"Milord—!"
Peeves tore around the corridors and was finally cornered.
"I was wrong, milord! Please forgive little Peevsie just this once—"
The Bloody Baron only stared at him. When Peeves' heart-rending wails finally sputtered out, the Baron asked, testingly:
"That little wizard—oh—Green?"
He kept his cold gaze on Peeves for a long moment, then drifted away.
Peeves brightened immediately and began to bounce upstairs, humming:
"Oh—a little wizard, best not to cross—"
As he went, he tugged the stair-runner loose, hoping to make someone trip.
…
In the corridor, Sean knocked on the Transfiguration office door and heard an unusually soft, "Come in, my… child."
He pushed the door open; with a flick of her wand, all the scattered letters hopped into their envelopes.
"Good afternoon, Professor."
Sean set his notebook on the desk. In his mind, nothing pleased a teacher more than seeing a student's progress. So he kept recording his insights and study pace; sure enough, the professor seemed pleased.
December brought heavier snows. Looking out from the window, one might have glimpsed a small miracle: a beetle went whoosh into an owl, which flew out, wings spread against the wind.
Its pinions skimmed frost-tipped turrets and cut steadily through the storm, a roll of parchment in its claws, until it vanished from Sean's and Professor McGonagall's sight.
A little later it came "coo-coo-coo"ing back in through another window, the letter on its talons dusted with snow.
[You practiced an advanced Transfiguration once at an Adept standard. Proficiency +300]
Sean stroked the owl's feathers, flicked his wand, and it became a little beetle again, its clear wings buzzing as it zipped over by the hearth.
He wrote down his reflections; Transfiguration had always been his strong suit.
His eyes shone; he raised his wand again.
[You practiced an advanced Transfiguration once at an Adept standard. Proficiency +300]
[You practiced an advanced Transfiguration once at an Adept standard. Proficiency +300]
…
He didn't notice that, as his casts mounted, McGonagall's hand trembled slightly around the letter.
"I should have known…" she murmured—her voice as faint as that dimness in her eyes when she thought no one saw.
…He never gives anyone cause to worry.
A sip of honey–lemon tea from the Transfiguration office, and his fatigue ebbed. With his body largely recovered, exhaustion never hit as hard, nor lasted as long.
"Living → living" Transfiguration was steady now at the Adept tier. Next, all he needed was Tayra's runic engraving; then he'd have everything ready.
Better still, Leon's mishap had given him a sample—something to compare against.
Sean's thoughts strayed to the Weasleys; they must be selling Canary Creams… which is how Bruce wound up hoist by his own petard.
Leaving the Transfiguration classroom, Sean decided to fetch more rune texts from the library. He'd finished what Professor Tayra gave him, but something still felt missing. Even she hadn't set a towering target—judging by the strength she asked of his Howler—but she clearly expected more, hence letting him choose his own practice piece.
What Sean didn't know was that even the twins' Canary Creams had been engraved with the professor's help.
Sean intended to finish his entirely on his own.
He had just stepped into the corridor when the Fat Lady and Lady Violet flanked him, peering with a careful, hopeful look that puzzled him.
"Fat Lady, Lady Violet," he greeted politely.
"Oh—oh, of course! Little Green, you and Rowland Taylor—no!—little Minerva…" the Fat Lady stammered, oddly flustered.
"Move along! Can't you see—" Lady Violet hissed, tugging her away.
Rowland Taylor?
It was the second time Sean had heard the name.
Taylor…
Turning the surname over, he paused where he stood. After a long moment, he carefully drew a sheet of stationery from his bag; a dried violet was pressed at one corner.
Memory rose—last winter, not much to mark it but this: three months in bed, dragging a failing body through the cold. Sometimes a person's will is vast enough to grant a life that should have ended the chance to cling on. Three months later the panel chimed, and he could just about get up.
It was a kind volunteer grandmother who'd tended him then.
December's dusk blurred across McGonagall's square lenses, reflecting the dying embers in the grate. She lowered her hand; the just-read letter trembled between her fingers, the ink gleaming in the firelight.
A quill lay by Sean's open notebook, her marginalia half-written. Her gaze fell to a frame on the desk's corner—things she had never imagined, things she had never known…
Outside, the snow thickened; Highland winds scoured the turrets. She removed her glasses and pressed her fingertips to the bridge of her nose. When she looked up, those usually keen eyes held a rare gloss, and the leaping flames fractured in them into gentle, painful sparks.
On the warm-lit desktop, only a silver cat figurine kept company with a small stack of letters. The words were neither long nor short, but they fell heavy as stone in the flying snow.
[I am very sorry, Miss McGonagall. You know the orphanage won't take on a child that sick… it isn't in the gentlemen's interest.
For three months he was very good. God be praised, he lived. Madam, I say this without intent to impose, but he is an obedient child—if you do not mean to adopt him, please don't send him back to the orphanage. I can do nothing else; I enclose fifty pounds and a quilted coat—please accept them.
Five pounds will buy a fare to St. Katharine Docks; the other five, please pass on to him.
The child told my mother that so long as he had a warm coat and five pounds, he could survive.
I have no words.
I am poor, humble, not beautiful—but when my soul passes the grave, my heart shall be lighter than a feather.
May God place all things into his hands.]
~~~
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