metamorphmaga | hunting unicorns

As spring approaches and the snow begins to melt, Jenny and Emma take to spending their free afternoons outside, practicing flying or doing homework on the lawn or just generally enjoying the sunshine. Their spot of choice is not, as such things go, all that far from the forest, and for Jenny it becomes something of a game: see if you can spot a unicorn. She never does, but she never gives up hope. Someday.

After about a month of this, Emma decides to leave the lawn early- she's finished her letter to her parents, and wants to drop it at the Owlery- so Jenny is left to her own devices. Bored, she examines the forest. It's only supposed to be unsafe at night, right? It won't hurt to go wander around a little in search of unicorns. She won't go very far.

And if she's lucky- unicorns.

Half an hour later, Jenny is deeply regretting her idea. She is completely lost, and the forest has gotten much darker and gloomier. She would go back, if she had any idea where to go. She's taken to making little piles of rocks, to attempt to mark her way; unfortunately, so far all this has told her is that she is definitely going in a circle.

The next time she re-encounters a pile, she branches out to the left instead. She's pretty sure she came from that direction, so maybe-

Cold.

Jenny is friends with Miranda. Miranda has been compulsively researching Dementors all year; she knows what it means, this cold, the screaming terror. But it's so much worse than anything ever, ever said it would be. She's frozen to the spot, unable to move, brain screaming in terror.

And then the Dementor appears. Slowly but visibly, it approaches her. Is it bigger than the books said they should be? She thinks it is. It's already looming and it's not even close.

Frantically, crazy with fear, Jenny does the only thing she can think of- she shifts away her mouth.

The Dementor stops, seeming to hover in place. Jenny stays frozen in place. The Dementor doesn't seem to be planning to Kiss her... but it's not moving, either, and she's still stuck.

Oh, God. Now what?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

parental_guidance

When Jenny does not appear for dinner, Emma is concerned, but only mildly; she's skipped dinners before, if she gets caught up in something.

When it's approaching curfew and Jenny is still nowhere to be found, she starts to panic. It's been a long time since they were writing on the grass, and no one's seen Jenny since. She asked.

She's Jenny's friend, she doesn't want to get her in trouble, but this is Hogwarts. Jenny is Muggleborn; she doesn't always know the dangers. And she is missing, from right next to the Forest.

Emma is getting a teacher right now.

From:

pleating

Karen has dragged Miranda away from "definitely being on to something" about Dementors to come with her and talk to the transfiguration professor about - Karen can't remember what her excuse was. American curricula? Switching Spells? Animagi? Something like that. Something other than Dementors. At any rate, they are currently talking about why it's easier to turn a hedgehog into a cactus than it is to turn one into a bowling ball, because that was the riddle they got when Miranda tried to go back for her notebook. The answer was "because they both have spines" but neither Ravenclaw is sure why spines are more important than the hedgehog's ability to roll into a ball.

From:

parental_guidance

Emma stumbles on them as she rounds the counter, out of breath. She officially does not care that she's interrupting, she will apologize to Miranda and Karen later. "Professor, Professor, help please, my housemate is missing and no one's seen her for hours and the last I saw her she was by the forest and I'm afraid she went looking for unicorns but she hasn't come back and-"

At this point she runs out of breath, but she thinks he got the point.

From:

gamps_law

"Okay, kid, breathe, it'll be okay." He puts a hand on her shoulder calmingly. "The paths in the woods aren't great, I'm sure she's just lost. Now, who's missing, exactly?"

From:

parental_guidance

"Jenny," Emma pants. "Um, Genevieve O'Meara. Blonde Hufflepuff, my year."

From:

chanuphis

"Jenny's in the forest? - are you positive? If she tried to get into, I don't know, our common room, while we weren't around...?"

From:

parental_guidance

"I'm not totally sure? But we were out studying by the forest this afternoon, and she was wearing her cloak, and it's not back in the room and she hasn't been seen since and I can't think where else she would have gone with it that she could be gone this long?"

From:

chanuphis

"Professor, can we come help look?"

From:

parental_guidance

Following a professor should be safe, and she's worried about Jenny. "Please?"

From:

gamps_law

He smiles at them. "Worried about your friend? I suppose I'll allow it. But stay close to me and do as I say, mind, the grounds aren't safe without a teacher at night."

Edited Date: 2014-08-14 04:24 pm (UTC)

From:

pleating

"Of course," agrees Karen.

From:

gamps_law

"Good. Keep close now. Miss Mason, if you'll show us where you were?"

From:

parental_guidance

Emma nervously leads them outside to where she and Jenny had been sitting.

From:

gamps_law

Sure enough, no Jenny.

"Point Me", he murmurs to his wand. It spins, and points directly into the forest. He sighs. "In we go, then. She must be lost."

From:

parental_guidance

Emma follows, sticking close to Miranda and Karen, and thereby to Professor Fisher. She does not like this forest.

From:

gamps_law

After about fifteen minutes, the wand takes a turn to the left. In the distance, they see a blonde girl standing leaned against a tree.

"See? There she is," Scott says in relief. He jogs over to where she's waiting-

-and sees her frantic eyes and eerie, mouthless face too late. He's wrapped in a shroud of cold, cold, cold, and he doubles over, gasping, before slumping forward unconscious.

In the woods behind him, something very, very large stirs.

From:

pleating

"Professor!"

From:

chanuphis

They're not supposed to be that big.

But Miranda knows what it is, and when she looks at it - numb in the face, like it sprayed her with ice or anaesthetic or like she isn't there at all - when she looks at it the thing she was almost onto, rereading that one chapter for the tenth time to understand, clicks.

There are numerous hypotheses about the metaphysical implications of the Dementor. Many suppose it to be, simply, a monster, with no greater symbolism; others have likened it to the torporous sadness that befalls susceptible minds; it has been likened to everything from inevitability - for they cannot be destroyed, only diverted - to darkness - for obvious reasons. A poet, looking after his exposed son, compared the Dementor to death itself -

But Death is not inevitable. The Philosopher's Stone existed once, it could be made again. There is surely more magic waiting to be discovered.

She doesn't know how to make the Philosopher's Stone on the spot. Let alone how to spontaneously invent a new Dementor-killing spell. The cold is trying to make her give in to this discouraging fact.

But she has a very, very enthusiastic wand.

She brings her shaking hand to her hair, and pulls the chimaera-hair wand out, and she's read the chapter ten times, she knows the motion and the words -

"EXPECTO PATRONUM!"

It's not an animal, even a chimaera. It looks like - a person. A genderless, giant, graceful person of silver light, pouring forward from her wandtip towards the unreasonably large dementor. They're of a size.

And when the glowing person wraps its arms around the monster, they are no longer of a size.

The dementor shrinks, and screams, and shrinks, and Miranda holds her wand up, trembling.

Edited Date: 2014-08-14 05:26 pm (UTC)

From:

metamorphmaga

Jenny crumples to the ground. Her face reverts to normal and she starts to sob hysterically.

From:

parental_guidance

Emma realizes she was screaming. Funny, she hadn't even noticed. She forces herself to stop, and promptly hides behind Miranda. "Oh my god oh my god oh my god," she whimpers, mostly to herself.

From:

pleating

"Merlin's wand," whimpers Karen. "Miranda, what are you -"

From:

chanuphis

"Almost," says Miranda softly. "Almost almost almost -"

It's such an enormous Dementor, why is it so big -

But finally there doesn't seem to be any of it left.

Its cloak crumples in the Patronus's hands, and falls to the ground.

From:

parental_guidance

"What did you do-"

But, seeing the Dementor crumple, she gives up and runs for Jenny. "Jenny, Jenny Jenny Jenny, are you okay, what happened?"

She wraps her arms around Jenny and starts to cry as well.