A Children's Crusade on Acid

[Topaz Urquart]

For the 30 Songs Challenge, but your character could also earn house points for defeating a boggart!

But I smile so hard it hurts
And just when things get worse
You say you've woken from a dream
Abandoned by your mother
Oh could this be?

Topaz had finished her essay yesterday, and was making a special trip by Professor Sleptov's classroom to drop it off. It wasn't actually due until after the Easter holiday, but Azzie had done it early so that she wouldn't have to take anything home with her over the weekend, and now that it was done she was hoping that the Professor would be willing to take it off of her hands early. She never had a problem with losing homework assignments, usually, but with her going home for the weekend and leaving the dorm room empty and unattended, it just made her a little nervous.

When she stopped in to the classroom just after the last class of the day, however, it was already empty of all students--and the professor, too. Topaz bit her lip uncertainly, then decided to wander up to the Professor's desk. Maybe there would be some obvious place that she could leave it for him? That would be excellent--she'd get to turn it in without even having to face the incredibly intimidating Professor Sleptov!

She was almost to the front of the classroom when she saw it: the snake. She froze, every muscle in her small body stiffening. Topaz was terrified of any sort of snake, but this one was worse--somehow she knew, deep down in her gut without any shadow of a doubt whatsoever, that this wasn't just any snake. This was the snake that had killed her mother, and now it had come for her!

It moved, and Topaz shrieked, then darted away from it. Since it had slithered into the wide area between her and the door, this meant that Topaz was trapped, and almost certainly going to die. She dropped her text books and bolted for the first form of cover she could see--a small supply cabinet against the back wall. Slamming the door behind her, Topaz fumbled for her wand, which thankfully had not been among the items she'd dropped, since it was secure in a pocket of her school robes. She was having trouble breathing and there were pinpricks of tears at the corners of her eyes. After a good deal of rather noisy fumbling in the dark closet, Topaz managed to grasp hold of her wand and mutter in a shuddering, frantic breath, "L-L-Lu-Lumos."

  

[Madeleine Backus]

Maddie had borrowed a book from the DADA professor, it was a Russian novel, a magnificent tale of her parent’s homeland. She was so pleased that the Russian man had offered to lend her the novel, her own family had very few novels in their mother tongue and she had devoured it in a matter of days, walking around the school in a daze her nose buried in the tome between classes, at the dinner table, and by the fire in the evening. It had taken exactly 2 days to get through it, and she was keen to return it. Secretly she hoped that the safe return of one such text would possibly lead to the borrowing of more, and she would take any opportunity to get her hands, if only for a little while, on texts that she would never be able to afford on her own.

She rapped lightly on the door of the classroom, and after a moment she pushed on the door, which to her surprised opened wide. She had been expecting to see the professor at his desk, but there was no one there. Maddie approached the desk, and using a small scrap of parchment she intended to leave the book with a short note, thanking the professor. She had been just finishing the note when she heard a sniffling and light sobs coming from the supply closet, the one that usually held the professors boggart. It was odd, to her knowledge Boggarts didn’t cry, the wicked things weren’t emotional enough for that- they knew only one emotion – fear.

Hello in there? Maddie called with a quiet sing song voice – wondering if there was something in her boggart lessons she had forgotten, and perhaps, they did get sad without someone to torment for a very long time. She reached out a slim pale hand for the bevelled brass handle of cabinet door, and with more trepidation than she anticipated she swung open the door, and gave a shriek at it’s contents.

I’ll bring Topaz back into the thread before Maddie deals with mister Boggart



@'topaz Urquart'

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   Topaz Urquart

[Topaz Urquart]

The light didn't help matters much, once she'd actually gotten her wand to respond to her shuddering command. The closet was small and bare and Topaz, although small herself, was rather cramped. She tried to peak out of the key hole once, and saw (or maybe only thought she saw?) the end of a snake's long tail disappearing between the desks. It wasn't leaving. It was guarding this door and waiting for her to open it again, and when she did, it would almost certainly kill her. This was it; Topaz just needed to prepare for death.

She tried to be very adult about dying, and took several deep breaths. Her mother probably hadn't been panicking when she had died from the snake bite--Topaz didn't imagine so, anyway, because she had never seen her mother panic about anything--and if Azzie was going to succumb to the same form her mother's death had taken, she wanted to go out in what she assumed was the same serene, peaceful way her mother had.

Thinking about her mother only made matters worse, however, and Topaz found herself bursting into tears. She didn't know how long she'd been in there, quietly sobbing and contemplating her own morality, before she heard the voice call out. Topaz took in a deep breath, certain that the snake was still out there and that whoever had come to save her was likely about to get bitten, as well. She rustled around, wand in her hand, to try and get to the keyhole to peer out again, but before she'd managed that the doors had been thrown open.

Topaz shrieked at the suddenness of it, and threw her hands up over her head as the much brighter light in the classroom dwarfed her dim wand light. The intruder was another student, but Azzie didn't have time to really register her presence; not when there were matters of life or death to be focused on instead. "Where's the snake?" she demanded frantically, her voice so high pitched and so quick that all the words ran together, and the other girl may well have not understood a word. She looked around the classroom with wide, frightened eyes.

  

[Madeleine Backus]

Instead of the Boggart the cupboard held a rather petrified looking student, she couldn’t have been more than second or third year and she was physically shaking in terror. The girls loud cry caught the older girl slightly by surprised and she glanced around looking for the source of the terror. SNAKE? Maddie shrieked, her eyes darting around the room for any sign of movement. She drew her wand, the book forgotten on the desk, and lit the tip with a quietly muttered ’Lumos’.

Maddie partially turned her back on the girl, unwilling to take her eyes from the space beaneath the desks, where she assumed the creature would be skulking. ’Are you alright?’, she asked the girl, offering a hand, but still facing the other direction, her wand raised. Her intention had been to help the girl to stand but to keep her behind Maddie. She still wasn’t entirely sure if she was dealing with a real snake or the escaped and rampant boggart.

A sudden movement under the desk caught her attention, as a large snake (much larger than she imagined a real snake would be) slithered between the desks, parallel to where the girls were situation. With a confident flick Maddie sent a stunning charm at the reptile, which seemed to dissipate around the creatures form. So it was a Boggart then, they had been told that it was not possible to stun one. ’Whats your name?’ Maddie asked, not taking her eyes of the creature, she needed to keep the other student a little calmer, otherwise this was going to be a tough fight.

@'Topaz Urquart'

  

[Topaz Urquart]

The other girl seemed to be rather cool headed, and she was older. Maybe she would be able to best the snake. But then, Topaz recalled, her mother hadn't been able to best the snake that had ended her life; why did she suppose this girl would succeed where her mother had so tragically failed? Still, she took a few long, ragged breaths, trying to force herself to calm down at least enough to communicate with the other girl. Her eyes frantically scanned the room (what little of it she could see from her position on the floor of the cupboard), and so she didn't even notice the proffered hand at first. Topaz took it a bit uncertainly and stood, but declined, at least for the moment, to get out of the cupboard.

The snake appeared again, then, and Topaz let go of the girl's hand with a shriek as she pressed herself up against the back wall of the cupboard, wishing she could close the doors but feeling her body so stiff with fear that to move would have certainly been impossible. Her wand was lying on the floor, still emitting a faint, watery glow from the tip. The girl cast a stunning spell--Topaz recognized the incantation--but the snake was unaffected.

They were going to die. Topaz lapsed into long, ragged sobs. She was wholly incapable of answering the girl's question, even if she'd wanted to.

  

[Madeleine Backus]

The girl was insensible, but then that was rather the point of boggart, dimly, in the back of her mind she wondered what sort of fetid process had been responsible for the creation of a creature that was so wholly repulsive and vile as the boggart. Second, only the dementor, they were singularly evil creatures that prayed on the very nature of humanity itself- those basic and primal fears that terrified humanity when they were still living in caves, and which still summoned a clammy hand of dread to squeeze the heart. Still, her father always said that bravery was not the absence of fear but rather acknowledging your fear and pushing on anyway. She grasped the Ravenclaws hand and met her dark brown eyes with Maddie’s own clear blue ones. ’Its going to be alright.’ she said, giving her hand an encouraging squeeze, and moved a lock of the girls hair out of her face and behind her air. A gesture which reminded her of her own mother, who would comfort Maddie in that way when she was upset. ’I promise.’ she added solemnly.

With an air of confidence that she did not exactly feel she stepped forward, hoping the boggart would switch its target from the little Ravenclaw to her. As she moved she positioned herself between the younger student and the boggart, trying to remember everything Professor Sleptov had told them about the best way to handle the creature. Never had Maddie been so happy to have been a swot than at that moment. She had attended an extra study session, designed for OWL and NEWT students and she had spent the session practicing her Riddikulus charm, and she hoped it would stand her in good stead now.

The serpent wound its way between the legs of the desks and chairs which stood ready for tomorrow’s class. As it reared up as if to strike at them. Maddie braced and focused on the fact that She wasn’t afraid of snakes, and if the creature had shifted its target it would change shape. The boggart hissed angrily, flaps on the side of its head extended, similar to that of a cobra but it resembled no true specifies of snake Maddie recognised.

’Come on, come one’ she half whispered to itself, as the creature pulled out all the stops in its current form to keep control, with a last angry hiss it gave up trying to win the battle of wills as a snake, and with a pop the snake vanished and a slatternly and wanton image of Maddie appeared. Her eyes were hollow and dead, a large bruise marred her right eye, and the tell tale sores of syphilis around her mouth told the world her profession, as well as the way she stood, and beckoned. The dress was torn at the front and she was wearing a little more than a corset top to cover her breasts, a pair of tatty lace gloves covered dirt incrusted fingers which clutched the heavy lead needle. The rivulets of blood which ran down her arm indicated recent use. The figure wore heavy white lead makeup, which did little to cover the marring of her features, and her lips clumsily stained red, that strayed outside the bounds of her lips and was partially smeared up her cheek.

It was a sad sight and caused Maddie’s stomach to turn in fear and dread at this image of her possible future. She couldn’t blame the Ravenclaws fear of the snake, it was hard to see your greatest fear personified, the image that lived in your nightmares live and in person, taunting you with the reality of what could be. Her voice was still low and timid when she looked back over her shoulder at the Ravenclaw, trying to ignore her shame at the other student seeing ‘her’ in such a state, even if it was just a vision. ’Are you alright?’ hoping the girls breathing was beginning to return to normal, and fearing she might hyperventilate and faint.


@'Topaz Urquart'

  

[Topaz Urquart]

Topaz was not in a mental state to be so easily comforted as that, though she did attempt to try and regulate her breathing a bit when the girl squeezed her hand. Maybe this older girl had the necessary strength and skill to dispatch the snake, but she wasn't sure. Mama had been an adult when she'd been bitten by the snake and died. Was that just because she'd been caught unawares? Would their knowledge of the snake's presence give them enough of an upper hand to kill it, before it killed them?

Then the snake reappeared, and Topaz shrieked. All other thought was driven out of her mind as the snake prepared to strike. She was going to die.

And then, suddenly, the snake was gone. Topaz blinked at the thing that had replaced it--some blond woman whom she didn't recognize. Had the snake been a shapeshifter? Some sort of sinister animagus? What was going on?

She heard the girl's question, but she wasn't quite able to concentrate on it. Topaz's eyes were on the woman in front of her, still wary with suspicion. Was this... rather unfortunate woman going to turn back into the snake?

"What happened?" she asked, ignoring the question.