Chapter Nine: The Garden Window
Time: Breakfast 7/14/95
"Professor Lupin is an old friend of Sirius'," Hermione assured her when Sapphire had related her encounter with the strange man outside the bathroom.
"He lives in the house. You didn't meet him yesterday because he's been sort of ill. But when he's well, he's one of the nicest people I know. I'm sure you'll like him."
Sapphire had not mentioned the name she had spontaneously given the man. The moment had been so strange and so intimate that she hardly knew how to speak of it.
The smell of toast and eggs led them to the kitchen, where six Weasleys had assembled. Having hung the rapier on the wall, Sapphire approached Molly to see if she could be of use, but Molly only allowed her to carry a few plates and then commanded her to sit and eat. Watching Molly fuss over her family, as the boys traded insults and Ginny looked terminally embarrassed at their behavior, Sapphire felt a warmth in the kitchen that much diminished it's gloomy aspect. When Molly had brushed the crumbs from Arthur's robes and he had apparated to the office, and the twins had popped (literally) back upstairs to "come up with more mischief" as their mother surmised, Molly brought a large pot of tea to the table and sat beside Sapphire.
Had she slept well? Sapphire reported that the bed was quite comfortable, but that she had disturbed the girls with a bad dream.
"Mom, could she have some of the stuff Madame Pomfrey gives me?" Ginny asked.
Molly frowned. "I don't know about using that on a muggle, honey. Maybe a calming spell before bed?"
Sapphire allowed that she'd probably sleep better when she'd gotten accustomed to the surroundings, but that she was worried about keeping the girls awake.
"It's summer vacation; we can nap if we want," Ginny offered.
"Professor Lupin will know something that will help," Hermione said, turning to face the doorway.
"Remus!" Molly exclaimed. "I thought you'd be joining us today. Now, let me introduce you to our guest. Sapphire McNiven is an old friend of Sirius'. She joined us yesterday under quite remarkable circumstances."
"We've met," the man in the doorway said, as he and Sapphire took a long look at each other. "I fear I frightened you. I was..., shall we say, I was not quite myself earlier this morning."
He was the same man, but not the same, Sapphire thought. Besides what a shave and a combing could do, there were other things altered that were hard to pin down. Did the hair seem a little less gray? The skin slightly less pale (though he still looked pale enough to concern her)? But most noticeably, the eyes were not the same. He might well say that he had not been himself earlier, for the ancient wildness she had seen was there no more. It were as though one soul had vacated the body and been replaced by another.
"I'm glad to be introduced properly," Sapphire said. "I'm sure you were more surprised to see a strange muggle wandering the halls than I was to bump into you."
"A muggle? I hadn't realized." He looked puzzled as he took her hand. They continued to stare at each other.
Finally, Hermione spoke. "Professor Lupin may know some safe way to control your nightmares."
"Perhaps he'd like some breakfast first," Sapphire added, thinking that, even shaved, this fellow looked like death warmed over.
Molly seated Remus beside Sapphire, handed him a mug and again busied herself at the stove.
"You're a professor?" Sapphire asked.
"I was once," Remus said, taking a long drink from his mug. It was obvious to her that this was not his favorite topic.
"A darn good one," Ron added.
"He taught 'Defense Against the Dark Arts'," Hermione explained. "Miss McNiven is having nightmares because she was attacked by dementors and then obliviated. She says she always has bad dreams after being obliviated. Do you know anything that will help?"
Remus again looked at Sapphire with great interest. "That should give anyone nightmares. How did this happen?"
She related briefly that the dementors and wizards had apparently been searching for Sirius. "I guess I got in the way."
Remus whistled.
"When a wizard tries to alter my memories, they return as nightmares. Sirius tried a few times when we first met and I still have a dream now and then that I can trace to that."
"And if you also stun her, she tosses her cookies," Sirius deadpanned, as he entered the kitchen. Incongruous to the wisecrack, he seemed no less weary than he had the night before. Sapphire noted bags under his eyes as dark as bruises.
"Sirius, some of us are eating!" Molly scolded as she handed him a mug.
"That's most interesting," Remus said, with no trace of levity. "I'd like to hear some more so I can give your problem a bit of thought. There are several methods to suppress bad dreams, but few that have been studied with muggle subjects. First, however, I'd like to know how you two met."
"My granny said we fed a stray dog. And you know what that leads too, " Sapphire laughed, and wondered why Remus and Sirius exchanged such a charged look at her inconsequential joke.
"Sirius, if you feel the need to correct history, feel free to contribute." Sirius was now toying with a plate of eggs and didn't respond; so after a moments pause, she went on. " I and my granny were in the old cabin on the homestead, which is back in the woods miles from anywhere. A storm had taken out both the power and phone, so we couldn't even call for help, and then this young stranger knocks on the door. She and I agreed that he didn't belong out there. She thought he was just lost and hungry. I said he was looking for an easy target. Anyway, we decided to feed him on the porch, and I kept one hand close to the rifle behind the door jamb. Silly me, Sirius later told me I'd have to be pretty fast, and accurate on the first try to get the best of a wizard with a gun. Sirius, didn't you say you thought I had my wand stashed behind that door?"
"Uh..., right. That would seem likely," Sirius said without much sign of interest in the tale. Remus Lupin and the others present, on the other hand, were hanging on every word, so Sapphire forged ahead.
"Anyway, we put him to work doing what the electricity should have done, and he went to work flirting. I think it was about all he was good at in those days -- that and eating. Right, Sirius?"
"Hmm," Sirius said through a full mouth.
"I knew something was odd about him right away. He got us water from the old hand pump, but he never touched the water we had there to prime it, and I never heard him work the handle. Of course, I know now that he summoned the water up the pipe, but I had never heard of such things, and could only wonder. The firewood he split was so uniform that it looked like it had come from a sawmill until I came out to watch. Then I got worried he would hurt himself, he was so awkward with the ax; that particular batch looked like he'd chewed it to size. But strangest of all was when he saw me being threatened by the neighbor who was poaching ginseng and probably growing pot in our north pasture. Sirius used some sort of twitching jinx and sent him packing. I never understood quite what he did to that lowlife, but he never gave us any more trouble. He even stopped cutting our fence wires and restringing them south of that patch of ginseng that grew on our northern boundary. Sirius, how ever did you get him to leave our fence alone?"
Everyone at the table looked at Sirius, who looked into his plate with terrific concentration. "Oh, I don't remember. Maybe after the jinx he was just too afraid of you not to behave properly."
Sapphire shrugged and continued the tale. "Anyhow, after that I was glad enough to see him when he returned the next summer, especially since granny had passed on and I was all alone. I took him with me on a few herb gathering trips and was surprised that this city boy actually knew a fair amount of standard medicinal herbs. Now I understand that you folks use them in potions, but at the time, it was a great mystery to me, and of course, he couldn't explain without telling me he was a wizard. Anyway, it was on one of those trips that Sirius tells me I lost my footing in soft ground and stumbled onto a poisonous snake. He used magic to save my life, then tried to alter my memory. I didn't retain all the details on account of that, but I do have dreams of him holding a snake that bursts into flames in his hand. It seems to be a composite of the reality. He learned then that I have an adverse reaction to stunning, and that my memory isn't easy to erase."
"What did you do about the effects of the spells then?" Remus asked.
Sapphire felt her face warm at this. She didn't look at Sirius, who was slurping his tea. "Well, I had some standard things on hand to calm my stomach and nerves: yellow root, ginger, sassafras, valerian, St.-John's-wort, passionflower and such. " Molly and Remus were both nodding as she recited the list.
"Those would get you started on several standard potions. Did you two find any then that were helpful?" Remus addressed this remark to Sirius, who had retrieved a copy of the Daily Prophet from where Arthur had been sitting and was submerged up to his eyebrows.
Sapphire answered him. "Oh, we didn't make potions! I just made some teas to calm myself and stop the nausea. The nausea was easier to control than the nightmares..." Abruptly, she pursed her lips and lifted her tea cup for a long sip.
Molly prompted, "What about calming spells; did you try some for the dreams?"
Sapphire hesitated, as Sirius loudly turned a page. " I wouldn't allow Sirius to use spells on me... I was afraid, you see, and it was all so new." She was feeling a great urge to apologize, but the others smiled encouragingly, so she went on. "He just had to keep telling me I'd had a bad dream and everything was OK. I don't think either of us got much sleep for a while there." Sapphire was now feeling warm up to her ears. "Say, I don't suppose there's any valerian in the house, is there?"
"Not unless it's in that travesty of a garden," Molly answered.
Remus rose and went to a small grimy window high on the back kitchen wall. It was the only source of natural light for the room, and too high up for Sapphire to see out of from the floor. "Scurgify," Remus commanded and a thin sheet of dust fell from the pane and vanished.
"Is there a garden here?" Sapphire's embarrassment of a moment before vanished. "Is that where this little door leads to?"
"It's probably full of Wizard Dandelion," Sirius mumbled from behind the Prophet.
"Yuck!" Ginny exclaimed, exchanging a grimace with her brother.
"Dandelion? What's so bad about that?" Sapphire inquired.
"It's a powerful diuretic and laxative," Remus explained.
"I never thought of Taraxacum Officinale as being a particularly potent drug..."
"Not Officinale; Illegalis," Remus corrected. " Wizard Dandelion was probably created to repel muggles, solicitors and other strangers from unfriendly yards. It creates, shall we say, instant and massive urgencies on contact."
"Oh, wow." Sapphire was trying to take this in.
"I didn't see any, the few times I ventured out there, but there's an awful mess of Medusa Nettle," Molly added.
"My mother could have planted all sorts of dangerous plants in that garden -- and almost certainly did. You should stay out of it." Sirius had put down the paper and was looking around for Sapphire.
"But who tends it now?" Sapphire was across the room, standing in a chair to see out of the little window.
"No one, " Molly answered. "Sirius is right, it isn't a safe place for a muggle."
"But I have two degrees in botany! I've inherited generations of ethnic botanical knowledge. I spend whole days hip deep in plants; I know plants! " protested Sapphire.
"Not these you don't," Sirius argued.
"So it contains species unknown to muggle botanists?" Sapphire still peering out the window, felt almost as excited as when she had first understood that Sirius was a wizard.
"Look, Sirius," Remus said, "why don't we all look over the garden, and try to eliminate anything truly dangerous."
"It would be easier to eliminate the garden," Sirius grumbled.
"You must promise not to enter it without one of us and to stay away from plants that don't look familiar to you?" Remus offered Sapphire a hand down from the chair.
"When can I see it?"
"It's not going anywhere." Molly poured Sapphire a second cup of tea. "After we eat, I suppose you can have a tour."
"Hmph," grunted Sirius from behind the Prophet.
@ 2,244 words, Last Edit 07/16/07
Chapter Eight: Morning in the Girls Room
Time: Morning 7/14/95
Sapphire opened her eyes and blinked at the dim outlines of an unfamiliar room. In her dreams, she had been back at her cabin in the forest. As the previous day came back to her, she became conscious that she was being watched. A young girl was propped on one elbow observing her from a bed across the room. Another girl did likewise from the opposite side.
Sapphire's thoughts finally formed into something like coherent speech. "Looks like I woke you two. Was I talking in my sleep?"
Hermione spoke first. "I'm glad you don't remember. It sounded like a terrible nightmare."
"You were trying to scream," added Ginny.
"Sorry!" said Sapphire through a yawn that almost locked her jaws. When they would move again she added, "I think I know which nightmare it was; it will almost certainly happen again. Maybe you two should evict me before you get sleep deprived."
"Mrs. Weasley is right. I don't think you should be alone here at night," said Hermione quickly. "After you get used to this place, you will probably sleep better. And if you don't, you could have a sleeping aid."
Before she could ask what that aid might be, Ginny said simply, "Don't apologize. You couldn't help it," and continued to study Sapphire with an interest that made her self-conscious.
After a minute of awkward silence, Sapphire asked her audience of two, "Is it time to get up?"
"Near enough, " said Hermione. "Breakfast usually starts around eight, and it's 7:20 now. But we can save you something if you want to sleep some more."
"Well, thanks, but why don't I just get up now, and leave you two to get another half hour of more peaceful sleep?" Sapphire said, sitting up with a stifled groan. Her back felt like she'd been beaten with a stick all over it. As she put her weight on her feet, she remembered that she had strained a knee when she landed on the inside of the window, and again when she jumped to her feet after repelling the binding spell. She limped over to her pack and gingerly bent to fish out her hair brush. She took a sharp breath when she tried to straighten up again, decided against it and, still bent, slid carefully onto the dressing table stool. She began coaxing the tousled braid from her long black hair. Now and again she winced and froze as a movement sent needles into her back. She was going to pay dearly, it seemed, for avoiding that spell.
Ginny rose from her bed and walked up behind her. "Can I brush your hair?" she asked.
"Wouldn't you rather sleep?"
"You need some help," Ginny said simply. "Besides, I want to. Your hair is so shiny." Sapphire chuckled and, smiling, surrendered the brush. Hermione had turned over to watch.
The gentle regular strokes on her hair were soothing. "You have a nice touch," she said to Ginny. "When I was younger than you, I had a cousin that always wanted to brush my hair. I wouldn't let her for the longest, because I just hated having my hair brushed. My mother made it feel like she was pulling it out, yanking the brush through as hard as it would go. I was so surprised when I finally let Betty brush it and found out it didn't have to be painful."
"Why would your mother do that?" Ginny asked.
"Oh, she hated my hair. Hated that it was black like granny M's and hated that it was long, 'like a wild woman's', she used to say. What she really meant was that it reminded her that I was turning out to be like her mother in law. She would have made me cut it off, but my dad said I could grow it long if I wanted." Sapphire laughed and continued after a moment's thought. "She still tells me regularly that I'm too old to wear it long. She gave me a coupon book to a quick-cut place for Christmas last year. Said I ought to get a perm and have a dye job to hide the gray."
"I'm glad you didn't," said Ginny, frowning and smoothing the waterfall of mostly black tresses with her hand. "I like the silver bits. It reminds me of spell sparks in a pitch black room. I always wanted shiny black hair," she added wistfully.
"Don't change a thing. Some women would kill for that fiery mane of yours," Sapphire retorted. Ginny just frowned more and kept brushing.
The soft strokes on her hair continued a long time. Sapphire would have closed her eyes, except that she was afraid of going back to sleep sitting at the dresser; so she stared into the mirror at the dim reflections, first of her own face and then the girl's. She couldn't help thinking that the tired face looking back at her ought to belong to someone else -- and thinking that, even absent the bags and lines of creeping middle age, Ginny's eyes looked almost as old as her own.
"I have a nightmare that comes back, too." Ginny said quietly, as though reading her mind. "It has a young man in it who turns into a snake."
"Did something like that happen to you?" asked Sapphire.
"You could say that; yes. At school, the nurse gives me a potion when it gets too bad. Sometimes my roommates put a soundproof charm around my bed, so I don't wake them." She related this thing with an improbable detachment.
Sapphire thought a minute and offered, "I was dreaming about whatever killed my mule two years ago. But in the dream, it isn't always the mule that dies." Ginny didn't ask who died. Sapphire guessed she didn't really need to.
"Should I braid it again?" Ginny asked.
"That would be nice, dear."
After a while, Hermione spoke. "Did you hurt yourself when you fought off Snape?" Ginny, who had missed the fireworks, stopped braiding.
Sapphire chuckled. "Any maneuver like that is rough on someone of my vintage. Besides, my back already hurt from the train trip and all the bending over collecting herbs I was doing before that."
"You didn't act hurt yesterday," Hermione observed.
"Never let your opponent see your weakness," Sapphire said. "Looking weak just encourages your attacker." She was quoting her own brother, she realized.
"Did it hurt very badly when you rolled and threw the spell back?" Hermione asked with interest.
"It's hard to say, young girl friend. There's nothing to take your mind off of pain like having to defend yourself. Truly though, things stiffen a bit overnight as you get older. I'll be better when I've been up a while."
"I wish I had been there," Ginny said, resuming her work more firmly. "Ron said you made Snape look like an amateur."
"That may not be something we want to dwell on, " Sapphire said seriously. "I'm afraid it may be hard for us to get along since I bested him in front of other people. I'll have to find a way to earn his respect if he's going to get past the wound to his pride."
"He doesn't respect anyone as far as I can tell," said Ginny. "And I wouldn't worry about getting along. He certainly doesn't."
"He has a troubled past," Hermione said in a somewhat reproachful tone.
"I suspect he has trouble enough in the present," Sapphire said. "Does he live alone? Is there anyone he's close to?"
"He hates everyone," said Ginny with finality.
"That's not true, " said Hermione. "He likes Dumbledore."
"What makes you think that?" Ginny countered. "He's said all sorts of derogatory things about Dumbledore -- like saying he's gullible to believe Harry sometimes. I think he only sticks with Dumbledore because he needs the job and the protection."
"Dumbledore is the old, white bearded fellow that showed up yesterday?" Sapphire queried, thinking it might be good to redirect the conversation.
"Yes, " said Hermione, "that's him."
"He's a character, isn't he?" she asked.
"Well, he's rather unique in a number a ways," Hermione conceded.
"He's the most powerful wizard in the world," Ginny added. "The only one You-Know-Who is afraid of. Ron says he's crazy, but he really adores him."
Sapphire laughed. "Talented, beloved and crazy! That's the very definition of a 'character' where I come from." Then she added, mostly to herself, "I wonder why they called him 'Albus?' Maybe it was snowing when he first saw light."
"What do you mean?" asked Hermione.
"His name means 'white'. I wonder if it was snowing the day they named him."
"I never thought about it before," Hermione mused. ÒBut he does love snow. His eyes light up like a kidÕs when we get the first good one of the season.Ó
Ginny had plaited the last of Sapphire's long hair, and handed her a mirror for inspection. "Very nice! I see you are an expert," she said, handing back the mirror as they exchanged grins. Sapphire collected some clothes from her pack and, with a bit less hesitation than the last time, stood. "I'd better wash my face and tidy up a bit. See? I'm not as stiff now that the blood's been flowing a bit." With only minimal limping, she made her way to the bath down the hall.
________
It wasn't until she had finished dressing that she realized the sword was still under the mattress in the girls room. "Well, what could happen really?" she was thinking as she pulled open the bathroom door to exit and almost ran headlong into a man. She gasped and jumped back. The man looked equally surprised, but only stood there, just outside the door frame, staring at her.
He wasn't a reassuring sight. Several days growth of stubble on his face failed to hide some rather alarming scratches. His bushy hair was a dirty gray and stuck out in all directions as if it hadn't seen a comb for as long as his face hadn't seen a razor. He was draped in a brown robe with rips, frays and patches in plenty. However, the most disconcerting thing about him was not that he looked like he'd been living under a bridge for a long time. It was his eyes. They had an indescribable wildness to them. The overlarge pupils, round and black as deep wells, seemed to stare at her from some ancient and alien depth that had no part in the indoor world of men.
Seeing no route of escape, she stood entirely still, hoping he would leave on his own; but he seemed incapable of speech or motion, and only stared back at her, eyes wide and fixed. Then a voice spoke in Sapphire's mind -- a memory of her grandmother.
"Waya." Sapphire whispered the word before the meaning came to her. When she did remember, it was as though she had both grasped a truth and uncovered a mystery. Still wondering where the thought had come from, she spoke again, this time addressing him deliberately. "Waya?" Being spoken to, the man blinked, and seemed somehow to comprehend the situation better. He stepped back from the door several paces, and allowed her to exit. When she had backed away to the opposite side of the corridor, he sidled into the bathroom. Their eye contact was finally broken as he closed the door. Sapphire suddenly felt a little weak. She had almost certainly been holding her breathe and her heart was pounding. Perhaps Sirius wasn't being paranoid about her safety here. She resolved to retrieve the rapier before she did anything else.
@ 1,975 words, Last Edit 7/24/07