As Morgan gazed upon the jutting turrets of Hogwarts castle she thought how much of her life there she had missed. A string of health problems had kept her from attending a full year at Hogwarts, and now she was looking at this new year with hope, although not necessarily with optimism. Weak blood. That was what the healers at St. Mungo's called it. It kept her frail, but she always tried to attend as much of school as possible, despite the difficulties.
The carriages trundled across the stone pavements, shaking as they did so. It was quite uncomfortable. As Morgan looked around at the students around her, a few second years, a fourth year, and a sixth year, she silently mourned the friends she never had. She had been friendly with a few students through the years, and everyone seemed to like her at least, but she hadn't ever known people she could call true friends. People that could stick by you in a catastrophe, and who would come and visit you when you were ill.
It was the same in the Great Hall. She sat next to some people whom she recognised. They gave a small 'Hello' and she returned one, but as the others engaged in conversations about what they got up to over the summer or what they thought the new students would be like, Morgan found herself staring blankly at Professor McGonagall. Her eyes had glossed over so much, she hadn't even realised that McGongall had started speaking.
"Greetings everybody, and Welcome to Hogwarts. I hope all of you will have a pleasant year, and I ask the older students to help the new students as they find their way around the castle. Now-" It was the same words as the years before, mostly. Telling people to avoid the forbidden forest, not to use magic in the hallways, etc. Personally, Morgan had always liked the idea of the forbidden forest. A magical woods filled with supernatural secrets and all manner of beasts. It was only her ill health that stopped her from exploring it. Perhaps she would this year, and damn her health. A couple blood replenishing potions and she was as fit as anyone else. But then her high spirits faded and she remembered that if anything went wrong, she would die. Fate had not been kind to her, and she was destined to spend her life in constant frailty.
Once all the hat had sung it's song and the students had been sorted, the food that was always delicious appeared on their plates by some unknown magic. Morgan dug into a large slice of pork pie with helpings of golden crispy bacon and sweet potato chips. The one advantage of her illness, she thought morbidly, was that no matter how much she ate she was skinny. But not the attractive kind of skinny, fit for those muggle swimsuit magazines, but the deathly kind. She had sunken cheeks and her ribs showed up pressed against her ivory skin. Her eyes had bags under them from how little she slept, and her green eyes, the only part of her body she liked, were constantly bloodshot.
When the feast finally finished and all the students were too well fed to be in any mood to argue, the prefects shepherded them to their dormitories. Morgan, being a Gryffindor, followed the new prefect up to the tower along with the rest of the first years and a few other students as well. As she gazed across the Gryffindor common room, she thought how strange it was that she didn't recognise the place as much as the other students who were happily settling into their old haunts. A couple were lounging on the windowsill in a deep embrace, a young second-year was happily falling into one of the armchairs by the fire with a muggle book in her hands, and a pair of boys were cutting through the stuffing of the seats with their wands. Morgan watched them for a moment, wondering what they were doing, until one of them pulled out a bottle of firewiskey from out of the stuffing with much cheers. Morgan passed by them as one of them repaired the sofa with a tap of their wand. She didn't feel like sitting here, amongst all these people, so she made her way up to the dormitory.
Unsurprisingly there was no-one in the dormitory. The students might be lazy from all the food, but none were yet tired enough to go to bed. The excitement of Hogwarts was more than enough to keep them awake for a few more hours at least. After she had changed into her pyjamas and laid in the bed for a while, she got up again. She hadn't been in bed very long, since there was still the noise of a party downstairs and no-one else had arrived in the dormitory yet. She sat on the windowsill and a gazed out across the grounds. It was a full moon that night and she could see all the ways across the grounds and into the forest. It seemed such a strange sight. Morgan sat there for a while, not really paying attention to anything, when all of a sudden she jumped back in fright. A rather large black bird, a raven, had just landed on the small ledge outside the window. Morgan almost toppled off the windowsill in surprise. She looked at the Raven. As she looked she realised something rather strange about it, the Raven had two different coloured eyes. One green, like hers, and one black. As she was contemplating this strangeness, the Raven tapped twice on the glass. It looked almost as if it wanted to come in, Morgan thought. However there was no way to open the windows. Morgan tried to communicate this to the bird, but not knowing if it worked or not just sat there frustrated. The raven gave a squawk, as if to express it's disappointment, then flew down into the forest again.
As Morgan went to sleep that night, she couldn't help but feel as though she recognised those two eyes, although she had no idea where from.
*
The next morning, Morgan awoke to find she was late for her first class of the day, charms, with Professor Flitwick. She hurriedly pulled on her school robes and rushed downstairs, having to rush back up and down again after realising she forgot her bag as well. Skipping breakfast, she just managed to get to charms when everyone was pulling out their books.
"Sorry Professor." She said as she rushed to sit down.
"Not to worry, not to worry." Squeaked Professor Flitwick. "Now, as I was saying, we're going to introduce some more difficult concepts into charms this year, which means that everyone needs to have a good grasp of the fundamentals before going forward. In particular, to start off our topic on advanced conditional charms, you're going to be learning about gubrathian fire. However, to do that, we really need to have mastered the fire-making charm, Incendio, since the gubrathian charm is a variation on that. So we'll be reviewing incendio today. Me and Brigit here will be helping anyone that gets a bit stuck. Remember, it is imperative that we master this charm before moving on. Now begin."
Brigit it appeared, was a slytherin sixth-year student. She had very long and flowing golden-blonde hair and pale skin. Morgan tried to not pay too much attention to her, but she was very pretty. She began casting the incendio charm on the small bowl of kindling in front of me. The bowl was enchanted to extinguish any fire in it within a couple seconds, so there wasn't any danger of it causing a bigger incident. After she had done it a few times, Morgan copied her. The flames came quickly and naturally to Morgan, who had always been good with charmwork.
"You're very good at this." Brigit said.
"Thanks." Said Morgan, looking up at Brigit. It was at that point Morgan realised where she had seen those strange eyes of the Raven before. Brigit had been the sixth year student that was on the carriage with her when they travelled up to Hogwarts. They held their gaze just long enough for Morgan to comprehend this, then Brigit walked on to the next student. For the rest of the lesson, Morgan couldn't focus on the spell as too many questions spun around in her head. In the end Morgan decided to ambush Brigit when the lesson ended. She packed up her things long before Flitwick ever gave the order to do so, and practically jumped out of her seat when they were told they could leave.
"What's up?" Came a voice from behind her. Morgan spun around. Brigit was there, waiting for her.
"Uhh-" Morgan was momentarily too stunned to speak. All the questions she had seemed to be rather stupid now.
"Come find me after lunch. I'll be near the edge of the forest." And with that she took off, leaving Morgan dumbfounded. She couldn't focus on her next class, potions, and despite not having any breakfast skipped lunch so she could go straight to Brigit. It turned out that she got there before Brigit, and felt a little stupid, waiting there in the shade of the trees with her stomach rumbling. When Brigit did arrive, she had with her a bag full of sandwiches. Morgan hurriedly grabbed the bag when she offered it to her, and between bites of the sandwiches asked:
"So, who are you?"
Brigit laughed. It was a nice, soft laugh, thought Morgan. "My name is Brigit. I have a family, but I don't care for them. So it's just Brigit."
"And- um-"
"Why am I interested in you?" asked Brigit, reading Morgan's mind. "I'm not quite sure myself but- well, I think you may be like me."
"How so?" Asked Morgan, picking up another sandwich.
"Lost. Thinking of more interesting things. Believing, in short, that there's more magic to learn that what they teach at this castle." She nodded her head towards the forest. "There's secrets in there that no-one, not even the headmistress knows."
"Well how do you know them then?" Morgan replied.
"Ah, because they speak to me. Because those secrets recognise someone with the appetite to wield them, and I have a hunger for those same secrets." There was a fire in her eyes as she said this. It was an obsessive fire, a desirable fire. It was the kind of fire that Morgan wished she could have. It was for perhaps this reason why she fell in love with Brigit at that point. Fell in love with her and her fire.
Morgan's mouth formed many shapes as it tried to ask questions, but again Brigit seemed to know what she was thinking. "I'll show you." She said. "I'll show someday, but I can't for a while. It's a new moon, it wouldn't be right. But I can show you. Meet me here again, when the full moon shines." Bye. And with that she left, back up to the castle. Morgan was left equal parts disappointed and excited. She spent an annoyingly slow month waiting for the next full moon, during which her anticipation caused her to need to go to the hospital wing twice because she had collapsed in the corridor. Strangely, she hadn't seen Brigit since that day, though she had scoured the whole castle for her.
When the night of the full moon finally arrived, she couldn't sleep, although that was probably a good thing. The moment she was able, she made her way down to the edge of the forest where she had met with Brigit before and waited. She had left when it was still light out, and so she had to wait the hour or so for it to get dark again. She just felt her eyes starting to feel heavy when Brigit appeared. She had arrived from out of the forest wearing an emerald green robe.
"Hi." Said Morgan breathlessly.
"It's good to see you again." Replied Brigit effortlessly.
"Yeah, same here. "
"Come on then." Said Brigit, grabbing Morgan's hand. "Let me show you the secrets of the forest." She led Morgan forward into a small entrance into the forest. It took a moment for Morgan to realise that Brigit wasn't wearing any shoes.
"I thought the forest was dangerous?" Asked Morgan, silently wanting to take her own shoes off now.
"Oh it is, but that's because it's an ancient forest. It's trying to protect itself. We'll have no trouble. We are bandrui. Or at least I am." She turned and smiled at Morgan. "And If you want, you can become one too."
It took all of Morgan's face muscles to stop her from immediately and embarrassingly giving away that she wanted this very much. They continued on their journey for a while, heading deep into the forest.
"Stay with me, okay?" Brigit said, squeezing Morgan's hand.
"Always." Replied Morgan, squeezing Brigit's hand back. After a bit more walking, they found their way to a small spring in the Forest, lit by the moonlight. It sparkled like silver and looked to be almost opaque.
"We're here." Said Brigit, letting go of Morgan's hand.
"It's beautiful." Said Morgan, staring at the pool.
"It is, isn't it?" replied Brigit. She turned to face Morgan. "This is the last chance to back out, once you complete the magic, you're one of us forever, you know what right? This is some ancient magic, not the kind that can be broken."
Morgan looked Brigit in her eyes. In those strange, mismatched eyes that were so alluring to her. "I'll do it."
"I knew you would." Replied Brigit smiling. "Now copy me." She removed the green robe she was wearing and slowly walked into the small pool until she was completely submerged up to her neck. She turned around in the water to look at Morgan with expecting eyes. At once Morgan removed her school robes and walked into the pool alongside her. It was warmer than she expected, but still quite cold. Once she was in, a fire erupted around the edge of the pool. Morgan, who was already close to the edge, recoiled further into the pool as the flames licked at her skin. She bumped into Brigit who placed a hand gently on her shoulder and turned her around so they were face to face.
"What now?" Morgan asked.
"And now, you dive." Said Brigit. The hand on her shoulder moved with seemingly unnatural speed and pushed her down into the water. It was done with such speed that Morgan didn't even have time to catch her breath. Brigit was holding onto her, dragging her lower and lower into the pool. Despite all the thrashing and struggling, Brigit held a firm grip on Morgan. Eventually Morgan knew she wasn't getting enough oxygen to her brain. Her vision was starting to fade, and the edges were going black. Screaming at herself, she eventually stopped struggling and just waited. It was too tiring anyways. She would be better off just waiting for death. And then she felt something clamp around her mouth. Something soft and fleshy. Something warm. Brigit was breathing a kind of fire into her, a life-giving fire which warmed her insides and gave her just enough strength to break for the surface. But it wasn't the surface they had entered through. They had entered into some kind of cave, but it was unlike any cave Morgan knew about. It was warm, much like a sauna, and there were only two sources of light, the moon shining through a small crack in the ceiling and a large cauldron of fire in the middle of the cave. Scattered around the cave were various things which were needed for living. Food and drinks, beds, tables, chairs, a wardrobe, and several bookcases filled with books and other magical trinkets. There was however, rather unusually, an armoury in the cave as well. Morgan's cursory glance towards it revealed a whole slew of weapons and chainmail and other metal things she didn't recognise. She was, after all, in the immediate process of throwing up all the water she had swallowed during the dive.
"Where am I?" Morgan asked, looking around some more.
"The cave of the bandrui." Replied Brigit.
"Are there more people here?" Asked Morgan, looking around again once she had caught her breath, but the question answered itself as she saw several other people she hadn't noticed before. They were all rising to walk over to see what had happened. Including Brigit and herself, Morgan counted nine people in the cave, all girls about her age or a little older.
"You're the last one." Replied Brigit, though it wasn't really an answer to her question. Brigit was currently getting dressing in some robes, though they were particularly revealing, only covering her from the waist down and being held up by a very long necklace. On her arms she put two large black metal armlets and around her wrists she put matching bracelets and around her ankles she put matching anklets. On her head she placed a small silver circlet, the one item of jewellery that the other girls weren't wearing.
"Here." she said, picking up some of the same robes and jewellery and handing them to Morgan. "These should fit you. They fit everyone."
"Thanks." Morgan said, and pulled the robes on. They were exactly as revealing as she expected, and she knew that if she was going to stay here then she would have to get used to her boobs being on display, but then again so was everyone else's so that softened the blow a bit.
(tbc)