Chapter 7: Sandy investigates
The following evening, Sanderson Mansnoozie (Sandy to you) watched as Harry left the Gryffindor tower. Sandy had heard that Harry had been stuck in a detention with Umbridge. He followed Harry from the outside of the castle, watching through the windows as he approached the DADA class.
Sandy peeked in through the window. He couldn't hear what was being said, but he could see Harry holding a very sharp, black quill. It seemed that it was equipped with an inbuilt supply of red ink. Sandy sighed and almost left... until he saw Harry start with surprise. Sandy would have gasped. What Harry had written on the parchment, had appeared on the back of his hand... actually cut into his flesh as though traced by a scalpel.
Sandy didn't like the look of this one little bit.
A loud whinny suddenly filled the air. Turning, Sandy saw a skeletal horse flying above the forbidden forest. Sandy stared. It looked like a cross between a nightmare and a fearling. Sandy squinted. Sandy floated over the grounds towards the forest. He entered the trees. The forest was dark and mostly quiet. At one point, a werewolf attempted to attack him, but a small blast of dreamsand was more than enough to send it into a deep sleep.
Sandy finally entered a clearing... and his jaw dropped. An entire herd of Fear-gryffins filled the clearing. Sandy hadn't seen a single Fear-gryffin since the golden ages, back when the Man-in-the-Moon was a baby and the Galaxy was ruled by the great constellations. The Fear-gryffins were a sub-species of the Fearlings. Unlike the other kinds of Fearling, the Fear-gryffins were neutrals and didn't join with Pitch. He could not abide with this.
Pitch destroyed the Fear-gryffins.
Sandy jumped as he felt something nuzzle his arm. One of the Fear-gryffins was gently snuggling his arm. Sandy smiled and patted it. The black of the Fear-gryffin's coat turned gold. It shrieked. Sandy clapped his hand to his mouth in horror. The Fear-gryffin turned into a spiraling vortex of dreamsand and became... a shooting star.
Sandy gaped. Shooting stars hadn't existed since before the golden age. Pitch had destroyed them all. Sandy remembered it well.
During the Golden ages, Sandy had ridden across the night between the worlds on a Shooting star. Whenever he passed by a world, he heard the wishes of a thousand children... and he sent each one back a sweet dream.
But then Pitch had been born into the world. He had once been determined to protect the worlds from the grasp of nightmares and fearlings, but then the nightmares had tricked Pitch. He became a force of evil. He and his dream-pirates brought the shooting stars crashing down into planets, moons and even the endless darkness of a black hole.
Pitch had chased Sandy across the endless wastes of deepest space in his Nightmare Galleon. He had harpooned the star in an attempt to drag it to it's doom. Sandy however, would not let his star fall. He finally managed to break free, but ended up crashing down onto Earth. His star crashed down into the ocean and formed a sandy island.
After the golden age had drawn to a close, MiM had chosen Sandy to be the first of the Guardians. Sandy had then turned his island into a ship for him to travel the world, spreading his dreamsand.
Sandy bit his lip.
The door creaked open. 'The Library is closed,' Madame Pince said, not looking up from her work. The door closed. Madame Pince looked up. Sandy was standing there. With a perceptable click, she wound her voice up several social classes. 'Professor Sandy,' Madame Pince said, smiling and standing up. 'The Library is open for Teachers until 11:30. How can I help you?' she asked.
Sandy formed an image of a book and a Fear-gryffin out of his dreamsand. 'You want a book about Thestrals?' she said. "Thestrals," Sandy thought. That must be what wizards call Fear-gryffins. Sandy nodded. 'There should be a mention of them in the Zoological section.'
Sandy hovered down through the library searching for the Zoological section. He raised his hand and trailed his fingers across the titles. "Little People, Big Plans by Ragnok the pigeon-toed." "Merpeople: A Comprehensive Guide to Their Language and Customs by Dylan Marwood." "From Egg to Inferno: a Dragon-Keepers Guide." "Fowl or Foul? A study of Hippogriff brutality."
Sandy looked and looked and finally found a book entitled "Thestrals: A study of the Necrotic Abilities of these Fascinating and Terrible creatures." Sandy pulled down the book (staggering under it's weight) and opened it. His eyes scanned through the pages. Phrases jumped out at him every now and then.
"Very rare." "Considered dangerous." "Only visible to those who have seen death." "Grim, grizzly and gaunt." "Can be domesticated and mounted." "Souly carnivorous." "Related to the Abraxan horse." "Unlike the Abraxan horse, Thestral wings do not possess feathers." "Extremely clever and have superb sense of direction." "Most commonly found in dark environments."
Finally, Sandy found a paragraph that seemed to be significant. He bent close to the book and read closely. "The Thestral tail hair is a powerful and tricky substance that can be mastered only by a witch or wizard capable of facing death. It should also be noted that the tail hair of the Thestral can be used in wand core construction and according to legend, it was used to construct the Elder Wand from the tale of the three brothers."
Sandy was biting his lip so hard, he was beginning to draw blood. He closed the book and placed it back on the shelf. Tail hair of a Thestral. Could this be a relic of the Moon Clipper? The Moon Clipper was the ancient craft the Man-in-the-Moon had travelled on as a baby with his parents. Sandy looked out of the window at the moon. The Moon was the Moon Clipper. It's hull had been blasted away after the battle that had resulted in MiM being stranded in Earth's orbit.
Half an hour later, Sandy left the Library and Madame Pince extinguished the candles with a wave of her wand. For a few minutes, there was complete silence. A shadow moved. A tall figure stepped out of the blackness. It was Pitch. He reached up and pulled down the Thestral book. He turned to the chapter on Thestral hair. Pitch smiled. 'How fascinating.'
Onyx nuzzled his arm. 'I have a special mission in mind for you my sweet,' Pitch said stroking her mane. 'I want you to find this... Lord Voldemort'. Onyx whinnied and shot through the window and into the night.
Moonlight shone through the window. Pitch sneered up at the moon. 'It's time to show you the true power that fear possesses,' Pitch chuckled.
'oo's there?' Pitch turned on the spot. A bent, old man holding a lantern entered the Library. A small, dust coloured cat was walking alongside him. The man bent over further and spoke to the cat. 'You go that way Mrs Norris and I'll go this way,' he said. He began walking towards the Potions section.
The cat began heading over to the Zoological section... towards Pitch. Pitch smiled. What a perfect opportunity.
Filch was too far away to hear his cat's yelp.