Bit of a Bad Omen

[Zelda Fisk]

September 14th.
@Oliver Trask
@John Humphrey-Mavis

Zelda was impossibly relieved to be going back to school and out of the house. An added bonus of this was that her Hogwarts robes were not mourning clothes - apart from the band around her arm, there might have been absolutely nothing wrong with her. Unless one counted her crush on Percy, in which case there was no escaping that knowledge and there was definitely something wrong with her.

She was prattling to Jack and Oliver about her adventures as a Ministry intern - namely the battles of people asking her for things she could not possibly give them - when she saw them.

Black, skeletal horse-things with white eyes and leathery wings. Attached to the carriage. Her eyes went wide as saucers and she hissed a breath, coming to a complete stop.

"Holy hell," she breathed, actually taking a small step back.

  

[John Humphrey-Mavis]

Jack couldn't help fiddling with the band around his arm that he had to wear for his deceased relative that he had hardly even known. It felt odd to have to wear it as he wasn't particularly mournful. Unless one counted being besieged by a collective of cousins something to mourn. Jack enjoyed having Cedric living at Esterwick Park but all of them at once was a bit much for even easy going Jack to adjust to. At least he had not had to give up the privacy of his own bedroom.

Jack listened with some interest as Zelda spoke about her days as an intern. He had obviously not interned but had instead spent the months fannying about and being bored out of his wits. As they got closer to a carriage, Jack glanced around in the hopes of glimpsing her.

Instead, his attention was brought back to Zelda as she hissed a breath and came to a complete stop, causing him to almost collide into her since he had his eyes elsewhere rather than watching where he was going. "What's with you?" He asked, looking where she was looking but seeing nothing there.

  

[Oliver Trask]

Oliver was finally free of the black armband of morning, but it seemed that fate had decided to play a cruel prank and curse half of the student population with them instead. Being cooped up in Irvingly while the rest of his friends were trapped in Hogsmeade facing a number of horrors had nearly driven him mad, but he supposed he should be thankful that his family had remained untouched because of it. Still, he was glad to see them all again in spite of the circumstances. The only way to move on was to move forward, he had found, and he was determined to help in that whether they wanted him to or not!

He couldn't help but be envious of Zelda's Ministry internship, regardless; all he'd had to occupy his time in Irvingly was helping his uncle with miscellaneous menial tasks around the church. His mind wandered to Miss Cadwallader, and wondered how she had spent her summer, but he was quickly brought back to the present at Zelda's reaction to... seemingly nothing at all. Stopping just a few steps ahead, next to the front of the carriage, Oliver quirked an eyebrow.

"What, has it suddenly hit you that we'll have homework to do again?" he teased, bemused, as he followed Zelda's gaze to the carriage. He leaned casually against the edge of the carriage and continued, "I'm fairly certain by now that they don't bite."

  

[Zelda Fisk]

Zelda took another tiny step back and blinked, as if that would make the leathery winged skeletal horses go away. But no, they were still there - and terrifyingly enough, her friends couldn't see them.

Would she have noticed if she had lost her mind?

That terrifying train of thought was swiftly followed up - even if she hadn't noticed, someone would have. She had ten siblings. Ari was a healer. Someone would have seen.

But if she hadn't gone mad, what was wrong with her? Her hands had balled into nervous, white-knuckled fists by her sides.

"There's - there's something pulling the carriages," she said in a tentative tone that was entirely un-Zelda in nature, "Do you not - do neither of you see them?"

They had to be real. She could see them breathing, the rise and fall of their scaly chests.

  

[John Humphrey-Mavis]

Jack wasn't sure what was going on with Zelda but she wasn't being very Zelda-y which was enough to perk up his concern. Looking at her balled up hands, Jack frowned slightly as he looked where she was looking and seeing nothing there. What was she seeing? Jack scratched the back of his neck, not quite sure what to do to get her to calm down.

"See what, exactly? I don't see anything," he shrugged, looking over at Oliver, wondering what had Zelda all riled up.

  

[Oliver Trask]

Giving Zelda grief was one of Oliver's favorite pastimes, but it had become clear that this wasn't the time for that. Her hands were balled into fists and her gaze hadn't moved from the spot just to Oliver's left, where a horse would have been if the carriages didn't pull themselves. Oliver looked from Zelda to Jack and back to the carriage a couple of times, trying desperately to puzzle out what had her so worked up. Losing a parent could shake anyone, Oliver knew that all too well, but seeing things that weren't there?

Then, remembering suddenly a piece of trivia he had read or heard Merlin only knew where, everything fell into place. Damn, what a tool he was!

"Oh. Oh." His eyes widened, and he took a step away from the carriage. The creatures were supposed to be mostly harmless, he thought, but the idea of standing next to something he couldn't see still didn't sit right with him. "They're... thestrals. Big, leathery-looking wings? Like a dead pegasus or something?" Having never seen one himself by a stroke of sheer, dumb luck, he could only describe them in the most basic terms. "They... I think they're invisible unless you... you've seen someone die." He bit his lip, suddenly feeling like a supreme jerk.

  

[Zelda Fisk]

Thestrals. Zelda was about to make a stressed, snappy comment about how if Oliver could describe them then why the hell couldn't he see them but he finished his explanation and her comment died in her throat.

She had only barely seen it, peeking out from behind her brother's shirt just long enough to see it end. The image haunted her if she thought about it for too long but it had not been nearly as awful as hearing Katia cry - and it had still been enough to fundamentally change who she was?

She was absolutely floored and her expression went from scared to distant to biting down on her lower lip, hard - she wanted to say something to let them know she was fine, that it didn't matter, but her mind was stuck on the image of her mother's laughter cutting off.

"Weird that we have them pull the carriages, then," Zelda said finally, weakly.

  

[John Humphrey-Mavis]

Thestrals. And Zelda could see them, meaning Zelda had saw someones death. Remembering that her mother had passed, Jack deduced whom it was she had seen. Especially with the weak tone of her voice when she finally spoke up. He did have to agree on her point though but he supposed thestrals were easier to tend to for some reason?

"Yeah, especially when there are a number of other critters that could both do the job well enough as well as be visible." He was feeling slightly awkward but at least he had said some words?