From the Ashes

[left beneath the miniature holiday tree in the staff lounge (although not too close, because the angel on top has a sword and isn't afraid to use it) for Nate Novarro, from his Staff Secret Santa]





Note attached:

To Mr Novarro, with warmest wishes for the holiday season.

I purchased this device from an antiques shop in Belfast. It was invented by a Squib during the European Inquisition of the 15th century to measure magical energies produced during the casting of spells by witches and wizards. There was not much call for such a thing even then, so it was never popularized and apparently very few remain extant. I thought you might find it of interest in your studies; or at the very least, as a reminder that the unknown may yet be quantified, and all that is wondrous still lies within the realm of discovery.

Happy Christmas.

Who: Gerard and Gabe
Where: The corridor outside the library, immediately after this conversation
When: Early afternoon, Thursday, December 24th
What: In which Gerard and Gabe are both in bad moods


Gerard was a little unnerved by how empty the corridors were right now. Normally at this time of day he'd be lurking around the Great Hall, watching the students go back and forth -- it was a good way to keep an eye out for shifts in the currents of the school, to observe the sometimes hilarious patterns of the teenaged population. But most of the students had gone home for the holiday, and the ones remaining had no set schedule. Gerard was at loose ends.

He'd pretty much been kicked out of the common room that morning by the Gryffindor kids that had stayed -- he'd told Mikey he'd make a terrible head of house, Gerard thought grumpily, barely resisting the urge to stomp down the hall. He had some semblance of stealth and dignity left somewhere; he wasn't going to stomp. But Bob was doing some mysterious experiment in the Hospital Wing and Gerard had been informed he couldn't participate for reasons of Healer-patient confidentiality. Which sucked a lot, especially since there seemed to be an awful lot of explosions involved in whatever it was Bob was doing. Gerard was valiantly not investigating, but it wasn't exactly improving his mood to be excluded, even for a good reason.

He'd patrolled around the grounds for a bit, watching a snowball fight and an extremely disorganized Quidditch match, and Frank doing something really mysterious with a planter that seemed to require a lot of explosions -- everyone was getting to explode shit except Gerard.

It'd been a shitty couple of days, and Gerard had just wanted to relax and watch the epic trainwreck that was Peaches and Byron and Geoffrey's odd interhouse threesome, or to listen to Bob explain the implications and variations on the Aperio charm, or to blow something up. He could have asked Frank if he needed a hand -- but Frank already thought Gerard was a complete nutter without Gerard flying down out of nowhere and begging to explode things.

Fuck it, he'd thought. He'd go pester William and see if they'd gotten any new medical journals in. Maybe see if he wanted to duck out of the library for some coffee and talk over all the shit that'd been going down. Besides, Gerard was getting a little worried about William, to be honest. He'd looked sort of peaked lately, and, well, everyone was stressed at the moment, but Gerard wasn't entirely sure William was over the whole Veelification ordeal, or that cursed knife from way back when, come to think of it. He rounded a corner, pondering the best way to pry William out of his library stronghold and into the staff room where there was caffeine and biscuits, and then skidded to an abrupt halt, startled. Gabe Saporta was leaning with his back against the closed door to the library, head bowed, looking like... well, like someone had stabbed him.

"Hey," Gerard said, approaching warily, fighting the urge to snap his wand into his hand just in case there had been actual stabbing going on. There was no blood, but this was fucking Hogwarts -- you never knew. "Are you... is everything alright?"