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Tony's mother is not successful at getting that teacher fired, although he does look stressed for the rest of the semester and conspicuously ignores Bella and both Starks.
It is decided, with considerable owling and eagling, that Bella should visit Tony and Sherlock at home, and vice versa, in July - first all of them at Charlie's house, then all at the Stark house, then all at Renée's, with Mrs. Stark providing transportation.
Term comes to an end.
Bella steps out of the bus, all her possessions plus her animal in tow, and the bus pulls away, and she tromps toward Charlie's door. (ACAAM admitted her on the basis of this residency, so this is where she is let off.)
And then she hears someone say, "Stupefy," and that's the last thing she knows for a while.
----
When she wakes up, she's in some kind of mostly white room, her eyes are dry like they've been open for much too long to the point where it's hard to see and hard to blink, and she can't move.
"Did you bring her around?"
"Yes, see?"
"All right, let's re-run the tests with her awake, follow the checklist -"
"I would've followed the checklist -"
"I know, I know. Go on."
"Open your eyes, girl."
She has them closed; she's crying moisture back into them. When she doesn't obey, there's the sound of a wand swishing through the air and they open again. It's still hard to see, but there's someone leaning over her; a man, judging by the voice.
"Legilimens," he says.
It's not wholly dissimilar from the attempted Memory Charm, but more piercing, and she can see it coming. She chucks him out of her head, almost without effort but not without pain - like she's deflecting a gently tossed beach ball, a big easy target, that happens to be covered in spines. It feels like her thoughts sting. "Stop it!" she shrieks. "You can't!"
"Yes, that's the curiosity," says the man, and he tries it again: "Legilimens."
She never stops batting him away, and he goes down a long, long list of spells, most of which she doesn't recognize, all of which fail, all of which hurt in their own unique ways. The Confundus burns, and when she howls at the attempt, they seem to be done for the day.
They leave her awake, paralyzed in the chair she's propped up in, and she still can't move.
Questions. She has questions. Somewhere in her aching, battered head are questions.
She wants to get out.
She has - her eyes, her voice, her mind.
She whispers doggerel, trying poem after poem to free her limbs so she can try to get more things; nothing takes. Doggerel is weak and the paralysis was cast with a wand.
What else?
She swallows - they could have given her water, couldn't they? - and says:
"Mith?"
The library elf pops into place, round-eyed and confused. "Miss Bella needs a library elf in the summer time?"
"Mith. I need help," says Bella desperately, "I'm stuck here, I got kidnapped, can you get me out?"
Mith peers at Bella. "...Mith is not allowed to fuss with wizard magic, Miss. Very very not allowed."
"Could Kay - or a kitchen elf?"
"No, Miss," apologizes Mith.
"Could you get me one of my wands?"
"Mith is not knowing where they is, Miss Bella," says Mith, wringing her hands, and if Bella doesn't come up with a way for this elf to help her soon she's going to start peeling the skin off her ears or something.
"I need help - a teacher?"
"Mith wishes she could, Miss Bella, but elves is not allowed to be bothering teachers in the summer time."
Bella swallows. "Can you bring someone else here? Mrs. Stark maybe - or - Healer Song's not a teacher -"
Mith shakes her head, eyes watering. "Mith is not knowing where to find them unless they call her."
"Feral?" tries Bella, and Mith lights up.
"Mith can bring Miss Bella Feral Orphan," she agrees, and she pops out again, and she goes looking for Feral.
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occluminous
Feral has time to put the glass down on one of the reasonably flat arms of the armchair and take out his wand. He does those.
The door opens.
It's the pudgy one.
"Wha -"
It's the pudgy one.
"Wha -"
Feral glances at Bella to check her reaction. It doesn't take more than a glance.
"Incendio."
The pudgy man goes up in flames with such violent force that a wash of heat smacks into Bella and Feral halfway across the room, and when the column of fire dies down a few seconds later, there is nothing left of him but a few drifting flakes of ash and a large char mark splashed onto the ceiling.
"Incendio."
The pudgy man goes up in flames with such violent force that a wash of heat smacks into Bella and Feral halfway across the room, and when the column of fire dies down a few seconds later, there is nothing left of him but a few drifting flakes of ash and a large char mark splashed onto the ceiling.
Feral grins a little. It is not an especially pleasant expression.
"One down, one to go?"
"One down, one to go?"
occluminous
"I - wonder if maybe it might be important to know what they wanted to do with me," says Bella.
"I can try intimidating the next one," he says, "but I'm not very scary." He glances up at what's left of Pudgy. "Usually, anyway."
"That's what I'm thinking," Feral agrees.
Presently there are more footsteps. "You forgot the checklis-" When Not Pudgy stops in the door, he double-takes at Feral, and the scorch mark, and the lack of Pudgy, and goes for his wand.
"Incendio," he says, and this time it's not spontaneous combustion, it's a laser-tight bolt of magical fire that slashes across Not Pudgy, leaving a smoking streak along his arm and charring his hand to the bone.
Feral walks over, picks up Not Pudgy's wand, and tosses it across the room.
His terrible little grin is back.
"Hi!" he says brightly.
His terrible little grin is back.
"Hi!" he says brightly.
Feral can wait.
He stuffs his wand up his sleeve again, in case he needs both hands.
He stuffs his wand up his sleeve again, in case he needs both hands.
Eventually Not Pudgy is not screaming, just huffing and puffing and crying and cradling his destroyed arm.
"Hi," Feral says softly, crouching down to get on his level.
Not Pudgy looks at him like he's some kind of nightmare monster.
That is a pretty reasonable way to look at Feral right now.
"You wanna tell me what you were doing with my friend?" he inquires.
"You wanna tell me what you were doing with my friend?" he inquires.
"Who the blistering fuck are you?" whimpers Not Pudgy.
"I asked you first," Feral reminds him, grinning his horrible grin.
occluminous
Not Pudgy shrinks away. "We weren't hurting her!"
"It doesn't hurt for other people maybe but it did for me, I told them," says Bella, eyes tightly shut still.
"It doesn't hurt for other people maybe but it did for me, I told them," says Bella, eyes tightly shut still.
"Tell me your name," says Feral, "and your friend's name," he gestures up at the scorch mark, "and what the fuck you wanted with Bella, and what you did with her wands, and I might not kill you."
"Preston! Martinez! Scientific curiosity! With her other things and her owl in the front hall!" exclaims, apparently, Mr. Preston.
"And why were you scientifically curious about my friend?" he asks next.