Ticking of the Clock

"I hope she doesn't expect me to sing," Loup de l'ombre muttered, as she balanced an unlikely burden of a small cake, a carafe, and a poorly wrapped box. Hands full, she kicked at the door in lieu of knocking. The box slipped slowly from her grasp as she shifted the carafe to keep it from dripping. Growling, she clamped her arm down hard onto the parcel, crushing a corner. "Magda! Open the door! Quickly before I drop something!"

The box slid ever further until it was barely contained by the time the door opened. The woman who stood in the door was much smaller than Loup. Dark hair fell forward, partially hiding Magda's face. With a hollow laugh, she parted the wards to let Loup inside, catching the box as it slid away. "I had not expected you for another hour. Come. Put those on the table." The instructions were called over a shoulder as Magda continued through the office into the living area.

The offices and living quarters of the Dark Arts professors at Durmstrang were all laid out the same: a series of three small rooms, set one after the other with the living room between the office and bedroom. Most were furnished with what looked to be cast-offs. The Lowensteins' quarters were the only ones that didn't look shabby. The furniture, a mixture of dark walnut antiques and modern sofa and chairs, looked all the more elegant in comparison with the usual Durmstrang décor. Loup set the cake onto a small, round table with its matching chairs that was set against the wall. She looked around, holding the carafe above the table, knowing better than to put it onto the polished surface. Magda paused long enough to push a silver trivet under the carafe then began setting out the china coffee cups, saucers, matching plates and silverware.

Collapsing into a chair, Loup smiled up her hostess. "Happy Birthday! Are you sure you don't want to invite the rest in for a little party? I'm sure they'd like to help you celebrate." The last was said with a slight bitterness. Loup's birthday had come and gone with few good wishes and no cake, something her mate, Yuri Gregorov, had heard about for weeks afterwards.

Shaking her head, Magda cut a small piece of cake. "Are you still angry with Yuri? He is a man. They rarely remember such things." The cheerful tone of the voice did not match her face. With a forced smile, she passed the slice to Loup and cut a smaller one for herself.

Loup hesitated for a moment and then poured the coffee. "Confirmare," she growled, passing a hand over the food and drink, carefully watching the results of the spell to see if anything was amiss. Satisfied, she took a sip and set the delicate cup down. "What's wrong?"

Magda looked down at her cake then at the slightly mangled present. "Nothing is wrong. What could possibly be wrong?"

There was an awkward moment of silence and then Loup proceeded to eat, her attention riveted to the task. "Didn't Ludwig remember?" she asked after chasing the last of the crumbs down with a final sip of coffee.

"No. He always remembers," Magda replied softly. "He always celebrates my birthday and our anniversary. He is," she said, her voice cracking, "always very kind to me. I am sure that he knows what is best for him. For us."

Recognizing the beginning of what could be an unpleasant conversation, Loup cleared her throat and pushed the box over. "Here. I hope you like it. Happy Birthday."

Without much enthusiasm, Magda carefully unwrapped the crumpled box and opened it. A little smile crept out as she withdrew a handful of a large black shawl. "Black. Of course."

Clad entirely in black, as always, Loup leaned forward and pointed at the gift. "Be careful when you take it out. There's something else in there, too."

The shawl seemed endless as it was slowly pulled out. In the light, a pattern could be seen swirling through the dark fabric. Magda tilted the fabric until it could be made out and then her smile faded. "Ah. A lion." Her mouth forced back into a smile, she stood and slipped it around her shoulders to admire it. Something clattered loudly onto the table.

"You probably don't really need this, but I wanted to give you something from me. The shawl is from Yuri. I picked the color, of course."

Magda chuckled softly. "Of course." Stepping back from the table, she moved enough to let the lighting charm hit the table and saw a sparkle. A pair of gold hoop earrings sat there. "What spell did you place on them?"

"I know you said you wanted to get pregnant this year. I did some research and found a charm that will make these feel warm and glow a bit when you're ovulating. Not that you need any help." Loup grin faded at the Magda's crestfallen face. "You wear this style so I thought…" Her words were stubbed out as a tear stained Magda's face and then another. Panicking, Loup stood and began backing away. "I'll leave. You want to be alone."

"He said no," Magda croaked and then began to cry in earnest. "This was supposed to be the year. He had promised me that this would be the year and now he has changed his mind."

"I'm sure you don't want to talk about it." Loup turned to leave, hoping to avoid what looked to be an emotional conversation.

"I should have known better. He will never give up his freedom for my happiness. I was so foolish to agree to the spell. Spell," Magda's voice grew hoarse as she leaned over to run a finger along the earrings, "more like a curse."

The last stopped Loup at the doorway. "Curse?" Intrigued, she walked back into the room, more interested in the curse than the marital problem. "What kind of curse?"

"When we married," Magda began and then caught herself. "Ludwig would not marry me without agreeing to it. I was so very young, only eighteen."

"Agreed to what? The curse? Why would you agree to a spell and why would he only marry you if you agreed to it?"

Shoulders shaking in barely controlled sobs, the small woman sat down again and hunched forward. "You are so very strong. You will not understand."

"I won't if you don't tell me," Loup sniped back. "What spell?"

"Ludwig said that we were not ready to have children yet. And, it was true. Then. First, there were problems with money, but I have my own business and it does quite well." A shy smile returned. Magda's business supplied what could be termed spell kits. She collected plants for medicine pouches and created packages of ingredients for potions and charms, selling them to various occult and new age stores. If the customer had the power and the knowledge of how to use the ingredients, everything was there. "When there was enough money, then he wished to wait until he was certain his position here was secure."

"I was under the impression that his position was more secure than most of the others."

"It is. I asked the Headmaster himself. Ludwig has made a name for himself and for Durmstrang, too, in his research." Magda looked up. "Then, he made me agree that we would be married before we had children."

"Married? I thought you were married." Loup gave up and sat back down.

"We have only had a civil wedding, not a religious one. There is a perception that you are not truly married until you have had both. When I pressed for the second ceremony two years ago, he said that I was not yet old enough and that we would wait until this year and now," she said, sighing heavily, "now he has said that he is not ready and he not certain when he shall be."

"I thought you said there was a curse or a spell."

"Ah, yes. The spell. Before we married, we had a Non Concipere placed upon us. As the husband, he was given the power to break it." A faint blush stole over Magda's face and she stared down at her hands folded in her lap.

"A Non Concipere?" Loup cocked her head, lost in thought. "Those usually have a life span of a few years. They wear off at the death of a partner or when the spell is broken. They aren't that hard to break. I've broken a few and also set a couple on people who didn't want them."

"You could break it?" Magda looked up, excited.

"Well, in theory, yes." Loup cursed herself for thinking out loud. "It wouldn't be wise for me to do that. They barely allow me to stay now. If Ludwig complained to the Headmaster, I'd have to leave." As Magda's face fell, Loup blurted, "Why doesn't he want children? Didn't he turn forty last year? I thought most men wanted a family before then?"

"It would inconvenience him." There was an underlying bitterness that seemed strange coming from the usually quiet and content Magda.

The ugly, personal aspects of the conversation froze Loup. If she asked, she would undoubtedly hear things she didn't want to know, but it bothered her to see Magda, the one person who had actively sought to be a friend, so upset. A Dark Arts professional should never take sides, should never become emotionally involved. Magda cuffed back a tear. Never get involved. Another tear fell silently onto the table. Damning herself, Loup gave in. "How would it inconvenience him?"

"He would no longer be free to pursue or to pretend."

The response made little sense to Loup. "I don't understand. Pursue what?"

Cradling her forehead in her hand, Magda leaned heavily onto the table. "We have an agreement. When he married me, I was made to understand that while he gave me his name, and he is legally mine, he is still free."

Biting back questions, Loup tried to piece the information together. "You are married?"

"Yes."

"But?"

"He is with others." Her voice turned cold and she gazed across the small room to look at a sideboard cluttered with framed pictures of the Lowensteins. "He is my husband, but he is the lover of many."

It was too late to leave. As she compared this information to what she knew of the very handsome Professor Lowenstein, Magda produced a bottle of wine and two crystal goblets, filling them both with dark red wine.

It took the entire bottle of wine and a long afternoon for Magda to spin her tale. With each sip, she grew angrier and freer with information. Loup hunched over her second small glass, listening and looking more uncomfortable with each new story. After the last of the first bottle of wine was drunk, another appeared. Loup drank none of the second bottle, knowing from past experiences how poorly she handled alcohol of any kind. When the bells tolled four times, Magda calmly rose and cleared the table.

"Afternoon classes are over. He will return soon." Magda dismissed Loup with the soft clink of dishes being stacked.

Loup bolted for the door, glad to be free of the emotional snare. Dashing for her own quarters, she almost ran into her mentor, Gilles de Rais. Grimacing what she hoped was a greeting, she tried to pass.

"Not wise." A cold smile appeared. "No good will come of it."

The words froze her in mid stride, but, when she looked back to answer, he was gone.

"Don't get involved," she grumbled to herself. Stalking blindly through Gregorov's rooms, she repeated the advice, trying to convince herself, all the while unfamiliar sympathetic thoughts forced their way out. Poor Magda. How could she have been so trusting? How could anyone allow someone that sort of power of her life?

The spell could be broken. It would be easy. Out of habit, she ran through different ways it could be done. A Non Concipere was a weak spell; it had to be. The theory was that it was a temporary thing, waiting for both parties to agree it was time to begin a family. Oblivious to her surroundings, Loup muttered to herself the incantation that went with the spell. Years ago, she'd cast something similar upon herself as contraception. It could be worked on any number of people - something she had done once at a very strange party that she could only vaguely remember. The stories, undoubtedly heavily embellished, had caused her no end of embarrassment for years. "…married at eighteen, now twenty-five, that would be seven years…" Loup did the math aloud as she tried to remember what the average life span for the spell would be.

"Ten years is the most that any reputable mediwizard would work." Gregorov stood in the doorway, still clad in his uniform red leather coat. "Do you have plans I do not know of? You are too old to start a family."

Flustered, Loup snapped, "Of course not. My master cast a Sterilis upon all of us before we were allowed to work independently. It's foolish for a professional to risk that sort of thing." She stalked over to the chair and flung herself into it, embarrassed at not hearing him.

Gregorov leaned back into his office and set his satchel down with a thud, watching her. The long coat was shrugged off and then tossed onto the desk chair. "Little wolf, why are you examining this particular spell?" Cautiously, he walked by her to settle onto the couch. When he received no reply, he sighed loudly. "Did Magda like her presents? The shawl? The earrings?"

Loup met his stare only briefly before looking away. "She seemed to like them." Biting her lip, she looked over at Gregorov, weighing the possibility of getting a straight answer from him. Depending on his mood, her mate might opt to twist her words into a parody of the original question, pick a fight, respond cryptically or not at all. "How well do you know Ludwig?"

He closed his eyes and leaned back against the arm of the couch. "Do not get involved with their private affairs."

"I heard a great deal about his private affairs today."

"It is not for you to meddle in."

Silence hung heavily as Gregorov kept his eyes closed and eased himself around until he lay comfortably upon the sofa. He interpreted the silence as the matter being closed. Loup chose to use the time to formulate her next question.

"Who?"

One pale eye opened. A groan and the eye closed.

"I can find out, you know. It wouldn't be that hard. Why not just tell me and let me decide whether to leave it alone or not."

"Then, find out."

Folding her arms firmly, Loup slumped in her chair, stewing over what little she knew. It had to be a student. She doubted that Ludwig would bother with a teacher or any of the staff. The staff. "It's almost dinner time. I should see if Bette has anything she needs done. I'll see you later."

"Did you finish the grading for tomorrow?" Gregorov caught her as she grabbed her cloak.

"No. I spent the afternoon with Magda." Loup threw the voluminous, black cloak around her. She had to stifle the retort that he could grade them himself. Gregorov's grading, occasionally helping Bette in the kitchens and the few jobs that Headmaster passed her way were the only things she could claim as reasons that she was allowed to stay at the school. Occasionally, there was a contract for a client, but it had been months since the last paying Dark Arts job. "I'll work on them tonight. Pity. The weather is perfect to hunt."

Gregorov grunted in response. There might have been more, but she missed it as she raced out the door.

The kitchens sweltered with the steam rising from huge tureens of soup and vast pots of boiling water where green quarters of cabbage heads bobbed. The kitchen resounded with knifes thudding into cutting boards, sending chunks of meat into pots followed by potatoes and carrots. The school year was still new and the staff had not yet found its rhythm or coordinated its dance. Servers skidded into cooks as they tried to get their bowls and platters filled. Cooks elbowed each other and grabbed for tools that had been there seconds ago.

Loup tried to get Bette's attention, waving ineffectually from the door. Bette ruled Durmstrang's kitchens with an iron fist, a fist that was currently involved punching down a puffy mound of bread dough. "Later," Bette said, sending puffs of flour up as she began to knead the mass into a round loaf.

"This will only take a moment." Loup followed Bette to the next mound of dough.

"After dinner, no?" Another loaf was kneaded and patted. "Get the soup out!" Bette rounded on two cooks comparing stories about their grandchildren. "I do not employ you for this! Cook or leave!" Loup wisely backed into the corner and watched as Bette's massive hand sent a scullery maid slamming into a wall for being in the way. It could wait until after dinner.

Dinner was a tortured affair for the dark mage. Sandwiched between Gregorov and the equally large Siegfried Kessler, she could only see the mass of students directly in front of her. She had tried to sit on the other side of Gregorov, but the push to the table had trapped her. Kessler kept up a continual stream of conversation that required little response from Gregorov or anyone else. With his booming voice constantly filling her ears, she could hear little from any of the other professors. Frustrated, she poked at her food, waiting for the meal to be over.

The new school year brought new prey for Kessler. He delighted in ogling this year's seventh-year students. In what seemed to be and endless recitation of this girl and that girl's beauty and form, Loup heard a word she hadn't paid much attention to while she'd been at the school: Quidditch. Durmstrang's many teams were divided into four color-coded divisions by age and sex. There was always a game each weekend as the different years' divisions competed. Seven years' worth of students divided into four divisions required twenty-eight coaches and, she realized with a start, Ludwig Lowenstein was one of them.

"When do practices start?" Loup interrupted Kessler's description of a Chaser for the Blue Seven's girl's team.

In response, Gregorov loomed over her and, without warning, pulled her into a kiss. The distraction worked. Loup lost interest in Quidditch and, when the meal ended, followed her mate out of the Great Hall.