Chapter Twenty-Three
Confronting the Faceless 💀 CompleteJanuary ???, 1998
"There are some things you can't share without ending up liking each other"
Matangi crouches in the shadows of her cave, knife gripped firmly in her fist, breathing soft and shallow as she waits for the intruder to draw closer. Whoever it is, they aren't that smart, stumbling around in the dark and tripping most of her noise traps.
"Merlin this place is a mess." She hears, and it's definitely getting closer. The voice is male, older than her for sure, but still young. "Hope it's not those losers setting up traps, they're going to be sorry if they try and take me on."
Matangi's want to put a knife in the guy's ribs increases tenfold at that. These Hunters are always disgustingly arrogant, but this one doesn't even have backup from the sound of it, which only makes him an easier target. She shifts closer to the entrance of the cave and tenses up, ready to strike.
"Oh , I wonder if this is another Muggleborn's camp." The voice says suddenly, just as Matangi jumps. Startled, she twists so she misses the mark, though the knife still stabs into flesh and the figure begins swearing up a storm.
"Holy ." The voice exclaims, and Matangi yanks her knife back.
"Who are you and what do you want." She hisses. "This is my cave and don't think I won't put this knife somewhere less comfortable if I don't like your answers."
The figure has the nerve to actually laugh. "Oh you're fiesty, no wonder you're surviving out here. I'm a Muggleborn too, I swear. The Snatchers aren't active at night anymore, at least that I've found. It's why I usually travel at night and hunker down during the day."
"Well that's stupid." Matangi says tersely, but she does take a slight step back. He has a point about not running into the Hunters - Snatchers? - at night, and if he was one he would have likely returned fire instead of trying to talk her down. They aren't exactly smart enough for that sort of trickery. "It's going to drop below freezing any day now, being out at night will be as good as a death sentence."
"I mean yeah, but I didn't think to set up cool traps like yours to serve as night time alerts." The figure laughs, and then groans. "So uh, if you're not going to kill me, think we can get a fire going? I'd like to see how badly you ripped open my arm."
"My firewood's out." Matangi says flatly, and the figure sighs.
"Okay, that's fine, just light up your wand, that should do." He suggests, and Matangi rolls her eyes, even though she knows he can't see her.
"I'm underage dip, no magic."
There's a long pause, then a low whistle. "Alright, I'm even more impressed now. I'm pretty sure I'd die without my magic, it's bad enough being stuck out on the run like this."
"Just come in." Matangi grumbles, not liking how exposed she's starting to feel in the chilly night - well, probably early morning at this point - air. "I'll see if anything is left on the fire pile."
The newcomer lights up the small pile of wood that's managed to survive the blaze from earlier, and he holds his arm close to it to inspect the damage, which he proceeds to heal up magically.
Matangi is admittedly impressed. "You a Healer then?" She guesses. If he is, he could be useful to have around.
He laughs and shakes his head. "Not even, I'd get way too bored. I'm a professional dueler! And I'm guessing you're still in Hogwarts."
"Would be my fifth year." Matangi says shortly. Nothing to be done about him knowing that, but she's not really interested in sharing personal details of her life. "How long have you been out here?"
He shrugs. "Hard to say, really. I went on the run in October after my friends insisted." He makes a face. "Personally I think I'd be doing better with the Order of the Phoenix, but try telling them that." He pauses, and then laughs slightly, holding out a hand. "Oh hey, I completely forgot. Name's Xander Orton, pleased to meet you!"
Three feet of snow later and Matangi is still traveling with Xander. Not that she could tell you why - the man is nothing more than an idiot white-boy man-child and she knows their encounters with Snatchers - Xander had told her that's what the resistance calls them - have increased since her travel party went from one to two. Not to mention that with two of them they have to split what little food they have, and with winter in full swing rations are scarce enough without having to divide them.
Matangi has taken to keeping the best food for herself as they travel, and so far Xander hasn't noticed, which is only solidifying her poor opinion of him.
Xander Orton is the sort of person who acts first and thinks later, and half the reason they're in more fights than normal is him jumping the gun when they could easily have snuck away without alerting the Snatchers of their presence. He says something about "keeping his skills sharp" which is the stupidest thing Matangi's ever heard, and she shared a dorm room with Anwen Rowle and Ava Burke for four years (mind, Astoria was pretty smart, but a massive pushover and people pleaser, which docked her points in Matangi's book). If she was a sports star and ended up in a war, keeping up her ability to kick a football would be at the bottom of her list, not the top of it.
All the more reason that she regularly wonders why she keeps traveling with the man who'd stumbled on her campsite that night. And yet she does.
"Morning T." Xander calls cheerfully when she crawls out of the makeshift tent he'd magic-ed up the night before. Maybe that's the reason - Xander has access to his magic and goodness knows the warming charms are god sends in the freezing weather. Still, she wonders if being cold would be a worthwhile trade off to not having to deal with Xander.
"Stop calling me that." She grumbles under her breath, more out of habit than anything else. If he was planning to stop, he would have by now. And, as she's determined, Xander isn't all that smart, or concerned with things outside of fighting, so she rather doubts he's really processed her requests for him to quit it.
"It's easier than your full name. You can call me Z you know, I don't mind."
"So you've said." She sighs. "What do we have leftover from last night?"
Xander grimaces. "Um, nothing." He admits.
Matangi sighs. It's not surprising - between the two of them they go through what food they can find quickly. They'd found another empty hunting lodge about a week prior and had been doing alright on the food front since then, but obviously that stash has run out. And despite their efforts otherwise, they haven't found or caught anything in the intervening days.
"We can always go Snatcher hunting." Xander offers with a bit more glee than such a statement warrants, in Matangi's opinion.
'Snatcher hunting', as Xander crudely calls it, involves the two of them actively seeking out teams of Snatchers and knocking them out and hoping they have food on them to steal. Frankly Matangi hates doing it - not that the Snatchers don't fully deserve it, but the risk-reward balance isn't really worth it, especially now. The first Hunt had been a lot more worth it considering they'd stolen the Snatcher's winter clothes for themselves, but now, considering they're tempting Azkaban and/or death every time they intentionally go find some Snatchers, and those Snatchers only rarely have food, they'd probably be better off leaving well enough alone.
Xander loves it though, and maybe some part of Matangi is hoping he'll get himself killed and she can go back to traveling alone and taking all the food she finds for herself.
"It's cost ineffective." She points out.
"Aw, but I need to stay sharp! And don't tell me you don't like knifing the bastards because I see you grinning." Her companion laughs as he finishes taking down the tent and casting a couple warming charms over them both. "That should keep for a couple hours. Shall we head further in? If we got our directions right yesterday and we keep going west, we should hit the River Wye in a couple days. Good for fishing."
"I hate fishing." Matangi grumbles.
Xander just laughs, which is another annoying thing about him - his refusal to acknowledge how bad their situation actually is. Matangi can count her ribs, which is not exactly a normal thing to be able to do, and Xander is just as slim as she is. And yet he continues traipsing about with far too much cheer, tempting Snatchers and death on what is far to close to a daily basis to be healthy or sane.
Still, they do head off in the direction they think is west. At least they have a goal - it's better than wandering aimlessly, that's for sure. And definitely better than racing around, wasting energy, and looking for trouble. Not that it won't find them anyway - with no tree cover at all anymore Matangi is hyper aware of how exposed she and Xander are at all times. Their increased encounters with Snatchers aren't all the fault of Xander's impulsive idiocy, much as Matangi wishes that were the case.
They trudge in silence for about five minutes before Xander feels his usual urge to open his mouth and ruin it. "So where was I yesterday?"
Matangi sighs. Xander, she's learned, hates being quiet, and has taken to filling the space between them with stories about his friends that Matangi doesn't care about, but she lets him ramble since he gets twitchy if he's not allowed to talk. And a twitchy Xander, she's learned, isn't as good in a fight.
"Preston. Something about Romania." She says tiredly, and he lights up.
"Right! Okay, so Preston has been at his new job for two days when he's told that hatching season is in a day and can he handles the Longhorn eggs?"
Matangi half-listens to the tale of Xander's best friend - Preston Kane, a dragonologist stationed out at a Romanian dragon preserve - utterly failing to do his job and nearly setting an entire hillside on fire in the process. Xander is laughing as he speaks, though Matangi personally doens't understand how wanton destruction and the risking of dozens of lives is funny.
"Sounds eventful." She says flatly when Xander finishes the tale.
He snorts. "It always is. Bill's got some good ones too, like the time he and one of his teammates-" And he off again, this time talking about his other Curse-Breaker friend Bill Weasley. Matangi cares just as little about this story at first, but she eventually finds herself listening more closely when she realizes it doesn't involve innocent lives threatened, but rather a mystery involving an ancient Egyptian tomb and the artifacts inside.
"So it's uncommon for objects inside the site to be cursed?" She interrupts halfway through Xander's rambling, and he pauses, blinking in surprise, and them beams.
"I knew one of these would get your interest eventually! And yeah, I said that a while ago." He adds with a grin. "Usually the curses are to keep people out. Once you're past the barriers of a room the rest of it is usually pretty easy to clear out. But this time-"
"I knew one of these would get your interest eventually! And yeah, I said that a while ago." He adds with a grin. "Usually the curses are to keep people out. Once you're past the barriers of a room the rest of it is usually pretty easy to clear out. But this time-"
Matangi keeps her mind half-focused on the story as they continue walking, the other half taking the time to continuously scan the area for either food or foes, neither of which decide to show up before the tale ends on a rather anti-climactic note.
"They just assigned him somewhere else? Did you ever learn what was in the canopic jars?" She asks, momentarily tearing her eyes away from the surrounding area to glare at him. She doesn't like incomplete endings.
Xander holds his hands up defensively. "I mean they've probably figured it out by now? It was, like, ten years ago or something. You'd have to ask Bill, he'd probably know."
"You better hope we survive this or I'm going to haunt you in the afterlife." She grumbles. "Telling a perfectly good mystery without a proper conclusion."
Xander just laughs, which only confirms he has no self-preservation instincts - they've been traveling together long enough that he definitely knows she isn't kidding.
She huffs and sees him raise his hands defensively beside her. "Hey, I know you're serious. It's funny to think anyone could get enough of an upper hand to kill you is all. I saw you tearing into that lady a couple days ago, you're a force to be rekoned with." He hums. "You should think about getting into the dueling circuit, you'd probably do really well."
Matangi rolls her eyes to mask the slight pride his words stir inside her. "Please, I have better things to do than wave my wand at people I don't care about." She says briskly. "Frankly I don't see how you'll be able to go back to work after all this, considering we're basically dueling for our lives constantly."
Xander shrugs lazily. "Eh, it's all good practice as far as I care." He declare brightly.
Matangi sighs. "I was wrong, if I die you'll already be long dead, I won't be able to haunt you."
Xander snorts. "Man you don't pull punches. Alright then, you tell a story next, I've been doing all the work over here."
"I don't want to talk." Matangi replies flatly. "As I've told you before."
"Aw, but then how will I know what a good ending looks like?" Xander wheedles, and its' utterly idiotic but Matangi finds herself sighing and trying to come up with a story of her own. Obviously all this time spent with him has caused some of Xander to rub off on her. She'll need to fix that once this is over.
She eventually settles on the story of her first year at Hogwarts, thinking that it's interesting without giving much away in terms of her personal life. She's not interested in making friends after all - her and Xander traveling together is out of convenience and being stuck in the same crappy situation, nothing more.
"Professor Vector was the one who came to give me my letter." She starts slowly, wondering how best to phrase things. She's not exactly a story-teller and it isn't until just this second that she's realizing how difficult it is to order things in her head fast enough to keep up with . "I was pretty excited about the whole thing, though my parents were a little more hesitant. They're religious." Okay, that didn't need to be said, but too late now. Why did she decide to do this again?
She's going to chalk it up to boredom. And not wanting to hear Xander talk anymore.
"But anyway, they came with me to Diagon Alley, with Professor Vector, and they absolutely drilled her for details. I was too busy checking out the wands and potions to really care." She can't help smiling a bit at the memory. She misses being eleven and still unsorted - it was a better time, with less stress and judgement.
"It was fun, mostly. I mean, that was the year Sirius Black escaped."
Xander winced. "I heard about that. I was already long graduated but Bill told me what his siblings said, that Dementors stopped the train? That can't have been fun."
Matangi frowns, remembering the chill, her enthusiasm literally draining out of her as her mind was violently forced back into memories from when she was much younger, when her classmates would sneer at her for her skin color and try and pick on her just for being Asian. She shakes her head.
"It was not. I was less excited about Hogwarts after that." She mumbles. "Then of course Brodie Flint started pestering me about my blood status while we were waiting to go into the Great Hall and I shouted at everyone that I was Muggleborn." She grumbles.
Xander winces but doesn't comment, and Matangi wonders at that. With his personality she could definitely see Xander getting into a similar argument (and doesn't that sting her pride just a bit) but she wouldn't think he'd be all that affected by it.
"Anyway I ended up Sorted into the same House as him so that was a mess." She sighs. This is a less happy story than she remembers.
They walk in silence for a bit before Xander speaks up, almost hesitantly which is weird coming from him. "So Slytherin then?"
Matangi eyes him suspiciously. Xander has made no secret that he's a proud Gryffindor, but this is the first time Matangi has alluded to her own House, and she wonders if the House divide is going to be what ultimately splits them up. She wouldn't be that surprised if it did, goodness knows Xander is definitely a typical Gryffindor.
But he surprises her with his next words. "Well that explains a lot about how you've survived this long. You must be pure Slytherin to be Sorted there in this climate. You must have plans for days." He laughs. "I should listen to you more often, shouldn't I?"
Matagi once again looks away from the surrounding forest to regard her companion, this time staring in confusion. "I... didn't expect that response." She admits after a moment, begrudgingly. That had obviously been a miscalculation on her part, which means she now has to recalibrate a lot of what she thought about Xander.
"It's cool, I was awful in school." Xander admits casually. "I get why you didn't tell me before. So school probably wasn't all that fun for you, huh?"
She shrugs, still a bit off kilter from the realization. "I had Hazel, so it wasn't all bad."
She regrets the words immediately, but Xander has already latched on. "Hazel? She's your friend? Come on, details!" He's practically whining, and Matangi may sigh a bit more dramatically than needed but she thinks she's earned it.
"Hazel is my age, and Hufflepuff, and she has excellent taste in music. The end." She grumbles. She does not want to talk about Hazel - it will lead to her thinking about where her friend is now and the situation is miserable enough without that.
"And you say my story endings are bad." Xander complains, but surprisingly he must pick up on her really not wanting to talk about it as he lets the subject drop and they walk in silence for a while.
Of course, because life can never give Matangi a break, they run into a group of Snatchers after what's probably a few hours of walking, and Matangi barely sees them in time to dodge the first blast due to her hunger and physical and emotional exhaustion.
Xander has his wand drawn and is returning fire within moments, and for all her annoyance at his gung-ho adrenaline-seeking bull crud Matangi can admit that Xander is a good fighter, and in moments like this she's glad he's on her side.
As usual the Snatchers focus their fire on Xander, deeming him the more immediate threat due to his ability to use his magic. You really think they'd learn after weeks of Xander and Matangi employing the same strategy, but obviously Snatchers aren't hired for their brains.
Matangi takes advantage of their distraction to duck behind a nearby tree trunk and pull off her knapsack, somehow still in tact after everything she's put it through. She's been thinking lately of trying to re-find the cabin she'd gotten it from, it had a lot of high quality items.
She sifts through her knives, peering around the tree to analyze the situation and determine which one would be best.
This group has three people, one woman and two men, none of whom Matangi recognizes, which is good. It means none of them is even bothering to look her way as they struggle to get past Xander's offenses (he never goes on the defensive - he'd told her once that in dueling you always have to press the advantage - the moment you give an inch the match may as well be over. At the time she'd chalked it up to his ego and personality type, but so far it has actually seemed to work well).
Matangi selects one of her larger knives - the guys tend to have more muscle to get through so longer blades are better. Matangi quickly closes her bag and swings it back over her shoulders before creeping cautiously around the tree, circling to get behind the group and moving slowly so as to not catch their attention.
Xander is holding his own, but he's not gaining any ground in the fight - one against three is never fair, no matter how good the one is and how pathetic the three are.
Matangi doesn't speed up though - Xander will hold or he'll die, and while he's still an idiot he's a stubborn one who hasn't faltered yet, and on some level she hasn't wanted to examine Matangi trusts him implicitly to never leave her hanging in situations like this one.
She makes it to a tree just behind one of the men, and she scales it as quietly as she can manage before dropping down onto his skull.
There's a satisfying crack under the soles of her boots as the guy's head cushions her landing, and she immediately launches herself at the woman standing next to him, cracking her across the face with the handle of the knife, while Xander takes out the now distracted third member of the party with a quick stupefy.
"Nice landing." Xander says, making a face as he eyes the pool of blood starting to form around the first guy's head. "We should probably make sure that doesn't kill him."
"Check for food first, I'm hungry." Matangi mutters as she begins rifling through the woman's jacket.
"Oh hey, I like his jacket more than mine. Think he'd be okay switching?" Xander asks as he ignored Matangi's order and begins healing the Snatcher's head. Honestly Matangi doesn't get why he does it - if it was them bleeding out these guys would spit on them and laugh. Xander went on about the moral high ground the one time she'd mentioned it, but she thinks that's baloney. This is a war, it's kill or be killed. The moral high ground can come back into play when people like Xander and herself aren't being hunted down for daring to exist. She learned young that playing by society's rules when that society is oppressing you is a surefire way to fail at life.
But she knows trying to explain that to Xander with his Gyrffindor stubbornness and white boy privilege is an exercise in futility, so she leaves him be as she abandons the woman, who's pockets are empty, and checks the other Snatcher.
"Got some snacks here." She announces with a grin, pulling her backpack around and stuffing them inside. She always avoids showing Xander the rations she finds until the end of the day when she hands them out, that way she can keep the good stuff for herself.
After all, Xander is probably going to get himself killed. She shouldn't waste good food on a walking corpse. He hasn't noticed anyway, so who's fault is it really?
"Sandwich on this one." Xander reports, standing up and stretching before tossing the food over to Matangi to store in their backpack.
Xander had mentioned once that he could hold the bag if she liked, but she'd shut that line of thought down very quickly. The bag has her knives in it - if they got caught in a Snatcher fight and he was holding her weapons Matangi would be useless. And she refuses to be useless.
Xander hasn't offered since, and really, it's one more reason Matangi is justified in keeping the best food for herself - she carries their supplies around, so she uses more physical energy. The logic is sound, and yet the longer they travel together, the worse Matangi feels about the small deception.
"We should probably start looking for somewhere to settle in." Xander observes, squinting at the lowering sun as Matangi finishes closing up the bag and swinging it onto her back. "It'll be dark soon."
"Feels like we barely got anywhere." Matangi grumbles, though that's always the case these days.
"It's all the endless white and brown, everything looks the same." Xander declares, though Matangi can detect traces of exhaustion in his voice. "We do need to get away from this lot though, don't want them following us."
"You take rear then, erase our tracks." Matangi suggests, and he salutes cheekily. She definitely doesn't smile at that as she turns to lead the way, continuing in a slightly different direction that before, just to be safe. Xander trots along behind her, muttering spells under his breath as he cloaks their path and smooths out their footprints.
The sky is dust gray by the time Matangi decides they've moved far enough to be safe. She drops her bag and promptly begins scouting around the area for firewood. Xander, knowing the routine as well as she does at this point, begins setting up their tent for the night and casting protective spells around the area as she works. They move in silence, which is... actually weird, now that Matangi is thinking about it. Normally Xander keeps up a stream of chatter, and while she never listens she didn't realize how used to it she'd become.
"So I am a Slytherin." She says aloud. "I didn't actually confirm that earlier, you just assumed."
"You didn't deny it either." Xander replies idly. "Also I remember a Flint from a few years below mine and he was a piece of work and a major blood purist. I figured as soon as you mentioned the kid that he was probably the same cloth."
"Flint isn't exactly an uncommon last name, is it?" Matangi points out. "Could be entirely unrelated."
Xander snorts. "Rule one of purebloods kid, they're all related in some way. It's kind of gross how inbred a lot of them end up, and the ed up genetic overlap actually makes them worse at magic, which sort of ruins their entire argument." He laughs, and Matangi can't help chuckling as well. It is pretty ironic.
They finish setting up, but Xander gets to the bag before Matangi does, rifling through it to find their food for the night.
"Oh hey, that guy had a lot of snacks!" He exclaims with a grin. "Nice haul there T, we should be good for another day with this stuff."
Matangi shifts nervously. "Yeah, we should. Hopefully we'll still find food tomorrow though, the snacks don't go bad so I'd rather save them for as long as possible."
Xander nods idly, still digging around in the bag. "Makes sense. Now where is that..." He trails off as he grins triumphantly and pulls out the sandwich he'd pilfered earlier. "Found it! It's a bit small, though. Here." He tosses it towards Matangi, and even she has to admit that it's only dumb luck that she catches the bag instead of it ending up in the snow. "You can take the whole thing, I'm good with a couple of these cauldron cakes."
Matangi blinks. That... is suspiciously close to how she would have divided the food.
Xander glances over and laughs at whatever expression is crossing her face. "Yeah, I know you take the best rations, T. I'm not actually stupid, despite what you seem determined to think."
She frowns and walks over to him, dropping next to the small fire Xander had lit before opening the bag. "Why didn't you say anything?"
He shrugs. "Figured it was a survival instinct, and you do expend more physical energy than I do each day since you're carrying the bag and fighting the Snatchers hand-to-hand. It made sense."
She hums and unwraps the sandwich, still suspicious. "Why let me know now?" She probes after a moment, then takes a bite into the food. Baloney, not bad.
He hums around a mouthful of cauldron cake, swallowing before replying. "I dunno, you opened up a bit more today. Figured it was only fair, mentioning Hazel seemed like it was something rough."
So you shouldn't have brought it up. Matangi thinks sourly, but she realizes that she isn't actually mad. Xander is emotionally dense, that isn't new information. He really is trying to have a moment, and maybe she's more exhausted than she'd thought because Matangi lets it happen.
"She's Muggleborn too. But she didn't make it off the platform - I have no idea if she's even alive."
She resolutely stares at her sandwich as she continues eating. She'd kept her voice steady, professional, but as much as she knows Xander from traveling with him he probably knows her better than she'd thought. Probably realizes how much admitting that out loud hurt.
"I ran in October." Xander says suddenly, and wow Matangi knew he was bad at emotions but that was a whole other level of non sequitur.
"If you're not going to take this seriously-" She starts, the anger she'd expected some time ago starting to rear its head when Xander raises his arms defensively.
"No no, there's a point I swear!" He says quickly. "I ran in October so I got to see the start of things. As far as the Order could tell, they didn't kill any of the students brought back on the Hogwarts Express, it would have damaged their image too completely to do that. Wherever Hazel is, there's a good chance she's alive."
Matangi blinks, and suddenly the anger gripping becomes something else, and she blinks hard to try and keep it at bay.
"Oh." She finally manages after a moment. Then, "...thank you."
Xander smiles, and for the first time, Matangi thinks they might actually be friends.
Author's Note: Aww, lookit the wholesomeness :) Meet my favorite unlikely teamup in the entire series so far! These two are fun to bounce off of each other, and I hope they're as fun to read as they were to write!
Next Week: It only takes one crack to notice how fragile it all is
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