Minerva Golding and the Wand of Silver (Harry Potter Deconstruction)

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I'm thinking by the term "fashionably modern" used to describe her hat, Kat would look more like Marlene Dietrich than 'financial crisis fuckboy'.
 
Twei said:
Sildanus having stood against the war is interesting. I wonder if that was a decision of their rank and file or whether it came down to whatever passed for leadership at the time. Either way, it's not who you might naively expect, as the closest thing to a left House seems to be Harrierette, whereas Sildanus seems most associated with capital in terms of politics and class position. Though of course, the IRL left wasn't that good at resisting the Great War, right? AFAIK most of the socialists and social democrats in Europe ended up supporting it, and anyone who didn't was pretty effectively marginalized, hence the white feathers.
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Odds are their stance came more from ties and sympathy to Germany than leftist pacifism
 
I'm loving this thus far. I hadn't even placed Kat was trans but I am *absolutely* here for it.
The parallels between the visions of Kat and Minerva are very interesting.
Also, I think Minerva and Kat will be roommates next year. My god, they'll be *roommates*!
 
Could it also be that Sildanus opposed Wizard involvement in the war, not opposed the war for any pacifist principles?
 
I wonder if there'll be some emprical proof to embarrass the idiots who got her Sorting visions wrong.

Also, for some reason, I usually think of Merlin as mortal.
 
Winged One said:
Also, for some reason, I usually think of Merlin as mortal.
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With over 1000 years of telling and retelling the stories of Merlin being the son of a demon, often the devil himself, were fairly common in older works it doesn't come up often in modern times.

Also the oldest mention of Arthur comes from a 10th century text that lists a number of battles over the centuries where the only mention is "strife of Camlann, in which Arthur and Medraut fell, and there was great mortality in Britain and Ireland".
 
Chapter Eight: Maxims and Maxims
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    • After the inauspicious start of alchemy, Minerva hoped that she would be able to throw herself into the classrooms with the same level of focused attentiveness she had given the books. The only problem was that these classes weren't different from her time back in primary school. She had remembered and dreaded the rulers cracking against knuckles and the fierce, attentive teachers waiting for any lack of focus in their students. She remembered the memorization and recitation. But she had hoped that, perhaps, having to do so while dealing with magical reagents and mystical wands would have made it a bit easier to bear.

    Minerva had been wrong. After the feather incident, Professor Ravenwood had gone into an exhaustive and intimidating series of quizzes on the parts and particulars of the British Isles and her colonies and their alchemical bounty. Any student that looked unsure, she had called upon. With an incorrect or inadequate answer? She had whipped her wand up and barked a single word: "Cidak!"

    With that word, a beam of pale light congealed from the air before the student in question and cracked out against their knuckles or their backsides - with the thick robes, that was less painful than it might have been. But it was still humiliating and stinging, and left Minerva even more rattled, even if it never happened to her once.

    And, to add insult to injury, Professor Ravenwood would then ding points off whatever House had had the luckless student.

    Among the terror and tedium, though, something stuck into her mind like a splinter that refused to quite leave. Gina, called to her feet by the professor, had stammered out: "And widow wood can, when boiled in tannic acids, uh, produce a…a…" Professor Ravenwood had lifted her wand, threatening - and the words burst forth. "A love philter?" Gina tensed and Professor Ravenwood scowled, then lowered the wand.

    Correct.

    A love philter.

    Those three words stuck in her mind - though she was able to ignore it as she went on to Evocations. Taught by the formidable Professor Stevenson, Evocations took place in a two tiered room. The first was a series of desks and a chalkboard, which already had two diagrams of wands sketched out on it. The second, reachable by a small set of stairs that ran down the cliff-like edge of the class (there were no guide rails in the slightest) was a circular chamber with a brown dirt floor and a domed ceiling. Professor Stevenson's introductory lecture laid out the purpose of the room with a single chilling phrase.

    "Dueling in the astral may be untenable for modern wizards - but the Code Duello still is practiced in the mundane world, and there is little better to focus one's invocational abilities more than the promise of defeat, eh?"

    Minerva had gulped at that. She had also hoped that, perhaps, Stevenson might dole out less physical punishment…and she did. But she was even quicker with a razor sharp barb and significantly more liberal with the demerits and additional classwork. One student - a Neil Bigsby-Melfandor - was trembling with such fright that being made to stand before the class and demonstrate he knew the proper wrist and finger control to direct the kind of evocation that Professor Stevenson was trying to instill in the students that he dropped his wand.

    Thanks to that, the entire class had to practice the gesture ten times in their rooms.

    "I'll know," Professor Stevenson had added.

    The only part of the class that hadn't been dreadful - or onerous - had been when Stevenson had actually introduced Minerva to something she hadn't already known (at least in a theoretical fashion.) It was when, in the latter half of the class, she had begun to cover the fundamentals of wand construction.

    "Each part of a wand focuses your will in a distinct and varied way - and often, in a contradictory one. This is why wands are fit to purpose. One component, say, the hair of a stone giant, will make it easier to work one's will upon stone. But it will also render one less able to influence the flow of water. Thus, a neriad's tear can be enclosed in another and it will have the inverse strengths and weaknesses. There has been significant advancements in the art of the wandmaker's arts in the 19th century that has led to the creation of magical focuses and transmuters that allow one form of energy to be changed from one to another."

    She gave a rolling snap with her wrist and her wand shifted in her hand, the brassy steel becoming like white ivory with a hiss-snap and a pop of smoke.

    "But even with these devices - which are expensive and not yet fully available to all save the most highly ranked war wizards of the Empire - an average wizard at work in a complex or sophisticated job will have two, even three wands that they will alternate between. Some of you will have your favorites, and ancient stories of loyal wands, but this is no place for sentiment. Evocation is, at the end of the day, as much about tools as it is about the wizard using it. We're far past the age of wooden sticks with unicorn hair and making do with a tree branch scratching out runes in the dirt!" She sniffed.

    Then Gina raised her hand and asked a question. "Professor, what about the wand of silver?"

    Professor Stevenson's face grew set and her eyes steely. "The Wand of Silver does not exist. We are in this class to learn the practical arts of magery, not to discuss legends. And grotesque ones at that! Five points from House Glintfaire."

    Gina looked pouty, then grumbled under her breath. After class, walking between hallways, Minerva managed to catch herself up to Gina, and ask her: "What's the wand of silver?"

    Gina laughed. "Oh, right. Right! Right!" Her eyes gleamed and she leaned in close. "The story goes like this. Back in the War, both sides had cavalry, right?" She nodded. "But you know how they just got shot to bits by machine guns and such? Well, that held true for the wizards too. Before the War, there were two kinds of war wizard who got all the glory. Fliers." She ticked the first off one finger. "And unicorn riders."

    Minerva's eyes widened. "Unicorn riders?"

    "Britain had thousands of them, four thousand to be exact, I think, a whole brigade of war wizards on unicorns, the largest of their type. They didn't even have that much during the Boxer Rebellion!" Gina's voice grew even more delighted with ghoulish relish. "And this brigade, the 1st, 2nd and 4th Silver Magisters, they went in hot in the Battle of the Frontiers, one of the first regiments that got on the Continent. They rode…right into a mundane machine gun company. Before they could even cast their first spell…" Gina braced herself, then made a stuttering machine gun noise, sweeping her arm back and forth. "A thousand unicorns died in five minutes."

    "That's awful!" Minerva exclaimed.

    "And their blood soaked into the soil," Gina whispered, in tones of telling a ghost story. "For four years, that blood slipped in as the war kept going - Verdun, Ypres, the Somme, all of them. And deep beneath the ground, in the mines of Mons, that blood congealed into a wand of pure silver. A wand with a drop of unicorn blood is the best kind of wand on the market - but this didn't just have a drop. It was made of unicorn blood." She stepped back, then grinned. "And they say that some British agent from the government snatched it up and bustled it back to London, right before the Armistice."

    "Is there any proof for that?" Minerva asked.

    "Nah, but it's a ripping yarn!" Gina said, brightly. "And, heh, if you were gonna keep anything secure in England, anything at all, Hexgramatica is the best place. Beneath the lake? In the cellars? Guarded by all the beasties and monsters we have around here?" She snorted. "Forget about stealing that!"

    Then she was off, waving. "Bye!"

    That left Minerva even more to think about.

    After evocations, she hurried out to the grounds behind the castle for her beasts study. Since it was further out than most classes, she had to nearly jog to make it before switching over was finished and the class proper had begun. Professor Stengard stood out in the bright sunny day before the thickly wooded lands that sprawled beyond the castle proper, and glared at his students. He was the man with the three scars that Minerva had seen at first dinner she had - and he lifted his ghostly hand as the students arranged themselves before him.

    "This," he said. "I lost at the Somme. This was cut from my hand by shrapnel and shell while in the deepest Astral, torn from my hand while nightmares that we barely have names for tore two of my best friends to pieces before my very eyes." His eyes squinted as he narrowed them, his scars twisting his features into a nearly daemonic expression. "That…is the worst thing that can happen to a man."

    His eyes fell on the girls, segregated from the boys as they were in the other classes.

    "Be glad that we won't be conscripting any of you," he said, his voice a gruff rumble. "Now, knowing the worst that can befall you, there shall be no sign of fear among you in this class. We shall be discussing, studying, and even capturing and dissecting the beasts of the magical world. No beast, ever, has been as terrible as a man with a wand. Remember that! Let it steel you against these creatures." He frowned. "Any man that shows fear will be five points from their houses."

    Minerva noticed he didn't offer the same threat to the women. She wondered what would happen if she screamed. She clenched her jaw and stood a bit straighter.

    "Now, who can tell me how to tell the difference between an ettercap and the average spider while the ettercap is in their disguised form or glamor…"

    And thus, beasts went on. The professor used magic to summon from the forest a few examples of the creatures he was discussing - and a few people to cringe backwards from the first of the hideous ettercaps, but Minerva remained standing at the front of the class and managed to identify several of the tells once, under ensorcellment, the ettercap had been compelled to transform into a spider that looked as normal as any other.

    Professor Stengard grunted and said: "Ten points for the plucky lass from Sildanus." He glowered at Neil, the poor boy who had barely held his wand straight back in Evocations. "What's your excuse, you fat blubberer?"

    Thanks to Beasts being so far out from the school, Minerva was nearly late when she burst into the classroom for Crafts, which was located on the top of a winding spire. She panted heavily as she stumbled into the form room, and was able to announce herself as present without too much trouble. Professor Harlington Tweed - the fellow without eyes from her examination - had everyone take their seats and then launched into a meandering, oft interrupted lecture on the nature of magical machinery and the crafting of various components of wands, brooms, and self stirring tea pots.

    The reason why it was oft interrupted seemed to be that Tweed never found a tangent he wasn't eager to follow down - and when he discussed things, he would begin to stand and pace - and as his back was turned to the class and he spoke on and on, older students would actively begin to pass notes to one another. Minerva quickly realized that this class might not be as rigorous as the others.

    She should have been offended at the waste of her time.

    Instead, she laid her head on the desk, closed her eyes, and tried to ease the tension out of her brain and body. As she closed her eyes, Tweed droned on and on about gewgaws and Minerva wondered if this school would be worth it. No, she thought to herself firmly. She forced herself to sit back up again and flipped through her notes - her eyes roving along the evocations and the alchemical notes. Nothing would directly fix the damage inflicted by polio, but she was beginning to see the shape of the magic she'd need.

    Minerva nodded, grimly.

    "I can do this," she whispered.

    "What was that, Miss Schross-Sableknight?" Tweed asked, sounding more bemused than anything else.

    Minerva coughed. "I said, uh, what about the function of, ahem, mundane artifice on, say, the creation of relatively small clockwork machinery? Say…the tiny gearing in pocket watches or combustion engines?" She asked, hoping that would divert Tweed.

    "Oh fascinating question!" Tweed said.

    And then he was off once more. Minerva tried to write down what sounded useful, she always tried to keep good notes, but it was impossible to follow his train of thought as it thoroughly derailed in the middle of a densely populated neighborhood of unrelated concepts; they'd be finding bodies for days. She found her own mind wandering, and her eyes in turn.

    She watched Kat's finger scraping out words. She cut them like she was carving with a knife - fierce, sharp lines with her pen. Her hand was gripping that pen like it was a weapon. She was so…strong. Minerva's cheeks heated as she imagined that pen pressed to her cheek. What words might she write on her? She shook her head, trying to cast the image aside, but it kept going: The cool metal tip of the pen, the ink soaked ball rolling along her skin, drawing a black line along her throat, down to the cleft of her breasts, Kat's insolent smirk.

    Minerva bit her lip. She imagined sliding down before those knowing eyes. Those fierce eyes. She imagined…

    Yes.

    She imagined sliding under that desk. Marked. She imagined taking hold of Kat's knees. Would she resist, just to mock her, just to force Minerva to have to push more. She imagined pushing, she imagined leaning in. Would Kat be wild and untamed, a thick bush above a slit as eager and moist as her own? Minerva imagined burying her nose against her pubic hair. She imagined letting her tongue sliding out, tasting her, tasting her all over. She imagined how thick, how rich, she would smell against her, tickling her nostrils, tickling her all over. She imagined the thighs closing tight around her, holding her in place.

    Minerva's pen creaked as she realized she was gripping her pen tightly. Too tightly. She breathed in - and found her mental image souring. She…she…

    … remembered the Trial and all their awful questions, their awful… insinuations. The accusations had felt like lies when they'd said it, but now that it had been spoken aloud the thought echoed through her head. It was so wrong, everything about it, none of it fit her.

    She didn't hate men, most men anyway, nor did she particularly want to be one or anything sick like that. She didn't want to wear men's clothes and she wanted to get married, someday, when she found the right man. She didn't want this. She didn't want to be a lesbian.

    But right now, what she wanted was to kiss that infuriating, mannish blond bitch two seats over. Be kissed by her. To touch her and be touched. She'd felt it before, but it was always dismissed as just… normal affection between friends, or a fleeting insanity brought on by the absence of male attention, the result of desperation or drink or boredom, not representative of who she was in the slightest.

    Because if it was, she was a lesbian, and she couldn't be. She didn't want to be. Absurdly, sitting in a school for wizards ignoring a lesson about magical machinery, she wanted to be normal. Please, God, let her be normal. Make her normal.

    The bell jangled and she yelped in surprise.

    Lunch was a hurried affair - but the food was just as high quality and plentiful as it had been for breakfast. She sat beside Millie and had to endure her tutting her tongue.

    "We've heard you've been spending a lot of time with Virginia Blythe."

    "What of it?" Minerva asked, her voice flatter and sharper than she might have wanted.

    "Well, she's not in House Sildanius, is she?" Millie shrugged, her voice chipper and bright. She spread marmalade liberally over her bread as she continued. "Some people who are less understanding than me - not me, of course, but, you know, other people - they might think that you wish you had been sorted into some other house." She smiled slightly. "Not that I think that's the case."

    "I have no complaints about House Sildanius right now," Minerva said, trying to remain polite. "But I don't see any reason why I have to stop being friends with someone just because they're in another House. I mean…we're all students in the same school, no?"

    "W-Well…I…I suppose," Millie said, having no good response to that, it seemed.

    Minerva felt better.

    Before lunch was quite finished, Minerva stood - explaining to Millie that she needed all the extra time she could to navigate her way through the school to the Runes classroom - and started to walk. She took her time, enjoying the change to just stretch her legs and not to hurry anywhere. Then she heard a scuffling noise - and a quiet grunt. The voice was male, and it aroused her curiosity. She stepped forward and leaned around the corner, ready to spring out if need be - but what she saw arrested her at once.

    There were two students, both male. The older was a bit taller and stronger than the younger - he was gorgeous, with a firm jawline and short blond hair and bright blue eyes. A pure perfect picture of the Anglo-Saxon ideal, strong enough that his muscles were visible through his robes. He held in his hand the wrist of one…Harry Arthur-Perry, who was pinned against the wall as the two boys stood quite close to one another.

    "Don't," the older boy said, his voice soft, his eyes boring into Harry's. "Don't even think about it."

    Harry was trembling. Minerva bit her lip, frozen between an urge to spring out…

    But then Harry turned his head aside. "I won't. Sorry, sir. I just…I wish they'd just shut up."

    "It's okay, Harry," the older boy let go of his hand. He cupped Harry's cheek, turning him to face back. "They don't know what they're talking about, is all. I'll talk to their seniors, we'll set this straight."

    Harry looked almost pathetically grateful. He nodded. "Thank you," he said.

    Minerva felt a confused lurch in her belly. There was something…disquieting in the servile tone that Harry had on. Seeing this older boy treating Harry like he was some…lickspittle feudal servant grated.

    The older boy chuckled. "Now, I want my boots shined properly this morning. You did a fairly decent job, but they need to gleam, understand? And we can go over your homework. And…" He paused for a moment, then glanced left. The only reason, when he glanced right, that he did not see Minerva was because she withdrew her head at the last second. Her heart thudded in her chest. She did not see what happened - but she heard something…soft. Then Harry's whispered word, not quite audible to her. It sounded like a name.

    Then…footsteps.

    Minerva froze, not sure what to do, not sure what to say. Then Harry came around the corner - he was heading in the other direction. He saw her and froze. She froze as well. Their eyes met. Silence hung in the air between them.

    "Hi Harry," Minerva said.

    "Ahem," he said, his cheeks burning. "Afternoon. Enjoying your classes?"

    "Quite," Minerva said.

    "T-That was my senior, uh, Robert," Harry said, glancing aside.

    "Sorry?" she asked, unsure what was going on.

    "Do the girls not… oh, well…" Harry trailed off, clearly trying to figure out how to explain it. "My uncle warned me about it, it's tradition. The older chap, they have newbies as servants, it's all very Tom Brown. I black his boots, make his bed, that kind of thing. It's just silly hazing." He laughed. "A-And, well, he's supposed to watch out for me."

    "Are you being given a hard time?" Minerva asked. His nod was brutal.

    Minerva put her hand on Harry's shoulder, squeezing. "It'll be okay," she said. "A-And, uh, if this Robert ever runs roughshod on you, tell me."

    "And what?" Harry asked, grinning. "You're two years younger and in another House."

    "I can still challenge him to a duel," Minerva said, smirking. "And I'll win too."

    Harry snorted. "What class do you have next? History, come along." He started and she followed after. As she followed, Minerva spat out what she had been chewing on for some time now.

    "This feels like secondary school," Minerva said. "I feel like I'm fourteen again, except in Eton." Her voice was bitter at the thought of that; she felt suspiciously like she was among the next generation of Tories to clutter up the government.

    "Oh, this used to be a secondary school," Harry said, scratching at his chin with one finger. He was a handsome boy. Minerva forced herself to admit it, watching that finger slip along his cheek. She tried to imagine kissing his cheek. Hell, she tried to imagine kissing his lips. The image didn't form. It didn't want to form at all. She scowled at herself, while Harry continued. "Started at… 14 when my Uncle was in, I think? They had to bring it up."

    "Why?"

    "The wands, you see. Back in the day, with hand-crafting and all, you had to give a child their first wand at age eleven - it'd take them a decade to tease any power out of it. Now they run perfect wands off a lathe and if you give it to an eleven year old, they'll just blow their house up."

    Minerva nodded.

    "They raised the age of admittance slowly over the end of last century to match legislation, but…" Harry shrugged. "I guess much of the structure stayed the same. I imagine it'll get more complex as we go; they just want everyone on the same page to start, especially nowadays with Sleeperborn and foreign students and the like…"

    Minerva nodded again - and they strode into history class together. The air was chill and cool, damp with moisture, and cobwebs cluttered the corners of the room. It felt as if the chamber itself had been abandoned for years. It smelled musty. But despite the clear age, it was full of students who were chatting cheerfully. At her look, Harry whispered in her ear.

    "It's Professor Fairbrook-Leed's penumbra. Being a ghost, you know?"

    Minerva snapped her fingers. "Ah, yes, of course." She had actually read about this. Ghosts infused any chamber they…lived was the wrong term. Existed in? Stayed. Whatever room they stayed in for a long time was shaped by their very nature. A wrathful poltergeist could make a room feel gloomy and threatening, and produce splinters in smooth wood, rusting nails and corroding roofs to make them fall in at the most inopportune moment. Meanwhile, a melancholic child ghost might induce an unnatural amount of rainfall in the surrounding area, or make a chamber cold and drafty despite the best efforts of carpenters and fireplaces.

    Professor Alison Fairbrook-Leeds, it seemed, was a ghost that longed after past grandeur. The room may have smelled musty, but the cobwebs were rather fetching, in a macabre and gothic kind of way.

    Minerva spotted Selene sitting near the front of the class, with a seat beside her. She took a seat next to the Wainscove girl with a smile and Selene nodded to her.

    "Hello," she said. "Say, you're part of House Sildanis, is it true that they have an orgy room beneath the lake?"

    "Good heavens, no," Minerva exclaimed.

    "Oh, disappointing."

    The wall before them rippled. A pale arm swept through it, emerging from the brickwork like smoke, then reached down, lifting up a piece of chalk as more of Professor Fairbrook-Leeds entered into the room, her white on white body glittering like a phantasm straight from the silver screen. The surreality of her was arresting and as Minerva gaped at her, the ghostly woman smiled at the class.

    "Welcome to history, first years," she crooned. "Who is ready to learn?"

    Professor Fairbrook-Leeds began with the earliest days of wizarding occupation in England - the Roman hermeticists, driven from the mainland of the Empire by the death of their secret ally in the imperial government, the Emperor Caligula, rushed to furthest reaches of the most distant backwater, unwittingly setting the stage for centuries of British wizarding dominance by their bringing the spellworking and spellcasting of the Romans to the British Isles.

    There were familiar beats from secondary school, but much of it was still new to her; old habits reasserted themselves as Minerva took studious notes and reminders to cross-reference with her textbook. At the very least Professor Fairbrook-Leeds wasn't a boring instructor.

    As she double-checked her notes in a quiet lull, she noticed how often things would circle around to wizards conning or ensorcelling the new rulers to ensure a place of privilege for their private little world. She wondered how many famous historical figures had known about them, how many were being secretly charmed and controlled by wizards, how many were collaborators… just how much did wizards control?

    Then it occurred to her, in a flash, that after hearing years of accusations to the effect, she somehow actually was now being initiated into a society of rich and powerful people who secretly controlled the world from behind the scenes. The thought was so absurd she had to cover up the laughing fit with a cough, tears staining her notes as she ducked partway behind her desk.

    "Miss Schoss-Sableknight?"

    Minerva rubbed at her eyes hastily and sniffed. "Y-Yes, Professor?" she asked, sitting up as she did so.

    "Are you quite all right?" Professor Fairbrook-Leeds asked.

    "I, ah, got a bit of dust in my eye," Minerva said, quickly.

    "That does happen around here - my apologies, class," Professor Fairbrook-Leeds said, smiling warmly. Then she looked back at Minerva, her eyes narrowing slightly as Minreva felt her lips trying to creep up into a nearly manic grin. The giggles were coming. Fortunately, she was saved at that moment as a black spider the size of a shilling crawled across a Harrieretta girl's knuckles. Her shriek distracted everyone and allowed Minerva to cough out the last bits of her laugh. As the girl was calmed down, Selene smiled at her gently.

    "I also found the tale of the druids being immolated quite amusing too," she said.

    But that left, afterwards, a single class of the day alternated between days for reasons that remained obscure to Minerva. One monday, wednesday and friday, the final class of the day would be broom flying. On Tuesday and Thursday, she would be taking her basic Runes course. And so, she came out to the field in the outskirts of Hexgramatica with other students. Many of them were carrying their brooms on their shoulders, but she saw Gina jogging towards her, robes fluttering, her smile massive and cheery.

    "Oh this is going to be famous," she said, her eyes gleaming, while Minerva felt her own stomach do a slow loop in her belly. The teacher from broomfliers wasn't one she had seen at the dinner table, nor one who had been at the inquisition. Instead, they were a tall, lean man with a blue colored uniform with a cape that looked rather like somebody had taken a double exposure of a military uniform and a Hexgramatica robe. He had a wand at his hip that was half again as long as a normal wand, and his chin had a cleft in it sliced by some kind of war wound. His grin was cocky and he had a military cap, which he had perched at a jaunty angle.

    "Hello my lovelies - Captain C.C DuVaule-Cordwine, his majesty's Royal Air Force, wizarding branch," he said. "I've been dispatched to this fine school for the education of his majesty's next generation of magisters to make sure that the lot of you are prepared for flying in an age of prop planes and machine guns." He paused, eying the girls in the group, then nodded again. "That means all of you."

    Minerva wondered when she had gotten drafted. Captain Cordwine, though, snapped his fingers. "Those of you who have your brooms pocketed, get them out, get them out, get them out." He started to pace forward, backwards, while a few other students brought out brooms from pockets and purses. Wands flicked and the words Kemb Micelnes So echoed. Minerva squared her shoulders. Moment of truth. She reached into her pocket…and horror thrilled through her.

    Her 'broom' wasn't there.

    She started to pat every pocket she could. She looked left and right, while Gina gave her a nervous glance. "What's wrong?" she whispered as Captain Cordwine ambled by, humming a cheerful ditty. He paused at her.

    "You're Minerva Schross-Sableknight, eh?" he asked. "One of my mate flew with a cousin of yours. Fine fellow, shame about Jerry. Where's your broom?"

    "Uh, I, uh," Minerva stammered, panicking. Then she saw, impossibly, that her broom was floating behind the Captain's head, hovering right above his shoulder. It remained small and it waggled itself from side to side cheerfully. The Captain looked rather perplexed at her expression, then turned - but as he turned, her broom skewed through the air, keeping itself behind his head. Other students saw. Some started to chuckle.

    "What the bloody-" Captain Cordwine muttered, then spun around once more - and the desk remained floating before his face. It waggled itself, then popped and snapped open its shelves and side compartments in a rattling clatter that went up and down the register, like it was a percussive slide flue. "What off Earth is this thing?"

    "That would be my broom, come!" Minerva said, pointing down at her feet, glaring at the thing. It turned to face her, then flittered forward, floating right at her hip level. She sighed, then touched it with the tip of her wand. "Kemb Micelnes So…" She whispered. The desk grew and grew and grew, until she found that it had positioned itself so that its seat scooped her up and off the ground. Now the guffaws and giggles were harder to keep down - some students pointed, others whispered, and one barked out a peal of laughter so fierce and mean that Minerva wanted to challenge him to a duel right that moment.

    "Well, I'll be unprintable," Captain Cordwine whispered. "You made your own broom! Out of a desk!"

    "I, uh, the Schross-Sableknight fortunes aren't exactly at their height," Minerva admitted, while the Captain walked around her broom several times, laughing as he did so. He leaned in close, palm rubbing along the side, examining it closely. Minerva saw a drawer scooting in slightly, as if it was preparing to spring out and strike his shins. She froze, terror jolting through her.

    "This is bloody fine work!" Captain Cordwine said. "I wish we'd thought of something like during the war - we could put two, four maxims on this!"

    The drawer relaxed and the side panels unfolded and flapped as the desk made a clinking chime noise by waggling each of its latches at once.

    "A bit more lively than most brooms," Captain Cordwine said, rubbing his jaw. "What finishing word did you lay on it? I thought that kind of craftwork wasn't covered till year two."

    Minerva smiled, shyly. "Family secret," she said.

    "Ah, of course," Cordwine said, then patted the side of the desk with such affection that Minerva felt herself growing affectionate for him in turn. "Why don't you put yourself through your paces first." He pointed with his finger. "I've arranged a simple flying obstacle course for you lot, just to see where you're at; we get all sorts these days. Don't you worry about falling off, by the by, this little darling has a range of two miles." He pulled out his wand, which did less to comfort Minerva than he might have expected.

    Minerva settled into her seat. "All right, broom," she said, and the name made the desk shiver - it seemed to be fine being called a broomstick, even if it was a writing desk. She smiled. "What does a raven call a writing desk anyway…" She shook her head. "Lets go!"

    Her broom shot up into the air hard enough to crush her into the seat. Wind whipped past her face, her lips peeling back slightly as she felt her vision start to go gray. She soared up and up away from Hexgramatica, and towards the clear, clear sky overhead. She saw the first of the 'obstacles' that he had thrown up: It was a pair of fluttering red flags that floated up in the air. Several more floated off in the distance - none of them much higher or lower than the other. Minerva smiled slightly as her broom rocketed her towards the first two. She cleared it easily, then swerved left, the ground banking beneath her. The whole desk rattled as she looked down at the forest…and realized how very high up she was.

    She gripped the armrests harder.

    The next two flags fluttered ahead of her and she banked through it. "Nice and easy, nice and easy," she whispered under her breath. "Nice and easy…" She banked again, then again, then again, and then, as she came to the last two red flags, she realized she had been taken in a grand loop. She saw the class cheering her on as she flew down, Gina laughing and clapping. She flew down and saw…not all the cheers seemed to be entirely genuine, as at least one wag called out.

    "You didn't fall from the sky, congratulations!"

    "For that, you're up next!" Captain Cordwin snapped, pointing his finger at the boy who had called out. He looked entirely unperturbed - swinging onto his broom, which let out a soft hum. He shot off at incredible speeds, kicking up a wave of dust behind him. Gina stuck her tongue out after him.

    "Prig," she said. "So, you won't win any speed contests in that thing, but you handled amazing! And it looked bloody comfortable."

    "It was!" Minerva said, laughing. "It really was." She petted her desk's top. The desk wriggled happily under her.

    Once everyone had run the course - and Captain Cordwine didn't need to use that wand of his - he nodded, grinned, and said: "All right, we have a whole crop of prodigies, it seems. No one fell off, no one crashed, no one lost their lunch…" He rubbed his palms together. "Lets see if we can fix that, eh!" his eyes gleamed with a malicious light.

    Minerva and Gina both gulped.

    ***​

    Minerva groaned into her pillow, while Bellatrix shook her head. "I hear they've been sending RAF wizards for the past three years, my brothers said it was just beastly. I can't believe they're expecting girls to ride brooms like this - we're not going to go fight the…" She paused. "The…the huns, I guess?"

    Minerva rolled onto her back with a sigh. "I suppose," she said. Then she frowned. "Is that a letter?"

    Bellatrix smiled, holding up the scroll she had before her. "Yes, my mother writes me every day, it's ever so nice." She looked down at it, clicking her tongue. "Oh, that's my silly Aunt Phydria - she's let herself run out of phitler."

    "Philter?" Minerva asked.

    "O-Oh, you know. Phitler of Love?" Bellatrix asked.

    "Why does she need that?" Minerva asked. "If you don't mind me asking."

    "Oh, right, you're Sleeperborn," Bellatrix said, nodding. "Well, you'll need to know this if you want to be a part of our society, I suppose." She sighed, then rolled her shoulders. "When two are married and they don't feel the warmth one should, this is where Phitlers of Love come in. A drink a day, week, or month, or even just once! It's all it takes, bringing some passion back, reinforcing what bonds there are, it's all quite sweet!" She smiled. "My aunt needs one every week. But it keeps her and Uncle Tyranix together quite nicely."

    Minerva opened her mouth, then closed it. She wasn't sure if that was lovely or dreadful; it was both, but surely better than the alternative.

    "Does Uncle Tyranix need any?" she asked.

    "Well, most men don't usually have to drink a Phitler, of course," Bellatrix said, then sighed with such passion that hearts practically beaded in her eyes. "But Uncle Tyranix did! He had to drink but once philter on their wedding day and never needed another. He so adores Aunt Phydria - I do hope she gets a new philter before any awkwardness begins. They're such a sweet couple most of the time."

    "I hope so too," Minerva said, quietly.

    And the splinter in her mind flared once more, like she had just brushed her finger against the grain and dragged it through her flesh. She bit her lower lip and thought of Harry. She though of Katrine. Her cheeks heated at where her mind went. The images that it called to mind. In her mind, she could see Kat's grin. She could see her golden eyes. She could feel her fingers, teasing along her collar. Sliding down to her buttons. She tried to imagine Harry tugging her blouse open - but as if she was ravaging her mind and not just her body, Katrina Wolf remained stubbornly above her in her mind.

    We do all have our burdens, and we expect you to be able to resist any… ahem… urges. Consider it a warning. Now, are we agreed?

    The voice of Professor Tweed during her interrogation echoed inside of her mind.

    The mental image of Katrine closed her mouth around Minerva's nipple and sucked. The pressure, the warmth, the feeling of her was so intensely real that Minerva had to bite her lip hard to not moan. She sat up, shaking her head - and almost heard Kat's mocking chuckle in her mind.

    Her fingers tugged at her collar. She tried to not touch herself, lest she let out a desperate, needy moan.

    "Magic can fix anything," she assured herself.

    Why did the idea, which had been quite sweet, suddenly seem so sour?
     
  • Threadmarks
    • Something about the flying teacher's blue uniform, the pervasive background militarism, and the presence of a bizarre flying contraption keeps putting me in mind of Howl's Moving Castle.
     
    Wait, is it Philter or Phitler? Are there Hitler Particles in it????

    Also magical conversion therapy is aaaa, regardless of what it's called
     
    It's "philter", but it almost certainly requires a certain amount of ambient Hitler Particles to be made.
     
    Twei said:
    Wait, is it Philter or Phitler? Are there Hitler Particles in it????

    Also magical conversion therapy is aaaa, regardless of what it's called
    Click to expand...
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    The most disturbing part of it is that it's still less disturbing than the use in the actual Harry Potter series.

    So the Wand of Silver is something modern rather than ancient.
     
    DragonCobolt said:
    "Hello," she said. "Say, you're part of House Sildanis, is it true that they have an orgy room beneath the lake?"

    "Good heavens, no," Minerva exclaimed.

    "Oh, disappointing."
    Click to expand...
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    Well. Selene at least is consistent.
    just how much did wizards control?
    Click to expand...
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    Both more and less than they think, I should wager.
    "Hello my lovelies - Captain C.C DuVaule-Cordwine, his majesty's Royal Air Force, wizarding branch,"
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    ...yeah, I don't trust society with the power of the Philter of Love, even if I wasn't certain that Harry Potter canon-type uses aren't being done covertly as well. It's definitely being used to change someone's sexuality from what's actually natural and healthy for them to what society thinks is natural.
    DracoDracul said:
    The most disturbing part of it is that it's still less disturbing than the use in the actual Harry Potter series.

    So the Wand of Silver is something modern rather than ancient.
    Click to expand...
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    I mean, if that origin story is going to happen, WW1 is the most suitably horrible time.
     
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