While she was distracted looking around, the meal actually started...though it didn't really start with much. There were just these tiny little open-faced sandwiches, and plates with cheese bites and sausages, bowls of nuts. It took Liz a few seconds to realise they were doing the super formal dinner, multiple course...thing. She'd only done that once before, at the fancy dinner before the World Cup final, but apparently this was typical of high-class dinner parties. Okay, then. This would be, like, appetisers or hors d'oeuvres or whatever the fuck you wanted to call them, just something for people to nibble on while getting acquainted with their tablemates. Still thought this super fancy shite was so bloody silly, but fine.
More importantly, she saw multiple people had drinks already, but there weren't any pitchers around or whatever. She didn't know how much of this shite she would eat, saving it for the actual food, but she could use a drink — she vaguely recalled that the smoked version at that party had made her kind of thirsty, not as bad this time but still worth keeping ahead of. She was just about to ask when Severus said, "On your right."
"What? Oh." She hadn't been paying attention to the table settings, looking around for pitchers. There was much less stuff set in front of them than the last one of these she'd been to, just a couple little plates, a tiny little bowl, a single spoon and two forks — she assumed they'd be removing and adding stuff between courses. (Not that she thought all that silverware was really necessary, but whatever.) There were also a couple glasses, a stiff card set on the tablecloth just in front of them. The drinks menu, apparently, divided into sections, the headings over each rendered in English, French, and Danish (as the mages insisted on calling it) but many of the drinks themselves left untranslated. There were also directions in smaller text at the bottom, telling them to speak what they want out loud while holding the card, right, got it.
That didn't solve her problem immediately, though. Most of the drinks were alcoholic — Liz thought it was probably better to avoid alcohol, since the cannabis was already going to make her act a bit silly anyway. There was a section for tea, but Liz didn't really like tea, and there wasn't any coffee, unfortunately. (Severus had warned her.) There were multiple kinds of fruit juice, but those would probably be too sweet...
"Here," Severus said, tapping a section titled crèmes aromatiques — curiously, this one wasn't translated into the other two languages at all. Liz assumed people who knew what the fuck that was just used the French term. "If these were prepared correctly, there shouldn't be any sugar. I would suggest the orange, or possibly the violet. The spiced varieties are more likely to have a sweetener — traditionally, they would have used honey, but I can't guarantee you'll find it palatable."
"...Right. And what the hell are these, exactly?"
Severus hesitated for a moment, trying to figure out how to explain it. "They are similar to soft drinks, I suppose, though without the obscene amount of sugar and using a dairy base in place of water — though it isn't carbonation, precisely, the similar effect produced through alchemy with different materials. They are quite rare in Britain, but increasingly popular these last decades in a number of nations on the Continent, including Aquitania."
"Okay, then." No harm in trying it, she guessed. After a moment of thought, she went ahead and asked for the violet one, just out of curiosity — she didn't think she'd ever heard of flavouring drinks with flowers, that was odd. There was a brief delay, and Liz twitched at a crackle of magic from nearby — house-elf magic, she knew — the more bulbous glass in front of her abruptly filling with an opaque fluid, mostly white with a faint purpleish-goldish tinge. The glass was a little warm when she picked it up, surprisingly, Severus calling it similar to fizzy pop had her expecting it to be cold.
She took a cautious little sip, and fucking hell, this shite was intense. Super creamy — the consistency was more like milk, but the taste was way closer to proper heavy cream — with the faint sweet tang of honey — she'd thought Severus was saying there wouldn't be any sweetener at all, but it wasn't overpowering — and super super...violet-y. Like, it tasted like violets smelled, and really strongly too, her breath all smooth and fragrant from it, that was... How did they do that? And, she'd hardly had anything carbonated very many times before — muggle fizzy pop was far too sweet, nauseating — but she still would have guessed this wasn't the same thing, tingly and sparkly, tickling down her throat before wearing off. She would have known it was a magical effect of some kind even if Severus hadn't said anything, it didn't feel quite purely physical.
Right, that was a hell of a thing, but she thought she kind of liked it. At least enough to stick with it, and maybe try a couple other flavours before the night was over — why did they have to have bloody pumpkin juice at Hogwarts when this stuff existed...
This first part of the dinner was filled with a lot of chatter, everyone introducing themselves to their neighbours, idly nibbling at hors d'oeuvres and sipping at drinks. Severus had found them seats toward one of the ends, near Flitwick, Liepiņš, and Justin Carmichael, the head of the Department of Health and Family — Liz recognised him from her custody hearing in the Wizengamot. The Carmichaels had been on their side in that whole thing, probably had something to do with why Severus thought they were fine people to sit with. Flitwick, Liepiņš, and his date were on Liz's side, which Severus had presumably done to give her people she would think were interesting to talk to, Carmichael and his wife across the table, and a couple other people on Severus's side whose names Liz had missed. It sounded like they were mostly talking about boring Society politics stuff over there anyway, so she didn't really care.
Over on Liz's side, they were mostly talking about duelling, which was much more interesting. Liepiņš and his date — Säde Karjalainen, which was a familiar name, Liz must have seen it somewhere before — had been kids when Flitwick had had his record-breaking win streak, had known about him for pretty much as long as they could remember. At this point, Arvīds (Liz was quickly told to use his first name) was more familiar with him, but there was still a bit of babbly hero worship from Säde, occasionally cutting herself off, shrinking back into her chair and flushing with embarrassment. It didn't often occur to her that Flitwick was an actual famous professional duellist, since she'd known him first as her Charms teacher, but when she thought about it she wasn't really surprised — she'd probably be about as embarrassing as Säde if she actually met, like, Cassie Lovegood or someone.
The tiny little open-faced sandwiches were canapés, apparently — Liz had heard the word before, but it hadn't occurred to her until she unthinkingly asked what was on them, in French, her Valérie instincts supplying it for her. The cracker base was surprisingly puffy and flakey, and that was a...cream cheese spread of some kind, maybe? and some kind of dried salted meat that was like bacon but not actually bacon. It was fine, but she only had one, not wanting to spoil the actual food part.
Since she had professional duellists right here, she asked how she would go about finding events to go to over breaks. Turned out, that was somewhat complicated, because matches came in various levels of official-ness — she was aware of that, the whole thing was complicated — but the official official events would be on the IDL calendar, just owl the office in Switzerland and they'd send her a copy. Right, neat, she'd do that, then...assuming she remembered. There would always be a series of events over the summer, ultimately culminating in a big tournament in September (at which time she'd be back in school), and they tried to avoid overlapping with the student tournament, so she should be able to catch some shows without too much trouble. Oh wait, she had no idea how long the recovery from her blood alchemy stuff would take, she might not be able to travel...
...Actually, thinking about it, she had a Seer feeling she wouldn't be making it to any, must end up being too busy. Damn. She'd just have to order memories when they were finally released and watch them in her pensieve at home. There was a shop on Charing, if she got a membership there they'd hold copies for her until she could come by and pick them up — Flitwick would ask them to forward the paperwork for her, should be waiting for her when they got back from Kaunas, right, thanks.
(They didn't ship memories by owl, since they reacted oddly to the enchantments used to shrink and protect things for transport, you had to pick them up in person. She was so busy over the holidays she kept forgetting — not that just showing up at the shop would do any good anyway, they had to copy them for you ahead of time...)
Arvīds was on call with the magic police in Daneland when he wasn't busy with his duelling career — the way he talked about it made no bloody sense to Liz, she assumed they organised that stuff very strangely over there — but Säde was an author, of all things, and even a relatively popular one. (Something to fall back on when she was too old to compete anymore, Liz guessed.) Mostly historical fiction, apparently, dealing with wars and crazy messed up politics and shite from back before the Statute of Secrecy, muggles and mages not isolated from each other yet. Her big series she was doing took place during the 13th Century, featuring events of the Northern Crusades against the pagans east of the Baltic Sea — including Finland, where Säde was from — which was complete news to Liz, she'd never heard of that before. Of course, it wasn't just straight ooh Christians killing us bad, since one of the major participants was Sweden, and the mages there still hadn't fully Christianised themselves — the way Säde talked about it, it was sort of a continuation of the viking campaigns of previous centuries, just with a religious justification now. (Or, a different religious justification, anyway.) The story was way more complicated than just Christians versus pagans, Finns versus Germans, because war and politics were pretty much always like that, turned out.
From what little Liz was told about them at the dinner table, there was definitely a point Säde was getting at, but she didn't think it was Christianity bad, or muggles bad — if anything, she suspected it was Statute of Secrecy bad (and also maybe communalism good). Sounded interesting, especially since Säde was a professional duellist and all so the battle scenes were probably pretty good, maybe worth checking out? Säde didn't think any of her stuff had been translated into any British language — Säde didn't speak English herself, the table conversation was mostly in French — but they had been published in France, Säde conjured a sheet of paper and scribbled down her name and the titles of some books so Liz could look them up later. Of course, the book titles were in bloody Finnish (she'd forgotten what they'd ended up calling them in French), but they'd be enough for a bookseller to find them for her. Flitwick pointed out that they'd be hard to find in Britain, even from an importer, but bookstores in Kaunas were way more likely to have them in stock, ooh, she could pick something up on her free day, that was a great idea...
By the time they were done with that distraction, dinner was moving on to the next course. Some of the food on the table was popped away (though some of it stayed behind, for some reason), platters with tiny little buns or thin slices of toast replacing them — not, like, sandwich bread toast, little oblong things, sort of like breadsticks. Liz was momentarily confused before she noticed people looking over cards, one had appeared in front of her too. (There hadn't been a crackle of house-elf magic, like whenever anyone's drink got filled, she wondered how they did that.) Oh jeez, everyone was ordering their food individually, that sounded like a lot of work to manage properly, there were hundreds of bloody people in here. Liz had a moment of concern for the house-elves down in the kitchens, cold prickles at the back of her neck and an uncomfortable twist in her stomach — she remembered the cooking and baking she had to do around Christmas at the Dursleys (before her mind magic kicked in), it was bloody miserable...
Shaking the feeling off as best she could — there were also hundreds of elves, and maybe they would have been able to bring in extra help, it was probably fine — Liz picked up the card and started looking it over. It looked like it was mostly soup (which would explain the bread), though there was also other stuff, like rice or baked fish — a couple things she only knew what they were thanks to Valérie, like risotto or gnocchi. (Which were actually Italian, not French, but Valérie got around more than Liz.) After a bit of looking around, she found a cream soup made with scallops and mushrooms, which sounded good enough. Good enough to not want to keep looking, anyway — the menu was longer than it seemed, Liz had to flip the card over five times to get back to the first 'page', because magic was wild like that sometimes.
...How did they do that, anyway? She assumed multiple pages were bound together in expanded space with an enchantment, the physical act of turning it over... No, she wasn't sure how that would work. Magic, honestly, so cool.
Everyone else around her had ordered perfectly ordinary things, mostly sticking with various soups — except Mrs Carmichael, who'd gotten some kind of rice pudding (um, she thought that's what that was), and Liz had to fight not to make a face at Säde's food. She'd been sent up a couple tiny little flat bowls, with different kinds of spread in them, the plate also with little bits of some kind of fish and what Liz thought might be caviar? Something over there smelled very strongly of pickled and/or fermented fish, obvious even across the table over here, it was very gross. Liz didn't know shite about Finland, but she got the feeling they had some odd food, if Säde actually thought that was appetising. Of course, she'd heard the same thing about Scandinavian countries, and at least Arvīds's soup looked perfectly ordinary, shredded lamb and carrots...
Liz's soup was great, thick and creamy and super mushroomy and thyme-y, but she could have done without the smell of whatever the hell that shite was.
Over the soup course (or whatever the proper name was), there was a lot of Arvīds and Säde asking her about her duelling stuff. Which was slightly irritating, she guessed — she didn't find her own stuff interesting, after all — but it wasn't that bad. Especially since Flitwick would take up an answer for her now and then, when he didn't think her answer was long or bragging enough, so. When Liz mentioned being pretty much the only person in junior division who could quick-step already (at least reliably enough to actually use in a fight), Säde sucked in a little gasp, oh, she was that Potter, she'd heard gossip about that. Liz was a little bemused that Säde hadn't realised who she was until just now, but she'd go ahead and take that as a good sign, really — Säde obviously didn't give a shite about the Girl Who Lived stuff, seemed like going to school over on the Continent might get her away from a lot of that nonsense.
Flitwick openly said at one point that she was probably going to be captain of their junior team next year, which was a little silly, because he hadn't even told her that yet. It'd been kind of obvious, with how seriously he and Gladwin had been riding her lately, and talking to her about organisational stuff, but still. There was a little bit of teasing about that, but thankfully they moved on quickly, talking about duelling gyms and stuff instead. Liz hadn't really thought about joining an actual proper group or anything, just doing the solo duellist thing, but it might be worth dealing with it to get into team events and the like. She didn't know, she'd think about it...
Oh yeah, she was definitely going to get into duelling professionally after school — alongside whatever else she felt like doing, but it was fun, so why not? (Now that she better understood how much she did not need money, she was far less concerned about figuring out what the hell she'd be doing after school.) By the time Liz was getting into it Arvīds would be all old and slow, so, she was looking forward to kicking his arse, actually. Säde giggled at the joke, said something teasing to Arvīds in a language Liz didn't understand, Arvīds rolling his eyes.
Not that Liz was that confident that she would be able to beat Arvīds if they ever met in a professional match — people did slow down as they got older, but experience still counted for a lot in a duel — just playing around. She'd figured out by now that Arvīds and Säde didn't take themselves too seriously, so.
Noooo, thank you, Professor, she didn't need to see what an 'old' duellist could do — she'd rather not get hospitalised in two seconds flat, she was good...
After a while talking about duelling stuff and eating bits of bread smeared with her soup, Liz started feeling a harsh itching, nerves crackling down her spine as her chest started to tighten. It took her a few seconds to realise what that was — her drugs must be starting to wear off. Before it could get too bad, Liz pulled the bag of little crystals out of her glove and into her lap, dug out one and tucked it under her tongue. Her neighbours at the table noticed, of course. Liz hesitated for a second before deciding to just tell them what it was. They were understanding about it, at least, since it wasn't exactly a secret that being a Seer could suck sometimes.
Toward the end of the soup course, Liz's drink was out, so she decided to try another one of the fizzy cream things, this one just called Yule spice. It smelled really good — cinnamon and cloves, definitely, um, nutmeg, and...other stuff, dunno — but it was way too sweet, no way she'd be able to drink that. She gave up almost immediately, and ordered a different one — apparently whoever was listening down there realised she wanted a replacement, since her glass was entirely swapped out with another crackle of house-elf magic. Ooh, the orange version was really good, actually, much better.
(Still thought it was weird that she liked orange-flavoured stuff, because she didn't really like oranges themselves. But Liz was used to her taste being fucking weird by now.)
Not long after that, the empty dishes were being popped away, and they were ordering again — oh, the main course this time, okay then. Luckily her soup had been pretty small, and she hadn't had too much bread, she could actually still eat without stuffing herself. This one was a little more complicated, they were supposed to pick a main thing and a side thing, ordered individually. That also seemed like more work than really necessary for the elves, but Liz could be super picky about food sometimes, so she kind of appreciated being able to pick the side thing herself. (She still didn't really like fruit or vegetables much at all, and yes, she realised she was big fucking baby, okay.) The main things seemed to mostly be heavy meat-based dishes — this was the main course, so that made sense — the side things mostly vegetables, but there were also potatoes and other things.
After a bit of flipping around the pages, she ended up picking a dish of duck, lardons, shallots, and mushrooms braised in wine — her French food instincts from Valérie were pretty sure that was coq au vin, done with duck instead of the typical chicken, but the French translation used a completely different name for some reason, because mages had to be difficult like that — and some garlic-butter parmesan risotto for the side, mostly because she thought it'd be good to mix in with the leftover sauce. There was a somewhat lengthier pause, maybe as long as thirty seconds, before there was another crackle of house-elf magic, a pair of plates appeared in front of her along with the necessary silverware and the like. Fucking hell, that smelled good...
She caught simmering exasperation from Severus next to her, close enough to be detectable through the blended haze of feelings filling the room. He'd probably just noticed that she hadn't had any vegetables whatsoever so far tonight, but she was a big fucking baby like that, so that shouldn't really be a surprise — besides, that's what the nutrient potions were for.
It took Liz a while to actually take her first bite, shredding the meat apart first — it came apart really easily, must have seriously cooked the shite out of it. Which took some patience, honestly, because the stuff smelled fucking amazing, all herby and rich, shite. When she finally did take her first bite, she paused for a moment, frowning to herself. It was good, sure, but it seemed...off. Like, an odd sour, sharp tang, pretty subtle but still noticeable, an odd tingling left behind on her tongue and her throat — a cool burn, flaring when she exhaled almost like mint. She was pretty sure that wasn't supposed to be there, it didn't feel like an entirely physical thing.
...They must have gotten stuff from a different source than usual. Normally, the meat and dairy and stuff at Hogwarts was fine — not quite as good as the stuff she'd found over the summer, but better than muggle food at least — but they had a whole bunch of shite they had available tonight, they must have had to track down more suppliers. She suspected this duck hadn't been raised and slaughtered in the most humane of conditions, an echo of its suffering lingering on the meat. Normally, Liz didn't really notice that sort of thing consciously, but she was high at the moment, drugs could do odd things to Seers sometimes.
Oh well. Less than ideal, of course, she'd really rather they got everything from Seer-friendly suppliers, but it was subtle enough it wasn't ruining the food or anything. Severus theorised that there were unconscious effects on her mood from eating bad stuff all the time, but she was pretty sure it shouldn't be a problem at the moment — ironically, thanks to the drugs that were also probably the reason she was feeling it so clearly. The pseudo-mintiness was a little odd with everything else, but it was still good, Liz decided to just ignore it.
The conversation on Liz's side of their group was in a kind of lull for a moment, so Liz wasn't distracted when Carmichael leaned a little forward over the table, an odd soft drawling tone coming into his voice. "Since I have you here, Severus, I'm wondering if you can help me with a...certain curiosity of mine. I expect you remember Percival Weasley."
"Naturally," Severus admitted, an odd flicker in his head gone too quickly for Liz to read it. "He was an excellent student, if somewhat stubborn and uncreative. One of those few who manage to succeed in the controlled environment of an educational setting, passing exams by means of wrote memorisation, but have no true talent for Potions."
Sounding slightly surprised, Carmichael said, "I understand he received an O. on the Potions NEWT."
"He received an O. in every NEWT he attempted — and he attempted every single exam for which there is a class at Hogwarts." Fuck, that sounded miserable. You couldn't even take all the classes, not enough room on a timetable, he would have to self-study for some of them... "Even so, he will never be a potioneer. But I suspect Mister Weasley's talent with potions, or lack thereof, is not what you wished to speak with me about."
"No, no, of course. I'm told that, before even properly graduating, Percival had asked to join my Department."
There was a flash of surprise from Severus, his fork paused in the middle of separating off a bite of... Liz wasn't sure what that was, some kind of lamb-based thing, she thought. "Truly? I know he planned to go into the Ministry, but I had expected Commerce, or perhaps International Cooperation."
"Yes, I've heard it caused quite a stir when he came in for an interview back in July. I don't have a direct hand in the recruitment of new members, you see, I didn't hear of any of this until afterward. It seems my subordinates weren't sure whether he was serious at first — Cam even went upstairs to the D.L.E. to speak to his father about it. Arthur Weasley, you know, Muggle Artefacts."
Severus said something about knowing the man — and of course he would, the Weasleys were a relatively big family but only the one set of siblings went to Hogwarts. Their grandmothers happened to be Blacks — the Weasleys here were Liz's third cousins, through both of their parents — Liz suspected that had something to do with them getting in. Arthur would be too old to have been at school as the same time as Severus, but Liz knew the Weasleys' parents had been in Dumbledore's faction in the war, so they probably knew each other through that too. "And what work did your subordinates find for your unexpected Weasley?"
"That's just the thing, actually. See, we don't get people with his qualifications very often, so he was put to work reviewing new applications for the Registry."
Unless Liz was mistaken, that would be the Comprehensive Registry of Essential Healing for Common Practice — a big work-up put out by Carmichael's Department of everything the average healer needed to know, with information about common complications and side-effects of the listed treatments and everything. Theoretically, any healer was supposed to know all of it to get licensed, but they didn't necessarily always, since Health and Family updated it regularly. Severus had a copy back in his house — the thing was bloody huge, filling multiple encyclopaedia-sized volumes — but it was somewhat out of date, gotten during his apprenticeship back in the late 70s, early 80s. (She'd been a little surprised to learn that he went through the normal expected Healing course, with the apprenticeship and the internship at Saint Mungo's, since he had been a Death Eater at the time.) Liz guessed they had Percy Weasley taking a first look at things healers had sent in to add to the Registry to see if they were worth looking into further which, considering he'd managed to study his way into an absurd number of perfect NEWTs, was probably a good use of his abilities, the swotty bastard.
"I imagine Mister Weasley's research skills would see him well-suited to the position," Severus said, an unspoken question on his voice.
"Yes, that was Stanley's thinking, and I'm told he has been doing good work over there. He has an eye for cutting through loquacious nonsense at a glance, you see."
A drawl slipping into his voice, "Having marked the man's essays over the course of seven years, I suspect that skill was honed through the composition of loquacious nonsense of his own."
Carmichael chuckled, clearly amused, paused for a moment to sip at his wine. "I don't envy you lot sometimes — the reports I have to deal with are bad enough, but at least those are all written by competent adults. I've heard nothing but praise from Stacia, he might well be running the project in a decade or two. But, for all that he has the skill for that sort of work, it's not where he wants to be. Just last week, the young man was in my office, with a firm request to be moved to Child Welfare."
"Is that so?" Severus asked — one of those pointless questions, mostly to fill the air as he gathered his thoughts, head flickering and lurching. "I hardly know Mister Weasley personally, of course, but that seems out of character. Of course, I wouldn't have expected him to wish to work in Health and Family at all, so I suppose I don't know him as well as I thought."
Even as the realisation came to her, Liz blurted out, "Ginevra."
There was a harsh burn in Severus's head, but Carmichael turned to blink at her, confused. "I'm sorry, Liz, what was that?" He'd initially greeted her with Lady Elizabeth, because silly fancy party, but he'd switched to just her name easily enough.
"His little sister. She died like a year and a half ago — the Chamber of Secrets thing, you know?"
"Ah yes, I did hear about that," Carmichael muttered, frowning. Eyes flicking to Severus, "Did they ever manage to find who was responsible?"
Severus sighed. "Myself and the rest of the staff were told that the Aurors have no suspects whatsoever — they believe the girl was used as a sacrifice, but the thaumaturgic weight of the ritual interfered with all but the most basic of their detection magics. They've determined it couldn't have been a student or staff member, but beyond that they have no leads."
(Because, of course, they would have had no reason to suspect a book.)
"Oh my, how dreadful. I suppose we should feel fortunate whoever was responsible hasn't shown their face at Hogwarts since." There was a slight edge of a question on Carmichael's voice, as though wanting Severus to confirm there was no evidence of that.
"I suppose." Hatred burning cold in his head, Liz suspected Severus rather wished the murderer would return — they wouldn't be leaving alive, if he could help it.
(Liz tried not to give anything away — she'd kind of forgotten that Severus had taken Ginevra's murder way more personally than Liz had.)
"Anyway, Liz, you were saying, about Percival?"
"Right, yeah, um. Well, to be honest, he was kind of a smug prick at first — being really annoying about prefect stuff, and strict about the rules, you know the kind of person. When we came back after the summer, he was...different. Not nearly as much of a hard-arse, and, he made a point about being there for the little kids if they needed anything, you know? The dorm supervisor thing hadn't started yet at the time, and... I don't know. I think he wants in Child Welfare because of Ginevra, if that makes sense."
"Guilt, perhaps," Severus said, "for not being there for his sister. Or perhaps simply an abundance of sympathy, having been through his own family tragedy. Yes, now that you've mentioned it, I do believe you're correct, Elizabeth."
Partway through chewing a bite of some kind of roast poultry he had over there, Carmichael let out a long hum. "Yes, that would... Well, I asked around since speaking with him, and it does seem he was previously interested in working elsewhere. He's come to the MInistry with his father over holidays before, would wander around — he's been seen in International Cooperation especially. Nobody expected him to end up in my Department and, well, that would explain it. Such tragedies can change how one looks at life, can't they."
"The poor dear," Mrs Carmichael said, pulled from her conversation with the people on Severus's other side. "Most of the work in Child Welfare requires a...more personal touch. I understand why he might wish to feel he's doing some good, but does he have the temperament to even do that sort of work at all?"
Severus hesitated for a moment, before glancing at Liz — he didn't spend a lot of time with the students in social situations, after all. Liz grimaced, lifting one shoulder in a shrug. Though, that uncomfortable crackly itch wasn't from everyone looking at her expectantly, that was something else... "I dunno. He wasn't nearly as abrasive in third year, and I mostly avoided him, so... Maybe? I don't think I'd put him straight into doing the interviews with kids right away, we can be kind of jumpy sometimes, but they need people in the Office to do other shite, and he can get some practice in before handling anything too sensitive." It belatedly occurred to Liz that she'd just referred to abused kids who might need the Office of Child Welfare to step in for them as we, in public. Oops? It wasn't exactly a secret at this point that Liz had been through that whole thing, whatever. "I don't know, maybe worth giving him a shot, especially if he'll keep complaining about it if you don't."
"He's a polite young man, so I doubt he'll make too much of a fuss. I'm not sure if I want to let him be transferred, though. We don't get people with Percival's aptitude very often, the Registry can really use the help. I don't mean to demean the work of the Office, of course," with another meaningful glance at Liz, "but putting him there would almost feel like a waste of his talents. So you see my dilemma."
Severus had just started talking — suggesting Carmichael might split the difference and have Weasley specialise in looking over things in the Registry to do with children specifically, work with healers on nutrition and recommendations for routine care and the like — was maybe half a sentence in when, her skin itching with cold sharp prickles, Liz snapped, "Do it."
The adults all turned to look at her, even the conversation about goblin politics on her other side cutting off, surprise and bemusement swirling around her head. "Excuse me?"
"I just figured it out, what it means. I was having a Seer feeling, talking about this, but it was too vague for me to figure it out — Severus was about to convince you to have him stay with the Registry, and that made the feeling stronger, I figured it out."
Glancing at Severus, Carmichael raised an eyebrow, the two of them sharing a look. Seers existing might be weird for people who didn't occasionally get random premonitions about the future, that honestly didn't occur to Liz most of the time. "And what feeling is this, precisely?"
"If he's not in Child Welfare, more children will die."
Shock slashing through the air, Carmichael straightened, eyes suddenly wide staring at her. After a short pause, he asked only, "You're certain?" He didn't seem sceptical, just, surprised.
"Absolutely," she said, as firmly as she could. It'd taken a moment, but she'd belatedly identified the chill she'd been feeling as the same as the one she'd felt lingering after killing an animal with the Green Death. A lot of the symbolism used in divination could be really odd and trippy, but feeling death was a pretty obvious bad sign. And, now that she'd told Carmichael — the magically-raised man with the proper cultural background to take a premonition of doom from a known Seer dead seriously — the cold had already begun to fade, the accompanying itch weakening somewhat more slowly.
Silence hung over the table for a moment, the adults continuing to stare at her. And then Carmichael simply nodded. "Very well. I'll make the arrangements when I meet with my Deputies on Thursday. Thank you, Liz." And that was that, the conversation swiftly moving on to much less heavy topics.
A graceful tendril of thought from Severus reached toward her, pulsing warm with approval, pushing into her mind two words: Good work. Liz felt the warmth on her face, her stomach lurching with...something, but she tried to pretend nothing was out of the ordinary, went back to quietly eating, her eyes fixed firmly on her plate.
...So, Liz guessed she couldn't say the Seer thing was completely useless anymore — she'd probably never even know the names of the kids whose lives she'd just indirectly saved, but still.
The main course dragged on for a bit from there. It was impossible to tell how long, but the dinner must have been going on for a while at this point — her drugs had already worn off once, and the musicians were even taking a break, leaving only the low background noise of the crowd chattering, the clinking of cutlery. Liz suspected that the break was so they'd be fresh for when it was time for the dancing to open properly, she brushed off the slight edge of nerves without too much trouble.
The conversation going on around her was a mix of interesting and boring, Liz mostly just listening without talking very much. Flitwick, Arvīds, and Säde ended up spending a lot of time talking about goblins — they did have goblins in Daneland (though not really Finland), but the mages didn't have much to do with them, deep enough in the mountains that they didn't bump into each other very often. Funnily enough, Flitwick didn't have much to do with goblins either, less because he was half-human than because they considered his father a traitor to his people...though those two points weren't unrelated.
It wasn't news to Liz that goblins weren't originally from earth, having crossed over from the fairy world, like house-elves; it was news to Liz that they'd basically been refugees fleeing a genocide. This was, like, ten thousand years ago or some shite, and they'd lost pretty much all their records from that time, but the way Flitwick's father told it they'd been a religious minority, who the majority of the society (same species, but different cultural group) really hadn't liked for whatever reason. There'd been legal oppression, basically trying to force them to assimilate, which had ended up sparking off a civil war, which the goblins' ancestors had lost, badly. Many had been killed, documents and relics destroyed, the survivors given the ultimatum to forsake their beliefs and traditions, integrating into the majority culture, or die. A sympathetic neighbouring country had offered them a third option: they'd hold a Gate open, and those who wished could leave their world and try to make a new life for themselves on earth. (Humans had existed then, but they hadn't even invented agriculture yet, the faeries had still considered the world uninhabited.) Some had chosen to stay, but those more firm in their convictions had left — about a half a million had relocated to an entirely different planet with nothing but what they could carry, dumped out in what was now the Sahara, so long ago it hadn't become an inhospitable wasteland yet.
That had been a very long time ago, even for goblins — like elves and veela/lilin, they lived significantly longer than humans — and a whole bunch of shite had happened in that time. Their religion wasn't exactly the same as it'd been at the start of their exile, having evolved over the generations, but goblins were still a religious people. The goblins who lived among humans were, almost universally, considered traitors to their faith — apostates and heretics, mostly, sometimes just people who'd been exiled as punishment for a crime. Their religion also involved a strong element of ancestor-worship, so the descendants of exiles were often thought to be tainted for their crimes as well. It was almost impossible for the exiled goblins to be accepted back among the rest of their people — agreeing that your original heretical ancestor did a bad and repudiating them somehow wouldn't help, because that was itself considered sacrilege, due to the same ancestor-worship stuff...which didn't seem fair to Liz, but whatever.
The 'crime' Flitwick's father had committed was sharing certain goblin secrets with his mother (he wouldn't say what exactly), which was against the rules that would have been ground into his head from childhood, but understandable — he'd been an infatuated teenager, and sometimes teenagers do stupid shite. His father could never go back home, and the goblins would never recognise Flitwick or his siblings (and nieces and nephews) as their people, or any of their descendants down however long. Which was kind of shitty, but Flitwick wasn't particularly bothered about it. He didn't like goblin society much either, so, feeling mutual.
Flitwick did know a fair bit about the goblins, from his father and various exile communities around the world, and a lot of the politics within goblin society and between magical and muggle countries could be super fucking complicated. (Apparently goblins managed their own relations with muggle countries, separately from the mages' governments, which was news to Liz.) And he spoke the language decently well too, and fucking hell, that shite sounded weird, all harsh and clicky, and, Liz wasn't sure how Flitwick was even making those sounds, honestly. The elves' language didn't seem so bad — they spoke fast, high and babbly, and it sounded almost musical, with a lot more pitch range than in English, but the sounds were simple — but the goblins' sounded fucking impossible. Supposedly humans could learn it, Flitwick said Dirk Cresswell's accent was almost completely gone at this point, but Liz had no idea how, that shite was wild. The goblins had actually let Cresswell come live with them for a few months, sort of doing an immersion thing, which wasn't something they did very often, but they really liked him because of...
Huh. Liz wondered if the goblins would be open to doing that with her after she got the omniglottalism turned on — if she understood correctly, a month would be plenty of time to pick up a language to the point of fluency. And, she wouldn't want to be stuck living with the goblins forever, with how strict they seemed to be about certain things, but their culture did sound interesting, it might be neat to just hang around for that long...
Though, given how secretive they could be, and how much they did not like the Wizengamot, the chances of that didn't seem great. Something to think about later, she guessed.
The conversation on her other side was mostly about the educational reform coming up. Liz realised that was a pretty big development in magical Britain — they were going to have an actual public education system soon, bringing them properly into the 20th Century with only a couple years left — but at this point she was so tired of hearing about it. People going back and forth about one thing or another, never actually seeming to get anywhere, it was bloody tedious...
Liz, she was pretty sure, simply didn't have the patience for politics. At least, not the kind of politics that didn't allow throwing curses at your opponents.
Time smeared by, impossible to say how long exactly — Liz's plates had been empty for some while, but she hadn't been talking as much as the people around her, so. By this point, she was struggling to contain boredom, shifting in her seat and tapping at the table with her fingers. She could feel her neighbours had noticed, occasional flickers of amusement or exasperation, or some weird soft warm thing she didn't know what word to put to, but she couldn't really help it. Liz didn't like sitting around talking this long without a book or something to distract herself with, even when she wasn't kind of high — the drugs just made it a little harder to hide it. Honestly, she thought she was doing quite well at not making a scene, but it wasn't going to be very long before she just lost patience completely. Even just getting up and moving around a little would help, or something to do with her hands, she was soooo booored...
Thankfully, before Liz could lose her mind (more than she already had), Gamp was standing up and saying something again — she missed the first part, but it was obvious this was the dance part opening up. Made even more obvious by a...tambourine or something (Liz wasn't a music expert) starting off a rattling rhythm, underlying the end of Gamp's speech. Relieved to actually be allowed to move again, Liz practically jumped up to her feet, the room swirling around for a half-second before it caught up, like it was on a delay, and—
Wait crap, they actually had to do the dancing part now. Damn.
Trying to hold in a grimace, Liz waited for Severus to stand, took his elbow like before. Artèmi and lilin-boy had gotten off the platform ahead of them, and Cedric and Chang, Fleur and date-boy and Victor and Ingrid coming behind — putting Liz and Severus in the middle, which wasn't where she'd rather be, but oh well. The eyes thick and heavy on her, warm and tingly, overwhelming, like a wave crashing down over her head. It wasn't unpleasant, exactly, still as comfortable and vaguely exhilarating as on the walk in, but all the stuff rushing through her did make it kind of hard to concentrate. Or see. Thankfully, she could still hear...more or less well — she was still following the beat of the tambourine thing, at least — but everything was washed out with vibrant shadows and glittery colour, the crowd around just an indistinct smear of mind and magic. She could still feel out Severus next to her, almost in negative space, tightly controlled occlumency forming a sort of cold spot, but...
Ooh, this was going to be difficult.
They'd been walking out onto the floor for some seconds, all of the Champions must be off the platform by now, when a...probably a violin joined in, laying over the tambourine with a bouncy, cheerful sort of melody. Which was odd that Liz could pick up on that right away, she often didn't get music the way other people seemed to, maybe it was the— Oh, magical musicians, never mind, she could feel the magic carried on the sound (like Liz did sometimes with her voice) now that she was paying attention to it. Liz idly counted off beats, guessing at the metre, trying to figure out which dance this was supposed to be — she hadn't gotten great at identifying that sort of thing in their practices, though, could be anything...
Severus nudged her hand off his elbow, holding her hand in his instead. Voice in a subtle whisper, "This is a flying gary. Do you know this one?"
Liz groaned, her nose pinching. "Yes, bloody thing, why'd they have to pick an annoying one to do in heels..."
The only answer from Severus was a fluttering burst of amusement — no reason to laugh at her, Severus...
The history of formal bloody dance wasn't the sort of thing Liz was likely to know much about, but Sirius had gotten the whole ridiculous rich pureblood upbringing, he'd explained things in more detail at times than was probably necessary. Of course, he realised Liz was a huge fucking nerd, so he'd probably been doing that on purpose to distract her from how awkward the touching was, whatever. She hadn't realised this before, but it turned out how she thought of dances — like, things you do with a partner, face to face — was actually super modern. Like, literally 20th Century modern. Some folk dances and the like were more familiar looking, but in more fancy circles sequence dances, where you stood in lines or in squares or whatever the fuck and passed partners around, didn't start being replaced in earnest by closed partner dances (like the waltz) until around the latter end of the 19th Century. Which was bloody weird to think about, she tended to think of these fancy ballroom dances and shite being much older than they apparently were, but okay.
Since Secrecy had started well before that, the development of this stuff on the magical side had been slightly different. Generally, they settled on more modern-seeming partner dances somewhat earlier than the muggles had, for complicated cultural and political reasons that weren't really important. There was some cross-pollination — the bolero and the waltz had managed to ooze their way in via the more cosmopolitan upper-class society of Aquitania, and in the last few decades they'd even started seeing tango and swing-inspired stuff too — but for the most part they were completely their own thing. And some of them had extremely silly names, due to foreign words being misheard and twisted around several times, with colourful descriptors to identify different variations.
Garies were ultimately descended from, like, bloody mediaevel folk dances in Italy or some shite, she didn't know, a more formalised version becoming a big deal in fancy noble circles as they got close to Secrecy — except, that had been one of the dances where you passed partners around, normally only getting close enough to hold hands, but British mages had altered it significantly. The special thing about garies is that the steps tended to have a lot of skips and hops and shite, more energetic and complicated than many of the other ones Severus had taught her. The flying part referred to a part of the pattern where the person doing the woman's part was lifted entirely off their feet, during a rotation — classically a three-quarters turn, but it varied somewhat, depending on the skill of the people doing it.
And it was going to be a fucking pain. Liz had practised in heels, yes, but she usually ended up stumbling a little coming down...and that had been while perfectly sober. Not to mention Severus physically lifting her off the ground, that was going to be seriously bloody awkward...
The violin part cut off for a moment, leaving only the tambourine rattling away, Liz and Severus slipping into their starting positions — standing far apart, turned half away from each other, caught by their fingers laced together in the middle. Liz was temporarily distracted by her arm being at a significantly different angle than when she was practising with Sirius, because Severus was a tall bastard. The tambourine thing went silent for a beat, and then there was a flutter of pick-up notes, enough of a cue to get the first step precisely on the first beat, Liz tugged toward Severus and turning under his arm into...
Okay, Liz had really not been looking forward to the dancing part, but it wasn't that bad, really. Of course, the biggest thing she'd been worried about was keeping her head straight with a huge bloody crowd staring at her, but the drugs helped with that a lot — all warm and pressing tight around her and tingly, it was just a little bit exciting, honestly (though she couldn't articulate how or why). She'd noticed before at parties and crap that her awkward stumbling was much less if she was tipsy first, which did make sense? Like, Liz was super athletic, with duelling and quidditch and all, obviously she would be coordinated enough to dance properly, she was usually just too distracted by thoughts and feelings pounding at her or self-conscious from the eyes on her skin to manage it. Her stupid silly dancing lessons with Sirius had mostly gone well, no matter that they could be somewhat awkward at times, so.
It wasn't quite the same as in her lessons, and she didn't just mean because the drugs and the overwhelming ocean of magic were making her a bit silly. For one thing, the materials of her shoes and the floor under her feet weren't the same, the friction a little different. She had a little less traction, enough she could tell — on the first couple turns she ended up going too far, had to stumble a step to catch back up, but she adapted quickly. Also, Sirius wasn't that much taller than her, short even by pureblood standards — most of the time Liz didn't notice, since he was just such a loud, high-energy sort of person, but Sirius was bloody tiny for a grown man — but Severus had like a whole foot on him, the melodramatic bloody beanpole. That was sort of a mixed bag, really. It made some of the holds more awkward, sure, but this was one of the ones that involved the woman being passed under the man's arm, often while doing spinny shite (because of course), and that was much easier to do with someone so much taller than her. She hardly even had to duck her head at all, tall bastard. Besides that, it really wasn't so different from her practice dances with Sirius — Severus was less elaborate and showy than Sirius, but he clearly knew what he was doing, moving just as smoothly and gracefully...which was honestly kind of weird, seemed out of character somehow.
Not really a surprise, though, when she thought about it — Severus had probably been to so many of these damn fancy noble parties, dragged along by Narcissa and his other Death Eater friends...
In fact, now that Liz was actually doing something, instead of sitting at the table bored halfway out of her mind, attention wrapped around her like a warm fuzzy blanket, she found herself in an inexplicably good mood. She felt herself smiling for no apparent reason, when they got to the first lift — Severus had to stoop down a little to get a proper grip on her waist, Liz bracing herself on her shoulders and hopping into it, her feet leaving the ground (her corset spreading out the pressure from his hands, much less uncomfortable than in practice), her skirts fluttering around her legs as they turned — Liz staggered on landing, her head spinning a little. She clutched blindly at Severus's robes, breathlessly giggling, stumbled a couple steps before she found the beat again. Of course, she was still a little wobbly, the next time one of the silly skip steps came up she teetered, but Severus caught her, dipping into a turn...
"Are you all right?"
It took a moment for Liz to find a convenient break in her breath to answer. "Fine, just a little dizzy."
She didn't think Severus was concerned, exactly, just somewhat bemused — she realised she was acting out of character, all weird and giggly, but she was pretty sure cannabis just did that to her. (The feelings from the crowd pounding at her were also making her a bit giddy, so.) But there was also one of those soft warm feelings trickling out, carried over to Liz through their hands, one of those generally squishy feelings she was never entirely sure how to read. If she had to guess (which she did), he was relieved the drugs worked well enough for her to actually enjoy herself at this bloody thing, and possibly also thought she was being vaguely adorable, in a little kid girly sort of way, which, yes, she realised was out of character for her, but drugs.
On the second lift, Liz only missed a step or two on landing, that was better. There should be six more before the end of the song, and maybe by then she'd actually manage to stick a landing...but she kind of doubted it. All the magic and the drugs were making her head all spinny, not helped at all by the actual physical spinning...
Of course, Liz ended up giggling again, couldn't help it, sparking another trickle of the weird squishy feeling. No reason to laugh at me, Severus.
I didn't realise I was.
Not on the outside, making the students cry would kill the vibe. He'd made a joke about that once, ages ago, about small children crying when he laughed...or maybe that was just about smiling, she couldn't remember...
Apparently, Severus thought that stupid joke was actually funny, because he laughed out loud — Severus laughing, all smiling like he was a normal person or something, was still bloody weird.
(Oh, the outdated slang from back when he'd been a kid had taken him by surprise, that sort of made sense. Still.)
As much as she'd been worried about having to open up the dance in front of everybody and all, this wasn't that bad, and actually weirdly fun. So. She guessed she'd have to thank Susan for the drugs later. She should be around somewhere, but Liz could hardly even bloody see, and she had no idea if tracking charms would work in here...
The song ended with a last few hard beats, Liz left leaning back against Severus, her arms crossed over her chest and holding both of his hands. If the music was still going, Liz would let go of one hand and dip under his arm again, bringing them back to the beginning of the routine — which, she thought this was an awkward position to end at, but Sirius had insisted it was right. Liz could sort of make out the other pairs through the thick soup of colourful glittery whatever the fuck — though, not the Beauxbatons teams, the interference between the magic of the crowd and the veela/lilin auras making the air around them just too messy — and Victor and Ingrid had ended in a different pose, but Cedric and Chang were in the same position as Liz and Severus, so, apparently this was right.
The crowd were fucking applauding, which was silly, through the noise she heard Severus say, "I suspect we may need to endure two more songs before we may escape."
Endure, escape, so dramatic, Severus. "Okay."
After a few seconds, the music was starting up again, a somewhat slower (but equally bright and cheerful) tune led by...some kind of reed instrument, Liz didn't know music. She could feel the crowd moving, people must be on their feet, the attention around her loosening enough that she started being able to make out shapes through the colourful noise, couples gathering. "This one's a pastoral." A more general term, according to Sirius, for a category of slower, more relaxed dances — of course, they involved basically holding your partner through the whole thing, so they were kind of awkward, but they weren't hard. Severus let go of one of her hands, she took a step away, turning to face him again. He wasn't looking at her, eyes up and unfocussed, head tilted a little. A couple bars later, he added, "Ah, I think a pyrénéenne will do. If Black taught you that one."
"Your French is still terrible." An eyebrow ticking up, before he could say anything she answered, "Yes, I know that one, obviously, Sirius's lessons were annoyingly thorough."
People were streaming out onto the open part of the floor to join the dancing now, the attention on her breaking up enough she felt mostly normal again. Or, as normal as she suspected she would ever feel in here, with the magically-insulating nature of the Great Hall concentrating the shite people's minds were throwing off into a thick haze, and also a bit drugged, but enough she could bloody well see again, breathing a little easier, not quite so dizzy. Also, she could pick out sharper, pricklier eyes crawling over her now, grasping and clingy — there were at least a couple people out there taking pictures
Supposedly there was somewhere the attendees could go to have pictures taken properly, and get copies and everything, but she'd known there would be people at the Ball from, like, Witch Weekly and the Prophet or whatever. (Probably not the Herald, they didn't have an equivalent to the Prophet's pointlessly gossipy society pages.) According to Sirius, photographers at these events were much more subtle, walking inconspicuous in the crowd so as not to ruin the aesthetic, using a much less disruptive but rather finicky device that captured an image into a reservoir, a second device later used to burn the image onto photograph paper. They were far more difficult to use, requiring a lot of special equipment and potions, and it was far too easy for the image on the reservoir to be somehow ruined between capturing it and rendering it into a photo — they had to swap out the reservoir which each picture, and store each one in individual, magically-isolated pouches, it was a huge pain. It was too much work to bother most of the time, but fancy nobles didn't want loud smelly distracting cameras at their events — also, supposedly they worked a lot better in questionable lighting — so if they wanted candid shots from these sort of events, it was the only option they had.
The eyes clawing at her weren't as bad as when she was sober, but they were still uncomfortable. Liz was somewhat relieved when the dancing started up again, most of the photographers' attention sliding off of her, distracted with something else. At least one was still watching her, now and then a little hot gust blowing over her that must be a picture being taken — she hadn't realised she was sensitive enough to actually feel that, this shite was wild — but it wasn't so bad, mostly ignorable.
Liz suspected there'd be a picture of her dancing with Severus in the bloody papers in a day or two, which was fucking ridiculous, being famous was stupid.
The second dance was somewhat more awkward than the first one, since it was a bit slower, and one of those partner dances where you were face to face and halfway holding each other the whole time — and Liz was annoyingly short, which made the geometry awkward, and she was less overwhelmed due to everyone's attention not being on her anymore, making her rather more aware of exactly what she was doing. But, it was just Severus, so it was fine. Liz still wasn't great about people touching her, but at least she wasn't freaking out about it at the moment — possibly wasn't even physically capable of it at the moment, thanks to the drugs — so it wasn't really a problem, just...kind of vaguely embarrassing.
Severus was so bloody tall, it was much more obvious when she was standing right next to him, Jesus. Making her feel tiny over here.
Of course, it was even more uncomfortable when, just, doing this shite in awkward silence, so before too long Severus randomly started talking. "I assume you are already prepared to leave for Lithuania."
"Um...you mean packed? No, I, ah, probably should have done that already, but I was, you know, being depressed and useless. I don't know what I would have been doing this whole time if Nilanse weren't keeping me busy."
There was a sharp grimace in Severus's head, not showing on his face at all. "Ah, of course. I suppose that is not unexpected."
"Yeah, I guess." As much as Liz had been the one to break up with Daphne, and not the other way around, it did still suck. "I'll do it tomorrow. Should I be coming over to your house again?"
"No, I ordinarily don't go home over the holidays." Oh right, Liz knew that. They'd only gone back to his house last Christmas after things had gotten awkward at the Greenwood because Severus had wanted to keep her away from the dementors for as long as possible. Well, that hadn't been the only reason, but a big one, at least. "You may wish to return to the school the night before, so you may head to the keyport with the rest of the group."
"...Mm, no, I think I'll just stay home and meet you all there." Hogwarts was on the way from her house to the keyport in London, but it wasn't like you could floo as a group anyway. She'd need to bring all of her school things with her to Kaunas — they'd actually be getting back to Hogwarts the day after classes started up again — but her expanded trunk meant that wouldn't really be a problem.
"Very well. The portkey leaves at eight forty-five, I recommend planning to arrive at least twenty minutes early."
"Right." Spinning a step away from him in another little turn, Liz's eyes tipped up to the rotating ceiling for a second. "Ah, tell Nilanse that, please. As spinny and fuzzy as my brain is right now, I'm not sure I'll remember."
There was an odd flicker in his head, not sure how to read that, but the only thing he said was, "A reasonable precaution." There was a short pause, that topic run out — they were maybe two-thirds of the way through the song, Liz thought. Though, looking around, there were enough people out on the floor that the Champions weren't standing out anymore, they could probably 'escape' after this one already. "How is your healing study coming along?" For the Fourth Task, he meant.
Liz groaned. "Healing magic is hard, Severus. I'm good with charms, sure, but a lot of the theory and anatomy is going right over my head — those books you gave me are for post-NEWT students, you know."
"Yes, I suspected that might be a problem," he admitted, a cool sinking feeling in his head. "I have made arrangements to borrow a practice model ahead of the Task, though I may not be able to make it available to you until the last week of January. Given your particular talents, I suspect you may have better luck with practical study."
"Maybe." Also, supposedly she had that spirit magic thing, that should help. "The Task is at the beginning of February, so, hopefully a week will be enough time? At least to learn enough to not make a complete idiot of myself." Liz had kicked arse in the Second Task, and the Third Task should be easy — she'd done some of her own research quick, and dragons did have increased resistance to magic of all kinds, but were still vulnerable to mind magic if you put enough power into it — but she had no confidence at all that she'd do well in the Fourth. The one to do with performative magic that Dumbledore had hinted at was probably going to be a problem too, but she wasn't sure which one that was going to be.
There was a faint hint of amusement, but Severus didn't voice whatever he was thinking. "If you can, it may be best to leave our week off from classes open. It would be a convenient time to schedule a preliminary meeting with a blood alchemist."
"Oh!" That was coming up, but Liz hadn't realised they'd need to start making arrangements that far ahead of time. "Sure, I'll remember to do that — not like I'm ever doing anything anyway, I was probably just going to go home and take it easy for a week, safely away from my adoring fans." Severus thought that was funny too, but at least the reason why was way more obvious this time. "Is there any prep I need to do for that?"
"No. There is a certain test I expect they'll wish to do which you will need to undress for — the magics are highly sensitive, clothing of any kind is known to cause significant interference. You may wish to dress with that in mind."
Liz grimaced. "Ugh, that's going to be a pain. Will calming potions mess with it?"
His mind thoughtfully ticking, Severus was quiet for a moment, his eyes tipping up to the ceiling. "I don't believe so, but your calming potion will taint their blood tests. Unaltered cannabis should have little to no effect, however." Oh, well, that would work then, she guessed. "Do you have any preferences as to the specialist? Man or woman, young or old, human or not."
"Um...woman, I guess." She normally got through Severus doing her healing stuff without too much trouble, but she suspected that was just because it was Severus. She thought she'd be uncomfortable with some other bloke, especially if he was bigger than her — which he was pretty much guaranteed to be, so. Of course, her healer being a woman could also be a problem, for gay reasons, but that was an embarrassing problem, not a randomly panicking for no reason Liz is broken problem, easier to deal with. "Preferably someone who's not going to be stupid about the Girl Who Lived shite, but this kind of magic is illegal in Britain anyway, so. Yeah, other than that, whoever's fine."
"Very well. I should have the appointment arranged by the beginning of March. I may come to you in February with a list of suitable possibilities, if you would like to make the final selection for yourself."
"I doubt I'll give a damn, but sure, thanks."
The song ended not long after that, Liz taking a half-step back once Severus let go — if for no other reason, because standing so close to him forced her to look at up at an uncomfortable angle. After a couple seconds' pause, the music started right up again, the tempo picked up a little. Still all light and bouncy, cheerful, but with a bit of a— Liz snapped her fingers, pointing up at Severus. "Prwfenu wyrð."
His lips twitched, a bright ring from his head. "That one will do, yes."
"Ha, I got one. Those lessons weren't completely pointless."
"Given the last few minutes, I would say they achieved their purpose." Well, yes, she had made it this far without embarrassing herself, so...
Before Liz could figure out what to say next, or if they should just go ahead and 'escape' the dance floor, they were interrupted. "Your Grace, Master Severus." Liz blinked, turned to glance at Viktor. He was actually wearing colour today — the Durmstrang uniform was pretty muted, and it seemed Viktor, like Severus, tended to dress rather plainly — all red and white with subtle bits of black and gold, very dramatic. Boys didn't really do it for her at all, but she suspected the proper word would be dashing.
Oddly enough, Ingrid was also wearing trousers — it made sense that the girls' uniform defaulted to the same as the boys', since it was a little cold and windy up there for skirts, but Liz was starting to suspect Ingrid just didn't like dresses and the like at all. A blue cloth belt of some kind was wrapped around her waist, little silver bangles attached to it all the way around, pulling in the thin silky clingy cloth of her trousers to hug close around her hips. Her top (mostly white and glinting silver, with some blue edging here and there) had some strategic missing panels, loose sleeves that drooped down to her elbows but were slit to leave most of her shoulders uncovered, reaching up behind her neck a lot like Liz's gown, she was pretty sure a good chunk of her back should be showing. Her super-long hair pinned up in multiple complicated plaits, more little silver charms and hairpins stuck in here and there and everywhere, glinting and audibly tinkling, glittery silvery eye shadow and lips tinted subtly blue, it was...
Well, Ingrid had always struck Liz as rather plain, especially right next to Fleur and Artèmi, but she was actually kind of distracting at the moment...
In fact, Liz was distracted enough staring and/or trying not to stare at Ingrid that she missed most of the first part of the exchange, checked in in time to catch that Viktor was (very politely and formally) asking for Liz's next dance. Of course, he was actually asking Severus, not directly speaking to Liz, but since he was technically her guardian and everything Liz realised that was the proper thing to do (in super polite and formal circles). Severus glanced at Liz, silently asking her opinion. After a second of thought, she just shrugged — she hadn't talked to Viktor much so far, but he seemed fine, she guessed.
Ingrid was very taken aback and slightly intimidated when she ended up dancing with Severus instead, which was honestly rather funny, Liz failed to hold in a giggle.
"I realise I am not much of a dancer, Your Grace" Viktor drawled, in smooth, faintly-accented French, "but it is not that funny."
He was fine, actually. They were only a few bars in, and he was rather more stiff than Severus, but at least his feet were going in the right places and on the beat — much better than Liz had done at her first few practices, honestly. "I realise we're at an absurdly fancy party for noble prats, but you can skip all the your grace shite." That was technically what you were supposed to call Lords/Ladies of the Wizengamot when being all proper, but it always sounded terribly silly to her.
His face mostly stayed harsh and solemn, but she could feel the amusement ringing in his head. "Alright. I always found all the titles so confusing, anyway — once I was nearly challenged to a duel because I called a Venetian guest master instead of your excellency."
Liz rolled her eyes. "Of course it was Venice, that bloody place. Anyway, no, I wasn't laughing at you, Ingrid's reaction to Severus asking her to dance was funny. Honestly, he's not that scary."
"Yes, that." They got to a turn, but Liz started moving one way and Viktor the other — oops, they must do this part the other way around back in Bulgaria. Viktor muttered an apology, they stumbled a bit before catching back up with everyone else. "We were warned about Snape before we left for Britain back in October. Our Headmaster remembers him from his time in Britain, you see."
That was a hell of a way to refer to that time he (supposedly) went undercover in a foreign terrorist organisation, but okay then. "Yeah, I'm not surprised — Severus warned me about your headmaster as well." Sirius had too, but he'd included way more insults. "Though, he actually believes the story about being a spy for the Danish government, most people here don't." And Severus would know, wouldn't he, having been in the group at the same time himself.
"If he weren't telling the truth, why do people think his government acted to get him out of that miserable hellish pit you call a prison?"
Liz shrugged. Of course, he might have been a spy, but that didn't mean he was completely innocent — Severus said Karkaroff had the Dark Mark, and everyone who did had done at least one murder. There was a whole initiation thing, very grisly. Which, Severus must also have done it, obviously, but Liz was well aware that he'd murdered more than just that one person...though, whoever he'd murdered to get the Mark was probably the only one who hadn't had it coming. Whatever. "I'm pretty sure I don't call Azkaban a prison, but okay."
"What do you call it, then?"
"A horrifying abomination that should be obliterated from the face of the earth?"
Viktor snorted, amused despite himself. "If the communalists have their way, that's exactly what they'll do."
"Good fucking luck to them, then — while yet one of us stands willing, and all that."
"Mm." A few bars of the song passed without a word, Viktor a little taken aback. She had just openly quoted Henri of Troyes, one of the major French communalists — in public, in Britain, the country that'd been largely responsible for the fall of Revolutionary France and Henri's death specifically, while surrounded by a bunch of noble types who definitely hated his guts. Also, her direct quote, from eyewitness accounts of his (in)famous last stand against invading British/Dutch forces at Le Mans, included the first-person plural pronoun, so. While he was processing that, they got to the same turn that'd tripped them up before, but they both had it the right way around this time. "There was something I wanted to tell you, tonight."
"You mean, asking me to dance was a ruse all along? I am shocked and offended."
He just let out a huff, eyes tipping toward the ceiling for a second. "Dragons."
Liz blinked. "Huh?"
"The next Task. It seems I have a fan in the right office in Bern," Viktor drawled, an awkward shiver in his head, "I was sent a letter with the information, and sharing it is only fair." He didn't say out loud that he was slightly mortified that his ridiculous quidditch fans were helping him cheat, so was sharing the information for that reason — he would be fine with taking an advantage on the other Champions, but not like that. "They are arranging to move four nesting females to Britain, in time for the Third Task next month. I guess the other two are to be the species you have here, I forget what they're called."
"Welsh Green and Hebridean Black," she said, in English — she actually wasn't sure what the Hebrides were called in French.
Viktor nodded. "That they want nesting females is...odd. I think they expect us to steal something hidden with their eggs — and that doesn't sound like a smart thing to do. Maybe whoever entered you does want you dead."
"I'll be fine, dragons are vulnerable to mind magic." Obviously Viktor hadn't thought of that, stiffening for a moment before bursting into a string of incomprehensible cursing (Bulgarian, probably) — Liz couldn't help smirking at him a little. "Well, as long as we're being fair about this, the Fourth Task is healing."
"Healing?"
"That's what I'm told. There are these models healing students use, made with alchemy, to simulate different injuries and diseases and stuff. We're all going to get one, and we have to heal them of whatever is wrong with them."
"Mm," Viktor grunted, his heavy brow dipping, making the lines of his face even harsher. "This one is going to be difficult."
"Yeah, for me too. I'm much better at hexing the shite out of people than fixing them after."
Viktor smirked, an odd shimmering shiver in his head. Of course, he didn't want to benefit off of his crazy quidditch fans, he'd been planning on telling all the Champions no matter what, so he felt he owed her another hint now. "The...Sixth Task, in April, is a quidditch tournament. Each Champion will have a team, who will play each of the other five teams, including the one from their own school. The final will be selected by advantage."
"By advantage, shite." He meant, each team would get a running score based on how much they lead by, the two highest scores getting into the final. So, they didn't just have to win, but they had to win by more than four of the other five teams. If you were going to have so few teams playing, she guessed that's the only way you could do it — the little tournament at Hogwarts worked by wins/losses, and then raw points in the unlikely event of an inconvenient tie, but advantage would probably make more sense — but fuck, that was going to be awkward to plan around. Especially since she was going to be competing for team members with Cedric, ugh. "Well, I'm a seeker, so I guess I get to look forward to getting my arse kicked when we play you. Is this one of the Tasks that Durmstrang planned?" Supposedly each school had planned three of the nine Tasks, and they knew they had Viktor bloody Krum at their school, so it seemed a good guess.
"It might have been," he admitted. "I hear you're quite good, maybe you'll get lucky."
"No way am I getting that lucky, and you know it."
He chuckled, because of course — he was literally a professional-level player, he'd caught the snitch at the actual World Cup, matching him up against ordinary school children simply wasn't fair.
Not too much longer after that, the song was over. Viktor finished up with a proper formal bow, complete with a 'kiss' of Liz's hand — his lips didn't actually physically touch the back of her glove, but close enough to make the gesture obvious (which she knew from Sirius was technically appropriate) — which was very silly and kind of unexpected? Though, when she thought about it, it really shouldn't be. Liz primarily thought of Viktor as the big famous quidditch player and all, but the Krums were one of the more wealthy and politically important old magical noble families in Bulgaria. They even claimed to be rightful royalty of the country — hence the name, changed to honour the famous Bulghar Emperor (who they claimed as an ancestor) back during a nationalist revival shortly after Secrecy, but nobody really took that seriously. Most of the nobility in Bulgaria had been devastated in the Revolution, the Krums one of the few families left intact. Of course, they didn't rule the country or anything like that — Bulgaria was basically a military dictatorship, had been ever since the end of the war — but they were definitely influential and stupid rich. (Maybe not Malfoy rich but, like, Black rich.) Which went some way to explaining why Viktor had been at Durmstrang well before he became a quidditch star, with how selective and expensive the school was. As stiff and wallflower-y as he seemed most of the time, he must have been taught all the proper formal noble stuff growing up.
He needn't have bothered, Liz thought this shite was terribly silly, but whatever.