Ineffable | Remus Lupin

IX

"Now just swish and flick." Dorcas instructed, "Oh, and obviously say the spell as you do it."

Ingrid could not believe what her life had become. She sat there in the Great Hall that Saturday afternoon with a twig clutched in her hands at the magical school for wizards and witches.
It was clear that the world had gone mad - not her. Nevertheless, she sighed and did as she was told.

"Wingardium Leviosa." She swished and flicked her wand and the piece of toast on the table lifted a couple of inches into the air for a few moments before dropping back down.

Dorcas clapped her hands and exclaimed with glee, "Oh that was a brilliant first attempt! I'll admit, it did take me a couple of weeks to get anything to happen at all when I first tried."

"This is ridiculous. I can actually just pick the toast up." Ingrid bitterly pointed out as she reached across to pick up the now-cold toast and she then took a bite of it, just to prove her point.

"But the spell isn't just for-"
"Or I could do this." She placed the half-eaten toast back down, held her hand out towards it and clicked her fingers.

Dorcas was just about to question what she was doing when she watched the slice of toast lift into the air. It hovered for a moment and then gradually started to rise higher and higher up into the air. Eventually it reached the height of the floating candles above their heads when Ingrid snapped her fingers again and it dropped back down onto the table.

"Wow." Was all the girl could blurt out.

"See, I have no needs for twigs." Ingrid dropped her wand onto the table with a clatter.
Dorcas sighed again, "I don't know dow many times I need to tell you this. Our wands aren't just pieces of bark. They have magical cores to them. For example, mine is dragon heartstring."

"Oh, of course. How silly of me." Ingrid shrugged her shoulders, "Dragons. Of course. There'll be bloody aliens next."

"Are you always this snarky?" Dorcas quipped cheekily with a grin.
The blonde girl looked straight back with a dead plain expression as she replied, "Yes."

Dorcas let her hair down and adjusted it over her shoulders before turning back to the girl opposite her, "I've never seen anyone do wand-less magic like that - but don't let it go to your head. If you want to do powerful magic, you're going to need to be able to work your wand. Plus, it's kind of a requirement for the exams." 

"That was bloody brilliant, though."

"Alright, fine." Ingrid gave in as she offered a slight smile, "Let's start over." And she picked up her wand again.

Dorcas then paused momentarily, and pursed her lips as she thought about how best to sensitively broach the subject. "Um..." She began, "By all means, tell me to get lost, but I'm just curious about the, erm... Thestrals..." She trailed off as a slight heat rose to her cheeks.

"How did she know about them?"

"How did I know about them?" Ingrid intercepted, "Lily Evans told me what they were, but never got around to explaining more about them."
"But-"
"I can see them." Ingrid clarified, "But, erm, I don't really want to go into it."

Dorcas then spluttered and threw her arms through the air, "No, no! Of course not! Sorry! I don't mean to pry, really. Sorry."

It took Ingrid completely by surprise. She'd never been around someone who was just so genuinely nice. Dorcas Meadowes didn't want anything from the girl - there was no ulterior motive to her questions - and she didn't hate Ingrid when she snapped.

"It's-it's fine, really. Don't worry about it." She wiped some loose strands of her blonde hair out of her face as she dismissed the memories from her past.

This, unfortunately, didn't do much to quell Dorcas' curiosity, but she kept that to herself. It wasn't any of her business really, it was just her nosiness getting the best of her.
Not too far away, that same curiosity was eating away at a group of Gryffindors boys.

"Maybe she's part Veela." Sirius suggested as he poked at the cold food on his plate with his fork.

The Marauders had been sat in the hall, at the end of one the tables closest to the door, for nearly a couple of hours. Originally, they'd gone there so Remus could study and help the others with the Potions essay they'd most recently been assigned, however that idea had shortly been abandoned.

"I don't think so." James shook his head as he cleaned his glasses on his jumper, "That wouldn't explain why she missed her first years at Hogwarts."

Needless to say, they were currently spending their time coming up with various backstories for Ingrid Temple.

Sirius sighed and, at last, put his fork down and pushed his plate away, "Maybe she's an alien from Neptune and has come to learn our ways and she reports back to her home planet and soon we'll be invaded by an advanced alien species."
"That's more likely, yeah." Remus agreed.

"Maybe she's a vampire and has just moved to England from Transylvania or something." Peter offered up, without lifting his gaze from the book he was reading.

Sirius frowned at this, "I don't think all vampires are from Transylvania."
"Have you ever met a vampire that isn't?" James asked with a raised eyebrow.
"I haven't met any vampires."
"Well, then they could all be from Transylvania for all you know." He quipped cheekily.

The shaggy-haired boy reached over to his plate, picked up a cold chip, and threw it at James' face.

"Oi! What was that for?"
"You know what that was for."
Remus chuckled, "You did kind of deserve that."

Sirius then brightened up as he suggested, "Maybe Temple is a ghost?"
James tapped his nose, "That's it! That's definitely the only explanation."

Remus glanced between them, then over at Peter - who had finally lifted his head to pay his full attention to the conversation - as he stated, "That literally makes the least sense out of all of these ideas."
But James had grown bored by this point, and he wasted no time in grasping the opportunity to change the conversation topic, "There's more pressing matters. Such as the Animagus plan."

Sirius shook his head, "I think we definitely need to come up with a better code name."

"You mean something as indecipherable as 'Moony'?" Remus quipped cheekily with a raised eyebrow.
Sirius retorted, "Shut up, Moony."

But as Sirius, James, and Peter began planning how they'd get the various ingredients required for their - highly illegal - plan, Remus still couldn't tear his mind from Ingrid. It had played on his thoughts the past few days... That when they'd been down by the lake she'd been about to share something with him and then, at the last moment, changed her mind.

He supposed he was so interested because, truthfully, Remus saw a bit of himself in Ingrid. If Sirius hadn't befriended him on their very first day at Hogwarts, Remus would no doubt be in a very different position. His lycanthropy didn't exactly make maintains friendships easy, so no doubt there was an alternate universe in which he spent his years at Hogwarts without any friends. That certainly would have made him as distant as Ingrid was.

As Sirius had been a ray of light for him all those years ago, Remus now felt he could do the same for someone else. Perhaps he could be the one to make Ingrid Temple finally feel at ease.

-

short, i know, sorry
but happy holidays to everyone - i hope you all have the best time :)