205As a special present to the fans on my birthday, I'm posting this as a full story!
Silver looked at the small child in his arms. When he had realized he was in a dream, he gone to find the dreamer. It wasn't a place he recognized and something about it was almost the complete opposite of his own home. Everything was almost identical, down to the cars and houses. Only minor differences could be seen in the décor.
He had found this little one sniffling in a tree of all things, being held 'hostage' by a particularly nasty looking dog. When he had helped her down, the "dog" had disappeared, as if it hadn't been there to begin with.
The girl was so tiny and frail. Silver hadn't hesitated to wrap his dorm jacket around her, causing her to curl into his side almost like a kitten.
Her hair was either black, or a very dark red. He couldn't tell as it was a bit too dark. She wore ill-fitting clothes and it was clear she wasn't fed properly. It made Silver seethe, seeing such obvious neglect.
As the dream began to lighten, Silver cuddled with the child a bit longer. His presence seemed to sooth the small girl and allow her to sleep properly. Gray shadows he suspected to be memories or nightmares lingered at the edges, waiting to strike.
The one thing Silver would remember upon waking was how deep her green eyes were. They were almost the same ethereal shade of green as his king. They were rather beautiful.
A few days passed, and Silver found himself in the same girl's dream again. She seemed to be a bit older now, though the dog was missing. She seemed to be on the roof of a building, with young children jeering her.
Sensing her distress, he sat next to her and let her make the first move. After a moment, she cautiously moved over to where he was and curled into his side.
Silver didn't know what was going on, and after some thinking he decided to distract her from the situation. He quietly spoke to her about the cottage he lived in with his father, about his friend Sebek, and the little pranks his father liked to play on them both.
The girl was quiet, and it took him a moment to realize the shadows were lightening up around them. The sky had gone from overcast and almost rainy, to merely cloudy though still dark. Not from an oncoming rain, but more from day to night.
Silver just kept talking, telling her small stories of his childhood. It seemed to help and he could tell she was listening intently.
Seeing her start to yawn, he could tell she would wake up soon.
Waking up in his own dorm, he had to wonder what the little girl's name was.
"What the hell is that thing?" shouted a teen with dark raven blue hair and a spade mark on his face.
"Who cares, just run!" shouted a red haired teen. He had a heart-shaped mark on his eye.
The feline familiar was already well ahead of them, while a young child was lagging behind.
In all the chaos, the raven-haired teen didn't even realize he dropped his new spell pen.
The small child, who had dark red hair that could be mistaken for black in the lightening, picked up the pen. A determined expression filled her features, and rather than run, she calmly leveled the pen at the monster.
The raven-haired teen paused long enough when he realized she wasn't following them.
The girl was perfectly calm as she intoned in a clear voice...
"Expecto Patronum!"
An ethereal looking stag erupted from the pen, and the ink-monster shrieked in rage and pain.
The raven haired one scooped her up and bolted. She kept the spell up even when they exited the mine.
"What the hell was that!?" said the red head.
"Ace, language!" said the other boy.
"Can it Deuce!" said Ace. "What was that weird light?"
Deuce looked at the girl that had come with them. If Ace's stunt hadn't scared her so bad, they never would have been in this mess. She had somehow ended up on the expensive chandelier, and her weight caused it to crash and break.
You could imagine their surprise when the teachers arrived ten minutes after their escape from the mine.
"We haven't gotten the stone yet!" said Deuce. After all, Crowley had threatened expulsion if they didn't get a replacement.
"Which one of you cast that spell?"
"Spell? What spell?" said Ace confused.
"The patronus," said Professor Trein.
Seeing the utter confusion of the boys, Crowley and Trein looked at the girl who was sitting quietly by Deuce. Trein raised his eyebrows in shock, realizing she was holding a darkening spell pen and already showing signs of clear magical exhaustion.
Trein calmly held his hand out for the pen, as it wasn't good for a child to hold such a high-tier defense spell for so long. After a moment, she reluctantly handed Deuce's pen back.
The moment she did, the spell dropped and an enraged shriek came from the mine causing the adults to jump.
Crowley and Trein were wide eyed in shock at the monster, and made quick work of the thing. Trein then turned to Crowley with an unhappy look.
"You sent freshmen and a child into the mine without checking it for monsters? You know how long this place was abandoned!"
"I didn't know there was an Overblot creature inside! There should only have been ghosts!" said Crowley defensively. He then turned to the teens and cat. "You three still need to get that stone."
"How do you know there's not more things in there?" said Ace. "And why is she excluded?"
" She is suffering from magical exhaustion," said Trein. "And if she hadn't cast that spell, we never would have bothered to investigate."
She was shivering slightly, mostly from the exertion of holding the patronus for so long. As the two boys and one cat walked back into the mine, Trein looked to Crowley.
While they waited for the three to come back, there was the sound of movement nearby. Tense, the teachers prepared for potential trouble only to relax upon seeing the Heartsabyl dorm uniforms.
"Professor Trein? Headmage? What's going on here?" said Riddle absolutely confused.
"Two of your freshmen got into some trouble earlier, and apparently stumbled across a dangerous monster on an errand I sent them on," said Crowley dryly. "Why are you three out so late...it's past curfew."
"One of the Queen's rules," shrugged Cater. "Those two are the only one who haven't completed the requirement, so we came to get them."
Ace and Deuce looked rather dirty, but were holding a stone big enough to fit Crowley's requirement. Grim looked rather disgruntled as he had been stuck keeping the ghosts off them until they finished.
Trein scooped up the child, as he was well used to caring for young girls after raising his step daughters. Grimm carefully balanced himself on the broom the teachers took to reach the mine so fast.
The first thing Trein did was drop her off at the nurse's office.
"Magical exhaustion," said the nurse. "It seems some of the potion on her is wearing off though."
"Potion?" repeated Trein.
"I wasn't sure before, with how brief the examination was. But there is strong evidence the girl is under the effect of some sort of experimental potion."
That had both teacher's attentions, and Crewel was not pleased to be called in to investigate.
He took one whiff and had to cover his nose.
"Who let this untrained pup near a potions lab?" he said in annoyance.
The girl glared at him. Crewel gave her one back.
"So it is a potion," said the nurse.
"I can smell a few of the ingredients from here. Has she not showered recently?" he said with a sniff.
Crewel was not pleased, and for good reason...some of the ingredients he could smell even from this distance were rare, expensive ones that were used in valuable potions. Something that any potion master with sense wouldn't let a child within ten feet of.
He was already making a list of the ones he could identify, and had the nurse cast a few spells to hopefully identify the rest so they could reverse the potion she was under.
Since she was far too young to be in any of the dorms, not that they were equipped to handle five year olds, she would stay in the nurses office with the familiar she had a minor bond with. Whether the potion had rendered her mute was up for debate, for she had yet to say a word to any of them.
The child was back again, but this time was a bit more self-aware. Silver found himself being lead by the hand to a strange chamber. It was in a dark, wet place that didn't bode well for what lay within. That foreboding only got worse when he saw the shed snakeskin, one he immediately identified as a very old, very dangerous basilisk.
His father had him memorize the really dangerous magical beasts along with Sebek as part of their training, even if most were considered extinct. It was so they knew to get a full team of trained knights and mages in the event they ran into one, or knew to get the fuck away from the creature until back-up arrived.
Worse, this was a shed skin, one that looked fairly fresh which didn't bode well for anyone who encountered it.
Silver had a sinking feeling as they entered the chamber, only to find a girl about twelve or so doing their best to avoid the ancient beast. Fortunately, it seemed to have been blinded recently, likely by the magical bird flying around. He vaguely recognized it as a phoenix.
Watching her draw a faerie-made sword from a hat was odd, but he openly cringed at how she handled it. It was clear she had zero training in the least and only managed to stab the sword after being impaled by the snake's fang.
She only survived due to the fresh influx of phoenix tears, one of the few ways to avoid dying from the venom.
It took Silver several moments to realize the tween and the small child were the same person.
The little one looked at her older self with a tired expression. Silver didn't even think twice as he scooped her up in his arms.
"That creature was rather scary, wasn't it?" he said gently. She shook her head. The snake wasn't that scary, and she had faced worse. She pointed to the girl again, and Silver saw her approach another child a little younger than her.
His expression turned dark when he saw the shade, and realized with some horror that the girl was stabbing the blade that was infused with basilisk venom into the book he had mostly ignored in favor of the obvious threat.
She shivered and curled into his arms as the shade screamed in fury and pain from the blade. Black ichor flowed from the book until the other child gasped and woke up. Silver felt sickened, realizing that the shade must have been draining the younger child for that sort of reaction.
He calmly walked out of the chamber, sensing the memory had mostly played out. To his relief, rather than exiting into the mostly collapsed cave, they entered a small section just a bit away from a rather large lake. A large tentacle lazily lifted itself out of the water, and Silver really didn't want to meet the rest of the creature. Not after what he had just seen.
In order to distract the little girl, he found a log and sat down. She firmly stayed in his lap, and listened intently as he told her of the time he befriended a mother bear and her cubs. Seeing her become sleepy, Silver smiled a bit.
However he didn't forget that scene in the chamber when he woke up.
Ace was beyond horrified, and it didn't help he had pissed off his housewarden by eaten that tart.
"What do you mean we have to be her minder until the potion wears off?"
"You didn't think you were going to get off that easily for the trouble you caused, did you?" said Crowley. "It was pure luck that the spell she used has a mandatory requirement to investigate."
"What was that spell anyway?" asked Ace.
"The spell she used is called the 'Patronus charm'. It's a high level defensive spell that has a requirement for any competent mage or institution to investigate it's use, especially in areas of high magical density. This is mostly due to the creatures it is used to guard against, since using it outside a classroom could potentially mean such creatures are close to populated areas."
Crowley hadn't appreciated the extra paperwork, but her use of the spell was validated due to the Overblot creature. Considering it was primarily used against Dementors and Lethifolds, the Patronus was on a strict watch list in case they showed up. It was such a difficult spell that no one would use it flippantly without a damn good reason.
That being said, since they did have to rescue the two first years Crowley was absolutely going to make Ace and Deuce her minders until the potion wore off. If only to create less work for him, as he was not equipped to care for a five year old, or to run after one.
So long as she and that familiar she had bonded with stayed quiet and didn't create too much of a distraction during classes, no one was going to say anything. Either way she was automatically exempt from Vargas and Crewel's lessons until she was able to physically handle them.