Potter Professions

Ray Purcell had finally delivered. Harry came to Ray's old laboratory in order to collect the bracelets as well as the new phony that could receive their calls. Arriving there, he found something he hadn't been prepared for.

But first he just stood there, admiring the bracelets with their smooth surfaces. Slightly more than an inch wide, with a dark-golden plating that could be anything from metal, over plastic, to factory-grown crystals with a lacquer coating, they had delicately rounded edges all over so that it was literally impossible to get hurt when wearing them around the ankles.

Ray showed him how to remove segments from a bracelet. This would be necessary when fitting the bracelets to legs of different sizes. It was the same principle as used for wristwatches, except that, where the watch would have been, a larger segment showed a dark-coloured rectangle. Pressing this part would raise the alarm.

"And here's the receiver for them," said the old engineer, a chuckling in his throat. "Who'd ever thought to see you walking around with a porty? Not me for sure."

"What?"

When Ray just looked blank, seemingly unable to understand his question, Harry examined the replacement for his old phony with more attention. There was a new row of small buttons, labeled [1] to [6] from left to right. Staring at them, he suddenly became aware what Ray had done, and why it had taken much longer than he'd expected in his ignorance.

"These are portkey buttons, right?"

"Yes."

"One for each of the six bracelets."

"Sure, what else?" Ray's voice sounded patient and slightly careful, as if trying to avoid a more drastic answer to a question that could only be considered unnecessary, if not downright stupid.

"And they'll carry me to where the respective bracelet is, at that moment? Is that right?"

"Yes, Harry. Wasn't that what you had in mind?"

A dynamic portkey with transmitter function, neatly packed into a device which otherwise served as an ordinary phony. Pressing the dark rectangle on a bracelet would raise the alarm on his phony, and he could respond by pressing the equally numbered button, thus apparating himself to the actual location of the bracelet's bearer. And all he'd imagined was a kind of bellboard ...

Harry looked up. "No, I didn't have that in mind, but only because I didn't think it through. Your solution solves the problem I hadn't properly taken into account."

"Well, yes, after all, how would you know where to find the people wearing the pieces?"

When the idea with the bracelets had sprung into his mind, Harry had imagined an area no larger than the school grounds in Brest, although even this restricted space was too large by far to find someone quickly. Ray, on the other hand, hadn't known any detail about Harry's whereabouts, had only grasped the idea, and had built a solution that worked no matter which distance had to be crossed in the apparition jump.

Fully awake now from his sloppy thinking, Harry said, "Unless I missed a recent step in portkey development, this principle is a bit more advanced than anything that's currently available for money. Am I right?"

"Yeah, that's about right. But first I want to hear your report of how it worked, before this jewelry's ready for any kind of public market." Ray smiled. "You know, what's technically feasible isn't always desirable."

"Do they work all the time or only after raising alarm?"

"Only when activated, that means when the buttons are down. Actually, the alarm is just an activation report, or deactivation report, in a way."

Harry made the same test Ray had probably made before: he put the six bracelets in six corners of the laboratory and the adjacent floors, after having activated them. Then, pressing the six buttons in rapid succession, he zoomed through the building like a magic rubber ball.

After collecting the pieces again, he thanked the man who had taught him his first portkey lessons twenty years ago, and who would not accept more reward for the bracelects than a free ticket for a Dragonfly concert. Then he apparated to Hogwarts, in search for a conversation with Hermione. For what he had in mind, she was the only one qualified.

---

He had to wait a little while, then Hermione called him in as if he was the next patient in the waiting room. Well, maybe he was, although it wasn't a cold he suffered from.

In her office, sitting in a chair that was comfortable enough for a longer talk, he said, "I'd planned to come for something to ask you. But then, a while ago, I realized that there's something else to ask you. Maybe I should invite you to the Three Broomsticks, only I want to be sure as hell about who's listening - more exactly, that nobody else is listening."

"I feel just fine in my own office, as you can imagine." Hermione leaned back with an expectant look in her face. "And this mysterious announcement is certainly more appealing than the stuff they sell there. Besides, we ain't resourceless here." She pointed in the general direction of some cabinets.

"Well, maybe later. For the next minutes, I prefer to be as sober as the devil after Lord's Supper."

"That sounds even more thrilling. What's up?"

"It's about sexual assault on children."

Without surprise, Harry watched the almost complete absence of surprise on Hermione's side. Then he brought her up to date on the latest developments since his last conversation with her. To illustrate his explanations and to let her admire good craftmanship, he placed the six bracelets on her desk, one beside the other.

"Don't they look just wonderful?" he asked.

"They surely do. And who'll be the six bearers, exactly?"

"Esmeralda and her three roommates. Carlos, and Chloé."

Hermione smiled. "Quite a collection."

"Yeah, quite a collection." Harry snorted. "Except I mean something else, but I'll come to that in a second. Basically I had in mind to ask you how much I should reveal to those girls, and then, after you gave me the only answer I can think of, which is, 'The full truth,' I wanted to ask you how to talk to girls of that age about sexual assault. I'm going to ask you that, but only as the number two on my agenda."

"So what's the shooting star of question that made it to the front lobe of your brain?"

Harry wasn't sure whether there was such a thing as a front lobe in the human brain, but then, his mood offered little space for discussing surgeons' jokes.

"That question is, how come I fucked up so completely?"

"Ah, yes." Hermione's eyebrows had arched for a short moment. "And what's the answer?"

"Huh? I wanted to hear it from you!"

"Is that right? And I was so sure this was meant as a rhetorical question. Strange, isn't it, how you're sometimes fooled into an imagination that looks perfectly reasonable, while at closer inspection it's utter nonsense."

He stared at her. "Hermione, I was serious. Please stop making fun of me."

"Do I?" She smiled lightly. "But what if I claim that this remark has already been the first half of my answer?"

"Then I'd say it isn't true. Your voice sounds different when you're lecturing someone. And you don't stop after just one sentence."

"Oh."

When Hermione didn't say more, when the silence hanging in the office started to grow unpleasant, Harry rehearsed the last remarks in his mind. This done, he sighed.

"All right, I crowned my performance with this messed-up entrance to our discussion. I'll apologize in due time, but, please, for now, just tell me in simple words and without surprising change of rhetorics where I took the wrong turn, or turns."

A smile crawled back on Hermione's face. "Well, maybe it really wasn't my best idea to sugarcoat the truth so suddenly. But it's still the first half of my answer. In more plain words, it goes like, get the fuck down from your high horse and come in touch with reality. Is that simple enough?"

He swallowed. "Yes."

"You're spoilt, Harry. You fought your fights at a time when fate used to serve the dangers on a silver tray, with compliments from a well-known foe. You were brilliant, and for me there's no doubt - if you'll ever come as far as knowing who is your enemy, you'll be brilliant again. But unfortunately they decided to ignore the knight in his shiny armour and resorted to simply sidestepping his gesticulating with the magic sword."

Hermione let her words hang in the air. After a short pause, she added in a voice as though reading from a diagnostic report, "You're not patient enough. You're not diligent enough, and as soon as you see an opportunity to play the magnificent hero, you fall for it."

"Do I?"

"Sure. A similarly spoiled eleven-year-old has a tantrum about an administrative decision, and you come hurrying to put her at that school. Another eleven-year-old is found sobbing in a staircase, and you have nothing better to do than play the hero for that girl. With these six bracelets, you're going to extend the circle of admirers to a total of six."

He swallowed again. "Does it have any relevance that the story with Chloé at least brought me in touch with Agnès? That without her information, I still might sense around in the mist?"

"It certainly has relevance for your task, but not for what you asked me to point out."

"And is there any alternative to handing out the bracelets to the six kids and tell them where to watch out, and what for?"

"Probably not."

"Then ... sorry, I didn't get the point yet."

Sharper than before, and with more impatience in her voice, Hermione said, "It's your attitude. Your expectation. Because I didn't switch on the sonorus charm, you weren't listening to what I said. Because the big black sex offender didn't send you a postcard that says, 'Come and get me,' you come to the conclusion that you fucked up completely. Harry, you're an unsufferable boast-it-all."

---

Hermione smiled at these words. Even so, he knew that she meant what she'd said.

Worse, probably she was right.

"You fucked up in just one decision, and that was to get your kids with you. Okay, they brought you in touch with some other students there, but from a professional point of view, they're counterproductive."

"Counterproductive?"

"Yes, sure. You're working your ass off to protect them while instead you should hang around, encouraging people to perform some sexual assaults in your presence."

"Uargh."

"See what I mean? If you can't stand the heat, why did you walk into the kitchen in first place?"

Harry nodded to indicate how he was asking that himself. "Maybe I didn't know how hot it would be," he said after a few seconds.

"How right you are. You thought, for someone who fought Voldemort, anything else is easy stuff, just good to shake off boredom."

Watching Hermione's smile, three parts sympathy with five parts reproach, Harry nodded again. "At least true enough to stop me from calling it wrong."

Hermione leaned back. "As I said, Harry, often enough it's just a matter of the right attitude, rather than a totally different approach. But you really should try and socialize more with the assholes there."

"I'll try. But for the time being, I'm stuck with protecting a bunch of six students. And that brings us back to my initial question number one, unless you know another method."

Hermione shook her head. "No. Tell them what's up, and try not to appear as the knight in shining armour."

"And how?"

"You mean, how not to appear as a hero?" She grinned. "Just don't tell them who you are."

He didn't need her grin to know that for once, Hermione had managed to make total fun of him by telling the truth. Swallowing his pride, he replied, "No, I mean how to tell them what's up?"

Serious again, Hermione said, "Girls of eleven going twelve know about sexual assault, Harry, don't you worry about that. There's no need to draw a diagram. Give them the general direction, and while doing that, make sure not to wisecrack, not to joke, and not to sweet-talk." She showed another smile, this time a placatory one. "I guess you're very good at that, Harry - I mean, it's so much simpler for you not to fall in this lecturing tone, and to stop after not more than two sentences or so."

He grinned ruefully. "I asked for it, and now I get it three-fold."

"Definitely so. As you know, I go for opportunities." Hermione started to laugh.

It took him a second or two before he could join her laughter. This remark had hinted at certain events for which the term sexual assault was certainly wrong but not totally inadequate, and one of those events had involved Harry, as well as some drugs.

For a while, they talked about other things - not exactly small talk, but not touching the old stories either. Then he left her, with another thanks and with the hint that there was still someone else in Hogwarts he wanted to visit.

Some minutes later, he sat in the office of Almyra Lupin, his sister in spirit. They weren't alone; Almyra's husband Remus, Harry's old teacher, was present as well. Harry wasn't sure whether he'd preferred to first talk with Almyra alone, but the question was pointless anyway, so he dropped it quickly.

"Did Cho get in touch with you?" he asked.

Almyra and Remus looked at each other, turned back to Harry. "No, why?"

"Then maybe I should wait and let her do the first step, but since I'm here anyway, and since this story includes a lot of background information, it might be justified when I do the opening."

Almyra said, "It certainly does, because after this mysterious remark, there might be a strangling accident if you don't tell us in a hurry."

"Uh-oh." He grinned. "Not so long ago, I followed a similar prompting, also with the argument that there was no other choice, and - "

"Harry ..." Almyra, head ducked, her hands clawed like for a strangling, approached him slowly and threateningly, while Remus didn't show any intention of coming to help.

"Okay, okay - well, the headline is, would you like to play all your animagus shapes for an extended weekend?"

"All?" asked Almyra incredulously.

"Yes, all - wolf, falcon, eagle, owl, what you can muster. There's a camp with tents, it's at the Loire ..."

* * *

Esmeralda closed the door of her dormitory and headed toward the toilets. She intended to phone her father from inside a stall to be summoned for the daily report.

She had nothing to report, maybe except for the ever increasing difficulty of leaving her friends for the few minutes during which she pretended to sit on a toilet seat. The other girls believed her less from one day to the next.

Strange, somehow - unless you'd explain it with the fact that also once per day, she really had to visit the toilets.

Checking along the row of stalls, she saw that she was alone in the room. That made it a lot simpler. She went into the last stall, got her phony out, and pressed the short-key button that sent the signal to her father.

The response was instantaneous, however not as expected. Rather than being sucked through the void into his apartment, she heard her father's muffled voice saying, "Esmeralda? You alone?"

"Yes," she whispered back.

"Go to the door and check the corridor. Tell me when it's empty."

She did as ordered. The phony tightly to her mouth, she whispered, "It's empty."

Next instant, her father stood in front of her, just beyond arm's reach. He sent her a smile, then he made a few quick steps to the staircase. This way, as she realized, he was out of sight from the corridor.

He waved at her to come closer.

She suppressed the urge for tiptoeing; it would have looked pretty weird if someone had opened a door just at this moment. Even so, she didn't think that her steps looked normal.

He grabbed her and gave her something like a short hug. "Are all of your friends in your dormitory?" he asked.

"Er - yes."

"Good. Go back and tell them they'll see an unexpected visitor in a moment. Tell them they shouldn't be louder than usual, so we can talk just there. Okay?"

"Did you get the - "

A gentle hand on her mouth told her to shut up, and her father's expression told her she would hear it in a moment.

She nodded and walked back.

---

Having entering the room and about to close the door, she heard Odile's voice in her back saying, "Hey, that's been a quick one, eh? Kind of a quickie, one might say."

Natalie and Dominique, not looking up, shared a giggle.

"I don't know what you're talking about," replied Esmeralda with dignity in her voice and gratitude for the circumstances in her mind. "But I know that we'll have a visitor in a few moments, who wants to tell you something. He said we shouldn't talk louder than normal while he's here."

"A visitor ... Who? ... Telling us? And you know already?"

She didn't answer, instead just looked very pleased and very expectant at the same time.

Natalie glanced to the corner where Bolo was lying. "This visitor, he'll be in trouble the moment he comes through the door. Didn't you tell him that?"

It was Esmeralda's own turn to giggle, actually with her own head as lowered as those of the other two girls a moment earlier.

There was a knock at the door.

Before any of the girls could respond, the door opened and Esmeralda's father came in. He wore his usual sports dress and looked exactly like Monsieur le Professeur Pri'chard.

Bolo's low growl, which had started from the knocking at the door, died and gave way to a single whimpering. Then the German shepherd shot forward to reach the teacher, who had knelt down, obviously fully aware of what to expect. Before the eyes of the four girls, three of them staring with their mouths agape, man and dog were busy to cuddle together and to issue sounds of reunion that weren't too different.

Odile said, "Hey, Prof, I'd say you know that dog, don't you?"

Dominique said, "Prof, for an instant, I thought you'd be red meat. That's no dog to joke with."

"No, he's not, as I know quite well. Hello, girls, good evening. Hello, Natalie, if you don't close your mouth quickly, you're going to swallow a fly."

Natalie, not caring to take offence, said, "Prof, I know a bit about dogs."

"That's good for you."

"Yes, and from what I can see here, I know that you and Bolo, you've been living together."

"Really?" The teacher grinned. "You mean, it can't be the result of me bribing him with tidbits?"

"No, he'd behave quite differently."

Bolo, meanwhile, had stretched on the floor, all four legs in the air, exposing his belly while his front paws looked as if folded around Harry's forearm.

Harry smiled. "You've got a sharp eye for such details. That's good, too, and in a moment, I'm going to tell you why." He stood up and reached the table where the four girls were sitting, to grab one of the remaining two chairs and sit down himself.

Natalie said, "But then, that'd mean that you and Esmeralda have been living together too, Prof."

Harry nodded.

Odile was the first to try the jump from a formal to a personal level. "Are you her father, Prof?"

---

"Esmeralda's father was Ramon Garcia. He was a good friend of mine."

"Oh."

Esmeralda watched the quick glances from Odile as well as from the other girls to check her reaction on this supposed stepping into the greasepot. But since she couldn't help but beaming from ear to ear, they relaxed at once and turned back to the Sports teacher, ready to drill more question holes.

He stopped them with his next remarks. While caressing the German shepherd, who had followed him, he said, "Let me explain to you what this is all about, rather than answering your quiz, because that'd take more time than we have. Actually, not all parts of that story are as funny as it looks."

Once more, Esmeralda felt the girls' scrutinizing stare; apparently they tried to get a clue from her own expression as to how to respond to this announcement. Unfortunately, and despite the seriousness of the matter, she could barely restrain herself from laughing out loud.

Her father turned to Odile. "But you were right. Esmeralda and I, we're daughter and father by adoption."

"Well, then ... I knew it! ... Oh that's wy," were the replies of the other three girls, while Esmeralda calmed down to a broad grin.

Next moment, the grin faded, because her father said, "I made a big mistake. I brought them to this school, Esmeralda and Carlos, and now I have to face the consequences. That's why am here."

Another moment passed in which the other three girls nodded to each other at registering that at least this part of her story was true.

Esmeralda, meanwhile, sobered up quickly because her father's expression was unreadable - maybe except for the slight satisfaction to have stuffed her grin down her throat, and the greater satisfaction from cuddling Bolo.

"I came for a reason," continued Harry when the girls' attention was back on him. "There are strange things happening at this school, and my job was to investigate them in the role of a teacher. For some reason, my two children got the bee up their backs that they had to join me in this task, as students with magical handicaps. Somehow, I fell for the stupid idea that this was actually a clever move, and supported them. So we sent them through a cure that made them lose their magic, if only temporarily, and registered them as students here."

"Esmeralda can do magic?"

Odile had asked the question, and the look she'd given Esmeralda before turning back to Esmeralda's father showed a barely hidden trace of hostility.

"Not currently. Hear me to the end, then you can ask questions."

When the girls nodded, Harry continued, "I found out what's wrong at this school. Besides a bunch of teachers not worth the name, because they don't give a damn for their students' care, there's obviously a lot of maltreatment and misuse, what's legally called sexual assault. I don't know details yet, but I know that it's true and that it applies to girls and boys alike."

The smiles were gone.

Into the silence, Harry said, "Before coming here, I talked with a friend of mine, a woman my age and also a teacher, about how to explain that to girls like you. She said you'd know what I mean, and there would be no need to go into details. Was she right?"

Nods from silent heads with flushed cheeks gave the answers. Esmeralda herself didn't score much differently.

"Not that I'd know details yet, maybe aside from everybody telling me that normally, with such a suspicion, a Sports teacher would be a prime suspect."

With satisfaction, Esmeralda noticed the quick smiles from the other girls, telling her father that he was beyond suspicion.

"So as you might easily imagine, I was in a hurry to get my two children off this school, so I'd know them safe and could concentrate on my original task. Well, as if that was so simple! To make a longer conversation short, they demanded of me to get their friends off that school, too. In Esmeralda's case, the friends are you - Dominique, Natalie, Odile."

---

With more satisfaction, Esmeralda noticed that the not so hidden hostility had given way to joyful bafflement.

"Problem is, I don't have the authority, because I'm not your parents. I think I'll get in touch with them within the next days or weeks, but in the meantime we need a system of protection. Probably the best protection is that you know what to be aware of, and that the four of you always stick together, with Bolo in addition. But even so, you need a method to call for help at once, and I'm here to provide you with this method."

Watched by eight eyes growing bigger and bigger, Esmeralda's father shifted the sleeve of his light sports jacket upward, to reveal four strange looking bracelets. He unclipped one after the other and put it on the table.

"Here - one for each of you. Wear them around the ankles, so they're out of sight."

"But not in - " Odile stopped herself, to slap her own forehead in the next second. "Okay, forget it, I didn't say anything."

Harry didn't smile. "Even if I'm your Sports teacher, there are lots of other students who shouldn't ask questions. It's mandatory to keep a low profile, not to appear conspicuous, not to cause attention. If everything goes well, I can promise you that all of you'll be witches. Now's the time to ask questions; only someone who's informed knows how to keep a secret."

Esmeralda thought that the first questions would refer to the shiny bracelets, which somehow looked too good to be kept hidden. But she had judged from her own priorities and her own state of information.

Dominique was the quickest. "How can you make us witches, Prof? How can you be sure?"

"It has to do with a potion," said Harry. "It works guaranteed, I know that it works, and this is a topic at which you just have to take my word for it. The moment I'm out this door, you'll ask Esmeralda a million more questions, but this topic is off limits. Can we agree on that?"

Hesitant nods.

"You'll learn more in due time, but not now. Esmeralda knows more, and she can tell you that you can trust my guarantee, but that's all."

Esmeralda knew what he meant. His guarantee wasn't really based on the booster from Groucho Biochemicals; his guarantee had the name Aram'chee and was the High Priestess. She knew it, he trusted her, and pride filled her heart for that. As she'd understood it, he also didn't want to reveal his true identity. Not yet. So she'd be Esmeralda Chang, for the time being.

The next questions really were about the bracelets. Harry explained how they worked, what happened when the black rectangles were pressed down, and what it meant to keep them downpressed.

At this occasion, he said, "Test them now, while I'm here. Once I'm out of this room, the alarm system is activated. That simply means, if you press the button, I'll appear as quickly as I can, wherever you are."

---

Then they asked who had sent him, and he said he had a friend who worked for the European school administration and who had worried about this school. They wanted to know whether he was alone, and he said of course not, there were people for his support, but he was the only teacher with this task, so if someone else would claim some authority, that'd be a fake and maybe one of these attempts he wanted to uncover and for sure a reason to notify him.

"How can we notify you, Prof?" asked Natalie. "I mean, just telling you but not as an alarm call?"

"Esmeralda's my agent in your group," was Harry's answer. "She has a phony to call me." He looked at her. "By the way, our daily meetings are cancelled. We'll meet only on demand."

That was the moment when Esmeralda had to explain how they'd organized these meetings, thereby finally revealing the true reason for these weird and untimely visits of the washing room or whatever. It was enormously relieving to have this burden off her shoulders, in particular after the insinuations just before this meeting had started, although she had no intention to report those remarks to her father.

After some more questions, her father reminded them again to stay together. Then he told Bolo to be a good boy and guard the girls. Then he said goodbye, and just when Esmeralda thought he would disappear, he bent down to her, kissed her on the cheek and said, "I love you, sweetie."

While these words, spoken loud enough for the other girls to hear, still echoed in her mind, he made a few quick steps and was out of the door. The only sound that could be heard from outside told her that he'd apparated right from the spot in the corridor.

Seeing the stares of the other three on her, she said, "He didn't apparate from inside because of Bolo. He can't stand it if people just evaporate."

"Oh, really? What a delicate dog." Odile snorted. "Esmeralda, the orphan, eh? Orphan, my ass." Then, in high falsetto, she chirped, "'I love you, sweetie'."

Natalie looked nervous, but Esmeralda just smiled, knowing full well that this was Odile's way of commenting on something for which the word 'cool' just wouldn't fit.

And right, Odile returned the smile. "So you didn't want to leave without us, eh?"

"No."

"That's straight of you. How did they make you lose your magic?"

Esmeralda could avoid this little trap easily. "With a drink. We got very high fever, Carlos and I, for several days, and then it was gone. That was also the official reason for us to leave the other school."

"Where was it?"

"In England."

None of the other girls knew details about British schools, and none of them wanted to know. "How did it start? Did you just tell your father you wanted to join?"

"No, it was because ..." Esmeralda realized that, at least for this evening, the usual roles in their group were switched. She would have to answer a zillion questions, and this one alone, which could only be answered by describing a crazy system of houses, would take half an hour at the minimum.

Not that she felt any complaint. Far from it.

* * *

Carlos closed the door behind him and turned to follow Chloé down the staircase. It was funny; he'd never before walked the staircase in the Cayenne building, because so far he'd reached the building only via summoning, to leave via portkey, and all he'd seen of the building had been his father's apartment from inside.

He'd just left that apartment, together with Chloé, after a remarkable conversation.

Expecting to meet his sister, when being summoned by his father, he'd met Chloé instead. His father had given both of them bracelets, to be worn around the ankles, as alarm signal system. Then his father had blown most of their cover, except for his real name and any closer detail on the Great Plot, at the same time signaling to Carlos that the latter wasn't to be disclosed under any circumstances and that the former was preferred to be kept a secret ... for a while.

At the same time, he'd made it clear that there were still lots of details worth a question from Chloé and an answer from Carlos, reason enough to send them off together and on a very conventional route: out the door, down the staircase, and into the evening.

In the course of his revelations, Harry had pointed out that this school was dangerous ground, the playfield of evil-minded people, so they should guard each other without making a show of it.

Having reached the outside, Chloé grabbed Carlos' hand and started walking as if she had a clear destination, which she probably had - a place to squeeze him.

However, after a few steps, apparently she couldn't restrain herself any longer and blurted out, "You must have been laughing your butt off, haven't you?"

"No, why?"

"About me and my concerns for your lack of magic. I feel so stupid."

He said, "You shouldn't. Your worries were accurate, from what you knew. But then, remember how I tried to tell you there'd be a way?"

"Yes, and that's your good luck, that you didn't tease me. Although, I'm so pleased to know about your magic, I couldn't be mad at you, not now, anyway."

For a few steps, it looked as though Chloé would start the joy-jumping walk of a six-year-old, feeling secured at the hand of an older brother.

Careful not to start laughing, which could have happened easily due to his own relief and joy, Carlos said, "My magic isn't back yet. It will, eventually, but for now, you still could spell me."

"Yes I could, couldn't I? Except I don't know how."

"Yes, and that's my good luck."

They laughed, much more than this little joke quotation deserved. They were heading toward the park. It had been quite a while since the last time that Carlos was walking hand in hand with a girl, and at earlier occasions, the girl had invariably been his sister Esmeralda.

Reaching the park, they looked for a good place to sit and talk. There were benches, but that would mean to expose themselves to some passing teacher - it was quite late actually; they should have been in their houses at this time of the day becoming night.

Sitting in the grass was no option either; the evening dew had rendered the lawn wet and cold. It crossed Carlos' mind that the camp weekend that was due soon might turn out as something similarly unpleasant, only longer.

Then he knew. "Come under the bushes, the ground's dry under them."

Chloé looked sceptical. "Are you a boy scout?"

But she followed anyway, and moments later, they were sitting reasonably dry, with their backs to some twigs that started growing leaves just above their heads.

---

"No, I'm not," he said, in answer to her half-forgotten question. "But when I was younger, I used to hide in the bushes, to watch people pass by. I always thought all children would do that."

Chloé shrugged. "Maybe, if there are bushes around. In Nohanent, there aren't any. Too dry, or the ground's too rocky, I don't know."

She glanced up from drawing lines on the ground without leaving any traces. "Are there many bushes, where you come from?"

She couldn't care less for bushes, so much was clear.

"I told you the truth," he said after a second. "We live in Ireland, and there are lots of bushes. But it rains a lot, too, and then the bushes are no shelter either. Before that, we lived in California. There are bushes too, but only in the gardens of rich people."

"Was your father rich?"

"No, I don't think so. We had enough, though, but rich is something else. In California, you can see rich people, and the places they live, that's how I know that we weren't."

"And in Ireland?"

Carlos hesitated. He didn't think Chloé meant the country, not really. Neither by nature nor by education was he inclined to boast about his adoptive parents' wealth, even less so toward a girl with parents as poor as the Broussards. It might have looked like something to balance for the recent difference in magical abilities, but only to the outside.

Eventually, he said, "There aren't many people rich there. My mother told me that in the past it was one of the poorest countries around. She said today it's a lot better, with employment. She ... she knows, because she has a factory there."

"Really? What for?"

"Stuff." Carlos extracted his phony, held it up for a moment. "Like this one."

"Cool. We can't afford stuff like that. Well, it's not so bad, really, because I wouldn't know who to call anyway because no one of my friends has a phone either."

Chloé's voice sounded light, conversational.

Carlos, not trusting this apparent ease of mind about poverty, kept silent.

"The only thing that was bad was my father's mood, sometimes. When he came back after having tried to get some job, you better stayed off for a while. He'd shout at me, and if I didn't watch out and be careful for what I said I could get me a smack one."

Carlos stared, suppressing a gasp. Never having suffered similar symptoms, he knew nonetheless that other children were less lucky. But that didn't help much, he couldn't really imagine how it was to live with such parents.

"Afterwards, he'd kind of make a joke about it and say that he didn't mean it. It wasn't that bad, though; he never gave me a second blow and he didn't use things other than his hands, so ... I guess the only time when I really was embarrassed about our family not having money was with the wand. But since I got the wand from the Prof - er, I mean, your father" - Chloé giggled about her confusion with the terms - "that doesn't bother me any longer. I know that it's second-hand, but I don't care. For me it's as good as new."

For others too, thought Carlos. Aloud, he said, "Say, would you want to have a second-hand phony? I guess I could get one from the factory."

"That's sweet of you, but no thanks. My father told me that the expensive part isn't the phone but the payments afterwards."

Carlos laughed. "I heard about that. But he was talking about Muggle phones, cellular phones. A phony is a magical phone, and there isn't anything to pay to anyone, once you own it."

Chloé eyed him with some expression he couldn't see well in the darkness, but her voice made clear that is was suspicion. "Is that really true?"

"Yes it is." Carlos hurried to prove his knowledge about the reasons, little as it was. "Because it's magic, they don't need satellites and other stuff, that's why. And no real operator and no books, you can just ask the magic to find someone for you."

"Oh." After a few seconds, a thoughtful Chloé asked, "But then, why would anyone ever need another phony? Except when it's broken."

"They don't break!" replied Carlos with emphasis, indignant about this implicit offence toward his mother's factory, and this moment of outrage made him careless. "Why would anyone ever need another wand? Except when it's broken."

It could have been a rhetorical masterpiece of argument. Unfortunately, it backfired instantly.

Rather than agreeing to this logic, Chloé said, "Yes, come to think of it, you're right ... But wands can break."

"Yes."

"Then maybe mine was broken and then repaired, and the owner didn't want ... But I couldn't detect any sign of repair on it."

Carlos, fully aware of a story about his Uncle Ron, who'd broken his wand and never again had been able to perform any reasonable spell with that piece, kept silent, wishing desperately this silence of his had started two remarks earlier.

Chloé pulled her wand out of its poach. "Can't see anything ... Lumos!"

A glow like from a small light bulb illuminated their spot.

Chloé giggled. "Look there! With a glowing wand you can inspect anything save for the wand itself. If you had your magic back and your wand at hand, we could have a closer look at - "

A harsh light shot into their faces. A voice from the path called, "Hey, what's this? Who are you? What are you doing there?"

---

Carlos tried to shield his eyes, and to have a look who that might be. All he could recognize were two legs in trousers - a man, but he'd known that already from the voice.

At his side, meanwhile, Chloé was in a hurry to switch off the wand and store it in its poach.

"You deaf, or what? Come out!"

Carlos' mind was racing. Most likely this was a teacher, or some park guard, only that the voice sounded more rude than authoritative, more hateful than curious, and his father's warning grew louder in Carlos' mind with every second.

The light came closer, the legs too. An arm appeared in the beam, and next moment the hand at that arm grabbed Carlos' leg and pulled him out of the bush cover.

Before he had time for any reaction, the hand let go to drop his leg - only to grab his ear and to pull sharply. "I'll give you deaf - get up!"

He groaned in pain, barely avoiding a louder yelp. The water shot into his eyes - not from crying, an involuntary reaction of his body. He was in a great haste to follow the sharp pull and to support it with his own muscles.

When he stood upright, the hand at his ear pinched even harder, finally raising the yelp from Carlos's mouth.

The hand let go.

About to rub his tortured ear, Carlos stopped in mid movement. The figure had made a step toward the bush. Now it grabbed another leg, which belonged to Chloé, and pulled again.

In the beam, Carlos could see how the leg grew to a longer leg, how a skirt was moving upward. In a second, Chloé's knickers would become visible, but still worse, a second later, that hand would drop the exposed leg and go for Chloé's ear.

Carlos hand flew from his forgotten ear to the bracelet, his fingers touching, finding the rectangle ... the only rough touch on an otherwise smooth surface, that's how his father had shown them ... pressing the button.

The hand let go of Chloé's leg, which dropped to the ground. But the hand didn't go for the ear, as Carlos had expected. Instead, it took the flashlight from the other hand, put it at something on the man's clothes, maybe a loop, at any rate so that the the man had both hands free and still light.

"Deaf, huh? Then let's see whether you're mute too."

The two arms went down. The two hands grabbed one of Chloé's legs each, pulling them up again.

The beam wasn't properly directed; even so, Carlos saw how the girl's knickers came into view. In the semidarkness, they looked white with dark patterns.

Ladybirds, crossed it Carlos' mind. He could remember such panties from his sister - white with red ladybirds painted all over.

The man braced himself, lifted Chloé down a bit. It looked as though he was trying to hold the girl's full weight with one arm, so the other would come free, whether to take the flashlight or for some other action.

His right arm let go. His left arm couldn't hold the weight, but the moment Chloé's arms touched the ground, they started to give herself support, and suddenly the sculpture of man and dangling girl was steady.

Before the free arm could manage anything, the group had grown by another shadow, another man. This one stood behind the man with the flashlight and raised both his arms - from Carlos' position, in the scarce light, it looked as if he was going for the other man's ears, something Carlos wasn't ready to believe. Then he saw that the newcomer's hands went for the spot behind the ears, at the throat.

A gasp came from the first man. His arms slackened, let go of Chloé, who keeled over with the second half of a somersault, landing in the soft grass and getting up pretty quickly.

Maybe it was just because the grass was as wet and cold as before. But in Carlos' eyes, it looked as if Chloé had been in a hurry to make room for the first man's body, which was coming down, falling in the grass like the girl a moment earlier, except that it didn't show another move, once it had completed its slow fall.

---

An instant later, the flashlight was off. Next moment, a new light illuminated the scene - a light Carlos knew well, because it came from a powerful wizard's wand, a wand that belonged to his father, who was the shadow man.

Harry lowered his wand, obviously to illuminate his own face, thus making sure that both Carlos and Chloé knew his identity. Then he asked, "Are you okay?"

"I'm okay," replied Carlos. "Only my ear hurts."

Chloé had come up. "I'm okay too," she said with a trembling voice. "He didn't even pull me at the ears ..." Her voice broke, and her body took over the trembling. A single, dry sob came out of her throat.

Carlos, by the time he reached her, found himself beaten by his father for the fraction of a second. But he was the one to hold her, to hug her, his father's arms resting on both of them, sending a light wave of calming nature.

Quickly, in broken sentences, Carlos told his father what had happened since the flashlight had blinded their eyes for the first time, only minutes earlier, although they already felt like hours.

When Chloé had calmed sufficiently so that she no longer was trembling, Harry let go of them and knelt down besides the unconscious man.

Carlos watched him. "What did you do to him?"

"Blocked the blood support to his brain. He'll be unconscious for still some more minutes, but not long."

"Who is it?"

"A teacher. Jacques is his first name ... In a moment, I'll remember his family name. Teaches Math, I think, and one of the environmental courses - could be Biology - "

"Monsieur Deray?" It came from Chloé.

"Yes, that's him. Jacques Deray. I knew him as a mean old bastard, but I wouldn't have expected him to do something like that."

Carlos felt excited. His father saying mean old bastard, in his own presence and still more that of Chloé, was proof that Harry had to be in a hell of a mood.

"He's one of our teachers," said Chloé. "Just those courses - Math and Biology. And he's one of the two teachers who'll escort us to the camp. I can't ..."

She didn't continue, and Carlos hugged her stronger to choke the new fit of trembling in her body.

Harry stood up and reached them with a step.

"Don't you worry," he said with a voice that seemed hardly able to keep a growl at bay. "He won't be in classes tomorrow, and he won't escort you to the camp. I'm going to make sure of that. And now it's time for both of you to find back into your dormitories."

He turned to Carlos. "Son, you'll escort her back to her door, okay?"

"Yes, Dad." Carlos nodded toward the figure on the ground. "What are you going to do with him?"

"I don't know yet, and basically that's none of your business. But let me tell you so much - I'll use an Obliviatus charm, so he won't remember anything of what happened here."

"An Obliviatus ... That's cool." Despite his words, Carlos felt a kind of disappointment, but also some relief to hear that his father wouldn't make this man disappear by whichever method. He knew that his father had been mad enough for any response to the attack against his son and his son's girlfriend - at least a moment earlier.

"Cool, yes, and now get going."

A gentle push from his father sent Carlos forward, and with him Chloé.

---

They shuffled in the direction of the St.-Nazaire building, taking their time, steadying their breath, their pulse, their nerves. Carlos' right arm rested on Chloé's shoulders; his other hand had grabbed her left arm to hold it against his chest.

Close to the building, she asked, "How's your ear?"

"Still a bit sensitive, and I guess I won't be able to lie on that side, but it doesn't hurt any longer. And you?"

"I'm better. He didn't hurt me at all, actually, but I was so scared hanging there ... Stupid, isn't it?"

"No, it's not. I know what you mean. I saw it."

"Did you?"

"Yes."

"You saved us. You alarmed your father. I should have done it, still under the bush."

"No - then, it still looked pretty normal, like a teacher catching students in the park."

He could feel her embarrassment, and knew that it wasn't because she hadn't sent the alarm. It had to do with him having seen her, and his last remark couldn't be counted as a masterpiece either, because catching students meant older students, in couples, and the park was the preferred area for hunter and prey.

Almost at the entrance to the St-Nazaire building, desperate to find a remark that would relax the tension, he decided to take the bull by the horns.

"Are these ladybirds?"

"What??"

"The patterns on - on your pants. I couldn't really see them, and it didn't really look like ladybirds, but I remembered them from something Esmeralda wore, years ago. Er, you know, at such a moment, you think funny thoughts."

She stared at him for a long moment.

Then, with a quick smile as if telling him that she'd understood his attempt, she said, "Not ladybirds. Snoopies - and if you ever mention them again, I'll kill you."

With a quick movement, her cheek touched his own. Then she hurried inside.

He stood there until the sounds of her steps in the staircase had died away. Then, strolling toward the Toulon building, he wondered what was so scandalous about Snoopy prints on undies, realizing that this was another question he couldn't ask anyone close in space or time.

* * *

The next morning, when Chloé walked toward the classroom in which they would have Math, she tensed inwardly so much that for a few seconds she nearly felt unable to move on. Then she saw a teacher she didn't know, while the expected teacher was nowhere seen.

The unknown teacher introduced himself as Monsieur Donlon, Math teacher for the parallel classes, who would handle their class after stepping in at short notice, and only by giving them tasks because he had his own class at the same time.

It took till lunch, and after lunch, before Chloé had the full story as it went through the school. Monsieur Deray, for reasons nobody knew but everybody put in connection to his oncoming task as one of the camp teachers, had climbed a tree in the park - in the darkness, mind, and quite unsucessfully so because apparently he slipped and crashed through the branches from high above. The respective tree, and the traces in the shape of freshly cut twigs, were the destination of many pilgrimages during the lunch break.

Exchanging glances with Carlos, Chloé knew that their shared experience and better knowledge would be sealed for quite a while, if not forever.

Because Monsieur Deray had encountered a severe concussion of the head, so he couldn't remember anything. He'd also encountered fractures in his leg and his pelvis. They would take months to heal, if not longer, and for a teacher his age, that probably meant early retirement.

His replacement as escort teacher for the camp wasn't known yet.

Chloé said to Carlos, "I hope it'll be your father."

Don't call him 'your father'," replied Carlos in a low-voiced hiss. "Call him Prof! ... And you're wrong, I hope they'll nominate someone else."

"Why?"

"Because he'll be there anyway, but hidden; we won't see him, though. But if he's the official escort, he's too busy with other things."

"Oh."

Chloé realized once more that she wasn't up to speed in terms of spying and undercover work. But she'd never claimed to be, and secretly, she hoped that this time would be over soon.

Of course, always assuming that she and Carlos would stick together. Only she couldn't seriously expect this, with him being at home in Ireland and herself in Nohanent near Clermont-Ferrand.