subplotkudzu | ...and the Monster of Amristar vii

Chapter 7: Destruction's Altar

After that time passed quickly; the first years got used to school life and Daisy spent her free time focusing on her upcoming OWLs. In no time at all they had their Broomstick lesson, Hufflepuff & Ravenclaw together. Madam Hooch gave them the basic instruction and the students fumbled around for a bit: Pollux and Juliet took to it well enough, and Jasmyn started out far better than her sister ever did, but none were naturals.

After the lesson Madam Hooch cornered Jasmyn concerning the Dramaturgy club: given her experience with her parents she would be a great addition, either on stage or as part of the crew. Tryouts were the day after Halloween. This year’s show? She & Professor Ogham haven’t yet decided between the tragedy of the Tempest or Dragons! (based on The Book of Impractical Dragons) to follow up last year’s comedy Macbeth.

Library time produced little: Olaf was a Grindelwald ally, escaped capture at war’s end and joined you-know-who, a pureblood racist and a unpleasant man. They keep digging – there had to be a “Reg” somewhere.

Pollux finally identified his cat. Bess is a Grymalkin, a species that bonds with a witch or wizard and then does everything it can to a) keep that person alive and b) insure that they do not have a boring life. The Grymalkin can, at will, mirror the powers of any other cat – the speed of a cheetah, the strength of a lion, the stealth of a jaguar – and Pollux locates accounts of Grymalkin taking down antelope and Irish deer. A restricted species, the Grymalkin are responsible for the Muggle Mystery Cat sightings across the British Isles.

In the school choir, Flitwick trained students for the upcoming competition with Glasscastle & Greenlaw. Unfortunately for Juliet and the other first years, it's an off-site competition - the choir is going to Greenlaw in Normandy only older students will go. Daisy will be out of the country for a few days in March, but Juliet acknowledged that there’s no way she could convince her father to let her go. This does not mean that the choir was a waste of her time – far from it. Her magical affinity for music let her quickly master Larynlacio, the charm of singing self-counterpoint & throwing her voice for a stereo effect. Knowing that she is naturally shy Flitwick eased up on her a bit concerning the band, but it was clear that she was considering it…once she had other issues out of the way.

Specifically, she wanted to identify the multi-limbed beast in the Astronomy tower. Over the next few weeks the quartet of first years managed to identify the room and confirm that it is, in theory, a disused classroom from the school’s larger days – the whole of the tower is in that condition. Unfortunately, they can’t get to the map of who might be using what room, stored as it is in Filch’s office. Nice as the idea of a Mrs. Norris/Bess smackdown might be, Pollux voted against it. The next step was seeing if the room was unlocked; Jasmyn managed this on another Astronomy night, trying the door and seeing that the main lock had an imperfect latch and opened with a good shove.
A week later the plan went into action: the quartet made their way to the Astronomy tower after Briar’s class. The tower, while not off limits, wasn’t somewhere that they had any “need” to be, and hence the chance of censure if caught. Juliet ran up the stairs first, followed by Jasmyn, then Pollux. Castor was last, keeping watch, and was thus the one spotted by Regan Undulata!

The prefect wanted to know what he was doing and Castor spun a tale about a meeting of the Astronomy club. Regan looked suspicious, saying that there was no such club, and was preparing to press the issue when one of Castor’s inspirations struck, “But Paracelsus told me there was!” Regan’s natural dislike of her younger sister immediately turned the tide, and she chided Castor for being so gullible before shooing him away. Castor’s bank shot not only bought the others time to act, but got Peri in trouble as well. Score!

Pollux, trusting his brother to handle things, waved the girls ahead, and by the time he reached the door it was clear that this time the lock really was engaged. A brief discussion of whether he or Juliet knew unlocking magic was cut short by Jasmyn pulling out a hairpin and disengaging the lock. “We did an escape artist show in Vienna,” she explained. Unfortunately, the deadbolt was beyond her range. Fortunately, her pet ferret, Willow, was a ghostling ferret that can pass through walls, and in a few seconds had undone the latch.

The trio cautiously entered the room, inside finding a small ritual altar set up to a multi-armed figure statue of dangerous aspect with fangs and swords. Laid out on a table with a brass bell, incense, a brass lamp that is right out of Arabian Nights, and eight tiny containers holding different powders, all laid out over a tiger pelt. Juliet started to move forward and investigate more closely but Pollux held her back, not wanting to disturb things. The Ravenclaw girl said she was not going to disturb things, well, not exactly, and tried to shove off the Hufflepuff hand. He grabbed hold and the two went down in a brief wrestling match. Jasmyn managed to pull Juliet off before they could upset the altar. The trio departed, hopefully with no evidence of their presence.

They reconvened with Castor in Ravenclaw tower, claiming one of the smaller study rooms (table, few chairs, mirror, chandelier) to go over what they saw. It became clear that they didn’t have enough books, so they ran off and returned with large piles of them, up to and including a Baghvad Gita borrowed from one of Castor’s Hindu classmates. The final assessment: the statue is Shiva, dancing to destroy the universe! They gotta tell Daisy! And Professor Briar!

As this was happening, Daisy was on the roof, engaging in private music practice with Prof. Flitwick. They were doing one of her compositions and she could feel the energy of the music resonating off the crystal spheres. (Jim: methinks there’s more to music class than just music…) The practice was interrupted by an owl for Flitwick. Daisy could see his concern mount as he read the letter, much as he tried to paper over it in telling her it was nothing and she should keep practicing as he visited Prof. Kettleburn.

The diminutive wizard scuttled down the stairs, and Daisy couldn’t restrain her curiosity, scanning the grounds to see if Flitwick and Kettleburn were outside somewhere. Yes, there are two figures over there, but neither was the right height to be Flitwick. Both were much larger, one broad, the other tall but stooped and wearing…a blue… cloak. A clairsentience charm, just covered in Flitwick’s class, shifted her perceptions to the point of the discussion so that she could confirm that it was Olaf and Reg! Daisy put aside her concerns of how they got on campus and worked to remember everything they said.

The conversation ran as follows: Olaf finally located Reg, and he's shocked by the audacity of the disguise: quite a fall for the ‘Monster of Amristar’. Reg shrugged this off, saying that he has remained hidden for four decades - despite all the indignities suffered in this form - and that if Olaf didn’t want to avail himself of the same method he could always shove off. Olaf wouldn’t go that far - he was clearly desperate and living rough - and insisted on Reg's help. Reg delayed, saying that the conditions won't be ready until the end of the school year. Woden then vanished into the forest and Reg stalked back to the school, where Daisy loses sight of him at the greenhouses; both were moving with a fast step indicative of a seven league boots charm.

She let her spell drop and was startled by the appearance of her sister, who had snuck up while Daisy’s senses were elsewhere. Jasmyn was ranting about an altar and Shiva the destroyer. She let herself get led to the first years, her sister’s babble washing over her as she gathered her thoughts. Eventually Pollux gave her a clear description of what they’d seen, and she shared her recent experience with them as she told them to get their things – they’re going to see Briar.

It was now well after curfew, and Daisy’s authority as a prefect only went so far, so when Trelawney caught them (for an old fraud she has a great talent at finding Daisy breaking rules) and dinged their houses for a few points she led them to Briar’s office, hopeful that she had caught Ms. Fontaine in a detention-worthy lie. This dream died when a frazzled Briar ushered the students in and closed the door in Trelawney’s face.

The Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher looked haggard, but before the students could relate anything or ask questions she handed over the just-completed wards against Oneiromancy, warning them to never, ever take them off. Her look of concern grew as first Daisy then the first years related the night’s events, and she wrote a note that folded into oblivion before asking the kids to lead her to the altar. Despite Pollux’s fears that the altar would be gone when they got there, the multi-armed statue still stood. A quick experiment with well placed light suggested that the shadow Juliet saw might have been caused by a flickering lamp behind the statue, at which point Dumbledore arrived; his sudden presence startling the girls but not the Dee brothers, who were well trained by their father’s light step in the sudden appearance of authority figures.

Dumbledore thanked the children for their observant nature – Daisy especially – and awarded a few house points for their efforts. Briar and Dumbledore then had a discussion about who was responsible for the altar and what threat they might pose. The discussion was notable in that it completely lacked proper nouns. The headmaster set aside Briar’s concerns about whomever Briar was concerned about and then sent the students back to their rooms: Daisy was to lead the Ravenclaws, while Briar would return Pollux to the Hufflepuff warrens. Daisy took her sister and the kids to task for their actions, asking what would have happened if they had been caught breaking in to the Astronomy tower. Castor’s response was indignant: “we had a lookout, we had a plan! What do you take us for, Gryffindors?”

Pollux considered asking Briar to clarify things but realized that Briar was just as unlikely to name names in private as she was in public. At Fogerty’s portrait he did come up with one question: did Briar have the missing Oneiromancy text? No, she thought that the students had taken it out, and she had gone to London to fetch the primary references she needed. So who has it?

The answer to that question came unexpectedly on Halloween. Peri’s jibes at Juliet’s expense had continued in every Herbology class, and Juliet was now more than ready to unleash Jasmyn’s flaming hot sauce. The pair concocted a simple plan: on the night of the banquet, when students would mingle during dinner, they would approach Peri, who would no doubt be seated with Grendel, under the cover of asking Juliet’s lab partner some questions. Juliet would use Larynlacio to call Peri’s name from elsewhere at the table, distracting the target, while Willow would ‘escape’ from Jasmyn’s robes onto the table to distract everyone else. Juliet would use that moment to deliver the flaming hot sauce to Peri’s food. The pair would then exit to an observation point without drawing attention.

The plan worked, even with Willow showing off her “Jazz Hands” routine. Juliet readied herself to watch her tormenter’s over-spiced payback, but was shocked into silence when Ms. Undulata’s hair caught fire! Peri’s friends reacted, dousing her before Peri even noticed her predicament, but the water did nothing to diminish the flames that wreathed her head like a Yule log. Head boy Owen Mardling reacted swiftly in casting a spell that soaked the bedraggled and now panicked first year, but still the fire continued undimmed. Juliet looked at the bottle in shock.

“It’s right on the bottle,” Pollux said, pointing to the image of a man with his hair on fire. “I thought it was a metaphor!” hissed Castor and Juliet simultaneously in the blazing light of Peri’s locks.

The sharp witted Daisy Fontaine ended the crisis, wrapping her robes around Peri’s head to smother the flames. This didn’t stop them, but did cover them and revealed that the flames were much more light than heat and the Slytherin girl’s hair was not literally burnt. Professor Snape finally produced a counter-charm that killed the light, but Peri was a total mess. With the crisis revealed as a prank the room’s tension became gales of laughter at its disheveled victim. Snape turned on the nearby Ravenclaws to see who might be responsible: Juliet’s shock was as great as everyone else’s, admirably hiding her guilt, and his questioning of Jasmyn barely flustered the budding thespian’s alibi.

As the room recovered Juliet noticed that Peri had left her bag behind. She snagged it, earning a reproof from Pollux about kicking someone when they were down. A search of the satchel produced a surprising discovery: the Oneiromancy text! Juliet quickly shoved that in her own pack and returned Peri’s to its original location. The quartet left for their favorite study room to examine their find. Castor checked the author information, learning that Olaf Woden was one of the contributors. “But if he wrote it then he likely doesn’t need it. So why does Peri have it?”

Once Daisy caught up with them she deduced the answer: Peri stole it from her sister Regan. Regan took it out to get a spell to put her first year charges to sleep. Indeed, a perusal produced just such a soporific spell, as well as many other pieces of Oneiromancy: spells to locate or enter dreaming minds, change dreams, scry on the real world while sleeping, ward off dreams (this one they already knew), and even theoretically change the world (According to Woden, “to dream is to shape reality, creating in destruction, across the storm of time itself”) in a spell called a Tempust, which was not only hinted at in the text.

“I hope we don’t pick that play,” Castor muttered.