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Bewitched Aerodynamics



Ermalene had to swallow back the urge to tell Matthew and Caterina about the plans she and Andy were making several times over the next week. Part of her wanted to tell them exactly what was happening, but this other, quieter part told her to keep the trip a secret, though she didn’t know why. Matthew and Caterina had never been particularly unreasonable in the years she had lived with them, never overbearing or overprotective, but for some reason she feared that they might say no to her going on the trip. So, she suppressed the urge to squeal and pump her fists at every moment that the thought crossed her mind.

Andy came over everyday and collected Erma, and the two of them would walk to the park, making plans while pouring over maps of Hogsmeade and a copy of “Hogwarts: A History, The Newly Updated & Revised Edition”. As each day passed, Ermalene felt the trip becoming more and more real until she could scarcely keep her skin on, she was so excited, and found herself mumbling the plans she and Andy had made around the foam from her toothpaste as she stared at her own eyes in the mirror on the eve of her birthday.

When she arrived at the dinner table that night, having already packed her suitcase and snuck it out onto the roof for an easy departure, she could barely sit still. She nibbled at the casserole that Caterina had prepared and barely touched her cup of sweet pumpkin juice.

Matthew looked over the muggle paper he was reading. “What’s the matter with you?” he questioned, eyeing Ermalene’s plate suspiciously. Ermalene was a healthy eater and rarely left a plate of food as untouched as this one currently appeared.

“Nothing’s the matter,” Ermalene replied. Which was true to an extent; nothing was wrong, exactly, she was just anxious. But in a good way. About good things.

Caterina poured herself more pumpkin juice. “Excited about your birthday?” she questioned.

“More than you could imagine,” Ermalene answered truthfully.

“What sort of cake did you want me to conjure for you tomorrow?” Caterina questioned, “I learned a spell for a marvelous strawberry creame…”

“That sounds nice,” Ermalene replied.

“Or there’s a bananas foster flavor that I haven’t tried yet,” continued Caterina.

Matthew ducked back behind the muggle paper.

“The strawberry would be fine,” Ermalene said.

Caterina smiled. “I cannot believe you’re to be seventeen,” she sighed, staring at Ermalene with doe-eyes. She looked at Matthew’s paper, then back to Ermalene. “It seems like only yesterday that we were at that muggle orphanage and selecting you to bring home.” She reached out and put her palm on Ermalene’s cheek. “We thought we were getting an ordinary child, only to discover how incredibly extraordinary you are.”

Ermalene felt her face grow hot. She felt bad not telling Caterina that she was leaving in just a few hours to go to London, to find out who had abandoned her and how she’d come to be in the Nott’s care to begin with. She hated how much her desire to know would hurt the people who had taken her in and loved her all this time. It wasn’t that she wasn’t grateful. She was terribly grateful, and forever in debt to the Nott couple, but she needed to know.

“Thank you,” she whispered as Caterina slid her fingers from the edge of Ermalene’s jaw. She looked down at her plate and took a couple more bites of the casserole… not because she was hungry any longer, but because she could think of no other way to show Caterina that she cared for her very deeply.

Caterina smiled.

Later that night, after they’d all gone to sleep, Ermalene lay in the twin bed in her room, staring at the ceiling, where she’d hung adhesive glow-in-the-dark stars in swirling patterns and even the constellations mixed in. She counted each of those greenish-tinged stars, waiting for the moment when she’d hear the little rocks hitting the window again, waiting for Andy to come and fetch her for their holiday in London.

She’d nearly fallen asleep when she heard the first pebble hit. She glanced warily at the crack beneath her door, just to be sure that no lights had turned on in the hall at the sound of the pebble, then she slid out of bed, stepping into her sneakers and tugging a sweatshirt over her arms, despite the blistering heat that filled even the night air. She opened her window and stuck one leg out onto the porch, crawling through, leaving the room behind. She felt guilty, even as she tossed the bag she’d packed and put out on the roof over the side and to the ground, where Andy Weasley stood, waiting. She lowered herself over the side and dropped to the ground.

“Happy Birthday,” Andy whispered huskily.

“Thank you,” Ermalene replied under her breath.

“Welcome to the Seventeen Club,” Andy said lowly as he winked. He reached quickly, scooping up the strap of Ermalene’s bag and hoisting it over his shoulder alongside his own rather stuffed bag. “C’mon, let’s get out of here.”

Ermalene and Andy both scurried away from the Nott house, ducking around it’s perimeter, keeping low beneath the lavender bushes that lined one side, out to the front walkway. Andy waved for her to follow him down the road. When they got several houses away, he said, in his normal voice, “Are you ready for the adventure of a lifetime?”

Ermalene laughed, “Hardly adventure, looking up old genealogy charts. But I am looking forward to it just the same. Ought to be right boring for you.”

“You never know,” Andy said with a smirk, “Even the most boring of things can explode into adventures. At least that’s what I’ve heard. I wouldn’t know because my boring things usually tend to stay boring.” Not that there was a chance in the world of the trip being boring so long as she was there, he thought, listening to the sound of her footsteps on the pavement as they walked, the beat of her shoes matching his heart rate.

“I very much doubt that a single thing in your life has ever been boring,” Ermalene accused him. She’d always been jealous of Andy Weasley for not only knowing who his ancestors were, but being born into such a marvelous wizarding family. The history that the Weasley name upheld was a shining glory - Andy’s relatives were nothing short of famous. Naming off Andy’s family tree was like shouting off a highlight reel of incredible wizards and witches from Ronald and Hermione Weasley - two of the Trio, to Fred and George - founders of Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes, to Ginny Potter - married to none other than Harry Potter himself, as well as a renown Quidditch star.

When they reached the end of the street, they found Andy’s brother, Nathan, waiting for them with his modified muggle car. He was leaning against the trunk, eating a candy wand and watching the stars. Nathan was obsessed with muggle pop culture and had recently discovered an old muggle TV show called Happy Days about how the muggles lived in the 1950s that he’d modeled his latest look after. A metamorphmangus, Nathan could change his features and always looked differently each time that Ermalene saw him. He was the only Weasley she’d ever heard of that didn’t have flaming red hair, like Andy’s. Tonight, Nate had changed his hair to a jet black pomade that hung over his forehead and seemed to shine under the streetlamp. He wore a leather jacket, with a plain white t-shirt over jeans, and a muggle cigarette hung over one ear, a prop to complete the costume.

“Thanks for waiting for us, Nate,” Andy said as they approached.

“Not a prob,” Nate answered as he climbed into the car.

“Nate’s going to drive us to the airport,” Andy explained, “Since we can’t apparate yet.”

Ermalene nodded. She glanced back over her shoulder at the still-dark Nott house behind them and wondered how long it would take Caterina and Matthew to notice that she’d left. Another twinge of guilt twittered in her stomach and she promised herself she would send them an owl as soon as she arrived in London to assure them she was okay and would return once she’d gotten the answers she needed. Then she climbed into Nate’s car and Andy followed and they’d barely gotten the door closed and Nate had pulled away from the curb - vertically, for this was a flying car, a design created by the famous Arthur Weasley who, in his later years after quitting his job at the Ministry of Magic, had become a brilliant, full-time hobbyist in the art of muggle vehicle modification.



-*-*-*-*-*-



Andy sat in a plastic chair, looking over the tarmac at the airport, watching the giant airplanes roll into their various loading gates. Ermalene was beside him, looking over Flamel Academy’s seventh year required book list. “Isn’t it funny,” Andy mused, “That the muggles have figured out how to bewitch something as big as all that to fly but still can’t get the hang of a broomstick or a modified car?” He glanced at Ermalene. “Oi, you aren’t seriously looking at school paperwork, are you?”

Ermalene murmured, “Yes, I’m looking at school paperwork.”

“It’s the summer, Ermalene,” groaned Andy.

“So?”

Andy sighed and turned back to the window. If ‘it’s summer’ wasn’t argument enough then anything else he had to say certainly wouldn’t win him the debate, either. “I fly, all the time, on brooms playing quidditch and all... but being hurtled through the air based on muggle enchantments scare the every-flavor-beans out of me.”

Ermalene looked out the window, too, lowering the books list.

“Too bad London’s too far to go by broom,” Andy said wistfully. “So much safer than a bewitched tin can.”

“The airplanes aren’t bewitched, they operate on wind currents.” Ermalene said, staring out, watching as one of the planes picked up speed as it moved down the runway, finally lifting off the ground, tucking it’s landing gear up into it’s belly. “The technology is scientifically more accurately compared to what nature’s implemented on your owl than to a bewitched broomstick.”

Andy grinned, looking at the reflection of her in the mirror, her long dark blonde hair messy and falling over her shoulder.

“The airplane wings work the same way that bird wings do in that they are designed to make the air above them move quicker than the air below, resulting in a pressure that actually lifts it into the air and by adjusting the angle of the wing can either gain or reduce the friction and --” Ermalene stopped mid-explanation. Andy’s eyebrows had pinched together in the center of his forehead. “Sorry,” she said. She was always getting carried away with explanations.

“S’alright,” Andy laughed, and he turned away from the window.

Ermalene licked her lips and turned, too.

They were quiet for a moment. “Can we discuss the difference between escalators and bewitched staircases next, then?” Andy said with a tremble of suppressed laughter to his voice.

“Shut up,” Ermalene laughed.