Absit Omen RPG

His mama. Someone was mad at him because of what his mother had done, Sulwen guessed. But Feliks had nothing to do with that! No one could help the things their parents did, whether they killed people like Ira Almasy had, or got themselves thrown in Azkaban by awful, vindictive Aurors looking for a scapegoat.

Sulwen didn't know what his mother had to do with werewolves, but Feliks seemed confident that the attack and the gloves were connected to her. Maybe the Headmaster had offered words of comfort for him to be so calm about it. This time, she thought it was a good idea that he'd actually told the Headmaster. First he'd gotten The Lycan book, which hadn't seemed so bad, and now he'd gotten the gloves, which were really bad. Perhaps the packages had come from the same dangerous person?

She looked at him for a long moment, feeling a pang of understanding. That was the thing about pureblood families. Reputation was everything, and even the best names could so easily become tarnished.

"I'm sorry, Feliks," she lowered her gaze. "It's not fair that someone out there is targeting you for her misdeeds."

She turned to the stone wall.

"Deadly Doppelgänger," she spoke the password.

The stone wall slid open smoothly, and Sulwen stepped into the short passage leading into the quiet and cold common room she thought of as her second home.

Today, the air in the common room smelled faintly of the outdoors, of Honeydukes sweets and damp socks, butterbeer and - Sulwen looked around for the culprit - a strange whiff of putrid smoke.

Sulwen narrowed her eyes at one housemate who stared at the pair of them and whispered to another housemate. Still standing close to Feliks, she turned to him and raised her eyebrows in question, unsure what to do after her one moment of reassurance. Should she encourage him to stay in the common room with her? Should she give him space in his dormitory? Should she take his sleeve and run back to the Quidditch Pitch, or cast a discreet Silencio at the rude whisperer?

"Do you want to see if someone's willing to share their sweets?" Sulwen offered with a twinge of hopefulness, well aware of Feliks' sweet tooth.

Sulwen looked at Feliks curiously. Why would someone who didn't know him want to target him, or the werewolf girls, for that matter? Could it be someone who was angry at Feliks for being the son of Ira Almasy?

It wasn't his fault who his mother was. He had a new family now, and friends at Hogwarts to play Quidditch with. Anyone who knew him should know that. So maybe Feliks was right, and the attacker didn't know him.

Perched beside him on the broom, Sulwen was lost in thought for a moment when Feliks spoke next.

Gloves. Those sounded nice, though winter would be over soon.

Gloves, made out of werewolf hands.

Startled, Sulwen hopped off the broom and stared at Feliks as the broom kept flying gently down the hall.

She paused, then moved forward, walking beside the broom, as they didn't have long to go to reach the common room.

"Gloves made out of werewolf hands," Sulwen lowered her voice further, as she always seemed to do when these things happened to Feliks, and repeated his words, as she always seemed to do when these things happened to Feliks.

Was that as awful as it sounded? Were the hands huge and clawed? How did he know they were werewolf hands? Was a werewolf out there, somewhere, with no hands?

She repressed a shudder.

"Feliks, that's scary."

Scary, and much more serious than she'd imagined. Professor Storm must have saved the werewolf girls before the attacker could have done the damage they'd been intending.

Feliks wasn't stupid! Just impulsive.

"I know that," Sulwen assured him, giving his shoulder a bump so slight he might mistake it for an accidental touch caused by the broom ride. She didn't hold back while playing Quidditch. But here, in the castle, she reverted to her usual reserved self.

She glanced up at the portraits on the walls. Did they look especially stern, or was it just her imagination? If the professors understood that Feliks wasn't at fault, then that was what mattered, though in the halls of Hogwarts, an angry older student could do a lot of damage.

Sulwen barely knew Greer, but she'd heard lots of rumors about Lucinda's temper.

"You wouldn't have attacked them at all. They should know that. Professor Storm should explain it to them if he hasn't already told them to stop whining," Sulwen said confidently, then glanced at Feliks out of the corner of her eye, her expression less certain. As much as she trusted the scary capabilities of the Defense professor, someone had attacked those Gryffindors and in a way, was also targeting Feliks.

"Who would steal your face?" She wondered aloud without rancor, glancing at his curly hair and unhappy eyes.

It took a lot to surprise Sulwen, but this was news she hadn't heard anything about and couldn't have ever imagined happening. Someone had attacked the two werewolf girls in Hogsmeade, the same day of the protest? Why would they pretend to be Feliks when he attended SAWS meetings, sometimes?

"Someone with your face," Sulwen repeated incredulously, taking a seat beside Feliks on the broom. Someone didn't know that Feliks was a first-year, or they were trying to get him into more trouble.

"The professors think it was you?" Sulwen gave a slight shake of her head. Feliks had been with her, playing Quidditch, the whole afternoon. Hufflepuff had been there too, not just Slytherin, so the professors couldn't assume Slytherin was being sneaky and making up stories.

"How serious was the attack?" She lowered her voice, hoping Feliks would do the same.

Sulwen smiled at Feliks a little, her eyes lighting up at the sight of her friend. She'd just been thinking about him after finding out that a house elf had called him out of the kitchens. They never did that. Though she was still in her comfortable Quidditch clothes, she had put away her broom and her coat and cleaned up a bit in the dormitory, and had ventured into the halls again to see if she could find Feliks back in the kitchens, or at least to find out more about the very little she'd overheard.

"I heard that SAWS started a fire in the joke shop, and a bonfire in the woods," Sulwen raised an eyebrow, sounding skeptical. Why did the older kids act like such Gryffindors? If any of it were true, all the exciting things happened when she wasn't around to observe them from a distance.

"I was looking for you though. What fire did you just crawl out of?" She nudged the end of his broom playfully with her foot where the bristles dragged on the floor. Maybe then he'd carry it properly.

January 21, 2012

Yes spring holiday is April 2-13. Ok. I'll see you after the train.


Sulwen

January 20, 2012

Aunt Aileen,

Is it the Auror Trevlan's fault? I know Abby works with them, but Aurors don't care who gets hurt.

January 19, 2012

Aunt Aileen,

He doesn't know it was you. I've not said any thing because I could tell he didn't know.

Why didn't you tell me you knew? 

I can keep secrets. But I feel sorry for Wesley.


Sulwen

January 19, 2012, following I wish!


Dear Aunt Aileen,

Hello, how are you? I hope you are well.

My friend Wesley told me something that I want to tell you. I don't know how to tell you in a letter. But I will try.

Remember that day at the train station when Wesley forgot his luggage? That's not the worst thing that happened, but that's the day he told me about. He said a pentral saved him that day. An Auror came by the castle to tell him that a pentral saved him, and the pentral was his mother.

And so, that means, his mother has passed. The pentral who was his mother. Do you know what I'm trying to say?

I wanted to tell you. I hope you are alright.

Sincerely,
Sulwen

Late afternoon, a few hours after Mother Cannot Guide You


Sulwen sat at the edge of the Slytherin table in the Great Hall, having come there early to save seats for Feliks and Nicola. When Wesley strolled in, she barely glanced up. He was always early for food and late for classes. That was the Wesley way.

He sat at the edge of the Hufflepuff table, back to back with her, a few feet of distance between them, letting his bag fall with a thud as he sighed and kicked his feet out, his sneakers squeaking on the floor. Sulwen sighed a small sigh back at him in greeting.

She waited for him to speak, and when he didn't, she glanced at his table. No other Hufflepuffs yet.

"I won't tell you what the assignment is since you left early," Sulwen teased. "You'll have to ask Feliks to tell you, and he can never remember the page numbers."

Silence. Sulwen blinked, leaning back. Was he napping at the table, his head rested on his arms?

"Wesley."

He should wake up and make silly jokes.

At the continued silence, Sulwen frowned. She hooked one leg over the bench seat, and then the other, sitting with her back to the empty Slytherin table. She leaned forward, letting her black hair fall to one side, inspecting what little of his face she could see buried in his arms.

He opened his eyes, looking at her, and started to sit up. She was about to smile, about to tease him about those woeful eyes he liked to give everyone, because they didn't work on her, ha, but then she really looked at those silly, dopey eyes, and they were actually woeful. He had a crusty in the corner of one eye. An eyelash hanging on his cheek. He glanced away, his mouth smiling very slightly like always, but the rest of his face looking sad.

"What's wrong?" Sulwen asked quietly.

"My mum is dead," he mumbled.

Sulwen paused. She must have misheard.

"What?"

"My mum is dead," he said more clearly. She sat very still.

He hooked one leg over the bench, and then the other, turning to face her, his back against the empty Hufflepuff table.

She looked startled, glancing around. This wasn't funny, Wesley.

"What do you mean? What happened? Your aunt?"

"No," he winced. "You know. My mum who's missing. I found out she's dead."

Sulwen stared at him.

"An Auror told me a few hours ago."

As Sulwen looked at his face, noticing how shallowly he breathed, a horrible, answering tightness started in her chest. Oh no! Wait, nothing made sense.

"They told you here?" She said, confused. "Why aren't you home?"

He looked at her, his eyebrows raising slightly. "I dunno."

He fiddled with the silverware on the table. "I'm supposed to go home this weekend."

Sulwen nodded. She didn't know what to do, what to ask. Her next question also felt inane.

"Was someone with you? A professor?"

"Yeah," Wes just kept answering, though his face had closed off a bit. "Professor Greyfriar."

Sulwen nodded again. That made sense. What should she ask? This was awful for him. He was sitting there, looking ok, not crying, but that eyelash hung off his cheek like a casualty, and he couldn't meet her eyes.

"Who was the Auror?"

He paused, glancing up. "Uh, Gwenna's dad."

"Oh," Sulwen's face soured, and she glanced away to hide it. He couldn't control which Auror told him that his mother... had died.

Sulwen hadn't dreamed of Wesley's mother back in November.[1] She'd only dreamed of his old farmhouse, neglected and abandoned save for the crows in the fields and the house elf in the doorway. How could this happen? Wesley had wanted to find his mum. He hadn't admitted it, but implied it - thank you Abby for the word - he'd implied it when he'd talked about how he was going to try seeking spells this summer, even though it wasn't allowed, and whenever he glanced up hopefully at the flock of owls in the Great Hall, and that time he'd taken lots of notes in class about a wizard who had once swallowed a forgetfulness potion and forgotten his children.

"Wesley," she said tentatively, about to ask the question. An important one.

"Sulwen. I need to ask you something."

Sulwen nodded, waiting, relieved.

He started rambling about the train station from December, when she'd helped him with his luggage and Noah Pratt was being obnoxious and Aunt Aileen stared daggers at the Pratt father and then there was a dementor, a dementor rushing at Wesley, and then a pentral, a pentral had saved him, he said the word, making her flinch.

"She saved me," he repeated.

Sulwen sat very still and quiet, barely breathing. How did he know? She'd told him a patronus had saved him, again and again. She glanced down. She'd half-lied.

"Did you see where it came from or where it went? Sulwen?"

He leaned in, hands on his knees like she had all the answers to the test.

"Where it came from or where it went?" She repeated dully.

"Yeah," Wes nodded, looking into her eyes. "'Cause that was my mum. She was the pentral."

Sulwen could only stare, her face paling, heart beating faster.

"I know. It's bad. But maybe you saw something? She saved me, along with the patronus."

Sulwen leaned away stiffly. "Your mother was the pentral?"

Wesley told her yes.

"She was the one who saved you."

"Yeah, Sulwen," he sighed, frustration flickering over his face. "Did you see?"

Sulwen glanced down the Great Hall to the staff table, her eyes wide. No, no, no, this wasn't fair. She hadn't known. She didn't know what to say if he didn't know.

Her eyes darted back to Wesley, who looked at her, confused.

"I don't like talking about pentrals," she said quickly. Feliks, at least, might understand this, but Wesley always forgot about her aunt Abby, barely aware of the world beyond Hogwarts, the world beyond his dreams.

"But I'm just asking if you saw-"

"I don't know," Sulwen shook her head. "I thought it was a patronus."

A lie, she was sorry. Really.

She explained, in short and quick sentences, that her aunt had casted a patronus, an ibis, and she didn't know where the other wispy thing had come from, but no, Wesley, she didn't think it had come from Auror Pratt, and no, Wesley, it absolutely had not come from Noah Pratt.

He looked at her. There was a thought forming behind his eyes that she felt sure she wouldn't like.

"Did you see where the pentral went?"

Sulwen considered. She really did, this time. She looked up and tried to remember. A flash of white, wings spread in front of Wesley, so cliche, but that had been the patronus, a few seconds after the ghostly figure.

"The dementor opened its mouth, but then," she paused. "The patronus got in front of the pentral, and the pentral slipped away. I think."

Sulwen nodded.

"My mum escaped?"

"I think so," Sulwen said softly, looking at his face. He was glancing down, his face raw and hopeful. He rubbed his eyes and looked at her.

"I'm not very hungry," he stood.

"You're not?" Sulwen started. "But-"

He glanced at her, waiting for her to say something. She half-stood, at a loss for words. Poor Wesley. His poor mother. She'd asked all the wrong questions. She stood fully, in time to see him turn and walk away. His loping pace. She could easily reach him.

Tell him the truth.

Sulwen watched him go, her hands clenching at her sides. She should have hugged him. She should have said sorry about his mother. If not the truth, she should have said the nice things that people would say.

He was out the door and she was still standing at the table. His mother! Dead. A pentral.

Her Aunt Aileen's pentral had been his mother.

She sat at the table, covering her face with her hands.

1.

The Dream

Sulwen raised her eyebrows curiously at the mention of a game. What kind of game would Sasha have for Feliks? She doubted it was the kind that Feliks already played, which was the game of acting up in class and getting her involved in trouble she'd normally avoid. Sasha had said he was good at winning professors over.

She'd have to ask him a little later about the Ministry and those he knew.

"No fussing," Sulwen advised immediately, watching him straighten his tie. She shot him a shy smile that was not quite apologetic, and went on. "No fidgeting, no discussion of controversial topics."

That was a lot of no's, Sulwen realized, hoping she wasn't being rude.

"I can't think of anything else?"

He seemed very nice so far. She hoped her grandparents and mother were nice to him.

She heard steps on the stairs, just around the corner. Steady steps, not fast steps, which meant that Abby was here and Coira was somewhere else.

Sulwen's face brightened. She gave Sasha a nod, and opened the door to the parlor, the gift bag in hand.

She went in, quietly closing the door behind her.

Sulwen paused by a seat in the front row. She hadn't brought a notebook, or a quill, or anything that the Ravenclaws seemed to bring to every optional meeting. She'd just had time to don a green Slytherin sweater over her usual uniform.

Were the Ravenclaws aware that the guest speaker couldn't award points?

Still, nothing bad happened around students who took notes. In fact, the closer she was to the guest speaker, the less chance for shenanigans. Sulwen took a seat next to the blond Ravenclaw boy. Snotsalix, she'd heard someone call him in the halls.

"Hi Zeta," Sulwen piped up quietly. She'd worried in January that Zeta might be mad at her for dashing out of the first SAWS meeting early. In the Great Hall later that month, Zeta had given Feliks the stink eye before the flier fight had started, but she hadn't said anything afterwards about the first-years getting involved. Sulwen didn't think she had, anyway. She'd been distracted by Gwenna Trevelyan's horrible, awful comment about her father.[1]

Sulwen rested her elbows on the desk and her chin in her hands and gave her a small, uncertain smile.

Rule number 2: be respectful.

It was the only rule on the board that she wholeheartedly agreed with.

1.	“You’re just saying that because you’re mad that my dad arrested your dad!”

"The Headmaster took it from you," Sulwen repeated, more surprised by this fact than by Feliks' forethought to make a copy of the gift. It was a gift, wasn't it? An anonymous gift he'd received via owl. She reached out to take the book from him, but too slowly. Nicola took it instead.

"Your fathers didn't gift it to you?" She clarified in a murmur, looking over Nicola's shoulder as the girl flipped through the pages.

It must be something terrible or terribly suspicious if the Headmaster had taken it away. During classes, Professor Greyfriar was never one to shy away from open discussions.

Sulwen held the light of her pendant close to the pages. The writing looked old-fashioned, and the words were packed densely together, making it difficult to read as they were walking through the darkened halls. She glimpsed a list of werewolf traits and how to identify them, a case study about a werewolf attack, and instructions for healing the wounds left by werewolves. She caught a few notes left in the margins, but couldn't read the notes very well.

Hm. Someone had sent the book anonymously. Someone had annotated the book. The book was old. The book wasn't about werewolves today, like she'd hoped. It was the typical fare of how to guard against werewolves.

Sulwen glanced at Feliks questioningly. She could understand why the Headmaster wouldn't like a book like that, but why would he confiscate it?

"Is the Headmaster trying to find out who sent it?"

Good. Professor Storm was here. He'd handle this and let them get on with their day. Sulwen would have smirked at his dressing-down of Trevelyan if not for the sharp and bitter taste of unspoken words in her mouth. He'd heard what Trevelyan had said. Everyone had heard it. Though she knew in some sense that Greer Grant was experiencing much worse, in that moment there was only her anger and nowhere to go with it as Professor Storm ordered the whole group into the antechamber.

Sulwen felt Feliks' hand around hers. Her eyes widened in startled surprise and she let go quickly and stepped into the chamber. She was fine. She didn't need any pity. She turned stiffly and waited for him to sit and then sat next to him, folding her clammy hands in her lap. Had he noticed? She hoped not.

Sulwen avoided looking at everyone, even Trevelyan. Zeta's unwise words went in one ear and out the other.