She knows the Heimlich she won't choke, not Daphne (farsick) wrote in caged, @ 2013-12-21 12:25:00
Who: Tracey Davis, Daphne Greengrass, and Desdemona Davis. What: Patronusing after a long winter’s nap. Where: The Davis home in Dinas Powys. When: Saturday, 21 December 1997. Lunch time. Status: Complete log.
Her parents had been arguing this late into the night. “It’s not part of the school curriculum this year - they’ve banned it - I work for the Ministry” and so forth. Eventually Desdemona had issued the trump card of “IT’S MY HOUSE AND IT’S MY DAUGHTER AND IF I WANT TO TEACH HER HOW TO FIGHT OFF DEMENTORS, THEN I BLOODY WELL WILL.” And Tracey had curled up in her bed and drifted off with a contented half-smirk on her face. It was nice to feel that for once, someone was making arguments in favour of her well-being, and nicer still that it was her mother.
She must have been tired because the sun was illuminating a warm square on her bedroom floor, and Mum was banging on the door telling her that she had better get up, her friend might be here soon, and she was not having her daughter greet visitors without at least dragging a comb through her hair first. Younger Tracey had by and large been left to fumble through her childhood herself, but since she had got back from this time from Hogwarts, after being treated as a distantly related boarder a lot of the time, her mother had become a lot more - well, maternal. She splashed water on her face and went downstairs for lunch.
When she began to wake that morning, Daphne couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so grateful to be home, or that her bed had felt quite so welcoming. Or what a fine thing it was to have a room to herself. She was fortunate enough to get along with all of her dorm mates, but the privacy and comforting quiet and solitude of her own room were practically miraculous, and so easy to forget at Hogwarts. This year more than any before. Unfortunately, all of this saw to it that Daphne had more than a bit of a lie-in. It wasn’t until nearly eleven that she managed to rouse herself enough to prepare to head to Tracey’s.
Neither of them was very keen on delaying their Patronus practicing, not for hols or otherwise. Sure, it was the first day back from school, but there was no time to waste. Break would be over before they knew it and then it was back there, sneaking around and trying to find a covert place to do something that they should’ve been encouraged to do. It would have made her angry, probably, except that they’d found a way around it. Daphne, more than one. And the more progress they made before they returned, the less they’d have to consider hiding come the new year.
The journey to Dinas Powys – if one could rightly call floo travel a journey (Daphne certainly did not) – was easy as ever, and she shortly found herself stepping out of the hearth and into the Davises’ living room; she was a bit dusty, a bit sneezy, but ready to work. There was no one about, but Daphne thought she could hear voices from the kitchen, and so she brushed some errant powder from her trousers and beat the familiar path through the house.
“Hello?” she called as she neared the kitchen. Daphne didn’t want to be rude, but they knew to expect her, and she’d been here so many times before, they likely wouldn’t begrudge her the slight impertinence of marching through their house without announcing her arrival. “It’s Daphne. Sorry, I hope I’m not interrupting lunch. I overslept…”
“In here!” Tracey called out from the conservatory leading out of the kitchen. “And yeah, me too.” She popped a second piece of toast into her mouth, accioed over a second cup for Daphne. She simply felt too comfortable to move. “Mum’s just catching up on some work; she’ll be down soon.”
“Cool,” Daphne muttered, beginning to smile but finding herself interrupted by a sneeze. As much as she loved being on the move, she rather hated floo travel. Something about the powder and the soot did horrible things to her nose, and she always found herself sneezing for a good ten minutes after arrival. With a sniffle, she plopped down in a chair opposite Tracey and grinned properly with cup in hand. “And thanks.”
She took a few moments to fill her cup from the teapot, drank deeply, and settled back in her chair with a satisfied sigh, letting her eyes wander over the conservatory. “Oh, I brought some chocolates. For your mum? Not that chocolates and this are in any way on par, but sweets are always a good sign of gratitude.”
Said chocolates were tucked into Daphne’s coat, which she’d draped over her chair. She, too, was still feeling rather lazy, and decided she would retrieve them later.
“Mum would never say no to chocolates,” Tracey declared, helping herself to another bowl of soup. “Have you eaten yet? God, I’m hungry.”
“Then you should have got up earlier,” Desdemona opined from the doorway. Her shirt-sleeves were rolled up, a clear indicator that she was ready for business. “You’ll probably be up half the night banging about the place too-”
“Mum, I never bang about the place.” Tracey rolled her eyes.
“Daphne, how are you?” Desdemona cut in.
Well, happy that she hadn’t had a moment to answer Tracey’s question in the negative as Desdemona had walked in. Daphne looked around at her host and smiled through a swallow. There had been a time when she and Tracey were just becoming friends that Daphne found herself very nervous and clumsy around Desdemona Davis. Such times had long passed, but she still admired Desdemona enormously and had a tendency to measure herself a bit more than she would with a close friend.
“I’m well,” Daphne said, placing her cup down on the table and ignoring the snarl of her stomach. “Thank you so much for having me. I was afraid we’d still be floundering about come January.”
Fine, there was no way to say that they still wouldn’t be. But this would help, yes?
“We learned the Patronus charm in our final year.” Desdemona cut right to the chase. “Well, some of us did. Most simply attempted it. It was taught as part of the cursebreaker programme. All sorts of creatures are drawn to deep, dark places.” She surveyed the two young women in front of her, as if wondering if they would pass muster. “As you’ve gathered by now, it’s a very difficult charm.”
Well, thanks for the encouragement, Mum, Tracey wanted to say, but kept her mouth buttoned.
“Let’s go outside and see what you can-” Desdemona’s attention snagged on her daughter. “Are you still in your pyjamas?”
“Just the top, Mum.” Tracey tugged up the collar from beneath her jumper and grinned. “I did brush my teeth though.”
“Wonderful. You’re ready for the big, wide world.” Desdemona rolled her eyes in a gesture eerily reminiscent of her daughter’s a few moments earlier. “Outside.”
Very happy indeed that she had opted to wear actual clothing instead of the running clothes she’d seriously considered in a half-sleep stupor barely an hour ago, Daphne took that as an order and got to her feet without even emptying her cup. It was likely she’d forget the woes of an empty belly soon enough. She grabbed her coat, pausing only to deposit the chocolates on the table. Those, too, could be addressed later.
With a furtive, half-amused glance at Tracey, she followed the two Davis women out to the backyard, feeling around in the interior pocket of her coat for her wand so that she’d be ready immediately, lest Desdemona think she was treating this as a lark.
“Mrs. Davis,” she ventured as they gathered outside, letting her curiosity override respectful reticence. “What form did yours take? I know it’s not anything to do with learning this properly, but it’s a point we’ve both found curious, for ourselves.”
“Desdemona.” Daphne was quickly corrected. “We’re learning an adult’s spell, you can call me by my first name.” Tracey met Daphne’s look, her own mouth quirking a little.
Rather than a verbal response, Desdemona simply raised her wand. A jet of silver whooshed out, quickly resolving itself into a hawk which fixed two sharp black eyes upon the girls before it flew off once more, disappearing into ribbons of similar-hued smoke. “I hope that you made time in your busy schedule to retrieve your wand, Tracey.”
“I managed,” Tracey said with a shrug, removing it from the back pocket of her jeans.
“I’ll cast it again. Watch my wrist movement,” Desdemona instructed. “It has to be loose, but not too floppy.”
Somewhat impressed (but not too impressed because, after all, Desdemona had been doing this for years and years now), Daphne silently observed the hawk Patronus, eyes following the trails of silver back to its owner. Absently, she adjusted her grip on her wand in an attempt to mirror their instructors’ grip and posture. She flicked her gaze to Tracey, wondering if she was doing the same.
After a moment or two, Daphne held her arm up a bit and looked evenly at Desdemona. “A bit more like this, then?”
It wasn’t a bad approximation, though there was perhaps a bit too much rigidity to her fingers, as if to make up for where her wrist had given some. Daphne knew it and immediately tried to relax her grip.
“Now you’re too loose,” Desdemona told Daphne. “And you’re too tense,” she added to Tracey. “Hold your wand how you would hold a quill - that level of pressure. You’re not trying to snap it in two after all. Better,” she added to Tracey, who was now producing a gust of silver, mouth in a tight line of concentration.
Spying Tracey’s gradual success, Daphne felt the familiar rush of a competitive urge and returned her attention to her own progression. She’d done this before. More than a handful of times, now. She’d done it first. As if reminding herself would help her now, which was foolish. Frankly, it seemed a distraction.
It had been easier to recover the memory she’d found successful, lately. For the week or so after that chance encounter with Boggart-as-Dementor, nearly every time Daphne had tried to conjure up the thought of kissing a boy in Greece, said boy slowly but surely became some freakish, twisted human-Dementor hybrid, leaning in to bestow its kiss of living death. She’d almost begun to worry she’d have to find a new memory, but with enough time between her and the incident, Daphne had found her footing once more.
And today. Straightening her wrist and crooking her wand at an angle just so, like a quill indeed, Daphne cleared her mind but for that which was needful. A few moments later there came a warmth like something was flowing from her ribcage down her arms and out, and from the end of her wand, a wisp of silver that gathered itself almost timidly and grew by degrees in delicate, smoky whorls.
“Good.” Desdemona nodded towards Daphne. “You’ve been doing this since October?”
“Mm hm,” Daphne intoned with the slightest nod of her head, not wanting to break her focus but doing so a moment later anyway. The modest little cloud at the end of her wand guttered and dissipated as if in a breeze, and Daphne twitched her wrist a bit, feeling it crack. “Yes. Beginning of October or so, I think.”
Truthfully, it was difficult to remember. But it seemed about right. Twice weekly sessions since October, with a few extras thrown in here and there when there was time and a good place to do so. Nothing to sniff at, but not enough, yet. For confirmation, she looked askance at her friend. “Tracey?”
“Yeah. October,” Tracey confirmed, flexing her wrist. “The first time I was able to get some silver,” she added to her mother, “I’d just gone for a flight on that old broom of hers that Gwenog gave me. So I was on a bit of a buzz, I guess. Is that common?”
“Well, yes, your mood does impact how successfully you’re able to cast the spell.” Desdemona sent another silvery hawk flying off. “Eventually you shouldn’t need prompts like that, but while you’re still learning, if you find a method that works for you, you should stick at it.” Tracey nodded, mentally resolving to go for a flight before every practice from now on. Or a jog, if the former wasn’t possible. “Exercise is particularly good,” Desdemona continued, as if perceiving her thoughts, “but if you’ve found yourself on a high in another situation, try to steal some time to practice, as progress will come easier.”
Daphne nodded seriously and dug a toe into the ground out of habit. “Yeah, exercise has been really helpful,” she agreed. “Clearing out a lot of negative feelings, which has made the rest easier.”
She assumed that was what it was. At least, ever since she’d started preempting Saturday mornings with Susan with a solo run – which admittedly served the double purpose of her having a reason to be up so early on a weekend, should anyone catch her slipping out of the Slytherin common room at half five – Daphne felt she’d seen more success at more regular intervals. A wisp one week was a whorl by the next, no doubt thanks to practicing in turn with Tracey. It was a good system, and instilled some sense of well-being besides, charms or no.
“We’ve been thinking, or I have, at least,” she added, moving her wand casually in the circular motion of the spell, “that we’ve hit something like a plateau stage.”
“Also common,” Desdemona said. “Is progress necessarily linear in other fields of your study? Persistency will pay off with this. And don’t be afraid to choose a new memory if your existing one doesn’t work for you. Since it’s such an emotion-oriented spell, it’s not an exact science.”
Tracey privately thought that, in spite of her mother’s stipulation, she was talking about it almost as if it was an exact science, but she could already see where it would be immensely helpful to practice under the watchful eye of someone who actually knew what they were doing. “It took you several months before you were able to cast a corporeal one, didn’t it?”
“Five,” Desdemona replied. “I knew it would be on our NEWT, so I worked and worked at it and ended up burning myself out. Finally I just accepted that I would never be able to cast the spell. Naturally that was when I produced my first hawk. So as I said, progress is seldom linear. I see it as being more sharp rises, plateaus and troughs.”
Desdemona appeared to be relaxing into the role of teacher. Almost, Tracey thought with a smile, as if she was enjoying herself.
Daphne allowed herself a small smirk at that, the notion of such seemingly counterproductive action being the key for Desdemona amusing her somewhat. It sounded difficult to convince herself that she would never be able to cast it properly, or to come to that conclusion naturally. She – and, she suspected, Tracey – had started this project with a very set notion that she could do it, and so she would. Simple cause and effect. Certainly, there were things best avoided as useless causes, but this was not one, and so it was odd to consider that perhaps confidence was not necessarily key.
After all, a Patronus was a spell one resorted to in a time of utmost need and desperation. Surrender of conscious control, or even the sense that one had control in any sense, wasn’t something to write off. But, easier said than done.
“It’s a very personal spell. Stands to reason that it wouldn’t be as cut and dry as more typical stuff.” Daphne shrugged and assumed her stance again, rotating her wrist with care and watching the silver glow build again.
Tracey tightened her wand into progressively decreasing circles, watching as the silver amassed. She seemed to be having less of a battle to produce what little she could here on her home turf, like running across a flat expanse of ground when you’d been pushing yourself uphill for most of the journey. “It seems to be helping that we’re doing this outside of school,” she added.
“School’s not the same place it was in my time, it seems,” said Desdemona. “You’ve done well considering that you’ve been practicing with Dementors nearby. Have you noticed the school grounds being colder than usual this year?” Tracey nodded. “That means there’s quite a party of them. Lucky you.”
“Can you tell at this point whether someone could eventually produce a corporeal Patronus or not?” Tracey, always with the end goal in sight and eager to forget the Dementors for now, asked.
“No. But you’re not doing badly at all. Wrist is too loose now,” Desdemona told her daughter. “Make your circles slightly bigger.”
Dissatisfied with that answer but with naught to do about it, Daphne held the current state of her charm as long as she could before the emotion behind it began to ebb out of her. The oddness of how particularly draining this could be rarely struck her anymore. Eventually, that would have to lessen as well. The thought of the Dementors made something twist in her gut, fleetingly, and the glow at her wand tip flickered strangely before giving an abrupt, second-long burst of brighter light and dissolving entirely.
Unsure of what to make of it, Daphne looked at Desdemona with some alarm and lowered her wand.
“Well,” said Desdemona, but she was smiling slightly too, the first time since this practice session had commenced, in fact. “I don’t think you’re done quite yet, my dear.” Tracey looked over and gave her friend an approving nod. “Half an hour longer,” Desdemona declared, “and then we’ll go in for tea.”
“And some of Dad’s scones,” added Tracey.
Absolutely without Daphne’s permission, her stomach growled ferociously and she was positive that Tracey and Desdemona had heard it. If nothing else, it cut the slight edge of nerves she felt at having apparently elicited something like approval from a woman she’d admired for six years. She grinned a little and sighed loudly.
“God, wrong time to mention that, you,” she said to Tracey, teasingly chiding. She felt a little lighter now, and flourished her wand jauntily. “How am I supposed to focus on charms when all I have in my head is a vision of a tower of scones?”
Tracey disguised her laugh with a cough as Daphne’s stomach declared itself. “20 minutes?” she suggested to her mother. Desdemona gave her a look as if she’d just suggested something blasphemous, but gave a clipped nod of assent. “Can Daphne stay for dinner, if we can keep at it for that long?”
“Up to you. You’re cooking.” Desdemona’s slight smile was now definitely smug. Tracey made a face, but didn’t protest. Once more she raised her wand.