Post by Koalingo Academy on Mar 11, 2007 21:06:25 GMT 10
Chapter Two
Clambering out of the car as quickly as they could, Godric and Alex followed Rubeus to the entrance door to the manor. Though by the time they’d reached the large and heavy double doors, they stood open with a very shifty looking butler-type character standing there welcoming them in, bowing very low for Rubeus and then to Godric, not bothering to do so for Alex.
“His Lordship will be with you shortly,” the doorman told them before gesturing for them to enter a room to the right of the hall they were standing in.
“I have to hand to old Lucius, he knows how to live,” Alex uttered in awe as he looked around.
Godric had to agree, the building was quite amazing, and much like a lodge one would stay at in some winter resort. A lot of it was wooden with large panels of glass, the ceilings were cavernous, and carved cornices had the most horrible looking faces upon them, that all looked to be howling. The floor was carpeted in royal red, much of the décor, like the lounges by the roaring fireplace which didn’t look to be giving off heat, and the chairs by the writing desks around the room seemed to match the carpet.
The paintings on the wall all looked very old, but very well-kept, there were no people in the paintings, a lot of them were of scenery’s, though not one scenery looked welcoming, and Godric found it hard to pay attention to one of these paintings for very long.
Rubeus sat down on the lounge chair by the no-heat fire. Taking a book from the small bookshelf-lamp desk beside it, flipping through the pages slowly, as if he had expected to be waiting this long for Lucius. Godric joined him shortly afterwards and could not help but feel this place had the same feel to it, as the waiting room at a healers office.
The sound of someone clearing their throat echoed through the room and the three sitting turned their heads to see Lucius Sinister, he’d be starting his seventh year at Koalingo with Godric this year. He had long sleep black hair that fell to the middle of his shoulder blades where it was tied stiffly at bay with a black clip that was lost in the colour of his hair. He stood a good height for his age, one-hundred and ninety-nine centimetres and was dressed in a deep blood-red cloak void of any creases, as if it had been ironed to his body.
“Lucius at last,” Rubeus spoke standing and walking to his relation, passing him to no doubt check that Lucius had not also over packed. Lucius seemed unperturbed by this as he walked further in, towards Godric and Alex, whom both stood.
“Godric,” Lucius greeted him with a stiff nod of the head.
“Lucius,” Godric returned this cold greeting, neither of them liked the other too much, though neither was very rude without reason.
“Zander…” Lucius looked loathingly at Alex, everyone was quite clear about how Lucius though of any one else in the Emerindyl house, though as though Lucius felt the need to reassert then fact that this would not change in his final year he finished his greeting with, “If I had known you were coming as well… I’d have given permission for the death curse to be used at the gate,”
Alex scowled, but Godric stayed out of it, Alex had told him long ago that there was no point Godric getting involved in fights between Lucius and someone else, they weren’t always going to have him around after all.
“We’re going to be alone, unaided by wands for an entire week Lucius, my friend” Alex spoke poisonously as he looked directly at into the cold eyes of his opponent, “You want to start me? I know ways of inflicting pain that only muggles could perfect,”
Lucius rolled his eyes and started away from Alex, “Now you see, Zander, you just keep getting stupider every time I see you,” he was nearly smiling, though not quite, shaking his head and narrowing his eyes maliciously, “Don’t think a Sinister would be simple enough to believe wands would always be there for their protection, no no my friend,” he mocked with the last two words, “Sinister’s have been training themselves for years in the arts of wandless magic,” Lucius lowered his voice so that Godric could barely ear him, “I know ways of inflicting pain that only muggles and dirty bloods have yet tasted, care to be my first pure-blood,”
Like Godric and Lucius, Alex was a what Lucius referred to as ]pure-blood’ though in Lucius’ eyes, and everyone knew it, Alex was not worthy of such a status, and whether Godric was or not, Lucius never mentioned.
“Your bluffing,” Alex narrowed his eyes, though the hint of horror in his voice was too obvious.
“Try me…” Lucius’ eyes were flashing menacingly but this check mate was soon broken by Rubeus’ call; “Lucius, you cannot take all of these things. We’re supposed to be roughing it,”
“Fine,” Lucius called as he turned his back on Alex and started out of the ‘waiting room’, “Well then I’ll only take three house elves,”
“Greasy git…” Alex muttered when Lucius was clear of the room.
“Ignore him, Alex, if there’s one thing you should have ever learned from me is to ignore the stuck up ones, they are no harm to anyone but the people who take them seriously,” Godric started shaking his head, “You know Lucius thrives off causing discord between people, even if one of those happen to be him – just ignore him, there’s not much he can do if you merely turn your back on him,”
“Um… except for jinx me!” Alex started sounded exasperated and annoyed with Godric’s reasoning, which didn’t seem to make sense to him in the slightest.
“Lucius wouldn’t jinx you in the back, he’s too proper for that, the rules of duelling are clear, your not to hi someone in the back, Lucius’ knows this, they are possibly the only rules that rich little upstart has ever conformed to,” Godric looked back along to the entrance hallway, he could see Lucius and Rubeus arguing over the number of house-elves going. “Three” “One, Lucius, you only need one,” “What you think I need, and what I want are two completely different things, cousin”
“Yeah, unless I turn my back on him after he’s challenged me, Godric, you know he can then attack me without hesitation, and he would,” Alex was eyeing of Lucius loathingly.
“Jus get along with him for one week, Alex, you never know, by the end of it, you might be friends,”
“Yeah, we have as much chance of that happening as Lucius being declared head boy, over you,” Alex muttered,
“It could happen,” Godric told him, an annoyed look clear on his face, if truth be told he didn’t want to be head boy, he knew it would mean half the school complaining about favouritism. Godric had got a tonne of this when he was made a prefect in his fifth year.
“If I cant take any servants to wait on me while I’m out there, then I’m not going,”
“Don’t be silly Lucius, you know my father says you have to go,”
“No, he said you have to make sure I go, which means I get my way, or he doesn’t get his, and you know what happens when his orders are not carried out, cousin,”
Half an hour later the car was trundling down the mountain, the way they’d just come, with a trailer stacked with Lucius luggage and two house elf’s in travelling cages. Henry was now furious with Rubeus, after not letting him bring his small amount of luggage, small compared to what Lucius had brought Tensions were high inside the confined space, though Godric noticed there was a little extra room then before especially since now he, Alex, and Henry could sit comfortably on the backseat that Henry and Alex previously could not have , and decided at once Rubeus must have expanded the interior but could not decide whether this was to put some distance between he and Lucius, or for the comfort of the three in the backseat.
Alex also seemed a lot more subdued, though possibly because he could no longer pull faces at other cars with the massive trailer on the back. Rubeus of course was completely silent, and Lucius continuously made sighs of boredom. Alex was furiously annoyed by these sighs, and even Godric thought for a moment to tell Lucius to shut up.
There was little to nothing in the backseat to entertain them as they drove along the highway passing farms of dairy cattle, and at one point buffalo’s. Godric knew buffalo’s were not Australian native but for some reason some muggle thought the need to breed them here. Alex, Godric and Henry, however, could not see much of this scenery, there were no windows in the back of the van, only Lucius and Rubeus, whom were sitting up front, could view these things, and Rubeus eyes were glued to the road while Lucius continued to look around in boredom inside the car.
They’d been travelling for a good hour and a half from the other side of the muggle town they’d previously driven through when at last Rubeus turned off the main road and started towards the coast further. Flanking the road was a thick bush, which appeared to go on for acres and acres. They past heaps of clay dusted tracks going off into the scrub, though Rubeus whom was eyeing each one, appeared to be looking for something, and at last, he found it.
The held on tightly as the car weaved and sped around dirt tracks with craters deep enough to swallow the car in them. It was quite boggy for summer and more then once Godric was sure they’d passed the same group of Banksia trees, though this scrub was so full of them it was hard to know exactly. Half an hour through this winding clay track; bumping and bouncing the entire way; the car finally found solid levelled ground, and Rubeus announced they’d arrived at their camping area.
Henry was first out of the car, knocking the centre back doors open pushing all the luggage out in his wake, he bounded across and started smelling the nearest tree. Moments later he started peeing on it.
“Henry, what are you doing?” Rubeus looked at him aghast as the imp proceeded to do this to more trees,
“Marking my territory!” He announced and continued onto the next tree.
“Imps do not mark their territory!” Rubeus told him exasperatedly.
“I don’t see how that’s got anything to do with me,” Henry squeaked proceeding to the next tree, “I am a chandelier after all,”
Rubeus rolled his eyes at this, Godric smirked seeing him doing it, he guessed Rubeus was no more pleased to have Henry come along with them, then he was having Lucius there.
“Ok boys, set up the campsite,” Rubeus smiled turning to them, crossing his arms with a smug look, “I’ll supervise,”
Alex pulled a flabbergasted look, and Godric started unfolding his tent. Lucius was releasing his house elves, whom he commanded immediately to set up his tent, which ended up looking like a smaller version of his home, though of course it couldn’t possibly be as big on the inside, it looked to be the same size as Godric’s dome tent.
Godric and Alex, having finished setting their tents a half an hour after the house elves had constructed Lucius’ and led him down to the beach carrying a deck lounge, an esky, and a beach towel, could not contain themselves as they wondered if Lucius’ tent was the same as theirs on the inside, or a typical wizards tent.
When they opened the mock-wood canvas door they peered in, the inside of the tent was just a single bedroom, nothing like they’d assumed of Lucius, though it did contain a rather large ceder wooden bit with canopy and thick blood red quilts.
“Can we just –“ Alex started but Godric cut him short,
“No, your not putting bull-ants in his bed,” Godric looked at him with pity shaking his head.
“Reckon we should tell Rubeus before we go down to the beach?” Alex muttered a little sourly from being denied his little prank.
Rubeus was snoring loudly in a hammock he’d constructed between two stringy-bark tree’s; the cap he never wore otherwise was resting overtop of his eyes. He gave a loud snore and Alex started giggling.
Godric shook his head, “I don’t think we should leave without telling him, but I don’t think we should wake him either,”
“I know,” Alex grinned as he hurried back to his tent and came out moments later with a tube of what looked like toothpaste, “Bubblegum tube,” he winked to Godric taking it and drawing on the tree at Rubeus’ feet, ‘Beach’
“There,” he smirked standing back and squeezing the remaining bubblegum into his mouth, chewing on it immediately, “Ok, lets go,”
They grabbed their beach towels and started off down towards the beach, leaving Rubeus snoring loudly. When they got to the sand, their feet started burning on it’s painfully hot surface, and they raced one another to the water’s edge. Lucius was lying on his beach lounge tanning himself while a house-elf stood holding a drink to the side of his head, a straw hanging over his mouth. Ad Henry was already constructing a sand castle with an uncanny likeness to Koalingo Manor.
“Look at him, I bet he’s never done an honest days work in his life, do the house elves do his homework as well?” Alex muttered looking at Lucius and Godric rolled his eyes, not wishing to start on the subject of Lucius he threw his towel onto the sand and then threw a clump of wet sand at the back of Alex’s head.
“Oh, your dead,” Alex spun around throwing his towel to the ground and chasing after Godric whom transformed immediately into a Grindylow diving under the waves where he began gliding through the salted-water quickly Alex, also in Grindylow form, close behind him. They submerged a fair way from shore and looked around to see Lucius still tanning himself smugly.
“You think we’re supposed to be transforming on a magic-free weekend?” Godric muttered as he felt something pass under his feet. Looking down he saw the flickering yellow beak off a Hawksbill Turtle, which floated swiftly past them.
“Follow it?” Alex grinned ignoring Godric’s question of concern. Though he need not have waited as Godric had already submerged and was racing through the water behind the turtle.
The aqua blue shallows were alive with sea-life, long black and white ringed pipefish moved through the water quite speedily, hiding in the coral leaving only their brightly patterned red and gold tails visible, apparently unsure by the arrival of creatures which were usually fresh-water dwellers, incapable of surviving in salt-water.
Alex had swum further away into the darker parts between the seaweed, he seemed to be poking something that, fr the moment anyway, Godric could not see, though if he knew Alex as well as he thought he did, it could not be anything good.
He swam up behind him, beating his flipper like feet against the current and moving along speedily until he came level with his friend, and there he saw it, it was a bottle nose dolphin, dead obviously tangled in a net some muggle fisherman had no doubt discarded, it was torn and ripped in many places, but it had tangled the dolphin and drowned it.
“I don’t think we should touch it,” Godric told him, his voice travelling through the water magically, reaching Alex’s little dark green spots, which were his ears.
“This is horrible – stupid muggles,” Alex was not one to discriminate against muggles, but being much like Godric’s mother, Alex was not a great lover for murdering animals that could not fight back, one of the reasons why he laughed when he discovered once that a muggle child had been shooting ferrets with a sling-shot and ended up being attacked by a Jarvey, “How can they do things like this?”
“Perhaps a thought better kept for later,,” Godric voiced raising a long fragile green finger to point past the dead dolphin.
“What do you mean?” Alex spun around to look where Godric was staring. A shark was gliding along through the water in their direction, “Oh that…” Alex managed to get out before he shot backwards a little in the water and twisted around to look, there were numerous sharks swimming around in the deep darkness, they seemed to know the dolphin was there, an easy meal. Godric pointed one of his long sharp fingers towards the surface, Alex nodded his scaly green horny head and they both proceeded to the top.
“Rubeus never said anything about sharks!” Alex spluttered, water dripping out of his gills.
“We didn’t exactly give him a chance did we,” Godric turned to head towards shore, “Come on, it’s not safe in here,”
They made their way towards shore, reforming on the edge of the water. Alex turned his head on it’s side and started beating the other side of his head as a great deal of water started gushing from it. He shook his head, his hair spiking out in every direction. When this finished and smacked the side of his head twice more before Godric threw his towel to him and they started off towards Lucius.
“What do you want?” Lucius muttered almost in boredom when Alex walked up beside him.
Alex grinned, “Lovely water, you should go for a swim,”
Godric looked sideways at Alex when he said this, though he did not say anything further to Lucius, whom then announced; “Swimming is for peasants, no doubt you would enjoy it Zander,”
“Hello boys,” Rubeus announced his presence, he was standing with his arms crossed and a smug look clear across his face, “Tell me, what is the first rule of camping?”
“Bring insect repellent?” Alex asked
“Don’t try it,” Lucius muttered
Godric stood silently, having the feeling they had no doubt broken the first rule of camping, though as yet he didn’t know what it was.
“Camping rule number one, never leave the campsite unattended, you don’t know who or what is in the bush,” Rubeus spoke holding up his rolled up hammock in his left hand, “While you three were off enjoying yourselves several delinquents came into our campsite and stole all of your belongings, except this of course, I was lying in this,”
Alex in the lead the three boys started off towards the campsite at quick pace. When they got there, the three of them stared around dumbfounded. The site had been completely stripped of everything, their tents, their bags, and their food.
“Where are my house-elves?” Lucius demanded as Rubeus caught up to them and stood still with his arms folded.
“Well there was one on the beach just now, but you left it on it’s own, someone stole it,” Rubeus smiled smugly.
“You,” Lucius turned on Rubeus and walked towards him furiously, “Where are all my things, what have you done with my house elves?”
“Lucius, you are here for a week of training, and you did, as I expected you to do – you neglected to care for things other then yourself, and by doing so, you have lost it all,” Rubeus spoke to them, turning his back on Lucius and walking to the back door of the locked panel van. He unlocked the backdoor with a small silver key and opened it, inside were his bags, he turned with three round cylindrical bags and threw one to each of the boys, “Sleeping bags,” he turned back and gathered three small backpacks, turning and tossing them to the boys whom each dropped their sleeping bag to catch the heavy backpack, “Rations. They are to last you the entire week, you also have one cake of soap each and a facecloth,”
“What are we supposed to bathe in?” Lucius started up looking thoroughly appalled.
Rubeus turned again and produced a bucket, a single twenty litre bucket. “You will wash yourselves using no more then half a bucket of water each, which reminds me, someone will need to gather water. There is a campsite three kilometres to the west of here, they have taps there, we’ll need someone to volunteer and go get two buckets of water,”
“No way, that’s what servants are for,” Lucius stood definitely,
“Unless you’d rather dig the toilet pit?” Rubeus raised his brow and looked at Lucius, two buckets outstretched in his hand. Lucius snatched them up immediately and stalking off angrily, “And no apparating, there are plenty of muggles in this area, if you break the Statute of Secrecy, I’ll not stand up for you,”
Alex was standing with a smile watching Lucius stalk off, as soon as Lucius was out of ear shot Alex laughed, making sure to do it exceedingly loudly so that Lucius would hear.
“Thank you for volunteering Mr. Zander,” Rubeus then spoke tossing a shovel to him, he caught it dropping his bag, “Do dig it away from the campsite somewhere, I’m not in the mood for a week of bad fragrance,”
Alex looked as if someone had just hit him in the face. He obviously couldn’t believe what he’d just been asked to do. He grimaced and walked off, hanging his bags on the dried branch of a dead tree, walking off into the bush until he was barely visible.
“Godric, you have firewood duty, the sun will go down soon enough and things will get quite cold if we are not prepared for it,” Rubeus gave him he’s orders and Godric hung his bags by Alex’s before wandering off along the track.
The bush being as thick as it was, it was not long before Godric had built a formidable pile of firewood and Rubeus had asked Alex, whom had finished digging the toilet hole, to start the fire. This was something Alex looked more then happy to do, he’d been camping plenty of times, and as he told them while starting to construct a fireplace, he was quite an expert at lighting campfires.
It was well after dark before they saw Lucius again, they heard him before they could see him, he was carrying to buckets of water in his hand, and was looking perfectly fine except for a thoroughly pissed off look he gave them all when he set the buckets down by the roaring fire.
Alex was already telling Godric and Rubeus his experience with camping in the past. His stories were quite wild, including the one time he went camping with muggles, muggles whom claimed they’d seen a ghost and thought it was so incredible. He told Rubeus how he had to laugh at them when what they saw was most likely a trick of the light, and one of his friends, Allora Thunder, was a real ghost, then he spoke of the annoyance that he could not share this information with them.
“Why can’t we tell muggles about magic?” he started through the sizzling sounds of sausages cooking on sticks, Rubeus had agreed to supply them with hot meals each night, it had been something he promised Lady Saphricorn.
“Well can’t you see the problem already, Mr Zander? If muggles knew of magic, they’d want magical remedies to all their problems in life,” Rubeus told him, turning the sausage slowly, a metal can filled with water was boiling slowly.
“What’s wrong with that?” Alex muttered curiously, “Wizards use magic all the time to fix their problems,”
“Yes Alex, but wizards understand magic – muggles do not, and because they cannot perform magic, they will never properly understand it,” Rubeus went on pushing the sausage off the stick onto a piece of bread and past it to Alex to eat before placing another on and beginning to roast it like the one before it, “You’ll see very quickly that they’ll believe magic to be the key to fixing all their problems, but soon enough they will see it as the cause of all problems, plus they’ll not understand it when they are told their problems are too large or too involved to use magic to fix. When one relies on magic too much, one forgets to live properly, relying on magic is no way to live,”
“My family has relied on magic for hundreds of years, and we survived quite well,” Lucius butted in, planting himself grumpily on a log he’d rolled from the firewood pile.
“Yes, through the sacrifice of many other families, Lucius, other families whom have also relied on magic, the family Sinister survives but only barely, all that needs happen is for you to never have a son and the Sinister name dies with you,” Rubeus looked at Lucius at this point, though Lucius did not take his eyes of the crackling flames before him, he could tell Lucius did not like what Rubeus had just said, “If your child is female, when she marries; her last name will become that of her suitor, and no doubt, with your expectations, Lucius, your son-in-law will be a Lord of his own family, and will not take the Sinister name,”
“How funny would it be if Lucius had a daughter, Godric had a son and they married? It would be little Lucy Emerindyl,” Alex cackled, Godric smiled not able to stop himself from finding the humour in it, and Lucius scowled at them both.
“That would never happen though,” Rubeus told them, though he was unable to hide the smile present on his face.
“No it would not,” Lucius agreed with a loathing look at Alex for uttering such blasphemous words.
“No it will not, but not because you would not allow it Lucius, but because Godric will not have a son-” Rubeus spoke and then stopped abruptly
Godric thought momentarily as to whether Rubeus had just said something he shouldn’t have, though before he could interrogate Rubeus on the matter, Alex started again.
“No way, and thank goodness, I’ve seen Elouise’s dad, oily git – you wouldn’t want a son looking like him, Rick” Alex shook his head and mock-shuddered.
“I don’t think I’ll have any children with Elouise, Alex” Godric spoke before realising what he was saying and stopped abruptly, just as Rubeus had done. He had no idea what possessed him to say such a thing, Alex had noticed it this time and was looking at Godric like he’d just sworn or something, which would have been rather shocking as Godric rarely swore, and when he did… well he hadn’t yet.
Rubeus was looking at Godric with a narrowed brow, but the moment he and Godric locked eyes, he turned away and cleared his throat, “I think now that Lucius is back and we’ve all done our duties for this afternoon a little treat I due, I brought some marshmallows along, I’ll just fetch them,” Rubeus raised to his feet in one swift movement and walked off towards the car.
Clambering out of the car as quickly as they could, Godric and Alex followed Rubeus to the entrance door to the manor. Though by the time they’d reached the large and heavy double doors, they stood open with a very shifty looking butler-type character standing there welcoming them in, bowing very low for Rubeus and then to Godric, not bothering to do so for Alex.
“His Lordship will be with you shortly,” the doorman told them before gesturing for them to enter a room to the right of the hall they were standing in.
“I have to hand to old Lucius, he knows how to live,” Alex uttered in awe as he looked around.
Godric had to agree, the building was quite amazing, and much like a lodge one would stay at in some winter resort. A lot of it was wooden with large panels of glass, the ceilings were cavernous, and carved cornices had the most horrible looking faces upon them, that all looked to be howling. The floor was carpeted in royal red, much of the décor, like the lounges by the roaring fireplace which didn’t look to be giving off heat, and the chairs by the writing desks around the room seemed to match the carpet.
The paintings on the wall all looked very old, but very well-kept, there were no people in the paintings, a lot of them were of scenery’s, though not one scenery looked welcoming, and Godric found it hard to pay attention to one of these paintings for very long.
Rubeus sat down on the lounge chair by the no-heat fire. Taking a book from the small bookshelf-lamp desk beside it, flipping through the pages slowly, as if he had expected to be waiting this long for Lucius. Godric joined him shortly afterwards and could not help but feel this place had the same feel to it, as the waiting room at a healers office.
The sound of someone clearing their throat echoed through the room and the three sitting turned their heads to see Lucius Sinister, he’d be starting his seventh year at Koalingo with Godric this year. He had long sleep black hair that fell to the middle of his shoulder blades where it was tied stiffly at bay with a black clip that was lost in the colour of his hair. He stood a good height for his age, one-hundred and ninety-nine centimetres and was dressed in a deep blood-red cloak void of any creases, as if it had been ironed to his body.
“Lucius at last,” Rubeus spoke standing and walking to his relation, passing him to no doubt check that Lucius had not also over packed. Lucius seemed unperturbed by this as he walked further in, towards Godric and Alex, whom both stood.
“Godric,” Lucius greeted him with a stiff nod of the head.
“Lucius,” Godric returned this cold greeting, neither of them liked the other too much, though neither was very rude without reason.
“Zander…” Lucius looked loathingly at Alex, everyone was quite clear about how Lucius though of any one else in the Emerindyl house, though as though Lucius felt the need to reassert then fact that this would not change in his final year he finished his greeting with, “If I had known you were coming as well… I’d have given permission for the death curse to be used at the gate,”
Alex scowled, but Godric stayed out of it, Alex had told him long ago that there was no point Godric getting involved in fights between Lucius and someone else, they weren’t always going to have him around after all.
“We’re going to be alone, unaided by wands for an entire week Lucius, my friend” Alex spoke poisonously as he looked directly at into the cold eyes of his opponent, “You want to start me? I know ways of inflicting pain that only muggles could perfect,”
Lucius rolled his eyes and started away from Alex, “Now you see, Zander, you just keep getting stupider every time I see you,” he was nearly smiling, though not quite, shaking his head and narrowing his eyes maliciously, “Don’t think a Sinister would be simple enough to believe wands would always be there for their protection, no no my friend,” he mocked with the last two words, “Sinister’s have been training themselves for years in the arts of wandless magic,” Lucius lowered his voice so that Godric could barely ear him, “I know ways of inflicting pain that only muggles and dirty bloods have yet tasted, care to be my first pure-blood,”
Like Godric and Lucius, Alex was a what Lucius referred to as ]pure-blood’ though in Lucius’ eyes, and everyone knew it, Alex was not worthy of such a status, and whether Godric was or not, Lucius never mentioned.
“Your bluffing,” Alex narrowed his eyes, though the hint of horror in his voice was too obvious.
“Try me…” Lucius’ eyes were flashing menacingly but this check mate was soon broken by Rubeus’ call; “Lucius, you cannot take all of these things. We’re supposed to be roughing it,”
“Fine,” Lucius called as he turned his back on Alex and started out of the ‘waiting room’, “Well then I’ll only take three house elves,”
“Greasy git…” Alex muttered when Lucius was clear of the room.
“Ignore him, Alex, if there’s one thing you should have ever learned from me is to ignore the stuck up ones, they are no harm to anyone but the people who take them seriously,” Godric started shaking his head, “You know Lucius thrives off causing discord between people, even if one of those happen to be him – just ignore him, there’s not much he can do if you merely turn your back on him,”
“Um… except for jinx me!” Alex started sounded exasperated and annoyed with Godric’s reasoning, which didn’t seem to make sense to him in the slightest.
“Lucius wouldn’t jinx you in the back, he’s too proper for that, the rules of duelling are clear, your not to hi someone in the back, Lucius’ knows this, they are possibly the only rules that rich little upstart has ever conformed to,” Godric looked back along to the entrance hallway, he could see Lucius and Rubeus arguing over the number of house-elves going. “Three” “One, Lucius, you only need one,” “What you think I need, and what I want are two completely different things, cousin”
“Yeah, unless I turn my back on him after he’s challenged me, Godric, you know he can then attack me without hesitation, and he would,” Alex was eyeing of Lucius loathingly.
“Jus get along with him for one week, Alex, you never know, by the end of it, you might be friends,”
“Yeah, we have as much chance of that happening as Lucius being declared head boy, over you,” Alex muttered,
“It could happen,” Godric told him, an annoyed look clear on his face, if truth be told he didn’t want to be head boy, he knew it would mean half the school complaining about favouritism. Godric had got a tonne of this when he was made a prefect in his fifth year.
“If I cant take any servants to wait on me while I’m out there, then I’m not going,”
“Don’t be silly Lucius, you know my father says you have to go,”
“No, he said you have to make sure I go, which means I get my way, or he doesn’t get his, and you know what happens when his orders are not carried out, cousin,”
Half an hour later the car was trundling down the mountain, the way they’d just come, with a trailer stacked with Lucius luggage and two house elf’s in travelling cages. Henry was now furious with Rubeus, after not letting him bring his small amount of luggage, small compared to what Lucius had brought Tensions were high inside the confined space, though Godric noticed there was a little extra room then before especially since now he, Alex, and Henry could sit comfortably on the backseat that Henry and Alex previously could not have , and decided at once Rubeus must have expanded the interior but could not decide whether this was to put some distance between he and Lucius, or for the comfort of the three in the backseat.
Alex also seemed a lot more subdued, though possibly because he could no longer pull faces at other cars with the massive trailer on the back. Rubeus of course was completely silent, and Lucius continuously made sighs of boredom. Alex was furiously annoyed by these sighs, and even Godric thought for a moment to tell Lucius to shut up.
There was little to nothing in the backseat to entertain them as they drove along the highway passing farms of dairy cattle, and at one point buffalo’s. Godric knew buffalo’s were not Australian native but for some reason some muggle thought the need to breed them here. Alex, Godric and Henry, however, could not see much of this scenery, there were no windows in the back of the van, only Lucius and Rubeus, whom were sitting up front, could view these things, and Rubeus eyes were glued to the road while Lucius continued to look around in boredom inside the car.
They’d been travelling for a good hour and a half from the other side of the muggle town they’d previously driven through when at last Rubeus turned off the main road and started towards the coast further. Flanking the road was a thick bush, which appeared to go on for acres and acres. They past heaps of clay dusted tracks going off into the scrub, though Rubeus whom was eyeing each one, appeared to be looking for something, and at last, he found it.
The held on tightly as the car weaved and sped around dirt tracks with craters deep enough to swallow the car in them. It was quite boggy for summer and more then once Godric was sure they’d passed the same group of Banksia trees, though this scrub was so full of them it was hard to know exactly. Half an hour through this winding clay track; bumping and bouncing the entire way; the car finally found solid levelled ground, and Rubeus announced they’d arrived at their camping area.
Henry was first out of the car, knocking the centre back doors open pushing all the luggage out in his wake, he bounded across and started smelling the nearest tree. Moments later he started peeing on it.
“Henry, what are you doing?” Rubeus looked at him aghast as the imp proceeded to do this to more trees,
“Marking my territory!” He announced and continued onto the next tree.
“Imps do not mark their territory!” Rubeus told him exasperatedly.
“I don’t see how that’s got anything to do with me,” Henry squeaked proceeding to the next tree, “I am a chandelier after all,”
Rubeus rolled his eyes at this, Godric smirked seeing him doing it, he guessed Rubeus was no more pleased to have Henry come along with them, then he was having Lucius there.
“Ok boys, set up the campsite,” Rubeus smiled turning to them, crossing his arms with a smug look, “I’ll supervise,”
Alex pulled a flabbergasted look, and Godric started unfolding his tent. Lucius was releasing his house elves, whom he commanded immediately to set up his tent, which ended up looking like a smaller version of his home, though of course it couldn’t possibly be as big on the inside, it looked to be the same size as Godric’s dome tent.
Godric and Alex, having finished setting their tents a half an hour after the house elves had constructed Lucius’ and led him down to the beach carrying a deck lounge, an esky, and a beach towel, could not contain themselves as they wondered if Lucius’ tent was the same as theirs on the inside, or a typical wizards tent.
When they opened the mock-wood canvas door they peered in, the inside of the tent was just a single bedroom, nothing like they’d assumed of Lucius, though it did contain a rather large ceder wooden bit with canopy and thick blood red quilts.
“Can we just –“ Alex started but Godric cut him short,
“No, your not putting bull-ants in his bed,” Godric looked at him with pity shaking his head.
“Reckon we should tell Rubeus before we go down to the beach?” Alex muttered a little sourly from being denied his little prank.
Rubeus was snoring loudly in a hammock he’d constructed between two stringy-bark tree’s; the cap he never wore otherwise was resting overtop of his eyes. He gave a loud snore and Alex started giggling.
Godric shook his head, “I don’t think we should leave without telling him, but I don’t think we should wake him either,”
“I know,” Alex grinned as he hurried back to his tent and came out moments later with a tube of what looked like toothpaste, “Bubblegum tube,” he winked to Godric taking it and drawing on the tree at Rubeus’ feet, ‘Beach’
“There,” he smirked standing back and squeezing the remaining bubblegum into his mouth, chewing on it immediately, “Ok, lets go,”
They grabbed their beach towels and started off down towards the beach, leaving Rubeus snoring loudly. When they got to the sand, their feet started burning on it’s painfully hot surface, and they raced one another to the water’s edge. Lucius was lying on his beach lounge tanning himself while a house-elf stood holding a drink to the side of his head, a straw hanging over his mouth. Ad Henry was already constructing a sand castle with an uncanny likeness to Koalingo Manor.
“Look at him, I bet he’s never done an honest days work in his life, do the house elves do his homework as well?” Alex muttered looking at Lucius and Godric rolled his eyes, not wishing to start on the subject of Lucius he threw his towel onto the sand and then threw a clump of wet sand at the back of Alex’s head.
“Oh, your dead,” Alex spun around throwing his towel to the ground and chasing after Godric whom transformed immediately into a Grindylow diving under the waves where he began gliding through the salted-water quickly Alex, also in Grindylow form, close behind him. They submerged a fair way from shore and looked around to see Lucius still tanning himself smugly.
“You think we’re supposed to be transforming on a magic-free weekend?” Godric muttered as he felt something pass under his feet. Looking down he saw the flickering yellow beak off a Hawksbill Turtle, which floated swiftly past them.
“Follow it?” Alex grinned ignoring Godric’s question of concern. Though he need not have waited as Godric had already submerged and was racing through the water behind the turtle.
The aqua blue shallows were alive with sea-life, long black and white ringed pipefish moved through the water quite speedily, hiding in the coral leaving only their brightly patterned red and gold tails visible, apparently unsure by the arrival of creatures which were usually fresh-water dwellers, incapable of surviving in salt-water.
Alex had swum further away into the darker parts between the seaweed, he seemed to be poking something that, fr the moment anyway, Godric could not see, though if he knew Alex as well as he thought he did, it could not be anything good.
He swam up behind him, beating his flipper like feet against the current and moving along speedily until he came level with his friend, and there he saw it, it was a bottle nose dolphin, dead obviously tangled in a net some muggle fisherman had no doubt discarded, it was torn and ripped in many places, but it had tangled the dolphin and drowned it.
“I don’t think we should touch it,” Godric told him, his voice travelling through the water magically, reaching Alex’s little dark green spots, which were his ears.
“This is horrible – stupid muggles,” Alex was not one to discriminate against muggles, but being much like Godric’s mother, Alex was not a great lover for murdering animals that could not fight back, one of the reasons why he laughed when he discovered once that a muggle child had been shooting ferrets with a sling-shot and ended up being attacked by a Jarvey, “How can they do things like this?”
“Perhaps a thought better kept for later,,” Godric voiced raising a long fragile green finger to point past the dead dolphin.
“What do you mean?” Alex spun around to look where Godric was staring. A shark was gliding along through the water in their direction, “Oh that…” Alex managed to get out before he shot backwards a little in the water and twisted around to look, there were numerous sharks swimming around in the deep darkness, they seemed to know the dolphin was there, an easy meal. Godric pointed one of his long sharp fingers towards the surface, Alex nodded his scaly green horny head and they both proceeded to the top.
“Rubeus never said anything about sharks!” Alex spluttered, water dripping out of his gills.
“We didn’t exactly give him a chance did we,” Godric turned to head towards shore, “Come on, it’s not safe in here,”
They made their way towards shore, reforming on the edge of the water. Alex turned his head on it’s side and started beating the other side of his head as a great deal of water started gushing from it. He shook his head, his hair spiking out in every direction. When this finished and smacked the side of his head twice more before Godric threw his towel to him and they started off towards Lucius.
“What do you want?” Lucius muttered almost in boredom when Alex walked up beside him.
Alex grinned, “Lovely water, you should go for a swim,”
Godric looked sideways at Alex when he said this, though he did not say anything further to Lucius, whom then announced; “Swimming is for peasants, no doubt you would enjoy it Zander,”
“Hello boys,” Rubeus announced his presence, he was standing with his arms crossed and a smug look clear across his face, “Tell me, what is the first rule of camping?”
“Bring insect repellent?” Alex asked
“Don’t try it,” Lucius muttered
Godric stood silently, having the feeling they had no doubt broken the first rule of camping, though as yet he didn’t know what it was.
“Camping rule number one, never leave the campsite unattended, you don’t know who or what is in the bush,” Rubeus spoke holding up his rolled up hammock in his left hand, “While you three were off enjoying yourselves several delinquents came into our campsite and stole all of your belongings, except this of course, I was lying in this,”
Alex in the lead the three boys started off towards the campsite at quick pace. When they got there, the three of them stared around dumbfounded. The site had been completely stripped of everything, their tents, their bags, and their food.
“Where are my house-elves?” Lucius demanded as Rubeus caught up to them and stood still with his arms folded.
“Well there was one on the beach just now, but you left it on it’s own, someone stole it,” Rubeus smiled smugly.
“You,” Lucius turned on Rubeus and walked towards him furiously, “Where are all my things, what have you done with my house elves?”
“Lucius, you are here for a week of training, and you did, as I expected you to do – you neglected to care for things other then yourself, and by doing so, you have lost it all,” Rubeus spoke to them, turning his back on Lucius and walking to the back door of the locked panel van. He unlocked the backdoor with a small silver key and opened it, inside were his bags, he turned with three round cylindrical bags and threw one to each of the boys, “Sleeping bags,” he turned back and gathered three small backpacks, turning and tossing them to the boys whom each dropped their sleeping bag to catch the heavy backpack, “Rations. They are to last you the entire week, you also have one cake of soap each and a facecloth,”
“What are we supposed to bathe in?” Lucius started up looking thoroughly appalled.
Rubeus turned again and produced a bucket, a single twenty litre bucket. “You will wash yourselves using no more then half a bucket of water each, which reminds me, someone will need to gather water. There is a campsite three kilometres to the west of here, they have taps there, we’ll need someone to volunteer and go get two buckets of water,”
“No way, that’s what servants are for,” Lucius stood definitely,
“Unless you’d rather dig the toilet pit?” Rubeus raised his brow and looked at Lucius, two buckets outstretched in his hand. Lucius snatched them up immediately and stalking off angrily, “And no apparating, there are plenty of muggles in this area, if you break the Statute of Secrecy, I’ll not stand up for you,”
Alex was standing with a smile watching Lucius stalk off, as soon as Lucius was out of ear shot Alex laughed, making sure to do it exceedingly loudly so that Lucius would hear.
“Thank you for volunteering Mr. Zander,” Rubeus then spoke tossing a shovel to him, he caught it dropping his bag, “Do dig it away from the campsite somewhere, I’m not in the mood for a week of bad fragrance,”
Alex looked as if someone had just hit him in the face. He obviously couldn’t believe what he’d just been asked to do. He grimaced and walked off, hanging his bags on the dried branch of a dead tree, walking off into the bush until he was barely visible.
“Godric, you have firewood duty, the sun will go down soon enough and things will get quite cold if we are not prepared for it,” Rubeus gave him he’s orders and Godric hung his bags by Alex’s before wandering off along the track.
The bush being as thick as it was, it was not long before Godric had built a formidable pile of firewood and Rubeus had asked Alex, whom had finished digging the toilet hole, to start the fire. This was something Alex looked more then happy to do, he’d been camping plenty of times, and as he told them while starting to construct a fireplace, he was quite an expert at lighting campfires.
It was well after dark before they saw Lucius again, they heard him before they could see him, he was carrying to buckets of water in his hand, and was looking perfectly fine except for a thoroughly pissed off look he gave them all when he set the buckets down by the roaring fire.
Alex was already telling Godric and Rubeus his experience with camping in the past. His stories were quite wild, including the one time he went camping with muggles, muggles whom claimed they’d seen a ghost and thought it was so incredible. He told Rubeus how he had to laugh at them when what they saw was most likely a trick of the light, and one of his friends, Allora Thunder, was a real ghost, then he spoke of the annoyance that he could not share this information with them.
“Why can’t we tell muggles about magic?” he started through the sizzling sounds of sausages cooking on sticks, Rubeus had agreed to supply them with hot meals each night, it had been something he promised Lady Saphricorn.
“Well can’t you see the problem already, Mr Zander? If muggles knew of magic, they’d want magical remedies to all their problems in life,” Rubeus told him, turning the sausage slowly, a metal can filled with water was boiling slowly.
“What’s wrong with that?” Alex muttered curiously, “Wizards use magic all the time to fix their problems,”
“Yes Alex, but wizards understand magic – muggles do not, and because they cannot perform magic, they will never properly understand it,” Rubeus went on pushing the sausage off the stick onto a piece of bread and past it to Alex to eat before placing another on and beginning to roast it like the one before it, “You’ll see very quickly that they’ll believe magic to be the key to fixing all their problems, but soon enough they will see it as the cause of all problems, plus they’ll not understand it when they are told their problems are too large or too involved to use magic to fix. When one relies on magic too much, one forgets to live properly, relying on magic is no way to live,”
“My family has relied on magic for hundreds of years, and we survived quite well,” Lucius butted in, planting himself grumpily on a log he’d rolled from the firewood pile.
“Yes, through the sacrifice of many other families, Lucius, other families whom have also relied on magic, the family Sinister survives but only barely, all that needs happen is for you to never have a son and the Sinister name dies with you,” Rubeus looked at Lucius at this point, though Lucius did not take his eyes of the crackling flames before him, he could tell Lucius did not like what Rubeus had just said, “If your child is female, when she marries; her last name will become that of her suitor, and no doubt, with your expectations, Lucius, your son-in-law will be a Lord of his own family, and will not take the Sinister name,”
“How funny would it be if Lucius had a daughter, Godric had a son and they married? It would be little Lucy Emerindyl,” Alex cackled, Godric smiled not able to stop himself from finding the humour in it, and Lucius scowled at them both.
“That would never happen though,” Rubeus told them, though he was unable to hide the smile present on his face.
“No it would not,” Lucius agreed with a loathing look at Alex for uttering such blasphemous words.
“No it will not, but not because you would not allow it Lucius, but because Godric will not have a son-” Rubeus spoke and then stopped abruptly
Godric thought momentarily as to whether Rubeus had just said something he shouldn’t have, though before he could interrogate Rubeus on the matter, Alex started again.
“No way, and thank goodness, I’ve seen Elouise’s dad, oily git – you wouldn’t want a son looking like him, Rick” Alex shook his head and mock-shuddered.
“I don’t think I’ll have any children with Elouise, Alex” Godric spoke before realising what he was saying and stopped abruptly, just as Rubeus had done. He had no idea what possessed him to say such a thing, Alex had noticed it this time and was looking at Godric like he’d just sworn or something, which would have been rather shocking as Godric rarely swore, and when he did… well he hadn’t yet.
Rubeus was looking at Godric with a narrowed brow, but the moment he and Godric locked eyes, he turned away and cleared his throat, “I think now that Lucius is back and we’ve all done our duties for this afternoon a little treat I due, I brought some marshmallows along, I’ll just fetch them,” Rubeus raised to his feet in one swift movement and walked off towards the car.