Hermione took a deep breath, mentally preparing herself. She’d hung back after her first Care of Magical Creatures class with Hagrid- there was something she’d been meaning to ask him since getting off the Hogwarts Express.
“Something wrong with the class, Hermione?” Hagrid asked.
She looked. He was looking nervously at her. “Huh? Oh, no, it was good. Amazing, actually.” She took another breath. The class had been an excellent one. Hagrid had introduced them to Hippogriffs right away- and when it had been Hermione’s turn to approach the one Hailey had ridden, Buckbeak, she’d hardly even begun to bow before he had trotted forwards to put one wing across her back. Hagrid had observed that apparently he liked her- while Hailey had thought it was funny. Apparently, she’d ‘eeped’ just like Fluttershy.
The part that was strangest to her was that when she had ridden him- at Hagrid’s urging- she’d known she was acrophobic, and so expected to be clinging to him for dear life- or at least, as much as her carefully restrained strength would allow.
Instead, she’d found herself enjoying it- with her wings, kept tightly folded against her back, just itching to unfurl as well. It didn’t exactly help that, since she had no idea how to properly care for them, they were pretty itchy to begin with.
“I just-!” she began. “I have a… question.” She looked up at him. “How would you take care of their wings?”
He blinked. “Ah, yer wouldn’t do that with a Hippogriff. They wouldn’t like it one bit- an’ they take care of themselves.”
She winced. “Then… some other, ah, winged creature?”
“Depends,” he mused. “Most of ‘em take care of themselves pretty well.”
She glanced towards the Castle- but the view was blocked by a hill. Nobody would see them.
She unfurled her wings a little.
Hagrid stared.
“I- I don’t know how…” she muttered.
“I don’t rightly know,” he grumbled. “Everythin’ with feathered wings takes care of ‘em itself.”
Buckbeak suddenly trotted over, extended one wing, and poked it briefly with his beak, before looking pointedly at Hermione.
“Uh…” she muttered.
He did it again.
Hagrid seemed delighted. “He’s trying to show yer!”
It was a good thing Care of Magical Creatures was her last class for the day.
“Hailey?”
Hailey looked up; it was Madam Pomfrey. “Hmm?”
“The… dementor,” she stated.
Hailey nodded. The girl the dementor on the train had become had been extremely confused- but even in her confusion, she’d tried to cling to her. “She need company?” she asked.
She paused. “Well… Yes and no.” She sighed. “I’m sure you know nobody knows what a dementor’s body is composed of?”
“Uh, I do now.”
She smiled wryly. “Well, nobody does. Hers… Her body is composed of dirt, dust, bits of rotten flesh, and scraps of fabric.”
She looked at her. “What?”
She nodded. “There’s a… I don’t know. Magic, of some kind, inside her, keeping her running- and, slowly, replacing that assorted debris with real internal organs. That’s… She’s had an enormous appetite to support that process.”
Hailey nodded slowly. “Meaning, that any life we see…”
She shook her head. “Any motion we see is purely magical- but her brain is the first part- and as it’s been developing, she’s been growing less and less detached- more intelligent. She’s definitely there, definitely alive… and definitely struggling.”
Hailey rubbed her chin. “If it’s magic…” She scowled. “Even magic isn’t infinite.”
She nodded. “There’s a limited supply of it. It’s different from any magic I can produce, so I can’t replenish it- and I’m fairly certain it’ll be depleted before she reforms completely.”
She stopped. “So… I resurrected her, but she’s only got so long to live?”
“I… I think, yes.”
“How long does she have?”
“About…” She sighed. “About six months. There isn’t going to be anything I can do for her, either.”
Hailey sighed. “Can… Can I show her a good time?”
Madam Pomfrey looked at her. “Are you sure? It’s only going to hurt that much more when she dies.”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
Remus Lupin was watchful. He had to be, as the Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor- and especially so as a werewolf. He had been unsurprised when Hailey had wanted to help the dementor she’d resurrected- and even less surprised when the frightened girl had seen Hailey and clung to her like a life raft. Even now, as he started his first third-year Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson in the staffroom, the girl was with them- although she seemed content to sit in the corner and watch, once she knew Hailey wasn’t going to be leaving without her.
He’d watched the girl in the corner of his eye as he explained the Boggart- but she’d watched with curious ignorance, evidently unable to understand a thing he was saying, but trying anyways.
Finally, it’d come time to let it out. It seemed Sharp Shot’s Boggart was a giant, bright red, horned centaur- but she’d had a plan, so the monster had been captured in a giant mousetrap less than a second after it had stepped out of the wardrobe, to a gale of laughter.
As the Boggart began to shift between targets- the giant centaur seemed to be a popular one, something like a quarter of the class it seemed- he watched the girl in the corner of his eye. She watched nervously, like she was worried about something- but not fearfully.
But of course, he let his guard down. Only for a fraction of a second- he was watching the girl, rather than the boggart, when miss Arachnid Phobic’s giant spider lost its legs and rolled to where Hailey stopped it with her foot. Especially considering her overall fearlessness, he’d figured it a good idea to keep it from seeing her.
He rushed forwards- but he was too late.
It became… a dementor.
Hailey smiled, but the girl let out a squeak of fright and curled up into a ball. Lupin opened his mouth to speak, to draw the boggart’s attention- but Hailey was faster.
“Riddikulus!” she barked, wand flashing upwards.
The boggart-dementor had only barely begun to draw its long, rattling breath of despair when it suddenly clapped its hands to its throat with a sound like a chicken getting stepped on. It then proceeded to hop in circles for a few seconds, squawking louder and louder, a giant rooster tail sticking out the back of its robes.
The ex-dementor girl in the corner joined the rest of the class in laughing for the first time all class.
She was going to be a strange one, definitely- and he had to wonder if there was a way to keep her from dying before she could finish regenerating.
Professor Dumbledore looked up at the sudden knock on his office door and mentally cursed himself for taking Snape’s potion on a friday. He’d been so focused on his experiment that he’d completely forgotten about Bonbon’s reports!
“Enter,” he called, doing his level best to sound like he usually did.
It was a complete and total failure. His newly female voice box simply couldn’t reproduce his normal voice- he doubted even a voice modification spell would be enough for that.
At least he’d worn clothes, despite being supposedly alone for the entire time, no matter how uncomfortable they were. And, knowing Bonbon, if she commented on it, it would be with her usual hard logic- she might even offer insights; just that morning, after the transformation had completed, he’d tried the Patronus again, but failed. However Hailey did it, it was still laughably far beyond him.
Speaking of Hailey, it was she that opened the door into his office, not Bonbon. She was carrying the tallest report he’d seen yet- or more accurately, it was floating before her- and the ex-dementor girl that had been following her around all week was with her as well. He felt at once ashamed and embarrassed at being caught trying to reproduce her stupidly powerful patronus- but Hailey didn’t seem offended by it. On the contrary, she raised an eyebrow and smiled amusedly as she spoke. “Professor Dumbledore,” she greeted. “I have the weekly report.”
“Ahh,” he muttered, feeling the heat rushing to his face and resisting the urge to hide it. Why did he have to blush? It wasn’t like him at all!
“You should probably know,” she began. “Over the summer, they made me the Student Instructor Program Management Team Lead… And, probably because Rita nicknamed me the ‘Goddess of Reports’, I’m also your contact point.” She sighed, and glanced up at him as he fidgeted.
He stopped immediately, attempting to avoid the embarrassment of her knowing about that too- and failing dismally, he expected, as the heat rushed to his face anyways.
She smiled. “Have you tried wearing a bra, by any chance?”
He blinked. “Why would I do that?”
“It helps with the chafing,” she told him, with a shrug. “And with the bouncing when you move around. Madam Malkin’s do that well enough you can sometimes even forget they’re there at all until you brush into ‘em or something- though I’m told that’s not common to all bras.”
“You’re… told.”
She nodded. “You know how many girlfriends I have?”
“Alright,” he sighed. “But what size?”
“There’s a spell for that,” Hailey noted, pulling a piece of paper from midair and placing it on the desk next to the report, face-down. “I can also have it ordered anonymously for you- and no, I don’t have to tell any of our people who it is for.”
“Ahh,” he muttered again, still blushing furiously.
“Anyways,” she smiled. “Shall I get started?” She tapped the report, which had set itself gently on the desk.
His eyes immediately shifted to the girl next to Hailey, who was watching Hailey’s hand move through the air with apparent fascination. “I notice you have the ex-dementor with you?”
“Sadarina,” Hailey corrected.
“Who?”
“Sadarina,” she repeated. “I don’t think she’s developed far enough to understand much of anything, but earlier today, she managed to form words and told me her name.”
He sighed. “And you were…” He gestured at the report. “Floating the report. Did Hermione invent that too?”
“Ah, no,” she chuckled. “That’s Gravitanium Adjunct, a new levitation charm Twilight came up with, based in gravitational manipulation. She’s quite the spellsmith, though she said she didn’t understand British magic well enough to start building British spells until quite recently. It’s harder- probably about third or fourth year level- but far more energy efficient than Wingardium Leviosa.”