Chapter Eight: Aurorn't You Glad I Didn't Say "Banana"
October came on the air's new chill and the leaves' new attire of colours. The wind itself became more frequent, urging the students of Hogwarts to spend their free time inside the castle walls. Kayla spent most of it studying her Transfiguration, and Lylia spent most of it reading in her favourite corner of the Library. Aside from hearing Madam Pince's complaints now and then of someone taking books secretly from the Restricted section, Lylia was able to read the Snape-given spellbooks in relative serenity. Her peace was shattered one day when, upon leaving the Library to go to breakfast, she was violently tackled in the Great Hall by Kayla and Karen.
"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" one shouted right after the other, dusting Lylia off after getting her back into her seat.
"What do you mean…?" the dazed blonde just stared.
"It's your birthday!" Kayla reminded with a grin. "October 14th! You're eighteen years old today!"
"I-I am?"
"You are!" confirmed Karen as she dropped a thin, wide box onto the table before the Ravenclaw. "Open it!"
"Alright, alright…" Smiling animatedly, Lylia took off the lid with a shift of cardboard. "Ooh… Karen, what exactly is it?" She lifted from the box a long, iridescent cloak that shimmered like a peacock's feather, all colours at the same time.
"Just an old coat I found here my first year," Karen rubbed the back of her neck with a wave. "It really can't fit me anymore though, so I figured you might like it!"
"I like it a lot," confirmed Lylia quickly. "Thank you!" She got up and unfolded the mantle, sliding it across her shoulders smoothly and tying it in place as its hem just barely brushed the floor. "Wow! It fits just like a glove!"
"I have my gift for you too," Kayla extended her hand and dropped a pocketwatch onto Lylia's palm. Its silver exterior held an embossment of rhinestones along the rim of the clock face, and an elegant line of sapphires formed a calligraphic "L" on it.
"It's gorgeous!" Lylia carefully slid the present into her pants pocket after admiring it.
"Finally!" cried the overjoyed Aidon next to them. "Letum will FINALLY be on time!"
"Whose birthday is it again?" asked Draco sarcastically of the girls as he cast Aidon a pointed look.
"Attention, please," McGonagall called out as she stood up, facing the congregation of breakfasting pupils. "The Ministry of Magic has brought it to Hogwarts' attention that its students are in danger, being so close to Hogsmeade and its recent attack." Every word leaving her mouth was marked with utter resentment for what she was being forced to allow. "In order to ensure the security and wellness of all the students here, it has been decided that the Ministry's most promising teams of Aurors-in-training shall… remain posted here at the school, for the rest of the year."
Without further warning, the Great Hall doors burst open and several lines of uniformed men, none out of their twenties yet, marched forward to the Staff Table. Their adornments were simple but efficient, the camouflage pattern asserting tactical planning and the identical Ministry of Magic badge on each left arm showing allegiance.
"It will be best to cooperate in total with each other," was all the man at their head stated, his keen eyes scanning over each face in the Hall and his hand bringing a momentary salute against his shaven, fedora-topped head. Lylia sank back onto her bench as his eyes passed over hers, doing her best to not seem conspicuous while wearing the very conspicuous cloak.
Minutes of nervous silence followed this statement, as if the students were waiting for the man to go on. Eventually he just turned and marched left of the tables, departing from the hall with his teams behind him.
"Well that was awkward," mumbled Karen.
"Thank you, Captain Obvious," sighed Draco with a shake of his head after the group.
"You're welcome, Lieutenant Sarcasm," the redhead replied. "What's your take, General Humor?" She looked at Lylia.
"I deem Aidonfish to be Private Jokes."
"Hey now!"
"And Melinda is Major Pain," Kayla sought structure in the conversation once more, ignoring the protests of her other female housemate. "What're we gonna do about these guys…? They obviously aren't any sort of good news."
"Let's split up for an hour and think about it," Lylia suggested to them, thoughtfully toying with her black turtleneck's collar. "After the hour's up, we can meet up here again and decide then."
They jointly agreed and split up, each going their separate way to brainstorm. Melinda remained with Karen, reading the Daily Prophet and eating the meal Karen rejected. Draco went to be worshipped by his cronies, and Kayla went to visit Eli. Lylia just sat down in the Headmistress's chair once breakfast had ended, oblivious to the odd looks the other lingering students were giving her for it.
Kayla was effervescent in her joy to see the Occamy again, her mind having wandered to him more than once over break. She hoped the meat she had left him before departure had been enough to keep him good and content.
"Eli…?"
The only sound that responded to her was the wind's whistle through a shattered window. Drawing her robes a bit tighter in the chill of it, Kayla stepped across the dusty floorboards and examined the room closely for the serpent-bird.
"Eli? Where are you?"
The lock had been ripped from its place; and the window had been broken for good measure, leaving only shards behind it in the place of the glorious creature that once resided on its now-lonely perch in the corner.
Her heart sank far below its crucial area in her chest, and Kayla sank to the deserted floor. She lifted a single, lonely white feather that threatened to blow away on the trailing wind, her eyes mournful. "… Eli…"
As the hour had ended, the cluster of students had journeyed back to the Great Hall. Lylia was, as apparently expected, still in the Headmistress's chair.
"I've got nothing," Melinda sighed reluctantly.
"Same here," shrugged Draco.
"Nada," agreed Kayla.
"I may have something." Karen smiled. "But you won't like it, Lylia."
The blonde lowered her gaze from the candles to the redhead, balancing her wand on a fingertip. "… Well, let's hear it anyway."
"Elden Lesperance would know," the ginger proposed.
Lylia's wand fell, her concern for it absent. "… No."
"He's a fourth-year!" shrugged Karen defensively. "I've been around him for three years myself, and I can promise: if you're looking for the dark side of the Wizarding World, he'd be your best connection in a school. His family's world-renowned for its power and wealth, too. People with big purses hear big secrets. Not to mention, his family itself has been rumored to be involved with some pretty dark stuff."
Lylia eyed the floating candles once more, the clouds in the enchanted ceiling above them growing dark and gloomy. "… Alright. But we'll need to start looking immediately. No one's heard of him since…"
"Since the end of the tournament!" piped up Aidon. He sat at the Ravenclaw table not far from them, his attention primarily focused on the epic creation of a potato stick-figure from his food (but a Prefect's attention is never too singular for giving others privacy in their conversations. Hey: Prefects). "You're all quite moronic if you're going to be following Lylia through this weird excursion."
"This coming from a man quite busy creating the lovechild of Barbie and Mr. Potato Head?" Lylia scoffed.
"How are you gonna find the guy?" asked Aidon.
"We ask around, randomly visit the Library, and eat a Chocolate Cauldron along the way," declared Lylia with a victorious smirk and a dramatic pose. Karen threw in spirit fingers.
"It would be far more efficient to just split up your explorer friends and send them each to one House." Aidon gave a realistic Godzilla roar and bit off the head of his brainchild. When he looked up again, Lylia was standing right in front of him, smiling cheerfully.
"Great! We'll leave the Ravenclaws to you then, Aidon."
"M-me? I didn't volunteer! And why not you?"
"I have to interrogate- I mean, question the Hufflepuffs! We don't have a Hufflepuff in our band of… explorers, Starfish. Therefore, you take us blues." Lylia then turned to her friends with a wave. "Meet-up will be dinner! Kayla, you take the Slytherins! Draco, you handle the ones you find on the Grounds! And Karen, you take the Gryffindors!"
"And me?" asked Melinda.
"Make sure Karen doesn't get herself hurt? These are Gryffindors we're dealing with."
She almost saw it coming. "… Right-o."
Time passed as it has a nasty habit of doing, and in that time absolutely every student of Hogwarts was asked the same question about the same student. Dinner time rolled around, and so the infiltrating information-gatherers conjoined their pieces of intelligence.
"We got… mail," Melinda said without a better euphemism, hefting a bag with Karen's aid onto the table before them. Aidon whimpered in defeat as the bag shoved his plate of Macaroni (& Cheese) Art off the wood.
"I didn't learn anything," the poor Prefect sighed. "All the girls just flaunted how they were closest to him, being in the same House, and several of the males ignored me completely…"
"What do you mean, 'mail?'" Lylia asked Melinda with a furrow of her brow, idly shoving Aidon down the bench and taking his place in front of the bag.
"This is full of letters and notes," Karen shrugged hopelessly and nodded at the strained, bulging bag. "Every one of them is addressed to that oh-so-mysterious Elden. About a dozen guys asked me out, but that's nothing compared to this…"
"Well, I didn't learn anything from the Hufflepuffs. But that's nothing new. What about you two, Kayla? Draco?" Lylia nodded to them.
"Zip." Kayla plopped into a seat a small ways down from the sack to heft her own up and set it on the table as well. "The Slytherin girls are all just as crazy and brainless about him as the others, apparently. But THIS bag has hatemail in it. Assorted kids learned how we were asking around, and so they started handing me hatemail to give to him."
In the silence that followed, all of them turned to Draco.
"… Aaand?" prompted Lylia.
"…" Eventually, the Slytherin boy gave in. "A few of them tried hitting me. Apparently, their girlfriends left them for that sod… And at least 99.99% asked if my relationship with Kayla was a cover-up for my intense love for Lesperance." Disgust coloured every word.
Kayla sighed in defeat for the mission, rubbing Draco's back comfortingly with one hand and munching on a chip from Aidon's plate with the other. "Don't be discouraged, Dra… They're just put-out because the best they could ever get would be a doped-up House Elf."
As she said this, Lylia coughed on a bite of an apple and looked at Kayla with the expression of epiphany. "A what?"
"A House Elf," repeated the brunette, her own expression hovering between amusement and worry when she saw Lylia's.
"That's it!" cried the blonde as she stood and flipped the folds of her new cloak over her shoulder, casting a rainbow of colour across the Great Hall as she ran wildly out into the corridor. Kayla thankfully was wary enough to get a good start not long after her, asking as she caught up-
"Lylia, where are we going?"
Karen and Melinda followed along behind, Draco and Aidon left with the bags. There wasn't much conversation between the two boys.
"We asked every student in the school and no one knows about Lesperance, right? And no one has reason to lie about him?" Lylia began to explain.
"Yeah, but no one knew anything!"
"If he's somewhere around Hogwarts, he has to be eating, right?"
"Yeah, but…!"
"His food must be coming directly from the guys feeding the students!" Lylia grinned widely at the deduction.
Kayla gasped in realization. "The House Elves in the Kitchens! They'll know!"
"Exactly!"
"So, why are we running the opposite way of the kitchens, Lyl?"
Lylia stopped. "… We are?"
About five minutes later, they arrived at the Kitchens. As Kayla led the way in, all the House Elves roused a cheer and swarmed to meet their favourite student with shouts of praise and admiration for Ms. Hartland.
"Hello, hello!" she nodded, her smile warm. "Call me Kayla, please. I missed you all! Could you tell me where Elden Lesperance is, please?"
A chorus of tiny shouts rang out.
"He's in the Tower!"
"The really tall one!"
"They're all tall!"
"He's in the Dark Tower!"
Kayla looked around at them confusedly. "The what…?"
"It's alright, I know the place they're talking about," assured Lylia as she grabbed Kayla's wrist and took off again out of the Kitchens. "See ya, midgets!"
"Where did you two go?" demanded Draco a bit more worriedly than he'd admit as the infamous duo returned with Melinda and Karen, his mood bummed from being stuck with just Aidon and the nearby Auror trainee for company all dinner. Aidon had gone to bed since then, whining something about appreciation for art.
"We know where Lesperance is!" Lylia shouted, her feet not even stopping but continuing on by at her breakneck speed. "Get your broom and meet back here!"
"Why is she always getting us running?" sighed Melinda wearily, wiping her forehead as she and Kayla ran to the Slytherin girl dorms.
"You get used to it!" beamed Kayla to her with a friendly look.
"I guess you're right," the winded girl laughed.
"We'll need to probably sneak our way past the guards they might have at the front entrance," Kayla analyzed their situation once they were all gathered near the Staff Table with their brooms.
"How do we do that with these hugs bags of mail?"
"Honestly, Dra. Stop complaining and Charm them or something."
"…"
Thankfully, the entrance was unguarded, and the half-full moon over Hogwarts Castle bore witness to five students slipping out onto the Grounds, one of which was press-ganged into carrying two bags of mail.
Lylia was the first to slide onto her broom, the Silver Arrow taking off into the air with a small trail of sparkling dust fading on the wind behind her. Kayla was next, followed by Draco. Karen and Melinda brought up the rear, watching in case any letters fell or anyone showed up below them. Eventually the group seemed to reach its destination; Lylia dismounted on a small courtyard that sat atop one of Hogwarts' many Towers, a single cell in that courtyard's center. A dim firelight came from within that cell.
"Elden?" asked Karen carefully as she ran to the cell's bars, crouching close enough to the light for her form to be illuminated. Kayla stood beside her, Draco beside Kayla. A shadowed body sat in the corner of the cell furthest from his fire, his head lifting slightly at hearing the name but no noise coming from him.
"Hey, do you notice anything different about me?" smiled Karen more than a little seductively.
"… I don't care." The answer drifted apathetically but coldly from the man.
The redhead's jaw went slack as she stood, her gaze flaring up in anger before she stalked back to her deposited broom. "Fine. Whatever. I didn't even wanna see ya."
"Lesperance, we wanted to talk to you about the Aurors they've placed around the school," Melinda addressed the man from a small distance away, examining her nails. "Why'd you lock yourself up here like this?"
"… Like I said… I don't care… I'm here because I have no purpose…"
"What are you talking about?" Kayla frowned, trying to peer through the dark at the man. "Look, you're still needed here! So, you lost a battle. Dust yourself off and get back up!"
"She's right," agreed Draco as he dragged up the two bags of mail. "Look at all the people you've affected." He grabbed a handful of each bag and nudged them through the bars, into the prison.
Elden made no motion for some time, just staring down the mail. Then, with a flick of black wood's gleam in the dark, the love notes were all levitated a few inches. Kayla and Draco both leaned forward a bit despite themselves, hoping to finally elicit reason –or at least a bit of the usual shallow nature- from the man. Then, with another flick of the wand… all the love notes were upended in their bag over the fire. A small inferno went up as every last one of them burned to a crisp, briefly illuminating the perfect features of the half-Veela staring coldly at the flames.
"I don't care about them…" he said after a few more seconds. "The Aurors don't concern me either… Just leave me alone…"
Kayla's face didn't need the light of the fire for her fury to be apparent. "You don't CARE? You're a BASTARD! And a damned FOOL! You know what? You need to suck it up, grow a pair, and get the f-" Malfoy coughed. "- out of here!" Going and grabbing her broom, she glared over her shoulder at the dark prison cell. "No, nevermind; just stay up here, curl up, and rot!" Draco grimaced and followed after her on his own broom as she took back off for the main body of the castle. Karen wasted no time in trailing after them.
"Well, this went well," was all Melinda sighed before she remounted her Cleansweep, mockingly saluting Lylia and descending after the others.
"And you?" asked Elden after the uneasy silence had been borne between the two Ravenclaws long enough for his satisfaction.
Lylia turned her gaze up to the stars; her resolve to question the man melted completely away yet again. "… What about me?"
"Do you have a letter too?" taunted the bitter voice from the blackness.
"… No." She swallowed, eyes glued firmly to the heavens.
"If you don't ask me your questions, I can't possibly answer you…" It goaded further. A glint of the man's fake grin was visible through the abyss.
Lylia continued to hang back by the rim of the tower for a few moments, but then she stepped forward to the bars, gripping them solidly as she forced herself to ask:
"Why are the Aurors getting involved at Hogwarts?"
"If Hogwarts' mudblood champion doesn't know, how should I?"
Lylia gasped a bit. Her eyes welling up with unshed tears at hearing the sharp insult, she lowered her head and blinked a few times, trying to fight the pain down. "… If I didn't need your help, I wouldn't have come here. You don't understand all that's going on! I heard about these Addonexi and, and these Aurors- it feels like they can look right through me, and-"
"You need my help for nothing, mudblood... You're beyond help."
Just nodding quietly in resignation, Lylia released the bars and went to collect her Silver Arrow. A minute of seconds were marked only by her footsteps and quiet.
A broken growl came deep within the cell, angered by her lack of rebuttal. "What? Why won't you shoot me down, you damn girl, for insulting you? Why aren't you infuriated? Why don't you JUDGE ME like them?"
"I've lost what's most important to me as well," she stated with a terrible softness. The yelling from the self-imposed prison stopped.
"… Wait," he stated.
She froze as she was about to leave, looking again over her shoulder at the small fire. It cast light on numerous stacks of books along the wall closest to the flame, all with dark and ancient bindings, but shed no light on the man it was trying to warm.
"Where did you get that cloak?" Elden inquired with reservation.
Lylia glanced at the iridescent mantle she wore. "… It was a gift. I don't know where Karen got it. Today's my birthday."
A purely nefarious chuckle echoed around the cell. "No wonder you think they can look right through you, wearing a cloak like that. I seem to know a lot that you don't know… about yourself. I wonder what you'd give me for telling you."
Leaving a final exhale in defeat behind, Lylia mounted her broom and flew away to Ravenclaw Tower.