The Spell of Sealing
Without Really Trying
By Anne B. Walsh
Hermione could hardly wait for her parents to fall asleep. The yearly camping trip to the Forest of Dean, always an eagerly awaited event in the Granger household, took on even greater significance this year. One of her letters from Sirius had promised that not only he but everyone would come to see her there, and possibly meet her mum and dad.
That's if they want to meet magical people. But I think they will. I'm magical, after all, so they're going to have to meet some witches and wizards along the way!
She had been uncertain about sneaking out of the tent while her parents were sleeping to make the initial contact, but a little thought had set her fears aside. If Alycone the she-centaur, or the wise wolf family, had wanted to hurt her or kidnap her, they could have done it a lot more easily back in the Forbidden Forest. Sirius could still do it any time he wanted to, with that popping-out-of-the-air thing she'd seen some wizards doing in the village called Hogsmeade (you couldn't do that at Hogwarts, she'd been told, and was very glad to know there wouldn't be boys appearing in her dormitory without warning).
It doesn't mean I should be stupid, but it does mean they probably don't want anything wrong. They just want to try out the way they'll be traveling here, at a time when they won't startle my parents with what they look like and who they are.
Finally, when her father's occasional snore and her mother's even breathing assured her they were deep in their dreams, Hermione slid out of her sleeping bag, scooped up her shoes, and slipped out of the tent.
A white oak tree. Pulling on her shoes and tying them didn't require her eyes, so she was free to look around the small clearing where the Grangers had pitched their tent, looking at each tree's leaves carefully in the bright, clear moonlight. Sirius said they would be coming around a white oak tree. Oak leaves are longer than they are wide, with mirrored lobes along each side, and white oak leaves have tips that are round, round like snowballs, white on the ground…
"…while red oak leaves have tips like flames, as sharp and pointed as their names," Draco recited, and felt the by-now familiar thrill shoot through him as Alcyone nodded in satisfaction.
{They smell different, too,} added Grasseye, sitting down to scratch an ear with a hind leg. {But you probably can't tell that, with that bitty little useless thing you've got on your face.}
"Better than a great honking muzzle like you have," retorted Draco, and shoved his friend's shoulder. Taken by surprise, Grasseye yipped like a much younger cub as he went down, and Draco laughed aloud, until a he-wolf missile hit him in the legs, sending him over backwards himself.
{Play-fight!} yelped Ashtail joyously, and leapt into the middle of the ruckus, licking faces with indiscriminate abandon.
Draco found an instant, in between fending off teeth and tweaking tails, to remember with wonder how different his life had been only two months before. Some of his training, to his surprise, had helped him learn about life in the Forest—the Stonehouse Pack had their own ideas about manners, propriety, and precedence, as complex as anything the son of a pureblood line had to learn by heart—but the days so monotonously similar that they might have been duplicated by a Cloning Charm, the lonely and fear-filled nights when he curled up under his covers and cried silently into his pillow, were gone as though they had never existed.
Maybe they never did. Maybe I just had a bad dream of them, and this is waking up…
The thought entertained him, and he missed a lunge by Grasseye and yelped in his turn as the side of his neck was ferociously washed.
"That will do," said Alcyone's voice from behind him, and her hand came down to close around his arm and pull him effortlessly free, as Moonfur and Smokepaw waded into the fracas from the other side, each catching a cub by the scruff of the neck in strong, white teeth and hoisting them clear. "Face me and hold still, Draco. You do not want to appear slovenly in front of your friend."
"Yes, ma'am." Draco obediently turned towards his teacher and allowed her to brush the dirt and leaves out of his hair and off his robes (which were a trifle the worse for wear, mostly with teethmarks, but had held up surprisingly well, given the amount of abuse they'd endured). "You said you would tell us what a white oak tree had to do with how we were going to get there when it was time," he said when she was finished, looking up at her with interest, Grasseye and Ashtail coming to sit one on either side of him. "And it's almost time now."
Alycone laughed. "Troublesome one," she said fondly, ruffling Draco's hair. "Very well." Folding her knees, she lowered her body to the ground. "Mount, and we will be on our way."
Draco placed his two hands on Alcyone's back and hoisted himself up, swinging his leg across with as much assurance as he'd ever used on his broomstick at home (Grasseye had been fascinated to discover that humans really could fly, and the boys had spent several hours discussing possible modifications which would allow a Person to guide a broomstick). Once he was seated, he adjusted his weight so that he was comfortable, neither grinding his seat bones into Alcyone's spine nor pinching anything else against her side.
Because once I'm comfortable, she will be too. And that rule works for more than riding…
Beside him, Ashtail bounced in place with excitement. {May I ride too?} she asked, stilling for a few moments to get her words across, then beginning to squirm again almost before they were completed. {Please, please, please may I?}
"May she?" Draco addressed the question to the three adults. "I can hold her, she won't fall…"
{As long as you're careful,} Moonfur said after a few moments of conversation too quick to follow between him and Smokepaw. {And if Alcyone agrees. It's her back, after all.}
"It is, and it will hardly be broken by such a small additional burden." Alcyone twisted lithely and scooped Ashtail off the ground, depositing her in Draco's arms. "Up you go, little one."
{Yay!} Ashtail wiggled once with glee, and licked Draco's cheek, but then stilled, wide-eyed, as Alcyone got gracefully to her feet. {Wow,} said the little she-wolf in awed tones, staring down over the protective curve of Draco's arm. {We're high up off the ground now.}
"Yes, but don't worry." Draco gripped Alcyone's barrel with his knees, feeling the way her muscles stretched and bunched as she walked a few steps forward, cuddling Ashtail close to him to keep their weights centered so they wouldn't slip. "I've got you."
But for how much longer?
The thought prickled at the back of his mind, and as he had several times before, he shooed it away. It didn't matter now. It wasn't important. He had his friends, and his teacher, and they would take care of everything. All that he had to worry about was what a white oak tree had to do with traveling.
{Here it is,} called Grasseye, voicing his words in a soft howl, his parents joining him a few paces ahead of Alcyone with her double burden. {The biggest white oak in this part of the home trees.}
"Well done, and so we begin." Alcyone turned her head to look solemnly at Draco. "Close your eyes, my young wizard," she said, her tone warm and loving but with an undertone of warning that she would brook no nonsense here. "This manner of travel is unpleasantly disorienting, otherwise. When you are older, if you are still able to partake of forest ways, you may see what it entails, but until then you must keep your eyes closed."
"What do you mean, if?" Draco draped a fold of his robes over Ashtail's face. Next to Alcyone's hooves, Grasseye had the features after which he'd been named shut tight, Smokepaw guiding him forward around the tree with gentle nudges of her nose. "Why wouldn't I be?"
"Close your eyes and listen to my voice, and I will explain." Alcyone drew two fingers downwards through the air, and Draco obediently shut his eyes, focusing his attention on listening, and on keeping his balance as Alcyone began to move once more, clopping slowly forward and to the left, as though she too were walking around the tree. "It is a question of how magic is used, Draco, and how it is not. At the moment, as we have told you before, your magic is somewhat formless, because you have never learned how to use it, or how not to use it. Once you reach an age to attend Hogwarts, and are paired with a wand for the occasion—"
"I don't want to go to Hogwarts," Draco interrupted. "I want to stay in the Forest with you. It's nice here. Nobody shouts, or scolds, or makes me do chores, or—anything," he ended rather lamely, recalling just in time that centaur though Alcyone might be, she was still a grown-up, and grown-ups did not take kindly to children tattling about other grown-ups.
"We will discuss that more later tonight." Alcyone was still walking, though by Draco's estimation she must have gone around the tree at least twice by now. "But for the moment—yes, we are here. You may open your eyes, Draco."
Draco did as he was told, not without a mental huff. That was it? What was the big deal? All we did was walk a couple times around—
Then he stared.
The white oak tree beside which Alcyone was standing was not the same one she'd started beside, nor was the forest around him the same. The trees here were smaller, but spaced more closely together, and the litter underfoot had a different shape and smell. Ashtail, in his arms, was also gazing around wide-eyed, and Grasseye was sniffing at things in bafflement. {How did we—} the young he-wolf began, turning to his parents.
{We walked widdershins around the tree,} said Moonfur, patting his silvery paw against it to demonstrate. {Now, traditionally, widdershins is the direction of dark magic, of wrongdoing. But we don't want anything wrong—we only want to be somewhere we aren't right now.}
{So the tree, in its annoyance with our tiny little 'wrongness', sends us to the nearest cousin tree it has to the place where we wish to be,} Smokepaw finished, rubbing her gray-furred length against the rough bark of the oak. {In this case, the forest where your friend Hermione is camping with her parents.}
"Is that how you do it," said a voice from behind Draco, nearly scaring him off Alcyone's back. Sirius Black stepped out from behind another tree, nodding to everyone and bending down to scratch behind Grasseye's ears as the boy-cub bounded over with a little yip of happiness. "I'd always wondered how the centaurs and such could get around the Forest so fast. Didn't seem to make sense that they were just running, but they couldn't Apparate at Hogwarts, or without wands." He frowned. "Though come to think, house-elves do both of those every day…but that's neither here nor there. How're you doing, Draco?"
"Very well, thank you." Draco nodded at Sirius's inquiring hands, and got one of his own hands under Ashtail to support her as the older wizard plucked them both neatly off Alcyone's back and set them on the ground. "Is Hermione really here?"
"She is, and her family's campsite is that way." Sirius pointed with a thumb. "Ladies, care to join me?"
{I think we shall, yes.} Smokepaw laid her head against Draco's shoulder for a moment, then stepped back to let him set a happily squirming Ashtail on the ground. Mother and daughter loped away in the direction Sirius had indicated, with Sirius himself following behind at a half-run, but neither Moonfur nor Grasseye made a move to follow, and Draco felt a little clutch in his stomach as both wise wolves turned their eyes towards him.
"Have I done something wrong?" he asked, looking from the People to Alcyone, who shook her head slightly, her face unreadable. She doesn't think so, but maybe this is something they don't agree about, maybe I've been bad and I won't be allowed to stay…
{No, you haven't.} Moonfur shook his head. {No more than is usual for you, which is about equivalent to what I expect out of this one.} He swatted Grasseye lightly between the ears with a paw, eliciting a small yelp and growl. {But we have a proposition for you, Draco. A suggestion, something we want you to listen to, and then think carefully about…}
"You want me to—to pretend to be from a magical family?" Hermione stared at Sirius. "Why?"
"Not all the time, and not for a couple years at least." Sirius accepted a stick from the littlest wise wolf, Ashtail, and dug its tip into the ground. "As for why, well, you remember the sorts of things Draco was saying to you the day you two first met? He didn't just make that up out of his own head, Hermione. He was taught that way. He's learned better since, as you'll see in just a few minutes here, but plenty of the families that have been magical for a long time still think like that. And a while back, before you were born, there was a war going on over exactly that…"
Smokepaw, the mother wolf, barked softly, ending the sound with a grumbling growl, and Sirius glanced her way. "Sorry," he said, and turned back to Hermione. "What I mean to say is, that was the excuse for the war. It was really happening because there are some nasty people in this world, and they'll take any excuse they can find to be cruel. And one of them managed to get a whole load of what're called purebloods on his side with that excuse, until a very brave witch—who just happened to be a Muggleborn like you—stopped him."
"Lily Potter." Hermione smirked at the shocked look on Sirius's face. "I read about her in one of the books I bought from that catalog they sent us home with, after the tour." She grinned in remembrance. "My mother was so startled by the delivery owl that she nearly threw the teapot at it!"
Both wise wolves snickered audibly, Ashtail rolling over on her back to waggle her paws in the air. Hermione, greatly daring, leaned over to stroke the she-cub's soft fur, as she would with a puppy. Ashtail closed her eyes in bliss at the contact, and Hermione scratched a bit harder, giggling as one of Ashtail's back legs started to kick.
"Well, if you've read up on it any, you know it got pretty bad." Sirius's eyes were dark as Hermione glanced up at him, and she shivered a little. "I'd be willing to do a whole lot to make sure that doesn't happen again. And there's a possibility it might. But if you trust me—and if your parents do, I'll be bringing this up with them before we start anything, of course—I think, and Alcyone thinks, and our furry friends here think, that we have a shot at stopping any kind of Second War before it ever gets started."
Despite herself, Hermione felt her eyes widen. "But how—I'm just—"
"Don't ask me for details." Sirius shook his head. "It gets really complicated, with prophecies and foreseeings and all that sort of thing, and I'm not sure I understand it yet myself. But you don't have to do a single thing you wouldn't ordinarily, not yet, except for keeping in touch with Draco, and getting to know this one and her crazy big brother." He stroked the line of Ashtail's jaw gently. "Though that's going to be tricky, when you can't understand what they're saying…but we may be able to figure something out for that. It'll be letters to begin with anyway, for all of you, and that they have worked out how to do. So what do you say?" He looked directly at Hermione. "Willing to give it a go?"
Author Notes:
Yes, I'm alive and posting again. Sadly, I do not yet know when Surpassing Danger will be updated, as life and my emotions are not playing well together at the present time. Thank you for your concern.
There is a truly hideous pun hidden in walking widdershins around a white oak tree. If anybody spots it before I post the next chapter, you get ten thousand points and a spoiler of your choice. No fair if I already told you.
Thanks, as always, for reading, and more updates soon, I hope!