Brian Rogers (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
subplotkudzu) wrote2008-06-08 05:54 am
subplotkudzu) wrote2008-06-08 05:54 am
Entry tags:
...and the Monster of Amristar XV
Again, this one's pretty long, with a lot of focus on Daisy.
Chapter 15: The Naming
At the door to the infirmary the group is delayed by Madam Pomfrey, who hits them with a cleaning spell, as the students are a right mess. Once they’re inside she takes charge of the still stunned Chrysalis while the others gather around the Plains and their new baby. It appears Lachlan’s warnings were well heeded, as the newborn is swaddled in the Reality Cloak. After a few moments of cooing and ooing Dumbledore summons chairs for everyone and asks that the students and Kettleburn illuminate everyone.
The professor starts, explaining how he had found Slaughter’s body in 1945, and made the connection to Slaughter still being at the school when Lachlan told him of the dead kobolds & altar. The correspondences of the school’s Kobold infestation and their arrival in England in at the time & place of Slaughter’s death, the appearance of Slaughter’s old ally Olaf Woden at the school made it clear that Slaughter was about (it seems Slaughter/Briar did not share the student’s deduction with the staff as she promised, the rotter!). An altar to Shiva as Mruthyunjaya provided the clue of how Slaughter escaped in 1945; after the battle with Woden at the lake where Briar deliberately stunned them both eventually made clear that Briar was Slaughter, but by the time he realized this, it was all he could do to get to the ritual on time. (The students have reason to suspect this is stretching things a bit – it was clear that Kettle-burn was looking for a showdown.)
Dumbledore nodded sagely at this, while Dr. and Professor Plain hugged their child closer upon learning what might have happened. The headmaster turned his gaze on the students and asked how they knew what was going on. There was a moment of silence as everyone looked for the best way to start before Jasmyn blurted out “well, I met Daisy at the music shop but she didn’t like me at first, but we met again for ice cream! Then…!” This burst the dam as everyone began telling their own parts of the tale as a gaggle of excited eleven year olds, herded somewhat into coherence by Daisy, who carefully edited her own version to eliminate her certainty that Dr. Plain was the villain (and neither Plain bothered to ask about Juliet throwing the cloak over him at the play). Other than that a full and accurate, if chronologically confused, account of the year is given, with the professors looking alternately proud or aghast – looks similar to the ones adopted by Mrs. Dee and Mr. Moore after the first encounter with Woden. Seems these students just have that effect on adults.
“My my my, it has been a busy semester, hasn’t it?” Dumbledore grinned. “I think 40 points for each of you is in order, at the very least. And now, to bed.”
Dumbledore sets Sprout and Flitwick to return their students to their doors. Before Daisy exits Kettleburn stops her; the Care of Magical Creatures prof quietly awards her another 10 points for her courage under fire when directly facing Woden & Briar. Everyone is then shooed out by Madam Pomfrey, “Shoo, shoo! That includes you headmaster. Out. My patients need sleep.”
As they’re walking pack to the tower Juliet plaintively asks Professor Flitwick if they can sleep in tomorrow, as she’s exhausted. “It’s Friday night child, or Saturday morning. Sleep in as late as you wish, and I’ll have them hold some breakfast for you.” The first years are asleep as soon as their heads hit the pillow. Daisy stares out her window for a while, wondering what is left of her friend Professor Briar, and how much was just a lie of a desperate old criminal.
Insane as it seems, there are still seven weeks of classes left, including exams! Good heaven, exams! The two Hufflepuff knuckle down even as Lachlan has to devote extra time on Quidditch practice, as he might get his 17 minutes of play in the upcoming Hufflepuff-Slytherin match. Juliet does her best to keep Jasmyn on task for the exams while Castor sticks by his lifelong practice of cramming all the information for the year into his head in the last 4 days, and therefore has no worries. Daisy disappears into her books as her OWLs approach. The students are all moderately famous about the school, though no one knows quite what happened. Castor amuses himself by telling different rumors to each person and then tracking their progress among the student body. Beats studying.
The first Herbology class after the events is spent mostly on cleaning up the greenhouses, with Professor Sprout offering extra credit to any student who helps after hours. All of our first year heroes do so, knowing that they were partially responsible for the damage; joining them are Roberta Resquiat (who knows she’s in trouble for having the brown-thumbed Castor as a lab partner), Peri Undulata (who needs the points after her Argusato disappeared over Easter break), and Rowan Rosacaea (who doesn’t need the points but is looking for a 115% score on the final). The two Slytherin girls don’t do anything to Juliet, having found a target less likely to fight back in Rowan – Miss Rosacaea is an oddity even amongst the hufflepuff for dying her hair (it was green at years start; she changed it to red, then white, then brown, and now it’s light green) and her penchant for going barefoot outside. The fact that she’s prettier than either of the Slytherin girls and too shy to fight back makes her a prefect target for Peri’s venom. Pollx notes this and quietly informs Juliet, knowing she will take it on herself to start defending Rowan if just to irk Peri. Another Dee brothers bank shot.
Shortly before exams all of our heroes are invited by Kettleburn to join his Care of Magical Creatures class in watching the Occamy eggs hatch. A complex charm turns the wall transparent one way so the students can watch the Occamy in the stable without disturbing it. The eggs soften and deform under their occupants pushing before they infant winged serpents break free, iridescent and beautiful. They spend a few moments curling around their mother before four of the six in the clutch turn to devouring their eggshells. The magic of the moment is hindered only by Kettleburn’s pedantic droning concerning the fragility of the Occamy’s life cycle, and how the silver from their eggs is the seed for their own eggshells as adults – stealing the shells will destroy an entire generation of these magnificent beasts.
Daisy asks what will become of them and Kettleburn replies that they are now safe to move – the mother and clutch will be returned to their native India in the next few weeks. This news devastates Hagrid, who had his heart set on keeping one or two of the cute wee beasties around the castle. “No, Hagrid.” “But I…” “No.”
Finally exams come, and Daisy tackles her OWLs with anticipation and dread. Her first exam is herbology, and in the heat of the greenhouse she simply cannot clear her mind from the image of the headless hunt snatching away Reginald Slaughter’s ghost. The exam, both practical and written is a nightmare, and 5 years of Herb lore flee from her mind. Rattled, she heads to her Potions exams and flubs the written one, forgetting seven of the uses of Dragon Blood. She manages to pull herself together and eke out a decent showing on the practical, corking her Sweet Water, which will turn any liquid potable with a drop, just as the bell sounded. Still, it had been a bad day.
The next day wasn’t much better – Transfiguration started with the written, and she kicked herself for the rest of the day for spending so long defining switching spells with annotated examples that she ran out of time and missed the last two questions. The practical was fine, transfiguring her snuffbox into an eohippi with no problem, but she couldn’t manage to transfigure a figurine into a gargoyle, the usual method for animating statues. She knew that was exceptionally difficult, but it would have helped surely. Then came Muggle Studies and another instance of just not being able to remember anything. The embarrassment of seeing Peaseblossom complete her exam well before her was almost more than she could take. That night she abandoned studies, rosined up her bow and took out her frustrations in music that had the bats in the forbidden forest weeping.
The next morning was Defense Against the Dark Arts, but Daisy had laid the ghost of Professor Briar the night before, and walked out feeling confident of an E.
By the time she finished her Magical History exam Daisy was back on stride, and her essay on the Goblin Wars of the 15th century was spot on – she even had time to double back and include the anecdote about Ragnuck’s last heirs burning his castle to the ground as there was no one left to inherit it. She saw Regan Undulata stare at the page trying to remember something, but with enough text on her page to make Daisy feel that her tutoring hadn’t been wasted.
The Astronomy class was a snap, with full notations on all of the Galilean moons and even a notation on the local of Ceres and the subtle effect that the asteroid had on herbology effects. “At least I remembered that” she thought. Good thing, too, as Professor Lippershy only takes 5 students a year for NEWT training.
She likewise aced the written parts of her Charms exam. Her practical wasn’t quite as good, but Professor Tofty had heard of her music and asked her to give a quick demonstration. Warned by Flitwick that this just might occur she pulled out her Violin and a composition that summoned a thunderstorm outside, rattling the windows in the sudden downpour. After that her Ancient Runes class was a cakewalk, even if several students came by to glare at her for ruining their picnic.
The first years, on the other hand, took their exams with little fanfare, with Juliet acing her potions class and Castor irritating his brother yet again by doing well in everything except herbology, where he scraped by. Sure, they both got great grades, but Castor never studies!
And in less time than it takes to tell it’s time for the end of year banquet. The hallway is decked out in Ravenclaw colors, with Hufflepuff coming in a very close second. At the head table there are not only all the professors (with Professor Pellinore sitting in Briar’s place, harrumphing through his huge walrus moustache about the problems with taking a class over in the last few weeks of the year) but Dr Plain and the little baby.
“And so another year is gone,” Dumbledore begins, “and I must delay the feast for a few moments to bore you one last time. I assure you that the imagining of the food now will make it taste better later…at least that’s always how it worked for me. Hopefully your heads are as full as your stomachs are empty, but we have a whole summer to empty them out for next year. Move the old knowledge to the back to make room for the new, and don’t spill too much out the ears in the process.”
“For those of you wondering after the state of our missing Defense Against the Darks Arts teacher, Miss Briar is doing well. While she was a trifle disoriented by her last act as an Auror, she has just left St. Mungos and has opted to retire from her previous field for a time. She has instead followed in her father’s footsteps and become a beekeeper. She has said she will still consult, from time to time, to aide those fighting the Dark Arts, which she has struggled against from the very moment of her birth. But that precludes her returning to our school next year. We wish her well and would like to thank Professor Pellinor so ably covering her exams.
“Now then, I understand the house cup needs awarding, and it has been a strange year for points. Up until Christmas break Slythern was well ahead, then some staggering Quidditch upsets put the Gryffindors in the lead. Then both were usurped right after the most excellent tragedy of Pyrmus and…No wait, it was Importance of Being Earnest this year, wasn’t it?” He shakes his head, “If I don’t get to see the end the story just blurs together in my head,” He turns to professor Ogham, “Does that happen to you? In any case, the events of that night had several students of Ravenclaw & Hufflepuff assisting in the birth of the new Plain, earning their houses no small number of points. That put Ravenclaw in the lead, which they held despite Hufflepuff’s hard fought victory in the final Quidditch match against Slythern, all eight and three quarters hours of it. The final scores are Slytherin with 392 points, Gryffindor with 412, Hufflepuff with 423 and Ravenclaw with 425. An excellent year all round – each house competed with honor. So well done all.” He hands the cup to Flitwick, who levitates it over to Alyssa Aerie, Ravenclaw Head Girl, to much cheering. “Now one last thing before the feast. Friar?”
The Far Friar floats over from the Hufflepuff table to the Plains, who are holding their child up to be seen by the room. “One of the happy duties of my office is performing the Christening of children.” There is a pantomime conversation of eye cocks and shrugs between the Dee twins at this, silently concluding that just because he’s passed on it doesn’t mean the Friar has abandoned his calling. “It is time for you to give your child his Christian name. Have you decided?”
Professor Plain stands up, “It wasn’t easy – we had so many to thank for this that no one name seemed to do. We settled on Jason Plantagenet Plain.”
“Captain of the Argo, and a flower” the Friar beams. “Fitting, I think, considering who helped deliver him.” Juliet mopes for a moment that her name wasn’t included. With the christening over the food appears on the plates and the feat begins. The baby is shown off to all the students (again) and Dumbledore is caught trying to give the six week old a lollypop, for which he is scolded most fiercely by McGonnagal.
The next morning, everyone takes the train home (or, in Lachlan’s case, hundreds of miles from home), with plans to meet up again before the end of the summer.
At the door to the infirmary the group is delayed by Madam Pomfrey, who hits them with a cleaning spell, as the students are a right mess. Once they’re inside she takes charge of the still stunned Chrysalis while the others gather around the Plains and their new baby. It appears Lachlan’s warnings were well heeded, as the newborn is swaddled in the Reality Cloak. After a few moments of cooing and ooing Dumbledore summons chairs for everyone and asks that the students and Kettleburn illuminate everyone.
The professor starts, explaining how he had found Slaughter’s body in 1945, and made the connection to Slaughter still being at the school when Lachlan told him of the dead kobolds & altar. The correspondences of the school’s Kobold infestation and their arrival in England in at the time & place of Slaughter’s death, the appearance of Slaughter’s old ally Olaf Woden at the school made it clear that Slaughter was about (it seems Slaughter/Briar did not share the student’s deduction with the staff as she promised, the rotter!). An altar to Shiva as Mruthyunjaya provided the clue of how Slaughter escaped in 1945; after the battle with Woden at the lake where Briar deliberately stunned them both eventually made clear that Briar was Slaughter, but by the time he realized this, it was all he could do to get to the ritual on time. (The students have reason to suspect this is stretching things a bit – it was clear that Kettle-burn was looking for a showdown.)
Dumbledore nodded sagely at this, while Dr. and Professor Plain hugged their child closer upon learning what might have happened. The headmaster turned his gaze on the students and asked how they knew what was going on. There was a moment of silence as everyone looked for the best way to start before Jasmyn blurted out “well, I met Daisy at the music shop but she didn’t like me at first, but we met again for ice cream! Then…!” This burst the dam as everyone began telling their own parts of the tale as a gaggle of excited eleven year olds, herded somewhat into coherence by Daisy, who carefully edited her own version to eliminate her certainty that Dr. Plain was the villain (and neither Plain bothered to ask about Juliet throwing the cloak over him at the play). Other than that a full and accurate, if chronologically confused, account of the year is given, with the professors looking alternately proud or aghast – looks similar to the ones adopted by Mrs. Dee and Mr. Moore after the first encounter with Woden. Seems these students just have that effect on adults.
“My my my, it has been a busy semester, hasn’t it?” Dumbledore grinned. “I think 40 points for each of you is in order, at the very least. And now, to bed.”
Dumbledore sets Sprout and Flitwick to return their students to their doors. Before Daisy exits Kettleburn stops her; the Care of Magical Creatures prof quietly awards her another 10 points for her courage under fire when directly facing Woden & Briar. Everyone is then shooed out by Madam Pomfrey, “Shoo, shoo! That includes you headmaster. Out. My patients need sleep.”
As they’re walking pack to the tower Juliet plaintively asks Professor Flitwick if they can sleep in tomorrow, as she’s exhausted. “It’s Friday night child, or Saturday morning. Sleep in as late as you wish, and I’ll have them hold some breakfast for you.” The first years are asleep as soon as their heads hit the pillow. Daisy stares out her window for a while, wondering what is left of her friend Professor Briar, and how much was just a lie of a desperate old criminal.
Insane as it seems, there are still seven weeks of classes left, including exams! Good heaven, exams! The two Hufflepuff knuckle down even as Lachlan has to devote extra time on Quidditch practice, as he might get his 17 minutes of play in the upcoming Hufflepuff-Slytherin match. Juliet does her best to keep Jasmyn on task for the exams while Castor sticks by his lifelong practice of cramming all the information for the year into his head in the last 4 days, and therefore has no worries. Daisy disappears into her books as her OWLs approach. The students are all moderately famous about the school, though no one knows quite what happened. Castor amuses himself by telling different rumors to each person and then tracking their progress among the student body. Beats studying.
The first Herbology class after the events is spent mostly on cleaning up the greenhouses, with Professor Sprout offering extra credit to any student who helps after hours. All of our first year heroes do so, knowing that they were partially responsible for the damage; joining them are Roberta Resquiat (who knows she’s in trouble for having the brown-thumbed Castor as a lab partner), Peri Undulata (who needs the points after her Argusato disappeared over Easter break), and Rowan Rosacaea (who doesn’t need the points but is looking for a 115% score on the final). The two Slytherin girls don’t do anything to Juliet, having found a target less likely to fight back in Rowan – Miss Rosacaea is an oddity even amongst the hufflepuff for dying her hair (it was green at years start; she changed it to red, then white, then brown, and now it’s light green) and her penchant for going barefoot outside. The fact that she’s prettier than either of the Slytherin girls and too shy to fight back makes her a prefect target for Peri’s venom. Pollx notes this and quietly informs Juliet, knowing she will take it on herself to start defending Rowan if just to irk Peri. Another Dee brothers bank shot.
Shortly before exams all of our heroes are invited by Kettleburn to join his Care of Magical Creatures class in watching the Occamy eggs hatch. A complex charm turns the wall transparent one way so the students can watch the Occamy in the stable without disturbing it. The eggs soften and deform under their occupants pushing before they infant winged serpents break free, iridescent and beautiful. They spend a few moments curling around their mother before four of the six in the clutch turn to devouring their eggshells. The magic of the moment is hindered only by Kettleburn’s pedantic droning concerning the fragility of the Occamy’s life cycle, and how the silver from their eggs is the seed for their own eggshells as adults – stealing the shells will destroy an entire generation of these magnificent beasts.
Daisy asks what will become of them and Kettleburn replies that they are now safe to move – the mother and clutch will be returned to their native India in the next few weeks. This news devastates Hagrid, who had his heart set on keeping one or two of the cute wee beasties around the castle. “No, Hagrid.” “But I…” “No.”
Finally exams come, and Daisy tackles her OWLs with anticipation and dread. Her first exam is herbology, and in the heat of the greenhouse she simply cannot clear her mind from the image of the headless hunt snatching away Reginald Slaughter’s ghost. The exam, both practical and written is a nightmare, and 5 years of Herb lore flee from her mind. Rattled, she heads to her Potions exams and flubs the written one, forgetting seven of the uses of Dragon Blood. She manages to pull herself together and eke out a decent showing on the practical, corking her Sweet Water, which will turn any liquid potable with a drop, just as the bell sounded. Still, it had been a bad day.
The next day wasn’t much better – Transfiguration started with the written, and she kicked herself for the rest of the day for spending so long defining switching spells with annotated examples that she ran out of time and missed the last two questions. The practical was fine, transfiguring her snuffbox into an eohippi with no problem, but she couldn’t manage to transfigure a figurine into a gargoyle, the usual method for animating statues. She knew that was exceptionally difficult, but it would have helped surely. Then came Muggle Studies and another instance of just not being able to remember anything. The embarrassment of seeing Peaseblossom complete her exam well before her was almost more than she could take. That night she abandoned studies, rosined up her bow and took out her frustrations in music that had the bats in the forbidden forest weeping.
The next morning was Defense Against the Dark Arts, but Daisy had laid the ghost of Professor Briar the night before, and walked out feeling confident of an E.
By the time she finished her Magical History exam Daisy was back on stride, and her essay on the Goblin Wars of the 15th century was spot on – she even had time to double back and include the anecdote about Ragnuck’s last heirs burning his castle to the ground as there was no one left to inherit it. She saw Regan Undulata stare at the page trying to remember something, but with enough text on her page to make Daisy feel that her tutoring hadn’t been wasted.
The Astronomy class was a snap, with full notations on all of the Galilean moons and even a notation on the local of Ceres and the subtle effect that the asteroid had on herbology effects. “At least I remembered that” she thought. Good thing, too, as Professor Lippershy only takes 5 students a year for NEWT training.
She likewise aced the written parts of her Charms exam. Her practical wasn’t quite as good, but Professor Tofty had heard of her music and asked her to give a quick demonstration. Warned by Flitwick that this just might occur she pulled out her Violin and a composition that summoned a thunderstorm outside, rattling the windows in the sudden downpour. After that her Ancient Runes class was a cakewalk, even if several students came by to glare at her for ruining their picnic.
The first years, on the other hand, took their exams with little fanfare, with Juliet acing her potions class and Castor irritating his brother yet again by doing well in everything except herbology, where he scraped by. Sure, they both got great grades, but Castor never studies!
And in less time than it takes to tell it’s time for the end of year banquet. The hallway is decked out in Ravenclaw colors, with Hufflepuff coming in a very close second. At the head table there are not only all the professors (with Professor Pellinore sitting in Briar’s place, harrumphing through his huge walrus moustache about the problems with taking a class over in the last few weeks of the year) but Dr Plain and the little baby.
“And so another year is gone,” Dumbledore begins, “and I must delay the feast for a few moments to bore you one last time. I assure you that the imagining of the food now will make it taste better later…at least that’s always how it worked for me. Hopefully your heads are as full as your stomachs are empty, but we have a whole summer to empty them out for next year. Move the old knowledge to the back to make room for the new, and don’t spill too much out the ears in the process.”
“For those of you wondering after the state of our missing Defense Against the Darks Arts teacher, Miss Briar is doing well. While she was a trifle disoriented by her last act as an Auror, she has just left St. Mungos and has opted to retire from her previous field for a time. She has instead followed in her father’s footsteps and become a beekeeper. She has said she will still consult, from time to time, to aide those fighting the Dark Arts, which she has struggled against from the very moment of her birth. But that precludes her returning to our school next year. We wish her well and would like to thank Professor Pellinor so ably covering her exams.
“Now then, I understand the house cup needs awarding, and it has been a strange year for points. Up until Christmas break Slythern was well ahead, then some staggering Quidditch upsets put the Gryffindors in the lead. Then both were usurped right after the most excellent tragedy of Pyrmus and…No wait, it was Importance of Being Earnest this year, wasn’t it?” He shakes his head, “If I don’t get to see the end the story just blurs together in my head,” He turns to professor Ogham, “Does that happen to you? In any case, the events of that night had several students of Ravenclaw & Hufflepuff assisting in the birth of the new Plain, earning their houses no small number of points. That put Ravenclaw in the lead, which they held despite Hufflepuff’s hard fought victory in the final Quidditch match against Slythern, all eight and three quarters hours of it. The final scores are Slytherin with 392 points, Gryffindor with 412, Hufflepuff with 423 and Ravenclaw with 425. An excellent year all round – each house competed with honor. So well done all.” He hands the cup to Flitwick, who levitates it over to Alyssa Aerie, Ravenclaw Head Girl, to much cheering. “Now one last thing before the feast. Friar?”
The Far Friar floats over from the Hufflepuff table to the Plains, who are holding their child up to be seen by the room. “One of the happy duties of my office is performing the Christening of children.” There is a pantomime conversation of eye cocks and shrugs between the Dee twins at this, silently concluding that just because he’s passed on it doesn’t mean the Friar has abandoned his calling. “It is time for you to give your child his Christian name. Have you decided?”
Professor Plain stands up, “It wasn’t easy – we had so many to thank for this that no one name seemed to do. We settled on Jason Plantagenet Plain.”
“Captain of the Argo, and a flower” the Friar beams. “Fitting, I think, considering who helped deliver him.” Juliet mopes for a moment that her name wasn’t included. With the christening over the food appears on the plates and the feat begins. The baby is shown off to all the students (again) and Dumbledore is caught trying to give the six week old a lollypop, for which he is scolded most fiercely by McGonnagal.
The next morning, everyone takes the train home (or, in Lachlan’s case, hundreds of miles from home), with plans to meet up again before the end of the summer.