librarian looking over his glasses at a gaggle of kids.
"Yeah, I guess you need a potion," Zev started out of his shock. "That's all we have."
"Moonray." That was all Zafeth needed to say before Zev leaped up and dashed downstairs. Before long, the pungent smell of potions simmering over flames reached the three in the room. "Well, he's certainly efficient."
"He also has to be," Chris snorted; Simony had told him about her brother's predicament. "Or else he'd be steamrolled by Severus Snape, one of the best Poison Masters in the Human world."
"If he wasn't steamrolled by me by not doing his best," Simony added on quickly. "It's just like he'd kill me if I didn't work 'up to my full potential', as one of my old teachers put it. He was one of the craziest old bats I've ever seen, with the corny jokes to go along."
Zafeth leaned forward slightly saying, "I had a teacher kind of like that once. He's long gone now, but he always wore a long black cloak with a red lining, always carried a flask of blood around, and was the stereotypical Vampire from muggle view."
"And you aren't?" Simony quipped.
"Of course not!" Zafeth cried. "Have you ever actually worn old stockings? They itch like the wretched devil!" Chris and Simony burst into fits of laughter, Zafeth looking on helplessly. "What did I say?"
"I think it was the part about the wretched devil, Zafeth," Zev replied as Simony and Chris sobered. He held large box in his arms, the clinking inside alerted everyone that potions were inside. "Here's half a years' supply of Moonray. If you need more then, come on back."
"Thank you, Zev," Zafeth took the box from the mortal. "Oh, and Simony, use the binding charm to center your glamours in Chris's gift emerald; it has the perfect balance for your build." Then he was gone, blended into the night.
"After years of knowing him, I still don't see how he does that." Chris said lightly.
"Wait a sec, Chris," Simony snapped. "You know him? I mean, before he showed up here?"
"Of course!" Chris looked at his friend like she was nuts. "He's one of the oldest vampires still alive, and the leader of those who help and interact with humans like you. He's famous for his works in the eight and ninth centuries, helping the Chinese, Egyptians, even helped the Persians conquer Jerusalem."
Simony shook her head, suddenly tired. "Well, I'm glad he doesn't hate us."
"I think many people sleep easier if Zafeth Lindenshield likes them." Chris laughed, showing his fangs and spread his black wings (like a bat's) and disappeared into the darkness, though not with the finesse that the Eldar did it with.
"Crazy Vamps," Simony muttered and got into bed, pendant and chain still lying on the desk.
The next day, Simony got right to work on her pendant, weaving the spells in and out of one another so they would hold, even if the binding charm came off. Immersed as she was in her magic, the ten-year-old didn't hear Zev moving around downstairs, or any visitors coming in. Then again, that day was quiet — the people coming in and out were regular witches and wizards, even a muggle or two that came for the storefront — it advertised sweets and cold drinks along with other knicknacks.
When Simony finally finished the charms on the emerald and copper torque, it created the appearance of the 5 foot tall girl with coal black hair and emerald eyes as a shorter girl with light brownish-red hair, cut just below the chin, and light blue eyes. Her glasses would have to come out again (Simony's myopia was cured when she was five) if only to create another difference between her and bookish little Aimee Andrus, Zeveth Andrus's niece.
"So, dearest sister of mine, have you finished as of yet?" Zev asked as Simony felt her brother's arms wrap around her in a hug. "We have to leave tomorrow for Lazarin, the conference starts in three days, and I want to get you settled in before I totally abandon you in that stone labyrinth."
"When you're ready, I'm ready," Simony assured him. "But do you have something that will make my CD player work in such a magic-based environment? I've considered wiring it on lightning, or some other force that bases on the Core, but I wasn't quite sure how to make that happen without blowing the circuit board —" Zev covered his sister's mouth with his hand.
"Stop before you give me a headache," the older Potter commanded. Simony had always been the one interested in how magic works, and furthering some of the more forgotten and unvalued branches of magic, such as Technomagia — combining modern technology with magic. Zev was sure it was interesting to those who actually understood it, but he was always more interested in Potions and Transfiguration, with a bit of Charms on the side. "You know I can't understand talk like that."
Simony gave her brother a dirty look before he uncovered her mouth. "If you actually read any of the books you feel so inclined to move onto the shelves, you might stand a chance." She bounced out of Zev's arms and picked up the necklace, designed so the emerald would fall at the base of the girl's neck. With a mock flourish, Simony clasped the chain behind her neck and felt her body change into that of Aimee Andrus.
"Wow," Zev breathed, "that is a big piece of work. Spin slowly; I'll check for inconsistencies in your weave." Contrary to whatever people may think, spell weaving was a part of regular Charms, and so most warders could do it almost effortlessly. And the gift just happened to run in the Potter bloodline.
Slightly annoyed, Simony rotated 720 degrees in front of the older Potter. She knew Zev would find no flaws, and she knew that it would take the rest of that day and the night for the spells to sink in accordingly. Right now, if the necklace was hit, the charms would start to malfunction and cause a heat haze to form around her body. If it was hit tomorrow, the spells would hold, but she would have to get out of there pretty damn fast. If it was hit in a month, the spells would give her about an hour before collapsing in on her.
"Does it pass inspection, oh great one?"
Zev pretended to scribble on an imaginary clipboard with a doubting expression on his normally care-free face. "Well, it scrapes by. Just barely, though." He performed a perfect impersonation of a health inspector gathering up his papers and items before pretending to dump it all on his bed, sitting down with a loud 'phump!'
"I'd say about the same thing for your half of the room," Simony replied wryly, referring to the mounds of parchments and other materials surrounding her brother's bed. She was normally the messy one — her handwriting could pay tribute to that — but Zev's part of the small room was almost a sty! "Honestly, if you find the urges to clean my side of the room, and complain about how messy I am, the least you could do is take a look at your side."
"My side is clean and ordered chaos," the auburn-haired man frowned. His sister raised an eyebrow from her perch on the desk. "Hey! At least I stuck 'chaos' in there! You can't blame me; I got the bad genes for this stuff."
"Don't I know," Simony muttered, opening her half-full trunk. With a small gesture of her hand and a word, the ten-year-old made the clothes that littered her part of the floor clean, fold, and fly into the trunk, filling the rest of that compartment. She snapped the lid shut and unlocked another fourth of her trunk, accessible only to her and her brother.
Inside the locked box, Simony held a great many things, some dangerous and some sentimental (and some both). For instance, there was a mirror that she could contact her brother with, and use the back of it to reflect and spells, hexes, jinxes, curses, or charms shot at her — including the Unforgivables.
There was also a bottle of Basilisk venom, provided by a friend of hers, mixed with a small amount of Phoenix tears (a 1:7 ratio) to make a painful, but very long-lasting, poison. Simony also kept an album given to her from her human friends in the States (where she and Zev lived for the first six years of her life, not including the year she spent with Lily and James) filled with comforting memories in there.
Simony shuffled things around a bit, storing the dangerous items in back of the more sentimental items. It wouldn't be good for her rep if someone found Phoenix Venom in her trunk. After all, Aimee Andrus was just a small little girl with almost no worldly experience. She could blame her brother for her magic-based CD player. Music was one thing that Simony was not going to give up at Lazarin. No way, no how. Not even Zev could get her to give up Nirvana, Vanilla Ice, Cake, or Oasis.
With everything ready for the short trip the next day, Simony climbed into bed, asleep almost as soon as her head touched the pillows.
And so ends the third chapter of this story. If you like it, by all means feel free to review. There won't be another chapter up for a while, I must warn you. But reviews do help my motivation. (Hexes: casts sad puppy-dog eyes at reader.)