Potter Professions

The day after his conversation with Sirius, Harry dusted his aikido training hall. This done, he practised half-forgotten movements - the first such exercise in six years.

The next day he was so stiff, he could barely walk. Never before in his life had his muscles been so sore. Every step hurt like hell. Had Hermione been at home rather than on holiday, he would have asked her for a curing potion. But instead, he practised again, letting his body chemistry take care of the soreness the hard way.

Afterwards, he used the devices in the recreation room as he'd been taught twenty years ago: shower, hot water tub, cold water tub. A lonely business, somehow.

As compensation, he stopped shaving. Grow a beard, Sirius had said, and the time left until start of terms seemed just right for this task.

Four days later, days during which he had spent hours practising and more hours thinking about how to regain fitness, the soreness had faded sufficiently to feel something like joy in his exercises, a faint memory of past pleasures. He was heavier than the last time he had used the training hall that extensively. Nobody would call him fat, there was no belly, his stomach still looked reasonably flat, but there were a few pounds more to move.

Harry felt determined to lose them. That evening, for the first time since he had started his exercises, he was relaxed enough to use the steam room.

Coming out of the final shower, he felt ravenous. Unfortunately, there was a clear conflict of targets between losing weight and satisfying his desire. He also felt horny. While actually following this impulse might have contributed to losing weight, there wasn't anyone around to satisfy this desire.

He bought a trimmer for head and facial hair. Presenting the little machine, he asked Dobby to trim his hair down to a size of about five millimeters. When Dobby had doubts whether this was really a good idea, Harry threatened to ask Winky instead. With some muttering, the house-elf obeyed.

Stepping in front of the closest mirror, examining the result, Harry asked himself whether this really had been a good idea. In the sense of Sirius' suggestion, though, cropping his hair as short as that was a full success.

Examining his double scar, more prominent than ever with his hair as short as it was now, he decided to complete his disguise instantly, if only to get himself used to the view. A first spell made his beard grow to the amount it would have achieved with three weeks' normal growth. A second spell made his forehead look as if he'd bumped into a door, while the scar rested there as distinctive as before.

Examining a few spell books, Harry couldn't find a better solution, at least none he felt ready to try on himself. What was the opposite of a cosmetic surgeon?

Hermione crossed his mind. She was a surgeon, and Harry recalled the one time when, by messing up a Polyjuice Potion, she had managed what would be the ideal disguise for him. But Hermione was still on holiday, and asking her to be an ugliness surgeon might have been a bad mistake.

Just in time, he remembered some people with a genuine skill in such matters: house-elves. Coming to Dobby and Winky, he had to reveal a bit about what he had in mind before they agreed, only to start a heated discussion in Elvish.

Listening, Harry remained very much at ease. All the horrible alternatives that were mentioned and dismissed at once couldn't disturb his peace of mind, mostly because he was unable to follow the language. Only one thing was a bit disquieting - never before had Dobby and Winky used this language in his presence.

After a few minutes, the two house-elves seemed to have come to an agreement about how to treat him. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes while fingers touched his forehead, stroking his skin upward into the thin fur of cropped black hair, downward to his chin.

A moment later, Dobby asked him to check in a mirror whether their work was to his satisfaction. Harry stood up and moved to the mirror at the wall. Seeing himself, he stopped, stood frozen -

Then he made another step forward to examine his new self more closely. Something had blown up into his face and had left traces for life. In a complexion darker than before, black spots like needle points looked as if gun powder had burned into his skin. The lighter, unspotted skin at his neck made clear that the blow-up had hit only his face, that this was no suntan.

And then the real discolouration ... Starting at the bridge of his nose, expanding straight upward at one side and right above the eye socket at the other side, was an area of purplish blue, with streaks of natural skin colour in-between. Two sharp creases had added to the scars on his forehead, altogether creating a landscape of badly damaged epidermis.

Below this patch, two dark eyes glittered. It took Harry a second to realize that these were his original eyes without any alteration, staring as they always stared at something new, unknown, and potentially dangerous.

Moments later, these eyes started to beam. "That's incredible," he said and turned to the two house-elves, who looked anxious. "That's exactly what I had in mind, although I wouldn't have been able to tell you. Thank you, Winky, thank you, Dobby. You know, if you ever felt like quitting your job here, you could hire any time for special effects make-up at the movies."

Seeing their alarmed glances, he hurried to say, "Only joking - I can't imagine living here without your services."

It calmed them down a bit, though without raising a pleased expression on their gnomish faces. Probably an effect from his announcement that he was going to live in a French boarding school for a while.

Touching with his fingers, probing his own skin, Harry didn't notice a significant difference. Yes, he could feel the two new creases on his forehead, a bit more distinct than his scars, but otherwise the unfamiliar beard dominated the sensation in his fingertips.

---

The following morning, under the shower, it crossed his mind that this was a first stress test for Dobby's and Winky's skill in magical make-up. Of course it held - there was neither smear in his face nor on the towel, simply because it wasn't make-up at all.

While practising, with lots of stretching exercises before really starting with kicks and jumps, his mind kept idly musing over what Sirius had said, that his mask might even attract women. Maybe he should give it a try.

Next moment, he had a better idea how to test his disguise. His own wife - it would be interesting how long it took her to recognize him. And afterwards, they could do something they hadn't done in a while, and in the course of this something, he certainly would find out whether his new face had any effect on her.

He knew where to find her, had been on that island himself when the resort was built. After all, he was also a member of the steering committee that controlled the MABEL organization. But this wasn't the title under which he planned to appear there.

After some thinking, he knew how to approach. MABEL resorts did not act as hotels but weren't run like private property either. Dressed as a lumberjack or forest guard, he would be able to enter the Vancouver Resort incognito, at least the bar and the restaurant.

Eight hours time difference separated Carron Lough from Vancouver Island. When he left, past midnight local time, it was late afternoon on the island. He apparated to the shoreline at some distance from the buildings; not only was he unaware of the exact topography, but arriving from the forest would match his cover story better than an apparition jump right into the lobby.

He wasn't sure how much his clothes fit to the role of a wood cutter. Reaching the bar, he took off his anorak and a red baseball cap to present a chequered shirt, which should be enough to classify him as an outdoor worker in the eyes of passers-by. At least for his entrance, he shouldn't have worried; the moment his cap was off, people were so busy avoiding stares that they had no chance of developing any suspicion.

He climbed onto a bar stool and ordered a whiskey and a beer. Not his taste at all, even though Canadian whiskey wasn't quite as bad as bourbon, from the perspective of a tongue used to scotch if unavoidable, but a lumberjack ordering a five-star armagnac, that wouldn't do.

A grin crossed his face as he thought of the extent to which his test was driving him. A Canadian whiskey, just in order to see whether he could fool his wife for a few moments.

Looking up, he saw that the bartender, a black man past his forties and maybe fifties too, had watched him. Seconds later, the bartender stood there.

"Interesting colour'n yer face, mate."

"Aye." Harry knew a few languages but lumberjack slang was none of them. So he escaped into a bad imitation of a Scottish accent, hoping the bartender was no expert.

"Why didn'tcha do sumfin' against it?"

"Why? Don't see it often mesself."

A slow chuckling shook the bartender's body. "Yeah, man, that's true - actually the same is true for us brothers, ain't it?" And now the black face showed rosy gums while a serious laugh shook the man. Calming down, he asked, "How'dcha get it?"

Somehow, appearing as a Canadian wood cutter hadn't been his best idea, Harry thought while his mind was searching frantically for a response. Following the old rule that when in doubt the truth served best he replied in the broadest Scottish he could muster, "Met a few elves. Had a word with them, aye, and when we were done, I looked that way."

"Elves, huh?" The bartender, ready for his next fit of laughter, noticed Harry's glance and closed his mouth. "Sorry, mate - "

At this moment, another guest caught the barman's attention, saving him and still more Harry from embarrassment. Even so, Harry's heart started beating faster - the new guest was Clifford, one of the two people in the hidden camera team. They had known each other since the early days of Groucho Spectors.

Clifford sent a glance to Harry, no doubt curious because for him, all faces in the seminar should be well known by now. This glance took in the chequered shirt, with the expected conclusion, as far as Harry could see and feel. Then Clifford noticed the discoloured face and quickly stopped examining the newcomer.

It hadn't been the most difficult test of the world. Still, Clifford would have recognized Harry any time, while now, he only showed a healthy person's embarrassment toward handicaps and injuries.

A moment later, a man and a woman reached the bar - moderators, as Harry became aware, because he remembered the man's face while not his name. The woman, an attractive black, was unknown to him.

She noticed his stare and responded by staring back. Of course - MABEL moderators wouldn't suffer from the common shyness to look straight at someone crippled or disfigured. On the other hand, Harry wasn't sure whether she knew him.

Then the man followed his colleague's stare and examined Harry with similar calmness and casualness, before he finally looked away.

Ralph Crowninshield! That was the man's name, as Harry suddenly remembered. Ralph knew Harry for sure, so this was the second test passed.

---

For a few minutes, Harry contemplated the MABEL program in general and his wife's role in particular. More than most people he knew, Cho felt at ease in the circles which could afford spending a hundred grand in four weeks. In the beginning, before the candidates had started to queue up, waiting for the next free place in any MABEL seminar all over the globe, she had liked travelling around, beating the drums for this program.

Then there was the challenge of gathering the ten members with a scholarship. In any other business, it simply would have been called free of charge while for MABEL with its esoteric touch, such a mundane term was unthinkable. Finding the right candidates, selecting them from lists of suggested people, was the driving element for Cho. There were moments when she felt like a goddess, as she once had confessed.

Then, of course, the question of all questions - whom to grant magic, whom not? As far as the seminar members knew, their own efforts, and maybe God's grace, were the forces that brought them magic. As Harry knew for a fact, it was Aram'chee, the High Priestess, who followed the recommendations from the moderators. And from Cho, who liked to play the fifth moderator, the third camera woman, and the only MABEL representative with a direct channel to the High Priestess.

A man appeared at the bar - broad-shouldered, his impeccable suit revealing that he was an official of the Vancouver Resort. He spoke with the bartender, sent an investigative glance to Harry, and sat down in one of the cubicles near the bar. Moments later, a waiter served him what on this side of the Atlantic was called a sandwich - one of the things Harry missed in Great Britain since they had left California.

From where the man sat, he could watch Harry. This seemed hardly by accident; the man was an official, maybe the manager in charge, and he didn't trust a woodcutter who had strayed into this expensive bar.

Well, high prices wouldn't scare off a real lumberjack. As if to prove this point, Harry ordered another round. For late afternoon it was a bit much. For a man of the axe, it should be the absolute minimum, whereas for Harry himself it was just another drink after midnight.

A girl appeared in his vision. She waved at the moderators, and only now he realized that it wasn't a girl but a petite woman with Oriental features, and that he knew her well - Cho.

She said something to the bartender, apparently an order, and walked further to the cubicle with the eating man. She sat down opposite the man, with her profile to Harry. Now she said something to the man, and the way she did it, her stance while sitting there, struck Harry as quite relaxed, almost intimately.

The bartender reached the table and deposited a drink. He could have carried out Cho's order faster only by running.

Harry watched how Cho raised the glass to something like a toast toward the man across and took a gulp.

The eating man said something to her. Next instant, she turned and stared at Harry.

For a few seconds, Harry held her stare without changing his expression and, for all he hoped, pretty much like an outdoor man would respond to a woman's stare. Then Cho turned back to the man opposite her, said something, and laughed. After a short reply from the man she laughed more, raised her glass again, and emptied it. This done, her head came forward as if trying to sniff at the man's sandwich.

Harry knew this gesture by heart. She was hungry, and with Cho in this state, nobody's meal was safe from her greed. Depending on how close she was with someone, she might or might not try to pick from this person's dish.

Suddenly Harry felt like a peeping Tom. He had come here to test his disguise on his own wife, not to catch her flirting with another man ... assuming this was still a flirt, a question of which Harry's mind refused to guess the answer.

He emptied his beer and reached in his pockets for his wallet. By then, the bartender was already there.

"Save it, mate; the drinks are on the house."

Harry thought he knew why, but his role forced him to ask, "How's that?"

"It's a closed society here, and the manager" - the bartender gestured toward the man opposite Cho - "said that we welcome the opportunity to see a resident of this wonderful island."

Very elegant, and definitely not too subtle for a Canadian back road lumberjack. Harry took his second glass with the remnants of the Canadian whiskey he had planned to forget, and raised it in his own salute to the man; then he emptied it. In rising and turning, he saw that Cho had turned again to watch.

Movements were much more treacherous than surfaces. Would she recognize him from his walk?

Reaching the exit, Harry could choose among three explanations why Cho hadn't reacted by jumping up and hurrying after him. His own movements weren't as characteristic as he'd thought. His exercises during the previous days, and maybe also his role, had obscured his normal walking pattern. Or Cho was too preoccupied with the man opposite her to waste a second thought on a foreigner in this seminar round.

All considered, his test had been very successful, although not quite as expected.

* * *

Sandra felt like an idiot. Her holidays were thoroughly messed up, thanks to a son-of-a-bitch known by the name of Zack, and she hadn't even kicked him in the privates.

In a very secret corner of her mind, she felt still more an idiot that she hadn't used him for a more pleasurable purpose. The thought seemed absurd, only the circumstances fed the suspicion that, all considered, this alternative might have been preferable.

After the Starlight Palace disaster, Héloise and Neil had a good time. They didn't expect more than getting along until the end of their holidays, didn't invest more than time and goodwill, and their result was heaven for two weeks, maybe three.

During the day, Sandra had three choices: go to the beach with Héloise and tolerate the presence of Zack, who came with his friend Neil, or chase him off and afterwards feel like an insufferable three-year-old, or not go to the beach at all, at the cost of serious complaints from Donovan and Deirdre.

In the evening, Sandra had three choices: follow Héloise into the Starlight Palace and feel out of place there, follow Héloise into the moonshine under palms and feel badly in the way there, or stay with Grandma Benedict and feel terribly bored.

It was depressing. She wished she could forgive this asshole Zack. Failing that, she wished Neil would trade his friend for another. Of course he didn't, no more than Héloise would trade him for another beach romance.

Once, twice, Zack made an attempt to make up. Sandra gave him the good advice never to touch her again. When Zack tried to laugh it away, to play the Nobody can be mad at this All-American Boy game, Héloise told him he better believe it, unless he wanted to find out what the word pain really meant.

No, he wasn't that curious.

It gave Sandra little satisfaction. Quite the opposite, she felt more frustrated than ever. This inability of hers to forgive and forget was more of a character defect than a virtue, not the least bit helpful. Especially for someone like her, who had to cope with many duties all year long, finding the holidays spoiled like this was extremely unfair.

In her normal environment, she felt caught in a triangle of interests and demands. One corner of this triangle represented the school, where Sandra counted as a witch as powerful as she was skilled. According to Beauxbatons and its magical faculty, she simply had to be the magical champion, at contests and in-between.

Sandra didn't object to playing Beauxbaton's champion in public. On the other hand, she didn't like it either. For herself, proving magical power in a contest seemed as meaningful and mature as the games Zack and his cronies played at the beach.

The second corner in this triangle was her planned destiny - that of the next High Priestess. For years, Sandra had lived with the knowledge that she would take over this duty from Aram'chee, and until recently, she had felt content with this thought. Yes, Aram'chee had announced that probably it would be Sandra's task to end the role of the High Priestess - whoever had established the duty in prehistoric times hadn't intended to create an arbiter of all humans, only of the wizarding world as something hidden in the Muggle world. And now, after the two worlds had merged and soon every person on earth would be magical, the High Priestess had lost her moral authority.

But at the same time, Aram'chee had never left a doubt that it would be Sandra's decision to end the role and the authority. For that, she had to be High Priestess in first place.

And then, a while ago, the Theatre Group at Beauxbatons asked around for students who - if only temporarily - would join them to fill the gaps in a project. A movie project actually; performing on stage wasn't required.

Some people, among them Frédéric and his friend, Héloise's devoted but often-ignored slave Benoît, suggested that Héloise should sign up. For her, they said, this would be just an extension of her normal practice in which play-acting seemed an integral part.

Héloise informed them that they were confusing things: she might be a natural in play-acting but only in direct contact and for entirely personal reasons, rather than in a situation as artificial as a movie scene.

Following an impulse of unclear origin, Sandra enrolled in the project.

Following an impulse everybody could understand, the director assigned her the role of a witch girl who had to perform a few non-trivial spells. The role was too big for a beginner, only the director thought it simpler to teach acting to an experienced witch than teach an experienced actress to cast difficult spells.

In addition to mastering these expert spells, the girl had to be mean, malicious, malevolent.

Sandra enjoyed every second. Within the limited range of circulation this movie encountered, the spectators said she was the most remarkable character among the minor roles.

So she became a permanent member of the Beauxbatons Theatre Group. Thus the third corner in this triangle had formed itself and had opened up the dilemma which had torn her apart ever since.

---

If she hadn't promised to take care of Donovan and Deirdre, she would have left Héloise to her dream come true with sun and rum and love under palms. She could have returned home by taking the kids with her, but she couldn't muster the cruelty of leaving Grandma Benedict alone ... alone with Héloise, which was very alone.

Then Remus and Almyra returned from their private trip. They looked quite relaxed and very happy and as much in love as Sandra could ever wish for herself, and for her own parents as well, recently.

The two had been in Japan, as it turned out, and returned with presents for everyone. Those for Sandra and Héloise came in pairs. The first pair were two kimonos, one black and gold, the other blue and silver. It was no question who took which; Héloise with her Veela hair went for the silvery one without even asking.

The second pair were two theatre masks - replicas; an original mask from a Japanese theatre was out of reach. One mask was chalk white and represented a geisha, as Remus explained. The other mask, red with white stripes, represented a demon.

With a broad grin, Remus reported, "Almyra and I, we didn't reach an agreement which mask fits better who, so we thought we'd leave it to you how to split them."

Héloise said, "That's easy - both of them go to Sandy. Not only is she the theatre freak here, she's also the one who took care of your kids."

Sandra stared at her friend. Once more, Héloise had given an example how she could mix greed and generosity in her character to breathtaking patterns.

"Are you sure?" asked Remus. "You know, sitting at your harp, you'd look terrific with either of these masks."

Héloise's cheeks flushed. "Hey, I look terrific with my own face, sitting at the Felison."

"Yes, of course, certainly so," Remus hastened to pacify her, not quite successful in suppressing a grin.

Sandra kept silent, managed even to keep her face steady. What Remus obviously hadn't noticed, in contrast to herself - Héloise only pretended to be upset about this comparison while the flushed cheeks were a result of bad conscience. Reminding her of a Goblin harp was an accusation of neglected duties.

With the Lupins back, Sandra was basically free to leave. But even now she felt reluctant to use this freedom; not only was it equivalent to an admission of her failure in having fun, her presence also served as a cover for Héloise. Suddenly it seemed as if the Veela girl had invested a Japanese theatre mask - which she didn't appreciate anyway - to gain a solid support for the rest of her holidays with Neil.

Sandra's feeling of being more stupid than allowed held for almost a day, then she got a phony call. It was her brother Gabriel, and he called for help.

The call had reached her around eleven in the morning, which was equivalent to six o'clock - early evening - in Bulgaria, seven hours in advance of the Caribbeans. It took Sandra five minutes to tell Héloise that she had an urgent task to perform and that Neil might find a way, and a car, to take Héloise back to Grandma Benedict. It took her another ten minutes to reach said Grandma and to announce her early departure. Fifteen minutes later, she was done with packing. Another twenty minutes to say goodbye to the kids and their parents, then she grabbed her bag and her suitcase and apparated to Durmstrang, a place she knew from previous visits.

---

One hour after Gabriel's call, Sandra stood before the main building of the Durmstrang school. Three minutes later, almost exactly seven o'clock local time and just in time for supper, she stood in the Krum's holiday house, facing an astonishing number of faces, some of them totally unfamiliar.

She had greeted her brother already in the short moments at Durmstrang. They hadn't hugged, at least not visibly - Gabriel in his current phase wasn't too enthusiastic about such manifestations of affection, and they had other methods anyway, could welcome each other without anyone being able to watch. Now she looked around, unsure where to start saying hello.

Viktor beamed at her. Sandra raised the head count in his house to fourteen, a number of which a true Bulgarian could be more than proud. Hermione greeted her and asked about the Lupins, then she resumed her work to get the food ready for fourteen greedy mouths, helped by Ireen.

Sandra waved hello to Tomas and Michel, then started the welcoming procedure with the four girls - Alexandra, Sophia, Tanitha, and Ismène, before reaching Timothy, who had followed her movements from his father's lap.

She made him float into her own arms, a manoeuver which was accompanied by ahs and ohs from the girls while the father kept calm but only on the outside. The boy, though, was delighted. After cuddling him for a moment, she made him float back to Viktor, who plucked his son out of the air with undisguised relief.

Grinning and feeling better than in days, Sandra sat down to face the two girls unknown to her, both of them looking a bit awestruck after her little demonstration of wandless magic.

Gabriel pointed and said, "This is Caitlin, she's going to be the singer in our band - once we have solved the little problem that's still in our way, that is - "

"Hi, Caitlin," said Sandra and, toward her brother, added with a grin, "Do I happen to know the little problem?"

Her question of course referred to Héloise; the harp player's opinion about a singer, no matter which sex, hadn't been kept as a secret inside Dragonfly. So it took her fully by surprise when her brother sent a warning at mental level, a warning that could only be understood as, Don't raise this issue!

Aloud, he said, "Yes, definitely so, because it's French. And this is the - "

"French?"

"Yes, French - you know, the language in which you can say, 'C'est la vie.' And this is - "

Gabriel had to blame himself for this second interruption, because it was his reply that sent several people almost rolling over, most of all the one he had twice failed to introduce. So he waited a moment before he said, "Okay, this is Reb, full name Rebecca, and don't even think of other nicknames - "

"Such as?" asked Sandra.

"Nice try," replied Rebecca, "but no luck. Anyway, I'm here only to lend Caitlin support - spiritual, I mean, don't expect me to sing or dance. And I'm also here because of our common little problem."

"No," said Tomas, "that's no longer true, that Reb doesn't contribute. She knew at once where to help and how to assist, so you might call her our backstage manager."

Sandra sent a glance to Ireen, the official band manager, who nodded empathically. Then she looked at Rebecca, who blushed under this compliment, and finally she looked at Tomas again, to see whether this not-so-secret admirer of a certain Veela girl had changed tack.

When the gypsy held her stare without revealing anything, she turned back to her brother and asked, "So what's this about French?"

---

It was Caitlin who answered. "Reb and I, we messed up in French. We were so successful, the teacher wants to hear us again in two week's time. And if we fail again, then we'll stay down. And in that case, I can kiss my role of a singer in a band goodbye."

"I see," said Sandra, trying to keep serious.

"We're speaking French from morning till evening," explained her brother. "That's one reason why Caitlin and Reb are here - a crash course to make sure they pass the exam, because there's no question that they fit Dragonfly as if born to that purpose ..."

"And?" Sandra couldn't follow. "Doesn't it work?"

"Yes it does, but only up to a point."

Sandra looked at the two girls, back at her brother. "You're - what? Four people who can speak French with them, and you're trying to tell me this isn't enough to pass an exam? They don't look stupid at all - "

"Thank you!" An ironic bow from Caitlin was a reminder that both girls were older than Sandra herself.

"You're welcome. So what exactly is that point you can't overcome?"

After a short moment of embarrassed silence from Gabriel as well as from the girls, Hermione started to explain. According to what she said, both Caitlin and Rebecca made good progress, better than anyone might have expected, another proof how motivation could do miracles, heehee. So passing the exam was probably as much as a done thing - quite in contrast to a quick and fluent conversation, not hampered by any gap in the knowledge. To speed up things, Gabriel had suggested the same method their father once had used to learn French in little more than a week - fairy teachers with trances and learning in sleep.

"Right," said Sandra, "that'd be the fastest method. So what about that?"

While some faces turned even darker, Viktor explained, "Such courses are awfully expensive. The girls don't have that money, and they don't dare to ask their parents."

Sandra began to understand, and to grin.

"So Gabriel offered to hire the fairies, but they couldn't agree to that. Then Ireen offered to pay in advance of future royalties ..."

Sandra's stomach was already shaking in a low chuckle.

"... but neither of them wanted to start their band career with debts. Well, just for good measure, we asked whether they could accept such a course from two Hogwarts teachers but - right, you guessed it," finished Viktor with a look at Sandra, who already had tears in her eyes from laughing.

Hermione said, "Then I suggested to call you - you and Gabriel together, you can trance them any time in a learning session."

Sandra stopped laughing at once.

Caitlin stared at her. "Can you?"

"Trancing, yes, no question about that, but the - "

"Would you mind trancing us now? Here?"

Sandra responded with a cool glance. She was younger than Caitlin, true, but she was Sandra Catherine Potter, nominated successor of the High Priestess. "Can I finish eating first?" she asked after a moment.

"I'm just quoting your brother," said the girl, unafraid, "no need to give me that look."

Sandra's stare of disbelief was ended by Gabriel, who explained how he had met the girls and how he had made Caitlin sing before revealing the reason for his visit.

Sandra swallowed her bite and rose from her seat to walk around the large table and stop behind Caitlin's chair. Watched by big-eyed faces from Alexandra the youngest to Rebecca the oldest, she put her hands on Caitlin's forehead and tranced her without any hesitation, then she whispered something in her ear. She used the first two verses of a poem from the Fleurs du Mal collection by Charles Baudelaire - à une mendiante rousse, a poem used in the Beauxbatons Theatre Group to practise declaiming on stage.

A moment later, she ended the trance and marched back to her seat.

Caitlin glanced at her questioningly. "So?"

"Blanche fille aux cheveux roux ..."

"Dont la robe par ses trous ..." and Caitlin continued through all lines that had been whispered in her ear a moment ago. Then she looked as blank as the girl in the poem.

"That's what I just taught you while you've been tranced," explained Sandra. "Two verses from Baudelaire."

This said, she resumed eating while Caitlin asked her friend about what had taken place while she had been sitting there with glassy eyes. The two girls discussed the test for a moment, agreed that they hardly remembered the poet's name, and finally listened in mutual astonishment and delight as Caitlin spoke the few lines again - flawlessly, as Sandra assured.

"Hey, that's incredible!" exclaimed Caitlin at the end. "Is that what you and Gabriel will do with us?"

"Basically yes, although we might do it together, or take turns, just as we get along."

"And when?"

Sandra grinned sardonically. "Well, the fairies do it when you're asleep, lying in your bed. They sit on your shoulders - I mean, okay, we're a bit too large to do that, but otherwise ..."

A faint red was colouring Caitlin's cheeks. Rebecca stared at Sandra in disbelief. "You aren't serious, are you?"

Seeing her baffled face and that of a deeply embarrassed Caitlin, Sandra couldn't hold the pretence any longer.

"No, I'm not," she laughed, "in the night, Gabriel and I'll be asleep in our own beds. But what about the beach? Lying in the shadow, dreaming in trance, and getting a tan outside and French inside?"

Caitlin looked up, calmer than seconds before. "Mais oui, c'est d'accord, je crois."

* * *

Gabriel stared at the girl who lay on her back. Her body appeared totally relaxed, eyes closed, so a spectator unfamiliar with the details might have assumed her asleep. This would be the most natural explanation why a girl in a bikini was lying motionlessly, on a blanket under an awning, close to noon at a beach of the Black Sea.

But the girl - Rebecca - wasn't asleep. She was tranced.

Gabriel laid down on his stomach, his head close to Rebecca's head while his body stretched in the opposite direction. Resting his chin on his folded hands, he began to murmur in her right ear. French, of course, because that was the purpose of this weird arrangement.

By now, he had lost his initial embarrassment. Michel's sister Ismène, the only one among the smaller girls who was fluent in French, had helped him a lot to relax while talking to Caitlin or Rebecca in these trances. Ismène simply sat down and talked in the tranced girl's one ear while the teacher in charge had the other ear for delivering some translations or adding to this conversation which was a dialogue or monologue between three people.

The teachers were Gabriel, Sandra, Michel, and Tomas. They had found out quickly that it worked best when taking turns, not more than half an hour per teacher and student. With a longer period, the teacher would fall silent, due to lack of topic. With more than one teacher per student, both teachers would fall silent almost at once, due to a strong feeling of embarrassment because the other teacher could hear them.

But murmuring in the girl's ear while the others kept out of earshot worked well. The teachers still had to be careful what they were talking about because the girl would remember - not immediately after awakening from the trance, only after a while. But they could express thoughts or tell stories they would never tell with a visibly attentive audience.

Doing it here at the beach, with all kids and teens within calling distance, had been a brilliant idea from Sandra. Any other method would have collapsed in tension and anxiety. The idea of being alone in a room with a tranced girl - none of the three boys in Dragonfly were known for stupid and tactless remarks, but still ... And the idea of having the other girl along as chaperone somehow felt even worse.

Doing it in full view of five children and four other teenagers worked. Even so, it was still a breathtaking experience - at least for Gabriel, but from what he could watch with just his eyes, the same was true for Michel and also for Tomas, the only one older than Caitlin and Rebecca.

Gabriel did very much the same he might have done with Rebecca sitting and awake - he told her how Dragonfly became the music band it was today. His story could easily be the same as told by Michel or Tomas, or what they might tell in the next days, but it didn't matter. They all had their own perspective, so Rebecca would hear three different versions.

This kind of intimacy was something Gabriel couldn't handle at once. Being so close to a girl that age who was neither his sister Sandra nor his cousin Héloise was a new experience. Only little by little, he allowed himself to register the sensations to their full extent. The smell of hair and skin, when whispering in an ear ... The sight of two breasts, so prominent in his view while in this position, and when raising the eyes for the fraction of an inch, the sight of a flat belly that rose and fell in the quiet rhythm of the girl's breathing.

He wondered whether Sandra had been aware of all this, and whether her suggestion presented the only feasible alternative. He would ask her - after he had finished coming to terms with these sensations for himself. In the meantime, he took care not to dig deeper in anyone's conscious thinking - even registering something as simple as a tender feeling for the girl outstretched on the blanket would strike him as a severe breach of intimacy.

---

Telling Dragonfly stories was a nice way of passing the time. It didn't need many interruptions to provide translations for new terms. So it seemed to Gabriel as if he'd told hardly more than a few lines when Sandra called, "Hey, Gabe - time to wake her up."

"Oh, really? ... Yes, okay." Gabriel finished the anecdote he had been telling, then put his both hands at the girl's neck to send the awakening spell.

Rebecca opened her eyes. For a fleeting instant, they were alone at the beach, and her eyes in his own asked him to come closer, to meet her lips with his own. Then she was fully awake, and he quickly took his fingers off.

Rebecca rolled around to lie on her own stomach and look at him face to face. "What did you tell me?"

They were talking French. Both girls had long passed the initial barrier of clumsiness and embarrassment. The younger girls with native English - Tanitha, Sophia, and Alexandra - adapted to the new group language with a speed that might have raised deep envy in the older girls, if not for this special treatment.

"Why don't you wait a few minutes? Then you'll remember by yourself," replied Gabriel, who was painfully aware of his flushed cheeks. He would have liked to sit up and look somewhere else, or to storm into the water, only he felt as if tied to this position opposite Rebecca.

She examined him for a second. "But you didn't turn red from what you told me, did you?"

"No."

"Maybe it's none of my business."

Maybe so, except that answering yes felt impolite and wrong too. Staring at the blanket between them, Gabriel said, "It's ... you know that I can sense emotions, don't you? Well, the moment you came awake, there was something - doesn't mean anything, I guess, it's just a bit ..."

Rebecca smiled. "I can remember that, and - well, you're right, we shouldn't take it literally." She laughed. "I think it's normal; you just aren't used to be close to a girl waking up, that's all."

He nodded, not feeling master of his own voice at this moment.

"But I don't fare much better," added Rebecca, "I mean, I'm not used to be close to a boy when waking up, so maybe that's why this moment - "

"Hey, you to two!" called Sandra's voice from a few feet away, "are you trying a new technique of waking trance or do you want something to eat?"

Rebecca raised her head to crane her neck. "Food beats conversation, even with your brother." With a last grin to Gabriel, she stood up and went for a seat near the food baskets.

---

With none of the adults around, eating and talking didn't count as two mutually exclusive tasks. Gabriel felt a fine sting of guilt because they were being bad examples for Alexandra and the other kids, but then he consoled himself; one had to be pretty stupid not to know that this particular rule bent easily when no education authority was present.

Caitlin, though, had the decency to swallow before asking, "Did you come up with any ideas on how to get some lyrics?"

Basically this was a question for the band manager. In Ireen's absence, heads turned to Gabriel - after all, he was the composer of most pieces they'd recorded, so wasn't he in charge of lyrics, too?

"Not really," answered Gabriel. "For the time being, we only have the choice between songs someone else wrote and traditionals. That splits our repertoire into pieces with and without a singer."

"So what's new with that?" asked Tomas.

Gabriel sent him a glare and a mental impulse that the gypsy almost choked on before looking guilty. Because for all the girls knew, Héloise was either absent or absent without leave, period - nobody had told them about opposition to the idea of a singer.

"What's new is that we have a singer," said Michel into the short instant of awkward silence, "and new is also that we have to look for a songwriter." He turned to Sandra. "Do you, by any chance, have a drawer full of poems you always wanted to hear sung?"

Laughter in the round, still more when Sandra replied, "I won't exclude the existence of a drawer full of poems, but if so, I'm sure as hell I never wanted to hear them sung in public."

Michel turned to Rebecca. "And you?"

"No, sorry."

Rebecca looked so unhappy that both Gabriel and Tomas stared reproachfully at Michel because he had asked just the one who felt unsure anyway about her own role in Dragonfly.

Michel protested, "Hey, I asked her because girls write more poems than boys, and she's a bit older, so she had more time" - he glanced at Sandra, who found this argument worth a giggle or two, then resumed - "and besides, for me it's a matter of fact that Reb's our backstage manager, or does anyone think differently?"

Several heads were shaking vigorously, reason enough for Rebecca to calm down quickly and to look very pleased instead.

After lunch, almost as if hit by fairy dust, most people fell asleep. An exception was Ismène, who persuaded her brother to do a trance tale, as she called it, together with her. This, in turn, forced Gabriel to balance out by doing a trance tale with the other girl, which ought to be Caitlin because he had taught Rebecca the last time.

Ismène hadn't developed any preference yet, so that was fine with her, and after Sandra had tranced Rebecca, she started at once to murmur in an obedient ear.

Watching the scene still a moment before her own trance was due, Caitlin said, "I wonder how the older sister is."

"Héloise?" Gabriel smiled. "I was asking myself what to tell you anyway, so unless I fall asleep, I'm going to tell you."

"In a way, I feel half as old as Ismène," said Caitlin. "Lying down to hear tales, somehow that's such a snug feeling ..." She laid down, closed her eyes. "Okay, go ahead."

Gabriel did as ordered, brought himself into position to tell stories of Héloise and her Goblin harp.

He stopped when his wristwatch told him that thirty minutes had passed. Then he woke Caitlin as well as Rebecca because in the meantime, Sandra had fallen asleep. Checking the time, he saw that they had three quarters of an hour left before today's appointment with Ireen in the Durmstrang hall.

The two girls assured him that being tranced wasn't like sleeping at all, so they had to have a bit of siesta themselves, and suddenly, Gabriel was the only one awake - Ismène and Michel had fallen asleep minutes ago.

---

Ten minutes before the scheduled time, he woke first his sister and then, with Sandra's help, all the others - using mind waves of different nature, gentler with the girls while Tomas and Michel received the cold wave type of waking call.

This done, he gathered all children for the group summoning into the Durmstrang hall, with Timothy in his arms. Sandra would summon the others, after taking care of the bags and baskets.

Alexandra counted them down, as usual, and an instant later, Gabriel felt the slightly stale air of the Durmstrang hall around him. Looking up, his eyes widened, and a half-suppressed "Uh-oh" escaped his mouth - about the only English sounds in quite a while because he never had gotten used to "Oh-la-la," the French equivalent.

He stood up, the small boy still on his arm, to greet the smiling figure on the stage. "Hello, Héloise - long time no see, huh?"

"Well ..." Héloise beamed back, exactly as Gabriel had expected from the Veela girl after skiving off for so long.

Before Gabriel could say anything else, there was a soft push of air, and the others appeared a few feet away - freezing in mid-motion, staring toward the stage, at a Veela with her Goblin harp.

"Hello everybody," caroled Héloise. At this moment, she noticed Caitlin and Rebecca. "Oh, do we have guests today?"

Just when Gabriel made his first step toward the other group, he got a glance and a mental push from Michel - Héloise's brother, also Veela but male, signaled him not to interfere.

Gabriel nodded, mentally as well as visibly.

"No, Hély," said Michel, "these aren't guests. This is Caitlin, she's our singer, and this is - "

"She's what?"

Michel responded to his sister's impoliteness with a glance - and maybe also with a rolling of his eyes, except that Gabriel couldn't see from his position. Then Michel continued, "And this is Rebecca, called Reb - she's our new backstage manager."

Completely ignoring such lower ranks, Héloise pointed at Caitlin and repeated, "She is what?"

"Singer," repeated Michel pointedly. "Did you get sand in your ears, over there in Jamaica?"

The blood rushed into Héloise's face. She rose as fast as possible behind the spacious instrument. "I didn't believe it the first time," she snapped, "that's all. But I got it now, got the message, all right, if you all think the same ..." She was about to leave the stage, glancing around like a cornered rabbit.

"Is this just another excuse for you to skip rehearsals?" The question came from Tomas, an expression of disbelief in his face.

Héloise stared at him, her face looking hurt as if from a physical blow. She made another step. Just as she turned to flee the scene, Michel leapt forward and grabbed his sister. It was a hug more than anything else. Héloise didn't resist.

"Can someone tell me what's going on?" asked Caitlin. Toward the group of brother and sister, she called, "Hey, you - Héloise, right? Say, do you have a problem with me being the singer?"

After a moment in which Héloise didn't show any reaction, Gabriel said, "We didn't have a singer all the time because Héloise didn't want any. But we needed one, and when Héloise wasn't around while Alexandra said we need a singer, we got one - you."

"Yes," piped Alexandra up, "you are the singer."

Caitlin sent her a smile, then stared at Héloise again. "I want to hear it from her. If there's a reason that's more substantial than playing the spoiled beauty, I want to hear it from her."

Héloise's head came up from her brother's shoulders, revealing something Gabriel couldn't remember in her face - red-rimmed eyes. "How dare you?" she said, rather quietly. "This band is so much more than music, it's about certain people in the first place, people who've known each other for a long time and have a life and passion in common. And then you show up and tell me to justify myself just because I missed a few rehearsals? I've been playing the harp since I was three - trust me, I get along even so."

"So you play the harp since you were three? It's a Felison, right? And you're one of six in the world, right?"

Having caught Héloise's attention, Caitlin continued, "I happen to know because someone told me, and I know how it was your music that brought the band together - but I never challenged your role here, I didn't object to a harp player that wasn't there, and I don't object to a harp player that is there. But you know what? I've sung since I was three, and funny as it seems, I fully agree with you - this is more than just music."

"You agree? Now isn't that great! Do I have to feel grateful or flattered for that?" Héloise tried to sound ironic, however with limited success - more than anything else, she sounded hurt and unhappy.

"Neither," replied Caitlin. "If it was just for singing, I would say, listen, folks, settle your dispute without me - I can sing on stage or in the school choir or in the bathtub, what do I care? Until some days ago, I'd never heard of Dragonfly, wouldn't have been able to distinguish it from next Thursday. But then something happened."

"What? A miracle?"

"No, much simpler - Reb and I, we realized that this is the nicest bunch of people we ever met. And what's more, they helped us with our French problem, and that's why I'm ready to fight - "

"French problem? What French problem? If you have a problem with French, you can hide it well, to say the least."

"See - that's exactly what I mean. So I'm ready to fight for it. You too?"

---

Héloise still looked a bit confused; probably she hadn't really understood what it was about this mysterious French problem. "Fighting?" she asked. "How?"

"You play your harp, and then I sing."

"And where's the fight?"

Caitlin showed her teeth in a way that mildly resembled a smile. "I dare you. If, after my singing, you can step in front of me and look me in the eye and tell me that I have to go, I will."

Héloise examined Caitlin for a few seconds with a new look in her face. Then she walked back to her Felison and sat down.

"Something particular?"

"Yes - the piece from your first album, second or third track, I don't - "

"Seagulls in the wind?"

"Yes," said Caitlin, "I think that's what I mean. But only your harp, none of the other instruments."

Héloise took another moment to stare at Caitlin, apparently trying to figure out what the unwelcome singer had in mind. When all she earned was an expectant look, she put her hands on the Felison and started to play.

Caitlin grabbed the stool on which Tomas usually sat, sat down herself and hunched, apparently listening in concentration.

For the next two minutes, only the Felison could be heard. The piece Caitlin had selected was centered around the harp; leaving out the other instruments made seemingly little difference, in particular since Héloise was playing with skill and soul and heart.

Then, easily missed to be heard in the first seconds, another source of music rose - Caitlin's voice, singing something in Gaelic, about the saddest song Gabriel had ever heard sung. In combination with Héloise's harp, it was geared to tear hearts apart. According to the mythical tale, Orpheus could sing to make rocks cry - Gabriel never had been able to imagine such a music, but now he got a realistic impression.

Maybe Caitlin had altered the song a bit to match with the harp tune. Maybe the song was composed to fit from the beginning - after all, a Celtic harp wasn't too different from a Goblin harp. At any rate, after a few seconds uncertainty from Héloise, the player and the singer together created a music that Gabriel knew - they had to record the piece again, this time as a song.

Should this ever happen.

Caitlin finished singing. Héloise, having paid attention, let the harp music fade in a last, delicate harmony. She kept sitting there for another few seconds, seconds that seemed to go on forever. Then she came up, stepped forward.

Caitlin got down from the stool, stood there, waiting for the Veela. When Héloise reached her, she asked, "So?"

Héloise looked at her. Then she snorted. Then she said, "I didn't know that someone can sing like that to a Felison. I didn't think it possible. But ... well, I can't send you off."

From Gabriel's position, it looked as if Caitlin was hugging Héloise a fraction of a second earlier before the other girl responded. Michel, however, would later report it the other way around.

It didn't matter - both girls held to each other a long moment before turning toward the small audience, bowing together when the applause rose.