A/N: I wanted to thank the people that followed and favorited last chapter. And a special thanks goes out to the two that reviewed! I'm so glad that you guys left me a little comment!
Chapter Eleven: Immediate Action
The first time that Clara Dechamps magic had gotten away from her was when she was six and her mother took a stolen cookie away from her. She had broken the teapot, sending steaming water sloshing all over the stove and her mother, screaming across the room. For one moment, there had been actual fear in her mother's eyes as they stared across the room at her red-faced daughter.
But that terror had quickly vanished when the silver-haired girl had burst into a slobbering, snotty wail, declaring that she had only wanted to look at the cookie, not eat it, and why was mama such a meanie?
A fluke, Willa DeChamp decided on, picking her child up and scolding her lightly. That was all it could be for magic didn't just pop out of normal witches and wizards. It lash out into the world to harm at the mere thought. No - for that, a witch needed to be older. So, for now, the broken teapot was a fluke and her daughter was normal.
The second incident could be debated. For Clara, the next bursting of her magical dam came only a few months later at the birth of her baby sister. In the weeks and months after and the years to come, Clara would look back on it and find something wretched and twisted sitting in her place in her memories. In those weeks of wishing she could imagine herself becoming something grotesque, hideous enough to throw a curse on her own sister.
However, her parent's remembered her second incident as a tussle with a local farmers boy who had called her ugly at the age of seven. His hair had turned silvery, bouncing into a riot of curls and his eyes had seeped from a deep brown to a tawny, golden hue. They had found her only a moment or two later, pointing at the river nearby. If you think I'm ugly, you should see what you look like now, she had declared defiantly, her eyes already growing murky with unshed tears.
Immediate action, Alicio had declared. An auror not only by trade but heart, he had seen the way that things in life spiraled. The tides had turned dark and muddy the days of late and he didn't want his child to be swept away - no matter the age.
So the Dechamps took immediate action. Alicio jumped into the history of wayward magic, trying to drill into the young witches head the error of rash emotions. Each lesson was a study in boredom. Clara wasn't a particularly attentive student, her eyes always flying to the window and her mind on a constant tumble to the next subject.
Willa taught her after school in potions and botany, emphasizing the slow, patient crawl of growing plants. This Clara took to with a sort of devotion. It became the new religion in their life. Patience, Clara's mother repeated regularly, was the cornerstone of all magic. Or at least all magic with any substance to it. Clara didn't fully understand this. Power was power and patience was a slower man's way of handling emotions.
"Magic, my darling," Willa whispered to her one day as they cleaned a bundle of moth wings to out in a Nightmare tonic. "Is like having a cage of birds inside of you. They flutter and they caw and they scratch at those bars to get free. Some people just have a latch on the door that's a little faulty."
"Does that mean that I'm weak?" Clara breathed after a long pause, feeling something inside of her give a little bit. Her family wasn't weak. To be weak was to be useless, the black mark on her otherwise glowing relatives. It was a feeling that the small witch had had since the birth of her little sister.
"Weak-" Willa stuttered over the word, eyeing the snowy golden curls that were nearly spilling into the boiling cauldron of seafoam and fresh river's water. No. That word didn't seem right as she stared into her daughter's striking eyes. "No. No, darling. You didn't let me finish. Some people just have a broken latch that all of those wild, stir-crazy creatures can pick away at. And then there are others - others who have too many birds to fit inside of those metal bars."
So that was the nature of magic. Fickle and rash it could burst free at any moment. And either through a faulty latch or too many birds, Clara's magic swelled and burst from her with a fierceness that scared the people around her.
So Clara stuffed it down, keeping all those birds quiet. She learned alternatives to using her wand and spellbook. She learned control. Because she didn't want to scare anyone - and more than that, she didn't want to hurt anyone. She had already done enough of that.
A short, angry hoot was what woke Clara from a particularly wonderful dream about eating a tub full of some of her mother's famous lemon lavender cookies.
"Oh good, she's awake," a voice chirped from somewhere near her head. A dull thumping had started in her head, making the morning light streaming through the curtains above her bed painful.
"So she is," a deeper voice murmured with an amused lilt that made Clara think that he was smiling. She supposed pretending to pass out again would make her look more pathetic than she already was so she forced herself to her elbows, ignoring the grumble her muscles gave in protest. Professor Dumbledore's eyes shut as he gave a gentle smile, crows feet appearing at the corner of his eyes beneath the half-moons of his glasses. "Good morning, Miss Deschamp. I assume you've had a good night's rest?"
Something about that question made her uneasy. Particularly at the thought that it came after a night of blowing out the Great Halls windows. Deeply unsettled, Clara picked at the knit blankets of her cot. By the open bay and the matching beds rowed up beside and across from her, she assumed they had dragged her to the infirmary. The snowy-haired witch winced. Above her bed, resting on the windowsill, George gave a few hoots that sounded a lot like laughter. The dumb bird.
"Oh don't tease the poor girl, Albus," Professor Sprout reprimanded. The portly woman patted Clara's hand fondly, her eyes sparkling. "You're not in trouble, dearest."
Clara wasn't entirely sure she believed that. She had lost control like a child and endangered the whole of Hogwarts in the process. Shame made her stomach knot. "I apologize, headmaster. I thought -"
She had thought that her younger years had beaten down all of that wayward magic. Still… sometimes she could feel something inside of herself that beat every time she held her wand. Something that yearned to strike out and inflict… pain.
"Forgive me, Clara...but I took the liberty of taking a look at your wand…" It was then that she finally noticed the thin ivory wand that the headmaster was fingering slowly. His eyes were watchful as they ran over the stricken witch, her face going pale. "I merely ran across it when taking you to the infirmary… It is of quite an odd make."
"Oh?" The word sounded too strained, Clara's lips tight as her eyes flicked from the wand up to Dumbledore's face in quick, flighty sweeps.
"The handle is made of dumortierite," he started slowly, his long fingers toying with the deep blue that had been smoothed from years of use before moving farther up. "Wood made from beech tree, aged for 1,000 years… and finally a core of feng-huang feathers…" His eyes were troubled as they eyed Clara, the witches heart squeezing with anxiety.
She didn't know what to say. She wasn't sure if he wanted her to say anything at all. George hooted nervously, his feathers ruffling.
"Beech tree…" he started, setting the wand down with thinned lips on a stand just beside Clara's cot.
"Right sturdy piece of work that one," Professor Sprout piped up, her lips twitching with interest. "Very powerful in spells of patience."
"As is the dumortierite stone," Professor Dumbledore quirked. "While the feathers of the feng-huang are a bit of a different story. Some historians have referred to it as the Chinese version of the average phoenix however it's true power does not come from resurrections but rather-"
"Spells of control," Professor Sprout finished with a huff, frowning. Clara's skin crawled.
The distant sound of conversations drifted through the heavy doors of the infirmary as the three sat in silence, a tense sort of tug of war happening between them. Finally, Dumbledore broke the silence, his eyes darkening.
"A wand like this, Miss Deschamp," he shook his head, eyeing the offending object with obvious distrust. "It's not meant to aide but to restrict."
Clara flinched, a dull shock going through her system. Of course, she thought. Of course, she knew that her wand was meant to control her power instead of amplifying it. She knew this, she told herself. Her parents had never told her in so many words what her wand was meant to inhibit but she had always known. Her powers needed to be controlled. If anything, the night before showed that.
"I -" Clara fumbled for words, a million different answers piling up in her throat. "I'm not sure…"
"Dear girl, we're not trying to attack you," Professor Sprout soothed, reaching a hand out to stroke along Clara's. "We're simply trying to deduce why a witch has such a thing."
"One of these ingredients would be understandable in a wand," Dumbledore mused. "It would be used simply as a means to control the spell being cast - give it a bit more structure. But to have so many elements - it's as if you're trying to tie your magic down."
Worry marred Professor Sprout's face.
"I-" Clara closed her eyes tightly, slogging through her own embarrassment. The truth - it was best to tell the truth. George cooed, fluttering down to Clara's shoulder and perching there. The sharpness of his talons helped center her. "When I was younger, I couldn't control myself. I would - I would cast spells without even meaning to - without even knowing how I had done it. It got to be too much. Other people would have gotten hurt-" Clara winced, her sister's pale, tired face flashing across her vision. "People did get hurt."
Professor Sprout made a tutting sound, her eyes furrowing.
"Hhhmm," Dumbledore mused, his brows crinkling for a moment. "Miss Deschamp, have you ever heard of what happens to a wizard that suppresses their magic?"
"Albus-" Professor Sprout had stiffened where she stood, her words sharp as she glared over at the graying wizard who merely gave a small smile in return.
Sharp eyes flicked to meet Clara's, waiting. George's talons dug further into the flesh of her shoulder, making her jerk. "I - I don't know."
"It becomes something twisted," he said softly, his gaze moving to just beyond the window. "Witches and wizards in communal settings is still a fairly new concept. Before all of this there were far more of us burrowed underground, hiding. Hiding from muggles." Clara flinched, something about the way his voice dropped made her skin crawl. "Any matter, when a wizard suppresses the magic inside of them instead of learning to wield it… Miss Deschamp, I don't believe that you want to dive into that sort of darkness."
"Not that we ever thought you would, dearie," Professor Sprout burst, her tightly sealed lips finally popping open as she began to bustle around my bed, straightening sheets and clucking at George until he gave a happy hoot. Her eyes snapped over to the bearded wizard, snapping. "Isn't that right, Professor Dumbledore?"
Dumbledore's striking eyes stayed on Clara for a long, disconcerting moment, his face lined with something that Clara couldn't quite pin down. Finally, Dumbledore blinked. "Oh goodness, no." His hands moved to the nearly forgotten wand. "Only a story to warn you of the danger of trying to restrain your magical abilities."
"You need to learn to harness them." Professor Sprout gave a girlish giggle as George nipped at her fingertips. "Oh, who's a pretty birdie."
"Precisely!" Professor Dumbledore cheered, grinning. "So henceforth, I'll be contacting your parents and discussing with them the possibility of getting a new wand. And in the meantime…"
The heavy oak doors of the infirmary gave a low groan as they opened.
"Headmaster, you requested my presence," an oily voice carried through the room, the doors admitting a thin man with sallow skin and a large, hooked nose. Greasy black hair hung to his shoulders.
"Severus," Dumbledore called with a jovial smile. Giving a curt nod, the headmaster turned that smile on Clara. "In the next few days, I'll be entrusting your education to Professor Snape. He will be instructing you on how to handle your rather unruly powers."
The glare that the ebony-haired man was shooting Clara said more than the headmaster ever would. Like that Severus Snape would rather shove Clara's head into a vat of boiling polyjuice potion.
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