Blue Dragon School

Chapter 4: Dust, Charms and History

After a morning staff meeting over coffee, incredulity and - in Rian's case - healing potions, the faculty decided that indeed the muggle repelling charms should be their first priority.

Still stiff from his bullet wound, Rian produced four square silver plates about eighteen inches on each side. Using his wand, he began to cover one side of them with runic etching, watched by Tara.

"Where'd you learn how to do this?" she asked, seeming surprised with his ability.

"Me father taught me this. Tis^' a charm for place and lands."

"That's some complicated rune work there. Mandisa told me you were good with charms but I thought I was supposed to be the Ancient Runes teacher for now," she said, still staring at his work.

"Ach, tis^' nuthin'. I dunna know what half of this stuff means. I'm just copying what I saw me father do."

Tara sniffed. "How would you know if you'd made a mistake then?"

Shen didn't even look up; he just smiled.

"I'd know. Besides, we'd probably have a mess of muggles in our kitchens soon enough if I got it wrong."

Tara stared at him for a moment, shook her head and started up to her classroom.

Tara spent the rest of the day with her telescope. Wooden packing crates held mounds of cotton and straw padding from which she produced brass tubes, bronze frameworks, strange crystal devices, perfectly polished lenses, colorful filters, exotic and strangely faceted gems, and glass containers full of brightly colored liquid that sloshed and bubbled even when it had been sitting on a shelf for an hour

Thaddius and Zinks did what they did best. Their cleaning supplies and gardening tools now at hand, they set about wrestling the greenhouse into shape - An act that encountered doughty resistance.

Somewhere mid-afternoon, Zinks started a fire of dry leaves and shriveled vines outside on the lawn. Thaddius had emptied all the dirt from the pots and troughs into a huge pile and was now turning powdered dragon dung into the soil with some show of relish. Gradually, the pile turned from a dusty tan to a deep, earthy brown.

Shen Wu, Defense against the Dark Arts teacher, strapped on a thick yellow rain suit, a pair of rubber boots, a set of WWII aviator goggles and a carpenter's respirator. He stood at one of the outside entrances of the cellar, squaring himself up like a gladiator. Finally, he threw open the double doors, drew his wand, and marched resolutely down the stairs into the darkened gloom of the basement. About fifteen minutes later, a few thumps and bangs could be heard, followed by a fingernail-on-blackboard sort of sound and then a rhythmic hammering. Finally, Shen's voice thundered from the shadowy depths.

"SCOURGIFY MAXIMUS!!!"

A geyser of dust, soot, dirt and mold shot from the open door with a roar. It fountained across the lawn. It ballooned and swirled through the air, coating trees and bushes across the grounds. The house shook and the windows rattled. In her tower, Tara panicked and threw herself onto her delicate instruments to keep them from vibrating off their boxes. One beaker, full of a bubbling purple liquid, skittered precariously close to the edge before she nudged it back to safety with one desperately extended foot.

After about fifteen seconds, the dirt geyser slowed and then stopped. Rian, Thaddius and Zinks hurried around the side of the house to the cellar entrance that was the source of the maelstrom. They stared at the hole, waiting, glancing back and forth between one another. After a few minutes, a dusty, coughing and somewhat dazed Shen emerged slowly up the stairs. His goggles were cracked, his hair had gone from black to dust and his respirator hung around his neck. It had left a perfect dividing line on Shen's face. Clean on the inside, thick crud on the outside. He looked blearily at the three incredulous faces that waited for him, swaying slightly as he stood.

"The basement," he said, with a slight giggle in his voice, "is clean dude."

And then he collapsed, toppling over backwards.

Rian revived him with something out of his trusty hip flask.

Mandisa spent the rest of the day setting up her office. She unpacked tiny models of furniture: chairs, book cases, an oak desk, placing each one on it's appropriate spot on the floor. Then, with a wave of her wand, they returned themselves to full size. Her books, on the other hand, were too valuable for such transfiguration. She organized and shelved them herself, smiling and humming in modest delight.

It wasn't until mid-day that the first owl arrived. A magnificent Great Gray owl, it sat outside her window, patiently tapping it's beak on the glass until she opened it. The message had obviously traveled a long way, but what really took her was the address. In emerald ink it bore the words,

Headmistress Mandisa Mabele

Blue Dragon School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

United States of America

She sat down, smiling dreamily as she held her first official correspondence. The letter bore the stamp of the Cross-Atlantic Post, the Boston Owlmaster and the Chicago Owlmaster. She opened it with her wand and settled back in her desk chair to read, a light breeze playing through the window.

The letter bore a crest; a lion, an eagle, a badger and a serpent. It read:

Mandisa,

Have received your letter of the fifteenth of September and am only too happy to help. Am sending you a History of Magic teacher via post. Should arrive in Chicago on or around the twenty-eighth of October. If you require any advice, I should be happy to offer what expertise at headmastership I possess. I am happy to hear of Headmaster Dunnstead's school being given a second chance.

Wishing you the best of luck,

A.P.W.B.D.

After reading the letter, she sat back, puzzled. What did he mean "sending you a History of Magic teacher by post"? Was he going to transfigure somebody small enough to fit in a box? She would have to see.

She was rereading the letter when the second and third owls arrived; a tawny and a barn owl respectively. Letters from concerned parents, the both of them. She had finished reading them and was starting on a reply when two more arrived... and then another following hard upon.

It was thus that Shen, newly washed under the well pump, found her hard at it a few hours later. He walked in, bearing a silver tea tray, two cups of hot tea and a McDonald's take out bag. He took note of the half dozen owls, now perched on bookshelves and chair backs around the room. A growing pile waited Mandisa's attention as she sat writing a reply.

She looked up as he entered; her face resolute, but smiling slightly.

"I suspect," she said, "this is the beginning of a long and exhausting trend."

"Parents?" Shen asked.

"And students," she finished for him. "And a few from the Wizard Administration."

Shen put the tray down on what free space there was left on the desk. He picked up her teacup and saucer, and set it down in front of her, blocking the letter she was writing.

"Take a break," he said simply.

She leaned back with her teacup in hand.

"I take it the basement is clean," she said, smiling over the rim of her cup.

"Oh yeah," he replied, chuckling and unpacking a few burgers from the sack. "Really, really clean. You were right about that patch of Bundimun. Good thing we showed up when we did, it'd have eaten the foundation. I got rid of it, but I'm going to have to check every couple days in case it grows back. It's some nasty stuff."

"How are the Muggle repelling charms going?"

"Rian and I are going to put them in place yet tonight. He was just finishing up the boundary markers before I sent him for burgers."

Mandisa poked at one of the wrappers, looking skeptical.

"We really must find a cook," she said.

Shen shrugged. She picked up the first letter and handed it to him.

"What do you make of this?"

After he'd read it, he looked up, as puzzled as she was.

"By post?"

"Yes."

"Going to be one peeved wizard or one really big package. Maybe that's why he's sending it to Chicago and not here via owl."

"I do not know. But I suspect a trip to Chicago and perhaps Boston is in my near future anyway. There will be questions to answer and papers to sign. If you will remember, we have as yet not told the Secretary of Education that there is a new school starting. I am sure she knows by now and will be quite curious indeed. Not to mention our missing staff assignments."

She frowned.

"I hate to leave my school so soon and with so much work to be done."

They both sat in silence for a while, sipping their tea. Finally Shen spoke, not meeting Mandisa's eye.

"Have you noticed... anything... yet?" he asked slowly.

There was a pregnant pause, a nervous pause...

"No," she replied. "You?"

"Nothing yet and I've really been looking."

"So have I. I keep thinking I see things and then..."

"I know. Every rational thought I have says it isn't true, but Dunnstead was a very powerful sorcerer. I just can't rule it out."

After another significant pause, Mandisa said, "Well, if it is true, it is true. We have got enough to worry about without chasing secrets."

She put down her teacup and returned to her letter.

An hour later, Shen and Rian trooped out of the front doors, across the lawns and into the woods. Rian bore his newly inscribed silver plates as they headed for the edges of the property.

"Well, as furst days go, ya could'na ask for a more exitin' one than this," Rian chuckled as they walked.

Shen laughed. "You really are a piece of work Rian; you so rarely find people with sense of humor about being shot. Tends to make most people a bit grumpy for some reason."

"Ach," Rian snorted, waving the statement off, "'twas only a scratch. I once had a bludger crack four of me ribs and knock me off'n me broom. That hurt a lot worse I'm tellin' ye."

"You never told me you played. Were you on reserves or something?" Shen asked, mildly surprised.

"Nah, I waz always too slow for the big time. I could whack a bludger like nobody, but I'm no great shakes at speed. I'm just too big. I used to play for Gryffndor at Hogwarts."

"Oh, that's right, you went to Hogwarts."

"Aye. I 'm thinkin' I'm the only one too. Little Miss Olmstead went to Salem, Thaddius went to the Boston Warlock Academy. Where'd you and the Headmistress go?"

Shen smiled. "Mandisa was trained by her Sangoma; the local 'witch doctor'. She's a Xhosa, they do their schooling a lot differently down there. A lot more informal but at the same time, highly personal."

Rian nodded. He was completely awed by his new employer. He knew her to be a powerful witch, but there was something else. Her regal stature, her elegant manners, made him feel like he was addressing royalty. He kept fighting the urge to bow when he saw her.

"Oi, where'd you go to school?" he asked.

Shen shrugged as they walked further from the road, into the shadowy thick of the woods.

"I went to a monastery school. In China, the Wu Jen are usually taught at monasteries. Kind of like a martial arts school. We learn philosophy as well as magic."

Shen looked like he was going to ask a question but he suddenly stopped and pointed at a large granite boulder half buried in the turf.

"Here now, there's our fine cornerstone."

It took a fair bit of magic to free the stone from its earthen embrace. Like an iceberg, it was a lot bigger below the surface. Finally Rian managed to levitate it out of a fresh, loamy hole in the ground. They towed along through the air for another hundred yards or so till Shen, marking the spot on his map of the grounds, determined they were at the northwest corner of the property.

"Okay," he asked Rian, "now what?"

Rian explained. First they dug a shallow hole for the stone to stand in, just enough to keep it upright and balanced. Then he placed the first silver plate in the earth below where the stone would go; adding a few final runes that defined the size and shape of the cornerstone and the distance to the next one. Finally, he levitated the huge boulder over the hole and set it down lightly, kicking dirt around the edges and stamping it home with his boot.

Then the real magic began.

He stood back and began to intone an incantation as silver and green sparks poured out of the end of his wand, over the standing stone. Glowing runic patterns traced themselves into being across the surface of the boulder and seemed to sink slowly into the rock itself. When he finished, the stone glowed with a silvery light. The air fairly crackled with magic and there remained a strange smell in the air, like holly and leaf mold.

Finally, Rian touched his wand tip to the stone and seemed to pull a silvery thread away from it. The thread, one side anchored to his wand tip, the other to the stone, followed him as he drew it across the grounds twords the southwest corner of the property.

The next three standing stones were put in place in much the same way. Each time they found a handy boulder, freed it and put it to work as an eldritch sentinel. Rian hooked the silver line to each cornerstone and finally; as the woods settled into a quiet, dewy night, hooked the radiant cord back to the stone he'd started at, completing the charm.

They walked back across the grounds, tired but happy.

"Well," Rian said, "Maybe now I can sleep without worryin' about muggles raidin' the icebox."

"A much more profound worry if we had much in the icebox to raid."

"I canna believe you two forgot to pack a cook," Rian said, grinning.

"What can I say, she wouldn't fit in the overhead compartment," Shen replied blandly.

"What's an overhead compartment?" Rian asked puzzled.

They walked back up onto the creaking wooden porch. Rian opened the screen door and headed inside chuckling, but Shen stopped. He looked casual; he looked relaxed, but the astute observer might have noticed his right hand, drifting ever so slowly towards his wand pocket inside his jacket. He turned slowly, eyes scanning the forest edge, barely visible in the gathering gloom. After a minute, he shook his head, seemingly ridding it of an unpleasant thought and followed his Irish companion inside.

There was a shadow in the tangled branches of an oak tree. In that shadow, if you stood still and looked very hard, was a deeper shadow. In that deeper shadow, two eyes began to glow with smoky, dull glimmer, like candlelight through red glass.

They glowed out of a twisted, bent little creature, no more than a foot tall. It's skin was stretched like oily leather over an angular skeleton. A wide eyed, horned head sat atop a ridged spine that extended on to a long, whip-like tail. Three hooked fingers held it to the branches, while its other hand held the body of a dead Bowtruckle. It's clawed feet gouged into the branch beneath it as it hid. It stared at the back door with malevolent intelligence.

It knew the slant-eyed one has sensed it. It knew it would have to be more careful. It knew what to expect from failing it's Master.

It settled down to watch the house, gnawing on the body of the Bowtruckle as it did. It counted the windows and doors. It looked for places to hide; looked for a way in. It took note of chimneys and roof vents. It watched the lights moving around inside the house as its occupants sought bed. It already knew how many were there. It's master would want to know these things.

It knew that the slant-eyed one and the faerie had placed charms around the grounds to keep things out. It sniggered evilly, ripping the head off the Bowtruckle with it's needle-like teeth and crunching as it thought, 'So much for things already inside."