Kat Loveday (practicalkat) wrote in lightning_war, @ 2009-03-17 16:44:00 |
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Current mood: | scared |
Early Thursday evening, 17 September 1942, at the Royal Academy...
“Kat?” Diotima Starn approached the first-year girl nervously, biting her lip. She didn’t know Kathleen Loveday well, but Kat had wanted to help her make friends, even if she had occasionally had an annoying way of going about it. She didn’t want to do this, did she? “Kat,” she said, and winced, because it was hard to talk. “Kat, Mathers and Stuart sent me to come and get you, because Pritchard and Flint are goin’ t’be busy with meetings. I’ve got…Stuart has news from your family. I think she said that your brother was ill again.”
Kat blinked. Dio looked a little odd, but they were friendly in a way, and Dio’s unvarnished manner was one of the things Kat fundamentally liked about her. She was probably feeling bad about having to bring this news. And thinking about the news stopped Kat from thinking about Dio anymore. Bill was ill again? But the Bradburies had said that he was better, that they had time to arrange a contract for Kat’s engagement to Florian Leffoy. She felt sick. “Thanks,” she said to Dio. “I better go find them. Where? And can you let…um, the prefects know, when you find them?” She had wanted to ask Dio to let Florian know, but talking about him to other people in Avalon was impossible, socially. Perhaps Ianthe Pritchard would tell him for her.
“I’m t’take you up,” said Dio tersely. “And I’ll tell Florrie later.” She didn’t think she’d be allowed to, but she would if she could.
Kat nodded, unsure whether to be grateful or embarrassed that Dio had answered her unspoken wish. But that didn’t matter so much, not when Bill was sick again. “Let’s go.”
Dio led Kat up the stairs, her expression a little grim. Occasionally her hand went to her throat, fiddling with a tight choker she wore sometimes, sticking her fingers under it as though she were testing a dog’s collar. This did not slow her down much though. “They’re up in the tower.”
“Yeah,” Kat agreed, since it was obvious where they were heading. She knew that the astronomy class was cancelled and supposed they needed to use the tower to gather defences. She wished Florian could have come with her. “Did someone get Annie?” she asked. She hoped her sister would be there too, and her cousin Edmund Bradbury for that matter, who was seventeen, and knew what to do about most things that anything could be done about.
Dio swallowed. “I don’t know,” she said, which had the virtue of being true, although she doubted that anyone had sent for Annie or Edmund. “I think they were in meetings? They’re prefects, she said they’d be busy.”
Kat nodded glumly and kept climbing the stairs. Everyone was in an uproar about the divination lessons that afternoon and preparations for the evening. She didn’t want to deal with whatever the news was by herself and was regretting not simply flat-out asking for Florian to accompany her.
Dio stuck her finger under the choker at her throat again, grimacing. Professor Stuart came out of her office just then and smiled at the two girls. “Good afternoon, Miss Loveday,” she said. “Your mother and Lady Leffoy asked me to take a look at some charts for your brother and I think they are quite worrying. Someone from home will be flying out to get you shortly, and they should have the latest news from St Pantaleon’s.”
“Where’s Annie?” Kat asked. Annie wasn’t necessarily especially good at dealing with bad news either, but the fact that she was worse than Ed meant that she was more likely to be able to get away. “Can I go and get her? Um, please?” She sounded like a little child to herself, remembering the ‘please’, but something odd was going on and if not annoying people got her out of it, it couldn’t hurt.
“We have already sent for her,” said Professor Stuart, “but she’s busy.”
Dio frowned. “May I go now, ma’am?” she said, which was also out of character for her.
“Of course not, Miss Starn,” said Professor Stuart. “Your father is going to be expecting you shortly as well.”
“Why are—where should I wait?” Kat asked. “Professor?” She wanted rather badly to be down from the tower, but it didn’t seem clever to point out directly that it was a strange place to wait. She didn’t feel confident about playing dumb either, but it might work.
“Come into my office, both of you,” said Professor Stuart. “Professor Mathers has been reading the runes for me.” She opened the door to usher them in.
Kat felt she’d rather not, and waited to see if Dio would precede her into the room. Dio did, though she looked like she’d rather have eaten Lucy Dolloway’s birthday cake. Kat smiled brightly at Professor Stuart for a moment and then turned and started to run.
Professor Stuart drew her wand and cast a spell, calling out in Latin, which made Kat feel slow and her footing uncertain. Kat grimaced to herself. They’d probably catch her. This ploy had only worked sometimes with her father as well, and that was only because his temper could be short-lived. At least they’d be done with the stupid pretence. “Annie?” she called down the stairs. “Can anyone hear me?”
“Miss Loveday, don’t run!” Professor Stuart snapped, now only a few steps behind her. “You might fall and break your neck, up here, and by the time we got a healer in you’d be gone!”
“Do you need help, Jennie?” It was Professor Mathers’ voice. Kat frowned. Her parents had told her always to trust him, and her uncle Isaac liked him, too—but Leffoy had said otherwise, had said that Professor Mathers was up to no good.
“Hello?” Kat called.
“There’s nobody else in the tower,” said Professor Stuart, grabbing her shoulder. “Goyle’s declared it off limits.”
“Has he,” Kat said flatly. She had a sudden thought, and it was rather desperate. She’d probably already ruined her chances of getting away with anything by letting them know she knew something was going on. She gave in to Stuart’s grip pulling her to a stop, because it gave her time to picture the bat charm she was wearing under her clothes. She didn’t dare touch it for fear of alerting Stuart to it… Leffoy, she thought as hard as she could. Leffoy, help, I’m in the tower!
diotima, parsival, voci_umbrarum (Professor Jehanne-Marie Stuart) and practicalkat