CHAPTER 3

THE TWO DAYS BEFORE our departure seemed to have gone by in a flurried daze. It felt as though time had sped up, cogs of clocks all over twisting so rapidly that I felt that perhaps someone had put a hurrying charm upon them. A charm upon the moon, the clouds, the sun, and time itself.

I turned my wand in my hand. A beech wood with a dragon core 12 1/2", it was streaked with a dark green and silvery hue against the dark wood. A thin trail of the moss color lined with silver that wound up all over the wand to its tip, as though the wood had dissolved in that color before it became the wand. I looked at it, my dark eyes pinned to the thing in slight indifference. When was the last time I had used it outside of class? I had forgotten how it felt like clutched in my palm, forgotten the way I had depended and doted on it up until my fourth year at Beauxbatons. After that, I didn't personally ever need it anymore.

The sun was setting outside, and as I watched from my dorm balcony, peering from the Ombrelune Tower, I felt bathed in the streaks of the dying sun. My exposed skin glowed orange, my dark hair outlined with the fire color. The death of the sun wasn't warm, as if its hotness had disintegrated with its life, like that of mortals. But unlike the mortals, the sun would always rise back up again.

Putting my wand aside and raising my right hand, I flicked my fingers, catching the dying orange rays of the sun on my tips. Parts of the streaks tore away and came into my hand, wrapping themselves around my fingers like small snakes born of light. I carried them away into my dorm. There, I sent the stolen light streaks into the air above, and the rays started molding. I watched, hesitant and intent in equal measure. But it proved for naught, the light did what I expected.

It turned and molded itself into the symbol, hanging in the mid air in my dorm. The symbol of the deathly hallows. A triangle carrying a circle, divided by a straight line in the middle. My face twisted in anger, and frustration impaled through me like an arrow. I let out a scream, and grabbed a porcelain vase, throwing it at the orange symbol. The vase went clean through, and as the sign vanquished like smoke, the vase shattered against the wall behind, pieces scattering themselves across the ground.

It throbbed then, the same sign that had vanquished, but not entirely. It throbbed and a vicious pain stabbed at me. Hissing, I walked over to my vanity and pulled down the neckline of my sky blue uniform. There it sat, as it had always sat, the same symbol etched into my skin at my shoulder, no bigger than the size of my thumbnail. It was dark and bold, an ink unmerciful. The skin surrounding it was red and flaring, and I wanted to scratch it off, so bad. I wanted to carve it away, despite how deep the knife had to go to fully dig it out. But I knew I couldn't. This was my mark, and erasing it will only cause it to reappear— in other forms, in other ways.

Suddenly, my ears caught the bearings of distant footsteps thudding close each second outside. Quickly, I fixed my uniform and my eyes darted to the shattered pieces of the vase. I lifted them up, a single right hand guiding each piece to rise altogether high in the air, and then I swept them all away as they vanished in puffs of mists. The door opened then, and Bridgette made her way in.

"Est-ce que tu vas bien?" She asked, face etched in bewilderment, her hair half done in loose braids. "I heard some noises."

I cursed inwardly. It didn't help at all, her dorm being right beside mine. It didn't help having anyone else's dorm nearby. I craved personal isolation like I craved air. In all the years I had spent at Beauxbatons, they have all taught me their ways. Madame Maxime had forbidden me to delve into my past, my connection to my great uncle. But unbeknownst to her, each day it grew stronger inside me somehow. I didn't want it to, but it did, and I couldn't stop it. I needed to figure it all out before it consumed me. I had questions, and I had no one but myself to answer them. But, I didn't have those answers. I was devoid of them.

"Oui," I composed myself, "I was learning something and couldn't get it right."

The lie was simple. It threaded through the air and adorned it naturally, like all of my lies seem to do.

She nodded and shrugged, before looking around my dorm. It wasn't messy, it was never messy. With my bed always neatly done, and my silver balcony curtains always tied elegantly to a side, my dorm was a picture of decorum. I always made sure of it, because one of us needed to be put together.

"You haven't started packing?" Bridgette exclaimed, looking at me in shock.

"I intend to," I offered, folding my arms.

We were to set off tomorrow for Ilvermorny, America. Our train at the Gare du Nord station, at platform 5 and 3/4 set off at precisely 8 in the morning, and Madame Maxime had made it explicitly clear that we had to be on it by 7:45. Assuming I had the whole night to pack, I hadn't yet begun.

"Well, you must!" Bridgette continued, allowing herself in and shutting the door behind her. "Eh bien, n'ayez pas peur, I will be glad to help."

"You don't have to," I spoke, finding no strength in my claim.

I wasn't sure if I'd get any packing done with the state my mind was in at present. Despite Professor Fabien's prudent insistence that we keep our minds clear going into the games, I had gone and messed everything up. I didn't know why I was doing this in the first place. This wasn't for me, but here I was, awaiting to leave Beauxbatons in the morning, the deathly hallows symbol burning in my skin.

"Oh please," Bridgette shrugged, bending to retrieve my silver trunk from underneath my bed, and taking out her wand from her garter underneath her uniform.

"Cistem aperio," She flicked her vine wood, dragon core wand and my silver trunk burst open, spreading itself out on the carpeted floor.

"Alright," My friend started, tucking her wand back into its safe place. "Clothes first."

She went on then, getting up and examining my wardrobe, only to select armfuls of clothes and plopping herself on the floor cross legged, and starting to fold them into neat piles. Some jewelry and makeup came next, and Bridgette found for each a precise safe spot in my trunk. She added my extension pouch, my archery leather gloves, the uniform for the Huntlock games we had been given, my record player, along with a couple of my records and the recent issues of the hurleuse and the mystique magazines I hadn't yet read.

"There," She announced, "All done."

And with that, Bridgette Monet sashayed out of my dorm, throwing me a nod and a wink before closing the door shut behind her. With her gone, I locked the door with a soft motion of my fingers, and the lock clicked tightly in place.

Then I went over to my vanity, unlocking the third drawer and pulling it open. The mint painted wood creaked slightly as it extended to its full extent. I dug my hands around inside, pulling out my silver chained time turner, my remembrall, a stash of bottled floo powder and then.. the two pieces of the broken pendant.

I gathered them all, and walked over to my open trunk, making space for all the items inside. None of these items, excepting the remembrall, were allowed on Beauxbatons premises. But I had had them all since my third year, and I couldn't part with any of them for even a month. Placing the emergency bottled floo powder inside, I rolled the pendant pieces in my hands, I had attached a silver chain to the top piece and it dangled beneath my wrist. Iridescent things of purple and silver, the cold pieces shone against my palm even under this dark sky. I wondered if the glow had been brighter, when it was a one piece, when it had still secured the blood pact. I wondered if you could see the blood inside, though the broken shard of glass that covered the front, and once, used to be whole.

I had kept them, silently, quietly, traitorously— ever since they had shown up at my feet in my fourth year. Had I come across it or had it come across me? I wasn't quite sure, but still, it hadn't been a coincidence. I knew that if it was the answers that I sought, this broken thing belonging to my great uncle, and a part of his history, would help me get them. They shouldn't even exist, I knew that. They should be in the possession of Dumbledore, after the famed magizoologist, Newton Scamander, had famously retrieved the pendant and given it to him in 1927. Dumbledore had witnessed it break in the midst of the duel with Grindelwald, and yet, he hadn't gotten rid of the pieces. Yet, he had let them escape. He had let them find me.

They must be worthless now, shattered and broken as they were— these two triangular pieces. But in my hands, against my skin, their coldness seemed to make something inside me flare. Holding them made me feel like I was standing underneath a full moon, with no ground beneath my feet and only a searing silver light in my conscience. I liked that feeling. It should feel so wrong, but it didn't.

I folded the chain and tucked the pieces of the pendant inside my extension pouch, before putting it inside the trunk. Then, I closed the thing shut, having packed everything I would need. I grabbed the trunk by its handle and dragged it over to a side against the wall, where it would rest until I reached for it in the morning, on my way out of my dorm and to the Gare du Nord station.

That night, my sleep was threaded with unease. The sharp crescent moon shone outside, its edge seemed as though it might tear through anything and everything. The wind flowed in through the curtains, and they seemed to blow up, forming shapes and figures. As though spirits come by to watch me sleep, one by one as the curtain embraced their figures, before turning into mist and vanishing. My palm burned with a sharp coolness, where I had held the pieces of the pendant. I could still feel their shape in my hand, as if I was clutching at them tight— when they lay tucked inside my trunk.

The mark at my shoulder also burned with a cold ferocity, as though I was holding ice to it, as though flake after flake of snow seemed to land on it and slowly dissipate into cold water and trickle down my spine.

And then, morning came early. It was 6:30 and I was dressing myself in my school uniform, doing my long dark hair in front of my vanity, tucking my wand inside a pocket on my skirts, slipping my feet into sky blue shoes and taking hold of my blue uniform hat, before directing my packed truck with flick of my wrist towards me as I exited my dorm, closing the door shut behind me.

It was early, yet some students of Ombrelune were up bright and early, though not dressed in their uniforms as of yet. The tower bustled with quiet activity, and as I passed by corridors, students spotting me whispered to each other, of which, I made out the words Huntlock games, America, Ilvermorny, amongst others.

The Beauxbatons delegation of six students, accompanied by the headmistress and the Archery instructors, Professor Fabien and Professor Basil, heading off to Ilvermorny to compete in a series of games, had been no secret. For the entirety of the past two days, Madame Maxime had considered it prudent to mention it during every speech she made at dinner or suppers, so that the delegation leaving may have spiritual support of its fellow school and students. They would all be able to follow our progress of course. Lumière un journal, would broadcast every development in their issues, after having enthusiastically had a reporter interview us in the courtyard at Beauxbatons a day ago.

I hadn't found it in myself to read my own interview, despite it having been published and distributed in the following issue with much promptness hours later. I could almost picture it, a radio dictating every score all the way from Ilvermorny in a static voice, in every house common room in Beauxbatons, and students all huddled around it, listening with varying expressions.

"Dominique," Bridgette called as she spotted me making my way into the common room of Ombrelune, a vast space decorated in draping silver silks and lush mint carpets with blue painted wooden bookcases adorning every wall, and a large crystal chandelier hanging from the cream ceiling.

Morning light poured into the common room, lighting everything in a bright glow, and hitting the crystals of the chandelier, causing it to form bursts of small rainbows on every reflective surface.

"Let's go, it's almost time," Bridgette started, getting off of the satin floor cushion and straightening her uniform as she made to grab her trunk handle.

A few students perched around in the common room, some getting last minute class work done, while others gathered just for the sake of it, shot us intriguing looks. I understood that they had nothing to say. What exactly was in order? A 'good luck, je crois en toi, I hope you make our school proud'?

Beauxbatons didn't exactly participate in the Huntlock games. They had never before. No one was sure why, perhaps we hadn't been invited to. And now that we were, a strangeness was drenched about in the air. With the news displaying the claims of an adamant fourteen year old Harry Potter, people were skeptical. To believe or to go on as we were, I think perhaps that was the question.

It was said that Dumbledore backed the boy's claim. He hadn't admitted it publicly, but he was doing nothing to make the boy stop speaking his mind, which said something, didn't it?

And me? He who must not be named, was unfortunately for everyone else, the least of my worries. I had one dark wizard to figure out, the other one did not concern me, even if he was possibly alive and the other was not.

Surely the wizarding world can handle it if the latter was to become possible. Surely, after all these years, the government of magic from all wizarding capitals in the world can bind together and fend this single wizard off. They can of course, the opposite couldn't be possible. But, the wizard was not coming back. He was a mortal, just like the rest of us, and mortals don't come back from their deaths. Harry Potter's claims were hallucinations, his mind weighted down by his sufferings of the past. And gosh, I understood that so much.

Bridgette and I made our way to the castle pavilion, where we practiced Archery just yesterday morning. Our targets were all still set up, and the clear morning light washed over the figures all standing there, accompanied by their trunks and carry ons.

"Five, and six," Professor Fabien's modulated voice came as he counted us, ticking something off in the checklist he held in his hands, the feathered quill moving in his grip.

He stood tall and lean, his dark blue robes structured as they fell over his shoulders and touched the ground, his long brown hair sleekly cascading down his back underneath his scraggly dark hat, and his curly ruffled short beard starkly sticking out in comparison. On his shoulder, tightly perched with his yellow talons glinting, sat Professor Basil. His sharp eyes narrowed at us, head tilted to a side, and beak unmoving and firm as his dark brown feathers ruffled slightly in the morning wind.

"Dominique Lavigne and Bridgette Monet," Professor Basil spoke after a while, drawing our attention and the attention of the other selected archers, who were busy speaking in tired tones to each other.

"Five more minutes, and you would both have been late," The professor noted, his voice sharp and deep, slicing through the air like an axe. His stone-like eyes held reprimand.

"Excusez nous, professor," I started, knowing full well that this comment had been my fault. "We apologize."

"Come now," Professor Fabien waved a hand, "We all await Madame Maxime, and then, we will be off to the station."

Bridgette and I nodded, taking our place behind the two professors with the other students. They had both made a transportation circle, the heavy gray evidently strewn locomotion power formed a giant sphere encircling us all. Making sure our trunks did not break the circle was a task, as we lifted them over inside.

"The urgency, I tell you," Elias hummed as he shook his head, approaching me and following my gaze to the thick stream of powder arranged around us. "I would have been fine with the carriage."

"It is a fifteen minute ride to Gare du Nord from Beauxbatons, anyway," Maximillian Toussaint shrugged nonchalantly, joining us. He was like a wayward leaf, his paths were all so wide, and he had no trouble picking and choosing each. Always welcoming himself wherever he wished, and it always seemed to work out for him.

"Exactly," Elias pointed out, "So why not just take the carriage?"

"Admit it, Elias, you are scared of translocation," Bridgette grinned at him.

Elias scoffed, his brows twisting. "I'm not scared of it, mon ami, hurtling through air makes me nauseous."

"Nausea is fear," The former shrugged nonchalantly, her winning remark declared.

Before the latter could protest, Madame Maxime's form was spotted, draped in her elegant silks and an abundance of cream fur around her neck that upon closer inspection was only a snow fox, its tail lazily dangling down the headmistress' shoulder, and its tongue sticking out as it relaxed itself against her. Madame's shoulder length brown hair was stiff, not a single hair out of place, even in this slight wind. She was the figure of perfection, of decorum. She was the snap holding everything we all knew together, and when you looked at her, it showed.

"Bien mes chers, we are all here," She clapped her hands once, stepping into the circle as Professor Fabien took her giant hand and helped her in— though he was so petite compared to her that she practically always helped herself, and gave her hand as a mere formality.

Professor Basil bent his small head in acknowledgement, even in his firm sternness, the respect he had for Olympe Maxime evident in his form.

And then, having received a single nod of confirmation from the headmistress, Professor Fabien whipped out his wand, and upon recitation of a set of words, to the students watching from the castle windows and balconies, we disappeared out of sight.

The air whizzed by with such speed, I kept my eyes shut tight. It was no floating sensation, translocation was merely the world rushing you by. It felt as though you stood at a single spot, and it was everything else that was going by, making your destination come to you, instead of you going to it. I tightened my hold on the handle of my trunk, and if I was holding onto a hand, I would've crushed the bones. Translocation was despicable to me. Out of all methods of travel, it felt the most unfair for some reason.

Then the sensation stopped as soon as it had started, and I opened my eyes to find the grand structure of the Gare du Nord standing in all its cream and marble etched glory in front of me. People rushed us by, muggles and wizards alike, though the former could not tell the latter apart. The bustle of the station was a roar in my ears, a mix of all kinds of sounds, ones arising from people's mouths to ones radiating from parked and starting engines. It looked as though it was the middle of the day, when it wasn't yet 7:45.

Paris was a busy bee, with magic tucked underneath its vibrating small wings, and its petit form traveling with the speed of the shooting stars in the night sky.

"Rapidement, les étudiants," Madame Maxime turned to face us, and I shook the bewilderment out of my face. "Find yourselves trolleys and store your trunks."

With the order being given, we dragged our trunks towards the parked luggage trolleys outside the station, and a frail looking trolley muggle helped us all secure a trolley and fix our trunks inside. Professor Fabien pulled out his own trolley and handed the man a muggle galleon, a colored paper that looked stranger each time I saw it.

"Where are Madame's trunks?" Bridgette asked incredulously as we all pushed our trolleys inside the station, following the headmistress and the professors.

"Why do you suppose she joined us so late?" Elias spoke, "She's already had them stashed in the train."

"Yeah," Maximillian chuckled, joining our pace, "She probably has an entire compartment full of her trunks."

"Maybe they should've given you one as well, Toussaint," Gabriel Chevrolet smirked, adamant on not missing his chance to take someone down with a snarky comment, even if he was on the brink of leaving the country. "You could store your makeup and your Harry Potter shrine inside."

Jean Dubois laughed, at his friend's comment, a laugh that seemingly always boosted Chevrolet's ego, perhaps that is why Dubois was kept around.

"And what about your dresses, Chevrolet?" Elias jumped to his house mate and friend's rescue, "Won't they crease in this single petit trunk?"

A scowl appeared on Gabriel's bronze face, his eyes darkening as his knuckles paled with the strength with which he was holding his luggage trolley.

"Creases will appear on your face after I'm done with you, you bastard."

But before Chevrolet could make a move, Professor Fabien's voice tore through the bustle of the station, directed straight to us.

"Que se passe-t-il ici?" He called looking back at us, frustration evident in his tone. "Keep up the pace, students!"

Nodding, I sped up, racing my trolley to keep up with the professors and the headmistress as everyone else followed quickly behind. Dodging muggles was an arduous task, for they seemed to be haphazardly moving about the station at every turn. It made me itch with irritation, and their clueless faces made something inside me turn in frustration. They lived each day in their own mediocre small circles, with no idea and care of what lay beyond. It was why they were muggles, because they didn't compare. They could never compare to us.

We arrived at platform 5 and 3/4, and Professors Fabien and Basil kept guard as first the headmistress crossed, her giant form vanishing inside the cream brick wall between platform 5 and 6. Then, he waved to us, and one by one, we all crossed. Gabriel Chevrolet went in first, slamming through the wall with such speed that he was there one second and not there the other. I went in next, keeping my shoulders squared as I sped up and plunged my trolley and myself through the wall, arriving at the station for our train.

The train stood, a huge gray and mist colored thing, shining underneath the sunlight that streaked in through the circular glass windows high above. Madame Maxime conversed with the conductor, the man heartily answering her questions. There seemed to be no one else but us there, and I hadn't really anticipated that we would have a train to Ilvermorny all to ourselves.

"Leave your trolleys right there," Professor Fabien pointed to a spot where a couple of uniformed men stood, once he had arrived through the entrance last. "They will be seen in storage on the train."

"Then board yourselves immediately," Professor Basil added firmly, "We must not be late."

I looked at the clock hanging above, it read precisely 7:45. 

***

A/N:
And we're off to Ilvermorny. The plot is starting to creep through as well. I hope you guys liked this chapter! I will try to be regular with my updates. Please let me know any thoughts you might have on this chapter! <3