Elliot Tanner and the World's Curse

Desire Backwards

Several things happened all at once. The air was sucked out of the room, and the gold light of the Protego Mundo spell faded from the walls of Lupin's office and classroom. Lupin jumped to his feet to cast Expecto Patronum, but McGonagall disarmed him with Expelliarmus before he could summon his wolf. Snape and Asia both cast Stupefy spells that sent McGonagall reeling back, and the five dementors flooded into the office and blocked off our escape.

I didn't need the dementors to feel abject despair. There was absolutely no chance of anything getting better. My mentor was here with faceless and soulless monsters to drain our soul. The thick air of Conformitas choked at us, and some of the details of our conversation with Lupin and Snape were slipping out of my memory. Soon, they would both be back to their usual selves, and those weren't the kind of people that would keep attacking Professor McGonagall on our behalf. We had stepped too far, and the curse was going to obliterate us. Just like ... just like ...

There was a hole inside my heart I could not name.

A patronus shaped as a white doe filled the office and charged towards the dementors, but one had already kissed Professor Lupin. Instead of having his soul drain away, the professor looked at us with glowing eyes. Slowly and confidently, he picked up his wand from the corner of his office.

"Minerva, what are you doing?" Snape asked.

Minerva pointed her wand at him and disarmed him dispassionately. Then she trained her wand at me and Asia. We both huddled closer as three dementors moved towards us and one towards Snape.

"Rowena," Asia said to me.

"That," McGonagall snapped. "Is not his name." She pointed the wand at Asia, and in the sliver of time before Snape was kissed and turned against us, Lupin was re-armed, and McGonagall could cast her spell, I grabbed the bottle of Firewhiskey behind me and threw it at my favourite professor. As she flinched from the smashed decanter and shattered glass, I cast Incendio.

Fire erupted all over the office, and I grabbed Asia's hand as we sprinted through the flames and past McGonagall and her dementors. I knew that behind me, Snape would soon be against us and the diversion had only bought us a split second, but we had run from the curse before, and I hoped we could run from it again.

Asia tripped as we rounded the corner out of Lupin's classroom, but I hauled her to her feet and almost dragged her to make sure she could keep up. It was rare that I was faster than anyone, but I wasn't going to be beaten by this stupid curse. There was still something unnameable inside me that had been ripped away. It was almost as real and painful as not knowing I was a woman my whole life, but it was just as unknowable and mercurial.

As we ran through the school, I waited for the portraits or suits of armour to have glowing eyes that came for us. Merlin's beard, it wouldn't have surprised me if Myrtle floated through the wall with her eyes glowing. But then again, Myrtle knew all about this and seemed immune. I shoved the thought away. That was another thought for another time. One when I wasn't running for my life.

Because runner and Rowena Tanner didn't belong in the same sentence.

We scrambled over the stairwell, unable to take our time and figure out where each rotating staircase would lead to. While I wouldn't love being in Snape's dungeon classroom right now, anywhere would be better than Lupin's classroom or the same half of the castle as Lupin's classroom.

"Do we go outside the castle?" Asia asked as we descended the stairs as they moved. She was panting nearly as badly as me, but we both weren't going to be marathon runners anytime soon.