The Spell of Sealing
The Fire-Bird
By Anne B. Walsh
An interview with Albus Dumbledore in the Daily Prophet had once quoted the Headmaster of Hogwarts as saying that when he was troubled by a dilemma which seemed insoluble, or when the various burdens of his life became too heavy to bear any longer, he simply went for a walk in the woods. His problems, he said, lifted away from him when he was the only human being in sight, and the meditative calm of the forest helped him to think more clearly, and sometimes to see a way through his trials which had not been obvious elsewhere.
While Dumbledore's statements were, in the strictest sense of the word, the truth, his walks had far more to them than most of his audience would ever suspect.
{The fire-bird, the fire-bird!} Ashtail burst into the den-cave, bouncing with excitement, making Grasseye look up, startled, from the piles of plants Alcyone had given him to learn by sight, scent, and name. {The fire-bird, he's back, he's back!}
{Sit,} Grasseye ordered, and Ashtail did so, but her whole back half continued to wiggle with happiness. {Do Mum and Dad know? Or the elders?}
{ Mum was with me when we saw him, and Bramblebud went to tell the elders. I don't know where Dad is.} Ashtail's squirming stilled momentarily. {He goes away a lot since you started learning from the centaurs.}
{Oh, sure, make everything my fault.} Grasseye growled at his sister, but relented when she cowered and whined. {I'm sorry, Ash, I didn't mean it like that. Will you show me where the fire-bird's perching?} He grinned, his lower jaw dropping to show off his fine white teeth. {Now that I can finally see him properly?}
{Yes!} Ashtail leapt into the air, her own grin appearing to match her brother's. {Yes, I will!}
Side by side, the cubs raced out of their den-cave and into the home trees beyond the clearing's edge.
"The world sees only what it wishes to see, in many cases," said Headmaster Albus Dumbledore thoughtfully, leaning back in the chair of sun-warmed stone he had formed over many visits to this small, hidden glen through the years he had devoted to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. "In my case, depending on who precisely is doing the seeing, a foolish old man well past his prime, or a champion of wisdom and goodness despite his age. Neither perception is entirely false, but certainly they cannot be called the truth either!"
A snort came from the underbrush nearby, sounding very like a suppressed laugh.
"And what of you, my friends?" Dumbledore closed his eyes, letting his mind open and relax, aided by a certain potion of which he had sipped a careful measure before leaving the castle. It could be dangerous, used too often or in too large of quantities, but at the proper dose, it aided a type of perception of which few wizards and witches were even aware. "What would the world see if they looked at you?"
"Danger," said a man's mid-range tenor without hesitation. It was calm, a trifle hoarse, and clearly understandable, despite the fact that Dumbledore knew he heard it with his inner ears, rather than his outer ones. "Sharp teeth and claws, some of the aspects of monsters—not all of them, which I have to assume is due to a certain amount of cross-breeding, but enough. They would fear us, run from us, snatch their children away."
"And why is that?" Dumbledore kept his eyes closed, his voice mild, his breathing calm and unhurried. He knew he could not fool his conversation partner—no matter how controlled he might be, his scent would give him away—but the effort was likely to be appreciated.
"Because they do not know us." A woman's voice, a warm and full alto, took over the conversation, speaking a bit more hesitantly than the man had, as though this mode of communication were not as familiar to her. "They would try to place us into the categories of things they already know, never realizing that we are different from all those things. That they must broaden their minds, connect ideas they had never connected before, if they are to understand us."
"How should that be done?" Dumbledore felt pieces begin to fall into place within his own mind, for surely this had a bearing on the problem he had come into the Forest to contemplate—the troubles that our Muggleborn students face, entering a world so different from anything they have ever seen or known, and many of them bearing the stigma of difference already from the eruptions of their magic through childhood…
"In a perfect world?" The man chuckled. "Not that there's any such thing, but if I had my way, we'd catch them early. Train them up young. Children will accept anything that looks like fun, especially if it also makes sense in their own logic."
"And as they grow, they will not think to question," the woman seconded. "Until they find others who think differently, and are surprised, and begin to question all that they have learned from their families." She laughed. "But that is simply part of growing up, be you who you may."
Dumbledore exhaled in satisfaction as the last piece snapped home. "So it is, madam," he said, sitting up and opening his eyes. "So it is indeed."
He received no answer, nor was there anyone to be seen within the clearing, but then, such was always the case when he took part in these little colloquies. Sometimes, as today, he provided his own means of hearing the other participants, while on other occasions they and others of their kind had met him more formally, with a centaur to act as interpreter.
And neither of us will ever say, but both of us know, that there once was a time when I met this man face to face, and spoke to him directly, in human words…
Getting to his feet, he stretched his stiff muscles, then began to walk in the direction from which he could faintly hear Fawkes singing. If he moved quietly, there was a possibility he might get a glimpse of something he had never yet been allowed to see.
Grasseye sat at the foot of the tree in which the fire-bird was perched, content, for once, to do nothing but watch and listen. He had heard stories from his parents and sister of the fire-bird's glories for as long as he could remember, but to see such a thing up close for himself was utterly delightful. The bird's eyes were closed, his red-and-gold head tipped back, as he poured his song out onto the air, a song that made Grasseye want to jump and dance like his own silly sister, want to race off and defeat one of the manylegs in a great battle, want to do all sorts of things he couldn't quite understand—
The song slowed, then stopped, and Grasseye sighed, shaking his head to bring himself back to the reality of the home trees on a sunny afternoon. {Thank you,} he told the fire-bird, lowering his front half to the ground in a polite bow. {That was very beautiful.}
The bird bowed in response and whistled a few sweet notes, then took wing, soaring across the clearing to—
Grasseye froze in shock as he followed the bird's flight with his eyes. While he had been listening to the song, a twoleg, a human, had stolen up almost close enough to touch him!
But he's not threatening me. The old two—human—was simply standing there, the fire-bird perched on his wrist, until he held out his arm to a small tree beside him, allowing the bird to sidle off onto a branch. He's not doing anything except looking.
Beside him, Ashtail whined a little, and Grasseye licked her muzzle once. {It's okay, Ash,} he told her, putting his paw protectively across her, so that she was peering out between his front legs. {He won't hurt us. Use your nose, silly—he isn't angry, or afraid, or blood-hungry like the manylegs, or anything except…} He wrinkled up his own nose in perplexity as the overtones of the emotions the human was feeling came clear to him. {Happy and sad, all at once. And a lot of both of them.}
{Happy and sad?} Ashtail shook her head until her ears flapped. {That's strange.}
{That's humans.} Grasseye wagged his tail a little in pride at his proper use of the term. {Remember Dad's stories. They're never sure what they feel, even themselves. And they can't tell what other people are feeling either. It causes all kinds of problems.}
{But can't they smell it?} Ashtail nuzzled Grasseye's fur. {Feelings all smell different. Everybody knows that.}
{Yes, but look how small his nose is.} Grasseye nodded towards the human, who was still watching both of them closely. {I don't think he can smell much of anything.}
{Oh.} Ashtail lowered her ears. {That's so sad.}
Dropping to her belly, she began to wiggle across the clearing towards the human, glancing back at Grasseye every so often to be sure he was still there. Grasseye sat down, watching closely, ready to defend his sister if there should be need—
But the fire-bird is good. One of Alcyone's lessons to the cubs of the Stonehouse Pack through the long, chill nights of winter had been about the magical animals who shared their home trees, and which of them inclined towards good or evil or sat in between, which ones followed laws and which ones were a law unto themselves. He makes his own rules, but he's good. He wouldn't be friendly to a human who would hurt someone else without a reason.
And this human, crouching down now to let Ashtail sniff his fingers and learn his scent, gave Grasseye the impression of constant thought, as if his mind were as busy, and buzzy, as a beehive. The fire-bird, perched in the tree beside the two, was scratching his head with one clawed foot, eyes half-shut in concentration.
Slowly, as though it made no difference to him whether he stayed put or moved, Grasseye got to his feet and meandered across the clearing, watching Ashtail wriggle in delight as the human stroked her belly fur. Stopping just out of arm's reach, he sat down again and regarded the human more closely.
At least this one has some fur of his own, even if it is awfully overgrown. He had to stifle a laugh when Ashtail yipped comically at the tickling touch of the human's long white face-fur on the bottom of her chin. And he has things on his face to look through, like the patterns Alcyone drew on my face with the plant-stuff. Remembering that smelly spell, he wrinkled up his nose. Maybe, if I were still a human, would I be wearing those things too, instead of having a spell on me? Is that how humans fix it when they can't see very well?
The human was looking at him now, calmly, even smiling a little (Grasseye's recognition of human facial movements and their matching emotions had grown by leaps and bounds since he'd started learning from Alcyone, given that she was human from about the waist up), the expression creasing the corners of his pale blue eyes. After stroking Ashtail once more, he held out his hand to Grasseye, fingers curled under.
As was only polite, Grasseye sniffed, and blinked at the complex rush of scents into his nose. The sweet, smooth smell of beehives was there, but coupled with it were sharper aromas: one smelled like a tree which grew near the edge of the People's territory, which had tasty berries but mildly poisonous wood; another was mouth-puckeringly tart and unfamiliar to him, though he thought he might have caught just a snatch of it in one of Alcyone's herbal mixes, when she had added a few pinches of something bright yellow and finely ground.
{He's nice,} Ashtail announced, squirming around so that Grasseye could see her face. {I like him.}
{I like him too.} Grasseye bowed a little to the human, and scooted closer to allow a proper ear scratch to be administered. {But then a fire-bird wouldn't be friends with just anybody. They're as strong with good magic as unicorns, and they're smarter.}
{But unicorns are pretty,} Ashtail protested, then sighed as the fire-bird looked down at her with an inquisitive chirp. {You're pretty too,} she told him, panting her appreciation up at him, a comical sight given that she was still lying on her back. {But—unicorns…}
{Cubs!} Their father's sharp bark from within the thicket nearby made Ashtail yelp in shock and brought Grasseye to his feet. The human rose, looking (and smelling) mildly distressed.
"I hope they will not be in trouble for greeting me," he said, his eyes resting on the section of bushes from which Grasseye could now catch the scents of both father and mother. "It was very pleasant to see both of them, and I would enjoy the chance to do so again, from time to time. If it were possible, of course."
Ashtail rubbed her face once against the bottom of the human's false-fur, then bolted into the underbrush, where a muffled yip told Grasseye one parent or the other had taken her immediately into custody. He kept his own paws planted defiantly.
They said they didn't want me thinking humans were all bad…
After a few moments, the bushes rustled, and Smokepaw stepped out, Ashtail dangling from her mouth. She set the cub down, licked her fur straight, and fixed her gaze on Grasseye. {We will be having a little talk about obedience when we get back to the den-cave,} she told him, but her slowly wagging tail hinted that she wasn't entirely displeased.
{Yes, Mum.} Head down, Grasseye padded over to his mother's side and sat. Smokepaw gave his fur a few perfunctory licks as well, then nipped the tip of his ear sharply enough to make him yelp in his turn. The human's scent took on a touch of amusement.
{My love,} Smokepaw called after a few moments had passed with no further movement from any party. {I believe he waits for you.}
Moonfur's response was only partly understandable to Grasseye, involving references and actions with which he was unfamiliar, but it made Smokepaw bare her teeth and growl. {I will remind you that there are cubs present,} she snapped. {Our cubs. And your being profane will change nothing.}
{Do you really want to lose me so badly?} Moonfur shot back. {This is the life I left behind, Smokepaw. The life I wanted to forget. If it's followed me even here—}
{He knows already who you are, and who you were,} Smokepaw cut off her mate mercilessly. {Showing or hiding yourself changes nothing. And skulking in the bushes like a cub who believes that if he cannot be seen, neither can he be heard or smelled, is unbecoming to your years.}
A grumbling sigh greeted this. Then the branches parted, and Moonfur emerged. Grasseye looked at the ground, prepared for his father's cuff or admonishing growl, but instead felt the momentary weight of an adult's head resting atop his own in protection and approval.
"'Safe, free, and happy', wasn't it?" the human remarked. "All in all, I would say you have succeeded very well, so far. And no one will learn of your whereabouts from me." He paused. "Though there might be one who would deserve to know, if any would."
The next four words made little sense to Grasseye, put together, though individually he understood them all. Alcyone had shown him and the other cubs some of the brightest stars in the night sky and named them, explaining what they and the planets signified when they took on their different combinations, and he'd known his colors since he was littler than Ashtail (though he knew many creatures who shared his general body conformation couldn't see all of the ones he could). But how could a star and a color be alive? And why was this nonsensical news so shocking to his father?
He set it aside as something to ask about later, when things weren't quite so crazy.
Author Notes:
Thanks to everyone who has been so awesome about sending lots of helpful, polite comments, both about my fan writing and my originals! More of this one, and Surpassing Danger, coming as soon as possible!