For the first time since Amycus had begun teaching the subject the Dark Arts room was in complete, shocked silence. There was no anger simmering beneath Ernie’s stony expression. There was no gleeful delight in Goyle’s crooked smile. No undercurrent of fear ran through the room. The rivalry and hatred that had grown between the Slytherins and Hufflepuffs had been shocked out of them. Even Nott and Zabini had forgotten to put on their masks of disinterest.
“Zacharias Smith!” Amycus called again, “Come up quickly before I give you a detention!” This was Amycus’ way of saying that he would use the Cruciatus Curse on someone.
Hannah swallowed and looked up at Zach, who was striding to the front of the room to choose his dueling partner for the day. Amycus Carrow’s obvious dislike of Hufflepuff and loyalty to his own house, Slytherin, was apparently not as strong as his love for creating and feeding hatred and resentment. He knew Zach was angry. Everyone in the Castle who had half an eye could see that the Hufflepuff was alone and boiling with a suppressed rage to rival even Ginny Weasley’s. Now, apparently, their Dark Arts Professor wanted to use the boy’s anger for his own brand of fun. It was the first time a Hufflepuff had been asked to go up and choose their “partner” in his class.
Zach turned and opened his mouth to speak. Before she had comprehended his words Hannah knew who was going to go up next.
“Theodore Nott,” Zach spat immediately. Nott stood up and began pulling out his wand as he followed Zach to a dueling spot. He had managed to control his shock now, and the look of bored disinterest was back on his face.
“Hannah Abbott!”
Hannah did not look at anyone. She forced herself to breathe deeply as she walked slowly up between the desks. She could already imagine the chaos and destruction that might be unleashed if she lost control again. And now she was being given a choice as to who her victim would be. Goyle was sitting in the front row, his boasts about what he had done to that Ravenclaw third year still ringing in her ears.
She reached the front of the room and turned, facing the students before her. Hannah Abbott had absolutely no control over the strange brand of magic that sometimes erupted out of her. She had no idea how to predict it so she could attempt to lessen the damage, or at least to warn people who were nearby. But she knew with certainty that if she picked Goyle now she would explode before ten minutes had passed. The anger that was already rising inside her at the thought of him was like poison in her veins.
“Zabini,” she said, fighting to keep her voice clear and even.
Ernie and Susan began to shout in protest. Even Zach stopped giving Nott death glares for long enough to send her a questioning, slightly worried, look. Hannah ignored the protests and led Zabini into an out of the way shadowy corner from which they could observe others without being so much in the spotlight, a corner from which she would do the least damage if she happened to explode.
Zabini leant against a pillar and lazily watched as the rest of the pairs were made. Amycus began giving instructions that no one was paying any attention to. They had all learned that the main idea of these lessons was to be as vicious as possible, and even if they failed to use the spells he had asked them to use he wouldn’t mind much as long as he got a good show of torture and humiliation.
“Even I wouldn’t have thought it, but you Hufflepuffs do know how to hold a grudge!” Zabini said casually, pulling out his wand. “Who do you think it’ll be first, Smith and Nott or Ernie and Goyle? Even that Susan looks like she’s up for some revenge.”
Hannah did not respond to this. She looked down at her wand, wondering if it was better to try to use it or to ignore it. Her wand felt less and less like an essential part of her with each passing day. As her new power grew she found that it was easier to just use her hands, the movements of her body – the tiny piece of wood did not seem strong enough to contain the power she possessed now. After a few moments’ hesitation she tucked it back in her pocket and looked up.
“You’re afraid,” she said, noting Zabini’s eyes and his stiff arms.
He raised his wand protectively before him in confirmation. “I would be a fool if I wasn’t.”
“I wish I could say you didn’t have to be, but I can’t…”
Zabini shook his head. “Being afraid doesn’t make me a coward, Hufflepuff. Ladies first!”
Hannah raised her hands tentatively and focused on a point just above his left shoulder. He was fast. A cutting curse was upon Hannah even as he jumped back from the effects of her first attack. She looked down at her bloodied arm and ripped the torn sleeve off completely, throwing it aside.
Hannah hated herself for wanting to ask him if he was alright. She waited for him to cast a cooling charm on his shoulder, thinking of how to attack next. Usually, when her magic was still controllable, she simply had to focus on the target and summon a good mental image of the effect she wanted. She used both her arms instead of just her wand arm, but it worked much the same way. Boils and scars and cuts and bruises could keep the Carrows happy most of the time. Even if they were dissatisfied they did not like giving Hannah detention or lashing out at her and provoking an outburst.
Zabini’s arm seemed to be genuinely stinging him, even with the cooling charm, but he shook his head a little wildly and locked his eyes with hers. “Come on, there’s no need to baby me. I haven’t fought a worthy opponent in a long time and it feels good.”
Hannah sent a random burst of energy at his wand arm, but it hit a protective shield. Zabini stepped back a couple of steps and winced, but his wand remained steady. Suddenly, he made a sharp, quick slashing movement with his wand and unimaginable pain coursed through Hannah’s shoulder. She looked down, touching it with both her hands now and trying to focus on healing it. Hannah bit her tongue to prevent a scream of pain from escaping.
Zabini had somehow turned her own spell against her.
She drew her wand quickly and sprayed a jet of water on the shoulder. She dropped it to the ground and used her hands again, closing her eyes and focusing on happy, comfortable moments just like she would when conjuring a Patronus. Eventually, the pain died away leaving only a dull, throbbing sensation. She opened her eyes. The ugly infected-looking scar was gone. Zabini’s scar still glared back at her angrily when she looked at his shoulder.
As usual with any Dark Arts lesson there was eventually a spectacle that dew all eyes and stopped all other duelers. This time it was Zach and Nott. They were shouting at each other and dancing around the room with surprising agility. Hexes which could not possibly be legal flew from both their wands, sometimes meeting their target and creating hideous disfigurations on their opponent’s face and sometimes missing their mark and landing on another student.
Both their faces were barely recognizable now and their movements were becoming much slower as they struggled with their disfigured bodies and the painful injuries they had sustained. Nott’s wand emitted short, purple jets of light which kept missing Zach by inches. Zach muttered something under his breath which had Nott reeling and sending the purple flashes wildly in all directions.
Finally, Nott collapsed under the pressure of a very strong stunner and one of his spells hit Amycus on the knee. Amycus swore loudly and sent several Cruciatus curses around the room. There were fifteen minutes left of class, but everyone began to grab or summon their belongings and run out of the room.
Hannah’s feet carried her to the lake again. She chose a spot from which she could see the greenhouses and sat down, her back to a large tree trunk.
“I thought the Hufflepuffs had Transfiguration with the Ravenclaws now.” It was Zabini.
“I missed too much time last year and Transfiguration was never my best subject. I have Herbology with the sixth years now.” Hannah replied, wondering why he was bothering her again. “Why are you here?”
Zabini sat down near her. Not too close, but if she reached her hand out she could touch his still injured shoulder. She did. Hannah pushed her bag out of her lap and turned to the shoulder, ready to heal it, but Zabini put up a restraining hand and shook his head.
“Teach me,” he said, “and I’ll do it myself.”
“I can’t, it just-”
He cut off her protests. “You did an excellent job controlling yourself back there; I know you can teach me. Just… just tell me what you did, how you felt when yours healed. I can show you the spell I used to turn it on you if you want.”
“Why would you do that?” Hannah asked with a raised eyebrow.
“You’re a Hufflepuff; I know you’d never intentionally –”
“Intentionally is the key,” Hannah scoffed, leaning back against the tree trunk.
There was a short silence in which Hannah’s mind wandered over the frightening effects of her uncontrolled magic. Even the tame curses that she sent at her opponents in dueling were quite dark in nature.
She closed her eyes and focused on the happy memories that had allowed her to heal her shoulder a few moments ago.
“I just touched it and focused on happy memories, like you would when fighting a Dementor, and it worked.”
Behind her closed eyelids a calming, beautiful scene of her childhood was playing over and over. Zabini interrupted her just when she was wishing it would never end.
“Was that you or me?” he asked, that fear in his voice again.
Hannah opened her eyes and looked at his now perfectly healthy and injury-free shoulder. If only she could learn to control her new power she could do good things with it, she could heal and help people like she always used to dream of doing.
“Listen, Abbott,” Zabini said seriously. “Everybody is afraid of your power and everybody, you included, understands the dangers of untrained magic. What you need to do is what you did today in class when you didn’t pick – and destroy – Goyle. You need to learn about yourself first to understand where all this power is coming from.”
…
The Order had lately been trying to stay off the Death Eaters’ charts by keeping away from magical means of transportation. It had, so far, been effective, but it was by no means convenient. The long travel time also meant that Remus had far too much time to think, to think and worry about his unborn child and the horrors that it would have to face and about the pain he was already putting his beautiful young wife through. He spent the long travel times going over and over all the mistakes he had made in his life.
Remus stepped into the orphanage tired and annoyed, but the bustle of cheerful activity around him almost brought a smile to his face. McGonagall had spoken to him about Celeste shortly after his resignation from Hogwarts and he had been very pleased to help a young witch by sending her books and advice. He knew her as a strong girl who cared very much for those around her and he often imagined that she would be a Hufflepuff if she had not chosen to remain in the Muggle world.
The years of letters had not prepared him for what he found in that orphanage.
Until very recently Celeste’s letters had indicated a strong desire to simply control her magic. She was curious about things in the Wizarding World on occasion, and she often asked him if he knew anyone who might be her long-lost brother, the brother that she had abandoned her chance at Hogwarts for. But this orphanage was alive with magical power. He could feel it all around him, and even as his worries and cares began to lift from his shoulders he knew that this was not natural, but the effect of a very strong calming spell.
“Remus!” a beautiful young woman called from a pile of colorful bags and scarves. “Thank you so much for coming! I’ll be with you in a moment – make yourself at home!”
He watched as she helped the children put away their things neatly and enter a classroom. One very excited little girl made Celeste promise to take her out to play in the snow that evening before she consented to enter the classroom.
“I’m sorry,” Celeste’s wide smile seemed to be something of a permanent fixture. “Let’s go in here.”
She led him into a small, but comfortable sitting room. A plump kind-looking Muggle woman was in there behind a large stack of paperwork, sipping coffee. “Good morning,” she said kindly, a hint of a question in her face.
“This is Remus, Miss Kate!” Celeste said excitedly. “Remember I told you I’d asked him to come.”
“Oh!” Miss Kate seemed equally excited to see Remus and she launched immediately into a very frank description of the many strange occurrences that had led her to worry. “And I told Celeste that it must be magic, evil magic, and I must tell you that I’ve begun to regret not pushing her harder to go to that school!”
Celeste made a pained face, which did not escape Miss Kate. The older woman gathered her paperwork and stood up. “I’ll just be in my office, dear.”
Remus waited until she had gone before posing his question. “Do you regret it, Celeste - not going to Hogwarts?”
“I’m just so afraid. Sometimes I imagine them coming in here and attacking the kids and the thought that I’d be helpless, just as helpless as Miss Kate was when my brother was kidnapped… I can’t live with that fear; I need to learn proper defensive magic.”
“But you’re already able to perform some very advanced magic.”
Celeste laughed a little bitterly. “I can count the number of spells I know on one hand. I tried really hard to do a protective enchantment I read about in a third year textbook that McGonagall sent me, but I couldn’t figure out the wand movement…”
“Where did you learn the calming enchantment?”
“The - what?” the girl looked genuinely puzzled.
“I felt it the moment I entered the orphanage,” Remus explained. She continued to look puzzled.
“I’ve been using this to focus the spells,” she took off a colorful charm bracelet and held it out. “I’ve been locking the doors and windows with Alohomora and practicing that stunning spell on cushions… and I can levitate things a little bit.”
Remus forced himself to stop staring at her earnest face. Either she was a very good liar, and he really didn’t see any reason for her to lie, or she really had no idea that she had placed a strong calming enchantment on the entire orphanage. It didn’t do anything to reduce the children’s energy; on the contrary, it seemed to have the effect of lessening only their fears and worries and allowing them to live in a sort of bubble away from the depression and outright chaos that had gripped the rest of the Muggle world.
“Let’s try the Protego spell first,” Remus suggested.
Celeste nodded and watched him perform the spell. It did not take her long to master it after she saw him perform it. They moved on to Summoning and Banishing Charms, which Remus insisted upon although Celeste objected saying that if she wanted something she wasn’t too lazy to get up and get it. Remus simply grinned and showed her how to do it.
“Your aversion to laziness is admirable, but if you are being attacked it will be very useful for you to be able to summon the things you need. Now, try it again!”
Her lack of conviction proved to be an impediment in this case. She had not mastered the summoning charm after nearly two hours of practice. Remus was ready to give up when Celeste asked, hesitantly, if there was a simple spell that could be used to warn people or call them.
“Excellent idea!” Remus said, “I think a Stealth-Sensoring Spell would be an excellent one for you to learn. You can cast it on the doors of the orphanage and it will tell you if someone is trying to sneak in or break in at night.”
It took her only fifteen minutes to get the hang of this spell, and Remus was beginning to get excited about helping her again, but she stopped him before he could suggest a new spell. She closed her eyes and he suddenly realized that the calming effects of her enchantment had lessened. “I’m sorry,” he began, “you must be tired with all these new-”
An urgent fear suddenly gripped him, as if he had heard Celeste cry out for help. She stood strangely still, eyes still closed, wand half raised. He stepped closer to her and made to put a comforting hand around her, when three Muggle women suddenly emerged from their offices and came running towards her as well.
Remus took a step back at her sudden grin. “I guess summoning charms really are useful!” she said.
“What did you do?” Remus asked, although he had his suspicions.
“I combined the Summoning Spell with the Stealth Sensoring Spell and I thought really hard about wanting to warn the four of you,” she said after reassuring everyone that she was alright. “Now if only I can master something that helps me communicate or transfer my voice over to someone far away, then I can use that to tell you exactly what danger it is the orphanage is facing, and it’ll make it easier for us to respond to an attack.”
The only time Remus had ever felt this stunned had been when his three best friends had transformed before his eyes into a dog, a rat, and a stag. There was something very familiar about the ease with which the girl combined enchantments. Only the best wizards could invent spells of their own and yet, Remus felt that he had experienced magic like hers before when he had been teaching at Hogwarts.
“Let me teach you how to set up an Anti-Apparition spell first,” he suggested, “then I can get you started on the Patronus Charm, which you’ll need to practice frequently on your own to master.”
“But I thought Anti-Apparition Charms were very difficult…”
Remus grinned. “Somehow, I don’t think that should pose a problem for you. You are a very powerful witch, Celeste. And you’ve just given me a new purpose when I felt most helpless and useless in this war.”
