The first thing Raven became aware of was dazzling light. No matter how tightly Dilly tried to close the curtains, sunbeams forced their way through the gaps. Several times during the night, the worried elf had tiptoed over to Raven just to reassure herself that her mistress was safe and well. After Raven's ordeal last evening — and the one before — she deserved a bit of a lie-in. Raven brought her hand to her chest, thinking of the deadly green light that had almost found her. It seemed like a horrible nightmare but her sore wrists were proof it was real. She sat up just in time to see Dilly walking in with hot tea and croissants.
"Good morning, Miss Raven!"
"I love you, Dilly."
Dilly looked up in surprise and said softly, "I loves you too..., is everything okay?"
"It's just important to never take things for granted. Life is fragile."
"Yes, mistress. Things can reminds us of that."
"If something happened to me, where would you want to go?"
Dilly looked fearful. "Are you sure nothin's wrong?"
"Yes, I just think there should be a plan. I don't want you to be with the Malfoys. I would never want you near Lucius." Dilly sighed quietly with relief. "I'm thinking Draco and Astoria if that's okay with you. Lyra told me wonderful things about Andromeda but I don't really know her."
Dilly was quiet for a moment. "What if you gets married?"
"Just for now, I think it should be Draco and Astoria. If we get to know Andromeda and you like her better — or if I get married — it can be changed. How does that sound?"
"Whatever you wants, Miss Raven."
"No, I want it to be what you want. That's what I want."
"I agrees with whats you said."
Raven smiled and gave her a hug. "I guess I should get up." She began to get dressed while pondering what to tell Charlie.
If she stayed here, how often could she see him? He said it was almost 9,000 kilometers from here to his workplace in Romania. It wouldn't be fair to take Brae from her herd, plus she would be in too much danger around all those dragons. Apparating or using the Floo Network would be dangerous for Chit so she'd have to use a broom. That meant it would take almost five days to get there, even on a Firebolt. The summer holidays would be the only time there were enough travel days to do that. That meant Charlie would have to do most of the traveling. He could Apparate from various points, or perhaps the Ministry of Magic could give him a Portkey.
If she left here, what would that mean? Dilly had opened the bedroom curtains and Raven walked over to take in the view. The trees were at their peak of Autumn splendor. The late morning sun lit up the golden forest and the sky was a delicate azure blue. Her heart ached at the thought of leaving this. Raven had only been here around three months but it felt like home. She cracked open the window and could smell mouldering leaves and the distant smoke from a bonfire. It was Monday but the Headmistress had declared it a holiday for students and staff since everyone was up late the night before. The students were outside, protected from the chilly weather in their cloaks and House scarves. A few were flying at the Quidditch pitch but most of them were on the lawn. Some standing in huddles or playing games but the rest were gathered around a large bonfire, drinking hot cider and watching Fire Salamanders play in the crackling logs. Their laughter drifted up to her window.
Leaving here would mean giving up a prestigious position with possibly the largest collection of magical books in the wizarding world at her disposal. While it would be hard to leave so many colleagues she'd grown to respect and care for, the real difficulty would be leaving her family. She would never get the chance to know Andromeda, and Brae would have to stay here. But what about Charlie? It was hard to imagine being here or anywhere without him. They could be together all the time if she moved to Romania, and she would definitely have more time for research. Plus she wouldn't have to deal with all the drama this place seems to attract. Raven had made her decision.
________
It was almost lunchtime and Raven still hadn't talked to Charlie. She had spotted him outside the cabin after breakfast. He was talking to a huge man at least twice his size. It had to be Hagrid. She knew they had a lot of catching up so she decided to wait until later.
As soon as she went inside the Great Hall for lunch, she saw them. With Hagrid's size and Charlie's red hair, they were hard to miss. To her surprise, Marco was sitting at the staff table as well. He still looked thin but his color was much better. The familiar frantic wave made her smile. Poor, Marco; he had been through so much. It was good to know he was as harmless as she had originally thought. She walked over to him. "It's great to see you back, Marco!"
Marco beamed. "I heard you created the potion and broke the curse!"
"Oh, I had a lot of help. I hope things weren't too horrible for you," she said quietly.
"I wasn't at Azkaban so not that bad. They kept me at St. Mungo's since they knew I needed... medical help." He looked down at his plate in embarrassment.
"Well, I'm sure everyone is glad to see you. Hogwarts just hasn't been the same."
Charlie motioned for her to come over. "Raven, There's someone I want you to meet."
"Excuse me, Marco, we'll catch up later."
Raven sat down next to Charlie. "You doin' okay?" Charlie asked anxiously.
"I'm fine." She reached under the table and squeezed his hand.
"I'd like you to meet Rubeus Hagrid."
Raven held out her hand. "It's wonderful to meet you. Should I call you Rubeus?" Chit cocked her head at Hagrid and made a long cooing sound.
"Call meh Hagrid. Ever'one does," said Hagrid, shaking her hand. "Charlie says great things about yeh." He patted Charlie on the back.
"I've heard great things about you as well." Raven gave him a dazzling smile.
Hagrid patted Charlie so hard, he pitched forward in his chair.
"Sorry abou' tha', Charlie," Hagrid said, getting flustered.
"So, was your mission a success, Hagrid?" said Raven.
"Uh, well... yeah. Was a bigger success than I bargained fer." He and Charlie both laughed. "I expected Grawp ter find a female giant aroun' his size. He hit it off with one o' the largest females there. I'm 'fraid his cave may be too small fer 'em."
"I can enlarge it for you," Charlie said.
"Tha' would be great, thanks." Hagrid turned to Raven. "I hear yer ridin' on Brae."
"I hope that's okay." Raven said.
"Sure, tha's fine. Good thin' she don' eat birds." Hagrid gestured at Chit. "Tha' there's a beauty."
Raven smiled at Chit. "Thank you. I'm lost without her." Chit nudged herself a little closer to Raven's cheek. Hagrid nodded approvingly.
"Raven can do Legilimency with animals," Charlie said proudly.
Hagrid was stunned. "Tha's a rare gift tha' is!"
"Not all animals," Raven said quickly. "And I have to be able to touch my head to their's."
"Ah, well then yeh'd never be able ter communicate with dragons," Hagrid said, disappointment in his voice.
"Actually...," Charlie proceeded to tell him about their adventure with the Japanese Water Dragon.
Hagrid looked at Raven. "So yer bird... Chit, can hear wha' a dragon's thinkin'?"
"Yes, but I really don't want her around them if I can help it. She put herself in a lot of danger doing that."
He nodded. "Tha's understandable." He looked sadly at Charlie. "Wish I could've seen the dragon 'fore yeh put it back in the sea."
"We had to," Charlie said. "Deal was to put him back after we got the key. He'd been living at least a year in that pond."
"Yeah, it was the right thin' ter do," he said, though he still looked disappointed.
Charlie began telling him what he had read about Japanese Water Dragons. Hagrid was mesmerized.
Raven felt a light touch on her arm. Gizem and Hardwin had just sat down. "I just... I'm so sorry for what I did," Gizem said. She looked very distressed. "I would never do anything to hurt you!"
"Oh, I know," Raven replied. "That wasn't you — it was her. How are you feeling?"
"I feel great! It's like everything is clear again." Gizem certainly seemed better. Her eyes were bright, and she was eating her breakfast as if she hadn't eaten in days.
"How is your head, Hardwin?" Raven said.
"Completely healed. Minerva sent Pepperup Potion and Skelegro to my quarters."
"I'm so glad."
Gizem leaned in close to Raven and whispered, "Guess what he found this morning?"
"What?"
"The inner pages to the book Milly tore apart!" Hardwin looked down modestly.
"That's great! Where was it?"
"At the bottom of a cupboard in the hospital wing," Gizem said. "People tried to look there before but Poppy had a fit. After the curse was broken, she invited Hardwin to look anywhere he wanted." Gizem's smile left her face briefly. "Poppy seems to be taking all of this really hard. She blames herself for everything since she was the one that hired Milly."
"Milly fooled a lot of people, myself included." Raven looked at Hardwin. "Were you able to repair the book?"
"Yes, I went to Minerva and she gave me the cover. All I had to do was the Papyrus Reparo Charm and it looked just like before." He pulled the book out of his satchel so she could see. It was hard to believe that harmless looking book had once had a deadly screaming Mandrake photo inside the front cover.
"Irma will be overjoyed," Raven said. "She was so upset after she saw the torn-off cover, Minerva asked me to make some Calming Draught for her."
"I'm taking it to the library right after lunch," Hardwin said.
Raven turned back towards Charlie and gave him a questioning look. He was still answering Hagrid's endless questions about dragons.
"Hey, Hagrid, um... Raven and I need to talk about some stuff," Charlie said. "I'll come by later and see about making Grawp's cave bigger."
"Tha'd be great." Hagrid suddenly looked worried. "I better go check on 'em. Grawp promised ter keep his new friend in line but... yeh never know."
They all got up from the table. "See ya later then," Charlie said.
The lake was Raven and Charlie's favorite place for a private conversation. They were barely out the front door though when they ran into Harry. "Just who I was coming to see!" He took a parcel out from inside his robes.
Raven knew it had to be the music box. "Has everyone been cured?"
Harry handed her the package and nodded. "We used Veritaserum on Bulstrode last night. The only person cursed we didn't know about was a witch, Dottie Spencer."
Raven nodded. "The one that creates the beauty potion Milly takes."
"You know about that?" Harry said "Yeah, we had... um... quite a shock last night," he said, trying not to laugh. "The potion wore off while we were interrogating her. She looks like I remember her now."
"How are the people at St. Mungo's?" Raven said.
"All good. We broke the curse on them first thing this morning."
"Milly give you any details 'bout how she pulled this off?" Charlie said.
"Yeah, but keep this under your hat. I'm not supposed to be discussing this yet but since the two of you were essential to solving this whole thing..." Raven and Charlie promised. "Seems she cursed Madam Pomfrey during her job interview, then Dottie Spencer. A few weeks later, Marco Dolohov was her victim. She gave him the music box and tried to get him to curse people but he wasn't very successful. Filch was his only victim. At some point, she took the music box out of Dolohov's office for a couple hours and cursed some students. Had them do things like scrub bedpans. Seemed to get a kick out of using Griffindor students to do her scut work." Charlie made a few choice remarks about that. "After the article came out about the music box being stolen, she took it out of Dolohov's office permanently. Gizem Sezer was cursed shortly after Bulstrode realized people knew the music box was in the castle. Then she hid it in the library and used Sezer to distract people from finding it." Harry moved towards the doorway. "I better go fill in Minerva about everything. Cheers!"
Raven and Charlie were both quiet as they walked by the lake.
"Guess you can get your locket back now," Charlie said, breaking the silence.
"Yes, I still need to put the enchantment on this music box, then we can make the switch."
As soon as they were behind some shrubbery, hidden from curious eyes, Charlie said, "I think we both know you have to stay here."
Raven was surprised. "Why do you say that?"
"If it weren't for you, who knows how long 'till that curse was broken. You have the best reference material here for research and the family you've been longing for."
"Well, it would be hard to leave my family and my position but Charlie..." She couldn't find the words. They looked at each other, knowing what was too hard to say. Raven was glad he had been the one to say it. She had decided to stay but dreaded telling him.
"Plan on visiting as much as I can. Mum will love that!" Charlie said ruefully.
"Really!" Raven smiled for the first time since they'd gone outside. They held each other for a long time and for once, Chit kept still on her shoulder.
"Promised my mum I'd come by before I left," Charlie said. "I'll do that in the morning, then go back to Romania from there." The day was almost half over and he had promised Hagrid to enlarge Grawp's cave. As if reading her thoughts, Charlie said, "I'll help Hagrid as quick as I can, then we can spend the rest of the day together."
Raven nodded. "Do you want to fly together tonight? I'm sure Brae wants to tell you goodbye."
________
While Charlie was helping Hagrid, Raven went to her office to combine the music box with the bone from the merpeople. The ingredients had been carefully prepared shortly after she left her locket with Dúghlas. Now it was just a matter of heating up her cauldron and adding them in the correct order.
As soon as the potion was ready. Raven took the Impervious Charm off the music box, tapped it three times with her wand and said, "Accipere." Then she placed it carefully in the potion, dropped the bone in, and said, "Antecessoris Conligo." A considerable amount of orange smoke billowed up from the cauldron. When the smoke cleared, Raven peeked inside and breathed a sigh of relief. The only thing left inside the cauldron was the music box. It looked the same except it had a green cast now. She tried to open it but it wouldn't budge. Even after a series of unlocking charms, it was sealed shut. The potion had worked.
An hour later, Raven opened her door to a disheveled Charlie. He ran his fingers through his windblown hair, trying to tame it. "Sorry it took me so long! Met Grawp's new friend. Think her name is... Melmuth? Anyway, right after I enlarged their cave, she took a liking to me and started wiggling her nose and slapping her bum. Evidently that's a big turn on among giants." Charlie shook his head. "Grawp got upset and roared so loud every bird in the area took off flying. Hagrid told me to scarper and he'd work things out."
Raven couldn't help laughing and he smiled. "Guess it is pretty funny."
She held up the music box. "It's done. Permanently sealed except from merpeople. Can we go to the lake now? I can't wait to get my locket back."
"Sorry, forgot to tell you. We have to wait 'til eight. Dúghlas said something 'bout everything having universal balance then.".
Raven shrugged her shoulders. "Alright, eight it is then."
"Have a surprise for you," Charlie said, his eyes twinkling. "Okay if we go to dinner a little early?"
"Sure!" Raven couldn't imagine what he had planned.
They went downstairs but instead of going in the Great Hall, Charlie steered her towards a classroom next to it. When the door opened, Raven's mouth fell open in wonder. It was like walking into an enchanted forest. She remembered getting a glimpse of this room when she was given a tour of the castle. It's the classroom where Firenze, the centaur, teaches Divination. The entire room reflects the outdoors just like the ceiling of the Great Hall. It looks, smells, and sounds like you're outside but has the same temperature as the castle with no rain or snow. When she saw it during the tour, it was a gray, overcast day. Now, the light from the late afternoon sun made the autumn leaves vibrate with color. There were mossy rocks scattered throughout and over to one side was a stream. The gurgling sound reminded her of memories of distant voices, talking and laughing. Next to the stream was a plaid blanket, a picnic basket, and a bottle of wine. Chit flew to a nearby branch, certain this place was something else Charlie had created for her.
"Firenze gave me permission to use his room," Charlie said. "Dilly and Dedee put something together for the picnic."
"Oh, Charlie...." Raven was speechless. She gave him a kiss that contained all the words she couldn't say.
They watched the sun set in their little paradise as they enjoyed a leisurely meal that included freshly baked bread, cheese, grapes, dark chocolate, and wine. Chit waddled over to nab a grape. It started to get dark so Charlie summoned some candles to hover a few inches above the grass. Raven was sure nothing could make this evening better but she was wrong.
"Have something for you." Charlie brought out a small present wrapped in silver paper. Raven looked at him in surprise. Inside was a Claddagh ring. The heart had a blue topaz in the middle.
At first Raven couldn't talk. When she did, her words were choked with emotion. "You have gone to so much trouble, and now... this. I wish I had something to give you."
"You've given me more than you know. Thought it was more dangerous to be in a relationship than work with dragons. You saved me from a life that's... incomplete.
When the last glimmer of light was gone, they went outside and rode together on Brae, enjoying their time together as close as possible. A mist floated up from the forest, and the ground below was barely visible. It felt like they were detached from the world. As Raven and Charlie swooped over the hills, they were certain no one had ever felt as alive as they did in that moment.
Raven's emotions were all over the place. One moment she was overwhelmed with the joy and excitement of flying with Charlie, the next she was deeply sad, remembering he was leaving in the morning. Was she making the right decision?
It was almost eight before they knew it. Brae glided down to the Black Lake and they hopped off. Chit climbed out of Raven's jacket to preen her crumpled feathers while Charlie gave Brae a pat goodbye. He looked at his pocket watch. "Time to get your locket!"
"I hope we'll be able to see them," Raven said. The mist over the lake was even more dense than on land. Everything was peaceful except for the water gently lapping on the bank. It was hard to imagine it was teeming, not only with merpeople but a giant squid, Grindylows, and numerous other creatures.
"Lumos," Raven said. She sat on the bank cross-legged, just like before, hoping they could get this over with quickly so she could spend more time with Charlie. She held her lit wand out to the side so the Merpeople could see her.
Charlie started making the swirling circles on the water to request their appearance. Or at least that's what she hoped was happening since the surface was barely visible.
In a few seconds, they heard a light splashing sound. They peered into the darkness and saw the silhouettes of two merpeople slowly coming towards them. As they came closer into her wand light, Raven recognized the larger one was Dúghlas. He was still wearing her locket. An elderly female was gliding beside him. She stared intently at Raven. Unlike the other merpeople that had dark green hair, hers was light green, perhaps because it was gray. There was something about her that reflected great power and wisdom.
After Charlie thanked them for appearing, Dúghlas nodded and began speaking in Mermish. Then he motioned to the older Merperson who nodded at them as well. "He says the other Merperson is their Ceannard."
Raven nodded. "So she's their leader."
Charlie and the Merpeople continued their conversation. There seemed to be a disagreement. Raven had the impression Charlie wanted Dúghlas to give up Raven's locket before giving them the music box but Dúghlas wanted the music box first.
"Charlie, it's okay," Raven said. "I'll give him the music box first."
"You sure?"
"Yes, I trust them." Raven held the music box out in front of her, pointed her wand at it and said, "Impervious." As soon as she handed it to Dúghlas, he disappeared under the water with the Ceannard.
"What're they playing at!" Charlie said angrily. Chit fluttered her wings anxiously.
"They're probably just checking to see if it has the bone of their ancestor in it and they can open it." Raven's words sounded more confident than she felt. To her relief, they emerged a few minutes later and floated over to them. Dúghlas said something to her in Mermish and held out her locket. Raven took it and looked up at Charlie for interpretation.
"He said thank you and wishes you many Eirenes"
"Eirenes?" Raven inquired.
"An Eirene is the word for daughter. They consider it a great blessing to have daughters."
Raven looked at Dúghlas and the Ceannard, touched her lips with her right hand and turned her palm towards them in the merpeople symbol of gratitude. "I appreciate your trust and help."
Charlie told them what she said and the Ceannard looked at Raven with that penetrating stare again. She reached out her webbed hand to her. They grasped each other's fingers and Raven felt a strange sensation, as if they were connected in a way beyond just their fingers. The Ceannard made a raspy sound, then she and Dúghlas disappeared.
"The Ceannard said you can call her Iona, her given name. That's a great honor."
Raven looked out over the lake. There were only ripples where the merpeople had been. She stared at the locket in her hand. The Impervious charm had kept it dry. "I expected this to feel ice cold after being in the lake, but it became warm almost as soon as I touched it." She put it around her neck and felt a sense of calm that had been sorely missing lately.
Charlie reached for her hand as they walked up to the castle and discussed his traveling options. He was sure he could get a Portkey with the connections he had at the Ministry and planned to visit at least every other weekend.
"You'll be here on your birthday, right?" said Raven. "It falls on a Sunday this year."
"Yeah, but my parents will want to see me that day. You wanna come?"
"I'd love to meet your family."
They walked the rest of the way in silence, each thinking about how hard it will be living so far apart but also excited about their commitment to the future.
Raven looked up at the castle looming in the darkness. The mist seemed to have dissipated and in the distance, she heard the hoot of an owl. They were streaming in and out of the Owlery, either going out for a meal or coming back with one. She reached up to touch her locket. It contained some of the mother who had loved her from afar and the father who left her his legacy. Raven remembered the evening she had read her father's last letter. That was when she knew her future was to carry on his work. The best way to do that was at Hogwarts.
All uncertainty was gone. This was her home. This was her future.