Chapter Fourty-One
Confronting the Faceless 💀 CompleteApril 22-29, 1998
"It was the sound of hope"
It's like a switch is flipped - on the first two days back from Easter break the DA is up to its usual disruptions, but on the third day they abruptly stop. Venus is glad for it, but also curious about what exactly had happened to finally make the so-called resistance finally sit down and stop interrupting.
There are whispers of a massive jail break out of the dungeons, and considering how much quieter they've gotten Venus would buy that. But a success like that seems like it should have caused a swell of rash decisions riding on the high of victory, not an abrupt full stop of all activities.
Venus thinks that it could have to do with Neville Longbottom and Ginny Weasley both vanishing over Easter Break, but she could also make the argument against herself that if that were the only variable then the change should have occured on Monday, not Wednesday.
Still, she doesn't question it too much on the first day - the fact she gets through an entire Dart Arts class with the Ravenclaws without Amycus being interrupted once is something she considers worth celebrating.
By Friday though, she's starting to notice that there's been a shift, and not the positive one she honestly had been expecting. The overall energy of the castle is dropping, and Venus is irritated to find that the shift is affecting her as well, regardless of the fact that she isn't sad about the change.
Astoria is clearly feeling it too - during their study session that afternoon she's worn and withdrawn in a way that's very different from the usual study stress.
Ava, who of course decided to show up, isn't afraid to loudly whine about what she thinks the problem is.
"The DA was the only thing giving people hope and now they've stopped so only evil is left." She declares rather overdramatically in Venus's opinion. "And of course evil isn't a good environment to be in unless you actually are evil so of course Astoria and I are being affected." The unspoken 'and why you aren't' is both petty and untrue so Venus ignores it in favor of trying to go back through the disarming charm with Astoria.
But Ava is apparently on a roll. "And it's so frustrating because I was this close to finally getting them to trust me despite being stuck in this House, but then the Carrows decided that killing students was on the table and now I've lost it." She sighs.
Normally Venus would have just tuned Ava out - or made a point about how she doesn't have to join the DA to do things if she really wants to - but something else Ava had said stands out more prominently.
"The Carrows killed a student?"
Astoria sighs and shakes her head. "Ava, don't exaggerate, no one is dead." She assures Venus quickly. "But a seventh year got pretty hurt when the DA broke into the dungeons, so that's probably why they're laying low right now."
Venus hums in acknowledgement. It would make sense, certainly. Something still feels off to her, but she pushes it away in favor of refocusing on preparing her cousin for the OWLs - they're only a month away now, after all, and Venus can admit that the Carrows aren't exactly teaching to the test, so Astoria needs all the help she can get (Ava could surely use some assistance as well, but frankly Venus doesn't care if Ava fails all her OWLs so she doesn't offer to help her cousin's friend).
There are no detentions that evening, so Venus heads to the library after dinner to continue her own studies in peace. She has a few essays to complete, and she'd like to go over some theories she's been developing in the past week that she's hopeful will get her noticed by the Unspeakables.
However, she's having trouble focusing, much to her endless frustration. For the first time all year she isn't being interrupted by the "resistance" and yet now she's having a harder time than before. Logically it doesn't add up, and yet the truth of it is staring her in the face resolutely.
Sighing she pushes her textbooks away and wonders again what could have caused the DA to so suddenly quit their self-assigned job, and why that decision seems to be causing Venus problems that seem entirely unrelated and even counter-intuitive.
She gives up on getting any more work done that night and heads back to the common room, thinking a good night's sleep will help clear her head and get her back on track.
The next day is Saturday, and naturally she decides to spend it in the library fully throwing herself into her work. It's... somewhat successful, though again she feels the weight of the castle resting over her, distracting her more than the DA ever had.
She thinks over the past year, trying to work out what logical conclusion there could possibly be, when (irritatingly enough) some of Ava's words rise to the forefront of her mind.
"The DA is the only thing giving people hope."
Loathe as she is to admit it, Ava might have actually been onto something with that comment. Not in the way the other girl had meant it, of course, but it's not unheard of for emotion to affect spellcasting (Patronuses being the obvious example of such things). It's conceivable, then, that the lack of an emotion could have a similar effect.
There isn't much evidence for such a thing, but there also isn't really any research either. And Venus thinks any Unspeakable worth her wand would agree that it's a path worth exploring considering there's obviously something happening in the castle and she has to start her exploration of it somewhere.
Her essays aren't due for a few weeks anyway.
She spends the rest of the day hunting down every book in the library she can find that has even the smallest rumination on emotional spellcasting. She also adds anything pertaining to broad effect charms or area of effect casts to include the fact that the impact is being felt throughout the castle.
She finds maybe a dozen books and fills about three feet of parchment with notes, but her findings are messy and disconnected at best, which is frustrating, to say the least. At least she manages to feel productive while working though, a distinct change from the past week.
She has a study session with Astoria again that evening, thankfully without Ava tagging along this time, and she ends up asking her cousin about her work ethic recently, just to confirm that Venus isn't the only one feeling the shift.
"I have felt a lot more tired lately. I figure it's because OWLs are coming up and I'm stressed." Astoria suggests.
Venus hums. Her cousin has a point, but combined with the facts Venus has just spent the day gathering the blonde suspects there's definitely more to it. She doesn't say that to Astoria though, just moves on with the lesson.
The next day she decides to hunt down one of the Carrows in order to request access to the Restricted Section of the library. Normally such permissions are only given to seventh years working on approved projects for their classes, but Venus is relatively confident that the Carrows like her well enough (and are stupid enough) to grant access without asking questions.
It takes some time to find them though - on weekends they aren't in their offices or classrooms but instead prowl the corridors on the lookout for troublemakers. Normally she can find them by following the shouts (or screams) but with the DA still being weirdly quiet she doesn't even have that. Which means she'll need to rely on luck, which is infuriating in its illogicality.
Not to mention that wandering the halls randomly makes her feel both unproductive and foolish.
At least no one else seems to be out, for the most part, so her ridiculous roaming isn't being witnessed. A few frazzled fifth and seventh years are heading to the library but they're all too far in their heads or their textbooks to take notice of her.
Then she turns a corner on the seventh floor and sees a group of students huddled by a blank wall, whispering harshly to one another, and she unfortunately recognizes one just as he looks up and spots her.
Zac Phipps tenses as they make eye contact, and honestly Venus doens't blame him. Since the detention back in January he's been much warier around her and in some ways it's been excellent and in others it's annoying. She hadn't enjoyed his derisiveness and glaring before, but at least she'd been used to it. This new silence has been far harder to adjust to for some reason.
She glances around the hall they're in and something clicks in her mind. She's been here before.
"You guys have been using that magic room that shows up here sometimes."
She says it without really thinking (and isn't that just further evidence that her hypothesis that something has changed is accurate) and the group immediately puts their full focus on her.
She rolls her eyes. "Relax I've known about that place since last year - I needed somewhere quiet to study for OWLs. Anyway I obviously won't tell, I haven't up to this point."
"You made it pretty clear you only just realized." Zac is the one who responds, voice low and defensive.
Venus opens to retorts when one of the others in the group surprises her by speaking up first. "I think she's telling the truth."
Zac turns to glare at the speaker, a tired looking brunet who's supporting another boy who looks remarkably similar to him - minus the horrible bruising across his face that vanishes down into his robes.
"Nate you don't know her." He says harshly, and the boy shakes his head.
"No, but I've seen her. You remember when Ginny, Gabe and I were trashing Amycus's office? She's the girl who saw us but didn't report it."
Venus tilts her head. She's surprised he remembers the incident honestly, and well enough to recognize her months later. She doesn't speak though, just waits for Zac's response.
He glares at the boy - Nate - for a long moment before looking back at Venus, who tries to keep her posture open and her expression neutral.
"You're really not on anyone's side, are you?" He says after a moment, and somehow he sounds even more disgusted than he had back when he was regularly accusing her of being a future Deatheater.
"I want to be an Unspeakable." She says simply. "I'm just focusing on my education and that's all. So no, I don't particularly care where you're all hiding. Though I am curious why you've gone quiet this week. What could have possibly finally scared you into silence?"
Later she'll blame her curiosity and want to investigate, but in the moment she honestly just wants to know what could have been so terrible that it crossed a line that until now she honestly though hadn't existed.
Everyone glances at the boy Nate is supporting for a moment before Zac turns back to her.
"Even we know the difference between bravery and recklessness." Is what he eventually settles on.
It doesn't answer a thing but Venus is smart - she knows that's as good as she'll get (and fairly so, she admits to herself later). She she tilts her head in acknowledgement and then heads off again, back on her quest to find one of two people in a massive castle that randomly changes its layout every few minutes.
So nothing too difficult.
When by lunchtime she's still no closer to finding the people she's seeking she decides to take a break and have some food. And perhaps the Carrows will be present in the Great Hall, though that isn't always a guarantee on weekends.
It's odd, she can admit, how the Carrows and Headmaster Snape occasionally go missing on weekends - odder still that the frequency of their absences has increased since the start of the month - but she's never thought too hard on it until just now when it's causing her difficulties.
Now though, her mind is intrigued by what exactly they could be doing off the grounds (for surely they must not be anywhere around Hogwarts - statistics dictate she should run into them eventually if they are), especially once she steps into the Great Hall and finds that, once again, the Carrows are missing.
She sits down at the end of the Slytherin table intending to eat quickly and head out again only for a familiar and unwelcome face to take the seat across from her.
"Venus, there you are!" Mabel Travers declares as if her and Venus are friends and not merely reluctant roommates. "You would not believe the day I've had, it's been awful."
Venus sighs and prepares to tune the other girl out - Mabel won't leave until she's said her piece - but Mabel's next sentence piques her interest.
"I was trying to review some spells with the boys and I swear it got harder to cast them! Those dickheads just made fun of me but they were just as bad so they're just fat stupid hypocrites." She whines, dropping her head on the table and nearly getting peas in her hair.
Venus raises an eyebrow. "You thought the spells were harder to cast?"
Mabel immediately glances up to glare at her. "I don't need mockery from you too Venus, I came here because you never interrupt me." She complains.
Venus shakes her head quickly. "I'm not mocking at all. I've found spellcasting more difficult recently as well. When did you first notice that your spells weren't reacting the same way?"
Mabel blinks, then snorts, immediately covering her face when she realizes the sound she'd just made. "Of course you'd only care when there's something to study about it." She grumbles once she's calmed down. "If you must know it started around Thursday I think. Today is much worse though, so I can't really give an exact time. Does that fit your data?" She asks sarcastically.
"Well I don't have much, but it does match up yes." Venus replies, not concerned by her roommate's annoyance. She's sat through plenty of Mabel's whining in the past, this really is just their relationship at this point. Mabel should be used to it. "Thank you Travers."
Huffing out another irritated breath, Mabel finally picks her head up off the table and starts actually putting food onto her plate. Venus is only half-focused on her own meal, her mind spinning with the new information Mabel has just given her. It isn't much, really, but it does confirm that the trouble started almost immediately after the DA stood down, and while correlation isn't necessarily causation the timing is far too precise to be dismissed as mere coincidence.
The second half of the day finds Venus back in the library (she'll talk to the Carrows tomorrow - she doesn't have class with either of them but they'll still be in their classrooms) going through the notes she'd made the day before and cross-referencing them with Mabel's observation that spellcasting difficulty has gotten progressively greater since Thursday, indicating not only a potential area-of-effect but a possible multiplication variable as well. She does jot a few inquiries as to the possible exponential nature of the multiplier but without any way to directly measure the magical concentration in the area she can't actually test it directly.
That night Mabel ignores her instead of attempting small talk or gossip as she normally would, and Venus is glad for it, her own mind busy with formulas that she'd hate to lose track of because of her roommate talking too loudly about insignificant nonsense.
The next morning she hurries through breakfast and then heads to the Muggle Studies room - while neither sibling is a lover of knowledge, Alecto is more likely to not ask questions about why Venus wants access to the Restricted Section.
She beats the professor there and waits awkwardly while a stream of first year Ravenclaws and Slytherins pass her as they arrive for their class. A few of the young snakes give her tentative smiles that she returns, hopefully not awkwardly but she's more focused on when Alecto will arrive than whether or not she's insulting some eleven year olds.
She thankfully doesn't have a class this morning - it's a double Herbology block and as she didn't score high enough on her OWLs (and yes she's still bitter) she has most of the morning free. At least it means she has time to continue her research before Transfiguration.
Alecto stumbles in a minute or so late and blinks in confusion when she sees Venus.
"Ms. Burke? I thought..." She glares at the first years filling the classroom, her confusion only increasing.
Venus sighs and speaks up before the woman hurts herself trying to use her brain. "I'm merely dropping by this morning in hopes that you might be willing to give me permission to use the Restricted Section of the library for a project I'm currently working on." She explains briskly.
Alecto's face instantly clears up. "Oh, of course! Of course, I have one of those here." She toddles over to her desk and awkwardly fumbles through it.
Venus sees a few of the students trying not to snicker, and she herself can definitely understand the urge - Alecto looks ridiculous. Still, she holds her neutral expression all through the pathetic scrambling that does ultimately end with Alecto handing her a scrawled note of permission to give to Madame Pince.
"Much obliged. Have a good class, and I apologize for interrupting it." She says politely before immediately heading out of the room and towards the library. She keeps her pace quick but unrushed, not wanting to get in trouble for running in the halls (because that's punishable now thanks to the DA and their constant rushing away from their crimes).
She goes straight to Madame Pince with her permission form, and though the woman is obviously displeased about having to accept it, she does hand over the key.
As soon as she steps foot into it Venus decides she loves the Restricted Section. It's dark and cool to keep the books from falling apart, and the entire room smells of parchment and ink.
She likes to think this must be what the Department of Mysteries is like, and it just makes her even more determined to get into the program. She quickly begins sorting through the titles and soon has a pile of twenty books of interest laid out on one of the dusty unused tables situated at the side of the room. It's only the knowledge that Transfiguration is really difficult to self-teach (plus the fact McGonagall is a bit terrifying) that pushes her to set her research down when it's getting close to class time.
She leaves the books out though - she'll come back after her classes this afternoon, and it's not like anyone is going to miss them.
Transfiguration does continue to be one of her favorite classes, though even this one, which was never interrupted before, seems to be suffering from whatever magical suppressant has been affecting everything. This not only makes class that much harder than usual, but it also means that Venus is distracted by new theories to test. By the time the fourty-five minutes are up she's honestly considering skipping lunch just to go write things down. Only the knowledge that a lack of food will lead to not being able to think as clearly as she'd like pushes her to go to the Great Hall with the rest of the class.
She has History of Magic right after lunch and Charms with the Ravenclaws after that, but as soon as Flitwick dismisses them she hurries back to the Restricted Section, collecting the key from Madame Pince and resolving to not move until dinner time.
The books she'd collected earlier haven't been disturbed, and she immediately begins pouring through them, taking note of everything of interest. She finishes her stack of twenty in about two hours, then sets about putting those back and collecting new ones. There are significantly more resources here on the topic she's pursuing, which actually makes her rather excited - that means this sort of work is likely being done in the Department of Mysteries, and if she can put together a strong enough essay on the topic she may get in sooner than expected.
She does hit a bit of a snag just at the end of her work, though. One of the thicker tomes she's perusing has several lines that clearly state the theories around emotional casting change depending on the emotion being used. Which means she needs to figure out what emotion is the primary driver of the changes around the castle.
She pulls out a fresh parchment and begins writing down every emotion she can think of with the intent of eliminating them one at a time.
The obvious ones are at the top - happiness, sadness, anger - followed by more nuanced versions of each - joy, misery, rage - and maybe those are the same thing but considering Patronuses need a particular kind of happiness to work Venus feels justified in leaving the specialized emotions on the page. She taps her quill lightly on the rim of her inkwell, trying to think of other emotions - she's not worried right now about whether or not they make any sense so she jots down anything that comes to mind.
Since it's already so dim in the Restricted Section Venus completely loses track of time, and it isn't until Madame Pince impatiently raps on the door and tells her the library is closed that she realizes she's worked right through dinner. Oops.
She quickly packs up, apologizes to Madame Pince as she returns the key, and then heads down to the dungeons, taking a massive detour in order to stop by the kitchens and get something light for dinner. The House Elves are all quite helpful when she peers in - she's far from the first student to study through a meal and she won't be the last - and she's sent back to her common room with a plate of chicken parmesan and a small side of spaghetti in some sort of cream sauce.
She can't really walk and eat so she carries the food all the way to the common room and settles in one of the armchairs and gazes out into the murky depths of the Black Lake as she eats.
"So you did skip dinner." A familiar male voice pipes up, and Venus immediately levels a glare at it's origin.
Monroe Harper holds up his arms defensively. "Not flirting, I swear. Mabel said you're doing an experiment or something about why magic is harder? And like, I want to help. That's it, no under motives or whatever."
"Ulterior." She corrects automatically, but she relaxes her glare slightly. "So you've noticed an increased difficult in spellcasting as well? When did it start?"
He blinks a few times, shuffling. "Um, well, I didn't totally notice when it started? But on Saturday a bunch of us were practicing and it seemed harder than our last weekend practice so it was between then sometime."
Venus hums. Less helpful but it still fits into her timeline. "Well, thank you for telling me."
"Can I do anything else to help?" He asks, and Venus turns her glare back on full force.
"No ulterior motives, hm?" She asks, unimpressed, and he immediately flinches away.
"Got it, no help required, I'm off then." He says quickly and then bolts for the boys' quarters.
Venus just shakes her head and goes back to her meal. Boys. She'll never understand why anyone would like them.
The next few days she falls into a routine (and does end up accidentally skipping a class when she loses track of time, but it's only History of Magic which is easy enough to self-teach, and Binns likely didn't even notice), which mostly consists of methodically sorting through the Restricted Section in order to try and find some way to non-magically confirm or deny her theories on the recent changes in Hogwarts.
Tuesday she'd taken her emotions list and whittled it down to only the ones she feels could actually be at play in this scenario. Now the parchment reads: Happiness, Fear, Defiance, Anger, with some space still left at the bottom in case she comes up with something else.
Honestly she doesn't really think 'happiness' is the emotion at play but she leaves it up since lack of an emotion can cause changes just as much as the presence of one can (thank you Treatise on Dark Intents). And there is definitely a lack of happiness in the halls.
Though again, her gut tells her happiness isn't the correct absent emotion to be considering. She just can't think of what else to put there for the time being.
Her only interruption in her new schedule comes on Wednesday afternoon when she has an OWL study session with Astoria that she knows she can't miss despite the temptation to reschedule. A few minutes before they're supposed to meet, Venus puts down her work and leaves the Restricted Section, only taking a few quills, a sheaf of parchment, and her Transfiguration textbook with her and leaving the rest at the table, ready to pick back up when the tutoring is over.
Astoria is a bit late - and Ava is following along behind her which immediately stretches Venus's already thin patience further.
"Sorry, Ava nearly punched Anwen." Astoria says, and Venus is surprised to hear her normally passive cousin sounding genuinely irritated. Venus raises an eyebrow but Astoria doesn't elaborate, just sits down heavily and yanks a textbook out of her bag. "Transfiguration today, right?"
Venus blinks, then nods. "That was what we agreed on." She confirms. "You said you needed help working on animate to animate transfigurations, correct?"
Astoria hums confirmation, and they actually manage to get through most of the hour with Ava interrupting, as the other girl is too busy pouting to pay much attention.
It's closing in on the end of the session when Astoria asks a question that finally, unfortunately, pulls Ava out of her brooding.
"Where's the rest of your stuff? You usually have your satchel with you." Astoria asks, clearly finished with the problem set Venus had given her.
Venus huffs. "It's in the Restricted Section, I'm working on a personal project."
Ava scoffs. "Trying to figure out how to torture people better?" She says sourly, but before Venus can retort Astoria surprises her by smacking Ava's arm. Hard.
"Ow! What was that for?" Ava protests, and Venus smirks. "Okay, sorry, jeez." She says when Astoria's glare doesn't let up.
Satisfied that her friend isn't going to interrupt again, Astoria turns back to Venus. "So what's the project?"
Venus eyes Ava for a moment, before deciding to just act like she isn't there. "Actually, could I ask you a question? Have you found spellcasting to be more difficult recently?"
Astoria blinks. "I... yeah, actually, I have." She says. "I thought it was just stress over the OWLs since, you know, increased unease can affect concentration."
"Well that's what I'm studying - what caused the shift. It seems to have occurred just after the DA stopped fighting back so I'm investigating if that somehow caused an emotional area of effect that's causing all of us to have trouble with our magic."
"It's hope!" Ava exclaims, loud enough to get glares from the students studying around them (and from both Venus and Astoria). "I told you, without the DA everyone is losing hope and now magic is harder. And you thought they were just causing problems."
"They were." Venus says flatly, though mentally she's reluctantly adding 'hope' to her emotions list - it fits a lot better than happiness. "And I have a variety of possible influences so while it could be hope it could also easily be something else. One accomplishes nothing by jumping to conclusions."
Ava rolls her eyes and still looks smugly victorious. Venus goes back to ignoring her.
Their study session wraps up shortly after that and Venus quickly excuses herself back to the Restricted Section, where her things are unsurprisingly undisturbed. She grabs her list of emotions and scratches out 'happiness' then jots down 'hope'.
The last one feels right to her, but she knows good experiments don't rely on gut feelings, but solid evidence. So she gets back up and begins scouring the shelves for anything specifically related to hope and its absence. However, the closest thing she can find is a small tome discussing the power of love, which strikes her as quite silly and also not really helpful at all. Still, it's better than nothing so she takes a few notes before putting it back on the shelf.
A part of her is incredibly frustrated at the lack of information on the topic - how can she further her studies without resources to draw from? - but at the same time a larger part of her is excited by the lack of writing on the subject. If no one else has done work in this area, then Venus has a clear in at the Department of Mysteries - all she has to do is write a theoretical essay outlining her hypothesis on the subject and then prove why its worth pursuing.
And that's a much easier thing to do than trying to latch onto a preexisting field of study. She'd been excited before, but now Venus feels like she could vibrate out of her skin with the rush of adrenaline that shoots through her at the realization.
She'd been right - the DA no longer interrupting had been a dream come true. It was just in ways she'd never expected.
Author's Note: Oh Venus, why are you like this? xD I jest, I love getting to world build like this, so everyone say thank you to Venus! Unless you were super bored in which case, um, maybe skip the next few chapters? ^^''
Next Time: Of all the times to care he picked the worst one
So I'm thinking I might do a final 'afterwords' chapter to share my thoughts and feelings on writing this story, if that's something people would be interested in? I'm also open to answering any lingering questions people might have there as well!
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