(1938-10-15) Mechanations at the Clock Tower
Details for Mechanations at the Clock Tower
Summary: Captain Cillian summons Elise to the clock tower, and Arian disturbs them… reading a book?
Date: 1938-10-15
Location: Clock Tower, Hogwarts
Related:
Characters
ArianCathalCillianDeanElise

Its night time…yes, night time means 2 things 1. Sleep and 2. Sneaking time. Its very VERY very hard to sneak out at night time, but sometimes there's no choice…Cillian, wearing a simple pair of black trousers and a black shirt tucked in, around his waist is his little leather belt, the one each pirate has with a place for their practice swords and a loop for their wand but just in CASE, he wears his robes over it and can be found in the clock tower, pressed against the wall near the entrance and with a satchel tossed over his shoulder as he takes a deep breath, slipping a golden coin from his pocket and kissing it before lowering it and watching it slowly turn black.

It's some time before the first pirate joins Cillian. It's Elise, who very quietly hopped on her broom and took out a window, keeping close to walls and either above or below windows to avoid being spotted. She, too, is dressed all in black - seems to be high fashion for this sort of nocturnal endeavor. She's pale and her eyes are simply enormous. Simply put, she looks scared. But she's here.

Cillian notices Elise and smiles softly, gesturing towards the wall he leans against and whispering softly. "Good to be seein' ye lil' mousie…I needed to make sure I had at least some back up." He looks around warily before carefully yanking a small black book that's bound with leather straps from his bag and he holds it out carefully as he nods firmly to Elise. "I found it, I tink…m' not sure. But ye remember talkin' about yer curse? And the ting about the age?"

Elise lightly touches down, but doesn't quite dismount from her broom yet. She reaches out to take the book - despite not having her hands on it, the broom stays up. Magic! "Yes, I remember," she says, giving him a curious look. "Why?"

He never should have closed his eyes. Arian knew that if he did that, sitting out by the lake with the sound of water lapping gently against the shore, he was bound to fall asleep. And he did. Which explains why now he's wandering through the halls, trying to get back to the Ravenclaw common room. Unfortunately, the stairs have betrayed him; they've moved. And that means that he ends up behind the wrong door. As soon as he steps into the clock tower, he spots Cillian and Elise doing something that looks sneaky. He carefully approaches, raising a hand in a wave. "Um, what's going on?" he asks in a whisper.

Cillian sighs softly and shakes his head. "Mousie, get down from there, yer feet must be planted or somethin' firm, so we can sit. Iffen ye hover, ye may get seen." He sticks out his tongue before he hands the book over, the cover is dusty and the words are somewhat worn away but it reads 'Peter and Wendy'. "Don't…don't open it yet, just wanted ye to see it." Then he quickly freezes upon seeing Arian's arrival and he hisses softly. "Where the blazes did ye come from…"

"Alright," Elise says agreeable, and swings her leg over to dismount completely. Once her weight is gone, the broom stops floating, and she props it quietly against the wall. She carefully uses her sleeve to dust the cover to better read the words. "Who are Peter and… what kind of name is Wendy?" she asks in a whisper. Another's voice makes her start, and she turns, looking hugely guilty and terribly frightened. She squeaks, sounding just like a mouse.

Arian raises an eyebrow, wondering why he's startled the two other students. It's not like he's Pringle. And it's not like he's barged in telling them to run away. "I used the doors," Arian answers Cillian, pointing to the massive doors. "What the bloody hell's going on here, anyway? You two act like you're about to burn the castle down…"

"Its a story, complicated yet beautiful. Me da had me read Little White Bird first, even though it be a muggle book…and then Peter and Wendy and so on, but anyways…they were children like us, luv, and Peter lived in a world where they never be agin' and such. Long story short, its a /muggle/ story but its filled wit' so much magic…I had to do me research and I found THAT in the library. Its magic, or it wouldn't be bound…" Cillian explains carefully to Elise beore looking to Arian. "Tis…adventure stuff, iffen ye be here, then ye 'ave to pull yer wait. Do ye swear to never tell anybody about what will be happening tonight?"

Cillian's lilting voice and his calm explanation serve to soothe Elise's nerves. She takes a deep breath and listens closely. "They never age?" she repeats. "But… The Hobbit is a muggle story, too," she says gently. "And it's filled with magic as well, though I don't expect to see any hobbits wandering about Diagon Alley." She frowns a little at Arian. "It's made of stone," she tells him. "How could we possibly burn it down?"

Arian doesn't interrupt the conversation about books. No, he's more interested in whatever else is going on here. What the hell did he just walk into? "I… I'm not sure what, exactly, you're talking about doing," he tells Cillian, "but you do have my attention." Arian hasn't completely given up his troublemaking ways. As for Elise's question, Arian tells her, "I wasn't being literal, y'know."

"Right, but I didn't go lookin' for stray bread crumbs between stacks of books tryin' to see who may be makin' our tiny pastry flow stagnant by eatin' their own pastries in the library…and find a magically bound book called 'The Hobbit' now did I?" Cillian asks with a small smirk before holding out his hands to take the book back if allowed and then he looks over to Arian. "We…ah, we're gonna open this book."

"Ah… alright," Elise stammers, quite lost by Cillian's wandering monologue. She blinks at Arian. "Oh," she says. "Yes, of course. How silly of me. What are /you/ doing out at this hour?" she suddenly asks curiously. And she still has the book in her hands, but when Cillian reaches for it she gives it over again. "What do you suppose is inside of it?" she asks. "Because… well…" she trails off, looking rather worried.

Arian gives a look that simply says "WUT?", the international expression for complete befuddlement. "Uh, wait, I don't get it," he says, shaking his head, as if maybe doing so will allow him to understand what's going on. "You mean you're sneaking around at night, hiding in the tower, just to open a book? And I'm only out," Arian says, turning to Elise, "because I accidentally fell asleep by the lake shore after dinner."

"Oh bloody…" Cillian sighs softly and shakes his head before, moving to shakily begin unbuckling the leather straps that bind the book closed and he eeps as the book glows goldenish and he drops it, taking a step back and allowing the book to flip open, pages fluttering and a gust of wind whipping through the pages as the air is filled with the sweet smell of cinnamon and sand and chocolate and seawater and the air is a bit more humid for a few seconds before the pages just continue to flip.

Elise, if she's allowed, will lay a comforting hand on Cillian's shoulder when she notices how his hands shake. But she, too, steps back when it glows and starts flipping through pages. The wind tugs the hem of her robe back and forth, sends a few tendrils of dark hair dancing around her cheeks. She presses a hand to her heart, inhales the scent of sweet adventure. "Oh, Cillian!" she cries, only remembering at the last second to keep it quiet. "How thrilling and — and terrifying!" Her cheeks are pink. "What's it doing?" She watches avidly as the pages keep flipping on their own. "I just… I want to read all of it," she admits with a little grin. "What's /in/ there?"

Arian beats a hasty retreat away from the pair, and their incredibly strange book, pushing himself as close to the wall as he can possibly manage. Once the pages have stopped flipping and it's quieted down, he looks at Cillian in wide-eyed astonishment. "What the hell was that?" he asks.

Its a myriad of different pictures and words, the sound of faint sword fights and whistling…laughter and tinkling, all of that and Cillian just wraps an arm around Elise protectively, eyeing the book as he blinks owlishly at the strange item, looking from the book and then to Arian with a shrug. "…I tink, I don't know, tat's the mystery!" He then starts to exhale when it starts to go dark and that's before the pages begin slowly turning black as the words melt together on a page before oozing out of the book like a smokey type of ink.

"Magic," Elise answers Arian, her voice still hushed. She certainly isn't about to complain about Cillian's embrace. For half a second she just closes her eyes and leans into him. Then she looks at what the book is doing. "Oh, no!" she exclaims when the words start melting and oozing. "No, no, no, no…" She steps forward and crouches, takes out her wand and holds it. Her hand wavers uncertainly and she bites her lip. "We've ruined it," she says sadly.

Arian takes another step back. He's trying to make his way over to the door so he can run if things get any weirder. Or more dangerous. "That doesn't look like any kind of magic that I've ever seen," he says, his voice nearly a whisper. "I.. is it dark magic?" As the words start to ooze off the page, Arian pulls out his wand. "What the bloody hell is happening?!"

Cillian's own hand rests on his wand as he reaches out a hand to rest on Elise's shoulder with concern when the book begins boozing and he takes a deep breath and then another, looking up to Arian. "Aren't ye supposed to be an older student? Ye tell /us/." That's when he has to shut up before the oozing words seem to solidify a bit, a goopy mass that floats a bit in a solid ball above the pages, pulsating, and shifting and changing shape before something like a foot forms in mid air.

"Stop saying that!" Elise hisses at Arian for his cursing. "And keep quiet! Do you want every professor in the school coming to investigate?" She surges to her feet and back a step when the ink begins to solidify - right into Cillian, if he's not quick. "It's a… why is it a foot?" she asks. "Is it going to — to lead us somewhere?"

"I tink now I know why I found the book wedged between two shelves…" Cillian whispers softly, quickly draping an arm over Elise's shoulder to steady her and he shifts his hand to the practice sword under his robes. "…just wait for it…"

The foot slowly separates into two feet…and then legs grow up and out of the feet and it takes sometime before there's a shadow, slightly larger than a 11 or 12 year old boy just floating there, hands on its hips

Elise is breathing fast, now as she watches the shadow-boy take shape in front of them. Her wand is still out, but her other hand clutches Cillian's shirt in a death-grip. Hazarding a guess based on the title of the book, she asks the shadow, "Are you… Peter?" Her voice is shaking, and catches in her throat.

Arian simply scowls at Elise when she tries to tell him off about his cursing. Now is NOT the time for that. "Sorry, but we haven't covered the part of magic where people come to life out of books," he says in a loud whisper. "Seriously, though, maybe we should try and close the book. Or at the very least run and act like we had no part in any of this."

The shadow stretches its arms above its head and flies up a few feet, twirling in a circle as if enjoying its new-found freedom before drifting closer to Elise and leaning in as if giving her a really good look. This just makes Cillian's over the shoulder grip a bit tighter as he stares at the shadow. "S' his shadow." Then the shadow twirls around to face Arian, drifting close to him and then the shadow mass seems to pulsate at the notion of the book closing, flying up higher in the room and darting around rather quickly.

When Cillian does speak up its to suggest quietly. "Dun ye dare…its harmless." Then pages of the book start turning and flipping again to another page and the words begin to melt there as well.

Elise bites her lip and looks seriously tempted when Arian suggests running away. She never made claims to Gryffindor House. When the shadow approaches her she shrinks back a bit into Cillian's arm, and stares at it with wide eyes, trying to find any kind of feature in that inky expanse to latch onto. "Are you harmless like Cil says?" she asks the shadow in a quavering, high voice. "Can you… break my family curse?" Her voice catches a bit at the hope that she's trying very hard not to feel welling up inside.

Stepping up behind Elise, Cathal's voice is level as always,"What book did you open?" He asks in his bland voice. His blue eyes eyes watch the shadow,"I am assuming the Captain is the one responsible for activating this." He doesn't know what why they would be messing with this sort of magic. Animation of shadows is pretty hard stuff and could backfire.

Arian doesn't say anything to the shadow as it approaches him, just raises his wand and points it at it. He's not sure what spell he should use - a patronus? a hex? - but he's certain he's not going to let the thing touch him. Arian can only sigh with relief when the thing flies away. But then there's more coming and… where did that boy come from? Arian approaches the group. "Seriously, can you close that thing already? You're going to get us killed!" he whispers harshly.

From behind a nearby bush where he'd been hiding and observing ever since he saw the glow, Dean steps out with his wand in hand. His school robes are still on and tied up to hide the white oxford underneath, complimented by the black kangol walking cap. He carries a burlap sack in his left hand, a bundle of white-colored flowers poking out from the top. He blinks between all the students and the shadowy-boy-thing. "What in blazes are you all up to?" His voice sounds a bit nervous, and a bit scratchy as it wavers between nervousness and attempted assertiveness.

"Yer captain simply /opened/ the book…it jest happened to do this on its own!" Cillian whispers to Cathal, trying to hide the fact that he almost jumped out of his skin at the other boy pirate's voice and he grits his teeth. "Do ye /tink/ I wanted the book to stay open, m' trying to wait til a good time…do ye pay attention in history class? Books that be 'oldin' magic like this /are supposed to be in the restricted section/." He does however have his wand out now, looking to the others. "On three…we shut the book, oi! Bag boy…ye over there, c'mon, ye can help us."

The shadow drifts around, floating above the students and occasionally making shadow puppets and diving for Dean's head as he approaches the students who are at the clock tower and there's a faint sound of laughter and the mixed tinkling of merry laughter and some soft sobbing from the book before the shadow drifts low enough to offer a hand to Elise.

"Wah!" Elise squeaks when Cathal materializes like a spooky ninja. "St — Strings," she gasps. She has to take a couple of deep breaths, there. "Close it?" she asks. "But — but what if it can break the curse? My sister…" she says. "My brothers and Dad. And Luci… and what about me? I don't… want to… die." And then the shadow of the boy holds his hand out to her, and Elise, being a well-brought-up young lady of long-ingrained social habits, automatically reaches for that shadowy hand. Like she's going to shake it or something.

"It's a shadow that was sealed within a book. Logically speaking the chances of a shadow being capable of breaking a powerful curse on a blood line, infinitesimally small." Cathal says as he steps forward a little bit as he looks at the book,"Captain, opening strange books here can cause all sorts of things to happen. This was a possibility." He says pulling his wand. He turns to look at Arian, before turning to Dean,"I came to find out why there was an urgency." He says looking towards the older boy,"Do you know anything of use in this?"

"That's all great information," says Arian dryly, "but I'm not really sure that it's helping." He notices Elise's hand going to the shadow and immediately moves to knock it down. "Don't touch!" The Ravenclaw can't help raising his voice there; it's just a reaction. "I'm with Cillian. We need to close the book. Who knows what else is going to come out of there if we don't."

Dean can't help but duck as the shadow boy dashes overhead. He juggles the wand and the burlap sack, spilling a couple stems of flowers in the process. After the two items are balanced, he lets out a grunt. A second grunt is let out at being called a bag boy. Bag boy, honestly! The sack gets dropped as he moves towards the book. A glance is given to Cathal and his disturbingly calm tone amidst the excitement. The younger boys presence causes Dean to shiver slightly, rolling his shoulders. All that is forgotten when Arian shouts. "'Ey! Isn't it like one of the top 13 rules of magic not to touch blacky-inky-dark type stuff?"

The hand grasps Elise's tightly as the Shadow draws her closer, having to drop the hand when Arian interferes before the book slams shut on its own, and the shadow reaches out to grab Elise's arm, and its like an actual hand grabbing. "All of this has happened before, and it will happen again." There is a voice the echoes around those gathered…most likely in thier minds, because the voice is not out loud. That is before he flies up, lazily towards the clock of the Clock Tower, up up up…holding on to Elise's arm and tugging her along.

"Aye, Strings…we all know that logically, if ye piss upside down ye end up drowning yerself…but-" Cillian once more finds himself cut off as he chokes on a small scream when Elise is swept off her feet and tugged into the air by the mysterious shadow. "Mousie!" He then aims his wand up towards the two figures in the air. "NObodytouchedblackyinkydark tings, do ye all even /read/? This happened in the book!"

A breathless gasp is all Elise is able to manage when the shadow grasps her arm and sweeps her into the air toward the clock face. "Cillian!" she calls, forgetting all about being quiet, now. And then she points her wand toward her broom and cries out, "Wingardium Leviosa!" The broom floats up and with desperate flicks she brings it closer to her and the shadow carrying her away.

"Impedimenta" Cathal says trying to slow down the shadow with the Impendiment Jinx. He's not sure whether it would work. Truth be told he was just trying to give himself some time to think things through and find a better way to handle things. "We need to get her free."

Well, so much for trying to keep Elise safe. "Great," he mutters as the girl is swept up by the shadow. "Well, what are we supposed to do now?" Arian shuffles back against the wall, wracking his brain for something to help, but nothing seems to come to mind.

Flipping mentally through the muggle stories Dean's mother had read to him, nothing like this comes to mind. "I read…" he says defensively then reaches out, trying to put each hand on either cover of the book and give it a shove inwards, in an attempt to close it. As soon as he hears a spell, he slightly ducks his head before he catches the levitation charm. But the impediment jinx causes him to duck his head again. "Yeesh, careful! Right good it'll do to save her if you wake the whole castle!"

The Shadow…does not seem pleased, pleased at all. All the interference and such with his attempt to be nice. Or was he really. Cathal's spell causes the shadow to pause…having to slow down and almost freeze, he does begin to grip the arm of the girl more tightly as he adjusts tactics and begins to dive/plummet towards the students with purpose.

"Ye…ye 'ave to grab yer broom!" Cillian calls up to the girl, his own wand in hand as he flips his wrist and almost timed to Cathal's own wandwork, he's pronouncing clearly. "Flipendo!" He points his wand at the shadow, casting the simple Knockback Jinx to try to distract the shadow and does it work? Yes. The shadow lets go.

The broom isn't /quite/ within reach, just yet. Elise has time for a "Wha —" before the shadow lets go and she drops straight down. She hits the floor with a resounding smack. A split second later her broom clatters down, too. "Owwwww…" she groans. And oh, look, she's bleeding. Some minor scrapes on her hands and knees, really, nothing serious at all. But Elise sees the red liquid, and it's just too much. It's just toooooooo much. Her eyes roll up in the back of her head and she passes out.

"You were not in any danger." Cathal says looking at Dean,"Do you know a spell to lift her? Because otherwise this will be troublesome." He says looking unimpressed. Truth be told he doesn't even blink when the shadow begins diving towards them. His blue eyes just stare at it unimpressed for the time being.

The Shadow hovers for a few moments as Elise falls, lowering down a bit as if to check on her before zooming up towards the sky and vanishing in the shadows above. The book? Well, it was closed and the title which was 'Peter and Wendy' slowly changes, rearranges and morphs to the title 'Never Lost' before fading back to 'Peter and Wendy'. If opened and examined, the pages are now blank.

Cillian almost has a heart attack when Elise falls and he rushes to her side, kneeling down and looking her over with a frown before taking her hand and squeezing it gently, lowering it down before trying to half scoop her up, he's sturdy! He gets his arm under her shoulders and sorta half drags/tugs her towards the exit/entrance. "Strings! Ye'll 'ave to get her back to your common room, get Gunny to look 'er over, give her a bit of the gold coin chocolate and pull a genius level justification for why she may have gotten scratched up, and do /not/ let 'em see ye. Also, make sure Hissy keeps 'is mouth shut as ye get back to yer house…" Then over to Dean. "Bags, I need ye to…well, if ye speak to /anybody/ about what happened 'ere tonight…" He pauses. "Well, ye know the drill. Mum's the word." He grunts and keeps tugging Elise. "Also, welcome to the Pirates, ye've just been shanghaid." The book…is grabbed along the way and shoved into his satchel before Cillian continues his work.

And somewhere…out there…the Shadow Lurks.

Dean scrambles up as Cillian obviously has it all under control, stuffing his wand back into his robes. He rolls his eyes at the younger boy. "Honestly, who'd I tell? I'm out here too!" He makes for his sack of flowers and puffs up a bit at the final words his way. He grabs Elise's broom where it fell, near his things and slugs the sack over one shoulder and the broom against the other before taking after Cillian.

"I have a logical explanation for it." Cathal says nodding his head a little bit to Cillian as he begins struggling to get Elise back to the Ravenclaw Common Room,"This will be not something that we should discuss further for now. That was a pretty powerful enchantment placed upon that book. Well beyond that of a normal spell." Shadows being able to affect the physical doesn't bode well in his mind. Anyone that utilizes such a thing tends to be at least experimenting in the dark arts.

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