Fic for tetleythesecond
Author: cranky__crocus
Recipient: tetleythesecond
Title: In Memoriam
Pairing: Wilhemina Grubbly-Plank/Rolanda Hooch; Amelia Bones/Augusta Longbottom; Poppy Pomfrey/Minerva McGonagall; Irma Pince also present.
Rating: I’ll say R for mentions of sex; it’s minimal and otherwise not graphic.
Word Count: 2000
Summary: Wilhemina is collected for devastating news. Six of the greatest witches of their time gather to remember a seventh.
Author's Notes: Thank you, lar_laughs, for the last-minute read-through! I appreciate it! I’ve never had it before and enjoy the gentle first. :)
To tetleythesecond: I was terribly nervous about writing this fic for you! Your writing is some of the best. I consider you one of the Elites on McGonagall. I apologise for the lack of McMin in this story; she takes a backstage role to some other equally strong female characters. I hope you don’t mind the additional two characters I included! I tried to go for a missing scene that was a stolen moment in a later book. I tried for some darker themes with lighter threads to connect-there has to be something to keep us going, hmm?
Wilhemina Grubbly-Plank searched the litter for the fire-ended grubs her new charges would consume without significant complaint. She had learned this through direction communication; they had latched onto her arm. She gleaned many tidbits of knowledge from her various creatures, usually with subtle observation over dental articulation. She had learned, for instance, to recognise the unique sensation of being watched.
“Yes?” she inquired, not insolently, as she continued sifting. As with many of her docile beasts, she preferred to do as she wished until specifically requested otherwise. Wil took the clearing of a throat to be that signal. The sound also revealed the visitor. “Rolanda.”
Wilhemina turned and brushed leaf material from her short-cropped hair with one shoulder. She took in her dear friend’s features as she did so. Rolanda silently offered a hand.
Despite the soil at her fingertips, Wil gripped the firm hand and let it pull her up. Old knees, she mused as she took her balanced stance.
Hooch’s eyes were deep with fresh trauma, Wil noticed: the woman’s eyelids stretched tight over tired, soul-wary eyes. Her frown line was prominent and her lips turned down at the corners, frozen in place by unconsciously tensed muscles. Wil prepared for dreadful news-there was little else to expect in these dark days-but did not allow tension to overcome her. Tensing before a fall rarely lessened the impact and more frequently furthered the damage. There were certain techniques to discover by riding and falling from unicorns.
Wil waited a moment, not at all concerned that her hand was still in the possession of the spike-haired woman. Whatever offered comfort. It seemed Rolanda was gathering something from Wil’s presence, which she was content to offer. She poured forth whatever comfort she could present through their joined hands. Wilhemina had learned patience through her life; she could wait for Rolanda to gather herself enough for speech.
When she did, it was short. “We must leave now. Amelia. They’re waiting.” It didn’t need to be longer.
The animal caretaker nodded solemnly, anguish welling in her heart. She squeezed Rolanda’s hand tight, pulling the woman close and snaking her arms around her too-slender sides, spreading hands over her back for optimal touch and comfort. Hooch went slack with a sigh, leaning heavily on her old friend. It was a second’s vulnerability, the release of an instant, but Wil could feel what it did for her oldest friend.
“Where?” Wil asked softly, a whisper that would not disturb the moment. The reminder of their situation brought the tension back to Hooch’s body in a flood of disappointed recollection. Grubbly-Plank felt the change against her and regretted the occurrence, but she knew there would be others waiting for them.
“Three Broomsticks.”
Wil side-Apparated the pair to the streets of Hogsmeade. They separated once the spinning had stopped. Rolanda stepped away and brushed herself off, needlessly, and wiped her hand on her trouser leg. Wil watched her take in the desolate streets of Hogsmeade, once filled with joyous flirtation and reckless fun on warm summer evenings like this one. The village seemed to hold more shadows than it once had. It was sad, watching it all through Hooch’s hawk eye. She was an animal-for humans all were, no matter how it fervently it was denied-of great intelligence and intuition. She knew the signs of war and heartache, for they came intertwined as a pair.
Grubbly-Plank drew her companion out of the storm winds of her mind with a hand on the woman’s broad shoulder. It was quickly removed, but Rolanda appeared to draw strength from the gesture.
They walked together, in step and silence, to the Three Broomsticks.
It was a pub known for friendship; it was easy to tell that night that they were down a friend. Their customary corner table was not full, but then it hardly ever was. It was fullest in times like this, although it was preferable to all of them that the times be rich with joy rather than deep with melancholy.
Poppy held Minerva’s hand below the table, hidden to anyone less observant than Grubbly-Plank and Hooch. Irma sat in the corner next to an empty chair, her finger holding place in an old book nearly sizzling with visible wards and, probably, curses waiting for any poor soul to look at its pages the wrong way. Three empty chairs sat before her. Wil and Rolanda took two, gazing solemnly at the third.
“Well I see you’ve finally arrived,” a curt voice announced as six firewhiskeys were placed forcibly on the table. Irma glared at the escaped liquid and made an exaggerated motion of removing the book from the premises. Augusta gave the woman a look and pressed her lips together before speaking. “For heavens sake, Irma, your book’s magicked rage is more likely to contaminate our drinks than they are to touch a single word.”
Irma’s lips shrank to one long line over her shallow features, but Wil could not miss how they turned up slightly at the corners.
“Gussie, aren’t you supposed to be in hiding?” Pomfrey questioned, pulling two tankards toward her with her free hand and depositing one in front of McGonagall, who lifted it to her lips immediately.
Augusta hung her bird hat on her chair and put her hands on her hips. “I am in hiding. There’s nowhere safer than a pub in dark times, not when I’m a great witch among the greatest.” She stared at each of them in turn, capturing their eyes and holding the contact for a brief second each. “And what would it do to lock me away?”
She sat. They turned to the empty chair, where once there would have been laughter at Gussie’s sass and assurance that they were not great witches, but mad old spinsters. It would have come from the greatest one of them; she was the one of the seven to leave Hogwarts and achieve distinction as a political icon. They were all great witches. They all, in whatever varied forms, bowed to Amelia.
Wil slid a firewhisky to Rolanda and took one for herself. Irma hid the book away in her rucksack and held the last pewter tankard.
The beast-tamer held up her firewhiskey slowly, low but considerably higher than the table. It had the look of a flag at half mast. Wil glanced at Rolanda and then at the empty chair, once so full of life.
“To Amelia,” Rolanda offered as she raised her tankard. Her eyes were misty but her resolve was firm as she touched her tankard to her friend’s.
“An evening for Amelia,” Augusta agreed as she followed suit.
“To a good friend.” Minerva raised her drink and joined the forming circle of drinks.
“To a friend departed.” Pomfrey’s drink rose.
“To a friend remembered by mad old spinsters in an evening of memoriam.” Irma’s tankard completed the circle. The circle of friends watched each other over their glasses and held them for a moment as Irma spoke. “O Sorrow, cruel fellowship, O Priestess in the vaults of Death, O sweet and bitter breath, what whispers from thy lying lip? ’The stars,’ she whispered, ‘blindly run; a web is wov’n across the sky; from out waste places comes a cry, and murmurs from the dying sun: and all the phantom, Nature, stands-with all the music in her tone, a hollow echo of my own,-a hollow form with empty hands.’ They are of the deepest Dark, the eternally Evil; Amelia was the lucent Light, the greatest Good. They took something precious from us. They will pay in the end.”
“To Amelia,” they repeated, once they heard Rolanda begin it again. They reiterated it for good measure. “To Amelia.”
The six old witches took long drinks from their tankards and replaced them on the table. Augusta’s drink lingered longest by her mouth. She almost grinned as she slammed it down on the wood.
“She took out two, you know. It reminded me of when we were fifth-years and that hulking Slytherin boy couldn’t seem to comprehend what no meant. He was blue and black in uncomfortable places.” Augusta removed a golden object from her purse. A golden chain followed it and slithered across the table. It was a monocle. The woman knotted it around her drink and stroked the metal fondly. “She was always feistier than people gave her credit for. Powerful, sure, but she had a fire to her.”
Irma looked her friend up and down, grinning subtly. “You would know all about her fire, Gussie.”
Gussie smirked in her least decent manner and leaned back in her chair. “She was a politician. They need some opportunities for release.”
“And you, being the most charitable option, provided ample opportunity,” Rolanda remarked with a quick spark to her eyes. Wil was relieved to witness it-her hawk was coming home. The old Ravenclaw finished, “I’m sure her cheek never left the pillow.”
Augusta guffawed and gave the woman a hearty slap on the back. “You don’t go tampering with my reputation, you hear, you old wench? I’m sure you’ve mishandled the occasional broom with good ol’ Wilhemina onboard.”
Hooch shook her head and bumped Wil’s knee under the table, sending her a fierce grin. Wil slipped her arm over the back of the woman’s chair, just touching the woman’s robe. The broom mistress leaned back and bumped Wil’s hand onto her shoulder, sending a smile over her other shoulder. It was immediately returned.
Wil listened to the exchange of stories, relieved their night of remembrance would not be one entirely of remorse. Amelia Bones was a character. They all were, especially as a group. Their Hogwarts stories came from different times, but they had been friends so long it seemed they were all students at the same time-an extraordinarily long time, given the number and quality of the stories.
Three tight generations of witches. Wil glanced at the chair once more, then at Irma.
“She enjoyed the library,” Irma announced, staring at the chair. The others turned to look. “We met in the library. We met revising Transfigurations.” Minerva smiled. “Seventh year she kissed me during a late-night revision session. I didn’t tell her to stop.”
Augusta, not the irrationally jealous type, merely chuckled. “In the library! A kiss with you in the library! You didn’t hold yourself to the standards you do your students, mmm?”
Irma raised one thin eyebrow and stared at her companion. At last she laughed.
As the evening drew to a close after too many firewhiskeys and uncountable stories recounted, Augusta sighed. “I’ll miss her.”
Minerva raised her wand, lighting the rafters above her head. Pomfrey followed immediately. Wilhemina, Hooch and Irma copied. Gussie glanced up and watched, her eyes watery. She kissed her wand and lifted it to the sky.
“Amelia Bones.”
Further wands raised, other pub partisans amalgamating symbolically against their enemy.
“Henrietta Abbott,” a male voice murmured.
“Florean Fortescue.”
“Emmeline Vance.”
“Broderick Bode.”
Each name was spoken by all after its mention. A number of others joined the spoken memorial. The room was lit with wandlight and heavy with shared burden.
When the six women left the pub, others followed them out. The six friends kissed and embraced, whispering short goodbyes. No one knew if it would be a last. They parted in friendship and hoped it would occur again.
Wilhemina lit her pipe. She and Hooch Apparated to her cottage, where Hooch called her to bed. Wil smiled sadly.
Rolanda sought release as she knew how, much as Amelia Bones and Augusta Longbottom. Irma Pince had her books. Minerva McGonagall would shed three tears and stiffen her façade. Poppy Pomfrey would cry, tut, and put her effort to save others. Augusta Longbottom, the Mother, would watch Neville and Susan.
Rolanda Hooch had Wilhemina Grubbly-Plank’s tongue, fingers, embrace and comfort.
Wil had her hawk, her dearheart friends and her wise creatures.
They would make it through, somehow.
Irma’s quote: ‘In Memoriam’ by Alfred Lord Tennyson.
Recipient: tetleythesecond
Title: In Memoriam
Pairing: Wilhemina Grubbly-Plank/Rolanda Hooch; Amelia Bones/Augusta Longbottom; Poppy Pomfrey/Minerva McGonagall; Irma Pince also present.
Rating: I’ll say R for mentions of sex; it’s minimal and otherwise not graphic.
Word Count: 2000
Summary: Wilhemina is collected for devastating news. Six of the greatest witches of their time gather to remember a seventh.
Author's Notes: Thank you, lar_laughs, for the last-minute read-through! I appreciate it! I’ve never had it before and enjoy the gentle first. :)
To tetleythesecond: I was terribly nervous about writing this fic for you! Your writing is some of the best. I consider you one of the Elites on McGonagall. I apologise for the lack of McMin in this story; she takes a backstage role to some other equally strong female characters. I hope you don’t mind the additional two characters I included! I tried to go for a missing scene that was a stolen moment in a later book. I tried for some darker themes with lighter threads to connect-there has to be something to keep us going, hmm?
Wilhemina Grubbly-Plank searched the litter for the fire-ended grubs her new charges would consume without significant complaint. She had learned this through direction communication; they had latched onto her arm. She gleaned many tidbits of knowledge from her various creatures, usually with subtle observation over dental articulation. She had learned, for instance, to recognise the unique sensation of being watched.
“Yes?” she inquired, not insolently, as she continued sifting. As with many of her docile beasts, she preferred to do as she wished until specifically requested otherwise. Wil took the clearing of a throat to be that signal. The sound also revealed the visitor. “Rolanda.”
Wilhemina turned and brushed leaf material from her short-cropped hair with one shoulder. She took in her dear friend’s features as she did so. Rolanda silently offered a hand.
Despite the soil at her fingertips, Wil gripped the firm hand and let it pull her up. Old knees, she mused as she took her balanced stance.
Hooch’s eyes were deep with fresh trauma, Wil noticed: the woman’s eyelids stretched tight over tired, soul-wary eyes. Her frown line was prominent and her lips turned down at the corners, frozen in place by unconsciously tensed muscles. Wil prepared for dreadful news-there was little else to expect in these dark days-but did not allow tension to overcome her. Tensing before a fall rarely lessened the impact and more frequently furthered the damage. There were certain techniques to discover by riding and falling from unicorns.
Wil waited a moment, not at all concerned that her hand was still in the possession of the spike-haired woman. Whatever offered comfort. It seemed Rolanda was gathering something from Wil’s presence, which she was content to offer. She poured forth whatever comfort she could present through their joined hands. Wilhemina had learned patience through her life; she could wait for Rolanda to gather herself enough for speech.
When she did, it was short. “We must leave now. Amelia. They’re waiting.” It didn’t need to be longer.
The animal caretaker nodded solemnly, anguish welling in her heart. She squeezed Rolanda’s hand tight, pulling the woman close and snaking her arms around her too-slender sides, spreading hands over her back for optimal touch and comfort. Hooch went slack with a sigh, leaning heavily on her old friend. It was a second’s vulnerability, the release of an instant, but Wil could feel what it did for her oldest friend.
“Where?” Wil asked softly, a whisper that would not disturb the moment. The reminder of their situation brought the tension back to Hooch’s body in a flood of disappointed recollection. Grubbly-Plank felt the change against her and regretted the occurrence, but she knew there would be others waiting for them.
“Three Broomsticks.”
Wil side-Apparated the pair to the streets of Hogsmeade. They separated once the spinning had stopped. Rolanda stepped away and brushed herself off, needlessly, and wiped her hand on her trouser leg. Wil watched her take in the desolate streets of Hogsmeade, once filled with joyous flirtation and reckless fun on warm summer evenings like this one. The village seemed to hold more shadows than it once had. It was sad, watching it all through Hooch’s hawk eye. She was an animal-for humans all were, no matter how it fervently it was denied-of great intelligence and intuition. She knew the signs of war and heartache, for they came intertwined as a pair.
Grubbly-Plank drew her companion out of the storm winds of her mind with a hand on the woman’s broad shoulder. It was quickly removed, but Rolanda appeared to draw strength from the gesture.
They walked together, in step and silence, to the Three Broomsticks.
It was a pub known for friendship; it was easy to tell that night that they were down a friend. Their customary corner table was not full, but then it hardly ever was. It was fullest in times like this, although it was preferable to all of them that the times be rich with joy rather than deep with melancholy.
Poppy held Minerva’s hand below the table, hidden to anyone less observant than Grubbly-Plank and Hooch. Irma sat in the corner next to an empty chair, her finger holding place in an old book nearly sizzling with visible wards and, probably, curses waiting for any poor soul to look at its pages the wrong way. Three empty chairs sat before her. Wil and Rolanda took two, gazing solemnly at the third.
“Well I see you’ve finally arrived,” a curt voice announced as six firewhiskeys were placed forcibly on the table. Irma glared at the escaped liquid and made an exaggerated motion of removing the book from the premises. Augusta gave the woman a look and pressed her lips together before speaking. “For heavens sake, Irma, your book’s magicked rage is more likely to contaminate our drinks than they are to touch a single word.”
Irma’s lips shrank to one long line over her shallow features, but Wil could not miss how they turned up slightly at the corners.
“Gussie, aren’t you supposed to be in hiding?” Pomfrey questioned, pulling two tankards toward her with her free hand and depositing one in front of McGonagall, who lifted it to her lips immediately.
Augusta hung her bird hat on her chair and put her hands on her hips. “I am in hiding. There’s nowhere safer than a pub in dark times, not when I’m a great witch among the greatest.” She stared at each of them in turn, capturing their eyes and holding the contact for a brief second each. “And what would it do to lock me away?”
She sat. They turned to the empty chair, where once there would have been laughter at Gussie’s sass and assurance that they were not great witches, but mad old spinsters. It would have come from the greatest one of them; she was the one of the seven to leave Hogwarts and achieve distinction as a political icon. They were all great witches. They all, in whatever varied forms, bowed to Amelia.
Wil slid a firewhisky to Rolanda and took one for herself. Irma hid the book away in her rucksack and held the last pewter tankard.
The beast-tamer held up her firewhiskey slowly, low but considerably higher than the table. It had the look of a flag at half mast. Wil glanced at Rolanda and then at the empty chair, once so full of life.
“To Amelia,” Rolanda offered as she raised her tankard. Her eyes were misty but her resolve was firm as she touched her tankard to her friend’s.
“An evening for Amelia,” Augusta agreed as she followed suit.
“To a good friend.” Minerva raised her drink and joined the forming circle of drinks.
“To a friend departed.” Pomfrey’s drink rose.
“To a friend remembered by mad old spinsters in an evening of memoriam.” Irma’s tankard completed the circle. The circle of friends watched each other over their glasses and held them for a moment as Irma spoke. “O Sorrow, cruel fellowship, O Priestess in the vaults of Death, O sweet and bitter breath, what whispers from thy lying lip? ’The stars,’ she whispered, ‘blindly run; a web is wov’n across the sky; from out waste places comes a cry, and murmurs from the dying sun: and all the phantom, Nature, stands-with all the music in her tone, a hollow echo of my own,-a hollow form with empty hands.’ They are of the deepest Dark, the eternally Evil; Amelia was the lucent Light, the greatest Good. They took something precious from us. They will pay in the end.”
“To Amelia,” they repeated, once they heard Rolanda begin it again. They reiterated it for good measure. “To Amelia.”
The six old witches took long drinks from their tankards and replaced them on the table. Augusta’s drink lingered longest by her mouth. She almost grinned as she slammed it down on the wood.
“She took out two, you know. It reminded me of when we were fifth-years and that hulking Slytherin boy couldn’t seem to comprehend what no meant. He was blue and black in uncomfortable places.” Augusta removed a golden object from her purse. A golden chain followed it and slithered across the table. It was a monocle. The woman knotted it around her drink and stroked the metal fondly. “She was always feistier than people gave her credit for. Powerful, sure, but she had a fire to her.”
Irma looked her friend up and down, grinning subtly. “You would know all about her fire, Gussie.”
Gussie smirked in her least decent manner and leaned back in her chair. “She was a politician. They need some opportunities for release.”
“And you, being the most charitable option, provided ample opportunity,” Rolanda remarked with a quick spark to her eyes. Wil was relieved to witness it-her hawk was coming home. The old Ravenclaw finished, “I’m sure her cheek never left the pillow.”
Augusta guffawed and gave the woman a hearty slap on the back. “You don’t go tampering with my reputation, you hear, you old wench? I’m sure you’ve mishandled the occasional broom with good ol’ Wilhemina onboard.”
Hooch shook her head and bumped Wil’s knee under the table, sending her a fierce grin. Wil slipped her arm over the back of the woman’s chair, just touching the woman’s robe. The broom mistress leaned back and bumped Wil’s hand onto her shoulder, sending a smile over her other shoulder. It was immediately returned.
Wil listened to the exchange of stories, relieved their night of remembrance would not be one entirely of remorse. Amelia Bones was a character. They all were, especially as a group. Their Hogwarts stories came from different times, but they had been friends so long it seemed they were all students at the same time-an extraordinarily long time, given the number and quality of the stories.
Three tight generations of witches. Wil glanced at the chair once more, then at Irma.
“She enjoyed the library,” Irma announced, staring at the chair. The others turned to look. “We met in the library. We met revising Transfigurations.” Minerva smiled. “Seventh year she kissed me during a late-night revision session. I didn’t tell her to stop.”
Augusta, not the irrationally jealous type, merely chuckled. “In the library! A kiss with you in the library! You didn’t hold yourself to the standards you do your students, mmm?”
Irma raised one thin eyebrow and stared at her companion. At last she laughed.
As the evening drew to a close after too many firewhiskeys and uncountable stories recounted, Augusta sighed. “I’ll miss her.”
Minerva raised her wand, lighting the rafters above her head. Pomfrey followed immediately. Wilhemina, Hooch and Irma copied. Gussie glanced up and watched, her eyes watery. She kissed her wand and lifted it to the sky.
“Amelia Bones.”
Further wands raised, other pub partisans amalgamating symbolically against their enemy.
“Henrietta Abbott,” a male voice murmured.
“Florean Fortescue.”
“Emmeline Vance.”
“Broderick Bode.”
Each name was spoken by all after its mention. A number of others joined the spoken memorial. The room was lit with wandlight and heavy with shared burden.
When the six women left the pub, others followed them out. The six friends kissed and embraced, whispering short goodbyes. No one knew if it would be a last. They parted in friendship and hoped it would occur again.
Wilhemina lit her pipe. She and Hooch Apparated to her cottage, where Hooch called her to bed. Wil smiled sadly.
Rolanda sought release as she knew how, much as Amelia Bones and Augusta Longbottom. Irma Pince had her books. Minerva McGonagall would shed three tears and stiffen her façade. Poppy Pomfrey would cry, tut, and put her effort to save others. Augusta Longbottom, the Mother, would watch Neville and Susan.
Rolanda Hooch had Wilhemina Grubbly-Plank’s tongue, fingers, embrace and comfort.
Wil had her hawk, her dearheart friends and her wise creatures.
They would make it through, somehow.
Irma’s quote: ‘In Memoriam’ by Alfred Lord Tennyson.