typetypetypetypeface

[typetypetypetypeface]

A Ghost Ship Near Venus

One of the stories from an interplanetary saga that I am working on. On Venus, the legend of the mystery space-faring supertanker begins.

5,421 words.

Swish. Deep. Wet. Slick. Bite. Lick. Lips. Suck. Isn't it weird how sexy words sound gross? Sometimes I realise this and then wonder whether gross words sound sexy. Sometimes they do. Slurp. Spread. Saliva. Oil. Flaps. Goo. Flange. Dyspeptic. Gusset. Globular. Squelch. The noises glow at me sometimes but that's probably just the euphoria. I feel like I probably feel it more than most, and a lot of people feel it pretty strongly. Venus is the happiest planet in the worlds. No wonder everyone wants to visit. Uranus hates strangers and Saturn is so uptight, Venus is really the only freedom left in the system. Maybe it’s because we spin a better way. Of all the planets in the solar system, Venus is the only one which spins west to east. Obviously the atmosphere on the surface outside the tunnels is a toxic crushing inferno and windows are physically impossible, so it’s not like the sunrise-sunet cycle has any effect on human psychology. Anyway a planetary rotation takes takes longer than a solar rotation: around two-hundred and fifty shift-cycles for each. So who cares? Who goes outside? Who really feels the effects of the spin? But maybe human biology is subtle enough that we can tell which direction we’re going? Maybe humanity was meant to live on Venus all along. My own personal theory is that it gets into our libido and makes us more receptive, but I’m not very scientific.

I was hurrying down one of the gravity corridors when I first met him. I was dressed as an ancient god, headpiece made of gold foil and bra made of silver foil, everything beneath that just a swirl of purple silks. I was wearing some painstaking eyeliner from my nose to my ears. Given his boring grey jumpsuit and the late hour of the shift-clock I would have mistaken him for a mechanic or something, except that the datapads and calculators that went flying from his hands spoke of admin-level.

I helped him collect the various acrylic smart-scrolls together, both of us bouncing off the walls as we expertly navigated the gravity, our own momentum, and the trajectory of his many loose items. I can't remember what I said exactly.

“You bounce pretty great yourself,” he said, replying to whatever noise I’d made. He glanced at my body when he said it. In the gravity corridors women tend to flow more than men and my silver bra wasn’t being very helpful. I can't remember if he meant it as a compliment or a veiled insult. Either way it was funny.

I had to rush off before he could say anything else important but I shared my contact details with him. When I was at the party later on I squealed with delight when I saw he had accepted them. It may have been the drinks. I ended up spending the night in one of the golden lagoons, bathed in pink light, water-dancing to the drum-harp music echoing through the tunnels, laughing and talking with a hundred other interesting people. So I didn’t think much more about him until he sent me a message.

It was several days later and I was at work when I finally checked my incoming messages. There were some lovely ones from people I’d met at the party, promising various lovely things. Also there was one from the man I’d met in the corridor, and he had written a lot, so I didn’t read it immediately. I replied to the others, and met up with a few of them, and spent a fun evening with one. We ate strawberry pancakes, drank strawberry wine, and lay on synth-silk sheets as we fed each other the remains of both. After that I was busy finding a new costume for the next PartyDay, so it was a whole shift-week until I finally read the whole message from the man I’d met in the corridor.

Several messages in fact. I read them all in one go but he’d sent them over the course of several days. I won’t tell you everything he said but he was really insistent that we meet again. He tried every cheesy line in the book. At first he said he really liked my smile. Then a couple of hours after he’d sent me a message saying he thought he’d dropped something in my bag when we’d collided, and he needed it for work. One of his smart-scrolls. They’re a kind of acrylic data-paper that you can unroll into a flat sheet. They hold an entire library’s worth of information.

The following morning he’d sent me a message saying he hoped he could get to know me better. Later on he said his boss would hate him if he didn’t get back what he lost, since the thing he’d dropped in my bag was some kind of big secret. That evening he said he was new to Venus and he didn’t know many people and would like to make some new friends. Late at night (the spelling mistakes told me he’d obviously been drinking by this point) he said that the scroll was maybe the clue to a secret fortune in space, and he needed me to keep the thing safe until I gave it back. He was nice enough to stop before he started ranting about how my life is in danger. It was a cute bit, but I’ve never particularly been into roleplay. That kind of thing needs to be discussed beforehand. Tut tut. These newbies.

Before I agreed to meet up with him for a drink, and maybe take him to a party, I listened to my intuition. I won’t lie: his desperation was a turn-off. But in my experience there’s something to be said for eagerness. He seemed naive. I’m not particularly predatory by nature but as I read his messages, part of my sexuality was reminding me that naive people can be moulded into all kinds of interesting playthings. I’m a giver but I’m also an opportunist.

New people come to Venus all the time, and all of them are the same: scared, insecure, acting out, relying on old behaviour. Some of them leave, and some of them stay. If they stay for long enough, they always change. I don’t want it to sound like Venus is so magical that we change them into better people, but I mean… yeah. It’s probably the way the planet spins. So I’d found myself an eager newbie, dedicated, not especially scary, who seemed to like me. He was a delicious little caterpillar and maybe the butterfly he turned into would be even tastier. I suggested a cocktail bar, and only took him thirty seconds to reply.

I was wearing a black backless satin dress with embroidered crystal patterns dancing on the chakras of my throat, heart and chest. I had sleek hair, simple eye makeup, red lips, dangling crystal earrings to match my dress, and black suede boots up to my knee with crystal buckles all the way down again. Travelling the gravity corridors is hard in heels but my mother was an expert, envy of all the dancers as she span through the air, and I’ve improved on what she taught me. I was waiting for him, drinking a ‘black cherry noir’ from a martini glass. One part of vodka, one part cherry vodka, two parts of black absinthe, poured over ice and garnished with the tiny sugar-skull moulded like a rodent. My lipstick was smeared on the glass but a glance in the mirrors behind the bar, behind the candyland of bottles, confirmed my lips were still perfectly painted. Basically I was femme fatale as fuck.

The bar itself was a little place, off the beaten path of the main commute. If he wanted to spin me a story about secret scrolls and forbidden data then I’d want to be able to hear it. They were playing some kind of piano slow-dance but this wasn’t the kind of place you came to dance, it was the kind of place you came to look moody in the shadows. There were mirrors on every wall, behind the bar, and on the ceiling. The lights came from silently hovering orbs, alternating red and silver, which floated in rapid randomness against the ceiling. It made an enchanting pattern, almost like being underwater except more biological. Long gazes through long eyelashes were briefly flashed in the red light, with hungry grins returned in flashes of silver.

Sadly he turned up in his grey jumpsuit but I expected that. I was prepared to play the part of his sexual mentor, introducing him to the parties, eager to enjoy his energy. There was something in his eyes which made me optimistic. He’d said in his messages that he was going to pay the whole bar tab. When newbies do this we call it sacrament. I know it’s a bit preachy but as he ordered his bottle of synth-beer and another ‘black cherry noir’ for me, shyly making eye-contact like he was scared of me, I definitely felt like a goddess. The euphoria was a strong feeling. Sexy words glowed in my head. I felt the slow spin of the planet grinding friction against my blood.

“Did you bring it?” he asked, gulping nervously from the plastic bottle.

“So quick to business?” I purred.

“Yes. No. Sorry. How was your day?” he asked. He had a sudden lovely smile. He seemed to relax immediately. He drank more from his bottle.

“Boring. Work. Yours?”

“I got a ping from my algorithm. It’s found a particularly interesting object coming from the Kuiper cloud. It’s definitely a disrupted orbit. Very fascinating. Obviously it’s far too early to tell but in the next couple of years…”

He trailed off, sucking at the bottle.

I remembered from the profile on his contact details that he was one of the few telescope technicians on Venus. There are a lot of objects zooming through the void out there beyond the tunnels, and all of them are observed by automated telescopes. I don’t understand it perfectly but I’ve picked up some things in conversations at parties: observation is perfect, but analysing the patterns between images requires pattern-recognition algorithms. People who write good pattern-recognition software can sometimes detect illegal asteroid mining or old war crimes.

Let me explain what I mean about war crimes. See, ancient militaries developed a cost-effective system of warfare. From what I understand the solar system is full of floating rocks, and some of them are pretty big, and with a big enough nudge each rock can become a ballistic missile. With enough mass and speed one of these ‘missiles’ can explode an entire planet. So ancient humans launched meteors at each other. Within a few years the method became obsolete somehow but not all of the weaponised space-rocks were detected. Some are in elaborate orbits, accumulating momentum, taking forever to arrive. Some are still waiting to be delivered, out there in the darkness. There’s a bounty for anyone who finds an orbital object on a disrupted trajectory. The best way of doing this is to write the smartest pattern-recognition algorithm: spaceship or rock? Size of rock? Trajectory of rock? Speed of rock? It’s a lot 

“Yes?” I encouraged him, leaning forwards. I let the crystals reflect the brief silver light, and it dazzled in his eyes.

“Well, it could be illegal mining, but it’s probably just been knocked out of orbit by an engine exhaust. It’s not very big.”

“Not very big?” I purred, disbelieving, encouraging.

“Time will tell. We’ll get better resolution from the Neptune array. It’ll be a long time before Neptune orbits around though. I can’t wait until they finally finish the Uranus array, right?”

“That sounds like politics,” I said, and I nearly pouted.

“Sorry. My job isn’t very interesting, I suppose,” he shrugged sadly, drinking.

“There are other ways to be interesting,” I said, and I plucked the sugary rodent-skull from the rim of my drink. I was trying to be flirty but I might have said the wrong thing.

“Some parts of my job are very interesting though,” he said. It was the first time he had said anything without taking a drink from his bottle. He had raised his eyebrow. I think he thought it would be enigmatic. It looked patronising. I indulged him anyway though, and took the bait.

“Interesting?”

“Sometimes, even now, we find things we can’t properly explain. Tiny dots of line in the void. A star where there should be no star. There one second, gone again instantly. The telescopes record all the spectrometer data but with so much traffic in the solar system there’s a lot of interference and noise. We can’t always be sure.”

“Are you about to tell me that you found alien messages? I had much higher hopes for you,” I said, cocking an eyebrow. I wanted to make him work harder. His face flushed red.

“No, nothing like that. But I think maybe something important. My algorithm found an item, and it looked like a weird thing, so I put all the data on a scroll and I was taking it home…”

“Ah. And you bumped into me. The thing you think you ‘left’ in my bag? I might have taken it by mistake, you think? Your scroll about the secret, weird, more-important-than-aliens, magically vanishing, ghost-star?”

“I never said magic. Magic isn’t something I believe in. But not all orbital objects come from between Jupiter and Mars, you know?”

“The Oort cloud?” I asked.

“No, closer. Further in. Did you ever hear about Mercury BV-1142?”

“No? What’s that? Mercury BV sounds like one of the supertankers. I know history. ‘BV’ means battery vault, and they’re up to like 30,000 of them now. Which one was 1142? An old one?”

“Mercury BV-1142 was the supertanker which went missing,” he said, and drank.

I looked at the certainty of his eyes, I looked at the fear in his mouth, and then I looked at my drink. The sugary rodent-skull had gone somewhere. I remembered hearing about an old power-freighter which went missing. It was one of those old stories you hear from accountants who hate a missing spreadsheet - exciting ghost-ship at first, unexplainable annoyance second, adjustable loss after the ultimate evaluation. Destroyed supertankers mean insurance payments, stolen supertankers can be recovered or else there’s more insurance, and broken supertankers mean inquests into shipyard standards, renegotiation of contracts, and ultimately more insurance. But supertankers just randomly going missing was unheard of, apart from this one time...

“That was years ago,” I said, “Like, dozens of anyone’s. I think I heard my mum tell me that story, and she heard it from a Jupiter gas-miner. Are you saying you found it?”

“Yes. No. Maybe. I mean, yes, I found it. I think,” he drank, “I need to analyse the data more thoroughly, like only a human can. I’ve sent it to the Neptune Foundation but there’s so much paperwork-”

“I know. So you need the scroll to find your… ghost ship?” I asked, finishing my drink with a ladylike sip.

“It’s not a ghost ship. It’s just a lost shipping container. But figuring out why it went off-course would be useful for my industry. The data could be useful. If I can figure out the trajectory, where it will be, we can reclaim it and maybe negotiate that into a small fortune. I never said magic, and I never said ghost ship, but everyone will say what you did and it’ll drive the price up, right?”

“Sounds like a plan,” I said, running my finger around the rim of my empty glass. I delicately tasted the finger - a tiny, pink, darting tongue that barely scented the flavor of my finger.

“So do you have the scroll?” he asked, and with a glance he gave me the most comprehensive assessment I think I’ve ever endured - from my heels to my hair. He knew the size of the scroll, and he was checking me for pockets. My outfit was clingy - nowhere to hide his scroll unless I could fit it inside myself. Same size as my forearm. I know they say a lot of things about Venusians but honestly most of them are myths and I’m only bloody human. Hiding his scroll inside me would mean invasive surgery.

“Here? No,” I said.

“Where?” he said.

“Well, I have a problem,” I said.

“A problem?”

“I like you. I think you’re sweet,” I said, tapping my fingers on my empty glass. He didn’t take the hint, “I want to help you. But your messages were super intense and I think I want to help you get over that. I’m more interested in aiding your emotional growth, and I’m going to use your secret ghost-ship data as some kind of bait. I’m going to string you along with it, and in the process I’m going to mentor you into a healthier emotional attitude. When you don’t want it so bad, you’ll get it. See?”

“What?”

“Did I stutter?”

“But… but…” he stuttered, “That’s insane? You want me to... what? Develop emotionally?”

“I think you want this too,” I said, with the tiniest part of a tongue playing across my lips. I blinked at him slowly.

“I do,” he admitted, and his face turned red as he said the words.

“If you want me to just give you the scroll then say so now. Consent is important. Or do you want to play my game?” I asked.

“I want to play your game,” he said, and he finished his bottle. His face was crimson. He couldn’t look me in the eye. I’ve never enjoyed having anyone submit to me before. It didn’t feel especially healthy but it felt especially sexy.

“I’ll be at this party, if you want to come along, and maybe buy me some more drinks?” I said.

Listen, don’t judge me. I never lied. I did like him. He was sweet, and more sweet than he thought he was. Drinks are expensive.

I pulled out my hand-held and swiped the details over to his. The costume was fairy tale themed, the music would be suitably whimsical, there would be several pinatas which were hinted at being spider-shaped (and we all wondered in the comments whether there would be prizes in each limb), the location was central in the colony (ideal for both him and me) and it would give me enough time to get some sleep and work before the next PartyDay.

“Invite only?” he said, sounding suitably impressed.

“I’m inviting you. Maybe if you behave yourself, and please me, you can get your data back,” I said with a wink. I left my empty glass on the bar, hopped off the bar stool, and swayed my hips as I showed off my eloquent spine, glittering out of the bar. I think I heard him growl.

It took a shift-week. We messaged each other a couple of times, making small-talk, discussing our tastes in entertainment, what we had for lunch, the kind of noises humans make at each other to test for inhumanity. 

My costume was trippy. I thought after all the black, crystals, vamp, mineral coldness, kind of bitchy, exploitive, hard liquor? I thought I should pick something softer and more colourful.

There have been a million memorable mermaid costumes, and their photos are available as both glamour shots and how-to guides. But I think mine introduced something original. Skin-coloured kitten heels with a pearl-pink clasp. Fishnet tights. Frilly salmon-pink knickers. A turquoise-sequined corset, side panels segmented with frills of salmon-pink lace. Like gills, right? Chest, arms, shoulders, all covered in turquoise body glitter. I dyed my hair green and blue in varying stripes, with pink highlights, then back-combed it and entwined some pearls. Also turquoise body-glitter on my face, long lashes, pearl-pink piercings across my ears and face, hot red lips. I like the shape of my lips, and I’ll take any excuse to make them red. I left my arms entirely bare - I like costumes but I also like the freedom of movement. My thinking was that for photos I could just put my hands behind me and flash my legs, and the entire costume would be obvious: reverse mermaid. Everyone has always joked about the “reverse-mermaid” with human legs but a fish torso. I like my legs though, and I want to show them off. There’s also an access issue with a traditional mermaid tail.

The party venue was a maze of tunnels that used to be mining, but has since been repurposed. The walls are all rough-hewn lava-rock, reinforced with deeply scientific ceramic compounds that leach away the heat without breaking the structures. Most of Venus is dug this way but usually the machines coat the walls smoothly. They’d decorated the rough tunnels with downward-facing lanterns, shining off my legs, shining off the white concrete floor (upsettingly warm), and reflecting back up onto all our faces. It gave everything a delightfully underworld gleam, and really helped my underwater motif. 

He wore a version of his colony-issue jumpsuit, torn up and detailed with leather. He had a big navy-blue collar of reinforced fabric, inset with LED crystals that glowed from behind his face. He’d sewn dark blue faux-fur into the torn wrists, and around his hips. His boots were bright blue, and he wore faux-leather fingerless gloves in the same bright blue colour. HIs fingernails were long blue enamel, his tongue and teeth were dyed black, and he had painted some kind of Martian monster-hunters symbols on his forehead. He was clearly the demon-wolf of Riding Hood, typifying Blue vs Red, contrasting hot electric blue with cold blue, providing various textures to stroke depending on my mood. He had surprised and impressed me.

“You came,” he said.

“Not yet,” I said, rubbing my thighs together. Someone had already bought me a drink while I was waiting for him and it had gone straight to my personality.

“I was happy to get in,” he said. The LEDs behind his head glimmered on the sequins of my face, and I could see the sparkles reflect in his eyes

“Not yet,” I said, revelling in the repetition, watching him blush harder.

“What are you drinking?” he asked.

“It’s early, so just beer,” I said.

He flagged down one of the waiter robots and ordered two beers. As the robot floated back up to the ceiling and wandered away, he flagged it down again. He ordered two more beers.

“Two for you, two for me?” he joked.

“You don’t need to be nervous,” I said, and touched him on the arm. I meant it to be reassuring. I can’t tell if it was the fur of if it was his skin but I felt something electric pass between us. His skin felt deliciously warm.

“You have my entire career in that scroll,” he said, reminding me.

“Ah yes, the mysterious ship of BV-1142,” I said.

“BV-1148,” he corrected.

“BV-1142,” I said again, in certainty.

“So what exactly do I need to do?” he asked, and it wasn’t entirely fear which made him ask. I could sense anticipation from him.

“I feel like that’s a longer conversation,” I said, unfolding my legs, briefly dancing my feet over him, standing up straight to accept the four beers as they arrived from the ceiling. Two in each hand, I held out one hand to him. He took the two bottles. I kept two for myself.

“What do I need to do?” he asked again, lips reddening with eagerness.

“Come with me,” I said, and with my free hand I pulled him from the bar area. We wandered through the dancing lights and shuffled through a swarm of mythical mine-workers in jaunty red caps and sequinned leather suspenders holding up their lederhosen. In the corridors behind the bar the mineral deposit holes had been turned into private conversation booths. They’d been made comfortable with carpeted floor, soft chairs, black velvet curtains, and tiny lights dancing from the ceiling that rose and fell in time to the music.

“We have a behavioural code here. It’s one of the reasons Venus is such an enlightened society. We learn it in school. I want to find to establish some boundaries, clarify consent, find out what you’re comfortable with.”

“I’m uncomfortable with everything,” he said, in a brief glimmer of honesty. Then he drank one of his bottles of beer in one single swallow.

“I’d really like to figure out why,” I said.

“I grew up on Saturn,” he said.

I nodded understanding.

“But you came to work on Venus though?” I asked.

“I… yes,” he said, finally.

“So you had questions,” I said, putting both my hands on his leg reassuringly, “I want to understand how deep these questions go. I’m going to start with asking what age you were when you first had a sexual experience? You can stop me if I’m getting too personal, I’m just really curious about you.”

“The same way as most people on Saturn. I was out with some friends on a bar on Jupiter and I rented a sex robot. We were young, not even six months old.”

“Wait, by whose calendar?”

“Who cares?” he said with a cheeky grin, sipping at his second bottle. Both of mine had vanished into my torso somehow, and I was left sipping the remains.

“Fair. And what happened? You enjoyed it?”

“I think the same thing as all the online reviews: I don’t trust them to be surprising. Programming my sexual tastes into an interface was a weird experience. I think I want something organic.”

“What did you program them with?” I asked.

“Just to be gentle and submissive. I got bored of that and programmed them to be dominant, but ordering a robot to give you orders makes it feel really weird.”

“So you came to Venus looking for something more organic, or someone more organic, and maybe a little dominant?” I said, with a note of satisfaction, taking his bottle of beer from him and drinking a little before handing it back.

“What about you?” he asked.

This took me by surprise. People don’t often ask about me. I like to deflect, distract, overwhelm, and ultimately end up beneath someone beautiful. Some people come to Venus to find themselves, like this delicious boy. Some people come here to lose themselves. The people who properly live here? The actual Venus-folk? Well, who knows. Maybe we all try and do both. Have I ever known myself? Which parts of my history do I think are important? Do I feel like sharing the important elements? With him? With me? Which parts of memory are worth dragging up for me to tell him about? Should I tell him the truth in a sexy way, and thus betray the emotion I felt at the time? Should I tell him the truth in a brutal way, and thus drive him away? Should I just straight up lie, and betray everything I’d been teaching him about honesty and truth?

“What do you mean?” I asked, stalling.

“How did you discover sex?”

“Discover it? Like it was hidden? This is Venus. We have the most comprehensive sex education classes out of anywhere in the world.”

“But how did you lose your virginity?”

“Is that still a thing? You know virginity was just an ancient way to enforce patrilineal privilege by controlling women through shame?”

“You don’t like talking about yourself much, do you?” he said.

“We can talk about me some other time if you ask the right questions. I am a performance, not a book. We were talking about you though. You feel like exploring being dominated?”

“You’re like a force of nature, then?” he said, with an admiring smile, “You can be experienced, but rarely understood?”

“Oooh, I’m so enigmatic,” I said, smiling back, narrowing my eyes playfully.

“Am I in trouble?” he said, and started blushing.

“So much trouble,” I purred.

I drank the last of his beer and pulled him out of the conversation booth. The lights dancing in the darkness somehow only made things harder to see, but we darted between the shadows of glittering dragons and the perfumes of shining knights onto one of the dancefloors. They were playing generic dance music, all beats and breathing and wailing strings. There were people wearing all kinds of robes and masks, glitter and feathers flying everywhere as we thrashed in the strobing lights.

Around me people were making eye contact, licking lips, negotiating and conversing with their body language, gently probing each interaction. There’s a lot of workshops which teach people how to do this without getting creepy, and it makes the energy in the room feel a lot friendlier. If people start getting hot and heavy (licking each other, grinding excessively, pulling off clothes) then there are rooms further in, further down, where things are more intense.

He was very cute when he danced, and his body was more lithe than his manner might have suggested. I wound around him, and he responded with polite reciprocation. I liked him for this - so many people try to push back, enforce their will, try to become part of the show. I enjoy dancing with someone, but they’re the paper to my story, the frame to my painting. Let me shine. I feel like I shone brightly as I circled his torso, matched his hips, wove through his biceps, felt his shoulders bunch hard and curl around me, his grip insistent but not possessive. The night unrolled behind us like music, and I dragged him from the dancefloor to the bar, from the bar to the dancefloor, testing him and teasing him, then finally to one of the deeper rooms.

Some people get to their first party and lose their minds and memories to inebriation in an effort to lose their inhibitions. It’s understandable, but it’s bad. Playing safely means keeping a clear head, and if you want to keep a social life alive then you need to pace yourself. Overdoing inebriation and getting hungover means you need to rest and recover. I was never a heavy drinker even before I hit the social circuit, just nipping at the occasional beverage like a hummingbird for a taste or a pose. This is why I can recall with relative clarity which room I took him into, which toys we picked out and ran through the steriliser rays, and the hilarious expression on his face when I asked him whether he needed to use the bathroom before we started.

“How- how do you mean…?” he asked, blushing harder than he had all night - which is saying something.

I’m not into those kinds of watersports, so I clarified for him that he needed to empty his bladder before I started strapping him down. I didn’t want to unlock him later and disturb the mood. I remember watching his back as he scurried out of the room, eager to return. I remember thinking that his ass looked particularly muscular, and looking forward to feeling how powerful it could be as it drove his hips into me.

I remember noticing the discreet emergency response team hurrying through the veiled spaces outside our nook. I remember the medical technicians hurrying through a few minutes later. I never considered for a second that the emergency involved me somehow, nor concerned him. I saw him being removed on a hover-bed, although he had a medical blanket drawn over his face so I didn’t make the connection until I heard the rumours later. For the rest of the night I only stewed and steamed about being stood up. I thought he’d had a moment of fear and run off into the tunnels, rather than explaining to me that he was having second thoughts and giving us both a chance to de-escalate and talk about his feelings. I left the party fairly quickly after my anger kicked in, but at least I thought to grab the clothes he had left behind. His devices and security badges were in the pockets of his trousers, which is why the medical technicians had trouble identifying his body. That was probably why his murderers took their time finding me. The rumours were that he had died from a drug overdose, but over the next few days I was unfortunately going to discover the truth.

[typetypetypetypeface]

Lucinda & The Holidays (aka Season’s Greetings From The Dept of Mysteries)

Fan fiction set in the Harry Potter universe, featuring original characters, with a spy-adventure noir atmosphere. Usually there’s swearing, smut, and some sexy scenes.

6,437 words.

In the Department of Mysteries there are many rooms. Some rooms are popular, and even famous – the shelves where they store the remaining prophecies that survived the war, the room of death’s curtain, and the room of malevolent brains that live in jars and stew in their hate. Other rooms are less popular – the storage lockers where sentient artefacts sleep, the long rows of jars containing preserved samples of extinct magical beasts, and the deep pools of psychedelic dream-stuff milked from the heads of sleeping children. Some rooms have lost their doors and been forgotten for a very long time – stone circles standing in underground caverns carved with runic shapes that seem to move as you look at them, chambers of gigantic fossilized spiral shells bigger than houses from ancient magical life that predates humanity, a vast antique machine that was supposed to predict the weather but started predicting something nobody understood so it was locked away. Some doors only appear when the moon is full, or exactly when lightning strikes but vanishing just as quickly, or during an eclipse, or at certain times of year. Some doors have been forgotten but appear anyway when the conditions are right. And sometimes those doors are noticed.

              Employees of the Department of Mysteries are called Unspeakables, and their ranks are known only to each other. They all knew Cranston Dulucky’s rank couldn’t sink any lower without being dismissed from the Department, which almost never happened. He was young, new, fresh, and stupid. He had disgraced himself in a number of discreet ways that outsiders had thankfully been spared from knowing. He was unscrupulous to begin with, and his own incompetence had made him desperate. So when the door appeared for Dulucky, his first impulse was to find out if he could benefit from it directly. He was in a lonely, dark corridor. Insofar as location has any meaning so far inside the Department’s shifting maze, he was near the back. Nobody would see him. If Cranston hadn’t been here, it was likely that nobody would ever have seen the door.

              The door was red, with a shining green wreath of ivy leaves. The door jambs were like red and white barber’s poles, with the stripes spiralling around them. On the round brass doorhandle there was an embossed snowflake picked out in mother-of-pearl. As Cranston Dulucky approached the door, he thought he smelled gingerbread…

T’was the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring. Not even a mouse. I can’t stand it when people alter the quote to include something more immediately relevant instead of a mouse. So there. Not even a damn mouse.

              I’ve never been big on Christmas. I’m quite uncomfortable around my own family and I don’t like intruding on other people’s family. I always feel like the spectre at the feast – a cynical, mournful, manipulative, blackmailing older woman seemingly incapable of expressing joy. I strictly wear black or grey velvet, not red. For everyone else’s sake I like to lock myself away with a mystery novel, a box of shop-bought mince pies, and a bottle of Baileys (a little Christmas luxury). Winter Solstice is a busy time for witches and wizards, New Years parties are a different prospect entirely, but normally nothing interesting ever happens on Christmas Eve.

              My flat is quite normal in most respects. It has no special magical spaces or enlargement charms, and my few magical protections and privacy spells (to prevent scrying) barely affect the electronics and technology of my muggle neighbours (unless they come inside my actual flat, which none ever have). It’s at the top of a block of flats with other muggles, and like all the others my name on the intercom system at the bottom is faded enough to be barely legible. I know all of my neighbours intimately and keep track of their movements in an off-hand manner just to make sure they haven’t been replaced by magical duplicates, but they don’t know me beyond a nod on the stairwell. One specific Christmas Eve, I knew that the family opposite me on the top floor, the neighbour couple directly below me, the single neighbour diagonally below me, and indeed the neighbours for two stories further down were staying with relatives. I was quite alone at the top of the building. So I was surprised when a security alarm spell started chirping, and a little framed photo of my apartment building that I keep on my wall started glowing red on the top of the roof. A wizard was up there.

              I climbed the stairs with my wand drawn. At the top of the stairwell just above the door to my flat (closed and triple-locked behind me), there was a door onto the building roof. I clicked it open silently and did my best not to crunch out onto the asphalt. Sure enough there was a dark-cloaked figure out there in the night. From the shape of its hood, the figure appeared to be looking up into the sky. It was sitting on one of the box vents. I would have immediately paralysed the unknown figure had I not seen a small cling-film packet of sandwiches next to their propped-up broom. Nobody coming to see me with hostile intent would pack a snack.

              “Hello?” I said, from behind the doorway onto the roof.

              The figure span around. It was a pale man in a Ministry robe, with a wispy black moustache but thick eyebrows.

              “Hello,” he said, uncertainly.

              “What are you doing on my roof, officer?” I asked. I didn’t know if he was an Auror, but it’s a useful assumption to make.

              “Nothing to worry about. Just some routine surveillance, miss…?” he trailed off, questioning. His voice was high, nasal, and posh. He sounded officious. I try not to let first impressions stand in the way of a potential opportunity but I dislike being patronised.

              “Baker. Lucinda Baker.”

              “Not the Lucinda Baker?”

              “Probably,” I said with an inward sigh, wishing there was someone else with that name. I came out from where I had been sheltering, walking over to him in the mild winter air. It had rained earlier and the street below glistened beneath the streetlights. They shined up at our faces, giving everything a theatrical feel. Not a single snowflake had fallen anywhere in London so far that year. That doesn’t happen at Christmas in London. The films are lies.

              “You may return inside, if you wish,” said the man.

              “Who are you?” I asked, bluntly. I did not wish.

              “I am Cranston,” he said, sitting up proudly, “Cranston Dulucky of the Unspeakables.”

              “And your purpose here?” I asked, standing next to him at an angle that meant I wasn’t exactly looming over him, but could if I wanted to.

              “Nothing you need concern yourself with,” he said airily.

              “You’re on my roof on Christmas Eve. Explain this to me.”

              “It’s the business of the Department of Mysteries.”

              “It’s the business of my bloody rooftop. You can either include me on your lonely top-secret business, or you can leave it.”

              “I’m not alone, I have the authority of the Ministry behind me,” he said. I can tell when someone is lying.

              “Is there a team of veteran Aurors lurking in the sky while you sit down here and enjoy your sandwiches? What are those, corn beef?”

              His face turned red and he briefly glanced up at me, furious. But he winced away at the expression I returned, and deflated.

              “They were supposed to be chicken and sweetcorn,” he said, “But the mayonnaise was old.”

              “What a wonderful Christmas Eve you’re having.”

              “It may improve,” he said, “And besides, it’s apparently no worse than yours. Alone too?” he asked, cocking me a condescending eyebrow like he hadn’t just accidentally confirmed what I suspected.

              “I have some friends coming over later,” I lied, being better at it than him, “I was enjoying a bit of peace and quiet, warm and safe at home. And then some idiot started sky-watching on my roof without permission or explanation.”

              “If you really must know, I’m going to attempt to capture… well, a kind of spirit.”

              “What kind?” I said, finally interested. I crouched down next to him, resting on my haunches. It didn’t seem like he was going to offer me a seat.

              “A spirit hitherto unknown by all of wizard-dom,” he said.

              “And witch-dom,” I said.

              “Well, yes. Sorry,” he said.

              “And do the house elves know of it?”

              “I’m sorry?”

              “Well, you say it’s unknown to us. Is it unknown to everyone else too? Centaurs? Goblins? Mer-folk? I could check, if you want? As a favour? Most other people don’t celebrate the holidays like we do so they won’t be too busy. That’s what I do for a living,” I said, and I meant it. I was absolutely willing to do him a favour. He would owe me one, and he was an Unspeakable. Imagine the kind of favours he could do to repay me. I would charge him interest.

              “There’s kind of a problem, actually. In truth most people have heard of this one. It’s the source of several myths and legends, even amongst the muggles. But there’s so much misinformation, nobody has ever really heard the truth…”

              “A famous spirit? On Christmas Eve? Are you joking?” I said.

I knew who he meant but I didn’t want to say the name. There is power in names. Even now we still don’t say the name of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Joked-About.

              “No, I’m very serious. Attempts to capture it have been made before. I found records locked away in a forgotten room, covered in dust and snow and… and icing sugar. I never heard anything about them but it seems every couple of generations the Department organises an operation,” he was rambling, staring at the sky, “They’ve been trying less and less frequently. The last time was in the 50s. They nearly succeeded. I know what they did wrong. I think I can do better. I’m sure I can do better.”

              “You found the forgotten records and thought you could make a name for yourself in the Department?”

              He jumped slightly. Apparently he had forgotten that I was there. To recover he pulled a pocket watch from his robes and checked the time, then returned to glaring up at the stars. But he made a small, affirmative noise.

              “Waiting for midnight, are we?”

              “It’s part of the ritual, yes.”

              “Okay. What else happens?”

              “You believe me?”

              “I’ve seen stranger things,” I said.

It was true. I had been born to muggles and every day in the decades since receiving my letter I’d been exploring a bizarre fantasy world. Giant snakes, walking corpses, the domestic lives of nightmare beasts far beneath the ocean, an immortal race of dog-headed humanoids living in the frozen wastes somewhere above the 75th latitude north. There are ghosts, dragons, giants and phoenixes. Why not this too?

              “Well, I’ve prepared this especially,” he said, taking a small paper bag from his pocket. He opened it and took out a tiny piece of gingerbread. He showed it to me and then delicately put it back in the bag, and put the bag in his pocket. From the delicate way he handled it, the gingerbread was clearly laced with something.

              “And milk?”

              “Apparently brandy or port is more efficacious,” he said, taking out a shoulder-bottle of cheap brandy alcohol he must have bought from some muggle corner shop earlier. I wondered what he and the shop worker had thought of each other.

              “Spirits for spirits, eh?” I said.

              “Very amusing,” he lied.

              “Surely you don’t just leave gingerbread and brandy lying around on a rooftop to summon… him?”

              “On Christmas Eve, at midnight. There are other preparations. I’ll do them shortly.”

              “I’ll join you, if you don’t mind.”

              “I do mind.”

              “It’s my rooftop,” I snapped back, standing up, turning to face him head-on, looming over him fully now. He cringed back.

              “Okay,” he whimpered.

              “What’s next?”

              “Next, the dish,” he said, taking a piece of paper from his pocket. He waved his wand and from the air summoned a plate of fine china, then used magic to transfigure the pattern of the china into arithmantic workings. He consulted his notepaper as he worked, tweaking the woven enchantment until he was satisfied an  the small plate was covered in eldritch patterns. He placed it on the floor next to him, away from me.

              “And then?” I said.

              He started drawing chalk markings on the rooftop with his wand, starting with a wide circle. As he worked he also levitated a handkerchief into the centre of the circle, amongst the runes and symbols. He poured a little brandy into a tiny, delicate glass with filigree around the base. Then he carefully placed the bottle of brandy on the rooftop, against the box vent he was sitting on. He levitated the delicate glass too, and landed it carefully on the handkerchief. It looked like something from an antique dollhouse, if the dolls were all terrifying magic-users.

              “What next?” I said.

              He levitated the china dish and gently clinked it down next to the glass, on the handkerchief. A very pretty Christmas picnic, and a trap.

              “And then?”

              “I shall put the gingerbread down shortly. It wouldn’t do for it to be lying around where a pigeon may peck at it.”

              “Very thoughtful. And then?”

              “And then we wait.”

              “So how much of this is summoning magic?” I asked, gesturing at the chalk markings.

              “None. This is all the trap. It has to be a very powerful trap. Apparently gingerbread on its own is enough to summon the spirit. Mince pies work. So do carrots, really. Just carrots on their own,” he chortled lightly in disbelief, “Such a cheap summoning. People do it every year by accident almost, without even really believing in it. Any kind of tribute will work. It’s very old magic. This spirit has been around for a very long time, after all. They may not have had mince pies when he started. Or chimneys. When it started, even,” he corrected himself, “But they certainly had carrots. Root vegetables have been around longer than humanity, after all.”

              “And he appears when muggles do this, too?”

              “Eventually, yes,” said Dulucky.

              “They don’t see him? They don’t notice that their gingerbread is gone?”

              “What you have to understand is that it’s a very old, very powerful spirit being. Even wizards don’t see it. There are other creatures and entities that are similar – the thestrals for example, can only be seen after one has witnessed death. Tonight’s spirit is even harder to see. You also have to understand that it’s… somehow beyond time. It really does appear to travel around the world – that is, those countries and communities and households that somehow satisfy some arcane conditions – in the space of one night. It can be here and gone in the space of a thought, leaving behind nothing but crumbs and some kind of memory charm. Any muggles naive enough to try and watch for its arrival will find themselves confused, with no knowledge of what truly occurred. Any mundane traps will be untouched.”

              “And he leaves presents?” I said, interrupting his monologue.

              “Hard to say. Sometimes it does. Everyone has their memories modified to believe that there’s a reasonable explanation for erroneous gifts. Ministry staff need to be protected from such charms before I can convince my colleagues that such a thing has occurred. But if there are any moral judgements involved, a ‘naughty’ or ‘nice’ list, then the Department has never observed it.”

              “I’m sure. And reindeer?”

              “Probably just a Scandinavian tradition that leaked into the mythos,” he said, with a dismissive wave of his hand.

              “And his snowy white beard, red clothes, rosy cheeks, and twinkling eyes full of glee?”

              “Now you’re just being facetious,” he said, pompously, giving me a critical look from the side of his eye.

              “So what will you do when you catch him?” I asked.

              “Imagine what we could achieve once we understand how it does such things. Such a powerful spirit, with such abilities…” he trailed off, and for a second a dreamy look crossed his face.

              “Advances in magic?” I prompted.

              “Hm? Oh, improved memory charms, a deeper understanding of time, maybe a more profound distance between wizards and muggles. Who knows?”

              “And what will happen to Christmas?”

              “I doubt anyone will notice the difference,” he said, once again waving his hand dismissively.

              “And what about, uh, the spirit?”

              “What about it?”

              “He won’t object?”

              “It’s only a spirit,” he said, looking at me with a moment of puzzlement.

              “Oh dear,” I muttered.

              “Pardon?”

              “Why did you pick my rooftop?” I asked.

              “Did you know that this building is on the intersection of some pretty powerful ley lines?”

              “Ley lines,” I said, with a flat tone to indicate I was not impressed.

              “Certainly. There are several. One comes from Stonehenge, and another even goes all the way to Faulkner’s Bottom!”

              “You don’t say,” I said, suppressing a depressed laugh.

              “And at this rough intersection, yours was the only building with a flat roof.”

              “Why is the roof important?”

              “It’s some kind of domestic spirit, certainly. Being near a chimney, a ventilation shaft, maybe even just a window? That might give it power enough to escape somehow. It did that somehow in 1802 and again in 1822, but the most successful attempts have all been outside.”

              “So it’s just a tragic convergence of ancient ley lines that I happen to live right beneath your perfect trap?” I said, as I slowly shifted my stance and moved behind him with three silent, discreet footsteps.

              “Tragic?” he said, looking up in puzzlement. He looked up to where I had been, but when he noticed I wasn’t there anymore he twisted around and looked behind him. He didn’t get up.

              “You’re conducting your own personal operation without the knowledge of the Department or wider Ministry, yes? So that you can reap the glory for yourself?”

              “Well, I mean-“

              “And if I said I’ll stop you?” I said. It was probably only the Baileys that had caused me to give away my intentions, rather than just striking without warning. Now it was too late.

              “I’m sorry, Miss Baker?” he said, and now he slowly rose to his feet. I looked around for anything I could use as a weapon but the rooftop was bereft of objects. I only had what I’d brought with me.

              “I said I’ll stop you. I don’t know if the spirit is real or not, but on tonight of all nights I’m prepared to do everything it takes to ruin your stupid plan,” I said, pulling out my wand and dropping into an aggressive, poised stance. Ready for battle.

              The streetlights shone up around his shape, so he was a kind of silhouette. He awkwardly turned his side to me, crouching for a leap. Even in the darkness I could see sudden fear flushing his face with red cheeks and sweaty forehead. He was only four feet away. A few steps behind him the rooftop fell away into the sudden drop down the building. Gravity would do all the work for me.

              “But why?” he said, his hand hovering at his robes, fingers twitching like a cowboy from the old West.

              “Because you’re an asshole,” I said, and shot my first curse.

              He dodged it, down and to the left. It shot off into the sky behind him, fizzling out across the rooftops. In the same motion he drew his own wand. I was spinning to the left too, intending to shoulder-barge him off the roof. His stride was longer than mine. He raised both arms over me and swept his cape aside like a matador, and suddenly I was closer to the roof than he was. I leapt back from him, and from the roof’s edge. We squared off against each other, crab-walking away from the edge, slowly executing complicated dance-steps to stay facing each other. I crouched lower and lower, wand dancing distractingly, while my free hand was slowly reaching towards my boot. He shot a charm at me but I pinged it away easily, countering with a quick curse. He rebounded it back at me like a sparking, fizzing magic tennis ball of poisonous green light. I had to duck and roll aside, but as I stood up again I managed to reach my hand to my calf. Now I had a short knife concealed in my palm.

              It was a short two-inch blade that these days I keep strapped to my calf at all times. All times. You mean you don’t sleep with a knife holstered on your leg? Sounds like you’re not paranoid enough. Sometimes your dreams come true, right out of your sleeping head, and then sometimes they need to be stabbed to death.

              A charm shot over my head as I rose, missing me. I shot back a paralysing curse. It pinged off his shield and ricocheted off to the side, into the asphalt, throwing up a rain of grit. Some of it pattered against his face, and he blinked as he fired a random charm in my general direction. I span away from it, spinning, getting closer to him.

              “Surrender,” I grunted, flashing another curse at him. It shot past his head, inches away from his face. It lit his expression – grim, determined, and angry.

              “I can’t,” he grunted, “I have to prove-“

              He never got to finish his sentence. I was right behind my curse, darting the few inches closer to his neck, bringing up my short knife. He was wincing away from the curse so I missed his jugular properly, but I nicked his skin in a long, thin, shallow slice. It was enough to disconcert him. He collapsed away from me, free hand clutching at his neck as he fell. He struggled to his feet, wand pointed at me accusingly, a thin stream of blood leaking between his fingers. He glanced at his bloodied hand and then back to me.

              “Merlin’s beard, you’re crazy!” he exclaimed, face suddenly white.

              “Lie down and you won’t get hurt,” I said.

              “You won’t stop me! I’m going to be the greatest wizard the Department has ever seen! I’ll do what none of them could ever do! Alone! They all laughed at me! Laughed!” he ranted.

              “I’m the crazy one?”

              “I’ll be… the best… wizard…” he said, his white face turning whiter.

              “You really should lie back down,” I said.

              He fell to one knee, looking up at me with confusion.

              “That’s better. Just a little nap. Not to worry. You won’t even remember it in the morning,” I said, pacing around him warily, avoiding his wobbling wand-aim. People are at their most dangerous when they think they’re defeated.

              His other knee hit the ground, and he slowly toppled forwards onto his face. I crept up to him, prodding him with my foot. He was unconscious. Using my foot again, I gently rolled him over onto his back. His eyes were closed, he was breathing softly, and he had gravel stuck to the side of his face. In his pocket, his little pocket watch chimed midnight.

              You mean that calf-holstered dagger that you always wear isn’t enchanted to knock out anyone whose skin it pierces? Mine is.

              To be fair I was entirely prepared to stab him in the throat, and indeed had been trying to. It would have been simpler that way, and he’d done nothing to endear himself to me. But I’m not soulless enough to slit the throat of an unconscious person – usually – so now I’d have to modify his memory somehow and dump him somewhere in the city. It was more risky but maybe I could insert a memory about him owing me his life, which was arguably true anyway.

              I turned to start wiping away the chalk markings. In the centre of the chalk circle there was a wavering figure of silver and red, emitting a soft overall-pink glow that I hadn’t noticed in the drama of the duel. He was partially see-through, like a ghost, and he wobbled like he was underwater. He was nearly seven foot tall, and maybe just as wide, but he had that kind of stocky, barrel-built width that spoke of power and might rather than a bowlful of jelly. His beard was silver and square, neatly cropped along his strong jaw. His long robe was bright-red velvet, unusual for a ghost. It had silvery fur trim that glittered like tinsel in the streetlight. His boots and gloves were leather, but still glittering silver rather than black. Shining red cheeks glowed from above his shining white beard, but his thick white eyebrows were frowning heavily over glittering, furious silver eyes. He had long white hair that tumbled down one shoulder, woven into a braid. Across his other shoulder a leather strap, crossing across his trunk-like chest, held a long leather satchel embroidered with sparkling silver runes. He was wearing a crown of holly leaves. He was glowering at me and the unconscious wizard.

              “Lucinda,” he said. His voice was like an empty winter wind. It seemed to come from a long way away, echoing before the actual words arrived. It tinkled with jangling icicles and delicate frost. He did not sound happy.

              “Uh… hello,” I said, “I suppose there’s no point asking how you know my name.”

              “I know everyone’s name,” he said, his hollow echo still angry, “And what everyone has done.”

              “It was him,” I said, pointing down at the unconscious man.

              “Yes. He laid a trap for me. Better than anyone has in a very, very long time,” he said patiently. His shining silver eyes glanced briefly at the chalk markings.

              “If I let you out, will you just vanish? I mean… I have so many questions,” I said, my voice finally breaking with disbelief and shock. His expression softened, and the laughter lines crinkled softly. Under his beard he was presumably smiling.

              “I can stay for a while, yes. I feel that you’ve earned it. Overall.”

              “Ah. Overall?” I said, pointing my wand at the chalk circles. I wanted to make sure I defused the trap safely.

              “Yes,” he said simply, “Overall, by and large, on average, you’re a good person, Lucinda Baker. Today especially.”

              “That’s… actually pretty good to know,” I said, glancing up, trying not to show emotion, trying to focus on my task.

              “You need not fear. Your heart is good, and the world is complex. I understand,” he smiled again, and it was like a beam of moonlight piercing storm clouds. I choked back some more emotion.

              “Okay I think I’ve found it,” I said, carefully wiping away one rune. There was a change in the air, almost imperceptible unless you were looking for it.

              The figure lifted his hand and pushed it out into the air experimentally. He kept going, and took a step. He walked over the chalk circle surrounding him, his ghost-like form crunching on the gravel. He had some kind of weight, unlike a ghost.

              “Ask your questions, Lucinda,” he echoed, as he walked over to the prone form of Cranston.

              “What are you?” I blurted out, following him.

              “Ah yes, the easy one,” he said, flashing me an entertained twinkle of his eye.

              “What are you going to do with him?” I asked.

              “One thing at a time, Lucinda. On tonight of all nights, we have time. To answer your first question, once upon a time, a long, long time ago, I used to be a man. I barely remember the sensation now, nor my human life. Did you know that there is power in kindness? And love? Do you understand the nature of sacrifice?”

              “I… don’t?” I said, as I watched him crouch over the unconscious wizard. He reached out one gloved hand, and grasped Cranston’s forehead.

              “At the ancient altars of winter, long-ago wizards would summon the sun back to the skies after the long darkness. They would take a totem of life, a tree so resilient that it remained green even in the coldest months. Beneath it they would leave offerings of the highest quality. If the offerings were impressive enough, the sun would be appeased and start to be tempted back. What happens to the offering after that? You can’t take it home because then it’s not an offering. At other altars these things are burned but that seems a waste. Why not give them to each other? It’s a win-win scenario for everybody, especially since the sun was going to come back anyway. So many powerful acts, so much positive feeling floating around in the world. It could easily be used for nefarious purposes, and may be harnessed by malevolent forces. Instead I harnessed it myself, and used it to encourage further giving. I suppose I became a kind of…. avatar, I suppose.”

              He seemed to nod in satisfaction, and removed his hand from Cranston’s head.

              “How long have you been… alive?” I asked.

              “Many thousands of years, but you’ve changed the calendar several times. Since long before the Romans came to your island. Long before your Statute of Secrecy. Long before the Ministry dared to hunt me. Long before this holiday, or holy day, was called Christmas. There have been changes, certainly. Long ago I defeated Krampus in battle, and I no longer leave coal for naughty children. Although if you ask me, coal is a pretty decent gift for a lonely young man down on his luck on a cold winter’s night. But anyway, I believe the people these days have a phrase? ‘Long story short, they say?” he said, straightening suddenly, and his voice grew louder as the wind of his voice built into a cruel winter gale, “I am Christmas.”

              He suddenly blazing with pink light even brighter as his red and silver shone. His long red robe seemed to blow in a wind that I couldn’t feel. My breath fogged in the air. Snowflakes coalesced around him, frozen out of the air.

              “And… and the elves?” I asked.

              “Do not worry, Lucinda. I have long had a treaty with the elf tribes of the North Pole. They assist me, and I use a portion of my power to keep them hidden.”

              “And if they want to leave?”

              “They are free to. They find it easier to come and go from the North Pole than I do, certainly. They are certainly not prisoners,” he smiled, “Ask your next question.”

              “The… the North Pole?”

              “Yes. It is not exclusively my kingdom, but I live there alongside its many peoples.”

              “Are there other creatures there, as old as you? I don’t want to sound silly, uh, sir, but do some of them have dog-heads?” I asked, somehow blushing furiously.

              I swear, I’m a serious professional who doesn’t squeal or whimper about her emotions. I’ve stared down vampires without blinking. I’ve destroyed castles from within using nothing but charcoal and a collection of hats. I don’t blush. But something about this seasonal apparition, literally the personification of benign paternalism, made me shy to ask him about old boyfriends.

              “Ah yes, the dog-heads. I’m acquainted with them, but I wouldn’t call them friends. I suppose now that I’m here,” he said, looking at me thoughtfully, “This is a good time to give you your gift. You’ve certainly earned it.”

              “A gift? For me?” I asked.

              In two quick strides of his mighty legs he was in front of me. Despite being nearly two feet taller than me, he did not loom. He unbuckled the leather strap on his huge sack, and heaved it heavily from his shoulder. It landed on the asphalt of the rooftop with a thundering boom. He undid the leather strap holding it closed, and reached an arm deep into it. The sack was semi-transparent just like he was, but he pulled out something entirely solid. It was a single icicle, almost crackling with the incredible cold that it exuded. His leather mitten-fist was gentle. The icicle was intricately carved. Although the stem was quite thick, it was carved into the base of a richly-blooming rose.

              “Be careful,” he said, his voice tinkling mischievously, “It’s very cold.”

              “Who is it from?” I asked, holding back my excitement.

              “I think you know,” he said, reaching out his hand for me to take it. There was steam coming off of it as the air froze around it. I looked around, and picked up the handkerchief from where Cranston had laid it on the rooftop, knocking the dish and the empty glass aside. I flapped it briefly to get rid of any stray gravel, and then wrapped it several times around the ice-rose as I took it from him. Even with the wrapping, the icicle was still almost painfully cold. A single drip of water fell from the pointed end of the stem. The streetlight refracted and shone along the insides but the lush petals of the ice-rose seemed suddenly wet.

              “It’s melting?” I said, looking up for confirmation at the figure of Christmas.

              “I’m afraid so, yes. Would it mean more if it lasted forever?”

              “It would mean I get to keep it,” I said sadly, looking down at it, suddenly eager to drink in all of the details while they lasted.

              “It would only haunt you. Lucinda, it does not do to dwell on memories and forget to live,” he said meaningfully, and buckled up his heavy leather sack.

              “Wait…” I said, my eyes suddenly widening as he threw his sack back over his shoulder.

              “I’m afraid not, no. Time is still ticking away, and I need to carry this… man back to his own home. He will remember nothing. I hope you won’t mind but I’ve given him a small memory about you. He believes he owes you a favour which will be too embarrassing for him to ever describe to anyone, but that he will certainly be eager to repay soon. I believe that’s what you had in mind?”

              “Oh, thank you,” I said, clasping the rose closer to me.

              “This is not for you. This is for him,” he said, striding back to Cranston, “I may no longer give coal but he���s definitely earned my displeasure.”

              He wrapped one thick glove around the collar of Cranston’s collar, and heaved. He bent his arm until his biceps bulged beneath the red velvet, and Cranston was nearly lifted entirely from the ground. The spirit of Christmas turned, heaving the weight alongside his sack. His arm went over his shoulder, his elbow by his ear, to keep hold of Cranston’s collar. Cranston’s feet didn’t touch the floor.

              “You’re giving him to me as a punishment for him?” I said.

              “There’s a lot to be said for coal,” he said simply, but winked at me.

              “How are you going to get him home?” I said eagerly, “Is there-“

              “A sleigh?” he said, interrupting me gently, “Oh, yes.”

              He carried Cranston to the other side of the roof, furthest from the street-side edge where our duel had happened. We looked out over the parking behind my building, and the communal wheelie bins. As I walked closer, I could see the suggestion of a shape floating in the air beyond the rooftop. It was like staring drunkenly at a picture drawn in the droplets of water on a steamy window – the shape of the transparent distortion was only even half-visible when you focussed on the objects behind it. It looked vaguely square, with a rounded end, and some kind of blades along the bottom. There were no lights, or tinsel, or glitter. It was like someone’s vaguest daydream of a sleigh, which would evaporate as soon as the dreamer tried to describe it. Without hesitation, the spirit of Christmas heaved Cranston off his back and in the same swinging motion, flung him out into the open air beyond the rooftop.

              For a second I felt my heart stop. Cranston landed with a thump on something solid, amongst the invisible structure of the sleigh. The spirit of Christmas had already unbuckled his sack, and tossed it onto the sleigh too. It landed on Cranston with a thump, and I heard the wind being driven from his lungs. It sounded painful. I tried not to grin. The spirit of Christmas was climbing out alongside him, once again not even hesitating before stepping out into thin air. He appeared to reach some kind of step though, because he clambered up into what must have been the driver’s seat. As the spirit reached down and grasped some kind of ropes that had no more presence in reality than a mime, my eyes suddenly followed along where I could assume the reigns would be.

              In front of the sleigh there was another blur, and another, and another. At my angle so close to the sleigh, and so many blurs out in front, it was hard to count them. Whatever they were, they had legs. And antlers. They were gigantic. It may have been my imagination but deep within the distorted lines and movement of the shifting creatures, I thought I could see a red light.

              I expected him to cry out the names of the reindeer. I expected him to zoom away into the night sky, maybe briefly silhouetted against the full moon – even though the moon was disappointingly crescent tonight. At the very least I expected a flash of light and sprinkle of glitter. But he merely looked at me from his sleigh, quickly fading away into invisibility, and with a silvery twinkle in his eye he tapped the side of his red nose. Then he was gone completely.

              After watching for any sign of him for several minutes, I let out a deep breath. My breath still fogged in the air. I turned, and my footsteps crunched in the gravelly asphalt but also the frost. With one hand I still cradled the ice-rose to my chest. I intended to do my best to preserve it, and was half-pondering which charms were best for keeping something perpetually frozen. With the other hand I used my wand to clear away the rest of the chalk markings. I vanished the tiny ceramic plate. I threw Cranston’s disgusting sandwiches over the rooftop and onto the street, for the foxes. I’ve always had a soft spot for feral outsiders. I looked for the small shoulder-bottle of brandy but it had apparently vanished. I laughed.

[typetypetypetypeface]

Lucinda & The Case of the Winter Rose

Fan fiction set in the Harry Potter universe, featuring original characters, with a spy-adventure noir atmosphere. Usually there’s swearing, smut, and some sexy scenes.

6,507 words.

I was in my usual booth at the Leaky Cauldron. I like to spend my time there – the landlord Tom and I go way, way back to before the first war. I’m one of the few people who get automatic table service, and I always pay my tab on time. It’s a useful place to read the various newspapers, get a good gauge of the atmosphere of the whole wizarding world, and at least once a day it’s a good place to make contact.

             I was reading my paper and mulling over my response to a letter I’d received when someone sat down in the booth opposite me. The wooden seating creaked beneath him, and I lowered the paper just enough for my eyes to burn a stare over it. They were a tall, long-faced man with black hair and a scrubby, awkward little beard. He kept glancing around suspiciously, warily, and my paranoia flared up – I’m paranoid at the best of times, so this was exceptional.

             “Are you Lucinda Baker?”

             “I’m not,” I lied, “But I know who is. What do you want?”

             “My name is Aldermath Reeve, of the Somerset Reeves. You have heard of me?” he asked, officiously.

             “Never heard of you,” I lied, even employing my most sincere cockney accent. It wouldn’t fool a genuine Londoner, but I was testing him.

             “Well, nevertheless, I have business with your mistress,” he said. I had to supress a snort of laughter, but I lowered my newspaper.

             “Business?”

             “I’ll discuss it with her alone.”

             “Listen, Aldermath, to get to her you need to get through me. So tell me your story and let’s see if you’re worth her time, eh? You look like a man who needs something.”

             “Well, yes. I need her help.”

             “You’ve got my ear. What do you need help with?”

             “Um, I’m very uncomfortable discussing it out here, in public,” he muttered, leaning forward. I learned forward too, close enough to smell his breath. It was peppery.

             “We’re alone,” I said in a low growl. I glanced into the pub, and so did he – sure enough, the pub was nearly empty. After all, it was the late afternoon on a Tuesday.

             He pulled out a quill from his cloak. It was a long, dark, ostentatious quill. As he scribbled on a napkin, it flicked his face. Then he pushed the napkin towards me, and I saw that he had written one word: ‘murder’.

             I pulled the napkin towards me and plunged it into my pint glass that was still half full. The wet ink and the paper dissolved in the beer, and I pushed the glass away.

             “You owe me a drink,” I told him. He looked from the glass to me, taking in my eyes and expression, then nodded and got up.

             He seemed furtive enough that he wasn’t a Ministry operative. He might have been a paid snitch or a vigilante, but his accent made that unlikely. He seemed a legitimate, welcome customer. I watched him walk back from the bar. He hadn’t tried to put anything in my glass of wine, and he’d got a pint of beer for himself. Assumptive of him that a lady must drink wine, despite my beer being right in front of me – I liked how unobservant he was. And like I said, I’m paranoid. I keep a decent store of cures to poisons in my pockets at all times. I drank, and detected nothing expectant in his eyes beyond the eagerness to do business.

             “Who?” I said.

             “I told you, I’m Aldermath Reeve,” he said, looking puzzled like a fool, drinking from his pint.

             “No, I mean who are we discussing?” I said.

             “Oh! Of course! Well, it’s my sister,” he raised his glass to his lips again.

             “What?”

             “Yes, my sister. You see, our mother died a long time ago, and quite rightly left all of our finances and the estate to our father. But my father died recently, and left my fortune to my sister. She’s intent on wasting it on stupid gardening, and all sorts of nonsense.”

             “I see. So you want to spend a portion of that fortune on getting your fortune away from your sister, right?”

             “Yes,” he whispered, and gulped down more beer.

             “What’s her name?” I asked.

             “Adda Reeve,” he said. While I’d heard of Aldermath – a loud and obnoxious duellist – I’d never heard of his sister, Adda.

             “In a few days, you will receive a letter. It will have a number on it, along with further instructions. That number will be the fee,” I said, in a brisk, business-like way, “I should warn you now, it will probably be more than you expect.”

             “It’s gone beyond money, at this stage. It’s now a matter of pride,” he growled, and I had to hide my grin. I was eager to see how far beyond money I could charge. He drank the last half of his drink and got up unsteadily. “I look forward to her letter,” he said with a curt nod, and then he turned and strode out of the pub. His swirling cape attracted a few idle glances. I sipped at my wine glass thoughtfully.

             *

Later that night, I visited my favourite ‘freelance troubleshooter’. He was a mercenary assassin, and organising a meeting with him meant leaving marks on two different trees in Hyde Park. I was sitting on the pre-arranged park bench when he approached, wearing a long trench-coat. Myself, I was just wearing a simple woollen hat and long, dark, heavy coat with a light scarf. In the cold winter air, I was the less conspicuous. It wasn’t his long coat, it wasn’t his dark glasses, despite the dark of the night, and it wasn’t his huge stature, hauling around his bulk like a troll. It was his cheap, comical wig like a small dog which made him stand out.

             “You took your time,” I said, trying to keep my teeth from chattering.

             “There is a procedure,” he said. He looked over his dark glasses at me, pushing his wig back into place.

             “How are you?” I asked – he was my favourite assassin, after all.

             “I’m not bad,” he said, dusting the snow and frost from the bench next to me, “The baby is starting to sleep at nights. Or maybe me and the missus are starting to adjust to the weird hours.”

             “I’d have thought you’d be used to weird nights and strange sleep patterns,” I commented as he sat down.

             “I prize silence. It was a mark of my trade. Let’s just say I’m not used to the screaming,” he said with a sardonic grin and a sidelong glance, “How are you?”

             “I’m okay. I saw William the other day.”

             “How’s he doing?” asked the wig-wearing man, knowing that William had been in Azkaban for several weeks having recently lost his eye.

             “He’s not very happy,” I said, “But that’s to be expected.”

             “After what he did, he’s bloody lucky,” the bald man growled.

             “You didn’t need to blind him.”

             “He didn’t need to snitch,” he said, shrugging, “Anyway, it wasn’t me.”

             “I know,” I said, shrugging too, “I just feel bad for him, is all. You know what he’s like.”

             “I do. He’s a dreamer and a fool. But then, he’s always been bloody lucky,” he said, grinning at me once more without turning his head. I shot him a look.

             “William is useful. Listen, I have a target for you, and I need a quote.”

             “Go on,” he sighed.

             “Adda Reeve,” I told him.

             “Eh?” he said, looking alarmed.

             “Adda Reeve?” I said again, less certainly.

             “Of the Somerset Reeves? No fucking way,” he said, shaking his head, “Don’t you remember? Back in school her little boy used to be in the year below us. Then he came home one summer to the ancestral home and boom, he was killed by one of the traps. That whole family is fucking psycho, you know? I bet the contract is from the fucking brother,” he said.

             “What do you know about him?”

             “Not much. I’m sure you probably know more than me - I only know what everyone else knows. He’s a ruthless duellist, a cheater, and I’m pretty sure you’d have to have eyes inside his head if you were going to outthink him.”

             “He seemed to like his drink, when I met him,” I said, “And I mean, yeah, if a man wants to kill his own sister then I’m thinking he’s not exactly husband material, right? But if his money is good…” I said, leaving the sentence hanging.

             “Lucinda, don’t get me wrong,” said the bald man, standing up, “I’m up for the odd contract here and there. I mean, it keeps the money rolling in. You know how useful that is, with another little mouth to feed,” he said, “But if you want to invade the Reeves house, you need to be fucking insane or fucking well paid. With my new baby, I can’t take missions of complete and total suicide.”

             “How much do you think someone would charge?”

             “Hell, I don’t know. Twenty thousand galleons at the very, very least,” he said, “And that kind of money is too hot for my tongue. Sorry, Lucinda,” he said, turning as snow started to fall.

             “A definite no?” I asked him.

             “This time you’ll need to find someone else. See you later!” he said, waving a gloved hand as he strode off down the asphalt path into the snowy night. I sighed heavily, sending a great cloud of steamy breath into the air. Then I stood up, the frost making tiny, flaking noises on my long dark coat as I walked away.

             *

It seemed I was on my own. I sent off a letter with a thirty thousand quote, and got one back saying Aldermath would pay twenty-five thousand but no less. I accepted twenty seven thousand, five hundred. The next day I received half of the payment. To be fair these letters were just buying time – I was prepared to accept twenty, but I was conducting research. It started when I acquired the architect’s plans of their ancestral home from four hundred years ago, and every record I could scavenge about the changes to the buildings since. I also found a lot of paperwork on the traps and curses installed on the property. All of this is easily discovered using the wizarding tax office as a database. The records are meticulous, and if you have a well-paid friend on the inside then it’s the perfect place to start this kind of research.

             At the same time I was asking around about the sister’s habits, as anonymously as I could. It seemed she lived in the family mansion exclusively. Once a week her house-elf came out for groceries and various gardening supplies, which were delivered to the gate with the minimum of personal contact. It seemed I couldn’t fake my way inside with a delivery note and a uniform.

             I wasn’t put off by how every contractor rejected the work. The money was enough that I obsessed over the plans of the estate and started to see how I could accomplish it myself. I was also no stranger to murder.

             So it was that late one winter night, with thick snow on the ground, I levitated myself over the wall of the estate and perched in one of the high pine trees inside the grounds. I was wearing a balaclava with enchanted goggles that gave me night-vision, with thick black clothing and heavy black boots. I’d enchanted every article of my clothing with as much protection as I’d thought worth my time. But as I landed on the tree branch, I became instantly aware that I’d been thinking like a damn wizard.

             A steel axe came swinging down out of the higher branches. It was chaotic, merely attached to a slightly cursed rope, and it missed me by a mile. It was unexpected enough that it took me by surprise, but it was unwise – it made me more alert. I didn’t even need to dodge the thing. I climbed closer to the trunk of the tree, delicately keeping my balance as I pushed snow off the branches. It fell silently beneath me.

             I slung a rope around the tree and shimmied down it. Every footprint would be one I had to erase. I curved around to the east wing, now converted into a greenhouse. The least defended section of the house. There was a wide, snowy expanse between me and the building. Devoid of trees, I would stand out like soot on a bed sheet. I curdled the snow in front of me, swirling it up into a cloud as if a gust of wind had disturbed it. A few lights were already turning on inside the building, and I was sure the falling axe had triggered some silent alarms. But I’d come this far and made so many plans, and I was wearing my murder boots.

             I approached the wall, the snow settling behind me without a footprint. I crept up the old bricks to where the glass began. It was easier than trying to undo the spell that prevented levitation near to the house. Peering in through the enchanted greenhouse walls, I saw a mass of greenery that was completely alien to the desolate wintery landscape behind me. I looked up to my target – a newly installed window, wide and vulnerable, high above the pointy greenhouse roof. It was five stories up the huge Eastern tower. I lightly stepped along a foot-wide shelf formed by the ancient stone, finding both handholds and treachery in the glass wall beside me. I disturbed more snow as I walked, landing silently below me. I proceeded up the wall like a child’s toy. I swung my arms up and used the sticking charms on my gloves, letting my legs and slim torso dictate the speed of my climb. I was rubbing against the wall, and the scraping of my durable clothes against the stone was uncomfortably loud. I passed a tiny window that lit up as I came near it, and I froze against the wall.

             The light passed quickly. Some sort of guard, descending the tower to check out the alarm below. This suited me perfectly. I continued up the wall, swinging my hands quickly, trying not to think about the distance below me to the glass panels. In my paranoid mind, I could vaguely hear shouts and alarms below me, around the snow I had disturbed. In reality there was nothing but the cold, gentle wind. I vanished the wide pane of glass, silently. Every other glass window pane in the building was enscribed with wards to protect against being vanished, but this one had been recently installed to replace one broken by a falling bird. I gripped the windowsill with one firm hand, curled around the wooden frame like a claw. I hauled myself up, letting the sticking charms of the gloves do most of the work. Finally, I was inside the ancestral home of the Reeves.

             I made it to a landing, and hid gratefully behind a statue, far away from any light. There were cobwebs and dust everywhere – clearly the ancestral home was falling into disrepair. A few suits of armour stood along the dark walls.

             The door to the westerly wing was right in front of me. I was seven feet away, hiding across the corridor in complete shadow. I was behind a mundane suit of armour, brushing spider web and dust from my goggles before I tried the bedrooms. But then a vision of pure white emerged from the double doorway, dramatically pushing open both at once. I pushed my shoulder and cheek into the shadow while she stood in complete innocence before me. She had long, white hair but a youthful face, with the slightest suggestion of crow’s feet. Her eyes were bright pink, but her expression belied her inexperience. She ran to the left, her thighs shuddering beneath her long night gown as she ran.

             Before the door closed behind her I was sneaking through where she had come from. It sucked shut behind me as she rushed down a stairwell far away. I found myself in a gigantic master bedroom. The silence within it was that peculiarly specific quietness of someone having just left. The air smelled like someone had just been sleeping in here. I thought at first it was stark and barren, like a mighty cave, but then I saw the delicate floral motif in the wallpaper. There were no vases here, but there were a few trophies and awards lying haphazardly on the wall-mounted shelves. No makeup, but discarded medals. There were several thick dressing gowns hanging from the wall, with several thick wellingtons beneath them. The few childhood photographs on the wall were animated, waving in glorious naivety, pale and delicate.

             She was pictured next to her much sulkier brother, or her invalid mother. Her father was consistently resolute and strong, despite his greying hair as the years wore on. My plan had been to wait in the bedroom while they searched the house, and then strike later when everyone had settled back down again. But the only place to hide was beneath the bed, which was dangerously obvious. I snuck back into the main body of the house to track her through territory unknown to me.

             I was circling around a large stairwell when I heard a voice below me. It was light - feminine and posh but strained from stress.

             “I locked all the doors in the west wing when I saw him coming across the grounds,” someone was saying. I assumed it was the voice of Adda Reeve, who I had seen running from the west wing looking distressed. She continued, “In the east there’s nothing but the greenhouse.”

             “You check the greenhouse, then. I’ll check the kitchens and the cellar, okay?” said another voice, and I recognised the tiny resonance of a house elf. He was strong, blustery and officious.

             “Do you think he’s after the seeds?”

             “They’re the most valuable thing in the house, madam, and they can be easily carried. I think you should preserve your life’s work,” he said.

             “Yes, okay,” said Adda with relief, her voice echoing off the tall ceiling.

             It sounded like these two were the only ones in the house. I waited, listening to the footsteps fade away across the marble floors. I had memorised the layout of spells and landmarks outside the house, but stupidly paid less attention to the interior. It was a combination of guesswork and dimly remembered architectural plans that led me now, through the dark hallways. After a few minutes I only needed to follow the smell of rich earth and humid plants. It led me through a door standing wide open into the huge, pitch-black greenhouse space. A few dim lanterns glowed green through the huge, tropical leaves. The foliage was denser than Kew Gardens. The greenhouse was silent. I stayed close to the trunks of the trees, moving slowly. I listened for the sound of footsteps, but there wasn’t even a rustling leaf in the windless environment. Every step I took on the damp greenhouse floor made me worry.

             Suddenly there was a tiny rustling noise. I pointed my wand from left to right, trying to locate the source. It seemed to be coming from everywhere, unceasing. Too late, I realised it was literally coming from all around me. Two vines curled around my torso and before I could bring my wand up they pulled me into the trunk of a tree. Another one darted out of the dark leaves around me, seizing my wrist before I could even fire a spell, forcing me to drop my wand. I was completely trapped, and the more I struggled the harder it became to breathe.

             Adda walked through the black and green shadows, appearing like a glowing ghost. She looked at me fearfully, her wand pointed right at my head. With one trembling hand she reached forward and pulled my goggles off. I looked up at her with a calm, level gaze. All was not lost – I could still talk my way out of this.

             “You’re a woman,” she said, blinking in surprise. She gripped my chin, looking deep into my eyes. I continued staring at her for a fraction of a second. Her hands were rough and strong from gardening. I tried to avert my eyes, but she put her face closer to mine so that it filled my whole vision. I could feel the power pushing down on me. It only took one foolish glance back into her eyes, and she’d made contact. I was summoning all my willpower to keep her out, but she had a watery, silvery way of leaking through the cracks. Her mind was swift and agile. I could feel her rifling through my mind, flicking through my memories like a filing cabinet, exploring each one briefly. I only had one possible course of action, I realised. There it was – when she learned who had contracted me to kill her, there was a flare of emotion. Shock, pain, betrayal, sadness. It allowed me to trigger a sort of mental feedback, and use legilimency in return. Her occlumency was strong, but now she was uncertain from finding out how ruthless her brother was.

             There was no specific purpose to my raiding her mind, I just needed something. I could have found a crippling weakness, or some other way to escape. I could appeal to her mercy, or lie to her. At the very least I could predict how she’d react when we broke the mental connection a fraction of a second later.

             Her mental defences must have been powerful once, but they’d clearly atrophied after a decade of isolation. I was sorting through her memories just as she had done with mine – flowers, everywhere. Flowers and petals and even some scents, flooding my senses, swarming around me like angry wasps, trying to keep me out. It was another defence, but an effective one. All I snatched were quick glimpses of her childhood, being home-schooled by her parents and grand-parents. The swarms of hallucinatory flowers changed to daisies and dandelions, and other simple growths. She was sixteen when sent off to Hogwarts. It was a strangely old age for her to join the school. Of course a few of the kids picked on her for being a weird, isolated albino, but her brother had been at the school since a normal age and he helped look after her. Enthusiastic in herbology and gardening, of course, but unremarkable in every other class. Suddenly the flowers were chaotic, but there were irises and foxgloves and other small, delicate flowers. There were memories of boys – mostly harmless flirting, but a stolen kiss here and there. Her first boyfriend and the unrewarding intimacy. An orchid blooming then withering on its stem, feebly trying to bat me away from continuing my march through her life.

             She found when she returned from Hogwarts that her grandmother was increasingly senile, until finally her death while bedridden. Lilies and black roses. Discovering a stockpiled collection of the senile old woman’s bodily fluids, including blood, urine and faeces – so disgusting. The flowers stopped then, for a while. She took several apprenticeships working for famous herbologists around the world, and the blooms came flooding back past me, slowly at first. She fell in love with another herbology student, and the flowers all became pink and green, moving sickeningly, scarily fast through every memory like a hurricane. Finally there was a moment that crystallised around a potion.

             It involved urine, which reminded her of her grandma. A sample of her piss was mixed into a solution. It turned blue. She was pregnant. The man she loved went back to Brazil, and she was left to care for the baby in the ancestral home. She was just twenty. With her mother and father, both furiously shame-faced, and her brother who could barely look at her – despite being a womaniser himself, with several scandals in his past. She gave birth in her room, attended by a Healer who stayed in the house for several days until she was confident that Adda could care for the baby. Everything was orchids again, and huge fluttering bells of flowers twisting and flapping through the air. They were hardly attacking me now.

             Then there was the death of both her parents, and struggling to prevent her brother from selling off everything in the house to pay for gambling debts and duelling fees. More lilies and black roses, forget-me-nots and even a few thistles made their way past me. Her son, Andrew, was walking now. He could climb up the huge stairs, but Adda worried he was too lonely. She sent him to a muggle school for the first few years of his life, which her brother hated. Then he went to Hogwarts, and it seemed like he would grow up to be a strong, sensitive boy with his father’s colouring but his mother’s delicate, youthful features. All manner of flowers were cascading around me now – all of them flying and swirling happily.

             Her son was killed by one of the forgotten traps set up by her paranoid father. He had been fourteen when it happened, while Adda was thirty four. In the memory, a single black lily bloomed in the darkness on the night of his meagre funeral. The lily grew and grew, and then it turned, and I saw that it had eyes. Gigantic goat’s eyes, which were staring fixedly at me. It lunged towards me, giving off an intense stench of death and mould. I thought it would have harmless petals, but it had teeth that sank into me. I hurtled out of her mind in shock and pain; I exited her mind so violently that I hit the back of my head against the trunk.

             It was a strange experience. I had never had one like it, so abstract and surreal with flower petals floating around like ridiculous snow. I can’t explain how it felt to be batting at flowers swarming at me, while on another level of awareness my body was still bound by thick, leathery vines. Adda was still standing over me, looking at me expectantly.

             “Oh, Aldermath,” she sighed, muttering to herself, “He’s such a fool. Well, listen, Miss Baker. I’d rather live, so if you agree not to kill me, I’ll compensate you for your loss. I’ll pay you twenty seven thousand five hundred, if that’s all I’m worth to him,” she said. I stared at her mutely, thinking.

“Of course, the alternative is that I kill you here and use your body as fertilizer. I know several plants who would thrive on genuine human meat. There’s nothing quite like it,” she said, turning her wand idly between her fingers.

             “I’m listening,” I said coldly. She looked at me for a very long time with a sceptical air.

             “I know you like money. But I’ve also seen your memories of killing people. Quite a lot of people,” she said quietly. “What does it feel like?”

             That was when I started to panic. I make my money from keeping secrets, or exposing them. I’ve always been so, so careful about preserving my privacy, my information, the thick layers of lies and deceit between me and the rest of the world. Somehow she had squirmed through it all, like water that seeps into a stone then freezes, smashing it open. She was full of tricks, sure enough. I think she must have seen the sudden terror of exposure in my eyes, because she tutted.

             “I know you’ll want to kill me for what I might have learned. But you’ll know that everyone I cared about is dead now. Apart from Aldermath, I suppose, but… well,” she continued, “I only care about the plants. I don’t care what you’ve done, and I don’t want your money. Honestly, Lucinda, this deal will only work if you trust me. I know you’re capable of it. I’ve seen it in your memories. I’m going to untie you now, but if you make a sudden move then you’ll be plant-food before dawn, okay?” she said.

             She stepped away from me, into the leaves, muttering something. The vines around me relaxed, and collapsed to the ground like they were suddenly dead. I stumbled forward and holstered my wand. Her wand was shaking in her hand, and although her voice was flat and level and her eyes were stern, there was a tear running down her cheek, shining wetly in the dim light.

            “Was that thirty-five, you said you’d pay me?” I said, rubbing the feeling back into my fingers.

             “I want you to know that you can trust me,” she said, “So that you don’t come back later and kill me, of course. If I feel you can’t trust me, I’d have to kill you first. Does that make sense? It feels backwards somehow.”

             “Yeah, you know too much about me now. But if I don’t kill you, someone will,” I said frankly, “Your brother wants the family fortune.”

             “I know,” she sighed, “It’s sort of a good thing that my parents were so paranoid.”

             “I don’t know how you can say that,” I said quietly, “After losing your son, and being cooped up in here for so many years.”

            Her face went through several emotional transformations. I thought for a second that she’d curse me out of spite.

             “I’m protected here,” she said coldly. I considered trying to talk her into letting me kill her, but then I had another idea.

             “You’ll never be safe, as long as your brother lives,” I said. She took a step to the left and looked at me in a new light. Almost half a minute passed until she finally seemed to understand what I was offering.

             “You think he can be killed?” she asked, as if tasting the idea.

             “He’s only human. Of course he can be killed. I’ll do it for thirty-five,” I said.

             “How much of that is your management fee, and how much goes to the man you’ll get to actually do the deed?” she asked, smiling briefly, sarcastically.

             “It’s hard to negotiate when you’ve read my mind,” I said.

             “You’ll do it for twenty seven thousand five hundred, the same price you were charging me not to kill me,” she said.

             “No, you don’t understand. That’s thirty-five for your brother, on top of the thirty-five not to kill you,” I said. She laughed, then.

             “You’re impossible!” she exclaimed.

             “I have a friend who used to say that we make the impossible happen all the time,” I said.

             “Yes, your friend William Grey. A shame about his eye. When does he get out of Azkaban?” she asked, and I frowned. “I’m sorry. Like I said, you need to trust me in order for me to live. I’ve seen how your mind works. Come and look at this,” she sighed, beckoning me into the jungle.

             “I’m going to show you the most precious thing in this greenhouse. It’s my life’s work. There are plants here for all sorts of purposes.” I followed her at a distance. I considered just smacking her across the back of the head with a log or something, and I could tell from the stress in her neck and shoulders that she knew I’d be thinking it. But she continued on regardless, determined to prove something by not turning around.

             “There are plants here that can keep someone young for decades. There are plants that can put people into a magical sleep for thousands of years. Some people are very excited about my work here, thinking it might be something to do with Merlin. And there are plants here that one day might be able to heal all sorts of ailments beyond our current magic, if I can breed them correctly. Ailments like your mother’s brain damage, Lucinda,” she said softly. I was almost dismayed enough to stop walking, turn around and leave the estate, washing my hands of this whole family and its mess. Let some other assassin kill the sister, or the brother, or hell even both. But I’ve always kept good control of my emotions, so I continued to follow her, wondering if what she said was true.

             We reached the end of the greenhouse, and she started climbing a wrought iron staircase. At the top, there was a glass door with the same enchantment engravings as the rest of the glass panes. She unlocked it with her wand, and motioned for me to go through. There was a stone balcony inside a cage of heavy black iron bars. Everything was thick with snow, and the air was surprisingly still at this high, exposed altitude. Adda wrapped her arms around herself, rubbing her torso. She must have been freezing in the cold, wearing only her nightgown. Our breath fogged in the air. In the centre of the balcony there was a wrought iron podium, the black metal standing out against the white snow. On top there was a black vase, with a white rose growing from it. The soft, white petals were almost blue, and almost beige, but really neither. There was a soft glow coming from it, shining off the snow and the obsidian vase. Its long black stem held it high above the snow lying in the vase.

             “It’s magic,” she said, “Normal roses use fertilizer. I’ve never liked it, and if you saw my nana in my memories then I’m sure you understand why. But this rose is incredibly rare and magical. It uses snow like other plants use soil. It can only grow in the winter.”

             “Why does it glow?” I asked.

             “So that animals can find it and eat it, spreading its spell. But that’s not important. The point is that it’s delicate, and beautiful, and almost entirely useless. This is the pride of my entire collection. This single plant. The most difficult to grow, and the most beautiful. All my other research ideas, growth experiments, hybrid projects, they all serve a function. Better medicine, better food, more knowledge. This one is just for me. It’s a Winter Rose,” she said.

             “It reminds me of you,” I said, “Flowering here all cold and alone. Kept safe by the bars but also trapped by them.”

             “Strange. I was about to say the same about you,” she said, turning to me. I felt her hot breath mist on my freezing cheek, “So distanced, always forcing yourself to be apart, alone, private. Your bars are in your mind, obviously. It’s a metaphor.”

             I looked at her in the snow, trying to understand her. As I looked at her I realised we were too much alike. She tried to kiss me, darting in quickly, shyly. I turned my head, so she got my cheek. Her lips were soft, and warm, but even from the brief contact I could tell they were shivering.

             “Sorry,” I said, stepping away as if to look at the glowing Winter Rose. That wasn’t what I had wanted, even though she was beautiful, fragile, elegant and tragic all at the same time.

             “No, I’m sorry,” she said, “I shouldn’t have tried to do that. Maybe I’m more alone than I thought. But you get the idea now, yes? I’ve shown you my most precious possession, frozen and locked away up here, aloof. We’re very similar, you and I. So now you don’t need to fear what I know. Now you don’t need to kill me, and I don’t need to kill you, alright?”

             “Alright,” I said, and crossed my arms – more hugging myself than shrugging. I let out a long, shuddering breath of released tension, “So, let’s settle on forty thousand for the whole package?”

             “Okay,” she said sadly.

             “It’s a very beautiful thing,” I said quietly, “But it’s such a sad kind of beautiful.”

             “I know,” she said, and stood next to me. Her thin, cold fingers found mine and we held hands as we looked at the white, glowing rose lighting up the snow around it. More flakes started to fall from the sky.

             *

It wasn’t difficult to kill Aldermath. I arranged a meeting in the pub saying I’d been successful and wanted the final half of my money. Adda had agreed to take a brief holiday, which terrified the poor recluse but thrilled the younger, adventurous woman trapped deep inside the recluse’s body. Meanwhile her house-elf let everyone know that she had died mysteriously. 

             He sat down at my booth, pushed a plain brown envelope towards me and then toasted to his ‘dear, departed sister’. Of course I was controlling my expression. But I toasted with the pint I had already been drinking, rather than the glass of wine he’d bought me. He paused, wondering at my actions, then shrugged and drank like a fool. If he had been suspicious for a second then he should have paused to inspect his own drink. As he gulped his wine down I worried that he’d pre-emptively swallowed one of the many so-called ‘poison cure-alls’, which might interfere with the thing I’d dosed him with. But he seemed stupid enough not to suspect.

            I had paid Tom (the barman at the Leaky Cauldron) to put a tiny, brown ball of feathery earth-like substance into Aldermath’s drink. It dissolved instantly, noiselessly – without bubbles or any sign that it had ever existed. I’d acquired it from my favourite poison provider.

             He chatted idly about what he’d do with his family’s fortune – pay off his gambling debts, buy several duelling instructors – and then he left. It would take one or two hours, then the poison would react suddenly in his veins and he would die without a noise, without a thought.

             Adda was as good as her word, and paid me as much as we’d agreed. She’s always been a very reclusive woman, but I still see her sometimes to discuss her work. Especially how it might relate to curing my mother’s condition. It turns out now that I did manage to keep a few secrets from her, and I’ve built many more since we first met. One that I hope she never somehow discovers is that I’ve borrowed her mental techniques, pretending to harass people with a weak defence while showing them a narrative that actually leads them right into the biggest mental trap of them all. I’ve also learned how to squirm into someone’s mind rather than smashing my way in. There is one, huge secret that I will always, always have and shall always keep to myself – that in my heart of hearts, deep down beyond every layer of mental defence, at the very core of my mind, there is a white rose glowing in the snow. It’s not big, important or useful in any way, but it’s worth every protection I can give it.

[typetypetypetypeface]

Ten Pence and a Pint

Short ghost story based around a pun. See if you can spot it!

2,971 words.

I need your help. I don’t know what to do. I swear I’m not crazy but I can’t think of any other explanation. Let me tell you what’s happened. Then if you want you can walk away, I won’t blame you. I would, if I ever could.

I’ve always been a bit of a drinker, and I know it doesn’t help my credibility but you have to listen. Nobody has ever complained and I’ve held down a steady job for years, but I’m always the last one to go home after a night out. After every party I would wander home past the abandoned pub at the top of my road.

After three different owners had all tried and failed to make a profit, the conventional wisdom was that the size of the pub and the terrible location made it too expensive to operate. Combined with the horribly accelerating property prices, nobody wanted to buy it. It had been boarded up, first with wooden planks and then with metal panels after some squatters had pulled away the planks. Then the building had been left to decay until someone could raise the money to fix it, or else give it a decent burial.

It all started in that pub at Halloween last year. I was wearing a silver spacesuit decorated with glow-in-the-dark stars. At some point in the night I’d acquired cat whiskers drawn with eyeliner and some glasses with those googly eyes on springs, but I was carrying them in my hand. As I walked past the abandoned building I noticed that the lights were on in the frosted windows, the door was open, and the smells of a party were coming from inside: meat, beer, wine, sweat. The night was cold and I wanted one last drink before bedtime. I swerved straight inside, not even caring if I was crashing a private party.

Through bleary eyes I noticed everyone was wearing outlandish outfits, from all kinds of periods of history. Obviously I didn’t think much of this at the time. I remember thinking it was hard to make out details of people’s faces. It was hard to understand anything anyone was saying. I thought it was a pretty pretentious party, with everyone role-playing. If I had been sober I’d never have dreamed of trying to get away with party-crashing, but I figured with enough swagger I could just walk up to the bar, order a drink, keep to myself, remain polite, and nobody would bother me if I didn’t bother them. I wobbled my way to the bar and ordered a pint of lager to settle my stomach. It was warm in the pub so I was sweating into my spacesuit, and I worried about my whiskers melting.

From what I can remember the bottles behind the bar were wildly diverse. There were glass bottles in all kinds of shapes, dozens of beer taps, chalk boards with cocktail menus in at least three languages, and even terracotta jugs on the bottom shelves. There were mirrors behind the shelves. They were clouded and artful, more like a metallic sheen than actual mirrors. I could see my own face clearly. For a brief second I was confused, seeing something behind me in the mirror that didn’t make sense. I can’t remember what it was, only impressions: darkness, squalor, anger. I felt the urge to look behind me but then the barman asked for my order. He was bald and his entire head was made up to look like a skull. He wore a black high-necked shirt and black gloves. I remember thinking that the skull makeup was very convincing.

“Just a pint of lager, please,” I said, as polite and sober as I could sound. I was pulling out my wallet and digging inside for enough coins. According to the price list on the chalk board, I had just enough money left to get ten pence change from a pint of lager.

“Sorry, we only serve spirits,” said the barman. His voice was deep and whispery, and I realised I could hear him so clearly because the noise of strange conversation had gone entirely silent as I ordered my drink

“Okay, vodka and coke then?” I replied, too drunk to think about the growing silence behind me.

“No, you don’t understand. We only serve spirits.”

“Oh I get it. Because it’s Halloween, right? Very funny. Let’s say I’m a ghost dressed as… whatever this is,” I gestured to myself, “And maybe give me a beer? A beer for the ghost of a poor dead space kitten? Miaow?”

The yawning void behind me suddenly became noisy again, but it was a terrifying noise. It sounded like a thousand howling wolves, very far away but very hungry. It sounded like a winter gale from the bottom of a deep ravine. It sounded like all the inmates of a terrible prison all at once suddenly flying into a violent rage.

At first I frowned in puzzlement, then turned from the barman. I can only imagine the stupid look on my face as I slowly turned to face the mass of forms that were swirling behind me. Faces screamed, or tried to bite me, or yawned open wide enough to try and swallow me, but they were instantly absorbed back into the swarm. My eyes were watering in the sudden wind that whipped the heat of the pub away. The sweat in my spacesuit was suddenly freezing.

Bewildered and terrified, I don’t know how much time I spent staring in horror at the terrible visions. Eventually I must have started running because the next thing I remember is fleeing down the road. I could still hear the animalistic screaming behind me as I yanked open my front door, hurled myself through it, and slammed it closed behind me. I was weeping loudly as I held my body against the door, bracing it in case something tried to follow me. I don’t know how long it took for me to start breathing normally, or for my heartbeat to recover, or to finally gather enough courage to let go of the door. Despite my fears, nothing appeared to be trying to get through.

I poured myself a glass of water with shaking hands and lowered myself onto a chair with trembling knees. I sat in the dark staring at nothing, jumping in fright every time the house settled. A creaking wall or groaning pipe had me looking around wildly like a hunted animal.

Eventually I must have fallen asleep because I jerked awake as the warm dawn light crept through the kitchen window. I rubbed my face, went to the bathroom, and nervously took a shower. The hot water scalding my frozen skin made me feel better. By the time I was making a cup of tea I felt recovered enough to laugh at myself. I had obviously had far too much to drink, and maybe had some kind of hallucinatory episode at the party I had crashed. Those poor people probably had a worse fright than I did. Nobody wants a random drunk astronaut with a cat face suddenly freaking out at their sophisticated Halloween ball, especially uninvited. Still, maybe it was a fun story they could recount to each other. Just one of many regrettable events over a busy, debauched Halloween night in the city. Or maybe it was something more nefarious. Maybe my hallucinations had been caused by some kind of drug in that beer. I didn't remember drinking it but maybe I had, and it had been spiked with something. By the evening I'd worked myself up into a righteous anger. How dare those pompous Halloween pricks take advantage of an innocent drunken idiot? I had imagined them previously laughing over the story as though they were my friends, and we were all laughing together. Now I imagined them laughing as though they were my enemies, not caring if I lived or died from their distasteful chemical prank.

Then I noticed my wallet was missing.

I hunted up and down, tearing my house apart into the night. The only explanation was that I'd dropped it in the pub after my freakout. Maybe one of those asshole “spirits” had picked it up and handed it in? If the pub was open again then there would probably be a ‘lost and found’ box. There was no physical money in it, but it had all my bank cards  I nearly had enough stamps on my coffee shop loyalty card to get a free muffin. Dare I show my face there after last night? Damn right! I would reclaim my wallet and have a bloody good word with them about their prank. It would be terrible for them if I reported their opening night to the police.

The next morning I went to work full of righteous fury, and on my way down the road I noticed the pub was covered in metal plates again. Maybe the party had been illegal in some way? It definitely seemed like there wouldn't be a box of lost property just left behind the bar. But maybe nobody had picked up my wallet? Or maybe one of the assholes had left behind something that I could use to track them down.

After work I waited in my house until it was dark, fingers drumming patiently on a crowbar I had borrowed from work. I fished a torch from the cupboard under the stairs - probably the least useful place to keep the one item you really need in a powercut. I waited until after midnight, put on some black tracksuit bottoms, a black hoodie, and a black woollen hat. The effect was spoiled by the bobble but it was still good camouflage.

Through the wintery air I walked down the road to the abandoned pub. Frost was forming on the pavement. I was hardly the most discreet burglar in the world, dressed in black and carrying a crowbar just strolling though the streetlit-orange night.

There was an alleyway alongside the pub, which led to the wall of the back garden. It was completely hidden and in deep nocturnal shadow, curtained on either side by frosty weeds. It smelled of foxes and piss. I pulled myself up the wall and then jumped down into the garden.

I landed in a crouch, watching the hostile shadows around me like a ninja in a bobble-hat. The orange streetlights barely lit the walls beyond the garden. The second-hand light that bounced down off the clouds only made the shadows seem more malevolent. Eventually I managed to make sense of the hostile forms surrounding me.

Everything had a thin scum of frost that seemed to grow like a fungal self-loathing. I was in a featureless square of earth with a tall brick wall on three sides, with the sheer face of the pub looming above it on the fourth side. It contained fractured concrete slabs that had once been a patio, each one a broken triangle of grainy orange texture. There was a smattering of beer tins like confetti shining in the darkness, and a roll of rusted chicken wire that lurked like a swamp monster. All of it was being swallowed down into the dirt.

The back door of the pub was covered in the same riveted metal, as were all the windows on the ground floor. It had a shine like an oil slick. My breath fogged against the metal, and as I felt the cold against my cheek I saw brief rainbows twinkle in the frost crystals I had exhaled. The second floor windows were still uncovered – not just uncovered by metal but also by glass which must have been smashed away a long time ago. They were a long climb up, and covered with pigeon crap.

I crunched my way over the derelict garden to the doorway, delicately placing my feet between the odd misshapen monochrome angles of the dirt. I jammed the blade of the crowbar into the narrow gap between the bricks and the metal, alongside one of the metal studs. I bent it several times, leaning my body weight against it. With a squeak of metal and a crack of stone, the panel shifted.

Instinctively I paused to listen for any kind of interest, beyond the garden walls. There was no unusual sound, only the distant noise of traffic on the overpass, echoing over the rooftops. There were shouts and TV noises bouncing around the wintery sky but no sirens, no screams, no alarms. The security box on the front of the pub was clearly one of those fake ones, unsupported by any kind of technology beyond a blinking blue light. The wood of the door all but crumbled as soon as it saw the crowbar. I pushed it open and stepped inside.

I pulled off my hat and flicked on my torch. It was dark, and predictably empty. Whatever remained of the carpets were fossilized under pigeon waste, the wallpaper had been ripped away along with most of the plaster, and the light fittings were just empty holes with exposed wires dangling like raw nerves. Each footfall crunched noisily in the dirt, sending up small clouds of dust. My footprints were messy and shapeless but left distinct marks in the filth. I tried my hardest to breathe through my nose rather than taste the air. I put one sleeve over my mouth, using my other hand for my torch. The shadows danced under my torchlight and it looked like the nerves were jumpy. Mine certainly were. I crept through the corridor, past the doors marked ‘ladies’ and ‘lads’. The actual letters had been taken long ago but the words were still stained onto the doors. I thought I would come back to investigate these rooms later. With a tremulous white torchlight I wandered into the main bar area – the scene of my previous embarrassment.

It didn’t look like I remembered. The mould was spitting off the walls like a hostile alien community. But some of the ancient structure was vaguely familiar. My torchlight found the bar. Apparently it had been anchored so securely to the floor that even the Halloween partiers hadn’t been able to lift it away after their illegal event. It had been left behind like the stump of an old tree. Whatever they had installed had been stripped away: the optics, beer mats, glasses, mirrors behind the bar, beer taps, and all the piping. Even the heavy ceramic jugs have been taken. The shelves must have been devoured by whatever super-powered woodworm lived in this mouldering crypt, leaving behind only the barest fragment of chewed-up wood like diseased and elderly gums. The tiny circle of my torch was dancing sideways along the bar, looking up and down for my wallet like a good hunting dog.

I didn’t find my wallet. I found my curse.

Sitting on the bar there was a shining, clean, pint glass full of cloudy amber beer with an inch of rich white foam at the top. The clouds were still floating to the top in patterns like sand drifting through water. I watched in shock as the foam floated upwards. Droplets of condensation were collecting on the glass.

An amount of time went past without anything happening. I must have been staring at the pint glass, eyes wide with terror.

Eventually a car slid past outside, and the headlights splashed through the tiny gaps in the walls.

The light slashed across the space, shining yellow and gold through the pint glass. It shone silver off a tiny circular coin lying in the filth next to it. Ten pence. My change.

“Oh shit,” I muttered. I wanted to break the tension. It sent pigeons flying from the rafters, disturbed from their nightly roost.

I shone my torch around the glass of beer. Nothing disturbed – constant filth. There were no footprints. Who had put the beer there? It was clearly freshly poured.

Through the sweat pouring out of my tracksuit bottoms I thought maybe this was some kind of TV prank show. I could only think of one alternative explanation and it made me sweat even harder.

I backed away from the lonely pint glass and its promise of sweet lager. My back made contact with the crumbling wall. I couldn’t back away any further. I shuffled along the wall until I reached the corridor, and then kept my eyes on the bar for as long as I could. I walked backwards past the toilet doors, and out into the pub garden. Very carefully, with a whispered apology, I pulled the flaking wooden door shut. I even pulled the metal panel back into position so that to the casual observer it would look entirely untouched. After that moment of sensible action I blindly ran to the garden wall, vaulted over it like a superhuman, and sprinted back to my house. I hadn’t reclaimed my wallet and the entire night was a repeat performance.

Since then, I know what’s happened. The objective explanation is that I’ve been traumatised. I know it was probably just a pint glass sitting on the bar. It probably wasn’t what I imagined it was at the time. The problem is that I’ve seen that pint glass since. Anyone standing around in a pub for long enough will see a pint glass unattended, because someone went out for a cigarette or went to the toilet or just got bored and wandered away. I’ve seen that pint glass standing casually next to a ten pence piece. I’ve watched the pint glass and the tiny silver coin, and each time they were never claimed. It was like they were waiting for me.

Now I suspect that every unattended drink is that one ghostly beer, lurking in wait, tempting me into drinking it. I’ve quit drinking.

So you see officer, that’s why I need your help. Am I crazy? Have you see that drink lying around with a casual silver coin next to it? Have you ever seen an idle drink lying in wait, and somehow felt a creeping sense of paranoia? Is it just me?

I worry about the pub too, officer. I heard a rumour they were going to knock it down to make room for luxury flats, but someone else said it had to be preserved as a historical building or something. I wish they’d knock it down. Officer, I try to avoid that end of my road. I honestly try. But sometimes I forget, or get caught in traffic, and I’m forced to drive past it. Sometimes at night I lie awake and think about the empty bar top with a fresh pint of beer, dripping condensation into the grime of years. I wonder if it is still waiting there. I need to burn the pub down. That’s why all that equipment and fuel was in my car. I was pouring it all over the building, and that’s probably why a neighbour called you. I wasn’t going to hurt anyone, I was just going to burn the bloody place down. I was trying to protect the peace. I just need to make sure nobody else gets haunted by a beer.

[typetypetypetypeface]

Lucinda and the Elf Party

Fan fiction set in the Harry Potter universe, featuring original characters, with a spy-adventure noir atmosphere. Usually there’s swearing, smut, and some sexy scenes.

This is set late in the continuity of Lucinda but it’s one of my favourites so I didn’t want to wait to share it. There are some backstory references so you’ll have to be patient if you want to find out what that’s all about.

CAUTION: You may cry. It’s okay though, I do too.

6,260 words.

The centaurs, merpeople and goblins will probably always remain disdainfully aloof. The dementors will probably never get their wish of living amongst happy humans. Vampires, werewolves, ghosts and ghouls will probably always exist on the fringes of human society. But these things are all merely probable now where before they were certain, because the house-elves are no longer really house-elves.

The world had been changing for years, ever since the end of the occupation. Most of these changes were high-profile like the magical space-travel project. Truly it was an exciting time, but as far as I was concerned the most major changes were happening on the ground, behind the scenes – the shadowy, discreet alleyways and basements that are the realm of my work.

There have been free elves before, of course, but they were always rare, ostracised pariahs. I’ve always maintained a good relationship with the elves since it’s amazing what people will say in front of their domestic slaves. All sorts of juicy secrets and rumours have reached me that way. Elvish freedom means that even more of those secrets have been coming out. The elves all know they can make some money on the side by coming to me and telling me what they know. My prices aren’t fair but the poor creatures are still grateful. In fact, they were so grateful that they invited me to their first real party.

The invitation was pushed underneath my door sometime during the night, arriving much earlier than my Muggle post or the morning papers. It was a simple, square piece of paper with a border of glue and glitter applied clumsily. The text was elaborate, sophisticated and very official-sounding however, and invited me politely to a specific site in Cornwall to join the house-elves at their first annual festival – the fact that it was their first but somehow also annual made me smile. It was signed by several elves whose names I recognised. I’ve learned to avoid any public event where I could be found by people who aren’t necessarily my friends, but how could I refuse such an invitation? Besides, I thought, it might be a good chance to network.

I’m not sure if the elves have ever had a big festival in all of recorded history – any communal celebrations they ever had were forgotten long before the druids built Stonehenge. The only fragments of elvish language surviving into our times are a few words and sayings, passed down from generation to generation by whispers in caves, coal cellars, dark pantries and laundry rooms. The only written words were drawn in the ashes of long-cold hearths or recorded in ancient scrolls, their meaning all but lost to time.

Sure, the free elves celebrate some kind of winter solstice day like the rest of us, shyly giving each other tiny, humble presents wrapped in rags. But they only have one calendar event of their own. The Goblins have their own week-long Urza Festival, the centaurs have a complicated pattern of rituals and merpeople celebrate every full moon, when the water is bright. The elvish festival is of course small and meek. Every year near the end of March, any free elf who wishes can gather at Shell Cottage on the Cornish coast and celebrate Dobby Day, to remember his life and loyalty.

I don’t think the majority of wizards have ever given the free elves a second thought, at least in England. I’d heard that every year around this time, little flowers or cards would appear on Dobby’s grave overnight. Bill and Fleur Weasley live in the cottage, the garden of which contains Dobby’s grave, but the elves who leave their tributes are always silent and unseen. But it seemed they were making it official, even inviting a few honoured wizard guests.

I apparated down to Cornwall wearing nothing too fancy: a loose leather jacket and a dark grey woollen dress with black boots. The invitation had said sunset so I turned up just as it was getting dark, the sky coloured like burnt tinfoil and the ocean wind whipping through the night air. It was a short walk along the cliff road to the cottage. I wasn’t sure what to expect. Maybe something quiet and sombre, miserable and cold – but I could tell immediately that wasn’t the case.

A huge marquee had been set up behind Shell Cottage, about the size of a football pitch. It was glowing with a warm, healthy light from within. I could hear music and laughter. There were a few elves standing at the marquee entrance wearing security guard’s hats and pillowcases with little golden badges pinned to them, holding clipboards. One took my invitation, checked my name on a list, explained to me that wand use would be heavily frowned upon and then let me inside. He seemed awkward and uncomfortable about it though. It’s nearly impossible to picture these skinny little creatures having any authority. It took a trip to Russia and meeting the elves there, suffering much worse abuse at the time, for me to truly understand the long-buried, horrifying power of the elves. I doubted these English elves could even imagine it. Sometimes I still dreamt of the underground stone tunnels, awash with blood and dwarven, crawling figures swarming over the walls, the ceilings and their Russian oppressors; popping in and out of sight like hallucinations, gore dripping from their pointed teeth and a mad fire in their huge eyes.

“Happy Dobby Day,” said the meek little elf guard, waving me inside.

I shook these memories from my head as I entered the marquee. It was even noisier inside, the odd music and chatter of high-pitched voices hitting me like a wave. The fabric walls were all a patchwork on the inside. Some patches had childish drawings or needlepoint pictures; others appeared to have text on them in a wide range of styles. The peaked ceiling of the marquee was a mess of rope and string with all sorts of lanterns strung up there. Some were just trussed-up jam jars with candles burning inside them. Elves were also dancing amongst the ropes, apparating out of nowhere or swinging around on their long, skinny arms. I had a brief flashback, seeing them dart about like long-limbed squirrels or monkeys wearing loose rags.

The majority of the elves were on the ground, sitting on tables, benches and sometimes even chairs. They were clapping along to the music, talking excitedly to each other or giving gifts in a shy, confused way like they were trying out a new tradition. It seemed they were mostly giving each other clothing, especially woollen bobble hats. I saw that they were buying them pre-wrapped from stalls around the edge of the marquee, along with small glasses of drink or little pastry wraps of vegetables, like spring rolls. From the smell of the air most of the drinks were brandy based – a house elf favourite – or something like mulled wine. I could even see a few elvish children which you hardly ever see, sitting in their parent’s laps and itching their heads beneath their woollen hats.

Bill and Fleur were greeting wizards at the entrance, wearing very plain clothes. I know them very slightly, having worked with their brothers slightly during the occupation. There were only a handful of wizards pottering around, getting quite red-faced on brandy and bemusedly watching the elves caper around. There was plenty of time to have a brief conversation with Bill and his wife.

“Hello Bill, Fleur,” I said, looking around at the overwhelming festival.

“Good evening Lucinda,” Fleur purred, air-kissing me on either side of my face.

“Baker!” exclaimed Bill warmly, shaking my hand as Fleur withdrew.

“This is remarkable,” I said.

“It’s good, isn’t it?” said Bill, looking around, “I think it’s taken everyone by surprise. We don’t mind, of course, but I think me and the missus were expecting something more… sedate.”

“I think it is adorable,” Fleur added.

“What’s with the presents?” I said. I could see Hermione Granger on the far side of the marquee. She was wearing a stiff pointed hat that made her stand out. She was the first real advocate of elvish rights, and the elves have long memories; she was struggling with a pile of tiny gifts in her arms with more being added by grateful elves every minute.

“Most of the elves here are free already. It’s just symbolic,” Bill said, scratching wolfishly at the long, deep scars on his face, “The woolly hats are especially symbolic, obviously, since it’s Dobby Day. Most of this is being paid for by the Elf Liberation Foundation, and any profits from the stalls go toward further elf welfare efforts.”

“Impressive. How’s the family?” I asked, spotting the Elf Liberation Foundation logo here and there on some of the banners and the patches on the marquee walls – a stylised bobble hat.

“Not bad. Harry and Ginny are off in Egypt while she covers the Quidditch for the paper. Ron just had to tag along, obviously,” he said with a smile. “At least Hermione felt this was important. Oh, here’s some news! Ginny is pregnant again!”

“Good grief, a third?” I said.

“I know! I’d tell you not to spread it around but what would be the point?” said Bill with a lopsided smile. His scars crinkled on his face.

“It doesn’t seem that long ago that nobody even imagined a world without the Dark Lord,” I said with a sigh, “Now the Boy Who Lived is married with a third kid on the way. That’s what peace does I suppose, eh?”

“Ha! I can’t really imagine that. I was only a few years old on the night the first war ended. Time is moving on, eh? We’re all getting older.”

“Thanks for rubbing it in,” I said ruefully.

“Quite,” said Fleur disapprovingly, glancing at Bill with a look that only a wife can give, “Please make yourself at home, Lucinda. Some of the stalls are absolutely charming.”

“I’m sure you know somebody here or there,” said Bill, scratching at his scars again and looking a bit chastened, “There’s a speech at nine o’clock by the chairman of the E.L.F.”

“Righto. I’ll see you in a bit,” I said, moving further into the festival. The comment about ageing stung slightly so I quickly disappeared into the crowd. I didn’t have to feign interest in the stalls for very long.

I’ve always loved a good muggle jumble-sale – you never know what you might find. The Ministry rewards wizards who bring them any errant magical artefacts, and some rare objects have even more eager buyers. The elves had gathered all kinds of jumbled junk and it was obvious from the way they were plucking at them with long, twitchy fingers that they had very different values to humans. I was idly turning a silver mirror over in my hand, wondering if it did anything, when I noticed an elf next to me spinning an egg cup around fascinatedly. I glanced down and realised I knew him.

“Hello Russet,” I said.

“Oh! Miss Baker!” he jumped, looking up at me and nearly dropping the egg cup.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to surprise you. How are you?”

“Russet is not surprised you were invited!” he said anxiously. He’s always been a nervous elf but it’s become worse since the Elf Liberation Foundation bought him his freedom. He’s taken to wearing brown fingerless gloves and a red woollen scarf over the sack he wears so he always reminds me somewhat of a robin, “Russet is very, very well thank you for asking. Russet could not ask for a better… uh… life! How are you Miss Baker? Russet hopes you’re well, but Russet wouldn’t want to presume!”

“I’m fine, thanks. What’s that you’ve got there?”

“Some kind of cup for eggs,” he said, frowning down at it, “Have you ever seen one?”

“I’ve seen them before, yes.”

“Wizards have such strange ways,” he muttered, so low that I could barely hear him over the noise of the festival. Then he remembered himself and looked up at me in terror, “Oh! Russet is so sorry! Is it for carrying eggs, yes?” he babbled, trying to recover.

“Yeah. We use them for holding cooked eggs when we want to get the shell off. Have you never seen one before?”

“There weren’t such things in my old home,” he said, referring to the tiny factory where he and a dozen other elves used to spend eighteen hours a day stitching and sewing, before collapsing into tiny hammocks to regain their strength. Yes, it was more efficient with their magic, but still… every day of their lives… “Why would anyone want an egg without the shell? Wouldn’t the insides run everywhere?”

“Humans have trouble digesting the shells so we cook them until the insides are solid,” I said, slightly bemused.

“Russet shall buy it for Miss Baker?” he said, shyly.

“Oh, thank you, Russet, but I couldn’t-”

“I’ll take it!” said Russet with a big, embarrassed beaming smile at the elf behind the stall who was wearing a bandana made out of half a shirt and a coin purse tied around her waist. The elf grinned back and took his money, glancing at the price sticker and giving him some change.

“Isn’t it amazing, Miss Baker? Who’d have thought we would be here, buying presents for each other, with real money that we earned for ourselves?”

“The world is certainly moving quickly,” I said, supressing a sigh.

“Russet got this for Miss Baker; Russet hopes it makes Miss Baker happy.” He said it like he was reciting the words badly. Then he offered the egg cup towards me like it was a precious idol.

“Thank you, Russet. You’re very generous.”

“Russet owes Miss Baker for her kindness,” he blushed, “With Miss Baker’s generous money, Russet bought presents for all his friends! Now Miss Baker can eat eggs the wizard way!”

“Well, we eat eggs in other ways too, like scrambled or poached, or in omelettes,” I said, trying to be helpful until I saw the beginnings of heartbreak in his eyes, “But boiled eggs are definitely my favourite! I’ve always wanted a meaningful egg cup, and now I have one!” I added hurriedly, wondering if now I’d ever dare use it to hold an egg. Russet blushed again, his frantic emotions transitioning back into joy once more. “Would you like a drink?” I asked him.

“Russet doesn’t drink brandy, Miss Baker,” he said carefully, looking over his shoulder at the revellers behind him, many of which were starting to look quite wobbly on their legs. “It smells bad, tastes worse and makes sickness. But… would Miss Baker maybe like some fruit punch?” he asked hopefully.

“I’ll get us some fruit punch. It’s the least I can do,” I said, gesturing at the egg cup in my hand, “Do you know where the stall is?”

“Russet will show you!” he said shyly and wrapped his long fingers around one of my index fingers, tugging me along gently, “Easy to get lost in this place!”

“It’s certainly much bigger than I was expecting. Much more jolly, too. I like the patchwork fabric on the walls.”

“We elves are very proud of that, Miss Baker,” he said as we trotted along, his long ears bouncing back and forth as we weaved through the waist-high crowd, “Each fabric is hand-made by a free elf. The writing has all been written by elves too, poems and messages to Dobby and to each other. That is the tradition – to make things for Dobby Day without magic.”

“A very recent tradition?” I said.

“Ever since Harry Potter buried Dobby,” said Russet with a nervous backward glance, as if I was testing him, “He buried him without magic and now, on this day, we remember him that way. And many others.”

“It’s very beautiful,” I said.

“Here is the stall, Miss Baker!” he said excitedly as we came to a long rectangular table with a thick black table-cloth. It was about fifteen feet long with four buckets at regular intervals. I mean actual plastic garden buckets. Each one held the fruit punch and several ladles which the elves were using to spoon the fruit punch into wine glasses, mugs, cups and old jars. Money was flowing across the table like a river. Occasionally an elf would appear out of thin air behind the table with a full bucket, replacing an empty one then vanishing again.

I bought a plastic beaker of fruit punch for Russet and an olive jar for myself that I reckoned might hold nearly half a pint. It was very tasty punch, but I nearly spilt it on myself as Russet clung to my finger once more and dragged me towards a short table with some very short chairs. I heard some more of the conversations as we wandered through the crowds and realised how many languages there were.

“There’s a lot of elves from different countries,” I said to Russet.

“Elves come from all over the world for Dobby Day now, Miss Baker,” he said over his shoulder.

“Are there any from Russia?” I asked.

“Those elves are all slightly crazy, Miss Baker. I’ve not met any myself but I heard on the elf-vine that they insisted on guarding the marquee all night.”

“Guarding it? Isn’t the place protected by secret keepers and everything?”

“You know what the Russians are like,” he said, shrugging his bony shoulders expressively.

“I might go and find them quickly and say hello. I’ll catch you later Russet. Thanks again for the egg cup,” I said, extracting myself and weaving back to the entrance. He waved me goodbye happily. I asked Bill and Fleur where the Russians were stationed and they gave me directions to several spots around the landscape nearby – high on hills or certain isolated trees that might once have served as local landmarks before asphalt roads.

“I’d point you towards their leader or headquarters but I don’t think they have one,” Bill said.

“No,” I told him, “They operate as independent cells to prevent complete compromise from the interrogation of an individual.”

“Gosh,” said Fleur with wide eyes.

Half an hour later I was standing at the edge of a cluster of trees with my wand out to light my way across the grassy, gnarled hill I was climbing. The night air was warm in London but here it was cold, with the roar of the sea filling my ears and the wind rushing over the hills. The sky was empty of clouds with a bright crescent moon – a satisfactory night for spotting any air-bound attackers but a better night for actually flying. I was shining my wand into the trees, looking for the little impish shapes of the elves.

“Hello?” I called out. Nothing replied but the noise of waves and wind. “I know you’re out here, whoever you are. Part of the Svobodny El-Fov? I’m Lucinda Baker, I helped free the Durmstrang elves.”

There was a pop behind me and I felt a point in my lower back.

“Lower your wand,” said a high-pitched voice in a Russian accent, and I knew I’d found them. I lowered my wand.

“Don’t you know me? What’s your name?”

“No names,” said the voice.

“Oh come on! It’s Dobby Day! Everyone else is down in that tent celebrating and remembering. What’s got you guys so spooked that you’re guarding the countryside?”

“This is how we remember, Miss Baker,” said the voice behind me, removing the pointy thing from my back.

“May I turn around?” I asked.

“You may,” he said.

I was expecting an elf dressed like I’d usually seen Russian elves before – they wore chain mail, horned helmets like cartoon Vikings and leather belts with weapons. Sure enough this elf was scarred like most Russian elves. It testified to their horrible treatment in the old, dark caves. He had those wide, intense, serious eyes that I remember staring at me en masse out of the darkness of a stairwell like unblinking green lamplights. But he was wearing camouflage face-paint, with foliage strapped to his body with duct tape. He looked like a little bush standing out from the grass. In the trees he would surely be invisible.

“Do you expect an attack?” I asked him.

“Always. Some of the wizards say this is blasphemy,” he said angrily, gesturing to the distant marquee, “That the elves have no right or that we are a danger to the world.”

“Well, they’re probably right about that last part,” I said, eyeing the curved sword in his hand. It was nearly as long as his entire body. He smiled a grim sort of smile, and his tongue darted out from between sharp teeth to lick his lips.

“They tell stories of you still in the camps and hideaways. They say you knew the oldest word.”

“The oldest word?”

“The word that means elf-war. We do not speak it lightly – you never know who is listening for it. But that should be the name of this day. Dobby was a great and noble elf but he was soft like all British. Giving his life for a wizard when he should have stayed and slaughtered his old masters,” he said, shaking his head in an almost mournful way.

“Elf-War Day doesn’t have quite the same ring to it,” I said, “And the translation is even worse. Besides, Dobby’s sacrifice saved all of Britain, possibly the whole world, from the Dark Lord.”

“A wizard war for witches and giants,” said the elf with a sneer, “What did elves have to do with it?”

“Well, if the good guys hadn’t won then you wouldn’t have been freed.”

“Hmm…” mused the elf. His sneer slipped away slowly, and his ears drooped with humility, “All things are one, as you say. I see wisdom comes with age.”

“Wait… are you saying I’m old?”

“Silence!” he hissed suddenly, snapping his head to the left and his face perking up immediately, like a dog’s attentive ears. “Did you hear that?”

“I’m only in my fifties!” I whispered.

“It sounded like a scream,” he whispered back violently.

“That’s not even half of my life expectancy!” I hissed.

“I must confess Miss Baker, I am alone at my outpost. My comrade was weak and wanted to try one of your brandy drinks. He has not come back. I should investigate the noise, but you are here too. There is less risk if we go together to investigate.”

“I’ve been told I could pass for thirty,” I complained again.

“Come with me,” he said, and before I could complain further he laid a hand on my arm and we were running in the direction of the supposed scream, his hand like a vice around my wrist.

We descended down the hill, keeping to cover as much as we could. Eventually I stopped being indignant and started behaving sensibly again, getting out my wand and ducking from bush to bush, or crouching behind long grass. It was a tall hill.

As we neared the bottom I was confused by what I saw. In the darkness it was hard to get a sense of scale. It looked like a tiny wizard was fleeing from a giant Death Eater. My blood ran cold. The Auror was on the ground, having tripped. From afar we could hear her pleading, her arms raised in front of her face defensively. I assumed it was her screams we’d heard. At first it seemed the Death Eater was towering over her. His white mask seemed to glow as it emerged from the shadow of a tree. But as the Death Eater raised its wand in a tiny, skinny arm I realised the masked figure was moving between the branches. With no body.

“Prepare to taste my evil killing curse!” shouted the Death Eater in a manic, squeaky voice as we arrived on the scene.

“No!” bellowed the Russian elf as he drew his sword and leapt towards the Death Eater.

“Wait,” I shouted at the same time. In an instant I was noticing more details – the Death Eater’s wand was so crude that I could see the texture of the bark even in the darkness. In fact it might have just been a stick. The witch’s robes were made of rags and black paint. I could see patches of tape and glue along the seam in her hat. I had also realised why the Death Eater’s voice was so strange.

The Russian elf missed the Death Eater with his sword but he’d also been coiling his body as it sliced through the air, intending to smack into the figure like a cannon ball. The reaction was more than he’d expected – the Death Eater flew backwards like a struck snooker ball, tumbling to the ground in a tangle of black cloth. I heard a crunch.

“Damn it, stop!” I said, and the Russian finally listened to me. He had his sword pointed at the bundle of black cloth, about to stab downwards. I hurriedly picked up the little witch – she came up to the middle of my thigh and I’m not the tallest of people. I cradled her in my arm as I took off her hat. Beneath she had a bald head, huge pointed ears and eyes like saucers. The only difference between this elf child and an adult elf was the quality of her skin – it was fresh, smooth and strong unlike the wrinkly, papery bodies of those who had been enslaved.

“You dare attack an elfling?!” roared the Russian elf, but his eyes were affixed on the little elf kid rather than the Death Eater, as he determined whether she was hurt. Elves are always massively protective of the young ones, since there are always so few. The rest of his body was frozen mid-swing, as if he had literally been paused.

“S-sorry,” said a meek, hurt voice from amongst the black cloth.

The sword-wielding elf said something in Russian, puzzled, and twitched aside the robes. Inside was another little elf kid, tangled in the fabric, with half of a Death Eater mask dangling from one long ear.

“Are you hurt?” I asked quickly, remembering the crunching noise, but the little elf was staring in terror at the sword in front of him.

“It’s some sort of trick,” the Russian said, but sheathed his sword nonetheless.

“No, I think they were just playing,” I said.

“What?” the Russian looked even more confused, blinking from me to the kids and back again.

“Aurors and Death Eaters,” whimpered the elf kid at the base of the tree, “I didn’t even want to be the Death Eater, I’m always the Death Eater, I told her it wasn’t fair!”

“His head fits the mask better,” whispered the kid in my arms, one tiny hand clinging to my collar.

“This is a sickness?” suggested the Russian uncertainly.

“Well, it’s certainly not an appropriate game. You shouldn’t be playing it out here in the dark either, it’s dangerous. And especially you shouldn’t be dressing up as a damn Death Eater on Dobby Day. Where are your parents?” I said, frowning down at the little girl.

“They were drinking and shouting so we ran off,” the little girl said.

“Well, you shouldn’t have scared us. We were ready to kill your friend over there,” I said, slightly softened.

“I wasn’t scared,” said the Russian.

“But we scared you too, so I guess we’re even,” I continued to the little elf girl, ignoring the Russian.

“Do we have to go back now? I don’t want to get in trouble yet,” said the little elf boy.

“I heard something go crunch when you landed. Are you hurt?” I asked him again, and he shook his head. He held up the broken Death Eater mask.

“Now we’ll have to make another,” sighed the little girl.

“No, don’t make any more Death Eater masks. Do I really have to explain to you why it’s wrong?”

“Because there was a war. But it was years ago,” said the little boy. In the privacy of my own mind I had to admit he had a point. It was also a testament to how far we had come. It seemed the elf children were assimilating history in much the same way children had always done.

“How about this: you come and sit with me in the tent and I’ll tell you all about what happened.”

“Do we have to?” said the little boy.

“Or we could go and find your parents and tell them what you were doing.”

“We’d like to listen to a story,” said the little girl quickly.

“Smart girl,” I said, winking at her. She smiled shyly and I put her down.

“I’m confused,” said the Russian, “What is this?”

“I suppose this is what peace does,” I said thoughtfully.

“Makes you weak,” said the Russian with a dismissive sniff.

“Oh, go back to your lonely tree,” I said. I privately suspected that he was right, but my grudge about his age comment was returning now that the adrenaline was leaving my system. I held each of the children by the hand and led them back to the party. I had to stoop slightly for the boy, who was only up to my knee. They bundled up their robes in their other arms. Beneath them they were both naked apart from the loincloths wrapped around their waists, but the linen was fresh and new. I walked slowly so that the kids could keep up with me, and the Russian elf watched us go. I looked over my shoulder and he still seemed mystified, but then he vanished.

“What’s your name?” asked the little girl.

“Lucinda,” I said, “What about you?”

“I’m Sky,” said the girl.

“And I’m Blue!” said the boy with an excited bounce.

Inside the tent it was absolutely silent. It seemed the Chairman of the Elf Liberation Front had just been introduced. I led Sky and Blue to a table.

“Be quiet and listen,” I told them, lifting them up to perch on the table edge. They nodded obediently, their wide eyes uncertain in the silent crowd.

The Chairman was a huge, round man with a huge, round face. He had fierce red hair that stood up awkwardly from his head and deeply veined cheeks, but for all that he looked friendly and kind. He struggled up to a raised podium at the end of the room and pointed his wand at a fold of flesh concealing his neck. He cleared his throat and everyone winced at the sudden whistle, so he adjusted the spell while holding up the other hand in apology.

“Is that better?” he said, his voice very rich and gravelly, “My fellow beings, we’re gathered here today for two very important reasons. The first is to thank you all for your hard, tireless work. Thanks to everyone’s efforts we’re freeing more elves than ever, some of which return to their original jobs under better conditions! Those who don’t almost all find alternative employment eventually and all are unstoppably generous towards the foundation, repaying the organisation with much more than they owe us. I know that a few of you insist on taking new payment contracts every time you settle your old debt. Which isn’t required, obviously, I cannot stress that enough,” he said, gesturing with both hands, “But we thank you nonetheless. Remember, the more elves we free today, the more we can free tomorrow. Let’s give each other a round of applause,” he said, spreading his arms wide to the audience. I hadn’t noticed it but the elves were all hanging on every word and they exploded into applause, handshakes and hugs as soon as they were able. There were cheers and tears, both drunken and sober.

Blue and Sky next to me were looking around, blankly taking it all in.

“And a round of applause for Mrs Hermione Weasley!” one of the elves shouted across the marquee, and the volume of cheering and celebrating doubled instantly. I could see the back of Hermione’s head far ahead in the marquee and it seemed like she was sinking low into her chair, surrounded now by several piles of presents. It felt like the structure of the marquee might tear itself apart with the noise.

“However,” said the Chairman, raising his arms to ask for silence, “However, we are not just here to celebrate, of course. This is a night for joy and celebration of course, but also one for remembrance. We must remember that all happiness and success is bittersweet. A price must always be paid. Everything we do, everything we become, has been paid for with the lives of past heroes,” he said. As he spoke the elves were all settling down, every huge cat-like eye turned towards the huge human on stage. You could have heard a pin drop. “We are also here to remember the elf which died here, years ago. He was freed accidentally and suffered for several years under that old stigma. He gave his life not for his masters or for the future, but for his friends. He would never have considered himself a hero. Nor did he consider himself a slave. He was just doing the decent, honourable, helpful thing. He is buried here by the naked, un-enchanted strength of friends. An unintended side-effect was to prove that free elves are not lazy, they are not selfish and that they do not hate wizards. They can still be humble, they can still work hard and they can still make the most noble of sacrifices!” he said, pausing to emphasise the words dramatically. Even I was becoming slightly moved, but I was also cynically thinking that he was an excellent public speaker.

“Of their own choice! Despite everything!” he was continuing, thumping a hand down on the podium. The noise made everyone jump slightly.

All around the room the elves were nodding eagerly. Tears were still gathering in the eyes of some – during the happy half of the speech they were all blinked away, but now they gathered in the corners and ran down faces unnoticed. “Very shortly we’ll be honoured by the music of Sarah Waters who has composed a piece of music dedicated to Dobby, and I would urge you all to meditate on his life. But I’d like to end, if I may, by borrowing the words of Luna Lovegood at Dobby’s funeral. I’m sure you all remember, and you are welcome to join in silently or aloud,” he said, lowering his head sadly.

“It's so unfair that you had to die when you were so good and brave,” he said, and I heard several voices near me muttering along with him. “We'll always remember what you did for us,” he continued, and the chorus was echoed around the marquee. Even I found myself echoing the final words, along with the whole room, “I hope you're happy now.”

“Thank you,” said the Chairman in the emotional silence, and stepped down.

I tried to dry the tears from my eyes, but everyone else was doing the same so it didn’t seem necessary. I looked over at Blue and Sky, who still seemed mystified. Sarah Waters stepped up to the podium in a tall black hat and robes with a black violin. It seemed in keeping with Dobby Day that she would be playing without magic. I didn’t expect much but the solo violin sounded just as sweet and bitter as we all felt, mournful and happy all at the same time. It sounded like something ancient and Gaelic; as if someone was sharing a fond memory of their Irish upbringing long ago. Now I saw that Sky and Blue were becoming tearful, responding to the raw emotion of the music rather than the words of the huge red Chairman. Everyone else was just as emotional, all the elves turning their minds inwards. Some were weeping openly, some were turned away into privacy, most were staring off into space while thinking whatever people think at times like this. I was concerned something would happen to ruin the moment but nothing did. The music ended and it felt like the applause went on forever. It was perfect. Now a lot of the elves were slinking away on their own or in pairs, seemingly wrapped up in thought and mourning. The drunkards were all staring seriously into their glasses or jars or mugs, whatever they had been drinking from. I could even see an elf in a tall, pointy metal hat and chain mail at the other end of the marquee who was down on one knee, head lowered as if praying.

“Lucinda, could you tell us that story now?” said Sky, tugging at my sleeve.

“Yeah, what happened back then?” said Blue, “What does this all mean?”

They both wiggled up to make room for me as I sat down between them, then I lifted them both onto my lap like tiny dolls – first Blue and then Sky.

“Kids, this is a very long story, and it starts in a lot of places,” I began, sniffling back tears, “But just for now I’ll start in a place called Privet Drive. It was a dark night in a typical suburban street, and there was a cat sitting at the end of the road…”