Crumbs of a Plot: Day 8

Thursday 8^th November

“Ow.” Tasha mumbled as she awoke, her eyes opening on a scene that caused her some confusion. “Train.” She complained at the world in general as she slowly worked out where she was. She had fallen asleep, leaning against the window of a moving train. Her neck was stiff and her back ached, and yet she felt more refreshed than she had for a couple of days.

As she came to she remembered why she was on the aforementioned train. When Reika had pulled her out of the gang’s clubhouse, the pair of them had run for Tasha’s flat where they had packed everything Tasha did not want to lose, sent it to Reika’s storage unit using their Duel Monsters and left the rest behind for when the gang came looking for her. Then they had legged it, getting a train to the furthest safe point they could think of, getting the earliest available train in the process.

 Tasha blinked and looked around, seeking out the friend that had come with her. Reika had not had to come with her, but the other Duellist had done so anyway. Tasha was not sorry but she could not help but wonder where her friend had gone.

She stretched, wincing as her neck twinged, objecting to the angle it had been at since she had fallen asleep, and stood up. The carriage was pretty empty, only a few people were around, some of whom were fast asleep, just as she had been until a few moments ago. Reika was nowhere in sight though, causing Tasha to worry that her friend had changed her mind and gone home. There was no reason for the other girl to run after all, she had no links to the gang of Duellists and none of them had seen her.

She should not have worried, Reika re-entered the carriage, carrying two bottles of cola and looking amused. “Hey.” She nodded as she slid into the seat next to Tasha, “Finally woke up then.”

“Sorry.” Tasha looked sheepish, “Where are we?”

“Somewhere.” Reika replied helpfully, “Between somewhere in the middle of nowhere and somewhere else. It’s highly possible we might be in the lake district right now.”

“Maybe, it’s still rather dark out.” Tasha tried to look through the window, but there was not even a hint of the outside world yet.

“Tasha.” Reika chuckled with an amused tone that suggested that her friend was being a little slow, “We’re in a tunnel.”

Tasha blinked twice and then face palmed.  “Give me the caffeine, please?” She held out her other hand.

Reika chuckled and gave her a bottle before pulling out her laptop, getting it out of sleep mode and started writing.

“You’re obsessed.” Tasha snorted before chugging half of the cola, letting out a burp and then going bright red as she blushed in embarrassment, “Pardon me.”

“And you,” Reika chuckled, “Didn’t get any writing done yesterday.”

Tasha paused, cussed and then pulled her laptop out of her bag and started tapping away. Still laughing at Tasha’s reaction to the simple statement the only time they got distracted was as they came out of the tunnel and got to see the lake district in the light of the sun rising.

“Wow.” Tasha commented, watching the huge lakes go flying past as the train sped on down the tracks. “Just wow.”

“We could stop here.” Reika offered.

“We’ve paid to go much further.” Tasha sighed, before pausing and frowning slightly. “We’re idiots, by the way.”

“Why?” Reika looked confused.

“We can get our Duel Monsters to take objects anywhere, right?” Tasha asked, continuing when Reika nodded, “So it figures that they could take us anywhere right?” Reika nodded again. “So why are we on the train?”

“Uhhh...” Reika paused, thought about it then sighed, shaking her head as she did so, “Scenic route.”

“At least we know that it will be easy to get back here if we want to.” Tasha sighed, frustrated.

Reika did not reply to that, too busy feeling like an idiot for not thinking about just getting the Duel Monsters to take them anywhere they needed to go. Not that she was very good at summoning the beasts from her deck. Reika had much more talent with the magic and traps that were at her disposal than she had in calling the huge Guardian Beasts that resided within the card in the holster at her belt.

“Right, shutting up.” Tasha decided out loud, turning her attention back to the screen of her laptop and tapping away, trying not to voice her curiosity as to why Reika’s family had a holiday home in Cornwall. It was something she had been wondering for a while but she had decided she was not going to ask until they were safely there and ensorcelled away.

As they pulled into the station in question, they shouldered their backpacks, grabbed their suitcases and headed out, emerging onto a little backwater, unmanned station. “It’s just a few minutes from here.” Reika informed her, carrying her suitcase down the narrow corridor between the trees to the left of the road they had emerged onto.

“Where are we, exactly?” Tasha asked for the second time as they continued down the well hidden pathway. The trees shielded them from view but also hid everything else, giving Tasha no idea of where they were. She started to get nervous. Here she was, out in the middle of nowhere with a girl she had only met days before. If she had not been so desperately seeking a hideaway where she could be away from the gang and they would never find her, she would have asked a lot more questions as they emerged onto a small cottage overlooking a huge cliff and a gorgeous cove which led around to a small village.

“That,” Reika pointed to the cove below, “Is Sennen Cove and this,” She gestured to the cottage, “Is our family’s hideaway.”

“I...” Tasha gazed between the cottage and the cove and then moved her gaze to the girl who had brought her here, “How?”

“This is where my sordid little tale comes into it.” Reika sighed, “Maybe we should put our stuff inside and then I’ll explain.”

Ushering Tasha into the silent domicile, Reika hit the on switch on the radio by the door. Tasha jumped at the sudden noise and swiftly became confused by the announcements from the ‘Wizarding Wireless Network.’

“That’s unusual.” Tasha commented, confused as Reika showed her to her room. “Custom station?”

“My family’s a little unusual.” Reika replied with a small, pensive smile. “Like I said, I’ll explain once we’ve settled.”

“Okay.” Tasha nodded. As Reika slipped off to check the water, gas and electricity situation, Tasha examined her room carefully. The furniture was rather sparse, just a single bed, a chest of drawers, a wardrobe and a vanity table, but it was obviously old and very well made. Tasha could not help but wonder how Reika’s family had managed to get their hands on such old, beautiful furniture.

“Wizarding Wireless Network.” Tasha chuckled as she unpacked her stuff into the right places, “Quite an imagination. I mean I don’t believe in...” She froze as she realised what she was about to say.

‘I don’t believe in wand waving nonsense’ sounded ridiculous when she thought about CardCon and what had happened. Her hand went to the lower half of her right leg as she sat on the bed and realised that she was in the home of a real live witch. One who would not attempt to murder her horribly as the ones who had attacked the convention would have done.

“You’ve worked it out?” Reika asked, hovering nervously in the doorway.

“I... Do you have a wand?” Tasha could not help but be curious.

Reika paused for a second, confused, then smiled slightly and entered the room, pulling the object out of her jacket pocket and warily handing it over. “Eleven inches, rowan and dragon heartstring.” Reika explained.

“So... your family is...” Tasha said as she gave the wand an experimental  wave, looked upset when nothing happened and handed it back.

“Mum’s a Muggle, Dad’s a Wizard.” Reika accepted it, unsurprised by the inertness of the wand when held by another, “Bit of a shock for her when she found out.”

“I can imagine.” Tasha yelped.

“Laptops, garden?” Reika offered.

“More sordid life story.” Tasha poked her in the arm.

“Deal.” Reika agreed. “Though I do have one request.”

“Oh?” Tasha asked, wondering what it was as she grabbed her laptop from her bag and followed Reika outside.

“Don’t tell anyone?” Reika asked her, “Please? The Muggles aren’t very forgiving of witches and wizards right now. Shadow-Touched are getting the sympathy vote still, but other magicals...”

“I won’t. I promise.” Tasha promised. Reika led her out to the garden, which stretched as far as the edge of the cliff and had a fence surrounding it, in an attempt to prevent anyone from falling down the sheer face.  It was not a neatly kept garden, there were too many wild flowers that looked like they had joined the garden by themselves within the flower beds and a lack of regulation in the way the hedges had grown that suggested that the cottage was not somewhere that was visited often. They sat at a picnic bench near the edge that gave them an excellent view of the beach below and the village that was, at most, a few miles further along the sands.

“So...you’re a wizard?” Tasha asked Reika as they opened their laptops and settled.

“Witch.” Reika corrected absently, thinking about the food that needed to be gotten in and whether it would be easier to get a certain servant of the family to get it for her, “Guys are wizards, women are withes.”

“So, you’re a witch.” Tasha nodded her understanding, “Why don’t you live with other witches if ‘Muggles’ don’t like you very much?” She asked, slightly confused by the whole scenario.

“That’s where my story comes into it.” Reika sighed, “My Dad is a rather powerful wizard from a long line of wizards, what those who care about such things would call a ‘Pure-Blood.’ However his family were always rather progressive for Pure-Bloods and my dad fell in love with a Muggle woman he had met while spending time with his Muggle-Born friends.”

“Your mum.” Tasha realised.

Reika nodded, “There’s something you have to understand though, at the time my Mum and Dad met, there was a Dark Lord causing terror amongst the wizarding populace, the same Dark Lord who leads the terrorists who attacked CardCon and Domino over in Japan. “

“How old is he?” Tasha exclaimed.

“It’s complicated, let me explain my tale and you can ask questions afterwards. You might have less if you get the full story.” When Tasha pretended to zip her lips Reika continued, “Anyway, this Dark Lord rallied a lot of the Pure-Blood community to his cause and he wanted my Dad on his side. Of course Dad had fallen for Mum and was having none of it, so he hid among the Muggles. Gave up magic and focused on rebuilding his life with the money his parents had given his and his new wife. A decade after I was born, the Dark Lord made the mistake of attacking the Potter family and Harry, their son, somehow managed to defeat him at just a year old.”

“Something the parents did?” Tasha asked, unable to help herself.

“That’s the common thought.” Reika allowed, “Blood wards or something similar, very dark magic but it worked. Voldemort was destroyed and the wizarding world could rebuild itself. Just in time in fact because I had shown signs of magic, my Dad had had to come out of hiding so I could get training at Hogwarts, the prestigious school for magic up in Scotland and had started classes that September. With the Dark Lord dead the atmosphere in the school did a one eighty for the most part, though due to the influence of our headmaster who some people are sure is the only person the Dark Lord ever feared, it had been a safe zone for most of us.

Anyway, school life improved, I learnt magic, blah blah blah, I graduated with a bunch of OWLs and a few NEWTs, realised that even with the Dark Lord dead the wizarding world was full of morons with their heads up their rears and returned to the Muggle world and got myself a job as a secretary.”

“But if he was dead, how can he be back now?” Tasha wanted to know.

“No one knows.” Reika sighed. “We know he died when he attacked the Potters, but somehow his soul survived. Now he’s back from the dead and everyone’s running scared again.”

Tasha frowned, mulling the problem over in her mind. “Do you think he used the Shadows to do it?”

“Until the Pharaoh showed up, no one had ever heard of the Shadows, or Shadow Magic.” Reika shook her head.

“So you’re in hiding because this guy’s back and he’s attacking everyone again?” Tasha asked.

“He’s worse this time around.” Reika shook her head, “And that’s only part of the problem. The English Wizarding community doesn’t trust anyone who is Shadow-Touched very much. It’s partly because of what happened during Shadowmorn, partly the fault of the rumours that had come out of Hogwarts about soul stealing and murder attempts by Shadow wielders and mostly because of the blasted Daily Prophet.”

“Daily Prophet?” Tasha asked, confusion obvious in her features, “Is it a newspaper?”

“It’s the only newspaper since the man in charge of its only rival, The Quibbler, died.” Reika nodded, “And it’s controlled by the heavily Death Eater controlled government.”

“And we all know how much Death Eaters love Shadow-Touched.” Tasha face palmed with a groan. “So they’re printing propaganda against the Shadow-Touched and increasing the paranoia of the general populace and they’re reacting badly to anyone who might possibly have something weird about them.”

“You got it.” Reika was a little surprised by that.

“It’s not hard to work out.” Tasha sighed, “It’s happened lots of times in the course of history after all. Look at Hitler, after all. He’s the most famous example.”

“Who?” Reika blinked at her.

“World War Two.” Tasha snorted, “You don’t learn history in your crazy magic school?”

“Only Wizarding history.” Reika looked embarrassed, “And we had a ghost teaching it. He seemed to be obsessed with the Goblin Wars.”

“Oh yeay, a ghost on repeat, excellent way to learn things.” Tasha sighed, “Hitler led the Nazis. They believed that people with blonde hair and blue eyes were the Master Race and that everyone else was inferior. They thought they should rule the world to make humanity perfect and persecuted those who did not fit the plan. The ones who were worst off were the Jews,” Seeing Reika’s confusion she explained, “They’re a religious group. The Nazis issued so much propaganda against them because they generally had a lot of money and did not look how the Nazis thought humanity should look, that people were aiding and abetting the arrest and murder of a lot of them. Those who weren’t killed on the spot were taken to ‘Concentration Camps’ where they would work till death in despicable conditions or worse, be taken to the gas chambers and murdered on mass.”

“That’s horrible.” Reika looked stunned.

“We learnt about them in secondary school.” Tasha replied, “And it sounds like that’s what this Dark Lord wants to do to the Shadow-Touched.”

Reika fell silent and they wrote in the bright sunlight, the sounds of the wildlife around them the only noise except fingers on keys for a long while before Reika asked, “People wouldn’t let Vol... Him do that, would they?”

“When people are scared, they’re not at their best.” Tasha replied, wishing she could say otherwise, “And a lot of people will go with whatever makes life easier, no matter how bad it is. Remember most people are firmly of the opinion that ‘it’s okay as long as it doesn’t happen to me or mine.’ As long as they don’t had people like us in the family, they probably won’t stop him. There will be people who fight, there probably is already, but most will roll over and play dead. It’s how most people are.”

Silence fell again and Tasha watched Reika process this. Tasha did not like being honest about this but Reika had already obviously run into the problem first hand. “I take it you got chased out of London.”

“No.” Reika smiled bitterly, “But we got a warning from a friend of my father’s that we were going to get visited by some... not so nice... people who had heard that I was Shadow-Touched and we fled. We like living after all.” Reika’s gaze was sharp as she considered her friend, “You know all of the disappearances that have been happening? Where the skulls have been found floating over the houses afterwards?” Tasha nodded, “That’s the same guys.”

“So basically we’re screwed.” Tasha realised. “The magical government won’t stop them because they’re in the pockets of the ones behind it, and the mundane one can’t...”

“I know.” Reika nodded, “And this is why Mum and Dad let me bring you here. This place is heavily warded, repels Muggles and there’s no one who knows we own it.” She smirked slightly, “You have your gang to get away from, I have a civil war to try and ignore. This place, out in the middle of nowhere, should be perfect.”

It was, Tasha agreed. The peace and quiet bar the sounds of the waves below lapping against the sandy beach, the chirping birds in the trees and the wind was incredible, certainly more relaxing than home could ever have been. On the one hand she missed the low background chatter of the bakery. On the other she did miss the thought that at any minute her former friends could enter the bakery and cause everyone else a world of trouble.

“I should probably phone my parents.” Tasha realised, embarrassed when she realised she had not done so yet. “I mean I don’t think anyone has their number but I left stuff behind that means that if people look than they’ll find out where I came from and...what?” She trailed off as she realised Reika was staring at her.

“You can’t tell them where you are, you realise that, right? There’s no point in making this place a secret if you around telling everyone.” Reika growled.

“I... I’m not going to tell them where I am, just that I’ve gone away for a few days and I’ll give them a call when I’m on my way back.” Tasha had to pause to think about it, “At least that way they won’t worry if someone from the authorities goes and talks to them.”

“Fine, fine.” Reika grouched, “Just...”

“I’ll be careful.” Tasha promised, pulling her phone out of her pocket and switching it on, swiftly entering her parents’ phone number and hitting call. She got off of her seat and went and leant against the railings as the dial tone started going off.

“Tarrent Household, Jennifer speaking.” Tasha let out a relieved sigh when her mother picked up the phone on the other end.

“Hi Mum.” Tasha mentally grinned as she spoke.

“Tasha, hi.” Her mother sounded delighted, “How are you? How’s everything going?”

“Uhhh...” Tasha let out a nervous chuckle.

“Oh honey, not again.” Her mother sounded exasperated, “You promised me you were out of the gang business, I told you Duel Monsters was nothing but trouble.”

“It’s not the game’s fault Mum, it those idiots.” Tasha defended the card game though she could not help but start to wonder if her mother was right. “Anyway, a friend and I have gone on vacation, it was a bit last minute so I didn’t have time to tell you before hand.”

“Anywhere nice? It can’t be abroad, you left your passport here.” Her mother sounded intrigued.

“Just some seaside place, I just needed to get away, you know?” Tasha replied, “I just thought I’d let you know that I’d vanished for a while and there’s nothing to worry about.”

“Be careful.” Her mother requested, “You know we’d rather you were here than up there. Especially after...”

“I know.” Tasha cut her off, not wanting to get into a row about how she wanted to live on her own and have her own life instead of being coddled by her mother who was just concerned for her disabled daughter, “I’ll be fine Mum. And if I’m not, you’ll be the first person I come to, okay?”

“Alright.” Her mother was sceptical, it was unsurprising considering Tasha had said that before and had not done so. Her mother thought it was because Tasha was afraid her mother would get her committed again, like she had when Tasha had woken up from the Shadow Game, she could not know that it was actually because Tasha was afraid of telling her parents about her powers after the last time she had brought up the subject of magic around them. “I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

“Sure, Mum.” Tasha promised with a sigh. “Love you. Bye.” She put the phone down before her mother could respond and turned back to the table to find Reika watching her like a hawk. “See?” She demanded sharply, “I didn’t give our hiding place away.”

“No.” Reika allowed, “But that didn’t sound like a fun phone call.”

“My mother doesn’t believe in magic.” Tasha snorted, “She believes Shadowmorn was a publicity stunt gone wrong and the terrorists who attacked CardCon used some kind of hallucinogenic drug so people thought they were using magic.”

“Seriously?” Reika was incredulous, wondering how someone could refuse the proof of their own eyes quite that thoroughly.

“Those are just her saner theories.” Tasha nodded, slumping back into her seat, “But then she never did accept my story about the Shadow Game. She had me committed to an asylum until I stopped talking about it.” Tasha looked both frustrated and sad about that, “It took me a year or so, but I worked out the sooner I played along and pretended to stop hearing voices and talking about the game world I’d lived in for the past year, the sooner I could get home, so I just stopped talking to anyone.” She chuckled as she smiled at Reika, “You’re the first person I’ve had an honest conversation about all of this stuff with outside of the blasted Duelling Club for about eight years.”

“I’m honoured.” Reika smiled back, though she felt like kicking Tasha’s mother. She could understand where the woman had come from. It was not normal for someone to talk about hearing voices and game worlds that only she could see, but would it not have been better for Tasha to live in her own fantasy world than open up to the wrong people because there was no one else she could discuss her abilities and history with?

Still she was here and Tasha was here and they could discuss whatever they needed to with each other and even if they weirded each other out for a while at least they knew that the other person would not flee or abandon them to their troubles.

It was a strange thought, that they had only just met and already Reika knew more about Tasha than her parents did. The Half-Blood witch could not help but wonder why they had both opened up to each other so much over such a short period of time. It was not even like they had that much in common besides National Novel Writing Month, the need to find somewhere peaceful to write, being Shadow-Touched and a love of Duel Monsters. It was insane for Reika to suddenly decide she needed to drag the other girl, to a magical hideaway and show her part of her world.

And yet it felt right, trusting the once Muggle, now magical brunette with some of the secrets of her world. Trusting her to keep the secrets and not spread them around was a huge risk, but for some reason Reika felt it was the right one and she could not work out why.

Tasha felt much the same way about her secrets. Why she had suddenly, out of nowhere, decided that she could trust the Witch before her. She had not told many about her past, mostly due to the lessons she had learned in the asylum before her own lies had gotten her out of there. No one wanted to listen to what they believed was the ravings of a lunatic, even when she had been able to show off her powers to prove what she had been saying. Reika was the only one who she had ever told who had both believed her and not wanted to use her powers for their own gain. It was a weird feeling to have someone she could trust to be like that.

Tasha supposed that it was because Reika had her own abilities, ones that could probably do a lot more than hers could. Magic was not new to the half caste young woman in front of her. So she probably thought Tasha was weird but probably was not fazed by the possibilities that were presented. Tasha found herself curious as to what a school of magic could teach children.

“What was Hogwarts like?” Tasha asked, interrupting the writing process as she hit the twenty-one thousand mark and paused to check her notes as to what she was writing next.

“Hogwarts?” Reika blinked at her, confusion written all over her face. “You want to know about my school?”

“Yeah.” Tasha nodded, “It’s not every day I get to meet someone who went through a magical senior school. I mean it has to be more interesting than my boring old, what was the word you used? Muggle?”

“That’s the official term for non-magicals, yes.” Reika nodded. “Though I don’t think you count.”

“I was born Muggle.” Tasha pointed out.

“And that still seems weird to me.” Reika complained under her breath.

“Why?” Tasha asked curiously.

“Well Muggles are Muggles.” Reika tried to explain it, “I mean...” She sighed, giving up on writing until she had explained properly. “Until Shadowmorn Muggles were Muggles and Wizards were Wizards. It was that simple. As far as we were concerned, everyone who had magic were Wizards and no non-Wizard was allowed to know about the Wizarding world.”

“And then the Shadows gave Muggles magic and everything changed.” Tasha got it.

“I mean I don’t know what would have happened in your case.” Reika nodded, “You were magical long before Shadowmorn, but people don’t like that Muggles suddenly have control over this powerful magic that’s obviously dark and is stronger than the magic we’ve hidden for over a thousand years. You’ve seen some of the fallout.”

“CardCon.” Tasha murmured, gaze falling back to the screen of her laptop.

“And Domino.” Reika nodded, “Though that one, I’m pretty certain, was meant to be a direct strike on Harry Potter and, in the same strike, the Pharaoh.”

“You mentioned Harry Potter before. Isn’t he the one who killed the Dark Lord as a baby?” Tasha asked, mulling it over in her mind.

“That’s right.” Reika nodded, “He’s been friends with the Pharaoh since they both started Hogwarts.”

“Umm, the Pharaoh’s only a year younger than us.” Tasha pointed out.

“I know, but he’s been going to Hogwarts.” Reika chuckled, “The Wizarding community isn’t large, things like this get around quickly. Besides where did you think he disappeared to for nine months of the year?”

“Huh.” Tasha blinked, “That makes so much sense. I suppose they just overlooked the age difference or something.”

“Rumour mill says De-aging Amulets that make him and his friends look the right age for school again.” Reika passed on with a giggle.

“Wizards can do that?” Tasha looked shocked. She grinned when Reika nodded, “I want one that makes me look this age forever.”

“I’m not sure I can do that but I’m sure there someone out there who would try.” Reika shrugged, “Anyway, you wanted to know about Hogwarts.”

“I did, yes. Details woman, details.” Tasha waved at her.

“Well, there are four houses...”