...and the Monster of Amristar XIV
Jun. 7th, 2008 03:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
subplotkudzuChapter 14: New Life Born
Daisy looks at the first years, “whoever Reg is, he’s going to cast the spell right now.” She does a quick Astronomy spell, locating a distortion of Mercurial energy. “It’s that way, near the greenhouses. You two,” she points to Juliet and Lachlan, “Go warn Madam Pomfrey and whoever’s there about what’s going on, get some help and return the Reality Cloak.” She looks to her sister and the Dee twins, only to see their receding forms as they run to the Greenhouse. “Jasmyn,” she mutters as she chases after them.
She catches up with the scampering youths just as they approach greenhouse, seeing that the glass has been dampened somehow so that no one can see what’s happening inside. They sneak closer, trying to hear what’s happening within or get a view through the crack in the door. Just then Bess leaps from the shadows, howling a warning as she lands in Pollux arms, nearly bowling over the small boy at the size of a Lynx. Too late! The quartet (plus cat) are snagged by magical ropes that fly from the greenhouse, binding their hands at their sides and depositing them gently in before the aged, stooped form of Reginald Slaughter, draped in his Reality Cloak.
“You really continue to impress me.” He says with true affection. “Remarkable to have made it this far.” Behind him the hulking Olaf Woden, stripped to the waist and kneeling inside the circle of runes required for the spell, barks “enough talk, kill them and be done.”
“It’s not time yet, Olaf, and they’ll be no death here today.” The rheumy, sunken eyes turn back to the students. “But before you forget all of this forever, I am curious if you’ve really solved the puzzle. What’s been my disguise at the school? Who am I?”
Back in the infirmary Lachlan and Juliet are blocked at the antechamber, where Professors Trelawney and McGonnagal are waiting with Dr. Plain (remember, it’s 1982, and not a social requirement that men be present at childbirth). The pair do their best to explain what’s going on, but Trelawney snatches the stolen cloak from them and precedes to berate Juliet as being a known liar and teller of tales, and now a thief as well, coming here in her self glorifying narcissism to pointlessly frighten poor Dr. Plain. Juliet finds herself backed out the door and threatened with detention if she doesn’t return to her dorm, and then has the door slammed in her face. “I guess she really doesn’t like me,” she thought.
Inside McGonnagal tut-tutted Sybil’s outburst and then turned her eye on Lachlan, “Mr. Fitztoggle, you too should go to your room. This is hardly a crisis.”
“Perfesser, if ye don’ listen te me somethin’ horrible may happen. What harm can it do to ward the roum, just in case we’re right?” The earnest tone of the young man obviously struck a chord, as he saw McGonnagal casting some sort of spell over the infirmary door as he left to join Juliet. The two rushed to the greenhouse, taking a detour for Lachlan to snag a broom.
In the greenhouse there is a pregnant pause as Reg eyes the students one at a time before Castor sticks his chin out and says “well, I think you’re Professor Briar!”
“And you’d be right,” cackled the ancient wizard, whipping the cloak off his head to reveal the form of their Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. “I guess it wasn’t really a schoolboy crush after all? I really am impressed by your tenacity.”
She looked over at Daisy, “You weren’t going to win. Those amulets tell me where you are at all times and block your defenses to my magic. But you were impressive. I know it’s not easy to accept, but if it’s any comfort your won’t remember it long.”
At this moment a Gladstone bag drops at Reg/ Briar’s feet. Kettleburn enters the greenhouse, “recognize this, Slaughter? You abandoned it in Newcastle.” Briar shakes her head, as if confused, then says “The bag is undoubtedly mine. I am delighted to have it so unexpectedly restored to me. It has been a great inconvenience being without it all these years.”
This – Miss Prism’s unfinished line, which had been struggling to completion – caused the Dramaturgy field still extant around Castor & Jasmyn to thrum to life. The two of them stare at each other, trying desperately to figure out how to use this. Behind them Pollux has a moment of freedom as Bess assumes the size of a kitten and leaps free from the ropes. He frees his wand arm before the magical bonds constrict, and struggles to get his wand out of his robes. Bess, having been assured Pollux’s life isn’t in jeopardy, starts grooming herself.
Reg & Kettleburn are circling each other, with the Hindu professor making sure not to get to close to Woden, who dares not leave the circle lest all their work be for naught. Briar, her back to the bound students, so that any hex of Kettleburn’s might strike them, taunts her adversary. “I do wonder about you Pax Veneficus types. You tracked me over three decades before losing me at the last minute and you come back now. Perseverance is one thing, dear boy, but this approaches an unhealthy obsession. Why can’t you just admit that you lost? Come now, it would be good for you, release all those blocked up shakras.”
Kettleburn’s face is stone, “It was obviously you once the Kobolds showed up. You needed their blood to pervert the ritual in 1945, which is how they ended up in Britain, and you brought them here now for the same reason. This body was born the same day I found you in Newcastle. And you couldn’t attend school because the Sorting Hat would recognize you immediately. You would have been better served if you hadn’t tried to tweak me, Slaughter. You would have gotten away with it. Your arrogance has always been your greatest flaw.”
“I only think I’m superior to those I am superior to, Jadayl.” And at that the first hex is thrown, blocked and counter hexed as the two unleash a fury of magic at one another, with Briar clearly the superior, “I have fifty years experience on you in a body half your age, Jadayl. Just give up already, and I’ll make this painless.”
The students all lunge for cover as best they can in their ropes, and Pollux finally grasps his wand and casts perfingo, shattering all of the pots on the lowest shelf, causing the explosion of two dozen Wrinkled Puffballs! The thick dessicating dust fills the air, hiding everyone’s actions and eliciting a roar from Woden. Rolling under a bench together Jasmyn & Castor desperately begin reciting the remaining lines in the scene. Daisy, finally sure she’s out of sight, mutters a countercharm that dissolves her ropes. She yanks off her amulet and takes aim at where she thinks Briar is. Bess grabs hold of Pollux’s leg and drags him to the relative safety of the outside, where he encounters Juliet and Lachlan, out searching for the magically-muted battle. “It’s all happening in there,” Pollux says dryly.
“I canno’ see what’s happenin’” Fitztoggle whispers. Juliet nods and sings a single, clear note, stilling the air and precipitating all the dust from it in an instant. In that instant Briar hexes Kettleburn, withering his arm into a stump that blows away to dust, Daisy yells Somulous, dropping Briar to her knees with forced fatigue and dissolving all the magical ropes to mist, and Lachlan hurtles across the greenhouse on his broom, clothes-lining Woden and dragging the Death Eater out of the rune circle before both of them crashed into a mass stacked stools. It was a busy instant.
Juliet watches in horror as Lachlan squirms free of his huge adversary and dives for cover even as Olaf raises his wand. Casting larynlacio she screams a piercing note directly inside Woden’s skull, and the flame blasts fly wild, melting holes in the greenhouse rather than reducing Lachlan to cinders.
Briar struggles to one knee and faces Daisy, “Don’t make me kill you. It would be such a waste.” Daisy prepares a protego to block whatever is coming, but is too slow, and her memory shifts under Briar’s charm, becoming totally aware that Kettleburn was Reg in disguise and that he had charmed the first years. She sees Pollux taking aim at Briar’s back and her protego spell goes to shield the Auror from Pollux’s aguamenti, reflecting it back on both the Hufflepuff student and his irate cat. Daisy grinned at her professor’s “thumbs up” and turned to Woden, leaving her back to Briar.
It was then that Castor intoned “Not at all Aunt Augusta. I have instead learned the vital importance of being Earnest.” At that last line, delivered ad hoc under a table in a battle-shattered greenhouse, the Dramaturgy ritual slammed shut. True identities revealed, the false name and nature the child has been operating under is ripped away. Reginald Slaughter’s perverted soul, the target of the play’s magic since Castor began making his changes, is likewise ripped from its body. Briar collapses to the dirt as the now translucent Slaughter screams in impotent rage before turning to face the nightmare that approached him – the Headless Hunt! The ghostly agents stampeded through the wall at full tilt, swords swinging, snatching Reg’s ephemeral form and dragging it in chains out the other side of the greenhouse.
There is a moment of uncanny silence before Woden raises his wand and begins to intone a curse that would shatter the limbs of all in the room. Daisy fearlessly raises her wand to counter as best she can, only to see the Death Eater struck down by a hex, collapsing to the ground vomiting slugs, snakes and salamanders. Its author, Professor Kettleburn, has righted himself and is wielding his wand in his second right arm, the first just a stump. Daisy raises her wand to strike down the man she knows to be Reginald Slaughter…but Slaughter was just dragged away by the hunt…and…
Kettleburn rights her memory before the cognitive dissonance can get any worse, and Daisy stares at his wound, “are you…? Your arm…?” He grimaces. “I had another. Help me tie him.” And the two wizards, professor and prefect, cast binding spells to keep the violently ill Death Eater immobilized.
Jasmyn spent several minutes hunting through the rubble to find Lachlan, who had taken cover under a pile of debris, and helped the enormous Hufflpuff to his feet before dope slapping him for trying to wrestle a Death Eater. Castor & Pollux quickly looked each other over, then started poking through the rubble. Juliet is the first to see the approaching forms of Sprout, Flitwick & Dumbledore. The headmaster chatted with the Profs in an amiable fashion, as it was clear that the crisis was over. “I always feel like the last to be invited to these affairs. I would have brought a nice bottle of Bordeaux or some chocolate frogs but…Ah, Miss Moore. Would you care to show us inside?”
Professor Sprout is aghast at the state of her green-house, and quickly casts some spells to neaten the place up and restore all of the crockery to its original state. “Wouldn’t do to have a mandrake cut loose, now would it? Did they think of that when they shattered all our Puffballs?” Once that’s done she looks to Lachlan and Pollux to make sure they’re unhurt. Flitwick, likewise, sees to the Ravenclaws as Kettleburn brings the head-master up to speed. There is a low moan from the floor as Chrysalis Briar stirs, and Dumbledore quickly kneels to support her. “I feel so strange….”
“Not surprising, young lady, as your soul has been suppressed almost since birth. That’s bound to feel odd, and I dare say a little liberating, once it’s removed. Let’s get you to your feet and into the infirmary.” Dumbledore looked around at the students. “It’s been a very trying evening and I think seeing a healthy young baby boy with his parents is bound to raise our spirits. Hagrid can come by and sit on our prisoner for a bit.”
Daisy looks at the first years, “whoever Reg is, he’s going to cast the spell right now.” She does a quick Astronomy spell, locating a distortion of Mercurial energy. “It’s that way, near the greenhouses. You two,” she points to Juliet and Lachlan, “Go warn Madam Pomfrey and whoever’s there about what’s going on, get some help and return the Reality Cloak.” She looks to her sister and the Dee twins, only to see their receding forms as they run to the Greenhouse. “Jasmyn,” she mutters as she chases after them.
She catches up with the scampering youths just as they approach greenhouse, seeing that the glass has been dampened somehow so that no one can see what’s happening inside. They sneak closer, trying to hear what’s happening within or get a view through the crack in the door. Just then Bess leaps from the shadows, howling a warning as she lands in Pollux arms, nearly bowling over the small boy at the size of a Lynx. Too late! The quartet (plus cat) are snagged by magical ropes that fly from the greenhouse, binding their hands at their sides and depositing them gently in before the aged, stooped form of Reginald Slaughter, draped in his Reality Cloak.
“You really continue to impress me.” He says with true affection. “Remarkable to have made it this far.” Behind him the hulking Olaf Woden, stripped to the waist and kneeling inside the circle of runes required for the spell, barks “enough talk, kill them and be done.”
“It’s not time yet, Olaf, and they’ll be no death here today.” The rheumy, sunken eyes turn back to the students. “But before you forget all of this forever, I am curious if you’ve really solved the puzzle. What’s been my disguise at the school? Who am I?”
Back in the infirmary Lachlan and Juliet are blocked at the antechamber, where Professors Trelawney and McGonnagal are waiting with Dr. Plain (remember, it’s 1982, and not a social requirement that men be present at childbirth). The pair do their best to explain what’s going on, but Trelawney snatches the stolen cloak from them and precedes to berate Juliet as being a known liar and teller of tales, and now a thief as well, coming here in her self glorifying narcissism to pointlessly frighten poor Dr. Plain. Juliet finds herself backed out the door and threatened with detention if she doesn’t return to her dorm, and then has the door slammed in her face. “I guess she really doesn’t like me,” she thought.
Inside McGonnagal tut-tutted Sybil’s outburst and then turned her eye on Lachlan, “Mr. Fitztoggle, you too should go to your room. This is hardly a crisis.”
“Perfesser, if ye don’ listen te me somethin’ horrible may happen. What harm can it do to ward the roum, just in case we’re right?” The earnest tone of the young man obviously struck a chord, as he saw McGonnagal casting some sort of spell over the infirmary door as he left to join Juliet. The two rushed to the greenhouse, taking a detour for Lachlan to snag a broom.
In the greenhouse there is a pregnant pause as Reg eyes the students one at a time before Castor sticks his chin out and says “well, I think you’re Professor Briar!”
“And you’d be right,” cackled the ancient wizard, whipping the cloak off his head to reveal the form of their Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. “I guess it wasn’t really a schoolboy crush after all? I really am impressed by your tenacity.”
She looked over at Daisy, “You weren’t going to win. Those amulets tell me where you are at all times and block your defenses to my magic. But you were impressive. I know it’s not easy to accept, but if it’s any comfort your won’t remember it long.”
At this moment a Gladstone bag drops at Reg/ Briar’s feet. Kettleburn enters the greenhouse, “recognize this, Slaughter? You abandoned it in Newcastle.” Briar shakes her head, as if confused, then says “The bag is undoubtedly mine. I am delighted to have it so unexpectedly restored to me. It has been a great inconvenience being without it all these years.”
This – Miss Prism’s unfinished line, which had been struggling to completion – caused the Dramaturgy field still extant around Castor & Jasmyn to thrum to life. The two of them stare at each other, trying desperately to figure out how to use this. Behind them Pollux has a moment of freedom as Bess assumes the size of a kitten and leaps free from the ropes. He frees his wand arm before the magical bonds constrict, and struggles to get his wand out of his robes. Bess, having been assured Pollux’s life isn’t in jeopardy, starts grooming herself.
Reg & Kettleburn are circling each other, with the Hindu professor making sure not to get to close to Woden, who dares not leave the circle lest all their work be for naught. Briar, her back to the bound students, so that any hex of Kettleburn’s might strike them, taunts her adversary. “I do wonder about you Pax Veneficus types. You tracked me over three decades before losing me at the last minute and you come back now. Perseverance is one thing, dear boy, but this approaches an unhealthy obsession. Why can’t you just admit that you lost? Come now, it would be good for you, release all those blocked up shakras.”
Kettleburn’s face is stone, “It was obviously you once the Kobolds showed up. You needed their blood to pervert the ritual in 1945, which is how they ended up in Britain, and you brought them here now for the same reason. This body was born the same day I found you in Newcastle. And you couldn’t attend school because the Sorting Hat would recognize you immediately. You would have been better served if you hadn’t tried to tweak me, Slaughter. You would have gotten away with it. Your arrogance has always been your greatest flaw.”
“I only think I’m superior to those I am superior to, Jadayl.” And at that the first hex is thrown, blocked and counter hexed as the two unleash a fury of magic at one another, with Briar clearly the superior, “I have fifty years experience on you in a body half your age, Jadayl. Just give up already, and I’ll make this painless.”
The students all lunge for cover as best they can in their ropes, and Pollux finally grasps his wand and casts perfingo, shattering all of the pots on the lowest shelf, causing the explosion of two dozen Wrinkled Puffballs! The thick dessicating dust fills the air, hiding everyone’s actions and eliciting a roar from Woden. Rolling under a bench together Jasmyn & Castor desperately begin reciting the remaining lines in the scene. Daisy, finally sure she’s out of sight, mutters a countercharm that dissolves her ropes. She yanks off her amulet and takes aim at where she thinks Briar is. Bess grabs hold of Pollux’s leg and drags him to the relative safety of the outside, where he encounters Juliet and Lachlan, out searching for the magically-muted battle. “It’s all happening in there,” Pollux says dryly.
“I canno’ see what’s happenin’” Fitztoggle whispers. Juliet nods and sings a single, clear note, stilling the air and precipitating all the dust from it in an instant. In that instant Briar hexes Kettleburn, withering his arm into a stump that blows away to dust, Daisy yells Somulous, dropping Briar to her knees with forced fatigue and dissolving all the magical ropes to mist, and Lachlan hurtles across the greenhouse on his broom, clothes-lining Woden and dragging the Death Eater out of the rune circle before both of them crashed into a mass stacked stools. It was a busy instant.
Juliet watches in horror as Lachlan squirms free of his huge adversary and dives for cover even as Olaf raises his wand. Casting larynlacio she screams a piercing note directly inside Woden’s skull, and the flame blasts fly wild, melting holes in the greenhouse rather than reducing Lachlan to cinders.
Briar struggles to one knee and faces Daisy, “Don’t make me kill you. It would be such a waste.” Daisy prepares a protego to block whatever is coming, but is too slow, and her memory shifts under Briar’s charm, becoming totally aware that Kettleburn was Reg in disguise and that he had charmed the first years. She sees Pollux taking aim at Briar’s back and her protego spell goes to shield the Auror from Pollux’s aguamenti, reflecting it back on both the Hufflepuff student and his irate cat. Daisy grinned at her professor’s “thumbs up” and turned to Woden, leaving her back to Briar.
It was then that Castor intoned “Not at all Aunt Augusta. I have instead learned the vital importance of being Earnest.” At that last line, delivered ad hoc under a table in a battle-shattered greenhouse, the Dramaturgy ritual slammed shut. True identities revealed, the false name and nature the child has been operating under is ripped away. Reginald Slaughter’s perverted soul, the target of the play’s magic since Castor began making his changes, is likewise ripped from its body. Briar collapses to the dirt as the now translucent Slaughter screams in impotent rage before turning to face the nightmare that approached him – the Headless Hunt! The ghostly agents stampeded through the wall at full tilt, swords swinging, snatching Reg’s ephemeral form and dragging it in chains out the other side of the greenhouse.
There is a moment of uncanny silence before Woden raises his wand and begins to intone a curse that would shatter the limbs of all in the room. Daisy fearlessly raises her wand to counter as best she can, only to see the Death Eater struck down by a hex, collapsing to the ground vomiting slugs, snakes and salamanders. Its author, Professor Kettleburn, has righted himself and is wielding his wand in his second right arm, the first just a stump. Daisy raises her wand to strike down the man she knows to be Reginald Slaughter…but Slaughter was just dragged away by the hunt…and…
Kettleburn rights her memory before the cognitive dissonance can get any worse, and Daisy stares at his wound, “are you…? Your arm…?” He grimaces. “I had another. Help me tie him.” And the two wizards, professor and prefect, cast binding spells to keep the violently ill Death Eater immobilized.
Jasmyn spent several minutes hunting through the rubble to find Lachlan, who had taken cover under a pile of debris, and helped the enormous Hufflpuff to his feet before dope slapping him for trying to wrestle a Death Eater. Castor & Pollux quickly looked each other over, then started poking through the rubble. Juliet is the first to see the approaching forms of Sprout, Flitwick & Dumbledore. The headmaster chatted with the Profs in an amiable fashion, as it was clear that the crisis was over. “I always feel like the last to be invited to these affairs. I would have brought a nice bottle of Bordeaux or some chocolate frogs but…Ah, Miss Moore. Would you care to show us inside?”
Professor Sprout is aghast at the state of her green-house, and quickly casts some spells to neaten the place up and restore all of the crockery to its original state. “Wouldn’t do to have a mandrake cut loose, now would it? Did they think of that when they shattered all our Puffballs?” Once that’s done she looks to Lachlan and Pollux to make sure they’re unhurt. Flitwick, likewise, sees to the Ravenclaws as Kettleburn brings the head-master up to speed. There is a low moan from the floor as Chrysalis Briar stirs, and Dumbledore quickly kneels to support her. “I feel so strange….”
“Not surprising, young lady, as your soul has been suppressed almost since birth. That’s bound to feel odd, and I dare say a little liberating, once it’s removed. Let’s get you to your feet and into the infirmary.” Dumbledore looked around at the students. “It’s been a very trying evening and I think seeing a healthy young baby boy with his parents is bound to raise our spirits. Hagrid can come by and sit on our prisoner for a bit.”
