Previously: Remus Lupin and his goddaughter were rudely woken by a team of Aurors who suspected the pair of harbouring the newly escaped convict, Sirius Black. Remus wants nothing to do with his ex-best friend, but Kali wants to help her father. Kali's position prevailed when her grandmother sided with her, resulting in a decision to head to the UK.
Chapter Two:
Behind the Walls
Charing Cross Road teemed with more tourists than locals—not that Kali was in a position to judge. The Muggles ran down the pavement, underdressed and ducking from one overhang to another. The automobiles' wiper blades worked at full speed as the vehicles trundled along, splashing puddles at whoever walked too near the road.
"I hate British weather," said Gran, eyeing the cloudy grey sky. Raindrops pelted the ground around them, but not a single one touched her or her party even though none of them carried an umbrella.
Remus turned up his coat collar and ran a hand through his hair. His short curls clung to his scalp, sodden from the small tidal wave a passing car had caused outside the airport. "The sooner we get our British Apparition licences validated, the better."
Kali's stomach roiled at the mention. The Muggle aeroplane had made her ears pop and her head spin, but Apparition forced her belly to plummet to her toes and drove bile up her throat.
"Unless you're happy walking everywhere for the rest of your life, you're going to have to get used to it," said Pan. His voice rang through Kali's mind with the sharpness of clinking crystals.
He lay curled around her neck as a ferret, concealed in the folds of her hood.
Daemon, Yaksha, Anito, Hyang, Fylgjia, guardian angel … different words from different cultures, all meaning the same thing: a guiding spirit, a shape-shifting being with the ability to bond with a human. The latter part was undeniable, but Pan made Kali doubt the former.
He hissed and headbutted her neck. "I give you plenty of guidance. It's not my fault you never listen."
"I listen sometimes," she said.
A man wearing wheeled shoes rolled past her. His torso swayed from his swinging arms, and his feet glided over the pavement. He slalomed around people and puddles, keeping pace with the metal beasts on the road.
"Only when I agree with you," said Pan.
"Agree with me more often, and I won't have to ignore you so much."
The man disappeared around a corner. People pushed around Kali, the tourists in their bright shorts and thin t-shirts, desperate for shelter, and the business people in their sombre suits, hurrying home from work. Remus's blue coat and Gran's red one were no longer beside her.
Her heart jolted like a caged pixie, but she took a breath and rose onto her tippy toes. Remus and Gran towered over the crowd a few metres ahead.
She ran to catch up with her guardians' long legs. Pan gripped her hair between clawed digits, his lower body bumping over her shoulder and sliding down the back of her coat. Remus and Gran stopped at a tall post with a red man glowing atop it. Kali stopped beside them in time for Remus to glance down at her. She steadied her breathing, and his green eyes didn't linger.
Pan crawled back onto his perch. "A little more warning next time would be nice."
Her apology came with a shrug that threw his balance, earning herself the sting of sharp claws scratching over her collarbone.
A crowd gathered around her. Everyone faced the road, tapping their heels and checking their watches. Kali peeked around Gran's back. The big Muggle vehicles streamed over the street, a long fast-moving procession. A few people darted between them, raising their hands in waves or rude gestures. The slower runners made the metal beasts screech and bellow. Kali's eyes fell to Gran's heels. She tried to remember the last time she'd seen her grandmother run, but nothing came to mind.
The red man atop the post turned green, and the crowd surged, buffeting Kali across the road. A boy trotted beside her, his brow set and his nose wrinkled. He came nose to armpit with the woman in front of him, but the throng was too thick for him to move away. The man behind Kali stumbled, shoving her against Remus, whose arm went around her shoulders.
Halfway across the road, Kali's group met people going in the opposite direction, creating a countercurrent of jostling elbows. The boy beside her got caught in the eddy, but Remus pulled Kali away from it.
Her breath puffed when her feet hit the pavement. She glanced over her shoulder at the people now running to get across the road. The street looked narrower from here.
Remus kept his arm around her shoulders, cocooning Pan and steering Kali towards an old building with a weather-worn door that sagged on its hinges. Above the door, a small sign read, 'The Leaky Cauldron'.
Muggles walked past without sparing the pub a glance. If they could have seen through the concealment charms, they might have given it a wider berth. Centuries' worth of soot and pollution had turned the Leaky Cauldron's stony facade black and grimy. Pockmarks darkened its timber frame, and its uneven brick wall slanted inwards in the middle like a person holding in their tummy.
It didn't look like a gateway to the magical world. Then again, Kali supposed that was the point.
Remus paused at the door. He stared at the termite-eaten wood and worried his bottom lip between his teeth. Flakes of skin peeled from the abused flesh, and a cut on the right side of his mouth threatened to start bleeding again.
Gran leaned in and whispered something to him. His eyes flicked to her, his eyebrows scrunched in a glare, but Gran only waved towards the door. Huffing a sigh, Remus yanked it open and barrelled in.
The inside of the pub was as gloomy and shabby as the exterior. Dirt and water stains coated the high windows, trapping the large room in a permanent dusk. Candles and oil lamps chased away some of the darkness, but shadows lingered by the walls and around the pillars, except on the far right where a fire blazed. The flames fought against the chill and the damp, but every few minutes, they flared the sickly green of the Floo Network, casting an eerie glow over the room and turning the patrons into ghouls.
The low lighting might have been deliberate—devised to hide the extent of the building's disrepair.
Time had rotted the beams and felled chunks of plaster from the walls. Dust and grime clad every visible surface, so deeply ingrained that not even the most potent cleaning charm could wash it away. Every so often, an owl swooped through an open window to deposit an envelope or package in someone's lap as well as feathers and droppings on the floor. Small claws scratched on wood as mice and rats scurried from one dark corner to the next.
The pub's health and safety regulations hadn't evolved since the sixteenth century, but the patrons didn't seem to mind.
A raucous group of middle-aged men sat in a corner, sloshing their drinks while they shouted and laughed, spilling most of their pints onto the floor. Five older women lounged a couple of tables away, smoking from long pipes that puffed blue and purple mists and drinking from shot glasses that billowed steam. The old bartender served Firewhisky with nimble hands to two girls who didn't look old enough to drink yet threw back the small glasses one after the next without pause.
Everyone turned when Kali, Remus, and Gran walked in. The men in the corner ogled Gran, the girls at the bar made eyes at Remus, and the five old women looked from Kali to the wanted posters plastered on every wall.
A woman stepped from a shadowy alcove and started towards them.
Remus's posture unwound, shoulders dropping and fists unclenching as he let out a long breath. He patted Kali's shoulder, but Kali couldn't see a reason to relax.
The woman's square spectacles glinted in the weak light, setting her eyes afire, and the flames from the fireplace dug deep shadows in her stern bone structure, making the skull beneath her skin stand out.
Kali leaned into Remus.
The woman stopped two feet away. She had to crane her neck to meet Remus's and Gran's eye, but Kali had to do the same to look her in the face. With the fire to her back, her spectacles no longer blazed. "Hello, Mr Lupin. You look well."
"Thank you, Professor. You don't seem to have aged a day."
The professor's thin-lipped, close-mouthed smile smoothed her features and softened her prim expression. "Thank you." Her eyes flicked over him and paused for half a second on each visible scar, her brows scrunching and her smile turning more and more brittle. She melted her frown into a new smile as she turned to Gran. "You must be Freyja Morrigan."
Gran stared at the outstretched hand for two seconds before shaking it. "I am, and this is my granddaughter Kali."
"Is she not going to introduce me?" Pan muttered, but Kali shushed him.
Blazing glasses or no, the professor's eyes had a fierce gleam to them that made Kali's back straighten.
"Is it Kali Morrigan or Kali Black?" The question came quietly, but in the silence that had enveloped the pub, she could have shouted for all the difference it made. The whispers broke out.
"Did she say 'Black'?"
"As in—"
"Murderer's daughter—"
"She looks just like him—"
"Didn't even know the bastard had a child—"
"She'll turn out like him, just you watch—"
Rocks settled in Kali's stomach, but she kept her shoulders back and met the gaze of everyone in the room like Gran had taught her. "These people won't know you," Gran had said. "If they judge you because of who your father is, they deserve nothing but contempt." Gran's expression of contempt included lifting her chin and peering down her nose at people. Kali's height made that look difficult to replicate, so she settled on what she hoped was a cold stare.
Remus tensed beside her, his skinny torso as hard and unyielding as a steel beam. His teeth ground together hard enough that Kali could hear the scraping.
"Both," she said, wiggling her shoulder when Remus's grip stiffened on it, "but Black is fine."
Professor McGonagall raised her eyebrows. "Are you sure?"
Remus's hold tightened further.
"Yes, ma'am," she said with the flash of a smile.
The smile caught the professor off guard. Her eyes widened and her mouth opened, but within a couple of blinks, the look vanished, and her composure fell back in place.
"Very well," said McGonagall. "I have reserved a private parlour for us to conduct our business. Follow me."
She led them away from the still whispering crowd, down a narrow passageway with crooked walls, and into a room that smelled of beer, mildew, and stale smoke.
"Tom will be by shortly with tea and biscuits," said McGonagall. Her clipped tone made her accent sound like a staccato, but away from the crowd, she relaxed, and the rhythm of her voice softened. "Please, sit."
Without the many flames from the main room throwing shadows over the professor's features, she looked younger, but Kali couldn't pinpoint her age. Her black hair boasted no white strands and her face had only a few lines, but her eyes reminded Kali of Gran's.
With a life expectancy of 137¾ years, when the golden years struck, some wizards and witches ended up looking like glorified corpses while others were accused of casting Freezing Charms on their faces and drinking unhealthy amounts of the Shrinking Solution. Gran had done neither as far as Kali knew, and Professor McGonagall, with her stoic posture and frown lines, didn't seem the type to resort to the misuse of magic either.
"Under normal circumstances, it would be Professor Dumbledore handling this interview," said Professor McGonagall. She sat in the faded orange armchair, her eyes on Remus as he, Kali, and Gran squeezed onto the lumpy sofa. "However, your past job experience and glowing recommendation letters convinced him you would be perfect for the position, which makes this merely a formality."
A thumping knock preceded the toothless, hairless bartender, who hobbled in clutching a scratched silver platter. He set it down on the table, smiled at the professor, bowed, glanced at Kali, and left.
The rocks in her belly had turned to pebbles, but the dusty table and battered tray stilled her hand before she tried reaching for a biscuit. Professor McGonagall poured the tea, took a cup and added two spoonfuls of sugar, but she didn't raise it to her lips. Her eyes had found Remus again.
He didn't squirm—living with Gran killed that habit quickly in most people—but he rubbed his thumb over the frayed seam of his trousers, where the fabric had faded almost to white.
"Have you found a place to stay while you're in the country?" the professor asked.
Remus's thumb stilled. "Not yet. We came straight from the airport. Freyja has a house in Oxfordshire, but it will need to be tidied up before we move in."
"You came in a Muggle aeroplane?"
Remus nodded, casting a glance Kali's way. Apparition and Portkeys made her tummy ache, but with long-distance travel the ache spread through her whole body. The last time she'd been on the transatlantic Navigium, the rapid phasing had given her a fever that had left her bed-bound for weeks.
Professor McGonagall leaned forwards. "What was that like, might I ask?"
The tension in Remus's shoulders eased as he discussed the woes and glees of Muggle travel with his old professor. The conversation didn't seem to Kali like much of an interview; it was more like old friends catching up after a few years apart. When McGonagall ran out of questions that could be deemed—at a stretch—work-related, and Remus gave a demonstration of his skill, they moved on to the next matter at hand.
"So you wish to transfer to Hogwarts. Is that right, Miss Black?" asked Professor McGonagall, looking through some of her papers.
Kali sat a little straighter and dragged her attention away from the cracks and holes in the skirting board, through which she could hear the click of little claws against the floorboards as well as the thump and drag of something much larger than a mouse or rat. "Yes, ma'am," she said.
"Your formal education has been quite unique," said the professor, going through Kali's transcript. "Three different magical primary schools. One in Argentina, another in India, and the third in Japan, each attended for only a year. You then studied at Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry when you were eleven, and last year you were enrolled at the San Francisco Institute of Magic." She glanced at Kali over the rim of her glasses. "Is that correct?"
"Yes, ma'am."
Kali couldn't say who was most to blame for her semi-nomadic childhood: her mother who had always struggled to sit still or Remus, whose condition made him run from attachments to places and people alike.
McGonagall returned to her reading, summarising as she went, "Your test results are good, you've taken part in plenty of extracurricular activities, and your teachers have given glowing assessments of your work ethic. You seem like an excellent student, Miss Black. Hogwarts would be happy to have you."
Kali grinned. "Thank you, Professor."
"You're welcome." Professor McGonagall handed Kali a thick envelope of yellowish parchment, on the front of which a purple wax seal bore the Hogwarts coat of arms: a lion, an eagle, a badger, and a snake surrounding a large letter H. "In there you will find your acceptance letter, a list of school supplies which you can buy in Diagon Alley, and your train ticket for the 1st of September."
Kali ran her finger over the wax seal, mapping out the details. Remus shifted beside her, and she caught him smiling down at her from the corner of her eye before he turned back to Professor McGonagall and asked, "Where should she go after the train? Should she follow the first-years to the boats and join them for the Sorting ceremony?"
Professor McGonagall nodded. "Hogwarts doesn't get many transfer students, but that is generally how it's done. She will be the first to be sorted, and I will announce what year she'll be in when I call her name. Do you have any questions, Miss Black?"
She didn't. As McGonagall packed her papers, Gran invited her to join them for dinner. McGonagall declined, but Gran insisted.
Kali slipped off to the loo while Professor McGonagall paid for the tea and biscuits.
Grime filled the cracks between the lavatory tiles and brown stains covered the mirror because of the discoloured silver backing. Kali tried not to touch anything she didn't have to.
"Do you think Remus is happier now?" she asked, drowning her hands in soap.
Pan's head rested on her shoulder. He stared at her through the mirror. "No."
Bitting back her first response, she shook the water from her hands. "Why not? He loves Hogwarts. He used to talk about going back there to teach some day."
"He never imagined it like this, though, did he?"
The hand towel sneezed, so she wiped her hands on her trousers. "He never imagines any of his fantasies playing out. Remember when Mum signed him up to join a team of archaeologists for his birthday? It would have taken one Floo call for him to organise it himself, but he never would have done."
"So to help him live his dreams, you're going to take the choice away from him?"
A 'yes' hung on the tip of her mind, but she buried it. She yanked the door open and scrunched her nose when her palm stuck to the handle. Holding the door open with her foot, she leaned over the sink and rubbed another generous dose of soap into her hands.
Something touched her ankle.
It rasped the skin between her sock and the rolled hem of her jeans, sending her heart to her throat and blocking her airway.
Water hit porcelain and sprayed Kali's dangling hands. Soap-suds trailed down her fingers and burned her torn hangnails. Pan shifted from her right shoulder to her left one and peered down.
"That's a hand," he said.
Her heart left her windpipe to slam against her ribs. Air hissed into her lungs, but before she could wrest her foot into the safety of the manky bathroom, claws sank into her skin and pulled.
Her head hit the sink. Pain burst behind her eyelids like a star. Her hip hit the floor first, and then her shoulder, and then her head. Each jolt rattled her teeth and numbed her limbs.
The hands on her ankle wrenched. She kicked with her free foot and hit air. Pan scratched the back of her neck, body twisting, trapped in the folds of her hood. The tiled ceiling turned to wood. She grabbed the doorjamb, but her soapy hands slipped. Her jacket rucked up and splinters dug into the small of her back.
"Let me go." She kicked again and forced her head off the floor. There was no one there.
A panel in the wall slid open. Her assailant dragged her through it. Kali kicked and writhed and chocked on the dust she disturbed. Shafts of light streaked through cracks in the walls on either side of her. She grabbed for them, but the breeze blocks rapped her palms and blunted her fingernails.
When the walls fell away, so did the grip on her ankle.
She scrambled into a crouch, and Pan jumped from her hood.
Muggle fairy lights hung from wall studs lighting a space slightly wider than the lavatory. Humanoid creatures covered every square inch. Bigger than gnomes but smaller than house-elves, they stared at her, their dark eyes reflecting the light like dozens of miniature night skies. Hobgoblins.
"What the—"
"Welcome!" The biggest Hobgoblin sat on a child-sized bean bag in front of the brick column of a chimney's smoke shaft. He wore a dirty brown coat, patched and frayed, with a fur collar and a single shoe through which peeked his long toes. Gold rings decorated his floppy ears and furry fingers.
"I hope my colleagues greeted you well," he said. His snout twitched, and his sharp little teeth disappeared with his smile. He looked to Kali's left. "Why is she bleeding?"
Five Hobgoblins wearing dirty, tattered blankets as capes licked her blood from their claws and shook their heads, shrugging their shoulders and mumbling, "I don't know."
The big Hobgoblin grunted. "I apologise." His large eyes and pointed teeth focused back on Kali. "My name is Hob, and I am at your service."
He bowed as well as he could in the bean bag, and Pan sneered. "Hob the Hobgoblin. How creative."
Kali glanced behind her at the narrow alley between the stone walls. The darkness swallowed every detail.
Hob flapped his ears, making the rings sing. "For your gift, you have earned a boon."
Kali's brow quirked. Two Hobgoblins walked past her carrying the forgotten tray of biscuits between them. "A boon?" she asked.
"Information."
With another glance over her shoulder, Kali lowered herself to sit cross-legged and rubbed her bleeding ankle. "Like Billy Blind?"
Hob's ears wiggled and his snout wrinkled. "We do not speak of Billy. It is his fault that the Ministry no longer allows Hobgoblins to leave wizarding settlements. He made himself known to Muggles, and for his sins, we pay the price."
A mutter ran through the Hobgoblins like a cave of shifting rocks. More had joined the crowd. They hung from the walls and beams, a writing mass of small bodies.
"Sorry," Kali said.
With a grunt, Hob propped his elbows onto his knees. "The information I have is about your father."
Kali straightened so fast that her spine popped. "What about him?"
A flare of pain hit Kali's tailbone. Pan yelped and snarled, yanking his tail from a small Hobgoblin's mouth.
The room kept hissing after Pan stopped.
The Hobgoblins hunched their heads between their shoulders, curling their lips and baring their teeth, sounding like teakettles set to explode. Hob rose from his chair, his yellow teeth gleaming, his snout twisted into a snarl.
Kali swallowed. "Run."
Pan darted down the alley and Kali scrambled to follow. He shouted instructions, telling her to duck or watch her step. Behind them, an avalanche of paws followed.
She bashed her shoulder into a wall but ignored the ache. "Do you know the way out?"
"No. Do you?"
No. Everything looked the same. Claws racked the back of her calf. She ran faster. Pan shouted, "Left!" and Kali swerved. Strips of light outlined a door ahead. "Don't stop."
She didn't. She closed her eyes, scrunched her face, and kept her momentum. The door burst open beneath her weight. She slammed into the opposite wall, whirled and kicked the door shut.
The rumbling of paws stopped.
Her breaths heaving through her burning lungs, she slid down the wall and winced. Everything hurt.
Pan panted beside her, his small chest heaving. "That's my quota of danger reached for a year. Can we go home now?"
Kali snorted and then groaned at the sting in her chest. Pan returned to her hood, and she rose, stumbling to the covered courtyard outside the bar and straightening when Remus spotted her.
"You okay?" he asked. His eyes roved over her and he pulled a cobweb from her hair.
She nodded, slapped on a smile, and stared at the brick wall. Gran pulled her wand from her purse and drew a pattern. An archway opened, and Kali forgot about her aching body.
The rain fell like mist over the dark alley, which was lit only by oil lamps and the light seeping from the second-story windows of rickety old buildings. The only sounds to be heard were the light patter of rain falling onto roof shingles and cobblestones, the flapping wings and soft hoots of busy owls, and the distant yowling of fighting cats. With the bustle and noise of the daytime, the street would take on a whole new appearance, but Kali's first impression of it was that of a dark and hazy dream.
Gran had only been to Diagon Alley a handful of times when she was much younger, yet she knew exactly where the best restaurant on the street was and got them a table, despite the lack of a reservation. The restaurant had a roof terrace, but most people had chosen to eat indoors to avoid the rain. Gran, however, was willing to face the dreadful weather if it meant added privacy. She cast the Umbrella Charm over their table and summoned some floating orbs of light to brighten the gloom.
McGonagall took an interest in the first spell; it wasn't common in the UK, despite how often it rained. That topic started them off on a conversation about local and international magic. Professor McGonagall became more comfortable as the evening progressed. Prim and intimidating though she might be, the professor had a sharp mind and an easy nature.
By the time they parted ways from the professor, night had fallen. The rain had cleared, the owls had gone hunting elsewhere, and even the cats had called it a day. The silence and emptiness of the street had gone from mystical and enchanting to eerie and mysterious. Adventures waited around every corner.
Kali ran ahead of Remus and Gran, jumping over puddles and peering into darkened shop windows, all the while staying well within Remus's line of sight and hiding her winces.
This hidden realm was the size of a small town, stretching well beyond Diagon Alley, branching off into other side-streets and alleyways, expanding outwards right in the centre of London. Kali wanted to explore every last inch of it, but Gran insisted they find a hotel—not the Leaky Cauldron. She refused to set foot in there unless necessary.
They had to leave the High Street to find somewhere that came close to Gran's standards, but calling it a hotel was an overstatement. Wizarding London had yet to catch up with the modern age, so the best they could find was an old-fashioned inn. Gran grudgingly gave it her approval only because she was tired; otherwise, she might have marched into Muggle London and booked a suite at The Ritz or Claridge's.
Frogspawn Inn—perhaps it was the name that put Gran off—could best be described as quaint. The off-kilter bricks made the building lean to the right a little. Mismatched flower pots filled with mismatched flowers rested on every windowsill, and vibrant red of the front door chipped off in places.
Inside the inn, scenic paintings of lakes, mountains, and fields hung from the panelled walls. One little farmer who'd been busy shepherding his sheep, waved at the newcomers from inside his frame and lost two of his lambs, which made a run for it the minute he turned his back. The carpet that covered the tiled floor was worn and faded, and the furniture was well-used, but it was clean and homely, and the woman at the front desk smiled at them with crinkled crows' feet when they stopped in front of her.
"I suppose it would be too much to hope for a suite," said Gran.
"'Fraid so, Madam," said the innkeeper. "But I have some very comfortable adjoining rooms if you'd like."
Gran took her purse from her handbag and set several Galleons onto the countertop. "Three rooms, then, with at least two adjoining."
The innkeeper's gaze widened to twice its size as she eyed the stack of gold coins, half fearful, half hungry. Her voice shook as she said, "That's too much, Madam."
"There's water damage to the ceiling and walls, as well as strategically placed buckets in case of dripping," said Gran, not even looking at the woman as she removed her leather gloves. "The problem is recent, but still you ought to get it fixed."
Kali's gaze darted around the room, taking in these details she had overlooked on her first sweep of the place.
"I can't take your money," said the woman. Her cheeks burned a splotchy red colour, similar to her front door.
Gran tapped her fingers against the counter, following the rhythm of a lullaby that Kali's mother had often sung. "Don't be foolish. You have small children to feed"—Gran nodded towards the family picture hanging on the opposite wall—"and a business collapsing in on itself. Now is not the time for pride. Take the money. I ask for nothing in return."
The innkeeper trembled, but Gran used her no-nonsense voice. The woman ducked her head and handed Remus three room keys. Remus herded Kali and Gran from the reception area and up the stairs.
"You came this close to getting us thrown out," Remus said as he checked the room numbers on the key tags.
Gran shrugged a single shoulder. "I don't see what the problem is with offering money to those in need."
"You're not offering it. That would imply that they can refuse. You're forcing it on them."
"Only because their misplaced pride won't allow them to accept it."
They walked onto the landing and passed a ball of yarn and two knitting needles that were making what looked like a mile-long scarf. The adults continued to bicker. Remus handed Kali her room key so that she could go on ahead and ignore them.
The key stuck in the lock a few times before the mechanism clicked, and the door creaked open.
Kali's nose itched at the lemony smell of cleaning spells, and the bright yellow walls stung her eyes, but breathing through her mouth and avoiding direct eye contact with the wallpaper eased any discomfort. The floorboards groaned when she dropped her bag, and one of them cursed.
She yanked the rucksack up. "Sorry."
The wood kept muttering as she set the bag on a chair, grabbed her toothbrush, and edged her way to the bathroom where the mirror sang her praise off-key while she brushed her teeth.
"Oh, you have such pretty hair!" it said. "And what lovely eyes you have! Keep on brushing those pearly whites, now, you wonderful girl. I bet your smile is to die for! Oh, and that blush warms your cheeks so nicely—"
It kept loudly exalting her features even as she hurried from the room and closed the door behind her.
Remus's footsteps thudded through the thin door on the opposite side of the room, back and forth and back again.
She wanted to tell him to go to bed. He would be up all night tomorrow with the full moon, and he needed his rest. But if she went through there, he would try to convince her to leave, to go back to the States or anywhere else that wasn't here, to somewhere where it was safe and far away from anything too emotionally messy. Her mind was too foggy, her body too sore, and her bones too tired for another argument, so she did her best to ignore those anxious steps.
The mattress sagged when she hopped onto it, the springs squeaking like wind-up mice. She imagined Gran staring at her bed with a wrinkled nose and twisted lips, taking her wand from her handbag and transfiguring the bed into a mahogany four-poster with silk sheets. The spell would fade when she fell asleep, but it was the falling asleep part that she always struggled with.
Kali reached for the envelope on the nightstand and tore into it. The words twirled over the parchment, looping and gliding with the same grace as the Muggle man with the wheeled shoes.
"We're going to Hogwarts," she said as Pan prowled one of the dark streets below in search of easy prey. "We're finally going to see where Remus and Dad went to school."
He slinked into the shadows at the sound of footsteps. "Don't get too excited. If the Leaky Cauldron is any indication, this will all go horribly wrong."
Kali shrugged off his concern. "We'll be fine. We just have to clear Dad's name. How difficult can it be?"
Pan didn't have an answer, but his pessimism curled around her heart like cold fingers.
A/N: I hope you're enjoying the holiday season and liked this chapter!
If you want to read another story with Greek mythology daemons, I recommend His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman. Reading it as a child, it was magical and enchanting; re-reading it now, it's still captivating, and I can appreciate the themes a little more.
If you have any thoughts on this chapter—good, bad, or undecided—I'd love to hear them!