"Maybe I could register as a dinosaur and then just not tell anyone about the wings when I work them out."

She nods. "You might get caught if your appearance doesn't change that much, but also if you mostly stay away from other wizards they're unlikely to look too closely."

Nod.

Anathema stretches. "We can worry about that later. I'm hungry, now!"

"Let's eat, then."

Food!

And, after dinner (once they've digested a bit): more running around! (Anathema is a tiger and this is amazing.)

It is pretty cool.

Though she might need another round of dinner afterwards.

They're growing girls. It makes perfect sense.

Indeed, indeed.

Nom.

The rest of winter break involves so much running around as a tiger. Anathema gets in her studying, of course - gets her Patronus working one time she's reminded to, laughing even before she casts - it's Ellie's Animagus form, though it's still misty and indistinct at times.

But -

She's starting to see a lot of the reasons why someone might not like school hemming them in. This is so very, very nice.

Ellie starts research on what she'd need to turn into a full dragon. It looks like a lot of wordless wandless magic, tricky and not really taught at Hogwarts. She can get texts from other traditions though, and study on her own.

Fay helps Ellie's studies a lot - especially in finding resources. A lot of it's hard to order internationally, but she has friends all over, especially in academia. The turn around isn't instant, but works do start trickling in. Fay's college roommate sends Ellie a massive bundle of journal articles; another friend sends a copy of an unpublished dissertation and copies of several reference works. Someone else sends over a stack of papers in Mandarin with an attached note apologizing for these not being in English (as translated by Fay), and a letter to Fay that she reads with a soft smile. A librarian from her alma mater sends copies of a few rarer documents, and a letter saying she hopes to see Fay's girls at her university someday.

She doesn't neglect Anathema either, of course, though Anathema's not very interested in further enhancing her tiger shape - instead, Fay sits her down to talk about fun magic systems, teasing out a childhood fascination with sung magic. Fay suggests Anathema join the chorus club and offers to arrange vocal lessons over the summer, finding her resources much like she does for Ellie on magical music.

Spring semester arrives all too soon, with the pall of the Dementors falling over them - but Fay has a fairly firm plan, now, for faking Sirius's death, and a calm certainty it'll be over soon enough.

Good.

Ellie spends a lot of time curled up as a dinosaur in the dragon room, trying to work on wandless magic.

Anathema joins her a lot, though she's usually in her human form so she can read. She does join the beginner's chorus, though, taking up some of her weekend free time.

She's tense a lot. Waiting.

Sirius's faked death is very hard to miss. It's timed carefully for when Dumbledore's at the Ministry - the largest delay -

Fay stages the fight along the lake, away from where the Dementors have been bothering to go - no emotional humans to lurk around, here. Fast and brutal, Sirius facing her -

The fight ends with an explosion, before Dumbledore can return, before the Dementors can reach them. Fay goes flat; Sirius, hidden by the roiling clouds of debris, shifts into a dog and slips into the lake and to a tunnel into the lowest reaches of the Chamber of Secrets they'd preemptively opened.

The other professors get there in time to help Fay hold the Dementors back until Aurors can arrive and force them to retreat. Classes are cancelled for the day, and the students are barred from leaving the castle as more and more investigators come to the sight.

Fay stands to the side, quietly, answering questions with a stony expression. She hands over her wand when asked; it'll have no suspicious activity, even to the most powerful Priori Incantatum.

By the time the Aurors are escorting her off grounds to give her testimony, she's already wandlessly altered her surface memories, resorting her mind and locking the truth in deep.

It takes a while for the news to trickle back to the students. Professor Reynolds is unhurt; she claims she apprehended Sirius Black, fighting and ultimately killing him when he resisted arrest. The Aurors are verifying this.

None of the professors are sure when the Dementors will be removed, or even when Professor Reynolds will be allowed to return.

All they can do is wait.

Anathema's unhappy and stressed the entire wait - she'd helped some with the set up, with opening the tunnel and instructing the basilisk on when to close it, with gently encouraging any snakes in the possible blast radius to relocate.

But now it's just... Waiting.

Professor Reynolds doesn't return before a special evening edition of The Daily Prophet, reporting that a professor at Hogwarts has claimed to have killed Sirius Black. It feels less - polished, edited, than their usual. Rawer. There's a new picture of Professor Reynolds, looking exhausted.

Aurors are scouring the scene still, the Prophet reports, searching for signs of Black's presence and death. The professor has agreed to undergo questioning under Veritaserum and to share her memories via pensieve with 'a panel of Britain's greatest experts.' Still, the paper cautions they might not know much until tomorrow at the earliest - and some questions might remain unanswered for days or weeks.

Following that is some hasty speculation, some reports of notable reactions, but - it's a thinner edition than usual.

She doesn't get back to Hogwarts before curfew - or even before a reasonable time to go to sleep, or even an unreasonable time to stay up anxiously until.

Still - she's back before sunrise, and a house elf delivers a quiet message to Ellie and Anathema that she's returned.

Classes are still canceled, so there's nothing really holding the two girls up from going to seek her out.

Which of course they do.

Ellie brings her tea set and a hug.

Anathema mostly has hugs to bring - though she does stop to let the house elf know they'll all probably be eating in Professor Reynolds' rooms.

"Ellie, Anathema, come in," she says when they knock. She's slouched a bit on her couch, petting Scarlet. She looks extremely tired.

"Hello, Professor." Anathema can have the first hug while Ellie sets up the brew.

Snug!

The house elves slip in with food and slip out, and Anathema glances at the closed door -

"Are you done with questioning and stuff?"

"For now," she says. "It'll be another few days at the least before they call me in - probably the weekend, so... In four days."