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The Harry Potter universe is the creation of J.K. Rowling. This is fanfiction. The standard disclaimers apply.


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Chapter 39: Christmas, Oren, Part 2


Friday, December 21, 1990.


Malaxis Wayland had set aside today to take his children Christmas shopping. He loved Alya, and she meant well, but she was not the right parent for the job in this case. To be honest, she was usually not the right parent for the job, but everyone in the family sort of accepted this gracefully, and on the whole things went much better than if she had Tried Very Hard and made everyone miserable.

"That's Harry Potter, isn't it?" Sarepta was pointing at the rather odd group—a small boy in a big hat holding the hand of a man in shabby clothes, a girl with pink hair, Hagrid the half-giant, and Sirius Black.

"With a crowd like that, I'd sure hope so. It would be rather a let-down otherwise."

"Can we follow them?"

"I imagine the adults are all there to watch out for people trying to follow them."

"Does that mean we can't?"

"Of course not! It means we look in windows along the way. You can watch where they go—that will look normal enough. I'll pretend I'm not allowing you to chase after, and eventually give in. Got it?"

The two kids nodded. They were used to the idea of having their father strategically forbid them to do things; if they asserted to someone that their father had told them not to do something they didn't want to do, he would almost always back them up, however ridiculous. It could be very useful sometimes.

There was no real use in trying to get the kids themselves to act inconspicuous. It wasn't so much that either of them were particularly noisy, although Sarepta could be loud if she chose to be. The main reason was that Sarepta had insisted on getting a winter cloak that was blindingly bright yellow, which made her very happy, but also made her easy to spot in a crowd.

Oren, like his parents, had a sort of dirty blonde hair. Sarepta's was much more yellow, or, if you asked her, golden. In any case she had decided at around the age of five that this was her color, and usually Malaxis and Alya found it simplest to just go along with their daughter on this point. Needless to say the cloak had been a custom order at Madam Malkin's (who had been thrilled), but they had gotten it a little large and with a hem that could be let out, so it would be good for the next few years at least.

"They went into Ollivander's! The big man stayed outside."

"That's Hagrid," explained Oren. "He's the gamekeeper at Hogwarts, which I think means he chases people away from the dangerous parts of the forest."

"Do you think Harry is getting a wand? He isn't at Hogwarts yet, is he? Why can't I get one?"

"Sarepta, how long have you been asking for a wand?"

"Since yesterday?"

"So, that was at dinner. A whole, fifteen, sixteen hours, most of which you spent asleep?"

"Yeah, Sarepta, and last night you were distracted. Although I seem to remember you did pretty well without one. Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure! You have to have a wand to do anything!"

"Anything?"

"You know what I mean!"

"So," asked their father, pretending to care about the contents of the Quality Quidditch Supplies display window, "are they still in there?"

"Yeah."

"Then they probably are getting him a wand."

"So why can't I get one?" Oren was grinning at her. "Don't laugh at mee! You know I'll be really good once you get me the wand."

"She means good at magic, Father. But it was a nice try."

"Pbplth!"

"Pbbbbbbltht!"

"Come on you two, it's no fun stalking somebody if they don't do anything, and we have stuff to do."

"Can we go get my wand when they come out?"

"So you are assuming I'm going to get it for you today now, are you?"

"The only reason not to would be if you were mean."

"Maybe I'm worried you will break more windows."

"Oren can repair them."

"Just go ahead and volunteer me, riight."

"Well, you can."

"You've never seen me cast any sort of repair charm."

She shrugged. "You can learn it. Then you can teach it to me, and then nobody will have to worry if I make a mess or break things!"

"Sarepta, that's enough. Now, I never said I wouldn't get you a wand. I just don't want it distracting you the whole time we're shopping. So either we get it once Harry leaves Ollivander's, and you don't get to do anything with it until we get home, or you sit tight while we go shopping and we get it last. Which will lead to you paying the most attention?"

She stopped and thought about this. "We get it halfway through."

"Halfway through it is."

"Thank you!" she shouted, and hugged his leg.

"Come on, let's try to figure out what to get your mother."


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Malaxis had carefully broken the day up in order to avoid pushing the limits of the kids' attention spans. Shopping, lunch, shopping, wand shop (ten inches, acacia and unicorn hair), ice cream, shopping and dinner in muggle London, then home. By the time they flooed back from the Leaky Cauldron, Sarepta was going nuts and even Oren looked weary, but it had been a pretty good day, and he had done everything he had set out to.

Sarepta dove for the wand box the moment they arrived home. "Outside!" he yelled. "I don't want you trying anything indoors until we've seen what happens. You are younger than the usual wand-buyer, you know."

It was dark and cold out, but he didn't mind too much if Sarepta blew up the snow, and the weather was nothing a warming charm couldn't handle. It took him approximately twenty minutes to teach his daughter her first spell—lumos—after which he pretended to be tired and turned to go inside. "Oren, you can cast the warming charm, right?" (It was definitely not a first-year spell, but if he pretended not to know . . .) Oren nodded. "Great. Your mother and I expect her to have mastered basic mending and cleaning charms by tomorrow morning. The door's unlocked, so we won't wait up for you . . . Um, that's a joke—you can come in whenever you want. Don't freeze!"

Once he had gone, turned to his sister, genuinely puzzled. "I'm not sure if father was joking or not. Could you tell?"

"No."

"Those are actually pretty simple spells, so he might really expect it to happen, because he assumes we're brilliant. Lots of first years get to school already knowing them."

"Well, how do you do them?"

It seemed like a pretty good place to start, joke or not.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Alya had relaxed into her usual seat by the fire, and was reading when Malaxis came in.

She didn't look up, but asked "How did it go?"

"She learned lumos. It's not very bright, but she got it. I have decided not to check whether that's a first-year spell. In fact, I suggest we both keep our noses out of textbooks for a while, since we'd just be pretending to know what was normal."

"Sounds good to me. I will be sure not to read any textbooks until you tell me otherwise."

He grinned.

"So what exactly are they up to now, out there? I haven't heard any explosions. Yet."

"With any luck, Oren is teaching her the repairing and mending charms. I told them I expected her to master them by morning, then told them I was joking."

"Those are fairly simple."

"They might not realize that. Or they might not think we do. Either way, it seemed like it was worth a shot."

"I look forward to having them clean the kitchen for me tomorrow, then."

"I certainly wouldn't bet against it."


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Wednesday, December 26, 1990.


It was the morning after Christmas, and Sarepta was sitting on her bed, trying to use the hover charm on one of her socks. She was succeeding merely in dragging it across the blanket, not in the flinging-it-around-the-room of her imagination.

That was okay. It had been a great week. One of the best of her life, definitely. Oren and her parents had been constantly either giving her one-on-one instruction or having her help them with something genuinely interesting. Of course, cleaning the kitchen floor was genuinely interesting if you had just learned the cleaning charm.

The day after she had gotten her wand, her mother had, in fact, simply asked her to clean the kitchen the next day after breakfast. Neither of her parents had said anything about her new wand at breakfast, and Oren and Sarepta certainly weren't going to be the ones to start—they were stubborn!

Of course, she had her wand with her at all times, so it wasn't like they didn't know. They just seemed much more interested in talking about boring newspaper articles than in paying attention to her.

So, when she had brought her plate out to the kitchen, Sarepta had no idea what to make of her mother asking—with a completely straight face—"Hey, Sarepta, the sink's kind of gross. Could you try to clean it?" Well, she wasn't going to let her mother win that one, and simply started right in, slowly making progress with repeated cleaning spells. Her mother watched over her shoulder, almost disinterestedly, as if to make sure no explosions were forthcoming, and went off into another room.

This was irritating, but she was able to make progress, and eventually moved on to the counter, the floor, and any other surfaces she could think of. When she had finished, she dragged her mother back to the kitchen and insisted that she look.

Her mother peered down into the sink for a long time, as if examining each crevice, then ran her finger along it, and then did the same to the counters and floor. By the end the corners of her mouth were twitching, and Sarepta knew she had won (with her mother, this was a major victory!).

Finally she was rewarded with a warm, genuine smile. "Sarepta, this is a really good job. Thank you!" This was followed by a kiss to the forehead, then "did Oren teach you the dusting charm?"

The Waylands didn't really have much of a gendered division of labor, but as with many things, they pretended to whenever it was convenient. That day it had been convenient for Sarepta's mother to spend the day with her, teaching her whatever household charms could be done with finesse alone (or at least with repetition). Sarepta was an excellent mimic, and could repeat an incantation correctly on the first try. She didn't learn which aspects of it were actually important this way, but she learned the spell, which was all she cared about for now.

Her mother had looked genuinely pleased with her the whole time, without once hiding behind her familiar awkwardness or sarcasm. It was one of the most normal interactions Sarepta had seen her mother have with anybody, actually. She had no idea what Oren was up to that day, nor did she care. The fact that it was like having class all day never occurred to her—if someone was paying attention to her, Sarepta was happy.

The next day her father had taken her and done the same—he tried teaching her a whole bunch of miscellaneous charms, and even took her outside and taught her incendio and a simple stinging hex, with which she was able to leave scratches on an old log.

Christmas Eve and Christmas itself had resembled every other Christmas she remembered, except that this year she was being asked to do many more little tasks around the house, and she received a lot more books and other 'practical' presents. Oren had predicted that, actually, saying that as soon as she showed an interest in something, however small, adults would see it as an easy gift idea and leap all over it. The practical gifts were all good ones, though.

So now she was sitting on her bed. It was morning, and she had already gone downstairs and eaten a bowl of cereal and some toast. Oren had not made an appearance so far as she could tell. Listening at his door revealed nothing. Maybe he had silencing charms up? She'd have to get him to teach her how to do those. But it was anyway totally normal for him to sleep in. It was just annoying, because her parents were busy and she had gotten used to the constant attention of the past few days.

Dragging the sock around was fun, even if she couldn't make it really fly. If she hadn't been using magic, it would have been the most pitiful excuse she had ever seen for playing with toys the day after Christmas—she giggled, thinking of herself playing with the sock by hand. Oren would think she had lost it. Actually, he probably wouldn't -- he would just politely assume he was missing something, and would ask questions if he thought it might be important.

She heard the doorknob turn down the hall. She and her brother had bedrooms on the third floor, nominally because there was already a playroom up there (it had been more or less updated for the twentieth century, even), but in reality so that they would be further away from their parents. Wizards would use monitoring charms for really young children, but by the time their children were seven or so, wizards rarely shared muggles' enthusiasm for vigilant paranoia. At least among purebloods, peace, quiet, and not being bothered were valued much more highly. This, combined with British wizards' fondness for houses of three or more floors, left Oren and Sarepta with nice views of the yard and some decent privacy.

The third floor also contained two guest rooms (full of stuff), a room which had most recently been their mother's office, a large linen closet, and the bathroom the two of them shared. Oren's room was on the far side of the playroom. He had to pass her door to get to the bathroom, the old office, or the stairs. In short, he couldn't get anywhere interesting without her seeing.

When he came into view, his eyes were glowing, he was wearing only his pajama bottoms and had runes written all over his body, and he was lurching. Sarepta did not waste time. She did not pause to put her shoes on. She did not say anything. She sprung from the bed at full speed, passed around her brother as widely as she was able, and nearly fell down the stairs—down to the second floor, swinging around the newel post, and down to the first. She nearly knocked the coat rack over as she went headlong into the kitchen.

She skinned her knee diving to a halt in front of a cabinet, before yanking open the door and grabbing the biggest saucepan with a handle. Pots, pans, tins, and lids went clattering across the floor as she pulled it out without moving anything else first.

The sink was painfully, painfully slow, and her heart was racing. She was trying the first thing she thought of—there wasn't time to do anything else. She didn't know if it would work, if she would be fast enough, or what she would do if it failed. Aeons later the pan was as full as she could carry, and she moved to the bottom of the stairs just as Oren was shuffling down the last few steps. She was crouched down behind a shoe rack, but it didn't matter. He didn't react, even when, as he reached the bottom, she screamed and launched herself out from behind her hiding place to block his way.

She didn't trust that the water would go where she wanted it to on its own, and she might only have this one chance, especially if it drew his? its? attention to her at last. So she stayed in motion and ran at him, pushing the pot of cold water into his face at full speed. He fell backwards with her on top of him, his head cracked against the steps, water gushed everywhere, and the pot twisted out out of her grasp, clanging down the last two steps to the floor.

"YOU LET IT IN!!!" He wasn't reacting. His eyes were closed, not glowing through the lids. She banged her fists against his chest, crying inarticulately. Eventually she thought to check if he was breathing; he was. There was no blood anywhere, except her knee. That could wait.

"Oren!!! OREN!!!"

He opened his (now normal) eyes, looking at her, but not saying anything.

She scrambled for the pot and held it over her head. "Who are you?"

"Huh? It's me. Thanks. That didn't work so well. Sorry."

Good enough. "DON'T DO THAT! YOU SCARED ME! THAT WAS REALLY, REALLY SCARY! You summoned something and tried to hide it, and if you EVER do that I am going to keep hitting you with this pot. What if I hadn't been here?"

"Then I would have been in deep, deep trouble, and might not have survived. Ugh. I might throw up."

She offered him the pot, thinking 'I'm faster than you, I hit hard, and I fight dirty.' If it was really Oren, he didn't need the warning. He didn't try anything, but he did throw up in the pot.

"Can you clean all this up? I'm not sure I can."

"Yeah, if you get my wand. On my floor. Everything up there is safe now."

She ran upstairs, although not quite at top speed this time. Oren's door was open. There was a circle on the floor, big enough to sit or stand in, with complicated runes, some of them smudged. His wand was just lying there in it. She grabbed it, grabbed her own from her room, and barreled downstairs again, stopping only to avoid slipping on the water. She gingerly passed him his wand—she had to assume he was back to himself at this point.

Without moving his head, he dried up the water, healed her knee (which surprised her; she had never seen him do that), and scourgified the runes off his skin. "I'm okay for now, but I don't think I should move. Go back to my room and get me a pajama top, then clean the floor and put away the books. Put the pots back in the kitchen. You'll have to floo father when I'm done."

"Why shouldn't I floo him now?"

"Urgh. You know why—he'd worry."

"You'll do everything I say from now on."

"I'm pretty sure I already do everything you ask. Just go."

This was a fair and inconvenient point, and it gave her pause. Clearly she needed more interesting goals to bargain for the next time she got blackmail material on anyone. For now, she settled for "yeah, but you whine about it first and I have to bug you lots," and ran off.

When Oren's room was acceptable, the last traces of runes were gone from his skin, and she had very, very carefully helped him get his pajama top on, she went to finish putting the pots back in the kitchen. He said he'd try to come up with an explanation in the meantime. When she got back, his suggestion was one that just dug him in deeper.

"I don't normally just fall down the stairs. We'll have to say you tackled me, which is at least true, so we'll seem believable. Yes, I'll owe you—figure it out later. Go floo father."


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Oren had avoided a concussion, but the healers weren't too happy about his neck. He was given some potions and told to wear a brace, and to come back in a week to see if it could come off. Other than a general instruction not to do anything stupid, he was free to do as he pleased.

As soon as their parents had said goodnight, Sarepta was up and over in his room, sitting cross-legged on the foot of his bed, her face illuminated with the dim blue of her lumos.

"What was it?"

"Some sort of air spirit, according to the book."

"What were you doing with it?"

"Testing whether that set of runes was enough to supplement my occlumency barriers, and whether that worked against possession, since if it did, we'd know they were analogous. I picked it because it seemed like a weak spirit."

"So it didn't work."

"No! It worked perfectly. It was completely unable to get into my mind."

"What . . . but it got your body?"

"Right. I hadn't thought of that part."

"So can you make me earrings, or a hat, or something now?"

"Maybe! I'll need to find a way to etch things really small, so we'll go digging around the basement tomorrow for ways to do that."

"Okay! But you still have to do everything I say."

Oren rolled his eyes. "How about you only bring that up if I actually say 'no' to something?"

"That's boring—I like reminding you."

"I got that impression."

"Anyway you don't get to try something like that without telling me first."

"Hm. See, it's not that I have anything I care about hiding from you. I just don't want anyone reading stuff out of your head. Does that make sense?"

"Sure. So you make me a bunch of jewelry."

"The jewelry or whatever is fine if nothing bad happens. It's not a perfect substitute for doing the exercises. There are some things I just won't tell you until I think you can at least push away a casual probe on your own."

"Who do you think is going to kidnap me?"

"No one, hopefully. Like, really, I have no idea. If Voldemort rose again he'd probably leave us alone, since it's convenient for him to have some casual, passive supporters. The Ministry has no reason to do anything unless they get tricked into believing something crazy. I'd guess Dumbledore's people are the biggest risk, really, and if he got ahold of you and took away whatever I gave you, there wouldn't be much you could do to stop him."

"Why would he want to kidnap me?"

"If he thought you had secrets he wanted."

"Do you have any?"

"Maybe? Depends on what he's up to. It's safest to assume the worst."

"Okay. How easy is it to tell the earrings are there?"

"I don't know? Presumably no one knows. I've never seen magic hats for sale that claim to block legilimency. Wizards normally respond to unwanted legilimency probes by just hexing each other, or going to court over it.

I guess if a wizard cares enough to want to actually block legilimency, they just take the year and learn to block it with occlumency. They'd probably assume they had bigger problems if they got captured by someone really powerful, like Dumbledore or a Dark Lord, so it might not be worth the effort to do anything more."

"So maybe Dumbledore wouldn't be able to tell I was using jewelry."

"Maybe! That would be really convenient. You know, it's all well and good to tell me not to try anything dangerous without checking with you, but I'm going to be at Hogwarts most of the year. Just going to class is pretty dangerous sometimes! So you can't really hold me to that when I'm not home."

"Sure I can. Just write to me."

"That's slow, and what if someone catches the owl? There are spells to redirect mail, and Dumbledore has been known to search anything passing through the school."

She looked thoughtful. "Aren't there magic mirrors that can do that?"

"Yesss . . . that's a good idea, actually. I don't think we have any, though. We'd have to get father to buy them, since they cost more than I have lying around, and they aren't worth trying to make yourself." This was true—he had carved the frames for a set once, but farmed out the actual mirror part to someone else. You had to have the right glass and silvering, and cast the charms as you made it. They were expensive for a reason.

"We could say it was so you could teach me stuff while you were at school."

"Yeah, or have you go to the library for me. That could be really useful."

"Okay. Do other kids have them at Hogwarts?"

"A few, but it's strongly discouraged, because usually they get given by over-protective families. If you get caught with one, Dumbledore or your head of house will call your parents in and ask them a lot of uncomfortable questions implying they are abusing you, and then the teachers will watch you like a hawk for the rest of your time there. But I think if it were clear that you were controlling the other mirror, that would be fine. At least, it would be, if I were in Snape's position. We can have father write a note for me to keep around, just in case."

Their parents believed in preemptive note-writing to save themselves from needing to be contacted later. Over the years this had ranged from complicated "in case of emergency" instructions, to general-purpose permission slips ("If Oren is trying to buy something that costs less than a galleon, whatever it is, please just assume I'm okay with it. — Malaxis Wayland"), to pithy warnings for misguided do-gooders (taped inside Sarepta's lunch box: "If you make her eat it all, you'll be sorry! — Alya Wayland"). These had so far been effective on those few occasions they had truly been needed.

"We'll have father get us a mirror, then. If you make me earrings, how will you know if they work?"

"There are spells for sensing magical fields, but I guess the real test would be to try legilimency on you. I've never learned it, though, and you have to be really careful with it. Let's cross that bridge when we come to it, okay? Like I said, we still need to find a way to enchant your earrings in the first place."

"Okay. What are you going to teach me next?"

"Well, what do you want to be able to do?"

"I like making things." This was no surprise; Sarepta had wound up making and selling jewelry for a while in Oren's previous timeline.

"What would you like to make? Or have?"

"How do you make things bigger on the inside than the outside?"

"That's actually very hard. You'll either need to be much more powerful than you are now, or else have a few years of arithmancy before you'll be able to do it yourself. I don't think there are any shortcuts."

"Can you do it?"

"In theory, I think, maybe." He had added extension charms to furniture on numerous occasions—it was, in fact, work that required nitpicky precision, at least the way he insisted on doing it.

"So you do know. How did you make that paperweight bigger?"

"That was transfiguration, and I would really rather not be the one to teach it to you. It's easy to screw up and hurt yourself, and I'm not as good a teacher as Professor McGonagall."

"Oh." She was willing to accept that Oren had a good intuition for that sort of thing. "I don't know. Just pick something."

"How about you watch me fiddle with your jewelry, and see if you learn anything?"

"Okay. Are you going to try that possession thing again?"

"Maybe. If I come up with any good ideas, and you're up for throwing water on me again."

"It was kind of scary. Do you really have to?"

"It's a good way of testing things. I'd rather risk having some dumb air spirit read my thoughts, when it can't understand them anyway, than find out the hard way with Dumbledore or somebody."

"Can't you get somebody else to do it?"

"I don't know any legilimenses who I trust. Can we cross this bridge when we come to it, too?"

"I mean somebody else to get possessed, so that I don't have to tackle you while your neck's still hurt."

"Oh. Right. Darn. I forgot about that. I'm not keen on testing it on you, either. I'll think about it. Do you have any friends we could experiment on?"

"Couldn't you get Erwin or somebody to do it?"

"Maybe? I kind of wish we knew some Gryffindors, just to have someone who was reckless when we needed them."

"Do you think I'll be in Slytherin?"

"My bet is on Ravenclaw, actually. If not that, then Slytherin. On the other hand, you are pretty good at getting your way with people, so the sorting hat could really go either way. I don't know. You're not like Draco, going 'Oh, Malfoys are always in Slytherin, if I don't get in there my father will disown me and I'll have to live on the streets, drama, drama.'"

Sarepta was yawning, but the conversation was interesting, and she wasn't willing to give in and go to bed yet. "Would his father really do that?"

"Merlin, no. He loves his son. Draco's just crazy because his mother's side of the family really is like that, and she's kind of neurotic. The Blacks are all crazy. Real people aren't like that."

"What about Sirius Black?"

"He got into Gryffindor, right? That's where the sorting hat puts you if you're nuts and don't fit anywhere else."

"That could be kind of fun, though, right?"

"For them, sure, I guess. They all seem happy enough together, so I suppose the hat knows what it's doing."

"Would you be mad if I wound up in Gryffindor?"

"Of course not! I'd try to use you as a spy, if I needed one. Which I guess I don't. Really it's like the rest of life—you get out of it what you make of it."

"Okay. I just want to have fun at school, is all."

"That's fair. But you don't need to be a Gryffindor to have adventures. It's like, are you all about the adventures, or are the adventures about you? If it has to be the first, Gryffindor is a better fit."

"Huh?"

"I mean, do you define yourself by being reckless, or do you have more than one aspect to your personality? If you're complicated, you can go anywhere and do okay."

"Ohhh. Am I complicated?"

Oren hadn't thought about it before. "I guess I don't know . . ." He honestly didn't, and had never gotten to know his sister well enough the first time around to guess. She had, in fact, been in Slytherin then, but he suspected that would change if she got the chance to make something more of herself. "I think you would do fine in Slytherin, but you'd be fine elsewhere, too. A lot of people are in the houses they are because the others aren't good fits, not because they really could have gone multiple places and fit in one better than the others. People like Draco, or Erwin or Bernard wouldn't make it outside of Slytherin. No one would understand them, and they're too close-minded to develop the social skills to deal with anyone else. But Slytherins are supposed to have social skills and be clever about people—lots of them are like that."

"Which are you?"

"Honestly I'm the bad kind of Slytherin. The hat said 'You'd injure your eyes from rolling them too much if I put you anywhere else, so it better be SLYTHERIN!'"

Sarepta giggled.

"It wasn't exactly a compliment to me or the house. So I guess what you really want is for the hat to be confused and take a long time."

"How do I confuse it?"

"I don't know!"

"Okay."

"You look really tired. Should you go to bed?"

"I guess. I don't really want to, though. Are you going to stay up? I don't want to wait for you tomorrow."

"I might regret saying this, but if I don't get up, go ahead and make sure I do. Just, not with a pan of water or anything."

"Okay!"

That was evidently reassuring enough. Oren did not naturally get up with the sun. Sure, he thought, as she went off to her room, he'd probably lie awake thinking for a long time, but it was good for him to get up in the morning, so however annoying his sister was, he probably came out ahead in the end.

As to lying awake, he wanted to get the kinks worked out of his homemade occlumency tricks before going back to school, but Sarepta had been surprisingly willing to help. The mirror would help, too, if they could get it, and for more reasons than he had let on.