Author's Note:
Happy Eid to everyone celebrating it! (No, not the one that comes at the end of Ramadhan/fasting, the other one). I wrote this with the spirit of just getting it over with, because otherwise, the other chapters aren't going to write themselves. So, here goes.
'-
75 Passers-by Passing By
Moody's afternoons at the DMLE. An unexpected young man was looking for him. Melchior has nightmares after a particular Friday evening spent with Tom outside Britain. Saturday mornings with Hermione.
'-
Alastor Moody hadn't seen the young Ravenclaw witch on his last weekend St. Mungo's visit, and he found himself missing her sass. It was probably because it was still the middle of the week, no reprieve in sight and he was bored of the paperwork already.
Curie could always be relied upon to promptly heal the latest Auror ducklings he had to bring over, as well as puncture any over-inflated egos that needed puncturing. Two service for the price of one. He supposed that the kinder, friendlier Nurse Wallace was more soothing for the more nervous twerps, but that left the job of keeping the idiot ones in line solely to him. At least she's easy on the eyes, he thought, and definitely not as worryingly young as Curie.
Curie had always pulled Alastor's gut reflex in two competing directions—he either wanted to tell her to go back to Hogwarts and stay there until the war was over, or to take her under his wing where he could be sure she'd stay safe with all he could do and teach her.
Too bloody young. Such unlimited idealism too.
(Too skilled to just leave things be—too easy to be too involved and end up dead, was the whisper at the back of his mind.)
Alastor glanced at the report he'd been staring for the last ten minutes; he rubbed his forehead instead with a long exhale. Right, I need a distraction. He was getting so numb from the bureaucratic language he'd almost fell asleep. No wonder that his mind was drifting all over the place. He might as well stretch his legs a little and find whatever papers or documents he could deliver to Director Bones.
If that still doesn't help, he'd find the coffee pot in the break room and pour himself some.
Moody started looking up the reports he'd done already and sorted them based on whether they were to go to the captain, the director, or the ever-present copies that one has to send to the Archives. The last was growing to be the tallest pile of them all, but no one who'd worked in the Ministry for half a year would be surprised by that. Based on what he'd heard from older captains, the Archives went nuts once the copy-quills were invented and entered wider circulation and practically every document could have a copy made with a simple order.
They'd heard their captains and even grandparents grumble about them before. The Archives were a mundane, low-level irritation, as constant as the yearly Comptroller's audits and checks.
Alastor raised the pile and thought he'd had enough to hand over*.
(*It wasn't all his reports to the director, there were still some that he's saving up—who knows if he needed to stretch his legs tomorrow morning.)
Suddenly, there was a quiet knock on the office door.
His nearest co-workers turned slightly, but they returned to whatever they were doing before when they saw him already standing up. Idalia Brinley slowly sat down again when she saw him ready to meet whoever it was.
The door handle turned.
"Excuse me. Ah, Mr. Moody, I was looking for you."
Alastor blinked twice. Hair as fine as a gosling's down, and face as pale as paper.
"Pendleton Junior?" He couldn't hide the surprise in his voice. Shacklebolt looked up with surprise at the other end of the office at the name, but most of the younger Aurors wouldn't have recognised the name.
He caught the younger blond's facial twitch a moment before he answered. Pendleton Jr. walked in with an earnest expression and sheaf of papers in his hand and approached Moody's table in a few smooth strides.
"Yes, Sir. I only have a few things in some documents to double check with you, I won't be taking too much of your time."
The words caused the other Aurors to settle back into their work, assuming that it was merely one administrative thing after another. Alastor's eyes narrowed with interest. He had half a mind to tell the junior Aurors to actually pay attention to the guests they have, but he couldn't exactly blame them completely. Pendleton Jr. wasn't in his Hogwarts uniform, for one. With the suit he was wearing, he blended in too well with other junior Ministry peons.
"You do?" Alastor asked, more curious about why he was here.
"Yes, Sir," he nodded. Polite enough without being overly deferential. He has the manners of a Ministry clerk down pat.
The Auror pinched the bridge of his nose. "Mind telling me why you're playing truant from Hogwarts right now?"
Pendleton Jr. shook his head at that, eyes widening. His answer came quickly. "I'm here with permission from a professor—otherwise, I wouldn't have dared to go out."
Right, Slytherin House. How the feck could he have forgotten his own House's peculiarities? Slughorn could be rather flexible as long as a student kept their performance up.
"I just have a few things I need to check, honest." Pendleton handed over the scrolls in his hand with haste.
"What things?"
"Uh, it's just making sure we're not entering some prohibited site, or some dangerous locale that still needs to be cleaned up…that sort of thing." the blond answered.
Alastor glanced at the top most scroll.
The labels of the buildings involved weren't unfamiliar to him. The boy wasn't lying. It was one of Britain's wizarding enclaves (well, technically, the Ministry's enclaves, but that's hair-splitting).
A simple village would usually not need to set aside a small house as the Archives—whereas that was pretty much part of the standard layout for any Ministry exclave. The same with having a small square labelled as 'inn' in a place this small; that was the village floo hub, then. That was a familiar structure to him, as he was certain he'd helped Captain Hypatia draft that security measure several years ago.
This doesn't look like a standard diplomatic or field work exclave.
The first tended to be right in the hustle and bustle of a court or major city, where cultural activity and entertainment were. The runic and geomancy workshop would make sense if there were some discovered ruins that they were trying to unearth, but the village itself would have to be at least twice the size to cover enough area for both a village and the older remains. Not to mention that a dig site would've taken up a good chunk of the land area in the map…and he saw nothing of the sort here.
A simple village wouldn't have a functioning observatory, alchemist's lab, and a runic and geomancy workshop all at the same time either… Alastor mused. his forehead creased in thought.
This was…this was not a standard exclave. Alastor's grin was as wide as a shark's, the arm he placed around Pendleton Jr's shoulder falling a little too firmly.
"I think you and I need to have a little…chat."
He could see the young man clearing his throat awkwardly but ignored it as he pulled both of them out of his office. The low-level humdrum of an office was muffled as the door shut behind them and Alastor marched them forward down the faded carpet of the corridor. It wasn't hard to find a small, unused meeting room—it was the larger ones that tended to have longer waiting lists.
The door shut behind them, the noises of the Ministry vanishing with it.
The Auror dropped the unresisting blond on one seat and took another on the opposite side of the table. Alastor brandished the map copy he was holding.
"Where the hell did you get this? Are you in any sort of trouble?"
"Uh, no! Not at all. I'm fine. We're fine." The words came tumbling out with haste as he gestured with his hands. Alastor narrowed his eyes at the student.
"This looks like something you can only get if you had access to the Archives."
The boy crinkled his nose. "Not really. You would have access to the files from previous operations, right? This isn't that different."
Pendleton Jr. wasn't wrong. Yet there was a problem with what he'd just said—this didn't look like the kind of thing the Aurors would've worked on. Even if something wasn't his case, he had a nose for the kinds of things the DMLE dealt with by now. His gut told him of a different tale.
Alastor spoke clearly and slowly.
"Patroclus. Where did you get this map from?"
Pendleton Jr. flinched, and Moody sighed. It had slipped his mind that he'd disliked his name ever since old Captain Pendleton went on that rampage and was…retired to a particular wing of St. Mungo's. Guilt swelled like pus. To think that he had not remembered the boy's preference just now, that he hadn't checked up more frequently on the son of one of his previous captains...
His voice was steadier when he spoke up next.
"Look, Junior, what's this about? You do know that the…research divisions tend to be a tad secretive of their stuff, yeah? I know you're trying to help one of your friends, but I can't help you if you don't tell me the whole story." He took a deep breath and decided to just cut through the chase.
"Is there going to be some shadowy researcher going after your arse for this?" Alastor raised the map in his hand.
A quiet huff. "None."
"How sure are you of that? Did you at least cover your tracks correctly after you decided to…" Alastor pinched the bridge of his nose, "…to exfiltrate some documents from you-know-where next door?"
To his credit, the younger wizard did look like he was thinking over Alastor's words carefully for a moment.
"Well, it's not going to be an issue…since whatever projects are there, are already dead. Look at the labels."
He gestured to the papers and Alastor set them down on the table. Sorting through them until he found the map and the front page and pointed out on the labels and stamps there. 'Discontinued', one said, 'Closed' said another. Alastor breathed a little easier after that.
Well, he supposed he should trust the lad a bit more. The old captain didn't raise a fool.
"Anyway, an acquaintance of mine got it off his mum." Pendleton Jr. said this casually, as if gaining an asset with a rather high access was no big deal. "And then me and the boys were planning to go on a bit of a lark this weekend."
"To this place." Alastor was uncertain that he was hearing this correctly.
"Yes." The blond nodded, straightforward in his reaction.
He glanced back down at the map to make sure his eyes weren't deceiving him, or that he was reading the information wrong.
"This exclave is in Norway."
"Yeah, I know. I've checked it." Pendleton Jr. raised an eyebrow at him.
The teenager was a little too easy-going about this.
"This is the same Norway which is in the middle of this thrice-accursed war, one started by Grindelwald. That Norway." Alastor stated with not a little disbelief. "Junior—"
"We're not going to be anywhere important, anyway. The muggles don't really put their forces at all corners—else the old-timers wouldn't complain so much about the old front from time to time and not the hinterlands." the younger blond answered quickly. Alastor felt a headache coming as he wondered just how often his old captain brought his son to work that he'd come to know that much about the previous great war.
Too much, probably. Far too much.
"It's just a rundown village, right? No need to worry about Grindelwald's forces there."
Was he trying to convince Alastor, or himself? The wizard didn't bother holding back the urge to rub his face with his left hand.
"Myrddin, Morgana and Morrigan." Alastor cursed.
"There is the risk if there's some sort of…Ministry security wards around there that hasn't been burnt out, deactivated or disarmed, I know. That's why I thought of asking someone experienced first." Junior said again, his speech relaxing in pace once more.
"So, I'm here."
What are they feeding Hogwarts students these days?
"You have more guts than sense," Moody bluntly said.
Junior had the gall to look slightly offended. He was about to open his mouth, but closed it of his own volition after a moment's thought. Alastor pretended not to notice that.
"You're just going to go on your own if I didn't help you, right?" he asked instead.
To Junior's credit, he didn't immediately try to deny it. The blond simply stared back and blinked slowly, as if still musing over the question. His only answer was a shrug and a murmured 'well…'
"Lacking the common-sense nature gave to a goose." Alastor pinched his nose. "Fantastic."
The Auror realised now that there was no way for him to stop Pendleton Jr. and whichever friends are going along with him. He could be a pest for a day or three and watch over them, but all they had to do to dodge him was bide their time until he was away again. He was an Auror, not the guvnor of three scores of brats. It wasn't going to work.
He ignored the muted sounds of disagreement that Junior made—he was riling up the young man on purpose. Myrddin knows how many reckless and foolish things he himself did when he was at that age. The only people who could claim that they didn't do anything daring in Hogwarts was a selectively amnesiac wizard or witch, or an absolute bore.
Alastor made up his mind and spread the copied documents on the table.
"I know I'm going to regret this. Still, I'll regret it far more if you up and hied off to who-knows-where without preparation. Least I know the captain would've taught you enough about document classification, yes?" He fired his words in a rapid staccato, the tone enough to make Junior sit straighter and listen.
There was a nod of understanding and agreement, and Alastor felt tension leaving his stomach at that.
"Then keep the details out of their hands and only in your head. You just need to know enough to be able to tell them what to do. What I'm telling you is to notice the signs that you need to bugger off immediately. Look at these bits of the report," Alastor pointed out to the paragraphs he'd skimmed earlier.
"Keep your winkers at the bloody pictures. Burnt down buildings, signs of a skirmish, not a sodding safe spot. I say you're an idiot for wanting to go there, but me saying that isn't going to make you less of one. Instead of nattering on and on, the least I could do is tell you how to stay alive even while you're being an idiot."
"…I'm not that much of an idiot."
"You are, but since we both already know that's unfixable in the short term, we'll just learn how to live with it, don't we? Keep your eyes peeled and never stop augmenting your hearing here. Learn to ignore the various echoes, they repeat. Keep a lookout for any other visitor than you. The first sign there's any, bugger off, you hear me?"
Pendleton Jr. counted off using his hands. "Ignore the echoes. If there's any other people, take off."
"Yes, because you're nowhere able to take on Grindelwald's own death squads." Alastor said.
The Auror stared the teenager down and saw Junior cleared his throat slowly. There was a little more uncertainty in his voice now as he rubbed his hands together, as if to regain whatever warmth he'd just lost.
"Death squads." the blond enunciated.
"Death squads. What, didn't you read the report that came with the map?" he barked. Truthfully, not every wizarding attack group on Grindelwald's side was one of his death squads—far from it. Yet if a little fear would lead to increased vigilance, that was all the better.
"I thought…"
"The fire that burned an entire village was an accident?" his tone was sarcastic.
"Well, I thought it was a side-effect of some fight."
Alastor snorted and shifted the papers around to reach what few photographs were included. "No, that doesn't explain the completely widespread fire, or how most of the buildings were burned down to their walls if not the ground. No, Junior, arson was involved and they made sure they were thorough."
He didn't really blame Pendleton Jr. for not immediately realising that. It wasn't as if the boy had detailed investigative knowledge, or the field experience.
"This is also why I'm not trying to tie you down to stop you from going. They probably already had what they came for, or have decided to go with burning everything down so no one else can recover anything."
Junior nodded slowly. "So, there are low odds that they'd return."
"Low odds don't mean zero odds," Alastor warned.
"Got it. Anybody else coming in, we leave immediately."
The reply was firm. There was no sign that he was merely parroting the words to get Alastor to stop bothering him. Well, at least his brain's still working. His pale blue gaze was so earnest to be mildly discomfiting.
(He'd seen a face just as young, staring at the sky and mirroring it endlessly over the mud. At least until Alastor closed that pair of eyes forever.)
He hoped that was enough.
Alastor wanted to ask why he bothered to visit yet another place that had fallen to the ongoing war with practically nothing left. The lad didn't strike him as some sort of ghoulish tourist of the macabre, getting his jollies off rubbernecking around suffering and destruction. It would have been for some other reason, then. Some of the non-redacted parts of the document sounded vaguely familiar to him, even if he couldn't put a finger on it yet.
"Why visit this exclave, Junior?" He didn't hide the tiredness in his tone.
"You didn't notice it?" Pendleton Jr. replied.
"Notice what?"
"The town the exclave is registered to." he pointed.
Alastor shuffled the papers on the table and the name jumped out at him. Kopervik. He remembered that a request for more information about the place came out from higher up the chain, and he passed the order down to one of the newer Aurors (he had other things to do that wasn't being a desk jockey). The place was vaguely related to, wasn't it? Luckily for him, Pendleton Jr. spoke up again and spared him the effort of trying to track that line of thought down.
"It's Hermione's old place. Before…" he tried to find words for pain that exceeded words and the sort of loss that simply gouged the soul. The young blond could find none.
"From before."
It was the first time Junior actually looked awkward after he came with this insane idea. Moody could almost relate. He'd seen the exclave, burned and gutted, and he couldn't imagine what it felt to know that everyone you knew was no more.
"Morrigan take their bollocks." he spat the words without much thought.
That would…that would explain about Curie's recklessness very much.
"Alright lad, last bit of information, and this one you can freely pass on to your friends." Alastor started searching the last few pages of the report.
"Yeah?"
"Yep. Now, where is…ah, there. Now, you see the layout, right? You see these buildings? Keep out. Just…stay away from them; don't even be three steps away from their perimeter." Alastor pointed at the ones he had more-or-less identified as an alchemist's lab, and the runic and geomancy workshop. He also marked down the village copy of the archive for good measure.
"Uh, why?"
"Classified," Alastor answered him with a grin that was all sharp teeth. "It's not even from our department, Lad, so I know for sure you won't know, even if you've heard bits and bobs from coming with your Da."
The disappointment was palpable on Junior's face, but he wasn't so impatient as to be easily baited to complain outright. At least he still realised that Moody was still doing him a favour even now. Alastor continued.
"I can assure you that I've seen blood wards in such places that are long-thought to be defunct to suddenly activate due to a misstep and BLAM!" he slammed his hands on the table, startling the student, "feet and lower calves gone, just like that. Cut by something thinner than a human hair. Another started sucking the blood of the poor witch who made the careless mistake of trying to touch the door. We couldn't even stop the process because the disarming glyphs had been distorted and marred. Had to do it the hard way."
"Hard way?"
He shrugged. "Cut her hand off since it can't be withdrawn. Limbs can be regrown, even if it took a while, but it's hard to keep someone bloodless alive for long."
The younger wizard took a deep breath. It was hard to see if he was paler than before, considering that he'd been lacking in colour all this time.
"Keep away from the possibly booby-trapped buildings. Right." the student answered. There was only the vaguest hint of a waver in his voice.
"Right. I haven't even gotten to the tales where some guardian beast was awakened from slumber due to unadvised trespassing. That's certainly not going to be your idea of fun either. It's not like you're going to be going in with any master of beasts either, eh?"
A noticeable pause.
"…Alright. Classified buildings are dangerous."
"Yes. Now, if you heed my words, I'm sure you and your friends will come out with life and limbs. Most limbs, anyway." As he stood up and rounded the table, he patted Pendleton Jr. on the shoulder. "Make sure you lock up the room again when you're going out."
"Thank you, Mr. Moody."
"Just don't make being suicidal a habit, Lad," he grumbled without turning. That would square some of his debt to the old captain, he thought. A part of him still wanted to stop all of them from doing something foolish, and he had to wrestle it down. It's an abandoned, burned down land, he thought, it's not that valuable for there to be squatters or more of Grindelwald's Huns.
Moody was already halfway out when the younger Pendleton asked another question.
"You're not going to ask why we're going there?"
Alastor rubbed his temples. He was already wondering if it would be easier if he just…chased down all the Slytherin boys involved and tie them down until the blasted Christmas season was over.
"I'm not an idiot, Junior. If we're talking about Curie again, it's going to be her swain coming up with all these romantic ideas, isn't it? Certainly not you. You're not that…"
"…imaginative? Rather boring?" Junior's tone was half-mocking and uncharitable. Alastor shook his head, kind enough to not even show any pity to the young man.
"Was about to say outlandish." his reply was gruff. "You don't strike me as one to leave your common sense at home—when you're not being egged on."
He knew well enough of the pressure to keep up with your friends in Slytherin House. Through thick and thin, through bets and dares, you don't want to be the lily-livered one. Pendleton Jr. only smiled back without humour, and Alastor thought he had his answer enough.
"Call me if you're still alive, Lad."
"I will, Mr. Moody."
'-
When they made their way through the wizarding exclave, it was Tom who moved like he knew where he was going. The other two were much more subdued and uncertain of their trip.
Melchior couldn't explain it; he was certain someone was following him. At first, he thought that his steps echoed, somehow, never mind that they were under the open skies, and without a tall ravine or cliff nearby. The first time he stumbled, though, the echoed continued for another step before it stopped.
So, he stepped closer to Pendleton, who gave no comment. Tom walked ahead of the two of them, without fear nor concern holding him, and the two Knights followed him mutely through the falling rain.
Him, Pendleton and the… footsteps.
When he stepped on a rotten piece of wood and paused, wincing, he could hear two more steps continuing behind him before stopping. At the corner of his eyes, Pendleton stilled. Melchior reached out to hold his friend's arm, shaking his head while keeping his gaze forward.
"Don't look back."
Melchior could hear a steady intake of breath at his side. As he removed his foot from where he had stepped right through the log, he walked on. Sure enough, the echoing footsteps dogged his once more.
He needed to tie his shoelaces at one point. Perhaps his nerves were getting to him, but he crouched down to do it as quickly as possible…and he couldn't help but glance a little further back from his shoes.
A pair of small, bare feet stood two paces away from his. The skin was glaringly pale, an impossibility over the muddy ground all over the place. It felt oddly dreamlike.
He blinked because he was uncertain, and made the mistake of glancing slightly higher for a second.
There were no limbs above the calves.
Melchior opened his eyes and slowly sat up with a curse.
Where was I…ah, the Slytherin dorms. His heartbeat slowly calmed down once more as the familiar scent of stone and scrolls met his nose. The dark waves beyond the sealed, underwater window were oddly reassuring now.
He massaged his brow, hoping that he could forget the dream—and forget yesterday, to boot. As he dragged himself away from his bed, the bathroom door opened. Tom walked out carrying his sleepwear under one arm, looking far too chipper than any human had any right to be in the dark of winter.
He couldn't believe that Tom had actually finished bathing at this hour. Then again, the Slytherin prefect had picked up that habit early on from their first year and never bothered to change it.
"Morning, Melchior! You're just in luck, no one else is queuing for the bathroom yet."
He replied with a mumbled thanks and stumbled his way into the bathroom. Three seconds later, he stumbled out again when he remembered that he hadn't taken his clothes with him. Almost tripping over Abraxas' extended foot, Melchior kicked the offending limb back in with annoyance. Lucky idiot. His blond friend was barely bothered, continuing to snooze happily. He did his best to ignore the pangs of envy he was feeling right now.
Melchior did not usually wake up this early on Saturday; sleeping in was his usual choice. Yet he was reluctant to walk the lands of Morpheus yet again if it meant reliving yesterday evening.
(A small hand held on to his ankle.)
The flashes of memories were still giving him goosebumps even now…
He shook his head. Nope, no sleeping in today.
'-
The Great Hall was mostly empty, this early in the morning, and it was just how Hermione liked it.
The Ravenclaw was halfway through her small bowl of oatmeal when she saw the figure making his way to her. She recognised him when he'd crossed half the distance—it was Melchior. Dark curly hair falling rather messily down his forehead this morning, he did not look like he slept well. Pulled along in his wake was…Pendleton? Huh. She'd half expected him to come with Abraxas instead.
"Hermione!" he called.
She could see his expression easing as he saw her, how his shoulders lower as tension melted away. Melchior rushed a little too quickly towards her. She even recognised the twitch of his hand as an abrupt stop before reaching out to her. The brunette raised her eyebrows.
"Melchior. I'm quite sure we met each other during Defence class yesterday."
Honestly, his cheer was more appropriate one someone that hadn't seen her for half a year.
"Well, uh, that's…" Melchior mumbled, grasping his left hand in his right.
Hermione pitied him and waved to her side. "Oh, just take a seat. It's not going to make that much of a difference, this early on Saturday."
She was probably getting a little too blasé with all these House-table hopping, but she couldn't bring herself to care.
"Why are we here, Melchior?" Pendleton asked. Even if there was mild befuddlement in his tone, he calmly sat on Melchior's other side instead of going back to the Slytherin table.
"Why are you here?" Hermione asked the blond, no less confused.
"I was following him."
"You didn't have to follow me," Melchior countered.
"Well, you pulled me out of our common room." Pendleton answered easily.
"And that made you follow him all the way…here?" Hermione asked. She pushed her empty bowl aside and took some toast, spreading butter evenly over it, still glancing at them askance.
Pendleton shrugged. "I…just did."
Melchior also gazed at him with disbelief at this point.
"Look, I'm only half awake this early in the morning." The pale blond was a touch defensive, but there was some helplessness in his voice too. She thought there were touches of grey underneath his eyes too.
Hermione didn't hide her snort. "Alright, settle in and choose your breakfast, then, boys."
She spread baked beans over her toast along with shredded cheese and slices of lightly fried tomatoes in herbs before covering it with another toast. Melchior was eyeing her weird sandwich sideways, but she ignored him, simply passing the nearby teapot towards them. Pendleton gladly picked it up and poured himself some.
Melchior clearly had something in his mind, but Pendleton went with the flow easily. He'd already procured himself some bacon, eggs, and the same baked beans she had taken earlier. The next thing he helped himself to was…was that haggis? He nudged Melchior before passing it on. The brunet looked pleased before taking one little ball of it for himself.
She waited until they were all eating for a bit.
"So," Hermione started, "what's wrong?"
Melchior coughed a little. Probably food going down the wrong pipe. "What's wrong? Nothing's wrong."
"Your face earlier doesn't look like nothing's wrong."
"Merlin's sake, Melchior, just spill it." Pendleton added from his other side. Pendleton passed a…plate with black sausages? Hermione's eyes twitched when she realised it was black pudding. Melchior took some just as easily as he did the haggis.
She shook her head when he tried offering them to her. She did ask him to pass the plate with the haggis.
"Do you know of some way to repel ghosts?" Melchior asked.
"Ghosts?" his question was completely unexpected to her. "You just need to tell them to go away, right?"
As they could see in Hogwarts, ghosts are generally sentient. It was not difficult to communicate with them, much less ask them to leave you alone. Melchior didn't say anything for a moment or two. It was Pendleton who murmured under his breath after.
"Not that kind of ghosts, though."
It piqued her curiosity slightly. "What type was it, then?"
Hermione noticed a minute shudder running through the brunet before he had it under control. Pendleton only looked like he was shaking cobwebs away from his thoughts.
"The…incomplete kind." Melchior's voice was subdued.
Did they…did they run into ghosts, yesterday? She noticed that Tom didn't come into the Great Hall for supper, but she merely thought he had other engagements. It wasn't a huge problem since she was sure he could just drop in at the Hogwarts kitchen if he ate late. As she tried recalling her memories, she didn't think she saw the two of them either.
"It's not Hogwarts, in case you were wondering." Pendleton added. "Hogwarts' much more civilised."
"The castle's not a place where people die of violent deaths. Other places, though…" Melchior said.
She tried to figure out what they could possibly be up to this time, and Hermione narrowed her eyes. Memory pieces of the vandalism that Voldemort and his Death Eaters had done flitted past her mind.
"Did you go dig out some items from a battlefield? Try to enter a barrow that has a sacrificial altar inside it?"
Now Melchior and Pendleton had visible shudders at her words.
"Odin's eye! Hel no, Hermione. I'm not that suicidal!" Melchior yelped. Curiously enough, before he forcibly stilled his hand, his right arm had already begun the first movements of a manual ward—the simplest counter to a curse, if you will.
"I'd resign first before I'd do that." Pendleton's voice was quieter, but no less serious.
The blond rubbed his neck casually after that, but to Hermione's more experienced eye, it seemed like he was trying to ease out some jitters. Her brows furrowed.
"What on earth did you two see?"
"Nothing we can tell you yet," Pendleton replied. "You'll figure it out once Tom gives his Christmas present to you."
"…huh"
She hadn't expected that part at all.
"Seriously, though, the…not ghosts were giving us the creeps." Melchior complained.
"I think they're technically echoes of events. You said it yourself" his blond friend added.
"Oh, I know that's what Advance Charms explain, but what we saw there…'echoes' is such a banal word for something pretty horrifying. If it was just the looping memory-ghosts, I could accept them being 'just echoes' alright. The fucking footsteps, though. That…little girl Tom kept encountering whenever he dug even a little deeper! I don't know what the hell they are, but I can't really see them as just bloody echoes!"
The brunet seemed to have been sitting on this for a while, because now that he'd decided to speak up, the words poured forth non-stop. She gingerly extended her hand to pat his arm after he was done for now.
"It sounds like you've had an experience…"
Melchior dropped his face into his hands, and she could hear him taking a long breath. She couldn't help but wonder what on earth Tom had dragged his Knights into this time.
"Your description does match up with sequelae of intense and horrific magical events happening in a particular location." Hermione could at least confirm their observations for them.
"Sequelae?"
"The echoes that you've mentioned. The residuum of such intense magical and psychic events. A scar on the fabric of the world, take your pick. It should be fine as long as you're no longer there, though. Like any scar, they're etched in a particular spot." the brunette explained.
"It would be nice to know that we can do more, though," Pendleton added. "Just in case we're getting dragged into any other place like that again."
She thought over it for a while before shaking her head.
"The only way I know is a little overkill for a temporary visit."
"Which is…?" Melchior prompted.
"Clear a particular area to use as a base, dig its periphery according to a set of warding standards, plant ward anchors at the corners and erect your own wards. That would easily keep out anything your want to keep out and maintain what you wish to maintain."
Pendleton muttered something close to 'of course' before taking his mokeskin bag from his waist to…retrieve an empty scroll and a quill from it? Melchior simply sighed.
"I just hope we don't need to do anything like this again. Not without you coming with us, anyway."
His trust in her was a little overblown, but she wasn't going to complain right now.
"Oh, on that note, Tom managed to get something highly personal and valuable for your Christmas present. I just hope that you can come up with something on par with that."
"Personal? I don't even have many personal items on me."
Melchior smiled at that. It was the first smile she'd seen from him this morning, other than that awkward, far-too-relieved one he wore when he greeted her.
"Well, you'd just have to wait and see how Tom exceeds any limitation, don't we?"
There was a growing sense of crisis inside as Hermione realised that she hadn't even thought about going present shopping, much less preparing one for Tom.
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End Notes:
Most of what happened in the wizarding exclave is roughly several episodes worth of ghost stories. We're jumping ahead of that.
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