It's time to revisit the old times. Sprinkles in time. One more, today.
Mharii brings a hand around the door's frame, peeking into her dorm. A cleared floor; everything set up within the space. Merely a few finishing touches. She drew her head back into the bathroom, facing the gilded mirror. Drawing her hands down her sides, over the curve of her hips, and spreading with the dress. She leaned in, adjusting the level on either sleeve halfway down her shoulder; the black neckline just above her breasts. And a healthy, airy dip deep into her bosom.
Yes. Once again, eversince that fated September's day in the Forbidden Forest, that fine rayon garment lay folded at her bedside. On the nightstand's little corner, her hands running through the fabric's grooves she can no longer feel. The loose threads at the ends; the tiny webs of tearings inflicted upon it. Yet, the damage was not so enough to degrade its beauty.
Just as the inferno had spared hers.
And now, she welcomed the lovely darkness she adorned herself with once again, and it brought forth memories both bitter yet sweet.
She wore nothing beneath the dress. The arts of the practice were to allow the body to breathe; to find an ancient nature in all its surroundings.
Mharii could not feel the air's sacred touch liberating her senses as she once had. Yet the memory whisked a touch in itself.
With one final glance, she entwined her fingers about her black wand, stepping her barren feet into the dorm.
It may have been a chamber. And curtains draped over even the window's corners. Sealing off the day to cast this chamber into nocturnal delights. Darkness.
Beeswax candles of various sizes and heights encircled a center in which assorted wishbone-shaped twigs. Clear quartz and obsidian shards alternated between them, symbolizing clarity and warding off negativity. Pink salt, derived from the Himalayas, lined a generous circle outside the candles.
A light tap scratched by her nightstand. Mharii glanced across, hiked up her dress, and wove around the setup. She brushed aside the curtain, squinting at the intrusion of daylight, only to smile at the black feathers flapping against the glass. She eased it up a notch, and Ontario swept against the curtains. She shut out the world once again, and with a readjustment of the curtain, she returned herself to darkness and candlelight.
Ontario passed over the center of the Pagan scene, his talons dropping a clear, ruddy, crystallized bead onto Mharii's outstretched palm.
She knelt down onto her knees, her dress pooling around her. "Thanks, Ontario." She held the uneven bead to her eye, gazing through it at a candle. Then a sniff. She held out her fingers, and sure enough, fragrant remnants, sticky to the eye, rubbed on her pads. Merely frozen outside, fallen into snow. "Coniferous blood," she confirmed, restating the ingredient necessary for the spell. Tree resin.
Ontario had superior senses. He chose spruce, one of her favourite scents.
Mharii eyed the wooden bowl of water she had positioned in the center, and dropped the bead of coniferous blood in it. Her long sleeves draped over the bowl's rim, her fingers twirling as she channeled a graceful will into the ritual.
Plunk.
The light, hollow splash fell on her ears, droplets escaping onto her sleeve. Glinting specks of candlelight onto her; like that of a raging forest memory.
Ontario perched safely on her pillow, his big black eyes too, seeing an old memory resurrect.
Removing her hands from the bowl's rim, she postured her spine straight, folding her legs. She raised both arms, cupping her palms in a form of surrender. The wand entwined in her fingers as a channel, draping down in the direction of her long sleeve.
Natural. Remember the breath. Remember the old times.
Mharii's lips parted, her eyes drawing closed. One breath. Her ears tuned to the sound. One inhale. One exhale. Remember. The wispy rush of sound heightened in her senses. She held her mind suspended in dimensions of thought and connotation, her body finding the rhythm within itself to rise and fall. To cycle the incense caressing her numbed lungs; to mist out the terrible nothing that no longer has the power to ground her in lies.
In, and out.
Her arms scarcely wavered. Spread out against gravity's resistance.
She didn't have to see it.
She didn't have to feel it.
A soft, puff of air soothed her ears. In, and out.
Through magic. Simply known through magic.
Light flickered through her eyelids. And through the blindness, she knew warmth directed itself at her.
"I beseech clarity," she started, her voice crystalline as if quenched by an eternal fountain. "Through the elements in which I cannot know; through the tree's wisdom they have seen through many a season."
The young, dark witch raised both arms gradually. Her wand 90°, then 270°, and finally, a complete union of entwined hands above her head, the wand gripping toward the ceiling.
Her bosom puffed in and out; her shoulders powerful.
"Let me immerse into the darkness once again. Guide my hands of what I may do with it."
Radiant, white light wisped about the ceiling. Curving into a spiral feet above her wand's tip. Circling, it pooled like little veins into a central stream, descending its way down to the source of its magic.
Her lips twitched. She knew the beam's familiarity; even if not its overhead string of light could brush her closed eyelids.
The stream funneled into her wand; an eternal pacing of gathering light overhead.
In. And out. She recalled her breath---his breath.
In the very beginning of lessons, they once sat across from one another. Listening to the breaths from the other. For hours. A discipline, her professor had said. And once he made a suggestion . . . a suggestion to breathe into each other.
Harmonizing. Like how choirs on either altar sing to blend into one another. A chord playing into another one.
For union can unleash magic untold.
It was only in recent times, did she realize another hidden woe lie beneath Snape's command.
Breathe into each other.
"I beseech," she started, her lips remaining parted. "I beseech.
"I beseech,
I beseech, I beseech . . ." she internalized the chant, but it remained ever strong.
And the bowl rose, its shadow shrinking on the stone floor. Nudging her bottom lip.
"I beseech . . ."
The radiant light continued its steady flow into her Black Walnut wand, as if running through every wooden fiber. Her voice seemed to change over the minutes . . . as if in a hollow chamber. An echo tinged her chords, ethereal and pristine in its desire.
She breathed in the continuous rhythm, following the sounds as her guide. In and out. In and out. Replaying his voice calmed her motions; gave life to the experience she relished in indulging in---and this was only the simple.
"I . . ." the bowl nudged her lips again. ". . . beseech."
Mharii's eyes eased open at the sensation she could not feel. Like a limb through water, both palms made a slowed spread. Covering the entire narrow base of the bowl, she eased it to her lips, her fingers curling outside the shallow rim.
She tipped it slightly, the crystalline, resin-bathed waters to rush to her parted lips---
SPLASH.
All in a matter of a second---"Desine!" ---Mharii heard herself collapse onto the floor, her ankles taking a slight crack---she had been levitating nearer to the ceiling than the floor. The door had burst open, and she found her eyes blinking out the ritual-induced water, the remains spilt into a crazed pattern on the floor. A third of the candle's flames snuffed out. Pink, glittering salt absorbing a dark tint with the seeping water.
"Oh Merlin, I'm sorry Ri."
Tonks widened eyes scanned every inch of the setup, and she got in the circle, tipping the bowl upright. A measly third of the water left.
"As you should." Mharii glared at her, quirking a brow. Tonks had cast the ceasing charm upon entry.
Mharii glanced around herself. A half-chaosed darkness, with tipped candles, spreading water, and likely, a painful ankle. She hadn't even noticed when she had gone from sitting to levitating---from hands entwined above her head, to cupping the infusion to drink. Her wand lay beside a puddle, the surprise having flung it safely away. Yet it mattered little to her, the lack of logic that dwelled within the transition. It meant she had truly immersed herself in the practice.
"You're reviving the Dark Arts again. Beyond Snape's classroom."
A disbelieved laugh took her. Mharii retrieved her wand, then returned to the broken, wayward circle. She kneeled an arm on her upright knee, summoning the dissipated Himalayan salt into a central pile. "Is that so astray? It breathes life and energy; it breathes---"
Tonks cut in with sped words. "Does it breathe feeling?"
Mharii faced down, a damp strand clung to her shoulder. She rubbed both thumb on her wand. "No." Yet she looked up to a silent Tonks. "Yet the magic knows, the magic tells me so."
"Magic is not the answer to everything.
"Muggles have wisdom, in spite of us. Magic can never replace a sense. It is no sixth sense; it is only an arcane route to manipulation, for better or worse."
Pausing her wand, she let both palms rest upon the salt mound. Her gaze hazed all, processing.
She failed to look her best friend in the eye. Everything in Mharii's mind gilded itself as the inferno's rendering of her unnatural, uncanny beauty---an idealized, often misguided knowledge creating, and crafting itself into something new entirely. Be it innocence, or subliminal wickedness beneath it. "There is nothing so malicious about this spell."
"Look at you! The Dark Arts begins to tamper with the surroundings, and then the mind. If it draws you too deep into its power . . . it can levitate you, feed you things, and your unquestioning mind takes it at will." She pinched the resin bead, sniffing it. "You don't even know where its been---does Ontario know the difference between sickly wood, or worse---it's the Forbidden Forest---a cursed tree? Or have you at least boiled; oh I don't know---asked Sprout or Snape?" Hazel seeped into her purple locks, returning it to natural forest-textured strands.
A mutter, more like one to herself, escaped Tonks's lips. "I don't want to lose you again."
"What?"
"A part of you has been lost, Ri. I can't see it. Nor you, or anyone. But perhaps, soon, it'll unveil itself to you. In a physical form we can know and understand."
Mharii flicked her wand, half-watching the minerals and candles sort themselves onto her shelf; the vanishing waters; the pink salts glittering against the reviving of daylight---she had absentmindedly drew her wand behind her, the curtains drawing to the side. Her gaze nestled on the salt's path, funneling into an amber-tinted jar on her shelf.
She examined herself, drawing up her sleeves over her shoulders. A blush tinged her cheeks, her nose arched in a light awkwardness.
After a long standing, Mharii turned, and sat on her bed's edge. Silence took her, and with it a failing justification after justification exhausting her mind. All not suitable for a best friend's insight.
Bluntness might as well be told---
The dorm's door opened again. Instead of the swift click, the footfalls paused---and a slow, easing close followed. The untying of shoelaces.
Books in arms, her roommate walked up towards her bed, relieving herself of the day's weight one by one, the quill and ink, extra books, notepads, and so forth on her bed's identical Ravenclaw shelf. Caramel braids swinging over her shoulder, she paused, glancing down. Rue lifted up a leg and craned a neck at her socked foot, glancing at the two best friends, then rolled her head, scanning the floor.
Rue settled her gaze on the contrast of outfits: Tonks in her usual robes post-classes; and Mharii . . . clad in a medieval, rather dance-worthy dress that only seemed to emphasize the wickedness of her hips and breasts. She scrutinized her face at the gothic, uncanny appearance.
"You're practicing the Dark Arts again," she said. A sharpness tinged her tone.
"I am," Mharii stated matter-of-factly. It was foolish to conceal it.
Silence continued.
Rue continued to run her attention about the floor. Then up to Mharii's shelf. Thin, scarce smoke tendrilled off the beeswax wicks, vanishing into transparency not even inches above. Quartz hastily laid beside obsidian, positioned at awkward angles, one that could be an eyesore of a small pile.
Mharii leaned forward on her bed, quickly speaking up. "Oh, sorry. Thought I got it all." She shared her roommate's gaze near the shelf's corner, where a remaining gloss of leftover water crept inches from the polished wood. She angled her wand just around the direction of Rue's socked feet. "Evanesco."
Dryness seemed to return as initially. Yet the room held onto its sheer tension.
"Cool. I'm not involved in this." Rue darted over towards the front of her bed, snatching a raspberry-flavored sugar quill amongst the snacks she had in a little box on her side of the nightstand. "I'm not interested in losing my sleep," she said, and already, she stood at the door, easing on her shoes. With a brisk strut back, she scooped half the schoolwork she had just unloaded off her shoulders for the day. She paused, looking Mharii straight in the eye. "Especially my feeling."
The things ignorance says.
"Keep it away from me. And if you were smart," she nudged a head towards the Ravenclaw emblem painted on Mharii's shelf, yet beholding all its strange and dangerous contents. "You would keep it away from yourself."
Mharii rose, leaving a watchful Tonks sitting. "The Dark Arts follows me wherever I go, Rue. I cannot leave what follows me. Like a phantom-possessed soul, no amount of healing can rid the darkness but a direct equal and opposite counter-attack of an exorcism itself." Her lips curled into a slight sneer she had adopted from the hours of working with the Dark Arts master, spitting out crisp philosophy she had acquired and been tested upon.
Rue squinted her eyes at the confession. Her eyes widened, landing on Tonks. "Then do an exorcism."
Tonks ran a finger through her enflaming hair, her eyes resisting to convey an absolute cringe.
A bitter laugh escaped Mharii's lips. "Oh, that's exactly what I've been attempting," she started, "it's simply a bit more complicated than that. If not through resistance . . . I must seek answers through practice."
"Spare me it all," she put up a hand, thinning her lips. She avoided their gazes, opening the door. All in a matter of minutes.
"Wait," the words slipped out of her mouth at an instinctive hope, "You're welcome to study here. It's your space just as it is mine---"
Click.
The footfalls died away.
"Nope." Tonks had an indifferent raise of eyebrows, her tone clear and final. "As I have said time and time again, the sorting hat did not mistype you. You're not Slytherin, come what may of their words."
"Oh? Snape's smarter than Flitwick. Yet Ravenclaw saved him for Slytherin."
"Well, Merlin's beard, your justification was wisdom in itself."
Mharii sighed. She fell back on the sheets, her wild hair splayed out amongst the crinkled rolls and dips of the covers. Ontario left Tonks's affection, hopping over to close his talons on a wrinkle to steady himself, beside Mharii. His beak parted, letting out a soft, subdued little hoot, then nuzzled his feathery face into her elbow. At the sound, she turned, and a brief, yet saddened smile formed, at her owl's little affection she used to feel. She turned a neck, facing her.
"I regret in guilt," Mharii started. "I indeed unsettle her, as my practices had in the past. But I strive, I strive so hard to do so when our schedules misalign. To spare us both. She deserves to study here, not feel the need to flee. I see Rue more when she sleeps than anything."
Tonks snorted. Her tone was a bit more chipper. "You didn't exactly respond in the kindest manner."
Closing her eyes, Mharii smiled. "Snape has taught me great things."
"Wow, there's your cocky inner-Ravenclaw. Right there," Tonks joked.
Sitting up, Mharii eased her feet onto the bed. She crossed them. "How come you, of all houses---Hufflepuff, are the one to not fault everything I do? At least sparing the quarter of it."
"Consider me defending the light arts that still kindle within you. Just as bright, if not some of it dormant."
I don't want to lose you again.
Mharii let her words, both recent and far, sift through her mind. She let her attention wander to the shelf at the edge of the bed, a quartz's tip and a number of candle wicks just scarcely pointing over the protective wooden wall. A part of her sensed a new ominosity with the Dark Arts---a fleeting, but terrible empathy to Rue's, and many other peers' assumptions. Not in just dark wizardry and witchcraft, but in things that ruin the soul, the mind---that split a happiness into ceasing nothing. That carve out mistakes damaging and further damaging---until the mind screams of its own pain and collapses in its spiraling achievement.
Yet merely a crazed second, she allowed herself to feel it. Lest it swallow her into the old, repressed memories and never find the strength again.
"I can't forsake my calling, Tonks. I won't hide it from you that yes---the Dark Arts draws me in, beyond the classroom---into all things existential."
Tonks leaned forward, running her knuckles through Ontario's feathers. An old curve of her lips came again. "You know, you weren't always terrible in potions."
Mharii supported both hands on the bed, looking from her to Rue's rug. Her eyebrows had knitted together above those questioning eyes.
"When it came to a spell---a ritual---you put your mind to it all. Sure, you lack the passion for other skills, aside from your striving for top grades, but you welcomed the interdisciplinary like a hobby in itself. Attentive to everything. Even the most advanced of potions, you'd learn---if it meant something in the Dark Arts."
A weak smile formed on her lips. Mharii brushed her eyes.
"Why do you contradict yourself?"
"Because there exists merit to your beliefs. Because honesty is the best policy. And, I don't know? Because I myself strive to understand a benign pursuit from one not so evil."
Mharii squeezed her hand. Nearing a year from now, you shall start an auror's path. And mine the darkness. "You know, when you catch this Dark Witch one day, you'd be the best auror. The one who could turn me in, but turn me in right."
Yet for the darkness, I summon the pursuit of light I fail to find anywhere else.
Tonks sighed, drawing out a miniature, wooden hydro flask, chugging a large sip. "Yeah, you'd lose me my job."