Magic of Her Own, Ch. 15: Stepping Up the Game

Mei felt rather like she was walking on her personal, fluffy pink cloud of happiness the next day, still grinning for no apparent reason as she thought of her sister’s tears of joy falling into Totoro’s fur, and her mood must have been showing.

“Hello? Mei? Have you been listening to a word I said?”

“Huh? Sorry, Ryo, can you say that again?”

“I said, look at your schedule. Something’s wrong.”

Mei frowned and fished for her weekly timetable, immediately noticing the difference. The hour ahead of them had been marked as a free period, when they were clearly supposed to have History of Magic at that time on Thursdays.

“The lesson’s been canceled? But why?”

“Search me,” said Tamako. “It’s an excuse to get a head start on homework, will you come to the lounge with me?”

Mei followed her with a shrug, but it kept niggling at the back of her mind. To be perfectly honest, skipping a History of Magic lesson was neither good news nor bad news to her. The subject itself could easily have been one of her favorites, as the stories the teacher told often felt more like fairytales than facts, but Ebisawa-sensei was… well… perfectly ordinary. Which was not altogether a bad thing, but in a school of magic, she stuck out like a sore thumb.

Ichijo seemed to hate her for such trivial reasons as actually picking up the chalk and writing by hand instead of using magic to fill the blackboard, which Mei thought was completely ridiculous, as she never said anything when it was Ishinomori-sensei who did things without a wand because he liked it. She didn’t even bother keeping her voice down and pretending to have a shred of respect for her, and Mei was all too aware that it was because Ebisawa-sensei was Muggleborn.

It was for that very reason that Izumi, on a day that felt like forever ago, had recommended her as one of the go-to people to report any trouble Mei might have on account of her Muggle origins, but frankly, Mei had quickly lost any will she might have had to confide in her. She had started out nice enough, she supposed, but her patience seemed to be coming to an end, and she’d soon taken to snapping at people in a way that definitely didn’t invite Mei’s trust. Maybe she was sick, or had a family emergency to attend to: she’d certainly seemed frazzled enough for either of those as of late, jumpy and prone to fits of anger that didn’t remotely match Mei’s first impression of a studious, level-headed lady who asked for nothing better than a new tome about magic during the Heian period to add to her collection.

But they didn’t find out what had happened until lunchtime, and it was at the same time laughably simple, and worse than anything Mei’s imagination had come up with.

Headmaster Gojo Masanori was a small, nondescript man you wouldn’t give the time of day, but as he swept into the dining hall, all eyes were on him, and Mei had the curious feeling that he’d somehow gained a good few inches in height.

He was, in one word, furious. Even the rest of the staff seemed to quail before him.

“Today,” he began in a dangerously calm voice, “an incident occurred that should rightfully have caused someone’s uniform to turn white.” He seemed grimly pleased by the collective holding of breath that his words caused. “Early this morning, Ebisawa-sensei was attacked. We believe that the spell in question was a simple Tripping Jinx—unpleasant, but not classified as Dark. However, a Tripping Jinx performed at the top of a staircase could easily have had serious consequences. We have all been phenomenally lucky. Thanks to our school nurse’s skill, Ebisawa-sensei’s fractures were fixed with relative ease; any disruptions to your morning schedules were due to the fact that she was still under observation.”

Mei winced. It was a good thing she hadn’t broken her neck. It was perhaps a bit far-fetched to think it was all connected, but she had the stronger and stronger feeling that someone in the school had taken Shizuma-sensei’s first lesson to heart—that ordinary spells could harm as much as Dark ones, and remain undetected on top of that. Except now they’d moved from taking it out on newcomers like her and Shinji to the staff, and that made Mei’s insides go cold. She’d been somehow convinced that teachers were immune to all of that—they were adults, they knew more spells than she could begin to dream of, who would bother them?

“Worse than that,” Mei’s stomach dropped even further: no sentence that started like that could bring anything good, “Ebisawa-sensei tells me this is only the latest episode in an escalation that has been going on almost since the start of term. She has reported finding some very offensive words written across blackboards all over the school, and some of her belongings going missing, but despite assurances from the rest of the staff that proper investigations would be made, they appear to have been inconclusive. This is the first time she has suffered a direct attack, and the first time I have felt compelled to address the school at large about the issue, but clearly, this is unacceptable. Ebisawa-sensei may be Muggleborn, but as a teacher, she deserves no less respect than any other faculty member. If you have any information at all that may be relevant to our efforts to find those responsible, I urge you to come forward. As my deputy, Konoe-sensei will be in charge of the investigation. You may report anything to her.”

That didn’t bode well. If Izumi’s assessment of her had anything of value, Konoe-sensei was the last person in the school who would take an investigation into an attack against a Muggleborn seriously, and if Mei had any intention of going to a teacher and suggesting that maybe there was a link between Ebisawa-sensei’s troubles and her own, well, that intention had just died, and by the looks of him, so had Shinji’s. Perhaps there was a chance she would conduct the search to the best of her ability because Ebisawa-sensei was a colleague rather than a student, and a little more worthy of her full attention because of it, but a pair of first years coming to her with a theory that may or may not have been useful at all would be dismissed in a second, for sure, and those particular first years in even less, if her opinion of them in class was any indication.

Mei’s efforts at Transfiguration had not gotten much better than her first. With Tamako’s tips (or as many of those as she could give when she wasn’t too busy being almost as competitive with Ichijo as Izumi and Nakamura, but with none of the friendly banter), Mei was now a little less disastrous—something happened whenever she tried a new transformation, at any rate. But the day she got it right on her first try had yet to come, and Konoe-sensei seemed to take it as proof that she would never amount to much of anything, never mind that Ishinomori-sensei approved of her and she was no slouch at Charms either if she put her mind to it. No use reporting her fears to her when her input was sure not to count.

The news of the attack managed to put a damper on what the veterans called ‘Quidditch fever’, and the tryouts were only the second most popular topic of conversation instead of the first, as they should rightfully have been, but life, as they said, went on, and when the time for the long-awaited selection came the next day, Mei’s nerves reached a new high.

At least she wasn’t the only one. Ryo seemed to have forgotten all about his dreams of instant stardom and was clutching a school broomstick so hard his knuckles were white, cursing himself for not being quick enough to get the one he really wanted from the boys’ shed.

“Don’t you have one of your own?”

“Not yet,” he said wistfully. “That’s part of why I want to get in so badly—if I do, I know what I want for my birthday. If I don’t, it makes no sense to ask for it.”

“Cheer up,” said Mitsuko, who was tagging along with them rather than with her own year and practically bursting with excitement, even though it was Ryo, and not her, who was the true Quidditch fanatic in the family. “A lot of people are using school brooms, so it means you’re all more or less at the same level. Kaori doesn’t have her own either.”

Ryo’s eyes bugged out. “Ueda is trying for Beater?”

Mei took a subtle pleasure in knowing something he didn’t, for once: she’d glimpsed his sister’s friend in the mad rush for the best brooms in the girls’ shed and had had exactly the same reaction. Who would have guessed that meek, bookish Ueda Kaori would take a sudden interest in an activity that did not involve turning pages?

“I don’t think it’s the best idea either,” said Mitsuko. “But if she wants to give it a shot, good for her, it just means I have two people to cheer for today.”

“Why, though? She just doesn’t seem the type for Quidditch, let alone a Beater position.”

“I think I know the reason,” she said with a knowing smile, “but it’s not my story to share.”

Mei was about to complain jokingly about leaving them in suspense like that when someone collided with her and nearly knocked her straight into Ryo.

“Hey!” she called after him, but the taller figure in jade green robes that indicated he was already on one of the reserve teams didn’t even turn around, never mind apologize.

“Ugh,” said Ryo as he caught her and helped her stand upright. “And that is why I hope I’m good enough to get directly onto the starting team. Working with him would be a nightmare.”

Mei nodded in fervent agreement. The list of people in the current lineups had brought her an unpleasant surprise: the only remaining reserve Chaser for the junior team was none other than Washio Kenzo, the third year who had turned his nose up at her attempts to keep herself awake with silly Muggle nursery rhymes on her first trip to school, and he hadn’t grown any more polite since then, it seemed. The only ways to avoid butting heads with him were to snatch the starting position or not pass the tryouts at all, and Mei had little to no hope for the former.

As there was only one spot open for the seniors and Iwamoto-sensei, who was supervising the whole affair, evidently thought it would be over and done with quickly, the aspiring Beaters would go first, and Mei and the others had nothing to do but climb all the way up to the stands and wait, cheering for their favorites. Mitsuko was practically dancing in her seat, hopeful for her friend, while Ryo had his eyes trained on a spot of red in the small crowd of candidates who turned out to be his tutor, Naito Ichiro, with whom he clearly shared his love of the sport. From what she could see from her height, the two seemed to be deep in conversation about something, which was news, as Mei hadn’t been aware they were saying much to each other besides ‘Hello’ in the hallways.

Even Ichijo, who had never shown any great enthusiasm for Quidditch (or much of anything else, really—Mei rather thought her expression of cold disdain was painted on permanently), was sitting nearby, explaining to anyone who would listen that Kawashi was already on the team as a Chaser and she’d only come out to see who he would be working with, as if having a tutor who played Quidditch somehow made her cooler too.

It was, to put it simply, brutal. The hopefuls were sent up two by two and thrown into a simulated game without so much as a by-your-leave, with the existing Beater keeping well out of the fray next to Iwamoto-sensei, watching and evaluating his prospective teammates. The first two were cut almost as soon as they mounted and trekked up to the stands in shame, shoulders sagging, then Ryo gave a loud whoop as he saw that Naito was one half of the next pair. His direct rival was eliminated for almost letting a Chaser get clobbered in the head twice, the whistle sounded, and Mei heard Mitsuko’s breath catch as his replacement went up—a very small, nervous replacement in pink robes and glasses who had the distinct air of one who wasn’t supposed to be there.

Mei would have found it amusing, what with brother and sister cheering for two different people who were now pitted directly one against the other, but she had the nasty feeling that this wouldn’t be fun in the slightest. To be fair, Ueda was turning out to be a surprise—she was quicker and steadier on her broom than Mei would have guessed, and even swooped in at the last minute to save another player from one of the whizzing menaces that would surely have caught him square in the chest without her, though he seemed to be busier berating her for cutting through his path than thanking her. However, she had none of Naito’s relentless energy—he was more of a machine than a boy, and once had the whole stadium cheering as one as he somehow managed to hit a Bludger over his shoulder without hitting himself and send it barreling straight into the reserve Chasers, disrupting their formation. Instead of playing in focused silence like he did, Ueda would let out a small yelp with every hit, something that sounded to Mei like half exertion, half surprise at her own unforeseen success, and Mei really didn’t know how long she would be able to keep up.

With hindsight, maybe this was the kind of thing she ought to report to Omori-sensei, because she could have sworn she felt it coming half a second before it happened. What should have sounded like whoosh, thud, yelp was instead whoosh, crack, and the sound of Iwamoto-sensei’s whistle drowned in a scream of pain as Ueda spiraled to the ground, her bat discarded, trying to control her broomstick with one hand and stem a heavy nosebleed with the other, and that didn’t make any sense, because Mei had seen quite plainly that her aim had been true and the Bludger should have been sent whizzing away.

Mitsuko shot a look at Ryo as if asking for permission.

“Go, I’ll tell you all about it if you don’t make it back in time for my tryouts, your friend needs you more than I do.”

That was all the encouragement she needed. She shot from her seat as if it were burning hot and ran down to the pitch with a stream of apologies to anyone whose feet happened to be in her way, ready for a full-blown field invasion. In the little time it took her to reach her friend’s side, Iwamoto-sensei had quickly conjured a stretcher and hoisted her onto it, and by the looks of it, had momentarily left her to go investigate something. He bent to pick something up a little way from where Ueda had landed, straightened up, and somehow managed to look murderous even from Mei’s height, where his face was too far away to see.

“Sonorus,” he intoned, wand pointed at his own throat, and his voice boomed unnaturally, so loud that even the few people who had stayed in could probably hear him, let alone the spectators. “This has crossed the line.” He raised his other hand as far as it would go, and Mei could see that the object he had picked up was Ueda’s bat, only it wasn’t acting much like a Beater’s bat at all. Instead of a thick, solid wooden stick, it was now an oddly floppy thing that wriggled pathetically as Iwamoto-sensei shook it for the whole stadium to see, far too soft and weak to stop a Bludger. “Ueda’s bat has clearly been tampered with, and that marks the second time in as many days that a Muggleborn has been targeted. I apologize to those who came out here hoping for a position, but I’m sure I speak for all the staff when I say that the rest of the tryouts are postponed until we have run a full inspection to discover the culprit. Quietus.”

There was an uproar at his words, and though Mei could only catch snatches of conversation she couldn’t fully make sense of, she heard all kinds of feelings in it—disappointment, probably from the Quidditch fans, but also annoyance, for some reason (“An inspection? But that will take ages!” said Ryo, who apparently knew more than her about how a magical inspection was done), and most of all, fear.

And who could blame them, really? Iwamoto-sensei had put it in a perspective that Mei, in her confusion, had failed to see: first Ebisawa-sensei, and now this. She and Ueda were both Muggleborns. It would take an idiot not to see the pattern now. Whoever was trying to make their lives difficult had apparently decided that it was no longer time to lay low. Shinji’s incidents and the foul stuff in Mei’s shoe had been fairly small by comparison, more spread out in time and far less public, perhaps, she flattered herself, because their idea of never walking anywhere alone had helped, but two attacks in two days, one on a teacher and one in front of the whole school? They were getting bolder, and there was a sick feeling in Mei’s stomach for that. What wouldn’t they do?

Slowly, with the tension in the air mounting with each step, they were ushered back to the palace in an orderly fashion. In a distracted sort of voice that said that his mind, for once, was on something other than Quidditch, Iwamoto-sensei announced that those who still wanted to try out were to stay longer on Tuesday for a repeat, and the next thing Mei knew, she was in the dining hall, waiting quietly for her turn to be inspected. Konoe-sensei had even been dangerously close to making a scene because Washio asked to go to the bathroom, seeming to think it wiser not to let anyone leave, but in the end, she let him go, barking at him to do it quickly and pinching the bridge of her nose as he turned on his heels and scampered.

The inspection, it turned out, was a very public affair, perhaps because the staff felt somewhat betrayed by the failure of the supposedly all-knowing color-changing robes, and wanted the culprit to feel as much shame as if they’d turned white, and just as Ryo had said, it would take ages at that rate. She’d be going home much later than usual if it kept up, and she could only hope Mom, Dad and Satsuki weren’t worried.

They were called to stand by the staff table in groups, with the whole school watching, and a professor would take each of their wands and do something Mei had never seen before. Strange, ghostly images and sounds would blossom from them at their command, and no one had bothered to explain what spell that was, so Mei just watched, in equal parts mesmerized, lost, and with her nerves growing more frayed by the minute. She didn’t know what to think about the announcement that the inspection would proceed by year in reverse order, and so her group would come last—that meant more waiting, but at least it was beautiful to behold. Ryo’s helpful whisper made it clear that the pretty displays were nothing more than a history of the latest spells each wand had performed, playing backwards for them until they caught the one that had reduced Ueda’s bat to that sorry state.

It was unlike anything Mei had ever seen. You could tell when a class had had Transfiguration last thing before the tryouts, for example, because that batch produced an impressive array of owls trying to turn into opera glasses and often leaving a few feathers behind; once, they all had to clamp their hands over their ears as the examination found a group whom Tamura-sensei must have recently told to practice that same charm the flying instructor had used to make himself heard all over the pitch, because their wands started playing back a series of echoing yells, made even worse by the fact that there were at least three or four wands being inspected at any given time, and the impossibly loud voices overlapped in an incomprehensible din.

None of those wands, however – and they were beginning to be rather a lot: even the professors looked unspeakably bored of their repetitive job – had yet brought up the lingering, smoky image of a Beater’s bat flopping uselessly, and although they’d all been asked to keep their silence, the volume of the whispering was steadily increasing. If none of the upper years was responsible, then it had to be a little kid, and what little kid could have done it? It wasn’t so much a matter of magical knowledge, the quiet voices reasoned, theories rippling across the hall like waves from a rock being thrown into a pond: a Tripping Jinx was easy enough, and what could have done that to Ueda’s bat, a Softening Charm? Easy as pie, too. It was more a question of why a child that age would do such a thing, when they should have been worried about learning little household spells and playing with their friends. It was… disquieting.

When the junior second years were dismissed without a trace of the culprit, the noise grew so loud that Konoe-sensei had to ask once again for quiet, and Mei’s stomach squirmed. It was someone in her class, so much closer than she would have guessed. She shot a sidelong glance at Ichijo as they rose to answer their call – she’d certainly been vocal enough against everything Muggle to sabotage Ueda’s chances, and perhaps even hurt Ebisawa-sensei –, but the girl’s face revealed nothing. She looked as calm as if she’d simply been asked to answer a question in class, and an easy one at that.

Predictably, their wands mostly spat out evidence of minor jinxes and hexes that had nothing to do with the incidents, as they’d had a rather exhausting round of practice with Shizuma-sensei before a quick lunch and the mad rush to the pitch—Ryo was a little devil when it came to those tickling spells, and Mei had to submit to the small indignity of having her own helpless fits of laughter echoed back to her for the whole school to hear. She’d been quite convinced her ribs would hurt too much to sit upright on her broomstick if he kept that up, and had given back as good as she got when they switched places.

“Present your wand, Kusakabe.”

It was, perhaps, unfortunate that it was Konoe-sensei, of all people, who had her hand outstretched to take it, but Mei, for once, wasn’t scared. All it would do was produce another reversed recap of her last lesson, she had nothing to hide. In fact, she hadn’t so much as touched her wand since she tucked it back into her pocket after class and went downstairs to eat. Nothing to worry about.

Her hand dutifully went to her robes, and her stomach swooped with an immediate sensation of wrongness. Her head swam.