AN: This chapter was SUCH a struggle bus. I don't wanna get into everything, but this was definitely the hardest one to write yet. That said, it's all paid off. Cause this chapter is done. The plot is on track. And I have a job! So expect there to be a bit of a wait for chapter 8 just cause I have to move and adjust to a new schedule and all. But I'm really excited about this! I think where I'm moving will be much more conducive to writing than my current location has been.
Disclaimer: See Chapter One
Last Time on Sailor Moon H: Quidditch teams have been picked, classes are underway, and life at Hogwarts remains relatively insulated from the war brewing beyond its walls… Meanwhile the Order is gathering their intelligence, former Muggle Studies student Timothy Abbott is still missing. Voldemort is plotting, and Bellatrix Lestrange is rising as an independent actor… And all the while the second prophecy lingers on the minds of light and dark alike…
War Stories
Harry Potter and Hotaru Tomoe were distracted all day on the third Monday in September and their distraction only increased as the day wore on. Harry wondered if evening would ever arrive, especially after Snape gave him the stink eye for getting out of a detention thanks to what he considered special treatment for "the Chosen One."
Finally though, the end of the day crept up on the both of them. Hotaru caught his eye at dinner just as the pudding was starting to disappear from the tables. Both of them stood at the same time.
"We'll wait up for you," Ami said to Hotaru as she got up.
"Thanks," Hotaru said, looking at she and Luna, but not Megumi.
Ami saw the first years shoulders sag and frowned at Hotaru, who'd just slung her bag over her shoulder.
"You'll let us know what happens, right?" Luna said. "Whatever Dumbledore's got to teach is probably fascinating."
Hotaru nodded and walked past the end of the table, meeting Harry at the doors of the Great Hall.
"Acid Pops," as Harry had predicted, was indeed the password to Dumbledore's office. The two of them dashed up the moving stairs as soon as the Gargoyle had swung aside.
"Ah, Mr. Potter, Miss. Tomoe, right on time." Dumbledore smiled at them as they stepped through the office door. He waved them towards the two arm chairs in front of his desk. "Have a seat. Lemon drop?"
"No thanks, Sir." Harry said, and Hotaru shook her head as well, eyes looking all around the office, lingering on the stone basin on Dumbledore's desk, one Harry recognized.
"Sir," Hotaru said, standing on her toes to see the inside of the basin and the strange swirling blue liquid within it. "What is this?"
"An apt question. Harry, could you explain?"
"It's a Pensieve," Harry said. "You can view memories in it like," his eyes were drawn to the cabinet of glowing vials behind Dumbledore's desk. "Like those. It works by... err, diving into it."
"Precisely," Dumbledore said, smiling. "I am happy to see that summer has not dulled your wit as I see so many students claiming it does."
"Wait," Hotaru was glaring at the cabinet. "Those were taken from people?"
"No, no." Dumbledore chuckled. "All freely given – some by myself in fact. And the information they contain – as I'm sure you've put together by now – will be what we are studying in these lessons."
"Information..." Harry frowned. "You won't be teaching me any new magic, Sir?"
Dumbledore, smiling fondly, gave a quick shake of his head. "Harry, my boy. You have all the magic you need to defeat Voldemort. And the capacity to learn much more on your own than I could ever teach you. Particularly given Miss. Granger's stunning propensity for uncovering useful research." He gestured to the Pensieve. "It is not any tricks or dueling strategies that will give you the edge you need against Voldemort, rather it is understanding."
"Sir?"
"Bear with me, Harry. Tom Riddle has gone to great pains over the years to bury his past. Though I think, as you'll come to appreciate this year, it still holds great importance to him. Within it, I believe we have the keys to the locations of those things tethering him to Mortality."
"His soul pieces?" Harry confirmed.
"Horcruxes," Hotaru added.
"But... er." Harry rubbed his scar. "Is it really safe to tell me this sir?"
"You're afraid Voldemort may be listening," Dumbledore nodded, and looked at Hotaru. "What would you say, Miss. Tomoe. Is Voldemort currently here with us?"
"No," Hotaru answered immediately and then, a bit taken aback, frowned at Dumbledore. "How did you know I would know that?"
Dumbledore chuckled. "That you may attribute to long years of practice being a very good guesser."
"So thats why you're here," Harry said relieved. "To make sure Voldemort isn't seeing through my head."
"Alas, that is a benefit. However," Dumbledore waved his hand over the Pensieve and a whispy figure began to form above it. "Miss. Tomoe is here for a far more important reason."
The figure hovering above the Pensieve had become distinct enough to see her features: Luna Lovegood as she had appeared in the second prophecy in the Department of Mysteries.
"As the sun sets on the Elder Stewart, the Chosen One becomes a pair. Created for the Dark Ones' li..." the lower version of her voice intoned, before cutting out at the end, the image fading.
"That memory I obtained from Miss. Lovegood herself from your battle in June," Dumbledore told them. "Unfortunate that we do not know the whole thing. That said." He nodded to Hotaru. "Given that Voldemort selected the first Chosen One by leaving Mr. Potter with his scar, I am inclined to believe that you, Miss. Tomoe may be the second."
Hotaru glanced at Harry. "But... I don't have a connection to Voldemort."
"You do not," Dumbledore agreed. "But Professor Meioh and I both agree, when dealing with related prophecies one must also look for patterns. Voldemort will look for them too. The survival of a killing curse cast by the Dark Lord, and your identical scars stands out to us, just as it surely does," his voice grew lower. "To Voldemort. Thus, we feel it is even more important that you learn what Harry learns because this prophecy, I suspect, is not done coming to fruitation." He waved his hand and the cabinet behind his desk swung open, a single vial floating out. "Now," he continued, gesturing again to the Pensieve as the image of Luna faded. "I want to start tonight with another memory. And since this is a lesson this may also be a teachable moment. Harry," he motioned for him to come closer. "If you could assist."
Harry pulled out his wand, looking sceptically between Dumbledore and the Pensieve.
"I'd like to remove Miss. Lovegood's memory first," Dumbledore said. "If you would place the tip of your wand in the Pensieve. Good. Now, think of the memory coming to you. And use the incantation 'Memini.'"
Harry tried it once, silently, feeling as if this might be some sort of test and sure, when his silent casting didn't work, that he was failing spectacularly. He mumbled the phrase under his breath instead.
The Pensieve began to glow, all the light gathering at the tip of his wand into a fine, blue string.
"Excellent," Dumbledore crowed. "And lower it carefully in here," he said, lifting an empty vial that had been sitting on the desk. "This will be 'Dimitte.'"
"Dimitte." The memory detatched from Harry's wand, coiling up neatly within the vial.
"10 points to Gryffindor, I believe are in order," Dumbledore said. "If you could do the same for this memory." He set Luna's vial aside and uncorked the new one with a bright blue-ish-green string inside and the letters "R.O." written on the glass.
"Memini," Harry whispered, wondering what might happen if he dropped it. He lowered the thin whisp of light into the Pensieve. "Dimitte."
"Very well done." Dumbledore beamed as the memory dispersed into the basin, making it glow brightly. Harry grinned at the praise. "Now, if you would both lean in..."
Hotaru approached cautiously as first Harry and then Dumbledore leaned forward and then appeared to fall into the Pensieve. She conjured her glaive just to be sure, before leaning her head into the basin.
She had begun to wonder if there were liquid in the Pensieve at all when she felt herself slip, and tumble downward. The world spun as she tried to right herself, refocusing a moment later with the ground solidly under her feet and the gray, green light of outside surounding her. "Where are we?" She asked, looking to Harry and Dumbledore beside her.
Harry shrugged.
Dumbledore pointed down the road. "We," he said. "are just about a half mile outside Little Hangleton." On the road, they saw a man approaching in a decidedly bizarre mismatch of clothes. "And there's Mr. Odgen now..."
~SMH~
While the secrets of Lord Voldemort were becoming clear in Dumbledore's office, the secrets of homework up in Gryffindor Tower were becoming less so.
Sora, Usagi, and Ron (seated around one of the larger study tables with Hermione, Ginny, and Neville) seemed to be in a contest over who could write a half-foot of Defence Homework in the longest period of time. Ron had scrapped three tries already. Usagi had more ink on her face than her parchment. And Sora Kaioh had been calligraphying the most elaborate "the" in history for the past ten minutes.
"Oh!" Usagi groaned, making a face. "This. Is. Useless." She looked at Ginny on her left, who was scribbling steadily down her parchment. She was a foot along, only pausing occasionally to flatten the top of her essay each time the parchment rolled up and bopped her on the nose. "How do you write that much?"
Ginny looked up, and then scanned the essay, measuring it with her thumb. She grinned. "Thank Merlin – And I don't know how I'm doing it," she told Usagi. "To be honest, I don't even know what I've been writing."
"Well then," Hermione said, nose buried in the thick library tome of Wizarding geneologies spread in front of her. "You should definitely check it for errors – especially complete sentences."
"Or," Ginny said, setting back to work. "I'll just... blabber on another half foot and Binns won't care." She tapped her quill briefly against her lip and scribbled another line down on the parchment. "Besides – I think I remember most of this actually happening first hand," she said. "So... I don't think it'll be complete nonsense."
"Remember!" Hermione blustered. "But... but I thought you were working on the Welsh conflict of 987!"
"Yeah." Ginny grinned, looking up from her essay. "Jadeite was fifteen for the bulk of that," she said. "That was back when Hogwarts had its own battilion. I was Junior Knight Commander. Which," she said as she casually put another sentence down, "is like being a prefect, but you had a sword."
"Bloody Hell," Ron mumbled. "Mum would flip."
"What did you fight?" Sora asked, pushing her essay away, close enough to the middle of the table that Hermione could lean around Ron and see it.
"Hang on – you've barely got a word done," Hermione nagged, pushing the essay back at the first year.
"Aw come on Hermione," Ron said. "Bet sword fighting's a better defense education than whatever Snape's got her writing."
"You're a prefect," Hermione hissed at him. "Don't encourage her." She tapped the Defense textbook Sora'd been flipping idly through. "Focus."
Sora pouted, propping her head up on her hand and glaring down at the one word on her parchment. "You're not even doing homework," she muttered.
"Mine's finished," Hermione retorted.
"The index in the back could help if you're not sure what you're looking for," Neville said to Sora, who glanced at him and then picked up the back cover of the textbook and flipped it over to look at the index. Neville turned back to his Transfiguration practice then, having just about gotten his goblet to turn into a bird. "Ginny," he asked. "Does being Jadeite help you in any other classes?"
Ginny thought. "I'm quicker in Defence," she said after writing another line of her essay. If she could just get it through a few more inches Binns wouldn't care how much sense it made. "And Rei's been teaching me this trick." She snapped her fingers. A ball of bright red flames flared to life in her palm.
"Cool..." Sora stared, and then glared at Hermione when she coughed and pointed to the defence textbook. Sora carefully scratched a few more words onto her parchment.
"It is cool." Ginny grinned, dismissing the flame and returning to her essay. "And, actually, Transfiguration isn't easier... but Merlin do I appreciate McGonagall a lot more."
"You do?" Usagi asked.
"Um – yeah," Ginny said. "She's sooo much nicer than Jadeite's teacher – and she gives less homework."
"That's impossible," Ron muttered.
"If you think two feet of parchment for every new spell isn't more than by all means," Ginny smirked as Ron's eyes widened. "Tell me how mcuh harder sixth year gets."
Ron gaped, looked down at his half finished Defence essay, and then back at Ginny.
"Exactly – and for detentions," Ginny said, putting the final period on her history essay and leaning back in her chair, crossing her arms behind her head. "He used to have you help with his NEWT class. They'd practice turning you into armchairs, and cats, and such."
"That's unethical!" Hermione exclaimed.
"Yeah," Ginny said. "Lady Hufflepuff put a stop to it once Olin – that's Kunzite," she said to Usagi, "ratted him out." She laughed and closed her eyes. "You know he and Endymion used to skip the class."
"He did!" Usagi exclaimed, pushing her essay away and sitting up straigher. She couldn't imagine Mamo-chan skipping anything.
"Oh – yeah." Ginny grinned. "And they never could find him." She cracked one eye open and looked at Usagi. "You know those wild rose bushes that grow up round the astronomy tower?"
Usagi nodded, hanging on every word.
"Well he grew those – and we had this theory that they were magic and used to hide him from the teachers and the groundskeeper."
"Did he skip a lot of classes?"
"Only Transfiguration. And only when we started working with live things. He wasn't the best at it, see, and he was always afraid he'd hurt them."
"He's always so gentle," Usagi smiled. "He was a Hufflepuff right?"
"Yeah," Ginny said. "Actually – Oh!" She shot up in her chair grinning excitedly.
"She's remembering something," Neville and Ron explained.
"Damn right I did – They made the Sorting Hat for him!"
"Really?" Hermione gaped, not even noticing that Sora'd pushed her essay away again.
"Yeah," Ginny laughed. "Cause he was a Prince, you know. Dad and the others all wanted him in their house and they wouldn't stop arguing about it – so around the time Dad and Slytherin had convinced Ravenclaw about dueling for him, Hufflepuff decided they should find a fairer way of deciding. So they came up with the Sorting Hat..."
Her voice grew more and more excited as she fell into the story. "I remember they spent months working on it, holed up together in the library. Slytherin and Ravenclaw designed the sorting algorithyms and enchantments, and Hufflepuff made the rune sequences that could help it think and speak, and it really was Gryffindor's hat," Ginny laughed, "because Dad was the one who sewed it."
"What was the first sorting like?" Hermione asked.
"Oh it was dramatic – I mean me and Cyrus Ravenclaw got sorted real fast so we had no problem, but Saverio Slytherin nearly got put into Ravenclaw," she said conspiratorially. "I mean it had got the first syllable out, and then the Hat just clammed up for fifteen minutes and finally sent him off to Slytherin House. We always thought Salazar must have confunded it – especially cause Dad was right adamant afterwards about adding protections to it to prevent that sort of thing...
"What about Olin Hufflepuff?" Usagi asked.
"Well he was just Olin then – he was an orphan so he caught Helga's attention because of how he was sorted. She adopted him at the end of our first year." Ginny's voice trailed off, a stunned look crossing her face. She scanned over the whole table. "Neville," she said, "is that exam paper old?"
"Yeah – just got it back in Charms, why?"
"Can I use it?"
"Sure," he said, pushing it across the table. Ginny snatched it up and grabbed Usagi's pen, which could write much faster than her quills and ink. She flipped Neville's exam over and hunched close to it, drawing carefully.
"What's she doing?" Sora Kaioh asked, standing on her seat to see.
"I think she's remembering something else," Usagi said, leaning closer to Ginny.
Their whole table was silent as Ginny drew for several tense minutes, clicking the pen against her forehead every so often as she concentrated on getting the details as exactly as she could.
Finally, she lifted her hand away from the paper, and pushed it towards the middle of the table. They all leaned over to look.
"A... chalice?" Usagi wondered.
"Yes," Ginny said, "It was a Hufflepuff heirloom. They used it in the adoption ceremony. It's a ritual they still use in some families to formally adopt an heir." She was grinning. "If Helga Hufflepuff put the Kunzite stone in anything it would have been this."
Usagi reached out for the paper.
"Olin was closer to Endymion than any one else," Ginny told her. "If anyone could figure out who he is..."
Usagi nodded, staring at the cup, trying to memorize every detail of Ginny's rushed design: the elegant curves of the handles and stem, the badger paw engraved around the sides, the small gems that decorated the rim, the cup, and the base...
"Usagi," Neville whispered, and she looked up. He was holding a hankerchief out to her.
She sniffed. Oh. "Thanks." She smiled, taking the hankerchief and dapping her eyes.
"Sorry," Ginny said. "I know its just a cup, but I figured it'd help."
"It does," Usagi assured her. "We know what to look for now." A cup, and a diadem and... She dapped her eyes one more time and looked hopefully at Ginny. "Do you know what Slytherin's might have been."
But Ginny shook her head. "No..." She made a face. "Slytherin was always the most secretive about his treasures.
"Figures," Ron muttered, "He did manage to hide a bloody bassilisk under the school."
"Really?" Sora gaped, still standing on her seat. "Where'd he put it? Why'd he hide one... Is it still there?"
"No," Usagi and Ginny answered together. "We took care of that the first night of school."
Sora's eyes widened. "That's what you fought!" She leaned across the table towards them. "How'd you kill it? How big was it." She asked, bouncing on her toes and making the chair rattle. "Did you dust it with the scepter?"
"Wait a minute," Hermione said. She had Sora's essay in her hand. "This is barely two sentences," she waved it in front of Sora. "And you've been working on it for a half hour."
Sora pouted, plopping heavily down into her seat. "But... but I don't know what to write." She scowled. "It's Defense Against the Dark Arts," she said, "About all these different spells and theories, but I don't get any of them."
"Well surely you have notes from class," Hermione pointed out.
Sora made a face at her. "I would if Greasy Face ever explained anything." She slumped over her essay, leaning her head on her crossed arms. "He just keeps saying how simple it is and clearly if we can't keep up, we're just stupid."
"He was like that in Potions too," Neville said. "I mean, he's teaching the NEWT Defense class alright, I guess. I'm doing well enough. I think, I mean," he glanced around the table suddenly nervous. "He hasn't tested us yet."
"You're doing fine," Usagi assured him. "You get the spells just as often as we do."
"An you're better at the non-verbal casting than me," Ron said. "I still can't get it."
"I suppose Snape really isn't good at teaching the basics," Hermione said.
"Here," Neville said, pulling Sora's textbook towards him. "What theories is he having you write about."
Sora sighed. "Hexs, Jinxs, and Curses," she said, stabbing her essay with her pen. "And how to tell the difference."
"That used to confuse me a lot," Neville said. "The way I thought about it..."
Usagi watched them for a few minutes, her face brightening as Sora caught on to Neville's clearer explanations. And as Hermione turned back to her research about pureblood families and Ron to his own Defence homework, she looked once more at Ginny's drawing.
I wonder if we'll find this somewhere in the castle too? she wondered. Or if finding Jadeite's sword here was just lucky.
And all we need to know now is Slytherin's heirloom. She smiled. And then I'll get to see you again.
"Thinking about him?" Ginny asked, leaning back in her chair and putting her arms behind her head once more.
Usagi laughed quietly. "Yeah," she said, leaning back in her own chair and staring up at the crisscrossing layers of wooden beams that supported the many balconies of Gryffindor's dormitories. "You got into Gryffindor twice," she said. "Maybe he's a Hufflepuff again."
"Maybe," Ginny shook her head. "Hard to say – he was a hat stall back then. It took seven whole minutes to sort him."
"Why?"
"Well – he would have fit well anywhere we always thought. Even Slytherin, it wasn't half as dark as it is today." Ginny thought. "He told me once, that he got into Hufflepuff because he knew he could be smart and brave and even cunning if he really tried to be. But... what he was really concerned about, as a Prince I mean, was that he wouldn't be able to be fair. So, the Hat put him where he could learn it best." She shrugged. "But it wanted to put him in Gryffindor and Ravenclaw too, and I don't know if he'd have the same insecurities if he didn't grow up heir to the whole freaking world..."
Ginny trailed off when she noticed Usagi's face, the smile she'd had imagining Endymion's sorting had faded away. Ginny reached out and touched her shoulder. "You know you're going to find him right," Ginny said. "I mean, I'm not the best help."
"You're amazing," Usagi protested. "We'd never have figured out Hufflepuff's item on our own." She closed her eyes. "I know we're going to find him."
"You also said you weren't going to dwell on it," Ginny said.
"I did..." Usagi sighed. "And I keep saying I'm going to date too – it is a good idea." She made a face. "It's just so hard."
"What's hard about it?" Ginny asked. "There's a Hogsmeade weekend the first week of October, just go with someone," she looked over her shoulder scanning the common room. "There's plenty of boys who want to ask you out."
"Really?" Usagi asked, sitting up and looking around the common room.
Ginny snorted. "Your friends are pretty intimidating if you haven't noticed." She pointed to one of the seventh year boys playing chess by the fire. "He tried to ask you out three times and chickened out when Rei glared at him." She laughed again. "And he wasn't the only one."
Usagi smiled. "Well... I don't want to hurt his feelings if he wants to have a relationship – I only want to date casually, you know."
"I do," Ginny nodded. "Dean's complicated like that too." She scanned the Common Room. "Who do you think is cute?"
"Uhhh," Usagi floundered, giving Ginny an apologetic grin. "I haven't really looked."
Ginny sighed. "Oh boy." She tapped her chin. "Alright we're going about this the wrong way. I'm not trying to find you an Endymion. I'm trying to find you someone fun and easy going, and someone who doesn't have to be bribed or dragged into Mme. Puddifoots – oh!" she cupped her hands over her mouth and caused their whole table to look up from their homework as she shouted: "Oi! Colin!"
~SMH~
Harry and Hotaru stumbled as they were thrown from the Pensieve and back onto the multi-colored carpet in Dumbledore's office. Fawkes squawked at them from his Perch as Dumbledore too emerged (much more gracefully) from the Pensieve.
"Now, that will be all for tonight," Dumbledore told them, noticing that the both of them were now staring at the Resurrection stone – the ring which had been displayed on his desk since the beginning of the term.
"Any parting thoughts," Dumbledore said, twinkling eyes looking between the two of them.
"Could... the locket be a Horcrux as well sir?" Harry asked.
"Well," Dumbledore said. "I think that is a very astute deduction – we will learn more about the fate of that locket and Tom Riddle at our next lesson – if you would be so kind, Harry, as to retrieve that memory.
Harry did, moving back to the Pensieve and dipping his wand into the basin.
Hotaru continued to stare at the ring. "It's tempting to use it, isn't it Sir?" She asked. "Even with the curse off it."
Dumbledore nodded, lifting the ring from its setting. "It is."
"You've tried to use it," Hotaru noted, for she could see the traces of power in the stone. "Recently."
Dumbledore sighed. Harry looked at him. The twinkle in his eyes notably absent. "I have – a weakness that is negigible on my part. I feel I am falling for the traps of this stone just as the fable tells them."
"Fable?" Harry asked.
"Ah... you won't know the story of the Beetle and Bard," Dumbledore said. "I suppose... yes its not quite curfew. We have time for one more tale." He gestured to the two armchairs. "Have a seat."
Trading curious glances, Harry and Hotaru sat down in the seats and watched as Dumbledore reached into the top drawer of his desk and pulled out a thin, leather bound book. It looked as old as he was, the corners of its pages rough, brown, and curling. He opening it to a purple bookmark in the middle. And several shadows grew out of it, into scene not unlike one from a muggle pop-up book.
"Three brothers were walking along a lonely winding road at twilight," Dumbledore began, as the three figures began to move, the shadows of trees appearing and disappearing across the surface of the book. "And in time, they reached a river too treacherous to pass..." a wide gap appeared and divided line the figures walked on. All three, Harry and Hotaru saw, raised their wands. "Of course they were wizards. And so they simply raised their wands, and made a bridge." And the shadow of one appeared to stretch across the river. "Before they could cross, however, they found their path blocked by a hooded figure."
A dementor, Hotaru thought at first, as the imposing spectre appeared.
"It was Death," Dumbledore said. "And he felt cheated."
"Death isn't a man." Hotaru interrupted. "They aren't anything... and they don't look like that."
Dumbledore chuckled. "My mistake – and yes the author has embellished their representation with a bit of imagination. May I continue?"
And at Hotaru's nod, he did.
"I digress, they felt cheated. Cheated because travelers would normally drown in the river... But Death was cunning. He pretended to congratulate the three brothers on their magic. And said that each had earned a prize for being clever enough to evade him...
"Now the Oldest brother asked for a wand more powerful than any in existence. So Death fashioned him one from an Elder Tree that stood nearby. The second brother decided he wished to humiliate Death even further. And so he asked for the power to recall loved ones from the grave. So, Death plucked a stone from the river, and offered it to him. Finally, Death turned to the third brother. A humble man, he asked for something that would allow him to go forth from that place without being followed by Death... And so Death reluctantly handed over his own Cloak of Invisibility."
"Afterwards, the first brother traveled to a distant village. Where, with the Elder Wand in hand, he killed a wizard with whom he had once quarreled. Drunk with the power the Elder Wand had given him, he bragged of his invincibility. But that night, another wizard stole the Elder Wand and slit the brother's throat for good measure.
"And so Death took the first brother for their own.
"The second brother journied to his home where he took the Resurrection Stone and turned it thrice in hand. To his delight, the girl he'd once hoped to marry before her untimely death appeared before him. Yet, soon, she turned sad and cold for she no longer belonged in the mortal world. Driven mad with hopeless longing, the second brother killed himself so as to join her... And so Death took the second brother.
"As for the third brother, Death searched for many years but was never able to find him. Only when he had attained a great age did the youngest brother shed The Cloak of Invisibility, and give it to his son. He then greeted Death as an old friend, and went with them gladly, departing this life as equals..."
The two remaining shadows above the storybook faded and Dumbledore closed it once more, looking at Harry who now regarded the stone with mild interest, and at Hotaru, who was frowning at him.
"Death doesn't get angry at people," she said at last. "They don't... go hunting like that, they can't be bothered."
"And yet, there is well documented evidence that at least two of the Deathly Hallows, as they're called, exist," Dumbledore said, resting his chin on the lace fingers of his hands, gazing at Hotaru. "How might you revise such a tale, Miss. Tomoe?"
Hotaru looked at the ring, feeling somehow that she did know, especially of a river of star dust that acted as the natural barrier between the realms, and of many souls who had attempted throughout history to cross it.
And yet, she did not know, not this specific tale, nor any of the others, not as they had truly happened. It felt almost like she were beyond the Death Veil again, down in the Department of Mysteries: aware that the spirit who minded that realm beyond was there, and that she was not truly there with them. "I don't know," she finally said to Dumbledore. "I don't think I'm meant to."
"Hmm," Dumbledore, Harry noticed, watched her as she stared at the Ressurection Stone, a thoughtful frown on his wizened face. "Alas," he said, "the dangers of the stone are all too real, and I find myself an unfit candidate to keep it. I have been attempting to discern an appropriate means of protecting it, or perhaps a person who is wiser in these matters than me." He paused, waiting until Hotaru had looked up at him, and gestured her to the ring. "Perhaps, as you've demonstrated a unique connection to Death, you might be a fitting keeper of the Hallow."
Hotaru looked at the Headmaster and considered. Then nodded and rose from the chair, crossing the distance to Dumbledore's desk and plucking the ring out of its holder.
Harry stared when the stone flashed with a white light, and then the ring shrank, fitting easily onto Hotaru's finger.
"It knows me," she murmured, blinking several times and then looking at the both of them.
"I know I don't have to tell you," Dumbledore said, "but your friends aside, best not to share with your peers the nature of that stone."
Hotaru nodded. "They won't know."
And Dumbledore looked down at his gold watch. "Alas, it is quarter to – you'd best hurry back to your dorms. I would hate for you to get detention for sitting through an old man's stories."
~SMH~
Hotaru and Harry made it to their respective towers just five minutes ahead of curfew, though there were three other students who would be out well past it.
Not that it mattered to the trio of them. Rei and Mina'd snuck out successfully nearly every week of last year. And Akira hardly cared that it'd be past her curfew when they asked her to go with them. They wouldn't get detention.
After all, Filch never checked the skies.
"And then today," Akira was saying "Sora had to save me in Herbology." She turned Makoto's broom and rolled it, flying upside down over the forest.
"Careful,"Mina fretted diving to fly underneath her and holding up her hands just in case.
Akira laughed, letting go of the broom and hanging down to high five Mina's hands. "I'm fine."
Rei giggled. "How did she save you in Herbology."
"I lit the roots on fire," Akira said, "They really should give you something thats not dragon hide gloves. They absorb heat too well."
"Finally someone agrees with me," Rei muttered.
"Yeah, so Sora had to put out my plant before Sprout noticed."
"If only you'd had Ami to do that for you you might have passed your OWL," Mina teased Rei, shrieking when she sent a puff of sparks at her. "So Herbology's not your favorite class?"
"Nope," Akira said, "That's astronomy. I like constellations a lot" She looked up towards the rare, clear sky. "That's my favorite," she said, flying up a little higher and stretching her finger towards the constellation just peaking above the highlands like she might actually touch the stars if she strained far enough.
Mina squinted. "Aaaand which one is that?"
"Canis Major," Rei replied, smirking at her. "Can't you see it's close to Orion?"
"Ahh... Which one is that?"
"The Hunter," Akira said. "He's just come out for winter – he's got his bow there," she said tracing her finger in an arc. "If you look at the belt and look that way you'll see it."
Rei giggled when Mina crossed her eyes and frowned. "Riiight."
"I always imagine he's hunting the Hydra," Akira said, pointing across the sky at another long string of stars. "Canis is his big hunting dog – he's as big as a wolf, and he catches nearly as many things as Orion does, and he's training Canis Minor too."
"And that ones..." Mina prompted, squinting at the sky.
"The two there," Rei said, taking Mina's left hand away from her broom and pointing it up.
Mina frowned. "The dog is a line."
"Nooo," Akira laughed. "You just have to imagine. Picture it:" She gestured with her hands. "He's a star dog. He's got a great big nebula for his heart and twin white dwarf stars for his eyes and his paws are sturdy clusters of asteroids... all held together by his stardust fur." She nodded with her eyes closed. "He runs and runs and runs chasing comets to eat and space ships to play with and nips Ursa Minor's heels to get her to play, until Canis Major," she pointed back to her favorite. "Who's got whole galaxies for eyes and Solar systems for paws, leans down and growls at Minor that they've got to do their job too."
"What job do star dogs have," Rei asked, eyes on Akira's dramatic gestures and bright grin.
"They hunt black holes," Akira said. "They chase 'em, and each of them takes one side, and they shred them in their crystal teeth," she said, voice growing higher and higher with every word until at the last she bounced on Makoto's borrowed Firebolt and shot several feet down, hair falling haphazardly across her face.
Mina and Rei laughed while she pushed it out of her face, directing their brooms to fly along the edge of the Forbidden Forest.
"So Astronomy is good," Mina said, "Herbology's bad. How are you at Charms?"
Akira shrugged. "Okay I guess... I can make the feather float without exploding it most times." She dug her wand out of her pocket, Mina looked closer at it. It looked like a small ember was even now burning on the tip. "But I've got Cherry and Dragon Heartstring. They said it was going to be stubborn, they didn't say it'd just do whatever it wanted.
"Man do I understand that." Mina said, and then brightened, looking between Akira and Rei. "Wait you know what'd be fun – you should both join Dueling Club." She said, whipping out her own wand and slashing it around like a sword. "That helped me a lot! We're having our first meeting on Thursday – and I'm throwing my name in for President. So you should come watch."
"Because you really need me to brag about you when you can do it yourself," Rei rolled her eyes. "What time is it at?"
"Iiiits atttttt: 7:15."
"Oh, then I can't go," Rei said, tucking her hair back.
"Whyyyy!?"
"There's a Slug Club meeting."
"Reeeeeeiiii!"
"Well its not like I think it'll be interesting," Rei said. "But he does share a lot of useful information. And Ami and Makoto aren't going to this one. So I don't want Hotaru to be stuck there. She hates him."
"That means I can't go either." Akira pouted. "I told Megumi I'd go."
"You got invited to the Slug Club too!" Mina made a face. "Just because I refuse to brew one potion."
"I don't think I'm invited cause of potions," Akira said. "Unless he's impressed by how often my cauldron melts."
"I melt plenty of cauldrons," Mina was muttering. "I am a Cauldron Melting Master."
Akira giggled at the look on Mina's face. "I think it'll be fun this time – he said there'd be a Quidditch star there!" Akira said. "I'm hoping it's..." but her voice trailed off, and she pulled her broom to a halt at the same time Rei did, both training their eyes on the same section of the Forbidden Forest.
A streak of green light shot up into the sky, curving into a large skull with gaping eye sockets. It's florescent green jaw fell open and a giant snake slithered out, curving up over its face, through one of its eyes, and then hovering in the air over the skull's head, glaring down towards the Earth.
"That's farther out than the edge of the forest," Rei said.
"Come on!" Mina said, whipping her wand out as she flew ahead. "Akira you go –"
"Follow you," Akira said, easily keeping up with them on Makoto's Firebolt. "You let Chibiusa follow you when you go investigating things."
"Starting to regret that," Rei muttered as they streaked over the dark canopy of trees.
The green form of the Dark Mark dominated the sky, coloring the hills around it the same eerie shade. And then below it, Mina saw through the trees, flickering and growing whites, oranges and reds. The colors danced below the canopy level of the trees, licking up over the tops.
Fire." Mina thought.
When they pulled up overhead, she had to shoot up higher, the heat from the flames singing her robes, and the hot smoke getting in her eyes and nose.
Great plumes of smoke, in fact, billowed up around a clearing in the trees, lit by the green light of the Dark Mark overhead.
"This is a muggle village!" Rei shouted up to her. She could see the road winding through the trees and several old cars melting down below.
And people, huddled in the center of the village surrounded by the strong ring of flames.
Only ten, Mina counted. There were fifteen houses. Or what had been houses.
Below her she saw the great white crow patronus soar out of Rei's wand, flying off in the direction of the castle. To Setsuna or Mcgonagall or Dumbledore.
"It's too much fire for me to put out!" Rei called up to her. "I could move it."
Move it where? Mina shook her head. They were surrounded by trees. Possibly by other villages. Better to protect the people left in the houses
"Hang on!" she said. "Venus Eternal Make-up!"
She held the Firebolt in one gloved hand, leaning away from it as she cracked the Love Whip in the air, channeling magic into the blackthorn handle.
"The key to a duel where you are outmatched is creativity," Flitwick's voice echoed back to her as she quickly formed a plan. "Spells that have no purpose on their own – when combined – can often yield extraordinary results..."
"Homenem Revelio!" Venus said, sending the charm racing down the links of the chain as she whipped it in a circle, aiming to hit of the burning structures below. "Igne Probabio! Ondunkula!"
The first spell struck the buildings, illuminating the bodies inside a brighter orange than the flames. The second and third spell, raced off the end of the whip as it cracked, splitting off and hitting each body within the fire. Almost immediately, some started to move, racing towards the doors.
"Fireproofed and Bubbleheaded," Venus grinned, detransforming as Rei and Akira hovered up to her. She twirled her blackthorn wand and glared up at the dark mark as they flew higher. "Now if only I knew how to get rid of..." her voice trailed off as they got above the tree line once more, and she looked our across the hills. "Shit."
Six Dark Marks had been cast along the path of the muggle road, and as they watched a seventh formed off in the distance.
Venus used the whip to protect the civilians in the next five villages, helped along by Order members apparating in to douse the flames.
By the time they reached the last two villages though, the fast burning fires had already razed the buildings to the ground. Only piles of ash remained within their burnt out stone foundations.
Venus cursed upon reaching the seventh one, cracking the Love Whip up at the spectral Dark Mark. It sailed right through it.
She glared at it a few more moments and sighed, hovering down until she was level with Rei and Akira. Rei reached out and put her hand on Mina's back as she detransformed. "Lets go," Rei said. "The Order can handle things from here."
Mina nodded, turning her broom northwards. "Sorry this turned into damage control mode, Akira." She sighed. "I don't get it. Those weren't cities. They weren't important buildings... and what the hell are they thinking attacking so close to Hogwarts."
"They want us to notice," Akira said, glancing behind her and pointing to each of the Dark Marks just as she had the stars in the constellations. Mina followed her hand, all the way back to the north where the high dark towers of Hogwarts, their windows appearing like stars, stood out prominently in the night time.
From the castle, Mina realized, they could see all of these. They were spread out enough, in fact, that the Castle might even appear surrounded.
"We're going to catch who did this," Rei said. "Don't worry."
Mina sighed. "Does that mean you dreamed about this?" she asked, not surprised when Rei nodded. She turned to Akira. "Did you?"
Akira looked up at the stars. "There weren't fires in my dreams," Akira whispered. "Other things... but not fires."
Rei's hand found Mina's and squeezed it tightly as they directed their brooms towards Hogwarts' North Tower, closest to the Hufflepuff dorm.
"But... that just means we get to go flying again tomorrow, right?" Akira asked. She even smiled.
Despite themselves, Mina and Rei smiled back.
~SMH~
Voldemort... Setsuna thought Monday evening as all around her the sands of time swirled. Still in a location she could not disclose, either because it was very well warded or because Voldemort himself did not know where it was. He's definitely employing Lestrange to move him, this has persisted through three moves...
He was, currently, passing off assignments to four Death Eaters. Setsuna scowled. Their masks prevented her from seeing up front exactly who they were. It would mean going through each and every Death Eater she knew by name to determine what was being planned in terms of attacks.
Lets see if his force is increasing at all, she thought, directing her search to Azkaban...
More breakouts were imminent. No more mass exoduses, not since the Ministry had had all their dementors replaced by security trolls and reluctant wizards. No, instead it would be a steady trickle of prisoners being smuggled out by brooms, boats, and several with an imperiused guard to escort them.
"I advised Scrimgeour to employ an Auror force there," Dumbledore had explained. "Alas, they are overtaxed as it is. And he insists there's no budget anywhere for screening and training more."
She wondered briefly if Haruka and Michiru couldn't use their powers to trap Azkaban behind a hurricane or something and filed it away under things to suggest to them soon.
She sighed "Bellatrix Lestrange..." Setsuna murmured.
She looked every day, using different means and often until the attempts had left her with a headache. She could see Lestrange kneeling at Voldemort's right hand, torturing the disloyal with glee, her actions only restrained by Voldemort's command.
Except she was decidedly not at his side. Not lying in wait training up newer Death Eaters. Not watching the year pass with delight and only occasional interference.
Yet try as she might, Setsuna could see only what she would have done in a timeline that appeared increasingly divergent from their own.
Is there truly a potion that can hide from me, Setsuna thought. However was such a thing invented?
Severus had already professed to having no idea. To his knowledge, the only use of potions in matters of time were select divining potions. Most to be used only in the creation of scrying glasses and crystal balls – and that, he said, included the dark arts.
"I'll see if Durmstrang has any books I haven't read that might point you in the right direction," Severus had offered. But Minerva had already gone that route and come up with nothing.
"I even consulted Sybil," Minerva'd confessed to her after one of the staff's night-caps. "She implied you're a charlatan; I feel I was deluded to expect more than that."
After hours of staring at what boiled down to nothing, Setsuna directed her attention to a Horcrux, the locket. The one Dumbledore was even now, hunting down as he talked through his thoughts in a lesson with Harry and Hotaru.
70 years of memories was quite a lot to look through, particularly for locations Voldemort might have hidden his Horcrux. She doubted it was in the Riddle mansion. And Dumbledore had already ruled out the orphanage.
Where did you feel powerful? she thought. What places formed the foundations of who you became?
His first jobs after leaving Hogwarts. Summer jobs that got him out of the orphanage. One brief stint delivering medicines from a chemist and pouring magic into the pill bottles to see what would happen...
Holidays away from London, where his minders could not mind all the children so closely. Holidays where he could use all the magic he'd begun honing consciously in a cramped boys dormitory in a room full of boys – who were there because of poverty, and disease, and many older boys because of the war – whose tears for their families he could not understand and had no sympathy for.
Holidays to the coastline...
There were plenty of rocky shores along the British coastline, plenty of places already hidden from muggle eyes by centuries of wizarding secrecy.
Plenty of unplottable locations that appeared as blurred facades to her sight. She scowled.
I found Lestrange's mansion just fine, I'll find whatever hidey-hole you stuffed this in... Whether she could find it before Dumbledore was something she was a little less certain about.
She did manage to narrow down her search a bit, before directing her attention to the last matter that needed her attention.
Timothy Abbott...
She always tried. But he still appeared as a sleeping, shimmering mirage within the sands: as out of reach as Lestrange.
Fred Weasley...
Was going about business as usual brightening more people's moods than he angered with stunts and displays designed to lure customers into the shop. Was keeping a public enough profile to continue giving Molly gray hair and was, she smiled, going to be embarking on a research project with his father about whether the lead vests muggles used to protect from x-rays had any application protecting wizards from magic. It seemed Hermione had piqued Mr. Weasley's interest.
George Weasley...
Was finally getting a handle on the management details involved in running a business even if his organization system was still one she couldn't puzzle out. Was arguing quite a bit with his mother about what she assumed was still Fred's relationship choices. Was also (some way she didn't want to analyze) setting up various little booby traps along Knockturn Alley designed to draw attention to anyone on it in a number of... creative ways.
Robert Macmillan...
Was still travelling. Setsuna sighed in relief. One less student embroiled in a war.
Prudence Burke, Roger Davies, and Kenneth Towler all turned up equally secure results. No one was getting cursed as far as she could see, or caught in a Reducto. The most trouble they looked to be having were increasingly heated arguments with their families over what should be done about Voldemort and the Ministry and muggleborns...
Conflict does have a way of dragging prejudice out into the light, Setsuna thought, directing her attention to those students more closely caught in the conflict.
Rigel Fawcett... seemed to be benefitting from lessons with his former defense professor and a former auror and convict. His confidence on the field was steadily improving from when he'd joined the Order that summer. She hated that that was also due, in part, to how many conflicts he was throwing himself into the middle of.
He's brilliant and more than competent, Setsuna reminded herself. He and Hamish both.
And in regard to Hamish, she raised her eyebrows. Haruka had not mentioned this method of helping him adjust to his lack of an arm. Her mood improved significantly while she watched the steady progress he'd be making.
She came last to the student who's future she'd been invested in even as early as last October. Morgana Avery.
Oh. Setsuna tightened her hands on the Garnet rod as she glared into the near future swirling in the fog. Well we can't have that now can we...
~SMH~
"That's seventeen sickles, five knuts," Morgana Avery said as she rang up the order. The two nine-year-olds grinned and one hefted a Hippogryff-Bank, tickling its feathers. The thing gave a realistic squawk and coughed a mess of bronze coins onto the counter. She smiled at them as they hastened to count out the correct number of coins rather than make her do it.
"Boys! I said be quick!" their mother lectured, hovering close with the boys father and someone who may have been a hired bodyguard. He was wearing one of their own Shield Cloaks and hats pulled low over his eyes.
"It's fine," Morgana said, using a counting charm to speed up the work the children were doing. Seventeen sickles worth of knuts plus five spare stacked together and flew into the register. "All set."
"Cool!" the boys exclaimed, grabbing their new toy wands and pointing them at each other. Confetti spewed out the ends.
"Right – come on," their mother said, and the family turned towards the door.
Morgana had a second to wonder why their guard was in the back rather than the front of the group when she felt a shock shoot up from her toes to her skull. Her legs and arms locked together. She fell forwards, her hands grabbing the counter to break her fall.
And at the front of the store, the twin boys and their father fell face first onto the shop floor.
"Don't shout," the bodyguard said. "If you do she'll kill the youngest one first."
Imperioed, Morgana determined. Though that was not what had set her heartbeat racing in her chest.
She knew the bodyguard's voice. From the portrait in the dining room that her mother'd relied on to help instruct her since the man himself was locked away in Azkaban.
Her father was beaming at her when he took off his large shield hat. His face was sallower than his portrait, with grey hair combed over the balding top of his head.
"Morgie," he said, walking up to the counter and leaning over it. The modified sneak-o-scope on her left began to spin wildly, silver edges bluring as green smoke filled its glass middle. "Look at'cha."
She glared at him, fingers twitching. Her arms were stuck at her sides. Then glanced at the new Dark Mark Detector they'd put over the front door last month. It hadn't gone off at all.
"It's alright to speak," he said. "Just quietly – don't want those jailers of yours hearing."
"Let me go," Morgana spat.
"Oh I want to – but you're not exactly in your right mind right now, even if you don't realize it. But I am here to let you go, Morgie. To help you get back to yourself."
She stared at him, trying to move her fingers, inching them along the rim of the counter. The button was on her right, closer to the register. The flares would go off in the office and the workroom...
"Ah, ah!" the silent spell he'd cast before shocked her again, her hands and fingers snapped to her sides. "Oh Morgie," he shook his head. "It's worse than your mother said."
Her mother: who thought she'd been dosed with love potion. Who had clearly told her father. Who had broken out of Azkaban.
"I'm sorry I didn't know about this when they liberated me in January," he said with genuine regret on his face. He waved his wand. Her feet rose off the floor. "I only learned what was happening to you after that little incident at the Ministry had me back in that cell."
She glanced up as she was levitated. The office door was shut. The family had been up on the second floor ten minutes ago. He'd have had plenty of time to cast Silencio or to lock it shut...
Her wand was in its holster in her sleeve. Not that she could draw it. If he unparalyzed her, she might have time to stun him. Then the family would die. She might have time to stun his hostage. Then he would kill Fred...
Her feet hit the floor in front of the counter, and Avery Sr. canceled his spell. Morgana stared at him as she regained her footing. Her arms now freed as well.
"Oh don't look so startled, Morgie," he chuckled, wand still leveled at her face. "I don't want to force you – the blasted potions's forced you to do enough already. But I know it isn't the easiest thing to resist. So we'll make this simple." He gestured to the family behind him. "Come with me, and these nice, pureblood children get to live. Don't, and their mother kills them." She glared at him even while he continued to gaze at her fondly. "You don't want that, Morgie. Even if you think you love Fred, you don't want that. I know that." he held out his hand. "Come. And if you prove to me you really love him. I'll let you come back. If its just the love potion, surely that isn't unreasonable."
Morgana bit her lip. He would decidedly not let her come back no matter if she were truly love-potioned or not. She stared at the family and the two boys. Something aqua and blue slithered across the floor between the shelves.
"This... hardly seems like a free choice," Morgana said to stall for time.
"Well neither is addling you with love potion..." he said, stepping closer to the check out counter. She stepped back. Behind him, she could see one of the fake wands hovering in the air. And then it flashed with faint blue sparks. When they faded, the wand in the air was longer, darker, had a different handle. The fake wand was in the imperiused woman's hand.
A switching spell.
"Morgie. Be reasonable," her father continued. "I won't harm them. And I wont harm that blood tra-that boyfriend of yours. But he would harm me. And I just want to know that you're happy – I haven't seen you in too long."
She swallowed, staring him in the eyes. "I wont go."
Avery Sr.'s pleading gaze hardened. And before she could duck, his wand flashed bright white. Her stance slackened. Her sharp gaze glazed over.
"I'm sorry, Morgie," he said. "I did try to let you make the right choice. Now," he directed his imperiused daughter. "Be a good girl, and go do away with those blood traitors upstairs. The door will unlock for you. Leave something bloody for their mother to find."
She looked up towards the office, taking a jerky step towards the stairs. "Wait," he said. "There is the small matter of your disobedience – I always follow through with my word," he looked over his shoulder. "Mrs. Selwyn, kill the youngest."
Morgana raised her wandless left hand in a stop gesture, and her father laughed, her hand was shaking. "You should have chosen differently." He turned around to see the deed done.
A case of Nosebleed Nougats hit him at high speed right between his eyes. He hunched over.
"Stupefy!" a woman shouted. The red spell hissed as it contacted his shield cloak and dispersed on contact.
"There's nothing worse than parents who don't know boundaries," a sharp voice declared, a lithe figure stepped out from between the shelves.
"Especially the ones who use friggin mind control," a deeper voice growled. Avery Sr. saw a taller figure emerge from the door to the basement. They wore the colorful robes of the mercenaries that had apprehended him at the Ministry in June. He let off a silent Avada Kedavra at the closest one. Another Nosebleed Nougat soared into it, the box exploded in his face.
The warrior with the turquoise hair leveled a trident at him and suddenly great ropes of water were rising from the shop floor, lashing him and twining around him.
"MORGANA," he shouted. "Kill them!"
He'd at least expected a stupefy from his (clearly-slower-than-he'd-been-told) child.
Instead, he got silence.
"KILL THEM," he snapped. Another Nosebleed Nougat hit him in the face, the corner gouged into his eye. He whipped around as the taller mercenary spun her swords. Cold, whipping wind began to freeze the tentacles of water entrapping him. He glared at his daughter.
Morgana's wand was on the ground, of all the insolent places for it to be. Her left hand was still outstretched and shaking before her. Her glazed stare turned towards him. Her shaking hand beckoned.
Another box hit him in the back of the head. This last knocking him out cold
And both his imperiused victims came back to themselves.
The woman at the front of the shop screamed, dropping to her knees beside the stunned bodies of her sons and husband as she stammered out a renneverate.
And Morgana gasped, stumbling back against the counter and grabbing her head.
Neptune nodded to Uranus, who went to check the family in the front of the shop and call the Aurors to remove Avery Sr. Neptune went to Morgana.
She was fumbling to brace her left hand against the counter. Her other hand was pinching the bridge of her nose.
Neptune stooped to grab her wand from the floor. "Why'd you drop it?"
Morgana grabbed her wand from Neptune's hand. "It was the easiest way to not curse you," she said. "The best way to resist is to… comply as much as you can, and find excuses to be terrible at what they want you to do." She glared at her father. "I could fully intend to go ahead and kill you, but if I happen to be a butter fingers that's not something a curse can fix. And it was hard enough to do the levitation charms on the boxes wandless… I couldn't have done anything more elaborate." She smirked. "At least, not without being able to concentrate."
She looked paler, Neptune noticed. And Morgana's knees and hands were still shaking.
"Even that's not easy to do, I take it?"
Morgana jerked her head to the side. "Not when they know what they're doing… but its easier than resisting a Legilimens, even a shody one."
She'd spoken of Legilimens before, Neptune realized. Mind readers.
"Could you teach me?" she asked. "That's not the sort of magic I've had any luck learning from books."
Morgana Avery nodded, smiling when Uranus broke her father's nose on her way over to them.
"I think," she said. "We need to unlock the offi-"
A loud explosion shook the loft as the office door exploded, fireworks spewing out amid the wood splinters, spirals of rainbow dragons, corkscrews, and rude hand gestures rocketed off towards the ceiling as two lanky young men scrambled through the broken down door.
"Morgana!" Fred shouted, skidding across the loft and then racing down the banister of the spiral stairs. He knocked over the display of U No Poo as he ran to her.
"Something was wrong with the door!" he rushed to say as his brother trailed him down the stairs.
"It's alright," Morgana assured him, checking that her father was still knocked out cold and then dragging Fred to her by the collar of his robes. She kissed him until she could pretend her knees were trembling for a far nicer reason than resisting the imperius. "We handled it."
"Well we know Dark Mark Detector marc 2. needs work then," George threw in, frowning up at the unobtrusive black box balanced over the door.
"Maybe tar and feather is too much for it," Fred suggested. "Maybe just tar."
Morgana chuckled. And looked at Neptune. "I don't know if I'll be any good at teaching," she told her. "It's not something I read from a book."
"Well I have, and those explanations are no help," Neptune said, de-transforming. "Clearly they were more interested in the theory than the practice."
Morgana shook her head, trying to banish the feeling that it was stuffed full of cotton. "Next Thursday," she told Michiru. "We're closing the shop to work on more important things. I'll teach you." She glanced at her father and amended. "Well, provided no ones come back to un-love potion me again."
~SMH~
At nearly 1:00 am on the last Sunday in September, Haruka opened the door to Grimmauld Place and (with her jacket held up over Michiru's hair) ushered her partner in out of the downpour that had met them upon arriving back in London.
It had been little more than a drizzle in Scotland, albet a constant one. It certainly hadn't required more than an umbrella to navigate. Haruka sighed and turned to Michiru, helping her out of her coat before hanging it and her own up on the coat rack. "Sure we can't go back?" Haruka asked. "I mean... I wouldn't mind staying at Hogwarts."
Michiru smirked and stepped towards her, pulling Haruka down by the unbuttoned collar of her shirt. "That depends," Michiru said. "On whether you've convinced Setsuna to share her bed." She laughed as a blush filled Haruka's face. "Because I am not spending another year in a dormitory." She kissed her, trailing her fingers down Haruka's arm and clasping her hand.
It had been a good day. Between themselves, Sirius, Remus, and Rigel they'd stopped the three predicted muggle baitings nearly before the perpetrators had apparated to their chosen targets. They weren't sure how long they'd remain in Ministry custody, though Tonks was confident she could keep them off the streets for a week at least.
"We can only keep 'em for questioning in the DMLE that long," she'd said. "Unless we can prove we need to keep 'em after that, the Ministry will push them to trial and Azkaban, which is as secure as an Alohomora these days." Then she'd winked. "That said, Bones runs a tight ship. And she'll accept pretty much anything me and Kingsley can think of to hold'em these days."
With that taken care of, there'd been nothing stopping them from apparating up to Hogsmeade. Michiru'd even agreed to flying with Haruka the rest of the way to Hogwarts.
They'd delighted Hotaru by surprising her at Quidditch practice, and with her along, they'd managed to convince Setsuna to dispense with her work and spend the day with them. They'd thought she'd come up with more excuses. But Hotaru had learned her puppy-dog-eyes from Haruka and her persuasion tactics from Michiru; Setsuna's arguments were no match for that combination.
They had long years of practice setting their troubles aside to appreciate the odd, normal day. And so for the duration of Saturday, they did not speak of Dark Marks over burnt out homes, the ever climbing list of casualties, the still missing Timothy Abbott, or the growing sympathies for Voldemorts ideals among the scared and frustrated wizarding populus.
Instead they had talked about Hotaru's first weeks on the Quidditch team, of the latest first year she had scared by summoning the Silence Glaive, and of how she was excelling in all of her classes. Once Chibiusa, Sora, and Megumi (whom they'd dragged along with them) came to find them, they'd raced broomsticks, skipped rocks across the lake, and for better or worse Haruka had even gotten away with teaching the first years a paint-ball charm she'd learned from the twins.
When the rain had become too steady and the ground too muddy to enjoy the outside, they'd gone to Setsuna's quarters, and fallen back on a tradition they'd gotten to practice scarcely little over summer.
Michiru'd conjured her violin, they'd transfigured Setsuna's coffee table into a surprisingly well-tuned piano for Haruka, and (to the accompaniment of the rain tapping against the windows) had played the songs that had been the cornerstone of every evening together in Tokyo.
Ravenclaw's ghost had startled Sora midway through by rising up through the floor to dance along. Hotaru'd proved she'd lost none of her skill in a year without lessons. And Megumi had surprised them by asking to play, given how reticent she seemed to give up any details about herself. She'd taken up the violin eagerly, grinning as none of them had ever seen her do. And Michiru's eyebrows had raised in surprise when she'd played a score composed of several fairly complicated bars.
It was the only time they'd ever seen Sora sit still, save the way she tapped her hand against her knee in perfect time to the rhythm. And it was the only time since August that Haruka and Michiru had seen Setsuna truly relax.
The others had joined them for dinner (Makoto's many friends from the kitchens more than happy to bring their meal to Setsuna's rooms). Mina'd held her tongue and refrained from asking a single question about the war or their battles or Setsuna's ongoing frustration with Lestrange.
Of course, the effort of not talking about enemies and wars also meant that eventually, one ran out of lighter topics of conversation. Such was the case by the time their friends and family among the students had retired to bed, and Haruka and Michiru had joined Setsuna on her patrol. They'd kept pace with her through the candle-lit corridors of the fifth and sixth floors, prefering the companionable silence to the eventual return of topics like Bellatrix, like Voldemort, like their still kidnapped former classmate...
They'd wandered up to the clocktower, watching the rain fall across the dark grounds from under the shelter of its roof. They'd stood close to Setsuna's sides, watching as she leaned over the wall, opened her hands to the rain, and let the water splash across her palms, her face, pensive and unreadable, lit by the scant light that shone up from the lower floors' windows.
The chime of the bell at midnight had broken the spell of silence. As it had echoed into the night sky, the three of them had sighed, and (in low tones that did not disturb the soothing pitter-patter of the rain) had spoken once more of things more important than Quidditch, and music, and classes.
Michiru'd broke the silence first. "Dumbledore said after the last meeting you offered to help him find the locations of the Horcruxes," she'd told Setsuna. "But... aren't you already workng on predicting the movements of the Death Eaters... and of Bellatrix."
"I know he plays this more defensively than we would," Haruka'd said. "But he isn't incompetent."
Setsuna'd nodded, continuing to watch the rain as it fell across her hands. "He certainly isn't. That's entirely the problem."
"He has a very good plan, in terms of taking Voldemort down," Setsuna'd confided. "One which I do not approve of, but I can't deny it plays to Voldemort's weaknesses. It would put his defeat in the hands of those that are underestimated and creative, and ensures fewer casualties than large offensives might garner.
"But..." Setsuna'd paused. "It's a plan in which he dies. He and Mr. Potter would go retrieve a Horcrux and – whether he is drowned, or poisoned, or cursed, there's no question that he dies – and that can't be allowed."
"This is more meddling than I've ever seen you do," Michiru'd murmured, as she and Haruka'd reached out for Setsuna. Their hands had rested on her's arms and gotten her to look up at them at last. "Is the Headmaster truly so important?"
Setsuna'd nodded. "Originally it wouldn't have mattered overly much. His plan would have already been in motion. Voldemort wouldn't have made it through another year. But now..."
"Lestrange." Haruka'd scowled.
"And that wizard," Michiru'd added.
"I don't know what their plans are," Setsuna'd confided. "Lestrange was not nearly so independent in the original sequence of events. This new wizard did not factor in at all. They're more than likely the reason there's now a second prophecy, and that concerns me." She'd clenched her fists. "It indicates that the future this world was leaning towards has been altered. Chibiusa's coming back only confirms that. I'm worried it means Crystal Tokyo is seeing enough ripples of change to get involved here."
"Do you still think the second prophecy means Hotaru?" Haruka'd asked even more quietly. They'd discussed the possibility quite a bit over summer.
"Well I'm concerned that Bellatrix and Voldemort think so," Setsuna'd said. "But..."
"But back to Dumbledore," Michiru'd prompted.
"Right... if there are now or could soon be two Chosen Ones..." Setsuna's gaze had fallen back to her hands. "That would be precipitated by the ammount of darkness and danger doubling as well. If that's so, then Dumbledore cannot die: he is the strongest leader the Light side has. Harry Potter may be an excellent symbol to them, a source of hope, but he's hardly a leader, not yet."
She'd paused, staring out towards the forest, veiled by a curtain of rain. It was impossible even for Michiru to tell what else she might have been thinking about.
"Dumbledore makes mistakes," she'd admitted. "He capitulates easily to the poetic fancies of fate, and even now he continues to overlook the possibility of any of the Death Eaters breaking rank and taking independent action... but he does win. And more importantly he inspires hope in what I'm sure you've noticed is a very beleguered fighting force."
They'd nodded. They were all too aware of the Order's meager numbers, and even more meager supply of people with the time and skill to wage a war.
"He needs to keep doing all that if the forces of darkness are increasing," Setsuna'd finished.
"So you're hoping to do his work finding the Horcruxes for him," Haruka'd guessed. "Keep him from going out and getting killed by them."
"Precisely," Setsuna'd nodded. "The ring was one of Voldemort's first... the protections around the others could be far more elaborate."
"Well they weren't protected with us in mind," Michiru reminded her. "We'll get them."
"And we'll help you find them," Haruka said. "You're doing too much work as it is. Tell me you're not still drinking pepper-up potion?"
Setsuna'd shrugged. "The war and my students both need my full attention. I can't simply chose one over the other to get more rest when an energy boost is more efficiently obtained." She'd wrinkled her nose. "I suppose I could give my half of the Divination students back to Trelawney, but I don't want to do that."
They'd laughed at that, had allowed her to change the subject to complaints about Trelawney, and about her fourth years, and then how she now had to go around Poppy Pomfrey to Snape to get pepper-up potion because Minerva'd told the nurse to cut her off.
"If I have to make you take care of yourself, I'm not above doing so," Minerva'd said.
"I existed without needing anything so mortal as sleep for eons of time before this," Setsuna'd grumbled. "If I chose to substitute caffiene and magic for some of it, I certainly..." she'd yawned. And they'd both traded smirks. "...can."
It had been creeping up on 1:00 then, and was well past time all of them should have retired. Setsuna'd used the Time Doors to drop them off in London. They could only hope she'd actually rest when they bid her goodnight.
"She looked better," Haruka said to Michiru as they walked across the ground floor of Grimmauld on their way to the basement kitchen. Tea was more than in order. Tea and another look at their map of Voldemort's forces. Somewhere in the mess of them were his hideaways.
"I'm not sure that comforts me," Michiru said. "It may just mean that she's adjusted to her workload, not that she's any less stressed."
"Fair." Haruka sighed. She held the basement door open for Michiru. "We'll just have to find more days to spend at Hogwarts," Haruka said as they went down the stairs. "You know... I didn't think I'd miss them all so much."
Michiru stopped on the foot of the stairs and dragged Haruka close, kissing her and lacing their fingers together. "I know what you mean," she whispered. They were certainly a long way from the two high schoolers who had prefered to keep as much distance from their fellow senshi as possible. Michiru wondered, as she gazed at Haruka, how it was they had gotten so un-used to their duty to protect from afar, especially given the distance between Hogwarts and London was not even comparable to the distance Tritan and Miranda castles had been from The Moon Kingdom...
A sound from the kitchen startled them and they broke apart. Who else would be awake so late?
"Rigel?" Michiru asked as they entered the room, causing the half-asleep young man to jerk his head up from where he'd been reading through a textbook.
"You're back," he said and promptly yawned.
"You're usually asleep by now," Haruka observed, noting the half-read book, the empty tea-cup, and (she frowned) the scratch on Rigel's face. "Something happen?"
"No, no," Rigel assured them. "I mean... there was a skirmish at the Magizoo earlier, but we stopped 'em from stealing anything in the exhibits." He touched the scratch. "Couple Hippogryffs that didn't want to go back in the enclosure, but no death eaters got away." He rubbed his eyes and pushed his messy, mousy curls out of his face. "I was just waiting up for Hamish," he whispered. "He's practicing – I mean he's been practicing all day..."
"And you're not with him?" Michiru wondered.
Rigel's shoulders slumped, his face fell. "He told me to go. Said he wanted to be alone."
Michiru traded a look with Haruka. That seemed entirely unlike the Hufflepuff who'd been incapable of even spending the night in a separate dorm from Rigel.
"He's still not doing as well as he wants," Rigel explained. "I've been trying to help him – looking up how he might replace his arm and stuff, but he doesn't like anything I've found so far... I mean nothing's perfect." He looked at the scribbles in the margins of his book. "But..."
"Where's he practicing?" Haruka asked.
"Library," Rigel said.
"Kay," she nodded. "Stay put – I'll be back."
"But –"
But Haruka moved to fast to hear Rigel's protests, and Michiru stopped him with a hand on his shoulder when he tried to follow her.
"Stay." Michiru waved her wand and got the kettle boiling again. "She'll get him."
Haruka heard Hamish as soon as she pushed open the Library door, muttering out the clipped, frustrated syllables of charms she'd seen in Hotaru's first and second year books.
She liked Hamish Stebbins. He could talk Quidditch and Football with equal competency and enthusiasm. He wrote Makoto letters with a dicta-quill every few days in the finest of Hufflepuff's Bigs and Littles tradition. And he reminded her of a puppy the way he cheerfully and persistently stuck to Rigel Fawcett's side.
They were alike, she'd decided awhile ago (though she'd deny forever that the way she acted around Michiru could in any way remind anyone of a puppy). And she had been the one who'd literally disarmed him. So far that hadn't seemed to affect him as much as she'd have expected it to. But perhaps the limitations of working without his dominant arm were finally becoming too much for Hamish. And if that were the case, Haruka decided as she made her way silently through the stacks, then she felt it was her job to ensure he didn't fall into a funk about it.
He was practicing Wingardium Leviosa when she reached the back of the library. His voice was coarse and lacking any of its typical warmth as he practiced.
"Wingardium Leviosa," he snapped. His left hand moving in a jerky, slashing motion.
His face fell as he stared at the unmoving quill lying on the study table.
"Heard you've been doing this all day," Haruka said when he sighed.
The tall boy jumped. He spun around. Even with a stump for a right shoulder he still pulled off quite an imposing figure. "What are you doing here?"
"Seeing if you've improved since last time I saw you," Haruka said. "You're still struggling."
"Well I'm not ambidextrous am I!" Hamish snapped. "I mean wasn't –" he groaned and glared at her. "It's not something I can learn out of a book!"
"That what you told Rigel when you yelled at him?" she asked calmly.
Hamish deflated instantly, falling back and sitting on the study table.
"I just couldn't listen to him try to tell me I did it better every time when I'm not." He moved his arm as though he would've clasped his hands together and braced his elbows on his knees. As it was, his one elbow slipped, and he hastely straightened up, curling his hand into a fist around his wand and thumping it against his leg. Angry red sparks shot up into the air. "I'm struggling with exercises they give seven-year-olds in their first charm school – and I was better at them then."
He even held his wand differently in his left hand, Haruka noted, an idea flickering in her head.
"Then stop practicing," she said before she'd fully thought it through.
Hamish head jerked up. "Wh – but – but the war! The Order!" he protested.
"Stop practicing," Haruka said again. "And... train your arm on something else – something new that you can't judge yourself on how well you used to do."
"N-no!" Hamish said. "It'd just take me longer to fight – I need to be good at spells again."
"That's not the only way you can help the Order," Haruka said.
"It's the best one," Hamish argued with her. "I'm useless sitting aroun here making reports with the dicta-quill. Rigel and Remus can do them three times as fast. And I haven't been any help with the map." He stood again, pacing and brandishing his wand with a sluggishness that belied fatigue. "I've got to do something!"
"So..." Haruka though, wracking her brain. "Try something different and useful."
"Like what?" Hamish sighed.
"Like..." Her eyes wandered around the room, seeking anything that might prompt an idea.
She settled on the shiniest of the decorations on the library walls. That one's a two handed grip, she thought still... "Like something that doesn't need you to use magic..." Something someone could teach him, that he wouldn't need to learn from a book.
Hamish turned and looked where she was, frowning "What?"
"I've an idea," Haruka said before she could second guess herself.
"What?"
"Go apologize to Rigel," Haruka said, turning to leave the library. "And I'll tell you in the morning."
Morning ended up being closer to noon, given that Hamish had tossed and turned and paced until about five – filled with questions and stubborn hope about what Haruka could possibly be planning.
The delay was fine. It had taken that long for Haruka and Sirius to find two suitable items for practice in the Black family's possession. They couldn't exactly use any of the fifteen cursed ones, and Sirius had snorted when she'd initially suggested transfiguration.
"James did that once – trust me you don't want it shifting back into a broom or a snake mid-swing."
When Hamish did go in search of Haruka, Michiru directed him up to the drawing room, which looked very different when he walked in the open door. The furniture had all been pushed up against the walls, two of which – windows and all – had been transfigured into mirrors.
At the end of the room, Haruka was waiting, arms crossed as she leaned against one of the tables.
"So..." Hamish said, looking around the cleared room as he hesitantly walked in. "What are we doing?"
Haruka chuckled and stepped away from the table she was leaning on, sweeping her hand over the two fifteenth century swords she'd scavenged out of a cache of large items Kreacher had stuffed in the attic.
She smirked as Hamish's eyes widened as he stared at them, and picked a sword up in each hand. They were heavier than her Space Swords, wider at the base too. But the technique was the same. And if Jadeite or herself were any indication, Hamish might even be able to cast spells if fitted with a capable blade.
"Seriously?!" Hamish gaped as she approached him, spinning both swords.
"Yes – unless you've thought of a better idea," Haruka said. "But considering I've dueled Voldemort just fine with two of these, I figure they're decently useful."
Hamish was so busy staring at the weapons that she had to give the right one another spun right in front of him before he realized she was holding it out to him.
"It's... light!" he said, hefting it carefully.
"Good start then." Haruka grinned, adjusting the rolled up sleeves of her shirt. "Now, pay attention."
She'd spent the entire night and morning thinking over every lesson she could remember from her first life in the Moon Kingdom. She hoped he could follow along because she was not at all confident she could explain everything in detail.
She needn't have worried. The lesson came to her easier than she'd thought. For the next few hours she walked him through a basic set of steps, thrusts, and blocks.
He was only marginally less clumsy than she'd expect of Usagi or Sora, but Hamish didn't realize it, and that was exactly what she'd hoped for. By the time they went downstairs for a late lunch, he was beaming: greeting Rigel with an enthusiastic kiss and talking like he could win a championship.
"I think he'll pick it up faster than he thinks," Haruka told Michiru later while they updated the map of Voldemort's allies.
"Hmmm..." Michiru smiled. "So when do Rigel and I get to watch?"
Haruka shrugged. "When Hamish is a bit more competent, I guess. Why," she grinned, combing back her hair. "You want to see what a good teacher I am?"
"Theres that..." Michiru smirked. "Or just..." Haruka shivered as Michiru's eyes looked her over through long lashes. "Appreciating your form."
Haruka's face turned bright red. "F...uh-he-he."
"And of course," Michiru said, walking around the kitchen table and leaning into Haruka, her fingers skimming down the buttons of her shirt. "Rigel and I could finally settle a long-running debate."
"De... bate?"
"Well I've always wanted to know whose lover has the... superior technique." She whispered in Haruka's ear, her hand moving past the last button of her shirt. "With their sword, I mean."
Haruka whimpered.
~SMH~
Little Flamingo is doing as well as we expect per task 1. No progress w/ task 2. I am managing Task 3. Parcel on the Ides ~S.P.
"I hope that note is your supplier," The White-cloaked wizard whispered in her ear as he materialized out of ash behind Bellatrix Lestrange.
She smirked and tapped her wand against the note that had come through the floo, incinrating it. She crushed the still-smoldering embers in her hand.
"They need to be brewing the new batch now," The Wizard in White continued "While –"
"While the power of the moon is waning, yes. You've said." Bellatrix rolled her eyes.
"Well it was late last month," he hissed. "Can't take chances."
"We were under the impression it was a permanent effect!" Bellatrix said, stalking him as he circled her.
"Well it was an experiment," the Wizard in White gave a shrug of his shoulders. "It inconveniences me more than it inconveniences you."
"How," Bellatrix said, narrowing her eyes.
"Well it means I've a lot of work to do in a limited time frame – I admire you Bella, I do," he said. "But I cannot rely on your supplier to follow through indefinetly."
Bellatrix smirked. "He is a fool," she agreed. "But he gets things done. He won't be late."
She darted forwards, grabbing him by the front of his robes. "I still say My Lord should be made aware of this potion as well."
"By all means, Bella," the wizard chuckled. "Tell him. I'm sure he'll reward you handsomely like another one of his useless serfs." He smirked at her. "Is that what you are – a serf?"
She shot a cutting curse at him which he dodged. "I am the Dark Lord's most trusted..."
"Of course – because he knows you're better than him and he can't have that." He smirked at her. "How many times has he put your power on a leash? Reigned you in for the sake of his theatrics with this Dumbledore and Potter..."
He hovered in front of her, cocking his hooded head to the side. "Given the chance you know you're far more creative. He takes the things he fears and runs from them. Or kills them like a coward. Even his magic is lazy. His Horcruxes are such rudimentary, useless things. But you." Bellatrix face split into a crooked grin as he continued. "Your relationship with the Dark Arts is a master's. And your fears, you don't run from them. You make them part of you."
"I do."
"And I can see that," the wizard raised his hands and shrugged. "Why can't Tom Riddle?"
Bellatrix bristled. "He shares his plans with me – you have not even told me your reasons for joining our cause. What is it you're doing that this Time Lady can't know about?"
The Wizard in White smirked and raised his hands to his hood, lifting it away from his face. "Don't tell the Dark Lord about my potion – he'd insist on brewing far more of it, don't kid yourself. And that would be noticable." His whiteless eyes glittered. "Keep it between us, and I shall show you exactly why I need the Moon's eyes looking elsewhere."
~SMH~
Thursday, the third of October Chibiusa checked the time on her gold and red communicator as she sat on the banister on the second floor landing. She was kicking her heels and thinking of going ahead without the lazy Bunhead when she heard the frantic pounding of feet coming down the grand stairs.
"You're late," Chibiusa told Usagi as she skidded to a stop on the landing, panting.
"Sorry!" Usagi gasped as she tried to catch her breath. Chibiusa hopped off the banister. "I was... napping."
"But Gryffindor Tower's on the other side of the castle." Chibiusa raised an eyebrow.
"Uh..."
"And your lipstick's smudged." Chibiusa grinned as Usagi's face turned red. "So unless you were kissing your pillow..."
"Fine!" Usagi said. "I was on a lunch date." She blushed.
"Really." Chibiusa's eyes widened. "Do you think he's Mamo-chan?"
"Colin, er..." Usagi ducked her head and laughed nervously. "Noooo... but!" She raised her fist and nodded as if reassuring herself of her convictions. "He is sweet and it has been a long time."
"Eeewwww!" Chibiusa wrinkled her nose gigggled. "Come on. She's only free another forty-five minutes."
"Right." Usagi nodded, wiping her hand across her face to get all the lipstick and double checking that Ginny's drawing from weeks ago was still in her pocket.
She hadn't gotten the chance to see much of Setsuna, despite all of her own free time. And the few times she had seen her, she hadn't remembered the drawing of Hufflepuff's cup. Not to mention it seemed near impossible to catch Setsuna at a free moment.
But it seemed Chibiusa still had more sway over Setsuna than she did, because the Time Guardian had found the time to meet them for tea today.
They found her Muggle Studies classroom unlocked, the desk and the blackboard already prepared for her next lesson. Chibiusa ran to her office door and bounced as she knocked. "Puu!"
But Chibiusa didn't get an answer. She pouted.
"Maybe she's coming from the Time Doors," Usagi said. "Come on – we can go in and surprise her."
Grinning, Chibiusa pushed the door open, eager to see if Setsuna's office was as elaborately decorated as the walls of her classroom.
But she stopped short just inside the door and Usagi stumbled into her. "Puu?"
Setsuna was asleep it seemed, head pillowed on her arms as she slouched over the top of her desk.
"Oops," Chibiusa whispered. "Did I get the time wrong?"
"No," Usagi assured her, stepping around Chibiusa and into the office. "No, I'm sure you're right." She looked around as Chibiusa eased the door shut. There was already a set of four tea cups on the desk, next to a small silver and glass top rolling around in the corner of the desk and filled with green smoke, and a kettle of water steaming next to that.
It didn't look as though Setsuna had planned to fall asleep either – not if the parchment stuck to her cheek was any indication.
"That can't be comfortable," Usagi murmured as she and Chibiusa walked around the sides of the desk. Usagi put her hand down on the annoying little spinning top as she passed and it stopped rolling, the green smoke in it fading. She bent down beside Setsuna's chair and placed a hand on her shoulder. "Setsuna?"
The Time Guardian stirred and then gasped, straightening up and blinking furiously as she looked around her. Her head ached. "Wh-" she blushed as she noticed both the Queen and Chibiusa frowning at her and then saw the tea on the desk. She raised a hand to her face and peeled the parchment off her cheek. "Uh..." She hadn't even conjured them chairs yet! "My Queen?"
Usagi's frown deepened. "You know you don't have to call me that, Setsuna."
Of course, Setsuna ducked her head, face still burning with embarrassment, and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Sorry," she whispered. "I must have fallen asleep."
"Don't be sorry!" Chibiusa exclaimed, hugging her arm. "You work really hard – you should sleep more."
"Sleep is my favorite part of the day," Usagi said, reaching over and pouring some of the tea from the kettle into a cup. She smiled and presented it to Setsuna. "Here – unless you want to get back to your nap," she hastened to add.
Setsuna laughed weakly, taking the tea in both hands and breathing in the herbal scent of it. It did wonders for the persistent headache. "No, I'm fine." She smiled down at Chibiusa. "I did, after all promise." She found her wand lying on her right side and went to grab it. "There's not nearly enough chairs."
"Don't worry!" Chibiusa assured her. "We can just sit here." And she hopped up onto the desk, reaching for the cup of tea Usagi was holding out to her.
"Yeah," Usagi smiled, adding a hearty helping of sugar to her own. "You... wouldn't happen to have biscuits though... would yah?"
Setsuna smiled at her, reaching over to the left side of her desk and pulling open the bottom drawer, revealing a large tin of chocolate biscuits that made Usagi's mouth water. "I could never forget biscuits," she said and took her first sip of her own tea.
"Are you okay, Puu?" Chibiusa asked as she sipped.
Setsuna set the stemming cup down and directed a reassuring smile at Chibiusa. "I'm fine, Small Lady. I merely have a lot to do right now. I'm sorry – this is the first time I've had a nap at my desk in a while."
"Couches are much better for naps," Usagi said, munching on a biscuit. "Still," she said, mouth still full, "if there's anything we can do to help you."
Setsuna chuckled. "No, I promise." She sipped her tea. "And I believe you have something to give me, is that correct?"
Usagi blinked and swallowed the biscuit. "Oh yeah," she reached into her pocket, pulling out the well folded drawing Ginny had drawn her weeks ago. "Ginny says this is what the object with the Kunzite stone looks like," she said. "I don't know how much a picture can do but..."
Setsuna took it, and felt immediately guilty as she took the parchment and spread it out across the desk. She hadn't spared much more than a moment's time for the Shittenou or Endymion in weeks. She sighed. "My apologies," she told Usagi. "I haven't been as focused on this as I should be."
Usagi frowned and shook her head. "You don't need to apologize," she said. And she leaned forwards, placing her hand over Setsuna's where it touched the drawing. "You do so much for us already."
"Yeah!" Chibiusa echoed her. "You can't do everything yourself."
Setsuna looked between the two of them, a small smile tugging at her lips. "You're right of course." She sighed, looking closer at the picture Usagi had brought her. "This is quite detailed." It seemed Miss. Weasley had even gone so far as to write the colors of each part of the cup onto her sketch. She had even guessed the dimensions. "In fact... this might be exactly what I need."
~SMH~
Mina grinned as Glacius collided with Katie Bell's stunner in the middle of the dueling platform, freezing the spell into splinters of ice which were hit a moment later by Depulso. It spat the shards back across the court. Katie melted them with a wall of fire the sprang up at her feet and began to shoot the fireballs across the court.
The flames were an opening. Katie couldn't see the floor of the court over them. Mina responded with a tripping jinx. The wood floor folded and rippled as if turned to carpet and raced across the court as Mina ducked the fireballs.
The tripping jinx rolled under Katie's feet, knocking her onto her back. An expelliarmus wrenched her wand out of her hand.
The flames in the middle of the court hissed as they were extinguished and the lights went on around the room amid whoops and clapping. Mina strood across the court and extended the hand that held Katie's wand, helping her to her feet.
"You're relentless," Katie muttered, straightening her robes.
Mina grinned and touched the singed bow on her head. "I dunno, you nearly got me."
"An excellent duel!" Flitwick piped up as he walked up onto the platform with his hands clasped behind him. He snapped his fingers and a light blue badge appeared in the air between the three of them: A shield with a silver and bronze wand crossed in front of it. Mina already knew what the tiny writing engraved along the edges said as she held out her hand. The badge fell into it.
It was the third Dueling Club meeting and her twelfth duel of the year. She'd beat out Hermione and Ravenclaw's Marcus Belby in the semi-final rounds earlier in the hour and having beating Katie, she'd earned the position of Dueling Club President.
"Congratulations," Flitwick told her with a tight smile. He pivoted around, towards the audience of fifty or so other excited club members – up from 25 who'd been here the first week. "Now," he said as he did after every duel. "Lets break down that performance. What could Mina improve on?"
She pinned the badge to her robes as she hopped off the platform, not even listening to discussion about her dodging technique and whether letting the third fireball skim the top of her head had been a calculated risk or a grave error. "Prezzz-i-deeent" she sang to herself as she admired the way the badge gleamed under the giant chandeleure.
She was still grinning to herself at the end of the meeting when Flitwick asked her to stay behind so they could discuss the leadership role.
"Go ahead," She said to Ginny, Hermione and Katie when they offered to wait up. "I'm gonna take the long way back."
"Long way?" Katie wondered.
"She's going flying again," Hermione said.
"Don't get caught by Filch again," Ginny said.
"I won't!" she said as she waved them off.
Her eyes drifted back to her new badge as soon as she waved them out the door of the classroom. Finally! she thought. At least I get some recognition.
"You've improved a lot from last year," Flitwick said. Mina turned around. He gestured to his office on the side of the Charms class. "I especially appreciated that last manuever with the fireballs," he continued as they walked. "You knew blocking the fire would prolong the battle and took the slight hit to expedite the victory."
"Um, sure!" Mina laughed, touching the singed part of her fringe. Was that her hair that smelled like popcorn? "I really didn't think about it that much."
"Well that's exactly the point," Flitwick said. "The best place to reach, as a duelist, is practicing enough to know what manuevers you can withstand, and using the time it would take to cast a shield to cast an offensive spell while your opponent assumes they have a second to regroup."
"Yeah..." Mina thought for a moment and grinned. "I guess you're right."
"You seem surprised," Flitwick observed as he disappeared behind his tall desk. Mina took her seat, and he reappeared as his own short chair shot up several feet. "Surely," he said as he waved his wand and took out the list of duties a club president had. (He'd passed it out at the first meeting, but she admittedly hadn't done more than glance at it). "You knew your skill as a duelist was more than just luck."
Mina frowned. "Of course I did, I just," she looked down at the badge. "I mean everyone else is getting recognized for everything they're exceptional at and I just..." she laughed. "Well its nice to have some proof I'm the best at something."
"And why would you need proof?" Flitwick raised a thin eyebrow, steepling his fingers.
"I just – you know so people would notice."
Flitwick frowned and then surprised her. He gave a great roll of his eyes and sighed.
"What?"
"Let me guess," he said in a shrewd tone. His nose wrinkled. "You have been passed over by the illustrious Slug Club."
Mina blinked. "I, well yes."
Flitwick hummed. "A club which, unlike a prefecture or presidency or captaincy is based on no structured appraisal of leadership ability, academic merit, or any sort of skill."
Mina blinked. "Then um, what is it based on?"
Flitwick raised his eyebrows and turned in his chair. "You tell me." He waved his hand towards his wall of pictures: seven rows of decades worth of dueling clubs. "Of the 39 students who have been president of my dueling club while the Slug Club has existed, 25 of them were never members of the Slug Club before becoming so. Those that were..." He lifted one spindly finger after another while he ticked off a list. "Children of Ministers and Mugwumps, heirs to very well connected familes, or (in two cases) Quidditch prodigies pegged at a young age for a professional team." His dark eyes turned to Mina. "Do you sense a pattern here?"
Mina crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair. "They were already well connected."
"Exactly," Flitwick nodded. "Connection is the key. The Slug Club has of course lifted up many an underprivileged student in its time. The bulk of its members, however, start out with some distinction other than their academics or their own personal achievements. Thus, plenty of those with exceptional talents and potential get passed over because it is not designed to support every worthy student. It's designed to make a select few feel important, thus creating a network of successful people who attribute their success to their membership. And who do suppose that benefits."
"Slughorn," Mina said immediately.
Flitwick nodded. "And I have seen too many of my most gifted student belittle their own potential because they do not get invited. Which somehow makes them feel they are lesser that students of equal or even middling skills – you are not going to do the same thing."
Mina nodded.
"Do not take this as a condemnation of Prof. Slughorn," Flitwick continued. "He's an excellent teacher. But his pension for self-serving favoritism is not his best quality."
Mina nodded again, thinking. "Sir, most of my friends are members," she said. "Some of them are very good in potions, but they're all in the same class as me they don't do better or worse than any other NEWT student." Though I guess Makoto is a Quidditch Captain... but still.
"You're wondering why they have been invited and not you."
"Well, no." Mina said. "Slughorn knows I don't like him."
"Just wait," Flitwick said. "If you're wearing that badge, he may reconsider his judgement."
"Right..." Mina said. "But I'm wondering, none of us are well connected... and The Prophet never learned we were at the Department of Mysteries... and we clearly won't be staying in Britain so..."
"So you are wondering what Professor Slughorn has noticed about your friends that has made him consider them?"
"Yes."
Flitwick nodded. "He may be trying to expand the Slug Club internationally. I expect that would be a goal that would interest him. Or," he shrugged. "It's entirely possible you're all close to someone else he is interested in meeting."
"But... but we don't know any wizards in Japan," Mina said, wracking her brain. "Is he interested in the Order?"
"No," Flitwick said. "Professor Slughorn is a staunch pacifist. It is one of his more agreeable qualities." He sighed. "I'll leave you to think it over." He pushed the list a club president's duties towards her. "For now, I would like to focus on important matters."
~SMH~
Friday the 4th of October, Setsuna sat on her usual perch in the staff lounge: on the wide window sill that looked out over the stretch of the grounds where the first years had their flying practice.
Chibiusa was the easiest to see in the group: her pink pig tails streaked out behind her as Hooch coached the students through a flying obstacle course, in preparation for their final test in a week's time. She'd improved a lot, Setsuna thought as she finished her lap. As the next student flew up to practice, Setsuna looked down into her tea. The staff lounge was always empty this time of day, and it was a half hour she looked forward to immensely: away from her office or her study or the Time Doors where she could gather her thoughts, thoughts which after the morning, were decidedly frustrated.
As she concentrated, the image of Hufflepuff's cup appeared in the tea, just as it had in the Time Dimension that morning. Setsuna scowled
Ginerva's drawing had been exceptionally well rendered. Well enough for her to re-imagine the real-life artifact within the Time Dimension, and set the sands to work seeking out the object's location.
She had identified the original cup first: a well polished golden thing with elegant carvings and gems that were not overly gaudy. She'd seen it as its original: the centerpiece of a ceremony that had welcomed an orphaned muggleborn into one of the four prestigeous founding families of Hogwarts. She had leapt ahead years later to the day Rowena Ravenclaw had indeed helped Helga Hufflepuff add the Kunzite stone to the center of the golden stem. And then, having confirmed its status as the artifact protecting the Shittenou's memories and powers, had directed her attention to the present, seeking out the object's location.
It was harder to track objects than people. They had no strings of fate tugging them along, made no decisions that could echo back through time to them. Most frustratingly they could be easily moved and changed. A cup for instance could be stolen, lost, melted down, and it might not be clear why or by whom.
But she had thought it would be simple enough to get at least an idea of the damn thing's location. Particularly given that the levels and the nature of its magic would stand out.
And yet, the image she had set the Time Sands to tracking down had become shimmery. A mirage of the real item. Which meant, like Timothy Abbott, that it was under the control of a person she could not see, or in a location that had distorted the rules of space so much as to be impossible to accurately identify.
Or it could be both, Setsuna sighed, leaning against the cool stone wall of the window sill. Though I question what kind of coincidence could put an artifact of Helga Hufflepuff's in Lestrange's hands.
She frowned. And even a masked or distorted location in space could still give a general area which I could search, she considered, for in the brief moments last month that Lestrange had been accessible to her, she had been able to determine her unplottable manor's location within a five kilometer radius. So it's plausible the cup is with her, or at least has been put somewhere by her.
The next step then was to track it through time, find the moment it had passed into Lestrange's hands. Setsuna pinched the bridge of her nose. She was not particularly keen on following a cup through 1,000 years worth of time.
She had tried too, looking for the point in time where they would acquire Kunzite's stone, as she had last year. Last year she'd determined they might get access to Kunzite in another year's time if they let events play out with little interference. This morning she'd been frustrated to see that while Zoicite might be found close to Christmas, and Nephrite potentially in April or May, Kunzite's was a blur.
I did not anticipate Bellatrix past actions might be hidden from me as well, Setsuna scowled. Are other Death Eaters out there taking whatever potion this is?
"Ah!" an all too cheerful voice startled her as she looked up from her tea. Horace Slughorn was shutting the door of the staff lounge and grinning quite merrily. "I didn't realize you'd be here – delightful." She matched his smile as he approached, waving his wand towards the kettle. It poured him his own cup of tea which sailed into his hands. "Hello," he said. "I don't believe I've seen you outside the Great Hall in weeks."
"Yes well, I tend to keep a very busy schedule," Setsuna said.
"Well that I had gathered already – teaching two classes," Horace marveled and sipped his tea. "I don't know how you have the time."
Setsuna's mouth twitched as she tried not to smirk. "It can be challenging."
"I should think – your students speak very highly of you, I have to say, and your transfer students as well. You know many of them have been attending my club dinners."
"Hotaru's told me." Setsuna sipped her tea. "I apologise that I haven't been able to attend one yet."
"Oh no worries," Slughorn said, smiling wider. "Though from my conversations with Dumbledore it sounds as if you've got quite a lot of work you're doing besides your classes."
She frowned. Horace was not a member of the Order to her knowledge. "I have always enjoyed having projects," she said. "Some of them relate to the war here, so they do require a lot of attention."
Slughorn leaned against the wall beside her window sill. "Such a terrible situation," he bemoaned. "So many of my best students gone before their time because of the last war." He sipped his tea. "You know, I've never been one who likes getting involved in this war business," Slughorn said. "But you set an inspiring example." He gave her a wide smile. "You know whatever your research is, it would surely go more smoothly with someone who knows the bureaucracy here."
Setsuna frowned. "I doubt it," she said. "I am interested mostly in unplottable locations and death eaters," she told the Potions Master. "They are quite difficult to track by nature."
"Ah! Well that might be something I could help you with," Slughorn said. "I have a few former students in ministry departments who might keep lists of things that have been made unplottable. You know for the past two centuries you've needed permits for that sort of thing. And," he mused, tapping his chin. "I have become quite familiar with many pureblood houses over the years. Enough, certainly to know who's donated their money where."
"That... might be very helpful," Setsuna said, imagining what she might be able to accomplish with not just the names Severus could pass on to her, but sympathizers as well. I'd certainly have a broader understanding of Voldemort's network...
"It would be no trouble." Slughorn said "I'll tug a few strings whisper in a few ears." she jumped a little when he reached out and touched her shoulder, squeezing it. "I imagine what ever work you do is quite important. I want to help in any way I can."
Setsuna smiled at him. "Thank you Professor Slughorn."
"Oh come now, Setsuna," he scoffed. "Surely co-workers can address each other by their first names."
She chuckled, sipping her tea again and shrugging off his hand. She hoped it came off as a casual gesture. Millennia of guarding the door had left her more than a tad uncomfortable with such casual touch from acquaintances, but she certainly didn't want him to think her cold as some had called her in the past. "How much time would it take you to talk to your connections?" she asked.
"Hmm… perhaps a week for those I've kept up with most frequently," Horace said. "I'll see if the others wouldn't like to come for a reunion of sorts. Oh that might be splendid!" He chortled, finishing his cup of tea. "By the way," he added. "I've asked a few others so far, but perhaps you might be better able to help – You know Dumbledore wants to have someone chaperoning the Hogsmeade trips this year."
Setsuna nodded. The staff had been discussing the Hogsmeade issue months before term. "Did you volunteer?"
"Well I did and then I checked the list of students – I'd have thought there'd be fewer of them approved to go, but there's a list of over 400! And the first one – I'd forgotten until Minerva reminded me – that's always so popular. I'm not sure I could keep an eye on that many alone."
"It does sound like a good idea to have extra supervision," Setsuna mused. Then again, she expected all 5 of the inner senshi would be there if there did happen to be an attack. "I wish I could help, but I also have a pressing project that will be taking up my time this weekend." If she was going to have to follow Hufflepuff's cup through as much of its 1,000 years of life as possible, she wanted to do it before matters concerning the war forced her to put her search for the Shittenou aside again. "Perhaps I would be able to help with the next Hogsmeade trip though."
Slughorn sighed. "Of course. I understand. No matter," he said. "I'm sure I can find someone else, though perhaps no one who is such good company as you."
She chuckled. "Well, Rubeus is always good company. And he's very protective of the students." She said, and stared into her tea as she considered the result of that course of action. "If you ask him, he'll say yes."
Slughorn's smile slipped for a moment, though Setsuna couldn't fathom why. "Well that's an excellent suggestion I think I'll ask him." He waved his wand to summon the kettle "Refill?" he asked.
Setsuna thought. It was close to 15:00 and she did need to spend a bit of time seeing if any of the pockets of the Death Eaters forces on her map would be causing trouble in the week to come. Still...
"Alright," she said.
When the kettle had refilled her tea, Horace sent it back to its spot on the table. Then he waved his wand, transfiguring the bookshelf behind him into a large, wood-brown armchair that he settled into with a sigh. "That's better – I hope I'm not keeping you. But I have been very curious about your teaching. You see: I've never had a student rave about muggle studies or divination like yours do. I simply must know what the secret is!" he chuckled, leaning closer to her. "If I could just get my own students to care half so much, why: we'd have a potion for every whim by now."
She was sipping her tea, pondering how to answer, when the staff room door swung open. Severus Snape strode in. His natural scowl deepened when he saw them. "Good afternoon, Horace," he intoned, strolling over to the teapot. Setsuna frowned; he was holding his left arm quite stiffly against his side (which he only ever did when the dark mark burned).
"Severus!" Horace said merrily. "I never see you here!"
"Well I'm leaving momentarily," he said, looking at Setsuna "I needed to speak to Professor Meioh."
"Yes?"
"Several of your transfer students are struggling in my classes," he said. "I was hoping we could discuss ways they might improve. Perhaps over tea…" his eyes fell towards Slughorn. "Or dinner."
It was the third time this term he had requested a meeting this way, an excuse he would give if other staff or students were present if he needed to discuss new information.
Which, if he was being summoned now, he would have for her soon…
"When did you have in mind?" Setsuna asked.
"Tomorrow. 18:00."
Slughorn interjected. "Well I'm afraid you'll have to pick a different time, Severus," he said. "Setsuna's quite busy."
"Quite busy, yes," she said, uncomfortably aware she had just told Slughorn she had an all day project. But it couldn't be helped. It might compromise Severus position to explain that his meeting was more important than a Hogsmeade patrol. "But I think I'd have time to discuss it over dinner."
"Excellent," Severus said. "Then I may get back to work." And he whirled out of the room.
"Why, he's forgotten his tea," Horace said. "Even more distracted than when he was a lad."
Setsuna nodded, mind on Severus and what news he might have for her of Voldemort's movements. Or perhaps even Bellatrix's...
"Sorry," she said to Slughorn. "You were saying."
~SMH~
Hamish Stebbins rolled both his shoulders as he walked into Grimmauld's kitchen, for a moment feeling as though his right shoulder weighed just the same as his left and having to look to confirm that his arm still wasn't there. He sighed, going to the icebox and hunting around for the ice cream Sirius always tried to hide in the back. And perking up when he heard cheering crackled out of the Wizarding Wireless on the counter.
"And that's 10 points to the Kenmare Kestrels! It'll be a dead tie if they catch the snitch now folks!"
Hamish grinned. If they could edge out a win against Puddlemere United he'd win two galleons off of Sirius. Which would be a great end to a considerably better day than many of late. Albeit, also a very tiresome day.
He'd been working with his sword all afternoon. Which he supposed was technically overdoing it, but he really didn't care. There was a war to be fought after all, and every minute he could pour into sword practice was one step closer to being useful again.
It felt good to wield one too. Even when hours of practice made it feel as heavy as lead in his hand. How the hell does Haruka make it look so easy? he mused as he pulled out one of the kitchen chairs with his foot and sank down into the seat.
"And Puddlemere's Seeker knows it too. Trust me folks he does not want the Kestrels edging out a win. Look at him! I haven't seen a seeker that frantic since they banned dragons as mascots in '87!"
Spread across the surface of the kitchen table was the war map, one that seemed to grow and change on a daily basis now. Hamish scanned over it idly as he ate his ice cream, not expecting to notice anything new considering it looked increasingly like a menagerie of magical creatures and death eater spottings with no order between them.
There were so many now that the white circles they'd once used had been turned to colored ones: Purple for vampires, grey for trolls, green for death eaters, pink for werewolves, black for dementors. Red for places where they new something or someone was lurking but where they had been unable to discern what or who.
"Another 10 to the Kestrels! If they catch it now they win the match! Ho! Look at United go, I haven't seen this move in a while."
How can they even have Quidditch with a war on? Hamish thought. That's bound to be a target. But, he realized with a scowl, Death Eaters probably like Quidditch too. He hoped none of them were Kestrels fans.
"Kestrels' Seeker has been totally Shut. Out. And Puddlemere's taking no chances either. Look at them they've abandoned zone tactics all together!"
Zoning... Hamish thought as he looked at the map, that might be something to check. If each group of dark creatures was responsible for a certain radius then where they overlapped might be a location of a stronghold. He set down his ice cream, reaching for one of the scraps of parchment they always left on the table. And then reaching again for the muggle pens next to them.
Maybe there is something to that Quidditch theory, Hamish thought. I wonder if whoever strategises for Voldemort plays Quidditch too. Or Voldemort himself might play Quidditch. Hamish shook his head, trying to dismiss the last thought. Or course Voldemort wouldn't play Quidditch. That was ridiculous, and it left a very uncomfortable feeling in his gut.
"It's a full on Snidget's Guard!" the announcer shouted into the wireless. "Puddlemere's got this locked down folks. Yes! YES! We have an attempt! He's leaning off the edge of the broom... THATS A CATCH! 150 points and the win to Puddlemere United!"
Hamish's pen froze on the parchment. He didn't even care that he now owed Sirius two galleons. Instead he stood up, scanning over the map with fresh eyes.
"Snidget's Guard..." Hamish muttered, looking at the colored markers with new eyes. "Snidget's Guard..."
The Death Eaters absolutely would follow Quidditch too...
~SMH~
Friday evening, Mina, Rei, and Akira swept over the grounds again, and the forests, taking the brooms farther afield in case anything were lying in wait for the Hogsmeade visit the next day.
"Anything new in your dreams?" Mina asked, while they flew.
"I saw someone who shouldn't be here," Akira said. "Someone whose presence can alter things."
"The Wizard in White," Rei said. "He's been in my dreams too. At Hogsmeade."
Mina looked between the two of them. "Alright... why don't fly a wider perimeter then... still isn't very late."
They flew for another half an hour. Akira kept up a constant string of stories, sometimes making up imaginary constellations out of the visible stars to go along with her tales.
She had just gotten to the middle of a story about a princess who banished a witch by conjuring a magical sword, one that gave Mina a startling sense of de-ja-vu, when Akira and Rei halted, brooms whipping around to the right.
In the near-blackness of the cloudy night, the flashes of green up in the hills were brighter than explosions. They sped towards them. Mina conjured her patronus, sending it racing off to inform the Order of their location.
Halfway to the sight of the green spell-fire the Dark Mark went up in the sky.
"We're gonna be too late again," Rei worried. "Hang on." She stopped her broom and closed her eyes, pressing her hands together.
Then she pointed to the south, several miles away from the Dark Mark, Mina and Akira shot off ahead, and Rei raced to catch up as more green lights appeared in the darkness. They made the tops of the trees glitter, Mina noticed. As if they were covered in…
Ice!
"Dement-ahh!" She screamed as two creatures in black, bedraggled cloaks and with dead, scabbed hands rose up on either side of her broom, reaching towards her.
"Mina!" Rei shouted, moving to conjure her own patronus. It chased the two dementors away and the five more who appeared around their brooms. The creatures jumped back, pushed away from the crow patronus towards…
"Akira!" the two sixth years shouted. But the five dementors had already converged on her. She screamed. Three more shot up between them. The group of dark creatures weaved up and between all of their brooms forcing them apart. Two were incinerated by Mina's birds. Another was chased away towards the forest by Rei's crow. The other four other dementors though, had pursued the first year, they could see her broom glittering very far ahead in the darkness, blinking as the black silhouettes of the dementors continued to give chase. They converged on her.
"Akira!"
Akira could not hear Mina and Rei's shouts, only explosions in her ears as she raced away from the dementors. She couldn't see them in the dark but she kept running, closing her eyes. The explosions were becoming louder and louder in her ears as everything got colder and colder.
"L-lumos!" she shouted. Her cherry wand lit up with a bright, white light.
And a scabbed, corpse-like hand curled round it, blocking it out – everything was as black as the sky had been that day…
The first explosion deafened her, cracking the wood floor of the temple in too. She ran to the door as more, smaller explosions reached her ears.
"Mamas!"
They'd let her stay home from school today. She'd woken up sick from her bad dream of the whole city falling asleep, never waking up, and of the big dark planet blocking the Moon...
An earthquake shook the entire house, shattered all her sculptures and the pictures and the holo screen – even the communication link to the palace.
She saw darkness out the window, coming from a giant black crystal growing out of the ground opposite the palace. The whole sky had clouded over with darkness.
Just outside, a bright rainbow light blazed across the temple grounds. The shield had been activated!
Mamas!
They'd practiced this. If anything ever happened like this that was scary, she was to go to her room and lock the door and wait for them. Always wait for them.
Another earthquake rumbled outside, cracking ground open.
What's happening!
She ran out the front door instead and choked on the thick, smoggy air. She shivered as she stared outside.
It was her nightmare: all the shiny skyscrapers were shattering and falling. Smoke billowed up in ugly black and purple plumes all across the city – even near the palace.
The crystal point outside was blazing red, orange, green, and blue powering the shield around Tokyo – just like the four lights shining within the highest tower it the palace. She tripped across the rumbling ground, coughing. The air was so heavy it made her stomach turn.
She got to the crumbling steps of the Temple and cried out, slamming into something orange and red and shimmering.
A barrier around the temple! She pressed her hands to it; it would not budge.
"Mamas!"
Right across the canal from the palace the black crystal was growing even bigger than the buildings – sucking in all the light.
She was so cold she could not feel her limbs and yet the buildings were melting! She pressed hard against the light barrier. Out. She needed to get out, and get to them and...
"Let Me OUT!"
There was a bright flash – a surge of heat
The barrier melted away. She tumbled down the steps that were buckling and breaking beneath her,
she didn't stop to wonder why it was easier to move now, or why her temple robes were lighter. Rather, she ran, tripping on every warped and twisted road and over the ravines that were tearing open in the ground. She ran right towards the palace. It wasn't far… just four blocks. She could get there. She could.
The black crystal grew larger, and larger, and larger as the trees and the flowers and the grass withered. She tripped next not over a crack in the ground, but a body, sapped of life, everything save their bones was already crumbling to dust.
She screamed, running blindly away. She saw the arcade, windows shattered, and went to it. The old command center…
Mamas would find her here surely. She put her hands on the glass door, which shattered at just her touch, and she ran to the ancient Sailor V game and the old staircase. The game was gone – it was smoking and burning in pieces on the stairs.
She ran down and gasped. The basement air was lighter and fresher than any of the air above.
She pressed every button on the old, clunky computer until one of the screens came on.
There was the palace and the four bright lights on the top - And the queen! She was running outside of the walls…
A sudden, bright flash made her scream and fall away from the computer, hitting the floor. The computer flickered. She scrambled up, hitting all the buttons again, until the image was restored.
The fires had gone out. Everything seemed covered in crystal…
She squeaked – the queen too – frozen with her hand still outstretched!
And the giant black crystal still stood, now as tall as the palace, blazing across the channel.
She trembled as something else happened outside. The shield around Crystal Tokyo faded. The crystal points dimmed.
The four lights atop the crystal palace went out.
She felt the heavy weight of her normal robes return as she sat heavily on the floor, curling up and staring at the monitor. They would come find her. They'd only de-transformed. They were alright.
The sky remained darker than night. The sun did not shine through the thick, black clouds. Behind the black crystal, the evil planet loomed very close, just like her dream. What few lights were still on around the city went out one by one.
Then monitor died. The computer lights dimmed, leaving the whole room pitch black, ice cold. She couldn't even see her hands as she brought them up to cover her eyes.
Mamas...
Akira groaned, blinking her eyes open to darkness and closing her hand around wet dirt and pointy pine needles.
She was in a forest…
I must have fallen off Mako's broom, she thought. I hope they can get it back for her…
She sat up slowly, feeling scrapes on her arms and sticks in her hair and her robes. Had the trees broken her fall?
Something screamed. She jerked her head towards the sound.
She couldn't see a thing in the dark. But she could sense things: one thing in particular – the dark energy from her dream – the one making the changes.
She stood up, stretching out her hands and feeling around for the tree trunks as she crept across the forest floor, towards the screams that didn't quite sound human. Their high pitch made them sound almost like a whisper.
And then she could hear giggling too, and see scant light shining through the trees. She stood on her tip-toes, hugging closely to the tree trunks.
Three figures appeared though the trees. One with a hood. One with wild hair. And one…
A dementor, trapped in a dome of white light.
She heard one of the figures murmur something. And the wild haired figure raised a twisted wand towards the dementor. Something pink and black appeared at her wand tip, accompanied by a sound like breaking glass. All the birds in the branches above screeched and flew off as the branches shook.
The black and pink magic shot into the dementer, and it glowed for one, brief second. Its struggles stilled. The shield around it went down.
The wild haired one's head snapped towards Akira.
She hugged the tree she hid behind, knees shaking. Her hand found the locket she kept under her robes as she took another silent step. Then another. Her foot hit a root and she glanced behind her, trying to see.
Suddenly then the ground lit up with a bright, white light and her whole body stiffened, her arms and legs locked together as she looked towards its source.
The light came from the white robes of the wizard looming over her, his glowing hood low, covering most of his face. He cocked his head to the side and smiled at her, lifting his arm and his wand.
"Bunruisuru."
A small shock zapped her and then a light orange light lit up even more of the forest, emanating from the symbol Akira could feel burning on her forehead.
The wizard's smile widened. "Interesting," he whispered. "I've never seen you before." He bent down to her level, as the parts of her body she could move trembled. His hood remained over his face. "Where did you come from, hmm? Did they find you when they came here?"
Akira kept her mouth closed and squeezed her eyes shut, Transform! she tried to coach herself. But the words were trapped by the lump in her throat. She couldn't even voice the first syllable.
She heard the wizard make a disapproving hum. "Already indoctrinated I see. She does have that awesome ability – inspires such dedicated followers," he hissed, voice laced through with envy. "No matter."
Akira forced her eyes open as she heard him stand. He was frowning. "You may still be brought back to the light," he said as his hand reached out towards her, cloak billowing in a sudden breeze. The corners of it stretched towards her. Her magic reacted.
The wizard screamed as a bright heat wave knocked him off his feet and forced him back as it traveled out through the forest, melting through the thick trunks. Akira felt her limbs spring apart as the jinx burnt out, and looked down at starburst of scorched glass and smoldering tar that surrounded her. Thank goodness.
At once there was a soft pop to her left. She snapped her head towards it, hand fumbling for the locket under her robes and the wand in her pocket…
There in the orange light that shone from her forehead was the woman with the wild hair stepping out from between the burning stumps of the trees. Her twisted wand was pointed right at Akira as she glared at her, hastening to the side of the wizard who was sitting up, one melted hand clutching his face.
He laughed, getting to his feet, still holding his ruined hand to his face.
"This is one of those ones from the ministry!" Bellatrix gasped. "What did you do!" a red light shot off the end of her wand.
Something snapped, hot chain links wrapped around Akira's waist and jerked her up away from the red light. Bellatrix screamed. An arrow of flame pierced her through the gut.
The love whip dragged Akira up into the air, back to two broomstick riders in red and orange uniforms.
Mars loosed another arrow on the heels of the first as Venus caught Akira. It sailed right towards Bellatrix head.
And didn't reach her. The flame arrow was caught in the air by dead, spindly fingers and it hissed as it was extinguished, its heat overpowered by the sudden cold. The dementor swiveled its head towards them.
"Expecto Patronum!" Mina shouted. Her flock of orange birds dove at the dementor as it raised its other hand.
A sudden black whirlwind jumped out of the ground, kicking up grass and dust and the ash of the burnt trees as it masked the dementor and the two Wix. Mina's birds hit it, shredding into the wind.
Mars and Venus flew backwards, Mina still clutching Akira as a bright green light shot out of the dissipating whirlwind. The light expanded into a skull and snake high up in the black sky.
And on the ground: the bird patronus had destroyed the whirlwind. Where it had been was a ring of blackened stumps, a starburst of glass that glittered in the still smoldering flames that had sprung up all around the empty forest floor.
Bellatrix and the wizard had vanished.
~I Solemnly Swear I Am Up To No Good~
