Haley wiggled her eyebrows up and down (seeing as she couldn’t raise just one.) “Says you,” she replied. “Can’t we just use the Reductor charm on the camera lenses? It’ll turn them to dust. Wouldn’t that work?”
The other group members turned to look at her. Haley was not usually one to remember charms, and she was almost never level-headed like this. She was the comic-relief girl who called people things like ‘Tedward’ and ‘Tyroonie,’ the girl who sang loudly in public places and renamed her group ‘Team Sparkle.’ But her suggestion was a good one.
“That’s… a really good idea, Haley,” Marina told her slowly.
Emma grinned. “Haley’s a smart girl. Don’t let her fool you,” she said. Haley didn’t know whether this was a compliment or an insult, so she reacted to both and beamed, then bopped Emma upside the head. “Besides, we’ve been surprised by so many things today, I think we’ve used up our surprise quota for the next week.”
Marina flipped her long, flowing hair. “You have a point,” she said.
Vladislav chuckled quietly to himself. When he saw people looking at him, he explained, “I was just thinking that someone should make a counter for how many times you swirl your hair like that.”
The Beauxbatons champion looked bashful. “Sorry!” she blushed. “I didn’t even notice I was doing it so much. I hate all this long hair”it’s always getting in the way. I wish I had a cute, short haircut like that Giorgi girl. I’m so jealous of her.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” laughed Haley. “You, of all people, are jealous of Giorgi?”
“Yeah, she’s original. Every time I want to chop off my hair or something like that, I end up chickening out because I know my mum would get annoyed and tell me that I think I’m a boy or something like that.”
Vladislav stared with his dark, piercing eyes, but he didn’t look as serious as usual. His eyebrows were quirked, and the corners of his mouth were turned up into a slight smile. “I now have official evidence that girls are insane,” he said. “None of them are ever happy the way they are.”
The group reached a sea of chairs facing a stage. Although the stage was empty, the audience was beginning to arrive, and the media had already set up all of their cameras. The five of them exchanged glances, and Tyrone pulled out his wand. “Reducto!” he whispered, directing his wand at the lens of a nearby camera. There was a soft, tinkling noise, and the lens, reduced to powder, sprinkled gently to the ground. He smiled up at the rest of the group.
“It works!” he informed them needlessly. “Shall we carry on?”
It was quite simple for them to point their wands at the cameras and shatter the lenses without even having to come into public view. So simple, in fact, that Emma began to get a bit suspicious. “Why did Jordan seem to think that we needed five people to do something so easy?” she asked.
Vladislav shrugged. “Perhaps he thought it would be funny,” he said darkly. “Force the Triwizard champions and their Yule Ball dates into working together, stand back, and watch the chaos unfold.” This was a good point. Emma had to utilize all of her willpower not to look at Tyrone and see how he reacted to this statement.
“You’re missing the point, guys!” Haley exclaimed rather loudly, standing on her toes so that the rest of the group would see her more easily. “Look, I know better than anyone that my brother’s a loony, but he’s a loony who knows what he’s doing. Jordan’s got a plan, and if he thinks it’ll work, then it probably will. I think there’s going to be more to this than just breaking camera lenses, and he’ll tell us more when it’s time.”
She drew herself up straight as she continued. “There’s a reason why the five of us are in a group, and it’s ‘cos we’re the bravest! All three Triwizard champions, plus Tyrone, who’s awesomely brave”he lost his mum last year, and he’s not afraid to show how he feels about it, which takes a real man, and he came to help us even though he’s mad at Emma. And, yeah, there’s me, too. That’s why we’re Team Sparkle!” It was evident that she really meant what she said”her hair bounced up and down against her shoulders as she gestured animatedly, and her eyes were dancing. Haley’s infectious enthusiasm managed to suck everyone else in.
“You should be the official team cheerleader,” Vladislav told her with a half-smile. “I feel like the inspirational score and the slow-motion action sequence will begin any minute.”
Marina squinted at the Durmstrang champion. “Before today, I never heard you say a single word,” she told him.
Vladislav sat down on a rock. “It really is amazing how much you can learn if you listen instead of talking,” he replied. “And it’s incredible how many of the things you hear are completely ridiculous. Especially with politics”I can’t help being cynical, and the truth is, I write down everything I see and hear.”
“Er… everything?” Emma moaned. “Including, just for example, me?”
Vladislav’s eyebrows arched, giving him a rather evil expression. “I do not particularly want to be hexed, so I won’t answer that. But my dream is to be a writer. I want people to be able to laugh at the absurdity of the world and actually understand things like politics, especially teenagers. All anyone knows about politics right now is that Tancred Apple has nice hair.”
As far as Haley was concerned, it was as if Vladislav had just announced that the sun was purple and hamsters were his favourite snack food. “I can’t believe it!” she exclaimed. “You want to be a writer, of all things? But you’re so smart! You make potions… you do that chess thing… you speak all of those languages… you… you could do anything in the world!”
“I think you might be exaggerating… and what good is potential if you aren’t doing what you love? Besides, it’s not as if I’m not using my brain when I write. Far from it,” chuckled Vladislav. “Do you think that I learned all of those languages just to talk to myself? I want to translate everything I write myself so no one warps my words. Believe me, when you’re writing about politics, it’s a fine line.”
Tyrone gave a low whistle under his breath. “It’s funny, I’ve never been on a mission to save the wizarding world before or anything, but I always imagined that there would be a lot more action and a lot less talking about dreams and secrets and stuff. Is this what it’s always like?”
“Not always,” said Haley, thinking of the difficult battle to stop Malfoy the previous year. “Jordan will have something for us to do soon,” she told him confidently. “For now, let’s just wait.”
And with that, Team Sparkle sat down and continued their discussion while the camera crews went about their business, blissfully unaware that their equipment was completely useless.
“It’s getting darker,” noted Ted, glancing up at the blue velvet sky. “We should probably get to the exhibit. If we don’t, we’ll transform right here, and we don’t want the zookeepers to think we’re escapees.”
Team B had entered the zoo easily, and were exploring the exhibits as they waited for the moon to rise. Although Ivy had fun watching the animals, it was even more entertaining to watch Ted. He really loved animals, no matter what kind (to him, a hedgehog was just as exciting as a hippopotamus), and he was like a little child in his enthusiasm, zipping back and forth between exhibits, pointing out animals, and shouting, ‘look!’ She made a mental note to bring him back the zoo someday under circumstances that were less grim.
Arden eyed the darkening sky, her expression troubled. “Marina was right earlier,” she whispered. “There are so many things that could go wrong.”
Ted smiled. “But there are so many things that could go right! Come on, cheer up! Have some fun, enjoy the… ECHIDNAS! COOL!” And he raced across the path to goggle at the echidnas, whatever those were.
Ivy chortled at the sight of the overly-enthusiastic boy. “Should we find a zookeeper and borrow a tranquilizer gun for him?” she asked Arden in one of her occasional bursts of light-heartedness.
Arden didn’t smile. “My father tried to use one on me,” replied softly. “During my transformations. It never worked.”
“I-I’m sorry,” said Ivy, blinking stupidly. “I had no idea.”
“I do not mind,” Arden told her. “I know what you meant.” A trace of a smile crawled across her face. “Your friend Theo is very…special,” she said.
“I know,” Ivy replied, glancing over at Ted, who was now observing some tree kangaroos. “He loves animals. I think he actually really likes being a werewolf, he adores wolves so much.”
“We are lucky to know someone who looks at things the way he does,” Arden observed. “I certainly do not see things like Theo does.”
“Scratch a pessimist and you’ll sniff an optimist underneath,” Ted observed, tearing himself away from the tree kangaroos and joining the girls. He grinned crookedly. “You girls weren’t bad-mouthing me behind my back, were you?”
“No,” said Ivy, taking his warm hand in hers and giving it a squeeze.
Ted returned the gesture, then, as an afterthought, took Arden’s free one. And Ivy understood completely. She knew that there were times when people needed their hands held, and nobody deserved a warm, comforting hand more than Arden DuBois.
The three of them reached the wolf exhibit and stopped dead in their tracks. The exhibit was surrounded by a concrete wall with the animals far below. They’d been expecting a fenced-in pen, and the plan had been for Ivy to Alohomora the door open and slip inside (while the other two, in their wolf forms, would follow), but that wouldn’t work now. There was a back keeper entrance from inside the animals’ night barns, but from the looks of things, most of the wolves were asleep inside. It probably wouldn’t be a good idea to try to tiptoe past sleeping wolves. The only other way down was a small metal emergency ladder on the side of the exhibit, used for the keepers. They looked at one another.
“Wolves aren’t very good at climbing ladders,” Ted said. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to manage this.”
Arden hunched her shoulders. “I could jump,” she offered.
“No!” the other two exclaimed in perfect unison.
“You’ll definitely hurt yourself if you try. It’s a long way down,” Ivy told her.
“Then there is only one thing to do,” Arden said gravely. “I will climb down the ladder and enter before the moon rises.”
“There’s no way you can do that!” Ivy breathed. “I mean, even if the zoo guards don’t spot you, the wolves will tear you to pieces.”
Arden stared at her steadily, her expression eerily calm. “You are, I think, forgetting that I am also a wolf,” she said quietly. And before anyone could stop her, she walked deliberately toward the exhibit, swung one leg over the wall in a manner befitting a ballet dancer, and eased her way down the ladder.
Ivy’s fingernails dug into Ted’s palm as they watched the frail-looking girl make her way down. There were three wolves visible in the exhibit, two seemingly asleep and one awake and pacing dangerously close to the ladder.
But incredibly, Arden, who was so shy and uncomfortable around humans, showed no fear whatsoever. After making a light landing, she knelt down on the ground and put out her hand. The wolf sniffed her hand and licked it, and Arden appeared to be speaking softly to it. After a few quiet moments, Arden straightened back up again. “It is safe,” she called up to the other two. “You can come down.”
But they didn’t have a chance. Before Ted could begin to step onto the ladder, the moon appeared from behind a cloud and briefly illuminated his face before said face began to change.
It was the first transformation of Ted’s that Ivy witnessed since the beginning of the school year, and she’d forgotten just how grotesque they were. But she held steadily onto Ted’s hand, even as it morphed into a paw, trying to focus on the light blue eyes that never changed, although the rest of his body was unrecognizable. Soon, he was nearly indistinguishable from the wolves in the exhibit, but Ivy knew that he was really just as human as she was, no matter how he looked.
“Next transformation,” she said to the wolf that was Ted, “We’ll be in the shack, and I can change with you then.” She glanced at the ladder. “You’re not going to be able to climb down in your present state,” she noted. She rested her chin on her hand to think”there had to be a way for Ted to get into the exhibit, even if he was unable to climb down the ladder. Suddenly, it all became clear to her. “Ted,” she said, “do you think it would work if I carried you down into the exhibit?”
The wolf at her side nodded and wagged his tail emphatically and rather adorably.
Ivy smiled and squatted down next to him. She gripped the wolf around the middle and slowly stood up. “Phew! You’re heavy!” she gasped. “What did you eat for dinner, bricks?” Ted was about the size of a large dog in his wolf form, and although he was scrawny, he was big and Ivy was not exactly athletic. Clutching Ted to her chest, she staggered down the ladder at a painstakingly slow rate. Ted helped her progress along by wrapping his front legs around her neck and his hind legs around her waist so that she had a free hand to grip the ladder, but it was slow going. When they were about three-quarters of the way down, Ted pawed at Ivy’s shoulder.
Somehow, she understood what he meant by this and loosened her grip. The wolf sprang nimbly to the ground, joining the smaller, darker wolf that was Arden below.
After Ted, Ivy dismounted from the ladder. She was a girl when her feet left the rung on which she had been standing, but when she hit the ground, she was an arctic fox.
“Impressive,” she heard a voice say. She turned her fox’s head every which way, but she saw no one around. The voice sounded familiar, and yet unfamiliar. “Ivy, c’mon, it’s me!”
She suddenly realized where the voice was coming from. It was Ted. Although he was communicating in barks and howls, she could somehow understand what he was saying, and it was his voice that echoed inside her head. But his voice was distorted, as though he was speaking with a thick accent. It’s because I’m a fox and he’s a wolf, she realized. There’s got to be some sort of communication barrier between species.
Then, there was another voice, this one harsh and completely unfamiliar. “New smell. Not wolf. Enemy.” The male alpha wolf of the exhibit, yellow-eyed and menacing, was walking in a slow circle around Ivy, effectively intimidating her. Then, without warning, he lunged.
“No! Dhrrrggh, no!” screamed Arden, bounding up behind the alpha male and seizing his tail with her mouth, trying to halt him. “That’s Ivy! She’s a friend!”
Dhrrrggh, the alpha male, reluctantly turned away. Arden walked up beside him and growled softly into his ear, whispering something that Ivy couldn’t make out. But whatever it was, Dhrrrggh abated and his tense muscles relaxed.
Ivy lifted her head. “Thank you,” she said gratefully, her heart beating as fast as a tap dancer’s feet. The sight of Dhrrrggh lunging toward her was truly terrifying, and she couldn’t help but wonder if that was how Ted had felt the previous year when the werewolf had attacked on Christmas Eve.
“Don’t mention it,” replied Arden. Ivy noticed that she didn’t have a French accent when she was in her wolf form, and her words flowed much more smoothly”it was because she wasn’t speaking English anymore. She was speaking a language that came much more naturally.
Ted used his teeth to extricate something from a pouch that he wore around his neck.
“What’s that?” asked Ivy.
“It’s Giorgi’s tape recorder,” he replied, dropping the recorder to the ground. “I mean, if the other groups succeed, no one else but us and Apple will know about his plan. So Jordan thought it might be good if we collected some evidence. And we can always create a diversion by escaping and running wild through the park.”
Ivy had to stifle a giggle. It wasn’t like Ted to say things like ‘if the groups suceed’ or ‘collect some evidence’ or ‘create a diversion,’ and she knew that he must be repeating Jordan’s words verbatim.
Dhrrrggh’s ears perked up. “Escape?” he barked.
Ooh. It was one thing to have two human-minded werewolves and one Animagus running around loose, but a fully-grown and not-at-all cuddly wolf? That was dangerous. “Ummm… Dhrrrggh, you should probably stay here,” Ted managed.
Dhrrrggh, who was apparently a very high-strung wolf, bared his teeth and growled at Ted. Ivy was pleased to see that the latter did not flinch at all, and she couldn’t help but notice that he was actually considerably bigger than the alpha wolf despite his gawkiness. She could tell that Dhrrrggh was intimidated by her gentle and easygoing friend.
“You’re the alpha male. You should stay behind and protect the rest of the pack,” Arden said quickly, and Dhrrrggh relaxed in assent. It was amazing how confident Arden could be”it was a pity that she wasn’t that sure of herself around people.
Once Dhrrrggh had settled down, Ivy asked Arden, “What was it that you said that got him to, you know, not attack me?”
Arden would have blushed had her face not been covered in fur. “I told him that you were, er, Theo’s mate.”
Ivy and Ted couldn’t quite seem to meet one another’s eyes.
They sat in the wolf exhibit, conversing without incident for several minutes. When guards or zookeepers walked by, Ivy would conceal herself behind Ted, as anyone who worked at the zoo would immediately spot the arctic fox in with the wolves. After quite some time of this, however, Ivy’s newly acute canine hearing picked up a lilting Irish voice saying, “Good evening, ladies and gents!”
“It’s Apple!” she exclaimed. “Get the tape recorder ready!”
Ted fumbled clumsily with the Muggle tape recorder with his nose and paws before managing to hit the ‘record’ button.
“I’m afraid I shall be slightly delayed in delivering tonight’s speech, but you need not worry. I’ll be back in about fifteen minutes. In the mean time, there’s a lovely selection of tasty complimentary pastries, and feel free to help yourselves. Thank you very much.”
Ivy was disappointed”they’d gotten that on tape for no good reason. It was a complete waste, like bringing mountaineering equipment to scale an anthill. But before Ted could switch off the tape recorder, an extremely familiar voice, low and somewhat flat and inevitably enhanced by the Sonorous charm, caught his ears. “Team B! Team C… er, Sparkle! Meet me immediately”plans have changed!” the voice called, enunciating as clearly as possible to make sure the message got across.
The three members of Team B looked at one another.
“I suppose I’m carrying you both,” sighed Ivy, switching back to human form.
While Team B had been busy trying to sedate Ted as he raced around the zoo, Team A was putting their part of the plan into operation”they were to create a distraction.
“Right-o,” Giorgi said brightly, pulling a football out of a bag that she carried with her. “So, basically, we act like stupid kids who don’t know that Apple’s giving a speech?”
“Yeah,” said Jordan, taking out an orange wig and fake orange stick-on eyebrows from a disguise kit that he’d gotten for his tenth birthday but never used.
“Unlike me, you look worse with orange hair,” commented Giorgi.
“It’s a disguise,” Jordan told her with as much dignity as it’s possible to possess when you’re wearing a fright wig and bushy stick-on eyebrows. “Without the wig, Apple would recognize me. He knows my dad, and he sent me a birthday card”and the black hair, green eyes, and shrimpiness practically scream ‘Potter.’”
Giorgi laughed. “You’re not shrimpy, though,” she said.
“Yes, I am,” replied Jordan. “You just can’t tell, because from your height, everyone looks comparatively small.” He attached the rest of the remaining orange eyebrow. “So! Let’s play football!”
“I’ll go easy on you,” grinned Giorgi, running backward with the ball. “Now that I know you’re a Quidditch player and not a footballer.”
Jordan smirked to himself. For once in his life, he enjoyed being underestimated”he was actually quite talented at football, and had practiced extensively with his Quidditch team as a training drill for their reflexes. But it would be fun to convince Giorgi that he was a total novice and then blast her away.
She kicked the ball, hard, but Jordan blocked it. He dribbled it past the slack-jawed Giorgi and kicked it into the clump of shrubs that served as the goal.
“Whaaa?!” exclaimed Giorgi. “I’m the best starter on my team! How did you get a goal past me in the first ten seconds of the game?”
“What can I say?” smirked Jordan. “I guess I’m a natural.”
“You’re unnatural,” muttered Giorgi. “You’re good at everything. I think you’re a mutant.”
“Technically, I am,” Jordan said calmly, stealing the ball. “Magical tendencies are caused by a genetic mutation. And as if that wasn’t enough, scientifically speaking, all males are mutants, because the ‘y’ chromosome is a mutation of the ‘x’ chromosome.”
Giorgi snorted. “Ha!” she exclaimed, snatching the ball with her foot and flipping it into the air. She headed it into the other goal. “That’s feminism for you. And I just scored past you!”
“Your feet are bigger,” mumbled Jordan. He was about the throw the ball back in when he was stopped by a harsh voice.
“Stop horsing around. There’s a political rally today here, and this isn’t a playground,” barked the voice. It belonged to a heavyset security guard wearing opaque sunglasses.
“But it is a public park,” replied a softer voice, and Tancred Apple appeared. “Don’t be intimidated by Albrecht”he’s just trying to do his job,” he said, gesturing toward the security guard. “You probably shouldn’t be playing football in this part of the park, though, because I’m going to be giving a speech here quite soon. You can come to the speech if you don’t think you’ll be too bored. It’s free and open to the general public.”
Jordan squinted up at him. “Wait a minute… why are you giving a speech?”
Apple smiled his toothpaste-commercial smile. “Oh, you probably haven’t watched the news lately. It’s okay. I’m the new Prime Minister.”
Jordan tried to think of what a less intelligent teenager would say had he not known who Apple was. He was not experienced at behaving unintelligently. “Oh… cool… I, like, never watch the news. I just think that stuff is boring, you know?” he managed to say, hating himself and hoping no one he knew overheard him.
Apple nodded sympathetically. “Politics can be a bit dull sometimes,” he said. “But I’m trying to bring a little excitement to the field.”
Sicko, thought Jordan. Torturing Muggles is not my idea of ‘excitement.’
Speaking of ‘excitement,’ Giorgi suddenly gasped. “That’s it! I remember!” she squealed in a very Haley-ish voice. “You’re Tancred Apple! Will you sign my football?” She held the football out before her with a simpering expression.
Obliging smile still intact, Tancred Apple autographed the football with a ballpoint pen that he carried in his suit jacket pocket and handed it back. After letting out a loud sigh, Giorgi’s eyes rolled back in her head, and she fainted.
Jordan mentally applauded her acting skills. She was a very convincing airhead when she wanted to be, which he wasn’t quite sure was a compliment he himself would want to receive.
Apple bent over Giorgi’s motionless form, wearing a look of concern. “Does your girlfriend often faint like this?” he asked. Giorgi’s eyelids almost fluttered open at the dreaded ‘G’ word, but the politician didn’t notice.
“My sister faints all the time,” replied Jordan, emphasizing the word ‘sister.’ “Don’t worry about it.”
As Apple busied himself with trying to rouse Giorgi, Jordan stared into the Minister’s eyes, hoping his Legilimency would be a success. Jordan’s gaze was fierce and hard, and extremely frightening to behold. His eyes were cold and blank, and as intense and piercing as laser beams. They sliced into Apple’s thoughts and rummaged through his defenseless brain, until they at last dredged up a thought that chilled the boy to the bone.
While still reeling in confusion from what he’d seen inside his mind, Jordan saw Apple pull out a wand, point it at Giorgi, and mutter, “Rennervate.” Giorgi’s eyes opened wide.
Jordan gasped. “Wha… what was that?” he asked, his voice slightly higher in pitch than usual.
“Magic,” replied Apple with a wink, stashing his wand back inside his jacket and strolling away.
Jordan helped Giorgi up off the ground, and she brushed the dirt off of her brightly coloured outfit. “That was weird,” she said. “I can’t believe he was thick enough to do magic on a Muggle, in clear view of someone who he thought was a Muggle as well.”
“I can,” Jordan said hollowly.
Giorgi looked at her friend strangely. “Why do you look like that?” she asked. “And I don’t just mean the ugly.”
“My plan is completely wrong,” replied Jordan. “We need to get the other groups. Apple isn’t planning on torturing the Muggles”he wants to tell the whole Muggle world about magic!”