delicious snacks

[occluminous]

Bella is about to turn thirteen! This is exciting.

Comments

[pythbox]

Feral volunteers to make her a tasty picnic for her birthday.

[nobodyelse]

Sherlock volunteers to help.

[pythbox]

They emerge from the kitchen on the big day carrying an enormous picnic basket between them, which neither one could manage on his own. Well, they could levitate it, but Feral is still not keen on pointing his wand at things he'd like to keep and Sherlock assures him that this way is more fun.

[occluminous]

Bella has found a nice picnic spot on the edge of the grounds, and turned a napkin into a picnic blanket which should last long enough.

[sparksflying]

Tony provides her charming company!

[pythbox]

Tony's company is very charming.

Sherlock and Feral set the basket down on the edge of the blanket. Feral distributes hugs.

[occluminous]

Hugs are appreciated!

So is the food. Wow, food. Mmmmmmm, food.

[pythbox]

Feral is proud of the food.

[nobodyelse]

So is Sherlock.

[sparksflying]

"You guys are the best," says Tony. "There should be more birthdays around here."

[occluminous]

"Feral, did you pick one yet?"

[pythbox]

"Nope," he says. "Do I need one? I could just make picnics whenever. Picnics are fun."

[occluminous]

"Maybe we should do a picnic on some kind of regular basis. This is California, it's not like it's going to have unpicnicky weather one day."

[pythbox]

"I'd love that!" says Feral.

[nobodyelse]

"Hear, hear," says Sherlock.

[occluminous]

"Once a month maybe," says Bella.

[sparksflying]

"Hell yes."

[occluminous]

"Awesome!" Bella flops onto her back on the blanket, looking up at the sky, and pops another strawberry into her mouth.

[pythbox]

Flopping is a great idea. Feral flops into Tony's lap. It is comfy there.

[sparksflying]

She ruffles his hair and feeds him a cookie.

[occluminous]

The picnic food dwindles, and they talk about random topics ranging from Herbology to the Australian exchange students in the twelfth grade.

It gets a little chilly.

Maybe the sun is just not so high in the sky any more. Maybe there's more cloud cover.

(There's not more cloud cover.)

[pythbox]

Feral shivers.

[occluminous]

Bella recognizes this cold.

She's got her hand on her hazel wand in a moment, and she's on her feet, and she's facing the direction it's coming from.

There's nothing visible through the trees, yet.

She shakes but doesn't fall.

[pythbox]

Feral recognizes it, too.

His first instinct is to hide in Tony's lap, which is warm and snuggly and contains zero Dementors.

[occluminous]

The Dementor glides out from behind the trees - distant shadow nearing them.

Bella is still standing up. She checks her wand grip.

She says, "I don't know if this is going to work."

And then she aims at the Dementor and snaps, "Expecto patronum."



That's not mist.

It's light, pouring out of her wandtip, and forming a very definite shape.

It's not an animal. It's a person, two arms and two legs, indeterminate sex, compact enough that it's not even necessarily a human but could be an elf or a goblin or a hag, its shifting glow and fog obscuring where it would have features. It's the idea of a person.

Bella keeps her wand raised, biting her lip so hard that she's starting to bleed, and her blindingly silver person warms the air and lifts the oppressive dark -

And it darts forward almost too quick to see, and its hand shoots towards the dementor as though to strangle the monster -

Which dissolves on contact.

Leaving a tattered cloak, falling into a heap at the feet of the glowing Patronus.