Alone, but not lonely

Then they let the different materials fly around her and she could touch them all to find something fitting. She discarded half of them immediately, “Because if I can choose, I will not take something dead.” In the end two kinds of dragon hide one Welsh Green and one Maleficent: “Are you sure those are alright? The dragons are dead?” “Yes, the dragons died naturally. Animals are much more lenient with what they leave behind if they had a pleasant life.”; a cloth out of flax “Is it possible to add my own hair? I always collect it.” “Yes, it is. We can even only use your hair if you collected enough.”; and a dirty cloth, that the hags didn’t knew what it was made of, but had acquired anyway, because it was cheap, and they had a lot of it. They had originally thought of using it as curtains, it was difficult to work with though and they just weren’t able to clean it.

“We make two pair of gloves and ankle boot, one out of each dragon hide. And yes, you need gloves, you can use them in winter or in the garden or for brewing. We will add charms for growth, stability and add a book on how to clean them properly, so you can use them for several years.”

“Can I add my own magic too? And can you make sure to keep your thoughts pure while working? I already know way too detailed how sex works, don’t care what you make for dinner and definitely am not interested in either.”

“Oh, you poor thing.” Markus chuckled.

“Hags do not have sex.” “And we already ate.” “We’re living of children’s happiness, but the ministry has made it illegal for us to work near children.”

“There’s no need to worry about what I think about your food. I knew the moment I entered what you eat and have purposefully ensured I’m happy ever since. Also, the ministry seems to be evil, and I don’t approve. Is it a problem for you if someone sees me here?”

The silence in itself already spoke volumes. The vibes were starting to look like pictures of a horror movie. Not that Ares had ever officially seen one.

“I can change my age. It will just take some time and the glamour I wore when I entered is actually the only one I have which adapts to the age. It’s quite difficult to make, so I only made one.”

“You can change your age?” Several voices asked at about the same time. Not exactly though so it sounded a lot like echoes.

“Yes, kind of. I just tell my magic to grow old. Once I’m at the age I want to have at the moment I stop, then I do, whatever I wanted to do at that age and once I’m done, I tell my magic to refresh, which kind of turns the process around. The change takes a lot of energy, so I only ever did it in my room on the weekend, when I was still wide awake and needed to lose some energy. So, it’s only an ‘if necessary’ option. And yes Markus, once the change works better, I can come here and change in front of you, so you can get all fascinated and maybe we finally find out what I am.”

“I like riddles and reading about creatures. You’re like the impersonation of perfect hobby.”

Chuckles and laughter filled the room, until… “Wait a moment. How do you know my name? I can’t remember introducing myself.”

“You didn’t. But I know which names you all chose to go by at the moment. It’s kind of written in your magic when you work around each other.”

“Makes sense. Well, I’m Markus. I’m sorry, but I won’t try to shake your hand again.”

“Accepted.”

“I’m Ms Hattie.” “Mrs Smitten” “and Ms Trudy”

“It’s nice to meet you all.”

“Excellent. I believe we decided on gloves and boots. Now the trouser we will make three, the dragon hides and the weird cloth. The shirts we make five, two flaxes in different colours, the dragon hides and the weird cloth. The robes we make also three like the trousers. And one cloke for winter, would you prefer the dragon hides, alone or combined, or the weird cloth?”

“First of all, I don’t need so many clothes. I will only visit the wixen world every now and then. I have bought two books on household charms, so will be able two clean them.”

“Nonsense” “we will give you a book on how to keep everything clean” “And we give you a discount, because you fed us for the month.”

“I agree with my colleagues. You might not need the cloths, but it will be nice to have a variety.”

“You do not get to agree. You haven’t gotten an ounce of my blood yet.”

“And I will not take one.” Ares raised her eyebrow. “It’s against the law to take wixen blood, even freely given.”

“Aha, but I’m not really wixen anymore, am I? You can have a bite later, but I will not bleed in a vial and let you leave with it. I know your kind and use it as you say, but my blood has much more magic in it and I want to see the effect, as I’m not sure if it isn’t too much.”

“And again” “she managed the impossible” “by making Markus, shut up.”

“Oh, shut up you. So, there was a first, what’s the second.”

“Could you please stop calling it the weird cloth? I get you don’t know what it’s made of, but I do and it’s actually not so weird at all. It’s the skin of some kind of death horse or so. It’s apparently black, and skeletal while alive. The reason you can’t clean it is because when it dies it’s hide and bones are all that stays, but the hide is normally invisible. To make sure injects and other animals can find the cadaver the skin starts to draw on the fauna around and the pigment of the different fauna gets vacuumed into it. If you want to change the colour all you would need to do would make a lubricate out of plant oil and whatever natural fauna has the colour, then simply drain it in it for a night. Keeping it clean would work the same way, with plant oil. To stop it from being eaten you could add the same magic that is on the dragon hide.”

“Oh.” “Thank you for your inside.” “How do you know the magic for dragon hide works on thestral hide?”

“It looks a lot alike. All died natural. So, there are no memories of pain clinging to it and the traces of their sparks while different are more like the difference between me and Markus. We’re still a bit the same even though one of us looks dead.”

There were looks all around, before Ms Hattie asked the last question they needed answered. “Could you put on you’re glamour so that we can match the colours?”

“Sure” Ares raised one hand towards her backpack and the armband flew out and fitted itself on her arm and the glamour jump into place.

“You’re very powerful for a seven-year-old.” “Yes, a very nice display of magic and that doesn’t even include the work you must’ve put in that glamour.” “I already miss the multicoloured hair though.”

“And the eyes. You have the world’s best puppy dog eyes and you’re not even trying.”

“Yes.” “That she does.” “The most prettiest.”

“Thank you. I would like the thestral hide as cloke, but I would like it two-sided for wixen and muggle use, please.”

“What do you mean with two-sided?”

“I mean that I can turn the cloke inside out and have a muggle coat. I need a new coat anyway and the people I stay with just took me in, so they don’t know all my clothes, and once they throw me out, I can always say they had bought it.”

There were nods and no one commented on Ares way of living. Ares knew they all filled it up in their minds with all the other information about her though.

“You mentioned before that you would be able to make something out of the hair I collected over the years?”

“We work with all different kinds of fabric, that we didn’t realise the thestral hide is actually not common. But thestral skin is very expensive and mostly used in wands, sometimes potions. I haven’t heard of it ever being used as clothing. Anyway, just bring the hair you have, and we will try to get as much cloth out of it without making it too thin.”

“If thestral skin is so expansive, I would prefer not taking it. I might have inherited a lot of money, but I’ll share with my brother and we both want to be able to go to a school for magic. He’s thinking of Hogwarts, because it’s closest and my godfather told me about his time there. I would like to go too if they accept me.”

“Don’t worry about the expense.” “We wouldn’t have been able to properly care for and use the hide if you hadn’t told us what we had and how to attend to it.” “We will sell it to you for the price we got it at and not a Knut more.”

“Well, you might not need all of it for my clothes. I’m still little. So, you can still get a lot for the rest.”

“Nonsense.” “You’ll grow at some point.” “Or you send your brother over. Matching is very important for twins.”

Before Ares could try to protest more Markus intercepted. “We will sell the parts we can’t use for clothes or yarn. It’s still a lot of money. And you did spend a lot of time and happiness here already, and you mentioned coming back some other time. Even if you don’t, we’re still grateful for your visit.”

“You don’t need to use the thestral hide for yarn. It wouldn’t properly work very well anyway. You should rather use… My hair. Use my hair it will work better. I wanted to get a cut anyway. I can’t go to the hairdresser, because I can’t leave my hair lying around somewhere. I physically can’t, I will always think about all the hair I let lying around until I collected it.”

“I can give you a haircut, we have a chair for it over here.” Markus went to a side wall and opened it to a small hair studio.

“Yes, he can.” “Markus is good with hair.” “Veronica is better.”

Even though the three were speaking over each other again, it was obvious that Markus had heard the bit about his sister. He tried to hide it, but Ares was blind, so it didn’t matter if he physically showed it. She knew. “We can make a stop by your sister and give her some of my blood, Markus.”

All eyes went to him. He obviously didn’t like the spotlight at that moment.

“Come on, the grandmas need time to finish my first outfit anyway, and while I don’t mind sending scar for the rest, I would like to have hat least one set before I leave.” Ares jump down from the footing, summons her backpack and started walking to the staircase. Which technically she shouldn’t know was there, but she did. She also knew how to open the way to the basement and started taking two steps down before Markus got out of his shook and used his vampire speed to keep up.

While Markus and Ares went to feed Veronica, the three hags finished both boots, one pair of trousers, one pair of gloves, two robes both dragon hides and both flax shirts, in red and blue. The Welsh Green dragon hide would work for green; the maleficent dragon hide would work for purple and the thestral hide shirt they wanted to make yellow (the debate was currently between sunflower, ochre and lemon yellow) then every shirt would be in a different colour, and everyone looked horrendous in orange. It wasn’t an acceptable colour no matter the shade.

The debate about yellows was what Ares, Markus and Veronica walked into. Both vampires sated, Veronica hadn’t enough control to go slow, so Ares and Markus decided to look how her blood worked for him first (she had to make a small cut, to make a smell test) and then after they had let Veronica, who was already past stoppable feed for three seconds. Then Markus pulled her away, they gave her a moment to collect her thoughts and she got another mouthful. Ares got some water and a sandwich, and then they walked upstairs to get her hair cut.

Collecting the hair was easy, as Ares hair was quite long. Not getting a hair cut for over two years was a long time. Now her hair just reached to the collarbone when open. Veronica showed her a few spells for hairstyles. She now wore a French braid and had her glamour dropped again. It was nice walking around without it. It always felt like a sweaty shirt.

By lunchtime all clothes but the ones out of thestral hide were finished. Ares would send Scar, her black raven to collect the thestral hide tomorrow evening. And promised to visit the next time she would be in the alley. All of them ensuring her that they didn’t want her to feed on, which Ares just laughed of and said “Oh, gosh, guys, I know your feelings probably better then you, there is no need to plead innocence.” To make sure no one would get in trouble for hags being close to children, Ares made double sure to be sneaky.

On her way home she made a stop at the school, got the timetable, lunch and then joined for the afternoon classes. Today was a good day, and she would show Harry all he hadn’t witnessed. Except maybe the feeding of Veronica. That was just too personal.