31 CH31 - The Guardian

After a long first week after break, Edmund was in desperate need of some rest and relaxation. Truth be told, he was happier when he kept busy. However, he made sure to supplement his time spent training with some fun as well. He worked as hard as he did in part because he loved magic, but also because he needed strength to preserve what he had found. Edmund refused to become a shut-in who would end up alone when he finally ended up free from all his troubles.

On the second Friday of the year, this meant spending some time with Hagrid. As he carefully navigated down the still-slick steps down to the half-giant's cottage, he noted the lack of smoke spouting from the chimney.

His suspicions were confirmed when he looked through the foggy windows and found darkness within, and none of the candles lit up.

Hagrid was not home.

"Whoa! Calm down, calm down, there's enough for everyone!" a booming voice erupted.

'Well, that makes sense,' Edmund thought as he began making his way into the woods.

Sounds of chittering and clucking grew louder as he approached the Creature Care clearing, interspersed with sounds of snapping and chewing. When Edmund caught sight of Hagrid, it was to see him desperately fending off a herd of hippogriffs from his half-empty supply of food. Edmund watched amusedly as one of the younger magical creatures crept between the legs of an older one, its beak stealthily diving into the ferret basket.

Hagrid tapped the baby Hippogriff on its forehead right between its eyes, and it blinked back in surprise at the reprimand.

"Silverclaw! Bad! Boy!" Hagrid scolded, shaking his finger while his other hand rested on his hip.

Trying not to draw attention to himself, Edmund snuck up next to a watching Luna, who was sketching a Hippogriff in her journal lazily.

"Mrs. Weasley's less motherly than him, sometimes," she commented.

Edmund laughed with his hand covering his mouth, taking a seat next to her on the stone wall that enclosed the pen.

He looked at Luna's drawing appraisingly, switching his gaze between it and the model Hippogriff it was based on.

"The coat switches from feathers to hair closer to the wings than the front legs," he corrected.

"Hmm?" she furrowed her eyebrow, before realizing her mistake. "Thanks."

Edmund nodded in reply.

He watched as her face scrunched up in concentration before his attention was pulled away by her accessories.

"You're wearing the necklace?" he squeaked out in a high pitch.

"Hmm," she hummed again in confirmation.

"But I thought you said it meant..." he whispered furiously.

"So?" Luna asked, still not deigning to look at him.

She let him sit with his mouth agape for a few seconds before bursting out in laughter.

"Gosh, you should see your face," she giggled, clutching her stomach.

Edmund clicked his tongue, turning away from her in a blush.

"Boys," she groaned exasperatedly, shaking her head. "You'd rather sit there and think I have some sort of crush on you than ask me about it?"

"Hey!" he whisper-shouted indignantly. "You never know how someone's going to respond to me asking something like that. Next thing you know, the entire castle could be gossiping that I'm some sort of lecher."

"Some bitches be crazy," Edmund added under his breath.

"To answer your questions, both unasked and asked," Luna began, ignoring the middle finger he aimed at her. "No, I do not accept your courtship, but, yes, I will keep wearing the necklace. The charms on it have been useful."

Edmund's eyes darkened at that, his fists clenching slightly in vexation.

"Do you need my help?" he offered, knowing he did not need to say anything else.

Luna shook her head, and he huffed in annoyance.

"Edmund...," she said, facing him fully. "I appreciate the offer. Really. But you 'having a talk' with the people bothering me is only going to make them hate me more."

Luna cut off his protests by miming zipping her lips shut.

"You know I'm right," she stated.

Edmund nodded slowly, jerkily, in acceptance.

"What happened specifically?" he asked. If he could offer her no direct aid, he could at least listen to her vent if she needed it.

"I walked into the common room, and I felt a spell hit me. I'm not sure what it was meant to do, it dissipated too quickly for me to tell," she forestalled his question. "So I kept walking, and saw Marietta just standing there staring at me, smiling, with her wand pointed at me."

"Then?" Edmund prompted her to continue.

Luna quirked her lips upward.

"Then, I asked her if the nargles in her head had spread to her wand as well. I even offered her a subscription to the Quibbler if she wanted to find out how to get rid of them," she smirked.

Edmund laughed loudly in response before Luna continued.

"Her friends basically ignored me at that point and started making fun of Marietta instead. I'll admit, it was nice giving her a taste of her own medicine," she remarked.

"Oh?" he teased. "Sweet innocent Luna likes causing pain?"

"Definitely," Luna said with pride, before looking at Edmund pointedly. "I'm quite good at it in my own special way."

Edmund grimaced at the reminder, before straightening up with a grin.

"You know I'm going to get you back for that," he promised.

"How is that fair? Big, scary, Edmund Cole trying to harass little Luna? Sounds like a headline title to me," she claimed.

"Sure. Let's just conveniently ignore that I'm the younger of the two of us—," he snorted.

"Semantics," she interrupted, but Edmund ignored her.

"—and that I have a valid reason for revenge. Besides, I get back at Jeremy and Ben when they prank me as well. As a progressive man, I'm a firm believer in gender equality," he proclaimed righteously.

She shoved him as he began cackling at his own joke. Apparently, it was too much for his pubescent vocal cords to handle, and his voice cracked loudly and pierced through all the other sounds in the clearing.

Edmund was not the only person who was not a fan of that fact. One of the largest hippogriffs turned to stare at him menacingly, growling loudly as it stalked toward him.

Hagrid immediately got between the pair, waving his hands frantically to defuse the situation.

"Edmund! He thinks you were challenging him! Bow, quickly!" Hagrid bellowed.

Edmund did not hesitate to lower his head, keeping his eyes trained on the ground. In the background, he could hear Hagrid calming the errant Hippogriff.

"Shhh, that's a good lad. Come on now, Fleetwing, see, he's even bowing," Hagrid soothed.

The placation clearly worked much better than expected, because the next sensation Edmund felt was an iron-hard beak nudging at his back softly.

"Oh!" Hagrid cried gleefully as he clapped his hands. "Good boy, Fleetwing! I think he wants you to ride him, Edmund!"

The half-giant lumbered towards a rapidly paling Edmund, who began stammering in protest.

"Uhhh, Hagrid?! Using Hippogriffs for personal transportation is illegal under the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy!" he yelled at an uncaring Hagrid who had already lifted him up.

"Bah! Only in areas where sightings by Muggles might occur. You're perfectly safe here. Don't you worry one bit about the law, just enjoy the ride!" Hagrid dismissed as he plopped Edmund onto Fleetwing's back.

As Hagrid slapped the hippogriff's rear, Edmund took a look at his last possible saviour. It was not meant to be. Luna merely waved at him merrily as she snickered.

While Fleetwing began running to take off, Edmund held onto the creature's neck tightly. With a loud woosh, they left the ground, becoming adrift in the air. Opening his eyes, Edmund's deep breaths slowed, as he took in the magnificent sights.

'Maybe this won't be too bad. Harry had a good enough time,' he tried to convince himself.

It was precisely at that moment that Fleetwing grew tired of their lazy pace, and decided to up the ante.

'I hate myself,' Edmund thought as Fleetwing began a downward spin.

That was only the beginning, however. Fleetwing seemed eager to display his entire arsenal of aerial maneuvers, unsympathetic about his unwilling passenger. Cuban eights, loops, vertical banks, and more were performed repetitively.

...And then, the hippogriff nosedived.

"Up! Pull up!" Edmund hollered loudly, barely able to hear himself over the raging winds.

Despite his pleas, Fleetwing only righted himself when they were less than ten feet from the ground. He unfurled his wings swiftly, immediately catching a current. While the hippogriff might have been used to such behaviour, Edmund certainly was not. He writhed painfully from the sensation, his brain clattering around inside his skull.

"Right," Edmund gritted his teeth, "fuck this."

With his wand in hand, he rolled off Fleetwing's back, freefalling above the lake.

Calming himself with his occlumency, he cast loudly, "Confligo!"

The spell was one he had learned from the notes given to him by Jeremy's father. Essentially, it was a far more advanced version of the slowing charm. While Arresto Momentum worked by reducing the intended object's velocity, Confligo was much more complex. The charm not only affected speed but also dampened inertia. In Edmund's situation, it would work the exact same as the slowing charm would have, save for the lack of nausea and dizziness symptoms he would otherwise have to experience from a rapid deceleration.

Edmund had tested Confligo many times over, but never on himself.

'Experience is the best teacher or something, right?' he thought, trying to discern whether the magic had worked.

The question was answered quickly as he began to float downwards like a feather, being blown around by the wind.

He cheered loudly, laughing deliriously. His happiness died a swift death when he realized he was still going to be submerged in the Black Lake in January.

Edmund sighed resignedly as his feet began to sink into the water.

*-*-*-*

- (Scene Break) -

*-*-*-*

Standing by the site of his previous ritual in the Forbidden Forest, Edmund was jolted back into awareness by a tap on his shoulder.

He whirled around, coming face to face with the speaker.

"How the heck do you move so silently?" he complained with a gasp.

"Magic," the speaker replied, using her hands to form a rainbow mockingly.

"You need to stop using your powers to look at memes," he replied, startled into a laugh.

She smiled back at him before her mood became grim.

"You found it then," Edmund assumed.

"Yes... I had my suspicions, but I have confirmed them now," she admitted.

"When I asked you that night, you said you didn't know," he accused curiously.

"I didn't know. I had an idea. Now I know for sure," she shrugged.

Edmund sighed, giving up on the line of conversation. The speaker was used to being vague, and he realized it was a hard habit to break out of. Apparently, she recognized this too, as she expanded on the answer of her own volition.

"If I want to learn something, anything, I can do it. But the information does not already exist in my head. I must divine it from the stars. It's like having access to a library with all the world's knowledge. Just because I can browse the library does not mean I have read all the books. I am not omniscient by any regard, and my skills are considerably less effective around you," she explained.

"But now you've learned what you needed?" Edmund confirmed.

"I have," she nodded. "I have found the location of the entrance to the chamber."

"Yet you don't look happy," he commented.

The speaker hummed, seemingly unsure of where to begin.

"Salazar Slytherin built the basilisk's entrance in an easily defensible location. While the beast was active, no other being dared to encroach upon its lair. But as you said, the basilisk had been in hibernation for over 50 years before it reappeared recently. And now, it is dead. The area was taken over by another creature long ago, and this new guardian will protect its den zealously," she elucidated.

"Tell me about the area first," Edmund decided.

"It is a cave carved deep within a large hill. A single narrow pathway several hundred meters long is the only way to reach it, which means evasion or avoiding detection is unfeasible. The beast will see you coming, despite your tricks. Attack will be tricky, if not downright impossible," she listed mechanically.

"I can work with this. If worst comes to worst, I can just transfigure the cave to collapse and kill this guardian, and dig the entrance back—," he started thinking aloud.

"No," the speaker cut him off. "Salazar Slytherin had thought of that, it seems. The hill is entirely manmade, constructed of alloys composed of heavy metals."

"Transfiguration-resistant materials," Edmund summarized bitterly. "So..."

"You will have to fight the beast head-on," the speaker declared.

They stood in silence for several minutes, before Edmund spoke up once more.

"Tell me more about this creature...," he demanded determinedly.