CHAPTER FOURTEEN: ASSUMPTIONS

Will heard screams coming from behind him. He cringed a moment but was beginning to get used to it. He had a permanent dull, pit-like feeling in his stomach that only happened with impending doom. He was gaining a dull acceptance and indifference about his fate. He wasn't sure why he was there, or who the man with the snake eyes was, and, after a while, it didn't seem to matter. He remembered her face, newly freckled from the hot sun, laughing at him as the buttery sun beat down, turning her a dark golden shade. He didn't think of Lyra as often as he had thought, but whenever he looked down at his mutilated stump of a hand, he couldn't help but remember. He had gained a sort of acceptance of her too.

"CRUCIO! CRUCIO!" cried the pale skinned woman with the beady black eyes. More screams came. He didn't understand what it was they wanted with him. They seemed to have no intention of killing him, but the overhanging presence of death was not completely unfamiliar to him. It was far past Midsummer's Day, and he was sure Lyra would be disappointed, possibly heartbroken, though he knew she wasn't weak enough to cry. He was headed toward the bench that day when the snake man's assistant came and bagged him. There was nothing said, and no questions asked. He was simply thrown in there. He gathered clues from what he had heard and caught a glance of.

It seemed the snake man and the pale woman were in a strange, love hate relationship. They reminded him of Asriel and Mrs. Coulter, their passion constantly changing. One minute they were at each others throats, the next they were throwing themselves at each other, though these two were a lot more subtle. It was clear the snake man had many servants, and didn't seem to care very much about any of them. He was frail yet somehow mighty, and had power beyond which even the snake man himself could comprehend. He had seen "men" like him before. But he thought that part of his life was over. Little did he know it had scarcely begun.

He was surprised to find that not much had changed in his life since he found the window, and found her. The men were gone, and his mother would still go into her episodes, though they were less frequent. He still had a father he knew very little about, and still lived in the same shabby house in England. He still went to school, and still got in fights. He still kept the letters that his mother had hidden for so long, and they still hid the groceries whenever they went shopping. Life had very few changes in it. If anything, it was the absence of change that got to him. It was the absence of a way out, and the absence of windows to her. He had sealed them, and there was no turning back. And there were still nights he wondered, though he chastised himself later, whether those rotten Citagazze kids were really worth it, and whether a few specters running loose would really make a difference. But, as a knife bearer, he still had had a lot to learn when he had destroyed the knife. He still didn't know that not all of the windows, were truly windows, and not all of the windows were shut.

The illicit club was beginning to get into full swing. It had taken a while, but he had done it. And he watched the Lizzie girl from afar, taking in his every word with a glare, and performing the spells with fierceness in her eyes. She was a good, but unpredictable. Once her expelliarmus sent poor George flying against the wall, the next she crumpled to the ground with a failed protego. She hadn't really done anything remarkable until he began patronuses.

She stared about them, her eyes lighting up with curiosity and a warm feeling of home as the misty animals came out of their wands.

"You got daemons!" she cried, full of childish joy, "I knew you did!"

"What?"

"What do you mean. You're not one of those religious types are you?"

Her joy was extinguished with fear and skeptecism as she stared at these figures. They were barely apparent, looking more like blue smoke than any daemon she knew of. Maybe that was all they were, or maybe they didn't have full daemons. She knew anyone could see them in a certain light, but wondered why the light was so dim.

"Lizzie," Harry said nervously, "Why don't you try?"

"Oh…" she said, looking around startledly, "All right…"

She closed her eyes and thought of Will, and Iorek, and Roger, and Lee Scoresby, and all of the gyptians, and a feeling of warmth began to swell within her.

"Expecto petronum."

The light began to slowly unravel from her wand. She was puzzled. Why wasn't Pan going anywhere?"

The smoke began to grow and grow, taking a gargantuan shape. No sooner had the students seen it form when an earth- shaking roar echoed about the room. They looked up to see a giant, smokey armored polar bear. She looked up at it, looking as if she were about to faint.

He looked vaguely like Iorek, but a distorted, changed, youthful Iorek who looked proud an unafraid. She almost didn't like him, but had a strange feeling of familiarity with him. Someone applauded and soon claps echoed around the Room of Requirement. She had done something great, but she wasn't entirely sure what.