A/N Ugh, I'm sorry this took so long - my Internet died for like two weeks, and I've just got back from Green Man in Wales - SO GOOD! Go on my tumblr, tolrais in a few days if you want pics ;) *shameless plug*. And now, enjoy the penultimate chapter of Scorpius Malfoy and the Very Strange Year!
"Is everybody ready?" he asked, and a resounding cry of assent echoed through the chamber. He smiled coldly. "Then let's send this evil bitch back where she belongs..."
Rose's eyes widened at the language, while Al and Becky snickered, but all reinforced their stances. As they did the rays of evening sun began to stream through the window, filling the ancient chamber with a golden light. Scorpius took a deep breath, and intoned the first phrase of the incantation that would hopefully send the Siren permanently into the afterlife.
"líese þone bánsele þu forstæle sé áberd álibbend ábeneþ hit!" he said, and the others repeated it, stumbling slightly over the unfamiliar sounds. They repeated it over and over but nothing seemed to be happening, if anything the Siren seemed amused, if the cackles she gave were any indication. Growing more and more frustrated, Mouse started push his magic into the word he was saying, into the ground, releasing enough raw power that the ground beneath his feet started to crack. An unearthly wind filled the chamber and its inhabitants' eyes widened.
Even so, it wasn't enough. The Siren somehow managed to break free of her binding, and clawed at Nat's face, but he held on, trying desperately to pin her arms down. But Mouse could see it wasn't going to be enough – they needed the grounding influence of Nat's wanded magic if this was going to work, and that meant he only had one arm free to hold the Siren. Unless they managed to complete the incantation soon, she was going to break free of the restrictive hold, and the whole thing was going to come crashing down around their ears. Over the wind, through the whirling heat of raw magic, Scorpius thought he could just make out Minna's voice.
"It's not enough!" he thought she called, "you need the rest!"
Dimly through the flashes of golden light, a shadowy figure could be seen beside Rose, whose head shot up as it called in her ear. Over the commotion, Mouse could just make out what she was shouting.
"líese þone bánsele þu forstæle sé ánhýdig álibbend ábeneþ hit!" Rose called, and as she to managed to work out how to push her magic forth, a high pitched note rang through the chamber, and a magical rope of rich aquamarine light shot out from Rose's left hand and wrapped around Scorpius's wrist.
He grinned triumphantly as the Siren gave an anguished howl. Evidently, the spell was working.
As if to confirm their suspicions, the Shadowy figure that had been by Rose had coalesced a little further, and was blessedly recognisable as the young Comparative Cultures Professor. Even while intangible, her robes whipped in the gale swirling through the room. She managed to get to Albus without trouble, and as he called out his incantation, 'líese þone bánsele þu forstæle séo céneu álibbend ábeneþ hit!' another jet of light appeared, a deep indigo chain of magic that joined the cousins together across the circle.
But as Minna came around to Becky' side, the Siren began screeching and struggling, and if it weren't for the fact they had to continue repeating the words of the spell over and over again, its casters would have almost certainly cried out in horror. The Siren had twisted free of Nat's hold, almost gouging his eyes from their sockets, not that that would have hindered him as it might, as Scorpius noted grimly. Minna surged forward, But just in time, Becky had heard her part of the spell.
"líese þone bánsele þu forstæle sé dryhtenholdu álibbend ábeneþ hit!"Becky shouted triumphantly, and with almost perfect timing, the rope joining Becky to Al appeared, a pulse of deep orange. The ringing sound that had accompanied the forging of the first two bonds now twisted into a steady high pitched hum, and the Siren doubled over, almost falling over the altar in seeming agony.
Minna, now almost solid came to stand by her fiancé, and over the howls of the Siren, the ear-splitting hum of raw magic, the repetitive chanting and the whipping noise of wind torn robes, Mouse had to truly strain to hear a word she said.
"This is it! With the final incantation, you need to give it absolutely everything! You need to FORCE her out! Is everyone ready? You need to repeat after me!"
"Hwæt cargást! Béo ætéadnesse and náwa áciere!" The joint shout echoed through the chamber, and a final golden light shot across the room joining Becky and Scorpius together. With the finished incantation, Dagaz, the rune of balance had formed from the 'ropes', and where they crossed in the centre of the room, a blinding white light was growing.
She gave a final scream, before she was thrown free of Minna's body, and then, the spirit of the woman born as Pandora Gudrunsdottir stood free, silhouetted against a doorway shaped by the unearthly radiance. Eyes wide in disbelief, Mouse could only look on in wonder as the woman took Minna's hand and in it placed a silvery orb, as insubstantial as the women who held it.
"I am so sorry for the pain I have caused you." Pandora's voice was faint, and echoed oddly. "Please take this as reparation for the cruelty I caused..." Her voice faded, and as it did, the doorway behind her brightened and the whole room was seared by light. Shielding his eyes, Mouse didn't see Pandora go, nor Minna return to her body, but in her hand, the unconscious woman held tightly to Pandora's bauble.
As if by an anvil, a huge wave of exhaustion hit Mouse, and the room tilted alarmingly. As he made contact with the floor, he thought he heard three slight thumps, as if made by three 12 year olds, followed by an acerbic : 'Hello? You're all unconscious aren't you...wonderful.' But that was surely just too silly, wasn't it?
"Mr Malfoy." Mouse shifted uncomfortably in his sleep. "Mr Malfoy!" The voice repeated, this time more sharply, and Mouse bolted upright immediately regretting it. As he waited for the head rush clouding his vision to clear, he was confronting with a nagging feeling, as if he were forgetting something. As his vision cleared, the clean lines of the Hospital Wing, and the delicately wrinkled face of Madame Pomfrey swam into focus, making clear the identity of the voice that had called him into consciousness.
"It's time for you to take your potion again Mr Malfoy," the Matron said, sternly but not unkindly, as she gently handed Mouse a vial.
"Again?" he asked, groggily, and even more sure that he was missing something. Madame Pomfrey rolled her eyes.
"A side effect of a large amount of wandless magic by under-age magic users tends to have side effects – including short term amnesia...really Ms Grey, I don't what you were thinking!" Madame Pomfrey directed this last at the occupant of the next bed, a somewhat wan, but unmistakeable Minna, her rightful appearance restored, although her hair did seem to be a few shades lighter than it ought to be...Mouse gasped as the events of the last time he was conscious started to flood back, as Minna responded indignantly.
"It was either that or have my personality erased by the insane ghost of a Dark witch..." she said
"Hmph!" was the only reply the medi-witch gave, although she seemed somewhat mollified by Minna's response. She moved further along the wing, to where one dark, one red and one blonde head poked out of the covers of their respective owners beds.
"How do you feel Mouse?" Nat asked from where he stood in the entrance of the Hospital Wing. Mouse turned to look at his cousin, a little more gingerly than his attempt to sit up. Judging by the dark circles under his eyes, it looked like he hadn't slept in a week.
"Do you remember everything?" Minna added curiously, embracing her fiancé as he took a seat next to her bed. Mouse frowned, trying to make sense of the still slightly disjointed images cluttering his memory.
"I think, some of it..." his eyes widened as his most recent memories slotted neatly into place. "Did we really do all that?"
"You tell us Mouse!" A chipper voice added from another bed, and he turned to grin at its fair haired occupant. His friends had awoken, and were enthusiastically greeting each other, happy, perhaps in the sheer joy of being alive and relatively unscathed, as much as in their feat of performing a forgotten feat of magic thought impossible by the modern wizarding world. Mouse was happy to let them, as it gave him a chance to mull over the events that had just returned to his brain. He couldn't quite believe that they had just performed a wandless ritual, forgotten by pretty much everyone, or that they had banished an evil spirit into the unknown. Speaking of which...
"Minna, what happened there at the end? One minute the Siren was trying to claw Nat's eyes out and the next she was all sweetness and light. Did I miss something?" asked Mouse. Startled, Minna broke away from her embrace with Nat, but still held tightly to his hand, grinning at Mouse.
"It was the incantation," she started, before Becky interrupted.
"And what was that chanting? I didn't even know what we were saying, how did it work?" she asked impatiently. Minna's eyes widened in mock annoyance, before her infectious grin returned.
"I was getting to that part Miss Fletcher, if you don't mind..."
"Sorry Miss."
"Now, I'm not exactly sure, because obviously I'm not exactly Tolkien, but I think that incantation was in Old English, or a form of it any way-"
"Oh, like the Founders would have spoken! That explains it!" This time it was Rose's turn to interrupt, although she herself was interrupted by a well aimed pillow in the face. Before she could return fire, the pillow floated in the air away from both Rose and its original owner, Al. As Minna returned her wand to her bedside table, she looked disapprovingly at the cousins, prompting another round of apologies.
"As I was saying... I'm not an expert, but I think the gist of what you were saying was, 'Release the one who's body you have stolen, the cunning one commands it'." She held up a hand to stall further questions. "That was Mouse was saying anyway. Rose was the wise one, Al the brave and Becky the loyal one." She finished smiling triumphantly. "Now, any more questions?"
"That doesn't explain why the Siren stopped being, well, evil though Miss Min..." Rose pointed out. Minna smiled sadly, leaning her head on Nat's shoulder.
"That would be the final incantation. 'Listen well ghost! Be at Peace and never return. The Siren, who I suppose we should really call Pandora, wasn't even at peace before she died. She was so angry, so hurt that she became twisted, and started to use her gifts to harm instead of help. I guess be at peace was a little general an instruction. Either that or she just realised that she was never going to get her revenge, not the way she wanted...Who knows?" Minna finished solemnly, leaning back into the huge pile of pillows propping her up.
"I'm glad she did though – that she was at peace in the end, I mean." Al said quietly, and the girls murmured in agreement. For a moment there was a respectful silence, before another question broke it.
"Right at the end, did she give you something Min? Like a crystal ball or something?" asked Mouse, hesitantly. Minna's eyes widened, before breaking into huge grin.
"Well, you know how Pandora was the apprentice of Rowena Ravenclaw?"
"Yeah..." Where is this going?
"Did you also know that Ravenclaw specialised in Healing magic?"
"No..." Mouse was frowning, but he could feel the corners of his mouth turning upward, especially since a mischievous smirk had also formed on Nat's face, the sort he always used to have just before revealing the punchline of a particularly bad joke. "Do you mean that-"
"Pandora gave me a lost healing spell that can help restore Nat's eyesight as a way of apologising for completely ruining the year?" Minna finished, her eyes dancing merrily, and Mouse gawped, before laughing in disbelief.
"What? Really?" he stammered before glaring at his friends, who were laughing almost hysterically at the stunned look on his face.
"Really Mouse. It'll take a few months, and I'll probably never get perfect vision back, but...yeah. I'll be able to see again."
"We'll give you privacy." Becky said quietly, before dragging an indignant Rose and Al out of earshot. After they left, Mouse scooted down to the end of the bed, lying on his stomach, propping his chin on his hands.
"There is another thing I wanted to ask you...just after the Christmas Hols, I came down to see you..."
"Just before you stopped talking to us out of classes you mean?" Nat asked dryly, and Mouse blushed.
"Yeah...well I might have overheard part of a conversation, about not wanting to worry someone?"
Minna and Nat both smiled sadly, Nat squeezing Minna's hand.
"Let me guess, you thought we were having an argument about the Siren..." Nat eventually said, his voice almost wistful.
"It was a false alarm. Never mind Mouse." Minna said, and the expression on her face was enough for him to drop it. Suddenly his eyelids began to droop, and Mouse yawned his jaw clicking, and Nat and Minna chuckled.
"Sounds like you need to get some rest." Nat laughed softly. Reluctantly, Mouse nodded, throwing himself back on to the bed. He drifted off into sleep almost straight away, accompanied by the quiet voices of his cousin and cousin's fiancée, buoyed by the thought that for the first time in months, he could just be a normal twelve year old boy. Well, as normal as it was possible to be with magic and the relations he had.