Return of the Unicorns, Chapter 16
Note: This chapter will be from Hope's perspective again.
Another note: If you haven't seen the movie The Iron Giant, it came out in 1999 and it was one of my absolute favorite animated movies as a kid. It is so sweet. The spoilers I include in this chapter do not ruin the movie AT ALL.
Hope was dreaming. Sometimes, she dreamt lucidly, which was what was happening now.
Presently, she was standing in a vast kitchen, many times her size. In fact, compared to the kitchen, she was so small that she stood like an ingredient on the counter. She spent a moment wondering what her flavor was and what dish it was going to be included in.
Then, a massive, white-gloved hand belonging to some unknown entity scooped her up, slapped her on a cutting board, chopped her up, and dropped her in a blender by herself before pressing the "PUREE" button.
The odd thing about it all was that even as she was being chopped and blended, Hope felt no pain, and she could still see everything around her.
Then, the mysterious, enormous, white-gloved hand poured the Hope-smoothie into a glass and blew on the glass, as if to cool the contents into a solid. Then, the hand lifted the solidified the frozen Hope-smoothie out of the glass, which had solidified into… Hope. She had come out as herself.
Then, the hand in a white glove picked her up, chopped her into pieces once more, and she got blended again. She came out as a unicorn. Then, she got blended yet again. Then, she came out as herself.
The chopping and blending should've felt violent, but the repetition of being taken apart and put back together was somehow soothing.
Then, the dream changed. She was in one of her favorite childhood movies, The Iron Giant. She was in one of the final scenes, where the giant took off into the sky, ramming into a missile, to save the citizens of a small town in Maine from being blown to smithereens.
In fact, she WAS the Iron Giant. SHE was hurtling toward that missile, ready to sacrifice herself, whispering "Superman" as she approached it, knowing she was about to do something heroic.
Then, just like the namesake character of the film, Hope got blown to smithereens by the missile and landed, in pieces, atop a glacier in Iceland. Then, just like in the movie, the pieces moved toward one another, re-assembling her into… Hope, again.
What the heck?
Hope woke up in a soft, curtained four-poster bed. She parted the curtains to reveal daylight filtering through the windows of the 1700's or 1800's style bedroom. It was a well decorated room, if a tad dusty.
She rubbed her eyes, thinking over her dreams. Perhaps, they were a metaphor for how she'd been a unicorn, then gotten killed, then reincarnated as Hope, and then realized she'd been a unicorn. The blender metaphor and the Iron Giant metaphor were certainly both appropriate for that, especially since she had to re-gather her unicorn memories, just like the Iron Giant had to re-gather all its parts. These realizations made her dreams feel quite appropriate.
Her gaze darted to the bedside table, which held a glass of water and a bottle labeled "painkiller potion." Thirsty, she downed the water in a few swift gulps. Then, her eyes darted to the painkiller potion. Every part of her was indeed aching mightily from the fight against the giants. But was it REALLY a potion to heal her? Hope waved aside the question, figuring that anyone who wanted her dead would've killed her already, so the potion couldn't possibly be harmful. She downed it in one last swift gulp and felt the pain recede from her body.
Feeling refreshed, she got out of bed and soon discovered the spacious and spotless en-suite bathroom, where she went to take a very nice shower.
When she emerged, she found that someone had put a set of fresh, clean clothes on the bed, so she mentally thanked whoever had been so thoughtful to look after her, changed into them, and left the bedroom.
While the bedroom was fancy and immaculate, the hallway was a grim disaster. It was dank and dusty and the portraits glared at her from their frames. And who used elf heads on plaques to decorate? She shuddered. Was she on the set of one of those crazy home renovation shows, and they just hadn't finished everything yet?
Fortunately, Sirius Black was coming down the hall. He could explain things! He was accompanied by a woman in healer's robes who had gray hair and a kind face.
"Ah, Hope, you're already up," he said. "This is Poppy Pomfrey," said Sirius. "She gave you a medical exam after you fainted."
"You suffered a bit of magical exhaustion, but you should be feeling better from that today. And of course, you'll probably still be aching k
A realization dawned on Hope. "Of course! You're the Hogwarts school nurse! Do I have you to thank for the painkiller potion this morning?"
Madam Pomfrey nodded.
"You're my hero," said Hope with a grin.
"Kingsley Shacklebolt told me that you did out there to fight the giants and I must say, it was quite reckless!" said Madam Pomfrey. "But you were very brave and I'm glad to see you're all right."
"Thanks for your help," replied Hope. "Uh, since you have healing expertise, may I please ask one more question?"
"Of course."
"I… have memory issues. It's not like I'm forgetting things that happened during THIS lifetime, but I'm remembering things, like how to do transfiguration and how to shoot lightning out of the tips of my fingers. And I have no idea where I learned them. Sorry if that sounds crazy."
"Well, you are a reincarnated unicorn, are you not?" asked the kind nurse.
"Yes."
"Well, you could be recalling something from a past life, then."
"But how could I have learned transfiguration and shooting lighting as a unicorn? Unicorns don't know those kinds of wizarding skills, and I remember nearly everything I did as a unicorn, so if I remember those skills, then if I'd learned them as a unicorn – I would've remembered the lessons too, right?"
"Hmm," pondered Madam Pomfrey, "Well, considering you're the first patient I've ever had that's died, I'm a tad inexperienced with postmortem memory retrieval… but perhaps the skills you can't place were somehow transferred to your mind?"
"It's possible – like how I suddenly got magical powers at the age of 21!"
"I wish I could tell you more, but that is genuinely my best guess," she sighed.
"Thanks anyway."
"Of course, Hope. Now, I must be off. I've sick students to attend to, so I'd better be getting back to Hogwarts!"
Hope gave her a small wave. "Bye!"
But the medi-witch had disappeared down the corridor, in search of the nearest floo network fireplace, to notice.
Hope turned to Sirius. "So, where are we?" she asked.
"Sorry," Sirius muttered when he'd recovered. "Fidelius Charm. Prohibits me from telling you the secret – but you'll find out soon enough. I'll introduce you to the others and then they'll fill you in."
Hope just nodded and let Sirius lead her down the dank disaster of a hallway into a meeting taking place in the brightly lit and freshly scrubbed kitchen.
Kingsley, Hagrid, and Remus were waiting for them, as well as a one-legged wizard with a mangled face that looked as if it'd been roughly carved from wood. The man had crizzled dark gray hair and different-looking eyes: one, a normal eye, and the other, a bright blue magical eye that whizzed about in its socket.
The one-legged man looked scarily familiar to Hope, but she couldn't quite place him
"Hagrid!" she beamed. "Are you all right? How is Grawp – is he adjusting to Hogwarts? Will you go back to teaching Care of Magical Creatures now that you're back at Hogwarts?"
"Aye, I'm all right, thanks t' you." said a welcoming Hagrid. "But how d' yeh know I teach Care of Magical Creatures?"
Remus and Sirius shot each other questioning looks and Remus added, "That's a good question, because k
"Like, like, like…" Hope stammered and then trailed off. But then, she remembered! "You're Allastor Moody, nicknamed Mad-Eye Moody! You're a famous and accomplished Auror and you taught Defense Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts last year!"
"Aye, most o' what you said is correct," said the wizard. "But it wasn't really me that was teaching Defense last year. It was a Death Eater impostor taking Polyjuice Potion to pretend to be me. So, I didn't get to do much teaching after all, did I?"
"Wait, WHAT? What did the impostor do to you? Are you okay?" cried a suddenly distressed Hope.
"We're not going to let her get in here and spy on us all, just for asking nice!"
"Oh, no," sighed Hope. "It must've been really traumatic if you feel like you can't trust anyone! Listen, I get that you don't feel comfortable telling me things, but if there's anything I can do-"
Sirius and Remus busted up laughing at the same time, and Hope could see the spark of connection as they made eye contact across the kitchen, sharing in a common joke with only a look. She was happy for them.
"Mad eye's always paranoid!" barked Sirius. "He was practically born that way!"
"Well, still, I'm sorry the impostor thing happened to you."
"I'm all right now, lass," sighed Moody.
Sirius stood and cleared his throat. "Right, now, the reason Remus and I teamed up with Hope here is that she had a strategy to kick the giants out of the territory they'd invaded in Northern Scotland – and it worked! Basically, she's brave and talented. And fucking brilliant. As fuck. Like, she's really good at math and she got into Harvard Law school – and I never even took Muggle Studies at Hogwarts, but even I have heard of that one."
"The Order doesn't need a Harvard lawyer!" barked Moody.
"Oh, yeah, and main point, she's a reincarnated unicorn, which means she has special powers. She was killed by You-Know-Who in her past life, so she's, like, really, really invested in bringing him down. And since she accomplished in two hours what the Order didn't accomplish in months – sorry, Hagrid –"
The half-giant shrugged it off. After Gortomath had risen to dominance over the horde of giants, there was no chance for him to persuade them not to side with the Dark Lord. But he was still glad he'd tried, since he'd gotten to rescue his brother.
"Anyway, should I have mentioned that first?" finished Sirius.
"Obviously," Remus mouthed silently to Sirius, before blowing the other man a kiss. Gosh, they were just too cute.
"Well, I s'pose, given what happened against the giants, we've got some use for a reincarnated unicorn, but why do we have to have her here?" Moody barked, glaring at Kingsley.
"Why don't we learn some more about her?" asked Kingsley. "Hope, would you like some tea?"
"Sure," she replied.
"Milk and sugar?" he asked.
"You know, considering we don't know each other, it's odd that you'd fix my tea this way for me," observed Hope. "You've totally put veritaserum into this, haven't you?"
Kingsley coughed nervously a couple of times, as if he hadn't expected to be found out so easily.
"I'm not the smartest person on the planet, but I do pay attention," she said with a shrug. "But, being part of some organization called The Order that fights the Dark Lord, I guess you have reason to be really cautious. A stranger showing up at your doorstep, even one that helped your cause, would arouse suspicion. I get that."
She downed the tea in a few swift gulps. "Could I actually have another cup of tea, please? I'm thirsty and I haven't totally woken up yet."
"Of course," replied Kingsley.
Hope could feel a faint tingling and she knew implicitly that the Veritaserum was working – and it had loosened her tongue. "Thanks, Kingsley. And hey, I totally understand being this cautious in a situation where you're fighting the Dark Lord. He killed me in my past life, and I never even suspected it!"
"Right…" said Moody.
"Anyway, the point is, I get that trust between us isn't going to happen immediately, and that's okay. I've noticed that much. Like you say, Professor Moody, constant vigilance, right?"
Moody laughed reluctantly, but Hope called it a win to get him to laugh at all. "Well, I guess the Veritaserum has taken effect. So, Miss Hope, would you care to tell us what your past life as a unicorn was like, and how exactly you ended up here?"
So, Hope gave him – and Hagrid and Sirius and Remus and Kingsley – a quick summary of her life: growing up in Vermont, going to Wellesley, discovering she was a unicorn, finishing at Wellesley, discovering she had magic powers, coming to England, working for the Ministry of Magic as a statistician. She left out her relationship with Andrew, and the accident that'd ended their relationship. She wanted to keep it short and sweet, and crying about an injury and a breakup would be unnecessary.
"There's one last thing we have to ask, Hope, and I am sorry to be so intrusive. But it's important," said Kingsley. "Are you in a romantic relationship with anyone, at present?"
"No," said Hope. "I was in a relationship until this past June, but it ended."
"How did it end?"
"I got grievously injured in a car crash and that landed me in the hospital for over a week. The guy I was with, Andrew, didn't even visit me once. So, I'm done with him and I'm never going back to him, if that's what you're worried about. What can I say, loyalty is important to me and he obviously didn't have any loyalty left for me."
"Thank you, Hope," said Kingsley.
"I think we might trust you yet," added Mad-Eye Moody.
Hope beamed. She hadn't ever been paid a higher compliment.