Transformation
Undine was in Ginny and Gosse’s bedroom early the next morning, her lit wand hovering above Ginny, showing her unusually anxious features.
“What’s wrong?” Ginny whispered. “Are you OK?”
Undine merely nodded. “Come,” she said. She seemed twitchy and full of emotion, of anticipation. Did she want Ginny? But Undine was urging her to dress, her shaking hands trying to help Ginny into her clothes. “You will need to be warm…”
Undine’s hand was feverishly hot as she led Ginny downstairs, and breathlessly gathered an untidy pile of papers from the dining table. She urged her out of the front door, into the chilled air.
“Won’t you be cold like that?” Ginny asked. Undine was wearing a thin dress, without a coat.
“No,” said Undine briefly.
“Where are we going?” Ginny asked. “To see McGonagall again?”
Undine shook her head. “Magon says it is OK.”
“Then…?”
“Then we start,” said Undine. She was shivering, but more with excitement than cold. She led Ginny down the valley to beyond the waterfall, to where the broad curving bluff stood. “And you are sure?” she asked Ginny, looking into her eyes intently, with her own brown eyes. “I can do this?”
“Yes, of course,” said Ginny. How could she refuse Undine?
Undine’s hand went to her head. “I… I have this idea. It might not work. What we do then…” She stopped talking abruptly. “Stand here,” she said. She put her hands on Ginny’s shoulders so she was facing away from the bluff.
“I don’t understand,” said Ginny.
Undine shushed her, fluttering her fingers nervously. “Your wand…” she said.
Ginny obediently pulled out her wand. Undine was standing in front of her now, close to her. In the dim light of early morning, Ginny could see the dark lines of strain on Undine’s angelic features. “Lift,” said Undine. “Lift your wand hand…” She took Ginny’s wrist in her left hand, and lifted it further, over Ginny’s shoulder. “No,” said Undine. “It is too strange, this, with the wrong hand…”
Undine changed hands, so they were standing diagonally to each other. In her other hand was her stack of papers, and her eyes were flicking over the first of these. “You need to say the words… Only they are not words, they are… symbols. Then I will do the wand flick, do you see? So you are performing the spells as I guide you. Do you understand?”
Ginny could feel Undine’s warmth next to her, and she could just reach Undine’s side with her free hand. “Don’t distract,” said Undine, her breath on Ginny. Ginny could feel arousal building in herself.
“Now,” said Undine. “Repeat this back to me…”
Afterwards, Ginny could recall none of the strange syllables that Undine gave her to say, but with practice she could parrot them back, a half dozen syllables at a time. “And again,” said Undine. Ginny repeated the string of non-words. Like learning a song, she told herself. “Good,” said Undine. “Now with the wand. Are you ready?”
Ginny nodded. She felt Undine moving her wand hand, a strange, strong movement, and watched Undine’s lips mouth the words as she spoke them.
The ground shook gently beneath them. Undine’s eyes searched over Ginny’s shoulder until the shaking stopped. “Good,” said Undine. “That’s good.” She twitched – with excitement, Ginny decided – and spoke again. “Here’s the next spell. No, don’t turn round. I don’t want you to be distracted. You’ll have to trust me.”
“I trust you,” said Ginny, entirely honestly.
Ginny watched Undine’s lips as she spoke the next spell. This one was longer, and she needed several attempts to get it right. “Are you sure now?” Undine asked then. “If you do this wrong, it will make a mess. You must be right, but you mustn’t worry. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” said Ginny, marvelling at Undine’s angelic features. But the strange syllables were in her mind now.
“Once more, before the spell,” prompted Undine. Ginny repeated the non-words.
“Good,” said Undine. Now…” Ginny’s hand was moving, and she was speaking the spell Undine had given her.
There was no movement from the ground this time. Had it gone wrong?
“Good,” said Undine. “No, still don’t turn. After the next one, I promise…”
The next spell was shorter. “You will be using this spell lots of times,” said Undine. She repeated the syllables, and Ginny repeated them. “Nearly,” said Undine. “That is a strange sound in the middle. It is like Welsh, yes?”
Ginny didn’t speak Welsh, but she thought of Angharad as she tried to get it right.
“Good,” said Undine. “Your wand will understand that. Ready?”
A different wrist flick this time, and it was as if she was on the Hogwarts Express once more: Vibration, sound, moving air. Then a trembling thud.
Undine wrapped her arms around Ginny. “Yes!” she said happily. “Yes!” Her shaking hands were on Ginny’s shoulders, turning her around.
Ginny had to blink several times. The age-hewn rock bluff had changed considerably: A smooth curved wall met Ginny’s eyes, towering upwards. In the middle was a huge rectangular blackness.
“There,” said Undine, over her shoulder now, so Ginny could feel her warmth. “That is your Great Hall, in the middle. Exactly the right size, I hope. Well done, Ginny.” She leaned in and kissed Ginny’s cheek, making her shiver. “And over there… There, to your left! … Are the blocks you have cut…”
Ginny gaped at the towering stack of stone cubes, a yard in each direction.
“They are metre blocks,” confessed Undine. “Your British castle is metric, I am sorry. I hope you will forgive that.”
Ginny had no idea what Undine was talking about, and she was speechless at the changes to the rock wall.
There was also a huge pile of crumbled rock next to the stack of blocks. “For the glass,” Undine explained.
“So you see now?” asked Undine, her hands stroking Ginny’s sides distractingly. “Now we cut the other rooms out of the rock in the same way. Not forgetting the dungeon, naturally. And the chimneys, of course. Then we move inside, and cut the rooms for the house-elves. And then we use all these blocks to build. I told you it was simple.”
Ginny decided she must have left her voice with the towering pile of blocks.
“Don’t worry,” Undine was saying. “The rooms will not fall. Your students are used to stairs, yes? Well, they will have more stairs to climb because the floors are very thick. Probably thicker than they need to be, but that is safer. Now turn around, and we do some more.”
Ginny turned around. The strain was gone from Undine’s eyes now, and they were dancing with joy and excitement. She kissed her, passionately. Undine let her at first, then pushed her away. “Not now,” she scolded. But then she was kissing Ginny in return, impulsively.
She pushed herself away again and smiled at Ginny, merrily. “We are good together, huh?” she said. “My cleverness, your power. Amazing…” Another kiss, and they parted. “No, the castle comes first. Before everyone comes and distracts us…. No, Ginny! And embarrasses us! Are you ready for the next spell? Another long one, I’m sorry, then the Welsh spell again…”
Ginny remained entwined around Undine as they worked, cutting arrays of blocks out of the naked rock, creating room after room. The piles of rock cubes grew huge. Some were different shapes, Ginny saw when Undine let her look, some slender, some curved and chamfered.
Ginny marvelled at how Undine could conceive all this. Size isn’t important, someone had said to her once – Professor Flitwick, maybe? – when she’d discovered her spells were more powerful than other people’s, but how did all this exist inside the slender Undine?
They walked into the nascent castle, to the back of the entrance hall, so they could cut out the house-elves’ kingdom, deep in the rock, before retreating and invoking the Angharad spell to spirit all the blocks away.
Now the rock bluff was a honeycomb of rectangular spaces hewn out of the rock, rising high above them.
“Enough!” said Undine. “We are tired, and soon people will want to come and stare, and I don’t wish to be stared at. So, tomorrow morning, we do this again, OK?”
“OK,” said Ginny, in bemusement. “So how long is this going to take?”
“Are you in a hurry?” Undine asked her playfully, taking her hand and leading her back towards the lake. Ginny couldn’t answer that, wanting instead to wrap her arms around Undine, and cherish her, but as Undine had said, there were figures – both Hogwarts pupils and teachers - coming towards them, faces with wide open mouths and amazed eyes. “You are incredible,” Undine was saying in her ear. “Such strength. I wasn’t sure this could work, but I saw the image of when you repaired the school. If that was possible, I told myself, then so is this. And I was right. Have we done something new here, do you think?”
They were back at the house now, inside, and all Ginny could do was to turn to Undine and kiss her, hungrily, and run her hands over this concentrated genius. Undine let her, and kissed her back as hungrily, so Ginny led her upstairs, towards the guest bedroom Undine was using, barely noticing Ruby as they passed her bedroom doorway, or her raised eyebrow, and they were alone and unwatched, and she could warm Undine’s chilled skin at last.