Spells in Silence (Harry Potter)
- Thread starter Silently Watches
- Start date
FictionPack
Monochromatic Ursine
- Location
- Tennessee
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Her humanity?
Her title, name, and future as the GWL, last Potter, heir of the Peverells, and savior of Britain?
Her scar and the soul shard in it?
All of the above?
- Location
- My room.
I'll leave that to the imagination. I could try to make an Omake series, but I don't have the commitment necessary to do something like that.
...Or that, I guess. I admit, the Omake is lacking when it comes to how Hazel went from exchanging lenses to exchanging magic teachings, and I hadn't really made any plans when it came to that. This whole thing was really unplanned honestly.
And for those who are wondering, yes, one of Hazel's bargains involved gaining the ability to speak.
dhasenan
always lowercase
- Pronouns
- She/Her
It's like using a bit of felt or foam rubber to hold up an uneven table leg, no? The felt will compress and expand a little to fill up the gap. You could use bits of wood instead, but then you'd have to carefully measure the gap and cut the wood to fit. Get it wrong and the table still wobbles.
- Location
- Here
I'm not complaining, it was just a bit of a fridge-logic moment. You've explained it plenty to make sense. I didn't really think of the "yay I made a trade" aspect at first.
Silently Watches
Professional Stalker
- Location
- Right behind you
Not bad. That's not where I'm going with the story, but a neat alternate possibility nonetheless.
- Location
- My room.
If this was where you were going things would probably be very awkward.
- Location
- Center Of The Universe
Awesome! It's always nice to read your stories. :3
Roth963
If I become inactive with this massage, I died
Wandless spells should be limited in some way, otherwise wizards won't really become completely reliant on wands.
An example is a story I had seen where the stronger the spell, the more time it takes to cast without a wand and the more mental components a wand let's you ignore exist, to the point casting an average spell that an adult modern wizard cast in a second or three could take a few minutes to a wandless one (unless he is the wandless equivalent of Voldemort or Dumbledore, although lesser wizards can learn to cast in acceptable speed, it takes decades), and wandless being much harder to learn, to the point people stopped bothering when wands were invented, simple stuff is easy once you get some training, like walking on water, turning water into wine and what Tom and Hazel got to, simple straightforward and weak spells.
But if you want to cast a death curse without a wand you would need decades of study (or in the story I mentioned, accidentally getting an abillity that help you master it ridiculously faster through ritual sacrifice of soul shard in your forehead that let you perceive magic in a way that would take decades of study otherwise), and why bother, yes it gets easier the more wandless magic you know, but why bother spend your entire life studying wandless magic so you can cast like an Hogwart graduate using a wand.
Doesn't have to be this explanation, but there needs to be a reason for the use of wand, more than if not using one would make it three times harder to study, it still won't make sense for wizards to come to rely on it so much if it was just a small difficulty.
This story doesn't have the problem yet and I had seen you said it won't get crazy, but there should be an explanation as for why Hazel doesn't learn how to do everything wandless.
Edit, I don't want it to sounds like a complaint by the way, the story is great and this won't be relevant until Hazel got a wand, but I say it for the future.
An example is a story I had seen where the stronger the spell, the more time it takes to cast without a wand and the more mental components a wand let's you ignore exist, to the point casting an average spell that an adult modern wizard cast in a second or three could take a few minutes to a wandless one (unless he is the wandless equivalent of Voldemort or Dumbledore, although lesser wizards can learn to cast in acceptable speed, it takes decades), and wandless being much harder to learn, to the point people stopped bothering when wands were invented, simple stuff is easy once you get some training, like walking on water, turning water into wine and what Tom and Hazel got to, simple straightforward and weak spells.
But if you want to cast a death curse without a wand you would need decades of study (or in the story I mentioned, accidentally getting an abillity that help you master it ridiculously faster through ritual sacrifice of soul shard in your forehead that let you perceive magic in a way that would take decades of study otherwise), and why bother, yes it gets easier the more wandless magic you know, but why bother spend your entire life studying wandless magic so you can cast like an Hogwart graduate using a wand.
Doesn't have to be this explanation, but there needs to be a reason for the use of wand, more than if not using one would make it three times harder to study, it still won't make sense for wizards to come to rely on it so much if it was just a small difficulty.
This story doesn't have the problem yet and I had seen you said it won't get crazy, but there should be an explanation as for why Hazel doesn't learn how to do everything wandless.
Edit, I don't want it to sounds like a complaint by the way, the story is great and this won't be relevant until Hazel got a wand, but I say it for the future.
Last edited:
Wands seem pretty straightforward - control and focus, Wandless spells take a lot more attention and are a lot more prone to doing something wrong if your concentration slips. Wands are consistent and predictable across a wide variety of users, whereas most children getting into accidental magics are almost all unique effects with no identifiable pattern
Roth963
If I become inactive with this massage, I died
But the difference need to be massive to a ridiculous extreme once you get to the higher spells, otherwise won't only the wizards have never gotten dependent on wands to a crippling degree, Voldemort and Dumbledore will be capable of going practically wandless, and while Voldemort did show some very impressive things wandless, it was basically simple spells with more power behind them.
It needs to be more than a little harder.
And don't forget that just not using sound as a foci in their spells is some very advanced end of Hogwarts material, let alone going without wand which is probably a much bigger handicap than not using sound.
Light
A world without Light would be Dark.
- Location
- United States
Not really?
Pretty sure there isn't anything in canon about using apparition with a wand, so plenty of impressive things should have the potential to be done wandlessly, at least if you have the intent/confidence/visualization necessary for magic down. Wands can easily be justified as simply enhancing control and power when properly paired (in most cases, due to some wands not being good at casting certain spells, like Unicorn hair not casting Dark Magic), and as the equivalent of a crutch due to the lacking confidence, training, and experience when using incompatible wands compared to using wandless magic.
We see plenty of examples in canon of Wizards using tools other than wands, such as Dumbledore's deluminator, Moody's eye, Ravenclaw's diadem, invisibility cloaks, the Marauder's Map, Foe-glass, Sneakoscopes, the Philosopher's Stone, Broomsticks, and even Cauldrons.
I could see an argument being made that it is more difficult to a large variety of magic objects for Wizards with training with wands rather than Wizards with training in wandless magic due to the Wand's inherent sentience rejecting being "replaced", so this could be more of a pros/cons situation that isn't obvious due to Wands supplementing what Wizards would use the magic items for, with this being a transitional loss due to wand spells being developed over time, thus wandless magic slowly fading from use.
Sure, you could have a point with Wandless Magic being described as dangerous in canon. Except Rowling went with "Tell, not show" on this, with Muggleborns generally having at least the potential to cast magic like Tom Riddle did, and Tom Riddle was never shown to mess up with his wandless magic.
Last edited:
Silently Watches
Professional Stalker
- Location
- Right behind you
ROTH, do keep in mind that (according to Pottermore, anyway) apparently two schools teach at least some wandless magic, and the African mages don't use wands at all. Whether they use other foci or not is unclear, and how much I consider Pottermore canon in the first place is... variable.
That being said, you are correct that there certainly HAS to be a reason wands are the casting method of choice for Europe, Asia, North America, and Australia at a minimum. I do have an idea for why that is that will almost certainly be detailed later in the story, not to mention the effect such a reasoning has on the culture that uses them in the first place to explain some of magical Britain's oddities, but I don't want to spoil it just now. I will however say that @veekie is on the right track about how control and predictability are major factors. There's also the fact that wandless transfiguration is incredibly difficult to the point that I would say wandless cultures just never work with it.
- Location
- France
- Pronouns
- She/They
Ah, good old imperialism!
This would also fit with Africa being different considering most of European involvement in the depths of the continent would have happened long after the statute.
My guess is that it's all about the enchanting. It doesn't matter if the wandless guys might be better warriors because they're not limited by wands if the other guy is so well armed that it doesn't matter.
It'd be like a warrior with years of training and equipped with full plate armor and a horse vs a bunch of military drones.
It'd be like a warrior with years of training and equipped with full plate armor and a horse vs a bunch of military drones.
Light
A world without Light would be Dark.
- Location
- United States
I'm not sure where the analogy is oriented here.
If you want legendary items, then they have a good chance of not being made with a wand, if Wandless casting had literally any advantage. I rather doubt that the Elder Wand was made with a Wand, given how it is apparently an unimaginable feat to repair a broken wand, so the Wizarding World having anything comparable to consistent innovation would make recreating the Elder Wand inevitable in the long term, and much less significant in canon than it was.
Roth963
If I become inactive with this massage, I died
You would think it would be the opposite actually, I think it is headed to wandless wizards mostly relying on magical objects they make like Hazel theorised, but it could be different.
I don't think any wand was made with a wand, it is in all likelihood a wandless practice, otherwise how was the first wand created (the eldar wand was supposed to have been created after the first wand if my memory is correct, even should the legend be true, which is less likely than the brothers discovering a very powerful form of enchantment before getting themselves killed using it).
Last edited:
We got plenty of exhibits from Charms and Transfiguration classes in canon. The wands do a massive thing for a civilization - they make it so the exact same gesture, with the exact same words, produce the exact same effect every single time, and then the wand adds its own quirks to the final outcome.
That's the big competitive advantage. It lets you train entire classes of wizards of arbitrary size with a single teacher.
Without wands, with Wandless magic, you're down to teaching states of mind, which is either necessarily master-apprentice style, as you work out where and how they are concentrating wrong, and how to adjust them to the right way to focus their magic, or else ceremonial/ritual magic, where you stretch the casting process out over a long period of time so that everything can be in the right places.
If it works like that, well, its as big a development as interchangable parts to a society.
You don't need power. Power won't matter in the face of simply being able to train three hundred times more wizards than everyone else, to the point that you'd only be limited by people not having the ability at all, rather than being chokepointed at a growth rate of up to 3 students per teacher for a period of ten years, with a crippling loss in new wizards if you lose any significant percentage of the teaching population.
That's the big competitive advantage. It lets you train entire classes of wizards of arbitrary size with a single teacher.
Without wands, with Wandless magic, you're down to teaching states of mind, which is either necessarily master-apprentice style, as you work out where and how they are concentrating wrong, and how to adjust them to the right way to focus their magic, or else ceremonial/ritual magic, where you stretch the casting process out over a long period of time so that everything can be in the right places.
If it works like that, well, its as big a development as interchangable parts to a society.
You don't need power. Power won't matter in the face of simply being able to train three hundred times more wizards than everyone else, to the point that you'd only be limited by people not having the ability at all, rather than being chokepointed at a growth rate of up to 3 students per teacher for a period of ten years, with a crippling loss in new wizards if you lose any significant percentage of the teaching population.
Roth963
If I become inactive with this massage, I died
Those are just the nice versions, I am sure a lot of stuff had been outlawed, stuff that can be achieved through blood magic, or other similar forms of magic.
Same deal, the costs make them unable to scale the same way, whereas wands just needs a bit of a magical catalyst
Ch. 10, The Pool
Silently Watches
Professional Stalker
- Location
- Right behind you
Huffing and puffing, Hazel shot Morgan a glare as she continued walking up the slope. She had not realized when she put the Peak District on her itinerary that it was going to be so much harder a walk than what she had done before, although considering the name she really should have figured out that there would be hills and mountains. She wanted to and had smacked herself for not thinking about it earlier, but it was too late. She was committed, and she really wanted to see the pond.
This was as good a time as any to take a break, though, and she sank to the dirt and stretched out her aching legs. A minute later Morgan dropped onto her head and settled himself in. I hope you enjoyed that, she told him. She did not begrudge her friend the chance to stretch his wings – she didn't! – but she would be lying if she claimed she were not jealous of his ability to fly over the rough ground. She did not have such an easy time. In fact, she only had two options if she wanted to climb this hill, and both were showing distinct disadvantages.
She rolled her head around and around, doing her best to loosen the tight muscles. It had been long enough that it should be okay to skip walking for a while. A look up at the cloudy sky which had nonetheless been darkening for a while now, and she also knew this would probably be the last time she could safely do this for today. It was hard to tell whether that was a good thing or a bad thing.
Pushing herself back to her feet, she looked up the slope again. Tensing her legs, she made a small hop—
—and landed higher up on the slope. She spent just enough time to pick her next jump—
—before she teleported again—
—and again—
—and again.
Three hills over from where she started, she took a deep breath in and slowly let it out as she did her best to ignore the pounding headache that had settled behind her eyes. The headache was not even the worst part. No, that honor belonged to the strange feeling deeper in her head, as if her brain was taffy that had been stretched and kneaded and twisted the more she jumped. A bit of rest would let that settle, but as the day had gone on and she jumped more and more, she quickly learned that feeling would come on quicker and take longer to leave. When she started, it had taken what she guessed was fifteen or sixteen jumps before she could go no farther; now it was only five jumps before her brain protested the abuse.
Her current strategy probably did not help matters. This 'snap-jumping' she had taken to doing, jumping from one place to the next as soon as she landed, was one way to cover lots of ground in a matter of seconds and try to out-pace the headache and stretched brain feeling, but they were guaranteed to catch up sooner or later.
She shook her head and looked into the distance, her right eye closed so she could look only out of her left. Her eyepatch-monocle was wonderful for looking at things close up, but one trick she had discovered was that when she ignored that lens and only saw things with her left eye that was uncovered, her long-range vision was better than she could ever remember it being. It was thanks to that vision that she could just make out a hill peak a good distance away and quite a bit higher than the one she stood on now.
I think I have enough for one more before I have to stop. Her fingers reached up to pat Morgan's back. Hold on tight.
The next instant her feet landed on a slab of rock, and she nearly fell over as a wave of nausea swept over her. For but a moment she pitted her will against the feeling of sick, but then her will lost. She fell to her knees and hurled, emptying out what little was still in her stomach. This was not the first time today she had been forced to vomit by the now skull-splitting headache, but it would be the last. She could not take more of that.
Hazel rolled over away from the sick and laid on her side with her knees drawn up to her chest. That last jump was a mistake, and she was paying for it now. The headache had hit her with its full force, and her eyes burned with unshed tears behind lids that were squeezed tight. Just moving was enough to make her head throb even harder, no longer being pounded against by a small hammer but now with one the size of a house. It would pass, this she knew. She just needed to wait it out, and the waiting was the hardest part.
Half an hour passed, maybe a full one. Long enough that what little light could pierce through the clouds fell below the horizon, and finally the pain had receded enough that she could try moving. Pushing herself upright again and wiping her mouth, she winced at the ear-piercing sound of Morgan's soft concerned coo. Please don't, she told him. I need a little quiet for a while longer, okay?
With her capacity for jumping clearly used up for the day and unwilling to make her headache any worse again, she continued on foot deeper into the darkness. This pond had better be worth it.
The moon was low in the sky but the sun still thankfully out of sight when the beam from her torch touched a smooth black stretch of water. Staggering to the edge, Hazel gratefully sat and looked out into the night. She had made it, and before dawn to boot. Now she just had to wait.
This was the only place on her list of places to visit that had a hard time limit, and she knew she had cut it extremely close. If legends were right, this pond, appropriately named the Mermaid Pool, was said to hold an immortal mermaid who would only come out and be seen at sunrise on Easter morning. Those legends also said that if it was an attractive young man staring into the pond, she would grant him immortality like her own, but that was something Hazel did not have to worry about.
As minutes turned into an hour and more, she nibbled on her lip in thought. What's our plan?, she finally asked Morgan. After this it's a week to get to Cockermouth and Elva Hill, but what should we do afterwards? That's the last place I found that sounded like it might have something magical, but…
That was the problem, wasn't it? She had seen some really neat things, places of magic that had been long forgotten by the world, but that was not everything she was looking for. She also had been on the hunt for any signs of modern druids and sorcerers, but so far she had yet to find anything on that score.
Honestly, she was starting to feel a little dejected. More than a little, really. Was this all there was, remnants of a lost world and testaments of what was possible but with no information on how to get there? Were her mum and she really the last of the magicians to walk the world?
It's hard to believe that could be true, she told her friend, even if her words were more for herself. One witch, sorceress, whatever, in the entire world? To be the only one left in Britain is strange enough, but the whole world?
A thought came to her mind, and she frowned as she turned it over and over in her head. Then again, what if everyone else is just like me?
It would actually make quite a bit of sense. Which was more likely, that there was a large group or even an entire society of druids and witches who vanished and lived in the shadows for several hundreds of years if the dates of different pieces of folklore were to be believed? Or that something dreadful happened, and while people like her were still around, maybe even coming back, nobody knew who and where anybody else was, so they all stumbled around in the dark of ignorance?
For all she knew, there could be thousands of people just like her, people to whom strange things happened, and despite being so many they could all be just as alone as she was.
It was definitely possible, but if so, how was she supposed to find these people?
Hazel pondered and pondered, but no answer presented itself. Eventually her thoughts were interrupted when the first light of day crested over one of the many hills and mountains in the distance. Her brain shook off the fog that had settled over her thoughts, and she jumped to her feet. Was she about to see the mermaid? Would it look like the pictures in all the books?
A small breeze stirred the surface of the water. The sun fully rose and sunlight washed over the pond…
…and nothing happened.
Leaning over, she looked into the pool as best she could. Nothing.
Puffing out her cheeks, she eventually sighed. She had the right day, she had made sure of that, but it looked like just like Stonehenge, there was nothing to see here. She shook her head and walked back to her backpack. Might as well get a move on to her next destination.
Something splashed behind her.
Hazel whirled around, her heart pounding in her chest. Out in the middle of the pond something was poking out of the water, something shiny and silver and scaled. It shifted, and a forked tail rose out of the water and plunged right back in. She ran over, her bag forgotten on the ground, and splashed into the pond for a few feet. Eagerly she looked into the water, trying to get a better glimpse of the mermaid.
As far as she could see, the aptly named Mermaid's Pool was empty once again.
Bright sunlight beat down upon her. Sweat dripped down her brow and her back. Her shirt stuck to her, and she flapped the hem of her jumper to try forcing some air up the back of her shirt to cool herself off.
Finally Hazel could stand it no longer. She dropped her backpack onto the ground and tugged off the jumper, sighing when she was no longer covered up quite so much.
The day after Easter had brought a heat wave to England, and that meant clothing that had been appropriate while the world was cold and grey was now very much overkill. She had already stuffed her puffy coat into the bag, and even that had been a chore considering how much space it took up. She had to sacrifice the amount of food she carried with her at a time, a decision she was already coming to regret, but to add the thick woolen jumper into that limited space as well?
She looked at the jumper in her hands and the stuffed backpack at her feet before shaking her head. No, that just was not going to happen. Settling herself onto the warm grass, she twisted and untwisted the jumper around her hands. What was she going to do?
The simplest answer, of course, was to find someplace to put her belongings when she did not need them. That was what most people did, storing seasonal clothing in boxes or in closets until they were needed once again. There was just one very, very big problem with that: she did not have anywhere in which to store her things. She owned no house that would be safe while she wandered. She could try to hide a box, maybe even several boxes, in a random building and hope nobody noticed them for the months she left them unattended, except she did not trust her luck that far. A related possibility was to spread her things in several places like a squirrel hiding nuts. It would make the piles less noticeable, and those places could be spaced wide apart since her jumps made distance meaningless in the grand scheme of things.
The downside was that while it would lessen the chance of all her things being found at the same time, she would probably go even longer between visits to any particular stash. The longer the time involved, the more chances other people had to find them.
Not to mention, and this reason was purely her, she actually kind of… liked the feeling of having everything she needed right there with her. After spending her whole life in the same place, to be free to wander was amazing. Carrying everything on her back meant she never had to be tied down anywhere.
Keeping everything on her back limited how much she could carry, though. That lead to another option: she could toss away things she no longer needed and grab more when the weather changed again. As she looked down at her ankles that were poking out from the hems of her jeans, she knew she would have to do something like that anyway. She was starting to get taller, which meant she would need new clothes sooner or later anyway.
The downside was that throwing things away and picking out new ones all the time would require her to steal more. She did not like doing that any more than she absolutely had to. She had continued to pick pockets here and there, mostly so she could leave at least some money any time she had to rob a small store rather than a big supermarket, and while she had broken three digits a few times she tried not to take much and still did so only sparingly. She would much rather keep what she had until she absolutely had to get rid of something because it no longer fit.
But if she did not want to hide her things and she did not want to throw them away unnecessarily, what was she to do? She flicked a glare at her overstuffed backpack, which was now serving as Morgan's perch. This would be so much easier if her backpack just had more space inside!
…huh.
She looked at her bag again with more assessing eyes this time. She might be crazy, but she was pretty sure she remembered a few different fantasy stories where the resident wizard had pockets or a bag or even an entire tower that was bigger on the inside than it looked like on the outside. There was even a movie that she could vaguely remember Dudley watching once, something about a family getting a new governess. Dudley had gotten bored with it because there was too much music and no action, but part of the one scene she had been able to watch before Aunt Petunia shooed her out of the room involved the governess pulling a number of ridiculous things out of her big bag.
And now that she was thinking harder about it, had Aunt Petunia really thought that if she watched it she might get ideas? She did not trust her memory of years ago that much, but she was definitely getting ideas now.
First things first. Waving for Morgan to hop off, she opened her backpack and dumped everything onto the ground. Her fingers moved, rubbing the material of the bag between them, and she pushed away the thought that wanted to spring up. Instead she shoved her arm into the main pocket as deep as it could go and grabbed both sides of the opening with her other hand. Push!, she told herself, and she pushed with the hand inside and pulled with the one outside. She pulled with all her strength, confident that even at her strongest she would not be able to rip it in half.
All her pulling got her was sore fingers. The dimensions of the bag's inside refused to change.
Maybe I'm not wanting it hard enough? It was not the only answer in front of her, but it was the simplest to fix. Want, need, had been the answer to more than a few of her early issues with magic. She focused her mind just on what she wanted and ignoring everything else around her, a trick she had picked up as a result of her practice with meditation, and pushed and pulled again. You will get bigger.
Still nothing.
She looked at the bag again and thought for a moment longer. Maybe it being full would help sell her subconscious minds on the fact that it needed to be bigger? The clothes and the cans and last her coat went back in, and once more she pushed with her mind and her hand. She was going to do this!
A minute of fruitless effort later, she sighed and let her hands fall to her side. She was worried this would be the case. Once again she rubbed the side of the backpack in resignation. Her backpack was not made of cotton or wool. It was some plasticky fabric, and as she had learned from fixing her glasses, a druid's magic and plastics did not get along. That was the reason she could not get this to work.
So I just need something not plastic. That'd be easier if I ever saw any of the other kids at school come in with natural-looking backpacks, but I didn't. Not that I can think of anyway. She looked to the side to find Morgan sitting on the ground just watching her. Do you have any ideas?
Morgan tilted his head and twittered at her in obvious confusion. The sounds turned almost scolding, and she had no trouble figuring out what that meant. She supposed she had no one to blame but herself for assuming a wild songbird would know anything about school supplies.
Flopping backwards onto the grass, she turned the problem around and around in her head. Her backpack was plastic. All the backpacks she had ever seen were plastic of some kind. Were there backpacks made of natural cloth somewhere, almost certainly, but she did not know where she would even be able to find such a thing. So that plan was out.
If she could not find one… could she make one instead?
Hazel pushed herself up and looked all over her backpack again, taking in the details that normally she would pay no attention to. The zipper she knew she would not be able to make, so unless she found something that already had one attached she would have to figure out some other way of closing it. Sewing straps on would be tricky too since she had never sewn a thing in her life, but there was no way it could be that hard.
A cloth bag, strips of cloth for straps, some way to close it up. Those were doable! She just had to find them, and thankfully there was a little town just a couple of hours away that she could search. Hopefully she could find the right materials at the local Tesco, because if not she would have to search everywhere else. And while I'm there, I might as well see if there's anything I can use as it is without having to make anything at all, she reminded herself.
The sun was setting when she slipped out of the blue-and-white Tesco building back into near-empty streets, her grey 'ignore me' smoke wrapped around her and a frown on her face. That had been less than useful. There were plenty of bags, even a few backpacks, but they all felt like they were made of either plastic or, in the case of the more expensive handbags, leather. The leather probably would have worked, but the bags themselves were so small that she had trouble imaging fitting some of her belongings through the opening even if there was plenty of space inside. Her coat had been hard enough to get into her backpack as it was.
Not only that, the only option she could find for making a new backpack that fit all her criteria was one of the paper bags people used to carry their purchases out in, and she did not want to chance her bag tearing and dumping out everything she had. Particularly considering all the times she had walked through the rain. She shuddered at the thought. No, not those. Anything but those.
Unnoticeable by anyone who might have paid attention to her, Hazel wandered the streets and looked for any store that might have something she could use. The street lamps came on, the few cars still on the streets became fewer and fewer. She sighed and shook her head. Might as well give it up for tonight—
Morgan fluttered down to her shoulder and pecked her ear.
Ow! She rubbed her earlobe and turned her head to glare at him as best she could. What was that for?!
The blue tit jumped off her shoulder and flew over to a bench. Turning to look back at her, he sang a victorious burst of song. Still unclear just what he was doing, she started walking towards him only for him to jump off the bench and keep flying away from her until he settled himself up high on a lamppost. He sang again, the sound almost taunting.
What in the world has gotten into him?
She followed after her friend for several minutes, sometimes jumping right next to him to get back at him for leading her on this wild goose chase, but eventually he flew in a few circles up in the air before gliding back to his customary spot on her shoulder. Her eyes stared at the building before them and went back to him. A pet store. You decided to be a pain in the you-know-what just to take me to a pet store?! Morgan sang again, and she shook her head. You get fed enough, you greedy boy. Do you really need that much more bird seed—
Wait. Wait just a minute. Morgan's song was turning decidedly smug, but she was not looking at him. Her eyes were back on the store in disbelief.
She had never had a pet, nor had Dudley, but she had seen advertisements on the telly. Pet food oftentimes came in bags.
If Morgan was right… She did not know how she would feel if his idea worked out, mostly because being outsmarted by a bird would sting her pride like nothing else. Steeling herself, she pulled her torch out of a side pocket of the backpack and shined it through a window into the darkened store. A tug on the door proved the store to be locked up for the night—
—but a quick jump and she was inside nonetheless.
Walking through the aisles, she stopped in her tracks when her eyes found something she could use. Most of the bags she had seen so far were plastic, but now her torchbeam landed on a pile of bags that did not look like the others. Her hand reached out, and sure enough these were not slick and shiny. There were made of a rough cloth, burlap if she had to guess although she knew she did not know all the kinds of cloths in the world.
Okay, she finally told Morgan, you were right. I didn't know they sold some kinds of dog food in burlap bags, but that will work. He gave the world a high-pitched cheer, but she ignored his celebrations to focus instead on picking up the bag. Twenty-five kilos was not exactly light, particularly for her. Nope, she decided after a minute's struggle. She was not going to try carrying that away. She would have to start working with it here.
Which would be a lot easier if she could figure out how to tear it open.
Pulling off her backpack, she set it on the ground and pointed at both her backpack and the bag of dog food with her eyes firmly on Morgan. Stay here and guard these, she told him. I'll be back.
She could not tear the bag open, but she could cut it. The Tesco had a few backpacks even though it was swinging into spring, and in that same section of the store were various other school-type supplies. That included pads of paper, boxes of pens and pencils, and several different sizes of scissors and shears. The last would be the best thing with which to cut through the thick fabric bag. Picturing what the aisle looked like during the day, she jumped into the air.
Her trainers squeaked on the wet linoleum tiles of the store, nearly sending her to the ground. Why was the floor wet?!
"Bloody hell!"
Her head whipped around to find a man standing a few feet away, a bucket by his feet and a mop in his hands. He stared at her with wide eyes, as surprised by her arrival as she was by his presence in the first place. She turned her head enough to see where the shears were hanging and quickly grabbed one.
"How did you even— Hey, put that back!"
Another jump returned her to the pet store, and she ripped the plastic wrapping off the shears and gave them a couple of experimental snips. These should work out just fine. Grabbing the corner of the top dog food bag, she started cutting, brushing strands of hair out of her face when they brushed against her forehead. The seam on the bottom came free, and kibble spilled all over onto the ground.
Morgan twittered in delight when she picked the half-empty bag up to get the rest out, and she waved the hand still holding the shears at the pile of dry food. Eat all you want. You definitely earned it. With him otherwise occupied, she carried the bag a few feet away and dropped it on the ground. All she had to do now was figure out how to turn it into a backpack.
Green eyes looked at the bag, at how it fell, and she sucked on her bottom lip as another idea came to her. Maybe she did not have to turn into a backpack, exactly. The way it had folded over on itself, it actually looked a lot like a satchel. She had seen some of the students in the upper years wear them, and while she had never thought about wearing one herself, it would be easier to make than a proper backpack.
Folding the bag in half more evenly, she nodded at it and started cutting along both sides, going from the opening she had made to the fold, repeating the process on the other side, and then lifting one of the flaps she had made so she could cut along the front. The square of burlap left in her hands she tossed behind her. Lifting and lowering the flap still attached, she nodded again. That did not look half bad.
It was still covered in kibble bits, though, but that was a problem she could fix. Ripples of blue light washed over the bag, causing all the pieces of dog food to disappear from sight. The same ripples covered the shears for a moment before they too were clean. Snapping them open and closed again thoughtfully, she reached up and pulled some of the strands of hair down until they were nearly at her nose.
Her hair was getting long, and it had been months since Aunt Petunia had cut her hair. She had always hated how short her aunt left it, how it made her look almost like a boy, but now it was getting long enough to be annoying. It was also far too short for her to do anything useful with it like putting it in pigtails or a ponytail the way other girls at school did. It might be better to go ahead and cut it again. Not as short as Aunt Petunia used to do, not that short by any means, but short enough that it would not flop around in her face like it was.
Something to think about after she was done with her current project.
With the bag cut into shape, she just needed a way to wear it, and she had just the idea.
An hour later, she was done. A long piece of rope taken from the same hardware store in Upper Milton where she grabbed the nail that hung around her neck was attached to both sides of the bag thanks to a lot of thread stolen from an arts and crafts store in the same town, the thread admittedly clumsily sewn through the bag itself and around the rope. Glue helped keep it all together, and she had also glued a piece of cloth around the top of the loop of rope to keep it from rubbing her neck raw.
Most everything she had used, the bag and the rope and the thread and the cloth, were natural. The glue itself she was a little unsure about, but that was a risk she just had to take.
Moment of truth, she told Morgan, who had absolutely gorged himself on dog food and was now sitting on the ground like a big puffball of multicolored feathers. Her attention moved back to the bag, and she curled and uncurled her fingers. Sliding her right arm into the bag, she imagined as forcefully as she could the bag getting bigger and bigger and bigger inside, until…
The edge of the bag reached her shoulder, her arm within still straight and reaching past the bottom of the bag.
She pulled her hand back out and looked at it, then she laughed as hard as she could. It was probably a good thing she was both mute and alone, for if she could make a sound she suspected her laugh would be more of a cackle. It worked! It worked!
Her backpack went into the bag, then her puffy coat, then all the cans and the can opener and the extra batteries and her wad of money. The outside looked just the same as it had before she put everything inside, so she pulled the front and back apart to look into the bag. There was still a hand-span of space between the top can and the edge of the bag, and she suspected that if she kept forcing things into it, she would just find more space.
Let's grab a bag to put some more of that kibble in, she told her friend. It would be a waste to leave it all behind when you did such a good job finding this place. Then we'll sleep here tonight and start moving again at first light.
And in the morning, we can also find more food for me since I can carry a lot more now.
Just one more chapter of exploring England before it's time for Hazel to move on and start meeting some actual other characters. I know it has taken a while to get to this point, but some of the things she needed to see and do and learn just wouldn't have been possible were she getting guidance and advice from other people.
Silently Watches out.
This was as good a time as any to take a break, though, and she sank to the dirt and stretched out her aching legs. A minute later Morgan dropped onto her head and settled himself in. I hope you enjoyed that, she told him. She did not begrudge her friend the chance to stretch his wings – she didn't! – but she would be lying if she claimed she were not jealous of his ability to fly over the rough ground. She did not have such an easy time. In fact, she only had two options if she wanted to climb this hill, and both were showing distinct disadvantages.
She rolled her head around and around, doing her best to loosen the tight muscles. It had been long enough that it should be okay to skip walking for a while. A look up at the cloudy sky which had nonetheless been darkening for a while now, and she also knew this would probably be the last time she could safely do this for today. It was hard to tell whether that was a good thing or a bad thing.
Pushing herself back to her feet, she looked up the slope again. Tensing her legs, she made a small hop—
—and landed higher up on the slope. She spent just enough time to pick her next jump—
—before she teleported again—
—and again—
—and again.
Three hills over from where she started, she took a deep breath in and slowly let it out as she did her best to ignore the pounding headache that had settled behind her eyes. The headache was not even the worst part. No, that honor belonged to the strange feeling deeper in her head, as if her brain was taffy that had been stretched and kneaded and twisted the more she jumped. A bit of rest would let that settle, but as the day had gone on and she jumped more and more, she quickly learned that feeling would come on quicker and take longer to leave. When she started, it had taken what she guessed was fifteen or sixteen jumps before she could go no farther; now it was only five jumps before her brain protested the abuse.
Her current strategy probably did not help matters. This 'snap-jumping' she had taken to doing, jumping from one place to the next as soon as she landed, was one way to cover lots of ground in a matter of seconds and try to out-pace the headache and stretched brain feeling, but they were guaranteed to catch up sooner or later.
She shook her head and looked into the distance, her right eye closed so she could look only out of her left. Her eyepatch-monocle was wonderful for looking at things close up, but one trick she had discovered was that when she ignored that lens and only saw things with her left eye that was uncovered, her long-range vision was better than she could ever remember it being. It was thanks to that vision that she could just make out a hill peak a good distance away and quite a bit higher than the one she stood on now.
I think I have enough for one more before I have to stop. Her fingers reached up to pat Morgan's back. Hold on tight.
The next instant her feet landed on a slab of rock, and she nearly fell over as a wave of nausea swept over her. For but a moment she pitted her will against the feeling of sick, but then her will lost. She fell to her knees and hurled, emptying out what little was still in her stomach. This was not the first time today she had been forced to vomit by the now skull-splitting headache, but it would be the last. She could not take more of that.
Hazel rolled over away from the sick and laid on her side with her knees drawn up to her chest. That last jump was a mistake, and she was paying for it now. The headache had hit her with its full force, and her eyes burned with unshed tears behind lids that were squeezed tight. Just moving was enough to make her head throb even harder, no longer being pounded against by a small hammer but now with one the size of a house. It would pass, this she knew. She just needed to wait it out, and the waiting was the hardest part.
Half an hour passed, maybe a full one. Long enough that what little light could pierce through the clouds fell below the horizon, and finally the pain had receded enough that she could try moving. Pushing herself upright again and wiping her mouth, she winced at the ear-piercing sound of Morgan's soft concerned coo. Please don't, she told him. I need a little quiet for a while longer, okay?
With her capacity for jumping clearly used up for the day and unwilling to make her headache any worse again, she continued on foot deeper into the darkness. This pond had better be worth it.
xxxxxxxxxxxxx
The moon was low in the sky but the sun still thankfully out of sight when the beam from her torch touched a smooth black stretch of water. Staggering to the edge, Hazel gratefully sat and looked out into the night. She had made it, and before dawn to boot. Now she just had to wait.
This was the only place on her list of places to visit that had a hard time limit, and she knew she had cut it extremely close. If legends were right, this pond, appropriately named the Mermaid Pool, was said to hold an immortal mermaid who would only come out and be seen at sunrise on Easter morning. Those legends also said that if it was an attractive young man staring into the pond, she would grant him immortality like her own, but that was something Hazel did not have to worry about.
As minutes turned into an hour and more, she nibbled on her lip in thought. What's our plan?, she finally asked Morgan. After this it's a week to get to Cockermouth and Elva Hill, but what should we do afterwards? That's the last place I found that sounded like it might have something magical, but…
That was the problem, wasn't it? She had seen some really neat things, places of magic that had been long forgotten by the world, but that was not everything she was looking for. She also had been on the hunt for any signs of modern druids and sorcerers, but so far she had yet to find anything on that score.
Honestly, she was starting to feel a little dejected. More than a little, really. Was this all there was, remnants of a lost world and testaments of what was possible but with no information on how to get there? Were her mum and she really the last of the magicians to walk the world?
It's hard to believe that could be true, she told her friend, even if her words were more for herself. One witch, sorceress, whatever, in the entire world? To be the only one left in Britain is strange enough, but the whole world?
A thought came to her mind, and she frowned as she turned it over and over in her head. Then again, what if everyone else is just like me?
It would actually make quite a bit of sense. Which was more likely, that there was a large group or even an entire society of druids and witches who vanished and lived in the shadows for several hundreds of years if the dates of different pieces of folklore were to be believed? Or that something dreadful happened, and while people like her were still around, maybe even coming back, nobody knew who and where anybody else was, so they all stumbled around in the dark of ignorance?
For all she knew, there could be thousands of people just like her, people to whom strange things happened, and despite being so many they could all be just as alone as she was.
It was definitely possible, but if so, how was she supposed to find these people?
Hazel pondered and pondered, but no answer presented itself. Eventually her thoughts were interrupted when the first light of day crested over one of the many hills and mountains in the distance. Her brain shook off the fog that had settled over her thoughts, and she jumped to her feet. Was she about to see the mermaid? Would it look like the pictures in all the books?
A small breeze stirred the surface of the water. The sun fully rose and sunlight washed over the pond…
…and nothing happened.
Leaning over, she looked into the pool as best she could. Nothing.
Puffing out her cheeks, she eventually sighed. She had the right day, she had made sure of that, but it looked like just like Stonehenge, there was nothing to see here. She shook her head and walked back to her backpack. Might as well get a move on to her next destination.
Something splashed behind her.
Hazel whirled around, her heart pounding in her chest. Out in the middle of the pond something was poking out of the water, something shiny and silver and scaled. It shifted, and a forked tail rose out of the water and plunged right back in. She ran over, her bag forgotten on the ground, and splashed into the pond for a few feet. Eagerly she looked into the water, trying to get a better glimpse of the mermaid.
As far as she could see, the aptly named Mermaid's Pool was empty once again.
xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Bright sunlight beat down upon her. Sweat dripped down her brow and her back. Her shirt stuck to her, and she flapped the hem of her jumper to try forcing some air up the back of her shirt to cool herself off.
Finally Hazel could stand it no longer. She dropped her backpack onto the ground and tugged off the jumper, sighing when she was no longer covered up quite so much.
The day after Easter had brought a heat wave to England, and that meant clothing that had been appropriate while the world was cold and grey was now very much overkill. She had already stuffed her puffy coat into the bag, and even that had been a chore considering how much space it took up. She had to sacrifice the amount of food she carried with her at a time, a decision she was already coming to regret, but to add the thick woolen jumper into that limited space as well?
She looked at the jumper in her hands and the stuffed backpack at her feet before shaking her head. No, that just was not going to happen. Settling herself onto the warm grass, she twisted and untwisted the jumper around her hands. What was she going to do?
The simplest answer, of course, was to find someplace to put her belongings when she did not need them. That was what most people did, storing seasonal clothing in boxes or in closets until they were needed once again. There was just one very, very big problem with that: she did not have anywhere in which to store her things. She owned no house that would be safe while she wandered. She could try to hide a box, maybe even several boxes, in a random building and hope nobody noticed them for the months she left them unattended, except she did not trust her luck that far. A related possibility was to spread her things in several places like a squirrel hiding nuts. It would make the piles less noticeable, and those places could be spaced wide apart since her jumps made distance meaningless in the grand scheme of things.
The downside was that while it would lessen the chance of all her things being found at the same time, she would probably go even longer between visits to any particular stash. The longer the time involved, the more chances other people had to find them.
Not to mention, and this reason was purely her, she actually kind of… liked the feeling of having everything she needed right there with her. After spending her whole life in the same place, to be free to wander was amazing. Carrying everything on her back meant she never had to be tied down anywhere.
Keeping everything on her back limited how much she could carry, though. That lead to another option: she could toss away things she no longer needed and grab more when the weather changed again. As she looked down at her ankles that were poking out from the hems of her jeans, she knew she would have to do something like that anyway. She was starting to get taller, which meant she would need new clothes sooner or later anyway.
The downside was that throwing things away and picking out new ones all the time would require her to steal more. She did not like doing that any more than she absolutely had to. She had continued to pick pockets here and there, mostly so she could leave at least some money any time she had to rob a small store rather than a big supermarket, and while she had broken three digits a few times she tried not to take much and still did so only sparingly. She would much rather keep what she had until she absolutely had to get rid of something because it no longer fit.
But if she did not want to hide her things and she did not want to throw them away unnecessarily, what was she to do? She flicked a glare at her overstuffed backpack, which was now serving as Morgan's perch. This would be so much easier if her backpack just had more space inside!
…huh.
She looked at her bag again with more assessing eyes this time. She might be crazy, but she was pretty sure she remembered a few different fantasy stories where the resident wizard had pockets or a bag or even an entire tower that was bigger on the inside than it looked like on the outside. There was even a movie that she could vaguely remember Dudley watching once, something about a family getting a new governess. Dudley had gotten bored with it because there was too much music and no action, but part of the one scene she had been able to watch before Aunt Petunia shooed her out of the room involved the governess pulling a number of ridiculous things out of her big bag.
And now that she was thinking harder about it, had Aunt Petunia really thought that if she watched it she might get ideas? She did not trust her memory of years ago that much, but she was definitely getting ideas now.
First things first. Waving for Morgan to hop off, she opened her backpack and dumped everything onto the ground. Her fingers moved, rubbing the material of the bag between them, and she pushed away the thought that wanted to spring up. Instead she shoved her arm into the main pocket as deep as it could go and grabbed both sides of the opening with her other hand. Push!, she told herself, and she pushed with the hand inside and pulled with the one outside. She pulled with all her strength, confident that even at her strongest she would not be able to rip it in half.
All her pulling got her was sore fingers. The dimensions of the bag's inside refused to change.
Maybe I'm not wanting it hard enough? It was not the only answer in front of her, but it was the simplest to fix. Want, need, had been the answer to more than a few of her early issues with magic. She focused her mind just on what she wanted and ignoring everything else around her, a trick she had picked up as a result of her practice with meditation, and pushed and pulled again. You will get bigger.
Still nothing.
She looked at the bag again and thought for a moment longer. Maybe it being full would help sell her subconscious minds on the fact that it needed to be bigger? The clothes and the cans and last her coat went back in, and once more she pushed with her mind and her hand. She was going to do this!
A minute of fruitless effort later, she sighed and let her hands fall to her side. She was worried this would be the case. Once again she rubbed the side of the backpack in resignation. Her backpack was not made of cotton or wool. It was some plasticky fabric, and as she had learned from fixing her glasses, a druid's magic and plastics did not get along. That was the reason she could not get this to work.
So I just need something not plastic. That'd be easier if I ever saw any of the other kids at school come in with natural-looking backpacks, but I didn't. Not that I can think of anyway. She looked to the side to find Morgan sitting on the ground just watching her. Do you have any ideas?
Morgan tilted his head and twittered at her in obvious confusion. The sounds turned almost scolding, and she had no trouble figuring out what that meant. She supposed she had no one to blame but herself for assuming a wild songbird would know anything about school supplies.
Flopping backwards onto the grass, she turned the problem around and around in her head. Her backpack was plastic. All the backpacks she had ever seen were plastic of some kind. Were there backpacks made of natural cloth somewhere, almost certainly, but she did not know where she would even be able to find such a thing. So that plan was out.
If she could not find one… could she make one instead?
Hazel pushed herself up and looked all over her backpack again, taking in the details that normally she would pay no attention to. The zipper she knew she would not be able to make, so unless she found something that already had one attached she would have to figure out some other way of closing it. Sewing straps on would be tricky too since she had never sewn a thing in her life, but there was no way it could be that hard.
A cloth bag, strips of cloth for straps, some way to close it up. Those were doable! She just had to find them, and thankfully there was a little town just a couple of hours away that she could search. Hopefully she could find the right materials at the local Tesco, because if not she would have to search everywhere else. And while I'm there, I might as well see if there's anything I can use as it is without having to make anything at all, she reminded herself.
The sun was setting when she slipped out of the blue-and-white Tesco building back into near-empty streets, her grey 'ignore me' smoke wrapped around her and a frown on her face. That had been less than useful. There were plenty of bags, even a few backpacks, but they all felt like they were made of either plastic or, in the case of the more expensive handbags, leather. The leather probably would have worked, but the bags themselves were so small that she had trouble imaging fitting some of her belongings through the opening even if there was plenty of space inside. Her coat had been hard enough to get into her backpack as it was.
Not only that, the only option she could find for making a new backpack that fit all her criteria was one of the paper bags people used to carry their purchases out in, and she did not want to chance her bag tearing and dumping out everything she had. Particularly considering all the times she had walked through the rain. She shuddered at the thought. No, not those. Anything but those.
Unnoticeable by anyone who might have paid attention to her, Hazel wandered the streets and looked for any store that might have something she could use. The street lamps came on, the few cars still on the streets became fewer and fewer. She sighed and shook her head. Might as well give it up for tonight—
Morgan fluttered down to her shoulder and pecked her ear.
Ow! She rubbed her earlobe and turned her head to glare at him as best she could. What was that for?!
The blue tit jumped off her shoulder and flew over to a bench. Turning to look back at her, he sang a victorious burst of song. Still unclear just what he was doing, she started walking towards him only for him to jump off the bench and keep flying away from her until he settled himself up high on a lamppost. He sang again, the sound almost taunting.
What in the world has gotten into him?
She followed after her friend for several minutes, sometimes jumping right next to him to get back at him for leading her on this wild goose chase, but eventually he flew in a few circles up in the air before gliding back to his customary spot on her shoulder. Her eyes stared at the building before them and went back to him. A pet store. You decided to be a pain in the you-know-what just to take me to a pet store?! Morgan sang again, and she shook her head. You get fed enough, you greedy boy. Do you really need that much more bird seed—
Wait. Wait just a minute. Morgan's song was turning decidedly smug, but she was not looking at him. Her eyes were back on the store in disbelief.
She had never had a pet, nor had Dudley, but she had seen advertisements on the telly. Pet food oftentimes came in bags.
If Morgan was right… She did not know how she would feel if his idea worked out, mostly because being outsmarted by a bird would sting her pride like nothing else. Steeling herself, she pulled her torch out of a side pocket of the backpack and shined it through a window into the darkened store. A tug on the door proved the store to be locked up for the night—
—but a quick jump and she was inside nonetheless.
Walking through the aisles, she stopped in her tracks when her eyes found something she could use. Most of the bags she had seen so far were plastic, but now her torchbeam landed on a pile of bags that did not look like the others. Her hand reached out, and sure enough these were not slick and shiny. There were made of a rough cloth, burlap if she had to guess although she knew she did not know all the kinds of cloths in the world.
Okay, she finally told Morgan, you were right. I didn't know they sold some kinds of dog food in burlap bags, but that will work. He gave the world a high-pitched cheer, but she ignored his celebrations to focus instead on picking up the bag. Twenty-five kilos was not exactly light, particularly for her. Nope, she decided after a minute's struggle. She was not going to try carrying that away. She would have to start working with it here.
Which would be a lot easier if she could figure out how to tear it open.
Pulling off her backpack, she set it on the ground and pointed at both her backpack and the bag of dog food with her eyes firmly on Morgan. Stay here and guard these, she told him. I'll be back.
She could not tear the bag open, but she could cut it. The Tesco had a few backpacks even though it was swinging into spring, and in that same section of the store were various other school-type supplies. That included pads of paper, boxes of pens and pencils, and several different sizes of scissors and shears. The last would be the best thing with which to cut through the thick fabric bag. Picturing what the aisle looked like during the day, she jumped into the air.
Her trainers squeaked on the wet linoleum tiles of the store, nearly sending her to the ground. Why was the floor wet?!
"Bloody hell!"
Her head whipped around to find a man standing a few feet away, a bucket by his feet and a mop in his hands. He stared at her with wide eyes, as surprised by her arrival as she was by his presence in the first place. She turned her head enough to see where the shears were hanging and quickly grabbed one.
"How did you even— Hey, put that back!"
Another jump returned her to the pet store, and she ripped the plastic wrapping off the shears and gave them a couple of experimental snips. These should work out just fine. Grabbing the corner of the top dog food bag, she started cutting, brushing strands of hair out of her face when they brushed against her forehead. The seam on the bottom came free, and kibble spilled all over onto the ground.
Morgan twittered in delight when she picked the half-empty bag up to get the rest out, and she waved the hand still holding the shears at the pile of dry food. Eat all you want. You definitely earned it. With him otherwise occupied, she carried the bag a few feet away and dropped it on the ground. All she had to do now was figure out how to turn it into a backpack.
Green eyes looked at the bag, at how it fell, and she sucked on her bottom lip as another idea came to her. Maybe she did not have to turn into a backpack, exactly. The way it had folded over on itself, it actually looked a lot like a satchel. She had seen some of the students in the upper years wear them, and while she had never thought about wearing one herself, it would be easier to make than a proper backpack.
Folding the bag in half more evenly, she nodded at it and started cutting along both sides, going from the opening she had made to the fold, repeating the process on the other side, and then lifting one of the flaps she had made so she could cut along the front. The square of burlap left in her hands she tossed behind her. Lifting and lowering the flap still attached, she nodded again. That did not look half bad.
It was still covered in kibble bits, though, but that was a problem she could fix. Ripples of blue light washed over the bag, causing all the pieces of dog food to disappear from sight. The same ripples covered the shears for a moment before they too were clean. Snapping them open and closed again thoughtfully, she reached up and pulled some of the strands of hair down until they were nearly at her nose.
Her hair was getting long, and it had been months since Aunt Petunia had cut her hair. She had always hated how short her aunt left it, how it made her look almost like a boy, but now it was getting long enough to be annoying. It was also far too short for her to do anything useful with it like putting it in pigtails or a ponytail the way other girls at school did. It might be better to go ahead and cut it again. Not as short as Aunt Petunia used to do, not that short by any means, but short enough that it would not flop around in her face like it was.
Something to think about after she was done with her current project.
With the bag cut into shape, she just needed a way to wear it, and she had just the idea.
An hour later, she was done. A long piece of rope taken from the same hardware store in Upper Milton where she grabbed the nail that hung around her neck was attached to both sides of the bag thanks to a lot of thread stolen from an arts and crafts store in the same town, the thread admittedly clumsily sewn through the bag itself and around the rope. Glue helped keep it all together, and she had also glued a piece of cloth around the top of the loop of rope to keep it from rubbing her neck raw.
Most everything she had used, the bag and the rope and the thread and the cloth, were natural. The glue itself she was a little unsure about, but that was a risk she just had to take.
Moment of truth, she told Morgan, who had absolutely gorged himself on dog food and was now sitting on the ground like a big puffball of multicolored feathers. Her attention moved back to the bag, and she curled and uncurled her fingers. Sliding her right arm into the bag, she imagined as forcefully as she could the bag getting bigger and bigger and bigger inside, until…
The edge of the bag reached her shoulder, her arm within still straight and reaching past the bottom of the bag.
She pulled her hand back out and looked at it, then she laughed as hard as she could. It was probably a good thing she was both mute and alone, for if she could make a sound she suspected her laugh would be more of a cackle. It worked! It worked!
Her backpack went into the bag, then her puffy coat, then all the cans and the can opener and the extra batteries and her wad of money. The outside looked just the same as it had before she put everything inside, so she pulled the front and back apart to look into the bag. There was still a hand-span of space between the top can and the edge of the bag, and she suspected that if she kept forcing things into it, she would just find more space.
Let's grab a bag to put some more of that kibble in, she told her friend. It would be a waste to leave it all behind when you did such a good job finding this place. Then we'll sleep here tonight and start moving again at first light.
And in the morning, we can also find more food for me since I can carry a lot more now.
xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Just one more chapter of exploring England before it's time for Hazel to move on and start meeting some actual other characters. I know it has taken a while to get to this point, but some of the things she needed to see and do and learn just wouldn't have been possible were she getting guidance and advice from other people.
Silently Watches out.
Last edited:
- Location
- England
When I got to the part where Hazel was trying to workout how to make a backpack, I thought no don't, you just have to make a bag you can fit into your backpack. Then, a few paragraphs later, she puts her backpack into her new little satchel...
There is definitely a reason I enjoy your stories, this was one of them.
There is definitely a reason I enjoy your stories, this was one of them.
FictionPack
Monochromatic Ursine
- Location
- Tennessee
- Pronouns
- He/Him
So, all young Riddle had to do was go to this little pond on an Easter morn?!
Wow, look at all that wasted effort Tom., you could have just coasted by on your looks.
Wow, look at all that wasted effort Tom., you could have just coasted by on your looks.
- Location
- My room.
Morgan is best birb. And hurray! for Sack of Holding.
Also, that clerk saw Hazel apparate. Are the wizards going to notice? Or will he just assume he imagined it? And as for Hazel running out of magical places to visit, did she ever go back to Merlin's Cave? Does she plan to? It's not like the storm would have lasted that long.
Also, that clerk saw Hazel apparate. Are the wizards going to notice? Or will he just assume he imagined it? And as for Hazel running out of magical places to visit, did she ever go back to Merlin's Cave? Does she plan to? It's not like the storm would have lasted that long.