FicWad

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


❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖


Chapter 41: Christmas, Sybill Trelawney and Aurora Sinistra


Tuesday, December 25, 1990. Christmas Day, evening.


Albus Dumbledore had eaten about as much plum pudding as he possibly could. It had been, all things considered, a good Christmas. He had spent the morning in Hogsmeade with Aberforth, visited the Weasleys in the afternoon, and had returned to Hogwarts to put some finishing touches on decorations before the Feast.

The Christmas Feast, as usual, had involved enormous quantities of food, all of which he felt obligated, as Headmaster, to at least try, on the off chance that one of the elves found out and took it personally.

Most of the faculty stayed for the holidays, as few of them had families to return to. Erasmus had taken an international portkey back to his parents in New Zealand, and Bathsheba actually had grown children to visit. Charity had already moved out and was presumably with her parents before leaving for America. Quirinius wasn't back yet. Everyone else stayed. Albus was unusual even in having a brother to spend Christmas morning with—for most of the professors, Hogwarts was their only family. Or at least, the only family they were speaking to.

The school had not always been this way—there had been times, such as his youth, when professors had families, and might even have lived in Hogsmeade instead of the castle. But the twentieth century had seen some hard times, and he had been able to snatch up some good employees who had nowhere else to go. He hoped that by the time he finally passed on and Minerva took over, things would have swung back in the other direction.

For now, though, the table was quite full—Filius, Severus, Irma, and Argus to his left, and, to his right, Minerva, Pomona, Poppy, Rolanda, Silvanus, Aurora, Sybill, and Septima, with Hagrid on the far end. He would have preferred to sit directly in the middle with half of his staff on each side, but only Filius was willing to put up with the more cantankerous staff members, and keeping the peace, or the appearance thereof, outweighed aesthetic concerns. When Professor Binns had died, they had tried setting a place for him, but after a while that was given up as excessively awkward. They had left space on that side for ghosts to drift in and visit, though, which had worked out to everyone's satisfaction and made for a good excuse not to have Albus quite so far to one end.

After dinner, he planned to go straight to bed. He had some projects to work on before the students returned on the 7th. Hopefully most of them would involve actual work with wards or something similarly useful, instead of just arguing with people. That, though, was a problem for another day. He was already yawning by the time the food disappeared and everyone went their separate ways.


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


Sybill had trudged up all seven floors of the Grand Staircase, turned towards the southern parts of the castle, and was crossing a connecting bridge to the base of her tower when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She jumped, cringed, and spun around.

"Sybill, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you." It was Professor Sinistra. "This is a major holiday for you, is it not?"

"You mean for me personally?"

Aurora Sinistra, along with Professor Eeles, had just started teaching at Hogwarts this fall. Aurora seemed young—much younger than Sybill, perhaps barely in her twenties—but Sybill was a lousy judge of age, and too shy to ask questions. Aurora was dark-skinned, spoke passable English with an unplaceable accent, was partial to olive robes, and, though friendly, managed to avoid talking about her past. So Sybill had no idea where Dumbledore had found her, or really anything about her, despite the two of them sitting by each other at meals for the past three months.

Aurora had looked briefly confused by Sybill's question, then looked at her closely. "I think? I assumed you were raised in this country by wizards. I know it is a big holiday for European muggles."

"Oh! Well, it probably would have been if I had family outside the school. I don't, though—my parents died when I was young, and I was raised by my grandmother, who passed away around the time I started working here. Hogwarts is my home."

"The staff do not celebrate together not during meals?"

Sybill smiled weakly. "I don't think so. If they do, they hide it from me."

"May I come up with you, then, and talk before you end the day?"

Sybill felt trapped by this, but had no polite way to say 'no', nor any reason to think Aurora didn't mean well. "I guess." The two started up the three flights of stairs to the classroom. "The classroom is up here so that students are removed from the day-to-day existence of the castle. I have my quarters up here for the same reason."

"You do not like the castle?"

"It's Hogwarts, of course, so it's a wonderful place. It has everything you could wish for in an old Scottish castle that was built to be a school of magic."

"But it is not to your tastes?"

"Up here there is natural light and natural fresh air." They had come up through the trap door into the classroom.

"I can smell that you burn incense, though, and have curtains that can block the light in the classroom. Is that necessary for the methods you teach?"

"Not necessarily, no, but it adds to the ambiance—the feel of the place. It helps keep the students' attention in the room, if not always on me."

"So it is not magically necessary."

"Concentration is necessary for all magic."

"I am sorry. I meant the incense and . . . decorations are not magical."

"No."

"Perhaps you do not tell the students that? Oh!" Aurora has spotted a row of spare crystal balls on the shelf. She held one up to the light, the frowned. "Is this an ornament?"

"No, it's a spare, for students, if they forget theirs."

"Can you do anything with it? Also, it is just glass . . ."

That was intriguing. It was something most professors and students would not think to ask. She would pretend not to understand, to draw Aurora out.

"You've never seen one before? They are crystal balls, used to extend and focus the inner sight. Those who are gifted can use them most successfully, of course. Most students show little ability."

"This is not a crystal ball."

"What do you mean? It is spherical and transparent, and can be used to see the future!"

"It is ordinary glass. A crystal ball seems like it would be a ball made of crystal, right? What you would call it in English . . . 'Crystal' has a rigid, patterned, definite internal structure. It spreads light out into colors better."

"No, no, in English, 'crystal' may also refer to certain types of glass, and in the case of . . . transparent spheres used for divination, they are all called 'crystal balls', no matter how they are made."

"Oh! It is so small, though." Aurora was still frowning.

"How large do you think it ought to be?"

"I have never studied divination magic in depth. I have never seen one this small, so I wondered how well it worked."

"These are . . . intended for children. They are small enough for classroom use, light enough to be carried easily, and inexpensive."

"So for your own use . . . ?"

"I have something else."

"May I see it?"

Sybill was torn. She couldn't really tell what Aurora thought of her, and it was always safer to pretend to be a fraud. But the Astronomy professor seemed so genuinely foreign that she was probably outside of Voldemort's sphere of influence. She decided to compromise.

"If you agree not to talk about it. I can't give away too many secrets." She tried to smile conspiratorially.

"I understand."

"Thank you." She led Aurora through the storage area, into her bedroom. If she were showing it to a student, she would of course be extremely dramatic about it, but tonight she couldn't be bothered.

"This is the Eye of Landewednack." The Eye was about thirty inches across, resting on top of a seven-armed curved frame.

"That is closer to what I was expecting. Do you have a lot of secrets like this?"

"Not more than most of the other faculty, I think. Many things no one asks about."

"Have you ever shown this to a student?"

"Once in a while, if there is an unusually promising one. I haven't in a few years."

Aurora nodded, then looked straight at her. "Some of the other professors believe you are a fraud. Perhaps they are right for the wrong reason?" Sybill didn't like how this was going. No matter what happened, it would mean a lot of work. Aurora gestured toward a small table near a window. "Could we sit down?"

"I suppose." Sybill got a second chair, then sat down, facing the door.

"I will join you soon." Aurora looked around the room. In front of Sybill's mirror, on her dresser, and extending into the shelves of an adjacent cabinet, was a small bar. Sybill winced at having left all that out, but Aurora seemed unfazed—either she was expecting to find it, or it meant something to her other than 'drinking problem'. Sybill hoped it was the latter, but assumed the worst, as Aurora looked thoughtfully at the various glasses. She eventually selected two thick, cut-crystal pint glasses, the intended purpose of which Sybill had long ago forgotten.

"I have brought something to share with you." She placed the glasses on the table and used her wand to fill them halfway with something that bubbled, explaining "just water." Aurora's wand was glass, or glasslike, leaving the wand core visible, if unidentifiable.

"I've never seen a wand like that. Glass?"

"More or less. Like your Eye."

"Made under high heat, then. So you'd have to keep the core from burning. What is it?"

"Ancient secret." Sybill must have looked surprised. "Truthfully, I do not know what it is or how it was made. But that is not why I am here." She smiled and held up a small satchel, from which she withdrew a bottle of fire.

The clear glass bottle was the right size and shape for wine, and had been corked in the same way, but contained a swirling yellow liquid that glowed like the center of a brightly-burning fireplace. It was like the windows had been shuttered at noon, and someone had opened them a crack, except it was shining in all directions from the bottle, instead of in from outdoors. Aurora pointed her wand at the cork, said something quietly, and caused it to come out with a 'schlunk!' then fall onto the table.

Sybill had been too stunned to say anything until her glass shone with shifting yellow light. The carbonation burst from the surface like sparks. It was strongly alcoholic—that was clear from several feet away—but beyond that, the scent seemed to bypass her normal senses entirely. It was like she was smelling magic. She looked across at Aurora, and was confused.

"Try it." She picked up the glass, mirroring the woman in front of her. It was warm to the touch. Aurora smiled expectantly, and brought it to her lips; Sybill followed.

She had expected something like firewhiskey—it looked like fire, so she naturally expected a burning sensation. It was nothing like that.

It was like drinking the morning on a clear winter day, like closing your eyes and looking up as the pale sun warmed your face from above and reflected off the snow below. It was life when the world was ice, melting the dark, torchlit castle stone from Sybill's spirit. The alcohol—which was genuinely very strong—carried it through her nose and sinuses, filled her throat, filled her head and chest, and spread slowly outwards to her fingers and toes.

Nothing she could say was really adequate.

Her question seemed hopelessly prosaic even before she said it, but surely Arora understood. "What is it?"

"Vodka infused with magic from the sun. With sunlight. I made it this morning."

"How?"

"Ancient secret." She grinned. "But one I actually know. It is a taste of home, however much I have put that behind me . . . You can do it with the right kind of telescope, and some charms to keep the whole apparatus pointed in the right direction. Sunlight is the easiest. Here." She pulled a lumpy piece of white cloth from the satchel, and unfolded it on the table. "Dates. Another taste of home. There is a palmetum in the greenhouse which Professor Sprout never uses, so she lets me take whatever I want."

"Do the palms resist much?"

Aurora looked confused. "No. Should I be concerned about that?"

Sybil shrugged. "The Hogwarts greenhouses specialize in violent plants."

"The palms seem entirely non-magical. Try a date. You have probably never had one that was fresh from the tree before." She hadn't. "Merry Christmas."

It was in fact one of the better Christmases Sybill had had in years. "Thank you. You too. You asked if it was a big holiday—where exactly are you from? And please don't answer 'ancient secret' again." She pointed across the table, and laughed. She wasn't sure she could separate out the effects of the magic and the alcohol.

"Well, it is truly an ancient secret. It is one of the Great Cities of wizarding civilization. It claims to be as old as Atlantis, but that is difficult to prove.

In English it gets called something like Imkasherrett. In my native language it is Mcɔʂʂəɻɛt—don't bother trying. You might also know it as the City of Glass. No? People there believe the city is very important, but on the outside, I have met very few who have heard of it.

The city is built on a group of rocky hills sticking out of the sand of the Sahara Desert. The available building materials there are limited. You have a lot of sand. The early residents were ambitious, but their plans could not happen without many adaptations. So they became very skilled at working with glass."

"That explains some of the past half hour."

"Yes."

"Why did you leave?"

She shrugged, and sipped at her drink. "To see the world, and because I did not like my family's expectations of me. It is complicated."

"Does Hogwarts count as seeing the world?"

Aurora looked thoughtful. "For now it does. It is certainly easier to see the world from here than it was at home. The City of Glass is not easy to leave or to enter. The wards extend for a hundred miles, and no magical transportation will work. Even then you cannot go directly—you must spiral in or out, by foot or cart or camel. So it takes a very long time. It is not a good trade route, but no invaders have ever gotten very far. In Hogwarts, the wards extend only a few thousand feet at most, and then you can take the floo or a portkey to many different places. I have seen you take advantage of this."

Aurora looked like she was about to ask something probing. "I go to London sometimes. It's nice to get away. When did you leave? How did you get here?" Sybill was trying to deflect attention from herself, and anyway Aurora's stories were far more interesting than her own.

"I took my savings and bought a tent, a camel, and several months of supplies. I gathered up my things and had left before my family realized I was gone. I left a note—it was not a mystery why I left. No one came after me." She shrugged. "It took almost two moons to get free of the wards, and as I had no other means of transportation, I continued on northwards to the sea.

It was long and hot and boring, and I had to stop for sandstorms many times. I would wake up the next day with the tent covered in sand, and the camel panicking in its compartment. Without magic I would have been trapped.

There is an island fortress on the coast of the Mediterranean. It has been our trading partner for thousands of years, since the time of Carthage, so once you are free of the dunes there is a wizards' road the rest of the way which muggles cannot find. That fortress also has ancient wards, and you cannot use most magical transportation to or from it. I sold some jewelry there to pay my way on a boat to Malta, where I sold some more jewelry and rented a house for three moons."

"You keep saying moons . . ."

"We don't have very interesting seasons, because we are near the equator. The phases of the moon are the most dramatic change to measure things by. It has always been done this way."

This explanation seemed good enough; she continued:

"Malta has many ancient wizarding villages, and an excellent library, which is where I met Headmaster Dumbledore. He recognized my clothes and asked if I was from Mcɔʂʂəɻɛt, which he could pronounce correctly. That was the only word I recognized, so I answered in my native language. It turned out that the name was the only word he knew, but he could cast a translation spell.

I was not taught translation spells, because there was no point. Why learn to talk to foreigners when no one ever leaves? Let them learn our language instead. The few who can find us seem to enjoy speaking it, and we are friendly enough.

The Headmaster told me that Hogwarts had lost its astronomy teacher, and asked me whether I wanted the job. I asked why he had not tested my knowledge first, and he said he did not want to insult me, because of the reputation of my people as legendary astronomers. I had no idea who he was, or what Hogwarts was." She gestured dramatically now. They had both drunk enough that they were starting to show it. "So I told him he was silly. He said 'Ah, but you are qualified to teach, right? Are you saying you are not a good astronomer?' I got angry, and answered 'I am an excellent astronomer!' Then I realized why he had tried not to insult me." She smiled, sheepishly.

"Dumbledore wants everything to make a good story. You must have been the perfect candidate for him!"

"Not yet, not yet. He said he would hire me on the condition that I learn enough English by the time school started this fall. Which I did. And here I am!"

"Your English is excellent, although I guess spending several months doing nothing else but study it probably helped. Dumbledore must have hoped you would teach the students lots of . . . ancient secrets. Have you?"

Ignoring for the moment any boys Sybill had met in nightclubs, she was having the longest, happiest conversation with someone other than Acamar, or any other woman at all, that she had had in years. Sure, the alcohol helped, but it seemed to help Aurora too, and neither was so drunk that she would forget the conversation tomorrow. At least, not yet.

"No, not yet. I am either teaching the basics, or compensating for many years of no one teaching the basics. And many ancient secrets involve expensive equipment."

"Hmmmm. You and I, we have departments with small budgets. Snape and Erasmus get a lot to play with, and Pomona practically has a small empire of her own, there in the greenhouses! You know, there is a member of the board of governors who has asked me what I would do with more money. I haven't decided what to say."

"Get better crystal balls?"

"I've considered that, yes . . . I don't want to push my luck."

"Because you want to keep looking like a fraud. But why?"

Sybill sighed. "It's complicated? There are many reasons. You know—I think I trust you with this—but be careful!" They both laughed. "See, a real seer is dangerous, or at least, their enemies will always think so. And we had this dark wizard and his followers, and probably will again if no one stops them, and I just don't want to get tangled up with them. Dumbledore doesn't want me to either, which is convenient. You had a famous city, I had a famous grandmother. Exact same idea. So I make a good story for him.

But Divination is just a weird subject, you know? Almost no one is any good at it, not matter how expensive their . . . equipment. But it's traditional to teach it at Hogwarts. And somehow everyone expects a Divination professor, or any seer, to look and act certain ways. They can tell themselves it's okay they don't have the gift, because it's all useless. Or they take the class because their parents did. I rarely—never, I guess—know what's going on politically, so I have to be very very careful what I say to people. That's about it, I guess."

"But you go to London every weekend to get away from that?"

"I have a family friend there. It helps me clear my head."

"But the family friend is not the only thing you are there for, right?" Aurora looked puzzled; this was not a rhetorical question. Sybill blushed.

"I sometimes go to bars . . . nightclubs . . . try to meet people who aren't wizards, and pretend my problems don't exist."

"Are you going to do that again soon?"

"Probably." She had actually planned to leave tomorrow, see Acamar, and go out on the town that night. Maybe if she didn't have to go home right away, her adventures would be more fun. "Why do you ask?"

"I would like you to take me with you."

"Oh." Sybill was at a loss. What would she do with someone wanting to play tourist. Is that even what Aurora wanted from her? "Have you been to Diagon Alley?"

"Not yet. But you avoid the wizard areas. I do not want to go somewhere you want to avoid. That is no fun! If you think English bars and nightclubs are worth seeing, I want to go to them too! I want to get muggle clothes, too. I bought these robes in Hogsmeade—my clothes from home would stand out here. Please?"

"I guess we can start with clothes. I've been transfiguring mine for years, but there's only so much I can do that way. I've heard of a department store run by squibs—I'd like to go see it. How does that sound?"

"Perfect! Tomorrow afternoon we can go? I usually sleep late, because my classes are at night. Could we eat lunch in London? You must know good restaurants, right?"

"Would it work to meet by the doors at noon tomorrow, and walk to Hogsmeade?"

"It would. That is settled, then. So. Ah. Could you show me how this Eye of Landu . . ."

"Landewednack. It's a place in Cornwall. My family's from there."

"Can you show me how it works?"

"Suuuure. Come over here and sit down. Go ahead, touch it—use both hands, get your palms on it. With a student I'd make a little speech . . . I don't know . . . just think of a question, sort of push your magic into it, and try to focus on the center."

"That is vague. Can I ask what would happen if I did various things?"

"Sure. That's one of the major uses of divination magic, choosing between courses of action. Most people are bad at it, but that is what they're trying to do a lot of the time."

Aurora had a look of intense concentration. It was a sign she had succeeded at doing something with the Eye, but there was no way to let more than one person use a crystal ball simultaneously, so Sybill knew to wait and keep her mouth shut. Her students were never good enough to get something from the Eye so quickly, which made this young Professor all the more intriguing. Perhaps it helped if you were very familiar with glass.

Maybe the alcohol was helping her, too. Sybill couldn't really say—she had spent so much time using the Eye while intoxicated that it now worked equally well whether she was drunk or sober. Maybe she should try getting her students drunk and having them try. No, that sounded bad. Well, if she got away with the pigeons, and the mandrakes worked out . . . She really wanted to know what Aurora was seeing. Eventually she gave up on the idea of asking and sat back down at the table to sip her drink.

Without looking up, the Astronomy professor said "hey, you can use this for scrying, too!"

"If you're good, yes. What are you looking at?"

"I would prefer not to say."

Sybill giggled. "There are a few places you can't scry on, here in the castle, even with the Eye, you know. If you're so good, can figure out what they are?"

"Ooh! That sounds like fun." She look of concentration looked even more intense, except now she was smiling.

"The library works. The Restricted Section works. The Great Hall works—it is so pretty in there with the lights off and the decorations up! The Headmaster's suite is blocked. So is this room. Can you look at yourself?"

"No, I just set up wards to block it."

"Okay. Hey! You can see into my quarters! But not Flitwick's, or Snape's . . . Professor Sprout is asleep. Most of the professors are blocked. You can see into the students dorms?"

"Only some places. Keep looking."

"Gryffindor . . . all seven years, bathrooms, everything. Same with Hufflepuff." She concentrated for a while. "You can even see into the prefect's bathroom, too. I was able to see everywhere! Was I missing something?"

Sybill was grinning. "Yes. Want to keep trying, or shall I tell you?"

"Tell me."

"You only looked at the boys, didn't you."

"Ohhhhhhh." If Aurora had skin light enough to show it, Sybill was sure she would be blushing.

"You will find that the entire Ravenclaw girls' dorm is blocked, bathrooms and all. Same with the Slytherin girls' bathrooms, and a few of the private rooms of the older girls. Some of the Slytherin boys ward their rooms, but I don't think that's built into the castle. That's it, though."

"Why . . .?"

Sybill just shrugged. "Ancient secret?"

"It must be your turn to say it, now! Do you know how this was made?" She gestured to the Eye.

"No idea. It's been in my family for many generations."

"And you use it to spy on students!"

"You've already shown your own . . . proclivities just now, so I know you would, too. You only asked how it was made so you can make your own!"

"Maybe. I bet I could figure it out on my own. I wonder . . ." Aurora stared into it in silence for several seconds. "This is really powerful! It seems like the power weakens as you look further away, but I can scry into London from here."

"The magic comes from the user, you know. Did you use a lot of magic items made from glass, back home?"

"Of course!"

"Maybe that helps? Or maybe you're just a gifted seeress and don't know it."

"How would I know?"

"Do you ever have awful dreams that later come true?"

"Noo . . ."

"Lose consciousness, go into a trance, talk in a weird voice and say things you don't remember later?"

"No."

This was puzzling! Surely it wasn't like a magic telescope or something, where working with glass and optics conferred some generalizable ability? Well, maybe. Right, one more thing to check. "Do you ever use . . . oh. The alcohol is magic, isn't it? What exactly does it do?"

"That is complicated. You know astrology, right?"

"Extensively."

"The process concentrates the magic of the chosen . . . astronomical object. In this case, the sun."

"So . . . it is letting you make the most of your magic. Giving you your chance to shine, to project yourself into the scrying . . ."

"Right! Although the effect is probably weak. The sun's magic is as you described it, but still extremely generic. My skill is probably not from the drink. Using a magic device like this is hard, and I imagine they are very rare outside of my city, so I have more experience than your students."

"Would Mercury work better?"

"Yes! For scrying, I would expect it to."

"Can you do the same thing with any celestial body?"

"You are limited by the power of your telescope and by your ability to operate it, as well as your ability to do the magic of the infusion itself. You are also limited by what is there in the sky to point your telescope at. The sun must be up to work with the sun, for instance."

"Ohhhh. So you could do the moon, too, with a small telescope?"

Aurora looked slightly irritated. "If it were full, that would be easy. Objects of higher magnitude would be harder, since the Hogwarts telescopes are just teaching equipment. They are like your little crystal balls. Enormous sums were spent on giant orreries, but students bring their own telescopes! Why? It makes no sense."

"Oh. You know, Mr. Malfoy from the Board of Governors seems to be looking for things to throw money at. I bet we could convince him to help . . ."

That was evidently the wrong thing to say.

"I do not plan to teach anyone how to make this. It is not something we teach to outsiders." Then, less seriously, she added "also I was hoping to sell some at very high prices."

"Ohhhh. Okay."

"There are reasons to study astronomy apart from exciting drinks, though, and the equipment here really is inadequate. Perhaps he could still be convinced?"

"It's worth a try."

"Also I notice you have carefully changed the subject from your scrying on the students."

"Remember you promised not to talk . . ."

"I think we now have an equal number of secrets about the other, and I still want you to take me to London!"

"Oh, good. Um, I wasn't . . . really worried."

"I know."


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


Wednesday, December 26, 1990


The next day, in the early afternoon, Sybill and Aurora trudged through the snow down to the main gate. It was almost always easier to go through a pub than the alternative, which involved asking the Headmaster if they could use his floo and then having to explain what they were up to. In this case he would probably approve, which Sybill thought was actually kind of annoying. She should be able to make friends without his grandfatherly sense of approval spoiling everything.

She wasn't sure how much she planned to get up to anything he'd disapprove of today, either, which was also annoying. Not that she'd say it to Dumbledore, but she liked the idea of telling him "oh, your new astronomy professor got me drunk last night and convinced me to accompany her into London, buy some revealing muggle outfits together, and help her pick up boys in bars." She wasn't explicitly planning that, or at least, not the last part. The bit about muggle outfits was certainly on the agenda, but they hadn't really discussed what happened next beyond going to bars or nightclubs.

If they did do that, of course, it had the potential to either be great fun or an absolute train-wreck. It would be nice if she at least dressed well for it, either way. She hoped the department store would be able to help her with her own wardrobe. It had so far not been very confidence-building to do things her current way, which was to use confundus charms for getting into clubs when her outfit wasn't up to the bouncers' standards.

As to the bit about getting drunk last night, that was probably only half true. It was hard to tell what the effects were of the sun-vodka, or whatever it ought to be called in English. She had totally given up on trying to pronounce anything from Aurora's language—far too many exotic consonants.

This had been made overwhelmingly clear when Aurora had decided they needed to share drinking songs. Apparently the English were well-known for this abroad, and it was just expected that Sybill would have a rich cultural heritage of pub songs to draw on. After carefully explaining that she was not, in fact, English, but Cornish, and even on top of that she was a witch and would not have learned all these bits of muggle culture anyway. There followed a brief explanation of British history which basically boiled down to everybody fighting all the time and the English over-running everybody else, and no, their language was not dead, but yes, mostly her country had better things to do than engaging in random acts of domestic terrorism over things that happened many centuries ago. Unlike some people.

As to genuine folk art, wizards had very little of it. The few things done by the Hogwarts choir were mostly Shakespeare settings, and while that was a piece of culture shared with muggles, that didn't make 'Double, Double, Toil and Trouble' an actual drinking song (although, as Aurora pointed out, maybe it ought to be one).

Most of all this was lost on Aurora, who changed the topic back to actual singing, and insisted on sharing songs from home. Not that Sybill minded—Aurora had an absolutely beautiful voice. Sybill was surprised, too, at her new friend's skill at rendering song lyrics into mostly-comprehensible English while intoxicated.

"Okay," she had said, after singing several verses of something, "let's see if I can translate that:

When the dark reds of the early sunset
Hit the entrance to the solar duct of, uh, the name of a famous djinn,

That is an actual thing, you can go see that place. A solar duct is like a curved, horizontal light well, to bring light to parts of the city that are in shadow. And no one has seen a djinn in a very long time, but they were once important to the city. It goes on:

And the evening wind swirls the sand
Around the inner wards,
A girl of two hundred moons comes to her garden
And waits for her lover as the sunset turns to blue.

Then the night-lizard climbs the wall,
And it says to her, 'he will not come,
You are a foolish girl, he will not come.'

Okay, then it does the same thing with the jasmine vine, a beetle, and the orange tree. Then it goes on:

As she waits, her star appears, and his appears,

Uh, British wizards use stars for first names, but we have them as family names. Sinistra is in Ophiuchus. So the song means her family's star, and the same for him.

Far across the sky from one another,

Uh, sometimes there is pressure to . . . uh, marry certain people based on where their families' stars are. It is . . . bad. You would not like it. The song avoids saying if that happened here, but them being far apart means he is a lover of her heart, not someone their families chose.

Which causes her to hope,

I think she hopes because it is far away and she wants to get away from her family, but people argue.

and to scold the lizard,
the jasmine, the orange tree, and the beetle.
And when the moon rises orange through the wall,

The garden wall would be made of glass, and it was probably on a hill facing the moonrise.

Then little footsteps come down the street,
And her lover scares the lizard from the wall,

The top of the wall is probably street-level, because it is . . . sunken and the city is . . . terraced?

And the beetle flies from the jasmine
As he climbs down the orange tree to her arms.

It is very sweet! I like to think she escapes."


There was a lot in there that Sybill decided she should avoid asking about for now. Maybe Aurora ran away from a forced marriage? That sounded exciting. It would also explain her interest in being able to pick up muggle boys. Sybill couldn't tell whether it was the chance to make her own choices that mattered, or whether the actual boys were important, too. Maybe she would find out, once they were done shopping.