What It Means To Be

by spinner

9

"Let's go slower this time, shall we?" Harry said, bringing Brim Stoneburne a cup of piping hot tea and aiming his wand at the sectional divan that occupied the front area of the living quarters at Grimwood. 

"Sorry about all that excitement back at the Tower," Brim said, sipping her tea.

"Is the young miss hungry?" Spit asked, peering around the doorway from the kitchen. 

"Already had dinner, thanks," Brim replied.  "Told Mum I was going for a walk in the woods to clear my head.  We have to hurry, before she decides I've been gone too long."

"We can't do much until Malfoy gets here.  I don't know if Severus will be able to join us either."

"Terribly sorry about your tower."

"Nonsense.  It added a bit of excitement to the day," Harry grinned. 

"What about your professor?  He looks like a bleeding badger, for Merlin's sake."

"He'll find the right shade of hair dye in no time.  Don't you worry," Harry mused. "Can I ask?  What precisely is an L-9 conduit vortex, and how did you open one?"

"An L-9 is straight down, as it were."

"Straight down?"

"An express lift to Hell."

"You opened a portal to Hell, like the REAL HELL?!" Harry exclaimed. 

"You said you were looking for Lucius Malfoy.  It was the most logical starting point," Brim replied calm and cold again.

"In spite of my personal dislike for the man, I'm not sure we'll have to go quite that deep," Harry protested.   He finished levitating the sectional and stuck it on the ceiling out of the way.  Brim used her booted toes to roll up the area rug that lay underneath.  Pillows were stacked against the bookcases, and the hard wood floor was finally exposed.  Brim held her tea in one hand and rummaged around in her pocket.

"Why are you searching for Lucius Malfoy's ghost?" Brim asked. 

"I'm trying to channel his spirit.  I've tried before alone, but I never quite reach him.  He's there.  I can feel he's close.  I've been reading a book for help.  It recommended a protection circle, and I need someone not myself holding open the channel until Lucius is banished back again to wherever he is spending eternity."

"Then we need at least three people for this," Brim answered, searching another pocket.  "My mum would be the logical choice, but I'm not sure she'd help us unless she knew exactly why."

"You, me, Draco.  That's three.  I'd like to keep this small and simple.  Severus is welcome if he shows, but I doubt he will.  We gave him quite the scare this afternoon."

Brim rolled her eyes at Harry as she went back to her jacket, which Sparks had hung by the front door. 

"I'm out of chalk.  I need more."

"You mean for a blackboard?"
 

"No.  Enchanted chalk to draw the runes.  Mum calls it spiky fairy dust.  White, preferably, but I could use blue in a pinch.  I can use it to keep the portal open only as far as we want it."

"It's Christmas Eve.  I doubt your favorite Dark Arts store is open."

"I can't go home and get it."

"Why not?"

"Mum's bound to ask why I'm drawing enchanted circles again."

"Again?" Harry questioned.

"I nicked a stick of her best vindictive green last year, and unleashed a plague of frogs on the neighbors over the hill.  They've moved since.  They kept drawing up frogs from their well instead of water."

"Why did you….?" Harry asked.

"Because Babs Barrowman kept making fun of me, and I wasn't going to stand for any more of it!'

"Okay.  Forget I asked.  Can't we make this chalk?  What do you need?  If Malfoy is down the street setting up his shoppe again, maybe we can convince him to let us buy some ingredients.  He said he had to tidy up the shoppe, and that was why he couldn't go with me to the CeeBees tonight."

"What if he figures out what you're up to?"

"Maybe he'll be curious enough to follow us home."

"Master, you shouldn't go out in this weather!" Sparks called around the corner of the kitchen.

"I must, briefly," Harry answered.

"You'll catch a cold!  What will we tell people?  What kind of house elves will they think we are??"

"No one is going to think a thing.  You stay here and have yourself some tea."

"Are you going to leave that there?  It could fall!" she shrieked, pointing to the furniture on the ceiling.

"It'll be fine.  We shouldn't be long.  Bring you anything?"

"Soap?" Spit asked happily.

"See what I can do," Harry nodded.  

Brim and Harry exited the quiet library through the downstairs, and hardly noticed at all when Modesto fell in step behind them as they went through the front gates and headed into the nearly-deserted village streets.  Brim was finishing her tea, carrying the small cup in her palm.  Wisps of white smoke, breath, and steam followed behind her.    

"She makes great tea, your girl house elf," Miss Stoneburne commented. 

"Thanks.  Sparks is a little fidgety, but a dear at heart."

The wind and blowing snow from the morning and afternoon had quieted down as the storm front had disappeared, leaving a dark and beautiful sky lit with stars and a ground covered in precisely a foot and a half of heavy, wet, white flakes.   In the distance, one or two stores remained open in the village.  A warm glow from street lamps and from upstairs apartments over the many shops blanketed the corners and patches along the snow-covered bricks.  Caroling and laughter could be heard from the front of the CeeBees children's home.  Harry watched the orphanage with a smile as Sister Silverthorne passed out cookies and coins to the carolers on her stoop, doing her best to encourage them to be quieter.  Dinner there had been very festive, and Sparks' food had been well-received.   But after a while, it was clear the community members were ready to bed the children down for the night, and that was generally the time when all volunteers, including Harry Potter, were expected to leave until the next day.  Harry had gone quietly, waving goodnight from the stoop. 

Harry watched the glow of smiling faces in the windows around the village.  People were turned inside towards family and friends and loved ones.  The occasional shopper darted past with an armload of cargo, surely on the course to a decided destination.   The last of the college students had either shuttered their dorms up for the night or they had gone home to their families, for the buildings at M&M were all noticeably quiet too.   Everyone had somewhere they were expected to be—everyone except Harry.   His isolation weighed on him more than ever before. 

Brim sipped her tea to the last drop and then put the cup inside her oversized-jacket pocket.  Harry decided she must be wearing a man's jacket, because it was not cut in a flattering way.  It hung on her thin frame.  It was also deer brown.  It must have been her father's coat, Harry decided.   Walking in step with her, he opened a link, and for a second, only a second, he managed to grab a clue.

"Howling in the moonlight is not going to help," Owen said with a smile. 

"I want to go out," Brim sulked.  Owen grabbed blindly at the cloak tree by the door and wrapped the brown article around his frowning daughter. 

"Go on then, but be mindful of the wolves."

"I'm not afraid of wolves," Brim had muttered on her way out into the snow. 

Harry wanted to ask Brim how things were going with her clerical job at the Daily Prophet, but didn't want to broach the topic in case she might make things burst into flames again, as Hermione had said.  He wasn't sure how exactly to make cheerful, polite conversation with her when it was obvious she didn't want any.    

"Did you get what you wanted for Christmas this year?" Harry asked in the silence of their footfalls and snow crunches.

"Don't know yet," Brim answered cryptically.   Must be they hadn't opened all their presents yet, as it was only Christmas Eve.  Brim wasn't what one would ever consider warm and friendly.  Harry would have been surprised if he had received a reply of any sort.   Just like her father, she kept her walls up at all times. 

"Me either," Harry replied.  He had yet to find the Christmas tree that he had seen in his vision about Severus and the settee, and he was starting to lose hope.  It was obviously possible, as Christmas did occur once a year, that the vision had been further in the future than this present, approaching holiday.  Somehow that thought made Harry droop with depression.  He had been looking forward to Christmas and Severus and the settee since Halloween, at the very least. 

"He's open.  The lights are on," Brim pointed ahead.  Harry wondered if that was her way of cutting off the direction of the conversation.   She hurried along at a brisker pace, and he had a hard time keeping up.  Brim's face clouded when she got closer, and then it turned to the standard gargoyle frown.

"Hi," Burnie Stoneburne greeted his sister uneasily.  Harry peered around the corner inside Malfoy's shoppe.  Draco himself was not present, much to Harry's surprise.  Hermione was there, dressed in jeans and a thick canvas over-shirt.  She had a band in her hair to keep it out of her eyes.   Her mouth was bristling with nails, and she set down a hammer in order to wave at Harry around the figures of Neville and Luna Longbottom. 

"You told Mum you were going for a walk in the woods," Brim said angrily to her brother, who was holding up a long section of wooden shelving.  Harry walked up to open space where the shattered front windows should have been and gaped at Neville as Brim and Burnie continued to argue. 

"You must have told her the same thing, or she wouldn't have let you out of the house," Burnie chuckled.

"I'm walking, aren't I?"

"I'm walking," Burnie defended, carrying his piece of wood over to where Hermione waited to pound it into place in the next layer of shelves. 

"What is this?" Potter wondered. 

Floating candles lit the interior of the shoppe, and it was evident that his friends had been making the most of their stolen time.  The small space gleamed with new wood, sparkling, spanking-clean shelves, even a new ceiling.  It smelled like sawdust and  candle wax and Luna's favorite lavender soap.  

"Tis the sprit of the season," Neville answered, blushing red. 

Harry stepped inside and stared around.   As he did so, Modesto came into view at the front of the store.   His guard stuck his head through the window area as Neville poured a greenish vial of slimy stuff into the bottom seam of the sash. 

"Watch out," Longbottom cautioned.  Guido ducked his head back as the slime climbed through the open area, standing up on itself until it reached the height of the top of the sash, where it nestled deep into the crevice and held tight.  Neville chuckled to himself and touched his wand to the surface of the nearly-transparent material.  Modesto ambled through the doorway into the shoppe as Harry stared around in wonder and felt his heart beating strangely.  He loved his friends so intensely in that second, and wanted to hug them and tell them how much they meant to him.  He also didn't want to make an ass of himself.  He decided it might be best to avoid the group hug for now. 

"I'd've helped, you know," he said finally, putting on a frown he didn't feel.  It instantly melted like so much snow under the glow of his sudden smile. 

"We'd have included you, Harry, but we weren't sure you could keep from telling Draco," Hermione explained before picking up another handful of nails.  Luna patted Neville lovingly on the shoulder.

"Looks great," Luna piped, pointing to the window. 

"When it dries, it should be fine," Neville said. 

"What is it?" Harry asked Neville. 

"A botanical experiment," Longbottom explained.  "You'll have to wait until it dries for a proper demonstration, but it could catch on, I do believe.  How's the fireplace coming along?" he asked his wife. 

"I can't carve the runes in the stones until the mortar sets," Luna explained.   In the place of the battered, red brick hearth, a beige-brown earth-tone construction now stood.  The new mantle was a long, thick beam of yellow-white wood.  Harry saw that Luna had made a circle of new stones inside and out of the space.  She had scrubbed the hearth itself until it gleamed.  The mantle matched the new countertop for the shiny silver till.  The front counter was also made of yellow-white wood.  Luna had already begun to carve in the edge along the counter.  Small dragons cavorted back and forth. 

"Ash," Hermione explained, sorting nails in her palm.   Harry nodded.  "You were looking for Malfoy?" Hermione asked.  Harry nodded again.  "I saw him headed down the street towards M&M with Professor Snape.  I hoped they weren't going to return for some time."

"I hate to tell you," Modesto whispered, "but someone is coming this way."

Draco Malfoy paused at the corner before crossing the street, and was surprised to see Brim Stoneburne and Harry Potter emerging from the remains of his apothecary shoppe.  Harry's face lit up when he saw Severus was but a few steps behind Draco on the sidewalk. Severus had already dyed the white streak in his hair black.  They exchanged greetings without words, smiling at each other, not largely, not in a silly manner, but in polite, public, acceptable terms which made their greeting that much more obvious to everyone around.

"I thought you were at the - - -" Severus pointed towards the orphanage.   His hands rustled in his cloak.  He was shrinking and hiding presents.  Harry pretended not to notice.

"It was bed time.  Everyone who wasn't sleeping there had to leave," Harry explained.  "We've been searching all over for you," Potter added, directing his words at Malfoy.  Brim hadn't spoken yet, and remained in the shadows in the front of the shoppe window.  The acrid smell of fire and burnt wood filled the air.  Harry gave Brim a puzzled look, and she cast her eyes about shiftily.  As he had created the physical glamoire, had she also created the olfactory one to mask the smell of fresh wood, sawdust, and butter beer?  Modesto was holding a lump of damaged brick, tisking to himself.  

"Why were you searching for me?" Malfoy wondered. 

"I was hoping to buy the necessary ingredients for enchanted chalk.  We're fresh out at home," Brim interjected finally, hoping Modesto wasn't going to contradict her. 

"What color?" Draco asked.

"White, or blue if not white."

"I have the ingredients back at school," Malfoy answered.  "It may take a few minutes to gather.  You can't wait here.  You can - - -"

"Why don't you meet us at Grimwood?" Harry suggested.

"All right," Draco agreed.  "Payment required before delivery, naturally."

Harry scooped change from his pocket, and Brim did as well.  Modesto even chipped in a few coins.  Brim pushed through the coinage and gave most of it to Draco.  Malfoy counted the silver and gold pieces, and held his hand again.  She put more coins in it, and Draco nodded, satisfied.  He stood for a long moment, gazing forlornly into his shoppe before Severus patted him on the shoulder and motioned down the road.

"We'll get it back in shape in the new year.  It won't take long.  Neither will it take more than a heartbeat to gather what they need for charmed chalk," Snape murmured encouragingly.  "Your first sale?" he whispered. 

"Second," Draco said. 

"Does mine count?"

"Of course it does," Draco echoed away into the cold night.  Snape glanced back at Harry and Brim and Modesto, and saw the outline of the others as well in the growing light.   Harry's illusionary wall had fallen, revealing the inside of the shoppe as it really looked.  Severus saw what they were doing, and understood at once.  His stern visage softened around the edges, and he gazed in pride at Harry.  Snape nodded his gratitude, and didn't miss a step behind the oblivious Malfoy. 

"What can we do to help?" Harry whispered back over his shoulder.

"Keep Malfoy occupied.  We'll be done in three or four hours," Hermione answered. 

"The sign.  The sign!" Luna exclaimed excitedly.  Red letters were beginning to glow above Harry's head.  He made out part of Draco's name in bright glory (D-R-A-C) before they were muffled once more.  Burnie pulled Modesto off the wooden panel on the wall marked L/N and tapped it with his wand again to be sure. 

"Uncle Mo," he chided.  "You're a right menace."

"Any other stores open?" Harry asked, peering down the street.  "I need soap for Spit."

"Right this way," Brim said.  Harry waved goodbyes to everyone hiding in the apothecary shoppe, and followed behind Miss Stoneburne. 

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