Absit Omen RPG

Aoide had been impatient to leave the house and head to Diagon Alley. Her father had kissed her and her mother goodbye before heading to the Ministry for work, and Aoide had already been ready by the fireplace with her shoes on. Eventually her mother had been ready, and they had taken the floo to the Leaky Cauldron for breakfast. Aoide’s mum was an auror, and she had the day off which was why they were coming into town before the weekend. It would be slightly quieter, avoiding the last minute Hogwarts rush.

The about-to-be-second year noticed Professor Singh as her mother approached the table. He wasn’t the only wizard in the world to wear a turban, but he was one of the few Aoide knew who did. His beard looked longer than she remembered, and his skin a little darker. He was just as gracious and warm though, greeting her as Miss Shacklebolt, which made her feel very grown up.

“Professor Singh!” Aoide greeted brightly, and bowed. Her teacher swept her mother into a hug, just like he had at the Spectre wedding back in the Spring. It was strange to think that her teacher had been in the same year at Hogwarts as her mum. He hadn’t really brought it up at school until they all met. It had felt strangely awkward, while also really cool to have a connection. After all, Feliks had his grandmother teaching at school.

“You look well. How is your summer? Is it time for school shopping?” Aoide nodded brightly, perching on a chair at the neighbouring table, facing her teacher.
“I got my letter with the list for second year,” she explained, unfolding it from her pocket.

She was wearing lilac robes with short sleeves and her hair was beautifully knotless box braided[1] by Nadine at the start of the summer, with matching extensions. It had taken hours as it had been done by hand rather than magic, and she had been incredibly patient, knowing the results would be good (and that her mum would tell her off if she kept fidgeting!) It had taken charms to stop them from frizzing up after a fortnight. She was sad that she was probably going to have to take them down before school to be able to look after them, as she wasn’t confident about charming it herself.

1.	If you’re curious  Jasmine Brown - The Tea on Box Braids was super helpful re hair care and The Natural Hair Addict - Knotless Box Braids or Regular box Braids pros and cons for the difference.

“Woooooooow….” Aoide stood still in the great atrium of the museum, admiring the vaulted ceilings and brickwork. The beautiful enchanted windows let in the Friday afternoon sunlight. She had been brought to the museum before when she was younger, but today she noted the grandeur. Perhaps it was owing to spending so many months at Hogwarts which gave her more of an appreciation for wizarding architecture. Either way, the fact that you walked through a wardrobe and into this magical hidden part of London never lost its charm.

Behind Aoide, not staring up at the ceiling was Auror Pinn, off duty. In one manicured hand she held a coffee from Alohomocha and in the other she held the museum’s brochure, reading about the Mirror of Erised exhibition. She only glanced up to be nosy at passers by or check the time on the clock above the information desk. Ariadne was running late, again.

With a rush of footsteps and panted apologies, Ariadne dashed out of the back of the wardrobe and towards her mother and half sister.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, had to apparate - problem at work with the copy - I … hello mum. Hey Dee…” Aoide jumped on the spot and threw her arms around her older sibling, so very glad she had made it.
“Ariiii!”
   “Late again Ariadne.” Nadine tutted, and quickly drank the rest of her cooling coffee, vanishing it before herding her daughters over to the queue.

“I’m so glad you came,” Aoide grasped Ariadne’s hand, “Mum’s making this into an educational visit. She’s going to make me do an essay for Professor Greyfriar…” The students had been offered to do such by the Headmaster, if they came along on one of the group trips. Aoide had hoped her friends might sign up, but most of them were also going home for the holidays like she was, and bound to the timetables of their parents. She was determined to set up some opportunities to meet her friends during the summer holidays!

“Ugh, lame,” Ariadne whispered and laughed, squeezing her sister’s hand. “Tell me about how your term’s gone. Made any good friends?”

“Well…” Aoide drew a deep breath and launched into an exciting blow-by-blow account of the valentines party where she’d experienced uncontrollable dancing, how she’d fought Feliks Spectre in the duelling tournament, and hadn’t died (and he’d helped her up, which was sweet of him). She took care to recount her flying experiences for Akira’s party, the Hogsmeade business with the werewolves in Gryffindor and then left the best until last, Professor Malfoy pranked. Ariadne marvelled. She’d have liked to have seen that.

Aoide’s vivid descriptions, though interrupted regularly by their mother prompting them to observe the information boards, had brought them to the front of the queue. Time passed as quickly listening to her sister as it did when she was already running late, Ariadne mused.

They listened intently to the guide’s instructions, and Aoide was ushered up first. She stood on tiptoes and peered in, mouth dropping open. She was tall, as tall as Ariadne, maybe taller, and much more grown up. Around her were lots of friends, was that Ivy? Feliks? Sulwen? They were crammed into the frame like a photobooth. Aoide’s heart swelled, forgetting for a moment that the Mirror showed her heart’s desire, rather than the future. She skipped from the spot as Ariadne approached, eager for her turn.

To Ariadne she appeared much her own age, but holding a copy of the Prophet front page, pointing to where the byline and author photo would be, grinning and winking. It wasn’t a quidditch headline, but proclaimed Mystery of Stolen Memories Revealed! and Ariadne’s face was right there, as the author of the featured headline.
“Damn, wish you could take a photo!” Ariadne sighed, hands on hips. She would commit it to memory, spur herself on when her quidditch match summaries were cut to mere words.

“Come on mum!” Aoide called, bouncing on the spot, keen to hear what Ariadne had seen. Their mother approached with steady, assured strides and squared up to the mirror as if inspecting her own outfit for the day rather than her heart’s desire. She had a good idea what it would be, but there she was in white robes, on the arm of Rex, holding a bouquet of flowers, her hair beautifully braided and jewelled. Nadine put a hand to her chest, taken aback with the vision. Rex looked so handsome, and she looked so happy. It took a moment for her to prise her gaze from the scene.

“Mum, I saw myself with soooo many friends, and Ari saw herself on the front page of the Prophet! I bet she’ll do it too!” Aoide exclaimed with great enthusiasm. “What did you see?” She grasped her mother’s arm, gazing up.
“Head Auror of course,” Nadine explained with a mere shrug, composing herself.
“Of course,” Ariadne echoed, shrugging. Her mother was always very career oriented, and expected it of them both. It was obvious, wasn’t it?
“Now remember daughters mine,” Nadine put her arm around each of them as they wandered away, “What the heart desires the head can achieve, with hard work and smarts.”

“You’re going to be late!” Zeta’s voice echoed down the hallway, “I’m going to go now!”

“Oh noooo….” Aoide grasped her hair at the situation. The essay was a messy jigsaw and it was quite clear there was a good chunk of it missing. She seized her wand regardless, summoned all the luck of Merlin, squeezed her eyes shut and cast…



End

Aoide tugged at a corner of parchment, and a chunk of her essay came up, then another, and another. It had become a rubbish jigsaw puzzle of terrible defence essay!

“Oh no, oh noooo…” Aoide moaned, despairing at the state of the work. She gathered it up in her hands, all creased and torn like a tatty newspaper used for cat litter. “Maybe I can fix it,” she told Ivy hopefully, “We did just learn reparo in charms.” Aoide wasn’t the most proficient at it, being a first year witch, but she would give it a darned good go. Her life depended on it!

The clock on the homely fireplace chimed the quarter hour and she dashed back towards the dormitory. No time to lose!

“Are you even sure it’s in here? Not in your room or left in the library? I mean, I suppose I could try. It’s Defence?” Zeta asked. Aoide nodded.

“I worked on it in here last night…” She explained, and chewed her bottom lip. “Please?”

“Accio Aoide’s defence essay!”

There was a horrible tear, but a piece of parchment shot out and into Zeta’s hand.

“Oh, Aoide, bad luck.”

The first year Hufflepuff received the top half of her essay. It was torn right through the middle of the most important paragraph.

“Oh no…” Aoide was crestfallen, “where’s the other half!” She scampered across the room, her bare feet beating out a hurried tempo, in pursuit of the direction the top half of her essay had come from. She threw herself down on the ground, digging under the sofa fruitlessly.

“I’m never going to finish re-writing it before the lesson!” she despaired.

And then, as if by magic, the wind slowed, the papers flopped and the common room settled back into a normal morning… only a few pieces of furniture needed righting, and two portraits were still yelling. Ivy leapt to Zeta to throw her arms around the older student in thanks.

Aoide, meanwhile stood awkwardly in the mess, trying to carefully set down the cat she had been wrestling in her arms.

“But what about your essay Aoide?” The pit of dread filled her stomach again.

“I don’t know… we could try summoning it again?” Aoide suggested, but looked to Zeta hopefully on this occasion, voice a little squeaky at the stress, “or maybe Zeta could… if we ask her really nicely… since that was a disaster…”

Aoide was desperately thinking. Her wand was still back in the dormitory, and her arms were full of squirming feline. Why wasn’t Finite working? Their teachers had told them that it was a catch-all for charms.

“If Zeta can’t fix it,” Aoide decided, glancing in a sorry way to Zeta, who she regarded as experienced, “we’re going to have to…” she trailed off, looking very serious indeed, and swallowed.

“We’re going to have to… to ask a grown-up.”

Zeta Pepper had been gone ages! Aoide needed to find that homework or she was going to have to redo it in like minus ten minutes. Despairing that the sixth year was not to return and help them, the first years had continued their pyjama-clad search. Ivy, ever wanting to help but not always the best at charms, had attempted a few more spells, none revealing the essay. Then at last one had rustled paper - it seemed like an accio might work after all, but then all the paper had come to life.

“Ivy!” Aoide exclaimed, clutching someone’s cat in her arms, paler by the minute at the sound of the rug tearing, “Ivy! Use Finite!!”

“Don’t you talk about my bum!”

“It’s ok, Ivy, it’s ok!” Aoide assured her friend who was fussing as ever. She put on a brave face, because actually it had hurt to hit the floor so early on a morning. Normally one had to mentally prepare for that sort of thing in a charms, defences or flying lesson.

“Bats and rats! We could get my sister but she is now allowed in our common room. Or one of our prefects?” Ivy was problem-solving out loud. Despite the fact Aoide’s homework was still nowhere to be found, she felt a bit better for knowing Ivy was on the case. Everything was better when you had a friend to help.

“Oh good lord, it’s happened! Ivy Abbot has finally broken bad.” Zeta Pepper towered over them both as Aoide grasped Ivy’s hand and got back to her feet. “Aoide, you alright?”

“Yeah-.” Aoide barely got the start of the word about before Ivy worried all over it.
“I did not mean to!” Aoide winced. Perhaps she had been too generous in feeling better because Ivy was helping. Ivy seemed to be more worried about Aoide’s homework than Aoide was suddenly.

“It is due this morning!”
“I don’t want to lose Hufflepuff a load of points either for it. It’s Defence Against the Dark Arts,” Aoide filled in for Zeta. “Could you try and summon it?” She asked, hopefully, but then awkwardly looked Zeta up and down in her towel-clad state. “Er, um I guess you don’t have your wand…”

Aoide felt a little better when the birthday girl headed off to enjoy the haphazard game of quidditch with the muggle balls. She didn’t want Akira to spend her birthday trying to help Aoide fly a broom, just because Aoide was a first year. Being alone so high up did make her take a big gulp of air though.

Tim, Akira’s girlfriend threw the ball to Akira who raced towards it at such speed Aoide gasped. Then suddenly she stopped, and revealed that she wasn’t that much better at keeping balance and keeping hold of a ball simultaneously, either!

“I think I’m better at eating cake than playing quidditch at the moment.” Aoide exclaimed, motivated by the fact she did actually want to eat something, and that the ground seemed an altogether safer place to be!

“The homework we gave in when we arrived,” Aoide replied in a low mutter, dread sinking into her stomach like ice water. Ivy had stretched forward to look in now Aoide had retreated, and suddenly darted back and turned on the spot to look at the row behind them.

“I saw the Professor,” Aoide explained, in yet quieter tones, fearing he might give her some kind of detention for seeing him in the foe glass. “But I couldn’t work out who anyone else was. What did you see?” She caught Ivy’s arm, keen to understand how it differed.

Aoide was glad of the spontaneous hug of reassurance from Ivy, even if her friend’s words the the end of the world didn’t match!

As new friends Aoide and Ivy were still learning much about each other. They had in common that they both had an older sister, though Ivy had a younger one too, and Aoide’s older sister Ariadne was really a half sister. They both had a parent who worked at the Ministry, well Aoide had both her parents there, and only Ivy’s father did.

Aoide was secretly in awe of Ivy’s mum though - she had been a professional quidditch player and now she was a coach. For a girl who had not yet mastered the complete basics of broom balance, this seemed an almost unreachable goal right now.

“Mum used to fly people when they went into hiding. The Muggleborns.” 
“Really?!” Aoide sat up straight, a picture in her head of a grown up version of Ivy with goggles on bent over a broom in the dead of night with passengers, long blonde hair streaming out into the wind.

“I should write my mum and ask her more about what she did then…” Aoide resolved to herself, hoping her auror mother would have some equally impressive tales, though Nadine Pinn had not yet become an auror when it all happened.

Aoide did feel slightly better for having help to search. But they were no closer to finding her essay.
“I can’t copy yours,” she moaned, “you know what he did when Albie and Archie did that, and they’re twins.” Aoide put her hands to her face and pulled down on her cheeks in despair.

Ivy raced away to their dormitory for her wand, and Aoide continued to search, extending to the nearby bookshelves, armchairs and even under a rug where several spiders scuttled out. She shuddered and dropped the corner, darting away with her bare feet.

“A-Accio essay!” Ivy was back, and doing what a logical, sane witch would do, using magic.
“Why didn’t I think of that?” Aoide grumbled, but more at herself, actually grateful for Ivy’s idea.
“Accio essay…. OH NO!!”

Ivy had attempted to cast something way beyond their years[1], which had a similar incantation to another spell which Professor Storm had taught them for duelling club.

Aoide hit the floor without grace, hands sprawled out ahead of her.
“Oof!”

1.	(A fourth year canon spell)

“Positive,” Aoide replied to Ivy. She was under the table now, scrabbling on the flagstones on hands and knees. Someone's  pet rat scampered away from her to beneath a nearby sofa. “I finished it just before we played snap. I bet someone’s thrown it out…” She despaired and retrieved a piece of parchment covered in Runes from under the table. Aoide crawled out, slapped the Runes notes on the table and pushed herself to her feet, turning to face her friend.

“What am I going to do Ivy? It’s just first thing and if I get detention my mum is going to kill me… right after Professor Storm does. I’ll be doubly dead!”