The fishbowl
"Well, anything else?" Sev asked.
"Yeah. I have done a quick review of those at home since we were going to meet, and there is nothing new. Those who were been appointed on holidays will begin their training in the summer, as we expected, and the rest, as usual, waiting for them to finish school. And about you, Lily, the Guard or me, nothing either."
"We coincide. I have not read them all, but I have also found the same thing."
"All in order, then. Change of subject," Lauren said. "Now that you are ten, six good older warriors and with the prospect of being more, you should change your strategy when you receive the letter.You are no longer going to fit at the end of the Sly table as you thought."
"Yeah, I had already thought of that. We could sit in the Rave table, which is less crowded."
"No, there is an even better option. We planned it with my parents, anticipating that more people would join you in the month ahead."
"Tell me," Sev said.
"Can't you think about it?"
"No."
"Severus, you have to wake up, you have a short month left to deal with Dumbledore," she said a bit harsh. "With everything I'm telling you, you still don't value yourself."
I have no idea, he thought.
"I see I'll have to continue helping you with the old man as well," Lauren continued. "Let's see, if you get up and sit down again, even if it can be seen the movement of the Guard, maybe only the Slys around you will notice what is happening, and you will get lost among them. Very few will realize that you are present. Let's see... go on."
"Stay standing at the back of the Great Hall?"
She nodded.
"In formation and with me and Jack in front?" Sev asked.
Lauren nodded and smiled.
"And with our wands in hand," he concluded.
"Well… my boy is learning. In front of the teachers, leaving space for anyone who wants to join to do so immediately. What I told you, historical. It's going to be in the Daily Prophet."
"But then the malefics will go for me."
"I will be reading, and Dumbledore will not allow anything to happen to you," she said. "And I don't think they dare, they would risk reprisals, they are a minority."
"And Lily?"
"The same. If it crosses their minds that you're together and they dare to touch her, they'll have half the school against them, because the Gryffs would also join. You are perfect. Two lovers from enemy Houses, the necessary catalyst for us all to unite."
"You already had all this planned," Sev said.
She smiled charmingly at him. "Yes, I have dreamed it many times.The memory of my Patronus will change on May fifteenth.And taking advantage of the fact that it is Saturday and that you are not going to fit in the clearing, you already imagine what you must do right after, don't you?I'm telling you now so you can plan it."
"A training."
"That is," Lauren agreed. "Where you all fit and well in sight."
"At the shore of the Lake."
"The seed of an army, Severus, they are going to be intimidated. I bet what you want that many malefics leave school."
They burst out laughing.
"Shhh… the buzz can be heard," he said out loud. "Lauren, uncover yourself too."
"My little brothers, Severus. They still don't know anything."
"Yeah…"
"Well, all these are hypotheses, we have dreamed for a while. But just in case everything turns out as we have planned, and not only for that, but also so that you don't have to continue training in your school uniform, I've brought you a little gift."
She leaned over to her backpack that was on the floor and took a rather large package out of it, which she placed on the table. It was Muggle wrapping paper, carefully taped shut.
Sev thought, I know what it is... Comfortable combat clothes, like the ones she usually wears. Tears welled up. Now I'm not going to know which ones to wear, hers or the ones Lily bought me. "It wasn't necessary, Lauren."
"Of course it was. Come on, open it, see if you like it." She was also about to cry.
He removed the tape from it without tearing it. Inside was a whole equipement. Two short-sleeved T-shirts, one dark green and one black, and two long-sleeved ones, a black sweatshirt, dark green slacks, and a dark green raincoat, almost identical to the one he'd bought at Cokeworth, only better quality.
"This is too much, Lauren."
"This is nothing, Severus. It is bought with money, which I have plenty of. Really valuable things are impossible to buy."
"Thank you very much, I like them a lot, they are our colors."
"Of course. I hope I got your size right, you'll tell me. I tried them on, we are almost the same height," she smiled at him.
"On Friday I'll wear them."
"Sure. Don't let me down."
"Never." Sev put everything in his backpack.
"If you don't get more people, it might not be convenient to do it that way, but I should tell you now so you can get ready," she said.
"Sure."
"Don't tell the others for the moment, it would be suspicious if you knew so far in advance the date on which the letter will arrive. And neither the strategy, wait for more people to join you. I'm sure Rush and Covet will attract most of the sixth and seventh year warriors, maybe Raves too, and if they've accepted you, they'll get the rest to. Talk about it next weekend. When is it your turn?"
"On Saturday," Sev replied.
"Brilliant. Tell me everything at dinner and I'll read them."
"Lauren… what would I do without you?"
"And I without you?"
Merlin... how much we love each other, it's time, Sev thought. "We are going to do something nice today. Lily and I were in Diagon researching Druid Magic and we found an old and very comprehensive book on it. She has kept it, it is safer, she will copy it completely and ward the writings so that we and the Guard also have a copy, my mother already did it with part of it. Rituals come in all kinds of magical natural spaces, each with a different power and meaning, including places very close at hand, such as the Forest and the Lake, which we also discovered through some travel guides we found at Flourish & Bloots."
"What are you telling me?" she asked, amazed.
"What you're hearing, and not only that.It brings a multitude of lost spells, some changed their invocation to Latin like the spherical Protego that we already know, it comes there, and we can perform them.My mother selected all the information that is useful to us at this time and made copies for everyone, here is yours," he told her, handing her a first wad of scrolls. "You'll look at it calmly another time, it's a lot."
"Wow…"
"I am going to teach you to ward it." He showed her the spell that Remus used for the map and he had found in the book of warding spells that he had given him.
"The pity is that the vast majority of lost spells that did not change their invocation come in ancient Gaelic, we are going to have to study it," Sev continued. "Lily's father is going to look for someone at the Muggle university to give usclasses in summer."
"Isn't that a bit risky?"
"Maybe yes, Lauren, but it's worth it. You can even change the weather and stop time."
"What are you saying?" very surprised.
"What you're hearing."
"And where did you find the book?" Lauren asked.
"In the same old bookstore as the other one, in a corner and full of dust. Being wandless magic, no one paid attention to it for decades."
"Wooow…"
"In fact, I got it for half the price that was listed and I could have done it for less," Sev said.
"You're fantastic," she smiled at him satisfied. "And since you went to Diagon... did you try to sell the gifts?"
"Yes, but there I was not so astute. They showed me very little interest and I let them buy for very little."
She shook her head. "Severus, you still don't value yourself.I already told you that they were precious metals and minerals.You should not have done it."
"Yeah… but I needed the money and I had no way to prove it. Now I do have it, Lily's mother is going to take them to a Muggle appraiser and to try to sell them among her friends."
"Brilliant."
"At least it helped me find out that Lily knew about you, because when she saw me leave the gift shop she got a little upset and the next day she asked me if I had gone to buy you a gift and if I was going to see you," Sev explained.
"Ugh... So yes, she is jealous."
"No. Because I explained to her why I had gone and that the gift I bought was for her."
"Ah…"
"But it didn't end there," he continued. "That same afternoon, we discovered, by blessed chance, two other Ancestral Magics, even older."
"Really?"
"Yeah.In the annexes of the edition of the General Compendium of Defense of '36.The same book that was removed from Hogwarts in the 40s.We had to leave that one at home, it didn't fit everything in our trunks, but my mother made copies for all of us," he handed her a second wad of parchments.
She read the title. "Red Magic. The Magic of Love. The Most Powerful Weapon Against the Dark Arts! Booaaah… this is the bomb."
"It is based on love, both between couples, families and affinity groups. But it is only a summary, it does not show how to develop it."
"Yeah…"
"Although all is not lost, the book from which it is extracted may be at Hogwarts," Sev said. "It was in the R.S. in my mother's time and it is written in runic. It is from the year 1238."
Lauren's face lit up. "We must search it…"
"Of course. I'm going to read those who were teachers back then. Dumbledore is ruled out, because he surely knows it, and if he didn't put it back within reach, he will surely occlude it. But perhaps Slughorn, who also taught, or McGonagall, who will succeed Dumbledore, know something."
"Sure…"
"Do you sign up?" he asked.
"Of course!"
"Brilliant.I'll teach you to ward these too." They did it.
"And now the explanation of why Lily, despite what she knows, is not jealous at all," Sev continued. "I want you to read this one now in its entirety, it is much shorter, I'll wait for you."
"Magic of the Moon. The Oldest Magic. Matriarchal Sorcery."
"You see, from which all the others arose. When women were the heads of the family and witches were the leaders of the tribes. Read, read, there is no waste."
Lauren concentrated very interested in the reading, which took her about half an hour. Sev kept an eye on her, guessing where she was going, as he had spent much of the Express ride learning it by heart. She didn't look up until she was done, and even then, she didn't look at him for a long time.
He thought, She is thinking. She understands that I am putting the decision in her hands.Remembering Jack and Lily's thoughts on the subject, and of course, also how Lily herself would feel if she had to share me.And she avoids looking at me so as not to get carried away by what she feels for me and rush, she wants to be rational.
At last she sighed deeply and spoke, still not looking at him. "This would be impossible to bring to light in the society in which we live."
Yes, she wants to, all are excuses.She knows that she, too, can't come out in school with Jack anyway, and that when we graduate we can live however we want. "Not at school, but later, Muggles do it."
She sighed and thought again. Sev thought in turn, Let's see what other excuse she can come up with.
It didn't take long for her to ask him, "Don't answer me if you don't want to. Are you a virgin?"
Wow... to the point and to the heart of the matter. "Narrowly, but yes."
"And I imagine that Lily too. You've never had a partner before."
"We haven't," he replied.
"I am not, and you have been together all your life. You must be first for each other."
"Yes, that's what we both think."
"And now you are going to spend until the summer without meeting," Lauren continued.
"That is. And besides, perhaps we will take even longer to take the step, for reasons of other magic. There is a rite called Union of Souls and it is more powerful if it is the first time for both lovers. It comes in the notes of the Red Magic."
She shook her head slightly. She's sorry for fucking half Sly… poor girl.Now that she knows that she has me, even though she would never have been my first… I'm going to offer myself. "You can love without doing it to the end."
She responded immediately, "I doesn't feel it fair to her. You've had it hard enough, you're going to go more than two months without meeting, and you and I have each other very close, she could never be sure of being your first. She would suffer greatly if she knew, and there should be no such secrets between you."
She's absolutely right. "I am of the same opinion."
"And the same as long as you can't come out into the open and be together freely. You and I live together day by day and you see her sporadically. No. Don't think that I'm rejecting you, but I already spent a lot of time doing the wrong thing and now I have matured and know what is right. We'll wait for the problems to pass and maybe, in the meantime, Jack's thing will come out." She finally looked at him. "Would you suffer if you saw me with him?"
"No, Lauren, as long as you're happy, it's your decision. But don't rush to get me out of trouble, for me it doesn't mean it. When it's time, I can love you both equally, I've been checking it since we were in the fir tree. There is a magical endemism in the Forest called Lover's Flavor, which has for each person the taste or smell of the one they love. Read this so you know what it's about." He passed her the parchment that Lily copied from the book of endemics.
"Is it Lily's handwriting?"
"Yeah."
Lauren read, and when she finished she looked at him.
"I collected the berries in autumn," Sev said. "We use them to know how we are, because if either of us suffers they also acquire a bitter taste. Do you know what they taste like to me since I could smell you in the fir tree?"
She didn't answer him, she just was looking at him.
He continued, "Both of you equally, and so intense, it almost hurts. Now, when they taste bitter to me, I can't know which one is suffering."
They smiled.
"We haven't hugged each other since then," Sev went on. "Surely you don't remember my smell." He got up, circling the table, to where she was. "Come here," he told her, taking her hand, so she would do it too. "Hold me like then."
They clung to each other, sinking into their necks. He inhaled her scent deeply and placed a light kiss at the base of her neck. He waited for her to part. "Do you got it?"
"I do."
"Open your mouth." He deposited in it a red berry.
When she popped it she closed her eyes with a grimace of pain. It hurts her even more than it hurts me, Sev thought.
"Buaah… is it true what it says? Haven't you spelled them or something?" she asked.
"No, Lauren. If you don't trust, I'll tell you where the book is. We have it hidden in the Library."
"So… do you love me so much?"
"Maybe you doubted?" he asked.
"I knew you loved me, but not to that extent."
"Well, now you also have all the information to decide what you want to do, whether to wait for me or look for love elsewhere. I won't talk to you about it again. But just so you know that I'm waiting for you too, take them." He gave her a small package. "There is a third of what we had left. We have both agreed to share them with you, as well as everything we have discussed on the subject. They have to be rationed until September."
"No, Severus," she rejected them. "It's enough for me with what I have felt."
"Keep them. As I told you before, now the three of us are in on it. Tomorrow, in addition, you will also speak with Lily and she will confirm everything I have told you."
They sat down again, facing each other, smiling at each other.
"And to finish the night well…" Sev said.
"Even better?"
"Well, I don't know if better. A song I heard on the radio that reminded me a lot of you and us. Lily's Dad has the record and he played it for me several times to learn it. You may know it, do you listen to Muggle radio at home?"
"We do."
"Just in case, I've also made you a copy of the lyrics." He tore a page from the notebook that Petunia gave him and handed it to her. "Does it ring a bell?"
She nodded.
"It's a little embarrassing, but I want to sing it to you," he continued. "I've had a long while on the Express learning it."
Sev began humming the instrumental part, while both looked deep into each other's eyes.
"Taradará… tan tara dán…
Tan taradará… tan tara dán…
Tan taradará… tan tara dán…
Taradará… tan tara dán…
Tan taradara…
So, so you think you can tell
Heaven from hell, blue skies from pain
Can you tell a green field
From a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?
And did they get you to trade
Your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange
A walk on part in the war
for a lead role in a cage?"
On these last two verses, Lauren joined him, pointing to herself. He nodded. They both started crying, still looking at each other, while Sev continued with the instrumental bridge.
"Taradará… tan tara dán…
Tan taradará… tan tara dán…
Tan taradará… tan tara dán…
Taradará… tan tara dán…"
Just before the start of the next verse, he held out both his hands and they held each other's tight. He sang with a passion that he would never have thought himself capable of expressing like this, crying.
"How I wish, how I wish you were here
We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year
Running over the same old ground
What have we found?
The same old fears
Wish you were here."
These last two verses they also sung together.
"Taradará… tan tara dán…
Do you still think that I have spelled the berry?
Tan taradará… tan tara dán…"
"I don't."
"Tan taradará… tan tara dán…
We'll get out of the fishbowl, Lauren.
Taradará… tan tara dán…
Both.
Taradara…"
They stayed for a long time looking at each other, crying, holding hands. It was the first demonstration of love they felt for each other that they had allowed themselves in a long time.