Kaleidoscope
Astrid knew they were after Daphne the moment the wards closed around them and they were dragged into a strange bounded field.
She knew that it wasn't just a bunch of wards because bounded fields had a slightly different flavor to them. While wards were nonspecific and dangerous because of their lack of specificity - choosing to do mundane things like keeping Muggles away from Hogwarts or to bounce out people with strange intent, a Bounded Field was more of a revision of space.
This one was pretty damn good. Any mage worth their salt could set up a bounded field which was difficult to notice, but it usually took a goodly amount of time. Astrid didn't work with them herself, but she did know a ton about the deconstruction of them.
This one was quick and strong and layered against the more familiar ward presences.
There was something which would keep her from Apparating, something that rendered her three Portkeys entirely useless and even a strange layer of mist that made it hard to feel for her mentor's Phoenix.
That last one was something she was familiar with - it was a ward powered by sacrifice. Human sacrifice. Someone had taken a ritual knife to a virgin girl between the age of thirteen and fifteen in order to trap her.
But Blue was faring much worse. There were strange red lines which had shackled her, from each corner of their cubic room.
That was a mistake. Rounded rooms were far easier to trap. Things like corners or straight lines had some sort of power to them which could be twisted or used.
Astrid was a consummate professional in this regard. Albus Dumbledore had this habit of trapping his older students in his office, sealing their magic and telling them that a certain number of objects in the room would guarantee their escape. Lily, of course, had been far better at that - capable of seeing magic even if her vaunted eyes were forcibly deactivated.
But she was no slouch.
"Calm down, Blue. We're going to sing a little song."
Blue looked at her like she was insane. "A song? You're thinking of-"
Astrid shot her an extremely rare glare. "I have reason to believe my daughter is in grave danger. You will help me."
"Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are."
Halfway through, Astrid harmonized with her.
"Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky."
The door, which had been held shut by some sort of blockade, crystallized into some hybrid of metal and glass and then shattered.
Blue never ceased to be amazed by her abilities, but the satisfaction was rather cold this time. Astrid had a daughter to rescue.
"Are you healed, Ms. Green?" Blue asked, fiddling with the strange red strands.
Astrid was more worried about her partner. The lines had wound themselves around Blue's neck in a sort of noose.
"Pull your magic back. Don't push against the Field," Astrid warned.
Blue complied. The lines dulled to pink, but did not disappear.
Astrid nodded. "There's something about your magic which it's targeting. I can't say what it is, but I think we'll find out. I think it would be better if you didn't utilize the Fifth. Stick to your incantations."
Blue looked a little scared and a little mutinous, but Astrid knew the girl knew better. No, she didn't know, but she certainly hoped.
Astrid walked out the door into a dimly lit hallway.
Was this some sort of bad horror movie imitation?
Whatever it was, Blue seemed quite scared.
The lights flickered.
"Keep your emotions in check. I have reason to believe that they're powering the wards." The Headmaster had loved those - particularly wards powered by the frustration of the people within. That was one of the few ways he was capable of trapping Lily, who preferred to be frantic rather than calm and impulsive as anyone she had known.
There was a loud bang and Astrid slumped backwards onto the floor. Blue screamed.
Astrid stood up, chanting something, and a shard of metal came out of her chest and the flesh knit itself.
She held it up to the light. "Did someone just shoot me with a gun?" she asked outloud, sounding incredulous. Suddenly, she moved in front of Blue.
There was a roar of gunfire, again, filling her body with copper and lead, but it was clear that the approach was extremely ineffective.
With a wave of her hand, the bullets were returned to their sender and suddenly, the hallway was full of blood sprayed onto the walls and leaking onto the ground.
"That's a form of invisibility I haven't seen in a while," Astrid commented quietly, her face a little pale. She seemed ready to lose her lunch. "Say, Blue, I think the last roast beef sandwich I had was poisoned."
Blue shrugged. "I watched them make it."
Astrid stared at her, barely believing the girl's naivety. "If you're seriously trying to poison someone, you'd do it on the farm, then send it off."
Blue blinked. "Wouldn't it suck if it was shipped to other patients or something?"
Astrid gave a grim chuckle. "Don't you smell the death? Everyone but our aggressors - and us - is dead. Everyone. I think if we were to open any door in the hospital, we would find a strange growth in their eyes of each patient and a swollen tongue, as well as kidney failure."
Blue looked distinctly uncomfortable. "They killed everyone in this hospital just to get us?"
Astrid's laughter sounded worse this time. "Of course not. They aren't trying to do anything but delay us a little. They'll need quite a bit more firepower than this. They killed everyone in this hospital in order to kill my daughter and send me a message."
Astrid tapped at the pink line around Blue's neck, which looked more like a light than actual magical signaling by this point, and scoffed.
"Despite the ingenuity, this is quite weak. It is my belief that they have more than one magus capable of this and they are currently experimenting to figure out how long this will hold you. If you ever feel this Field again, you should probably cut off your magic immediately. You've fed it for several minutes longer than you should have, especially by struggling."
As though the Universe itself beat along to a rhythm created by Astrid's words, the pink line slowly faded to nothing and Blue felt the constrictions fall away.
She aimed at a wall with several windows and fired.
Answers
Astrid knocked gently and the door to Longbottom Manor swung open.
It was two in the morning, but Augusta was still awake, staring into a dying fire.
Daphne, Neville and a boy she recognized as Harry Potter were all dozing on various pieces of furniture in various states of comfort.
"Trouble at work?" Augusta asked suddenly, but gently.
Augusta had always liked her, even after that disastrous two year long relationship with her son Frank.
Frank was, of course, doing important auror things at this hour, or maybe sleeping uncomfortably in his bed, alone. Astrid quashed the little voice in her that whispered serves him right.
Harry Potter had woken suddenly, his head whipping back and forth.
"Daphne, your mum's here. I think that's your mum, at least," Harry said, just loud enough to wake her daughter, who was a light sleeper.
Daphne was up immediately and in her arms the next moment.
"Did any of you get hurt?"
"There was this spell, mum. First they threw a hex but then it hit a pillar and the station nearly came down and they were throwing killing curses, but Harry used alchemy to reverse the-"
"Slow down, dear," Astrid said, her mind painting a horrifically violent picture of what happened.
She looked over at Harry, who was a tad too jumpy to not be traumatized in some way.
"Are you the Headmaster's newest student?" Astrid asked him, as Daphne tried to compose herself.
Augusta had conjured glasses of water for everyone, bless her.
Harry nodded. "We're working on Alchemy."
Astrid paused and looked at him, really looked at him. This was Lily's son, after all. She wondered privately if he suffered from the same genius, the same madness, the same manias and cruelties and loves and-
But she took measured steps away from memory lane so she didn't unnerve the child.
"Augusta, may I have a moment of privacy with Harry and Daphne?"
The older woman nodded and left the room.
"Have you manifested the Eyes?" she asked, as soon as the door closed behind Augusta.
Harry started, then looked at Daphne.
"I knew your mother very well when we were younger, and learning under Professor Dumbledore," she explained.
Daphne had decided to hold onto her story in interest of knowing more.
"May I see them?"
Harry nodded carefully.
Astrid observed them for several moments, then frowned. "Have you begun to perceive intention?"
Harry nodded.
"Precognition? As though you knew something was going to happen."
Harry shrugged.
"Deja vu? As though you could swear something's already happened before when it's completely impossible?"
Harry's face looked conflicted, then he nodded.
"It's happening now, isn't it?" Astrid asked him. "You think you've had this conversation with me before. In fact, you're so very sure you've had this conversation before-"
"And it's honestly not the best feeling in the world," they finished at the same time.
Daphne gasped.
"Turning them off might bring you a little comfort," she said and Harry complied immediately. "They used to call that many things, but the Eye of the Prophetic Printer was probably Lily's favorite. Your sense of precognition is possibly as strong as hers, even though her eyes were much further along."
Harry frowned in turn. "A man named Remus Lupin said the same."
Astrid nodded. "Yes, Remus would certainly know. Every Eye is different, even between your right and your left. Your mother had a fantastic ability to deconstruct anything she saw. She was very good at winning friends and influencing people, though sometimes I wonder if it were truly just charisma."
"What does it mean though, further along?"
Astrid weighed him with her eyes. Dumbledore hadn't seen fit to tell the boy, apparently. "Well, there are several stages to your Eye. The end stage is three tomoe or stains in both eyes. By that point, Lily was capable of finishing spells alongside her opponent as they were cast and taking that knowledge for herself."
There was the faintest hint of bitterness in Astrid's tone which only Daphne caught.
"Harry, tell me, do you consider Daphne to be a good friend of yours?"
Harry nodded, fine with the change in topic. "She and Neville are my best friends," he declared, sounding completely convinced of it.
Astrid's smile slipped just a little.
All I've Done
Fleur packed her side of the room with a wave of her wand. Nearly a hundred different items of clothing crammed themselves into a tiny little purse, then sorted themselves up. She handpicked several different cosmetic items and threw them into the purse with her clothing, then changed out of her Beauxbatons uniform into something a little warmer and a lot more eye-catching.
She let her grace go to waste, with a hint of stumble in her step and an almost-placid smile in her eyes, though her dilated pupils shown with excitement.
She was about to do something new! Be somewhere important! Research magic, get her degree, make something with her life!
But she knew that she didn't really feel that way. It was just the little pieces of good emotion she had ingested.
There was a knock on the door.
"Come in," she said softly.
The door opened.
It was Stefan, the lackluster boy who had seen her kill Malfoy on stage. She gave him credit for not telling anyone.
"You don't have to go, Fleur," he started, immediately. "You can stay, here in Beauxbatons. Who's trying to get you to leave? If you're going because of this misguided sense of loyalty you undoubtedly have-"
Fleur put a finger to his lips, smiling slightly. His rant was cut short.
"Stefan," she said gently.
His eyes looked similar to all those boys in those nightclubs and raves, with a singular difference. She saw more than just that one driving primal emotion in there.
"Oh, Stefan," she said, even more gently, holding his heart of glass.
She walked past him, and the boy collapsed onto her chair as though his strings had been cut away.
"If you could have stayed," he cried out desperately after her, tears forming at the corners of his eyes.
Fleur turned around and smiled, then lied through her teeth, her face in an otherworldly mimicry of someone who did truly love. "Maybe, maybe if I could have," she promised.
She walked back through the door and bent down to kiss him gently on the cheek, turned around and never looked back. She doubted she'd recognize him if she ever saw him again.