dark chocolate

The semester goes on. The Patronuses - the three of them that exist - are useful for remote communications, though they're too conspicuous for chatting in class. And even Bella can send return messages. Feral gets mauled by the carnivorous thorn plant and is sent to Healer Song with a disturbing grin on his face, and tells Bella all about the properties of the plant in question. Sherlock produces no further prophecies, but gets excellent grades in everything, including Divination. Bella gets him to read tarot for her and he gravely informs her that she is fated to be the ruler of the world, before sweeping up the cards and allowing her laughter to be contagious.

Tony draws brooms with jet engines, and jets with tail-twigs. Bella learns about Crups and Grindylows and dragons and unicorns and hippogriffs and Puffskeins (these are handled in-class; she likes them until they try to lick her). Feral works on Animagery and Bella collaborates with Tony on a Transfiguration project for a change and Sherlock gets cornered by Artemis Burberry's cousin and sends him to the infirmary with superficial cuts, stuck-shut eyelids, and a distinct case of unconsciousness.

Bella attempts to invent a broom-based sport that doesn't involve anything exploding or a disproportionate amount of scoring being performed by a single team position, but it turns out she's very bad at catching and throwing balls even when she's in the air and she gives up. The JROC courts the twins and gets nowhere. Feral's fire problem diminishes enough that between that and fire-suppression from the elves he can use magic in the kitchen; he learns to make cheese souffle. It is delicious. Bella loses her hazel wand for a day and a half before it turns up and feels very smug about her backup idea; she finds the missing one under the ingredient cupboard in Potions.

Renée meets her at the exit from the wizarding hideaway of the Bay Cauldron, and she goes roadtripping to Phoenix for the first half of the summer.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

pythbox

One evening, there is a tapping at Bella's bedroom window.

From:

occluminous

Bella peers out.

From:

pythbox

There is a Thestral hovering there!

From:

occluminous

That is surprising!

But only for a moment.

"Feral?" guesses Bella.

From:

pythbox

The ghastly dragonlike head nods several times.

From:

occluminous

She opens her window, but: "I don't know how to take the screen off. If I let you in the garage you can turn back there. Hang on just a minute."

And she closes the window again - won't do to let the nice air-conditioned air out into the Arizona summer - and goes down and clicks the garage door open.

From:

pythbox

Feral enters the garage.

His shape blurs for a moment, and then he's standing there in human form, fully dressed. He beams and hugs her.

"I did it! I did it! Being a Thestral is awesome, it's way better than riding a broom!"

From:

occluminous

She hugs him back, laughing. "I bet! That's awesome! But did anyone see you? Are you, um, invisible like Thestrals when you do that? I don't want you to get arrested for letting a Muggle spot you or something."

From:

pythbox

"Yeah, I am," he says. "I checked with the elves before I left."

From:

occluminous

"That's good, it means you haven't been photographed at least and if anyone did see you they probably couldn't get it confirmed," says Bella. "And I guess you can find places like thestrals do too, what's that like?"

From:

pythbox

"It's fun! I found you with it," he says. "It's like... I don't know what it's like. It's like something."

From:

occluminous

"I'm so informed. I wish I could turn invisible, then you could fly me around."

From:

pythbox

He shrugs. "I could fly you around anyway. If it was late and dark out and we didn't go anywhere much with people, nobody'd have to know."

From:

occluminous

"I don't think I'd risk it. Well - maybe if Renée drove us out to the desert, first...?"

From:

pythbox

Feral laughs. "Yeah!"

From:

occluminous

"And pulled over and it's okay if she sees... Are you allowed off-campus?" Bella asks suddenly.

From:

pythbox

Feral shrugs expressively. "Nobody's ever told me I'm not."

From:

occluminous

"...I guess that's a kind of a defense if someone gets mad at you for it. I can ask Renée if it's okay for you to stay here for a while if you like."

From:

pythbox

"Okay," he says. "I probably won't set anything on fire in my sleep, I haven't done it in most of a year."

From:

occluminous

"We can keep a fire extinguisher by your bed," says Bella. "And our house does have a fire alarm."

From:

pythbox

"—oh, yeah," he says, "I'll get in trouble if I just," he makes a wand-waving motion.

From:

occluminous

"Yeah. I mean, you could maybe get away with it if you're just putting out a fire, but I bet it also gets you escorted back to school." She closes the garage door and leads him into the cute little house.

From:

pythbox

"Which I don't wanna do. Okay. Your house is cute!"

From:

occluminous

"Thanks! MO-O-OM!"

Renée appears from the kitchen. "Hello - oh, who's this?"

"This is Feral, I told you about him, he's one of my school friends. He flew here," Bella says blithely, "can he stay for a while?"

"...Which one? You've mentioned several people with odd names -"

"This is the one who cooks and is a grade ahead of me and stays at school normally over holidays," Bella specifies. "Maybe he can come with me to the Starks' place when Mrs. Stark comes to get me, I don't know, I'll have to owl her."