Liz woke up sore — a low, diffuse ache, kind of like the day after a hard quidditch or duelling practice. Except, it was sort of a vague thing, not concentrated in any particular place, but it seemed worse on her arms and her head, so...maybe more like a sunburn. She generally didn't get sunburn on her head, since her hair took care of that, but.
Also, she was warm, uncomfortably warm. Still half awake, Liz unthinkingly kicked at the covers, shivering a little as cooler air was let in.
"Elizabeth."
That was Severus's voice — it wasn't as though she wouldn't recognise it, but also he was the only one who called her that. (It might sound weirdly formal to other people, since he was technically her guardian now and everything, but she kind of liked it, honestly.) Now that she was paying attention, she could feel his mind nearby, as cool and smooth and tightly-controlled as ever.
Her first thought was What's he doing in my bedroom? but, of course, this wasn't her bedroom. It smelled different, a sour herby hint of potions and the nameless sharp dry scent left behind by cleaning charms, and it felt wrong. The sheets were different, sure — a denser stiffer linen, the bedsheets in their dorms were smoother to the touch — but she suspected it was also a Seer thing. Not that she could put exact words to what she was picking up, too vague and distant, just, an instinctive sense that she was somewhere else — somewhere public, she thought, it had the unsteady rough feeling of a place a lot of people went through.
Blinking her eyes open, squinting against the light until they adjusted, she wasn't entirely surprised to find she was in a hospital room — a magical one, that is, none of the machines and shite she'd caught glimpses of on the tele growing up. (She'd never actually been to a muggle hospital before.) Like the private room she'd recovered from her back injury in, plain sterile white and green, just the bed and some cabinets and stuff, but it wasn't quite the same, the furnishings looking newer. Something they'd put together specifically for the Tournament, she'd bet. Severus was sitting in an armchair near her bed, he'd clearly been waiting for her to wake up...though he wasn't looking at her, his eyes turned away up at the ceiling.
It took her a second — her heart jumping up her throat and her skin crawling, suddenly very awake — to notice that she apparently wasn't wearing one of the weird wrap-around tunic things Pomfrey put on her patients, so kicking down the sheets had just exposed herself from the waist up. Oops. Snatching at the sheets, Liz sprang up to sitting, hugging the linen sheet around herself...and belatedly realised it wasn't just from the waist up, she wasn't wearing anything at all. Trying to ignore the heat on her face, and how covering up was just making her uncomfortably warm, Liz asked, "Um, why am I naked?"
"You received burns of varying severity from veela fire over a significant fraction of your body. As you are quite sensitive to light magic, leaving any even minor burns untreated would have resulted in you becoming quite ill — we needed to reach all of them."
...Right, that made sense. She vaguely remembered the veela fire — mostly that it'd seriously fucking hurt, but thankfully it hadn't lasted very long. She thought someone had knocked her out with a stunning charm or something while she was distracted with being literally on fire, which was nice of them, she guessed. As much as she could be super neurotic about her body, the thought that healers (probably Severus and Pomfrey) had been poking at her while unconscious and completely naked didn't actually bother her, much — that was always extremely uncomfortable when she was conscious for it, but, by this point she trusted Severus and Pomfrey not to do anything questionable while she was out and couldn't do anything about it, so, it was fine. It was hardly like this had been the first time, after all, it was just a little weird that it didn't bother her in this particular context.
(It occurred to her that Severus had seen her naked more than literally anybody else she knew. She didn't know how she felt about that, or whether it was even worth feeling anything about at all — it was always in medical contexts, and actually she thought that was pretty normal with parents and their kids, up to a point...)
She must still be a little out of it, unfocussed, because she was startled when Severus started talking again. "Were there no healers available who are proficient with dark healing magic, your recovery may have taken significantly longer, but I expect you will be fully healed by tomorrow morning." Implying you're lucky I was here, but without actually saying it, as Severus liked to do. "Your exposure was brief enough that the enchantments on your clothing provided some minimal protection, exposed skin receiving the worst damage — primarily your hands and arms, and your head and neck."
Blinking, Liz carefully peeled a hand away from her side, pinning the sheets in place with an elbow — her hand looked mostly the same as always...maybe a little pinker than usual, she guessed. Though, her skin looked too perfect, smooth and featureless, without any of the little nicks or blemishes that came and went seemingly at random, some of the finer lines vanished, she suspected it'd all just been regrown. Or at least the top layers, anyway. She reached up to touch the side of her head and, surprisingly, didn't find any hair at all, instead touching smooth, cool bandages. They gave a little under the pads of her fingers, like, filled with some kind of gel, maybe. "What...?"
"It happens that hair is quite flammable." Despite herself, a little cough of laughter escaped her throat, a flicker of amusement ringing from Severus's mind. "As a result, the burns across your scalp and and the back of your neck were particularly severe. The damage has been healed, but it will take a little longer for your hair to grow back in. The poultice sealed by those bandages will greatly accelerate the proper development of the follicles — they will need to remain on overnight. In the morning, submerge the bandages in the bath as completely as is feasible, for at least two minutes. Then gently peel them off, and wash away any residue left behind. Try not to get it in your eyes."
Liz nodded. "Got it." It probably wasn't necessary, considering how stubborn her hair was about growing back overnight no matter what she did to it, but just in case it didn't, she guessed.
"You shouldn't need any assistance with it. There are multiple strategies to prompt natural hair growth after an injury such as this — this one is less reliable than some, and thus isn't Poppy's first choice, but has the advantage of not requiring healer intervention in the latter stages. I suspected you would prefer it that way."
"Definitely." Especially since the soak in water and wash off step would probably end up being part of the process no matter what, and that would almost certainly require undressing, so. "Thanks."
Severus just nodded. "After the bandages are removed, you will want to take this potion," holding up a little bottle pulled from his robes, the potion inside a muddy reddish-brown, "to accelerate hair growth. Your body will draw on available materials to produce the hair, as is typical in healing potions, so you will want to eat first." He set the bottle down on the side table, near a pitcher of water and oh, her wand holster, that's where that went. It looked like it'd gotten through the fight fine — a little dirty and scratched in places, she might want to check the runes for damage, but it could have been worse. She nearly reached to put it on, but that would require both hands, so she couldn't do that and hold the sheet up... "I don't expect there will be any issues, but come find me if there are. Any delay in treatment will complicate the intervention necessary."
"I'm pretty sure my hair is magic, and will take care of itself, but sure, I will." There was a shiver from his head at that, maybe...bemused? "My hair always grows back to the same length overnight, no matter what I do with it. I've just chopped it off, like at ear level," gesturing with her free hand, "but the next morning it's always back to normal. Petunia even fucking shaved it all off once, and it just came right back." And Liz had been punished for it, of course, as though she'd done that on purpose...
Well, okay, that one might have been normal accidental magic, because she'd hated it and really hadn't wanted to go to school looking like that, but that was beside the point.
"Ah... Yes, I suppose that may be a feature of the trait. I am aware there is a heritable trait to do with hair that is common in certain British families, that you do appear to express, but I'm afraid I know very little about it. It is quite rare, unique to a small segment of the nobility and their close relatives, and I haven't seen it appear in any professional, academic treatments."
So, her hair being stupid was even a rare, unique magical trait. Awesome. "No wonder all the hair care shite they blab on about in Witch Weekly is all fucking useless, it's not a problem anyone else has. Er, forget I said that, I definitely don't read Witch Weekly." She didn't, of course, she'd just checked a few basic hygiene and cosmetic things now and then — it wasn't like she had a mum or cousins and shite to teach her this girly stuff.
His mind twittering with amusement that didn't show on his face or voice at all, Severus flatly said, "Naturally." Because they could both pretend he wasn't laughing at her if he kept it on the inside. "How are you feeling? I don't believe we missed anything, but it is always better to ask."
She shrugged. "Fine. Sore, but it's barely even noticeable. A little feverish, I guess? It's not that bad, but..."
"That would be the light magic toxicity — we must have underestimated your exposure somewhat. The healing took well enough, so I expect it will resolve on its own in short order. Come see me if you're not feeling better by tomorrow morning."
"Okay." It was interesting that he was just saying to see him if there was a problem — in previous hospital visits, he'd said to go see Pomfrey or come find him — but he must have realised by now that she'd rather spend as little time in the Hospital Wing as physically possible. Or, when she thought about it, it might just be that he had more free time now...
"Those were all the instructions I had to give. Unless you have any questions?"
"Yeah, can I get some clothes, maybe?"
With another little twitter of amusement, Severus leaned over, reaching under the bedside table. "I took the liberty of asking Nilanse to retrieve these for you," he said, setting a folded up pile of cloth on the bed. Nilanse knew what Liz generally wore by now, so it was the whole set — one of her normal daily dresses, shorts and vest, socks. The pants were right on top, which was slightly embarrassing, but Liz guessed getting worked up over that sort of thing was a little silly at this point. Severus held up a second, smaller bundle — one of her thicker scarves, wool dyed a deep red — for a second before setting it down next to the rest of her clothes. "I suspected you might want that, to cover your head."
"Oh, yeah, thanks." She hadn't thought of that at first, actually, that was a good idea. With her hair all gone and her head covered in bandages, she probably looked really weird right now.
Severus just nodded again. "This is a sort of private recovery area, where I expect you'll find yourself after most of the Tasks. Through there," nodding over his shoulder toward the only door, "is a common room — there are illusions there now displaying recordings of the event. Once all the Champions are healed enough to move, you will all receive your scores there."
"Right." When she thought about it, it kind of made sense that they wouldn't give out the scores right there immediately after it was over — it had been a mess, so the judges would have to review memories if they wanted to mark all of them fairly, and also most of them had probably ended up in hospital. "I'll go do that, then. Go out there, I mean." After getting dressed, obviously.
"Of course." But Severus didn't move right away, hesitating, his eyes flicking away from her for a second. "You did very well. I don't know how you will place in the scoring — the judges will speak with you before releasing the scores to the public. But you did very well regardless."
...Liz had no idea how she was supposed to respond to that. If they were going to have a weird, awkward conversation, she'd really rather have clothes on for it, this was just uncomfortable. "Um...thanks?"
"I suppose your lessons with Black have proved...fruitful."
"Sure, he's...pretty good. A pain sometimes, I swear that man is physically incapable of shutting the fuck up for five seconds, but. He did wonder why he's the one teaching me to fight, you know." Liz had also wondered about that, which was the only reason she was asking right now. She would just say it was because Severus was terribly busy, but that wasn't really a problem anymore...
Severus didn't answer for a moment, staring off at the wall, mind cool and fitfully turning. "Black was taught to duel, all the rules and showmanship relevant to the sport in its modern form included. Later, he was taught to safely subdue violent suspects so they may be brought in alive for questioning. I, on the other hand..." His voice dropped, that thing he did where it was little more than a whisper. "I was taught to kill, as quickly and efficiently as possible."
Oh. Right. Yeah, that didn't sound very useful to practise for a duelling tournament, did it. But, "I might need to know that one day too, you know. Being who I am, and the Dark Lord still being out there and all."
His head tipping back with a sigh, Severus said, "And should that time come, we will discuss it then. But I would prefer to delay that day for as long as is practical. You've had little enough of a childhood as it is."
...
Liz had no idea what the hell she was supposed to say to that.
While she was still floundering for any possible response, Severus smoothly pushed himself up to his feet. "I'll see you outside. There is lunch waiting out there — regrowing tissues can be quite stressful on the body, so you may wish to eat something." Without another word, Severus turned on his heel and walked out, closing the door firmly behind him.
...Well, that was weird.
And now that she was alone she could finally put some fucking clothes on. Moving around was kind of uncomfortable, feeling oddly stiff, her joints panging a little — which was a familiar feeling, that would be the light magic, it should go away before too long. The feverishness was bad enough she was a little nauseous — and also a little dizzy, she noticed when she tried to stand up — but it wasn't that bad, she quickly got used to it. Her duelling boots were sitting by the table, apparently having survived the Task — though they were nicked badly enough she should probably get new ones, but she'd had these for like a year now, so that's...
She'd want to get a fresh pair before the duelling tournament over winter break, but she'd probably be staying here (because of the Yule Ball) and leaving with the team straight from Hogwarts. Oh well, she'd figure it out. The first or second weekend of December, she was going to go dress shopping for the Ball with Hermione and the other muggleborn girls — plus Hannah and Susan, so they'd have someone along who actually knew what would be appropriate — she could stop by and get them during that trip, it was fine.
There wasn't a mirror in here, but Liz could cast the charm just fine. (Casting magic tickled a little, which was also an effect of the light magic toxicity.) Her face and neck were a bit pinker than usual, especially her ears, but it wasn't that noticeable — the bandages covering her head were very obvious, though. Huh, Liz was so used to seeing her huge bloody hair that she looked even tinier than usual without it. Whatever, arranging her scarf to completely cover the bandages without limiting her eyesight didn't seem to be possible, still showing a rim of white in an arc from ear to ear, but it would have to do. A couple charms to hold the scarf in place, and there, done.
Except by this point she was getting seriously warm, bad enough she'd actually started to sweat a little — she layered a couple cooling charms on her dress and the scarf, which was better, at least.
Through the door was something that looked a lot like those public rooms dotted here and there across the castle for mixed-house groups to hang out in, complete with a crackling fireplace and sofas and armchairs. Normally, those would be decorated in one of the house's colours (generally those of whichever dorm was closest), sometimes a mix of them, but this one was much more neutral, in plain whites and tans and blacks...which actually almost came off Hufflepuff-ish, but there weren't any obvious Hogwarts symbols anywhere. Of course, this was meant as neutral territory, so not favouring any of the three schools was kind of expected, she guessed.
In addition to the expected seating, there was a table set with platters of food, pitchers and even actual wooden casks of...something, she couldn't tell what they were from here. There were multiple of Babbling's cinema-style illusions projected here and there, displaying seemingly random clips that must have been captured from the Task, the actions passing in eerie silence — video and audio were recorded with entirely separate magics, and editing them together to be reproduced simultaneously was a problem nobody had solved so far. (In fact, editing video at all wasn't something they'd managed yet, crafting an illusion based on captured video was the closest they could get.) Most of the clips going on weren't familiar...ah, that screen just showed Liz sneaking up on Torralba, that she remembered.
Good, her piercing hex had landed well away from Torralba's heart — as fast as things had been going at the time, she hadn't been sure, had been distracted wondering about it for a little bit. Of course, even if she had completely pulverised Torralba's heart she would have lived — they would have just kept her in stasis as they regrew it, it shouldn't have been a problem — but her recovery would have taken a long time, probably a couple weeks and maybe even as long as a month. (By comparison, a piercing curse through anywhere else in the chest could be healed up in a matter of hours or even minutes, as Liz knew from experience.) Also, Liz probably would have been disqualified for using lethal tactics, so, as the elves failed to steal her away she'd assumed she hadn't hit anything critical, but it was still nice to have confirmation.
(Torralba could be a pain, but she wasn't that bad, Liz didn't want to make her miserable — being stuck in hospital sucked.)
Liz wasn't the first person to be released, but she wasn't the last, either. She saw Viktor, with his mother and the brother she'd met before, plus a younger girl who was presumably a sister and an older man who must be his father. (Apparently, the Weighing of the Wands hadn't been important enough for them to show up, which was fair.) Cedric's father was here talking to the Krums, but Liz didn't see Cedric himself, or Mrs Diggory, probably still in his room. Artèmi and Fleur were both out here, sitting in a clump with their families — Artèmi looked a little rough, sitting stiff and uncomfortable with visible bandages here and there, a patch of her hair missing, but Fleur hardly had a scratch. (Had Beauxbatons won? She hadn't thought to ask Severus...) Artèmi's mum was here this time, a similarly short, white-blonde woman with the same silvery eyes, but looking rather more intimidating in martial-looking boots and trousers and leather-padded tunic, wand holsters on both wrists and a digger poking out from under her shirt at her hip.
Liz didn't know what the deal with Artèmi's mum was, exactly. She had some kind of position in Aquitania's security forces (Liz didn't know enough about the Aquitanian government to say what kind), but also ran around doing a lot of vigilante shite, apparently. Sort of like Cassie Lovegood did sometimes, but a lot more serious about it, she guessed. From the few hints she caught from Artèmi's mind during that first duel, she thought it was some kind of religious thing? Like the Eirsleys, sort of, but not really — not that Liz understood the Eirsleys' thing very well at all either, she should probably ask at some point. (They seemed weirdly soft and friendly for a warrior cult, she didn't know what was going on there.) Artèmi thought of it as a calling, sort of, almost like her mum was a priestess?
...A priestess whose worship came in the form of killing evil people. Liz didn't get it, but she wasn't sure if that was because she didn't know enough about it to understand, or if it was actually just as completely fucking mad as it sounded. At this point, it could really be either one. Artèmi's mum was an incredibly deadly religious zealot, was the thing, which was just a little creepy.
(Especially since Liz couldn't help the feeling that Artèmi's mum would consider her to be evil enough to deserve killing, but she was trying not to think about that.)
Anyway, she didn't see Ingrid either — Liz remembered she'd gone down at some point near the end, but she hadn't seen it happen, focussed on Artèmi at the time, had no idea what her injuries were like. If Cedric had been shot out of the sky he might have gotten hurt pretty badly hitting the ground, they could be waiting a while...
Right, now that Liz was actually up and moving she was starting to feel kind of hungry, so food was probably a good idea. There was hot food sitting out, even pots of soup — seemed like carrying a bowl around would be a pain — which, Liz was already feeling unpleasantly warm, that just didn't feel like a great idea at the moment. Thankfully, they had bread and cheese and sliced meat and stuff out for people to make sandwiches, and that sounded excellent. (Now that she was standing here looking at food, she was suddenly really really hungry.) The sandwich she ended up with was kind of a monstrosity, as things she made when not cooking for normal people with normal tastes sometimes tended to be — rye bread with butter and mustard (which was a different colour than the muggle stuff she was used to, but tasted similar), salt beef and this shredded chicken stuff, which came in its own cheesy-creamy sauce (thick enough to not soak the bread too much), a couple slices of the first cheese she came across, and finally cucumber slices and some crisps. Not potato crisps, like the muggle kind, but the kind the elves here made, which were mostly made out of other vegetables, carrots and parsnips and the like (sometimes including potatoes). They were mostly the same, just with a little extra vegetable-y taste, but she just wanted them for the texture and the salt anyway, so. There was a pot of bacon and beans here that smelled really good, so she got some of that too, in a little sauce bowl so the gravy didn't soak into her sandwich bread. (They would taste good together, but she didn't want to get the gravy all over her hands.) And also some extra crisps to go with the beans, while she was at it...
It kind of looked like a lot of food, once she had it all on her plate, but she was unusually hungry. Healing could do that to you.
The drinks were labelled, conveniently — in French, of course, but it wasn't like that was a problem. Some of the mead smelled good, all herby and spicy and shite, but she tried a couple little sips and they were all too sweet for her. The coffee was the good stuff they put on the staff table, she could tell, but she was far too warm for that, that would just be uncomfortable. Liz hesitated for a moment, before deciding, fuck it, and dipping back into her room quick to ask Nilanse to bring a bottle of mead from home. Nilanse babbled about the Task a little bit, but Liz didn't know how it'd turned out, they hadn't gotten their scores yet — if Nilanse wanted to eavesdrop, they should be getting them in a little bit here...
Liz actually wasn't a hundred per cent certain if elves were capable of just hanging around invisible or whatever to spy on people, or if it just seemed like it because they came when called and were clever enough to fill in the gaps (and maybe unconsciously picked up stuff from Liz through the magics binding them to each other). But Nilanse hadn't acted like it was an unreasonable suggestion — she just seemed more excited by the prospect than anything, in fact — so there was probably something to that.
Whatever, as long as Nilanse wasn't spying on her doing something really private she didn't actually care. (And it wasn't like she was going to go telling anyone what Liz was getting up to anyway...except maybe Cediny, she guessed.) Passing the thought of, Liz returned to the common room, quickly confirmed Severus was in the same spot she'd seen him a minute ago — sitting at a sofa by himself, reading through a magazine and sipping at a cup of coffee. It was funny how Severus and Hermione both always had reading material on them in case they got bored. Once at the World Cup, while waiting for a match to start, they'd even both pulled out a book at more or less the same time, Liz hadn't been able to stop herself from giggling. Didn't know why, exactly, just one of those things.
Liz sank down to sit next to Severus, careful not to spill her beans. Setting the mead in the gap between them, she said, "You can have some of this, if you want."
Glancing up from his reading, he gave her one of those flat, eyebrow-raised looks of his. "A little early for drinking, don't you think?"
"It's not like I plan on getting pissed or anything. Besides, I'm supposed to be meeting my friends at the party down in Hufflepuff straight after this, and I'm pretty sure they would disagree." Apparently, there'd been a negotiation among the prefects about who would host the post-Task parties, and Hufflepuff had argued they should do it, since the proper Champion was one of theirs. Not that it'd taken very much discussion, everyone knew Hufflepuff threw the best parties — they were Hufflepuffs.
Liz felt the exasperation simmering in Severus's head, but he didn't say anything about it. "You forgot glasses."
"Oh shite, you're right." Liz set her sandwich back down (she hadn't even managed to take a bite yet), forcing crackly tingly magic down her arm, made a sort of beckoning gesture at the table. Two mugs lifted up and zipped toward her — there were glasses over there, for wine and stuff, but the ceramic was less likely to break in transit — one of them nearly bashing Liz over the head before she caught it. She could probably use a spoon too, for her beans, summoned one of those with a gentle crook of a finger.
"I see your wandless magic is coming along."
"Yep." To reinforce the point, she magicked off the cork with a flick of her fingers, but actually drew her wand to set her mug to float nearby, where it wouldn't spill — that was done with a particular charm, and she didn't want to screw it up and make a mess. "It's not like it's that hard or anything, I don't know why so many people never bother to learn."
"Mind mages and Seers both tend to find it easier to directly manipulate the magical environment than do less gifted mages. Once the initial breakthrough is made, it is often possible to make rapid progress up to a modest degree of proficiency, but that breakthrough might require months of practice and meditation. Few have the motivation to dedicate the necessary time and effort."
Fine, she had sort of known that already. Mind magic was basically wandless magic, and it'd been a couple months, and Hermione couldn't even manage a basic light charm yet — she was almost there, Liz could feel it, could be any day now — and if it took a Hermione degree of stubbornness for normal people to get it, well.
Severus immediately went back to his reading, leaving Liz to her lunch. (He thought her sandwich looked kind of gross, but he hadn't commented, so she could pretend she hadn't seen it.) Liz leaned over a little, looking around his arm over at the page — it was in French, she recognised the title at the top as one of the healing journals Severus read. Liz wasn't sure where the journal was published exactly, French was kind of the international academic language so it could be from practically anywhere in Europe. Not that it mattered, she guessed. Severus's spoken French was terrible, he had a painful English accent, but he could read and write the language perfectly fine — because it was the big international academic language, she assumed. Of course, what Liz could make out of the article from here was complete gibberish to her, but she wasn't a professional healer or a master alchemist, so.
Magic-made salt beef was always really good — she didn't know what they did to the stuff that was different from the muggle version, but it was great — and the sauce with the chicken was surprisingly flavourful, she probably hadn't needed the mustard...
Liz hadn't been sitting here eating for very long before she was getting kind of bored — she didn't have anything to read to occupy herself with, after all. Besides, she didn't see very much of Severus at school, and she was curious. "So, how are things going with Síomha?"
A cool flicker in his head she didn't know how to read, Severus silently stared at her for a couple seconds. Which was awkward, she was trying to eat here... "Why do you wish to know?"
She shrugged. "I just wonder sometimes. What, is curiosity a crime now?"
"And I suppose if I were to be curious about you and Miss Greengrass, you would be equally forthcoming."
Well, that was silly of him, he'd set that trap up for her so nicely. "We're fine, I guess. I still think I'm inevitably going to do something to mess it up, and, I don't know how Daphne can be so bloody nice all the time. Like, literally, I don't get it, she's even all warm and friendly with people who hate her, it's ridiculous. Sometimes makes me feel like a cruel little monster by comparison, but that's not actually an unusual feeling for me. But of course you know that already. So yeah, we're good." Liz paused, dipped one of her crisps in the beans before popping it in her mouth — there was a faint shiver of revulsion from Severus, unexpectedly, she would never understand other people's tastes. "Your turn."
Severus was quiet for a moment...surprised, maybe? She guessed, she didn't often volunteer information, especially about personal things. She was maybe slightly delirious from the light magic toxicity — not that it was a big deal or anything, she might have decided to do it anyway, she just hadn't really given it a second thought. Finally, after a dragging hesitation, "It's early to say."
"What, it's been two months now?"
"A little more than."
Two months with Daphne would have been...the middle of September? Of course, they'd already known each other for years, and had been dancing around it for a while, and Severus and Síomha hadn't known each other at all before. And, "I guess I don't know how these things usually go anyway."
"I can hardly claim to be an expert myself."
She didn't know, Severus was the adult person, who had adult person relationships. She was willing to bet he'd had more girlfriends than she had, at least. "Have you met her parents yet? I understand that's an important step, when you're grown up and out of the house." And would maybe be an indication of whether they were on track for Liz to win their bet...though, maybe it was still too early to tell? Like she'd said, she had no idea.
By the intense pulse of exasperation from Severus, yeah, she was probably being silly. "While Síomha no longer lives in her parents' home, she does still live with the rest of the Ailbhes — I'm uncertain whether that could be considered out of the house." Oh right, a lot of Gaelic mages lived in little villages with their whole bloody clan (sometimes literally hundreds of people), she'd forgotten about that... "I am familiar with Síomha's mother, professionally. She's a senior healer at the hospital run by the priests of Áirmidh, on the Hill." Liz was aware of the existence of the place, but she'd never been there. Áirmidh was one of the Gaelic gods...goddesses? that the Irish mages still worshipped — since his/her priests ran a hospital, Liz assumed s/he was associated with healing somehow, but she didn't actually know. "Raghnailt takes some interest in the apprentices training there. I would hardly consider her a close colleague, but we've spoken on a number of occasions. Though we haven't met in some years now, I suppose.
"In retrospect, Síomha distantly recalls seeing me around during my apprenticeship days — she used to tail Raghnailt at work, when she had nothing better to do — but I didn't take any notice of her at all. She kept respectfully out of the healers' way, and she was quite young at the time."
...Wait, what? How old was Síomha, exactly?
Severus must have caught that thought, a little shiver in his head. "Síomha will be turning twenty-seven in December. She would have been eleven or twelve when I met Raghnailt."
Oh, okay, that wasn't so bad then. Síomha was only, what, seven or eight years younger than Severus, something like that, and with how long mages lived that was barely anything. At least she hadn't gone to Hogwarts — if she were a former student, that would be a bit weird.
Feeling rather exasperated, Severus said, "I wouldn't date a former student. That would be uncomfortable."
"Yeah, that... I imagine you do have plenty of former students who would—" She'd caught enough idle thoughts from older Slytherins (and sometimes Ravenclaws) to be pretty sure about that. "—but, no, don't do that, that would be weird."
"You have no idea how right you are about that..." he muttered, his mind shivering with discomfort. Liz was very certain he'd been propositioned by former (and maybe even current) students before — he'd never said anything about it, but they'd gotten close to the topic before, and, as intensely uncomfortable as he was whenever it came up, seemed pretty obvious. She guessed that was what happened when you actually tried to be a decent head of house, sometimes it was hard not to end up liking someone when they were nice to you. Not that Severus was nice, precisely, but.
Which, in retrospect, kind of explained why some people wondered if there was something, er, inappropriate going on with Liz and Severus, even if it was extremely creepy.
"If this is still going on by winter break," Severus said, interrupting her thoughts (which she was a little grateful for, honestly), "it may be ideal for you to meet Síomha at some point."
"Yeah, probably." She would guess meeting any kids the other person was responsible for was also one of those expected steps in adult relationships. "Do you expect it will still be going on by then?"
"...Perhaps." Shooting her a quick, crooked sort of look, "Assuming I don't do something to mess it up."
Liz snorted. "Yeah, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that you're the me in that relationship." There was the getting-overwhelmed-for-mind-mage-reasons-and-randomly-crying thing too, now that she thought of it...
"The comparison of Síomha to Miss Greengrass isn't quite so appropriate — I don't imagine many people would describe Síomha as nice. She's widely considered by normal people," with a slight hint of irony, the way he always did when using her words, "to be nearly as terrifying as I am."
From the way she'd heard some of the more conservative British types talk about her, and even the occasional mention in the Prophet to do with ongoing politics stuff she really wasn't paying much attention to, yeah, good point. Actually, Severus and Síomha were kind of similar in that way, with the whole scary dark sorcerer vibe, so. "What's that going to look like, exactly? Meeting Síomha, I mean."
"I imagine we would go to dinner. At a muggle establishment, of course — I suspect the three of us would attract far too much unwanted attention waltzing around Charing together."
Again, good point. "Síomha's comfortable going out in the muggle world, then? No wait, I knew that, actually — one of Skeeter's friends saw you out together, but he didn't recognise her. That was after you told me, around when that article about me and Daphne came out, but I lied to Skeeter, told her I didn't know anything about it."
"You likely only delayed it by a week, but thank you regardless." At her surprised glance, Severus sighed. "I received a letter from some woman at Witch Weekly about it, earlier in the week. I suspect the intrusive gossip will begin any day now. Minerva is going to be insufferable, nosey old biddy..."
Liz snorted, nearly choking on her sandwich — she had the very clear feeling that Severus had stopped himself from using a different B-word at the last second.
"In any case, yes, Síomha can manage herself among muggles without drawing too much suspicion. I understand Saoirse has some less than entirely legal dealings with the Irish government — naturally, you didn't hear that from me."
Liz hadn't known about that, but she also wasn't surprised. Obviously, if the Gaels managed to get their own country, they'd have to take over the job of coordinating to preserve Secrecy with the muggle government over there. No reason not to lay the groundwork ahead of time...though that did imply Saoirse were rather further along in their plans to move for independence than Liz had realised. "'Course. I guess that makes sense, I was just wondering, I assumed Síomha was pureblood."
"She may or may not be." At Liz's confusion — how could someone not know whether or not they're pureblood? — Severus muttered, "Síomha was abandoned as an infant at a sanctuary held by the priests of Áine. One of the senior practitioners at the time was an Ailbhe, and she decided to take Síomha home with her, whereupon Raghnailt and her husband volunteered to care for her."
That was... She knew from her pureblood friends that that was something that happened now and then — abortion was legal (and even easy, with potions), but a lot of people still considered it immoral, especially religious people, so if you couldn't take care of it for whatever reason, some of the old-fashioned priesthoods and stuff had ways you could anonymously drop it off where at least you'd know it'd be safe and looked after — but it was just a thing she'd heard of theoretically, not attached to any particular person. "...Should you be telling me this?" Seemed kind of private, honestly.
But Severus just shrugged. "It's common knowledge — ask around about her, and it won't be long until you encounter the story. That she is uncommonly gifted became clear at a rather early age, so speculation about where she came from has been bandied about for some time."
...Right. Okay, then. "You know, it wouldn't be difficult to figure out who her parents are. Just do that same heritage test we did over the summer."
"She doesn't wish to. Síomha considers the man and woman who raised her to be her parents, and the Ailbhes to be her family — she has no interest whatsoever in the blood relations she never knew." Liz meant, sure, that attitude made sense to her — the biggest reason she'd looked into it herself was just to figure out what other heritable magical talents she might have — but it seemed rather...practical for the blood-obsessed mages. Maybe the Gaels were different about that, she guessed she didn't actually know. "Though, as I recall, you asked to have the potion made for Miss Granger. If she is staying at Hogwarts over the holiday, we can arrange some time to have that done before we leave for Lithuania."
"Um, I think so, but I didn't actually ask. They go to France for Christmas most of the time, I think—" Hermione's father's side of the family was French, but supposedly they didn't really talk to her mother's side much at all (Liz had caught the thought that they were a bit racist about her dad), so holidays were mostly spent in France. "—but they might not be this time, with the new baby and all. I guess now that she knows about the public floo at Oxford, it wouldn't be difficult for her to come up just for the Yule Ball..."
Somehow, they ended up talking about the Yule Ball for a little bit, which wouldn't have been Liz's first choice for conversation topic. She was kind of dreading the stupid thing, honestly. She was never great with crowds, though it tended to be easier at parties — could even be pretty fun, if she could get herself in the right mind-space — and she didn't even mind dancing specifically...so long as she was tipsy enough to not be an awkward mess about it. The whole thing, just, sounded like a big formal production, and she hated the mages' stiff formality rules and the talking around the point and the— It was going to be so tedious, was the thing, she just knew she was going to hate it. Going with Daphne to the holiday party at the Greenwood, that would be great, but the Yule Ball was going to suck.
And she would definitely have to go, since she was a Champion now. They were even supposed to do the first dance to open the thing and everything, fuck, that was going to be miserable — she'd completely forgotten about that, thanks for reminding her, Severus. No, she didn't know silly formal ballroom dances, where the hell would she have learned that? No, it's fine, he didn't have to ask Narcissa bloody Malfoy about it, she could get Sirius to teach her, just, ugh, fucking pain...
Liz was maybe whining about the whole thing a little bit — she realised she was kind of being a little shite, but Severus didn't seem to mind, so (but then, he hated formal events about as much as she did, which must really suck when your best friend was Narcissa bloody Malfoy) — when they were interrupted by Artèmi and her dad. It seemed like Mr Cæciné wanted to introduce himself to Severus, for whatever silly grown-up reason, after a couple basic pleasantries directed at her Liz mostly ignored that conversation. She kept nibbling away at her lunch, trying not to smile up at Artèmi.
My father felt it necessary to meet yours, though I can't explain his reasons any better than you.
Severus isn't my father, though Liz guessed she did get what people meant when they kept saying that. Or, people didn't say it, for the most part — Sophie had slipped, once, but it was mostly muggles, who didn't know who they were and just assumed (and who she'd never meet again, so Liz never bothered correcting them) — but she saw it in people's heads now and then...so she didn't bother correcting them, either, because directly commenting on shite she saw in people's heads was rude and/or super creepy. Saying he was her legal guardian or whatever the fuck every time was just kind of tedious...not that people didn't bothered with that either — when mentioning him, her friends mostly just called him Professor Snape every time. Her friends knew they weren't supposed to refer to him as her dad, so they didn't out loud, but they'd kind of, just, mentally slotted him into the box for my friend's dad in their heads.
Which was weird to see, but directly commenting on people's thoughts was rude and/or super creepy, so she pretended she didn't know about it.
Artèmi didn't respond to her correction at all, because she knew Liz knew what she'd meant, so it wasn't really worth the bother. What are you looking so smug about?
Liz suspected Artèmi might be trying to distract her from getting too wrapped up going in circles about her relationship with Severus — and was also already bored of the polite, grown-up conversation going on between her father and Severus herself — so, she'd take it. You look like shite, because I won this time. Ha ha.
There was a sharp, hot flash of irritation, Artèmi shooting her a glare — which, as marked up as she was with nicks and bandages, looked more funny than intimidating. But the glare only lasted for a second, she rolled her eyes and forced out a huff. I was outnumbered.
You didn't start out that way — your team's coordination sucked, so we won. Ha. Ha.
Somewhat to her surprise, there was a little flicker of amusement, the corner of Artèmi's lips twitching. She guessed very strongly thinking "ha" at her like that was kind of a silly thing to do, but she wasn't trying to be funny... Fine. You've won, this time.
Liz smirked, her feet swaying in the air (because of course she was too bloody short to reach the floor on this stupid sofa). Damn straight.
I suspect there is very little about you that could be called "straight".
Fuck me, got me there, I guess. Liz was pretty sure that pun only worked in English, but Artèmi did speak English, so.
Oh, I couldn't possibly. I wouldn't want to—
—make Daphne jealous, yeah, you already did that joke, back in Romania. (Before they'd officially started dating, actually, but only by a couple days.) Not that she actually would be, I don't think, I'm pretty sure Mistwalkers are like veela/lilin that way. Liz blinked — that didn't sound like she was trying to suggest something, did it? "I didn't mean it like that, by the way, I'm just saying." It wasn't until she felt Severus and Mr Cæciné's eyes flick to her that she realised she'd said that out loud, fuck. She was blaming the light magic toxicity, she must be a little delirious still...
Artèmi was trying to cover a smirk, but not quite managing it. Rather than drawing further attention to Liz embarrassing herself like a complete bloody mess, she just moved on. I suppose we're even, then. We'll have to see how you fare next time we face each other — without your entire team backing you up.
I'll kick your prissy little arse any day, Cecinà.
And I look forward to seeing you try, Potter.
(Artèmi had considered instead teasingly asking whether Liz spent much time thinking about her prissy little arse, but she'd decided to go easy on her. Which was nice of her, Liz guessed, she'd rather not make more of an idiot of herself than she already had...)
And she didn't have to consider what to say (or think) next, because right around then the double doors to one side of the common room were pushed open — Director Zabini walked in, followed by the panel of judges. Oh, so they were doing the scores now, alright then.
Zabini tried to get started right away, clapping her hands to draw their attention, going into a ramble about hoping they're all doing well, the judges had come to a decision, blah blah...before realising they were still missing people. Ingrid had come in while Liz had been distracted with the Cæcinés, apparently, but she didn't see Cedric. So they were delayed for a little bit, Zabini muttering with Pomfrey (who'd been nursing a drink in the corner this whole time) while Gamp went to peek his head in one of the doors. After a couple minutes of everyone dithering, a mix of anticipatory and nervous whispers filling the room, Cedric finally came limping through the door, his mother lending him an arm.
He looked mostly healed, though his robes were noticeably bulging at one shoulder, hiding bandages, and one leg was clearly still injured, using a cane to support his weight. He was moving rather slowly and awkwardly, but Liz suspected that had as much to do with not being used to walking with a cane as anything else — she did pick up little flashes of pain from him, but it wasn't that bad. Cedric was delayed for a few seconds on his way to where his father was saving them spots on a sofa by Viktor. Liz couldn't hear what they were saying from here, but it looked like an apology, maybe? Viktor must have been the one to put him in hospital. Whatever it was, it ended with Cedric waving it off, the two of them clasping arms for a second before Cedric continued on.
"Very well, then," Zabini said, drawing eyes to herself again. "Now that we're all here. I'm certain you all have parties waiting for you, so I will not keep you from your friends longer than necessary. But I do have a brief explanation before we get right into it. As discussed before, your score for every task will be a rating out of seven, an average of the scores given by all our judges rounded to the nearest whole number, but in group tasks such as this one the maths are slightly more complicated. Each of you have been scored individually, but each school's team has also been scored for their overall performance — so, your final rating will be an average of your individual score and your team score.
"Now, there's no reason to be pulling scratch paper," she drawled, smirking a little, "we have already done the maths for you. So, let us begin. We will start with the team scores, and then give the individual scores, following tournament order. So first is Durmstrang — if you will start us off, Headmaster Karkaroff."
The scoring process itself turned out to be pretty bloody tedious. They had nine judges, and three teams with six Champions, which meant a total of eighty-one scores to give out — and the judges didn't just say a number and call it good, they all had comments to give while they were at it. This was going to take fucking forever, but she guessed it could be worse. With the judges in here now, the room was a little crowded, but everyone had something else to focus on (and Liz maybe was a bit delirious), so it wasn't really bothering her any. Also, she still had crisps to much on and mead to drink, which at least provided her something to do with her hands.
It probably surprised absolutely nobody when Karkaroff gave his own school's team a full seven points — it turned out Durmstrang had won, the last two survivors (including Viktor himself) gathering the flags after everyone else had been eliminated. Vebjørn — Liz was pretty sure using his given name was actually correct — only gave them five points, claiming that their planning hadn't been great and their coordination terrible, their mediocre strategy saved through a combination of sheer luck and Viktor almost single-handedly winning the aerial fight and securing all three flags. Liepiņš acknowledged most of the same points, but gave them a seven anyway — come on, man, they're only schoolchildren, and they did win...
(It was possible Vebjørn's scoring of this Task was going to be prejudiced by his having been in an actual war, and being accustomed to far higher standards when it came to battlemagic and strategic planning. Oh well.)
Next was Maxime, who gave them a six — they did win, but she docked a point for the same reasons Vebjørn had. Barthe and Artisa gave them the full seven, because, you know, they won, let's not be picky now. (Artisa's dress for today was all colourful and glittery, little cut-outs showing geometric segments of skin around the waist, Liz was trying not to stare.) Next were the Hogwarts judges, who also gave them full marks, with the exception of the six from Dumbledore, again for the same reasons as Maxime and Vebjørn — he explained that part of their rating was supposed to be for teamwork, and Krum just doing it all himself wasn't exactly showing very good teamwork, was it?
(Liz suspected Dumbledore might have scored them lower if he could get away with it, but they had won, and pretty cleanly by the sound of it.)
Next to be scored was the Beauxbatons team, Karkaroff starting off with giving them a three. Hogwarts had been eliminated first, but Karkaroff claimed that Beauxbatons had done an absolutely pitiful job with their planning and teamwork, most of their participants contributing very little to the effort — he would have scored them even lower, if not for Fleur and Artèmi's individual performances being decent enough. (Which didn't seem quite fair, considering the similar comments about Durmstrang a minute ago, but Liz didn't think anyone expected the Headmasters to be entirely fair to the other schools.) Vebjørn was slightly more charitable, saying much the same thing but giving them an extra point, and Liepiņš gave them a five, saying their performance was just mediocre rather than terrible. The rest of their scores were all fours and fives, with similar comments.
Well shite, if they were being that rough on Beauxbatons, Hogwarts was probably fucked...
So she was slightly taken aback when Karkaroff started them off with a five. He claimed they'd done the best at actually coordinating their efforts, with Katie and Oz's bronze bomb, and they'd had the best defences at their base — despite obviously not having known what was coming beforehand, so they would have had very little time to prepare it. Given that context, their performance had technically been the most impressive of the bunch, but they'd been eliminated first, so he couldn't score them any higher than that.
...Huh. Well, she hadn't expected that...
Vebjørn gave them a three — gathering intelligence beforehand was a very important part of any battle, they'd done well but not bloody well planning properly was a critical mistake — but Liepiņš matched Karkaroff with a five. Most of the rest of their scores were fours and fives, actually, with the exception of Artisa, who gave them a six — rated up for their off-the-cuff enchanting work and sense of style and dramatic timing, which, Liz had no idea what she meant by that, but thank you? Liz wasn't keeping a running average in her head, but she thought Hogwarts and Beauxbatons were very close to tied, despite them being eliminated first. Neat?
Liz didn't actually care if they won or not, but she didn't want to lose — or anger half the school by dragging down their perfect little pretty boy with her sorry arse. So. Yeah, good, she guessed.
The individual scores went in the same order as they'd done the Weighing of the Wands in, which meant Liz would be literally last. But, she hadn't seen most of the Task herself, had little idea what the others were capable of, so she listened through the whole thing anyway. Viktor was given mostly sevens, docked down to a six by Dumbledore and Barthe due to not working with his team very well, Vebjørn even giving him a five — with an added comment that the whole point of air support was to actually cover your people on the ground, you idiot (Liz's word), but he did win practically single-handedly, so fine, I guess. Fleur's scores were all fives and sixes, with very positive-sounding comments about her personal duelling skills, and also her teleporting strike team was a neat trick. It seemed Fleur was the only person who'd actually been trying to win — delaying the strike team going in until Hogwarts was distracted, even successfully stealing away Durmstrang's flag (Viktor apparently recovered it from her unconscious body after catching her in a trap hex later on) — but luck simply hadn't been on her side this time. She actually got a six from Vebjørn, which would turn out to be the highest score he'd give anyone, so, did pretty good despite not actually winning.
Cedric's scores were lower, fours and fives, even getting a two from Vebjørn. The comments generally admitted that, while his flying had been pretty good and his mid-air spellcasting decent (if not particularly great), Hogwarts had done absolutely pathetic in the air battle — and since he'd been in charge up there, that was reflected in his score. Vebjørn pointed out, again, that air cover nowhere near the people they were supposed to be covering was completely pointless, and Beauxbatons/Durmstrang effectively managed to split up the five Hogwarts fliers and pick them off one by one, they'd completely failed to stick together and try to cover each other. Cedric had done relatively well compared to the other fliers, individually — he'd survived the longest and at the very least he'd managed to down one or two opponents while he was at it — but overall it was a pretty underwhelming performance.
Yeesh, that was all...kind of harsh. Cedric didn't seem to take it personally, just sheepishly smiling and shrugging at some of the rougher comments (bloody Hufflepuffs), but still.
Then it was the junior Champions' turn, starting with Ingrid. Liz barely remembered her from the Task at all — they might have exchanged a couple spells in passing, when Liz's dance around Artèmi had brought her close to the Durmstrangers — it hadn't really seemed like she'd contributed much...and apparently the judges agreed. Ingrid got mostly threes, the consensus in the judges' commentary that she hadn't done anything to distinguish herself at all. Her highest score was a four, from her own headmaster (unsurprisingly), with a comment about not getting in over her head next time — but her lowest score was from Vebjørn, who actually gave her a one. (You couldn't get a zero, so that was the lowest possible score, and he'd given it to a someone from his own school.) His comment was somewhat gentle, actually, suggesting that if she wasn't equipped for a big confusing battle she should have found some other way to contribute, but still.
And then next was Artèmi. Karkaroff opened off with a three — a three, for Artémisia Cæciné, in a duelling event — with a scathing admonishment about teaming up with Durmstrang to significantly outnumber the Hogwarts defenders, and yet somehow still managing to lose. That ended up being her lowest score, though — Vebjørn and Dumbledore both gave her fours (graded up for her excellent individual skills, graded down for atrocious group tactics), the rest mostly fives. Her highest score came from Aritsa, who gave her a seven, describing Artèmi's presence on the field as a force of nature, like a tornado or a wildfire in human form, or as a deadly dance, like somebody taught a sword how to tango.
...Maybe having an artsy type on the panel of judges was a bad idea. She'd said something before about Viktor being like the wind with the weight of a mountain or whatever the fuck...
And then it was Liz's turn. Again, Karkaroff was the first to go...so the first score Liz got was a two — the single lowest score he'd given the whole time, if she remembered correctly. He admitted that her duelling skills were excellent, especially for her age, but that she had clearly been focussed on Artèmi above everything else, and not really paying attention to the wider fight going on around her. Had she even noticed Fleur's strike-team teleport in, or the fliers coming back? (No, honestly, she hadn't.) Liz didn't think that was entirely fair — she'd helped keep Artèmi mostly pinned down while stopping anyone from interrupting Katie and Oz, which had been her job, she'd done exactly what they'd planned on her doing — but whatever. Vebjørn's comments were pretty similar, but he'd been slightly more charitable, giving her a three. But then Liepiņš gave her a five, with a joke about seeing her in the League one day.
Liz wasn't super surprised by her scores being kind of low — Hogwarts had lost, after all, and she'd ended up being set on fire and everything. But it turned out the five she got from Liepiņš was more typical of the rest. Maxime and Barthe gave her a five and a four, with similar comments about being a very talented duellist — Maxime had even noticed that some of her enchanting of their base had been improvised, coming up with the scripts as she went, which might be responsible for her extra point — but agreed with Karkaroff and Vebjørn that she should have put more thought to actually winning. Which, yeah, if she was being completely honest, that was actually fair. Liz didn't give a shite if she won, she'd just wanted her rematch with Artèmi...
(Which she'd won, ha ha.)
And then Aritsa gave her a seven...though her comments were about as weird as what she'd said for anyone else. All talking about predatory grace, and how Liz skipped around the battlefield and her exaggerated somatic forms and stuff being motion as art, which was...kind of embarrassing, honestly — Liz could feel the warmth on her face by the end, staring up at the ceiling so she wouldn't have to look at anyone. (It didn't help that Aritsa was, just, distractingly pretty and colourful.) The Hogwarts judges were last. Gamp and Dianaimh both gave her fours, with similar comments about her awesome duelling (of course), but seemingly not giving much thought to the goal of the game (which continued to be fair), but Dumbledore actually gave her a six. Without much explanation either, just, basic good job stuff, which was...weird.
She had a funny feeling about Dumbledore, could feel thoughts turning away in there, mind cool and crystalline, preoccupied — she wondered what that was about. But his occlumency was good enough that he'd definitely be able to tell if she peeked, so. Hopefully he wasn't up to something that would come bite her in the arse later...
Once all that was done, Zabini told them their final scores. Viktor was in the lead, of course, the various points he'd been knocked down not enough to stop his raw score (a hundred something, she forgot exactly) from rounding up to a full seven. In second place they had a four-way tie between Fleur and all three junior Champions, whose close spread of raw points had all variously rounded up or down to a final score of five. Zabini paused to explain that Fleur had actually gotten slightly more points (88), followed by Ingrid, Artèmi, and Liz, the junior Champions all very close to each other at 84, 83, and 82 respectively. (Funny how that worked out.) Cedric was only a few points lower than Liz, with a raw score of 79, but that was low enough for him to be rounded down to a final score of four.
...So, Liz had actually done better than Cedric — which, on the one hand, nobody was going to be annoyed with her for being a drag on the Hogwarts team, but some people probably weren't going to be happy with her beating the proper Champion. Oops?
After a couple generic congratulations for their hard work, Zabini transitioned straight into their instructions for the Second Task, to be held on the 28th (about two weeks from now, on a Monday). This one was to be a sort of scavenger hunt. Some clues and riddles would be scattered throughout muggle Edinburgh — for the foreigners in the room, Zabini clarified that that was the name of a decent-sized city southeast of here — which the Champions would have to find, decode, and follow to the next. The Task would require figuring out the riddles, while finding their way around the muggle city without attracting undue attention from the locals. They'd be provided some of the local currency for their use — for transportation costs, lunch or snacks (it might take a little while), and also it sounded like some of the riddles might point them at things they were supposed to buy and bring back — and they'd also be allowed to bring two companions, selected from among their classmates. Next weekend, on the 20th, their companions would be brought on an excursion to the city, where they'd be able to familiarise themselves with the area and how the transportation and stuff worked, do tell your Headmasters who you'll be bringing by the 19th at the latest so they can arrange that.
Huh. Liz had the feeling that she was going to win the Second Task. She had an unfair advantage in the first place — of the Champions, she was the only one who was muggle-raised (and Ingrid didn't even speak English) — but also she was a Seer. Since she'd learned to pay attention to the nudges, she never got lost, and she suspected she'd be able to pick up a general idea of where they were supposed to be going. At the very least, she'd know if they were on the wrong track. She wasn't great with riddles, but bring someone who had a knack for that sort of thing, and Liz suspected this one was going to be dead easy for her. She raised her hand.
"Yes, Miss Potter?"
Instead of talking to Zabini, she turned to Gamp. "I already know who I'm bringing, Headmaster. Can I just tell you now?"
There was some muttering and chuckling in the room, Zabini looking rather exasperated at the interruption. But she was close enough to catch the flicker of bemusement from Gamp, giving her a sort of absent smile. "I don't see why not."
"Hermione Granger and Sophie Roper." Hermione was pretty good with riddles and puzzles and the like, and Liz had a niggling suspicion that Sophie was a Seer too — nothing she was conscious off, she just got these odd little flashes of intuition sometimes, like knowing where people were (or had been) without asking, or when looking something up checking the right book on the first try, that sort of thing. (Sort of more like Lily, in a way.) Also, they were both muggleborns, so they were far less likely to draw attention to themselves than her magic-raised friends.
"Very well, I'll have them added to the list."
There was a little bit of a diversion then, as a few of the other Champions called out their choices of companions for the Task as well, because apparently Liz had gotten them off track, oops. Viktor and Ingrid huddled up debating it for a moment before informing Karkaroff of their picks — Liz noticed all four were British names, they must have been deciding who got which of their British classmates. Of course, Liz knew they were all British because they were noble families (Bertie Yaxley was even one of them), and the Durmstrangers were maybe overestimating how comfortable British purebloods were likely to be in the muggle side of their own damn country, but whatever. Artèmi asked if Fleur was just fucked for this one — she could keep her aura contained for short periods of time, but it sounded like the Task would last for a few hours at least, and she couldn't keep it up that long — because designing tasks that one of the Champions would be completely incapable of performing didn't seem fair. (Not that the organisers would have necessarily known at the time that the Beauxbatons Champion would be a veela.) But, as with the First Task, they would be allowed to bring one enchanted tool with them in addition to their wand, it'd probably be a good idea for Fleur's to be a mind-shielding amulet of some kind. Fleur pouted at Zabini for a second, thinking (very loudly) that that sounded unpleasant, but it wasn't like she had a whole lot of choice in the matter — there were reasons her people didn't exactly spend a lot of time out in the muggle world post-Statute.
There was a little bit more about rules for the Second Task, but really not very much. This task was a little weird, in that their two partners would be getting some preparation, along with some instructions and advice while they were doing their little tour of Edinburgh, but the Champions themselves basically just had to show up. The six of them (but not their twelve companions) would be moved into isolation ahead of the Task again — Liz wasn't actually sure where they'd gone, as they'd been moved all at once with a portkey, spending the day and a half or so at a sizeable house on a little island somewhere. (Liz had seen the ocean before, but only briefly from a distance while visiting Dublin, so that had been kind of neat.) That would be on the evening of the Saturday a couple days before (the 26th), someone would come find them. And that was it, see you all then.
As people started moving, chatter breaking out, Severus leaned a little closer to her, his voice dropped low. "As I said, you did well."
Yeah, so he had. She hadn't disbelieved him, exactly, she just... Well, it sounded kind of fucked, but even years later, she still wasn't used to adults saying nice things about her. Severus, sure (being nice to her was practically his job), but she still, just instinctively, expected grown-ups (and especially people in positions of authority over her) to dislike or be angry with her for no particular reason. (Like practically all the adults she'd known her entire time in Little Whinging — she wasn't so un-self-aware as to not realise where the feeling came from.) She knew that was silly, but her brain was never not trash, so.
Of course, for various reasons, she had no idea what the fuck to say in response, so she just shrugged.
Liz still had a few crisps left, so she lingered in the room for a little bit, using them to scoop up little bits that'd dropped out of her sandwich. Now that the meeting was over, people quickly started filtering out of the room — the Beauxbatons people left more or less all at once, Barthe chatting with the Cæcinés and Maxime with the Delacours. Viktor escaped as soon as possible, but his parents stuck around with Karkaroff and Vebjørn, and also Ingrid and her parents. (Ingrid and her sister looked very bored.) Gamp had stuck around to talk to the Diggorys, but Cedric excused himself pretty soon — he had a party in the common room to get down to, you know.
Seeing him getting ready to leave, Liz rushed to finish off her lunch, magicking the cork back into the mead bottle. (She might as well bring it with, most of the drinks down in Hufflepuff were likely to be too sweet for her anyway.) She needn't have rushed so much — Cedric had been waylaid by Pomfrey, presumably giving him some last-minute healer's orders. Liz actually ended up stalling for a little bit, waiting until he'd limped out of the door before getting up to follow.
(She caught an exasperated thought from Severus about teenagers doing stupid shite — he kind of hated the parties the students threw all the time, just on principle — but he didn't say anything about it out loud.)
As slow as Cedric was moving, she caught up to him well before he reached the Grand Staircase. "No, wait," she called, waving him over toward a side-corridor, "there's a secret passage over here that comes out by the kitchens — fewer stairs." It seemed their little recovery room thing was up in the east wing, not far from the new professors' apartments, she used this same hidden staircase as a shortcut to and from Divination sometimes.
Pausing in the middle of the hallway, Cedric gave her a sceptical frown. "I thought I knew about all the passages near Hufflepuff." He didn't really doubt her, though, turning off to follow in his awkward little shuffle.
"Yeah, you wouldn't know about this one. Come on, it's right over here." As slow as Cedric was with the cane, it took them a couple minutes to make the couple turns, wandering deeper into the east wing — it wasn't nearly as dusty and abandoned-looking here as it used to be, but just because the elves had cleaned it up ahead of their guests arriving, she was pretty sure this section of the castle still wasn't being used. Eventually they came to a big painting of an orchard, scraggly-looking children running around and climbing up the trees to pick fruit. Glancing over her shoulder at Cedric, she pointed at the bottom-left corner — there was a rose bush there, the head of a snake poking out from underneath. «Open.» The snake twitched into motion, looking up at her with a little flick of its tongue, before turning and disappearing under the bush. There was a low click noise, and the painting detached from the wall, swinging out on a hinge to reveal the shadowy passage beyond.
His mind lurching — a little instinctive revulsion for Parseltongue, as often happened with Light kids, but pretty subtle from him, trying not to let it bother him — a mild amused quaver on his voice, Cedric muttered, "Well, that's just not fair."
"That's life for you." Holding the painting-door open, Liz waited for Cedric to go in ahead of her — he might have trouble closing it behind them with only one usable hand. It was also a bit dark in here, and she didn't want the injured boy to trip on anything and hurt himself even worse, so she cast a little blue-green ball of light with a flick of her fingers, bobbing gently over their heads. "Straight ahead for a bit, stairs are on the left. Parseltongue is great for enchantment keys, actually — the magic in the language carries the intent much more clearly than normal speech, there's hardly any risk of faulty transmission at all. Unfortunately so few people speak it." Of course, that was also one of the advantages, for security reasons, but still.
"I never thought of it that way, I always— Well, don't take this the wrong way, but a lot of parselmouths are a bit, you know, obsessive." That's what people said, like in the stories the Light kids told each other about weird creepy dark sorcerers and the like, but Liz had actually met other parselmouths at the Greenwood, and they'd seemed perfectly normal to her. But whatever, mages being stupidly superstitious and inexplicably bigoted wasn't exactly new. "I always thought they used it for everything just because they could, but that actually makes a lot of sense. I wonder if the same thing works for other magical languages."
"I don't see why not." They'd reached the stairs now, the walls coming in almost claustrophobically close, the stairs descending in a steep, tight spiral. (Liz wouldn't want to trip on these.) Cedric seemed to be having a little trouble with the cane, leaning awkwardly against the railing as he took each step. Maybe a featherweight charm would help...
"Oh!" Cedric gasped as the spell hit. He straightened a little, took the next couple steps much easier. "That's a lot easier, thanks. I don't know why I didn't think of that, seems obvious now."
Liz shrugged — purebloods could be really uncreative about wandwork sometimes, if a spell wasn't specifically for something they often didn't think of it. "I wonder, with enchantment keys, if the intent carried on the magic can trip the enchantment even if it's in the wrong language. Like, if there's something designed to take a key in parseltongue, but you talk at it in phoenix, would it still work?" And, similarly, could she use compulsions to trigger enchantments in place of speaking out loud? If they detected intent, and not the actual physical sound — which was easier to do, so most of them did — she didn't see why not. It was possible she'd need to think the word at them, at least until she was more familiar with the structure of the enchantment and could just directly energise the part of the script she wanted, but still. She could tweak the enchantments on her broom with mind magic in place of changing her grip and posture and stuff, it should be the same basic idea.
"...You know, I have no idea. That must be something someone's thought of before, there might be something in the library..."
They didn't talk much from there, even with the help of her charmwork Cedric still having trouble, quickly getting a little out of breath. (He was also in pain, a little bit, but it wasn't bad enough for him to make a big deal about it.) Thankfully, the stairs weren't very long, maybe only going down enough for, like, a level and a half before it flattened into a narrow little hallway. "Take a right. The end is an illusion from this side, just walk straight through." Liz wasn't sure how something could be a solid wall from one side and just an illusion from the other, because that just wasn't how illusions worked. Hogwarts was wild like that sometimes.
Cedric hesitated for a second, but then limped right through the seemingly solid stone wall — or it seemed solid to him, anyway, it looked fake to her. (Not that she could explain what she meant by that, exactly, just one of those instinctive mind-mage-slash-Seer things.) They walked out into a wider, more brightly-lit hallway, a familiar one: from here they could see glimpses of culinary/gardening-themed pictures in the hallway ahead to the right, one of which would be the bowl of fruit that lead into the kitchens. Hufflepuff was on the opposite end of that, close enough they could hear the chatter around the entrance — that tight staircase might not have been fun for Cedric, but going the proper way there would have been, like, three or four times as many of them, so.
And apparently Cedric agreed. "Oh, this is much better. Thank you, Liz, I really wasn't looking forward to all those stairs."
"Sure. Figured I kind of owed you a little, so."
Cedric had started thumping his way toward Hufflepuff, but at that he stopped, turned to frown over his shoulder. "What for?"
Liz shrugged. "I dunno. I'm not even supposed to be in this bloody thing, and I placed above you in the Task. Just kind of feel like a bitch, I guess."
"Well, stop it," he chirped, with a toothy, sunny sort of grin. "You were right not to want to fly, in retrospect. I mean, with all the people up there, it was bloody impossible to tell what was happening — I thought it'd just be sort of like quidditch, but it was so much worse. And I'd never tried to use battlemagic in the air before, it's far more difficult than I expected. I'm not sure I even hit anyone the whole time."
"I was watching the screens in there, I think you knocked out at least one." Of course, Liz had eliminated, er...she wasn't certain how many, exactly, she hadn't been counting. Four or five?
"Three cheers for me then, I guess," he drawled, his mind shivering with a wry sort of amusement. "It's fine, Liz, honestly. Not doing so well on this one is my own damn fault, for throwing myself in way over my head with the aerial fight. It turns out Viktor is a bloody monster, and Fleur and Cæciné aren't slouches either — if we can manage a Hogwarts victory, I'll be happy with that."
...Liz guessed she should have expected something like that, Cedric being the Hufflepuffiest of Hufflepuffs and all. "Well, good, I guess. Honestly, I don't know how you can be so bloody nice all the time. Daphne's the same way — you nice people, make me feel like such a horrid bitch sometimes."
"Oh, drat," Cedric sighed, his free hand snapping fingers. His breath turning thicker and breathy, intonation rising and falling with overdone melodrama, "I assure you, my lady, I had no intention of causing such offence with my insufficiently boorish behaviour. If there is anything I can do to ameliorate this insult...?"
Liz tried to glare at him, but she didn't quite manage to stop her lips from twitching. "Stop that."
His exaggerated sad face breaking back into a grin, he chirped "'fraid I can't. Unfortunately I'm just like this — us nice people, you know, can't be helped. Anyway, come on, Liz, we've got a party to get to. Cho's probably worrying in there..."
"I suppose it would be rude to make them wait."
"Now you're getting it. We'll make a sweet little Hufflepuff out of you yet."
"Yeah, good luck with that..."
[I'll kick your prissy little arse any day, Cecinà.] — Liz is consciously using her memory of Artèmi pronouncing her own name at the Weighing of the Wands here. I had specified that in text, but it came out too unwieldy to drop in the middle of the exchange. Cæciné is how the name is spelled in French, but in Occitan (Lengadocian) it's spelled Cecinà. Liz is just making a point of thinking of Artèmi's name 'correctly'.
Cho Chang — I did consider changing it, but I kept the canon name. I've heard multiple people assume JKR come up with it through racist stereotype nonsense sounds, which knowing JKR is definitely possible, but it is actually a plausible name. The official Chinese translation apparently uses 张秋(/張秋) — Zhāng Qiū in Mandarin (surname first), which could reasonably be Anglicised as Cho Chang. (The "zh" in pinyin is [ʈʂ], which most English-speakers will hear as a "ch" sound, and "Qiū" is pronounced [tɕʰjou̯], which is more like "chyo", but close enough for jazz.) 张/張 is a very common surname — the third-most common in China, held by literally a hundred million people, its use dating back into ancient history — and I'm unsure whether 秋 is used as a given name much, but it's not impossible. Cho's name would then be the literal equivalent of "Autumn Archer" in English, which I think is plausible.
Of course, JKR can't not be a thoughtless bigot for five seconds, so she's since specified that Cho is supposed to be Korean...which I think makes it very obvious that she really was just using nonsense 'Asian'-sounding noises. "Chang" is fine as a Korean surname (when used in Korean, 张/張 is even pronounced close enough to be romanised the same), and "Cho" would be fine for a surname, but not for a given name — Korean given names are primarily disyllabic, and sometimes longer in more modern names, but almost never monosyllabic. Which JKR would know if she bothered looking up Korean language/cultural stuff literally anywhere, or just quick searched for names of Korean actors/musicians, but she couldn't be bothered to think about it for literally five seconds, because she's a lazy worldbuilder and also super racist.
But I specified in a previous chapter that Cho is Chinese, so I've already fixed JKR's middle-aged white lady moment without even thinking about it. Because it turns out not being racist is pretty easy, actually.
Anyway, woo. Went longer than I anticipated, because I'm a babbly bitch like that, but here we are, yay. Certainly nothing important going on here, just filler, probably didn't need to write this one at all, did I? Oh well.
Check in next time, for Liz and Dumbledore finally actually talking to each other — I'm sure that won't be anything important either.