OOC: Unconventional material ahead.

Doherty Manor, Donegal County, Ireland


The prodigal son returned. Hoorah, hoorah.

After a stay at the Leaky Cauldron for a few days, until he could feel his arm again, Casey apparated home to Doherty Manor via Dingy. There was no major homecoming. In fact there barely seemed to be anyone at home, except for the distant sounds of a cascade of coins. Probably Grandfather and Uncle Torna bowling. Even with the mountains of gold in the family vault, big piles of coins were kept at the manor. The most popular sport at the manor, after throwing things at Dingy’s head, was having the elves stack up the columns of coins and use them for multi-pin bowling in the East Hall.

Doherty Manor was more like a glorified apartment complex in this respect, as there was an obvious landlord but the residents seldom interacted, even at meal times. You saw the house elves more often than the extended family. Minute signs showed the house was not only occupied by specters: the roof had been repaired from the fallout around Aunt Maeve’s most recent rejected lover. Large baubles and expensive items, gifts for Cousin Brona and Kennedy, no doubt, already forgotten in empty rooms. Lots of equestrian equipment for the winged horse Brona had wanted for her birthday once, never used. A bag of feed in the pantry so the creature must be about somewhere. Empty bottles not yet recycled by the elves, left by Grandfather or Aunt Suanach. One of Dingy’s parents, Dollop, was ironing Martin’s suit when Casey came home. His father kept most of his time to the Wizengamot courts, along with a private flat near Diagon he had managed to escape to away from the family.

The only exciting thing to happen when Casey got home was getting drenched in ink. Black oily liquid dripped from the ceiling of the drawing room, Kennedy retaliating against handwriting lessons. The bugger had a mean arm to smash the inkbottles that high, honed with hundreds of snipes at Dingy’s head.

Casey sighed. It was late and he was tired to not even worry about cleaning himself. Retreating to his room, Casey changed into silk pajamas. The ink stained clothes were tossed for Dingy to do laundry.

“Anything else does Master wish?” squeaked the elf.

Foggy from approaching sleep, Casey looked down. The ink had seeped into his clothing even down to his amulet, the jewel marred by black smudge. He unclasped it and placed it on the bedside table, turning to smother himself in the blankets.

“Get that cleaned, Dingy,” Casey said before falling to sleep.

---

If he didn’t open his eyes, he wasn’t awake, was he?

Casey peered out from a cocoon of pillows and sheets. The house was quiet, at times to big for the occupants. He groaned. His mind was still groggy from dreams, memories of the last days of class, the swirl of plans and schemes his mind constructed over night. Finally he decided to roll out of bed and get started on his agenda of plans.

Rolling out of bed was awkward. Casey didn’t understand until he caught sight of a stranger in his reflection in the full-length mirror.

Casey stood stunned. He looked to his body and back to the reflection. There was no way on earth that this could be him.

Casey knew his body was unimpressive, with skinny arms and legs like an elf and narrow torso. But this stranger in his pajamas was not that. A body more filled in some places, places that made the silk robes stretch in different ways. Casey got closer to look. Even he could not be sure that that face was him. It was him and it was not, a face a bit smoother, the eyes wider, a cleft free chin. Only the close-cropped hair seemed familiar.

And that. The most obvious differences had to be some remnant of the dream state. What did you do in dreams, pinch yourself? Casey poked those places, but they were real.

His mind was turned over at the concept, unable to think coherently in its disbelief. “DINGY!” he cried out, more loudly than intended.

There was a pop as Dingy came into the room. “Dingy has finished Master Casey’s cleaning, and removed the ink from…” The elf stopped when he caught sight of his master. Master Casey did not look himself.

Casey’s mind so denied everything this morning had brought it needed some outside confirmation. Flabbergasted, Casey caught sight of Dingy’s familiar form in the reflection. So it was not a trick of the mirror. Casey could barely form the words. “Dingy! What are these…mound things?”

Dingy was at a complete loss at what to say. After tapping his helmet several times to make sure this was master before him, the elf replied in truth. “Those are…breasts…sir.”

Casey finally recognized that his neck was bare. The amulet! He had Dingy clean it last night. He hadn’t taken it off for years, worn through sleep and bath and everything. At times the chain rubbed his skin rash, a tiresome weight day in and out, an unnoticeable lump under his clothes. “Dingy, the amulet!”

“Dingy has cleaned it, master.” The elf held up the blue gem in silver claspings.

Casey touched it to make sure it was real. Then he began to take in his altered form properly, scrutinizing the details he doubted. Normally, Casey was a scarecrow of sticks under clothes that at times looked too big for him. Now was not a case. So these were “breasts,” those things that boys were supposed to look at when looking at girls as they got older. Casey noticed too that his pants were stretched wider, looking like proper legs where in them instead of broomsticks. This must be due to hips that were not the hips seen on the shrimpy Slytherin at school. These were “girly hips.”

Salazar’s Shiny Pate! Is this like what that Murphy Urquhart at school was always worried about?!

“Um, Dingy, can I have the amulet back, please?” Such framing of an order was not heard from Casey. The elf returned it in bewilderment.

Nervously, Casey latched it around his neck. There was no shifting like the effects of Polyjuice or the growth of a Metamorph. The amulet was put back on and as if a blink had passed there was Casey. The young Slytherin jerk that looked as if he was living on borrowed time, the body that could collapse if prodded with enough force.

Casey shivered. It was comforting to be back in his own skin, the pun adding no mirth to the situation. But he was shocked, not only for waking up with the body of a girl but because that body looked…healthy. Stunted, of course, and not feminine perfection if compared to the older females at school, and the haircut did not fit with that female build. But healthier than this stricken boy before him in the reflection.

He clutched the amulet, noticing the pink defect in the sapphire. Memories of a childhood past flooded him. Even then as a child he looked like an unfinished form, possibly passing for an elf if his ears were bigger. It was impossible to think that his body had grown like this in seven years time when he appeared a stooped and sickened boy. It seemed Casey would grow weaker before he got stronger, the family thought, for even with better meditative potions and increased appetite he hadn’t gotten any stronger. As a boy. So this was where puberty played its mischief, concealed under the magic of the amulet.

Casey lifted the amulet from his chest but didn’t take it off again. A thought so new it was frightening entered from the darkness in his mind. Was the amulet contributing to his illness? His grandparents had meant for it to repress the girliness. He had worn it for so long, though. Could it be that as his body grew in these past years that the male visage the amulet brought was a tarnished, warped form of the physiological changes looking to break free?

He noticed Dingy, clutching the pot before him like a shield, looking up with wide eyes.

“Tell no one what you saw,” Casey said, briskness returning to his voice. “This is an Unmentionable.” The tone indicated a geas of information, secrets known only to Dingy and himself that neither were to mention, no matter the influence from others to learn of it.

He thought of words spoken to him by Ignan Storm before the term had finished. ”… and suggest that this summer you invest your time and abilities into understanding what you are looking to take on - not occlumency - but the business. There are more ways to protect yourself than your wand and the closing of your mind, and more ways to recover investment too."

In light of these new developments, Casey wasn’t sure how to answer.

Most of Doherty manor was immaculately designed, if gaudy and cluttered from the wants of the previous generations. Highly polished floors, thick carpets, impressive wallpaper and paint. Except for one passageway. At the highest floor in the center block of the manor there was the pathway to the attic. The carpet ended a few stairs back, leaving creaking wooden floorboards exposed. The walls were in need of plaster but the family ordered the elves to maintain only the areas the family occupied. The true family.

The shallow hall had two doors, one at the end that lead to the attic, the space of rafters and insulation, and the other to the side. Casey stood before it.

“And you are sure the rest of the family is occupied? No one will bother the either of us?” Casey asked his house elf.

“Dingy has been extra vigilant with Dingy’s chores, master,” replied the elf. “Dingy has checked that masters and mistresses are satisfied.”

“That should buy us a few minutes. You never know when they will change their mind.”

Casey moved to open the side door but stopped, his hand inches above the knob. Casey did not hesitate once set in an action. At once he couldn’t look at the plain wooden door. He looked off to the side. “Dingy…the last time you cared for mother, how was she?”

The elf clutched at his pot enough that the pan was pulled over his eyes. “Dingy has tried to be a good elf, but when Dingy is not with Master Casey masters and mistresses have Dingy do lots of work, Dingy has little time for—”

“That didn’t answer my question, Dingy, the last time you saw my mother how was she?”

The elf remained compacted, arms clutching its pot and body locked straight. Only his blocky nose was visible and…tears, little rivers that trickled from under the pot. “Master Casey, please don’t make Dingy tell the truth.”

“What?” Casey said, more shocked than outraged. “She hasn’t—”

“No…” moaned the elf. “But Master Casey is not wanting to know about mistress Darla.”

The elf was wrong but his tone was foreboding. Casey was pitched on the edge, as if the remaining inches to the door was the step off a cliff. What did you say to a mother you have not seen for so long? He knew he must see her at some point, that seeing her would give him some answers. But he was almost afraid to. Then he recalled words spoken by Vulpes Connor days ago on the train. "I'm sure that your mother loves you very dearly. Have you ever considered what she must think? Knowing the she's never able to really be there for her son?"

Casey gripped the doorknob and entered.

What first registered with his senses was the smell. A staleness, the stagnant order like the room was its own microcosm of the atmosphere. Also some smells to indicate certain things needed to be cleaned. Dingy slipped by to a tiny water closet in the corner. The ceiling slanted sharply, you could roll off the far end of the bed and get wedged. It was a sharper slant than Casey remembered but then those memories were from a house and life long ago. The carpet was a nasty green/brown shag, something his grandmother would never set foot on. Little furniture was in the room, forgotten cabinets with nothing in them.

Casey had gleaned all the details he could from the room. Now he had to look…

Darla barely left an impression on the bed. The sheets looked like they were made up without a human figure within them. That was her face, a pained face that looked ages older than what she really was. Dark circles under her closed eyes, her hair like the brittle bristles of a hairbrush, wiry and not of the typical human head. Pale lips, no color to differ them from pallid skin.

And Casey could hear it, a drone like hornets trapped in a billows, the inhale and exhale of buzzing air. That was his mother’s labored breathing.

He stepped inside, footfalls muffled by the shaggy carpet. He moved to the foot of her bed, looked back at her.

...in a small, white room with slanted ceiling, a little girl with stringy strawberry-blonde hair sits on her mother's bed. The mother, a frail brown haired woman for someone in her late twenties, reading from a storybook. A house elf, puny under sack cloth dressings, is measuring up medication. A page is turned and the mother sings out the printed lullaby with a wavering, wheezy voice that fades before the last verse...

That hadn’t been this room but a room similar in design. A memory he couldn’t date. It had to be the last time he had seen his mother conscious, lively.

Casey looked to the side, managed to catch Dingy’s eye. The elf quivered.

He stepped to her bedside. If it wasn’t for the noise of breathing, the faint twitch of skin from the shifting of air, he would have believed her to be dead. That feeling of his eyes being scoured with antiseptic returned. He knelt by her bed. “M-Mother?”

She did not stir. Casey clutched her hand. “Mother?”

There were flickers under her eyelids. A weak contraction from her hand. She made a noise, not a word, but either a moan or grunt in a questioning tone.

“It’s Casey, mother, don’t you remember?”

Her head tilted towards his voice yet her eyes remained closed. A word came out, buzzing with confusion. “C-Casey?”

“Casey, mother, your—” he stopped, thinking back to his discovery without the amulet. How she would remember him. He swallowed. “Casey, your…your daughter.”

Casey wasn’t sure if that took for a moment. Then something on Darla’s face softened though she didn’t have the strength to open her eyes. ”Casey…how are you? How is school—” She broke off into hacking.

“Don’t speak mother, I’m here.” Casey raised her hand, stroking it with his thumb. “Just rest.” All she could do was rest. It was apparent what Darla needed most. She needed to get out of this house. Dingy had appeared with a damp washcloth, the kind used when Casey had fever or migraines. The cool soothed her a little.

“I’m finally here,” Casey said, face pressed into the bed sheets, still holding his mother’s hand. The antiseptic stinging of his eyes stung hard enough and the sheets that muffled his face became wet.

Casey sat a desk, a ritzy desk of dark paneled wood and green marble top. The room could be called a study, but only if the various O’Dohertys actually engaged themselves in some kind of work. Grandfather’s business was primarily conducted in the lounge as he responded to various correspondence and agreements for finance. Work of the minimalist kind.

This had been the room where, ages ago it seemed, Casey had been instructed by his grandparents the ways of magic and might, what he needed to accomplish in life. Some bitter memories, mostly from the first year of lessons. It was a useful place to think when Casey didn’t want to be in his room, no one came in to use the bookshelf or writing desk. What helped the change of attitude was that Casey was now the man behind the big desk, not the child in the school desk in the corner.

For all his plans he had coming out of the school year, the effort of maintaining them seemed as long as any school project. Casey scribbled away on parchment. It helped to have things written down although he took care to vanish the words on the page when others were looking.

Dingy appeared. “Dingy has been about all the book-shelves, Master Casey, and brought the wanted books.”

“Excellent,” Casey said, looking at the tomes of Hogwarts Founders lore the mansion had accumulated over the years. The “Salazar’s Shiny Pate” euphemism the family used was not just from lax appreciation of the great Slytherin. “Stay about, Dingy, we have events to put in motion.”

The elf stood at attention. Casey compiled his notes and continued.

“Norling might find these useful. The books can be delivered once he’s back from that Egyptian tour with Veron—Miss Ward. However, the runes and armor business can be shelved if needed for the more important plans.”

Casey folded his hands. “Mother cannot reside in this house for much longer. She needs medical intervention. The potential issue there is that the only suitable and closest hospital is St. Mungo’s. The other smaller clinics or private healers are too far away. We have two steps to overcome: admittance and transportation. The main Healer in charge at St. Mungo’s is Delilah Foley.” That name there caused the biggest stink in the plan. The purist minded folk about the UK all knew about each other, of course, even if only as reference. The Foley opinion was the mildest of the bunch but still very critical of muggles. Plus, she was Naomi’s mother, and he could just imagine all the antagonizing she would do if she found out about Casey’s mother.

“Convincing her may be difficult. Moving mother requires stealth. I imagine Grandfather wouldn’t be enthused about boarding mother in a hospital but he wouldn’t mind her absence. Mrs. Foley most likely won’t be convinced about treating mother. There isn’t anything magically wrong with her…” Casey flipped about one of his Magical Creatures textbooks. He had seen an illness in there before he might be able to fake as mother’s condition. He paused at a different page, though, a new plan coming to light.

“Dingy, I want you to find one of these,” he turned the book to the elf. “Search Rossin Glen, it’s established to house some magical creatures. Report back to me when you find one and it’s nest.” Rossin Glen was an odd bit of property in the country that the O’Dohertys owned. Casey’s tone indicated that Dingy was not to leave yet

“As for other business, that object I had you deliver the order for?”

“Dingy has picked up the package, Master Casey. It is housed in the pantry.”

“Fetch it, and be careful” Casey said. While the elf disappeared Casey made a note on when to appeal to St. Mungo’s.

Dingy returned with a large parcel, also rested on the desk. Casey magicked the wrappings away into a bundle off to the side that Dingy transferred to a rubbish bin. The object in the parcel was a stone basin like the missing top of a half-assembled birdbath. A silvery substance like fog filled it. A Pensieve.

Casey shuffled his notes for research on how to use a Pensieve. He had the summer to learn out to effectively discard and store certain memories before he began Occlumency with Professor Storm. He was not about to have all the reasons he wanted to study the subject made apparent when Storm probed his mind. There it was, the spell for memory extraction: Extraxi Memoria. Not that much of a stretch to guess, in hindsight. And per usual to Casey’s preference, magic you didn’t see the middle grade students perform everyday. Casey O’Doherty could accomplish it though, he was going to master Occlumency and not need to do this all the time. To start, he should try a recent memory, something fresh that he wouldn’t mind loosing.

“The Herbology fiasco,” Casey said, eager to not have the guilt plague his mind anymore. He concentrated on the details: performing the final with his wand, the baybarb attacking him, Professor Blair flunking him out of the class. Eyes closed, concentrating, Casey placed the wand tip to his forehead.

“Extraxi Memoria!”

Ghostly threads of light came from his forehead as he pulled the wand tip away. Yes, he was doing it! No longer would he be faced with the--the silvery memory unhooked from his wand tip and snapped back into his head. Casey felt a skull-splitting migraine, the memory overpowering his mind, forced into reliving the events in a hazy vision. The attacking plant, his rage, exhaustion, the justified fury of Professor Blair, the sinking feeling as he realized what he had done. Casey snapped out of it to find his head sideways on the desk, sweat condensing on his forehead.

“Master?” squeaked Dingy, uneasy about what he had seen.

"Quiet Dingy," Casey said. Even his own voice was too loud. He clutched his head, brain throbbing away inside. Failure. Apparently the mind was defensive of being rewritten. Casey would see to it that he could extract his memories no matter how massive of headaches he got. Another disappointing sign at how weak his body was. He seethed with indignation. The swirling lights in the Pensieve offered no soothing, just a reflection of how empty the basin was.

"Fetch me an analgesic," Casey ordered, and the elf set off on his task dutifully. His head hurt so much he didn't want to think any more today. But his resolve to learn how to use the Pensieve was still absolute.