Thou that Usurp'st this Time of Night
Odelia sighed and drew another swirl on the edge of her parchment. Natty was concentrating on the vases before them which Professor Weasley had instructed them to transfigure, but thanks to Sebastian’s excursion to the Owlery and after Crossed Wands last night and a visit to Professor Hecat this morning for extra assignments, she had not managed to read up on the theory behind it and could not be of much help. Even Nattys efforts were in vain, and no one else had managed it so far either. Adelaide had explained on the walk over that with exams at the end of the year, they were going to be set increasingly difficult assignments.
“Ahem,” came Professor Weasleys voice from the front of the classroom, “if you’ll all bring your vase to my desk, then you may go.”
Odelia leapt up, waving goodbye to Natty, and met Adelaide by the door. “That was needlessly difficult!”
Adelaide smiled gently and they began walking to lunch. “I suppose it was. It’s nice that you sit with Natty, she’s definitely the best in the year. The school she was at before - Uagadou - is renowned for Transfiguration.”
They were just passing the dragon statue in the courtyard when suddenly Sebastian appeared right in front of them from the other side of the statue. Adelaide gave a little shriek and jumped.
“Sebastian!” Odelia exclaimed. “Do NOT do that, it isn’t funny.”
“Sorry, sorry,” he shrugged. “Surely you aren’t going to abandon the Slytherin table again?”
“I sat with Ominis this morning - it’s not my fault that you weren’t there.”
“Ahh, I see.”
He fell in step with the girls as they passed through the Central Hall.
“Well, sit with us at dinner,” he said.
She pursed her lips as though considering his request, then grinned. “If you insist.”
Sebastian turned to face them, giving a mock salute, then jogged backwards down the stairs to the library.
Odelia exchanged a glance with Adelaide, and then giggled.
-----------------------
“Did you hear Professor Weasley say that Beasts isn’t on today?” Adelaide asked Odelia. They were sitting next to each other again, Evangeline sat opposite. Lenora and Nellie were huddled together, engaged in a private conversation of their own.
She shook her head but before she had a chance to reply Evangeline butted in - “I didn’t know you took Beasts Class too!” Her voice had taken on that unpleasant whinging quality. Odelia put down her fork and stared directly at her.
“Well I do. Do you?”
“No,” she sulked, “but Addie does.”
Adelaide coughed under her breath and hastily continued. “Well Professor Howin has been called away on some urgent business so we won’t have actual lessons for a while. I think Amit might have been talking about organising some kind of study group to read about what we are missing but -”
“We have the afternoon off!” exclaimed Odelia.
“Exactly,” smiled Adelaide. “You’ve been to Hogsmeade already haven’t you?”
“Yes, I went with Sebastian on Tuesday.”
Evangeline looked up from her food again. “Sebastian? I bet he just ran off and left you by yourself.”
Odelia turned in her seat to face Adelaide directly, blocking out the other girl. Yes he had left her, but not at all like that.
He had his own errands to run, it made more sense for us to go our separate ways.
“But I’d like to go again with you, shall we?”
Adelaide looked pleased, though her eyes darted nervously to the other side of the table. Evangeline kept her head down, saying nothing. “That sounds lovely. What lesson have you got after this?”
“I’ve got Charms.”
“Okay, how about we meet at the bottom of the tower, by the door to the Transfiguration Courtyard?”
They had all finished their lunch by now, so Odelia stood up and grinned at her friend. “Perfect.”
-----------------------
As promised, Adelaide was waiting by the door as Odelia hurried down the stairs at last. When the Hufflepuff noticed her approach she sighed dramatically and stomped over the rest of the way.
“I’m SO sorry, there’s been a bit of a kerfuffle. A silly little First-Year was stopping everyone she could get a hold of, asking them to find something for her.”
Adelaide frowned worriedly and glanced up the staircase. “Oh, is she okay?”
“I don’t know, probably. Come on, let's go!” Odelia said impatiently.
But the other girl didn’t move, still gazing in the direction of the upper floors. “Perhaps we should see if she is okay…”
Odelia raised her eyebrows. Adelaide looked at her imploringly. “If she is just a First-Year…”
“Oh alright, fine, though you should know she was being terribly annoying.”
They walked back up the stairs until they caught sight of a little girl stood by a pillar.
Adelaide laughed. “That’s not a First-Year, that’s Zenobia! She’s a Second-Year - just small for her age. I’ve heard stories about the havoc she causes in the Ravenclaw Common Room.”
Odelia shrugged. “She looks fine to me.”
“Wait here,” said Adelaide gently, “I’ll go see what she wants.” She walked over to the girl and began talking to her earnestly. Odelia shifted from side to side restlessly. Waiting around was not an easy task for her. Indeed, she was about to go and interrupt when Adelaide came back over, and from the look in her eye Odelia knew what was about to happen.
“Don’t tell me,” she groaned, “you agreed to help. Everyone was complaining about her, it would be better for the rest of the school if we didn’t. The needs of the many…, you know.”
“Poor thing,” Adelaide murmured. “She’s enthusiastic, but that’s no excuse for hiding her gobstones.” She began to walk back to the floor below, looking around to see if Odelia would follow. “They’re hidden in ‘high places’ apparently, and there’s only six still missing, so it shouldn’t take long.”
Odelia paused, taking in the kind face of the girl standing before her, and rolled her eyes. “Enthusiastic is putting it mildly.” But she stepped forward, and they went out into the courtyard together.
-----------------------
“Somehow it feels wrong,” Adelaide whispered as they crept up the spiral staircase to the trophy room, “to be up here while everyone else is in lessons.” They had found five gobstones so far, scattered around the school, and this was one of the only places they hadn’t checked yet.
“Nonsense,” Odelia replied, though also in a hushed voice. “We can go wherever we want. Besides, there’s no one else here - everyone is in lessons.”
She led the way, Adelaide close behind her. Every footfall seemed to echo off the stone walls which enclosed the passageway, the only sound in the growing silence.
All of a sudden a monstrous shadow loomed up in front of them, growing closer and closer with each step. Odelia jumped back, clutching Adelaide in horror. “What is that!”
“It looks like a troll,” she breathed, “but it can’t be.”
“Maybe that’s why it’s so quiet up here… Maybe the troll’s eaten everyone…”
“Trolls aren’t usually very quiet though.”
“Maybe it’s a dead troll?”
Adelaide considered this for a moment. “Then who ate all the people?”
They tiptoed forward and rounded the corner to find -
An armoured troll!
Odelia and Adelaide screamed in unison, clinging to each other as they turned to run. The troll didn’t move.
“Hang on,” frowned Odelia, once she had finished screaming. “That’s troll-shaped alright, but there’s no troll inside it.” And to illustrate her point she walked over and shoved the enormous breastplate with both hands. A hollow metal clanging reverberated through the corridor. “See” She turned back to Adelaide, standing on the top step. “Empty!”
The scuffle of a shoe on stone echoed faintly from the door to her left. Adelaide was still frozen in fear.
Look behind you.
She whirled, raising her wand, ready to blast.
“Woah! Woah, it’s only me.” A boy with curly red hair and many many freckles had moved out of the doorway, hands raised in surrender. “Odelia, right? We’re in the same year - got Transfig together.”
“Garreth!” Adelaide had walked over to join them. “You scared us nearly half to death,” she said reproachfully.
“Sorry Oakes,” he grinned. “Anyway, what are you doing up here? Surely Miss Perfect isn’t skipping a lesson?”
Odelia stepped closer to her friend, sniffing haughtily. “She isn’t skipping anything, our class got cancelled. What are you doing here?”
Garreth laughed, raising his hands again. “Didn’t mean any offence. I’m - well, uhh - investigating something. Hang on, class got cancelled? Do you mean Beasts? Lucky that!”
Adelaide gave him a reproving look. “Yes Garreth, it is lucky, now you won’t get detention for being absent. But since you’re here, have you seen a gobstone lying around anywhere?”
“You mean one of Zenobia’s? It’s in there on a shelf.” He pointed with his wand. “Accio!” It flew over, and he handed it to Adelaide, who pocketed it gratefully, then frowned.
“You didn’t have anything to do with that, did you Garreth?”
He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “Err, no… but I might know who did.”
“I won’t ask,” she said, sighing. Odelia tugged at her sleeve, ready to leave now that they had recovered all six.
“Wait a mo,” said Garreth suddenly. “Would you ladies be up for another adventure?”
Odelia exchanged a glance with Adelaide. “What, now?”
“Nah, it’s not ready yet. But I’ll take that as a yes, shall I?”
“Sure,” said Adelaide, “but we should get back to Zenobia. It’d be nice for her to stop worrying.”
Garreth laughed. “Of course. See you later then!” and ducked back into the trophy room.
In the distance the bell struck five. They made their way back through the castle for dinner.
“It’s a shame we never got to go to Hogsmeade,” said Adelaide suddenly.
“Yeah,” agreed Odelia, “another time though.”
“I suppose Evangeline will want to join,” she said with a sigh. Odelia looked at her, surprised. Adelaide started and stopped walking. They had reached the Viaduct Bridge, and were surrounded by all the other students heading over to the Great Hall. “I’m going to go give these back to Zenobia,” she continued quickly. Odelia opened her mouth to speak but Adelaide anticipated her response. “You should go ahead to dinner, Sebastian’s probably waiting.” And she turned on her heel and hurried back across the bridge.
Odelia stood still for a moment, watching her leave, then did as she said.
-----------------------
Where was Sebastian?! He had walked her over to Professor Fig’s office after dinner and insisted on waiting, so where was he now?
Seething with frustration, Odelia stomped down to the Fourth Floor of the tower. No, he wasn’t there either. She and the Professor had been ready to go down to the Library to see where the map led, when her uncle had barged in where he was not wanted and ruined all their plans. And the way he had completely disregarded her presence - as though she were not worth a minute of his time -
I'll show him. He can't stop me.
There were not many people around at this time in the evening. She made her way down the corridor past her old nook.
Sebastian! Where are you?
The stairways were open here between the floors. Leaning over the bannister, Odelia caught sight of a familiar mop of brown hair.
There!
He was standing facing a portrait of a witch enveloped in a blazing fire, and as he turned to stand with his back to it, it seemed as though he was the one wreathed in the vibrant flames.
She caught her breath, then cut him off before he had a chance to speak. “Sebastian. I need your help, but I can’t say why exactly so you mustn’t ask.”
His eyebrows shot up at this abrupt message, but she must have sounded as irate as she felt, for he did not question her.
“If you say so. I won’t press you now, but you will have to tell me what’s going on at some point. You might need me. So, what’s this about?”
“I need to find something for Professor Fig, but it’s in the Restricted Section of the Library.”
“He can’t get it himself?”
She snorted. “He was called away at the last moment by someone whose name I do not care to mention. I suppose I could wait to get a note from him, but -”
“You want to show some initiative.”
“Precisely. You mentioned being ‘clever enough not to get caught’.”
Sebastian grinned. “And I am. Meet me outside the Library tonight. And tell no one.”
-----------------------
The prefects patrolling the Central Hall were easy to sneak around. Sebastian knew exactly how to manage the Librarian - Madam Scribner - an irritable woman from whose desk drawer Odelia proceeded to liberate the key to the Restricted Section. But it was the ghost of a young woman, drifting seemingly without purpose around the chambers of the lower library, that they could not get past.
They hadn’t been walking for long, and thus far had not encountered anything which caught Odelia’s eye, when they rounded a corner and her other-worldy shape appeared in front of them.
Quick as a flash, Sebastian grabbed her wrist and pulled her back. He flattened himself against the wall and she was bumped against his chest, but they dared not change how they were positioned. Odelia tilted her head upwards to see his face. His lips were slightly parted - he was trying not to make a sound.
“What do we do?” she breathed as softly as she could. He looked down to meet her eyes and blinked twice, slowly and purposefully, not daring to reply. They were close enough that Odelia could feel the rise and fall of his ribcage with every inhale and exhale. Neither of them moved.
There was a faint hum in her ears. For a second Odelia forgot all about the ghost waiting down the corridor and she imagined that Sebastian was leaning closer, and -
CRASH! It echoed all the way from deeper within the Restricted Section, breaking apart the tension in the air. Odelia stepped back and Sebastian stood up straight, moving away from the wall. He poked his head around the corner, then gestured for Odelia to join him.
“She’s going towards the sound. Quick, let’s follow her!”
And so they crept soundlessly after the spectre, the rooms growing darker the further in they got, until they came to an archway blocked by a fallen set of armour. The ghost had vanished out of sight.
“That must be what made the sound we heard earlier,” mused Odelia. “But what caused it to fall?”
Sebastian was frowning, glancing suspiciously around, when all at once he extinguished the light at the end of his wand and held it out in front of him. She exclaimed, “Wha-”
“Whheeeeeeeeeee!”
A potbellied little man in a discordant blue top hat and orange tailcoat dove out from behind a bookcase and floated before them, hands on his hips. Odelia blinked a few times, unsure of what exactly she was seeing.
“Who have we here?!” His words swooped up and down like a roller coaster, making her feel ill. “Sebastian Sallow and his new little friend, out exploring where they shouldn’t be!”
He spun dizzyingly around them, wrenching at Sebastian’s robes and twisting Odelia’s hair. She gasped and swatted him away - or tried to - her hand passed through him as though he were not really there at all.
“Naughty naughty, you’ll get caughty!”
Sebastian started angrily “Peeves, don’t you -”
“I’m going to tell! I’m going to tell! I’m going to tell!” And continuing in his sing-song voice he darted down the way which led back to the library.
“Blasted Peeves,” said Sebastian. “I’ve got to stop him, or at least get to the librarian with a good excuse for all of this.”
Doubt flickered through her mind - would he turn her in to the librarian and himself escape unscathed? - but it was cleared away just as quickly as it came. His brown eyes, when she met them, were guileless.
“Wait,” she said quietly. “I don’t want you getting into trouble for me.”
He seemed to stand taller, uplifted by his own confidence. “I have a way with the faculty when it comes to disciplinary matters. Besides - I like having friends who are in my debt.”
Friends who are in his debt?
‘Friends’ who are in his debt…
“Now, go. Good luck in your search.”
And he crept back down the corridor, leaving Odelia surrounded by unfamiliar shadows. There was nothing for it, she would have to go alone. A steady wave of her wand, and the armour repaired itself, lifting up to hang from its frame.
“Lumos.” Beyond the doorway was a small, circular chamber, and beyond that was another passage, leading down.
The architecture had changed - the familiar walls of the Hogwarts Library giving way to a roughly hewn stairwell. It was no longer clear where she would be going.
Her uncle’s smug face hovered in her mind, taunting her. She took a deep breath and continued on.
-----------------------
It was some time before Odelia managed to find her way back to what was probably the Hogwarts library. The walls and floors were no longer shifting around her, but it was still difficult to trust her surroundings.
She had had no choice but to stay on the path. When the staircase had spiralled down into darkness, she had kept going. When the stone warriors appeared out of the blue haze, she had fought them. And when she had found the book suspended above a pensieve, she had taken it and fallen headlong into someone else’s memories.
Now, as Odelia made her way back out of the Restricted Section, the desperate face of the young girl whose hamlet was brought back to life by a group of wizards would not leave her mind. And then years later - what was it they had said? - she had just joined Hogwarts, and they wanted to speak to her.
About Ancient Magic.
She cracked open the gate that her and Sebastian had unlocked earlier in the night, and slipped through.
Isadora Morganach. The name sent a shiver down her spine.
A blur of orange and blue whizzed through her peripheral vision. She ducked quickly behind a bookcase, and peered through the shelves.
Sebastian was hurrying stealthily along the row just in front of her. So he had not been caught! Odelia was about to call out to him when Peeves swooped down, forcing him into the open aisle. The click of high boots sounded on the polished floor.
“Sneaking in the Restricted Section - again!”
His way back cut off by Peeves, Sebastian was forced to face the seething librarian.
“I had thought we were through with this mischief. Clearly detentions are insufficient!” she shrieked.
Odelia could not hear Sebastian’s reply, but something in his expression made her not want to be seen by him. There was a strong defiance to his posture, and a wildness in his eyes. It scared her.
Is this even my Sebastian?
“I’m afraid I must take this to the headmaster?”
What are you doing?! screamed Odelia silently at the librarian. Can’t you see him, run!
Madam Scribner paused. “That being said, Peeves informs me that you didn’t come alone tonight.” She stepped closer, moderating her voice. “If someone has coerced you. I would have you tell me.”
All the fight seemed to leave Sebastian. He stood as tall as ever, but Odelia no longer felt that sense of trepidation that had surrounded him like a cloud.
“You’re a bright boy,” hissed the librarian, “don’t waste this.”
“There was nobody else.” Sebastian had looked away. There was no air left in Odelia’s lungs. “I came alone.”
“Oh, Sebastian. What will your uncle say?”