Lunette || ONC 2024

1 - Convenient Kittens

There once was a cat who lived in a magical school.

Her name was Dinah, and she was a beautiful gray cat. She was the familiar of the school's headmistress, Miss Irene Goodweather.

One day at the end of June, Dinah gave birth to four tiny kittens. She had them under Miss Goodweather's desk, as she decided that was the safest spot for them.

Miss Goodweather was a little annoyed to have so many kittens crawling around the floor of her office, as she was very busy sorting through applications for the next the school year. The kittens would keep climbing out of their basket to investigate the wastepaper bin, and the summer students would keep coming around with silly questions just to have an excuse to peek in at the kittens.

But there was one reason Miss Goodweather was happy to have four kittens at precisely this time of year. She had just received confirmation that four of the students enrolling for the new term did not already have their own familiars, so it saved her the trouble of finding more.

"Indeed, it's quite serendipitous," Miss Goodweather murmured to herself. One should always take the opportunity to use the word "serendipitous," even if no one else is listening.

Dinah, who was listening while she tongue-washed one of the kittens, flicked an ear impatiently. She was a wizard's cat—of course she would have exactly the right number of kittens at exactly the right time.

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The kittens grew quickly and started to develop their own personalities.

Oregano, the ginger tom, loved to chase anything that moved, which far too often resulted in him landing face-first in a pile of dust and cobwebs.

Selene was above such things—literally. Her favorite spots were the window ledge or the top of Miss Goodweather's bookcase, where she would sit and observe everything going on below.

Malkin was a friendly gray kitten who loved seeing what the other students and their familiars were up to, especially when they had snacks to spare.

Lunette, the smallest of the litter, was curious about everything. She was the first to investigate the wastepaper bin, and the bookcase, and Miss Goodweather's desk, and the potted plants on the windowsill. It was not long before she was regularly escaping to explore the classrooms and the tuck shop and the dining hall—often with Malkin in tow.

Though Miss Goodweather was strictly opposed to having favorites (she was strict about a lot of things), she secretly thought that Lunette was likely to grow into a particularly helpful familiar.

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At the beginning of September, when the leaves were turning shades of gold and the air in the local village was full of the smell of ripe apples, the new students arrived at Nightbrook Academy. They were all very small and nervous.

Miss Goodweather was not sympathetic. She believed children should be nervous. It meant they were less likely to do something stupid. And since these children in particular were about to begin their arcane studies, doing something stupid could be immensely dangerous. She considered it her duty to keep them safe from that sort of error in judgement.

Her heart was in the right place. But sometimes she overdid it, and completely terrified her young charges.

"Do you all have your house pendants? Good. Those will let you into your dormitories, so don't lose them! I will not be pleased if any of you come knocking on my door wanting to be let in." Miss Goodweather treated the new students to a frosty look. "And don't lose your ingredient bag either, or you'll pay for another one. Make sure you have all your materials for your first class tomorrow, and don't be late! Latecomers will be turned into toads for the rest of the day! Now...which of you do not already have a familiar?"

The twenty-four students in front of her were silent. Some of them looked at one another nervously, clutching their cats, rats, foxes and ferrets.

"A show of hands, please!" Miss Goodweather demanded, just as one small hand went up. Three more soon followed.

"Right. You four, follow me. The rest of you, I would strongly advise that you double-check your materials list to make sure you have everything you need. Run along, now!" Miss Goodweather shooed them off with a wave of her hand, and the twenty students scattered, their familiars scampering alongside them.

The four remaining students quailed under Miss Goodweather's piercing appraisal. Miss Goodweather was tall and stately, dressed in elegant cloud-gray robes. Her wide-brimmed hat made her look even more imposing, as did the six wands strapped to her belt. Her long hair was a shade somewhere between gray and lavender. It was very hard to tell how old she was.

"A familiar is not a pet," Miss Goodweather lectured. "You will not 'own' your familiar—you will work together as partners. At the beginning, your familiar will almost certainly have better magical intuition than you do, so it will be in your best interest to listen to them. If they warn you not to do something, stop immediately and think about what you are doing. You will probably find that you were about to make a very foolish mistake...

"For that very reason, you will not be choosing your familiar. Your familiar will be choosing you. Let us hope that they see something worth choosing." On this ominous note, Miss Goodweather turned on her heel and strode down the hall to her office, leaving the four young witches to scurry after her. 

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Author's Note:

A quick note on how I'll be using these terms:

witch: a person with (untrained) magical abilities
wizard: a person with certified magical abilities

i.e. new students of any gender are witches, while graduates are wizards.

Th question "are wizards also witches?" is a bit like the "are tomatoes fruit?" question.

Self-taught witches can be very good at magic, they just didn't go to school for it. They tend to have a particular thing they are good at, because they weren't forced to study outside their comfort zone.