hunting unicorns

[metamorphmaga]

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?

Comments

[chanuphis]

"I'm going to definitely write Aurors and anybody else who might be able to bring me places to Dementor-hunt," agrees Miranda. "Especially if it turns out I can't figure out what I'm doing special to make it a killing instead of a chasing Patronus."

[parental_guidance]

Emma manages to summon up a smile. "If the special wand is part of it, I think it might not catch on quick."

[chanuphis]

"Well, I'm not sure what else I'd be doing different, unless it matters very much what your happy thought is."

[parental_guidance]

"I'm sure you'll figure it out."

[pleating]

"You're going to be famous, Miranda," says Karen certainly. "You're definitely the first and maybe the only ever Dementor destroyer and you're awesome."

[chanuphis]

Miranda giggles.

[parental_guidance]

"Killing Dementors is up there with like... being Harry Potter," Emma agrees, hushed. "No one's ever killed one."

[chanuphis]

"I don't know if I'm quite Harry Potter level. It didn't really - it could have rushed us or something and it didn't. I wasn't fighting, it was like the Dementor was a curse that was just sitting there and then I countered it. And then it was over."

[parental_guidance]

"...baby Harry Potter?" Emma suggests after a moment's thought. "Not all the stuff he did in school, but- only person to survive the Killing Curse, only person to kill a Dementor? That's kinda the same level."

[chanuphis]

"I think I'm like between grownup Harry Potter and baby Harry Potter. Because baby Harry Potter didn't do anything at all, he was just lucky, and I did a thing."

[parental_guidance]

"Yeah, of course, totally," Emma hurries to assure her. "I just meant- the fame side."

[chanuphis]

"I don't know, do you think absolutely everybody is going to know my name? ...Ugh, I hope they don't try to print my first name in the Daily Prophet, nobody can pronounce it."

[pleating]

"I can pronounce it, you taught me."

[chanuphis]

"I mean from reading it. And there's kind of an accent for it and it doesn't sound right if you don't know, like, how my grandparents used to say it? I dunno."

[parental_guidance]

"I wonder if you'll get a title? There was the Boy Who Lived, so you could be, ummmm, the Girl Who Dementored?"

[chanuphis]

"I didn't Dementor! I undementored."

[pleating]

"Patronus Girl. The Girl with the Silver Person. I never heard of a person Patronus."

[parental_guidance]

"The Glowing Girl? I know it's kinda wrong, cause it's the Patronus that glows, but being totally correct never seems to worry newspaper people too much."

[pleating]

"Well, maybe we'd better come up with a good title and tell it to them before they make up something terrible."

[parental_guidance]

"The Girl with the Killer Patronus? No," she sighs, "that makes you sound all scary."

[chanuphis]

"I'm scary to Dementors. But they don't read newspapers. Silver Girl?"

[pleating]

"Too - Slytherin-y. Since silver's one of their colors."

[parental_guidance]

"Patronus Girl is the only one that's seemed okay to me so far. Um. Dementor's Bane?"

[chanuphis]

"That makes me sound like a weapon. Maybe my wand can be Dementor's Bane. But then I want a name for the other one too."

[parental_guidance]

"Are you going to let people borrow the wand to try the spell? In case it's that?" Emma asks curiously. "I mean, what if something happened to it?"