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Chapter Text

Freak Show

The rush of cool air that billowed across her face made Dominique gasp as she crossed the threshold through the brick wall at King’s Cross Station onto Platform 9 ¾, pushing the trolley with her belongings on it.

IF YOU CAN SEE THIS TEXT, THEN EITHER YOU HAVE WORK SKINS TURNED OFF, OR THIS WORK HAS BEEN STOLEN AND POSTED ON AN ALTERNATE PLATFORM WITHOUT ITS ORIGINAL AUTHOR'S PERMISSION. If this has messed with a screen reader, my apologies. The London platform for the Hogwarts and Hogsmeade Express train was unchanged to how Dominique remembered it that sunny autumnal day on the sixth of September, 2026. After all, her Aunt Hermione’s policy to add another London station, one further south in Diagon Alley, wasn’t to begin construction for another few years, not until 2031. And so, the start of the line as it always did bore one of the two great ancient green steam engines and its many carriages waiting to carry them north to Hogwarts, though Dominique frowned slightly. The train was a little different somehow.

Oh! Of course! One of her Aunt’s other policies had been to ensure the wizarding locomotives got pulled for the maintenance they so desperately needed. It wasn’t the train that normally ran the Hogwarts Express, the Hogwarts Castle, no. This was the other one - Hogsmeade Hall. Hogwarts Castle had been taken off the line for a few years, so Hogsmeade Hall was taking both directions on a halved-capacity schedule.

Such details popped into one’s mind when you’d spent a dinner after returning from France for the holidays listening to one’s Aunt rambling about the trains. And when one’s Papa, who had learnt it from his own Papa who was somewhat obsessed with such things, was eagerly relaying them to your little ten-year-old brother, Louis, who had been brought to King’s Cross as they’d driven for two reasons - one, so he wasn’t home alone that morning, and two, so he knew what to expect when he’d be going to Hogwarts the next year.

Platform 9 ¾ was packed with people as Dominique, beaming, hopped into the space a bit to make way ahead of her big sister Victoire and her Maman¹ and Papa and excitement pierced her tiredness. She had gotten up at about half past two in the morning in Tinworth Cove, just south of Exeter, to make time for the drive to London and been forbidden from napping on the way lest she lose her humanoid appearance in favour of her natural avian form, there was a limit to how much energy she had. But regardless of that, Dominique grinned as she saw not only a plethora of students and their families whom she didn’t know, but also several she did, waiting in line to drop off their bags and suitcases and trunks with the porters of the luggage cart. And it was that line they joined.

“Hey Bonnie!” Dominique chirped eagerly as she hurried over, beating someone to the queue as Victoire, her Maman¹ and Papa, and Louis, caught up.

“Dom!” Bonnie exclaimed, jumping out of the line where her parents - nonmagical people, Dominique knew - were standing to hurry over and hug Dominique. Bonnie Wood, of course, was Dominique’s Muggleborn black-haired blue-eyed Londoner dormmate in Hufflepuff, with a shining curiosity and interest in magic. “Hey! How are you, how was France?” she asked eagerly.

“Great, it was great!” Dominique replied gladly, hugging Bonnie back before they parted. “I’ve got photos look!” she chirruped, getting her phone out of her pocket.

“Nice! Did you get sunburnt?” Bonnie asked, pointing at Dominique’s still-a-bit-pink nose. “Can Veela get sunburnt?” she added, making Dominique squawk in laughter.

“We’ve still got skin under all the feathers! And the only place I could have my feathers was in the Vosges,” Dominique chuckled, and Bonnie nodded as if she’d only thought about it after she’d asked. Veela were a limited kind of shapeshifter. Glancing back, Dominique smiled as Victoire told Louis all about the things she’d be learning that year, and how their parents were promising Louis that they’d teach him plenty of the stuff he’d need to know before he came with them next year. Dominique swiped past the photos of her and her family up the Eiffel Tower - sure, they were good photos, but she was pretty sure everybody did the Eiffel Tower, it was a bit cliché. Instead, she went for the pretty photos taken at the picturesque home of her grandparents in Louviers. A wooden latticework was laced with ivy, and before it stood her family; her ginger-haired father, brown-feathered Veela mother, and of course her and her siblings in their avian forms - Victoire had the greatest percentage of brown and ginger feathers of the three of them, Louis was still solidly white in his juvenile plumage, and Dominique was somewhere in the middle. “That’s my grand-mère² and grand-père!³ Grand-mère² helped me make my wand last year!” she said excitedly, pointing to the older Veela, whose plumage was adorned in mottled grey and brown and whose eyes were as blood-red as those of her Maman.¹

“Really?” Bonnie asked. “Professor Granger just took me and my parents to Ollivander’s,” she said. Dominique nodded.

“Yeah! She’s got this really old lathe, she loves doing DIY stuff,” Dominique agreed, smiling. “They made Louis his wand too while we were there! It’s got one of his feathers in it, like mine… does…” she said, trailing off as she felt the person approaching her Papa before she heard or saw them, and her face fell as she turned around. Her mother’s blood red eyes widened as she too felt them, and Victoire frowned as she saw them doing it and looked around to see the man approaching her father.

“Bill. It’s good to see you, you’re looking well,” said one Percival Ignatius Weasley, standing near to them with his blonde-haired wife Audrey. Nowhere to be seen by Dominique was their daughter, Molly - named for their mutual paternal grandmother - who had probably already boarded the train at a guess. Dominique swallowed as she looked upon her officious Uncle Percy, not that she’d ever thought of him with the fondness of her other Aunts and Uncles. There was good reason why most of her family did not speak to him, reason that was quite personal to Dominique as she glared at the man. He had similar features to her Papa, though his hair was a little wavier and he most certainly lacked the scars as well as any of Bill’s more rebellious streaks. He was tidily dressed, though not so formally he was wearing a full suit or anything, but he was clearly a man who took care to look respectable in his ironed shirt and patterned waistcoat. But the look Dominique’s Papa visited upon him as he turned and realised who was speaking was anything but respectful. Nor was the furious look on Fleur’s face.

“Last time I checked Percival, we weren’t on speaking terms,” Bill spat, glaring at Percival. “So unless you’ve come to apologise, just walk away would you?” he grumbled, shaking his head as he turned away from Percy.

“Who’s that?” Bonnie asked Dominique quietly.

“Our Uncle Percy,” Dominique replied, an angry tension in her voice.

“Doesn’t sound like you get along with him,” Bonnie noted wryly.

“We don’t,” she agreed as Percival made a dismissive sort of noise.

“Fine, if it matters so much to you,” Percival said to Bill as if it was some great imposition. “But you don’t have to make such a scene about it,” he grumbled, only for Bill to whirl around with an almost murderous look in his incredulous eyes.

“Make a scene over it?!” Bill snapped angrily, facing his younger brother fully as Victoire looked between their parents and quickly put an arm around her and Dominique’s white-haired younger brother. Louis had only been a little chick when the debacle had continued and been made personal for them specifically, but he hadn’t been so little that he hadn’t understood it completely. It had made him cry. Suffice it to say, Percival was Louis’ least favourite uncle. “You said that my children shouldn’t exist, I think that warrants a bloody scene, Percival,” Bill snarled. He might not have inherited lycanthropy from the scars across his face he’d gotten from Fenrir Greyback in the war, but they added a ferocity to his anger that only their Uncle Ron - who was a werewolf and who’d almost killed Greyback in retaliation with his bare hands - could beat. Bonnie’s eyes veritably bulged out of her head.

“He said what?!” Bonnie hissed. “Did he actually-”

“Yes,” Dominique whispered angrily. Her own breath was heavy with fury, particularly at how casually Percy dismissed it. She still remembered a little Louis tearfully asking if Percy was right, if he shouldn’t have been born.

“You said Lavender shouldn’t have had children, you called Ron a monster to his face and implied Persephone shouldn’t have been born at the same time you said it about mine. So if you can’t grow up and apologise for it properly, that’s hardly my fault,” Bill snapped.

There was at least one thing Percival was right on - it was making a bit of a scene, people elsewhere in the queue were whispering to each other about the little kerfuffle. And it was a scene that Vanya Stryde, a dark-skinned vampire girl who only looked eight years old and was in fact twelve was walking in on as she arrived with her own trolley adorned in a trunk and a bag on her back. On top of her trunk was a cat bed that sat beside a blue cat carrier, with her big jet black fluffy cat familiar named Puss within it. Beside her was her foster sister, Sophie Marshal, who wasn’t nearly as enthusiastic to be going back to Hogwarts as Vanya was, and behind them both were Sophie’s parents and Vanya’s fosters. The foster family hailed from Tinworth Cove, just as Dominique’s family did, though Vanya herself originally came from Leicester further north in the Midlands. They weren’t bad fosters, but nor was Sophie a particularly good witch, so it seemed almost tradition that Sophie got told before returning to Hogwarts that she had to do better. She’d failed her Charms exam last term, and that year Sophie would be taking her rather more important O.W.L. exams, so the ‘you need to do better’ talk given in the car on the long and awkward drive to London had been pretty stern.

It didn’t really help that Vanya was a good witch, it made her feel pretty guilty to constantly be the one Sophie got compared to when she wasn’t even Sophie’s real sister.

“What’s going on?” Vanya asked Dominique softly, looking over to where Dominique’s father was having a very public argument with someone who looked related to him - they both had the same blazing red hair, after all, and looked about the same age. Dominique sighed, having already known Vanya was approaching in her Veela-inherited sense for the minds around her. She couldn’t hear Vanya’s thoughts, but she could feel Vanya’s presence like a bug in a spider web.

“Good morning Vanya, I hope you slept well. Has Dominique ever told you about her Uncle Percival?” Fleur, Dominique’s Veela mother with brown hair, blood-red eyes, and a French accent asked her quietly. Vanya had met her several times now, having stayed over at the Weasleys’ place a few times over the holidays, and she quite liked Dominique’s mother - she had a frank kind of approach to things that Vanya appreciated. Vanya’s eyebrows raised - Dominique had, actually, told her about that Uncle during a meeting of Hogwarts’ Nonhuman Club, of which they were both members.

“Oh no,” Vanya groaned. As she recalled, Percival had said that having werewolf or hybrid children was wrong. And Dominique and her siblings were about as hybrid as it got between Veela and human.

“He is as… intractable as always,” Fleur said wryly. “An anomaly among my brothers-in-law, really,” she added with a sigh.

“Just apologise, Percy,” Audrey, Percy’s wife who looked a bit perturbed at the attention they were getting as Mr. and Mrs. Marshal joined the queue a bit away with Sophie, watching, said.

“Fine, fine,” Percy conceded. “I’m sorry,” he told Bill curtly. Bill just raised his eyebrows at him expectantly.

“Go on,” Bill said pointedly, making Percy frown.

“What?” the man spluttered.

“You think that’s all it takes?” Bill spat, his eyes tensing. “I expect you to be fully fucking contrite before I can forgive you for that, brother. Fleur miscarried four times before we had Victoire, and you can’t even find it in yourself to apologise properly for saying we shouldn’t even have been trying?!” he exclaimed incredulously, before he stepped back and just shook his head. “Get out of my sight,” he said, his voice paradoxically soft for the level of anger running through it. Percival made a face like Bill was being somehow unreasonable as he waved a hand at them and walked off, muttering to himself. Bill exhaled darkly and turned back to his family. “Sorry about that. One of these days I’m going to end up punching that smarmy P.R. smile off his face. Prat thinks he can just pretend nothing ever happened because we’re family and we should get over it,” he grumbled.

“He is wrong,” Fleur agreed, patting his arm. “But come, it does not do to be thinking about that today,” she said warmly, smiling to Dominique and Victoire. “I hope you both have a wonderful time at school this year, mes chéris, »⁴ she told them, pulling them both into a hug.

“And good luck trying out for the Quidditch team, Dommie,” Bill added brightly, rubbing Dominique’s arm as he nodded at the long wooden Gaillard broomstick case sitting atop her trunk on her trolley. “You’re going to do brilliantly,” he urged her, as Dominique nodded gratefully, beaming at her Papa.

“Oh yeah, you were gonna do that weren’t you?” Vanya asked rhetorically. “Good luck!” she agreed. Given that vampires’ ectothermic metabolisms weren’t really built for sustained sport, more for little bursts, she hadn’t taken part in the many games of Quidditch the Weasley kids had played when she’d visited the whimsical wizard’s tower and associated farmhouse that was their grandparents’ home, the Burrow, but now she thought of it Dominique had been very eager to play. Dominique, meanwhile, grinning with excitement at the prospect of joining the team, looked up suddenly as she felt werewolves on her periphery, and indeed she looked over to the entranceway to see three of them - Lavender Brown, and her twin sons Cedar and Rowan.

Lavender herself, whom Dominique thought of as an Aunt far more than she thought of Percival as her Uncle simply because of the way her family had almost adopted her as such, would have looked like a fairly pretty but unremarkable comfortably-dressed middle-aged woman had it not been for the enormous mottled gash of a scar across her neck and jaw on one side, not entirely unlike Vanya’s scar that she was even then hiding with a scarf. Aunt Lavender hadn’t been hiding it like that in a long time, and Dominique didn’t think it marred her appearance one bit - it turned her prettiness into a raw, battle-scarred, survivor’s beauty. Her sandy blonde hair was braided comfortably about her face, and it was a melancholy sort of smile that was frame on her face by said braids as she walked with her sons onto Platform 9 ¾. She was a werewolf, and werewolves were always reluctant to be parted from their pack.

Her teenage sons were Cedar and Rowan Brown, tall fifteen-year-old boys with the selfsame brown hair and blue eyes and similar glasses, though they differentiated themselves by their hairstyles and specifics of their glasses; not that Dominique couldn’t already feel the difference and tell them apart in her mind sense, but Rowan had longer hair in a messy sort of style while Cedar kept his short, and their glasses had different-coloured rims - Cedar’s blue and Rowan’s red. And Dominique waved eagerly at them as she spotted them, a gesture that was returned the instant the three saw her.

“Lavender! I was beginning to think you might have been late,” Fleur said brightly as Lavender came over with Cedar and Rowan, politely kissing Lavender’s cheeks in that French way.

“I wish, then I could keep these two at home for another few hours and Apparate them to Hogsmeade after an early dinner,” Lavender lamented, haplessly smiling at her sons even as she briefly fist-bumped Bill. Rowan, laughing, scoffed.

“Mum, I have to be on the train, I’m supposed to be a role model remember?” Rowan chuckled.

“Oh I know!” Lavender cried, pulling him into a hug and making him put his trunk down. Any other teenage boys, Dominique suspected, might have been embarrassed by their mother being so outwardly overbearing, but it seemed to suit the Browns and their lycanthropic pack instinct just fine as Rowan returned the hug, rubbing his Mum’s back and nuzzling his cheek into hers. “That’s my boy, my darling Prefect,” she crooned.

“Prefect?!” Dominique squawked incredulously. Vanya nodded, just as surprised as Dominique as she frowned curiously at Rowan.

“Did he not tell you?!” Lavender cried.

“Oh sorry, I must have forgotten with the full moon last week. Meant to put it in the group chat,” Rowan apologised, rummaging in his jean pocket. “I made Prefect!” Rowan told them proudly, holding up the little blue and brass P badge that was no doubt to be pinned to his uniform later.

“Brilliant!” Vanya congratulated him. He well deserved it, Rowan was a thoughtful young man. “You get it too for Gryffindor Cedar?” she asked his twin, who shook his head.

“Nah. Rowan transforms first, now he’s a Prefect, he’s Mum’s favourite I bet- mmph!” Cedar quipped before his mother instantly grabbed him in another hug. “Mum I was joking!” he protested.

“I know you were but I don’t ever want you to think that!” Lavender insisted, holding him close. “I love you both equally, and I’m going to miss you both equally when you’re gone but I’m so proud of both of you, okay?” she implored of him, holding his face in her hands.

“I know, Mum,” Cedar assured her, smiling at her.

“You were born first, it evens out,” Rowan added smartly. “I was an extra forty-two minutes of work for her,” he chuckled.

“Oh shush you!” Lavender laughed, ruffling Rowan’s hair. With that, she sighed. “Well, we’d better give them your stuff so you can get on and get some good seats. You know how much I’m going to miss you two again this year, the holidays are never long enough,” she lamented, and with that that was exactly what they did. It wasn’t as if it was some great ceremony, and they’d been preparing to go emotionally and logistically for the better part of the week, so the sentiment had already been said. And so, after final hugs had been given all round and Vanya had even gotten some hugs and well-wishes from the Marshals, the lot of them boarded the train.

As they went, Dominique did look back in surprise for a moment though, as she felt a familiar mind on the edges of her sense clap up Occlumentic defence measures as that person felt her influence and shut her out, turning her presence into a smooth sort of cloudy marble - her Aunt Ariadne Granger, blind with curly black hair and white eyes as cloudy as Dominique’s perception of her mind, and Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts teaching Transfiguration. Whatever was she doing there? She’d always dropped off her daughter Delphini at Milton Keynes station, since Delphini lived closer to there with her adoptive co-parenting mother, but both Delphini and her adoptive brother had finished at Hogwarts the year before. As it happened, Dominique realised why Ariadne was there quite quickly, recognising the people she was walking with from a Christmas gathering at the Granger Estate the previous year - the Twendeles, family to Ariadne’s nonmagical long-lost cousin Dudley and who were no doubt dropping off their witch daughter Sarah that day. Indeed, the blonde-haired round-faced girl was gaping incredulously at the platform as they wandered in, her wonderment mirrored in her parents and little brother Connor as Dominique smiled at the sight of them and headed aboard the train.

And as it did every first Sunday of September, the Hogwarts Express departed King’s Cross Station at seven o’clock in the morning loaded with the youth of the wizarding south of England, bound northward toward Scotland and its eventual destination; Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

--

Chapter Text

Much further north, and not having had to get up at such an indecent hour of the morning - though it was in her nature to get up as soon as light began kissing the horizon anyway - Lady Persephone Guinevere Granger-Weasley, the Trueborn werewolf daughter of the recently elected Minister for Magic Hermione Granger-Weasley and her werewolf husband Ronald Granger-Weasley, the heiress to the First House of Granger, was entirely contradicting the grandiose and formal sounding nature of her existence by being, as her mother called it, a grubby puppy scarfing down a sausage roll with a ravenous efficacy second only to a snake with an unhinged jaw and getting pastry all down her front.

If one were given a description of who Persephone Granger-Weasley was to the wizarding world, one might have expected some kind of polite little English Received-Pronunciation socialite, the kind of girl who played golf and looked pretty for the cameras whenever her mother needed her to. And to a point, she did know how to clean up nicely and be the pretty young lady for the cameras, but her favourite sport was far from being golf and rather anything where she got to tear something’s throat out with her teeth and roll in mud, she was very much Scottish to the point it was almost stereotypical given her flaming red curly hair - not that she could see the red herself, she was red-green colour-blind - and beneath the long sleeved blouse, tights, and blue dress, she was in fact covered in ginger, brown, and white fur, fur that she kept having to tug her sleeves down to hide as she navigated the packed Edinburgh-Waverley Station, panting like a warm dog because she was a warm dog. It wasn’t especially hot that day, the heat of summer was beginning to flow out of Scotland by then, but it was warm enough that her fur and the blouse were overheating her a little.

“Pff, we should have gotten you two of those hungry girl,” her mother, Hermione chuckled warmly as she ruffled Persephone’s curly hair, curly hair Persephone had inherited from her along with the darker shade of her complexion. The gingerness, though, she’d inherited from her Da, the pale redhead man walking with a cane beside them who amusedly offered Persephone his own brown paper bag which still had a sublime-smelling sausage roll in it.

“Mm! Thank ye Da!” Persephone exclaimed, eagerly taking it as her parents and even her little sister Hestia laughed.

“Oh you don’t have to do that Ron love, what’re you going to eat?” Hermione asked with a squeaky sort of giggle as Persephone scoffed half the sausage roll and probably caught some of the paper too in one big bite.

“Nah it’s all right, I can have something when we get home,” Ron assured them. “You have that Seph, everything good’ll have been taken already on the train,” he said warmly, and Seph nodded gratefully. Having inherited not just her red hair and a few genes that lightened her skin colour a bit from her Ma’s much darker hue, but also being a werewolf - but not the disease of lycanthropy, as she’d discovered a few moons ago - from her Da, Persephone had a quite literally inhuman appetite.

“Hungry hungry girl,” Hermione repeated amusedly as she walked alongside, pushing the trolley with Persephone’s luggage on it. She frowned very slightly. “Growing hungry girl, I swear you’ve grown another centimetre or two these holidays. Must be on a growth spurt,” she noted curiously, glancing at the top of Persephone’s head. Indeed, her Ma was right - Persephone had grown another two centimetres as of her last post-full-moon visit from Healer Chiara Lobosca of the Brown Foundation. Growing pains when combined with the aches and pains of being a werewolf weren’t very nice at all.

Nor were the loud noises of the Edinburgh-Waverley Station, public places in cities really weren’t compatible with having such good ears you could hear everyone’s heartbeat. On top of that, she could hear every squeal of every escalator mechanism in the building, every tiny noise the trains made as people boarded and disembarked them and they rolled in and out of the station, every squeaky suitcase or trolley wheel, footstep and voice and sipping noise and chew from everyone around hurrying to catch their trains or catching a bite to eat or a cup of coffee before they went, on top of the more distant but no less present bustle of all of Edinburgh old and new, voices and construction and trams and cyclists and cars and music and everything else. Not only that, but Persephone was positively swamped in smells of just as great a range, food and coffee and booze and diesel and petrol and body odour, all in a disorienting miasma Persephone still wasn’t used to, despite being the daughter of the most important magical politician in the country. She’d grown up in the countryside, and there was a good reason she preferred it.

She did her best to focus solely on the packed train station that she was walking through with her parents and little sister, on the station which was flooded with sunlight from the glass rooves above them, stepping around a passerby as they went. Eventually, as they walked under the overhead bridge that ran across the station with a good dozen escalators off and onto it, standing in the middle of the thoroughfare, Hermione sighed sadly.

“Well, I’m afraid we have to let you go here dear,” Hermione decided apologetically, stopping with the trolley. Persephone nodded, shrugging. Most magical kids got farewelled on the magical platform of their applicable station itself but when your mother was Minister for Magic, that wasn’t really an option. At best she’d get swamped with attention, and at worst… well, that was why the knowledge that there were no less than three plainclothes Aurors - wizarding armed-response policemen - mingling surreptitiously nearby to keep an eye on things was rendering the whole matter a little less picturesque than the old train station and the warm sunlight would have made things seem. Persephone was used to it, her Ma had always been guarded, but now it was to a much greater degree. Hermione moved to hug Persephone, who eagerly shot into her Ma’s arms before she’d even let go of the trolley. “Oh! I love you sweetheart, my little wolf,” Hermione squeaked, getting squeezed a bit as she squeezed Persephone in return and Persephone discretely licked her cheek where nobody could see that her tongue was like a dog’s and a lot longer and thinner than most’s.

“A love ye too Ma,” Persephone assured her, and Hermione rubbed her back before they parted slightly.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t here this summer,” Hermione told her sorrowfully, her face falling. “Not as much as I should have been,” she added. Persephone slumped a bit.

“Ma,” Persephone grumbled. “Ye’re doing a good job, we’re proud o ye,” she urged her. “Ye ken¹ that, don’t ye?” Persephone added, and her Ma nodded.

“Ay, A ken aw that,”² Hermione assured Persephone. Thoroughness was a trait Persephone’s Ma was known for, and it didn’t just show in her work - when she’d moved to Scotland while she was pregnant with Persephone, she’d begun learning Scots and Gàidhlig, and was as fluent in both as Persephone was having grown up with the languages. “But it’s not easy, going down to London to keep the world running all day when I know I’ve got you girls at home to take care of. And I wish I could be home for you more, you deserve that,” she said.

“Weel, somebody maun dae it,”³ Persephone pointed out. “And A’m no like tae trust some ither body wi’t, ye’re the best ane for the job,”⁴ she said proudly, beaming at her. Hermione sighed helplessly, putting her hand back on Persephone’s shoulder as if to hug her again.

“When’d you get so grown-up Persephone?” she murmured.

“A had a good Ma,” Persephone said, turning it back on her. “Still got her,” she added, correcting herself. “She’s just busy, but A know she’ll always come home,” she said sentimentally, and Hermione half-laughed, sniffling.

“Oh, stop it, you’re going to make me cry,” Hermione whispered shakily, before pulling Persephone into another big hug. “I’ll let you know if I’ve got anything in Hogsmeade we can make an excuse out of, you’ve got that form your Dad filled out, the one your Aunty Ariadne gave us?” she asked, still holding Persephone.

“Ay, A do,” Persephone replied - she’d made sure it was in her bag. Second years at Hogwarts got to visit the village of Hogsmeade under supervision for a bit on weekend days, with parental permission. “If no, A’ll see ye at Christmas,” she said brightly, and Hermione nodded.

“Yes! Full moon Christmas, I’ll do my best to be there,” Hermione said firmly but quietly, patting Persephone’s hands. After all, she wasn’t supposed to mention werewolves existing around nonmagical people, but she could also whisper it and Persephone’s canine ears would still hear her. “I promise,” she said softly, before she stood on her toes to kiss the top of Persephone’s head. “You have a good term now Persephone,” she said, her voice entreating but her face sorrowful as Persephone nodded and took the trolley from her. As Hermione stepped back, her Da stepped forward and wrapped her in a hug too.

“Gonna miss you pup,” Ron said softly, ruffling her hair and kissing her cheek before they parted. “I’ll try not to go mad ‘til you get back eh,” he chuckled. Persephone scoffed.

“Na, ye’ve still got Hestia, ye’ll be fine,” Persephone retorted, making Ron scoff.

“Ha! Yeah, I suppose one out of two’ll have to do,” Ron agreed, smiling to Hestia standing next to him. He checked his watch and sighed. “Well, nothing for it, can’t keep you. Train’ll be here soon. Love you Persephone darling,” he said quickly, giving her another quick hug.

“Love ye Da!” Persephone replied, moving to Hestia as immediately as she could and making her sister tense up a bit as she hugged her. Her little sister had her own troubles with populated spaces, they just weren’t due to having superhuman senses; she was human. Persephone made it quick given that, and when she let Hestia go she rubbed her cheek on Hestia’s shoulder as she went to reinforce that tiny hint of Hestia’s scent upon herself. “Love ye Hessie!” she said urgently.

“Mhm!” Hestia hummed, smiling as she waved after Persephone in that way that said that though she was a little too overstimulated to say it, she did mean it. But with that, Persephone wrenched herself away from her family in the knowledge that much as she would have loved to, she couldn’t stay with them. Waving back to them, she narrowly avoided hitting a business-casual dressed woman with the trolley since she hadn’t been looking, before she reluctantly tore her gaze away just as her Ma wiped a tear from her eye and wiggled the other hand dejectedly before hugging Hestia to her side, and headed toward Platform 12.5. Or Platform Eleventy-Five, as most called it, despite that never having been the name for a number of reasons including renovations of the entire station renumbering a platform or two over the years and a decimal point falling off of a sign. Nevertheless, the traversable and not actually solid wall that led to Platform Eleventy-Five was in the little nook between Platforms 12 and 13, under the ramp that let cars down from the road above to pick people up, and with a nonchalant look and an ease in manoeuvring the trolley that wouldn’t have come to a human with weaker wrist muscles she slipped through the wall looking to any onlookers as if she’d just walked behind it toward Platform 13.

But instead of hitting it or walking onto Platform 13, a rush of air billowed through her curls and she found herself standing with her trolley on the other side of the wall, looking upon the mirrored train station platform that looked just like all the rest at Edinburgh-Waverley that was Platform Eleventy-Five. She took a sniff - there were a lot of people there and she recognised several by scent, voice, and very quickly once she’d found one or both of those, sight - Nathan Morris, one of her not-bad yearmates in Slytherin was there, Isobelle Murray of Gryffindor was there having no doubt taken a ferry and a long drive from Northern Ireland or just been Apparated there, as were two of her Northern Irish housemates in Hufflepuff. Oisín Brennan, and more notably to her because they shared a dormitory, Caoimhe Walsh, whom Persephone waved to delightedly. Caoimhe waved back, though Persephone was heading for a different target - standing with his own dormmate Noah Wilson, whom Persephone recalled was from Stirling and who had hair just as ginger as she did not that she could see that, was her best friend who’d obviously left home a little earlier than the Granger-Weasleys; Alpin Garanwyn Faughn.

“Persephone!” Alpin called gladly, smiling at her as he waved and his mismatched eyes - his right was brown and his left an icy blue - glinted in the sun along with the little stud earrings he wore. He had square glasses, and his brown hair, while clearly trimmed a bit over the holidays, was long and around his ears. Alpin had been Persephone’s best friend ever since they’d been five, when she’d told him she was a werewolf at Aberfoyle Primary School, and he lived with his nonmagical Welsh mother and wizarding Scottish father in a tall wizard’s tower hidden by magic on the southern shore of Loch Ard, only a few kilometres from where she lived at the Granger Estate up the side of Beinn Dubh from Loch Chon - in fact, from the upstairs windows you could see Alpin’s family’s tower in the distance. He was wearing a long flowy sort of yellow jacket he’d sewn himself, embroidered with flowers along its hems, as well as what appeared to be his uniform trousers, no doubt for convenience. “Shwmae!⁵ Is your Mam okay?” he asked politely as Persephone came over to him.

“Ay, just didna⁶ want to get all the attention in here,” Persephone assured him, and Alpin, Noah, and their parents nodded understandingly. Persephone waved to Riderch, Alpin’s little brother, and smiled at his parents, Creighton and Nerys. She gave a more curious look to Noah’s family, his parents and two young girls who were standing with them who were no doubt his little sisters.

“Sounds about right! Her Mum’s the Minister for Magic,” Noah’s father chuckled, offering his hand as Noah’s mother gasped. As Persephone remembered, Noah’s father was a wizard but his mother was non-magical, much like Alpin. “Name’s Paul, take it you know my son,” Paul said warmly, and Persephone nodded.

“Ay A do. Nice to meet ye, Mister Wilson,” Persephone agreed.

“And these are my sisters,” Noah added brightly, pointing to the two pale girls. “Joanna, and Mary,” he said, pointing to the elder one, who looked a little younger than Vanya was going to eternally look, maybe six or so, and a girl who couldn’t have been more than four, in turn. Joanna waved to Persephone, but recoiled a bit as Persephone noticeably sniffed them. “She’s a werewolf!” Noah told them, and Joanna’s eyes bulged though Mary didn’t seem to know what that meant.

“No way! Are ye really?!” Joanna asked incredulously, and Persephone nodded and licked the bridge of her nose. “Woah!”

“Ha! And I thought things got weird when I married Paul and he said he was a wizard! Never met a werewolf before I don’t think,” Noah’s Ma said amusedly.

“She’s a very good hunter,” Alpin piped up. “The Granger-Weasleys give us venison sometimes, it’s always Persephone’s kill. Her wand’s actually got part of an antler as its handle, from the first deer she ever killed,” he added brightly, before Persephone looked up abruptly, distracted. “Train coming?” he asked her as she tilted her head.

“Train coming,” Persephone confirmed, thinking back to where the luggage carriage had come to rest previous times she’d boarded it at Edinburgh-Waverley and taking hold of her trolley to begin moving it closer to there. Edinburgh-Waverley was the last stop on the line before Hogsmeade, so they were liable to miss out on good seats if they weren’t among the first to board.

“How do you know?” Noah’s mother asked curiously as they began over toward that end of the platform.

“Werewolf ears, A can hear it,” Persephone replied.

“Oh, that must be great! Sometimes I miss when the washing’s done, have to do it again ‘cos I only remember the next morning and by then it’s all gone mildewy,” she exclaimed jealously, but Persephone shook her head.

“No in the city, gives us such a headache,” Persephone replied, and Noah’s mother winced before she smiled and nodded to Persephone as, in the distance, the great green steam engine that was Hogsmeade Hall pulled the Hogwarts Express came into view down the track. The locomotive’s brakes screamed in the air as the huge beast rolled into the station, making Persephone wince at the spike of sound in her ear, before it came to rest, dragging the dozen carriages into the station. Her eyes, keen to motion, quickly looked over the windows of the carriages for motion - she was looking for people who’d be visibly looking for her, after all, and it took her under a second to locate her waving, tall, white-haired pimpled cousin in Dominique in one of the compartments, so it was that carriage that she and Alpin boarded once Alpin had farewelled his family.

“Dominique!” Persephone barked gladly as she hauled the door of the compartment open. “Vanya, Brenda, Vane, great to see yese!”⁷ she said, beaming at Vanya and the two more friends sitting in there. Brenda Paddison, the one sitting across from Vanya with long brown hair was a family friend of Persephone’s since she was the daughter of her Ma’s assistant from back when she’d been Minister for Nonhuman Relations, while Tabitha Vane, the one sitting beside Puss - Vanya’s familiar was out of her cat carrier and now curled up on her cat bed between Vanya and Tabitha, sitting up curiously at the sudden arrival of Persephone and Alpin - was one of Vanya’s dormmates, one of the good ones, with reddish-brown hair and a big welcoming smile.

“Ey up ducks,” Vanya said, waving at Persephone and Alpin as they squeezed into the compartment with their bags. “Hey Alpin, how was your holidays?” she asked. She’d seen Persephone over the summer, but she hadn’t seen Alpin very much.

“Very good thank you,” Alpin told her brightly as he and Persephone sat down beside Brenda and Dominique, squishing them a bit because the compartment was nearing capacity now that they’d stepped into it. As Persephone took her bag off and sat it in her lap, she jumped as she remembered something she’d forgotten to do and unzipped the thing to rifle through it. “How were yours? Tinworth was nice and hot I hope?” he asked.

“Yeah, was nice! Back to parky old Hogwarts now though,” Vanya replied wryly, before she frowned as Persephone got out a little gold brooch from her bag and pinned it to her dress on her left side. She’d had one the year before, it was a thing to do with her weird nobility stuff, but Vanya could have sworn it wasn’t the same one. “You get a new one of those or did you grab your Mum’s by mistake, Lady Persephone?” Vanya asked her amusedly, making Persephone snort. Persephone’s strange social status and title had always been something to poke fun at for them.

“Hm? Oh, ay!” Persephone replied, smiling. “Used to just wear Ma’s crest, reckoned A’d make my own crest now A’m out,” she explained; her Ma’s crest was quite a simple bushel of wheat stems. But now that Persephone was out as a werewolf, she’d made her own - surrounded by the same motto as the old one, Eruditio et Incrementum, and backed by a golden feather was, instead of a wheat bushel, a wolf posed as if it were running, passant sinister to use the heraldic terms, with that bushel of wheat stems in its mouth. She’d come up with it early in the holidays and they’d had it made at a jeweller in Diagon Alley.

“Wait, you get your own crest? I thought that was like, a House of Granger thing or something, not a you thing?” Tabitha asked confusedly, and Brenda nodded on to that.

“Na, ye’re thinking o the coat o arms, the shield thing?” Persephone replied. “This is different, this is my crest. A’m allowed to make my own, and wear it wi just the one feather, and A can wear Ma’s crest wi a wee buckle, it’s all a wee bit complicated,” she told them.

“Sounds like it,” Brenda agreed. “How were your holidays, have fun for the full moons?” she asked. Persephone nodded, instantly beaming at them.

“Ay! Laura’s had her first now too, just Gerard left before all three o the triplets are coming with,” Persephone replied gladly - Laura Diggory was one of three triplets born to werewolf mother Parvati Patil and human father Cedric Diggory, who were themselves in a polycule with another werewolf, Hannah Abbott - Parvati and Hannah were both in her Da’s pack, and so very close family friends. To Persephone, the seven year olds - as of a few weeks ago - Gerard Abbott, Laura Diggory, and Chandra Patil might as well have been her baby siblings. “Da did us a venison roast for tea last night, plenty o leftovers for lunch before we left. Ye all sleep okay, no troubles getting on?” she asked as Vanya yawned, her enormous vampire fangs making her look a little like the cat sitting next to her.

“Yeah, we’re okay. Ran into Uncle Percival at the station though,” Dominique told her, and Persephone huffed a rather amusingly dog-like huff.

“O course, Molly’s starting the nou⁸ in’t she?” Persephone grumbled, shaking her head. She knew very well her Uncle Percival’s statements and what they implied about her; there was good reason why her Da had steadfastly refused to let him meet her ever since she’d been born.

“Maybe Molly’ll be better?” Vanya suggested with a shrug. “I mean, if she’s at Hogwarts all the time now instead of with her Dad,” she pointed out, before her curiosity turned to a new subject. “What electives are you two taking? Dominique and I picked Tech, we’ll be in the same class together!” she said gladly - Hogwarts started them on some non-magical electives in second year, letting them pick one for the first half of the year and another for the second, as well as a taste of the magical ones that they’d get to change from for third year if they didn’t like their choice, and Vanya was looking forward to actually having classes with Dominique since Slytherins and Hufflepuffs didn’t usually get to.

“We picked Textiles,” Brenda added brightly, and Persephone gasped as Alpin smiled.

“Oh, so did we!” Alpin told them.

“Aw brilliant!” Persephone cried. Just like Vanya and Dominique, Persephone knew both Brenda and Tabitha but had never had classes with them, because Persephone was in Hufflepuff with Dominique while Brenda was in Gryffindor and Tabitha in Slytherin with Vanya and classes were held with the Gryffindors and Slytherins together, and the same for the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws. “We’ll have to try get in the same one next term,” she said brightly before she jumped as she always did at the sound of the locomotive’s whistle, like the alarm call of some sort of bird, sound through Platform Eleventy-Five. At the hiss of steam that flowed across the platform, Alpin got up quickly to wave to his family out the compartment window, before with a great chuffing huff of steam out its chimney, Hogsmeade Hall hauled herself and her carriages forward and accelerated slowly out of Edinburgh-Waverley Station, to head under the National Galleries of Scotland, turn north and across the Firth of Forth, and head up into the Cairngorms toward her destination of Hogsmeade Station.

--

Chapter Text

The sun was setting the clouds and sky ablaze in pinks and oranges as it hung behind the mountains in sunset as the Hogwarts Express came to a halt at the platform of Hogsmeade Station that evening. As it did, the already quite loud chatter of students’ voices all down the train combined into a cacophony of footfalls and sliding compartment doors in Persephone’s ears, and the already quite small hallway along the carriage filled with people. Despite her claustrophobia, however, Persephone hurried to get up as Vanya put her bag on.

“You’re in a rush,” Tabitha noted bemusedly as Persephone swung her bag onto her shoulder.

“A’m on the Choir, A gotta be quick up there!” Persephone pointed out urgently, already moving. In a blur of feathery motion - she’d gotten changed into her uniform which was actually designed for an avian Veela instead of the clothes she’d worn for King’s Cross - Dominique followed along after Persephone only a step behind. Vanya fumbled with Puss’ cat bed and picked up her familiar as a shock of urgency ran through her, and she ended up being the last of the five of them to cram their way out of the compartment and into the cramped, packed hallway toward the exits.

Vanya shuddered, trying to control her breathing. Persephone’s claustrophobia was mild, and because she was a werewolf. Vanya’s… well, she knew very well it wasn’t rational. It wasn’t. She wasn’t going to be trapped, she wasn’t going to have to dig herself out, she knew that. But as she was squished a bit by the dozens of other students, all dressed themselves in their Hogwarts uniforms and their bags at about the level of her head, she could not help but be reminded of the time she had had to dig herself out, when she had been believed dead and thus buried, the walls and people closed in on her. In her arms, Puss buried her face in the nook of Vanya’s neck with a noise that went something along the lines of mrrrp! A tiny smile broached Vanya’s tension. It really did help to have an emotional support familiar in the form of the enormous black cat who was about the size of her torso, quite heavy to hold, and that was staring at her calmly with electric blue slitted eyes. She’d gotten Puss a collar over the holidays, a nice reflective blue one that went with her eyes and which had Puss’ name on it, though given Puss could teleport she had hardly thought it necessary to put contact information on the collar.

With a deep breath, Vanya hopped off of the carriage and onto the platform almost as quickly as she had entered the hallway, taking a breath of fresh, though slightly chilly, air. The platform was already crawling with students flowing off the train like a tide, and over at the end near the locomotive Professor Granger was already calling out for the first-years with her floating blue-white lantern. But of course, Vanya was no longer a first-year, so she didn’t have to go with Granger. Quickly, she located where her friends who’d left ahead of her had gone and jogged to catch up with them as they took the thoroughfare through the old Hogsmeade Station building along with all the rest of the students.

“There ye are, sorry, in a bit of a hurry,” Persephone said brightly, glancing back to see her as Vanya caught up. On the other side of the station, which bore the red letters on a cream background that read GREAT WIZARDING RAILWAY, Dominique paused curiously as they arrived at a big yard off to the side of what was obviously the gravel road into Hogsmeade, whose lights twinkled in the distance as it was nestled in the valley beneath Hogwarts, which loomed on the mountainside above. Standing in the courtyard were several dozen wooden carriages with little candled lanterns hanging on their corners, but the carriages weren’t what was strange. The strange thing was that she could feel that each one of them was accompanied by a beast of burden of some kind, one that felt not entirely dissimilar to a horse. But despite knowing for certain she could feel the presence of an animal hitched to it, she couldn’t see the horses. The carriages just had empty space before them.

“What the…” Dominique chirruped softly.

“W’is it?” Persephone asked quickly, looking back at her.

“Where- why are the horses invisible?” Dominique asked rhetorically, even as she hurriedly followed Persephone, who was making a beeline for the nearest empty carriage.

“Invisible? What’re ye on about, they’re right there,” Persephone asked quizzically, pointing at the sleek black winged horses. They certainly looked mostly like horses, but there was a pointedness to their maws and distinctly sharp teeth in their mouths that, as a fellow predator, Persephone recognised, on top of their bloody scent. She huffed at the nearest one as if telling it to mind its own business as she clambered up into the carriage and offered Vanya a hand up.

“What?” Alpin asked. “I can’t see any horses,” he pointed out, and Vanya and Persephone frowned at him.

“Do you need new glasses Welshie?” Vanya asked amusedly as she sat down and Puss hopped onto the wooden seat beside her as they sat along benches at the sides of the carriage. It might have been getting dark, but the jet black horses weren’t being rendered invisible by it.

“What horses?” Brenda piped up, having been just behind them as she climbed aboard with Tabitha at her heels.

“Yeah, I can’t see any horses,” Tabitha agreed, but not without a frown as if she had a bell ringing in her head. Vanya frowned and craned her neck around to look at the nearest visible horse, which Aubrey Carter - their American yearmate in Ravenclaw with red hair, pimples, and eczema - was peering at with a grimace at their weirdly pointed demeanour.

“Hang on, they’ve got wings,” Vanya realised abruptly. “I think I’ve read about these, most people can’t see them or something,” she said, half-remembering something from the sixth edition of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, originally written by Newt Scamander but revised by magizoologist Luna Lovegood. They hadn’t really used that book last year, and she hadn’t taken Care of Magical Creatures as one of her magical electives, so she wondered why it was standard really.

“Oh right, they’re Thestrals!” Persephone remembered even as their carriage’s Thestral was nudged by whatever enchantment was on the carriage making it not require a driver and it began pulling them forward and up the forested road. “Carnivorous horses, can fly a wee bit too but no far, their wings are too small. Ye can only see ‘em if ye’ve known death. A’ve killed lots o deer, so…” she explained, making Vanya nod as Tabitha gasped.

“Oh yeah yeah yeah!” Tabitha exclaimed. “I forgot about those. Mum told me once that after the battle up at the castle, everyone could see them and it was really creepy,” she told them, making them all grimace. With that though, Tabitha frowned. “How come you can see them Vanya? It’s not like you actually died,” she asked. One might have expected Tabitha to have known the answer, being Vanya’s dormmate and someone she spoke to, but it wasn’t something Vanya shared with many people.

“What do you think I ate before the Ministry found me?” Vanya asked disgruntledly. Tabitha’s eyes bulged.

“You didn’t drink someone-” Tabitha exclaimed incredulously before Brenda gave her a pointed what the hell? kind of look and Vanya cut her off.

“No!” Vanya insisted quickly. “I- a hedgehog. And a few rats,” she admitted, looking out of the window at the evening landscape of Hogsmeade, the picturesque old-fashioned town it was, and Hogwarts, the ancient castle standing atop the nearby cliff with its towers and halls glittering with light as they loomed into the sky overhead. It wasn’t exactly her favourite subject.

“A hedgehog?!” Persephone exclaimed. “How’d ye get a hedgehog, things are covered in spikes! A’d no eat a hedgehog, it’s no worth the effort and ye get yer nose all spiked,” she asked.

“I happen to know she knows that by experience,” Alpin quipped, making Brenda wheeze with laughter.

“Shut up! A were six,” Persephone protested to snorts from Brenda and Tabitha. Though, that being said, that talk was making her hungry, she hadn’t eaten since Edinburgh. Vanya frowned at Persephone, but decided not to voice the obvious fact that, unlike a wolf, she had hands.

“Is hedgehog gross?” Brenda mused curiously.

“A dunno, didna¹ eat it,” Persephone replied.

“Vanya?” Tabitha asked, and Vanya looked up and just blinked for a second.

“Um. I don’t really remember,” Vanya replied with a shrug.

“Really? I mean, I don’t know, do different bloods even taste different-”

“It’s not about the taste!” Dominique squawked indignantly, her feathers puffing up as she cut Tabitha off. Dominique remembered very well why Vanya was averse to talking about the hedgehog incident, she’d told the Nonhuman Club about it at the start of that year. She’d only had it described to her once, but Dominique could almost see the image in Vanya’s head, the dishevelled image of her holding a violently exsanguinated hedgehog in her hands, blood and hedgehog guts dripping down the front of the tattered yellow dress she’d been buried in… and her mother, who believed her dead, staring in disbelieving horror at her down the alleyway before she ran away. And all of it a foggy memory.

“It’s… it’s okay,” Vanya said, putting a hand on Dominique’s talon as Tabitha awkwardly shrank back amid the trundling of the carriage. Dominique looked at Vanya quickly, questioning if Vanya was actually okay, but Vanya exhaled slowly. “When a vampire gets starved of blood,” she began slowly, “our higher brain functions shut down,” Vanya explained. “So I don’t really remember it very well.”

“Sorry,” Tabitha said sheepishly.

“No it’s okay,” Vanya assured her. “You didn’t know,” she pointed out, before the carriage ground to a halt on the stonework of the Hogwarts courtyard. “What do we do with our..?” she asked the others, holding up her bag. The last year, they’d left their bags outside the Hall to be taken to their dormitories while they ate dinner.

“Just leave ‘em here!” Persephone told her quickly as she bounded out of the carriage and leapt down onto the stone. With that though, Persephone took off running with the skirt of her grey pinafore - an item of uniform nobody else liked wearing and that made her look like a little kid - flitting around her white-furred legs, heading for the Great Hall whose orange candlelight was flickering gaily across the courtyard out of the doors as the others more slowly and carefully got out of the carriage.

“Off like a rocket, she is,” Vanya snickered as Puss hopped down onto the stonework beside her. Indeed, Persephone was in more than a little of a hurry, having to join the Choir singing as they waited. Vanya and Dominique, alongside Alpin, Tabitha, and Brenda, joined the flow of students disembarking carriages and walking into the castle. Vanya smiled as they crossed the threshold of the huge doors into the entrance hall. Unlike her foster home, she did not object to the mere concept of being here, at Hogwarts, because even if her life had taken another path and she’d never been torn from her Mum and Dad in Leicester by the Statute of Secrecy and her alleged death, she’d still have come to Hogwarts. Still have made all the same friends, though she did lament that she wouldn’t grow up like her friends would and were already doing - god was Dominique tall, being surrounded by students who were only going to get taller always made her feel so tiny. And she was glad to see those friends as she walked into the Great Hall, not just in Dominique and Persephone, who was gathering with the Choir, but in the very obvious nonhuman students who’d already arrived.

Vanya went with Tabitha and sat down at the Slytherin table at the far end as distantly from Portunus Thynne and Cameron Vexmoor - rich bullies, the former with black hair and the latter blond - as they could manage, and as far from Annabelle Barnes who’d nearly killed Vanya with a so-called ‘prank’ at the start of that year as they could, and smiled across the Hall, waving at the friends at other tables. Behind her, at the Ravenclaw table, was the smartly dressed and freshly Prefect-badged Rowan, as well as the Goblin Bre kke twins, Valbjǫrn and Ráðugr. Meanwhile, ahead of her at the Gryffindor table was Cedar, where Gylfi, another Goblin, and Victoire, as well as the extremely tall half-Giant Wulfwynn Maine sitting as far to the back as she could, her wild tangled black hair hanging around her head.

And then at the Hufflepuff table, there was a tree. A sentient tree, or a Dryad. Specifically, Blodwen was a crab apple tree of the genus malus sylvestris covered in a twelve-foot-tall crown of vibrant green leaves and her branches were dotted with as yet unripe crab apples, and she was sitting beside a tall brown-haired satyr girl named Tegyd Humphries, who had big brown horns, between which some of her hair puffed out from, that curled around from her temples all the way back and forward again underneath her big floppy goat ears, and a tiny bit of brown hair under her chin. Underneath the table, her legs were goat legs and she had hooves, with fur on her legs the same caramel brown as her hair with white socks and a splotch of brown on the left sock. And she was presently chewing whatever cud she needed to digest before dinner to make room in her rumen.

“Alright Dom!” Tegyd said as Dominique went by, and Dominique gave Tegyd a wave and a high-five before she sat down at the Hufflepuff table, giving Kiera Grey and Summer Byrne hugs as she went.

“Hey Seoyun!” Dominique chirruped to her South-Korean dormmate on the other side of the table. “How was your summer, did you see the Quidditch?” she asked.

“Yes! I saw,” Seoyun replied gladly. “Germany won!” she said, and Dominique nodded. Indeed they had - they’d beaten Saudi Arabia 6260-6170 in a tense match that had taken the better part of a day, back in August, and won the Quidditch World Cup. Beaming in the corners of her beak, Dominique settled in and appreciatively listened as the Choir finally assembled in front of the head table on the dais, and began to sing a song that Persephone had almost expected to come up in the auditions a few months ago; a song from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Song of the Witches.

“Make the gruel thick and slab: Add thereto a tiger’s chaudron, for the ingredients of our cauldron!” Persephone sang, her voice more in the background to fill out the choir - she was a mezzo-soprano in her comfortable range, so for this Professor Lake, the music teacher, had put her in that role, though she’d promised they’d work on getting her comfortable in a proper soprano that year. She had a very wide range as a singer, possibly down to the shape of her jaw - she had about ten more teeth than a human did, and they needed more room - so she could do alto, mezzo, and soprano. It was just that her asthma tended to play up in soprano. “Double, double, toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble! Double double toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron… bubble! Something wicked this way comes!” Persephone cried, and with that Dominique, Vanya, and much of the Hall politely clapped at their performance before Professor Lake smiled at them and told them that the first years were ready and so, it was time for them to sit down. Persephone happily jogged over to take the seat Dominique had saved for her, panting happily to have performed before Professor McGonagall, the very old Scottish Headmistress of the school and who was also Persephone’s godmother, clapped her hands together to call for silence in the room.

And then, without anyone touching them, the great doors at the back of the hall swung open to admit Professor Ariadne Granger and a column of several dozen young children who’d just arrived for the first time who were walking behind her. All dressed in their black Hogwarts robes, the platoon of first-years looked around in awe at the castle, the floating candles that hovered over everyone’s heads, and, indeed, the strangest of the strange students in Blodwen and Tegyd, though Tegyd was not alone. For among the new students was someone with not two legs, but four. With four legs adorned in hooves was a black-and-white-furred and black-haired Caprid Centaur - a centaur with a goat’s body not a horse’s - with twisty horns that weren’t as long as Tegyd’s, rectangular-pupilled brown eyes, and goat ears much like Tegyd’s but floppier and adorned in black fur that poked out of her long black hair. She wore a regular Hogwarts uniform from the waist up, but upon her goat body was a small black horse cover with Hogwarts coats of arms in its corners.

Vanya looked over the new students curiously, wondering if this Caprid, whose name she knew to be Sue because she was Tegyd’s cousin - or possibly her half sister or just her friend, paternity wasn’t easily tracked among their herd - was the only nonhuman among them. Most of them looked like perfectly normal humans of every colour and creed, and her eyes skated over the entire lot. No, it was just Sue… or was it? After a split second, some lessons she’d learnt last year kicked in. Vampires were capable of altering their forms to a degree, and she’d learnt that you couldn’t do that well without studying the way people looked. So she gave them another look, paying closer attention to anything subtly different, and she found something. There were two new students among them, walking together, who were odd ones out, in such a way that was subtle enough not to be noticed immediately, but was obvious enough to never be unseen when one did notice it.

Those two students, slender students wearing big round glasses, weren’t blinking. Not at all. And their eyes that were not blinking, now Vanya thought about it, were enormous and bulging. And not only that, but the skin on their faces was ever so slightly shiny in the flickering light of the candles, and ever so slightly blueish-green as some sort of undertone to their pale complexion. Unlike everyone else, they wore scarves, but Vanya frowned as she noticed that the scarves were dripping wet, and they were visibly breathing through their mouths. Once they got closer and Vanya got an even better look as Professor Granger halted the column at the dais before a stool and the Sorting Hat, her bewilderment grew. They had very long fingers, and those fingers were webbed. And their ears were pointed and long, though close to their heads unlike those of Elves or Goblins which stuck out. She wasn’t sure at all what species they were as Professor Granger started calling out names to have the students Sorted.

“Moyra Achmootie,” Professor Granger called, and a girl with mousy brown hair tottered up to the stool and sat down, before Granger put the Hat on her head and the Hat, enchanted as it was, spoke.

“HUFFLEPUFF!” was the House the Hat declared Moyra Achmootie to belong to, and the Hufflepuff table started clapping gladly as Moyra was directed over to sit with them. Curiously, she sat down at the very end of the table with a big gap, the opposite to how they’d done it last year. Clearly, that etiquette hadn’t been explained and which way things went was just spontaneous.

“Cordelia Bennion!” Bennion, once she’d sat down on the stool, was soon Sorted into Gryffindor, and then a girl named Silvana Bontadini was Sorted into Slytherin, followed by a Laura Cavendish. All of them sat at the very end of their tables, following Moyra’s example. “Jamie Chambers!” Vanya scowled as she realised that Theo Chambers, a particularly disgruntling dickhead in Gryffindor, had a little brother. She could see the resemblance now she looked at Jamie, the light brown hair and the pale complexion. Jamie went to Gryffindor, just like his brother, followed by a boy named Shyam Choudhouri, before a Georgia Citizen joined Moyra Achmootie in Hufflepuff and then the year’s first Ravenclaw was Sorted in Eilwen Clyatt.

Vanya, though, wanted to know about the odd pair among them, but it seemed their surname - Granger went alphabetically by surname - was quite far down the line. It took a while, going through such names as Barnaby Hersey, Arawn Hughs, Trevor Lipton, Aelwen Nicholas and Kojo Nyarko who both went to Hufflepuff, Kirsty Patillo was Sorted into Ravenclaw, Charles Ponder to Hufflepuff, Rahsan Rasool to Slytherin along with Vicki Reynolds, before finally, among the dwindling gaggle of remaining kids, one of the strange ones was called.

“Cetus Scamander!” Professor Granger called, and instantly a gasp ran across the Hall. A gasp Vanya, Persephone, and Dominique all took part in.

“Scamander?” Vanya whispered to Tabitha bewilderedly. “Like Newt Scamander, wrote Fantastic Beasts Scamander?” she asked.

“Maybe,” Tabitha replied. Nevertheless, though clearly rendered a little nervous by the attention, Cetus Scamander stepped up. She… he… they, Vanya wasn’t actually sure, had longer black hair, and their big eyes were blue. They had an almost stringy, lithe build as they sat down on the stool and Professor Granger put the Hat on their head.

“What the-” Persephone heard the Sorting Hat mutter incredulously. Persephone was watching in just as much curiosity as Vanya, though her werewolf sense of smell had given her a hint as to these Scamanders’ species already. That and knowing which constellations they were named after. She’d met Newt Scamander’s grandchildren through Luna Lovegood, who had always been a family friend of theirs since school. She had never even heard of a Cetus Scamander. Though, Cetus and their sibling clearly weren’t human, and if there was any famous witch or wizard she’d have expected to have secret nonhuman descendents, Newt Scamander would have pretty much been the definition of the top of the list. “My my, even I didn’t think your birth possible Cetus Scamander,” the Hat mused curiously. “You have a great deal to prove, don’t you? Well then, I know where to put you… SLYTHERIN!” the Sorting Hat bellowed.

Vanya hissed in a curious breath as Cetus hopped down off the stool and Granger took back the Hat - there wasn’t much space left at the end of the table, the Sorting was nearing its end, and so the only real space Cetus could sit in was right beside her. And indeed, the lithe nonhuman swept around the end of the table and clambered over the bench to sit down between Vanya and Vicki Reynolds. All of Cetus’ yearmates seemed a bit confused by them, didn’t know what to do with them, so Vanya took it on herself to greet Cetus to Slytherin. Whatever and whoever they were, they deserved a warmer welcome than Vanya herself had had.

“Good evening,” Vanya said quietly, offering her hand. Cetus jumped a bit, looking around to her.

“Oh! Good evening!” Cetus replied gladly, shaking Vanya’s hand with their long, webbed fingers. Their skin was moist and now Vanya could see more clearly, actually covered in positively miniscule scales. But what got her attention as Cetus spoke in a high-pitched voice that did nothing to clarify their gender, was Cetus’ teeth.

Persephone had about forty-something teeth. As far as Vanya could tell, Cetus might as well have had hundreds, all of them razor sharp. Cetus noticed her noticing and put their hand to their mouth sheepishly, but Vanya smiled at them, deliberately showing off her teeth. Cetus half-gasped and pointed, grinning a grin like a box of knives before they looked up as Professor Granger called up Cetus’ sibling.

“Pisces Scamander!” Pisces looked a bit different to Cetus, so they couldn’t have been identical twins; where Cetus had black hair, Pisces had blonde hair, and their bulging eyes were a light brown. They were, however, of no more determinate a gender than Cetus, and the Hat reacted in surprise at being put on Pisces’ head.

“Another! My, and you’ve no less ambition than the first,” the Hat exclaimed. “SLYTHERIN!” it repeated, and Cetus clapped ecstatically as Pisces came and joined them, sitting opposite them and beside Sylvia Twyford, Vanya’s other good dormmate.

“Hello!” Pisces piped up brightly, greeting everyone.

“Pisces! She’s a vampire!” Cetus told them eagerly, pointing to Vanya.

“Oh! Are you with us?” Pisces asked, and Vanya shook her head.

“No, I’m a second year,” she told them. “But I’m in the Nonhuman Club,” she added, before they all shut up as Professor Granger called the next student.

“Ffiona Scurlock!” That girl went to Ravenclaw, Edwina Sessions went to Hufflepuff, before the other nonhuman of the bunch was called. “Sue!” Sue, being a centaur, obviously couldn’t sit on the stool, so she just clopped up and stood beside it. Professor Granger laughed slightly with her as she had to manoeuvre the Hat behind her horns, which grumbled at the uncomfortable way its brim was folded up and grumbled Hufflepuff! with little fanfare. Getting out her wand, Professor Granger Transfigured some of the Hufflepuff bench into a bigger almost table-like area for her to sit, while Tegyd cheered and Persephone and Dominique eagerly greeted her. And then, a curious kind of sentiment Vanya had only seen applied to her own family filled Granger’s voice as she called up the next student; “Sarah Twendele!”

Persephone gasped as Sarah, the round-faced blonde daughter of her Aunt’s cousin came up. She’d almost forgotten Sarah was coming, but Sarah smiled at Ariadne gladly before she sat down, had the Hat put on her head, and was promptly put in Hufflepuff where she was seemingly entranced by Sue’s strange nature. Dominique got the feeling that those two were going to be fast friends.

Buyelwa Vusani went to Gryffindor, leaving only two more kids to be sorted. The first of the two was Molly Weasley, and Persephone watched her strawberry-blonde cousin pensively. She knew Molly was not her Uncle Percival. But she didn’t exactly want to be near her, so selfishly she hoped Molly would not be in Hufflepuff. And she wasn’t, she was put in Ravenclaw, though the last student, Madailéin Wyse, was put in Hufflepuff with them, before Professor McGonagall did the notices and then began the Feast. Bounties of food glimmered into place, transported magically from the Kitchens below, and Vanya smiled with a glad sigh at another reason why she’d been looking forward to coming back to Hogwarts; the Marshals could only get hold of powdered blood online to mix with water. Hogwarts? Hogwarts got proper pigs’ blood, of which she had a whole goblet in addition to a very well made czernina blood-based soup, which was just rich, decadent, and delicious after three months of powdered stuff.

“What’s your name?” Pisces asked Vanya curiously.

“Hm?” Vanya hummed through a mouthful of thick crimson pork blood. “Oh, I’m Vanya. Vanya Stryde,” Vanya replied, putting down her goblet to shake Pisces’ hand, which was just as long and webbed as their sibling’s. “What species are you?” she asked, looking at Cetus and Pisces. Cetus, who’d just taken a big bite of a fish - wait, that was odd. Vanya hadn’t looked at everyone else’s menu, there weren’t usually whole raw fish available - with their bajillions of razor-sharp toothpick-like teeth took a deep breath before they spoke.

“We’re part-human part-Merpeople,” Cetus replied, before they took another deep breath. Vanya blinked.

“Oh!” she exclaimed. It made sense with their appearance and their names, which were aquatic-related constellations, but just like Tabitha and Sylvia as well as the first-year Slytherins, she was surprised to hear it. “I didn’t know Merpeople could have kids with humans,” Vanya noted. Cetus smiled amusedly.

“Neither did our Grandfather,” Pisces told her with a grin and a shaky voice that sounded almost like laughter.

“Was he…” Tabitha began curiously, frowning.

“Drake Scamander,” Cetus supplied, and Vanya frowned. “Newt Scamander was our Great-Grandfather,” they explained, and Vanya nodded understandingly. Across the hall, Persephone heard that too and blinked incredulously. How hadn’t she known about that?! The little branch of Drake Scamander and his secret part-Mer child must have been quite private even in recent years. She’d met old Drake himself, and his very much human kids! One would have thought that such a thing would have been a relevant topic when meeting the, at the time, Minister for Nonhuman Relations - a shockingly relevant pun too - but to be fair, she dimly remembered Drake saying something about one of his children, a woman named Nineveh, not feeling well which was why she hadn’t come. Drake was pretty old, maybe he’d forgotten to mention it if Nineveh was the part-Mer one, if it were a force of habit to not mention it, that sort of thing. Persephone got out her phone to text her Ma about the matter.

“Grandfather was only being polite when he joined a spawning when he visited, he didn’t know it would actually work. We have several part-human Aunts and Uncles from that spawning,” Pisces said to them, again taking a long breath as soon as they were done speaking, by which time their voice had gotten strained. Vanya wondered if the pair had trouble breathing air - the wet scarves around their necks were no doubt to keep their covered-up gills wet. “And he was very surprised when Mother arrived at his door to get to know him!” they laughed shrilly, making Vanya snort.

“I bet he was!” Sylvia giggled.

“Yeah!” Vanya agreed, trying to imagine it - their mother, whatever her name was, was probably even more fishy than they were, and if she’d been old enough to go find Drake Scamander and demand child support she must have been old enough to rather spook the man. Particularly given how recent Minister Granger-Weasley’s reforms were, in the grand scheme of things. Smiling, Vanya took another spoonful of soup and looked to the pair. “I don’t mean to be rude, but are you boys or girls, what pronouns should I use for you?” she asked, reminded of how they’d run Nonhuman Club introductions. Pisces and Cetus exchanged a look, before Cetus shrugged.

“Not yet,” Pisces said simply, as if that wasn’t the most perplexing thing Vanya had ever heard. “We don’t really mind what you use, we haven’t found out yet,” they added brightly, as Vanya paused.

“Huh. Okay,” Vanya mused, drinking another spoonful of czernina soup. Well, the part-Mer Scamanders were certainly a bit odd, but who wasn’t a bit odd in the Nonhuman Club?

--

Chapter Text

The bubbling, oscillating ringing tones of a pop song began playing through the speakers of Bonnie’s phone, which was sitting on her bedside table, as its screen lit up that Monday morning.

“We were good,” the singer sang. “We were gold,” she continued.

“Morning,” Persephone said casually without looking up from her own phone as Bonnie grumbled awake and reached out for her phone.

“Mmmmmnnngh… Morning,” Bonnie replied, sitting up blearily in her bed by the door as she turned her seven o’clock alarm off. She yawned, rubbing her eyes before she kicked her blankets off of herself unceremoniously.

“Should ‘a’ seen how it were raining before, were absolutely bucketing down,” Persephone told her amusedly, pointing to the window of their new dormitory as second-years. About an hour before, a torrential downpour had come and gone, though it seemed like the weather had almost finished calming down - there was still a tiny bit of drizzle tapping on the window, but not much.

“Yeah, woke me up it did,” Kiera grumbled, also groggily sitting up in her bed opposite Persephone’s across the windows they were both closest to as Dominique, at that moment resembling a feathery heap piled on her nest of a bed, startled awake. “You were just up already like always though I’m guessing?” she added, and Persephone nodded.

“Ay, a were,” Persephone replied. “Mornin’ Dom.” Dominique just made a disgruntled raptor noise at that, clicking her beak. Yeah, she’d gotten up a lot earlier the day before to catch the train, but she’d liked not having to get up so early over the holidays. As Bonnie got up and slouched her way out of the slightly-ajar door to head to the loo, Persephone stretched her arms out in front of her as if she were in her wolven form, her tongue hanging in space as she yawned, before she shook herself and hopped off her bed to pull her privacy curtains shut and get dressed.

It was a bigger dormitory than they’d had for the last school year, unsurprisingly; they were deeper down the cliff that looked out over the great lake, and thanks to its gradient the cosy underground complex of Hufflepuff had more room for that dormitory. Persephone wondered how big the seventh-years’ dormitory was. The second year girls’ dormitory was laid out in essentially the same way as the first years’, with a central column heater and their seven beds with their yellow and black curtains and sheets laid out around it against the walls, which were circular. Each of them had their own personal area on one side of their bed, though thanks to the slight expansion of that zone they didn’t just get a dresser and mirror, but also a small desk of their own! Persephone had wasted no time setting up her laptop on it the night before, though it wasn’t plugged in - she could hear the constant oscillation of the circuits in the charger and plug as a pervasive high-pitched whine when it was plugged in.

The extra space in the second years’ dormitory in Hufflepuff was mirrored also by the Slytherins’. The rectangular Slytherin dormitories were not looking out over the lake, but under it, though the reminder of Merpeople in the lake by the Scamander twins made Vanya a little concerned about privacy from the grimy outside of the green windows. And of note to the little cold-blooded vampire, it wasn’t just a more spacious dormitory - perhaps it had been done with her in mind, perhaps it had just already been that way, but the second years’ dormitory had a much better heater at the wall nearest Vanya’s bed. She still had her warming bedding that Professor Greengrass had provided her with the previous year, those had been put on her bed, but the heater was important too. Vanya had a desk too now, where she’d been glad to tidily line up all her textbooks and stack her exercise books and stationery. Under it sat Puss’ bed, and upon that desk, just the same as upon her dormmates’ desks, was her timetable.

Curiously, the timetables weren’t as simple as they had been the year before. The year before, it had told them what they had each day of the week, quick and easy. This time, it was a bigger piece of paper and it had two weeks’ worth of timetabling on it, labelled Week 1 and Week 2. Presumably, that week was to be Week 1, though she wondered if their timetables were going to change every two weeks. She also frowned at the fact that she wasn’t going to have Transfiguration, her favourite subject, until Thursday. On Week 2, she’d have it second thing on a Monday, but not on Week 1. On Week 1, she just had a double period of it last thing on Thursday.

Though, it did make some sense that their timetable had been a bit expanded; they had an expanded list of subjects, it probably hadn’t all fit in! And it was that which quickly came up in conversation once Persephone and Dominique joined her for breakfast in the Great Hall just as she finished taking her epilepsy medication and gathered up some breakfast for Puss.

“Oh we’ve got Technology today after lunch!” Dominique chirruped as she examined her timetable, comparing it with Vanya’s. Their schedules were of course different, but they overlapped in the elective classes. Vanya smiled gladly.

“I’ve got Tech too I do, so’s Seoyun,” Caoimhe piped up, in the middle of wiping her glasses on her blouse.

“Alpin and A’ve got Textiles then,” Persephone said, quickly checking hers, and Alpin nodded brightly.

“So have I!” Summer said, as Kiera nodded as well and Tabitha cheered. “And Bonnie said she did too?” she asked, to which Persephone nodded. “Wonder who else’ll be taking what, might be fun with everyone all mixed in,” she mused.

“Yeah, I reckon it will be,” Tabitha agreed. “What’s this Social Studies thing we’ve got second period, d’you think?” she asked the group as she perused hers. Dominique frowned, looking at her own.

“We’ve got it in third period, after double Defence,” she supplied. Persephone hummed pointedly, chewing through a mouthful of bacon as she moved her hands.

“Mm! It’s what used to be Muggle Studies, Aunty Ariadne told us about how they expanded it a wee bit and made it for all o us,” Persephone said. “Takes Citizenship from the non-magic stuff, some cultural literacy, all sorts,” she explained.

“Huh,” Summer said thoughtfully. “I mean, makes sense, who actually needs Muggle Studies? How many of us actually don’t just live… normally, with everyone else?” she asked. Persephone thought back to the demographics stuff her Ma had mentioned regarding the election.

“Oh, just under about fifteen percent A think it were,” Persephone replied. “Though, that’s no including nonhumans what can’t,” she pointed out, nodding over to where Tegyd and Sue were having quite a violent argument over the nickname Twolegs, which Tegyd had objected to strenuously and was clashing horns with Sue over.

“They all right?” Bonnie asked uncertainly as another loud CRACK! sounded as Tegyd whacked her horns into Sue’s at full force. People around the pair were looking about as if to wonder if they should interrupt, including Rowan, but Persephone knew, as did Dominique, that that was just how caprids sorted things out, and there was probably a pecking order to reestablish now the pair were at Hogwarts and not in a bigger herd in the Bannau Brycheiniog. Tegyd seemed to have the upper hand thanks to her height.

“They’ll be all right,” Dominique assured her. “I saw this in the Vosges, Caprids have an actual dominance hierarchy, not just the family packs werewolves have. I think Sue offended Tegyd when she called her Twolegs, now Tegyd’s trying to make herself top doe while they’re at Hogwarts,” she explained, and as if on cue, Sue backed down, moving back as Tegyd went to headbutt her again, and Tegyd caught herself on a table before she could stumble over. Sue apologised, promised not to call her that again, and Tegyd nodded, satisfied as her ears left the hostile arrowhead shape they’d been making, and patted Sue on the shoulder as if nothing had happened before she walked back over to where she was eating her breakfast of salads and twiggy leaves that Persephone swore had come from a hedge someplace.

“Doesn’t that hurt their heads?” Summer asked sceptically.

“Ay, but they’ve got thick skulls they do,” Persephone replied amusedly. “But anyway, it’s still got a wee bit o Muggle Studies in it, it just disna¹ reckon it needs ye to write an essay on what a toaster is,” she chuckled, making her friends laugh.

“Thynne’s getting a Dreadful then, I don’t think he’s ever seen one,” Tabitha snickered, and Persephone barked with laughter at that before she was abruptly distracted by Seoyun hurriedly coming to sit down, carrying a piece of paper.

“Dominique!” Seoyun exclaimed, sliding into place beside Dominique. “Did you see this?” she asked urgently, showing Dominique the paper. Dominique chirruped curiously, ripping a chunk of chicken drumstick off with her beak and swallowing it before she looked over at it.

“Oh! No I didn’t, was this on the noticeboard?” Dominique asked quickly, trying not to rip it with her talons as Seoyun gave it to her.

“W’is it?” Persephone asked through a mouthful of baked beans, which earned her an amused sort of chiding look from Alpin.

“Quidditch tryouts!” Dominique chirped. “When are they, in a few weeks?”

“The twenty-sixth. Delbridge must have already arranged them,” Seoyun replied eagerly. William Delbridge, who was their Keeper, was the Captain of the Hufflepuff team. “A Chaser position is open this year!” she told them all.

“Blimey, are you both going to go for it?” Tabitha asked, and Dominique exchanged a look with Seoyun. The game, it seemed, was afoot. She nodded.

“Place yer bets then, Seoyun or Dom!” Persephone laughed, making both Seoyun and Dominique laugh too but with a far more competitive spirit.

“Do you know anyone else who’s going to try out? Persephone, what about you?” Tabitha asked curiously. Persephone shook her head.

“Na, A dinna² like flying,” Persephone told her.

“I might give it a go,” Bonnie piped up with a shrug. “Why not? I like flying, it’s really cool,” she added, and Dominique clacked her beak gladly at her. “What about you Tabitha, are you going to try out for Slytherin?” she asked.

“Nah, I like Quidditch but I’m no good at it,” Tabitha replied, before she checked her watch and hurriedly finished her cereal. “We should probably go,” she said to Vanya, “we’ve got Charms,” she pointed out, and Vanya nodded even as she finished up her schwarzsauer soup. And so with that the lot of them joined the throng of students dispersing from the Great Hall into the rest of the school.

There was a wide distribution of both vigour and reluctance among them, Vanya thought as she sat down in Charms with Addison, Brenda, Tabitha, Sylvia, and Isobelle as she always had for the last year, chatting with Osian and Rhodri Prewett behind them, and Professor Seong welcomed them back for the year. Vanya was definitely among the small ‘vigour’ group herself - she’d spent much of her holidays, when she hadn’t been visiting friends, sitting in the sun on the beach and reading, so she had plenty of study to eagerly apply.

Vanya even impressed Professor Seong with her successful Engorgement Charm upon her pencil case - she had, after all, been casting spells like that on the cat toys she’d gotten for Puss all summer.

After Charms, they had the curious Social Studies, which turned out to have been summed up quite well by Persephone - Professor Bilal Khan was a pleasant fellow who’d gone over the broad strokes of their Social Studies curriculum. There’d be lessons regarding the United Kingdom’s political system, how Parliament worked - which, of course, included how the Ministry worked - discussion of law, police, and the courts, as well as charities and public institutions, and over the years he’d be discussing money and budgeting. That all, he said, fell under Citizenship, which Vanya remembered from what Persephone had spoken of. Then there were other things - stuff like geography, world religions, a little philosophy, all sorts. And of course there were the Muggle Studies elements, which Vanya got the feeling were for the purebloods who lived in places like Diagon Alley, which was to explain how the electrical infrastructure of the country worked, the basics of cars and planes, that sort of thing.

He also said that in their fifth year they’d be taking two exams - a small OWL portion on Muggle Studies and a GCSE exam under Learning for Life and Work - and that in their seventh year they’d get the opportunity to earn their driver’s licence and learn to drive in Aberdeen as an extra optional portion of the curriculum, though Vanya wondered how that would go for her given her tininess and clear appearance as an eternal eight-year-old. 

And, making her a bit sorrowful as she sat there, even if she could make herself look like she had dwarfism or something, it wouldn’t be her name on her licence.

The problem was that ‘Vanya Mathilda Stryde’ had been declared dead, deceased as of the 19th of November 2022. She’d seen that on the headstone of the grave she’d dug herself out of, and the legal complications had been explained to her by her case manager Lynwen Williams while she’d been bawling her eyes out in a little Ministry office. It wasn’t exactly possible to un-declare her dead. So they’d concocted her a false identity, which was why her legal name and the name that would be on her licence if she somehow got one, and that was on all of her documentation, was Emily Theresa Walker. Technically, she was supposed to be getting used to that name, but, stubbornly, she wasn’t willing to do that.

But Vanya did her best to put that matter out of her mind as they went to History, going by the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws as they swapped - the others had Social Studies with Professor Khan immediately after them. History was considered by most a relatively dreary subject, but their teacher - their second, after the disappearance of the ghost Professor Binns last year, a mystery that still hadn’t been solved - Professor Peregrine Arkwright knew how to keep them engaged, and much of the class perked up when he told them he was working with Professors Granger and McGonagall to arrange for the second years to visit the Churchill War Rooms in London as part of their segment on the Second World War!

But after their first History lesson came lunchtime, and then came the class that overlapped in all of the second years’ timetables, regardless of House - their nonmagical elective. And so, when lunch came to a close, Vanya swapped Tabitha and Brenda for Dominique, Caoimhe, and Seoyun, to head off to their Technology class with one Professor Finella Kerruish. Curiously, Vanya had been expecting to be directed to the computer room, but instead she and her friends walked into a classroom that had been converted into more of a workshop and sat down at a bench on a stool that was a little too tall for her to get onto easily.

“Good afternoon!” Professor Kerruish told them all as she walked in, her blonde hair up in a ponytail behind her head as she took off her jacket and put it on the back of a chair behind her desk in the corner. “Now don’t worry, I promised you computers and you’ll get them in the second half of my class. First we’ll do some electronics, the practical bit with hot soldering irons, and then we’ll get into having you make some games in Scratch in the computer room. Come back next year, once I know you know the skills, I’ll get you making a website, teach you some HTML,” she said brightly.

“Bloody mint!” Addison murmured eagerly, grinning at Dominique and Vanya before Professor Kerruish took their attendance.

“Lachlan Doyle. Omar Essam. Addison Morgan,” Kerruish began, before she would begin her class. And though Vanya found the class pretty fun, she did have to notice that her name had been called after Sylvia Twyford’s and immediately before Caoimhe Walsh’s, not after Finn Saunders’.

--

Meanwhile, down the hall in another such long workshop-converted classroom, Alpin and Persephone were joined by Summer, Aubrey, Bonnie, Kiera, and Tabitha as they walked into the big Textiles room, a room with one very big bench at the front where, no doubt the Professor demonstrated things, along with plenty more big tables and chairs, along with a corner with a few dress forms standing in them, and an entire wall of rolls of fabric on tubes. Among the stone columns of the room, a spinal column of extension cables ran up a wall and along the ceiling all the way down the chamber, dangling down for the plugs of a dozen white plastic sewing machines at the back tables. There was also, in the corner beside a pillar, a weird machine with a different profile and several spools of thread set up on all complicated hooks and stuff. Alpin explained to Persephone that it was an overlocker.

But those were not the only machines there. For near them, along the back wall were some few tables with cast iron legs, and seemingly built into each of those tables was an ancient and gracefully curved black metal sewing machine with the scuffed name SINGER along its body surrounded with faded but ornate decals, and each seemed to have a belt of some kind connecting the wheel on its end, through holes in the table, to a wheel affixed to the rightmost leg, which itself was somehow linked to the cast iron lattice footrest underneath it. Each had some drawers on either side too.

Whatever they were, among them only Alpin seemed to have any idea as he stared at the old machines as they sat down at some of the frontmost tables and stools, while Persephone, Aubrey, and Summer stared at them in utter bewilderment at how they could possibly have worked. Though, as they sat there and waited for Professor Iwerydd Pryce, Persephone frowned and looked around, and then looked at Alpin.

“It just me or are ye the only boy in here?” Persephone asked, mostly rhetorically. Alpin looked around too, and indeed, he was the only boy among the small class. Alpin hummed amusedly, smiling before they all looked up as Professor Pryce came in the door, a round sort of woman with mousy, greying brown hair and a jolly expression in a pretty purple embroidered set of robes as she perused them and lit up like a Christmas tree as soon as she saw Alpin.

“Ah! Thank goodness!” Professor Pryce exclaimed in a very Welsh accent, hurrying into the classroom toward their big desk and leaning across it at them with a relieved expression. At the hip of the blue dress she was wearing under her robes was a strange dangling collection of chains on an ornate hub, and dangling from its delicate chains were all sorts of things; a few pairs of scissors of various sizes, a needle threader, a thimble, a pencil, even a little encapsulated piece of blue chalk that seemed to change colour in the light. “Young man, you have no idea how rare it is for a boy to come here!” she cried, and Fern Taylor - who seemed to be on her own - snorted as the others giggled a bit. Now it was drawn attention to, he really was the odd one out.

“Um. I like sewing, my Mam taught me,” Alpin replied simply, shrugging. Pryce beamed at him before she blew a kiss into the air above their heads.

“Oh, marvellous! Marvellous, we need more boys learning how to sew. Thank you for coming young man,” Professor Pryce crowed, before she clapped to herself and swept back around the bench, smiling at them all. “How very nice to meet you all! I’m Professor Iwerydd Pryce. A little bit about me… I’m from Blaenau Ffestiniog up in North Wales, right beside the Harpies’ stadium in the Eryri National Park, and I’ve been a tailor all my life, and I’m in my mid seventies. I’ve got two sons, and even a few little grandchildren! Shall I take the roll, and then we’ll get started then?” she said warmly, smiling at them all as she picked up a piece of paper. “Summer Byrne!” she called.

“Here!” Summer replied.

“Aubrey Carter!”

“Present!”

“Alpin Faughn!”

“Shwmae³ Professor,” Alpin replied brightly, and Professor Pryce looked up at him again.

“Nefoedd⁴ and he’s Welsh!” she crowed, making Persephone bark with laughter. “I’m definitely keeping you, Alpin!” she added amusedly. “Persephone Granger-Weasley!”

“Ay A’m here,” Persephone chuckled, still laughing at her reaction to Alpin speaking Welsh. There weren’t very many names on the roll - Kiera, Brenda, Kate Pearson, Fern Taylor, Tabitha, and Bonnie were the only names left in the list before Professor Pryce came around and leant on the front of the bench to speak to them.

“So. No point in me doing a great big speech on what I’ll be teaching you, that’s a bit obvious isn’t it? I’ll be teaching you sewing skills, it isn’t much more complicated than that,” Professor Pryce said simply, shrugging. “We’ll do a few projects while you’re with me, making a bag and that sort of thing, and I’ll go over your basics of how to use the sewing machine, a little bit of hand-sewing, sewing on a button, that sort of thing, and then if you take Textiles again next year and the year after, we’ll do stuff like pattern drafting and making some clothes,” she explained, and Bonnie put her hand up. “Yes Bonnie?” she asked.

“Why is it we can’t just sew with magic, Professor?” Bonnie asked curiously. Pryce nodded.

“Ha, I knew someone would ask, someone always does,” Professor Pryce said amusedly. “Think about it. Sewing with magic is actually a lot harder than you’d think,” she told them, and picked up a needle from a tray near herself and holding it up. “You need to do just as much fiddly work as you’d be doing with your hands, and it takes a lot of concentration, these are tiny things to be tossing about with magic. You also can’t feel what you’re doing. And you can’t use magic to do it if you don’t know how to hand-sew in the first place,” she explained, putting the needle back in the tray. “It’s much easier to just use your hands or use a machine, which is faster too! There’s a reason we invented them,” she chuckled. “You can use magic, and we’ll do that maybe in our last week, but unless you’ve only got one hand to use for some reason, broken arm or something, it’s almost always a completely unnecessary hassle,” she said.

“What about making the machine go with magic?” Brenda asked. Professor Pryce made a face.

“Err… you could, but you really shouldn’t. You really need the physical feedback of working the machine yourself, any magic in between just gets in the way,” she told them. “But they do sell sewing machines quite like modern Muggle ones in Diagon Alley turned by magic instead of electricity so you don’t ever have to worry about a power cut these days,” Pryce added before she pushed off the bench a bit. “Shall we jump in? Everyone grab a spool of thread and go pick a machine, there’s enough for all of you,” she said brightly, clapping her hands together and offering them all a tray of simple black thread. Quickly, all of them rattled through the tray to grab a spool, Persephone got one that was a little more depleted than others but she tottered off with Alpin to pick sewing machines opposite each other on a bench.

“Professor?” Kiera asked, holding up her hand as they walked to machines.

“Yes Kiera?” Pryce asked.

“What about those ones?” Kiera pointed at the old black machines built into tables, and Professor Pryce laughed an evil-sounding laugh.

“Aha! Oh, those ones, you girls won’t be using those. If Alpin’s sewn before I might let him have a go if he impresses me, but those are nasty old ladies who will sew your finger if you look away for but an instant!” Professor Pryce told them darkly. “Anyone know what they are?” she asked, and Alpin put his hand up. “Ah! Star of the class, what are they Alpin?”

“Treadles, Professor,” Alpin replied matter-of-factly. “My Nan has one up in her attic,” he added.

“Ever had a go on it?” Pryce asked, and Alpin shook his head immediately, making Pryce snicker. “Thought not. Might not even work to begin with, we had to do some work to get these running again after we dug them out of Hogwarts’ mothballs. They did used to teach sewing back in the 1940s, of course it was the ‘40s so it was just for the girls,” she explained. “Shall I show you all how these work?” she asked, and several of the girls nodded curiously. So Pryce beckoned them over to the wall of four of the treadles, and Persephone came along alongside Alpin. Pryce selected the rightmost of the four. “This machine is a Singer model 15K, and according to the serial number on the front here, it was built in 1895. These are all about that old. Now of course, they didn’t have electricity back then, so you don’t just press that footrest down and it goes,” Pryce told them. “It runs off this flywheel here,” she said, pointing to the big iron wheel under the table as she brought a chair over to it and sat down. Out of a pocket, she fetched a bit of scrap fabric and folded it over. Humming to herself, Pryce threaded the machine with a spool she herself had taken from the tray, it all looking quite complicated as she looped it around some kind of tiny dishes in the back and then up again and down again, only to thread the needle so easily Persephone scowled. She’d never been able to do it, her fingers were too clumsy. With that, Pryce slid a little metal tray off the side of the machine to reveal its innards, checked its bobbin was threaded, and closed it again.

“Right, now she’s ready to sew,” Pryce said, and as if it were the simplest thing in the world she lowered the presser foot, put her feet on the treadle, and began pushing it down rhythmically, setting the shiny chrome wheel on the side of the machine spinning at such a rapid speed it was a blur in Persephone’s gaze. The machine began trundling and the lever on the side shot up and down with the needle that moved in unison with a pole in the top of the head as the scrap fabric Pryce was sewing on got pushed forward with a stitch sewn into it. The treadle came back up with the flywheel with the machine’s rhythm, and fluidly Pryce pushed it back down again, spinning the flywheel evenly. A few seconds of sewing later, she stopped and turned back to them with a jackal-esque smile. “It’s as easy as riding a bike. Anyone like to try it?” she asked jovially.

Persephone, foolishly, put her hand up. It didn’t look that hard!

Like the finger of a monkey’s paw curling, Professor Pryce beckoned her over and stood up off the chair. Alpin made a face like he knew what was coming and thought it incredibly funny as Persephone sat down in the chair. Professor Pryce patted her back as Persephone called back the memory of what few times she’d used Alpin’s Ma’s sewing machine. Couldn’t be that hard, right? She was used to coordinating her hind and front legs as a wolf, this was just a different motion plus thumbs. That didn’t mean she understood what the Professor had done though.

“So, since you’ve never done this before, I’d recommend pulling the wheel down toward you to get it moving,” Pryce told her, pointing to the shiny wheel on Persephone’s right. Persephone nodded and put her hand on the wheel, took a breath, and spun it down. Immediately, the machine spun back into life, a rattling clunking life as the needle ran up and down and Persephone hurriedly held the fabric straight and pushed her foot down.

CLA-LUNK!

Persephone yelped like a puppy and froze as the machine slowed abruptly and then the wheel, which had been turning toward her, suddenly started going backwards, the machine made a truly terrible noise, and Professor Pryce’s hand shot forward to stop the wheel from continuing backward. Alpin guffawed as the entire class laughed.

“What happened?” Persephone asked worriedly.

“You pushed down at the wrong time, it made the wheel go backwards,” Pryce told her and she winced. She hadn’t even realised there was a wrong time. “These machines can’t reverse, I should note, you aren’t supposed to do that,” she added amusedly. Persephone’s eyes widened.

“Is it okay?” she asked, remembering the noise it had made. Pryce laughed.

“Don’t worry Persephone, these things have survived worse than you,” she chuckled. “When I said it was like riding a bike, I wasn’t kidding. These old machines have a rhythm you’ve got to work with, it’s a skill! Which is why we’ll just be using the electrics, they’re a lot easier,” Pryce told them with a big smile, before she patted Persephone’s shoulder to have her get up and head back to the electric machine she’d claimed. “Right! Pick a machine, and thread it up. If you don’t know how, give it a go anyway, don’t sew anything yet and I’ll come around and give you a hand. You always learn best by doing, I’ve always said,” Professor Pryce told them, smiling as the dozen of them clattered around to sit down at their chosen modern electric machines and begin threading them with the thread they’d been given.

Alpin, of course, threaded his machine opposite Persephone like it was second nature to him. In fact, he’d done it so quickly Persephone had barely had time to watch him do it and try to copy his actions. It didn’t help that his machine was facing him and not her, and they were on opposite sides of the table, so Persephone, frowning, did her best before Alpin showed her, guiding her on where to put the thread until it was tidily threaded up. Though, Alpin had had to thread the needle for her. And once everyone’s machines were threaded up, Professor Pryce had them all try some basic sewing, getting them comfortable with how much pressure to put on the foot pedal and eventually all of them - and not just Alpin, who was sewing like a precision lightning bolt - were sewing a tidy straight line at a relatively quick pace.

And of course, like all good times, it came to an end far too soon as the bells rang overhead.

“Ah! Well, that’s us I’m afraid,” Professor Pryce told them all as Persephone and Alpin packed up to prepare to head to Potions with their yearmates from Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, while Brenda and Fern prepared to go to Maths. “Before you go, you should know that this room is always open. You’re all more than welcome to come in after class or on the weekend if you like, if you want to make use of the machines. If you want to make something, might want to start making a Halloween costume for example, just make sure you leave the room in a tidy state and it’s all perfectly fine,” she assured them, and Persephone smiled to Alpin, whom she knew had wanted to make a few things, and Alpin’s mismatched eyes lit up. He was getting taller, some of his trousers didn’t reach anymore, and that was just the start of it.

“Have a good day everyone!” Pryce called, before with that they went on to Potions.

--

Chapter Text

The halls of Hogwarts were a headache-inducing bustle Dominique hadn’t encountered so closely in months as classes ended that afternoon. Students poured from classrooms into the corridors, and instead of flowing like veins into other classrooms, they congregated into a few condensed buzzing balls. Thankfully, the rain of that morning had not returned and so some took to the fields to get some fresh air, but plenty of them gathered as friends in the Common Rooms, in the corridors, in the Great Hall, and much like Dominique and her friends, in the grassy courtyard. And so, wincing at her headache, Dominique sat like a puddle of feathers in the grass - grass that had thankfully dried - as she and several of her peers gathered in a clump by the big oak tree in the centre of the courtyard, as Persephone lay idly and comfortably in the crook of a root. It was the middle of the day, Persephone was tired and still adjusting from her crepuscular schedule at home after she’d returned to it over the holidays.

“Ey up,” Vanya greeted them and Alpin as she slipped her bag off her shoulders and discarded it on the grass and sat down on a higher root at the side of the tree and tried not to think of her strategic height choice as a baby’s high-chair. It was also in the sun, so she was pleasantly warm instead of carrying residual warmth from a heater that morning - it was why Vanya was always the most thickly dressed one in the room at Hogwarts, she was cold-blooded. That wasn’t really a trait that combined well with Scotland, it wouldn’t be long until she’d be needing a hot water bottle. Even then she was wearing her entire uniform and cardigan and thick socks, when everyone else was just wearing the shirt and their cloaks, save for the gently panting Persephone who had more anatomical reasons to wear the grey pinafore dress all the other girls chose not to wear for how childish it looked - the waistband of a pair of trousers or a standalone skirt chafed the lowest of her three sets of nipples.

That was one aspect of her biology Persephone hadn’t mentioned to the press when they’d discussed her strange new variety of werewolfry. It was one of those things that was funny to mention offhandedly when people asked if there was anything else that made her weird, but that wasn’t really appropriate to talk about otherwise. She didn’t really want a newspaper talking about the fact that puberty had begun the process of her developing six breasts, the white fur slowly growing in on her bare legs and threatening to form a winter coat was by far enough thank you very much.

“Hey Vanya!” Persephone said, panting softly in gladness at the sight of the little vampire with her tongue out a little. She was pretty happy to be seeing her friends again now that they were back at Hogwarts, even though she missed her family and, ergo, her pack keenly. “Maths all right?” she asked brightly.

“Yeah, same old same old,” Vanya replied simply, scratching Puss’ ears as the big fluffy black cat hopped up on the roots of the tree playfully. “You had Potions, right?” she asked, remembering what Dominique had said after Tech. “That go all right?”

“Persephone’s certainly no more pleased about wearing a mask in there,” Alpin quipped amusedly, making Persephone scoff at him. Indeed, though in fact actually due to her asthma and nothing to do with her being a werewolf, Persephone had to wear a mask in Potions. Besides, one wouldn’t have helped much with the oppressive smells of the Potions classroom down in the dungeons even if that had been why she’d been wearing it. He sniffed amusedly and smiled at Vanya. “When have the Slytherins and Gryffindors got Potions Vanya?” he asked.

“Hm? Wednesday,” Vanya replied.

“Professor Greengrass intends to place a heavier emphasis on the Muggle chemistry curriculum for us this year, I suppose you’ll see on Wednesday if Thynne’s head explodes,” Alpin told her, and Vanya wheezed with giggles as Persephone laughed boisterously and Dominique winced at the noise adding to her headache. Normally it was Persephone hating noise, but that lunchtime it seemed it was Dominique.

“Honestly, probably will!” Vanya cackled as Persephone nodded at her. Portunus Thynne, son - and second child to his elder sister the Lady Vesta, who was a year above them in Slytherin - of Lord Jupitus Thynne, was the son of a very much pureblood-wizard supremacist family - and though he could technically of course always slip the reins of his family’s bigotry, he hadn’t gone to that effort in the slightest. Professor Draco Greengrass, who taught Potions and who had been the heir to House Malfoy until it had been dissolved, was such a person who had gone to that effort, so it was rather ironic really. “He looked pretty unhappy in Social Studies,” she chuckled. Persephone looked up.

“Speak o the devil,” Persephone noted, having caught Thynne’s scent before she’d seen him walking along the courtyard accompanied by his usual cadre of the only kids at the school who could stand him, and indeed each other. Hunter McLaggen was one of them, the son of a family enemy of the Grangers; his father, Cormac McLaggen, had sexually harassed Persephone’s Ma at Hogwarts, and their enmity had just grown since then. Almost out of spite, Hunter at least had associated with other enemies of the Grangers, like the Thynnes. Along with them was Cameron Vexmoor, an arsehole from a very rich family, and Theodore Chambers, who was just a right prick. And just as they had seen Thynne and his posse, Thynne and his posse had seen them. And they seemed pretty entertained by something as they laughed and pointed over at the girls. “What do they want, d’ye think?” Persephone grumbled as they hopped into the courtyard, before her keen eyes realised they weren’t pointing at any of the girls. Chambers was pointing at Alpin. Persephone defensively tensed a bit as they came over to where they were sitting, while Vanya pointedly scritched Puss’ ears, smiling sarcastically at Hunter. She had, in a sense, taken Puss from McLaggen - Puss had been McLaggen’s familiar, but McLaggen had mistreated her, and so the instant she was able to ignore him during a detention a year ago, Puss had sought a new master and found Vanya.

“Taffy here really does think he’s a girl huh?” Chambers spat gleefully, grinning. Alpin blinked at them for a moment.

“Taffy, how original,” Alpin muttered sarcastically to Persephone, who scowled a bit at Chambers as she sat up. Alpin having a background both in Scotland and Wales had been notable in primary school too, kids calling him a ‘taffy’ was nothing new. “What’s tickled you dimwits this term?” he asked pointedly, making Persephone snort - Alpin was normally really quite mild-mannered, so it was the most politely toned snark possible.

“Taylor says you went and took Sewing,” Vexmoor snickered, sneering at him. Vanya rolled her eyes. Fern Taylor, one of her unpleasant dormmates, had clearly gotten straight back to being a bitch now she wasn’t getting detention constantly for having contributed to Vanya’s near-death thanks to her prank with Annabelle in January. “What, you trying to be a girl now?” he added. Alpin raised an eyebrow at them.

“Oh that’s boring,” Alpin shrugged. “Get over yourselves, it’s quite a practical skill to have. I’d like to see you lot try to fix anything you own, clothes or otherwise,” he noted scathingly, shaking his head at them.

“We’ve got magic, dimwit,” Thynne retorted, throwing Alpin’s words back at him. “None of us need to sew anything,” he said, and Persephone snorted.

“Did we no just have an entire lesson on why that don’t work, no?” Persephone pointedly asked Alpin.

“Hmm. Did you know that magical repair spells aren’t actually very effective on fabrics?” Alpin asked the boys. “Especially not on a blended fabric like our shirts, they’re sixty-five percent polyester. Unless you’re incredibly skilled, the fibres won’t match up and it’ll just make it easier to rip it in the same place again later. Using a needle and thread actually works better,” he explained with a simple shrug and a pointed shake of his uniform shirt’s collar. “It used to be a wizarding status symbol, being able to afford a tailor’s work. Until fools like your families decided that using magic all the time set them above everyone else,” Alpin said nonchalantly, and Thynne went red. Vanya frowned, remembering all the times she’d done it when Dominique - before they’d made the Veela-specific uniform Dominique was wearing then after Christmas, the black poncho with a yellow Hufflepuff trim - had switched forms from having arms to having wings while still wearing a regular blouse for a human.

“Must be why your sleeves kept ripping in the same place last year, I kept fixing them with magic,” Vanya noted to Dominique, who nodded simply, though she wasn’t really up to replying. She really did have quite a bad headache. Thynne blinked and spluttered, seemingly confused by Alpin de-clawing his argument and infuriated by his description of rich wizarding families. McLaggen, however, strategically changed track so that his little group of twats could seem to have won in its own collective eyes.

“Oh look, the rest of the freak show wants in!” McLaggen said gleefully. Dominique looked up with an angry chirp. “What’d you go for bloodsucker, Food?” he snickered, making the rest of his friends guffaw.

“I didn’t see her there. Guess we know why,” Thynne added amusedly. Vanya glared at the pair sullenly, but Persephone swooped in.

“Nah, she took Tech ‘cos she’s no allergic to Muggle electricity like ye lot McLaggen,” Persephone retorted, grinning with rather more teeth than normal, her message clear to anyone who knew how to read a werewolf’s body language - you don’t get to go after my friend. “Did yer Da fill in all the sockets at yers ye wee Luddite?” she added snarkily. The McLaggens lived somewhere in Chelsea as far as Persephone recalled, so she thought it rather unlikely that their house didn’t have and benefit from the nonmagical innovations McLaggen and his friends derided. McLaggen scoffed, but looked back to his peers a bit in a way even a very tired Dominique instantly recognised as the look of a boy who wanted to keep the reputation of thinking himself above Muggles with those peers but who definitely had an electric desk lamp, couldn’t reply without lying, and hoped someone else would say something. One of them did.

“You see, Granger-Weasley, us proper wizards don’t need that stuff,” Portunus began, only for Persephone to bite off the rest of his argument.

“All those ovens in Food, they’re no electric are they then A hope?” Persephone asked - after all, Thynne had taken Food apparently. Portunus made a face.

“What has that got to do with it?” he snapped.

“Electric ovens are a wee bit better than a bloody Victorian range what works on a fire. Ye might finally learn a thing or two Thynne!” Persephone pointed out. Her Da had talked about the differences heaps. “A dinna need this neither, but A can put it in my pocket, can send more than one letter at a time, they can read it the nou,¹ and it don’t shit on nothing,” she added, getting her phone out of her pocket and wiggling it in the air. “But by all means, keep abusing an owl so ye can send letters worse than the Royal Mail can just ‘cos ye’re a wizard and ye think it makes ye better,” she snapped. Thynne scoffed at her and seemingly gave up as he shook his head with a disgruntled look and walked off. His friends followed along as Persephone huffed and relaxed again and Alpin sniffed amusedly.

“Well that was pathetic,” Alpin shrugged simply, making Vanya snort with laughter. Sure, the silliness of the dickheads was funny on its own, but it only became funnier by the way Alpin just didn’t give a toss. It was pretty clear that Thynne and his friends went after what they would have found insulting, which didn’t actually seem to have much overlap with what Alpin found insulting. They could bat it around in a circle for themselves as much as they liked, but the moment it made contact with Alpin himself it was declawed in an instant because he didn’t take such things as insults. Alpin jovially got out his embroidery hoop and a half-done likeness of the tower his family lived in on the banks of Loch Ard. As the boy got back to work with his needle and thread, precisely following the faint lines he’d drawn on the white fabric, he smiled to them. “Now that lot have done their thing I’d say that’s all of day one’s boxes ticked. What’ve we got tomorrow?” he asked brightly.

“Oh, what hae² we got?” Persephone grumbled, fetching her crumpled up timetable from her pocket. She frowned at it a bit. “Right boring morning, Maths, History… Arithmancy, so more Maths,” she said, and Vanya straightened up where she was sitting with Puss.

“Oh I’ve got that, I’ve got Arithmancy for Week One,” Vanya said quickly. “It’s actually pretty interesting. What’ve we all got for the magic ones we chose? I’ve got Arithmancy this week and Ancient Runes next week,” she asked.

“A’ve got Arithmancy and Ancient Runes too A do!” Persephone exclaimed, and Vanya beamed at her. The more classes she got to share with her peers in Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw the better. Persephone had been tempted to take Care of Magical Creatures, since it was taught by her Uncle Charlie, but she’d always found that a lot of animals had a hard time trusting her since she smelled like a wolf.

“I took Ancient Runes too, but I’ve got Divination tomorrow,” Alpin said, setting his hoop down and checking his rather less crumpled timetable. “Three out of four Ancient Runes next week, Dominique?” he asked. Dominique thought for a moment, frowning.

“I think I do have Ancient Runes next week yeah,” Dominique said. “But I think I’ve got Divination tomorrow too,” she added before she grumbled a crackly sort of squawk as she rubbed the side of her head through her feathers with the knuckles of her talons. “Can we go someplace else?” she asked her friends.

“You’ve got a headache, too many people around?” Vanya asked worriedly, and Dominique nodded. It had happened before, Dominique always got headaches when she came back to Hogwarts after a break where she’d gotten used to having fewer people in her mind sense. And the summer holidays were much longer than the Christmas or Easter ones. Vanya began to get up.

“Ay, c’mon, let’s go hang out on the field,” Persephone agreed, as Alpin put his hoop back away and followed suit.

--

The next morning dawned with only the barest of drizzle, but the skies were grey as befitted the rather slow start to the day that was Maths. And after History, which even with Professor Arkwright wasn’t the most engaging of classes, it came time for Persephone to separate from Dominique and Alpin and go along with Aubrey and Summer as they went off for Arithmancy. Outside of seeing him every now and then around the school, it was to be among the first times Persephone had ever met Professor Sylas Meyer, who taught Arithmancy and was also the Head of Ravenclaw House. Aubrey Carter, who’d come from America, was checking her phone as Vanya walked in, and waved alongside Persephone. She had an odd way of holding her phone that resembled a hen pecking at grain, but Persephone knew why that was; Aubrey’s little finger and ring finger, on either hand, wouldn’t move separately, not even slightly, so she couldn’t prop her phone up on her pinky because her ring finger couldn’t move out of the way. On the other hand, it was really easy for her to do the Spock thing, so there were pros and cons.

Vanya smiled as she hurried over to Persephone’s side, sitting in a little cluster of desks along with Tabitha, who’d also taken Arithmancy. All in all, Vanya thought it quite a good intersection of her peers as they sat down and she got out her books while they waited for Professor Meyer to arrive. She had, of course, already read their textbook Numerology, so it all made sense to her as Professor Meyer arrived, took the register, and began to introduce the class to the subject of Arithmancy.

And of course, while Vanya and Persephone paid attention to Professor Meyer, Dominique was heading upstairs with Alpin and Kiera beside her. It was strange, to Dominique, that Divination should be held so high up in the castle, up the huge central tower. It was taught by a Centaur, after all.

The Divination classroom, as Dominique stepped into it, was a vibrant space positively filled to the brim with potted plants in amongst its auditorium of desks. In the centre, where the speaker surely was supposed to go, the roots of a tree stabbed into a huge bed of loam, a tree whose early autumn leaves loomed across the ceiling which was draped with a thick black velvet curtain embroidered with stars ominously. On a little table under the tree were several shapes under a cloth, including a ball of some kind. White-grey sunlight casting indistinct shadows flowed into the classroom by the tall windows along its curved wall. Others were already there too, clearly the Gryffindors and Slytherins had already arrived. Annabelle Barnes earned a disgruntled clack of a beak from Dominique, but otherwise it was a very small class. Dominique and Alpin went and sat down at a table near the middle of the stairs of the amphitheatre where Isobelle Murray was sat and Oisín Brennan was himself sitting down.

“How are you lot?” Isobelle asked politely, smiling at them as they sat down.

“Well, thanks. We just had History, how are you?” Alpin replied as Dominique nodded.

“English,” Isobelle shrugged. “It’s nice having classes with everyone. Had Oisín in Wood yesterday, but it’s a bit of a sausage fest in Wood,” she chuckled wryly.

“She’s the only girl in Wood this term, she is,” Oisín agreed amusedly.

“I was the only boy in Textiles too,” Alpin said brightly, and Isobelle cheered.

“Well don’t you two make a fine couple eh?” Oisín snickered.

“Huh?” Alpin spluttered, seeming genuinely confused by the insinuation, while Isobelle spluttered. Dominique squawked amusedly, preening her feathers on her left wing before she looked up at the feeling of their Professor walking into the classroom. Or rather, clopping. Professor Firenze was an ageing Centaur with wild brown hair, the same dark brown that made up his beard and covered his entire equine body. His eyes were large and blue, a colour complemented by his dark blue robe that took the form of a horse cover as it draped down his back. Though, he did not wear a shirt under the robe, so his muscular abs and hairy chest were visible as he trotted into the classroom with a gentle expression.

“Good morning, students. I am Professor Firenze,” Professor Firenze said sagely, his baritone voice seeming to reverberate not just in his humanoid torso but his equine end. Daphne Owen went to quickly get out her pencil case, but Professor Firenze held a hand up simply. “I hope you are all well rested, but I assure you that my class will place no great strain upon you,” he told them all. Firenze clopped more into the centre of the room amidst the roots of the tree, raising an eyebrow. “Many mistake that to mean that this is an unserious class, and they are wrong,” he pointed out sternly. “But the study of future days is best conducted while relaxed, for a tense body and mind cloud one’s understanding.” With that, Firenze stood idly before them - Dominique recalled from the previous year of Nonhuman Club meetings, where they’d had a Centaur in his last year at Hogwarts, Thelan, that Centaurs could lock their legs, so the position was probably entirely comfortable for the Professor. Dominique relaxed a bit, letting her wing lay beside her on the next level of the amphitheatre.

“Now. Many think of this class as learning how to see the future. That is a fundamental misconception of Divination, which stems from the English language used to describe it,” Professor Firenze continued. “The use of the definite article. The. Time is not a… railway track,” he explained, rolling his wrist thoughtfully as he swished his tail. “Time is an infinite tree, with innumerable branches cascading from every choice, every beat of the butterfly’s wings. So know this: information you glean from studying this art may not come to pass,” Firenze told them firmly, Dominique finding herself listening with rapt attention. She’d taken Divination because it had sounded all right, but this sounded serious. “In the event that something clear comes to you, you must never uncritically act upon it, for it is merely a possible future, one of many,” he said. “The information that this art may bestow upon you is no laughing matter, even when it is gleaned for small things.”

Firenze looked around at them all idly.

“Many if not most witches and wizards are capable of the slightest prediction of the possible futures, and that is what I shall attempt to teach you to access this year,” Professor Firenze continued simply. “Next year, should you continue to take my class, I will begin to teach you to hone it. Those of you who find success in it may continue these lessons into your fourth year and beyond,” the Centaur said, before he unlocked his legs and stepped sideways a bit to the little table. With a flourish of his wrist, he removed the cloth, revealing several things; a tea set, a crystal ball, and a book or two. Dominique frowned, looking to Alpin - her Uncle Ron had always said that Firenze hadn’t taught such things, that they had been the domain of a Professor Trelawney whom Dominique had never seen. “Humanoid divination, by means such as tea leaf reading, opening books to random pages or picking random cards, reading patterns in smoke, these are rudimentary methods. But contrary to what many think, we Centaurs do not hold these techniques in contempt; they are simply small, and are surrounded with a false mysticism,” he said, as Dominique eyed the tea set worriedly. “The power is not in the cards, or the tea, so worry not Miss Weasley as I am aware that you cannot drink it for fear of caffeine poisoning. I could not either,” he said, smiling at her. Dominique nodded. “The power is in you,” Firenze said, waving a hand at them all. “You, whose magic is unconsciously moulding the dregs as you drink to symbolically fit what your subconscious has gleaned,” he said.

“Such a capability can be amplified, somewhat, by a crystal ball,” Firenze told them, pointing to the ball that shone in the grey light. Dominique looked to it curiously, wondering if she might see something in it, but she didn’t. All she saw was the weird warped refraction of all that was behind it. “However, even with such a thing, most of you… dare I hope all of you, will only be able to perceive twigs upon the nearby branches of the tree of time. Small matters. If a boy will agree to come to the Yule Ball with you, if it will rain next week,” Professor Firenze said, and Dominique frowned. Wasn’t the whole point of this class to make them good at Divination?

“I do not say this with derision,” Firenze sharply told them, his tone becoming suddenly rather more serious. Beside Dominique, Alpin seemed to understand why where Dominique didn’t, because he was nodding. “It is for the best for your minds that you grasp only those twigs,” he continued. “Those who can gaze upon the further boughs of the tree, Seers as you call them, those who have what humans have called the Sight… they are simultaneously blessed and cursed. I have compared time to a tree, but to a powerful Seer? It is a churning, raging river, a river with a thousand forks, and a river they are thrown into with whatever new tributary is cast into it!” Firenze hissed firmly, leaning closer to them as Dominique’s eyes went wide. Still, Alpin was nodding. “I pray that those of you possessed of some tiny seed of the Sight do not find that seed growing, for the tree it becomes is not a kind one,” he said, and suddenly Dominique remembered why Alpin knew about all this already. His father, Creighton, was a Seer himself. Not a powerful one, but just powerful enough for it to be noted. Alpin had mentioned it before in passing, and it seemed to Dominique that Alpin looked a little nervous about the possibility that he might have inherited his father’s ability, his lips were tense and he swallowed as Firenze continued.

“Forcible exposure to so many possibilities is the curse of the Seer. It is debilitating, paranoia-inducing, and terrifying,” Professor Firenze told them frankly, shaking his head. “I am lucky to have only the smallest modicum of the Sight, I find it manageable. My ex-colleague, however, Professor Sybil Trelawney, is a powerful Seer. She prophesied much of the progression of the war Professor Granger ended, and her retirement from teaching stemmed in no small part from the strain of being surrounded by so many momentous branches of the tree,” he explained to them. “The elders of my people have devoted centuries to making sense of prophecy,” Professor Firenze said. Beside Dominique, Isobelle put her hand up. “Yes, Miss Murray?” Firenze asked politely.

“Why can’t you just… ask the person who said the prophecy?” Isobelle asked, in the sort of tone of a student who knew they were asking a stupid question but needed to ask anyway. Alpin raised his eyebrows as if he knew the answer. Firenze smiled for a moment.

“Because, Miss Murray, they do not know,” Firenze replied, and Alpin nodded with a pointed look to Isobelle. “No mind can sustain such contact with such vast possibilities as those that solicit prophecies, events that divert whole branches of the tree. This is because a prophecy is the mind’s defence against it, it is the struggled, agonised attempt of the subconscious to put words to what it has seen before the vision is locked away forever in the vaults of one’s mind to protect the Seer,” he said, and Dominique looked to Alpin with her eyes wide. She wondered if Alpin’s father had ever given a prophecy. It sounded horrible. “If a Seer could remember their own prophecies by means other than their peers recording them… they would go mad,” Firenze said, concluding in a dramatic tone that filled the amphitheatre-shaped classroom.

“Oh, okay,” Isobelle mumbled, making a face at her friends.

“Take heart, students, that it is quite unlikely for any of you to be subject to such strains,” Firenze assured them. “Today, I will simply be introducing you to various simple Divination methods, such as the crystal ball and tea leaves,” he said, before he frowned softly. “Speaking of that, I ought to cover this again,” he murmured, putting the cloth back over the shining crystal ball.

“Why, has it got all weird magic has it?” Oisín asked. Alpin shook his head.

“No. Have you ever tried setting something on fire with a magnifying glass?” Alpin asked him, and Oisín frowned, shaking his head. “It’s like that but with your house if you look away and it catches the sun wrong. My Dad has one, he always used to tell me off when I left the cloth off it,” Alpin explained, and at the centre, Firenze nodded.

“Correct, Mister Faughn. It is a safety measure, nothing more-” Firenze said, pointing to him before Alpin turned around to face him again.

And at seeing Alpin’s face, perhaps only focusing on it for the first time, Professor Firenze’s eyes shot open as wide as they could and he stumbled back, startling. Dominique looked between them abruptly; was Firenze about to tell a prophecy?! Alpin jumped, straightening in his seat a Firenze stared at him. With his eyes bulging, Professor Firenze stepped closer slowly, his jaw tense.

“Y Clochydd,” Professor Firenze said softly.

Complete silence fell over the classroom as everyone looked to everyone else for an explanation. But only one person in the room even knew what their Professor had said, as Alpin looked around to see if anyone else had been the subject, and frowned at Professor Firenze.

“I didn’t know you spoke Welsh, Professor?” Alpin said hoarsely. Firenze swallowed, still looking at him as he shook his tail out and seemed to consciously try to relax. He shook his head.

“I do not,” Professor Firenze said. Dominique blinked. She might have only spoken English and French, but she knew Welsh when she heard it even if she didn’t understand it. And that had been Welsh. “But your face was etched into the stars long ago, Alpin Garanwyn Faughn,” Firenze said suspensefully. “Events along that branch are approaching more quickly than we had expected…” he murmured to himself as he began to clop back to the dais, before he looked up and caught Alpin’s wide-eyed look. “You have nothing to worry about, I assure you. It is nothing,” Firenze said hurriedly, holding up a hand to him. Alpin nodded uncertainly. Professor Firenze went back to the dais, seemingly shaken, while the class stared at Alpin. Anabelle Barnes, on the other end of the room on her own, had her arms crossed and looked convinced that Firenze had made it up for theatrics… but Alpin didn’t look so convinced of that. His face was pale, even more pale than usual, and his eyes were wide.

“What was that word Alpin?” Dominique whispered as she leant in to the table to be closer to him. Alpin swallowed and looked to her and back to Firenze, and then back to Dominique. Oisín and Isobelle leaned in too, curious.

“Y Clochydd,” Alpin repeated. “I… I think it’s a church word, I’ve never actually heard it before,” he told them before he licked his lips and frowned. “But cloch means bell. Erm, and -ydd is like the -er in baker, builder, that sort of thing,” he explained quietly.

“And Y?” Isobelle asked. Alpin shook his head.

“Article, just means the,” Alpin replied. He swallowed again, pursing his lips. “The Bellringer,” he decided.

“The Bellringer?” Dominique asked rhetorically. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she mused. Alpin inhaled sharply.

“It’s a title,” Alpin said, his stony ashen face looking as if he thought it was a death sentence. “It’s… it’s really rare for someone to have a title in a prophecy. If I have a title…” Alpin trailed off worriedly. “And one actually in Welsh!” he hissed confusedly under his breath.

“What’s wrong with Welsh? You’re Welsh, makes sense doesn’t it?” Isobelle asked. Alpin looked up at her.

“Exactly!” he whispered. “I didn’t say it, so why is it in Welsh if Professor Firenze doesn’t speak Welsh?” Alpin asked rhetorically. Dominique supposed he was right - if what Professor Firenze had said about the subconscious mind putting words to events, surely a prophecy which gave Alpin that name had to have been told by someone who themselves spoke Welsh. Some old Welsh Centaur?

“At least ringing a bell don’t sound too bad?” Oisín pointed out. Dominique frowned at him.

“Didn’t you see the way Professor Firenze looked at him? It must be a really big bell,” Dominique pointed out.

“All right, that’s enough gossiping please,” Professor Firenze called. But something in the Centaur’s eyes told Dominique he meant only for them to stop worrying, not that it wasn’t worth worrying over at all. Whatever calling Alpin the Bellringer had meant, it had gotten Firenze’s attention. And as the class went on for the next hour, that perturbed look in Professor Firenze’s eyes never went away, even as he visibly tried to relax and get on with teaching. And nor did the concern in Alpin’s eyes go away.

Dominique got the distinct impression that, among them, only Professor Firenze and Alpin truly understood the enormity of what had been said that day.

--

Chapter Text

Vanya was a little unsure if she even wanted to be going with her friends as they congregated in the courtyard that afternoon on Saturday. It was bright and sunny out, but unfortunately that did mean that without a nice cloud layer to keep warmth in, it wasn’t actually as warm as one might have thought. No, actually, it was quite chilly - everyone’s breath was a plume of mist before them and all of the assembled second-years save only for Persephone was wearing several layers. Vanya, disgruntledly, had gotten out her hot water bottle a bit earlier in the year than she’d expected, and so was holding it to her front under her thick jumper, wearing fluffy gloves and her green Slytherin scarf.

Her ears especially were a bit cold - she really needed to look into ways of styling her hair that were compatible with hats so she could wear a beanie, but the one downside of her naturally curly hair was that it protested against hats quite vociferously and looked really bad once she took the hat off. But she didn’t know of any ways to do it; it had only been that year when she’d fixed her hair back from the damaged straightness it had been plagued with for years using a magic potion, so she hadn’t learnt how. She obviously didn’t have her Mum to teach her. And annoyingly, there of course were no books on Black hairstyling in the Hogwarts library. There was plenty on very old Victorian white fashion, but nothing that could be applied to her own hair. She did, technically, have the ability to do it with her shapeshifting abilities. Vampires could shapeshift just like Metamorphmagi, within reason. But Vanya was only recently learning how to do it, and even her tutor of sorts the previous year Jason Tonks had found reshaping his hair difficult, and he’d been shapeshifting all his life. But she was keeping safely warm and quickly locating her peers in Persephone and Dominique while they shuffled about in the courtyard waiting for the remaining Gryffindors and Ravenclaws to get down there from their towers.

“So what’s in Hogsmeade?” Vanya asked Persephone, finding herself very visibly differentiated from the Scottish werewolf by their internal body temperatures and what they were wearing. Persephone, as a werewolf, had a high metabolism and ran hot - compared to a human, it was like she constantly had a slight fever. And of course, Vanya was cold blooded. So in line with that, while Vanya was all bundled up, Persephone was as casually dressed as she had been the whole warmer week before. It was like Persephone hadn’t even noticed the cold. “I’ve never actually been. Was one foster was an option here, but it’s too cold for a vampire,” she added with a shrug.

“Ay, ye’d no be so keen on it come winter,” Persephone agreed. “But it’s nice! Lots o old buildings, right good high street. Reckon ye’d like Puddifoot’s, it’s a tea shop,” she told Vanya, who nodded thoughtfully. Persephone made a face. “And it disna¹ stink o cars and shite, nor’s it make my ears bleed,” she added wryly, and Vanya wheezed.

“Oh yeah you really wouldn’t like the city would you?” Vanya said abruptly. She’d never actually thought about it, having never seen Persephone in a city. Persephone nodded to her with a pointed face. “And there’s heaps of people, you’d hate cities too!” she added to Dominique, who nodded too.

“I had to take so many breaks when we went to France,” Dominique admitted sheepishly, clicking her beak. Neither her Maman,² Victoire, nor Louis had had any trouble with headaches whatsoever, and so she’d felt like a complete burden every time she’d apologised for not being able to appreciate whatever bright sunny scenery they were overseeing due to her brain pounding.

“Ay, A never remember to charm me ears when we go ‘round Edinburgh to get on the train,” Persephone lamented. “And Ma’s always haein tae³ bribe us wi steak or we’re no going to London,” she chuckled.

“Well isn’t that just because you’re Scottish?” Vanya quipped, and Persephone snorted. “What about Hestia though?” she asked - she’d actually met Persephone’s human little sister Hestia over the holidays, since she’d visited the great big Granger Estate in the Scottish countryside once or twice. She was human, but to be fair it was entirely possible that she could be a human quite enthusiastic about steaks having been raised among werewolves. Hestia had behaved a little like Persephone, if one knew what one was looking for. Persephone shrugged though.

“Nah, Hessie’s way more clever ‘an to get bribed wi dinner,” Persephone told her, before she caught the sight of Alpin turning up in the corner of her vision. “Hou’s yersel⁴ Alpin?” she asked.

“Can’t complain,” Alpin said simply, and Persephone nodded. Dominique tilted her head at him - he’d been a bit concerned and conflicted all week since he’d heard the title Firenze had bestowed upon him. Alpin raised his eyebrows at Dominique, before he just shrugged and shook his head. “If I’ve got a prophetic title, it’s probably about something big. I’m sure we’ll see it coming, we shouldn’t worry,” he said simply, making Vanya snort. Dominique squawked amusedly in unison.

“See it coming,” Vanya snickered. Alpin scoffed helplessly and shook his head.

“Pfft. It’s like Professor Firenze told us, it might not even happen,” he sighed, before Dominique inhaled sharply and looked around, getting their attention as Dominique herself looked around at the feeling of a familiar mind, and Persephone heard the footsteps of whom that mind belonged to, and the clap of his hands.

“Right, have we got all the second years coming to Hogsmeade? Any stragglers to wait for?” Professor Charles Weasley asked loudly over the kids’ chatter. Dominique and Persephone grinned at the sight of their uncle. Uncle Charlie, as they knew him, was a handsome and quite strong middle-aged man with the head and wing claw of a magical dragon tattoo poking out in a sliver from the collar of his shirt with an animated belch of orange and yellow flame. His ginger hair was getting blond in places, and stubble marked his jawline. At a glance, he didn’t look entirely odd, though he wore a weathered old fang earring and unbeknownst to the untrained eye his boots were in fact made of dragon leather.

“Professor Weasley?” Bonnie asked confusedly.

“Correct,” Charlie replied jovially. “If you’re wondering why I’m the one doing this, well, much to my mother’s dismay I don’t have a wife, don’t have kids, and the only person who’ll miss me is my housemate, so I’m free on the weekends,” he chuckled wryly. The housemate he spoke of happened to be an old friend of his from when he himself had been at Hogwarts who now lived in the spare room of his cottage in Wales, and who was also Persephone’s Healer with the Brown Foundation; fellow werewolf and albino punk biker Chiara Lobosca. Not that Persephone remembered having ever seen her riding her 1969 BSA motorcycle. “This everybody?” he asked, counting the gaggle of twelve-year-olds.

“Um, Aubrey’s not feeling well, she’s not coming,” Kate Pearson said quickly. Charlie flipped through a piece of paper he fetched from his pocket.

“Aubrey… Carter, got it,” Charlie said. “Right, listen up second years! Quiet!” he called, and the lot of them piped down and there was a bit of a clatter of shuffles on stone as they turned to face him. “Before we get going there are some ground rules for you all to follow while you’re visiting Hogsmeade! Visiting Hogsmeade is a privilege for you all and if you start misbehaving while you’re there you won’t be coming back! Don’t make nuisances of yourselves, don’t break anything, be respectful of the locals, and stick to the High Street area,” he told them sternly. “Not really much for you anywhere else in Hogsmeade, the rest of it’s just people’s houses and if you’re caught mucking about bothering people at home I’ll definitely be taking your privileges,” he listed. “Clear?”

“Yes Uncle Charlie,” Dominique chirruped as agreement scattered across the little crowd of pre-teens.

“Cracking. Come along then eh?” Charlie said, and with that the second years followed him through the wide gate of the Hogwarts courtyard and out onto the cobbled road down the hill toward the village of Hogsmeade that sprawled through the valley. It was a familiar path despite Vanya having never gone to Hogsmeade, since it was the same way that the Thestral-drawn carriages had conveyed them up to the castle a week before. It was a longer walk than it was a ride, but thankfully it wasn’t raining or anything so it was a fairly pleasant walk through the straggling woods around Hogsmeade before they reached the town proper.

Hogsmeade reminded Vanya rather a lot of Diagon Alley but far less cramped, and of the sorts of towns one saw in fantasy movies and the like. But if those towns were real and beginning to discover the modern day; power lines actually ran along the High Street they walked down, and sprawled out into the winding residential streets. Clearly, Persephone’s Mum’s policies had already been being put to work, and it made sense - Hogwarts and some parts of Hogsmeade had already had power, so it was likely the easiest to complete. In comparison, it’d be a few years until Tegyd’s home of Pen ôl y Ddraig - a name that still made Alpin scoff amusedly for what it meant in Welsh - had electricity. The village was surprisingly alike to many a small town in the United Kingdom, with old rickety buildings with overhanging upper floors in half-timbered wood and plaster and stone standing alongside modern infrastructure and means. Sure, many of the people visiting the shops like apothecaries and grocers were older witches and wizards wearing robes, but plenty more were their youngers, wearing cloaks combined with the same kinds of clothes that would have been perfectly normal in any little town in the UK and checked grocery lists not in old notebooks but on their phones. And much like Diagon Alley, it was a melting pot of species - humans might have been the majority, but several elves went by on their business, and Dominique was far from being the only Veela.

Persephone wasn’t surprised by any of Hogsmeade, having been there before, but plenty of other second-years were. Bonnie was looking around curiously at every sign and building as if she were in a theme park, as were Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff boys Lachlan Doyle and Finn Saunders. The presence of nonhumans at least wouldn’t have been strange to them, since they shared classes with some, but there were those among the second-years who looked a bit like fish out of water.

They also weren’t the only Hogwarts students there; just the only ones with supervision. It was the first weekend of the school year, so a plethora of students were out in force to go shopping or just hang out with friends after being cooped up in the castle for a week. Ford Praxton, one of Ravenclaw’s sixth-year Prefects was heading into the apothecary along with some of his yearmates like Isobelle’s big sister Niamh, while Victoire and one of her dormmates Eilidh McGuire headed into a building just onto a side street Persephone recognised but that clearly had some new ownership since she’d last visited Hogsmeade when it had been up for lease; now, it bore a sign that hung over its door and read Carla Lumière’s Museum of Collected Oddities. The bakery and sweet shop were booming for business, and Professor Weasley led the assortment of second-years up the High Street to the square.

“Right!” Charlie called, getting their attention again as they stood before the steps of the ancient multiple-storey rough stone brick building that was the Hogsmeade Town Hall, which had similar design motifs to Hogwarts itself. Professor Weasley pointed up at the summit of the building’s front walls. “I want you all gathered back here at four o’clock, and no excuses if you don’t have a watch or a phone, there’s a great big clock up there, can see it from all over the place.” Charlie pointed to the big clock Persephone could hear ticking, which was two-sided and hung from an iron beam jutting out of the front of the Hall. “If any of you need me, I will be around here. So, behave yourselves, but enjoy your afternoon,” he said, his voice becoming a little warmer as he smiled at Dominique and Persephone. And with that, the crowd of kids dispersed like an explosion. It wasn’t as if most of them had any pretence of being there for Professor Weasley.

“Thank ye Uncle Charlie!” Persephone said quickly, beaming at him.

“Off you go ‘Seph, Dommie, have fun you two,” Charlie replied warmly, patting Persephone’s shoulder in turn with Dominique’s. They waved back to their Uncle before they wandered off a bit to rejoin Alpin and Vanya, who were waiting for them.

“This place is all really old,” Vanya noted, looking around. Persephone frowned at her.

“Is it?” Persephone asked rhetorically. “A suppose. It’s no ‘at different to Aberfoyle,” she said. The half-timbered buildings, the rough stone brick, it was all very normal to her - her primary school had been built in the 1870s in such a stone brick along with many of the older buildings nearby which shared a style, and the Faerie Tree inn - whose Dogs Welcome sign had always been a source of laughter for Persephone and her Da - and several houses back in Aberfoyle were of the wood and daub half-timbered construction, Aberfoyle hosted a good few dozen buildings quite like those in Hogsmeade to the point Hogsmeade felt to Persephone almost more like an older fashioned Aberfoyle itself - the roads in Aberfoyle were surfaced for cars, whereas all the streets in Hogsmeade were more for carriages and foot traffic and lined in cobbles.

“It is a bit like home, isn’t it?” Alpin agreed. Vanya decided to take their word for it - she’d only visited the Granger Estate over the holidays and hadn’t actually seen Aberfoyle.

“Well, you’ve been here before. What’s here to do?” Vanya asked Persephone with an expectant shrug. Dominique and Alpin looked to Persephone as well, and Alpin gave her an amused smile at how she’d been designated the tour guide. Vanya tightened her jumper - Hogsmeade was lovely, but it was also cold. Persephone turned a bit on the spot to survey the buildings that ran along the wide High Street. Her experience of Hogsmeade had been mostly dictated by her Ma and Da and their reasons to visit; she’d been to the Hall multiple times for things like election events - during two elections, in fact, she’d been a littler girl when Kingsley had been voted in for his last term - she’d been to the reopening of the Bobbins’ Apothecary after it had been forced to close down during the pandemic and her Da had bought it out in order to nurse the business back to health with the revenue stream from the rest of the Holding Company before the Bobbin family had been given back the controlling interests in the business, she’d been to the headquarters of the Wizarding Wireless Network when she and her Da had come out as werewolves a few months ago… but her expertise probably wasn’t that useful to her little gaggle of friends.

“Well…” Persephone droned, looking about. “A’ve no really gone shoppin’ ‘round here afore,⁵ A’ve just been. Erm, shall we no just look around then?” she suggested. Vanya snorted.

“You upper-class bitch,” Vanya laughed jovially, and Persephone whined at her like a puppy.

“You don’t get to whine at that, it’s a completely literal description of you,” Alpin scoffed with a nod at the golden crest brooch on her blue dress, making Persephone whine again sarcastically. Alpin laughed and patted her shoulder before he gently tugged her toward the shops. “Come on, my Dad told me there was a fabric store and I want to make myself some warmer winter stuff before it gets much colder,” he said gladly. Vanya hummed wryly - frankly, she was considering switching to Textiles herself just for that, and she wondered if non-Textiles students were allowed to use the sewing machine room.

“Oh yeah! Aunt Luna said they got something from there, some… wool jacquard he really liked?” Dominique chirped, and Vanya whirled to face Dominique incredulously. The name Luna was familiar, and then Dominique had started using multiple pronouns for them.

“Wait, Luna? Fantastic Beasts Luna, Luna Lovegood?” Vanya asked incredulously.

“Ay! Went here wi Aunty Ginny, were in the Thread,” Persephone replied. “Obliviated hissel⁶ when she got kidnapped! Right good family friend, were at the election,” she added, and Vanya’s eyes bulged at them.

“How many big important celebrities does your family know?!” Vanya exclaimed.

“Oh all o them,” Persephone replied nonchalantly. “The war got us connected wi just about everyone important after it,” she shrugged before Vanya shook her head at herself and followed along as Alpin beckoned them along. She supposed that the Granger-Weasleys were probably a very good family to have made friends with, all in all. “Yer Da say what the fabric place were called?” Persephone asked.

“No, he didn’t,” Alpin said wryly. “You smell wool?” Persephone scoffed.

“Na, but A am resisting the urge to make a Welsh joke,” Persephone retorted, making Alpin stare into the sky plaintively as he laughed under his breath.

Castleside Mill, as the fabric store turned out to be called once they found it, happened to be smaller than one might have expected where it stood, looking more like a regular house - and was indeed down a residential road a little - which left it with quite a cramped feeling that neither Persephone nor Vanya appreciated so very much, creating a nervous energy that rubbed off on Dominique a little as she followed them along in the many aisles of various tall rolls of fabric, which to Vanya’s embarrassment were almost twice her height even among the shortest rolls, trying not to knock any of them over with her wings. Vanya was similarly clumsy, because of the time she’d gone into torpor at the start of the year; the effects of her brain damage were mostly gone, but she still had shadowy peripheral vision that kept startling her since her mind knew something was there but hadn’t deigned to tell her what it was. Though, that was just because Vanya and Persephone were claustrophobic to varying degrees, it was actually quite a cosy place and Vanya even jokingly lamented that she couldn’t just wear clothes all made of the thick roll of white faux fur they quickly found standing in the rows of other similar fabrics. And where the girls were less than serious, becoming a tripping hazard for other customers as they horsed about with the furs and funny novelty buttons and other such things the Mill stocked, Alpin did his best to corral them about with him as he quite seriously examined some fabrics and asked the nice old witches who ran the Mill if they were blends, that sort of thing. He even came across some very nice dark green woollen tweed that he offered to make Vanya some things out of, saying it’d suit her quite nicely.

Vanya took one look at the price tag, six and a half Galleons a metre, which was three times the average of the prices she’d seen in there, and elected to politely decline. Who knew fabric could be so expensive?

But even though Persephone was the rich girl amongst them, Alpin seemed to have some cash of his own, perhaps saved up pocket money, which he spent sixteen Galleons and a few sickles of on some new embroidery thread and two metres of some navy blue wool coating fabric, and just as much cotton moleskin to use as a lining for a coat he planned to make. There were lots of cheaper fabrics around, but Alpin had passed those up for being polyester blends. And with that thick wad of fabric folded up into Alpin’s bag, the four of them departed Castleside Mill and looked about for other sources of things to spend their adolescent pocket money on. And going off the theme of clothing, they visited the local branch of Gladrags, a tailor’s and clothes shop, next.

Vanya was actually quite glad of that trip. Naturally, the Marshals went clothes shopping with Sophie, but they’d done it while Vanya had been visiting Dominique and Persephone because surely they didn’t need to buy any new clothes for Vanya because she did not, after all, grow, and she hadn’t worn out her old ones. But she’d been hoping to get some new warmer things for Hogwarts and maybe something nicer to wear for the next Yule Ball, and so she left Gladrags the happy new owner of a couple of thick jumpers as well as a nice fur-lined cloak that would go very nicely with the Goblin silver brooch she’d had the honour of being bequeathed in the memory of the deceased clan to whom its maker had belonged to. They hadn’t been the only ones in Gladrags, and so they joined up with Kiera, Ariana, and Kate, their classmates, for a trip to Scrivenshafts, a stationery store where Persephone bought a leatherbound journal - she was running out of space in her old one - and a nice mottled feather quill pen she’d taken a liking to the smell of.

Vanya didn’t know how long that scent would survive the overwhelming smell of ink, but what did she know?

And then, of course, came lunchtime.

“What’s going on over there?” Vanya asked nobody in particular as they strolled down the High Street and she pointed at how Professor Weasley was rather sternly telling off Kieran Pickorer and Jackson Boothe for something.

“Hmm? Oh, they got caught playing Knock Down Ginger I think, Uncle Charlie isn’t very happy with them,” Dominique replied. Persephone frowned at her cousin - she’d heard it with her werewolf ears, but she wasn’t sure how Dominique knew. Maybe she’d seen them playing it down a side street, though Persephone had never heard it called that.

“Ye mean Chappies do ye?” she asked Dominique.

“Chappies?” Dominique asked.

“When ye run up someone’s door, ring the doorbell and leg it,” Persephone explained.

“Yeah, Knock Down Ginger,” Kate agreed, shrugging. Kiera nodded at that too.

“Us lot’s always called it Knock-A-Door-Dash,” Ariana, a Scouser unlike Kate who was from Wembley down in London, chimed in curiously. Vanya frowned.

“We had it as Knock-A-Door- Run back home in Leicester,” Vanya agreed. Sure, Liverpool wasn’t in the Midlands, but it wasn’t that far from being it, so it made sense. Where the southerners had added gingers to it, Vanya wasn’t sure, let alone where ‘chappies’ came from for Persephone.

“Blimey, my Mam’s always called it Bobby Knocking. She’s glad we don’t get it, tower in the woods,” Alpin chuckled. Over by the Hall, Persephone heard her Uncle Charlie declare Pickorer and Boothe deprived of their Hogsmeade privileges for two weeks. “Well, I’m feeling a little peckish, would anyone else like to go find something to eat?” Alpin suggested brightly.

“Ay, A could go for lunch,” Persephone agreed as her stomach grumbled.

“Well of course you’re hungry, you’re always hungry,” Kiera scoffed, and Persephone hung her head.

“It was mostly for everyone else’s benefit,” Alpin admitted amusedly before he looked around. “What is there?” he mused.

“Well, Aubrey wanted us to get her some… well she said candy but she’s American, that just means sweets right?” Kate started, frowning over toward the renowned sweet store Honeydukes, whose prominent blue facade was lit through its big display windows in the distance.

“Yeah, I don’t think she just wants the hard ones. Could get some anyway. Can Aubrey even taste sweets though?” Ariana agreed.

“She can taste sweetness I think,” Kate said, before she laughed. “Just get her some Cockroach Clusters and don’t tell her what they’re made of, it’s not like she can taste it,” she quipped, making Ariana guffaw. Persephone and Vanya frowned bewilderedly, wondering what on earth they meant. But the opportunity to ask passed as quickly as it had arisen, as Kate looked up at them. Well, down when it came to Vanya. “You’ve got to eat just meat, haven’t you Dominique?” she asked, and Dominique nodded. “And Persephone’ll eat anything meaty like she’s a hoover. Hows about we’ll go by Honeydukes, and you go ‘round the butchers?” she suggested. “Oh and we’ll get you some of those blood lollipops they sell Vanya!” Kate added abruptly, as if she’d only just remembered.

“Brilliant, thanks!” Vanya replied gladly. It was kind of funny to her that unlike most people, lollipops could have actual nutritional value to her - those lollipops were actually made with a small amount of blood, and as long as she didn’t try to chew them they didn’t make her sick. At that suggestion, Dominique frowned.

“Do you think the butcher sells blood?” Dominique asked. “The one in Tinworth doesn’t, but one here might,” she added, and Vanya thought for a moment.

“Might do. I can’t be the only vampire ever to come to Hogsmeade,” Vanya supposed - it was harder to find blood outside of the wizarding world, but surely there’d be a market for it here? “C’mon then,” she said, looking around. And with that they parted, and this shop Persephone assuredly could smell! Persephone could smell a butcher’s a mile off, and that wasn’t even an exaggeration. If anything, it was an understatement. So it was under thirty seconds before the four of them were stepping into the shop front of the butcher’s.

Vanya and Alpin shared an amused scoff at the way Persephone and Dominique looked like kids in a sweet shop as they entered the space, surrounded by cuts of meat. But meat was not all the butcher sold - stuffings in cardboard boxes lined a shelf beside a basket of very large smoked garlics. How glad Vanya was that that particular vampire thing was just as false as the sunlight one. Persephone gasped at a sign saying they sold marrowbones, while Vanya peered at the shelf of chutneys and other condiments beside the sign. Egg cartons lined a shelf opposite it all, above bags of pork scratchings along with packs of lard and some few jars of goose fat. Up at the front were such things as hams and roast beef and cheeses alongside pies and pasties, and the man behind the counter smiled up at them.

“Afternoon there! Should’a remembered we’d get some Hogwarts kids, you’ve a Veela with you. Suppose you’re here for lunch then?” he chuckled, nodding at the mass of white feathers that was Dominique, as Dominique looked up from her excited examination of a tray of lamb’s liver and nodded. He peered at them. “Plus Persephone Granger-Weasley, nice to have you Miss. Plenty here for a werewolf too, as I’m sure you can tell,” the man added jovially.

“A can see that!” Persephone laughed, beaming at it all. “A canna⁷ pick!” she said, surveying the black pudding, the generous cuts of bacon, the delicious-looking sausage links, all of it. And she was, of course, just as tempted by the lamb’s liver as Dominique was. Vanya laughed as the pair looked around, while she stepped up to the counter.

“Hello there… oh hang on, I know you too don’t I? You’re that vampire they’ve got, first one up at Hogwarts in’t ya?” the butcher asked. “Nice to meet you Miss.” Vanya paused. She hadn’t quite remembered that everyone knew about that.

“I am, yeah,” Vanya replied. “Um, I was wondering if you sold blood too?” she asked, having to stand on her toes to see his face properly over the counter. The butcher nodded but had an apologetic face.

“Normally do, yeah, pork blood. Afraid we’re out of stock at the moment though, sorry,” the butcher told her. Vanya deflated a bit. “Some vampire lady came through the other day, going on a long trip she said so she needed all we could give her. But we should have it back in stock next weekend if you come back dear?” he told her.

“Thanks,” Vanya said, stepping back for her peers but instead found herself colliding with Persephone, who was, for some reason, heading through her. “Oop, sorry!” Vanya exclaimed, getting out of her way.

“Sorry,” Persephone said herself, before she hopped up to put her hands on the counter. “What’s yer stinkiest cheese sir?” she asked eagerly, and the butcher wheezed with laughter at how she licked the bridge of her nose.

“Your Dad’s right, you really are a puppy,” he cackled. “Got some right smelly blue Stilton here, you want that?” the butcher replied, pointing into the display. Persephone huffed disgruntledly and he frowned at her.

“Canna⁷ have blue cheese, the fungi’s no good for us,” Persephone explained, and the butcher nodded understandingly.

“Well, there’s the white Stilton? Got ginger and mango in it though,” he suggested, and Persephone thought for a moment before she nodded.

“Ay, sounds great. Can A get some o that, a steak and kidney pie, and some good slices off o that smoked ham?” she asked gladly, pointing specifically to the uncooked shoulder ham and not the smoked and cooked ham. The butcher rang that up, and it all came to a Galleon and five Knuts, which was barely anything for how much pocket money Persephone had. After her, Dominique bought a couple of lamb’s livers and kidneys for a bit more than double what Persephone had paid, and Alpin came up last.

“And who’re you?” the butcher joked as he walked up.

“Easier to feed, sir. Can I please just get a pasty?” Alpin quipped, not missing a beat and making the butcher crack up laughing as he stuck Alpin’s pasty in a brown paper bag for him. The four of them headed out with their food, though Persephone redirected them over to the local bakery where she bought some bread to make a sandwich out of her ham and cheese, and Alpin took the opportunity to buy an eccles cake too. And then, at Dominique’s insistence, they found something for Vanya to have for lunch to accompany the blood lollipops the others had gotten her, even if it didn’t have blood in it, by getting her a nice big hot chocolate from the tea shop Persephone had mentioned earlier. Vanya had to admit, it was good to have a hot drink on such a cold day as the group sat down at a table and bench in the square to eat and she remembered to give Puss the first bite of the meal by nicking some of Persephone’s ham. She had been getting a bit chilly now that her hot water bottle was just lukewarm.

But eventually, the Hogsmeade Hall clock reached four o’clock, and the lot of them regathered to Professor Weasley to go back to Hogwarts having thoroughly enjoyed their first weekend visiting Hogsmeade.

--

Chapter Text

It was still, obviously, the weekend the next day, and so many of the second-years had gone off to Hogsmeade with Charlie again, to see what they’d missed the day before and such. But Persephone, Dominique, Vanya, and even Alpin were among the few who hadn’t. It was funny, really. Dominique hadn’t kept track of what minds tended to go elsewhere over the weekends during the year before, but it was more notable how many students visited Hogsmeade when it was their classmates. It had left the four of them a bit alone really that warmer yet rainy afternoon.

But that was a fact soon to be rectified as the four of them headed not to the Great Hall from the Hufflepuff Common Room at lunchtime, but to a classroom up on the ground floor of the castle. Room 13 to be specific, for that was where the Hogwarts Nonhuman Club, now being run by the half-Goblin half-Veela Sværri Dost, had been gathered on Sundays for all of last year and would be again this year. They were some of the first to arrive, though Sværri of course was there already as well as Professor Ariadne Granger, who had, just like previously, brought a bounty of good food to eat while they were there. Persephone grinned at the presence and scent of pizzas, chicken tenders, offal for the Veela, drinks, a big bowl of salad that clearly was to go to the caprids given the presence of half a hedge in it, and even some big fresh fish that were lying in a tray of ice. Also already there was Victoire, who chirruped brightly as Dominique and Vanya came in, as well as the Goblin Brekke twins and Cedar, whom Persephone quickly sat down beside in the circle of chairs.

“Afternoon girls, and nice to have you Mister Faughn,” Ariadne said warmly, ushering them in. “Feel free to help yourselves, ju-jus-jus-jusjust remem-emem-remember to leave enough for everyone else once they get here,” she told them, waving a hand at the food. She had her own plate of a few slices of pizza and a cup of tea, and she quickly offered Vanya a magically warmed pitcher full of pig’s blood. Even if the Hogsmeade butcher was out, Hogwarts wasn’t. Persephone nabbed a meat-lover’s pizza and some chicken tenders and shared them with Alpin, Dominique fetched some various organ meat to stick on her own plate and swallow in torn off chunks, and Vanya poured herself a glass and sat back. As she did, Victoire hopped over to her, plumage all white, ginger, and brown and her eyes a bright orange.

“Hey Vanya!” Victoire said, looking down at her. Victoire was taller by far than Vanya, and that was when Vanya wasn’t sitting down. “How was Hogsmeade?” she asked, glancing to Dominique as well as she asked.

“Oh, was pretty good. It’s nice to get out a bit,” Vanya replied simply, shrugging. “Got a new jumper,” she added, plucking at the woollen fabric of her new stripey jumper.

“Nice!” she chirped, tilting her head. “Did you see that museum at all, Lumière’s?” Victoire asked curiously. Vanya shook her head.

“Nah, we didn’t get time. Why, what about it?” Vanya asked.

“I just think you’d really like it! She’s got a whole collection in there, Papa would love it,” Victoire told them eagerly, and Dominique nodded curiously - it sounded right up their Papa’s alley. “You found those artefacts at Easter, and you’re going to live a very long time, maybe you should make your own collection one day,” Victoire suggested thoughtfully, and Vanya thought for a moment. She hadn’t really given much thought to her extended - but youthful - lifespan. She hadn’t wanted to. But maybe it wasn’t the worst idea. To collect things to remember her past by. She was going to outlive everyone in that room, it was a sobering thing to think about and a bit much for a twelve-year-old to comprehend. “Maybe you could go see it after Club?” Victoire added.

“We can’t, we’re second years,” Vanya pointed out.

“Yeah, we have to go with Uncle Charlie,” Dominique agreed.

“Oh, right,” Victoire mumbled, thinking for a moment. “Next weekend then!” she chirruped. Vanya nodded for a moment as she found herself enticed by curiosity. It was the sort of thing she supposed she’d eventually wind up having herself, a collection of belongings that told her history. This Lumière woman probably wasn’t a vampire herself, though it was possible, and if she was Vanya wanted to meet her. Either way, a little history lesson could be fun-

“OI!” Professor Granger shouted, her face thunderous as she stood and stared blindly at Victoire, who jumped out of her plumage. “You will not attempt to emotionally influence your peers, Victoire!” Ariadne snapped angrily, and Victoire startled.

“What?!” Vanya exclaimed, shifting backward in her seat away from Victoire. She knew from Dominique that Veela were capable of remotely pushing emotions - like curiosity - onto others with their mind magic, but Dominique had never done it to her before. And she hadn’t even noticed Victoire doing it. Dominique scowled at Victoire, while Sværri stared at her accusingly as if he had felt her doing it.

“Huh?” Victoire spluttered, looking back at Vanya. “Oh, I’m so sorry! Dom’s more Veela than me I think, she can control it better than I can. Really sorry, I just think you’d like the museum is all,” she squawked apologetically, her voice becoming a bit of a crackle before she shamefully headed back to sit where she’d been sitting. Vanya gave Dominique an uncertain sort of look as Professor Granger sat down again with a stony expression.

“It does sound pretty interesting,” Dominique noted, and Vanya shrugged before she went back to sipping her glass of blood. As the hour approached for what was technically the beginning of lunch and Vanya tried to put the incident behind her, the Club arrived in earnest. Rowan arrived next, soon to sit beside his twin brother and Persephone whom he tried to tickle quickly, followed by the half-Giant Wulfwynn Maine who enlarged a chair for herself and picked out a modest plate of food. Rather too modest a plate for Dominique’s liking, she hoped Wulfwynn was eating enough. Gylfi, the younger of the Goblins greeted them all gladly, and then some of the stranger students turned up; Tegyd Humphries, the part-caprid centaur satyress from Hufflepuff’s fourth year, with her brown and white goat legs, horns, and goat ears - and also the tiniest puff of a brown beard beginning to grow under her chin - was carrying a bag on her back and wore her usual baggy button-up shirt that made her look a little rotund atop her long skinny goat legs, tartan skirt, and denim jacket that hung unbuttoned around her. But most notably, she walked alongside Blodwen, the sentient tree in her year who stood at twelve feet tall of vibrant green leaves and ripening crab apples.

“Yes, pizza!” Tegyd exclaimed, making Dominique laugh as she remembered when her Aunt Ariadne had brought vegetarian pizzas for the herbivores of the class and Tegyd had tried it. “Sue, you’ll love this, it’s great,” she said eagerly to her cousin, who trotted along beside her. Unlike Tegyd, Sue was a full caprid centaur, with a whole goat body and four legs instead of Tegyd who just had a goat’s back end. Her black and brown and white furred goat body went uncovered while she was out of her uniform, though she was wearing a tidy button-up shirt, and her eyes were big brown rectangular goat eyes whereas Tegyd had gotten her mother’s human eyes. Sue’s horns were smaller than Tegyd’s, and a darker brown colour, but she had much the same puff of hair in the middle of her forehead between them as Tegyd did. “Alright butts!” she said, as Sue took the other of the two vegetarian pizzas curiously and Blodwen settled on a spot where her branches loomed over everyone.

“Hey Tegyd!” Vanya piped up, as the whole Club greeted her. “Are we just waiting on Cetus and Pisces?” she asked as Sue put her front leg up on one of the two empty chairs and scratched it. Sue herself had a larger platform of a stool to lay on, which she hopped up onto with her hooves thumping on the wood before she folded her front legs and tumbled down in a bit of a heap, her legs off to the side. Watching what Tegyd was doing, Sue opened the pizza box and tried a slice.

“Oh my! That is good!” Sue agreed through the mouthful as her ears shot up and her little tail wagged rapidly. Tegyd patted her shoulder gladly, beaming as she put her bag down beside her chair and crossed her legs.

“I think we are Vanya… and there we are, good afternoon M-M-M-Mxes Scamander,” Ariadne said, before she beamed at - in the wrong direction, she abruptly turned around when she realised - the arrival of the two part-Mer first-years.

“Good afternoon Professor Granger!” Pisces replied brightly, taking in a deep breath to say it. “Shall I close the door?” they asked, nodding to it. Ariadne nodded, and they did so - Pisces and Cetus were dressed perfectly normally, which looked a little odd since they were wearing human clothes yet were a lot more slender than most humans, their clothes looked a little baggy. And of course, they wore wet scarves about their necks. “Welcome to this year’s Nonhuman Club, have a seat, there’s some nice red snapper there for you. You three know me already, so I’ll hand it off to you Mister Dost,” Professor Granger said brightly, gesturing to Sværri. Sværri looked a lot like Dominique and Victoire, though his most recent moult had introduced more black into his plumage than brown and ginger, and as a fifth year he’d been through more of them. He was also exceptionally short, and his features were a lot longer and pointier thanks to his Goblin heritage; his beak was an odd shape, and his talons were exceedingly long. He nodded to Professor Granger and clacked his beak brightly.

“Hello! My name is Sværri Dost, I’m a Hufflepuff fifth year and I’ll be running the Nonhuman Club this year,” Sværri introduced himself to the three newbies while Vanya sipped at her glass of blood and the elders of the club watched. Sværri wasn’t the oldest, that was Wulfwynn who was a seventh-year, but clearly Wulfwynn hadn’t wanted to do it. She had never been the most sociable of the Club, and sometimes didn’t come at all. “Every year we go around in the circle and introduce ourselves by our name, our pronouns, our species if it isn’t obvious and a fun fact about ourselves,” he told them. “My name is Sværri Dost, I use he-him pronouns, and I carve,” he said, smiling in the corners of his beak before he gave the proverbial floor to Cedar, and they went around the circle introducing themselves. They did it much the same as they had the last year, and Persephone simply described herself as the Minister’s daughter, Dominique said she was going to try out for Quidditch, and Vanya said she was the school’s first vampire. Alpin noted himself as human and there as Persephone’s friend, and that he sewed. Eventually, of course, the circle came around to Sue.

“Hello! I’m Sue, I use she-her pronouns, and I’m a caprid centaur! I’m from Tegyd’s herd in the Brecon Beacons,” Sue told them brightly, and Gylfi frowned at her as Tegyd muttered Bannau Brycheiniog under her breath as if to correct Sue.

“Do you not have a surname? Professor Granger didn’t say one last week,” Gylfi asked, and Sue shook her head which made her ears flap around noisily.

“No, I don’t. Most of us don’t have any, Tegyd got her Mum’s,” Sue explained simply. “You two?” she asked the Scamander twins.

“Hello everyone,” Cetus said, adjusting their big glasses and taking a careful breath first while Pisces was busy biting off half a red snapper with their razor-sharp teeth. “My name is Cetus Scamander, this is my twin hatchmate Pisces.” Pisces waved. “We are part-Mer part-human, and any pronouns are fine for us but they-them is best,” they said, before taking another deep breath. “And our great-grandfather was Newt Scamander,” they added.

“I was wondering about that!” Victoire exclaimed. “Are you two all right? You seem to be having trouble breathing,” she asked concernedly.

“Oh, that’s nothing,” Pisces assured them. “Our… I don’t know the word-” they took another deep breath, having paused midway through “-doesn’t make us breathe automatically so we have to do it deliberately. And our noses don’t connect to our lungs they’re just for smelling!” they said cheerfully, gesturing at their chest. No wonder they’d been breathing through their mouths.

“Autonomic nervous system,” Ariadne piped up helpfully.

“Wait, so how do you sleep?” Cedar asked confusedly. “If you have to actually think about breathing?” he pointed out.

“We each have a bathtub to sleep in in our dormitory instead of a bed,” Pisces replied with a big smile. “We have gills, it’s why we’ve got wet scarves. If they dry out they get all itchy and scab,” they added, lifting their damp scarf to show the striations of exposed flesh along their neck.

“Good thing you don’t breathe unconsciously then, or you’d drown when you went to sleep,” Rowan chuckled, and Pisces and Cetus both laughed at that, nodding.

“A never kent¹ Newt Scamander had some Merfolk grandkids,” Persephone said through a mouthful of pizza she quickly swallowed. “Hell, A’ve met Drake Scamander A have, it’s a shame he never mentioned ye. Just habit o no mentioning her, must be from before that would ‘a’ been fine?” she added, and Ariadne nodded.

“Yeah, ev-even-even I didn’t know until I saw your enrollments,” Ariadne agreed.

“I mean, it was Newt Scamander, of course he’s got some hybrid grandkids,” Rowan pointed out amusedly. “Overheard you at the feast last week, werewolf ears, you said Drake was the one who got involved with the Merfolk?” he asked, and Cetus and Pisces both nodded.

“Yes,” Cetus replied a bit hoarsely, having clearly almost run out of air on their most recent breath so they took another. “Grandfather was visiting our people in the Lake with our Great-Grandfather, and he took part in a spawning,” they told them.

“He didn’t expect it to work!” Pisces laughed in that weird, breathless laugh that only seemed to take place while they were talking. Vanya frowned, as did Dominique, as they weren’t quite sure what that meant. Alpin too looked confused, but Victoire was the one to voice their collective confusion.

“Wait, what’s a spawning?” Victoire asked. Persephone made an uncertain noise - she wasn’t sure they all wanted the details, because Persephone knew what it was and it was a little inappropriate a topic.

“Oh, Merpeople lay eggs. A spawning is a ceremony Merpeople have,” Cetus told them, and Persephone sat tensely, wondering if she should let them know humans probably wouldn’t think it appropriate to explain - but she erred on the side of human norms being negotiable and let her Aunty Ariadne make that decision. “If a mermaid is due to spawn, she’ll invite any of her friends who are spawning too and they’ll lay their eggs in a large cluster,” they said, before taking another breath as Pisces took over.

“And then they’ll invite their male friends to emit-”

“Wh-er, I think that’s enough detail Mx. Scamander,” Ariadne said quickly, making a face. Pisces nodded and stopped. Several of the Club were visibly blushing, including Tegyd. Vanya didn’t quite know what was up with that, she didn’t know what was bothering everyone else and felt a little left out of the loop. “Su-suffice it to say Drake Scamander took part and did-did-um, did not expect to be compatible,” she spluttered, and the pair nodded.

“Yes. He fathered quite a few of them!” Pisces replied cheerfully. “Most of our aunts and uncles wanted to stay in the Lake, but Mother wanted to meet Grandfather so she left before she even became a girl,” they said, and Vanya frowned, again noticing that just about everyone except Ariadne and Persephone seemed confused. At the feast, both of them had said they weren’t boys or girls ‘yet,’ and now they said the same had been true of their mother? “Grandfather was very surprised!” Pisces giggled.

“He did take her in though,” Cetus added. “She had to live in secret of course, but he taught her magic and helped her make her own wand,” they said, and immediately Alpin’s eyebrows shot up.

“She made her own wand?” Alpin asked rhetorically, and the pair nodded.

“And Mother helped us make ours!” Pisces replied eagerly, fetching their wand from their pocket in their long webbed fingers. Cetus did the same. They were simple wands, but quite different, and Alpin was very curiously peering at them. Pisces’ was short and had clearly had several knots and twigs carved off of its seemingly raw and tapering length, while Cetus’ was a simple tapering rod with a marked handle but quite flexible. “Mine is bilberry wood and Grindylow sinew, and Cetus’ is willow and Malaclaw antenna!” Pisces told Alpin, who scoffed incredulously. Vanya had read of both Grindylows and Malaclaws, but Ollivanders’ certainly hadn’t sold wands made with them.

“Isn’t bilberry a shrub? It must have been hard to make a wand with,” Alpin marvelled amusedly.

“We found one with plenty of old wood,” Pisces agreed, nodding. “Mother lived in secret as Drake’s daughter, and she even went back to the Lake when the war happened,” they told the group, and Ariadne winced.

“Yeah, the Death Eaters wouldn’t have liked Nineveh,” Ariadne said, no doubt referring to their mother.

“No,” Cetus agreed.

“But things got better afterward!” Pisces said excitedly. “She came back out to live in Hogsmeade, she even bought a house! Your mother let her get married Granger-Weasley. But she had never spawned, so she didn’t think she would have any children when she met Father,” they said with a pointed grin - pointed both literally and figuratively. A grin Persephone reflected in her beaming smile, a smile suffused with gladness at the impact of her Ma’s reforms.

“But she did have children,” Vanya pointed out.

“It turned out she had lots of eggs inside of her,” Cetus said. “We were an accident really, but once our eggs were fertilised Mother’s body tried to reject us. We were miscarried, technically,” they explained, and a series of apologetic grimaces and groans surrounded the group. “Mother got our eggs into a bathtub, but not many of us lived. Once we hatched into larvae, Mother put us all in a bucket and ran us down to the river so we’d be washed into the Lake to be raised by the Merpeople. Only Pisces and I survived the trip,” Cetus explained solemnly, taking long breaths between each sentence.

“That’s a shame. But it’s good you two lived,” Rowan said softly, bowing his head a little.

“Yeah, I’m sorry,” Vanya agreed, before she frowned softly. “When you said before your Mum even became a girl, what’s that mean? When we talked last week, you said you weren’t girls or boys yet,” she asked curiously, hoping it wasn’t a rude question.

“Oh!” Ariadne exclaimed, sitting up and hurriedly chewing some pizza. “If you two don’t mind. Merpeople don’t undergo sex differentiation until their adolescence, Cetus and Pisces here are neither male nor female,” she explained quickly. “Of course, gender and sex, not the same thing, when that happens for you two it’ll be up to you which dormitory you feel most comfortable in,” she assured the pair, and they both nodded.

“A’ve always wondered, be there trans Merpeople?” Persephone asked curiously. Pisces just shrugged and hummed as if to say I don’t know with cheerful smile.

“Not all merpeople really care what sex they are outside of spawning ceremonies,” Cetus told her, and Persephone nodded. Merpeople were generally quite androgynous even after differentiation. “But Mother likes being a woman,” they added. The pair of them smiled, looking to the group as if to say they were done with their storytelling and were open to questions or to move on. And Sværri picked the latter, looking to Sue expectantly.

“Oh how am I supposed to follow that?!” Sue exclaimed indignantly, making the whole Club laugh. “They’re all cool, they’ve got a story, I’m just sort of around!” she bleated, holding her hands up in faked dismay - if it had been actual dismay, her ears would have been in different places, they knew that from Tegyd. “Um. I’m Sue, might be Tegyd’s cousin or so, I live with our herd in the Brecon Beacons. Not really much more to me, we’re the only two magic kids in the herd we know about,” Sue listed sheepishly.

“How do you mean you might be Tegyd’s cousin?” Cetus asked curiously.

“Hm? Oh, us caprids don’t really keep track of who’s father of who. You can’t really when even a pair of twins might have different fathers,” Sue explained, and Tegyd nodded. “We think my father might be her uncle, but we don’t actually know, and I’m pretty sure Tegyd’s the only one who knows for sure who her father is. We might even be half-sisters!” Sue bleated amusedly, and Pisces beamed at her.

“Merpeople do not keep close track of paternity either!” Pisces told her, as if glad to have something in common. “If there was only one man in the spawning, or a human, it’s obvious. But not usually,” they said.

“Ah!” Sue exclaimed, offering Pisces and Cetus high-fives - her hands were miniscule compared to the part-Mer twins’ spindly webbed digits. “Oh! I know! I’ve never had pizza before today!” Sue cried, realising something to say and making the whole Club laugh gleefully as she looked down at the pizza box before her on her bench. “And it’s very good!” she added, scoffing another mouthful of it.

“Haha! Miss Humphries had the same reaction, I’m glad I remembered it,” Professor Granger chuckled.

“Note to self, caprids are vulnerable to vegan pizzas,” Cedar chuckled, making Tegyd burst out laughing in a goat-like bleat.

“It’s good!” Tegyd protested through a mouthful of that very pizza. Her ears shifted as an amused quiet fell over the Club and Dominique peered at Tegyd curiously for the way her expression changed, as if she was preparing for something, glancing at her bag. Sværri interceded, clearing his throat.

“Well, it’s good to have you three!” Sværri told them warmly. His tone seemed a little artificial, practised, but Persephone supposed it made sense as Sværri’s first time running a meeting, he’d settle into it more once he got the hang of it. He was doing pretty well for his first time doing it! “Does anyone else have something they’d like to share, anything that happened over the holidays maybe?” he asked, and as if on cue, Tegyd hummed quickly and put her pizza down, her ears and hand going up hesitantly.

“Erm, I um, I have something,” Tegyd said awkwardly, looking around a bit as her ears shifted back nervously. “It’s not holidays though, it’s this week just gone,” she added, and Sværri nodded to her.

“Sure, go ahead Tegyd,” Sværri replied, his tone a little less cheerful in concern for Tegyd’s obvious nervousness. Tegyd smiled sheepishly and and swallowed for a moment.

“Okay, um,” Tegyd began, before she bit her lip and made a face at herself. Not making eye contact with anyone, she continued. “So… you all can probably, er, see, that I um-” she said slowly, her cheeks going redder by the second. Persephone and Vanya frowned, wondering what was up. They couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary for the satyress. “That I look like I’ve got pretty big tits-” Tegyd rattled off quickly before Ariadne immediately interrupted her.

“Woah woah woah woah, where exactly are you going with this Miss Humphries?” Ariadne asked sharply. Dominique suppressed a laugh amid the awkward atmosphere of what Tegyd had just said - first Merpeople spawning, now Tegyd talking about her tits? But Dominique’s amusement quickly faded in place of concern. Tegyd was right, she was quite definitely one of the most, if not the most busty student in the school despite only being fourteen, it was why she wore such baggy clothes. But it hadn’t come up before outside of Tegyd getting sexually harassed, so the fact that something had happened over the week made Dominique really rather worried. Tegyd hurriedly shook her head.

“No no, nowhere weird, I promise!” Tegyd assured Professor Granger quickly. “Or, not that weird,” she corrected herself, and Professor Granger tentatively sat back again, nodding to her as if to say she was on thin ice with her choice of topic in the presence of first-years. “Well, I do have to give you guys some sort-of-weird context for it,” Tegyd admitted, and they all nodded along a bit. Cedar and Rowan were quite obviously trying not to look at her chest, but in fairness to them they were normally very good about it - it was just that now attention had been called to Tegyd’s chest, it was like trying not to think about a pink elephant. Even Dominique caught herself glancing there and and quite firmly forced her eyes back to Tegyd’s horns, glad the blush on her cheeks wasn’t visible through her feathers.

“So, caprid centaurs, all centaurs really, we don’t have boobs. At all,” Tegyd began hesitantly. “That’s actually a kinda weird thing about humans, you know? But us caprids don’t have an udder unless we’ve had kids. Right?” she explained, and several of them nodded before Sue adjusted herself and held up her left hind leg to expose between them and her lack of such an organ. She did have nipples, quite close together between those legs, but she didn’t have anything more. And of course, in her comfortable button-up shirt, Sue did not herself have breasts, centaurs didn’t have them on their humanoid torsos.

“I don’t! See!” Sue called. Vanya spluttered slightly, not knowing if it was rude or not to look there on Sue’s body. Centaurs had very different ideas about nudity.

“Yeah,” Tegyd agreed, nodding at Sue as an example. “So the weird thing is actually because I’m half-human. So when I was a kid, I basically had what Sue’s got there, but up here,” she said, pointing generally at her chest. An awkward grimace spread on her face. “Then puberty happened when I was eight, nine-ish, and my human side reckoned I ought to start growing boobs. Except, that’s not what I’ve got. I’ve got an udder instead,” Tegyd admitted quietly, looking at the floor.

“Ye what?” Persephone spluttered, as half the Club jumped, or nodded in the case of Rowan.

“I thought that might have been what you meant last year,” Rowan noted sagely.

“Blimey, A’ve six tits, ye’ve an udder, anybody else got weird boobs?” Persephone laughed, making Tegyd snort. Making Persephone scoff, Victoire actually put a talon up gently.

“Um, we do. Veela aren’t supposed to have boobs in our true forms, but we do,” Victoire admitted, nodding over to Dominique who looked away embarrassedly. “Or at least I do, I don’t know about you Dom,” she added, and Dominique just nodded. It wasn’t so obvious, the feathers introduced a degree of padding that obfuscated it, but she was starting to grow breasts just as much as all of her peers were. It had been starting to get uncomfortable in P.E. before the holidays. Bras were a problem when you had wings though, and she hadn’t brought it up with her Maman² to get any over the summer.

“Is there a single girl in here who doesn’t have boob trouble?” Cedar snickered. Vanya frowned and put her hand up. “You don’t count Stryde, you’re never gonna have any unless someone brews you a potion what makes you grow up. Neither do you Blod, you’re a tree,” he pointed out as Blodwen raised a twiggy finger and then laughed serenely at Cedar. Persephone snorted - that made Wulfwynn the only one.

“Anyway, um. Yeah, it’s really uncomfortable, clothes don’t fit me right, all sorts. I have to wear a corset, since I can’t exactly get a bra fitting done, they don’t sell them in Diagon,” Tegyd continued, seemingly a bit more comfortable discussing it now that she’d been reminded that puberty was an issue everyone in the room save Vanya and Blodwen had to deal with too, and all of them were likely to have it weird thanks to not being human. “Or in Hogsmeade,” she added. Ariadne nodded slightly.

“They used to, but the problem with running a department store in Hogsmeade is most wizards will start just Apparating to a normal department store that doesn’t have such big markups. Spellmart shut down, there just isn’t a market for it,” Ariadne said.

“Yeah,” Tegyd grumbled. “But there’s a corset place in Diagon Alley Mum takes me to, it’s actually pretty comfortable. Corsets are only really bad when you lace ‘em up really tight,” she said as she untucked the side of her baggy blouse from her skirt and pulled it up to show them the bottom edge of the cream white corset she was wearing, which had flowers embroidered onto the bottoms of the bones. Under the corset was the white of an undershirt of some sort. It also had the consequence of showing how slim Tegyd actually was when her blouse wasn’t making her look much rounder, there was a lot of empty space in her shirt under the outward curve of the corset. “It’s why I’m so… big, this size is actually pretty normal for a caprid’s udder, at least a caprid my size. Really not good for my back though, if I didn’t have a corset I’d probably have a hunch by now,” Tegyd laughed, and Professor Granger grimaced with a nod. “Madam Pomfrey said she’d have been worried about macromastia or something if I was human, I’m only fourteen and this big already,” she added wryly.

“Now you mention it, yeah,” Professor Granger agreed. “Hopefully it doesn’t become too much more of a problem for you in the future,” she told Tegyd, who hummed ruefully.

“Hmm. But you see, udders don’t work like human boobs,” Tegyd said. “Human boobs don’t make milk all the time, that only happens when they have kids. An udder’s only supposed to happen when a caprid’s had kids so… mine does, it can’t really not with my human genes pushing it to all the time,” she admitted, and yet again a ripple of surprised awkwardness crossed the group. Persephone blinked, and broke the silence.

“Ye make milk?!” Persephone exclaimed, halfway disbelieving Tegyd. But Tegyd nodded with a resigned sort of acceptance on her face.

“Yeah. Quite a lot of it, actually, several litres every few days,” Tegyd said sheepishly. “And I have to milk it all out, otherwise I’ll get mastitis and stuff. It’s kind of annoying, but I’ve had to do it since I was nine so I’m used to it,” she told them, to yet more unspeaking nods. “Um, other day, Gladys, she’s in my dormitory, she walked in on me doing that in the bathroom the other day. I forgot to lock the door, thought I should get it out and say it here since you lot would get it,” she said, before she hesitantly bent down woodenly - given her posture enforced by the corset under her blouse - and unzipped her bag, getting out a plastic container. “So, um, for anyone who doesn’t mind that the milk came out of me,” Tegyd said uncertainly, holding up the box. “Cheese and crackers,” she announced, unclipping the lid and setting the box of fibre-dense crackers and creamy white cheese along with a little knife down on the table with the pizzas and food. Persephone both did not mind the milk coming out of Tegyd, nor eating cheese, so she curiously leant closer and got a good whiff of its mild, gamey sort of smell.

“You make cheese out of it then?” Gylfi asked rhetorically, and Tegyd nodded.

“Yeah. Might as well get some use out of it instead of chucking it all down the sink, otherwise it’s just a waste of nutrients,” Tegyd said simply, shrugging. “I make cheese, butter sometimes, someone in the herd needs it for their kid while I’m home I can give ‘em a bottle or two. Mum uses it for her baking, has it on cereal.” Cedar choked on his pizza.

“Your Mum has your milk on her cereal?!” he exclaimed incredulously.

“I make like fifteen litres a week now, we’ve got to get rid of it somehow!” Tegyd protested indignantly, her ears going up into an arrowhead. “And I can’t eat much of it, the fat gives me a gutsache!” she added.

“And I thought I had back problems,” Wulfwynn said dryly, making Tegyd scoff amusedly. Wulfwynn’s were most likely height-related, though she always had a hunched sort of posture making it a bit difficult to tell if hers were contributed to by her bust size - her baggy clothing and posture made her look like a monolith.

“Sure, A’ll have a bit,” Persephone said cheerfully, hopping forward in her chair to reach for the cheese and crackers. “Love me some cheese,” she said as she cut a generous slice off of the cylinder Tegyd had formed the cheese into and put it on a cracker which was soundly devoured. “Hmm! Tha’s good,” Persephone announced. Tegyd smiled gratefully. “Wee bit mild, but that’s good,” she said, already reaching for more as she looked up at everyone who was looking at her. “If ye don’t stop me, A’ll eat the lot,” Persephone giggled, cutting some more off onto a cracker.

“Pfff-ha! There you go. That’s how I’ll get rid of it all, turn it into cheese and feed it to the werewolf,” Tegyd laughed, and Rowan scoffed.

“Don’t, you’ll give her pancreatitis,” Rowan chortled, despite going for some himself. Tegyd sat there smiling helplessly as Rowan handed Cedar a cheese cracker and got one for himself, seemingly vindicated in herself finally getting to share the topic with her peers. Cedar and Rowan both gave her a thumbs up as regards to the taste of the cheese.

“Thanks,” Tegyd said gladly, beaming. “Um, obviously don’t tell everyone else, I just wanted to tell some people who’d get it and wouldn’t like, laugh,” she added quickly.

“We won’t tell a soul without you telling us to,” Sværri assured her, and Professor Granger nodded, though her white eyes tensed.

“And Miss Dale hasn’t given you any trouble over it?” she asked, and Tegyd shook her head.

“No, she’s fine,” Tegyd said gratefully. “Just a bit of laughing, but they promised not to tell,” she admitted. Ariadne nodded sagely.

“Oh good. As always, let myself or Professor Seong know if anything comes up,” Professor Granger told Tegyd, who nodded as Gylfi and the Brekke twins stood up to get themselves some of the crackers. And with that, for the 2026-2027 school year, the Nonhuman Club was reunited in their shared oddity and strangeness, and the safe space for its acknowledgement the Club provided.

--

Chapter Text

“Ugh-” Vanya spluttered as a big raindrop splatted onto her nose. Grumbling at the grey weather combined with the cold she was once again carrying a hot water bottle to defend against, she fetched her wand from its sheath under her jumper and jabbed it into the air. “Tegimentum,” she incanted, and as she brought her wand back down to her side pointing upward, a filmy blue umbrella of force sprouted up from it, keeping her covered as both Persephone and Dominique jumped.

“Woah! Where’d you learn to do that?” Addison, who’d been walking with them down toward Hogsmeade in the group Professor Weasley was escorting that second weekend of term, asked incredulously. Vanya shrugged nonchalantly as rain tapped against her spectral umbrella.

“Read it in a book,” Vanya replied. It was surprising how many things you could find just by visiting the library a bit. The only barrier to magic was how much you knew how to do and how much you could exert your own magic, and she’d been getting better at both for more than two years as a burgeoning bookworm.

“What were it, Tegimentum?” Persephone asked, fetching her own wand by its antler handle. She jabbed it into the air as Vanya had. “Tegimentum! Ayy!” Persephone barked, and her own glittery blue umbrella shot up into the space over her head like a rapidly growing tree. “That’s brilliant that is, now A’ll no reek o wet dog! Seen Ma and Da do this, how d’ye make it a nice colour?” she asked Vanya.

“Oh, um, it’s a concentration thing. Kinda like what Jason was teaching me actually, you’ve got to focus on an image of the umbrella you want when you cast it,” Vanya replied, thinking back to what she’d read. She frowned a bit and glanced at her hands, before she stopped walking for a moment and concentrated before, by her own vampiric Transfigurative magic, her nails developed a shiny new layer which pigmented itself a deep blood red as if she was wearing nail polish. As she jogged a bit to catch up with her peers, she smiled at them. “Haven’t done all that much recently, I’m out of practice. Maybe I should do my hair a different colour,” she mused. Over the holidays it hadn’t exactly been kosher to be frequently changing her appearance, what with living in a nonmagical town. Thinking for a moment, she started stripping pigmentation out of her tidy curly hair, watching a lock of it that dangled beside her face as it went from her natural deep dark brown to a nuttier sort of brown, and then progressed lighter and lighter until she balanced it into a flaxen sort of blonde. “How’s that, does it suit me?” she asked as rain started tapping a little more on the umbrellas more of her peers were conjuring now they knew how.

“Don’t ask us, A’m colourblind,” Persephone snickered, shaking her head. It looked yellow to Persephone, but so did several other colours.

“I think it looks all right,” Dominique chirped brightly. “I wonder if you could do white hair, like mine?” she suggested, scrunching her face to flick herself with a mental roar into her humanoid appearance, with her shoulder-length alabaster white hair. And with that, the lot of them laughed to themselves as Vanya tried out a few colours as they walked down to Hogsmeade.

It had been a good first two weeks back at Hogwarts, to Vanya’s mind. She even preferred the Week 2 schedule to the Week 1 - instead of one double period of Transfiguration, she had two single periods on different days, and though it technically was the same amount of time either week it still felt like she got more time in her favourite class. That year, Professor Granger would be going over much of the material she’d been having Vanya do already, stuff like animate Transfigurations. She’d called on Vanya to demonstrate during virtually every lesson, and it always put a smug smile on Vanya’s face whenever Annabelle or Thynne and Vexmoor had to pay attention to her excellence. And of course, in conjunction with being a frequent visitor to the library to get out books to read, she was doing very well in all of her classes. In their first year Vanya had been ahead of the class thanks to quite literally reading ahead, and she had already long devoured the second grade of the Standard Book of Spells over the holidays and had moved on to tomes she’d borrowed from the Library, like the spellbook she’d found the Umbrella Spell in the weekend prior. And in all, she was glad to be back at Hogwarts - the impact of her life estranged from her family was lessened there, since she’d have been going to the boarding school anyway regardless, and she liked seeing her friends again. The Marshals had been doing better of late as her fosters, but that didn’t mean she didn’t find them a little grating to spend too long with.

However, the weather had not played very nicely those two weeks. Autumn was clearly much more strict in Scotland, it was already getting chillier by the day and raining frequently. It was quite a transition from the hot, sunny beach village of Tinworth Cove, far far to the south nearer to Exmouth. And that rain, despite being well at home in the Hogsmeade region, did not really suit the town in Vanya’s opinion as they arrived. Drizzle and clouds made Hogsmeade a bit of a grim place, all dripping and grey.

Vanya was pretty sure she wouldn’t be visiting Hogsmeade too often that year, unless she needed something, after she and her friends got done visiting all the shops and seeing what was there to do. Even then, she was getting the distinct feeling she’d rather have been sitting by the fire in the Common Room reading a book with Puss curled up in her lap. But in good spirits, she wanted to come with her friends and enjoy spending time with them, so that was what she was doing, with her hair now matching Persephone’s blazing orange which she and her friends all agreed suited her.

As he had the weekend before, Professor Weasley let them loose upon the Hogsmeade High Street with the same rules and warnings, warnings they knew were founded given the way Kieran Pickorer and Jackson Boothe hadn’t been allowed to come that weekend. And so, given free rein of the street, Persephone, Vanya, Dominique, and Alpin set about looking into the stores they hadn’t visited the weekend before.

“Why do they not do steel cauldrons?” Tabitha asked rhetorically, having tagged along as they had taken a jaunt through Ceridwen’s Cauldrons at Vanya’s suggestion. In the curiosity at whether or not she’d find more potions to make in her own time like the Manegro Potion she’d made over Christmas, Vanya was wondering if there was such a thing as a better cauldron than the standard pewter one prescribed by their school gear list.

“Steady on, Sheffield,” Vanya snorted, noting Tabitha’s home city with some mirth. Tabitha turned pink as she spluttered with self-deprecating laughter.

“Hey that’s enough!” Tabitha laughed sarcastically, shaking her head. “Well pewter melts real easily don’t it? I reckon a steel one would be better,” she asked. “Remember last year, that time Clark had his gas on too hot and he melted the bottom out his cauldron? Wouldn’t get that with a steel one,” Tabitha added brightly.

“Ye’re doin’ yerself no favours on the Sheffield front ye are Tabitha,” Persephone snickered, and Tabitha scoffed helplessly and hung her head.

“It’s not my fault the rest of you don’t learn about Henry Bessemer at school,” Tabitha muttered plaintively.

“Well maybe they do make steel ones, should take a closer look around,” Alpin suggested, before he scoffed. “But if they don’t then we know what you’re doing for a job after Hogwarts Vane. Tabitha Vane’s Sheffield Steel Cauldrons,” he added amusedly, making the lot of them cackle to themselves as Tabitha wheezed with laughter. They had a look around the place, which seemed to double as a kitchen appliances store - they got a good laugh out of self-stirring cauldrons which were basically just magic’s answer to stand mixers - and it turned out that a little steel works operating indeed out of - hilariously - Sheffield did actually already make steel cauldrons, really quite nice shiny ones, which either dashed Tabitha’s joking career hopes upon the rocks or just supplied her with a competitor. Funnily enough, Vanya did put such a cauldron on her mental wishlist, since it was a bit out of her price range with her pocket money but Tabitha’s argument that one would survive heat better was sound. And for all she knew, plenty of potions that they didn’t do in class might have needed a more heat-durable cauldron than a pewter one.

With some Sheffield jokes and a wishlist item produced by the visit, they left the cauldron shop in high spirits and headed down the damp road toward an attraction they hadn’t perused during the last week; Carla Lumière’s Museum of Collected Oddities.

“Right, how’s this work?” Vanya asked as they walked up to the nice doors of the Museum that were standing open with a dozen flaps of glittering fabric hanging in the doorway, flaps that dangled amongst the shine of a magical barrier. Beside the door stood a little coin slot on a box, with another slot under it. “One Sickle per entry, please return your tokens when you leave,” she read out, paraphrasing it a little. Grumbling, she got out her wallet - she didn’t have much pocket money after spending much of it over the holidays on toys for Puss and some new clothes the weekend before.

“No A’ll shout ye,” Persephone said, holding up her own rather fat leather wallet. Vanya let her as she jauntily blew a raspberry at how much money Persephone had access to. Persephone, following the instructions on the doorside box, tapped her wand to the box four times to order four tokens, and as it displayed a little magical-holographic 4 above itself, she put a Galleon in the slot. Four little blue tokens promptly rattled into their little slot and were claimed by the four of them as Persephone claimed her change of one 𝔰5 and one 𝔰1 coin which went back in her wallet before they walked up to the door. “Reckon these must be enchanted to let us through the shield,” Persephone mused, before she stuck the token in her pocket and nonchalantly walked in the door. Indeed, Vanya and Dominique watched as, followed by Alpin, the shimmering shield parted around Persephone and she walked into the dimly lit hall that was the collection. Vanya and Dominique came inside curiously.

Carla Lumière’s Museum of Collected Oddities was a stuffy sort of room, though Vanya did find herself glad of the warmth inside and so she undid her puffer jacket, lit by the grey light coming in through the window and several hanging candles which hung over a few dozen wood and glass display cabinets. They weren’t alone in visiting it, there were a few locals perusing a few exhibits along with several Hogwarts students and a smartly robed blonde woman whom they could only guess was Carla Lumière herself, who was busy telling some older students about an exhibit.

Dominique, curiously, frowned around. She could have sworn she’d felt one more mind than there were people in the room, but now she’d paid more attention she couldn’t feel the extra - whatever it was, it was tiny enough she could hardly grasp it with her mind nor figure out where she’d felt it.

“Well this is cosy,” Vanya remarked, looking around. It certainly was, Lumière had appointed the wooden floored space, which could have worked as a pub given the counter, with plenty of red rugs and curtains. Over at a display case, Lumière looked around and saw them in the doorway, her eyes widening a tad as she saw Vanya and Persephone.

“Ahh! Well met, my young connoisseurs of the historical and strange!” Lumière said flamboyantly, letting her purple robes flow out behind her as she approached them. “My, I think I recognise a couple of you. The Lady Persephone Granger-Weasley of course, daughter of our esteemed new Minister for Magic, and young miss Vanya Mathilda Stryde, Hogwarts’ first vampire student, welcome welcome,” she said with a big florid grin. Vanya jumped slightly, peering at the woman.

“You know my middle name? How much of a celebrity am I?” Vanya asked confusedly, bewilderedly looking to Persephone, the resident expert on being a famous kid.

“Oh, no, don’t worry. I just pay attention to the newspapers, you never know when they’ll advertise an auction for priceless antiques,” Lumière assured her, shaking her head. “Well now, I’m honoured to have you. And you two dears, it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance. My name is Carla Lumière, and I’m she who gathered all these fine items. Shall I show you darlings around?” she asked sweetly, waving a hand across to the display cabinets.

“Sure!” Dominique chirruped, her beak hanging open in an excited grin. “I’ve never been to a museum before,” she said.

“You haven’t?” Vanya asked.

“I was homeschooled!” Dominique protested - of course she hadn’t been to a museum, as a kid she and her siblings hadn’t been capable of holding a humanoid form for a museum trip any more than they’d been capable of holding one for a school day. And they hadn’t visited any museums during their holiday to France.

“First time for everything! I’ll do my best to make sure you enjoy it then, little bird,” Lumière said warmly, looking about her collection with a thoughtful expression. Vanya frowned at her as her back was turned - the longer she looked at Lumière, the more she thought something was disturbingly off about her, like she somehow wasn’t in the same resolution as everything around her. Lumière gave Dominique a shrewd look. “You wouldn’t happen to be Victoire Weasley’s younger sister, would you? I believe she came to visit my little collection last week,” she asked, and Dominique nodded. “Ahh, Fleur Delacour’s daughter. I have something that you’ll find quite interesting, come come,” she said thoughtfully, beckoning the lot of them toward some of the displays. Persephone and Vanya came along as Dominique eagerly followed Lumière over to one of the smaller cases, within which was a small wooden rod.

“A wand?” Alpin said curiously. Dominique peered at the plaque describing the wand within - Wand of Ysabelet de Beaulieu, circa 1689.

“Yes. A very old wand,” Lumière told them suspensefully. The wand was clearly very old, and centuries of wear had left the wood splintery, but it could easily have once been quite a slender, elegant wand. “Your mother, Weasley, competed in the Triwizard Tournament in 2004 remember? So did the young woman this wand belonged to,” she said smartly. Vanya gasped at Dominique - she’d almost forgotten that Dominique’s Mum’s name had been alongside Professor Granger’s in the book she’d read regarding the matter. “It dates back to the 1689 Tournament, the Beauxbatons Champion. When she was killed, her wand was thrown free. It’s passed through several collections in the centuries since, it came to me from a family friend’s collection,” Lumière told them proudly. Persephone and Alpin exchanged a confused look.

“That’s horrible,” Persephone spat, recoiling from the woman and her reverence for such an item. “That’s a murdered kid’s wand, and ye’ve got it on display,” she said slackly, her lip curling in disgust. Carla swallowed and glanced back at her.

“Yes, it is,” Carla said softly. “It’s a reminder of why we don’t have the Tournament anymore, and the sort of thing her mother survived,” she pointed out, nodding to Dominique. Persephone squinted at Lumière as Dominique nodded - somehow it seemed a little trite and insincere a counterpoint to Persephone. “But I know it’s not for everyone. Something a little nicer, then?” Lumière suggested, before she smiled and beckoned them over to another display, this one consisting of several free standing dress forms with several pieces of clothing on them behind a cord, including an old blue cloth pair of heeled shoes on a display, a long white dress with puffy sleeves and a green ribbon holding its underbust in, another two dresses, one black and beaded and ornate and the other pink and adorned in embroidered flowers that looked similarly ancient to the big deep red shawl that hung from the next hanger, which hung with tassels dangling down from it. “Here we find something I think you’ll find quite interesting little Vanya. These all were drawn from the wardrobe of a vampire, and bequeathed to collections after her death in the early 1910s,” she told them all, waving a hand at the plaque that titled them all the wardrobe of one Mrs. Layla Fairchild, died 1912. Vanya peered at the descriptions of each item that stood before them and scowled.

“She was murdered!” Vanya exclaimed in horror, stepping back from the text that described Fairchild as having been killed by a vampire hunter in New York in February of 1912. Carla swept her hands apart apologetically.

“It’s par for the course with history, I’m afraid Vanya,” Carla said, a little impatiently Dominique thought. “But on the bright side, something I’m sure you’ll discover when you get older Vanya dearie, vampires bring us some brilliant collections of antique fashion,” Lumière apologised softly. “Fairchild was a couple centuries old when she was killed, and thanks to her, even if her death was grisly, we have some excellent examples of fashion going back as far as the late seventeenth century in the case of an item I parted with some months ago. If you’re ever er, looking for others of your kind to learn from, a surefire way of recognising an older vampire is their eclectic fashion sense; they’ll be sure to still have things that went out of style a century ago in their wardrobes, and they do take care of them,” she noted brightly with a wide smile. Vanya nodded, thinking as she examined Lumière’s expression, not completely distracted from her curiosity at what was bugging her about the woman. She wasn’t entirely sure what to think of it. She supposed Lumière had a point - vampires had been hunted legally even until the last few decades, it wasn’t surprising that a lot of their history was bloody even outside of their dietary requirement. And she wondered what her own eclectic wardrobe would look like when she was two-hundred years old.

“What’s this?” Dominique asked, having moved to another exhibit that had drawn her attention somehow. Inside a display case, on a golden silk cushion, was an ancient thick tome bound in faded blue-dyed leather, that bore no title on its cover nor anything upon its spine save only for a symbol; a simple golden inlay of a bird of prey.

“Ah!” Lumière gasped, beaming and coming over to it. “I was going to build up to this, I’m quite proud of it, but since you’ve skipped ahead… this, Weasley, is a little bit of a mystery,” the curator said slyly, smiling at them. “Very little is known about it, other than that it once belonged to Miranda Goshawk. Nobody knows what it is,” she said. Persephone frowned.

“It’s a book,” she pointed out.

“Oh of course, we know it’s a book Lady Persephone,” Lumière laughed, rolling her eyes. “But we know almost nothing else more about it other than that it’s enchanted. The pages are all blank, and the only identifying mark is this,” she said, moving to the side around Dominique to point at its spine. “The symbol of Rowena Ravenclaw,” Lumière told them dramatically.

“Oh yeah…” Alpin murmured, leaning closer to examine it. “There’s a few of those in the Common Room,” he added.

“There would be,” Lumière agreed. “We’re sure it dates to around the days of the founding of Hogwarts, though we aren’t quite sure if it was Ravenclaw herself who made it or one of her followers who came later. And the purpose of its enchantment is unknown, it’s so old we can’t even decrypt it!” she hissed eagerly, leaning in to them. “It’s also remarkably well preserved for such an ancient volume. Of everything I’ve got here… this is the premier mystery of my collection,” Lumière whispered. As Carla was leaning so close to them, Vanya’s eyes widened as she realised what it was that was making her so off-put by the curator, and she swallowed, stepping back from her a little bit.

“Did Goshawk no say?” Persephone asked simply. Lumière shook her head.

“No, she didn’t,” Carla lamented. “If she even knew herself, that knowledge is lost. She’d never spoken of it, it wasn’t mentioned in her will, even her husband had been surprised to find it among her belongings,” she told them. “And nobody knows where she got it.”

“Huh,” Dominique chirped, examining the book carefully. Somehow the unassuming face of it was tantalising. It was such a simple mystery, and something about it was calling to her… literally. It was like she could almost feel the presence of the book, was it what she had felt when she’d entered the museum? What was this mysterious little book, and why could she almost feel it?

“Oh, I’m so sorry, where does the time go?” Lumière said abruptly, checking her watch with a smile. “I’ve got some paperwork I’ve got to get to, still settling in to this place you know. But please, enjoy the exhibits, take your time with them. If you’ve any questions, I’ll be happy to find the time to answer them if you come over,” she said cheerfully, before she nodded to them all and headed off toward the desk. As she left, Vanya leant over to where Dominique was peering through the glass, her beak almost touching it, at the book. Persephone, catching her look, leaned in curiously to hear whatever Vanya had to say. It was a little redundant, she could have heard Vanya whispering halfway across town on a quiet clear day, but she wanted to show she was paying attention.

“She’s a Metamorphmagus,” Vanya whispered, glancing back at Lumière as the curator swept around her counter and shuffled open a drawer, glancing back up at them as she did and smiling as she put her wand onto the top of the counter out of the way.

“She’s what?” Persephone asked as Dominique’s attention was torn away from the book and she frowned incredulously at her.

“How could you tell?” Dominique asked.

“I could tell something was off, but there’s lots of bits of her face that haven’t got pores, it’s like her skin’s all smooth,” Vanya hissed, glancing back at Lumière. “And her eyes are solid colour, Jason was telling me about how hard it is to get eye colouring right last year, and how important stuff like pores is. She’s not as good at it as Jason and his Mum are,” Vanya explained. It was the sort of elementary stuff that Jason had used as an example of why he had such an extensive folder of just photographs of people on his phone, and why his mother had a photo album with similar contents in it - you had to know what details to replicate to get it right, and reference material was invaluable to that pursuit. Because when you got it wrong, it was noticeable. The dim lighting of the museum was probably helping to disguise it, but there was something distinctly uncanny about Lumière’s visage in a way that wasn’t pleasant once one’s mind caught on to it.

“For why d’ye think she’s doing it?” Persephone asked quietly, suspicion growing in her mind. Over behind her counter, Lumière frowned, shaking the drawer that must have been stuck, and crouched down, balancing herself with one hand hanging onto the top of the counter over her wand. Vanya shrugged slightly.

“Maybe she likes it. Jason turns himself into a girl sometimes,” Vanya pointed out nonchalantly. Persephone nodded thoughtfully. “Should give her some advice,” Vanya chuckled.

“God, imagine the havoc I could make if I were one. My eyes don’t match already!” Alpin laughed, and Persephone wheezed as she sort of shouldered him affectionately. Vanya thought for a moment. Sure, she couldn’t do it properly, but she could do what their host was doing. She closed her eyes for a moment and reopened them, and Alpin yelped at the sight of Vanya with solidly blood red eyes to match her fake nail polish, which Persephone saw as black and recoiled from even more.

“Do any of you get a weird feeling off this book?” Dominique asked them, the tinge of urgency to her voice snapping Persephone and Vanya’s attentions back to it, as well as Alpin’s.

“Weird feeling? Nah, no at all,” Persephone replied quickly, frowning at it. “For why d’ye ask?” she added.

“Wait, do you mean your weird Veela bird psychic stuff?” Vanya asked.

“I’m not a psychic!” Dominique reiterated, before she glanced at what Vanya had done with her eyes and squawked amusedly. “You look like Maman, »¹ she said, and Vanya snickered at that. Indeed, she’d based her idea of what red eyes would look like on Dominique’s Mum.

“Well either you’re psychic or the bloody book is if you can feel it,” Vanya retorted. “You ever hear of a psychic book?” she snickered.

“Er, ay,” Persephone replied, a worried look appearing on her face. “And it warna² good,” she said, shaking her head.

“Really?” Vanya asked, and Persephone nodded.

“Ay. Might be we ought to get the psychic bird away from it,” Persephone said jovially, tapping Dominique’s shoulder to pull her away. Dominique nodded and stepped back, and Vanya snickered as she turned around to look to see any more interesting exhibits.

“Wh-er!” But as she did, a wave of nausea blew over her and Vanya fell over, disoriented as her head spun and her vision tumbled to the ground.

“Vanya!” Persephone exclaimed loudly, distracting several of the other guests as she shot to Vanya’s side like a bolt out of a crossbow. In an instant, Vanya’s little modifications to her own appearance - the auburn hair, along with the red nails and eyes - sputtered and vanished. Just as immediately, Puss, who had been unobtrusively standing around their ankles, sprang to Vanya’s side, meowing insistently. “Ye all right?!” she asked urgently as Vanya tried to get up and then recoiled at the big mass of red hair that had suddenly appeared in her periphery, partially hidden by the slight shadows in the edges of her vision. Her head span and bewilderment wracked her mind, before, just as quickly as it had all appeared, suddenly she was fine. She was just lying on her side on the rug.

“What?” Vanya asked confusedly, getting up and picking her hot water bottle back up off the floor. What had just happened?

“Are you okay Vanya?” Dominique asked, kneeling down to where Vanya was pushing herself back up.

“Hm? Yeah, I’m fine,” Vanya replied hesitantly. “Just… felt a bit light-headed for a second then,” she explained, frowning at herself as she let Persephone help her up. Persephone sharply looked around, her protective and suspicious mind looking for anyone who could have cast a spell on Vanya, but she saw nobody. A few older students were looking over worriedly to see if they needed to help, as were some of the locals, but nobody had a wand out. Wandless magic existed, and two of her Aunts were proficient in it, but she knew that her Aunt Ariadne - who’d actually learnt it properly - had to have a trigger action like snapping her fingers, and she hadn’t heard one. Nevertheless, she kept a stern wolfish watch on everyone as Dominique and Alpin turned their attention solely to Vanya.

“Are you all right now?” Alpin asked, putting a hand on her back. Vanya normally didn’t like it when people did that, particularly given Alpin was only not the tallest of the four because Dominique was a few inches taller by dint of being part-Veela. But given the circumstances, she wasn’t bothered. Even she had no idea what had happened. Vanya shrugged.

“I think so?” Vanya replied. “I feel okay now,” she said. Worry was certainly beginning to arrive in her nervous system though - she did have an epileptic condition, Idiopathic Childhood Occipital Epilepsy of Gastaut, and because she was never going to grow up Madam Pomfrey theorised she wouldn’t grow out of it like most kids who had it did. She also was still suffering the very slight remnants of some brain damage after the torpor incident Annabelle had caused her at new year’s. So the idea that something might have been legitimately wrong with her was certainly on her RADAR. Dominique caught the pensive and concerned look on Vanya’s face, but she didn’t have anything to really add other than agreeing with it. Alpin, though, did.

“Maybe your magic got a bit overwhelmed by all the shapeshifting things you were doing?” Alpin suggested. “You were doing your hair, your nails, and your eyes, I don’t remember you doing that much all at once before. And you did say you were out of practice too,” he pointed out, and Vanya nodded. A simple explanation was pretty comforting just then.

“Maybe, yeah,” Vanya agreed weakly.

“Might be we ought to just get you some fresh air a minute. It’s a bit stuffy in here with all these candles,” Alpin suggested, and Dominique nodded cheerfully.

“Yeah, all right. It’s bloody parky out there though,” Vanya grumbled, doing up her puffer jacket again as Alpin nodded and they began back toward the door.

“It’s all right, A’ll give ye a hug, A’m right warm,” Persephone said, and Vanya snorted as they stepped out of the muggy warmth of Lumière’s museum and through the glittering barrier out into the cold again. She was glad of her hot water bottle as the cold air struck her nostrils and their breaths all turned to mist in front of them, that was for sure, though it might have made her, somehow, overheat inside the museum. Vanya tightened up her big fluffy scarf to keep warm as they went and found a bench to sit down at along the side of the road. “Well A’m no sure A like that place. Bit weird innit, we’ve got a dead kid’s wand and some murdered vampire’s clothes,” Persephone decided sceptically, with a grimace.

“Hmm, it’s a bit… what’s the word, macabre?” Alpin agreed. Dominique squawked amusedly at him.

“How’d you say that?” Dominique asked.

“Macabre,” Alpin repeated, frowning.

“You dae’³ pronounce the e on the end!” Persephone laughed, shaking her head at him as Alpin spluttered.

“I’ve only ever read it,” Alpin admitted sheepishly. Vanya shrugged. Sure, the exhibitions weren’t quite to her taste, but she was sure she’d come back. “Maybe we should go get lunch again?” Alpin suggested.

“A like that idea,” Persephone agreed jovially, making Dominique squawk in a giggle. “Oh hey, that butcher we talked to last week said ‘e’d hae⁴ that blood for ye restocked Vanya! We should go check we should,” she added eagerly, and Vanya blanched.

“Nah, no thanks,” Vanya said reflexively, shaking her head. Persephone frowned, tilting her head at Vanya in a decidedly puppyish fashion.

“Ye no hungry?” Persephone asked. Well, of course she wasn’t, Vanya reckoned. Hogwarts fed her more than she needed, she was perfectly fine going without for a bit. And besides, maybe she was just feeling a bit queasy after her bought of light-headedness, but just as she had felt when she’d first become a vampire the idea of a big glass of blood from a butcher’s just sounded utterly repulsive to Vanya just then. It was blood, after all. Even a vampire had to be occasionally icked out by that. And she’d only been a vampire for a few years, not like those two-hundred year old vampires who were more than used to it.

“Nah, I’m not hungry,” Vanya said simply.

--

Chapter Text

“How’s this one work, do you think?” Vanya asked Persephone, showing her their Arithmancy worksheet over the table as Persephone looked up through a heaping mouthful of baked beans on toast all mixed up with bacon bits and combined with a generous chunk of an egg.

“Hmph? A’ve no started it,” Persephone replied, her voice muffled through her food, and as usual Alpin gave her a plaintive look for talking with her mouth full. She grinned at him, food all over her teeth, and the boy blanched as he went back to his own meal. Vanya frowned at Persephone.

“It’s due on Tuesday,” Vanya pointed out. And that meant, practically, if Persephone wasn’t going to work on it that evening, she just had Monday to do it. It was dinnertime that Sunday evening, a few hours after they’d returned from Hogsmeade and their weird visit to Carla Lumière’s establishment, to which Vanya was sure she’d return. Persephone shrugged.

“A can do it tonight, maybe,” Persephone admitted. Vanya hummed ruefully and went back to it, thinking her way through the problem presented in the worksheet. Arithmancy was a fairly interesting class - it was, in some ways, a more advanced Physics class than what Professor Granger took them into so far, combined with said physics’ implications for magic. They’d only been taking it for a couple weeks, but so far she was finding it a pretty stimulating class. Though, she did wish she’d brought a calculator, she was having to do a lot of maths on paper. Maths she’d lost track of, so she grumbled as she started again, crossing out her mistakes.

“Are you feeling okay, Vanya?” Dominique asked, tilting her head at Vanya as she paused in her usual tearing apart of some chicken drumsticks. “You haven’t touched your soup,” she pointed out. Vanya had fed Puss of course, as she always did at the start of every meal as was her deal with her familiar, but her bowl of czernina soup was sitting there to the side of her homework completely untouched. Her spoon was still lying next to it tidily, and similarly she hadn’t touched the goblet of pork blood she was always given.

“Hm?” Vanya hummed, looking up from her work. “Oh, nah I’m just not hungry,” she replied nonchalantly, shrugging. It wasn’t quite true, she could feel there was an emptiness to her stomach that evening, but she just found she didn’t have much of an appetite and hadn’t done all afternoon. Dominique watched Vanya for a moment as she went back to her work, concern blossoming in her own gut. She knew Vanya quite liked the Polish soup, especially for the optional plum syrup the kitchen staff added to it, it wasn’t like her to go off it. And she seemed to have come to terms with having to drink blood long ago, that wasn’t normally an issue. Nevertheless, she hoped it was just a passing thing that Vanya genuinely wasn’t hungry and went back to shredding bits of meat and swallowing them whole. As she did, Puss meowed and hopped up onto the table, making Vanya jump. Puss looked for a moment at Vanya, and then at her neglected soup.

“Hey, Puss, you’re not allowed up there,” Vanya said sternly, giving her a look and reaching up to take hold of the big black cat and put her back. Puss’ tail flicked a bit, but she let Vanya remove her from where she was standing on Vanya’s homework and deposit her back on the bench beside her. Puss kept making noises as her tail flicked and she pressed her body into Vanya’s stomach, looking up at her with her big blue eyes. “I’ve got homework to do!” Vanya protested jovially as Puss demanded attention. Smiling, Vanya let Puss distract her a little and scritched the cat’s ears. It didn’t seem to quite satisfy Puss, she wasn’t sitting still she was continuing to turn about on Vanya’s legs and nudge her belly, but Vanya sniffed amusedly. “All right, shall we head in for the night Puss? Yeah, all right,” she asked jovially, folding up the worksheet and putting it into her puffer jacket’s pocket.

“Ye headin’ to bed? Ye’ve no eaten,” Persephone asked, frowning at her. They hadn’t even had dessert served yet.

“Just not hungry tonight. Not going to bed, think I’ll just sit by the fire in an armchair with a blanket and do my homework,” Vanya replied, shrugging. Persephone snorted.

“Ye’ll ne’er look it, but A reckon ye’re turnin’ into a wee granny,” Persephone chuckled as Vanya got up from her side of the table, hefting Puss up with her to hold her like a baby the size of her own torso. “Ye’re on a liquid diet, ye love sittin’ ‘round the fire in an armchair wi a wee blanket and a cat readin’ a book, should take up knitting ye should. Like Alpin,” she added, and Alpin scoffed halfway through a mouthful of bangers and mash and scowled jovially, swallowing.

“Why am I getting dragged into this?” Alpin pleaded bemusedly.

“Maybe I should, I’ve got the right jumper for it,” Vanya snickered, pulling the bottom hem of her knit jumper out from under her puffer jacket with her free hand. “Night night,” she said nonchalantly, nodding back to them all before she began carrying Puss out.

“Can A have yer soup?” Persephone called after her, panting eagerly. Vanya scoffed, pausing as she went.

“I don’t know if it’s okay for you,” Vanya said sceptically. That did not dissuade the eager puppy panting at her with her tongue hanging slightly out; it was a somewhat bizarre visual to see from a person that one just got used to when one was friends with a Trueborn werewolf. “Oh, you’re gonna eat it the second I go anyway. On your own… stomach be it,” she chuckled, shaking her head amusedly.

“Thank ye!” Persephone called after Vanya as she laughed and headed off.

Out of the tall windows of the Great Hall, the slight drizzle that had tapped across that day as it had passed was petering out as the orange blaze of sunset died to the inky dark sky. Inside, that fire lived on in the braziers and torches that kept the halls of the castle lit as Vanya cheerfully scritched behind Puss’ ears and down the scruff of her back as she headed downstairs toward the Dungeons and the Slytherin Common Room.

“Harmonisation,” Vanya said simply as she reached the unremarkable patch of lumpy stone wall that, at the recitation of its password, melted into the shape of a big ornate stone door, which shifted open as she stepped closer to it. The Slytherin Common Room was a long room down a flight of stairs - one side of which, Vanya knew, could be turned into a ramp for wheelchair access, she’d used it after Madam Pomfrey had released her from the Hospital Wing in a wheelchair in January - with an ornate fireplace, a small kitchenette, many a leather sofa, tables and chairs, and tall windows on the semicircular end of the room that at that moment were just black, but in the day had an eerie greenish glow from the way the sun came through the layer of algae on the underwater windows. It was also pretty much empty, simply because most everyone was still at dinner, which gave Vanya the pick of the chairs. So she picked the big comfy mahogany and green velvet button-back armchair by the fire, and she put a few more pieces of wood onto the fire so it’d be nice and warm as she sat down and got her book out of her bag. The chair was definitely too big for her, she looked tiny in it and her legs and faux-fur lined shoes stuck out like sticks since her knees were behind the edge of the cushion, but it was comfy for her and Puss as Puss hopped up into her lap.

She could have, if she’d felt like it, used the kettle in the kitchenette to make herself a hot cup of blood from the sachets of powdered blood the school gave her as essentially snacking opportunities, but Vanya still didn’t want to have anything. It was a little odd, she could feel that her stomach was empty and grumbling a little, but it was like there was some kind of disconnect in her mind from it. She was hungry, but she quite certainly didn’t want to eat anything. Drink anything, whichever one wanted to describe it as, they were basically synonyms for a vampire, as were hunger and thirst, to a degree. Her appetite was so low it might as well have been in the negatives.

Something bubbled in the back of her mind that that sort of thing was among the symptoms of being ill somehow, but she dismissed it. It was a pretty cosy way to spend an evening, sitting by the warmth of the fire with her cat and a book, and it stayed quite quiet until about fifteen minutes later when other kids started, in a growing trickle, returning to the Common Room after having had dessert. But it wasn’t the most raucous thing in the world; after two weeks, most everybody had gotten seeing their friends again after a few months out of their system and were just hanging out with one another, and many more were doing homework or reading much like Vanya was. Nearby, Sylvia’s big sister Thalia - a fourth-year - got out a laptop and several textbooks at a table to type out an essay or something, and a few older kids talking amongst themselves took over the couches opposite Vanya near the fire.

“Hey Vanya! Got back early to grab your favourite chair?” Tabitha asked amusedly, and Vanya scoffed and nodded, as she came over with her maths workbook in hand. That year, Professor Twining - often jovially nicknamed Teabags by Addison, who had joked they needed a Professor Taylor to match - had actually given them all books with maths problems in them for them to be taken through various bits of as homework. “Do you know how to do question nine? I can’t remember where the brackets go,” she asked. Vanya frowned.

“Um, I’ve not done it yet, it’s due on Thursday,” Vanya pointed out as she thought about it.

“I know, I’m just gonna get it done tonight,” Tabitha said, and Vanya nodded.

“You remember BODMAS, right?” Vanya asked, and Tabitha paused.

“That’s what it was!” Tabitha exclaimed, nodding suddenly. “Forgot how it went, that’s it. Thanks Vanya!” she said, before she headed off back toward the stairs down toward the dormitory.

“See you,” Vanya told her, going back to her book with a yawn. It was starting to get late, and as evening fell, the clocks ticked onward, and many a student retired from the Common Room to instead spend their evening in their dormitories. Though it was a weekend night, so Vanya elected to stay up. She needed to stay up, of course. The question of why, though, didn’t quite occur to her, so Vanya was still tiredly reading by the time the Common Room was seriously beginning to empty and she looked up to see Cetus and Pisces go by as they waved to her. “Oh hey, good night Cetus, Pisces,” Vanya said brightly, noticing the direction they were walking in. “You two are in the girls’ dormitory?” she asked, and Cetus nodded.

“Yes,” they replied. “There are five boys and three girls in our year, so it makes the numbers even,” Cetus replied simply, and Vanya nodded.

“And it’s easier to have both our tubs running off the same aerator,” Pisces added.

“Oh, like the thing that makes all bubbles in fish tanks?” Vanya asked, realising as she was saying it that comparing them to pet fish probably wasn’t very nice. They didn’t seem to mind though, and Pisces nodded.

“Yes! But ours is a big one they use for ponds,” Pisces giggled. “Professor Greengrass had to put muffling enchantments on it because it’s so loud otherwise,” they snickered, and Vanya snorted. “Good night Miss Vanya! See you tomorrow!” they squeaked in their high-pitched voice, and headed off for the stairs. Vanya smiled after the androgynous pair as they went. So far as she knew, though she hadn’t spoken with the Scamanders much outside of the Nonhuman Club they’d have again the next day, the pair had had a much smoother introduction to Hogwarts and Slytherin than Vanya had. She’d seen the odd exaggerated fish face made at them, and she’d heard her nastier classmates making remarks about their bulging eyes and largely genderless nature, but Vanya was glad that the pair were in good spirits and didn’t seem to have suffered much direct bullying yet.

It was also an odd experience, to simultaneously appear like a tiny child but be treated, now she was a second year, as older by the three first-year members of the Nonhuman Club. Not only that, but she was the only other nonhuman in Slytherin - Pisces and Cetus Scamander seemed to look up to her as a role model, despite being noticeably taller than her.

Vanya wondered how weird that would feel when she would be seventeen and still look like an eight year old. Somehow, she’d never shaken the mental image of growing up even though she knew she wouldn’t.

As the fire crackled down, having consumed much of the firewood, Vanya eventually came to the end of the book she’d been reading and sighed, setting it down on the little coffee table beside the oversized armchair. The Common Room was dark, all the other lamps turned off now that she was alone in there. She was glad she had her carbamazepine syrup medicine to handle her epilepsy - going from a light place to a dark one could have triggered her seizures otherwise. They weren’t the worst seizures in the world, but they could definitely be scary - uncontrollable eye movements, hallucinations, that sort of thing, she’d even fainted the first time.

Vanya checked her pink watch and nodded to herself when she noted it was about half past ten at night. The sun would have long gone down, and night would be blanketing the Highlands. Patting the arms of the old armchair, she inhaled deeply.

“All right, c’mon Puss,” Vanya said softly, gently nudging Puss to get off her lap and hop down onto the rug, where she meowed at Vanya curiously. “We’ve got to go, or we’ll be late,” she said matter-of-factly as she swung her puffer jacket back onto her shoulders from where it had been lying in her lap as a cushion for Puss, which by then had a bit of a dusting of cat hair on it. She decided against bringing her bag and stretched, yawning much like her feline familiar, before she began heading for the blank wall that became the doors back out into the corridor as she approached it. Puss followed her along, hopping up the stairs and looking up at Vanya with an uncomprehending tilt of her head. As the doors ground open, Vanya peered out of them into the firelit corridor - she didn’t exactly want to be caught by a Prefect or an overnight-staying Professor on her way out of the castle.

Thankfully, there were no eyes on Vanya as she shuffled out of the Common Room, hunching down to make herself less visible - which was hardly necessary, she was under four and a half feet tall - as she snuck up the corridor. Behind her, the door fell closed again and melted back into the wall, and Vanya winced at the sound of it combined with the sound of her shoes on the stone floor. She didn’t want to be heard any more than seen, and she didn’t know if the Prefects on duty that evening happened to include Rowan, who could - probably literally - hear footsteps a mile off.

“Shhh,” Vanya whispered to Puss as she walked, putting a finger to her lips as she tried to breathe quietly. Puss slunk lower to the ground as they approached the stairs and, keeping to the side under the light of the braziers, began up them. Vanya’s cold heart hammered in her chest as she snuck upstairs, a forbidden thrill running through her veins as she wondered if her nervous hyper awareness of sound was what it was like to be Persephone. Why did shoes have to make noise?!

Thankfully, the stairs that led up from Slytherin led almost directly to the Entrance Hall, even if it was quite a lot of stairs. It wasn’t the full moon - that wouldn’t be until next weekend - so Professor Granger along with Cedar, Rowan, and Persephone were not there, though Vanya knew they’d have long been outside anyway if it had been. With her breath hitching in her chest and a plume of water vapour escaping her mouth, Vanya peeked out into the Entrance Hall to confirm it was empty - it was - and then dashed for the doors with Puss running behind her as she went.

Vanya bundled her cloak around her and her thick jacket yet more as she stepped out of the castle, grimacing at the audible crunching of gravel under her feet. The orange light of the castle spilled out onto the path and lawns, and she hurriedly shuffled away from it so as to not be seen out a window, hurrying for the darkness. If being out of bed at night was forbidden, this was far worse, and a giddy excitement rose in Vanya’s heart as she escaped the castle. The trees rustled in the winds of the night as the stars twinkled above her in that splendour of a dark region where you could see nearly all of them, the moonless sky so dense with stars it was almost akin to static. Vanya squinted through the darkness as she walked and, only once she was far enough down the path to be hidden by the trees, drew her wand and cast the Lumos spell to light her way like a torch. But she didn’t just have to light her way - she had to pull up her scarf to cover her mouth and nose as she discovered just how cold it was outside at night. The high had been four degrees that day - this, obviously, was whatever unforgivingly cold temperature the low was. Some part of her yelled that it was a bad idea to go out in the cold, that she should go back, but Vanya dismissed that. She had an appointment to keep.

She paused a moment, frowning at that as the frigid wind howled around her. What appointment? The exact reason why she was doing this, leaving the castle in the dead of night, escaped her. She had one, didn’t she? She had to. Vanya shrugged and kept going. She had somewhere to be, that was important wasn’t it? If she didn’t keep going, she’d be late! And besides, she hardly wanted to be out in the cold for any longer than she needed to be, so she pressed on down the hill toward the lights of Hogsmeade. It was a bit of a walk, but she’d done it already twice that day, so a third time wasn’t too bad seeing as she’d known what she was getting into.

Hogsmeade was quieter at night, well, for the most part. It was hardly unique to Hogsmeade that pubs could stay noisy at night, especially on a Saturday night when they stayed open for a bit longer, and there were several such pubs concentrated on the high street. But Vanya, as she extinguished her wand, wasn’t given so much as a second glance as she walked into Hogsmeade and kept to the shaded sides of the cobbled streets because there was nobody out to give her any. Her companions were just Puss, who was dutifully following her while seeming a little confused at what they were doing, and the various sounds of crickets and nighttime bugs that hadn’t gone away in the freezing cold of winter yet. And so, with a bit of a stroll and a jaunt just into a residential street where all the curtains were closed and many a chimney was smoking gently in the darkness, she found her way to the building she hadn’t quite consciously decided was to be her destination, walking by its ticket box and knocking on the closed door.

Carla Lumière’s Museum of Collected Oddities.

Moments later, almost unnaturally quickly given the only lights inside were upstairs, the door creaked open and the eponymous curator of the establishment looked out. She didn’t even look surprised.

“Ahh, Vanya! Good evening dear,” Carla said warmly and quietly, smiling at her as she stepped through the door and held it open. “What can I do for you?” she asked. Vanya frowned, blinking. She didn’t have an answer to that question. What on earth was she even doing there? She didn’t have a reason to be coming to the museum again, not at nearly eleven at night - at most she should have come back next weekend.

“Um, er-” Vanya spluttered. Humiliation and confusion in equal measure were bubbling through her mind. First she’d come and broken school rules by leaving not only Slytherin but the castle itself, then she’d walked down to Hogsmeade, and now here she was bothering a shopkeeper for no reason! What on earth was she doing?! “I’m sorry, I.. I’ll just…” she began hesitantly, before Carla shook her head and put a hand firmly on Vanya’s back.

“No no dear, it’s all right,” Lumière assured her sweetly, stepping back into her little museum. “Come in Vanya, come in,” she said, gently pushing Vanya into the museum and closing the door behind her. Vanya jumped at the sound of the door closing and locking behind her as her heart began beating harder. What was going on? Why had Lumière tolerated this sourceless bullshit from her? It wasn’t as if she was sleepwalking either. Was she dreaming? The inside of the museum of course was dark, though it was a bit warmer than it was outside, but Lumière drove her toward the back door and a staircase behind it. “I was expecting you. Would you like a cuppa, Vanya?” Lumière asked as she led Vanya up the stairs.

“What?” Vanya muttered, frowning at her. She stopped just letting the woman lead her up in the midst of her distracted confusion. “How were you-.. what?” she hissed. How could Lumière have been expecting her? Vanya hadn’t been expecting to be coming herself, she wasn’t sure why she was there to begin with. She wasn’t sleepwalking, but was it a dream? She pinched her arm as Lumière watched her from further up the stairs. No, she wasn’t dreaming. Besides, no self-respecting dream would have kept going so long after its dreamer had realised it was complete bunkum. “What’s going on?” she asked, alarm blaring through her nerves as her eyes widened and she looked up at the curator.

“Whatever do you mean, Vanya?” Lumière asked sweetly.

Vanya’s blood ran cold, colder than usual, despite the warmth of the building.

“You did something to me…” she whispered, remembering her stumble that afternoon. “You did something to me, made me come here!” Vanya exclaimed, horror freezing her to her feet as she stood halfway up the stairs. Sickeningly, a grin grew on Lumière’s face, and Vanya hissed in a gasping breath as she trembled from fear and her theory that the woman was a Metamorphmagus was confirmed. Blonde hair inked back in to brown around her face and got longer as it tumbled about her shoulders, a face that changed shape a bit to be a bit skinnier and become a completely different woman, and her eyes went from solid green to their natural blue.

“Do you know what’s so nice about you vampires, and us Metamorphmagi?” the woman hissed menacingly, leaning forward with a sneer. “You’re so very mutable. It makes you so very easy to enchant,” she said darkly. Panic filled Vanya’s veins and her heart hammered out a staccato beat as the custodian drew her wand.

With no other alternative, she just let gravity do the work.

Vanya dove backward, hurling herself down the stairs with no care to her own safety, anything to get away from Lumière and her wand. Vanya slammed and rolled in a clattering heap onto the floor of the museum, almost colliding with Puss who yowled and darted backwards, her fur standing on end as Vanya desperately jumped to her feet, fumbling with the hem of her puffer jacket and jumper to get to the hilt of her wand, but she wasn’t fast enough. She knew too late as she looked up and saw Lumière pointing her wand straight at her head that she should have rolled to the side, bought herself more time by breaking her line of sight down the stairs.

“Imperio,” Lumière incanted softly.

Whatever the woman had implanted into Vanya’s mind earlier, it had been small, that had had room for her to be confused. Maybe, she might even have been able to break it had she tried. This didn’t have room for confusion and there was no avenue to break it. Instantly, Vanya went slack and her mind was blanketed in wool, wool that was saturated in Lumière’s will magically grafted over her own. She didn’t even have a hope of resisting it, she was easily enchanted and a kid untrained in such things - Vanya couldn’t even bring herself think that she should resist it, and there was no confusion. Of course she’d do whatever Lumière wanted, why wouldn’t she?

“That’s enough, it’s fine. Isn’t that much better pet? Come up here,” Lumière said.

“Yes Miss Lumière,” Vanya mumbled idly, following her instructions and obediently coming back up the stairs, rubbing her arm for how it ached when she had, for some reason, jumped down the stairs.

“Give me your wand,” Lumière said, and Vanya helpfully handed the woman her wand. Carla put it away in her coat. “Come along,” she ordered, and once more Vanya dutifully followed Lumière upstairs. It was quite a cosy upstairs above-shop flat that Lumière had for herself, but it was a door in the back that the woman led her to. The room past it had quite clearly been a second bedroom, but it was no longer furnished with anything but a few stored bits and bobs like an unneeded rug and a few pieces of furniture and an empty display case. It had a curtain over the window, but what would have attracted Vanya’s suspicion had that part of her mind been operational just then was the glowing blue circle on the floor in the corner, away from the window. It was maybe a metre and a half wide. And lying inside it, attached to a little metal loop on the wall, was a pair of chunky handcuffs. Around the walls of the room was a filmy yellow field, which they stepped into. “Your mobile phone?” Lumière asked pointedly.

“I don’t have one, Miss Lumière,” Vanya replied absently, admiring the beautiful patterns the yellow magic along the walls made as they spoke, the sound ricocheting around it visibly.

“Oh good. Go sit in the circle please Vanya, and put the handcuffs on,” Lumière ordered, and Vanya went and sat down on the wooden floor inside the circle, putting her hands through the cuffs, which Lumière sealed shut around her wrists with a flick of her wand. The woman glanced at Puss, who was standing in the door with her tail flicking, consternation appearing on the cat’s face. “Have your little cat come over to you,” she added.

“Puss! Here puss, c’mere,” Vanya called brightly, and Puss took a second to think. “Puss!” she repeated. Puss exploded into black cloud and reappeared beside Vanya, seemingly a bit suspicious about the circle. “Good girl.” Lumière laughed at that, her snickering chuckle bubbling along the golden magical field.

“Right you are. Goodnight, Vanya,” Lumière spat, before she grinned at Vanya and stepped back out of the golden field. As her captor took hold of the doorhandle, the spell dropped and quite suddenly Vanya had control of her mind again.

She almost wished Lumière had left it on her.

“What the HELL-?!” Vanya screamed, horror instantly spiking into her brain. What kind of horrible spell had that woman cast on her to make her willingly imprison herself like this?! The chain holding her hands to the wall jangled across the muffling charm as she desperately tugged on them and tried to jump up. “Puss, get out!” she shouted.

But Puss couldn’t. Puss erupted into smoke yet again, launching herself at the door, but she was stopped as the blue glowing circle turned into a dome that bounced her back off like dense plumes of ink as she duplicated into three hairless, lithe creatures with bulging monotone blue eyes and enormous claws, with dual mouths like the alien off Alien, yowling like anything as she furiously threw herself at the shield and got hurled backward by it. The door closed shut behind Lumière.

“Hey! Let me go! HEY!” Vanya screamed, falling back onto her knees as both she and Puss screamed bloody murder to no avail. Their captor had thought ahead of them, nobody in Hogsmeade would hear their screams thanks to her muffling charm. It didn’t stop her from trying. “LET US OUT! OI! YOU CAN’T DO THIS, HEY!” Vanya screeched, tears flowing from her eyes as she desperately tried to tug her hands out of the iron cuffs about her wrists, but she couldn’t. “LET ME OUT!” Vanya sobbed.

Outside, not a single soul heard a peep out of the Museum of Collected Oddities.

--

Chapter Text

Dominique croaked awake in her usual feathery heap that Sunday to the grey-white light of morning filtering through a cloudy sky, which was sending a tiny spit of rain onto the window as she stirred. With her talons clicking against its screen, she checked the time on her phone which had been sitting on her bedside table, and it seemed like her other dormmates had had the same idea about sleeping in that Sunday. All except Persephone, who was sitting at her desk doing something, but Persephone had the excuse of being crepuscular.

“Mornin’ Dom,” Persephone said idly, without looking up. She didn’t need to, she could hear who was moving easily. Dominique looked up at her, blinking sleep out of her third eyelids and frowning.

“It’s half past eight, shouldn’t you be at the Great Hall having breakfast?” Dominique asked confusedly, and Persephone pointedly held up a nearly-empty packet of cheese Wotsits. “What are you doing?” she wondered.

“Arithmancy homework,” Persephone replied, having unlike Vanya actually brought a calculator to Hogwarts she could and was using. “Thought A’d get it done, and yese¹ all were no up yet. And ye know me, A’m no gonna go wi’out ye,” she added simply.

“Ohhh, all right,” Caoimhe grumbled, hissing in a breath and rolling over to sit up. “Fine, let’s go take the dog for a walk,” she snickered tiredly.

“Oh shut yer gob!” Persephone retorted, closing her Arithmancy book with a huff of a laugh. “Ye’re worse than my Ma, my Aunts and Uncles and her had come up wi every werewolf joke ye can think o afore² A were e’en born,” she chuckled, and Caoimhe snorted.

“Blimey, your Mum will have yeah,” Caoimhe said amusedly, before she yawned and stretched her arms. “Right, c’mon, let’s get something to eat before they stop doing breakfast at all,” she sniffed.

“Five more minutes,” Kiera grumbled from her own bed, rolling over before she groaned as Caoimhe whacked her shoulder.

“C’mon, get dressed, you might as well,” Caoimhe said, and Persephone laughed as she set aside her Arithmancy homework and waited for them to get ready so they could head to the Great Hall. Weekend mornings at Hogwarts were, needless to say, rather less structured than those on weekdays. On weekday mornings, only those with free periods weren’t in a rush, but on the weekend you were just as likely to see students hurriedly bustling off to the library as you were to see them in tatty old pyjamas with holes in them yawning about the Common Room kitchenette making cups of tea or coffee and chatting tiredly over random matters with whatever friends were awake. The hallways were much the same, and as was the Great Hall - on weekdays, breakfast was a hurried thing before classes, all uniforms and bags and timetables and bustling with absolutely everyone. But on weekends, everyone was a lot more chilled out. You turned up whenever you were ready, and there’d probably still be toast and bacon and eggs and juice and milk and cereal so long as you didn’t leave it too late. And they hadn’t, so they joined the at most a third of the school at the tables to fill their hungry bellies.

“Hullo thare³ Alpin, ye sleep all right?” Persephone said brightly, smiling at Alpin as he came and sat down with them along with Jayden and Noah. “Mornin’ to ye Jayden, Noah,” she added.

“Yeah, I slept all right. Yourself?” Alpin asked as he fetched himself some toast.

“Ay, but A reckon A’ll have a wee nap after Nonhuman Club. Full moon next week, wanna get all the sleep A can,” Persephone said, and Alpin nodded knowingly over some eggs.

“Hmmm. Always looks to me like you enjoy all that running around but I couldn’t stand the headaches myself,” Alpin said wryly, before he scoffed. “Well, how grouchy you get on a full moon maybe you can’t either,” Alpin laughed, and Persephone snorted.

“Nah, it’s worth it it is,” Persephone replied, stretching her jaw out a little with a yawn and rubbing it. The low-level ache of the impending full moon was beginning to settle into her joints. “God A could go for a deer right now,” she muttered, making Alpin laugh as he raised a hand and scratched behind her ear, making her leg kick involuntarily beneath the table. “Hey-!” she barked, lunging at him and biting his hair, pulling him down by it.

“Ow-owow!” Alpin yelped even as their friends burst out laughing, batting her off him and retaliating by punching her in the ribs. But he had hit what he hadn’t meant to, and Persephone whined instantly, crumpling on herself. “Oop, are you okay?” he asked quickly.

“Would ye no forget A’ve got six?! Just don’t go anywhere ee⁴ front o me,” Persephone groaned. Alpin’s eyes widened.

“Oh- sorry, you good?” Alpin asked, and Persephone nodded. Meanwhile, having not entirely caught what was happening, Jayden was peering at Alpin.

“You said that like you’ve seen her as a wolf. Have you Alpin?” Jayden asked curiously. Alpin frowned at the others as they looked to him with the same question in their eyes.

“Yeah, she comes around to ours some moons. They’re only a few miles away,” Alpin replied matter-of-factly.

“Well we have too like, but that was last term when she went and changed outside then came back. Glad I’d had my antihistamines,” Summer added, before she gave Alpin a funny look. “When you say she comes around to yours, does she run over as a wolf or have you seen her naked?” she snickered. Alpin frowned at them even more bewilderedly.

“Well, obviously. Wolves don’t wear clothes or they look really stupid,” Alpin replied, shrugging.

“No, I meant before she…” Summer began pointedly, and Persephone scowled at her and cut her off.

“No, he’s no seen us naked, either A run over or they wait inside,” Persephone grumbled shortly.

“I know her pack do, I don’t see how they could not,” Alpin admitted. “But I’m not her pack, and besides I wouldn’t want to,” he said. Persephone’s scowl turned to him.

“Ye are my pack,” Persephone said, before her face fell and her gaze went with it to the table. “For why d’ye no want to be?” she asked quietly.

“No no, I mean I wouldn’t want to see you naked. Um, that’d be rude,” Alpin clarified hurriedly and a little awkwardly, and Persephone jumped gladly despite the flush of her cheeks at having misunderstood his sentence. He smiled curiously. “I’m your pack?” he asked.

“Ay! Hae A no said ‘at afore?”⁵ Persephone insisted, and Alpin shook his head. Immediately, Persephone wrapped him in a hug, nuzzling her cheek into his shoulder. “Ye’re my best friend, o course ye’re pack,” she murmured as he returned the hug. Alpin smiled, sniffing amusedly.

“I’m still not going hunting with you,” he snickered, and Persephone scoffed.

“Ay, A ken⁶ ye’re no for it,” Persephone laughed, disentangling them but leaving her head on Alpin’s shoulder for a second as she panted happily before she licked his ear. Alpin immediately recoiled, making a face as she laughed.

“Why?!” Alpin exclaimed in feigned dismay, wiping his ear on his yellow floral robe as their peers laughed at them.

“Persephone likes Alpin!” Summer teased jovially, pointing at them. Persephone frowned incredulously at her, as Alpin frowned.

“Did you miss the best friend bit, be a bit weird if she didn’t like her best friend,” Alpin pointed out, but his reasoned retort was only met with even more jest as Summer laughed and the rest of them shared amused looks.

“Alpin, the girl just kissed you,” Summer pointed out. Persephone sat back a bit, realising that that certainly was how her premier way of showing appreciation for those she was close to would start to look as she got older. She wasn’t oblivious to what Summer was suggesting, after all. And in fairness, Alpin was a pretty nice boy, and he looked good too - the mismatching eyes Persephone had always liked about him, for a start. Alpin looked at Persephone with the expression of a boy taken off guard but not so much that his brain had stopped working.

“She’s a werewolf, they’re very physical in how they show affection,” Alpin dismissed it, his cheeks going a little red.

“Oh affection is it now eh?” Caoimhe snickered, looking up from her breakfast at them with her eyebrows raised.

“Ay, he’s my best friend and far as A’m concerned he’s pack to us!” Persephone protested, before she paused and looked at Alpin. “A’m just digging us into a deeper hole, am I no?” she grumbled.

“Yeah, you probably are,” Alpin agreed wryly, before the bells rang out above them to mark the hour and he frowned. “It’s nine o’clock, isn’t Vanya normally here by now?” he asked curiously, looking around.

“He’s changing the subject!” Kiera cackled, and Alpin rolled his eyes before he gave Persephone and Dominique each a significant look - Dominique could feel Vanya’s presence, and Persephone could presumably smell her.

“Maybe she slept in?” Dominique suggested, not feeling their vampiric friend anywhere nearby.

“Ay, might be she did. A’ll ask,” Persephone agreed, before she looked around for Vanya’s dormmates. “Oi Tabitha! Tabitha!” Persephone yelled, across the Hall, getting Tabitha Vane’s attention from where she was sitting with Sylvia and Brenda.

“Yeah?!” Tabitha called back loudly.

“Ye don’t have to shout back, A can hear ye fine! Is Vanya sleeping in is she?” Persephone called over to Tabitha, who laughed at the reminder of how keen Persephone’s ears were.

“I don’t think so, she wasn’t in this morning,” Tabitha replied at a perfectly audible to Persephone speaking volume. “I think she slept in the Common Room last night, I never saw her come down and she wasn’t in bed when I woke up. But she wasn’t in the Common Room either, I thought she’d come here early,” Tabitha said.

“No as far as we know!” Persephone called to her, before she frowned at her peers. “Tabitha says she must ‘a’ slept in the Common Room last night, but she warna⁷ there either,” she told them.

“Where do you think she went?” Dominique asked, and Tabitha almost seemed to answer her thanks to no doubt having had the same thought.

“She was reading all last night though, she might have finished her book and gone to the Library to hand it back in, get out a new one?” Tabitha suggested, and Persephone nodded as she sat back down.

“Probably gone to the library,” Persephone said simply, having another big bite of toast.

“Wanna go hang out with her?” Dominique suggested brightly, and Persephone nodded.

“Mm. Just let us finish eating,” Persephone replied, nodding at the remaining food on her plate. It didn’t take long, Persephone was like a hoover for food in the week or two before the full moon, and so shortly she and Dominique were heading across the castle for the cavernous Hogwarts library. It as usual was fairly quiet, so it hardly took long for Dominique to discern that there was no Vanya there either once she’d sifted through everyone on a brief stroll along the library’s length. Still curious, Persephone headed over to the desk.

“Excuse me?” Persephone asked the girl at the desk - Maureen Pierce, Dominique believed, a sixth-year Hufflepuff girl who did some volunteering for the library out of class - as they approached.

“Hm? Oh, what’s up Granger-Weasley?” Pierce replied, putting down a stack of books.

“Have ye seen Vanya Stryde come in this morning? Wee girl, vampire what looks like she’s eight,” Persephone asked, holding up a hand to just under her eyebrows to show approximately how tall Vanya was.

“Oh I know Vanya, she came in the other day to get out a spellbook or something. Not this morning though, not that I’ve seen,” Maureen replied helpfully, shaking her head. “Sorry, ‘scuse me,” she added, picking up the stack of books again with some effort and nudging her way out of the little hatch on the desk to step by them toward some shelves.

“Thanks anyway Maureen!” Dominique chirruped as she and Persephone turned heel and headed off to the exit. “Slytherin Common Room?” she suggested to Persephone, walking down the corridor.

“Dunno what the password is this year,” Persephone pointed out, and Dominique nodded. She’d forgotten that the Slytherins and Gryffindors had yearly passwords on their Commons. “Might be she went and had breakfast afore² us, went ‘round Hufflepuff after we left and we just didna⁸ run into her? And we’ll see ‘er at Nonhuman Club,” she said, and Dominique nodded thoughtfully as they kept walking. Though, as they walked by a side corridor, a jolt ran through Dominique’s spine as she jumped, looking around at something she’d felt for nought but a moment. “What is it?” Persephone asked as Dominique abruptly stopped walking, her feathery brows furrowing as she looked around, clicking her beak.

“I… I’m not sure. You know when someone taps you on one shoulder when they’re standing on the other side of you?” Dominique asked, and Persephone nodded. “It was like that, I was sure I could feel something for a second, then when I thought about it it was gone,” she explained. There was nobody around it could have come from though, the only figure in her vision was a statue of a man holding a book, down the side corridor in a little alcove with columns flanking it, embedded in the wall. And statues obviously didn’t have minds.

“A person, ye mean?” Persephone supposed, and Dominique shook her head.

“No, not even a person. It literally just felt like someone poked me in my head,” Dominique told her, before she shrugged. “I’m only part-Veela, crossed wire or something,” she said. Whatever it had been, it wasn’t there anymore, if it had been anything to begin with. And so, the pair of them headed back to the Hufflepuff Common to check if Vanya had gone there, but she was nowhere to find there either. Even with a werewolf’s nose and a Veela’s sense for minds, Hogwarts was a big castle. They even stopped by the third floor bathroom to ask Myrtle if she’d seen her - unfortunately, the last time the little ghost had seen Vanya had been the day before, after they’d come back from Hogsmeade. And so they resolved to presume that they’d run into her at lunchtime for Nonhuman Club. So when lunchtime came, to the Nonhuman Club they went.

“Hey guys!” Sue cheered as they arrived, her little black tail wagging gladly from where she was idly laying on her side on a big cushion of some sort beside where Tegyd was sitting and chewing cud, who was herself beside Cedar and Rowan.

“Good afternoon!” Sværri added warmly, waving his wing at them while Persephone hopped over to Cedar and Rowan’s little corner of the crude circle of seats that had been made. “I’m afraid Wulfwynn isn’t coming, she’s not feeling well today,” he told them apologetically.

“Hmm. It’s a-it’s-it’s a-it’s a health issue common to half-Giants, having a larger body means her lungs have to work a lot harder,” Ariadne explained simply. “Double the size of the body and you octuple the volume of cells that need oxygen, and the surface area of the lungs doesn’t keep up after a certain point. It’s why Rubeus doesn’t teach Care of Magical Creatures anymore. Whenever Wulfwynn gets sick, it really takes her out I’m afraid,” she sighed.

“I hope she’ll be okay soon?” Dominique said softly, and Ariadne nodded. “Hey Sværri! How was your week?” she asked brightly.

“Very good thank you Dominique. Though, I’ve been having… what’s the word for writer’s block but for carving? Carver’s block?” Sværri said amusedly, before he looked up at the door. “Good afternoon Mxes Scamander,” he called as the Scamander twins walked in.

“Hello!” Pisces replied, waving at them with a slender webbed hand.

“Afternoon! Have ye two no seen Vanya at all today?” Persephone asked curiously, and Pisces and Cetus looked to each other for a moment.

“No, sorry, we haven’t Persephone,” Cetus replied, shaking their head. “But we get up quite early, so we may have missed her when she was still in her dormitory,” they added. Dominique frowned.

“Tabitha said she wasn’t in her dormitory, she said Vanya must have slept in the Common Room last night,” Dominique said, and Persephone nodded. But Tabitha hadn’t gotten up as early as the Scamanders probably did, the possibility had existed before that Tabitha had just missed her.

“We didn’t see her there,” Pisces said apologetically.

“What’s this?” Ariadne asked sharply.

“We’ve no seen Vanya all day Aunty, nor’s Tabitha. She’s no in the library, we checked,” Persephone replied, and her Aunt’s eyebrows furrowed before she made a grumbling noise and reached into one of the pockets of her red coat. Out of it she pulled what looked like a miniature whiteboard, which quite definitely couldn’t have fit into it without magic. “What’s that?” Persephone asked.

“It’s a magic map of Hogwarts I can use to track people, I can use it to check where Miss Stryde is,” Ariadne replied curtly as Dominique looked over her Aunt’s shoulder and saw the whiteboard behaving a little bit like a touchscreen e-reader, with black magical fields of some kind forming a screen that was indeed a map. “The last time you lot couldn’t find her all day she’d been in a torpor for hours and could have died. Call me hypervigilant but I think it’s best I double check where she is, I know she’s got bullies,” Ariadne sighed, scrolling without needing to face the device through layers that Dominique recognised as floors of the castle. She looked around on it, seemingly perusing the Slytherin Common Room and such places, before she frowned and tapped the corner, bringing up a text box of some kind before she continued holding it normally, instead using her fingers on the other side to tap on six glowing round buttons on its back, three on each side.

“What are those, Professor?” Pisces asked curiously, pointing at the six buttons.

“Hmm? Oh, it’s a braille keyboard, I b-I ba-I based it on how the iPhone one works,” Ariadne replied idly. Indeed, she’d typed Vanya’s name into the box. She tapped the little search icon, before the powdery screen flashed in error. Ariadne frowned, before she snapped her fingers close to her neck. “Charlie, did Vanya Stryde come down to Hogsmeade with you this afternoon?” she asked aloud. A moment later, her brows furrowed. “Are you certain of that? Her friends can’t find her and she’s not in the castle, I’ve just checked.” Persephone and Dominique jumped. Vanya hadn’t said anything about going to Hogsmeade that day. “Perhaps she went to the Hogsmeade Library or something, she’s quite like me and Hermione in that bookish way,” Ariadne suggested, again waiting for a reply. “Hmph. Give me a moment, maybe my map’s got a glitch I missed in the enchantment,” she said, before she snapped her fingers up in the air.

And instantly straightened, her murky white eyes widening. Dominique didn’t notice any change in the smooth glassy cloud of her Aunt’s presence on the edge of her mind, but she didn’t need to, the immediate shift in her posture was enough to send anxiety thrumming through Dominique. Where was Vanya? Another four times, Ariadne snapped her fingers in quick succession, before she shoved the map back into her pocket and stood up, her face stark as she drew her wand from the holster under her coat.

“Acciopharum Vanya Stryde,” Ariadne snapped urgently as she flicked her wand in the air, her breath getting hoarse. She did it again. “Acciopharum Vanya Stryde.”

“What’s going on?” Persephone demanded to know, her jaw tensing more and more by the second as her Aunty stood for a moment, her expression inscrutable.

“I can’t locate her,” Ariadne said quietly, before she tipped her wand to her throat, her grip on it tightening as it began glowing brightly to Dominique’s eyes and a flash of light crashed with thunder outside, rain suddenly hammering on the windows. Persephone’s breath hissed in in the horror of knowing what her Aunty was doing. “Missiculum, Headmistress, please report back to the school immediately, a student is missing and unlocatable via magic. Be aware that I am responding in your stead until you arrive and will be contacting the Auror Office momentarily. Charlie, retrieve any and all students presently in Hogsmeade. All teachers present, Prefects, Head students, begin lockdown procedures!” Ariadne barked sharply, all traces of her casual stuttering self gone as the Club gasped in dismay. “Once all students save for the missing student Vanya Stryde have been accounted for, no students are to leave the castle under any circumstances, we don’t know what we’re dealing with,” she snapped, before she thrust her still-crackling wand into its holster again. “I’m sorry, I’ve got to go. Rowan, get to it,” Ariadne said, hooking her head toward the door. Rowan, a Prefect of course, gulped and nodded before he hurriedly ran from the room as the rest of them just stood there, shocked and dumbfounded. Ariadne strode from the classroom.

“When it rains, it pours,” Ariadne snarled to herself under her breath, audible to Persephone as she and Dominique exchanged horrified looks. “Siri. Call Dora’s Work Phone.”

--

Vanya had figured out by then that whatever the sound-muffling charm her captor had placed on the room was, it was one-directional - she could hear the light footsteps and curious yet indistinct discussion of guests in the museum downstairs, but they couldn’t hear her. She knew that for certain, she’d screamed herself hoarse and cried her tear ducts dry trying to call out to them. They hadn’t even heard her stomping on the floor, hoping that it would get through. But it hadn’t.

It was lunchtime, according to her watch. She had been able to distantly hear Hogwarts’ bells tolling the hour too. And Vanya knew that meant at least a day since she’d had anything to drink. She felt it too - she was parched, her mouth was dry and her stomach grumbling. Vanya knew she’d have to get out soon, so if getting the attention of the guests downstairs wasn’t possible, she’d have to figure it out herself. Not an easy task, given that Puss had already exhausted herself trying to breach the inward-facing shield the woman had sealed them into, and proven she couldn’t escape. But maybe if Vanya could get her hands free?

Vanya had spent much of the night wondering if she was little enough to just squeeze out of them. After all, they didn’t really make child-size handcuffs. It hadn’t worked, unfortunately. Despite her being skinny from a liquid diet, and appearing only eight years old, her hands were too big to get through. But what if they weren’t, Vanya thought?

She had never tried something so drastic using her shapeshifting abilities, but, well, there was a first time for everything, right? Jason would be impressed, she knew that much. Vanya took a deep breath. What had she seen of skeletons and stuff? She knew all about skin layers and hair and nails, but nothing about bones, flesh. But how hard could it be? Jason had always been teaching her how to do things right to look correct, but she didn’t have to do this right. She just had to do it enough. Craning her neck to look behind herself, she spied her hands and how they were chained and manacled. She formed her right hand into an arrowhead shape with just her fingers to start with, and squinted… 

Instantly, Vanya shivered in revulsion and gasped at the horrific sensation of her hand melting at the behest of her quickly tiring magic. No doubt there was a way to do such things without it hurting, but she winced and gritted her teeth as much as she could without biting her lips with anticoagulants, and tugged. Her hand dwindled and shrank into a bony, fleshy stub of skin at the wrist before, with not so much as a slide, it came free from the shackles. Gasping at the pins and needles in her hand, Vanya shook it back out into its normal form with a surge of relief and triumph. Urgently, with the chains rattling loudly across the golden muffling spell, Vanya got to fiddling with the other latch to quickly unlock herself. 

“Finally,” Vanya hissed to herself, rubbing her wrists. They were more than a little sore from all the tugging on the chains. “Right… what’ve I got?” Vanya asked herself rhetorically, but her captor had been pretty thorough. All she had was Puss, who she had long established couldn’t do anything to the circle she was trapped in, her hands now, and the chain. She took up the chain. “Wonder how this works. Must let air in, it can’t just be a shield,” Vanya muttered, before she froze. “Unless she wants me to suffocate,” she conceded. Best to take shallow breaths, Vanya decided as she untangled the chain from the cuffs - child’s play now she had her hands free - and freed the links from the hook on the wall. What could she do with a chain? She looked up. Carla had made sure she had no access to the window, and that nobody could see her from the street even if her view hadn’t been obscured by curtains. Maybe she could break the window, if the chain would go through the shield? Well, she had to find out first if it could, so that was her aim first.

So she gathered up some chain and threw it at the invisible hemispherical wall. A wall that instantly became visible in its flash of blue as the chain struck it and bounced off, making Vanya yelp as it almost whacked her in the face.

“No!” Vanya cried, hurling the chain at the shield again only for it to again be sharply bounced back. “No, no no!” she wept. This was hopeless. Desperately, Vanya hurled her own fists at the shield, and with the same flash of light she too was shoved backward, tumbling onto her side. “Come on, there must be some way!” she croaked, coughing on her own dry throat and sobs.

VwooSHH-

Along with her crying, what had been nought but slight drizzle opened up into bucketing rain that surged down from the heavens and hammered onto the roof above her. And it would have meant nought to Vanya but dreadfully appropriate accompaniment to her situation had it not been for the next sound, the next sound that split through the air so loudly it shook the pile of chains and the very ceiling above her, a bellowing thunderclap that followed a blast of white light that filled the room through the curtains by a fraction of a millisecond. Vanya’s eyes widened as the thunder roared across the mountains around Hogsmeade.

“Professor Granger,” Vanya hissed. She’d seen this before. It was a quirk of the Deputy Headmistress’ wand, so she had said - the hazel wood it was made from reacted dramatically with its thunderbird tail feather core, and instead of steaming or smoking when she was emotional… it caused storms.

Hope flourished in Vanya’s heart. Professor Granger knew she was gone, knew she was missing! And with her record, she’d be smashing down Carla Lumière’s door like a rescuing angel of vengeance before the minute was done, Vanya knew, as a glad smile grew on her face. A little shield like the one Vanya was in would no doubt be child’s play to the grand sorceress, the archmage, that Professor Ariadne Granger was. Anticipation flared in her veins, anticipation that any second now, the storm would find its target and thunder and lightning, like Granny Aching’s sheepdogs in the books Persephone had given her, would strike with the fury of a witch who wore blood and midnight.

The doorhandle shifted. But the grin on Vanya’s face died as it was not Professor Ariadne Granger who opened the door and stepped in, but Carla Lumière, in her false form as the museum’s curator. Vanya might have taken the moment to gloat, if Lumière looked even slightly bothered. But no, she just looked mildly inconvenienced as Puss got up, fur bristling, and hissed at the woman.

“Ugh. I’d hoped it’d take them another day to notice,” Carla grumbled, shaking her head. “Oh well, nothing for it,” she said, before her eyes fell on Vanya’s furious glare and she scoffed. “I see you finally thought to slip your hands out, did you honestly think I didn’t see that coming my sweet little monster?” she asked amusedly, holding up her hand and pointedly doing the same thing Vanya had done with her own Metamorph magic. No doubt, Vanya thought, she’d seen Professor Granger coming too. Whatever she’d prepared, Lumière didn’t look concerned about the most dangerous witch in Britain banging down her door any time soon. Vanya squinted at the woman.

“What do you want with me?” Vanya hissed darkly. Lumière raised her altered eyebrows.

“With you?” she asked. “Very little, honestly. Just for you to do what you’ll always do,” Lumière said, darkness filtering into her tone before she smiled. “You’ll even get to go when you’re ready!” Lumière told her sweetly. Vanya frowned.

“What?” Vanya muttered. What did Lumière intend if not to kill her out of her belief vampires were monsters? Carla tutted at her.

“Tt-tt-tt. Oh come on, Vanya Vanya Vanya. You’ve seen this little routine before,” Carla told her pointedly, shaking her head as if Vanya were an idiot and missing something. Vanya frowned. How had she seen something like this before? Her eyes widened in comprehension even as Lumière spoke again. “You’re just a loose end, one I can use,” Lumière shrugged.

The blood drained from Vanya’s face.

“You’re the one who…” she breathed incredulously. After almost four years, her past had come back to haunt her. And not just her own past.

“Didn’t produce quite the outrage I’d hoped, but this? Hogwarts’ first vampire, unleashed upon the centre of Hogsmeade right at the start of this monster-loving Minister’s term?” Lumière lamented, before a grin grew on her face. “Oh that’ll be delicious,” she hissed. Vanya swallowed, her throat like knives as she did and her heart pumped in her ears.

“You’re going to starve me,” Vanya said, the depths of horror in that truth settling in to her heart as she instinctively shuffled away from Lumière. Bad things happened to vampires when they were starved, and only if they were lucky did those bad things not extend to others. Their higher brain functions relied on blood, and those higher brain functions failed when they were starved. They lost the ability to discern, they lost most of their mind to the need to feed. And it was just such a starved vampire who had drained Vanya of blood and turned her into one herself four years before. They’d never caught who had starved that vampire, but Vanya was quite certain she had just found out who it had been. Desperation flooded Vanya as she spluttered. “It-it’ll never work! They know I’m gone, they’ll come and find me!” Vanya shouted, feigning hope. Professor Granger should have been there by then. Something was wrong.

“And how are they going to do that?” Lumière asked smugly, with entirely too confident a variety of faked curiosity.

“Professor Granger can find people just by snapping her fingers!” Vanya retorted. Carla scoffed.

“Not if you block out the accio spell,” Carla pointed out matter-of-factly. “It’s very easy to stop her from doing that, you know,” she added, as Vanya thought hurriedly.

“I’ve got werewolf friends!” Vanya added, beaming at the realisation. “They’ll track me to here just by smell, Persephone can do that!” she exclaimed. Again, Carla laughed, a silly sort of giggle.

“Through all this rain Granger’s conveniently giving me, while locked down in a castle a mile away?” Carla asked rhetorically, her dark grin only growing. “Good luck with that, I say to the bitch,” she snickered, before she leaned on the wall and sighed. “But you are right about one thing. They’re going to come looking for you, which is such a hassle. They’ll be searching all the houses and shops soon,” Carla grumbled, rolling her eyes before she got out her wand again and pointed it at Vanya. Vanya flinched, remembering well what had happened last time.

“No- no, please don’t you don’t have to-” she mumbled desperately, reaching for the cuffs so that the woman wouldn’t mind control her. At that, Carla wheezed incredulously.

“Haha! Oh no pet, I don’t need you in the cuffs,” Carla cackled, shaking her head. “What a scene this would be for the Aurors to find up here, I can’t be having this!” she exclaimed gleefully, before suddenly she turned her wand toward Puss. “Rodentifors.” Vanya’s breath hissed in as she realised a split second before the spell hit Puss what it would do - in a heartbeat, with a flash of light, Puss vanished, and was replaced with a little grey mouse. Vanya stared at Carla incredulously. “What was that I was saying last night about mutability? It’s a little inefficient, and this’ll be another hassle to set up again when they’re gone, but it’ll do the trick,” she said rhetorically, shrugging before she pointed her wand at Vanya. Vanya shoved herself backward, but too late. “Rodentifors.”

--

Chapter Text

Days had passed. How many, Vanya wasn’t sure. The headache was bad enough, but after getting turned into a mouse a few times her watch which would normally have shown the date as well as the time was badly out of sync. Very dimly, she remembered having been put somewhere dark when she’d been a mouse, but remembering that was hard enough. Even worse, it wasn’t just a headache.

At that moment, Vanya was laying on her side on the hard wooden floor of the spare room. She didn’t have the energy or strength to do much else, languid drowsiness was plaguing her, her breaths short. Her lips were cracked and dry. She had slept, hadn’t she? She must have done. Her stomach was like a stabbing black hole, her hands were shaking.

She knew what was happening, of course. Though, it took her a few moments to remember it. Fear, impotent weak fear in the surrounding weakness of her every pore, urged her to motion but couldn’t break through the fog of starvation at the prospect of her forgetting entirely. The woman… what was her name? Lumey something. Lumey had trapped her. Trapped her in a bubble. Right? She couldn’t see the bubble. Vanya reached out, frowning, wondering if she was misremembering.

“Ah!” she gasped weakly as her hand was struck by the magical force of a flash of blue light. She slumped back. That was right then, she had been trapped. And the Lumière woman - oh that was right, that was her name - intended to starve her. And she knew what that did. She knew what it was already doing, it was already doing it. She didn’t know the science behind it, and even if she had she wouldn’t have remembered it, but Vanya had been getting slower and more confused for a day or two, or three, by then. Whatever the thing was in blood that she needed, her brain needed it to keep working properly. And that was a bad thing. Why was it a bad thing? She didn’t quite remember, she knew it was worse than just her forgetting things, it was dangerous somehow. Oh! Again the fear returned. It was because she’d lose her mind and lose the knowledge of friend and foe - she’d attack the first warm thing she could get her fangs on in order to sate her thirst for blood. Vanya’s already shaky, shallow breath came even quicker at that. She had to find something. She had to stop that.

Weakly, Vanya pushed herself up on her ashen hands and looked around. She wasn’t alone in the trap, she was accompanied by a ragged black cat with big, blue, sunken eyes that squinted at her. But she couldn’t eat that, she told herself. She knew that, it was a strong memory. That was her cat. Sorriness flourishing in her veins, Vanya reached out to pat the cat, but froze as she thought back. Another strong memory screamed for her to stop. A hedgehog, eviscerated and drained. Her need to feed. Did she know for sure she would be able to stop herself, if she got too close to the cat? Vanya pulled back, huddling into a ball. She’d have been crying if she’d had the water to cry.

Water. Blood wasn’t all she was lacking. Water. Water. Vanya looked up, hadn’t she seen… yes! She and her cat weren’t alone in the trap! There was a glass of water! Urgently, Vanya shot over to it, the tiny glimmer of energy left in her body hurling her at the glass, which she grabbed and drank eagerly of, water dribbling down her chin before she jumped. Wait.

Wasn’t there a reason she wasn’t drinking?

She almost didn’t want to think about it. It might only have been water, not even the blood she needed, but right then it was nectar from the gods and her cracked, dry mouth screamed out for it as she gulped down the water, her throat like knives.

But there was a reason. And it struck Vanya’s mind only after she had hurriedly downed half the glass and she screamed in her mouth, spitting out what she could despite the pained fury of her rapidly drying lips. There was a reason. In the situation she was in, where she just had to hope that Professor… Professor Granger found her, that Lumière’s efforts to hide her deception failed, and where she couldn’t get out on her own? Her only leverage was her own body. Lumière was only trying to starve her of blood. Not kill her by dehydration. She needed her captive vampire hydrated, so she’d even be able to give in to the baser needs of her vampirism in the first place.

Her strategy had been to wait Lumière out. Force her to do something to give her an opening, call Lumière’s bluff by refusing to drink water. She’d die of dehydration before she fell victim to her higher brain functions failing, it only took three days didn’t it, and that had been her only bargaining chip.

Had been. Because she’d just forgotten it and drank half a big glass of water in one go. The dehydration angle was gone.

Dismay flooded Vanya in equal measure to the water that had just flooded her mouth. She begged with the universe for it not to be enough to make a difference, but she knew it would. But she couldn’t let it make more of a difference, she couldn’t let herself forget again and drink it. Without even thinking, in the urgency bursting through her blood, she threw the glass at the floor, making the cat jump sluggishly away from it as it shattered, the water becoming an impotent puddle soaking into the floor. The slight relief of the water she’d drank taunted her as Vanya coughed, choking on what would have been a horrible sobbing cry had she been able to cry as she fell onto her side again, face screwing up in anguish.

“No… no,” she croaked, her throat unable to produce any better a voice as she contorted on her constricting stomach. It was as if her own belly was snarling at her well that’s water… now where’s the good stuff? “No,” she repeated, almost speaking in reply to that.

Mreoowrrrr. Beside Vanya, a weak meow got her sluggish attention as the black cat struggled to its paws. Vanya glanced at her. What was the name of the cat again? The mere fact she couldn’t quite remember was bad enough. The cat… it was a word for a cat that she’d accidentally named it, right? Puss. That was it, Puss. Puss sidled along her, rubbing on her arms and elbows. Having exhausted all their options, Puss could really do nothing more than comfort Vanya. But Vanya knew they wouldn’t have that luxury eventually. Puss made her way up Vanya’s crying form, and as she went by Vanya’s nose, Vanya froze at the surge that ran through her at that. An easily missed oddity of vampires was their nose, but it wasn’t a visible one. The ends of their noses were hypersensitive to heat, so that they could find a good concentration of hot arteries. Find the best place to bite. And that patch of her nose had yelled at her brain one word: Food!

Vanya recoiled, shuffling away from Puss on her knees.

“No,” Vanya muttered, as Puss watched her. “No, don’t do that Puss,” Vanya said weakly, shaking her head before she screwed up her eyes in dismay. If they didn’t get her out in time… She had to consider that. That terrible possibility, she had to consider it while she was still lucid. “If- god, if… if that happens. If I… don’t let me,” Vanya whimpered, choking a hacking croak of a voice out of her dry throat. “Whatever… anything you can do, to stop me, do it,” she said shakily. “Don’t let me hurt anyone,” she pleaded of the blue-eyed cat staring at her. Puss blinked at her. “Do whatever you have to do to stop me,” Vanya begged, letting her head fall into her lap as she curled up, crackling and crying. But she looked up in alarm as Puss made a noise, not quite a meow, and one that didn’t sound good. A quavering, shaking noise, as Puss tensed her entire body.

“What’s wrong-” Vanya began, even though she knew Puss couldn’t talk, before she jumped as Puss duplicated herself with a cloud of black smoke that formed into a second cat. Both cats, the original and the duplicate, sagged visibly the instant the second had formed. “No! Puss, don’t do that, you need to… to keep up your strength!” Vanya cried, losing the words for a moment. Tiredly, and with shaking paws, the duplicate Puss stepped toward her and hopped onto Vanya’s lap in a flop. Awkwardly, as Vanya frowned at her, the duplicate Puss turned over so its back was facing Vanya’s face.

And bowed its head, offering Vanya its neck.

Vanya took a moment, making sure she thought she understood what Puss was doing.

“What?” Vanya mumbled, frowning at Puss with growing worry. “No, Puss- I don’t want to- no,” she spluttered. Puss, both of her forms, meowed at her sternly. The message Puss was trying to convey was pretty clear; bite the copy. Vanya grimaced. The mere idea of doing that and the disgust it wrought in her somehow managed to override the starving hunger in her stomach, though she knew that wouldn’t stay true for too long. Revulsion filled her at the idea. But she knew that, in as much as a cat familiar could understand the situation, Puss was right. The copy was disposable. Vanya just wished it didn’t still look just like her beloved pet. She couldn’t look at it and think of it as a source of food at the same time, she just wasn’t capable of it. So she screwed her eyes shut. If it worked, it could save them a lot of trouble. And very reluctantly, she felt for where the copy’s scruff was. “I’m sorry. I hope you don’t feel this Puss,” she whimpered, her chin shaking as she breathed heavily. The act of holding Puss’ duplicate still felt too familiar in her hands, too wrong.

She had to do this. She knew what would happen if she didn’t. Vanya took a deep breath, her eyes still too dry to cry. This was not how her second year at Hogwarts had been supposed to begin. And she lunged down. Her outer fangs shaved away fur in a single motion before her inner pair clamped down and gouged into the copy’s neck.

And then there was nothing in her hands.

Vanya’s eyes flickered open to see the dissipating cloud of black smoke in her hand. She couldn’t feed on the copy, of course she couldn’t. It wasn’t real. Defeat fell over Vanya like a frigid blanket, and she could do nought but slump, as Puss did the same with her ears and tail drooping.

“Of course that wouldn’t work,” Vanya muttered. “Why?” she whimpered, a spasming cough of a cry filling her mouth as she fell back onto the floor. Just because she was a vampire. Because of what she was, someone was torturing her. “Why?!” Vanya pleaded of her captor, but her captor was nowhere to be seen.

--

“You have to eat, Persephone,” Alpin said softly, his hand on Persephone’s shoulder as Persephone sat slumped at the bench, staring at a plate with a thick cheese and ham and pickle sandwich on it with her chin on the table and absolutely no appetite in her stomach.

It was Wednesday. And even with Hogwarts locked down, school had to go on. Not that Persephone had done much learning. Or thinking. Or anything really. At least the teachers were understanding. The clouds, rumbling occasionally with the frustration of her Aunty, were mirrored in her mind. Not just by the full moon approaching, but by her sorrow. She’d just had a double period of Arithmancy, and she had spent the entire two hours staring at Vanya’s empty chair and struggling not to cry. And she wasn’t the only one - many of the second years had fallen under the same smothering of solemnity at the disappearance of their yearmate. And indeed, the same was true of the Hogwarts Nonhuman Club who had, by no conscious decision nor effort, congregated together at every free moment they could. In a sense, it was the point of the Club. In moments of vulnerability, they came together.

Dominique was sitting silently beside her. If Persephone had been despondent, there wasn’t a good enough word for Dominique, who had sobbed herself dry after Vanya had been lost for a day. Even then, Dominique was just staring into space on the verge of tears, Victoire holding her gently. Across from them, Tegyd was reluctantly and slowly eating some salad alongside Sue, her ears drooping as she shared a sorrowful look with the pair of them. Pisces and Cetus kept forgetting to breathe, making sputtering wheezing noises every time they needed to do so. Blodwen was hovering over them obstructing the aisle a bit. Sværri and the other Goblins were interspersed among them too. Cedar and Rowan were flanking either end of the little Nonhuman Club pack. They weren’t the only ones either. Tabitha and Sylvia were always gathering with them, along with Brenda, Isobelle, and Addison. And on top of them was one Sophie Lillian Marshal. Vanya’s foster sister. She wasn’t much of a witch, but she’d been stepping up to the role of sister - even if she wasn’t related to Vanya - more and more over the last three years Vanya had been living with her family. And she was no less affected by the little vampire’s disappearance than the others.

“Seph. You’ve got to eat something, god knows you of all people need to, especially this week,” Alpin insisted softly. “I’m not eating until you do,” he added pointedly. At that, Persephone let out a loud wolfish whine. She knew she wasn’t behaving rationally, that didn’t mean she wanted Alpin joining in.

“He’s right, Persephone,” Rowan said glumly. “A hunger strike won’t bring Vanya back any faster. You too, Dominique,” he said, clearly taking his role as an older brother of sorts to Persephone, and now by extent Dominique, very seriously. The Club had congregated yes, but the centre of that gathering had ever since Vanya had gone missing been Persephone, Dominique, and Sophie. Victoire nodded with a pensive sigh, nudging Dominique, who reluctantly took a chunk of ham and swallowed it. She hadn’t had Arithmancy, she’d had Divination with Alpin, and she’d spent the whole time wondering if they could predict when Vanya would be safely back with them. And she knew, just from his face, that Alpin had been wondering the same thing, and so had Isobelle.

Dominique looked around glumly. What was it that the Sorting Hat had said, a year ago? That she paid attention to others, that she was empathetic and couldn’t avoid it? Right then, that felt like more of a curse than a blessing or even a positive trait. It was bad enough to be plagued with her own fear, but to be surrounded by everyone else’s? Some part of her in the back of her mind, squashed by all the splots of others’ minds in her senses, wanted to run off and hide under something, but the rest of her didn’t know if she should, if she should leave them. If somehow they all needed each other, and whether or not they needed her for their own reassurance more than she needed to flee their fear to wallow in her own.

Persephone reluctantly took a bite of her sandwich. But for a girl who normally was essentially food-motivated, somehow it was like ash in her mouth as she chewed, and almost didn’t intend to swallow it until she eventually did. Her pack had been sundered, and until Vanya was returned, her heart clamoured at the walls of Hogwarts, screaming for her to track Vanya down and tear to shreds whomever had taken her. But that option wasn’t available. She’d even tried, the first day. Vanya’s trail from the Slytherin Common Room, where they’d found her bag still lying beside an armchair and a coffee table with the copy of Wintersmith Persephone had gotten her for her birthday sitting on it, had been scattered by the storm’s winds almost immediately out of the doors. There were no footprints left either. Besides, she’d been forbidden to leave. And so, unable to do anything about it, she couldn’t bring herself to do anything to begin with.

“And there they are, the pity party,” a voice snickered, a voice belonging to Portunus Thynne. Persephone looked up, and Dominique turned her head to face them, fury already bubbling in the pit of her stomach as she saw the anger on Persephone’s face. Thynne wasn’t alone, he was hanging out with Cameron Vexmoor, and they were strolling up the aisle between tables - no doubt to find a seat and eat lunch. And as they were going, they were sneering at the little group that had formed at the Hufflepuff table, just as it had every day prior since Vanya’s disappearance. Vexmoor snorted at what Thynne had said. “How long do you think it’s going to take for them to get over it? It’s just one vampire, we’re all better off,” Portunus muttered, rolling his eyes.

“What the HELL did you just say ye little shit?!” Persephone snarled, snapping to her feet with a growl splitting from her bared teeth and her hackles raised - not that anyone could see that - as she confronted them. Little was probably the wrong word, they were both taller than her, but just then Persephone’s heart was beating a hateful rhythm in her ears and her fists were clenched at her sides, she didn’t care if what she said wasn’t perfectly accurate. “Go on, say it again why don’t ye?” she barked. Portunus looked at the group, seemingly weighing whether or not he thought it was worth it. Tegyd’s ears were a sharp arrowhead of hate as she stared at them across the table, as were Sue’s, Cetus and Pisces were gaping at the pair of them incredulously, and Dominique’s talons were heating up rapidly. And Cedar and Rowan were both staring him straight in the eye. The situation was a dry haystack ready to go up in flames, and Thynne was lighting a firework.

“Call yourself a werewolf Granger-Weasley? You’re supposed to be able to track things, you can’t even keep track of one vampire!” Cameron snorted, making a face at Persephone, who snarled at him even louder. That was the last warning they were getting, she decided.

“Hey fuck you, you assholes,” Sophie spat, her face going red. “Haven’t you little shits got anything better to do than being massive cunts? Our friend, my foster sister, has gone missing, have some bloody respect,” she demanded, angry tears forming on her eyes.

“You should be happy! You don’t have to have a vampire in your house!” Portunus exclaimed. Sophie’s eyes widened in anger. Persephone’s blood boiled. Dominique’s hands lit on fire and Victoire hurriedly moved away from the flame as Blodwen recoiled as quickly as a tree could, a wooden hand reaching for her fire-extinguishing amulet. “Now she’s gone we’re all a little safer in our beds. Just get rid of the werewolves and Hogwarts might be a safe place agaIN-”

Persephone went off like a gun.

“HREAGH!” Persephone roared, launching herself at Thynne with every intent to rip his throat out. But as immediately as she’d thrown herself at the boy, she was stopped. Rowan had reflexes just as good as hers, and before a noise had even left Alpin’s mouth, Rowan had grabbed Persephone bodily and thrown her back again, but he hadn’t let go. “LET GO- DID YE NO HEAR WHAT HE JUST SAID?!” Persephone screamed up into Rowan’s face as she wrestled with him, almost breaking his grip too, as the entire Hall went silent. To most, Vanya’s disappearance was an inconvenience that meant that they couldn’t go out, or that Hufflepuff’s Quidditch tryouts wouldn’t be on that Saturday if she didn’t come back before then. Until then, it hadn’t caught their attention.

“I’m not deaf, of course I did! Shut it!” Rowan snarled back, holding her still with sternness burning in his eyes. Persephone kept growling and trying to break free. “Oi HEY! HEY!” Rowan barked, staring her straight in the eye. “Sit down, shut up,” he snapped, a not insignificant measure of a growl filling his voice. Persephone growled at him angrily, and he just met it with even more of one. Quivering with rage, Persephone did as she was told and sat down, but she was still looking for any opportunity to get past Rowan, her heart beating so hard she could hardly hear Rowan himself. Rowan turned around, staring down Portunus and Cameron, who were slowly trying to shuffle away. “Where do you two think you’re going?” Rowan snarled. For a fifteen-year-old boy in glasses and a school uniform, he could be pretty intimidating. Vexmoor jumped out of his own skin at it, freezing in place.

“Um-” Vexmoor spluttered.

“Two hundred points from Slytherin,” Rowan snapped, staring them both down with a growl bubbling in his throat. “Now,” he began, his voice terribly quiet in the slowly recovering cessation of noise in the Hall. “You both are really lucky one of us is a Prefect who’s supposed to be on his best behaviour. Because even I am very tempted to just let her beat you to a pulp for what you just said,” he said sternly, pointing back to Persephone. “A student, one of your own classmates, is either kidnapped or dead, AND YOU THINK THAT’S FUNNY DO YOU?!” he hissed, before both Vexmoor and Thynne just about pissed themselves as Rowan’s voice suddenly cracked into a bellowing roar that echoed through the rafters of the Great Hall.

“N-no,” Vexmoor said sheepishly.

“LIAR!” Rowan yelled. “If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be laughing about it,” he snapped. Vexmoor somehow went even more pale now that his attempted fawning to get out of trouble had been so sternly rebuked. “I’ve heard more than my fair share about you two little shits, and the idea that it’s us lot who are the monsters would make me laugh if the way you’re acting didn’t make me sick,” Rowan spat, shaking his head at them in disdain. “If you think humans are the better species, then you might want to try acting like it, because you’re some of the worst humans I’ve ever met. And I’m Lavender Brown’s son, so I’ve met a few bad humans-”

CATHUMP-ATATHUMP-

THWACK!

“OW!” Rowan and Cedar had been watching Persephone. Not Sue. Before Rowan could even react, Sue had jumped up onto the table with all four hooves, sending lunch items flying, and dived down onto the stone floor on their side of it, where she of course hadn’t stopped. With horns down, Sue had used every drop of momentum from her jump and smashed it all into Thynne’s chest, sending him reeling back as she too moved back, jumping up onto her back hooves with a furious bleat in her throat as she went for another hit aimed straight at Thynne’s head.

“OI!” Rowan yelled, grabbing Sue by the torso and hurling her away from Thynne just as he had Persephone. “Twenty points from Hufflepuff,” he said quickly, getting his wand out and pointing it at Thynne, who had a hand pressed to his chest in pain. “You’re fine, nothing broken. Worst you’ll have is a bruise,” he said, putting his wand away again before he rolled his shoulders around a bit, grimacing. He stepped over to the boys and grabbed them both by the backs of their collars. “Right, come with me you two. It’s the full moon in a few days, I don’t have the energy to give you a proper talking to myself unless I feel like losing my position for letting Persephone’s fists and Sue’s horns do the talking,” he grumbled, before he set off and drove Thynne and Vexmoor down the way away again.

As he went, the conversation in the Hall grew back again in a hiss of voices - some talked about what they’d already been talking about, and some talked about what had just happened. On the whole, they moved on. But Dominique couldn’t, and nor could Persephone. Rowan had said something, something they’d been trying not to think about. There were only three reasons why their Aunt’s spell could fail. One: distance. Distance was an unlikely candidate. Apparently, Aunt Ariadne had once tested its range after a student had curiously asked about what direction certain things were from them if the world was of course spherical. The furthest she’d been able to ‘ping’ with the strength of her magical abilities had been the Great Pyramid at Giza. It wasn’t very likely that Vanya was out of Aunt Ariadne’s range.

Two: she was being hidden. That option was very possible - it had been true of Persephone herself last term when she’d encountered the Woodpeckers. But that wasn’t set up in the Dungeons anymore, Ariadne herself had said that the Wellspring was now safely with the Goblins and the gauntlet was gone. Wherever she was, it wasn’t anyone they knew who was hiding her. Hence, kidnapped.

They all hoped it was the second option. Because the remaining option didn’t bear thinking about. The third option was that the name Vanya Stryde no longer described anyone. That Vanya Stryde was dead.

Rather morbidly, Aunt Ariadne had quietly confirmed to Professor McGonagall - which Persephone had overheard - that at the very least, if Vanya was dead, her body was being hidden from them. She’d checked. It wasn’t impossible that she was dead, but it wasn’t as likely as Vanya having been kidnapped.

But it was possible.

With a dejected, crumpled croak of a squawk, Dominique abandoned her barely-touched lunch and fled the Hall, crying into her feathers. She wasn’t the only one. Persephone’s anger dissolved once Rowan had taken the offenders away, and was replaced with anguish as she burst into tears, forced between the growing fear that Vanya could have been dead or had at the very least been kidnapped and the fact she couldn’t do anything about it, a wolfish whimper of a cry forcing itself through her voice as she fell into Cedar’s arms.

And so it was that the Nonhuman Club and their friends, in the face of what had happened did their best to maintain - if not hope - strength in the face of a growing hopelessness.

--

Chapter Text

A week to the day, and hope was in short supply among the Nonhuman Club as they gathered on Sunday. The rain, what of it was natural at least had subsided, leaving the Hogsmeade region damp and grey as it often was in autumn. It had been a week since the day Vanya had disappeared and now it wasn’t just hopelessness and despair filling Persephone’s bones but the full moon too. Whoever had taken her had now not just taken Vanya, but the woods - Persephone, Cedar, and Rowan had all spent the night inside. Persephone had headed back to the Hufflepuff dormitory once she’d transformed and sulked, all curled up on her bed. She hadn’t slept a wink. Additionally, Hufflepuff Quidditch tryouts were cancelled until further notice, having been meant to fall the day before.

It was, in a sense, a formality that the Club was gathering in Room 13 that weekend. All week they’d been a gathering at any spare moment, and indeed most of them had already been spending time together in the Hufflepuff Common Room before they’d made their way to the empty classroom. And in that classroom, they found one Professor Ariadne Granger already waiting with Sværri as well as a pensive frown on her face.

“Ah. Afternoon,” Ariadne said softly as they walked in, with Persephone holding Cedar’s hand for support. “I suspected you all might want to er, meet,” she said, before she exhaled darkly, facing them each as they came and sat down. “Hopefully everyone’s all right?” Cedar looked at Persephone, who was sitting slumped in her chair and gave Ariadne an uncertain hand gesture. She nodded. The silence in the room, punctuated only by the rustling of Blodwen’s leaves, was entirely unlike every other Nonhuman Club meeting Dominique had been to, and unlike what Persephone’s experience had been thus far. And all of them were watching Ariadne.

“Is there any um, any news? News on Vanya?” Sværri asked quietly. Ariadne exhaled.

“No. There isn’t, I’m afraid,” Ariadne told them reluctantly. Persephone whimpered, and Dominique deflated along with Tegyd and Victoire. “Regular methods of investigation have been pretty thoroughly exhausted by now, Hogsmeade has been thoroughly searched and they’re even looking through the surrounding mountains. But so far, there-there-there’s no sign of her,” she explained grimly.

“It’s been a week, how can they no find nothing?!” Persephone exclaimed. Her aunt sighed.

“Whoe-whoeve-whoever has taken Vanya, they’re very skilled. Qui-quite-quite-quite possibly a vampire hunter,” Ariadne said.

“I thought her Mum banned that?” Tegyd pointed out, nodding at Persephone.

“Oh she did. K-ki-kidnapping-kidnapping’s illegal too,” Ariadne countered pointedly, and Tegyd nodded, sighing as if to say she was stressed, of course she was making mistakes. “Not only has Vanya been hidden from magical discernment, but so has whatever’s doing that. We can’t ev-we can’t even-can’t even-even find the wards themselves that are keeping me out. There are other ways to hide her that we know of, and more forensic examination could find her, but we can’t fingerprint the entire village, do that wide a magical field analysis, it’d-it-it’d be-it’d be a needle in a haystack,” she lamented. “And that’s if the culprit hasn’t thought of it. A skilled vampire hunter, it’d be a complete waste of time, time we might be running out of,” Ariadne grumbled and shook her head. At that, it was like a wave of worried swallows and downturned heads hit the group. Nobody wanted to say it, but they knew their Professor was right about their running out of time. “There aren’t any leads,” she admitted quietly.

“Perhaps something happened the day she went missing?” Blodwen suggested slowly.

“You went down Hogsmeade didn’t you?” Rowan asked, his voice just as dry as Persephone’s own, and Persephone nodded. “Nothing weird happened there?” he said. Persephone shook her head.

“Na, nocht,”¹ Persephone told them, shrugging helplessly.

“You sure? Might be you missed something, magic and all that,” Tegyd pointed out, her ears going up a little despite the unsupported hopelessness in her eyes. “Maybe we should go back over it,” she suggested.

“It’s not as if we have anything better to be doing,” Gylfi agreed, leaning his chin on his spindly fingers. Dominique nodded reluctantly, summoning up the words to speak.

“Well… nothing weird happened,” Dominique said apologetically. “We… went to the cauldron shop, that was fine. Had a look around, saw some funny ones. We went to that museum, had some creepy stuff in it, Vanya felt a bit funny so we left, got some fresh air. After that we went and got-”

“What do you mean Vanya felt a bit funny?” Victoire squawked urgently, her orange eyes wide beneath her plumage as Dominique jumped at her sister’s sudden interruption.

“Hm? Oh, um, she felt a bit faint, bit dizzy, fell over, we thought she just had a tummy bug,” Dominique mumbled, shrugging. “She was off her food,” she added. Victoire’s eyes darted about in some form of alarm. “Why?” Dominique asked.

“That happened to me,” Victoire said abruptly.

“What did?” Ariadne urged her suddenly, leaning forward, her white eyes widening in a decidedly creepy way. Victoire spluttered for a moment, put on the spot by their Aunt’s immediate response.

“I- I felt a bit sick. In the museum,” Victoire said. Dominique frowned at her confusedly as Persephone tilted her head at them. She had too bad a headache to grapple with what was going on, but 

“When, last week?” Ariadne asked, her intensity not dropping an iota. Victoire shook her head.

“No, the other week,” Victoire said. “But it was in that Lumière museum, like Vanya,” she added, and Dominique nodded as Ariadne squinted thoughtfully. Dominique too thought back to that particular weekend. Victoire too had only visited Hogsmeade on the Saturdays and stayed at Hogwarts on the Sundays for Nonhuman Club, though of course as a fourth year she could go at any point during the weekend so she could have gone afterward. But it was that weekend before’s Club meeting, more specifically what had happened before it, that popped into Dominique’s head.

“You thought Vanya would like it,” Dominique mused for a moment. She wasn’t quite sure what the connection was, but she was making one. Evidently, so too was their Aunt, and they weren’t the only one.

“You even used your mind magic about it,” Sværri said, disapproval tinging the edges of his shrill voice. Victoire shrugged.

“I didn’t mean to, I just… thought she’d like it,” Victoire said sheepishly. Ariadne’s sightless eyes turned to her.

“Why?”

Ariadne’s dry, suspicious question echoed in the silence of the room.

“Huh?” Victoire chirruped.

“Why did you think Vanya, Vanya specifically and not your own sister, would like it?” Ariadne asked slowly, leaning even closer with an intent expression as she pointed to Dominique as she spoke. Victoire frowned under her feathers, blinking. She clacked her beak thoughtfully, but she didn’t say anything. An intense, twitchy sort of look began filling Ariadne’s face. “You don’t know, do you? Now you’re thinking about it it doesn’t make sense. This is ringing a bell,” she said quietly, her voice taking on a tension it hadn’t had before.

“I… I hadn’t thought about it?” Victoire said sheepishly.

“What’s goin’ on, what’s happening with Victoire?” Persephone demanded, her brain like mush just then even as she sat up. Ariadne’s blind gaze shot to her.

“Persephone, you tracked Vanya out of the castle, but couldn’t go further,” Ariadne said sharply, turning straight to her and making Persephone jump as she hurriedly nodded even though it hadn’t been a question. “Could you smell any other scent that may have gone with her, or was she alone?” she asked, her voice getting more and more urgent. Dominique watched, almost enthralled, at her Aunt figuring something out in real time. Persephone blinked.

“Er. A dunno, there’s lots o scents there. Too many to tell really,” Persephone floundered. Ariadne nodded, but it didn’t seem to dissuade her.

“Hmm. No signs of a struggle in the Slytherin Common…” Ariadne murmured. “I didn’t want to give Lumière undue suspicion because she’s a Metamo-metam-mem-metamorphmagus, but maybe I should have taken a closer look at why she was using it,” she hissed under her breath.

“Wait, for why?” Persephone asked confusedly.

“Victoire was Confunded. I believe Vanya was too,” Ariadne declared, turning to face Victoire. “If I wanted to lure Vanya somewhere, getting someone in this Club to do it for me would be the best way,” she said, making Victoire rear back in shock.

“But I would never-” Victoire began protesting, before Ariadne cut her off.

“Of course you wouldn’t Vic. That’s where the Confundus Charm comes in,” Ariadne told her. “It’s a confusion charm,” she explained, since Sue and Cetus and Pisces looked a little, ironically, confused. “But what else it is is an excellent technique in Legilimency. Mind magic. Confund your target to take down their defences and mask what you’re actually doing,” she said suspensefully, as gasps ran about the Club and a chill ran down Dominique’s spine. “When you were Confunded, Victoire, I’d wager that Lumière cast a memory charm on you while your mind was open, in order to slip a suggestion into your subconscious. It’s like a subtler form of an Imperius Curse, it’s easy enough to break if you know it’s there, but if you don’t… she had you suggest to Vanya that she visit the museum, get her thinking about it,” she explained darkly.

“So why did she Confund Vanya?” Dominique asked, as beside her her big sister quivered in rage, her orange eyes widening by the second.

“Doing it to Victoire was just getting access to Vanya, making it more likely she’d come so she could be enchanted. Vanya lef-Vanya left the castle of her own accord that night, or rather she thought she did,” Ariadne explained.

“She were off her food!” Persephone added, remembering something.

“Bingo. An instruction not to drink anything and come back to the museum that night. One kidnapped vampire with almost no effort,” Ariadne agreed, before she shot to her feet abruptly as her wand under her coat glowed an oscillating UV light in Dominique and Persephone’s eyes and thunder rumbled in the distance at her newfound mission. “I’m going to re-investigate that museum myself. Stay here,” she ordered darkly, but no sooner had she taken a step toward the door than fifteen sets of feet and hooves had hit the ground. Ariadne whirled around. “What did I just say?” she snapped to the circle of standing nonhumans around her.

“We’re coming wi ye to get her,” Persephone said, her voice a dry husk but a firm snarl nonetheless as anger welled up in her, anger that finally, finally, had a blessed direction to be thrown in - towards Carla Lumière. Had her knuckles been capable of it, she’d have cracked them menacingly. Ariadne sighed.

“And I take it there’s no convincing you otherwise?” Ariadne asked, turning on the spot to address all of the assembled nonhuman adolescents. In unison, Dominique, Persephone, Cedar and Rowan, Pisces, Cetus, and Tegyd shook their heads. Victoire went even further, she lit her talons on fire angrily, no doubt in fury at having been used as a cog in the scheme to steal away one of their own.

“None,” Tegyd confirmed, getting her wand out of a pocket in the inside of her jacket. “Vanya’s one of us, and we’re coming to get her,” she said firmly, to nods from all the others. Ariadne thought for a moment, before she exhaled and set her jaw.

“Fine,” she spat. “There’s every possibility she’s been starved, so the more familiar faces the better,” Ariadne decided. “You will come with me and you will all wait outside and stay behind me. Is that bloody clear?” she snapped, fixing each and every one of them with an intense cloudy white glare. Reluctantly, along with the rest of them, Persephone nodded. She didn’t want to stay out of the line of fire though, not one bit, and she doubted any of the rest of the Club were happy about the idea. Tegyd had her wand out, Victoire her Veela magic in her flaming talons, the entire lot of them were bristling for a fight. But, in truth, hopefully it wouldn’t be necessary. Aunty Ariadne would sort it out and they’d get Vanya back. But that didn’t mean that Persephone didn’t want to strangle whoever had taken her. “With me.”

And at that solemn, quiet order, Ariadne marched out of the classroom, drawing her wand. To say the Club marched after her would have been wrong, one of them had four hooves and three of them were at more of a hurried stagger with the concurrence of the full moon, but their mismatched stride through the corridors toward the doors was punctuated by the crashing of Blodwen’s leafy branches as she moved with an urgency Dominique had never seen in her before at the back of the column beside Wulfwynn, who also couldn’t normally move that fast. Casually dressed weekend students parted hurriedly as Ariadne strode down the corridors, flecks of static electricity running off her as thunder crashed against the walls of the castle, before at the behest of a snap of her fingers, the great doors slammed open and they cast themselves into the rain that had, with no warning, come pouring down.

By the time they arrived in Hogsmeade, Dominique was soaked to the bone, her feathers dripping in rivulets and plastered to her face to the point that she actually used her abilities to push herself into a human face so it would just be her hair and not a whole body of feathers. Her snowy white hair with its few flecks of brown and ginger was just as instantly sodden, but Victoire didn’t do so, her blazing talons flickering in the downpour as her feathers puffed up angrily inasmuch as they could in this weather. Persephone, struggling to keep up with her stiff legs and joints, flinched back from every crackle of electricity that sparked off her Aunty into the rain, and she wondered if it was even safe to be close to her in the rain when she was angry. But who definitely wasn’t safe, as Ariadne took a warpath of a beeline toward the museum, was one Carla Lumière.

A heartbeat after Dominique wondered if her Aunt was going to awkwardly buy a token to get through the doors’ shield, Ariadne answered that question with a bang. Literally. With a flick of her wrist, a flash of light leapt from her wand and smashed the shield into fragmented, flashing, hissing bits. Then, as guests screamed at the sudden noise, holding a hand up behind herself to tell them to wait, Ariadne marched into the room with her wand at her side to yelps of fear.

“CLEAR THE ROOM!” Ariadne bellowed, flashes of lightning cracking across the metal linings of the display cases as seen through the door as Persephone and Dominique watched with rapt attention. With no hesitation, some having already been going, what few guests had been perusing the items in Lumière’s museum fled, a good dozen of them clattering through the doors and past the Club at a run. “Not you,” Ariadne snapped at Lumière, whom Dominique could just see as having come down the stairs.

“What is this?!” Lumière asked incredulously. “What do you want, what business do you have barging in here like that?!” she demanded, flinching back from a spark of electricity that zapped her off the display case she’d touched, shaking her hand out.

“What do you know about the Confundus Charm and its use in mind alteration?” Ariadne retorted, glaring at her as she prowled like a predator closer inside the museum.

“What?! Nothing, I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Lumière protested.

“Come now, don’t undersell yourself,” Ariadne scoffed, shaking her head. “I’ve got no less than two students who’ve been a victim of that very procedure in your establishment, Lumière,” she hissed. Persephone looked around, sniffing at the air, before her spine went straight as a nail and she looked up at Cedar and Rowan, trembling with urgency. Amongst the reek of burnt ozone that poured off of her Aunty, amongst the rain and mud and odours of Hogsmeade, was one very specific, very familiar, scent wafting ever so slightly from the door to the Museum.

Cedar’s eyes widened as he too sniffed the air.

“She’s here,” Rowan confirmed quietly, nodding. Persephone’s feet were moving before she even thought about it, as she dashed forward out of the group and into the dim light of the museum, sniffing urgently for a trail to track.

“What part of stay outside did you not understand Persephone Guinevere Granger-Weasley?!” Ariadne shouted incredulously, her face as much a thunderstorm as the weather outside as she whirled to face Persephone in the doorway.

“A can smell her!” Persephone yelled back urgently. “She’s here!” she insisted. Ariadne’s eyes widened for a moment before she turned back to face Lumière.

“You’ve got a better nose than I do. Find her,” Ariadne said sideways, but firmly, as she stepped to the side as Persephone moved, keeping herself directly between Persephone and Lumière.

Persephone tilted her head at her doing that curiously. She was immune to most magic, she didn’t need her Aunty to defend her. But putting that aside as Lumière fruitlessly protested the invasion of her business, Persephone got to work. The scent wasn’t fresh in the downstairs, no doubt it had been made a week before, but Vanya had definitely been there more recently. Which of course meant she was in the building, but not in the museum space - it made sense, after all, why would any kidnapped person be kept down there? So she made for the stairs, and urgency filled her veins yet more as her nose confirmed her theory. Vanya was upstairs, the place veritably stank of her. So hurriedly that she stumbled a couple of times in her full-moon stiffness, Persephone clattered upstairs into the flat above the museum. It was a cosy place, with a nice lounge and dining area, though a bit sparse to her mind. The kitchen wasn’t very well stocked. Maybe Lumière hadn’t mean to stay long after her scheme was done.

Regardless, it took less than a second for her nose to supply her with a direction to Vanya’s scent - the spare room. Slamming it open so hard she broke the handle and its lock, Persephone smashed into the spare room, instantly scanning it for Vanya. Vanya wasn’t there, no, but what was shocked her. A hook on the wall, and attached to it a chain. On the floor, discarded, was a set of manacles.

Persephone squinted at the room thoughtfully. Sure, it was the full moon, so she was a bit slow, but she wasn’t stupid. If Vanya wasn’t there, despite the room reeking of her to the point Persephone was certain she’d spent most of the last week there, it meant Lumière had moved her. Probably in a hurry, her only warning to do so being the storm, which had only gone on for a few minutes before they’d arrived. If she hadn’t had time to hide such things as the manacles, what else hadn’t she had time for?

She got out her wand.

“Accio chains,” she cast, pointing her wand at the discarded links on the floor. And indeed, they didn’t move. They had found the wards that had been keeping her Aunty out. Accio didn’t work inside that room.

Dominique, meanwhile, outside, was thinking. She was much quicker at it than Persephone on a full moon. They hadn’t found Vanya’s wand, or its holster, anywhere in Slytherin. Vanya had taken it with her. That and Puss. Thus, that meant that somewhere in the museum of collected oddities was Vanya’s wand. Lumière wouldn’t have allowed her to keep it, obviously.

And she knew how her Aunt’s spell worked, it had been why she hadn’t been able to find Persephone last term when she’d come to the Hufflepuff dorms to find her. It worked based on the accio spell, and blocking that spell also blocked Ariadne’s locator spell. Lumière could have warded the whole building against accio, but to take it down so as to not raise suspicion would have taken too long, right? She knew from her Papa that such things took exponentially longer the bigger the ward. So ideally for her convenience, to do it as quickly as possible once she knew the Aurors were coming, she’d have done it on a smaller scale. One room if possible, or even just part of a room.

Would Vanya’s wand be in that room? Probably not. Best to keep it away from Vanya herself, right, Dominique thought?

Dominique pulled out her wand from her bag and ran into the museum.

“Oh for crying out loud- what do you think you’re-” Ariadne spluttered angrily, before Dominique raised her wand.

“Accio Vanya’s wand!” Dominique cried.

And the spell found something. Lumière’s eyes went wide for a split second, her efforts proven beyond a doubt, as the spell wrenched Vanya’s black wand and its pink capacitor crystal and copper wiring not from a drawer, not from a box, but from Lumière’s own inside pocket, and hurled it into Dominique’s outstretched and triumphant hand.

“She only warded the upstairs against it!” Dominique explained. Her heart was hammering in her chest, they were so close! They just had to find Vanya herself. An instant later as Lumière stood there, wide-eyed and spluttering, Persephone almost fell down the stairs as she ran down them, her feet thumping upon them loudly before she caught herself in the doorway.

“She’s been in the spare room! Place stinks o her!” Persephone cried. Ariadne fixed a truly dangerous look upon Lumière as Dominique hopped on her feet and hurriedly got behind something, so Lumière couldn’t shoot her now she was cornered - she got behind a display case, the one that had had the weird book in it if she remembered right. She was on the wrong side of it to check.

Ariadne snapped her fingers a few times, pursing her lips.

“Which begs the question…” Ariadne murmured darkly. “Where did you put her once you realised I was coming?” she hissed.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lumière protested, though her voice was thin with worry and Dominique, peering around the display case, could see in her eyes she was lying. “I just found that outside,” the woman added, pointing after Dominique.

“And didn’t hand it in to the Aurors as evidence? Bullshit,” Ariadne snapped, not missing a beat. “Release Vanya Stryde into my custody, now,” she snarled, leaning forward like a beast waiting to pounce.

“You don’t get to barge into my place of business, scare off my customers, and start making demands!” Carla exclaimed, getting her own wand out and pointing it at Ariadne. Ariadne, it seemed, wasn’t remotely fazed. “Get out!” she yelled.

“As Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts, I have nearly unlimited licence to protect my students by any means necessary,” Ariadne told Carla Lumière softly, fury still somehow dripping off her entirely too calm words as flashes of lightning zapped across the room from her person. “For your own sake, I strongly suggest you give me Vanya Stryde right now,” she repeated, glaring at Lumière, who scoffed even as the tension, and the static electricity, in the room grew taut, ready to snap.

“Pfft. You don’t scare me, Granger,” Lumière retorted, shaking her head. “You killed You Know Who once upon a time, who actually cares about that any more?” she pointed out snidely. “You’re just a teacher now,” Carla said. And at that, Ariadne exhaled a long breath and sighed, hanging her head.

“Do you know the saddest thing about what you just said?” Ariadne asked softly, with a long-suffering sort of smile. “I wish more than anything that that were true,” she admitted, her voice a breathed whisper before she raised her wand toward Lumière and her face fell into a grim mask of unflinching intent. “Release Vanya Stryde into my custody right now or you lose an arm,” she said simply.

“Ha! I’m not giving you anything.”

Ariadne’s arm twitched, and Persephone and Dominique didn’t even have the time to realise she was casting something before the building exploded.

Persephone’s reflexes were dulled by the moon, and Dominique didn’t have the best ones to begin with, so it had already happened before either of them had even figured out what it had been. Persephone cried out, clutching her agonised ears that had been first popped by the sudden pressure spike caused by her Aunty’s blast, and then blown out by the erupting sound of it. She wouldn’t have been surprised if her ears were bleeding. And it wasn’t just her ears, her sight had gone pure white for a flash of an instant, and her head was pounding with it as she fell off the stairs, groaning at it as Dominique screeched as she was blown onto her back behind the display case, or what had been a display case. It had been sundered just by the shockwave, blown into bits of wood and glass and cushioning. Almost nothing in the room was spared that fate, the window frames themselves had flexed and popped, their windows shattering outward as a blast of wind killed every candle lighting the museum, the standing displays tumbled onto their sides, and the blue-bound book fell onto the carpet beside Dominique.

But what had had it worst was Lumière’s right arm, and the wand she’d been holding in its hand. The wand had exploded under the lightning strike Ariadne had channelled straight down Lumière’s arm from shoulder to fingertip, an arm that had, a split second before, been fine. Now, it was like a horrible, wounded parody of their Aunt Ginny’s arms. Dominique could only see her hand, but the skin was blackened and charred, cracked and burned and smoking. Angry red wounds, scattering across the skin like the very lightning that had imparted them, split up between the cracks of her skin as Lumière screamed and fell to her knees, the sundered arm shaking violently as she gasped, shuddering from the shock. The blasted door, which had splintered apart halfway off its hinges, slammed open as Victoire burst into the room with talons ablaze, flanked by Tegyd, and a snarling Cedar and Rowan, all with wands aimed at Lumière.

Ariadne’s face hadn’t even moved. And her wand was still pointing straight at Lumière.

“Next one goes through your heart,” she just said. For a moment, the room was quiet save for the ringing in Persephone and Dominique’s ears, the squeaking of broken bits of metal dangling off each other, and Lumière, panting in horror at what Ariadne had just done with absolutely no hesitation. Five seconds before, she’d thought she’d been facing a short little school teacher who just happened to be a veteran. Lumière had been violently relieved of that particular delusion.

Even Dominique and Persephone were shocked, sitting where they had fallen, stunned. They’d heard the stories, Persephone had seen her shoot deer when she’d failed to kill them quickly, but never before had they seen the side of Ariadne Granger that they’d only heard of in legend. They’d heard her use her reputation to threaten others, Dominique recalled well Emerson Hegwood’s fear when he’d been caught impersonating Professor Arkwright and Ariadne had had him by the throat.

They had never seen their Aunt actually follow through on those threats with such ruthless immediacy. But as it turned out, one of her students being kidnapped brought out a whole new beast in Professor Granger. Or rather, a very old one, one she had just admitted to wishing had left her. The Woman Who Lived had stirred to battle once more.

“Fine!” Lumière hissed through her clenched jaw, reaching her unmarred left hand into her coat. Ariadne shifted back, holding her wand at Lumière as Lumiere got something out of her pocket. A little box, a matchbox Dominique thought. “Enjoy the freak show!” she spat, before she leaned back and hurled the box at Persephone, who was still kneeling beside the stairs. Persephone jumped back, her heart leaping at the projectile heading straight for her. Dominique gasped, raising her wand even though she didn’t have any idea what she could do about it nor even what threat a matchbox could possibly pose.

The second answer was given as whatever spell Lumière had cast on its contents dropped. A Transfiguration spell. In a split second, Dominique caught sight of what had only just been a pair of cockroaches turning rapidly, in mid-air, back into a person and a cat. A jolt ran through her as she felt Vanya Stryde’s mind, and that of her familiar, re-form across the room, only for Vanya to promptly collide into Persephone in a heap on the floor.

Dominique tensed at what she felt. Aunt Ariadne had been right to say that Vanya might have been starved. Something was very off about the sensation of Vanya’s mind in her senses.

“Woah!” Persephone yelped as Vanya clattered on top of her in a heap, bowling her down. Puss rolled into a dejected mass of fur off to the side, weakly looking up at her owner. Vanya shifted abruptly, and reacted to the only thing she could comprehend in that instant; the fact that her nose was right up against something very warm.

“HCCHEAAKKK-!”

“Shit-!” Persephone exclaimed as Vanya hissed at her, a crackling dry hiss of a vampire with a throat so dry she’d basically been mummified and lunged at her arm. Vanya hadn’t so much as looked up at Persephone’s face, she was just grabbing at the first warm-blooded thing she had been thrown at. Persephone grabbed Vanya and whirled around, throwing her onto the floor underneath her with a SLAM! Vanya was still violently clawing at her and lunging for any nearby extremity as Puss cried out at them, trying to get closer but clearly far too weak to do anything.

“Persephone, out of the way!” Ariadne shouted, trying to aim her wand at Vanya, but unable to get past Persephone to get a clear shot.

“No, wait!” Persephone realised, an idea shooting into her head. “Vanya, ye’ll thank me for this later!” she exclaimed, before she let herself fall just by gravity onto Vanya’s chest, putting her arm across her. And just as Persephone had intended, Vanya, gripped by nought but instinct, took the opportunity the instant she could. Vanya’s fangs rent down onto Persephone’s upper arm, slicing through her sleeve and shaving white fur off it before Persephone yelled out in pain as Vanya gouged a gash deep into her bicep, desperately drinking of the blood that immediately poured from the wound. “GAH! Fuck me, ye got some good fangs on ye Vanya!” Persephone spluttered, clenching her teeth at the burning pain of Vanya’s feeding as Ariadne jumped.

“Persephone you idiot! That’s never going to work!” Ariadne exclaimed incredulously. Swiftly feeling light-headed from the blood loss as Vanya desperately drank of her blood like a starving calf suckling its mother’s milk, Persephone quickly decided that Vanya had had quite enough of it. With a swift strike to Vanya’s temple from her free arm, Persephone punched her, making Vanya release her arm. Persephone stumbled back hurriedly to be out of reach, and Vanya launched to follow her, before she stopped.

Persephone’s eyes widened in relief at the confusion on Vanya’s face as she faltered, staring at Persephone’s visage.

“She recognises you!” Dominique crowed triumphantly. “Just,” she admitted. Vanya still looked pretty inclined to attack Persephone, she just wasn’t doing it now she’d seen Persephone’s face. Her eyes were flicking to the crimson blood still bleeding apace from Persephone’s arm. That same dark werewolf blood dripped down Vanya’s chin, staining her curly hair where it fell past her face, and in her eyes Dominique saw only the tiniest fading sliver of her friend. Starvation had stripped Vanya of her higher brain functions, all that was running the show just then was animalistic instinct and hunger.

And rage.

Lumière grunted as she tried to sit up a bit more, pained from her arm, and Vanya’s green eyes shot to her captor at the sound. She screamed, a scream punctuated by the gurgle of spitting blood and the scraping of her nails against the floor as Vany scrambled towards Lumière. Dominique gasped. Vanya recognised the woman who’d tortured her too. Thankfully, or unfortunately depending on how Persephone felt about it, Ariadne shot a bolt of light at Vanya, knocking her unconscious on the floor.

“Sue! Get in here, get Persephone on your back and run her up to the Hospital Wing before she loses too much more blood!” Ariadne barked, holstering her wand and hurrying to the door. “She’s never going to digest that fast enough for it to matter, and her saliva’s full of anticoagulants, you shouldn’t have done that!” she exclaimed to Persephone as Sue galloped past Ariadne and stumbled to a stop with her hooves thumping loudly on the wooden floor to haul Persephone up onto her back - the message was clear; to hell with centaur custom, Persephone was losing blood fast. Vanya had put one hell of a gash in her arm. Indeed, Persephone mumbled her thanks to Sue as Sue, struggling to carry Persephone’s weight, grabbed her arms and started back out again, holding her on as Persephone got more and more lightheaded by the second. Ariadne turned to the others of the Club as Sue shot past her.

“Cedar, Rowan, get Vanya to the Hospital Wing too, explain the situation to Madam Pomfrey,” she ordered, and the boys nodded and headed to work regardless of the full moon that would no doubt have been making it difficult. Rowan picked up Vanya and put her over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry, while Cedar scooped up a limp but barely alive Puss, and the boys hurried off. Then, Ariadne turned her attention back to Lumière. “Tegyd. Go fetch the Aurors. They’ve got an arrest to make,” she snarled.

“I’m on it, Professor,” Tegyd assured her hurriedly, clopping outside again and hurrying off to find some Aurors. Dominique caught her breath, relief filling her. Vanya was safe, or at least would be once Madam Pomfrey had gotten a pint of blood down her and she’d been given time to digest it. The culprit, Carla Lumière, was sitting at Aunt Ariadne’s feet with a look of horror and astonishment at her own injuries and the woman who’d imparted them. So Dominique went to get up, but paused as she did.

The mysterious Ravenclaw book, the one nobody knew anything about. It was sitting right at her feet, having been blown from its display case.

Dominique glanced up at Lumière. Why not? That woman had stolen Vanya for a week, and the whole museum was probably a front anyway. Might as well get a little petty revenge, she decided, and quietly slipped the book into her bag before she got up and, as her Aunt told her, headed back off to the castle triumphant.

--

Chapter Text

It was the throbbing headache that slowly forced Vanya back awake as she groaned, her eyes cracking open before she closed them again at the bright light. And it was where she was, as she realised what she’d seen only after the fact, that immediately confused her as she peered again at the room she was in.

She wasn’t in Lumière’s spare room, and she was neither chained up nor trapped in an enchanted bubble. No. She was lying in a bed, in the Hospital Wing, facing the setting sun out of the tall windows. Vanya blinked. How the hell had she gotten there? And how was she okay? She barely remembered the last week, she knew she’d been starved, but her mind was as clear as it could be when she was as tired as she was and as headachey.

A little confused, Vanya grunted a bit as she sat up more, still blearily squinting through the light. Abruptly, she realised that there was something on her arm, but it wasn’t a chain - it was a plastered-over needle in her arm with a line going up to a hanging bag. So I really am in a bad way, Vanya supposed. She looked around a little more.

“Puss!” She exclaimed quietly, as she saw her familiar. Puss was curled up, seemingly asleep, on another bed. There was a now-empty food and water dish nearby her, so Vanya hoped she was all right despite her ragged, skinny appearance. Come to think of it, Vanya glanced at her own arm. Indeed, while she’d never had much weight on her as a vampire, she was particularly skeletal just then, her wrist bones and knuckles protruding. And not only that, but she felt weak, really weak. Despite the fact that somehow she’d clearly been fed - her brain was working, so there was blood in her system somewhere - her stomach was still a gnawing black hole in her gut, and her throat was still pretty dry.

She looked up, and gasped in both relief and shock. Because at the next bed, beyond Puss, was Persephone, lying there and smiling at her. Though, she looked awfully pale for Persephone, she was so pale one could almost have mistaken her as being only her father’s daughter with a sunburn. Plus, she had her own drip in her arm. But it didn’t seem to be bothering her.

“Persephone?” Vanya said confusedly. “What are you doing here?” she asked, her voice weak and crackly. Persephone’s eyes widened and a big toothy grin spread on her face.

“She’s back! Remembers our name and all!” Persephone howled, literally howling as well in glee as Vanya jumped.

“Ah, good!” Madam Pomfrey’s voice said, before Vanya saw her come over from the other direction. “I can’t tell you how glad we are to have you back Vanya. The whole school’s been worried sick all week,” Pomfrey told her sweetly as she swept over and took Vanya’s hand. “How do you feel dear?” she asked.

“Um. Sore,” Vanya mumbled. “Hungry,” she added, and Madam Pomfrey nodded at that.

“You would be, it’s no surprise. But I dare not give you any more, you see Vanya you’ve been starved for a whole week and you’re not so very big a girl,” Pomfrey sighed apologetically. “Even what you’ve had is a bit much, your tummy’s in emergency mode and if we overwhelm it suddenly we could do much more harm than good. It’s called refeeding syndrome, and what we need to do is slowly work you back up to your normal diet,” she assured her, patting her hand. Vanya frowned.

“How much did you give me?” she asked curiously. Madam Pomfrey grimaced, and glanced at Persephone.

“Er, I didn’t. You took care of that yourself I’m afraid,” Pomfrey told her delicately, and the blood drained from Vanya’s face.

“No,” she squeaked, tears already filling her eyes. She couldn’t have. Over at her own bed, Persephone waved to get her attention. Even more horror filled Vanya’s veins. Persephone?

“Had a wee bit o me,” Persephone confirmed it casually, far too casually. Vanya, to put it simply, started crying. Her worst fears had come to pass. She’d hurt someone, one of her best friends. “No no, it’s all right!” Persephone exclaimed, hurriedly sitting up and facing her with a reassuring expression. “A don’t care, it’s all right. Hell, A’d bite too if ye grabbed me like that, and A’ve no excuse o me brain not working right,” she scoffed. “If nothin’ else, A’m more wondering how A tasted,” she added amusedly, panting softly in relief that Vanya was awake, even if she wasn’t happy.

“No!” Vanya cried, both refusing to answer and rejecting Persephone’s response to the matter. She didn’t remember anyway, so even if she’d wanted to fulfil Persephone’s curiosity, she couldn’t have. Revulsion rose in her blood, though not accompanied by nausea even though she almost wanted it to be. Her mind was running off the blood of one of her best friends, it should have been sickening. Mentally it was, but she hated that her body was fine with it. Just knowing what was sustaining her made her want to throw it all up, and the feeling of wanting to be ill but simply not being was very odd. “I’m sorry-” she wept, sobbing before Pomfrey gently patted her cheek and lifted her chin again.

“It’s all right, Vanya. Nobody else is injured, well, save for your kidnapper but that wasn’t you. You put a nasty gash into Persephone’s arm, but I’ve healed that right up,” Madam Pomfrey assured her gently. “And if it helps, I’m told that you stopped as soon as you saw Persephone’s face. You didn’t want to hurt her even then,” she added, and Vanya nodded slightly, sniffling. It really wasn’t helping her headache.

“Is Puss okay?” Vanya asked, nodding over to her familiar. Pomfrey nodded.

“Well, I’m no vet, but I believe so. Same as you, a bit malnourished and dehydrated but she’ll come right soon enough with some care,” Madam Pomfrey replied, and Vanya nodded gratefully. “Same rules as for you, no overfeeding her,” she added sternly, and again Vanya nodded.

“Yes Madam Pomfrey,” she agreed dutifully. Though, she could imagine the pleading looks on Puss’ face when dinnertime came around. She’d have to be firm about it. As she was deciding it, she jumped as someone knocked on the Hospital Wing doors, and Pomfrey swept off to go see who it was. As the door opened, she gladly admitted Professor Granger, who was dressed casually in jeans and a green Holyhead Harpies jersey and was carrying a plate of food. But she wasn’t the only one there, before the door closed after Professor Granger Vanya caught sight of a pair of horns - Tegyd’s - as well as no less than two Veela and their white, brown, and ginger plumage. She’s awake! she heard someone whisper, before the door closed again and Professor Granger beamed at her.

“There you go pup, some early dinner. Get that down you. Lots of iron,” Professor Granger said, depositing the plate on the table that crossed Persephone’s bed - Persephone didn’t look too impressed by the spinach but she eagerly went for the raw steak and completely forwent the cutlery, which Vanya grimaced at - before she hurriedly came around to Vanya. “Miss Stryde! I’m gl-I’m gla-I’m glad you’re awake, now we’ve finally got you back!” she crowed, beaming at her before she came to Vanya’s side and put a hand on her shoulder. “I’m so sorry it took so long, we only figured out the necessary piece of the puzzle from Victoire this afternoon. You weren’t the only victim of an unwelcome mind alteration,” she apologised.

“It’s okay, Professor,” Vanya said, before she looked back over to the door. “Was that-?” she began.

“Oh, a number of your peers wanted to be here but I asked them to wait outside. Didn’t want to crowd you when you woke up,” Madam Pomfrey explained. “Shall I let them in?” she offered, stepping a half a step toward the door, and Vanya nodded. Happily, Pomfrey swept over and opened the doors again. Instantly, half the Nonhuman Club burst in the door, but they weren’t alone. First to shoot past Madam Pomfrey was none of them but rather Sophie, who sprinted straight to Vanya’s side and slammed into her in a hug so suddenly it rattled the bedframe as Vanya groaned at the impact but nonetheless pulled Sophie close.

“Oh my god I’m so glad you’re okay!” Sophie exclaimed, tears of joy running down her face as she hugged Vanya. As she was doing so, the others hurried over to crowd around her bed, and Persephone got off her own and pulled her IV bag’s stand over so she could stand with them. “I heard they found you in that weird museum place? Rowan said that Lumière woman did some horrible mind control thing to you, I hope you’re okay,” she asked, and Vanya nodded.

“Yeah, I’m okay now,” Vanya assured her, though she wasn’t entirely sure that was true. It had been a traumatic experience to say the least, she sort of just hadn’t grappled with it yet.

“She did it to me too, made me say Vanya might want to visit,” Victoire spat, clacking her beak in anger. “I’m so sorry, if I’d known…” she added, before Vanya shook her head.

“I’d probably have gone anyway. And she did it to me too, it’s not like I blame you,” she said, before she frowned. “What happened to her?” Vanya asked. “Madam Pomfrey said she got hurt. Where’s she gone?” Secretly, though it would surely have surprised nobody, Vanya hoped that her captor had gotten her arse handed to her.

“Hm? Oh, she’s been arrested, I’m glad to say,” Professor Granger told her brightly, smiling. “F-fa-fa-facing life imprisonment for the kidnapping and torture of a minor as a hate crime. Right now though, I think she’d be in Saint Mungo’s for the urgent amputation of her right arm,” she explained, her tone going a bit wry as she grimaced. “I did tell her she’d lose it if she didn’t give you back straight away,” Ariadne shrugged. Beside her, Professor Greengrass gave Ariadne a look of surprise, though he didn’t seem to stay surprised for long. Vanya, meanwhile, gaped at her. She’d read of her Professor’s wartime past, seen her threaten people, but she’d never seen her actually hurt anyone. What had she done that Lumière’s arm was so wrecked it needed to be amputated? And, out of pure vindictiveness, she wondered how grisly a set of details she could get.

“Aunty Ariadne lightning’d her in the arm!” Persephone said, piping up from behind the group. Cetus and Pisces, who were hovering anxiously, stepped aside so Vanya could see her. “Blew the whole place up right bad. A thought she’d killed ‘er for a second,” she admitted, coughing slightly.

“She did threaten to,” Tegyd added quietly, side-eyeing Ariadne. There was an atmosphere of some kind of strange and conflicted awe amongst the Club who’d seen - on one hand, they were more than glad to have a teacher who’d go to such lengths to save them. On the other, it was more than a little disturbing to see it done.

“Were you really going to kill her, Aunt Ariadne?” Dominique asked quietly.

“No, I was bluffing,” Ariadne replied simply, with a grim look. “The sorts of threats the wizarding world can present necessitate the staff of this school having pretty broad licence to protect our students, but only Minerva, as Headmistress, has licence to kill,” she explained, to a nod from Professor Greengrass. Vanya raised her eyebrows incredulously. This was the first she was hearing about Professor McGonagall being basically elderly Scottish James Bond. “I’d have needed her express order. It’s a-it’s a um, old bit of legal stuff from Hogwarts’ laws that comes from before the First World War, bit outdated really, but the gist is that back then private boarding schools like Hogwarts had junior cadet companies with the Officers’ Training Corps. It’s actually a large part of where Defence Against the Dark Arts being a core subject comes from, we had-we had our own wi-wiza-wizarding-wizarding equivalent” she told them, seeming to lapse into a bit of an information dump to avoid having to discuss the implications of having seriously maimed someone that day. “Like I said, wizards can present greater risks at a far more rapid pace than most non-magical people, especially back then, and can do so closer to home. So the Head is authorised to kill in defence of Hogsmeade, this castle, their students, or any combination therein, and to essentially declare Hogwarts at war and mobilise the staff and older students to man the battlements,” she said, her voice shaking in something that sounded close to dramatic awe but sounded closer to concern before she sighed.

“Professor McGonagall is the only Head to have ever invoked that authority. On the night of the third of February 2008, when she became Headmistress,” Professor Granger said softly, and Dominique realised why her Aunt’s voice had been shaking as Professor Greengrass nodded solemnly. It hadn’t been awe, it had been remembrance. Of all the people in that room, Professors Granger and Greengrass, and Madam Pomfrey, who had dipped her head in that very same recollection, knew how big a deal that authority was. They’d lived it.

“And believe you me, Miss Stryde. I fought alongside Professor Granger in battle that night,” Professor Greengrass said firmly, stepping a little closer to Vanya’s side. “There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that had she needed to kill Lumière in order to secure your safety, she would have sought that order with no hesitation,” he told them. Dominique nodded, as did Persephone. They’d seen her destroy Lumière’s arm with a lightning bolt under a second after the woman had refused to release Vanya. A death didn’t seem too far a leap from such a brutal act. But though Professor Greengrass had meant it as a compliment, it didn’t seem that Ariadne had taken it as one. Her face was pinched, as if she’d been made to suck on a lemon. “There is nobody I would trust more with your lives than Professor Ariadne Granger,” Draco told the assembled students.

“Thank you, Professor Granger,” Sophie said, still seemingly on the verge of tears. Ariadne took a breath.

“Yes, well. But let-let-let’s stop talking-talk-let’s stop talking about such-su-such-about such bad things, it’s done now!” Professor Granger said, before she put on a smile and pointed to Vanya. “I’m sure-I’m sure-I’m sure you’re all more than happy to see her back safe and sound, just like I am. Well, not see, I’m blind, but you get the idea,” she said, shuffling awkwardly back again, waving a hand at her face. “I’ve got to go get ready to see to Cedar and Rowan tonight. Poppy, you’ve got Persephone?” she said, turning to Madam Pomfrey.

“Of course, don’t worry,” Poppy assured her. Persephone smiled gratefully to Pomfrey - she wanted to keep Persephone overnight just to make sure her freshly healed arm wound didn’t come apart when she transformed, that sort of thing, it was why her bed was a west-facing one on the east side of the Wing, so Pomfrey could close her curtains and give her privacy to just turn around and transform from the moon once it rose - though, she did wonder if Cedar and Rowan might come up to stay with her rather than go to the woods. “Good night, Ariadne.”

“Night Poppy. Good evening, everyone,” Professor Granger said, before she departed for the evening, closing the doors behind her.

“I had better go too, I’ve my wife and son waiting on me at home. I’m sure Gareth will be quite thrilled by the story of your return, Miss Stryde, it’s not just this castle who’ve been worried about you,” Professor Greengrass admitted, smiling at her. Vanya nodded gratefully - she’d heard of Professor Greengrass’ son from Persephone and Dominique, apparently he’d be coming to Hogwarts in a year’s time with Hestia. “I’ll come and see you tomorrow morning once you’ve had some rest, look into any catch-up work Madam Pomfrey will allow you, all that. Good night Vanya, Mxes. Scamander,” Greengrass said, addressing his own Slytherins before he nodded to the others and took his leave as well, following Professor Granger.

“I won’t lie, we’ve been scared stiff for you all week,” Sværri told her candidly, beating his wings to hop up onto the edge of her bed and sit on it. “We found out you were gone when Dominique and Persephone hadn’t seen you all morning at our meeting last weekend,” he added.

“Sorry,” Vanya replied, almost reflexively, at the idea of having caused them such distress.

“Nah, you’ve got nothing to apologise for Vanya,” Tegyd scoffed, also sitting down on the edge of her bed, having to lean on it heavily as she did. “It’s that shit Lumière who’s gotta answer for it. May she rot in prison,” she said, a grumpy bleat pattering on the edge of her voice.

“Ay, A’d drink to that,” Persephone agreed in a hoarse snarl.

“You will do no such thing, young lady. You don’t need alcohol poisoning on top of the anaemia,” Madam Pomfrey replied amusedly.

“I’ll do it for you, Maman¹ says Veela can process booze better than humans can,” Dominique offered amusedly, and Persephone snorted as Victoire squawked her concurrence.

“Ha! Can Dionysus hook us up?” Victoire asked Tegyd, who bleated a laugh and held up a hand hopefully.

“Nah, he taught us lot to make it, that’s our job,” Tegyd quipped. “What about vampires Madam Pomfrey, how’re they with alcohol?” she asked curiously. Pomfrey looked up at her for a moment, frowning.

“Depends on the vampire. I certainly wouldn’t recommend it even when she’s a bit older, she’ll be no bigger than she is now,” Pomfrey replied nonchalantly, before she sniffed at herself amusedly. “Though, you have lost a little weight over the last week Vanya, and you didn’t have much to lose to begin with. Once you’re back up to your regular calorie intake I think I’ll ask the kitchens to try fatten you back up a bit. Once you’re ready, I prescribe lots of cream, custard, and butter, how very British,” she added wryly, and despite all that had happened, Vanya actually scoffed a laugh at that. If she got lots of nice stuff out of it, all the better. Tegyd scoffed too.

“Gods, that much fat’d kill me,” Tegyd laughed, before she bleated and snorted. “Actually, goat milk’s got shitloads of fat and calories in it, remind me to lend you a few bottles,” she snickered, making Vanya burst out laughing along with much of the rest of the Club. Madam Pomfrey spluttered, clearly having known about the matter of Tegyd’s unique mammary issues since she was the school Healer but having not known that Tegyd had told anybody, while Sophie reacted with confusion.

“Er, p-pasteurise it first please,” Madam Pomfrey spluttered hesitantly.

“Wait, goat milk?” Sophie asked bewilderedly, looking obviously at Tegyd’s horns and ears. Tegyd instantly turned to her, blushing furiously with her ears going straight back, as she’d clearly forgotten Sophie was there.

“You tell a soul and I’ll headbutt you,” Tegyd threatened, pointing at her enormous horns.

“No yeah yeah, no worries,” Sophie assured her hurriedly. “Just. You… really?” she asked sceptically.

“I’m a weird hybrid, it’s not even the weirdest thing about me,” Tegyd told her dismissively.

“Um, speaking of, we should probably go have dinner. But we’re really happy you’re okay again Vanya,” Pisces announced, smiling a mouth full of teeth at Vanya as they looked around. “We saw you through the door, feeling like that must have been really scary,” they said, a sorrowful face replacing their smile. Vanya frowned for a moment, before she realised what Pisces must have meant, and her face fell at it. Oh.

“Oh. I suppose. I can’t really remember it,” Vanya admitted quietly. Memory formation was one of the things that stopped working when a vampire was in that state. “That um… that’s not the scariest point, there’s not much to be scared about if you don’t know to be scared,” she said, hanging her head. Pisces frowned, but Dominique thought she knew what Vanya meant.

“Like the hedgehog,” Dominique said, recalling Vanya’s previous stories of her early days as a vampire. Pisces and Cetus, as well as Sue, looked at her confusedly, not knowing the story Dominique was referring to. “When there’s enough of you to know, but not enough to stop yourself,” she said, almost comprehending the matter as she said it and processing how horrible an experience that must have been for Vanya. She hadn’t given much thought to Vanya’s cried words that she hadn’t been able to stop herself. Vanya nodded very slightly. It was comprehending that fear that was the scariest. And of what Vanya remembered of that week, the most recent of it was ordering Puss to stay away from her for her own safety. Cetus reached over and patted her hand with their long webbed fingers.

“We’re sorry you had to go through that,” they said softly, though clearly not entirely sure of what to say aside from the basic catch-all. Vanya appreciated it regardless, nodding to them. “We’ve got to go, but we’re so happy you’re back,” they said, before hugging Vanya. Vanya instinctively recoiled at the feeling of Cetus’ wet scarf against her, but she returned the hug thankfully before she waved at them and they waved back as they filtered from the Wing to head off to dinner and then, presumably, back to their Commons by curfew. Dominique was the last to even consider leaving, and she wrapped Vanya in a warm curtain of her feathers of a hug for ages before she reluctantly let go and Vanya encouraged her to go get some dinner.

“It’s all right, I’ll be fine. I’ve got a guard dog and a cat,” Vanya told Dominique jovially, nodding at Puss - who was awake, but still weak, and sitting in her lap now - and Persephone.

“Ay, A’ll take care o her,” Persephone agreed dryly, having left a lot of vegetables and spinach on her own plate while having clearly eviscerated the steak.

“All right, good night! Bonne soirée! »² Dominique chirruped, before she headed from the Hospital Wing, and was wished a good night by Madam Pomfrey. The day had hardly been a simple one, but the difference of the weight off of everyone’s shoulders was palpable. In only a few hours, hopelessness and despair had been replaced with triumph and relief, and it was with the first hint of a smile on the sides of her beak that she’d had all week that Dominique veritably skipped down the corridors to head back downstairs to dinner. Eventually, Persephone got out her inhaler and looked to Vanya.

“Vanya? Be the moon up?” Persephone asked. She was pretty sure it would have been, it was about the right time, but she wanted to make sure before she looked.

“Hm?” Vanya hummed, before she craned her neck and looked around behind them out of the windows for the white light of the moon in the sunset evening. “Yeah, it’s just coming up over the hill,” she told Persephone, pointing at it. Thankfully, Persephone knew not to just look.

“Brilliant,” Persephone said, getting up from her bed. “Um, Madam Pomfrey, could ye take this out please?” she asked, pointing to the drip in her arm.

“Oh, of course. Can’t have that ripping another hole in you,” Pomfrey chuckled, coming over to carefully remove it safely. Once Persephone was properly divested of the needle in her arm, Madam Pomfrey closed the curtains around her bed while Persephone was getting undressed, before she cast a familiar golden charm in a box over it, one Vanya looked away from with a shudder. A muffling charm, very much alike to the one Lumière had used. While they waited, Madam Pomfrey dimmed the lights a bit for the evening. Thankfully, it wasn’t too long before Vanya jumped at the sound of Persephone’s curtain clattering open and she looked over to see, for the first time outside of photos which she abruptly realised, Persephone’s wolf form.

The photos really hadn’t done justice to how big Persephone was as a wolf. So enormous she seemed twice Vanya’s size and fluffy and gangly in that way of a yearling with legs a little too long for herself, Persephone limped a bit on her injured front-right leg as she barked gladly at Vanya, her tail wagging gleefully side to side as she hopped her front legs up onto Vanya’s bed, making Puss leap back in alarm and Pomfrey laugh. Vanya laughed nervously at just how loud Persephone’s happy panting was and how much hot breath she was getting right across her face.

“Oh my god you have the worst dog breath,” Vanya groaned incredulously, before she yelped as Persephone jumped up onto her bed. “Are- are you allowed to do that?!” Vanya exclaimed, before she wheezed at Persephone doing that so stereotypical of dog things by turning around on the spot a few times on top of her legs, and then flopped down to sit on her, lying her great big wolf snout on Vanya’s hip. Puss warily regarded her. “It’s all right Puss, it’s just Persephone,” Vanya assured her. Persephone barked affirmatively, before she added her own greeting to Puss in the form of a huge wet dog lick of Puss’ entire head.

Puss did not seem impressed by it from the sodden slimed stink-eye she gave Persephone, but she didn’t retaliate. Perhaps she just didn’t feel up to it.

Chuckling under her breath, Madam Pomfrey came over, smiling at them.

“Feeling all right Persephone?” Madam Pomfrey asked, and Persephone nodded to her. Pomfrey took hold of Persephone’s great big wolf paw and pulled her leg over to examine it where it was clearly scarred and lacking a little fur. Vanya almost laughed even though she’d been the one to injure Persephone. With the amount of hyperbole about violent dangerous werewolves in the world, it was somehow very funny to watch an old white-haired woman manhandle a werewolf’s leg and have the werewolf be the one who looked sheepish and akin to a little kid getting an injection, just with expressive ears which only sold the image even more. “Looks fine. I’m glad your transformation didn’t undo the Dittany, I was concerned that the new tissue might be fragile and tear,” Pomfrey reported before she let go of Persephone’s leg and started scratching her ears. Persephone’s panting grew happier, and she leaned into the contact as her leg occasionally kicked against her side. “All right, good night girls. Persephone dear, would you awfully mind howling for me if Vanya has anything come up?” she asked. “A hard time breathing, heart arrhythmia, all that? It’s best to keep a good eye on patients undergoing refeeding, and I’m sure I can trust you to keep an ear on her heart?” she said, and Persephone barked her affirmation.

“Good night, Madam Pomfrey!” Vanya said, before she noticed something in her peripheral vision and groaned. Persephone’s gaze shot to her so instantly she wondered how the wolf hadn’t given herself whiplash and Persephone howled slightly, looking between Pomfrey and Vanya. Pomfrey stopped moving away and looked back to them expectantly. “Oh, um, stuff in my eyes. Seizure,” she grumbled, waving a hand at her eyes and the buzzing zig-zag spirals already beginning to give her an even worse headache. Obviously, Lumière hadn’t been dutifully giving her her epilepsy medicine every morning, and Pomfrey had just dimmed the lights. For that matter, Vanya was pretty sure she’d had a few seizures while she’d been trapped, she just didn’t remember them distinctly.

“Ah, of course. We’ll have to slowly get you back on your medicine tomorrow as well, working up from the establishment dose again I believe,” Pomfrey said apologetically as she hurried back to their sides to monitor Vanya’s seizure. It worsened over the next fifteen minutes, giving her an increasingly wretched headache and making her hallucinate a giant bee crawling up the opposite window outside, but thankfully it passed with the worst of it being a few involuntary head jerks to the side. Afterward, once Vanya was sure it was done, Madam Pomfrey made sure to give Vanya something for her headache, before she left Vanya to sleep in peace with the weight of a whole ginger wolf on half of her body.

“Your Mum’s right, you’re such a lapdog,” Vanya snorted weakly as she laughed at Persephone in the darkness. Persephone huffed a big hot humid breath into Vanya’s face as her retort. And so Vanya slowly drifted off to sleep, occasionally scritching Persephone’s and Puss’ fur in turn for the truly substantial comfort they brought to her dozing, pleading with her mind not to ruin her freedom by giving her nightmares.

--

Chapter Text

Anyone else might have considered Vanya’s day so far inconceivably boring. But after the week Vanya had just had, she was more than happy with a boring day of doing some reading for English, a little Maths work, and, just then, an Arithmancy worksheet. Sure, it wasn’t much, but it was nice compared to getting starved in captivity in secret. She’d also been able to listen to some music, Madam Pomfrey had made sure to leave Vanya access to the radio, though she had been a bit surprised to hear her own experience talked about on the wizarding radio news!

Professor Granger had been correct; Lumière was facing life in prison for her actions after having her right arm amputated, and Granger’s own actions in rescuing Vanya were being lauded as downright heroism too, not just by the press but by parents who were saying that Granger’s presence made them feel safer sending their children to Hogwarts. Persephone’s Mum, as Minister for Magic, had commented of course, saying that she had - obviously - been following the matter with enormous concern and was relieved to know that Vanya was safe. It was, apparently, a large and noteworthy example of a growing wave of such, but usually smaller, hate crimes against nonhumans. On one hand, Vanya wasn’t sure she liked being the latest story, and she hardly wanted to hear about it on the radio. On the other, Granger-Weasley was right to say that it was important to take what had happened seriously. And Vanya had to admit that there was some satisfaction in knowing that instead of reporting on the vicious attack of a vampire upon Hogsmeade, making nonhumans look worse as Lumière had hoped, the reporting was on the neutralisation and arrest of a dangerous, hateful, vampire hunter. But she had had a bad week to say the least, and she just wanted to move on from it. She certainly couldn’t wait until Pomfrey declared her out of the woods when it came to getting her calorie intake back up, she was really hungry.

Not starving hungry though. She was acutely familiar with how that felt, and was just glad that it wasn’t that.

Regardless, her day had been pretty calm. Professor Greengrass had, as he’d promised, come to sort out what work Vanya needed to catch up on that morning, and Madam Pomfrey had been perfectly okay with letting her do some light school work to pass the time. And then, at lunchtime, she’d had visitors! Tabitha and Sylvia had hurried up to see her with Persephone and Dominique and Alpin, as had Isobelle and Brenda and Addison, and had been overjoyed to see her safe again. And even those who hadn’t come in person had sent cards, she had a whole litter of them from her classmates standing on her bedside table. Over the afternoon class times, she’d done some Arithmancy work, until eventually the great bells of Hogwarts’ clock tower had heralded the end of the school day. And as she was considering asking for her copy of I Shall Wear Midnight to be retrieved for her, she jumped as the doors clattered open and someone ran in.

Normally, one’s immediate impression upon someone running into the Hospital Wing was to the effect of some horrible injury having had occurred, but no, instead, Dominique ran into the Wing, her broomstick in hand, and hurried over to Vanya.

“Dominique!” Vanya exclaimed, surprised at how quickly Dominique had arrived after the bell had rung. Dominique was both an athletic girl and had extra lung capacity thanks to the way her lungs extended into some of her bones - which made broken ribs pretty dangerous for Veela - but she had clearly been running from the way even she was panting. “What’s that for?” she asked, nodding at Dominique’s broomstick. A French Gaillard Sansonnet III, as Vanya recalled, she’d gotten it for her birthday at the start of the year.

“Hufflepuff tryouts!” Dominique panted, catching her breath as she leant on the end of Vanya’s hospital bed. “They were supposed to be on on Saturday but, y’know, school closed. Delbridge’s holding them today, apparently the weather’s gonna get bad later so he’s getting them in now!” she exclaimed eagerly, and Vanya nodded apologetically. “D’you want to come watch? If Madam Pomfrey lets you?” Dominique suggested.

“Oh!” Vanya said brightly, smiling. To tell the truth, for over a week now she’d either been trapped in Lumière’s spare room or cooped up in the Hospital Wing, so some fresh air sounded brilliant. “Sounds great! Shall we go see that then Puss?” she asked rhetorically, scritching Puss’ ears. Puss just stayed curled up to rest, and Vanya half-breathed a laugh. “I think Puss wants to stay here,” she added amusedly.

“Nice, um, Madam Pomfrey!” Dominique cheered, feeling quickly for the nurse’s mind in her periphery and hurrying over toward her, where she was sternly batting a sniffly Aubrey’s hand away from a patch of irritated skin on her face.

“I’ve told you before Miss Carter, stop scratching it. You’ll let it get infected again and this will have all been for nought,” Madam Pomfrey said pointedly, and Aubrey sheepishly nodded. “Just a moment Miss Weasley,” she said, nodding to Dominique as she gave Aubrey a little jar of some ointment or other, followed by a box of tissues after Aubrey sneezed. “Spread a thin layer of this on it twice a day, it should give it the boot with a little time. As for the cold, well, back off to bed with you, I recommend some lemon and ginger tea,” Madam Pomfrey said jauntily as Aubrey blew her nose and tossed the tissue in a nearby bin. Aubrey nodded as she picked up a facemask from beside herself and put it back on over her nose and mouth.

“Still got a cold?” Dominique asked Aubrey matter-of-factly as Aubrey hopped off the edge of the Hospital Wing bed. Aubrey nodded.

“Didn’t take long,” Aubrey laughed through the mask, her voice hoarse as she coughed. Dominique scoffed - she didn’t want to be rude, but Aubrey did have a penchant for immediately getting sick upon so much as even seeing a large group of people. “See you Vanya!” she called, waving at Vanya as she went, and Vanya waved back. Madam Pomfrey packed up some things she’d had on the side table.

“And what can I do for you this afternoon, Miss Weasley?” Pomfrey asked warmly, looking at Dominique’s broomstick curiously.

“Can Vanya come to the Hufflepuff Quidditch tryouts, Madam Pomfrey?” Dominique asked eagerly. Vanya smiled over at them as they sidled over to her, and Pomfrey frowned at Dominique a moment.

“Just to watch, I would hope?” Pomfrey pointed out, and they both nodded. “On the condition that I send someone along to keep an eye on you Vanya and you come back here afterward, very well. Give me a moment,” she agreed slowly, thinking for a second before she got her wand out and put it to her neck. “Missiculum, Rowan,” she said, and paused a second. “I know today is a bit of a difficult day, with the full moon tonight, but would you mind some light work? Young Vanya would like to watch the Hufflepuff Quidditch tryouts, if you could go along and keep an eye on her that would be most agreeable,” she asked, before she smiled gratefully. “Thank you very much Mister Brown, it’s very helpful of you. Ten points to Ravenclaw,” Pomfrey replied and put away her wand. “Rowan will meet you on the way, do enjoy yourself Vanya. And, assuming based on the broomstick dear, good luck Dominique,” she said warmly, patting their shoulders as Vanya gladly got up.

“Would you mind watching Puss, Madam Pomfrey?” Vanya asked, and Pomfrey assured her she’d take care of Puss in Vanya’s absence as she helped Vanya hop off the bed, where Vanya’s legs struggled to carry her. “Ough-” she groaned, holding on to the bed.

“Are you okay?” Dominique asked quickly.

“Just a bit weak, I’ll be fine,” Vanya replied, nodding as she took a breath and stood, shakily, just on her feet.

“Take it easy, and I’ll have you back here this evening young lady,” Madam Pomfrey instructed her, draping Vanya’s thick cloak over her shoulders. “Have a good afternoon dear,” she said, rubbing Vanya’s back before Vanya slowly followed Dominique out of the Hospital Wing. Her gait was shaky, and her muscles ached from the wasting Pomfrey herself had described, but she found her stride eventually as they left. Not that it was a fast stride, her surname was becoming a little ironic. Dominique found herself caught between her urgency to get to tryouts, they were being held hurriedly after classes that afternoon so she didn’t want to be late, but at the same time, it looked like Vanya absolutely could not hurry in the state she was in. And she didn’t want to leave Vanya behind, so she found herself hopping ahead of her friend with an unintended impatience in her veins.

Despite her struggle though, Vanya smiled weakly as they went by people who recognised her and waved, seemingly glad to have her back - Osian and Rhodri waved over with bright smiles as they called out to her and came over to chat, before, eventually, Alpin and Persephone joined them.

“Vanya! It’s good to see you up!” Alpin said warmly, beaming at her. “Are you feeling all right?” he asked.

“Mm. Bit weak,” Vanya replied.

“D’ye need a hand, ye can lean on me?” Persephone suggested, despite her own stiffness with the full moon. Vanya scowled a bit.

“I’m fine,” Vanya insisted. She wasn’t, but with what had happened she just wanted a little independence.

“Fair enough, but if ye change yer mind A’m no goin’ anywhere fast neither,” Persephone chuckled dryly, before she looked up at a very familiar scent. “Rowan! Thought ye were in bed all day!” she added amusedly, smiling at Rowan, who had just come down some stairs from the direction of Ravenclaw Tower, still wearing his crumpled pyjamas. Rowan scoffed.

“I was, Pomfrey asked me to keep an eye on Vanya at the tryouts. ‘Cos of her refeeding stuff,” Rowan replied tiredly, before he sort of roughly patted Vanya’s shoulders. Then, he stretched his own with quite a number of clunking noises. “Right, it’s at the stadium innit?” he asked, and Dominique nodded.

“Hmm! I’ve got to hurry, otherwise I won’t get any gear, but I’ll meet you there!” Dominique chirped, before she hopped on her feet and ran off. At a far more leisurely pace, Persephone, Vanya, Rowan, and Alpin headed off in her wake, both Persephone and Rowan yawning quite a bit. As they went, Vanya frowned softly.

“Why did Madam Pomfrey ask you?” Vanya asked curiously. Rowan was a Prefect, sure, but it was a full moon and he was hardly at his best. His eyes were bleary as he blinked at her for a moment.

“Oh, um. Yeah, I’ve been helping her out a bit after classes,” Rowan replied, cracking his neck tiredly. “She er, says it’s a good place to start if I want to do an apprenticeship as a Healer one day,” he said a little self-consciously. Persephone beamed at him, panting gladly. She’d known of that ambition of Rowan’s, but Vanya hadn’t.

“You want to be a Healer? Like, a wizard doctor?” Vanya asked. Rowan nodded.

“Maybe, one day,” Rowan admitted. “Long as Cedar and me can remember, Mum’s been running the Foundation, helping people, we’ve met a lot of doctors. It’s pretty cool, be good to do that too,” he said sheepishly, and Vanya nodded.

“Yeah, I think you’d do a good job. Get you a stethoscope,” she snickered, and Rowan scoffed.

“Don’t need one, can hear your heart just fine right now,” Rowan assured her as he tapped the lobe of his ear. “I’ll let Madam Pomfrey know if it starts doing anything weird,” he added, before they stepped around the outer courtyard and headed across the bridge towards the area of the Quidditch stadium. The courtyard and the grounds were far from empty, people were coming and going from the castle in droves now that they were allowed to again, and Vanya leaned heavily on the hand rail as they climbed up into the big wooden stadium that hosted the castle’s Quidditch games. Unlike during an actual game, the stands were more than a little empty save for those few students who were there to support their own friends, and Persephone pointed them over toward Summer, Bonnie, Kiera, and Caoimhe, who were all waiting at some benches.

“Vanya!” Summer exclaimed, suddenly spinning to face them as she saw the group of them once she’d seen them in her peripheral vision. Kiera and Bonnie gasped as they looked too, and Caoimhe smiled over at them.

“Good to have you back with us Stryde, had us all worried you did,” Caoimhe said gladly as Summer got up and hugged Vanya. “You feeling all right? You’re looking a bit grey,” she asked.

“I’m fine,” Vanya replied, already getting a bit sick of everyone asking that. She couldn’t blame them, but it was already getting on her nerves. “Getting better,” she added as she sat down, clutching her cloak around herself. “What’s happening down there?” she asked, pointing down to where a bunch of students were standing around in yellow and black robes and carrying broomsticks. Dominique was among them, having turned into her white-haired human form so that she could actually put on the slightly oversized spare Hufflepuff kit she was wearing - it was made for humans, they didn’t have any meant for winged Veela.

“A reckon Delbridge’s tellin’ ‘em all what’s happening,” Persephone added, crumpling down heavily beside Kiera. She wanted to be there, to support Dominique, but she was also pretty tired. She also happened to be correct.

“All right, we want to get this done today because the radio says it’s gonna piss down tomorrow!” Delbridge called to the little cluster of students soon to vie for the number three position of Chaser, which was open after Adrian Tregale had completed his NEWTs and left before the summer holidays. Indeed, the sky above was populated by quite a lot of clouds, Persephone was half expecting to smell the impending rain already.

Dominique wasn’t the only second-year in the cluster of them - Seoyun was trying out as well, and the pair of them were standing with Myles as well as third year girls Hayley Frayne and Laoise Goan, a fifth year boy named Owen Fulbright, and three sixth-years - the boys were Kenal Robards and Campbell Lack, and there was a girl named June Berry, the latter of whom had a very nice new-looking broomstick not entirely unlike Dominique’s, hers a Nimbus 2020. Dominique almost gave a wolf-whistle at that - not many had been made of the 2020 model, for obvious reasons. It was bound to be a collector’s broom in a few decades. Berry also looked like she exercised a lot, Dominique had seen her thigh muscles and abs, and then hurriedly looked away, blushing, when she’d been bustling to a shower stall in the changing rooms in order to get changed in more privacy - she didn’t own a bra, and her impending need for one was a bit more obvious when she shifted into her human form.

Dominique was hoping it wouldn’t be too uncomfortable trying out for the Quidditch team, and now she thought about it, actually playing on the team if she got on. To that point, she decided she’d probably need to text her Maman¹ about it if she got on. She’d have to play in her humanoid form in order to wear a sports bra - a Veela’s wings were structured differently to human arms, the tissue that made them up extended lower than a human armpit and it would pinch all manner of feathers if she wore one with her wings. She was used to playing Quidditch with her wings though, which she was sure was about to make a fool of her.

“So, there’s nine of ya, so we’re gonna try out three of you at a time!” Delbridge continued. Dominique instantly locked eyes with Seoyun, and Myles offered to join them, meanwhile Hayley and Laoise joined up with June, and Kenal and Campbell joined up with Owen. As they shuffled about, Delbridge wove a hand toward the two boys who were the Chasers from last year. “We’ll put you up against Brychan and Leonard here, and you’ll be trying to get the Quaffle past them and past me through the hoops! Sound good?” he asked, and the lot of them nodded. “Right, first group up!” Delbridge called.

Everyone shifted on their feet, looking between themselves as they tried to figure out who should go.

“Um, we’ll go!” Dominique chirruped abruptly, making Myles and Seoyun jump.

“Guess we will,” Myles chuckled quietly, adjusting how he was holding his broomstick - it wasn’t his own, he didn’t own one, it was a school broom.

“Right, up you three come!” Delbridge said, and fetched his phone from his pocket. “I’ll stick you on a ten minute timer you three, get as many goals as you can,” he told them as Dominique hurriedly hopped atop her Sansonnet and kicked into the air. She’d gotten plenty of practice on her broom over the holidays and occasional jaunts into the air, and it was a nicely responsive broom that pivoted in the air to face Delbridge the instant she willed it to. Myles wasn’t quite as quick, his school broom was a bit slow, but Seoyun had her own too and so the girls were a bit more on the ball than Myles was.

Nevertheless, in short order the three of them were in a little triangle formation, Seoyun in the lead with the Quaffle, facing off against Brychan and Leonard and Delbridge in the back by the hoops. Delbridge was fiddling on his phone in mid-air.

“Go Dominique!” Vanya called, her voice a little strained but a cheer nonetheless, from the benches as Persephone howled her concurrence. “Woo! And go Seoyun! Go Henderson!” she added, admittedly a bit of an afterthought. She was closer to Dominique than Seoyun, and Myles she didn’t know too well - even in electives they didn’t share any classes - aside from him having congratulated her on fixing her natural hair again back at Christmas and at the same time recommended some Youtube videos about styling Black hair like theirs, though his curls were tighter than hers and fell around his forehead in better-defined ringlets. Unfortunately, Vanya didn’t recall what the videos had been to watch them on the library computers, and she didn’t have a phone so she hadn’t been able to watch them then and there. Beside her, Summer frowned slightly before she grinned.

“DOMINIQUE! SE-O-YUN! HENDERSON! DOMINIQUE! SE-O-YUN! HENDERSON!” Summer chanted loudly, emphasising the syllables in Seoyun’s name to the same beat of the names Dominique and Henderson. In the air, Myles laughed gladly at it, pointing over to where Summer had started the chant, a chant Persephone had instantly joined in on despite her dry throat. Bonnie joined in, clapping three times between each name, and Dominique smiled back at them gladly. Delbridge finished fiddling on his phone and Dominique, keen to motion, shot her focus onto him.

“Right, ready!” Delbridge called, and Dominique held a thumb up. Myles nodded, and Seoyun called back to tell him yes. Delbridge pressed something on his phone. “GO!” he yelled, quickly putting his phone back in his pocket.

Seoyun launched forward, Dominique hot on her tail as Myles dipped sideways and took a different course. Brychan and Leonard made a beeline for Seoyun, who peaked up and over Leonard and veered around to put some distance between herself and Brychan. Dominique rushed after her in formation a bit under her, her hair rushing behind her in a white blur as she kept an eye on Leonard, who was behind them now. Persephone howled a cheer as the pair of them whooshed overhead.

“Dominique!” Seoyun exclaimed, getting Dominique’s attention. Before Brychan could get to her to try to tackle the ball, Seoyun hurled the Quaffle toward Dominique, who gasped a squawk and accelerated to catch it, reaching out-

And missed by a hair, her fingertips brushing against it.

Dominique’s heart shot into her throat as she lurched forward to recover, clumsily catching the ball out of the air before hurriedly pushing her broom faster to keep away from Brychan, who was menacing her six. Even as she fled from the sixth-year Chaser, Dominique hoarsely chirped at herself in disgruntlement. She’d known being used to having longer limbs in her wings would bite her in the arse, and it had already. But where her wings and being used to them had given her a hiccough, her avian mind wouldn’t - abruptly, Dominique twisted sideways, and Brychan and Leonard swung out further than her for they hadn’t predicted her action, and then took a weird, twisting course toward Myles.

“Myles!” Dominique cried, hucking the Quaffle up out of her elbow and into her hand to pass it toward him. But her motions were clumsy with a human arm, and the Quaffle left her fingers a fraction of a second too slowly - and instead, Leonard shot between them and caught it mid-throw. Dominique yelped a squawk - though it sounded very odd from a human mouth - as the wind off Leonard’s robe tousled her hair, before she gunned her broom after him along with Myles. As they neared him, Leonard chucked the Quaffle toward Brychan in a kind of keep-away shot, but Seoyun did exactly what he just had and intercepted it. Hearts hammering, Summer and Dominique and Myles pivoted back toward the hoops, charging for Delbridge as they reformed their little flying wing formation.

Dominique, dogging on Seoyun’s heels, glanced back at Leonard and Brychan, though she didn’t really need to - she could feel exactly where they were, as if she had a tactical display of the game in the corners of her mind. They were gaining, simply because of the angles they’d been on after the mid-air scuffle, and Dominique made eye contact for half an instant with Brychan, the closest of the two. He was a decent player, and in his sixth year, so he’d had some experience playing. And Dominique saw from the slight tension in his leg and fingers the way he was about to push to tackle the Quaffle out of Seoyun’s arm.

Brychan darted forward.

And Dominique intercepted him, suddenly pitching upward and smacking Brychan’s broom off course with her shoulder. A dull thwack! rattled her clavicle as she groaned at the pain, but it worked, Brychan yelped and held onto his broom as he quickly reasserted control, but it had been enough. Seoyun closed on the hoops.

“SEOYUN!” cheered Persephone, not just then but also several hours later as she crashed down onto the sofa with a glass of water in hand as they congratulated Seoyun on her managing to qualify for the team. Dominique, sadly, hadn’t managed - privately Dominique believed that had she been able to wear Hufflepuff gear made for Veela and kept her wings she’d have done a lot better than she had and won, but perhaps she was just being cocky - to make the team, but after some fierce matches between Seoyun and June Berry, Seoyun had been called the winner. And so, the lot of them were celebrating - Seoyun was still wearing her spare Hufflepuff kit as Bonnie and Kiera cheered for her in the Common Room, whereas Dominique had put her poncho and her feathers back on. Delbridge had promised Seoyun her own robes with her surname Park and her number three on it as soon as was possible, and all involved had heartily congratulated her on her getting picked. Brychan and Leonard were there too, and while there wasn’t any booze in their little impromptu party in the corner of the Common Room, there was plenty of fizzy drink.

They’d offered some to Vanya, but Vanya had politely declined - much as she wouldn’t have minded some fizzy fig cola, Madam Pomfrey had been very stern about how much she was to have to drink that day. Rowan had reinforced that with a pointed look too, before he’d poured himself some water; so he said, drinking anything fizzy would have him bloated all afternoon until the full moon.

“It’s a shame ye daedna get on’t, ye’d ‘a’² been great,” Persephone told Dominique, nudging her side as Dominique came and sat down beside her, soon followed by Vanya. Vanya was just as shaky as she had been earlier, but at least she’d gotten back into the swing of walking again. Dominique shrugged.

“It’s okay. Seoyun won fair and square,” Dominique assured her, before she looked over to Vanya and jumped. “Oh! I forgot, Vanya!” she exclaimed, and Vanya raised her eyebrows curiously as Dominique reached into her bag and retrieved something. “Got some revenge on that con³ for stealing you yesterday, stole some of her stuff,” she whispered conspiratorially, and Vanya snorted as she saw in Dominique’s talon the blue-bound book they’d seen in Lumière’s museum. Dominique opened it a bit, and indeed, as Lumière had said, it was blank. She couldn’t as easily thumb through pages with talons, but she flicked a few more open throughout it, and it was the same story. She shrugged with a smug squawk and closed it again as Vanya giggled weakly at it. Persephone though, she didn’t seem as entertained.

“Oh no,” Persephone drawled. “Do ye no ken⁴ what happened the last time somebody in our family got hold o a magic book wi nought in it?!” she exclaimed. Vanya frowned. This was the first she was hearing of it, but Rowan seemed to know too seeing as he’d scoffed amusedly.

“What happened?” Vanya asked.

“Aunty Ginny, she got given one o Voldemort’s Horcruxes as a kid, fucked up her magic for years it did,” Persephone explained, and Vanya’s eyebrows shot up. She’d read about those, she had no idea that Ginny Granger had been exposed to one as a child - from the books, they sounded pretty nasty. Rowan hummed, before he patted his own legs and slowly got up.

“Hmmm. Anyway, should probably get you back up the Hospital Wing Van,” Rowan decided tiredly, cracking his fingers. “I’ve got to head back up to Ravenclaw soon, take my potions and everything,” he pointed out, and Vanya nodded reluctantly. Unlike her last extended Hospital Wing stay, when she’d almost died of a torpor, this time she didn’t entirely want to stay in the Wing all the time. She wanted things to go back to normal as soon as possible.

“All right. See you tomorrow!” Vanya said to the others, and Dominique waved to her.

« Bonne soirée ! »⁵ Dominique chirruped as Vanya got up.

“Ay, A probably ought to ‘wa⁶ and get changed and all,” Persephone agreed, also stiffly getting up. “A’ll get us a deer to celebrate Seoyun, ay?” she chuckled, before she and Vanya departed, leaving Dominique in the company of her mysterious little blue leather-bound tome.

--

Chapter Text

Animated Competition

Vanya gasped awake, her heart hammering as the nightmare cut itself off as she would have been, if not killed, pretty badly injured. The silent darkness of her dormitory greeted her as she caught her breath. It was, at least, a warm dormitory - the first years’ one had had a bit of a shoddy heater, and whether it had started that way or been added for her benefit, the second years’ one had a much better heater. Plus, she still had her enchanted heated blankets, so she was toasty. Exhaling to calm herself, she peered through the darkness and reached over to her bedside table to find her watch. Pressing one of its buttons to light up the backdrop around the black numbers, Vanya sighed.

Well, Persephone might have been awake.

Though, with sunrise getting later as the year slowly went on, Persephone had apparently been getting up at a more reasonable time. So maybe not. It was October, almost three weeks since her return from the captivity of the despicable vampire hunter who’d stolen her. And the nightmares about it hadn’t gotten any better. If anything, they’d gotten worse. And so had her claustrophobia. The dormitory wasn’t entirely dark, there was a sliver of light coming in through the slightly ajar door she had requested. So that she knew she could get out.

Annabelle, who hated her, sleeping in the next bed, had been grumpy about that. But Vanya had angrily pointed out that she was perfectly capable of closing her curtains, she wasn’t the one who had claustrophobia. And to think she’d been getting better with her original claustrophobia from the time she’d been buried alive in the belief she was dead. Now, the nightmares didn’t just include being trapped. Now they included her own actions. Attacking Persephone. Not just her real actions either, but imaginary ones. Attacking Persephone in her wolf form in the Hospital Wing, attacking her other friends. She hadn’t even consciously remembered when she’d bitten into Persephone’s arm, out of feral hunger for blood, but her subconscious mind had plenty of information from it to torture her with.

That did not, of course, mean that nightmares always made nice psychologically analysable sense. That particular one had, for no clear reason, included a leopard or something in addition to her usual combination fears. But that didn’t make it any less scary.

Yawning, Vanya slowly sat up. None of her dormmates were up with her, it was about quarter past five in the morning. Still two hours until they really needed to be up. Or indeed until she needed to be up. But this was hardly Vanya’s first early morning since her kidnapping, and so she took her hair bonnet off and decided to do what she usually did and have an early shower. After all, she was easily among the first, if not the first, Slytherin student up, so there’d be plenty of hot water for her. And so she quietly got out of bed, putting on her slippers so her feet wouldn’t be cold, and crept about her little nook to gather up her shower things - of which she had many, since she had no less than three varieties of shampoo for the complex care of curly hair like hers courtesy of Persephone - and left Puss to sleep while she tottered off to the bathroom opposite the dormitory door to have her shower.

The shower in the bathroom, identical to the first years’ one, was much like the wooden toilet stalls elsewhere in the castle, but painted in faded and chipped Slytherin green and built a little deeper than the toilet stall next to it - it had both the shower, and on the way into it from the lockable door a little nook of an extra bit with a bench and a shelf, as well as the hook on the back of the door, for one to dress. It was divided off from the shower itself with a similarly green curtain, which was excellent for a little vampire - she hardly wanted her clothes getting wet. However, despite that, Vanya didn’t close said curtain. She hadn’t for a little while. Her claustrophobia wouldn’t stand for it, she needed to be able to see the door of the stall to feel comfortable, remind herself she could open it.

But the hot water was a definite comfort to her as she luxuriated in it for a bit. After all, she had plenty of time. Puss even woke up and teleported into the cubicle to keep an eye on her, watching from the bench. The first few times Puss had done that, it had been a bit embarrassing, but she was used to it now. Puss was a bit of a nosey cat, and after their experience being kidnapped, Vanya could hardly blame her. Though, hilariously, the big black, and rather concerned, familiar cat also hated water, so she kept jumping back whenever drips splashed onto her. Vanya hadn’t yet attempted to give Puss a bath, but she was sure it was well overdue. She was also sure it’d be an ordeal.

But today was not the day Puss got a bath, so Vanya was happy to quickly dry herself off using some of the magical spells she’d learnt from the books she often got out from the school library - after Puss had helpfully fetched her her wand, she’d forgotten it in the dormitory - and dress herself warmly in her jumper, cardigan, cloak and scarf for the day. With October progressing, Hogwarts was rapidly getting colder. She knew it’d only be a matter of time until temperatures plunged into the negatives, and she always paid attention to the Hogsmeade weather forecast. It was going to be six degrees that day, far too cold for a cold-blooded vampire’s comfort. And so, bundled up, Vanya put her hair back with the green headband she’d been gifted, quietly grabbed a book and some other knick-knacks from her desk without waking her dormmates, and headed up to the Common Room, where she found her usual favourite spot by the crackling fire. She cracked open a book she’d been reading - The Shepherd’s Crown - and every now and then, she played with Puss with a cat toy she’d bought, your basic feathered fluffy thing on a string on a rod.

“You’re up early. Woke up, wondered where you’d gone,” Tabitha said, getting Vanya’s attention from her book as Tabitha appeared at the top of the stairs some time later.

“Morning,” Vanya replied. “Couldn’t sleep, bad dreams again,” she admitted quietly to her, and Tabitha plopped herself down on the sofa next to her. It wasn’t exactly something she liked talking about, given the way it made her sound childish. Having the body of an eternal eight-year-old meant she didn’t need help sounding childish.

“You okay?” Tabitha asked concernedly.

“I’m fine,” Vanya insisted. It wasn’t strictly true, but there wasn’t exactly much anyone could do about it. She had, as had been pointed out by Madam Pomfrey, been through quite a traumatic event. But, as ever, Vanya quickly got sick of everyone worrying over her. Tabitha picked up the cat toy and flicked it, instantly getting Puss’ attention. “Gave me time to have an early shower,” she added with a smile.

“Oh true!” Tabitha exclaimed, sitting up. “Well that’s good. You’re sure you’re all right?” she asked, and Vanya reflexively nodded. Tabitha handed back the cat toy, which Vanya kept flicking about so Puss could scrabble at it. “Reckon you’ve got the right idea, I’m gonna go have a shower before breakfast too. You’ve not clogged the drain have you?” she asked, and Vanya scowled jovially.

“Just ‘cos I’ve got curly hair!” Vanya protested.

“It clogs it up more!” Tabitha laughed. It did, their shower drain had clogged more frequently ever since Christmas when she’d fixed her hair, Vanya was just being jokingly defensive that time instead of genuinely defensive. “Right, see ya in a bit,” she yawned, before she headed back down the stairs. With that Vanya went back to intermittently interrupting her own reading by pestering her cat with a fluffy thing, and ever so slowly the morning itself got out of bed and the slightest of dim greenish lights began to filter into the underwater windows heralding dawn. As morning struck and the rest of Slytherin began to rise, Vanya went and got her things for Herbology and Study of Ancient Runes, the latter of which she had a double period of on the Week 2 schedule, and then she and Tabitha and a recently woken Sylvia headed off to the Great Hall for breakfast.

“Right, there you go Puss,” she said, setting a generous plate of bacon and eggs aside for Puss, who happily got to devouring it as Vanya got her medication out of her bag and carefully took it by its measuring spoon. Once she was done with that, she looked to her bowl and scoffed. As had been typical for a bit now, she wasn’t getting traditional blood soups. The kitchens were following through on Madam Pomfrey’s request for a heavier diet now she was able to handle it again, so she had what could be mistaken for chocolate custard for breakfast. Well, it did actually have some chocolate in it, but the majority of the dark colour came from the generous proportion of pig’s blood amongst its ingredients. She wasn’t complaining though; she was basically getting desserts around the clock nowadays, and even if she wasn’t quite as little a kid as she appeared, it was still a kid’s dream.

“Morning Vanya,” Persephone said as she sat down beside Vanya, when she and Dominique arrived. Curiously, Persephone sniffed at the custard Vanya was having a big spoonful of, but grumbled when she smelled the chocolate in it. Vanya scoffed through her spoon.

“Every time. You big lapdog,” Vanya snickered. Persephone whined sarcastically at the jibe as she started fetching her usual meaty breakfast, and Dominique carefully scritched Puss’ ears with her talons as she sat down on Vanya’s other side. “Morning,” she said.

“Good morning!” Dominique chirruped. “Did you sleep okay?” she asked brightly.

“Not bad,” Vanya replied, being a bit selective about it as she shrugged. In her eyes, Dominique looked like she’d pretty immediately caught her lie by omission but decided not to press the matter. “You?” Vanya asked.

“Yep!” Dominique replied. “So unlike some people I won’t fall asleep in maths,” she snickered, nodding past Vanya to Persephone. Persephone scowled at her.

“A’m crepuscular!” she protested.

“Doesn’t that just mean you’re awake ‘round sunrise and sunset and sleep middle of the day? Sun’s still rising, and maths is first thing for you innit?” Vanya pointed out. Persephone shrugged, looking away with a shifty smile. “I’ve got Herbology first, I’ll have to go get a hot water bottle,” she grumbled, looking out of the windows. It wasn’t raining or anything, but the sunrise was illuminating a cold and cloudy sky. “I’ll be back, don’t touch my custard,” she said, nudging Persephone pointedly. Puss got up too, looking to Vanya as if for instructions. “No Puss, you wouldn’t be able to fill it up with water. And it’s too big for you,” she chuckled. Even with Puss the size of her own torso, the hot water bottle was about as big. She’d seen Puss try to carry it, it was hilarious.

“See ye!” Persephone called as Vanya hopped off to go fetch her hot water bottle.

“Morning Alpin. Just going to get my hot water bottle, back in a tick,” Vanya told Alpin, whom she went by in the Entrance Hall as he was arriving with Jayden and Noah.

“Shwmae!”¹ Alpin replied quickly after her, before he came over to where the others were sitting in the Great Hall and sat down beside Persephone. “Shwmae¹ Seph. Vanya looked a little tired, is she sleeping okay Tabitha?” he asked curiously, frowning a little over to Tabitha on the other side of the table. Tabitha shook her head.

“Well, she’d already gotten up, had a shower, and gone upstairs to read a book by the time I woke up,” Tabitha replied over her cereal. “And I was up early too,” she added. Persephone nodded, guessing that was because she was on her period. Chiara had mentioned that that could mess up someone’s sleep. Having a werewolf’s nose often meant Persephone knew a bit more about others’ lives than she really would have wanted to know, but she was used to it. Sylvia nodded, humming through a mouthful of jam on toast before she swallowed it and spoke.

“Mm. I don’t think she’s been sleeping well since what happened,” Sylvia agreed. “Ever since then she’s had to have the dorm door open, Annabelle and Fern keep giving her shit for it. And she keeps getting up in the middle of the night, woke me up a couple of times reading with a lumos,” she said, and Persephone sagged a bit. Vanya always put up a strong front, but clearly it was a bit of an act. Dominique, coming to the same conclusion, put a taloned wing across Persephone’s back - she didn’t need to reach to do it, her wings were longer than her human form’s arms.

“She’ll be okay. We’ll be there for her if she needs us,” Dominique assured her. Though, truth be told, Dominique was just as worried. Vanya had been the closest thing Dominique had ever had to a best friend who wasn’t also either related to her or honorarily family, and she wished there was something they could do just like Persephone did.

“Just worried she’s no telling us,” Persephone pointed out. Only very rarely had they seen past Vanya’s proverbial walls, and it had never been particularly nice. Only a few months before, they’d pried a bit too much into what about being reminded of her family was making her cry, to be angrily told, among a torrent of tears, about how Vanya had no idea what had happened to her family, how her case worker Lynwen wasn’t telling her because it’d stop her from moving on, how she thought she might have been replaced with a baby sibling… all over being reminded of her Da being a Leicester City F.C. fan. They knew very well that behind Vanya’s defensive walls was a storm of issues she was hiding and doing her best to just ignore, issues which had no doubt only gotten worse after her kidnapping. “She don’t tell us much,” she mumbled.

“I think a lot of it’s ‘cos she looks like a little kid. She don’t want to get treated like one,” Tabitha agreed, before she shrugged. “We’ll keep an eye on her, she doesn’t have to know we’re doing it. She’s got Ancient Runes with you today, right?” she asked. Tabitha had Divination as her Week 2 magical elective, where Persephone, Dominique, Alpin, and indeed Vanya, all had Study of Ancient Runes.

“Ay, we’ve got her,” Persephone replied, in part for herself and not Tabitha and Sylvia. And it was in that protective spirit that, once Vanya had gotten back with a hot water bottle held to her chest and and they’d all eaten their breakfasts, they headed off to their classes - Herbology for Vanya, and Maths for Persephone, Dominique, and Alpin, where Alpin responded to the register with the same Welsh greeting he’d used that morning.

“Shwmae,”¹ Alpin called when Professor Twining called his name. And he said it to Professor Saulsbury, their Professor for Study of Ancient Runes too. And then, after lunch he did the same with Professor Kaighin in English, and with Professor Arkwright in History.

“Here!” Persephone replied, before Arkwright moved on to Kiera, and then Myles. “Ye’re saying that a lot today,” she whispered to Alpin.

“Hmm?” Alpin hummed quietly.

“Shwmae,”¹ Persephone clarified.

“Oh. It’s Shwmae Sumae Day tomorrow, I thought I might as well,” Alpin replied matter-of-factly. Well, for Persephone it was about the middle of Wednesday, and she was crepuscular. She hadn’t fallen asleep in Maths as Dominique had taunted her, but she did get a bit sleepy and struggled to focus for most of History. After History, during which the Slytherins and Gryffindors had switched places with the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws and had English with Professor Kaighin, the lot of them met back up for the afternoon, and Dominique was the one to suggest a Quidditch game.

Vanya grumbled about it all the way to the sports shed, near the Quidditch stadium, as she bundled herself up among her friends as they got out broomsticks for everyone - save for those who owned them, like Dominique and Seoyun, and save for Vanya who had to actually tell Dominique not to sign one out for her, though in fairness Dominique hadn’t had flying lessons with her the last year and didn’t know that not only was she uninterested in the sport she sucked at flying - as well as a Quaffle and a Snitch.

“I’ll keep the score then, shall I?” Vanya suggested half-heartedly, sitting herself down on a stump as Dominique mounted up on her Sansonnet, while Persephone a little less enthusiastically got onto a school broom - she didn’t entirely like flying, but she did like sports and she wanted to take part.

“Oh, merci² Vanya!” Dominique cried as she hopped into the air and her broom took her weight, and she hefted the Quaffle they’d gotten out into her wing. “Persephone, you’re on my team!” she decided, making Persephone jump. “I’ll be Seeker, you be Chaser with Tabitha!” she called.

“Alpin, you be my Seeker! With your lucky eyes,” Seoyun called, as Alpin too hovered into the air with a snort at the reference to his heterochromia.

“I’ll be your other Chaser then? Right on,” Bonnie suggested, and Seoyun and Alpin nodded over to her. Dominique privately smiled to herself in the corners of her beak. She didn’t want to be mean, but Bonnie hadn’t played much Quidditch. And Alpin wore glasses, which wasn’t generally the best trait for a Seeker.

“Shall I let this go then?” Vanya asked, holding up the inert Golden Snitch they’d gotten out and she’d been given.

“Yes!” Seoyun replied, calling down to her from an increasing height. Vanya nodded and leaned over to give herself access to her black wand, and drew it. She tapped the tip of it to the Snitch, which sprouted tiny gilded wings that blurred into action, and she let go of it. Immediately, it hovered into the air and zipped out of sight. Vanya just shrugged, assuming it would do as she was told it would, remain nearby them within reason but hide. “That tree and that tree for goals?” she suggested, and the others nodded before Dominique threw the Quaffle into the air and passed it to Persephone, who leapt upon it and shakily stayed on her broom as she headed for the goal opposite her and Dominique.

Vanya frowned a bit at it. She’d never been into Quidditch, it seemed an unsafe sport even without the Bludgers. Persephone, while not bad at it, clearly wasn’t comfortable in the air like Dominique was, she was keeping low as she arced around toward the tree and Bonnie tried and failed to get the Quaffle off her. And what if one of them fell off? However, Vanya’s uncertainty was clearly not universal. They weren’t the only ones playing Quidditch, nor even flying. Some older students further along the field had conjured up some illusory hoops to play with, while a small handful of others were out flying seemingly just to take advantage of the clear if cloudy weather that day - they flew about, some of them racing each other, in the sky around Hogwarts and over the Great Lake.

Vanya sighed. She had to admit that, despite how cold it was, the landscape around Hogwarts was very pretty. They were on the wrong side of the hill to be able to see Hogsmeade, but mountains rose gracefully around them, some with waterfalls of streams falling down their slopes and craggy cliffs, bubbling streams that led all the way down to the Lake. Vanya pondered the Lake, quickly looking up to count a goal for Dominique’s team on her fingers as they cheered. She’d never really thought about how many things, and people, lived in it. The Merpeople hadn’t been a solid reality to her until she’d met Pisces and Cetus. Was there a village, of the same sprawling size as Hogsmeade, beneath the waves those flying students were soaring over? Nor indeed had she really given much thought to the Forest - she knew that the majority of the UK’s equine centaurs lived on the other side of the woods and had according to Persephone been taking up a stewardship of sorts over the land. The entire region was, of course, a magical reserve. And grandest of all stood Hogwarts itself, atop a tall peninsula with its cliff looking out over the lake and its rooves towering tall.

She had a pretty cool school, even if a lot of the rest of her life sucked. But she preferred to focus on the good, not think about that, so she smiled and leaned back on her stump idly, scritching Puss’ ears and back.

“Persephone!” Tabitha exclaimed, hurtling toward Seoyun after Persephone, distracted, only too late tried and failed to intercept her. They’d been playing for the better part of half an hour by then, and Persephone had been looking down at Vanya to check she was okay.

“Shit!” Persephone cried, darting after her too. But they were both too slow. Seoyun handily nestled the Quaffle in the boughs of their goal tree with a jaunty grin. “Can see how ye got on the team Seoyun, bloody good ye are. Um- maaaAAAwwww, mind if A stop though? A’m a wee bit tired,” she asked, yawning.

“But now there’s an uneven number of us,” Tabitha pointed.

“That’s all right, I was never very good at Quidditch anyway,” Alpin called, holding a hand up before he descended too.

“All right, um, Vanya, mind reeling in the Snitch? We’ll just do Chasers,” Dominique squawked down to where Vanya was sitting, and Vanya nodded, getting out her wand which she waved in a circle until the Snitch obediently returned and settled itself in her hand. She put it in her pocket, while Persephone and Alpin coasted back to the ground on the school brooms and joined her. Persephone sat on the grass, while Alpin sat down on the stump next to her. Dominique stopped looking for the Snitch, obviously, and joined Tabitha at a lower elevation as Seoyun tossed her the Quaffle.

“Ey up pup, Alpin,” Vanya said. “You gonna take a nap, Persephone?” she snickered.

“Maybe,” Persephone admitted, leaning on the log before she craned her head up to look at Vanya upside-down. “Ye all right? No bored or nothin’, ye did get a wee bit left out?” she asked. She didn’t want Vanya to feel left out. Vanya shrugged.

“Nah, it’s fine,” Vanya assured her. “Not one for Quidditch,” she pointed out, adjusting her scarf a bit before she scoffed a bit at something she saw through a gap in the slightly sunset-pink clouds. “Oi look, moon’s out,” she said amusedly, getting Persephone’s attention before she pointed at the tiny sliver of a crescent moon filled in with the blue of the sky. Persephone barked a laugh, before she pretended to freeze for a moment and transform, making Vanya snicker at her. It was good to see Vanya laugh again. Their breaths billowed as slight puffs in front of them, and Alpin shifted as Vanya tightened her jumper around herself and her hot water bottle against the biting Scottish mountain air.

“We can go inside if you’re cold, Vanya?” Alpin suggested. Vanya huffed slightly, a burst of vapour escaping her nose.

“I’m okay,” Vanya insisted sullenly.

“Are ye sure? ‘Cos it’s only, what…” Persephone began, getting out her phone to check. “Four degree out,” she read. “Even A’m getting a wee bit chilly,” she added, nodding to how, unlike bundled up little Vanya, Persephone was just wearing her usual dress and blouse, her legs and their ever-growing coating of white fur visible. Vanya pursed her lips.

“Okay, sure. Might as well go return this,” Vanya decided, quickly getting the Snitch out of her pocket with a gloved hand. She got up, as did Persephone and Alpin.

“Headin’ back inside, getting a bit cold! See yese³ later ay?” Persephone yelled up at their aerobatic peers.

“Okay!” Dominique squawked back, holding up her hawkish thumb. Vanya snorted at how doing that looked like a middle finger from the different way Dominique’s talons worked when she was in her bird form, and they headed off back to the castle, turning in the Snitch on the way. The castle was much warmer inside, and Vanya was perfectly happy to go set up in the Great Hall and play some chess with Persephone.

Even funnier, her chess set refused to take instructions in anything but Scots, and the pieces reacted violently when she tried to move them manually. A gift from her Da with help from her Uncle George, apparently - and Vanya, having lived on a side street to Diagon Alley before, knew where her Uncle George worked, so it was no wonder the tiny kilted clansmen that were the pawns liked trying to stab her fingers with their porcelain claymores. But eventually, after Vanya had long tired of trying her best to control the wee buggers in a language she didn’t speak, they’d packed the set away for dinnertime as their friends joined them and the rest of the school began to congregate in the Great Hall as well. But that evening, something that wasn’t just dinner happened.

At the head table, Professor McGonagall stepped up to her owl podium while everyone was getting something to eat, leaning on her walking stick.

“If I might have your attention, students!” Professor McGonagall called, her voice a bit thin with her advanced age but clearly amplified magically. Chatter died down in the Hall as most everyone turned about to look to her, wondering what she was interrupting their dinner for. Vanya put down the book she’d been reading while she ate her thick dessert of a dinner. In truth, she was just getting a heavy dessert twice really. “I have an announcement to make,” McGonagall told them all.

Whispers flitted about the hall - what was she announcing?

“This year, we have decided to have a wee bit of fun this month,” Professor McGonagall told them all, a glad sort of smile on her wrinkled lips. “As I’m sure you all know, Halloween is approaching. And instead of just a wee bit of decoration, Hogwarts will be having a Halloween costume contest on Friday the 30th of October, the night before Halloween,” she announced, to excited gasps throughout the school.

“Aw brilliant!” Persephone hissed, though she did falter slightly. The thirtieth was a full moon night, so she wondered if she’d be able to participate. Dominique looked about curiously, wondering what everyone was going to do - she’d never actually dressed up for Halloween before.

“The contest will be held at dinner that evening, but of course you all may dress up the entire day if you so wish!” McGonagall told them all, her lips curling in that smile of an old granny waiting to see what the kids came up with. “Any student may enter, any may vote, and the top three costumes shall win prizes for themselves and for their House - the winner a fifty Galleon voucher for Scrivenshafts, a twenty Galleon voucher at Honeydukes, and House points. The second place the Honeydukes voucher and the points, and the third place the House points. Enchantments are permitted as part of your costumes, within reason - it of course may not be dangerous to anybody,” Professor McGonagall told them all, her voice going from sweet to stern at the end there. “But harmless enchantments are quite certainly on the table. You do not have to enter to wear a costume on the day, but you might as well, hmm? I look forward to seeing all of your inventive costumes come Halloween!” Professor McGonagall said warmly, before Persephone heard her Aunty Ariadne snap her fingers under the head table and the whole Hall gasped at the way the flaming braziers flickered suddenly, shadows spreading up the walls as Professor McGonagall let out a faked, but quite convincing, cackle and crept back to her seat in a hunched pose. Laughter joined the echoes of her cackling, followed by rising chatter as now, so many of the students had a goal to talk over.

“Oh no, she’s started cackling,” Persephone snickered, nodding at the book Vanya was reading and then up to McGonagall, who was grumbling about having hurt her back hunching to a concerned but also amused Professor Granger.

“You need to visit her more for a cup of tea and a bun, her mind’s drifting away from its anchor,” Vanya replied smartly, laughing under her breath as Dominique frowned at them bewilderedly. “Book joke,” Vanya explained, holding up The Shepherd’s Crown. Dominique nodded, and went back to tearing some beef to shreds, before Vanya peered at the cover of the very book she was holding. At the young woman on its cover, in a green dress, a witch’s hat and black cloak, surrounded by Feegles and a white cat at her side.

Hmm…

--

Chapter Text

The weather, on Saturday, was atrocious. In Vanya’s opinion, that was. Everyone else loved it. But she was obligated to despise it, because it was the first snow of the year. It wasn’t heavy snow, but it was snow, and the temperature was downright Baltic. If she’d had a choice about it, Vanya would have been insisting upon sitting in a cardigan ball by the fire all day, but she had stuff to go and get in Hogsmeade, which meant actually leaving the castle.

She wasn’t looking forward to it.

Which was why she was procrastinating having to think about it for a little by going to the library after breakfast. Vanya looked back curiously as she heard footsteps catching up with her, to see Persephone hurry up to her side with a smile.

“Where are you off to then?” Vanya asked.

“Library, same as ye,” Persephone replied brightly, and Vanya peered at her. It wasn’t as if Persephone didn’t read, she was actually much better read than her occasionally boisterous and rough-and-tumble behaviour would indicate, but she did wonder what Persephone wanted to find. “Costume contest’s gonna be on a full moon, A reckon A’ll just lean into being a werewolf a wee bit. Da’s sent us the recipe for a Tail-Growing Potion, and A want to go find one for a Fur-Growing Potion,” she explained, briefly holding up her phone. Vanya scoffed, frowning.

“You’ve already got fur!” Vanya laughed, shaking her head. As the first recorded trueborn werewolf, Persephone of course actually did have fur in her humanoid form, and Persephone’s fur had been slowly getting more and more obvious over the months since she’d noticed it - it wasn’t very long, but it was starting to make itself known on the backs of her hands and fingers and come around to the front of her neck in white and brown. She also had some pretty noticeable sideburns that were starting to go brown instead of ginger as they stretched down toward her jaw. No doubt it would also get thicker as winter arrived.

“Well ay A do, but if A take a potion for it it’ll be real obvious. And it’s no much effort once A’ve made it, A’ll likely be knackered come the day,” Persephone replied wryly. Vanya nodded - it made sense, Persephone wasn’t going to be up to putting on some complicated costume. “For why’re ye going?” she asked.

“Professor McGonagall said enchantments are allowed, so I want to try one,” Vanya replied smartly. Persephone’s eyebrows shot up.

“Enchanting? Bloody hell ye’re onto it aren’t ye?” Persephone marvelled. “What kind o enchantment?” she asked.

“You’ll see,” Vanya simply told her, with an impish sort of grin. Persephone whined like a puppy and fixed her with the saddest puppy-dog eyes she could manage, but that didn’t work on Vanya. Firstly, it didn’t work when the puppy was looking down at her, and secondly, she’d long caught on to that particular gambit of Persephone’s. “Not telling,” Vanya retorted firmly, sticking her tongue out at Persephone, who whined again but desisted and licked her nose. Each with their plans, Vanya’s a little more covert, the pair of them made their way to the school library. Once there, they split up - Persephone went for the potions section, while Vanya began browsing the charms section for books on enchantments.

It didn’t take Persephone too long to find what she was looking for, since she knew that a Fur-Growing Potion really only served two purposes - costumes, and pranks. So it was swiftly found in a book titled Complex Cockamamie Concoctions for the Creative Conjurer, which she idly flipped through a bit as she went to go find Vanya again.

“Right, A’ve my shopping list,” Persephone said jauntily as she walked up to Vanya, who was poring through a thick tome at a desk, holding up Cockamamie Concoctions. “How be yers coming?” she asked curiously. Vanya shrugged.

“Don’t think this is what I’m looking for,” Vanya told her, shutting the book and putting it aside. “Can’t be that hard to do,” she mumbled to herself.

“Could be A could help ye?” Persephone suggested, and Vanya sniffed amusedly at her continued fishing for what it was Vanya was doing. Vanya sighed and continued looking through the shelves - she’d narrowed herself down to the category related to enchantment, it was just finding a book with the right instructions that was the problem. Frowning, she picked out another further down the shelf that had a promising-sounding title; Enchanting Made Easy, by someone named Eustacia Stinchcomb. Vanya opened it, pursing her lips, and flipped through the pages. Puss hopped up onto the table beside her and peered at it too, as she perused the opening section. The book started out with a decent simple intro to enchanting, before Vanya smiled.

With instructions on applying it to a Quaffle, was precisely the kind of enchantment she wanted. And so far as she could tell, it didn’t have to be on a Quaffle, that was just the sort of thing the author had thought a lot of wizarding youths might have had at hand - had it been somehow a Muggle book on enchantment, Vanya suspected it would have used a football. But regardless, that was what she needed. Persephone, catching her little friend’s grin, tried to stand on her toes and catch a glimpse of what she was looking at, but Vanya closed the book too quickly.

“I can do it. Long as I can afford it,” Vanya decided, putting the book under her arm and looking pointedly at the front desk so they could go and get their respective books out. The thing she wanted to enchant might have been quite expensive.

“Afford what?” Persephone asked, tilting her head at her.

“You’ll see,” Vanya repeated, shaking her head jovially. Persephone, watching her as they headed over to the desk, decided to commit herself to figuring out what Vanya’s costume was. She clearly had a cunning plan. But regardless, the pair got the books out and headed off again to prepare for the Hogsmeade afternoon; Persephone to get her bag, and Vanya to get dressed again, this time for frigid weather. For the whole previous school year, she hadn’t gone outside in such temperatures, so it was a bit new. And by the time she decided she’d be okay, she had probably doubled her own weight in thick clothing and a hot water bottle under it all.

Dominique scoffed amusedly as she saw Vanya walk out into the snowy courtyard shaped roughly like a football. She had even braved utterly ruining her hair by putting on a thick beanie, her scarf was wrapped thickly about her neck and lower face, over all of which which she wore no less than two hoods.

“Shut up,” Vanya grumbled preemptively when she waddled over to her group, wearing two pairs of thick trousers that were making her movements a bit wooden.

“A weren’t gonna say nothing,” Persephone snickered, brushing snow off Vanya’s shoulders. Besides, Vanya was hardly alone. Dominique hadn’t even come along it was so cold, and it was really only Persephone who was only mildly bundled up. Persephone had donned a jumper and her cloak and tights, but Alpin was thickly dressed in multiple layers - unfortunately he hadn’t finished making his blue wool coat yet - and everyone else like Tabitha, Aubrey, Brenda, all of them, were similarly warmly dressed. As was, as he stepped out of the doors, one Professor Charlie Weasley.

“Oh, I need to talk to him,” Alpin half-said, jumping at his arrival.

“Professor Weasley?” Vanya asked, and Alpin nodded. “What for?” she mused.

“It’s a surprise,” Alpin told her with an impish smile. Persephone scoffed.

“Right chatterboxes ye two are,” Persephone huffed sarcastically. “Where’re ye needing to go ‘round Hogsmeade?” she asked him.

“Oh, just Castleside, I need some fabric,” Alpin replied simply, shrugging. “And you’re going to the apothecary, what about you Vanya?” he asked.

“Uh, clothes shop and…” Vanya said, before she frowned. Where had she seen… “Butcher’s,” she recalled.

“Oh, we’ll get lunch there too then,” Persephone decided, before she piped down so her uncle could take a proper assessment of who was coming to Hogsmeade with him. Once he’d done so and they’d begun walking down toward Hogsmeade, Alpin hurried up to talk to him. Persephone squinted after him, tilting her head to get a better ear of what he was saying to her uncle in case it’d help her figure out what he was doing.

“Professor Weasley?” Alpin asked quickly, hopping alongside him. Charlie nodded to him curiously. “Could I ask you a favour? You see, I need something for my Halloween costume, but I don’t know where to get it,” he asked.

“And you reckon I could help? Why’s that, it creature-related?” Charlie asked, his face crafty. Alpin nodded, and Persephone stared at him. So it was an animal? Alpin looked back to her, and Persephone tried and failed to look casual, but he smiled.

“Yes sir. Um, Persephone said you lived in Wales,” he said, before Persephone groaned and angrily punched the air as Alpin said something in Welsh that sounded like he was talking about a penguin’s quaffle or something. Charlie jumped.

“A- hang on, my Welsh in’t that good, that mean what I think it does?” Charlie asked bewilderedly, his brows furrowed before he repeated what Alpin had said in Welsh to check he’d heard correctly. “The- of a…” he asked slowly, waving a hand at his face. Alpin nodded, smiling, as Charlie thought for a moment. Then Charlie wheezed with laughter. “Hang on, I think I know what you’re makin’, saw this ‘round a Brecon farmers market last Christmas I did. Remember ‘cos I got my housemate some scented wax melt things, she liked them. Look forward to seeing yours, have no fear I’ll see what I can do for you Faughn,” he chuckled jauntily, patting Alpin’s back.

“Diolch yn fawr iawn¹ Professor!” Alpin said brightly, beginning to lag back toward his peers.

“Ah, don’t worry about it. You’re one of my nieces’ best friend, I’ll do you a favour no problem,” Charlie told him nonchalantly, giving him the thumb’s up. Alpin was grinning ear to ear when he came back, and both Vanya and Persephone were watching him intently.

“What’s a penguin quaffle mean in Welsh?” Persephone demanded.

“Not telling, stick it in Google Translate if you can figure out how to spell it,” Alpin quipped, holding his head high as he patted the top of Persephone’s head jovially. Persephone nipped at his arm playfully as he pulled it back, before she scrunched up her face at having been defeated by not speaking Welsh. Resorting to childish measures, she bent down where she was stood and gathered up some of the thin layer of snow covering the ground and pelted half a snowball at him, catching him right on the ear and making him laugh. But while Persephone and Alpin tossed snowballs at each other, cackling all the way, Vanya’s heart tensed as they came down the hill and Hogsmeade made itself seen through the trees.

She hadn’t actually left the grounds since she’d returned after being kidnapped. And despite the picturesque coating of snow, Hogsmeade had lost its charm rather swiftly for Vanya. In fact, approaching it down the very same path she had whilst under the influence of an invasion of her mind made her shudder at the memory of it. Vanya took a deep breath. She was going to Hogsmeade for her own aims, of her own free will, and she wasn’t going to be trapped.

And seeing the building it had all happened in certainly didn’t help. The two-storey building that had been Lumière’s Museum was empty and bare, its fanciful curtains gone and its windows frosted over. Outside stood a sign declaring it for sale, but somehow having heard the radio coverage on the incident Vanya didn’t think it was getting much attention. Swallowing, she looked away from it. The costume contest was supposed to be silly, and she had a dastardly plan to enact. She couldn’t do that thinking about what had happened.

“Right then. Fabric shop?” Alpin suggested brightly.

“Yep,” Vanya agreed, despite it not being on her own itinerary - Castleside Mill was on the opposite end of the high street from the once-museum. And so, the girls followed Alpin to the fabric shop, where Alpin bought a curious little assortment of things. After picking out a tall reel of plain white fabric, a reel longer than Vanya was tall as usual, he handed that off to Persephone to carry while they stepped over nearer the counter and he investigated a bin of scraps. From that, he grabbed a few Sickles worth of multicoloured bits of cloth, before he went over to a big cubby shelf of buttons and other knick-knacks and his whole face lit up at the discovery of a tube of googly eyes.

“And two of these please,” Alpin said gleefully, handing the lady at the counter the tube of googly eyes. Persephone and Vanya scoffed, wondering what he was going to be making. Then, Vanya jumped as she sort-of-saw the shadow of someone taller than her loom in her dark peripheral vision and span around.

“Oh! Hey Tegyd,” Vanya spluttered, catching her breath. The fright hadn’t been huge, but Castleside Mill was a cramped place to be standing in even for someone as small as her, almost more for her because of the rolls of fabric surrounding her like a crevasse, and it was making her jumpy and shaky. It was all giving her a headache too, Castleside was a visually busy place, and she’d struggled with such things ever since her torpor incident back in January had caused her some lingering brain damage.

“Hey Vanya, Granger-Weasley, Faughn. Snap,” Tegyd snickered, nodding to the big piece of white fabric Alpin was paying for - she too was carrying, or rather leaning on, a tall reel of white fabric.

“Ye making yer Halloween costume Tegyd?” Persephone asked, and Tegyd nodded, and held up the piece of leopard print faux-fur she was also carrying. “A’m no bothering, thing’s on a full moon,” she said, and Tegyd nodded sagely before she snorted.

“Maybe you should make a dog costume,” Tegyd snickered, before she peered at what Alpin was putting into his bag. “What’s he making?” she asked.

“Dunno. But he needed some’at in Welsh what sounds alike to ‘penguin quaffle,’” Persephone replied, squinting at his back. Tegyd frowned.

“Yeah I dunno. Unless he needs a penguin what… gets hold of things, I think?” Tegyd supposed, tilting her head as her ears went wonky. She shrugged. “My Welsh isn’t perfect. See ya!” she said, as Alpin stepped aside and the pair of them went to follow him.

“Have a good day!” Vanya called back to Tegyd, who nodded back to her even as she went about buying her fabric. “Brrrr! Bloody cold out here,” she grumbled, startled by the sudden return into the frigid snowy air as they stepped out of the doors of Castleside. Her breath puffed out in a cloud as she breathed into her gloved hands and rubbed them together.

“It is a bit. Once I’ve made my costume I’ll definitely be finishing up that coat. Where do you need to go Vanya?” Alpin asked, shivering a little as he looked back to her. At least she wasn’t the only one chilly. Vanya peered down the street.

“What’s that clothes shop called again, Gladrags? Need to get a dress,” Vanya said, pointing down the road toward the front of that very shop, and Alpin nodded. The three of them set off for it, or at least Vanya and Alpin did - Persephone danced around them as they went trying to catch snowflakes in her mouth, and probably only didn’t hit anyone on the way by virtue of her werewolf senses telling her where everyone was. Maybe Vanya didn’t like snow, but Persephone did, it was an excellent thing to play in over a full moon night. Perhaps, she hoped, it’d be snowing come the next full moon. Alpin laughed and tried to hold her down from her jumping once they arrived while Vanya scuffed the snow off her boots and headed inside, relieved at the warmth.

Gladrags was no non-magical city’s department store, but it was surprisingly dense with clothes as Persephone and Alpin joined her in the little open area inside the doors. And it was that density that meant that Vanya was more than glad that there were signs hanging from the ceiling declaring the categories that she could see over the shelves. And with a huff, she disregarded the area designated Ladies’ just as she did the Mens’ and began heading down an aisle in the front toward the Kids’ section. Not that even her physically more aged peers would be going anywhere else, but it stung a little more when she would forever be dressing from the kids’ section.

“What be ye looking for?” Persephone asked curiously.

“A green dress,” Vanya replied. Persephone squinted first at Vanya, and then at the racks of clothes. She suspected she had figured out what Vanya’s costume was. But being colourblind, especially red-green colourblind, meant she couldn’t actually tell which of the old-fashioned dresses were green. Tentatively, Persephone sought one out that looked like Vanya’s size and pulled it slightly out on its hanger. Vanya snorted at her.

“That’s orange,” Alpin whispered. Persephone rolled her eyes.

“All right, ye do it then,” Persephone grumbled to Alpin as Vanya laughed to herself and went back to examining the racks. Indeed, much like the rest of the sorts of things available in places like Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley, everything was a bit old-fashioned, like they’d stepped into the Pevensies’ favourite clothes shop. After all, most of the market could just get modern stuff from normal modern stores, so the market in wizarding spaces was for anachronistic clothing. Vanya pursed her lips as she had a look at some smock-like dresses. None of them were quite the colour she wanted, and all were much more childish a style than Tiffany’s from the cover of the book.

“How about this one? It’s the smallest I can find that isn’t for babies,” Alpin asked, coming around the corner, and past another customer who was accompanied by a child, with a thick dress draped over his arm. Vanya frowned, letting the ones she was looking at fall back on their hangers, and came over to see it. The nice sleeved dress with a round collar Alpin had selected was a little darker a green than Tiffany’s, though Vanya wondered if that might suit her skin tone better. It was still a little old-fashioned just as everything else there was, but wasn’t as childish at least. The buttons were oversized, as if perhaps still not quite trusting the dexterity of its wearer’s fingers, but as Alpin had said, many of the other smocks were meant for younger children than the one she was going to be for the rest of her life. It would do. Alpin had a good eye for sizes too, it would probably fit her. Mostly.

“That’s gonna be all dragging on the floor?” Vanya pointed out, nodding at the length of the dress. The straight skirt was clearly quite a bit longer than her legs.

“I can shorten it for you if you like. It won’t take me more than fifteen, twenty, minutes, if that,” Alpin suggested with a shrug.

“You think?” Vanya asked.

“Yeah, just trim it down and hem it. I’ve got to do some sewing for mine so I’ll do that while I’m in the Textiles room,” Alpin told her in a matter-of-fact sort of way. “I’ll just need to have you put it on and mark where you want it to come to,” he added, and Vanya nodded.

“Okay, um…” she murmured, checking the tag to see how much it would cost. A little over a Galleon. Well, the Marshals had been being pretty generous with sending her pocket money of late, she suspected out of pity for how much had happened to her over the previous year, so that’d be fine. After all, it wasn’t as if she spent it on much. And so, with the dress bought and rolled up in her bag, the three of them crossed the high street and went to their second to last destination, the one Persephone had asked to go to - the apothecary.

Vanya almost laughed when they stepped inside. Hogwarts, with its great halls and library and classrooms was wizardly and grand, but this? This was witchy. This was what you imagined when you thought of a witch’s hut, just scaled up into a shop. It was dimly lit, warmed by a crackling fire over which a cauldron bubbled, and bushels of herbs and plants dangled from the rafters overhead with little tags pricing them by their measures at the end of each. Shelves were stacked high with bottles and jars, and Vanya smiled as she read all the names of things - packets of moth chrysalises, mandrake leaves, jars of beetles, a big glass structure containing thousands of big spindly insects all chaotically buzzing about inside, even various jars of strange-sounding pastes. The apothecaries in Diagon Alley, what few times Vanya had seen inside their windows, had looked similar, but not quite as cool.

Persephone, of course, having seen it all before, quite quickly got to politely making her order with the witch running the place who was appropriately adorned in a big pointy hat, while Vanya took a look around with Alpin. And it was while she was examining a caged plant bed bearing a sign that read in big bold letters DO NOT DISTURB THE MANDRAKES! - apparently you could buy more than just the leaves - that Persephone proudly got back to them with a paper bag full of her ingredients and they headed off again, this time for their final destination before Vanya would be able to go back to the warmth of the castle and sit down with Enchanting Made Easy if she could afford her next purchase; the butcher’s.

“Ah! Afternoon Vanya, hope you’re feeling better!” the butcher exclaimed, instantly recognising her the second she came in the door. Vanya nodded, a little awkwardly. She did feel better. She also didn’t want to be reminded of why she might not have. The butcher smiled and held up a glass bottle of crimson liquid. “Got blood back in stock. Bloody Metamorph, had no idea it was her buying me out. Here, on the house kid,” he said, offering her the bottle over the counter.

“Er- I couldn’t-” Vanya spluttered, before the man shook his head.

“Just take it,” he chuckled, and Vanya obediently reached up and took it from him. The glass was pleasantly warm to the touch. Then, he held up his own cup and ladled some more blood into it in solidarity. “To the health of that bitch’s prison guards,” he said wryly, toasting her. Vanya scoffed and nodded, taking a good swig of the blood to that. It was nice when it was warm, and it did a bit to unfreeze her a little from the snowy day.

“Thank you,” Vanya said quietly.

“It’s nothing,” the man assured her, before he made a face at the blood he himself had just drank. “That’s an acquired taste if I’ve ever met one though. What can I do for you three?” he asked.

“Oh, um…” Vanya said, sealing the bottle again and checking the display where she’d seen what she was looking for the last time they’d stood there. The cheese she was looking for had had a few wedges cut out of it. “Have you got a um, a full wheel of the blue Stilton somewhere?” she asked, nodding to it.

The butcher blinked.

“Pff-the- The blue Stilton?” he asked confusedly, and Vanya nodded with a smile. “Erm, sure. What’re you getting that for, you can’t even eat it?” he added.

“Halloween costume,” Vanya replied simply. Again the butcher spluttered.

“Okay, I’m not going to ask,” he laughed. “I’ll go get it, are you sure you wouldn’t rather a wedge? The wheel’ll set you back a bit,” the man asked her as a final warning. Vanya shook her head, and wryly the butcher headed into the back to fetch a wheel of cheese for her. And as he went, Persephone laughed to herself, smiling. She’d definitely figured out what Vanya was doing.

--

Chapter Text

To the dismay of a playful werewolf, the weather over the weekend had gone from excellent picturesque snows to a dreary and sodden sort of slushy rain as the temperature had come up a few degrees for a bit. But that was all right, because  she had spent Sunday inside, and Monday was of course a day filled with lessons, so it didn’t particularly hamper Persephone even though she did long for more snow to fall so she could go and pelt people with snowballs and dive into snow drifts. But alas, instead of playing in snow, Persephone’s Monday consisted of a double period in Defence Against the Dark Arts, followed by Social Studies, and after a big lunch with the full moon rising in a week, Textiles, and Potions.

After Potions, she and Alpin and Dominique had gone and met up with Vanya, who had just had Maths, and Alpin had had her put on the green dress she’d bought on Saturday so that he could mark where he needed to trim it to. And with that sorted out, Persephone had followed him along to the Textiles room once he’d put the dress in his bag along with the rest of the things he was going to work on.

“I think I’ll start with Vanya’s dress, get that done for her first,” Alpin decided aloud as he held open the Textiles door for Persephone to hop past him. The big vaulted stone room that had been turned into a sewing room was filled with the sounds of sewing machines whirring away, and Alpin clearly had not been the only person to decide to use it for their costume - a half-dozen students were sitting in various spots, working, one or two of them chatting with a friend who was also sewing at the next machine. Alpin looked around for a free machine, and his eyes landed with a curious frown upon the same person Persephone was looking at. She had thought when she’d walked in, from the sound, that some particularly ambitious seamster had been using one of the treadle machines. But nobody was.

No, sat at a big table was Tegyd, with an entirely different sewing machine, one that clearly didn’t run on electricity since she was turning a big hand crank on its side. It didn’t look entirely different to the treadles, black cast iron with flecking floral golden decals declaring it a Singer like the treadles, but it sat in a slab of wood rather than a whole table. Under its foot, Tegyd was carefully sewing some pieces of her white fabric together, guiding them with one hand.

“Shwmae¹ Tegyd,” Alpin said, peering at her machine and looking around. Persephone stepped around an open and empty suitcase beside Tegyd, one she actually recognised from Tegyd’s luggage when they’d caught the train home before the summer holidays. “Where’d you get that machine, did you draw a short straw or something?” he asked bemusedly.

“Hmm?” Tegyd hummed, looking up at them as she stopped sewing and her ears shifted back from the forward kind of concentrating alertness they’d been in. “Oh, no, this is mine!” Tegyd assured him, laughing. Persephone’s eyebrows went up.

“That’s yers?” Persephone asked, nodding to the old machine, and Tegyd nodded. “That must be right old,” she remarked, peering at the design on the shiny metal plate on the head of the machine, which was adorned with an engraving of some kind of grapevine.

“Yeah, what kind is it?” Alpin asked, setting his bag down by the electric machine on the table behind where Tegyd was sitting.

“It’s a 128K from 1939, my Mum got it for me off the internet for my birthday last year,” Tegyd told them brightly. “You see, it’s really hard for me to use those ones, ‘cos I don’t have human ankles like you,” she said, and pointed at the electric machines. As if to demonstrate, she swung her furry leg out from under the table, wiggling her hoof.

“Oh, ‘cos ye’ve no got feet too, and they’re all pedals!” Persephone exclaimed, and Tegyd nodded.

“Mm! I can do it, but it’s really hard to control,” she replied. “Professor Pryce had me try a treadle and I couldn’t use it to save my life,” Tegyd snickered with a bleat of a laugh. “So this one’s really nice for me. Mum had to fix it up a bit when we got it and it doesn’t have its original box, but it gets the job done!” she told them, before she turned her attention back to her work and set the machine back into motion with a satisfying cycle of clunking and clicking sounds.

Persephone tilted her head at it. She wondered if learning how to use the treadles, which nobody in the class had done, might have been a good idea for her. Or indeed if she should ask her Ma to take a leaf out of Mrs. Humphries’ book and get her a hand-turned machine - she could hear far more than a human could, and while nobody else was bothered by the sound of the electric sewing machines everyone else was using, she could always hear a piercing whine produced by the motor. At that very instant, the whole Textiles room was filled with the dissonant shrieks of electronics as other students like Slytherin’s seventh-year Prefect Arianne Hayward used the machines. Not only that, but the ones in the Textiles room had little computers controlling them, which she could hear whining too, and she could hear some circuit inside the adapters on their cords oscillating at a high pitch, just like a phone charger had, regardless of whether or not it was even on as long as it was plugged in, to add insult to injury. If anything, she’d been relieved that that day in their Textiles lesson that they’d been designing their bags rather than sewing them. Alpin’s design had been a thorough pattern. Persephone’s had been a shoddy drawing. But regardless, Tegyd’s hand-cranked machine had none of that, only its mechanism. It was actually quite a pleasant distinction.

“Is it hard to do that with only one hand, Tegyd?” Alpin asked curiously, frowning at the way she was, of course, forced to guide the material with the only hand she had free since the other was turning the machine. Persephone stepped over, realising she’d just been watching the machine go while Alpin had been setting up and getting out the dress he needed to trim for Vanya.

“I suppose. I’ve gotten used to it though,” Tegyd replied, before Persephone jumped at it making a different, rattling noise, for a split second. Something inside the base. Tegyd had heard it too, her ears shifted. “What was that?” she murmured, sewing more slowly, before she leaned forward and groaned, plucking at something behind the foot with her fingernail. “Ran out of thread on the bobbin,” Tegyd grumbled, though not without a jovial, tilted look at Alpin, who laughed.

“It does always seem to happen right when you’re in the middle of a long stitch, doesn’t it?” Alpin commiserated. Tegyd hummed ruefully as Persephone, feeling a tiny bit left out, sat on the table beside Alpin’s selected sewing machine. Tegyd lifted the foot and clipped off the singular tail on the thread with a pair of scissors at her side as she took the fabric out from under it. Then, taking hold of it by the horizontal, she actually lifted the machine out of its wooden base a little and, while the piece was free, slid out one of the two metal plates that sat on either side of the feed dogs lengthwise. Then, she pressed a little button within and out popped a weird little pointed bullet of metal. Persephone frowned.

“What’s that?” Persephone asked, pointing at it as Tegyd went to tip something out of the bullet’s wide end.

“Oh, it’s the bobbin. I think it’s called a shuttle?” Tegyd said uncertainly, tipping the actual bobbin out of the shuttle, a much longer and thinner brass thing than the bobbins on the electric machines. “Goes back and forth in there, chook-chook-chook-chook-chook,” she explained, pointing into the cavity it had come from, where a little wide mount was laying, as she unthreaded the machine until the thread was just passing through a little hook on the front. Then, she put the thread through a little hole in one end of the bobbin, and set the fiddly-looking little bugger into a little spring-loaded slot that was part of a structure built onto a the front of the machine, right next to the wheel. And indeed, she pushed the mechanism onto the wheel, and threaded the white thread she was using through the two slots on either end of a bit beneath the bobbin-holder. Then she turned her attention to something inside the wheel, before she began turning the machine, which kept clunking as the unthreaded needle went up and down again. “Oh- no, bloody disengage properly would you?” she spat, going back to the thing in the wheel.

“What’s wrong wi it?” Persephone asked abruptly. Was it broken?

“Supposed to disconnect the machine with this thing here before you wind the bobbin, takes the stress off it or something. But this one doesn’t always quite do it,” Tegyd grumbled, fiddling with it before she started turning it again. The machine kept going too, but as if it was mostly disconnected; it moved in jerks of sudden incomplete motion every now and then while instead, what was turned was a little washer against the drive wheel. Persephone leaned closer, hopping off the bench she’d been sitting on, to watch. It was actually pretty clever. That turned a screw, which turned a gear, and upon that gear was an extrusion in the shape of a heart which the angle of the feeding arms turned against, so it would go up and down the bobbin neatly as Tegyd wound it, turning the crank so fast it was shaking the table. Though, it didn’t seem to be quite working right, the thread was piling up at the end opposite the wheel. Tegyd shrugged. “Dunno why it does that,” she admitted, pointing at the thicker swell of thread. After a few more cycles of the heart-gear, and with the thread looking more and more like it’d mount off the end of the bobbin thanks to the excess creating a ramp, Tegyd stopped and cut the thread.

“So, what ye making?” Persephone asked curiously, watching her put the bobbin back in the shuttle and thread it around a hook in its shell or something. It struck her as doing it the wrong way around, she was pretty sure you were supposed to do it the other way on the machines she’d been using in Textiles, but she dismissed it as a weirdness of the old machine. Tegyd popped the shuttle back in its mount and disengaged the winder, and re-engaged the machine before she retreaded it, with a bit of fiddling with the needle. She wasn’t Alpin, who could do it in one go.

“Oh, I’m just making a white dress for Halloween,” Tegyd shrugged as she cranked the machine once and then used her scissors to try to get the thread from the bobbin up. Once she got it, she lifted the machine out of its base a little again and replaced the little metal plate covering up the shuttle. Tegyd snickered. “I always have to get more fabric for skirts, ‘cos my legs are so long. If I make a normal skirt length it looks short on me,” she chuckled. Alpin looked up from where he was using some pinking shears to cut several inches of fabric off of the bottom of Vanya’s dress.

“You make your own clothes too?” Alpin asked. They’d briefly talked about sewing when it had come up in Nonhuman Club, but never to any detail. Tegyd nodded, turning back to him.

“Sometimes. Didn’t have a machine at home ‘til Mum got me this though, so I was just doing it by hand. Made some skirts for myself when I was a kid, grown out of them now,” Tegyd replied. “But my legs are long so…” she said, before she shifted where she sat to sit sideways and show them the tartan skirt she was wearing. “Mum bought me this one and it’s great, it’s got pockets and everything, but it’s so short, makes me look like such a slag,” she laughed, and Alpin exhaled sharply as Persephone snorted.

“Looks all right on ye,” Persephone assured her. “So what’s the dress for?” she asked curiously. Tegyd’s ears shifted oddly.

“I’m um, my costume’s going to be a, er, a Maenad,” Tegyd replied.

“What’s a Maenad?” Alpin asked, again glancing up from the pinking shears.

“The um, women who followed Dionysus. His priestesses,” Tegyd told them, seeming a bit shifty about it as she looked about.

“Oh ay, ‘cos ye worship Dionysus don’t you? Ye’ve even got the grapes on there, that’s nice,” Persephone said, pointing at the grapevine design on Tegyd’s sewing machine’s faceplate, and again Tegyd grimaced and looked around at the other students using the Textiles room to see if they’d heard. She nodded, and Persephone got a bit closer so she didn’t have to speak so loudly. She gathered that maybe Tegyd wasn’t as open about it outside of the Nonhuman Club. “So ye’re dressing up as a Maenad then?” she asked. Alpin finished cutting the excess off of Vanya’s dress and leaned closer as well.

“Yeah. Got some fake leopard fur to stick on it, and I’ll need to go ‘round the woods later and see if I can find a straight enough bit of wood for my thyrsus,” Tegyd replied quietly, realigning her stitching with the machine’s needle and putting the foot down. She sniffed amusedly. “I’m not wearing a proper chiton, don’t want it coming apart. Just gonna make a dress that looks the part,” she added wryly.

“Thyrsus? What’s that when it’s at home?” Persephone mused, and Tegyd started turning the machine again, guiding the fabric with her other hand. “A stick or something?” she asked.

“Yeah, it’s this staff Dionysus has, the Maenads had them too,” Tegyd replied with a nod, though she was still focusing on the sewing. “It’s got a pinecone on the end, decorated in ivy. Gonna make one, need to go to the forest and get a branch for it,” she explained.

“I need a long pole too!” Alpin said brightly. “We can come with you, Persephone knows the forest,” he added amusedly even as he reached down and retrieved a well-populated pincushion from his bag, which brought a few of his multicoloured ribbons with it, snagged by the heads of the pins. He popped those back in his bag.

“Oh? What’s your stick for?” Tegyd asked, glancing back at him. Alpin shrugged playfully. Persephone huffed amusedly. She’d figured out what Alpin was doing the day before, seeing his drawn plans, but he’d roped her in to his plans and as such she had decided to adhere to his mischievous secrecy too. Smiling, Persephone thought of a way to side-track conversation.

“So, ye’re making a staff, ay? Be bloody cool if ye could actually cast spells wi it,” Persephone suggested, and Tegyd laughed.

“Haha! Would be. You know any wandmakers what’ll take my silly costume piece on short notice?” Tegyd snickered sarcastically, finishing off a seam by lifting the machine’s foot with the needle still down, turning the fabric around, and sewing the other way for a bit before she repeated the process again. Persephone blinked. She did, actually. Frowning, she looked at Alpin.

Alpin, midway through pinning a hem into place on Vanya’s dress, noticed her staring and looked back at her.

“Alpin? How long’s it take for ye to make a wand?” Persephone asked. Alpin had, in fact, made his own wand along with some other practice versions. Alpin frowned.

“Depends,” he shrugged. He sat back, thinking. “I think I could put together a working staff in time. It might be a bit stubborn, but it shouldn’t be difficult,” Alpin mused. Tegyd shifted, her ears moving forward.

“You can make staffs?” Tegyd asked, her eyebrows raised. Alpin nodded, humming matter-of-factly.

“Yeah. It’s basically the same as making a wand, the size is actually more like a trend,” Alpin told them. “Staves used to be quite fashionable, they’re just not as precise. And, the Statute, they’re harder to hide. Hobbyist wandmakers these days are starting to make shorter and shorter wands to fit them in pockets,” he said brightly, before he frowned. “What sort of wood are you thinking of using? My Dad told me once that fennel is a popular wand wood in the Mediterranean, isn’t that because more people worship Greek gods like Dionysus there than they do here?” he asked, and Tegyd jumped, her ears shooting up as her eyes widened.

“Yes! Fennel’s actually what the thyrsus is made of,” Tegyd exclaimed. “Don’t know where to get it though,” she admitted. Alpin frowned.

“If we can’t find any we might be able to get some seeds and use magic to make them grow. Wouldn’t be as good a staff, but it might still work,” he mused. “I’ll have to ask Professor Longbottom, I don’t actually know how to do that.”

“Brilliant!” Persephone cried, panting eagerly. She was glad that image had popped into her head, it might actually have been plausible!

“Yeah! Um, what sort of core can you do? My wand’s a hippogriff feather, I reckon we can get some of that from Professor Weasley,” Tegyd asked, and Alpin nodded.

“That should work, yeah. When we’re done here, shall we go get my pole and then we’ll see about getting some fennel seeds?” Alpin suggested, and Tegyd nodded eagerly. As the pair sewed, Alpin the new hem onto Vanya’s dress and Tegyd some more pieces of the bodice of her dress - which she tried on quickly, worrying it’d be too tight in the bust but thankfully finding her fears unfounded, it seemed to drape nicely over her figure - the pair of them animatedly discussed what Tegyd needed for her costume and how Alpin might make it. Once Alpin had finished sewing multicoloured ribbons onto the white fabric he’d bought with no seeming rhyme or reason, and once Tegyd had run out of pieces to sew together and declared she’d sew the skirt on another time, they put their fabric away and made a detour to Hufflepuff so Tegyd could put away her sewing machine, which Persephone had carried there since it was quite heavy to everyone but her, despite it allegedly being a portable three-quarters size model!

And then, hurrying so that they would get back before dinner, the three of them, conjuring umbrellas, headed out into the rain to search the outskirts of the Forest for a suitably long and straight branch for Alpin’s needs. It was then that Persephone’s familiarity with the woods, although she spent most of her time deeper in to it, came in handy - it only took ten minutes for her to guide them to a grove of aspen trees with branches Alpin declared suitable.

“Right then,” Tegyd said, hopping up on the damp roots and leaning on the trunk. Being the tallest of the three of them by a long way, she could actually reach the branch Alpin had selected. She got her wand out of her skirt pocket. “Sparassio,” she incanted, looking away as a burst of splinters accompanied the loud CRACK that had accompanied the larger-scale severing spell. The branch dropped, and Tegyd stripped off some twigs from it, which she gathered in her off hand. She set the branch on its end, which she cut off tidily using the same spell, beside Alpin to compare its length to his height. “How’s that?” she asked, biting off a mouthful of the yellow leaves on the twigs she’d taken off it, along with half the twigs themselves.

“Perfect,” Alpin said gladly, nodding at it with a big grin. “Just need to take the bark off,” he said, and Tegyd smiled back.

“I can do that, you’re doing my staff already,” Tegyd offered, and Alpin nodded gratefully. The three of them hurried back to the castle, Tegyd leaning on Alpin’s pole, and as they stepped up to the little building on one end of the bridge from the castle to the hill and the fields down it, Tegyd sat down along with the pole on the stone stairs. Persephone and Alpin frowned at her as she got out her wand again. “Lancifors.” With a flash, from the end of Tegyd’s wand sprouted a large knife blade. She set that blade against the pole and started sweeping it sharply down the length of the pole, taking off layers of bark in strips. “I’ve done this before, made myself a hiking pole at home. Gimme twenty minutes,” Tegyd said jauntily, grinning up at them with what Persephone thought was almost pride for her own resourcefulness.

“All right. I’ll go see where we might get some fennel seeds, okay?” Alpin suggested, and Tegyd nodded heartily. “See you at dinner! Wela i ti wedyn!”² he said brightly, and Tegyd waved to them as they headed off along the covered bridge, with their plans truly beginning to flourish and form.

--

Chapter Text

With only a week and a half until the costume contest, the slightest of excited buzzes was building among the students of Hogwarts at lunchtime on Wednesday when Persephone and Vanya departed Arithmancy and headed to the Great Hall for lunch. It wasn’t the biggest event of the year, of course not, but there was a fun lilt to the occasional chatter Persephone caught regarding designs and ideas. One or two students were even making things where they sat in the corridors and halls of the castle, putting together beads or sewing buttons onto things. And of course, Persephone felt the approach of the next week and eventually the competition in her very bones - the full moon was but five nights away, and the Friday of the competition would be the final night of that cycle.

Plus, the weather forecasts reckoned there’d be snow over the Highlands at around the right time. So there was that to look forward to as well as the costume contest.

“What’s Alpin up to over there?” Vanya asked Persephone as they walked into the Great Hall with Tabitha, Aubrey, and Summer, nodding across to where Alpin was talking with Professor Longbottom at the side of the Hall. Persephone tilted her head slightly.

“Oh, that’ll be for Tegyd’s thing. He’s figurin’ out if he can make her a staff wi some fennel if they grow it fast, if no they’ll probably just get a big stick out the woods,” Persephone explained, smiling. She almost wished she’d made her own wand, it was already quite distinctly hers thanks to having a core of her own fur but Alpin had gotten some beech wood from near his family’s tower, some hair from a kelpie his family had nursed back to health, and fashioned his own.

“Wait, is he making her a staff like, a staff that works as a wand?” Tabitha asked incredulously. Persephone nodded gleefully, and Tabitha’s mouth fell open. “Woah!”

“Don’t tell nobody, we want it a surprise for her to show it off,” Persephone said quickly. “It’s gonna be great,” she added.

“I think it’s really cool Alpin can make wands, that’s so amazing,” Aubrey marvelled as they headed over and Persephone and Vanya greeted Dominique as they sat down, as well as Tegyd. Tegyd was sitting opposite Dominique, and Persephone sat down beside her but left a large gap for the spot that was obviously being saved for Alpin seeing as his bag was there. “We don’t really get that in America, nobody makes their own wand,” she said.

“You don’t?” Summer asked curiously, and Aubrey shook her head.

“No! At home we just have a bunch of companies that make them, and they’re basically all the same,” Aubrey explained brightly. “Mom was so surprised when we went to Ollivander’s for mine, she thought it was so cute,” she added, and Persephone laughed.

“We are a wee bit smaller,” Persephone pointed out.

“I know, but I mean, it’s so much nicer here! Back home they all look the same, and the cheap ones aren’t even that good,” Aubrey said. “On Mom’s one, you can take the cap right off the end and see the core in it!” she exclaimed, just as Alpin got back to the bench with a groan.

“Oh god, what kind of crimes against wand-making are you talking about Aubrey?” Alpin asked bewilderedly as he sat down. “It’ll be fine, we’ll just need to make sure we need to give it a few hours,” he told Tegyd, who nodded and showed him her phone. Persephone glanced across him at the flickering - well, not really, Chiara had explained that Persephone’s eyes probably had a higher ‘critical flicker frequency,’ and Dominique was the same, humans couldn’t see it flickering - screen and the horticulture website Tegyd had open. “Apparently it’s not a question of whether or not you can make a wand with it, it’s a question of how strong the wood will be, if we do it too quick it’ll be really fragile,” he explained to her.

“Right, that makes sense,” Tegyd supposed. “Let’s see… fennel seeds, here we go. Two pound fifty, no less than fifty seeds,” she said, and Dominique squawked amusedly.

“You can’t need that many, can you?” Dominique laughed. Tegyd snorted.

“Well, no, but it’s not like it matters,” she admitted, tapping things on her phone. “Right um…” She frowned, as her ears shifted up. “What are we supposed to put as the address? I can’t just put Hogwarts can I?” Tegyd pointed out, looking to them all to see if they knew. Aubrey and Summer shrugged.

“Er, Aunty Ariadne might know?” Persephone suggested.

“Yeah, how do people get Muggle post to Hogsmeade? There must be a way to do it,” Dominique agreed, and Tegyd nodded. Vanya paused.

“Yeah, I think I might have heard of it? Something about the train, maybe you’ve got to send it to Diagon Alley or something,” Vanya said, half-remembering something Mr. Marshal might have once said around her.

“But how do you do that?!” Summer cracked up, and Vanya shrugged as she fetched Puss some lunch in the form of some ham.

“I’ll go find Professor Granger and ask her, yeah,” Tegyd chuckled, getting up and taking a banana from the nearest fruit bowl as she went, making everyone grimace as she bit off the end without peeling it.

“Are you really making her a working wand staff for her costume Alpin?” Aubrey asked eagerly, and Alpin nodded. “God I wish I’d thought of that, that’s so cool! I didn’t even realise you could just make a wand until we came here,” she admitted.

“It’s not actually that difficult. The hard bit is making a wand that will work well with you,” Alpin said simply, making himself a cup of tea from the available jugs of hot water, milk, and the teabags. Dominique nodded and got out her own wand.

“Maman¹ and I made mine with one of my feathers in it!” Dominique told her, and Aubrey jumped halfway through unscrewing the lid from the cream Madam Pomfrey had given her for her eczema, gaping at her.

“Wait, you made your own too?!” Aubrey exclaimed.

“All your family did, right?” Summer pointed out, and Dominique nodded. “How come you can make wands with like, Veela feathers and werewolf fur, but not like, human hair?” she asked.

“You can, actually, it’s just frowned upon,” Alpin replied simply, taking a sip from his mug of tea. Persephone, not having known that, made a face. Alpin scoffed at her. “Your wand has your own fur in it,” he pointed out amusedly.

“Ay but- that’s different, that’s just creepy,” Persephone spluttered.

“How?” Alpin retorted with an amused smile.

“A-” Persephone began, before the others laughed at her falling silent. “Mine’ll no work for nobody else, d’ye ken² if that would?” she asked. At that, Alpin actually frowned, while Persephone beamed at the approach of one of her uncles. One carrying quite a large box and walking toward them.

“I’m not actually sure-”

“Mister Faughn.”

“Professor Weasley!” Alpin jumped, spinning back to him.

“Uncle Charlie!” Persephone and Dominique both called almost at the same instant.

“Afternoon ‘Seph, Dom. One favour for you Faughn, free of charge,” Charlie said jauntily, offering Alpin the big cardboard box. “Hope it’s actually what you wanted and I didn’t misunderstand your Welsh,” he chuckled, and Persephone snorted. Smiling, Alpin took the box gingerly and very slightly lifted the lid to peer inside. Persephone did the same, panting softly, and grinned. It was exactly what Alpin had needed, and frankly Persephone was surprised at its condition given who Alpin was getting it from. She’d half expected it to be, well… fresher. Alpin smiled. Summer, Tabitha, Aubrey, Dominique and Vanya all tried to figure out if they could see into the box, while Tegyd, who’d just gotten back, used her abnormal height to peer over Charlie’s shoulder just before Alpin closed the lid. She almost fell over doing so, straightening her legs to gain the same effect as standing on one’s toes, only to be quickly humbled by the reality of hooved legs not having a great enough surface area to allow her to fully straighten up for more than about three milliseconds.

“Woah, you all right Miss Humphries?” Charlie asked, grabbing her arm to stop her from falling over. Hurriedly, Tegyd sat down.

“Yep, I’m fine Professor,” Tegyd said. “Just my legs. What’s that you’ve got there?” she asked Alpin smartly, though Dominique got the impression by the way her ears shifted and the look in her eyes that she’d actually seen into the box and was more trying to see what he’d tell everyone else.

“You’ll see next Friday. Thank you very much Professor!” Alpin said gladly, nodding to Charlie gratefully.

“No problem. Afternoon all,” Charlie said, before he headed back the way he’d come. “Nice work in class today Miss Morgan, Miss Paddison,” he added to Addison and Brenda as he walked past them as they were on their way to sit down.

“What’s in the box, you think?” Aubrey asked Summer conspiratorially beneath her breath as she applied some cream to her eyelid behind her glasses - Persephone could of course hear her.

“What would you even get from Professor Weasley?” Summer asked bewilderedly, shaking her head. Dominique leaned over.

“Maybe it’s a skeleton!” Dominique suggested eagerly, her hawkish beak hanging open in an avian grin, only for both of them to cringe at the box in disgust. “Skeletons are Halloween-ey, right?” she asked.

“I mean, yeah, but can’t you just buy a normal fake skeleton?” Aubrey pointed out.

“I didn’t see any fake skeletons down Hogsmeade,” Summer disagreed, before she made a face. “A few real ones, but those were really expensive.”

“What’s Faughn got in the box?” Addison asked curiously as she and Brenda sat down beside Dominique, peering down the table to him as they fetched some lunch in the form of sandwiches. Brenda scritched Puss’ ears on the way.

“Dunno, Professor Weasley gave it to him. Dominique reckons it might be an animal skeleton,” Vanya replied, still watching the box even as she ate a spoonful of the thick yoghurt mixed with blood she had for lunch that day. Alpin laughed to himself, shaking his head with a jovial smile.

“You’ll all find out next Friday,” he said simply, putting the box under the table. “What did Professor Granger say?” Alpin asked Tegyd, who was already fiddling about on her phone again.

“It’s the Leaky Cauldron’s address, you send it there with the business name ‘Hog’s Meadery’ and they’ll send it on the train from Platform 9 ¾ the next morning,” Tegyd told him, and Vanya nodded, humming through her yoghurt. That sounded familiar. “Apparently the instructions and the address and everything are on the school wifi somewhere when you log in,” she mumbled, navigating to it on her phone.

“Well ‘at’s good,” Persephone said, through a mouthful of roast beef sandwich. “A reckon A’ll get started on my potions this afternoon. Any later and A’ll no be up to it!” she chuckled dryly

“Hey Caoimhe, Bonnie! Oh yeah, when’s the full moon again?” Summer asked, waving to Caoimhe and Bonnie as they arrived from Study of Ancient Runes and sat down nearby.

“Monday,” Persephone replied, still with her mouth full. Alpin raised an eyebrow at her, his usual mirth at her grubby antics on full display. Despite her title and the golden brooch on her pinafore dress even then, she could have terrible table manners. “Contest’s on the last night o it,” she added.

“Oh that’s rotten luck for you,” Bonnie grumbled. “You’d think Professor Granger wouldn’t put it on that day, guess they just didn’t want to do it on a weekend maybe,” she supposed, and Persephone nodded. She hadn’t asked, but it made sense.

“Hmm. Might go transform early honestly, moon should be up afore³ dinner A think,” Persephone mused. “Go as a wolf.” It was certainly more appealing, the costume contest was bound to be a more noisy event than usual and once she transformed the headache went away. Speaking of noisy events, Persephone looked up with a frown as someone began singing the birthday song further up the table.

“Whose birthday?” Vanya asked. Dominique glanced down the table to figure out who looked most embarrassed, and her avian eyes immediately locked onto a round face with blonde hair in a ponytail.

“Oh, it’s Sarah’s birthday!” Dominique chirped, and Persephone made a noise as if she’d forgotten. Sarah Twendele was the daughter of their Aunt Ariadne’s cousin Dudley, and indeed it was her twelfth birthday that day. “Happy birthday Sarah!” Dominique called out, waving, and Persephone added a howl to it as she waved as well. Sarah waved back at them, despite her evident embarrassment at having her birthday made open.

“Good for her,” Persephone said, before she glanced over as Tegyd tapped a button on her phone and smiled.

“Right! Fifty fennel seeds on their way,” Tegyd announced brightly.

--

Come Friday evening, the seeds had arrived, and, on Saturday morning, Tegyd had taken a trip down to the Hogsmeade Post Office to pick up her package. It hadn’t been a big package, but it had been full of tantalising potential when she’d arrived back in the Common Room. Blodwen had graciously lent them her bed of loam to grow the fennel in, and Professor Longbottom had the night before supplied Tegyd and Alpin with some instructions and some kind of magical rapid-growth compound. Also instructions on how to get rid of it again afterward so they didn’t poison Blodwen with it. And Persephone and Dominique had watched, curiously, as the pair got to work.

A few hours later, as instructed by Professor Longbottom to ensure the wood wouldn’t just snap, the lot of them were frowning at the results.

“Right…” Tegyd drawled, leaning on Blodwen as she peered at the fennel bush. “How are you making a staff out of this Alpin?” she asked. Indeed, there wasn’t really anything that could even suggest such a thing was possible about the fruit of their labours, or rather the herb of their labours. It was a decently tall bush, but definitely not tall enough, and none of the stalks looked thick enough to be any good either - indeed, the tallest ones weren’t even straight. It sprouted from a bulb at the bottom in stalks with a hairy kind of thread-like frond as its leaves, all topped with a garland of sprouts of little yellow flowers in bursts like fireworks. A few people in the Common Room were watching them curiously, and passers-by had been regarding the rapidly growing plant with bemusement all day.

Persephone, lying on the sofa, snorted.

“Well that’s no gonna work!” she laughed.

“No,” Alpin agreed confusedly, putting his hands on his hips. Since he had, apparently, finished work on his costume, he’d taken the opportunity to finish off his blue pea coat, which he was testing out that day. It actually suited him pretty well, Persephone thought - it seemed a little more permanent, hardier, than his usual thinner robes. Besides, she thought she’d have been hard-pressed to find any man who didn’t look good in a bespoke coat. It was a little big for him, but he’d done that to make sure he could grow into it a little. He was, after all, a month off being thirteen, growth spurts were sure to strike in his future. “You’re sure they didn’t give you the wrong seeds?” he asked, stepping over to Tegyd.

“Nope. This is fennel, foeniculum vulgare,” Tegyd replied, getting the packet she’d sealed again with a Sticking Charm out of her pocket.

“Smells nice at least,” Persephone remarked. The plant had a pleasant sweet smell to it that was gently permeating the Common Room.

“Well sure, but it’s not what we wanted, is it?” Tegyd grumbled.

“Are you sure fennel’s what you were looking for?” Dominique asked, getting up off her chair.

“Yes, perhaps there are multiple varieties of fennel and this is the wrong one?” Blodwen agreed, pointing a woody finger toward Dominique as a few leaves fell off her branches. “Or perhaps the name has changed since antiquity and fennel means a different plant now?” she suggested.

“Maybe,” Tegyd admitted, getting her phone back out. “‘Cos your Dad said fennel was popular as a wand wood in the Mediterranean, but I don’t see how you get a wand out of that either,” she said, nodding at Alpin, who hummed wryly.

“I’ll text my Dad,” Alpin decided, fetching his phone from an inside pocket he’d sewn into the coat. He seemed pretty happy with the coat, he’d been putting lots of things and not just his phone into its pockets. Knick-knacks, his Swiss army knife, multiple of his wands, all sorts.

“What are you going to do with this?” Dominique squawked mirthfully, cackling at the sight of the useless bush in the loam bed. Tegyd shrugged and broke a stem off, and ate it. “Good?” she asked. Tegyd nodded.

“Yeah, not bad. Bit liquorice-y,” Tegyd replied through it. “Um, shall we compost this for you Blod?” she asked, turning to the big Dryad to whom the loam belonged.

“That would be very nice thank you,” Blodwen replied with a smile. Dominique frowned as she tried to figure out the ethics and morality of a tree effectively eating other plants, before she remembered the time when Blodwen had reminded her that she herself ate chicken, and if anything she was probably more closely related to the chicken than Blodwen was to most trees. “You may like to eat the bulb,” she added, pointing to the central heart of the plant.

“Oh true,” Tegyd said, before she put her phone back and began tearing apart the herbal bush, eating bits of it as she went, and broke it up until she was nibbling on the bulb while Alpin absent-mindedly tramped down the cut-up stalks so they’d lie flat in the loam pit, checking his phone.

Alpin stopped with a groan.

“What is it?” Persephone asked.

“Giant fennel,” Alpin grumbled. “Different plant, ferula communis,” he said, stepping over - kicking the dirt off his shoes and back into the shallow bed as he did - to show Tegyd something on his phone.

“Bollocks,” Tegyd spat, her ears shifting back. “Right, let’s see if they’ve got giant fennel seeds,” she said, getting her own phone back out even as she ate the fennel bulb like it was an apple. Alpin jumped.

“Oh, don’t eat any of the giant fennel, says here it can be poisonous to sheep, goats, cattle, and horses,” he added quickly, and Tegyd nodded. Dominique’s feathers shivered as she stared at the bulb Tegyd was eating.

“What about this one?” Dominique asked urgently. Tegyd shook her head.

“Nah, this one’s fine. I checked,” she assured Dominique, before she sniffed amusedly. Dominique nodded - she supposed it made sense Tegyd would have checked, even if they’d been able to get a staff out of the little fennel plant they’d have had to get rid of the rest of it somehow, and down the hatch wasn’t a bad option. Arts, crafts, and lunch. “Everyone thinks we’re supposed to be able to eat anything, us goats, but it turns out no,” Tegyd chuckled. “Right, I’ll order some giant fennel seeds. Hopefully you’ll have enough time to make this Alpin,” she said, and Alpin hummed wryly.

“Hmmm. This is going to be a rush job, I think,” Alpin agreed, looking up as the door opened. Dominique, however, already knew who was coming and had turned to see before the door had even done so, because she could feel Vanya fairly easily. Vanya hopped in through the circular door, pretty thickly bundled in warm clothes. It wasn’t as cold as it had been the last weekend, but it was still hardly the ideal temperature for a vampire. “Shwmae⁴ Vanya. Where’ve you been?” he asked.

“Hogsmeade!” Vanya replied, before she looked over the scene. “What’re you lot up to?” she asked.

“Growing the wrong kind of fennel,” Tegyd replied grumpily. “Need to order the giant one instead,” she said.

“Oh, sorry,” Vanya said sympathetically. “Um, Alpin?”

“Mhmm?” the boy hummed with a smile.

“Can you help me with something?” she asked, reaching into her bag to produce a small amount of tartan fabric she’d bought from Castleside Mill with the very last of her pocket money. “I need to make a sash for my cheese out of this,” she said, and Alpin immediately snorted.

“You-” Alpin scoffed, hissing with laughter. “Say that again?” he pleaded.

“I need to make a sash for my cheese,” Vanya repeated, giving him as stern a look as an eternal eight-year-old could. Alpin, still laughing, nodded.

“Oh, you’re doing Tiffany for Halloween? Making a Horace are you?” Tegyd asked eagerly, and Vanya nodded reluctantly. Why did she have to pick something Persephone and Tegyd both knew even just from vague description? Though, she had to admit, a cheese wearing a tartan sash wasn’t the most subtle of clues. “Tidy!” Tegyd remarked, nodding to her with a beaming smile, her teeth still with bits of fennel in them.

“O-okay, where’s the cheese? How big is it?” Alpin asked shakily, still laughing. Vanya held her hands out a bit to mime it. It was actually quite a big wheel of cheese. And she couldn’t even give it to Persephone to devour afterward, because the stuff in blue cheese was bad for werewolves!

“Yay big. Slytherin Common, I stuck it in a locked box in the fridge,” Vanya replied, and Alpin nodded.

“Okay, I’ll come measure it. Where did I put my tape measure…” he murmured to himself, patting the several pockets of his new coat before he found it.

“In’t a sash just that if ye sewed it together at the ends?” Persephone asked, pointing at the long bit of tartan in Vanya’s hands. Alpin shook his head.

“Not if you want it to look right. Back in a bit, got to measure a cheese for a sash!” Alpin chuckled, before he followed Vanya out of the Hufflepuff Common Room again. Persephone licked her nose and rolled back over on the sofa. Halloween was coming along nicely, with her potions done and waiting, Tegyd’s staff hopefully to be done on time, Vanya’s Tiffany costume receiving its finishing touches, and Alpin’s costume complete. A nap was well-earnt, she thought.

--

Chapter Text

“Well no, it’s more complicated than that,” Pisces said, after Persephone had, tired and through the kind of loopy thought processes available to most only at midnight or by the use of psychoactive substances, suggested that it must have been convenient for merpeople that they were basically always taking a bath - and the same for Cetus and Pisces, who literally slept in bathtubs full of water. “You can’t put soap in it, we’re breathing it. Though, we are kept clean, just not by the water,” they said, and Cetus nodded.

“We have a mucous layer keeping stuff from reaching our skin. Though ours is thinner than most merfolk’s,” Cetus explained, holding up their hand to the light to show how it shone, slightly moist.

“Mucous?” Sue asked, making a face.

“Oh ay, A forgot about that,” Persephone admitted, scrunching up her nose for a moment. That day was the final night before the full moon tomorrow evening on Monday, so she wasn’t really at her best. She had a headache, every single one of her joints was stiff including her jaw, and she was wondering if it might have been better for her to skip the Club that day and just have a nap.

“It works very well underwater,” Cetus shrugged.

“It’s not as good for our worksheets,” Pisces giggled, making a face as half the Club groaned at that image. Dominique squawked in revulsion at the idea of the paper pages of their books getting all mushy, and wondered how they could possibly have been using them. Thankfully, her Aunt Ariadne supplied that answer.

“I did-I di-I did notice that-that your books were enchanted,” Ariadne said amusedly, and Pisces nodded.

“Mother did that,” Cetus replied. “But whenever you give us homework…” they said, trailing off as Professor Granger nodded sagely.

“I no-I noticed the ink running when I charmed it as well,” she admitted, before she scoffed. “I-I’m-I’m sure we’ve-we’ve got a laminator around here somewhere, if you’ve got some markers that might go a bit better,” she chuckled. At the topic, however, Ariadne frowned. “I wonder, do you two know if you’ve got a stratum corneum? You mentioned your mucous layer being thinner Cetus,” she asked curiously. Cetus and Pisces exchanged a look.

“What’s a stratum corneum, Professor?” Pisces asked. Persephone snorted and Dominique squawked a laugh as their Aunt scoffed and hung her head at the reminder that not everyone was a biologist nerd. “Is it a skin thing?” they added, and Professor Granger nodded. Vanya nodded too, remembering the word from her shapeshifting lessons with the Professor and Jason.

“Yeah, outermost layer of the… epidermis, isn’t it?” Vanya posited, and Professor Granger smiled.

“Exactly right Miss Stryde, nic-ni-ni-nice remembering!” she said. “Ten points to Slytherin. Yes, it’s what Vanya just said. It per-it performs much the same role as your mucous layer. I just thought, with your mucous layer being thin, it might help against skin infections,” Professor Granger explained, and again the pair frowned to themselves.

“I don’t know, but we do sometimes get skin infections, Professor. So maybe we don’t,” Cetus said with a shrug, before they smiled at Pisces. “I wondered why that was!” they exclaimed.

“You learn something new every day,” Sværri chirped brightly, and the pair nodded at that. “Speaking of learning things, Sue,” he said, and Sue perked up curiously from where she was eating a small size vegan pizza Professor Granger had supplied. “I never really got around to asking Thelan, how do centaurs sleep? I know Tegyd’s pillow thing for her horns, but you’re a full caprid centaur, how does it work with your back being that shape?” he asked curiously. The pillow thing referred of course to the way Tegyd put her pillows in a portrait orientation instead of the normal landscape so her horns would fall on either side of it while she rested her head on the pillows themselves as opposed to on her curled-back horns, which apparently put a lot of strain on her skull.

“Oh! Well, we can just sleep like this,” Sue explained, shrugging at her own present posture where she was sitting with her legs mostly under herself and her humanoid torso sitting up, and Tegyd nodded at that knowingly. “Sometimes your back hurts though, so Professor Johnson built me a shelf thing that I can like, lean on,” she said, referring to the Woodworking teacher. She got up and pulled up an unused chair and leant her torso on the back of it as a demonstration.

“Ay, A think A’ve seen stuff like it wi the.. horse ones,” Persephone said, forgetting the actual term which was equine, but remembering seeing similar structures carried by the semi-nomadic centaurs on the other side of the Forest when she’d come along with her Ma visiting them once.

“Yeah, we just don’t have much wood at home to make that stuff out of,” Tegyd noted, shrugging. “Not really many trees. There’s some a mile or two away, but they’re conifer plantations so we’re not allowed to touch those. Fforest Fawr isn’t actually a real forest, it’s a… whatchamacallit, King owns it kind of ‘forest’ like Dartmoor is, it’s how it got a wizarding reservation in it,” she said, putting up finger quotes around the word forest, and Persephone sagged. She’d imagined Pen ôl y Ddraig with trees, having not actually been there, trees they could use. “Just a lot of grass and rocks,” Tegyd remarked, killing that illusion as she took a bite of her pizza.

“Is it nice in Pen ôl y Ddraig?” Pisces asked. “What’s there to do there?” they added.

“It’s not that bad! Big families though, so there’s a lot of us,” Sue replied eagerly. “Most of us are caprids so we can eat the grass, but there’s lots of elves too! So we help sometimes with growing some veges, potatoes and carrots and stuff,” she listed out, and several of the club, including Dominique and Persephone and Vanya, frowned at the almost peasant-like lifestyle Sue was describing.

“We do have to be a bit self-sufficient,” Tegyd admitted. “Not much money to go around, Mum’s basically been the only one putting any into the place as long as I’ve been alive. ‘Course, it’s illegal to now but people still discriminate against centaurs, especially goat centaurs, so there’s not very many of them have jobs. Most of them that do are working at the Catapults’ stadium or with the dragons. Family of elves, the Middlebrooks, they’ve started running a bit of a community grocer out of the post office a few years ago, and the post office is really just an old house we picked,” she told them. Increasingly, Persephone’s previously quiet guilt complex over her privileged upbringing was flaring back to life - the picture Tegyd was painting of her home was downright medieval. “But it’ll be nice when your Mum finally gets us some power lines Persephone! Might put us on the map a bit more. I think a lot of the Quidditch fans don’t realise we’re actually a town,” she said amusedly, though Sue and Tegyd were largely alone in their cheerfulness about the matter. Cheerfulness that, Dominique thought, was a little artificial in Tegyd’s manner, given the way she glanced at Sue. It certainly wasn’t in line with how Tegyd had spoken before; Tegyd had always been very bitter about her confinement to such places, but perhaps she didn’t want Sue to feel the same way - if Tegyd was trapped for her horns, ears, and legs, Sue was even more so.

“It’s nowhere near as nice as Diagon Alley though. I’d never been before we went to get my wand, it’s amazing there!” Sue marvelled, smiling widely. Vanya’s smile was more weak; she was reminded of Catherine, a Muggle girl who’d been cursed and then effectively cured of her curse by becoming a werewolf at Persephone’s suggestion, and her innocent wonderment at Hogwarts. She wondered how long Sue’s amazement would last before it gave way to a jadedness similar to Tegyd’s, now that she had, like Tegyd, been given a taste of what she was missing. “And Hogsmeade!” Sue exclaimed. “Mum had us Portkeyed up here since I can’t take the train, Hogsmeade’s so great!” she cried, her ears shifting gladly.

“Yeah, I might want to live in Hogsmeade one day,” Tegyd admitted softly, quietly enough that Persephone wasn’t sure if anyone else had heard it. Dominique did too, since she was sitting quite close to Tegyd, and she had to give Tegyd a sympathetic look. Tegyd was proud of her caprid side and was fond of her herd, but at the same time she did long to leave the places she was kept in. Moving to a less bad place, even if it was still in her proverbial prison, must have been appealing regardless. Hogsmeade had a bustling high street, shops, plumbing, even electricity in parts, and a certain ease of life compared to Pen ôl y Ddraig, and nobody forgot it existed. “Pen ôl y Ddraig isn’t bad in the summer, when it’s not raining so much,” she said. “Sometimes I like to go hiking up Fan Gyhirych, it’s a bloody good view up there,” Tegyd sighed, but Dominique peered curiously at the slightly sheepish look in her eyes, the way her ears twitched back slightly.

“Is Fan Gyhirych actually in the reservation?” Dominique asked shrewdly, butchering the pronunciation. She was guessing that Fan Gyhirych was a mountain given how she’d heard the Bannau Brycheiniog region described. Tegyd swallowed and looked around.

“Um. No…” Tegyd admitted sheepishly, and half the Club pretended to be aghast as they gasped, while Blodwen chuckled softly. Clearly, Blodwen knew about these trips. “But it’s not that far out!” the satyress insisted, her ears shifting back further. “It’s only a couple miles! And I can run really fast if I want to ‘cos my legs are so long, if there are any Muggle hikers who might see me I can just run back!” she insisted as laughs pattered about the Club, while Professor Granger just gave her a chiding look. She couldn’t take points or anything for it, it was outside of school, but it was a bit illegal.

“Hahaha!” Sværri laughed. Vanya too had to snicker slightly, smiling. She knew how stifling the Statute of Secrecy could be in her own way, and she had to appreciate Tegyd’s little hiking rebellions. “Well you did say you wanted to climb Mount Everest some day,” he said. Tegyd shrugged.

“Gotta start somewhere. And the reservation’s tiny, even the bit on the side of Fan Gyhirych, Fan Fraith, isn’t in it,” Tegyd grumbled. Dominique would have wondered how the dragon sanctuary fit inside its bounds, if Uncle Charlie hadn’t worked there previously and once told her about how it consisted of a massive extension to the caves of an old coal mine. It didn’t sound like the best deal for the dragons, living underground, but she supposed that people weren’t the only things that suffered under the Statute. In the lull, as Tegyd finished off her own miniature pizza, Gylfi Dalin - one of the Goblins, who was a third-year student in Gryffindor - piped up.

“So, what’s everyone doing for Halloween?” Gylfi asked curiously, clapping his spindly hands on his knees. “Goblins don’t usually celebrate it, but I’m looking forward to it,” he said with a big grin.

“Oh, what are you sewing?” Vanya asked as she remembered the hobby Gylfi shared with Alpin.

“Nothing special, just a bat costume,” Gylfi said humbly. “The wings are going to be very fun, very swooshy,” he added, delight filling his smile. “What about you all?” he asked, leaning forward to look about at them all.

“Well, we’re not doing anything,” Cedar said, his yawning voice gravelly as Dominique span to see him, abruptly reminded he was there. She hadn’t been certain he was even awake! “Full moon night,” he explained, and Rowan hummed ruefully.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Ariadne apologised.

“I’m not doing anything either,” Wulfwynn mumbled, shrugging about it from where she was sitting on the edge of the group. Vanya nodded - she would have had absolutely no trouble buying a costume were she just buying one, a glut of them existed for people her size, but Wulfwynn? There was certainly not going to be anything available to her without spending quite a bit of money or making it herself. And if, as she’d told Persephone on Monday, Tegyd had to get extra material to make skirts proportionally long enough for herself, a half-Giant would need heaps. No wonder she wasn’t particularly confident in herself, Dominique supposed.

“I wonder if I could do a tiny horse,” Sue mused, inciting a hearty laugh from them all.

“Ay, wi one o those funny horse head costumes,” Persephone coughed, her dry throat demanding recompense for the laughter regardless of her mirth. She took a sip from the glass of water she’d been given as Sue tilted her head at her, her ears moving about confusedly.

“Horse head costumes?” Sue asked. Persephone shook her head.

“Ask Sarah, she’ll show ye on her phone,” Persephone told Sue, who nodded. “Who all’s actually doing a costume? ‘Cos A’m no, A’m just doing a fur potion and a tail potion. Already a werewolf,” she shrugged, and the lot of them exchanged a few looks before only Tegyd, Vanya, Gylfi, and Persephone herself slowly put up their hands, Persephone only halfway. Professor Granger raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Blimey, near none o us?” Persephone marvelled.

“We’re already fish people. What are we going to dress up as?” Cetus shrugged.

“Yeah, and we’re already goblins,” Valbjǫrn agreed, and his twin brother Ráðugr nodded wryly. “What else do people dress up as, superheroes?” he asked rhetorically.

“Witches?” Vanya suggested, only for Victoire to squawk with laughter.

“We’re already witches too!”  Victoire exclaimed.

“Well yeah, but I’m doing a specific witch,” Vanya protested.

“Oh? Who?” Pisces asked with an earnest smile full of teeth.

“Tiffany Aching.”

“Who’s she?”

“She’s from a Terry Pratchett book Persephone gave me,” Vanya explained simply, noting Professor Granger’s approving smile. “Could do some famous witch?” she suggested to Victoire, who clacked her beak amusedly.

“Our family knows a lot of them, or just are them, it’d be really awkward,” Victoire pointed out.

“I’m just hoping no-one dresses up as me,” Professor Granger admitted quietly, a wry curl to her lips.

“They probably won’t,” Dominique assured her hopefully. “It’d be really awkward to dress up as your own teacher, right?” she pointed out, and a few of them nodded. Her Aunt was probably all right. Dominique sighed. “Everyone else has such good ideas, I don’t know what I could do really. We’ve never done Halloween,” she said, nodding to Victoire as she did. She had caught some of their schoolmates’ costume ideas, and it was really quite intimidating; dinosaurs, animals, movie characters, historical figures both magical and non. All sorts. How could she compete with that? Plus, she couldn’t think of anything she could pull off, neither something that would work with her avian form nor with her white-haired human form.

“Yeah, that’d be really uncomfortable,” Sværri agreed. “What are you dressing up as Tegyd?” he asked, making Tegyd almost jump.

“Oh, um, a Maenad. That’s a priestess of Dionysus,” Tegyd replied quickly. Sue scoffed.

“So, yourself,” Sue chuckled.

“No, I’m doing a white dress and a staff Alpin’s making,” Tegyd disagreed. Beside Sue, Cetus and Pisces frowned curiously at them.

“Oh, Tegyd worships Dionysus and Pan. Greek gods,” Sue explained to them cheerfully, and Tegyd nodded a little awkwardly.

“Really? I didn’t know anyone still did that,” Cetus said, cheerfully, but certainly in the way of someone who was surprised by the concept. Persephone sat up a bit.

“Ay, Circe and… Hecate A think it is are a wee bit more popular wi wizards in the Mediterranean,” Persephone said, half-remembering what Alpin had once said about it.

“Yeah, they’re both to do with magic,” Tegyd noted.

“So, is it every Greek god, or just those two? Isn’t there stuff like Zeus going around raping women?” Wulfwynn asked, her face a frown through the tangled black hair she usually let it sit behind. Tegyd’s ears shifted back a little as if she’d thought it a little rude, but she did answer the question.

“I mean, when the time calls for it. And y’know, of course Zeus does that. He’s a king. That’s what kings do,” Tegyd said, seemingly a little reluctantly. “The name Prince Andrew mean nothing to you?” she added smartly, making Persephone genuinely start coughing in mirth as Dominique squawked and Wulfwynn burst out in a wheezing laugh with a conceding sort of nod. Even Professor Granger suppressed a laugh that briefly escaped her mouth. Not everyone got it though, Sue got it while Cetus and Pisces didn’t, and nor did the Goblins. Obviously, the details of British royal politics weren’t necessarily on the minds of Goblins, who were usually doubly insulated from it by the Statute and then a certain distance from a human-centric wizarding world. “I just focus on Dionysus and Pan. I’m a satyress, they’re relevant to me,” she shrugged, looking into her lap a bit with a pensive expression. “I um, I don’t talk about it much. I know some people in the Mediterranean are doing it, but it’s not very common here. Mum said I should probably be careful, I already get shit for being what I am, let alone my religion being weird,” Tegyd admitted sheepishly. Professor Granger took a point from Hufflepuff for her language under her breath, but otherwise listened quietly.

“It’s fine,” Vanya assured her casually, shrugging. “I mean, look at us. Vampire, satyress, goblins, couple of werewolves, talking tree. It’s not that much more weird,” she noted amusedly, and Tegyd smiled gratefully.

“Yes. It mi-it might be unusual, but speaking as Deputy Headmistress I certainly won’t tolerate any bullying or misbehaviour toward you because of your beliefs,” Ariadne added to that. “On the part of the staff, you are more than welcome to practise your religion here at Hogwarts. Though, please don’t set anything on fire with any erm, offerings you might be making,” she told Tegyd, a little hesitantly as she seemed to work through whether or not she should even say it. Tegyd paused.

“Are candles okay?” Tegyd asked. “I um, I’ve got a few candles on my altar, for Hestia,” she explained. Persephone grimaced jovially at that being her little sister’s name. She suspected there could be some funny interactions between her and her little sister having the names of Greek goddesses, and having a friend who worshipped said goddesses.

“Yeah, ca-ca-cand-candles are fine, just nothing bigger please,” Ariadne replied.

“Thanks Professor,” Tegyd said, her smile growing.

“Your altar?” Sværri asked politely.

“Oh! Um, Mum really helped out there, she got me these nice little statues of Dionysus and Pan,” Tegyd replied, an eagerness filling her voice at the open ease she was being afforded as she mimed a height of about a half a foot tall for those statues. “I’ve got them on my table with a dish for libations and the candles, it’s all decorated with ivy, I’m really happy with it,” she said, beaming at them. “And Alpin’s making me a thyrsus, it’s a staff Dionysus and his priestesses carried. I might actually keep using that after Halloween, I could do with a walking stick,” Tegyd added, seeming to tack that last bit on as an afterthought.

“Because of your hooves?” Cetus asked, and Tegyd nodded.

“Yeah, I actually have to work a lot harder at balancing than you lot. You’d be surprised how much work human feet do just by having a bigger area,” Tegyd said, looking down at her legs. “It took me ages to learn how to walk as a kid,” she chuckled. “Mum didn’t just get me the statues, she got me a load of books on Greek mythology. I’m not a… mythic literalist, I think the word is, when you take it all literally, more like a…” she said, trailing off as she frowned thoughtfully. “Mythic close-enough-ist,” she sniffed amusedly.

“What’s that mean?” Cedar asked dryly, frowning.

“So, I don’t really think all the myths happened literally, but they’re the closest we’ve got. They’re what us little mortals say happened, so you’ve got to take it all with a grain of salt,” Tegyd shrugged. “Especially the later stuff like the Dionysiaca, the Romans loved having them invade everything,” she said wryly.

“Pfft, ye-yes, that one is mostly battles and armies. Rather dry reading, even for me,” Professor Granger scoffed.

“What’s the… Dionysus Aca?” Persephone asked confusedly, admittedly more than a little slow with the full moon so near.

“The Dionysiaca,” Tegyd corrected her. “Great big bloody epic poem about Dionysus but it was written by some bloke some point in Roman times called Nonnus. Got to take that one with a lot of salt,” she said.

“Wait, so…” Vanya said, thinking to herself. “What do you believe if you’re having to… sift through all of that?” she asked. It seemed like quite a task, especially given how they’d both described the Dionysiaca as an epic. Tegyd nodded, licking her lip as she thought to herself. The whole Club had, seemingly, decided to give Tegyd the proverbial stage, seeing as she hadn’t gotten to talk about it all much by her own words, and stayed quiet for her. Dominique listened with rapt attention once Tegyd spoke.

“Right. I see Pan as my heritage,” Tegyd explained, blinking a bit as she put things into words. “He’s a satyr like me, and he’s the god of the wilds, of nature. I mean, we were just talking about how like, Pen ôl y Ddraig isn’t exactly the picture of civilisation,” she continued, to nods from the Club. “There’s not much I can do, Statute and all, but I live in a National Park, Bannau Brycheiniog, I know how important stopping climate change and pollution and everything is. I’d love to climb Mount Everest, but right now people just don’t care about it, it’s covered in crap and rubbish!” she cried.

“Is it really?” Dominique asked, her voice a saddened croak of a chirp at that thought. Everyone knew about Mount Everest, but she’d never imagined it so sullied. Most didn’t. Tegyd nodded.

“Pan is nature. But… the great god Pan is dead. It’s on us to take care of nature now, and we’re not doing a very good job of it,” Tegyd said, and a sage nod rippled about the Club. Vanya in particular remembered all the talking about climate change at Muggle primary school - it was hardly a message that one needed to believe in Pan to take to heart. Though, it was a more prosaic question that followed Tegyd’s words.

“Hold on, he’s dead?” Cedar asked bewilderedly.

“Mhmm. The great god Pan is dead is part of the message a man named Thamus is said to have heard sailing to Italy,” Ariadne replied.

“A thought she were just bein’ dramatic,” Persephone quipped. Tegyd scoffed before she cleared her throat.

“Nah. But um… Dionysus had satyr followers, it’s like. If Pan is my heritage, Dionysus is my… he’s the way I want to go, my direction,” Tegyd said, again saying it slowly as if she was needing to put things she had merely felt but never put into spoken words into those very words. “He is the heir to Olympus-” Professor Granger frowned as if she wasn’t sure what bit of literature Tegyd was getting that from “-and he’s a liberator, he’s subversive. His cults in ancient times were like, all classes, all genders, freedom from the… rules society puts on us. He’s about freedom and rebirth, he’s about progress,” she listed, a growing smile on her face. “Dionysus is a force for the liberation of outcasts, like us nonhumans, like the LGBTQ community, like feminism. He’s not just the god of wine and theatre and stuff, he’s the god of alcohol because of the, like, freedom from inhibition thing,” Tegyd said, suspensefully but yet seriously. Vanya blinked, staring at Tegyd in surprise. Tegyd was so often such an irreverent person, yelling and grumbling at a world that didn’t give her room to be. But yet, quite suddenly, all that fervent lip was clothing itself instead in joy, in some kind of purpose and hope that Vanya hadn’t quite seen before. Under the presentation of Tegyd’s anger and bitterness was a shining conviction and principle. Dominique, having quite the same thought, squawked gladly as a realisation piqued her mind.

“Freedom from rules like the Statute of Secrecy!” she exclaimed, and Tegyd immediately beamed at her.

“Exactly! Him being god of sex, drugs, and rock and roll is just a perk,” Tegyd said with a nervous shrug, before making much of the Club snicker at that.

“That’s-tha-that-that’s qui-that’s qui-that’s quite beau-quite-... That’s quite beautiful, Miss Humphries,” Professor Granger said softly, her speech impediment catching on the words until she took a pause and restarted. “Re-re-returning to the subject of the staff, the uh, thyrsus, I think Professor Seong may wish to inspect it to make sure there aren’t any sharp splintery bits, but for the moment I believe it would be acceptable for you to carry it as a walking cane here,” she told Tegyd, who gasped softly, eyes widening. “As long as you’re comfortable carrying a symbol of your beliefs openly of course, I know you said you don’t like to talk about it too much,” she added. Tegyd nodded to herself.

“Tidy. Yeah, I’ll um.. I’ll think about it,” Tegyd said more quietly.

“Do, I think it’d be nice to-to.. see you a bit more open. But if you decide you’re not ready to, I can most definitely recommend some family friends who are quite good at making nice walking sticks,” Professor Granger assured her. Tegyd nodded gratefully, before Ariadne exhaled amusedly. “But liberative god of wine or no, you shan’t be allowed alcohol,” she said smartly and Tegyd wheezed a bleat of a giggle.

--

Chapter Text

Halloween had officially come.

Well, not really. Not officially. It was still Tuesday, the twenty-seventh. Halloween itself wasn’t until Saturday, with the contest on Friday. But the first great big pumpkin jack-o-lantern had been hung from the walls of the Great Hall and its candle lit. And it was this decoration, at the hand of Head Boy Kenneth Johnsey, that Vanya was peering at where she had sat down in the Great Hall with her books, most notably Enchanting Made Easy. She had work to do on finishing off her enchantment upon the wheel of blue cheese she’d bought, but she had to admit she wanted to have a look in the rest of the book too and see if there was anything fun she could do to a pumpkin or two.

Shaking her head, Vanya smiled to herself and got out the notes she was taking from Enchanting Made Easy’s instructional section on the basic following animation. The whole volume was mostly set out as a set of lessons, as if to accompany a teacher’s plan, so it was actually a very helpful book. And so, getting to work, it wasn’t long before some of her friends joined her.

“Hey Vanya!” Brenda said brightly, sitting down beside her, accompanied by Tabitha, Aubrey, Summer, and Alpin. Clearly, they’d come from Textiles.

“Ay up ducks,” Vanya replied, nodding to them all. “Persephone still having a nap?” she asked amusedly, and Summer nodded.

“Yeah. Right jealous like, wish we got to have a nap for our time of the month,” Summer snickered. Vanya frowned to herself, not certain of what Summer was talking about. “Where’s Dominique got to? Though she’d be hanging out with you,” she asked Vanya.

“Oh, she went flying with Seoyun and Addison after Tech,” Vanya replied. The three of them were taking advantage of the briefly improved weather they’d had that day, it was so much warmer than it had been recently that Vanya was wearing only one cardigan over her uniform! Still cold, but apparently it had briefly risen to a double-digit number of degrees. Plus, there had been plenty of warmth in Tech, what with all the soldering - they were nearing the end of that bit of the class, and getting to work on making their final electronic cards with flashing lights. It was bizarre to Vanya that they were nearing a quarter of the way through the school year already, and that they’d soon be moving to the computer room to do some basic game programming. It didn’t feel like it had been that long. Beside her, Brenda happily petted Puss, who contentedly flopped onto her side. “How was Textiles?” Vanya asked the five of them.

“Really good! We’re making our bags now, Alpin’s nearly done already,” Brenda replied, and Alpin smiled self-consciously. Brenda made a face. “I had to unpick mine ‘cos I accidentally sewed the front to the back all wrong,” she admitted, and Vanya snorted at her.

“Happens to all of us, I accidentally sewed the lining of my coat’s sleeve inside out last week and had to redo it,” Alpin assured her wryly. “I think we’re doing a cloak next, that should be nice,” he said, before he straightened up, looking down the table toward the doors. Vanya looked up, wondering what he was looking at, to see Tegyd hurrying along toward them. The boy smiled. “Shwmae¹ Tegyd, is it ready?” he asked, and Tegyd nodded eagerly.

“Yep! And it’s exactly what we were looking for!” Tegyd exclaimed, shifting a bit on her hooves.

“Ah! Excellent,” Alpin said, getting up again. “Shall we get to work?” he suggested, and Tegyd nodded yet again, her ears flapping against her horns audibly. The pair of them headed from the Hall, watched all the way by the girls.

“That about that staff he’s making her?” Tabitha asked, and Summer and Vanya nodded.

“Yeah, they’re growing some kind of plant for it in the Common Room, in that tree-girl Blodwen’s soil,” Summer replied.

“They grew the wrong kind of it on Saturday,” Vanya added amusedly, making them snicker as she returned to her perusal of Enchanting Made Easy. Looking down at the page as Alpin and Tegyd vanished around the corner out of the doors, she glanced back at the pumpkins. Maybe there was something fun in the book she could do with those…

--

Persephone was not in fact, in the truest sense, having a nap. It was difficult to have a nap at Hogwarts, where so many people moved about and talked and did and carried all manner of things. She had been having a nap, in the only time one could - when almost everyone was in their lessons. But now, the end of the school day had come, and several hundred teenagers had descended upon their Common Rooms with as numerous a variety of aims, and so Persephone had, grumpily, gotten up.

And then gone and lain down on the sofa in the Common Room to keep an eye on Tegyd’s plant. It was a superficially similar plant to the first one in some ways, but it was also much more promising. It was taller than Persephone was, for one, and instead of swishy hair-like fronds on thin, breakable stalks it bore a few thick, strong stalks, or perhaps even trunks, topped with similar puffs of yellow flowers. At the base was a bit of a bush of those stringy leaves in fronds, but the body of the plant stood tall from it.

A great many of the passing students were peering at the plant as they went by, muttering about it. After all, it wasn’t the first similar plant they’d seen in its place that week, so a few were wondering aloud what it was about and what ‘that one on Saturday’ had been. Some few were touching it, putting their fingers through the fluffy leaves, and Persephone was watching those ones carefully like a guard dog, occasionally rolling onto her front and leaning forward a little as if she was already a quadruped.

It was as she was lamenting that the moon wasn’t up yet, and so she couldn’t have turned into an actual guard dog despite wanting to, that the round door behind her opened and a bitter-almonds smell accompanied a crab apple tree loudly squeezing her way into the room. Several unripe crab apples fell to the floor, as did quite a lot of leaves. There were always a lot of leaves on the floor around the door.

“Good afternoon, Persephone,” Blodwen said politely as she trudged over to the back of the sofa Persephone was lying in. Persephone hummed in response, a little too tired for too much conversation. “This has turned out quite nicely, hasn’t it?” she asked rhetorically, waving a branch-like hand at the giant fennel plant.

“Ay, it’s no bad,” Persephone agreed, before she looked back over to the door. “Ye haein² a wee bit o difficulty wi the door are ye?” she asked amusedly. Blodwen scoffed slightly in that serene way of hers, smiling.

“Yes. Perhaps I should have had the caprids give me a prune before we came for the school year,” Blodwen admitted wryly. Persephone made a face.

“A hate prunes,” Persephone grimaced. “Ma likes ‘em for some reason,” she added confusedly.

“I have heard mixed opinions on the matter,” Blodwen supposed as the door opened yet again behind them and Tegyd and Alpin spilled into the Common Room in quite an excited hurry. Alpin as usual smelled of pine and spring despite the season actually being autumn, whereas Tegyd smelled a bit more… tangy than usual, was the best way Persephone could put it. Tegyd sometimes did smell different, and Persephone couldn’t help but notice, but from the semi-frequent occurrence of Tegyd’s altered scent for a few days every few weeks she was assuming it was a goat period thing courtesy of Tegyd’s hybrid nature, and was politely not bringing it up.

“Oh that has grown!” Alpin explained, his eyebrows shooting straight up. “Nefi wen,³ that’s taller than you are Tegyd!” he added incredulously.

“We’re definitely getting a staff out of it,” Tegyd replied gladly, beaming as she headed over to the bed of soil the plant was sitting in. “Hey Blod. Keeping an eye on your sister?” she asked amusedly, and Blodwen laughed to herself as well. Stepping closer, Tegyd steadied herself on the giant fennel itself and stepped into the soil.

“It looks pretty straight, should make a good staff,” Alpin said, making Tegyd burst out laughing as Alpin and Blodwen both peered at her confusedly. Persephone snorted.

“And whaur’d yer heidpiece gae wi ‘at?”⁴ Persephone asked. Tegyd only guffawed again.

“Gay- no, definitely not, this plant’s not the only straight thing in this flowerbed,” Tegyd laughed.

“Pfft. Wad ‘a’ been mair funny⁵ if ye were,” Persephone quipped dryly. Tegyd shook her head.

“Sorry, not me,” she said, before she scoffed and blushed slightly. “I don’t think you want to know just how straight I can be, that’s for nobody’s ears. Odysseus maybe,” she chuckled wryly, looking around to make sure nobody else had heard her say that.

“Hey, at least ye’ll have nae⁶ problems finding a boyfriend,” Persephone noted amusedly. She had certainly heard more comments than she’d have liked from the older boys of the school regarding Tegyd’s figure. Though, it seemed Tegyd had heard them too as she stopped laughing completely and gave Persephone a withering look, her ears shifting back.

“Granger-Weasley, do you have any idea how rare it is for me to talk to a guy without him staring straight here the whole time?” Tegyd pointed out, disgruntlement filtering on the edge of her voice as she pointed at her bust. Persephone shut up, grimacing apologetically. Tegyd looked back to the fennel and examined it. “Honestly I’m just glad Alpin’s not looking, thanks kid. Not to mention the horny joke,” she said, and Persephone winced. Yeah, she’d overheard that one too. “Sure, I’m painfully straight, doesn’t mean it’s on anyone’s terms but mine,” she insisted. Looking for a positive angle, since she had a headache and didn’t want an argument to keep going, Persephone smiled at one very blushing Alpin.

“Good on ye Alpin,” Persephone said brightly. Alpin shrugged, spluttering.

“It’s not as if it’s hard,” Alpin spluttered, seemingly not noticing the double entendre that Tegyd immediately noticed, making her wheeze with laughter before she set her knuckle against her own forehead.

“No! No, get your head out of the gutter Teg, got shit to do,” Tegyd muttered to herself, so quietly under her breath that she wasn’t even enunciating it. Persephone’s ears heard all. “Fennel!” she exclaimed a little loudly. “Right, this one looks about right,” Tegyd decided, getting her wand out of her pocket. “Sparassio, Sparassio,” she incanted softly, hacking a suitable length out of the best stalk out of the plant and letting the flowering top fall into the soil as she did. She quickly caught the resulting pole before it fell, and scuffed her hooves as she stepped back onto the stone floor, testing the length of the stalk and leaning on it a little. She nodded. “That’ll do nicely, I think! I’ll go get you the hippogriff feathers,” she said brightly, handing Alpin the length of giant fennel wood, which was taller than Alpin but a perfect length for her as a staff. “Don’t worry Blod, I’ll get rid of the growth potions out of your soil and compost all this for you in a minute,” she added, before she hurried off toward the stairs.

“I am being fed well this last week,” Blodwen chuckled. Persephone scoffed.

“That no cannibalism?” she asked. Blodwen shook her head, her leaves rustling loudly as she did.

“You eat a lot of bacon, that’s just as much cannibalism because pigs are mammals,” Blodwen pointed out.

“Fair point,” Persephone conceded. She turned to Alpin, who was examining the length of fennel wood and its ends. “What ye reckon Alpin?” she asked. The boy nodded.

“It’s a bit green, but that’ll be okay. It’ll be a wee bit rough, but I should be able to hide the core bore with the pinecone,” Alpin mused. It wasn’t long before Tegyd clopped back up the stairs, a cluster of brown and white feathers in her hand, as well as a very large pinecone, the one that had been hanging from her bag before. “Ah! Right, yep. Yeah, I can get the hook out of that, no problem,” Alpin assured her as she handed him them - the pinecone had been hanging by a hook screwed into its base. “I’d better get to work, need to be done by Friday. Tara,⁷ see you at dinner!” he said jauntily, before he headed back for the door.

“Haste ye back,” Persephone told him, waving after him before he departed the Common Room. “Dont ye worry yerself, he’ll do a good job,” she said to Tegyd, who nodded gratefully before she got to work cutting apart the giant fennel plant to compost it.

--

“Motius ut adverso coetus at pugnaestare vicinia, cibium causio, hoc animare, hanscibirem,” Vanya whispered, pointing her wand at the nearest pumpkin and following the instructions laid out in the book she was holding in her other hand, down to the ways she was shifting her wrist. Her heart was hammering with nerves as she glanced over her shoulder quickly, verifying that the room was still empty. Over the last few days, she had succumbed to the spirit of Halloween mischief and had looked through Enchanting Made Easy for a suitable pranking enchantment, and had actually found one!

And now, she was sticking it on the jack-o-lanterns decorating the Great Hall late in the evening on Thursday. The competition would be the next afternoon, and she wouldn’t get another chance to do it. Nervously, Vanya looked around, particularly looking to the doors. The Hall was quiet and empty, after dinner had been long over, lit solely by the flickering jack-o-lanterns and by the crackling braziers in the corridors out of the door whose light flooded into the space.

Light marred by a shadow.

Vanya’s breath hissed in as she hurriedly pulled her cloak aside and jammed her wand back in its leather holster, or rather, failed to do so and almost dropped it as it missed the opening, before she managed and stuffed the wand away a split second before the figure stepped into the Hall. Lazily, a teenage boy in a Hufflepuff tie looked into the Hall before he almost jumped at the sight of Vanya still in the room.

Vanya tried to keep a neutral face as the boy stepped into the hall and strolled over to her, but she probably looked like the cat that got the cream.

“Hey, it’s nearly curfew. Probably want to get back to your Common Room kid,” Denton told her quickly.

“Right. Yeah,” Vanya said, thinking. She was still holding Enchanting Made Easy. “I was um, reading,” she said. Was it a lie? She had been reading, it just hadn’t been the only thing she’d been doing. Denton nodded.

“C’mon, off you go,” he said, and Vanya hurriedly shuffled past him, hiding the book under her cloak. She really wasn’t sure how she’d gotten away with that, and she was having to really try not to smile. Besides, she’d enchanted almost every pumpkin she could access, so she was more than able to quit while she was ahead - a lot of the pumpkins were floating, and so out of her reach, but a similar amount were on ledges or hanging off the wall, and she’d attached the book’s enchantment to many of them. Considering it a success, Vanya did as she was told and headed downstairs back to Slytherin to head to bed, missing by only a few minutes Persephone, who was heading upstairs to go out for the fourth night of the full moon.

As always, for the second time that school year, Persephone met up with her Aunty Ariadne, Cedar, and Rowan near the doors, though she was glad to be doing it without needing to sneak there. The prior year she had, of course, been sneaking to the forest with them under her Aunty’s Invisibility Cloak, because she hadn’t been out as a werewolf, but now? Now, especially after the attention had abated - or more accurately shifted back to her Ma and her policies - it was an ambient improvement, a day-to-day shift in her life for the better that she got to be herself. That weight, with the cloak, had lifted, and so it was with a free spirit despite her aching joints that she departed the castle for the night. As she often did, Persephone volunteered to be first to transform once they reached the woods, quickly taking her inhaler before she took off and gave her Aunty Ariadne her dressing gown for safekeeping.

“And you laughed at us for getting hairy,” Cedar snickered dryly, snorting at the fur that covered Persephone’s body as he took his glasses off and put them in their case.

“Oh shut up ye,” Persephone dismissed him. Sure, she was covered in fur now, and hairier than either of them. Especially with winter coming, she’d noticed how it was starting to get even thicker of late, beginning to encroach onto the backs of her hands and noticeably on her feet. But she hadn’t been then. Setting the matter aside, Persephone turned around. She certainly was about to be even furrier, as the waning but still powerful moon locked her eyes into abberating blue and yellow streaks of the bright white sphere across her vision.

At the moon’s inevitable command, her body twisted and snapped, blooming by agony into a form truer to herself than the humanoid one she was confined to for most of the month. It was a pain Persephone was quite used to, and one that she thought was very much worth it as she shook dirt out of her coat and hopped up onto her paws contentedly. Cedar and Rowan soon joined her as wolves, Twig and Leaf respectively, and once Aunty Ariadne had screeched into her puffy white arctic fox form the four of them danced off into the woods with a cacophony of howls. Howls that weren’t alone - in the distance, the wild pack responded in kind.

Before long, with her nose to the ground, Persephone huffed softly to tell her little pack something; she’d caught a scent. That of a deer. Keeping low to the ground, she loped through the underbrush, sniffing out the trail as she went. Vixie, Ariadne’s fox form, hopped along with them, so small their creeping pace was a comfortable walking pace for her, while Twig and Leaf joined her at the head of the pack. Leaf eventually took up the lead, before he jumped slightly and they stopped.

He hadn’t just seen the little flock of deer, he’d also seen competition. Or, well, hopefully not competition but help. The three of them were not the only wolves in the Forest, the Forest was home to a pack of wolves born from werewolves prior to the formation of the Brown Foundation and their efforts to give such wolves homes and, in many cases, jobs, like Sam’s assistance dog Lucky. The identity of their werewolf ancestors wasn’t known, but it was believed that they had lived in Hogsmeade. These ones, however, Persephone felt a bit sorry for when she spotted the little group of them stalking the same group of deer they were. They weren’t the entire wild pack, far from it, and nor were they the first generation of them. Thus, they were badly inbred. Even just from first glance, she could see that at least one of the nearby wolves had a spinal deformity, giving it almost a hump.

Plus, you could tell the visibly fine ones from the werewolves - werewolves’ fur didn’t tend to mat, because of its temporary nature, whereas the wild wolves’ coats were matted badly compared to their sleek, tidy fur.

Persephone watched them for a moment, but she wasn’t doing so discreetly. The wild wolves had seen them too. However, they’d encountered them before - the one with the hump, her Aunty had once dubbed Quasimodo. The wild pack, in Persephone’s experience, were pretty much fine with them being there every once in a while, and even appreciated them sometimes. And it wasn’t hard for her to discern their body language.

In perfect unison with the creeping forest pack, Persephone leapt forward, snarling and barking along with them as the deer spooked and ran. The hunt bellowed in Persephone’s blood as Cedar and Rowan startled, hurrying after them in the back along with the slower Quasimodo wolf. Another of the wild wolves, a brown one, managed to spook one of the deer into separating off from its group, and Persephone instantly darted for it, jaws wide for its hind legs-

THWACK-

And was the unceremonious recipient of a kicking hoof to the snout as she yelped and tumbled, thrown off balance to fall in a heap by a thick tree. She scrabbled back up to her paws and launched back after them, but she was well and truly behind now, and the brown wolf and a smaller black one downed the deer. In seconds, the whole lot of them pooled around the now dead doe by their own momentum.

Thanks to the way they’d converged, it was a bit of a combination midnight feed and social meeting, with a good bit of curling about and sniffing each other. And yeah, that was sniffing their backsides. It wasn’t as if normal wolves had names, they knew one another by signature smell, and one’s arse was where the most identifiable smells were. They even had special glands for it.

Persephone had those even in her humanoid form. She’d thought it hilarious to prank everyone by stinking up a room with it just by farting as a slightly more shameless five-year-old. Boring maths class? Liven things up by making Elspeth cry from how bad the whole classroom suddenly smelled. She was a little more mature now, and also much nicer to Elspeth than that, so she did look back on her littler self’s disgusting choice of fun with a wee bit of regret.

Besides, that was a weapon better used on someone like Thynne, she just didn’t know if she could do it without it instantly backfiring and being blamed on her.

Regardless, despite her appetite for some nice warm deer, Persephone loped away to the side a little and gathered up again with Twig and Leaf, and Vixie. It wasn’t their kill, and they didn’t want to take from the wild pack. Best to stay on their good side. And so the four of them headed away to find another trail and resume their own hunt that pleasant starry night.

--

Meanwhile, in the second-year Hufflepuff girls’ dormitory, most of the girls were getting ready for bed. Persephone’s bed, on Dominique’s right nearest the window, was empty save only for her litany of plush toys, and Bonnie was doing something on her phone while Kiera brushed her teeth in the bathroom on the other side of the hall. And Dominique, in her mess she always made of a bed, was getting ready to close her curtains and sleep, if not for a thought that had occurred to her.

The ancient blue-bound book, the one marked with Ravenclaw’s sigil that she’d stolen from Carla Lumière in petty revenge for her kidnapping of Vanya, had been sitting in her drawer ever since. It was a strange thing. She couldn’t feel its presence in her mental sense, but yet, she could have sworn that every time she walked into the dormitory, she could. It was like when you could only see a slight difference in something’s shade if you weren’t looking straight at it. Like thinking there was something in the corner of her eye, but when she looked, there wasn’t. It was truly bizarre. And so, curious, Dominique leaned over and pulled open the drawer, retrieving it.

Frustration was really the primary emotion in Dominique’s head as she examined the old book. Sure, such a conundrum could surely be solved by people smarter and more educated than her, but that was no fun. And so, despite her hope that it wasn’t something like that, she found herself thinking back to what she’d been told, in tiny snippets over the years, about what had happened to her Aunt Ginny as a young girl.

Aunt Ginny did not like talking about it. In fact, she couldn’t talk about it - the geas that prevented her from speaking of those events was still in place, she could only talk about it in Parseltongue. And she didn’t like using Parseltongue. So it was only little bits that Dominique knew. But Dominique did know a book had been involved, one of Voldemort’s Horcruxes. A book that could reply to what was written in it.

Frowning, Dominique fetched her pen from her bedside table, and rested it against her chin. Had anyone else tried it with this tome? She began to flick through it. But no, on absolutely none of the pages was there even a single particle of ink. Was it that easy?

Also, was it a good idea to desecrate such a nice old artefact with it?

Dominique grimaced. She’d make it small. She opened the book to a page near the back and clicked the pen. Squinting, in the low light of the dormitory, she set pen to paper.

Je m’appelle Dominique. Est-ce que tu me lis ?⁸ she wrote, in tiny neat lettering in the corner. And she waited. Five seconds.

Ten seconds.

Twenty seconds.

Thirty seconds. Bonnie put her phone away and bid them goodnight.

Nothing happened. The blue ink wasn’t absorbed, and nothing was written in its place in reply. Dominique huffed. Sure, maybe it just didn’t understand French, but she’d have thought it would have at least expressed confusion in whatever language it did speak if it worked that way.

Disappointed, Dominique unceremoniously put the book back in the drawer and went to bed.

--

Chapter Text

“We were good! We were gold!”

“BOO!”

“BWAA-!”

Persephone burst out laughing, a dry, coughing laugh as Bonnie leapt back from her phone and the pop song it was playing as her morning alarm at the sight of a big furry lump in the darkness of the dormitory, marked by two reflecting eyes. Caoimhe, her bed beside Bonnie’s, startled up behind her curtains and threw them open to see what was going on, blinking blearily without her glasses, while Summer, on the other side of the door, gasped awake.

“Persephone?! What the fuck-” Caoimhe burst out angrily, before she frowned at Persephone and blinked, wiping sleep from her eyes. “Woah,” she marvelled.

“Happy Halloween!” Persephone replied gleefully, grinning at them as her tail wagged wildly behind her. “A ought to ‘a’ done this years syne!”¹ she exclaimed. Bonnie, turning off her alarm, fiddled with her phone and put the torch on, shining it at Persephone.

“Bloody hell, look at that!” Bonnie exclaimed, staring at her. “Nice potions, bet you’re happy with that,” she said.

“Ay, it’s brilliant!” Persephone agreed. She had, of course, taken the two potions she’d made for Halloween well before the others had woken and quietly gotten dressed so she could spook them - and so, her fur resembled the very coat she’d worn overnight, and protruding from the unzipped placket of her uniform skirt was the self-same ginger fluffy tail normally adorning her wolven form. And ye gods she did wish she’d done it years ago. She knew how much her Ma and Da liked them, but she’d never taken such a potion before, and now she knew just why her parents enjoyed them! Not only did it feel right, like a phantom limb she’d lost had been restored, but as a means of expression it was just remarkable to have access to it outside of her moonly transformations. And her fur, well! She didn’t need a cardigan today, no no no! It was thick and fluffy and puffing out of her sleeves and neck hole in an almost cartoonish manner, her hands were like hairballs, and it came all up her face in white and ginger and brown up the sides. She even had whiskers! Grinning to herself, and brimming with a surprising amount of energy for a werewolf on a full moon day, Persephone swung her bag onto her shoulders. “Right, see yese!”² she said, and headed off.

It was still quite early, so there was virtually nobody about to see her silly scramble up the stairs toward the Great Hall using her hands as well as her feet, which worked quite a lot better than it normally did thanks to the balancing effect of her tail. And similarly, there were very few people in the Great Hall yet eating breakfast, and none of them were wearing costumes. They were, no doubt, early in comparison because they hadn’t needed to put on a costume. But eventually, as Persephone got to making sure she ate well that morning, the costumes started trickling in. Dominique, just dressed normally as she hadn’t come up with a costume to wear over the last week, laughed a squawking laugh at the troop of skeletons - well, black leotards with skeletons printed on them - entering the Hall as she hurried over to sit with Persephone. A few superheroes had been done too, Superman, Batman, that kind of thing, and Dominique found herself wondering if she could have adapted something from Astérix. There was a Julius Caesar sitting at the Gryffindor table in Jack Kidwell, berobed in a toga and wearing a laurel wreath. Also berobed was a sixth year Hufflepuff Prefect, who looked like he hadn’t even gotten out of bed - he was just wearing pyjamas, a dressing gown, and carrying around a towel for some reason.

Persephone, of course, recognised the boy’s reference to his own name immediately and burst out laughing for so long she needed her inhaler.

And eventually, Persephone and Dominique both cheered at the sight of Vanya in her nice green dress coming in the door, carrying a spare broomstick that was obviously too big for her, and followed along by a bouncing, humming, blue-veined cheese wheel wrapped in a nice tartan sash that weaved about underfoot. Puss, also following her, seemed fascinated by the cheese. Vanya smiled at them gladly, waving, but her nervous glance turned to the many pumpkins on the walls.

Were they still enchanted, had it kept, had it been caught by someone and removed? She had no way of telling.

Regardless, Vanya came and sat down with her friends.

“Ay up ducks. See your potions worked,” Vanya said, nodding at Persephone’s furry appearance and the tail swishing behind her.

“Ay! Nice work on yer Horace,” Persephone said brightly, nodding at the humming cheese. She was glad she didn’t have to have lessons with the thing, that humming would have driven her mad. She snorted. “Where’s yer hat?” she asked snidely.

“It’s the hat full of sky,” Vanya retorted, making Persephone laugh. She’d considered wearing the pointy hat, but hats always messed with her hair. Beside her, Puss got a little closer to the Horace. “Puss, no, don’t play with that,” she said sternly. Puss reluctantly sat back again, before Vanya fed her a good helping of breakfast which handily distracted her. As Vanya took up her spoon, Dominique looked around at the feeling of the individual on her mental sense, before she cried out happily and waved a talon at Tegyd, who had just walked into the room. She was wearing a laurel wreath that rounded under her horns, the roughly cut leopard print faux-fur as a cloak fastened with a pin at her neck, and a long, almost bridal, alabaster white dress in a roughly Grecian style. Its waistband still hung in the air a bit, it wasn’t as if it hugged her figure perfectly and Dominique suspected Tegyd didn’t want it to, but it was still quite a flattering look on her, and its sleeves, neckline, and hem, were all trimmed with ribbon adorned in that square spiral pattern in white and gold. There was just one thing missing.

Tegyd sat down a ways from them, looking around a bit nervously as she fetched an apple from a nearby fruit basket, jumping as Cedar and Rowan said hi to her on the way. They weren’t dressed up as slobs, but they were presented as such given they were still in their pyjamas and very tired looking. They smiled and came past Persephone and her friends.

“Morning ‘Seph. Good going on those potions,” Rowan said dryly on his way over toward the Ravenclaw table.

“Yeah, worked out great,” Cedar said, before he pulled on Persephone’s tail quickly and laughed as she growled at him. “Haha! Nice work on your eyes too, looks really good. See ya,” he said, but Persephone had frozen, frowning as he walked away.

“What’s wrong?” Dominique asked. Persephone blinked.

“What did he mean about my eyes?” she asked her urgently.

“Huh? The way you’ve done your eyes yellow, like your wolf,” Dominique replied matter-of-factly. To tell the truth, she was a little confused about why Persephone was worried.

“Dom, A didn’t do nothing to my eyes,” Persephone hissed. Dominique frowned, her feathers shifting. Well, Persephone’s eyes were very much, instead of her usual caramel brown, a piercing gold. She’d clearly done something.

“What?” Dominique said. Persephone got out her phone and turned on the front facing camera to double-check. And sure enough, right there, just like the previous night, her eyes were yellow. “Is that not supposed to happen? I thought you’d used a glamour,” she asked. Persephone shook her head.

“Maybe you’re having some kind of reaction to the potions you took,” Vanya suggested.

“Da don’t!” Persephone exclaimed. Much as she thought it looked good, it was more than a little concerning. She huffed softly and glanced at her bag, in which she had a few more vials of the potions. “Maybe A made ‘em a wee bit wrong. A’ll no take them later just in case,” she grumbled, her tail drooping. She’d really looked forward to keeping her tail all day, and the potions would only last an hour or two without renewal. With the slow rise of the sun through the thick clouds and rain casting a dim grey light through the Great Hall, the Hall filled with students all dressed up. Persephone and Vanya’s classmates came by and complimented their looks, tail and cheese alike. Vanya sniffed amusedly, looking back at the pumpkins, when Brenda noted how well she’d enchanted it. They had no idea.

But among the kids, even the Ravenclaw second years… Alpin was not to be seen. And nor was Jayden.

This was because it had taken Alpin a little while to get ready, and he’d needed Jayden’s help. So the pair arrived a little later than usual. Persephone, upon just smelling him, looked up urgently and beamed at the sight of Alpin’s costume. Knowing in advance what he was making, one might have expected his costume to be macabre, but in fact it just looked silly. With a bridle guiding him in Jayden’s hand, a brown-white horse’s skull stood proudly over many a head, adorned in ribbons and flowers and bearing big googly eyes rattling comedically upon the fillings in its eye sockets. The head protruded from a white shroud, also adorned in said ribbons, under which Alpin no doubt could be found and where, indeed, Dominique could feel his presence. The horse skull’s jaw hung open in an almost gleeful grin as people gasped at it and pointed, and Persephone got up to meet them as Jayden guided Alpin and his out-of-season Mari Lwyd over toward her.

“Right, there you go. Alpin, she’s got you,” Jayden said amusedly as Persephone took hold of the bridle’s lead.

“Ah, Persephone!” Alpin’s voice said from under the shroud. “I’m blind as a bat under here, don’t walk me into anyone,” he chuckled.

“A’ll try not to,” Persephone promised him, her tail wagging eagerly behind her at Alpin’s achievement. Jayden peered at the tail curiously as he walked off. “Them googly eyes turned out good, didn’t they?” she noted amusedly, ignoring the students passing them by and gawking at the Mari.

“Ha! They did,” Alpin agreed, shifting the pole he was holding the skull up with as if to make the eyes shake. The right one was stuck looking straight up, which looked incredibly dopey. Over where they’d been sitting, Dominique and Vanya craned their necks to watch what was going on, staring incredulously at Alpin’s getup. “Right, I’ve got a delivery for Tegyd under here as well, where’s she?” he asked.

“Oh, back this way. Turn about, turn about, turn about, there. This way,” Persephone said, guiding him in turning toward Tegyd, who was wheezing with a bleating laugh at the Mari as Alpin bobbed its head jauntily side to side on the way. “Tegyd!” she called.

“Pfff-haha! Yeah?” Tegyd asked gleefully, raising her eyebrows at the skull. Once they stopped, Alpin a bit abruptly when Persephone put a hand out to stop him, Alpin parted the shroud in front of himself and popped his head out, making Persephone snort at the image.

“I’ve got your thyrsus under here,” Alpin told her, the shroud shifting as he evidently kept the Mari balanced while he brought the staff around and out of the shroud. It was quite simple, the same fennel staff she’d cut a few days before but having been stripped of its green bark and with the big flared out pinecone attached to the top of it. Tegyd’s ears shot up as she jumped to her feet and took it, leaning on it already as she fetched a long ribbon from her bag and tied it about the bit at the top where you could kind of see the dowel holding the pinecone onto the staff. With that obfuscating the imperfection, she looked to Alpin for some kind of confirmation. “It should work,” Alpin assured her.

Tegyd licked her lips and looked at the pinecone.

“Lumos,” she murmured, tapping the staff on the ground. And sure enough, like a holy glow, the gaps in the pinecone shone out in white light and Tegyd’s eyes widened. A beaming grin shone on her face just as the light did. “Euoi,” she whispered.

For a moment, they let her stand like that, ecstatic with her new staff, before Alpin pulled his head back into the shroud and tapped his own pole on the ground.

“Persephone,” Alpin said, and Persephone smiled. They’d rehearsed this. Tegyd frowned at them, before Alpin tapped the pole once, twice, then a third time, and Persephone inhaled.

“Wel, dyma ni’n diwad,” the pair began singing in unison.

“Oh fuck you’re doing the song too!” Tegyd cackled, doubling over with her bleat of a laugh as she leaned on the staff and the pair of them kept singing.

“Gyfellion diniwad, I ofyn am gennad, I ofyn am gennad, I ofyn am gennad, i ganu!” Persephone and Alpin sang, Persephone’s voice not quite as sweet as when they’d practised what with the full moon, but pretty and perfectly timed as Tegyd’s eyebrows raised up. “Os na chawn ni gennad, Cewch glywed ar ganiad, Beth fydd ein dymuniad! Beth fydd ein dymuniad, Beth fydd ein dymuniad… nos heno!” they continued, as Persephone tried to remember, purely by sound, the Welsh lyrics. She didn’t actually know what they meant. “Agorwch y dryse, Mae’r rhew wrth ein sodle, Mae’r rhew wrth ein sodle, Mae’r rhew wrth ein sodle, Mae’r rhew wrth ein sodle… nos heno! Os oes gennych atebion, Wel dewch a nhw’n union, I ateb prydyddion, I ateb prydyddion, I ateb prydyddion… y gwylie…” the pair sang, before Persephone grinned and let out a small howl at having gotten it right. It was the full moon, and despite her excited energy she was still tired and foggy. Tegyd scoffed, raising her eyebrows at them.

“Ha! Right, okay,” Tegyd snickered, licking her lip. “Okay, let’s do this,” she decided, before she cleared her throat. “O, cerwch ar gered, Mae’ch ffordd yn agored, Mae’r ffordd yn agored, Mae’r ffordd yn agored, Mae’r ffordd yn agored… nos heno,” she sang softly, before she grinned at them. Persephone swallowed.

“A don’t know what we do now,” Persephone whispered to Alpin, trying to pay no heed to the few people who were watching them curiously. They’d begun to gather an audience. Tegyd snorted.

“I’ll handle it,” Alpin whispered back, before he started singing again. “Nid ewn ni ar gered, Heb dorri ein syched. Heb dorri ein syched, Heb dorri ein syched… nos heno,” he retorted. Tegyd hummed brightly, smiling.

“Mae ffioliau yn sefyll,” she began, and beneath the shroud Alpin’s grip on the Mari’s neck pole shifted suddenly. Persephone looked at the skull as if to look at Alpin confusedly. Was she going off-script? “Ar byrddau y bwydu, Trwy ffafwr cewch lymed, Trwy ffafwr cech lymed, Trwy ffafwr cewch lymed… i brofi,” Tegyd sang with a smart grin.

“Um,” Alpin mumbled. “Nid yfwn o’r ffioliau,” he began, his voice more uncertain now. “I oeri ein boliau, I fagu clefydiau, I fagu clefydiau, I fagu clefydiau… y gwylie,” he chanted. Tegyd scoffed.

“You know that’s not quite right, right?” Tegyd pointed out. “The plurals are wrong, even I know that.”

“Shut up and respond, or we’re having your drink,” Alpin retorted jovially.

“Pffft. All right then,” Tegyd snickered, fixing the skull with a grin before she firmly slammed the butt of her thyrsus on the stone flagons with a loud CRACK! that made Persephone jump as Tegyd whispered the incantation “Herbivicus hedera.” From under the ribbon she’d tied under the pinecone, vines of ivy sprang in earnest in tangling curls that dangled down along the staff and completed her Maenad costume as Tegyd took up an unmistakably hostile stance and a grim expression. Persephone took a step back, unsure what Tegyd was doing. But with a snarl in her voice, Tegyd started singing again. “Rydych yn drylowyw, Y gwin yn gyfryw,” she chanted darkly. “Mae ar gyfer y duw, Mae ar gyfer y duw, Mae ar gyfer y duw, mawr Bacchus,” she snapped. Immediately, Alpin, under the cloak, was overtaken with laughter, the Mari head shaking where it stood as Persephone looked between them, confused. She had no idea what Tegyd had said, but it clearly wasn’t the normal Mari song. Tegyd leaned on her thyrsus, a satisfied and gleeful grin on her face instead of her rebuking expression. “Go on,” Tegyd said smugly, tapping her fingers on the staff as she threw a proverbial gauntlet at Alpin’s feet and watched his Mari.

“Pff- I don’t know how to respond to that, you win!” Alpin cackled from under the shroud, catching his breath. “When did you even come up with that?!” he exclaimed. Tegyd beamed at them.

“Ha! You accidentally showed me the skull back when Professor Weasley gave it to you, gave me time to prepare,” Tegyd replied, and Alpin grumbled at that. Tegyd frowned a little. “I thought Mari Lwyd was a Christmas thing, Mum helped us do one when I was a kid ‘round home one time, taught me the song,” she pointed out. “What’re you doing it now for?” Tegyd asked confusedly. The head of the Mari shifted up a bit as if Alpin had shrugged.

“Oh I know, but y’know, it’s a skull. I reckoned this was a good excuse to make one,” Alpin replied simply, and Tegyd nodded. “I’ll get it out for Christmas as well of course, stick even more on it,” he added brightly.

“Oh, fair play,” Tegyd supposed, before she glanced at Persephone with an amused look in her eye. “You not teach Granger-Weasley the rest of the verses?” she asked. Persephone scowled.

“It’s full moon, it were hard enough to remember the first lot!” Persephone protested, making a face. “A don’t speak Welsh,” she grumbled.

“Oh yeah, it is isn’t it?” Tegyd mused.

“What were that one ye stumped Alpin wi about?” Persephone asked curiously. She hadn’t understood a word of it, but the final verse Tegyd had sung was quite clearly abnormal. Tegyd laughed and smiled.

“Oh, okay, so, the song’s about letting or not letting the Mari in to have a drink, right? That bit where I changed it a little, the verse my Mum taught me is about some fountain or something, but obviously there isn’t one here,” Tegyd explained. “So I changed it to be about the jugs,” she said, waving a hand at the big pitcher of orange juice on the table nearby. “And then he stuffed up all the plurals trying to get the rhyme right! I should have won then, I was going easy on you Faughn,” she snickered.

“I was on the spot,” Alpin protested simply.

“But yeah, after that I came up with my own one about Dionysus. The Romans called him Bacchus, and that actually fit in the rhythm,” Tegyd explained.

“How was I supposed to react to that?!” Alpin pleaded amusedly, laughing again. Tegyd bleated a quiet, smug, laugh, before she tilted her head slightly and a mischievous glimmer appeared in her eye.

“You know what?” Tegyd said slowly, a grin growing on her lips. “Why don’t I come along and sing with you too, I do speak Welsh. Be your Leader with a stick,” she offered, tapping the thyrsus on the ground again with a bright smile. Persephone looked up at the Mari skull as if it was Alpin’s face.

“Yeah, why not?” Alpin replied eagerly. “Persephone, lead the way,” he snickered.

“Brilliant!” Persephone exclaimed, looking around. “C’mon, let’s go find Delphini’s boyfriend, he’s Welsh. Cennydd’s his name, A think,” she suggested, and Tegyd snorted.

“Yeah, let’s go find the rest of us Welshies to prank,” Tegyd agreed, grabbing a banana to eat as they went, and Persephone started leading Alpin along by the bridle to find Cennydd. It wasn’t difficult, almost the entire school was gathered there in the morning and she knew what House Cennydd was in - Ravenclaw. Going past a bloody amazing costume of a Roman legionnaire on the part of another Ravenclaw, it wasn’t long before the three of them were making a beeline for Cennydd, who clapped his hand to his head incredulously as they approached him.

“Oh you’re kidding me,” Cennydd groaned in a distinctly northern Welsh accent.

“Wel, dyma ni’n diwad!”

--

Chapter Text

Despite not quite being dressed as warmly as she might have preferred to be, Vanya was finding herself quite enjoying the silly spirit of the eruption of costumes that had enraptured Hogwarts. It had certainly added a certain novelty to Defence Against the Dark Arts that morning, where she had participated in a mock duel against Addison, who was roughly dressed as Crowley off Good Omens, having messily drawn a little snake by her ear in marker and worn black and sunglasses. And then, after lunch, Vanya had been more than a little tickled to walk into Potions and see Professor Greengrass wearing a great big comical chef’s hat, a big, brown, bushy, fake moustache, and instead of his usual tidy black robes a blue shirt and a white apron, as well as a red bow tie.

Thankfully, Professor Greengrass did not attempt to teach the class in the comedic accent of the Swedish Chef, but he did mention his son having suggested it.

There were, of course, those who weren’t dressed up. Those who hadn’t thought of anything or not felt like it like Dominique and many of the other nonhumans, as well as those mere few who seemed to hold some contempt for the matter. There weren’t many of those. But there were a few. Most notably, Portunus Thynne, whom Vanya was pretty sure she’d overhead muttering to Vexmoor about how Halloween was a Muggle holiday. Neither he nor his reserved older sister Vesta, a year above them, were dressed up. And Vanya had thought his ‘pureblood’ - a term that frankly Vanya objected to on principle, there was nothing more pure about having magical parents - stuffiness could find no sillier or more pompous depths to plumb.

Nicely enough, the rest of the castle weren’t such sourpusses about the matter, and once classes were over for the day the school was really quite the menagerie of creativity. There were even more costumes too! Some people had clearly not thought their costumes suitable for wearing during their lessons, and some had added such impractical items to costumes they’d already been wearing as part of it too. The Ravenclaw boy with the awesome Roman legionnaire armour had added an animated, and probably enchanted, papier-mache eagle covered in fake feathers standing on a perch on his shoulder, and someone whose face Vanya couldn’t see but whose identity she was sure Dominique could figure out with her mental powers if she pointed them out to her was now wearing a very well done scarecrow costume, complete with pumpkin head, instead of their uniform. Dominique herself, meanwhile, was people-watching, paying attention to all the costumes while she watched Tegyd, Persephone, and Alpin as they went mischievously pilfering various drinks through Welsh song.

Vanya frowned softly as she walked up to the little group, realising after a few moments what was wrong as Persephone gleefully claimed a big sip of a defeated singer’s drink and burped.

“Eh up ducks,” Vanya said as Persephone went and sat down on the ledge beside Dominique, where Vanya joined them. Dominique waved a feathery wing at Vanya with a bright chirrup as Alpin helped Tegyd sheepishly explain the basic rudiments of her religion to a fifth year Muggleborn student, though to tell the truth she had a bit of a headache with all the Halloween activity. Vanya peered at Persephone. “I thought you weren’t going to take that again today?” she asked, pointing at Persephone’s tail, which was curled around her a bit. As far as Vanya knew, it ought to have receded again hours before. The same went for the fluffy fur - or at least, fluffier than normal fur - that still covered every centimetre of visible skin on her body and puffed out of the openings of her clothes.

“A didn’t!” Persephone insisted, dismay colouring the edges of her voice despite her happiness at having a tail through the day. Vanya’s furrowed brows deepened in concern. There were reasons those kinds of potions didn’t last forever, she’d read them, and those reasons included both toxicity and permanent injury. “It’s just stuck around, it has. A dunno, might be a full moon thing, might be a me thing,” Persephone supposed hopefully. She certainly hoped it wasn’t a ‘you made the potions wrong’ thing, because that might have been dangerous. “Ought to go away tomorrow morning, A hope,” she added.

“Hmmm,” Vanya hummed wryly, before Persephone suppressed another burp. “Maybe I should take over stealing drinks,” Vanya chuckled - if anything, for her, it’d be an afternoon snack. Dominique and Persephone snorted at that, nodding. Puss sat herself near the bench, having been forbidden from harassing the mobile cheese rolling around Vanya’s feet idly and instead deciding to stare at Persephone’s tail. Persephone, exhausted and resting a bit since it was the full moon, glanced at her and tiredly shifted position to put the tail behind herself a bit. She liked Puss well enough now she’d gotten used to Puss being Vanya’s, but she didn’t relish the idea of the cat playing with her tail. Puss could play with her own tail thanks. Vanya meanwhile, looked around with the kind of shiftiness that, had Dominique not been in the midst of a headache she might have commented on, and shrugged. “Um, shall we go to the Hall? Costume contest’s later, right?” she suggested.

“That’s no for another few hour,” Persephone grumbled. “A’d rather have a nap.”

“Mm. And I’ve got a headache, I don’t want to go to the Great Hall,” Dominique agreed, looking across the corridor they were sitting on the inside edge of at the rain hissing against the little diamond window panes. Had the weather been better, she’d have gone outside to avoid all the several hundred blots that were people pressing into her mental sense. But she supposed a lie down in her bed, like Persephone intended to take, would have to do.

“Fair enough. Um, I’ll save you seats?” Vanya suggested. Persephone nodded with nothing more than a drowsy hum, while Dominique peered at Vanya slightly. She was clearly up to something. And she was - in truth, Vanya wanted to make sure she could keep an eye on the pumpkins she had enchanted. She couldn’t really do anything if they got meddled with, but nevertheless she was nervous about her plan. She was even having second thoughts! What if something went wrong, what if it didn’t work? What if she ruined the evening?

Putting Vanya’s turmoil down to nerves about her entering the costume contest, Dominique got to her feet and pulled on Persephone’s arm. Persephone grumbled like a put-upon lapdog being asked to get off so granny can get up, but she hauled herself to her feet.

“A might transform afore¹ dinner the nicht.² Moon still ought to be up early enough,” Persephone decided, stretching against her stiff joints as she stood. She didn’t quite recall what time moonrise was that evening, but she knew that with the approach of winter it was getting much earlier of late. “Alpin. Us and Dom are gonna go have a nap, see ye later,” she said tiredly.

“Wela i ti wedyn Seph.³ Have a good sleep,” Alpin said, popping his head out of the front of the white shroud of his Mari Lwyd as he did. Vanya came over as well to him and Tegyd as the student they were chatting with headed off as well, thinking to herself as she watched Persephone and Dominique go round a corner. Now she thought about it… she could use a dog. But it couldn’t be Persephone - she needed two dogs. Resolving to hope Cedar and Rowan made themselves available to her before the costume contest instead of just sleeping through it, Vanya tagged along with Tegyd, who was guiding Alpin’s Mari bridle. It was really quite funny, Alpin’s Mari was only a little taller than Tegyd herself.

“So, how’s you two’s days?” Vanya asked. On a Week 2 Friday, she didn’t have Study of Ancient Runes with Alpin and the others, and she of course didn’t share any lessons with the fourth-years like Tegyd.

“Oh, pretty good. I’m glad I put the opening on the front on this, really you’re supposed to put it on the back but it’s helped to be able to just lean it on my shoulder while I do school work,” Alpin replied, having shut the front seam of his shroud again, and Vanya nodded, keeping an eye on the cheese wheel that rolled, humming, beside her. “Professor Kaighin did say I had to sit at the back with it though. And Longbottom took care of it in Herbology, don’t want it getting dirty,” he admitted.

“Mmm, Muddy Lwyd,” Tegyd chuckled, making Alpin snort. Tegyd turned her attention to the staff she carried in the other hand to the bridle, which tapped on the floor with each long step she took. “This staff’s been helping out a lot too. My legs don’t hurt so much, and it working as a wand don’t hurt at all,” she chuckled, before she scoffed at herself. “Well, no. Hurt Rebecca a little, I tried it out in Defence before lunch. It’s punchy, this is,” she noted, tapping the thyrsus pointedly on the ground more strongly.

“Yeah, it’ll be clumsy but it should be stronger because it’s got more amplification than a normal wand,” Alpin agreed. “It’s a balance,” he said, the Mari skull shifting and rattling its googly eyes as if he’d shrugged.

“And nobody’s given you crap for your gods?” Vanya asked, looking up at Tegyd. Tegyd’s ears shifted a little, and she adjusted the laurel wreath she was wearing as well as the faux-fur leopard print cloak.

“Not to my face, no,” Tegyd replied uncertainly. “I don’t know. Dominique reckons I’m fine but…” she said, trailing off.

“But what?” Alpin asked concernedly from under the white shroud. Tegyd shrugged.

“I mean, no offence to Dominique, but she didn’t go to school before here or anything either. She’s not that much less sheltered than I am,” Tegyd noted, a little reluctantly as her ears lowered. “And, y’know, it’s Halloween, far as they know it’s just a costume. It’s not today I’m worried about,” she said. Vanya nodded understandingly as they arrived in the Great Hall and found somewhere to sit, Alpin having to manoeuvre his Mari Lwyd around the act, seemingly leaning the pole holding up the skull between the table and the bench as he popped his head out again. She also glanced around… she didn’t think any of the pumpkins had been removed or messed with. “It’s not like I’ve ever met any other Hellenists, and even with the herd they think it’s a bit of a… novelty,” Tegyd said, shrugging before she thought of a word to describe it.

“We do sort of go to novelty school,” Vanya supposed - after all, the benchmark for weirdness was inherently a little skewed among wizards. Tegyd didn’t seem to find it much help, as she grimaced.

“Being wizards doesn’t make them any better. We know that,” Tegyd pointed out, nodding to Vanya and herself. Vanya hummed, conceding that point - as nonhumans, they were more than familiar with how even the strange could draw lines of intolerable difference. Indeed, it hadn’t been so very long ago that many of their Professors had been fighting a war against those who’d thought that just having Muggle parents made Vanya lesser, let alone being a vampire. And so, pondering that and keeping an eye on her tampered-with pumpkins as the sun set, they settled in to do some homework and the like, and maybe ambush another student or two with Alpin and Tegyd’s pwnco, while they waited for the costume contest to begin.

As dinnertime approached, the castle lit by the fires and jack-o-lantern candles in the rainy darkness of the night as the waning moon loomed low over the horizon, the costumes flooded the Great Hall. Superheroes, comic book characters, movie characters, historical figures like the roman legionnaire and the boy dressed as Caesar, as well as Tegyd’s own maenad costume, book characters like Vanya’s Tiffany and others… the variety was extensive. And as the excitement grew, so too did Vanya’s nerves, and evidently Tegyd’s too given her ears moving back.

“Good evening, good evening all!” Professor McGonagall’s voice called out from the head table - which had been moved back to allow most of the raised dais it sat on to be a stage - amplified by magic and getting everyone’s attention. Vanya laughed at the sight of her - she too had dressed up as a particularly wizened crone, no longer looking like a kindly old granny but rather the kind of witches that you’d find cursing apples in an old Disney movie. “My my, I see you have all risen to the occasion spectacularly!” she cried gladly. “We will be beginning our wee contest momentarily along with dinner this evening. All students may vote, and I invite anyone entering the contest to begin making a queue at the side of the Hall,” Professor McGonagall announced with a big smile, waving her hand and the sleeve of her ragged costume toward the Ravenclaw side of the Hall.

“That’s us. Dominique, you want to take Alpin’s rope?” Vanya suggested, and Dominique - who had come along after her own lie-down with the news that Persephone had gone off somewhere to transform - nodded, letting Alpin get up before she took hold of the bridle to guide him. “Puss, stay please,” she said, before she scooped up her cheese wheel so it wouldn’t get stood on in the clamouring rush to queue. Looking around, she jumped. “Oh! I’ll see you in a sec. Cedar! Rowan!” she called, quickly diverting from her course toward the queue along with Alpin and Dominique and Tegyd. Cedar and Rowan, previously unspotted by her in the Hall because their pyjamas had, thanks to all the costumes, blended in with the crowd, looked up at her as she hurried over to them, pushing through a person or two going the other way.

“Mm? Yeah Vanya?” Cedar grumbled, looking up at her blearily. The pair were sitting together at the Gryffindor table, and facing away from the moon. Indeed, Cedar was being very careful about the way he looked at Vanya.

“Do you two want to help with the costume contest?” Vanya asked excitedly. Cedar frowned at her.

“How? We’re just waiting for Aunt Ariadne to come tell us what we’re doing tonight with all this before we go transform,” he asked, and Rowan nodded.

“Exactly!” Vanya replied eagerly, grinning. “You know how I’m doing Tiffany Aching?” she asked, pointing at her dress, and the boys nodded tiredly. “Well, her granny had two sheepdogs! You could be my Thunder and Lightning!”

Despite their clear exhaustion, both werewolves sat up thoughtfully.

“Huh. Yeah, actually,” Rowan agreed, nodding. He creakily stood up, beckoning Cedar to do the same. “C’mon, it’ll be fun and it’s an excuse to get it over with. Give us twenty minutes, yeah Vanya?” he said, and Vanya nodded gratefully. Smiling with an impatient urgency, Vanya headed back to where she’d left Puss at the Hufflepuff table, scritching her ears as Cedar and Rowan headed back to the doors of the Hall. On the way, they crossed paths with Professors Greengrass and Granger, and through the sound of the student body Vanya could only watch them explain the plan to Professor Granger, who nodded to it and smiled over toward Vanya.

Where Professor Greengrass was dressed in pursuit of silliness as the Swedish Chef, Professor Granger had gone goth. In fact, both Vanya and Dominique got the impression that she must have borrowed some wardrobe items from Chief Constable Tonks - her black dress was beaded and tight to her figure, adorned with a prominent black and burgundy corset, and it draped along the floor as she walked wearing tall, heeled boots whose height near to her knees was visible in a slit up the dress. She had an identical black leather holster carrying her wand to those Tonks had worn the year before, and her face was pale with makeup, save only for the jet black lipstick she was wearing, as well as the black eyeliner and eye shadow providing a disturbing contrast to her stark white eyes. Dominique raised her feathered brows at her Aunt’s look - she’d known that her Aunt could go for glamour when she wished, but this was an appearance that could have suited some kind of enormously rich gala had she worn it in another colour, and it definitely suited her.

And, well, to be frank, some of the older boys seemed to think so too, by the rather obvious way they were looking at her but trying to look like they weren’t.

Vanya was watching Professor Granger as well, but for quite another reason.

It had, rather abruptly, occurred to her that Professor Granger could see magic. Would the Professor notice her enchantments on the pumpkins and trace it back to her?! For the moment, thankfully, she just seemed to be heading up to the head table to sit down. Vanya, waiting on Cedar and Rowan and now also keeping an eye on Professor Granger, settled into a tense watchfulness as dinner began, providing her with her soup and a meal for Puss, and the costume contest began. Doctors - both one literal and a few televisual in various incarnations from Doctor Who - and a soldier or two preceded a boy who’d somehow produced a rough red patch on the left of his face over his eye and who was dressed in reds and golds, who made the whole Hall gasp by cartwheeling onto the stage behind his predecessor, before he swung his arm over his head and from it erupted a blast of flame that made several of the Professors sit up in brief alarm. Dominique, clapping insofar as she could with talons, squinted and realised how he’d done it - his wand was tied onto his wrist under his baggy red sleeve.

Dominique and Alpin - who was watching through a small slit in the front of his shroud - exchanged an impressed look. The bar had been raised.

But it was as someone who’d dressed up in a brown coat and a hat with a blue top underneath, and blacked out their nose with marker for some reason, walked on with a confident sort of strut that Vanya’s breath hissed in. Professor Granger had frowned and leaned over to Professor McGonagall, whispering about something. And Professor McGonagall had shaken her head confusedly.

“No… no no no,” Vanya murmured as Professor Granger idly got up and walked around behind the table toward the side of the Hall opposite the queue. Toward one of the pumpkins. Vanya’s heart hammered in her chest as the Professor examined it in that strange way of hers. She didn’t need to use her eyes, she just tilted her head about nearby it while she still faced the costume contest, clapping warmly at an older girl - Abigail Bittle, a seventh-year Slytherin, Dominique believed - who had dressed up as Mary Poppins, complete with a bigger-on-the-inside handbag and all. Nerves filled Vanya. Despite her use of a pre-written enchantment, would her work be identifiably hers? She hardly expected her work to pass the scrutiny of Professor Granger, after all.

Granger got out her wand. Vanya’s eyes widened.

The enchantment had had a very simple trigger clause. And they were all linked.

“WOAH!” Granger cried, stumbling back and almost tripping on her dress as the pumpkin leapt forward in an attempt to reach a bowl of mashed potato, chomping for purchase with its carven mouth. With a BANG, Granger’s wand shot into her hand with a blast of electricity, and with less than a flex of her fingers the pumpkin exploded, sending bits of orange gourd everywhere.

And lo, Vanya froze as the rest of the Great Hall erupted into premature pumpkin pandemonium.

Pumpkins burst off the walls and ledges, cackling and leaking melted wax from the candles within them as they jumped onto the tables, grabbing sausages and baked potatoes and whole bowls of peas and pies in their mouths and hurling them at the first people their simple targeting algorithm could find.

But as Granger whirled around, eyes ablaze, the attention did not immediately turn to scrutinising Vanya for her misdeeds. No. Instead, a great cry filled the Hall as the food-born food fight was joined. Dominique, her talons blazing, launched a fireball at a pumpkin before it could hurl the contents of a pitcher of gravy at Alpin and his white shroud. Tegyd yelled a veritable bleating war cry and twirled her thyrsus about herself, blasting a bright red spell at another. The boy who’d dressed as a Roman legionnaire drew his fake sword and hacked at a pumpkin that danced about on the Ravenclaw table to avoid it. Puss hissed, jumping back onto the table with her back arched angrily and her fur puffed up. Laughter filled the hall, and Vanya wheezed incredulously.

Everyone, save perhaps the staff themselves, thought this was supposed to be happening! And aside from the scowls and yelps of alarm, a huge swathe of the school was eagerly turning to throes of anti-pumpkin violence. And indeed, a ginger mass rocketed past Vanya and positively mauled a pumpkin into paste, rolling in it eagerly before it looked back up at Vanya, tail wagging furiously and panting ecstatically.

Persephone.

Laughing uncontrollably, Vanya watched as Persephone danced on the spot, licking pumpkin from her jowls - she was plastered in it, a condition Persephone herself considered to be more than agreeable - before she located another pumpkin to attack. Yet more students yelped in surprise and alarm at the sudden arrival of a huge, pumpkin-savaging werewolf on the table. But Vanya span, looking to the door. And she beamed at what she saw.

“Come by Lightning! Away to me Thunder!” Vanya yelled out to Twig and Leaf, who were standing confusedly in the door and watching. Where Persephone’s pelt was ginger and brown, the Browns’ were a lighter brown combined with blacks and greys. Spurred to action, Twig and Leaf bolted into a gallop for Vanya’s side, parting the chaotic crowd as they surged over and tore another pumpkin apart, splitting it between them like a tug of war and spreading pumpkin guts everywhere. Drawing her wand, Vanya looked around for another to take aim at - there weren’t many left, it hadn’t taken long for the student body to eagerly eviscerate them. Jumping forward, she span her wand in a circle around it. “Ebublio!” she cried, surrounding the pumpkin in a shiny bubble so that, instead of being able to grab anything in its carved mouth, it just pushed things aside, still making a mess but not able to attack anyone.

She was sort of on both sides of that fight, so it worked.

Then, with a motion almost akin to a cricket batsman in how she swung her thyrsus, Tegyd cried a spell and sent the en-bubbled pumpkin hurtling into the air, where Dominique blasted it with a fireball and it exploded, showering everyone below in surprisingly well cooked bits of roast pumpkin.

Within seconds, the chaos was over. There had only been so many enchanted opponents, though quite a lot of students were warily watching the remaining and inert pumpkins on the walls that Vanya hadn’t gotten to. Cheers and laughter for the quick triumph clattered about the Hall as several of the staff looked on in dismay at the disarray that had been made of the entire space. Rain slashed against the windows of the Hall in renewed vigour, but it was the crash of lightning that accompanied it and - to most - simply seemed appropriately spooky that got Dominique’s attention. Before the booming thunder’s echo had even dissipated, Dominique’s attention shot to her Aunt Ariadne, who was still standing exactly where she had been when she’d accidentally set off the pumpkins. Her already pale face was shock white and she was standing there, trembling. Eventually, Dominique watched her grit her teeth and tilt her hanging wand to her throat.

“Who. Exactly. Did. That.”

Professor Granger’s spitting voice broke the low-level din of post-food-fight happiness, and confusion followed it. The words thudded in Vanya’s chest by their amplification.

“We thought you did that?” the boy dressed as a Roman legionnaire asked. Professor Granger didn’t even respond, she just stood there. Glaring.

Persephone whined and hopped off the table, forgetting her satisfied consumption of the pumpkin she’d defeated and rather remembering what her Aunty had told her after Aubrey’s thoughtless words when they’d been on the Isle of Arran. How keenly the wounds of the war still stung in her Aunty’s mind. Persephone remembered all too well how her Aunty Ariadne had described the aftermath of the battle that had taken place in that very room. The sight of Persephone heading over to Professor Granger’s side to attempt to comfort her made Vanya freeze, her happiness forgotten. How must her little prank and the resulting spike of spells and violence in that very place have affected Granger, and the other Professors who’d fought?

And so, guilt infecting her initially amused prank, Vanya sheepishly put up her hand.

“M-me, Professor,” Vanya admitted quietly, her voice hoarse. Granger heard her anyway, her face snapping toward Vanya. As Granger took a deep breath, the rain outside subsided to the levels it had started at, a middling tapping instead of a torrent.

“Te-ten-ten-ten-ten p-ten po-ten-ten points to Slytherin for for- for producing such an enchantment at your age,” Professor Granger stuttered, and Vanya’s eyebrows shot up. Granger was rewarding her?! “And twen-twen-twen-and twenty-twenty points f-fro-from Slytherin for doing it,” she snapped, relieving Vanya of her confusion. Granger huffed again. “Twenty minute break, Minerva?” she suggested, her voice thin.

“Agreed. Twenty minute break everybody!” Professor McGonagall said, standing from her seat. “While this mess is tidied up, and to give anyone who needs to an opportunity to clean their costumes,” she said wryly.

Persephone, looking to her Aunty to make sure she was okay, eventually decided her Aunty could be left alone, and hurried off back out of the Hall. Vanya and Dominique frowned after her as she went, before she went around the corner and Dominique felt her coming back again a moment later.

When she came back, Vanya thought that Persephone might have killed an Acromantula in the woods. Half the people who so much as looked at her jumped, yelping as she walked by with the huge tangle of fuzzy brown legs dangling from her mouth. But no, as Dominique watched, this wasn’t an actual spider. Not even close. Dominique screeched in laughter as Persephone padded over toward Alpin with an attention-grabbing huff, holding in her jaws a great big spider costume meant for large dogs. Alpin burst out laughing after he popped his head out again to see it, before Persephone laid it at his feet and sat up expectantly.

“Oh, you need help,” Alpin noted redundantly, and she nodded. Quite obviously, she did not have thumbs or hands with which to put on the costume her Ma had sent for her herself. It was the only drawback of that form, really. Alpin knelt down and leant the pole holding up his Mari on his shoulder as he picked up the dog costume Persephone had left at his feet and tore open the velcro. Persephone helped him get it around her - she was bigger than even most big dogs, it was a squeeze despite it allegedly being the biggest size her Ma had been able to find - and he sealed up the velcro under her belly. Standing back, Alpin chortled at her, shaking his head as Persephone shook herself to jiggle the spider legs. It was basically just a velcro-secured stretchy tube top adorned in a blob of fuzz and eight legs on the back.

Having seen videos on the internet of people getting pranked by little dogs in spider costumes and running away, Persephone trotted off to go and scare anyone who walked into the Hall out of their skin instead of entering the costume contest. She even managed to frighten McLaggen and Thynne as she loped by them, whom she could have sworn had almost pissed themselves at spotting her - Thynne had dropped all his cutlery on the floor, startled into incoherent flailing - before she’d left them to their grumbling about letting three werewolves inside.

And after a concerted effort by those who did have thumbs to tidy up the Hall and clean any pumpkin-sullied costumes, the contest went on! Dominique stayed obscured behind Alpin - the shroud was big enough for her to do so while still guiding him - as she paraded him and his Mari Lwyd across the stage, where he got plenty of praise from the other students for the skull, before they headed off and had their dinner, watching all the following costumes, including Vanya. It was perhaps no surprise that the scarecrow costume Vanya had seen earlier - Gryffindor sixth-year Jasper Morgan, Addison’s older cousin - won second place, probably due to the pumpkin association of the evening, whereas Jamie Milligan and his legionnaire armour - who loudly declared himself to be Jamius, Pumpkin-Slayer, proudly displaying his pumpkin-gunk covered gladius - won first place.

But perhaps most to the pride of the Nonhuman Club, it was one among their number who won third place. Not Vanya, even parading two werewolves as her sheepdogs her cheese enchantment wasn’t as impressive as the pumpkins and she was already getting enough praise from her fellow students for spicing up the evening. Nor was it even Sue, who somehow had gotten hold of one of those silly horse heads to wear, and had managed to get a great roar of laughter from the Hall even if she didn’t win a spot. It was Tegyd, wowing the school and staff alike by casting great waves of light from her working thyrsus, who took third place, gratefully curtseying to the surprised gasps she had elicited before she had headed off the stage and professed her intense nervousness to her friends, only to be showered with praise when her name was announced in third place after the show was over and she went up again to be congratulated and applauded.

As the sparkles from the fireworks Tegyd had shot into the rafters in that overjoyed moment twinkled down across the Hall, Vanya nodded to herself. Her prank had been triggered early, sure, but most of the school had enjoyed it immensely and it seemed that even Professor Granger had long recovered from it by the time she was beaming at Tegyd for her triumph. And a night of fun, well, that had very certainly been had.

--

Chapter Text

Welcome to the Club

Cackling, Persephone lobbed one last little snowball at Alpin’s head as they strode back up the stairs into the great castle of Hogwarts from the frigid cold outside. Alpin laughed and batted the snow out of his hair as he scuffed his shoes off on the doorway, and a happy pant persisted in Persephone’s mouth as they headed inside where it was much warmer. Though, as Persephone began to turn down a corridor to head to Room 13, Alpin didn’t and she turned back to see why.

“Do ye no wanna come to the Club?” Persephone asked curiously, as Alpin took his scarf off.

“Hm? Oh, sorry no, I’ve got some homework to do. I thought I’d get it done while you were at the Club and the Choir,” Alpin replied apologetically, and Persephone nodded. In truth, so did she, she’d just rather play in the snow while it was snowing. “Tell them I said shwmae¹ though?” he asked, straightening his blue coat. He’d made it a bit big on himself deliberately, so he could grow into it, but just then it was a little broad in the shoulders and liked to shift about.

“Ay, A’ll do that,” Persephone assured him. “See ye later!” she said as Alpin started walking again.

“Tara!” he called back, before the two of them parted and Persephone made her way toward Room 13 while Alpin went upstairs, presumably up toward Ravenclaw Tower. Persephone yawned, stretching as she went. Her weekend had of course started off quite fun, what with the chaos of the Halloween costume contest, and she was glad for the snow that day as opposed to the rain that had fallen the day before. Not that she’d minded that rain, having spent Saturday inside; as usual, she had had her monthly checkup after the full moon. That one had been a little more hair-raising seeing as she’d had a tail and full fur for the entirety of Friday despite having only taken one potion for it, but Persephone’s initial hunch had been right; it had not come back when she’d transformed again on Saturday morning back into her humanoid form. And thanks to a bit more thorough a checkup, they were quite sure it wasn’t going to cause her any ongoing issues. But aside from all that kerfuffle, Madam Pomfrey had also noted that her blood oestrogen level was a small bit higher than it had been a month before, but she’d put that down to the usual rigours of puberty and decided it was nothing to worry about.

And so, despite a few residual aches and pains from the full moon, Persephone was in good spirits when she walked in to the room where much of the Club was already assembled, and took the chair she’d been saved by Dominique and Vanya. Vanya, obviously, was not one to go outside in the freezing cold, and Dominique hadn’t felt like it. Also there was Sværri of course, as well as Blodwen, whose leaves were yellowing and falling now that winter was beginning to settle over Scotland. Beside her was Tegyd, who waved idly as she ate one of Blodwen’s apples, careful not to knock over the long thyrsus staff Alpin had made her leaning on her shoulder and that was still adorned in magically-produced strands of ivy sprouting from beneath the pinecone at its tip and the bronze ribbon she’d tied around it. Cedar and Rowan too were there, and Cedar reached over to ruffle Persephone’s hair in greeting from where he was sitting, and the Scamander hatchmates were sitting on the other side of Vanya chatting with her about some homework they had. Pisces gladly waved at her, and Persephone waved back.

“Afternoon all,” Persephone said as Victoire chirruped her own greeting.

“Good afternoon ‘Seph,” her Aunty Ariadne said warmly, nodding to her from where she was sitting beside Blodwen, with a few leaves in her curly hair. “Yo-you-you’ve been -you’ve been taking advantage of the snow, I assume?” she asked jauntily, and Persephone nodded helplessly. “Never change. You’re lucky up here, at home we’re not likely to get any for another month and when we do it won-it won-won-won-it won’t be anything to-worth writing home about,” Ariadne said amusedly.

“I’m against it,” Vanya grumbled, and a few laughs clattered about the Club.

“‘Course you are. Give you a hot water bottle and some mittens, you’ll be fine. Puss’ll make sure of that, won’t you pussy-cat?” Cedar snickered, digging his fingers into Puss’ fur as he actually held the purring cat in his lap. As he was saying it though, Vanya frowned, her mind freezing like the temperature outside for a moment. With all that had happened, with all she had read about Professor Granger… she hadn’t quite consciously realised that the woman, the legend, the arch-sorceress, had a house somewhere. Had a normal life outside of working at Hogwarts. And so, she peered at Professor Granger.

“Where is home, for you, Professor?” Vanya asked curiously.

“Oh, Gi-Ginny and I own a house on Loxden Way, it’s a wizarding street in the east end of London,” Professor Granger replied nonchalantly. At that, Vanya blinked. She was pretty sure that Annabelle had once said, and she’d overheard, that she too lived on that street. Vanya wondered; Professor Granger had never seemed to like Annabelle from day one, had she garnered some impression to the Deputy Headmistress as the neighbourhood bully? It didn’t strike Vanya as being very professional, but despite her legend, Professor Granger was still only human. Or, only mortal, she supposed. “It-it’s why there’re two Houses of Granger, the fi-the fi-fi-fi-the first and my second cadet branch. ‘Mione’s bit went up to Scotland, my bit stayed down in England,” Professor Granger added, holding up her little finger and the silver signet ring it bore.

“What’s the point of that House of Granger thing?” Sue asked curiously. Granger’s eyebrows raised and she shrugged.

“It’s a political fiction, but there’s no point in pretending that we’re not a rich and powerful family,” Granger replied nonchalantly, before she smiled. “Besides, you get to ponce around with heraldry, make your daughter a Lady, and ‘Mione gets a tartan, there’s a little fun in it,” Ariadne sniffed, smiling at Persephone’s crest brooch. “We don’t take it anywhere near as seriously as everyone else does. Eno-enough about me though, it’s a Nonhuman Club,” she said jauntily. At that prompting, Victoire, who’d been tapping her talons together a bit, piped up.

“Um, Tegyd?” Victoire asked.

“Myeah?” Tegyd replied, her voice a little muffled since she was still eating a crab apple, core and all.

“You know your corsets?” Victoire continued, and Tegyd nodded, knocking her fist against her side and evidently against the bones in the corset she was wearing under her clothes given the dull thudding noise it made. “Where’d you get them?” she asked.

“Oh there’s just a corset place in Diagon Alley. Gotta get them specially made though, they can do it but most of their stuff is like, you wear it on top of other stuff like a goth,” Tegyd answered nonchalantly. “Guess that’s popular with wizards,” she shrugged.

“Has b-has-has-has been for a little while, they saw non-magical people getting into gothic fashion and decided they’d do it too and pretend it was some kind of revival,” Professor Granger agreed amusedly. “I suppose it’s good the demand is keeping them going, means people like you can get supportive stuff,” she added, nodding to Tegyd, who smiled.

“Yeah! Why d’you ask Vic, do you want one?” Tegyd asked curiously, and Victoire actually nodded. “What, to wear all the time or just for a look?”

“Everyday,” Victoire replied matter-of-factly. “Remember how I said Veela aren’t supposed to have um, boobs, in our avian form? Well, I do, it’s why I stay in my human form a lot of the time, because my wings get in the way of wearing a bra like I normally do,” she explained, holding up one enormous white, ginger, and brown wing and tucking her other’s talon under her armpit - wingpit, Vanya wondered? - to demonstrate how much further down the tissues of her wings connected to her body than a human arm did. Indeed, it extended so far down it looked like it would intersect with her bust. Though, they were all wearing fairly thick clothes with winter smothering the castle, and Victoire was wearing multiple thick ponchos, so it was harder to tell where that was exactly. Dominique nodded to that point - she was younger than Victoire, obviously, but she too was beginning to have the same problem with the slow advance of puberty and she was curious about Victoire’s question. “How high does your corset come under your arms, do you think I could wear one?” Victoire asked, still demonstrating for reference. Tegyd frowned and raised one arm to feel about underneath it, before she held a hand at a level that actually looked like it wouldn’t be as troublesome to Victoire. Though, it was also close enough that the matter would be in question.

“About there? Dunno if it’s any better though, um,” Tegyd said, frowning as she looked around. “Where’s a bra come to? I’ve never actually worn one, Mum took a look on the internet when we were first figuring it out, y’know, just measure me at home and get one online, but she said they’ve all got some’at called a gore in the middle that’d just stab me,” she asked. The girls in the room frowned to each other, and Vanya shrugged. She of course didn’t even need to worry about it. Dominique didn’t own any, and Persephone just made a face.

“Don’t look at me, it’s no as if they make ‘em for us who’ve got six,” Persephone grumbled, self-consciously straightening the front of her dress. In truth, she was ever so slowly getting to a point where it might have been marginally helpful, particularly for exercise, but, well, where was she supposed to get something that’d fit her?

“And I have to make my own, so mine might be wrong,” Wulfwynn offered, having been so quiet that one could have been forgiven for not noticing she was there despite her enormous half-Giant size. Tegyd bleated a scoffing noise.

“Hang on, is none of us wearing a bra from a shop?” Tegyd asked amusedly, while the boys of the club as well as Sue and the Scamanders looked a bit amused though left out. Cedar snorted as Professor Granger made a similar nose and performatively rolled her eyes as she felt around under her red coat for her own beneath her black dress.

“I su-I sup-I sup-sup-suppose I’m the only one. There,” Ariadne grumbled, shaking her head as she mimed where her own came to - much higher than Tegyd’s corset, comparatively. Tegyd nodded, pointing.

“Yeah, a corset might actually work for you Vic. And they can probably make it a little lower if you need, y’know, custom made and all,” Tegyd decided, and Victoire smiled in the corners of her beak gladly. “It’s just called Diagon Corsetry, I don’t think there’s one in Hogsmeade. Niche fashion thing,” she explained.

“Diagon Corsetry. Nice,” Victoire murmured to herself. “I’ll tell Maman,² I was thinking we could go over Christmas,” she said.

“We could um, we could get me one or two as well,” Dominique chirped, and Victoire looked over to her with only the briefest of surprise before she nodded.

“Oh yeah, you said you had them too,” Victoire said, clearly remembering when they’d talked about the matter when Tegyd had told them all about her cheesemaking. Persephone remembered that day more in the sense that she looked forward to the next batch, since it was actually quite nice cheese. Dominique nodded, already very much on board with the idea. If she could get something that’d stop how uncomfortable it could be to play sports without a bra, especially in the future as she grew and it got worse, maybe in the future she’d find it easier to do stuff like try out for the Quidditch team. Though, she wasn’t sure how suitable a corset would be for sports, she’d have to ask when they went. Who knew, maybe there was such a thing as a sports corset like there were sports bras?

“Don’t expect ‘em to be cheap, mind you,” Tegyd noted with more pragmatism in her voice. Cedar snorted and murmured cheep cheep to Rowan, who scoffed and whacked Cedar’s arm. “But they’re pretty good, you might not need as heavy-duty a one as me but they’re comfy if you put them on right and don’t tightlace it, and they’re good for your posture,” she said, before she bleated a laugh. “Gods know I’d have back problems if I didn’t wear them,” Tegyd snickered.

“Haha! Speakin’ o back problems, see ye’re still carrying that stick Alpin made for ye,” Persephone noted amusedly, nodding at the thyrsus leaning on Tegyd’s shoulder. “That doing all right, helping ye out is it?” she asked.

“The staff? Yeah, it’s right tidy,” Tegyd replied gladly, smiling at it. “My legs don’t hurt as much, that’s for sure. It’s really good having something to help balance me, walking’s fine but it’s when I’m trying to stand still or anything slow that it starts to hurt,” she explained, before her face fell into a more pensive expression and her ears shifted a little. “Just dunno what everyone’s gonna think of me keeping it around this week. I mean, it’s kinda still Halloween,” she mused. Indeed, Halloween itself had been the day before.

“Because it’s also a symbol of your religion?” Cetus asked curiously, and Tegyd nodded.

“Well I think it’s very interesting,” Pisces assured Tegyd brightly, with a big sharp-toothed smile, though Tegyd made a face.

“I dunno if interesting is what I’m looking for,” Tegyd said uncertainly, frowning to herself. “I’d rather they just don’t make a big deal about it or think it’s silly. Not even sure how much I want to tell people yet. But I guess interesting’s better than silly,” she pointed out.

“Are there any holidays in your… Hellenism, it’s called? Maybe you could celebrate some of those, it might be a fun way to introduce people to it,” Sværri suggested curiously, and Tegyd nodded thoughtfully.

“Yeah, there’s a few. Some coming up too, the Rural Dionysia’s near the end of term, and Anthesteria, the flower festival, is in a few months,” Tegyd mused, a smile creeping up onto her face as Sue beamed at her. “I’ve got a thing on my phone, does the Attican calendar to ours, has all the holidays on it,” she added.

“Remember those gift baskets you made everyone for the Rural Dionysia?” Sue asked rhetorically, making Tegyd nod wistfully as everyone else looked at them curiously. “Oh, she and her Mum used to make some little cakes for everyone and bring them around. But they stopped when she went to Hogwarts except for her first year when it was in the holidays,” Sue explained.

“They always composted a few for me as well, it was very generous of them,” Blodwen added.

“Mum said we couldn’t make them shaped like dicks,” Tegyd grumbled, and all at once the entire club burst out laughing, and Persephone choked on her own phlegm with giggles. Dominique screeched and Vanya snorted, and Persephone quickly got out her inhaler as Tegyd shrugged smartly. “Guys, he’s a fertility god too, what do you expect? The dick cakes are traditional,” she snickered.

“Please no dick cakes, Miss Humphries,” Professor Granger groaned, with a face like she’d just licked a particularly sour lemon. “If for no other reason than to save my dignity from having to explain to Professor Lingeman why you’re using his ovens to bake phallic symbols,” she added. Professor Lingeman was of course the teacher for the food elective.

“Awww,” Tegyd whined sarcastically, and Granger shook her head with a scoffing noise. “Fine, no dick cakes. But I might have a sleepover with my friends for it if that’s okay. Do some baking, watch a movie together,” she suggested, and Professor Granger nodded to that simply. “And Anthesteria might be really good to have a party for. No dick cakes in that one Professor, I promise,” she laughed.

“Thank you,” Ariadne replied wryly. “And no alcohol please. God of wine or no, if people get drunk and someone gets hurt here in the castle that’s on my head,” she added sternly. Tegyd just nodded to that one, while Professor Granger frowned thoughtfully. “I’ve not heard of the Anthesteria, but the Dionysia rings a bell. Wasn’t there quite a lot of theatre involved?” she asked.

“Yeah! More in the City Dionysia though,” Tegyd replied brightly. Granger nodded.

“Maybe we should put on a play one of these years,” Professor Granger supposed with a smile, but it was Tegyd’s face that lit up like a Christmas tree and her eyes widened as her mouth fell open.

“Oh my gods, I could start a theatre club!” Tegyd realised suddenly, sitting forward as Professor Granger raised her eyebrows in enthusiastic surprise. Dominique’s beak fell open in an avian smile as a ripple of little interested noises came from the Club.

“You very well could!” Ariadne agreed, smiling at her. “If you can get a school play going by the Dionysia, Miss Humphries, go wild,” she told the girl, who just grinned at her.

“Of course I’ll go wild. I’m a Maenad,” Tegyd snickered, before Ariadne’s face fell in a sarcastic sort of alarm.

“No, no, I won’t have you dismembering the mayor of Hogsmeade in the mountains!” Ariadne cried, laughing under it all as Vanya snorted, not knowing what they were talking about. But Tegyd clearly did, as her ears shifted forward in realisation and she thought for a moment, an eager little smirk growing on her lips.

“We could do The Bacchae!” Tegyd hissed excitedly. Professor Granger scoffed.

“You could do,” Granger supposed. “When’s the.. City Dionysia, do you have that on your calendar thing?” she asked, pointing to Tegyd’s pocket. Tegyd nodded and got out her phone, and started scrolling something for a bit, while Persephone and Dominique exchanged curious looks. Sure, it was an element of worship to Tegyd, but it didn’t have to be so to them for them to support her in it. And plus, a play sounded like lots of fun. Especially a dismemberment, in Persephone’s mind. She was good at dismemberment. A few seats away, Cedar tapped Rowan’s arm with a pointed nod, as if to suggest they too join in.

“Uh, it’s in March. The sixteenth to the twentieth,” Tegyd replied eventually, still examining the calendar on her small phone’s screen. Granger nodded with a bright little hum.

“Ah, that’s perfectly before the Easter holidays,” Professor Granger noted, smiling. “I’ll see if we can fit something in for you during that week. Why don’t I put you in for an appointment with myself and Professor McGonagall to talk about starting a theatre club after classes tomorrow?” she suggested, already getting out a notebook and a fountain pen.

“Yeah! Brilliant, thanks Professor!” Tegyd replied eagerly, as Professor Granger wrote something down.

“Oh, it’s no trouble Miss Humphries,” Professor Granger assured her. As she did, Blodwen, who was sitting beside Professor Granger but was also quite a bit taller even without including her crown of branches, peered at her notebook with a slight wooden frown.

“That’s a curious way of writing something down, Professor,” Blodwen noted politely. Granger frowned at her as Tegyd smiled.

“What’s she done Blod?” Tegyd asked, and Professor Granger held up her notebook to show them the page. Vanya’s brows furrowed in confusion. Professor Granger’s handwriting was always impeccable in class, loopy cursive flames that laid out everything in detail. This? This, somehow, was both perfect cursive and an utterly illegible scribble of only a few letters which absolutely could not have been sufficient to convey any information, even if one could read it. Persephone, meanwhile, snorted. She’d seen this before. Tegyd peered at the page in bewilderment, obviously trying to read it but failing.

“You’re looking at me like a student who wants permission to speak freely, Miss Humphries,” Professor Granger chuckled.

“Professor what the hell is that?!” Tegyd asked immediately. Professor Granger retracted her notebook, with a jovial sort of scowl.

“I didn’t give you permission,” she noted.

“Oh, A’ve seen this shite afore,”³ Persephone groaned.

“Hey!” Ariadne exclaimed, though not in her teacher’s tone, more her Aunty tone. Dominique and Victoire both chirped amusedly. “One point from Hufflepuff, language.”

“Ma does this too, it’s fuckin’ weird it is,” Persephone continued. Vanya frowned at her too even as Professor Granger took another point from Hufflepuff for her swearing.

“What is it?” Vanya asked, nodding over at the notebook Professor Granger was putting back into her pocket with a bemused sort of face.

“It’s just shorthand!” Professor Granger protested. “Do you have any idea how time consuming it is to poke holes in a piece of paper just to write out a sentence in braille?! Of course I use shorthand, it’s what I’ve always used!” she exclaimed incredulously. “I just kept doing it after Hermione taught me to write,” Ariadne said.

“Hang on, if it’s a braille thing why does Hermione do it too?” Cedar asked confusedly.

“It’s no just a braille thing!” Persephone exclaimed. “Grannie and Gutcher⁴ are dentists, they do that shit doctors do wi all weird shorthand nobody else can bloody read!” she cried, making the others in the club wheeze with laughter.

“Two points from Hufflepuff, swearing Persephone. It’s efficient!” Ariadne exclaimed, laughing herself even as she chided her niece. “Nobody else needs to read it, it’s fine!” she insisted.

“Does that mean you can read it, Persephone?” Vanya wondered, if Persephone’s mother did the same thing. Persephone shook her head.

“No! And e’en⁵ if A could, they’ve got different ones,” Persephone replied.

“It just says Tegyd Humphries, meeting with Minerva tomorrow,” Ariadne told them, sighing. “Anyway,” she said firmly. “You wouldn’t be the only one starting a club, Tegyd, Jack Kidwell in Gryffindor is starting a flying club as well,” she said, bringing the conversation back. Dominique chirruped excitedly, instantly going for her bag where she had a flyer for that very club, while Cedar - who shared a dormitory with Kidwell, the Seeker on the Gryffindor Quidditch team - blinked.

“Oh yeah, he is isn’t he?” Cedar said. “Told me last week, full moon though, so it kinda just went in one ear and out the other. You gonna join it are you Dom?” he asked, as Dominique got out the piece of paper and nodded.

“Yeah! I didn’t get on to the Quidditch team, but I’ve still got my broomstick here,” Dominique replied eagerly, unfolding the flyer. “It says they’re meeting tomorrow to get everyone on the same page, and go for a fly if the weather’s okay!” she said. Persephone grimaced at that - she was pretty sure, from memory, that the weather report for Monday wasn’t exactly good for flying. Lots of snow and fog. “Wanna come?” Dominique asked Persephone and Vanya, who both shook their heads.

“Nah, ye ken⁶ A’m no for flying,” Persephone declined. “Alpin may though, ye might ask him later, he’s no bad on a broom. Just no into Quidditch,” she added, and Dominique nodded.

“I will. Maybe you should join it Sværri!” Dominique chirruped, offering the little half-Veela half-Goblin the paper. Sværri sat up to peer at it. Sværri, because his Veela ancestry was much more recent than Dominique’s or Victoire’s, could actually fly on his wings, unlike them.

“Maybe. It’s more for broomstick flying though, is it not?” Sværri asked. Dominique, thinking about it, supposed it was. After all, it advertised itself on the flyer Kidwell had sent as being in part for those who didn’t get on the Quidditch team but still love to fly. “I’ll have to think about it,” he mused thoughtfully, handing Dominique back the flyer.

--

Chapter Text

“You off to Choir?” Vanya asked Persephone as she too departed Room 13, in a bit more of a hurry than Vanya was in. Many of the Club were still in there, Dominique and Sværri were still chin-wagging - or was that beak-wagging, with them, Vanya supposed? - about the Flying Club and all that, but they had both headed out when the hour had tolled in the bells far above them.

“Ay! Where’re ye going?” Persephone asked, tilting her head at Vanya a little.

“Library, thought I’d do some reading,” Vanya replied simply with a shrug.

“Right. See ye then, have a good afternoon Van,” Persephone told her brightly, before she span, her skirt twirling out a little about her furred legs, and headed off toward the stairs to go to her Choir practice. Vanya waved after her, smiling, before she began in the opposite direction. As she went, behind them, the door of Room 13 clattered and Vanya looked back to see Professor Granger closing it gingerly, making sure her long red coat didn’t get caught in its join, before she too left. And at that, Vanya paused.

For the entire time she’d been at the Nonhuman Club that day, a little pit of guilt had been gnawing at her stomach. A pit that had appeared on Friday, when her pumpkins had been activated and she’d realised how Professor Granger must have reacted to it all. She might have only been twelve, but she knew trauma better than most twelve-year-olds, and Vanya was quite sure that it could not have been an easy moment for Granger. She’d been halfway towards saying something to her for the entire Club, but it hadn’t fit.

Well, now it didn’t have to fit. So Vanya grit her fangs softly and jogged over to Professor Granger. Puss meowed and padded after her in a hopping little dash, before she curled about Granger’s feet, purring.

“Professor Granger!” Vanya called, making the woman turn her sightless gaze to her as she slowed her stride.

“Yes, Miss Stryde?” Professor Granger asked pleasantly, smiling at her. Vanya floundered for a moment, as Granger leant down and picked up Puss, scritching her ears with a smile.

“Um,” she spluttered. “I um, I wanted to say I was sorry. For er, what happened on Friday, with um, with the pumpkins,” Vanya said hesitantly, and Professor Granger nodded, still patting Puss. “I didn’t realise that it would be bad, for you,” she said, not quite sure how to say it. Granger’s face shifted a little, not that Vanya could tell what emotion it was by.

“That’s perfectly all right, Vanya,” Professor Granger assured her, with a pursed sort of smile as she slowly continued walking and Vanya matched her pace past a burning torch in its sconce. “If I couldn’t handle being reminded of the Battle of Hogwarts, I wouldn’t work at Hogwarts. Yes, it was-was-was a-was a-was a bit-was a bit of a sharp reminder, but I’m fine dear,” the woman reminded her gently, and Vanya nodded apologetically. Granger turned her face to her again, raising an eyebrow. “However I cannot condone it. You learning to enchant things at your age is impressive as you always are, but don’t start using it for mischief now. Please?” Professor Granger said sternly, making a face. “Minerva’s furnished me with enough horror stories about Fred and George, I don’t need my own versions,” she chuckled. Vanya frowned softly - those names were familiar to her. George was Dominique’s Uncle, and biological father of Persephone’s little sister, but Fred… wasn’t he the dead one?

It was blunt, but that was how Vanya had heard of him.

Nevertheless, Professor Granger smiled softly as Vanya nodded to her request not to get up to things with her skills.

“Your Tiffany costume was very well done, I have to say,” Professor Granger said warmly, and Vanya beamed at her. “I-I no-I noticed your um, Horace, the cheese, was actually humming? Excellent attention to detail there, Miss Stryde,” she chuckled. “And the broomstick you were carrying around was a nice touch,” she added, letting Puss down again before she herself started humming something as they walked, descending some stairs as they went past a few casually dressed students playing some kind of card game. And then, under her breath, Professor Granger started to sing. Just quietly, though loudly enough Vanya could hear the words.

“You made me older, than my years. I am young, and barely grown,” Granger sang softly, her voice quiet and almost sad. “And when I cry, I cry your tears, for I have no life of my own. Why don’t you write me some candle-light, and wear your heart of gold?” she whispered, shaking her head softly to a rhythm. “And I will wear these aching, heartbreaking years… ‘til one day, I shall wear midnight…” It was at that that Vanya froze for a split second, blinking at Granger. She was singing a song about Tiffany. Professor Granger turned a bit, smiling. “Oh, don’t mind me. It’s a song by Steeleye Span, they did an album for Wintersmith in collaboration with Pratchett a little before he passed away. We Shall Wear Midnight, it’s me-mean-meant-it’s meant to be Tiffany singing to him,” she explained sheepishly.

“About how Tiffany said she’d wear black when she got old?” Vanya asked rhetorically, and Granger nodded. Vanya peered at Professor Granger curiously. Beneath the red coat, the woman always wore a long, coal-black dress. It matched her hair, but Vanya found herself wondering why Granger wore what she did. “Like you do,” Vanya said. Granger frowned at her, humming confusedly, before realisation marked her face.

“Oh, the dress,” Granger said quickly. “I suppose. Why, do you think there’s a reason?” she asked bemusedly.

“Why do you always wear black, Professor?” Vanya asked, confirming the Professor’s question with her own. Professor Granger laughed, a tiny little snicker, shaking her head.

“Ha. Do you want the boring real answer or the one that ties into what we just talked about before?” Granger asked her amusedly, and Vanya shrugged.

“Whichever you like, Professor,” she supposed. Granger smiled, thinking back for a moment.

“Well, the boring answer is that I picked it almost at random one day about twenty years ago,” Granger told her bluntly, making her snort. “Hermione and I were, y’know, starting work soon, so we thought we’d go and get ourselves some professional clothes,” she said, shrugging. “I’m blind, so I’m not going to faff about with colour-coordinating my outfits, god no. I just bought oh… half a dozen red blouses, half a dozen black skirts, and a few ti- bl-black ties, and that became my look,” the Professor told her nonchalantly, before she smiled whimsically and scoffed. “My Dad once said I looked like a cheap magician, and I just loved that,” she mused.

“Really?” Vanya asked. Surely being called that was an insult, to wizards at least.

“Oh yeah,” Granger replied amusedly. “Back in those days, everyone was going on about me being the Woman Who Lived. Much rather be a cheap magician,” she said sardonically. “When I started teaching, I thought I’d update things. Got three of this dress made and three of this coat; the pockets are actually removable, I just enchanted one set and stick them in whichever one I’m wearing,” the woman shrugged. “Simple as that, really.”

“So, what’s the other answer?” Granger’s allusion to there being another answer if she wanted it had piqued Vanya’s curiosity, even if the boring one was pretty funny to her. Professor Granger sighed, nodding softly.

“Yes. When I am old, I shall wear midnight,” Granger recited quietly, a dark sort of look on her face. “Do you know, Miss Stryde, what got me through that war? Through that battle?” she asked gravely. Vanya shook her head. She’d read about the woman, but nothing so detailed. “The prospect of growing old, with my wife,” Professor Granger told her softly. She shook her head with a huff. “Anyone who says they have nothing left to lose as if it makes them dangerous is kidding themselves. It’s the people with everything to lose that you need to be afraid of. They’ll fight all the harder,” Ariadne snarled, her face haunted for but a moment as she recalled the day Vanya knew she considered the worst of her life. “The promise I fought and killed to keep, was that I would grow old with Ginny. I wear midnight, because age is what I aspire to,” she told Vanya, who raised her eyebrows in surprise. Granger seemed youthful, in many ways, when compared to someone like Professor McGonagall. Then again, McGonagall was ancient, so who knew, maybe that was just by comparison. A soft smile grew on Ariadne’s face.

“The day someone calls me an old woman, Vanya, will be the day I die of joy,” Ariadne admitted quietly. She sniffed, smiling. “Sp-spea-speaking of growing old with Ginny. I have my wife to go home to, if you’ll excuse me Vanya. Have a good afternoon,” Granger said softly but firmly, before she patted Vanya’s shoulder and stepped away, walking off toward the direction of her office.

“You too Professor,” Vanya said quickly, lingering for a moment where they’d split paths. Professor Granger was a strange kind of person, and one she doubted she fully understood. Hell, she wondered if Persephone and Dominique fully understood her, and they’d grown up with the woman as their Aunt. Despite the vast power and strength at her command and all the pain in her voice when she spoke of the battle Vanya had only read about… nay, perhaps because of it, Granger was, if firm, kind and warm. And it made sense, really. The life she lived then was the prize she’d won by fighting those battles, her kindness was hard-fought and hard-earned. And Vanya knew first hand, even if she didn’t consciously remember it, that Professor Granger would fight just as hard to preserve it not just for herself but for her students. Pondering the enormity of her Professor’s experience, Vanya made her way across the castle to the library with Puss at her heel.

With all the picturesque snow outside - sure, Vanya could admit it was pretty, she just objected to it - that weekend, the castle was a little emptier as people took advantage of it all, but those inside were all cosy sitting by the various fires keeping warm as they did homework, played games, fiddled about on their phones, that sort of thing. But one person wasn’t, whom Vanya noticed by a chance glance when she was nearing the library.

Sophie was sitting all on her own in a little crescent-shaped side corridor near the library as Vanya went by - Vanya really wasn’t sure what the corridor was for, unless the wedge shape inside its angle with the corridors it joined was load-bearing or something. She was sitting atop the base of a tall stone statue of a man in ornate robes, standing there and reading a book, while Sophie too read a book with a much more frustrated expression than the statue she sat on had on its still face. Beside her was a tiny little cushion. Sophie exhaled sharply and picked up her wand from the stone base and pointed it firmly at the cushion.

“Lagofors,” Sophie hissed, screwing up her face as she jabbed her wand forward toward the cushion like it were some kind of lever, or a gearshift in a car. A chaotic green wave shivered from her wand over the cushion, and the brown colour of the cushion grew into fur, legs and ears took on the beginnings of the recognisable shape of a rabbit… before the violently shaking magic cracked and the spell shook itself to pieces, the transfiguration failing as it all retracted back into a pincushion. Sophie groaned angrily, whacking her wand into the book as she slumped. “Oh come on,” she spat. With a curious expression, Vanya went over to her.

“Hey Sophie,” Vanya said, making Sophie jump as she looked up at her.

“Ah! Hi Van!” Sophie gasped, sitting up. “You going to the library?” she asked, and Vanya nodded.

“I was, yeah,” Vanya said as she came and sat down on the plinth too, looking up at the great big statue. From her shorter perspective, the book the man was reading had an eagle icon carved into its spine, not unlike the weird magic book Dominique had stolen from Lumière. “Who’s this bloke?” she asked.

“Hm? Oh, Ravenclaw’s husband I think,” Sophie replied nonchalantly. “Forgot his name. How was Nonhuman Club?” she asked, moving her pincushion subject onto her lap.

“Good yeah. Tegyd reckons she’s gonna start a Theatre Club, some kind of play before Easter,” Vanya replied, and Sophie nodded curiously with a little hum. Vanya didn’t think she’d be likely to take part, not unless The Bacchae needed a little kid character, but it sounded fun. “What’ve you been up to?” At that question, Sophie just grumbled and slumped. “Not having fun then?” Vanya asked wryly. Sophie shook her head.

“Been trying to study for Transfiguration. Got a big test at the end of term, and I can’t fail my OWL,” she groaned. “It’s just… I get the biology stuff, I really do, I just can’t do it!” she exclaimed. Vanya grimaced to herself, echoes in her mind proliferating guilt in how the pair of them were so often compared by Sophie’s parents. Vanya was just, obviously, a lot better at magic than Sophie was. And to make things worse, Vanya was really good at Transfiguration. She was one of Professor Granger’s favourite students and she was well ahead of her own class, after all. Vanya exhaled softly.

“Anything I can help with?” Vanya asked reluctantly. She didn’t want to flaunt her skills in Sophie’s face, but she also wanted to help. “Probably nothing if it’s OWL stuff-”

“It’s not even OWL stuff!” Sophie groaned, cutting her off a bit. Vanya paused, raising her eyebrows in surprise. “It’s just revision on the old biology bloody… animate Transfiguration stuff,” she grumbled. Vanya, again, had to think about what she did. On one hand, she didn’t want to make Sophie feel inadequate. But on the other…

“Well, we’re doing animate Transfigurations now, maybe I can help,” she suggested brightly. Sophie reluctantly held up her textbook to show her; it wasn’t the same one Vanya had gotten pretty familiar with, A Beginner’s Guide to Transfiguration, but the next level up - Intermediate Transfiguration. Sophie had the page open to a detailed anatomical diagram of a rabbit. “You’re doing the more advanced spells, the ones that you’ve got to concentrate on the details for?” Vanya asked. Professor Granger had mentioned it being what they’d be working toward in third year. Sophie nodded.

“Yeah, it’s not Lapifors that just gives you a rabbit, it’s Lagofors, bit wider. Can do hares and stuff,” Sophie agreed. Well, Sophie seemed to have the theory down, Vanya supposed. Vanya hadn’t even known that rabbits and hares weren’t the same thing. “But it’s not the details that’s the problem. Y’know, I wanna be a vet, plenty of people have pet rabbits so I’ve even gotten out some extra stuff from the library on biology, I know what I’m supposed to be doing, but none of it’s helped!” Sophie told her, and Vanya frowned. Maybe Sophie’s issue was on the magic end, not the theory end. After all, apparently it had taken ages just for her to learn the basic magic Vanya had gotten the hang of within a few days of getting her wand. “Look, watch,” Sophie grumbled, picking her wand back out of the middle of the book. She grumpily sat the pincushion down beside herself and aimed her wand at it. With her eyes alternating between the cushion and the diagram, she cleared her throat. “Lagofors!” she incanted firmly, and again the wave of green magic sputtered from her wand and over the cushion. It began to grow fur, even take on the shape of a rabbit as its haunches formed and long ears began to grow from its fabric-fur front, before Sophie’s struggled, gritted teeth started shaking along with her hand as a grunt of effort escaped her mouth. Her shaking transferred into the spell, and the Transfiguration itself started shuddering, losing its cohesion before Sophie gasped to catch her breath and it snapped away, like an engine stalling as it ran out of fuel. “See!” Sophie cried.

Vanya frowned at the way Sophie was breathing heavily. That wasn’t normal.

“Maybe you’re like, pushing yourself too hard?” Vanya suggested, watching her. “Maybe you just need to relax, let it go?” she added. Sophie gave her a sceptical look, but nevertheless raised her wand again. Making a face, she pointed her alder wand at the cushion again.

“Lagofors,” she said simply. What happened was different, sure, but no more successful. The wave shook again, and a tiny green glow tried to make a rabbit, but it failed almost instantly. It had barely formed a head, let alone ears. “No, that doesn’t work. It just doesn’t come together at all if I don’t push it, no spells do,” Sophie said dejectedly. She let her wand drop into her lap, staring into space a bit as she shifted where she sat. At what she’d said, Vanya frowned again. Sophie had to push all her spells?

“Well, for how long have you been trying this?” Vanya asked. Sophie shrugged, and checked her watch.

“Couple hours,” Sophie replied sullenly. “Why?” she asked.

“Maybe you’ve just tired your magic out pushing it like this. Need to take a break or something,” Vanya said brightly with a shrug, but as she went to stand up and offer to go to the library with Sophie, her attempt at a simple explanation hadn’t helped. Sophie just scowled.

“Tired my magic out?” Sophie hissed incredulously. “Vanya, this is a third year spell. Everyone else in my whole class can do it without trying by now, Isidore and Ju-Won don’t even need to think about it!” she exclaimed. “Nobody tires out their magic, when was the last time you tired out your magic?!” Sophie demanded. Vanya blinked.

“My lessons with Jason last year,” Vanya replied. At that, Sophie just scoffed.

“Yeah, at your bloody shapeshifting lessons. When you’d never done it before,” Sophie said. “Doesn’t tire you out anymore, does it?” she pointed out. Vanya almost replied that it did, but she realised as she opened her mouth that the only example she could think of had actually been Lumière Confunding her. She hadn’t actually tired out her magic, that had just been Alpin’s theory. Sophie dog-eared Intermediate Transfiguration on the rabbit diagram and flipped back to another page and handed Vanya the book, pushing it onto her hands open to the section discussing the Lagofors spell. “You try it. What’s the bet you’ll get it?” she spat. Vanya half-stood, taken aback by Sophie’s anger. Though, it was obvious Sophie’s anger wasn’t directed at Vanya; it was anger at herself for not being able to do it. Conflicted, Vanya sat back down.

“Are you sure you want me to-”

“Just give it a go,” Sophie snapped, waving a hand at her that she rested her forehead on, watching Vanya with a resigned expression. Vanya pursed her lips and read the page on the spell. It didn’t sound like anything entirely unfamiliar - it was similar to the work on animate Transfigurations Professor Granger was taking her own class over, just with less hand-holding. And Vanya was, in essence, well ahead. The worst thing was that she was pretty sure she could take a decent stab at the spell. She just didn’t want to make Sophie feel any more inadequate. Sighing in her nose, Vanya went back to the dog-eared diagram of a rabbit and retrieved her black wand from its leather scabbard as she was bid. She looked to Sophie with a question in her eyes; you sure? Sophie just nodded.

“Okay,” Vanya mumbled. She copied the wand motion prescribed. “Lagofors,” she incanted quietly, jabbing her wand forward toward the cushion. With her eyes wide at how much more intensive the spell was than anything they’d done so far in class, Vanya flooded the spell with everything she could understand from the diagram, and a clear, sure, rigid cone of green magic was projected onto the cushion. In seconds, it had the basic body shape, two more seconds and it had ears, whiskers and a shifty nose, fur, paws. Eyes. Sophie slumped as the newly formed rabbit, sustained by Vanya’s magic, hopped onto her lap. Puss recoiled slightly, before she nosed nearer it.

“See!” Sophie exclaimed, somewhat roughly picking up the rabbit - whose fur was still the same colour as the pincushion had been and whose proportions were a bit off, particularly in the torso - and showing it to Vanya. “You can do it! Barely had to try! What the hell am I doing wrong?!” she demanded, putting it down.

“Finite Incantatem,” Vanya murmured, sending the rabbit into a whirl of shapes before it turned back into a pincushion, before it could hop off the plinth. “I dunno. I still think you’re probably tired though,” Vanya shrugged, and gave Sophie back her textbook.

“There must be something wrong with me,” Sophie groaned into her hands, letting the book sit on the plinth.

“Don’t say that!” Vanya protested. Sophie looked up at her darkly.

“What the hell else could it be?” Sophie demanded. Vanya spluttered for a moment. She honestly didn’t have an answer, but she didn’t want Sophie to think there was anything wrong with her either. “Mum thought I must have been a Squib for ages. Starting to wish I was,” she mumbled, shaking her head. Sophie stood up, her frame slumped in disheartened reluctance as she put the book and pincushion away into her bag, and her wand into her pocket. “What were you going to the library for?” she asked half-heartedly.

“Huh? Oh, um, just some reading. Had some homework,” Vanya replied, swallowing. She got up too. “Are you okay?” she asked.

“I’m fine,” Sophie told her dismissively, leaning down to scritch Puss’ ears. “Nothing new, Van, you’ve heard everything Mum and Dad say,” she grumbled, before she walked off toward the library. Worrying for her foster sister, Vanya followed in her stead.

--

Chapter Text

“And remember, last week’s worksheet on separating mixtures is due tomorrow!” Professor Greengrass reminded the class as the great bells of Hogwarts tolled the hour, spelling the end of his Potions lesson with the second-year Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws that Monday. A great clatter filled the classroom at all of them packing up their books and pencil cases. Dominique folded up the worksheet they’d had that day to stick it into her book later, while Alpin stuck his own stuff into the satchel he’d made in Textiles. In Persephone’s and his Textiles class, which they’d had the period before Potions while Dominique and Vanya had had some of their last circuitry lessons in Tech as they approached a quarter of the way through the school year where they were making cards with flashing lights on them, Alpin was the first to have finished sewing his bag, a simple blue one with a second pocket on its front, his name Alpin Garanwyn Faughn embroidered onto its front, and a long strap that went over his neck as they departed the classroom into the lower levels of Hogwarts.

“Are you coming to the Flying Club?” Dominique asked Alpin eagerly as they left. Alpin shook his head.

“Maybe another time. It doesn’t look like we’d get much flying done today anyway,” Alpin replied, waving a hand up at the ceilings and walls. So deep in the bowels of the castle you couldn’t really tell, but the weather that day had not exactly been suited to flying. “I suppose you’ll want to make a snowman,” Alpin added amusedly to Persephone.

“Ay, maybe,” Persephone agreed. “But A’ve gotta do that worksheet first,” she grumbled. With the full moon having been the week before, she hadn’t done it yet. Dominique turned to Seoyun and Summer, who were behind them.

“Just give us time to get our broomsticks,” Summer preempted her with a grin, to which Seoyun nodded eagerly.

“Do you reckon we can borrow a broom from the shed?” Bonnie asked as she caught up with them. “Was thinking I might come too,” she explained, and Dominique nodded. It only made sense that they’d be allowed to borrow a broomstick to use for the club, she didn’t see why they wouldn’t have been. They made their way across the castle to return to the Hufflepuff dormitory and get changed, where Persephone instead huffed and plopped herself down at her desk and got out the crumpled worksheet to do. Dominique, Seoyun, Bonnie, and Summer, meanwhile, got changed into some warm clothes and retrieved their broomsticks; Dominique her Gaillard Sansonnet, while Seoyun had her own Nimbus 2015 and Summer a Cleansweep Fourteen.

“You’re sure you’re gonna get any flying in this afternoon, in all that, are you?” Caoimhe pointed out as Dominique got her Sansonnet out of its case, having actually taken her white-haired human form and dressed accordingly - she’d forgotten her Veela-specific Quidditch gear at home, which she was even then annoyed about given how helpful it’d have been in tryouts. She looked back. Indeed, as Caoimhe pointed out of the window it was pretty obvious that the weather was not suited to flying - a thick layer of snow was falling over the Lake, accompanied by quite a lot of alabaster white fog. There was a reason the heater was on, and that even Persephone appreciated it. And why Vanya was probably not particularly chuffed. Bonnie hummed wryly, and Dominique shrugged.

“It might let up?” Dominique suggested.

“Might do, weather report said it’d be clearer tomorrow,” Persephone agreed absently, from where she was plugging in her laptop. “A’d no bet on it though,” she added as she actually looked and evaluated the degree of bad weather outside. It didn’t look liable to dissipate.

“Well, it did say that if the weather weren’t up to it today like, he’d use today to tell us the plan,” Summer said, before she beckoned them from the dormitory and they headed back upstairs. On the way out of the castle, it became quite clear that they weren’t the only ones interested in the Flying Club - they were soon joined, as they went by the stairs, by one Addison Morgan, who was herself carrying a broomstick and dressed thickly.

“Hey Addison!” Dominique chirped as the Gryffindor joined them. “Are you going to Flying Club too?” she asked, a little rhetorically. As she recalled, Addison, like herself, had tried out for her House’s Quidditch team and not gotten on. Addison nodded.

“Yeah, I am. Almost didn’t recognise you Weasley, forgot what you look like when you’re human-looking,” Addison chuckled, nodding at Dominique’s lack of a beak and her replacement pimples. Dominique scoffed. It really was the luxury of going to Hogwarts, she didn’t actually have to hold that form that much any more now that they were making uniforms specifically designed for Veela. Holding it near-constantly in France had been almost as bad a headache as all the crowds had been. “Going too Wood?” she asked, and Bonnie nodded. “You’re right sure you’re not related to Oliver Wood?” she snickered, and Bonnie laughed.

“Proper sure, not related to him at all,” Bonnie replied. “I just like flying. I mean, who wouldn’t?” she shrugged.

“Persephone,” Summer replied wryly.

“She’s a werewolf, they don’t normally like being off the ground,” Dominique pointed out. Though, Uncle Ron and his packmate Alexander had both played Quidditch, so maybe it was more true of Trueborns than regular ones.

“I just wish we could fly more outside of school, like in the holidays. Where do people actually do that, if you can’t let anyone see?” Bonnie asked confusedly as they stepped outside from the entrance hall, and tightened her coat around herself at the cold winds and snow that assailed them.

“Ha, you can blend in, Dom,” Summer chuckled, pointing at how Dominique’s hair was mostly just as white as the world around them. Dominique chattered amusedly, wrapping her scarf a little tighter about her chin. Feathers really were nice in making sure your face wasn’t cold. “If you live rural enough you can probably get away with it like. Mum always drove me and Flora down the moors, Middlesbrough’s no good for it,” she told Bonnie, and Addison nodded.

“Yeah, I always went up to my grandparents’ near Crambeck, play Quidditch with my cousins like Jasper,” Addison said. Dominique nodded - Jasper was a name she recognised as belonging to a sixth year boy, also in Gryffindor like Addison, who was also a Morgan and who’d won second place in the costume contest on Friday with an excellent scarecrow costume. “Always wish Eva could play, I know she’s a bit young but she’s not a witch apparently,” she added.

“Eva?” Seoyun asked.

“My little sister,” Addison replied, before she peered at Seoyun curiously. “Same sort of story back in Korea I’m guessing, find some place no-one can see?” she asked, but Seoyun just shrugged.

“I was too young before we moved to England,” Seoyun replied, and Addison hummed understandingly. “We haven’t found anywhere close enough to Cambridge, it is a special occasion to get to go flying,” she lamented.

“Well, we always go flying at my grandparents’ too,” Dominique piped up, nodding to Addison. “We use the trees in the orchard for the hoops when we play Quidditch, and Delphini’s usually the ref. Since Aunt Hermione’s always busy we’ve always had big family get-togethers on Fridays, and we all get to play then if we’re at the Burrow,” she explained. It was a shame she hadn’t gotten to have many games over the holidays that year, but the holiday in France had been worth it.

“Wait, why on Fridays?” Addison asked curiously.

“Wizengamot’s not on on Fridays, it was sort of like her evening off before the election,” Dominique told her. Of course, her Aunt Hermione had been far too busy to attend much of anything with the family ever since the election. “Persephone’s house would probably be good for it too, it’s far enough away, but it’s such a hassle if you drop the Quaffle, it’s too hilly,” she added. A mountainside didn’t exactly make a good Quidditch pitch. Though, there was plenty else to do at the Granger Estate in summer; Persephone often eagerly took her cousins kayaking on the loch, and there was the pool for some nicer swimming. However, water and feathers and swimming and pneumatised bones didn’t really combine, so Dominique herself had never taken much part. Just as born werewolves didn’t like flying, Veela didn’t like swimming. The horror stories her Maman¹ had told her of her experience of the second task of her Triwizard Tournament, which had taken place under the Great Lake, still made Dominique shudder - Fleur had just been lucky to escape it relatively unharmed. “The orchard’s pretty good. It’s a good rectangle for our pitch,” Dominique noted.

“Ah, but does your grandparents’ orchard have alpacas?” Summer asked, feigning smugness despite the shudder of her pale lips in the cold.

“Alpacas??” Seoyun asked incredulously.

“There’s an alpaca farm near where Mum takes us, they’re bloody funny,” Summer chortled before she shrugged, her expression returning to seriousness as she looked to Bonnie. “Apparently it used to be much easier, but nowadays people’ve got phones and stuff. Just can’t take the risk, or you’ll end up on bloody TikTok or something,” she said in a grumble.

“It’s a shame,” Seoyun agreed. “I wonder if it is affecting the Quidditch teams, if less people can practise at home? And they just can’t get into Quidditch to start with?” she mused, and Dominique clicked her teeth like she would normally clack her beak in curious thought. Her Aunt Ginny hadn’t mentioned it, but it sounded like it made sense. It wasn’t as if there were that many professional Quidditch players to begin with, there were a lot of wizarding people but not that many and among them there were only a certain percentage of them with the interest.

“It’s definitely affecting Mum’s,” Summer said wryly, and Dominique whirled to face her confusedly.

“I thought your mother wasn’t on a team?” Dominique asked. Sure, Penny Byrne had played there at Hogwarts, but she wasn’t on any professional team as far as Dominique knew.

“Nah but she’s been trying to help start one up for ages like,” Summer replied. “Middlesbrough Moors they’re calling themselves, but there’s no way the Ministry’s gonna set up all that stuff to keep them secret just so Yorkshire can have a team, and they’d need to start another to keep the league running properly,” she explained.

“I thought Yorkshire did have a team?” Bonnie asked.

“No!” Addison exclaimed, and Summer gave Bonnie a look that shared Addison’s jovial righteous Yorkshirian outrage. “There’s one for the north yeah, the Arrows, but they’re Cumbrian,” Addison pointed out, with some disdain. “You’d think we would have a team, but we don’t,” she said, making a face that Summer shared.

“Maybe we should ask Persephone to ask her Mum put in a good word for the Moors,” Summer quipped, and Dominique squawked with laughter at that suggestion. “Get the Minister for Magic in on it,” she chuckled as they approached the sports sheds. However, as they walked up to it, it looked like whomever was supposed to be running it that afternoon either hadn’t arrived yet after their lessons or had decided that it was rather unlikely that anyone would need them to actually turn up given the smothering cold weather. The little gated door was closed, and still bore its heavy padlock, instead of how there’d normally be a desk and a bored volunteer student behind it with a sheet to write down what stuff had been gotten out by whom. Bonnie clapped her hands to her sides in resigned defeat. Obviously, she was going to be without a broomstick that afternoon. “Well, we probably won’t be flying today anyway. You won’t miss out,” Summer said as if to cheer her up, hoisting her own broomstick over her shoulder nonchalantly.

“Hmm,” Bonnie hummed ruefully, and trudged along in the snow after them as Dominique and Seoyun headed off again toward the Quidditch Stadium, which they could only just see through the frosty fog, fog which the lights of Hogwarts glittered through behind them in a haze.

“So, who do the Middlesbrough Moors play against, Summer?” Seoyun asked curiously as they walked. “If they’re not recognised by the League?” she elaborated. Summer shrugged.

“Any old bunch of friends who’ve started a team and will play ‘em really,” Summer replied simply. “It’s not that glamorous or nothing. Bit funny really, looks more like a school football match and half the time they have to cancel ‘cos some kids came to see the alpacas,” she shrugged, and the lot of them arrived at the huge wooden structure that was the Quidditch stadium only a few moments later. Heading up the stairs, they looked around to see where everyone else was. Like the rest of the grounds, it was blanketed like a heavily iced cake in white, and they met up with the rest of the little gathering of the burgeoning Flying Club where they spotted them in the stands. The pitch itself was just a great oval of white, while the stands could at least be brushed off of snow. It wasn’t a huge group, perhaps because of the weather, but their breaths were a cloud of moisture in the air that would have marked their location in the stands pretty well if it hadn’t been for the fog. Several more had brought broomsticks too, but Bonnie wasn’t the only one without one. Indeed, Jack Kidwell - whom Dominique amusedly remembered having been dressed as Julius Caesar for the contest - who had organised the club didn’t have a broom with him, and nor did the teacher who’d evidently been picked to supervise the club; old Madam Hooch, who looked rather less intense than she often did when she was so bundled up in scarves and mittens and a thick coat.

“See?” Dominique murmured to Bonnie, nodding at how Kidwell didn’t have a broom with him either. She leaned her own against the frosty bench she sat down on. A couple more students came up the stairs and sat down in the stands with them all after a few more minutes, and Kidwell looked over the side to see if any more were coming. Clearly not seeing any more students approaching through the fog, he returned to them with Hooch.

“You ready to get this over with, Mister Kidwell?” Hooch asked sternly. Kidwell nodded.

“Yeah, I don’t reckon we’re getting many more in this weather,” Kidwell replied wryly. He waved a thickly gloved hand at the sky. “So we won’t be out flying today folks, can’t see in this to save your lives and if I had you out in it Hooch would have me for breakfast,” he told the group amusedly, and Dominique let out a squawk of a laugh along with the group. “But that’s all right, I’ll just tell you what’s up and we’ll all go back inside eh?” he told the lot of them.

“Sounds good to me, it’s freezing,” Addison whispered beside Dominique, who nodded wryly and rubbed her hands together.

“So! Flying Club, pretty self-explanatory really!” Jack announced with a clap of his hands. “We’ll meet up a few times a week, when the weather’s okay for it, we’ll fly a course, play some flying games, maybe some Quidditch, whatever we feel like doing and have enough people in the air for,” he told them. “Reckon we’ll start tomorrow, apparently all this crud’s gonna clear up by then. And Madam Hooch’ll be keeping an eye on us to make sure nobody gets hurt and all of that,” he added. Hooch nodded sternly, giving them all a glare. Kidwell smiled knowingly at something as he paused for a moment. “Now, that’s not all we’ll be doing. Every month we’re gonna do a race,” Jack said, a devilish kind of grin growing on his face. Dominique jumped, her mouth falling open as she looked to Summer and Addison excitedly.

“A race?” Kenal Robards - a sixth year Hufflepuff boy - asked curiously. Obviously, Dominique was not the only one whose interest had been piqued.

“Yeah,” Kidwell said gleefully, rubbing his hands together. Whether he was doing it for effect or just because his hands were actually cold, Dominique didn’t know. “Still sorting out the details, got some big hoops we found in storage we’ll see if we can set up, but first one’ll be this month’s! Saturday the fourteenth of November, stick it in your calendars,” he told them with a jackal’s grin. Dominique quickly got her phone out and did just that, excitement flourishing in her heart. She’d heard her peers, particularly like Bonnie who was muggleborn, talking about school sports and stuff that they’d had in primary school, and having never had it before herself it was an exciting prospect to have such an event to look forward to. After all, her Quidditch prospects had dried up for the year when she’d lost the tryout to Seoyun, so Kidwell’s Flying Club was a welcome saviour. “We’ll sort out some prizes maybe, have a leaderboard or something,” he said, before he declared his job done and urged them all back into the warmth of Hogwarts’ halls. It was with an impatient excitement that Dominique returned her Sansonnet to its case when they got back. That afternoon, the weather had thwarted them.

But the next afternoon? Well, it didn’t snow on Tuesday. There was no fog in the air. But what there would be in the air were a good two dozen Hogwarts students.

“Isn’t this a bit much, Madam Hooch?” Michael Ewhurst - Elias’ older brother - asked the matron as he joined the group standing on the still-muddy pitch on Tuesday afternoon, adjusting the armguards that he was wearing at Hooch’s demand. “It’s not like we’re playing Quidditch,” he noted. Hooch scoffed.

“Tell me that when you’ve cracked your head open like an egg falling off a broom,” Hooch retorted. “No, you’ll wear the gear,” she insisted. They were indeed all wearing helmets too. Dominique too wasn’t quite as jazzed about it, but for different reasons; she didn’t like flying in her human form as much, and she liked wearing the ill-fitting Hogwarts gear for humans even less. Addison peered at Dominique curiously as she got back from the changing rooms.

“You good Weasley?” she asked.

“I’m fine, just not used to these ones,” Dominique replied, glancing at the uncomfortable guards she was wearing on the human form she’d once again assumed. “Aunt Ariadne and Aunt Ginny got me my own once, actually made for a Veela, I just forgot them at home. Papa said he’ll send them up for me but it’s going to be a few days,” she grumbled.

“Oh, right…” Addison mused, as Ewhurst rebelliously asked about Sværri, whom Hooch hadn’t required to wear any gear. Of course, that was because Sværri was too small for it, and because the half-Goblin half-Veela boy could fly without his broom anyway - though he clarified he’d probably only be able to glide, being weighed down by his warm clothes as he was. “Must fit you different, right?” she asked, and Dominique nodded. “What’s that like? Having two different, like, forms, I mean?” Addison asked curiously, and Dominique shrugged. She’d been doing it for long enough that it didn’t feel too odd anymore. But she cast her thoughts back to when she’d first learnt as a younger chick.

“It’s just… weird,” Dominique replied with a shudder. “I’m used to it now but it’s like… like it’s not supposed to happen, you know, like you’ve twisted your arm the wrong way?” she said, trying to think of a way to word it. “And then your arms are too short and you’ve got to really think about talking,” Dominique giggled, remembering her commiserations with Vanya about lisps over Easter. Addison guffawed, pointing at her own mouth and miming a beak as if to make sure she knew what Dominique meant as they laughed. Looking at her hands, Dominique sniffed amusedly. “And humans have an extra finger. Always forget I’ve got it,” she added, wiggling her pinky. It always looked a bit funny to her, having a fifth digit.

“Oh really? Have Veela only got four?” Addison asked, and Dominique nodded. “I hadn’t noticed. Ugh, bloody mud,” she said, before she grimaced at the veritable slop they were standing in and hopped onto her broomstick with a squelching noise so she could hover in the air a few feet up. Looking at the ground, Dominique decided to follow suit - it was clear and dry that day in terms of the weather, but all the snow from the day before had melted into the dirt and turned it to slush and mud. “I wonder if it’s like being one of those um, whatchamacall’em, Metamorphmagi. Like that Jason dude from last year?” she suggested. Dominique shook her head - she had three people to compare it to, Jason, his mother, and Vanya, so she knew the difference.

“Apparently it’s completely different. I just have to… pull it on like a cloak, Jason actually has to design it all,” Dominique replied, as she drifted out of the way a bit as Bonnie and Summer arrived too, with an idle sort of smile. Despite the eagerness in her heart and the group’s rowdy readiness for a bit of flying, the chilly outdoors day was far more peaceful than the packed-full halls of Hogwarts had been for her all day, her sense for the minds around her was mercifully - though only relatively speaking - empty. And thankfully, it wasn’t long before her eagerness could be put to purpose, as everyone finished up getting ready and the lot of them alighted into the air in a flock of brooms. Madam Hooch sternly kept them all nearby, no wandering off and away from the group, but despite the restraints Dominique delighted in their playful flight all about the towers and rooves of Hogwarts. She and Addison and Summer and Bonnie gleefully played aerial tag, laughing all the while, until Hooch made them stop, and it soon became apparent that atop a broom was the best vantage point from which to watch the winter sun setting over the Hogsmeade region, the castle, and the enormous lake.

However, of course, all good things had to come to an end, and eventually as darkness began to slowly fall over the grounds Madam Hooch and Kidwell had them return to the Quidditch stadium to return their gear and any brooms they might have borrowed, before they all headed back to the castle. Dominique was glad to the point of nearly skipping the whole way back to Hufflepuff for how much she’d enjoyed the afternoon, and she was only more excited to see, on the Hufflepuff Common Room’s notice board, not just a poster for the Flying Club, but another tidy, printed poster. Tegyd, it seemed, had gotten straight to work organising the Theatre Club after her meeting with the Headmistress the day before. The call was out for cast and crew and props and all for a pre-Easter production of the same play Tegyd had eagerly chosen that weekend during the Nonhuman Club; The Bacchae.

Dominique smiled widely as she examined the poster Tegyd had put up. Apparently, it was going to be meeting on Fridays. In that case, she knew what she’d be doing on her Fridays. With two new clubs shaping up to be fun with the production Tegyd had proposed and monthly races, that week had been a very promising one already.

--

Chapter Text

“You’re in a hurry,” Vanya noted amusedly as Persephone immediately started shoving things into her bag the instant the bell rang to mark the end of Arithmancy and with it the end of lessons for the day. Persephone sniffed amusedly.

“Well ay, Tegyd’s startin’ up the theatre club!” Persephone replied eagerly, before she looked at Vanya. “Ye no coming?” she asked. Vanya shrugged as she shook her head and put her own books into her bag.

“Nah,” Vanya decided. It wasn’t about Tegyd, she supported Tegyd’s endeavours, but she just didn’t see herself having a place in the club. “Let me know if they need a kid character, but otherwise there’s not much point,” she said wryly, and Persephone made a face. She’d have to see the script for The Bacchae, but Vanya was probably crap out of luck there. “Have fun though! Don’t worry about me, I’ve got my cat, I’ve got my books, I won’t get all mardy and bored without you guys,” she assured Persephone wryly, putting her bag on her shoulders and picking up Puss from where she’d been peering about atop Vanya’s desk.

“And a buddy!” Tabitha added brightly from the other side of her, having also packed up. “C’mon, we might as well do the homework Professor Meyer gave us at the same time as Professor Twining’s, they’re both basically maths,” she said, nodding to Professor Meyer and beckoning Vanya along as they departed into the corridor on Persephone’s - proverbial - tail.

“All right. Ye two enjoy yer homework, A’ll be learning me lines A will,” Persephone said jauntily, grinning to them as she hopped on her toes and headed off in the other direction with a spring in her step. Because of the space they were liable to need as a Theatre Club, Tegyd had been afforded a whole disused hall on the eastern end of the castle and not just an old empty classroom to take advantage of, so it was off toward the east wings she went. Sunlight streamed into Hogwarts’ corridors through their tall windows as warmly as it could so near to winter in Scotland on a clear yet chilly afternoon, but it was getting to the time of year when there wasn’t that much sunlight in the day to begin with. But with Persephone at heart a crepuscular animal, that wasn’t so bad! The sun would be down in an hour, and such was the time Persephone was at her best for learning lines. And the lowering sunset looked pretty nice out the windows. And just as brightly, she smiled at Dominique as her avian cousin crossed her path.

“Afternoon Feathers,” Persephone quipped. Dominique squawked amusedly.

« Bonjour, Poilue, »¹ she chirped in retort, whose meaning Persephone could guess as she laughed. “You’re coming to Theatre Club?” Dominique asked, and Persephone nodded. “Same!” she chirruped.

“Oh so ye’re no practising for the race on weekend after this? Looks like good weather for flying it does,” Persephone asked, nodding out of the windows at the sunset. Posters had gone up in the Common Rooms and about the school declaring that there was a race on Saturday the fourteenth of November, the Saturday after the next day’s, along with slips to enter it. Dominique had of course filled out one of those slips.

“I don’t have to practise every day,” Dominique shrugged. Though, she had practised every day since they’d flown on Tuesday, even on her own through the snow that had fallen on Wednesday. Though, it hadn’t been as bad as on Monday, so she’d been fine. “It’s only a friendly race, it’s not that big of a deal,” she said amusedly. She did, however, have a burning competitive spirit in her heart to, if not win, beat any of her friends who entered. Addison, Summer, Seoyun, Bonnie, and maybe even Sværri were planning to, and she hoped her little Sansonnet III would do. It wasn’t, after all, a racing broom like the Faucon. She squawked softly, clearing her throat. “What do you think The Bacchae will be like?” she asked Persephone.

“A’m no sure,” Persephone replied with a simple shrug. “A thought A’d no look it up, let Tegyd have her wee reveal. It’s no fun if we already know,” she chuckled.

“You’re the one named after a Greek goddess yourself,” Dominique noted as they approached the ajar door to the east hall the Club was to be hosted in, and Persephone scoffed. True, she did know plenty of the stories since her Ma had told her all about where her name came from. Just not this specific one.

“Well… Dionysus, Bacchus, probably got other names too, Tegyd’ll ken² ‘em, whichever ye call ‘im he’s a fun one. A’m gonna say it’s like to have a lot of partyin’ in it,” Persephone said jauntily before she pulled the door open a bit further and followed Dominique into the room. A smile grew on her face as she saw who was there. It wasn’t a huge group, far from it, but among them, along with Professor Kaighin and a classmate of Tegyd’s were Cedar and Rowan whom she waved at eagerly. “Ahh, A see we’re three for three on werewolves!” Persephone announced gladly.

“Yeah, but the play’s not on the full moon, Rowan says it’s right before one. Gonna be doing it on the week before the Easter holidays like Professor Granger said at Nonhuman Club. Good thing we don’t need any dogs,” Tegyd replied wryly, and Tegyd’s classmate - someone both Persephone and Dominique recognised as a family friend, though one they hadn’t spoken to much, Rebecca Parkhurst-Bones from Ravenclaw, daughter of ex-Thread member Susan Bones - snorted. Persephone grimaced. She hoped she and her godbrothers would be up to a play right before a full moon. Behind her, she heard footsteps as she went to close the door behind herself.

“Hold up!” Victoire’s voice called quickly as she dashed over and hopped into the room behind them. Her amber avian eyes widened on her otherwise human face as she smiled widely at the scene before her. “Someone’s prepared,” she noted, nodding at Tegyd and the sizeable pile of pieces of paper she was flipping through. Tegyd smiled bashfully.

“Yes, I popped in to the library over lunchtime today, Miss Humphries here was in there printing up a storm. Proud to say she’s onto it,” Professor Kaighin said warmly.

“Pff. ‘Course I’m onto it, this is basically part of my religion,” Tegyd chuckled. Licking her lip she pared out some of the pieces of paper and set them out in sets of the same number of pages. Dominique came over and sat down opposite Rebecca at the table Tegyd and Kaighin must have set up roughly in the middle of the hall, where Tegyd had just put a script almost like she was setting a table for dinner. Kaighin herself was at the head of the table. Persephone hopped over to sit beside her, and Cedar and Rowan sat down beside Rebecca.

“The Bacchae, translated by William Arrowsmith,” Persephone read aloud.

“Oh I know Aerosmith,” Dominique chirruped brightly, before Victoire snorted. “Well. Papa knows Aerosmith, so so do the rest of us,” she said wryly. Smiling, Victoire started whistling Love in an Elevator jovially. Professor Kaighin chuckled, nodding along, as Tegyd looked at them confusedly.

“Aerosmith, a-e-r-o aero, you’d love ‘em,” Persephone told her.

“William Arrowsmith, internet said he was some American classicist,” Tegyd said with a shrug. As Dominique went to flip to the next sheet, she piped up again. “Um, we’ll give it a few more minutes, see if anyone else shows up,” Tegyd added, looking around at the room. Well, in fairness Dominique supposed it’d be a bit bigger once they got into the swing of getting ready for the play nearer to Easter and the City Dionysia Tegyd intended to celebrate, but at that moment it was a bit of an amusingly small gathering. And indeed, there was a look in Tegyd’s eyes - all of the group so far were her direct friends, either her classmate in Rebecca, or members of the Nonhuman Club. Unfortunately, nobody new to them arrived - Sue came and joined them, but Dominique wondered what role she’d be suited for as a centaur, and she was a member of Tegyd’s home herd. Nevertheless, eventually Tegyd sat down with them, putting down her thyrsus, and they started, and immediately there was some amusement as they read the list of roles at the start.

“Dionysus, also called Bromius, Evius, and Bacchus… and a chorus of Asian Bacchae?” Rowan said amusedly. “How old is this translation?” he scoffed. Dominique nodded - it seemed a little old-fashioned a thing to just come out and say.

“I dunno, didn’t say,” Tegyd replied sheepishly through a mouthful of cud. “Just, a chorus, people singing,” she corrected it.

“And then we’ve got… Teiresias, Cadmus, Pentheus… Attendant,” Rowan listed.

“Just… Attendant?” Persephone laughed, snorting.

“The attendant and the messengers don’t really get names,” Tegyd said as they read past, as she had said, two characters just listed as the first and second messengers.

“Agave, and Coryphaeus, who’s the chorus’ leader apparently,” Rowan read out, finishing the list.

“Isn’t Agave a plant?” Rebecca asked, and Sue bleated a laugh at that.

“It is, actually. I wonder if it isn’t named after our Agave here,” Professor Kaighin mused as Persephone shrewdly pursed her lips at the list. “If I recall correctly, Agave has a sister who might be in this as well, Autonoë,” she added.

“So, Coryphaeus is someone to lead the singing then?” Persephone said, and Tegyd nodded. “A could maybe do that? So long as our throat’s no too dry afore³ the full moon,” she suggested, though she worried a little about the dates. At her volunteering, Tegyd’s face lit up like a Christmas tree as she beamed at Persephone.

“Yeah! Great, Persephone for Coryphaeus,” Tegyd cheered, before she fetched a pen from her bag and wrote that on her copy of the script. “Brilliant,” she decided.

“Yes, five points to Hufflepuff for your initiative Miss Granger-Weasley,” Professor Kaighin agreed. “Shall we do a read through of the script, and anyone who wants to claim a role can do that whenever they want?” she suggested, to a series of nods. “Okay. Scene: Before the royal palace at Thebes. On the left is the way to Cithaeron; on the right, to the city. In the centre of the orchestra stands, still-smoking, the vine-covered tomb of Semele, mother of Dionysus,” Kaighin read out, and an ecstatic little smile wormed its way onto Tegyd’s lips. As Tegyd beamed at them and they listened and read along, Kaighin continued. “Enter Dionysus. He is of soft, even effeminate, appearance. His face is beardless; he is dressed in a fawn-skin and carries a thyrsus.” At that, where the script described it, Tegyd quickly held up hers, and Professor Kaighin pointed over at the staff Tegyd bore. “On his head he wears a wreath of ivy, and his long blond curls ripple down over his shoulders. Throughout the play, he wears a smiling mask,” she read out. Persephone frowned.

“Be that one o those creepy smiley and cryin’ masks?” Persephone asked.

“I’d guess so,” Professor Kaighin replied brightly. “The Melpo and Thalia represent the Tragedy and Comedy respectively. The Bacchae is a tragedy, for reference,” she explained, and Tegyd shifted in her chair with a look on her face like she knew something as she swallowed her cud.

“Oh! Melpomene and Thalia were two of the nine Muses, daughters of Zeus. Melpomene is the Muse of tragedy, and Thalia’s the Muse of comedy and idyllic poetry, that’s basically short poems. Then there’s also Calliope, Clio, Urania, Erato, Euterpe, Polyhymnia and… who am I forgetting?” she asked herself, counting out eight of nine Muses on her fingers. “Oh, Terpsichore,” she said, as if it were common knowledge.

“Very good Miss Humphries, ten points to Hufflepuff,” Professor Kaighin said, with an almost surprised smile on her face. Indeed, everyone else was staring at Tegyd and just blinking at her for her seemingly encyclopaedic knowledge of the myths. Dominique nodded sagely - it made sense she’d know them, Tegyd herself had told them about her having several books on the matter and how she had nothing better to do but read if it were raining at home. And some of the Muses were directly associated with Tegyd’s choice of god to worship. “Why don’t you read Dionysus’ lines young lady? Since you are so passionate about the fellow,” Kaighin suggested jauntily to the satyress. Tegyd jumped.

“Oh! Okay!” Tegyd exclaimed, sitting up again. “I am Dionysus, the son of Zeus, come back to Thebes, this land where I was born. My mother was Cadmus’ daughter, Semele by name, midwived by fire, delivered by the lightning’s blast,” she read out dramatically, a determination on her face and in the movement of her ears that showed just how seriously she took the matter that would have been, to anyone else, just a bit of fun. She continued, telling the tale of Dionysus’ birth, though she was interrupted. “Like it or not, this city must learn its lesson: it lacks initiation in my mysteries; that I shall vindicate my mother Semele and stand revealed to mortal eyes as the god she bore to Zeus,” she read firmly. “Cadmus the king has abdicated, leaving his throne and power to his grandson Pentheus; who now revolts-”

“Wait Pentheus is a king?” Rowan asked quickly. Tegyd and Kaighin both nodded. “Di-”

“Dibs King Pentheus!” Cedar shouted over him, getting there first and jabbing his thumb to his forehead as Rowan groaned darkly at his defeat.

“As long as you’re okay getting shredded, Pentheus gets ripped apart later,” Professor Kaighin told him amusedly as Persephone and Dominique laughed, remembering what their Aunt had laughed with Tegyd about. Tegyd herself snorted as an enthused grin grew on Cedar’s face.

“He does? Brilliant, we’ll stuff red ribbons and all in my shirt or something!” Cedar declared, miming the act of then ripping all those ribbons out as if tearing out his guts. Persephone laughed with an evil little grin, hoping that her role as head of the chorus would allow her to participate.

“All right, Cedar, King Pentheus,” Tegyd snickered, writing it down on her script. The others did it too, so they’d all be on the same proverbial page. “Anyway,” Tegyd said, clearing her throat. “Cadmus the king has abdicated, leaving his throne and power to his grandson Pentheus; who now revolts against divinity, in me; thrusts me from his offerings; forgets my name in his prayers,” she continued darkly. Shortly, Tegyd came to the end of Dionysus’ opening monologue, before it was Persephone’s turn to read out the words of the chorus’ rather long first song - though, she didn’t know the rhythm, so it was a little disjointed. But she did read it in something close to a soprano, careful not to irritate her throat too much lest she cause herself an asthma attack, and at a dramatic sort of pace. And then, once that was done, they got to what Dominique and Persephone thought to be the play proper, with Rowan and Cedar voicing old Teiresias and Cadmus in identically comedic crotchety old-man voices.

Once Pentheus entered the scene, Cedar made them all chuckle by having to lean from side to side to indicate who was speaking, Pentheus or Cadmus. Thankfully, they could all follow along on the script, which alleviated any confusion. Even Persephone got to have a line during that bit as the Coryphaeus figure.

But as it went on, it was probably for the best that sunset was taking place, given Persephone’s crepuscularity. She didn’t dislike the play, but it was a pretty wordy thing that - to her at least - dragged on a bit. She wondered if it might be wise for them to shorten it all a little, tighten it up. After all, it was a translation of an ancient play and so very verbose. Besides, as it went on some of the events were just told by messengers, which didn’t seem very interesting to her. Though, when it came time early in the play for Dionysus to let himself get captured by Pentheus under the guise of a mortal follower, Tegyd and Cedar did a very good job of their acidic verbal sparring, so she had no fear of that boring their audience. Indeed, as Dominique watched on with amusement, both seemed to be enjoying it. By the time the chorus resumed in Persephone’s voice and that scene changed, both were laughing to each other, and given how much the two seemed to enjoy their banter, it wasn’t long before Dominique thought that not only had they decided on their Pentheus but also landed their Dionysus as well.

“Enter Pentheus from the palace,” Professor Kaighin read out. “He wears a long linen dress which partially conceals his fawn-skin. He carries a thyrsus in his hand; on his head he wears a wig with long blond curls bound by a snood,” she said, as Cedar sarcastically preened and pretended to toss his in fact too short hair where he sat. “He is dazed and completely in the power of the god who has now possessed him,” the Professor said, and Cedar slumped, sticking his tongue out, making the lot of them laugh.

“Why, you look exactly like one of the daughters of Cadmus,” Tegyd read out snidely.

“I seem to see two suns blazing in the heavens,” Cedar replied softly, making himself rock from side to side a little as he read his script. “And now two Thebes, two cities, and each with seven gates. And you-you are a bull…” Cedar flipped to the next page. “...Who walks before me there. Horns have sprouted from your head. Have you always been a beast? But now I see a bull,” he said.

“It is the god you see,” Tegyd read, before Dominique gasped.

“You should actually play Dionysus Tegyd!” Dominique exclaimed, sitting forward. Tegyd paused in her line, raising her eyebrows and ears as if put on the spot. “Not just now, for the actual play! You actually do have horns like Dionysus, and you do worship him. It’s only right you play him,” she urged Tegyd, who scoffed self-consciously even as the others nodded.

“Ay, that’d be brilliant!” Persephone crowed.

“Yeah! I don’t wanna step on your toes, or your hooves, and nab the bloke from you. Go for it Teg,” Rowan agreed, and Tegyd hung her head, blushing.

“Guys I… how’s that even going to work?” Tegyd asked confusedly. “He’s a man, I’m not. And he’s supposed to be beardless,” she added embarrassedly, a hand going to her chin and the puff of brown hair under it that was starting to resemble an actual goat-like hanging beard as if to cover it.

“Well, didn’t the script say Dionysus was effeminate?” Cedar asked, flipping back to the first few pages. “Yeah, on the first page look. It says he is of soft, even effeminate, appearance. We could maybe change it a little, make the disguise he has on when he’s messing with Pentheus be this beautiful woman instead of just a hot guy?” he suggested brightly. Tegyd blushed even more, fiddling with her beard.

“I suppose he is meant to be all androgynous. I mean, they even called him Androgynos sometimes… but that was more ‘cos he’s bi, what with the whole Prosymnus thing and stuff,” Tegyd mused, thinking as she spoke. “Do you think it could work, Professor?” she asked Professor Kaighin, who nodded.

“Sure, I don’t see why not,” Kaighin replied warmly. “Seems appropriate to me that it’s you, and you guys might have to change the play in other ways later anyway. Make it your own,” she encouraged Tegyd, and the lot of them nodded.

“Okay. Okay, sure, I’ll be Dionysus. And we’ll make his disguise a woman,” Tegyd decided, nervousness in the corners of her voice, before they returned to the play. “It is the god you see. Though hostile formerly, he now declares a truce and goes with us. You see what you could not when you were blind,” she read out, as Cedar continued to jovially act out the bewildered, insane, antics of Pentheus as Dionysus and he set out to join the Bacchantes in the mountains, where Pentheus was to meet his end. As Persephone sang the chorus that described that end, Cedar burst out laughing at the description of Pentheus’ death and insisted they act that part out even though there weren’t any stage instructions for it, and Rowan even suggested dragging him behind a prop of some sort so that the audience couldn’t see his head, where Agave - whom Tegyd suggested Victoire play, and that Dominique play Agave’s sister Autonoë as a background role since they themselves were sisters and would look the parts - would hoist a pre-prepared papier mache head.

Persephone thought that was brilliant, and since her Coryphaeus character appeared to at least worship Dionysus in some way even if she was an odd sort of half-character, she hoped she could take part in the mock evisceration of Cedar as Pentheus. Rebecca too volunteered to play one of the Maenad Bacchantes, since they were out of any roles for women to play but would no doubt need a few, before they continued into Agave’s - Victoire’s - lament at having killed her own son once the madness of Dionysus’ power had been lifted.

Though, it certainly started to get a bit gruesome as Dionysus enacted his punishments upon the people of Thebes for failing to recognise him as a god following the evisceration of King Pentheus at his mother’s hand, and Persephone winced as Tegyd read the line where Dionysus said that his exiled enemies, including Cadmus and Agave, would submit to the yoke of slavery in other lands. The end of the play didn’t exactly cast the god as a particularly nice fellow. Hell, Cadmus himself seemed to point out that, in the words that Cedar read out in his crotchety voice, gods should be exempt from human passion.

“The gods have many shapes. The gods bring many things to their accomplishment,” Persephone read, in the final lines of the play attributed to the chorus. “And what was most expected has not been accomplished. But god has found his way for what no man expected. So ends the play,” she said, before she laid the page flat on the upturned pile beside her, smiling at the group as a gentle patter of applause rang up between them and she clapped too. As the last few claps echoed in the nearly empty hall, Rowan frowned softly.

“Dionysus is supposed to be the good guy, right?” he asked, his tone gently critical.

“Well, he’s the protagonist, but that doesn’t necessarily make him the good guy,” Professor Kaighin pointed out sagely, in that way of all English teachers when presented with the idea of there being a good guy. “Correct me if I’m wrong Tegyd, I’m just going off memory, but there’s all sorts of theories about The Bacchae. It might have just been that we have different sensibilities these days, but some scholars think Euripides might have actually been criticising the way the gods were portrayed as fallible, criticising the idea that a god would do that in the first place,” she explained with a shrug. Dominique guessed that Euripides was the original Greek playwright.

“Do you think we should tone it down?” Tegyd asked the group reluctantly, her ears drooping a little. It seemed to Dominique that Tegyd thought the matter was rather more complicated than just Dionysus’ prescribed punishments in the ending being gruesome and over-the-top. That in her opinion, and from her perspective, the gods sometimes were wrathful and flawed, and that that wasn’t an issue of the play. Did Tegyd think of the sustained integrity of the play as somehow religiously important? But at the same time, it was a bit much in Dominique’s opinion too, and it was perhaps more important how the play was received. After all, she doubted Tegyd would want her celebration of the City Dionysia to result in people thinking her favoured god was a twat.

“Maybe just a little,” Dominique suggested diplomatically. “Take away the slavery and stuff, at least, and maybe remind us what he’s punishing them for a bit more, mocking his mother and stuff. I kind of forgot that for a bit,” she added, and Tegyd nodded.

“Right,” Tegyd mumbled. “Yeah. Little things. He’s the god of theatre, he’d probably approve of adapting it a little for a nowadays audience anyway,” she supposed, her ears shifting back up a little as she spoke. “And maybe we should actually act out all those things the messengers were talking about,” Tegyd suggested.

“Yeah, it’s heaps of talking as it is,” Rebecca agreed.

“Well then on top of an extra few boys for Teiresias and Cadmus and Pentheus’ attendants we’re gonna need some girls to play even more of the Bacchantes,” Professor Kaighin pointed out. “And costumes and prop thyrsuses for all of them,” she added.

“Yeah, I’ll stick it on the list. We’ll have to go recruiting, or hopefully some more people will come next week,” Tegyd said, nodding as she wrote down some more things. “I’ve got my sewing machine and everything, can help on costumes. Persephone, you think Alpin will be okay helping sew and make props?” she asked brightly.

“Ay A’ll ask! He’ll probably no be for making everyone a workin’ wand staff like yers, but this sort o stuff’s right up his wee alley,” Persephone replied. Tegyd smiled gratefully at her and nodded before, far away from them the castle’s clock tower bells tolled to mark six o’clock and they all jumped at the distant noise, the werewolves especially. Out of the windows of the hall the moonless sky above was an inky black adorned in the tapestry of stars that was the Milky Way, the sun having long set completely.

“My doesn’t the time fly! We should probably pack up here Tegyd, give everyone time to settle before dinner,” Professor Kaighin exclaimed, checking her watch and laughing softly as she looked out of the windows at the night. “I think next week on top of hopefully recruiting a few new cast and crew, we should get cracking on those script alterations, making the disguise a woman for you to play Tegyd and toning down the ending so Dionysus doesn’t come off as quite so nasty, yeah?” the Professor suggested, and the lot of them nodded at that as they packed away their scripts and got up to go.

“Yeah, sure,” Tegyd agreed, before she smiled at them all widely. “Thanks for coming everyone. It um, it means a lot to me,” she said sheepishly as she leant on her thyrsus and got up. Persephone shrugged.

“Nah, it’ll be right fun! No trouble at all!” Persephone assured her brightly, and Rowan and Cedar nodded too.

“Yeah, this’ll be great,” Cedar piped up.

“Give you a City Dionysia to remember, we will,” Rowan agreed. “And well done, you did good your first time running a Club!” he assured her, patting her back as they departed, spirits high and looking forward to the production of The Bacchae.

--

Chapter Text

“Needs a good clip ‘round the ears he does. Should pick on someone nearer his own size,” Persephone grumbled as she sat idly in the circle of the Nonhuman Club that Sunday. “Like me! So A can gie¹ ‘im a right wee belting,” she added darkly, a snarl in her voice.

“Who’s Joseph Treloar? I haven’t heard of him,” Victoire asked confusedly.

“He’s some dobber from my year, in Slytherin. Always gave me a hassle for being half-Giant, guess now he’s giving them a hassle for being Goblins,” Wulfwynn replied with a shrug as she nodded toward Valbjǫrn and Ráðugr, the third-year Brekke twins. They spoke of an incident that had happened that week, where Treloar had kneed Valbjǫrn and Ráðugr in the backs as he’d gone by them in the Great Hall. He’d been dealt with already for it, and given detention, thankfully, but that obviously didn’t make them happy about the matter.

“Nasty boy, him,” Valbjǫrn agreed, looking up at her. “If I were as big as you Wulfwynn, I’d have stoved in his head by now,” he chuckled, and Wulfwynn sniffed amusedly.

“Now now, the boy’s been punished and I ca-can’t condone discussion about hurting him,” Professor Granger chided them gently. Persephone whined sarcastically, and Ariadne sniffed at that. Clearly, she had her own opinion of Treloar, she was just also a Professor and so held to different standards. “Professor Greengrass has also had a few words with his parents about his behaviour,” she added, sighing darkly as she shook her head.

“An isolated incident this week, I hope?” Sværri suggested, and a few of the others in the club nodded, including Dominique and Vanya. Tegyd shrugged, in such a way that Dominique guessed meant that she’d had her own troubles that week, but they had been her usual issues of being one of the most frequently sexualised girls in her year or indeed half the school, which most people didn’t know had anything to do with her only being half human. The Club knew it was involved in at least why she in particular got the unwelcome attention for her figure, and indeed she’d brought in another batch of homemade cheese and crackers which Persephone had contributed greatly to scoffing, but most people didn’t know and Tegyd didn’t seem to think it made the matter relevant to bring up to the Nonhuman Club. “You two haven’t had any troubles, Pisces, Cetus?” he asked. Pisces took a big breath in to speak.

“No, not much!” Pisces replied gladly, smiling at them all. “Jamie likes to call us mouth-breathers, but never more than that,” they added with a shrug. Vanya sat up, thinking back to the Sorting Ceremony that term.

“Jamie Chambers, Theo Chambers’ little brother?” Vanya asked, and Cetus nodded with a hum. “His older brother’s no better. Started picking on me for being a vampire on our first day, him and McLaggen. Persephone heard them and came running,” she said, and Persephone hung her head slightly at the reminder of how she’d bludgeoned McLaggen. Normally she might have grinned ear to ear at the memory, but the presence of her Aunty Ariadne made that seem a poor response.

“Them as well as Thynne and Vexmoor,” Dominique added with a grumpy clack of her beak. Vanya frowned.

“Those two’ve been pretty quiet lately, it’s weird,” Vanya mused, before Persephone shook her head.

“They had a go at us when ye got kidnapped,” Persephone disagreed gravely, her lip curling in anger at the memory. Rowan too growled softly at the same. “Sue gave Thynne a good headbutt,” she added, and Sue bleated softly in a kind of angry amusement.

“Really?” Vanya asked. She hadn’t heard that. Opposite her, Professor Granger nodded.

“They did. Rowan brought them to the attention of myself and Professor McGonagall. We even summoned their parents,” Professor Granger replied, with a measured kind of darkness to her expression. “We made-we ma-we ma-we made it quite clear to Mister Vexmoor and Mister Thynne that any further incidents of harassment could get them expelled, and that they were lucky not to get expelled for it on the spot,” she explained, before she exhaled and shook her head. “We’ve had no major issues with Vesta, there I was hoping it might have skipped a generation,” Ariadne sighed, almost wishfully.

“Vesta?” Sue asked curiously.

“Portunus’ older sister,” Persephone explained, and the Brekke twins nodded.

“Yes, she’s always quiet. Dunno if she’s the same, but if she is she’s not showing it,” Valbjǫrn told them.

“I don’t think Vesta has even spoken to us before,” Ráðugr agreed. Persephone hummed softly, a little surprised. She hadn’t really seen much from Vesta, Vesta being a third year like the Brekke twins. Given she was the firstborn daughter of Jupitus Thynne, a particularly nasty anti-Muggle and anti-nonhuman ex-politician and enemy of her Ma - though Persephone was sure he thought he was a lot bigger a problem for her than he actually was, in truth her Ma hadn’t really thought much about him at all even when he’d been active in politics - who’d fallen into disrepute long ago, it was a pleasant surprise to hear that at the very least if she shared her little brother’s sentiments, she wasn’t as inclined to foist them on her peers. But her contemplation of her counterpart in House Thynne was interrupted as the bells of Hogwarts’ clock tower tolled out suddenly far above them, and she jumped.

“Oop! Gotta be ‘wa-gaun,”² Persephone exclaimed, hurriedly jumping to her feet and straightening her dress.

“You got Choir?” Vanya asked, and Persephone nodded brightly. At that, Tegyd shifted in her seat.

“Oh! Remember to ask Professor Lake about getting ‘em involved for The Bacchae!” Tegyd called quickly, and Persephone nodded with a smile. After all, the play needed a chorus, and the choir would likely fit that bill. Professor Kaighin had offered to speak to Lake about it, but Persephone had said she could do it herself.

“Ay A’ll do that, don’t ye worry,” Persephone assured her. She hadn’t forgotten, it had only been the day before yesterday that they’d discussed the play. “See yese!”³ she said cheerfully, waving to her peers as she left. In fact, she even had her copy of her script in her bag so she could show it to Professor Lake and get her opinion on the lyrics and how it should be sung, since all they had got was lyrics. The version Tegyd had found was a translation first, and Persephone wondered if it would even be possible to match its lyrics to a rhythm, if old William Arrowsmith had considered that or if he’d just translated the originals for their meaning and not their singing. Regardless, she made her way upstairs from Room 13 toward the Music hall with a spring in her step imparted not just by her tender excitement but also from the new moon.

On that note, only one full moon remained that term, the November full moon that would rise on the twenty-fourth and have her transforming from the night of the twenty-second, and Persephone was bristling not for that full moon but for the one following it. Unlike the year before, the full moon fell directly upon Christmas Eve instead of the end of the holidays, and Persephone was looking forward to it. Not only would she get to run with her father and family, but if Uncle Cedric and Aunty Parvati and Aunty Hannah were right, her little cousin Gerard would finally be transforming with them too and not just Chandra and Laura. They suspected it might have been about to be his first time in November, but weren’t entirely sure yet. Time would tell as the full moon got closer if Gerard joined his sisters in getting wound up like a spring for the moon.

And so, it was in that eager spirit that Persephone hopped upstairs on her toes into the Music room where the many students who took that extracurricular lesson were sporadically gathered. It was a funny subject for Persephone - the chaotic jangle of other students playing other instruments was a bit more disorienting for her as a werewolf when she was trying to sing for the Choir so it was a bit easier when they practised in another room, but she dearly enjoyed the singing. Seemingly she was a bit late, seeing as she’d already been busy with something else whereas a lot of the other musicians and singers had turned up early, but it was all right. Off near a window, Addison was tuning an acoustic guitar, and Seoyun’s big sister Ju-won as well as Harriet and Paige were already there for choir practise. And of course Professor Lake was there helping kids out with instruments.

“Afternoon Ju-won!” Persephone said brightly as she went by on her more urgent way toward Professor Lake. “Professor?” she asked, biting her lip a little.

“One second Persephone,” Professor Lake said quickly, still helping an older student with a cello. Persephone stood back a bit, idly panting. She licked her nose, mild impatience setting her toes wiggling as she waited for Professor Lake to be done. Eventually, she was, and she sniffed amusedly at Persephone’s puppylike manner as she turned around. “Right, how can I help Miss Granger-Weasley?” she asked, stepping a bit away from the cellist.

--

“So, A spoke wi Professor Lake…” Persephone said nervously, making a face as she glanced about at her fellow Theatre Club members the following Friday. A rainy, sleety week had passed following that weekend, one entirely characteristic of Scotland. The Tech class had finished up their soldering lessons and moved to the computer room that Thursday to begin working on making simple computer games. And despite the weather, several posters declaring that the first of the Flying Club’s monthly races would be held that Saturday whipped the school’s mood up into an excited tension as the day approached. To Persephone’s amusement despite her nerves for what she’d inadvertently taken on, Dominique had been going out despite the rain to practise flying, especially now that her custom-made gear had arrived from home and she could rely on her natural physical instincts, and the sodden Veela having to blow-dry her feathers afterward had been a good laugh in the dormitory. Even then, that Friday afternoon as rain hissed against the windows of the theatre club’s hall, Dominique wondered if she should brave the weather and get some last-minute training in…

Though, if the weather stayed that way, the race would probably get rained off anyway. Thankfully, the weather reports apparently forecasted it would abate in large part the next day.

In other news, the Theatre Club had managed to snag a few new members that week! Sylvester Honey, a fourth-year Ravenclaw, and Bradley Aster, one of his, Rebecca’s, and Tegyd’s yearmates in Gryffindor, had filled the roles of Cadmus and Teiresias respectively, and Persephone and Dominique had recruited Bonnie and Addison to bulk out the ranks of Dionysus’ Bacchantes. All that was left were Pentheus’ attendants, though they were hesitant to put Rowan in that role since Cedar was playing Pentheus, and the two messengers. Also coming along, though unsure about joining in any acting capacity, was Alpin, whom Persephone had dragged along to discuss costume making.

“Oh tidy! What’d she say Persephone, have we got the Choir?” Tegyd asked brightly, her ears shifting up along with her smiling lips. Persephone paused, an anxious pant in her nose. “What?” Tegyd asked.

“Well… we’ve got the Choir,” Persephone confirmed. “But um, only so long as A be Lead Soprano. Lake reckons A ought to be, if A be playin’ this Coryphaeus person as well since they’re the chorus’ leader,” she added. Tegyd’s eyes widened with a sort of friendly pride as her ears shifted, and beside Persephone, Rowan frowned.

“You’re sure you’ll be able to pull that off so close to the full moon?” Rowan asked. Persephone thought about it. Indeed, as Persephone had herself pointed out to Professor Lake, the play was to be performed on the week prior to the March full moon. Specifically, the last three nights of term before they left for Easter, the sixteenth through the eighteenth of March, conveniently also the first three of the five days the City Dionysia would run for according to Tegyd’s little Attican calendar converter. But the full moon wouldn’t rise until the twenty-second, so there was a bit of a gap.

“A’m thinkin’ so? So long as A got my inhaler and all,” she said, and Rowan nodded softly. “If no, we’ll surely have a backup,” she assured them.

“Professor Lake did say she’d have you working on getting used to soprano this year, didn’t she?” Dominique noted, remembering when she had come along to Persephone’s Choir audition with Vanya, and Persephone nodded mutely. She just hadn’t expected to be handed the role of a lead soprano so suddenly, as far as she had known she’d still have been being kept in the background as a mezzo soprano filling out the Choir’s body for a little while longer. “You’ll do great!” Dominique urged her cousin eagerly. Persephone smiled weakly.

“Yes, we’ve heard you sing, you’ll do brilliantly ‘Seph,” Alpin added, rubbing her back. “I know you can do it,” he urged her.

“Ay, A hope so,” Persephone supposed wryly, before she sniffed and glanced back at Tegyd. “Ye ken⁴ those Muses ye told us about Friday past? Any of ‘em for singing?” she asked, and Tegyd bleated a small snickering laugh.

“Yeah, Terpsichore is the Muse of chorus and dance,” Tegyd replied, having only hesitated to laugh slightly.

“Would ye gie¹ her a wee word for me when ye’re praying to yer boys?” Persephone suggested, halfway joking but simultaneously hoping Tegyd would appreciate a little nod to her faith even if it was jovial. Thankfully, she did, and she sniffed amusedly.

“Sure, will do,” Tegyd told her with a smile. “What did um, what did Professor Lake say about the songs, do we need to change them too or..?” she asked. Persephone shook her head.

“Na, um, Lake said she’d have a wee look first and see if there’s any version wi the rhythm or the notes and then get back to us,” Persephone replied. “If there’s no, we’ll be having to sort it out ourselves, said she’d help wi’t⁵ be that the case,” she explained.

“Well, we’ll see what she finds and I’ll coordinate with her to maybe come along next week, make sure everyone’s in the loop,” Professor Kaighin said matter-of-factly with a nod. “What’s next on your little list, Tegyd?” she asked brightly.

“Right, yep, Alpin. You’re good to help make costumes and stuff?” Tegyd asked, checking the sheets of paper she was using for notes. Persephone really thought she could do with a notebook, she herself had been using one she’d bought in Hogsmeade for stuff like that.

“Things like what you were wearing for Halloween, right?” Alpin asked, to a nod from Tegyd.

“Yeah, basically that for Persephone, Rebecca, Vic, Dominique, Wood, and Morgan, oh and Cedar when Pentheus goes nuts,” Tegyd agreed, pointing around the table at the girls who’d be playing Agave, Autonoë, and the Coryphaeus figure. And, of course, Cedar, who wheezed with laughter. “And then we’ll need some other stuff for Bradley and Sylvester for Teiresias and Cadmus,” she added, nodding to the boys.

“Cadmus and Teiresias, they’re like, old guys right? How’re we gonna do that?” Bradley asked, looking up from where he was perusing his copy of the script.

“We could do some glamours on you, make you look all wrinkly,” Victoire suggested with a tickled sort of smile.

“And some white wigs,” Dominique added snidely, and both Bradley and Sylvester chuckled at that.

“Yeah yeah yeah! And walking sticks!” Sylvester cackled as he flipped back to where his character was introduced. “Says here we’re dressed in the bacchant’s fawn-skin, crowned with ivy… Oh Brad, your bloke’s blind remember! He’s using his one of Teg’s stick thing to see what’s in front of him,” he exclaimed suddenly. Bradley checked his script.

“Oh yeah he is!” Bradley noted. “Should talk to Professor Granger, I’ll bet there’s some way you’re supposed to do it,” he said perceptively.

“Yeah, there is!” Dominique crowed gladly. “I don’t know how it’s done, but I know Aunt Ariadne taught Aunt Astoria,” she explained, and Bradley nodded. Remembering seeing her Aunt using it every now and then - her magical glasses frames that showed her the shape of the world around her could sometimes give her a headache - Dominique was fairly sure it’d have to be done differently with a thyrsus than a regular white cane though, seeing as one end had a pinecone on it and wasn’t suited to being held that way or rolled on the ground, not on either end.

“So, mostly robes, a bunch of staves. I can help with other props too, why not?” Alpin concluded, before he paused. “Do we have the fabric, or will we need to buy it ourselves?” he asked shrewdly. Professor Kaighin scoffed.

“Nah nah, back when I met with Granger and McGonagall, they said I could give Professor Kaighin a quote for how much stuff we need to buy will cost and the school will cover it,” Tegyd assured him quickly, and Kaighin nodded. “We just can’t, like, abuse it and splurge on stuff we don’t need,” she chuckled.

“Awww,” Persephone groaned sarcastically, to a snort of laughter from the group.

“What’re you complaining about? You’re the rich girl, you shout the splurging,” Tegyd bleated incredulously, her voice going squeaky with laughter as the others’ laughter yet grew and Persephone, taken aback, scowled desperately.

“A’m no that rich, A don’t have that much pocket money!” Persephone protested.

“Yes you do!” Cedar guffawed instantly. “Have you seen your wallet?! Surprised you can close it!” he exclaimed.

“Well-” Persephone floundered, blinking. “A’v no brought it all wi us, it’s no as if A could bring it all here e’en⁶ had A wanted!” she clarified hopefully, only for everyone else to snort a bit at her. “Gringotts don’t do cards, Ma’s talked to them about it but apparently it’s all difficult to set up what wi the Statute,” she mumbled. Tegyd scoffed.

“Of course you’d know all about that,” Tegyd muttered. Persephone’s eyes fell toward the table, and she awkwardly licked her nose. She didn’t like the dissonance between her and her friends that her privilege - both financial and in her family’s access to power - introduced, though of course being able to have such an awkward response to it was itself privileged. She wasn’t the one who lived in a one-room cottage. “I guess we’ll want to write up a big list of all the costumes and props and stuff we’ll need, but maybe we should do that later once we’ve sorted out exactly how we’re doing the play and done a couple practices?” Tegyd suggested, looking to Professor Kaighin for confirmation. The Professor nodded, so they continued on to matters of alterations to the script - making the bits where just messengers turned up and talked about what was happening more interesting by figuring out how they’d act out the events, and the elephant in the room that was the way the ending went a bit far to a modern audience.

Regarding the acted-out messages, Dominique thought the group’s approach was getting a bit more comedic than tragic, even in the theatrical sense, but thankfully it didn’t seem like Tegyd minded it as they finished up the evening and she, Persephone, Alpin, Bonnie, and Tegyd herself, strolled downstairs toward the Hufflepuff Common for a bit before dinner, the butt of Tegyd’s thyrsus tapping on the ground as she descended the stairs. She had, with Alpin’s help, added a cap onto the bottom so it wouldn’t split the wood from her leaning on it, so the sound it made was a little more solid now. Bonnie peered at it curiously.

“Do you really believe in Dionysus, Tegyd?” Bonnie asked curiously as they walked. Tegyd looked down toward her, her ears shifting as she nodded.

“Yeah, um. And Pan,” Tegyd replied, slightly hesitantly. Bonnie nodded, smiling.

“That’s so cool!” Bonnie said brightly. “I always wondered if wizards had their own religions and stuff, you know?” she said, before Tegyd quavered a bit.

“No uhm, er, that’s not a wizard thing. That’s a me thing,” Tegyd clarified quickly, and Bonnie made a surprised sort of noise. “If it were a wizard thing I’d have been more open about it before this month,” she added wryly, looking about as if she was still worried that someone would tease her for it in the wide corridors they were walking down. They were hardly alone after all, it was an hour before dinnertime.

“Oh. Huh,” Bonnie mumbled. “Is there anything where like, it’s different with wizards? Y’know, the whole witchcraft, shall not suffer a witch to live, thing?” she asked curiously. Persephone shrugged.

“Depends on where ye are. Here it’s always been a bit more ye do ye so there’s no really much different. Ye know, our witch-trials were just about over by the time they did the Statute and near none they killed were real witches,” Persephone replied, remembering what her mother had told her of the topic when Persephone had told her about Tegyd’s faith over the phone. Funnily enough, very little in the Witchcraft Acts of the time, so her Ma had told her, had really been that dangerous for actual witches, because they primarily dealt with using magic to hurt people - something which was essentially illegal already, and had in most ways remained so. “It were actually illegal to believe magic was real for a while, funny enough. Ye accuse some poor lass o bein’ a witch, ye’re the one gets burned for heresy, ‘cos ye’re saying there’s some power what’s no God,” Persephone laughed. It had apparently been quite a convenient state of things for actual witches. Tegyd scowled at her.

“So what you’re saying is the bloody rule that stopped me from going to school and living with my Mum as a kid was an overreaction? Oh, diolch yn fawr i chi hen bobl,”⁷ she grumbled, sarcasm bordering her tone even if neither Persephone nor Dominique knew what she’d said. Though, from Alpin’s amused sniff and recalling things he’d said before, Dominique guessed it was something along the lines of ‘thanks a bunch, old people.’

“Here, ay, a wee bit, but no so much in some other places,” Persephone replied with a grimace. “Some spots had, and have still got, a wee bit more… A dunno, they’re a wee bit more strong on it. Satanic Panic an’ the like, there’s a bit more in America still. Ye might ask Aubrey, Bonnie, she may ken,”⁴ she suggested, remembering their American classmate, who had departed their Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson and declined an invitation to the Theatre Club, citing her hands hurting, earlier that afternoon, as they arrived at the Hufflepuff Common and headed inside. Persephone made a beeline for the inexplicably unoccupied sofa by the fire and immediately sprawled all over it, only making way for Alpin to scooch into the remaining space and reach into his bag for a clump of fabric as Dominique chirped a bubbly laugh at them.

“What’s that ye got there? Thought ye finished that coat?” Persephone asked, noticing that whatever he was setting up to sew by hand was composed of the same blue wool as his pea coat. Alpin nodded.

“Oh, I did. But I had some extra fabric, so I thought I’d make myself a hat,” Alpin replied, miming a pointed wizard’s hat over his own head. He went to check in his bag for something, only to wince and make an annoyed little noise. “Oh that’s what I forgot. I left my interfacing at home,” he grumbled.

“Interfacing?” Dominique asked.

“Stiffening material. I bought some for the coat, it’s best to put it in along the fronts so the buttons and buttonholes behave, but I don’t have any of it left that’s big enough. I have some at home I could use for this though,” Alpin explained, exhaling for a moment. Dominique guessed that any wizard hat made without some kind of stiffening inside would just look tragic and floppy. “You know what, it’s only a couple of hours to Aberfoyle by owl, I’ll ask Dad to send it up tomorrow morning,” Alpin decided with a shrug, sitting back as he tilted to catch the light of the fireplace on the needle he threaded.

“So long as ye ken⁴ ye might get it in the middle o the race,” Persephone snickered.

“Ha! We’ll try not to crash into it,” Bonnie assured him jovially as she sat on the arm of the sofa, getting around Persephone’s doglike claiming of the furniture. Indeed, like a dog, Persephone craned her head back to see her, panting with her tongue out.

“Oh ay, ‘cos ye’re entering, ye are?” Persephone recalled gladly, jumping a bit where she lay, and Bonnie nodded.

“You’re going down!” Dominique jeered, laughing along with Bonnie who shrugged.

“Maybe, but it’ll still be fun!” Bonnie chuckled. Bonnie was, after all, going to be using a school broom. But then again, it wasn’t just your broom that decided such things.

“So long as it don’t piss down like it did today,” Persephone pointed out, nodding at the dark windows at the very top of the ceiling line where rain was tapping. “Well, good luck to ye both,” she mused, as Alpin got sewing and the fire crackled before them.

--

Chapter Text

Thankfully, the weather had improved a bit that Saturday morning, turning from a day-long downpour into a slight spitting shower every now and then amidst the grey overcast sky visible from the window of the Hufflepuff dormitory as Persephone sat on her bed while Dominique, Seoyun, Summer, and Bonnie got ready for the race. They had all chosen similar things to don as warm clothes to fly in, jeans and stockings and thick jumpers, though Dominique was wearing multiple layers of ponchos over her wings instead and was the only one who had gear to put on since the others were human and would be getting theirs to put on at the stadium. And so, Dominique was busy doing up her wingguards, and being very careful about it. She remembered well when she’d broken her wing the year prior, and though the race wasn’t supposed to be any kind of dangerous, they were to be wearing full gear for a reason. Any little thing that would reduce her chance of breaking a bone should something go wrong, which was dangerous for a Veela, she needed to do. Dominique thoroughly double-checked the buckle on her left wingguard, before she nodded at it, satisfied.

“All right, I’m ready!” Dominique declared, picking up her Sansonnet and getting up.

“Took you long enough,” Kiera chuckled, as she, Persephone, and Caoimhe followed the flying four in moving for the door. “Sure you’re gonna be warm enough with those?” she asked, nodding at Dominique’s ponchos. They looked thick, but they didn’t cover her wings very well.

“I’ll be all right, my feathers are pretty thick,” Dominique assured them, as they headed up the stairs and out from the Hufflepuff Common. Indeed, just like Dominique’s feathers Persephone’s fur was getting relatively thick as well with winter peeking over the proverbial horizon. And not just the ‘high temperatures wiggle around zero’ autumn that Vanya was already snubbing the outdoors because of, proper Scottish highland winter where the highs could be as cold as negative ten on a cold day. It was starting to get to the point where Persephone would have been seriously considering using the various dog grooming tools in the bottom of her bags somewhere that her Ma and Da had bought her over Easter earlier in the year to make sure it wasn’t matting at the base, there were spots on her torso where she couldn’t see her skin under it and the only word to really describe the backs of her hands and feet now was ‘hairy.’

While it wasn’t exactly the world’s favourite look for a girl, it was fairly handy combined with the natural warmth of a werewolf’s body, seeing as Persephone was perhaps the least warmly dressed person around as they departed the castle for the Quidditch stadium, which was to be the starting position of the race. Not everyone was gathering there, others were finding spots to watch from with better views of the racecourse, and clearly there was a racecourse. As Dominique remembered from the first time the Flying Club had gathered up, Jack had mentioned ‘rings,’ and she knew what he meant now - several great big brass rings, not unlike Quidditch hoops but even bigger, hovered magically beside the towers and chimneys of Hogwarts just from where they could see, and Dominique could only guess that the aim was to fly through them to keep on course. Persephone, having played a few more in her life than Dominique had, thought it was a bit like a video game level.

“Well those are mint, they are!” Addison’s voice sounded from behind them as they looked up, slowing down as they did, and Dominique felt Brenda and Isobelle with her before she even looked to see the pair coming with Addison, all wrapped up in scarves and beanies. Kiera and Caoimhe were both wearing much the same, though the five of them going to actually race hadn’t worn anything they could lose or any beanies - they’d be putting on an equivalent of the headguard Dominique was wearing.

“Hiya!” Brenda called, hurrying a bit to catch up with the growing group and walk beside Persephone. “Oh wow, lots of you entering!” she noted, nodding at how Dominique, Seoyun, and Summer, were all carrying broomsticks.

“Even Bonnie’s entering!” Summer added, since Bonnie didn’t have her own.

“Four against one, eh?” Isobelle chuckled, making Addison laugh. “Got your work cut out for you, you do Addison,” she told her dormmate, who made a face.

“And Dominique’s actually a bird, what’s the bet she can do all sorts of stuff with those wings?” Addison noted amusedly, and Dominique chattered self-consciously, straightening her feathers. She shrugged.

“Well… it does help a little in the turns,” Dominique admitted sheepishly. Addison scowled, scoffing.

“All right, you’re on my team, Beaky,” Addison decided firmly. Dominique doubled over where she was walking with a wheeze of a squawk of laughter as Persephone guffawed and the others burst out laughing.

“That’s not how it works!” Summer cackled.

“And you’re in Gryffindor!” Bonnie added through her shaking breath, her words a plume of moisture in the air.

“You just want to ride on my tail feathers!” Dominique exclaimed, feigning indignance as she let her beak hang open a bit.

“You don’t even have tail feathers!” Addison retorted, before she frowned at Dominique’s rear end. “You don’t do you? Dunno how you’d hide them back there,” she asked quickly, nodding at the jeans Dominique was wearing. Dominique shrugged. A full Veela might have, but like her wings the necessary structures were underdeveloped and she just had a pointier tailbone than most humans and some longer feathers over her bum. She didn’t have taloned feet either, for that matter. And so, jibing and laughing with one another, the lot of them headed down the damp grounds toward the Quidditch stadium, whereupon Dominique, Addison, Seoyun, Summer, and Bonnie all headed inside to get ready while Persephone, Caoimhe, and Kiera ascended the wooden stairs to the stands where they joined a decent little chunk of the school who were gathered across the benches on the side facing the castle waiting for the race to begin.

Persephone, of course, made a beeline for Alpin, who had seemingly already received his owl package from his Dad that morning seeing as he was idly sewing some kind of thick white material - the interfacing he’d mentioned - onto the back of a blue wool ring that was to be half of the brim of his hat with long tacking stitches. But he was sitting nearby several others of their year, so it wasn’t as if she was separating from the group when she plopped herself down on the damp bench, waving also to Professor McGonagall who was sitting under a ledge with her Aunty Ariadne with a proud look on her face and a thick blanket over her legs.

“Hullo thare,”¹ Persephone said jauntily, leaning over Alpin’s shoulder as he started out of his concentration on his work to see her. “Whit ye daein?”² she asked with a big smile. She knew what he was doing, she’d watched him do it before, but she liked to hear him talk about his hobbies. While Alpin told her how he’d cut the interfacing out so that it’d fit nicely inside the brim once he’d faced the panel with its twin, Kiera and Caoimhe sat down behind them and Kiera glanced at how Kate, Ariana, and Daphne were all sitting there, but the fourth Ravenclaw girl in their year wasn’t.

“Aubrey not coming?” Kiera asked curiously.

“Nah, she said had a headache,” Kate replied, making a face. “She didn’t look great this morning, I think she might be sick again,” she added.

“Be easier to list when Aubrey’s not been sick than when she has, it would,” Caoimhe said wryly, shaking her head. “How’s she even getting sick so much? Not like the rest of us are all getting the flu over and over,” she asked, with a frown.

“Dunno,” Ariana shrugged, as Persephone looked back to them, now that Alpin had explained his next few steps on making his simple little wizard hat to her.

“May be she’s just got a right bad immune system,” Persephone supposed. “Catchin’ stuff yese³ are all fighting off no problem, ye dae’ e’en⁴ notice” she explained, as Daphne frowned at her.

“Us?” she asked, seemingly referring to how Persephone hadn’t said we, but rather a Scots plural of you. “What about you? Is it different for werewolves?” Daphne asked.

“Actually, come to think of it, we’ve never seen you get sick I don’t think Persephone,” Caoimhe agreed. Persephone nodded.

“We reckon A canna⁵ get human diseases. Been vaccinated for ‘em, but they gave us the shots for dogs too just in case,” Persephone explained simply, and the others nodded. “A’ve got nothin’ to worry about if ye’ve got a flu, unless it’s canine parainfluenza,” she snickered. Alpin frowned, thinking.

“You’ve been sick once before, haven’t you? I think it was when you were eight, wasn’t it, you were out of school for a few days?” Alpin asked, before he scoffed. “Or was that the time you poisoned yourself trying chocolate like a twp?”⁶ he chuckled. It had been pretty harrowing at the time, but in the years since it had become more of a joke at the expense of Persephone’s foolishness.

“Nah, the chocolate were afore⁷ that,” Persephone said. “Bloody Rick’s parents, turned out them blighters never vaccinated their dog for bloody kennel cough, A must ‘a’ got it from it walking to school or something,” she snapped, shaking her head at the memory of one of their classmates’, Rick’s, family’s Yorkshire terrier she’d caught a virus off as a kid. They’d also refused to properly train the thing, so it had always gotten all annoying and impotently aggressive around Persephone. She’d been very tempted to kick it, if she was honest, and she normally didn’t feel that way toward other canines. Had she not despised it, she’d have felt sorry for it for having such bad owners. “Only time A’ve ever had a cough at the new moon an’ it warna e’en⁸ that bad, dinna ken⁹ how Aubrey stands it so often,” she added to the others, before she noticed someone much shorter coming over. “Hullo thare¹ Sværri! Ye no entering?” she asked as the little half-Goblin half-Veela hopped up onto the bench beside her.

“No, I didn’t feel like it,” Sværri replied nonchalantly, shrugging. “But Dominique entered, didn’t she? I think I’ll support her.”

Meanwhile, below in the bowels of the wooden framework of the stadium, Dominique was waiting by the doors to the girls’ changing rooms while her friends got ready inside, holding in her talons not just her own broom but the one Bonnie had borrowed as well, since their availability was on a first-serve basis. Excitement was drumming under her feathery skin, excitement that hadn’t even been dulled by the grumbling realisation that Fern Taylor and Annabelle Barnes, Vanya’s horrible dormmates, were both entering. Dominique had seen them a couple of times at the Flying Club’s outings, but she’d hoped they wouldn’t be part of the race. So too had she sensed Cameron Vexmoor in the boys’ changing rooms, to her disgruntlement.

“Park’s just helping Wood with her gear,” Addison said casually as she and Summer stepped out of the changing rooms with their gear on and their broomsticks over their shoulders. Dominique couldn’t help but chirrup slightly in a half an avian laugh at how Addison hadn’t done a very good job of stuffing her hair into her head guard. It was a bit hypocritical though, as Addison returned her amused look for, seeing as her feathers looked just as stupid sticking out of her own. Only moments later, Seoyun and Bonnie came out from the changing rooms, with Bonnie adjusting some buckle or other she could only barely reach on her back as she stepped out and Dominique offered her her broomstick back.

“Thanks Dominique,” Bonnie said quickly, taking it with a critical sort of eye for its imperfections as she turned it about in her hand. As she did, she paused where she was walking toward the gate into the field with them and frowned at something behind them. “Why’s she getting on a bike?” she asked confusedly but of nobody in particular. Summer and Dominique looked around to see Andrea Parramore, a sixth year Ravenclaw, in the same Quidditch safety gear as the rest of them, indeed mounting a bicycle. It was a pretty nice looking bike too, its step-through frame painted a nice maroon red and its wheels a complimentary pale cream, its seat and handlebars were in nice brown leather - though Dominique had not the discerning eye or nose for leather Persephone had so she wasn’t sure if it was real leather - and it even had a luggage rack over the back wheel. She was even wearing a bike helmet instead of the Quidditch head gear. Dominique jumped out of the way as Andrea pedalled forward and rang the adorable chiming bell at its handlebars to urge them to move, and she rode past them toward the pitch. Bonnie’s mouth fell open.

“That bike’s been enchanted to fly, hasn’t it?” Bonnie exclaimed, gaping after the sixth-year who came to a stop on the pitch nearby where someone had a picnic blanket of some sort laid out on the wet grass and just stayed there idly, leaning on one leg as if to be ready to go and chatting with her friends nearby.

“Must be, like!” Summer laughed.

“I didn’t realise you could make other things fly and ride on them, but I guess it makes sense yeah,” Bonnie mused, looking at her broomstick. “Bit E.T,” she chuckled.

“Yeah, you can! Aunt Ginny has a flying motorbike that can even go invisible!” Dominique told her eagerly, and Bonnie wheezed briefly, surprise flashing across her features.

“Wait, Aunt Ginny, Professor Granger’s wife Aunt Ginny, plays for some Quidditch team, was on the England team before the World Cup stuff?” Bonnie asked bewilderedly, and Dominique nodded. “God she sounds cool,” she hissed as they stepped out onto the field, ground that was still ever so gingerly on the ‘mud’ side of the line of dirt squelching under their shoes as they joined the little gaggle of students preparing for the race. But Andrea Parramore wasn’t the only one with something other than a broom - someone had set up a picnic blanket to sit on, so as to not be sitting in the mud, but Dominique frowned at them. It was a seventh year student, Martin Stockton from Slytherin sitting at its centre lazily… and she didn’t see a broomstick accompanying him. He was wearing the gear, yes, but among he and those chatting with him, there was one too few brooms. And for that matter, it wasn’t a picnic blanket, that had just been what Dominique had thought when she’d seen it from a distance. It was too nice a blanket, nay, a rug, for that. All ornate with curling golden designs on a floral motif. Dominique squawked softly, shaking her head. Did Stockton have some kind of old flying carpet, maybe from his family? Were those even legal anymore, she wondered?

“Woooo!” Dominique looked around at the sound of a familiar howl, before she squawked and waved her wing up at where Persephone was eagerly waving down at them with their friends. As Dominique and the others waved back, eventually Madam Hooch strode onto the pitch wearing the same dark referee’s gear she’d worn for the Quidditch match the weekend prior, the one between Slytherin and Gryffindor where Slytherin had won by three hundred and twenty to one hundred and ten when their Seeker Rowena Moats had caught the Snitch when they’d been sixty points up. She walked alongside Madam Pomfrey, who parted from her and went toward a tent that had been set up off to the side next to the wall of the stands. “Oop, here we go,” Dominique noted in a nervous little chirp as she hoisted her broom in her talons and got ready to mount it, her heart hammering. The race was soon to begin. Madam Hooch drew her wand and tapped it to her throat, before she spoke with her voice magically amplified so all in the stands could hear it too.

“Your attention, racers!” Madam Pomfrey called firmly, stepping before them all. “Before we kick off our race today, I need to set down the rules for it!” she declared. Dominique nodded - it made sense that she’d want to make them clear for a final time in case other racers hadn’t read them, and for the students in the stands. “This is to be an absolutely no contact event! You will not in any way make physical contact with your competitors!” she called sternly. “Any attempt to physically impede or dismount another racer will result in your immediate disqualification, not just from this event but from all future sporting events at Hogwarts and the confiscation of your means of flight!” Hooch told them all, nodding to Parramore and Stockton - it did not just extend to broomsticks. Dominique and the others nodded firmly.

“In addition!” Madam Hooch barked. “The limited use of magic is to be permitted during this race!” At that, Persephone, sitting in the stands, jumped along with many of the other students, who began exchanging whispers. She hadn’t known that! Dominique however, had, and still had her wand in her pocket, as did her friends if their little idle, almost reflexive, checks for their own wands were anything to go off. “However, that magic must be restrained to distraction. Your spells may not affect your fellow racers physically, mentally, emotionally, or in any other way directly! Any directly effective spell will also result in complete disqualification, and any harmful spell, directly or by the results of its action, will result in your expulsion!” she yelled, glaring them all down as if to dare them to try something under her watch. Dominique hummed to herself in her beak. She wondered what spells she could use - perhaps coloured sparks to dazzle her opponents, that sort of thing. She looked over to Summer and Addison, who were both also clearly giving the matter some thought.

“Now. When I give the word, the race will begin. The race will be ten laps of the course,” Madam Hooch told them all, turning a bit and stepping back to let them see the nearest huge brass ring, which was off a bit to the right from the Quidditch hoops nearest the castle. “There are thirty such rings floating around the castle grounds, and you must pass through each of them in sequence! The sequence should be clear from their placement. Missing a ring will add five seconds to your total time, so you would do well to go through all of them,” Hooch explained, pointing up at the nearest. “The finish line for both the race and each lap shall be those hoops,” she added, pointing over toward the Quidditch hoops furthest from the castle. Dominique blinked upon seeing them, having not actually looked at them and thus having not noticed that they too had been magically made the same size as the race course rings. “Whosoever completes all ten laps with the shortest total time, taking into account missed ring penalties, will be the winner. You all understand?” she said, a little redundantly. Dominique and Persephone both thought there was nobody there who hadn’t gathered that already. All of the gathered couple dozen students nodded or mumbled their agreement.

With that, Hooch nodded and strode over to the side. Hurriedly, Dominique stepped forward a bit to be more nearby the other competitors who formed more of a starting line, and Bonnie and Addison mounted their brooms beside her.

“On your marks!” Hooch yelled, waving her wand to conjure up a spread of lanes on the grass as if they’d been painted there, staggered on an angle so they were all the same distance from the first ring. Dominique hopped over to the nearest one, and with a clattering of wooden brooms, the lot of them lined up. From further away, Stockton tapped his carpet with his wand and confirmed their suspicions as it wafted into the air, two lengths of its golden filigree becoming corded handles for him to hold on to as he floated to a mark. Parramore too wheeled her bike onto one.

“Get set!” Dominique’s heart pounded as she disregarded everyone else and hopped into the air, letting her Sansonnet hover with her atop it a few feet off the ground. She leaned forward as the tension grew taut. The girl with the bicycle tapped its metal frame twice with her wand jauntily.

“Go Dominique!” Persephone howled, standing up and cheering.

BANG!

“GO!” Hooch yelled, as a burst of light shot from her wand into the air. Dominique’s heart almost skipped a beat as her nerves exploded with just one impulse - forward. With her talons wrapped tightly about the broom, she surged up and forward with the wave of brooms. But that wave was suddenly fractured.

“Ascendio!” Parramore shouted, throwing her wand up like a dagger before with a surge of wind the maroon bicycle shot upward, skipping all need to run it up to speed and get it flying as she hurtled into the sky above them.

“Woah!” Persephone exclaimed incredulously, as Parramore erupted into the air atop her bike, hanging behind a bit due to its motion being mostly just upward as Dominique pushed her broom forward, but not for long. The bicycle hit altitude and Andrea was already pedalling, the bike surging forward, skimming through the air to join the pack that was forming as Dominique pulled up to get a better view of the ring from above Seoyun and Summer. The flying carpet was lagging behind already, and as Dominique spotted a gap in the formation and surged forward to take it to swoop through the ring, a little blue-grey falcon of a bird - one Dominique recognised as an out of season merlin, funnily enough - whirled in front of her through the frigid air, spreading its wings and heading through the ring as well a split second before she did. Right behind Dominique, as Jack Kidwell did a barrel-roll under them through it, Parramore pulled a mid-air wheelie and tapped her back wheel to the bottom of the ring as she went, laughing gleefully. Dominique gathered that she’d only just finished making the enchantment upon her bike, and she was very proud of it so far.

“That way that way that way!” Bonnie exclaimed, pointing over toward the second ring which hovered over the eastern bridge of the castle. Dominique banked left toward it, surging forward as the group dispersed, all taking slightly different lines and turning arcs as they passed the first ring. She wasn’t in the lead one bit, that was a few of the older Quidditch players like Dorothy Hulme and Kenneth Johnsey, but she was in a fun little pack with her friends as well as Kidwell, and annoyingly Vexmoor and Fern Taylor were pretty nearby too. At that, Dominique’s eyes narrowed. She had a good fifteen seconds until she needed to swing through the ring.

She let go of her broom with one talon, and grabbed her wand.

“Periculum Duo!” Dominique screeched, sweeping her wand at Vexmoor and Taylor and sending a sparkle of red light shooting toward them each, the spell making two. Taylor dodged out of the way of it, but Vexmoor yelped and swerved as it shot into his vision, before he looked angrily at Dominique.

“YEAH, AW THE NICE¹⁰ DOM!” Persephone yelled, not yet needing binoculars to see what was happening like Alpin did.

“I’m gonna get you back for that, bird bitch!” Vexmoor shouted. Knowing what Persephone would have said in response had she heard it - indeed, with Persephone’s ears she might have - Dominique just squawked amusedly.

“Bitch is a dog, wrong cousin Vexmoor!” Dominique retorted before in a second or two she was too far ahead of him for him to hear. The second hoop was coming up, and given its angle they were supposed to head straight along the bridge to another ring, which itself was aiming the course up and around the tower at its end in a corkscrew. Everyone else, seeing that, was curving to the left and then to the right, to give themselves room to turn that way around a tree that was blocking them, but Dominique grinned in the corners of her beak. Like she had told Addison, she had an advantage in that field. Perhaps her Sansonnet wasn’t a racing broom, but she was more manoeuvrable than the others. Behind her and to the left, as she cut them off and gained ahead of them, Summer made an uncertain noise as Dominique hurtled for the extreme right edge of the hoop, missing the branches of the tree by a hair.

WHOOSH!

Dominique gripped her broomstick hard with her right talons, but her left? Her left wing she spread in flight, and immediately lift took her entire body from one side only. The only reason she couldn’t fly with her wings was that her wing muscles weren’t strong enough to generate lift with them. Speed would do that job just fine. A surge of nausea filled her as her gut lurched and she sharply twirled into the curve, her entire body and the broom corkscrewing into the corner as she was, in a split second, through the hoop and pointing in the right direction. Before she could roll over further and spin out of control, Dominique pulled her wing back hurriedly, grabbing her broom and even righting herself to gravity by the wave of air the action displaced. Seoyun, staring at her incredulously, caught up through the sprint along the bridge thanks to her faster Nimbus, before the wind rushed through their hair and they flew up into the corkscrew around the tower, and Dominique urgently passed Kidwell as she went, avoiding him as she went up through the third, and then the fourth, hoop. The fifth hoop, at the top, aimed them over up further toward Gryffindor Tower, where some more students were evidently watching from the open windows as she heard cheers and saw them as she banked left toward the next hoop, which would bring them around it the long way. Other racers shot sparks at each other as she had, and traded other distracting spells, as she pushed forward.

Spits of water met her feathers and beak as one of many light showers that day fell gently from the clouds, as they rounded Gryffindor Tower and from there slewed back downward again, skimming about the rooves of several shorter towers before they swept along the walls and windows of the Great Hall and down toward the seventh hoop, nestled about the cliffs and aiming them under the bridge. Looking back in the straight, with all the creative spells everyone could think of, as Seoyun and Summer ganged up on Taylor and Bonnie laughed at their efforts, it was sort of funny how much the race resembled a mid-air battle, but yet with nobody getting injured save only for their swerving out of the right line. Overhead, Madam Hooch hovered on her own broom, keeping track of everything, and way back just rounding Gryffindor Tower was Stockton and his flying carpet, while Andrea Parramore with her bicycle was doing surprisingly well, keeping in the middle of the pack or so where Dominique was finding herself a leader. But, clearly as she dodged a shower of multicoloured sparks thrown her way, just having the ability to take more daring turning circles was not going to get her further ahead and up with Hulme, Johnsey, Vivienne Longacre, and the inexplicable merlin bird flying in formation with them. She needed to push her broom harder, take more risks.

And just then, an opportunity to take one arose. As the course rose again toward the Astronomy tower, the next ring hanging in space over the grounds to enforce a wider route, someone ahead of her, Addison’s cousin Jasper she thought, swung his wand out behind him as he flew through it.

“Fumos!” Jasper exclaimed, engulfing the entire ring and a huge swathe of the air around it with fog. Dominique jumped, her eyes widening even as Madam Hooch’s whistle blared out around them, and suddenly she was engulfed in grey. Ahead of her, she heard Slytherin fourth-year Conway Woosnam yelp and potentially slow, before she had to make a split second decision.

Slow, maybe avoid the fog entirely and go for the next hoop at the telescopes, or not lose time, going with her gut on where she remembered the hoop being?

Dominique launched forward, blind in the fog, until she swore she saw the glint of brass through the cloud, her keen hawkish eyes snapping to what she hoped was the ring. Hopefully it wasn’t someone’s glasses, because she was charging right for it. Knowing what way she had to go from that ring, she inhaled.

WHACK!

As Dominique threw out her right wing to throw herself left toward the Astronomy Tower, her talons collided with the top of the ring and she ducked her head urgently as panic filled her. To her thanks, she didn’t slam head-first into a heavy metal ring, instead she pelted like a thrown stone out of the fog, only a split second before it dissipated as Addison’s cousin dropped the spell and she saw Madam Hooch giving Jasper a warning for obfuscating her own view of the race and creating a hazard. It made sense, the referee needed to be able to tell what was happening after all. Conway had hung back, lilting to the side and missing the hoop entirely, losing time as Dominique shot forward and charged around the Astronomy Tower. Pain rumbled through her yellow talon, but she was thankfully sure that it didn’t feel or look broken. Just bruised. A broken anything would be sure to put her out of the race entirely, needing immediate medical attention from Madam Pomfrey back at the stadium.

Dominique took aim for the students ahead of her as the race swept them all around the castle, over the greenhouses, around and between the towers, and Persephone and Alpin watched through shared binoculars for every glimpse of the flash of her white feathers in the air. And eventually, after a sweeping run over the Lake - from whose waters the Scamander twins were watching, they’d cheered for Dominique while paddling in there - Dominique hurtled toward the enlarged Quidditch hoops and the line for her second lap.

“Woooo! Go Dominique!” Persephone howled as she came in toward the hoops, alongside Victoire who’d arrived a little late to cheer her little sister on. Dominique shot through the hoops cleanly, great golden holographic letters declaring her, Dominique Weasley, eleventh so far. In the group behind her, it actually took a second longer for Rhodri Prewett’s name to pop up for sixteenth for some reason, though maybe the enchantment just had to double-check he wasn’t his twin brother, who soon after placed nineteenth in the first lap, Persephone supposed. Dominique though wasn’t looking back to see that to begin with, because she was turning her mind to the second lap.

Now she knew the course, she could try to do better that time. Take better lines, know where best to distract those around her, that kind of thing.

Unfortunately, two laps later, someone else had the exact same thought, and had clearly been paying attention to her tactic of using her wings to sharpen her turns. Someone right in front of her as they banked sharply around Gryffindor Tower.

“Lumos Solem!” Campbell Lack shouted, and Dominique screeched as an enormous flash of white light blasted toward her and blinded her. Squawking in disoriented pain, Dominique spun off course, throwing one of her wings to her eyes to shield them from the flash of sunlight Lack had thrown back at her and holding on for dear life with the other. He hadn’t been to know, though it had worked to his advantage, that the Solem version of that spell wasn’t just brighter. It was basically an attempt to make sunlight, and she was even more vulnerable to it than most given she could actually see UV light. Gasping, Dominique snapped her beak angrily and shot back into the race, her retinas burnt by the light and throwing a pink tint over all she could see as she tried to regain her spot after getting overtaken, blinking her third eyelids reflexively.

“You good?!” Summer asked urgently, since Dominique had fallen back in position to the middle clump the others were in.

“I’m fine!” Dominique replied quickly, as they hurtled around a few towers and down the side of the Great Hall. Determinedly, and with her feathers puffing up in frustration, Dominique pushed her broom faster as they swooped under the bridge and the race went on. Hilariously, they lapped Stockton and his flying carpet a couple of times as it did, just like he laughed about as they went by it was not built for speed. At least he thought it was just as funny. Two laps and the race was halfway done, another two and Dominique was looking for any advantage she could get to shift her into the high single digit positions if she could get into one. Seoyun and she were dancing around twelfth and thirteenth, but so far neither of them had missed a hoop. A few people had, for various reasons, but they hadn’t, and Dominique was quite sure she wouldn’t.

At least, she was quite sure she wouldn’t until Jack Kidwell, skidding ahead of her through the air, jabbed his wand backward as they passed under the main courtyard bridge.

“Depulso!” he exclaimed, and instead of his spell hitting any other racer, no, his spell hit the ring itself. Dominique gasped in her beak as the ring was thrown away from him, out of position and out of her path too! The dismay that she’d missed a hoop had already bolted through her nervous system before a second incantation sounded from almost right behind her a split second later.

“Engorgio!” another older boy shouted, before Dominique jumped and all her feathers puffed up in alarm as abruptly, the hoop that had just shot out of position and was slowly moving back erupted into the space, five times the size it had been and just big enough that she barely made it through the edge of the enlarged ring.

“Woah!” Dominique squawked, glancing back at Brychan Williams, who’d cast it. “Thanks!” she exclaimed, as Brychan just laughed. In truth, he’d clearly cast it to save his own path through the ring, not hers.

“Don’t mention it Weasley. Verdimillious!” he chuckled, shooting some green sparks at her eyes, but sparks Dominique rolled away from to avoid as she and Seoyun scrambled for the Astronomy tower. And as she soared through the next ring, and the next, and through the next lap, Dominique just basked in the joy of the race. It wasn’t about winning, and she didn’t think she’d get any better than ninth if she was lucky, it was about having fun. And having fun she was, a race in the sky was just about the best, most exhilarating fun a Veela could think of as she spent the last two laps trading distracting sparks and fireworks and lights with Addison and Seoyun before eventually, at the final straight, she shot some red lights ahead of Addison to get her to veer off course, before she herself shot through the finishing hoops with a bright chirp of glee, spinning back in the air where a bunch of her fellow contestants had already dispersed a little to clap for everyone to see her name emblazoned above the rings declaring her tenth.

Coming in first, however, in the list was one Ceferino Valiente. Dominique knew who that was, he was a sixth-year boy in Gryffindor, whose family were Spanish. Which made Addison and Seoyun and Summer frown bewilderedly as they saw the name. None of them had seen Valiente flying anywhere. It seemed Hooch was just as confused as she landed on the pitch and looked up at the list, dismounting her broomstick amidst the applause that was clattering through the stands. Hooch amplified her voice.

“And… the winner is Ceferino Valiente?” Hooch said, questioningly. And at everyone’s confusion, as they looked around, Dominique burst out laughing at what she had already known thanks to her mental sense as the little grey-blue merlin let out a cry and swept down from where it had been perched on the finishing hoop, before with a screeching sound Persephone could hear to be above the range of human hearing, Valiente hopped jauntily onto the pitch before Madam Hooch, having transformed back out of his Animagus form.

“The fuck?!” Jack Kidwell exclaimed with an incredulous wheeze, nearby Valiente.

“You never said it had to be assisted flight, Jack!” Valiente retorted gleefully as groaning laughs rattled about the stands that the boy had won simply by turning into a sufficiently fast bird. And as her Aunt Ariadne, rather less amused, made her urgent way to the pitch to begin demanding to know just when Valiente had become an Animagus and why he’d taken that risk without telling anyone, Dominique went and landed in the stands by Persephone where they celebrated along with Addison and their dormmates, even as laughs met the end of Stockton’s seventh lap atop his slow carpet, which he ended his race with. Sure, tenth wasn’t a win, but she’d had a very good Saturday.

--

Chapter Text

Hestia’s Dilemma

“Can you find her with that mind sense of yours, Dominique?” Alpin asked, frowning as they wandered the corridors a little aimlessly, wondering where Persephone had gotten to after her Choir practice that Sunday evening. After all, normally Persephone was the most food-motivated person in the castle, so the fact that she wasn’t half an hour early for dinner was surprisingly anomalous. Dominique peered about, both with her eyes and mind.

“I haven’t felt her anywhere yet,” Dominique shrugged. “Maybe she went outside?” she suggested.

“In the pissing rain?” Vanya pointed out, and waved a hand at the dark windows. The sun had long gone down, but they could still see the droplets hissing against the glass. Alpin scoffed.

“You’re talking about a girl who thinks rolling around in mud is fun,” Alpin reminded her, laughing softly as Vanya snorted, nodding as she conceded his point. “Once she took us kayaking on Loch Chon and she capsized, her Dad was freaking out but then she turned up a minute later on the bank with a bloody trout in her mouth!” he chuckled, shaking his head in what Dominique could only consider long-suffering friendly affection. Somehow, both she and Vanya suspected Alpin wasn’t using the word bloody as an expletive just then. Also somehow, they could both picture it perfectly. Dominique could just about see Persephone standing on the stony bank by the Estate’s boathouse, drenched to the bone and shaking herself off like a dog with fish viscera all down her front, panting excitedly and grinning like a madwoman. Vanya wheezed incredulously.

“A fish?!” Vanya exclaimed. Alpin nodded.

“It was a good one too, Mister Granger-Weasley fried it up with some chips for lunch for us,” Alpin said, some kind of smugness combined with amusement filtering into his voice. “Getting wet makes her smell, but that’s for all the rest of us to deal with. She had a cracking good time,” he noted, before he frowned and slowed to a stop where they were dawdling in the eastern wing. “Do you hear that?” Alpin asked. Dominique stopped and listened, before her brows furrowed too under her feathers. There was a high-pitched cry echoing in the distance intermittently, a long, sustained note. Vanya could hear it too.

“Is that her howling?” Vanya suggested. She’d heard Persephone howl before, but usually not so loudly. Alpin made a face.

“She doesn’t normally sound like that,” Alpin said, concern of some sort on his face. Dominique nodded - normally, Persephone’s howling wasn’t anywhere near that high-pitched. Hell, normally it was, in the grand scheme of things, quite low-pitched. The little whines and squealing noises she made out of various emotions, those were up there, but true howling was a bit deeper in the young werewolf’s chest.

“Hmm,” Dominique hummed, focusing in the direction of the oddly high-pitched howling. Off in the distance, she could feel what might have been her cousin, but it was far enough and on the edge of her senses that had Persephone not been one of a single digit number of werewolves at Hogwarts she’d have been uncertain. “Er, this way,” she chirruped quickly, pivoting on the spot as she realised she could feel Persephone far enough away that she could legitimately have been outside, which meant they had to go downstairs. So she hurried down the nearest staircase, Alpin and Vanya in tow. It didn’t take them long to find Persephone - outside under the roof of the eastern courtyard, by the bridge that went out into the grounds in the fog and rain of the dark evening, sitting on a bench and looking out across the gulleys and cliffs that cracked the land to give way to the Great Lake, was Persephone, howling into the night a high, almost sad sounding note. Like a whimpering cry had been given an orchestra, which echoed into the land dramatically. Alpin hurried past Dominique, while Vanya rubbed her hands together for warmth in the frigid cold.

“‘Seph!” Alpin called, and Persephone instantly cut herself off, looking to them and licking her nose. Vanya almost jumped - normally when she saw Persephone in the evening, it was very much indoors, she’d never quite seen how creepy the girl’s shining yellow reflective eyes could look, staring out at them in the dark like little lightbulbs. “Are you okay?” he asked.

“Hm? Oh, ay! E’enin,”¹ Persephone piped up, smiling. “A were just practising’ a wee bit o soprano notes, dinna ken² if howlin’s the best way but we know A can do like, the real long notes, it’s keepin’ em high up that’s the problem,” she explained, glancing back to where she’d been staring out into the landscape. After all, she wanted to get in as much practice as possible for her role as the lead soprano in Tegyd’s rendition of The Bacchae. Alpin nodded understandingly, and Dominique relaxed. She’d hoped there’d be an explanation for why Persephone had sounded somehow mournful when she howled in a high pitch. Vanya snorted.

“Much more of that and you’ll be shattering windows,” Vanya quipped, rubbing her hands together for warmth, and Persephone guffawed.

“No around here, they’re too thick,” Persephone chuckled. Dominique got the distinct impression that how a human - or near human - voice could break glass was a topic her Aunt Hermione had looked into. Vanya hummed thoughtfully.

“How’s it going then?” Alpin asked curiously.

“No bad! Wi a bit o practice A can sing soprano, it’s just makin’ sure A dinna hae a wheezlin brash afore A’m duin wi it,”³ Persephone said brightly, before she licked her lips a bit and shuffled on her feet. Dominique and Vanya glanced at Alpin in surprise as Persephone quite clearly got ready to sing for them. Though, the impromptu nature of it was a little marred when Persephone got out her inhaler and took a puff from it just to make sure she got through the piece she’d given a go. In the quiet of the evening, where all that accompanied her was crickets and drizzle, Persephone took a deep breath, timing herself to the theatrical quote that came before it in the song, and the soft backing music she could imagine.

And he will make the face of Heaven so fine that all the worlds will be in love with the night, and pay no worship to the garish sun.

“Laudato. Laudato…” Persephone’s clear, ever so slightly vibrating, regal voice rang out across the courtyard, and Dominique’s beak hit the proverbial floor. Vanya stared incredulously. Dominique, even with her weird avian range, couldn’t even hope to hit such high notes, let alone sing them! “Laudato si, Laudato,” Somehow, Persephone got even higher. Dominique and Vanya, and presumably Alpin too, could only wonder how in the world she was doing it. Indeed, they couldn’t see just how much damn effort it was for Persephone to control such a piece. All of Persephone’s concentration was being brought to bear on her voice, on the tiny adjustments to it. To her friends, it was masterful. To Persephone, she could hear every flawed passaggio adjustment as clear as day. “Laudato…” the backing orchestral in Persephone’s mind grew. “LAUDATO…” Meanwhile, all of Dominique’s concentration was brought to bear upon staring at her cousin and her confusion at how Persephone was pumping yet more power into such a high pitched note. “SI!”

The orchestra in Persephone’s head threw itself into a fervour.

“AD ASTRA!” she cried, forcing the consonants a little more than she should have. She wasn’t yet good enough at the enunciation to quite keep the pitch, it sounded a little muddled and impure. “Ad Astra…  Ad Aaaaastra!” she sang, her voice shaking and ringing with vibrato as she pulled up her advantage of mezzo-soprano power in the lower soprano notes. Not that there were many in that bit, but it helped her make up for her poor enunciation. Thankfully there were a couple coming up in amongst the bit where it got really difficult - the crescendo. “Ad Aaaaaaaaastra! Ad Aaaa-aa-aastra! LAUDAAAA-AAA-AAA-TOOO-OO… SIIIII!” Persephone pushed her vocal chords to the limit in the final few syllables where the imagined band slammed into a final triumphant drum rhythm that she patted into her sides with her hands, phlegm rebelling against her throat before finally her asthma put its foot down and she burst out coughing.

As Alpin stepped forward to make sure Persephone was all right, Vanya abruptly realised, only once she wasn’t busy being dumbfounded, that it was so cold outside that evening that her hands were going numb. Hurriedly, she squeezed them into her sides with her multiple layers of coats, altogether too sharply reminded of the frostbite she’d suffered just under a year prior. Dominique glanced at her and quickly beckoned them all back inside where it was warm.

“How on Earth do you do that Persephone?” Dominique marvelled as they stepped back into the castle and Vanya made a beeline for a burning torch on its sconce to warm her hands. Persephone shrugged sheepishly.

“Well, A’ve got a good range is all,” Persephone replied, waving a hand at her mouth. Like Jason had once noted, her jaw was a weird shape to make space for a whole ten extra teeth, which he’d compared to Freddie Mercury. Whether that was actually what gave her the range and not just some peculiarity of her Trueborn Werewolf vocal chords, Persephone didn’t know, but she knew she had an inborn range on her side. “Wi some practice, A can do it. But also, ye dinna ken² all A were fuckin’ up!” she laughed, and Alpin chortled at that. Indeed, they didn’t know how Nightwish’s Shoemaker was supposed to sound in its operatic ending when sung by an actual soprano with the skills to do it justice, so it wasn’t as if they had comparison for what she was getting wrong when she sang it.

In that marvelling chatter, the four of them headed across the castle amongst the increasingly bustling student body of Hogwarts to dinner, where Persephone fell upon her food with the gusto expected of her and Vanya dutifully first fed Puss before tucking in to her dinner of czernina soup with a side of custard, chuckling at the image of Dominique dipping her beak in her glass to drink which never stopped being funny to a twelve-year-old Muggleborn vampire. Dominique herself, of course, had a mild headache. With the winter soon to be upon them and in Scotland said winter being rather nasty, by that point in the evening nobody was even thinking to spend dinnertime anywhere but the Great Hall, so her Veela mind sense was clamouring with never-ending motion in her head. At least after a year and a half of attending, Dominique was getting used to Hogwarts. The roiling under her skull wasn’t as intolerable. And despite end-of-year tests coming up, with the Christmas holidays slowly looming and a Flying Club race under the school’s belt as a spectacle, the school was a fun place to be. Even if it gave her a headache as everyone walked by. Most were on their way to dinner, but one made a detour instead of joining her buddies in Ravenclaw.

“Hey Persephone?” an American-accented voice asked curiously, as one Aubrey Carter slid onto the bench beside Persephone, who looked up brightly while barely chewing her dinner.

“E’enin¹ Carter, how’s yer day? Thought ye was sick?” Persephone asked, her cheerful greeting turning to confusion as she remembered what Aubrey’s dormmates had said the day before in the minutes before the Flying Club race. Aubrey didn’t appear to be sick whatsoever, and her voice - and evidently her sinuses too - was as clear as day.

“Good thanks! Nah, I just had a headache yesterday, don’t know why,” Aubrey assured them. Persephone hummed and nodded, and Aubrey got some pieces of paper out of her bag. “Um, you keep getting, like, really good grades in Ancient Runes, right? I was wondering if you could help me with this week’s homework, I don’t get it,” she asked hopefully. Persephone nodded, though she did frown amusedly.

“This week’s? It’s a week one tomorrow, we’ve no got Runes ‘til next week, so ye’ve got time ye do,” Persephone reminded her.

“It is?” Aubrey spluttered.

“Yeah, remember?” Vanya agreed. Aubrey thought for a moment.

“Huh. I always forget what we’ve got, wish they’d just make everything one week,” Aubrey grumbled. “So, can you help me?” she asked, and Persephone nodded.

“Ay! What ye havin’ trouble wi?” Persephone asked, moving her plate aside and devouring half of another sausage as Aubrey put her worksheets down on the table. Aubrey was right, Persephone had been getting fairly consistent Outstandings in their Study of Ancient Runes class.

“Right, um. I can’t figure out how to do these things,” Aubrey said, pointing to the various fields on the worksheet. Clearly, Aubrey had attempted the questions, but hadn’t managed them, having instead scribbled out her working. Nevertheless Persephone could see what she was doing wrong. While Persephone put her mind to helping Aubrey, Dominique looked up at the feeling of Seoyun’s mind arriving in the Great Hall, her black hair still wet from what had probably been a post-training shower when she’d returned from Quidditch training.

« Salut⁴ Seoyun! How was training?” Dominique chirruped as Seoyun came and sat down.

“It was very good! I just hope I won’t mess up at the match,” Seoyun admitted anxiously, making a face as she gathered up some dinner.

“You’ll do fine Seoyun, should’a seen yourself at the race yesterday,” Kiera chuckled, and Dominique chirruped her agreement. “And hey, reckon we’ll all be cheering you on. We’ll be there for ya,” she added brightly, to which Seoyun nodded gratefully.

“Ay! A’ll be a wee bit grouchy, full moon and all, but A’ll be there,” Persephone agreed. Aubrey started, smiling.

“Oh yeah! When’s the full moon? I never remember all that Astronomy stuff,” Aubrey asked.

“Twenty-fourth, A’m hopin’ it snows,” Persephone replied nonchalantly, eating another sausage. Alpin sniffed amusedly. She rolled her shoulders a little - with only a week and a half until then, she was starting to feel the tension in her bones. Oh how she missed her tail.

“Huh. You go hunting lots don’t you? I always wondered what it’d be like to be a werewolf, or a vampire,” the American asked, smiling over to Vanya, who scoffed even as she gave Puss a scritch behind the ears.

“You wouldn’t like it,” Vanya told her, shaking her head. “You’d have to give up fish and chips and start drinking blood. God I miss fish and chips,” she noted wryly, nodding at Aubrey’s plate which also included a generous dollop of mushy peas. Funnily enough, even as Persephone piped up, Aubrey shrugged and made a face that Dominique could only think of as unbothered. Previously in Hogsmeade, Aubrey’s dormmates had questioned if the girl could even taste sweets - it reminded Dominique a bit about how her Papa had briefly lost his sense of smell when he’d had COVID-19, she supposed that maybe Aubrey had something similar. Maybe she truly wouldn’t have minded giving up fish and chips.

“Ye’d no be likin’ being a werewolf neither. Hurts a lot,” Persephone replied. As Aubrey gave her a look that screamed that she didn’t understand just how much, she continued. “Ye ever had yer thumbs dissolve?” she pointed out, and Aubrey recoiled, making a face. Persephone looked back to the worksheet she was helping Aubrey with. “Anyway. What ye wanna be writin’ is somethin’ alike tae⁵ this,” she explained, fetching a pen and a spare scrap of paper from her dress pocket. So she had a demonstration to explain with, Persephone quickly jotted down a runic sentence with a meaning similar to what the answer to the question was. Aubrey jumped, staring at her writing.

“Woah, woah, how are you- how do you know that?!” Aubrey exclaimed incredulously, pointing at her slightly messy handwritten runes. Persephone paused.

“A can read and write futhorc runes,” Persephone said blankly. “My Ma used to be Minister for Nonhuman Relations, what, did ye no think A could talk to Goblins? They use runes to write in, them lot,” she explained amusedly.

“Oh my gosh, isn’t that cheating?!” Aubrey hissed.

“No!” Persephone insisted, recoiling at the suggestion. “Ma says once we’re in third year and all, they’ll start teaching us stuff A’ve no seen, this year’s just the basics. Could probably make sense o a wee trip to Iceland too, Icelandic’s no overly different to Goblin according to me Ma,” she added.

“No wonder you’re getting Outstandings in Runes,” Summer laughed from further down the table. “What about the mer… mer people language, whatever that’s called, can you speak that like?” she asked curiously, and Persephone shook her head.

“Merric. And nah, e’en A haena⁶ the range for Merric,” Persephone said wryly, with a glance over at the Slytherin table where Cetus and Pisces were sitting and eating dinner with some of their yearmates like Laura Cavendish and Vicki Reynolds. She was sure they could speak it, their voices were certainly high-pitched enough, but humans and those with too similar to a human’s a set of vocal chords weren’t actually capable of speaking Merric, only the version meant for conversing between the two. “Can do ye a wee spot o Intermediary Merric, but no much,” she supposed. Her Ma was conversational in the language, but Persephone had only picked up a few basics, greetings and one or two words really. “Right, so, if ye look here…” Persephone continued trying to tutor Aubrey a little in what she was getting wrong in the runic language, though as they went on through dinner time and Dominique watched, it was clear that while Aubrey was nearing some more understanding she was also just getting increasingly confused, even as Vanya reached over the table a bit to help explain things.

“Ugh… is that right?” Aubrey asked, holding her hand up off the page in an odd position as she wrote a final attempt at a sentence in the runic alphabet with a deep frown on her face. Persephone glanced at her work while Aubrey had another mouthful of her dessert.

“Ay, just about!” Persephone crowed gladly. Dominique looked across the table, swallowing half a chicken drumstick in one go, and peered at the way Aubrey had been writing.

“Are you okay, Aubrey?” Dominique asked, and nodded at the girl’s hands when Aubrey gave her a quizzical look.

“Oh! I’m okay, just all this writing makes my hands hurt,” Aubrey replied simply with a shrug and a grimace at her fingers. “And all this runes makes my head hurt,” she grumbled jovially, waving her free hand at the page.

“Well ye’re getting there! And ye’ve a week afore ocht⁷ need be handed in, got plenty o time ye do,” Persephone assured her cheerfully, though Aubrey did take a second to parse what she was saying thanks to her Scots. With that, she set her cutlery down and licked her lips off of any remaining food and sat up. “Reckon A’ll go an get in the shower, see if A canna hae’t duin afore⁸ the rest o yese⁹ be needin’ it,” she decided, and down the table a bit Summer groaned.

“God, you’re just gonna get fur all in the drain!” Summer exclaimed.

“A will no. It’s still autumn, A’m no shedding yet Summer,” Persephone assured her as she got up. “Night Alpin, Vanya!” she called quickly.

“Tara ‘Seph!” Alpin said back.

“Night!” Vanya replied, through a mouthful of warm chocolate sanguinaccio dolce which was still her usual dessert. They’d been making it very thick for her ever since she’d been kidnapped months before, to the point she was sure Aubrey would describe it as pudding, but Vanya certainly wasn’t about to complain. She waved after Persephone, who idly headed out from the Hall and downstairs toward the Hufflepuff Common. Seeing as dessert had only just been served, the Common was relatively quiet as she knocked on and then pushed open the big circular door to the space, with only a few students in there studying, like Tegyd, who also couldn’t eat much in the way of dessert food and so who waved to her in passing as Persephone went by to go downstairs even further to the second year dormitory.

It was dark in there, but she didn’t turn the lights on. After all, she could see perfectly well in the dark. Persephone took off her shoes and left them idly at the foot of her bed, and gathered up some of her things to have a shower. It was a benefit of being out to her dormmates ever since March, she didn’t have to hide her shampoo and her toothpaste! The canine products lived in the bathroom now, but among her things in the dormitory she retrieved her combs and brushes for her fur, as well as her pyjamas and some undies, and fresh socks. With a squeaky noise that escaped her mouth, Persephone yawned and emptied her pockets, putting things like her pen and wand down on her bedside table so they wouldn’t end up going through the laundry. Her phone, when she took it from her pocket, buzzed a couple of times as she got a text.

“Wha’s ‘at nou?”¹⁰ Persephone muttered to herself, and unlocked her phone. The instant she saw the notification, a big smile grew on her face and was joined by a happy pant. She had a text from Hestia! Though, her head tilted in curiosity and that pant stopped as quickly as it had begun at the words in that text once she’d tapped on the notification to open it.

Hestia: Can I ask you a question?

Persephone wiggled her nose and then licked it. An odd thing for her sister to ask out of the blue, but not so much that she wouldn’t answer. She tapped in a message.

Persephone: Sure

Frowning, Persephone sat cross-legged on her bed and waited for Hestia’s question, still with her pyjamas over her shoulder as she readied herself to have a shower. To her consternation, it took a few minutes before she got the second text. She was even more perturbed when she read it.

Hestia: Would you bite me if I asked you to?

--

Chapter Text

The hissing of water against the walls of the shower cubicle was Persephone’s only companion as she grimly undressed, her phone sitting on the vanity like a lead brick as she glanced back at it. Well, that wasn’t strictly true, not with a werewolf’s ears. But it felt like it.

To put it simply, Persephone had no idea what to think of Hestia’s text. She knew very well that Hestia knew she couldn’t infect Hestia with lycanthropy even if she tried - as she had discovered when the Piquery twins had broken into Hogwarts to steal the Wellspring in June, she didn’t have lycanthropy to begin with, and she knew Hestia knew because she’d been in the room when she’d mentioned it to the press. They’d even talked about how glad Persephone had been not to have to take Wolfsbane Potion or Draco’s LSN potion anymore. So why would she even ask if she knew it wasn’t possible?

Persephone frowned, sighing to herself as she stepped into the shower and started working the water into her curly hair and her fur. Fur that wasn’t just getting thicker with winter coming on, but fur that was a reminder of every way she was different to Hestia and always had been. It had been a long time since Hestia hadn’t been jealous of her. As long as Persephone had been transforming. Not all of it seemed exactly rational - Hestia already hated loud places, got overwhelmed in them, Persephone heavily doubted that Hestia would much like having a werewolf’s ears. And while Persephone had long gotten used to the pain of the transformations inherent to being a werewolf, the idea of Hestia having to experience them made her shudder as she lathered up some of her canine shampoo onto her arms. With the fur, it was preferable to regular soap.

She could only wonder to herself what had brought on such a strong line of questioning. Hestia had been jealous, sure, but she’d never gone so far as to ask Persephone if she would turn her into a werewolf herself. Hell, why hadn’t she asked their Da instead? Was it all the fuss with the triplets and their first full moons that had come that year? It was the same fuss that had been made over Persephone every month for nearly seven years, but maybe it resurging with a new concentration for Chandra, Laura, and Gerard, was bringing a resurgence of Hestia’s envy as well?

Working shampoo into the fur on her arms, Persephone shook her head, whining to herself. Why did she have to be at Hogwarts when this happened?! Why did having magic mean she had to go to a boarding school and be away from her little sister? Whatever the reason, Hestia was asking life-changing questions a hundred miles away and there she was having a shower! She’d gotten used to the distance despite her keening need for her pack, but that didn’t mean the pain had gone away. Though, as she was washing the shampoo out again, she paused. Imagining them there, making Hestia jealous all over again, made her realise something.

Why had Hestia asked her and not their Da?

But with that question came a worrying answer. From the tone of the message, though maybe she was reading into things, maybe Hestia had asked their Da. And he’d said no. What arguments and conversations and drama might have been happening at home, she wondered? Sighing, she knew she had to finish up her shower quickly and talk to Hestia, she had to get to the bottom of this if only to calm her horrified pack instincts. So she hurriedly got to lathering shampoo over her thicker torso fur. On much of her body the ginger, brown, and white fur wasn’t incredibly long, but it was thick enough that she couldn’t really see much of her wood-brown skin under it save for on her head, hands, and feet which were a bit behind when it came to growing fur. For the moment, when she was fully clothed she could pass as human, but nude she absolutely couldn’t, and she wondered how long it would be before she was obviously a werewolf regardless.

On one hand, she liked the idea of such visibility. On the other, it promised to be inconvenient everywhere but Hogwarts. With the fluff it gave her on top of the way her supernumerary - at least compared to humans, it was a normal amount of them for a Trueborn - breast development was ever so slightly altering her figure - but only slightly, thankfully, she was quite sure she didn’t want that going too far or it’d be really annoying - it was already adding a little bulk to her form that made her look a wee bit rectangular. Nevertheless, she got to working the shampoo into her fur and hair, stewing in her concerns for Hestia. And once she’d thoroughly cleaned herself down to the skin under the fur and rinsed it all out, she hopped out of the shower and instead of going for her towel, she made a beeline for her phone. Persephone’s wet fingers left water on the screen in streaks as she unlocked it straight onto the same text message.

Hestia hadn’t sent anything since. And despite knowing all the questions swarming in her head, Persephone’s fingers froze as she held the phone, dripping water on the floor. The question taunted her. Would you bite me if I asked you to? Not only did she not know why Hestia was asking, she didn’t know what the answer would have been had it been possible for her to make Hestia a werewolf. Biting her lip and panting nervously in her nose, Persephone put finger to screen.

Persephone: for why are you asking?

With the message sent and her wolfish heart shivering in her chest, Persephone set her phone back down on the vanity. These weren’t conflicts she was built for, her nervous system really didn’t know what to do with being so worried about her sister. She was built to chase other predators off her territory and defend her pack, not navigate insecurities. But for that moment, she had to dry herself off or she’d get rashes. So she fetched her towel and began patting her hair dry. Moments later through, before her phone’s screen had even dimmed, the device buzzed over and over as Hestia responded. Persephone jumped to check what she’d said. Her jaw only tightened as she read it.

Hestia: I want to be a werewolf

Hestia: Dad said no

“Oh no…” Persephone murmured, her shoulders falling slack and her nervous pant returning. Whatever jealousies Hestia harboured for her, they’d boiled over. The phone vibrated again.

Hestia: What about you

Blinking, Persephone hurriedly tried to figure out what to say. She had to say something. Her words had only been halfway thought by the instant she was typing each one.

Persephone: i can’t

Persephone: you know that

Persephone: you were there on the radio

Hestia: But what if you could

A growl escaped Persephone’s teeth as she patted her hair down with the towel in one hand and held her phone in the other, typing clumsily with her thumb.

Persephone: i can’t

Persephone: and even if I could I don’t think you really want to be a werewolf


Persephone: itd suck for you

Persephone: being able to here all that stuff

Persephone: and how much it hurts

Persephone: and you like chocolate too much 😂


Hestia: But I do

Hestia: I’m sick of being the human one

Hestia: It’s always werewolves

Hestia: First you now the patios

Hestia: Patils

Hestia: It’s always all about the full moon especially now the others are changing. Christmas is just going to be full moon




Hestia: And it’s never going to be my turn

Persephone’s heart sank as she watched Hestia’s texts come in, absently tapping her phone’s screen to ensure it didn’t lock itself while she dried her hair. Every cell in her body despised it. Despised that she couldn’t even say Hestia was wrong. Her own life was so profoundly centred around being a werewolf, it sort of had to be. And in turn… so was a lot of their family’s life. When the father and one of the kids was a werewolf, the full moon dictated schedules, dictated activities. Dictated who got the most attention.

Suddenly, she was jolted out of her concern by a banging on the bathroom door.

“Hey Persephone, how long are you going to be?” Bonnie called through it.

“Do ye no ken¹ how long it takes to dry out fur?!” Persephone shouted back irritably.

“All right, you don’t have to bite my head off,” Bonnie replied, seemingly a little taken aback. “Just wanted to know how long you’re gonna be, I wanna go to bed early for lessons tomorrow but I need a shower first,” she said. Persephone exhaled, and glanced back at her phone on the vanity, as well as her various combs and brushes.

“Gimme a wee ten minutes or so? A’ll do my combing out there,” she replied apologetically. Outside, it sounded like Bonnie had probably nodded, and then stepped back. Though, she seemed to have paused on her way.

“Is it really that thick under your clothes Persephone? I had no idea,” Bonnie asked curiously.

“Oh ay! It’s certainly gettin’ there, if A dinna² dry it proper A’ll get all skin problems,” Persephone replied as she reached for her phone again and her heart jumped at the sight of another text from Hestia, adding on to the bunch she’d already gotten.

Hestia: I should just ask Aunt Parvati and Aunt Hannah

“This is why Persephone needs to have a shower last after everyone, she takes the longest,” Kiera said from in the dormitory as Persephone swore under her breath at the text.

“A heard that!” Persephone shouted after them, though she had to admit Kiera was probably right, as she hurriedly typed on her phone;

Persephone: Don’t do that

Persephone: I just had a shower just wait a bit and we can talk about all this

Begging her little sister to abide by it and not go off on a quest to get one of the pack to bite her instead - even if Persephone was certain none of them would, she didn’t think the drama would be good for anyone - Persephone put her phone back down and got to drying off as quickly as she could. What she really needed to look into was a blow dryer or a spell that did it, with her fur getting thicker by the week and bearing an undercoat, she needed to be very thorough in drying herself off or else there’d still be patches close to her skin that remained damp. Maybe Vanya would know a spell, she supposed. Then it wouldn’t take her quite so long to get dry. But eventually she got satisfactorily dry and wrapped her towel about herself so she could take her fur combs and the like back into the dorm to handle that in her corner. In truth, the towel was more for her friends than her, seeing as Persephone was unusually okay with nudity, and amusedly she wondered for a split second if they’d even notice if she hadn’t worn it for the fur all over her body. They probably would have. The fur had a distinct pattern, the towel was just blue.

“Shower’s free,” Persephone announced as she stepped back into the dormitory, loping on her toes across the dormitory straight for her bed.

“Brilliant, thanks Persephone!” Bonnie replied, gathering up her stuff from her bed to have her own shower. From where she was sitting at her desk next to Persephone’s area doing a little Social Studies homework - a worksheet on world religions - before bed, Dominique looked up at Persephone’s gait and tilted her head. There was no way combing her fur was that urgent.

“Are you good?” Dominique chirped, as Persephone dumped her stuff on her bed and moved to pull her curtains closed. Persephone jumped, looking back at her avian cousin.

“Ay. Why would A no be?” Persephone replied quickly.

“You sure? You look a little tense,” Dominique noted, nodding at how a shallow pant escaped Persephone’s nose and she was fiddling with the edge of the towel she’d wrapped herself with. With her attention and gaze jumping between her phone and Dominique, Persephone decided to just shrug, licking her nose.

“Just some Hestia stuff, it’s fine,” Persephone assured her, waving a hand before she closed her curtains. She took the towel off and sat on it, just in case she was still a little damp, but it was only idly that she picked up her slicker brush to make sure her growing fur didn’t develop any matting. With more focus, she took up her phone again and unlocked it. Hestia hadn’t said anything since, so Persephone tucked her legs under herself and got to typing out a more thought-out message than her hurried post-shower urgings, while her dormmates puttered around getting ready for bed.

Persephone: For why do you actually want to be a werewolf?


Persephone: Your not actually missing much

Persephone: I don’t think you’d like it

Putting her phone down beside her and watching it like Dominique, Persephone pensively started running the slicker brush through the fur on her other arm while she waited. She didn’t have to wait long.

Hestia: I don’t want to be left out forever

Hestia: For as long as I can remember I’ve been the human one


Hestia: You get to go out for the full moons


Hestia: And Dad only gave me a treehouse


Hestia: It’s not good enough

Hestia: I want to be able to come with you


Hestia: It’s not fair. Aunt Ariadne gets to come with you and she’s human. Even Granny McGonagall comes sometimes.




Hestia: And I don’t even know how old she is and she can still come.


Persephone: And what happens when you get older


Persephone: It won’t be the same

Persephone: You can’t just become a werewolf because your jealous of me


Persephone: One day it won’t matter and if we made you a werewolf you’d have to live with it for no reason



Hestia: You’re an example of everything Mum works for. She says it herself.



Hestia: I’m just the spare

Those words were what struck straight into Persephone’s heart like a lance of ice. She tried not to whine at them lest Dominique and the others hear. All she had considered that evening shot back into her head in a horrid new light, and all the little sounds of Hogwarts she could hear thanks to her werewolf ears were both instantly clear as comparison to humans’, and drowned themselves under her thudding, scared heartbeat. Persephone’s entire identity was built around being the werewolf, but she didn’t want Hestia to suffer lycanthropy. But what did Hestia have to build her identity around?