Meet the Doctor, Part One

They didn't really sleep, not like the lowland grizzlies that would shut down into a torpid state to survive, but they slept more than usual, like huge lazy cats dreaming away twelve to fourteen hours of each day.  Spring would find them lean but not haggard, and ready for action

Past the stables but before the barracks was where the Scherblocken kept his offices.  They were always cold, even in the summer, built of stone that hoarded the frost and chill of winter in their bones.  "Easy to clean," he'd said, the one time Spike had mustered the courage to ask him a direct question.  His eyes had twinkled like icicles in the sun; no warmth and nothing thicker than water.  Certainly nothing as tangible as humor or even sharp as malice, just emptiness.

He was a round man, nearly as broad as he was tall, with a fringe of white hair thick around his ears and a matching handlebar mustache and tightly groomed beard where the point of his chin would be.  Small wire-rimmed spectacles gave him the same squinting down his nose aspect as the bears he tended. 

Spike wasn't looking forward to the interview; she'd had second thoughts in her room, and her ambivalence had only grown while they walked through the snow.  But, if I want to do Care of Magical Creatures next term, and I want to create my own hybrid, then who better to discuss the matter with than the man who gave us the Hounds?  Even though the Hounds had been a part of the family's retained beasts for generations, the Scherblocken had been the same man all along.  Perhaps he repaired his won body the same way that he fixed the Hounds when they were injured and cared for the bears, extending their lives and usefulness.  He'd be a Ravenclaw, thought Spike, but a dark sort of Ravenclaw, someone who doesn't think much about whether a thing that could be done ought to be done.  A Slytherclaw, maybe.  Brilliant and amoral.

They were at the door.  Spike took hold of the ring and knocked.

Awake at Last (Part Three)

They didn't really sleep, not like the lowland grizzlies that would shut down into a torpid state to survive, but they slept more than usual, like huge lazy cats dreaming away twelve to fourteen hours of each day.  Spring would find them lean but not haggard, and ready for action

Past the stables but before the barracks was where the Scherblocken kept his offices.  They were always cold, even in the summer, built of stone that hoarded the frost and chill of winter in their bones.  "Easy to clean," he'd said, the one time Spike had mustered the courage to ask him a direct question.  His eyes had twinkled like icicles in the sun; no warmth and nothing thicker than water.  Certainly nothing as tangible as humor or even sharp as malice, just emptiness.

He was a round man, nearly as broad as he was tall, with a fringe of white hair thick around his ears and a matching handlebar mustache and tightly groomed beard where the point of his chin would be.  Small wire-rimmed spectacles gave him the same squinting down his nose aspect as the bears he tended. 

Spike wasn't looking forward to the interview; she'd had second thoughts in her room, and her ambivalence had only grown while they walked through the snow.  But, if I want to do Care of Magical Creatures next term, and I want to create my own hybrid, then who better to discuss the matter with than the man who gave us the Hounds?  Even though the Hounds had been a part of the family's retained beasts for generations, the Scherblocken had been the same man all along.  Perhaps he repaired his won body the same way that he fixed the Hounds when they were injured and cared for the bears, extending their lives and usefulness.  He'd be a Ravenclaw, thought Spike, but a dark sort of Ravenclaw, someone who doesn't think much about whether a thing that could be done ought to be done.  A Slytherclaw, maybe.  Brilliant and amoral.

They were at the door.  Spike took hold of the ring and knocked.

Awake at Last (Part Two)

Spike dressed for the winter weather behind her screen next to the fire. It was still dark, even though it was well past eight o'clock in the morning.  She missed the summer, with the long lazy twilight hours that stretched around the clock.  Back for winter break, she thought.  Too bad it couldn't be summer holidays.  She was looking forward to returning to Hogwarts in the south, with its earlier dawn and later sunset. 

Two pairs of warm wool socks in her fur-lined boots (Always take care of you feet, she could hear Totenberg insisting as he dressed blisters on her heels one day.  She had forgotten to break in a new pair of boots gently, instead choosing to go running over the hills in spring, drunk on the season like a young rabbit.)  Fur-lined mittens over fingerless muffatees over half-fingered gloves.  Surplice over the gown over the alepine next to her skin.  A cloak over it all, and she was ready to go.

They walked quietly through the castle, the Hounds padding at her heels and sides in a watchful wedge.   Even in her own halls, careful watch was kept over the heir to the Throne of Skulls (Although they hadn't actually used that throne in generations, Spike mused as the passed the audience chamber, turning to the left, and going down the stairs that would lead them out through the kitchens. 

Once outside, the cold was a slap in the face, making Spike gasp for air, finding very little but the cold, dry, thinness, like breathing the stars themselves.  She pulled the cloak tighter around herself.  My blood's thinned, she thought, down in Scotland, down in the warmth and wet. 

Totenberg took point to break the path, with Sascha behind him to trample it smoother.  Spike in the middle where she could walk in their steps, and Dmitri behind her if she started to fall.  They made their way over the grounds, through the gardens wreathed in ice, branches black and spare in the eerie half-light reflecting from the snow. 

She knew where the stables were, of course, even though she didn't ride the bears, not yet. She was still too young and small to control them, Matya said, and Atyets agreed, although each year, he was slower and slower to come to Matya's point of view.  One day, maybe even next year, she would be allowed up on one of the older, mellower steeds who had been allowed to age out of his teeth for just such training purposes.  Claws blunted, saddled and bridled, tamed as much as anything with a wild heart could be. 

They passed through the gate that separated the stables from the grounds, close but not too close.  The stables were quiet under their icing of snow; she could almost hear ursine snoring as they slept for the winter. 

Awake at Last (Part One)

Spike sat straight up in her bed, shaking off the dregs of the dream.  Sorting.  Sorted every term.  She shuddered.  It made sense, of a kind; hadn't Dumbledore himself expressed doubts about the system, said they Sorted too soon?  Perhaps unearthing other drives produced a more well-rounded witch or wizard in the end.   But to lose my place in Slytherin . . .

She could still smell bacon and coffee.  Sascha stirred at her feet, where he usually spent the night, curled up like a dog.  Totenberg opened the door from his usual post, and Dmitri came in with a pot and platter.  Spike put on a robe and fuzzy slippers, sitting at the small table by the window where she always had breakfast at home, from the time when her feet didn't quite reach the floor.  We're not morning people, that's for sure. The custom had been established generations before, when one of her ancestors had realized it was easier to keep staff if you didn't have to interact with them before your first cup of coffee. 

Totenberg let the first cup sink in, and then asked, "Gots plan for the day?"

Spike thought about her OWL, and the rest of the disastrous term, and her vow to earn a thousand points for Slytherin.  "I think I'll plan for the upcoming term," she said slowly.  "I think I have an idea for next term's OWL."

"What you gonna do?"

"Care of Magical Creatures."

"Don' have a gamekeeper, not as such . . ."  Any wildlife on the estate was expected to fend for itself, frankly, and most of it could, evolving toxins, fangs, and opposable thumbs at a healthy clip. 

"Nooooo  . . .  but we do have someone I could talk to.  And you could introduce me."  She pointed at him with half a strip of bacon, chewing slowly.

"You mean -- de bonecutter?"  Totenberg paled a little under his fur.  None of the Hounds had anything but unflinching respect for the man who kept putting them back together when they were hurt, but it didn't mean they loved him.

"The very one."