You appear in me, I appear in you.
We hide in each other.
Reza looked surprised to find a very young woman silently appearing in front of him and it took him several seconds to act.
‘Accio wand!’ Reza cried eventually.
Nothing happened.
‘Where is your wand?’ he asked in Farsi, still pointing his own at Cybele.
‘I don’t have a wand,’ she answered likewise.
Reza didn’t know what to think of that. She wasn’t a Muggle, she didn’t look surprised, but she was going around without a wand, very foolish. She didn’t look foreign, but she was wearing a knee-length skirt and a slightly open shirt with the sleeves rolled up and no scarf. Her clothes were all black and rather formal for camping on the highlands in the summer. She was very young but she didn’t look at all frightened to have a wand pointed at her by a strange man in the middle of a desert.
‘Where is the other one?’
‘She’s dead,’ Cybele said and she found the statement made her strangely calm. Let’s see what this wizard wants, she thought.
‘Come with me.’
It wasn’t an order but more like a rough invitation. Reza had lowered his wand.
She didn’t say anything but took a step in his direction.
The man in front of Cybele was a few years older than her, probably less than twenty five. He was tall and well, good-looking, she supposed. He didn’t seem to find it dangerous to have Cybele walk a few steps behind him, when keeping an eye on her would have been safer.
Cybele was pleased that he was absolutely underestimating her; it could come useful.
They walked for a couple of hours before taking a break. Reza was sweating. They sat under a tree.
After quenching his thirst, taking his sweet time, Reza passed the water and some dry fruits to Cybele, who took them with a polite nod.
‘We’ll have to walk for several more hours,’ he said.
Cybele didn’t comment on that.
‘How did you lose your wand? Did it happen when your friend died? What happened to both of you? What were you doing here to start with?’
Cybele thought that were a lot of questions all of a sudden, and some indelicate ones, too. So she answered, ‘Yes.’
‘You understand Farsi?’ he checked.
‘Yes. Are we going to the tea planter’s village?’
‘Right outside of it, yes,’ he answered. ‘I’m bringing you to my home, as my guest. I don’t want you any harm.’
Cybele smiled, but even the arrogant Reza couldn’t interpret it as anything other than an amused smile. Not a relieved smile, not a grateful smile, no. An amused smile! He started to wonder if the girl was right in her mind.
Cybele was amused indeed, that the funny young man imagined he could do her harm and survive to tell the tale. The exertion and emotions of the past days had left her drained of the ability to make any pretence or to act upon anything but pure guts.
‘Is it a magical settlement, where you live?’
Reza eyed her suspiciously.
‘A magical settlement? Like in free countries? That doesn’t exist here. No, it’s just me and my family. Where are you from?’
‘England.’
‘So what were you and your friend doing hereabouts?’
‘I’m looking for something.’
‘Yeah, what?’
Cybele caught his eye. He quickly looked down. She waited so he found her looking straight at him when he chanced a glance up again. He flushed. Cybele found him funny. But she needed to take a chance.
‘A magical settlement,’ she eventually answered with a sly smile.
Reza nodded without comments and they started walking again, for long hours in silence. He didn’t know what to think of the girl. She seemed like she was laughing at him half of the time and most of what she said didn’t make any sense. Had he been wasting his time observing some simpleton through his telescope? Or could the girl have lost her mind after her friend’s death?
They eventually reached practicable paths through the tea bushes as they came to the hills. They even soon heard voices ahead of them. Reza had hidden his wand nervously up his sleeve long ago, not unnoticed by Cybele, and he now turned to her, worried that her appearance would draw attention. Who would he say she was?
But he was surprised to find Cybele wearing her skirt long now, with her shirt’s sleeves down and a black headscarf.
Women’s clothing had a magic of their own, he thought philosophically.
To his surprise, the men he met on the path and with whom he exchanged greetings and small news didn’t look at her at all. It was as if she were invisible. That won’t prevent them to talk about it all over the damn village, he thought bitterly.
Shortly, they reached home.
Reza’s family consisted of himself and his young wife, a stunningly beautiful woman of his age, who reminded Cybele so vividly of the young woman of her dreams that she inappropriately cringed upon seeing her. They had a baby under a year old, who was presently yelling at the top of his lungs, covering up for Cybele’s reaction.
From the edge of the small guestroom’s window, Cybele had a beautiful view over the hilly tea estates. Reza’s house was built high outside the village and was facing west, both the village downward and the sea of tea bushes. Further west, well beyond the hill, there was the highlands and the very spot where their last camp had been, though they couldn’t be seen through the morning fog.
The sun was just rising and Cybele had a lot of thinking to do. Right now two issues were nagging at her for answers. The first one was that they had been travelling South-East. The magical settlement Cybele had spotted through Caroline’s device was North-East. The revealing frame wouldn’t have detected Reza’s isolated family: it wasn’t precise enough at such a distance.
But then, Reza had said that there were no such things as magical settlements in this country. Was he lying? Or unaware? If the latest, then it could very well be a concealed Magi tribe…
Considering this interesting turn of events, the other question was to decide just how much to say or show Reza and his wife. If she were to stay at their house wandless, should she admit to being able to do wandless magic? There would be a need for explanations, as no witch of Cybele’s age could ever master perfect wandless magic, even experienced wizards who could didn’t use it constantly.
Sad and tired, Cybele decided to take a leap of faith.
When she heard noises in the kitchen, she proceeded down stairs in fresh, discreet, clothes and was surprised to find Reza, whom she had classified as purely macho, busy preparing breakfast.
His wife came down the stairs and sat down at the table with their toddler, waiting to be served. She was the one to give a double-take at Cybele’s preppy appearance in her fresh clothing. The good-hearted woman had in mind to provide her guest with just that and was surprised. There were many means by which a witch could conceal luggage, though, and she didn’t think of it further.
Reza tended to the table and very little was spoken over breakfast.
‘Why do the tea estates stop further northward?’
Was she fancying that Reza gave her a sharp look after that? But he went on feeding his toddler and answered casually.
‘They’d have to stop somewhere, now, wouldn’t they?’
In a carefully casual tone? Cybele couldn’t help but wonder.
After breakfast, Cybele followed Reza down to his shop. They took the stairs into a Potions laboratory which had a great deal of Muggle elements to it, too. After the lab, they passed into an Apothecary shop. It was very different than any she had ever been in, and it was undoubtedly fully Muggle.
‘You are a Potions Master!’
Thinking of Severus, Cybele felt more sympathetic toward Reza than she had since they’d met. Reza smiled sadly.
‘Not really. I mainly store Muggle medicine and make traditional preparations. If a wizard in this part of the country needs a potion, they send a pigeon. Back in my father’s time, we used to manage the pigeon service; Muggles used them too. But now they installed a payphone in the village. I only send the odd pigeon once in a while; enough to make my order service inconspicuous, for now…’
That was the most Reza had spoken so far and Cybele thought he sounded dejected. It must be hard, she thought, to live in complete isolation from the Wizarding World.
She spent the morning helping brew a regular order that she recognized as some variation of the Pepperup Potion, reflecting on how strange it was, to be among people who didn’t know of Voldemort; who would need a lengthy explanation to feel the joy and relief brought by his dismissal at such a heavy price to her and all of her friends.
Reza’s wife showed her their beautiful pigeons after lunch and let her look after the baby while she went to the market in the afternoon.
It was only later that night around the samovar, that Reza confronted Cybele again about her visit.
‘So, what’re you looking for in this part of the country?’ he asked.
Cybele had thought and decided, mostly out of guts and pure exhaustion, that she would only tell Reza and Homa the blunt truth.
‘There are signs that up North, a magical settlement has existed or is still concealed.’ She summoned Caroline’s device and showed them. ‘I saw it through this.’
Reza hold the brass and copper frame in front of him and Cybele knew he could see a soft halo around his wife and child.
‘You have impressive wandless magic,’ was Reza’s comment, as the device zoomed out of his hands without any external signs of magic from Cybele.
Was it because he wished to change the subject, or because he was bamboozled by Cybele’s unusual gift?
‘I’m a Magian,’ she stated bluntly as an explanation.
‘Reza…’
Cybele jumped at Homa’s voice, she was already so used to her silent presence. Her voice sounded scared and pleading. She had stood up swiftly.
Reza was looking down at Caroline’s Revealer.
‘Please don’t go back there,’ Homa pleaded in a bare whisper.
Reza threw her an annoyed look and she sat down, looking apologetically at her lap. Cybele could see her working her lower lip, not betraying emotion otherwise.
‘Why?’ Reza asked in an accusatory, almost desperate way.
This question was addressed to Cybele, she realized.
‘They are not like you, are they? Up there, they are not wizards and witches, nor like Muggles, nor like me, either-’
‘No. They are people of an ancient, rudimentary magic. They have suffered a lot and for a long time; both from Muggles and from those who think they are hiding powers greater than we know. I am their keeper and I am sorry, I cannot let anyone know about them. You will wake up in Teheran and remember nothing of this journey.’
As he said the last, he turned toward Cybele and pointed his wand at her.
‘Obliviate! Petrificus Totalus!’
Two flashes of light closely succeeded each other through Cybele, who only showed her palms to Reza in a gesture of peace.
‘You can’t Obliviate me. I told you: I’m a Magian.’
Reza’s face showed shocked disbelief, but they soon both heard sobs coming from Homa. She was looking at Cybele with a desperate expression.
‘You are Astor,’ she said in a constricted voice. She then launched herself at Cybele, who was great deal shorter than her, and Homa proceeded to punch every part of her that her fists could reach.
‘You! You!’ was all she could say. Cybele had never seen anyone look at her with such disgust and anger in her short life.
It took a while to Reza to get his wits about him and when he did, he gently tried to pull his wife from a bruised Cybele. She struggled surprisingly weakly for a woman of her strength.
‘You evil; you… alive…’
‘Homa, no! It has worked; the bound…’
She seemed to lose anger at that, and with it the last force keeping her conscious.
Cybele wasn’t far from fainting, either, with the overwhelming disorder of thoughts now battling in her head. The fear she had been trying to forget since she had read Severus’ letter was coming alive.
She stood motionless under the shock while Reza picked his wife up in his arms and climbed the stairs. Then thoughts started flowing back in her mind mercilessly.
Severus. His discovery was pure truth, then. It has to be. Homa. Why so upset? She must come from there. Never saw her use her wand or perform any magic at all.
Reza came back down to find Cybele petrified on the same spot he had left her, oblivious to the blood dripping from her noise courtesy of his wife’s punch. She seemed to be looking right through him and he was about to clear his throat when she spoke first.
‘Where is Homa’s wand?’ she asked in a surprisingly even voice.
‘I think you know that.’
‘Who was she? Who was Astor?’
‘You are Astor. You have left only ruins and violence behind you. Yet there are those who would like Astor back! I took Homa away from these ruins. She is one of the many victims of your folly; this is who she is. You don’t need to know anything more about her.’
Cybele was surprised to find burning tears sliding down her cheeks. Tears, so simple, so childish; they didn’t seem to fit the horror of the occasion, somehow.
‘Was she family?’ she demanded in a hard but shakier voice.
‘No. Forget about her.’
‘Tell the truth! Was she?’ Cybele yelled.
‘No, she wasn’t.’
‘I don’t believe you. Why would she be so upset?’
‘Astor didn’t keep his evil deeds to his own family. You caused many despair and loss.’
As Cybele was about to retort, he added, ‘Is this the heirloom?’
Cybele followed his pointed finger and looked down herself to catch sight of her brass watch.
‘Yes.’
‘She would have recognized it as soon as she saw you, if she were family. Now forget about her.’
Silence lingered between them. After a while, Reza spoke in a conciliatory yet determined tone.
‘You should go back where you came from, now.’
‘That is exactly what I’m intending to do.’