Two catlike pair of eyes glistered from two feline faces. One pair belonged to a black cat, named Nambi, who was crawled on the lap of the person sitting opposite of Morgan, green eyes fighting the heaviness of her eyelids as she was being wobbled into sleep by the locomotive's movements. The other, more investigative pair of eyes belonged to Imena Atieno, who was eying Morgan intently, trying to detect any differences the summer could have lodged in her friend. Their unblinking attentiveness had, in previous years, unsettled Morgan quite a lot. But the curious and studious, erudite globes that seemed to be able to predict her feelings before she even knew she had them, had at last become a familiar sight. Morgan, however, still felt trapped whenever her friend's persistent watchfulness elicited, without warning, a frown or grimace on her dark Ugandan face in reaction to some by Morgan unperceived ill omen. Especially because, when asked, Imena wouldn't, or simply couldn't, always explain what she had seen or sensed.
One time, in their very first year, when Care of Magical Creatures had been cancelled due to a heavy snowstorm, the girl herself had prominently entrusted Morgan that "Imena Atieno" was what wizards would regard royalty. Direct heir of Kiama Atieno, founder of Uagadou, the Ugandan wizarding school Morgan had never before heard of, Imena came from an ancient lineage of Ugandan pure blood wizards and witches. Not only did Imena in name protract royal ancestry, but additionally, she had inherited the superb seer capacities that run in her family as well. It was for this reason that Morgan was watchful of Imena's watchful eyes. Gifted in both Arithmancy and Astrology and the occasional Divination, Imena was both Dame Fortuna and Dame Doom. And she thoroughly enjoyed practicing her prognostic gift on her callow peers.
Hogwarts, however, it turned out, was not so much a hostile as a maladroit place for flourishing these prophetic talents. The British school had almost no experience at all with dream reading and messaging, hand gestural magic, and African alchemy practices. Absent the tools and fertilizers to nurture her gifts and traditional knowledge, Imena often bemoaned her Hogwarts' studies. Yet since her family lived in Britain–the reason of their British residence was often explained enigmatically in reference to Mr. Atieno's secret position at the Ministry of Magic–Imena was forced to study at Hogwarts regardless. Last summer, however, she had retreated to her relatives in Uganda. With them, she had visited the prestigious Ugandan wizarding school. And from them, she had learned of white cows and plucked chickens; of wise spiders and angry elephants; of their riddled existences in dreams and the telling of them. Packed with new, archaic books containing an arsenal of Ugandan native languages, Imana radiated of good prospects at forecasting evil tokens.
"The first time I didn't manage to transform back to my human self for three days!" Astonishment glared on Morgan's face as Imena told her of her newest skill. The two friends had managed to shoo all unwelcome intruders from their train's compartment and were now comfortably settled in each other's company.
"After some practice though, I could kob quite naturally." Imena inspected her hands as if to spot some lasting remnants of animality.
"So you really carried a mandrake leaf in your mouth for a month?" Morgan's face still filled with astonishment, but a hint of disgust had added itself. Cormac McLaggen had challenged Morgan to chew one in her second year and Morgan, who naively opined that no such leaf could actually taste as bad as a musty sock, had gotten a taste of its rotten bitterness. Mandrake leaves taste as good as a mud bathed troll.
"Sure did. From full moon to full moon. In retrospect, I didn't even have to elicit Professor Snape's approval to get The Art of Animagus Transformation from the Restricted section. Uagadou is more than competent at teaching how to self-transfigure–and all practical knowledge at that! No books. Nothing but age-old experience. Almost every student there has mastered the skill, can you believe it?" The witch mused animatedly and another disbelieving but admiring sound escaped Morgan's throat.
For years, Imena had been broadcasting her desire to become an Animagus. Many of her family members, including her mother and father, could transform into animals at will and it had been a matter of time before Imena would likewise change skin. Her parents, at first, didn't let her though. It would have been too eccentric for the young Ugandan girl enrolled in that somewhat orthodox, somewhat doctrinal British wizardly school called Hogwarts. Already her prophetic practices and artefacts, her traditionally braided hair, and her unconventional views on the war with whom she simply called "Voldemort" made her stand out amidst her pale and generally unexceptional fellow-students. But Imena, at last, threatening to transform herself into an inanimate object instead and playing into her parents' passion for Ugandan traditions and beliefs, was let access into the art.
"Luckily my uncle is a butterfly fanatic, so attaining the Death's-head Hawk Moth's chrysalis was really no issue at all. He's got a lot in stock. Apparently, he breeds them for Uagadou! A much-wanted ingredient, especially with so many self-transfigurations happening." Morgan had never heard of a butterfly breeder and was listening attentively to her Ugandan friend.
"His backyard is filled with Nightshade flowers, host plants for Death-head Hawk Moths, such an admirable sight," Imena sighed reminiscing her uncle's ecological stock farm and the horizon-wide view of Nightshade flowers.
"The hardest was waiting for storm. Besides the rain seasons, Uganda has an incredibly dry climate you see. Fortune was again on my side however," Imena paused giving Morgan a sleek, secretive look before resuming. "At the end of summer, as if climaxing my stay, the sky finally electrified and I was able to incantate, wand tipped to the heart: 'Amato Animo Animato Animagus.'" Eyes closed, Imena rehearsed the incantation, right fingertip pointed at her heart. Bewitched by her friend's performance, Morgan half-expected her friend to shape shift there and then. But nothing of the sort happened. Her friend was still wrapped in human form when she snapped open her quirky anthropoid eyes.
"And then I sensed not one, but two heartbeats. The sign I had to retrieve my crystal phial, which was now colored scarlet as blood, and I sought a place in the forest engulfing my family's land, sealed off from any human inhabitation. In safety thus, I drank the potion, repeating 'Amato Animo Animato Animagus." Morgan was likewise drinking Imena's words, her friend's sudden pause disrupting the narrative and rattling her.
Imena scrunched her eyebrows in painful worry. Staring at the invisible but sensible airy space between them, the witch seemed to recollect something bothersome, and Morgan began to feel concerned.
Her friend's eyes suddenly flicked towards her; hidden hurt portrayed in her pupils. "It hurt so much." Imena couldn't conceal her somewhat broken voice.
"My skin seemed simultaneously expanded yet smaller in volume and my skeleton detracted, shuffling itself in an ill-fitted puzzle. And it pressed and pressed to try and force it to fit. I thought there were bones breaking within my bones." Pain was still etched in Imena's temple.
"But my mind…" She continued suddenly, taking on a dreamier tone. "My mind soared out of bounds–multiplied beyond duplication. I knew I had to show no fear and honestly, I felt none. Soaring with my mind I felt my imagination go up, up and beyond, and standing clearly before my mind's eye I saw the kob, my kob, me."
Her eyes twinkled in excitement, hands grabbing the imperceptible air between them, trying to catch in hand motions what her articulations couldn't visualize.
"And then it was me. My feet, my hands, hooves. Besides my ears and eyes, horns. All of a sudden, I was walking on all fours and my tongue tasted hungrily for grass."
"Wow." Honest amazement was all that Morgan could utter.
"And then I stayed in antelope shape for about three days! Couldn't visualize my human form clearly enough anymore. I was curious, way too curious about this animal embodiment. But I started to get worried. What if I was forever stuck with hooves and horns and a taste for grass? So I set my mind to it and before I realized what had happened, there I was I again." Imena rubbed her hands and traced her arm's skin to verify its materiality with a misty smile.
"And now…?" Morgan inquired with her friend her skillfulness.
"Watch me." Imena closed her eyes.
"Not here! You can't. What if–" A startled Morgan burst out.
One eye opening, a grin started bowed Imena's lips. "Hush. I do not plan on letting anyone but you in on my secret. I'm not an idiot."
At that very moment, their compartment doors opened with a swift swoosh adding to Morgan's startlement.
"Anything from the trolley dears?" The sentence didn't match the speaker. Instead of the elderly, greyish, slightly hunchbacked witch usually accompanying the Honneydukes Express, two twinned smirks faced the witches from the doorway.
"We've got sweets." Fred enthused, thrusting himself into the compartment.
"Explosive ones included." George added quickly, following.
"Sours." Fred opted, taking a seat next to Imena.
"Explosive ones included." His twin repeated, closing the compartment door with his hands skillfully blindly behind his back.
"And very nasty ones." Fred wiggled his eyebrows at his bench companion.
"Very explosive ones included." George tuned in, taking a seat next to Morgan. A small suitcase, no doubt filled with Weasley-twin antics, secured between his legs.
"Looking for trouble I see," Imena answered the twins dully.
"Don't need no searching. We are trouble," Fred wittingly replied. "And aren't you curious what treasures we've got with us." Fred pointed at the witch beside him before gesturing towards the suitcase in between his twins' legs.
"Oh, I know what's in there."
Fred raised his eyebrows again, but this time they remained raised in challenging wonder. George, on the other hand, met Morgan's gaze with an understanding smile before watching the two opposite him again.
"Didn't know your predictive powers saw through leather cases," challenged Fred the witch beside him.
"It's called inference. A way of moving from stable premises to a logical conclusion," Imena accepted.
"Which are?"
"You two," Imena indicated the twins, index and middle finger shaped in a v. "Plus Filibuster fireworks, Dungbombs, Bulbadox powder, and probably your latest version of The Skiving Snackbox." Imena said nodding towards the suitcase, slightly sneering but amused still.
"They're quite fond of that last one," Morgan smiled knowingly.
"George, we have a fan amongst us!" Fred said sardonically.
"Positively Ludacris! Honored, really," his twin retorted, hand on his heart, bowing his hand slightly in reverence.
"Your inventiveness is much appreciated but I don't think you've the right audience before you." Not often did Imena let slip her appreciation of others' skills. But it was hard to deny the twins' artistry–even for her.
"I for one have already seen enough of your tomfoolery," Morgan agreed with her friend. Over the years, Morgan had been, interchangeably, test subject, object, and audience of her older brothers' pranks, and had acquired a useful skill of spotting in them their slight and secretive transformation precursing a prank. This turned out to be an incredibly convenient skill when attempting to escape their antics.
"Not even a decoy detonator?" Fred asked unbelievably, turning towards Imena specifically.
"Very explosive," George emphasized salesmanlike.
"Very prototype as well." Their sister pressed with matching concern.
"Which makes it all the more explosive," George grinned her consternation away.
"No thank you, I'll leave the demolition of Hogwarts up to you. You have quite the talent."
"Are you going past every compartment?" Morgan inquired with her brothers.
"Every," they echoed in unison.
"As you can see, we even visit the Slytherins, egalitarians that we are," Fred began, gesturing at the two Slytherin witches.
"In fact, after Gryffindors, Slytherins are our largest clientele," George informed them. "Who would have guessed," he added cunningly.
"Some do enjoy some explosiveness, apparently," Fred finished.
"Apparently." Imena's voice echoed thoughtfully while watching the rainy English scenery morph itself into a rainy Scottish one.
George had just started briefing Morgan which fourth-year students they had come across already and what products they had bought when a most peculiar thing happened.
The train began to move slower and slower until all the last bits of energy were pursed out of its rotating wheels. Thunderstruck, the train then came to a complete standstill, and Fred, George, Imena, and Morgan looked at each other rather questioningly. With their senses heightened and the train completely still, the rain drummed loudly on their compartment window.
And then, without a sound, it got dark. All the lanternlights flickered before evaporating as if sucked up by a Deluminator. Only Imena's necklace, reacting to the sudden total darkness, shone a blueish light.
"Moonstone," she whispered upon seeing the Weasleys' questioning gazes.
Little lit, the compartment dropped in temperature. Morgan could see Imena's reflection in the window glass as her friend peered through it to see what was happening. Yet, she didn't have to look far.
"What is that?" Intrigue thick in Imena's words.
Across the window, slowly and creepily, legions of ice crystals were conquering the glass surface, troubling its transparency.
"Is that ice?" George asked amazed and a ponderously nodding Imena answered him.
"It's freezing. How can it suddenly be freezing?" Fred queried aloud, eying the glass suspiciously.
With a sudden sharp, metallic bang the compartment doors flew open again, presenting the most horrific, the most terrible, the most ghastly sight Morgan had ever seen. Two cloaked, wraithlike figures, with blurry outlines that seemed shrouded in smoke, hovered in the doorway, their veiled faces tilted towards them.
An audible gasp left Morgan. It seemed to have attracted the foul creatures before her, for the front one glided inward into the compartment towards her. When it angled a finger at her, she noticed that its hands were skinned and skeletal-like, a blueish rotten flesh was all that held together the bones making up its digits. Before her feelings of anguish could settle in, however, Morgan's eyes started to revert into their sockets as she felt her spirit being suck into void.
A kind of blackness the color of despair revolted around her. Completely submerged in a cold deep-sea of some dimensionless cold nothingness, her ears were vacuum-pressed, and a loud muffled but bleak sound tried cracking her ear drum. From a distance, a high-pitched woman's laugh all of a sudden launched itself. Morgan couldn't quite make out if the woman was hysterically happy or hysterically mad. As the sound came nearer, however, an acute sharp pain struck the palm of her hand. It seemed as if someone had slipped her veins open with a knife. A slimy feeling followed, but she couldn't see nor feel what it was; the darkness prohibited all perception. Stabbing continually, the piercing pain was all that indicated she still had hands. Morgan wanted the pain to go away, wanted the woman to go away, wanted to shout to the woman for the pain to go away. But her screams were shrouded by the thick, lumpy fog stuck in her throat. Desperately, she tried lifting her hands to either attack what was coming or defend herself from what was coming towards her. It came nearer and nearer and…
When Morgan's eyelids lifted, lanternlight again contoured her companions' faces and the warmth was slowly returning her cheeks to its usual color. Her hand no longer hurt. Instead, it felt as though it had been wrapped up again in blankets in an endearing childish kind of safety. Through her eyelashes, heavy with fatigue, she saw Fred opposite her watch her with full concern, his eyes gravitated to her face. Imena, however, was staring at her hand–at how tightly George was holding it–and frowned.
"Morgan, Morgan, are you there?" George asked in a hoarse voice, while his free hand shook her shoulder slightly.
She blinked a couple of times trying to clear her troubled vision. It was still blurry, but she could make out the outlines of her friend and brothers and felt relatively secure in their presence. At least the screeching woman was nowhere nearby.
"Present," she answered astutely with a weak smile. She felt nauseous, a fit of sobs building up tension in her chest. "What–" but she didn't need to finish the sentence.
"That was a dementor," Imena clarified gravely, never once taking her eyes off the interlacement of George and Morgan's fingers. "Azkaban's guards."
"Little far off from Azkaban won't you say?" There would have been humor in Fred's voice if it wasn't already filled with distrust.
"They must have been looking for something." George pondered while his thumb, almost imperceptibly, as if scared of the actual act of touching, started stroking Morgan's hand. Morgan absently traced each how each of his subtle strokes quested yet unexplored territory. She felt it before she realized she did; little electrifying shocks spread through her flesh, like a hurdle of tiny insects tickling her skin from within. Her eyes snapped open fully, darting nervously around the room when she realized at once the reality of her hand's interlacement with George's. Heart hammering roughly and blushing suddenly alarmedly, Morgan noticed Imena's gaze on her, eyes coveted with undecipherable exegesis. Instantly but reluctantly, Morgan let loose his hand, the empty air around a hostile cold.
Morgan wasn't sure if her brother had meant for his touch to go beyond fraternal but judging from his slightly scarlet ears at least one ant must have been bugging him. Regardless, she was sure, no, better yet absolutely convinced that their handholding ought not to go hand-in-hand with that familiar not familial illicit, interdicted, and verboten tingly sensation that sinned, purred, and heated the network of nerves threading her body whenever George did as much as brush her shoulder or smell like mudded grass after a game of quidditch.
Nausea doomed up again, induced by a strong scent of something akin to shame. She was sure they could all smell it.
"Sirius Black," Imena spoke absently but, as though remembering something suddenly, turned towards the twins. "Do you have any chocolate in there that is not hexed?"
'"Fraid not," Fred answered sheepishly. "Why?"
"Helps with," Imena started but seemed to question which words to pick. "The scare."
"We'll add that one to the list," George spoke softly, observing Morgan from the corner of his eyes. Morgan noticed but pretended not to have.
"What happened?" Fred asked, leaning on the elbows he had planted on his knees.
"You tell me," Morgan retorted her brother as she rubbed her arms and folded them around her ribs as a pair of broken wings. "One moment I was looking at a rotten, skeletal hand and the next I was sucked up by an enormous shadow. I could see nothing. I could hear no–"
"What is it?" Imena demanded gently, noticing how Morgan stifled.
"There was a woman's voice, it was screeching. Deliriously or ecstatically but franticly certainly. And then…" Morgan tried swallowing a stony blockage. "Pain. A piercing, sharp, and cutting pain. But in my hand only."
She held up her right hand, palm lifted towards Imena. "And then, as sudden as I was drawn in, I was spat out again–dementors no longer in sight."
Her brothers and Imena remained silent. They looked puzzled, but the sort of puzzlement one
feels when one has a very sudden, very peculiar realization.
"What?" Morgan pressed when she met only avoiding gazes.
George watched Imena heedfully while Fred dodged his sister's eyes by staring at the floor. The slightest smile seemed to play his lips. Only Imena, ever observant Imena, stared right back.
"The dementors–they got scared away when you grabbed George's hand," Imena explained casually.
"I did what?" She snatched her hand away from sight, tucking it far away under her left arm as she felt a blush blemish her cheeks again.
"You were scared," she heard George soothe beside her, but she didn't dare looking at him.
"Personally, I would never trust George with my life," Fred grinned.
"Saved your ass many times that trust did," George grinned right back.
"But why did the dementors leave when–" Morgan frowned confused, uncertain if she even wanted to know the answer.
"I have an hypothesis," Imena started but upon seeing a hopeful Morgan quickly added: "but it needs verification."
"Nah, that's no fun. You need to dare a little. Try us. Experiment. That's how me and Georgie do it."
"And look where it got the two of you." Imena retaliated.
"Ough!" Hurt filled Fred's face.
"I just saved someone's life!" George countered her, grin planted on his face again.
Morgan was, however, all too eager to keep Imena from spilling any more embarrassing facts.
"Why didn't any of you black out from those dementors?" her still somewhat weak voice brought out.
The twins exchanged a glance for a moment that was unreadable to Morgan, who saw Imena slightly shaking her head in nescience.
"Dunno," Fred began. "But I felt awful though. Like I would never be able to laugh again."
"All humor sucked out of the world," his twin added with a frown.
"A cold,"
"And grim,"
"Somber cheerlessness."
A deep desire to dissolve into tears overtook Morgan as she listened to how the rain a tickled the window glass affirmatively. Those dementors seemed to have deposited bits of their desolation within her.
"Did y'all hear that?" George asked as he set up straight, head tilting sidewards towards the compartment's entrance. A distant scream had traveled to their compartment.
"Sure did," Fred answered instantly.
"Another attack?" A panic-stricken Morgan muttered.
Fred and George both gazed at Morgan for a second before looking at each other and George nodded upon some unspoken brotherly understanding. Immediately, Fred stood up, followed by his twin. "We're going to scope out the situation," he spoke solemnly, but the hidden eagerness in his voice was badly concealed. His eyes slightly twinkled in anticipation.
No! Morgan thought but a fiercely felt fear and sudden speechlessness prohibited her from saying so out loud. By way of speaking, however, her hand moved towards George's underarm, holding it softly. Big eyed eyes gazed straight in his.
"Will be back in a few," he promised gingerly, whereafter Morgan's hand slipped from his skin resentfully. With undue persistence, her heart pounded as her brothers finessed through the compartment doors. An at once impatient, concerned, and slightly amused sigh escaped Imena's lips as she gave Morgan an understanding look. Those two.
They heard their footsteps before anything. Sounds of hasted shuffling bounced through the train's hallway against the metallic of their compartment doors. Morgan and Imena awaited the doors' opening with anticipation.
"Harry," Fred panted as he stormed into their cabin.
"It was Harry, got sucked up just like you," George clarified, leaning against the cold metal frame.
"Is he all right?" Morgan asked fearfully.
"Appears so. Got real lucky with our new D.A.D.A. prof sitting right next to him."
"Our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher was there?" Imena asked incomprehensively.
"Uh uh," confirmed Fred. "Started his class early this year I suppose."
Imena rolled her eyes up at Fred's comment.
"And how is our little Fata Morgana? No longer distorted?" Her brother went on, turning towards her beaming.
"Only a bit contorted still," replied Morgan with a soft chuckle.
"Bought and brought you this. Might help," George said as he handed Morgan a chocolate bar, a concerned stare, badly hidden behind an iffy smile, stuck on her while he watched her fiddle the bar with her hands to avoid his glance. Thinking of the piercing pain of a warm touch.