Curses & Cries ; Sebastian Sallow

chapter 12: Goblin-Silver

Apparating would be wise, she thought, then sadly turned to the good-for-nothing Sebastian beside her, who held her arm with a biting friction, and decided against it. When all were ready, they set out through the hamlet.

Hours later, they came to the grounds of Hogwarts and she took them through a gap in the castle wall. At first Letty wasn't sure how to get by with Rookwood and his Ashwinders that she went looking about in all directions before quickly coming along the boathouse.

"Stay where you are!" Rookwood shouted to his society. "I'll go with the child."

And then, just as they got to the edge of the quay looking out into the Black Lake, Letty heard above the soothing noise of nature another noise, a different one, which gave her a weird feeling inside. It was a noise of shouts and shrieks and grunts of physical attacks.

She turned around and at once saw the reason, for Garreth and Amit and Poppy and Ominis were fighting desperately against the crowd of Rookwood's army. There also seemed to be far more of them now. Her friends, who had their backs to her, looked terribly few and there was blood dotted all over Amit's white tunic, so apparently they were dealing blows to each other. They were going at it so hard that Letty could hardly make out what was happening.

Then she had rolled over together with Sebastian, her underneath him, and at the same moment he took her by the throat and there came a lot of tumbling and shouting, mostly on her part. Sebastian's silence, she had to admit, was most uncanny of all.

Letty had not seen Rookwood for some time, until she got to shoving Sebastian off and caught sight of the man coming out of the boathouse, nursing a bottle he had mistaken for goblin-silver. In seconds, he went away in a cloud of dark purple.

Garreth, to their surprise, had killed one of the Ashwinders, who still remained at his feet, and when those who were still living saw that Rookwood had gone they took flight.

Then all was quiet.

Letty felt strange to see them as they looked now, each little face so pale and stern and seemed so much older, their fingers and clothes stained with blood. They did not know whether to cheer or to flee, for they had no energy to do either.

Sebastian, worst of all, had no memory of the last few hours before the attack and it would take a great deal of explaining to break it to him, so they simply walked on.

"It was all Garreth's doing," Poppy was saying as they limped through the halls; her being supported by Amit. "We'd have been dead if these two weren't so quick. Thank goodness I had learned Gobbledegook and heard Garreth telling Amit that you were only improvising. Right away I was on my toes. 'Course, Ominis's wand had a lot to do with it, too, for he was able to sense any sort of movement before they could attack."

They were all puffy and covered in blood, mouths bruised and faces sweaty.

"Quick, we must clean up before we draw attention to ourselves," said Amit.

And almost for the first time the group felt relieved to be back inside the castle, then split into their respective common rooms for the night.

Ominis was the first to wake the next day in the gray dawn of November. He'd been meeting with Poppy all through last month helping her tend to her beasts. Standing by the kneazle pen that dull morning, he watched Poppy and Letty cross the frostbitten garden towards him.

"How awful is November," said Poppy, leading them to the shed where they each grabbed a pair of gloves, a grooming brush, and a container of beast feed.

"I was born in it," said Letty in kind spirits.

"Apart from that, it's a rather unpleasant month," said Poppy.

"Well, I daresay it's a good thing her birthday lands on reading week. We can go away to the house where I have something planned," said Ominis, and then turning to Letty, "if that's alright with you."

"Of course, Ominis," she said, kneeling over to feed Gerald the puffskein. "How's Sebastian by the way?"

"After last night? I'm not going to lie, he seems out of sorts. He wouldn't eat at breakfast—wasn't in the mood to talk either." Ominis had finished grooming the kneazles before adding, "He might still be at the boathouse if you're that worried."

On the inside of the pen, Letty stood up and walked back to the shed where she got undone, placing her gloves and the beast feed back on the shelves, before leaving Poppy and Ominis to see how Sebastian was faring.

When she found him at the quay, he was in a frenzy about the papers and was consulting their notes regarding the project to save Anne, that when he got up he almost didn't see her.

"There you are," he said. "I'm sorry I didn't wait for you. I thought I'd get a head start."

"Are you feeling alright, Sebastian?" She stopped him by the water when she saw unusual dark circles about him. "Did you sleep well?"

He tried to find the right words, even when yes or no would have worked just as well, but after a moment looked anything but pleased.

Finally, he said, "Letty, we should find where Rookwood went with the silver."

"He hasn't got the silver. See, I never did know where Amit and Garreth hid it. I was only pretending so that I could trap him in the boathouse and get it over with. Matter of fact, I'm not sure what he took."

"You're the oddest girl I ever saw. So, it's still here then?"

Letty nodded then looked at him as if she could read the lines on his face, and said, looking mystified, "You're up to some mischief, Sebastian."

"So were you last night, taking all the hits, when you could've asked them to come clean and give up the silver."

"It isn't as easy as you think. Amit won't even tell me where he'd put it."

"Can't you ask Garreth? Seeing as he might fancy you, I'll bet it'll only take four words to get him to break."

"Now, Sebastian."

And all at once he became anxious, for there was no hope in that little canister now. They walked in silence back to the castle, and Letty wished she had somewhat of a plan, for Sebastian's eyes looked angry just as they did the night before.

"We'll just have to work harder," he said. "For Anne."

Letty stopped suddenly and from his tone knew exactly what he meant. "Are you saying we ought to steal it back?"

"Oh Letty, there never was a moment when you and I weren't on the same page. We'll meet tonight in the Undercroft. And I think it's best that we don't tell Ominis."