"So, what did old Nick say to Filch when he caught Peeves sticking the doors shut?"
"…"
" 'Don't lose your head over it' ".
"Seriously, Pam…"
"No, you're right. He actually said, 'Well, it was an old cupboard anyway.' "
The first thoughtful pause. Dill sighed with relief.
"Not very clever of the old polter-whatever-you-call-'em. Overdid himself over Halloween, I think. Mind you, he wasn't the only thing that got overdone."
Dill looked at her friend in what she hoped was a severe manner over the top of the books and papers in front of her. "Your essay is going to be severely underdone if you don't start working on it now."
Pam leaned back in her chair with a devil-may-care grin. "Not bad, Dill, but unfortunately it only proves that I am still the queen of jokes around here. Especially since my paper will also be- a joke. I'm shooting for something similar in my Potions grade, in case you were wondering." Dill shook her head.
They were sitting in the twilit library at a table that was unevenly book-and-paper strewn on Dill's side, and emptier on Pam's side, ostensibly working on an essay examining the common ingredients of restorative draughts. Dill flattened the tail of her parchment and continued scratching her quill across the uneven surface, filling her nose alternately with the scent of pages and ineluctable vapors of ink that hung in the air, awaiting her nostrils. Turning her head from book to leaf.
A dark smudge had been waiting and fiddling with some books in the corner of her vision, and as she began to watch, it grew larger to stand before her. Pam, back to books, didn't notice until he was almost in front of their table. The smudge resolved itself into Septimus. "Er, Dill" he said, voice low to avoid the wrath of Madam Pince. "D'you know where the medicinal section is?" "Oh, right behind the shelf you were looking at." "Oh." He blinked owlishly. "But, Septimus, you also need Temperature & Temperment; Warming & Cooling properties of Maegical Herbes. Wait, I think I've got it somewhere here… the more common sense ones, but then also some interesting stuff about Eastern medicinal potions, you know…" as she moved book piles, Pam got a shifting impression of him past the unpredictably moving stacks. "Hey, er, Sep- you're in Herbology and Potions with us, right, er, Sepius- Hell's Pickles, your name is as weird as Dill's" Pam muttered.
Septimus smiled. "Our family has a way with uncommon names."
"Huh?! Fam-"
Dill laughed. "Found it. Sorry, I forgot to introduce you two. Septimus, this is Pam. Pam, this is my cousin, Sep-ti-mus. But if you think our names are weird, you should hear his siblings' names- or, on second thought, maybe not" she added sympathetically, as Pam's peachy head seemed about to burst.
"But, Septimus… that sounds like-"
"Seven? Yeah."
Pam frowned. "Why Seven?"
Septimus sighed. He pulled out the only vacant seat and sat down with a sidelong glance at his cousin. "Looks like she's in for the old story, eh?" Dill giggled loudly, unable to restrain herself. "I dunno, can you take it, Pam?" Pam looked from one sly mirthful mask to the other. "Spill the tea, you two, and worry about my poor old brain later."
Septimus grinned, and his voice settled into a familiar niche, a groove that had held it many times before.
"Well, right after my mother and father got married, they went traveling together for a little while. A honeymoon of sorts, I suppose. One night, when they were staying at an old inn, they met an oracle- you know, just one of those travelling fortuneteller types who was probably looking for someplace to earn her bread. Anyway, this oracle offered to tell their fortune. I don't think my mother would have allowed it, normally, but they were married young and curious about their future- and maybe a little tipsy besides. And so, the oracle looked into their future and told them that they would have seven children, one after the other. When my mother, in aggravation, inquired further, the only thing the sybil could tell her was that the oldest would be named 'Onus' ".
Even in the warmth of storytelling, a shadow seemed to flicker across Septimus' brow. Pam, not noticing it, said; "So you have six older brothers and sisters?"
"Well, no. I'm the second oldest. You see, right before me and my twin, Seizeus, were born (I am older, by the way. You should know. Dill, don't snicker at me) our granddad Septimus died-"
"And, unable to resist the tradition of naming children after their dead, they named him Septimus, and started counting down instead" Dill finished her favorite part of the story despite the annoyed look from its' original teller.
"And, although unable to resist interrupting, Dill is right."
She stuck her tongue out at him.
"We started by counting up, but finished by counting down. A little backwards, my family, but oh well." He sat back and watched Pam's successive expressions.
"Weird" she said. "Wacky, but cool. Seven kids? Must be a hassle." Septimus nodded, pulling the book towards him. "Right, you're working on this too. I'm guessing I should look at warming properties…?" He looked to Dill, who nodded.
"I knew you were in our class" Pam said proudly. "You sound smart, definitely a Ravenclaw. But I should know your brother too. I'm normally good with faces." Septimus turned over a leaf of Warming & Cooling, etc., and said lightly, "No, you wouldn't. He's a Slytherin. Like the rest of them" he added in an undertone.
Dill swirled her nib in ink as Pam digested this information.
"Good thing too, I thought my senses were failing me" she said finally, her expression exaggeratedly relieved. Dill snorted carefully away from her paper. Septimus appeared to be engrossed in the book, but there was a slight smile playing about his lips.
Pam was right; she had not been prepared for their next potions lesson. She sweated slightly in the cool dungeon room as Dill tried to give her helpful tips in one ear, and Septimus from time to time made unhelpful observations in the other, at the same time asking Dill for advice.
Out of the three, Dill was the best at potions- it could almost be said that she excelled at the subtle art, no doubt partly thanks to the fact that she had grown up with two expert potion makers. While Lily never consciously tried to teach her, she discussed interesting brewing concepts quite often over the dinner table, and there were more than the usual number of potions books around the house, thanks to her father's obsession. After her letter arrived, Severus had taken Dill aside to teach her 'the necessary basics'. They were discovered by a stern-faced Lily, who pretended to be disapproving and told Dill's father off for 'trying to get Dill ahead', but was unable to hide a smile and dropped a few hints over the bubbling cauldron. Dill now looked at the one before her and grinned, calling to mind everything her parents had taught her. She turned to Pam's potion, which had begun to hiss.
The remnants of scrambled eggs and a few fruit pips littered the golden plate that Dill pushed away from her contentedly. Most of the tables were still sparsely populated. It was Saturday, and with no pressing business to attend to, most people liked to sit a little long over their pumpkin juice. Dill got up, gathered some scraps from the table which she slipped napkin-wrapped into her pocket with unnecessary stealth, and wandered over to the Hufflepuff table where Pam was still going at her breakfast full tilt. Dill swung her leg over the bench and was greeted with a friendly grunt. Eventually a swallow was effected, and Pam was about to say something when she paused and looked at something over her right shoulder. Dill followed her gaze. Two identical black haired boys were walking up to them, conferring in low voices. One of them paused and gave a little wave. Pam gasped in recognition.
"You're the Slytherin, his brother!"
Seizeus smirked and flung an arm around his twin's shoulders.
"Yes, my name is 'The Slytherin, his brother.' "
"And mine is 'His brother, the Slytherin's.' " Septimus added, along with his arm.
"What's your name?" they chorused.
Pam was doubled over with laughter, and Dill shot a half amused, half warning smile at the twins over the trembling curve of her back. It straightened, dividing them into two uneven panels. "Hello, Seizeus. My name's Pam."
The four likely, yet unlikely companions sat talking together until the food evaporated from the golden plates before them. Dill had mostly satisfied herself after discussing with her cousins the most recent problems in their classes, and, ascertaining that so far only herbology and transfiguration posed as obstacles to their intellect, she watched contentedly as they stood up to leave. "Keep well, cousin," Seizeus raised his hand with lazy grace, and followed the crowd towards the flung open doors. "And don't nag me too much about the waterglasses- McGonagall didn't seem to mind" Septimus added a bit sheepishly over his shoulder, before turning to catch up to his brother.
Pam peeked at the fondly disapproving look that was slow to leave Dill's face, so reminiscent of Lily's. "You can be such a mother hen sometimes!" she cried, laughing. "Don't mother them too much, though. They'll be fine." Dill snorted.
November slipped away to December, and the castle was surrounded by soft drifts of snow that the Ravenclaws had to trudge through to reach the welcome warmth of the greenhouses. The stone walls of the castle grew colder, and the wind could be heard whistling round Ravenclaw tower at night. Filch could be relied upon to appear periodically in any hallway you were trying to hurry through on your way to class, more than willing to take a break from cleaning the rude messages Peeves had inscribed in strangely lasting fog breath on the windows to deliver a wheezingly bad tempered tirade. Apart from him, however, the castle was busy getting itself into holiday mood, with wreathes and baubles appearing overnight on the balustrades and armor, to the steel helmets' chagrin. In the week before break began, lessons slackened off and professors could be seen lavishly decorating the giant fir trees that Hagrid hauled into the Great Hall. Flitwick even offered to teach them how to enchant the orbs that would hang on the green boughs to shimmer softly, waving off the stray comment about exams- although Dill suspected that his incentive was to decrease the time he would otherwise have had to spend on the task himself.
Dill was sitting in her favorite armchair, stroking the black cat that was curled in her lap and gazing into the common room fire lazily. A few older Ravenclaws sat scattered abound the room, reading or talking cozily. The arched black windows framed the scene at intervals, isolating the room in a bright pocket of warmth. It was not uncommon for the dormitory door to open several times at random. Whenever this would happen, someone would invariably come in, wander around in a bemused, searching manner, and disappear again, re-materializing every second or third time the door opened.
Dill had finished her packing for the day. Her trunk was still half empty, but after some hours of folding and gathering her things from the most unlikely corners, an exercise which culminated in wandering around for a quarter of an hour in search of a sock that had turned out to be in her hand, she decided to take a break for the day, and toasted before the fire with the cherished pair of soft black-furred ears between her fingers. . Dill stared into the logs, preferring to treat consciousness as a bath she could slide in and out of at will.
An unexpectedly harsh knock on the door roused her slightly, and after a pause followed by the familiar clacking sound, it swung open and Septimus walked in. Appearing not to see her, he glided past her chair quickly. Muttering darkly, he threw himself into a seat a few feet away from hers. Fully awake now, Dill sat up and watched his splintering fingers unfold a small note, trembling slightly. She stood up, and the cat jumped off with a hiss. "Sorry, Shadow" Dill said, bending down. The flustered feline warmed under her touch, and, rubbing against Dill's leg, suffered herself to be picked up and cradled over to the gloomy boy.
"Shadow wants to read, too" she sang softly. "He-ey, Sep…what's wrong?" Dill asked suddenly as he turned to her, his face a crumpled paper clenched by the fist of gloom and anger. "Put the cat down and read this." He thrust the slip at her. She gave him a look and then let Shadow jump to the floor.
The note was small and smudged. A few lines ran across it in large, heavy hand.
Keep messing with filth and your hands will get dirty. Renonce your blood smirching ties before it's too late. Our patience won't last long.
Beneath the words a strange symbol was scrawled in place of a signature.
"They spelled 'renounce' wrong" Dill muttered automatically. Septimus laughed mirthlessly, recalling her to the situation at hand.
"Oh yes, that cinches everything! Dill, I don't think he cares about spelling renounce. Spelling was never his strong suit, anyway" he muttered. She caught his arm urgently. "You mean you know who it is?"
"Yes" he replied wearily. "But that knowledge makes it all the worse."
Dill was staring at the paper again, fuming. "Who would even do such a-" "My older brother". Septimus' profile was dark and troubled.
Dill smoothed the wrinkled paper with her fingernail thoughtfully. "Onus…"
"Yes. The one, the first, the very summit
Beyond whose point you can only plummet…"
He glowered at a small first year girl who had come through the unpredictably swinging door in search of her sweater. She squeaked and ran back inside.
"Septimus."
He turned, surprised. "What?" "Who was it that told me not to brood?" He smiled sadly, remembering the cloudy day that now seemed so long ago. "Fat load of good it'll do you now, coming from someone who can't take their own advice." Dill elbowed him sharply. "Ow! What was that for?!" "For being a prick" she replied, standing. "It was good advice that I use to this day, so you better start using it too. Otherwise it'll be no good to anyone." She picked up her sock. The note was still entangled in the wires of her fingers, and she let it flutter into his lap. "Don't let a silly note get to you, Septimus" Dill said, hoping her voice sounded more confident than she felt. "Onus will have to do better than that if he wants to scare anyone." She yawned. "I'm off to bed. Blood smirching ties need lots of sleep."
Septimus smiled weakly. "Thanks, Dill" he said quietly. "But don't tell anyone about the note…yet." Dill, just past his chairback, frowned slightly at the back of his head and then kept walking towards the dormitory.
Staring at the bed hangings above her, she tried to forget the note, but it grew larger, knocking elbows against the walls of her mind. Squeezing her eyes shut, Dill saw the last line engraved on the insides of her eyelids. Our patience won't last long. Shivering slightly, she gathered the blankets more tightly around her and snuggled under them until only her nose stuck out. As her body warmed, the spasmodic shivers grew fewer and more apart. Dill checked that her toes were well covered and then curled up, closing her eyes tightly. It would have to last a while yet.