Chapter Text
Hazel charged through the lobby of the apartment building, tearing up the stairs to the right level, feet thudding loudly until she reached the front door to Cosmo and Wanda’s unit. Her own parents weren’t home right now- which was perfect because it meant she got to speak to Peri right away!
The fairy couple poofed from their fidget toys into their human disguises, if only to be cautious of somebody else possibly appearing in the hallway. Hazel threw the door open the instant it got unlocked, Wanda barely stopping it from slamming into the wall. The girl normally wouldn’t be so reckless but she was too excited!
Peri flinched and looked up at their entrance from his spot on the couch. He had his copy of Da Rulez in one hand and an open tub of chocolate ice cream on the table, evidently stress-eating. The purple fairy also appeared exhausted, but that hadn’t changed since Monday.
He blinked slowly with dull eyes. “I still haven’t found anything. What should we- ACK!”
Hazel cut him off with a flying tackle, knocking the fairy to the floor. “Peri!! Ohmigosh I have so much to tell you! Dev was at school today and I actually talked to him and he was- AHHH I don’t even know where to start, I’m so happy!”
She violently shook Peri by the shoulders, causing his purple eyes to roll around dizzily. With a clumsy motion, he managed to push her away. Hazel got back on her feet, completely unable to keep still and so she just bounced up and down until Peri collected himself. Once he’d gotten up, he focused on her, a light slowly creeping back into his eyes. “Did… Did you just say he was at school?!”
“YES!!” Hazel squealed, spinning gleefully in a circle. “Oh you wouldn’t even believe it! Dev actually asked Winn and Jas if I’d gotten to school yet and was waiting at his locker and when I went over, he initiated a talk before I even could and he actually apologized to me for us fighting and said he wanted to still be friends if I also wanted to! I was totally shocked, I barely knew what to say- Oh my goodness! Peri- Dev has curly hair, I was so surprised to see him without gel-”
“HE HAD HIS CURLS OUT?!” Peri blurted out, staring at her. Hazel paused, staring back before pointing a finger at him in accusatory fashion. “YOU KNEW?!”
The fairy sputtered and blinked rapidly. “Well- yes! But look, the kid swore me to secrecy right away, with a wish, he seriously didn’t want anybody knowing! I- I don’t understand, the way Dev talked about it, it sounded like Dale would’ve been furious if he was ever seen in public with his curls out. Believe me, I did try a few times to get him to show them off but he completely stone-walled that idea. How in the heck…”
Hazel sighed, rocking on her heels. “Well, Dev did say he developed an allergy to the hair gel and his dad really didn’t want him to go out so he was actually missing school because they were trying to find a replacement he didn’t react to.”
Peri rubbed at his temples. “You’re joking- for real? I’ve been terrified for Dev’s safety because of a hair gel problem. UGH that is exactly the sort of vain thing that Dale Dimmadome would freak out about, oh my god…”
The girl chuckled, feeling a slight heat on her face as that moment of Dev winking at her flickered through her head. “Dev also thought it was silly but it took him until today to talk his dad into letting him go to school. That’s what he said at least. Um, he was up to some other stuff too though.”
Peri finally settled back on the couch, motioning for Hazel to join. “Hang on, before that- You said he apologized, right? For what- How much does he seem to remember?”
Hazel furrowed her brow. Right, figuring that out was supposed to be her initial goal. But she’d also been expecting the friendship portion of the plan to take much longer. Instead it had happened immediately, put in motion by Dev more than her, and Hazel had been so excited about it that she hadn’t exactly probed for information on the memory side.
“Uh, well… He apologized for his behaviour at his birthday party and took full responsibility for it. And also for ‘being awful to me’ since then. But he didn’t list anything super specific, just that he was being dumb and immature. And then he asked if I’d give him another chance to be my friend and I said yes. Pretty sure he planned and wrote out the whole apology, he was so serious about it.”
A tiny sniffle came from Peri, the poor guy’s eyes were definitely a touch watery. “Wow… I know I had nothing to do with it but… I feel so proud of him. Oh I’m so glad, I was worried that the memory spell had made him ill or something but it seems like he’s doing okay.”
Hazel nodded. “Mhm. So… we know Dev doesn’t just have a blank space in his memories then. Does that mean they got altered, not just taken away?”
Peri tapped his fingers against the cover of Da Rulez. “Seems that way. Da Rulez doesn’t have details about the procedure of taking memories from godchildren. I imagine that’s on purpose, maybe specifically so former godparents don’t try to interfere with that process. All it really says is-” He flipped the thick book open to the right section. “The godchild’s memories will be purged of magic.”
She leaned over, reading the sentence again for herself. “That’s it? There’s no footnotes or section to go to for more detail?”
“That’s it.” Peri confirmed, shutting the tome and poofing it away.
Hazel tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Well… I guess we kind of know what that actually means now- Only purged ‘of magic,’ not memories taken outright. Granted, we don’t know the exact way Dev remembers things but he clearly remembers the gist of some stuff. I’ll just have to do more to see if I can get more detail.”
Wanda leaned down in between them. “Sure, squirt, but remember you need to be careful. Dev might get suspicious if you push too much or get too specific. You and your other friends all have to keep fairies secret from him. Even with the hope being to eventually get him reassigned back to Peri, he can’t know until Jorgen approves of it.”
Hazel chewed anxiously on her lip, letting her feet swing from the couch. “No, I know, I know that. I promise I won’t do anything risky, we’ll be super careful. Besides, if I just focus on being Dev’s friend, he’ll probably open up to me on his own anyway. He sat with all of us at lunch today, that seemed to go well. We might go over to his house after school tomorrow, if his dad agrees to it.”
Peri gasped, eyes shining again. “Wait, actually?! He already invited you over?” Hazel grinned happily. “Yeah! He said something about ‘some new things happening’ at his house and wanted to show us. No clue what that means but he seemed excited.”
The purple fairy swayed in his seat. “Oh that’s good. That’s very very good…” Hazel squinted at him. He was slurring his words a bit… Cosmo gently grabbed Peri’s shoulders before his son could topple face-first off the couch and into the table.
Wanda sighed softly, giving Hazel a sideways look. “I don’t think Peri’s had a proper sleep ever since Dev didn’t show up at school. I’m glad he finally did. Obviously because now we know he’s okay but also for…”
“For Peri’s sake, yeah.” Hazel finished, watching as Cosmo carefully gathered up Peri and fluttered away deeper into the massive apartment. “He did seem pretty exhausted.”
“It’s perfectly normal to be worried about your godkid,” Wanda said, floating over to the window to gaze out at Fairy World. “All of us were beside ourselves when you two stole Peri’s wand and ran off. But at least you were together, able to look out for each other. Cosmo and I wouldn’t rest either if you went missing. Right now though… Peri’s been thinking of Dev as being completely alone. It’s very hard on him.”
Hazel scampered over, pulling herself up onto the window seat. “I get that, I wasn’t sleeping great either, but I know it was worse for Peri. At least he’s resting now. And he doesn’t have to worry about Dev being alone anymore too! Dev really seems to want to still be friends and I’m so glad that’s the case… His memories might be a little mixed-up but I can tell he’s trying. He must still remember that we had good times together, otherwise he wouldn’t have apologized like that, right?”
“One can hope, Hazel. It’ll be hard to know exactly what’s in his head unless he talks about it.” Wanda sat down with her, fondly patting her head. “Promise me that you won’t put too much pressure on yourself, squirt, okay? I know you care about Dev but the fairy side of things is for us to handle and it’s going to take time. Like you said, focus on being friends, being a kid. Getting his old memories back would be great but making new good memories is going to be important too.”
Hazel stared at the floor for a moment before nodding. Despite the success of today, she was still awfully worried about Dev but also knew the pink fairy had a point. She did have a tendency to put too much pressure on herself and she would need to remember to temper her expectations of the situation.
This wasn’t going to happen fast. What Dev had done was very serious, it had affected the entirety of Fairy World, not just Peri. That was the thing that would make this an especially tough sell to Jorgen Von Strangle.
And for Hazel, she needed to accept that she couldn’t do anything herself to sway his opinion- not unless she was called on to defend Dev’s character or something like that. Ultimately, it was all on Peri to earn back his godparent status with Dev. Hazel, Cosmo, and Wanda could only support him.
“I promise, I’ll be mindful of myself. Winn and Jas want to properly befriend Dev too, they’d only just gotten started before the birthday disaster. That’ll be good for him, I think, he needs more people who care about him.”
Wanda smiled approvingly. “That’s very good, Hazel. You can’t expect to be somebody’s entire support system after all.” Hazel gave a wry smile. “Have you been reading my mom’s books?”
They both laughed, stopping sharply as they caught the sound of the apartment door across the hall opening and closing. Hazel sprang from the seat, waving for Wanda to follow. “Oh, that should be my mom! I have to ask her if it’s okay for me to go to Dev’s tomorrow. It should be fine, I don’t think we have any plans.”
Wanda turned into her human disguise, taking a pause right before the door. “Remind me- does she know about you and Dev having a falling out? She might feel a bit uncertain about you being around him if she does.”
Hazel gave her a sheepish look. “Actually I never really mentioned it- mostly because it involved magic so much, I didn’t want to try to remember a whole separate made-up version of it. But that’s good, since my parents shouldn’t think it’s strange that I’ve been invited to Dev’s house. Umm… Well, obviously Antony knows, and I did fill him in on some of the stuff that happened between me and Dev leading up to the battle too. Eh, that’s okay though, he’s not going to say anything to Mom and Dad- plus Dev did apologize and ask to stay friends, so there shouldn’t be any problems!”
Wanda’s expression seemed a touch uncertain to Hazel, but the girl was too pleased by the day’s events to let it bother her very much. Exiting the magical apartment with her, Hazel quickly knocked on her own door, only having to wait a moment for it to open.
“Hi pumpkin! Sorry I wasn’t here when you got home, the grocery store was a bit busy. Ah, Wanda, thank you for letting her wait with you.” The disguised fairy smiled politely at Ms. Wells. “Oh, not a problem at all, Angela. Always happy to have Hazel over.”
Angela smiled back. “Well, thank you regardless, I really appreciate it.” Hazel waved goodbye to Wanda, eagerly following her mother into their home. “So how was school today, Hazel? You seem to have a lot of energy, did anything exciting happen?”
Hazel giggled, noting that she was bouncing on her heels again. Wow, obvious much? Gah, who cares- it’s okay to be hopeful, isn’t it? “Kind of, yeah! Um, you know my friend, Dev, right?”
Her mother nodded with recognition, “Well, of course, sweetie, he’s the Dimmadome boy. How is he doing?” Hazel tapped her fingers together, picturing Dev’s soft-looking curls again. She should mention that too, she did tell him that he could come to her for advice about them.
“He’s good! Actually, you see- he invited me, Winn, and Jasmine to hang out after school tomorrow. Can I go, if his dad agrees?”
“How nice, all four of you spending time together! Of course you can go, Hazel.”