SA & RoF - Chapter Five, "Keep Your Fiends Close"
And now, for the dramatic conclusion that everyone except our intrepid heroes saw coming...
Chapter Five
Keep Your Fiends Close
The repository was a rather small room with all stone walls, floor, and ceiling. Several strange objects were stored inside: beach-ball sized blue spheres; ancient statues; a large cracked mirror; vials filled with what appeared to be blood; books with blackened, burnt covers… And laying on a tall wrought-iron display stand in the very center of the room was something that could only be the Rod of Fire.
It was a wand carved from some sort of pale off-white wood, about fourteen inches long, with a natural-looking gentle ‘S’ curve from one end to the other. Solana and Jowan slowly approached the stand.
“Could be that easy…?” Jowan reached out and took hold of the wand. The moment his fingers closed around it, he gasped and wobbled on his feet. He grabbed onto Solana’s arm with his free hand for balance.
“Jowan! Jowan, are you alright?”
After a moment, Jowan let go of her and stood on his own. “I’m alright, it’s just…”He blinked. “I expected it to feel wrong, somehow, but it actually feels good. Really good.”
Jowan waved the wand. All of the artifacts in the room began to float into the air, gracefully swirling around them as if in zero-gravity. Solana stared in amazement.
“This feels incredible,” Jowan gasped. “I’ve never done magic like this before. Why would they keep something like this locked up?”
“Probably because it used to belong to one of the most powerful Dark wizards in history,” Solana suggested. “Just a possibility.”
“Very funny,” said Jowan. “But it was the wizard who was evil, not the wand. The Rod of Fire can be used for good. Everyone knows I’m not a powerful wizard, but with the Rod I could learn more about magic in one lifetime than people who have been studying for generations.”
All of the objects in the room suddenly shattered into millions of pieces. The jagged fragments continued to float like leaves on the wind, combining and recombining in abstract patterns and shapes.
“Ah, Jowan?” Solana looked around nervously. “We are going to hide the Rod from Professor Uldred, remember? You can’t keep it.”
“I don’t know, haven’t you ever heard of hiding something in plain sight?”
“Jowan!”
“Alright,” Jowan sighed. The broken objects reassembled seamlessly, as if they had never been shattered in the first place, and gently returned to their places. “Let’s go.”
Solana and Jowan left the repository and shut the door behind them. The knob disappeared again as soon as the lock re-engaged.
“Now all we need to do is hide the Rod,” Solana said. “Uldred might show up soon. We don’t want to be around when he finds out that those fake keys we left for him won’t open the door.”
“Actually, I could use the Rod to petrify Uldred right here,” Jowan said. “That way the professors can catch him in the act.”
“Are you sure you can do that?” Solana asked.
“It’ll be easy,” said Jowan, an excited glint in his eyes. “Come on, let’s go behind that statue again before-”
There were footsteps coming from the other end of the corridor. Before Solana and Jowan could hide, Professor Uldred arrived. But he wasn’t alone. Professor Irving and Professor Greagoir stood on either side of him, one looking disappointed and the other furious.
“It’s as I told you,” said Uldred. “They were after the Rod of Fire.”
“You were the one who wanted to steal it all along!” Solana protested. “Jowan saw you trying to break into the repository!”
Uldred scoffed. “Of all the outrageous accusations…”
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” Greagoir barked. “That repository is locked for a reason!”
“Why?” Jowan demanded. “You were going to hide the Rod of Fire away until all of its knowledge was lost, just because you’re afraid of what you don’t understand!”
“Jowan, that isn’t why we’re here- stop before you make things worse,” Solana hissed. To the professors, she said, “We only took the Rod to keep it away from him!”
“Ridiculous,” Uldred snarled. “I’ve been protecting the Rod of Fire all year, as have we all. And for good reason, it seems.”
Solana blinked. “What? You were…”
“Such a shame,” Uldred said with a smirk, “that we have to expel such shining examples of magical talent and send them back to their Muggle families.”
Jowan went from outraged to terrified in an instant. “Send us back? You can’t do that-I-I don’t anywhere else to go…”
“Clearly you should have thought about that before-”“
No!” Jowan shouted. “I won’t go back!”
He raised the Rod of Fire and pointed it at the professors. At once he became engulfed by magical flames. Solana fell back against the wall with a scream as the fire began to shape itself into a hoard of magical animals-dragons, chimeras, phoenixes, and many more things with fangs and claws that swiped out at everyone nearby. The heat was overwhelming.
Solana could hear the professors shouting over the roar of the fire, but she couldn’t see them through the wall of flames that had been conjured around them. Somehow, even though his body was completely covered in fire, Jowan didn’t seem to be burning at all.
“Jowan, stop!” Solana screamed. She could barely open her eyes. The inferno was unbearable. Her lungs hurt with each breath.
The boy who no longer resembled her friend stared at her for a long moment with a strange expression of surprise on his face. Then, quite suddenly, he disappeared with a crack! The flames died down as soon as he left. Solana sank to the floor, gasping for air.
“He Apperated!” Greagoir exclaimed. “No one can Apperate within Hogwarts, especially not a first year!”
“With the Rod of Fire, he will be capable of far more than that,” Professor Irving said gravely. “The Aurors must be informed. Until he is captured, Jowan will be a danger to others… and himself.”
Uldred glared at Solana. “I hope you’re proud of yourself, Ms. Amell.”
--
Hours later, Solana was sitting on her four-poster in Gryffindor tower while the professors discussed her fate in Headmaster Irving’s office. Though her dorm-mates continued to sleep in their beds nearby, Solana felt even more alone now than she had during all of the years she spent hidden away by her grandfather like a dirty secret. Her first real friend had gone mad and disappeared to who-knew-where, but her anger at Jowan could not completely overwhelm the fear and worry she felt for him. Where could he have gone? What would he do? How long could he avoid capture? How many people would he hurt before then?
While she pondered these questions, Solana twirled her own wand between her fingers, certain that this would be the last time she saw it. She would surely be expelled and have her wand broken for what she had done.
Professor Irving entered the dorm. Solana was struck by a strong sense of déjà-vu-they had met in a very similar setting. Only now, instead of inviting her to the magical world, Irving was about to take it away. He waved his wand to cast a silencing spell over the other beds so that they wouldn’t disturb Solana’s dorm-mates.
“The Aurors have begun their search,” he told her. “Though with no clue as to Jowan’s whereabouts, there is very little chance that he will be found.”
“I don’t understand what happened, sir,” said Solana. “Was Uldred really protecting the Rod of Fire?”
“He was,” said Professor Irving. “He is our resident Defense Against the Dark Arts expert, after all.”
“Maybe if you strike the ‘Defense Against’ part,” Solana said. “Jowan saw him trying to break into the repository.”
“Did he? Considering what happened tonight, I would not be so eager to trust his word on the matter,” said Irving.
“You think he lied to me so that I would help him?”Solana asked. “He’s my friend, he wouldn’t do that to me. And he didn’t even know about the Rod until later.”
“Perhaps, but he did know that something was hidden in the repository. The temptation of Dark magic has driven greater wizards than Jowan to betray themselves… and their friends,” Professor Irving said sadly. “It is a constant struggle that all of us must face. Jowan succumbed to the promise of hidden knowledge and easy solutions to his problems. It is a mistake that I hope you will avoid during your future years at Hogwarts.”
Solana stared at him for a moment, not wanting to get her hopes up. “Sir?”
“You’re a powerful witch with great potential. And though you made a serious error in judgment, your heart was in the right place,” said Professor Irving. “Therefore, I have decided that you will not be expelled. But if you are going to continue your education at Hogwarts, you must learn to trust the professors here. You could have come to me with your concerns before things grew out of hand.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” Solana said quietly.
“You have the opportunity to learn from your mistakes,” said Professor Irving. “Too few receive such a chance, and even fewer are willing to take advantage of it.”
--
And so the year drew to a close. Solana somehow managed to do well on her final exams, despite her near inability to focus. That private nook in the library seemed much larger and quieter when studying alone. It was with a heavy heart that she packed her trunk on the last day, already dreading going back to Amell Estate. It was not ‘home’ anymore, if it ever was in the first place. She consoled herself with the fact that, miraculously, she had not been expelled after all. After only a few months, she would return to Hogwarts for her second year.
Though considering the memories she now associated with her school, this was something of a mixed blessing. She watched through the window of the Hogwarts Express as the other students smiled and laughed and said goodbye to their friends.
Solana eventually tore her eyes away from them. Instead she looked at the castle standing tall over the tree-tops, until the steam rising from the train obscured her view like passing clouds. Soon enough it was as though Hogwarts-and everything that had occurred within its walls-had been nothing more than a daydream.
THE END
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((So, that was the first book in the "Solana Amell" series. What do you guys think? The next book should be funnier because Alistair will join the gang-- it was a lot of fun to write his dialogue, so I hope you enjoy it :D
As always, please leave a comment if you're reading this story. I always love hearing from you, even if you don't think you have much to say, or you're trying to spare my feelings from surely well-deserved criticism ;). Anyway, I'll be back tomorrow with the first chapter of Year Two: Solana Amell and the Lost Scrolls of Merlin. See you then!))